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"computer companies affiliated with the aum_shinrikyo doomsday sect developed software programs for at least 10 government agencies , including the defense ministry , and more than 80 major japanese companies in recent years , police officials said today after a surprise raid on the group 's sites on tuesday . the discovery has raised widespread fears in japan that aum , which killed 12 people five years ago in a nerve_gas attack on the tokyo subways , has access to sensitive government and corporate computer systems and could engage in acts of ''cyberterrorism , '' the officials said . underscoring the immense fear that the sect provokes in japan , the defense ministry and the nippon_telegraph_and_telephone corporation , the country 's main provider of telephone and internet_service , immediately suspended the use of all computer software developed by companies linked to aum . the government said it was considering doing the same at all its agencies . among the government agencies affected are those for construction , education and post and telecommunications , according to documents and commuter disks discovered in the raid , the police said . the authorities said customer ledgers showed that the japanese companies affected were major players in the electronics , food , banking , transportation and metal manufacturing fields . the most prominent corporate customer was nippon_telegraph_and_telephone , or n.t.t . many of the companies and agencies said they had not known they were ordering software from aum related concerns because their main suppliers had subcontracted work to businesses affiliated with the sect . even though some of the orders were placed under the current government , officials did not come under immediate criticism , in part because the many of the computer companies had concealed their relationship to aum . but government agencies and companies that purchased the systems were scrambling today to determine whether their programs were secure . the authorities said aum related companies had developed about 100 types of software , including systems for customer management , airline route management and mainframe computer operations . government security officials , who spoke on condition of anonymity , said they were extremely concerned that aum could use information gained in developing the programs to cripple vital computer and communications networks at public agencies and corporations . the officials said they suspected that during the development process , the aum related companies could have written features into the software that would allow them to breach so called fire walls , which serve to prevent invasion of a computer system by outsiders . they said they also feared that the sect could have planted viruses that could shut down these government or corporate computer systems or send recruitment messages . at least some of the public concern over the aum related software was driven by recent security breaches by internet hackers who posted messages on the web_sites of 11 government agencies . in those incidents , which underscored the vulnerability of the government 's computers , the messages criticized japan 's wartime atrocities in china in the 1930 's . but security officials provided no proof today that the aum sect , which recently changed its name to aleph and denounced its violent past , had the ability or the ambition to interfere with the computer systems of former customers . some aum members said the officials were trying to vilify the sect when it is seeking to live in peace with japanese society and to use funds from its computer operations to compensate victims of its past crimes . ''we are surprised , '' mikio aoki , the government 's chief spokesman , said at a regular news conference . ''we believe that the ministries should check who their suppliers are and that the suppliers should check where the products are made . '' the defense ministry said it had suspended plans to begin using a new communications system today for the army after the police had informed the ministry that the software had been developed by an aum company . a ministry spokesman said that the software system had been installed at 20 ground bases across japan to provide rapid access to the internet but that the system was separate from one that handles classified defense information . ''these computers are not connected to a separate internal network that handles more sensitive material , '' the spokesman said , ' 'so there is no worry that if somebody breaks into it , that there will be a danger or threat to national_security . '' n.t.t . communications said it was immediately suspending an electronic greeting card service that the police said had been developed by an aum affiliate . the company , a subsidiary of n.t.t. , said it was checking the program 's source code to make sure that it did not pose any problems . in addition , n.t.t . communications said it would delay the introduction , planned for this spring , of a service for creating home pages because of a possible link to the sect . the company is reviewing the content of home page software . ''we were shocked to learn that aum might have been involved in the development of this software , '' said fuyuki natsumeda , a company spokesman . ''it was like what we call pouring water into the ear while you are asleep . '' mr . natsumeda said his company had not contracted directly with aum for either of the two software programs and that there were four or five levels of subcontracting between the main contractor it had hired and the aum companies . ''principally , it 's a matter of whether the product is good or bad , but since we are in such a social environment , i do n't think that we can just say the product is good and that 's all we 're concerned about , '' mr . natsumeda said . ''if we knew an aum company was developing the software , we would not want to be involved with it . '' security officials said that while it was not illegal or a violation of government policy to do business with the sect , they were investigating to find out how the software companies had obtained the contracts . the software companies had a reputation for producing high quality systems at low prices , and customers were said to be generally pleased with the work . the companies were able to win business by bidding 30 percent to 40 percent below market prices , the officials said , mainly because their employees , who were all aum members , worked for virtually no pay . the officials said that more than 40 employees worked at the aum related software companies and that many were graduates of prestigious national universities like tokyo_university and kyoto university , where they studied computer science . some worked as systems engineers at major software companies before joining the sect . government officials and corporate executives said that they would take pains in the future to avoid using aum companies as subcontractors , but that doing so was likely to increase the costs of procuring some software . aum officials declined to comment on the development , which could severely hurt its computer operations , a major source of revenue for the sect and the cornerstone of what its leaders say are plans for the sect to reform itself . the sect has set as a major priority providing compensation for victims of crimes committed by former members . an aum member who is familiar with the group 's internal workings and who spoke on condition of anonymity said the sect was still trying to confirm the information provided by the police . even if the information proves to be true , the member said , no harm was done by the sect 's providing good products at cheap prices . ''concerns about cyberterrorism and access to government_agency data are being raised by media reports without confirmation , '' he said . ''they are raising the specter of these things just because aum members are running the shops . '' in the past , the police and the tax authorities have said that aum earns about 65 million a year through the sale of computers at seven affiliated retail stores in tokyo , osaka and nagoya . public anxiety over the aum sect has increased in recent years as it has increased its commercial and recruitment activities . but last year the government passed a law allowing the police to enter the sect 's sites at will to conduct inspections . in its annual human_rights report , the state_department noted this month that while religious_freedom is a guaranteed right in japan , only the aum sect has been placed under government surveillance and is subject to public pressure .",has a topic of technology
"when a new digital music player lands ( and that 's about every week ) , there are three questions to ask how big is it , how much music does it hold and how much does it cost ? the arrival of the new bantam interactive explor ba350 provokes another question what color is it ? the ba350 , which comes with seven interchangeable faceplates in a range of colors , manages some telling answers to the first three questions as well . about the size of a stack of credit_cards , the ba350 can hold 128 megabytes of music , with more room in its expansion slot , and it costs just under 200 , which includes headphones and a car adapter . the biggest decision may be what faceplate to put on each morning . if deep blue had to choose its own colors , it might still be playing garry kasparov . bruce headlam news watch audio",has a topic of technology
"a german computer technician who killed and ate a willing victim he found through the internet was convicted of manslaughter on friday , in a ruling that reflected the legal ambiguities of a case that has , by turns , fascinated and repulsed people here . a court in kassel , about 90 miles north of here , sentenced the man , armin meiwes , to eight and a half years in prison for killing bernd j rgen brandes , who responded to an internet posting by mr . meiwes seeking someone willing to be ' 'slaughtered . '' the three judge court rejected the prosecution 's plea for a murder conviction and a life_sentence . ''both were looking for the ultimate kick , '' said the chief judge , volker m tze , after reading the verdict . ''this was an act between two extremely disturbed people who both wanted something from each other . '' the conviction on a lesser charge means that mr . meiwes could be released in less than five years . harald ermel , a lawyer for mr . meiwes , said he would appeal the verdict . mr . ermel had argued that his client was only guilty of ''killing on request , '' an illegal form of euthanasia that carries a maximum jail term of five years . ''he 's a model prisoner , '' mr . ermel told reporters at the courthouse . ''he will voluntarily undergo psychiatric therapy to get away from his fetish for men 's flesh . i 'm sure he wo n't do anything like this again . '' that is not likely to calm the nerves of people in rotenburg an der fulda , the secluded village south of kassel where mr . meiwes , 42 , lived in a rambling half timbered house . he played host there to four other men who responded to his web posting , before finding the 43 year old mr . brandes in march 2001 . what followed was an evening of sexual role_playing and violence , much of it videotaped by mr . meiwes . in the end , he stabbed mr . brandes to death with a kitchen knife , hung the corpse on a meat hook , and carved it up , storing pieces of flesh in plastic bags in his freezer . ''with every piece of flesh i ate , i remembered him , '' mr . meiwes said during his trial . ''it was like taking communion . '' it was hard to reconcile the placid , well dressed defendant in the courtroom with the grisly testimony . yet it was the legal dilemma , as much as the lurid details of the case , that consumed the court . convicting mr . meiwes of murder would have been difficult , according to legal experts , because the victim consented , even pleaded , to be killed . but confining mr . meiwes to a psychiatric_hospital would also have presented problems because a court appointed psychiatrist testified that he was not suffering from ' 'diminished responsibility'' at the time of the killing .",has a topic of technology
"the government 's frantic attempt to control political views on the internet has taken a new twist with the detention of a man whose only apparent trespass was to help his father maintain web_sites featuring the father 's obscure , left_wing writings . the father , lu jiaping , 60 , a retired army officer , is free and still living in beijing , where he spends his days writing essays from his own cranky perspective . he has lambasted the authorities , for example , for indulging the united_states after the recent spy_plane collision , and he has questioned the 1989 massacre of student demonstrators at tiananmen_square , not because of the blow to democracy but because it derailed a drive against an ''unstoppable black tide'' of corruption . to publish his views , mr . lu , who is not adept with computers , mailed his articles to his son hu dalin , 30 , who posted them on the web_sites he had created for his father . but while the father remains free , the son , who dabbled in computers , the stock_market and an art supply business in their hometown , shaoyang , in hunan_province , was jailed on may 18 . that night , state security agents entered his house with a search_warrant and confiscated his computer and copies of his father 's articles , and told his girlfriend that this was a sensitive political case . ''this is very strange and i 'm very angry , '' said mr . lu . ''if i were detained there would at least be a reason , but my son has nothing to do with politics and this whole thing is illegal . '' he added indignantly that the family had been required to pay a 46 fee to the district police to cover 15 days of incarceration . ''you have to pay them to be kept in jail , '' he said . mr . hu 's parents and his girlfriend , he ying , have not been allowed to contact him . the police said to check on his status after 15 days , she said . mr . lu says he has published two books and occasional articles in chinese newspapers . but his main outlet recently has been two personal web_sites . they are among thousands of such sites in china today and are not widely known , though one of mr . lu 's home pages records nearly 27 , 000 viewers since it began last sept . 3 . one of the strangest aspects of the case is that mr . lu 's web_sites remained accessible in china today ( www . a2053 . home . chinaren . com and www . a2053 . myetang . com ) . the government has increasingly worked to block what it considers objectionable foreign and domestic sites and requires internet companies to censor their chat_rooms . many of mr . lu 's views are associated with the disaffected group here known as ''old leftists , '' though he denies the label . he says that mao 's disastrous cultural_revolution , for example , was a noble anti corruption drive , later perverted by bad elements . the article that appears to have triggered the detention , according to li qiang , head of china labor watch in new york who first reported the case , however , was mr . lu 's recent homage to an against the grain article that appeared in global times , an official newspaper . that original article , published may 11 , said the spy_plane case was further evidence that china must prepare to confront the united_states . mr . lu 's article , posted soon after on his web_site , was called , ''there is finally a different voice in the official media , '' and accused chinese leaders of ''fawning on'' the united_states .",has a topic of technology
"the first person in britain to be convicted of creating and planting computer viruses was jailed today for 18 months after being prosecuted under the 1990 computer misuse act . the defendant , christopher pile , a 26 year old computer expert , dubbed himself the black baron and copied computer programs and games before infecting them with a virus and putting them back into computer networks . they were picked up by users of the internet , who infected their own systems . judge jeremy griggs said in a court ruling in exeter , in southwestern england , that millions of dollars' worth of damage could be caused by the viruses . "" those who seek to reap mindless havoc on one of the vital tools of our age cannot expect lenient treatment , "" he said . the prosecutor , brian lett , said many of the viruses were detected within days of use . but they could not be defined and purged because of a cloaking device mr . pile had used .",has a topic of technology
"the mayor of beijing ordered all internet cafes in the city today to shut down temporarily after at least 24 died in an early morning fire in an unlicensed cafe in the university district . the fire , said to be the deadliest here in more than 50 years , started at 2 40 a.m . in the lanjisu internet cafe in northwestern beijing . like many similar establishments , the internet cafe was crowded with students who cannot afford personal_computers and visit the cafes at night to take advantage of lower rates as they surf the web , play internet games , dawdle in chat_rooms and exchange e mail . and like many similar cafes in beijing and around china , it was a firetrap . dozens of computers were crowded into a second story room with barred windows and just one door that witnesses said was bolted shut , requiring customers to knock to be let in or out . neighbors described hearing the screams of students pressed against the windows , unable to escape . firefighters broke into a back window and rescued several patrons , according to a report by the state run new china news_agency , and had the blaze under control within about two hours . the authorities released no information today about the cause of the fire , and the police were reportedly trying to find and arrest the owner . past efforts by beijing and other cities to regulate the proliferating internet bars have involved more threats than effective action . in beijing alone , there are some 2 , 400 computer cafes , only 200 of them licensed , the news_agency said . but the new tragedy evoked unusually strong vows from beijing leaders , who know that the country 's widespread problems with fire and building safety have become politically sensitive . in december 2000 , when a disco fire killed 309 in the central city of luoyang , official careers were derailed and 23 people deemed directly responsible for the unsafe conditions in the building were sent to prison . today , after an emergency meeting , mayor liu qi said all internet cafes , legal or not , must close down immediately , the news_agency reported . no new licenses will be granted to internet cafes , the mayor reportedly decreed , and those previously licensed will have to reapply and certify that they ' 'meet relevant requirements . '' any illegal cafes , the mayor said , ''will be severely punished . '' the mayor also announced a special three month inspection of fire safety in all the city 's enterprises and commercial buildings . officials have been frustrated not only by safety lapses in the cafes , but also by their alleged use to spread pornography , provocative rumors and unapproved political ideas or information . school officials have also fretted that computer rooms are luring teenagers away from their studies and are a bad social influence . but the demand for computer services is huge and growing , and officials did not say how they will stamp out the thousands of establishments , which range from store fronts with a few machines to large scale operations like the one that burned today . by this evening , a computer bulletin_board run by people 's daily , the newspaper of the communist_party , carried several messages criticizing the beijing authorities . the underground internet bars are so popular , one writer said , because the local police and officials make it so difficult to obtain a license . another person , noting the city government 's urgent new safety measures , wrote , ''everyone is asking what they were doing before this happened . ''",has a topic of technology
"after two years of delays , the developer alan ginsberg yesterday bought the international_business_machines' ulster business complex , a network of 27 buildings on 257 acres outside kingston , n.y. , for more than 20 million . mr . ginsberg said he planned to invest another 14 million in the 2 . 5 million square_foot complex , which at its peak housed 7 , 500 i.b.m . employees as part of a plan to create a high technology corridor similar to the one in silicon_valley . ''this is a very exciting project , '' mr . ginsberg said . ''i believe hudson_valley will become new york state 's technology corridor . i am confident the attributes of this site superb space , excellent infrastructure , good quality of life , skilled available work force will enable us to realize our vision . '' nearly two million square_feet of space at the complex is vacant . under a contract with the state , fleet bank operates a center for processing state tax returns in one part of the complex , while i.b.m . leases warehouse space in another . i.b.m . had largely abandoned the complex two years ago as part of a major revamping that included thousands of layoffs in the region . at the time , gov . george e . pataki struck a deal with the company to buy one million square_feet at the complex for a new state data processing center . the agreement would also have given the company a package of tax breaks and other incentives to insure that it built a new headquarters in armonk , rather than in connecticut . but that deal fell through . mr . ginsberg , who had planned to purchase the remaining portion of the complex , then decided to buy the whole site and spent the next two years negotiating the details . charles v . bagli",has a topic of technology
"an article yesterday about private investigators who pose as journalists misidentified an internet publication that became the target of one investigator after it criticized a hong_kong real_estate project . the publication is webb site . com , not cyberport , the name of the project .",has a topic of technology
"last year , when oliver schwarz and his partner , bertram hesse , founded their internet software start up in berlin , they needed a name for the company . mr . schwarz and mr . hesse , both from the east_german town of jena , brainstormed with their core team most of whom were also originally from the former east_germany and found themselves rejecting cyber sounding names like ''sitesprint , '' one of their earlier choices , in favor of terms from the communist era . they settled on subotnic . it 's from ''subbotnik , '' which means ''working on saturday for free , '' explained mr . schwarz , who left east_germany , which was formally known as the german_democratic_republic , for political reasons in the early 1980 's . ''subbotnik was a russian term used by the g.d.r . to get people to work on saturdays 'for the freedom of the socialist revolution , ' or something like that . '' part inside joke about the nature of a start up , which generally entails working saturdays , and part ironic reinterpretation of a socialist term for the internet age , the name subotnic is also a play on the computer terms ''su'' ( super user ) ''bot'' ( shopping bot ) and ''nic'' ( network information center ) . ''everybody from the east gets it , '' mr . schwarz said , grinning . subotnic , which developed a proprietary system for managing content on the internet , did not keep its name for long in august , intershop a.g. , a successful east_german internet software start up , bought subotnic . but subotnic , now intershop berlin , did keep its east_german edge . founded in 1995 in jena , intershop is ( also not without irony ) named after intershops , which were stores in the former east_germany that sold high quality goods to western visitors or privileged east_germans for west_german marks . the sale of their start up secures a spot for mr . schwarz and mr . hesse in the ranks of former east_german high technology entrepreneurial success stories a category essentially created by intershop 's founder , stephan schambach . mr . schwarz said he met mr . schambach in the mid 90 's through mr . hesse 's connections in jena 's technology community . ''we have similar roots , '' said mr . schwarz about the two companies . ''we have matching cultures , so we felt very good about selling our company to intershop at such an early stage . '' according to soren schuster , an investment manager in the leipzig office of 3i germany , a division of 3i , the venture_capital_firm based in london , the former east_germany with its tradition of quality technical higher_education , its dearth of competitive old economy industry , and new role models like mr . schambach of intershop will see more and more high tech start_ups in the future . earlier this year , 3i germany acquired technologieholding , the venture_capital_firm that funded intershop in 1996 technologieholding also funded subotnic in 1999 . entrepreneurship is a recent phenomenon in germany , which has a history of large , corporate business structures in the west and socialism in the east . mr . schuster of 3i germany said that high tech business people from former east_germany have certain advantages over their west_german counterparts when it comes to adopting entrepreneurial attitudes . but while former east_germans typically have had less ready cash to seed their companies and a smaller professional network than the west germans , mr . schuster said , coming from east_germany is an opportunity , too . ''the intershop guys did n't know too much about the western_world when they started , but that meant that , unlike many west germans , they were n't blinded by the ways of the old economy . '' mr . schwarz also attributes his high tech success in part to his east_german roots people who grew up in a very secure situation in the west often want to wait for perfect professional situations before they act . he observed , ''in the new economy , you ca n't wait for the perfect situation you need to deal with improvised situations and make decisions that are n't perfect . that 's certainly something i 've had experience with in my own history . '' now 35 , mr . schwarz said that when he was a teenager in jena in the early 80 's , he was part of a group of dissident artists . at age 18 , angered by the government 's restrictive policies toward artistic expression , he said that he wrote a letter of protest to erich_honecker , the former president of east_germany . as a result , mr . schwarz said , the stasi ( the east_german secret_police ) ransacked his apartment and , finding his handwritten draft , arrested him . mr . schwarz said he was sent to prison for two years together with his girlfriend at the time and a dozen other artists who had signed the letter . of his time in prison , he said , ''it was hard , but you work and you sleep . at first it was all criminals , but then there were more and more political_prisoners , so we made our own group . '' while mr . schwarz was in jail , dissident friends who had already left east_germany for the west publicized his group 's arrest and lobbied the west_german government for their release . after six months of political negotiations between the two countries , mr . schwarz and his girlfriend were freed and moved to west_berlin his friends were also released . in west_berlin , mr . schwarz studied art , art_history and media design subjects that he had been prohibited from studying in jena , and that would provide a segue into multimedia art and , then , internet business . in 1988 , he received a grant to go to california institute of the arts , near los_angeles . there , he spent a year working in an apple computer lab and learned english . he happened to be in berlin for a visit when the wall fell and decided to stay in germany instead of going back to los_angeles . after finishing his degree in media studies and design in germany , mr . schwarz worked in berlin as a multimedia artist and curator . in 1997 he founded a web consultancy with mr . hesse . for a meeting with their first potential client , the two asked their friends to come to their office ( in mr . schwarz 's apartment ) and to bring their laptops . ''they all sat down with their laptops , like they were working . we wanted it to look like we were already big , like we were already 20 people , '' mr . schwarz said . ''i guess it worked we got the client . '' while working as web consultants , mr . schwarz and mr . hesse came up with the web content management system that was later the basis for subotnic . ''things are always happening in your life , '' mr . schwarz added . ''you just have to be aware of the opportunities . '' online overseas",has a topic of technology
"four friends who met on university campuses to discuss politics and who posted occasional essays on the internet were sentenced here to long prison terms on wednesday , convicted of ' 'subverting state power . '' the beijing intermediate people 's court sentenced xu wei , 28 , and jin haike , 26 , to 10 years . yang zilin , 32 , and zhang honghai , 29 , were sentenced to eight years , according to human_rights groups and relatives of the men . the case has long enraged human_rights advocates , in part because the group 's activities seemed to be innocuous and in part because the four men had been imprisoned for over two years without a verdict in their trial . calling the verdict ' 'sickening , '' mr . yang 's wife , lu kun , said in a telephone interview ''they all said they were innocent . they said that everything they said and wrote was within the limits of what is permitted by the constitution . '' the four were first detained on march 13 , 2001 , just months after they had formed the new youth study group , a small group of like minded friends who met occasionally outdoors at beijing_university to discuss political change in china , according to friends . the meetings involved well under a dozen people . while the group 's members generally agreed that china needed a multiparty democracy , press_freedom and free elections , their discussions and their internet essays were about political theory , according to their supporters . the group had no plans to foment change actively . still , in china such groups are supposed to be registered with the state . today 's verdicts reflect the reality that in this communist dictatorship publicly raising the notion of alternative political systems still carries risks . even so , many human_rights advocates and china scholars considered the harsh sentences surprising , given that many of the liberal ideas expressed by the men in the new youth study group are now regularly published in academic journals here and are the fodder of discussions in university classrooms . ''it is ridiculous that the chinese government considers the peaceful expression of one 's views a subversive act , '' said ann cooper , the executive director of the committee to protect journalists , in a statement . ''these four young writers have already wasted more than two years of their lives detained in legal limbo . '' before their detention , mr . xu was a reporter for the consumer daily , mr . jin was a geologist , mr . yang was a computer entrepreneur , and mr . zhang was a freelance writer . the four were detained after another member of the group informed china 's state security bureau about their activities . it is unclear why the verdict took nearly two years to decide , since the initial hearing took place in september 2001 . while china 's criminal_procedure code stipulates time limits to prevent such extended detention , the limits do not apply in cases where the police say that breaches of state security are involved . relatives of the men have not been able to visit them in prison , seeing them only at occasional courtroom hearings leading up to the trial , said lu kun , mr . yang 's wife . she said the prosecutors had produced no new evidence since the initial hearing nearly two years ago . she added that the four seemed to be in poor health , having lost weight . mr . xu , who received a_10 year sentence , became agitated in the courtroom , claiming he had been beaten and denied his right to see a lawyer .",has a topic of technology
"richard chartres , anglican bishop of london , is not used to having congregants wandering around in front of him swearing as he preaches . then again , he does not normally transform himself into a three dimensional computer image in an imaginary sanctuary as he did tuesday to deliver a sermon to animated representations of churchgoers . but such is life virtual life , that is at www . churchoffools . com , an experiment in interactive worship over the internet . the experiment began with a demonstration at a religious products trade show highlighted by bishop chartres 's sermon . people separated by vast distances routinely play in imaginary 3 d worlds and sometimes work in them . church of fools aims over the next three months to explore whether they can also regularly worship in them . visitors who log on to a vaguely romanesque church control the speech and movement of on screen figures known as avatars . acting through the avatars , visitors can kneel in prayer , talk or whisper in text_messages , extend a hand in blessing or raise both arms in ecstatic praise . they can also sit_in pews or gather for conversation in a crypt equipped not only with chairs but with a ''holy water'' water cooler and vending_machines as well . starting tomorrow , they will also hear a sermon at least once a week , from a variety of priests and ministers . a smattering of churches already provide webcasts of sunday services or sites that allow visitors to construct a personalized worship service out of online devotional components . and religious chat_rooms allow people to share online prayers or other spiritual activities . but the church of fools is the first site to make religion the focus of the kind of interactive role_playing common in multiplayer combat games or web fantasy worlds . ''we 're as curious as anyone to see how it works , '' said simon jenkins , co editor of shipoffools . com , the british online publishing group that came up with the concept . ship of fools is best known for hijinks like ''the ark , '' a takeoff on the television show ''survivor'' in which 12 biblical figures competed to avoid being voted off noah 's ark . but mr . jenkins said the church of fools was a serious effort to develop an alternative form of christian worship for people who find the bricks and mortar world of religion off putting . the project is being underwritten in part by the methodist church of great britain . official sunday services start tomorrow at 4 p.m. , eastern time , with stephen tomkins , an author of religious biographies , delivering the sermon . that time slot was chosen to avoid conflicts with traditional services both in the united_states , which ship of fools said is home to about 60 percent of the 80 , 000 to 100 , 000 visitors it gets to its web_site each month , and in britain . one challenge will be to minimize the rants , insults and barnyard humor that characterize so many public internet meeting places . ''we have a slightly old testament way of dealing with abusive people , '' mr . jenkins said . budget restrictions prevented the programmers from developing a code that would send miscreants up in flames , he said , but they can be ejected with a keystroke by the site 's moderators . electronic smiting was the fate of the avatar named anonymous who disrupted bishop chartres 's sermon . still , a substantial part of the early avatar chatter on the site has ricocheted between aggressively irreverent and incomprehensible . ship of fools is looking into filtering software that might automatically convert foul language to ''amen'' or ''hallelujah , '' mr . jenkins said . but the church of fools is open 24 hours a day , and ship of fools lacks the resources to monitor behavior continuously between scheduled services . so in an early response to bad behavior , ship of fools has simply cut off the ability of unauthorized avatars to occupy the pulpit and turned off a ' 'shout'' feature that had allowed visitors to address everyone at once . lack of resources has also affected the worship experience that the church of fools is offering . only some 20 avatars can operate in the church in normal circumstances , although 10 more can be squeezed in for special occasions . in addition , however , the site can handle about 500 ghost visitors , who cannot see one another or interact with the avatars , and its developers hope to be able to expand its capabilities . ''you ca n't have 5 , 000 people in there moving around , but you 'd like that many watching , '' said darrell wilkins , founder of specialmoves , the production_company in london that built the site for ship of fools . one major technical restraint came from the desire to make sure the site was not restricted to people with high speed internet connections and state of the art computers . a dial up modem and a computer less than three years old will suffice , but only because the church is using minimalist graphics that hardcore citizens of online fantasy worlds will regard as primitive . ship of fools is scrambling to find additional financial support . mr . jenkins hopes advertisers will step forward to claim everything from the vending_machines in the basement to the stained glass window over the altar . ideally the advertiser ''would be a craft union like one of the middle ages guilds or a missionary organization , '' mr . jenkins said of his vision for the window . the image would look suitable , but when a visitor clicked on it , the window would function as a hyperlink taking the visitor to the organization 's web_site . clearly , interactive virtual services cannot work as carbon copies of regular church services . based on her experience playing paul on ''the ark , '' during which she conducted a service for her biblical shipmates , the rev . katherine anne carlson , an episcopal minister at the church of the ascension in gaithersburg , md . , said that to avoid overwhelming the screen with type , interactive sermons would need to be kept to about 500 words , perhaps a quarter the length of her standard sermons . ''maybe it will be worship like haiku , '' said ms . carlson , who is hoping to preach at the church of fools . because visitors controlling avatars cannot type as fast as words are sung or spoken , participants at tuesday 's demonstration service posted snippets as the hymn was sung and the lord 's prayer delivered . some who logged on lived as far away as australia . ''they were n't all posting in english , '' mr . jenkins said . ''i found that moving . '' religion journal",has a topic of technology
"when li you picks up a pen , he finds that with increasing frequency he ca n't remember how to write the chinese_characters he learned to write as a child . the delicate strokes scramble themselves in the hazy recesses of his memory , eluding his brain 's insistent summons to order . ''there are some characters that i ca n't write with a pen , but if you give me a computer i can type it out , '' said mr . li , a 23 year old computer teacher who lives in rural yangshuo in guangxi province , in southern china . it has been more than six years since mr . li started using a computer for chinese word_processing . it has been just under six years since the characters started slipping away . he estimates that more than 95 percent of his writing is now done by computer . ''i can go for a month without picking up a pen , '' mr . li said . among chinese speakers , anecdotal_evidence suggests that the use of computers for word_processing is mounting a slow but steady assault on their ability to write characters by hand . many chinese say that could undermine the written language . ''it 's a cultural loss , '' said ye zi , a coworker of mr . li 's . ''a long time ago , we all wrote much better . '' but mr . li waved off the idea of sentimentality . ''i have no regrets , '' he said . ''this is the natural trend of societal progress . you use your hands less , but you use your brains more . '' the problem faced by mr . li and others as old skills yield to advancing technology is nothing new in china or elsewhere . educators , for example , engage in fierce debates about whether the calculator has decreased or increased students' mathematical skills . for many people , language and literacy are intimately linked to what it means to be human . for the chinese , writing has additional cultural weight . throughout the country 's history , written language has played a critical role in china as a symbol of both unification and division . it was used to bridge the hundreds of variations in spoken chinese , but it has also been a symbol of political division , as evidenced by the different writing systems used by taiwan and china , one traditional and one simplified . and handwriting is often used to evaluate character . the slow erosion of writing skills is the frequent subject of conversations , jokes and self consciousness in china and taiwan . the characters are not forgotten completely , but the writer often simply needs prompting from a dictionary or a friend . or the writer 's memory is jogged by trial and error . but chinese writers say that in the last five years or so , their lapses in memory have become more frequent and more annoying . complicated and rarely used characters are usually the first to fade from memory , but even common characters are being lost . ''my friends will tease me , 'how you can forget such a simple character ? ' '' mr . ye said . the chinese have a name for the written equivalent of having something on the tip of the tongue that translates as ''forgetting characters upon lifting the pen . '' but many in china take a pragmatic approach to the language , not a sentimental one . ''the role of language is communication , '' said zhou liwei , a consultant in beijing who said he had not written in chinese without a computer for several years . he carries a laptop with him wherever he goes . the conflict is a result of forcing the complexities of the chinese_language to conform to a standard roman alphabet keyboard . becoming literate in chinese requires mastering characters that range from the simple to the intricate . pupils spend thousands of hours copying character after character for homework . ''the task of chinese_characters is enormously complex , more than any other language or any other script , '' said dr . brendan weekes , a cognitive neuropsycholinguist at the university of kent in england who has done research on chinese character recognition . but chinese typing requires users only to recognize characters and not construct them from scratch . more than 97 percent of computer users in china type by phonetically spelling out the sounds of the characters in a transliteration system , called pinyin , that is based on the roman alphabet . the software then either offers users a choice of characters that fit the pronunciation , or it automatically guesses the characters that the user wants , based on context . as spoken , chinese is a tonal language , and typing ' 'ma'' on a keyboard , for example , will bring up a list of numbered choices for characters that include ''horse'' or ' 'mother , '' which have different tones . entering a number selects one of the characters . on average , there are 17 characters that correspond to each typed pinyin spelling like ' 'ma . '' the pinyin system of typing and selection is time consuming and awkward , but it is popular because it requires less training . other systems involve a large amount of memorization but are faster . the japanese , which also use chinese based characters in writing , have long complained about the effect of word_processing on their writing abilities . but computers have become widespread in china only in the last five years , although they have had a sizeable presence in taiwan for almost a decade . there has been little if any research on the effect of computers on the written language . ''scientifically , we have n't established the phenomenon reliably , '' said ovid tzeng , minister of education in taiwan , who has done research in cognitive neurolinguistics . ''we have heard people anecdotally speaking talking about it , but we need to examine in detail . '' it is notable that the chinese contend that only their writing skills , not their reading skills , are eroding . neuroscientists have long established that writing and reading are handled separately by the brain . some patients with brain_damage are able to read but not write , and others may have the opposite problem . ''reading involves recognition , '' said prof . alfonso caramazza , a harvard professor of cognitive neuropyschology who has also done research on the chinese_language . ''you do n't have to generate the parts . they are given to you . the task of the brain is to find the match for the parts that are given to you . '' writing something , whether it is an english word or a chinese character , involves retrieving the basic elements of the word either letters or brush_strokes from memory . it is the recurrent construction of a word or character that reinforces the writing process . ''if you were to try to retrieve a word as a whole without going through parts you would not be practicing with letters and strokes , '' professor caramazza said . ''you are short circuiting the process . '' also , since many chinese_characters resemble each other or share a sound , it is easy to mistake one for another . it is not just the chinese who are vulnerable to having the computer usurp some of their skills . american children growing up with word_processing aids like spelling checkers are also becoming dependent on computers for literacy . ''my mom tells me all the time 'spellcheck has made you not be able to spell , ' '' said ehren fairfield , a 22 year old senior at dickinson college in carlisle , pa . , who spent a year studying in beijing . ''chinese people will ask me how to spell something , and i 'll say 'i do n't know . give me a computer , and i 'll tell you . ' '' this is not the first time that chinese writing has come under assault . until the 20th_century , the calligraphy brush was the dominant writing instrument . with its rich cultural undertones , calligraphy took many years to master , an investment that also meant that the vast majority of chinese remained illiterate . when the pen became popular in china after the turn of the 20th_century , it was furiously attacked , accused of undermining the country 's cultural_heritage . while the characters written were identical , critics said that it removed the expressiveness found in traditional calligraphic writing . but now calligraphy has largely retreated to an aesthetic form that is practiced by only a small segment of people . in the same way that the pen increased literacy in china , computers may help pull down barriers . ''why would you still spend so much time on handwriting chinese_characters when you are eventually going to use computers ? '' asked ping xu , a professor of chinese_language at baruch_college . professor xu has obtained a federal grant from the department of education to develop a penless approach for students learning chinese as a foreign language . students start using computers for writing almost immediately . professor xu says that the approach can be extended to pupils in china . ''in spite of the opposition against the pen , why did the pen prevail ? '' professor xu asked . ''because the pen is much easier to use and much easier to carry around . '' he extrapolated the idea to the historical inevitability of the dominance of the computer . ''if the computer can provide an easier way of learning chinese_characters and all the chinese_language skills , eventually it will prevail . '' some parents are already criticizing schools for not adapting quickly enough to the educational advantages of the computer . li li chuan , who teaches at an elementary_school in taiwan , said that a parent had recently complained about the many hours her child spent practicing characters . ''she asked , 'what 's the point of making students practice characters , when now , with computers , they only need to recognize them ? ' '' said ms . li , who says she herself often hesitates before writing some characters . ming zhou , a microsoft researcher based in beijing , also takes a more neutral view of the tension between modern technology and traditional skill . ''you ca n't say it 's a cultural tragedy , '' mr . zhou said . ''it 's just the way it is . '' mr . zhou has worked on sophisticated chinese typing software that even eliminates the need to choose characters . the computer can automatically convert entire sentences from phonetics into characters using the context . ''if people use this system , they will forget how to write even faster , '' mr . zhou joked . ''what we are chasing is speed . when culture and speed come into conflict , speed wins . '' character recognition most computer users in china rely on a transliteration system called pinyin to render chinese_characters from a standard roman keyboard . there are two approaches to using pinyin . the first searches for the characters one by one . for example , to write ''beijing , '' which means ''north capital , '' in chinese 1 . type ''bei'' in pinyin . the software presents a list of characters fitting the pronunciation ''bei'' in a toolbar . 2 . the correct answer is no . 4 , for ''north . '' when selected , the character appears on the screen . 3 . type ''jing . '' the software presents a list of characters fitting the pronunciation ''jing . '' 4 . the appropriate ''jing'' is not among the first 10 choices , so the user must scroll to the next 10 choices . 5 . the appropriate character , meaning ''capital , '' is no . 1 . choose it in the toolbar . the full word is rendered on the screen . alternatively , an entire term can be entered in pinyin and the software will search for all possible combinations . 1 . type in ''beijing'' as a single entry . 2 . the software offers all phrases matching ''beijing , '' including characters referring to the city and the term for ''background . '' the city name is the first choice .",has a topic of technology
"saburo masaoka speaks with the enthusiasm of a klondike prospector . in rapid fire sentences that roll figures and the fanciful into one , he talks about panning for gold , silver , platinum and palladium . but mr . masaoka is no ordinary 49er . he is a salesman at yokohama metals , a scrap_metal recycler whose mother lode is found on the dark side of the wireless revolution the millions of cellular_phones thrown in the trash heap each year . yokohama metals , one hour west of tokyo on the road to mount fuji , is one of a handful of japanese recycling companies that mine precious_metals from high tech gear past its prime . walking through the company 's spartan warehouse , mr . masaoka , 51 , waves toward 20 foot high racks holding baskets of circuit_boards , ceramics and wiring that will be melted , with the metal removed and refined into ingots . the prize catch , though , is brought down by forklift two bales containing thousands of handsets . sorting through them is like an archeological dig . clunky models from the early 1990 's are tossed in with sleek star_trek style handsets that still bear the cutesy stickers applied by their former owners . to mr . masaoka , they are all part of a trove because one quarter of each cellphone by weight is metal . ''old jewelry is easier to recycle , '' he said . ''but it 's better than pulling gold out of the ground . '' cellphone recycling is in essence a numbers game , and the numbers are sufficient to make it viable while , as yet , voluntary . last year yokohama metals hauled in 1.7 million used handsets , about 10 percent of japan 's recycled phone market . the company pays 10 yen ( 7 cents ) for each handset it buys the gold and other metal in each phone is worth about 30 yen . in all , 120 , 000 phones are needed to produce a one kilogram bar of pure ( 99 . 99 percent ) gold , which sells for just under 10 , 000 . japan is not alone in trying to squeeze gold from high tech discards . across asia , recyclers are collecting millions of tons of old electronics from the united_states and elsewhere and mining them for precious_metals . in places like china and india , where rules governing waste_disposal are weak and rarely enforced , electronics recycling can pose both environmental and health hazards , according to a report by five environmental groups issued this week . but the same report credited japan for its approach , which has included steps to put more safely recyclable material 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 is less expensive . but extracting the metals from the phones is not easy . handsets are poured en_masse into a crusher , which spits out a pulp that is then melted at high temperatures and turns into black sludge . canvas sacks full of that material are suspended from racks and dunked into pools of solvent . over two four day periods , chemicals leach silver from the bags . metal collects like tinsel on the sides and bottom of the tanks . similar processes extract gold , platinum and other materials from the sludge . ( the company says it disposes of the waste properly , and it has been certified as meeting international environmental standards . ) the metal in cellphones , however , is low grade . though the gold in japanese phones is 30 times purer than what is typically mined in south_africa , recyclers must still spend days or weeks on the refining process that ultimately yields the one kilogram bars of gold that are shipped to stores and manufacturers . over all , it takes six months to extract metals from a cellphone , compared with a month to melt and refine jewelry . that limits profit_margins , which also depend heavily on market prices . yokohama metals makes a profit of up to 7 cents for every gram of gold and palladium that it resells and one fifth of one cent for every gram of silver . fortunately for the company , fears of a financial downturn in japan have driven local gold prices to a three year high . there are other hiccups in the recovery and recycling process . although most carriers tell handset manufacturers not to include certain toxins in their phones , many older handsets still contain lead soldering . and most companies are unwilling to pay recyclers extra to take apart phones by hand , rather than melting , to ensure that plastics are disposed of in the cleanest way possible . even the cellphone recyclers face uncertain economics . with the mobile_phone market almost saturated and the recession pushing customers to hang on longer to their phones , handset shipments fell last year for the first time since 1996 . ''the era of high turnover rates for phones is over , '' said mr . masaoka , who expects collection rates to rise only slightly this year . for now , in any case , recyclers are getting a steady flow of phones from japan 's carriers . with little government involvement , ntt_docomo , kddi and j phone , the country 's three largest mobile_phone operators , took back nearly 10 million old phones in the year ended last march , or one fifth of the 53 million phones produced , the telecommunications carriers association says . unofficial estimates suggest that the figure may have been closer to 15 million . the collection process is relatively painless for the carriers . retailers receive old handsets from customers who buy new models . carriers run promotions like the ''come back'' campaigns of ntt_docomo , the market leader . for two months , three times a year , customers who turn in phones can win eco friendly sony minidisc players , solar powered watches and other items . ''there 's no law for us to follow , but we are trying to do our part , '' said satoshi yokoshima , a manager in the corporate citizenship office at docomo , which started collecting handsets in 1997 . similarly , battery makers have formed an alliance with retailers to collect and recycle used batteries from phones and other gadgets . and cellphone makers no longer use nickel cadmium , which is toxic , and mainly produce lithium ion batteries that can be recycled . by voluntarily setting up such programs , the companies give the government less incentive to mandate them . but law or no law , mr . masaoka of yokohama metals will get his phones . after all , there 's gold inside those handsets . treasures gleaned the amount of metals in a metric_ton ( 1 , 000 kilograms , or 2 , 205 pounds ) of cellphones ( about 16 , 670 handsets ) gold 0.4 pounds silver 2.6 pounds copper 255 . 7 pounds palladium 0.2 pounds steel 205 pounds aluminum 83 . 8 pounds ( source ntt_docomo tokai )",has a topic of technology
"a group of high technology executives urged the wealthiest nations today to take action to erase a growing digital_divide resulting from the economic chasm separating the developed and developing worlds . the perception that the world is increasingly being divided into information_technology haves and have nots is among the topics that the seven leading industrial nations and russia will take up at their annual summit meeting , which begins on friday in okinawa . today a task_force established by the world_economic_forum , a policy organization made up of many of the world 's largest corporations that meets annually in davos , switzerland , presented a series of proposals on the issue to japan 's prime_minister , yoshiro_mori . at a news conference here , members of the task_force appeared sensitive to the issue of self interest on the part of the large corporations backing high technology spending . ''this is all about self interest , '' said vernon j . ellis , international chairman of andersen_consulting , a member of the task_force . ''there is nothing wrong with self interest , as long as it is enlightened , long term self interest . '' the task_force , including the chief executives of sony_corporation and toshiba_corporation , japan 's two largest consumer_electronics companies , proposed a set of principles including telecommunications and internet deregulation , universal access to education and technology training , as well as support and financing for small entrepreneurs . the proposal , prepared at japan 's request this year at the davos meeting , also includes the creation of a peace_corps style volunteer group , the global digital opportunity corps , and the establishment of local technology community centers . japanese high technology executives said tonight that mr . mori planned to announce at the summit meeting that japan would commit 12 billion in loans and 3 billion in grants over five years to information_technology initiatives in the developing world . the move is intended to prompt similar commitments from other countries , a japanese executive said . mr . mori , who acknowledged this week that he is a computer novice who has only recently learned how to use a mouse , appeared today with an international group of high technology executives to underscore his nation 's commitment to the proposal . ''i 'd like to make this an information_technology discussion , mainly focusing on the developing nations , '' mr . mori said . ''this digital_divide issue is a crucial matter . '' the issue of the a global digital_divide has been seized on in the last year by corporate executives , eager to prove they are socially responsible . but there is disagreement over what the divide represents . a number of economists and technologists believe that the world income gap created by the industrial_revolution may still be the fundamental dividing line between rich and poor nations rather than the question of access to technology . one member of the task_force said the digital_divide should not overshadow traditional issues defining rich and poor nations . ''it 's really not a digital_divide , said the participant , richard t . k . li , chairman and chief executive of the pacific century group , an internet company based in hong_kong . ''it is an education divide , and information_technology is only a conduit to promote education . '' other companies represented on the task_force include sun_microsystems , microsoft , yahoo , 3com , motorola , hewlett_packard , novell and alcatel . sony 's chairman , nobuyuki idea , acknowledged that his company had struggled with its own internal digital_divide and had been slow to deploy information_technology among its workers . ''this is a good indication of the problems that will confront us , '' he said . klaus schwab , the founder and chairman of the world_economic_forum , said in an interview this week that he believed that inexpensive digital wireless_technology systems would increasingly spread in the third world . ''i personally feel that a breakthrough is coming , '' he said . united_states officials said on monday that information_technology held promise for creating economic opportunity as well as improving access to health_care and education . but they noted that while there are now an estimated 332 million people connected via the internet around the world , only 1 percent live in africa . and less than 5 percent of the computers connected to the internet are in developing_countries . the officials would not offer any united_states commitment or pledge of a specific dollar amount to help bridge the digital_divide . but they said they would welcome such proposals from other nations and from the american private_sector . correction july 24 , 2000 , monday an article on thursday about a call by technology executives for action on the world 's digital_divide referred incorrectly to two companies represented in the group sony and toshiba . ranked by worldwide sales last year , they are the third and fourth largest electronics companies in japan , trailing hitachi and matsushita .",has a topic of technology
"a report in the technology briefing column of business day on friday about microsoft 's plan to push its new xbox video_game player into the online game business in japan misstated the number of game titles sega would develop for xbox . it is 11 , not 5 .",has a topic of technology
"had enough of fools , dodos , losers and nitwits in your daily life ? meet the professionals . ''we laugh at the buffoon 's antics , but do we really know what lurks behind the fool 's jolly exterior ? '' asks the jester pages by lisa nelsen woods ( www . geocities . com athens troy 3883 ) . ''do we dare scratch the surface to find the foolish substance beneath ? have a care , you might just learn something before we are done . '' the first court fools were kept by the pharaohs , the site notes in ''the fool throughout the ages . '' it mentions the use of dwarfs , the physically or mentally_handicapped and the ''artificial fools , '' clever wits who took the role because of the freedom it offered to criticize the ruler . there is a section on famous historical fools , various jesters to queen elizabeth i and female fools . another page refutes myths about jesters . ( most did not wear makeup or wear multicolored suits with tassels , and they did not serve only royalty . ) the pages on frequently asked questions , links and 21st_century fools make it clear that jesting is alive and well . modern performers have names like tettles and thomas thimbletoes . there are links to jesters in gilbert sullivan musicals , the joker and company in ''batman'' and ( remember the flagon with the dragon ? ) danny kaye in ''the court jester . '' ''my favorite fool is wil somers , who was fool to king henry viii and three of henry 's children , '' ms . nelsen woods wrote in an e mail message . ''somers even lived to see elizabeth crowned queen of england . it is said that shakespeare modeled his fool in 'king lear' after wil somers . i also have a soft spot for harlequin , who is n't really a jester , but a breakout character from commedia dell'arte , although his diamond covered costume is associated with a stereotypical jester of today . '' an essay by dave ricker at renaissance faire . com towncrier fools . htm discusses the ancient feast of fools , a parody of the mass . a similar site is notre dame de paris and the feast of fools , at home1 . pacific . net . sg kyrie hback . html . no modern jester can ignore the society for creative anachronism ( www . sca . org ) , an international organization dedicated to researching and , especially , re enacting the middle ages through dance , costume , talk , food , martial_arts , decoration and jest . the site will connect you with your kingdom , shire and local chatelaine to get you started . under miscellany and ''people and groups in the sca , '' there are many links to costumers and other merchants . fools paradise by peter michaels ( members . aol . com pmichaels glorantha foolsparadise . html ) explores the role of jester in various cultures , through links to mythical figures like anansi the spider in west_african tradition and loki , the norse god of discord and mischief . what if yogi_berra had been a medieval mullah ? erol beymen has a web_site devoted to nasreddin hodja , a beloved 13th century turkish folk philosopher ( w1 . 871 . telia . com u87109316 index eng . htm ) . there are nasreddin sites in many languages , recounting the cleric 's combination of silliness and shrewdness . this site is unusually pretty , well illustrated and entertainingly written many folk tale sites are cultish or academic . there are nasreddin teaching guides , joke links and related games . as for britain 's most famous jesters , punch and judy on the web ( www . punchandjudy . com ) has a history , a list of modern punch and judy shows , a collector 's guide and statements by several punch and judy societies about attempts to ban performances . ''punch and judy are to domestic_violence what tom and jerry are to animal cruelty and the keystone cops are to police brutality , '' says one of the societies , the punch and judy college of professors , in discussing political_correctness . ''that stick mr . punch wields is the very slapstick that gave its name to the whole genre of broad physical comedy . '' screen grab",has a topic of technology
"there 's a whole lot of french going on in the city and , for anyone trying to keep track of it all , there is a web_site new york city francophone . an exhaustive electronic clearinghouse of things french in the five boroughs , the site invites you to ''cliquez vous'' around an array of french_language activities in ''la grosse pomme . '' new york city francophone is the brainchild of thomas c . spear , associate professor french at lehman_college and the graduate school of the city_university of new york . ''i started it years ago to make available to students and faculty in the community everything there is to know about french_language movies and readings in new york , '' said mr . spear , who back in the ink and paper days of the mid 80 's would hand out a photocopied guide to his students . new york francophone went on line in 1993 , though the current web_site , which mr . spear said was continually growing , was put up in 1996 . these days , mr . spear said , he tries to emphasize non european french speaking communities . ''most of the people who speak french in new york are not from france , '' he said . ''they are from africa , haiti and other parts of the caribbean . so this site is a means for us at cuny , n.y.u . and columbia to link our efforts in non european french activites , such as meetings , conferences , movies and readings . we are moving the focus of paris as the center of the world to paris as one center of the world . '' but there is plenty of french from france information as well . ''we are closely linked to the french embassy , '' mr . spear said . ''i like the french , too . '' what you see not much visually , but lots and lots of information , in a mix of french and english . categories include associations organismes , now playing in nyc evenements actuels and contacts echanges a i'etranger . there is also information on french_language bookstores , libraries , radio , television and theater . listed in the now playing section are events like ''hommage au senegal , '' a cultural celebration ''marseiles et la provence a new york , '' a film series at the french institute , and a french and english production of a eugene ionesco play ''la cantatrice chauve'' ( ''the bald soprano'' ) , by the ubu repertory_theater . links seemingly_endless . you can check out everything from the french departments at city_university , new york_university and columbia to radio tele to the afrique noire art bookstore . what you get a rather plain looking , academic web_site that can open doors to colorful corners of the city . new york city francophone http_www . lehman . cuny . edu depts langlit french nycfranc . html neighborhood report new york on line",has a topic of technology
"america online has decided that subscribers who favor or oppose irish nationalism can continue their heated disagreements in aol 's on line forums , but they 're going to have to be more cordial about it . on dec . 11 , aol , the world 's largest on line provider , pulled the plug on 23 irish heritage discussion forums . aol said it had done so because the political debates had included too many personal attacks and ''vulgarity and profanity , '' which violated aol 's terms of service . last week , aol reopened the discussion groups after ''cleaning them up , '' said a spokesman , jim whitney . in a note to visitors to the discussion groups , aol stated , ''we encourage you to make this a more amiable place where any person , regardless of faction , can openly discuss political issues and current events . '' ''we encourage and remind you to debate issues only and not resort to personal attacks or member harassment , '' the note continued . some irish nationalists who favor irish rule for northern_ireland dispute aol 's account . on the irish people web_site ( inac . org irishpeople top 121998 121998aol . html ) , critics contend that aol is seeking to silence outspoken irish nationalists to make the service more appealing in britain , where aol is trying to build membership . mr . whitney denied that aol 's actions were motivated by that . news watch",has a topic of technology
"lead the message went up on the international computer network that links thousands of corporations , universities and research centers around the world the students demonstrating in tiananmen_square in beijing needed garbage bags . the message went up on the international computer network that links thousands of corporations , universities and research centers around the world the students demonstrating in tiananmen_square in beijing needed garbage bags . through the cooperation of chinese students at the university of california 's campuses at davis and berkeley and at stanford_university , 1 , 800 bags were bought at a discount store near the san_francisco airport and sent to beijing on thursday night along with a few pairs of walkie talkies by way of a trusted courier . the garbage bag airlift was the latest in the efforts of chinese students studying in the united_states to assist students in beijing by raising money and keeping information flowing . participants in the computer network also discuss the meaning of democracy and how freedom of the press is supposed to function . some have recommendations for the students at the square . they should build shelter , divide people into shifts to save energy and ' 'devote great care to sanitation , '' suggested a berkeley student . another expressed the wish that the beijing students had taken control of a television or radio_station . there is also discussion of prime_minister li_peng , whose resignation has been one of the demonstrators' demands . one anonymous writer said , ''the problem of china for thousands of years is that the emperor wo n't retire . '' the writer suggested that mr . li be killed ''before all the soul of spirit of china be killed . '' another suggested that mr . li be sent to the soviet_union , but added , ''some friends say that i am too lenient . '' one exchange that has recurred throughout the week concerns a rumor that mr . li 's son is a student at a major united_states university . an anonymous writer asked that he be found and identified , prompting a series of exchanges . ''what is the purpose of identifying li_peng 's son ? '' one writer asked . ''even if li_peng is a murderer , that is nothing to do with his son . '' 'a potential spy' ''because he is a potential spy , '' came the reply . ''if li_peng were a murderer , his son is possibly his informant . '' others responded to an anonymous threat that read simply ''blood must be paid in blood . where is li_peng 's son ? '' ''please do not stoop to this low level , '' replied a student at the university of washington in seattle . a student from the massachusetts_institute_of_technology responded ''calm down victory is at hand . let 's not become red guards . '' on wednesday , students at the university of california 's los_angeles campus were celebrating having received a response from china to the information they had been blindly faxing to a number of machines in beijing . they posted the message as it had come to them ''we welcome and are truly grateful to you for sending us the message . the country is under news blackout , so your message is really valuable to us . hope to receive more latest news from you . '' by thursday , morale was sinking . ''the situation is terrible , '' an unsigned message said . ''i think nobody will admit that he is going to give in to the li regime . '' upheaval in china",has a topic of technology
"officials in beijing said two teenage_boys had been arrested for intentionally setting the fire that killed 24 people last weekend in an unlicensed internet cafe . the boys , who were identified only by their surnames as zhang , 13 , and song , 14 , were detained tuesday and have confessed to setting the fire out of revenge after a dispute with staff members , the city government said in a statement . the disaster led beijing 's mayor to order the temporary closure of the estimated 2 , 400 cybercafes in the city , all but 200 of which are unlicensed . erik eckholm ( nyt )",has a topic of technology
"apple made no new hardware announcements at its big macworld computer show in san_francisco last month , but it made up for the lapse in japan yesterday when it unveiled new and upgraded versions of its powermac , powerbook and ibook product lines . seeking to capitalize on the surprising success of the graphite colored imac special edition desktop computer that it introduced late last year , apple introduced a special edition of its ibook notebook . but aside from a new color_scheme and a modest increase in processing power , the new ibook se is not as special as its desktop counterpart , whose appeal included more memory , a bigger hard_disk and a dvd drive . the new ibook se ( 1 , 799 ) has the cool graphite and ice color_scheme of the imac se , and it has a 366 megahertz g3 processor , up from the 300 mhz offered in the original ibooks . otherwise it has the same 64 megabytes of ram , 6 gigabytes of hard_disk space and cd_rom drive that apple offers in its upgraded orange and blue ibook siblings . the price of the 300 mhz ibooks , still available in either orange or blue models , remains unchanged at 1 , 599 despite the doubling of memory and hard_disk capacity . the more impressive portable macintosh announcements came at the high end , as apple substantially upgraded the performance of its g3 powerbooks . the new powerbooks keep the same physical design but come in 400 mhz and 500 mhz models . both have an airport wireless networking antenna , a dvd drive , better 2 d and 3 d graphics , and a pair of high speed firewire ( ieee 1394 ) ports for working with digital_video . the new 500 mhz powerbook , which costs 3 , 499 , has 128 mb of memory and a_12 gb hard_disk . apple says it weighs 6.1 pounds with a high capacity battery . for an extra 500 , the hard_disk capacity swells to 18 gb . the 400 mhz powerbook comes with 64 mb of memory and a 6 gb hard_disk and costs 2 , 499 . the announcements of new and more powerful versions of apple 's g4 desktop computers were somewhat anticlimactic , in that apple had originally announced them last year but failed to deliver when it could not get enough of the high end chips from motorola . apple now says it has a reliable supply of the 500 mhz g4 chips , so it simply recycled its original announcement . peter h . lewis news watch",has a topic of technology
"american_forces recently completed the largest joint war fighting exercise they have ever held , a three week , 250 million operation that involved 13 , 500 military and civilian personnel battling in nine live exercise ranges across the united_states and in double that many computer simulations . results from the mock combat , planned for two years , are expected to shape planning against future adversaries . as they compiled lessons from the exercise , called millennium challenge 2002 , officers praised new airborne communications that allowed commanders to stay in touch with farflung fighting forces as never before , even while in transcontinental flight to the battlefield . they also emphasized the importance of combining their destructive power with attacks on computer networks as well as with diplomacy . military officials said the troops were also reminded that a wily foe with little to lose retains the historic advantage of the attacker . gen . william f . kernan , head of the united states joint forces command that organized and operated the war game , said the exercise showed the importance of a standing joint force headquarters to coordinate the efforts of all the armed services during wartime . the idea , he said , is to avoid ''the ad_hoc nature'' of past wartime command headquarters , thrown together in time of emergency . the standing headquarters would ''provide future commanders with a skill set of people with military specialties and a solid appreciation for the complexities of the region , '' he said . in the simulation of a persian_gulf conflict with a foe that might have been iran or iraq but was called merely red , american_forces or blue suffered unexpected losses from a sneak attack early in the fighting but then emerged victorious . in the opening hours of the conflict , the enemy commander was able to deceive american_forces by protecting his messages from electronic snooping he communicated with field officers via motorcycle messengers . enemy planes and ships conducted innocent looking maneuvers for several days in a row , establishing a pattern that did not appear threatening . but the maneuvers left the forces well positioned for a surprise attack , which was initiated using code words during the morning call to prayer from the nation 's minarets . in the computer simulation , an aircraft_carrier battle group and ships of a marine amphibious ready group suffered severe damage , according to the enemy chief of state , played by robert b . oakley , a former ambassador to pakistan who also served as the state_department 's counterterrorism director . the american_forces ' 'sailed into the gulf assuming they could establish superiority , and disrupt the enemy 's command , control and communications with technology , '' mr . oakley said . ''but red decided to surprise them by going first , and used some time tested techniques for sending messages in ways that ca n't be picked up electronically or jammed . red sank a lot of the fleet . '' all exercises are to a certain extent artificial , unable to reflect the entire spectrum of wartime , from life and death stress on a single soldier to the impact of public opinion as battlefield fortunes wax and wane . senior military officers said the value of the exercise was that it required completing a range of missions to test 51 separate military initiatives . because many aspects of the war game remain classified , officers would not detail the extent of simulated damage to the fleet , nor say whether the exercise was restarted after the fleet was theoretically hit . analysis from the the enemy commander , played by paul van riper , a retired marine_corps lieutenant_general , will be incorporated into a final report . ''both red and blue were constrained during the exercise , '' said one military officer . ''you ca n't stop the entire game when one side gets too clever . '' in the end , officials said , the joint american_forces air_force , army , marines , navy and special_operations were declared victorious . weapons_of_mass_destruction figured heavily in the exercise , with american_forces ordered to attack four sites containing chemical_weapons or their delivery systems . one technological system tested was a complete headquarters sized communications system that was loaded onto a c_17 cargo plane . lt . gen . b . b . bell , commander for all american_forces in the exercise , planned and directed missions while aloft . ''we could do what we could do in a large headquarters while we were airborne , '' general bell said . ''i had all the tools i would normally have in a fixed base . '' new communications and tracking systems also allowed commanders to integrate attacks by both army and marine_corps ground troops , rather than assign them complementary but separate missions . ''instead of drawing a line on the map , with the army on one side and marines on the other , a commander can now integrate those forces , '' said brig . gen . james b . smith , who directed the exercise . general smith said the value of the exercise , like any war game , would only become clear in the months ahead as the exercise was analyzed and its lessons pushed throughout all the armed services . ''the sunset of this event is the sunrise of a process to work the challenges of integrating operations of the armed services , '' he said . ''if we say this is over , then we 're making a huge mistake . ''",has a topic of technology
"the owner of an internet cafe in southern china has been arrested and charged with subversion for posting articles critical of the communist_party , the latest sign of the government 's campaign to tame the explosion of electronic information . jiang shihua , a high_school teacher who operated the cafe in the city of nanchong in sichuan_province , is the third person in recent months known to face serious charges for political statements on the internet . his arrest on aug . 16 , five days after he began posting the articles under a pseudonym , was reported this week by the free china movement in washington , based on chinese television accounts and by reporters without borders , a media watchdog group in paris . china 's leaders have embraced the internet as a key to development but also fear it , and special ''web police'' units have been formed to search for illegal activities including fraud and pornography as well as outlawed political debate . this month , the authorities shut down new culture forum , a web_site in shandong_province that sponsored lively debate .",has a topic of technology
"just past the tattoo parlors and used cd shops on st . marks place in the east_village of manhattan , erudite gamers scour the racks of a cluttered video_game shop called multimedia 1.0 . rows of vintage atari 2600 cartridges are in one corner . new titles for the playstation_2 are down the way . but the real draw is the japanese imports epic adventures , cheeky dating simulations and surreal do it yourself disc_jockey games that , though big in japan , will not officially get to the united_states for weeks or months , if they ever make it at all . zone of enders , for example , is an import action adventure for the playstation 2 that will be released here this month . it sells for 80 , about 30 percent more than most american releases . but for hard core players like kevin o'connor , the extra cost is worth it . ''we buy games at incredible mark ups , all in the pursuit of the hottest and newest , '' said mr . o'connor , a 25 year old import fan from fort_lee , n.j. , who spent twice the retail value of a sega dreamcast machine just to have it six months before its american release . ''we live gaming . we do n't care about games being in japanese . we 'll prod and stumble until we get through . it 's the highest level of gaming there is . '' in the production universe of the multibillion_dollar gaming industry , japan has long been the mother ship . the country has been supplying a steady stream of games ever since donkey kong stomped into american arcades in the early 1980 's . japanese companies like nintendo , capcom , konami and square soft continue to churn out hundreds of new titles every year , but fewer than half make it to the united_states . some of the lure of imports lies in the age old desire to have something before everyone else does . ''if you 're a real gamer , '' said jesse labrocca , owner of multimedia 1 . 0 , ''you want to be the cool guy on your block who has the games that no one else has . '' but for mr . o'connor and others , a large part of the appeal is the alien nature of the games themselves . japanese games often have a different look and feel than similar types of american games . and there are some game genres that are popular in japan but virtually unheard of in the united_states . take dating simulations , which challenge a player 's ability to woo a high_school sweetheart . such games are chart toppers in japan , but little known in the united_states . tokimeki memorial , a classic of the genre , is set among high_school freshmen . american gamers snatch up such titles . ''it is interesting to see the cultural differences in the games , '' said greg wilcox , 36 , a new yorker who has collected thousands of japanese titles in the past decade . ''you might see a japanese game with a western cowboy who has a sword in one hand and a gun in the other . '' japanese games often push further into the realms of sex and violence than american products . depictions of smoking and drinking , common in japanese versions , are not acceptable for mainstream united_states release . ''japan tends to be ahead of the curve as to what kinds of games are accepted , '' said richard briggs , a sega product manager . when japanese game developers are deciding whether to market a title in the united_states , a factor they consider is how it will be rated by the industry 's voluntary ratings group , the entertainment software ratings board . companies will also consider the quality of the graphics and the levels of interactivity . ''many japanese games tell a straightforward and compelling story , but these do not come with the interaction nor the depth of graphics that consumers in the u.s . market are looking for , '' said ken ogasawara , a manager at konami of america who assesses and develops games for american release . capcom , a japanese developer that produces games for sony , nintendo and sega , employs similar guidelines . ''if a game would n't make sense to the american consumer , then we wo n't release it , '' said matt atwood , a company spokesman . in these cases , gamers have to settle for buying the import games at specialty shops like multimedia 1 . 0 , which gets its supply through japanese connections . a foreign game that is selected for united_states release has to go through an elaborate process called localization . a game is evaluated to see what changes need to be made for american audiences . some of the changes , which are implemented by the developers and dictated by publishers like sony , are little more than cosmetic . for example , when sony 's crash bandicoot appeared in japanese games , his eyes were small and beady . when crash came to the states , his eyes were large and wide . sometimes the changes are based on difficulty levels . the conventional_wisdom is that american gamers like to be challenged more than the japanese_american versions , as a result , often include more difficulty options for players to choose , as well as little stumbling_blocks through a game , like fewer bonus health packs . among gamers , such changes cause controversy . when a japanese horror game called biohazard 2 was released in the united_states as resident evil 2 , players protested online , saying that although sony promised the original game , it delivered one that was less violent and missing key scenes . the company responded eventually by releasing resident evil 2 director 's cut . one of the first and most obvious changes is language . role playing games , which are especially dialogue heavy , often require as much translation as a foreign film , if not more . some players say the games are translated in a slapdash manner . greg cook , an import fan in new zealand , sat down to play final fantasy vii in english , only to find himself scratching his head . ''so many times during the game i could n't really understand what they were talking about , '' mr . cook said . ''i felt that the translation just did n't do the game justice . '' as a result , some import fans collect japanese releases the way a nabokov fan hunts down original works in russian . fan web_sites offer translations and walk throughs of the games . mr . o'connor said he had even picked up some rudimentary japanese from years of playing import games . coping with instructions in a foreign language is only one of the hardships that fans of imported games endure . to get the programs to work on american console systems , mr . labrocca said , players often need to modify their systems with black_market hardware . mr . labrocca said that companies make too many assumptions about the tastes of american gamers . in addition to the status of having games that few others have , import fans like the variety that japanese games offer . jeremy goldman , a_20 year old student in new york , said that japanese games were often more inventive than american releases . one of his favorites , dragon ball z , a street fighter import that will probably never be released in america , has a cast of anime characters with their own personalities and moves . ''these people at these companies think we wo n't like these games , '' he said . ''but we actually do . '' beyond japan from many nations , space , fantasy and action games though most imported playstation titles ( as well as those for the pc ) come from japan , many come from other countries outside the united_states . here is a sampling mdk2 country canada what it is the sequel to the 1997 hit mdk . ''austin powers'' inspired kookiness as players become kurt hectic , a heroic custodian who fights alien invaders . theme hospital country england what it is essentially , sim sickos . this simulation game lets you build your own hospital . then you have to hire staff , like psychologists and janitors . laura's happy adventure country france what it is eerily cheery children 's game based on a line of german toys . laura has to charm her way through a fantasy land to light up all five sides of her magic diamond . enemy infestation country australia what it is shoot 'em up game . players join an intergalactic human space colony that must battle a swarm of alien insects . jet force gemini country england what it is a rave music inspired team created this ''jetsons'' style space caper with cyborg insects , gunfights and characters resembling the indie band cibo matto . picker country russia what it is a company description ''you are walking through the woods , picking up edible mushrooms and avoiding poisonous ones . the journey is dangerous ! good for children . '' david kushner",has a topic of technology
"inside a gray six story office building , a dozen young men gathered around a conference room table on saturday evening to discuss the internet . only one was over 30 , and all looked like computer nerds , the kind of people who prefer to spend a saturday night talking about their favorite software , rather than venturing into one of the lively cafes on the street below . yet with the chinese authorities tightening control over information networks , even something as innocuous as an internet club is now suspect . so the participants met with an air of secrecy , engaged in a lengthy debate over lukewarm cups of tea on how to avoid government interference , and wondered about the true identity of five latecomers who sat to one side of the room and said little . the internet is still very sensitive in china , "" said a 24 year old computer technician , who like the other participants asked not to be identified . "" we 're not trying to do anything illegal , but if the government finds out about us , we 're finished . "" the internet is just starting to grow in china , and the authorities are trying to keep it firmly within their grasp . today , china issued a new set of rules to regulate internet use , the latest in a recent series of moves to assert control over the flow of information here . rather than try to choke off internet_access , as some of the young men gathered around the table had feared , the regulations instead appear to be steering the flow of electronic information through officially controlled ports so that it can be better monitored . the new regulations require that any network offering internet_service be subject to close supervision by the ministry of post and telecommunications or one of three other designated government agencies , the new china news_agency announced . the new regulations are intended to insure "" healthier development of the exchange of international computer information , "" the news_agency said . but the rules were clearly also concerned with information the government deems threatening . "" neither organizations nor individuals are allowed to engage in activities at the expense of state security and secrets , "" the agency said . "" they are also forbidden to produce , retrieve , duplicate or spread information that may hinder public order . "" the transmission of pornographic or obscene material was also expressly banned . the rules come at a time when internet users in china have gained easy access to a wide range of politically sensitive material posted by dissident groups based outside of china . reports that were accessible within china via the internet today were offered by human_rights_in_china , a new york based group the center for modern china , run by the dissident writer liu_binyan and based in princeton , n.j. , and china spring , another new york based dissident group . china 's security apparatus is widely believed to monitor an enormous volume of telephone and fax connections , and it is expected to do the same with internet messages . it is an open question whether the authorities will try to block access to information they do not like , and whether they would succeed if they tried . access to the internet , however , is still a privilege for relatively few in a country where few homes have a private telephone let alone a computer . most who have access to a computer do so through their workplace . about 4 , 000 people have registered for internet accounts with the ministry of post and telecommunications in beijing and shanghai since it began offering china 's main commercial internet_service in mid 1995 . zhang shiyong , a computer science professor at fudan_university in shanghai who directs the university 's internet operations and advises shanghai 's post and telecommunications on computer networks , estimates that fewer than 30 , 000 internet users in china have an e mail address , mostly university professors and students , and scientific researchers . others familiar with the internet assert that 50 , 000 to 100 , 000 in china may be using it , many of them university students with irregular access because of limited computer time , and others who privately pay a registered user to share an e mail address . a main impediment to internet growth is the high cost . while university professors and students get e mail free , shanghai 's post and telecommunications office charges 75 a month for 40 hours of use , a sizable fee in a city where a typical office worker makes 250 a month . for all the free_speech potential that the internet portends , robin_munro , hong_kong director of human_rights_watch asia , said few if any dissidents within china had access to it , because of limited access to computers . he suggested that , with official monitoring , the internet would not be an ideal route for transmitting politically sensitive information anyway . most professors who use the internet focus on research , professor zhang said , while most graduate students he knows use it to get information on how to study overseas . "" we 're not happy about that , of course , but we do n't stop it , "" he said . "" we want to encourage them to use the internet as much as possible . "" proponents of the internet hope that chinese users will eventually send 70 percent of their electronic transmissions to other domestic users , professor zhang added . he estimates that only about 10 percent are domestic now , with an overwhelming majority of e mail directed overseas . today 's regulations were not the only recent effort to control information services in china . last month , the government announced that foreign news organizations selling economic information would now be supervised by the new china news_agency , which will have the final say over who can have access to the service and how much they pay . president jiang_zemin , in one of several efforts to assert wider political authority , recently called on the nation 's news_media to "" pay special attention to politics . "" in less formal wording obey orders . in early january , the ministry of post and telecommunications suspended all new subscriptions to the internet indefinitely . the official reason was that this was necessary while the network 's technical capacity was expanded , but officials of the shanghai post and telecommunications said that authorities in beijing suspended the system 's growth while they formulated the new regulations . now that the regulations are out , new subscriptions will presumably resume soon . as concerned as they are about the internet 's ability to spread undesirable information efficiently , china 's leaders also recognize its benefits . shanghai 's municipal government recently announced plans to link its tax offices and social_security services via a local internet connection , as well as to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in telecommunications infrastructure . "" over the past few years , with the growth of a market_economy and progress in spreading information , computer information networks have been playing an active role in accelerating china 's economic , scientific , technological and educational development , "" the new china news_agency reported in january . at the gathering on saturday evening , nearly all of the participants voiced optimism that the expansion of internet china would help businesses , in particular , because of the way it would expand their access to information . all , that is , but the four conservatively dressed men and one woman who came late and sat in a clump to one side . none offered a name card when all others attending passed out their own , and none signed the e mail address list . they watched , they listened , they said little . one took notes . and everyone else was reminded that , internet or not , best watch what one says . correction an article on monday about chinese efforts to regulate access to the internet misidentified the director of the center for modern china in princeton , n.j . it is chen yizi , not liu_binyan . an article last monday about chinese efforts to regulate access to the internet misidentified a new york based publication that is available on the internet . it is beijing spring , not china spring .",has a topic of technology
"germany has been seized by a national mood of morbid fascination since last week , when prosecutors arrested a man in a ghoulish case that involved the internet , homicide and cannibalism . the story has dominated the newspapers here for days , eclipsing reports about the dismal economy , the political travails of chancellor_gerhard_schr_der and even crippling strikes by transportation workers . the facts of the case are beyond lurid , according to the news release from the state prosecutor in kassel , a central german city not far from where the crime took place . ( in keeping with standard german practice in homicide cases , the full names of those involved were not revealed . ) a 43 year old microchip designer , identified as bernd j rgen b. , sold his car and responded to an internet advertisement , described by german newspapers as saying ''wanted well built man for slaughter . '' b . is believed to have presented himself at a dilapidated half timbered house in the river town of rotenburg an der fulda that is the home of the suspect , a 41 year old software technician identified as armin m . m . surgically removed the victim 's genitals , according to a prosecutor 's statement , which said the two men then ate them . later , m . stabbed b . to death as a video_camera recorded the event . he carved up the victim and stored parts of the body in a freezer for occasional consumption , burying other parts in his garden . news coverage of the grotesque details has reflected most people 's reaction of numb , almost uncomprehending , shock . ''it is all so unreal , '' said the munich paper , suddeutsche_zeitung . ''so haunting that one thinks such a case would only happen in the movies , perhaps in america , but not in germany , not in rotenburg . '' suddeutsche and other papers have focused on the psychology of cannibalism and the role of the internet in connecting people from the fringes of society . bild , a tabloid , has reveled in the gory details , with an odd foray into analysis . franz_josef wagner , a bild columnist , put part of the blame on hollywood , which he said had turned a cannibal into a box office franchise with the ''silence of the lambs'' and its sequels . ''the cult star of the film world in 2002 was hannibal lecter , who ate a human brain to the music of vivaldi , '' he wrote . psychologists and experts on violent_crime dismiss such explanations , saying cannibalism is rooted in basic human pathologies that have little to do with national boundaries or popular_culture . much about the case remains shrouded in mystery . prosecutors are not certain that the victim 's killing was consensual , as the suspect claims . they believe it occurred in the spring of 2001 , shortly after b . disappeared . prosecutors are scrutinizing his videos for more clues . the police arrested m . after he recently posted another advertisement on the internet seeking more volunteers . he is to be charged with murder . the prosecutor said the suspect was fit to stand trial , which some legal experts question . in the meantime , germans are left to puzzle how two successful , professional men could have engaged in such an act . a photo of m. , printed repeatedly in papers here shows a well dressed , smiling man , savoring a cigarette and glass of wine at what looks like a dinner table . ''it 's a twice in a century case , '' said lorenz b llinger , a professor of criminal_law at the university of bremen . ''it 's very , very rare , and it attracts such attention because it breaks the ultimate taboo . ''",has a topic of technology
"a 29 year old pro_democracy activist , wang jinbo , was sentenced to four years in prison for posting articles on overseas internet sites that demanded a reassessment of the government 's 1989 decision to send in troops to break up student demonstrations in tiananmen_square . the linyi intermediate court in shandong_province found mr . wang , who had been associated with the now illegal china democracy party , guilty of subversion . elisabeth rosenthal ( nyt )",has a topic of technology
"in china , too , hackers and m.b.a . 's dream of silicon jackpots . among the many start_ups trying to emulate everything from yahoo to ebay , three year old sparkice i com ltd . is already the old guard , and its 36 year old founder zeng qiang edward zeng to foreigners is already famous . all this before his company has made a dime or seriously begun carrying out its plan for global e_commerce . it is all on the verge , says mr . zeng , who conjures up wild success with his spiel . ''we want to be the cyber bridge between east and west , '' he says , pointing to the large map of the world behind his desk , next to the picture of president_clinton shaking his hand last year at one of the internet cafes mr . zeng started here in 1996 . others may dream of selling the proverbial shirt to a billion chinese , but mr . zeng 's idea is instead to use the internet to sell the products of a million chinese companies to wholesalers , retailers , factories and individuals abroad . ''we are the future , connecting the merchandise made in china with the global buyer , '' he says . ''we aim to be the dominant mega portal , '' he says , ''and i do n't think anyone can compete with us . '' hedging his bets , though , he and several competitors are also exploring the potential for domestic e_commerce . mr . zeng 's history may entitle him to some confidence . born in beijing , he studied economics at qinghua_university there and , in 1987 , after securing a master 's degree , became a policy adviser in the central government 's state planning commission . he declines to discuss the tumultuous events of 1989 , when beijing was engulfed in pro_democracy_demonstrations , only commenting that things look different in hindsight . but the facts are suggestive on june 4 , when the tanks rolled in , he was attending an econometrics conference in tokyo . instead of returning home , he flew to toronto with scarcely a dollar in his pocket . as soon as he could save up 20 , he bought a book called ''how to succeed in the stock_market , '' he recalls fondly . he soon was in another master 's degree program , then a job as a statistician for the canadian government , and he started building up his own capital . the big flash came in early 1996 , he says , when he read about an israeli company developing an internet telephone service . he flew to israel to see for himself , then hurried to beijing , establishing his chain of internet cafes that are popular with computerless students . no big_business in china is entirely private , and mr . zeng is building a series of strategic alliances at home , necessary to sew up suppliers and gain official cooperation . he already has a partnership with a state telecommunications company and is exploring joint_ventures with government ministries and companies . he is also pursuing ties with some giant electronic stores in the united_states . so far the company has relied on capital ' 'something over 10 million , '' mr . zeng says from his own pockets and a handful of foreign investors . like every other entrepreneur here , he hopes to raise big money abroad , perhaps with a public_offering in new york . but all investments are in limbo just now , after a key minister 's surprise claim that foreign investment in chinese internet_services is illegal . projected revenues ? ''we 're targeting billions of dollars a year ! '' he says . this year , between the cafes and modest web sales , sparkice should take in 5 million , he says , but it projects five times more for next year , and then . . . . a half century in china the silicon mogul",has a topic of technology
"want to peek at a family web_site crammed with murder , treachery , blood lust , centuries long feuds , torture , insanity and whole dungeonfuls of assorted other skeletons ? the british monarchy is just the ticket ( www . royal . gov . uk ) . not the current entries , of course . since the royal family entered cyberspace in 1997 to help satisfy the public 's insatiable curiosity , its official web realm has compiled a ream 's worth of stars and garters , palaces and plantagenets . but there is more on the site about the two penny tyrian plum stamp of 1910 in the royal philatelic collection than about sarah ferguson . ( only one canceled copy of each is known to exist . ) the pages devoted to diana , princess of wales , are suitably prominent , reverential and respectful . the pages detailing a typical day in the life of the queen depict a very wealthy , very earnest , very busy woman . but the mountains of minutiae seem to highlight the obvious omissions , and to make them more poignant . duty . dedication . few tears . little joy . royal insight , the site 's online magazine , highlights important engagements of the month . it will not be mistaken for a tabloid . ( may 's feature visiting the chelsea flower show . ) there is enough data about castles , remodeling , acreage , equerries , swan upping , royal mews and queen 's beasts to put even the most ardent monarchist to sleep . the casual viewer who scans the site quickly for the trivia will unearth some gems prince_william began his education at mrs . mynor 's nursery_school in september 1985 , at age 3 . the last welsh prince of wales was llywelyn ap gruffyd ( 1246 82 ) . victoria 's oldest child , victoria , the princess royal , was the mother of kaiser wilhelm ii . the royal train has two locomotives . they are named prince_william and prince henry . the royal stamp collection ( beloved especially by george v ) includes what is believed to be the personal stamp album of the murdered czarevitch aleksei , heir to the russian throne . the brightly illustrated child 's album was stolen by a bolshevik soldier and sold to an employee of a british company in the soviet_union . the britannia was the 83rd royal yacht . elizabeth i attended the premiere of ''a midsummer night 's dream . '' george_iii 's interest in botany earned him the nickname farmer george . ( no mention of the nicknames he was given on this side of the pond . ) the site also has some unintentionally funny writing . ''george_iii is widely remembered for two things losing the american colonies and going mad . this is far from the whole truth . '' the best part of the royal site is the deep past , starting with the anglo_saxon kings of wessex . there are longer profiles of notable monarchs like alfred the great , william the conqueror , henry viii ( who wrote a best seller defending the roman_catholic_church , before all that marital unpleasantness changed things ) and charles i ( he stammered ) . as a capsule british history , the site is n't bad , as long as you do n't look for too much information on how the common people lived . but for incomparable mayhem , nothing beats the history of the scottish crown . here is a sample from 962 to 1005 dubh was killed by culen who was killed by riderch , king of strathclyde , whose daughter he had seized . he was succeeded by kenneth ii , dubh 's brother , who killed culen 's brother and was killed by culen 's son , constantine . constantine 's reign was short he was killed , probably by kenneth iii . kenneth was killed and succeeded by malcolm ii . the glory of britain is n't its pomp , but its language and its ideals . the speeches of some of its monarchs ring out from the site . elizabeth i to her army on the eve of the spanish armada ''i know i have the body of a weak , feeble woman but i have the heart and stomach of a king and of a king of england , too . '' james i proclaims an attitude ''kings are justly called gods , for that they exercise a manner of resemblance of divine power on earth . '' a member of parliament at the time of the glorious revolution of 1688 , on the importance of making william and mary and future monarchs financially dependent on the legislative body ''when princes have not needed money , they have not needed us . '' screen grab",has a topic of technology
"six years ago , the army had to fly in 17 , 500 soldiers from the united_states and deploy 7 , 000 armored_vehicles and nearly 1 , 100 tanks to practice the kind of epic battles the nato alliance would have to fight if world war iii broke out . just the damage nato forces caused tearing around the german countryside cost 23 . 4 million then , and since unification in 1990 germany has severely_restricted ground and air maneuvers . generals since napoleon have used sandboxes and even wooden soldiers to model their battle plans , but this year 7 , 600 american and allied soldiers here did their maneuvering by computer . in this era of shrunken defense budgets , commanders mostly stared at screens and video simulations , clomping between electronic stations in the combat_boots and fatigues they used to wear to roar around the range at this sprawling training base in bavaria . "" this exercise costs me less than the maneuver damage for 1988 , "" gen . david m . maddox , commander of the 74 , 000 united_states soldiers still in germany , said with a laugh . he expects to spend 15 . 8 million . saving money was not the only reason for the change . this exercise was intended as preparation for the kinds of missions that have arisen in europe since the cold_war ended for example , a large peacekeeping force in a country like bosnia where ethnic tensions have boiled over . although the prospects for a peace accord in bosnia now appear dim , the army has sent nearly 22 , 000 soldiers on crisis missions to 30 countries since the persian_gulf_war . and because threats to european security and stability did not end with the soviet_union in 1991 , 100 , 000 americans from all branches of the service will remain on this side of the atlantic after the end of next year , down from 314 , 200 in 1990 . "" we are not going to be doing many things in the future by ourselves , "" general maddox said . "" our operations are going to be multinational . "" so the recent exercise here was designed to practice both diplomacy and military skills in a nato task_force with troops from the united_states , britain , france , the netherlands and germany . the scenario involved an imaginary island off europe 's west_coast divided between two ethnically separate countries with a disputed bosnia like province in the middle . in the exercise , nato tries to use diplomacy to help its ally fend off a threat from its northern neighbor , which finally seizes the disputed province in an invasion that the allies mobilize to defeat . "" we built an exercise that deals with the realities of the world as it is now , "" said col . thomas machamer , the army 's chief exercise designer in europe . although the geography of the island was developed by carving it out of france and renaming the towns , the 462 soldiers from the french seventh armored division did not seem to mind . diplomats borrowed from the state_department and allied foreign ministries set up ground rules to protect civilians in the battlefield and negotiated with the bellicose north titanian prime_minister , played by brig . gen . james darden of the 87th army_reserve division from birmingham , ala . they will do so again when they rehearse post hostility talks at the end of the month . "" we were told to go for the throat and inflict as much pain as we could to stimulate some very real decision making by the commanders on the other side , "" general darden said . to help the soldiers here simulate the logistics of sending in thousands of imaginary troops , tanks and supplies , the army brought in 260 american civilian computer technicians from a san_diego defense_contractor , the cubic corporation . the computer displays were graphic and detailed . in one simulated commando raid on a missile battery on a peninsula far behind enemy lines , a small team of saboteurs zapped enemy targets with machine_guns and missiles , then called in nato aerial gunships to blast more as they flitted across the screen . what the players behind computer screens see is only as much as they would see in a real battle . the accuracy of weapons on either side is figured into the computer program , which in this case let nato players hit their targets more often than their less well armed adversaries .",has a topic of technology
"to the editor ''cruising through toll plazas with the windows rolled up'' ( sept . 9 ) did not mention the most sophisticated toll route in north_america . the electronic toll route that is becoming a semicircular route around toronto makes e z pass look like a dinosaur . it is totally automated , has no toll booths and can be entered at speeds of at least 60 miles per hour . it photographs the license_plates of vehicles without transponders and can recognize the difference between a truck and a car . when completed , the system will save significant time for all users . one does not have to travel to norway to see a truly modern toll route ! martin cosgrave bernardsville , n.j. , sept . 9 , 1999",has a topic of technology
"few have risen and fallen as spectacularly as takafumi horie , 34 , the self made internet billionaire now on trial in japan 's courts of justice and public opinion . at age 31 , he became famous overnight for trying to wrest a baseball_team from a_league controlled by some of japan 's most powerful businesspeople , or , in his words , ''the club of old men . '' he turned his start up , livedoor , into a household name and built it with the kind of aggressive moves unseen here . a swooning media crowned the spiky haired , t_shirt clad , trash talking upstart as the living challenge to japan 's ossified establishment . for 18 short months , mr . horie defied gravity . then in early 2006 , the offices of livedoor , which had built an eclectic social network site , were raided , and he was arrested on charges of securities_fraud depending on one 's view of mr . horie , the charges amounted to just deserts or political payback . television networks showed his enemies gloating about his downfall , reinforcing the impression that the establishment , or some part of it , had decided to destroy mr . horie . he was transformed into the symbol of all that was bad about the new japan and its supposed embrace of a ruthless , american style capitalism . denounced and demonized , mr . horie has yet to be silenced . in a country where defendants face enormous pressure to plead_guilty and criminal cases almost always result in convictions , he has fiercely proclaimed his innocence . and though his trial has yet to end , mr . horie has taken the extremely unusual step of speaking out to the media , leaving nothing unsaid . ''i 'm being made into a bad guy through endless leaks from the prosecution to the media , '' he said . ''so when something 's wrong , i have to state that it 's wrong . otherwise , they 'll set people 's image of me , and that 's not good . '' at the tokyo_district_court , prosecutors have demanded a four year prison term for mr . horie , whom they accuse of having masterminded accounting frauds totaling more than 40 million and other securities violations at his company . driven by greed , lacking a law abiding spirit , mr . horie had shown no remorse and still presents a menace to society , they said . ''is n't it a fact that you raised the value of livedoor shares , sold them and used the profits to pursue your personal interests and desires ? '' one prosecutor asked early in the hearing . mr . horie replied ''you have a twisted mind . you should repent . '' he said livedoor 's accounting practices were on the level . he has acknowledged misreporting the source of about 10 million , but blamed ryoji miyauchi , now 39 , the chief_financial_officer . mr . miyauchi , who has pleaded_guilty to similar charges against him , said in court that mr . horie was aware of the wrongdoing . but mr . miyauchi wavered on this point under cross_examination . mr . horie said he was caught in the cross hairs of a japanese establishment of elite bureaucrats who he said do not want ordinary japanese ''to think too much'' and powerful business executive who fear the changes he represents . the infractions with which he is charged ''are not something that typically merit a raid and arrest , '' he said . indeed , by any standard , mr . horie has been treated very severely by the authorities . in japan , companies have long engaged in financial window_dressing , often in collusion with accounting firms , though regulators have cracked down on this practice in recent years . despite the change , companies charged with accounting violations similar to or greater than livedoor 's have been penalized by financial regulators but have not drawn criminal indictments . in november , for example , the nikko cordial corporation , japan 's third largest brokerage house , admitted to falsifying its books by 160 million , but the case was settled with a_4 . 2 million fine and the resignation of the company 's two top executives . mr . horie is expected to receive his judgment in march . during a two hour interview in his lawyer 's office , mr . horie spoke with his characteristic self confident , blunt and unguarded style . his lawyer , yasuyuki takai , was present but did not interrupt once . mr . horie wore jeans and a black pullover with ''billionaire boys club'' across his chest . ( at the peak of livedoor 's stock , his wealth topped 1 billion it is estimated to have dropped to about a tenth of that . ) mr . horie often speaks of his youth in yame , a city known for its tea agriculture , in western japan . his father , a salaryman , never gave him an allowance but bought him only useful things , like a set of encyclopedias , which the boy devoured , and a bicycle , which he rode 12 miles a day to and from a famous private secondary_school . he started at the university of tokyo , the nation 's top college , but dropped out to run the company he had founded with 50 , 000 in capital livin' on the edge , the predecessor to livedoor . consciously imitating american internet start_ups , mr . horie built a very un japanese company where informality reigned . in contrast to most japanese companies , employees were hired regardless of school ties , and they moved up thanks to ability and ambition , regardless of seniority or gender . ''the people who found me the most offensive are mid managers with a stake in the old system those in their 40s and 50s , '' mr . horie said . those people have invested decades in their companies , he said , in the expectation of enjoying the full rewards of senior status . ''they do n't want the world they believed in and guarded until now to break apart , not after they 've toiled for 20 , 30 years without enjoying its benefits . they 're going to let this punk smash it all ? '' he expanded livedoor by buying up various businesses , then took aim at the core of japan 's establishment by trying to buy a baseball_team and part of the fujisankei communications group . the establishment pushed back , accusing him of getting rich without the sweat of his brow and of playing a ' 'money game . '' ''i called them a club of old men , but that 's exactly what they are , '' mr . horie said of the conglomerates that own baseball teams . ''it 's a world of connections , that 's it . if you 're young , have no connections , and you 're from a modest family , there 's nothing you can do , your whole life . this is a big loss to society , a society in which you ca n't put your talents to use . this kind of society will keep declining . '' his audacity won him the admiration of many japanese , especially the young , who found him exciting and refreshing , even endearing . he may have dated models and driven around town in a ferrari , but there was also in him the fat kid at school . he was nicknamed horiemon , after a lovable pudgy cartoon cat named doraemon . during the 94 days he spent in detention , mr . horie was tried and convicted in japan 's clubby news_media . leaks from the authorities fueled reports that livedoor had laundered money and had ties to the underworld , though no such charges were filed . investigators searched in vain through mr . horie 's private life for damaging information , according to mr . horie , his lawyer and a recently published book . ( prosecutors declined to comment on the case . ) ''they printed out the photos and names and background information of dozens of women i 'd met , and they pumped people for information about them , '' he said . nowadays , with free time on his hands , he has pursued a lifelong interest in space travel by investing in the development of a new rocket . he watched ''the aviator'' and felt a kinship with howard hughes , the billionaire aviation pioneer who is the focus of the film , ''though i 'm not as handsome as he is , or as obsessive compulsive . '' true to his character , mr . horie has not assumed the posture of contrition that japan demands of someone in his predicament . he says he would not change the way he challenged the old men or tried to buy their companies , even though he failed . ''i enjoyed each occasion , '' he said . ''instead of doing anything to succeed , i want to succeed on my own terms . because if i ca n't i 'm , like , 'whatever . ' '' the saturday profile",has a topic of technology
"the new york on line column on sept . 6 , about the new york welsh home page , misstated the name of a welsh language publication based in basking_ridge , n.j . it is ninnau ( translated as we or us ) , not the north_american welsh newspaper .",has a topic of technology
"six people affiliated with the prestigious qinghua_university here have been sentenced to prison for downloading material from the banned falun_gong spiritual movement from the internet and passing it along , a human_rights group said on sunday . in a decision handed down by the beijing first intermediate court on dec . 13 , the six were given prison sentences of 3 to 12 years , according to the group , the information center for human_rights and democracy , which is based in hong_kong . all had been arrested between january and april of this year . four of the six were graduate students , and the remaining two were professors . qinghua , china 's leading university of science and technology , had a huge number of falun_gong practitioners before the chinese government banned the movement as an ''evil sect'' in the summer of 1999 . qinghua 's graduates include prime_minister zhu_rongji . falun_gong combines buddhism , taoism and mysticism with a slow_motion exercise program that followers say provides benefits for both physical and spiritual health . with falun_gong meetings and materials forbidden , chinese practitioners nonetheless found the internet to be an effective organizing tool . through their computers , highly educated followers like those at qinghua followed news of the group and the latest teachings of the movement 's spiritual leader , li_hongzhi , a chinese citizen who lives in exile in the united_states . although web_sites relating to falun_gong are blocked in china , people who are skilled at using computers can often gain access to them . while falun_gong demonstrations and swift arrests used to be a nearly daily occurrence on tiananmen_square here , they tapered off dramatically in the second half of 2001 , as some left the movement and others hid their belief . but recently the government has mounted a renewed propaganda campaign against the group . last week , china 's most popular television newsmagazine , ''daily focus , '' broadcast a gruesome story about fu yibin , a falun_gong follower from beijing who killed his father and wife , and nearly killed his mother . panning the inside of the family 's home , with blood everywhere , the report suggested that falun_gong was responsible . sunday_night 's 7 o'clock news showed a jailhouse interview with mr . fu , which suggested that he continued to believe that he acted in accordance with the movement 's principles . today , the people 's daily is to carry yet another commentary on the case calling falun_gong ''a blight on society'' and warning that it remains a threat . the newspaper posted the commentary on its web_site at midnight sunday . foreign spokesmen for falun_gong , based in the united_states , have ridiculed the story about mr . fu , saying that such acts are totally contrary to the peaceful principles of the movement . the falun_gong movement says that more than 1 , 500 practitioners have died in custody in china . the chinese government , in turn , says that that as many practitioners have died because they believed that falun_gong could cure them , and so did not get needed medical treatment .",has a topic of technology
"the trial of a 30 year old computer executive , soon to begin in shanghai , heralds a new electronic battleground for china 's political dissidents and security forces determined to preserve communist_party control . lin hai , the defendant , is charged with ''inciting subversion of state power . '' prosecutors say that from september 1997 until his arrest in march , mr . lin gave tens of thousands of chinese e mail addresses to ''hostile foreign publications . '' in particular , they say , he provided addresses to an electronic newsletter called vip reference , which is compiled by chinese democracy advocates in washington and sent to hundreds of thousands of computer users inside china . according to the indictment , mr . lin helped the newsletter ''carry out propaganda and incitement by distributing essays inciting subversion of state power and overthrow of the socialist system . '' mr . lin appears to be the first legal casualty of a building struggle , as internet users here and abroad make shreds of the government 's efforts to censor political debate and filter foreign news . vip reference which sends out reports on dissident activities , essays and reprinted articles on human_rights and other issues is the most prominent of several electronic forums that are breaching china 's information defenses . ''we 're promoting freedom of speech on the internet , '' said feng donghai , a software_engineer at columbia_university who moved to the united_states three years ago and helped start vip reference last fall . ''they are putting lin hai on trial to set an example . '' the main vip reference , sent out every 10 days , mostly includes essays and debates on democratic topics . a subsidiary daily news edition , sent daily , includes detailed accounts of dissident initiatives and arrests . the main newsletter is now sent to more than 250 , 000 addresses in china said its publisher , lian shengde , who spoke from washington . the daily news edition goes to about 25 , 000 , and the numbers are steadily climbing as sympathizers send in lists of chinese addresses . the newsletter accepts addresses indiscriminately many are from commercially traded lists then mails to everyone . the theory is that when so many are automatic recipients , individuals cannot be accused of deliberately subscribing . ''we 're posing a new problem for the communists , '' said mr . lian , a software_engineer in his 30 's who moved from china after the 1989 military crackdown on student led demonstrators in beijing 's tiananmen_square . ''i do n't think there 's any way they can stop us . '' another , similar publication is tunnel , a self described ''webzine'' of commentary written in china and sent electronically to the united_states from where it is wired back to thousands of accounts inside china . addresses are , for vip reference , www . ifcss . org ftp pub org dck and for tunnel , www . geocities . com siliconvalley bay 5598 . chinese script software is required . a third newsletter , public opinion , is edited and distributed electronically from inside china . it includes commentaries and reprints of items taken off the internet and is produced by a group of young computer company workers who call themselves ''political netters . '' over the last year , these newsletters , plus assorted on line discussion groups , have become important means of communication among political activists , said xiao_qiang , executive director of human_rights_in_china in new york . china now has some 1.2 million internet accounts , many shared by several users , with the numbers zooming . the government has encouraged hookups in the interest of promoting national development , but is fighting a losing battle to control political uses . chinese officials use an electronic ''firewall'' to block access to web_sites it deems objectionable , including those of human_rights groups and some considered pornographic . but it cannot keep up with new sites , and clever users can sidestep the firewall . e mail is virtually uncontrollable , although agents can identify a particular individual and read that person 's mail . china 's security agencies have formed special units to fight not only conventional computer crimes like illegal break ins and fraud , but also the spread of dissident information . to evade government filters and electronic disruptions , vip reference is mailed from a different american address every day . somehow , the authorities zeroed in on mr . lin . last week , mr . lin 's wife , xu hong , learned that his trial will begin on nov . 26 but will be a closed proceeding so that she cannot attend . the lawyers she hired will be present but , ms . xu said by telephone , ''i 'm afraid the lawyers wo n't have much influence on the results . '' if convicted as charged , mr . lin may face a prison sentence of five years or more . he and his wife have a_20 month old son . ms . xu , who says her husband is innocent , said that e mail addresses are ''public information , like telephone books , which can be exchanged or purchased . '' he has never been involved in politics , she said .",has a topic of technology
"three years after he was arrested for running dissident information on his web_site , a man from sichuan_province was sentenced to five years in prison this month for ' 'subverting state power , '' rights groups have learned . the man , huang qi , was arrested in june 2000 after his web_site featured condemnations of the 1989 shootings of demonstrators around tiananmen_square . the court , in chengdu , did not explain the lengthy delay in sentencing . erik eckholm ( nyt )",has a topic of technology
"to the editor as i read ''new fabrics can keep wearers healthy and smelling good'' ( feb . 3 ) , about fabrics that protect against odors , bacteria , fungi and yeast , i thought of french farmers aggressively protesting against genetically altered agricultural products and beef with additives from the united_states . i applaud the french innovation in fabrics , but if american manufacturers tried to introduce fabrics that contained fungicides , perfume microcapsules , pesticides and ceramic particles into the french market , would there be protests about ''unnatural'' products ? howard whitfield madison , conn . incoming",has a topic of technology
"in a case that attracted international attention , a court convicted du daobin , a 40 year old internet dissident , of subversion but then commuted his sentence , mr . du 's lawyer said . mr . du was sentenced to three years in prison , suspended for four years , an unusual legal maneuver that means he will not have to serve a prison sentence . mr . du , a civil_servant from central china , was arrested last year after writing more than two dozen internet essays criticizing the arrests of other internet essayists and also advocating broader political freedoms . jim yardley ( nyt )",has a topic of technology
"when bernard liautaud started business objects , a software company , he applied a simple formula that he naively thought might stir the imagination and shake the torpor of his country dump french habits and do things the california way . the results were spectacular . founded in paris in 1990 with 1 million of venture_capital , the company was worth close to 1 billion by early last year . from the french business world there oozed a collective gasp . such rapid growth in a country where fortunes tend to build over generations was unprecedented . intent on understanding the upstart who had so quickly created 600 jobs and such wealth , president jacques_chirac invited mr . liautaud to elysee_palace . the 34 year old multimillionaire 's pitch last july to the french leader was , he said , simple a summary of the silicon_valley mantra he learned while a graduate student at stanford and applied at his company . promote a shareholding culture . think global . think marketing . reduce taxes . the president listened . but no changes to france 's heavily regulated economy followed . and when business objects' shares fell recently because of delays in a new software program , there were some smug ''i told you so 's'' from the paris establishment . where other countries have embraced the global entrepreneurship that drives business objects , france tends to see its economy and very identity threatened by innovation a mood that provides a perfect feeding ground for peddlers of xenophobia like the national front party . france today is racked by doubt and introspection . there is a pervasive sense that not only jobs but also power , wealth , ideas and national identity itself are migrating , permanently and at disarming speed , to leave a vapid grandeur on the banks of the seine . rapid technological_innovation , radical strategic shifts , the internet and the global market have contributed to an optimistic mood in the united_states , as measured by the ever rising stock_market , an increase in jobs and public opinion_polls . but these same forces have cast an ominous cloud here . the old cultural antagonism between france and america , rooted in the fact that both countries aspire to represent some universal model , has been brought to a new level by the american victory that a market and internet driven revolution are seen to represent . there are now regular snipes at america 's ' 'velvet hegemony . '' profiting from this somber mood , the racist , extreme right national front party of jean marie le pen has swept to a series of victories in municipal elections , including the southern town of vitrolles on sunday . it has gained support precisely by attacking globalization portrayed as the death of national culture and the high unemployment said to stem from untrammeled market forces and immigration . with left and right , socialism and conservatism increasingly indistinguishable , the national front has successfully contended that it is the only group with a distinct message . ''if we want to send the arabs and africans and asians back to where they came from , it is not because we hate them , it is because they pollute our national identity and take our jobs , '' said bruno megret , the deputy leader of the party and husband of the new mayor of vitrolles . ''when we have power , we will organize their return . we will stop renewing their residence cards , and we will force companies to pay a tax on foreign workers that will eventually lead to the foreigners losing their positions . '' such statements have a widening impact . over a third of french people now say they sympathize with at least some of the national front 's ideas . even a large city like toulon has been won . the party 's effectiveness appears to reflect the simmering frustration of a france that has lost its way . as pierre birnbaum , a political_scientist , put it , ''our problem is that we have not found the way to modernize while preserving our imagined community . '' in other words , how do you leap into the age of the internet and remain french ? the breakdown an uneasy society haunted by ghosts france is still rich and it enjoys an importance beyond its wealth . its nuclear_bomb , its permanent seat on the united_nations_security_council , its central place in european security , its hold on the world 's imagination through its wines , its perfumes and its cheeses , and its universalist pretensions themselves all carry weight . the country has many excellent companies the bourse rose 27 percent last year . as its leaders never tire of repeating in these dark days , france is the world 's fourth biggest industrial power and fourth largest exporter . a stronger dollar , up 10 percent in the past month , bodes well for french exports . but france has a stagnant economy growth was slightly more than 1 percent during the last year . its unemployment rate has swelled to 12 . 7 percent , more than double the rate in the united_states . the corrosive anxiety pervading france is captured by a line from rimbaud ''nos horreurs economiques'' or ''our economic horrors'' that is now widely used . the horror is not merely economic . rather , the phrase captures the extraordinary collective angst of a people seemingly convinced that , as the philosopher alain finkielkraut simply put it , ''there is a crisis of the modern world . '' that crisis , as lived in france , is about cultural and political identity . market reform , the global panacea , tends to leave the french cold . a hankering for grandeur some reconciliation of poetry and politics remains . in the gathering debate between advocates of the untrammeled global market and those who argue that it accentuates social injustice , france tends to identify with the critics of globalization . indeed , it increasingly seems to equate its welfare_state with its very identity . the obsession with identity is particularly strong because france is on the verge of two historical steps that critics equate with an abandonment of sovereignty and a surrender to global forces . it is scheduled to adopt a european currency , the euro , by 1999 , thus yielding control over much economic policy to a european_central_bank and it has indicated that it will return to the integrated military command structure of nato , thus abandoning the most potent symbol of the gaullist ''non'' to washington . both moves , however , appear vulnerable to the present mood . ''the french are confronted by a lot of changes , '' said a senior adviser to alain_juppe , the prime_minister . ''are they prepared to accept them all ? france disappearing into the euro , disappearing into nato , at the same time as we demand more mobility , harder work and sacrifice ? an upheaval cannot be ruled out . '' france does not look prerevolutionary . the country 's manicured capital , impeccable roads , high_speed_trains , glorious food , seductive scents and deep_rooted savoir vivre provide a compelling image of wealth and tradition . but just as the golden statuary on the bridges of paris distracts the eye from the homeless sleeping beneath the arches , so the moving beauty of france tends to mask what amounts to a kernel of despair . in pantin , just a couple of miles outside the gates of paris , there is a housing development called les cortillieres , most of whose 5 , 000 inhabitants are immigrants from algeria , morocco and west_africa . into such places are emptied the human flotsam who cannot afford life in the showpiece capital . almost 40 percent of the population is unemployed . graffiti hurl insults at mr . juppe and the police . life begins in the afternoon because , for many young people , there is no reason to rise early . drug dealers hang around in doorways . at the jean jaures high_school , repeated scrubbing has not quite effaced calls to join the ranks of militant islamic groups that have carried out recent bomb attacks in paris . ''some of these kids have never seen the eiffel_tower , '' said boris seguin , a teacher at the school . ''they live on the margins of the city and the margins of society . if the french republican model stood for one thing , it was integration through education . so you see here how the model is threatened . '' mr . seguin recently completed a dictionary translating the language spoken in les cortillieres into standard french . a conversation with sabah benmimouna , a teen_age french girl of moroccan descent , reveals that a ''lascar'' is a guy and ''fatal'' is fantastic . boys talk of a ''passeport'' for a condom , ''kiffer'' for loving and ' 'dunker'' from basketball for smashing somebody . several of these expressions would not be widely understood in central paris . the spread of alienated suburbs matters particularly to the french because the revolution and the republic and their universal resonance were about the equal rights of citizens . indeed , the schoolteacher was the model republican figure , the person whose instruction turned waves of italian , spanish , portuguese , polish and other immigrants into french citizens . that system now appears to be cracking , and its decomposition is evident in the tours suburb of la rabaterie a drab expanse of crumbling five story apartment blocks that make the nearby chateaus of the loire appear infinitely distant . la rabaterie was built , like many poor suburbs , by north_african immigrants in the boom years of the 1960 's . unemployment then stood at 1 percent and france was in the midst of what is now nostalgically recalled as ''les trentes glorieuses'' the 30 glorious postwar years . la rabaterie now houses the jobless children of those algerian and moroccan workers . unemployed kids chant rap lyrics like ''what are we waiting for to light the fire what are we waiting for to no longer follow the rules of the game ? '' here , on oct . 23 , 1996 , a 22 year old frenchman of algerian descent , mohammed boucetta , was found in a coma with a bullet in his head . that led to a series of events that illustrated france 's current malaise . anger among mr . boucetta 's north_african friends that no assailant was arrested exploded into rioting the rioting was then apparently compounded when agents from the national front sought to exploit the situation to gain votes . the unrest started a week after mr . boucetta was found . shop windows were smashed . more than 40 cars were burned . the chaos lasted for four nights . after the first night , tracts distributed by the national front began to appear . some , emblazoned with the party 's torch symbol , attributed the vandalism to the ''immigration policies'' of governments of the left and and now of the right . ''with us , foreign delinquents will be sent back to their countries and french people will have priority for jobs , '' one said . others contained such messages as ''why do rats wear roller skates in tours ? to clean out the garbage_cans faster than the arabs . '' or ''what do you do when you see an arab on a mobylette ? run after it because it 's yours . '' those were found beside the national front tracts , but without the party 's symbol . to one of mr . boucetta 's friends , youssef sana , who is 27 and the son of immigrants from oran in northern algeria , there is no doubt that his friend was a victim of racist violence . ''we are at war here in the suburbs , '' mr . sana said . ''and we , the children of algerians , are already losers . it 's apartheid we do n't even figure in the system . ''if mohammed were a white french boy , the case would have been solved long ago . '' more than three months later , the police say the boucetta case remains a mystery . but michel mesmin , a local municipal official , said it now seemed clear that if the first night of violence was a spontaneous expression of outrage from the youth 's friends , the others were mainly the work of what he called ''provocateurs'' from the national front . ''the only thing that is really clear from all this , '' he said , ''is we are an increasingly uneasy society , haunted by specters . '' the paralysis out of touch and out of ideas that unease appears to be linked partly to the rigidity of a highly centralized system . france 's superb technocrats , who planned and managed the country 's remarkable reconstruction after world_war_ii , appear overtaken by the global economy , ill adapted by their formal training to its challenges . its labor_unions , parading the rags of an exhausted socialist dream , often seem equally fossilized . its political class is widely seen as a group of cloned eggheads mr . chirac , mr . juppe and the foreign_minister , herve de charette , all went to the same elite school out of touch with a population that consistently gives the president and prime_minister approval_ratings in the 25 to 30 percent range . at the same time , because socialism was long the source of idealism in france the sustenance of left bank intellectuals and a strong labor movement and that idealism was simply exhausted by the 14 year rule of francois_mitterrand that ended in 1995 , the country has found itself suddenly bereft of any meaningful ideological debate . a slogan of mr . mitterrand 's second seven year term was ''ni ni'' neither nationalization nor privatization . it translated into internal paralysis . it appears that it may now take the french left several years to fashion a new message for the electorate . france suffers in this void . it is a country traditionally driven by politics rather than economics to be deprived of a political dialectic is as painful as being deprived of wine . ''we have no more clear political markers , '' said christiane laporte , a headmistress . ''we feel lost . '' this sense of loss is evident in france 's reluctance to adopt the new . it is a society where fewer than 15 percent of homes have personal_computers and fewer than 1 percent are connected to the internet , figures well below not only the united_states but also france 's european neighbors . opening the new national_library in december , mr . chirac discovered the computer ' 'mouse'' for the first time and gazed at it in wonder . mr . chirac has spoken dismissively of the internet as ''an anglo_saxon network , '' although he did meet with bill gates this month . it is not surprising , then , that mr . liautaud and his partner denis payre of business objects are scarcely national celebrities . yet the extraordinary success of their company , which makes a software that sifts data in order to further corporate decision making , has thrown a sharp spotlight on many of france 's problems . ''what i realized in america was that there is a technological revolution going in , '' mr . payre said . ''today , i look at france our great conceptual thinkers and lousy doers , our brilliant engineers and lousy marketers , our risk averse culture that if you fail once it 's all over and i wonder if we 're not simply going to miss out on tomorrow . '' in 1982 france began offering people video terminals that were connected electronically to a phone line , allowing the transmission of text and simple images . the system , known as minitel , gave the country the lead in the race toward the information society . but it was never effectively marketed outside france and never taken much further . today it is outdated . business objects sought to build on this lesson . rather than concentrating on the french market , it immediately sought to expand worldwide . rather than relying simply on a good product , it opted for aggressive marketing . and in the place of the security of a state owned job , it presented employees with stock options that gave them a financial stake in the company 's success . at the other end of the spectrum from mr . liautaud stands lawrence bricogne . at 30 , he is four years younger than the entrepreneur and he has a qualification in computer sciences from a technical school , but he has not worked for almost a decade . he has a small paris apartment bought for him by his mother , a piano , a television , a personal computer and an answering_machine . he recently sold his car . every month , like about one million other french people , he collects what is known as the r.m.i . the acronym for the ' 'minimum revenue for insertion . '' it amounts to about 400 it is what the french_state reserves for those not receiving any other unemployment_benefits . ''the r.m.i . allows me not to work , '' mr . bricogne said . ''it 's bizarre it 's probably unhealthy . without the r.m.i. , i would have taken a job some time ago a night watchman , or a kitchen job in a restaurant . something menial . '' many artists in paris who once , like george orwell , did such jobs to survive now collect the r.m.i . instead . this rmiste ( pronounced air meest ) , as people like him are known , considered his situation and then added ''but i still prefer the french system to the american . everybody envies us our social_security . '' the r.m.i . was introduced a decade ago . it was supposed to encourage the ''insertion'' into society of the jobless by committing people to prove they were looking , or training , for jobs . but genevieve monnot , who works with the unemployed at the paris city administration , said only about 10 percent of rmistes were certain to find jobs . ''many are now just too far from society , '' she said . mr . chirac has recently tried to lay out a french ''alternative'' in which the energy of mr . liautaud and the solidarity that protects mr . bricogne are somehow married . official calls for a more entrepreneurial_spirit and streamlined state have been spiced with criticism of anglo_saxon ''flexibility'' in the workplace deemed antisocial . but this hodgepodge has fallen far short of the galvanizing message that french people habitually await from their leader in this , the most monarchical of republics . it has left the country hurtling toward union with europe even as a bloated state , overarching welfare , and cash hemorrhaging state companies like air_france and the credit_lyonnais bank make the competitive demands of europe and its german dictated budget discipline hard to meet . since succeeding mr . mitterrand in mid 1995 , mr . chirac has tried to battle the national front by embarking on long delayed reforms of the army , the justice system , social_security , pensions , state companies that are intended to give the country new momentum and adjust it to the realities of the end of the millennium . on a trip to tokyo in december , mr . chirac spent his time hustling to sell everything from french apples to airbus planes . for the man who personifies ''la gloire de la france , '' it was a considerable step . charles de gaulle , who stood for a ''certain idea of france , '' its civilizing mission and majesty , once dismissed the japanese as transistor salesmen . times change . gaullist grandeur no longer feeds the people . the numbers in france are not good and capital and jobs , in the global village , are not much interested in a ''certain idea of france . '' france cannot afford its welfare_state but is unwilling to abandon it . it has proved unable to create jobs even as the united_states for all its ' 'downsizing'' has created more than 10 million since 1993 . but it is loath to ease the mandatory health and social_security contributions that make hiring prohibitively_expensive . the minimum monthly wage here is about 5 , 000 francs , or 912 , but after mandatory contributions for pensions , health coverage and unemployment_benefits have been paid by employers and employees , it amounts to about 8 , 200 francs , or 1 , 518 . thus 36 percent of the wage cost comes from social insurance payments , compared with about 10 percent in america . french and international companies , many of which can now shift jobs to portugal or indonesia , have shown a growing reluctance to hire , particularly as dismissing anyone is , in the words of one paris based international economist , ''long , tedious and expensive . '' the arithmetic of france 's unrivaled social_security net is also bleak . already facing annual deficits of about 10 billion , the social_security budget will face enormous pressure as the number of pensioners increases from 12 million to 17 . 3 million during the next two decades , while the active population scarcely grows , according to official forecasts . yet labor_unions have recently suggested lowering the retirement age to 55 from 60 , in line with a government sponsored settlement reached last year with striking truck drivers . they have also mounted a bitter attack on proposals to introduce american style private pension_funds , saying they will lead to a system ''of every man for himself . '' similar resistance has met the beginnings of attempts to reform the cash guzzling state that has inspired generations of french parents to dream of their offspring becoming not doctors or lawyers but ''fonctionnaires . '' public spending here accounts for almost 60 percent of total national output , compared with an average of of 40 percent in major industrialized_countries . the crossroads sagging energy and hesitation as its domestic woes have deepened , france 's international policy has become more aggressive and more strident in its aspersions on the united_states . mr . chirac has recently argued forcibly for the euro as the only way for europe to ''fight effectively against american hegemony . '' and he has pressed unsuccessfuly for french command of nato 's mediterranean flank as a symbol of european emancipation from american military tutelage . the impact of all this on french american relations has been little short of poisonous . ''they want an original foreign_policy but they have recently gone a little overboard , '' said a senior american diplomat . ''we have been through a trough , a very aggravated period . '' france stands at a crossroads . full nato integration or the preservation of a uniquely french membership ? real market reform privatization , private pension_funds , a shareholding culture or preservation of the highly centralized , state heavy french welfare model ? america as firm friend or threatening purveyor of an undifferentiated global culture ? a european currency and a real commitment to building a federal united states of europe or the temptations of the national front 's nationalism ? hesitating before these choices , france quite palpably sags . to go to london or berlin today is to feel how flat , how lacking in energy , paris has become . the sense of living in a museum becomes almost tangible . ''we want to be an alternative , to show that if nobody resists america any more , at least we will , '' said the sociologist jean baudrillard . ''the problem is that because we are not sure which model to embody , we tend to offer simply inertia . '' what is left ? europe and the extraordinary postwar french reconciliation with its old enemy , germany . but this does not yet move the french as they want to be moved . the yearning for some uplifting solution persists and makes france far less predictable than germany or britain , as the national front 's victory this weekend underscores . the country is deeply unrequited , susceptible to a political lurch . the republic was founded on ideas ''liberty , equality , fraternity'' and the last two words retain a lingering resonance . wealth , personal enrichment , is still considered a dubious measure of success . such views are unfashionable , feeble dikes to the global tide , but they are a deep part of french culture . therein lies a profound problem the distinctiveness of france no longer has much international resonance . mr . chirac said this month that france should be ''exemplary , '' but candidates for its depressed example are hard to find . ''the ego is greedy , it needs to be nourished , '' said marek halter , a writer . ''but the french ego is not being nourished these days . that is dangerous and that is why i feel that anything could happen . '' liberty , equality , anxiety a special report .",has a topic of technology
"for the last 10 years , the hans and the lins have lived together under the same roof as distant relatives and dear friends . they raised their two rambunctious sons together . they bought their small brick house together . but now the house is divided in more ways than one between hans on the left side , and lins on the right . it is hard to see the families sharing anything other than dagger glances ever again , because of a summertime tragedy reminiscent of ''lord of the flies . '' in june the hans' only son , han zhixiang , 9 , drowned in a swirling , but far from turbulent , river near this town , as the lins' only son , lin qiang , 12 , and several other boys watched , without helping . that much is agreed , but the rest is not clear cut . according to the han family , lin qiang ordered the others to hide han zhixiang 's clothes and keep their mouths shut . they say he even contemplated burning the body . so a few weeks ago , the hans did something that has become more natural in china they sued their friends for damages . the story of the hans and the lins is emblematic of how ordinary citizens are developing a litigious itch to resolve the kind of disputes that used to be handled informally in places like xianyang , a town of 10 , 000 in fujian_province . while people once dismissed the courts as corrupt and biased , many chinese now believe that the brand of justice being meted out can be fair and reliable . they hope the courts may also be able to resolve social rifts that otherwise could lead to a generation or more of mistrust . ''i saw on television that lawyers can help you get justice , and make people take individual responsibility for their actions , '' said deng yundong , an uncle of han zhixiang 's , whose family had never before met a lawyer , let alone stepped into a courtroom , before this summer . ''i 've heard that the legal system has improved a lot , so we have a lot of faith in it . '' so , too , does ma meiju , lin qiang 's mother . but she feels cautiously confident that her son 's defense that the death was purely an accident will prevail . ''i do n't know what 's in their hearts , but i think they just want the money , '' ms . ma said . the case pitting the han family against the parents of lin qiang and another boy , nie dao erhuang , 9 , began in august . it comes at a time when more chinese , rural and urban , have become accustomed to the nuances of civil cases through news reports , web_sites and pop_culture . the number of ''personal rights'' cases , of which civil cases are one important component , more than tripled from 1992 , to 11 , 763 cases in 2000 , said minxin pei , senior associate and co director of the china program at the carnegie endowment for international peace in washington . in the 1992 movie ''the story of qiuju , '' a peasant woman sues a local official for kicking her husband . and a few years ago , chinese television began broadcasting ''legal report , '' a_20 minute daily program that often focuses on workers suing employers or government agencies . ''before , a lot of people did n't know anything about the law , '' said lu jun , general_manager of shanghai fashang information science and technology , which produces a web_site that provides legal services and information . ''but now , they have a lot more confidence in the legal system as a way to protect the people , and strengthen social order . it 's a very good thing for china . '' han bangsun , the father of han zhixiang , has become a quick study . during a break in the trial , mr . han approached a reporter and pulled out a copy of an aug . 13 article in the official people 's daily . it was about a boy in henan_province who drowned last summer in the company of older boys . the boy 's parents sued the other families for failing to protect the boy . this summer , the court awarded the plaintiffs roughly 730 a princely sum here . ''it 's the same case as ours , so i 'm confident we can win , '' said mr . han , a 38 year old construction_worker . in an interview , the hans suggested that their son , who they said could not even swim , was lured to the river by lin qiang , the leader of the pack . and , had the boys at the scene simply cried for help , the hans' lawyers argued in court , han zhixiang might have been rescued . but because the boys did not tell anyone what had happened , his body was not found until four hours after he disappeared , about a half mile downriver . a few days after the drowning on june 15 , the lins and the nies , despondent , scraped together 365 from friends and relatives the equivalent of what the lins make annually from selling produce on the street . they delivered it to the hans for the funeral expenses . the hans accepted the money , and even signed some papers acknowledging the gift . but a few hours later , the hans returned most of the money . and the next month , they filed a lawsuit demanding more than 3 , 100 in compensation . ''we 're not doing this for the money , '' mr . han said . ''we 're doing this to get justice . '' after a three and a half hour hearing , the three judge panel announced that it needed more time to weigh the evidence . it still has not ruled . the families no longer talk to each other . they barely look at each other . in fact , if one family 's door is open , the other keeps its door shut . perhaps it was not surprising , then , that after a reporter met for an hour with the hans , huang juju , nie dao erhuang 's mother , called and tried to get the last dig in . ''are you done with them yet ? '' she asked . ''all you 'll hear from them are lies . ''",has a topic of technology
"in a stunning example of growing concern over technology and privacy in the workplace , the los_angeles times has recalled a foreign correspondent from its moscow bureau for snooping into the electronic mail of his colleagues . the correspondent , michael hiltzik , a well regarded journalist who joined the times 's moscow bureau in august , is being reassigned to an undetermined position in los_angeles as a disciplinary_action , editors and reporters at the newspaper said . although computer experts have warned that the proliferation of electronic mail throughout corporate america poses a threat to employees' privacy , mr . hiltzik 's reassignment is one of the few times that such a high ranking employee has been disciplined for reading his co workers' electronic mail . lack of adequate safeguards electronic mail systems , known as e mail , allow employees to send electronic messages , either personal or work related , to each other via computers . a few companies have taken great steps to protect the privacy of such messages , which typically require a password to retrieve . at some companies , reading another person 's electronic mail is a violation of corporate ethics and may result in dismissal . nancy nielsen , a spokeswoman for the new york times , said that all new employees were warned not to read the electronic mail of their co workers and that doing so "" would result in receiving the appropriate disciplinary_action . "" privacy experts say , however , that many companies do not have adequate safeguards to prevent employees from determining the passwords of co workers and gaining access to their electronic mail . and some companies reserve the right to monitor electronic messages to keep tabs on their employees . asked about the snooping incident last week , editors of the los_angeles times declined to comment . in addition to mr . hiltzik , the times lists three other moscow correspondents on the masthead of its world report section richard boudreaux , sonni efron , and carey goldberg . a los_angeles times senior editor with knowledge of the incident but who spoke on condition of anonymity said that the decision to recall mr . hiltzik came after he was caught reading the electronic mail of another moscow correspondent in a sting_operation set up by the paper . mr . hiltzik could not be reached for comment . reporters became suspicious correspondents in the times moscow bureau became suspicious when they discovered that their passwords had been entered into the computer system at times when they had not been using the computer , journalists close to the bureau said . the newspaper 's computer system keeps a record of each time an employee uses his password to log onto the system . in the paper 's sting_operation , two electronic messages containing false information were sent from a correspondent in the times 's jerusalem bureau to a correspondent in the moscow bureau . mr . hiltzik intercepted those messages and later inquired verbally about their content at the moscow bureau , the journalists said . it could not be learned exactly how mr . hiltzik obtained the passwords necessary for him to gain access to his colleagues' electronic mail . it is also uncertain what position mr . hiltzik will take when he returns to los_angeles early next year .",has a topic of technology
"standard driver 's licenses would be replaced by an electronic card that could store information including insurance records and credit_card accounts under a bill approved by committees in the senate and assembly yesterday . under the bill , the state would issue the so called smart cards starting in july 1999 as motorists renewed their licenses . the cards would cost 35 and would expire in 10 years , rather than the current 4 . starting in march 2000 , the state would offer space on the cards to government agencies and private companies like banks and credit_card agencies . however , residents would be allowed to use the cards only as a license . supporters said the cards would be an efficient and convenient use of technology . but david rocah , a staff lawyer for the american_civil_liberties_union , said the cards could threaten privacy by making it easier for the government and businesses to collect and share personal information . ''there is no doubt that the technology could be used to make life more convenient , '' mr . rocah said . ''the question is at what cost ? '' the bill now goes to the budget committees in both houses . metro news briefs new jersey",has a topic of technology
"jet_lag may be an inevitable part of international travel , but another unpleasant aspect waiting in line at passport control will soon be bypassed by some people flying into london . instead , they will gain entry to britain by directing their eyes toward a camera . last week the eyeticket corporation announced that a trial program of a system using iris scanning technology to identify passengers would begin this fall at heathrow_airport . the trial of what the company calls its jetstream passenger processing system will involve up to 2 , 000 american and canadian passengers on british_airways and virgin_atlantic_airways flights into heathrow . passengers will initially have to enroll and have their irises scanned at either of the carriers' airport based clubs at heathrow . to scan the iris , the colored part of the eye surrounding the pupil , a special camera trains infrared light on the passenger from just 14 inches away . an image of the iris is encoded into a 512 byte code that is stored on a server . the next time the passenger lands at heathrow , he will proceed to a special line in the passport control area of the airline terminal and stand before the jetstream camera . the camera takes another image of the passenger 's iris , converts it to code and compares it with codes stored on the server 's database to find a match . no passport need be shown . bill willis , chief technology officer at iridian technologies in moorestown , n.j. , which licenses the iris scanning technology to eyeticket , said that it held certain advantages over other biometrics applications like facial recognition and digitized fingerprints . most important is its high level of detail , which is vital for verifying the identities of people in high security environments like airports . ''the iris has more information in the infrastructure of its organ than any other component of the body , '' he said . the iris has about 240 unique areas , known as ' 'degrees of freedom , '' that can be used to search a database to identify someone , whereas a face has about 80 degrees of freedom and a fingerprint has 20 to 40 , he said . the jetstream system will recognize an individual 's iris regardless of lighting conditions and whether the person is wearing glasses or contact_lenses or squinting , mr . willis said . ''if we do n't get a good picture of your eye , we 'll tell you to open your eye , or move backward or forward , '' he said . eyeticket has tested iris recognition in other airports , but only with airline and airport employees . u.s . airways employees in charlotte , n.c. , for example , are using a similar eyeticket product , called eyepass , to gain entry to secure areas . another employee trial is under way at the airport in frankfurt . arrangements between eyeticket and immigration agencies will vary as the product develops and is introduced to other airports , said stewart mann , chairman and chief executive of eyeticket , based in mclean , va . ''when you 're doing passport control , you have to be sensitive to the governing authority , which in this case is the united_kingdom immigration service , '' mr . mann said . ''we 're giving them the tools and letting them have the input into how it 's managed . '' eyeticket and the international air transport association , the airline_industry trade_association , will conduct and finance the trial , which is expected to last six months . eyeticket will also program jetstream to allow passenger check in at heathrow . the jetstream system is designed to link with existing airline databases so that when a passenger checks in , frequent_flier numbers , flight and seat numbers and other information can be retrieved along with the iris identification . ''the amount of time and aggravation that you save passengers by giving them a fast track access is just awesome , '' said evan smith , senior vice_president of eyeticket . iris recognition , which was developed in 1994 by john daugman , a computer scientist at cambridge_university , is a relatively new area of biometrics technology . and like other biometrics technologies that face hurdles involving precision and user friendliness , it has its problems . some biometrics experts , including dr . jim wayman , director of the biometric test center at san jose state university , question the speed at which any iris recognition system can run . ( eyeticket says that jetstream can identify someone in less than two seconds . ) ''with any biometrics application , you need cooperative users , adjustable equipment and trained operators , and these are big things , '' dr . wayman said . ''it 's clear it 's going to take many seconds , if not tens of seconds , to get people through the system , and the passenger will probably need to adjust themselves to the system by moving their head back and forth . '' dr . wayman also raised the possibility that certain contoured contact_lenses would pose problems . and he pointed out that some people have difficulty focusing their eyes on a specific point , which might make it difficult to obtain an image . the cost of installing and operating an iris recognition system may be another barrier , especially since the benefits to airlines and airports have not yet crystallized . ''what is it replacing , how would it expedite things and who pays for it are the biggest problems , '' dr . wayman said . the airline_industry has generally been slow to adopt biometrics , and there is no clear leader among the eye , face or fingerprint technologies for processing passengers or limiting access to secure areas . the most visible and longest lasting biometrics program to date is inspass , which since 1996 has used hand geometry to distinguish american and canadian citizens , foreign diplomats and foreign airline employees from other passengers at several airports in the united_states , including kennedy international airport and miami airport . but the program is small , with just 65 , 000 travelers enrolled so far . industry experts say that more trial runs like jetstream 's are needed to broaden the public 's experience with biometrics . ''because there are so many different needs , it will be a combination of technologies to improve service , '' said rick norton , executive director of the international biometrics industry association , a trade group in washington . ''everyone is moving along in their thinking as to how this is going to be implemented , and i 'm sure you 'll see more trials like this in the next six to nine months . '' what's next",has a topic of technology
"on oct . 16 , the day she died , liu zhongxia was riding in her onion cart when it scraped a sedan . usually her death would have gotten little attention . but in a country increasingly divided between rich and poor , a detail stood out the sedan was a bmw . mrs . liu was a peasant . the driver of the bmw , su xiuwen , is the wife of a businessman . the initial scrape was minor , but after a confrontation , mrs . su drove the car into mrs . liu . the trial in december lasted less than two hours , with mrs . su receiving a suspended_sentence . the death was ruled an accident . and that would have ended it , except for two things . first , the ''bmw case'' tapped into sharp class resentments emerging in this communist country , which long espoused a classless society . and second , that anger was able to coalesce in what is becoming an increasingly influential court of appeals in china the internet , which boiled with online outrage . this week , in a rare step , officials here announced an investigation into possible judicial corruption in the case , state media reported . there is already speculation that mrs . su could face a harsher verdict , a result that would appease the online critics but could also set an uneasy precedent for reformers trying to establish a genuine rule of law in china . ''if the case involved a tractor , i 'm sure it would n't have attracted any attention , '' said qu wenyong , dean of the sociology department at heilongjiang university in harbin . ''but it involved a bmw , which symbolizes wealth and power . people immediately associated it with the gap between rich and poor . '' that yawning gap is a fundamental contradiction of china 's economic boom . wealth is pouring in , swelling the middle_class , yet hundreds of millions still live in poverty . here in the northeast , once the country 's industrial center but now mired in unemployment , it is not hard to find class bitterness rubbed raw by the case . ''we ordinary people have to obey the laws , '' said a taxi_driver . mrs . su , he said , does not ''she has the power . she has the privilege . she can drive wildly . '' initially , the accident barely attracted attention outside harbin . that day , mrs . liu 's husband , dai yiquan , accidentally bumped their onion cart into the side of the bmw , pushing the car about three feet . mr . dai , interviewed at his small village home outside harbin , said mrs . su jumped out and began hitting him . then , after bystanders intervened , she returned to the car , apparently to back up . but she unexpectedly drove forward , crushing mrs . liu and injuring several others . the car crashed to a halt against a tree . ''my wife was dragged for six or seven meters , '' mr . dai said . he said he tried to lift her right arm but it was broken . he saw blood coming out of her mouth . ''people said she was already dead , '' he recalled . ''i was just dumbfounded . '' the question at trial was whether mrs . su had intentionally tried to harm mrs . liu or had simply mistakenly put the car into first gear instead of reverse . the trial was notable for its lack of eyewitnesses , though many saw the incident . mrs . su 's husband admitted that he had paid more than 20 , 000 a huge amount of money in rural china to people who were injured , which may explain why none testified at the hearing . one of them was mr . dai , who said he had received almost 10 , 000 , roughly eight years' wages . he said he did not even attend the trial . ''i just want peace for my family , '' a weary mr . dai said as one of his two daughters listened . ''i do n't care about the verdict and whether it is justice or not . '' but china 's ''netcitizens'' cared very much . editors at sina . com , the country 's most popular web_site , said that after the verdict , more than 200 , 000 messages were posted to chat_rooms , many suggesting corruption was to blame . a spate of stories in the media fueled their anger . before the verdict , newspapers in harbin covered the case lightly afterward , reporters from outside the province swept in . some stories speculated that mrs . su was connected to a politically powerful family . others quoted mr . dai accusing mrs . su of intentionally trying to harm his wife . guo liang , a scholar with the chinese_academy_of_social_sciences who studies the role of the internet in chinese society , said the case was the latest example of the net 's growing influence . he said internet protests of a beating death last year that involved police officers helped prompt a change in national detention laws . the net also became a primary source of information during the initial sars outbreak . mr . guo noted that while most internet users are china 's urban elite , he recently finished a study showing that poorer , more rural residents are increasingly online , renting time at internet cafes for as little as 12 cents an hour . ''this platform has really changed the situation in china , because everybody can write something , '' he said . ''they just log on to sina . com and read all kinds of newspapers . and the fascinating thing for them is , they get to leave their comments . '' but there are definitely limits . the government methodically arrests internet ' 'dissidents'' and tightly monitors postings about sensitive political subjects , like tibet , taiwan and falun_gong , the banned spiritual movement . government censors can tolerate unexpected subjects like the bmw case for weeks undoubtedly using them to gauge public opinion only to shut them down abruptly . chinese newspaper reporters and online editors say censors did just that late wednesday in the bmw case . newspapers were told to stop reporting and links to the case were erased from sina . com . no public explanation was given . the role of the internet is particularly complicated for those working to reform china 's legal system . some analysts applaud the light that online scrutiny can sometimes shine on the justice system , yet worry about its influence on legal rulings , particularly when fact and rumor can so easily get mixed . meng fanxu , a lawyer in harbin , cautioned that people who had not read the transcripts of the bmw case should not become the equivalent of judges , even the thousands of angry ones on the internet . ''if used properly , the internet can promote justice and the rule of law , '' mr . meng said . but if ''carried too far , and in a blind manner , it may disturb judicial justice and mislead the public to mistrust the law . '' guan mingbo , mrs . su 's husband , says the internet has victimized his family . he said online speculation that his late father was a prominent provincial politician was unfounded he was a government clerk . mr . guan , who owns a development company , said he paid money to mr . dai and others as an apology , and to help cover medical and funeral costs . ''my family has become the victims of the internet and the newspapers , '' mr . guan said in a telephone interview . ''it has gotten me in turbulent waters . '' asked about suggestions of his wealth and connections , mr . guan said ''i am a common person , too . '' his wife , he said , was not a murderer , just a bad driver who did not know how to handle a car . in fact , he told state media , he used connections at the local traffic authority to get her a license in 1997 . otherwise , he said , she would not have been able to pass the test .",has a topic of technology
"computer security experts are trying to track and warily watching for the next move of a wily computer extortionist who last month demanded 100 , 000 from an internet music retailer and then , when his threat was rejected , began posting stolen credit_card numbers on the internet . in e mail messages sent to reporters over the weekend , the extortionist said he intended to re establish a clandestine web_site that for two weeks had been dispensing credit_cards he said were stolen from cd universe , an internet music retailer based in wallingford , conn . the messages were from a person who said he was based in russia and who identified himself as maxus , maxim and pi2000 . a number of security experts said that , depending on the extortionist 's skill , tracking him through the internet could present a formidable challenge . one researcher who has been trying to track him said that despite the extortionist 's identifying himself as a russian , his e mail program indicated that he was in a country one time zone to the west of russia , probably in eastern_europe . but e mail messages sent to reporters over the weekend came from the computer server of a small design company in paris , suggesting that the extortionist was using masking techniques to hide his true internet location . in december , rather than paying the extortion demand , cd universe contacted the f.b.i . and tried to maintain an e mail conversation with the credit_card thief in an effort to trace his location . the illegal credit_card site was secretly established on the computers of an internet_service in kirkland , wash . , on christmas day . the site enabled world_wide_web computer users to view and copy stolen credit_card numbers that the thief said were stolen from cd universe . more than 25 , 000 card numbers were downloaded from the site before it was shut down . the computer security expert who received the first tip from the extortionist said today that he expected the credit_card information to show up at new internet locations . ''he will probably find another location to dispense the stolen information , '' said elias levy , chief technology officer for securityfocus . com , a computer security firm in san_francisco . ''we 'll also probably see information about the new site being passed around within the computer underground . '' the attack comes as the clinton_administration has been pushing to expand sharply the ability of law enforcement to respond both to computer crime and terrorism . last week , the administration introduced a proposal to increase spending by 280 million to build networks of surveillance systems to protect government computers and train a new corps of high tech cyberwarriors to fight a new kind of electronic warfare . in a speech at stanford_university today before the national association of attorneys general , attorney_general janet_reno proposed a national crime fighting network , to be called lawnet , intended to link law enforcement officials and share information , intelligence and equipment in an effort to match what she described as the ' 'dark side'' of the internet . ms . reno also emphasized new initiatives by the administration for international cooperation to fight crime taking place over the internet . ''the whole concept of the globalization of crime is making this work difficult , '' she said . ''the cybercriminals should get the message that there is no safe place to hide just because they are halfway around the world . ''",has a topic of technology
"kevin asadi , a law student here , admitted he knew little about the referendum on tuesday 's ballot calling for a state constitutional_amendment to allow the names , addresses and photographs of sex_offenders to be posted on the internet . then he read the ballot question and he still knew little about it . ''it 's a little wordy , '' said mr . asadi , 22 , who was out walking near seton_hall law_school , where he is a first year student . ''i 'd have to take another look at it to get the gist . '' the ballot question is one of two almost incomprehensibly legalistic proposals to amend the state constitution that new jersey voters will be asked to decipher today . the other asks whether the state should dedicate hundreds of millions of dollars a year in sales_taxes and taxes on wholesale petroleum products to state transportation projects over four years . in recognition of the difficulty voters may have with the questions' legalese , each is followed by an interpretive statement a translation , in effect from the state attorney_general , john j . farmer jr . constitutional amendments are necessary for both measures , though some critics have questioned whether even an amendment will allow the state to distribute information on sex_offenders more widely . the state supreme_court has already ruled that widespread dissemination of that information originally proposed under the state 's so called megan 's law would violate the offenders' privacy rights as currently protected by the state constitution . the united_states_supreme_court has also agreed to review the law , after a federal appeals panel ruled that it runs counter to the constitution 's protection of privacy . ''regardless of any amendment to the state constitution , the federal right to privacy still exists , '' said lenora lapidus , legal director of the state chapter of the american_civil_liberties_union . steve cook , chief of staff for senator peter a . inverso , the middlesex county republican who sponsored the amendment , said that he believed that the united_states_supreme_court would allow the posting of offenders' names , and that a state amendment would simply expedite the process of putting the information online . ''we 're just putting the ducks in a row , so to speak , '' he said . it has not been decided exactly which sex_offenders would have their names posted online . gov . christine_todd_whitman , who proposed the amendment in march , prefers that information be posted only about offenders belonging to the two most dangerous of the three types classified under the notification law , said her spokeswoman , jayne o'connor . an associated press poll on the ballot question found that most residents planned to vote for it . and although he opposes it on privacy grounds , prof . frank askin , founder of the constitutional litigation clinic at rutgers_university , also predicted its approval . ''people do n't like megan 's law offenders , '' he said . the transportation initiative introduced by the senate president , donald t . difrancesco , who is planning to run for governor next year is a departure of sorts for new jersey , which typically finances large scale projects by issuing bonds . it would dedicate 100 million in petroleum taxes to transportation projects in its first year after passage and 200 million a year after that . sales_taxes would provide 80 million in the first year , then 140 million in the second year , and 200 million annually after that .",has a topic of technology
"one of china 's largest newspapers has filed a lawsuit against one of the country 's leading internet portals claiming that it violated copyright laws , setting off a media war and highlighting the first signs of a possible shift in policies toward intellectual_property_rights here . in the suit , which was filed in october and is expected to go to court soon , the newspaper , the beijing news , is seeking 400 , 000 in damages from a popular internet site called tom . com , alleging that it has copied and republished more than 25 , 000 articles and photos without authorization since 2003 . china has long had the reputation as a sort of no man 's land for intellectual_property_rights , with companies in virtually every industry freely copying designs and other content from foreign companies and domestic rivals with little fear of punishment . the lawsuit , however , is headed to court at a time of accelerating legal change and signs of increased efforts by law enforcement to protect copyrights and intellectual_property . it is also a critical time for china 's newspaper industry , which grew explosively in the last decade or so but now faces an even faster growing rival internet based news_media . now , as in the united_states and many other countries , with computer use and broadband access booming here , newspapers are losing readers to large , corporate owned web_sites . what had set china apart from much of the rest of the world until recently was that these web_sites faced no legal obstacles in copying material from newspapers , often wholesale . ''there is a very brutal competition between newspapers with seven or eight big ones just in beijing and now a big , new player , the internet , wants to wipe them all out , to change the landscape , '' said yu guofu , a lawyer who specializes in intellectual_property . ''the press is leading a hard life and facing an unpleasant future , but it has decided it is better to protect its rights than just sit and wait to die . '' according to one recent study , newspaper readership in china has declined sharply in the last three years , with the number of people who say they read a newspaper at least once a week falling to 22 percent last year from 26 percent in 2003 . a major presumed cause for the decline is that big internet content providers , or portals , have become one stop sources for all manner of information , including news , entertainment and blogs . until recently , the general practice for most portals was to lift news and other information directly from other sources , sometimes crediting the original source and sometimes not , but rarely paying for the information . the beijing news lawsuit was filed a little more than a year after a meeting of major newspaper publishers in nanjing at which strategies were discussed to shore up the industry 's base and combat the leeching of content and readers by internet companies . ''in terms of the law , things are quite clear , that tom 's use of beijing news 's work without authorization clearly violates beijing news 's copyrights , '' said yu guoming , dean of the school of journalism at renmin university in beijing . ''there are lots and lots of cases very similar to this one , but with this lawsuit , the traditional media is sending a very clear signal to the electronic_media that their free lunch is over . '' a spokesman for tom . com , tu jianglu , denied any violations . ''as a big company we respect copyright and property rights , '' he said . ''i can only say that there are other facts that make this more complicated . '' the beijing news declined to comment on the lawsuit . until recently , china 's laws have generally been anything but clear on intellectual_property , and have made it difficult to win a suit over an alleged infringement . such an environment may have served china 's needs earlier in its industrial takeoff , when its industries were straining to catch up with the west . the battle in the news_media reflects part of a shift in the intellectual_property landscape as china 's growing place in world trade has brought strong new pressures to rein in wholesale piracy . many of the country 's largest internet companies , for example , are listed on foreign stock_exchanges , making them liable for lawsuits filed abroad . zhang xin , a spokesman for sohu . com , a leading portal , said , ''we 've signed agreements with over 1 , 000 traditional news organizations in china , which means that if we use their articles or reports , we definitely have reached prior agreement with them . '' an awareness also seems to be taking hold here that chinese companies must build strong brands of their own to succeed and that they cannot do so in an environment where copying goes unpunished . ''to enhance the country 's development we are trying to encourage innovation , '' said xu chao , vice director of the national copyright bureau , a government_agency . ''we are placing more emphasis on intellectual_property , and have made improvements in the law . it used to be possible for traditional media or internet media to simply copy each other 's work , but now this has been forbidden . ''",has a topic of technology
"during a recent violent rainstorm , about 300 soldiers from japan 's self_defense forces were hastily dispatched to mount fuji , where 100 or so heavily armed invaders had seized control of the scenic summit . in the ensuing battle , which lasted two days but went unreported in the news_media , japan 's ground troops proved little match for the well entrenched enemy forces and suffered heavy casualties from intense shelling and hidden minefields . as the brutal conflict unfolded , japanese commanders at a nearby military base watched it live over short_circuit television , monitoring the position and performance of every soldier on computer screens . the skirmish , of course , was a battle simulation . but though the soldiers were real , just about everything else the machine_gun blasts , land_mines , mortars and artillery ignited only within the digital battlefield of an elaborate computer program . it was the computer that informed soldiers , who were equipped with radio headgear and electronic guns , when they had been killed or wounded . the dead were required to stand at attention in the battlefield , while the injured were rushed to a make believe infirmary . ''this was one of the most overwhelming exercises of my career , '' said maj . hiroki fujii , a 17 year veteran of the self_defense forces who commanded the japanese field troops . ''when you see your soldiers being killed and injured one right after the other , it adds a sense of realism to the drill . '' in the more than half century since japan was defeated in world_war_ii and formally renounced military aggression , its armed_forces , which are limited by the constitution to self_defense , have never engaged in real combat . in fact , computerized war games like the recent invasion simulation at mount_fuji are as close as postwar japanese troops have ever come to actual conflict . but thanks to the country 's scientific know how and generous budgets , the self_defense forces have become one of the most technologically_advanced militaries in the world . in recent years , their role has expanded from defending national territory to providing emergency backup to united_states troops stationed in japan , taking part in overseas peacekeeping operations , and responding to natural_disasters like the devastating 1995 earthquake in kobe . as a result , the public image of its armed_forces has never been better . but japan 's self_defense forces are still far from a real military , and it is doubtful that they will ever be because of constitutional restrictions , japan 's deep_rooted pacifism and neighboring countries that have not forgotten the atrocities they suffered under japanese_military occupation . ''in a material sense , japan 's self_defense forces are a full fledged military , '' said shunji toaka , who covers military affairs for the asahi_shimbun , a major daily newspaper . ''we have the weapons and the technology , but for the last 50 years we have had no practical experience in war . we have thousands of guns but we 've never fired any in battle . not one military surgeon has ever treated a soldier with a battle wound . '' under article 9 of the constitution that the united_states imposed on japan after world_war_ii , the japanese people forever renounced war and the threat or use of force . japan has interpreted that clause to mean that its military activities are restricted to defending its territory from attack . as a result , japan has no bombers , no long range missiles and no aircraft_carriers , and , theoretically , no means to project power beyond its own borders . japanese soldiers who take part in international peacekeeping operations are limited to providing logistical and transportation support . with the end of the cold_war , however , and the growing threat of new conflicts in asia , especially involving china and north_korea , more and more japanese are calling for a reinterpretation of the constitution or an amendment to give japan 's armed_forces greater freedom . motoo shiina , a member of parliament who heads an independent party , said the time had come for japan to revise its constitution to clarify exactly what role the self_defense forces would play in the post cold_war era . ''it 's ridiculous that we still are debating this issue after all this time , '' he said . the debate is unlikely to be resolved anytime soon , as the japanese remain deeply divided over expanding the role of the self_defense forces . and the country remains content to rely on its longstanding military alliance with the united_states , which has 45 , 000 troops in japan , to help defend its borders and provide stability to the region . for all the constitutional restrictions and historical sentiments , japan has built its self_defense forces into one of the most powerful armies in asia . its annual military_budget of 45 billion is the second largest in the world after that of the united_states . the size of its forces and the sophistication of its weaponry are roughly equivalent to those of britain , which has an annual defense budget of about 33 billion . japan has about 236 , 000 military personnel , compared with britain 's 220 , 000 . the government spent more than 140 million to develop the battle simulation technology used at mount_fuji . the complex program has an indirect firing system that registers virtual land_mines and mortars and laser_beam machine_guns . each soldier is monitored using a positioning satellite system . in fact , during the mount_fuji drill , the battle was suspended for several hours because a thunderstorm raised fears that lightning might strike the soldiers , who wore heavy electronics and radio gear . ''of course , we cannot reproduce each and every situation that may occur in the actual battlefield , but the major items can be duplicated in these simulations , '' said gen . yuji fujinawa , chairman of the joint staff council for japan 's defense agency . asked what were the major security concerns facing japan , general fujinawa cited the unresolved conflict on the korean_peninsula and territorial disputes . japan has long running disputes with russia and china over the sovereignty of several islands .",has a topic of technology
"as the clinton_administration formally enters the debate about law enforcement surveillance in cyberspace , the british_government is about to enact a law that would give the authorities here broad powers to intercept and decode e mail messages and other communications between companies , organizations and individuals . the measure , which goes further than the american plan unveiled on monday in washington , would make britain the only western democracy where the government could require anyone using the internet to turn over the keys to decoding e mails messages and other data . such a measure would be an important tool for the government because data is increasingly being encrypted for reasons of security and privacy . despite a barrage of criticism from all sides , the bill is likely to become law as it passes through its final stage in the house of lords and returns to the house of commons next week because the labor_government , which offered the plan , holds a wide majority in parliament . government officials maintain that the measure is essential if law enforcement agencies are to combat the sophisticated modern crime that is enhanced by access to the internet , including pedophilia , drug smuggling , money_laundering , terrorism and trafficking in refugees . ''the powers in the bill are necessary and proportionate to the threat posed by 21st_century criminals , no more , no less , '' charles clarke , the home_office official in charge of the bill , said last week . but the measure has had a rocky time in parliament , where lawmakers have vehemently objected to several provisions , including one that would give the government new powers to require internet_service_providers to install ''black box'' surveillance systems that would sort and send a range of data and e mail to a monitoring center controlled by the domestic security service , m.i.5 . such systems are also being used in the united_states by the federal_bureau_of_investigation , where the technology is known as carnivore because it is able to extract the ' 'meat'' quickly from vast quantities of e mail messages and other communications between computers . but one major difference in the british measure is that the authorities here would be able to require companies to install and maintain the black boxes at their own expense and according to technological specifications set out by the government . in addition , to justify such surveillance , the authorities would not be obligated to take elaborate steps to persuade an independent arbiter like a court that a crime had probably been committed . in contrast to the united_states , britain has a tradition of unfettered and often uncontested intrusion by the authorities into citizens' privacy , in the united_states , the f.b.i . must first obtain a search_warrant before using the carnivore technology , which is then installed and maintained by the bureau . under the british plan , failure to turn over a decryption key or to convert encrypted data or messages into plain text could result in a two year prison sentence . although many nations are considering similar bills to deal with encrypted data , only singapore and malaysia have so far enacted them . the legislation would allow the british_government to tap into and monitor electronic communication for a host of reasons , including to protect national_security , to ' 'safeguard the country 's well being , '' and to prevent and detect serious crime . that last , far reaching category might include , for instance , ''a large number of persons in pursuit of a common purpose . '' the measure would not require traditional warrants signed by judges . instead , warrants for e mail surveillance would have to be signed by the home_secretary , who controls a range of domestic and legal matters . other officials , including high ranking police officers , would be empowered to approve requests for encryption keys . the effect of this part of the bill ''can justifiably be described as mass surveillance of internet activities without judicial warrant or adequate oversight , '' according to a report prepared for the british_chambers_of_commerce by a team of professors at the london school of economics and university college london . opponents of the measure in britain represent an extraordinarily diverse interests , ranging from trade_unions and amnesty international to representatives of big_business and newspapers across the political_spectrum . not only does the bill violate basic civil_liberties , they argue , but it would also impose onerous costs on internet_service_providers , subject them to anti competitive restraints , and drive business out of britain . ''this is big brother government realizing that unless they get their act together , technology is going to make them impotent by allowing individuals to bypass the regulations , and the spies , of the state , '' said ian angell , professor of information systems at the london school of economics and a consultant on the recent report . ''i 'm a supporter of the police , and i believe they should be given powers , but there has to be due process , and this bill does n't provide that , '' mr . angell said . ''they 'll be allowed to go on fishing expeditions . '' it is not yet clear how much the measure will cost . the government has put aside 20 million pounds , or 30 million , to help businesses set up the new technology , but as it stands now , internet_service_providers themselves would bear most of the costs of the ''black boxes'' themselves . this provision is roughly akin to asking ' 'manufacturers to pay for the police cars the home_office provides to the police , '' said william roebuck , an executive on the legal advisory group at the e center , a trade_association that studies standards and practices in e_commerce . the london school of economics report estimated that the measure would cost british business some 640 million pounds , or 960 million , over the next five years , a figure that could rise to 46 billion , or 69 billion , when opportunity costs and losses from the economy are included . but mr . roebuck said it was impossible to tell what the final figure would be . ''if internet_service_providers are made to take on board the costs , then the costs will be put through to the consumer , '' he said . ''what 's going to happen is that companies are going to reroute everything away from the u.k . and take their business abroad . '' among the companies that have already said the measure would make them reluctant to do business here is poptel , one of britain 's oldest internet_service_providers . poptel serves the noncommercial sector charities , trade_unions , lobbying organizations and the like and many of its members have serious concerns about the bill 's implications . ''there are a number of our users who come into quite legitimate conflict with the government , '' said shaun fensom , poptel 's chairman , who said he might transfer some of the company 's operations offshore . ''they are concerned that the government could classify some of their legitimate activity as being snoopable . my feeling is that they will want access to at least some kind of secure e mail facility . '' some critics are charging that the measure has been sloppily and hastily drawn up to give the government as broad latitude as possible . ''what this does is contravene a large number of fundamental rights in the european convention on human rights and other international standards , which include the right to privacy , the right to liberty , the right to freedom of expression and the right to freedom of association , '' said halya gowan , a researcher at amnesty international in london . ''as a human_rights organization , our work is based on the confidentiality of statements we take from opponents of governments around the world who are possibly victims of human_rights violations by these governments , '' she said . ''but under this bill , we wo n't be able to guarantee confidentiality anymore . '' the measure , known as the regulation of investigatory powers bill , or r.i.p. , is an effort to extend a 1985 law setting out the government 's powers to intercept and monitor communications across telephone lines to a host of modern technologies , including e mail , web_sites , pagers and cell phones . as it happens , said mr . roebuck of the e center , the government has already quietly been doing many of the things it will now be legally allowed to do . ''they 've already been doing covert surveillance , covertly intercepting e mail , '' he said . ''this gives them a legal basis to do so . '' and the government agrees , in effect , saying it is merely setting out in law the parameters for what it has been doing informally anyway . ''the bill is an important one which does not substantially increase the powers available to the law enforcement and security agencies but will make the u.k . a better and safer place to live for all , '' mr . clarke told the daily_telegraph . some groups say that although they disagree with the nuts and bolts of the bill , they are encouraged that the government is , at last , trying to establish a legal framework for its surveillance activities . ''generally , people should welcome the bill because it provides some kind of system of accountability for interferences with privacy where there has n't been in the past , '' said john wadham , the director of liberty , a civil_liberties group . but that is not good enough , said conor gearty , a professor of human_rights_law at king 's college london . ''the british authorities have a history of engaging in activities outside the law which inflict on people 's privacy or otherwise affect their liberties , and then suddenly saying that the time has come to bring the law into line with practice , '' he said .",has a topic of technology
"lead an international group of scientists is planning to use satellite photography and other sophisticated computer imaging techniques to aid searchers still looking for the remains of 28 passengers in the widely scattered wreckage of a pan am boeing 747 in scotland . an international group of scientists is planning to use satellite photography and other sophisticated computer imaging techniques to aid searchers still looking for the remains of 28 passengers in the widely scattered wreckage of a pan am boeing 747 in scotland . all 259 people aboard the flight and 11 people on the ground were killed when the plane , pan_american_world_airways flight 103 , was blown apart by a bomb over the scottish countryside on dec . 21 . the search for remains by a team of hundreds has been hampered by mountainous terrain , dense forests and poor weather . computer scientists at an oil prospecting company and geologists at syracuse_university are acquiring photographs taken by a reconnaissance satellite launched in a commercial venture sponsored by the french government , and are planning to use them in conjunction with aerial photographs and radar images in an effort to direct searchers to places where wreckage fell . three techniques considered ''we thought that by using computer image analysis we will be able to automate the search and do this much more efficiently , '' said john mcbrearty , a computer specialist at donard united_kingdom , a subsidiary of the donard oil and gas exploration company in the united_states . the satellite , known by its french acronym spot , is orbiting more than 500 miles above earth and has a maximum resolving power capable of detecting objects that are about 30 feet in diameter . he said the researchers were exploring the use of three techniques subtractive processing of satellite photographic data to look for changes in the terrain , infrared photography to spot damaged vegetation and special radar to detect pieces of metal in dense pine forests . computer simulation the subtractive processing approach uses computers to process the satellite images taken before and after the crash and search for changes in the two images . the special radar , known as synthetic aperture radar , involves sending ultra high frequency radio signals toward a target and then detecting the echo reflected back . the result is a highly detailed image offering the illusion of three dimensions . it is especially effective in detecting metal objects on the ground , since they are highly reflective and tend to show up as a bright spot . mr . mcbrearty said that researchers had performed a computer simulation in an effort to determine where it might be most useful to search for wreckage . the researchers said they were attempting to persuade the united_states_government to assist in their search , by providing access to higher quality satellite images of scotland or by using a national_aeronautics_and_space_administration er 2 surveillance_aircraft to take high altitude photographs of the region . united_states intelligence gathering organizations have satellites with many times the resolution of civilian satellites . a spokesman for senator daniel_patrick_moynihan , democrat of new york , said that the senator was trying to help the researchers by making sure they were in contact with the responsible government officials . syracuse role coincidental geologists at syracuse_university said that they were prepared to use sophisticated image processing computers to analyze photographic data as soon as it becomes available . among those killed on the pan am jumbo_jet were 35 students on overseas programs sponsored by syracuse , but the university 's involvement in the satellite effort is coincidental . mr . mcbrearty said he had turned to researchers at syracuse because he was acquainted with a geologist there . the university has a network of powerful computer work stations made by sun_microsystems incorporated and a parallel processing computer called the connection machine that can be used to extract details and look for specific features in a large mass of photographic data . military equipment superior an expert in remote sensing technologies said that there were advanced technologies that are well suited for this kind of search . ''the ideal approach for this search would be to use synthetic aperture radar , '' said paul curran , a researcher at nasa 's ames research laboratory in mountain_view , calif . ''the problem is that the commercially available radars take a long time to process data . it may be a couple of months before you have images . ''",has a topic of technology
the lower_house of parliament overwhelmingly endorsed amendments to media laws that would bar the news_media and computer networks from ''popularizing or justifying terrorism and extremism'' and from publishing or broadcasting statements that support or justify extremism and terrorism ''if they complicate antiterrorist operations or advocate or justify resistance of counterterrorist operations . '' the kremlin says it opposes the two measures . michael wines ( nyt ),has a topic of technology
"it was once the center of french political and social life , a 700 room , gilt and glass birdcage strategically expanded by louis_xiv to concentrate the nobility where he could keep an eye on them . it housed queens and mistresses , played a large part in the revolution and was the place where two wars officially ended . and now it needs help . the official , exquisitely illustrated web_site for versailles ( www . chateauversailles . fr ) is a royal feast . even the data page under ''versailles today'' is fascinating 27 miles of trellises , 200 , 000 trees , 210 , 000 flowers planted every year , 50 fountains with 620 nozzles , 26 acres of roof , 67 staircases , 2 , 100 sculptures and 6 , 000 paintings . but 10 , 000 of those trees , including marie_antoinette 's 1783 tulip tree and a corsican pine planted for napoleon in 1810 , were uprooted by 100 mile an hour winds , which also damaged roofs and windows , in a freakish storm last year on dec . 25 and 26 . the french ministry of culture , which estimated the damage at 238 million francs ( 32 . 6 million ) , is using the web_site to ask for donations ( 154 will replant one tree ) . the appeal is accompanied by pictures of the storm 's aftermath , described by an official as resembling the world_war i battlefield of verdun . the versailles site , which is available in french , english and spanish , began in 1998 , and half of its 3 , 800 daily users are english speaking , a site official said . it has all the expected online tourism information maps , transportation schedules , fees , hours , concerts , sound and light shows and special exhibitions . but the site 's home page also offers a quick immersion in versailles 's grandeur , with three , 360 degree moving panoramas of the chateau 's courtyard , the hall of mirrors and the king 's bedchamber . the latter is swathed in brocades and equipped with cushions for the roughly 100 officials who typically jammed into the bedroom to attend the king 's rising and retiring . the panorama also offers a view from his windows . throughout the site , the art allows zoom in examination . one page lists louis_xv 's recipe for chocolate it is illustrated by charpentier 's painting of the family of the duke of penthievre , all with chocolate cups in hand . there are descriptions of the royal dinners , a day in the life of the sun_king , louis_xiv , and tips on being a winning courtier . ( wealth , perseverance , strong will and skill were all required . ''depending on the king 's whim , however , '' the site says , ''greatest favor would probably go to the best hunter or billiard player . '' ) the places section covers the history of the chateau , starting with the hunting lodge built in 1623 by louis xiii . it was his son , the sun_king , who had his architect embellish the palace , which became the official_residence of the french court in 1682 . there are illustrated histories of the grand trianon and the petit trianon , the palaces within the palace , and the peasant village where marie_antoinette played at being a shepherdess . there are descriptions of the gardens , fountains and 120 miles of channels and aqueducts that kept the water flowing . personal profiles include louis_xiv ( who became king at age 5 ) louis_xv , who fathered 10 children by age 27 madame de pompadour , louis_xv 's mistress , whose support for the arts benefited the sevres porcelain works and voltaire , among others and the marquis de lafayette , who rejected a position at court for a military career and support for american independence . ( returning from the surrender at yorktown a hero , he danced a quadrille with marie_antoinette at the petit trianon . ) the profiles offer unusual anecdotal glimpses of french history . at the peak of his power , before his disastrous russian invasion , napoleon envisioned living at versailles and had the grand trianon and the petit trianon refurbished for his and his family 's use . versailles was used as a hospital during the franco prussian war , and for a few months served as the residence of the victorious king of prussia , who proclaimed the founding of the german empire in the hall of mirrors in january 1871 . ( france signed a peace treaty with bismarck there , a favor that was returned in 1919 , when germany signed the treaty of versailles in the hall . ) charles de gaulle , the site notes , referred to versailles 40 times in his memoirs . de gaulle had the grand trianon restored , and he preferred to entertain distinguished guests there rather than at his official_residence , the elysee_palace , the former home of madame de pompadour . ''the home of a queen seems more dignified than that of a favorite , '' he is quoted as saying . for those who want more french culture online , two other major english_language sites are www . smartweb . fr orsay , for the musee d'orsay , which is in a converted railway_station and covers art from 1848 to 1914 and www . louvre . fr louvrea . htm , the official site for the louvre . screen grab",has a topic of technology
"chinese authorities are determined to stop ''harmful information'' from spreading through the web , but the controls it places on web_sites and internet_service_providers do not differ much from those employed by the united_states and european_countries , a senior official responsible for managing china 's internet said tuesday . the official , liu zhengrong , who supervises internet affairs for the information office of china 's state council , or cabinet , did not directly dispute the contention of many critics that china operates a vast and technologically sophisticated firewall to protect the ruling communist_party against what it views as web based threats to its authority . but he sought to put the country 's web policing operation in the best possible light , emphasizing that china 's internet minders abided strictly by laws and regulations that in some cases have been modeled on american and european statutes . ''if you study the main international practices in this regard you will find that china is basically in compliance with the international norm , '' he said . ''the main purposes and methods of implementing our laws are basically the same . '' the briefing about internet controls was one of the few times any senior chinese official has spoken in detail about the matter . officials assigned to enforce the communist_party 's controls on the news_media operate behind closed doors and rarely make public statements about their work . beijing 's internet policies have come under close scrutiny abroad since google and microsoft acknowledged helping china censor information available through web searches and blogs , and yahoo was accused of providing data that helped convict dissidents who had used its e mail accounts . mr . liu said china 's effort to regulate content on the web was aimed primarily at preventing the spread of pornography or other content harmful to teenagers and children . he said its concerns in this area differed minimally from those in developed countries . human_rights and media watchdog groups maintain that china 's web censorship puts greater emphasis on helping the communist_party maintain political control over the increasingly restive society . such groups have shown that many hundreds of web_sites cannot be easily accessed in china mainly because they are run by governments , religious groups or political organizations critical of beijing 's policies or its political leaders . mr . liu said chinese internet users were free to discuss many politically sensitive_topics and denied that the chinese police have arrested or prosecuted people for using the web to circulate views . rights groups maintain and court documents show , however that legal authorities have cited e mail messages and postings on domestic and foreign web_sites as evidence against chinese dissidents accused of ''incitement to overthrow the state'' and ''leaking_state_secrets . '' the official objected to what he suggested were biased criticisms of china 's internet controls that ignored similar restrictions by foreign governments and private companies on their web_sites . he cited , for example , statements on web_sites run by the new york times and the washington_post that reserve the right to delete or block content in reader discussion groups that editors determine to be illegal , harmful or in bad taste . chinese news_media web_sites are also monitored in that way , he said . ''major u.s . companies do this and it is regarded as normal , '' mr . liu said . ''so why should china not be entitled to do so ? '' editors , journalists and web_site operators in china say domestic news and discussion sites must ban a long list of topics deemed off limits by party officials or face penalties . such controls appear to have only superficial similarities to attempts by private companies in the united_states and europe to monitor content on the web_sites they operate . mr . liu also said powers the bush_administration gained under the patriot act to monitor web_sites and e mail communications , and the deployment of technology called carnivore by the f.b.i . to let the agency scrutinize huge volumes of e mail traffic , were examples of how the united_states has taken legal steps to guard against the spread of ''harmful information'' online . ''it is clear that any country 's legal authorities closely monitor the spread of illegal information , '' he said . ''we have noted that the u.s . is doing a good job on this front . '' the bush_administration says its efforts to police online communications pertain mainly to preventing terrorist attacks . mr . liu said there were now 111 million web users in china and in the last five years china had expanded the bandwidth available to connect with overseas web_sites nearly 50 fold to 136 , 000 megabits per second , underscoring its commitment to let citizens gather information and interact with people around the world . the number of web_sites chinese users cannot access amounts to a ''tiny percentage'' of those available abroad , he said .",has a topic of technology
"the chinese government issued stern new regulations today that were intended to control the release of information on the internet , underscoring the government 's love hate relationship with cyberspace in a country where the number of internet users is growing dramatically . the new regulations , published today in the communist_party newspaper people 's daily , specifically govern the posting and dissemination on the internet of ' 'state secrets , '' a vaguely_defined term that has been applied by the government to cover any information whose release it has not sanctioned . the pronouncement may have little direct impact , because much of what is formally forbidden under the new rules had already been illegal under existing law , even if it was not formally applied to the internet . enforcement will be difficult in a country that brims with internet cafes and free e mail services . officials will be cautious , too , about aggressively dampening an industry whose exuberant growth has been a magnet for foreign investment . but many people here said the regulations served mostly as an extremely loud warning that could have inhibiting effects on the lively discussions that crisscross china via e mail and chat_room postings . and certainly the regulations illustrate the government 's resolve to tame , if not totally control , the unwieldy beast that is the internet , which has rapidly become a means for chinese to bypass the state controlled media to obtain and transmit information . the new regulations for the first time extend the state secrets law to the web , including chat_rooms and personal e mail . for example , the use of e mail to transmit what might be regarded as secret information is expressly forbidden . the regulations also put operators of chat_rooms on notice that they will be held liable for their content . and internet sites are required to submit to ''examination and approval by the appropriate secrecy work offices , '' although the rules do not specify what that process involves . a basic principle of the new computer information systems internet secrecy administrative regulations is that ''whoever puts it on the internet assumes responsibility . '' the internet has emerged not only as an effective propaganda tool of the government , but also as a potent means to organize and publicize popular discontent . it has been used by overseas dissidents to communicate with kindred spirits in china and by the banned falun_gong spiritual movement to organize protests . last year , a computer technician was sentenced to two years in prison for providing 30 , 000 chinese e mail addresses to dissidents abroad . last week , a group of disgruntled farmers in a small village in anhui_province in central china turned to the internet and e mail to expose a corrupt local communist_party chief . china now has nearly nine million internet users , up from two million a year ago , according to a survey by the government 's china internet information center . but some say the nine million figure may be too low . the information center also said china had 35 . 6 million e mail accounts . in recent months , government officials have repeatedly said that they were planning to issue new regulations to impose further controls on both the content of and the financial arrangements behind the internet in china . the regulations today are the first , but probably not the last , effort to spell out what that might entail . another law , adopted quietly last fall , requires all the people who use encryption software to register with the government by monday . the software is used to encode e mail messages so that they can not be read by anyone but the intended recipient . financial regulations will follow soon , officials said , and those rules are expected to restrict in some fashion foreign investment in the chinese internet . the government plans to require all internet companies based here to obtain government approval before going public in foreign markets , the wall_street_journal reported today . the new regulations were issued by the state secrecy bureau , a little known agency whose exact function the main government news office was unable to describe , despite repeated requests . internet users and internet companies alike have been aware all along that they risked arrest if they used the internet to spread sensitive information . still , some have taken advantage of the relative anonymity of the internet to speak out against government policy . in the last year , the government has occasionally arrested people for posting illegal information on the web . that has included members of the falun_gong movement who posted pictures of followers whom the police had reportedly tortured . ''i do not think it will have a big effect , '' guo liang , who studies the internet at the chinese_academy_of_social_sciences , said . ''people already know that you could n't use the internet to reveal state secrets or do things that are illegal . '' also , provisional regulations have been circulating since early 1998 , according to a web_site of the local secrecy bureau in lianyungang , a small city in coastal jiangsu_province . although two years ago , some chinese web_sites carried news items culled from foreign wire services , today chinese commercial sites take their political news only from the official state media or avoid such topics altogether , focusing instead on sports or entertainment . ''these regulations will not have much of an effect on us now , since we already conform to these kind of requirements , '' said paul jin , deputy executive general_manager at sina . com , one of china 's most popular sites . sina . com , like most chinese sites , screens entries into its chat_rooms to make sure that they are appropriate and not ''offensive to the government . '' but web experts said enforcement of the regulations was probably impractical in a country where the volume of internet communications is exploding . although the authorities certainly have the technical ability to read e mail , and do at least sometimes monitor the mail of known dissidents , experts say the government cannot keep up with all messages or necessarily trace them from particular individuals . many users still gain access the internet through computers used by many individuals like those in internet cafes , universities or even government offices .",has a topic of technology
"lead a computer virus struck personal_computers in britain today , wiping out program files and causing problems for businesses , a computer expert said . a computer virus struck personal_computers in britain today , wiping out program files and causing problems for businesses , a computer expert said . hundreds of personal computer users found that the virus was programmed to delete files on friday the 13th , said alan solomon , managing director of s and s enterprises , a data recovery center in chesham . the virus slowed computers made by international_business_machines corporation and compatible models , said mr . solomon , who is also chairman of a group people who use i.b.m . personal_computers . telephone lines to the center were busy with calls for help , he said . ''it has been frisky and hundreds of people , including a large firm with over 400 computers , have telephoned with their problems , '' he said . a spokesman for i.b.m . in portsmouth said the virus might be a previously known virus from jerusalem that struck on a previous friday the 13th . he confirmed that the virus had wiped out files in personal_computers made by i.b.m . and in compatible machines . the virus appears to affect the microsoft corporation software known as ms dos , which controls the internal operations of personal_computers , the spokesman said . he said he did not know whether computers outside britain or larger computers were affected . in the united_states , several computer security experts said today they had not heard any reports the virus had crossed the atlantic . a computer virus is a rogue program designed to reproduce and infiltrate itself through links between computers .",has a topic of technology
"whether it is with scorn , anger or resignation , most computer experts and year 2000 program managers brush off suggestions that they overreacted to the y2k threat , taken in by computer companies and consultants positioned to profit from fear . still , like the skeptics , many wonder how did countries that started so late and appeared to do so little manage to enter 2000 as smoothly as nations like the united_states and britain that got an early jump ? ''that question is plaguing all of us , although some people wo n't admit it , '' said maggie parent , morgan_stanley dean_witter 's representative to global 2000 , an international banking group formed to coordinate and stimulate year 2000 work . ''we expected there to be some significant blowouts . '' a world_bank survey published last january said that just 54 of 139 developing_countries had year 2000 programs outlined and only 21 were taking concrete steps to prepare . japan , china , italy and venezuela showed up as high profile question marks in various studies . paraguay 's year 2000 coordinator said last summer the country would experience so many disruptions its government would have to impose martial_law . russia , ukraine , belarus and moldova were seen as so risky that the state_department issued travel advisories and called nonessential personnel home . so what accounts for the surprisingly quiet rollover ? computer experts cite several factors . even they may have underestimated how hard many countries worked in the last few months and how much help came from others that started early . and in many cases , assessments of overseas readiness were based on scarce or vague data . but the simplest if most embarrassing explanation is that some public and private analysts who testified before congress and were widely quoted overestimated the world 's dependence on computer technology . most countries had much less to do to prepare because they are far less computerized than the united_states . the computers they do have are much less likely to be tied together in complex systems and are often so old that they run much simpler software , according to louis marcoccio , year 2000 research director for the gartner group , a technology consulting_firm . at a briefing last week on why pentagon analysts overestimated the risks in many countries , deputy defense secretary john hamre said , ''if we had a failing , it may be that we extrapolated to the rest of the world the kind of business practices that we have developed here . '' once adjustments are made for technology dependence , some analysts say , the investment of the united_states and other pacesetters in year 2000 preparations was not that far out of line with those that started late . but the figures from many countries are so unreliable that it is hard to be sure . russia , for example , is estimated to have spent anywhere from 200 million to 1 billion . mr . marcoccio suspects the lower figures are closest to the truth , but he adds that based on the government 's estimate that the united_states spent 100 billion , ''if russia spent 400 million , they spent proportionally more than the united_states , because the united_states is 300 times more reliant on computers . '' such assessments lead down a pathway that only a statistician could love . use gartner 's estimate that the united_states spent 150 billion to 225 billion , and the comparable russia investment jumps to a minimum of 500 million . tamper with gartner 's guess that the united_states is 300 times as computer dependent , and figures dance another direction . but nearly everyone agrees that the figures for the united_states include substantial sums toward preparations abroad by american multinationals . motorola said its 225 million year 2000 budget included not just repairs at its overseas factories but , for example , helping its asian suppliers pinpoint potential flaws . the federal_government picked up part of the tab for foreign nations , paying for many of them to send representatives to the first united_nations meeting on year 2000 in late 1998 . it distributed hundreds of thousands of cd 's in 10 languages providing suggestions for organizing year 2000 projects . the defense_department provided 8 million to set up a joint observation_post in colorado as insurance against miscommunication that could lead to missiles' being launched . such aid played a bigger role in helping late starters catch up than most people realize , some experts say . as john a . koskinen , chairman of the president 's council on year 2000 conversion , sees it , hype about the magnitude of the problem misled fewer people than hype about the impossibility of getting it fixed . ''this was a process that could move faster than the preparedness surveys , '' mr . koskinen said , noting that alarming press_releases and testimony frequently relied on research that was obsolete within weeks . it helped that repair efforts became less expensive toward the end because of the experience gained by those who did the work early , according to brian robbins , senior vice_president in charge of the year 2000 project at chase . by 1998 , the pacesetters were far enough along for a sense to develop that others were lagging , and fears about the consequences began building . there were extenuating_circumstances in some cases , like the economic slump in asia , and many realized the problems would not be as daunting as in the united_states . but with time short , industry groups like global 2000 and a few countries began trying a variety of tactics to accelerate year 2000 preparations . still , many of those most familiar with the relative preparedness and spending levels in many countries wonder if it will be possible to figure out why things went so smoothly . information was always hard to get and compare since sources varied so widely in what costs they attributed to year 2000 work . many countries have not included labor costs in their year 2000 figures while the united_states and britain have , but practices have varied_widely . now that 2000 has arrived , the pressure to sort out such data is disappearing . still , questions will not go away . what actually happened might figure in insurance lawsuits because if courts were to decide insurers were liable for the money companies spent to avoid problems , the insurers would undoubtedly cite the success of laggards and low spenders as a sign that budgets for american companies were bloated . more broadly though , comparing preparations and the results achieved may shed valuable light on cultural differences in how technology is set up and managed , according to edward tenner , author of ''why things bite back . '' that in turn could help society deal with problems like global_warming and the proper use of biotechnology . ''we really need to look at the sociology of computing in detail , '' he said .",has a topic of technology
"a new constitution that affirms chechnya'a status as a part of the russian_federation was approved by almost 96 percent of voters in a referendum on sunday , based on partial returns , chechnya officials said today . the returns , from 255 of chechnya 's 416 polling_places , were hailed by president vladimir v . putin as proof that civilians in the breakaway russian_republic overwhelmingly support ending a 43 month old war for independence led by islamic separatist guerrillas . but the guerrillas , in a statement posted on their separatist web_site , dismissed the referendum as a ''political farce'' and said the results had been fabricated . the kremlin had heavily promoted the constitution , whose pro russian chechen authors envisioned replacing chechnya 's appointed government with an elected one as soon as the end of this year . there was no independent means of verifying the election totals , although observers from former soviet states who monitored the voting said the election was orderly and fair . reporters who visited four polling_places on sunday under a kremlin arranged escort were told that turnout was high , although afternoon voting at some places appeared sparse . the final tabulations from the 255 polling points showed that 95 . 9 percent of voters supported the new constitution and that only 2.7 percent rejected it . chechen election officials said , though , that nay votes ran as much as three times that in chechnya 's mountainous southern regions , where support for the guerrillas is strongest . the officials said that about 85 percent of the republic 's 540 , 000 registered voters took part in the referendum , well above the 65 percent turnout reported two thirds of the way through voting on sunday . in grozny 's leninsky district , the scene of some of the war 's heaviest fighting , the turnout approached 100 percent , officials said . the last elected government here took office in 1997 , after russian troops suffered an inglorious defeat at the hands of chechen rebels , and the kremlin granted the republic de facto independence . chechnya descended shortly_afterward into anarchy , and islamic militants who had gained sway among separatists began the latest war in 1999 by invading dagestan , a neighboring russian_republic . since then mr . putin has singlemindedly pursued a military victory , refusing to negotiate with rebel leaders he calls foreign based terrorists . but he has not succeeded in extinguishing a low grade guerrilla_war that still claims dozens of lives each month . the referendum marked the kremlin 's first real attempt at a political solution to the conflict . mr . putin told a meeting of cabinet ministers today that the vote had removed ''the last serious problem in relation to russia 's territorial_integrity . '' one leading moscow analyist , dmitri trenin , of the carnegie endowment for international peace , said mr . putin 's effort to install a popularly_elected government looked like the beginning of an exit_strategy from a conflict he cannot decisively win . ''he 's essentially preparing to turn chechnya over to the chechens , but he wants assurances that it wo n't result in the sort of wildcat independence that russia suffered in those three glorious years between '96 and '99 , '' mr . trenin said . ''i hope he 's on the right track . ''",has a topic of technology
"it 's a big day for fans of the internet site cheddarvision . tv , where visitors have been watching a 44 pound round of cheddar mature 24 hours a day since jan . 1 . today something will actually happen . as of last night , the site had counted more than 500 , 000 hits . about 55 , 000 fans are expected today , the bbc reported , when the camera , set up in a farmhouse by the west country farmhouse cheesemakers , somerset farmers who produces handmade cheddar , is given its first quality check . to ensure that the cheese is maturing properly ( it is fully expected to take a year ) , an expert cheese maker will pull out a core and sniff and taste it , the bbc said . the sampling is at 10 a.m . local time , or 5 a.m . new york time .",has a topic of technology
"crowds build ever so slowly around zensaku sakurai , a sidewalk crusader who berates japan 's leaders for what he calls their arrogance , corruption and failure to serve the needs of real people . political apathy has long been the norm in this country . but with mr . sakurai 's followers brandishing political banners and charts that purport to track the failings of members of parliament , people stop one by one to listen these days . many nod in approval or even volunteer to join the movement . but in a country where direct criticism of others even public figures strikes an uncomfortable chord , there are always one or two people who jeer him and denounce what he is doing as ''un japanese . '' the hecklers are not the only people jarred by mr . sakurai 's movement , known as the rakusen undo , or blacklist campaign , the most successful of several grass roots movements that are catching fire here . members of the governing party and its coalition partners , who are already on the defensive as hotly_contested national elections scheduled for june 25 draw near , have shown their anxiety by crying foul . ''movements like these are not democratic , '' muneo suzuki , campaign director of the liberal democratic_party , which has governed japan for 43 of the last 45 years , told the daily asahi_shimbun . ''there is a fear that opposition candidates may take advantage of this campaign . their criteria are not clear , and it is not appropriate for the media to report about it . '' its aim is to encourage people to vote against politicians who receive low ratings from the movement . the unlikely figure at the center of the campaign , mr . sakurai , is a lifelong , but until now mostly solitary , activist who operates from the kitchen in his modest suburban home . ''as a people , the japanese are deeply reluctant to criticize others , and always mindful of harmony , we never want to stick out , '' said the salt and pepper haired 65 year old retired insurance_company employee . ''in general that means that people do n't express their thoughts , '' he said , ''especially in politics . the result is a perpetuation of the status_quo . '' if that were not enough , over the years the government has created rules that seem intended to stifle insurgencies by reformists . independent candidates , for example , are sharply limited in the number of campaign posters they are allowed to put up . recently the government outlawed partisan campaigning on the internet . and there is already talk about sharply limiting , or even barring , movements like the blacklist campaign . mr . sakurai cut his teeth in dissent in the loneliest of ways , taking the leaders of the liberal democratic_party to task for corrupt schemes like the lockheed scandal , a defense contract kickback_scheme in the early 1980 's . he has also long railed against what he sees as the party 's gradual encroachment on the constitution . how his movement has gained steam , finally , is an illustration of the unpredictable nature of political cross fertilization brought about by technology , particularly the internet . south_korea 's far more vibrant civil_society successfully introduced the theme of fighting corruption in politics into the most recent legislative elections with a similar blacklist movement . more than 50 politicians who were targets of the campaign were defeated at the polls . mr . sakurai is unabashed in acknowledging that he is imitating the south_korean effort . he says he more or less copied wholesale the south_korean model of using the internet to generate voter complaints about politicians in the interest of barring the worst of them from re election . ''we may not be as successful as the koreans , '' mr . sakurai said . ''but they showed us how to trigger something . '' he seems to be attracting interest . there have been well over 100 , 000 hits on the blacklist campaign 's web_site , a very high number for japan . and the group has been inundated with complaints about politicians . there are so many volunteers these days that mr . sakurai said he no longer recognizes all of them . the change comes after japan 's years of economic drift and a string of blunders by the new prime_minister , yoshiro_mori . ''for such a long time the japanese people have been prohibited from thinking for themselves , '' mr . sakurai said . ''this is the legacy of the prewar imperial system in which people were trained merely to accept and not to ask questions . i feared that we were going back to that system . ''the purpose of our campaign is to make the voters realize that they possess our sovereignty . ''",has a topic of technology
"for audiophiles lusting after the latest japanese gadgets but not prepared to take off for tokyo and snatch them up in person , an entrepreneur named kohn liu thinks he has the answer . his online store , audio cubes ( audiocubes . com ) , sells electronic goods that are hard to find or unavailable outside japan , like wooden audio technica headphones ( 459 ) and a roll up yamano piano keyboard ( 279 ) . mr . liu , 24 , got the idea for the site in 2001 as a tufts_university undergraduate studying in japan . there he noticed stores selling headphones in various styles and colors . ''the kind of trend that 's in the u.s . for the consumer is , they 're looking for bargains , where in japan they 're looking for the newest , the most feature packed product , '' he said by phone . having started a site for aficionados of the sony minidisc in 1999 , mr . liu sensed an unmet american demand for japanese creations . he started audio cubes in march 2002 , initially selling mostly headphones , earphones and some minidisc players and recorders . now the boston based site also offers car stereos , japanese toys and more . he has also started audio cubes ii ( www . audiocubes2 . com ) , a site carrying high end audio devices . some american customers said the audio cubes sites satisfied their urge to get hot products quickly from the other side of the world . ''the service was very good , and they were able to ship the things over to me in a very timely manner , '' said john tverdik , 53 , of burnsville , minn . , who bought a 230 pair of stax headphones at the site . there is a drawback the products typically lack a manufacturer 's american warranty . audio cubes products have a one year japanese warranty unless otherwise stated . the store will replace defective items , and accepts returns on unused headphones and earphones for a limited time after purchase . santiago barela , 34 , who owns a karate school in pueblo , colo . , had a problem with one of his orders in august . he had to pay to send his sharp minidisc recorder back to japan , where it was repaired . nonetheless , he 's pleased . ''i 've had a great experience , '' he said . rachel metz site specific",has a topic of technology
"the chinese authorities appear to have refined their attempts to block access to popular united_states based internet search engines , people who use the web in different parts of the country said today . users said they could once again reach google , which had been barred for almost two weeks , although altavista , another popular american search site , remained inaccessible . but now the authorities , shifting strategies , appear to be selectively blocking access to specific google content . web users , no longer automatically diverted to rival search sites that adhere to the government 's strict censorship rules , can now search freely on google . but they cannot retrieve all their search results . for instance , users searching for information on falun_gong , the outlawed spiritual movement , turned up many references through google . but exploring those references proved impossible , and users' internet browsers often ceased to operate properly once an unauthorized reference had been clicked on . and though google users could find many articles on jiang_zemin , china 's president and communist_party chief , they could read only the ones prepared by china 's official media outlets , not those provided by opposition groups . similar selective censorship limited the availability of web content about tibet . the more nuanced approach to filtering the internet for the country 's 46 million users may reflect overwhelmingly negative reaction to blanket blockage . chinese users , writing on internet bulletin_boards in recent days , bitterly condemned the exercise . google is widely used to get access to an array of documents and web addresses that use chinese_characters . the easing could also reflect the high cost in manpower and telecommunications capacity needed to control the flow of information from the web . china provided no official explanation for its initial blocking of google , and no announcement was made today either . it remained possible that google could be completely blocked in the future , especially in the weeks before a shift in political leadership , scheduled to take place in november .",has a topic of technology
"the lower_house of parliament approved creating an antiterrorism database to help find suspects by consolidating files from 38 police and intelligence agencies . the database is to be set up next year , listing basic personal information about suspects additional details about a suspect , like bank accounts , religion or trips abroad , will be available only after a specific query . victor_homola",has a topic of technology
"the standard way to begin a letter in japanese is ''haikei , '' an honorific that can be literally translated as ''your enlightened worship . '' so it was a problem when a young businessman miswrote a few strokes as he penned the characters , inadvertently beginning the letter with ''you enlightened piece of waste . '' that kind of writing mistake seems to be becoming more common in japan , and in some other parts of east_asia where chinese_characters are used for writing . one of the culprits is computers people get used to tapping a couple of keys and having the computer write the character , so they forget how to do it themselves . ''i can read characters for grape or soy sauce , but i ca n't write them , '' said yuri abe , 28 , a manager at kirin beer company , who writes every day by hand and is studying for national exams on characters . ''i also have problems with names of people or names of fish or birds . '' it may seem odd that japanese have difficulty writing ' 'soy sauce , '' a character that most people see just about every day of their lives as they add the sauce to their food . but while soy sauce in japanese is simple enough to pronounce ( ' 'shoyu'' ) , it takes 25 strokes to write the chinese_characters . ''the only time i write by hand is when i write envelopes and when i have to fill out forms , '' said tsunao ogino , a 43 year old japanese linguistics professor , who admits he is forgetting his characters . ''when it occurs to me that we need spinach and soy sauce , i write an electronic message to my wife , even if she is in the next room . '' of course , americans constantly forget how to spell words that they see all the time . but the problem is greater in the places that use chinese_characters japan , china , south_korea , taiwan and hong_kong . when the cultural agency in japan researched the effect of word processors , they discovered that nearly 40 percent of respondents said they had become more forgetful in writing characters . forgetting a few dots , or even one , can have huge repercussions . for satoko katano , 27 , a public_relations employee at sanyo electric company , the lapse in handwriting sometimes makes her frown . her name actually means ''wise child katano . '' but on the pages of a sloppy writer , her first name sometimes turns into ''haji'' and takes on a new meaning ' 'shameful child katano . '' ''it happens when they write by hand , mostly when i receive letters or new year 's cards from younger people , '' miss katano said . miss katano says she does n't see so many mistakes on new year 's cards from her adult colleagues , but one reason for that is that these days people are so lazy that even the new year 's cards are printed up . even so , there is likely to be the odd mistake , so that when the wrong character is used , the traditional ''year end party'' becomes the ''losing all senses party . '' writing chinese_characters , or kanji as they are called in japan , takes much more discipline and practice than writing english letters . japanese uses far fewer kanji than chinese , and japanese also use a couple of alphabets based on pronunciation . so if a japanese does n't remember just how to write a character , it is possible though declasse to write it in hiragana , an alphabet based on pronunciation . japanese children start out by memorizing 80 characters by second grade , going all the way to 2 , 000 characters to allow them to read a newspaper in high_school . still , only 16 . 3 percent of test takers pass a national kanji exam that requires about 2 , 000 characters . these days , more children are choosing computers over calligraphy , and sometimes even grade school teachers have lost their talent for teaching the traditional brushes . ''at school , teachers themselves ca n't write well anymore , '' said yuichiro oshiro , 25 , a calligraphy instructor who teaches children how to write kanji . ''so they ca n't teach how to write properly anymore . '' china uses far more characters than japan most educated chinese adults can read about 5 , 000 characters but in mainland_china many people can still write fairly well because they have not been spoiled by computers . but in taiwan and japan , a growing number of people use computers they peck in a couple of keys to get the pronunciation of ' 'shoyu'' or ''jiangyou'' in mandarin_chinese , and the pre formed character for soy sauce appears on the screen . reporters at asahi_shimbun , a major national daily , are drilled to watch for common blatant errors . unless they are careful with their handwriting , ''his majesty the emperor'' becomes the ''emperor under the staircase , '' and the first name of tomiichi_murayama , the former socialist prime_minister , changes from ''place of wealth'' to ''number one rich . '' a local newspaper in southern japan had to publish a correction several months ago when it misprinted the word for embassy , or literally , ''hall of the ambassador . '' instead , it printed a character with an extra line in a strategic place that could be read as ''hall of feces . '' kirin beer company began encouraging its employees to take kanji tests after a manager became fed up with the mistakes in company memos . ''some employees could not even write the easiest kanji , and used hiragana in documents for business , which is shameful it would be shameful to disclose such documents to the public , '' said kohsei tabata , a public_relations manager at kirin who is studying for the highest level national kanji exam . in contrast to his father 's generation , mr . tabata said , japanese children no longer diligently study chinese poems or chinese philosophy in the original . ''we have no such learning anymore , '' he added . ''it 's like europeans using latin . '' tokyo journal",has a topic of technology
"acting gov . donald t . difrancesco recently signed a law that would make internet stalking a crime under the state 's harassment and stalking laws . previously , the stalking law included written and verbal threats . it now includes threats made by electronic means , even if indirect . the law was needed because ''advances in technology have given stalkers new tools to reach their victims , '' said norman m . robertson , a republican from clifton and one of the bill 's sponsors . anne ruderman briefing n.j . law",has a topic of technology
"part of the reality of running for office these days is that for every action , there is a reaction , particularly on the internet . usually it 's chatter on web_logs , or blogs , but politicians must now confront web_sites , too , set up for no purpose other than to mock or taunt them , as c . virginia fields and gifford_miller , two democratic candidates for mayor , have learned . the web_site virginiafields . com is certainly curious . it repeatedly scolds her as a do nothing , ineffectual borough_president of manhattan , complete with unflattering pictures , including one with her hands held high and hips swiveling as she plays with a hula hoop . ''virginia fields would be a terrible mayor , '' it says . ''help her get a job in the private_sector , where she ca n't hurt anyone . '' but the site tacitly raises the question if she is such a zero of a politician , as the web_site depicts her , who would be so exercised to unload on a woman whom even opponents are reluctant to attack ? the creator would prefer to remain anonymous , but all indications point to a well known west side gadfly . the phone_number on the web_site 's registration , which like all others is available online , matches a business number for john fisher , a hell 's kitchen community advocate and a past critic of ms . fields 's . the man who answered the registry phone_number called back from a number that matches a directory listing for mr . fisher 's home . he declined to discuss the web_site unless granted anonymity and , when refused that deal , denied he was behind the web_sites . the web_site includes a link to an anti miller web_site , gifmillermanofaction . com , which describes the council speaker as a tool of the mayor who was ''nurtured on a strict diet of waffles . '' that site 's registration matches the one for the anti fields web_site . spokesmen for mr . miller 's and ms . fields 's campaigns shrugged off the sites , which were reactivated last night after a period of dormancy . ''there can be more constructive ways to make your voice heard , '' said nick charles , ms . fields 's campaign spokesman . off the trail",has a topic of technology
"because of an editing error , an article in business day on thursday about a german court ruling that overturned a former compuserve executive 's 1997 conviction for distributing pornography on the internet misstated the dollar equivalent of the 100 , 000 mark fine he had paid . it was about 55 , 550 , not 180 , 000 .",has a topic of technology
"investigators said this evening that they had their first evidence of the location of a fire that apparently caused the crash of swissair 111 , which went down a few minutes after the pilots reported smoke in the cockpit . according to the plane 's flight data recorder , which was recovered on monday , two computers on the left side of the plane near the nose began recording bad data a few minutes after the distress call , investigators say . the fire may have been affecting the computers , or more likely , the wires that lead to them , investigators believe . in addition , one of the fire damaged parts of the plane that floated to the surface has been identified as a shearling seat cover from the first officer 's chair , on the right side of the cockpit , according to investigators . that finding , too , suggests that there may have been a fire in the so called avionics compartment , a small space filled with racks of electronics gear . investigators cautioned , however , that it was far too early to draw any definitive conclusions . and there was no indication so far about the cause of the fire aboard the jet , an md_11 . the two computers began recording ''anomalies'' a short time before the data recorder , known as the black box , stopped working , said investigators who spoke on condition of anonymity . the computers in question are an air data computer , which gathers information for the autopilot and other equipment , and a flight control computer that is the heart of the autopilot . the plane is designed to be flown safely without either of those computers or their backups , so investigators do not believe that the bad data made the plane crash . rather , they are looking at the location , on a rack on the captain 's side of the plane , and on the wires that feed data to those computers . the electronics compartment has no fire extinguishing equipment rather , the system relies on circuit_breakers to cut off electricity if a component overheats . the new information emerged on a day when chief of the inquiry declined to brief the press and went instead to a memorial service for the 229 people who died in the crash last wednesday night . the chief investigator , vic gerden , of canada 's transportation safety board , arrived at halifax international airport this afternoon to greet the american delegation to the memorial service . asked by a reporter about progress on decoding the one black box thus far recovered , he would say only , ''we 're working on it . '' mr . gerden met transportation secretary rodney slater , jane garvey , the administrator of the federal_aviation_administration , and james e . hall , chairman of the national transportation safety board . also today , the canadian navy moored a diving platform over the major debris field , using four concrete blocks located outside the search area . the arrangement will allow them to move their ship , the granby , precisely around the search area . they also set up the granby to pipe air down to divers , an arrangement that will permit the divers to stay on the bottom for 45 to 50 minutes , instead of 5 to 10 . divers know the location of the second black box , the cockpit voice recorder , but they have not yet brought it to the surface . the search area is under 190 feet of water . the new diving system pipes a mixture of oxygen and helium to the divers , which reduces the risk of decompression sickness . in addition to divers , the canadian effort is also using remotely operated robot surveillance vehicles , and american technicians have begun setting up another remotely operated vehicle , aboard the united_states_navy salvage ship grapple , which slipped into port here today and is expected to be at work on the debris by friday . oceaneering inc . , of upper marlboro , md . , sent two five person crews , who in shifts can operate their vehicle from the grapple 24 hours a day . that drone could retrieved the cockpit voice recorder , if the weather gets too rough . ''it has retrieved flight recorders on other plane wrecks , deeper than divers could go , '' said chris klentzman , manager of government operations at the company . a major target for the searchers is the cockpit . brought to the surface , it could tell them where the fire began , and some of its instruments store data in computer chips that could still be retrieved . some investigators thought today that they had found the cockpit , 4.5 miles from the rest of the debris , but jim harris , a spokesman for the safety board , said that investigators now doubted that the object in question was actually part of the plane . mapping of the bottom , along with searches of the shorelines , is continuing . in new york today , the boxer jake lamotta filed a lawsuit against swissair and boeing , the airplane manufacturer , saying the companies failed to correct wiring problems on the md_11 that could have caused a fire . mr . lamotta 's son , joseph , was a passenger on the flight . ''jake wants answers , '' said joseph fell , jake lamotta 's lawyer , who filed the 50 million suit . ''jake wants answers not only for himself , but on behalf of the other families . ''",has a topic of technology
"for sun jiazheng , the chinese_culture minister , the emergence of a global culture wears many faces . on the one hand , moviegoers in beijing can swoon at screenings of ''titanic . '' on the other , computer jockeys in shanghai might surf web_sites that carry ''unhealthy'' material . ''i would say that to a considerable extent , china has opened up its cultural market , '' mr . sun said in a speech on wednesday night at the museum of television and radio in midtown_manhattan . ''however , china 's market economic system is newly established , and its cultural industry with a market mechanism has just started to take shape . therefore , we face both opportunities and real tough challenges . '' mr . sun , in an interview after the speech , trumpeted foreign investment opportunities in china 's electronic_media , but emphasized that certain sectors , particularly the internet industry , would have to open up ''gradually'' and with continued government monitoring of content . as part of the chinese delegation to the united_nations summit meeting , mr . sun was giving his talk in celebration of an agreement that permits the museum to acquire programming from the chinese government 's audiovisual archives . he was introduced to the audience by henry a . kissinger , former secretary of state . at its heart , mr . sun 's speech heralded china 's impending entry into the world_trade_organization and called for foreign investment in the country 's media infrastructure , from opening theater chains to distributing videotapes and music recordings . one example of openness , he said , is that china will soon import 20 american movies a year instead of 10 . at the same time , foreign cultural materials would be allowed into the country only ''as long as they abide by chinese laws and regulations , and cater to the tastes of the chinese people , '' mr . sun said . the last decade has seen a gradual emergence of civil_society in china , with an attendant rise in forms of cultural expression not sponsored by the state . punk bands perform at nightclubs , guerrilla filmmaking is not uncommon , and experimental painters have toured their exhibitions abroad . yet , the government continues to try to exercise control over the media , occasionally shutting down journals and asking prize winning directors to cut their movies . the booming new media industry is an especially sensitive area , given the growing number of internet users more than 17 million and the anarchic nature of the medium . mr . sun said that the government was working on a policy that would encourage growth , but that officials had not settled on details . americans have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into start up enterprises , even though government rules sometimes keep the internet companies mired in paperwork . ''personally , i believe that the development of the internet is definitely , absolutely a good thing , '' mr . sun said . but ''the content contained in the internet is mixed , '' he said . ''the chinese government has called attention to this development , the fact that there exists some unhealthy content on the internet . '' except for pointing to pornography , mr . sun did not specify what might be deemed unhealthy . the government continues to block access to certain web_sites , including those of several foreign news outlets , even though many savvy computer users can get around the firewalls . this summer , the government announced that local officials would start internet surveillance units and track down people who post political dissents . the authorities have made several arrests in the last few months for such offenses . summit in new york globalization",has a topic of technology
"suddenly , droves of women on this city 's crowded subways are gazing intently into tiny cell phone screens , checking their messages and then laboriously tapping out replies . just as abruptly , office workers are fumbling with the tiny gadgets to confirm their evening plans the moment they step out of company headquarters , their faces glued to the monitors almost as if they were navigational aids . even giggly teenage couples meeting in cafes often seem to reserve their dreamiest gazes not for their dates , but for the e mail messages constantly popping up on the flip top phones by which many measure their popularity nowadays . as if all at once , e mail has arrived in japan . if any further proof were needed , the official statistics are in 10 million e mail capable telephones are now in use throughout the country . japan had been one of the slowest developed countries to take to e mail , thanks in part to the paucity of home computers . but by next year , according to some industry estimates , internet usage in japan will be the highest in the world , largely as a result of the explosive spread of cellular_phones . given the frenzied way that correspondence by cellular_phone is taking the country by storm , it is only natural to wonder what in the world people are saying to each other with such urgency ? try , ''what are you eating for lunch ? '' or ''where are you now ? '' said 16 year old satoko ishihara , reading two of the latest messages from her little phone as she took a break from her part time job . then , after typing in the message ''i drank too much last night , '' came this flash , ''my friend just got her hair dyed red , but does n't like it , so she 's decided to cut it off . '' on the evidence , the strained eyes and linguistic gymnastics required to enter substantial amounts of text into this country 's ultra compact phones are sacrifices made for little more than the smallest of small talk . but people are chattering in stupendous , fortune generating volumes nonetheless , and pulling it off , characteristically for the japanese , in highly innovative ways all the while . with the cellular_phone , the japanese have married the ever faster world of the internet with the seemingly ever smaller world of japanese gadgetry , and the repercussions for life here , for the japanese_language and for the future of technology are still being tallied . it has long been noted here that space is the biggest handicap to the widespread use of personal computer . many japanese homes are so small that the living room doubles as the dining_room , before finally becoming the bedroom , once the dishes are cleared . but with the cell phone , known here as the keitai , the japanese have enjoyed a pocket sized privacy a portable realm where children and lovers are able to lead discreet lives , away from the prying ears of parents and others . with the introduction of rudimentary internet_service on millions of cell phones here last year , this private realm has just been dramatically expanded people 's telephones now double as portable offices . and making this work has required another feat of miniaturization with the country 's written language . four different writing systems are in constant , simultaneous use in japan , making it one of the world 's most semiotically challenged societies . japanese have long enjoyed abbreviation , but to be practical , writing on a typical 15 button keyboard calls for hyperconcision . the typical new year 's greeting here , ''akemashite omedeto gozaimasu , '' for example , was rendered this year as simply ''ake ome'' on millions of mobile_phones . still , even this kind of pruning is not enough , given the multiple strokes needed to produce the right chinese character , from a choice of about 2 , 000 commonly used ones , for a given word . for this reason , cellular_phone makers like docomo , the industry leader here , and others have added a whole new set of symbols to the linguistic stew 200 or so pictographs depicting simple objects like golf clubs , karaoke boxes , movie projectors , food , and faces reflecting various emotional states , all of which are now used in combination with ordinary writing to form words . think of the happy face run wild . thus , ''please call me'' is written as a symbol for telephone , followed by kure , a shortened version of a request word . ''would you like to go out for a drink tonight ? '' has been radically shortened by the picture of an overflowing mug , followed by the verb ending used in invitations . ''once you get used to the symbols it is very convenient and very quick , '' said maiko yagi , an 18 year old high_school student who sat with two friends in a cafe , corresponding with another friend by phone about an all night party that weekend . ''my keitai is always with me , and with e mail i am never out of touch . '' in the short time that cell phone e mail has been in use , there are signs that these kinds of linguistic sleights of hand are spreading into general usage . young women seem to be the lead innovators . ''if something becomes part of everyday life , there will be an influence on writing , '' said hiroyuki sasahara , a researcher at the national language research institute in tokyo . ''people have actually begun to use these symbols in their handwritten letters . '' mika okabe , 19 , had no time for linguistic arguments . indeed , given the hundred e mails she said she taps out each day on the two mobile_phones she carries everywhere , she would seem to have little time to spare for anything else . she is so adept at writing with her phones that she does so without looking . her telephones have become the center of her life , a virtual place where she hangs out , meets new people , arranges blind dates and gets news from others in bite sized doses . ''we keep our chats short because the screen is limited to 200 characters , '' she said . ''it is cheaper than calling someone on the phone , and moreover , it is fun . for my generation , that has made it pretty much universal . ''",has a topic of technology
"of the many keyboards coming to market for hand held computers , one of the more interesting is the logitech keycase , a laptop size model that also serves as a soft protective case when wrapped around a palm organizer . it is the first widely available consumer product made of elektex , a fabric created by eleksen , a british company . the keyboard relies on what eleksen calls soft technology , in which thin sensors are embedded in layers of fabric . when a user presses a letter on the surface , the embedded sensors send a signal to the palm telling it which letter to display . because the sensors are less than one millimeter in depth , they allow for flexibility as well as function . the keycase has a cradle for the palm , which when placed upright activates the keyboard . the keyboard is compatible with the palm m125 , m130 , m500 , m505 , m515 and i705 . it sells for 99 . 95 and is to be available this month from online retailers . stephen c . miller news watch peripherals",has a topic of technology
"the new decade arrived well before dawn here today at peterson air force base , but there was more relief than celebration as the world 's 24 time zones began passing from the 20th_century without nuclear conflagration . in a collaboration that would have been inconceivable before the cold_war ended a decade ago , american and russian military personnel sat side by side inside an ad_hoc center for y2k strategic stability , where they monitored data that would reflect any ballistic_missile activity around the world . as expected , there was none at least none that the american and russian authorities here would discuss . american officials confirmed that the north american aerospace defense command , which is 13 miles from here inside cheyenne mountain , had detected launchings of three missiles but said the missiles' inability to travel more than 500 kilometers , or 310 miles , made them irrelevant to operations here . from the american perspective , any moments of real concern had passed by the turn of the year at greenwich mean time , midnight in london . every american missile system operates on greenwich mean time , which means precise timing is imperative for encryption and other programs around the world . but it also meant that the new year had passed without incident through all 11 times zones of russia , as well as through all of asia , the middle_east and europe . the center is largely a public_relations device , created in september so that each country could reassure the other that any missile launching was unintentional . but nothing the american and russian personnel monitored here was exclusive to them , anyway , making center operations largely redundant . rather , they were watching data relayed instantaneously from cheyenne mountain , where the monitoring of missile activity around the world by american and canadian personnel is continuous . nonetheless , american and russian officials decided that , for good measure and good will , a special center could provide an added layer of assurance against the possibility of an accidental launching . ''the point of all this is additional insurance , no . 1 , '' said capt . michael w . luginbuhl , a naval officer . ''but also , there 's the world perception that the two greatest nuclear powers are coordinating and collaborating to go the extra step to make sure nothing goes wrong . '' as far as russia and the united_states were concerned , nothing was ever expected to go wrong . in any case , captain luginbuhl said that any launching required so much human intervention that even a ''false indicator'' from a computer would not likely send a missile skyward . but as a further precaution , the center was equipped with direct telephone lines to cheyenne mountain for the americans , to moscow for the russians to question any glitch , real or perceived . by tonight , the only abnormality occurred on thursday , officials said , when the russians used their ' 'red phone'' ( which is actually black ) to call home and the phone in moscow did not ring . the problem was fixed momentarily after officers in moscow discovered their phone had not been turned on . 1 1 00 technology and 2000 momentous relief",has a topic of technology
"to the editor when i was in paris a few months ago , half the men ( and none of the women ) walking down the champs elysee were carrying on telephone conversations using the tiny ear plugs and microphones described in your article on june 8 . according to my friend , the french have borrowed yet another term from the english to describe this behavior jabber walky . hal varian berkeley , calif .",has a topic of technology
"citing national_security , china 's government announced on tuesday night that it would further restrict the flow of information into the nation by more closely regulating international agencies that supply financial news to china . international wire agencies selling economic information in china namely reuters and dow_jones will now be "" supervised "" by the official new china news_agency for the content of their reports as well as the subscriptions they sell to chinese customers . while the full ramifications of the decision may not be clear for days or weeks , it appears to have been prompted by concern among chinese leaders about growing access to information from abroad , both from international news_agencies and from the internet , although the internet is not yet used widely in china . at the very least , the decision seems intended to intimidate foreign news organizations . "" foreign economic information providers will be punished in accordance with the law if their released information to chinese users contains anything forbidden by chinese laws and regulations , or slanders or jeopardizes the national interests of china , "" said the announcement , as reported by the news_agency itself . it described the decision as having been issued by china 's cabinet in the form of a circular . in addition to the government 's desire to limit information it deems unwelcome , however , a driving force in the decision was apparently the new china news_agency 's desire both for hands on control over information networks and , perhaps even more , the right to charge fees to users and sellers of information . an american news_media executive in beijing said the chinese news_agency has been "" trying to do this for months . "" "" i ca n't believe the government finally went along with it , "" the executive said . "" it 's this current climate of paranoia that allowed it to happen . "" if the new china news_agency stands to gain , chinese banks and securities_firms that trade currencies , commodities , stocks and bonds may suffer badly , if their access to market information is blocked or slowed . although the announcement did not spell out how the new china news_agency intends to vet all the market information , company news and analysis that are available from news organizations each day , it implied that adding a new layer of "" supervision "" may involve delays . of the many issues left fuzzy and uncertain by the announcement , perhaps the largest is whether the news_agency will actually try to vet all the market news that reuters and dow_jones report each day . although both news services are oriented toward financial news , they also include political coverage that reaches subscribers . access to international news in china has grown steadily in recent years as the fax_machine and international travel became common , but there remain strict controls on what can be broadcast or printed within china . reuters quoted an unidentified chinese official early_today as saying that the new restrictions would not mean a slowdown in up to the minute financial news , and would not constitute censorship . on tuesday , executives at dow_jones and reuters expressed great surprise at the announcement , in part because it runs counter to a steady trend of allowing more financial information to be available , and allowing agencies to sell freely to chinese institutions . "" the open flow of economic information is good for china , "" said james mcgregor , who is both chief representative for dow_jones in beijing and president of the american chamber of commerce . "" abundant information makes markets stable . "" a reuters executive in hong_kong read from a prepared statement , saying "" on the face of it , this has extremely serious implications for reuters , as well as for many other organizations active in china . "" in recent years , reuters and dow_jones have each won thousands of customers among china 's banks and securities_firms that use up to the minute market information to trade on international and domestic capital markets . neither company will say exactly how much it earns in china , but one executive said it was in the tens of millions of dollars each . the financial information business boomed along with china 's securities markets in 1993 and 1994 , but has fallen since then , in part because a series of scandals led to tighter government regulation . bloomberg , a supplier of financial information in much of the world , has just begun to enter china . "" this certainly runs counter to the grand objective of making shanghai an international financial center , "" john pinkel , chief representative of h . g . asia , a hong_kong based securities firm , said on tuesday . he also questioned whether the official news_agency 's monopoly on financial information would allow its staff to use it to their advantage . other western executives questioned whether members of china 's cabinet fully understood how damaging their decision could be . nor does the decision bode well for hong_kong , the vibrant financial and trading center over which china will resume control on july 1 , 1997 . "" i am afraid this latest move will only send the signal that chinese leaders still do not understand how the freedom of information underpins economic success , "" martin c . m . lee , leader of hong_kong 's democratic_party , told reuters . the announcement did not specify when supervision would begin , but said that foreign wire services already in china would have to apply to the news_agency within three months for permission to continue . although the announcement was couched in political terms , saying the overall aim was to "" safeguard state sovereignty , "" much of it was concerned with controlling the business side of news distribution . it specifies , for example , that international wire services will no longer be able to sell services directly to customers , and must determine subscription rates together with the new china news_agency . part of the reason may be that the agency , which retains considerable political clout , has watched its revenue fall in recent years because of its heavy reliance on government funding . in contrast , state run television stations and newspapers that sell their own advertising during a booming economy are doing far better . yet another issue raised by the announcement is how badly it might affect china 's bid to enter the world_trade_organization . although chinese leaders are determined to join , they have been blocked so far because efforts to open their economy have only gone partway . in the long run , even if china 's leaders somehow succeed in limiting information that is available from financial news organizations , it is hard to imagine how they could prevent freer communication via the internet . though the internet craze has not hit china yet , when it does , it will be far harder to control . "" it 's a lot easier to control a commercial service , because they 're trying to keep track of you so they can charge you , "" esther dyson , chairman of the electronic frontier foundation , an independent group in new york , said on tuesday . "" they ca n't control the internet any more than they can control what people say in their own homes . "" chinese leaders are still grappling with how to control information over the internet . last week , one media executive said , all of china 's internet providers were called to a meeting with government officials , who lectured them on the dangers of pornography on the internet . "" they 're well aware of the internet , and they 're scared , "" said ms . dyson . "" in the long run , there 's nothing they can do about it . """,has a topic of technology
"confronted with a second , unofficial and more graphic video account of the moments leading up to the execution of saddam_hussein , and the hanging itself , executives at television news organizations made a series of what one executive , president steve capus of nbc_news , called ' 'delicate editorial decisions'' about what they would put on the air on saturday night and sunday to augment the first pictures of the execution . the new video , almost certainly shot by a cellphone_camera by one of the guards or witnesses at the execution , includes exchanges between mr . hussein and either the witnesses or guards leading up to the moment when the trapdoor opens and he falls . no national american television organization has thus far allowed the moment of the drop to be shown . but the same niceties were not observed on numerous web_sites , which have posted the complete video , including the moment that mr . hussein , noose around his neck , falls , and a close up of his face afterward . some prominent sites , like google 's video site and the conservative blog littlegreenfootballs . com , have posted the complete cellphone coverage of the execution , including the moment mr . hussein falls from view . fox_news and cnn ran the cellphone video freezing on mr . hussein 's face before the final moment most of the day on sunday . fox was the first to use the video on saturday evening , after the arab language channel al_jazeera aired it . abc ran some of the video starting in its late newscasts saturday night . david rhodes , the vice_president for news at fox_news , said one reason the network chose to transmit the new video was that it contained the verbal exchanges between mr . hussein and those about to put him to death . most television news executives interviewed sunday said these hostile exchanges made the new video newsworthy . jon klein , the president of cnn 's domestic operations , said the flavor of sectarianism cinched the decision . ''it really was a microcosm of the various strains in iraqi society at the moment , '' he said . the struggle for iraq correction january 4 , 2007 , thursday an article on monday about the handling of the video of saddam_hussein 's execution by television networks and web_sites referred_imprecisely to the site littlegreenfootballs . com . it posted a link to the video , not the video itself .",has a topic of technology
"at the 61st annual convention of italian cardiologists , booths promoting the most advanced medical technology and drugs mingled comfortably with the niceties of a more permissive age cigarette filled ashtrays , bowls of chocolate and a legion of pretty young women in fetching yellow suits who are known in the italian convention world as hostesses . in italy , hostesses are found at almost any promotional event , whether it is a trade_fair , a medical convention , a law enforcement conference , a literary prize ceremony , a political symposium or the unveiling of a newly restored historic monument . young , good looking and trained to smile pleasantly at even the most boorish clients , the hostess is as familiar a feature of italian conventions as internet stations and teleconferencing hookups in the united_states . ''oh , you mean the girls who sit at the booths and ca n't really answer any questions ? '' joselyn file , an american_international development manager for the american college of cardiology , said with a different kind of smile as she distributed information about her institute . ''this is my first italian meeting , but i have to say they do get people into the booths , and that is the name of the game for pharmaceutical companies . '' hostesses , italian convention organizers explain , are part of the subtle art of italian business hospitality , where a ''bella presenza'' brings pleasure and prestige . the hostesses , often college students , are not generally hired for their technological know how or business acumen , or even their ability to direct conference attendees to the right hospitality_suite . good looks and a congenial disposition come first . but marta calderai , 18 , a high_school senior who was working as a hostess for the first time at the cardiology convention , had no trouble directing a befuddled italian doctor to hall a in the ornate halls of the cavalieri hilton . ''go straight , then turn left , '' she explained brightly . miss calderai was to the hostess trade born . her grandfather , enzo buongiorno , founded a conference planning agency . she said she did not plan to be a hostess forever ( ''it 's a lot of smiling'' ) , but she might go into the family business of conference organizing . ms . calderai and other well groomed hostesses strolled the halls or registered attendees . two young men in navy blazers and yellow striped ties , known as stewards , were charged with the more demanding task of managing the central information booth . ''some tasks require a masculine presence , '' maria tiziana andriani , a conference manager and a former hostess , explained . ''men can handle technology better , for example , working slide projectors . '' hiring pretty girls to brighten a conference or trade show and cater to clients is common practice in europe . ''hostesses are not just blond bimbos , '' said sarah storie pugh , the london based president of the international association of professional conference organizers . ''they have to look good , of course , but also must be level headed . '' the professional conference hostess is a vanishing breed in the united_states , where feminism has left a sterner stamp except perhaps at car shows . when hillary_rodham_clinton accepted an invitation to attend an international conference on civic education in palermo two years ago , the italian public_relations company that organized the event was instructed by the white_house to drop the term hostess , because it sounded demeaning . they used ''conference assistant'' instead . there are no such constraints in italy . even the vatican hired hostesses to attend to guests registering for the holy year jubilee for journalists in june . in business , which is also male dominated , conferences and trade fairs are still a mainstay of commerce . ''ninety percent of italian companies sell their products through middlemen and small retailers , '' said francesca golfetto , a professor of corporate communications at the bocconi business school in milan , ''whereas in the united_states 90 percent of companies sell directly to the customer . italian companies on average spend 30 percent of their communications budgets on conventions and fairs . they tend to be costly and very sophisticated . '' the hostesses say they enjoy the job , which is part time and pays relatively well , about 70 a day , not including overtime . in italy , where the government is still struggling to loosen labor rules , it is one of the few part time jobs that can easily be acquired . real hostesses sometimes accompany clients on organized sightseeing tours and to gala conference dinners , but they do not function as escorts . ms . andriani explained the difference ''the secret of the job is to be accessible to the client without being too available , so they do n't get the wrong idea . '' but some women do find themselves being hired by unscrupulous agencies that cater to clients with the wrong idea . ''there are the respectable , known agencies , and then there are other , more fly by night places , '' said fabio ceteroni , the manager of partyworld in rome and president of a union that represents professional leisure activity coordinators . he said he occasionally got tearful calls from young women who were asked to give too much on the job . too much seriousness is frowned on , even at the most sober scientific conferences . ''americans have no peers when it comes to hard work and advanced science and technology , but they do n't care as much about the softer side of life , '' gianfranco antonelli , a cardiologist from bari , said , explaining why hostesses are an essential part of a good conference . ''for centuries , we italians have been known for our appreciation of women . we have a reputation to uphold . ''",has a topic of technology
"finally calming the partisan tensions that have buffeted it all year , the state legislature ended its annual session early this morning by forging a last minute deal with gov . george e . pataki on a handful of outstanding issues . the governor and the legislative leaders agreed on measures that would stiffen penalties for stalking and for blocking abortion clinics , expand the state 's database of dna specimens from criminals , and allow the construction of new power_plants . they focused on those bills after jettisoning others that proved too nettlesome , including one that would have permitted new york to join the multistate powerball lottery . while officials here hailed the late night compromise , it was reached nearly two months after the legislature had planned to adjourn , and the topsy turvy negotiations that dragged on throughout the day and into the evening on thursday could serve as a primer on the difficulties of getting things done in albany . in fact , the deal came together after the senate_majority_leader , joseph l . bruno , threw up his hands on thursday afternoon , broke off discussions with the assembly speaker , sheldon_silver , and ordered the senate closed for the session . but in a highly unusual spectacle , mr . silver kept the assembly working into the night and continued negotiating with mr . pataki , even though it was not clear how the bills could become law with the senate having decamped . shortly after 10 on thursday night , mr . pataki , mr . silver and mr . bruno announced a deal under which the assembly would approve the bills immediately and the senate would do so the next time it is in session perhaps as soon as next month , but more likely in late november , when the legislature plans to return for a short special session . the governor and the legislature had earlier agreed to extend a law that allows thousands of people to live in otherwise illegal loft apartments , mostly in lower_manhattan . the republicans had been withholding their approval in an effort to wring concessions from the democrats on other bills . the law had expired on june 30 , leaving tenants fearful of eviction . until late thursday night , the talks had yielded mostly grief , and the disarray on the lawmakers' last day of work had seemed an apt finale to one of their least productive sessions in recent memory . as with the state budget , which the legislature approved this week after missing the deadline by more than four months , all sides at times seemed more willing to dig in their heels than to hand a victory to the opposition . the session , which began in early january , had been scheduled to conclude on june 16 , but it was repeatedly extended because of the haggling over the budget . while the governor and lawmakers had attained some accomplishments by this morning , they had long ago abandoned bargaining over dozens of other measures , including one that would loosen the rockefeller era penalties for drug crimes and another that would change the rules regarding polluted industrial sites . ''this has been a frustrating and exasperating session , '' mr . bruno said before the compromise was announced . ''not just today and yesterday , but practically since we started the session . '' after negotiating well into wednesday night , mr . bruno , who is known for his impatience with albany 's penchant for delay and gamesmanship , gave up . he had the senate pass the latest drafts of the important remaining bills and send them to the assembly , adopting a take it or leave it approach with the assembly speaker . the senate then recessed . mr . silver , a manhattan democrat , rejected those versions of the bills , but then spent thursday evening cobbling together new compromises with mr . pataki . mr . silver 's spokeswoman , patricia lynch , acknowledged that the negotiations were unconventional . ''i have never seen it quite done this way , '' she said . the collapse in talks before the late night deal was caused largely by the longstanding albany strategy of linking unrelated measures to exert leverage . in other words , one side refuses to approve a bill until another agrees to endorse a separate measure . the connections can often become so convoluted that in the end , either all the measures are approved or none of them are . those tactics infuriated some supporters of the bills , who assumed that with the governor and the legislature in general agreement and seeking only to resolve minor disputes , the bills would easily become law . abortion rights groups had lobbied the senate republicans for months to support the clinic access bill and were jubilant after they dropped their opposition in june . but by thursday afternoon , the groups were despondent , only to rally again after learning of the compromise . ''i have never seen an issue that was this up , this down , this unsettled and then finally came out all right , '' said joann smith of family_planning advocates . blocking access to an abortion clinic is already prohibited under federal law , but the federal statute is not often used . a state law can be enforced by the local police . the assembly has passed the bill several times , and the calls for a state law gained urgency with the killing last year of dr . barnett slepian , a buffalo area doctor who performed abortions . mr . pataki has pressed for mandatory collection of dna ''fingerprints'' from all felons , a measure that had also been advocated in new york city by mayor rudolph w . giuliani and police commissioner howard safir . just as fingerprints collected from criminals can be put into a computer and matched to those found at crime scenes , a dna database would allow law enforcement officials to match hair , skin or blood samples left at a crime scene to the files of known criminals . the state already collects dna information , usually from a saliva sample , from people convicted of certain violent crimes , including sex crimes , or about 8 percent of all felony convicts . mr . silver had wanted to limit the new categories of criminals who would be subject to collection . under the bill , which was opposed by some civil_liberties groups , the state would gather specimens from all violent felons and those convicted of several other kinds of offenses .",has a topic of technology
"china adopted elaborate new rules today restricting use of the internet , a medium that is fast fraying the government 's monopoly on information . the new rules spell out in more detail than before the government 's definition of computer crimes , which include use of the internet to defame government agencies , to promote separatist movements or to divulge state secrets . officials cited a need to ''to safeguard national_security and social stability'' as they annouced the rules , which are clearly aimed at squelching the rapidly growing use of electronic mail and web_sites by dissidents to spread their message . announcing the new regulation , zhu entao , an assistant minister of public security , said computer information networks are indispensable to the country 's economic and scientific advance . ''but the connection has also brought about some security problems , including manufacturing and publicizing harmful information , as well as leaking_state_secrets through the internet , '' mr . zhu said , according to the official new china news_agency . mr . zhu spoke on monday at a news conference to which foreign journalists were not invited . in 1996 the government declared that laws against pornography , social disturbances or breaches of state security would apply to the internet , and the practical impact of the new regulation will depend on how it is enforced . but the announcement is a warning to dissenters and their sympathizers here and abroad . earlier this month , for example , after he was released from prison and sent to the united_states , the democracy advocate wei jingsheng said he planned to use the internet and other forms of telecommunications to press his cause from abroad . the new rules will not affect hong_kong , reuters reported , quoting anthony wong , director general of the territory 's telecommunications . mr . wong said the internet was covered by the ''one country , two systems'' doctrine adopted when britain ceded hong_kong in july . use of the internet to retrieve information and send e mail has soared since china first allowed global connections in 1994 . at the end of october , 620 , 000 internet subscriptions had been established , the internet information center of china , an arm of the state run company that oversees internet_services , reports . many of those accounts are shared by 10 or 20 people , though a growing number of people have computers at home and may pay more than 200 to establish a personal account . though the connecting lines are often crowded and slow , users can still tap the bountiful resources of the global internet . the cabinet approved the new rules on dec . 11 . the government did not publish the text , but reuters reported that among other things it prohibits using the internet to ' 'split the country'' chinese terminology applied to supporters of the dalai_lama or of formal independence for taiwan . another article bans ' 'defaming of government agencies , '' which could apply to statements by democracy advocates . the regulation calls for unspecified ''criminal punishments'' and fines of up to 1 , 800 , reuters reported , and applies to companies providing internet_access as well as to individuals using it . in 1996 , inveighing against the ' 'spiritual pollution'' of china , the government used its control over the telecommunications system to block access to more than a hundred web_sites , including those of many foreign newspapers , human_rights and dissident groups and taiwanese agencies , as well as sites considered pornographic , like playboy magazine 's . in early 1997 , it reopened access to some sites . this evening , access through chinese internet providers to some newspapers , including the new york times , and to the web pages of well known dissident groups abroad was apparently blocked . a user trying to sign on received no response . but the pages of many other foreign news sources , including the washington_post , were accessible , as were many x rated sites reached via a common web browser . controlling web_sites is a sisyphean task because so many new ones are constantly being created , and people with skill and determination can find ways to bypass the government barriers . though a monitor may be able to identify messages by their labels for example , www . amnesty . com seditious information can be disguised . still , one blocked site , that of the group human_rights_in_china , based in new york , still gets dozens of ''hits'' from inside china each week , said the executive director , xiao_qiang . another banned site from the united_states , china news digest , gets hundreds each week , he said . e mail is the government 's real achilles' heel . security agents can tap phones and monitor the contents of some among the blizzard of letters , but there is no way to censor them . more likely , a monitoring program could be used to gather evidence against addressees should the government wish to suppress their access to information . the scattered , usually silent remnant of democracy advocates here has found ways , together with exiles , to exploit electronic mail . it is not so useful , they say , for sending sensitive messages directly to one person in china , because the line might be tapped and because so many accounts have numerous readers . ''but it 's great for the mass distribution of information , '' mr . xiao said by telephone from new york , noting that news or articles can be sent to dozens or hundreds of addresses to be widely read , with no one clearly responsible . he pointed to an electronic magazine called ''tunnel , '' a weekly forum for free political discussion that is mainly written and edited inside china . the contents are sent by e mail to a silicon_valley address where it is electronically mailed back into china to thousands of addresses . some 20 issues have appeared since it began in june . china 's struggle to tame the squirming internet octopus reflects what many experts see as the government 's central conundrum how to foster economic_growth and freedom while keeping tight screws on politics . mr . zhu , the security official who announced the new rules , gave no nod to the possible trade offs . ''the safe and effective management of computer information networks , '' he said , ''is a prerequisite for the smooth implementation of the country 's modernization drive . ''",has a topic of technology
"time was , in this region , grandpa worked for krupp , dad worked for krupp , and if junior did not work for krupp too , everyone was aghast . here in the heartland of german heavy_industry , the big companies took care of you , and employment was for life . think again . the ruhr industrial area coal , steel , belching chimneys , grinding machinery , polluted rivers , great heaving motor of german postwar reconstruction and economic might is no more . many of the former pits and factories have been converted into museums of ''industrial culture'' where old compressors adorn chic cafes . in the place of the steel and coal men who made the ruhrgebiet , or ruhr_valley , an industrial legend , meet hard driving josef brewing , 37 . he heads a venture called electronic_commerce center , is given to talk of ' 'start up incubators , '' and is busy turning a 100 acre site occupied in cold_war days by the british rhine army into a new economy hub . ''this will be the biggest agglomeration of e_commerce companies in germany , '' said mr . brewing ( pronounced brer wing ) . ''we opened the first building less than a year ago and already have 17 companies with 300 employees offering everything from internet consulting to software development . within three years , we expect about 3 , 000 people to work here . '' of course , it is not easy to turn pittsburgh into palo_alto , and it is impossible to do so overnight . but the revolution taking place in dowdy dortmund reflects a broader one in germany . the land of social market consensus is giving way to a brasher place where young entrepreneurs are lionized as modernizing heroes . turn on the tv and chances are some high tech upstart like gerhard schmid of mobilcom is explaining how he made millions . stock_market reports are increasingly ubiquitous , restaurant banter is often about bargain shares . last year , the number of germans owning stocks jumped 11 percent to more than five million the trend is accelerating . ''the wealthy do n't have to hide in this country any more because they are no longer held up as examples of greed , '' said michael wolghat , an economist at deutsche_bank . ''germany is changing as shareholding spreads at a rapid rate . students now seem less interested in politics than in price earning ratios . '' nowhere is this transformation of europe 's biggest economy more dramatic than in the ruhr , the most concentrated industrial area of the continent and the place where marshall fund money first ignited the postwar economic_miracle . problems began many years ago because germany 's coal cannot compete with south_africa 's , which is cheaper to mine . in the last decade , 20 mines have closed . the unemployment rate , at 16 percent in dortmund , is still well above the national average of 10 percent the few vestiges of the coal industry are heavily subsidized and perhaps doomed . still , a change of culture is palpable . indeed , it is partly because he is widely seen as more capable of managing this reinvention of the ruhr that wolfgang clement , the social_democratic premier of north_rhine_westphalia , is expected to defeat his christian democratic challenger , jorgen ruttgers , in a state election on sunday . mr . ruttgers' anti foreigner message has played poorly in a state more inclined to the pragmatism of mr . clement , whose approach has not yet undone the sweeping social damage of pit closures , but who has already suggested that the new economy can bring prosperity to the land of krupp and thyssen . one representative of this change is rainer rudolf , 38 . he started his software and consulting company , adesso , two years ago and has more work than he can handle . in striking contrast to the ''herr doktor'' formality of the traditional german workplace , his 72 employees sit around in t shirts and open necked shirts munching pizza . adesso , based in the new dortmund e_commerce center , is working a lot with insurance_companies that want to sell car insurance and other policies over the internet but have little idea how to do so . this activity reflects a crucial change in germany during the last year old economy companies have understood they too must master new economy techniques . ''we 're swamped , '' mr . rudolf said . this is a country that takes a long time to move , but when it does , it tends to do so with a single minded determination and a somewhat startling speed . the blitzkrieg was a german invention . the current embrace of the internet shows some of the same characteristics . ''until a year ago , e_commerce was widely regarded as just electronic shopping , '' mr . brewing said . ''but in the last year , people have understood that it 's a way to rationalize your business and an essential route to new clients . the fact that we 're the accelerators of the old economy has been grasped . '' it took a while . the shift that has led to the emergence of companies like adesso and electronic_commerce center had its germ in 1986 with the creation , backed by the local government , of a ''technology park'' next to dortmund university . as coal and steel suffered , the plan was to ensure that inventions in the university could find expression in electronic and high tech industries . the idea has proved fertile in the end close to 25 , 000 people now work in software or microelectronic businesses in the dortmund area . about one quarter of german venture_capital is applied in the ruhr . the largest company , materna information and communications , a specialist in the software that provides short message services over mobile_phones , has about 1 , 000 employees . as for thyssen and krupp , they have merged into a slimmed down modern company and embraced the sale of steel on the internet . ''the change is happening very fast today , '' said kurt monse , who helps coordinate the ''media'' initiative of mr . clement , which provides financial support for the transformation of the ruhr . ''we provide one stop shopping for anyone , german or foreign , who wants to invest in our new internet economy . what mr . ruttgers does not realize is that one investment by an indian can provide 20 jobs for germans . '' mr . ruttgers , the christian democratic candidate , has become notorious for the anti immigrant electoral slogan ''kinder statt inder'' ''children not indians'' that he has since withdrawn . it was badly received in his party , and he appeared to have misread the mood of an area that might be unhappy with its large number of foreigners but seemed to have reached a consensus that there was scant future in being closed to the world . ''you 've got all the public_housing in essen taken over by asylum_seekers , and you ca n't find a german on a building site , '' said wilhelm wetzel , a miner who retired at 50 when his pit was closed in 1988 . ''it is not a good situation . but i do n't see how we can reverse this situation any more than we can reopen the mines . '' mr . wetzel works as an occasional guide at what was once the area 's largest mine , the zollverein in essen . the mine , which once employed 6 , 000 people , closed in 1986 . today , its functional , red brick , bauhaus inspired buildings have been converted for a variety of uses , including concerts and jewelry workshops . there is a design_museum , converted by the british architect sir norman foster a media institute graphic studios an art gallery a museum of the mine and a variety of small businesses . ''we even have guided_tours ending with a glass of champagne beneath the moon on the roof of the building where coal was washed , '' said marie mense , a coordinator of what is now called the zollverein foundation . from that roof , a fine view stretches away from the fabled ruhrgebiet , marked now by dormant chimneys and mounds of earth under which industrial waste lies . the zollverein has become a prominent part of the ''industriekultur'' road that takes visitors around disused plants , gas storage facilities and breweries , now all museums . ''we do n't have wines or cheeses in the ruhr , but we have a lot of industry , or rather ex industry , '' said eckhard albrecht , the director of the ruhrgebiet initiative that has financed these transformations . ''this remains a central part of our culture , our traditions , even if the attitudes of silicon_valley have now penetrated our world . '' correction may 16 , 2000 , tuesday an article on sunday about changes in the economy of the ruhr region in germany misspelled the surname of an economist at deutsche_bank who commented . he is michael wolgast , not wolghat .",has a topic of technology
"an international commission established in 1998 to settle insurance claims for holocaust victims and their heirs has reached an accord with a consortium of european insurance_companies on the procedures for people to apply for reparations , commission officials said today . the agreement frees up about 275 million that for two years has been awaiting procedures to accommodate claimants who have trouble producing the documentation normally required . israel singer , chairman of the world jewish congress , who helped negotiate the agreement , said it was accomplished after two years of difficult and often contentious negotiations . ''this is a great victory for justice , '' mr . singer said in an interview from new york . ''this is part of a massive effort at restitution that is very late but fortunately not too late for hundreds of thousands of holocaust survivors still alive , many of whom are in great need . '' under the agreement , about 100 million will be set aside for claims and claim related expenses . another 175 million will be put into a fund to be used in part to pay claims that have no documentation but meet relaxed standards . after those claimants are paid , most of that 175 million is expected to remain available to be given to various charities that benefit jewish holocaust survivors . lawrence s . eagleburger , a former secretary of state , was chairman of the international commission of holocaust era insurance claims , which conducted talks between the claimants and germany 's remembrance , responsibility and future foundation . the foundation , financed jointly by the german_government and german companies , was established in 2000 to compensate surviving holocaust victims for claims for insurance policies , slave labor , banking and property losses . mr . eagleburger said that the agreement today , which covers the insurance portion of the process , was ''a major step forward for many survivors and their heirs who previously had no readily available routes for pursuing valid german insurance claims . '' the agreement comes after complaints from some legislators that the commission was moving far too slowly to resolve the procedural issues . it also provides for the publication of a database of more than five million insurance policies issued to jewish residents of germany from 1933 to 1939 . ''we think this is the first opportunity for people to make crosschecks and make claims , '' mr . singer said . some 79 , 000 claims have already been made .",has a topic of technology
"information , as the saying goes , wants to be free . in this spirit , a growing number of internet_service_providers have begun offering completely free internet_access no monthly charges and no start up fees . companies like netzero , world spy , freei . net , and even kmart ( yes , kmart ) now let anyone with a computer and a modem browse the web at no cost , and , through aggressive advertising campaigns , aim to lure web users away from fee based services like america online and earthlink . and the trend is accelerating in january alone , established web names like alta vista and juno joined their ranks . free access has been slower to catch on in the united_states than in countries like britain , where the debut last year of dixon 's freeserve , run by an electronics retailing chain , was so successful that many competitors , including aol , now offer free services of their own . in britain , though , telephone customers pay by the minute for local calls , which means a so called free internet connection can still be costly . few internet experts expect such dramatic changes on this side of the atlantic . zia daniell wigder , an analyst at jupiter communications , a new york based company that provides research on internet commerce , predicts that 13 percent of net users will gain access via free providers by 2003 a healthy amount , but probably not enough to scare aol . ''the free services are catching on , '' ms . wigder said , ''but they are competing against each other , not just aol . '' why has free internet_access been a greater hit in britain than the united_states ? for one thing , industry analysts say , the british tend to spend less on entertainment . also , established i.s.p . 's command greater customer loyalty in the united_states . ''aol offers a very good service that people are addicted to , '' said bruce kasrel , an analyst at forrester research , a research company in cambridge , mass . , that analyzes how changes in technology affect businesses and society . ''free i.s.p . 's will not be the primary way people access the internet in the future . '' nonetheless , free i.s.p . 's are a burgeoning presence in the united_states , with a dozen companies offering national services and many regional i.s.p . 's offering something like free connections ( many charge one time set up fees ) . i recently signed up for a number of the largest providers and tested them over several weeks . the ground rules i ignored providers who promised free monthly service but charged a hefty set up fee , avoided services that could not provide a local phone_number ( in my case , area_code 718 ) and tried to rely only on free technical support , which was sometimes available only by e mail . in short , my goal was to evaluate the quality of internet_access i could get without paying a cent . to begin , i downloaded the software from the free i.s.p . web_sites using my existing provider , a regular phone line , a 56k modem and windows 98 . anyone who does n't already have an internet provider can order the software by phone , usually for less than 10 . among the following free i.s.p . 's , only freei is compatible with macintoshes . netzero netzero ( www . netzero . net ) the biggest of the free i.s.p . 's , reports having three million subscribers , all with pc 's ( it does not work with macs ) . netzero subscribers must use windows 95 , 98 , nt or 2000 . downloading the software and answering a marketing questionnaire , a necessary part of the sign up process , took an hour . after i had used netzero a few times , an ambiguous error message began cropping up on my computer ''691 member id password invalid or we may have temporary system difficulties . '' since i had been using netzero successfully , i figured that it was the latter . but i could not be sure because netzero does not have toll free technical support by phone you must either pay for a call to southern_california or use the service 's ''platinum'' phone support , which is 14 . 95 per call . if the service is down , you obviously cannot use e mail or consult a web_site for help unless you have another internet provider . i decided to use another i.s.p . to send e mail to netzero 's technical support service . all i got was a standardized response urging me to upgrade to the latest version of netzero . it was faster to register again under another name , with a new id and password . the error message disappeared , but i would not want to re register every time i encountered a problem . netzero provides free e mail , and it comes with a window for advertisements , called the zeroport , that can be moved around but not removed from the screen . the zeroport was only a moderate distraction i found it least obtrusive at the bottom of the screen . worldspy ''free internet_access , ''the worldspy advertisements say ( www . worldspy . com ) . ''our accountant is n't happy . '' neither was i , after realizing that worldspy 's memory gulping software would occupy 8 megabytes on my hard_drive . and there were glitches a dialogue box kept reappearing on the screen , the service intermittently disconnected and occasionally when i dialed in , the worldspy application would start , then enigmatically disappear from the screen . on the positive side , worldspy 's technical support includes a toll free phone_number , and the people there were prompt and helpful although the first time i tried it , i was cut off in midcall . a representative solved the dialogue box problem without too much difficulty and assured me that the mysterious disappearing application was caused by a software bug that worldspy was attempting to fix . worldspy does not include an advertising window like zeroport . worldspy is an online retailer , and its internet_service is intended to draw traffic to the site . its service is compatible with windows 95 , 98 and nt , but not yet with windows 2000 . over all , i had enough connection problems to give me pause about using worldspy as a long term i.s.p . freei setting up freei 's software is quick , provided you have version 5 of microsoft 's internet explorer . anyone using an earlier version of explorer will first have to download version 5 , which can itself be a lengthy process , to install freei . in fact , almost all free i.s.p . 's use explorer as the default browser , perhaps because netscape is now part of aol . freei ( www . freei . net ) , based in seattle , does not have a toll free number for phone support , but the service itself presented a minimum of connection problems . since freei provides access for macintosh users with os 8.0 or higher , apple partisans may choose to go here first and consult friends if technical issues arise . freei is also compatible with windows 95 , 98 , nt and 2000 . alta vista one of the best known portals on the web , alta vista ( www . altavista . com ) , recently started offering free internet_access . the software downloads rapidly , and alta vista allows users to list several local phone numbers in the setup program . if the modem encounters a busy signal when dialing in , it will try the next number on the list . alta vista provided a reliable connection and has a highly detailed trouble shooting guide , parts of which pertain to basic networking and protocol issues and could be useful no matter which i.s.p . you use . the service works with windows 95 , 98 , nt and 2000 . alta vista also provides free technical support by phone , which in my case included about a_10 minute wait on hold . juno an established i.s.p. , juno ( www . juno . com ) offers a choice between its premium service for 9 . 95 a month and completely free access . among other differences , the premium service includes free technical phone support , which costs 1 . 95 per minute if you choose the free service . premium users also have more local phone numbers to choose from . but like alta vista , juno 's free service also allows users to list several local numbers in case of a busy signal , and it offers a dependable , consistent connection . it does not take long to download juno 's software , either . in fact , the most time consuming part of the set up process is answering a tedious personal questionnaire , which is by far the longest of any free i.s.p . reviewed here . juno 's free service also requires windows 95 or any later version , including windows 2000 . bluelight ( kmart ) when i learned that kmart was in the free i.s.p . business , i pictured a cheesy service with pop up advertisements distracting me while i perused the web ''attention , kmart surfers . we now have a blue light special on garden hoses . '' as its name indicates , though , kmart has a sense of humor about its cyberventure ( www . bluelight . com ) . bluelight does show a video advertisement while your modem is dialing , and it includes the usual on screen advertising window . these distractions aside , bluelight emerged as a dark horse winner . it took just a few minutes to download the software and to register . the service is run in collaboration with yahoo the default home page and users are given a yahoo . com e mail address . bluelight runs with windows 95 , 98 , nt and 2000 . i have yet to experience a single software glitch , connection problem or curious error message with bluelight . when i tested its technical support by phone , i reached a representative within a minute . granted , that required a call to the 409 area_code ( texas ) , but that seems like a reasonable trade off . indeed , using free i.s.p . 's generally means accepting trade offs like connection difficulties and limited technical support , but that can also be true of services you pay for . you may have to endure an advertising window , and many free i.s.p . 's monitor the online activities of their users . almost all free service_providers require windows as a platform . and if you are using the internet for professional reasons , it is a good idea to try a free i.s.p . for a while before relying upon it too heavily . but if all that seems reasonable to you , there is one undeniable benefit a very nice price . places to look a number of internet_service_providers provide free web access , in addition to those mentioned in the article . here are some of them . unless otherwise noted , these services are compatible with only windows 95 , 98 , and nt . the simpsons www . thesimpsons . com free internet_access and e mail brought to you by the site of the long running hit series , but only for windows users . d'oh ! it runs with windows 2000 . excite home www . excite . com where would a major portal be these days without offering free net access ? excite 's freeworld works with windows 2000 . freewwweb www . freewwweb . com this site says it was the first national provider of free access . it covers nearly every area_code in the country . ifreedom www . ifreedom . com local access numbers are limited in some states , especially in rural areas , but ifreedom is promising compatibility for mac users by the middle of 2000 . a windows 2000 version is also on the way . dotnow www . dotnow . com national coverage for dotnow is extensive . before downloading , use its search form to see if your local access number is available . tritium network www . tritium . net currently , tritium network covers only major cities and requires at least windows 95 . in return for free access , users must fill out an online survey once a month . free advice here are a few hints on how to make sure that you get more than you pay for from free internet_service . avoid hidden costs some free i.s.p . 's , especially local and regional providers , advertise ''free service'' or ''no monthly fees'' but actually charge a hefty set up fee or make users purchase their software . check system requirements before downloading a free i.s.p . 's software , make sure that your system is compatible with it . most i.s.p . 's list system requirements , sometimes on a frequently asked questions page . read the fine_print some free i.s.p . 's terminate sessions if users do not click on a banner advertisement within a certain number of minutes others monitor use or require users to fill out surveys on a regular basis . look at the user agreement and any disclaimers on the site . correction february 29 , 2000 , tuesday an article in circuits on thursday about free internet_service omitted an operating system that is compatible with the freewwweb service . the service works with macintosh as well as windows computers .",has a topic of technology
"for years , joe asher has been dreaming of the day when tourists in las_vegas sit by the pool and place double or nothing bets on 38 black at the roulette table inside , or double down on blackjack hands while waiting in line at the buffet , by touching a button on a hand held wireless device . now it looks as if mr . asher , the managing director of cantor g w , the gaming division of the financial_services company cantor_fitzgerald , might finally see his dream come true . in march , after months of legal deliberations , political maneuvering and public hearings , the nevada gaming control board , which oversees las_vegas casinos , cleared the way for businesses to propose ways in which establishments can offer wireless gambling . for mr . asher it was the culmination of a process that began in 2004 , when he and his team first hashed out the idea of trying to persuade nevada to allow wireless gambling in the state . ''cantor has taken the lead on this from the start , '' mr . asher said . ''we went through the process of sitting with the gaming board , drafting a bill with our attorneys , then moving the bill through the legislature . '' the bill , signed into law last june by the nevada governor , kenny guinn , allows casinos to offer wireless gambling within certain sections on their grounds . numerous regulations are attached to the law , including strict security and identification measures , which will monitor who gets to use the wireless devices and where . many of those regulations will be ironed out over the next year , when the state gambling board starts to conduct field tests of the devices in a casino that has yet to be selected . barring any major technical snags , however , wireless gambling will reach las_vegas casinos early next year . wireless gambling or mobile gaming , as it is called by the industry has the potential to radically change how casinos do business . ( no casinos have formally announced plans yet . ) wireless gambling would allow players to free themselves from felt topped tables and slot_machines and multitask while they wager . they would be able to bet on a variety of games at once , perhaps while watching a show or eating dinner . gambling would become a continuous activity . which is exactly what casinos want for their customers to gamble as much as is humanly possible . it would work something like this a gambler turns in his credit_card to a cashier , who then provides a hand held wireless device . the amount of money wagered is charged against the card . any winnings are collected when the wireless device is returned . according to lee amaitis , the president of cantor g w , the company is well positioned to take advantage of the wireless gambling law . its research and development department has created java based software that can be used on virtually any wi_fi enabled device . ''cantor_fitzgerald processes over 40 trillion yearly in security trades , '' mr . amaitis said . ''this is just an extension of what we 've been doing for years . '' cantor is also a leading online bookmaker in britain , where the laws governing wireless gambling are less strict than in the united_states . ( internet gambling is illegal in the united_states . ) having taken care of security encryption issues with its various financial and gambling services , cantor officials say the company is eager to invest in mobile gambling in nevada and elsewhere . but cantor is hardly the only major player excited by the new law . other companies , including casino hardware manufacturers like shufflemaster and igt , are developing software and devices . shufflemaster , a nevada business that dominates the market for automatic card shufflers for casinos , has entered into a partnership with sona wireless to create a service it calls casino on demand . ''we will offer table , slot and sports services on our wireless platform , '' said kirsten clark , marketing director for shufflemaster . ''customers eventually will be able to watch sports in real time on their devices , and wager on them , as well . '' applying the same principles of most high tech slot_machines , the new wireless devices' games will use random number generators that spit out countless millions of different combinations . the number generators for wireless devices will be located on servers that are housed in the back rooms of the casinos that offer the service . the gaming control board wants to make sure that wireless bets can reach their destination without a hitch . ''the technical standards for the communication protocol are crucial , '' said mark clayton , a member of the nevada gaming control board . ''we will have a very strict protocol on what communication should be occurring between the devices and the servers . there has to be a high level of encryption in order to avoid hacking and other security breaches . '' there is also the issue of the devices' falling into the hands of under age gamblers , who , according to wireless gambling 's critics , will no doubt think of the pursuit as a natural progression from hand held video_games . ''wireless gambling provides a lot of additional risk factors , '' said keith whyte , executive director for the national council on problem gambling . ''enforcement is a big issue . if people are gambling on the main floor , they will be harder to spot , and what 's to prevent a parent from handing the device over to his child ? access is obviously a big issue . '' a number of identification systems have been proposed to the gaming control board , which is leaning toward a biometric scanner that can read the user 's thumbprint . shufflemaster has created an id system based on gambling behavior . if a low money wagerer suddenly bets 1 , 000 , the device will ask for an id to ensure that the same player placed both bets . ''this is a groundbreaking new element to gaming technology , '' mr . asher of cantor said . ''the technology itself has been sitting around for years without casinos taking advantage , so why not use it ? '' getting connected",has a topic of technology
"his lawyer describes him , rather implausibly , as a ''gentleman from the old school . '' but when armin meiwes stepped into a courtroom in this central german city the other day , legal binders tucked under his arm , there was no denying his nattiness . with a well cut suit and patterned tie , set off by a polished gold clasp , mr . meiwes looked like a member of his legal defense team rather than a man accused of killing and eating one of his houseguests . the trial of mr . meiwes , 42 , who confessed to a cannibalism ritual with a willing victim who answered his internet posting , has repulsed and riveted germans since it began this month . the killing , in march 2001 , is like a particularly dark fable from the brothers grimm , who wrote many of their fairy_tales in kassel , populating the thickly forested countryside around here with dwarves , goblins , and a witch who likes dining on children . german newspapers have been full of lurid details about the man they called hannibal of hesse and the cannibal of rotenburg , after the secluded village where mr . meiwes lived in a rambling half timbered house , casting an electronic net for young men willing to be ' 'slaughtered . '' beyond the grisly details and they are grisly enough for the most hardened of true crime devotees the case raises knotty legal questions that some experts believe will be settled only by germany 's highest court . at issue is whether mr . meiwes can be found guilty of murder even though his victim , 43 year old bernd j rgen brandes , consented and even pleaded to be stabbed to death and consumed . prosecutors concede that the victim was willing , but say he was mentally unbalanced . they say mr . meiwes , a computer technician , murdered his victim and ate him as a form of sexual gratification . cannibalism itself is not a crime in germany . ''it 's really complicated , because you have two people coming together with very similar , perverse fantasies , '' said arthur kreuzer , the director of the institute for the study of criminology at giessen university . ''one said , 'i want to kill you and eat you , ' '' mr . kreuzer said . ''the other said , 'i want to be killed and eaten by you . ' '' mr . meiwes 's lawyer , harald ermel , contends that his client is guilty only of ''killing on request , '' an illegal form of euthanasia that carries a maximum prison sentence of five years . a manslaughter conviction would put mr . meiwes in prison for up to 15 years . given all the legal ambiguities , mr . kreuzer said the case could end up in the federal constitutional court . the simplest way to keep mr . meiwes off the streets , mr . kreuzer said , would be for the panel of three judges to rule that he was suffering from ' 'diminished responsibility'' at the time of the killings and send him to a well guarded psychiatric_hospital for treatment . the trouble is , a court appointed psychiatrist has already said mr . meiwes is fit to stand trial . unless he reverses himself on the witness stand , the judges would find it difficult to confine mr . miewes to a hospital . ''if the forensic psychiatrist says he is responsible for his actions , there is no way to keep him away from society for a long time , '' said wolfgang retz , a psychiatrist at the university of the saarland . that prospect unsettles people who have turned up at the nondescript courthouse here twice a week to take in the proceedings . ''i think he would pose a great danger to the public , '' said manfred sch bel , a 58 year old retiree . ''this guy and his friends were engaged in some very strange behavior . it could happen again . '' mr . meiwes offered a glimpse into his netherworld in testimony on the first day of the trial . he said he had posted advertisements on the internet , under the pseudonym franky , which said , ''if you are 18 25 , you are my boy . '' he claimed to have gotten about 200 replies . four other men traveled to rotenburg to meet with mr . meiwes and , according to his lawyer , mr . ermel , engaged in sexual role_playing . when it became apparent that they did not want the high jinks to cross the line into physical violence , mr . ermel said , their host allowed them to leave . these witnesses testified on monday , but at their request the presiding judge closed the proceedings to the public . with mr . brandes , a microchip designer , mr . meiwes apparently found a person willing to go all the way . as mr . meiwes ran a video_camera , he stabbed his guest to death with a kitchen knife , before hanging the corpse on a meat hook and carving it . mr . meiwes said he had kept the skull and flesh in plastic bags in his freezer . every now and again he defrosted a bag and ate the contents . in all , he figured , he consumed about 44 pounds of flesh . ''with every piece of flesh i ate , i remembered him , '' mr . meiwes said , according to reuters . ''it was like taking communion . '' no wonder this trial has been riveting theater for courtroom regulars like manfred sch bel . he said most of the cases he watched involved burglaries or drug busts . for mr . sch bel , the hard part is squaring the horror of mr . meiwes 's story with his unthreatening appearance . ''he 's sympathetic , '' mr . sch bel said , adding with a nervous giggle , ''he looks like the nicest cannibal you could ever meet . '' kassel journal",has a topic of technology
"near sill le guillaume , a rural patch of western france , ginette sybille moves some 8 , 000 fowls , 150 swine and 120 head of cattle on and off her 395 acre farm each year . she conducts most of her business with slaughterhouses in the region , but each time an animal changes hands , mrs . sybille has to register the transaction online with the government . ''we are managing with our dial up internet connection , '' she said , ''but a faster one would make a big difference . '' sill le guillaume 's 6 , 500 residents call it ''grove country . '' but the area 's top official , michel quillet , is aiming for a new nickname ''rural technopolis . '' by may , it will become france 's first testing ground for rural deployment of high speed internet_service using the wireless networking standard called wi_fi . wi_fi short for wireless fidelity , and also known as 802 . 11b allows computer users equipped with special network cards to connect wirelessly over a radio frequency to a ground station providing high speed internet_service . its use is booming in airport lounges , hotels and cafes worldwide , but it is only starting to gain attention as an alternative to cable or phone lines for residential and commercial internet_service . until last november , france 's regulatory_agency for communications barred public use of wi_fi networks , whose frequencies had been reserved for military use . now , 38 of france 's 95 administrative jurisdictions , or departments , are authorized to experiment with wi_fi . ''we realized it could help rural communities , '' said jean_fran_ois hernandez , an agency spokesman . while only about 1.5 million internet users in france have high speed connections at home through cable or phone lines , wiring is in place to provide such service to about three quarters of france 's 59 million residents . the prospects for increasing availability are limited , however , because operators say investment in rural areas is too costly . increasingly , rural residents thus feel stranded , even threatened . ''we are already so far removed , '' said xavier de la hitte , a graphic_designer in the southwestern town of st . antonin noble val , ''that we are the people who need broadband most . without it , our businesses are doomed . '' when he moved from toulouse to the countryside in 1995 , mr . de la hitte considered his business competitive . but once other firms had high speed internet_access over phone lines and could send clients hefty graphic files with ease , he realized he was in trouble . france t l com , which operates the town 's phone network , had no plans to offer such service locally . so st . antonin and a neighboring commune , caylus , joined to propose a trial internet connection using a wi_fi network linked to a satellite receiver . altitude t l com , based in the northern city of rouen , is the operator for the sill le guillaume effort . a company engineer , bertrand lebarbier , said he saw the potential for 6 , 000 subscribers . altitude t l com is measuring demand to determine the number of antennas that will circle the commune . each must be linked by another radio based technology , known as fixed wireless , to altitude 's network in alen on , 20 miles away . mr . lebarbier said the network would cost 270 , 000 and take about a month to put in place . the le de r , an island of 15 , 000 residents off the atlantic_coast , is also getting ready for wi_fi , but with a different approach . olivier zablocki , a land development consultant , has received a license to build a network of 120 wi_fi locations on the island , connected to 10 satellite dishes providing the net connection . he has formed a cooperative whose 120 members will underwrite 80 percent of the venture , which he expects to become profitable within three years . mr . zablocki said that public_access to wireless_networks was overdue . ''citizens , the very people who build networks , do n't have the freedom to use them ? '' he asked . ''that policy did n't make any sense . ''",has a topic of technology
"northern_ireland hardly needs help remembering bloody sunday , when british paratroopers shot and killed 14 unarmed civil_rights marchers in londonderry on jan . 30 , 1972 . those events are etched in collective memory . even so , individual witnesses have trouble recounting where they were and what they saw that day . their memories are vivid , but the cityscape of londonderry has changed so much that witnesses lose their bearings . the 10 story rossville flats housing_project in the bogside neighborhood , for example , which towered over the scene of the killings , was torn down 13 years ago . the common inability to connect old memories to a new landscape presented a handicap to a british_government inquiry convened a generation later to investigate bloody sunday . so to help witnesses orient themselves in 1972 londonderry , investigators commissioned a virtual_reality program . using a touch_screen , witnesses on the stand can pick the street corner on which they were standing , turn 360 degrees to show the court where soldiers and demonstrators stood , and trace their movements with a drawing program like those used by sports commentators . in addition to the 20 inch touch_screen in the witness box , the courtroom is equipped with more than a dozen monitors , including individual touch_screens on the tables of lawyers and judges and overhead projection screens for spectators . ''i was hurtled back 30 years in a very tangible way , '' said david tereshchuk , a journalist who had not revisited the site since 1972 . ''i could see the point where the soldiers fired , and then swivel 180 degrees and see the other direction . i remembered seeing a bullet break a piece of masonry off a wall , something i had n't thought of in years . '' the effect can be experienced at a computer screen as part of ''hidden truths bloody sunday , 1972 , '' an exhibition that runs through march 17 at the international_center_of_photography in midtown_manhattan . the software program for the computerized re creation was designed by malachy mcdaid , a multimedia developer for the northern_ireland council for the curriculum , examinations and assessment , an agency that is financed by the british_government and provides education and technology services to the province . ''the software was designed to enhance memory , '' said mr . mcdaid , 39 , who attended the demonstration and whose cousin was killed in the shooting . ''the witnesses are 30 years older than they were on the actual day of bloody sunday and would have found it difficult to recall buildings that have long since gone . i also designed it for people who had no experience using computers . '' since formal hearings in the inquiry began at the guildhall in londonderry two years ago , two of three witnesses have used the software on the stand , mr . mcdaid estimates . the witness first touches one of 83 points called ''hot_spots'' on a map of londonderry . the spots were chosen as key vantage points based on statements given by 1 , 500 witnesses in the initial stages of the inquiry , which was announced by prime_minister tony_blair in january 1998 . the hot spot button opens a 360 degree photo of the location as it looks today . by moving a finger left or right , the witness virtually turns in space . if the location has changed since 1972 , and most of them have , the witness can push a button to show a corresponding artist 's rendering of 1972 londonderry , or another to enter a composite created with photographs and drawings . these views swivel 360 degrees as well . to create the 360 degree views , mr . mcdaid 's team set up a camera tripod on the actual hot spot and shot a series of photographs at 30 degree intervals with a wide angle lens . software stitched the photographs together into a continuous panorama . consarc design group , an architecture firm in belfast , created the virtual models . many of the hot_spots are also indexed to a photo gallery that displays pictures of the bogside neighborhood and sometimes of the march and ensuing violence taken from roughly the same vantage_point . a witness can ' 'move'' through the virtual londonderry by using a walk through function . in the 360 degree drawings of the 1972 city , hot_spots are visible as gray dots . touching a dot opens the adjacent 360 degree view from the direction in which a witness ''approaches'' it . this creates the illusion of walking from one place to the next . if moving from one hot spot to the next is confusing , witnesses can back up , swivel around or shift between current and 1972 views to regain their bearings . finally , to illustrate movement or lines of fire , witnesses draw on the screen . to do this they press save to freeze a screen shot and activate a drawing program . by finger painting on the screen , the witness creates a diagram similar to those made by television sports commentators . the diagram is saved and catalogued by a mainframe computer . ( this program is not activated at the manhattan exhibition because it runs on a personal computer . the more limited computing capacity at the photography center also requires visitors to navigate with a mouse instead of a touch_screen . ) new york prosecutors and defense lawyers who examined the software at the center said such a system could help juries understand testimony in conventional cases . ''you could have something akin to a site visit at almost every trial , '' said john irwin , a senior trial_lawyer at the manhattan district_attorney 's office . ( such excursions , which are supervised by judges , are rare . in 15 years of trying cases , mr . irwin said he has yet to take a jury to a crime scene . ) in a recent case involving a chase and a stabbing , mr . irwin had eight witnesses who saw the events from different vantage points , including apartment windows above street level . ''i would have needed a view of ninth_avenue from 49th to 51st street , '' he said . ''having the technology would have helped the jury to visualize the narrative . '' ronald l . kuby , the defense lawyer and radio talk show host , said that ''from a defense perspective , the program is most useful in challenging eyewitness accounts when the witness saw things at impossible distances . '' for example , he said , a police_officer might testify to having seen an inch square glassine envelope change hands at 50 yards . ''you can take the jury to the point where the witness sees the event and get a sense of distance , '' mr . kuby said . mr . kuby and mr . irwin agreed that the technology had one advantage that is rare in trial exhibits as a simple rendering of a location , it is not adversarial . ''i think both sides would agree on this most of the time , '' mr . irwin said . ''as corny as it sounds , this is a truth seeking technology . ''",has a topic of technology
"last december , china 's foreign_minister , li_zhaoxing , sat down for a remarkably candid online chat with chinese internet users . ''people are not too keen about your looks , '' one participant chided , according to a translation published in the south_china_morning_post and mr . li replied , ''my mother would not agree with this view . '' the exchange was the first time that a senior chinese official had engaged in an online chat with ordinary citizens , but its improbably personal moments belied the restrictive government 's tenuous relationship with the internet . indeed , as the number of people online in china has quintupled over the last four years , the government has shown itself to be committed to two concrete , and sometimes competing , goals strategically deploying the internet to economic advantage , while clamping down with surveillance , filters and prison sentences on undesirable content and use . both trends , experts say , are likely to continue . ''the continuance of communist_party rule is only possible to the extent that the government delivers economic_growth , '' said duncan clark , the managing director of bda china , a telecommunications and technology consulting_firm based in beijing . ''much as henry iv in france was known for the chicken in every pot , '' he said in an e mail message , ''china 's rulers are bent on putting communications , mobile_phones , internet_access and the new growth area , broadband , into as many hands as possible . '' china is already the largest mobile communications subscriber market in the world , with more than 320 million subscribers . internet users who numbered fewer than 17 million in 2000 are now estimated to be somewhere near 90 million , according to the china internet network information center , the government 's clearinghouse for internet statistics . china is second only to the united_states in the number of people online , and the 90 percent of its total population around 1.3 billion who are not online still represents a vast , untapped market . the internet has given rise to several chinese companies worth billions of dollars , including web portals like netease , sina and sohu all traded on nasdaq . and american interests responded after beijing 's pledge this year to increase purchases of united_states telecommunications equipment . in june , china 's leading internet search_engine , baidu . com , announced that the american search powerhouse , google , had bought a stake in the company . days later , yahoo unveiled yisou . com , its own china based search_engine . and on nov . 11 , cisco_systems of san_jose , calif . , announced that it had been chosen to build the business portion of a new backbone network linking 200 chinese cities . the company , which has secured over 100 million in contracts with china_telecom since last june , was also the main provider of equipment for the country 's largest existing public network , chinanet . but not everyone is celebrating the way china has nurtured the internet . ''china is the world 's biggest prison for cyberdissidents , '' said tala dowlatshahi , a spokeswoman for the group reporters without borders , based in france . ''it 's extremely worrying . '' human_rights groups , which consider the internet in china to be something of a blessing and a curse , have long raised concerns about the chinese government 's use of the technology . the rise of china 's internet hinted at more freedoms , but it also promised the government a new and effective means of monitoring its citizens . and while some technologically adept citizens have been finding ways to circumvent the monitoring , the government is also becoming more sophisticated , and it remains just as willing to punish transgressors . in a 2004 report called ''the internet under surveillance , '' reporters without borders noted that although chinese officials had released four people detained for their activities on the internet since the spring of 2003 , there were still 61 people imprisoned ''for posting messages or articles on the internet that were considered subversive . '' the report also noted that the internet , in its chinese manifestation , is purposly built for social control and monitoring . ''there are just five backbones or hubs through which all traffic must pass , '' the report noted . ''no matter what i.s.p . is chosen by internet users , their e mails and the files they download and send must pass through these hubs . '' the opennet initiative an international partnership linking internet and legal research centers at the university of toronto , harvard_law_school and cambridge_university tracks state filtering and surveillance practices . according to the group 's most recent bulletins from china , the government has found new ways to filter search_engine results . sensitive keywords like ''falun_gong'' or ''taiwan independence'' will often return no hits . and with more interactive activities like blogging , online chat and message boards , the monitoring is intense and redundant . ''those who host such activities within the country understand that they can be held responsible for what their users say there , '' said jonathan zittrain , a law professor and a founder of the berkman center for the internet and society at harvard , ''and therefore themselves engage in monitoring . '' western companies have been chided by human_rights groups for acquiescing to demands from the chinese government that , for instance , certain words be filtered in their search engines , or that hardware be tailored to assist in surveillance though most companies counter that they have no control over how the government uses their products . and while it occasionally appears that incremental improvements are being made reporters without borders noted that china finally tried and sentenced most of the cyberdissidents whom it had held without trial for years china 's huge investment in internet technology remains generally inseparable from the government 's expressed desire to control the information carried . ''the evidence points to the government not giving up on surveillance and filtering , '' professor zittrain said . ''indeed , they are refining the techniques for each . '' but so , too , will cyberdissidents refine their efforts to do and say what they want on the internet , experts say . ''on the censorship topic , best to think of it as a cat and mouse game , '' mr . clark of bda china said . ''there will never be an absolute winner or loser . '' the kind of cultural and economic flourishing that the internet has already wrought in china is irreversible , mr . clark said . repercussions for a narrow range of sensitive_topics , he acknowledged , are real and often severe . but apart from these , ''china 's internet is a hothouse of content on a wide range of topics and interests , '' mr . clark said , ''especially those embraced by the teens and 20 somethings who make up the bulk of the online population still . ''china 's rapidly emerging middle classes , numbering tens if not hundreds of millions , are dependent on the internet and the internet is dependent on them , '' he said . ''there 's no putting the genie back in the bottle now , and no real attempt to do so . ''",has a topic of technology
"two days after the government moved to outlaw a neo_nazi group called radical unity , a french judge ordered the group 's web_site closed down , noting that it displayed anti semitic material in violation of a law prohibiting promotion of hatred and racial violence . radical unity , a shadowy group with some 2 , 000 followers , gained notoriety last month after a member , maxime brunerie , tried to kill president jacques_chirac on bastille day . fabrice robert , a radical unity leader , said the ruling proved that france was a democratic dictatorship . alan riding ( nyt )",has a topic of technology
"to her fellow students , hu yingying appears to be a typical undergraduate , plain of dress , quick with a smile and perhaps possessed with a little extra spring in her step , but otherwise decidedly ordinary . and for ms . hu , a sophomore at shanghai normal university , coming across as ordinary is just fine , given the parallel life she leads . for several hours each week she repairs to a little known on campus office crammed with computers , where she logs in unsuspected by other students to help police her school 's internet forums . once online , following suggestions from professors or older students , she introduces politically_correct or innocuous themes for discussion . recently , she says , she started a discussion of what celebrities make the best role models , a topic suggested by a professor as appropriate . politics , even school politics , is banned on university bulletin_boards like these . ms . hu says she and her fellow moderators try to steer what they consider negative conversations in a positive direction with well placed comments of their own . anything they deem offensive , she says , they report to the school 's web master for deletion . during some heated anti japanese demonstrations last year , for example , moderators intervened to cool nationalist passions , encouraging students to mute criticisms of japan . part traffic cop , part informer , part discussion moderator and all without the knowledge of her fellow students ms . hu is a small part of a huge national effort to sanitize the internet . for years china has had its internet police , reportedly as many as 50 , 000 state agents who troll online , blocking web_sites , erasing commentary and arresting people for what is deemed anti communist_party or antisocial speech . but ms . hu , one of 500 students at her university 's newly bolstered , student run internet monitoring group , is a cog in a different kind of force , an ostensibly all volunteer one that the chinese government is mobilizing to help it manage the monumental task of censoring the web . in april that effort was named ''let the winds of a civilized internet blow , '' and it is part of a broader ' 'socialist morality'' campaign , known as the eight honors and disgraces , begun by the country 's leadership to reinforce social and political control . under the civilized internet program , service_providers and other companies have been asked to purge their servers of offensive content , which ranges from pornography to anything that smacks of overt political criticism or dissent . chinese authorities say that more than two million supposedly ''unhealthy'' images have already been deleted under this campaign , and more than 600 supposedly ''unhealthy'' internet forums shut down . critics of the program say the deletions , presented as voluntary acts of corporate civic virtue , are clearly coercive , since no company wants to be singled out as a laggard . having started its own ambitious internet censorship efforts a ''harmful information defense system , '' as the university calls it long before the government 's latest campaign , shanghai normal university is promoting itself within the education establishment as a pioneer . although most of its students know nothing of the university 's monitoring efforts , shanghai normal has conducted seminars for dozens of chinese universities and education officials on how to tame the web . nevertheless , school officials were not eager to talk about the program . ''our system is not very mature , and since we 've just started operating it there 's not much to say about it'' said li ximeng , deputy director of the school 's propaganda department . ''our system is not open for media , and we do n't want to have it appear in the news or be publicized . '' for her part , ms . hu beams with pride over her contribution toward building a ''harmonious society . '' ''we do n't control things , but we really do n't want bad or wrong things to appear on the web_sites , '' she said . ''according to our social and educational systems , we should judge what is right and wrong . and as i 'm a student cadre , i need to play a pioneer role among other students , to express my opinion , to make stronger my belief in communism . '' while the national web censorship campaign all but requires companies to demonstrate their vigilance against what the government deems harmful information , the new censorship drive on college campuses shows greater subtlety and , some would say , greater deviousness . it is here that the government is facing perhaps its most serious challenge how to direct and control young people 's thoughts in a world of increasingly free and diverse information . and the answer relies heavily on stealth . for one thing , interviews with many students at the school 's sprawling and well manicured campus showed that few knew anything about the student run monitoring . even those who had heard of it never imagined that so many students were involved . ''five hundred members sounds unbelievable , '' said a male undergraduate who , fearing official reprisals , asked that he be identified only as zhu . ''it feels very weird to think there are 500 people out there anonymously trying to guide you . '' as they try to steer discussion on bulletin_boards , the monitors pose as ordinary undergraduates , in a bid for greater persuasive power . even topics that to outsiders would seem devoid of political interest merit intervention . one recent discussion about the reported sale online of a video showing the torture of a cat grew heated . some urged harsh punishment or even death to the animal abusers , while others said the video should be sold to the japanese , because of their supposed fondness for perverse material . at that , several monitors jumped in and began talking about the need to develop china 's legal code to handle such matters . the monitors do not see themselves as engaging in censorship or exercising control over the speech of others . in interviews with five of the monitors , each initially rejected the idea that they were controlling expression , and occasionally even spoke of the importance of free_speech . ''our job consists of guidance , not control , '' said ji chenchen , 22 , who is majoring in travel industry studies . ''our bulletin_board 's character is that of an official web_site , which means that it represents the school . this means that no topics related to politics may appear . '' a classmate , tang guochao , agreed . ''a bulletin_board is like a family , and in a family , i want my room to be clean and well lighted , without dirty or dangerous things in it . '' in the past , china 's efforts to control the internet have often foundered in the face of the curiosity and inventiveness of web surfers , who constantly find ingenious ways to find content that is banned and to discuss controversial topics . several students at shanghai normal university said they expected the same thing to happen there . ''i do n't think anybody can possibly control any information in the internet , '' said ji xiaoyin , 20 , a junior studying mechanical design . ''if you 're not allowed to talk here you just go to another place to talk , and there are countless places for your opinions . it 's easy to bypass the firewalls , and anybody who spends a little time researching it can figure it out . ''",has a topic of technology
"in an effort to circumvent united_states export controls , russia 's nuclear_weapons establishment says it has obtained a powerful i.b.m . supercomputer through a european middleman . russian nuclear officials , who disclosed the purchase , said they planned to use the computer to simulate nuclear tests . ''if we see something we can buy on the european market , we buy it , '' vladislav petrov , the head of the public affairs department for russia 's ministry of atomic_energy affairs , said in an interview . mr . petrov said the computer had been purchased for 7 million . the purchase of the supercomputer , an i.b.m . rs 6000 sp , underscores the vein of distrust that still colors relations between the united_states and newly democratic russia . even as washington talks of partnership between nato and russia and supports russia 's efforts at economic_reform , the two sides are still at odds over moscow 's access to sophisticated american technology . russian officials insist that supercomputers are needed to maintain the reliability of their nuclear stockpile now that moscow has agreed to a ban on nuclear tests . ''computer modeling is very important to us , '' viktor n . mikhailov , the minister of atomic_energy affairs , said recently . but american officials say supercomputers could help russia design new weapons . the united_states does not want to help russia insure the effectiveness of its nuclear_arsenal . ''we have made a policy decision not to assist the russians in their stockpile stewardship program , '' a senior american official said . ''even though relations with the russians are good , we are potentially a target for their nuclear forces if relations change . '' the clinton_administration is also concerned about the political ramifications in congress of aiding the russian military establishment . under united_states law , american computer manufacturers are required to consult with the commerce_department before selling computers to russia that are capable of performing between two billion and seven billion calculations a second . the sale of faster computers generally requires a license . the administration turned down applications last year from i.b.m . and hewlett_packard to sell supercomputers to russia . the russians said the computers would be used for research on pollution and nuclear safety , but suspicions were aroused because they were to be shipped to nuclear_weapons design centers . recently , the head of silicon_graphics , a california based company , acknowledged that his company had made a mistake by selling two small supercomputer systems to russia . the united_states_attorney in san_jose has opened an investigation into that sale . the i.b.m . supercomputer is even more powerful and can perform 10 billion calculations a second , russian officials say . they say it is 10 times more effective than the computers now on hand . russian officials decline to say precisely which middleman sold the i.b.m . supercomputer . but they have not hesitated to publicize the acquisition , perhaps calculating that this may undermine the rationale for continued american export controls . russian nuclear officials say they want to purchase even more powerful supercomputers to maintain russia 's status as a nuclear superpower , with washington 's blessing . stressing the need for nuclear research , mr . mikhailov touted russia 's nuclear_arsenal as a means of offsetting its weakness in conventional weapons . ''the only protection throughout this period will be nuclear_weapons , '' he said .",has a topic of technology
"british detectives play cat and mouse with pedophiles who prey online , while , more out in the open , gangs lure young girls from burmese villages to bangkok bordellos . from technology to trafficking , these latest twists in the problem of commercial sexual exploitation of children were discussed and debated at a four day conference that ended here on thursday . ''each year , millions of children boys as well as girls are bought and sold like fresh produce , commodities in a global sex industry steeped in greed and unspeakable cruelty , '' said carol bellamy , executive director of unicef , which sponsored the conference with the japanese government and two private groups . unicef estimates that every year one million youths under age 18 ''are forced into the sex trade . '' the conference drew 3 , 000 delegates , three times the number that took part in the first such gathering five years ago in stockholm . in the halls and in the 107 workshops , participants sketched out the latest developments in this fast changing world . in developed nations , the internet and cellular_telephone explosion has been a boon to adults who prey on young people for sex , participants said . ''we have this image of pedophiles lurking around playgrounds , looking for victims , '' said nigel williams , chief executive of childnet international , a british based group working to reduce the vulnerabilities of children on the internet . ''now they do n't even have to leave their own homes . they can reach children playing online . from a pedophile 's perception , this is a wonderful playground . '' pedophiles have gravitated to the internet , he said , because it offers anonymity , immediate contact with children , the ability to store photographs and the ''validation'' that comes with meeting other pedophiles online and sharing interests and experiences . citing concerns about pedophiles infiltrating youth chat_rooms , he said that his group 's web_site of safety tips , www . chatdanger . com , drew 80 , 000 visitors in its first week online . trying to quantify an amorphous , fast growing phenomenon , mr . williams said that in a survey of 5 , 000 canadian children conducted this year for media awareness network , a private group , one quarter said they had had an experience online that they did not like and that 5 percent had followed up an internet encounter with a face to face meeting . the use of computers and of japan 's cellphone internet_services by those who prey on children was a major issue at the meeting , with participants noting that in the five years since the last conference , internet usage had increased to 500 million people from 30 million . in europe , japan and the united_states , about 20 police teams have been trained with the technological skills to track down pedophiles through the internet , estimated john carr , a technology expert with end child prostitution in asian tourism , one of the meeting 's private sponsoring groups . he cited the case of manchester , england , where the police in 1996 seized 12 child pornographic images , all photographs or videos . in 1999 , the same police department seized 41 , 000 child_pornography images , with almost all originating from the internet . in the united_states , the f.b.i . has estimated that online offenses against minors appear to be growing about 10 percent a year . to help identify victims , interpol has developed a huge database of images culled from the internet and available to the group 's 179 member countries , said hamish mccullough , an officer with interpol 's trafficking in human beings branch . the british police have developed a computerized facial recognition system that has helped to identify 17 sexually_abused children , said carol hewlett of the london metropolitan police serious crime group . in sweden , software has been developed to allow high speed comparison of pictures to help determine the photo 's age and to cross reference background evidence . german police officers are experimenting with a virus that would destroy child pornographic images on the internet . japan , which was severely criticized at the last conference for being the nation with the world 's largest number of child_pornography web_sites , was praised this week for closing down sites and for combating child sex tourism . arrests in japan for distributing child_pornography through the internet jumped to 114 last year , up from 9 in 1999 , the year a law banning distribution went into effect . the law also made it illegal for japanese citizens to have sex with child prostitutes . ''in korea , japan and taiwan , there is a new awareness of child sex tourism because men have gotten caught , '' said samuel koo , director of the unicef office in japan . japan is one of 21 countries , including the united_states , that have adopted laws that allow the police to arrest people for paying for sex with children while overseas . in several highly_publicized cases , japanese men have been arrested for having relations with minors while on trips to poor southeast_asian countries . earlier this month , the police in western japan arrested a 34 year old japanese man for paying 550 to a 14 year old vietnamese girl to have sex with him during a long weekend in a hotel in cambodia . the problem , however , is constantly shifting , conference participants said . for example , trafficking in teenage_girls for prostitution has eased in villages in northern thailand , largely because of work by social groups . but now , girls from cambodia , laos , myanmar formerly burma and southern china are appearing in bangkok brothels , said june kane , an australian who helped write a new study of child trafficking flows for the international labor office . the 50 million children born each year in nations where their births go unregistered are especially vulnerable . in japan , child prostitution arrests frequently involve older men meeting high_school girls through dating web_sites or cellphone internet_services . ''children are using the internet without any supervision of parents , '' warned akio kokubu , a leader of internet association , a private japanese group . ''a leveling up of internet literacy rates by parents is important . '' in a typical case , kenji oki , a 41 year old man in osaka , was arrested on dec . 14 and accused of setting up and administering a message board , accessible by cellphone , to help adult men meet high_school girls . this practice , known as compensated dating , was analyzed at several workshops . participants blamed inattentive parents , girls swept away by a highly materialistic society and the girls' lack of self_esteem . takako yoshida , a writer , blamed japan 's mass_media for extensive and sensationalistic coverage of the practice , leading many girls to believe it was commonplace and fashionable . a gynecologist who provides medical care to young prostitutes in tokyo 's roppongi district , a nightlife area , demanded , ''why do n't clerks stop a junior high_school student from buying chanel goods ? '' community indifference was frequently blamed during the conference . in many countries , youths working in prostitution are on the fringes of society , either members of racial minority groups or illegal_immigrants from a poor country . conference participants urged the police to stop looking at young people in prostitution as criminals . they said that travel agents , hotel clerks and parents monitoring their children 's internet and cellphone usage were the first lines of community defense against youth prostitution and sexual_abuse . ''in the middle of the night , 4 o'clock in the morning , i would go to a store and grab a package of cigarettes and a package of condoms and the guy at the counter never asked me if i was o.k . , '' said cherry kingsley , a shuswap indian woman from british_columbia who fell into prostitution at age 12 . hotel clerks , she added , never questioned her when she checked into vancouver hotel rooms at age 14 with an older man .",has a topic of technology
"some chinese internet users seeking the popular search_engine google today instead are now instantly routed to globepage , which calls itself the ''premier asian search_engine . '' others typed in the letters www . google . com and were seamlessly linked to www . online . sh . cn , or shanghai hotline . ''one of china 's best internet content providers'' reads a banner on its opening page . it is run by china_telecom , the dominant fixed line phone and internet company . the diversions are an intensification of an effort to block access to google that began last week , and they appear to represent an unusually strong campaign to funnel chinese internet traffic into sites the government deems friendly and safe . analysts described the reroutings as an attempt to trick chinese users by replacing the united_states based search_engine with beijing backed services that offer carefully filtered content the equivalent of ordering a grand cru and getting grape juice . ''this is the furthest they 've ever gone to try to create a dumbed down web , '' said duncan clark of b.d.a . china , a telecommunications consultancy . ''they determined to provide only a web that 's fit to see . '' since china first began regulating internet_access in the mid 1990 's , officials have oscillated between embracing the new medium as a way to invigorate china 's economy and viewing it as a dangerous forum for subversion that could undermine the authoritarian government . many experts argue that china has so far succeeded in taming the internet . some 46 million chinese now have access to the web , and it has become an integral part of business and academic life . but the authorities have used a variety of high tech methods to make it difficult for government opponents to use the web or spread their message widely . the new controls on google and another american internet search_engine , altavista , at least temporarily reverse a trend toward looser restrictions that took hold during the past year , when china unblocked access to some major media sites , including those run by the new york times and cnn . those sites remained available to chinese users today , though some people reported that china 's internet monitors now selectively deny access to news content on those sites . authorities have applied particularly heavy pressure on the media before a leadership transition scheduled to take place in november . jiang_zemin , china 's president and communist_party secretary , is expected to hand over at least some of his duties to a new generation of party officials . while china 's media watchdogs always scrutinize content on the internet as well as on television and in newspapers , officials often increase censorship during times of political stress . google , based in mountain_view , calif . , is immensely_popular in china because it provides nearly instantaneous links to millions of chinese web addresses and documents . google offers chinese users a special page that makes it possible to search for web content in chinese_characters . but unlike rival search engines like yahoo , google does not have a subsidiary based in china and does not filter content for local users to comply with beijing 's rules . while the authorities have blocked access to popular web_sites in the past , some local users expressed outrage today as internet censors began automatically rerouting them to other search engines that chinese officials like better . some of them described the redirecting as an expropriation of google 's internet address and a violation of the company 's intellectual_property , with one correspondent speculating that the behavior could cause ''a big international lawsuit . '' ''changing a web address is clearly a serious violation of china 's own laws , '' a correspondent using the name fantast wrote on an internet bulletin_board . ''this kind of behavior , if it continues , will turn into a disaster for the country . '' another user , with the online identity emos , added , ''i would like the government to give some reasons why it is doing this . '' users who tried to access google were redirected to sites that have registered with the chinese government and follow strict censorship procedures . many of them have reported record traffic in recent days . they include tianwang , a search_engine run by beijing_university baidu . com , financed by american investors and yahoo . the contrast between the favored sites and google can be stark . a search for information related to jiang_zemin on google turned up 154 , 000 references . the first one listed was a link to a web_site bitterly critical of the chinese president run by falun_gong , a religious sect the chinese government has sought to suppress . an identical search on yahoo produced just six references . the first one is the ''life story of president jiang_zemin'' written by the people 's daily , the voice of the chinese communist party . chinese officials have not publicly explained the blocking of google or altavista , and people contacted at china_telecom 's internet arm said they had no idea why their users were being shepherded to sites they did not choose to visit . beijing legal times , a government controlled newspaper , reported that china telecommunications administration and public_security_bureau shut down google because it contained ''harmful content . '' the report also claimed that google provided services for american intelligence agencies , though it offered no evidence . it said that when the name of ''a certain , unnamed state leader'' was fed into the search function , one of the first sites to pop up was ''an insulting game directed at him . ''",has a topic of technology
"the restaurant in the fashionable qianhai district is almost empty , courtesy of the afternoon rains , though a small young woman is sitting on an upstairs sofa , slightly uncomfortable in her chic surroundings . with her oval glasses , shy demeanor and slightly hunched posture , the woman , liu di , looks like a bookworm . what she does not look like is a threat to anything , certainly not china 's government . yet the government has already imprisoned her for a year . in recent months , during significant dates on the political calendar , officials have posted security officers outside the beijing apartment she shares with her grandmother . ''they think i 'm a dangerous figure , '' said ms . liu , 23 , giggling slightly at the thought as she picked at a thai rice dish . it is ms . liu 's other identity that has made her a target of the communist_party . known on the internet as stainless_steel mouse , she is a dissident whose incarceration over her writings attracted international attention from human_rights groups that demanded , and eventually helped win , her release . even now , roughly eight months after she was freed , ms . liu must live a watchful life . upon her release , she resumed her studies at beijing normal university , yet for months administrators left it unclear whether she would be allowed to graduate . she monitored courses until she was finally awarded her diploma in late june with a degree in psychology . she did not attend the ceremony . she still does not have a full time job , nor is she certain when , if ever , she will cease to draw the government 's attention . it has been a disorienting , dizzying ride for a quiet woman who rarely grants interviews and who says she has always felt like something of a misfit . it was , in fact , in cyberspace where she first felt accepted . ''to me , the internet is a huge virtual space , '' she said . ''it is so different from real life . you can be more free . '' ms . liu first logged onto that other world when she was in college . she had grown up in beijing in a family that revered books . her father worked in the library of the china fine_arts museum , while her mother was a factory worker who died when she was 15 . her grandmother was a reporter for the government 's main newspaper , people 's daily . an awkward and shy child , she retreated into books , particularly science_fiction . she was struck by orwell 's ''1984 , '' with its grim warning against totalitarianism . ''it 's very horrific , '' she said . ''i had never thought about how human nature could be so dark . '' by middle_school , she had decided to become a writer and chose psychology as her college major because to write she thought she ''needed to know more about human beings . '' on campus in 2000 , ms . liu noticed other students staring into their computers . ''a lot of other students were logging on , so i started , '' she said . she combed through online college bulletin_boards and personal web_sites before searching deeper and finding voices of discontent . ''there were a lot of opinions and stories that could n't be seen in newspapers , '' she recalled . ''i liked it . '' in cyberspace , ms . liu found her community . she plumbed literature for a nom de plume , trying clockwork orange and banana fish ( a j.d . salinger reference ) before settling on stainless_steel mouse , from the science_fiction of harry harrison . she began participating in discussions on a web_site called ''democracy and freedom , '' which is often at odds with the government . by 2001 , she opened her own site , much of it dedicated to literature , but she also published some articles calling for more freedom . as cyberspace became her home , she began to defend what the chinese call netcitizens . she wrote an essay defending a man jailed because of political postings on his web_site . she defended another intellectual singled out by the government for organizing a reading association and for posting political essays online . she wrote a critical attack on an advocate of nationalism and began dabbling in satire and parody at the government 's expense . in one posting , she called for the organization of a new political_party in which anyone could join and everyone could be chairman . she said it was a spoof . but by september 2002 , college administrators issued a warning . ''they said the postings i published on the web went too far , '' she said . ''some of the stuff i thought was written in a joking manner . but they thought it was too far . '' terrified , she said , she scaled back on her online writing . but two months later , administrators ordered her to the campus police station , where officers took her to a beijing prison . she was put in a cell with three other women , including a convicted murderer . even today , she says she does not know which of her essays led to her arrest . ''i think a normal government should not be challenged by these writings , '' she said . ''we are not promoting violence . we 're not organizing to challenge the government . '' in prison , she underwent some interrogation sessions . she said that she was frightened initially but that she was treated fairly well . she said that she had two meetings with a lawyer , and that her family was allowed to bring her books , magazines and university textbooks . she also learned from a guard that she was becoming famous in the outside world . human_rights groups were holding up her case to protest the government 's treatment of internet dissidents . shortly before prime_minister wen_jiabao was scheduled to visit the united_states last november , the government suddenly released ms . liu and two other internet dissidents . her father escorted her from the prison , and she cried when she got home . of the international outcry over her arrest , ms . liu said she was stunned . ''i 'm delighted that people care about me , '' she said . she spent her first month out of prison under house_arrest at her father 's apartment . then , on christmas day , she was told house_arrest had ended . in the end , she said she was never formally charged with a crime . but since her release , security officers have twice been posted outside her apartment in march , during the annual meeting of the national people 's congress , china 's legislature and on june 4 , the 15th anniversary of the government crackdown against pro_democracy protesters at tiananmen_square . even so , ms . liu has resumed writing . several months ago , she signed an online petition calling for the release of du daobin , another online internet essayist . ( mr . du had been jailed after calling for her release from prison . he was recently convicted of subversion but was given a suspended_sentence . ) she recently wrote an article in a hong_kong magazine criticizing the arrest of two crusading newspaper editors in southern china . asked why she takes such risks given her history , she said , ''it 's the right thing for me to do , so i 'm going to keep doing it . '' she still surfs the internet late into the night . government monitors have managed to block her name stainless_steel mouse from some web_sites . but she said she sometimes uses another moniker titanium alloy mouse . ''stainless_steel is low end , '' she said , smiling . ''titanium steel is much higher end . '' the saturday profile",has a topic of technology
"an f.b.i . agent admitted in federal court here today that he had provided inaccurate testimony last december on a critical point that made a los_alamos scientist accused of mishandling nuclear_weapons secrets appear deceptive when he had not been . the issue is crucial because the government has successfully argued since last december that the scientist , wen_ho_lee , be held without bail in part because his pattern of deceptions , along with the fact that computer tapes containing a vast amount of nuclear_secrets remain unaccounted for , suggested he was a major threat to national_security . in his written decision denying bail last december , the federal_judge , james a . parker , cited dr . lee 's ' 'deeply_troubling'' deceptions . dr . lee is trying for bail a third time , and the government is now acknowledging what amounts to misleading testimony . dr . lee is the first person to be accused under the specific atomic_energy statute cited in his 59 count indictment , and a growing number of asian_americans and civil_rights advocates have rallied to his side , saying he was singled out at least in part because of his chinese ancestry . robert a . messemer , an f.b.i . supervisory special agent , had said under oath last december that when dr . lee improperly downloaded weapons secrets six years ago onto portable computer tapes he lied to a colleague , kuok mee ling , in order to get permission to use dr . ling 's computer . mr . messemer testified that dr . lee told dr . ling that he was just going to download a resume , which was not true . but since then , dr . lee 's defense lawyers have gained access to dr . ling 's previous grand_jury testimony , and it does not mention dr . lee speaking of a resume . mr . messemer today acknowledged that he had made ''an honest error'' on this critical point in his december testimony . ''at no time did i intentionally provide false testimony , '' he said . ''i made a simple inadvertent error . '' mr . messemer insisted that , in other areas , dr . lee had indeed been deceptive . there were , however , several other instances in which the defense appeared to show that the government had misled the judge in describing dr . lee 's supposed deceptions . mr . messemer had testified at the december bail hearing that dr . lee had not disclosed certain contacts with chinese scientists during officially_sanctioned , professional visits to beijing in the 1980 's . but the defense lawyers have since obtained a report dr . lee filed after a 1986 trip in which he listed seven chinese scientists with whom he had spoken . mr . messemer also acknowledged that , though dr . lee had clearly disclosed the contacts , he was never subsequently questioned about them . mr . messemer also disclosed that he had never consulted dr . lee 's trip report before testifying in december . he still maintained that dr . lee had been deceptive because he had not been open about ''the full nature and scope'' of his contacts . the government contends that until dr . lee faced questioning a year ago , he failed to report a highly suspicious meeting with a chinese scientist in his hotel room in a 1988 visit . the government also insists that dr . lee 's downloading of the huge library of weapons secrets was itself a deliberate act of deception that took more than 40 hours of computer time and that he had knowingly violated rules on the handling of classified data . none of the statements in court here today or yesterday appeared decisive . the government presented weapons experts who insisted that dr . lee 's downloading was unprecedented and a grave threat to national_security because the data , in hostile hands , could alter the global balance of power . the defense offered its own experts who insisted that most of the information was already public and that its usefulness to another country was extremely limited . in one tense exchange , paul robinson , the president of the sandia national laboratories and a witness for the prosecution , said that one defense expert , harold m . agnew , a former director of the los_alamos_national_laboratory , had simply not understood the information dr . lee downloaded or had not understood the threat posed by dr . lee 's actions . dr . agnew fired off a written affidavit to the court yesterday in response to that testimony , saying , ''what paul said is a bunch of bull , '' and then rebuted parts of dr . robinson 's testimony . in two other areas today , defense lawyers tried to show that government witnesses had provided misleading evidence in december . mr . messemer had said dr . lee failed to disclose correspondence with some chinese scientists , saying he had only exchanged christmas cards . today , one of dr . lee 's lawyers , mark holscher , produced a transcript of an interview with dr . lee and the f.b.i . on march 5 , 1999 , in which dr . lee did discuss correspondence with the chinese scientists . in addition , mr . messemer said in december that in the search of dr . lee 's home , the f.b.i . had found letters that dr . lee had sent to several foreign scientific institutes seeking a job . the prosecution has said in previous filings that they believe the principal reason dr . lee improperly downloaded the nuclear_secrets was to enhance his job prospects with the foreign institutes . but under questioning , mr . messemer acknowledged today that the f.b.i . had found some letters but had no evidence they were either mailed or received by the foreign institutions , which were in countries like australia , france , singapore and switzerland . the bail hearing will resume on friday . judge parker has allowed the examinations and cross examinations of the witnesses , much of it in closed sessions because it involved classified_information , to go on far longer than is usual at bail hearings .",has a topic of technology
"tapping away at one of his computers in a cramped two room apartment in western beijing , lloyd zhao is engaged in an extraordinarily dangerous endeavor searching through the night for holes in the electronic wall that the government has built to keep chinese from seeing web_sites of falun_gong , the outlawed spiritual movement . periodically , firewall programs that mr . zhao has installed on his computer detect a signal from another computer in china that is trying to identify him . the string of numbers from the snooping computer that appear on mr . zhao 's screen can invariably be traced to a branch of the public_security_bureau . ''they look for anyone who tries to reach falun_gong web_sites overseas , '' says the shaggy haired mr . zhao , 33 , a fervent falun_gong follower and an advanced computer technician . when the surveillance becomes too intense , he switches internet accounts , operating systems , even hard disk drives and telephone lines to mask his online identity . he says the threat of detection will not dissuade him from his self appointed mission to keep open the lines of communication between the discipline 's united_states based founder , li_hongzhi , and followers here , where a government campaign to eradicate the movement has entered what beijing hopes is the endgame . since china set out to crush falun_gong nearly two years ago , as many as 200 people have died , possibly thousands have been beaten or tortured , and millions have been cowed into renouncing their faith in mr . li 's apocalyptic cosmology . on wednesday , chinese officials confirmed a human_rights report of a mass_suicide by falun_gong followers in a labor_camp , but falun_gong adherents continued to insist that the inmates were tortured to death . page_a10 . but mr . zhao and hundreds like him continue to elude china 's internal security forces , using temporary cell phone numbers , encryption programs and obscure internet_services based overseas to keep the remaining network of followers connected . that makes mr . zhao one of the ' 'most dangerous'' of falun_gong 's remaining proponents , according to he zuoxiu , a physicist and a communist_party member who has played an integral role in having the movement banned . mr . he says falun_gong is an evil cult that , unchallenged , could threaten china 's tenuous stability , should it galvanize the millions of people disenfranchised by the transition from a centrally_planned to a market driven economy . sitting in his apartment a few miles from mr . zhao 's apartment , mr . he said people like mr . zhao should be hunted down and locked up until they have recanted their beliefs . the two men , separated not only by age but also by spiritual beliefs mr . he , 74 , is an avowed atheist , and mr . zhao believes in multiple gods are on opposite sides of a confrontation that has drawn considerable attention in the west , in part because it represents the most sustained challenge to communist_party authority in more than a decade . on one side is a group that believes that it is engaged in a battle with evil beings for control of the universe . on the other is a government that promotes atheism and feels so threatened by a relative handful of people that it has marshaled the full force of its police power to bend them to its will . ''the number of followers is getting smaller , and the crackdown is growing fiercer , but it 's going to end with our victory soon , '' mr . zhao said at one of many recent interviews , almost always at restaurants or bars or shopping_malls around the city , for which his lanky frame , clad in black , would suddenly emerge from the crowd at the appointed hour . mr . zhao said he had decided to speak out because master li says followers should step forward to ''validate'' falun_gong . mr . zhao said he believed that the authorities would find it difficult to identify him , because zhao is a common surname in china . he asked that this article use his anglicized first name , which he uses with foreigners but which does not appear on any of his identity papers . one meeting was in a private room on the second floor of a thai indian restaurant where mr . zhao and two visitors were obliged to order too much food to buy some isolation . yet he still chose his words carefully , stopping in midsentence whenever a waitress passed by outside or entered the room . no matter where he is , his eyes have a habit of looking out their corners as if he were listening for footfalls from behind . he turns vague when asked how the end will come . under attack , falun_gong has evolved from a well regulated movement with a structure not unlike that of the communist_party into a nonhierarchical mass movement whose structure mirrors that of the internet , on which it depends . there are no longer any national falun_gong posts in china , only local volunteer ''tutors'' and ''facilitators'' like mr . zhao who look to master li for guidance . although mr . zhao is an important node in that network , he is the first to concede that he and his friends are dispensable . if they are caught , he said , other devotees will take their place . the communist_party can punch large holes in the falun_gong movement . but until the government ' 're educates'' or imprisons every last true believer , he explained , the network will endure . still , the destruction of the group 's internal hierarchy has fragmented its members into loosely connected groups , some following charismatic tutors or even fake scriptures that are circulating in china . interpretations of mr . li 's messages now vary_widely among followers . one manifestation of the less cohesive dogma may have been the self immolation of followers this year on tiananmen_square , an act that senior followers in the united_states say went against mr . li 's teachings . inspiration after bar binges , a spiritual quest mr . zhao got his start on computers in the early 1980 's . by the time he reached his 20 's , he was among the first computer geeks in china , going days without sleep while he hacked away at his keyboard . his expertise later landed him a string of high tech jobs . one was at a company that installed pinhole video cameras and other surveillance equipment in hotel rooms . for years , he softened the edges of his spiritually arid life among computers with binges in beijing 's bars . with beer , cigarettes and sleep_deprivation , his health deteriorated to the point that he began losing his teeth . he speaks today with a self consciously stiff_upper_lip that hides a gap where his eyeteeth once were . many falun_gong followers live in an industrial urban jumble of half finished concrete shells , smokestacks and high tension power lines where traditional religion has been replaced by official atheism . mr . li , a former clerk in a government grain bureau , was among dozens of self styled ' 'masters'' who stepped in to fill that void in the early 90 's with spiritual disciplines based on the practice of traditional_chinese breathing exercises that seek to channel qi , the body 's vital energy , to improve health or obtain supernatural powers . he wrapped his exercises in a complex cosmology that mixed traditional religious tenets with popular notions of extraterrestrials and u.f.o . 's to create a vivid belief system that struck a chord with many chinese who were searching for moral and spiritual guidance . in 1996 , a friend sent mr . zhao an e mail message that directed him to a falun_gong web_site in the united_states . he logged onto the site and spent the night reading an online edition of zhuan falun , mr . li 's main text , which followers regard as their bible . mr . zhao bought a copy the next day . three days later , he said , he stopped smoking and drinking and was immersed in the world that mr . li presents . at its core , mr . li 's message is a simple one be a better person and you will be saved . he cast his followers in the pivotal role of a cosmic morality play , the aspect that most attracted mr . zhao . ''master li has said that there is not much time left , and so all followers should grasp this chance to reached the highest spiritual level that they can before the day comes , '' mr . zhao said at another meeting , this time beneath the soaring escalators of a new shopping_mall here . ''my aspirations are different now . i 'm pursuing the improvement of my inner self . '' at the peak of the movement two years ago , thousands of falun_gong ''tutors'' guided followers in exercise and study sessions in parks and plazas at dawn each day . the tutors were , in turn , grouped into ' 'stations'' and met regularly to discuss the development of the movement and the planning of periodic mass events . station ''chiefs'' communicated with the falun dafa research society in beijing , which took orders from mr . li . falun dafa , or great law of the dharma wheel , is the formal name for falun_gong , or dharma wheel practice . mr . he , the physicist , was among the first prominent chinese to speak out against the growing organization . according to mr . he , one of his students became mentally unstable after practicing the discipline in the mid 90 's , and the physicist faulted falun_gong for the student 's trouble in a televised interview in 1998 . in a magazine article a year later , mr . he warned again of the movement 's danger to youth . that article inspired a_10 , 000 strong falun_gong demonstration outside the leadership compound here in april 1999 , the event that precipitated the government 's eradication campaign . falun_gong 's formal structure in china broke down after the crackdown , as members of the hierarchy were rounded up , with the most active sentenced to lengthy jail terms . those tutors not under detention are now under close surveillance by the neighborhood committees that are the lowest rung of the communist_party 's national surveillance system . nonetheless , many falun_gong followers continue to meet daily , though it is impossible to tell how many remain active . mr . li says there are 70 million practitioners in china and 100 million followers worldwide , though he has never offered evidence to support that . closer scrutiny suggests the movement in china never numbered more than several million , and china 's antifalun gong campaign has most certainly scared off many . the government has had more than a year to measure the breadth and depth of what is left , and it apparently believes that it has identified the remaining core , 40 , 000 people , according to mr . he . by dealing harshly with the most militant , a manageable number in the scope of the vast internal security apparatus , beijing hopes to neutralize the rest . ''the detention_centers are all full up ! '' mr . he exclaimed , sitting in his study in black long johns and a gray hand knit sweater one afternoon . he said that at the beginning of the year the government switched from its strategy of sending followers arrested in the capital back to their home provinces and began collecting the detainees at centers here . as many as 6 , 000 of the most active followers are in detention , to be held until they have recanted their beliefs or are sent to reform through labor_camps in the countryside , mr . he said . mr . he has become one of falun_gong 's prime enemies , described in the group 's literature as a demon in league with evil beings , including president jiang_zemin , who are fighting falun_gong for control of the universe . mr . he smiles at the reference , his eyeglasses and thin gray hair askew , but he insists that such talk is far from harmless . he said it recalled the language of the taiping , the mid 19th_century spiritual movement that turned into full scale armed rebellion , which took over a huge swath of the country , cost millions of lives and threatened to bring down the last imperial government before it was suppressed . that assessment paints mr . zhao as a threat to china 's social order , a role mr . he knows well . ''i did underground work , '' he said , recalling his early days as a communist_party member before the party took power in 1949 . ''we went to demonstrate , but the core in the movement would n't go to the streets . falun_gong is the same . '' practice as pressure grows , a movement adapts in mr . zhao 's crowded apartment , a diptych that shows the falun_gong founder both seated and standing sits atop a white enameled bookshelf beside mr . zhao 's bed . the apartment 's only other decoration is a round pillow with a large yellow swastika , a buddhist symbol of good will , surrounded by smaller swastikas and yin yang symbols , associated with taoism , the other ancient philosophical strain that has contributed to master li 's teachings . this is where mr . zhao sits to perform his exercises each day . the pillow 's emblem represents the falun , or dharma wheel , and is described by mr . li as a miniature of the cosmos that he says he installs telekinetically in the abdomens of all his followers , where it rotates in alternating directions , throwing off bad karma and gathering qi . many falun_gong adherents say they can feel the wheel turning in their bellies . the rest of mr . zhao 's falun_gong paraphernalia books , tapes and photographs of mr . li are stored elsewhere in case his apartment is raided . mr . zhao and others like him download and disseminate inspirational falun_gong videos , falun_gong propaganda fliers and even mr . li 's books formatted for desktop printers , all with the intent of keeping the movement in china alive . mr . zhao has distributed hundreds of compact_disks containing a complete falun_gong kit , including links to secure internet servers overseas and dozens of falun_gong web_sites , as well as photographs of u.f.o . 's and videos of the corpses of some of the followers reportedly tortured to death by the police . ''when master li issues a new message , 99 percent of the followers in beijing will have it within three days , '' mr . zhao said . china recently issued a new legal interpretation of the antisubversion laws that allows it to hand down lengthy prison terms to followers like mr . zhao who distribute leaflets or disseminate mr . li 's messages , which have grown increasingly apocalyptic . ''it is in fact time to let go of your last attachments , '' mr . li wrote to followers in august , adding that believers should ''let go of all worldly attachments ( including the attachment to the human body ) . '' on jan . 1 , mr . li told his disciples ''the present performance of the evil shows that they are already utterly inhuman and completely without righteous thoughts . so such evil 's persecution of the fa can no longer be tolerated . '' that set off a debate among falun_gong followers in china about what mr . li 's message meant . senior followers in the united_states were quick to issue an appeal that followers keep calm . a week later , a similarly cautionary_note was posted on the web_site by followers in china , who wrote that ''certain disciples had some extreme interpretations'' of the message . mr . li never clarified his remarks , and three weeks after he made them , five followers ignited themselves on tiananmen_square . the chinese government seized on the self immolations as proof of its contentions that falun_gong is dangerous . some falun_gong followers insisted that mr . li prohibits the taking of life , even one 's own , and that the five could therefore not have been falun_gong followers . but contrary to the falun_gong public_relations campaign , which is organized in the united_states , mr . zhao said he believed that at least some of the people who set themselves on fire were indeed followers . ''what they did was wrong , '' he said . ''but it was very brave . '' mr . zhao said his job was to keep mr . li 's message pure and to prevent additional followers from going astray . with a few keystrokes in the darkness , he circumvents the government 's electronic barriers and up pops mr . li 's image on the screen , along with a message that reads , ''removing the evil beings that manipulate people to damage humankind is also protecting humankind . '' special report",has a topic of technology
"for the first time in perhaps a decade , the national people 's congress , the communist_party run legislature now convened in its annual two week session , is consumed with an ideological debate over socialism and capitalism that many assumed had been buried by china 's long streak of fast economic_growth . the controversy has forced the government to shelve a draft law to protect property rights that had been expected to win pro_forma passage and highlighted the resurgent influence of a small but vocal group of socialist leaning scholars and policy advisers . these old style leftist thinkers have used china 's rising income gap and increasing social_unrest to raise doubts about what they see as the country 's headlong pursuit of private wealth and market driven economic_development . the roots of the current debate can be traced to a biting critique of the property rights law that circulated on the internet last summer . the critique 's author , gong xiantian , a professor at beijing_university law_school , accused the legal experts who wrote the draft of ''copying capitalist civil law like slaves , '' and offering equal_protection to ''a rich man 's car and a beggar man 's stick . '' most of all , he protested that the proposed law did not state that ' 'socialist property is inviolable , '' a once sacred legal concept in china . those who dismissed his attack as a throwback to an earlier era underestimated the continued appeal of socialist ideas in a country where glaring disparities between rich and poor , rampant_corruption , labor abuses and land seizures offer daily reminders of how far china has strayed from its official ideology . ''our government only moves forward when it feels there is a strong consensus , '' said mao shoulong , a public_policy specialist at people 's university in beijing . ''right now , the consensus is eroding and there is a debate over ideology , which we have n't seen for some time . '' the divide does not appear likely to derail china 's market led growth . president hu_jintao , in what chinese political experts and party members said was a clear reference to the debate , told legislative delegates last week that china must ''unshakably persist with economic_reform . '' china has generally stuck by its market opening commitments to the world_trade_organization . wen_jiabao , the prime_minister , has allowed billions of dollars in foreign investment to flow into the once tightly protected financial sector . legislative officials insist that the proposed law , which has taken eight years to prepare and is intended to codify a more expansive notion of property rights added to the constitution in 2003 , will sooner or later be enacted , though possibly with some significant modifications . but mr . hu and mr . wen wittingly or unwittingly invited the debate when they made tackling growing inequality a center of their propaganda efforts , political analysts say . the state run news_media are abuzz with calls to make ' 'social equity'' the focus of economic policy , replacing the earlier leadership 's emphasis on rapid growth and wealth creation . since his rise to power in 2002 , mr . hu has also tried to establish his leftist credentials , extolling marxism , praising mao and bankrolling research to make the country 's official but often ignored socialist ideology more relevant to the current era . he told party leaders in 2004 to study how cuba and north_korea maintained political order , party officials say . and he has tried to distance himself from his predecessor , jiang_zemin , who invited private businessmen to join the communist_party and was viewed as permitting well connected officials to enrich themselves with public property at the expense of the poor . ''hu is himself a centrist who is not really pursuing one agenda or the other , '' observed a party official who said he could be punished for talking about leadership politics if he were quoted by name . ''but he did pull us to the left to restore balance , and that gave the old guard an opportunity it has not had in years . '' as a result , analysts say , the leadership may find it harder to pursue market oriented solutions to some pressing problems , like providing health_care to rural residents , grappling with rampant_corruption in the state sector , expanding access to education and overhauling banks , insurance and securities companies . beijing 's new plan to address its rural woes , labeled ''building a new socialist countryside , '' promises an infusion of government cash for peasants and rural areas . but it steers clear of tackling some restrictions on economic activity , like a ban on private land sales in the countryside , that many pro market economists say have left peasants economically disenfranchised . ''my impression is that allowing an expanded role for the market in education and health_care is off the table , '' said mr . mao , the people 's university policy expert . ''rural land ownership is also too sensitive to consider now . '' the tensions reflect rising concern that breakneck growth averaging nearly 10 percent annually over 20 years has left china richer but also dirtier and , by the standards of the one party state , politically volatile . corruption , pollution , land seizures and arbitrary fees and taxes are among the leading causes of a surge in social_unrest . riots have become a fixture of rural life in china more than 200 ' 'mass incidents of unrest'' occurred each day in 2004 , police statistics show undermining the party 's insistence on social stability . many western and some chinese experts have argued that these problems stem from china 's authoritarian political system , and that they will not easily go away until people have a greater say in how they are governed . but the communist_party and many left leaning scholars reject that view . they say the ills are caused by capitalist excesses and rising inequality , which they say requires that the government reassert itself in economic affairs . one measurement of inequality , the gap between the average incomes of urban and rural residents , has risen to about 3.3 to 1 , according to the united nations development program , higher than similar measures in the united_states and one of the world 's highest . a study by the party 's central research office estimates that the ratio could rise to 4 to 1 by 2020 if current trends continue , a_level some chinese economists say could incite wider social turmoil . such political fears seemed to give an opening to critics who felt economic policies had strayed too far toward capitalism . the strength of leftist opposition had faded throughout the 1990 's after deng xiaoping , who called economic_development ''hard truth , '' and later mr . jiang tolerated little ideological discussion of the direction of changes . liu guoguang , a marxist economist and a former vice director of the chinese_academy_of_social_sciences , stimulated an outpouring of opinions about inequality last summer when he gave a private talk that was transcribed and posted on the internet . his talk supported the emphasis on growth and development but called for a much larger role for the government in managing economic affairs . in a subsequent interview with business watch , a state run magazine , mr . liu said , ''if you establish a market_economy in a place like china , where the rule of law is imperfect , if you do not emphasize the socialist spirit of fairness and social responsibility , then the market_economy you establish is going to be an elitist market_economy . '' he has been joined by other scholars , including mr . gong , whose incendiary polemic on the property_law prompted a succession of sympathetic essays and study sessions . also contributing to the response is the hong_kong based economist lang xianping , who has used a television show to pillory what he describes as raids on state assets by managers and foreign investors . one top official who has come under scrutiny is zhou_xiaochuan , the central_bank governor and a promoter of market initiatives . mr . zhou attracted foreign investment to the financial sector , partly delinked china 's currency from the united_states dollar and steered the three biggest state owned banks toward stock_market listings overseas . mr . zhou was attacked directly in a widely circulated hong_kong newspaper article and indirectly by commentators in beijing , who accuse financial officials of selling china 's most valuable assets too cheaply . ji baocheng , president of people 's university in beijing , criticized mr . zhou 's banking changes in a public session of the legislature last week . he cited the big hong_kong stock_market listing of china_construction_bank , which was completed after the government injected billions of dollars to clean up its balance_sheet . mr . ji said the government priced shares in the bank too low , given the fresh infusion of capital , and he accused officials of ''blindly sacrificing the interests of china and its people . '' the government defends the overseas listings as a necessary step to raise capital , attract foreign experts to the boards and executive offices of the troubled banks and put the financial system on sounder footing . some pro market economists , who seemed ascendant in the 1990 's and early in this decade and now often sound defensive , have denounced the leftist revival as dangerous . many also criticize the hu wen administration for micromanaging investment and bank loans , tinkering with property and stock markets and declining to extend market oriented policies to the countryside . zhou ruijing , a retired newspaper editor associated with the pro market camp , captured the sentiment in a january magazine essay . ''a widening gap between rich and poor is not the fault of market reforms , '' he wrote . ''it 's the natural result of them , which is neither good nor bad , but quite predictable . '' correction march 16 , 2006 , thursday an article on sunday about the ideological debate over socialism and capitalism at the current session of china 's legislature gave an incorrect university affiliation in some copies for mao shoulong , a public_policy specialist who was quoted discussing the erosion of a consensus about ideology . he is with people 's university in beijing , not tsinghua_university .",has a topic of technology
"when negotiators from china and the united_states clinked their champagne glasses here last month to celebrate a trade agreement between the two countries , nobody exulted more than china 's internet entrepreneurs . the deal , which opens the door to china 's entry into the world_trade_organization , will also allow foreign companies to own stakes of up to 50 percent in chinese internet companies by 2006 . even as china reaches outside itself to become a full fledged member of the club of trading nations , the outside world is reaching deeper into china through the internet . while the market access promised by the trade deal could still be hindered by cumbersome regulations , china 's cyberspace is officially open . that breakthrough , experts say , will accelerate a digital gold_rush that began in new york last july , when a hong_kong company with an auspicious name issued shares on the nasdaq . the offering , by china . com , raised 84 million and put a 1 . 5 billion value on the company , which is an internet content provider and a portal . while china . com 's stock has since had the bungee jumping ride typical in high technology , it remains a potent symbol of how entrepreneurs here can make a fortune by putting together two alluring concepts the world 's most populous country and the world 's most exciting new medium . last year represented more than a coming out party for a single chinese cyber venture . with nearly seven million users across the country , 1999 was the year that the internet in china crossed the threshold from being a heady concept to a market with genuine opportunities . ''we hit a critical_mass of users by the end of 1999 , '' said wang yan , the general_manager of sina . com , an internet provider that runs the most popular web_site in china . ''the coming year will mark the launch of e_commerce in china . '' sina . com executives attribute their site 's popularity to its good graphics and the fact that it is a home grown service , not a hong_kong import , like china . com , which also provides web consulting services and advertising services . as in the united_states , few of the major chinese internet companies are profitable . even so , foreign investors have poured tens of millions of dollars into companies like china . com , sina . com and sohu . com , another major chinese player . the investors prefer to focus on the growth potential . bda china ltd . , an internet consulting company based here , estimates that the number of online users in china will jump to 33 . 6 million in 2003 from 12 million in 2000 , a compound annual growth rate of 57 percent . electronic_commerce , which generated a paltry 8 million in revenue here in 1998 , could generate 3 . 8 billion by 2003 , according to the international data corporation , an american market_research concern . ''all these grand numbers are based on the prospect of a mass market , '' said duncan clark , a partner in bda china . ''the question is how long is your time horizon ? '' for example , most chinese now pay cash on delivery for goods , and full fledged e_commerce will probably have to wait for more credit_card users about 50 million cards are outstanding . still , the growth in card use is reasonably strong . the larger question for the future of the internet is the role played by the chinese government . beijing 's top communications official stunned investors last september when he unexpectedly reaffirmed a longstanding ban on foreign investment in internet_service_providers . some american companies , including intel , dell computer and dow jones company , had already financed chinese start_ups , and are now uncertain about the status of their investments . most own stakes of less than 50 percent , so , theoretically , they should be allowed to retain their investments . but wu jichuan , the information industry minister , has made ominous noises about internet companies that are more than 50 percent foreign owned . thanks to the trade agreement between the united_states and china that was signed in november , ownership restrictions are supposed to be lifted gradually . by 2002 , foreign companies will be allowed to own up to 50 percent of internet content companies . by 2006 , they will be allowed to own up to 49 percent of internet_service_providers . many analysts here suggest that beijing 's real intent is not so much keeping foreign companies out as in regulating those that get in . ''if they block foreign investment , how are they going to license the necessary technology for secured transactions to do e_commerce ? '' mr . clark of bda china asked . ''if they stunt the internet , where is the growth going to come from ? '' jiang_zemin , the president of china , has said he favors growth in the internet but has not specifically addressed those issues . beyond foreign money , some analysts question whether the chinese government will tolerate the flood of foreign information some of it culturally and politically sensitive that would become available with unbridled growth of the internet . at the moment , beijing is pursuing potentially conflicting goals nurturing a commercial , nonpolitical internet while trying to curb its tendency toward anarchic growth . last fall , the authorities warned internet providers not to provide links to foreign news outlets , and they continue to block a handful of specific foreign web_sites , including those of the new york times , the washington_post and cnn . still , people can sign on to them by dialing into servers outside the chinese mainland . normally , access to the internet in china is provided by links to one of the two state owned telephone companies , china_telecom and china unicom . for all the talk about china erecting a wall around the internet , the emergence of the net as a tool that could be used by the chinese people for domestic political purposes is perhaps a greater threat to beijing than foreign news articles . last summer , members of a spiritual movement , falun_gong , circulated updates about their group electronically , despite a sweeping crackdown and the arrest of hundreds of falun_gong leaders by the government . ''the exponential ability of party a to speak with party b , which is so exciting to people in silicon_valley , is a major threat to the government , '' mr . clark said . in beijing , the current crop of internet entrepreneurs studiously avoids politics , while trying to help their country enter the digital mainstream . since the lucrative initial_public_offering of china . com , major american investment_banks have been swarming over china 's most promising start_ups . sina . com and sohu . com are both planning to sell shares , perhaps as soon as next month . charles zhang , the 35 year old founder and chief executive of sohu . com , who holds a doctorate in physics from the massachusetts_institute_of_technology , has become the most celebrated of china 's internet pioneers by creating a service that appeals exclusively to mainland_chinese users . yet even he professes admiration for peter yip , the chief executive of china . com , for having locked up the most valuable domain name in 1997 and for being the first to go public . determined not to fall behind its rivals in other areas , sohu recently started an e_commerce business that allows more than 100 merchants to sell books , compact discs and computer software over the internet . electronic_commerce , an even more nascent business in china than advertising supported services , generated 42 million last year , international data estimates . in every debate about the internet here , the conversation inevitably drifts back to the numbers fewer than 2 percent of china 's 1.3 billion people own personal_computers . goldman_sachs estimates that 0.2 percent of china 's people now have access to the internet . with growth prospects like that , the world 's last communist empire could create more than its share of 21st_century tycoons . international",has a topic of technology
"the computer files at the heart of the case against the former los_alamos scientist wen_ho_lee were given higher security classifications last year only after he was fired in the midst of an espionage investigation at the weapons laboratory , defense lawyers and federal officials say . at the time dr . lee downloaded the files onto his computer , they were classified but not designated secret or confidential , as the indictment against him alleges . instead , they were governed by a lower kind of security precaution , according to both sides in the case , as well as a document that federal prosecutors filed as evidence . mark holscher , the lead lawyer for dr . lee , said the after the fact change , which he said his team discovered while studying prosecution evidence , would be a powerful weapon for the defense . but mr . holscher would not say how he intended to use it , beyond declaring , ''the indictment is deceptive . '' though government officials conceded that the original security level was low , they emphatically denied that the material dr . lee downloaded was insignificant . ''we stand by our indictment and look forward to litigating this issue when dr . lee is tried , '' said myron marlin , a justice_department spokesman . ''what lee stole was the crown_jewels . '' on monday , the albuquerque journal reported the low level of security for the downloaded data . since his indictment on dec . 10 , dr . lee has been held without bail , in solitary_confinement and under unusually tight security in santa_fe , n.m . federal prosecutors have accused him of seizing the heart of the american nuclear_arsenal , but his backers maintain that his actions were nothing out of the ordinary and that he is being singled out because of his ethnic background . a native of taiwan , dr . lee is a naturalized american citizen . the downloaded material had a security designation ''protect as restricted data , '' or pard , a category applied to scientific data so voluminous and changing so frequently as to be impossible to assess in terms of security . it is not a security classification per se , but rather a rule for handling potentially sensitive materials , and is governed by the secrecy provisions of the nation 's atomic_energy laws . while pard material by definition is classified and the designation holds out the possibility that some of it might be highly sensitive , it is not subject to the same stringent precautions applied to data designated secret or confidential . for example , scientists working with it may leave it on their desks overnight , rather than in a safe . and careful records are kept on the disposal of all secret and confidential data before its shredding and burning pard printouts required no such accounting . still , pard data must be kept in secure premises at the weapons laboratory by law it cannot be transferred onto unsecured computers , as the government has charged dr . lee with doing . both sides in the case agree that the material dr . lee is accused of downloading contained nuclear_secrets . a federal official intimately familiar with the legalities of the case and strongly supportive of the government 's position said the downloaded data included computer instructions on how to simulate the design of a nuclear_warhead , including exact dimensions and other geometrical information that when standing alone would be guarded assiduously . ''i do n't think this is poking a major hole in the case , '' the official said of the pard issue . ''what would be a problem is if things were n't as alleged in the indictment . '' stu nagurka , an energy department spokesman , said the agency ''ca n't comment on the indictment in any way . '' a senior administration weapons expert strongly contested the idea that the pard behind the indictment was any less important than more concentrated data on nuclear_arms . ''a duck is a duck is a duck , '' the official said . the defense team countered , though , that any critical information was buried in a virtually indecipherable mass of benign data . commenting on the dispute , steven aftergood , a secrecy and classification expert at the federation of american scientists , a private group in washington , said the development would throw the government on the defensive . ''this takes some of the heat off wen_ho_lee and puts it on the government , and particularly on the security system , '' mr . aftergood said . ''the murkiness of the classification issue takes this out of the category of 'crown_jewels , ' 'worse than the rosenbergs' and 'change the strategic balance , ' '' he added , citing descriptions of the case . ''it 's much more complicated than it seemed at first . '' when dr . lee was arrested in december , after years of being investigated as a possible chinese spy , the government , in a 59 count indictment , accused him of systematically endangering the design security of virtually every nuclear_warhead in the american arsenal through unauthorized computer transfers of many of the most sensitive nuclear_secrets . while he is not charged with espionage , the indictment claimed he acted ''with the intent to secure an advantage to a foreign nation . '' most of the data that dr . lee downloaded is missing . he claims it was destroyed and insists that his actions were strictly in the line of scientific duty . stephen m . younger , director of nuclear_weapons at los_alamos , told the federal court at a december bail hearing that the downloaded data in the wrong hands could ''change the global strategic balance . '' the indictment said that in 1993 , 1994 and 1997 dr . lee had illegally transferred secret and confidential restricted data , the federal term for information on the design , manufacturing and use of atomic_weapons . but according to ''grand_jury exhibit one , '' a 47 page los_alamos analysis of material that dr . lee downloaded in 1993 , 1994 , 1995 , 1996 and 1998 , the downloading involved either unclassified or pard data . the analysis was filed in the federal courthouse in albuquerque as prosecution evidence . a brief reference to pard was made in dr . lee 's bail hearings in december when paula burnett , a federal_prosecutor , asked cheryl wampler , a prosecution_witness and the author of the los_alamos analysis , what the term meant . ''literally , it stands for 'protect as restricted data , ' '' ms . wampler replied , ''and that is converted into a numbering system'' that in a computer indicates the degree of security . ''it would have been level five , '' she added . the prosecutor questioned her no further , and defense lawyers did not pursue the point . later , though , they discovered that pard 's security ranking was five on a scale of nine , the highest level being reserved for secret restricted data . a 1995 los_alamos security manual defined pard as ''a handling method for classified computer system output that is generated as numerical data or related information and that is not readily recognized as classified or unclassified because of the high volume of output and the low density of potentially classified data . '' but today , officials at the weapons laboratory say the category has long been troublesome , given its ambiguous nature . though it was once used widely in the nation 's nuclear_weapons complex , the energy department , which runs the laboratories , has faulted pard as antiquated and risky in terms of security and had moved to eliminate it , even before the lee case , said jim danneskiold , a los_alamos spokesman . mr . danneskiold said the department had ordered the pard category eliminated by june 30 , 2002 . ''it 's going away , '' he said . ''in practice , less and less has been generated over the last five years . it 's fairly rare at this point . new pard has not been created in years . '' john d . cline , an albuquerque lawyer on dr . lee 's legal team , recently wrote a weapons scientist to say that ''it appears from the evidence now available that all of the files ( including data files and input files ) were protected at the pard level . '' in an interview , mr . cline said , ''we 're examining this issue for its potential benefit to the defense . '' dr . lee 's trial is to begin on nov . 6 . a federal official agreed with the defense 's portrayal of the pard ubiquity . but he added that subsequent classification analysis showed that it was littered with state secrets , many of them major . ''i 'm fairly confident that there is n't anybody who 's going to be saying it was less than s.r.d . , '' or secret restricted data , the official said of expert judgments about the downloaded data . asked why the security of the downloaded data was changed , a senior official in the justice_department referred the question to the energy department . a senior official there said the investigators had evaluated the material dr . lee had downloaded and then discovered it contained highly sensitive material . the evaluation ''was done to determine the sensitivity of the files , '' resulting in the higher security designations , the official said . the change in security status occurred between dr . lee 's firing in march of last year and the indictment in december , federal experts said . mr . holscher , dr . lee 's lead lawyer , was highly critical of the government 's action . ''the government did not disclose that the over 20 references to secret restricted data were classifications made after the investigation started , '' he said in an interview . ''that was never revealed in court or to the public . ''los_alamos rates these materials as a five on a scale of nine in terms of sensitivity , and then tells two federal_judges that they are the crown_jewels , '' he said . ''so what do they call the millions of documents at higher levels of classification ? '' dr . lee 's lawyers said the new development makes their client 's actions seem less like the systematic looting of the nation 's top nuclear_secrets , as the government contends , and more like a research misdemeanor , as the defense has argued . the development is likely to fuel comparisons between the way the government handled evidence of computer security lapses by a former director_of_central_intelligence , who lost his security_clearance , and by dr . lee , whose ankles and wrists are shackled during weekly visits he is allowed to make with his family . robert m . henson , a former weapons designer at los_alamos who in 1995 sounded the first alarms about the possibility of chinese spies at the laboratory , said dr . lee had ''probably stretched the rules'' in downloading pard but no more . ''shame on him if he did , '' dr . henson said . dr . henson also told of his own missteps with pard , including once when a flurry of paper blew out an open laboratory window . he added that the category deserved to be eliminated as its goals of achieving both high secrecy and relative openness were inherently contradictory . ''it 's probably illegal , '' he said of pard , ''and that 's why they 're trying to make it go away . ''",has a topic of technology
"the national center for space research opened its files on u.f.o . 's , putting them on a web_site that was quickly jammed by heavy traffic . the archive , at www . cnes geipan . fr geipan , spans 50 years . john_tagliabue",has a topic of technology
"for centuries the japanese have gathered the worn out detritus of daily life , from sewing needles and children 's dolls to chopsticks and old cleaning brushes , and burned them in annual neighborhood rituals of thanks for years of uncomplaining service . but the architects of japan 's postwar economic rise have never paid similar tribute to the parts that built the modern japanese techno state . and that is why akihiko masuda and other quality_control engineers met one recent sunday morning at chomeiji temple , the four century old temple of long life , toting their used transistors and old camera lenses , their burned out micromotors and their aluminum recording heads , worn thin by spinning past miles of videotape . "" japanese quality_control and japanese devices are now so very famous , "" mr . masuda , a serious looking engineer from nec , japan 's largest personal computer maker , said as he greeted his competitors near the temple 's dark wooden gate . "" but to get this kind of quality we had to torture many of these parts . we boiled them and froze them , and ran them day and night . we engineers feel for our devices , and we want to give thanks . "" shrines in the factories if such a ceremony seems to violate traditional western notions of the separation of church and solid state , it has its quiet place in japan . this is hardly a country of unyielding religious conviction most japanese observe both shinto and buddhist rites and marry like christians ( kimonos are out these days , white wedding gowns are everywhere ) . and more than a touch of japanese religious belief works its way into the seemingly soulless capitalism of this country 's factories and laboratories . rarely does a company dare to install a new computer in japan without calling in a shinto priest to purify it before anyone loads the software . in the control room of japan steel corporation 's giant plant across tokyo_bay workers have built a miniature shinto shrine that sits atop the blinking control panels . "" we think the computers and the software work quite well , "" an employee said . "" but this is just in case . "" in hiroshima , alongside the assembly_line where the mazda motor company is producing the the sportiest and most acclaimed car to emerge from japan in years , the convertible , two seater miata , workers have built another shrine , complete with a peaceful replica of a japanese garden . robots politely skirt it when they deliver parts to the line . beyond the shrines themselves , there is a rarely articulated sense among many japanese that their religious practices , if not their beliefs , play a significant role in the economic_miracle , keeping walkmans walking , video cameras whirring and computers spewing out results . in tradition of swordsmiths every few months , articles show up in the japanese press and academic journals suggesting that "" the traditional japanese mind "" steeped from youth in buddhist and shinto inspired habits of cleanliness and extraordinary discipline is responsible for japan 's ability to maintain the cleanest clean rooms , and thus the most defect free computer chips . it starts with the japanese tradition of leaving your shoes at the door , one such article explained recently , and finishes with the nightly ritual of the ofuro , the deep bath that weary workers sink into at the end of the day . "" in ancient japan , it was a rule for swordsmiths to purify themselves , body and soul , by bathing before entering their shops , "" shigeo oyama wrote last year in the japan quarterly , published by one of japan 's largest newspapers , the asahi_shimbun . "" it appears that physically removing impurities as a step toward achieving ultrafine processing has , by accident , revived a centuries old japanese spiritual practice . "" if america had a tradition of such practices , the articles often go on to suggest , maybe it would be making fax machines and laptop computers . there are many technology experts not only americans , but also japanese who dismiss such arguments as nonsense , another way in which the japanese convince themselves that they are a unique people , uniquely suited to produce goods that no one else in the world makes . 'no direct connection' even mr . masuda has his doubts . "" there is no direct connection between japanese products and buddhism , or the supernatural , "" he said the other day . "" but the japanese life style , a mix of buddhism and shintoism and humanism , certainly helps . "" there is little question of that in the mind of shogen kobayashi , chomeiji temple 's 32d chief priest . after 50 quality_control engineers crowded into the temple , mr . kobayashi entered in his deep purple robes , bowed deeply and began chanting the sutra . before him , at the feet of a giant cross_legged buddha , was a graceful japanese lacquer tray overflowing with chips , their spindly aluminum legs making them look like spiders trying to right themselves . after an initial hesitance , the engineers raised their throaty voices in a rhythmic chant , perhaps the first time that nec , olympus , hitachi , fuji xerox and the other brandnames of modern japan turned their skills at industrial cooperation to the task of exporting used parts to the heavens . then the engineers gathered in the temple courtyard and one by one tossed photographs of their favorite components into a billowing fire . after much debate , it was decided not to burn the actual parts for fear their plastic coatings would further pollute a corner of tokyo that is already perpetually encased in fumes . a monument is planned in a few years , in addition to annual ceremonies , the engineers hope to put up a monument to loyal , departed parts . no one is quite sure , but it may be patterned after the monument to string instruments , or after tokyo 's most famous meeting place , a statue of a dog named hachiko outside shibuya station . according to dubious legend , hachiko waited loyally at shibuya station every night for his owner , who died at work one day and never returned .",has a topic of technology
"iraq 's efforts to build a hydrogen_bomb , described last week by the united_nations , were further along than generally believed and would also have sharply increased the destructiveness of its atomic bombs , according to weapons experts and united_nations documents . because hydrogen bombs can be hundreds or thousands of times more powerful than atomic bombs and vastly more destructive , some analysts expressed alarm about the recent disclosures . america 's first hydrogen_bomb , exploded in 1952 , was about 700 times more forceful than the atomic_bomb dropped on hiroshima in august 1945 . overall , the iraqi bomb program was more ambitious , advanced and deadly than had previously been suspected , analysts said . a top former intelligence official said its enterprising nature and vast scale showed that the west 's intelligence failure had been extensive . longer work was seen before the persian_gulf_war , intelligence experts knew of iraqi efforts to build an atomic_bomb but made no mention of a hydrogen_bomb program . even those experts who rated iraq 's progress most highly assumed that it needed at least 2 years to begin production of crude warheads , while most others said it would take 5 to 10 years . but from the evidence gathered by united_nations inspectors , it is now believed that iraq could have been making atomic bombs in as little as a year . worse , baghdad was apparently engaged in a broad effort to go down the thermonuclear road , producing not only hydrogen_bomb materials like lithium 6 but also computer software to predict the likelihood of thermonuclear reactions . in addition , it is now known that iraq had acquired another key ingredient needed to unleash the latent thermonuclear forces of the atom . this is heavy water , or deuterium oxide , which united_nations officials say iraq imported years ago . fusion process deuterium is a heavy form of hydrogen . when heavy water is mixed with lithium 6 , the product is lithium 6 deuteride . this compound is the main component of hydrogen bombs . it undergoes nuclear fusion to give the bombs their fearsome power . iraq would have probably needed several years to produce a hydrogen_bomb , weapons scientists said . they noted that a prerequisite for any hydrogen_bomb is an atomic_bomb whose extraordinary heat acts as a trigger . but the weapons scientists added that iraq 's thermonuclear ambitions were also more immediate . baghdad , they said , would have used small quantities of hydrogen_bomb fuel to triple or quadruple the explosive force of any atomic_bomb . such "" boosting , "" as it is known , is fairly easy to do . when lithium 6 is bombarded by subatomic neutrons in a nuclear_reactor , a form of heavy hydrogen called tritium is produced . this is then added to the core of an atomic_bomb , along with deuterium from heavy water . experts say this deuterium tritium mixture can sharply improve the efficiency and resulting force of a chain reaction , transforming a crude atomic_bomb into a weapon small enough and powerful enough to be suitable for delivery atop a missile . united_nations officials have already disclosed that iraq tested a surface to surface missile able to carry an atomic_bomb as part of its program to develop nuclear_weapons . the explosive power of hydrogen bombs has no theoretical limit . and , weapons experts say , big ones are easier to build than small ones , conjuring up visions of saddam_hussein with an arsenal of great_power . "" it 's really astonishing , "" said dr . theodore b . taylor , a former designer of nuclear_arms at the weapons laboratory at los_alamos , n.m. , the birthplace of the atomic and hydrogen bombs . "" this shores up the idea that they had a very ambitious and extensive weapons program . "" scientist expresses fear leonard s . spector , an expert on the spread of nuclear_arms at the carnegie endowment for international peace in washington , called the whole episode alarming . "" iraq clearly anticipated having a very big program that could graduate to hydrogen bombs , "" he said in an interview . "" the iraqi work was n't sequential , as has been the case in lots of other places . they were doing everything in parallel . "" united_nations officials had previously said that the international_atomic_energy_agency , a specialized agency based in vienna , was trying to track down hundreds of pounds of heavy water that iraq imported years ago . as a sign of hydrogen_bomb work , heavy water is ambiguous since it also has uses in nuclear_reactors . but a week ago today , david kay , chief of the agency 's inspection team in iraq , told reporters that several of the documents his team had seized indicated that iraq had already produced several pounds of lithium 6 and that another document referred to a plan to make about 220 pounds a year . lithium 6 has no significant use other than in bomb manufacturing . this amount of lithium 6 , mr . kay said , was enough to "" raise real concern about weapons production . "" excess of lithium 6 several weapons experts , in interviews , said 220 pounds a year was probably more lithium 6 than was needed for simple boosting and suggested an intention by baghdad to build hydrogen bombs . for boosting , 220 pounds of lithium 6 could produce enough tritium for dozens to thousands of atomic bombs , depending on the power of the nuclear_reactor used as a neutron source to turn it into tritium , dr . taylor said . experts estimate that the force of this hydrogen_bomb would have beenequal to somewhere between a million and 10 million_tons of high explosives , depending on the bomb 's design . the atomic_bomb that destroyed hiroshima had a strength equivalent to 15 , 000 tons of high explosives . the hydrogen bombs now atop american mx missiles have a force equal to 300 , 000 tons . lithium , soft and silver white , is the lightest known metal more abundant in the earth 's crust than lead or tin . in nature , it occurs as a mixture of isotopes , with lithium 6 accounting for roughly 7 percent and lithium 7 , roughly 93 percent of the deposits . the aim in manufacturing weapons is to separate lithium 6 from that more prevalent isotope , a process that is said to be far easier than the separation of uranium isotopes . to make a hydrogen_bomb , the lithium 6 is then combined with deuterium that has been freed from heavy water by electrolysis . according to the nuclear_weapons databook , published by harper row , the resulting lithium 6 deuteride is then baked into a ceramic like substance and machined into its final form . weapons consultants said the design of a boosted atomic_bomb or a true hydrogen_bomb would have required advanced computer simulations that were apparently under development in iraq at al atheer , a weapons center 40 miles south of baghdad . an iraqi document seized by the united_nations inspectors speaks of "" two dimensional hydrodynamic and neutronic models "" being perfected there that "" simulate the behavior of nuclear_weapons as they are being fired . "" al atheer , damaged only slightly by gulf_war bombing , is now under scrutiny by spy_satellites and u_2 planes , lest baghdad remove evidence of its h bomb project , according to an associated press report . the surveillance , the a.p . said last week , quoting anonymous officials , is particularly intended to catch iraq if it tries to remove or bury lithium 6 . correction_october 16 , 1991 , wednesday a diagram yesterday about iraq 's nuclear program depicted the fusion reaction of deuterium and tritium incorrectly . they come together to produce energy , helium and neutrons .",has a topic of technology
"for a product that is wildly expensive , technically confusing and apparently incompatible with a lot of machines with which it ought to be expected to work , the panasonic dmr e10 dvd video recorder is actually pretty cool . it has the distinction of being the first consumer dvd video recorder to reach these shores from japan , and therefore it or one of its competitors heading this way later in the year will be pounced upon eagerly by rich gadget freaks . but let 's get real . this champagne colored dvd recorder costs 4 , 000 , blank dvd ram cartridges capable of recording 120 minutes of digital_video cost more than 25 apiece , the recorded discs may not work in older dvd players , and the likelihood is high for an ugly betamax versus vhs death match with rival dvd recording formats . the panasonic recorder comes with a 140 page manual that is only slightly less scary than a stephen king novella . in short , this product is actually more expensive and more complicated to use than a personal computer , which is a remarkable achievement . a truly determined gadget hound could probably rationalize getting a dvd video recorders for dubbing old home videos onto a dvd disc or for recording a favorite show that is being transmitted in high quality to a digital_tv via satellite . the picture quality is excellent , and the old videotape i copied looked even better on dvd than it did originally . and i could pop the recorded disc into my computer 's dvd drive and view the video on screen . the panasonic dmr e10 is not a one trick pony . it is superb at playing back prerecorded dvd movies and audio cd 's . and while 25 is a lot to spend on a blank disc , the disc can be recorded on , erased and rerecorded hundreds of times . at the highest quality , the 4 . 7 gigabyte dvd ram disc will hold one hour of video , and at standard quality , two hours . at the lowest level , which is still better than the best videocassette_recorder , it stores four hours . but if the goal is merely to record programs off television , a humble vcr does that job passably well at a fraction of the cost . as for archiving old videotapes onto a dvd disc , until the technical standards are resolved , no one knows whether a dvd ram disc will still be viewable a decade from now , or whether a rival format , like dvd rw or dvd rw , will prevail . handicappers , grab your pencils . panasonic , toshiba , samsung and hitachi are backing the dvd ram format . sony , yamaha , ricoh , hewlett_packard , philips , rca and mitsubishi are backing dvd rw , which they say is more compatible with existing dvd players than panasonic 's dvd ram format . pioneer and sharp are backing dvd rw . i 'm backing away from the whole mess , at least until a dominant dvd video recording format emerges . remember the sony betamax ? meanwhile , forget about making bootleg copies of prerecorded dvd movies . this new deck and its soon to arrive cousins will not allow it . besides , blank discs cost 25 and store bought dvd movies cost 20 a value proposition for piracy that might appeal to a new economy dot com investor , but not to any pirate with both oars in the water . but do not ignore the new dvd video recorders . eventually , they will get better , cheaper , easier , more versatile and more reliable . and when that happens , the trusty videocassette will begin its slow ride into the analog sunset , where it will join its sidekick the audiocassette . in terms of rapid adoption by consumers , dvd players are the most successful consumer_electronics devices of all time , getting into millions of homes in a much shorter time than it took vcr 's or audio cd_players . but the arrival of dvd recorders has been delayed , for reasons both technical and political . the hollywood film_industry , which a generation ago waged a bitter fight to stop vcr 's , has been urging the consumer_electronics companies to hold off on introducing dvd recorders until there is reliable copyright protection to thwart video pirates . the panasonic dmr e10 includes a copyright protection system called content protection for recordable media , which allows movie studios or music companies to embed signals in a digital file that determine whether it can be copied once , many times or not at all . and that inspires us to take a lateral arabesque into public_policy . those of you who find such topics boring may be excused now . flashback in junior high_school , the lockers all had combination locks , but before long we figured out that by lifting the locker door handle and applying just the right amount of pressure to a specific point on the door bam ! the locker popped open . we also discovered , much to our delight , that the technique worked on any locker . the vice principal was not pleased that we had found a way to circumvent the locker security system , and he forbid us to use it . thus were sown the seeds of anarchy . it was the school 's fault , we reasoned , for having chosen cheap locks in the first place . and instead of trying to suppress what was already by then a widely known technique for hacking the lockers , the school simply needed to install better locks . fast forward to 1999 . jon johansen , a norwegian who was then 15 years old , wanted to watch dvd movies on his linux based computer . but he could n't because of a copy protection scheme called content scramble system . the system was developed by the motion_picture industry and encoded into every dvd disc so the discs could be played only on dvd players and computers that contained the special key needed to unscramble the files . mr . johansen and a couple of friends discovered that the security codes were almost as flimsy as my old school lockers . they wrote a windows program called decss , which allowed them to descramble and view the movies and copy them to hard disks . mr . johansen posted the program on his personal web_site , and it propagated quickly . instead of putting on their dunce caps and writing ''we goofed on the encryption scheme'' 100 times on the blackboard , and developing a new business_model , the movie studios decided in effect to sue the internet . and in doing so , they compounded their mistakes into something that was not only wrong , but dangerous . a group of motion_picture studios sued eric corley , whose 2600 . com web_site had posted a copy of decss . under the digital millennium copyright act of 1998 , passed by congress with generous input from hollywood , it is a crime to possess any technology that is designed to violate a copyright . mr . corley removed decss from the 2600 . com site , but he left hyperlinks that pointed visitors to other web_sites where the program was still available for downloading . last week , a federal_judge ordered mr . corley to take down the links . the judge said it was illegal not just to use the decss program to circumvent dvd copy protection , and not just to make the program available on a web_site , but it was also illegal to provide a hyperlink to a site where the program was being offered . ''this is the court 's decision after trial , and the decision may be summarized in a nutshell , '' district judge lewis a . kaplan wrote in his decision . with all due respect to judge kaplan , he chose a highly appropriate container . if upheld on appeal , this ruling means that someone can be found liable merely for pointing to objectionable information or programs that someone else has posted on the internet . it does not require a hollywood style imagination to envision where this ruling could take us . now , do n't get me wrong . hollywood has a right to restrict the viewing of its dvd movies to the personal use of people who have paid a royalty . they just chose the wrong way to accomplish that , and now the entire internet could suffer . state of the art",has a topic of technology
"prosecutors charged two 20 year old college students with murder in the bombing of a moscow market on monday that killed 10 people and wounded more than 40 , and said the attack was racially_motivated . the interfax news_agency reported that the suspects said they did it because ''there are too many asians'' at the cherkizovsky market . the bomb went off in a cafe in the center of the ethnically_diverse marketplace , killing uzbeks and tajiks , as well as russians . no chinese citizens died , contrary to earlier reports by officials who said five had died . on monday , the authorities also described the attack as criminal and blamed gangs fighting for control of moscow 's lucrative and largely unregulated markets . the suspects , oleg kostyryov and ilya tikhomirov , were arrested near the market . officials said they were not part of any extremist organization , and interfax reported that they said they had learned how to build bombs through the internet . james k . philips ( nyt )",has a topic of technology
"the army has opened an investigation into whether american_troops have sent gruesome photographs of iraqi war dead to an internet site where the soldiers were given free access to online pornography , army officials said tuesday . some photographs on the internet site show people in american military uniforms standing around what appear to be dead bodies . other photos include graphic images of severed body parts and what appear to be internal organs spilling from bodies onto the ground . the images are said to come from afghanistan as well as iraq . their authenticity has not been determined . paul boyce , an army spokesman , said that if soldiers had posted the images , their actions could violate the uniform_code_of_military_justice , which defines conduct unbecoming an officer or enlisted soldier . another pentagon official who reviewed the web_site said it raised questions , as well , of whether the acts could be viewed as a violation of the geneva_conventions , which set standards for treatment of remains of those killed in a combat zone . the council on american islamic relations , a washington based civil_rights and advocacy_group , called for an investigation after details of the photographs were described in news_media and online reports . arsalan iftikhar , the group 's legal director , asked defense secretary donald h . rumsfeld to ''investigate this troubling phenomenon and do whatever is necessary to bring it to an end . '' on the web_site , the photographs are set aside from the pornographic images that are its standard content . those who provided the pictures often included crude captions . but there is also some discussion about the war , its purpose and conduct . attempts to reach the operator of the web_site on tuesday were not successful . an article published last week in the online journalism review of the annenberg school for communications at the university_of_southern_california identified the site 's operator as chris wilson , and said he lived in florida but maintained the site on computer hosts overseas . the article quoted him as saying ''to me , this is from the soldier 's slant . this is directly from them . they can take the digital_cameras and take a picture and send it to me , and that 's the most raw you can get it . i like to see it from their point of view , and i think it 's newsworthy . '' on the site , under the headline ''cooked iraqi , '' a posted photograph shows uniformed men posing in front of what appear to be charred remains . the photo promoted several anonymous postings including one that said , ''burn baby , burn ! '' another contributor had a different reaction ''yip , its funny when it 's a 'second_rate' iraqi , but an outrage when its one of your own , '' adding , ''typical and these are the people charged with the responsibility of showing the world how we can improve life in iraq . '' officials said the military 's preliminary inquiry was being conducted by the army criminal investigation command . they said it had proved difficult to identify the military personnel who can be seen in some of the photographs wearing army or marine_corps uniforms but no clear name tags or unit markings . digital_cameras have been ubiquitous in the modern combat zone , and it was digital pictures and videos that provided the first public evidence of the extreme degree to which military_police soldiers had abused iraqi detainees at abu_ghraib_prison . in the aftermath of abu_ghraib and reports of other abuses by american_troops , pentagon and military officials acknowledged that such behavior could severely damage the american war_effort in iraq . ''i think it 's really a disturbing phenomenon to see that our military personnel would be engaging in such inappropriate behavior , behavior that brings dishonor to the military , '' ibrahim hooper , the spokesman for the council on american islamic relations , said in a telephone interview .",has a topic of technology
"here 's something the internet did n't have a role in the fall of the berlin_wall . but making up for lost time , the web has an abundance of sites that pay homage to the event , which occurred 10 years ago this week . the national archives and records administration has a small exhibit on its web_site ( www . nara . gov exhall originals kennedy . html ) with a reproduction of a handwritten cue card from president john f . kennedy 's ''ich bin ein berliner'' speech near the wall on june 26 , 1963 , and a typewritten card from president_reagan 's 1987 address in which he implored mikhail_gorbachev to ''tear down this wall . '' a more personal look at the wall can be found at chris de witt 's berlin_wall page ( www . appropriatesoftware . com berlinwall welcome . html ) , which includes essays and photographs by mr . de witt , a briton . and the berliner morgenpost has the sad tale of chris gueffroy at ( www . go on . de bm international inhalt 0499 wallvictim . html ) , the wall 's last victim , who was shot to death less than a year before the wall came down . henry fountain news watch",has a topic of technology
"andrew feldmar , a vancouver psychotherapist , was on his way to pick up a friend at the seattle airport last summer when he ran into a little trouble at the border . a guard typed mr . feldmar 's name into an internet search_engine , which revealed that he had written about using lsd in the 1960s in an interdisciplinary journal . mr . feldmar was turned back and is no longer welcome in the united_states , where he has been active professionally and where both of his children live . mr . feldmar , 66 , has a distinguished r sum , no criminal_record and a candid manner . though he has not used illegal drugs since 1974 , he says he has no regrets . ''it was an absolutely fascinating and life altering experience for me , '' he said last week of his experimentation with lsd and other psychedelic drugs . ''the insights it provided have lasted for a lifetime . it allowed me to feel what it would be like to live without habits . '' mr . feldmar said he had been in the united_states more than 100 times and always without incident since he last took an illegal drug . but that changed in august , thanks to the happenstance of an internet search , conducted for unexplained reasons , at the peace arch border station in blaine , wash . the search turned up an article in a 2001 issue of the journal janus head devoted to the legacy of r . d . laing , with whom mr . feldmar had studied in london about 30 years before . ''i traveled to many regions many times with the help of many different substances , '' mr . feldmar wrote of his experiences with dr . laing and other psychiatrists and therapists . ''i took peyote , psilocybin mushrooms , cannabis'' and other drugs , he added , ''but i kept coming back to lsd . '' he was asked by a border guard whether he was the author of the article and whether it was true . yes , he replied . and yes . mr . feldmar was held for four hours , fingerprinted and , after signing a statement conceding the long ago drug use , sent home . mike milne , a spokesman for the customs and border protection agency in seattle , said he could not discuss individual cases for reasons of privacy . but the law is clear , mr . milne said . people who have used drugs are not welcome here . ''if you are or have been a drug user , '' he said , ''that 's one of the many things that can make you inadmissible to the united_states . '' he added that the government was constantly on the hunt for new sources of information . ''any new technology that we have available to us , we use to do searches on , '' mr . milne said . mr . feldmar has been told by the american consul general in vancouver that he may now enter the united_states only if he obtains a formal waiver . ''both our countries have very similar regulations regarding issuance of visas for citizens who have violated the law , '' the consul , lewis a . lukens , wrote to mr . feldmar in september . ''the issue here is not the writing of an article , but the taking of controlled_substances . i hear from american citizens all the time with decades old d.u.i . convictions who are barred from entry into canada and who must apply for waivers . same thing here . '' the waiver process would require a lawyer , several thousand dollars and dishonesty , mr . feldmar said . he would have to say he has been rehabilitated . ''rehabilitated from what ? '' mr . feldmar asked . ''it 's degrading , literally degrading . '' ethan nadelmann , the executive director of the drug policy alliance , which works to ease drug penalties , said mr . feldmar 's case proves how arbitrary american drug policy can be . ''roughly a majority of the population of the united_states between the ages of 18 and 58 has violated a drug law at least once , '' mr . nadelmann said , and there is no reason to think that canadians and other foreigners of a certain age have experimented much less . it has been a long , strange trip from the summer of love to the age of terror , from excluding people based on actual criminal convictions to turning them away based on a border guard 's internet search . the first approach is rooted in due process and enhances the nation 's security . the second is profoundly arbitrary and effectively punishes not past drug use but honest discourse about it . ''i should warn people that the electronic footprint you leave on the net will be used against you , '' mr . feldmar said . ''it cannot be erased . '' sidebar",has a topic of technology
"on a recent evening , zhang aijing sat at her terminal at the internet division of people 's daily , watching comments drop from cyberspace into the communist_party newspaper 's chat_room . ms . zhang is an ''editor'' assigned to ''anchor'' discussions , and her responsibilities include weeding out comments overly critical of the party . with a click of her mouse , ugly thoughts disappear . she had just posted a notice on the site about a western reporter 's visit and was watching intently to see what came in . after all , unpredictable things happen here , where party propaganda meets cyberspace and , as if to underscore that point , a screen saver flashes smiling images of diana , princess of wales , her wedding and prince_william nearby . ''the u.s . is a killer we ca n't forget may 8 , '' comes the first reply , referring to the day last spring when nato forces bombed the chinese embassy in belgrade . most chinese reject nato 's explanation that the attack was an accident . more angry comments tumble in . but soon another message hits the screen ''i want her to know that we chinese people do n't like our government . '' and another ''the communist_party does n't let chinese people read newspapers from overseas . '' the comments stand . ''we try to let the people speak , '' said jiang yaping , who heads the internet division , with a shrug . ''we are the main newspaper of the party , so of course there are limits . but it would take something stronger than these to be removed . '' with the ambivalent blessing of the government , locally produced web_sites and chat_rooms have spread rapidly here in the last two years , giving china 's estimated seven million internet users a forum for public debate and discussion even a degree of dissent that previously was unavailable . on the local internet , chinese are exposed to information and opinions that could never appear in the tightly_controlled chinese media , on topics like the crackdown on pro_democracy protesters in tiananmen_square on june 4 , 1989 , and the mistreatment of people with aids . local_governments are even using web_sites to poll residents about policy issues , like bus fares . ''the internet is changing china , '' said minxin pei , a researcher at the carnegie endowment for international peace in washington . ''now we have people voting in cyberspace who cannot vote in political space . that will certainly have an effect . '' it is a delicate balancing_act for china 's leaders and for the commercial web_sites . they must preserve the sense of freewheeling openness that makes the internet so popular while maintaining the control over information and dissent that the communist government requires . for the government , the internet has been , at times , a useful tool after the embassy bombing in belgrade , for example , chat_rooms gave chinese an outlet for their anger . but it is clearly a double edged sword . the banned falun_gong spiritual group , whose leader is now based in new york , has frequently used e mail and the internet in its campaign for legal recognition and to help mobilize its followers , although its web_sites are now blocked . this month , information minister wu jichuan announced that government ministries would monitor internet sites , but did not elaborate on what form that monitoring would take . ''we will not allow the introduction of trash that is harmful to the people , '' he said . to experts it is no surprise . ''i expect that the government will be very deeply involved in regulating the internet for two reasons , '' said kenneth dewoskin , a partner at pricewaterhousecoopers who spoke at a recent conference on the internet at beijing_university . ''the chinese government has always had a strong interest in managing information . and also , the government has a strong commercial interest in the net it 's a major owner . '' but control over a multi headed , constantly morphing creature like the internet is difficult to achieve , as chinese censors have already learned . although the government restricts access to a number of foreign web_sites , many technically savvy beijingers know how to get around the barricades . to get to the new york times on the web or to sites related to falun_gong , for example , chinese who know the proper codes can dial a device called a proxy server , which effectively masks the identity of the site being visited . some government officials use proxy servers to read the times web_site . but domestic web_sites face a great deal more direct pressure , from readers hungry for the broadcast of more information and from a government that wants less . sina . com is one of china 's most popular web_sites , featuring a creative blend of features , sports and entertainment . it runs celebrity chat_rooms , where internet surfers can ' 'meet'' people like the film_director zhang yimou . this fall it made waves by displaying china 's first online birth surfers could follow the prenatal development and birth of a real baby called dian dian . but one of sina . com 's special strength is news , and that requires especially deft handling . unlike china 's newspapers and magazines which are owned and controlled by the government sina . com is the product of a private chinese company , the stone group . ''we are not under the media control of the chinese government , '' said paul jin , executive deputy general_manager of sina . com in beijing . ''still , we have to be very careful . '' ''we have to make sure that every article is suitable to the chinese government , '' mr . jin added , noting that the sina . com 's mainland_china web_site contained different offerings from its chinese_language web_sites overseas . ''we make our own judgments . news here has great value , but it also has risks . '' when it started up just over a year ago , sina . com included dispatches from foreign news_agencies , including agence_france_presse and reuters . but after the government reiterated that its own newspapers were not permitted to use text directly from foreign news organizations , sina . com dropped the practice as well . today , it writes some of its own dispatches but mostly buys copy from the chinese press . many private web_sites in china avoid news that has not been sanctioned by the government , especially political news , even though urban chinese are inveterate news junkies and there is great market demand . even though the dow jones company is a major shareholder in sohu . com , popular chinese general interest web_site , the site offers only dow_jones 's business and financial news , not its broader news service . but it is in the chat_rooms that the dicey stuff appears . ''we do n't worry too much about news items , '' mr . jin said . ''it 's the chat_rooms that make us really nervous . especially around sensitive days , like june 4 , we have to screen very carefully , since you never know what will appear . '' at sina . com and people 's daily , the goal is to review all comments within minutes after they drop and remove those deemed inappropriate . the people 's daily chat_room got government permission to go online on may 8 , the day of the embassy bombing in belgrade , provoking an outpouring of popular anger . the chat_room had already been months in planning . the government ''thought that people had a lot to say at that time , '' said mr . jiang , explaining the timing , ''although some people criticized us for allowing this kind of discussion . '' since then , he said , leaders have becoming increasingly supportive of the enterprise , since the chat_room , which gets more than 2 , 000 visitors a day , gives citizens a chance to vent their anger and also for china 's officials to stay in touch with popular opinion . but the heated chat_room debates that occurred on many chinese web_sites in the month after the bombing showed that the internet could buttress , but also occasionally undercut , government policy . in early may , for example , most of the entries were attacks on the united_states , nato and president_clinton , reflecting the widespread view that the chinese embassy had been deliberately chosen as a target . but by the end of the month , the anniversary of the june 4 , 1989 , crackdown in tiananmen_square was fast approaching . along with thousands of patriotic entries , a few more controversial thoughts occasionally made their way online if only for a few minutes . on the chat_room netease , which was devoted to the embassy bombing , one person ventured ''june 4 is coming . what do you think ? '' the events of june 1989 , when tanks moved into central beijing , killing hundreds of civilians , are among china 's ultimate political taboos . more recently , in a people 's daily chat_room on aids run by an expert from the health ministry , viewers got official statistics ( via the expert ) as well as a embarrassing account ( courtesy of a net surfer ) of how a chinese deputy health minister had been heckled as he left the stage at a recent international aids meeting in malaysia . chinese take advantage of the relative anonymity provided by the internet to say things they might not utter in other public forums . although it is theoretically possible for a chat_room to tell what phone_number a comment is coming from , many chinese gain access to the internet through internet cafes and it would be difficult to connect a particular comment with a particular individual , experts said . many experts say that the quick growth of the internet will push the chinese media to be more open and that it has done so already . ''the internet is very international , and with the net you really cannot construct obstacles to prevent people from knowing things , '' said mr . jiang , of people 's daily . ''so often it 's better that we inform people about something rather than have them learn about it elsewhere . but we stand on behalf of the chinese government , and in some areas it better for us to keep quiet . '' for the foreseeable future , the chinese government will certainly continue to try to exert control over the beast that has been unleashed . but monitoring every entry in every chat_room will become increasingly cumbersome as the number of internet users in china grows . ''that is a problem for us , '' mr . jiang said . ''right now we do n't know just what we will do . ''",has a topic of technology
"a group of prominent chinese academics , lawyers and liberal reformers made a bold public demand on sunday for a definition of freedom of expression in china that would clearly establish the extent to which citizens can legally criticize the nondemocratic government . the group posted a petition on web_sites in china as well as overseas . the petition focused on china 's vaguely_defined antisubversion law , which the police often invoke to arrest critics of the government , and called for a ''judicial interpretation'' of the legality of the provision under the chinese constitution . the petition also called for the release of du daobin , an internet essayist who was arrested late last year on subversion charges . organizers plan to collect signatures on line and to present the petition to the government in another example of how the internet is becoming a potent vehicle for mobilizing support for political and legal reform here . ''in recent years , and especially since last year , the internet has emerged as a forum where intellectuals can defend civic freedoms , '' said wang yi , 30 , a law professor in western china who helped organize the petition drive . the petition is signed by 102 writers , editors , lawyers , philosophers , liberal economists and dissidents . they include liu xiaobo , a well known dissident from the tiananmen_square crackdown in 1989 yu jie , an essayist and government critic liu junning , a liberal political theorist and he weifang , a beijing law professor and commentator . the issue of constitutional reform is gaining an increasingly high profile in china in official and intellectual circles . in march , the national people 's congress is expected to ratify a much touted constitutional_amendment establishing the right to private_property . the government is also considering an amendment to the constitution to include ' 'respecting and protecting human_rights . '' public awareness of the chinese constitution as a supreme law has been growing . protesters increasingly cite it in making claims on issues of basic rights . but as china tries to establish itself as a nation ruled by laws , those rights remain largely unfulfilled , as evidenced by mr . du 's case . he is a minor government official in central hubei_province who gained a following for his writings on the internet , including his support for democracy in hong_kong . he also wrote an essay calling for the release of a jailed internet dissident , liu di . ms . liu was released in november and has signed the current petition . the authorities arrested mr . du in october , and prosecutors are now trying to decide whether enough evidence exists to bring an indictment . the authorities contend that mr . du wanted to topple the government . but mo shaoping , the beijing lawyer representing him , said the provision was so vague that it failed to define boundaries for freedom of speech or limits on criticizing the government . ''du daobin maintains that he was n't trying to subvert or overthrow the government , '' said mr . mo , who did not sign the petition . ''his criticisms were well intentioned and constructive . '' the petitioners contend that the vagueness of the law is essentially a license for abuse that allows the police to arrest anyone who criticizes the government , regardless of their intent . as a remedy , they are calling on china 's highest court , the supreme people 's court , to review the constitutionality of the provision . ''the main problem with the law is that it 's very broadly expressed , and so we need more specific legal definitions , '' said mr . he , the beijing law professor who signed the petition . ''but the judiciary has never offered any clear direction . '' petition organizers are trying to tap into the growing influence of china 's 80 million internet users , a number that is rising rapidly . the petition warned that convicting mr . du would be an ''utterly dangerous precedent'' for internet users . mr . wang , one of the petition organizers , said the petition drive was partly the result of a greater confidence on the part of intellectuals in making such a public stand . he cited several cases over the last year in which the government has responded to petition drives . yet asked if he worried about official retribution , he said ''i 'm really not sure about the size of the risk . under a nontransparent legal system , it 's a bit like being behind a closed door , and you do n't know if the police_officer is one meter from your door or a thousand meters away . ''",has a topic of technology
"the department_of_homeland_security has begun experimenting with a wide_ranging computer database that allows investigators to match financial transactions against a list of some 250 , 000 people and firms with suspected ties to terrorist financing , drug_trafficking , money_laundering and other financial crimes . the program , developed by a british company and used in recent test runs at the department_of_homeland_security , gives investigators what amounts to an enormous global watch list to track possible financial crimes at american border crossings , banks and other financial_institutions . ''this is something that 's shown promise , '' said dean boyd , a spokesman for the department 's immigration and customs enforcement agency . while the program is still in its trial stage , mr . boyd said , ''it 's interesting technology , and it would give us another tool in the box , but there 's been no decision made on whether to put it into operation or not . '' he stressed that the software had not been used as part of any criminal investigations or other operations . david leppan , chief executive of world check , the british company that has provided the database to american officials , said the recent test runs had produced a number of promising hits on people with suspected criminal ties overseas who had entered the united_states with more than 10 , 000 in cash or made other financial transactions in this country that were reported to the government . the program provides yet another indication of the wide_ranging efforts by american officials to look for new technological tools in fighting terrorism and other international crime . but it also raises privacy and civil_liberties questions because domestic security officials are relying on a private overseas firm to provide a voluminous list of people and companies that it considers to represent a ''high risk'' of committing financial crimes , based on an assortment of public records and data . ''there 's a real risk in a situation like this because there 's really no accountability , '' said marc rotenberg , executive director of the electronic privacy information center , an advocacy_group based in washington devoted to privacy issues . ''people can find themselves on a watch list incorrectly , and the consequences can be very serious . '' mr . rotenberg likened the trial program at the department to a pentagon operation disclosed last year in which jetblue airlines agreed to turn over data on millions of its passengers to a private contractor doing antiterrorism work for the military . in both cases , mr . rotenberg said , government officials effectively ''outsourced'' the job to private firms ''in order to develop profiles on people and circumvent u.s . privacy laws . '' with a proliferation of private companies looking to profit from a surge in national_security contracts , he said , ''we 'll see more arrangements like this , and we 're likely to see more and more companies in the dot connecting business . '' officials at the department_of_homeland_security and at world check said they were mindful of privacy concerns . ''we 're not hiding in alleyways taking pictures of people , '' said brendan cohen , director of united_states operations for world check , which is allowing the department to use its database free on a_12 month trial basis . ''it 's just that there 's so much information already out in the public_domain that by the time the mainstream media or a government_agency gets onto someone , there 's already a lot of information out there on them . '' mr . boyd said that if his agency went ahead with the program , it was likely to use the private database as a tip sheet of sorts . ''hits'' from the company 's list of ''high risk'' targets would then allow investigators to initiate follow up work , develop intelligence and open criminal investigations or move to freeze financial assets if warranted . ''we 've obviously got an obligation to go to a court of law and prove our case , and we 've got a higher burden of proof'' than does world check in establishing whether someone does in fact have criminal ties , mr . boyd said . homeland_security lawyers have not yet done any legal analysis of the database 's privacy implications , he said , but such a review would be conducted if the department decided to put the program into operation . world check provides its financial profiles to about 800 private clients and governmental agencies around the world . in developing its watch lists , the firm says , it relies on data from some 140 , 000 public sources including lists of ''banned'' financiers developed by governments worldwide , news reports and court filings . as a result , the list includes far more names than many governments have on their own watch lists . for instance , the company 's high risk list includes both viktor bout , a well known international arms trafficker , and his older brother , serge . but the united_states office of foreign assets control , which administers financial sanctions against banned foreign individuals and entities , does not include serge bout on its list . mr . leppan acknowledged that his company used lower standards than most governments in declaring someone a high risk to engage in financial impropriety , but he said that flexibility gave the firm 's clients a head_start in tracking crime . in early 2002 , for instance , world check added to its high risk list a terror suspect in southeast_asia who went by the name of hambali . months later , the united_states office of foreign assets control added hambali to its own list of ''banned'' foreigners . hambali , captured in thailand last year , is in american custody and is accused of organizing two deadly nightclub attacks in bali in october 2002 . world check 's financial profiles also list the suspects' corporate affiliations and their aliases . the profile for hambali , for instance , lists eight aliases and variations on the spelling of his name . ''once somebody knows that they 've been blacklisted , '' mr . leppan said , ''the likelihood of them opening up a bank account or applying for a passport in their own name is very slim , so they 're going to use variations of their name . that 's why keeping a running database is so important to what we do . ''",has a topic of technology
"at a time of growing signs of neo nazism in the german armed forces , a government_agency has registered new apprehension about surging racism in the former east_germany . a report says that right wing extremists are using the internet to boast of ''foreigner free'' zones , threatening to keep foreign born residents out of certain discos and cafes . for several years , right wingers have used the internet and computer bulletin_boards to gain access to white supremacist web_sites in the united_states and elsewhere and to send encrypted messages between extremists in germany . but the annual report published last week by the government office that addresses issues relating to foreign residents was the first official allusion to the use of the internet to stir up ethnic violence in the east . racism there is widely ascribed to discontent over mass unemployment rather than the actual presence of a growing foreign population . germany has europe 's highest proportion of foreign born residents almost 9 percent of its population of 82 million . but most of them live in prosperous western cities . unemployment in the east is even higher than the national average of around 11 percent . the biggest group of foreign born residents in germany is some two million turks . but in recent years , there has been a huge influx of balkan war refugees and asylum_seekers and clandestine immigrants from eastern_europe and africa . cornelia schmalz jacobsen , the director of the office that issued the report , said that , in some areas of the east , ''foreign residents and visitors are advised not to leave their homes alone after dark . '' right wing extremists in at least 25 towns in the east , she said , had posted internet proclamations of ''foreigner free'' zones to be enforced by the extremists . typically , he said , an internet announcement would say that ' 'such and such a club has now been liberated . '' but , ms . schmalz jacobsen said , ''these are not liberated zones , but occupied zones . '' german authorities were deeply alarmed by a wave of violent xenophobia after unification seven years ago . in 1993 , the authorities launched twin crackdowns on right wing groups and on illegal_immigration hoping to suppress extremist politics and simultaneously to stem the flow of foreigners . but that has not solved the problem , the report said , even though the number of crimes attributed to racism has fallen slightly to 2 , 323 in 1996 from 2 , 468 in 1995 . right wing extremism is generally attributed to an estimated 6 , 500 hard core activists along with some 35 , 000 people classified by the federal office for the protection of the constitution as nazi sympathizers . the display of nazi emblems , like swastikas and stiff armed salutes , is banned in germany . but in recent weeks many germans have been stunned by disclosures chronicling neo_nazi activities in the army . one scandal erupted when the news_magazine der_spiegel reported last week that manfred roder , a neo_nazi with a criminal_record of bombings , had been invited to give a speech to the country 's most prestigious military academy in 1995 . the defense minister , volker ruhe , suspended a lieutenant_general and instituted disciplinary_action against a colonel because of the invitation .",has a topic of technology
"italian advertising is known for shock value . but even in italy , the image of former prime_minister giulio_andreotti , 81 , glaring sinisterly in black and white from huge city billboards and full page newspaper ads , was startling . the ad copy for a new diner 's club web_site , www . dinetclub . com , plays with mr . andreotti 's long , tumultuous history in postwar politics ''he thought he had seen everything . so he thought . '' the creator of the ad , marco testa , head of the armando testa agency , explained that mr . andreotti 's fame and his reputation for dry humor made him an obvious choice . ''there is a string of irony running through his personality that makes the ad work . '' but there is another unexpected twist buried in the advertising campaign . the internet got a late start in italy but is already viewed by sociologists as a catalyst for social_change , a way of breaking down italy 's rigid old boy network of political and financial influence and of creating jobs , uninherited fortunes and new power bases . mr . andreotti , seven times prime_minister and who last year was acquitted in two trials of charges he colluded with the mafia , symbolizes something else the revenge of italy 's gerontocracy . in the 1990 's , after an investigation of widespread political_corruption toppled the old political order , causing the socialist_party and mr . andreotti 's centrist christian democratic_party to collapse , many italians believed that a new generation of business and political leaders would arise . many new faces did emerge , but lately , older ones are back in business . prime_minister giuliano_amato , for example , had cabinet posts in many previous governments , including those of the disgraced , and now deceased , socialist prime_minister bettino_craxi in the 1980 's . earlier this month , mr . amato threatened to quit if his embattled center left coalition sought a fresh , new face ( i . e. , not his own ) , as the standard_bearer in next year 's elections . ''whether in politics , finance , business , or academia , in italy there is a widespread gerontocracy , like the kremlin 20 years ago , '' giampaolo fabris , a sociology professor , said . mr . fabris is studying aging at iulm , the free_university of language and communication in milan . at 62 , mr . fabris is , by italian academic standards , a young turk . ''there are more and more exceptions , of course , but there is still tremendous resistance to change , '' mr . fabris explained . ''in some things , italy is rightly known for creativity and innovation , but it is at its core an archaic civilization . in those , elders retain power and control . '' nepotism is one factor . the state statistics agency last month published a study showing that 38 percent of italians under 40 got their jobs through friends or family connections . a 1999 study by bocconi_university 's school of management in milan found that 78 percent of italy 's top 150 companies were family owned . ( the figure in the united_states is 20 percent . ) the implicit quid_pro_quo is that the father stays on as long as he likes . ''my father worked until he died , at the age of 74 , '' mr . testa , 49 , who took over the advertising firm at his death in 1992 , explained . demographics also play a role . italy has one of the lowest birthrates in the world , and 18 percent of its population is over 65 . average life_expectancy in italy , which keeps growing , reached 75 . 5 in 1998 for men , according to the statistics agency . women 's average life_expectancy is 81 . 8 . while most italians retire at relatively young ages , overburdening the pension system , within italy 's elite , leaders die with their gucci shoes on . mr . andreotti , who said he would donate his advertising fee to charity , certainly shows no sign of retiring . he is active in the senate and writes articles , attends conferences and makes many talk show appearances . gianni_agnelli , also a senator for life , is now the honorary_chairman of fiat . removed from day to day company decision making , he remains , at 81 , italy 's prince of industry , who regally welcomed russia 's president , vladimir_putin , to milan . enrico cuccia , who turns 93 in november , just got out of the hospital , but still keeps an office and the title of honorary_chairman of mediobanca , one of italy 's most important banks . other executives run mediobanca day to day , but mr . cuccia is clinging to his perch . his most recent entry in who 's who in italy explains that he ''has played a key role in all of the major financial operations carried out in italy . '' neither age nor scandal serve as automatic springboards to retirement . in 1997 , cesare romiti , then 73 and chairman of fiat , was convicted of accounting fraud and illegal political contributions and given an 18 month suspended_sentence . ( it was reduced further on appeal in 1999 . ) the case was one of the most prominent in the tangentopoli , or ''bribesville , '' scandals of the 1990 's , but mr . romiti did not fade away . in 1998 , he nimbly became chairman of rcs corriere_della_sera , a huge publishing empire of which fiat owns the largest equity stake . things are changing shaken up by silicon_valley . italy , too , now has a new generation of relatively young computer plutocrats , most notably , renato soru , 42 , a sardinian real_estate developer and founder of tiscali , an internet start up that for a short while this year surpassed fiat in market value . he is on a 1999 list of italy 's 10 wealthiest men , but his is one of the few new names on a roster dominated by long established family fortunes . when antonio d'amato was elected head of confindustria , italy 's powerful association of industrialists last year , the fact that he was 43 and from naples , not the north , was hailed as revolutionary . italian business magazines regularly highlight the best and the brightest young executives , often featuring luca garavoglia , 31 , president of campari , the beverage company . he is also , however , the son of the former chairman , domenico garavoglia , and took over two years after his father 's death in 1992 . some in italy say mr . garavoglia is nevertheless a symbol of progress . ''it 's one thing to be the son without power , '' guido corbetta , 40 , a professor at bocconi_university , said . ''but it is another to be given full power in your 30 's , 40 's or 50 's . '' italian politics has grown slightly more youthful . carlo_azeglio_ciampi , the president , is 79 , but prime_minister amato is 62 , and his chief rival , the center right opposition_leader silvio_berlusconi , a media tycoon , is 63 . some of the most respected newspaper columnists are old enough to have covered the monarchy . ninety year old indro montanelli writes a daily column in corriere_della_sera . enzo biagi , 80 , writes columns for several publications and also hosts a nightly five minute news commentary on rai one , italy 's leading public network . academia has seen the least mobility . at la sapienza , the state university of rome and the largest university in italy , the median age for senior professors is 63 . ( it is 58 for ordinary professors 49 for researchers . ) in an effort to unclog italy 's tenure track , the government recently lowered the mandatory retirement age for academia from 72 to 67 . younger italian doctors also complain about what they term the ''barons'' of medicine . part of the problem is the sheer number of doctors italy has twice as many per capita as finland . but top jobs in hospitals and medical_schools are still tightly_controlled by an older generation . paolo marotta , 39 , who co founded a union of younger doctors to lobby against the medical establishment , said it took him 12 years to find a job in the italian public_health system even though he is in a boom industry gerontology . ''and i am one of the really lucky ones , '' dr . marotta said . mr . andreotti 's new ad campaign adapts one of his best known quips to the web_site ''the internet wears out those who do n't have it . '' but mr . andreotti 's original words were perhaps more fitting ''power wears out those who do n't have it . ''",has a topic of technology
"an article in world business on friday about the rising number of patent lawsuits brought by japanese companies misstated the timing of a suit filed by fujitsu against samsung sdi of south_korea . it was filed in april , not last year .",has a topic of technology
"the ohara farm seems pretty much like any other family owned farm here , small in scale , neat as a pin and dreamily bucolic , surrounded by the magnificent mountains of central japan . but its most distinguishing feature is less obvious . the farm is selling its feisty , free range chickens online . the ohara farm 's web_site is the most frequently visited ' 'shop'' at rakuten , an online bazaar that features dozens of such sites and scores 95 million hits a month . the farm 's site has generated a cult following for the chicks that rei kimura , 29 year old son of the farm 's owner , profiles in a ''chick diary . '' a few months back , for instance , mr . kimura introduced sakura chan and momiji chan , two newly hatched chicks from gifu prefecture . ( sakura and momiji are japanese chicken breeds . ) ''they are cheeping for their mother , '' he reported . the internet is quietly transforming japan , making celebrities of small farmers like the kimuras , empowering women , changing the way people apply for jobs and schools and generally chipping away at traditional patterns of behavior . japan is set to become the world 's largest user of the internet next year , according to infocom , a japanese research company that specializes in data about the internet and telecommunications . that is thanks to the country 's voracious appetite for cruising cyberspace using mobile terminals , and many say the impact of that love affair will be huge . ''the use of the internet here has started more as a social thing that in the end is going to have enormous implications , '' said jiro kokuryo , a professor at keio_university 's business school , who specializes in e_commerce and information systems . ''it is changing people 's point of view and empowering them to challenge traditional ways of doing things . '' groups that have traditionally had little influence here are finding their voices and taking action on the internet . farmers like the kimuras escape the huge , bureaucratic distribution system that has been sucking up their profits . working mothers are banding together to form business ventures . small companies are using the internet to expand business and decrease reliance on a primary corporate customer . these are all revolutionary developments by japanese standards , and not limited to marginal players . the nec corporation , a confirmed member of japan inc . , is soliciting applications internally for jobs in its expanding internet related businesses via e mail , encouraging employees to seek new opportunities without necessarily asking permission of their bosses . in the past , that would have been insubordination of the first order and a sure fire way of wrecking one 's career . although loath to own up to subverting the traditional ways , nec concedes that requirements that new employees and old managers seeking promotions take a test proving a specified degree of english_language skills are largely a result of the internet . ''if this company wants to be in the business of the internet , '' said aston bridgman , an nec spokesman , ''its employees are going to have to be able to speak english . '' the language mr . kimura , the egg farmer , has chosen is seduction . not only does his diary provide updates on the chicks , showing pictures of their first feathers and first eggs , shoppers can also listen to chicks cheeping , watch them hop ( albeit rather jerkily ) and see how they live . this month , his mother is featured doing a little dance for joy as part of a mother 's day sales pitch . mr . kimura 's father has been more reticent about his son 's online sales venture , but he has allowed his picture to be on the web_site . it is the soft sell at its best , and it is working . sales were up 20 percent last year , mr . kimura said . he is expecting 20 to 30 percent more growth this year with all the profit from internet sales going into the farm 's coffers . the kimuras' endeavor represents at least a small challenge to one of the world 's most cumbersome distribution systems . for decades , the government maintained a tight grip on farmers through production quotas , distribution regulations and stringent standards that rendered a portion of japan 's produce substandard and thus unprofitable . the government system has been waning for some years . before they put the farm online , the kimuras had already begun shipping to the less restrictive co op system , which yields better profit_margins but still involves middle men . but the internet has provided the small farm with direct contact with its customers , and the kimuras are finding the relationship delightful . ''it 's as if we 've been doing business from behind a curtain all this time , and suddenly we are face to face with our customers , '' mr . kimura said . women are also banding together on the internet . some 25 . 6 percent of the 14 million japanese using the internet at the end of 1998 were women , according to the ministry of posts and telecommunications , up from 17 . 8 percent in the same period a year earlier . ''if we can solve the problems of the time and location of work with the internet , it will become a means of solving some of the child_care problems that women who want to work face in this country and , in the future , the problems relating to care of the elderly , '' said naoko utsonomiya , who has joined an online work place called y 's staff . she says the changes brought by the internet will help crack the bamboo ceiling . ''the business practice of face to face negotiation and drinking sake together into the night has made it difficult for women to advance in the business world , '' she said . women like mrs . utsonomiya , in particular , are finding new opportunities in cyberspace . yuri tazawa is the founder of y 's staff , a virtual company that attempts to put to use the skills of women who want to work at home . with child_care facilities limited and pressure strong on mothers to stay home , most japanese women leave their jobs after marriage or after having children . mrs . tazawa abandoned a job in computer planning at sharp electronics when she married seven years ago . pregnant , she looked for work and found an editor who gave her a job writing for a magazine aimed at new computer users . she had two more daughters , and the family moved about japan , setting up home in four different cities around the country before settling in hokkaido three years ago . at that time , articles about ' 'small office , home_office , '' or ' 'soho'' workers abounded in the media . soho workers were typically women with children working from home using the internet , doing relatively thankless tasks like data entry . the media hailed the phenomenon as a huge opportunity for former career women , but mrs . tazawa was hearing differently . ''i heard from women who were doing data entry all day long and earning only 1 , 000 yen , '' or about 9 at current exchange_rates , mrs . tazawa said . ''it seemed that in many cases , these women were just cheap labor , and if the internet was indeed going to overcome all the barriers to women working , that would have to change . '' y 's staff now has about 40 members whose skills range from web page design and writing to fortune telling . mrs . tazawa drums up projects and posts the parameters and specifications on the y 's staff web_site , and recruits from among the members to build project teams . between 30 and 50 women apply to join y 's staff each month , and 1 or 2 are accepted . ''we have to determine who wants to work for pocket money when the baby is asleep and who really wants to distinguish themselves in society , '' she said . y 's staff are , essentially , an online office . they have done consulting for e_commerce and internet related ventures , created contents for home pages , planned and edited online magazines and written books about the internet and personal computing . members' earnings range from 280 to 2 , 800 a month , depending on how active they are . ''if there was no internet , '' mrs . tazawa said , ''after quitting the company and getting married and having kids and moving every one or two years , the only job i would have had would be standing behind a cash_register at a local supermarket . '' small business people , too , are out to use the internet . consider niizuma , a prototype maker in kamata , a district in tokyo that is home to hundreds of tiny parts suppliers , machine_tool makers and the like . it went online last november , promoting its three dimensional computer assisted design abilities and soliciting new customers . ''small companies usually depend on getting orders from one or two companies , '' said kiyokazu niizuma , the company 's founder . ''if orders keep coming , you 're fine , but if they stop , you have almost no work . '' he has long used a sales force to make sure niizuma did not rely too heavily on any one company . but that is costly and time consuming , since it takes roughly six months of wining , dining and meetings to secure an order . in comparison , orders coming in over the internet take two or three weeks , said shiro katagiri , the head of niizuma 's sales department . about 20 companies that niizuma has never done business with have expressed interest in placing orders , and four have actually done so . ''before we did this , i was thinking at times that i should increase the number of sales people , '' mr . niizuma said . ''but now i 'm starting to worry about whether we can do all the work coming in over the internet . '' mr . niizuma , who is old enough to remember having to flee tokyo during the american air raids in world_war_ii , thinks the impact of the internet will reach far beyond his thriving company . the traditional emphasis on personal relationships , which have been critical to business here , is fast breaking down . new distribution systems are putting businesses and customers into much closer contact , to the benefit of both . ''even major companies are placing orders in an arm 's length process now to cut costs , '' he said . ''sony is selling some things online for 1 , 000 yen less than in stores , which is a big step toward removing intermediaries and connecting to the consumer . '' do these changes alarm him ? ''i do n't have any worries about the future , '' he said . ''to me , the changes the internet is bringing about represent new chances . ''",has a topic of technology
"parappa the rapper is what happens when pop_culture plays the telephone game . released as a sony playstation title in japan , parappa is selling at a steady clip on main_street , u.s.a. , despite the fact that it has no explosions , acrobatic combat or anything in the way of cinematic violence . it is a video_game about hip_hop starring a cartoon puppy dog , the eponymous hero . parappa wears baggy jeans and a stocking cap . he raps in english . his world is spangled with elements of hip hop culture . but somewhere over the pacific , everything was warped in translation . and rap , which left our shores as a glorification of the gangsta high life , has returned as something distinctly japanese something shiny and round and saturated with color . an animated playground filled with whimsical cartoon characters . a game of simon says . as parappa moves from level to level , he faces off against a series of ' 'master rappers'' who reveal the mysteries of hip_hop . it 's call and response , with a horizontal bar on top of the screen indicating which buttons to hit on which beats . follow the bouncing ball . on the first level , for instance , the player imitates an onion headed kung fu master 's karate moves . later , parappa takes driving lessons from a moose and cooking lessons from a chicken . the goal is to keep up , follow the moves and get it right . it is hard to say why , but that turns out to be tremendous fun , even though receiving instruction about rap from a teacher is completely alien to the american mind . masaya matsuura , parappa 's producer , begs to differ . ''parappa is not a game simply to play with the teacher , '' he said . ''user must use improvisation ! if improvisation makes a good score by computer intelligence , user can get cool mode . so on cool mode , user does not need to play with teacher . he can improvise whole song . '' toto , i do n't think we 're in brooklyn anymore . everything in this hip_hop cartoon universe has been rendered in technicolor . and everything has been flattened . the sets are in 3 d , but the characters are all two dimensional . literally . when they turn , you can see that they are cutouts . parappa , in fact , means ''flat'' or ''paper thin'' in japanese . so the whole game looks like a trippy pop up book brought to life . this cartoon candyland , with its tree lined streets and postcard skies , is a kind of universal suburbia that japanese children recognize from countless american sitcoms . in fact , parappa 's visual director , rodney alan greenblat , grew up in daly city , a 1950 's suburb outside san_francisco where all the houses look the same . parappa 's home , rodneytown , is hyperbole for picket_fence americana , what mr . greenblat calls ' 'my hamburger culture vision , with all these high_school kids and cars and bright colors and my typical kinds of geometry , my bumpy buildings and squat little tepee looking things . '' it ends up looking exactly like what americans expect from japanese imports like hello kitty and astro boy . ''i think there 's a lot of interest in japanese pop_culture right now , '' mr . greenblat said . ''i do n't know why , except that it 's a weird reflection of our culture american culture twisted around in a japanese way . '' witness the popularity of japanimation cartoons . so far , parappa 's shiny , happy vision seems to have struck a chord stateside . partly , that is because this is a fantastic , albeit quirky , little game . but it is also a well timed game because americans seem to be in a bright , optimistic moment when the spice girls and hanson can become major musical stars . even calvin_klein models are smiling . it is o.k . to be happy . if you are estee_lauder , it is even o.k . to spend millions of dollars promoting a fragrance called happy . and all of these good vibrations mesh well with japanese pop_culture , which we have always mined for kitsch . in a culture saturated with irony , japanese earnestness has a certain appeal . look at the hero of this game . he is not that smart , but he is really enthusiastic . and he manages to be hip by not being cool , a contrast to the sneering action heroes who have become parodies of themselves . tough guys , from schwarzenegger to the wu tang clan , are so exaggerated that people laugh at them . now it is cooler to be funny . look at jackie chan . or will smith . for years , will smith was the goofy artist formerly known as fresh prince . but now it works and he can become a movie star . parappa is the will smith of video_game characters . he is goofy . and that is why the game is so much fun , on any continent . of course , some things do not translate particularly well . japanese humor has a strong scatological streak , and designers had to tone it down for a crosscultural audience . ''there was this character in the beginning , mr . poo poo , and they thought that would be cute , '' said ryu watabe , who wrote parappa 's lyrics . ''in japan , that 's very acceptable . but i said 'look , if it 's domestic , fine . but if you 're going to make this into an international thing , we 're not going to use mr . poo poo . ' i had to draw the line somewhere . '' clearly , no one involved with parappa imagined that the fabulously subversive cable_tv show ''south park'' would have an episode , now engraved in the minds of millions of viewers , featuring mr . hankey , the christmas poo . not to worry . a parappa sequel is in the works . game theory e mail address herz nytimes . com",has a topic of technology
"an army inquiry has found no evidence to prove that american military personnel sent graphic photographs of iraqi war dead to an internet site in exchange for online pornography , army officials said wednesday . col . joseph curtin , an army spokesman , said investigators from the army 's criminal investigation command could continue their inquiry if more evidence came to light , like the identities of any american service personnel who actually provided the photographs . local commanders in iraq and afghanistan are expected to stress to their troops that such actions could violate military standards for good order and conduct , and to demand an end to the practice . but partly because it is not clear what specific provision of military law would make such conduct a felony , the matter is to be pursued by local commanders for possible administrative punishment rather than through a criminal inquiry , officials said . the preliminary inquiry into the web_site was hobbled because few identifying markings are visible in those photographs posted on the web_site that also include people in uniform . likewise , there is little information on the site to indicate where or when the photos were taken , who supplied the photos to the site , or whether some of the photos actually showed human remains or body parts . the photographs include those of people in american military uniforms standing around what appear to be dead bodies , some deformed by fire or explosion . others include graphic images of severed body parts and internal organs spilled onto the pavement . an official of the council on american islamic relations , the organization that wrote defense secretary donald h . rumsfeld demanding an inquiry into the matter , expressed frustration that the military had concluded that no felony occurred . ''i think the military 's conclusion is premature and it unfortunately will send the message that they are not taking this case seriously , '' said ibrahim hooper , the council 's spokesman . senator john w . warner , the virginia republican who is chairman of the armed services committee , said in an interview on wednesday that the panel might look into new allegations of abuse or misconduct in iraq . they include a report that members of the 82nd_airborne_division abused detainees in iraq as well as the allegations that soldiers provided photos of war dead to the pornography site .",has a topic of technology
"when pony ma , the 35 year old co founder of china 's hottest internet company , sends a message to friends and colleagues , the image that pops up on their screens shows a spiky haired youth wearing flashy jeans and dark sunglasses . that is not how mr . ma actually looks or acts , but it is an image that fits well with the youthful , faintly rebellious nature of a company led by somebody who may be china 's closest approximation to sergey brin and larry page , the young founders of google . in the two years since mr . ma 's company , tencent , went public in hong_kong , it has grown into a powerhouse that has crushed everyone else in the field . no other internet company in the world not even google has achieved the kind of dominance in its home market that tencent commands in china , where its all in one packaging of entertainment offerings and a mobile instant_messaging service , ''qq , '' www . qq . com has reached more than 100 million users , or nearly 80 percent of the market . ''everyone talks about eyeballs , '' said william bao bean , an internet analyst at deutsche_bank securities . ''well , they 've got all the eyeballs in china . and now they 're beginning to cash in on that . '' but the rise of fast growing companies like tencent is also worrying the chinese government , which strictly regulates the internet and is wary of the web 's ability to mobilize huge online political communities or perhaps to nurture underground economies . a few weeks ago , china 's central_bank which oversees the country 's 2 . 6 trillion economy even went so far as to issue a warning about tencent 's virtual currency , q coins , which allow customers to shop online for games , music and even virtual furniture . a central_bank official said the agency was studying whether tencent 's online tokens were a threat to china 's currency , the yuan or renminbi . he also said the authorities would crack down on the coins if they were used to engage in money_laundering . that is far from tencent 's intention . already one of china 's wealthiest entrepreneurs worth an estimated 850 million the soft_spoken mr . ma says he simply wants to let people in china use the web the way they want . ''i think every internet user likes personalization , '' mr . ma said during an interview here . ''in 2005 and 2006 , we came up with a new strategy 'online lifestyle . ' '' while america 's internet users send e mail messages and surf for information on their personal_computers , young people in china are playing online games , downloading video and music into their cellphones and mp3 players and entering imaginary worlds where they can swap virtual goods and assume online personas . tencent earns the bulk of its revenue from the entertainment services it sells through the internet and mobile_phones . another distinguishing feature is the youthful face of china 's online community . in the united_states , roughly 70 percent of internet users are over the age of 30 in china , it is the other way around 70 percent of users here are under 30 , according to the investment_bank morgan_stanley . because few people in china have credit_cards or trust the internet for financial transactions , e_commerce is emerging slowly . but instant_messaging and game playing are major obsessions , now central to chinese_culture . so is social networking , a natural fit in a country full of young people without siblings . tencent combines aspects of the social networking site myspace , the video sharing site youtube and the online virtual world of second life . ''they have what i call the largest virtual park in china , '' said richard ji , an analyst at morgan_stanley . ''and in china , the no . 1 priority for internet users is entertainment in the u.s. , it 's information . that 's why google is dominant in the u.s. , but tencent rules china . '' tencent 's rapid rise is one reason america 's biggest internet companies , like yahoo , google and ebay , have largely flopped in china . analysts say the american companies struggle here partly because of regulatory restrictions that favor homegrown companies , but also because foreign companies often do not understand china 's internet market , which is geared primarily to entertainment and mobile_phones . google has lost market_share to the search_engine baidu . yahoo recently transferred its operations to a chinese company , alibaba . com . and ebay , even after buying one of its biggest competitors in china , has continued to lose ground last december it handed its chinese operations over to tom . com , which is based in hong_kong , in a joint_venture . chinese youth prefer instant_messages to e mail messages they play games , form communities and even adopt virtual personas , or avatars , which requires selecting an online image or personality and then buying that character virtual clothes , hairstyles , furniture and perhaps even a virtual pet that must be fed with virtual pet_food . it is a world that now dominates the life of li meixuan , a 21 year old college student in beijing who became hooked on tencent 's qq offerings in high_school . ''i play with qq about three to five hours a day , '' said ms . li . ''i usually play qq games , buy game stuff from the qq game and buy decorations for my qq show . '' tencent will not release statistics on how its q coins are doing , but analysts say the currency is so popular that an underground economy in q coins has emerged , even though the coins are not redeemable for cash . mr . ma dismisses talk about the coins harming the chinese currency . ''the media has misled the public , '' he said . ''a central_bank official said that q coin did not affect the renminbi it adds vibrancy to the economy . our competitors raised this to intentionally cause panic . '' the controversy has done nothing to dim the company 's stock price , which has soared about 200 percent over the last year , giving the company a market value of roughly 7 billion . the rally was fueled by tencent 's rising profit , which jumped 221 percent through the first three quarters of 2006 , to 100 million . tencent was founded in 1998 by college buddies here in this southern china city , led by ma huateng , or pony ma , as he is known in english . mr . ma has a boyish face and a quiet demeanor . but he is one of china 's most respected entrepreneurs . and when he shows up at internet conferences in china he is mobbed by young people eager to have a picture taken with him or to shove their name cards into his pocket . mr . ma earned a degree in computer science in 1993 from shenzhen university , where his professors remember him as a diligent student who always stood out . ''he left a deep impression on me , '' said wang jingli , the former chairman of the university 's computer science department . he recalled how he once assigned mr . ma to solve a classic chess problem called the eight queens puzzle . ''he gave me all the answers in graphics , which was very rare among the students i taught . '' later , mr . ma worked as a software developer for a paging and telecommunications company . but after making a lot of money trading stocks in his free time , he founded tencent with his boyhood friend zhang zhidong . it was one of the first companies to offer instant_messaging in china . but in the early days , profits were hard to come by . ''they did n't really have a revenue model , and they did n't know how they were going to make money , '' said shirley yeung , who was among the first to invest in the company for pccw , the hong_kong telecom operator . ''they were a bunch of young techies working in a crummy building but passionate about creating something new . '' in 2001 , the company got a big infusion of capital from mih , a division of a south_african media company called naspers . mih paid 35 million to acquire about 50 percent of the company . tencent 's fortunes improved later that year when the company teamed up with china_mobile , the giant state owned mobile operator , to forward internet messaging to mobile_phones . ''that was our first bucket of gold , '' mr . ma said . by 2004 , tencent was making a handsome profit on revenue of more than 130 million and goldman_sachs was brought in to take the company public in hong_kong , where tencent 's offering raised 184 million in june 2004 . since then , the company has been on a tear . other big chinese internet companies , like sina , sohu , netease and baidu , are trying to keep pace . and so are the american internet companies , like myspace , which is looking to enter china 's market . but mr . ma is not standing still . ''there are a lot of opportunities in the market now , '' he said . ''the leader of the market today may not necessarily be the leader tomorrow . ''",has a topic of technology
"in a new twist on long distance adoptions , sheep lovers can now select their pick of the flock over the internet . a 154 contract entitles adoptive ''parents'' to a year 's supply of their chosen one 's merino wool and fresh cheese , as well as a photograph and adoption papers . the less sentimental can also choose to receive their adopted pet in the form of lamb chops . the sheep adoption program was created by a farmers' cooperative in a medieval village in abruzzo , a mountainous region in central italy that has become one of the more depopulated parts of the country as traditional sheep farming dwindles and young people move to the cities . ''people have tended sheep in this area for the last 2 , 000 years , and we want it to continue for another 2 , 000 , '' said manuela cozzi , who with her husband 's family runs an organic sheep cooperative and an ''agritourism'' inn in anversa degli abruzzi . ''sheep around here are in danger of becoming an endangered_species , and we hope this initiative will help prevent that . '' the cooperative farm mrs . cozzi runs with her husband has 1 , 300 sheep . the local sheep farmers' association has 40 , 000 . in all , abruzzo has 350 , 000 sheep at its height , before world_war i , the region boasted more than 3 million . mrs . cozzi , who sells her organic , hand made , smoked ricotta and wool socks by fax and over the internet , said she sent her raw wool to her hometown , near florence , to be spun or worked by local artisans because that cottage industry has all but died out in her area of abruzzo . her flock is tended by three shepherds from macedonia , immigrants whom she credits with saving the farm since italians are no longer willing to do the work . her sheep feast on juniper and wild fennel , mint and oregano across vast , brambled pastures in the foothills of mount cocullo , part of abruzzo national_park . ''we feel a little isolated out here , which is why we wanted to use adoption to bring clients closer , '' she explained . she said she encouraged new ''parents'' to visit their sheep and stay at her inn to learn how to make fresh ricotta by hand . since she started the adoption campaign last month , mrs . cozzi said , more than 100 applications have been received , ranging from a muslim butcher to a college student . daniele romano , 25 , a civil_engineering student in bologna who adopted two sheep and named one franca after his mother and the other deborah after his sister , said ''i am an environmentalist , and adopting a sheep seemed as good an idea as any . i tried to convinced my friends that they should do the same , but there were more who laughed than who adopted . '' italy 's minister of agriculture , alfonso pecoraro scanio , adopted a ewe he named medina . his action , however , drew complaints from an italian children 's rights organization , friends of children , which protested that long distance adoption should be reserved for needy humans . he pledged to look into such programs for children . local residents , as well as environmental groups , argue that the depopulation of mountainous regions in italy and across europe is a human problem . villages like anversa degli abruzzi , where the population of 290 is about a 10th of what it was 50 years ago , are essentially old age communities . in castrovalla , a medieval hamlet of anversa degli abruzzi perched high on san nicola mountain , one child was born in january . it was the first birth in the hamlet in 26 years the parents had recently moved home from rome . the united_nations has declared 2002 the year of mountains , and there is a growing movement in europe to try to preserve mountain communities . ''agricultural activity protects and stabilizes the environment , and it is what gives diversity , character and culture to these parts of europe , '' said frank gaskell , president of euro montana , a brussels based international association . ''in a global age when people are bombarded with homogenization , the last reservoir for genuine products and european culture is the mountain communities . '' mrs . cozzi 's farm produces fragrant cheeses , using their sheep 's non pasteurized milk . the adoption contract includes 11 pounds of sharp pecorino cheese , 6.5 of ricotta and a choice of raw wool or knitted hiking socks . organic fertilizer made of sheep manure is also part of the adoption package . so are sausages , sheep 's brains and legs of lamb . seventy five percent of the flock is destined for a tidy white slaughterhouse behind the main barn . mrs . cozzi is not squeamish about killing off her woolly charges . ''i would never eat meat from a butcher , but i am not a vegetarian , '' she explained . ''i eat meat , but only if it is from one of ours . '' new sheep owners find this harder to accept . ''i know that in abruzzo , lamb is a traditional dish , '' said luigi marangoni , 53 , a milan based ceramics executive , who traveled to anversa delgi abruzzi and adopted a baby sheep of his own . ''but i first saw my little lamb prancing in the green hills , and now i cannot think of him in another , perhaps tastier , state . ''",has a topic of technology
"in certain diplomatic circles outside russia_today , not to mention entire whorls of political gossip within the country , there was but one question about president vladimir v . putin 's stop on monday in brussels did he really say that ? indeed he did . nor , despite foot shuffling and hurried excuses from kremlin aides , was there much evidence that he would take it back . mr . putin , whose usually inscrutable demeanor befits his old career as a soviet_intelligence agent , blew his customary cool monday over the one issue that seems to have taken residence under his skin chechnya . it came at a news conference after a brussels summit meeting with european_union leaders , when a reporter for le_monde asked whether the russian military 's use of land_mines in chechnya was killing innocent_civilians as well as islamic terrorists . bristling , mr . putin replied that islamic radicals wanted to wrest chechnya from russia as part of a worldwide plan to kill americans and their allies . ''if you are a christian , you are in danger , '' mr . putin said . ''if you decide to become a muslim , this wo n't save you either , because they think that traditional islam is also hostile to their goals . '' then he said this ''if you are determined to become a complete islamic radical and are ready to undergo circumcision , then i invite you to moscow . we are multi confessional . we have experts in this sphere as well . i will recommend to conduct the operation so that nothing on you will grow again . '' in the long silence that followed , even translators were at a loss for words . the last crucial sentence of his remarks was never rendered outside the original russian for the diplomats and journalists in attendance . notably , it did not appear today on the kremlin 's official web_site , which carried an otherwise complete text of the news conference . kremlin aides later explained that mr . putin was both exhausted and , as one put it , ' 'sick and tired of chechnya . '' he has good reason three years after starting a war there to crush islamic radicals' invasion of a neighboring russian_republic , not only have hopes for a quick military triumph evaporated , but atrocities appear on the rise . chechnya has long been a transforming topic for mr . putin . it is the one issue that has repeatedly turned him from the articulate and persuasive euro russian who is welcome at any table of global leaders into something closer to nikita khrushchev another forward thinking leader for his time , but one who made a famous point with his shoe . it was mr . putin who , after still unsolved bombings of moscow apartment houses in september 1999 , drove home his enmity toward chechen guerrillas with the blunt threat ''if we catch them in the toilet , we will rub them out in the outhouse . '' many saw his use of crude slang for the word ''outhouse'' then as inspired political positioning , the creation of a tough guy image for a nebbish with his eye on a presidential campaign . mr . putin later startled westerners by shrugging after his own army handed over a radio_liberty journalist to chechen guerrillas , ostensibly in exchange for captured russian soldiers . mr . putin called the journalist , who had questioned russian policy in the caucasus , a traitor . mr . putin raised eyebrows again in mid 2001 when a london journalist 's question about the russian army 's human_rights record in chechnya produced a visibly angry lecture about human_rights abuses by guerrillas that he suggested the foreign press had ignored . the russian_president has had so many such moments , both publicly and in private sessions with both russian and american officials , that chechnya 's impact on him has become an article of faith among putin watchers , both friendly and critical . boris nemtsov , a former deputy prime_minister and now the leader of a liberal faction in russia 's lower_house of parliament , has discussed chechnya many times in the kremlin . ''this is not news for me , '' he said today of mr . putin 's blunt remarks in brussels . mr . nemtsov suggested that mr . putin was engaged in a show of bravado speaking baldly and angrily about chechnya because his military_strategy is failing and his options are running out . ''he 's obsessed with chechnya . he has been from the beginning , '' said alexander rahr , a leading german foreign_policy scholar and putin acquaintance . why is a mystery , he said , but judging from conversations , mr . putin 's bleak memories of the successive collapses of east_germany , the soviet_union and the k.g.b . he long served have left him deeply committed to preventing any further disintegration of russia . mr . rahr says he believes mr . putin is struggling for a way to reach a just peace in the region , but that he sees any power sharing agreement with separatist forces as the road to just such disintegration . ''it 's put him in such a state of alert that he behaves like we see him now , '' mr . rahr said . ''this is an aspect where he will never make any compromise . '' whatever the reason , the contrast between the livid , salty mr . putin and the western style statesman was never so evident as on monday , when both personalities were on view at a meeting expressly aimed at drawing russia more closely into the european fold . european human_rights monitors have been the most persistent critics of russia 's conduct of the war in chechnya , and european leaders have been among those who have urged mr . putin most strongly to rein in his army 's excesses and seek a peaceful settlement .",has a topic of technology
"thirty years after a black power revolutionary hijacked a jetliner from ontario to cuba and disappeared , canadian and federal authorities matched the fingerprints he left on a can of ginger ale in the airplane with those of a teacher in westchester_county and charged the teacher with the crime yesterday . the teacher , patrick dolan critton , 54 , of mount_vernon , n.y. , was charged with kidnapping , armed_robbery and extortion in united_states_district_court in manhattan . he is facing extradition to canada , where a detective had tracked him down through a simple internet search . the authorities said that mr . critton , a fugitive for 30 years , had been hiding in plain sight for the last seven years , working as a schoolteacher , using his real name , raising two sons and mentoring other children . even one of the police officers who arrested him said he had the appearance and demeanor of a gentleman . but as a young man , the authorities said , patrick dolan critton was a revolutionary with a taste for the most daring of crimes . by 1971 , when he was 24 , he was wanted by the new york city police on charges that he participated in a bank_robbery that led to a frantic gun battle with the police , and that he had worked in a covert explosives factory on the lower east side , where the police said he made pipe bombs with other members of a black liberation group , the republic of new africa . because of those charges , the police said , he fled to canada . and on the day after christmas in 1971 , according to court papers , he boarded an air_canada dc 9 in thunder bay , ontario , on a flight to toronto , produced a pistol and a grenade and successfully hijacked the jet . in toronto , the papers say , he released the passengers and forced the crew to fly him to havana never to be heard from again , until his case was reopened in earnest in june . superintendent edward toye of the peel regional police in ontario said that a new unit in the department had been investigating cold cases . detective donald jorgensen , an investigator assigned to the unit , pulled out the 1971 hijacking file . ''he wanted to know what was the oldest case we had , and this was it , '' superintendent toye said . detective jorgensen began his work with the broadest and most basic type of search he typed the words patrick critton into an internet search_engine . almost instantly , he located a march 2001 newspaper clipping in the journal news of westchester_county in which patrick critton was mentioned in an article about mentoring black youth . the article said that mr . critton was the director of the community school initiative in mount_vernon . the canadian authorities contacted the f.b.i . n . y.p.d . joint terrorist task_force , and soon mr . critton was under surveillance in new york , said inspector charles j . wells , commander of the new york police department 's special investigations division . inspector wells said investigators quickly noticed that they seemed to have found a perfect fit . they said the mr . critton who was wanted for the hijacking had briefly been a public_school teacher in brooklyn after graduating from hunter_college in 1969 , and that the mr . critton in mount_vernon was working as a summer schoolteacher at the a . b . davis middle_school there . their heights also seemed to match mr . critton in mount_vernon appeared to be about 5 feet 4 , just like the vanished hijacker . moreover , investigators soon found a fingerprint card from 1994 that mr . critton submitted when he applied to be a per diem teacher in brooklyn , and it matched the fingerprint card from 1969 , when a man with the same name first applied to be a new york city schoolteacher . but the canadian authorities wanted a better identification , inspector wells said , so new york detectives resorted to a ruse . after staking out mr . critton 's home , he said , investigators knew the route he took on his weekday walk from his apartment to his summer teaching job at the middle_school . on aug . 15 , detectives posted themselves along the route , putting up fliers of a missing girl from the bronx . when mr . critton walked by him that morning , a detective handed him a photograph . ''our detective said , 'hey mister , have you ever seen this little girl ? ' '' inspector wells said . ''he touched the photo and handed it back , and that 's it , we got prints on him . '' on aug . 20 , the forensics results came back , the police said , and the prints on the missing girl 's photograph matched prints on a ginger ale can that the hijacker handled in 1971 . after canadian investigators flew to new york with the warrant and extradition papers , mr . critton was arrested without incident on saturday at his first floor apartment on claremont avenue in mount_vernon . in addition to the hijacking , the police said , mr . critton was involved in at least two prominent crimes in new york . they said he kept weapons and worked at a covert armory on east fifth street , which exploded in 1970 , killing one man and critically injuring another . investigators said they discovered black panther literature in the wreckage . they also said that he was a lookout for a bank_robbery on july 29 , 1971 , in which one man was killed and two others wounded after gunmen took 12 hostages during a robbery at a bankers_trust branch at broadway and 94th_street . the robbers used their hostages as a shield . the statute of limitations for both crimes has expired , the police said , and mr . critton was not charged yesterday with any role in them . but the authorities said that in a series of lengthy interviews during the weekend , mr . critton admitted to the crimes and expressed a degree of relief at being caught at last . they described him as polite , helpful and accommodating . in the interviews , the police said , mr . critton said he had spent eight months in a cuban jail , and then worked in cuba , cutting sugar_cane , for about two more years . he then moved to tanzania , where he taught school , married and had two sons , he told the authorities . in 1991 , the police said , he received a passport from the united_states embassy in tanzania . he was too afraid to travel , however , and did not return to the united_states until 1994 , when he passed unnoticed through customs and began a new life . correction september 13 , 2001 , thursday an article on tuesday about an arrest in a 30 year old jet hijacking case gave an incomplete name in some copies for the middle_school in mount_vernon , n.y. , where the suspect was working as a summer school teacher . it is the a . b . davis middle_school , not the a . b . middle_school .",has a topic of technology
"the biggest pothole on the road to a cashless society has always been coins , those pesky pieces of metal needed to buy everything from bubble_gum to bus tickets . credit_cards and checks are fine for bigger ticket items , but they have never been practical for smaller , faster and more frequent purchases . pockets in japan , however , are getting lighter with the growing use of integrated circuit smart cards . the size of a credit_card , they are packed with thin antennas and an encrypted integrated chip that can be used thousands of times to pay for train fares , meals at restaurants and snacks at convenience_stores . in less than two years , nearly seven million people in japan have started using one of two types of cards , both based on technology developed by sony . so far , the main client for the cards is jr east , the largest railway company in japan . nearly six million train and bus commuters have started using the first of the two types , known as suica cards , since they were introduced 18 months ago . although train riders in hong_kong and paris have been using that type of card for several years , japan is the largest market yet to adopt them . their biggest selling point is speed . the card 's antenna sends signals to readers at ticket gates , so no card to machine contact is needed . the entire transaction takes one fifth of a second , faster than is possible with similar technology introduced by the philips group . ''it 's a marginal improvement , but our society is wealthy because of millions of these little improvements , '' said jeffrey funk , an associate professor of business at kobe university who tracks wireless_technology . ''taken together , they are part of the elimination of cash from society . '' in the united_states , toll collection systems like e_zpass employ similar radio wave technology , as does the speedpass system , in which customers can pay for gasoline and convenience_store products at exxon and mobil service stations . procter_gamble , gillette and other companies are now using the technology to track products from assembly_line to store_shelves . jr_east , which operates in the tokyo area , spent 45 billion_yen ( about 384 million ) to roll out suica . its hope is to save money fewer coins means fewer security guards to haul them away . the card also cuts down on paper for tickets and on repairs to ticket vending_machines . suica , which requires a 500 yen deposit ( 4 . 25 ) , is essentially a debit card . riders take the cards to vending_machines and add as much money as they want . if the card is lost , the cash cannot be recovered , but there is no need to call a credit_card company to cancel it because it is not linked to a specific account . within a year , jr east plans to add card readers to its bullet_train ticket gates and to 500 of its fast_food and convenience_stores . for the cards to generate more profits , experts say , credit capability would need to be added to allow shoppers to spend more freely . by and large , however , the japanese prefer cash over credit . the japanese fear that the government and aggressive marketers could use the cards to track their every purchase , and they like to keep a tight rein on debt . ''with the prepaid cards , i know how much i am spending , '' said kotaro matsuoka , a 22 year old student who started using suica last april . ''if there was a credit function , i would n't know how much i owe . it 's scary . '' companies are trying to make it more convenient to add money to the cards . toward that end , sony and 28 other companies have formed a joint_venture called bitwallet , which created the edy network . the network is based on the same technology used in the suica cards , except that readers require contact with the cards . for 2 , 980 yen ( about 25 ) , consumers can buy a small reader that connects to a computer with a u.s.b . cable . they can log on to a secure web_site from home or the office and add money to their cards , sending the bill to their credit_card issuer or bank account . the bitwallet venture also plans to lease vending_machines , at 3 , 000 yen a month each ( about 26 ) , to shops that accept its cards . at the moment , edy cards are accepted in 2 , 100 shops nationwide , including about 1 , 400 convenience_stores they are also being tested in several tokyo neighborhoods . about half of the 650 , 000 users , however , are people who work for companies that have installed the system in their cafeterias and other places . but bitwallet expects eight million users by march 2004 as it installs readers in more shops . by then , bitwallet , which takes a percentage of sales on the cards , hopes to break even .",has a topic of technology
"after spending 2 . 2 million to bring the celebrated 19th_century pipe organ in notre dame cathedral into the computer age and announcing success with great fanfare in december 1992 , the french ministry of culture has a problem the modern technology is not working . "" it 's painful and embarrassing , and it 's not good for our image , "" said jean_pierre leguay , who as an organist for the cathedral holds one of the most prestigious positions in french music . the organ now uses computer digital technology rather than mechanical connections to relay commands from the keyboards and pedals to the pipes . "" the technology worked off and on for a while after the dedication , but never completely reliably , and in may of last year it broke down in the middle of a concert and we stopped using it at all for a while , "" he said . last august the french computer firm synaptel , which did the electronics work , managed to get the system back up to the point where mr . leguay and his colleagues could get the organ to limp through sunday services . but to resume the concerts and recitals , mr . leguay said , a new contract will be needed to perfect the installation . there are reports it could cost millions of francs . this would probably be baffling to the great 19th_century french organ builder aristide cavaille coll , who installed most of the 7 , 800 pipe instrument in 1868 without any electronics at all . all the pipes , the chests that hold pressurized air , and the valves that he built the heart and soul of the notre_dame organ work impeccably , waiting up in the west gallery of the church for the technology to catch up with them . some see notre_dame 's troubles as symbolic of the broader difficulties of moving france from its glorious past into the 21st_century . the huge church of st . sulpice on the left bank has taken a different approach with an instrument almost as big as the one at notre_dame . cavaille coll built this one in 1862 . a three year restoration completed in 1991 at a cost of 605 , 000 did not change a thing about the way it operates . "" this organ works as well now as it did when cavaille coll built it , "" said st . sulpice 's principal organist , daniel roth , seated behind the original amphitheater shaped console as the reverberations from the last chord of an improvisation washed around him . the organ remains a marvel of 19th_century mechanical_engineering , and it works dependably sunday after sunday , for mass and for concerts . the only electricity it uses produces pressurized air for the pipes . originally it did not even need that 10 men or boys pumped bellows behind the organ when the organist played . the unused bellows are still there . the immense and rich sound of the instrument at st . sulpice inspired such players as charles marie widor and marcel dupre to compose music of symphonic dimensions . "" our intention was to restore the organ , not to change it , "" said jean renaud , an organ builder from nantes whose company did the restoration . "" we were always conscious that we were working on an instrument that had been played by some of the greatest musicians in france . "" at notre_dame , jean loup boisseau and his fellow builders bertrand cattiaux , philippe emeriau , and michel giroud found an instrument that had been altered considerably long before they started renovating it in 1990 . "" electricity had already done its damage by the early 1960 's , "" mr . boisseau said . "" we wanted to advance , not to go backward , and we created a prototype with the largest and greatest instrument in france . normally , you would build a small model first . "" since the renovation , the pipes need computer technology instead of the electric action installed in the 1960 's to relay commands from the five keyboards , pedals and 140 stop knobs of the electronic age console , which also has two video display screens and a vocal synthesizer for mr . leguay , who is blind . "" what is important is that all the organ 's basic functions work properly , "" mr . boisseau said . "" you pull a stop and press a key , and it plays , and there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that we will get the bugs out . "" the new system uses computers and microprocessors to interpret the data from sensors that register which keys have been pressed , and how far and how fast , and accordingly release valves under the pipes that let in pressurized air to produce sound . when it works , it allows the player to call up instantly any one of an unlimited number of combinations of the organ 's 140 registers . the system is designed to play back whole compositions for the performer , down to the smallest nuance , and even to produce scores from improvizations . at st . sulpice , the keys are linked directly , with wooden and metal "" trackers "" assisted by pneumatic levers , to the valves under the chests that hold the pipes . the top level of pipes reaches nearly to the 112 foot high stone vaulting , more than 60 feet above the console . mr . renaud said the 32 foot long pipes of the thundering bombarde stop the most powerful were as big around as a tree trunk and so heavy it took three strong men to lift them . "" we had to lift them up because a pigeon got in and tried to nest in one of them , fell down inside , and could n't get out , "" he said . many of the pipes came from earlier organs by the 18th_century builder francois henri clicquot , who finished an organ for st . sulpice in 1781 and another for notre_dame in 1783 . inside notre_dame 's 18th_century oak organ case , with the medieval west rose window dappling the ranks of silvery pipes with a purple and red glow , mr . boisseau tried to be philosophical . "" things could be much worse , "" he said . "" organ builders joke that three renovations equal a fire . """,has a topic of technology
"digital film_festival can an even longer ' 'director 's cut'' of ''blade runner'' be far behind ? the sharp corporation and japanese government researchers have developed a new memory disk that can store 200 gigabytes of data , more than 40 times as much as conventional dvd disks . but it will not be available for at least two years . sloth without effort good news for couch potatoes everywhere la z boy inc . ( www . lazboy . com ) will sell its furniture on line next year . and the company is also releasing the oasis , a chair with a built in cooler that should appeal to its new wired audience . still no word on the footrest modem or armrest microwave .",has a topic of technology
"with one trade dispute over copyright piracy just settled , the united_states and china each warned today of a new confrontation over opening china to a broad array of american products . the sudden threat of a new rupture in trade relations between washington and beijing was unexpected , and came as the united_states trade representative , mickey kantor , arrived here for what had been billed as a conciliatory visit after weeks of brinkmanship over a threatened trade_war to end copyright piracy . mr . kantor , who formally signed the agreement reached two weeks ago to end the pirating of american videos , computer software and other intellectual_property , said at a news conference today that he was determined to enforce a 1992 agreement intended to reduce chinese barriers to american computers , machinery , agricultural products , textiles and beer . "" if that agreement is not adhered to , "" mr . kantor said , "" i have no choice but to invoke "" trade enforcement statutes authorizing him to impose sanctions on chinese exports to the united_states . as of dec . 31 , mr . kantor said , china had stopped complying with the 1992 accord by suspending its program to lift quotas , licenses and other barriers . the export of those american products to china could substantially reduce a 30 billion annual trade imbalance , which has grown to nearly half the size of america 's trade_deficit with japan . "" i do n't want to do it , "" he said . "" i 'd like to have the agreement fulfilled . "" pressed on how soon he would make his determination , mr . kantor said "" it 's up to me . it 's been delegated to me by the president of the united_states . "" at a separate news conference , china 's trade minister , wu_yi , bluntly accused the united_states of violating the "" most important commitment "" in the 1992 accord , which called on washington to staunchly support china 's bid to join the general agreement on tariffs and trade and the group that succeeds it , the world_trade_organization . china had hoped to be a founding member of the world_trade_organization , and ms . wu bitterly chastised washington for blocking china 's bid . "" very regrettably , when the negotiations concerning china 's gatt resumption reached the critical moment , the american side took the lead to block that process , "" she said , "" and as a result china failed to become a contracting member . "" now that the american side has not seriously implemented its commitment , the chinese side is entitled to express its displeasure . the chinese side is also entitled to take corresponding action . "" she did not elaborate , but officials traveling with mr . kantor said washington received notice several weeks ago that china was suspending its implementation of the 1992 accord to lift import barriers on 155 categories of american products . the effect of the chinese decision could mean billions of dollars of lost sales for american companies . "" just in wood products , there 's a 1 billion market , "" in china , one american trade official said . united_states officials today characterized ms . wu 's criticism of washington 's lack of support for china 's bid to join the trade organization as disingenuous . under the 1992 agreement , they said , the united_states made a commitment to work "" constructively with the chinese government "" to "" reach an agreement on an acceptable protocol "" for china 's admission to the world trade body . the phrase "" acceptable protocol , "" they said , referred to china 's obligation to remove its extensive trade_barriers to qualify for membership . from ms . wu 's remarks , it seemed clear that chinese leaders had not come to terms on a strategy to resume negotiations to enter the world trade group . china 's initial bid to join the trade organization collapsed in december after eight months of negotiations . a western diplomat here said that in the following months , chinese officials "" have been wrestling "" with the question of whether china 's moribund state industries protected by subsidies and captive markets could survive exposure to the open competition and free_trade required under world trade rules . mr . kantor said that any internal struggles that might be under way in the chinese leadership as the death of its paramount_leader , deng_xiaoping , appears imminent , were of no concern to him . "" in two years in this job one of the constant themes you run into is someone is always having an election , someone 's government is always changing , people are always asserting that a particular government ca n't move on an issue because of internal political concerns , "" he said .",has a topic of technology
"a french high_school philosophy teacher and author who carried out a scathing attack against the prophet_muhammad and islam in a newspaper commentary says he has gone into hiding under police protection after receiving a series of death threats , including one disseminated on an online radical islamist forum . the teacher , robert redeker , 52 , wrote in the center right daily le_figaro 10 days ago that muhammad was ''a merciless warlord , a looter , a mass murderer of jews and a polygamist , '' and called the koran ''a book of incredible violence . '' the redeker case is the latest manifestation in europe of a mounting ideological battle that pits those who believe islam and the prophet_muhammad can be criticized in the name of free_speech against those in the muslim community who believe no criticism can be tolerated . a recent speech by pope benedict xvi that seemed to link islam and violence caused such an uproar in the muslim_world that the pope issued a rare expression of regret . the pope expressed_regret for the reaction to his remarks after muslims demonstrated against him around the world . just this week , a berlin opera_house decided to cancel performances of the mozart opera ''idomeneo'' because of security fears over a scene showing the severed head of the prophet_muhammad . the decision prompted an outpouring of protest about what was seen as the surrender of artistic freedom . in his commentary , mr . redeker compared islam unfavorably to christianity and judaism , although he admitted that the history of the catholic_church was ''full of dark pages , '' and he criticized the hostile reaction to the pope 's remarks . ''jesus is a master of love muhammad is a master of hatred , '' mr . redeker wrote , adding , ''whereas judaism and christianity are religions whose rites forsake violence and remove its legitimacy , islam is a religion that , in its very sacred text , as much as in some of its everyday rites , exalts violence and hatred . hatred and violence dwell in the very book that educates any muslim , the koran . '' immediately afterward , mr . redeker , who teaches in a public_high_school near toulouse and is the author of several books on philosophy , began to receive death threats by telephone , e mail and through the online islamist web_site known as al hesbah , a password protected forum with ties to al_qaeda . the forum published photos of him and what it said was his home address , directions to his home and his cellphone number , according to the site institute , which tracks violent islamist groups . that day 's issue of le_figaro was banned in egypt and tunisia . mr . redeker was denounced by a commentator on al_jazeera television . ''i ca n't work , i ca n't come and go and am obliged to hide , '' mr . redeker told europe 1 radio in a telephone interview from an undisclosed location on friday . ''so in some way , the islamists have succeeded in punishing me on the territory of the republic as if i were guilty of a crime of opinion . '' mr . redeker , who has kept in contact with news_agencies by cellphone and e mail , said that his wife and their children had also been threatened with death . he told europe 1 that his wife was in hiding with him , but he was less clear about his three children , saying that one of them had been forced to move and that another was in a boarding_school . asked to describe the sort of threats he had received , mr . redeker replied , ''you will never feel secure on this earth . one billion , three hundred thousand muslims are ready to kill you . '' prime_minister dominique de villepin on friday called the threats ''unacceptable , '' adding ''we are in a democracy . everyone has the right to express his views freely , while respecting others , of course . '' the interior_ministry has confirmed that mr . redeker is under police surveillance , and that counterterrorism experts have begun a preliminary investigation into the threats , which the ministry has described as ' 'dangerous . '' mr . redeker complained in the radio interview that he had to arrange his own logistics and ''find a place to sleep at night or live for a day or two . '' one of the threats came from a contributor to al hesbah , who wrote , ''it is impossible that this day pass without the lions of france punishing him . '' the contributor called on his muslim brethren in france to follow the lead of muhammad bouyeri , who murdered the dutch filmmaker theo van gogh after he made a film denouncing the plight of abused muslim women . ''may god send some lion to cut his head , '' the contributor said of mr . redeker , whom he described as a ''pig . '' mr . redeker 's situation echoes that of ayaan hirsi ali , a somali born dutch politician who collaborated with mr . van_gogh on the film and has been relentless in her criticism of some islamic practices . the subject of numerous death threats from radical islamists , she was put under the protection of bodyguards in the netherlands in 2002 , and currently has security protection in washington , where she recently became a fellow at the conservative american_enterprise_institute . in the figaro commentary , mr . redeker wrote , ''islam tries to dictate its rules to europe opening swimming pools at certain hours exclusively for women , forbidding the caricature of this religion , demanding a special diet for muslim children in school cafeterias , fighting for wearing the veil in school , accusing free thinkers of islamophobia . '' mr . redeker , who has written against islam in the past , does not shy from controversy . at the time of the american led invasion of iraq , he criticized french pacifists , and he has written extensively about how watching sports competitions is worse than opium . his new book , ''depression and philosophy , '' is about to be published . at first , mr . redeker did not speak out about the threats . in an e mail message to the new york times last tuesday , he said it was not the right time to talk about his plight . then , in an interview with the local toulouse newspaper , la d p che du midi , published thursday , mr . redeker described the death threats , adding , ''what is happening to me corresponds fully to what i denounce in my writing the west is under ideological surveillance by islam . '' that interview set off a public defense of mr . redeker in the name of free_speech and condemnations of those who threaten him , which snowballed friday after his radio interview with jean_pierre elkabbach , the president of europe 1 , who is the host of a popular interview show . philippe de villiers , a far right politician , wrote president jacques_chirac a letter on friday asking that mr . redeker be given ' 'shelter as a symbol at the lys e palace , which is the palace of the republic , rather than let him wander , '' according to agence_france_presse . le_figaro , in an unusual front page open_letter on friday signed by the editor and the publisher , said , ''we condemn with the greatest conviction the grave attacks on freedom of thought and freedom of expression which this affair has provoked . '' on thursday , education minister gilles de robien was less forceful . he expressed ' 'solidarity'' with mr . redeker , but cautioned that a ' 'state employee must show prudence and moderation in all circumstances . '' but two large teachers' unions in separate statements on friday threw their support behind mr . redeker 's right to speak freely , though one of them made clear , ''we do not share his convictions . '' mr . redeker said that he had no second thoughts about what he wrote . ''no regrets , '' he said in the radio interview . ''i have given a lot of thought in writing this text . ''",has a topic of technology
"the defense ministry said it was ''completely unacceptable'' for an army instructor to order a recruit during target practice to pretend he was facing hostile african_americans in the bronx . a video of the order , posted on the internet , drew a protest from the bronx borough_president , adolfo carri n jr . , who demanded an apology . the mayor of rendsburg , where the base is situated , invited mr . carri n to visit , saying that he could not excuse the two soldiers but that most of the troops there were ''open minded and tolerant . '' mark_landler",has a topic of technology
"if the mouse roared in cyberspace , would anyone hear it ? in the annals of internet history , june 5 , 2000 , may be remembered as the date that a hardy band of true_believers tried to establish the first independent colony in cyberspace . on monday , a small international group of computer rebels plans to introduce what they are calling a data haven , perched precariously on a world_war_ii military fortress six miles off england 's coast . they are hoping that the installation , connected to the internet by high speed microwave and satellite links , will become a refuge from governments increasingly trying to tame and regulate the internet . their company , known as havenco , has struck a financial arrangement with a self proclaimed prince , roy bates , an eccentric retired british_army major who in 1968 briefly gained notoriety when he landed at the abandoned fortress and declared it a sovereign nation the principality of sealand outside the reach of british law . the havenco founders are loosely associated with a movement of american computer mavens known as ''cypherpunks , '' a largely libertarian group espousing the idea that advanced computer encryption technologies can create electronic privacy and provide liberty and freedom from potential government big brothers . the company intends to offer its data haven to a diverse clientele that may wish to operate beyond the reach of large nations for reasons of privacy or financial necessity . they expect their customers to include people who wish to keep their e mail safe from government subpoenas as well as other businesses seeking to avoid regulation , like international electronic_commerce , banking and gambling . ''technology has made it easier to move information and hide information , '' said sean hastings , a 32 year old united_states citizen who is the chief executive and co founder of havenco . ''soon it will be impossible to trace where money is and who has money , and that will eventually force governments to move away from income taxes and toward consumption taxes . '' in its bid to offer both security and sovereignty , however , havenco has a formidable task . computer security experts generally say no networked computer systems can be proven to be perfectly secure and e mail by its very nature is a two way communication . legal experts also said that while britain might have done little to assert jurisdiction over the offshore enclave in the past , any prospect of its use for digital money_laundering , gambling or tax_evasion might quickly force the issue . several years ago , as a programmer for a similar effort to create an offshore data haven on the island of anguilla in the british west indies , mr . hastings sharpened his ideas on building computer systems that offered what he calls genuine privacy and security . while there he designed an anonymous digital currency system intended to help create an efficient barter system in cyberspace safe from the world 's taxation systems . but the government of anguilla was unwilling to give the assurances mr . hastings felt were necessary to set up a secure data haven . and so last year he began his search for another sympathetic base of operations , turning to a book called ''how to start your own country , '' from which he learned about mr . bates and his principality of sealand a former antiaircraft bunker sitting in 20 feet of water . decades ago , mr . bates used the abandoned concrete fortress , east of london , as a platform for what was called pirate radio , operating without license from the british_government . he says he is struck by the parallels between pirate radio and the idea of a pirate internet . ''we 've had dozens and dozens of proposals and we 've turned them all down , '' he said . ''this is the first one that seemed to be really suited to what we are . '' sealand has had a variety of legal skirmishes with the british_government since 1968 , at one point even firing warning shots at a british naval vessel trying to reach the fortress . it has managed to maintain a semblance of legal independence , although the issue of sovereignty has never been formally tested , mr . bates acknowledged . ''i 've never had to confront them directly , '' he said . ''they 've always ducked and dodged the question . '' mr . hastings said he was in the final stages of raising 3 million to start his company , which is incorporated in anguilla . he said he believed that sealand 's sovereignty would stand up to a court challenge , but some american legal experts are skeptical . ''offshore markets have become a focus of attention recently among the g 7 , '' the conference of leading industrialized_nations , said michael d . mann , a washington lawyer who is the former director of international enforcement for the securities_and_exchange_commission . he said that the flaw in the havenco plan was that cyberspace markets must still have points of contact with the world 's conventional economies . ''you can have all the secrecy and protection in the world as long as you do n't need to write a check or wire a dollar , '' he said . the havenco executives may find their haven illusory , said mr . mann , who was involved in a number of law enforcement actions with investors who tried to establish offshore havens while he was at the s.e.c . ''what 's so ironic about the internet is , as impersonal as it is , it creates the ultimate paper_trail , '' he said . that possibility has not deterred mr . hastings and his colleagues , who have moved three power generators to the offshore site . the group is now installing the finishing touches , including a special room housing hundreds of server computers , and expects to open for business within weeks . to forestall some government alarm , havenco has established an ''acceptable use'' policy banning its customers from using the service for sending the unsolicited bulk e mail known as spam , mounting attacks on other computer systems or trafficking in child_pornography . anything else , however , mr . hastings considers fair game , and he said his tiny cybernation had stockpiled a year 's worth of food , fuel and other supplies in case of a blockade . he said he was willing to take a political stand if necessary and acknowledged that he might become an exile from united_states as a consequence . he said the company was already looking at several small nations that might shelter similar islands in cyberspace . mr . bates , the 78 year old ruler of sealand , says he does not believe that his data haven deal will lead to a confrontation with the larger island nation next door . ''i would n't do anything to offend england , '' he said . ''i 'm an englishman . ''",has a topic of technology
"an american blogger has suddenly emerged as a force in canadian politics . edward morrissey , a 42 year old minneapolis area call center manager who runs a web_log , or blog , called captain 's quarters as a hobby , last saturday began posting allegations of corruption that reached the highest levels of the canadian liberal_party . the postings violate a publication ban instituted a few days earlier by a federal_judge , justice john gomery , who is leading an investigation into accusations of money_laundering and kickbacks in a government program from the 1990 's that was aimed at undermining quebec separatists . the scandal , which involves government payments of up to 85 million to a handful of montreal advertising firms for little or no work , has dominated national politics for a year and led to the liberals losing their majority in the house of commons last june . but justice gomery moved to limit dissemination of information from the otherwise public hearing in montreal so as not to influence potential_jurors for coming trials in which a government bureaucrat and two advertising executives face criminal_charges . according to mr . morrissey 's blog , recent testimony for the first time links people who have been close to prime_minister paul_martin to the scandal . mr . martin has long insisted that he knew nothing of the workings of the program , which was intended to promote the federal_government 's presence at cultural and sporting_events , even though he was finance minister at the time . the prime_minister then was jean_chr_tien , who left office in december 2003 . journalists and anyone else can attend the so called gomery commission hearings , and mr . morrissey said one of them , whom he would not identify , had approached him and had been passing him information for his blog . mr . morrissey has cautioned that he is basing his reporting on that one source , who he has said he believes to be reliable , and that he has not corroborated the information . canadian journalists who have attended the hearings , or have spoken to those who have , say mr . morrissey 's postings of the allegations , which have been made by a single witness , are generally accurate , though not complete . liberal_party leaders have questioned the veracity of the witness , jean brault , an advertising executive , who they note faces criminal_charges and whose testimony is covered by the ban . mr . gomery , meanwhile , is considering lifting the ban , now that so many people know so much about the proceedings . while the canadian news_media have not reported explicitly what mr . morrissey is posting , their newspaper articles and television features about his work have led canadians to visit captain 's quarters ( www . captainsquartersblog . com ) to read the latest scandalous details . mr . morrissey said his blog had been flooded since canadian ctv television first reported on its existence and contents sunday_night , and that he was now getting 400 , 000 hits a day . ''this is a historic moment for blogs , '' mr . morrissey said in a telephone interview . ''the point of having free_speech and a free press is to have people informed . these information bans are self defeating for free societies . the politicians know , the media knows , but the canadian voters are left in the dark and that 's a backwards way of doing things . '' mr . morrissey characterized himself as a libertarian conservative who had written extensively on his blog about federal_election_commission regulations , free_speech and foreign_affairs .",has a topic of technology
"seeking to capture a piece of the lucrative market in high speed internet_services , time warner cable announced yesterday that it is starting to give computer users in parts of manhattan and queens fast access to the internet through the company 's cable_television wires . the time warner connection is the first modem service using a television cable that will be widely available in manhattan , said gerri warren merrick , a time warner spokeswoman . although the number of potential customers is huge time warner serves more than a million customers in manhattan , queens , staten_island and parts of brooklyn hooking them up them has proven difficult . time warner cable is completing a 400 million fiber_optic system , installed building by building in the sections of new york city it serves , to make way for the new cable_modem service , a project that is expected to be completed by the end of the year . ''the challenge in new york city is really to upgrade the system , and that is for the most part complete it 's 75 percent finished , '' said barry rosenblum , president of time warner cable of new york city . ''we are scaling up to be able to connect 100 people a day at least , and we expect to be doing that out into the foreseeable future . '' parts of the upper west side , upper east side and eastern parts of midtown as well as jackson_heights , queens , will be able to get cable_modem service as soon as installation schedules permit , with the rest of manhattan scheduled to receive service by the fall of 2000 . the service would be available in the rest of the company 's system by mid 2001 . the high speed modem service , known as road runner , costs 39 . 95 a month for time warner cable_television subscribers and 59 . 95 a month for nonsubscribers . installation is 99 . customers can use road runner as their internet_service_provider or continue to use other providers . with a cable_modem , a computer is always connected to the internet . cable modems can receive data 50 times as fast as a modem using a standard telephone_line . the time warner service will compete with bell_atlantic , which began offering high speed internet_access service in parts of manhattan in july . bell_atlantic plans to be able to serve 9 out of 10 households in the metropolitan_area by the end of the year with digital subscriber lines , which also supply high speed constant access to the internet . the service costs between 40 and 90 a month . time warner already has 300 , 000 customers hooked up to road runner in upstate new york , in parts of ohio , florida and texas , and on the west_coast . the rcn corporation , based in princeton , n.j. , which provides cable service to about 600 apartment buildings in manhattan , also offers high speed internet_access , said jim maiella , a company spokesman . the wait for faster access has been frustrating for some city dwellers , who have listened to their suburban friends brag about quick , 24 hour connections . ''before the service started , before we started to advertise , we had 8 , 000 reservations , '' said joan rasmussen , a bell_atlantic spokeswoman . ''new york is potentially the most significant market for us . '' mr . rosenblum said the waiting list for road runner had several thousand names on it . he added that the company was encouraging people to sign up early for service , through the company 's web_site , www . twcnyc . com .",has a topic of technology
"four years after china 's leaders crushed a movement by millions of prodemocracy protesters , they are facing a new challenge one that is quieter and less confrontational but eventually perhaps more serious . the challenge is most visible in the form of hundreds of thousands of satellite dishes that are sprouting , as the chinese say , like bamboo shoots after a spring rain . already millions of chinese can hook in via satellite to the "" global village , "" bypassing the communist_party commissars and leaving them feuding over how to respond . state control is slipping in short , the information_revolution is coming to china , and in the long run it threatens to supplant the communist_revolution . for while political power here grows out of the barrel of a gun , as mao once observed , it is sustained by the communist_party 's monopoly on news and propaganda a monopoly that is now crumbling . "" the government has already lost control over information , "" a senior chinese journalist said . "" the leaders may not know it yet , but these days they simply ca n't control what people know . "" most satellite dishes are technically illegal , but hard_liners are finding themselves stymied in their efforts to organize a crackdown . fundamentally , their frustrations reflect the headaches that the party encounters as it tries to maintain political controls while liberalizing the economy . the information_revolution in china began in the 1980 's , with the spread of short wave radios and the end of the ban on listening to broadcasts by the voice of america and the british_broadcasting_corporation . but the pace has picked up enormously in the last couple of years . direct dial to the outside fax machines are everywhere , even in private homes , and direct dial international telephones are multiplying much more quickly than the number of state security employees who bug such calls . the number of long distance phone_calls doubled from 1989 to 1991 , when 1.7 billion were recorded . computers are spreading as well , so that a growing number of people can communicate via electronic bulletin_boards and electronic mail . young people exchange information with chinese students studying in the united_states , and they can even swap computer viruses like the one developed a couple of years ago that appears on a screen to ask whether the computer operator likes prime_minister li_peng . if the person at the keyboard says no , regular work can continue . if the person says he likes the prime_minister , the virus wipes out all the computer 's memory . in fujian_province , opposite taiwan , millions of chinese aim their antennas eastward and tune in taiwan television news and other programs . in guangdong_province in the south , families watch hong_kong television , sometimes with official cable systems . voices from abroad short wave radios have proliferated and are now an important source of news for dissidents and officials alike . chinese listen not only to bbc and voice of america but also to broadcasts from australia , france and taiwan . the next technological wave may belong to satellite dishes , which first appeared in shops about a year ago and now seem to be everywhere . in beijing alone , dozens of shops sell the dishes , typically about five feet in diameter , for about 500 including the receiver . "" lots of customers can afford them now , because they 're hardly more expensive than a video recorder , "" said cao hongxia , a manager at an electronics shop on the bustling wangfujing street . "" i get people coming in who want to buy a hundred dishes and then resell them elsewhere . "" the hard_liners staked out their position recently in a confidential communist_party document prepared by the city of beijing . the paper , one of a series about how to improve social order in beijing as it applies to be host to the olympics in the year 2000 , uses harsh language to argue that satellite dishes can be used to watch pornography and reactionary programming . some welcome the change another briefing paper , prepared by shanghai authorities and published in "" internal reference selections , "" a confidential magazine , takes the opposite view . it argues that if china is to modernize its economy , then it must give its people access to instant information and embrace new technologies like satellite_television . "" we should have confidence in the viewers , "" the report declares . "" we should n't seal the window just because a fly might slip in . "" senior government leaders recently agreed in principle on a crackdown , and they have held inter ministry meetings in the last week to decide how to proceed . but the authorities seem deeply constrained because of conflicts of interest within the government . the army general staff department and the ministry of radio , film and television , for example , both turn a good profit by selling satellite equipment to the public . the ministry of electronics operates a factory that says it plans to build 60 , 000 to 70 , 000 satellite dishes this year . it may seem surprising that government ministries should manufacture and sell products that the same government bans . but with china 's push toward a market_economy in recent years , this is not so unusual . a clinic in southern china run by the family_planning commission switched its focus when it discovered it could make more money as a fertility clinic . and a branch of the official women 's association was caught last year running a prostitution racket . a shattered monolith as a result , the government sometimes resembles not so much a communist monolith as a disorganized conglomerate . the politburo , acting as a fractious board of directors , often ignores tacit disobedience . even if the central government ordered a major crackdown , it is unclear that it would be enforced outside the capital . local_governments , always lethargic about implementing edicts they dislike , are making money by running cable_television systems that depend on satellite_television . "" the leaders are trying to ban the dishes , "" said another chinese journalist . "" but i do n't see how they can succeed . "" governments throughout the world are fretting over the same realization their armies can repel invading troops but are useless against television broadcasts . banned images , new ideas in arab countries , dishes offer viewers a chance to see programs racier than those broadcast by local stations . in taiwan , people tune in to mainland_china television news programs . in india , millions of people are hooking into cable systems connected to satellite dishes , directly encountering foreign ideas and values that never bother to apply for a visa . no one yet knows what the sociological or political consequences will be . china passed a law in 1990 banning the use of satellite dishes to receive foreign television signals , except with permission from the police . but the law does not ban the sale of the dishes , nor even their installation , so long as they are used to receive china 's own programming . "" when i bought my dish , the salesman told me that if the police ever asked , i should tell them that i use it only to watch china_central_television , "" said a 28 year old businessman who bought his dish a few months ago . "" the police know that 's absurd , but they ca n't prove it . "" the huge white dishes now perch on the roofs of apartment and office buildings in cities like beijing , shanghai and guangzhou , and sometimes even on the roofs of newly built peasant homes . grass roots sabotage the latest trend is for employers and "" street committees "" to erect one or two huge dishes and then hook up everyone in an apartment building for a fee . the street committees are supposed to be the communist_party 's grass roots monitoring organizations , but they like to make money too . "" we do n't have enough people to implement the law against satellite receivers , "" said jin guojun , an official of the beijing radio and television bureau , and simultaneously the president of the beijing cable_tv network . "" and the best approach is not to ban satellite dishes and leave it at that , but rather to give the public an alternative like cable_tv . "" at last count , 1 , 800 cable_television systems were operating in china , with 429 set up in just the first three months of this year . some simply show videos , but many show satellite programs , of which by far the most popular are those broadcast by star television in hong_kong . a state statistical bureau survey several months ago found that 4.8 million households in china can receive star television presumably a significant underestimation , since the bureau counted only government authorized satellite dishes . "" there 's a tremendous amount of potential as the economy of china opens up more and more , "" said arnold tucker , executive vice_president of star television . "" that 's as true for satellite tv as for toothpaste or ads or bicycles or anything else . "" films , sports and news star television , which belongs to the stable of companies controlled by li_ka_shing , a hong_kong billionaire , gets its revenue only from commercials . it offers five channels chinese_language films and television serials music television english_language sports english_language films and serials and bbc_television news . the most politically sensitive by far is bbc . chinese are beginning to discover that the bbc broadcasts a separate chinese_language soundtrack , and so they can watch the bbc_television news in chinese . to be sure , most viewers are more interested in sit coms or cops and robber shows than in news programs . "" what people want is entertainment , "" said zhang zedong , manager of the satellite sales counter at a state owned shop . "" they 're not so interested in bbc , but rather in mtv and sports and chinese_language serials . "" yet even mundane programming like taiwanese sit coms seems to have a corrosive effect on the authority of the communist_party . the sit coms offer a window into how people overseas live , underscoring the wealth and freedom abroad . american cops and robbers shows sometimes play on chinese television , and viewers often find the plot twists full of surprises like the moments when the bad guys are read their rights and allowed to call a lawyer . to some chinese , that kind of novelty is more memorable than the plot itself .",has a topic of technology
"japan put into operation a national computerized registry of its citizens today , provoking two un japanese responses civil_disobedience and a widespread feeling that privacy should take priority over efficiency . yokohama , japan 's second largest city , made the national government 's registry voluntary , and half a dozen other cities refused to be included in the computerized system connecting local registries , effectively leaving four million people out of the system . but a much larger mass of angry public opinion was behind this visible resistance . critics noted that the government had labored for three years to produce the system on time , but had been unable to produce a privacy law that was to accompany it . in a survey of 1 , 948 people conducted two weeks ago by the newspaper asahi_shimbun , 86 percent of respondents said they were concerned about misuse or leakage of information , and 76 percent said the posting of the database should be postponed . at a ' 'disconnecting ceremony'' this morning , nobuo hoshino , mayor of kokubunji , one of the cities that refused to take part , said to television cameras , ''residents are sending us their views by e mail , fax and various other ways , and almost all of them support us . '' under the system , all citizens , from babies in hospital nurseries to elderly in nursing homes , have been assigned individual 11 digit numbers . for now , the number allows retrieval of only basic information name , address , sex and birth date . the information is only to be available to government employees for official use , and is not on the internet . furthermore , all the information and more is already in government hands , in the creaking 19th_century era ''koseki'' or paper registry , which is scattered around city halls across this nation of 126 million people . the new system is intended to cut red_tape and to make it easier for citizens as well as officials by registering a change of address in only one place , for example . but the government 's zeal in creating the system was not matched by its zeal for pursuing a personal information protection bill , which died last week as parliament ended its summer session . ''i am sure the information will be expanded , so privacy is the most important issue , '' takaharu yoshioka , a landscape gardening company executive , said in a random interview that seemed to capture popular mistrust . ''we ca n't get rid of the hacker problem , so it is not safe . we need to take more time . '' despite near 100 degree temperatures here , japanese have been moved to protest , sometimes dressed up as bar codes or computers . makoto sataka , a social critic who is leading a campaign against the system , warned , ''in the resident registry network system , the state will become a stalker with control over personal information . '' today , protesters compared the residential registry to a_10 digit computerized identification system for cows , which was adopted last fall in an effort to contain mad_cow_disease . ''cows are 10 digit numbers and human beings are 11 digits , '' read one protest banner outside the public management ministry , the agency responsible for creating the network . inside , the minister , toranosuke katayama , met reporters and appealed for ' 'more dialogue'' with opponents . his spokesman , yoshiuki baba , stressed that even without a new privacy law , people convicted of leaking personal information face up to two years in prison and a fine of 8 , 300 . japan 's new registry differs from the american system of social_security numbers , said koji ishimura , an information law specialist at hakuo university . the japanese number is mandatory and universal . ''right now , the government is saying that the card will be used for 93 types of administrative matters , '' he said , referring to such steps as obtaining pensions and passports . ''but in the future , the government has a bigger project , named ''e government'' which will have 16 , 000 administrative usages . ''",has a topic of technology
"queen_elizabeth_ii conferred an honorary knighthood on bill gates , the chairman of microsoft , in a private ceremony at buckingham_palace in recognition of his role in business and philanthropy . the honor will not permit mr . gates to use the title sir a form of address restricted to british and commonwealth residents . mr . gates said he was ''humbled and delighted . '' other americans who have received the honor include former presidents ronald_reagan and george h.w . bush the federal_reserve chairman , alan_greenspan former mayor rudolph w . giuliani of new york the filmmaker steven_spielberg and bob hope . alan_cowell ( nyt )",has a topic of technology
"the pentagon announced today that it had asked the defense_department 's inspector general to investigate the disappearance of most of the chemical detection logs maintained for american military commanders during the 1991 persian_gulf_war . it is estimated that 80 percent of the logs have disappeared . that has alarmed the ailing veterans who believe that the missing logs could show that their health problems are the result of exposure to chemical or biological_weapons during the war . in a statement , the pentagon 's senior official on gulf_war illnesses , bernard d . rostker , said , ''i have seen no evidence thus far that anyone intentionally destroyed the log . '' he made the statement as he prepared to hand over the investigation to the inspector general . the investigation will now be handled by the inspector general , eleanor hill , who is supposed to function as an independent watchdog for the department . the results of ms . hill 's investigations will be reported to congress . in an interim report made public last week , the defense_department said that its investigators had been able to track down only 36 of the estimated 200 pages of logs that should have recorded the detection of chemical or biological_weapons during the war . the report suggested that some logs had been destroyed by a computer virus in the war , while other copies , on computer disks and on paper , had been misplaced after the war when soldiers changed jobs . the investigation found that copies of the logs had disappeared from two locations after the war . the 36 pages that have been located , which were made public in 1994 , show that american military commanders received repeated warnings that iraqi chemical_weapons had been detected on the battlefield but labeled them all false_alarms . among the missing logs are those for march 4 through march 10 , when american_troops blew up a huge ammunition depot in southern iraq that was later determined to have contained tons of chemical_weapons . there is no conclusive evidence to show that american_soldiers were made sick by exposure to chemical or biological_weapons during the war . but the disappearance of the chemical logs has heightened an air of suspicion among veterans .",has a topic of technology
"a judge in bavaria sentenced the former head of compuserve deutschland to two years in jail on charges of spreading pornography , but suspended the sentence . it was the first time in germany that the manager of a provider of internet_access had been held legally responsible for images reached through its service . the manager , felix somm , was indicted in april 1997 on 13 counts of distributing pornography involving children and animals in 1995 and 1996 . the indictment raised an outcry among advocates of free_expression and among experts who argued that it was technically impossible to block access to the material . legislation approved after the indictment largely exempts providers from legal responsibility for material beyond their control . under those laws , mr . somm 's supporters said , it would have been difficult to bring him to trial . indeed , even in mr . somm 's case , both the defense and the prosecution in munich argued today in favor of his acquittal . but the judge , wilhelm hubbert , responded , ''even on the internet , there can be no lawless zones . '' german authorities have set up police units to seek out web material they consider to be illegal , including child_pornography , bestiality , replication of nazi symbols and material deemed to ''endanger youth , '' like violent games . but because many such sites are managed from other countries , they have had no recorded success . the ruling today made little immediate difference in the accessibility of pornographic sites by german computer users . one computer operator said he had been able to obtain sexual material involving children and animals through a variety of providers today .",has a topic of technology
"oliver jovanovic , the former columbia_university graduate student charged with kidnapping and sexually_abusing a young woman he met over the internet , rejected any possibility of a plea_bargain yesterday , choosing instead to go through a new trial and risk a sentence of life in prison . ''i will never admit to a crime i did n't commit , '' mr . jovanovic said after an appearance yesterday in state supreme_court in manhattan . he and his lawyer , paul a . callan , who were in court to tell the judge about recent plea negotiations , said he had turned down a deal to plead_guilty in exchange for a sentence of the 20 months that he has already served in prison . the prosecutor said , however , that those terms were not proposed . mr . jovanovic , 33 , was convicted after his first trial in 1998 and sentenced to 15 years to life in prison . he won a new trial a year ago when the appellate_division of state supreme_court ruled that justice william a . wetzel had improperly excluded messages from the e mail flirtation in which the young woman described her experience and interest in sadomasochism . the defense has accused the woman of lying and the manhattan district_attorney 's office of overreaching in its efforts to exclude evidence favorable to mr . jovanovic . the defense also objected strenuously when the new trial , in an unusual move , was assigned to justice wetzel . in yesterday 's hearing , mr . callan and the prosecutor , gail heatherly , gave differing accounts of plea negotiations . when mr . callan said ms . heatherly had offered a sentence of time served in exchange for a plea to a lesser offense , she replied ''the people did not offer time served . he wanted a misdemeanor , which is absurd in this case . '' mr . callan , saying that mr . jovanovic ''is well aware of the horrors of incarceration , '' repeated that he would not plead_guilty to any offense at all . whether the case goes to trial depends not just on mr . jovanovic 's resolve but also on his accuser 's . she testified for six days in the 1998 trial , and barbara thompson , a spokeswoman for the district_attorney 's office , said yesterday that the young woman was willing to testify again . the e mail exchange is the heart of the case , which may turn on whether the encounter was consensual and on whether the messages led mr . jovanovic to believe that his accuser had invited a round of sadomasochistic sex . but the jury in the first trial saw only edited versions of the e mail exchange after justice wetzel ruled that the state 's rape shield law kept several critical statements from being used . in the stricken messages , the woman referred to herself as a ''pushy bottom'' that is , a submissive partner who demands increasing pain . she also talked about her involvement with another man , saying , ''now i 'm his slave and it 's painful , but the fun of telling my friends , 'hey , i 'm a sadomasochist , ' more than outweighs the torment . '' at the retrial , scheduled for march , the defense will be able to introduce the accuser 's statements as evidence and cross examine her , and to present mr . jovanovic 's account of the weekend in 1996 when he met the 20 year old barnard student for dinner and took her to his apartment in washington_heights . the young woman said later that the date turned into a_20 hour torture session in which mr . jovanovic tied her up , dripped molten candle wax on her , sodomized her with a baton and bit her breasts and shoulders . she testified that she pleaded with him to stop but was tormented until she managed to escape . the defense maintains that the young woman invited the encounter and then lied about it for fear of angering her boyfriend , whom she was supposed to meet the night she was with mr . jovanovic . in an acerbic opinion reversing mr . jovanovic 's conviction , the appeals court said that excluding those statements ''had an enormous impact on the defense . '' the court held that the rape shield law did not apply to the statements because they were not offered as evidence of the woman 's sexual history but of her intentions and mr . jovanovic 's understanding of them . ''he was depicted as a monstrous sadist , '' wrote justice david b . saxe of the appellate_division , while the young woman ''was basically portrayed as naive , overly trusting , overly polite and ill informed . '' the appeals court also found that the defense , unable to cross examine her about her other relationship and her fantasies , could not respond to the prosecutor 's repeated question , ''why would she lie ? '' the appellate_division ruling was criticized by some women 's groups and drew a partial dissent from justice angela m . mazzarelli , who noted that the shield law ''was expressly drafted for the purpose of protecting those persons who are sexually_active outside a legally sanctioned relationship . '' vivian berger , a columbia_university law professor who was cited in both the majority opinion and dissent , said yesterday that she believed the majority was correct . she also said mr . jovanovic 's refusal to plead even to a misdemeanor , while very risky , was logical . ''he was accused of pretty outrageous and frightening conduct if she did not consent , '' professor berger said . ''on the other hand , if she consented , it 's not a crime at all . ''",has a topic of technology
news watch,has a topic of technology
"first it was a phony grunt . then came a welter of fake kiwis and chops . now the market is being flooded with counterfeit pekings . in recent months , beanie babies , the enormously_popular 5 beanbag toy that serious collectors buy and sell like rare coins , have become the object of increasingly skilled forgeries . the phonies often have subtle flaws , like slight variations in color , insufficient stuffing or labels that appear bogus on close inspection . the producer of beanie babies , ty inc . of oak brook , ill . , has joined with the better business bureau to alert customers to the fakes , most of which have been traced to china . but the real call to arms has come from a web based circle of beanie baby vigilantes , collectors who have taken on the task of spreading the electronic word . take peking the panda , a coveted ' 'retired'' beanie baby that sells in the secondary_market for as much as 2 , 000 . peking 's doppelganger is described in great detail on a beanie alert page at a site called beaniemom . com . the phony has an elongated snout and eyes that are larger and duller than those on the real thing . the web master at the beaniemom . com site , sara nelson , said she had received many pieces of e mail from grateful visitors to the site who avoided being duped by a counterfeit beanie after reading her alerts . another site , www . beaniephenomenon . com , offers an on line authentication service . the web is the most popular medium for beanie baby auctions and exchanges . for example , beanienation . com , one of several on line auction houses , has 2 , 000 beanie baby auctions going on at any one time . news watch",has a topic of technology
"lead as the summer tourist season nears its peak weekend here , britain 's air_traffic_control system has been hit with computer failures , serious morale problems and a dispute over evidence that many near collisions are going unreported . as the summer tourist season nears its peak weekend here , britain 's air_traffic_control system has been hit with computer failures , serious morale problems and a dispute over evidence that many near collisions are going unreported . the civil_aviation authority has hired outside consultants to investigate a series of nine breakdowns in the new computer system that monitors all flights between the united_states and britain . the 10 . 8 million computer , at prestwick , scotland , malfunctioned sunday and again monday , causing delays of up to two hours in flights bound for the united_states from london 's two major airports , heathrow and gatwick . the computer , made by digital_equipment_corporation , a massachusetts company , automatically tracks 500 airplanes daily as they fly the atlantic and has a ''conflict alert'' system to warn of potential collisions . a spokesman for digital_equipment said the problems were caused by the software program provided by a british firm , rather than by the computer itself . no safety threat seen officials of both the civil_aviation authority and the guild of air_traffic_controllers said that the nine computer failures since march 31 have posed no immediate safety threat for passengers , since the north_atlantic air lanes are not crowded . but christopher tugendhat , the c.a.a . chairman , and steve hall , spokesman of the air_traffic_controllers' guild , are in conflict about how much traffic the oceanic area control center at prestwick should handle while the computer malfunction is being investigated . mr . hall wants the c.a.a . to institute ''flow control , '' or reduced traffic , throughout the study period , so that fewer planes will be in the air if the computer malfunctions again and controllers at prestwick are forced to revert to old fashioned manual tracking using cardboard progress strips on a map . mr . hall said ''there 's been only one total outage , but there have been times when the information from the computer has been so corrupt that you ca n't use it . in our business , we do n't take chances . '' mr . tugendhat said in an interview today that permanent reduction in intercontinental flights was not warranted by the sporadic computer problem . ''if a computer goes down , you have flow control of a rather stringent sort introduced as a consequence of that . our belief is that you should have this system at the ready , not that you have it in permanent operation , '' he said , noting that the problem of potential collisions is less pressing here than in the united_states . ''in the states , the peak times problem is far worse than it is here , '' mr . tugendhat said . ''one of the problems you have in the states , which mercifully we do n't have here , you have an awful lot of private planes flying on visual flight rules . '' worry is increased nonetheless , a collection of reports from pilots and controllers by the royal_air_force institute of aviation medicine has increased worry about collisions and near misses of the sort that have dogged american aviation recently . by inviting controllers to file confidential reports , the institute turned up 13 unreported near misses , 11 of which were serious enough to have warranted official investigations . the civil_aviation authority is upset by the ''hair raising anonymous reports , '' and the institute 's refusal to provide further details from its confidential records , according to anne noonan , a press officer at the civil_aviation authority . ''we feel that it is undermining flight safety to a certain extent , '' she said . ''the controllers are reporting incidents to the institute that by law they are required to report to the civil_aviation authority . '' this loggerhead between the two agencies is unusual in a nation that thinks of itself as running an aviation system much safer and saner than that of the united_states . heathrow , the world 's busiest international airport , handles 26 . 4 million international passsengers a year . gatwick , handles 15 . 8 million such passengers each year and recently replaced kennedy airport in new york as the world 's second busiest international airport . to avoid the mingling of private planes and commercial jets typical at american airports , britain has banned all private craft from heathrow . ''the freedom that private pilots have in the states , which is now being questioned there , we do n't have in the united_kingdom , '' said mr . hall . ''it might be an infringement of liberty , but so is being hit in mid air . '' backlog of flights to spain but in britain , as elsewhere , the increase in passengers and problems elsewhere in the international air control system have made air travel a grinding experience . this past saturday , a 24 hour strike by air_traffic_controllers in spain caused chaotic delays at gatwick , where 5 , 000 people were stranded overnight . the backlog of flights to spain was not cleared until today . on saturday , a three day weekend begins that is traditionally britain 's busiest travel period , with 100 , 000 passengers a day expected at gatwick . airport officials are readying for another mess , as the spanish controllers plan another strike at 7 a.m . on saturday .",has a topic of technology
"iraq 's most wanted militant has pledged his loyalty to osama_bin_laden , the leader of al_qaeda , according to a message posted sunday on islamist_web_sites . the militant , abu_musab_al_zarqawi , a jordanian believed responsible for a number of bombings and beheadings here , wrote in the message that he agreed with al_qaeda 's strategy and the need for unity against ''the enemies of islam . '' the message said mr . zarqawi , leader of the group one god and jihad , believed mr . bin_laden to be ''the best leader for islam 's armies against all infidels and apostates . '' ''we announce that the one god and jihad group , its prince and its soldiers , has pledged allegiance to the sheik of the holy_warriors , osama_bin_laden , '' the statement said . the statement said mr . zarqawi had in been contact with al_qaeda for eight months , ''exchanging points of view , '' before reaching an understanding . there was no way to verify the authenticity of the message . one of the web_sites carrying the message also carried a videotape showing the beheading of an american , nicholas_berg , in may , which american officials believe was performed by mr . zarqawi . mr . zarqawi , 38 , is regarded by american commanders as one of the most prolific and brazen killers in iraq . they have offered a 25 million bounty for him the same amount as the bounty on mr . bin_laden . mr . zarqawi has claimed responsibility for several of the most deadly car bombings here and is believed responsible for the videotaped beheading of three americans , one briton and possibly others . he is also a suspect in the august 2003 bombing of the united_nations_headquarters in baghdad . a senior american military official said that based on the bombings and attacks for which mr . zarqawi has claimed responsibility , he is responsible for the deaths of 675 iraqis and 40 american , british and other foreign soldiers here , and for the wounding of more than 2 , 000 people . mr . zarqawi and his group are believed to be operating out of falluja , a city under the control of insurgents . in the past two months , american_forces have carried out nearly nightly airstrikes against targets in falluja believed to comprise what american military officials refer to as ''the zarqawi network . '' even so , mr . zarqawi 's whereabouts are unclear , as his precise role in the attacks for which he has taken credit . the americans say they have killed six of his group 's senior leaders . the vow of allegiance to al_qaeda would be something of a break for mr . zarqawi , who , according to some evidence , regards himself as a rival of mr . bin_laden . but it would not be their first contact . in february , the american military released a letter it said had been written by mr . zarqawi to senior leaders in al_qaeda , who are thought to be hiding in the mountainous area of the afghanistan pakistan border . in the letter , the author beseeched mr . bin_laden for help in iraq and made clear his subservience to him . according to american intelligence , mr . zarqawi 's request was rebuffed . mr . zarqawi was brought to the world 's attention in february 2003 , on the eve of the american invasion of iraq , by secretary of state colin l . powell . mr . powell told the united_nations that mr . zarqawi , who he said was linked to al_qaeda , was also linked to the iraqi leader , saddam_hussein . american intelligence officials are now skeptical that there was any link between mr . zarqawi and mr . hussein . the reach of war militant groups",has a topic of technology
"at t will offer evidence that domestic telephone traffic diverted by mci through canada to avoid tariffs included calls that were placed by the state_department and other government agencies , a senior executive at at t said today . the executive said the evidence was to be formally disclosed to government investigators and a bankruptcy court in manhattan on monday . the rerouting of domestic government calls through canada or other foreign countries would be problematic because the calls would not be protected from eavesdropping that could compromise national_security , law enforcement or confidential commercial information , industry lawyers said . if the rerouting is confirmed , it could pose significant new problems for mci 's chapter 11 reorganization proceeding and its business with federal agencies . the government is mci 's largest customer , and authorities are close to completing a review of whether the company should be barred from winning new government contracts because of its admission that it committed the largest accounting fraud in history . the at t executive , who spoke on condition that he not be identified , said the company 's conclusions were based on tests it recently conducted after it received a request for information . the request came from federal prosecutors attempting to determine whether mci , over nearly a decade , defrauded other phone companies by improperly redirecting or laundering telephone traffic to avoid access fee payments to other companies . long distance telephone companies are required to make the payments , which are among their highest transmission costs . the fraud inquiry is based on evidence provided by former mci executives and on technical information supplied by at t and two other mci rivals , sbc communications and verizon . all these sources have told investigators that a scheme to redirect telephone traffic avoided hundreds of millions of dollars , and possibly more , in fees that mci owed to local telephone companies . they have also told investigators that thousands of recent test calls they made through mci lines show that two schemes to avoid the fees are continuing . the three rivals of mci have competitive motives to try to derail its chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization , which is heading into its final stage next month . they have complained that mci 's recent settlement with the government over securities_fraud charges was too lenient , and they have maintained that the company should be liquidated rather than reorganized . but people not associated with the three companies said the justice_department was taking the accusations seriously and had opened a fraud investigation that is being supervised by the united_states_attorney 's office in manhattan . brad burns , a spokesman for mci , issued a statement this evening that did not address the accusation about redirecting government calls but questioned its timing and the motives behind it . ''we have yet to meet with the u.s . attorney 's office , so it would be impossible and inappropriate for us to respond to any specifics surrounding their inquiry , '' mr . burns said . ''that said , we are only one month from our bankruptcy confirmation_hearing and expect a final decision on our government contracts in the upcoming weeks . you ca n't help but to question the timing and motives of our competitors who are trying to create a difficult environment for us right before our planned emergence from chapter 11 . '' the federal_government is near completion of a review to determine whether mci , which entered bankruptcy after acknowledging that it had committed accounting fraud , should be barred from winning new government contracts . as mci 's largest customer , the government provides the company with 700 million to 1 billion in business annually . the inquiry into the diverted calls could jeopardize that business . one method of avoiding the access fee payments , which former mci technicians said had been known within the company as ''project invader'' or ''project scorpion , '' involved the use of small telephone companies to make the long distance calls appear as local ones so that the charges would not be levied , according to former mci executives . they say the other method , known as the canadian gateway project , involved diverting domestic calls to canada and then back to the united_states through at t lines so that at t would have to pay access fees . the senior at t executive said at t intended to alert federal investigators and the bankruptcy court overseeing mci 's chapter 11 proceeding that it had found evidence of domestic calls redirected through canada from the united_states_agency_for_international_development , the federal_deposit_insurance_corporation , the national transportation safety board , the pension_benefit_guaranty_corporation , the united_states_postal_service , the library of congress and other agencies . the executive said at t technicians had found that domestic calls from the office of at least one member of congress had also been redirected through canada . the volume of the diverted telephone traffic is not known , the executive said , but at t also has evidence it will present to the bankruptcy court on monday that a major customer it lost to mci had had its domestic telephone traffic diverted through canada and then onto an at t line so that at t had to pay the access charges . executives at verizon are also said to be planning to take steps to try to put mci 's government contracts in jeopardy . a verizon executive said today that the company was planning to send a letter soon to the general services administration , which oversees government contracts , that will question whether the government should continue to do business with mci . the letter will say that if mci passed on any cost savings to the government from avoiding the access charges , verizon could have claims against the government , the executive said , adding that if mci did not pass on the savings , the government might itself have been defrauded by mci . last week , verizon agreed to drop its fight in bankruptcy court to liquidate mci in exchange for a 60 million settlement of its claims . the settlement did not preclude verizon from trying steps outside the bankruptcy proceeding that would hinder mci 's reorganization plan .",has a topic of technology
"making an impression the royal_canadian_mounted_police is upgrading its automated fingerprint identification system , bringing the storage capacity up to 3.6 million 10 print records , or about 36 million individual prints . canada , known for its low crime rate , has an estimated population this year of 30 , 675 , 390 , which means that the r.c.m.p . will be able to store the fingerprints of one out of every 8 1 2 canadian fingers . pat boone and y2k the year 2000 problem has a new spokesman , pat boone . the singer has recorded a series of announcements for the year 2000 national educational task_force , known as y2knet . ''i want to help bring y2k to the family dinner table , '' mr . boone said in a statement . he added that there was no reason to panic . mr . boone , who recently tampered with his wholesome image by recording a heavy_metal album , seems to have found a kindred spirit in y2knet . the educational group is in fact sponsored by a precious_metals and rare coins dealer , the swiss america trading corporation , which suggests hedging against the year 2000 bug by investing in what else ? precious_metals and rare coins .",has a topic of technology
"rejecting calls that it select an american computer maker , the national_science_foundation announced yesterday that it planned to buy a supercomputer from the nec corporation , the first such purchase by the government from a japanese company . at the same time , however , the foundation said that it had evidence that nec had offered the computer at a price below cost , supporting accusations by several congressmen and cray_research inc . , nec 's american rival for the supercomputer contract . according to a statement released late yesterday by the foundation , commerce_department officials had advised it that "" they had reached a preliminary conclusion that the proposal does not constitute an offer at 'fair value . ' "" the awarding of the supercomputer contract , which is worth 13 million to 35 million , had been closely_watched as an indicator of united_states trade policies . washington has pressed tokyo to open its governmental procurement to foreign suppliers . but the award was critical to cray , with thousands of american jobs at stake . cray , the dominant american supercomputer company , has struggled in recent years . the national_science_foundation said that while nec demonstrated that it had the superior supercomputer , the question of whether the japanese company had offered it at a price that was below cost would remain an issue in the negotiations for the final contract . the award yesterday meant only that nec had won the right to enter into final contract negotiations with the government_agency , the foundation stressed . still , supporters of cray 's bid were sharply critical of the federal award . "" i am absolutely appalled by the arrogance and irresponsiblity displayed by officials of the n.s.f . in their decision to go forward with the procurement of a japanese made supercomputer despite clear and compelling evidence that the computer is being dumped on the u.s . market by japanese producers , "" said representative david r . obey , democrat of wisconsin . supercomputers are the fastest computers available , performing tens of billions of calculations a second . they are typically used by the military and for scientific and engineering simulations . the new national_science_foundation supercomputer , which will be installed at the national center for atmospheric research in boulder , colo . , is intended to aid climate research by helping scientists develop advanced simulations that model the environment . cray_research has sold more than 100 supercomputers in japan to government agencies , while no japanese machines have been sold to government agencies in this country . cray said yesterday that it was concerned that a rival had offered a supercomputer at a price below cost , an illegal trade practice known as dumping . "" there seems to be a shadow over the procurement having to do with the potential anti dumping charge , "" said steven conway , a spokesman for cray_research , which was acquired in april by silicon_graphics . mr . conway said an internal analysis done by cray "" convinced us that there were some potential improprieties that looked as if they constituted dumping . "" he said that earlier this year cray had brought these issues to the attention of both the clinton_administration and congress . nec officials said that they were aware of the dumping issues and that they were carefully acting within united_states laws . "" we 're very sensitive to this issue , "" said samuel adams , vice_president of marketing and sales for hnsx supercomputing , a subsidiary of the nec corporation in boxboro , mass . "" it 's a normal reaction by the u.s . government to make sure the first award of a japanese supercomputer is thoroughly examined . "" there is no way we could be a winner if we dumped . so why dump ? "" nec was a finalist in the bidding contest along with cray and the fujitsu corporation , another japanese supercomputer maker . officials of the national_science_foundation said that they had taken extraordinary_measures to insure that the competition had been a fair one and that it was wrong to draw general conclusions about the relative capabilities of american and japanese computer technologies from a single award . "" for our purposes the guiding_principle was that it had to be fair and open and it had to provide the best computing for a specific scientific purpose , "" said lawrence rudolph , the general_counsel of the national_science_foundation . "" this is not the photo finish picture of the derby that says by all means that japan has the world 's fastest processor . "" he also stressed that the announcement did not indicate a final contract award . "" we are as concerned about the dumping issue as others are , "" he said . mr . adams of nec said that he was not yet certain how powerful the supercomputer would be . the bidding has taken place over two separate plans and has ranged from 13 million to 35 million depending on the length of the contract . he said nec 's most powerful machine , known as the sx4 , can have from one to 512 separate processors and can range in performance from one billion mathematical calculations a second up to one trillion operations a second . nec has installed only one of its largest machines in the united_states , at a research center in houston , but the company recently won a bid from the canadian atmospheric environmental service for a machine to aid in weather forecasting . cray has long dominated the market for weather forecasting supercomputers , but its status has been shaken recently both by the loss in the canadian bidding and last year 's purchase of a 40 million fujitsu system by the european center for medium_range weather forecasting in berkshire , england .",has a topic of technology
"when the berlin_wall collapsed 10 years ago , stephan schambach was 18 and had never set foot in a capitalist country . karsten schneider , then 29 , worked listlessly at the bloated kombinat , a huge communist era electronics factory in this small city south of leipzig . today , about their only link to communism is the name of their software company intershop communications , a name they mischievously lifted from east_germany 's old hard_currency stores for foreign tourists . ''no one remembers who first thought of it , '' mr . schneider recalled recently . ''but it seemed perfect . '' intershop sales doubled this year to 40 million , and the company employs 500 people worldwide . its stock , now publicly traded in germany , has a value of about 2 billion . ten years after the berlin_wall came down , such buoyancy seems wildly at odds with eastern_germany 's enduring image of shuttered factories and stagnant growth . eastern joblessness is still 18 percent , twice as high as in the west . but in the midst of this despair something else has happened . parts of the east have become magnets for entrepreneurs and high technology start up companies . in saxony , eastern_germany 's most populous state , industrial production is climbing at double_digit rates , faster than all of western germany . in jena the renaissance is striking . the old kombinat is dead . but the city has been a seedbed for nearly a thousand new ventures in the last few years . many fizzled , but just as many have taken off , and unemployment , about 20 percent two years ago , is now about 14 percent . ''i tell my west_german friends that we have gone through what they still need to go through , '' said kurt biedenkopf , the pro business premier of saxony and a westerner himself . ''east_germany , by reason of its peaceful revolution against an all powerful state , has unleashed tremendous development , '' he said . ''people here are more adaptable , more elastic . it has been painful and they did n't want it , but it was a consequence of their desire for freedom . '' the wave of new companies has yet to offset the loss of old industry . nor has it solved what may be eastern_germany 's most intractable problem high wages . partly as a result of efforts to equalize pay in the east and the west , hundreds of thousands of low skilled jobs that might have been ideal for eastern_germany have been lost to lower cost rivals in the czech_republic , poland and elsewhere in central_europe . indeed , eastern_germany 's textile work force of 320 , 000 before the wall fell now amounts to just 20 , 000 . business leaders here also note that there are big differences between fast growing southeastern states like saxony and thuringia and much poorer rural states in the northeast . ''we still have hard work ahead of us for the next 15 years or so , '' said lothar spath , chairman of jenoptik a.g. , a technology company here that is one of eastern_germany 's biggest success stories . ''but the process is fundamentally on track . '' the success company rose from nothing jena 's turnaround is also the story of mr . spath , a wily former politician from western germany who is now this town 's biggest employer . he is chairman of jenoptik a.g. , which he carved from the unwanted leftovers of the communist era conglomerate . when he arrived here in 1991 , jenoptik was nothing more than a jumble of old real_estate and 30 , 000 workers . ''we had no products , none at all , when we started , '' he said . ''all we had was some good technology and a lot of people . '' this year , jenoptik will earn about 20 million on sales of 1 . 5 billion . its biggest business is making ''clean room'' equipment for computer chip manufacturers around the world . at first glance , mr . spath hardly seemed like an obvious savior . east_germany is full of tales of west germans who took over companies in the east only to strip the assets and shut them down . west_german supermarkets overwhelmed fledgling eastern retailers , as did west_german publishers , banks and consumer products from beer to clothing . mr . spath , a man whom german newspapers have nicknamed ''the clever one'' because of his political skills , had abruptly resigned in 1991 as premier of the west_german state of baden wurttemberg after accusations that he had accepted favors from industry cronies . with huge subsidies from the german_government , about half of the jena 's old kombinat had been reunited with carl zeiss a.g. , the west_german company that had abandoned its jena factory when the nation was divided after world_war_ii . mr . spath , who arrived here first as a consultant , was left with the debris acres of real_estate , about 30 , 000 workers and no customers . there was no business_plan either . ''no one could tell us what the strategy was or what it should be , '' recalled petra lorenz , one of many mid level kombinat managers who found herself scrambling in chaos . the whole project would have been hopeless had mr . spath not been able to extract huge financial help from the german_government . pledging to save at least a third of the 30 , 000 jobs here , he won about 2 billion . in his first year , mr . spath laid off 16 , 000 people , and jenoptik executives say about 1 . 3 billion of the public money went simply went to cover pensions and unemployment_benefits . to raise more cash , he fixed up zeiss 's old properties into new industrial parks and sold off as much as he could . he used the cash from real_estate sales to buy west_german companies that would help him crack western markets . then he scoured the old research centers for ideas and bused in potential investors from the west . over the last few years , jenoptik dabbled in scores of businesses security systems , automation technology , engineering services and telecommunications equipment , to name just a few . many of the ventures floundered . between 1995 and 1997 , jenoptik sold or spun off businesses with combined sales of about 470 million . he has also infuriated germany 's biggest labor_union , i.g . metall , because jenoptik refused to negotiate with it and instead struck a deal with a tiny rival named the christian metalworkers union . under that contract , workers can be asked to work up to 44 hours a week before earning overtime pay . christmas bonuses and extra pay for vacations , a time honored entitlement for west_german companies , are contingent on workers' performance . i.g . metall asked a court to throw out the deal with the other union , saying it was little more than a front for management . but a court rejected the complaint in march , and mr . spath has had no disruptions . for all the criticism , jenoptic is profitable and has spawned many other start_ups that now pack the industrial parks outside of town . although only 1 , 500 of jenoptic 's 8 , 500 employees are actually in jena , jenoptik has also spawned several dozen companies that are estimated to employ more than 14 , 000 people here . one of those companies is cybio a.g. , which makes automated systems for analyzing chemicals for pharmaceutical research . the company 's sales have climbed to about 12 million this year , and more than half of its sales come from exports . petra strumper , a west_german biologist recruited to help build the fledgling business , is now one of two executives who took over the company last summer through a management buy out . ''a lot of my friends kept saying , how can you do something like that ? '' dr . strumper said here . ''but i was sure this would be successful . besides , i liked the idea of being a pioneer . '' over the last decade , many east_germans have seethed quietly as west germans took over companies in the east only to sell off real_estate and then shut down . resentment has been particularly high among older workers , hundreds of thousands of whom lost their jobs and could not find new work . the sense of sullen resentment against ''besserwessis , '' an east_german phrase for ''western know it alls , '' was evident in a recent survey by the hans bockler stiftung , a nonprofit research institute in dusseldorf . the survey found that only 9 percent of easterners wanted to return to the old regime , but that a solid majority could not identify with west_germany either . there is still plenty of resentment against west germans . but it is hard to find much evidence of it in cities like jena that are growing rapidly . ''many people can tell bad stories about things that wessis have done , but when you have wessis who are skillfull , efficient and are honest , you do n't find that hostility , '' said werner patzelt , professor of political_economy at the dresden technology university and a wessi himself . the money advertising for investors the german_government has poured tens of billions of dollars into bailing out communist era conglomerates , but there was no help for mr . schambach and mr . schneider , when they needed funds to start intershop communications . the reason was simple computer software was not on the official list of industries eligible for subsidies . yet today , intershop is one of east_germany 's most striking home grown successes . its offices here are packed with young software developers , almost all of whom graduated from east_german universities . ''we did n't know anything about how a market_economy worked when we started , '' mr . schneider recalled . ''in east_german schools , it was all ideology . everyone who was rich was capitalist , and capitalism was bad . '' mr . schambach was a 19 year old technophile when he started out in 1991 . mr . schneider was unemployed , having quit his job as an electronics engineer at the carl zeiss conglomerate almost as soon as the berlin_wall came down . after a few false starts , they discovered the internet and began setting up a rudimentary on line store for computer parts in 1995 . but mr . schambach decided the real money was in selling software to set up retail web_sites . since they could not tap money from bonn and did not know any venture_capitalists , they did the only other thing they could think of advertise for investors in the newspaper . amazingly , they succeeded a west_german company invested 800 , 000 in exchange for 30 percent of their company . intershop has yet to turn its first profit , mainly because it has plowed huge_sums of money into marketing and additional software development . but its customers include hewlett_packard , international_business_machines , sun_microsystems and deutsche_telekom . the future long way to go for east_germany looking ahead , even the most dedicated optimists acknowledge that eastern_germany 's economy has a long way to go . rural and comparatively poorer states like brandenburg and mecklenburg west pomerania are recovering much more slowly than fast growing industrial states like saxony and thuringia . and experts say there simply is no quick solution to the problem of eastern_germany 's high costs and wages . wages in east_german factories are higher on average than those in the united_states . mr . biedenkopf , saxony 's premier , argues that the worst shocks have been largely absorbed and that prospects are healthier than they seem . for one thing , the obliteration of eastern_germany 's old industry and government is over . also , the boom in real_estate construction in east_germany has receded . now , after a deep recession , eastern construction is slowly coming back to life . ''everybody looks at unemployment figures , '' mr . biedenkopf said of the east in a recent interview at his office in dresden , which overlooks the elbe river . ''but success is measured by employment figures , and in 1998 we had 414 people employed out of 1 , 000 . that is better than most states in the west . '' but even people like mr . biedenkopf and mr . spath say it will be another 10 or 15 years before eastern_germany weans itself from its dependence on money from the west . though the german_government has pruned back subsidies , western taxpayers still pay a hefty ' 'solidarity surcharge'' to help finance eastern reconstruction , pensions and unemployment costs . there no signs the surcharge will be eliminated any time soon . eastern_germany remains almost totally dependent on outside investment capital . while west germans have accumulated enormous savings and real_estate , east_germans have almost no money for investment . ''that is the one big difference that remains between east and west_germany , and it will continue to have a major impact here for years to come , '' mr . biedenkopf said .",has a topic of technology
"concerned that sensitive information might leak out , some units of the united_states military are starting to clamp down on e mail communication from their soldiers and sailors , who have been using it from ships , bases and even desert outposts to stay in touch with family and friends . the uncertainty underscores the double edged nature of a technology that is providing a new opportunity for instantaneous interaction from remote locations , a development the pentagon believes is helping to improve morale in the field and among relatives back home . at the moment , much of the electronic communication is unmonitored by the military , providing an opportunity for what some fear could be inadvertent leaks . the air_force last week warned its service men and women that it might begin limiting or blocking electronic messages because some people had sent home sensitive information , including digital pictures that might have compromised unit safety . the navy has said that on submarines , it is monitoring all e mail traffic incoming and outbound . the army , while generally maintaining open access to e mail , is restricting some internet connections from certain bases . in the persian gulf_region , afghanistan and elsewhere , soldiers have been instructed not to send sensitive information specific rules are largely left to division and unit commanders on the theory that they are best able to judge what constitutes a threat to security . some military critics argue that there should be a clearer pentagon policy on how to deal with a communications system that goes far beyond what was available in previous conflicts . the critics assert that e mail and internet communications raise several potential problems it is voluminous and thus hard to monitor it can convey not only words but images and it is immediate , meaning that an enemy might be able to tap in to real time updates of troop_movements , the presence of a general , or a military outpost 's perimeter defenses . computer security experts are not particularly concerned that iraqi forces would devote much attention to trying to hack into e mail from the troops . the military 's sensitive operational information is kept on a proprietary network called the secret internet protocol network that is not connected to the internet , making it extremely hard for hackers to penetrate . what worries computer and military experts is the possibility that enemy forces may obtain a soldier 's message home that ends up being forwarded to someone sympathetic to iraq , or that outsiders might simply view a picture published on a publicly accessible web_site . ''the timeliness of the information is a major factor , and the volume of message traffic can be very dangerous , '' said keith eiler , a military historian with the hoover_institution at stanford_university . ''it 's a potentially serious problem and not one that is easily solved . '' mr . eiler said he would like to see a clearer policy perhaps some monitoring and censorship of communication , as was the case with letters in world_war_ii and korea , and to an extent with mail and telephone calls from vietnam . electronic connections bring an ease of communication not seen in the persian_gulf_war of 1991 before the widespread commercial use of the internet and e mail . ''it 's more wonderful than you can imagine , '' said gary k . richardson , a consultant in napa , calif . , whose 32 year old daughter , patricia , is with an army unit at an undisclosed location overseas . ''when you get a message , you know that her hands were just on the keyboard and that she was alive and well just a few minutes ago . '' mr . richardson , an army veteran of 24 years , served in vietnam and said that e mail was a marked improvement over the postal_service , which took weeks to deliver mail during that war . e mail , he said , is also superior in many ways to the crude radio based telephone system of the vietnam_era , which required various operators to patch through a call . censors listened in to make sure sensitive information was not disclosed . but mr . richardson said the military appeared to be aware of security risks with e mail . he said his daughter , who left about 10 days ago , recently sent him an e mail message indicating that if tensions rose , she might not be allowed to send messages . the computer technology also brings soldiers a slice of home . maj . richard patterson , the public affairs officer for the army 's 82nd_airborne_division , took a web camera with him to bagram , afghanistan . using the camera , major patterson took part in a video conference over the internet with his family , which allowed him to witness his daughter 's first birthday . ''through a microphone and speakers , i was able to sing her happy birthday and watch her make a mess out of the ice_cream and cake , '' he said . ''i could see my daughter 's first birthday . that is something that in world_war_ii , korea , vietnam , even the gulf_war you could n't do . '' all branches of the military said they had made an effort to keep e mail accessible . in the larger , more established camps , particularly near cities , soldiers have access to high speed connections from computer sites set up by the military . submarines and ships can connect to the internet through satellite links . in smaller outposts , like khost , an impoverished village on the border between pakistan and afghanistan , the internet connections are also made through satellite links , and may be limited to a handful of computers housed in military tents . in each military branch , service men and women are given strict instructions concerning what information should not be included in e mail messages , including their location , current or future operations , information on visiting dignitaries , or even comments about troop morale . but enforcement frequently is done on the basis of trust , military officials said . ''there are no restrictions on e mails , '' said lt . joshua rushing , a spokesman for the united_states_central_command in qatar , who said that once soldiers are given instructions on what not to send , ''it 's kind of up to the judgment of the individual person . '' lt . gen . peter m . cuviello , the army 's chief information officer , said e mail has been used on a limited basis by troops in some recent conflicts . ''we have not had a problem in bosnia , kosovo , sinai , east_timor , or korea in recent times , '' he said , ' 'so i do n't expect there is going to be a problem . '' general cuviello said the army probably would not shut off e mail or internet connections in the event of a war , but he said it would be used largely for operational purposes and that soldiers in the midst of the action would not have time to send e mail . ''they 'll be in tanks and in bradley 's , '' he said . but not all military units are as certain of a hands off approach . in the navy , e mail policy is left to commanders , except on the submarines . ''stealth is our greatest asset and must be protected , '' said lt . cmdr . bob mehal , a public affairs officer for the submarine forces . the air_force , considering a tighter policy , warned troops last week that units could ''curtail use of 'morale call' types of e mail'' in light of concern that some digital pictures sent from the gulf had been posted on an anti american site . the memo said that ' 'sensitive photos of forward operating bases'' had been posted on family and private web_sites , warning that ''adversaries could collect these photos and use them to plan attacks against united_states forces . '' families say the kind of information they receive is secondary . what is important , they say , is the contact , and e mail has made a world of difference . ''when you get up in the morning , the first thing you do before you get your coffee is check your e mail , '' said marta dreager , 48 , of albuquerque , whose 20 year old son , ian , is a lance_corporal in the marines . ''when one comes , it makes your whole day . '' threats and responses the military",has a topic of technology
"a pro guerrilla web_site quoted the chechen rebel leader aslan maskhadov as urging chechnya 's residents to reject a new constitution for the province in a kremlin backed referendum scheduled for sunday . the web_site , www . kavkazcenter . com , quoted mr . maskhadov as saying that russia was ''trying to force us to vote at gunpoint'' in the referendum , which has been heavily promoted by the pro russian authorities in the region . russia says the proposed constitution would give chechens broad political freedoms while remaining part of the russian state the guerrillas say nothing short of total independence for chechnya is acceptable . michael wines ( nyt )",has a topic of technology
"global positioning system locators can help you navigate an unfamiliar town , provided that you have downloaded detailed mapping data for the city involved . garmin saves drivers a step with the streetpilot 2620 , which comes out of the box with detailed maps for the united_states and parts of canada no downloads necessary . past models of the streetpilot , like the 2610 , came with 128 megabytes of memory , which is not inconsiderable detailed maps of new york , baltimore , washington , atlanta and savannah , ga . , combined take up just 53 megabytes . but a 2 . 2 gigabyte microdrive in the new 2620 can hold detailed maps of the entire united_states and major canadian cities . the streetpilot 2620 , which has a list price of 1 , 517 but can be found online for about 1 , 000 , has a touch_screen and an infrared remote . the 2620 can search not only by address but also by category to locate shopping , entertainment , lodging or a gas station along the way . voice prompts guide you turn by turn , and a detour feature can route you around traffic snarls . in a test , the maps lacked some addresses . missing data reported to garmin will be included in the next annual upgrade , the company says . map updates are available on a 150 dvd that you load onto the device yourself the company says that if there is enough demand , it might offer to handle the download for customers at an as yet undetermined price . roy furchgott news watch navigation",has a topic of technology
"while president_clinton and many other world leaders will be attending lavish banquets or otherwise feting the arrival of the new millennium , japan 's prime_minister , keizo_obuchi , will reportedly be cloistered with senior aides throughout the night just in case major y2k problems erupt . mr . obuchi 's caution may be owing to a recent history of weak government responses to disasters , from the 1995 kobe earthquake to this year 's accident at a nuclear_fuel plant at tokaimura . elections must be held sometime in the next 10 months , and with the economy in uncertain health , mr . obuchi 's political advisers seem to have decided that it is prudent for him to appear to be on the case . for two weeks already , the prime_minister has been appearing in television announcements warning of the possible consequences of computer mishaps , even as he seeks to reassure the public . ''we do not think any major confusion will occur , but you are advised to prepare for the one in ten thousand chance of trouble , '' mr . obuchi says in one of his announcements . ''may everyone have a peaceful new year . '' still , given the almost martial feel of japan 's preparations for the problem in which some computers may malfunction after midnight on dec . 31 many here wonder if a real shock is in store . in recent days , the government has placed 96 , 000 soldiers on alert over the new year 's weekend , and ordered the top 160 officers of the country 's military to remain on duty . in tokyo , 24 , 000 police officers will be on duty , far more than the ordinary level of 10 , 000 . thousands of mid level bureaucrats are being ordered to report to work . and as is the case in many other countries , employees of computer , securities and other industries highly dependent on computers have been ordered to cancel their year end vacations to be on call . people with long experience of japan say this country 's reaction to the y2k problem reflects more on the political and corporate culture than it does on the preparation for the possible computer glitch , which most experts here say has been thorough . ''whenever they see a problem coming , they just throw people at it , and that is exactly what is happening here , '' said john neuffer , a senior research fellow at the mitsui kaijyo research institute in tokyo . ''they are putting an awful lot of people on duty , essentially to cover their backsides . japan is really a worst case scenario culture , where people imagine the worst , and this is what they prepare for . '' for all of the extra workers being thrown into action , japan has not merely chosen a human wave approach to the problem . indeed , if initially the country seemed a bit slow to react to the challenge , the last several months have been marked by a highly aggressive readiness campaign , both in government and industry . even the most mundane events of daily life , from riding the subway to entering an elevator , are accompanied by recorded warning messages spoken by women with squeaky voices . according to the prime_minister 's task_force , at the government 's insistence ''all major banks , regional banks and second tier regional banks'' completed major systems corrections and millennium dry runs by the end of september . ''we have been working on this since 1996 , and have had a special team in place since april 1998 , '' said kazuyuki hashimoto , a spokesman for daiwa_securities , japan 's third largest brokerage . japan 's financial markets have an added advantage of a public holiday on jan . 3 , which means that on the monday when the rest of the world 's stock markets and banks will discover if they have serious computer problems , this country will still be closed for business . if there is havoc in any major international market , officials here say , at least japan will have the luxury of a day 's warning . public utilities , airports , airlines and hospitals , meanwhile , have performed similar industry wide blanket checks , government and industry officials say . to be extra safe , service will be interrupted for several minutes on the country 's rail and subway lines , which will run all night to accommodate revelers . similarly , major hotels and other large buildings say their elevators will be taken out of service shortly before midnight , and tested for several minutes afterward , to make sure that they work properly . asked if he had any particular areas of concern in tokyo , one of the world 's largest and most densely_populated cities , shintaro_ishihara , governor of tokyo prefecture , said that although he remained vigilant , he could not pinpoint any particular area . ''we 've come up with the best measures we could , '' he said . ''but even at that , there are limits to what you can do . there are millions of systems with chips out there , and even if you check with their manufacturers , you ca n't always know what will happen . we will simply have to wait until the new year to see . ''",has a topic of technology
"federal officals have charged a british_columbia man with breaking the law by posting results of last november 's elections on the internet before polls closed in every province . paul bryan said he ignored the restriction in order to challenge the law , which he said violates his right to free_speech and is outdated . canadian broadcasters reported election results only where polls had closed . if convicted , mr . bryan could be fined up to 16 , 000 . anthony_depalma ( nyt )",has a topic of technology
"if there is an institution that the fictional james_bond made famous with all his derring do it was , to quote from the thriller and movie of the same name , her majesty 's secret_service . as of thursday , the service was not quite as secret as it had been . at midnight , britain 's secret intelligence service , or mi6 the equivalent of the central_intelligence_agency introduced its first publicly accessible web_site , raising the hem of its cloak ( if not its dagger ) to just a modicum of scrutiny . so intense was the interest in this move by an intelligence service once so secret that it denied its own existence that the site recorded 3.5 million hits in its first few hours , slowing access to a crawl , said nev johnson , a british_foreign_office press officer who speaks on behalf of the secret intelligence service . ''it 's been pretty astronomical , '' he said . girding for the fight against global terrorism , the agency developed the site primarily to recruit agents , operatives and analysts from a much broader academic and social background than in the past and to let would be spies know how to join . so wide is the net that the site has versions in spanish , french , arabic , chinese and russian hardly the kind of overture that would have been expected in the cold_war heyday of writers like john le carr , or double agents like kim philby and guy burgess , when the point was to keep foes at bay by the most devious of means . but times have changed . in literary espionage , le carr 's george smiley hunted for ''gerald the mole'' in the british_intelligence services , bond reported to an anonymous spymaster called m and heroes crossed cold_war frontiers in dire peril and great discomfort . now , the head of the s.i.s. , once known only as c ( the final initial in the name of the first s.i.s . chief , capt . sir mansfield smith cumming ) , is identified by name on the web_site . the incumbent is john scarlett . these days , too , s.i.s . headquarters , called the circus in le carr 's world and never identified to the outside world as a nest of spies , is a huge and prominent building on the river thames where , the web_site says , there is a ''family atmosphere'' and ''facilities include squash and basketball courts , a gym , coffee lounge and bar . '' in the mythology of british espionage , moreover , an agent might once have been recruited by a sharp eyed oxford or cambridge don , harvesting likely operatives from undergraduate sherry parties . recruitment , so it was said , came with a discreet tap on the shoulder and a whispered introduction to a diffident spymaster in some anonymous office . the new web_site , by contrast , cites what it calls three case studies of graduates from universities in bristol , durham and edinburgh who joined the service in their 20 's , doing other jobs before turning to espionage as a career change . ''i 've already been in some pretty testing situations abroad , '' says one supposed 28 year old spy , identified only as andrew . another , identified as peter , 24 , is just as bullish about his newly adopted tradecraft . ''yes , there are mundane parts to it , especially the paperwork , '' the agent is quoted as saying . ''but the feeling of achievement when you persuade a contact to trust you is what does it for me . '' there is , too , a woman from what seems an ethnic minority background . ''it is a much more diverse and down to earth place than anyone might think , '' said naheed , a 27 year old lawyer whose family moved to britain from kenya in the 1970 's according to her web_site ''legend , '' as spies in novels call cover stories . ''and my background has been a professional bonus . '' the targets , too , have changed . ''after the fall of the berlin_wall in 1989 , s.i.s . developed its already emerging response to the challenges which are now so dominant regional instability , terrorism , the proliferation of weapons_of_mass_destruction and serious international crime , '' reads a section of the web_site chronicling the organization 's history since its founding in 1909 . in some ways , the secret intelligence service is playing catch up to mi5 , britain 's domestic intelligence agency , whose web_site draws in the bulk of its recruits . mi5 has already said it wants to increase its officers by 50 percent to 3 , 000 by 2008 , while the s.i.s . has not made known its targets . ''it would be counterproductive to talk about target numbers of staff or anything like that , '' said mr . johnson , the spokesman . indeed , while its advertising is web based ( www . mi6 . gov . uk or www . sis . gov . uk ) , anyone wishing to either join or offer a snippet of intelligence is urged to do so by regular mail . that , in itself , might seem an advance on the thriller writer 's world of microfilm and ' 'dead letter drops'' marked by chalk marks on crumbling walls in the dingier parts of berlin or moscow . but the s.i.s . is not prepared to go so far as to make its web_site interactive . indeed , the host of the site is a server outside london that has no links to the s.i.s . 's own computer systems , mr . johnson said . of course , the leap into cyberspace has already inspired a number of metaphors . the service has ''come in from the cold'' and the web_site is ''for millions of eyes only , '' the daily_mail reported . ''licensed to surf , '' was the headline of an editorial in the times of london , linking 007 's license to kill with would be operatives surfing the web . but the crucial question remained might a modern spy expect the aston martin and martini adventures of ian fleming 's james_bond ? the answer lay somewhere between coy and inscrutable . ''by the time the filmmakers focused on bond , the gap between truth and fiction had already widened , '' the web_site observed . ''nevertheless , staff who join s.i.s . can look forward to a career that will have moments when the gap narrows just a little and the certainty of a stimulating and rewarding career which , like bond 's , will be in the service of their country . '' london journal",has a topic of technology
"onimusha warlords ( developed and published by capcom for playstation 2 49 . 95 for ages 17 and older . ) fear effect 2 retro helix ( developed by kronos digital entertainment and published by eidos interactive for playstation 29 . 99 for ages 17 and older . ) stupid invaders ( developed by xilam and published by ubi soft entertainment for windows 95 and later and dreamcast 29 . 99 for windows , 39 . 99 for dreamcast for ages 13 and older . ) often we have shocking stories that we feel obliged to relate to all our friends . these stories may involve outrageously rude behavior , incomprehensible instructions or defective equipment , and we need everyone to be as appalled as we are . my stories often involve video_games that i ca n't or wo n't finish . the current candidate is the capcom adventure game onimusha warlords , which takes place in 16th_century japan . a samurai named samanosuke sets out to rescue a kidnapped princess , wandering the countryside , killing monsters and sucking up their spiritual essence to fuel his magical weaponry . at one point , samanosuke walks through a door and meets a young woman named kaede . after chatting for a bit , they are suddenly trapped behind iron bars and together must pull a lot of levers to open a series of gates . samanosuke winds up in a room with a trick door , and after finding its secret , he and kaede must walk across a booby_trapped floor . then , when samanosuke is trapped in a room that is filling up with water , kaede must solve a sliding tile puzzle before he drowns . i could select a tile but could n't get the hang of moving it . there were no instructions . time ran out and samanosuke drowned . as with all capcom adventure games , you can save only in certain locations . i went back to the place i had saved 20 minutes earlier . but because onimusha wo n't let you skip narrative scenes , i had to listen to samanosuke and kaede 's conversation again . then i guided them through the pulling of the levers , past the secret door , over the booby_trapped floor and into the watertight room , where , once again , samanosuke drowned before i could figure out the tile puzzle . so i went back to the save point . heard the conversation . pulled the levers . opened the trick door . avoided the booby_traps . and drowned . again . and again . then i went on the internet and found a solution for the puzzle . after going through all that , i stopped playing onimusha . the game had treated me badly and i was unable to forgive it . ''does this make any sense to you ? '' i asked my friends . ''it 's one thing to make you go through battle scenes over and over , but once you 've solved a puzzle , why should you have to keep solving it over and over again before you can get to a ridiculously hard timed puzzle ? '' my friends wearily agreed yes , it 's a bad thing , now quit talking about it . it 's bad , but it 's not unusual . games can require a tremendous amount of effort they can make ridiculous demands and create needless busywork . you may find yourself cursing the designers for being cruel , unfair , unreasonable and just plain stupid . if the game is bad enough , you just stop playing . how long , after all , do you allow the agony to continue ? the answer depends on the individual . people who crave games that crush their souls should play eidos 's fear effect 2 retro helix . fear effect 2 is a futuristic game involving weird dna experiments , espionage , monsters , complicated scientific equipment and lots of very bloody action . with the look of a graphic novel , an elaborate and involving story and a fair amount of gratuitous sexual titillation , fear effect 2 is utterly fascinating . onimusha stopped me with one nasty punch , but fear effect 2 had to pummel me senseless before i let go . it became clear within the first few hours that there was only one way i could get through fear effect 2 i would have to cheat . at a web_site called game faqs ( www . gamefaqs . com ) i found a walk through that said the game was ''like six john woo movies , the mensa test and a punch in the stomach all mixed into one . '' the writer went on to suggest that finishing the game took ''a special blend of hatred , skill , reflexes and sheer bloody determination . '' and those were the comments of someone who really liked the game . staying alive is difficult , even with a strategy guide , and i never got from one save point to the next without many tries . the puzzles are abstruse it is often unclear what a device is or what you are trying to achieve . a mount_everest in the gaming world , fear effect 2 is not for those who want to walk up the hill and have a picnic lunch . agony was interspersed with some entertaining puzzles , tough action and animated sequences in which sexy female spies would banter wittily and remove articles of clothing . video_games are entertainment you have to work for , unlike movies or television . no one ever missed the ending of a movie because of poor eye hand coordination . as game elements become more sophisticated , stories more involved and characters richer , giving up on a game becomes more difficult . but after realizing that i had spent more than 30 painful hours on fear effect 2 and was less than halfway through , i quit . i lacked the skill , reflexes and sheer bloody determination , but those 30 hours had given me some of the hate . the ubi soft adventure game stupid invaders was another story . i made it all the way to the end , not because the game was easier to play , but because it was easier to cheat . the game is based on ''space goofs , '' a short lived saturday morning cartoon program , the only real distinction of which was a theme song by iggy pop . you must help five aliens escape from earth before they are captured and taken to area 51 , which is described by an evil scientist as ''the club_med of death . '' stupid invaders is one of the best looking games ever made . it uses gorgeous animated sequences to further the story , and at times it seemed as if it had been conceived simply as an excuse to create beautiful scenery . games with old fashioned two dimensional graphics have become scarce , but stupid invaders shows why they should not be abandoned . unfortunately , the game itself is infuriating , a compendium of adventure game design flaws . at one point , for example , you must sweep a darkened area with your mouse to find an object you are given no reason to believe is there . death can come senselessly and without warning press one button and you further the game , press the one next to it and you die horribly . and although the least popular type of puzzle in adventure games is the maze , stupid invaders has two of them . despite too many jokes about bodily functions , the game is sometimes perversely amusing . unfortunately only a handful of puzzles are genuinely clever , and most are quite annoying . things get worse toward the end of the game as the player encounters busywork , like traipsing up flight after flight of stairs . one suspects that the designers realized that stupid invaders was too short and wanted to pad it out . without a walk through , i would not have bothered to finish the game and would have missed its funny and malicious punch_line . like life , games can be unfair and cruel but unlike life , it 's easy to get a new one you like better . game theory e mail herold nytimes . com",has a topic of technology
"to the editor our metropolitan new york authorities could learn something from electronic tolls in italy . near venice and padua last november , i noticed two antennas over the telepass lanes , the first about 40 yards before the second , which was in the location used at new york toll plazas . the posted speed limit was 30 kilometers per hour , and trucks and cars rolled through without hesitation . joe mcmahon seaford , n.y. , sept . 9 , 1999",has a topic of technology
"the new sony playstation 2 game_console , introduced last week in japan , has already sold more than a million units there and is expected to be equally popular when it reaches the united_states this fall , despite a list price of nearly 400 . besides its highly advanced 3 d graphics capabilities , its ability to play dvd movies with surround sound output and its broadband ready internet connections , the playstation 2 is also backward compatible with thousands of existing playstation game titles . in the past , each new generation of game_console was incompatible with the previous one , leading to a scarcity of new game titles and a flood of older consoles at local garage sales . with playstation 2 , consumers will be able to keep their favorite first generation playstation games while building a collection of new games . eager game players in the united_states are already trying to smuggle the japanese consoles into the country , even though they cannot play region 1 ( north_american ) dvd discs without serious unauthorized tinkering with the dvd copy protection system . meanwhile , the microsoft corporation , which used to be the second largest software company in redmond , wash . , before overtaking nintendo , is preparing to announce tomorrow its own game_console , whose code name is x box . details are scarce , but sources say the x box will feature an advanced_micro_devices athlon processor and an nvidia 3 d graphics card . microsoft 's bid to enter the game_console market with its x box , which is not expected to reach the market until the 2001 holiday season , follows the software giant 's apparently unsuccessful attempt to establish windows ce as an alternative operating system for the sega dreamcast game_console last year . sega says it has sold more than 1.5 million dreamcast systems so far , but software developers prefer sega 's own proprietary operating system . ''the playstation 2 is the most powerful product ever introduced to the consumer market , '' said richard doherty , director of envisioneering group , a technology consulting company in seaford , n.y. , who described its 3 d graphics capabilities as the equal of a_20 , 000 silicon_graphics workstation vintage 1997 . he also said the new playstation is so popular that thieves are ambushing japanese teenagers when they emerge from stores carrying the new game machines . nintendo is preparing to introduce its own high end console , code named dolphin , later this year . the dolphin system is expected to include a powerpc g4 microprocessor and a dvd drive , and like the playstation 2 it will also sell for about 350 . peter h . lewis news watch",has a topic of technology
"the russian authorities may have thought they would silence grigory pasko when they threw him into prison after he documented the navy 's nasty practice of dumping nuclear_waste at sea . but the crusading journalist has refused to go quietly . from behind the walls of a vladivostok jail , captain pasko has resorted to a time honored russian practice chronicling the dismal life inside the country 's overcrowded and disease infested prisons . unlike the prison works of aleksandr i . solzhenitsyn and other russian writers who often waited decades before their accounts of soviet gulags became known to the world , mr . pasko 's jailhouse diary can be found on one of the country 's most frequented internet sites on political news , http_www . polit . ru index dossier mayday the texts are a window not only into the arbitrary world of russian justice , but also into the mind of a man battling to maintain emotional equilibrium . ''he is a journalist , so he always tries to write about topics that interest him , '' his wife , galina morozova , said in a telephone interview from vladivostok . ''and he spends a lot of time absolutely alone in solitary_confinement . the best way to get rid of the solitude is to make some use of your talent and write about it . '' a career navy officer and military journalist , captain pasko , 37 , made a name for himself as an environmental crusader at boyevaya vakhta ( battle watch ) , the newspaper of russia 's pacific fleet . but what really worried the authorities was the freelance work he did for nhk , japan 's largest television_network . after nhk broadcast a report on russia 's dumping of nuclear_waste , the authorities began to clamp down . captain pasko was arrested in november 1997 and charged with selling the nation 's secrets . amnesty international has designated him a ''prisoner of conscience , '' and other human_rights groups have taken up his cause . a verdict in his pasko 's long running trial , at which the prosecutor is demanding a_12 year prison term , is expected this month . when he was hauled into the military courtroom in january , captain pasko shouted out , ''we will fight ! '' but there is little bravado in his prison essays . the first is titled ''cookie , '' slang for a first time prisoner . it is a set of survival tips for new prisoners and an informal dissertation on the sociology of russia 's jails . anybody determined to challenge russia 's authorities , captain pasko writes , should keep a large bag at home full of provisions , because he can be hauled off to jail at a moment 's notice . essential goods include an electric heater for boiling water , cans of food to compensate for the meager prison rations and a blanket . he warns that initial prolonged detention at a police station means threats and beatings , advising new prisoners to adopt the old adage of soviet spy movies say nothing and wait to be passed on to the next step in the chain of custody . ''you have to survive the first 72 hours , '' he writes . ''it 's the period when they can keep you there . to extend it they need to obtain special documents and they will have to provide you with a defense attorney . '' friends in the police are no help , merely a hindrance once they sense that the state wants a conviction , he warns . ''i am sorry for those who have friends in the militia , '' captain pasko wrote . ''that means additional evidence against you . '' between interrogations , the prisoner is kept in a ''preliminary confinement cell , '' a cage stuffed with other detainees with a rank toilet in the corner . later they are shifted to ''quarantine , '' where each is photographed , x rayed and subjected to painful blood tests with a thick needle . then it is on to an overcrowded prison ward where inmates sleep in shifts as their trials drag_on . while the prisons are dirty , noisy and pungent , the hardest part is not losing hope , as savvy prisoners forecast the long sentences likely to be handed down , regardless of whether the inmate is innocent or guilty . ''the memories about the relatively good life you had before , about your wife and children , put a lot of pressure on your mind , '' he said . ''just bear in mind that from now on you have nothing and nobody no apartment , no family , no car , no work or rewards . you are nobody . '' still , prisoners must survive , and captain pasko offers his own rules of prison etiquette . he recommends that inmates join a ''family , '' a small group of prisoners who try to look out for each other . parcels of food from home should be shared , to ease the strains of coexisting in such close quarters , but prisoners should be careful about sharing clothes , he says . nothing that is lent will ever be returned . captain pasko says he donated two sleeves from his sweater , which were used to fashion a crude ' 'mail rope'' for transmitting notes and small packets of tea and tobacco from cell to cell . but he drew the line at handing over his boots and pants to prisoners who insisted that they merely needed them for a trial appearance the next day . the most important rule involves communication . because cells are rife with informers , a prisoner should never talk about his case . captain pasko reports that he became so reticent that he even found it difficult to talk to his own lawyer . the pasko case underscores one of the paradoxes of modern day russia . while the collapse of the soviet_state and advent of computer technology has made the draconian censorship of soviet days all but impossible , the new russia is also a place where a muckraking reporter can be locked up for 19 months before he is pronounced innocent or guilty . certainly the prolonged wait seems to have taken its toll on journalists' morale . captain pasko has spent his recent months in solitary_confinement , isolated even from prison family . despite his messages to the world outside , he appears to have retreated further into himself and lost his zeal for doing battle with the authorities . his second prison writing excerpts from a book in progress about his experience in solitary_confinement is grim , metaphysical and fatalistic . recalling that he bought a copy of the criminal_code six months before he was arrested , captain pasko muses that his thoughts of jail , not his role as a journalistic gadfly , might have led to his imprisonment . ''i thought about it , and the thoughts came true , '' he wrote . he then briefly dared to hope that he could influence his fate by thinking positively . ''perhaps something written by me now will come true , '' he wrote . ''what if i put down something optimistic ? no , it will turn out to be false . ''",has a topic of technology
"the government will extend for about 18 months a ''green card'' program , inspired by the united_states , entitling high tech experts from outside the european_union to work in the country to fill a skills gap in computer technology . since aug . 1 , 2000 , a total of more than 14 , 500 work and residence permits have been allocated . most applicants came from india and the former soviet_union . victor_homola ( nyt )",has a topic of technology
"text messaging may be all the rage in japan , but typing on mobile_phones has never made much sense to americans . now a mobile_phone keyboard promises to make the task easier . designed by think outside and motorola , the iboard keyboard lets you use your mobile_phone as you would a laptop computer , to write e mail messages , surf the internet , and use expense or datebook functions . the 13 1 2 inch wide iboard , designed for use with motorola 's i85s and i50sx handsets and future models , folds to a compact 3 1 2 by 5 inches . ( think outside makes a similar portable keyboard known as the stowaway for hand held devices . ) the keyboard has a cradle to hold the phone at a 45 degree angle and a protective case . the iboard is available for 99 from motorola 's online store ( www . idenstore . com ) or through compusa and office depot stores . there 's no question that the iboard will make it easier to enter new information into your phone , but will it offend your fellow diners when you pull out a keyboard in a crowded restaurant ? andrew zipern news watch mobile technology",has a topic of technology
"with her conference duties complete , grace found a quiet spot in the wings of the busy auditorium where she had just delivered a detailed and fluid speech on her groundbreaking scientific advances . the crowd at the conference , the annual meeting of the american association for artificial intelligence , had responded with genuine human warmth . ''thanks for coming , '' she said over the applause , adding , ''see you next year in acapulco , '' referring to the site for the 2003 conference . when scientists from around the world gathered from july 28 to aug . 1 in edmonton , grace was the highlight for most of them , the pole star to which they naturally gravitated . when she made her way through the lobby to the registration desk , a large pod of onlookers trailed in her wake . she had been well hyped by conference organizers , and she did not disappoint . afterward , standing alongside the six foot , 300 pound grace , the two of us intimately close yet loosely surrounded by the throng , i had the chance to ask her to grade her performance . she did not respond . i asked a simpler question . was it worthwhile ? making the trip all the way to edmonton just for a few minutes of attention ? again , no response . one could easily sense that her torpor was not haughtiness as much as powerlessness , as if the ability to answer was simply beyond her reach . i stepped away , but my sense was confirmed just seconds later , when one of her handlers sidled up to her and reached behind her torso , then seemed to hit a switch . her lara croft lookalike face sprang to life on the laptop screen serving as her head . she was quickly swarmed by admirers . our moment was lost . the 18th annual conference was , of course , about considerably more than grace . with some 1 , 600 scientists in attendance , there was a huge roster of displays , speeches , panels and demonstrations , with the topics forming a kind of overview of the field of artificial intelligence . but grace ( the name is short for graduated robot attending conference ) emerged as the focal_point , and her shining moment came during the robot challenge , one of several conference events designed to showcase the state of the art . the challenge was for each robot to start at the entrance to the conference center , take the elevator to the registration desk , register for the conference and then report to the auditorium at a set time and deliver a speech . the robot challenge was dreamed up by dr . reid simmons , a senior research computer scientist at the carnegie_mellon robotics institute in pittsburgh , and alan c . schultz , a computer scientist at the naval research laboratory in washington . dr . schultz said that they had decided early on to call it a challenge rather than a competition because there were simply too few possible entrants . ''robotics are not that far advanced , '' he said . ''at least in terms of what they can do on their own . '' in fact , dr . schultz and dr . simmons were fairly sure that their team 's robot , grace , would be the only one capable of performing all the required tasks . as it turned out , the massachusetts_institute_of_technology and the irobot corporation also entered the robot challenge , but their robots could fulfill only parts of it . to get grace to perform all the tasks took the combined efforts of five educational and research institutions . carnegie mellon handled the overall hardware and software architecture , the naval research lab designed the speech recognition software , northwestern_university built the software that enabled grace to deliver the powerpoint presentation , swarthmore college built the pattern recognition software for finding and reading signs , and metrica , an automation and robotics company , designed the gesture interpretation system . ( grace was built to interpret both speech and gesture patterns , in what the scientists called ' 'mixed initiative interactions . '' ) during her powerpoint speech to a crowd of about 300 , grace outlined in detail her circuitry and software . ''my chassis , '' grace said , ''is an irobot b 21 base with two pentia running linux . i have a laser range finder , sonar and both stereo and monocular active heads for vision . i also have a flat panel display , speakers and a wireless link for communication . ''my software has been under development for many years by the various institutions that make up the grace team . mobility , vision , speech recognition , speech generation and facial expressions are all separate processes . i use simple , well defined interfaces to control software complexity . '' the crowd ate it up , and even seemed to understand most of it , but grace very nearly did n't make it to her speaking engagement . the robot was already 10 minutes behind schedule at the starting point of the challenge when some of the carnegie_mellon graduate students in the project team decided that last minute adjustments to grace 's performance characteristics were required . they began to make those changes via infrared links from their laptops . dr . simmons approached his students to see why they had yet to initiate grace 's voice , animation and movement functions . just a few adjustments , they replied . now ? dr . simmons turned a nervous eye to the waiting crowd . why now ? ''do n't worry , '' said chris urmson , a doctoral_student . ''we 're not doing anything stupid . '' dr . simmons smiled nervously . benjamin kuipers , a professor at the university of texas and the co chairman of the challenge , came over to the group to ask about the delay . the press and the public were milling about the crowded foyer , sensing trouble . dr . simmons turned back to the students , his face stiff with tension . mr . urmson smiled calmly and said , ''a couple of minutes . '' dr . schultz was dispatched to start an introduction , though it was clear to those in the back corner that the gaggle of graduate students had not yet finished tweaking . but just as dr . schultz appeared to be running out of things to say , mr . urmson gave dr . simmons a thumbs up . grace was ready . that was when the problems really started . about 30 feet into her journey , grace began to misinterpret the spoken directions she was getting from a graduate student accompanying her . she repeatedly stopped , faced a wall and did nothing . she seemed to be taking time to actually think about things before turning and continuing on with the challenge . in reality , poor performance from the voice recognition equipment accounted for 90 percent of the problems , dr . simmons said later . eventually , grace made it onto the elevator , a feat that drew a large ovation . at the bottom floor , her appearance and exit from the elevator was the cause for thunderous applause , though the adulation may have actually set grace back because of sensory overload . it took 20 more minutes to make it across the lobby floor to the registration desk , where she proceeded to butt into the middle of the line . ( it was unclear whether that was a malfunction . ) ten minutes later , grace was in front of her adoring audience in the auditorium . afterward , the presenting and attending scientists all made a considerable fuss about grace in particular and the advances in robotics and artificial intelligence generally . ''grace rocked ! '' dr . simmons announced on the carnegie_mellon web_site . but to one not intimately familiar with the current state of robotics , the reaction to grace might be one of mild disappointment . for one thing , grace could hardly match the abilities of science_fiction robots like the autonomous ' 'spiders'' in this summer 's hit movie ''minority report . '' for another , the challenge did not involve performing delicate surgery or rescuing stranded miners . registering for a conference is hardly an audacious task . ''it 's true it 's not the most exciting thing , '' dr . simmons said . ''but we wanted to see if we could get a robot to do something that normal humans do . this seemed like a good thing to try . '' ashley stroupe , a doctoral_student in robotics at carnegie_mellon and a co chairwoman of the robot challenge , said the most impressive thing about grace was the integration of the different processes the work of the five institutions . ''that has n't really happened before , '' she said . later , preparing to leave the auditorium , i had one final look at grace . she was still rigidly upright on the same spot where she had stood since finishing her speech . though she was ''on , '' she was now just a lonely column of machinery and wire . the eyes of her weirdly affecting lara croft face blinked every 10 seconds or so , but scientists were milling elsewhere , their focus on other things . they were chatting and laughing , talking about the next speaker , the next conference , the next challenge in robotics . like every celebrity who moves across the canopy of our media rich existence , grace had her bright flash of a moment , but the same flash also heralded the beginning of her march toward obsolescence . one of the army of carnegie_mellon graduate students approached her and pulled the plug , then hit a switch . the screen went blank , and the face disappeared . it was time to go home . and for that , grace still needed human assistance . correction august 9 , 2002 , friday an article in circuits yesterday about a robot that fulfilled the requirements of a ''robot challenge'' at a conference in edmonton , alberta , misattributed a quotation about the mundane nature of the tasks completed by the device . it was alan c . schultz , a creator of the robot , not his colleague reid simmons , who said ''it 's true it 's not the most exciting thing . but we wanted to see if we could get a robot to do something that normal humans do . this seemed like a good thing to try . ''",has a topic of technology
"an embittered former british spy has used the internet to make public the names of a large number of secret agents , but officials in london said today that the web_site had been shut down and that no duplicates had surfaced . the foreign_office said british security and the lives of more than 100 people were put in jeopardy by the action , which it attributed to richard tomlinson , 35 , an agent of the secret intelligence service , formerly known as m.i . 6 , who was let go in 1995 and later served a jail term for violating britain 's official secrets act . a spokesman for the foreign_office said this afternoon that the offending site , based in the united_states , had been taken off the internet ''apparently at the initiative of the provider . '' it first appeared on wednesday night , setting off frantic official efforts to silence it . foreign_office experts were no longer able to gain access to the site today , the spokesman said , convincing them that it had been fully removed . the internet is feared by intelligence agencies as a particularly dangerous and untrackable threat to national_security because it is virtually beyond the control of national laws and authorities . even with the tomlinson web_site shut down , british officials faced the problem that once a page has appeared on the internet , it is simple for other users to copy it onto their own web pages , a process known as mirroring . foreign_secretary robin_cook said that the list , reportedly including 116 names , was ''riddled with inaccuracies'' but that ''nevertheless , the release of any such list , however inaccurate it may be , is a deeply irresponsible and dangerous act . '' some were names of people with no connection to the security services and some were retired agents . but some were indeed names of current operatives , the foreign_office spokesman said . earlier this month , britain obtained an injunction in switzerland to shut down another web_site based there and operated by mr . tomlinson , on which he had threatened to publish intelligence information . mr . tomlinson lives in geneva . late today , a previously removed tomlinson site reappeared in the ' 'mirror'' form that officials fear might lead to the resurfacing of the new list . containing 10 names of government people asserted to have links to the death in 1997 of diana , princess of wales , it had been taken down last week by its california based provider , geocities , after a notice from the british treasury called the company 's attention to it . the foreign_office is not in contact with mr . tomlinson , but an e mail said to be from the former agent arrived at bbc offices in london today asserting that british officials were ''overreacting for public effect to stigmatize my efforts . '' speaking of the former agent , who served six months of a one year sentence in 1997 after pleading_guilty to trying to publish a book disclosing his knowledge of agency activities , mr . cook said , ''i regret mr . tomlinson appears to nurse an irrational , deep_seated sense of grievance . '' he had been arrested after showing a seven page synopsis of his intended book to an australian publisher . he was charged under section 1 of the official secrets act , which forbids any unauthorized disclosure by a current or former officer of the security services . his conviction was the first under the act since 1961 . released from prison last may , he went to france , spain and then on to switzerland . he asserted that british security officials followed and harassed him on his travels . he repeatedly complained about the british_government 's decision in 1995 to bar him from appealing his firing . mr . cook said today ''i can report that when mr . tomlinson left the service , he was assisted to find employment and did himself say it was the job of his dreams . he did also receive appropriate settlement from the service . '' the british press today complied with a foreign_office request not to publish the web address or the name of the american provider . a foreign_office spokesman said he could not comment on contacts between british and american officials over the matter , but said early apprehension over the difficulty of shutting down a web_site in the united_states , compared with the same task in europe , had subsided . ''given the first amendment and the open freedom of information there , you would have thought it would be more difficult , '' he said . born in new zealand and educated at cambridge , mr . tomlinson joined m.i.6 in 1991 and served in bosnia , russia and the middle_east . he has made a number of assertions since his dismissal , including accusations that m.i.6 tried to assassinate the yugoslav leader , slobodan_milosevic , in 1992 that british_intelligence was involved in the death of diana , and that britain had a highly placed spy in germany 's central_bank who leaked secrets over a_12 year period . ''in the past , he has been very prone to fantasy , '' the spokesman said . one of his taunting web_sites carried a partly obscured photo of himself against the backdrop of the thames side m.i.6 headquarters , whose fanciful architecture has given the building the nickname the circus . the site switched on to the sounds of the theme music from ''monty_python 's flying circus . ''",has a topic of technology
"spread the word . a museum exhibition devoted to computer viruses opened last week at the museum of applied arts in frankfurt . but for visitors to the ''i love you'' exhibition , which takes its name from the virus that zapped countless data files in 2000 , the danger level is low . the only wild viruses being demonstrated are on a computer that is not online . visitors can activate them and crash the computer . ''it 's like a virus mantra , '' said franziska nori , director of the museum 's digital culture department . ''we constantly reboot , reboot , reboot . '' the exhibition , which has a web_site at digitalcraft . org , traces the 30 year evolution of viruses from computer lab pastime to global scourge . interactive displays describe hundreds of viruses and show the outcome of choice examples . but because the museum focuses on the applied arts , the exhibition portrays virus writing as a kind of craft whose practitioners aim to shape code into an elegantly concise , dramatically effective form . ms . nori said that programmers dismiss the crudely coded love bug despite its wide impact . more to her taste , she said , is the cascade virus from the early 90 's , which caused a document 's letters to tumble to the bottom of the screen . she compared it to a poem by apollinaire in which the words form a raindrop on the page . the exhibition is sponsored by symantec , the antivirus software maker . matthew mirapaul news watch culture",has a topic of technology
"a tablet computer just released by psion teklogix may be the only hand held device you can fearlessly throw into your toolbox . the netpad is both ruggedized and waterproof . ''you can drop it on any of its surfaces from five feet for several times without damaging anything , '' said mike marsh , the director of mobile computing for psion , which is based near toronto in mississauga , ontario . the netpad can also be left in three feet of water and will work in temperatures between minus 4 degrees_fahrenheit and 40 degrees_fahrenheit . the netpad sells for a staggering 1 , 895 . mr . marsh said that the units were most likely to be purchased by companies for field use by utility workers and that hospitals and that food_processing companies had also expressed an interest . while the netpad 's java operating system allows it to run most common hand held programs , the computer is not supplied with any software despite its hefty price . ''people who buy this product prefer not to have anything preloaded on it , '' mr . marsh said . ''they do n't want their employees playing games . '' ian_austen news watch mobile technology",has a topic of technology
"a chinese court recently announced that an internet democracy advocate charged with subversion would get a suspended_sentence instead of a long prison term , with the case drawing criticism from human_rights groups and serving as a rallying cry for this country 's growing number of online commentators . both in china and abroad , some commentators quickly applauded what seemed like an official show of leniency toward the accused man , du daobin , a prolific author of online essays on issues of democracy and free_speech . but many among china 's rapidly growing group of internet commentators are warning that what appears to be government magnanimity in this high profile case conceals a quiet but concerted push to tighten controls of the internet and surveillance of its users even though china 's restrictions on the medium are already among the broadest and most invasive anywhere . internet cafe users in china have long been subject to an extraordinary range of controls . they include cameras placed discreetly throughout the establishments to monitor and identify users and web masters , and internet cafe managers who keep an eye on user activity , whether electronically or by patrolling the premises . the average internet user , meanwhile , neither sees nor , in many cases , suspects the activities of a force widely estimated to number as many as 30 , 000 internet police officers . experts on china 's internet say the officers are constantly engaged in a cat and mouse game with equally determined web surfers , blocking access to sites that the government considers politically offensive , monitoring users who visit other politically sensitive sites and killing off discussion threads on internet bulletin_boards . the chinese government has also established a web_site where people are able to report fellow web users for suspicious or provocative behavior . web surfers who try to visit sites being blocked by the government receive messages announcing a page is no longer accessible , or their computer screen may simply go blank , or they may be redirected to unrelated sites . similarly , people who participate in web based discussions on certain subjects may be warned that in order to log on to a discussion group , real names must be used , along with genuine e mail addresses and even telephone numbers . as its first line of defense against what in another era china 's communist leadership might have called ideological pollution , beijing controls the internet by insisting that all web traffic pass through government controlled servers . now , coming on top of these measures , which are all deployed at the national level , china 's provincial governments are getting into the act , introducing regulations of their own that critics say severely impinge on privacy and freedom of speech . in recent weeks , shanghai , china 's largest and most internet connected city , has quietly introduced a series of controls , arguably the country 's most far reaching yet , and critics fear , a model eventually to be used nationwide . described by city officials as a measure intended to combat pornography and to bar entry for minors to internet bars , the shanghai regulations require customers to use swipe cards that would allow administrators or others to record their national identity numbers and track their internet use . the regulations have kicked up little public debate , in part because they have received little publicity here during the planning stage . but fierce protests have appeared online , where many active internet users are interpreting the new regulations as an extension of the police_state . ''we will hold press conferences during each step of the implementation , and the public can express their own opinions and the media could discuss and question it , '' said an official with the shanghai municipal administration of culture , radio , film and television , who spoke on the condition of anonymity . ''and we have made a priority of making sure that our actions are not against the law . that 's our bottom line . '' asked if the privacy of internet users could be infringed , the official said that the shanghai government had noted the issue , but added that ''internet bars are public areas , and some experts say that what one says in a public area should not be considered private . '' speaking in an interview , one online commentator rejected out of hand the idea that invasive internet controls had any legitimacy . ''i can see that china 's progress in the area of law is going very slowly , '' said su zhenghua , an economist who frequently posts his thoughts online . ''this is a situation that i really must regret , and i hope the chinese government will follow the spirit of the constitution and protect freedom of speech and the individual 's right to privacy . '' some experts on china 's internet censorship say that in releasing mr . du recently , the government may have been making a subtle bow to china 's own domestic public opinion , as expressed through online communication and debate . international analysts who follow china 's internet scene say that the government has been particularly taken aback by the explosion in a new form of online communication for china the weblog , or blog . it started last year with a celebrated case of a young woman who made a running online commentary about her own sex life , and now hundreds of thousands of people take enthusiastically to this form . indeed , mr . du himself earned the government 's wrath in this way when he wrote to condemn the jailing last year of another well known web commentator , liu di , whose online moniker was ' 'stainless_steel mouse . '' in turn , at least 1 , 000 people signed a petition in support of mr . du that urged the government to stop using antisubversion laws to hinder free_speech . according to the analysts , the country 's censors , always eager to contain waves of public opinion before they get out of hand , particularly in matters of politics , have become alarmed that despite their intense efforts , internet technology is quickly making free_expression far harder to control . ''with the du case , the government is saying , 'look , our actions may be nicer than in the past , but fundamentally , the judgment of the crime is unchanged , so do n't be fooled , we are also willing to be harsh , ''' said xiao_qiang , director of the china internet project at the university of california at berkeley . ''no matter how hard they try , though , it is a fact that the volume of online information is increasing vastly , and there 's nothing the government can do about that . you can monitor hundreds of bulletin_boards , but controlling hundreds of thousands of bloggers is very different . ''",has a topic of technology
"a fierce debate has erupted here over a government proposal to lengthen jail terms and increase fines for people who make ' 'seditious'' statements , even over the internet , and to allow some police searches and seizures without a warrant . the increasingly heated discussion has caught the attention of world leaders , including president_bush . after meeting with president jiang_zemin of china a week ago , mr . bush said he had offered his views on the importance of china 's ''preserving the rights of hong_kong citizens . '' china 's deputy prime_minister , qian_qichen , fanned the dispute when he said in a recent television interview that opponents of the new rules must have something to hide . the opponents must have ' 'devils in their hearts , '' he warned , a phrase that has angered and dismayed democracy advocates here . regina ip , hong_kong 's powerful secretary for security and a top aide to tung_chee_hwa , the chief executive , increased the controversy when she spoke to students at a local university last monday . mrs . ip questioned the value of democracy in protecting civil_liberties and contended that democracy in germany in the 1930 's led to the rise of hitler and to the holocaust . she said at a public debate on wednesday that the remark was a personal opinion , not a government position , but went on to cast doubt again on the usefulness of democratic processes . ''i do n't think democracy is the panacea for all problems , '' she said . ''if you look at the countries around the world , particularly in asia , there are many democratically_elected governments which fail even to protect human life , let alone human_rights . '' hong_kong was a british colony until 1997 , when it was returned to china . the territory enjoys some autonomy under its basic_law , which provides for a separate legal system and considerable autonomy in running its own affairs . tightened up by beijing after the tiananmen square massacre in 1989 , article 23 of the basic_law calls for the hong_kong_government to put in place laws against sedition and treason . the government put out a ''consultation paper'' last month that outlines in some detail the legislation it plans to introduce in february , with the goal of winning final passage by the legislature next summer . pro_beijing parties dominate the legislature , where only 40 percent of the members are directly elected . ( the others are chosen by special interest groups or a committee . ) the legislature virtually always passes government proposals , though sometimes with small changes . hong_kong 's government contends that its current proposal conforms to the international covenant on civil and political rights , as the united_states has urged . hong_kong currently has a sedition law dating from colonial times that prohibits people from bringing the government ''into hatred or contempt , '' but it has not been enforced for years . bob allcock , the solicitor_general of hong_kong , said the consultation paper called for narrowing the definition somewhat , to ''incitement to violence or public disorder which seriously endangers the stability'' of china or hong_kong . but the consultation paper does call for harsher penalties against people who engage in sedition , as newly defined . instead of two years in prison and a fine of up to 5 , 000 hong_kong dollars ( 641 ) , violators will face up to seven years in prison and fines up to 500 , 000 hong_kong dollars ( 64 , 100 ) . critics contend that expressing support or even sympathy for taiwan , which china views as a renegade province , could be interpreted as an incitement to violence . government officials dismiss these fears as exaggerated . seditious publications are already subject to confiscation , though the longstanding rule has not been used recently . but the consultation paper calls for the same longer jail terms and higher fines as for sedition for the responsible individuals and covers information published on the internet . the police would be allowed to search and seize evidence without a warrant in cases they deemed to involve national_security . all of these provisions have alarmed news organizations here . in a speech on thursday to four local chambers of commerce , mrs . ip did promise that the actual legislation , unlike the consultation paper , will have two limits on the police 's ability to conduct searches and seizures in national_security cases without seeking a court 's approval . the government has decided , she said , that the police should still be required to obtain warrants before they may conduct searches or seizures of financial information or of ''journalistic materials . '' the consultation paper also says that foreigners living in hong_kong would be subject to prosecution on sedition charges and that activities may be seditious even if they occur partly in other countries , as long as the hub of the activity is here . audrey eu , a politically independent member of the legislature , said at the debate on wednesday with mr . allcock and mrs . ip that the antisedition laws amounted to importing mainland_chinese laws , a contention mrs . ip denied . the debate was held at the foreign correspondents club here . speaking in cantonese , mrs . ip had said on monday ''hitler was returned by universal suffrage and he killed seven million jews . did he respect human_rights ? '' the statement has drawn growing criticism for being both callous and historically incomplete . hitler lost germany 's presidential_election in 1932 . while his nazi_party subsequently became the largest in parliament , it did not command the support of the majority of germans . partly by fomenting political violence , hitler ended up becoming the chancellor of a coalition cabinet on jan . 30 , 1933 , and was subsequently voted dictatorial powers by germany 's reichstag . ''for some reason people love to imagine hitler was voted into power , but it was far more complicated than that , '' said mitchell b . hart , the padnos visiting professor of jewish history at the university of michigan . he added that most experts put the number of jews murdered in the holocaust at five million to six million , not seven million .",has a topic of technology
"a 16 year old computer hacker who goes by the name mafiaboy pleaded_guilty here today to 56 charges related to attacks last year on some of the busiest commercial web_sites in the united_states . from his bedroom overlooking a suburban golf course here , the hacker , a high_school freshman , broke into computer networks across the globe , from yale_university to denmark to south_korea , and implanted software programs that bombarded american web_sites in february , freezing or slowing 11 , including amazon . com , cnn . com . , ebay . com and yahoo . com . in e mail exchanges with hacking friends , the youngster boasted that he had covered his tracks by throwing the hard_drive of one of his three computers into a nearby river , cpl . marc gosselin of the royal_canadian_mounted_police testified today in youth court . press laws bar publishing the youth 's identity because of his age . in court , he wore a suit , a tie and a neatly trimmed goatee and said little . in contrast to the subdued appearance , the young man had recently spent three weeks in jail for bail violations , including verbally abusing teachers . last month , after having failed all his courses except physical_education , he quit school and now works as a busboy in a steakhouse here . ''he was fairly proud of what he did , how he committed the crimes and what tools he used , '' corporal gosselin said , referring to six weeks of wiretaps and data interceptions that the mounties conducted at the boy 's house in the spring . ''he bragged that the f.b.i . was unable to catch him , that the f.b.i . were fools , and that he would commit these crimes again . he boasted that he would make lots of money with the case and that he would become famous . '' in the most damaging boast , the corporal testified , mafiaboy told friends that he had vandalized the dell . com web_site , an attack that the dell computer corporation had not disclosed . the teenager has not publicly apologized or cooperated with the investigation . the federal_bureau_of_investigation estimates that in a one week period in february he caused 1 . 7 billion in damage by slowing or paralyzing access to the web_sites for up to six hours . in court , corporal gosselin said the damage was great , but added , ''i would be very surprised if it would be that high . '' in the six weeks of electronic_surveillance , he said , the hacker used four internet_service_providers to break into networks , largely ones maintained by united_states and canadian universities . just before his arrest on april 15 , he was boasting in an intercepted on line chat that he was preparing new assaults on web_sites , according to corporal gosselin , the lead investigator . ''it is difficult to evaluate damages , '' said mark rasch , vice_president for cyber law at predictive systems inc . , a computer security company in new york . ''while there were tremendous disruptions of networks and a lot of time spent by individuals to fix the problems and a loss of confidence by users in the internet , there was not anything that was permanently destroyed . to cnn , the loss was loss of advertising revenue . people could not see ads for a couple of hours . '' judge gilles ouellet scheduled a sentencing hearing for april 17 and 18 . as a minor , the maximum penalty that the youth faces is two years in prison and a 650 fine .",has a topic of technology
"an article in business day on saturday about a complaint filed by the united_states against china over the way it taxes imported computer chips referred incorrectly to the ones that qualify for a tax of 17 percent . they are those with a circuit feature size of 0 . 25 microns or less , not 2.5 microns . the article also misstated the date of an interview with senator max_baucus , democrat of montana , who commented on the dispute with china . it was on wednesday , not march 15 .",has a topic of technology
"at the heart of american enterprise is the ''build a better mousetrap'' axiom create a fine product , and the market will reward you handsomely . try telling that to carmine f . vasile . this last year has been a long and trying one for dr . vasile , an electrophysicist who lives in patchogue , a basement inventor and , of late , a lapsed believer in free market economics . dr . vasile ( pronounced vah sill ee ) believes that he invented the proverbial better mousetrap but that bigger companies and their lawyers have stolen his ideas . ''a great invention does n't do you any good unless you can afford to protect it all over the world , '' he said . nineteen years ago , during a period of self employment between stints at motorola and the hazeltine corporation , an electronics manufacturer in greenlawn , dr . vasile developed a heat exchange process that had considerable commercial potential , he thought . the process uses a copper coil inserted in a drain to absorb heat from wastewater and transfer it to incoming cold water . the process makes it cheaper to heat cold water . dr . vasile , who said that during his career he had received about 35 patents on behalf of various employers , including motorola , rockwell , hazeltine and grumman , holds patent no . 4 , 619 , 311 himself . he assigned the patent to a company called hydrofilm , a limited_partnership he and his wife , cheryl , operate from their home . dr . vasile calls his invention a gravity film heat exchanger gfx for short . in 1994 dr . vasile retired early to focus his entrepreneurial energies on bringing the gfx to market . at the time , dr . vasile said , he thought the gfx would finance a comfortable retirement for himself and his wife . five years ago , dr . vasile found a partner , doucette industries of york , pa . , which manufactured and marketed the device and mailed him monthly royalty checks ranging from 2 , 000 to 4 , 000 . in march , the checks stopped . doucette announced it was ceasing distribution of the gfx in favor of another product called the power pipe , manufactured by a company called renewability inc . in aurora , ontario . as might be expected , dr . vasile was furious , and the power pipe , in his view , is just the gfx under another name . ''this is fraud , '' he said . ''i have pictures of the product . power pipe is the same thing as gfx . '' dr . vasile wrote letters , many letters , to everyone involved . he complained to underwriters laboratories in melville , which certified the safety of the gfx to the canadian embassy in washington to a trade_association of building contractors and to the federal bankruptcy court in central_islip . ''they tell you to watch out for countries like thailand , '' he said , describing warnings he received about product counterfeiting . ''nobody tells you about canada . '' dr . vasile acknowledges that his design is not protected under the canadian patent system , and he knows that most companies routinely patent their inventions in all markets where they expect to sell or where the product might be manufactured . ''i could n't afford to do that , '' he said . he said he relied on the belief that the gfx design qualified as a trade secret and was thus protected under the economic espionage act of 1996 . ''i protected trade secrets for 20 years for companies like hazeltine , '' dr . vasile said . ''when i talk about trade secrets , i know what i 'm talking about . '' charlie boeckmann , an aide to representative tim bishop , said that he had written letters on dr . vasile 's behalf to appropriate f.b.i . officials , asking them to review his claims under the espionage act , and that the f.b.i . told him earlier this month that the claims were being investigated . ''if in fact his allegations are correct , we have a serious issue on the federal level . '' mr . boeckmann said . john lebo , the president of doucette industries , refused to comment on dr . vasile 's contentions . ''there really is nothing to discuss with you , '' he said . ''we will comment at the proper venue , and this is not it . '' denis van decker , a vice_president of renewability energy , denied that the power pipe was the same product as the gfx . of dr . vasile , he said ''the man has no credibility . he throws mud at people . the products are n't the same , and our customers know the difference . '' mr . van decker said that arbitrators had ruled against dr . vasile in 12 instances , but dr . vasile denied that . he said that there had been only three rulings against him and that the arbitration process was incomplete , because he could not afford to pay the costs assessed by the arbitrators . mr . van decker said the issue would be resolved in court . dr . vasile has ' 'done the lion 's share of what would be expected of him'' to get his idea successfully commercialized , said an official of the federal office of energy efficiency and renewable energy , which administered a grant of nearly 100 , 000 given to dr . vasile to help him develop and market his invention . inventors often confront the problem of defending their patents in other countries , said the official , who spoke on the condition that his name not be used because he was afraid of how his supervisors would react to his comments . ''all these guys are disadvantaged trying to get their technology to the market , '' the official said , describing independent inventors . ''they 're like the guy in the greek myth who pushes the boulder up the mountain , '' only to have it roll down again . the official said that there was little the government could do for them , aside from sympathizing with them . his own approach , he said , is to recite motivational speeches made by vince lombardi , the green bay packers' coach . ''i told carmine , 'do n't give up , ''' the official said . ''i regularly tell inventors , 'do n't give up . ''' dr . vasile said that he had not given up but that because of financial problems brought on by the gfx , he could not afford to hire a patent lawyer and is presenting a claim in bankruptcy court . ronald weiss , a huntington lawyer who represented dr . vasile at his bankruptcy hearing in central_islip last month , called the case ''particularly complex with several overlapping issues . '' ''this is a david and goliath situation , and carmine is taking on six goliaths , '' mr . weiss said . so , instead of financing a comfortable retirement for him and his wife , dr . vasile said his efforts to market his gfx invention had depleted ''our lifetime earnings . '' ''it 's been a nightmare , '' he added . ''i blew through my retirement money and my wife 's . what i 've learned is that people can steal technology at will . unless you 've got money to defend your patent , it 's worthless . '' the gfx patent comes up for renewal next june , but dr . vasile is not giving up . ''i 'll renew it , '' he said . ''with improvements . '' and things are , in fact , looking up . in july he found a new manufacturer for the gfx , fuel_cell components integrators of hauppauge , and sales have just gotten under way . l.i . work",has a topic of technology
"after months of belated preparations and testing , china is ''basically ready'' to enter 2000 with only minimal disruptions from computer breakdowns , a senior official said today . zhang qi , the information ministry official in charge of the program to prevent year 2000 computer problems , said elaborate tests and simulations had been run in 18 important industries and sectors that rely heavily on computers and microchips like telecommunications , aviation , power production , banking , water_supply and transportation . ms . zhang said those ''national lifeline'' sectors should be free of major problems . but she also acknowledged that poorer provinces in the interior and some sectors like business , health_care and public services ''lag far behind'' in testing and modifying computers , possibly causing local disruptions in commerce , the use of advanced medical machines or public utilities . she also noted that embedded microchips in systems or machines were often difficult to check and could possibly cause unexpected problems and that major industries were developing contingency_plans to cope with emergencies . ''china is a very big country , with more than 30 provinces , '' ms . zhang said at a news conference called to reassure the population and worried international businesses . ''we have n't checked every single place . so i ca n't say that china is 100 percent ready . but i can say we are basically ready . '' ''there will be no big losses'' in economic activity because of computer problems , ms . zhang added . china was stung this year when some international experts said that it was behind other major countries in efforts to prevent year 2000 disasters . ms . zhang has led a crash effort to catch up , and today she claimed important successes while conceding that some regions and enterprises had still paid little attention to the problem . computers and microchips can malfunction if their inner calendars do not recognize ''00'' as ''2000 . '' problems can be prevented through painstaking testing and modification . as one sign of confidence in the airline_industry , top executives of several chinese lines promised to ride their planes on jan . 1 . more developed coastal regions , which are more heavily computerized , have generally done a good job of preparing , ms . zhang said . although poorer interior provinces are less ready , computers are less widely used there , she said , and ''the impact wo n't be that great . '' hospitals and medical systems have lagged , she said , in part because they are not electronically integrated like banking , so that inspectors have to visit hospitals one at a time to check vital equipment . ms . zhang held out as a model shanghai no . 1 hospital , which has made enormous efforts to check machines with embedded chips and found that 7 to 8 percent required changes , she said . at the news conference , an official of the central_bank , chen jing , said extensive tests had all but eliminated problems in banking and securities . but banks have also made contingency_plans , mr . chen said , including preparations for manual clearing of transactions , if necessary . mr . chen said the central_bank planned to increase loans of cash to banks for the first three months of 2000 to head off public panic . ''the public should rest assured , '' he said , ''that no problem will occur in the supply of cash . ''",has a topic of technology
"a forthcoming government report concludes that the july 7 bombings in london were a low budget operation carried out by four men who had no connection to al_qaeda and who obtained all the information they needed from the internet , the observer reported sunday . according to the observer , which said it obtained a leaked copy of the report , the attacks were ''a simple and inexpensive plot'' organized and executed by four british suicide bombers intent on martyrdom . the bombings , which took place on three london subway trains and a bus on the morning of july 7 , 2005 , killed 56 people , including the four bombers , and wounded hundreds . a copycat attack by another group of men two weeks later failed when the would be bombers' explosives did not detonate . the observer said the report , compiled by a senior civil_servant on behalf of charles clarke , the home_secretary , discounts the theory that anyone else was involved in the july 7 attack . after the bombings , the police found the bombers' car parked and full of explosives at the luton train_station , giving rise to the suspicion that a fifth bomber was at_large . the four men mohammad sidique khan , hasib mir hussain , shehzad tanweer and germaine lindsay were inspired in part by mr . khan 's visits to pakistan , according to the observer 's account of the report , although , the paper said , his meetings with pakistani militants were ideological rather than logistical . the men used relatively low power explosives that they had built for just several hundred pounds , the observer reported , quoting a government official as saying that ''the london attacks were a modest , simple affair by four seemingly normal men using the internet . '' a spokeswoman for the home_office said the report would be released ' 'shortly . '' ''we never comment on leaked documents , '' she said .",has a topic of technology
"scores of chinese writers and intellectuals issued a petition protesting the closing of a moderate web forum , century china . it was closed by censors last week amid a government campaign to police the internet . operators of the forum , who refused an invitation by the authorities to voluntarily close the site , called the action ' 'simplistic and crude . '' howard w . french ( nyt )",has a topic of technology
"longstanding restrictions that bar the reporting of federal_election results from eastern districts while polls are still open in western time zones are constitutional , the supreme_court ruled in a 5 to 4 decision . rejecting an argument that the prohibition violated free_speech , the court said the temporary nature of the ban made it permissible . it upheld the conviction of paul bryan , a software developer in british_columbia , who posted vote tallies from atlantic canada in the 2000 election on a web_site while polls in his far western province were still open . he was fined 1 , 000 by a lower court . the rules were introduced in 1938 to cover radio broadcasts in the belief that voters in western time zones ( there are five time zones across canada ) might be influenced or even discouraged from voting by results from the eastern zones . ian_austen correction march 17 , 2007 , saturday because of an editing error , a report in the world briefing column yesterday about a decision by the supreme court of canada upholding restrictions that bar the reporting of federal_election results from eastern time zones while polls are still open in western time zones misstated the number of time zones in canada . it is six , not five .",has a topic of technology
"torsten schmale and christian wessel started inubit , their berlin based business_to_business software and services company , in december after their respective girlfriends decided that they had had enough of listening to them complain about their jobs . the women , who work together at another company , persuaded dr . schmale , who was bored with his job as a software developer for siemens , and mr . wessel , who was sick of his job as a consultant with roland berger partners , a management_consulting firm , to meet . they did , and quickly hit upon an idea for a technology platform that would enable business_to_business marketplaces . in doing so , they joined a wave of business_to_business start_ups in germany . ( after the business idea was hatched , the couples got married . ) the beginnings of germany 's internet start up revolution can be traced to june 1999 , when ebay purchased alando . de , a german online auction company , for 43 million . since then , the start up scene has accelerated , causing investor interest to shift from businesses selling to consumers to those servicing other businesses . the emerging business_to_business climate is healthy and likely to continue growing . indeed , forrester research , a market_research firm in cambridge , mass . , predicts that by 2004 , germany will lead europe with 26 percent of all e_commerce activity , followed by britain , with 18 percent . the business_to_business landscape in germany , however , will look different from its early stage counterpart in the united_states . a crucial difference is that in germany , corporate players are recognizing the importance of the business_to_business market almost in tandem with start_ups . daimlerchrysler , bayer , volkswagen and siemens are creating e_commerce marketplaces to procure goods or have plans to do so , and both sap and intershop communications are also interested in expanding into such commerce . ''big companies were faster in realizing the potential of business_to_business e_commerce in germany than in the u.s . , '' said reinhard edelmann , an investment manager with technologieholding , a berlin venture_capital_firm . one result , said thorsten wichmann , the chief executive of berlecon research , a research and analysis firm also in berlin , is that ''niche markets are where start_ups are coming in . '' inubit is focusing on european niche markets , along with other start_ups , including newtron . de , surplex . de and portum . de . ( the ' 'de'' stands for deutschland . ) inubit has built a business_to_business technology platform and is planning to join with established companies to create industry specific marketplaces . so far , inubit has one partner , the floramedia group , a horticulture company with a pan_european presence . even if big companies are quicker on the draw in germany , enough business_to_business start_ups have taken root in the last six months to spawn more than 100 online marketplaces , according to berlecon 's research . inubit , as is typical for a german business_to_business company , is fashioning itself as a european company one that needs to adapt to multiple countries , cultures and languages from the get go . ''we 're looking at the european market , which is like the worldwide market from an organizational perspective , it 's the same , '' mr . wessel explained . ''if you 're a b to b start up in germany , it does n't make sense to stay in the german market . we programmed our technology so that if someone comes in and says he 's from spain , he gets spanish content . '' this approach , according to mr . edelmann , of technologieholding , is what distinguishes european e_commerce ventures from american ones . ''we 're used to dealing with other cultures , '' he said , ''and americans are not . '' many american companies add multiple language abilities to their technology only after they stake a claim in the united_states market , mr . edelmann said , rather than integrating them from the start . multiple languages are just the beginning . ''the european market is not homogenous like the u.s . market , '' said patrick sheehan , the managing director for the united_states division of 3i group , a venture_capital_firm in london . ''there are quite different market conditions in each country . '' european companies have to take into account the different business processes , tax systems , cultures , market structures , labor laws and governments from country to country . ''to address your market you have to have a whole different set of business approaches , '' mr . wessel said . even the level of technological adoption which varies_widely from southern to northern_europe is an issue a european technology company must have different strategies for , say , wired sweden and analog spain . online overseas sally mcgrane is a technology writer living in san_francisco .",has a topic of technology
"for the past month , as china 's propaganda machine has promoted the nation 's new space hero or the latest pronouncements from communist_party leaders , the chinese public has seemed more interested in a 25 year old sex columnist whose beat is her own bedroom . ''i think my private life is very interesting , '' said the columnist , mu zimei , arching an eyebrow and tapping a marlboro light into an ashtray . she added ''i do not oppose love , but i oppose loyalty . if love has to be based on loyalty , i will not choose love . '' mu zimei is both reviled and admired , but she is not ignored . the country 's most popular internet site , sina . com , credits her with attracting 10 million daily visitors . another site , sohu . com , says mu zimei is the name most often typed into its internet search_engine , surpassing one occasional runner up , mao_zedong . her celebrity which exploded when she posted an explicit online account of her tryst with a chinese rock star first seemed to baffle government censors but now has drawn a familiar response . her forthcoming book was banned this week . she has quit her magazine columnist job and halted her blog , or online diary . yet at a time when ''sex and the city'' episodes are among the most popular dvd 's in china , the mu zimei phenomenon is another example of the government 's struggle to keep a grip on social_change in china . her writings have prompted a raging debate about sex and women on the internet , where more people are writing blogs or arguing anonymously about a host of subjects in chat_rooms and discussion pages . ''she does bring a huge impact on chinese society , '' said zeng fuhu , a top editor at sohu . com . such sweeping talk does not impress ms . mu as she sits in a bistro in this south_china boomtown . women at a nearby table try to eavesdrop as china 's scarlet lettered woman estimates that she has slept with about 70 men , and counting . she said she never realized her that online diary would be so widely discovered , or that it would grow into a national controversy . but she defended her right to sleep with as many men as she pleased and to write about it . ''if a man does this , '' she said , ''it 's no big deal . but as a woman doing so , i draw lots of criticism . '' sex , and governmental anxiety about it , is not a new issue in china . in january 1994 , the government banned ''the abandoned capital , '' a sexually_explicit , best selling novel by an acclaimed author , jia pingwa . then in may 2000 , censors banned another sex soaked best seller , ''shanghai baby , '' by zhou weihui . but ms . mu 's case is notable because her most controversial work appeared on the internet . mu zimei ( pronounced moo zuh may ) is the pen name of li li , who began working in 2001 as a feature writer at city pictorial , a glossy magazine covering fashion and social trends . at the end of 2002 , editors overhauled the magazine and decided they wanted a sex columnist who could write about ' 'real life'' issues . ms . mu said she was chosen because editors knew she was familiar with the subject . her first sexual experience on april 30 , 1999 , she noted ended with an abortion and left her wary of the opposite sex . she followed that with a ''pretty normal boyfriend'' before concluding she was not a one man woman . ''personally , i felt i was suitable for temporary relationships , '' she said . her biweekly column in city pictorial began in january . her topics included recommendations on the best music for good lovemaking , the aphrodisiacal benefits of eating oysters and technical pointers on making love in a car . it was racy stuff for china , but hardly without precedent . what changed everything was her decision in april to start her own online blog at a new chinese site for personal diaries . she said she thought it would be fun . while writing her magazine column , she had hopped from man to man , sometimes hopping to two men at once , sometimes hopping to married men . her topics , though , remained more thematic than explicit . but in her online diary , she began writing explicitly about those encounters , or those of her friends , and on july 26 described her brief and apparently unsatisfying liaison outside a restaurant with a famous guitarist in a guangzhou rock_band . the entry was posted at a popular online discussion board , spread among china 's ''netizens'' like wildfire and was quickly picked up in the gossipy newspapers that feed china 's growing celebrity culture . eventually , she was featured in china 's edition of cosmopolitan magazine . in beijing , editors at sina . com and sohu . com also noticed . an estimated 68 million people surf the internet in china , with annual growth rates approaching 30 percent . internet users tend to be china 's most affluent and better educated citizens , and though government censors block certain web_sites , the amount of information available online is enormous . it is also a growing and fiercely competitive business . by early november , sina . com had bought the serialization rights to ms . mu 's book , a compilation of her magazine columns , poems and some diary entries . ( the diary entries included in the book are not explicit , ms . mu said . ) beginning nov . 11 , sina . com used its home page to promote the serialization , along with photographs and interviews with the author . the response was stunning . sina . com normally attracts 20 million visitors a day . company officials say that number immediately jumped to 30 million and stayed there for 10 days . she also became a hot_topic of debate in different internet chat_rooms and discussion sites . was she an amoral hussy peddling pornography ? or was she a liberated woman ? ''the most loathsome person in the world is not the woman who writes exotic words , but those sanctimonious men ! '' wrote one contributor to a discussion page . ''i despise mu zimei ! '' one critic countered . another added , ''this kind of diary will only serve as an excuse for more people who want to live a wild sexual life . '' sociologists weighed in , pro and con . a sina . com poll of more than 30 , 000 people found respondents about equally split . for months , the government had remained a bystander . but on nov . 16 , the state run beijing evening news strongly criticized ms . mu and accused sina . com of wrongly promoting her to attract more visitors . ''the blind pursuit after this kind of phenomenon , '' the newspaper stated , ''will mislead people into thinking that the government authorities over news are turning blind to this . '' sina . com quickly minimized , though did not remove , its promotion of ms . mu . ''when we saw the beijing evening news , we realized we might have gone too far , '' said chen tong , sina . com 's editor_in_chief . ''so we pulled back . '' sohu . com 's editors initially held worried meetings about sina . com 's popular serialization . but a day after the beijing evening news article , the sohu . com editors , citing the need for internet sites to maintain content standards , published their own criticism about ms . mu . asked if the sohu article was an attempt to undercut sina 's star attraction , mr . zeng responded , ''it had nothing to do with sina . '' ms . mu does not regard herself as peddling smut . she said her generation of chinese grew up with little or no sex_education . ''some learned it from videos , '' she said . ''why not from words ? '' the government has other ideas , it seems . the decision to ban her book was reported in the state run media on friday . ms . mu confirmed the ban . online booksellers , who had been swamped with purchase requests , said government officials ordered them not to sell the book , which had been scheduled to go on the market this week . in an effort to defuse the controversy , ms . mu said she quit her columnist job in early november and voluntarily shut down her web_site . she said she had other offers and hoped to continue writing , assuming the government does not ban her writing altogether . she also said the controversy had cramped her social life she has , she said , been celibate for two weeks .",has a topic of technology
"by the late afternoon , most of the major world_wide_web news sites were no longer able to resist the struggle for life unfolding at the bottom of the barents sea . while cable news channels continued to feature drama free images from the democratic_national_convention , on the internet the news from the stricken russian submarine had taken the lead position on the cbs , msnbc , fox_news and cnn sites . ''no signs of life'' was the fox site 's headline . of the major network sites , only abc continued to cling to the convention as its lead item , offering the insight that , yes , now is the time for vice_president al_gore and senator joseph i . lieberman of connecticut to introduce themselves to the american people . as john tyson , one of the vice_president 's college roommates , described it to msnbc this evening , the final two days of the convention will provide ''a good strong dose of al_gore . '' that was the theme emphasized on every single one of the web_sites and by the cable anchors . most often , it quickly led to the unanswerable question of whether mr . gore would be able to rise to the occasion and make himself appear sufficiently presidential to improve his poll numbers . bring on the pundits ! by evening , some of the sites ( fox and cbs ) had finally come around to leading with their own lieberman pieces . but the general lack of drama in los_angeles was perhaps best exemplified by cnn 's extensive coverage of the arrival of mr . gore 's jet at burbank airport . for what seemed like hours , air_force two taxied down the runway and then sat on the tarmac , the camera focused on the dark , gaping doorway , waiting for someone , anyone , to emerge . two weeks of trying to watch first the republican and then the democratic national conventions by flipping back and forth between cable and broadcast channels and surfing the web have shown how the widely lamented absence of news at the conventions has often led news organizations to a near crippling dependency on commentary to fill the dead air . when news actually did break , like the clash between the police and protesters on monday_night outside the convention_hall , the tendency of most of the channels was to show a few quick images and then to ask the commentators , who had no idea what was actually happening , what they thought the clash meant . the web , while promising a greater degree of immediacy and immersion for convention junkies , most often turned out to be little more than electronic journals , closer to what might be found in a weekly magazine than on a live_television report . many sites tried to make their points by adding little games and puzzles and quizzes and some of these were actually not half bad . msnbc , for instance , had something called electoral chess in which an internet user could predict which states each presidential_candidate might win in november and see if it would be enough to get their candidate the presidency . democracy now had a protesters' version of monopoly in which users were offered the chance to ''buy a politician today ! '' donors offering hefty contributions were greeted with messages like ''welcome to the white_house . thank you for your donations . you may drop by anytime you want ! '' david carr , writing on inside . com , had fun predicting how the major news outlets would cover the democratic_convention , day by day . today 's reports , he predicted , would center on the vice_president 's efforts to finish writing his acceptance_speech . ''every one of the major papers in america will buy into the transparent canard that gore a man who does push polling on his choice of neckwear is working the speech all by his lonesome , revising draft after draft deep into the night , '' mr . carr wrote . and the chats continued . abc 's sam donaldson , who has taken to the web with an eager beaverness second to none , has chatted incessantly every night of both conventions . when his guest harry thomason , the hollywood producer and pal of president_clinton , asked mr . donaldson how many people were actually out there listening to them jabber , mr . donaldson had to admit that he did n't really know , but it was far , far fewer than were watching the networks . it did n't matter , though , mr . donaldson said . ''we are the acorn and from this acorn will grow a mighty oak , '' he said . the democrats on the web political surfing",has a topic of technology
"french investigators are looking into a statement on an islamist web_site that claimed responsibility for an arson attack on sunday on a jewish center in paris , though they are skeptical that the claims are true . the statement , purporting to be from a previously unknown group called jamaat ansar al jihad , said its members set fire to the center ''in retaliation for the racist acts carried out by the jews in france against islam and muslims , and acts of defiling muslims' cemeteries . '' muslims have also been the targets of racist acts in recent months . craig s . smith ( nyt )",has a topic of technology
"chinese authorities have announced their intention to step up their efforts to police and control the internet and other communications technologies , including instant_messaging and cellphones . speaking at a conference in beijing last wednesday , cai wu , director of the powerful information office of the state council , or china 's cabinet , said new control measures were needed ''because more and more harmful information is being circulated online . '' another senior official who spoke at the same meeting , wang xudong , deputy minister of the information industry , said his ministry 's next target would be developing technologies to regulate web_logs and search engines . the potential new regulations , which are still in the discussion stage , are being considered at a time of exploding internet and cellphone use that has created the freest atmosphere of communication this country has known under communist rule , despite strenuous government efforts to contain it . the measures contemplated reportedly include mandatory user registration for cellphones , according to reports from the conference . now , users can easily buy cellphone cards in stores , obtaining a new telephone_number without identifying themselves . web_sites , too , might be subject to registration . the government 's statement of intent is being seen as the beginning of its most ambitious effort yet to rein in high tech communication . analysts said the measures , introduced after a proposal to make the news_media 's unauthorized publication of ' 'sudden events'' a punishable offense , indicate an atmosphere of worry within the government about its ability to maintain power . ''of course we do n't want the government to do this , '' said zhan jiang , a professor at the china youth university of political_science . ''it is related to the earlier announcement about breaking_news , and it seems the government is trying to assert more and more control . '' isaac mao , a popular chinese blogger , said ''the government has found their political lives under pressure from the media , and they 've decided they have to strengthen their power . they are working on a variety of measures , which they will deploy one by one in order to reach their big goal , which is to take full control of things . they do n't want people to have any power . that 's the big goal of the government . '' according to the media blue book , a publication of tsinghua_university in beijing , china now has 36 . 8 million chinese blog sites and 16 million bloggers . according to a company called i research , china has 97 . 1 million search_engine users . invoking these numbers , mr . cai of the information office of the state councilsaid at the meeting , the sunlight and green internet conference , ''how could we not regulate such a huge market ? '' it is clear that chinese authorities see search engines as an important choke point for information on the internet , and they have won controversial agreements from microsoft , google and yahoo to filter the search_engine services they offer in china , screening out words the chinese authorities deem troublesome . the arrangements have received widespread criticism outside china , and among bloggers within the country as well . google executives have expressed discomfort with the filtering agreement . whether used for conversations or short messaging , cellphones have played a major role in the wave of social_unrest that has swept china in the past two years , allowing people to organize quickly and to spread news of police actions and other developments . the anonymous use of cellphones is a major loophole in the state 's effort to monitor communications of all kinds , and the authorities seem determined to close it . the rumors of new regulation have brought outrage from many internet users here . ''this free and beautiful kingdom created by bloggers finally has to face its anticipated cleansing , '' wrote a blogger whose online name is zheng . ''in the remote north , in that ancient city which is shrouded by yellow sand and dust , a force has gathered to begin the invasion of the homeland of bloggers , '' the blog continued , apparently referring to beijing . others , however , say efforts to require registration of blogs and web_sites have been announced in the past but have never gone very far , and they express confidence that technology will allow them to stay one step ahead of the censors . some are already exchanging tips online about how to frustrate the latest government efforts . ''i have noted the lifespan of new forms on the internet here has been about one or two years , '' said wang yi , a law professor at chengdu university and a prominent blogger . ''bulletin_boards were very free , and after one or two years , they were restricted . then we saw the emergence of personal web_sites , and after one or two years they were restricted . then we had blogs . after a year or two , they moved to restrict them , too . ''i think the internet in china will always find a way forward , because of technology and other factors . i am actually very optimistic . ''",has a topic of technology
"a british internet_service_provider has agreed to pay a substantial sum to a physicist who says he was libeled in messages posted on electronic bulletin_boards carried by the company , in a move that lawyers fear will severely curtail people 's ability to speak freely in cyberspace . the company , demon internet , said on thursday that it would pay about 25 , 000 in damages to the physicist , laurence godfrey , as well as mr . godfrey 's court costs , which are likely to come to several hundred thousand dollars . the case stems from a message posted in january 1997 that was ' 'squalid , obscene and defamatory , '' mr . godfrey said , and another message a year later that mr . godfrey also described as defamatory . demon 's decision to settle the case , in the face of mounting evidence that it would not have won in court , is significant , lawyers said , because it establishes that british internet_service_providers companies that provide access to the internet are liable for the messages posted on the forums they carry , regardless of where the messages originate . and although it does not require internet_service_providers here to screen messages in advance , it does mean that they will be obligated to respond quickly to complaints about messages , and remove those that might be libelous . ''this is going to have a chilling_effect on free_speech , '' said adam taylor , head of the e_commerce and technology group at withers , a law_firm in london . ''as a result of this settlement , internet_service_providers are going to be very nervous . when anybody makes the slightest complaint about anything , they 're going to be pulling material down . if they do n't , they leave themselves liable to the kind of defamatory actions taken in this case . '' it is unclear what implications the settlement will have for companies based in the united_states , where internet_service_providers are held to be no more liable for the messages posted on them than the post_office is for the contents of letters it delivers , or a telephone company for conversations it carries . first amendment lawyers said that american companies would probably be at risk only if they had physical assets like office buildings in britain . ''the short answer is that this will have no effect because the law in the united_states is very different in that the internet_service_providers have as close to absolute immunity as you can get , '' said steven lieberman , a partner specializing in first amendment law at the washington firm of rothwell , figg , ernst kurz . ''but it gets more complicated when you realize that messages posted by u.s . based internet_service_providers can be read outside of the u.s. , that a reader in the u.k . can have access to something you post in the u.s . '' but mark stephens , a media lawyer at the london firm of finers stephens innocent , said that in a medium with no national borders , the settlement had important global implications . ''this brings the real prospect of internet_service_providers , wherever they 're located in the world , and whether or not they 're protected by the free_speech guarantees of the bill of rights in america , being dealt with harshly , robustly and expensively in the british courts , '' mr . stephens said . mr . stephens said that the service_providers would be particularly vulnerable to threats from the rich and litigious . ''it 's open season , '' he said . ''this exposes internet companies to the ability on the part of the rich and powerful to censor them . if you 're rich and powerful , you could sue the internet company to take something off the internet edition of an american newspaper , because you know they 're going to censor the newspaper even if the newspaper does n't censor itself . '' it was on jan . 12 , 1997 , that the first message at issue in the case appeared , as part of the discussion in a news group carried by demon 's news servers . news groups are freewheeling discussion groups on every imaginable subject , whose subscribers can post messages as they would on a bulletin_board , to be read and commented on by others . they are one of the original services provided by the internet and are precious forums for those who regard the internet as the final frontier of free_speech . discussions can be extremely heated , and not infrequently descend into personal attacks . posted in the united_states on the soc . culture . thai news group , which is devoted to discussions about thailand , the message was said to have made rude and offensive allusions to mr . godfrey 's personal life and purported to have come from mr . godfrey himself , although it was actually a forgery . the message was posted in the news group only for about two weeks , following standard procedure . mr . godfrey was extremely upset about the message , and in a series of faxes asked demon to remove it from the news group . when the company failed to do so , he sued . he sued again the following july , when another posting , on the uk . legal news group , made further rude remarks about him . he did not sue the people who posted the messages . mr . godfrey 's solicitor , nick braithwaite , did not return several telephone calls today , and the exact substance of the remarks made against mr . godfrey remained unclear . he is no stranger to libel actions . in 1994 a fellow physicist , philip hallam baker , agreed to pay mr . godfrey an unspecified amount in damages after mr . godfrey sued for libel in connection with a number of internet postings raising doubts about his professional competence . that made mr . godfrey , a familiar figure in various news groups , decidely unpopular with the internet 's free_speech champions , who then began posting further provocative messages about him , calling him a pedophile and a necrophile , among other things . mr . godfrey responded with further lawsuits against the people posting the messages . more than half a dozen of them settled , for amounts in the 15 , 000 range . british libel law is much more weighted to plaintiffs than the libel law in america , and demon had almost no choice but to settle this case . in an interim ruling last year , a judge in britain 's high_court ruled that the company could not rely on a defense claiming that it was merely an innocent disseminator of the defamatory messages , as it had sought to do . that defense , the judge said , ''is in law hopeless , '' and demon should be treated as the publisher of the material . demon decided not to appeal that ruling , and ultimately decided it had little chance of prevailing in court . mr . godfrey said he was pleased with the outcome . ''i 'm quite sure there is no right to libel other people on the internet , to concoct fabricated allegations and try to destroy people 's reputations , '' he said outside court yesterday . a spokeswoman for demon , which is now owned by thus , a telecom and internet company in glasgow , said it was striving to comply with the law requiring it to respond to complaints by removing offending messages from its news groups . but she said it was impossible for the company to monitor all the postings it carries , which total more than a million a day , enough to fill all the books in a bookshelf nearly a mile long . ''thus remains convinced that the law has not kept pace with the development of the internet , '' the spokeswoman said . while the company now routinely removes material that is ''unsuitable or defamatory , '' she said , ''it is contrary to common_sense to make internet_service_providers responsible for the millions of items carried on the internet . ''",has a topic of technology
"american intelligence agencies and presidential commissions long ago concluded that saddam_hussein had no unconventional_weapons and no substantive ties to al_qaeda before the 2003 invasion . but now , an unusual experiment in public_access is giving anyone with a computer a chance to play intelligence analyst and second guess the government . under pressure from congressional republicans , the director_of_national_intelligence has begun a yearlong process of posting on the web 48 , 000 boxes of arabic_language iraqi documents captured by american_troops . less than two weeks into the project , and with only 600 out of possibly a million documents and video and audio files posted , some conservative bloggers are already asserting that the material undermines the official view . on his blog last week , ray robison , a former army officer from alabama , quoted a document reporting a supposed scheme to put anthrax into american leaflets dropped in iraq and declared ''saddam 's w.m.d . and terrorist connections all proven in one document ! ! ! '' not so , american intelligence officials say . ''our view is there 's nothing in here that changes what we know today , '' said a senior intelligence official , who would discuss the program only on condition of anonymity because the director_of_national_intelligence , john d . negroponte , directed his staff to avoid public debates over the documents . ''there is no smoking_gun on w.m.d. , al_qaeda , those kinds of issues . '' all the documents , which are available on fmso . leavenworth . army . mil products docex . htm , have received at least a quick review by arabic linguists and do not alter the government 's official stance , officials say . on some tapes already released , in fact , mr . hussein expressed frustration that he did not have unconventional_weapons . intelligence officials had serious concerns about turning loose an army of amateurs on a warehouse full of raw documents that include hearsay , disinformation and forgery . mr . negroponte 's office attached a disclaimer to the documents , only a few of which have been translated into english , saying the government did not vouch for their authenticity . another administration official described the political logic ''if anyone in the intelligence_community thought there was valid information in those documents that supported either of those questions w.m.d . or al_qaeda they would have shouted them from the rooftops . '' but representative peter hoekstra , the michigan republican who is chairman of the house intelligence committee and who led the campaign to get the documents released , does not believe they have received adequate scrutiny . mr . hoekstra said he wanted to ''unleash the power of the net'' to do translation and analysis that might take the government decades . ''people today ought to be able to have a closer look inside saddam 's regime , '' he said . mr . hoekstra said intelligence officials had resisted posting the documents , which he overcame by appealing to president_bush and by proposing legislation to force the release . the timing gives the documents a potent political charge . public doubts about the war have driven mr . bush 's approval rating to new lows . a renewed debate over saddam_hussein 's weapons and terrorist ties could raise the president 's standing . ''as an historian , i 'm glad to have the material out there , '' said john prados , who has written books on national_security , including one that accuses the administration of distorting prewar_intelligence . he said the records were likely to shed new light on the iraqi dictatorship . some of the documents , also included in a new study by the united_states military , already have caused a stir by suggesting that russian officials passed american war plans to mr . hussein 's government as the invasion began . but mr . prados said the document release ''ca n't be divorced from the political context . '' ''the administration is under fire for going to war when there was no threat so the idea here must be to say there was a threat , '' he said . that is already the assertion of a growing crowd of bloggers and translators , almost exclusively on the right . so far they have highlighted documents that refer to a meeting between osama_bin_laden and an iraqi intelligence officer in sudan in 1995 a plan to train arab militants as suicide bombers and a 1997 document discussing the use of ' 'special ammunition , '' chemical_weapons , against the kurds . but the anthrax document that intrigued mr . robison , the alabama blogger , does not seem to prove much . it is a message from the quds army , a regional militia created by mr . hussein , to iraqi military_intelligence that passes on reports picked up by troops , possibly from the radio , since the information is labeled ''open source'' and ''impaired broadcast . '' no anthrax was found in iraq by american search teams . ''no offense , but the mainstream media tells people what they want them to know , '' said mr . robison , who worked in qatar for the iraq_survey_group , which did an exhaustive search for weapons in iraq . the document release may help the president , he said , but that is not the point . ''it 's not about politics , '' mr . robison said . ''it 's about the truth . '' the truth about prewar iraq has proven elusive . the february 2003 presentation colin l . powell , the secretary of state at the time , to the united_nations appeared to provide incontrovertible proof of iraqi weapons , but the claims in the speech have since been discredited . given that track record , some intelligence analysts are horrified at exactly the idea that excites mr . hoekstra and the bloggers that anyone will now be able to interpret the documents . ''there 's no quality_control , '' said michael scheuer , a former central_intelligence_agency specialist on terrorism . ''you 'll have guys out there with a smattering of arabic drawing all kinds of crazy conclusions . rush_limbaugh will cherry pick from the right , and al franken will cherry pick from the left . '' conservative publications have pushed for months to have the documents made public . in november , mr . hoekstra and senator pat_roberts of kansas , chairman of the senate_intelligence_committee , asked mr . negroponte to post the material . when that request stalled , mr . hoekstra introduced a bill on march 3 that would have forced the posting . mr . negroponte began the release two weeks later . under the program , documents are withheld only if they include information like the names of iraqis raped by the secret_police , instructions for using explosives , intelligence sources or ' 'diplomatically sensitive'' material . in addition , the intelligence official said , known forgeries are not posted . he said the database included ''a fair amount of forgeries , '' sold by iraqi hustlers or concocted by iraqis opposed to mr . hussein . in previous internet projects , volunteers have tested software , scanned chemical compounds for useful drugs and even searched radiotelescope data for signals from extraterrestrial life . the same volunteer spirit , though with a distinct political twist , motivates the arabic speakers who are posting english versions of the iraqi documents . ''i 'm trying to pick up documents that shed light on the political debate , '' said joseph g . shahda , 34 , a lebanese born engineer who lives in a boston suburb and is spending hours every evening on translations for the conservative free republic site . ''i think we prematurely concluded there was no w.m.d . and no ties to al_qaeda . '' mr . shahda said he was proud he could help make the documents public . ''i live in this great country , and it 's a time of war , '' he said . ''this is the least i can do . ''",has a topic of technology
"stanislav baranov sat in the computer filled trading room at rossiisky kredit bank , barely able to contain his glee . he had made a big investment in almazy rossii sakha , russia 's biggest diamond mining company , at a time when its outlook was shaky . now , less than six months later , people were clamoring to buy him out at a big profit . ''i 'm holding it , '' he said with a roguish trader 's grin . ''we 're not selling until it becomes worth more . '' victories like this are the bread of life for securities traders on wall_street except that mr . baranov does n't invest in stocks or bonds . he trades in unpaid_bills . hundreds of millions of dollars in unpaid , overdue bills . he is not alone . russia 's mountain of overdue debt has spawned one of the biggest and strangest developments yet on this country 's rocky road to capitalism a 15 billion market in i.o.u . 's . known here as ' 'veksels , '' many are redeemable for cash , as the diamond company 's are . others are good for oil , electricity , tires , chemicals or cement . whatever their form , the use of veksels has exploded in the last year . companies issue them to pay their suppliers , which barter them for other goods or resell them to speculators for cash . banks and brokerage companies trade more than 100 million worth of them each month , and post prices for them on the internet . even a few american investors are snapping them up , viewing them as a russian variant on american high yield junk_bonds . the trade in veksels is a very primitive version of a corporate_bond market , though one that is largely unregulated and often informal . in some cases it is similar to the practice in the united_states of bundling mortgages , car loans or even troubled loans from distressed companies into securities that are sold to investors . in many respects , swapping veksels is the financial equivalent of keeping the mir_space_station in orbit . overdue bills in business have tripled in the last two years , to 123 billion equal to more than one quarter of the country 's annual economic output , the russian government estimates . unpaid_bills pervade russian life . companies cannot pay their suppliers suppliers cannot pay their workers workers cannot pay their utility bills or their rent , and almost everybody holds back on paying taxes . the vicious_cycle of nonpayment has become particularly acute in the last 18 months , thanks largely to the russian central_bank 's get tough policies on fighting inflation . those policies abruptly choked off the money_supply and brought inflation below 15 percent , from more than 200 percent in 1994 . but the other result is that people literally do not have any money . many other countries have endured similar travails , and some have also resorted to high level bartering as a solution . indeed , the word veksel is a borrowing of the german ''wechsel , '' for ''exchange . '' germany resorted to i.o.u . 's for a brief period after world_war_ii . several other former soviet republics are using them today , and mexican banks have developed something similar as well . but few have responded on as large a scale and with such sophistication as russia , blending the swagger of chicago commodities traders , internet technology and the hand to mouth survival schemes of companies in daily danger of collapse . typically , a company issues i.o.u . 's to its suppliers instead of paying cash . the suppliers can then either hold the i.o . u 's and wait for them to be paid by an agreed upon date , or try to cash them in immediately by selling them or exchanging them at a discount from their face value . the bigger the discount and they can be substantial the greater the risk that the i.o.u . will not be paid off on time or at all . the market is a fragile one built on the idea that the securities will either be held or continue to be transferred . consider the case of gazprom , the company that distributes natural_gas across russia as well as to much of western_europe . gazprom is one of russia 's strongest companies , one whose shares and i.o.u . 's are heavily traded around the country . like many other companies , gazprom is caught in the middle of russia 's nonpayments crisis . moscow 's electric_utility , mosenergo , owes the company about three trillion_rubles , or 512 million . mosenergo 's problem is that the moscow city government , which subsidizes residential electric bills , owes it two trillion_rubles , or 342 million . part of the government 's problem , in turn , is that neither businesses nor residents are paying their taxes . enter veksels . gazprom has issued its suppliers about 170 million worth of i.o.u . 's , which are redeemable primarily for natural_gas . because gazprom is big and credible , brokers say that its i.o.u . 's are always in popular demand among both investors and companies looking for natural_gas . in fact , many gazprom veksels ultimately end up in the hands of its debtors , who use them to offset their own overdue bills . whether the i.o.u . 's get swapped for natural_gas or for money , they are valuable . analysts at renaissance capital group , a moscow based investment firm , calculate that gazprom veksels yield a profit of roughly 25 percent a year . conventional government_bonds in russia yield about 18 percent a year . but investors with cast_iron stomachs say the returns on less familiar companies can climb to more than 65 percent . that was the case with almazy rossii sakha , the government owned producer of nearly one third of the world 's crude diamonds . almazy and the russian government had been close to cementing a lucrative contract with the de beers , the south_african diamond producer . but the two sides have been haggling for more than a year , which left almazy almost drained of cash . so the company has issued more than 100 million in i.o.u . 's , many of them due to be paid in cash in 1998 . now almazy i.o.u . 's are suddenly hot so hot they are almost impossible to buy . the reason almazy and de beers plan to sign a final contract later this month . as a result , the i.o.u . 's are now likely to be paid off on time , so their value has nearly doubled since last year . people who bought almazy i.o.u . 's early are now likely to make a profit of 65 percent at the time of payoff , according to renaissance capital group , a moscow based investment firm . numbers like that are attracting serious foreign investors , including americans . ''this is the first stage toward developing a corporate_bond market , '' said kyle brandon , a partner at orion capital advisors , an investment fund here that focuses on russian securities and began buying i.o.u . 's a few months ago . what is the lure ? ''sixty five percent returns , '' said ms . brandon bluntly . but the risks can be huge . the international_monetary_fund has been critical of veksels , saying they distort the true indebtedness of the country and the companies , and give companies a way to avoid taxes as the profit on i.o.u . 's is generated almost entirely outside the official economy and is generally not taxed . the i.o.u . 's are also notoriously intricate , each tied to the bill paying problems of a particular company and many loaded with quirky conditions . many i.o.u . 's never even trade in the open market , and are simply swapped between companies that regularly do business . some electric_utilities and power_plants coordinate their unpaid_bills . kursk atomic power_station , a government owned nuclear_plant , has been left with millions in unpaid_bills by local electric_utilities across central russia . so instead of promising to pay off its suppliers itself , kursk atomic pays off its own bills with i.o.u . 's that companies can redeem in the form of electricity at local utilities that owe kursk atomic money . ''you can talk about these things for weeks and never get a thing done , '' laughed mr . baranov , who heads rossiisky kredit 's veksel trading operation . though all i.o.u . 's are theoretically redeemable for cash at some date in the future , many of them end up as means of facilitating bartering . krasnoyarsk tire company in siberia now relies on i.o.u . 's and bartering for almost all transactions . ''only 3 to 5 percent of the money flow of the company is carried out in cash , '' said sergei chirkasov , who heads krasnoyarsk tire 's i.o.u . activities . over the last 18 months , he said , the company has more than doubled its use of i.o.u . 's . it plans to use them to pay its workers' wages . because krasnoyarsk i.o.u . 's are generally redeemable only for tires , they are transformed into money through the alchemy of trading . the chain can take the i.o.u . 's across the country and back . krasnoyarsk , for example , uses tire i.o.u . 's to buy raw_materials from rosshina , a moscow company . rosshina exchanges them for electricity with a siberian electric company called tyumenenergo , part of russia 's nationwide power distributor , unified_energy systems . the electric company then trades some of the tire vouchers with gazprom , to which it owes money for raw fuel . at some point , the tire i.o.u . 's end up in the hands of a company that takes them back to krasnoyarsk tire and uses them to buy tires . serious investors say they usually trade only in i.o.u . 's redeemable for cash . many big issuers of i.o.u . 's are banks , which sell their own to raise short term capital for lending . but even those can be enormously risky . in july 1996 , a moscow bank called tveruniversalbank abruptly went bankrupt because it had issued far more i.o.u . 's than it could afford to pay off . when it collapsed , it left about 160 million in obligations . earlier this month , the daily izvestia reported that counterfeiters in the russian far east had begun selling fake i.o.u . 's . the paper said the swindlers had produced convincing copies of i.o.u . 's issued by sberbank , one of russia 's biggest banks , and were planning to sell more than 40 million worth . the gang , which included defense ministry workers , was caught when sberbank officials spotted early forgeries . hoping to avoid further catastrophes , the russian central_bank has clamped down on the volume of i.o.u . 's that banks can issue . meanwhile , companies that issue i.o.u . 's have formed a self regulatory organization called auver , which has created more formal ground rules and is trying to develop a system like those used to trade stocks and bonds . many experts predict that i.o.u . 's will fade into disuse as russia 's economy becomes more stable and as companies learn to borrow money in more conventional ways , by getting bank loans or by selling bonds . but that may take years . until then , or until another scandal erupts , veksels are moving full speed ahead .",has a topic of technology
"lead a two year old state financed computer system intended to increase efficiency and standardize procedures in the state 's overburdened municipal court system has enabled courts to collect fines and process traffic summonses far more quickly than ever before , court officers and state officials say . a two year old state financed computer system intended to increase efficiency and standardize procedures in the state 's overburdened municipal court system has enabled courts to collect fines and process traffic summonses far more quickly than ever before , court officers and state officials say . as a result , many motorists who may have ''forgotten'' to pay even one parking ticket are now promptly receiving notices from the court informing them that their driving privileges are about to be indefinitely suspended . the prompt notices would have been impossible with the manual system used in many courts before the installation of the computer , court clerks say . ''the automated traffic system has exceeded every goal and expectation that we had set for it , '' said dennis l . bliss , an assistant_director at the administrative office of the courts . the system is now in use in 104 of the state 's 535 municipal courts , and ''we are committed to having every municipal court in the state on the system by dec . 31 , 1991 , '' mr . bliss added . the system directly connects municipal courts to a central computer in trenton , tracks every traffic and parking ticket issued in participating municipalities and then automatically sends notices to motorists if a ticket has not been paid . but as the system is being praised by those who use it , some court administrators who have already computerized their offices are now trying to persuade state officials to allow them to connect their existing computers , which they say are more sophisticated , to the state network . in addition , state budget officials say , financing to expand the program may be unavailable unless new legislation is passed or funds are provided . this concern comes while municipalities are struggling to generate revenue from sources other than property_taxes , municipal court personnel are swamped with an increasing number of criminal and traffic cases , and harsh penalties for second violations of some motor_vehicle statutes require judges to have ready access to a motorist 's driving record . the state 's local courts are responsible for adjudicating cases in which the maximum penalty does not exceed six months in jail and for processing the thousands of moving violations and parking tickets issued daily by local , county and state police . with the increasing number of criminal cases , many courts are backlogged with hundreds of thousands of parking tickets that have to be physically stored , individually sorted and followed up . the longer it takes for those tickets to be processed , officials have found , the less chance there is that the fines they carry will ever be paid a potential loss of millions of dollars in revenue . ''we have 200 , 000 tickets that have not been paid , '' said marian rowland , court administrator for hoboken . ''some probably never will . '' the automated traffic system should be available in hoboken within a year , mrs . rowland said . and while that would not necessarily relieve the court 's current backlog only new tickets are entered into the system it should prevent another backlog from developing . ''it will be better for us and it will be better for the defendants , '' mrs . rowland said , ''because court records will always be up to date . it seems to me to be the best possible system for all the state 's courts to be on . '' that sentiment is shared by most court personnel who now use the system . ''i think it 's fantastic , '' said clara williams , north_bergen 's court administrator . ''and as good as it is , i think it 's even going to get better . they are constantly upgrading and fine_tuning the system . '' the north_bergen municipal court handles almost 50 , 000 motor_vehicle summonses a year , ms . williams said , along with thousands of minor criminal cases . ''with this system you have to do things right , '' she said . ''you ca n't bypass things . and if a violations bureau is doing everything it 's supposed to do , it will generate revenue as a side effect . '' although a municipal court is not expected to turn a profit , officials say , no one has yet complained when a local court not only pays for itself but also contributes substantially to the municipal treasury . ''we have found , '' mr . bliss said , ''that a.t.s . has increased the aggregate revenues of 20 municipal courts that have been on the system for at least a year by 1 . 94 million , or an average of 19 . 5 percent per court . '' 43 million instructions a second the heart of the automated system is a mainframe computer in the richard j . hughes justice building in trenton . the computer , which is connected to terminals in municipal courts throughout the state , can process 43 million instructions a second and store 100 billion characters of data . by the end of 1991 , mr . bliss said , every municipal court will be tied into the network and every judge will have almost instant access to a defendant 's driving record for sentencing purposes . court personnel will be able to enter and retrieve information from consoles in the courtroom and immediately record the disposition of any matter being handled by the court . ''as the judge is saying 'guilty , ' the clerk is keying it into the system , '' mr . bliss said . as a result , he said , there will be an ''instantaneous , complete exchange of information'' between the courts , the police and the division of motor_vehicles . notwithstanding the praise the system has earned from participating courts , some court clerks would prefer to retain their own computers and programs and simply connect to the mainframe . 'we 're pushing for coexistance' ''we 're pushing for coexistence of our system with theirs , '' said ann o'connor , the rockaway township court administrator and an officer of the statewide municipal court clerks association . when the automated system was introduced , mrs . o'connor said , the clerks association initially called the system ''cumbersome and archaic in its design . '' ''they have improved things since that time , '' mrs . o'connor said , by changing some of the software and procedures . the court clerks organization , however , is still hoping to persuade the administrative office of the courts to allow courts with their own systems , many of them expensive , to tie in with the state 's computer . ''since computer systems can talk to each other , '' mrs . o'connor said , ''we will certainly hold out for that . '' rockaway township and 24 other municipalities in the state now use a system called tac pac that many users say is ' 'more sophisticated'' than the state 's system . 'put us out of business' mr . bliss said that the possibility of ''coexistence'' with existing municipal computer systems has not been fully investigated by the administrative office of the courts . it is more important at this time , he said , to concentrate on courts that are still processing tickets manually . ''they have , in effect , put us out of business , '' said gary ober , president of megg associates inc . , the richmond based company that markets the tac pac system . he said that in addition to 25 current subscribers , his company had ''60 active clients that were going to purchase our system . '' ''five months after the administrative office of the courts came out with a.t.s . , '' he said , ''we had none . they completely shut down the commercial market in new jersey . '' in contrast to private computer companies , the administrative office of the courts has been charging nothing to install the system , mr . bliss said . the state , he said , provides all the hardware , software , installation costs and training at no expense to a town . the only thing the local court has to provide is an acceptable environment for the equipment , the staff to operate it and the telephone service necessary to communicate with the mainframe in trenton . newark awaits installation at larger courts like those in newark and jersey_city , installation of the system and its increased revenue collection are anxiously awaited . ''we 're scheduled to be on by mid february , '' said robert m . strand , court administrator for newark . ''we issue 400 , 000 summonses a year . a.t.s . should be able to give us a jump and get these tickets paid on a more efficient basis . '' the money saved and the income produced by the program , officials say , can be substantial . in east_orange , for example , where the system was installed in august , it had been taking eight court employees four weeks to send out 10 , 000 overdue notices that would draw approximately 80 , 000 a month . now , the same amount of money can be collected by one employee in the same time , said toni westry , the acting court administrator of east_orange . in addition , ms . westry said , the administrative office of the courts has departed from its standard policy of using the system only for new summonses . a pilot program lets east_orange use the computer to help with the city 's backlog of 900 , 000 unpaid parking tickets . response termed astonishing using a law that allows a municipal judge to suspend a driver 's license for failure to pay even one ticket , the system automatically notifies both the division of motor_vehicles and the defendant of a possible suspension . the response , ms . westry said , was astonishing . she said the court hoped to give the city from 7 million to 8 million in the next 18 months from payments of outstanding parking tickets . there is one major obstacle , however , in the path of the administrative office 's push for full computerization of the court system by the end of 1991 . ''at the moment , '' said richard f . keevey , the acting state budget director , ''there are not sufficient funds in their budget to continue running the system . '' installation cost 13 million eight million dollars of the 13 million used to install the system now in place , he said , was provided by the department of law and public safety . there is no indication , he said , that those funds will be available next year . officials estimate that it will cost an additional 5 million a year over the next two years to complete installation of the system . in addition , mr . keevey said , ''we have not yet appropriated any funds to the judiciary to run the program'' in the current state budget . the only potential source of financing that mr . keevey said he was aware of is an assembly bill that would increase court costs paid by guilty defendants and allocate 1 of each ticket to a fund that would then fully support the system . that bill , which has been filed for the current legislative session by assemblyman gary w . stuhltrager , republican of east greenwich , was originally filed in 1986 by assemblyman walter m . kern jr . , republican of ridgewood . in 1989 , the measure was released by the judiciary committee but never came before the full assembly for a vote .",has a topic of technology
"remember a couple of years ago when americans believed that japanese business could do no wrong ? neither does anybody else , apparently . the newly formed legions of japan bashers can look for more ammunition in a recent study on internet usage . according to a survey by andersen_consulting , only 71 percent of japanese executives have access to the internet , the lowest level among senior management in nine of the world 's leading economies . american executives led the field , with 99 percent having access to the internet , followed by executives from canada ( 98 percent ) , france ( 91 percent ) and britain ( 91 percent ) . only 13 percent of japanese executives were reported as ''comfortable'' or ''familiar'' with the internet , compared with 46 percent of american executives , although the japanese were much more likely to use e mail ( 69 percent ) than their counterparts in germany ( 55 percent ) . bruce headlam news watch",has a topic of technology
"what was supposed to have been a simple hearing on whether a scientist accused of mishandling nuclear_weapons secrets should be released on bail turned today into a bitterly contentious preview of his trial . bail hearings are generally brief , with decisions usually rendered with relative speed . but this is the third bail hearing for wen_ho_lee , a former nuclear_weapons scientist at the los_alamos_national_laboratory , and as it moves into a second day it has illustrated the unusual gulf between what is in the 59 count indictment and what the government contends that dr . lee actually intended . he is charged with illegally moving the secret data to an unsecure computer and portable computer tapes , some of which are missing , with the intent to harm the united_states . the government has said further that dr . lee , 60 , had been motivated largely by a desire to find a new job most likely with an american ally and intended to use the tapes to enhance his prospects . but most of the bail hearing today , and a previous one in december , focused on the question of espionage , of which he is not accused . at the heart of the issue is the significance of the trove of nuclear data that dr . lee is accused of downloading . two witnesses appeared in federal district court here today john richter , a former top nuclear_weapons designer and intelligence official at los_alamos , and c . paul robinson , the president of the sandia national laboratories . mr . richter , who is highly familiar with the obscure computer codes that dr . lee is accused of downloading , said perhaps 99 percent of the information had already been made public in various forums and would not be that useful to a foreign country . asked if national_security would be harmed if the tapes found their way into foreign hands , dr . richter replied , ''i do n't believe that it would have any deleterious affect at all . '' but dr . robinson maintained that if the tapes landed in hostile hands , the global balance of power could be shifted . ''i 've never seen anything even close to it in approximation of the potential damage , '' he said . the hearing is scheduled to continue on thursday before judge james a . parker .",has a topic of technology
"a picture caption in business day yesterday about the groundbreaking ceremony for a semiconductor plant in shanghai misidentified two men shown . those present were , from the left , chen liangyu , a shanghai vice mayor hu qili , vice minister of information industries mayor xu kuangdi of shanghai winston wang , a taiwan businessman who is chief executive of the company building the plant and jiang yiren , another vice mayor . the company 's vice chairman , who is the son of president jiang_zemin , was not pictured , and his family name was misspelled . he is jiang mianheng , not jian .",has a topic of technology
"with so much data traveling these days via light , carried in glass fibers , instead of electricity , one goal of semiconductor research has been to develop a silicon chip that can transmit and receive light signals directly . such a chip may one day lead to smaller , faster semiconductors and perhaps even to all silicon lasers . but silicon is by nature highly reluctant to emit light . so semiconductor manufacturers have been making do with an add on to the chip a separate light emitting diode , like one made of gallium arsenide , that is controlled by the chip . that means a complicated setup in which one material creates the light and another controls it . now , in the latest in a series of attempts to devise a light emitter that is compatible with current silicon based technology , a group of british scientists has built an all silicon l.e.d . using standard semiconductor production techniques . their all silicon l.e.d . operates at room temperature . dr . kevin homewood and his colleagues at the university of surrey report in the march 8 issue of the science journal nature that they have developed a prototype of an all silicon l.e.d . the device converts electricity to light with an efficiency that the inventors say approaches that of some conventional devices made from other semiconductors . ''this is a major advance toward getting better light emission out of silicon , '' said dr . david a . b . miller , a stanford_university professor who is an expert in optoelectronics . ''it 's a genuinely new way of approaching the problem . '' the new method meshes well with current semiconductor fabrication techniques , the researchers said . ''the greatest advantage is that only minor modifications in the manufacturing process are needed , '' said dr . yunosuke makita , a principal researcher at the electrotechnical laboratory in tsukuba , japan . dr . makita specializes in semiconductor research related to silicon based optoelectronics . dr . vincent h . crespi , a physicist at pennsylvania_state_university who specializes in the electronic structure of materials , said , ''the method is compatible with the techniques people have been using to make silicon chips , and that 's very important . '' it appears that no major processing steps or unusual physical configurations of silicon are required with the new technique . ''it 's a complicated process putting 10 million transistors onto a chip and making them work , '' dr . crespi said . ''engineers do n't want you to put anything funny into the process in a billion dollar fabrication plant . '' dr . homewood and his group have been trying to coax light out of silicon for about nine years . ''this was a sort of 'friday afternoon' experiment , '' dr . homewood said , undertaken after many other routes had failed . ''a lot of other people must be kicking themselves that they did n't try it . '' in the experiment , the group first bombarded the silicon with boron . boron implantation is a standard technique used in making integrated_circuits with silicon . when the boron is fired at the silicon , it plows through the silicon atoms and pushes them out of their normal lattice structure . ''that deformation is usually controlled by subsequent heat , '' dr . homewood said . this time , though , he tried applying less heat than usual , warming the silicon to only a bit more than 1 , 800 degrees_fahrenheit . when he did that , the silicon atoms formed into tiny rings , each about 80 to 100 nanometers in diameter ( about 500 silicon atoms wide ) . when a voltage is applied to silicon , charges flow through the crystal . when a voltage was applied at room temperature to the crystal produced by dr . homewood 's group , charges were prevented from moving by these rings , which are called dislocation loops . with the positive and negative charges held back by the barriers created by the loops , so they had no place to go , the silicon began emitting radiation that is , it began to glow brightly . ''basically we are confining the electrons , stopping them from wandering or going awol , '' dr . homewood explained . that confinement produced the room temperature luminescence . ''part of the reason this is such a promising technique is that it 's so simple , '' dr . crespi said . ''they perturbed the silicon itself , put in these dislocation loops , and forced the electrons to emit light . '' while the method is promising , researchers said , it is still a prototype and needs much improvement . ''the efficiency will need to be 10 times what it is to be competitive , '' dr . crespi said . ''but first devices always have to be tweaked to improve them , and this one has a reasonable promise of being successful . the payoff would be huge . '' the glow produced by dr . homewood 's method is in the near infrared part of the spectrum , slightly shorter than the wavelengths used in fiber optic communication . the emission wavelength is about 1 , 100 nanometers . ''that 's the different thing about this method , the wavelength of emission , '' said dr . philippe fauchet , a professor and the chairman of electrical and computer engineering at the university of rochester , who in 1996 published in nature the first paper demonstrating the integration of porous silicon light emitting diodes and silicon microelectronic circuits . ''their result is the best at this particular wavelength of emission , but the efficiency is far , far from being good enough for industry . unless that is improved , it remains a research topic , not something practical for industry . '' l.e.d . 's do not glow brightly enough for the long distances needed for optical telecommunications . they are useful , however , for the optical interconnections between and within chips and may make it possible to build a new generation of much smaller chips . the all silicon l.e.d . may be the forerunner to a silicon laser , a goal that dr . homewood said he and his group were pursuing . to produce a laser , the light would have to be collected and amplified , then emitted as a coherent beam . what's next",has a topic of technology
"it seemed as if the millennium bug had arrived four years late . the nation 's air_traffic_control computers failed at dawn during a test , and the whole system had to be rebooted , a step that blanked out computer screens and grounded hundreds of flights across britain . engineers had the system running again by 7 a.m. , but the domino_effect of grounding so many flights threw the whole air transport system into chaos , delaying most flights up to two hours . the opposition conservative_party leader , michael_howard , called the failure as ''yet another example of government incompetence . '' patrick e . tyler ( nyt )",has a topic of technology
"aviation officials have quietly notified airports in the united_states and britain that a design flaw in a widely used security system could enable terrorists to gain control of the electronic badges that allow employees with security_clearance to enter and leave restricted areas . what is more , the computer security experts who discovered the flaw say that the same system , which is made by a small company in southern_california , is frequently used in state prisons , county jails , financial_institutions , military contractors , technology companies , drug companies , county and federal_government buildings , including the central_intelligence_agency , and the like . the flaw could make any of these sites vulnerable to terrorists or computer intruders , the experts said . the problem was found in december by msb associates , a computer security consulting concern in san_mateo , calif . , in a routine audit for a large california financial_services software company . msb security experts spoke with a reporter on the condition that the company they were auditing not be identified . the failure to detect the problem for several years in so many supposedly secure sites underscores the risks inherent in the increasingly widespread reliance on computers and computer networks for security once performed by mechanical locks and human guards . because such systems relinquish control of door locking mechanisms to the computer that administers and monitors the electronic badges , all the entry points of a supposedly secure building become vulnerable to any skilled outsider who gains access to the computer . for that reason , the computer is supposed to be completely isolated not only kept in a guarded room but not connected to other computers through a network and should not be accessible to the outside world on telephone lines . but msb found that in the case of the electronic badge system made by receptors inc . of torrance , calif . , it was possible for an intruder to use a dial up telephone_line or another computer on a network to do any of the following create badges that would allow access to secured areas by unauthorized people . unlock doors guarding sensitive areas . schedule events like unlocking all doors to a building or within a building at a particular time . create badges that would leave no record that a person had entered or left a secured area . msb contacted aviation officials in the united_states and britain in mid december after discovering the flaw . the consultants said they became concerned about vulnerability to terrorists when they found the names of customers that use the system , including airports , listed in the software company 's own source code . rebecca trexler , an f.a.a . spokeswoman , said that the agency never publicly commented on airport security ''because it 's not in the public interest to discuss security vulnerabilities in the aviation system . '' although the aviation agency would not confirm which airports were at risk , msb consultants gave a reporter a list of airports in the united_states , britain and several other countries in which the receptors system had been installed . the list , which was released on the condition that it not be made public , also contained the names of other secured sites , from private companies to government agencies and penal institutions . receptors' chief_operating_officer , dale williams , said last month that the company 's security equipment was being used in 40 airports around the world . but he insisted that the problem uncovered by msb lay not with the equipment but with the way it had been installed in certain cases . ''this is not a problem , '' mr . williams said , because the airport officials who had contacted him had said that they did not permit routine outside access to the computer systems that control the electronic badge systems . standard procedure , he said , is for the modems that allow access to the computer over phone lines to be turned on and connected only when maintenance was being performed by receptors' employees . but mr . williams acknowledged that a number of the electronic badge systems were connected to computer networks and that he could not be certain that the networks themselves were secure from the outside world . he also acknowledged that other serious vulnerabilities had resulted in receptors' equipment having been removed from the united states house of representatives . from january 1995 until the middle of 1996 , receptors' equipment controlled physical access to the house . it was removed after the inspector general of the house , john w . lainhart 4th , reported that 757 former employees still appeared on the house system and still had working electronic badges . ''former employee id records that were carried on the house id system as active , '' the inspector general 's report said , ''created a potential false sense of security and could contribute to former employees gaining unauthorized access to house office buildings during nonbusiness hours . '' the inspector general said in an interview that he did not know of a threatening incident that resulted from the flaw . last week , the msb consultants said they were still able to duplicate that problem in their own client 's system by creating a badge with the name millard fillmore . even after employees of the financial_services company found the false name and removed it from the computer , the consultants said , the badge continued to allow access to the building . thus , an employee of the company who had quit or had been dismissed , for whatever reason , would still be able to enter the premises . mark seiden , a computer security expert at msb , said he believed that the flaw resulted from a programming error . the report also criticized the method by which congress permitted receptors' employees to make software changes a procedure identical to the one that mr . williams said was still used by airports that use receptors' equipment . what is more , the report criticized the house badge system because it did not maintain logs of computer activities . although the system did keep records of which doors had been opened by which badges , it did not record who was doing what on the computer system itself , meaning that security managers had no way to detect intrusions . mr . williams acknowledged the security shortcomings enumerated by the inspector general , but he said that the house system had been installed by a second firm , controlled access concepts , in fairfax , va . he said that receptors had volunteered to repair the problems but that controlled access had rejected the offer . ''it was a customized system , and it was one of the stupidest things we 've done in our lives , '' mr . williams said . ''the system had software problems , without a doubt . '' court records indicate that controlled access sued receptors in december 1996 over another electronic badge system , at the library of congress . the suit is unresolved . controlled access declined to comment on the case .",has a topic of technology
"the customs service today announced the arrests of two men suspected of trying to export highly sophisticated encryption devices to china . the men , eugene you tsai hsu , of blue springs , mo . , and david tzu wvi yang , of temple city , calif . , were charged with trying to buy encryption units from a maryland manufacturer and ship them through intermediaries to china , customs officials said . the units , produced by mykotronx inc . , a technology company in columbia , md . , are used by the united_states_government and its allies to transmit secret information by telephone or fax . the devices are relatively inexpensive about 8 , 000 a unit but are so important that their sale must be approved by the national_security_agency , the officials said . ''it 's some of the best encryption technology the u.s . government has , '' said allan j . doody , the customs special agent in charge in baltimore . according to the customs affidavit , mr . hsu contacted mykotronx in may to ask about the cost of the encryption units . a mykotronx security officer alerted customs to his interest in the top secret technology . customs then assigned an undercover agent who posed as an intermediary and corresponded with mr . hsu and two others mr . yang , the owner of a freight forwarding business in compton , calif . , and charlson ho , who represented a singapore company that sought to buy the units . the undercover agent notified mr . hsu that the technology he sought was on the state_department 's munitions list , and would require a license for export , the affidavit said . mr . hsu then asked if he could get a license , and the agent told him that no license would be approved for export to china . but mr . hsu persisted , discussing ways to repackage the units and disguise their ultimate destination , the affidavit said . mr . hsu is a naturalized united_states citizen , officials said mr . yang was born in taiwan and is a permanent resident alien . a relative of mr . hsu declined to discuss the case . a young woman who identified herself as mr . yang 's daughter said she had no information about the arrest . violators of the arms export control act face a maximum of 10 years in prison and a 1 million fine .",has a topic of technology
"what struck sandra davis about the two new clients who walked into her office one day recently were the similarities between them . both were men who had been married for a decade or more , and both were having affairs with old girlfriends they had found through friends reunited , a wildly popular british web_site that helps people track down long lost acquaintances . and both were divorcing their wives , having concluded that the heady allure of the past was more compelling than the familiar security of the present . ''they had chosen not to engage in direct communication with their spouse about their marriages and had , as a fantasy leap , gone back into childhood , '' ms . davis , head of the family_practice division at the british law_firm mishcon de reya , said in an interview . ''after a shortish period of time , they had made arrangements to meet , begun relationships and left their families . '' it is becoming a familiar story on friends reunited , which has 10 million members one sixth of the british population and which in a typical month is visited by more than 3 million people . founded in 1999 to help people track down missing schoolmates , the web_site seems to have inserted itself into the culture here far more emphatically than have similar sites in the united_states . not only has it spawned a host of sometimes facetious spinoffs another site , convicts reunited , for instance , helps people trace former prison friends but it has become an all purpose people finder for long lost relatives , co workers and military buddies as well as school friends . last year , nielsen netratings , which analyses internet trends , named it one of britain 's 10 most influential web_sites . along the way , friends reunited has unexpectedly developed a secondary function . for some people even married ones it can serve as a kind of dating service that offers instant connections to ex lovers . although the phenomenon is impossible to quantify , friends reunited 's message boards are dotted with accounts from people whose spouses have left them or who themselves have found romance with old flames . newspapers and magazines regularly run features about marriages that have broken up after one partner began an affair inspired by ''friends reunited . '' a recent documentary , ''the curse of friends reunited , '' told the story of , among others , a woman who took up with an old beau via the web_site and cheated on her husband at their wedding ( the old beau is in the wedding video , though not in flagrante ) . it drew a 9 percent audience share , an impressive number for its carrier , channel 5 , the country 's least watched noncable outlet . therapists examining the friends reunited phenomenon say the pull of an old relationship , particularly a first love , can be overwhelming , particularly to those who feel unhappy , unloved , neglected , irritated or just suffused with boredom in their middle_aged marriages . ''it 's getting back into that vital time when you felt most excited or alive or happy , '' said phillip hodson , a psychotherapist here who was recently contacted by a former girlfriend who found him through friends reunited ( he is married , and remained friendly but appropriately distant , he said ) . ''first love is first love it 's indelible , '' mr . hodson said in an interview . ''you may well hunger to experience that again before you die . if the alternative is going into a long decline , or if you 're feeling a lot of sexual frustration or difficulty or boredom in your current relationship , i know what most people would choose . '' relate , a relationship counseling service , says that about 10 percent of its cases are internet related , from porn addiction to online flirtations turned affairs . in these stories , the looking up the old love scenario is becoming increasingly common . ''if you 're unhappy in your relationship , it 's very likely that you will unconsciously try to track someone down and then think , 'well , we might as well meet up , ' '' said christine northam , a relate counselor . that is what happened to 49 year old julie r. , who is divorced and who went on friends reunited last year , looking for a long lost boyfriend who represented an uncomplicated time when life seemed filled with endless promise . ''he was my first love and my first real love , '' said julie , a customer service representative for a computer company , who lives outside london and who spoke on condition that her full name not be used . after she found him , now married and the father of two , they began exchanging e mails , whose tone changed quickly from nostalgic to intimate . when they finally met up , sneaking off for a weekend together , it was as if no time had passed . they felt an instant familiarity that allowed them to skip over any emotional wariness . ''i 've got 28 years older , but he said i had n't changed at all , that i was still the same as i was when i was 16 , '' julie said . even nicer , she said , her ex boyfriend ( and now lover ) remembered their shared past with sweet vividness . ''it was like finding a part of myself again , '' she said . the knowledge that her daughter is now seeing a married man who had always been in and out of the family home years ago has stirred conflicting emotions in julie 's mother , marcia worry for her daughter , worry about the wife of julie 's lover , but a certain degree of comfort , too . ''my husband knew this young man and we were all a happy family and at a happy stage in our lives , '' she said in an interview . ''he 's asked about me , so i feel sort of close , too . '' as for julie , she is in constant e mail contact with her lover , having received some 3 , 000 messages from him in the three months or so since their affair began . her friends have argued that he would not be cheating on his wife if he were happy at home , but she is unconvinced . ''i 'm not sure about that , '' she said . ''first love is something very different . '' he has not discussed his marriage with her she has not asked . at least once , she has been on the verge of breaking things off . ''do i feel bad about it ? yes , '' she said . ''this is going to end in tears for somebody , and i do n't know whose tears they 're going to be . '' london journal",has a topic of technology
"a respected canadian computer programmer says the united_states_government severed research financing for a computer security project he was working on after he made remarks in the canadian press critical of the american military . the programmer , theo de raadt , the 35 year old founder of an international collaborative software project known as openbsd , had been receiving support from the defense advanced research project agency , or darpa , a research arm of the american military that is closely tied to the founding of the internet . the money , part of a 2 . 3 million grant given to the university of pennsylvania , was part of a military effort to create computer systems more resilient to hacking , viruses and other attacks . the american military estimates that it experiences 250 , 000 cyberattacks each year . the controversy highlights the delicate balance between the military and the anti_establishment bent of some in the technology community . it also shows that the international pool of computer programmers and hackers , possessing vast technological expertise , is not entirely sympathetic to the american military 's current role in world affairs . a recent interview with mr . de raadt , published by the globe and mail of toronto , portrayed him as being uneasy about the military source of the financing . he was quoted as saying , ''i try to convince myself that our grant means a half of a cruise_missile does n't get built . '' the article also said he considered the war in iraq a grab for oil . mr . de raadt said that a few days after the interview was published , jonathan smith , the penn professor who heads the military grant project , told him people had ''expressed discomfort with what i had said . '' then last friday professor smith sent out an e mail message saying that work had to cease immediately because the military stopped the financing and the project was ''over . '' mr . de raadt said this left the openbsd project in crisis because it had already committed tens of thousands of dollars to bringing together 60 programmers from around the world for a four day ''hackathon'' in calgary in may . darpa money has supported other hackathons for this project . some cautioned about reading too much into the military 's decision . ''these kinds of 'stop works' happen all the time , '' said fernando pereira , the head of penn 's computer science department . ''federal budgets and priorities change all the time . '' nevertheless , some computer specialists saw the incident as a rebuke . people quickly voiced their displeasure on web_sites , over e mail lists and to the organizations involved . on monday , darpa said it had not cut off all financing for the project , just money for the hackathon . jan walker , a spokeswoman for darpa , said the agency was reviewing the rest of the project , which has three months left in its two year contract . decisions about financing had been made because of ' 'recent world events and specifically the evolving threat posed by increasingly capable nation states , '' ms . walker said . mr . de raadt said the decision extended beyond the hackathon because the project 's staff members had been notified this week that their salaries would no longer be paid by the military financing . he said the hackathon would go on , financed by modest online donations of 50 or 100 . he noted that even while he was on the phone with a reporter , 65 in donations had come in . ''we are free people , we are hobbyists , '' he said . ''we do this for fun . '' aftereffects dissent",has a topic of technology
"a federal court ordered the retrial of armin meiwes , the computer technician who killed and ate a willing victim he found through the internet , saying his 2004 conviction for manslaugher and eight and a half year sentence were too lenient . prosecutors had argued that mr . meiwes , 43 , should have been given a life_sentence for murder . with the manslaughter conviction now overturned and the retrial set for a frankfurt court , they will get a chance for a tougher sentence . kirsten grieshaber ( nyt )",has a topic of technology
"computer researchers have fashioned infinitesimally tiny electronic switches using conventional chipmaking equipment , demonstrating that the semiconductor_industry will be able to continue shrinking its basic building blocks at a torrid pace at least until the end of this decade . at a technical conference being held this weekend in kyoto , japan , a scientist for the intel_corporation reported that the company had successfully made a handful of silicon transistors no more than 70 to 80 atoms wide and 3 atoms thick . they are capable of switching on and off 1.5 trillion times a second , making them the world 's fastest silicon transistor . although the lilliputian switches do not represent the smallest experimental transistors yet invented , they are being hailed by the industry as a watershed because they were made using standard commercial techniques and the same materials used in today 's microprocessors and memory chips . the achievement indicates that researchers have once again found a way around technical barriers that might have slowed or stopped the phenomenal four decade march that has led to the speed and power of today 's computers . ''this is a very good piece of technical work , '' said hon sum philip wong , an i.b.m . research scientist who presented a similar paper in japan this weekend focusing on related technical problems in building transistors three generations in the future . although semiconductor engineers can now predict with great accuracy the amount of computing power that the transistor advance will bring with it by 2007 , computer scientists cautioned that speculating about labor saving applications or dazzling technological consequences can be more risky . while the semiconductor manufacturing process underlying the modern microchip continues to improve steadily , specific new applications are frequently unpredictable . some of the most prominent advances of recent years for example the electronic wristwatch , the personal computer and the internet all largely came as surprises to experts . the research will make make possible computer processor chips with as many as one billion transistors and 20 gigahertz speeds . that is more than 23 times the number of transistors used in intel 's current state of the art pentium 4 microprocessor , which has 42 million transistors and is capable of executing 1.7 billion instructions a second . it will also make possible a generation of fingernail sized memory chips that can each store four billion bits of data more than 333 copies of ''moby dick . '' industry researchers said that shrinking the transistor size was a technical tour de force . ''it proves that intel is a technical heavyweight , '' said g . dan hutcheson , president of vlsi research , a semiconductor_industry research firm based in san_jose , calif . ''what intel does so well is take a technology that is not meant to be extendable and pushing it past its limits , making computing incredibly cost effective . '' moreover , the new chips will consume less than one volt of electricity perhaps less than half of today 's intel microprocessors making it likely that within half a decade the world 's fastest processors will be portable and perhaps even hand held . significantly , in an era when vast farms of internet and world_wide_web servers are being blamed for a share of the nation 's electrical power crunch , the intel scientists reported that the power consumption of each new generation of chips is shrinking more quickly than the computer power is increasing . indeed , the dwindling power requirement of the intel transistors represents one of the fortunate paradoxes of silicon based computing these transistors are able to switch on and off more than three times faster than today 's microprocessors while consuming only slightly more than half as much electricity . the intel technical paper , which was presented this weekend at the silicon nano electronics workshop in japan , comes as good news for an industry that in the last two years has been experiencing self doubt about the longevity of its guiding_principle , known as moore 's law . first noted by the intel pioneer and cofounder gordon e . moore in 1965 , the rule has held that the number of transistors that can be etched on a single chip of silicon doubles on average every 18 months . but engineers and physicists note there is nothing technically or physically inevitable in the continued shrinking of the fundamental size of electronic circuitry . indeed , as long ago as 1993 , dr . moore himself publicly voiced his doubts about the permanence of the progression that received his name . in a speech given in silicon_valley that year , he suggested that a process known as 0 . 25 micron might be the point at which the industry ran into fundamental physical limits . a micron is a millionth of a meter . nevertheless , chip_makers blew past the 0 . 25 micron size two generations of chips ago roughly four years and now use exotic optical techniques to manufacture the most advanced processors and memory chips , which are based on transistors with 0 . 13 micron technology . now intel scientists are saying that they can see their way at least three more generations into the future , to transistors with a 0 . 045 micron technology less than one fifth the size limit that dr . moore speculated about . ''everyone who predicts the end of moore 's law has always been wrong , '' said gerald marcyk , intel 's director of components research technology manufacturing group in hillsboro , ore . the new results are a dramatic contrast to a pessimistic article written by another intel researcher two years ago in the journal science . the intel scientist , paul a . packan , wrote that it was not clear whether the most common type of silicon transistor could be scaled down beyond the 0 . 13 micron generation of chips that began to appear last year , because semiconductor engineers had not found ways around basic physical limits . now that those potential physical limits have been surmounted , the researchers acknowledged they are in a realm where the switches are so small that arcane physical effects such as the quantum behavior of electrons become a factor , making chip building as much an art as a science . the intel scientists performed some ''heroic efforts'' to make a handful of transistors work , dr . marcyk said , adding that the specific methods used were intel manufacturing trade secrets . one of the principal challenges in creating these kinds of switches is that their smallest dimensions are much smaller than the wavelengths of light generated by the machines that etch patterns on silicon wafers . in conventional lithography , a mask is used with transparent areas and opaque areas , like a photographic negative . however , the light passing through the transparent areas bends slightly , leaving a slightly blurry image . as circuits shrink below the width of a lightwave , this becomes a profound problem . however , engineers have found a way to turn that manufacturing defect into a remarkably precise tool through a process called ''phase shifting , '' which makes use of interfering patterns of light to create ultrafine circuit lines . the semiconductor_industry 's technical road map has generally forecast that integrated_circuits will stay on their doubling path until 2014 . but doubters have continued to emerge , suggesting either that there will be insurmountable technical obstacles or that at some point the cost of each new generation of semiconductor factory will soar astronomically . the intel researchers said they had been faced with another challenge besides building ever tinier chips . dr . marcyk said that each time he presented his results to andrew s . grove , intel 's chairman and co founder , dr . grove insisted , ''i want you to show me the limit . '' ''i have to tell him , 'andy , i have n't found the limit yet , ' '' he said .",has a topic of technology
"an american in paris recently bought a house in larchmont without leaving france . similarly , a texas family made an offer on a home in wilton , conn . , without going there . whether it 's paris , france or paris , tex . , anyone with access to the internet can now "" see "" thousands of homes , apartments , hotels and office buildings all over the world , and they are available for sale or rent on the ever widening world_wide_web . "" the internet has certainly changed the real_estate industry , "" said hal maxwell , regional vice_president of coldwell_banker schlott for westchester_county . "" we 're a national company , with 92 offices in the region and 2 , 400 nationally in 45 states . in october we opened our office of the future , our home page on the web . we now have the ability to give on line information on 40 , 000 listings to buyers all over the world . the home page has already brought us an increase of 250 additional leads a week from customers we would n't have had without the internet . "" the buying public is fascinated by the world_wide_web , mr . maxwell said . "" for instance , visitors to the recent real_estate expo '96 crowded around our booth , eager to learn how to shop for homes on the web_site , "" he said . "" our web_site is easy to use , and we 're easy to find because we 're the only national real_estate company to include all listings on one web_site . other national companies are franchise operations , and their inventories are divided among hundreds of smaller web_sites . "" the user_friendly home page , mr . maxwell said , includes descriptions and pictures of thousands of homes as well as information on mortgages , community profiles with detailed descriptions of schools , taxes and even specifics like s.a.t . scores . new listings are added , and current listings are modified twice weekly . "" a property listed with us receives maximum exposure 24 hours a day , 7 days a week , "" mr . maxwell said , "" and all our sales offices will be equipped to demonstrate coldwell_banker on line by the end of the month so a potential buyer who does n't have a computer can simply come into one of our offices and use ours . "" as the complexities of the real_estate industry increase , so must the knowledge of its agents . technological literacy will be a requisite for those in the field . "" we already have a computer training program in place , "" mr . maxwell said . "" looking toward the future , realtors who ca n't master the internet will probably be forced out of business . "" what about those starting out in the industry ? "" probably only those who are computer savvy will be considered , "" mr . maxwell said . commercial real_estate concerns have also begun to use the internet as a marketing tool . michael siegel , executive director of the edward s . gordon company in white_plains , said "" we were one of the first commercial real_estate firms to go on the internet eight months ago . our home page is full of general information about our company , and for those people who want more information we have a simple menu for those who want to go further . for instance , if someone is interested in a particular market segment , he or she can access information about space and rents and contact us for even more information directly by e mail . "" the company 's in house education department is conducting computer training , mr . siegal said . "" it is not really as difficult as we once imagined , "" he said . "" the technology is getting simpler all the time . "" dale kaufteil , owner of harbor view properties , a residential , commercial and investment real_estate concern in mamaroneck , agreed . "" computers are becoming easier to use , "" he said . "" we try to set up those that are user_friendly that will deliver information quickly and easily . "" knowing how to use a computer has become essential in the real_estate industry , he added . "" it 's another vast change , similar to the change that occurred 10 years ago when franchise operations took over independent offices , "" he said , "" one that people in our industry have to deal with and another nail in the coffin of those who ca n't . "" mr . kaufteil , who knows enough about computers to have designed his own home page on the web , said it was not enough to list houses , apartments and investment properties but the trick is to know how to market them aggressively on line . "" there are 11 million pages on the internet , 600 different real_estate sites alone , "" he said . "" i did n't want to wait passively for someone to find us , so for 100 i registered a domain name , which links us to directories and search engines , meaning that people logging on the internet for the first time will see our name come up in the first 10 to 20 real_estate references . "" he said that in his spare time , in line with his aggressive marketing tactics , he cruises the information highway , making contact with international developers in europe , australia and the pacific_rim . "" i 'm already seeing results , "" he said . "" we sold a shopping_center in rockland_county to a foreign investor and the stamford marriott_hotel to another group of foreign investors as a result of my contacting them on the internet . "" one of the first real_estate companies in westchester to go on line , was houlihan_lawrence with 15 offices in the county . houlihan_lawrence 's database has more than 500 houses along with condominiums , co ops and rentals . the company reports that it has already realized more than 2 million in sales for homes that it has shown on the internet . "" it 's a very important part of marketing that is getting more important every year , "" said elly goodman , the company 's marketing director . "" would be buyers can meet our agents , tour our current inventory , request our catalogue and receive a world of housing information without leaving home . "" as for potential sellers , ms . goodman said , "" we present their home in full living color on the internet to an estimated audience of 30 million cyber surfers , and that is coverage . "" houlihan , which is an affiliate of sotheby 's international realty , is now able to show houses to an international audience , she said . "" and we were also able to open up new markets by distributing our catalogue of better homes on our web_site , "" she said . "" this was an additional advantage a bonus as people from all over the world now e mail us , and we send our catalogue out to what we think of as a pre screened audience . "" computer illiteracy would not prevent houlihan_lawrence from hiring an experienced sales person , ms . goodman said . "" but certainly a computer background would be viewed as an asset , "" she said . "" right now we have more than 400 agents who are taking a major technology training course from our in house educational director . yet although we have adopted the new technology as an innovative and advanced marketing tool , we still feel buying a home is a personal thing , and although internet is a valuable tool , it will never replace people to people encounters in our business . """,has a topic of technology
"china has blocked access to the popular internet search_engine google as the government tightens media controls before a shift in leadership expected in november . there was no official announcement of the blockage , but internet users said they could not reach google through chinese internet servers for the last two days . many of china 's 45 million internet users rely on the united_states based search_engine to link to documents in chinese and english . the government often seeks to restrict access to sites that carry material critical of the government , particularly around sensitive dates on the political calendar .",has a topic of technology
"a headline with the e_commerce report column in business day on jan . 26 , about the decline in online holiday spending in recent years on canadian web_sites , misstated the comparison of internet use in canada and the united_states . while a higher percentage of canadians use the internet , the total number is greater in the united_states .",has a topic of technology
"inside the old bailey time travel to 18th_century england is now possible . the proceedings of the old bailey , london 's central_criminal_court , are going digital at www . oldbaileyonline . org . about 22 , 000 trials from 1714 to 1759 are already online a total of more than 100 , 000 trials stretching from 1674 to 1834 are to be available next year . the proceedings are said to be the largest body of texts detailing the lives of ordinary people before the 19th_century . start with the notable trials page ( found under about the proceedings ) for an overview of the judicial system of the time . a robust search feature allows queries by such variables as name , crime and type of punishment . not even dickens could top these plots , not to mention the dialogue ( ''i desire you would ask him if i owe him any thing for milk ? '' was the question that thomas nash , an accused wife murderer , asked the trial_court to pose to the deliveryman who found the body ) . visitors can even create their own interactive tables of statistics to satisfy their curiosity about which crimes were most common , say , or how many led to the pillory . the site is the brainchild of two british history professors , robert shoemaker of the university of sheffield and tim hutchinson of the university of hertfordshire , who had grown frustrated over the relative inaccessibility of the proceedings . the records , in printed form and on microfilm , were in archives spread across britain and north_america . ''it would have taken a researcher six months to create a table anyone can now make in seconds , '' professor hutchinson said . the site has drawn 70 , 000 visits since it was started up last month . the average visitor looks at more than 40 pages , a high number that might be attributed to the site 's storytelling nature . ''these trials are about people who have been dead more than 200 years , '' professor hutchinson said . ''but they are alive the minute you read about them . '' the art is in the mail one side benefit of electronic communication has been to make it easier to arrange the trading of objects cd 's , artworks or what have you by conventional mail . mail swaps may be as old as the postal_service itself , but some notable web_sites have expanded on the idea . at nervousness . org , for example , tens of thousands of people arrange swaps of everything from cloth to photographs of feet . while a few of these trades seem silly , some involve handmade objects that circulate among a group of people before eventually returning to their owners . the point is trust and ''working together to create art , '' the manager of the site , stephen deken of st . charles . mo . , said by e mail . at 20things . org , groups of 20 people create 20 objects to swap in 20 days ( they keep the objects they receive ) . the site was founded by judith zissman of san_francisco partly to encourage artists working in digital media to return to the tangible . so far she has organized eight swaps , and more than 3 , 000 people are on her mailing list . the objects which must fit into a large padded envelope and weigh no more than a pound or so tend to be paper based but have included glass sculptures , stitched portraits and houses made of shrinky dink , that shrinkable ready to color plastic from the 70 's that has recently been enjoying a comeback . an online gallery shows images of all the objects swapped . ''there is something really satisfying in using the best parts of online community the rapid exchange of information , the compression of geography , the archival capacity to enable the very satisfying tangible experience of bartering physical objects , of receiving small surprises in your real world mailbox , '' ms . zissman said by e mail . how do you say . . . there are , perhaps , a few perfect souls who have never pronounced a word incorrectly ( i 'm not going near ''nuclear'' ) . for everyone else , help is hard to find . although i fiercely love my hardback dictionary , its pronunciation instructions are often baffling . and a dictionary wo n't help you order wine properly or discuss the president of indonesia . the web has stepped into this breach with audible dictionaries . about 105 , 000 of the entries in the merriam webster online dictionary ( www . m w . com dictionary . htm ) , for example , have an audio icon . click on it and you will hear the word clearly spoken by a male voice . among my favorites is the audio wine dictionary ( www . stratsplace . com winepronon dict . html ) , which offers guidance on how to pronounce more than 660 wine terms . now you can confidently declaim ''pouilly fuiss '' to the sternest of sommeliers . the harry potter pronunciation guide ( www . scholastic . com harrypotter books pronunciation play . htm ) explains how to say the name of he who must not be named . best of all is the voice of america pronunciation guide ( ibb7 . ibb . gov pronunciations ) , maintained by the government run radio_station . this site lists the proper pronunciation for hundreds of names in the news , including those of many world leaders . only now do i feel safe uttering the name of indonesia 's leader , megawati surkarnoputri ( meh gah wah tee sue car no pooh tree ) . on the radar call it the linear view of history worldhistory . com researches famous lives and world events and turns them into pithy timelines . the pictoplasma . com site bills itself as the first global collection of contemporary character design . for those with all of the necessary plug ins , the site boasts an exhibition of more than 5 , 000 humans , robots , animals and other assorted creatures , one of whom may be the mickey_mouse of the future . online diary e mail online nytimes . com correction april 26 , 2003 , saturday a report in the online diary column of circuits on thursday about a web_site recounting trials in 18th_century london misstated the surname of a creator of the site . he is tim hitchcock , not hutchinson .",has a topic of technology
"when xin ye returned to beijing after a 14 year absence to take a senior position at one of china 's most popular internet portals , sohu , he left behind his wife , two daughters , a california lifestyle and a job prospect at a silicon_valley start up . ''my heart at this point is still in silicon_valley , '' said mr . ye , 36 , a former senior technical manager at marimba , as he emerged from a meeting on his first day of work early last month . ''the ocean was five minutes away . the mountains were half an hour 's drive away . but how many times does an opportunity come up to build a leading portal in china ? just once , right ? '' mr . ye is not alone among overseas_chinese who have given up the advantages of life abroad , for the time being , to chase internet gold in a nation he no longer calls home . in growing numbers , first and second generation chinese from hong_kong , taiwan , singapore and the united_states are returning to china , many recruited to feed a hunger for bilingual senior managers in the country 's infant internet industry . ''it 's like a reverse brain_drain , '' said jay kuo , a lawyer who left his job as a marketing manager at bsem , an agricultural equipment manufacturer , in january to co found fudao . net , a finance site for families that is going online next month . ''a lot of my friends have come back for the singular opportunity to write the next internet chapter . many mainland friends who have the opportunity to go overseas now have n't gone for this reason . '' beijing has tried for years , without much success , to lure natives with technical and managerial skills back to china . but the explosion of the internet in china is finally ''bringing them back in droves , '' said charles zhang , chairman of sohu . still , while web entrepreneurs like tang haisong of etang , an online portal , and joseph chen of chinaren , a community web_site , are coming back waving their harvard and stanford m.b.a . 's and flush with millions of dollars in venture_capital what start_ups really need are senior executives with hands on management experience and technical talent , analysts said . norman liu , co founder of 51job . com , a job site , said , ''once companies pass their first three to six month periods , human_resources inevitably becomes the most important and most difficult problem for them . '' they will particularly have to to fill certain upper echelon spots . ''they need key senior people with the vision and capability to lead them to an i.p.o . , '' mr . liu said . ''the chinese are good at execution , but weak on problem_solving , and lack a keen knowledge of the business as well . '' though established multinational companies have lamented that there is a scarcity of executive talent in china , the rash of new dot com companies is fast turning this shortage into a cross industry regional drought . ''the internet industry is a big , sore open wound right now , '' said steve chiu , chief sales officer of zhaopin , another job site . ''we have over 500 companies advertising on our site now , many of them looking for the same people . it 's a really really crazy scene . '' a chief technical officer , with five to eight years of management experience , tops the wish lists of more than 100 start up companies . a talented vice_president for marketing is another highly coveted yet hard to find executive . longer established dot coms , including the popular portal netease , are beginning to recruit older executives , who can offer a depth of experience that their brash young founders lack . though well known sites like sohu and sina have the money and name recognition to lure talent from silicon_valley , many start_ups without these advantages are settling for employees with less experience , including managers from state owned enterprises and graduates with master 's degree in engineering . salaries for even less qualified chief technical officers can be as much as as 100 , 000 , plus stock options . ''it 's not the most rational hiring decision , '' mr . liu said , ''because they 'll hit a wall in six months . but companies nowadays are getting more and more desperate . '' with demand up and supply down , it is no surprise that recruiting firms like wang li asia resources , which culls talent from greater_china and san_francisco , has seen its net business explode 80 percent over the last six months . about 300 competing job search dot coms have also crowded into the recruiting field , mr . chiu said , all trying to capitalize on the expanding market . for example , sinobit , a site for technology entrepreneurs , prominently features a ''western returnee'' center , hoping to lure overseas talent . the site was co founded in january by zhang lei , who hastily packed his bags three months before finishing his m.b.a . from yale_university to return to china and join the internet rush ''before it was too late . '' others scoff at the perception that returnees are a sure fire bet , saying that some people come back with a superior attitude that offends their staff members , or have been away too long to immediately grasp the complexities of a business environment literally changing by the month . still , for now , many smaller start_ups from web development design firms to city guides are not worrying about an industry wide scarcity of senior managers . competent junior level and midlevel managers are plentiful , thanks in part to multinational firms that started promoting local employees five years ago . though more than a few executives are disappointed by the lack of creative graphic designers or talented and self motivated editors , which they attribute largely to an education system that does not foster creativity , many have devised innovative ways to deal with the problem . an american executive at menkou , a lifestyle and entertainment site , routinely does pull ups in his hallway or plays his stereo loudly to encourage his employees to do wacky things . fudao . net has built a jungle gym in its office to give its 27 employees a way to ''keep their creative juices flowing , '' as mr . kuo puts it . other internet start_ups , unhappy with local programmers and graphic designers , have contracted the work out to people in other countries . employees have also realized that they are in demand . with bidding_wars and raiding on the rise , salaries have increased in some companies as much as 50 percent for writers and 80 percent for junior level programmers since a year ago . across the industry , wages have generally risen a more modest 20 percent to 30 percent , but sudden promotions are also in vogue . one internet company lured a sales clerk from another start up by offering her a salary 12 times higher than her previous one , and the position of chief executive . ''we could n't even find good quality secretaries at average salaries , '' mr . kuo said . ''some even asked us for stock options . and we gave it to them . '' online overseas grace fan writes about business and the internet in shanghai .",has a topic of technology
"for months now , the news about the news in china has been awful . carrying out its vow to tighten controls over what it calls ''propaganda , '' the government of president hu_jintao has busied itself closing publications , firing editorial staffs and jailing reporters . more noticeably , the government has clamped down on the internet , closing blogger sites , filtering web_sites and e mail messages for banned words and tightening controls on text_messages . last year , yahoo was criticized for revealing the identity of an internet journalist , shi tao , who was subsequently jailed . on wednesday , the committee to protect journalists said court documents posted on a chinese web_site showed that yahoo had done the same in 2003 , resulting in the jailing of another writer , li zhi . against this grim backdrop , the news that google had agreed to apply censors' blacklists to its new chinese search_engine might have seemed like the ultimate nail in the coffin for freedom of information in this country . chinese internet mavens were outraged at google for collaborating in the government 's censorship effort . ''for most people , access to more diversified resources has been broken , '' said isaac mao , a popular chinese blogger , in a typical sentiment . ''the majority of users , the new users , will only see a compressed version of google , and ca n't know what they do n't know . this is like taking a 30 year old 's brain and setting him back to the mind of a 15 year old . '' some threatened that internet companies that toed the government line would regret it someday . ''doing the bidding of the chinese government like this is like doing the bidding of stalin or hitler , '' said yu jie , a well known dissident writer . ''the actions of companies that did the bidding of stalin and hitler have been remembered by history , and the chinese people wo n't forget these kinds of actions , either . '' whether chinese will hold a long term grudge is arguable . but web specialists are far more confident that the government will fail in its efforts to reverse a trend toward increasingly free_expression that has been reshaping this society with ever more powerful effects for more than two decades . last year , china ranked 159th out of 167 countries in a survey of press_freedom , reporters without borders , the paris based international rights group , said . but rankings like this do not reflect the rapid change afoot here , more and more of which is escaping the government 's control . a case in point is the chinese government 's recent effort to rein in bloggers who tread too often into delicate territory , criticizing state policy or detailing official corruption . in december , the government ordered microsoft and its msn service to close the site of michael anti , one of china 's most popular bloggers . although mr . anti who is also an employee of the beijing bureau of the new york times had his site closed , any chinese web surfer can choose from scores of other online commentators who are equally provocative , and more are coming online all the time . microsoft alone carries an estimated 3.3 million blogs in china . add to that the estimated 10 million blogs on other internet_services , and it becomes clear what a censor 's nightmare china has become . what is more , not a single blog existed in china a little more than three years ago , and thousands upon thousands are being born every day some run by people whose previous blogs had been banned and merely change their name or switch internet providers . new technologies , like podcasts , are making things even harder to control . ''the internet is open technology , based on packet switching and open systems , and it is totally different from traditional media , like radio or tv or newspapers , '' said guo liang , an internet specialist at the chinese_academy_of_social_sciences . ''at first , people might have thought it would be as easy to control as traditional media , but now they realize that 's not the case . '' if the internet is at the center of today 's struggle over press_freedom , it is only the latest in a series of fights that the government has so far always lost . under the veneer of resolute state control , one sector after another , including book publishing , newspapers and magazines , has undergone a similar process of de facto liberalization , often in the face of official hostility . the first wave came in book publishing , where beginning in the 1980 's censors found themselves unable to suppress books that were critical of state policy or expressed divergent views on ideological matters . a big part of the reason for the weakening of the censors was the introduction of a market_economy , where publishers had to seek profits to support their activities . turgid , politically_correct books that delighted the censors sold poorly , so profit seeking publishers sought to get bolder , often provocative writing into print . changes in the news_media have also been driven by profit motives . with the state ending its subsidies for most publishing companies , publications have sought ways to build readership . saucy entertainment and sports journalism have been big hits for many magazines and newspapers . others , though , have hit on the idea of public affairs , uncovering corruption and writing about environmental problems and social inequality . as the readers' appetite for this kind of news has grown , the government has been hard pressed to force the genie back into the bottle . newspapers have been closed , reporters and editors jailed even killed , like wu xianghu , a newspaper editor who died last week after being beaten by the police , who reportedly were incensed by an article he published on abuses of power in their ranks . still , the trend has not been reversed . editors , like li datong of a recently closed beijing newspaper supplement , bing dian , officially owned by the communist_party youth league , have begun to use the courts to challenge government efforts to silence them . but many frustrated reporters have simply moved to blogs , which give them an outlet to write about what they are not permitted to in their day jobs . ''symbolically , the government may have scored a victory with google , but web users are becoming a lot more savvy and sophisticated , and the censors' life is not getting easier , '' said xiao_qiang , leader of the internet project at the university of california , berkeley . ''the flow of information is getting steadily freer , in fact . if i was in the state councils information office , i certainly would n't think we had any reason to celebrate . '' letter from china",has a topic of technology
"the cruel randomness of celebrity became clear to tom calver in february , when the cheese got a romantic valentine in the mail and he did not . ''what has he done ? '' mr . calver asked of the cheese in question , a 44 pound round of cheddar currently maturing on his farm in this somerset hamlet . ( mr . calver 's farm , not the cheese 's . ) ''he 's just sat there and got moldy . '' but in common with other instant media sensations and members of the world 's ditzerati , the cheddar has not been impeded in its rise to fame by the modest nature of its accomplishments . as the star of cheddar vision tv , a web_site that carries live images of its life on a shelf ( www . cheddarvision . tv ) , the cheese has been viewed so far more than 900 , 000 times . ''it seems to have engaged many people who might not otherwise have bothered to engage with cheesemaking , '' said dom lane , a spokesman for west country farmhouse cheesemakers , of which mr . calver is a member . mr . lane helped set up the webcam in december , when the cheese was made , beginning as milk from mr . calver 's herd of friesian holstein cows and then progressing through the standard curds ( and whey ) phase on its path to becoming a hunk of cheddar . it is to remain on the shelf until december , when , fully mature , it is to be sold for charity . ''we were thinking , 'how can we demonstrate to people just how long it takes to make a really good cheddar ? ' '' mr . lane said . ''and then we thought 'let 's film it from start to finish . that 's really funny because there 's nothing to see . ' '' quite . the cheddar is not busy . it just sits there in a dank , climate and humidity controlled cheese ripening warehouse , subtly aging with hundreds of other cheeses . once a week a man named gary , mr . calver 's cheese turner , comes in and turns it to redistribute the moisture within . compared with the cheese cam , the old yule log on television was a roiling hotbed of nonstop commotion . as befits an inert object of obsession , the cheese has become a blank slate upon which admirers can express their passions and idiosyncrasies . poems and songs have been written about it . it has been invited to a wedding . at easter , it received an anonymous gift of chocolate and decorative chicks . e mail correspondents have engaged in a lively debate about the metaphysical significance of the cheese 's mold patterns . from the united_states , a teacher announced that his class had set up a wall of cheese , where students could post photographs of the cheese ''in various states of rotation . '' cheddarvision is only the latest boring internet webcam to randomly seize the public 's imagination , here in a country with an apparently unparalleled ability to produce them . the ur site was probably the one that showed a coffee pot in a cambridge_university computer lab in 1991 . first displayed on the internal network as a way to show lab workers when the coffee was ready so they would not have to make fruitless journeys to the coffee machine , the site went global in 1993 . it had more than two million visitors before being switched off in 2001 . other dull british sites , helpfully compiled by oliver burkeman in a recent article in the guardian , include one that shows nothing happening on a side street of neilston , a suburban village near glasgow . another one ( now defunct ) showed a pile of compost in sussex . ''it 's possible that you watched the compost decompose with a deep appreciation for the never ending natural cycles of life and death , '' mr . burkeman wrote . ''then again , maybe you were just bored . '' back here in westcombe , mr . calver denies that his cheese is boring . ''the mold is growing , '' he said . ''microscopically , you would see a lot of action . '' in fact , a time release film of the cheese shows the effects of age on its person , as it progresses inexorably from young and smooth to old , veiny and mottled . seeing the film is a poignant reminder of the ravages of time , similar in effect to watching , say , all the movies of robert redford or nick nolte in quick chronological succession . mr . calver tasted the cheese in march , on the same day he graded it . ( it will be graded twice more , at three month intervals . ) he has high hopes for it , but it is not the only cheese in his life . ''obviously , i feel quite a lot for all the cheeses , '' he said . ''it 's like having lots of children . you ca n't show one more affection than the others . '' the web_site is taking submissions for its name the cheese contest . mr . calver 's suggestion is ''tom 's cheese , '' but other possibilities include ''wedginald'' and ''cheesus . '' as befitting a celebrity , the cheese has its own page on myspace . com , where we learn that it is a capricorn , that it is not interested in having children and that it has 521 friends . mr . calver is not quite sure why anyone would want to watch his cheese , although he said it might have something to do with the frenetic and provisional nature of life today . ''it 's a security , '' he said . ''it 's something that 's there 24 hours a day . i heard of someone who said they looked at it before bed and found it a nice , comforting thing . you should really talk to a psychologist . '' westcombe journal",has a topic of technology
"the countless construction cranes that hang over berlin do n't just change the skyline with construction at 35 , 000 sites every year , getting across town by car is a serious challenge . the routing complications caused by the two separate road systems that evolved over the 28 years that the berlin_wall divided the city do n't help . add the extra car traffic generated by the relocation of the german seat of government from bonn to berlin , and the result is traffic snarls that can paralyze roads for hours . so , like other cities around the world , berlin is betting that the solution to its traffic problems will be a new kind of data collection and communications technology . with money from the berlin government , a consortium that includes daimlerchrysler , siemens , bmw and volkswagen is developing a ''traffic management center'' in the city . the project will use data collected from a variety of sources throughout berlin to make real time information about traffic conditions available to the public over the internet , cell phones and palm size devices . starting in the next two months , siemens will install about 140 infrared sensors at key intersections . mounted on street_lights and bridges , the devices will monitor the volume and speed of vehicles , then transmit any changes ( for example , lowered speeds because of an accident ) via radio to a control center . at the center , the data will be run through a program that will generate a continuously updated model of the traffic situation . the data will also be combined with information from police and emergency services and public transit agencies , as well as specifics about construction schedules and special events , and made available on a web_site . commuters will be able to check the site before they leave for work to see if they should drive or take the bus or rapid_transit . the web_site will even include information as to availability of spaces in parking_lots and eventually , under present plans , data on the rapid_transit system . michael beer , head of the division of transport technology , telematics and international_relations for berlin 's ministry of construction , housing and transport , said that one advantage to this system is that commuters will be able to check only the information that is relevant to them . ''you ca n't talk about 35 , 000 construction sites in a 30 second spot on the radio , '' he added , noting that traditional reports may not note disruptions on small streets . traffic problems are not unique to berlin , of course , and neither are attempts at electronic monitoring to cope with them . many cities have various systems in place , including speed or weather sensors and video cameras , and private traffic monitoring companies , like those that provide updates to radio and television stations , abound . but what will really change traffic management in the next few years will be projects like berlin 's , linking all of a city 's diverse monitoring systems in a central location and making the information available via the internet or cell phones . government sponsored initiatives for this kind of centralized traffic management started earlier in europe than in the united_states ( berlin has been working toward this for the last three years ) , but american projects are moving at a more rapid clip . ( berlin has yet to sign a final contract between its public and private partners . ) in the united_states , projects similar to berlin 's are beginning in san_antonio , seattle and phoenix , and another will be started in december in the new york metropolitan_area . the united states department of transportation has committed 1 . 3 billion to traffic management projects over the next six years but takes a less controlling approach than its european counterparts . ''in europe in general , you 've seen this develop in a european fashion , that is to say , government led , '' said geoff halstead , president and chief executive of traffic station , a company based in los_angeles that is working with the four american pilot projects . ''in america , it 's american driven by entrepreneurship . '' technological approaches differ , often according to what kinds of technology are already in place . the seattle project uses a combination of sensors in road surfaces and video cameras to monitor traffic flow . other projects monitor traffic speeds using radar or electronic toll collection devices . the trick is to be able to meld information from very different sets of monitoring systems . ''we 're trying to bring a patchwork of technologies into a quilt that covers the nation , '' said roy courtney , director of architecture and standards at intelligent transportation society of america , a public private advocacy_group created by congress in 1991 . but , he added , ''we 're still trying to mature this industry . '' in berlin , traffic_jams are a fairly new phenomenon . ''until the end of the 80 's the public transportation in west_berlin was very good , '' mr . beer said . ''a lot of people did n't have cars in the west . in east_berlin , of course , you had to wait 10 or 15 years for a car , so the number of cars was even lower . ''after the reunification of berlin , everyone wanted to go from east to west , or to regions around berlin that you could n't get to with public transportation , so a lot of people got cars . there was a big increase in car buying after the wall came down . '' mr . beer envisions a system in which drivers can check traffic conditions from their cell phones while driving , see that there is congestion in the city center , check to see which nearby lots have vacancies , park their cars and take public transportation for the final leg of their trips . ''we want to encourage public transit use , '' he said , adding that because berlin is now the capital , traffic will only increase . ''we think that in the next years it will be impossible to come to the city center by car , '' he said .",has a topic of technology
"in a subway tunnel far below the place de la madeleine on the right bank , an empty automated ghost train glides up to the platform . no driver is at the controls , and no conductor at the doors , which slide open as a recorded human voice announces ''madeleine . '' they close again , and the train whooshes off toward the next stop in the five mile long tunnel . this is the new meteor line of the century old paris metro . meteor , line 14 , has air cushioned trains on tires that can rush along at more than 50 miles an hour , twice as fast as regular trains , is to open on oct . 15 , the first new line since 1935 and the first to be fully automated . ''we 're retraining drivers to circulate on the platforms and in the trains with the passengers , where they can have some company instead of being shut up alone , '' claude janet , a metro visitor guide , said , standing at the curved glass windshield of one of the new six car trains as it rushed through the tunnel . so far there has been no outcry from the often militant metro labor_unions . the line has not tried to cut back on the number of employees on the new line because of automation , mr . janet said there are 242 of them , as many as it would take to run a conventional subway line of the same length . four people at the central computerized command post , in a bunker above one of the new stations just outside the bercy stadium and convention_center near the gare de lyon , can run all 13 trains on line 14 by themselves , watching their progress on computer screens and a green and red train board on a wall . the line runs deep underground between madeleine , chatelet , in the center of paris , and gare de lyon , and then crosses the seine to the biblioteque francois_mitterrand on the left bank . right now the tunnels are filled with hundreds of workers cleaning up dust and debris and putting the finishing touches on the spacious stations . some critics have wondered why madeleine , half a mile from one of the busiest commuter_rail stations in paris , the gare st . lazare , was picked as the western terminus of a line intended to relieve commuter congestion . ''the only reason we did n't extend the line to st . lazare in the first place was that we did n't have the money , '' mr . janet said . regional , local and national authorities financed the 1 billion cost of building the line , which began in 1992 . france prides itself on some of the most technologically_advanced rail transportation systems in the world , but throughout its history , the metro has always kept its distance from the french railroad system . its subway trains , like american ones , run on the right , not the left , the way trains do in france ( and cars as well as trains do in britain ) . some metro trains have been running on rubber tires instead of steel wheels since the early 1960 's . but until meteor , all metro trains have run a good deal more slowly than even the pokiest local on the suburban regional express rail lines , which since the 1970 's have run through the city underground in their own tunnels . eventually , by 2003 mr . janet hopes , meteor will reach st . lazare . the national railways will also build a new connecting commuter_rail station at the mitterrand library . the mitterrand station is the biggest in the system , with a concrete ceiling nearly 50 feet above the train platform , supported by majestic imitation granite pillars . at madeleine , passengers descend through a wide , brightly lit open mezzanine on broad staircases or escalators . all seven stations on the line are wheelchair accessible through elevators from the sidewalk . the stations' design keeps people from falling onto the tracks or wandering into the tunnels by sealing trains in a transparent cocoon . passengers can see the trains as they approach , but are separated from the tracks by a plastic barrier with doors . when the trains roll up , car doors and station doors match and open simultaneously , like elevators . alarms should go off and television screens in the control center light up if anything goes wrong , or if a passenger presses one of the emergency alarm buttons in the trains , which have remote_control cameras and emergency instructions in french , german , spanish , italian and english . the contrast with the claustrophobia and clamor of subways in new york and chicago is anything but an accident , according to bernard kohn , a french american architect who studied with louis kahn in philadelphia and taught at yale before returning to france in 1969 . ''we wanted people to feel they were being welcomed to a restful and un hectic environment , '' he said in an interview . bernard kohn associes formulated the architectural guidelines for the entire system and designed the station at madeleine and five of the others . ''the elitist view in paris is that the metro is only for people who ca n't afford other transport , '' he said . ''we wanted to get completely away from that and make people feel they are treated with dignity here . ''",has a topic of technology
"you can receive text_messages on a cellphone . an organizer . at least a couple of wristwatches . and now , as the universe of connectivity continues to expand , you can even get them on light fixtures . a chandelier has been wired to receive and display text_messages sent from any cellphone that happens to be in the room . at a furniture show in milan last month , swarovski , the austrian crystal manufacturer , introduced lolita , a chandelier by the designer ron arad . lolita is a five foot tall spiral of crystal embedded with more than 1 , 000 white light emitting diodes . processors in the chandelier pick up a phone 's s.m.s . signal and route the data to the l.e.d . 's , which display the text message as it scrolls from the top of the crystal spiral to the bottom . lolita ( www . swarovskisparkles . com ) was a hit with partygoers at its unveiling , and swarovski executives hope the concept will attract interest from high end clients like hotels , upscale nightclubs and perhaps builders of luxury homes ( there is no word from the company on how lolita might be priced ) . a drawback depending on what message is being sent may be the very public nature of lolita 's display . but then , of course , there is a fallback method for delivering messages of a more private variety the cellphone . chris larson news watch display",has a topic of technology
"over the last two years , abu_musab_al_zarqawi established the web as a powerful tool of the global jihad , mobilizing computer savvy allies who inspired extremists in iraq and beyond with lurid video clips of the bombings and beheadings his group carried out . on thursday the electronic network that he helped to build was abuzz with commentary about his death , with supporters posting eulogies , praising what they called his martyrdom and vowing to continue his fight . one qaeda ideologist who calls himself lewis attiya allah declared that mr . zarqawi 's death was a ''victory'' for islam , saying , ''allah chose him'' and ''we are all al zarqawi , '' according to the site institute in washington , which tracks militants' web postings . an online jihadist publication called sada al jihad , or echo of jihad , declared , ''our nation can provide more sons , '' adding , ''the day of revenge is coming soon , very soon . '' the flood of web tributes , their tone more defiant than sorrowful , reached an audience that mr . zarqawi had greatly expanded . while other militants , from the chechen separatists to hamas palestinians , had built web_sites to spread their message , mr . zarqawi and his aides were the first to take full advantage of the technology . mr . zarqawi 's web propaganda generated and probably embellished his reputation in the iraqi insurgency . but it also helped secure the internet as a center of terrorist recruitment and instruction , partly supplanting the role of old qaeda training camps in afghanistan , according to counterterrorism officials and analysts . in recent months , his video messages and vivid images of violence have been posted on multiple computer servers to avoid downloading delays , with one version designed for viewing on cellphones . ''i would call him the alexander graham bell of terrorist propaganda , '' said evan f . kohlmann , who follows militants' web_sites at globalterroralert . com . ''it 's a new day for these groups because of him . '' in april , when mr . zarqawi posted a video that showed his face for the first time , sympathizers posted translations of his speech within hours in english , german , french , dutch and other languages . a london man , younis tsouli , who was arrested on terrorism charges in october , is believed to have played a critical role in spreading mr . zarqawi 's communiqu s , which the authorities say have helped incite homegrown terrorist plotters and suspects in many countries , including the 17 men arrested last week in canada . ''while osama_bin_laden traditionally relied on al_jazeera and the media to disseminate his propaganda , zarqawi went straight to the internet , which enabled him to produce graphic videos that would never have been shown on the mainstream media , '' said rita katz , director of the site institute . videotape that showed a masked man , thought to be mr . zarqawi , as he beheaded an american businessman in iraq , nicholas_berg , in 2004 became a gruesome model for others seeking similar notoriety . videos later posted in thailand showed people being beheaded by militants ''who looked into the camera and said one word 'zarqawi , ' '' mr . kohlmann said . since his first communiqu appeared on a jihadist web forum in april 2004 , mr . zarqawi 's media operation has posted hundreds of others , often with video clips . lasting only a minute or two , the clips gave jihadist oratory far more immediacy masked snipers shoot at american_soldiers a suicide_bomber 's car speeds toward an armored_personnel_carrier before disappearing in a fireball a bomb detonates in a truck convoy , with drivers fleeing the flames . sometimes mr . zarqawi 's media efforts , overseen by an associate who calls himself abu maysara al iraqi , were more ambitious . an hourlong video released in 2004 , called ''the winds of victory , '' collected pictures of suicide bombings and other attacks in a slick production that was serialized on jihadist web_sites . volunteers abroad have played an important role in distributing the material . mr . tsouli , the man arrested in london , and believed to be the web operator using the online name irhabi 007 ( irhabi is arabic for terrorist ) , became known worldwide for duplicating and posting mr . zarqawi 's messages . ''if a beheading appears on a web_site , it can sometimes be taken down in seconds , '' said gabriel weimann , a professor at the university of haifa in israel and the author of ''terror on the internet . '' ''but if someone like irhabi downloads it and posts it all over the web , the message gets out . '' what appears to be surveillance video of washington monuments on mr . tsouli 's computer was also found in the possession of two georgia men arrested in march and april , according to a law enforcement official who spoke only on condition of anonymity . the georgia men , ehsanul islam sadequee and syed haris ahmed , in turn , had contacts with some of the 17 men arrested in ontario last week . ''very often these people do n't know one another , '' mr . weimann said . ''but they 're all connected on the net . '' the struggle for iraq the internet",has a topic of technology
"china has the most extensive internet censorship in the world , regularly denying local users access to 19 , 000 web_sites that the government deems threatening , a study by harvard_law_school researchers finds . the study , which tested access from multiple points in china over six months , found that beijing blocked thousands of the most popular news , political and religious sites , along with selected entertainment and educational destinations . the researchers said censors sometimes punished people who sought forbidden information by temporarily making it hard for them to gain any access to the internet . defying predictions that the internet was inherently too diverse and malleable for state control , china has denied a vast majority of its 46 million internet users access to information that it feels could weaken its authoritarian power . beijing does so even as it allows internet use for commercial , cultural , educational and entertainment purposes , which it views as essential in a globalized era . only the most determined and technologically savvy users can evade the filtering , and they do so at some personal risk , the study says . ''if the purpose of such filtering is to influence what the average chinese internet user sees , success could be within grasp , '' said jonathan zittrain , a professor at the law_school and a co author of the study . the study offers fresh evidence that the internet may be proving easier to control than older forms of communication like telephones , facsimile machines or even letters . china can tap some telephones or faxes or read mail . but it cannot monitor every call , fax message and letter . the internet , in contrast , has common checkpoints . all traffic passes through routers that make up the telecommunications backbone here . china blocks all access to many sites , and it has begun selectively filtering content in real time even as viewers seek access to it and deleting individual links or web pages that it finds offensive . by regularly testing access to 200 , 000 popular web addresses , the researchers found that china blocked up to 50 , 000 sites at some point in the six month period . of those , the study found 19 , 000 sites that could not be reached from different places in china on multiple days . the study is at http cyber . law . harvard . edu filtering china . compared with saudi_arabia , which the team studied earlier , china exercises far broader though sometimes shallower control . beijing completely blocked access to the major sites on tibet and taiwan . a user who types ' 'democracy china'' into google , the popular search_engine , would find nearly all the top sites with those words out of reach . google itself was blocked in september , although access is now restored . chinese users cannot often reach the sites run by amnesty international or human_rights_watch . china also does not allow users to connect to major western religious sites . news_media sites are also often blocked . among those users had trouble reaching in the test period were national_public_radio , the los_angeles times , the washington_post and time magazine . though china says a main justification for censorship is the proliferation of pornography , its blocking of such sites is less dogged . the study found that china blocked fewer than 15 percent of the most popular sexually_explicit sites . saudi_arabia banned 86 percent of the list .",has a topic of technology
"it started with a simple computer game called spacewar and over the next four decades grew into a multibillion_dollar industry that spawned music , movies , college courses and now , an extensive exhibition in london . game on ( www . gameonweb . co . uk ) is what the barbican gallery , the show 's presenter , is calling ''an independent look at the worldwide culture and history of video games . '' the exhibition examines not only graphics , music and game related hardware but also issues like the relationship between game violence and real violence . the show , which opens today , includes a display of game consoles from 1972 to the present and profiles of top game creators . accompanying events include screenings of game influenced films like ''the matrix'' and a concert of new and reworked game scores . game on runs at the barbican through sept . 15 , then moves to the museum of scotland , then to venues to be determined in the united_states , japan and europe . s . j . ross news watch culture",has a topic of technology
"the chairman of silicon_graphics inc . said today that his company ' 'made some serious judgmental errors'' when it shipped two small supercomputer systems last month to a russian laboratory that designs nuclear_weapons and performs computer simulations of nuclear explosions . ''it is possible we were duped , '' edward r . mccracken , the chairman and chief executive of the company , said in a telephone interview . administration officials , who previously had turned down applications from i.b.m . and hewlett_packard to ship comparable computers to the same laboratory , said today that the case had been referred to the united_states_attorney in san_jose , which has opened an investigation . silicon_graphics , which is based in mountain_view , calif . , acquired cray_research inc . , the nation 's premier supercomputer maker , last year . but the computers shipped to chelyabinsk 70 , where most russian nuclear_warheads were designed during the cold_war , were designed by silicon_graphics before the cray acquisition . they are ''parallel processors'' equipped with eight r1000 processors made by mips , a manufacturer of specialized high speed microprocessors . individually , those processors are legal to ship to russia they are not much more powerful than the kind of processor found in advanced personal_computers . but strung together they can form the basis of a supercomputer . silicon_graphics recently sold a far more powerful 3 , 000 processor machine to los_alamos_national_laboratory , which also does advanced weapons design . the commerce_department began an investigation into silicon graphic 's shipment to chelyabinsk 70 because it appeared that it violated the relatively new and looser guidelines that now govern exports to russia and other countries previously covered by cocom , the now defunct international organization that administered export controls during the cold_war . mr . mccracken said that the customer for the two machines and two less powerful computers said they would be used for ''environmental science . '' ''we were naive here in silicon_valley not to know'' more about the customer , mr . mccracken said . cray_research , which has dealt with american export control laws for decades , ''would have known there was a potential problem . '' he said that the company 's procedures for selling computers to russia have been revised in recent weeks , and he must now personally approve any sale . post cold_war export control regulations require that any products sold to a customer known to be a ''weapons proliferator'' have to be licensed . ''that includes coke machines , '' one federal official said today . moreover , high performance computers are governed by additional rules . computer makers are free to ship any machine that operates below two billion calculations per second to most customers in russia . but companies selling machines capable of performing between two billion and seven billion calculations per second are required to consult with the commerce_department to determine if a license is necessary . faster computers almost always require a license . the question that investigators are researching is who is responsible for the sale the russian government a russian ' 'systems integrator'' that put the system together , named catalyst silicon solutions or silicon_graphics' own office in moscow , which is run by russians . mr . mccracken said today that he had just dispatched a team to moscow to interview the company 's employees there . the sale became known to the commerce_department last month when it was announced by the russian government . viktor mikhailov , who runs the country 's ministry of atomic_energy , mentioned the computers in a speech in january , identifying them by model number , though not by manufacture . he said that they would be used to simulate nuclear explosions . such simulations have always been conducted by weapons laboratories here and in russia but they have become crucial because of the international ban on conducting tests .",has a topic of technology
"on a recent rainy afternoon , ahmad nader ali sat in a booth at the shreifinet cafe , sending instant_messages to his brother who lives in finland on one screen window and his fianc e , nour , on another . a tiny web camera sat atop the computer , beaming live images of him to nour 's home screen across baghdad . ''because of the situation , i 'm not able to go and see her often , '' said mr . ali , a confident 20 year old with slicked back hair who runs a men 's clothing store . ''everybody does it like this . '' nearby , partially hidden by wood paneled booths , were a dozen other young men staring intently at their screens , most chatting simultaneously on three or four different e mail accounts . all of them were paying 1 , 500 dinars an hour about a dollar to escape the gray confines of baghdad 's blasted walls for a while . two heavyset men sat on a black faux leather couch by the door , keeping a watchful_eye on the street . three years ago , the internet was virtually unknown in iraq . today , baghdad has dozens of internet cafes like shreifinet , which consists of three sparely decorated rooms with a total of 34 computers and a satellite_dish on the roof . most of the cafes also transmit wireless services to home internet users in the surrounding area for a monthly fee in parts of central baghdad there are about 20 overlapping wireless_networks . the universal hunger to get online has made computer and web services one of the few bright_spots in iraq 's stagnant economy . on sinaa street , the two lane thoroughfare in central baghdad lined with computer and software stores , business is brisk . companies that install wireless_networks and satellite dishes are also thriving , despite the irritation caused by frequent power failures . so are many internet cafes . ''i have to work to persuade people to come to my clothes shop , '' mr . ali said . ''but you do n't need to advertise to tempt customers to come in here . '' few people on earth have more incentive to communicate online ( and indoors ) than iraqis , who risk their lives every time they go out for a quart of milk . the internet can also be a way to get around the rising islamization of everyday life . young people caught flirting on the street even in baghdad are sometimes chastised or even beaten by self proclaimed islamists , but no one can stop them on the web . ''if you look at the chat_rooms , it is mostly young guys and girls , '' mr . ali said . but islamists and insurgents have their own uses for the web . diatribes against the american presence , along with detailed bomb making instructions and tributes to the latest suicide bombers , appear regularly on iraqi chat_rooms and web_sites . the total number of people using the internet , like most iraqi statistics , is partly guesswork . there are 215 , 000 subscribers on the state owned internet company , but that does not include the internet cafe users , who are probably far more numerous , said eva wohn , a legal adviser to iraq 's communications ministry on telecommunications issues . after their long isolation , young iraqis are quickly erasing their technological gap with the west . in some ways they are even further along . thanks to the absence of piracy laws here , many iraqis use software that is not yet in common use in the united_states . the new microsoft vista operating system , for instance , scheduled to be introduced for commercial use in late 2006 , is already widely used here . large numbers of iraqis can be found on the dozens of arabic chat_rooms listed on yahoo messenger , a popular platform for instant_messaging . there are dozens of iraqi web_logs , ranging from political sites , to forums for young people seeking spouses , to ''hashasha'' ( www . 7shasha . com ) , a comic site whose name means ''hashish smokers . '' angry sectarian conversations often break out , especially in arab chat_room 12 , which is popular with iraqi shiites ( the number signifies the 12 great imams of shiite islam ) . like many internet cafe users , mr . ali has no access at home . he lives in doura , a dangerous area where there are almost no internet cafes and few wireless_networks . he could get service on a land line , but he works long hours and prefers to do all his e mailing at shreifinet , which is not far from his clothing store . that calculus has been good for ramzi al shreifi , 32 , the owner of shreifinet . he took over the lease of his two story building just off karrada street from a travel_agency in the fall of 2003 and renovated it , painting the two columns out front bright_yellow . a kurdish company installed a satellite_dish on the roof , charging him 2 , 600 a month for his service . he also mounted wireless transmission equipment , and now has 25 home customers , paying 50 each to use his signal . in the past year , his gross_income has grown by half , to about 6 , 000 a month , mr . shreifi said , a tidy sum by iraqi retail standards . ''it would have been more , but there is competition , '' he added . there are about 15 internet cafes in inner karrada , a busy commercial area that is one of baghdad 's safer neighborhoods , mr . shreifi said . his cafe is open until 10 p.m. , and would stay open all night if not for the curfew imposed by the iraqi government , he said . he has been luckier than many baghdad business owners no robberies , no violence . mr . shreifi has plans to expand . there are hundreds of people in the area who would like to get wireless service . the problem , he said , is that there are no rules governing the internet anyone with enough money for a satellite can transmit to whomever he or she like , and some do not require passwords so that many people can log on free . mr . shreifi also suspects that his signal is sometimes affected by american military officials in the green_zone who may be jamming frequencies used by insurgents . still , by baghdad standards , it is a good living . ''most days this place is almost full , '' mr . shreifi said .",has a topic of technology
"the asian board game of go was the game of the samurai . among noble accomplishments for chinese gentlemen , go ranked with calligraphy , poetry and music . for centuries , go has been used as a tool to teach military_strategy . it is the game from which japanese businessmen draw metaphors . now go is on the internet , and the ancient game 's relatively sudden encounter with modernity has produced a microcosm of the tension that exists between virtual worlds and the real one . go players can now log onto a computer and play 24 hours a day . the advent of on line go has erased barriers of language and distance , while lifting the game from obscurity in the united_states . at the same time , the on line version of the game comes at the expense of many traditions surrounding its play . in this country , some local go clubs , the lifeblood of the go playing world , are suffering a decline in membership as more people play from their homes via computer . go originated in china sometime around 2300 b.c . and was later adopted by korea and japan . the game is played on a board divided into a grid by 19 horizontal and 19 vertical lines . black and white pieces called stones are placed on the intersections of the grid . the object is to win and defend territory by surrounding it with stones . go is an easy game to learn to play , but it is extremely difficult to master . ''i can teach you the rules in 20 minutes , but the strategy will take a lifetime , '' said david saunders , a lawyer in new york who is an avid player . go is often compared with chess , another game of skill and strategy , but go players are careful to distinguish between the two . they view chess as one big bloody skirmish , and go as an endlessly complex process of negotiating for territory . in china , japan and korea , go is a national pastime , and millions of people play . the united_states , by comparison , has relatively few players . the american go association has just 1 , 300 members . the largest and most popular virtual venue for playing go is the internet go server , or i.g.s. , ( at igs . joyjoy . net on the web ) where hundreds of people amateurs and professionals alike from around the world play some 4 , 500 games each day . now owned by nkb , a japanese communications company , i.g.s . was created in 1992 by two american go players , tim casey and mark okada . the i.g.s . server is in tokyo , and mr . casey and mr . okada do their administrative work from northern_california . as internet connections in asia have grown more reliable , the popularity of i.g.s . and other go servers has soared . usually at least 250 people are logged on to i.g.s . at any one time . at night in the united_states , as people in asia are starting their day , the server really comes to life , with as many as 700 players logged on at once . face to face games are surrounded by ritual . before a game in japan , the weaker player says , ''dozo o ne gai itashi masu'' ( ''please teach me'' ) , to the stronger player , accompanied by a slight bow . by comparison , i.g.s . has all the ambience and decorum of a singles bar . ''fast game , anyone ? '' flashes onto the computer screen in ' 'shout'' mode , for all to see . some non english speakers simply send a computer generated match request to another player . banter , some of it related to go and some of it not , is continuous . face to face games can last for hours . every game on i.g.s . is timed , and many people who play on the server say their games last about 45 minutes . at a local go club , when two professionals play , the handful of spectators are careful to remain quiet and discreet . if two well known professionals are playing on i.g.s. , there can be 500 people watching and typing their commentary , which is often very blunt , into a separate kibitzing channel . the players cannot see the comments . for all its intellectual rigor , go is also very tactile , and its esthetics are carefully prescribed . the board , often made of a japanese fir like wood called katsura , is a source of pride to its owner , as are the stones , made of slate and clamshell . before being played , each stone is held with practiced precision between the forefinger and middle finger , and it is placed on the board with an equally practiced , satisfying clap . all of that contributes to what players describe as the delight of the game . ''there 's a lot of pleasure in having that big whap as you put the stone down feel just right , '' said lloyd gowen , a longtime player who is president of the san_francisco go club . as cyberspace eliminates these dimensions of the game , however , it adds others . perhaps the biggest appeal of on line go is its convenience . ''you can play go in your shorts at 3 a.m. , if that 's your pleasure , '' said mr . saunders , who uses the screen name dsaun on i.g.s . mr . saunders is helping to start a scholarship for on line lessons for those who cannot afford professional go lessons . ''you can find people your level or stronger or watch people of professional strength 24 hours a day , '' he said . ''it 's a larger universe of players than any local go club has . '' as a result , more players opt to play from home rather than drive to their local go club . ''a lot of stronger players have stopped going to local clubs because it 's difficult for them to get a good game , '' said mr . okada , a strong player himself whose i.g.s . handle is simply tweet . ''a lot of them are playing on line because there 's a stronger variety of players to play with . '' phil straus , 47 , the former president of the american go association , discovered i.g.s . in 1993 . ''suddenly i was able to play people at any strength i wanted 24 hours a day , 7 days a week , '' he said . even with the arrival of a a new go club within walking distance of his house , mr . straus said , he prefers to play on i.g.s . ''it 's harder to get away than to find half an hour to play someone on i.g.s . , '' he said . he jian , a 26 year old player in hangzhou , in eastern china , said he still played a three hour face to face game with a friend every weekend but had grown addicted to playing on i.g.s . since he registered last july . he pays 30 a month for his internet connection , one fifth his monthly salary . paul celmer , 34 , a player who helped organize the go club in chapel_hill , n.c. , laments the trend away from face to face play . ''it has hurt the intangibles , the romance of the game , '' he said . further , mr . celmer said , local players no longer show up at area tournaments . mr . celmer recounted the lonely tale of yoshiteru suzuki , one of the strongest players in the area , who started a go club there last year . ''there have been times when i have been the only person at his club , '' mr . celmer said . ''here is a man willing to share his time and formidable skill , yet most do not want to be inconvenienced by the time it would take to drive to his club . this lack of interest would never have happened in the days before the internet , i assure you . suzuki 's time and skill would have been as precious as gold . '' at the same time , on line go is helping to attract players who might not otherwise be interested . susan weir , an avid go player and a strong proponent of the cognitive benefits of go playing , teaches the game to fourth and fifth graders in public schools in ann_arbor , mich . on the first friday of every month , ms . weir runs a ''cybercamp'' in which children from around the nation meet on i.g.s . to play each other . with the growing popularity of go among young people , ms . weir has started a weeklong summer go camp on the michigan shore , the first of its kind in the united_states . at the camp , only face to face games are played . on line playing has introduced to the go playing world a new set of troubles , which may be intrinsic to on line life but have stripped the game of much of its dignity . cheaters players who consult books or have someone sitting in for them are one problem . so called escapers people who vanish into cyberspace as soon as they start losing are another . to cope with the problem of escapers , the i.g.s . administrators imposed a new rule if an interrupted game is not completed within 30 days , the person who dropped out takes a loss . ''you see lots of shenanigans , '' mr . okada said . ''it 's no different from other corners of cyberspace but still out of character for the go playing world . '' whether on line or off , go playing is likely to remain human to human for many years to come . unlike chess , go has yet to succumb to the computational muscle that helped deep blue , a chess playing computer , beat the world 's best chess player in 1997 . an expert go playing computer program must be able not only to analyze moves but also to recognize complex patterns . piet hut , an astrophysicist at the institute for advanced study in princeton , n.j. , and a fan of the game , said it could be several decades before a computer could beat an expert human player at go . i.g.s . is n't for everyone . for one thing , internet connections are still expensive in some parts of asia , especially china , where 20 to 30 people often share one i.g.s . account . for elderly retirees in japan , who are among go 's most avid players and have no trouble finding an opponent , the internet is not just unwanted but unnecessary . for others , like philip w . anderson , a nobel_prize winning physicist at princeton_university , i.g.s . is simply a bad fit . dr . anderson has played go for 45 years and began playing on line four years ago . ''i find playing on the net very frustrating because i do n't visualize patterns well on the small screen , '' he said . ''and i think i play a couple of ranks below my true strength as judged by nonvirtual games . '' thomas hsiang , an engineering professor at the university of rochester who is one of the strongest amateur players in this country , said i.g.s . had improved his game , mostly because of the ease with which he can observe professionals' games and play against stronger players . but playing on the net , he said , has also encouraged some bad habits . ''internet games tend to be fast , '' dr . hsiang said . ''one major disadvantage is the tendency to play sloppily . '' earlier this year , dr . hsiang represented the united_states in the world amateur championship in tokyo . dr . hsiang held his own quite well in the first seven rounds , he said . winning his final game would have made him the third ranked amateur in the world . but while he was leading by a wide margin , he made a careless mistake and lost . ''this can be attributed to my net habit , '' dr . hsiang said . ''but , of course , if i had not been practicing on the net , i would probably have never gotten that far . '' players like dr . hsiang still show up at the big tournaments . at next year 's annual go congress , to be held in san_francisco in july , as many as 400 people are expected to attend . ''people still get a charge out of face to face contact , conversations and direct , over the board competition , '' mr . straus said . ''that says to me that people have a craving for physical community . '' finding a game lots of places to play or watch the internet go server , or i.g.s. , is the jones beach of virtual go parlors . it 's wall to wall players . at peak times , as many as 700 people can be logged on at once , some flexing their muscles , others just lounging around and taking in the scene . still , it is relatively easy to carve out a spot for yourself . you can take an on line lesson or watch one . you can observe a match between professional players or watch a replay of an old match . it is also very easy to find someone of your strength to play with . you can reach i.g.s . with the telnet command . ( windows 95 , 98 and nt machines have telnet software already installed , but macintosh computers do not . ) telnet software is also available on the web . a variety of windows telnet programs are listed at www . davecentral . com telnetclnt . html , and macintosh programs can be found at www . cstone . net rbraun mac telnet and www . macatawa . org mthomas telnet . html . to play the game with a realistic picture of a go board , download software from the i.g.s . web_site ( igs . joyjoy . net ) . then connect via telnet by typing in the host name igs . joyjoy . net 6969 . i.g.s . is free for all players outside japan . most players in japan must pay 20 a month , or 2 per game . if you 're looking for a less crowded spot than i.g.s . for your go match , there is yahoo 's gaming area , games . yahoo . com , which uses a java based applet for playing . go is also available at microsoft 's msn gaming zone , zone . msn . com . the yahoo and microsoft sites are not for serious go players . unlike i.g.s. , they have no rating system , and there are no official tournaments . that 's good for rank beginners , who might feel a bit intimidated by the i.g.s . crowd . there are also several i.g.s . lookalikes , accessible through telnet . one , called the no name go server , or n.n.g.s. , is available by telnetting to nngs . cosmic . org 9696 . it looks exactly like i.g.s. , but far fewer players go there .",has a topic of technology
"french scientists are developing fabrics that make you not only chic but also protect you against odors , bacteria , fungi and yeast . near lille , lyon and other hubs of the growing industry , researchers are developing a range of innovative textiles , including sheets and pillowcases that annihilate dust mites on contact , t shirts woven with tiny ceramic particles that block the ultraviolet rays of the sun and underwear that endures unlaundered day after day , with nary a smell . joining the vanguard of high tech materials is not really such a stretch for the french . the country has a long history of textile innovation , extending back to the jacquard loom of 1801 , with its innovative use of punch_cards to pattern intricate designs , which were then woven into sumptuous fabrics . now french looms are starting to turn out a variety of fabrics in which fungicides and other substances are introduced into the material before it is made into fibers or are enclosed in microcapsules that are bound to the clothing later in the process . proponents hope that the new materials will soon knock the socks off the united_states market or , at the very least , deodorize those socks quite thoroughly . ''we are not just a country of cheeses and wines , '' said francoise abriou , trade attache of the consulate general of france . ''we plan also to lead in high technology fabrics . '' ms . abriou , who works out of the atlanta office of the french trade commission , is coordinating the french pavilion of 14 to 20 companies that will be part of techtextil , an international show to be held in atlanta from march 22 to 25 . with one of the new fabrics developed in france , your love may be more like a red , red rose than even robert burns intended . neyret , the venerable parisian lingerie house , offers lingerie woven with tiny perfume microcapsules . touch the silk and scent escapes the semipermeable membrane and pervades the air . ''and the fabric will keep the scent for about 10 washings , depending on water temperature , '' said sylvie gardeux , the company 's united_states sales representative . for olfactory challenges of a different type , francital , a french company that manufactures clothing for extreme environments , has developed a fabric that is treated with chemicals to absorb perspiration and odors . the company , in le valjoly , near st . etienne , plans to test the latest version of the material on two explorers who will trek from the north_pole to resolute bay in northern_canada . each explorer will receive three pairs of underpants as well as extra undershirts . ''we expect them to wear each pair for 30 days , '' said patrice dheu , director of the company . ''in the north_pole , they will have no chance to wash them . '' the deodorized fabric has a knitted , fleecelike fabric that lies next to the skin and keeps the wearer dry , mr . dheu said . perspiration is wicked away to adjoining hydrophilic layers . while the outer layer of the underwear keeps out water , it lets water from perspiration move outward to evaporate into the air . ''the hydrophilic membrane absorbs the moisture so the skin stays dry even when the person is taxed by extreme conditions , '' mr . dheu said . the water molecules absorbed by the membrane are released into the frigid , dry air of the mountain terrain . mr . dheu said that francital planned to release a line of deodorizing underwear with the special wicking action for expedition or sports use in 2002 . at abeil , a french company that specializes in high technology fabrics for pillows , quilts and bedclothes , dust mites are a target of company research . the company impregnates some of its fabrics with small quantities of permethrin , a pesticide often used to kill fleas on dogs or carpets , to kill dust mites on contact , said dr . hugues a . mayer , owner and director of the company , which is in aurillac , midway between bordeaux and lyon . abeil plans to introduce the anti dust mite fabric into the united_states within the next two years , dr . mayer said , but it first needs to assure regulatory agencies that the cloth is not harmful to people or the environment . many people in this country who are allergic to dust mites keep them away by relying on mechanical barriers like impermeable rubber or vinyl plastic mattress covers or or chemical sprays . abeil also produces textiles that kill bacteria as well as dust mites . dr . mayer is president of the national commission for antibacterial textiles , a french organization that is drawing up standards for evaluating antibacterial properties . ''we are concerned to limit the spread of bacteria , but not to eliminate them entirely , '' dr . mayer said , because microorganisms on the skin provide a useful barrier to infection . other french groups , too , are evaluating the new fabrics . dr . guy nemoz , head of research at the french textile institute in lyon , is working on certification for fabrics with antibacterial and antifungal effects . ''in a few weeks we hope to have a standard , '' he said , ''including certification that the chemical is not going outside the fiber , as well as that it is durable over many washings . '' many french fabrics contain antibacterial agents within the fiber , blended into the fiber before it is spun into cloth . sometimes the basic raw_material for the polymer that constitutes the fiber is polyvinyl chloride , but fibers can also be blended with other types of polymers and with wool , cotton or other materials . rhovyl , another french company , embeds highly specific chemicals like triclosan , an antibacterial compound that inhibits the growth of many bacteria , into the fiber at the spinning stage , said celine giacomuzzi , a press spokeswoman for the company , which is based in tronville en barrois . rhovyl as fibers and other antibacterial fibers , like amicor , are used for a number of antibacterial sock and underwear products manufactured by damart , a french clothing company , said brice tillmann , a textile engineer for damart at its research and development office in roubaix , near lille . ''the antibacterial treatments fight odor well , '' he said , ''even after repeated washings . '' damart also offers a high tech t_shirt in france that blocks ultraviolet and infrared radiation , mr . tillmann said . the t_shirt is a blend of cotton and polyester ceramic particles are added to the polyester before it is spun . ''we prefer to add the properties into the fiber , rather than at the finish , '' mr . tillmann said , ' 'so that the properties will last longer . '' the t_shirt makes the wear feel five degrees cooler , mr . tillmann said , ''and this is particularly good for dark colors , which otherwise absorb the infrared light , making you feel warm . '' there are french fabrics in development to please most everyone , even a light sleeper , researchers say . dr . mayer at abeil said the company was working on a fabric that would transfer water vapor from one side of the pillow to the other , which could put an end to the problem of soggy pillows . what's next",has a topic of technology
"just days after a pro nazi trilogy of novels called ''lebensraum ! '' was published in the united_states last april , canadian customs agents confiscated a shipment of the books at the border , contending that they promote hatred against jews and violate canada 's anti hate laws . the trilogy 's author , ingrid rimland , 62 , promotes the books and the ideas they contain on a web_site she runs out of a san_diego suburb . the site is named zundelsite , and it is filled with the words and ideas of ernst zundel , a toronto resident who is one of the world 's most insistent holocaust deniers and distributors of anti semitic literature . the trilogy , whose title , meaning living space , is a reference to german imperialism , was privately published . while canada 's laws are clear on how to deal with offensive written material , they are still untested on communication that seeps across the border electronically . canadian customs agents regularly seize books , magazines and compact_disks that that violate standards of decency or promote hate . now for the first time there is a serious attempt to address the issue of the same kind of material on the internet . the canadian human rights commission has charged mr . zundel with spreading hate propaganda and is intent on shutting down the zundelsite . the commission contends that although the site is run from california , mr . zundel controls its content and thus can be prosecuted under canadian laws . the case against mr . zundel began last fall and has encountered complications as the quasi judicial tribunal wrestles with new legal issues of law and technology . ''we do n't think the internet is a law free zone much as some people might want it to be when it suits their purposes , '' said bill pentney , general_counsel for the canadian human rights commission . ''we are trying to control not the internet but ernst zundel by applying canadian laws to him . '' the case has raised questions of freedom of speech , which is guaranteed in the canadian charter of rights and freedoms . recently mr . zundel was prohibited by the house of commons from holding a news conference in a room in parliament that is available to the public . he complained that his rights had been violated . ''ultimately it has everything to do with freedom , and all these other issues are really only subjective , peripheral , spinoffs , '' mr . zundel said during an interview in his home . ''i am a not a country , i am one man , and i say this man will not be browbeaten . '' the german born mr . zundel , 59 , has lived in canada for 40 years , but has been denied citizenship on theground that he is a security risk . he sees himself as a martyr , hounded by governments that have unfairly portrayed germany 's history . the zundelsite , set up in 1995 , prominently features his assertion that reports of the holocaust are a hoax . but kenneth mcvay , founder and director of the nizkor project , an extensive holocaust resource web_site , sees the issue differently . ''mr . zundel is a man who peddles lies and hatred for profit , '' he said . among the thorny issues raised by this case is how to determine the origin of an internet site . if the zundelsite is based in california but mr . zundel is in toronto , to what country does the site ''belong'' and who is responsible for its contents ? the canadian human rights commission contends that mr . zundel controls the web_site and therefore can be prosecuted under canada 's hate laws . canadian authorities are seeking to apply section 13 of the canadian human rights act , which prohibits anyone from using telephone lines to spread hate messages based on race , religion or ethnic origin . ed morgan , national legal counsel for the canadian jewish congress , said it would be almost impossible to bring a suit in the united_states to shut down the zundelsite because of first amendment protections of free_speech that have already been extended to the internet in previous cases . ms . rimland concedes that she frequently uses mr . zundel as a consultant but insists she is in charge of the site . canadian authorities have tried to prosecute mr . zundel before . in the 1980 's , he was brought to trial twice , under the weaker anti hate laws in effect then . his first conviction was overturned on a technicality , but he was retried and convicted in 1988 under a law prohibiting the spreading of false news . that decision was overturned when the supreme court of canada declared the law unconstitutional in 1992 .",has a topic of technology
"armed with thick repair manuals and rosters of experts , russian officials have opened an all out campaign to expel the so called year 2000 bug from the nation 's eight million computers , their microchips and their programs . but 60 miles south of the kremlin in the little town of stupino , mike tuffs is not waiting for the victory party . mr . tuffs , regional technology manager for mars inc . , the american candy maker , asked the regional government and utility officials last year how they planned to deal with the bug . what he found was that many did not know that their equipment was vulnerable and that others believed wrongly that they were already protected . mars has since outfitted its two russian factories so that they can continue some production during power and water breakdowns , and it is stockpiling raw_materials in anticipation of transportation and customs problems . ''our greatest concern is for public utilities and state organizations , '' mr . tuffs said . ''it would appear that many public organizations are not aware of the equipment that they use and how they interact and how a failure in one area will affect another . '' what worries mr . tuffs also rattles the technology chiefs of other companies , as well as computer experts and consultants . they say russia has awakened to the year 2000 threat too late , spread the alarm too thinly and has far too little money to perform much more than digital triage on the government and economy . ''there 's a potential for major damage to the infrastructure , '' said andrei n . terekhov , a mathematician from st . petersburg and the general director of lanit terkom , a business that works on year 2000 problems . the difficulties arise from longtime reliance of computer programs on two digit date fields for any year , with 19 presumed to be the preceding digits . many programs were custom written by people who have died , dropped out sight or have moved to western_europe or the united_states and are working on the problem there . ''there are obsolete applications on which , very often , entire factories , banks and real time critical systems depend , '' mr . terekhov said . there is also the potential that not much will happen . government officials say they are addressing all problems in critical areas like atomic_energy and nuclear_missiles . american officials said they were confident that human safeguards would prevent accidental launchings . the semiprivate companies that supply power , gas and other essential services say they are at work , too . in addition , russia enjoys a peculiar advantage . because it has been slow to adopt computer technology , many functions like factory processes can be run manually . alexander miasnikov , a representative here of the gartner group , technology consultants from connecticut , said in an e mail posting that most major russian companies would solve year 2000 problems in their central operations , but that ''in remote branches there can be some problems . '' the government predicted in april that even if its assault on the year 2000 bug proceeded as planned , up to a fifth of all computers would malfunction in january . with 56 , 000 government computer systems , 16 , 000 of them critical , officials worry about everything from inoperative elevators to a freeze up in the network that is supposed to tabulate the vote in the parliamentary election on jan . 12 . ''i ca n't and should n't say either that something is not going to happen or speak of catastrophic outcomes , '' said aleksandr krupnov , the chairman of the state committee on telecommunications and information_technology , which is leading the effort on the year 2000 . ''i stick to something in the middle . '' the government effort began in earnest in the fall . regional centers were set up to certify technicians whom businesses could hire . a government wide inspection of equipment and new backup plans were ordered . american officials familiar with the plans said moscow was serious and focused . nevertheless , the problems are huge . an estimated two thirds of the desktop computers need repair . but most owners cannot be warned . many manufacturers are out of business or lack sales records . many programs used outside big businesses are bootlegged , illegally copied . hundreds of military and industrial tasks rely on programs that are decades old , written by programmers who may have left russia . and nearly everyone is too broke to spend on a nebulous bug , anyway . the government said its repairs would cost 1 billion to 3 billion . that is up to one seventh of a federal budget that already cannot pay some pensions and debts . most agencies have been told to raid their budgets to solve the problems . one expert here said some businesses were having trouble because the western suppliers whose equipment needs upgrading have yet to be paid , and they are refusing to make repairs until they receive their money . much of the nation is uninterested or unaware of the threat . an informal survey of 50 civic leaders in irkutsk , a city of 500 , 000 on the mongolian border , showed that 20 had heard of year 2000 defects . ron lewin , a computer consultant here who also heads the technology committee of the american chamber of commerce in russia , said ''at this point , contingency planning is the most important element , developing plans on what to do if there is no water or no electricity . there 's not a lot of time left , and there 's a high likelihood of failure for some of the utilities . '' 4 million to repair weapons systems the one area where catastrophe seems all but impossible is in nuclear_weapons . officials say most crucial military computers , including those in the nuclear_force , use programs that are not date sensitive , rendering them immune to year 2000 problems . russian and american officials allow that in a worst case scenario early warning systems could send false signals as the satellites on which they rely drift slowly out of alignment . but because such errors have been anticipated , the chances that they would lead to a nuclear strike are all but nil . any remaining problems are so small , officers contend , that they can be erased with the installation soon of a mere 4 million worth of new computers and programs . washington and moscow have also proposed exchanging radar information and other figures this winter to diminish the risk of misinterpretations . russia has said it is suspending cooperation on year 2000 problems to protest the united_states' role in the nato attack on yugoslavia . but that seems highly unlikely to affect nuclear_weapons seriously . experts appear to believe that midwinter losses of electricity or other basic services will cause hardship in many areas , but stop short of human catastrophe . brownouts and other breakdowns could cause millions of dollars in damage to industrial complexes like smelters and steel mills that depend on continuous power supplies . telephone and data transmission disruptions could leave businesses without the basic information that they need to compile bills and settle accounts . the experts also are concerned about nuclear_reactors and other highly complex sites . the fear is that workers usually adept at handling problems could be overwhelmed by four , five or six minor failures at once . russia does not depend on technology as much as the west , meaning that the damage could be limited . soviet administrators sharply restricted the use of computers . the seven million desktops , 150 , 000 servers and several thousand mainframes in use are not extensive for such a technologically muscular country . although many factories operate with 1950 's technology hand switches and analog gauges , the industrial spine oil and gas pipelines , electrical grids , telephone systems and transportation networks all rely on microchips and computers to run smoothly . much of russia and europe 's natural_gas flows through the siberian pipeline that belongs to gazprom , a monopoly that the government still largely owns . the central_intelligence_agency says the mainframe computers at gazprom almost certainly require revamping , as may be the case with microchips at hundreds of remote pumping_stations . gazprom officials say they can handle any problems , perhaps by placing workers at the remote pumping_stations . but the utility has not released details . the electricity monopoly , unified_energy systems , said this month that 17 , 000 of its 50 , 000 computers had failed to meet year 2000 standards . ''we think that by september we will be able to replace the most important and vital parts of the system , '' a press release said . ''we will try to renovate the rest by the end of the year . '' challenge for airlines and air control the government says that it is renovating the only two major air_traffic_control centers that depend on digital computers , in moscow and rostov on don , and that others do not require upgrades . but most of the 400 odd russian aviation companies have computers with year 2000 problems . the international civil aviation organization is asking the russian airlines and plane manufacturers for information on their preventive measures . in the spring , russian insurance_companies raised the rates charged airline companies in anticipation of year 2000 risks . the gartner group , the consulting_firm , ranks russia among the worst prepared nations for the year 2000 transition . gartner predicts a month of turmoil in russian financial markets , two months for utilities and hospital and three months for transportation and telecommunications . other american specialists , though , say they believe that the russians will weather whatever january brings by virtue of two proficiencies . one is their expertise in programming and maintaining computers , a skill honed by years of military spending . russia may be poor , those experts say , but it has a corps of computer technologists deserving of any westerner 's envy . the other advantage is the ability to deal with adversities . suspensions of power , water and telephone service would cripple most western cities . in much of russia , such breakdowns are a fact of life . international firms make their own plans but many multinational companies that have conducted their own research nestle , british_petroleum and global one , an international telecommunications concern have elected to prepare for trouble . mars candy executives say they expect power and telephone blackouts in early january , followed by weeks of scheduled brownouts . to avoid any tieup of imports and exports in customs offices , mars will suspend international shipments around jan . 1 . the company also has begun to educate local officials and businesses about the problem , part of a longstanding effort to maintain good relations with moscow and the region . the need is there , mr . tuffs said . in some cases , mars has received written assurances from officials outside stupino that the area is ready for the new year , even when the company 's examination proved otherwise . executives at global one said the long distance networks were safe , but planned to beef up emergency power supplies at a computer center downtown . most local calls are routed and timed by a switch whose maker no longer exists , according to lawrence haw , a telecommunications consultant here . ''it 's not year 2000 compatible , '' mr . haw said . ''there 's nobody to work on this switch . there have n't been any software upgrades . there 's no vendor for the switch any more . so who 's going to do the upgrades ? '' against this backdrop of possible chaos and uncertainty , more than a few russian experts bridle at the notion that their efforts may not meet western standards . when a top computer specialist at the russian federal aviation service , boris v . mikhailovich , was asked by a reporter whether year 2000 preparations at air_traffic_control centers were adequate , he had a ready response . ''what do you think i am ? '' he asked . ''an enemy of my own people ? '' counting to 2000 articles under this heading throughout 1999 will examine efforts worldwide to prepare computers for the year 2000 .",has a topic of technology
"the house today turned back a proposal that would have given digital contracts the legal weight of ink and paper . the outcome essentially killed the bill 's chance of passage this year . the vote to suspend house rules and so allow for speedy consideration of the measure was 234 in favor and 122 against , a bit shy of the two thirds majority needed . the rules suspension was sought by representative thomas j . bliley jr . , the virginia republican who is chairman of the house commerce committee , and was opposed by the white_house and democratic leaders , who maintained that the measure would undercut consumer_protection laws . the democrats said they supported the bill 's goal , the fostering of electronic_commerce , but contended that the legislation would , for instance , undermine requirements that banks , insurers and credit_card companies notify consumers by mail about overdue payments , cancellations and changes in the terms of their agreements . a similar bill is pending in the senate , but it too is unlikely to win passage this year , given democratic opposition .",has a topic of technology
"a report in the technology briefing column of business day on friday about yahoo 's objection to a french court 's judgment against the company over the sale of nazi related material on its auction sites misstated the effective date of the fines . it is 90 days after the judgment is served in the united_states , not 180 days .",has a topic of technology
"the economy is on the mend in japan , but the turnaround has not included the country 's most famous company , sony . the electronics and entertainment giant is going through a difficult period . its marquee electronic products have been overtaken and undercut by low cost rivals like dell and samsung . sony 's movie studio has failed to repeat its record run in 2002 , and its music unit is trying to overcome hurdles to merge with bertelsmann 's bmg division . even sales of its once enormously_popular playstation 2 video game console are slowing . in october , sony 's chairman , nobuyuki idei , announced a broad three year plan to improve profits that involves cutting about 10 percent of the work force . that could mean more pain in 2004 , or the long awaited revival of japan 's best known brand . international business pending",has a topic of technology
"a chechen commander has claimed responsibility for raids in the southern russian_republic of ingushetia last month that overwhelmed the authorities and left nearly 100 people dead . in a video on a pro rebel web_site , the commander , shamil basayev , wanders with masked men through what seems to be a captured police building , discussing captured weapons . ''i express thanks to leaders of ingushetia for keeping the munitions in such good quality , '' he says . mr . basayev , whom russia says works with al_qaeda and is considered a terrorist by the united_states , has claimed responsibility for attacks in the past and has vowed to lead more . c.j . chivers ( nyt )",has a topic of technology
"when the subject is macintosh , love often turns to obsession . such is the case for a small group of apple aficionados who have decided that the one true macintosh is the color_classic . as the last toaster size mac , the color_classic followed the same basic design first offered in 1984 and was the only model to offer a built in color display . unveiled in 1993 , the tiny all in one classic disappeared from store_shelves in 1994 , but it still makes millions of brief appearances each day the smiling icon that appears during every mac start up is a holdover from the classic . and for some traditionalists , the candy colored imac and the new g4 cube will never replace it . the design looks modern even today . but the web_site called lowendmac , which describes and posts rankings of older macintoshes for collectors and die_hard fans , designated the color_classic a ''road apple'' ( a technological dud ) because of its unbearably slow 16 megahertz processor and apple 's decision not to offer parts that let users upgrade their machines . that does not stop fans like the rev . stuart bell , who ministers to his parishioners in sussex , england , by day and finds unorthodox ways of keeping his color_classic up to date by night . he replaced the original circuit_board with a powermac board , which he then upgraded with a 275 megahertz g3 chip . ''the original mac design with the built in screen in a box weighing no more than 20 pounds is the definitive and the cutest macintosh of them all , '' mr . bell said . the imac , at 35 pounds , recaptures that concept in some ways , he said . but , he added , ''it 's hardly portable , and i do n't think anyone would call it cute . '' one reason the color_classic is still adored is the appeal of its case , which was designed by daniele deiuliis at apple in 1992 ( he later created the case for the powerbook 500 series ) . giving the original classic a twist , mr . deiuliis ( pronounced day you lease ) lengthened the front , accentuated the forehead above the screen and carved the floppy disk slot to resemble a drooping mouth , a combination that reminded many users of bart simpson . he made the side vents resemble gills , a look that suggested that the computer was breathing . the plastic around the display appears to stretch . a mirthful touch was the tiny round legs that resemble the feet of a baby elephant . a later apple design language , called espresso , used the visual cues that first appeared on the color_classic . ''when you see the form and detailing , '' mr . bell said , ''you know it is classic apple . it 's almost a living thing . '' the color_classic was a favorite among university students , who wanted a small machine that could handle word_processing . but the hottest market of all was in japan , where tight spaces made the color_classic 's small footprint especially desirable . in 1994 , apple discontinued the product in the united_states and offered the slightly faster color_classic ii in japan that model was discontinued the following year . by 1997 , hundreds of japanese users who had refused to trade in their beloved machines joined forces with the two man team of takashi imai , who writes for the japanese magazine macpower , and makoto akizuki , known together as takky . together they founded the club for creating the strongest color_classic , which functions as a clearinghouse for information on how to upgrade the color_classic using spare_parts taken from later machines . with nearly 300 members , the club has a web_site ( homepage2 . nifty . com kan chan ) that offers detailed instructions for upgrading the color_classic 's video output and installing a g3 motherboard , a new hard_drive , a second power supply ( for pci expansion ) , an on board cd_rom drive , stereo sound and more . currently , the strongest machine , owned by a club member known as mr . misutiku , has a 500 megahertz g3 chip , two power supplies , ethernet and a tv fm radio tuner with a remote_control . the first step is to find a discarded color_classic , which often sells on ebay for less than 100 . next , open the back of the machine , replace the motherboard with one from a discarded power macintosh 5000 or 6000 series machine ( as mr . bell did ) . enhance the color_classic 's resolution by cutting one wire and soldering a new wire on the video circuit_board ( that increases the scanning voltage from 60 to 84 volts , which increases the screen density from 560 by 384 pixels to 640 by 480 , which is needed for running photoshop or browsing the web ) . you now have one of the most sought after cult objects in the mac universe . a color_classic running at g3 speed can give the most confirmed imac user a case of techno envy , said siu chi tang , who finances his color_classic obsession by working as a linux distributor in montreal . the club site warns that tinkering with a color_classic can be dangerous ( the cathode ray tube can deliver a potentially lethal shock ) . many users prefer to order an already built unit from maxus computer in japan ( www . maxuscomputer . com ) , a macintosh upgrade specialist that can remove the 333 megahertz g3 motherboard and 4 gigabyte hard_drive from an imac and install it in a color_classic for 2 , 600 , more than twice the price of a new imac . ''the price is not really an issue , '' mr . tang said , ''because having a strong color_classic is like owning a hot rod car . it 's impractical , but it 's cool . there are a lot of people who will pay any price to have one . '' mr . tang displays his own jet black g3 conversion on his company 's web_site ( www . tangal . com ) , where he also shows a souped up apple iic and a machine that he considers his ultimate trophy a clear plastic color_classic , one of only three in existence , which apple engineers used for testing . asked to put a price on it , mr . tang paused , then said , ''i ca n't . '' patrick ng , an internet executive in hong_kong , has taken his obsession to more lyrical heights . a vice_president at pacificdotcom , mr . ng has documented his self diagnosed case of ''ccfs'' ( color_classic fixation syndrome ) on his amusing web_site , color_classic forever ( grus . hkstar . com patrickn colorclassic ) . the story began in october 1998 , when mr . ng saw a photo of the color_classic . he alerted a newsgroup to his quest for one and visited several shops until he found a dirty nonworking model . after giving it a scrub , mr . ng rhapsodized in a diary entry on his site ''i now see the uncompromising beauty and elegance of cc even more obviously , it simply shines . as this mystic discovery continues , my super ego seems to warn me the danger of the game , the emotional attachment to a physical object . '' on new year 's eve , while others were partying , mr . ng was otherwise occupied , as a later diary entry showed ''i embraced the dusted classic during the countdown . the rest of that night , perhaps i should say the rest of the millennium , i gradually slipped away and fell into a deep trance , everything went blurred except a single point of vision , i naturally put that point on the shining color_classic . '' he then decided that he wanted the machine to carry his child , ''to give her life , '' he wrote . as it turned out , mr . ng 's ''child'' is his siamese fighting fish , faust , who now swims in an aquarium installed in the color_classic 's chassis . cured of his obsession , mr . ng now keeps his macquarium in his office , which overlooks hong_kong . ''i receive e mails from all over the world asking about faust , '' he said . ''he 's doing fine . ''",has a topic of technology
"researchers of infrared networking would like to bounce data off your nose . or your desk . or the coffee machine . their goal is to use beams of infrared light , reflecting from all surfaces in a room , to create high speed information networks . while local networks using radio waves , like apple 's airport system , have been getting the attention , scientists working on infrared say that in the long run , light might be a better and faster alternative . ''radio cannot compete with this performance , '' said dr . mohsen kavehrad , a professor of electrical_engineering at pennsylvania_state_university . dr . kavehrad and a colleague , dr . svetla jivkova , have been researching a system that sends pencil thin infrared beams bouncing around a room , connecting computers to one another and to a central transmitter and receiver that is wired to a larger network . the researchers said the technology could transmit two gigabits a second , or about a thousand times as much data as a cable_modem , with few transmission errors . anyone who has used a remote_control to change the channel has seen infrared in action . the technology is also used in laptop computers and palm type devices for wireless communication over short distances . but these links work best when the transmitter is pointed at the receiver , something that would not be practical when linking an entire office or offering network access in a public place like an airport or a restaurant . one way around the problem is to bounce wide infrared beams off the ceiling , scattering the reflections around the room . this allows receivers to be pointed in any direction . while some networking products already use this approach , dr . kavehrad said the scattered beams created something similar to an echo , causing data loss and limiting the network 's speed . the penn_state researchers think they have solved the echo problem by using a holographic filter to produce thin beams that create a large grid as they reflect around the room . the university is seeking a patent on the technology . ''it 's a really cheap and easy way of producing these multiple beams , '' he said . ''having the pencil beams allows you to send the signals very fast , and not relying on just one of them allows you to move around , and you can do this whole thing at low power levels . '' researchers at the university of kassel and at the university of siegen , both in germany , have approached the problem differently , focusing on improving the receiver 's ability to separate signals from echoes and interference . the researchers say the resulting network would be fast enough to allow everyone in a meeting to receive and transmit video streams on their laptops simultaneously for videoconferencing . providing enough bandwidth for activities like videoconferencing is one area where infrared has an advantage the radio spectrum is tightly_regulated so only certain frequencies can be used for data transmission . manufacturers can push into higher frequencies in search of free space , but at the same time , the components needed become more expensive . infrared has no such problems , because its frequencies , which are just below visible light on the electromagnetic spectrum , are unregulated . and because infrared transmissions do not penetrate walls , there is no chance of interference or overlap in neighboring rooms . that also can be a security advantage radio frequency networks open the possibility of eavesdropping , perhaps by someone sitting in the parking_lot with a laptop and an antenna . but infrared 's inability to pass through walls and other objects may also be its downfall . the technology requires at least one receiver and transmitter in each room to be connected to a wired network . this makes it an unlikely choice for , say , someone wanting to stay online wirelessly while moving a laptop among different rooms . and forget about going online from the backyard via infrared the beams need surfaces , particularly ceilings , to bounce from . joseph m . kahn , a professor of electrical_engineering and computer sciences at the university of california at berkeley , said the first users of new networking equipment have been companies and schools , and ''they do n't want to put an access point in each room . '' dr . kahn , who did research on infrared networking for much of the last decade , said he had based some of his work on research by dr . kavehrad . in a report , he and his colleagues demonstrated about a year ago that an infrared network could handle a separate video stream for every passenger on a jetliner . but he said he had moved on to other things . ''it has some technical advantages , '' he said , ''but it just has n't taken off commercially , and i see no signs that that 's going to change , unfortunately . '' in addition , he said , companies are investing more money in radio research , limiting advancements in infrared . meanwhile , radio based networking is entering the mainstream . much of the focus is on a standard known as 802 . 11b or wi_fi , the technology used in apple 's airport and other low cost networking products . starbucks is putting wi_fi into its stores , allowing customers to surf while sipping . one thing that might give a lift to infrared would be research demonstrating that the radio energy used in mobile_phones and other devices is actually hazardous to human health , dr . kahn said . studies so far have been inconclusive , and there is only a slim chance that something more definitive will appear , he said . at the low level of energy needed for networking , researchers say , infrared beams cannot hurt the eyes or anything else . dr . kavehrad said that he was concerned about the long term effects of bathing people in radio waves and that infrared light offered a safer alternative . ''we 've lived under god given sunlight for zillions of years , '' he said . what's next",has a topic of technology
"on her fourth day of keeping a web_log , she introduced herself to the world with these striking words ''i am a dance girl , and i am a party member . '' ''i do n't know if i can be counted as a successful web cam dance girl , '' that early post continued . ''but i 'm sure that looking around the world , if i am not the one with the highest diploma , i am definitely the dance babe who reads the most and thinks the deepest , and i 'm most likely the only party member among them . '' thus was born , early in july , what many regard as china 's most popular blog . sometimes timing is everything , and such was the case with the anonymous blogger , a self described communist_party member from shanghai who goes by the pseudonym mu mu . a 25 year old , mu mu appears online most evenings around midnight , shielding her face while striking poses that are provocative , but never sexually_explicit . she parries questions from some of her tens of thousands of avid followers with witticisms and cool charm . chinese web_logs have existed since early in this decade , but the form has exploded in recent months , challenging china 's ever vigilant online censors and giving flesh to the kind of free spoken civil_society whose emergence the government has long been determined to prevent or at least tightly control . web experts say the surge in blogging is a result of strong growth in broadband internet use , coupled with a huge commercial push by the country 's internet providers aimed at wooing users . common estimates of the numbers of blogs in china range from one million to two million and growing fast . under china 's current leader , hu_jintao , the government has waged an energetic campaign against freedom of expression , prohibiting the promotion of public intellectuals by the news_media imposing restrictions on web_sites pressing search_engine companies , like google , to bar delicate topics , particularly those dealing with democracy and human_rights and heavily censoring bulletin_board discussions at universities and elsewhere . so far , chinese authorities have mostly relied on internet_service_providers to police the web_logs . commentary that is too provocative or directly critical of the government is often blocked by the provider . sometimes the sites are swamped by opposing comment many believe by official censors that is more favorable to the government . blogs are sometimes shut down altogether , temporarily or permanently . but the authorities do not yet seem to have an answer to the proliferation of public opinion in this form . the new wave of blogging took off earlier this year . in the past , a few pioneers of the form stood out , but now huge communities of bloggers are springing up around the country , with many of them promoting one another 's online offerings , books , music or , as in mu mu 's case , a running , highly ironic commentary about sexuality , intellect and political identity . ''the new bloggers are talking back to authority , but in a humorous way , '' said xiao_qiang , director of the china internet project at the university of california , berkeley . ''people have often said you can say anything you want in china around the dinner table , but not in public . now the blogs have become the dinner table , and that is new . ''the content is often political , but not directly political , in the sense that you are not advocating anything , but at the same time you are undermining the ideological basis of power . '' a fresh example was served up last week with the announcement by china of five cartoonlike mascot figures for the 2008 olympics in beijing . they were lavishly praised in the press and widely ridiculed in blogs that seemed to accurately express public sentiment toward them . ''it 's not difficult to create a mascot that 's silly and ugly , '' wrote one blogger . ''the difficulty is in creating five mascots , each sillier and uglier than the one before it . '' a leading practitioner of the sly , satirical style that is emerging here as an influential form of political and social commentary is a 38 year old beijing entertainment journalist named wang xiaofeng . mr . wang , who runs a site called massage milk , is better known to bloggers by his nickname , dai san ge biao , which means wears three watches . his blog mixes an infectious cleverness with increasingly forthright commentary on current events , starting with his very nickname , which is a patent mockery of the political theory of the former chinese communist party chief jiang_zemin , which was labeled san ge dai biao , or the three represents . in a recent commentary , as the government stoked patriotic sentiment during the commemoration of the defeat of the japanese in world_war_ii , mr . wang asked who really fought the enemy , making the provocative observation that only two communist generals had died fighting japan , while more than 100 of their nationalist counterparts had . ''in blogging i do n't need to be concerned about taboos , '' mr . wang said . ''i do n't need to borrow a euphemism to express myself . i can do it more directly , using the exact word i want to , so it feels a lot freer . '' another emerging school of blogging , potentially as subversive as any political allegory , involves bringing chinese web surfers more closely in touch with things happening outside their country . typically , this involves avid readers of english who scour foreign web_sites and report on their findings , adding their own commentary , in chinese blogs . several bloggers like this have become opinion leaders , usually in areas like technology , culture , current events or fashion , building big followings by being fast and prolific . one of the leading sites was run by isaac mao , a shanghai investment manager who had built a following writing about education and technology . his site , isaacmao . com , was later blocked by the authorities after he posted a graphic purporting to illustrate the workings of the firewall operated by the country 's censors . mr . mao , an organizer of the first national bloggers' conference in shanghai this month , recently went back online at isaacmao . blogbus . com s1034872 index . html . by far the biggest category of blogs remains the domain of the personal diary , and in this crowded realm , getting attention places a premium on uniqueness . for the past few months , mu mu , the shanghai dancer , has held pride of place , revealing glimpses of her body while maintaining an intimate and clever banter with her many followers , who are carefully kept in the dark about her real identity . ''in china , the concepts of private life and public life have emerged only in the past 10 to 20 years , '' she said in an online interview . ''before that , if a person had any private life , it only included their physical privacy the sex life , between man and woman , for couples . ''i 'm fortunate to live in a transitional society , from a highly political one to a commercial one , '' she wrote , ''and this allows me to enjoy private pleasures , like blogging . ''",has a topic of technology
"a provocative news and opinion journal that was closed last month by chinese censors will resume publication in march but without the editor and top investigative_reporter who earned it a reputation for aggressive reporting , the editor confirmed thursday . the decision to restart the journal , freezing point , a weekly supplement of the official china youth daily , was made as the secretive propaganda department faced increased criticism for its aggressive censorship of newspapers and the internet . on tuesday in beijing , a dozen former high level party officials and senior scholars released a letter that denounced the closing of freezing point and called for a ''free flow of ideas . '' but if the rebirth of freezing point suggests that party censors have bowed to pressure , the sidelining of its top two journalists suggests that the publication will not be allowed to continue its combative style of journalism . li datong , the editor of freezing point , said that he and lu yuegang , the deputy editor and a well known investigative_reporter , had been told that the magazine would restart march 1 without them . the two were transferred to a research branch of the newspaper , mr . li said . he also predicted that a new , more compliant tone would be evident in the march 1 issue . he said that it would include criticism of yuan weishi , a professor at zhongshan university who had written an article in freezing point that said chinese textbooks soft pedaled the mistakes of qing_dynasty leaders in the late 19th_century . propaganda officials cited mr . yuan 's article in their jan . 24 order to close the journal , which had also published expos s of official corruption . at a regular thursday briefing with foreign news organizations in beijing , the foreign ministry spokesman , qin gang , said that mr . yuan 's article was the reason freezing point was being ' 'reorganized . '' mr . li and other editors at freezing point plan to release a rebuttal on friday , possibly in a letter to president hu_jintao . ''broadly speaking , this is an approach they 've used before , '' said kenneth g . lieberthal , who was a china specialist in the clinton_administration . ''you shut down a publication and move out of key positions the people that cause you the most concern . in the process , you send a shot across the bow to the remaining editorial staff . and then you reopen . '' in recent years , the amount of information available in chinese newspapers and on web_sites has soared , often leaving party censors scrambling to keep up . with most newspapers now required to meet their budgets with little or no government money , editors push for the sort of aggressive or titillating reporting that attracts readers . but in recent months , officials have sought to tighten censorship . in addition to the changes at freezing point , editors have been fired at three other publications known for muckraking . microsoft and google have been criticized for helping china to censor online content , while yahoo has been accused of providing information that helped the government jail dissident writers . in congressional hearings in washington this week , yahoo , google , microsoft and cisco_systems were rebuked for trampling on civil_liberties in china . mr . lieberthal said the censorship by chinese officials was a serious matter but did not necessarily mean that news organizations were facing a lasting chill . he said the chinese media network was now so vast that censors could only ' 'massage'' the system by choosing as their targets certain journalists and publications . in some cases , he said fired journalists turned up at other publications months later .",has a topic of technology
"except for one detail , salesmen everywhere would recognize the office of husam muhanad , one of iraq 's biggest computer importers . the walls are painted a restful lime_green . potential buyers can relax on a synthetic leather couch . nothing sits on the glass top of mr . muhanad 's desk except for a small calculator , the better to keep prospects focused on the deal at hand . then there is the kalashnikov rifle that mr . muhanad keeps tucked behind a cabinet , just in case . doing business in iraq these days is not easy . but small businesses like mr . muhanad 's are sometimes bustling . the problems are obvious . only a few banks are open here , and the power fails with depressing regularity . baghdad is mostly peaceful during the day , but roadside_bombs and violent demonstrations can at any moment turn its streets into carnivals of chaos . the biggest companies are state owned dinosaurs that have outdated equipment and too many employees with too little to do . the unemployment rate nationwide is estimated at 60 percent or more . but senaa street , a strip where mr . muhanad has his store , is one of those pockets that offers a note of hope . on the east side of the busy two lane road , a dozen dusty buildings house the technical university of baghdad , an engineering school with 14 , 000 students . the new semester has just begun . on the west side , two story office buildings house scores of computer stores , while on the sidewalk shoeshine boys and tea vendors vie for customers . secretary of defense donald h . rumsfeld has said that 5 , 000 new businesses have opened in iraq since may 1 . there is no way to know exactly , but the consensus on the street is that business has improved since american_troops ousted saddam_hussein . united_nations sanctions have ended , meaning that the stores can import computers more easily , and , without tariffs , prices are falling . a 17 inch color monitor that sold for 125 before the war is now 100 . ''it 's better now , '' said najwa sahib , co owner of al khabeer , which translates as the expert , on the second floor of baghdad 's equivalent of a minimall . like other merchants on the street , ms . sahib closes each day about 3 p.m . because she fears armed robberies . still , she sells about 40 computers a month , mainly to american businesses , relief organizations and students . at al khaiyal the imagination a dingy store whose floors are crowded with disassembled computers , aqueel naji and two employees sell pirated copies of microsoft windows for 1 , 750 iraqi dinars , or less than 1 . mr . naji said his income had risen since the war ended , in part because he no longer had to bribe mr . hussein 's security officials . internet cafes have become important customers of the stores since the fall of mr . hussein . under the old government , iraqis could not get on the internet except through a handful of state owned and monitored cafes that blocked access to sites that were considered subversive . now , baghdad is sprouting stores and cafes offering internet_access for about 75 cents an hour , and private companies offer satellite connections . with baghdad 's still spotty telephone system , internet_access is reserved for those with satellite connections . mr . muhanad is now working to open his own internet cafe . his employees have repainted three rooms near his office that he had used for storage but where he now plans to install 30 computers . a former accountant , mr . muhanad opened his importing business in 1998 , spending about 20 , 000 to bring in 20 personal_computers . sales grew quickly , and by last year , he had become one of the biggest computer importers in iraq , with 30 employees , he said . to avoid united_nations sanctions , mr . muhanad brought in computers by ship through the persian_gulf and overland from jordan . in 2002 , he smuggled shipments of computers more than a dozen times , bringing in hundreds each time , he said . mr . hussein 's ministries were his biggest customers . mr . muhanad said that he did not pay bribes , but that he did offer ''gifts'' to ministry officials . ''maybe a pen , maybe a laptop . '' as the united_states intensified pressure on mr . hussein before the war , business slowed , and then nearly stopped . to protect his stores from looting , he moved his inventory to the homes of his employees . figuring correctly that any new government would not want to pay the bills left over from the days of mr . hussein , he stopped selling computers to the government and instead devoted his time to demand the payments of old debts . as a result , mr . muhanad collected 75 percent of the money he was owed before the war began , giving him a big edge over competitors . he reopened in june , he said . ''i was reluctant to start , but i had many employees , and they needed salaries , and i had to break my fear , '' he said . business rapidly recovered , and he now sells more than 100 computers each month to iraqi and western customers , along with what he describes as tens of thousands of dollars worth of parts and accessories . with business strong and his internet cafe about to open , mr . muhanad expects to hire two new workers this month . still , he said he believed that iraq 's economy would recover only slowly . mr . muhanad , who takes a taxi to work because he fears being the victim of a carjacking if he drives himself , said businesses would not make big new investments until security improved . then there is the problem that after a generation of working for the state or for inefficient state businesses , many educated iraqis are not used to the risk taking or long hours demanded by the private_sector . ''for 35 years , they are used to being supported by the government , '' mr . muhanad said . ''to change their behavior we need more time . ''",has a topic of technology
"lead ''westlynx'' has arrived . this is the westchester library system 's new centralized , automated circulation control network that will eventually give librarians immediate access to an on line data base of updated information about every title held by 37 out of 38 public_libraries in the county . the white_plains public ''westlynx'' has arrived . this is the westchester library system 's new centralized , automated circulation control network that will eventually give librarians immediate access to an on line data base of updated information about every title held by 37 out of 38 public_libraries in the county . the white_plains public_library belongs to a separate system . the hooking up of terminals at 35 of the 42 planned sites ( including library branches and the bedford hills correctional facilities ) is a milestone for maurice j . freedman , director of the westchester library system , who was hired in 1982 specifically to oversee the completion of the decadelong project . ''westlynx 's coming to fruition owes a great deal to community support , '' said mr . freedman , who explained that funds for the new system were raised independently by each community . ( funds for the prison 's participation are part of a state grant to the library system . ) the libraries' purchase of ''terminal shares'' also paid for the complete renovation of westchester library system headquarters in elmsford , where the central computer is housed , mr . freedman said . stanley ploszaj , project manager for the library system , designed the impressive new 385 square_foot machine room . it contains disk storage capability , two five ton air_conditioning units , telephone equipment and consoles to support the 180 terminal network ( expected to grow to 300 terminals by 1993 ) . there is also a high speed , computer to computer telephone link between the library system computer and the network data base supplier in toronto . the benefits to the public of westlynx are being underscored in a pro_bono ''awareness'' campaign by the juhl advertising_agency in valhalla . such well known county residents as the tennis champion arthur ashe , the author barbara dana , the academy_award winning actor michael douglas , the actress mary beth hurt , the singer julius larosa and the director paul schrader have lent their faces and voices to messages promoting improved library services . the public service announcements on local radio stations , and the posters that show the celebrities in relaxed poses were conceived ''to personalize the idea of using the local library and to emphasize its accessibility and convenience , '' said randye sundel of juhl , the writer and producer of the campaign . ''the idea of automation tends to leave people cold , '' she added . ''we wanted to reach people on a more emotional level and show there is something for everyone at the library . '' county residents have been receiving new library cards , and juhl is preparing brochures to explain the new system . others who have contributed services include the reader 's digest association , which made its recording studio and personnel available for mr . ashe 's public service announcement , and robert buchanan , a valhalla based photographer . charles burkett , the account supervisor of juhl , stressed community need to take responsibility for such public services as libraries . ''the library is the dominant image of communication , '' mr . burkett said . ''since we are in the communications industry , our agency believes in going to bat for libraries in any way we can . ''",has a topic of technology
"carousing chilled and inebriated in times_square is a popular option for many people who usher in the new year on this side of the atlantic_ocean . in scotland , an equally enthusiastic celebration called hogmanay is observed . several web_sites are devoted to an explanation of the holiday 's customs , and a page on the essential scotland site ( www . caithness mm . co . uk discover essential esshogm . html ) features personal observations about the celebration . the hogmanay web_sites are just part of a growing number of sites devoted to scotland and all things scottish . hogmanay is a traditional new year 's eve celebration filled with dances , parties and plenty of alcohol . on the surface , it sounds like any other dec . 31 party . but the history of the holiday , as explained on the hogmanay page on the helpful brother 's site ( wkweb1 . cableinet . co . uk sbooth index2 . htm ) is interesting . because scots often had to work on christmas and right up through january 1 , new year 's eve naturally became the big event of the season . the origin of the curious name is also discussed by the helpful brothers site . ''it could be from the anglo_saxon 'haleg monath , ' which means 'holy month , ' '' the site says . ''it could be from the gaelic 'oge maidne , ' which means 'new morning . ' some people also think that it could be from an old french word meaning 'gift , ' as it was customary to give gifts at this time . '' one of the things that makes hogmanay different from an average american new year 's party is the practice of ''first footing . '' after midnight , it is customary to leave one 's house and visit friends and neighbors , carrying gifts of food and drink ( like a bottle of whisky and a plate of shortbread ) to insure a prosperous new year . it is also the convention to offer a small lump of coal along with the food to symbolize the hope that your hosts' house will have fuel throughout the coming year . travelers in edinburgh around the time of the holiday will discover that the city uses the occasion to throw a grand party . it also provides all the details at its hogmanay site ( www . edinburghshogmanay . org ) . new year 's eve would n't be complete without a few heartfelt renditions of ''auld lang syne , '' and in scotland it is no different . the country also holds the bragging_rights to the song lyrics , as it was robert burns who wrote them . the birth of burns , in january 1759 , is also celebrated less than a month later , on jan . 25 , in an observance known as burns night . the bard of scotland is also on the web two particularly good sites are devoted to him the robert burns tribute ( www . rabbie burns . com ) and the official robert burns site ( www . robertburns . org ) . the tribute page has an attractive explanation of a burns night dinner , including the proper traditional graces recited and the arrival of the haggis a scottish national dish of sheep 's stomach stuffed with oatmeal and spices . if the thought of haggis does not upset your stomach and you want to know more about scottish culture , odds are you can get your fill at the scotweb site ( www . scotweb . co . uk ) , a thorough collection of links for things like bagpipes , tartans , crafts and literature .",has a topic of technology
"an unemployed british computer system administrator was indicted here today on charges of hacking into 92 united_states_government computer networks , including some operated by the military and nasa . government officials immediately said they would seek to extradite the briton , gary mckinnon of london . the extradition , if successful , would be a rare move in international cybercrime cases . mr . mckinnon , 36 , was indicted on seven counts of computer fraud and related activity and one such count in new jersey . he faces a maximum penalty of five years in federal_prison and a 250 , 000 fine for each count of the indictment . ''mckinnon is charged with the biggest hack of military computers ever detected , '' as far as the number of computers involved , said paul j . mcnulty , the united_states_attorney for the eastern district of virginia . mr . mcnulty said officials found no link between mr . mckinnon , who they said used the code name solo , and any terrorist group . while mr . mckinnon was probably searching for classified documents , mr . mcnulty said , no such information was compromised in any of the attacks . mr . mckinnon gained access to information from networks on military bases throughout the country two of the computer systems were at the pentagon . one intrusion shut down the network that serves the military district for washington for three days , officials said . federal officials in new jersey said mr . mckinnon was charged with tapping into a network of 300 computers at the earle naval weapons station in colts neck , n.j .",has a topic of technology
"an article on monday about public comments by islamists in britain that could violate britain 's antiterrorism act of 2006 referred incorrectly to scotland_yard . formally known as the metropolitan police authority , it polices london , not the entire country .",has a topic of technology
"the knock on the door came on a late october afternoon in 1999 when joshua handler was about to leave his moscow apartment to do some shopping . ''a message from igor from obninsk , '' someone whispered into his intercom . mr . handler , puzzled , opened his door and came face to face with large man wearing a colonel 's uniform . it was the russian counterintelligence police . they were there to search his apartment . ''one minute the hallway was empty , '' mr . handler said in a recent interview in his office at princeton_university . ''the next it was filled with 10 people . '' for the next five hours , mr . handler stood by as a team of agents combed through his one room apartment , reading his papers and peering at his laptop computer . the colonel handed mr . handler his office phone_number , and the officers left , taking his papers and his computer . ''they were very polite , '' mr . handler said . ''they did not push in the door , they did not break anything . '' it all seemed bizarre , mr . handler recalled . he was not a diplomat or a spy . he was a graduate student , in moscow to study arms control negotiations between the united_states and russia . one minute he was thinking about dinner , and the next about john le carre . in the year since the police searched his apartment , mr . handler has the odd distinction of being the infamous graduate student at princeton embroiled in a high profile russian espionage case . although he has never been charged , or even identified as a suspect , mr . handler still sees his name pop up periodically in the russian news_media . and , after leaving the country soon after the search , he has not been able to return to russia to complete his doctoral research . russian experts say mr . handler 's brush with the russian intelligence system is a very real problem facing researchers and journalists there . as russia tries to define what information is secret and what is public , the line often shifts , and researchers can find that information that was open one month is forbidden the next . ''russia is still a place without rules , '' said celeste wallander , senior fellow at the council_on_foreign_relations . ''when one talks to people in russia , the rules are not clear about what is secret and what is not , what is legal and what is not . '' mr . handler 's apartment was searched on the same day that a russian friend , igor sutyagin , was detained by the russian security service . mr . sutyagin , a researcher at russia 's u.s.a . canada institute , has since been arrested , and charged with treason . according to web_sites posted by mr . sutyagin 's supporters in russia , the government has not produced any evidence that he was engaged in spying . the legal warrant the agents showed mr . handler claimed that the justification for his search was an investigation labeled ''case 52 , '' which is the official name of mr . sutyagin 's case . ''it said i was not accused but they had the right to search my apartment because i might be a witness , '' mr . handler said . he said he did not know what link he could have to the case and has never been given any specifics . an evening with the russian state security service may not be part of any typical graduate research project , but then again mr . handler is not a typical graduate student . instead of spending the last 10 years in libraries or classrooms , he spent the time traveling the world for the environmental group greenpeace . ''in the last 10 years , i spent about 2.5 years in russia , '' mr . handler said . as a research coordinator for greenpeace 's nuclear free seas campaign , he spent a great deal of time investigating contamination caused by nuclear accidents and arms production . ''i spent months in the russian far east and far north investigating these problems on the ground , '' he said . ''we brought our ships twice to vladivostok and twice to murmansk to look at nuclear_waste . '' but mr . handler said he was never involved in anything like the current situation when he worked for greenpeace . as far as he knows , the visit from intelligence agents had nothing to do with his earlier work for the environmental group . mr . handler telephoned the american embassy as soon as the agents left his apartment . at a subsequent interview at the embassy , he recalled , american officials made it clear that mr . handler had become involved in something over his head . the embassy strongly recommended his quick departure , said mr . handler , adding that the message he received was that ''basically , things were going on that i did not understand and i would be better off leaving . '' he said the consulate had contacted the russian government and ' 'my staying was not being helpful . '' mr . handler said he was followed around moscow by teams of men for the next several days and decided to leave because it had become impossible to continue with his research . last summer , harold shapiro , the president of princeton_university , wrote the president of the russian academy of sciences protesting the security service 's actions . dr . shapiro said any suspicions of mr . handler were ''totally groundless , '' and said ' 'such treatment of a u.s . academic conducting open research in russia is extremely destructive to the important collaborative relationships between russia and u.s . researchers . '' mr . handler said he had spoken several times to russian investigators by phone , although they have not offered any further information about the search . nor have they returned his papers and computer . education",has a topic of technology
"ekho_moskvy , this city 's most popular and in many eyes its most aggressive news radio_station , is looking for a new computer company as host for its web_site . the reason has nothing to do with technology . at the height of last week 's hostage_crisis in a central moscow theater , a chechen guerrilla grabbed the cellphone of a hostage who had been speaking with the station and delivered a biting attack on russian conduct of the war in chechnya . ekho_moskvy posted the interview on its web_site and quickly learned that the russian press ministry was moving to shut the site down . aleksei a . venediktov , ekho_moskvy 's director , took the interview off the site , and the press ministry withdrew its order . ''we 're investigating the possibility right now of moving our site abroad , '' mr . venediktov said in an interview , ''because of such threats , which are completely illegal , to block access to the internet . i think it 's the first time the ministry has done this . '' it may not be the last . over the three days of the theater siege , the russian government also blacked out a moscow television_channel for 15 hours , barred a network from broadcasting a televised interview with the terrorists' leader , reprimanded a newspaper and put pressure on other news officials to cut back their coverage of the event , the biggest russian news story of the year . critics also accuse the government of blocking a web_site that supports chechen guerrillas , but an official of the site 's american host attributed the shutdown to server problems and said it would be back online by sunday . tonight the police raided the moscow offices of versiya , a muckraking weekly_newspaper , and took away a computer and server containing the contents of a coming issue devoted in part to the raid to free the hostages . that followed a vote earlier today in the lower_house of parliament , paving the way for even tougher press restrictions . by 231 to 106 , it voted to bar the press from reporting any information that might hamper the conduct of counterterrorism operations or support resistance to such operations . the legislation also barred the news_media from reporting details of weapons and technology used in antiterrorism operations , a ban critics noted might have kept secret the use of the opiate based gas in last saturday 's storming of the theater . a total of 120 hostages have died so far , 118 of them from the effects of the gas . some experts said the import of today 's vote could be overstated . the legislation is still subject to passage by the the upper_house of parliament and being signed into law some clauses may ultimately be declared invalid because of legal flaws and other clauses only repeat existing law . journalists and other free_speech advocates nevertheless argued today that the changes open the door wider to censorship in a nation where the news_media are already under considerable government sway . they said the actions taken by officials during last week 's siege , many of which appear to have ignored russian constitutional protections of freedom of speech , underscore the potential for abuse . ''i do n't see any serious danger if these amendments are passed . '' mikhail fedotov , the secretary of the russian union of journalists , said in an interview . ''i see a greater danger in this growing desire to curb freedom of information . they want to curb it . they simply do n't know how . '' it is not clear how solidly the kremlin backs the proposed new restrictions on the press , but the law passed today did have the support of the kremlin dominated majority coalition in parliament . the press minister , mikhail lesin , said in today 's issue of the daily izvestia that the crackdown last week on some news organizations did not foreshadow ''a permanent action mechanism of control over media agencies , '' but was a temporary effort to protect the lives of hostages and russian commandos in a time of crisis . ''the terrorists had a worked through media plan , '' he said . ''they were well prepared from the point of knowing the russian media agencies , journalists and news makers . we were facing a difficult task in preventing the media from being involved in this game . ''as soon as the situation with the danger to the lives of hostages was settled , we simply stopped the system of strict coordination . '' moscow 's channel 3 was abruptly pulled off the air last friday evening , ostensibly because it had broadcast information outlining potential escape routes for the hostage takers . the nationwide ntv network was barred from broadcasting an interview with movsar barayev , the chechen leader of the group that seized the theater on wednesday evening . mr . lesin drew a parallel with moves by the united_states , which has put pressure on television networks to broadcast no more than snippets of videotapes issued by osama_bin_laden and other al_qaeda leaders . the white_house has argued in part that the videos may contain hidden information for terrorists in hiding . tonight , a prominent newsman and host of a weekly ntv program on freedom of speech , savik shuster , said he did not consider the government 's pressure on his network to be censorship . ''we had consultations and phone_calls and , sometimes , more than that harsh words , '' he said . ''but basically , i think we worked autonomously . , '' mr . shuster added , however , that he feared for the future of russia 's news_media after last week 's events , in part because the language of the legislation passed today was so broad that it could authorize restrictions in reporting on almost any terror related operation , including the entire war in chechnya . some of the restrictions imposed last week appear aimed more at stanching the flow of criticism than at enhancing security . one newspaper was cited for publishing a photograph of dead hostages being taken away from the site of the siege . the government also blocked the web_site of kavkaz . org , an internet outlet that is a propaganda showcase for chechnya 's separatist campaign against the russian government . the web_site has since reopened at a new address , www . kavkazcenter . com . today it published a long tract , ostensibly by a guerrilla commander and islamic militant , shamil basayev , which asserted sole responsibility for last week 's hostage taking . the tract stated that chechnya 's onetime elected president and the political leader of the rebel movement , aslan maskhadov , had played no role in the moscow assault , rejected russian government assertions this week that officials had proof of mr . maskhadov 's involvement . mr . basayev defended the seizing of hundreds of russian civilians by reciting statistics that he said reflected the toll of the war in chechnya 3 , 500 children under 10 dead , 4 , 000 disabled , 30 , 000 orphans , 3 , 500 civilians missing , 200 , 000 more dead or injured .",has a topic of technology
"the secret trial of an internet dissident on subversion charges began , but his lawyer was unable to appear because government officials gave too short notice for the proceeding , a human_rights group reported . the defendant , du daobin , is a civil_servant who wrote online about politics and also criticized the government 's arrest of other internet writers . more than 100 lawyers , intellectuals and others have signed an online petition on mr . du 's behalf , urging the government to define clearly the country 's anti subversion law . jim yardley ( nyt )",has a topic of technology
"lead three times in the last five months , 90 year old helen cattell has fallen in her one floor house here . mrs . cattell was strong enough to reach a telephone each time and call for help . but her daughter , elly robinson , is worried . three times in the last five months , 90 year old helen cattell has fallen in her one floor house here . mrs . cattell was strong enough to reach a telephone each time and call for help . but her daughter , elly robinson , is worried . ''she wants to be independent and stay on her own , '' said mrs . robinson , who lives on the same block . ''i 'm only four houses away , but when you 're not in the same house it might as well be five miles . '' a new program being offered at no charge to the 1 , 500 elderly residents in the town of ossining and the villages of briarcliff and ossining may ease mrs . robinson 's concern . the ''are you o.k . program ? '' uses a computer to call the elderly and will check on mrs . cattell daily . patterned after an iowa program ''this is our way of taking care of our senior citizens , '' said barbara c . fratianni , the ossining town_supervisor . the program , which is patterned after one in osage , iowa , is the first of its kind in new york state and is to begin next month . at a specified time each morning , the computer will call the elderly residents who have volunteered to join the program . to inform the computer they are safe , participants pick up the phone and respond to a recorded message . if the phone goes unanswered , three more calls will be made at 10 minute intervals . if the fourth call is not answered , an alert appears on the computer . an individual monitoring the calls then contacts the appropriate police department as well as a relative , friend or neighbor of the elderly client . if someone picks up the phone but fails to speak , the client is also checked . ''this is marvelous , '' mrs . robinson said . ''i ca n't always be as consistent in calling as a computer can . '' two osage residents michael dekruif , a police inspector , and bruce johnson , a computer specialist devised the program , and since it was implemented there in march it has already saved one life . a diabetic in osage lapsed into a coma and did not answer his phone , prompting the computer to alert the police . after assistance , the man recovered . how the idea has spread ''finding someone on the floor is not an uncommon thing , '' mrs . fratianni said . ''this will help avoid it . '' mr . dekruif and mr . johnson had not intended to market their idea , but they have been inundated with requests and the program is now operating in 14 cities in nine states . with the cooperation of the elderly the ''are you o.k . program ? '' can be close to flawless . but false_alarms can be a drawback . if participants will not be home to receive a scheduled call , they are supposed to notify the program . a failure to do this leads to unneeded visits by the police and anxiety on the part of the friend or relative who is notified of the alert . mr . dekruif said that this was a rarity and usually happened with people who were new to the program . he said that after people became accustomed to the phone call routine , false_alarms occurred less than once a week . despite the possibility of an occasional false_alarm , james krebser sr . , the ossining police chief , said he did not expect his force to be strained by the program , which it monitors . ''i think i can work it out , '' he said . ''this will give people confidence , knowing that we will be checking on them . '' taxes paid by ossining 's 32 , 000 residents will handle the 6 , 999 cost of the computer system . ''any time you can save even one life , '' mr . dekruif said , ''it 's worth it . ''",has a topic of technology
"ratcheting up its campaign against an amorphous but fast growing spiritual movement , the chinese government is expected to announce today a nationwide ban against the movement , buddhist law , according to reports in three hong_kong newspapers . the papers said president jiang_zemin had decided to impose the ban at an emergency meeting of the politburo on monday . the independent daily sing_tao quoted the government directive as saying the group had ''engaged in superstition and disrupted public order , thereby damaging social stability . '' the government began a crackdown on monday , rounding up more than 100 prominent members of the sect in 14 cities , according to members of the group and a hong_kong based human_rights organization . that prompted protests in beijing and several other cities as thousands of followers vented their anger against the government 's actions , several members said . as they did once before , in april , members of the group , known in chinese as falun_gong , are taking their grievances to the doorstep of the communist_party . early_today and on wednesday , members tried to mass in front of the leaders' compound in central beijing , a member said . the police quickly herded them into buses and took them away . this morning , the police could be seen shooing a small crowd of people away from the sidewalk facing the ceremonial entrance to zhongnanhai , the walled_compound that houses president jiang_zemin and other leaders . it was a silent vigil near the compound on april 25 by 10 , 000 followers protesting harrassment and demanding official recognition that catapulted the group from obscurity to the top of the agenda for nervous party leaders . falun_gong had managed to mount the biggest illegal rally in beijing since the 1989 tiananmen democracy movement , without any warning to the authorities , suggesting formidable powers of mobilization . furthermore , the group says it has 100 million members around the world . that number is impossible to verify , particularly in a group that claims no formal organization aside from an allegiance to the teachings of its founder , li_hongzhi , who relies heavily on the internet to communicate messages to his followers . mr . li , 48 , a former grain bureau clerk in northeastern china who is now based in the united_states , started falun_gong in 1992 as a fusion of the ancient chinese practice of qigong the channeling of vital energies through breathing exercises with elements of buddhism and taoism . the group 's members insist they are interested only in physical and moral uplift and eschew politics . but if falun_gong 's rapid response to the crackdown is any indication , the chinese authorities may have reason to worry . crowds ranging from a few dozen to several thousand demonstrated wednesday in 30 cities across china , including shanghai , tianjin , dalian , guangzhou , shenzhen and wuhan , the hong_kong based information center of human_rights and democratic movement in china reported . those rallies came despite a blanket of silence about the detentions in the official chinese news_media . the police declined to comment on the detentions and protests . falun_gong is only one of several quasi religious movements that have emerged in china since deng_xiaoping began reforming the economy in 1979 and social controls were relaxed . with its mixture of martial_arts and mysticism , it bears enough resemblance to the popular movements that wreaked havoc in the final decades of the last imperial dynasty to make the communist authorities apprehensive . as china enters a period of fresh social and economic upheaval , with faltering state enterprises laying off millions of workers and rural incomes stalling , beijing may have concluded that falun_gong is too much of a threat . on wednesday , hundreds of falun_gong members began gathering at dawn in the tree lined streets near zhongnanhai . before a crowd could coalesce , the police hustled them on to buses and removed them quickly , said wang xiaoyan , the wife of one of the detained leaders , ji liewu . ''they wanted to tell the government that there 's no reason to arrest students of falun_gong , '' said ms . wang , who spoke to several participants by telephone . ''as people got near zhongnanhai , the police were ready . they forced them to leave , to get on buses to take them away . '' ms . wang said wednesday that more than 1 , 000 falun_gong members were being held in a football stadium outside beijing . the hong_kong rights group said people were also being held at two stadiums and other locations . from there , the group said , people were being sent back to their homes in the provinces . a hong_kong spokeswoman for falun_gong described a similar sequence of events in guangzhou , in the south . roughly 2 , 000 demonstrators congregated in front of a government building early wednesday morning , she said . the police forced most onto buses and they were taken to an unknown destination . in central beijing this morning , the fear of unrest hung heavy in the torpid air . hundreds of riot_police and soldiers maintained their positions around zhongnanhai . water cannon trucks were parked in courtyards across the street from the compound , while riot shields were lined up in gleaming rows . on wednesday , the police closed a main_thoroughfare on the western edge of the compound , causing traffic_jams that paralyzed much of downtown . today , pedestrians and bicyclists were allowed back , but cars were still blocked . on the streets nearby , scores of people squatted on the sidewalk , watching the scene curiously . one or two appeared to be meditating , but it was unclear whether they were acolytes of falun_gong . one reason the government is so wary of this group is that its members blend seamlessly into ordinary society . unlike the flag waving , slogan shouting students of 1989 , falun_gong followers tend to be middle_aged people a large percentage female , and many retired who make the most unlikely of rebels . ''we simply follow the law and principles that master li_hongzhi taught us , '' said sophie xiao , the spokeswoman in hong_kong . while the government has not yet commented on the crackdown , it continues its campaign of indirect criticism . the main television news program wednesday evening carried lengthy coverage of a speech by a senior communist_party ideologue , gong yuzhi , in which he denounced the spread of ''feudal superstition'' in chinese society . such denunciations will not persuade people like ms . wang to abandon her allegiance to falun_gong . ''i can only wait for news of my husband , '' she said . ''but i 'll definitely continue practicing falun_gong . we believe that teacher li is the truth . ''",has a topic of technology
"''we are going to start by demolishing the british embassy , '' said ulrich lissek , pointing to a squat building opposite his office . ''then we 're going to take over the headquarters of the christian democratic_party over there . and that will be just the start of our radical project . '' mr . lissek may sound like a holdover from some 1960 's revolutionary movement , but he is in fact the chief spokesman for deutsche_telekom , the now privatized german telecommunications company that is in the vanguard of an unlikely plan to transform bonn 's culture from bureaucratic stodginess to silicon_valley sprightliness . as the german_government departs for berlin this month after a 50 year sojourn on the rhine , ''boomtown bonn'' sounds like an unlikely slogan . but it is the one making the rounds here as telekom and its various subsidiaries buy up great swaths of real_estate , computer company start_ups multiply , and an internet banking group thrives . contrary to all predictions on ''black thursday'' the day in june 1991 when parliament voted to move the german capital back to berlin bonn is prospering . unemployment in the region is 7 percent , far lower than the 16 percent in berlin , real_estate prices are rising , and only 1.5 percent of office space is vacant , compared with more than 10 percent in the new capital . ''the period of angst is over , '' said barbel dieckmann , the mayor . ''we were a successful capital and we would have liked to remain the capital , but now we feel berlin has many reasons to envy us . '' bonn , a city of 330 , 000 people , is still a genteel place where the whiff of capitalist enterprise is scarcely overwhelming . but the city 's attempted makeover appears genuine and has wide implications for germany . the country is trying to make a painful shift from a highly regulated society where the state accounts for close to 50 percent of economic activity to a nimbler , more entrepreneurial system better able to create jobs . bonn 's ability to shift from ponderous , state heavy predictability to a place on germany 's telecommunications and information_technology frontier may provide a measure of how far a culture that is still generally risk averse may be altered . with over four million germans jobless , over 10 percent of the workforce , chancellor_gerhard_schroder believes it 's time for a germany burdened by by a graying population and soaring youth unemployment to rethink itself . ''enough of the nanny state , '' economics minister werner muller said last month . mr . lissek of telekom agrees . ''we want to engineer a vast shift from the functionary 's culture , which does not prize the client , to being the most customer friendly company in the world , '' he said . ''there is a culture of envy here that makes wealth somehow shameful . we want to make wealth respectable . '' these aims are evident in the vast modern atrium of telekom 's new bonn headquarters , where the price of the company 's stock in frankfurt , new york and tokyo flashes on one side and an ''online screen'' offers travel and shopping services on the other . for what was until 1993 a staid state owned corporation , this is a revolution indeed . across the road , on land where the british embassy now stands , telekom is planning a 550 million building for about 5 , 000 employees . its mobile_phone unit has bought up an old cement factory on the banks of the rhine and is planning another huge development there . in the wake of the giant , hundreds of small bonn computer companies are springing up , full of germans talking a remarkably glib line in ''interfacing , '' ' 'stock options , '' ''the telebonn concept'' and ''silicon_valley type models . '' a new bonn based online banking service , bank 24 , hired over 1 , 000 people last year . dressed in a three piece suit , stefan huthmacher , the chief executive of a software and consultant company called comma soft , scarcely looks like a denizen of palo_alto . but as he shows a visitor the ''japanese meditation room , '' complete with screens and prints , where employees are encouraged to seek inspiration , he explains that the west_coast has been a model to him . ''we have to develop the garage start up mentality among students in germany , '' he said . ''one of our problems is that we persisted too long with classical heavy industries , and did not adapt our education system fast enough to new technologies . '' to illustrate his point , mr . huthmacher , a 44 year old former university physicist , said that his company had possible openings for 100 people , but cannot find qualified people to fill the jobs . ''it 's a huge problem to find people , '' he said , ''because german universities still fail to teach the right disciplines . we sell knowledge . in an industrial area like the ruhr , that is still a hard concept to accept . '' the company , which develops networking systems for large companies or public entities based on microsoft software , already has 125 employees and is planning to go public soon . it recently applied for permission to put up a building a process that can take years in germany and saw in the city administration 's acceptance within weeks a sign that bonn is really changing . ''we are going to re educate our population to look forward , '' said michael swoboda , the president of the bonn chamber of commerce . ''we believe at least 250 , 000 jobs will be created in telecommunications and information_technology in germany in the next five years , and we plan to get a big chunk of them . '' daniel riek , 25 , has already created 16 jobs in two years at his start up company id pro , a software consultant firm . a former student of bonn university , he illustrates the crossover from university to technology and business that the city now hopes to nurture . of about 1 . 5 billion that bonn received as compensation for the move of the capital to berlin , the largest part has been spent on a new science and telecommunications research center called caesar . ''germany 's problems are simple , '' mr . riek said . ''we suffer from what i call a 'digital gap , ' and we do n't understand service . teachers in general know little about computing , and business client relationships are about confrontation rather than cooperation . my hope is that bonn can offer some new models . '' ms . dieckmann , the mayor , said she was confident of the city 's success . but in good german fashion bonn is also hedging its bets . various united_nations agencies have been lured to the town . six ministries are remaining . one or two federal authorities including the anti trust commission are actually moving from berlin to bonn to provide a counterweight to the departure of over 15 , 000 civil_servants . ''we even hope some spies will remain , '' she said . ''after all , we are going to be a telecommunications capital , and i 've been told that industrial espionage is very much the wave of the future . ''",has a topic of technology
"an article on monday about chinese efforts to regulate access to the internet misidentified the director of the center for modern china in princeton , n.j . it is chen yizi , not liu_binyan .",has a topic of technology
"a front page article on saturday about the world 's fastest computer , built in a japanese laboratory to analyze climate_change , misspelled the name of the director of the national center for atmospheric research in boulder , colo . , who said researchers planned to convert united_states weather modeling codes to work with the new computer . he is dr . tim killeen , not kalleen .",has a topic of technology
"the energy department said today that it had suspended all scientific work on the computers containing america 's most sensitive secrets at its three nuclear_weapons laboratories over fears that security lapses make the computers vulnerable to espionage . energy secretary bill richardson said he ordered the suspension on friday as part of a new effort to improve security in the wake of charges that china has stolen nuclear_secrets from the labs . china denies the spying accusation . thousands of scientists and other researchers at los_alamos , sandia and lawrence_livermore national laboratories who rely on the classified computer networks have been forced to drop their work and instead attend new training sessions on computer security , energy department officials said . the computers are connected together in networks , but are not linked to the outside world . after the united_states stopped testing nuclear_weapons , the work of modeling the reliability of weapons designs has been done with these networks . one security flaw , according to officials , is that secret information about nuclear_weapons can be copied from the sensitive computers onto a computer disk and then sent as e mail among thousands of messages that leave the laboratory through separate unclassified computer systems . one proposal is to ' 'make it physically impossible to transfer classified_information from a classified computer to an unclassified computer , '' los_alamos officials said in a statement today . mr . richardson said he will not allow normal computer operations , except those needed to insure safety , to resume until he is satisfied that security has improved . ''the message is that i am dead serious about strengthening security at the labs , '' mr . richardson said . ''our computer security has been lax , and i want to strengthen it , and the only way to do that is to stand down . i want to demonstrate to congress and the american people we are serious about upgrading computer security at the labs , and that there will never be another lapse . '' general security has also been found to be lax at the weapons labs . the decision to suspend all work on sensitive computer networks at los_alamos , sandia and lawrence_livermore national laboratories is one of the most pointed actions taken by the clinton_administration since the furor erupted last month over suspicions of chinese atomic espionage . it also follows an internal review by the energy department , owner of the labs , which determined that security measures at los_alamos and lawrence_livermore were sub par . los_alamos and lawrence_livermore both received ' 'marginal'' security ratings , while sandia received a satisfactory rating , according to the report released last week . the report cited los_alamos management for failing to ''ensure that members of their organization implement , support and follow safeguards and security policies and procedures . '' last month , a taiwan born computer scientist at los_alamos , wen_ho_lee , was fired for security breaches after being interviewed by the fbi in connection with china 's suspected theft of the design of america 's most advanced , miniaturized nuclear_warhead , the w 88 . mr . lee had been one of los_alamos' leading computer experts on nuclear_weapons design , and had retained access to classified_information until just a few weeks before he was fired , though he had been under investigation by the f.b.i . for nearly three years . mr . lee has not been arrested or charged with espionage . mr . lee 's expertise was a factor in the decision to order the broad stand down of lab computer systems , mr . richardson said . the relatively poor ratings received by both los_alamos and lawrence_livermore in the security report also played a role , he added . ''yes , espionage is contributing factor , and the report is a contributing factor . '' mr . richardson said . ''the goals are to increase employee responsibility for security and to implement new measures for the handling of classified and sensitive information . '' the classified computer networks at the weapons labs are not connected to the internet , and are thus not supposed to be vulnerable to hacking by outsiders . the possibility of secret data being downloaded from the classified networks and then entered into the unclassified network and e mailed to the outside is a key security concern , according to one federal official . the lab plans to impose new audit procedures on unclassified computer systems in order to control sensitive information . los_alamos will also require that two people be involved in the transfer of files from classified computers . but john c . browne , lab director at los_alamos , cautioned that the labs cannot allow security to become so stringent that it prevents them from accomplishing their objectives . ''we have to look at threats to information security from a risk benefit standpoint and put in place additional procedures that make sense , '' he said . ''we ca n't raise the bar so high we ca n't get any work done . that affects national_security too . '' a select congressional committee investigating illicit transfers of high technology to china has been told that united_states officials saw an american high performance computer in use at a chinese technical center known to be involved in nuclear_weapons design in the early 1990 's . the congressional panel , chaired by representative christopher_cox , a california republican , has been told that the high performance computer was seen at china 's institute of applied physics and computational mathematics in beijing .",has a topic of technology
"an article yesterday about the candidate steve_forbes in some copies misattributed a reference to him as "" richie rich . "" the comment was made by senator phil_gramm , not pat_buchanan .",has a topic of technology
"against a backdrop of legal assaults on tycoons , harassment of free thinking journalists and a general tightening of the state grip on things , russia 's leading pro_democracy political_party now says federal intelligence agents are spying on it . russia 's domestic intelligence agency , the federal_security_service , has yet to comment on the accusation , posted on the web_site of russia 's yabloko party ( www . yabloko . ru ) and echoed in a scathing letter from yabloko 's leader , the federal legislator grigory yavlinsky . but the charge gained weight this week when two st . petersburg students who are yabloko members claimed that federal agents tried to recruit them as political spies and , when the two refused , engineered their ejection from st . petersburg 's baltic state technical university . the two students , both 20 , were conditionally reinstated this week after their complaints became public . the university rector , yuri p . savelky , asserted in an interview today that the entire affair was an innocent misunderstanding . but yabloko 's iconoclastic chairman , mr . yavlinsky , disagreed , noting that one student said the agents asked him about yabloko 's financing and his own ties to the west . ''creating an atmosphere of surveillance and blackmail will lead to enormous losses for our country , '' mr . yavlinsky wrote in a letter , made public , to nikolai patrushev , the chairman of the security service , known everywhere as the f.s.b . as if to underscore that , yabloko and a new pro_democracy party , the union of right forces , announced a quasi merger today , a move aimed at strengthening russian political support for a ''civil_society . '' the term , almost a mantra in russian politics these days , connotes a land in which there is common agreement that everyone has to play by and obey the same rules . mr . putin has been an ardent advocate of such a society , even as he has been roundly accused of subverting its most basic principles in places like chechnya or with the skirmishing over media freedoms . but as is true about much of what is unfolding in russia these days , it is not at all clear whether mr . putin himself approved of or even knew about the security service 's work . there is no doubt that various arms of the russian government have heightened their scrutiny of potentially disruptive figures from yabloko to the independent press tycoon vladimir_gusinsky in ways that evoke unpleasant memories of soviet repression . but whether mr . putin is the mastermind of these forays or is fighting a rear guard action against them no one outside the kremlin appears to know . in the latest case , two 20 year old students at baltic state 's aircraft and rocketry department , dmitri barkovsky and konstantin suzdal , claimed that they were approached in late may by two agents from the security service who asked questions about their studies , then gravitated to their political work . ''they started asking me about the structure of the yabloko party and about different ways of financing yabloko 's election campaigns , '' mr . barkovsky , a fourth year student at the university , said in an interview today . ''i tried not to respond to their questions , but they started threatening me . '' according to newspaper reports , the f.s.b . agents said yabloko was spying for foreign powers and appeared to have more money at its disposal than might be expected of an independent political faction . mr . barkovsky , who calls himself an ardent yabloko activist , later wrote a letter of protest to mr . patrushev , the security service 's chairman , calling the pressure ''persecution of my family for public expression of my political views . '' a week after the meeting with security service officials on may 31 , mr . barkovsky was barred from taking his exams at the university , and was shortly expelled . mr . suzdal , who could not be reached , also was removed from classes . in a conversation today , the university rector , mr . savelky , said both students had missed their final exams without explanation and had been failing classes because their political activity interfered with their studies . despite that , he said , f.s.b . agents had met with mr . barkovsky last month as part of a continuing effort to recruit ' 'smart and well educated students'' to their ranks . ''they probably had some problems and misunderstood each other , '' he said , ''because as far as i know , there was a big scandal at the st . petersburg f.s.b . office , and they are going to fire the officer who talked with him . '' neither the st . petersburg nor the moscow f.s.b . spokesmen would comment today on any aspect of the controversy .",has a topic of technology
"perhaps fittingly , germany 's first real scare about year 2000 computer crashes came on a friday the 13th . it was march 1998 , and most people here were greeting warnings about year 2000 failures with a lack of interest . it seemed like a trivial problem , a matter of making sure that computer clocks would not misread the year 2000 as 1900 . then came the test at the hanover city power company , organized by a confident data processing manager in the spirit of public education , with local media invited to watch . at first , everything seemed fine . but within a few minutes after ' 'midnight , '' the computer began spewing out thousands of error messages . then it froze up entirely , and the monitors went blank . hanover did not go dark . but for a few minutes , it was impossible to monitor the electric grid or to trace equipment breakdowns . it took seven months to eradicate all the problems . ''i really thought it would be fine , '' said jurgen rehmer , the blue jeans clad manager who arranged the event . ''we had made a lot of changes already , and i was quite certain that a full system test would n't present any great difficulty . '' mr . rehmer 's test was a watershed . it disrupted a widespread complacency about year 2000 problems , and marked the first time that a german power company had issued a warning . at the time it occurred , the german_government had yet to make its first assessment of the year 2000 problem . surveys by insurance_companies showed that the vast majority of companies had not even begun to look at their systems . ''the european view is that anglo american countries are in kind of a hysterical mode , '' said peter eibert , the year 2000 coordinator at ford_motor_company of europe , based in cologne . today , germany and many of europe 's most advanced countries are racing to make up for lost time . corporations are pouring billions of dollars into reprogramming their computers . government agencies have set up hot lines . industry associations are holding countless conferences , often invoking the image of a ticking time bomb . and they are making headway . most experts are increasingly confident that europe is not likely to see catastrophic failures . a year 2000 trial involving europe 's major banks went very smoothly . airlines and airports , which recognized the danger long ago , say they are ready . nevertheless , many smaller companies and public institutions are running out of time . in a recent survey , the german council of trade and industry found that only 45 percent of companies were properly prepared . hermes , an insurance_company in hamburg , estimates that 60 percent of german companies still had not started a comprehensive program by last fall . ''we believe there will be a substantially higher rate of bankruptcies in the year 2000 , '' said walter schmitt jamin , a managing director of hermes . a doubling of the usual bankruptcy rate , slightly less than one percent of companies each year , is entirely possible , he added . the readiness varies considerably across western_europe . in britain , the netherlands and much of scandinavia , governments and corporations jumped on the problem two years ago . in germany and france , government and business leaders were until recently more lackadaisical . poorer countries like italy , spain and portugal are struggling . the formerly communist nations of central_europe and russia are much more seriously behind . lot , the polish national_airline , announced recently that it would cancel about 70 flights on new year 's eve out of concern about year 2000 breakdowns . the russian government recently reported that only one third of the country 's banks were ready . western_european countries are well prepared in comparison . but they also have more to worry about . the 15 nations of the european_union , 11 of which have now adopted the euro as a single_currency , is an increasingly unified economy linked by dense information networks . there is a boom in the construction of cross_border fiber_optic networks . power companies buy and sell electricity over electronic_trading systems . car manufacturers order from suppliers over computer networks . yet when car manufacturers sent the worldwide suppliers detailed year 2000 questionnaires in early 1997 , most of the responses provided little in the way of useful information . that became a source of growing anxiety here in germany over the next year . executives at general_motors' opel subsidiary were startled to discover that industrial robots they bought in 1997 still had year 2000 glitches . by august 1998 , opel had decided to start sending its own year 2000 assessors on personal visits to key suppliers . ''the key was to ask questions that indicated whether the suppliers knew what they were talking about , '' said roger aze , opel 's year 2000 coordinator . ''do you have a person in charge of y2k ? do you have a program and a schedule ? '' in the last several months , opel started sending technical experts to its most critical suppliers the ones whose own assembly lines are linked directly by computer network to those of opel and that deliver on a ''just in time'' basis . but mr . aze is still bracing for things outside their control power disruptions or problems further down the supply chains . power remains one of the biggest concerns . ''the energy_industry had overslept , '' mr . rehmer said bluntly . indeed , it was n't until july 1998 four months after hanover 's surprising test failure that the german association of electric_utilities advised members to ''start now ! '' on year 2000 preparation . today , year 2000 experts in germany say severe disruptions are unlikely but cannot be ruled out . as a result , many big industrial manufacturers are scaling back production to insulate themselves for a shock of an abrupt power disruption . basf ag , the chemical conglomerate based in ludwigshafen , has decided to shut a number of its systems on new year 's eve so it can get by on the electricity from its own on site power plant . indeed , so many manufacturers are reducing their power consumption on new year 's eve that the utility industry has begun to worry about disruptions caused by an abrupt plunge in demand . one key difference between european_countries on year 2000 issues is the degree to which governments became involved . in britain , prime_minister tony_blair has built up a huge program to promote awareness and point companies toward solutions . besides drumming up publicity , the government fielded several thousand ''bug busters'' to get out the word . the netherlands started a similar program , known as the dutch millennium platform , headed by jan timmer , the former chairman of philips_electronics n.v . mr . timmer irked business groups by exhorting them to act , but most now experts rank the netherlands alongside the united_states and britain as among the best prepared countries . by contrast , german leaders did not show much interest in the subject until a few months ago . the government issued a tepid report one year ago and a more thorough one this spring , and it only recently set up an internet site devoted to the issue . local_governments have largely been quiet on the matter . in march , the german weekly news_magazine focus published a survey indicating that most german cities had not yet prepared themselves for problems . according to the survey , carried out with the german conference of cities , half the cities had yet to test their hospitals , and one third had not tested their mass transit systems . the hospitals have had a rude_awakening . andreas tecklenberg , director of a 260 bed hospital in the north german town of eutin , was dismayed when only 6 out of 150 manufacturers gave him useful answers when he sent them queries about year 2000 problems . since then , he has started to get better information . at the moment , he estimates , about one third of the hospital 's systems are ''green'' or ready about one third are yellow , and one third still red . ''the devices will have to be watched , '' dr . tecklenberg said . ''but fortunately , we can have people take over if equipment goes wrong . '' at the german heart center in berlin , which specializes in heart surgery , administrators are avoiding elective_surgery between christmas and january 3 . it has also imposed a ban on holidays for most of the medical and technical staff on new year 's eve . ''if you look at this from the american standpoint , we all started late here , '' acknowledged marcus werner , who coordinates the center 's year 2000 planning . mr . werner started his preparations in october and said he was now reasonably confident about the hospital 's medical equipment . but like so many others , he worries about power . the hospital shares a back up generator with the university of berlin , but he is still worried about the software that will have to ration the relatively scarce electricity . ''what it comes down to is things you basically have no control over , '' he said . counting to 2000 articles throughout 1999 will examine efforts worldwide to prepare computers for the year 2000 .",has a topic of technology
"lead has the silicon_valley ideal outlived its usefulness ? has the silicon_valley ideal outlived its usefulness ? a generation of engineers became heroes by abandoning careers at big corporations for the chance to make a fortune by building new companies around a risky new technology . lately , however , a small but growing number of influential scholars and executives have been reassessing that ideal . they point , in particular , to the notable decline of the american semiconductor_industry and argue that the ideal of the entrepreneur has been taken to excess . rather than propelling the economy to new heights , the constant spawning of companies may actually be sapping america 's economic might , they assert . industry breakups feared in new books , in such prestigious management periodicals as the harvard business review and in recent speeches , these experts say that the pattern of people constantly leaving established companies to start new ones can break up industries into too many small companies . these companies , they say , do not have the wherewithal to compete against the corporate giants in japan and other countries . the constant exodus also saps the strength of the larger companies and discourages them from making long term investments , these experts say . worse still , according to this view , the smaller companies often have to sell technological secrets for badly needed cash , providing a way for foreign companies to buy the latest technology inexpensively . the most forceful proponent of the reassessment is charles h . ferguson , a political_scientist at the massachusetts_institute_of_technology who studied the decline of the american semiconductor_industry . ''making yourself or a small number of managers rich is very different from contributing to the long run growth of an industry , '' he said . robert b . reich , professor of political_economy at harvard_university , also thinks the nation has put too much store in the myth of the lone entrepreneur , much as it once worshipped the pioneer and the lone cowboy . instead of a few heroes with big ideas , mr . reich maintains , the nation needs more continuous and collective innovation . a similar theme is sounded by clyde v . prestowitz jr . , a former chief trade negotiator with japan , in his book ''trading places how we lost the lead to japan . '' ''can it be that the notion of individualism , so sacred to the united_states , is also its fatal flaw the basic strength that works against itself to reduce strength ? '' he wrote . at this point those attacking entrepreneurship are a distinct minority , and it is far too early to tell whether the reappraisal will grow into a larger movement that could have a meaningful impact on public_policy . nevertheless , this reappraisal marks a sharp departure from the years in which entrepreneurs were widely lionized as innovators and small companies were praised as the source of most new jobs . the young electronics whiz , toiling night and day in the garage to create a product and build a company , became an american hero , praised by president_reagan , pictured on the covers of magazines and envied even by the japanese . envious foreign dignitaries regularly paraded through silicon_valley , that bastion of entrepreneurs . now , however , the nation 's semiconductor_industry , which is responsible for silicon_valley , is reeling from japanese competition . mr . ferguson 's conclusion is that the decline was largely brought about by a condition of ''chronic entrepreneurialism , '' in which the industry was increasingly fragmented by start up companies . the one american company that still seems capable of competing across the board and matching the japanese in semiconductors is the giant international_business_machines corporation , he notes . ''the time of entrepreneurship and instability , and the virtues of the lone start up engineer , are virtually over in this industry , '' mr . ferguson said in an interview . while small companies can often bring products to market quicker than large companies , he said , many falter after their first products . a troubling thesis for other industries the implications of the debate are widespread . the semiconductor_industry was the first that grew in the pattern of corporate defections and start_ups backed by venture_capital . if mr . ferguson is correct , it could mean that trouble may lie_ahead for others that have followed that pattern , like the computer and biotechnology industries . some think this is already happening in the industry that makes the machinery used to produce semiconductors . hundreds of american companies are competing in the market and slowly losing out to the japanese . ''it is simply unlikely that more than 800 relatively small manufacturers can survive against 15 or 20 giants in japan , '' w . j . sanders 3d , chairman of advanced_micro_devices inc . , the chip maker , said in a recent speech . the debate could also have national policy implications . the government , for instance , is considering how best to help american industry gain the lead in the new technology of high temperature superconductors . the options range from an extensive government industry program to leaving it to private enterprise and american ingenuity . argument is disputed many industry officials say mr . ferguson 's thesis is simplistic . they note that many significant industries , including those involving personal_computers and biotechnology , were created by entrepreneurs while existing computer and pharmaceutical companies virtually ignored the new technology . and america 's three large automobile companies , they say , have not fared any better against the japanese than the hordes of small semiconductor companies . ''there 's no ground for the belief that the future will lie in big conglomerates , '' said george gilder , a conservative economist now debating mr . ferguson in the harvard business review . mr . gilder noted that there are more japanese companies than american companies making cars , an industry in which japan has bested the united_states . that suggests that fragmentization is not necessarily a problem . michael borrus , deputy director of the berkeley roundtable on the international economy at the university of california , also disagrees with mr . ferguson . ''we do n't do i.b.m . 's very well in this country , i.b.m . being the major exception , '' he said . a problem regarded as just a phase others say that what is at issue , to some extent , is merely the phase an industry is in . the semiconductor_industry has matured to a stage in which large economies of scale and huge capital investments are necessary , they say , favoring the japanese model of large vertically_integrated firms . but in less mature industries , they add , entrepreneurs still seem to be the most effective way of speeding the new technology . some say that while entrepreneurship is healthy on the whole , it has drawbacks that are often overlooked . mr . reich of harvard argues that the constant departure of employees causes companies to under invest in technology and worker training because they know they will not keep their employees long enough to benefit from such investments . ''the biggest single problem that the american manufacturers have is loss of continuity of management and technology and work force , '' said gene norrett , a semiconductor_industry analyst at dataquest . intel cites setback when three top microprocessor designers left the intel_corporation to form zilog in the 1970 's , the move set back intel 's microprocessor development by a year , according to andrew grove , intel 's president . what is more , rather than pioneering new areas , some start_ups merely duplicate what is already being done elsewhere , he said . one example of how the entrepreneur craze fragmented a market is what happened in the memory chips known as eeproms . in 1981 , several intel engineers left to form seeq technology , a company that developed eeproms and eproms , another kind of memory chip . intel sued for theft of trade secrets . it was settled out of court on undisclosed terms . a few years later , three executives left seeq to form atmel inc . , which worked on the same technology , and was in turn sued by seeq for theft of trade secrets , a suit also settled out of court . another seeq executive , b . k . marya , left to form exel , which was pursuing the same technology . exel failed , and was sold at a bargain price to a japanese company . mr . marya went on to start catalyst semiconductor , which is involved with the same technology and is working with oki electric industry of japan . still other intel executives formed xicor inc . and the lattice semiconductor corporation , which also pursued the same technology . trading secrets for hard cash another problem , some say , is that many young companies trade away their one asset , technology , to foreign companies in exchange for money , manufacturing or marketing help . many of the more than 100 semiconductor start_ups formed in the 1980 's could not afford factories , so they formed contracts with japanese and korean companies to do their manufacturing . a seven year old company , the lsi logic corporation , a leader in semicustomized chips , gave its software technology to the toshiba_corporation in exchange for the manufacture by toshiba of the silicon wafers that lsi needed . in the last month , vlsi technology inc . of san_jose has done the same with hitachi ltd . in exchange for manufacturing processes . kubota ltd . , a japanese heavy equipment manufacturer , owns pieces of several small american technology companies , including the ardent computer corporation , a highly rated designer of small supercomputers . now , some say , the pattern is starting to repeat itself in biotechnology . many small biotechnology companies have licensed their technology to foreign concerns and in some cases have sold stakes to them . some say the contentions about the harm caused by the defections and the flow of technology overseas are exaggerated . the executives involved in the various intel and seeq spinoffs say there is no doubt that the start_ups fractured the market for the products . but they point out that intel never really pursued the eeprom technology and that despite the technology licenses , the japanese have not yet moved into this market . ''intel would have never focused on all of these areas , '' mr . marya said . and j . daniel mccranie , president of seeq , said his company was not hurt by the defections and is now thriving , with sales exceeding 50 million a year . little agreement on what to do even those who think there has been an excess of start up companies differ on what to do about it . some say the situation resulted from too much venture_capital in the early 1980 's . market forces will bring about a correction , they say . mr . ferguson argues that some tax policies that encourage start_ups could be reversed . raising the capital_gains_tax , for example , would reduce the flow of money into venture_capital funds . curbing defections from established companies may be more difficult . the best approach to keep people , executives say , is to grant them stock options and other financial incentives , as well as responsibilty and credit for a job well done . 'intrapreneurialism' grows in a movement known as ''intrapreneurialism , '' large companies have sought to develop new businesses and products by allowing employees to start little enterprises within the company , free of the normal bureaucracy . the experiments have been a mixed success . while intrapreneurs often get the same freedom they would have if they had started their own companies , they usually cannot get the same financial rewards . large companies are often best at the long range basic_research and development that leads to innovations , while small companies are often best at turning a research discovery into a product . then the large companies are often best at manufacturing and marketing . such cooperation is beginning to occur . the national_semiconductor corporation has taken an equity interest in a couple of small semiconductor companies . the xerox_corporation , which developed many of the concepts used in advanced personal_computers , was poor at commercializing its developments . now xerox is encouraging some of its researchers to form small companies in which xerox maintains a stake .",has a topic of technology
"the foppishly clad members of britain 's legal establishment have just gotten a dressing down from the british public , and their horsehair wigs and silk robes could end up facing a death sentence . over the next three months , the public is being asked to give its verdict on whether british justice should continue to be rendered by people in their costumes of purple gowns , black scarves and girdles , white lace neck trimmings , lilac and red sashes , scarlet hoods and sleeves , knee breeches , fur mantles , long stockings and buckled shoes all topped off by curly wigs . the question is whether this kind of finery , already dated when gilbert and sullivan lampooned it a century ago , is suitable for modern day trials . a growing number of abolitionists say it intimidates newcomers to court , gives self importance to those who officiate there and makes the justice system look fusty , out of touch and just a little ridiculous . a representative sample of 1 , 571 britons who do not regularly visit courts plus 506 who work in them were asked by the lord chancellor 's office last october to say what they thought , and last week the department , which runs the legal system , published their verdict . two thirds expressed strong support for easing the dress_code and letting lawyers and judges go bare headed in all but criminal cases , where , 68 percent said , wigs should be maintained . when a similar study was conducted in 1992 , two thirds of the respondents voted for the status_quo , and no changes were made . ''the issue at stake here is far more important than the mere wearing of wigs , '' the lord chancellor , derry irvine , said in an introduction to the report . ''society has moved apace in the decade since the last consultation exercise was undertaken , and i believe it is necessary for a fresh , balanced view to be taken on how comfortable nonprofessional court users are in a modern civil or criminal court environment . '' in a fashion runoff , the public is now being asked to consult a series of pictures on a governmment web_site www . lcd . gov . uk showing how court officers look now and how they might look wigless and in plain gowns . votes can be cast electronically , with a deadline of aug . 14 . though lord irvine said he had ''no concluded view'' on the issue , he has complained in the past about having to wear ''a pound of horsehair'' and was quoted two years ago saying that the time had come for lawyers to ' 'sport just the hair nature gave them . '' michael morling , store manager of thresher glenny , purveyor of wigs and legal wear on chancery lane since 1755 , said that he thought the chancellor was tipping the scales but that he was not worried about the outcome . ''we 'll see off lord irvine , '' he said . ''wigs are a part of history , and the british do n't give up history easily . '' he said none of his customers favored abandoning them . ''they think wigs give them an air of authority , '' he said , ''and they want the anonymity . if a judge has just sent someone down for 10 years , he does n't want to walk out in the street and be spotted by the man 's family members . '' the reasons most frequently cited for keeping wigs is that they give court officers identity and authority in addition to anonymity , and that they remind legal professionals that theirs is a solemn and disinterested responsibility . advocates also argue that someone wanting his or her day in court expects a bit of formality and would otherwise feel cheated . chancery lane is the commercial artery of the part of central_london with its gothic piles and red brick georgian buildings that house the royal courts of justice , the four great inns of court that govern admission to the bar and the offices of the leading law_firms . london 's wigmakers conduct an ancient practice with habits that go unquestioned . asked why they insisted on using horse hair from argentina , mr . morling said , ''they 've got a lot of horses there , i suppose . '' the three major chancery lane wigmakers thresher glenny , stanley ley ltd . and ede ravenscroft all have aisles of pinstriped trousers , black jackets , vests and tailcoats , high collared shirts and white neckbands , ties and bibs . under the counter glass are cuff links in the crests of the four dominant inns gray 's inn , lincoln 's inn , inner temple and middle temple . mr . morling gives pride of place on his shelves to a mannequin wearing the rolls_royce of perukes , the 2 , 500 senior judge 's ceremonial full bottomed wig with its woolly corona and its flaps of hand curled tight coils cascading down to the shoulders . reaching into a drawer , he pulled out the less imposing 600 wigs worn by prosecutors and defense lawyers . they fall only to ear length and usually have two ribbons gathered in bows at the back . wigs come in four shades of off white , ranging from light grey to faint beige . some take on an amber hue with time , but mr . morling said that had less to do with age than with cigar smoke . a properly cared for wig spends its off hours in a gold and black monogrammed wig tin , and owners often keep disheveled and yellowed ones for an entire career , prizing them as badges of seniority . young lawyers value wigs for lending them authority beyond their years . baroness scotland , the minister in the chancellor 's department who presented the document last week , said that while wigs could be hot , smelly and uncomfortable in the summer , they proved warming in the winter , ''particularly to follicly challenged men . '' she also pointed out that the color of the gown was adopted during the mourning for queen anne , who died in 1714 . ''that 's why barristers went into black , '' she said . ''is that still appropriate in 2003 ? '' london journal",has a topic of technology
"the white_house said today that it would propose legislation to set legal requirements for surveillance in cyberspace by law enforcement authorities similar in some ways to those for telephone wiretaps . privacy advocates and civil_liberties groups welcomed some aspects of the proposal but said they remained alarmed about a new f.b.i . computer system that searches and intercepts private e mail and can easily capture communications of people not suspected of crimes . the legislative proposal was made as the administration also announced today that it had eased export controls on encryption technology , making it significantly easier for american companies to sell software products to the european_union and eight other trading partners that can be used to keep computer data and communications secure . both the electronic_surveillance proposal and the export control changes are part of a broader policy outlined in a speech today by john d . podesta , the white_house_chief_of_staff . he said the policy tries to balance the privacy rights of computer users against the needs of law enforcement to be able to monitor digital communications . congress and federal regulators have done little work in the area , even as the world has quickly come to rely heavily on communications through cyberspace . more than 1.4 billion e mail messages change hands every day . the administration 's legislative proposal on electronic_surveillance tries to fix the inconsistent patchwork of laws that apply different standards to telephone , cable and other technologies with a single standard for those systems and the internet . prospects for the proposal in congress are uncertain . until now , law enforcement agencies have been able to monitor electronic communication with only modest court supervision . the proposed legislation would require that the same standards that apply to the interception of the content of telephone calls apply to the interception of e mail messages . specifically , it would require law enforcement agents to demonstrate that they have probable cause of a crime to obtain a court order seeking the contents of a suspect 's e mail messages . the proposal would also give federal magistrates greater authority to review requests by law enforcement authorities for so called pen registers lists of the phone numbers called from a particular location and the time of the calls . the magistrates now have no authority to question the request for such lists , which are frequently used by the authorities . in the context of the internet , existing laws are ambiguous about what standards apply for different kinds of surveillance . many limitations imposed on law enforcement in the context of telephone wiretaps like the requirement that such taps be approved at the highest level of the justice_department do not appear to apply to e mail surveillance . moreover , the cable act of 1984 sets a far harder burden for government agents to satisfy when trying to monitor computers using cable modems than when monitoring telephones . that has proved troublesome for law enforcement authorities as more americans begin to use high speed internet_service through cable networks . the cable act also requires that the target of the surveillance be given notice and an opportunity to challenge the request . ''it 's time to update and harmonize our existing laws to give all forms of technology the same legislative protections as our telephone conversations , '' mr . podesta said in a speech at the national_press_club . ''our proposed legislation would harmonize the legal standards that apply to law enforcement 's access to e mails , telephone calls and cable services . '' white_house officials said today that they hoped the proposal would break a logjam in congress where a variety of different measures have been introduced dealing with electronic_surveillance . the administration 's proposal adopts some elements of both democratic and republican bills . but congressional aides said there was too little time left in the legislative session and that the matter would in all likelihood remain unresolved until after the next term begins , in 2001 . administration officials said the proposal would apply to communications that either begin or end in the united_states . it would not apply to e mail messages transmitted entirely outside the country . privacy and civil_liberties groups criticized the administration 's proposal because it would continue to permit the government to use a new surveillance system that the groups say may be used far more broadly than older technologies , enabling federal agents to monitor an unlimited amount of innocent communications , including those of people who are not targets of criminal investigations . the system , used by the federal_bureau_of_investigation , is called carnivore , so named , agents say , because it is able to quickly get the ' 'meat'' in huge quantities of e mail messages , so called instant_messaging and other communications between computers . carnivore is housed in a small black box and consists of hardware and software that trolls for information after being connected to the network of an internet_service_provider . once installed , it has the ability to monitor all of the e mail on a network , from the list of what mail is sent to the actual content of the communications . marcus c . thomas , section chief of the cyber technology section of the f.b.i. , said the technology was developed 18 months ago by f.b.i . engineers and has been used fewer than 25 times . mr . thomas said that carnivore had potentially broad capabilities and that he understood the concerns of privacy groups . ''it can do a ton of things , '' he said . ''that 's why it 's illegal to do so without a clear order from the court . '' he said that most internet_service_providers had cooperated with requests to use carnivore . privacy groups and some internet_service_providers have been deeply critical of the use of carnivore because , once installed on a network , it permits the government to take whatever information it wants . moreover , the government has not said what it does with the extraneous material it gathers that is not relevant to the particular surveillance . the issue does not often arise today with the monitoring of telephone conversations because when a law enforcement authority wants to see a list of telephone calls made by a suspect , the agent gets an order from a magistrate , presents the order to a telephone company , and the company then turns over the list . in at least one instance , an internet company did not cooperate so readily with the government . in december , federal marshals approached the company with a court order permitting them to deploy a device to register time , date and source information involving e mail messages sent to and from a specified account . concerned the device would record broader information , the company countered with a compromise it would provide the government with the requested information about e mail senders and recipients , according to robert corn revere , a lawyer for the company , in recent congressional testimony . the company was later identified as earthlink , a service provider with 3.5 million subscribers . mr . corn revere said the government initially accepted the compromise but later became dissatisfied and wished to use its own device . earthlink objected but was overruled by a a federal court , which ordered the device deployed . other internet companies have also been critical of carnivore . william l . schrader , chairman and chief executive of psinet , a major commercial internet_service_provider , said that the system gave the f.b.i . the ability to monitor e mail messages of every person on a given network . he said he would refuse to permit the government to use the technology at psinet unless agents could prove that it could only sift out the traffic from a given individual that is the target of a court order . ''i object to american citizens and any citizens of the world always being subject to someone monitoring their e mail , '' said mr . schrader , whose company serves about 100 , 000 businesses and more than 10 million users . ''i believe it 's unconstitutional and i 'll wait for the supreme_court to force me to do it . '' civil_liberties groups , meanwhile , said that today 's policy announcement was an inadequate response to the growing controversy over the deployment of carnivore . ''today 's speech was camouflage to cover the mess that is carnivore , '' said barry steinhardt , an associate director of the american_civil_liberties_union . ''in light of the public and congressional criticism of carnivore , we had hoped and expected far more from an administration that likes to tout its sensitivity to privacy rights . rather than glossing over carnivore , podesta should have announced that the administration was suspending its use . '' facing growing concerns about carnivore , attorney_general janet_reno said on thursday that she would review whether the system was being used in a manner consistent with privacy rights in the constitution and in federal law . a subcommittee of the house is set to hold a hearing next week on the system . while the civil_liberties and privacy groups applauded giving judges greater discretion to review certain kinds of requests for surveillance , they were critical of other aspects of the proposal . marc rotenberg , director of the electronic privacy information center , a research organization that studies privacy issues and technology , criticized the administration for lowering the standards for surveillance of cable modems rather than raising the standards for telephone surveillance . ''the cable act provides for one of the best privacy protections in the united_states , '' mr . rotenberg said . ''the question is whether to harmonize up or harmonize down . our view is this harmonizes down . '' but administration officials said the cable act never contemplated that there would be broad use of cable modems for e mail traffic and that the standards used for obtaining warrants for telephone surveillance should also apply to digital communications through cable networks .",has a topic of technology
"leaning alone against a wall , wearing sunglasses on a rainy afternoon , daisuke yoshioka is a black jacketed image of urban loneliness . but , for this member of japan 's thumb generation , a cyberweb of friends is only thumb strokes away . ''i get about 80 e mails a day , '' this 18 year old college student says , his right thumb flicking expertly through a directory of incoming e mails on the screen of his web capable cellphone . ''some of my friends now only use their thumbs for pressing doorbells , or pointing at things . '' in a quiet technology driven change , young japanese are developing hyperagile thumbs , the fruit of childhoods spent furiously thumbing hand held computer games and now young adulthoods spent thumbing out e mail messages on cellphone key pads . ''their thumbs have become bigger , more muscular , '' said sadie plant , author of a new report of ''on the mobile , '' a study of cellphone habits of people in eight major world cities . talking from birmingham , england , she said that japan 's ''oya yubi sedai , '' or ''thumb generation , '' was ''the most advanced in the world . ''what impressed me in tokyo was their ability to tap in a message without even looking at the keypad , '' she said of her study , which was financed by motorola . television stations in japan have held thumbing speed contests . last year , one young woman was clocked thumbing out 100 chinese_characters in a one minute burst , similar to typing 100 words a minute , a feat normally done with all fingers flying . while thumb operated computer games have been around for years , thumb operated , web capable phones are new . the number of japanese cellphones equipped for e mail has jumped to 50 million today , about 40 percent of the population , from 10 million two years ago . with the united_states years away from such mass use of cellphones for messaging , japan has become a national experiment for intensive thumb use . ''in the u.s. , those young people who hang out in the mall will become the american thumb generation of the future , '' predicted jeffrey l . funk , a business professor at kobe university and author of the new book , ''the mobile internet how japan dialed up and the west disconnected . '' ( isi publications 2002 ) . sending text_messages appeals to japan 's passion for discretion . messages can be sent and received silently in university lectures , business meetings , and in crowded commuter trains where talking on cellphones is often banned . aki goto , a 21 year old college student who carries a tiny american flag and a hot red kiss me sticker on her phone , said of her text_messages ''i am not intruding on others when they are in the middle of doing something . the receivers check them whenever it suits them . '' across town , in a white tablecloth restaurant where talking on cellphones is discouraged , ayako inaba 's right thumbnail peach pink with little silver stars silently guided her through the electronic tree in her cellphone display . ''it has changed how i live , '' said the 22 year old fashion journalist who bought her web capable cellphone as soon as she moved back to tokyo from new york last spring . ''we used to say , 'we will meet at 7 30 in the ginza in front of the lion of mitsukoshi department_store . ' now we just say , 'let 's meet at 7 in the ginza . ' '' wandering tokyo 's premiere fashion district , ms . inaba and her girlfriends negotiate their dockings by thumbing out messages with their coordinates . in contrast to this fluid style of living , she said that in new york , ''i missed a lot of meetings . '' thumbing through her in box , she read from the text index a message in english from her boyfriend in italy , a message in chinese_characters , or kanji , from an old boyfriend in japan , and a message from a college girlfriend . ''she is saying that she has a boyfriend , but is seeing another man i messaged back , 'you like him ? go for it , ' '' ms . inaba said , focusing intently on her flip top cellphone , the indispensable life tool for the modern young japanese . in the restrooms of chic bars and clubs , women are often seen thumbing out progress reports on their dates to girlfriends . ''i am spending less and less time with my parents , so i report my activities to them by e mail , '' said ms . goto , the college student . using the japanese word for cellphone , she continued ''girls use keitai mail more than boys . i get about 50 mails a day . i send out mails like , 'i am here ! ' or 'are you there ? ' '' using a cellphone that retrieves most frequently used characters from memory , ms goto said ''my thumb has become faster and more agile . '' thumb skills are spawning thumb snobs . kannon konno , a_20 year old college student , paused from perusing her e mail to watch a middle_aged man pecking at his cellphone with an index_finger . she commented drily ''i think he should use a p.c . '' on a cellphone , speeding thumbs make road kill of grammar and punctuation . some cellphone companies include 200 pictographs in an electronic vocabulary . interviewed by e mail , etsuko yano , an airline employee , thumbed back this high speed missive ''honestly , i am a expert in to punch out with thumbs ! my thumbs remember exactly the right place of words . i always send mails to my friends from my cellphone using only one hand , i mean only one thumb . very easy and fast and sooooo convenient to make mails for me . '' in japanese , cellphones are eroding people 's writing skills . in a poll of 3 , 000 japanese adults conducted in january by yomiuri shimbun newspaper , 27 percent said that the use of computers and cellphones had made their handwriting worse , and 52 percent said they had forgotten some characters . with more young adults reading cellphones in subways , sales of books and magazines in japan dropped last year , for the fifth year in a row . in the future , japanese thumbs could suffer from the repetitive stress ailments that sometimes afflict the hands of computer workers . but so far , thumb stress is mild , partly because cellphone text addicts glide their thumbs across the keys , exerting minimal pressure . dr . yasuuki watanabe , a tokyo neurologist , said of thumb cases he has treated ''the number is small , i have just seen several . '' thumbs , the doctor cautioned , should not be belittled . scientific research indicates that ''thumbs dominate a huge area of the brain . in japan , if you lose a thumb , you are redesignated under our national labor legislation as heavily handicapped . ''",has a topic of technology
"a photographic system aimed at creating an easy , instant record of whiteboard presentations in classrooms or meetings can capture the facts , figures or diagrams displayed on the board and prepare it all for posting on the internet . the smart camfire system by smart technologies ( www . smarttech . com ) of calgary , alberta , uses two 3 . 4 megapixel digital_cameras mounted over the board to photograph every scribble on a surface up to 4 feet high and 8 feet wide and then send the image in the form of two pictures left and right to a control unit or a pc for processing . in about 40 seconds , the camfire uses its own image enhancing software to stitch the images digitally into a high resolution picture that is saved as a jpeg file to be printed out and posted to the internet by a special , wall mounted control unit or a personal computer . jennifer meads , a smart technologies spokeswoman , said the company saw potential use for the product with the ''countless dry erase whiteboards used in classrooms , government and military training centers , and corporate meeting rooms . '' the smart camfire dci , which includes the control unit , costs 2 , 999 . the smart camfire pc , which connects to an existing pc , is 1 , 599 . neither system , ms . meads noted , comes with its own whiteboard . michel marriott news watch accessories",has a topic of technology
"lead a group of west_german computer hobbyists broke into an international computer network of the national_aeronautics_and_space_administration and rummaged freely among the data for at least three months before they were discovered , computer enthusiasts and network users said today . a group of west_german computer hobbyists broke into an international computer network of the national_aeronautics_and_space_administration and rummaged freely among the data for at least three months before they were discovered , computer enthusiasts and network users said today . an organization in hamburg , west_germany , called the chaos computer club , which claimed only to be speaking for an anonymous group that broke into the network , said the illicit users managed to install a clandestine program a ''trojan_horse'' enabling them to bypass security procedures and gain entry to 135 computers on the network . the network is called the space physics analysis network , and is chiefly designed to provide authorized scientists and organizations with access to nasa data . the security system in the network was supplied by an american company , the digital_equipment corp . users said the network was widely used by scientists in the united_states , britain , west_germany , japan and other countries , and did not carry classified_information . in washington , the space agency said in a statement that the network enabled communication among researchers involved in postflight data analysis . it said it knew of no classified_information available through the network . 'provide easy access' ''the purpose of the network is to provide easy access for appropriate individuals to nasa unclassified data , '' it said . ''any individual or organization engaged in nasa related research can apply for access . '' the network reportedly has about 1 , 600 subscribers , with more than 4 , 000 authorized users . european users of the network said that unauthorized access always carried the danger that data would be altered , though no tampering had been discovered . a chaos club spokesman , wau holland , denied that any data had been changed . this , he said , went against ''hacker ethics . '' ''hacker'' is a term for amateur computer enthusiasts . west_german television said computer piracy carries a penalty of three years in prison in west_germany . as of this evening , the government had not said what steps it was taking . telex to news organizations in a telex to news organizations , the chaos club said the ''trojan_horse'' was spotted by a user in august , and the infiltrating group then decided to go public because ''they feared that they had entered the dangerous field of industry espionage , economic crime , east west conflict , comecon embargoes and the legitimate security interests of high tech institutions . '' a spokesman for the west_german branch of digital , harald karcher , said he could not confirm the break in . but he said he was ''aware'' of a problem with the security system , and ''within the next weeks all the firms using the system will have them replaced with an improved version'' at digital 's expense . in the meantime , he added , digital is working with clients to check security and access systems . the illegal access to the network was first spotted by a systems manager for a user organization , the european molecular biology laboratory in heidelberg , who then alerted other users through the network . the west_german television_program ''panorama'' reported today that once the hackers gained access , they managed to open files labeled ''shuttle c study contracts , '' ' 'system security study'' and ''booster_rocket incidents . '' panorama showed 200 printouts it said the hackers had made from the nasa computers . in recent years there have been several incidents in which computer hobbyists gained illegal access to computer systems , leading to calls for stronger laws on ''computer piracy'' and increased efforts by computer companies to foil intruders . ''the best solution to this problem is to try to learn from the hackers , '' said lennard philipson , director of the european molecular biology laboratory .",has a topic of technology
"history repeats itself . haunted by that prophecy , marc grellert , a professor at darmstadt technical university in germany , started a project that is bringing back to virtual life german synagogues that were destroyed during world_war_ii . the project serves not only as ''a memorial to german history , '' mr . grellert said by telephone from darmstadt , which is near frankfurt , but also to ''admonish'' germany for erasing from the historical record sacred buildings that once contributed to the country 's culture . since 1996 , the project 's recreated synagogues have been prominently displayed on the web_site of the university 's architecture department . visitors to the site ( www . cad . architektur . tu darmstadt . de ) can view three dimensional images of the synagogues and read about the architectural and cultural history of each . three frankfurt synagogues , situated about 20 miles from darmstadt , have been completed and are displayed on the web . mr . grellert said his class planned to add sketches of 15 more synagogues by the year 2000 to commemorate kristallnacht , the outburst of anti semitic violence that presaged the holocaust . mr . grellert wants the class to concentrate on rebuilding synagogues destroyed in such large cities as berlin , dresden , dusseldorf and hamburg . he said that way he hoped to draw more attention to the exhibits . mr . grellert said an arson attack by neo_nazis on one of the few remaining synagogues in the german city of lubeck in 1994 was a catalyst for setting up the site . as a frightening reminder of the past persecution of jews , mr . grellert said , it was an impetus for the university 's pilot cad ( computer aided design ) architecture project to reconstruct on the web several german synagogues that could have remained buried in the rubble of history . mr . grellert said he discovered that there was a startling lack of information available in books and records about the architecture of german synagogues . few buildings in germany escaped destruction during world_war_ii , but synagogues were made targets by the nazis , who left no trace of their existence , mr . grellert explained . expanding beyond germany 's borders , during kristallnacht , or ''night of broken glass , '' in november 1938 , nazis set fire to more than 35 synagogues in bohemia and moravia , now part of the czech_republic . twenty five german synagogues were destroyed after world_war_ii in arson or bomb attacks . markers at the original sites of many synagogues are the only signs of their existence , mr . grellert said . under the guidance of prof . manfred koob , the project 's director and chairman of darmstadt university 's cad department , the synagogues were reconstructed from preserved blueprints and photos and from the recollections of people who once worshipped in the buildings . but the virtual reconstruction of the main synagogue , just outside frankfurt , was not easy . few pictures of the exterior existed there was only one photograph of the interior and one floor plan . it is particularly critical to record these memories while they are still vivid for holocaust survivors , who are advancing in age , mr . grellert said . the judengasse museum in frankfurt had preserved some models , which helped the students construct the synagogues' facades . in 1995 , using cad software , mr . grellert built a town planning model of eastern frankfurt , placing the synagogues at the sites where each once stood . in 1995 , a seminar class of eight students and seven professors began the project using the speedikon cad program on unix computers to build two dimensional computer drawings , which provided the framework for ground plans . though cad software programs render highly detailed , three dimensional images , the user first has to put the structural models into the program . these models are constructed by compiling detailed information about the building 's architecture . though he is not jewish , as a student of architecture , mr . grellert ''wanted to show the contribution of the jewish_community to german society . '' since the exhibition serves , in this sense , as a tribute to the contribution of german jews to the country 's architecture , the project 's organizers said they will not accept money for their project from german jewish organizations . the project 's expenses to date have come to about 75 , 000 , mr . grellert estimated , which includes stipends for the university 's staff , and hardware and software expenses . the german_government has provided nominal financing for the project . the university has received financial support from the judengasse museum in frankfurt as well . the judengasse museum also displayed the images in its september 1996 exhibition ''fragments and reconstruction . '' each synagogue was selected for its distinctive architecture , mr . grellert said . the borneplatz synagogue , burned down by the nazis on nov . 10 , 1938 , was known as the ' 'red synagogue at borneplatz'' because of the color of the sandstone used in its construction in 1882 . the synagogue once stood as one of four synagogues silhouetting frankfurt . the exterior shape of the synagogue was influenced by italian renaissance architecture . an orthodox synagogue , it was built so men could enter through a door close to the tower on the southern facade , while women entered through an additional building to the north . a gas station and a flower market now stand on the site . the facade of the main synagogue , the first one to be virtually created , was originally constructed with red stone from a nearby river region . the oriental and gothic architecture reflected the bold self confidence of the jewish_community of the 19th_century . mr . koob emphasized the importance of remembering the past . ''perhaps it has become more important again , to cultivate the common spiritual site and to preserve it , '' he said . by reaching out to a wider audience than the history books have , mr . koob said the digital processing of information aids ''the transmission of the cultural knowledge of humankind'' to a third generation . historical preservation via the internet is making history more accessible . ''when you do things in print and video , you have to sell the information in a package , a unit , '' said michael declun , creator of cybrary of the holocaust , a web_site he began in 1995 to provide links to information about the holocaust . cybrary of the holocaust reaches more than 30 , 000 people a month ( www . remember . org ) . darmstadt university 's progress on the 15 additional synagogues will be updated on its web_site . the project also includes an online video that simulates a walk through the frankfurt synagogues .",has a topic of technology
"a report in the world business briefing column yesterday about a plan to build a high technology industrial_park in hong_kong misstated the projected cost . it is 2 billion , not 2 million .",has a topic of technology
"for almost two decades , chinese citizens have been defined , judged and , in some cases , constrained by their all purpose national identification_card , a laminated document the size of a driver 's license . but starting next year , they will face something new and breathtaking in scale an electronic card that will store that vital information for all 960 million eligible citizens on chips that the authorities anywhere can access . officials hope that the technologically_advanced cards will help stamp out fraud and counterfeiting involving the current cards , protecting millions of people from those problems and saving billions of dollars . providing the cards to everyone is expected to take five or six years . but the vagueness and vastness of the undertaking has prompted some criticism that the data collection could be used to quash dissent and to infringe on privacy . the project comes at a time when china is doggedly remaking itself into a leaner economic machine in line with the standards of the world_trade_organization . but china is also struggling to track a restless and poor rural population that continues to gravitate toward the cities . so officials are no doubt gambling that the cards can help them juggle two important if conflicting interests promoting economic_liberalization , while monitoring citizens in an increasingly fluid society . there has been little public discussion or news about the new cards . brief but rapturous accounts in the official press say the cards will ''protect citizens . '' yet many of china 's toughest critics , at home and abroad , are skeptical , objecting to the concentration of so much information at the government 's fingertips . ''given the record of the chinese government on protecting the privacy of its citizens and given the prevalence of corruption , how can we ensure that this information will be managed properly ? '' asked nicolas becquelin , research director at the hong_kong office of human_rights_in_china . ''it 's scary what the chinese government is doing , because there is no counterweight . '' the original identification_card , introduced in 1985 , contains such personal data as one 's nationality and birth date and an 18 digit identification number . it also indicates a person 's household registration , which has traditionally tied a person to his or her province of birth . in june , china 's top legislative body , the standing committee of the national people 's congress , passed the national citizen id law , approving the cards . they are to have a microchip storing personal data , but the face of the card is not to contain details any more personal than what is on the current cards . the cards are to be tested early next year , first in shanghai , shenzhen and huzhou , a city in zhejiang_province . the agency in charge of the program , the ministry of public security , declined to answer written questions seeking details . but in an interview published in july with cards tech and security , a magazine of the smart card forum of china , a trade group , two public security officials , guo xing and liu zhikui , said the current cards were too easy to forge and did not take advantage of technological_advances . they also said the new cards , which will feature a rendering of the great_wall , would not look much different from the old ones . ''the id card and the id number are mainly going to be used to verify a resident 's identity , safeguard people 's rights , make it easier for people to organize activities and maintain law and order , '' mr . guo said . the use of electronic cards is not particularly new . other governments and companies issue them . hong_kong began issuing its own electronic id cards in june . with the olympic_games approaching in 2008 , china expects a growing demand for various cards , including transit cards , bank cards and social_security cards , said jafizwaty haji ishahak , an analyst in kuala_lumpur , malaysia , with frost sullivan , a consulting company . the social_services cards that are to be phased in should be able to track all the government services an individual receives , from health_care to welfare . ''if you want to live in the fast lane , you have to deal with technology , but you cannot have total freedom , '' said frank xu , executive director of smart card forum of china , who is from huzhou , one of the test cities . ''there have to be conditions . '' but detractors say freedom has a far different meaning in china , a place where security officials have never been shy about following or using listening_devices on dissidents , journalists or students . while it may make sense to track would be terrorists , the cards would also make it much easier for the government to monitor political or religious dissidents . after china 's 1989 crackdown on pro_democracy_demonstrators , the government televised photographs and identification_card numbers of student leaders being sought . under the new system , tracking dissidents would be much easier , said mr . becquelin of the rights group in hong_kong . there are concerns that the technology could be prone to abuse , corruption or the whim of the local authorities who routinely thumb their noses at beijing . this may be particularly true with china 's surging population of rural migrants , now estimated at more than 120 million and growing by 13 million a year . ''this new card will make it possible to locate people who have n't registered , so i think the migrants will be more subject to abuse , '' said dorothy j . solinger , a professor of political_science at the university of california at irvine . so far , anyway , most chinese who have heard about the new cards do not seem to mind indeed , many are enthusiastic . yes , they say , there is always the possibility of corruption . yes , one 's privacy may be invaded from time to time . but many chinese said they liked the idea of guarding against identity_theft and ensuring that someone who claims to be , say , a nanny , is telling the truth . besides , there is also a sense of resignation . ''our security officials already have all the information about us , anyway , so this is not a big change , '' said one man , surnamed sun , who is a science professor in beijing .",has a topic of technology
"a court here sentenced a computer engineer to two years in jail today in a case watched closely by people monitoring official efforts to control china 's growing use of the internet . the shanghai no . 1 intermediate court ruled that lin hai , 30 , committed a subversive act last year when he sent 30 , 000 chinese e mail addresses to vip reference , an electronic publication based in the united_states that the chinese authorities consider hostile to beijing . mr . lin , who was arrested last march , ran a software company that set up web_sites and offered other internet related services . mr . lin 's wife , xu hong , said her husband was not interested in politics and had simply been exchanging e mail addresses to build a database for his on line business . but prosecutors argued that the names provided by mr . lin had been used to distribute ''large numbers of articles aimed at inciting subversion of state power and the socialist system . '' vip reference , one of many electronic publications that distribute news about china , is compiled by chinese democracy advocates in washington . editors of the newsletter say they send information to 250 , 000 e mail accounts in china . efforts to restrict the exchange of political information on the internet , these editors contend , are fruitless because of the volume and variety of electronic_commerce . chinese officials formally embrace use of the internet as a necessary part of efforts to modernize their economy and society . at the same time , special task forces monitor political content on the internet and block some web_sites carrying information that beijing deems unfriendly . although no one knows the true size of internet use in china because many users share accounts , one recent official estimate said 2.1 million people in china were on the internet by the end of 1998 , up from 670 , 000 a year earlier . in such a fast growing environment , the case against mr . lin looks like a throwback to an earlier era , when beijing had tighter control of the spread of information . it may also reflect a decision by the authorities to make an example of someone seen to be helping a publication like vip reference , if only indirectly . mr . lin 's two year sentence , harsh by any international standard , is relatively light for a charge of political subversion in china . in a recent crackdown on efforts to set up a democratic political_party , three leading dissidents were given sentences ranging from 11 to 13 years in prison . in a country where the official media offer dull versions of the news , some chinese on line services feel freer to provide flashy news accounts that do not go through the same official censors as newspapers , television and radio . although the communist authorities would clearly like to maintain their once firm control over access to information , they are steadily becoming overwhelmed by the growth in more open communication by telephone , fax and now by internet that has come with efforts to modernize china 's economy . the official new china news_agency reported today that a recent survey of young people , ages 14 to 28 , found an overwhelming hunger for access to the intenet . but 69 percent of those surveyed said they had no way to get on line . only 3.4 percent of the young people said they surfed the internet regularly . at the same time , only 7 percent said they had no interest in the internet , and 6 percent said they had not heard of it . ''there is still a long way to go before the internet becomes truly popular among chinese youth , '' the news_agency concluded .",has a topic of technology
"for many china watchers , the holding of a national people 's congress beginning this weekend is an ideal occasion for gleaning the inner workings of this country 's closed political system . for specialists in china 's internet controls , though , the gathering of legislators and top political leaders offers a chance to measure the state of the art of web censorship . the authorities set the tone earlier this week , summoning the managers of the country 's main internet providers , major portals and internet cafe chains and warning them against allowing ' 'subversive content'' to appear online . ''some messages on the internet are sent by those with ulterior motives , '' qin rui , the deputy director of the public information and internet security supervision bureau , was quoted as saying in the shanghai daily . stern instructions like those are in keeping with a trend aimed at assigning greater responsibility to internet providers to assist the government and its army of as many as 50 , 000 internet police , who enforce limits on what can be seen and said . ''if you say something the web administrator does n't like , they 'll simply block your account , '' said bill xia , a united_states based expert in chinese internet censorship , ''and if you keep at it , you 'll gradually face more and more difficulties and may land in real trouble . '' according to amnesty international , arrests for the dissemination of information or beliefs via the internet have been increasing rapidly in china , snaring students , political dissidents and practitioners of the banned spiritual movement falun_gong , but also many writers , lawyers , teachers and ordinary workers . already the most sophisticated in the world , china 's internet controls are stout even in the absence of crucial political events . in the last year or so , experts say the country has gone from so called dumb internet controls , which involve techniques like the outright blocking of foreign sites containing delicate or critical information and the monitoring of specific e mail addresses to far more sophisticated measures . newer technologies allow the authorities to search e mail messages in real time , trawling through the body of a message for sensitive material and instantaneously blocking delivery or pinpointing the offender . other technologies sometimes redirect internet searches from companies like google to copycat sites operated by the government , serving up sanitized search results . china 's latest show of growing prowess in this area came in january after a major political event , the death of the former leader zhao zhiyang , who had been held under house_arrest since appearing to side with students in 1989 during the tiananmen demonstrations . when the official new china news_agency put out a laconic bulletin about his death , placing it relatively low in its hierarchy of daily news stories , most of the rest of china 's press quickly and safely followed suit . on their web_sites , one newspaper after another ran the news_agency 's sterile bulletin rather than take risks with commentary of their own . what happened on campuses was far more interesting , though . university bulletin_boards lit up with heavy traffic just after mr . zhao 's death was announced . but for all of the hits on the news item related to his death , virtually no comments were posted , creating a false impression of lack of interest . ''zhao 's death was the first big test since the sars epidemic , '' said xiao_qiang , an expert on china 's internet controls at the university of california at berkeley . but if the government is investing heavily in new internet control technologies , many experts said the sophistication of chinese users was also increasing rapidly , as are their overall numbers , leading to a cat and mouse game in which , many say , it is becoming increasingly difficult for the censors to prevail . at 94 million users , china has the world 's second largest population of internet users , after the united_states , and usage here , most of it broadband , is growing at double_digit rates every year . ''what they are doing is a little bit like sticking fingers into the dike , '' said stephen hsu , a physicist at the university of oregon who formerly developed technologies for allowing ordinary chinese to avoid government censorship . ''beijing is investing heavily in keeping the lid on , and they 've been pretty successful at controlling what appears . but there is always going to be uncontrolled activity around the edges . '' as with the policing efforts , the evasion techniques range from the sly and simple aliases and deliberate misspellings to trick key word monitors and thinly_veiled sarcastic praise of abhorrent acts by the government on web forums that seem to confound the censors to so called proxy servers , encryption and burying of sensitive comments in image files , which for now elude real time searches . for those reasons and others , some chinese experts have publicly advocated that the government gradually get out of the business of internet censorship . ''all of the big mistakes made in china since 1949 have had to do with a lack of information , '' said guo liang , an internet expert at the chinese_academy_of_social_sciences in beijing . ''lower levels of government have come to understand this , and i believe that since the sars epidemic , upper levels may be beginning to understand this , too . '' the most eagerly watched key word in china today is probably falun_gong . ''i do n't know the number , but i would guess every chinese has received a falun_gong e mail , '' mr . guo said . ''there is no way to stop it . you can shut down the web_site , but you cannot kill the users . they just go somewhere else online , sometimes keeping the same nickname . ''",has a topic of technology
"the federal constitutional court , the country 's highest court , paved the way for tuition fees at german universities by ruling that states could regulate higher_education on their own and could demand such fees . some states intend to impose a fee of about 650 a semester . students , who for decades have paid just a modest registration fee , vowed protests against the ruling . victor_homola ( nyt )",has a topic of education
"britain 's highest court ruled wednesday that a secondary_school was within its rights to bar a female student from wearing a jilbab , a loose , ankle length gown , instead of the regular school uniform . overturning a lower court ruling in favor of the student , shabina begum , a five judge panel in the house of lords pointed out that the school , denbigh high_school in luton , had already taken great care to make its uniform acceptable to its students , 79 percent of whom are muslim . ''the school was entitled to consider that the rules about uniform were necessary for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others , '' one of the judges , lord hoffmann , said in his written opinion . the issue of what sort of religious dress , if any , is appropriate in state run schools has become increasingly divisive in europe , where the wishes of muslim populations are often at odds with the rules set down by secular governments . in france , the hijab , the head_scarf worn by many muslim girls and women , and other ''conspicuous'' religious symbols are banned from schools . in 2005 , the european court of human rights ruled that a university in turkey was within its rights to ban head_scarves , saying that it was justified in avoiding giving preference to any one religion . by such standards , the british policy is comparatively liberal . girls at denbigh , for instance , have a wide choice of uniform a skirt , pants or the shalwar kameez , a flowing pants and tunic combination considered acceptable by many muslims and they can also wear head_scarves . three nearby schools allow students to wear the jilbab . but denbigh , a coeducational school with 1 , 000 students , had argued that permitting ms . begum , now 17 , to wear the jilbab could prove divisive , possibly leading to arguments among students about whether it represented a more devout adherence to islam . in addition , the school said , the jilbab is too constricting and would pose safety risks . tahir alam , the education spokesman for the muslim council of britain , a lobbying group , told bloomberg_news that the safety argument was ''an excuse , really . '' ''you have to ask yourself , '' he said , ''how many people have fallen over and died because they tripped on their jilbab . '' in their unanimous ruling , the judges said denbigh had ''taken immense pains to devise a uniform policy that respected muslim beliefs , '' laying down rules that ''were as far from being mindless as uniform rules could ever be'' and that were apparently ''acceptable to mainstream muslim opinion . '' ms . begum sued the school in 2002 after it insisted that she wear the required uniform , which , she told the bbc on wednesday , she believed ' 'did not satisfy islamic clothing . '' represented by cherie booth , a human_rights lawyer and the wife of prime_minister tony_blair , she argued that the school had denied her the right to practice her religion . speaking of the jilbab , which covers the entire body except for the hands and face , she told the bbc , ''i feel that it is an obligation upon muslim women to wear this , although there are other opinions . '' ms . begum said she was ' 'saddened and disappointed'' by the ruling . ''i still do n't see why i was told to go home from school when i was just practicing my religion , '' she said . as a result of denbigh 's policy , ms . begum spent two years out of school . she now attends another school where the jilbab is permitted . a spokesman for the department of education said it welcomed the ruling as reinforcement of its view that schools should be allowed to set their own uniform policies .",has a topic of education
"there is a common bond among teachers of young children the world over , says dr . anne h . o'neill , a prekindergarten teacher at rye country day school who found this bond on a trip last fall to china where chinese and american teachers of the very young exchanged ideas . dr . o'neill has headed the prekindergarten program at rye country day school , a private_school , for 14 years and also teaches a course on child_development for parents . she has gone on study trips to poland , italy and estonia and expects to attend a world conference on early_childhood_education in copenhagen this summer . dr . o'neill recently completed a two year term as co chairwoman of the westchester association for the education of young children . she is also an adjunct professor at long_island_university 's campuses in rockland_county and west_point . here are excerpts from a recent conversation with her q . what surprised you most about china ? a . i was primarily in the cities and from what i have read and seen in pictures there is a great difference in what goes on in the major cities and elsewhere . i was astounded about how many similarities there were between shanghai and new york . in fact , my friend commented that if people do n't get to shanghai soon it 's going to look just like new york . q . was a class of 4 year olds doing the same things as a similar class in the united_states ? a . of course , when you visit a country and it 's specifically aimed at a particular thing , such as early childhood , they are going to show you the showcase things . we were taken to certain places . we saw a day care center in shanghai , which was just incredibly excellent . you would be hard put to find something better here in the united_states . we went to one elementary_school where i counted 40 children in a second grade classroom . but they were all completely enthralled with what the teacher was saying . the large number of students just did not seem to impact them . it has been common in my experience that no matter where you go in the world , when you talk to people who work in childhood programs they just are more relaxed if they know that 's what you do also . i think that 's primarily because the mantle of motherhood that falls over those who care for small children is much less threatening to other people . little children are basically the same from country to country . their needs are the same developmentally they need care , they need attention , materials to play with , time to play . q . did you witness a political bias in their education ? a . there is a course that they call politics in the elementary_school . it was explained to us that it 's really sort of like our citizenship courses your responsibility to your country and your countrymen , behaviorwise , and regarding honesty and following rules . it 's much more clearly stated in china for young people than it is in this country . their political course is a continuing class , something they want to inculcate early on . the child is part of the group , and the child has responsibility to the group . like certain ''virtues'' that would apply to a well run state , such as loyalty to the state , that the state has provided for you in many ways . the idea to me that was very interesting was that a state could sell a one_child_policy , and now they are reaping some of the unintended_consequences . i saw so many cute children . you 'd see one child with four grandparents with him . the change they 've been observing is that this little chinese child is becoming what they call the emperor or the empress because it is the only one . they had n't realized how much that impacts how a child learns and sees himself . if there are no peers in the family that has an impact . q . in your opinion , should we in the united_states give more attention to teaching morals ? a . that 's a question that teachers look at all the time . it 's my personal feeling that most of us make our moral decisions based on things that were taught in the home . it 's expressed this way in a frame on my door ''what parents teach stays with you always . what they fail to teach can never be learned from others . '' and i think that 's true . i think it 's part of our current view of schools that here 's what i want and the schools should provide it , that more and more the burden is being placed on the schools to do all this . and it 's not just by working parents and people who do n't have the opportunity to be with their children . that 's a failure of our thinking . parents have to assume more responsibility for their children and for how their children learn about the world and about their responsibilities . schools should reinforce it . q . but when parents do not accept responsibility for teaching morals , what can be done ? a . it 's not always that parents are n't doing it but the kinds of things they 're letting slide also teach the children . if you 're going to talk about honesty , then a parent has to be aware that anything he or she does in the sight of the child must hold up to what the parent has mouthed about that particular virtue . if you 're going to talk about kindness , if you 're going to talk about that we 're all the same regardless of our skin color , then you have to believe that yourself and act in such a manner that your children will accept that . q . you used a key word talk . a . yes , that 's very important . one of the things that has always amazed me is that people will sit through the 6 o'clock news , and i find the 6 o'clock news a very dangerous thing for small children . people presume that they are not paying attention there is never a time small children are not paying attention . if you look at the 6 o'clock news sometimes it looks as if the only people who get arrested are people of color . you have to explain to children why people are being arrested , why people create violence , about the anger how injustice breeds violence and the failure to regard your neighbor as a person of value breeds local violence . these are things that take time to teach . you ca n't just sit down with your 14 year old and talk about anti bias . it 's too late they already have too much baggage with them what they 've observed , what you 've said . i do a program on anti bias , and one of the things we do is ask people to assess their own biases . i ask how many of you have ever said ''is she jewish ? '' ''are they black ? '' ''is he baptist ? '' not one of us has not . what information are we exactly trying to get ? it is that most of us have learned induction and deduction methods of reasoning , so whatever our stereotype of that is we want to put somebody in some kind of stereotype . you can do that with oranges and with apples , but you ca n't do it with people , and we fail to make that distinction clear to children or to ourselves . q . the chinese are more homogenous than people in the united_states . how does that play out ? a . they said that the chinese are very respectful of their minority groups . for example , take the country 's one_child_policy . you can have a second child if you are a member of one of the minority groups . q . what would you change about early_childhood_education here ? a . we 're so busy filling the curriculum with a lot of ' 'memorize this , memorize that'' that sometimes we do n't take time to wait in our conversation with children and our behavior with children to give them some of the things that are really the basis of our civilization which are not academic . most kids learn to read and write , but we get people who want the child at age 3 to learn to read . they say , he really wants to read . well , i 'm sure he really wants to drive a car and fly a plane , too , but the child has no concept of how one develops the skills . the skills for reading and mathematics are learned by living life so that when you need those things they are there . there 's a developmentally appropriate time . it 's not the same for every child . we have to address that . most children do n't have a childhood anymore . it 's terrible . and it 's more important because that 's where you grow into yourself as a person and what you do comes out of that and whether you will see yourself as someone who is competent , who has social_skills , who is liked and knows how to deal with other people , who has problem_solving skills . it 's that kind of sturdiness that you want to build into children . but children are too programmed today with activities .",has a topic of education
"after a long dispute , a berlin court has ruled that the city 's 35 , 000 muslim children will be allowed to receive islamic religious instruction in schools for the first time . the decision , long resisted by the city government , opens the way for the islamic federation , a group representing many of berlin 's 220 , 000 muslims , to give lessons on the koran and islamic tradition . up to now no such instruction had been available , although classes in the roman_catholic and protestant faiths were offered . ''we delayed this much too long , and the result was the decision ended up in court , '' said barbara john , the city 's commissioner for foreign_affairs . ''the fact is , there is a growing phobia about islam in european_countries linked to television images of iraq , algeria and iran , and that fear is gravely misplaced . '' the decision reflects germany 's gradual and painful reconciliation with the fact that it is a multi ethnic state with by far the largest population of foreigners more than seven million in europe . last month the new social_democratic government agreed on draft legislation that would make it easier for these foreigners , who include about 2.2 million turks , to become german . in a country where religious education is generally obligatory , berlin is one of only three federal states that have made religion a voluntary subject . the others are bremen and brandenburg . the authorities here have left it primarily to the catholic and protestant churches to organize classes and curriculums in two free hours provided every week . about 40 percent of pupils have chosen to attend . but under the pretext that no suitable organization existed to represent the city 's large muslim population in drawing up a syllabus , berlin had barred islamic instruction despite a campaign by the islamic federation that lasted more than 10 years and ended up in court . ''we had been forced to send our children to mosques'' to receive instruction in their spare time , said bekir durak , the chairman of the federation 's executive committee . ''the problem is that the media have often portrayed us as radicals , although our ideals are tolerance and understanding . '' still , some doubts persist about the nature of the federation , which is generally regarded as the most radical of three large islamic groups in berlin . the others are the turkish islamic union and the islamic cultural centers . ''it is unfortunate that the court identified only one organization , and the one seen by other groups as closest to the fundamentalists , '' ms . john said . ''but this is the result of our own failure to come up with a different solution earlier . '' the turkish islamic union has in the past complained that the federation is close to the welfare party , the populist islamic movement in turkey that is now banned . but mr . durak said that such allegations were unfounded and that the federation was prepared to work with the other two islamic groups to agree on an educational program . of berlin 's muslim population , about 70 percent are turks , with other large communities from bosnia and lebanon . the city has 70 mosques . in a statement issued today , the berlin city_council said that all classes on islam in the city should be taught in german , and it urged the three main islamic organizations to ''form a joint association with the aim of defining the framework of lessons . '' classes are expected to begin next summer .",has a topic of education
"canada is proud that it is one of the world 's most welcoming nations to immigrants , so tolerant that several major cities have populations that are more than one third foreign born without producing a political backlash . but gurbaj singh , a_12 year old sikh boy who immigrated here from a small village in the punjab , learned the limits of canadian tolerance in the schoolyard of his new elementary_school last november . while gurbaj was playing basketball , his 4 inch kirpan the ceremonial curved dagger sikh men are obliged to wear at all times , even while sleeping jostled loose and fell to the ground . a startled parent noticed the blade , and reported the incident to the principal . gurbaj found himself facing his principal , who ordered the boy to hand over his kirpan . since the age of 5 , gurbaj said , he has never taken off his kirpan , which in the sikh faith symbolizes the sovereignty of man and serves as a reminder to go to the defense of others in distress . so he walked home instead , igniting a legal struggle that has embroiled the working_class neighborhood of lasalle and tested the limits of religious_freedom in this multicultural society . gurbaj 's act of conscience has caused him to miss months of school , and it has made him a celebrity of sorts here and as far away as india , while igniting months of radio talk show debate and fierce dueling editorials in both french and english_language newspapers over minority_rights . the case has been winding its way through the courts . the provincial government of quebec announced in late may that it would appeal a superior court ruling that said gurbaj could wear his blade to school as long as it was securely enclosed in a wooden sheath tied tightly shut and remained tucked under his shirt . ''the maintenance of security in schools , '' said the quebec justice minister , paul b gin , ' 'requires zero tolerance for the carrying of knives . '' gurbaj and his family say that they will go all the way to the supreme_court , if necessary , and that if they lose there they will be forced to move to either ontario or british_columbia , provinces with large sikh populations where schools do not prohibit kirpans . ''i cannot part with my kirpan because it is part of the obligation i accepted when i took my baptism , '' gurbaj said in an interview . ''i am determined to stand up for my rights . '' in april , when the court order allowed gurbaj to return to school with his kirpan , he was met by dozens of angry parents , many of whom kept their children home for several days in protest . accompanied by a police escort , gurbaj was forced to endure a shower of racial and anti immigrant insults from some of the adults . for a boy of 12 in a new country , gurbaj appears remarkably composed under all the pressure . he has an easy wide smile and curls his brow thoughtfully before answering questions . he appears to have blended his native and canadian cultures , spending his spare time playing basketball and searching the web on his computer in his bedroom , which has pictures of the sacred sikh gurus and his kirpan collection . he wears his hair tied up in a scarf called the patka and , under religious law , promises never to shave , drink alcohol or eat meat . he says he has never gotten into a fight , and would never think of using his kirpan as a weapon . ''the kirpan is not a knife , it is a religious symbol , '' he said . gurbaj 's defenders say that many sikh students have been wearing kirpans in schools in the united_states , britain and canada for years without any violent incident . the school administration and many parents at the ste . catherine laboure primary_school have a very different view . for them , gurbaj 's claim to religious_freedom is a potential threat . ''he is a very pacific boy but we are concerned about the dagger , '' said danielle descoteaux , the school principal . ''an object like that has no place in a school . '' real nadeau , a sales manager and parent of two children at the school , noted that dozens of other sikh children at ste . catherine laboure wore pendants representing the kirpan to fulfill their religious obligations . ''with all the violence that appears in schools these days , '' mr . nadeau said , ''why allow a weapon in school ? '' gurbaj said his religious conscience would not allow him to wear a kirpan facsimile . with the sikh population in canada having reached nearly half a million and growing rapidly , the presence of kirpans in schools is not a new issue . the peel board of education in ontario province , for instance , was ordered in a 1990 court ruling to allow students to carry kirpans to school , as long as they were no more than seven inches long and thoroughly secured in a sheath . only about 12 , 000 sikhs live in quebec province , a fact that may partly explain why the kirpan is still an issue here . but quebec canadians have a different view of multiculturalism than much of the rest of canada , with many preferring the french republican tradition of the melting_pot over the concept of people from separate cultures living in harmony while retaining their differences . ''quebec believes in a dominant quebec culture , '' noted julius grey , a civil_rights lawyer representing gurbaj . ''other cultures are welcome but they must move in a constellation around the sun . '' montreal journal",has a topic of education
"enrollment in iraqi schools has risen every year since the american invasion , according to iraqi government figures , reversing more than a decade of declines and offering evidence of increased prosperity for some iraqis . despite the violence that has plagued iraq since the american occupation began three years ago , its schools have been quietly filling . the number of children enrolled in schools nationwide rose by 7.4 percent from 2002 to 2005 , and in middle schools and high_schools by 27 percent in that time , according to figures from the ministry of education . the increase , which has greatly outpaced modest population_growth during the same period , is a bright spot in an otherwise gloomy landscape of bombs and killings that have shattered community life in many areas in western and central iraq . and it is seen as an important indicator here in a country that used to pride itself on its education system , then saw enrollment and literacy fall during the later years of saddam_hussein 's rule . sorrows seep into the classrooms . during a chemistry exam at hariri high_school in baghdad on thursday morning , a random_sample of students turned up one whose father had been killed three days before , another whose uncle had been killed in an american led raid and yet another whose family was leaving iraq for good once she finished . the official who helped prepare the statistics for this article was assassinated this month . but while life in baghdad grows more paralyzed it was the only province in the country where primary_school enrollment fell the figures for the rest of iraq show that everyday life goes on , particularly in the largely peaceful south , which experienced the biggest jumps , with some regions having above 40 percent enrollment increases since 2002 . ''there is a considerable increase in the number of students , '' said majid al sudanie , an official in the education directorate in najaf . ''this province needs more than 400 schools to accommodate the growing number of students . '' it is a complex phenomenon . increases in some places , for example , are being driven by bad news among the highest increases in secondary and high_school enrollment were in provinces that have received families who are fleeing the violence of baghdad and its dangerous outskirts , including babylon , with a 44 percent enrollment rise najaf , with 35 percent and kirkuk , 37 percent . but the growth is too broad to be explained only by migration patterns . according to american government estimates , iraq 's population grew by about 8 percent to 26 million from 2002 to 2005 . even in provinces that have experienced population declines , for example , school enrollment is still up . in anbar the large desert province in western iraq , where insurgents regularly battle american_soldiers , causing residents to flee enrollment in primary_school is up by 15 percent , and in secondary and high_school it is up by 37 percent . economics is driving much of the rise , officials say . public_sector employees , who make up almost half the work force in iraq , according to the ministry of planning , used to collect the equivalent of several dollars every month under mr . hussein . but since the american invasion , iraq 's oil revenue has been earmarked for salaries instead of wars , and millions of iraqis doctors , engineers , teachers , soldiers began to earn several hundred dollars a month . income from oil covers more than 90 percent of the iraqi government 's spending , officials say . american money finances investment and reconstruction projects , but no current costs , like salaries . ''fathers can provide food for their families , '' said abdul zahra al yasiri , a teacher in karbala in southern iraq . ''kids do n't have to work to help their parents anymore . '' while some parents have held their children out of schools at times because of safety concerns , especially in parts of baghdad , direct attacks on schools have been relatively rare , allowing the school year to continue without major interruption in some parts of the country . the largest change among iraq 's approximately five million schoolchildren was in secondary_schools and high_schools , the equivalent of 7th through 12th_grade in iraq , where numbers of enrolled students rose to 1.4 million in 2005 from 1.1 million in 2002 . primary_school enrollment rose to 3.7 million from 3.5 million . the numbers do not include the students in the northern_kurdish region , which is administratively separate . high_school enrollment increased more for girls than for boys , while boys made bigger gains in primary_school in iraq , first grade through sixth_grade . in many ways , the increase is a measure of how far iraq had fallen . iraq was one of the most educated countries in the middle_east in the 1970 's . many iraqis traveled abroad to study or took part in state sponsored exchange programs . literacy rates were relatively high . but enrollment began to fall significantly in the 1980 's , toward the end of the iran iraq_war , and only worsened during the period of international economic penalties that were imposed after mr . hussein invaded_kuwait in 1990 . by 2000 , only 33 percent of all high_school aged iraqis were enrolled in school , compared with 75 percent in jordan , according to unesco figures published in a 2004 report by the ministry of education . the overall enrollment rate appears to have risen since then , according to the best estimates available . unicef estimated that in 2004 , about 50 percent of all school age iraqi boys and 35 percent of school age girls were enrolled . teachers and administrators interviewed in four iraqi cities said their classrooms were more full than they had ever been a continuation of a pattern they began to see just months after the american invasion in 2003 , when class_sizes began swelling again . ''we emptied the storage rooms and use them as classes , '' said raya faid allah , a primary_school teacher in mosul , who said some classes had reached 75 students , more than double the normal size . ''i am afraid that next year we will have to use the teachers' room and the principal 's room . '' the increase has pointed out many of the infrastructure problems that plague the country . hussein al rifaii , a former high_school teacher and political_prisoner under mr . hussein who is now the general director of schools in eastern baghdad , said the country needed approximately 5 , 000 new schools , an increase of almost 50 percent . the schools that exist are in need of repair . only 20 percent of schools in central and southern iraq had working toilets , the ministry report said . a quarter had trash bins . the enrollment figures are encouraging , but also describe the chaos of the war . the southern provinces with the highest flows of iraqis fleeing violence have the largest rises , while diyala , a province to the north of baghdad that has been nearly as violent as the capital , registered the second lowest rise in primary_school enrollment growth , after baghdad . the ministry administered about double the number of early examinations in 2006 compared with 2005 , as more students changed schools because their families moved . even the bookkeeping told a story . the kurdish enclave in northern iraq was included in figures the first year after the invasion , but later dropped , as if in an acknowledgment , at least in the bureaucracy , of the area 's relative autonomy . much of the decline in the education system that happened inthe last years of mr . hussein 's government came as a result of an economic downturn during the era of international penalties on iraq . as the country grew poorer in the 1990 's , the numbers of working children went up . more than 10 percent of iraqi children from 5 to 14 years old were working in 2000 , according to the ministry report . as a result , iraqis are less literate than they were 20 years ago , after literacy campaigns had increased rates substantially . ms . allah , who teaches in a poor area in central mosul , said a recent survey in her school showed that about a quarter of the parents of first graders could not read or write . those families , she said , are trying harder to keep their children in school , in part because civil_service jobs that require diplomas are paying higher salaries . ''families are insisting their kids should finish their studies , even if they are failing or exhausted , '' ms . allah said . she recalled a father ''coming in to school and making trouble'' to reinstate his wayward sixth_grader who had been suspended . ''we did n't see this before , '' said ms . allah , who has taught in mosul for 25 years . the provinces that had the highest rates of child_labor babylon , maysan , salahuddin , kirkuk and wasit registered some of the largest increases in enrollment since 2002 . even adults who never finished school are going back for degrees , teachers said . those students are not reflected in the ministry figures , but their presence is obvious in the school system . in the almu tamaizat high_school in adhamiya , in central baghdad , women in dresses and hijabs sat at small desks writing answers to final exam questions . a 35 year old with a pierced nose and a hijab emerged from the exam smiling broadly . she did not appear to feel shy standing in a hallway littered with pink barbie pencil cases and child size rhinestone studded backpacks . ''i work in the housing ministry , '' she said , her hand on her hip . ''i want progress in iraq . '' the struggle for iraq education",has a topic of education
"when fereshta ludin completed her training to become a grade school teacher six years ago , she seemed to be laying the groundwork for a classic immigrant success story . after coming to germany at age 14 , ms . ludin , an afghan born muslim , sailed through the education system , married a german , and earned , at 24 , the credentials to teach in the country 's public schools . she was even qualified to teach the german_language . but education officials prohibited her from taking a public job because she wears a head_scarf . the officials , from the southern german state of baden w rttemberg where ms . ludin received her qualifications , contended that the head_scarf could have a negative religious influence on schoolchildren . ms . ludin sued . now , after being rejected by three lower courts , her case is before the constitutional court in karlsruhe , germany 's highest court . the dispute has divided public opinion and become a touchstone for anxieties about the country 's growing islamic minority . experts say that the court 's decision , which is expected as early as july , could affect german integration policy for years to come . ''the head_scarf has become a symbol for the issue of what role islam can have in germany , '' said mathias rohe , a professor of law and an expert on islamic minorities in europe at the university of erlangen . on paper , ms . ludin 's high_court challenge hinges on the extent to which freedom of belief and equal right to public employment do not interfere with the concept of a secular_state . ms . ludin contends that her head_scarf is a matter of personal preference and has no bearing on her ability to teach . baden w rttemberg 's education minister , annette schaven , contends that ms . ludin 's head_scarf violates ''the strict neutrality of public schools in religious issues . '' but ms . schaven , a christian democrat , has made clear that her primary concerns are about islam . in denying ms . ludin a job in 1998 , the minister argued that a head_scarf was ''understood as a symbol of the exclusion of woman from civil and cultural society . '' both conservatives and many on the left here contend that the head_scarf is merely a device of social control in islamic cultures where women do not enjoy equality with men . in an essay in der_spiegel last week , alice schwarzer , a prominent feminist , wrote that a decision in favor of ms . ludin could lead to ''parallel worlds'' in which a small minority was allowed to practice islamic_law and establish a restrictive social system within germany 's borders . ''the woman 's veil has been the flag of islamic crusaders , '' she wrote . ms . ludin , who now teaches at a private islamic school in berlin , responds that the german school officials , not her faith , have limited her professional aspirations . ''it amounts to a ban on employment because of my beliefs , '' said ms . ludin , now 31 , in an interview . ''as a teacher , i am supposed to educate children to become literate and tolerant . but how can i do this when i have to renounce my own identity , and in a democracy where tolerance is considered a cardinal virtue ? '' as ms . ludin 's supporters point out , she makes an unlikely candidate for islamic crusader . she is the daughter of a diplomat and a schoolteacher . she spent parts of her early childhood in germany where her father was briefly stationed and in saudi_arabia , before immigrating as a teenager to germany . by ms . ludin 's own account , she surprised her family when , as a young adult in germany , she started wearing a head_scarf . she describes the decision as a free choice based on her personal faith . ''i am just as against the oppression of women and inequality as any other german , '' she said . ''if the head_scarf were a political symbol , i would be the first to take it off . '' baden w rttemberg officials acknowledge that there is no evidence that ms . ludin is trying to bring political islam into the classroom . ''we believe that she does n't want to be a missionary and that she shares our democratic values , '' ferdinand kirchof , the legal representative of baden w rttemberg , told the constitutional court this month . ''it has to do with the image that is projected . '' the separation of church and state is not as strictly defined in germany as in the united_states . churches are financed by state administered taxes , and religious instruction takes place in most german public schools . nonetheless , the constitutional court has placed limits on the use of religious symbols . in a landmark 1995 case , the court forbade hanging a crucifix in a public classroom . but that ruling , experts point out , related to religious symbols on public buildings , not to personal attire .",has a topic of education
"lead shinya watanabe was amused at the unlikely sight of his fellow students panicking over a term paper that was almost due . nearby , students sitting in study carrels with their heads bent over western classics occasionally looked longingly out the window . shinya watanabe was amused at the unlikely sight of his fellow students panicking over a term paper that was almost due . nearby , students sitting in study carrels with their heads bent over western classics occasionally looked longingly out the window . ''this school is harder than a japanese university , '' said mr . watanabe , 20 years old . ''here , we have to study . '' although the japanese are well known for studying hard in primary and secondary_school , many college students here often spend more time hitting tennis balls than hitting the books . getting into top universities is hard but getting out is relatively easy , with fewer reading and writing requirements than comparable american schools . the student body at the school mr . watanabe attends in toyko is mostly japanese , but the school itself is , without question , american . the professors come from universities in the united_states and classes are taught in english . it is the japanese branch of temple_university of philadelphia , the first american college to establish a campus in japan . competitive products american higher_education , it seems , is one import from the united_states that the japanese are eager to buy . in fact , dr . chikara higashi , president of temple_university japan , talks about education the way others talk about cars or television sets . ''america 's industrial products are not really competitive , '' he said in an interview , ''but america 's educational products are very competitive . '' japanese higher_education has been criticized by politicians and by national and foreign educators as too inbred and narrow . universities do not encourage intellectual debate and there is little freedom for independent thought . some critics here say the system leads to parochial attitudes among the japanese . those critics are calling for the ''internationalization'' of japan 's educational system . ''if japan is to become a true member of the international_community , then education has to be internationalized as well , '' said yusuke kataoka , executive director of the u.s.a . japan committee for promoting trade expansion . the committee , headed by representative richard a . gephardt , democrat of missouri , and susumu nikaido , a senior member of the japanese parliament , is helping american universities find sites for campuses in mostly rural areas of japan . smaller towns are eager to spur their economies and keep their young people from leaving for the big city . so towns are wooing universities with offers of free land , free construction of campus buildings and free housing for faculty . enrollment is now 1 , 200 inspired by the possibility of recruiting more students and having closer ties to one of the world 's most powerful economies , american universities such as southern illinois , georgia_tech and mississippi_state are planning to start branches in japan . temple_university japan began in 1982 with 250 students . it now has an enrollment of 1 , 200 . many students choose the american_university simply because they want an alternative to the rigidity of japanese style education . temple_university japan is especially popular among ambitious young japanese women . it also appeals to japanese students who attended international schools while living overseas with their families . ''i came back to japan my first year of high_school , '' a sophomore , chiharu takano , said in a thick australian accent , ''and it was really difficult for me to go back to a japanese school . '' much of the japanese high_school curriculum , which is controlled by the federal ministry of education , is dedicated to preparing young japanese for university entrance_exams that require enormous amounts of rote memorization . that makes it very hard for those who have lived abroad to return and get into top japanese schools . ''if a student can get into good schools like keio , waseda , or tokyo_university , they 're not going to come to us , '' said george deaux , dean of temple_university japan , often called t.u.j . ''but that 's not something we 're ashamed of . '' he said that only 60 percent of this year 's college applicants will be accepted by universities . ''even susumu tonegawa could n't get in to tokyo_university , '' added mr . deaux , referring to the recipient of the 1987 nobel prize in medicine . one major problem is that the education ministry will not accredit foreign universities here . that leaves parents concerned that their children will not find good jobs . mr . kataoka of the trade expansion committee said that as more companies move overseas , they find they need employees who not only are bilingual , but also can work easily in another culture . ''many japanese companies are now taking students who have degrees from the united_states , so the attitude here toward a foreign diploma is changing , '' he said . some t.u.j . graduates have already found jobs at_large international companies , like nomura_securities , i.b.m . japan and fujitsu . education",has a topic of education
"in the dead of winter , gray clouds hang ominously over the campus of beijing_university and bare trees rustle in the wind . but inside the dank , putrid dormitories , students complain that a spiritual bleakness chills the bones even more than the outdoor cold . ever since its students joined the famous democracy movement of may 4 , 1919 , beijing_university has nurtured a tradition of political fervor and rebelliousness . at that time , the authorities turned part of the old campus into a jail for student protesters . but the stopgap_measure failed , and the political momentum led to the communist movement in china . beijing_university is the most prestigious chinese university , a national_symbol of intellectual life , equivalent to harvard , yale and princeton rolled into one . the offspring of china 's leaders have gone there for decades , and it is the alma_mater of the children of the senior leader , deng_xiaoping . its intellectual exuberance was precisely why beijing_university became the center of the 1989 tiananmen_square democracy movement and of smaller protests throughout the last decade . but now , students and faculty say , the authorities have suppressed the school 's vitality . they fear that china 's greatest educational institution is being suffocated . "" our freedom of political expression and our freedom of movement is suppressed , "" said a young teacher at the university who insisted on not being identified by name . "" but the impact is probably more serious here than elsewhere because beijing_university carries so much prestige and influence . "" suspicions are fostered many employers say they do not want to hire beijing_university graduates , out of concern that the students are too politically active , and some of the brightest high_school students are considering alternatives to beijing_university , applying elsewhere or arranging for study abroad . school authorities also have fostered suspicions and tensions among students and teachers . after the tiananmen military crackdown on june 4 , 1989 , the school closed the history department and three other faculties to incoming students , reduced the size of the freshman class from 1 , 400 to 900 , then sent them off to a year of military training . now , a year and a half later , the effects of the government 's measures to politically sanitize the school seems to have squeezed the life out of the students , most of whom have reacted not so much with fury as with apathy about politics and studies alike . during the last semester , the libraries were often more deserted than the movie houses , and the recent political trials of fellow students involved in the tiananmen democracy movement hardly sparked interest . teachers say students have turned from their studies to more superficial , even traditional , pursuits . men are playing basketball , women are learning to sew and cook , and posters on campus advertise sales rather than lectures . tiananmen rarely discussed even among close friends , the tiananmen democracy movement is rarely discussed , teachers and students say . teachers have been especially prudent about not discussing politics during class , and they point out that students have reported several instructors who have appeared too westernized in their thinking . the freshman class is often scorned because it spent all of last year in military training and political indoctrination . new regulations dictate that freshmen live in a special dorm apart from the other students , have separate student unions , and their own exercise drills . "" there is only a one or two year difference between the class entering in 1989 and the class entering in 1988 , "" said a third year student . "" but it seems as though we are an entire generation apart . "" by this summer , half of the undergraduates will have had a full year of military training , but many students say the government will not be able to control their thinking . aware of their isolation , some freshmen insist they have not been brainwashed . "" i absolutely hated that military experience , "" said a freshman , who completed the training . "" now when i think back on it , i find that the negative aspects of that one year of military training have made me understand the value of freedom . "" campus political cleanup ends at the end of 1990 , the last government inspection_teams cleared away their pens and notebooks and pile of files from the various university departments in a long campus wide cleanup of the tiananmen democracy movement . in december , 18 months after the crackdown , teachers were expelled from some faculties , including the history department , where a prominent student leader , wang_dan , majored . control measures have not abated . the authorities are sending a senior party official from the hard line city government , wang jialiu , to replace the current university communist_party secretary , wang xuezhen . university officials declined to comment , but teachers say that the current party secretary is considered too lenient to the students . more than a year ago , the university president , ding shisun , was replaced by a party hardliner , wu shuqing . mr . wu declined to be interviewed . university officials refused to arrange other interviews , and reporters are officially barred from campus and are not allowed to talk to students . "" the goal of the university leaders is to shape our consciousness so that it is just as innocent as that of our parents' generation , "" said another third year student at the school . "" they want us to believe in communism , to firmly believe in the leadership of the chinese communist party . they want to pull us east , so that we cannot go west . """,has a topic of education
"eugene shenderov was a small boy in ukraine when the chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded . he developed a weakened immune system and a passion for trying to conquer cancer . now 21 and a senior at brooklyn_college , he is a straight a student , the president of the chess club , a varsity tennis_player and a member of the college 's emergency medical team . this weekend he learned that he was one of 32 american students and one of two from the city_university of new york to win rhodes scholarships to study at the university of oxford in england . mr . shenderov came to the united_states for treatment when he was 6 . he has done science research at the memorial_sloan_kettering_cancer_center , at brooklyn_college and at oxford , where he spent last summer and plans to continue his studies in cancer immunology . the other cuny winner , also an immigrant from the former soviet_union , is lev a . sviridov , a senior at the city_college of new york . mr . sviridov also happened to be near chernobyl , on a train from moscow to ukraine , when the explosion occurred . the disaster and the way it was handled kindled his interest in environmental research and science policy . cuny campuses have had previous rhodes winners brooklyn in 1991 , queens_college in 1982 and city_college in 1939 but this is the first year in which two cuny students have won . the awards highlighted the university 's continued role as a springboard for talented young immigrants . ''many of our students are first generation americans who come from all over the world , land at cuny and do remarkable things with their lives , '' said matthew goldstein , the university 's chancellor . ''it is a signature of what cuny has represented from its founding more than 100 years ago . '' elliot f . gerson , american secretary for the rhodes trust , which administers the scholarship , said he was not surprised to see newcomers like mr . shenderov and mr . sviridov among the latest scholars . ''one of the things that struck me in scanning the list , '' mr . gerson said over the weekend , ''is that the story of america continues to be written by immigrants and first generation americans . '' other immigrants or children of immigrants on the list included andrew kim , a first generation korean american from marlton , n.j. , who graduated from the university of chicago in june laurel yong hwa lee , a senior at m.i.t . who came to this country from south_korea at 16 ian desai of brooklyn_heights , another chicago graduate , whose father came to the united_states from india swati mylavarapu , a senior at harvard whose parents arrived from india 20 years ago and anastasia piliavsky of boston , who came to the united_states from ukraine at 14 and graduated from boston_university this year . another winner , kazi sabeel rahman of scarsdale , n.y. , a senior at harvard , has parents from bangladesh , but was born in new york . while many of the immigrant winners attended private colleges , mr . gerson said public universities like cuny remained important in ensuring access to higher_education . ''despite the widespread availability of scholarships and the apparent generosity at many of the most selective colleges , the fact is that the stratospheric costs of elite education are an imposing barrier for many outstanding students of modest means , '' mr . gerson said . ''accessible public institutions remain critically important to meaningful equal_opportunity in this country . '' ''from this year 's elections , it seems that city_university remains an extraordinary launching_pad for new american ambitions , '' he added . for mr . sviridov , who scavenged for cans and bottles in trash barrels in his early years in new york , the rhodes represents not just prestige but a windfall . his mother , alexandra sviridov , was a journalist and filmmaker in moscow who exposed russian government officials who were former kgb operatives . they came to new york for a visit in 1993 , when mr . sviridov was 11 , then stayed , afraid to return home when tanks rolled in . he was homeless for a time as his mother fought for the right to stay in the united_states and searched for a job . mr . sviridov has himself held many jobs to bring in income he said he would probably send part of his rhodes stipend home to new york to help his mother . the award , valued at about 35 , 000 a year , covers tuition , living expenses and transportation costs for two or three years at oxford . ''the fact that i was broke and working at so many jobs gardening , moving furniture , tutoring , working in the laboratory paved the way for having great credentials for the rhodes , '' said mr . sviridov , 22 , a chemistry major who served as president of the city_college student government and conducts research on aerosols . his american citizenship papers came through this year , and after winning a barry m . goldwater scholarship , he was inspired to try for the rhodes . other universities with multiple rhodes winners this year were harvard , with six scholars the united_states_naval_academy , with three and m.i.t. , yale , the university of chicago and the university of virginia , with two each . a list of all winners is available online at www . rhodesscholar . org . many of the winners have traveled widely and worked in public service jobs here and in other countries . some , like jennifer e . howitt of georgetown_university , who has used a wheelchair since she was 9 , have surmounted physical disabilities . she was on the women 's basketball_team that won a gold_medal at the paralympic games in athens this year . mr . gerson , the rhodes secretary , said that while there were usually numerous winners from elite universities like harvard , there were equally strong scholars from less prominent ones . ''we do n't need to promote our scholarship at harvard and stanford , '' he said . ''we do have to promote it on campuses where some of the kids are absolutely remarkable , but they lack the culture and tradition . '' both of cuny 's rhodes winners said that cost was a key factor in their decision to enroll at cuny , but that they had not been disappointed with their education . mr . shenderov , who has minors in biochemistry , nutrition and biology , said he found brooklyn_college 's sciences strong . ''to a certain extent , they could use more equipment , '' he said . ''but the faculty is fabulous . '' he said he was working with a brooklyn professor on a ''cutting edge'' project to develop a screening test to find new drugs to treat cancer . mr . sviridov said that he had found the city_college faculty very supportive , and that many professors told him they had followed paths like his . ''no one was born into something , '' he said . ''they were all self made people . my education there is terrific . '' he said that while the city_college laboratories might not be as well equipped as those at other universities , when he needed an atomic absorption spectrometer for his research , the earth and atmospheric science department bought one . ''they were really committed to our research , '' he said . ''they wanted the students to succeed . ''",has a topic of education
"the scene on fashionable rue st . denis looked as if it came out of another era hundreds of students staging a sit_in in front of a liberal_party office and blocking rush_hour traffic on a tuesday afternoon . red and black banners flapped as fists pumped in the air . the police surrounded the students in their patrol cars . drivers appeared to patiently accept their inconvenience by not honking . people enjoying the dazzling spring afternoon at outdoor cafes clapped and joined in the chants of protest against cuts in student aid . the demonstration and the signs of popular support were among a number of indications that quebec 's political life , a life that has been relatively quiet for a decade , is becoming vibrant and chaotic again . the targets of this public disenchantment are both the provincial and federal liberal governments , which have been tarnished by scandal and by stalled attempts at policy reform . while the rest of canada appears bored with politics and nonchalant about the weakest federal_government in a generation , politics in predominately french speaking quebec are percolating more powerfully than at any time since the last separatist referendum in 1995 , which lost by a narrow margin . ''it is a really special moment , '' said julie ouellet , 22 , one of the demonstrators , who is studying sociology at the university of quebec at montreal . suggesting that the narrow objectives of the sit_in had deeper , more radical possibilities , she added ''the cultural_revolution can come when people begin asking what kind of society we want . right now , the government is thinking of nothing other than money . '' more than 170 , 000 college students in quebec have been on strike for the last month , in the largest student mobilization here since the 1960 's , when social revolution and separatism were in the air . now , students are demanding that the provincial government reverse a plan to transform 80 million of student grants into loans . there have been dozens of arrests and sporadic violence . college teachers , pressing their own contract demands , went on a half day strike this week and are threatening more job actions . elementary teachers and provincial government workers say they will take action to increase wages , unions are pressing to organize wal_mart stores and even the musicians of the montreal symphony orchestra are performing in t shirts as part of their bid for a new contract . and while workers and students are mobilizing , a federal investigative commission holding televised hearings here has stirred public rage with revelations over the last month of almost unbelievable waste in the supposed cause of thwarting quebec separatism like paying huge commissions to advertising_agencies close to the liberal_party for designing golf balls as well as paying for box seats to ottawa senators hockey games and neil diamond and shania twain concerts for political allies . the developments , though not all connected , are strengthening the parties that want to promote quebec 's separation from the rest of canada . jean charest , the liberal leader of quebec , whose government was elected two years ago , has been forced to retreat from plans to slash spending and taxes . his policies raising rates for day care and proposals for curbing government wages and cutting social benefits have fueled powerful resistance and failed to inspire supporters to come to his aid . one recent poll showed his disapproval rating at 70 percent . a loss to separatists by mr . charest 's liberals in the next provincial election , expected in three years , could set the stage for a third referendum on sovereignty , and recent polls suggest the result could be close again . the unrest here could more immediately affect national politics . prime_minister paul_martin , also a liberal , faces the probability that his party will be swamped here by the separatist bloc qu b cois should he lose a confidence vote in parliament and need to go to the polls in a snap election before the end of the year . a big loss in quebec would make it doubtful that mr . martin could ever win back the majority in the house of commons that his party lost last june . the liberals , who only won 21 of quebec 's 75 seats then , could lose even more ground . scandal erupted around the liberal_party last year , after revelations that the federal_government tried to increase its presence in quebec after the close 1995 separatist referendum , through wasteful spending for sponsoring sports and cultural events . funds appear to have been siphoned off to influential individuals during the government of mr . martin 's liberal predecessor , jean_chr_tien . as much as 80 million went to advertising firms allied with the liberal_party for little or no work some of that money may well have been funneled into liberal coffers , according to recent testimony . an investigative commission led by justice john gomery , which started its work a year ago , has been holding televised hearings in montreal over the last several weeks , drawing out a litany of private greed and government waste . the province has paid rapt attention french_language news channels reported a tripling of ratings and added new programming to cover the inquiry into the money flow . according to recent testimony , an advertising_agency owner who is a large donor to the liberal_party received federal contracts , from which he paid himself , his wife and two children salaries of millions of dollars . while his firm double billed ottawa for work on a stamp promotion campaign , the owner , jean lafleur , tried to claim a 1 , 000 fishing rod , bought as a gift , as a business expense incurred on the government 's behalf . in his testimony in montreal , mr . lafleur said he could not remember who his fishing companion was . but in previous testimony , he disclosed that he had gone on fishing trips with a former federal justice minister as well as a senior government bureaucrat who was in charge of the controversial sponsorship program . ''gomery is just the tip of the iceberg , '' said michel c . auger , a columnist for le journal de montr al , a local daily . ''the iceberg is , politics are not working anymore . ''",has a topic of education
"to enforce its new law banning religious symbols from public schools , the ministry of national education has decided to get tough . this week it held formal disciplinary hearings and began expelling students who violated the law . the goal was to get rid of those defined as hopeless cases before the 10 day all saints school vacation that ends with a national holiday honoring all of catholicism 's saints . the french government sees no contradiction or irony here . nine female muslim students who have refused to remove their islamic head coverings have been thrown out of schools across france . after the all saints break , dozens of cases that are pending will be reviewed . ''the phase of dialogue and consultation is over , '' said an official at the ministry , who refused to allow her name to be used . ''it was an unbearable situation for the teachers and the pupils . it was a crazy situation . the law has to be respected at some point . '' since school started a month ago , students who have refused to remove what school administrators define as conspicuous religious symbols have been quarantined in study halls or libraries and not allowed to attend class . the banned symbols include anything that can be construed as an islamic veil ( head_scarf , bandanna , beret ) , a jewish skullcap , a large christian cross and a sikh turban . officially the law is aimed at enforcing france 's republican ideal of secularism . unofficially it is aimed at stopping female muslim public_school students from swathing themselves in scarves or even long veils . there have been odd , unintended_consequences . despite the 1905 law separating church and state in france , public schools have been allowed to keep chaplains , most of them catechism teaching and catholic , on their staffs as long as they were not paid by the state . in 1960 a law set up a formal process to create new chaplain posts and allowed existing ones to continue . but this fall some teachers at the dumont d'urville high_school in the southern city of toulon objected to what they said was a double_standard muslim girls had to doff their scarves , but the rev . antoine galand , the school 's catholic chaplain , could wear his priestly garb . so father galand was barred from the school and may return only if he removes his collar and cassock and dons a business suit . ''we regret this interpretation of secularism , because it 's not what the law says , '' said the rev . charles mallard , the priest responsible for youth instruction in the catholic diocese of toulon . ''but it 's not worth fighting over an article of clothing , knowing that in catholicism , 'the cowl does n't make the monk . ''' he added that even in secular france it was considered ''normal'' to have catholic chaplains in public schools . cennet doganay , a 15 year old muslim of turkish origin from strasbourg , showed up on the first day of school in a large beret . the school administrator told her that the beret was a religious symbol , refused to admit her to class and advised her to take a correspondence course from home , ms . doganay said . she refused . she asked her parents to help her shave off her hair , returned to school in the beret and when she was required to remove it , she revealed her bald head in protest . since there is nothing particularly religious about baldness , she is going to school again . ''they drove me crazy and tried to brainwash me so much that i got fed up and i did it i shaved my hair off , '' she said . ''now i feel alone i feel like a monster . it 's like being naked on the street . '' france 's sikh community , meanwhile , challenged the new law in court after the louise michel school in the parisian suburb of bobigny barred three male sikh students from classes because they were wearing turbans . the three boys were at first put into a separate room where they could not attend class and then banished from school without having the chance to defend their case at a formal school hearing , antoine beauquier , one of the boys' lawyers , said . ''for the moment we are in this no man 's land of no law , '' mr . beauquier said . ''these three kids , who are good students with no problems , have had no access to classes . the effects are terrible . '' confusing matters , he added , some sikh boys in other schools have been allowed to attend school wearing a hairnet or a small piece of fabric on their heads . in a letter to president jacques_chirac nearly a year ago , the sikh community argued that the turban should be allowed because it is a cultural , not a religious , symbol . under the new law , expelled students have the right to appeal to their local school boards . if they are under 16 , the legal age for quitting school , they have a stark choice they must be schooled at home or by correspondence or find a private_school . france has only one muslim high_school . in an interview with france inter radio on tuesday , education minister fran_ois fillon said he was pleased with the way things were going . he said that at the start of the school year there were 600 cases of students refusing to remove their religious symbols most of them muslim girls in scarves but that most had agreed to do so after a ' 'dialogue . '' a number of opponents of the law criticize the ' 'dialogue'' process as nothing more than pressure to break the will of students . ''it 's a machine that destroys the individual in the name of a fundamentalist secularism , '' said dr . thomas milcent , a strasbourg physician and convert to islam who heads a muslim lobbying group . ''some girls have been treated with cruelty , kept in isolation for days . this is extremism . ''",has a topic of education
"elena nemirovskaya had a lot of reasons to hate the soviet_union . it sent her father to a labor_camp and forced her mother , an enemy of the state by association , out of her factory job . she survived , in part , by sewing mittens . it mangled her young daughter 's health . it terrorized her husband with interrogations . she emerged from soviet life filled not with hate , but with a ferocious desire to tear the soviet heart out of the new russia . ms . nemirovskaya , a former art historian , chose to take on one of russian society 's biggest post_soviet deficiencies its lack of civic life . ''russians have no feeling or trust for public spaces , '' she said in a recent conversation . ''the soviet system did not allow real public discussion . public space was filled with artificial political slogans no one believed . the problem is very deep . '' soon after she stood outside russia 's government building during a coup against mikhail s . gorbachev in 1991 , one of thousands of moscow citizens who rushed to protect it as part of a human shield , the idea came to her . she would start a school to teach russians about public spiritedness and democracy . she wanted russia to have block associations , co op boards and activist groups . she wanted russians to trust one another outside the bounds of their own families and friends . the lack of public trust was a legacy from soviet_times , when everything from labor_unions to women 's rights groups were simply platforms for the communist_party . with a grant from the council of europe , which champions human_rights , she started the moscow school of political studies in a complex that in soviet_times was the meeting place for trade_unions . her first class , in 1993 , had 25 people . ( she has 100 now . ) students are primarily elected officials from russia 's regions , but also include business people , the treasurer in russia 's ministry of finance , a speechwriter for president vladimir v . putin . the aim was to expose the young , emerging elite to western ideas to encourage a clean , uncynical approach to politics . in short courses and seminars , students talk with speakers like richard pipes , a harvard professor of russian history , and zbigniew_brzezinski , former united_states national_security adviser . the school set an age limit for students no older than 35 so the ideas would fall on flexible minds . courses , financed by european and american grants , and by money from the american billionaire george_soros are free . ''the question is how to make democracy work here , how to make government modern , '' said ms . nemirovskaya , between swallows of cold beet soup in her school 's cafeteria . ''these are not abstract questions . living in freedom means risk and responsibility . people need to begin with themselves . to understand that they ca n't just wait for the state to take care of them . '' born in 1939 , during stalin 's worst terror , ms . nemirovskaya knew the cruelties of the soviet system firsthand . she was the only child of an airplane factory economic planner and a civil_engineer . her father and uncle were sent to a prison camp in the late 1940 's . her mother , as the wife of a political_prisoner , was fired from her factory job and forced to forage for odd jobs to survive . ''you feel totally unprotected , without any rights at all , '' said ms . nemirovskaya , describing the feeling of being a soviet citizen . ''you 're humiliated and put down . it 's like an uncontrollable force of nature . you can only step back or burn up . and then a very disgusting feeling emerges . it 's called fear . that was the soviet regime . '' in 1978 , ms . nemirovskaya faced another trial her daughter tatyana was mistreated with a hormone that caused her to lose the ability to walk for five months . hospital managers refused to say which treatment had been used . italian friends later helped tatyana to italy . her mother , however , was not allowed to leave russia , and did not see her daughter who now lives in england , in weak health for nine years . ''in the soviet health_care system , doctors could never acknowledge they had prescribed the wrong treatment , '' she said . ''mistakes just did not happen . we could not talk about it to anyone or consult other doctors . it was terrible . '' ''they were n't bad people , '' she said of the doctors , ''but they killed something . '' when the soviet_union fell , ms . nemirovskaya was glad to leave behind hollow sounding slogans and secrets . but the initial euphoria evaporated quickly . a deep cynicism set in as economic chaos battered society . communism , the all consuming ideology force fed for decades , dissolved , leaving confusion and disorientation in its wake . the cynicism , in turn , has stunted democracy . one student , irina serbina , a journalist from the kemerovo region in siberia , where a dictatorial governor and a handful of aluminum barons rule supreme , said her once active friends and neighbors had given up on politics , put off by the rampant_corruption and growing feeling of powerlessness . ''why do we have such a terrible situation in kemerovo ? '' ms . serbina mused during a coffee break at a school session . ''everyone is afraid . they do n't think they can change anything . so they take what they can get . they 'll do anything for an extra loaf of bread . '' the 5 , 200 former students have created a network across russia of people who think honesty in government is important , ms . serbina said . students find like minded people for help in their own regions when russian tycoons began buying property in kemerovo , ms . serbina called a former student in the tycoons' home region to ask if they could be trusted . ''i go home and everyone there plays by bandit rules , '' she said . ''i do n't want to live that way . the school helps me keep going . it 's not an ideology , it 's really more like a spirit . '' the problem with russia_today , she says , is that its institutions , court system , police force and parliament are still extremely weak . while an american accused of a crime can be relatively sure of a fair trial , in russia the accused is usually sure only that the judge is highly susceptible to pressure from the local governor or tycoon . ''in russia , the presidency and the parliament are not institutions , '' she said over tea in her rambling apartment in central moscow on a recent sunday . ''they are personalities . they can be manipulated or act irrationally , and there are no checks and balances . '' ms . nemirovskaya , 63 , acknowledges sheepishly that when school is not in session , her preferred activity is getting her nails and hair done at a beauty_parlor . she still lives in the apartment her parents occupied in soviet_times . her grandmother 's furniture a bed , an ornate oval table give some rooms a prerevolutionary feel . still , ms . nemirovskaya sees gradual improvements . russians , especially young people , are slowly warming to democracy . year after year , students stream in . ''it 's just the beginning , but we 're moving forward , '' she said . ''we 're starting to be part of the rest of the world . in two or three generations , russia will be much more developed . '' ''each year , '' she added , ''is a very important year . '' the saturday profile",has a topic of education
"and now for the bandanna ban . the proposed french law prohibiting the wearing of religious symbols in public schools was initially interpreted to include islamic head_scarves , jewish skullcaps and large christian crosses . those were the three items singled out last month in a speech by president jacques_chirac and in a report by a blue ribbon commission on religion and the state . then the issue of the turbans worn by sikhs was raised , as france 's tiny sikh community protested that its boys would quit school before removing their turbans . on tuesday , luc ferry , the minister of national education , went even further than mr . chirac , telling the national_assembly 's legal affairs committee that any girl 's bandanna that is considered a religious sign ( as opposed to a fashion statement , presumably ) will now be banned . during the two hour debate on the proposed ban , lawmakers wanted to know why the draft law was worded to ban ''ostensibly'' religious symbols and not everything that is ''visibly'' religious . mr . ferry explained that the wording afforded the state the ability to broadly interpret what constitutes a religious symbol and prevent the possible subversion of the law . that 's where the bandanna came in . ''if we had chosen the word 'visible , ' we could have seen the appearance of other signs , '' mr . ferry said . for that reason , he explained , ''the bandanna , if it is presented by young girls as a religious sign , will be forbidden . '' mr . ferry did not define what constituted a religious bandanna , how teachers would decide what was an ''ostensible'' sign of religion or how the new law would be enforced . asked to define a bandanna , an official assigned to deal with press inquiries in the ministry , who spoke on the condition of anonymity , said ''there is no definition . it will be left to the discretion of the heads of schools . '' the respected french larousse dictionary defines a bandanna as ''a small cotton square of lively colors , usually worn as a scarf . '' when one deputy asked about beards , mr . ferry said that even they might be a no no , reuters reported . ''as soon as it becomes a religious sign , it would fall under this law , '' mr . ferry was quoted as saying . beards are required for sikhs some muslim and jewish men grow beards as a display of religious commitment . by contrast , the turban of the sikhs , if it were to remain ' 'discreet , '' would be allowed , he said . the law banning religious symbols in schools was intended to help enforce adherence to strict secularism in the public_domain and to prevent more muslim girls from wearing veils to school . but the move has set off angry denunciations of france for violating religious_freedom , and counterclaims by the french government that it is deeply misunderstood . it has split the muslim population in france , with some saying the move is anti islamic , and others insisting that muslim women must obey the laws of the country where they live . many french school administrators oppose the law , arguing that it is impossible to enforce and will only create more divisiveness . for them , the bandanna ban was the last straw . ''i think it 's truly ridiculous , '' said g rard aschieri , secretary general of the union representing nearly 50 percent of the country 's unionized education personnel , in a telephone interview . ''we have gotten into this logic , and i do n't know where it 's going to lead us . '' many prominent muslims around the world have voiced their opposition , including shirin ebadi , the iranian human_rights lawyer who recently won the nobel_peace_prize . even pope_john_paul_ii has weighed in . he told vatican diplomats last week , without specifically mentioning france , that religious_freedom in europe was endangered by people seeking to ban religion from the public sphere . that prompted bernard stasi , who led the french commission proposing the ban , to dare to criticize the pope . ''i regret that the sovereign pontiff is misinformed , '' mr . stasi said in a statement in le_monde that appeared on tuesday . mr . ferry blamed tension between jews and muslims for recent anti semitic attacks in france , and said he wanted to calm things down . ''i tell representatives of islam , 'do you want your children to fight at school ? ' '' he said to the deputies . asked about the bandanna ban , catherine colonna , mr . chirac 's spokeswoman , said , ''the future law must not allow people to bypass it the way certain individuals and groups already seem certain to do . '' indeed , in an interview in tuesday 's issue of the popular tabloid le parisien , mohamed bechary , president of the national federation of muslims of france , urged female students to circumvent the law . ''who will define what is ostensible and what is not ? '' he asked , adding that he recommended ''the discreet wearing of the scarf be it a bandanna , a cap or a hat . '' other leaders of local muslim communities in france have also advised female students to find ways around the ban by wearing a head covering that could be interpreted as a fashion statement rather than a symbol of islam . as fashion , bandannas in france have tended to follow the american lead . traditionally red and white or blue and white print and a symbol of the american west , they became an accessory among rap musicians and in inner city street culture . although some ready to wear designers have used bandannas in their shows over the years , such common street fashion has not been on display in the current haute_couture shows in paris . the long haired fashion_designer john galliano , however , wears a signature bandanna tied pirate style at the back of his neck .",has a topic of education
"lead in less than a month , with a new school year , the doors of 7 , 124 schools will open for east_germany 's 2.6 million pupils . and a new and largely unfamiliar world will unfold . in less than a month , with a new school year , the doors of 7 , 124 schools will open for east_germany 's 2.6 million pupils . and a new and largely unfamiliar world will unfold . their new world will include geography lessons that are no longer restricted mainly to communist countries foreign language instruction that gives english priority over russian , and social_studies that neither begin nor end with the ideas of marx and lenin . this does not mean that communist doctrine and the communist teachers who taught it will have vanished entirely from a country where marxist leninist teaching reigned supreme for 40 years until last autumn . the transition to democracy agreed on between east and west_germany last spring as the basis for unification has been moving too swiftly to achieve that by the beginning of the school year on sept . 3 . old teachers to return instead , at secondary_schools and in east_germany 's 54 universities , the young will find nearly all their old teachers and professors back at their desks . the majority of these instructors were members of the communist_party , in many if not most cases by compulsion . in the case of the east_german school principals , nearly all have been dismissed because they were the most committed communists in the system , say the west_german education authorities . in addition , the young east_germans will have to go on for a while using some of the textbooks composed under communist_party pedagogical guidelines , although west_germany has for months been providing their schools with non communist textbooks and other teaching materials . there are simply not enough new textbooks to go around , said eberhard jobst , a senior counselor in the ministry of education and science in bonn . english instruction is one area where enormous changes are about to take place . in the last school year east_german pupils could take english starting only in the seventh_grade . in september , 200 , 000 pupils will start english in the fifth grade using books supplied free by five west_german publishers . publishers have their reasons the publishers acknowledge that their motives for the gift shipments are not entirely altruistic , since they expect that a number of east_german schools will order their texts for higher classes in english once they become familiar with the beginner textbooks . the beginner east_german textbook in use until now has an ideological cast . its introduction said it should serve ''as a means of communication in the cause of socialist patriotism and proletarian internationalism . '' similarly , the accompanying guideline for teachers said english should be used to explore ''the characteristic manifestations of a capitalist social system ( such as unemployment ) . '' honoring the diploma the west_german government has committed 19 million for the initial purchase of textbooks for history , geography and literature for east_german schools and universities . east_german schools are also free to choose the textbooks they want from a list of over 600 west_german titles . ''we asked the german_democratic_republic people to tell us where their biggest needs lay , '' dr . jobst said . ''we did n't tell them which books to order . '' some of the 600 available west_german texts take account of east_germany . for instance , one for 11th_graders called ''german poetry in epochs'' includes 100 pages of west_german writing and 100 pages of east_german writing . a history textbook for ninth_graders deals with ''the emergence of the east west conflict as well as the division of germany and the development of the two german states . '' beyond this , west_german universities have agreed to recognize the east_german abitur , or high_school_diploma , even though east_germans graduate after 12 years , while west germans are required to spend 13 years in school to earn an abitur .",has a topic of education
"lead when some schoolteachers called recently for simplifying the rules of french spelling , french writers and intellectuals quickly condemned the teachers as traitors out to sabotage the hallowed language of voltaire , balzac and proust . when some schoolteachers called recently for simplifying the rules of french spelling , french writers and intellectuals quickly condemned the teachers as traitors out to sabotage the hallowed language of voltaire , balzac and proust . in the teachers' view , the simplification is needed because students spend too many hours memorizing the rules of spelling when those hours might be devoted to studying math or science to help france keep up with west_germany , japan and the united_states . but french literary figures have treated the proposal , which would include removing many circumflex accents , as an assault on the ramparts of linguistic purity . ''it would be a disaster , '' said the novelist francoise sagan . ''french is a superb language with greek and latin roots that should not be debased . it would be extraordinary folly and stupidity . '' ''it 's none of their business to change the rules of spelling , '' said jean dutourd , an author and member of the french academy , the venerable institute of writers that since 1635 has sought to insure proper french grammar and spelling . ''their business is to teach . the french_language has worked spendidly for 400 years . why do they want to change it now ? '' one 'n' or two ? two 'l 's' or one ? the teachers say that the language might work well for illustrious writers and intellectuals , but that it is hell for harried students straining to remember that ''rationnel'' has two ''n 's'' while ''rationalite'' has just one , that ''imbecile'' has one ''l , '' but ''imbecillite'' has two . when the national association of primary_school teachers conducted a poll asking members whether they thought spelling needed to be simplified , the answer was an overwhelming ''oui , '' by a vote of 1 , 035 to 107 . ''it seems that half the time , french people have a dictionary in their hand looking to see how this word or that is spelled , '' said jacques leconte , the retired schoolteacher who conducted the survey . ''keeping french spelling straight may be hard for our students , but it is even harder for foreigners . '' among the challenges is to remember which words add ' 's'' and which add ''x'' in the plural . why does ' 'sou , '' meaning cent , become ' 'sous'' in the plural , while ''chou , '' meaning cabbage , becomes ''choux'' ? 'pedants of the 17th_century' in reporting his survey results , mr . leconte quoted with relish the author paul valery , who said french spelling was ''unhappily fixed , in all its ignorance and absurdity , by pedants of the 17th_century and has not stopped exasperating the foreigner since that time . '' in past centuries , only a small number of french students reached high_school , and with backgrounds in latin , the students absorbed spelling more readily than today . spelling has become a problem , teachers say , because today everyone reaches high_school and students spend more time watching television than learning latin . schoolteachers say one reason that change is needed is that the tens of millions of people in central and north_africa who learn french have a hard time with french spelling because their native languages do not have greek or latin roots . the teachers , many of them left leaning , are also concerned that spelling has become a handy tool for separating the classes . valery made the same point ''the person who writes something the way it is pronounced is , in france , considered inferior to the person who writes something the way it is n't pronounced . '' as usual , it 's political as is so often the case in france , the dispute has become a political issue dividing left and right . the teachers , many of them socialists , are the main force for change , while conservatives have swiftly reacted against it . le_figaro , the right leaning daily newspaper , ran a story lambasting the proposals for simplifying the language , quoting members of the french academy as saying such changes would ' 'massacre'' their beloved french . but le_monde , a left of center daily , said phasing out several dozen illogical spellings ''would be a benefit for everyone . '' le_monde asked why ''homme , '' meaning man , was spelled with two ' 'm 's , '' while a word from the same latin root , ''bonhomie , '' meaning good nature , had only one . the teachers' call for change is by no means the first such proposal . in 1953 , officials from french speaking countries at the united_nations educational , scientific and cultural organization called unanimously for a simplification of french . in 1960 , members of the french academy of sciences called for changes in ''complications that are contrary to good sense , '' but that appeal was to no avail . the specter of the dictee critics of change talk as if the nation would be thrown into anarchy because schoolchildren might learn to spell words one way while their parents continued to spell them another . the french do not seem capable of taking the spelling dispute lightly in part because so many of them lost so much sleep over spelling when they were young . spelling is so important that each year there is a nationally_televised spelling bee , with one contest for students and one for adults . in grade school , an examination called the dictee , where students write out letter for letter , accent for accent , an essay read by a teacher , is of paramount importance . grades are reduced for each forgotten accent , for each double consonant left single . advocates of change note that there have been recent moves to simplify spelling in portugal , spain and the netherlands , with no hand to hand combat over the changes . the government is wary the government , its hands full with strikes and complaints over why students ca n't read , is treading gingerly . education minister lionel_jospin , showing sympathy for the teachers , told a member of the french senate , ''one understands why people ask about the complexity of spelling , since the logic is not always evident . '' but not wanting to stir a storm , he has decided not to name a commission of deep thinkers to study the scheme . ''french is an essential part of our cultural patrimony , '' mr . jospin said , echoing the stalwarts of the french academy . ''i do not wish , in the area of spelling , to substitute a logic that may be debatable and strongly contested for the natural and contradictory peculiarities of tradition and of life . ''",has a topic of education
"lead yesterday the new york times published what purported to be an account by a witness of troops attacking students on tiananmen_square in beijing before dawn on june 4 . the article was published by the hong_kong newspaper wen_wei_po , which said it was the account of an unidentified 20 year old chinese student , and was republished in the san francisco examiner . yesterday the new york times published what purported to be an account by a witness of troops attacking students on tiananmen_square in beijing before dawn on june 4 . the article was published by the hong_kong newspaper wen_wei_po , which said it was the account of an unidentified 20 year old chinese student , and was republished in the san francisco examiner . nicholas d . kristof , the beijing correspondent of the times , reports that the article does not correspond with accounts of other witnesses on important points . this reporter and many other witnesses saw troops shoot and kill people before dawn on june 4 . but these shootings occurred in a different place from that described in the wen_wei_po article and in somewhat different circumstances . the question of where the shootings occurred has significance because of the government 's claim that no one was shot on tiananmen_square . state television has even shown film of students marching peacefully away from the square shortly after dawn as proof that they were not slaughtered . the disagreement is partly one about definition of the square . the central scene in the article is of troops beating and machine gunning unarmed students clustered around the monument to the people 's heroes in the middle of tiananmen_square . several other witnesses , both chinese and foreign , say this did not happen . troops fired on civilians in many parts of the city , but the shooting was concentrated along the avenue of eternal peace , or changan avenue , which runs on the north side of the square . there was heavy shooting in the muxidi district to the west of tiananmen_square , and there were also many casualties along the avenue of eternal peace to the immediate east of the square , as well as on streets to the south of the square . this reporter saw troops fire on and kill people on the avenue of eternal peace on the northern part of the square as well as some who were on a segment of the square just north of the avenue , near the tiananmen gate . but there is no firm indication that troops fired on the students occupying the monument in the middle of the square . on the museum 's roof there is also no evidence of machine_gun emplacements on the roof of the history museum that were reported in the wen_wei_po article . this reporter was directly north of the museum and saw no machine_guns there . other reporters and witnesses in the vicinity also failed to see them . the information in the wen_wei_po article about students having 23 assault_rifles and trying to return them to the army does correspond to a rumor that may have been correct . the rumor also reported , as does the article , that the army refused to take them back so that it could accuse the students of staging an armed rebellion . but the article reports that the weapons were destroyed on the steps of the monument and this would have been difficult to do covertly . this reporter and many others were wandering about that day and some were constantly stationed on the monument . none of the correspondents there are known to have reported seeing any weapons destroyed . the article reports that the lights on the square were extinguished at 4 a.m. , and this is confirmed by three people who were on the square all night , two chinese students and one french correspondent . the central theme of the wen_wei_po article was that troops subsequently beat and machine gunned students in the area around the monument and that a line of armored_vehicles cut off their retreat . but the witnesses say that armored_vehicles did not surround the monument they stayed at the north end of the square and that troops did not attack students clustered around the monument . several other foreign journalists were near the monument that night as well and none are known to have reported that students were attacked around the monument . the witnesses give the same account . while troops were shooting in all areas around the square , they did not attack the students clustered around the monument . instead , the students and a pop singer , hou dejian , were negotiating with the troops and decided to leave at dawn , between 5 a.m . and 6 a.m . the students all filed out together . chinese television has shown scenes of the students leaving and of the apparently empty square as troops moved in as the students left . few could have remained the witnesses do not definitely assert that nobody was killed in the center of the square . some workers and students may have remained behind , but they would have numbered not more than in the dozens . some protesters may also have been in the tents and been crushed by tanks , but they too would have been a relatively small number . the great majority left unhurt and were not shot at , the witnesses say . the wen_wei_po article also reported that the author had returned to the square in the early morning . but other witnesses say that the area was blocked off by thousands of soldiers and that there was still shooting going on in the area , so that it would have been difficult to go back . the wen_wei_po article catches the atmosphere and the terror but it has the clashes unfolding in the wrong place . on the avenue of eternal peace , on the northern edge of the square , protesters were being killed by machine_gun fire , but not at the monument .",has a topic of education
"for many if not most members of the class of 2007 , the war in iraq has been the constant background of their college years . and so as seniors graduated from thousands of colleges and universities in recent weeks , the war was on the mind of many commencement speakers . some criticized its prosecution , others commended the sacrifices of the hundreds of thousands of volunteers serving in the armed_forces , but few ignored the continuing struggle . ''most of you were juniors in high_school when terrorists attacked america in september 2001 , and it became clear we were a nation at war , '' defense secretary robert m . gates told graduates at the united_states_naval_academy . ''with your credentials , you could have attended another prestigious university , and subsequently pursued a private life , with all its material rewards , your freedom and safety assured by other young men and women who volunteered to serve in the american military . '' some speakers offered a critical view of the war and its consequences . anthony w . marx , the president of amherst college , spoke at amherst 's commencement of the lessons of the roman empire , which he said declined when leaders turned away from civic action toward private pursuits , abdicating civil authority to the military . ''always , our political reach , our cultural persuasion , our economic_integration and our military might are bounded , '' dr . marx said , drawing analogies between rome 's decline and the present . ''at those boundaries , smugness is challenged . if we fail to heed that challenge , if we do not learn from the limits of our victories , we risk the fate of rome . '' boyd tinsley , an electric violinist in the dave matthews band , told graduates at the university of virginia , his alma_mater , ''i hope that you will once again bring us back to a time when a person 's patriotism was judged by how much they loved their country , and not by how much they loved war . '' still , there was plenty of customary commencement fare . graduates were exhorted to be bold and public spirited , to confront environmental degradation and global_warming , to end poverty in the united_states and curb it internationally . they were urged to find their inner voice , to leap confidently over obstacles in their careers , to avoid apathy and the lure of personal enrichment over civic engagement . ''times like these call for people like you to stand up and get to work , '' kamala d . harris , the san_francisco district_attorney , told graduates at san francisco state university . ''to break barriers , to drive change , roll up your sleeves instead of throwing up your hands . '' there was also the usual complement of confessions . brian_williams , the anchor of the nbc_nightly_news , confided to students at tulane that he had not earned a college degree , which he described as ''one of the great , great regrets of my life . '' the mystery novelist mary higgins clark told graduates of quinnipiac_university that she could not sing , dance , cook or sew , though she acknowledged she could tell a story . and tom_brokaw , the former news anchor at nbc , said at the skidmore college commencement that his mentor at the university of south dakota had characterized his undergraduate career this way ''we always thought his first degree was an honorary degree . '' then , too , a number of speakers worried aloud that they might be going on too long . the presidential historian michael beschloss reminded graduates at lafayette college that former vice_president hubert h . humphrey was known for giving speeches that lasted as long as three hours . ''once humphrey did this , and even he knew he was overdoing it , '' mr . beschloss said . ''he yelled at the audience , 'anybody here got a watch ? ' and someone yelled back , 'how about a calendar ? ' '' robert m . gates secretary of defense the college of william mary some of you may know the story of ryan mcglothlin , william mary class of 2001 a high_school valedictorian , phi beta kappa here and ph . d . candidate at stanford . after being turned down by the army for medical reasons , he persisted and joined the marines and was deployed to iraq in 2005 . he was killed leading a platoon of riflemen near the syrian border . ryan 's story attracted media attention because of his academic credentials and family connections . that someone like him would consider the military surprised some people . when ryan first told his parents about joining the marines , they asked if there was some other way to contribute . he replied that the privileged of this country bore an equal responsibility to rise to its defense . it is precisely during these trying times that america needs its best and brightest young people , from all walks of life , to step forward and commit to public service . because while the obligations of citizenship in any democracy are considerable , they are even more profound , and more demanding , as citizens of a nation with america 's global challenges and responsibilities and america 's values and aspirations . tom_brokaw former anchor , nbc_news skidmore college you 've been told during your high_school years and your college years that you are now about to enter the real world , and you 've been wondering what it 's like . let me tell you that the real world is not college . the real world is not high_school . the real world , it turns out , is much more like junior high . you are going to encounter , for the rest of your life , the same petty jealousies , the same irrational juvenile behavior , the same uncertainty that you encountered during your adolescent years . that is your burden . we all share it with you . we wish you well . samuel a . alito jr . supreme_court justice st . mary 's college decades from now , you may be different than you are today in a lot of significant ways . you may have a lot more than you have today . you may have more money and more status and more power and more accomplishments . you may also have more responsibilities , more worries , more regrets and more bruises . but underneath all of that , you will still be the same person who is here today graduating from college , and it will be good for you to stay connected with the people who know the real you . gloria steinem writer smith college in my generation , we were asked by the smith vocational office how many words we could type a minute , a question that was never asked of then all male students at harvard or princeton . female only typing was rationalized by supposedly greater female verbal skills , attention to detail , smaller fingers , goodness knows what , but the public imagination just did n't include male typists , certainly not ivy_league educated ones . now computers have come along , and ''typing'' is ''keyboarding . '' suddenly , voila ! men can type ! gives you faith in men 's ability to change , does n't it ? kamala d . harris san_francisco district_attorney san francisco state university as you grow in your career , you may hit another barrier the limits that others set for you . a ceiling on what you can accomplish and who you can be . that happened to me . when i decided to run for district_attorney , it was considered a man 's job even here in san_francisco . no woman had ever been elected district_attorney in san_francisco . no person of color had ever been elected district_attorney in san_francisco . i remember the day i got my first poll results back . i was sitting in a small conference room , a little nervous , but very hopeful . then i read them . i was at 6 percent . and that was n't good . so i was told what you all have probably heard in your life , and that you will certainly hear in your future . i was told that i should wait my turn . i was told that i should give up . i was told that i had no chance . well , i did n't listen . and i 'm telling you , do n't you listen either . do n't listen when they tell you that you ca n't do it . john grisham novelist university of virginia thirty years ago this week , i graduated from college , class of 1977 . i do n't recall much about my commencement . i do remember that the speaker was dull and long winded , and he did inform us that the future was ours and the world was at our feet . i do remember sitting through my commencement being pretty smug i was graduating from college , i had been accepted to law_school and i knew exactly what i was going to do . i was going to study tax_law . i wanted to be a tax lawyer because i was convinced i could make a lot of money representing wealthy people who did not want to pay all their taxes . that was my dream , and i had it all planned . i knew the day i was going to start law_school , the day i was going to finish . i had a pretty good idea where my office was going to be . it was all planned . i do n't know where this idea came from . i did not like tax_law . i sure did n't know any wealthy people . looking back , i cannot begin to remember where this idea was planted , but that was my dream . i had everything planned . the idea of writing a book had never crossed my mind . i had never written anything that had not been required by school . i had never dreamed of it . lesson no . 1 you cannot plan the rest of your life . rev . peter j . gomes professor , harvard_university augustana college around this time of year i have an annoying habit of asking people , like you seniors , ''do you have a job ? '' you resist answering that question , but i repeat it , ''your mother and i want to know , do you have a job ? '' by job we do n't mean simply something that gives you a salary i think we really mean ''do you have a purpose ? do you have a calling ? do you have a vocation ? '' i want to suggest to you that whether or not you have a job , everyone has a vocation , and that vocation is to live a life that is worth living . the best advice i can give is that which st . paul gives us in romans 12 , where he says to the likes of you , who all look_alike from here , ''be not conformed to this world . '' do not join the throng . do n't get lost in the crowd . do n't be a part of the cookie manufactured college generation , but stake out for yourselves some extraordinary , maybe even eccentric , piece and place of the world , and make it your own . representative john lewis democrat of georgia adelphia university sometimes i hear some young people say nothing has changed . i feel like saying , come and walk in my shoes . in 1956 , at the age of 16 , being so inspired by dr . king along with some of my brothers and sisters and first cousins , we went to the little library in pike county , alabama , a public_library in the little town of troy trying to get library cards , trying to check out some books . and we were told by the librarian that the library was for whites only and not for coloreds . i never went back to that library until july 5 , 1998 . by that time i was a member of congress , and i went there for a book signing of my book . hundreds of blacks and white citizens showed up . i signed many books . in the end , they gave me a library card . it says something about the distance we 've come and the progress we 've made in laying down the burden of race . jeffrey d . sachs director of the earth institute , columbia_university ursinus college it 's all about choice , graduates , it really is . there is nothing about fate . it 's all about choice . it 's all about values , creativity , leadership . let me give you just one small example of choice the choice we are making , the choice we should be making . malaria is a disease we do n't know very much in this country , but it is a disease that will kill two million children this year , overwhelmingly in africa . two million children . now this is a disease that is largely preventable and 100 percent treatable . and the treatment costs 80 cents . but people are so poor that two million kids are going to die this year because they do n't even get access to the simplest things , like a bed net treated with insecticide that would protect them from this disease . now here 's the basic arithmetic of our time there are 300 million places in africa , sleeping sites where people are vulnerable to being bitten by this disease . 300 million . each bed net costs five bucks . i trust your economics course was sufficiently good so you could quickly calculate this , it 's why i went for a ph . d . i know that 's 1 . 5 billion . or you could take out excel if you want to do it that way . 1 . 5 billion . and yet almost none of these children sleeps under a bed net because they are too poor . but what is 1 . 5 billion in today 's world ? that is what we spend every day on the pentagon . that 's our daily military_budget . so here is the calculation and here is the choice . one day 's pentagon spending would provide all sleeping sites in africa with five years of bed net coverage , to fend off a disease which kills millions every year . that 's a choice . we have n't made it . my suggestion is , the pentagon take next thursday off . shirley ann jackson president , rensselaer polytechnic institute university of rochester i am an optimist . i am short , and short people can only see the glass as half full . so optimize who you are and what you are . optimize your experiences and what you have learned . optimize others . optimize your opportunities . seize them and do meaningful things . berry gordy jr . founder of motown records occidental college i was a songwriter , i was struggling , and i loved it . i wanted to be the greatest songwriter . i was writing about everything everything i saw . but i was not making money , and i finally agreed with everyone i ever talked to who knew me , who said , ''boy , you need to get a job a real one . '' so i got a job on the ford assembly_line . and every day i watched how a bare metal frame rolling down the line would come off the other end a spanking brand new car . wow , i thought . what a great idea . maybe i can do the same thing with my music create a place where a kid off the street can walk in one door an unknown and come out another door a star . that little thought that came to me while running up and down that assembly_line at ford_motor_company became a reality you now know as motown . laura_bush first lady pepperdine university today starts a period of incredible liberty and adventure a time to demand the most of life , before life makes specific demands on you . and as you work to make the most of what you 've received , i can tell you one thing for sure you wo n't waste your talents and education if you freely give them in service to others . this is especially important for the class of 2007 . more than any other generation of americans , yours is tasked with resolving challenges that lie far beyond your doorstep even far beyond america 's borders . between cellphones and the internet , you have a world of information literally at your fingertips . and because our world is so small , you ca n't ignore the genocide in darfur , or the human_rights abuses in burma . you ca n't turn away as pandemic diseases torment an entire continent . and you ca n't look aside as american communities lie in ruin . dean kamen inventor and entrepreneur bates college we 're moving from a world of stuff , from the idea that there 's a finite amount of gold out there , a finite amount of almost anything out there . throughout all of history , people fought over stuff land , fuel , stuff . but in your generation , the most value that will be created is n't stuff anymore . it really is ideas . the internet is an abstraction , and the value of google exceeds the value of all the car makers . in a world that 's about ideas , it 's not a zero sum game . you do n't have to win by someone else losing , where you have the gold or oil or water , and somebody else does n't . angela davis professor , university of california , santa_cruz grinnell college i hope that you will treasure the approaches and ways of thinking that you have learned more than the facts you have accumulated . for you will never discover a scarcity of facts , and these facts will be presented in such a way as to veil the ways of thinking embedded in them . and so to reveal these hidden ways of thinking , to suggest alternate frameworks , to imagine better ways of living in evolving worlds , to imagine new human relations that are freed from persisting hierarchies , whether they be racial or sexual or geopolitical yes , i think this is the work of educated beings . i might then ask you to think about education as the practice of freedom . alice walker novelist and poet naropa university when it is all too much , when the news is so bad meditation itself feels useless , and a single life feels too small a stone to offer on the altar of peace , find a human sunrise . find those people who are committed to changing our scary reality . human sunrises are happening all over the earth , at every moment . people gathering , people working to change the intolerable , people coming in their robes and sandals or in their rags and bare feet , and they are singing , or not , and they are chanting , or not . but they are working to bring peace , light , compassion to the infinitely frightening downhill slide of human life . george_stephanopoulos chief washington correspondent , abc_news st . john 's university solidarity and love are needed more than ever in a world that confounds us with contradictions and confronts us with the challenge of living with its paradoxes . we live in the strongest military power the world has ever known . no country in the world can match that arsenal , but years of war have taught us the painful limits of military force . and we all have been marked by the day when 19 men armed only with box cutters and a death wish struck at the heart of our culture and consciousness . you are about to enter one of the biggest economies the world has ever known . we are creating more billionaires and millionaires than ever before , but the gap between our richest and our poorest is bigger than ever before . one out of every eight americans is living in poverty , with millions more struggling to get by . you 'll be shaping a culture that for better or worse , is copied all over the world . the liberties and opportunities we take for granted make us a magnet for people from all over the world . but the power we project also makes us a target . a country with the reach of an empire cannot avoid the envy of those who have less , or the duty to help care for them . tavis smiley radio and television talk show host rutgers_university the tragedy of life does not lie , young folk , in not reaching your goal . the tragedy lies in having no goal to reach . it is not a calamity to die with dreams unfulfilled , but it is a calamity not to dream . it is not a disaster to not be able to capture your ideals , but it is a disaster to have no ideals to capture . it is not a disgrace to not be able to reach all the stars , but it is a disgrace to have no stars to reach for . commencement speeches correction june 12 , 2007 , tuesday an article on sunday about commencement speeches at colleges around the country referred_imprecisely to comments by boyd tinsley , an electric violinist in the dave matthews band , at his alma_mater , the university of virginia . he spoke the day before graduation at the university 's valedictory exercises , not at the commencement . as the roundup of speeches noted , the novelist john grisham was the commencement speaker .",has a topic of education
"the headmistress stood at the front of the room on the first day of school and told her 10 10th graders to write legibly , refrain from idle chatter and avoid crazy stunts that could cause accidents . but this was no ordinary school opening . the students are taking part in a historic if uneasy educational experiment the opening of lyc e averro s , the first muslim high_school in france . the goal of the school is to provide muslims with an alternative to public_school education , like those that french catholics , protestants and jews have long enjoyed . the challenge for france is to preserve the country 's secular identity as codified under a century old law on the separation of church and state , meet the demands of its second largest religious community and discourage religious and ethnic separatism all at the same time . the class 's six boys were dressed in unremarkable casual clothing . but the four girls had covered their hair and necks with well secured scarves , a practice normally banned in public schools . they hid the shape of their bodies under dark colored knee length coats and pants . sylvie taleb , the headmistress , her hair and neck swathed in a pale scarf trimmed in pearls , is also a pioneer of sorts . a french born convert to islam and an expert on flaubert , she assumed the new post after teaching french at a local catholic_school for 17 years . she never wore a scarf on the job before . ''children , students , you have answered our calls ! '' the 43 year old ms . taleb exclaimed in her first words of welcome , adding , ''may god help us and guide us in this enterprise . '' no social issue is more pressing for france 's center right government than the integration of the country 's muslims into the fabric of french society . prime_minister jean_pierre_raffarin has warned that france might have to pass a new law imposing secular rule , and president jacques_chirac has formed a commission to make recommendations on the issue of the nation 's secular identity by the end of the year . the creation of muslim schools financed and monitored by the state like other private religious schools is intended to provide muslim youth with the same core education that celebrates the republic 's values as public schools . but there are concerns that it could contribute to the isolation and even radicalization of muslim students as well . ''the problem is not that there are muslim high_schools , it is that there are fundamentalist groups on the edges , '' said jacqueline costa lascoux , a specialist on french secularism and a member of the commission . ''they recruit among the most intelligent students , the ones with the best grades . '' she says any muslim school has to be monitored to ensure that there is no corporal punishment , which she said is allowed in certain koranic schools that freedom of conscience is respected and that there is no ' 'denunciation or even censorship'' of subjects for religious reasons . the high_school in lille , named after a 12th_century spanish arabian philosopher , consists of three unadorned classrooms and a science laboratory so far unequipped on the third floor of al imane mosque , a nondescript brick building in a working_class neighborhood of lille . tuition is 1 , 100 a year . the idea for the school dates back to 1994 , when the mosque began educating 19 muslim high_school girls after they were expelled from public_school for refusing to remove their scarves . as an act of defiance against the state , the mosque set up its own unofficial high_school , asked for volunteer teachers from the community and helped the girls finish their education . the problem was , and is , that no clear regulation on veiling in public schools has ever existed . a ruling in 1989 by france 's council of state declared that religious symbols could not be worn in public schools if they ''constitute an act of intimidation , provocation , proselytizing or propaganda , '' threaten health , security or the freedom of others or ' 'disturb order . '' the ruling was modified three years later to state that the wearing of scarves was valid as long as it was not ''aggressive or proselytizing . '' but it has been left to the discretion of individual schools to decide , and most ban the scarves . indeed , one student at averro s , a 16 year old of moroccan origin who wore a lavender scarf and identified herself only as samira , said she had changed schools over the issue . ''i wore my veil on the way to school only until i got to the gates , '' she said . ''now i do n't have to take it off . now i can be myself without anyone stopping me . the fact that i can wear my veil makes a difference . and it 's part of my personality . '' complicating_matters is that a private religious school in france is an odd construction . almost all of the country 's 9 , 000 private schools , a vast majority of them catholic , are not financed independently but receive about 80 percent of their money from the state . about 20 percent of the country 's student population is currently enrolled in private religious schools . the schools must conform to strict rules , including the use of the same core_curriculum , safety regulations and qualifications for teachers and administrators as any public_school . they are allowed to teach religious subjects only as electives . prayer must be optional . if they meet those requirements , they are eligible for state aid after five years . french officials have expressed anxiety although very privately that the lille mosque is affiliated with the powerful union of islamic organizations in france , which preaches a strict conservative interpretation of islam that emphasizes personal purification and grass roots proselytizing , especially among poor muslim youth , and aims at having an impact on every aspect of a muslim 's life . the group is said to derive its inspiration from the banned fundamentalist islamic brotherhood in egypt , which calls for the imposition of islamic rule via islamic_law and political action . the french organization has encouraged its daughters to test the limits of restrictions on scarves in school by partly covering their heads with bandanas or ribbons . indeed , makhlouf mameche , the associate head of the school and a history and geography teacher , said the veiling of girls at school could be a first step toward persuading the state to loosen its overall bias against head coverings . ''veils are not an obstacle to integration , '' he said . ''accept them . that 's what true democracy is . '' at averro s , school and mosque officials emphasized that the school would uphold the strict french rule on secular teaching and follow the national_curriculum . courses in arabic , islamic culture and history will be offered as electives . koranic studies will be taught for only one hour a week . a female physical_education teacher will conduct coeducational gym classes . there is no requirement that the students be muslim though all of them now are or that the girls go to school veiled . ''the lyc e averro s is not a religious school , '' said amar lasfar , the director of the mosque , who also runs a travel_agency that arranges trips to north_africa and pilgrimages to mecca . ''it 's a general education high_school , except that it exists in a muslim culture and with a muslim sensibility . i do n't see any risk of deviance or of community isolation . '' he called the opening of the school ''a great day for secularism'' and ''a great day for islam in france . ''",has a topic of education
"gunmen dressed in iraqi_police commando uniforms and driving vehicles with interior_ministry markings rounded up dozens of people inside a government building in the heart of baghdad on tuesday and drove off with them in one of the most brazen mass kidnappings since a wave of sectarian abductions and killings became a feature of the war . although some iraqi officials said as many as 150 people had been taken , the american military command put the total at 55 . witnesses said as many as 50 gunmen arrived at the ministry of higher education compound at midmorning , forced their way past a handful of guards and stormed through a four story building , herding office workers , visitors and even a delivery boy outside at rifle point . after women were separated , the men were loaded aboard a fleet of more than 30 pickup_trucks and two larger trucks , then driven away through heavy traffic toward mainly shiite neighborhoods on the city 's eastern edge , officials and witnesses said . late in the evening there were conflicting reports that some or most of those taken had been freed . iraqiya state television reported that most of those seized had been freed in security operations , but a shiite station , al_furat , said 25 people were still missing , according to reuters . none of the reports could be confirmed . a spokesman for the interior_ministry , which is responsible for the police , announced on state television several hours after the abductions that orders had been issued for the arrest of several police commanders from the karada area in eastern baghdad , site of the higher_education ministry . the announcement combined with other details , including accounts by one of a group of about a dozen people released by the kidnappers later on tuesday , to suggest that the abductions may have been the latest in a series of mass kidnappings carried out by shiite gangs and death_squads operating from inside the interior_ministry , or with access to its uniforms and vehicles . if the abductions are traced to groups operating under interior_ministry cover , they seem certain to add a new level of crisis to the political tensions in baghdad . on wednesday , an interior_ministry spokesman said a brigade of the police searching in eastern baghdad had found and freed 30 kidnap victims . he said the brigade was continuing its search and expected to free the remaining victims before the end of the day . recent events in the united_states , including the democrats' midterm election gains last week and the resignation of defense secretary donald h . rumsfeld , have intensified american pressure on prime_minister_nuri_kamal_al_maliki and the alliance of shiite religious groups he leads to act decisively to improve his government 's performance in effect , to show that america has trustworthy partner , and help to head off the momentum in washington for a withdrawal of american_troops . action against sectarian_militias and death_squads , particularly those associated with the governing shiite_parties , tops the american priorities that have been urged on the iraqi leader , most recently in a meeting in baghdad monday with the top american military commander in the middle_east , gen . john p . abizaid . late on tuesday , mr . maliki , appearing on state run television , seemed eager to establish that he had responded swiftly to the abductions , saying that he had ordered the defense and interior ministries to mount an intensive search for those seized . during a meeting with the iraqi president , jalal_talabani , mr . maliki appeared to suggest that the kidnappers came from the mahdi army , an unruly militia headed by the shiite_cleric_moktada_al_sadr , a mainstay of the ruling shiite alliance . ''what is happening is not terrorism , but the result of disagreements and conflict between militias belonging to this side or that , '' he said . the 56 year old prime_minister said security sweeps had been responsible for the dozen people released earlier in the day , though that did not immediately tally with the account given by a shiite ministry official who was among those set free . the official said he and others in his group were separated from the main body of those seized by their kidnappers after the gunmen quizzed all their captives about their identities and occupations . after being driven blindfolded to a rural area in northern baghdad , the official said , they were abandoned and left to make their own way to safety . the government 's swift response in ordering the arrest of the police commanders broke with a pattern of inaction in several earlier mass kidnappings that appeared to have been linked to shiite_death_squads . while concern to show a new resolve to restive critics of the war in washington was likely to have been a major spur , another was the sheer scale and audacity of the attack . by seizing such a large number of people from a government building , in the center of the capital , in broad daylight , the kidnappers appeared to be sending a message that they could pounce anywhere with impunity . the precise number abducted remained uncertain . in an angry , anguished address delivered on live_television , abed thiab al ajili , the higher_education minister and a member of the country 's largest sunni political bloc , told parliament that 100 to 150 people had been taken ministry officials said they included sunnis , shiites , kurds and christians . a similar figure was given by the shiite ministry official who was released . his figure , though , appeared to be based on a rough count of the people working in the building and visitors , rather than an accurate head count of those abducted . the american military command , which sent troops to the site of the kidnappings , said its investigation showed that the number of men taken was about 55 . it also said there were indications that the kidnapping victims had been taken to the baladiyat district in eastern baghdad , a predominantly_shiite neighborhood on the southern fringe of sadr_city about three miles from the building where they were seized . the fact that the kidnappers took captives from a wide cross section of iraq 's cultural and religious groups created some confusion about their motives , though many previous kidnappings have followed a similar pattern . in his speech to parliament , mr . ajili , the higher_education minister , skirted the question of whether the kidnapping was motivated by sectarian hatred . but he suggested that the maliki government was incompetent , if not complicit in the abductions . he said he had repeatedly asked the government for additional security to protect the ministry and members of the university community , who have been favorite targets for assassination since the toppling of saddam_hussein . according to a tally by the associated press , more than 150 educators have been killed , and thousands of others have fled the country . ''i told the m.o.i . and m.o.d . if you ca n't protect the universities , give me 800 recruits and i will do this mission , '' mr . ajili said , referring to the ministries of interior and defense . ''but they rejected the idea . '' shiite leaders have often said that kidnappers who have been linked to the interior_ministry have in fact been criminal thugs , or even sunni insurgents , who have acquired the military style uniforms used in the attack from street markets where they are widely available . basil al khateed , a spokesman for the higher_education ministry , counseled against hasty conclusions . ''it 's not clear if this kidnapping was sectarian or not , '' he said . witnesses said the gunmen arrived at the ministry about 9 30 a.m . in a long line of vehicles that appeared to be on police business . ''i saw around 30 interior_ministry vehicles which did not have license_plates close the road , and then the commandos stepped out of their vehicles , '' said one man who worked in a government_agency nearby but asked not to be identified . mr . khateed , the ministry spokesman , said the gunmen told ministry guards and onlookers that the american ambassador was arriving . the ministry official who was later released said he was in his office inside the building . the gunmen , in the blue camouflage uniforms worn by police commandos , flooded into the building , the official said , and told him they were from the government 's integrity commission , an agency that investigates corruption . suddenly , however , the gunmen cocked their weapons and yelled for everyone to stay where they were , the official said . they gathered the women in one room , before eventually letting them go , mr . ajili , the minister , said , but not before taking their cellphones and sorting through them for newer models , which they stole , leaving older models behind . he said the men taken captive had their hands bound behind them and their eyes blindfolded before being taken out to the pickup_trucks . iraqi_police and army units in the area did nothing to stop the abductions , witnesses and officials said , either because they believed the gunmen were legitimate commandos , or , some suggested , because they were part of a preset plan . ''we are astonished by this , '' said saleem abdulla , a lawmaker from the iraqi consensus front , the main sunni bloc in parliament . ''it just seems so odd . how can people kidnap about 100 people like that , in daylight ? '' he added ''and what about the vehicles ? what about the checkpoints ? are n't we in a state of emergency ? and no one can trace these people ? no one can follow them to find out who they are ? it is very odd . we think there has to be some link between these gangs and powerful men in the m.o.i . '' the released shiite official , who spoke later on iraqi television but did not give his name , said the gunmen yelled at motorists to clear the road as they headed east through the traffic from the ministry building . the official said the gunmen had taken their captives into a large hall with a concrete floor , then began to quiz each of them , demanding their names , often an indicator of their sect , as well as identity cards . ''they split us into two groups , '' he said . ''the first group , they said , 'we will release you . ' the second group , 'we will keep you for additional investigation . ' they put me in the group that would be released . when they said that , i thought , no , they will kill me . i was sure they would kill me . they were shouting , 'we will kill everyone who does n't listen to us . ' '' but the gunmen put him and the others in his group back onto the pickup_trucks , and drove them elsewhere , the official said . there , he said , they were told to sit on the ground and not move , and warned that anyone removing a blindfold would be killed . but after 10 minutes of silence , he said , one of the men in the group mustered the courage to clear his eyes , and told the others they were safe . ''we do n't know why they took us , and why they released us , '' the official said . ''it 's a terrorist operation with a big criminal ring that planned this . '' elsewhere , a car_bomb exploded near a busy market in the capital , killing 10 people and wounding 25 others , an interior_ministry official said . late monday and into tuesday , clashes erupted between members of the mahdi army militia and american_troops , leaving six civilians dead and 13 wounded , an interior_ministry official said . the police found 25 bodies dumped across the city on tuesday , the official said . the struggle for iraq",has a topic of education
"lead prime_minister margaret_thatcher 's government disclosed an ambitious program of domestic legislation today that could make this session of parliament the stormiest since she took office in 1979 . prime_minister margaret_thatcher 's government disclosed an ambitious program of domestic legislation today that could make this session of parliament the stormiest since she took office in 1979 . the proposals were outlined at the opening of parliament in the annual speech from the throne read by queen_elizabeth_ii , but written by mrs . thatcher and her staff . the prime_minister 's plans call for what mrs . thatcher has termed ''radical'' changes in education , trade_union elections , local taxes , inner city redevelopment , the ownership of utilities and even the operating hours of pubs . mrs . thatcher 's advisers say her conservative_party program is intended to show that she will not run out of steam in her third term . by singling out labor dominated inner cities as her main target , mrs . thatcher is also trying to overcome the impression that britain is a nation divided . aimed at the cities many of her programs are aimed at industrial cities and the declining areas of wales and scotland . the conservatives fared poorly in those areas , even though their strength in london and southern_england gave them a 101 seat majority in the house of commons . ever since the election june 11 , the thatcher_government has been working to offset the impression that it really lacks a mandate in vast tracts of britain where labor won most of its 229 seats . the opposition_parties are promising fierce_resistance to the legislative program . but that will not be the only source of political turmoil in the parliament that opened today and is expected to run until the fall of 1988 . both the labor_party and the alliance of the liberal and social_democratic parties are caught up in internal struggles as a consequence of their drubbing in the election . neil_kinnock , the labor leader , has taken on his party 's ''hard left'' in an attempt to impose new rules that would allow labor to run more moderate parliamentary candidates . meanwhile , civil_war has broken out in the alliance . dr . david owen , a founder of the social democrats , is fighting for his political survival in urging his party to reject a takeover attempt engineered by david steel , the liberal leader . the feud , prompted by the alliance 's poor showing in the election , is expected to drag_on for months . scene of grace and order whatever the conflicts ahead , the scene today was one of grace and order as the members of both houses of parliament assembled in the palace of westminster for ceremonies whose written protocols extend back for over four centuries . mrs . thatcher and mr . kinnock walking side by side but ignoring each other as much as possible led the 650 members of commons into the house of lords in obedience to the queen 's summons . among the main thatcher proposals to be elaborated from the sketchy outline in the speech read by the queen are these education there will be legislation calling for a national_curriculum , setting up mandatory testing at the ages of 7 , 11 and 14 , allowing local schools to place themselves under the central government and increasing the powers of head teachers and parents at the expense of classroom teachers . the opposition regards these measures as intended to decrease the powers of local labor governments and the teachers' unions . inner cities mrs . thatcher plans to lead an effort to encourage growth through measures such as expanded powers for urban development corporations and limitations on local taxes for inner city businesses . local taxes the tories would replace property_taxes with a flat_rate tax called a community charge to be paid by each adult in a household . the opposition regards this as a boon to rich property owners at the expense of poor people and renters . trade_unions the government will propose that officers stand for re election every five years by secret_ballot and place new regulations on the use of union funds . housing there will be legislation expanding the ''right to rent'' by allowing private landlords a higher return and by allowing public_housing tenants to replace local government officials with landlords of their own choosing . again , labor sees this as an attempt to weaken its hold on local_governments . public utilities the conservatives proposed to allow water authorities in wales and england to sell their water and sewage services to private companies . liquor licensing a bill will permit pubs in england and wales to operate 12 hours a day monday through saturday . they are currently open nine and a half hours . health officials fear an increase in alcohol and traffic problems , but the conservatives dispute this and add that longer hours will create over 50 , 000 new jobs . the opening debates will take five days . after the queen left westminster , things got off to a mean start . depicting the prime_minister as an enemy of the average voter , mr . kinnock said that her third term ''government like the one before will be using its powers malevolently . '' mrs . thatcher responded by taunting the labor leader about his defeat . ''you are very long on words and short on content , '' she said . ''i begin to understand why you lost the general_election in such a decisive way . ''",has a topic of education
"a pipe_bomb was defused outside the catholic_school in north belfast where protestant protesters harassed students for three months in 2001 as they walked to classes because their path crossed briefly into a protestant enclave . a protestant paramilitary group , the red hand defenders , claimed responsibility in a statement to the bbc in belfast . the police dismantled the device shortly before students were to return to studies after the holidays . the rev . aidan troy , chairman of governors at the holy_cross school , said , ''i find it hugely disappointing to have started the new term after christmas with this . '' warren hoge ( nyt )",has a topic of education
"one of the biggest changes in japan 's education system since it was established 120 years ago will take place on saturday . schools will be closed . public elementary , middle and high_schools throughout japan are to close for one saturday a month to give overworked students a break . government officials say the move is the first step toward a full five day school week some years in the future . one saturday off a month might not seem like a whole lot of extra leisure time , but in workaholic japan the new policy has set off a wave of debate , and even fear . while some educators , parents and students say it will improve the lives of children , others warn that it is the beginning of a descent into laziness that will undermine the nation 's academic achievement and industrial competitiveness . 'some kind of plot' "" i almost tend to think this is some kind of plot to weaken japan 's economic prowess by attacking the final fortress education , "" said miyuki ohashi , a professor of sociology at nihon university . others are worried about a more immediate matter how are the students going to fill this new free time ? "" i have nothing to do unless i come to school , "" said atsushi sumida , a 13 year old seventh_grader at ginza junior high_school in tokyo . concerned that children , or their parents , might not be able to come up with ideas by themselves , the ministry of education has called on local_governments , corporations and cultural institutions to organize activities for saturday . and japan inc . , with a mixture of patriotism and self interest , is rising to the occasion . department_stores are organizing tours , story telling sessions and other activities to help the national cause , and to lure some young customers . a fish cultivation center in shizuoka prefecture will allow children to dive into a concrete tank containing 10 , 000 red_sea bream . even the country 's pool halls will throw open their doors on saturday to let children play free . the envy of others one thing education ministry officials do not want to see children doing this saturday morning is studying . japan 's education system is often the envy of other countries because it produces a well educated and disciplined work force . but some scholars say the system robs children of their childhood and turns them into automatons in matching uniforms and backpacks . japanese students attend school 240 days a year compared with about 180 days in the united_states . there are about six hours a day of schooling on weekdays and three or four hours on saturday mornings . on top of that , many students attend private cram_schools , or juku , on nights and weekends to prepare for college and high_school entrance_examinations . getting into the right college is all important in determining one 's career prospects . critics contend that in addition to the long hours the schooling is geared too much toward rote learning rather than creative thinking . "" maybe the school education has been too strict , creating kids who are rather uninspired , "" said masami zeniya , director of the elementary_school education division at the ministry of education . "" we should focus more on raising children who can think by themselves and make decisions by themselves , rather than just accepting knowledge . "" free thinking is the aim the saturday off plan , by giving children more time for themselves , is intended to encourage free thinking . it is also part of a push by the government to make japanese relax more . many companies and government agencies have already gone to a five day work week . not everyone thinks the saturday closings will result in more leisure . the education ministry , they note , has neglected to change the school curriculum , which calls for a certain number of hours to be devoted to each subject a year . to meet the requirements , schools are making up for the missing saturday classes by having students stay longer on weekdays or by scheduling classes at times once used for sports or club activities . "" i 'm not happy at all because the hours we cut on saturday will be added to the other days , "" said shino ikeda , an eighth_grader at ginza junior high_school . a principal is warned as in any revolution , there are those who resist . many parents are against the plan because it will mean more time taking care of their children and will pose hardships when both parents work on saturday . a poll by the newspaper tokyo shimbun last spring found 49 percent approving the idea of one saturday off a month , with 44 percent disapproving . but when it came to the idea of closing schools every saturday , those opposed slightly outnumbered those in favor . government officials are trying hard to stamp out the counterrevolutionaries . a high_school principal in kagoshima prefecture , in southern japan , was reprimanded by the local authorities when he suggested too strongly that students attend voluntary classes that will be offered on the saturdays school is closed . some experts say that as long as the pressure of college entrance_examinations remains , it will be difficult to reduce school hours . with public schools closed on saturday mornings , some students will just go to cram_schools instead . yoshiya abe , professor of comparative culture at aichi gakuin university , said a more fundamental change might occur because japan 's low birth_rate was leading to a gradual reduction in the number of high_school seniors . "" by the year 2005 there will be more places in the universities than there are applicants , "" he said . "" this will really reduce the pressure to work hard for the college entrance_exams . """,has a topic of education
"at a moment when scholarships and academic elitism are the hot_button topic in britain 's most august places of learning , enter bill gates . his philanthropic foundation , the bill and melinda gates foundation , is considering a request from cambridge_university for a 200 million scholarship endowment to bring 230 foreign graduate students to cambridge each year . mr . gates had already shown interest in the city of cambridge 's ambitions to become britain 's silicon_valley . its combination of research institutions and start up technology companies has earned it the nickname silicon fen . mr . gates has given the university 19 million for a computer laboratory . but the discussion of his negotiations has become mired in a case that involves cambridge 's rival , oxford , and that forms a mirror image of what mr . gates is being asked to pay for . political and academic luminaries around britain have been seething over the story of a young briton who found the doors of oxford closed to her and ended up instead with a 100 , 000 scholarship to harvard . clearly , cambridge wants to ensure that the two cases are not mixed up . ''these are two completely separate issues , '' said alison mcfarquhar , a university spokeswoman . oxford and cambridge compete to snare the top students , produce the top scholars and advance their financial standing . some cambridge academics said they believed that the availability of the rhodes scholarships to 32 americans each year gave oxford a higher profile in the united_states and , thus , a sharper blade in the harvest of alumni generosity . mr . gates 's interest coincides with a deepening debate over how elitist an elite university should be and how this may be financed in a nation whose leaders , under prime_minister tony_blair 's government , vouchsafe a deep and traditional labor_party strain of egalitarianism . the controversy began when laura spence , 18 , a high_school student from a public state run school in northeastern england , applied to study medicine at oxford and was rejected after an interview , despite high grades . in britain 's league of class distinctions , state run nonselective schools and the northeast stand at one end of a spectrum whose other extremity is occupied by private schools in the south like eton or harrow . when news of ms . spence 's harvard scholarship emerged last month , it touched raw nerves . mr . blair 's government , smarting from recent opposition moves to seize the populist high ground , saw an opportunity to revive its laborite credentials . chancellor of the exchequer gordon_brown called it ''an absolute scandal'' and said ms . spence had been a victim of an interview system that ''is more reminiscent of the old boy network and the old school tie than genuine justice in our society . '' another labor figure , barry sheerman , said britain 's top universities took half their students from private schools attended by 7 percent of high_school scholars . the conservatives fired back . ''when they are in trouble , they go back to class war , '' said a party spokesman , david willetts . cambridge says 53 percent of its first year students are from state schools . oxford says half its new students are from a category of state_school .",has a topic of education
"in what they said was a goodwill gesture , protestants in the ardoyne neighborhood of north belfast suspended their protest outside the holy_cross girls' primary_school yesterday morning for the first time since sept . 3 to avoid upsetting the girls before they took the secondary_school admissions exam . in a significant scaling down of their security presence , the police no longer wear riot gear while guarding the route to the school . brian_lavery ( nyt )",has a topic of education
"the supreme_court ruled that a british_columbia school board cannot keep three children 's books depicting families with same sex parents out of its classrooms . the school board in surrey banned three books , ''one dad , two dads , brown dads , blue dads , '' ''belinda 's bouquet , '' and ''asha 's mums , '' in 1997 after they were introduced by a teacher to a kindergarten and first grade class and parents objected on religious grounds . the court ruled that the ban violated provincial legislation that says the public_school system must be secular and nonsectarian . colin_campbell ( nyt )",has a topic of education
"stung by the stabbing death of a school headmaster , britons surrendered more than 37 , 000 knives in a monthlong campaign to make the country safer . police_forces around the country and the daily_mirror newspaper organized the project after the death of philip lawrence , 48 , headmaster of st . george 's roman catholic_school in london . mr . lawrence was fatally injured dec . 15 when he tried to protect a pupil from attack by a gang . with figures from nine districts still pending , some 37 , 578 knives had been deposited in sealed bins by monday 's deadline , said sussex police officials , who were coordinating the operation . among the weapons turned in were one samurai sword , a battle axe , a five foot long spear , three imitation guns , a few machetes and a baseball_bat . world news briefs",has a topic of education
"a few weeks ago prime_minister kiichi_miyazawa , who graduated from the university of tokyo in 1941 , turned to his chief aide , koichi_kato , who graduated from the same university in 1964 , and declared that a nagging problem with the japanese government had got out of control too many of the country 's powerful bureaucrats emerged from the same school . so a few days ago mr . miyazawa 's cabinet issued what passes for japan 's first affirmative_action program , one intended to diversify within carefully proscribed japanese limits the country 's ruling_class . over the next five years , mr . miyazawa 's government declared , no more than 50 percent of the recruits for japan 's top government jobs may come from the campus known as todai . after all , mr . miyazawa said , "" a healthy society has a variety of values , "" and it would be foolhardy for a country in desperate need of some innovative ideas in the 21st_century to entrust its future entirely to leaders who all sat through the same lectures , passed the same tests and drank at the same watering holes . 'it wo n't be easy' or would it ? after listening politely and nodding in seeming agreement , the senior officials of the ministries that keep this country plowing ahead despite perpetual political scandals were widely and anonymously quoted in the nation 's biggest newspapers , asking who this miyazawa fellow thought was running japan , anyway . "" it wo n't be easy , "" kazuya taguchi , the assistant_director of the personnel division of the prime_minister 's office and a 1980 graduate of todai , said with some resignation the other day when a visitor inquired how he would begin to put the new rules into effect . "" can you imagine wanting to be a bureaucrat and going to waseda ? "" he said , referring to one of japan 's most exclusive private universities . "" unthinkable . "" ever since the emperor meiji created tokyo imperial university a century ago , the university , particularly its law_school , has been the breeding ground of japan 's governmental and business leadership . todai graduates plotted japan 's strategy in autos and computer chips . they set foreign_policy and industrial_policy , rising in lockstep with their "" class "" on rungs of the government ladder . and despite a lot of talk about how quickly japan is changing , the todai tradition seems in little danger . of the 24 new graduates who survived this year 's grueling competition for a spot on the "" elite track "" of japan 's ministry of finance the ministry where mr . miyazawa began his career five decades ago 22 are todai graduates . so are 59 percent of those accepted for the fast track at the education ministry , the telecommunications ministry , the trade ministry and other centers of power . last year 14 , 836 students took the test for the "" elite track , "" and 508 passed , more than half of them todai graduates . of those , 310 accepted government posts the others , presumably , were lured away by higher salaries in private industry . "" the first thing that people know about you when you enter a ministry is whether you went to todai or not , "" a young official of the foreign ministry , who did not , said the other day . he added that "" in a lot of ministries , there are many jobs you can forget about "" if you graduated from someplace else . symbol of greater ills for years social critics here have complained about this system , finding it at the root of some of japan 's worst ills . mr . kato seemed to echo those complaints at a news conference the other day , saying "" the concentration of university of tokyo graduates in government ministries is a symbol of the academic oriented society that has spawned the 'exam hell' phenomenon , "" the years of preparation for japan 's all important university exams . nothing makes a japanese mother happier than if her child passes the todai exam or , failing that , marries a todai graduate . so complete is todai 's hold that many are skeptical that mr . miyazawa really wants to tinker with success . some say he is merely grandstanding , hoping to win the hearts of the vast majority of japanese who resent todai 's monopoly on power . "" you have to assume that it is just an effort to win some popularity , "" said taichi_sakaiya , a former high official of the ministry of international_trade and industry , and a member of the todai class of 1960 . others say that mr . miyazawa 's intentions are pure , but that he stands about as much chance of changing the way japan works as detroit stands of driving toyota into bankruptcy . indeed , mr . miyazawa is attacking not only todai 's hold on power but , curiously , tokyo 's hold as well . though it is a national university , the vast majority of students attending the university of tokyo come from the capital or its immediate surroundings . few come from japan 's outer islands of hokkaido or okinawa . no academic boasts similarly , young women often report that they view todai as a hostile place , and not surprisingly , they too are vastly underrepresented in the senior levels of the bureaucracy . no one has suggested , however , that quotas or targets be set for women or others who have traditionally been excluded from the high reaches of the government . curiously , very few people even the university 's graduates argue that vastly superior academic achievement accounts for todai 's standing with the government . in recent years the newspapers have been filled with reports questioning the university 's academic standing , and faculty_members report an institutional insecurity about whether the place is up to snuff . "" there is no proof that todai students are better than non todai students , "" mr . sakaiya said . "" and the number of very good professors at todai is small . but japan is based on brand name goods , and todai is the brand name . "" at todai , the faculty has taken this all in stride . the president of the university , akito arima , said that "" of course , monopoly is bad , but i cannot approve government control "" of the quotas . a senior member of the law faculty said the whole thing would be "" sort of ignored , unless it takes any real effect . "" meanwhile , the todai graduates in government also seem fairly relaxed . japan changes prime_ministers with great regularity and little effect , but its bureaucrats stay behind their battered gray desks forever .",has a topic of education
"each week the three former police supervisors sit at the defendants' table at the federal district court here , facing charges that they are responsible for the deaths of nearly 200 of this town 's children . the officers , who were top supervisors in the beslan district police station , are accused of criminal negligence in failing to take adequate steps to protect school no . 1 , which was seized by members of a chechen militant group in the fall of 2004 . few in beslan seem to question whether these officers the former chief of police , his chief of staff and the head of a section responsible for public order shoulder part of the blame . the attackers passed freely through territory under their command , and the police made no concerted effort to stop the siege once masked_gunmen arrived at the school . to many here , these lapses demand the seven year jail sentences the officers face . ''their main guilt is that they did not take responsibility at the moment of the seizure , when people ran to them and said the school is being attacked , '' said ella kesayeva , a leader of the voice of beslan , a group of survivors and people who lost relatives in the siege . but the trial , which began in march , has assumed a different shape than the federal prosecutors might have planned . survivors , the bereaved and the accused alike are trying to transform the proceedings into a trial not only of three local police officers , but also of a wide range of officials responsible for public safety in russia , including president vladimir v . putin . instead of focusing solely on the actions of the officers at the defense table , the hearings have become a forum for a rare sustained public challenge to the kremlin , pitting local people and officials in north ossetia , one of russia 's internal republics , squarely against mr . putin and the federal_government . ''the guilt of our leadership is incomparably higher than the guilt of the local police , '' said sergei oziyev , after testifying against the police officers . mr . oziyev 's wife and one of his two sons were killed in the siege , which began on sept . 1 , 2004 , when at least 32 militants herded an outdoor student assembly into the school 's gym and promptly converted it into an impromptu jail rigged with bombs . the crisis ended in explosions , gunfire and flames on sept . 3 , when a chaotic battle erupted after two blasts shook the gym . three hundred thirty one people died , including 186 children . in addition , all but one of the militants are believed to have been killed . the one known survivor , nurpashi kulayev , 25 , is on trial and faces a possible death_penalty . the charges against the police supervisors seem straightforward enough . federal prosecutors claim that in late august 2004 , the police department received a written order from the region 's interior_ministry , warning of possible terrorist acts and instructing the police to increase security on roads and at schools . school no . 1 is almost next door to the police station . but the police officers under the supervisors' command took no evident steps to thwart the terrorists , an armed band in masks that passed unchallenged along local roads and found the school guarded by a lone policewoman , who had no gun . prosecutors have tried to keep the attention on these issues , asking people who live near the school , for example , whether in late august the police warned them of a possible terrorist attack . the victims' families almost uniformly reject the prosecutors' narrow approach . ''i consider these police officers guilty , but they are not the main people who are guilty , '' said taisiya nogayeva , a former hostage , who lost a daughter in the siege . ms . nogayeva said the trial must bring to light information about the larger ineptitude and callousness of the government 's handling of the siege . ms . nogayeva , ms . kesayeva , mr . oziyev and others point to missteps , mistakes and lies by senior government officials that they say were worse than the failings of their local police . during the siege , for instance , both the federal and regional governments insisted that only 354 hostages had been taken , about one third of the real_number , and that misinformation undercut proper planning for the rescue attempt and medical attention during the battle , survivors say . even by sept . 3 , few ambulances had been posted near the school . as a result , hundreds of injured hostages who stumbled free or were carried out during the battle did not receive first aid until they were driven to the hospital in private cars . the survivors said an insecure cordon around the school in places within range of the militants' grenade_launchers broke down during the last moments of the fight , which the survivors say allowed some captors to escape . the list of complaints goes on . as the battle intensified , russian soldiers and special_forces commandos fired indiscriminately into the school with high powered weapons , including shoulder fired rockets and tank shells . fire trucks arrived late , and did not start putting out flames in the gym until most of its roof had collapsed , pinning injured hostages beneath burning plastic and wood . moreover , multiple command centers were established , leaving it unclear to this day who was actually in charge . survivors and families of the victims also say that russian officials , following mr . putin 's instructions , negotiated only halfheartedly with the militants , enraging them , endangering the hostages and making the violent end more likely . given these allegations , many people in beslan say that the kremlin and the russian security services are playing a dirty game , trying to shift blame onto three local police officers and away from themselves . ''only negotiations could have stopped it , '' said a retired police colonel , elbrus nogayev , who lost a wife and daughter in the siege . ''not these three men . '' mr . nogayev , who is not charged with negligence , was the deputy chief of investigations for the local police force at the time of the siege and was on duty at the station . he said that in spite of the theory , now common in hindsight , that a police counterattack against the masked_gunmen in the first minutes might have saved lives , such an attack was out of the question . the militants were mingled with the children , he said it was too dangerous to start a gun battle . ''we were afraid for the children , '' mr . nogayev said . ''this had never happened before in the world , and we were afraid to go there . children might have been killed . at that point , only negotiations could have saved our families . '' the police supervisors , through their lawyers , also reject the prosecutors' claim that they had been given adequate warning of the attack . they suggest that the order was created only after the attack , then backdated . they have not been able to prove that allegation . but one of the defendants , miroslav aidarov , beslan 's former police chief , said the fact that the victims included members of police families , suggested that the local police force did not have as thorough a warning as russia 's federal_government would like the public to believe . ''if we had known about it before , '' mr . aidarov said , gesturing outside the courtroom at mr . nogayev , his former colleague , ' 'do you think he would have sent his wife and daughter to the school where they died ? ''",has a topic of education
"as an eight day firefighters strike entered a fifth day across britain , thousands of schoolteachers in london abandoned classes today to press demands for a doubling of the allowance they receive to compensate for the expense of living in the capital . the allowance is around 4 , 800 per year the teachers want it raised to 9 , 500 , the amount police officers receive . the strikes have confronted prime_minister tony_blair with the most serious challenge from organized_labor since he took office five years ago .",has a topic of education
"british interior_ministry officials said today that they were considering tougher penalties for carrying knives in public after the principal of a london school was fatally stabbed when he tried to save a student from attack by a gang of youths . the killing provoked a wave of public outrage and schoolchildren laid wreaths today at the spot where the principal , philip lawrence , a 48 year old father of four , was stabbed . if we think there is advantage in stiffening the law , then that is something we will do , "" home_secretary michael_howard said in a television interview . mr . lawrence was killed on friday when he was stabbed in the chest while trying to prevent a gang from attacking one of his students in maida vale in west_london . the boy attacked by the gang was released after being treated for a head wound . the police said they were hunting for the youths , who fled after the attack . education minister gillian shephard said she was making urgent inquiries into the killing , and jack_straw , the opposition labor_party 's spokesman for domestic affairs , joined in calls for a crackdown on anyone carring knives in public .",has a topic of education
"the leader of the opposition labor_party said today that once in power his party would not try to roll back changes wrought by prime_ministers margaret_thatcher and john_major in many british institutions , from state run industries now privatized to once powerful unions now curbed . "" i believe passionately that our government will fail if it sees its task as dismantling thatcherism , "" said the labor leader , tony_blair . "" we ca n't just switch the clock back to where we were or we will fail . our task is to build and create those things that thatcherism did n't deal with . "" instead , the man widely expected to bring the center left back into office after 17 years in the political wilderness said that a labor_government would concentrate on reforms in education and welfare and attempts to improve the lot of "" the large underclass of people set apart from society 's mainstream . "" in foreign_affairs , mr . blair said that labor would look more kindly upon further integration with europe an issue that has bedeviled mr . major 's conservative_party for the last three years and has come into play again this week with the european ban on british beef in the scare over mad_cow_disease . mr . blair said his party was more pro european than the tories . "" i do not have to appease a large euro skeptic wing of the labor_party , "" he explained , referring to the tory back bench rebels who have opposed mr . major on european unity . the 43 year old mr . blair , who is heavily favored to win a general_election that must be held by next spring , said he would value the "" special relationship "" with the united_states but in the context of improved relations with continental_europe . "" if britain has a leadership role in europe , that is of enormous assistance to it in its relationship to the united_states , "" he said . "" i reject completely this idea that we have to choose between a trans_atlantic relationship with the united_states and our relationship with europe . the stronger the latter is , the stronger the former will be . "" mr . blair outlined his views in a wide_ranging interview in anticipation of a three day visit he will pay to the united_states next week . he will meet business leaders in new york and then travel to washington for meetings with president_clinton , vice_president gore and congressional leaders . the visit is his first since assuming the party leadership in 1994 after the death of john_smith . since then he has pried the labor_party away from the left of the political_spectrum , jettisoning its long held objective of nationalizing the means of production and emphasizing issues like combating crime . the party 's slogan is "" new labor . "" mr . blair , whose efforts to change the labor_party are sometimes compared to mr . clinton 's in the democratic_party , said that both parties reached an impasse in the 1960 's and 1970 's . "" we were big_government , special interest run parties and we never stopped to ask the question what lay behind that , "" he said . to critics who charge that in moving away from its bedrock socialism , labor no longer presents a principled alternative to the free_market tories , mr . blair said , "" what we are about is a set of values , not a set of fixed economic government prescriptions , and the basic essence of those values is that the individual thrives best in a well functioning community of people . "" he predicted that mr . major would call an election before may 1997 . "" six months ago , i would have said the government will struggle on to next year , "" he observed . "" i think it is less certain now . there is an accumulating air of decay . we 're effectively almost in an election situation now . """,has a topic of education
"lead like many other americans , i have had an interest in world affairs , but never as much as now , after having spent three weeks as a student in a moscow high_school . like many other americans , i have had an interest in world affairs , but never as much as now , after having spent three weeks as a student in a moscow high_school . i decided to take russian in seventh_grade . my reasons were innocent enough i thought it might be more interesting than french or spanish . russian history and culture intrigued me , but the textbooks made it seem distant and nebulous . naturally , i jumped at the chance to attend moscow public_school 679 . during my time there , i made many friends olga , katya , yura , and oleg , among others who were as fascinated with my culture as i was with theirs , and we conversed , in our mixture of broken_english and broken russian , about everything from baseball to borscht . i learned that andrei is an outstanding soccer player , and that oleg is quite a ladies' man that sascha used to be a weight lifter , and that dima spends his free time playing video_games . my new friends knew a lot about western rock_music , and wanted the latest news on paul_mccartney , u2 , and madonna . they were eager to introduce me to their popular artists , kino and akvarium . we showed them our textbooks , and they showed us theirs . i was amazed when i read their english book . it was filled with accounts of the american homeless and our filthy rich slumlords but said virtually nothing uplifting about america . it chronicled the activities of the young communist league in washington and , in a chapter on sports , disclosed that all young american girls played hopscotch . with my ''cat in the hat'' vocabulary , ( four short years of russian had not left me time to grasp the subtleties of the language ) i tried my best to explain our country to my inquisitive friends . they loved learning how to play baseball and were astounded to find out that girls in america play soccer . they were curious about our family lives , our standard of living , our politics , and wanted to hear of it from us , their peers . they gave me their opinions on perestroika , and i learned that each soviet person had a unique political view . some liked the new openness , some thought it was too big a step , and some wished it was moving faster . i realized that culture cannot be experienced through a textbook and that to really understand a nation , a person must get to know its components the people who live there . i began to see the soviet_union as a group of individuals rather than a depersonalized mass with a leader . the summit meetings on television never really made me think about the people on the other side of those ocean spanning handshakes . but as i made more friends , the idea of war with the soviets , the thought of olga , katya , yura , dima and oleg blown to shreds became more and more loathsome . it is naive to think that cultural exchanges can by themselves bring about world_peace , but i know that this exchange has made me think much more seriously about the possibility of disarmament . i have clear memories of seeing a synagogue scene on the first night of a jewish holiday . when i joined the celebrants dancing the hora , i felt as if i were holding hands with the whole world . and just then , i knew that i had made a difference . now that the communist regimes of eastern_europe have crumbled and the face of world politics has changed to one of cooperation with the soviets , many people have stopped thinking about the differences between our country and the soviet_union . war with the soviets seems a distant prospect in many american minds . but now we are faced with choices about support for the new governments . these decisions rest in the minds of the american and eastern_european people , and exchange programs can foster the kind of cultural understanding that is necessary in the rapidly changing world . recently , an exchange student from moscow left my home . she returned to hers , knowing that she and all of her friends , the future leaders of the soviet_union , had friends across the ocean in america . that alone is enough to make me more optimistic about the future of international_relations . in a global context , my visit is insignificant . but i would like to see it multiplied a million times , by a million exchange students . this program was sponsored by the peter copen fund and was centered around satellite computer links between moscow schools and sister schools in mamaroneck , chappaqua and pleasant valley . the participating students in both nations collaborate in joint projects relating to family life , food , journalism , education and politics . programs like these advance international compatibility and they need to be expanded . we fear what we do n't understand . but if we learn to understand the soviet people and they learn to understand us , there is the prospect that our nations can share a feeling of empathy that will better endure the political disagreements that our two countries will inevitably face . and is n't that worth a try ? westchester opinion",has a topic of education
"does knowledge inhibit the imagination ? is a coherent thought necessarily true ? can a work of art be considered immoral ? or how about this one ? is passion compatible with wisdom ? o.k . now , over the next four hours , write a five page dissertation on one of these topics . year in , year out , the rite of passage from france 's senior high_schools is unchanged , and last month no fewer than 570 , 000 french students around the age of 18 set about trying to show that , while perhaps not yet budding philosophers , they already knew how to discuss an abstract subject . france is still the only country in the world that requires the study of philosophy in high_school . but , more than instilling a smattering of knowledge about hobbes or voltaire or locke or marx , this policy aims to teach young french men and women how to think to think in the french way . "" at this stage , it 's a rhetorical exercise , a question of being able to present an argument , "" said luc ferry , a philosophy teacher , "" and , since victor cousin in the mid 19th_century , this has been done through the method of presenting a thesis , an antithesis and a synthesis . "" in high_schools and , above all , in the "" baccalaureat "" examination , the topics are chosen to force young minds into new areas through analysis of , say , truth or conscience or freedom . "" all my students want to discuss is love , "" one high_school teacher said with a laugh . in the exam room they have to be ready for more . last year 's questions included , is reality always realistic ? among questions presented for dissection two years ago were can self knowledge be sincere ? and , more mischievously , how do you know that a problem is philosophical ? yet , in the land of descartes , it is the method that has had most lasting effect . as soon discovered by anyone who has sat in a smoke filled left bank cafe or around an elegant paris dinner table , good conversation involves taking a subject , examining it from all sides and conceptualizing it to the point that a conclusion becomes irrelevant . indeed , such is the fascination with philosophizing more than philosophy that each year newspapers publish the questions asked of students in their "" bac philo "" exam and invite philosophers to write their own model answers . and even years later , it seems , everyone remembers the question they answered and the mark they were awarded in philosophy . this cerebral and even ethereal approach to life 's dilemmas in turn affects the way french society as a whole works , including politics and diplomacy . and perhaps here lies the secret to why the french and "" anglo saxons , "" as they call americans and britons , have so much trouble understanding each other . "" the french always go from the general to the particular , "" said jack_lang , a former culture and education minister . he promptly recalled that his "" bac philo "" essay was on "" happiness "" and that he got 18 out of 20 points . "" the anglo saxons start with a concrete fact and reason from that . they call a cat a cat . we like to blah_blah blah . "" for mr . ferry , the anglo_saxon tradition of analytical philosophy can be summarized by the phrase we have a problem and must find a solution . "" in contrast , in france , through voltaire and diderot and rousseau , ours is more of a political or social philosophy , "" he said . "" only the germans have created great metaphysical systems . "" mr . ferry went even further . "" we do n't have any true philosophers in france today , "" he said . "" we have intellectuals galore . we even invented the word 'intellectual . ' but what we have are intellectuals who call themselves philosophers and a host of professors who are more historians of philosophy . "" dominique bourdin , who teaches philosophy in an underprivileged paris suburb , said she nonetheless enjoyed the recognition her expertise brought her . "" my teaching colleagues are often intimidated by us , "" she said . "" they 'll come and ask us to discuss philosophical aspects of their disciplines . "" the same enthusiasm is not always apparent among students , above all those studying mathematics , sciences and technical subjects . "" the course was a waste of time , "" said laurent delahaye , 18 , who plans to study economics in college . "" still , perhaps it developed my critical faculties , who knows . "" mrs . bourdin , whose students are unlikely to join the french elite , said she felt that even a couple of hours of philosophy lessons a week made a difference . "" even if they do n't retain much , they have asked some questions and they know there are more questions to be asked , "" she said . for the "" bac philo "" exam , france is divided into four regions and , within each region , there are three sets of questions , depending on whether the student specializes in humanities , social_sciences and pure sciences . each student can pick between two questions and a commentary on a philosophical text . humanities students , who take eight hours of philosophy a week , are expected to do best . this year , those in the paris area had to chose between the questions , "" is a philosopher necessarily a man of his times ? "" and , "" is reason a guarantee against deception ? "" or they could discuss a text by st . augustine on war and peace . diego bunuel , 18 , a humanities student who plans to major in political_science at northwestern_university , said his philosophy studies had taught him to question . "" in philosophy , you can talk about everything , "" he said . "" the subjects i prefer are passion , religion , the state , law , violence , justice and death . "" karen micmacher , 20 , who will study law at college , said her only regret was that she had not begun philosophy sooner . "" it has changed my whole way of thinking , "" she said . "" i feel like it has been a voyage into history . "" then , as if to stress she is now truly french , she added , "" i have learned how to reason . """,has a topic of education
"s gol ne royal , the socialist candidate for president , took her campaign on tuesday to the tough parisian suburb that set off nationwide unrest in 2005 , assuring residents there that they were ''not a problem'' for france . it was in the suburb , clichy sous bois , that two teenagers were electrocuted in october 2005 as they apparently ran away from the police . the deaths incited a three week spasm of violence in which rioters throughout france torched thousands of cars , trashed businesses and ambushed police officers and firefighters . little has improved in the country 's troubled suburbs since then . but voter_registration in france has soared in recent months , and for the first time in french presidential electoral politics , the vote of the alienated and disadvantaged ethnic arab and black african citizens may be a factor . in clichy sous bois , for example , a town of 23 , 000 , the number of registered voters has increased by more than 25 percent since the unrest in 2005 . ms . royal is portraying herself as the mother protector of france , a healing force who cares about the underdog . by contrast , her main rival , interior_minister nicolas_sarkozy , the candidate of the governing center right union for a popular movement party , has yet to shed his image as the enemy of france 's underclasses . shortly before the widespread unrest in the fall of 2005 , mr . sarkozy was in the parisian suburb argenteuil when he called angry young suburbanites ' 'scum . '' that remark , combined with his huge deployment of police to return the country to calm after rioting broke out and his criticism of france 's immigration_policy as too lenient , has contributed to his image as a man who is feared rather than loved . he was in madrid on tuesday , burnishing his credentials as a statesman by meeting with prime_minister jos luis rodr_guez zapatero and other spanish officials . with the first round of france 's presidential_election only 54 days away , the two leading candidates are grappling with the stunning rise in the polls of fran_ois bayrou , the head of the centrist union for french democracy party and a former education minister who has been nicknamed ''the third man'' by the french media . mr . bayrou , 55 , who is a deputy in parliament , a farmer , a horse breeder and an author of books on french history and politics , visited another poor parisian suburb , mantes la jolie , last friday . he proposed ''a grand project of national unity'' for the suburbs , and stressed the importance of giving the town 's young people ''the same opportunities , the same options'' they could find in henri iv , one of the best high_schools in paris . according to a nationwide poll of 957 registered voters conducted on friday and saturday by ipsos , a survey based research group , mr . bayrou is expected to capture 18 percent of the vote in the first election round on april 22 . mr . sarkozy would receive 31 percent and ms . royal 26 percent , according to ipsos . jean marie le pen , the far right national front candidate who came in second behind president jacques_chirac in the first round in the 2002 elections , would trail with 13 percent . the margin of sampling_error was plus or minus 3.2 percentage_points , ipsos said . in a 90 minute question and answer session on tf1 , the leading french television_channel , on monday_night , mr . bayrou pledged to free france from the ''impasse'' of the ''perpetual war'' between the main parties . in a france inter radio interview on monday , the 53 year old ms . royal called mr . bayrou 's idea to bring the two main parties into a new coalition ' 'very dangerous , '' adding that he is sowing confusion and trying to prevent the french from choosing between ''two opposing political visions . '' on tuesday , during her carefully_scripted three hour visit to clichy sous bois , she pledged to create jobs and improve security and education for poor neighborhoods . ''nothing 's been done since the riots , '' ms . royal said at a meeting with community leaders . she added , ''discrimination , jobs and delinquency will be my first priorities . '' some people in the town who heard ms . royal 's message said they were unconvinced that she could deliver on her promises . ''we are not stupid , '' said a 32 year old rap artist and member of a group that promotes the suburbs , aclefeu , who identified himself only as axiom . ''it 's very smart politically that she responded to our calls . but we will stay watchful . '' wafika ouahhbi , an 18 year old student , said , ''i 'm not very convinced by her . '' she added , ''there are more registered voters , and she knows these voters are going to matter . these politicians if there were n't votes here , they would n't come . '' the closest mr . sarkozy has come to visiting a tough ethnic neighborhood during the campaign was a brief visit last friday to the southern city of perpignan , stopping in a neighborhood in which much of the population is of immigrant origin . the visit was kept secret from the traveling news_media until the last minute , and was held in a controlled setting in a community center , not on the streets . even now , mr . sarkozy says he has no regrets for his remarks in argenteuil . he told the american television host charlie_rose last month that he had merely repeated the term ' 'scum'' after it had been used by a female resident on the night he visited . ''she opened her window , '' he recollected . ''she was a north_african lady . and she said to me , 'mr . sarkozy , get rid of the scum . ' and i said , 'i 'm there precisely for that , to get rid of the scum for you . i used the same term as that of the lady . ' '' fran_ois hollande , the leader of the socialist_party and the father of ms . royal 's four children , said tuesday that it would be unwise for mr . sarkozy to visit the poor neighborhoods of france . ''he cannot go to certain neighborhoods without there being incidents , '' mr . hollande said in an interview with an all news cable channel .",has a topic of education
"lead a foreign exchange student has been ordered to return to france because she visited her homeland for christmas week instead of staying to watch americans celebrate the holidays . a foreign exchange student has been ordered to return to france because she visited her homeland for christmas week instead of staying to watch americans celebrate the holidays . ''it 's ridiculous , '' the student , nathalie dandel , 19 years old , said . ms . dandel , who had attended city high_school here , said she was homesick when she decided to fly to paris on dec . 27 . she returned jan . 3 . but her sponsor , american intercultural student exchange of tacoma park , md . , and the family she was living with say she had been warned against going home and now faces the end of her schooling in the united_states . ''nathalie was absolutely aware of the a.i.s.e . position on a vacation to france over the holiday , '' said cheryl poole of grand_rapids , who was ms . dandel 's host . ms . dandel , now living with another grand_rapids couple who support her bid to remain in the united_states , has hired a lawyer to fight efforts to send her back to france . american intercultural has withdrawn its sponsorship and ordered her to leave . ''she went home when repeatedly told that leaving was grounds to send her home , '' said carol merchant , american intercultural 's michigan coordinator . ''she has broken several rules , and we are doing what the government said in the guidelines we must do . ''",has a topic of education
"chihiro sato hated the morning and evening mass in the catholic_school she attended in first grade and felt ostracized by other students when she switched to a public_school for second grade . she began suffering headaches and nausea when it came time to go to school . ''my father would pull me out of bed and force me to go , '' chihiro , now 16 , recalled . but by the end of second grade she had joined the ranks of a growing group in japan children who will not go to school . last year , one in 85 junior high_school students missed at least 50 days of classes because of school phobia , according to the ministry of education . as schools in japan reopened after summer vacation , there is concern that the truancy rate will increase again this year , just as it has for more than 20 years . the school refusers , as they are called here , represent an underside of japan 's vaunted education system , which is generally admired for producing nearly universal literacy , a conscientious work force and high_school graduates who can solve sophisticated mathematical problems . but the pressure to conform and excel can overwhelm some students , experts say . the truancy problem is viewed seriously here as a sign of societal breakdown and of the need for a broad re evaluation of japan 's school system , which some educators and business leaders say stifles individuality and creativity even as it indoctrinates children into japan 's group oriented society . to be sure , the truancy rate in japan appears small compared with that in the united_states . while directly comparable figures are not available , about 6.6 percent of american junior high_school students are absent from school on any given day , for all reasons . in japan , truants have generally been considered psychologically ill , or social misfits with character defects , at least up until a few years ago . ''in the past they were taken to therapists or hospitals and locked in a room like a prison cell and soaked with medicine , '' said keiko okuchi , the founder of an alternative school for children who refuse to go to regular schools . nowadays , there is more tolerance of the truants . and after protests from parents of such children , the ministry of education in 1992 changed its guidelines to admit that the school system itself , not only defects in the child 's character , could be contributing to the problem . while the problem is most severe among junior high_school students , truancy has also been growing among elementary_school pupils , 1 in 667 of whom were absent at least 50 days last year . experts say a major reason that children stay away from school is that they are bullied by other students . yuji suzuki , now 19 , stopped going when he was in fifth grade . fellow students , in a play on his first name , began calling him ''uji , '' or maggot . ''during breaks i drew pictures by myself in the room when others went out to play , '' he said . strict rules covering behavior , dress and hairstyles , and corporal punishment by teachers are cited as other reasons . and then there is grinding pressure . for some students , sports practice and club activities begin at 6 a.m . after school , many students attend private cram_schools into the evening to prepare for high_school or college entrance_exams that could have a big impact on their future . mrs . okuchi , a former teacher , has led a crusade to change attitudes . in the early 1980 's her eldest_son was bullied at school . ''he started having headaches and stomachaches , '' she recalled . ''he began to lose weight and could n't walk and stand up . '' a psychiatrist recommended letting him stay home from school . but the school principal said that would ruin her son 's life . and he chastised her for raising her child poorly . so 10 years ago mrs . okuchi founded tokyo shure , the name being the japanese pronunciation of schule , the german word for school . the 100 students at tokyo shure , who include chihiro sato and yuji suzuki , are under no obligation to attend every day or to take any of the classes offered in subjects like english and history . on one typical day , most students were playing_cards or table_tennis , reading comics or taking a dance class . tuesdays are set aside for day trips like hikes or museum visits . students can get involved in projects like helping to plan and build a log_cabin . mrs . okuchi 's attitude is not widely shared . many programs for the refusers aim at getting them to go back to school . but the success rate is low . ''giving you actual percentages would destroy the hopes of parents whose children are trying to go back , '' said dr . taizo satoh , vice director of tokyo metropolitan umegaoka hospital , which has 210 patients and , he said , is the largest psychiatric_hospital in the world devoted solely to treating students who refuse to go to school .",has a topic of education
"after hearing from a judge that he faced a possible prison sentence of 10 years if convicted , a man accused of running a nationwide scheme to sell answers to graduate school entrance_exams left a courtroom in lower_manhattan earlier this week and was arrested yesterday morning trying to cross the border into canada . the suspect , po chieng ma , was scheduled to go on trial wednesday in a case that has been described as the largest known to involve the sale of answers to standardized_tests . prosecutors said mr . ma arranged to have experts take the tests on the east_coast and , taking advantage of the time difference , phone the answers to the west_coast . there , officials say , associates of mr . ma would inscribe the answers onto pencils , which were then given to hundreds of test takers who paid mr . ma thousands of dollars each . mr . ma 's attempt to cross the border was the latest twist in a case that has already prompted a novel debate about whether mr . ma 's operation was illegal . shortly before he disappeared from court , he and his lawyer had agreed that he would admit to the scheme , as the government charged , but would contend that he was not guilty of fraud . mr . ma 's lawyer , allan p . haber , said while his client did not not dispute the basic facts of the case , he did not want to plead_guilty , because he believed that the testing operation did not break federal law . instead , in a rarely used court procedure , mr . haber and federal prosecutors agreed to submit jointly a factual account of the scheme , largely the government 's version , to the judge . then , judge john s . martin would review the record , hear arguments from lawyers and rule . although the strategy meant giving up his right to a jury_trial , mr . ma and his lawyer reasoned that even if he were convicted , such an admission would win some leniency at sentencing . in addition , by not simply pleading_guilty , mr . ma retained his right to appeal . ''there was no reason to go to trial for three weeks to a month , '' said mr . haber , while the government called ' 'scores of witnesses to testify to conduct we were not going to oppose . '' he said there was no need to go to trial ''to resolve issues we thought were pretty clear cut . '' the government had accused mr . ma of running a company , american test center , that advertised a unique method of preparing students for the graduate admissions tests . prosecutors said mr . ma charged up to 9 , 000 for the answers to the graduate management admission test , which most business schools require applicants to take the graduate record exam , a test for graduate school , and the test of english as a foreign language . the exams are administered by the educational testing service . mr . ma 's test takers , who used false names to register for the tests , wrote down the answers to the multiple_choice questions and phoned them to mr . ma and his associates in california . customers were flown or driven to test centers , where they were given pencils with the coded answers . hundreds of students received high scores and were admitted to graduate schools around the country under the scheme , the government says . in one recent court hearing , mr . haber argued that no fraud had occurred , because the answers did not appear on the tests and thus could not be stolen . mr . haber said the answers were the product of the brainpower of the test takers , who were passing on essentially public information to mr . ma . but an assistant_united_states_attorney , mark a . godsey , rejected that position , telling the judge it was not the answers that were stolen , but the questions , which he called the educational testing service 's stock in trade . they had been taken under false pretenses , to help people cheat , he said , which mr . godsey compared with breaking into the testing service 's office and stealing the tests themselves . patricia taylor , associate general_counsel of the educational testing service in princeton , n.j. , said by phone yesterday that the defense contention is ' 'so absurd in light of the alleged activities that took place . '' ''when anyone thinks about the alleged elaborate mechanism that they had to go through in order to do what they did , and the amount of money that they charged , and the fact that people thought it was valuable enough to pay that money , '' she said , it was clear that ''they took something of value from e.t.s . '' in pretrial hearings , judge martin refused to dismiss mail_fraud , conspiracy and obstruction of justice charges against mr . ma , and ordered him tried this week . late wednesday afternoon , just before the trial was to begin , judge martin began to explain to mr . ma his rights and the potential penalties he faced if convicted . at that point , it appears , mr . ma may have had some second thoughts about his strategy . when the judge said that one count carried a_10 year sentence , mr . haber asked for a brief recess , saying his client had further questions . the group reconvened at 5 p.m. , and mr . haber informed the judge that mr . ma had disappeared . apologizing , mr . haber said his client ' 'may be caught in traffic . '' judge martin issued a warrant for mr . ma 's arrest . as dawn broke yesterday morning , officials said , mr . ma was stopped in a dark blue 1987 lincoln , heading north , with an unidentified driver . at the border crossing in beecher falls , vt . , a computerized check turned up the warrant , said dennis e . welsh , a border_patrol agent there . he will be returned to new york early next week , the authorities said , to resume the trial . but this time , there will be one more charge against him bail jumping .",has a topic of education
"the battle over the proposed law to ban religious symbols from french public schools spilled into streets on saturday as muslim demonstrators in capitals around the world voiced their opposition to what they say is a denial of religious_freedom . the demonstrations were largest in paris and other cities in france , where thousands of protesters marched against an anticipated law that would ban the wearing of muslim head_scarves , jewish skullcaps and large christian crosses in the schools . in an apparently well coordinated show of solidarity with muslims in france , protesters from london to baghdad joined in . but the demonstrations were far smaller than their muslim organizers had predicted . the center right french government has taken a hard line against those opposing the proposed legislation , saying that france must uphold the republican values that harken back to the 1789 revolution and preserve the country 's secular identity . in a speech in december announcing his recommendation for passage of a law banning religious symbols from schools , president jacques_chirac said that if france succumbed to the demands of its religious communities , ''it would lose its soul . '' on friday , interior_minister nicolas_sarkozy , who initially opposed the law as divisive but now supports it , predicted that protests would only harden the battle lines . ''if there is a protest one day , there will be a counterprotest the next , '' he said . the demonstrators in paris sought to portray the struggle as one of loyal french citizens demanding their rights . many waved french flags some women among the protesters wore the red , white and blue french flag as a head covering or as a shawl . ''the marseillaise'' was played . one banner displayed in the demonstration read , ''france , you are my country veil , you are my life . '' another said , ''down with the racist laws of the catholics and mr . chirac against the arabs and the head_scarf . '' a third read , ''secular fundamentalism is a danger for the republic . '' many of the marching girls and women were accompanied by men with long beards who wore white skullcaps and pants cut above their ankles , signs of adherence to a strict , conservative version of islam . sherazade trabelsi , 16 , a french citizen of algerian and tunisian origin , came with a group of mothers and daughters from nevers in burgundy to march . wearing a white cotton scarf tied behind her neck , a fake louis_vuitton scarf wrapped around her neck and high heels , she said ''i 've worn the veil my entire school life . this law is unjust and intolerable . '' the issue has divided the muslims of france . dalil boubakeur , head of the main mosque of paris and president of the officially_sanctioned umbrella_organization of muslim groups in france , supports the ban and discouraged muslims from participating , saying it would only aggravate their problems . ''we absolutely do not want confrontation , '' he said . many french feminists , including prominent muslim women , also support the ban , arguing that the head_scarf is often imposed on girls by their fathers and brothers and that the koranic verse discussing veiling is open to interpretation . but the union of islamic organizations in france , which preaches a strict , conservative interpretation of islam and is also part of the french council , urged muslims to demonstrate peacefully to show that ''the muslim population of france has faith in the republic . '' representatives of the organization distributed packets of materials that included postcards of protest that are to be sent to mr . chirac .",has a topic of education
"westerners cap the salutations of their business letters with a colon , to wit dear mr . doe . not so russians , who fire off important missives with gunpowder , as with ''respected rodion romanovich ! '' or ''dear mrs . raskolnikov ! '' the exclamation point is a flyspeck of formality , a nit of politesse . when anya provorova , a 17 year old from a four street village in russia 's north , dashed off a letter last month that began , ''respected vladimir vladimirovich'' no exclamation point , no colon , no comma she thought nothing more of it . but when vladimir vladimirovich 's last name is putin as in president putin some people here take flyspecks very seriously . among them are officials of the local school_district , who came across ms . provorova 's letter , got as far as the salutation , and blanched . since then , her grades on final examinations have been lowered , she has lost a silver_medal for academic excellence and , by some accounts , her chances to go to medical_school have been endangered . ''i do n't understand why this happened to me , '' she said in a telephone interview this week from vorobyovo , where she lives . the chief of the district insists it is all an unhappy coincidence . in a nation where goose stepping bureaucracy is as russian as cabbage pie , practically nobody believes it . rather , people consider it a given that ms . provorova 's oversight would bring trouble . it is a curious reward for what was , after all , merely an attempt to liven up her school graduation party . in vorobyovo , a gaunt farm town about 300 miles northeast of moscow , that is not a very big party . the class of 2000 at vorobyovo secondary_school consists of six 11th_graders ( 11 is the final grade in russian high_schools ) five girls and one boy . ''not only anya , but all the students from this class were very active and smart , '' the class 's mathematics teacher , augusta smirnova , said by telephone on wednesday . three girls have been accepted at the vologda pedagogical university , the province 's teaching college . another plans to study medicine in the northern city of arkhangelsk . the lone boy plans to study radioelectronics at a military institute . anya also wants to study medicine in arkhangelsk she hopes to be a plastic surgeon but she says she is loath to leave her village . why is a puzzle a farm depression has spread poverty , and families have fled , shrinking the vorobyovo secondary_school by more than two thirds in the last decade . it is a place that could use a lift . last month , the class of 2000 hit on a way to get one . ''we had a big dream to film our graduation party , '' anya said , ''and we read an article in the newspaper that said one couple asked president putin to give them something , and he gave it to them . so we figured , why not ? '' the one page handwritten letter to mr . putin began with a request for a handout . ''we would like to shoot our graduation party on a video_camera , '' it read , ''but we do n't have such a possibility . that 's why we are asking you to help us . send us a video_camera , please , and we will be grateful to you . '' but it closed with an even cheekier request , scribbled by the boy in the class . ''come to visit us yourself on june 17 , '' it read . ''you will have a rest , and we will treat you to pies . '' signed only ''goodbye , the 11th_grade , '' the note reached the kremlin on june 3 . the kremlin sent it back to the vologda province government , asking for the authors' names so it could reply . the vologda government kicked it to the municipal school administration , in the nearby town of sokol . shortly_afterward , the trouble began . besides the missing exclamation point , school officials found a missing comma , as well as a capitalization mistake made by the boy . ''we were ashamed that some students of our district wrote a letter to the president on a very small and dirty piece of paper and with mistakes , '' nikolai sych , the director of the municipal educational administration in sokol , said in a telephone interview . ''this is not what educated and smart people do . '' the class was giddily unaware of this . of the six classmates , three girls had done so well in final exams that the school had nominated them for gold and silver medals , an honor bestowed on perhaps five percent of all graduates . reviewers in the municipal administration had decided to award silver medals to ms . provorova and one other girl . but on june 8 , letter in hand , two inspectors from sokol arrived at the vorobyovo secondary_school . ''they ordered the director of our school to write an explanatory note and to come to the sokol administration to talk about this letter , '' mrs . smirnova said . and after learning who had written the note , mrs . smirnova said , ''they said we should send an application to the department to cancel this silver_medal for anya because they thought this girl 's grammatical errors were very high . '' no application was needed . sokol officials later called in reviewers to re examine the work of ms . provorova and other students . the two silver medals were revoked . in an interview , mr . sych said the decision to revoke the awards was made before the letter was discovered . challenged on that , he said the school and its students were lying . as moscow newspapers and television stations have seized on the story this week , he has said the marks were lowered because the first reviewers missed mistakes . in russia , losing such an award is no small matter . for ms . provorova , who was considering medical_school but had not been accepted , it means that her sights are now set mostly on the vologda dairy academy . but she does have some consolation the vologda government has opened an inquiry into what happened , and has pledged to punish any wrongdoers . and on wednesday a package arrived at the governor 's office , for delivery to the vorobyovo secondary_school . it was from the kremlin . inside was a new video_camera just in time for this weekend 's graduation .",has a topic of education
"the potential for disaster was clear from the start . fourteen strangers from around the world , all under 30 , would come to montreal and live together at no cost for nine months in a newly_renovated mansion , complete with leather couches and a fully stocked kitchen . they would not be required to do anything and would each be handed 1 , 000 a month to spend on whatever they pleased . even the participants were worried . would the chinese man and the taiwanese woman get along ? would someone blow the monthly_stipend on shoes ? was this going to turn into a bad reality_television show set in the frigid canadian winter ? but ''the real world'' this is not in fact , most of the 14 had never heard of that mtv show . swap the show 's casual sex and endless stream of alcohol for rambling international debate and you get the sauv house at mcgill_university . the students are the first crop of sauv scholars , participants in a fellowship program that allows them to delve deeply into a social or political topic . the only request is that they produce something to post on the program 's web_site . the scholars , who hail from 12 countries , arrived in august and leave on friday . the program is financed by the jeanne sauv foundation , an organization for young leaders established by ms . sauv , a former canadian governor_general who died in 1993 , with seed_money from the canadian government . applicants must submit two 500 word essays , one detailing accomplishments and the other sketching a course of study , along with published works , academic transcripts and three recommendations . the goal , according to the program 's president , harry parnass , is for the scholars to find a subject they care about and approach it with reckless abandon . for this crop of scholars , topics include debunking western myths about africa , hitting the american presidential campaign trail and drafting policy to present to the slovak government . ''i want them to have passion , '' mr . parnass said . ''you just spend a year in self discovery . they have my permission to do nothing , to think . and surprisingly , none of them have done that . '' surprising to everyone but these 14 workaholics , many of whom said they had never experienced unstructured time and did not know what to do with it other than get to work . at first , however , some of them were overwhelmed by the contrasting cultures and personalities , and were hesitant to voice their opinions for fear of offending someone . even dinner , which the students are encouraged to eat together , was difficult . the muslim woman from algeria eats halal meat , the zambian woman has never tasted shrimp and the british man prefers shepherd 's pie . ''we had to start from zero , and it was hard , '' said sherry lee , 29 , a reporter with commonwealth magazine in taipei and one of the scholars . ''but after we got to know each other 's character , we realized no one had bad motivations and we can open our minds and discuss anything . '' ms . lee spent much of her time with a video_camera in the city 's strip clubs and illegal brothels , and on its busy street corners . her not yet completed result is a video about the sex industry in canada . her point was to explore how an industry that , with the exception of strip clubs , is illegal in canada but operates in the open differs from taiwan 's clandestine one , and whether the openness benefits its workers , she said . the difference , she said , is that canadian sex workers enter the profession for money , as opposed to taiwanese workers , who are mostly forced into it . ''it 's about social taboos , '' ms . lee said . very different social issues intrigued meriem maza , 29 , a muslim from setif , algeria , who spent months asking montrealers to describe , on video , their ethnic backgrounds and religious beliefs , and say how they were accepted by others . she said she wanted to turn the interviews into a program for algerian television and hoped to teach algerians tolerance through scenes like the one in which a hispanic man explains the origin of bagels , ms . maza 's new favorite food , as people of other ethnicities shop in the background . ''i understand why people are so scared of each other , but we have to break this idea , '' she said . even lighter moments at sauv house have political overtones . as wine flowed before dinner one rainy april night , saman ahsan , 29 , of lahore , pakistan , stood before her colleagues and pulled out a packet of official papers she had passed a canadian government immigration screening , certifying that she had not committed any crimes in canada . that called for raised glasses . ''i 'm so glad you 're not a criminal , '' joked sandra lizardo of peru , glancing at the paper , which was stamped ''paid . '' ''but how much did you have to pay them to pass ? '' after a dinner that included chicken biryani , salmon bisque and pumpkin pie , some of the women danced to a cher song , wineglasses in hand . . most of the scholars are returning home or will attend graduate school . and they are not looking forward to friday . ''i think we grew up , '' ms . lee said . ''i know how to cook , and how to make a living in a community of so many people . ''",has a topic of education
"for years , local politicians said today , they had been trying to get someone to do something about thomas hamilton . mr . hamilton , 43 , a shambling loner whose obsessions were guns , boys and photography , was well known to children and their parents in this tiny community , even before he killed 16 small children , their teacher and himself in a burst of gunfire on wednesday morning . as the leader of a local boys' club , he had generated scores of informal complaints over the years from parents who said their children felt uncomfortable around him . recently , he had begun sending bitter letters to townspeople , politicians and the queen , saying that he had been unfairly branded a "" pervert . "" but today people here were asking why someone well known to the police and apparently trusted by no one had been allowed to continue working with children and to own the four semi automatic pistols he used in the shooting . mr . hamilton was dismissed as a boy_scout leader in 1974 . in a news conference here this morning , regional council members said they had tried to get him removed from the boys' club he ran , in which children complained that he was overly familiar , that he made them take their shirts off , and that he was obsessed with photographing them . ultimately , the councilors said , no parent produced evidence that mr . hamilton had abused a child . an effort to stop him from using the dunblane high_school as a meeting place for the group in 1984 also failed , the councilors said . and while the police investigated him in 1989 after parents complained about his behavior on a weeklong camping trip , the daily express reported today , they did not file charges . "" we tried everything , every channel available to us , "" said a council member , anne dickson . "" but the police can do nothing unless there 's a specific charge and you have proof . "" the bbc reported that mr . hamilton had been rejected for membership in a local gun club just a few weeks ago , despite having been licensed to own firearms for 19 years . in britain , applicants for gun licenses have to prove their fitness for gun ownership , declare that they are not mentally ill , inform the police of any criminal_record and furnish reasons why they want to use the guns . robert bell , who owns a gun shop in nearby stirling , told the bbc that mr . hamilton always had the proper documentation for weapons he bought there . what remains unclear is why mr . hamilton was granted a license that is supposed to be difficult to obtain . "" what seems rather extraordinary is the way in which the rules were applied in this particular case , "" michael stephen , a member of parliament , told the press association . "" i would have thought he was an unacceptable person . "" today , many stores on high_street , the social center of this cathedral town , were closed . some had signs out front , expressing sympathy for the families of the children . "" it is very difficult because people will always be aware of yesterday , "" said louis stott , owner of browsers bookstore on high_street . he said that from now on , the town would think of itself completely differently in terms of "" before "" and "" after . "" "" it will be like lockerbie , except that dunblane will always be the place where the children were murdered . "" the shooting killed 16 children 6 years old or younger and their teacher , and left 12 children injured . three remained in critical condition today . a picturesque town of 7 , 000 people , many of them well to do commuters with jobs in edinburgh or glasgow , dunblane is known as a place of friendly respectability and beautiful large houses , where people know their neighbors and even burglary is seen as an exotic urban practice . in front of dunblane primary_school a growing pile of bouquets , stuffed_animals and poignant notes dotted the drive , and some residents were calling for the gymnasium where the shooting took place to be torn down . ron taylor , the headmaster , said he would never forget what the gymnasium looked like when he arrived right after the shooting stopped . "" the scene that met us in the hallway was utterly devastating , utterly appalling , "" he said . "" evil visited us yesterday , and why , we will probably never know . """,has a topic of education
"in the old days , fidel_castro and yasir_arafat walked the halls as guests of patrice lumumba university . and in the dormitories , the talk among students was of revolution and of radical plots to shake off colonial and imperial masters . ''we were idealists , '' said valery a . belov , a russian law professor who graduated from the university in 1973 . ''we thought we could change the world . '' created by the soviet communist party in 1960 , patrice lumumba university had as its main mission to recruit and train students from developing_countries . it was hoped that those young men and women , who studied free of charge , might ultimately carry the communist_revolution across the third world . the school was renamed for mr . lumumba , the first prime_minister of zaire , after he was killed during a coup backed by the united_states in 1961 . but when the soviet_union collapsed in 1991 , so did much of the university 's funding . scholarships dried up , and poor foreign students stopped coming . today the university , which once educated nicaraguan guerrillas , sri lankan revolutionaries and the terrorist known as carlos , now courts those who can pay their own way . many are the wealthy sons and daughters of the very third world capitalists the soviets once dreamed of overthrowing . ''yeah , they all used to be communists here and some of the teachers still are , '' said olawale bewaji , a 21 year old engineering student from lagos , nigeria , who listens to american rap_music in his spare time . mr . bewaji , the son of a nigerian doctor , says he is more interested in democracy than communism . ''i just tell them , 'you 're old fashioned , ' '' he said . five years after the collapse of the communist ideology that created it , patrice lumumba university now renamed the russian people 's friendship university is still struggling to establish a new identity in a democratic russia . foreigners , who once dominated the university with 65 percent of the enrollment of 7 , 000 , now make up only 30 percent of the student body . most of its students are russian now , many of them young people who could not gain entrance into more prestigious universities . the third world students who do walk the campus these days carry beepers , wear levis and rent movies for vcr 's they brought from home . most dream about making money , not revolution . confronted with the new reality , the administration added business courses , tossed out communist texts and dropped classes like marxist philosophy . it is only natural then that business_administration is one of the university 's most popular courses . the once required staple , ''history of the communist_party , '' is now history itself . even the remaining communist students here arrive with capitalist sensibilities . ''when i got to the dormitory there was nothing but a bed in the room and an uncomfortable bed at that , '' complained xuan yizeng , 23 , an economics major from beijing . ''i had to buy a television and a radio myself . can you believe that ? '' the university still attracts foreign students because its diplomas still carry prestige in parts of the third world and because its tuition is only 2 , 000 a year a bargain when compared with some western institutions . but the changes sadden some old timers , who miss the heated political discussions at the university . ''now there are just a few dances , that 's it , '' said professor belov , who heads the university 's graduate association . ''the students study business and they think about making money , '' he said . ''in the old days , we thought about the struggle . now , they study capitalist ideas and forget they 're in the birth place of socialism . '' the welcome that the young foreigners once received from russians , who viewed the students as allies in the battle against capitalism , is also strained . ''the soviet hope was that these students would go back and become spokesmen for the russian view of the world , '' said elizabeth k . valkenier , an american who is a resident scholar at columbia_university 's harriman institute of russian studies . ''together , they were going to strangle the west . '' now , foreign students say , they encounter hostility and racism on the streets from police officers and average citizens . several years ago , an african student was killed by the police during a confrontation here with black students who complained that the police harassed them . and students say they are still tormented by police officers , who stop them , demand to see their visas and then insist on a bribe before letting them go . ''the first russian word i learned was 'fine , ' ' said mr . xuan , which he said was the polite word that the police often use when demanding money . ''on the metro , the people , they yell , 'go home ! ' '' he said . such hostility surprised osahon egho , an 18 year old law student from nigeria . her father , now an engineer , attended the university as a young man . he still raves about the hearty welcome he received here . ''foreigners , we were like kings , that 's what my father tells me , '' ms . egho said . ''but now we 're second class citizens . '' she says that she and her friends would have preferred to study in the west . but since nigerian gangs have been linked to the heroin trade , nigerians often find it difficult to get student visas , she said . ''america would n't let us in , '' ms . egho said . ''london would n't let us in . so we came here . i think i regret it . '' but even students who complain about crumbling dormitories and communist professors still commend the university 's academic rigor . and the school still takes pride in its history , despite the changed environment . in a glass case , in the patrice lumumba museum , for instance , hangs a metal etching bestowed by mr . arafat that depicts a wished for palestine . it is surrounded by gifts from students and politicians from around the world elephant tusks from sudan , a glittering dagger from yemen , an aztec calendar from mexico . for while few of the university 's students set off communist revolutions , many have become respected political and scientific leaders in their countries . they include doctors in japan , economists in chile , politicians in mexico and engineers in nigeria . and this year , for the first time since 1992 , the government is once again offering scholarships to foreign students . even without the ideological glue that once brought people together , the school still hopes to unite foreign students and to produce well trained professionals who will play significant roles in their countries , professor belov said . ''everything has changed , '' he said , ''but what remains is the idea of the friendship among peoples . '' moscow journal",has a topic of education
"for most of two centuries , england 's private boarding_schools have struggled to turn generations of young toffs into gentlemen , mixing classics and cricket with a lip stiffening regimen of hard beds , cold showers and mean discipline , often meted out by a sneering clique of dormitory bullies . but with the recession and changing attitudes about boarding cutting into their enrollments , many of britain 's best public schools , as they are known here , have embarked on a new and , in its own way , revolutionary strategy to entice fresh recruits to their privileged ranks . they are marketing themselves as caring , pastoral institutions where cuddles and compassion are supplanting the sometimes cruel punishment of the past . times and the economy have both changed , acknowledged david jewell , the headmaster at haileybury college in rural hertfordshire about 20 miles north of london , a campus of elegant victorian architecture that traces its roots to the beginning of the 19th_century , when it was founded as a training academy for the east india company . this fall , mr . jewell and the headmasters of some 200 other british public schools agreed at a meeting to mount a new marketing campaign to convince prospective parents that boarding_schools are pleasant , convivial and caring places after all . what manhood means 'not so long ago , conformity and manliness and toughness were the virtues that we celebrated , "" said mr . jewell , whose outlook was shaped , in part , by some bleak memories of his own life as a public_school student in devon , where he recalls being beaten twice by older boys . "" now we value nonconformity and independence of thought , and try to teach young men that real manhood involves tolerance , not aggression . "" in haileybury 's great domed dining hall , beneath the framed portrait of clement atlee , a former prime_minister and haileybury "" old boy , "" as graduates are known , a table filled with 14 and 15 year old boys agreed that it was so . "" no sir , "" they agreed , in near chorus , when asked whether they had suffered bullying or beatings from older pupils . overall public_school enrollment has risen to 608 , 000 about 7 percent of the total student population from 560 , 000 in 1985 . but dick davison , the deputy director of the independent schools information service , said enrollment at boarding schools had been on a long term decline , dropping from 125 , 000 in 1985 to 115 , 000 this year . over the same period , the number of boarding schools has also fallen , from 1 , 040 to 979 . but the drop has been sharper in the last two years , as families pinched by britain 's longest recession since the 1930 's have turned to lower cost alternatives for educating their children . annual tuition and boarding fees at first rank public schools average about 17 , 000 a year . 'more like families' "" the schools decided they had to do a better job of marketing , of reassuring parents they are more friendly places , more like families , with strong pastoral support systems , "" mr . davison said . "" the fact is , bullying and corporal punishment went out at most boarding schools more than a decade ago , but we just never got the word out . "" the british public_school has changed in other ways , too . most of them now enroll young women , at least in the upper forms , which are equivalent to 11th and 12th_grade in an american high_school . at haileybury , for example , a third of the upper form pupils are girls . in addition , there has been a marked trend in recent years away from boarding and toward day schooling . about four of every five students attending private schools today are day students , a departure from the days when many upper_class parents ritually packed their sons off to boarding_school as soon as they turned 8 or 9 . over the years , the public_school has loomed large in the british consciousness , partly as a result of a succession of popular books and stories set in boarding schools , and described recently by the times of london as a kind of "" unique english bildungsroman "" that helped inculcate among its young readers a shared set of distinctly english values . the heroes of such stories are invariably stout hearted fellows , keen on athletics and defenders of the underdog , as they confront a succession of adolescent bullies and cheats who comprise a kind of permanent moral underclass . the victims organize the type was first described in "" tom brown 's school days , "" published in 1857 and telling the tale of young squire brown , sent off to rugby school to become a "" brave , helpful , truth telling englishman , and a gentleman , and a christian . "" along the way , he muddies himself on the playing fields and outwits flashman , the callow school bully . in all of these novels , like life in the schools themselves , the premium was placed on the stiff_upper_lip . to cry or cringe or give in was , in the brutal lexicon of the public_school set , to be "" wet , "" a stinging epithet . such attitudes claimed victims , and three years ago several public_school graduates went public with a support group called "" boarding_school survivors , "" to serve men who now say their experience in public_school left them scarred and hurt . in an answering echo , the schools now seem insistent on emphasizing their own softer feelings . elizabeth prichard , the first chairwoman of the incorporated association of preparatory schools , an organization that represents many boarding schools for elementary age children , said last month that schools must now put the emphasis on "" compassion , care and cuddle , "" rather than conformity . mr . jewell says he still believes that public schools have a role to play in building character and enforcing a ethical and moral code among his young charges , although he says it is n't as simple as it was in tom brown 's days . "" i may personally believe the air marshals and generals who won world_war_ii were much better role models than the sex pistols , "" he said . "" but after all , we do have to live in our own times , do n't we ? """,has a topic of education
"the end of the cold_war has sent a chill through russian_language departments . enrollment in russian classes at 50 universities has dropped an average of 30 to 50 percent since 1990 , according to the national foreign language center in washington . at american_university in washington , for example , the number of students studying russian at the end of the first semester of the academic year dropped from 220 in 1990 to 122 in 1994 , said john schillinger , ph . d. , chairman of the language and foreign studies department . the decline has threatened the survival of russian_language programs at some universities , such as the university of washington , seattle . "" the ironic thing is , there are jobs where there were never jobs before , "" added dr . schillinger . law_firms , for example , are pouncing on graduating students and sending them to open new offices in russia , said helen reeves , retiring chairwoman of the russian and east european studies department at connecticut_college in new london . the decline in studying russian stems in part from americans' lackluster interest in languages and the growing number of interdisciplinary programs that siphon off students from language programs by giving them a taste of russian_culture in combination with other courses . russia 's current image also plays a role . "" the public perception of russia is one of huge uncertainty , "" dr . reeves said . blackboard",has a topic of education
"when fereshta ludin completed her training to become a grade school teacher six years ago , she seemed to be laying the groundwork for a classic immigrant success story . after coming to germany at age 14 , ms . ludin , an afghan born muslim , sailed through the education system , married a german , and earned , at 24 , the credentials to teach in the country 's public schools . she was even qualified to teach the german_language . but education officials prohibited her from taking a public job because she wears a head_scarf . the officials , from the southern german state of baden w rttemberg where ms . ludin received her qualifications , contended that the head_scarf could have a negative religious influence on schoolchildren . ms . ludin sued . now , after being rejected by three lower courts , her case is before the constitutional court in karlsruhe , germany 's highest court . the dispute has divided public opinion and become a touchstone for anxieties about the country 's growing islamic minority . experts say that the court 's decision , which is expected as early as july , could affect german integration policy for years to come . ''the head_scarf has become a symbol for the issue of what role islam can have in germany , '' said mathias rohe , a professor of law and an expert on islamic minorities in europe at the university of erlangen . on paper , ms . ludin 's high_court challenge hinges on the extent to which freedom of belief and equal right to public employment do not interfere with the concept of a secular_state . ms . ludin contends that her head_scarf is a matter of personal preference and has no bearing on her ability to teach . baden w rttemberg 's education minister , annette schaven , contends that ms . ludin 's head_scarf violates ''the strict neutrality of public schools in religious issues . '' but ms . schaven , a christian democrat , has made clear that her primary concerns are about islam . in denying ms . ludin a job in 1998 , the minister argued that a head_scarf was ''understood as a symbol of the exclusion of woman from civil and cultural society . '' both conservatives and many on the left here contend that the head_scarf is merely a device of social control in islamic cultures where women do not enjoy equality with men . in an essay in der_spiegel last week , alice schwarzer , a prominent feminist , wrote that a decision in favor of ms . ludin could lead to ''parallel worlds'' in which a small minority was allowed to practice islamic_law and establish a restrictive social system within germany 's borders . ''the woman 's veil has been the flag of islamic crusaders , '' she wrote . ms . ludin , who now teaches at a private islamic school in berlin , responds that the german school officials , not her faith , have limited her professional aspirations . ''it amounts to a ban on employment because of my beliefs , '' said ms . ludin , now 31 , in an interview . ''as a teacher , i am supposed to educate children to become literate and tolerant . but how can i do this when i have to renounce my own identity , and in a democracy where tolerance is considered a cardinal virtue ? '' as ms . ludin 's supporters point out , she makes an unlikely candidate for islamic crusader . she is the daughter of a diplomat and a schoolteacher . she spent parts of her early childhood in germany where her father was briefly stationed and in saudi_arabia , before immigrating as a teenager to germany . by ms . ludin 's own account , she surprised her family when , as a young adult in germany , she started wearing a head_scarf . she describes the decision as a free choice based on her personal faith . ''i am just as against the oppression of women and inequality as any other german , '' she said . ''if the head_scarf were a political symbol , i would be the first to take it off . '' baden w rttemberg officials acknowledge that there is no evidence that ms . ludin is trying to bring political islam into the classroom . ''we believe that she does n't want to be a missionary and that she shares our democratic values , '' ferdinand kirchof , the legal representative of baden w rttemberg , told the constitutional court this month . ''it has to do with the image that is projected . '' the separation of church and state is not as strictly defined in germany as in the united_states . churches are financed by state administered taxes , and religious instruction takes place in most german public schools . nonetheless , the constitutional court has placed limits on the use of religious symbols . in a landmark 1995 case , the court forbade hanging a crucifix in a public classroom . but that ruling , experts point out , related to religious symbols on public buildings , not to personal attire .",has a topic of education
"the principal 's office in the little country school here has a gleaming new bell and loudspeaker system to broadcast messages and summon the student body from recess . but it would be simpler to yell through the window for daiki saito to come in . daiki , an impetuous 7 year old with a mischievous sparkle in black eyes that dance beneath bushy eyebrows , is the only student in the entire school . this boxy , cream colored schoolhouse is a monument to japan 's commitment to equality and also to japanese inefficiency . daiki is the sole child living in this little village surrounded by forests in the foothills of mount_fuji , but the government spent more than 100 , 000 renovating an abandoned old schoolhouse for daiki and then assigned him his own first grade teacher and principal . it costs 175 , 000 a year to run daiki 's school . as japan struggles to revive its economy and avert a global recession , it is under enormous pressure to make itself more efficient and thus stimulate a new burst of economic_growth . but it finds itself profoundly torn , for efficiency would come at the price of egalitarianism and other values that many japanese regard as at least as important as economic_growth . ''nowadays , everybody calls for reforms and efficiency , '' said tomishige yazaki , daiki 's principal . ''but if we just pursue efficiency , the world would become a very dry place , with no sensitivity . '' japan is often denounced as recalcitrant and paralyzed as its economy sinks into its worst recession in six decades , and it is true that japanese leaders have spent years denying the existence of economic nettles instead of grasping them . but in some respects this is a principled paralysis . japan 's economic catastrophe has harmed all of asia and arises largely from political incompetence , endemic corruption , webs of relationships that misallocate resources and a parliamentary system that hugely over represents the most backward parts of the country . some of japan 's most serious delays , such as confronting its bad_debts and banking instability , have involved more paralysis than principle . yet while everyone around the globe is complaining about how bad japan is , in other respects the problem is that it has been too good . economists have long known of the ''paradox of thrift , '' which states that although it is admirable to save , a country that saves too much ends up hurting itself . that is one of japan 's ailments , but more broadly it is being pummeled by what might be called a ''paradox of virtue . '' the economy is in deep recession in part for reasons that , in an old fashioned way , seem honorable a passion for prudent fiscal planning , for stamping out inflation , for saving for the future and perhaps most important of all , concern for the human flotsam of capitalism and for equality for all citizens . fiscal nightmare recklessness urged japan 's commitment to equality is intricately linked in at least two ways to its economic crisis and the world 's . first , it is producing a welfare_state for the inefficient , leading to a growing misallocation of resources in the world 's second largest economy . second , the impulse to improve the quality of life in remote areas by building tiny schools and countless mountain roads has helped send costs spiraling out of control . soaring budget_deficits and concern about how to pay for the retirement of japan 's baby_boomers led the government to raise taxes last year . there is now broad agreement that the tax increase was a fatal misstep that plunged japan into recession . but even if its timing was catastrophic , japan was trying to do what economists believe is in principle the right thing reduce budget_deficits and plan for the aging of the baby_boom generation . all industrialized_countries face this challenge but most have put off the hard decisions , while japan 's leaders last year ignored its economic weakness and confronted the problem by raising taxes . in retrospect , this was as foolish as it was well intentioned , and the results were calamitous japan 's economy fell to pieces , and the government now says that economic output will contract this fiscal year for the second year in a row . the stock_market is at a_12 year low , and japan 's biggest banks eight of which have assets worth as much as the entire russian gross_national_product are wobbling . ''japan has found itself in the position of fighting the last major economic war , the great depression , '' said adam s . posen , a scholar at the institute for international_economics in washington and author of a new book on japan 's economy . ''and its government has chosen to pursue the strategy that lost that war . '' mr . posen and many other economists here and abroad recommend a gigantic fiscal_stimulus , such as a huge new spending program coupled with tax cuts . japan has reluctantly taken steps in that direction , but it has dithered because huge spending increases seem so , well , irresponsible . japan finds itself hampered as well in its monetary_policy , because in the past it attacked inflation so relentlessly that interest rates are extremely low . that makes it difficult to ease monetary_policy by lowering rates further , and so some experts are urging japan to get out of this box by pledging to be irresponsible and taking steps to nurture inflation . the upshot is that for a diligent , serious nation like japan , the present economic crisis is a nightmare it is being scolded on all sides and advised that it must be more fiscally reckless and monetarily irresponsible . a fiscal or monetary stimulus may rescue japan in the short run , but most economists here and abroad say that in the longer_term japan must restructure its economy and pay much more attention to efficiency rather than equality . yet the calls for efficiency run smack into the egalitarianism that has been a national ideology since the end of world_war_ii , when a defeated japan was told of the evils of its traditions of authoritarianism and hierarchy . many economists and business leaders say that an obsession with equality is stifling japan . inefficiencies and bureaucracies take the government 's building projects . they are partly a way of showing thanks to construction companies , which contribute mightily to the liberal_democrats . yet such projects also seem to reflect an egalitarian commitment to improve the lives of people in remote areas . on ikarajima , a sleepy little islet in southern japan that is home to only 350 people , a dazzling new 125 million steel bridge rises like a mirage , to connect one end of the island with a neighboring island . the bridge , built in 1996 to replace a ferry that used to take 15 minutes , cost 357 , 000 for each resident of ikarajima . that led to some sniping about waste of money , and so plans for a 250 million bridge on the other side of ikarajima have been put on hold for now . ''the island people have been eagerly waiting for this new bridge , but now because of reports of waste , they are deprived even of their dreams , '' said kenzo uehara , a town official on the island . ''i do n't know that you can criticize these projects just by the logic of numbers . '' one of the most breathtaking economic inefficiencies is the expenditure on tiny schools with just a handful of students . while daiki 's case is unusual , another school near ichinosetakahashi also has just a single pupil , and so does a school in the southern city of kumamoto . the education ministry says it does not know how many single student schools there are in japan . but it says the country has 3 , 324 elementary schools 14 percent of the total with fewer than 50 students in all grades put together . why run an entire school for a single student , regardless of cost ? the main reason is obliviousness to costs , coupled with a feeling of obligation to rural communities that want their children to have a neighborhood school just like city kids . but japan 's sometimes rigid bureaucracy can also be a factor . in daiki 's case , the neighboring town operates an elementary_school just 20 minutes away . but the authorities say that because that school falls under a different administrative region , it is inconceivable that daiki go there . income distributed too equitably ''it might be less costly , and we would be happy to make such an arrangement if it were possible , '' said tadashi michibayashi , an official in the enzan board of education . ''but we in the administration have to draw the line somewhere . '' of the various elements of egalitarianism , japan is particularly proud of its even distribution of income . the richest third of the population in japan enjoys a total income three times as great as that of the poorest third compared with more than five times as much in the united_states . several global studies have found that an egalitarian distribution of income helps promote economic_growth within a country . but by most counts japan takes it too far . japan relies on 65 percent marginal tax rates its tax system is among the most progressive in the world and japanese companies suppress income differentials by paying employees according to seniority rather than merit . the tax rates and corporate practices reflect a psychology of egalitarianism , many say , that has tended to suppress entrepreneurship and hold back the most talented sector of the population . ''when i was here in high_school , there were four classes of about 50 kids each in my 11th_grade class , '' said robert alan feldman , who first came to japan as an exchange student and is now chief economist at morgan_stanley in tokyo . ''and as i looked around , it struck me that there were a couple of really bright kids in each class , and a bunch of medium kids and a bunch of dumb kids . and i asked the teacher , 'well , why do n't you track the kids in some way , like have a bright class ? ' ''and he gave me an answer i 'll never forget . he said 'it would n't be democratic . ' and i thought , gee , these people define democracy very differently . '' gaining consensus , respecting 'wa' more broadly , japan seems troubled by economic changes that are beneficial overall but that make losers out of some people . creating losers would upset the society 's ''wa , '' or harmony , a value that has been central to japanese society at least since prince shotoku in 604 proclaimed a constitution decreeing ''wa must be respected . '' the emphasis on wa often impresses visitors , but it also results in paralysis . japan has difficulty carrying out changes that benefit the majority but that are vigorously opposed by a small group of prospective losers . ''japan is a society of consensus , and as long as 30 percent of the population holds out against a decision , the government will not act , '' said yoshio hatano , a former ambassador to the united_nations . the tensions between the united_states and japan thus seem to arise not just from tokyo 's political paralysis but more fundamentally from a set of enormously different attitudes and values , not just about economics but about life itself . ''we are at two ends of the spectrum , the u.s . and japan , '' said masaru yoshitomi , one of japan 's leading economists . mr . yoshitomi noted that japan 's egalitarianism runs so deep that when schoolchildren take part in sports day activities , the prizes often go not just to the winners of the races but to absolutely every child who takes part . he suggested that this takes equality too far , breeding cohesion but suppressing the excellence that drives a modern economy . ''there are no outstanding people in japan , '' mr . yoshitomi said , only partly joking , ''and that has to change . ''",has a topic of education
"lead acting at the request of its author , congress has killed an 8 million appropriation to build schools in france for north_african jews . acting at the request of its author , congress has killed an 8 million appropriation to build schools in france for north_african jews . on a voice_vote , the senate approved a measure to rescind the appropriation late tuesday , the day after senator daniel k . inouye , a hawaii democrat , said he had erred in originally supporting the project . the house earlier voted 384 1 to kill the project . critics said the united_states should not spend money to build religious schools in a developed_country .",has a topic of education
"ichiro_ozawa , a highly unusual japanese politician who calls for a virtual revolution in his nation 's politics , economics , society and foreign_policy , was elected leader of japan 's main opposition party today . mr . ozawa , who would almost certainly put relations with the united_states on a new footing , thus moves one step closer to the prime_minister 's office . his platform calls for sweeping deregulation in almost every sector , a far reaching restructuring of the educational system and much greater willingness to use military force . still , it is far from clear that mr . ozawa will become prime_minister after the next general_election is called . and even if he were to become prime_minister , it is uncertain how much impact he would have . in any case , though , his rise to lead the main opposition party , the new frontier party , underscores a generational transition toward politicians who aim to be leaders as well as prime_ministers . mr . ozawa and others of his generation he is 53 are far more self confident than those who have ruled japan for 50 years . "" i will fight to my last breath , with all my power , for the new frontier party and for japan , "" a beaming mr . ozawa told a victory celebration of supporters who cheered him with shouts of "" banzai ! "" meaning "" 10 , 000 years , "" or "" long life . "" if mr . ozawa were to become prime_minister , there would inevitably be some strains in relations with washington , for his vision is of japan as a full partner of the united_states rather than as its caddie . yet mr . ozawa also favors the kind of broad deregulation in japan that americans have yearned for . moreover , mr . ozawa places enormous emphasis on military cooperation , and he would be far more willing than any other japanese politician to back up united_states forces in a conflict with north_korea or another country . the election of mr . ozawa means that the next prime_minister is likely to be either he or ryutaro_hashimoto , the leader of the liberal democratic_party , japan 's biggest political group . mr . hashimoto is also a new style politician , unusually assertive and ready for japan to exercise power , although he does not favor the same kind of sweeping changes . mr . hashimoto today called mr . ozawa "" a superb politician "" and said , "" i look forward to being able now to hold a fair and aboveboard debate on the issues . "" that was a dig at mr . ozawa 's reputation as a king maker , forging back room deals without stepping forward to engage in public debate . one reason mr . ozawa is not more popular is that he is widely seen as embodying precisely the tradition of behind the scenes machinations that he says he is determined to end . the party election process broke new ground . normally it is primarily members of parliament who choose a party 's leader . but the new frontier party allowed any japanese over 18 to vote for a_10 contribution , and 1.7 million people voted . a general_election must be held by july 1997 . mr . ozawa has a reputation as a brilliant campaign strategist he masterminded his party 's stunningly good performance in july elections for the upper_house of parliament and the next election will be held under a new system of single seat constituencies that make the outcome difficult to predict . mr . ozawa faces two other obstacles his health and his prickly personality . he has had heart problems , although it is not clear how severe they are now . what is clear is that he is a difficult person to work with , often as prone to pummel egos as to stroke them . a broader challenge would be how to prevail over an entrenched bureaucracy . two years ago another bold young politician , morihiro_hosokawa , became prime_minister and talked of far reaching change . he lasted less than a year as prime_minister and left little mark on the nation .",has a topic of education
"struggling to break loose from the uniformity and dogma imposed by highly centralized communist regimes , education authorities in much of the former soviet_bloc are introducing what for them is the revolutionary notion of choice in their school systems . a world education report published here today by unesco said many newly democratic governments of eastern_europe and the former soviet_union were allowing parents to pick between public , private and religious schools and giving greater autonomy to schools and teachers . the report said economic difficulties were often an obstacle to rapid change , and it noted that children in school when the soviet_union was dissolved in december 1991 were still in the same institutions , using the same textbooks , being taught by the same badly paid teachers . "" nevertheless , there is a new atmosphere in schools , "" the report said . "" in most countries of the region , there is consensus that education should become more humanistic and child centered than in the past , and teachers are experimenting with new methods and approaches . "" new subjects to study the report said that civics and history textbooks were being revised , that national literature was receiving new attention , that religious instruction is often permitted as an optional subject in state run schools and that interest in learning foreign languages has exploded . in universities , the traditional focus on science and engineering to produce technicians for the region 's heavy industries is also turning toward more modern subjects . "" a huge new cadre of specialists in business_administration , finance , economics , law , sociology , foreign languages and humanities will need to be educated , "" the report said . published every two years by unesco , the paris based united_nations educational , scientific and cultural organization , the world education report also noted that while the world 's population has grown , the number of adult illiterates fell to 905 million in 1990 , from 946 million in 1980 . 'catastrophic' in sub sahara but the report cautioned that disparities were growing in the third world , with illiteracy rates still rising in sub_saharan_africa , south_asia and the arab_states . "" in many sub saharan african_countries , the situation for school age children is catastrophic , "" it said . educational discrimination against women will be one of the main themes at a unesco sponsored education summit meeting in new delhi on dec . 16 to be attended by the leaders of bangladesh , brazil , china , egypt , india , indonesia , mexico , nigeria and pakistan . these countries account for 70 percent of the world 's adult illiterates . schools in the developed world , in contrast , are increasingly besieged by drugs , violence , gang warfare and threats to teachers . "" it used to be thought that these problems were peculiar to north_america , "" the report said , "" but the symptoms have appeared in europe and elsewhere , and public concern in a number of countries has been growing . "" turning to the crisis in higher_education , with a large unsatisfied demand in many former communist countries , the report said the lifting of travel restrictions has raised fears of a brain_drain . but it said it was too early to measure whether talented students would settle abroad or return home with useful experience . but , unesco said , perhaps the greatest challenge was faced by those eastern_european and former soviet republics that must now address the educational aspects of their cultural and ethnic diversity , notably the right of national minorities to have their own schools . the report said the situation was particularly complicated in the former soviet_union because some 20 million russians now live outside the russian_federation in republics that in many cases had adopted a new official national language to replace russian .",has a topic of education
"lead one of japan 's most powerful politicians , finance minister ryutaro_hashimoto , told the cabinet this week that the reason for an alarming decline in the country 's birth_rate is the government 's policy of encouraging japanese women to obtain a higher_education . one of japan 's most powerful politicians , finance minister ryutaro_hashimoto , told the cabinet this week that the reason for an alarming decline in the country 's birth_rate is the government 's policy of encouraging japanese women to obtain a higher_education . mr . hashimoto 's commments , reported over the last two days by government officials and the japanese press , appeared to suggest that japan should take strong policy measures perhaps including steps that would discourage women from continuing their education to assure that japan has a sufficient work force to meet its economic_growth plans in the next century . according to government studies , japan 's birth_rate fell to an all time low last year of 1 . 57 children per woman . in 1988 , the rate was 1 . 66 . mr . hashimoto 's comments prompted a somewhat embarrassed flurry of statements from the government 's chief spokesman , misoji sakamoto , who at first suggested that the finance minister was expressing japan 's official view of how to reverse the low population_growth trend , and then backed away from the comments . ''it is not such an easy matter to get japanese women to bear children for us , '' mr . sakamoto said . mr . hashimoto 's statement received a rather muted response here , perhaps because japanese society still broadly expects women to put child rearing ahead of most other concerns . but his comments created enough of a stir that late today he issued another statement . ''since japan 's birth_rate has been recently decreasing , i talked about a possible review of the higher_education system , '' he said through jun shiozaki , director general of japan 's management and coordination agency . ''but i did n't mean to say that the pursuit of higher learning by women is related to the drop in the birthrate . '' mr . shiozaki , who had conveyed mr . hashimoto 's original remarks , said he must have misinterpreted the finance minister 's statement , and apologized ''for the trouble i have caused . '' mr . hashimoto 's observations were widely reported , and cast as another example of the governing liberal democratic_party 's continuing troubles with women who vote , who make up much of the support for japan 's opposition_parties . earlier this year , during a strenuously contested election campaign , a prominent member of the liberal democratic_party suggested publicly that voters should be suspicious of takako doi , leader of the japan_socialist_party , because she is unmarried and has no children . the comment immediately drew harsh criticism , though miss_doi 's party did not fare as well as it had hoped in the election . but the socialist victory in an election last summer for control of the upper_house of parliament was attributed in part to the growing solidarity of women , who were angered by a new government sales_tax and by a sex_scandal that forced the ouster of prime_minister sousuke uno after two months in office . mr . hashimoto , a political ally of former prime_minister noboru_takeshita , is frequently mentioned as a strong candidate to become prime_minister in the next few years . but he is known for controversial statements , especially by japan 's demure standards . a month ago , he was forced to backtrack on suggestions that japan should resume its aid to china before other western allies agree to take the same step . few experts dispute mr . hashimoto 's basic observation that a growing number of japanese women have delayed beginning families so that they can complete their education . today more than a third of all japanese women go to a two year or four year college . twenty years ago , only about 17 percent went to a college of any kind . until now , no one has publicly suggested policies that would discourage women from attending college . ''higher_education , if we consider including women , is contributing to lowering the birth_rate , '' mr . hashimoto was reported to have said . ''i want the government to study this point . ''",has a topic of education
"lead french school reformers are calling for a law to prohibit anyone from adding new material to the school curriculum without at the same time eliminating something . french school reformers are calling for a law to prohibit anyone from adding new material to the school curriculum without at the same time eliminating something . ''this may seem funny to you americans who do n't believe in national legislation about the curriculum , '' said claude allegre , special adviser to lionel_jospin , france 's minister of education , in an interview . it does not seem funny at all to french school reformers . they realize that over the centuries more and more topics have been piled up until the curriculum has become very nearly unmanageable , leaving no room for new material without risking educational indigestion . ( in fact , many american school reformers , particularly in science , say they feel similarly hemmed in . ) while france is celebrating the 200th_anniversary of its revolution with pomp and publicity , its educational leadership is quietly , almost furtively , preparing an educational revolution intended to modernize the schools by freeing them from past requirements and methods . dr . allegre is a scientist and a member of the american_academy of science who has taught at the massachusetts_institute_of_technology and the california_institute_of_technology and expects to spend some time teaching at cornell this year . he hopes to guide the reform of french elementary and high_schools along ways familiar to many american educators making them less rigid , more child oriented . but as a pragmatist , he recalls the fate of radical reforms proposed in 1985 which not only ran into stonewalling opposition from the powerful teachers union but led to protests that threatened to tear the nation apart . ''our strategy this time is different , '' dr . allegre said . ''it is not to make big claims but to make a few key changes effectively . '' because the teachers union and the public have strong opinions about educatron , he explained , ''we must be more discreet . ''we have talked with the union , '' he said , and with ''old timers'' who might stand in the way of change . however cautious , the new route to the future would render obsolete the probably apocryphal story about the education official in paris who looked at his watch and told a visitor the exact page of a textbook that seventh_graders all over france were studying at that moment . local school_districts are to be given greater independence , dr . allegre said , adding quickly that nevertheless ''we must keep certain national standards . '' why the need for change ? france is experiencing the same educational difficulties that plague other urban , industrial societies . even though france has no major dropout problem , too many youngsters finish school deficient in reading and writing . the old methods of teaching , often by poorly trained teachers , are no longer good enough . in mathematics , the french schools face a crisis . ''we have virtually no french mathematics teachers , only math teachers from the third world , largely from north_africa , '' dr . allegre said . the priorities , he continued , are to raise teachers' salaries , to create new teacher training institutions and to raise the entire education budget , especially for university research . elementary teachers will no longer be trained separately in two year normal schools but will attend three year , university run academic programs , together with secondary_school teachers itself a revolutionary step in a rank conscious system . university professors are also to be given instruction in how to teach , a controversial idea even in the united_states . the use of television and cassettes will be part of modern teacher training . ''we are working on curriculum changes for the elementary and high_schools , with fewer formal lectures and more independent work by pupils , '' dr . allegre said . ''we want them to spend more time studying fewer things in depth instead of giving them a giant overview . we are still in the thinking stage about the new curriculum but have appointed the best scientists and educators to design it . ''we want teachers to know more about how children learn and how to do science rather than aiming at a vast amount of knowledge . or , when studying a language , it is important that the pupil can write a letter , not just know the literature . '' to keep track of how students are doing , french schools , beginning in october , will test children 's reading and writing at age nine or 10 . those who are found wanting will be given special instruction in small groups but will continue in their regular classes in all other subjects . looking at immediate problems , claude allegre , like educators everywhere , admitted that change does not come easily . ''i 'm not extremely optimistic , '' he conceded , ''but we have to do it . in my mind , we are not doing enough for education . '' education",has a topic of education
"yuri solonin , the dean of the philosophy department at st . petersburg state university , is a man of apparent self assurance . he is tall , trenchant , tough minded . but his wife is worried about him . of late , he has appeared agitated . ''she realizes i am not quite normal at the moment , '' mr . solonin said . ''and she wonders if i should not drop this project that is making me so nervous . '' the project in question is smolny college , the first institution to offer an american liberal_arts degree program in russia . jointly run by bard_college and st . petersburg university , smolny opened to a first batch of students last september . among those invited to teach was mr . solonin , who found himself torn between old anti american prejudices and an awareness that no ivory_tower , even that of the philosopher , could remain impervious to the end of the soviet_union and the arrival of capitalism la russe . ''it is very difficult for me to teach at smolny , '' he explained , running long fingers through an artfully trimmed beard . ''you see , the russian style of teaching is the monologue . i know i have to fight against this style , because the liberal_arts approach involves students being very active . so i must provoke student participation . but it is hard for me to maintain my self control , and i worry i will bend students to my authority . '' the existential crisis of mr . solonin , a man tugged between disciplinarian instincts and democratic curiosity , is one measure of the enormity of the smolny experiment . with russian society in flux , the army at war in chechnya and higher_education in a state of some dilapidation , the new college represents a bold gamble that american educational values of openness and creative exchange can take root in a country still vulnerable to an authoritarian backlash . in the liberal_arts system , students pursue a wide course of study from history to politics to architecture . breadth and depth are equally prized . nothing could be more different from the russian tradition of intense specialization in a single subject , learning by rote and oral examinations . but the conviction at bard_college is that liberal_arts became popular in the united_states because the country was building a democracy accordingly , it may now serve the same purpose in russia by opening young people 's minds to critical debate and the habits of participation . that may sound like an entirely laudable and uncontroversial objective in annandale on hudson , n.y. , where bard is home to 1 , 200 undergraduates . but in st . petersburg , history is no quietly flowing yankee river it is a succession of plots and counterplots . the very name of the city has changed several times as it adapted to different political realities . so nikolai koposov , the dean of smolny college , has not had an easy time . indeed , repeated attacks on the new institution have forced him to use all his diplomatic skills . among the sinister roles imputed to smolny in public discussions at st . petersburg university over the last several months have been those of a vehicle for a ''jewish conspiracy , '' facade for the central_intelligence_agency and saboteur of the sons of russia fighting the chechens . mr . koposov has been obliged to explain to some of his colleagues why smolny teaches dance when russia needs bullets . ''to the charges , i replied that conspiracy_theories have not proved very efficient in history , '' mr . koposov said . a historian who chose to specialize in 17th_century france to avoid subjection to paeans of marxism leninism , he is a man who understands russia 's mixture of subtlety and brutality . his nuanced mind and sense of humor will clearly be helpful in nurturing the compromises that alone will sustain this delicate russian american hybrid . ''it is natural , '' mr . koposov continued , ''that after the decades of soviet propaganda , there are people who want to destroy smolny and , if they do n't succeed , they want at least to be paid . you see , defiant russian nationalism may merely be a way of negotiating the price of compromise . american culture is relatively little known in russia , but american money is rather familiar . '' it is not only in russia , of course , that the united_states has had to confront an image problem as two conflicting trends in education confront each other . the first is a push by american colleges to establish campuses overseas as the global economy reinforces the perception that students require international experience . the number of american students studying abroad in 1997 98 , the last year for which statistics are available , increased almost 15 percent from the previous year . ''we have a responsibility to produce global citizens , '' said dr . j . michael adams , the president of fairleigh_dickinson_university in new jersey , which opened a campus in tel_aviv in 1996 . ''we see ourselves preparing citizens of the world . '' from athens to panama , american universities have been setting up branches overseas , supported by the strong dollar and economy . rice_university , for one , is helping establish a university to open in 2001 in the north german port town of bremen . courses will be taught in english and credits and degrees will follow american standards . the second trend , however , is the emergence of a view that all this talk in the united_states of ''global citizens'' disguises the true motive . behind it , the theory goes , lurks a naked american ambition to shape the young minds of the world and so extend the overwhelming cultural pre_eminence of the united_states . it is not surprising given the extent of america 's economic , military , political and cultural domination since the end of the cold_war that a reaction against what the french call the hegemony of the united_states has begun . education , quite naturally , has not been spared in this backlash . ''uniform education will lead to a uniform world one teaching , one thinking , '' claude allegre , the former french education minister , complained recently in le_monde . ''that our students go and study in the united_states and britain is entirely desirable , but that the americans install their universities throughout the world , all on the same model and with the same courses , is a catastrophe . we are preparing a counterattack , including distance education programs across national borders . '' any french or european counterattack , however , will confront the hold on the world 's imagination of american ideas and the english_language . ( american college fees are rather less inspiring . ) even mr . allegre went on to say that the change needed in french education was from a model of the omniscient teacher instructing passive students to one of ''interaction'' precisely the method embodied in the liberal_arts tradition . little doubt exists that ventures like smolny elicit strong demand partly because they are seen as passports to the internet driven culture of the new economy . an enrollment of 300 students at smolny four times the current figure of 78 is expected by 2003 . but can these american institutions manage the difficult balancing_act involved in introducing new ideas into sometimes stultifying foreign educational environments and do so without betraying an arrogance that provokes nationalist reactions ? leon botstein , the president of bard_college , is convinced that the key to success lies in the adaptation of an american model rather than its imposition . ''we are not interested in putting bard_college in russia , '' he said . ''what does interest us is a critical exchange of ideas , with real respect for dissent , and the notion that the liberal_arts model has some international validity adapted to each cultural context . of course , there is skepticism in russia about our rhetorical pieties . but i firmly believe that a liberal arts education , civil_society and participatory democracy are linked . '' certainly , st . petersburg , with its italianate palaces of warm ocher colors set down at the cold northwestern edge of russia , tells a story of the fertile , if not always tranquil , mingling of cultures . the city itself was created as one fantastic exercise in westernizing russia . it was dreamed up by peter the great , who also founded the university in 1724 . in so doing , he sought to introduce german educational ideas to a russian setting , an illustration that the marriage of national and foreign instruction is nothing new . the original smolny college , set on a broad bend in the neva river , was itself a russian italian project , designed as a convent for the empress elizabeth , a daughter of peter the great , by bartolomeo rastrelli , the italian architect of the hermitage . the long delays in its construction are evident in the mingling of rococo and neo_classical styles , but the result is felicitous enough . next door stands the smolny institute , notorious because the military revolutionary committee of the bolsheviks established its base for the october 1917 coup here . today a statue of lenin , newspaper in back pocket , clutching his cap , pointing the way forward to a glorious proletarian future , stands before the building . his back is turned to the czarist romanov emblem , a double headed eagle , that has been restored to the facade . russian history tugged between east and west , tradition and revolution , repression and reform is writ large in st . petersburg , an invitation to any student to reflect on the variegated culture of what remains a euro asian empire . the latest incarnation of smolny , whose classes take place principally at st . petersburg university , a few miles from the original blue and white convent building , amounts to a call to the new russia to opt for the liberal culture of the west rather than lurch into some new authoritarian foray . ''smolny should be a reminder of what the liberal_arts are about , '' said susan gillespie , the director of bard 's institute for international liberal education . ''the capacity to be intellectually courageous , creative and challenging in a nonhierarchical classroom that prepares you for an open society . '' sounds good . but of course smolny is very much a work in progress . wires hang ominously from walls , computers are conspicuous by their absence , and the penchant of russian teachers for the ' 'monologue'' dies hard in classrooms even if they have been coached in the ways of the liberal_arts . new courses in everything from literary criticism to american studies demand an agility for which the soviet_union was no preparation . ''to convince a medievalist that he or she should have some ideas about the french_revolution was impossible in the old system , '' mr . koposov , the dean , said . his wife , dina , also a historian , added , ''there were two schools of philosophy in the soviet system the official marxist one and the unofficial one in the gulag . '' still , great strides have been made . much positive sentiment about smolny exists within st . petersburg university alongside the misgivings and opposition . smolny has been accepted as an integral part of the university , one of the two or three most prestigious centers of higher learning in russia . the faculty is made up largely of russian teachers giving courses almost exclusively in russian ( as is required by law ) . the college offers graduates b.a . degrees from bard as well as degrees from smolny . in addition , smolny is lobbying hard at the russian ministry of education , and within the university , to gain approval to give out st . petersburg state university b.a . degrees in the liberal_arts and sciences . this would broaden its attraction to russian students . ''i do n't see any reason why this approval should not come , '' said yuri fedotov , the university 's vice rector for international affairs . ''the wider your range of activities , the more sustainable you are in a market_economy . since communism fell , we have more freedom and less money from the government , so we have to experiment . '' among the experiments at st . petersburg university have been the introduction of four year bachelor 's degrees alongside the old five year specialist degrees the foundation of a school of management the offering of university places to so called commercial students , who are obliged to pay fees at a university where all education has been free and , most conspicuously , smolny itself , where students pay 2 , 000 a year . this fee is too high for most russians , but mr . koposov said that about 80 percent of the students received scholarships covering all or part of the expense . supported by the philanthropist george_soros 's open_society_institute in budapest , by a 300 , 000 grant from the united_states_information_agency and by private donors , the college offers an interesting fund_raising model in cash short russia it also makes professors more marketable by forcing them to adapt . erin weeks earp , the one bard student in the first group attending smolny , has had to adapt a great deal herself since arriving from the united_states last year . she is in the vanguard of what smolny hopes will eventually be a large number of students from american and european colleges . age 20 , she considers herself a patient and tolerant person . but her patience and tolerance have been stretched . ''there 's a completely different attitude to everything you do life , work , study , '' she said . ''last semester , i tried to write a paper . i went to the library to sign up . i needed a passport , two photos , and then i had to fill out a questionnaire on what i wanted to research . finally , i received a library card . but nothing is computerized . all you have are card index catalogs in boxes where everything seems mixed up . in the end i found the reference for the book i wanted and handed in a slip with its name . i was told to come back the following tuesday . and when i got the book , i could not take it home . '' ms . weeks earp , who came to smolny to perfect her russian , has thought a lot about what distinguishes the american liberal_arts approach . ''the aspect that students here have difficulty putting their finger on is creativity , '' she said . ''at bard , it is not a transfer of information that takes place in class , but shar ing , and you may well find a student ripping apart a professor 's ideas . that is not an easy concept to grasp for russian students . '' but they are trying . in one classroom , a group of young russians is gathered for an anthropology course , ''gender as a concept and a field of study . '' according to a prospectus prepared by the professor , the class is devoted to an examination of ''gendered human differences from prehistory to the present'' and ''cross cultural examples of gender in the division of labor , access to productive and reproductive resources , and the exercise of political power . '' the students seem motivated , drawn to the novelty of this experiment . ''in the old way , '' said nikolai nikifarov , a student , ''you learn to lose your time listening to things that sound very lofty , but do n't mean anything . you listen but do n't understand . but in the liberal_arts , you learn because you feel you need it , not because somebody else thinks you need it . this dynamic feeling gets you turned on . '' anastassia zoueva , another student , said she had learned at smolny that ''you work better without pressure . '' in the regular courses at the state university , she said , pressure was constant , the lists of reading endless and the fear of offending a professor great . but smolny also presents some problems . several students acknowledged that their parents had difficulty understanding courses that did not lead to a specific career concern clearly exists that jobs will prove scarce for graduates . this fear is reflected in the fact that men have tended to shun smolny about 80 percent of the first students are women partly because they are not yet convinced that it can open the way to a good career . ''for government agencies and state businesses , the old five year specialist degree is still favored , '' mr . fedotov said . but the system that produced these specialists is clearly cracking . in its way , it was an extraordinary achievement the soviet_union focused enormous resources on education , and standards were extremely high . this fact holds out the possibility of a true marriage of the old and the new . unlike in latin_america , where the elites are sometimes known as the ''miami boys'' because they go to the united_states to be educated , russia may prove able to provide its own elite education . but it will have to adapt fast . konstantin barsht is a typical professor , teaching literature at another st . petersburg university , the state pedagogical university . he earns 65 a month . ''nobody pays taxes so the government does not have enough to pay teachers , '' he said simply , adding with a smile ''but russians are very strange , many still want to work for ideas rather than salaries . it is the main difference between russia and the united_states . '' mr . barsht has had to take a second job teaching english privately , and he recognizes that he is in what he calls ' 'survival mode . '' many of his fellow teachers have gone abroad or moved into private industry . at the same time , these russian industries are becoming more demanding , and they all want three things a higher_education , knowledge of computers and good command of english . enter smolny college , offering english , access to foreign capital and a real marriage of western and russian ideas . it is clearly a model with potential . but the last decade has been crushing in many ways , full of disillusionment and difficulties . as mr . barsht observed ''the pressure of poverty creates a moral state where optimism disappears . and somebody doing something new must be a little optimistic . '' mr . solonin , the philosophy dean , is one of the many russians left with deep doubts about change by his country 's painful transformation . ''we have to reconsider the relationship of freedom and creativity , '' he said . ''we thought that creativity was a function of freedom . but in the time of the gulag , people were totally unfree , and they created great works of science , of literature , of thought . in the soviet_union , it was impossible to talk , but we had something to talk about . now you can say whatever you like , but people have nothing to say . '' these words are shocking to western ears , and they express all this professor 's skepticism about smolny and the liberal_arts . to his mind , the american approach removes what he calls ''the tension and discipline necessary for ideas . '' he suggested that the c.i.a . had yet to prove that it was not behind smolny . and yet , he is ready to try to understand , even to adapt . in such painful adaptations , in such intellectual struggles , smolny may find its way . ''smolny college is still wavering , '' ms . weeks earp said . ''but it will find its own middle ground because people are motivated . not the american liberal education . not classical st . petersburg . something else . '' the global leap many american colleges and universities have set up branches throughout the world , citing an expanding global economy with america at the center and the popularity of english as the language of business . foreign students are attracted to the prestige of an american degree , and americans are lured by the international experience . champlain college ( burlington , vt . ) ''in the early 90 's we decided to focus on international , '' said david huwiler , vice_president for academic affairs at champlain . ''for years we told our students that the world was moving toward a global economy and we decided we should back that up . '' champlain offers undergraduate degrees in business and technology on campuses in the united_arab_emirates and malaysia and has plans for ones in india , singapore and hong_kong . champlain 's tel_aviv campus has 2 , 500 students , more than in burlington . ( www . champlain . edu ) fairleigh_dickinson_university ( teaneck and madison , n.j . ) about 250 students from israel , russia , ukraine and iraq are enrolled in its tel_aviv campus , which opened in 1996 . the four year program offers a liberal arts education with degrees in psychology , communications , business management and restaurant and hotel management . ( www . fdu . edu ) rice_university ( houston ) rice is lending administrators and other help to the international university bremen in bremen , germany , scheduled to open in 2001 . i.u.b. , a private research university , is to be modeled after rice , with a residential college system and small student faculty ratio . ( www . iu bremen . de ) saint louis university ( st . louis ) a campus in madrid was founded in 1968 by this jesuit university . more than 600 students are enrolled at the campus , which has 80 courses of study . ( www . slu . edu . and http spain . slu . edu ) temple_university ( philadelphia ) the university 's tokyo campus calls itself the oldest and largest american_university in japan , offering eight undergraduate majors . adelaide ferguson , assistant vice_president for international studies at temple , says the program offers an american style education stressing critical_thinking and creativity . temple also has campuses in rome and london . ( www . temple . edu ) university of maryland ( college park ) its campus in schw webster university ( st . louis ) webster 's geneva campus , which was established in 1968 , now has more than 500 students from 104 countries . webster also has campuses in britain , the netherlands , austria , china , thailand and bermuda . it says it is the first american_university to get approval in china to issue a master 's of business_administration . ( www . webster . edu ) the american universities they share a name and mission but are separate entities . the american universities of paris and of rome were founded in the 1960 's and grant liberal_arts degrees . the american university of beirut was founded in 1862 as syrian protestant college by american missionaries . today , it is a secular university that includes a medical_school and has awarded more than 60 , 000 degrees . the american_university of cairo , which offers liberal_arts degrees , was founded in 1919 and is now planning a new campus south of cairo . ( paris www . aup . edu rome www . aur . edu beirut www . aub . edu cairo www . aucegypt . edu ) roger cohen , the berlin bureau chief for the times , has been a paris correspondent and covered the balkans . correction april 9 , 2000 , sunday an article on page 26 of education life today about an innovative college in st . petersburg , russia , includes an outdated reference to claude allegre of france , who derided ''uniform education . '' after the section had gone to press , he was removed as education minister in a cabinet reshuffle .",has a topic of education
"in 1968 , french students took to the streets and nearly made a revolution . in 1995 , they are taking to the streets again for more professors , bigger classrooms and better libraries from the government so they can study harder and find good jobs . that is the message from the barricades around the architecturally stunning cantilevered and glass paneled buildings of the new university here . and it is essentially the same in some 15 other french universities on strike this month for better conditions . not marxism , but more money for alma_mater is what french students want in these budget cutting days , reflecting a revolution of a different sort that began in higher_education in france and much of the rest of europe after 1968 . then , there were 300 , 000 students in french universities . today there are 1.5 million , and many of the 79 state financed universities are bursting at the seams . "" there are 2 , 000 students here , but only 80 places in the library for them to study , "" said laurence gallerne gregoire , a 29 year old bilingual legal secretary who is going back to school to learn to become a spanish_language teacher . "" there are too few permanent professors on the faculty and too few administrative personnel , "" she said . "" and at examination time the lecture halls are packed so full that people can easily cheat . "" the university administration agrees that the campus needs more nonteaching administrative personnel and more permanent professors . the strike here , and elsewhere , has been low key , with most classes continuing even though demonstrators are occupying university buildings . this week the lecture halls here were packed with students plotting the most effective strategy to get more money for their studies out of the education ministry in paris , where thousands of students are to converge next tuesday to press the minister , francois bayrou , to come up with more money . france will spend more than 8 . 6 billion on the universities this year , 4 percent more than in 1994 , though there are about 5 to 6 percent more students . they pay for room and board , books , and a 135 annual registration fee tuition is free . so when unemployment started hitting double_digit levels in the early 1990 's , many high_school graduates who might have pounded the pavements in a good job market started hitting the books instead . a result was explosive growth at new universities like this one , which opened in 1989 with 166 students and 14 teachers and administrative personnel . this year it has 5 , 903 students and 347 teachers and nonteaching personnel not enough , many students say . overcrowding is also a problem in germany and other european state financed university systems where the only admissions requirement is a high_school_diploma . france has some elite schools like oxford and cambridge that admit only a chosen few the political sciences institute and the national school of administration in paris , for instance . but the government established scores of new universities around the country after 1968 to make higher_education more democratic . socialist governments in the late 1980 's and early 1990 's increased the education budget by 10 percent a year in some years . but president jacques_chirac 's conservatives have limited the increases in the last two years to just above the rate of inflation . mr . chirac has now made reducing french government deficit_spending his main priority . so today the entrance halls of the main administration building at marne la vallee were festooned with banners like this one "" spare some change to continue our studies . "" "" the demands are really pretty moderate , "" said jerome gabillot goyat , a 23 year old economics student . he had not even been born in 1968 , when students tied paris in knots and had epic battles with the police for days . this time , he said , "" we debated whether to sit down on the subway tracks and block the trains but decided not to because it would alienate people . "" instead , mr . gabillot goyat said , the students here took over a toll barrier on the nearby paris rheims highway , but only after giving the police time enough to prepare for their arrival . "" the police were great , "" he said . "" we stopped cars and asked people to make a contribution to improve conditions in the universities instead of paying the 10 franc toll . some people gave us 100 franc bills , "" he said 20 . the student strikes this year began in rouen , where students occupied the university president 's office and demanded a supplement to the budget . mr . bayrou sent a mediator , who came up with half of what the students asked for , and for a little while it looked as if the strikes would end . instead , rouen inspired similar actions elsewhere . so far , there has been little violence . but strikers at the university of metz kept an aide to the education minister from leaving for several hours on thursday after she visited the campus to try to calm things down . the students at metz assert that enrollment of 17 , 000 students entitled the institution to more than it got in this year 's budget , and they want 300 more research positions created there to improve its academic standing . eventually the aide , nicole ferrier , made her way out by a back entrance . "" i think we have a problem of budget growth , "" said bernard dizambourg , a senior official of the conference of university presidents here . "" but what the students want is unrealistic . five to six percent annual growth would be conceivable , but we also need to ask whether only the state should finance university education , or should families be asked to contribute more ? "" there are a few private colleges and universities in france , but american style tuition bills might provoke a bigger revolution here than in 1789 . mr . bayrou , the education minister , says he will make his proposals , expected to be considerably less dramatic , when the students arrive in paris on tuesday .",has a topic of education
"the last direct_election for a governor to be held in russia will go to a second round on feb . 6 , after a vote on sunday failed to result in an outright winner in the nenets autonomous district , an oil rich arctic region where most residents are desperately poor . after the school siege in southern beslan in september , president vladimir v . putin introduced what he called antiterror reforms , including an end to direct_elections of regional leaders . sophia kishkovsky ( nyt )",has a topic of education
"nancy jervis shudders when she remembers the china institute 's first summer seminars for new york city public_school teachers . the teachers "" were interested in chopsticks and bound feet and other notions , "" said ms . jervis , an anthropologist who is the institute 's vice_president for programs . "" and i said to myself , you could either throw up your hands in despair , or work hard to make the chinese human beings for these teachers . "" the new ork times , july 14 , 1996 that was seven years ago . there has been progress , ms . jervis said , but the need for teachers and guidance_counselors familiar with china and its culture is greater now as the percentage of asian students in city schools grows and non asian teachers and staff members find themselves uncertain about the most effective way to give them academic and other advice . those are among the reasons that the china institute is holding an expanded series of summer seminars on chinese_culture and national identity for 30 teachers and guidance_counselors , most from brooklyn and queens . "" it 's important to work within a student 's culture , "" said a participant , bonnie hirschorn , a guidance_counselor at john bowne high_school in flushing , who winces at the cultural insensitivity she showed toward a chinese girl struggling with math . the only tutor she could find was younger than the girl and in china that is considered a loss of face for the student . "" i did n't know it was a faux_pas , "" ms . hirschorn said . nian hong liang , who teaches chinese history at fort_hamilton high_school in brooklyn , was born in china and once taught american history in guangzhou . he said he hopes to use what he learns at the institute to expand the knowledge of american born chinese . "" if you ask some chinese who liu di hua is , "" mr . liang said , referring to a pop singer from hong_kong , "" they know right away . but ask them who mao_zedong is and you get a blank stare . "" anthony ramirez neigborhood report upper east side",has a topic of education
"hundreds of people gathered in tokyo , locking arms and singing ''we shall overcome'' to protest the adoption of textbooks they say whitewash japan 's world_war_ii history . the protesters , who included japanese , south koreans , chinese and filipinos , surrounded the education ministry to denounce the middle_school books . china and the koreas have demanded that japan reject or amend them . howard french ( nyt )",has a topic of education
"lead after several days of controversy that has embarrassed the governing liberal democratic_party , japan 's finance minister has denied saying that the growing number of women seeking higher_education are responsible for the sudden decline in japan 's birth_rate . after several days of controversy that has embarrassed the governing liberal democratic_party , japan 's finance minister has denied saying that the growing number of women seeking higher_education are responsible for the sudden decline in japan 's birth_rate . the finance minister , ryutaro_hashimoto , who is considered a strong candidate to become prime_minister in coming years , was quoted in the japanese press and by some of his own colleagues as suggesting at a cabinet meeting last tuesday that japan should rethink its policies of promoting college education for women . in a letter on saturday , mr . hashimoto said , ''it was distressing and damaging for me to be accused of having made a statement i had not actually made . '' but his letter left many questions unanswered and seemed unlikely to quell what mr . hashimoto himself termed a ' 'strong fury among japanese women . '' a raw nerve the reports of his comments have struck a raw nerve for an increasingly assertive population of young japanese , particularly women . awareness of women 's issues has grown significantly since last year , when the votes of women proved decisive in ending the liberal_democrats' control of the upper_house of parliament . nonetheless , the reaction to mr . hashimoto 's remarks clearly took the ruling party by surprise , and its leaders have spent much of the last few days furiously backtracking . ''it has become an issue , '' said kuniko inoguchi , a professor of political_science at sophia university , ''because the declining birth_rate really reflects the fact that the government 's policies have failed to provide young japanese couples with better amenities in life , like bigger and more affordable_housing . ''we do n't want politicians looking for other causes , or suggesting that the problem is the fault of women , '' professor inoguchi said . ''people want an honest recognition that the country 's policies are hostile to young couples that want to have bigger families . '' sharp decline in birth_rate japan 's birth_rate has fallen precipitously in recent years . a government study released several weeks ago said the average number of children that a woman in japan could expect to have in her lifetime dropped to 1 . 57 in 1989 . in 1965 , the figure was 2 . 14 . in the last few years the decline has accelerated , stirring concern among government and business leaders . japan already suffers from an acute labor shortage economists are questioning whether the labor force will be large enough to sustain planned economic expansion in the early 1990 's . few politicians are willing to call for a sharp increase in the birth_rate , in part because such a move would be reminiscent of japanese policy before and during world_war_ii , when the government urged women to reproduce as quickly as possible to preserve the japanese empire . jun shiozaki , the minister of japan 's management and coordination agency , told reporters after the cabinet meeting last tuesday that mr . hashimoto had urged the education and labor ministries ''to examine the relationship between higher_education for women and the birth_rate . '' confused accounts japanese newspapers went further , quoting mr . hashimoto as saying that higher_education is ''contributing to lowering the birth_rate . '' the reports suggested he had left the strong implication that japan should rethink its policy of encouraging young women to go to college rather than marrying and beginning families early . another senior government official who attended the meeting gave a nearly identical account of mr . hashimoto 's comments . by late wednesday mr . shiozaki had changed his account , saying that mr . hashimoto had said nothing about the birth_rate but rather had requested a ''comprehensive study on the relationship between higher_education and its impact on employment in general . '' in his letter , mr . hashimoto said the decline in japan 's birth_rate ''is usually explained by a change in attitude toward marriage the physical , psychological and economic cost of raising children and the housing problem . '' father of five mr . hashimoto is the father of two boys and three girls , a very large family by japanese standards . he noted in his letter that his wife and one of his daughters are college graduates . ''against this background , '' he wrote , ''the real meaning of my statement was that , in view of the decline in the birth_rate and the acute labor shortage in japan as well as the increase in the ratio of people seeking higher_education regardless of their sex it was time for the government , especially the ministries of education and labor , to review its policies regarding higher_education . '' professor inoguchi said the election results last summer marked ''a sort of a threshhold'' for awareness of women 's issues . ''the society has become much more sensitive to comments tinged with sexism . ''",has a topic of education
"lead pierre bernard , mayor of this working_class suburb on a hill northeast of paris , examined the four sheets of paper on his oversized desk . pierre bernard , mayor of this working_class suburb on a hill northeast of paris , examined the four sheets of paper on his oversized desk . ''let 's take this immigrant from mali , '' said the mayor , waving the sheets in the air . ''he has four wives . this wife has eight children , this one has seven children and this one has two . his fourth wife has none . that makes 17 children whose schooling our town has to pay for . '' mr . bernard has won quite a following among french rightists for his outspokenness on the most explosive issue in france today immigration . in his most pointed effort to halt the flow of immigrants to montfermeil , he has refused to allow the children of immigrants to enroll in two nursery schools in a neighborhood dominated by arab and african emigres . ''you see problems whenever there are such large concentrations of immigrants , '' he said . ''we all believe in integrating immigrants into french society , but how can you do that when you have 20 foreign children in a class and just 2 french children ? '' like two countries two frances intersect in this town of 25 , 000 , and the dividing line is boulevard bargue . on one side are modest prewar single family houses with tidy , geranium filled gardens and neatly painted black steel fences . that , mr . bernard asserts , is where the french live . across the street is a mass of dilapidated 10 story apartment blocks housing 8 , 000 people , 90 percent of them immigrant families from countries from algeria to zaire . high pitched arab music streams from the whitewashed buildings , and bright red and blue african robes are spread on balconies to dry . only a few trees sprout in this concrete and asphalt maze known as les bosquets , meaning the grove , a block of 1 , 550 apartments built in the mid 1960s . the elevators are usually broken , and the lights in many hallways do not work . the drug dealers and broken windows so common in american slums are not in evidence here . but les bosquets is considered one of the worst projects in a nation with a strong safety net . it is where the latest immigrants end up when they cannot find a better place . once led by communists for three decades , montfermeil was part of the ' 'red belt'' of communist administered suburbs surrounding paris , but in 1983 it swung sharply to the right . that was when mr . bernard , who does not belong to a political_party , ran successfully for mayor by pledging to halt immigration to montfermeil . immigrants now make up 30 percent of the city 's population . mr . bernard , who spent two decades in the french military , often serving in north and central africa , was easily re elected last year . he faced no opposition from the national front , the rightist party that seeks to deport many of the 5 million immigrants in this nation of 56 million . in 1987 , mr . bernard ordered town officials to reject immigrants seeking to enroll their children at two nursery schools in the shadow of les bosquets . the school directors ignored him , admitting any student who applied , as the law requires . in october mr . bernard threatened to cut off funding to the schools if they continued to accept immigrants' children . the schools again defied him , so in january he cut off funding for maintenance and for the school cafeteria while continuing to pay for heating . the national government pays teachers' salaries . overruled by government ''we 're not doing these children any favors by putting them in schools that do n't integrate them into french society , '' mr . bernard said . ''when these kids finish school , they end up unemployed . '' the national government 's representative in the area , the prefect of the seine saint denis district , which includes montfermeil , overruled the mayor and ordered that the town resume payments for meals and maintainance . mr . bernard also has been indicted again for racial_discrimination , a charge on which he was found guilty two years ago . rightists have hailed the mayor for taking a tough stance on immigration . the minister of education , teachers' groups and many parents have condemned him . ''if he wants to help the kids , why is he cutting off the cafeteria ? '' said nadia belmesaoud , an algerian immigrant whose 4 year old daughter , karin , attends victor hugo nursery_school , one of the two schools affected . ''if the mayor is unhappy about immigration , why does he have to take it out on little children ? '' halima , oumar and jean this school , with 269 students , is a collage of brightly_colored toys and stick figure paintings signed by students named halima , dynnah , oumar and jean . nicole erbani , the director , accuses the mayor of demagoguery . ''he claims that these children cannot develop well , '' she said . ''that 's not true . many of them do n't learn any french until they go to nursery_school , and later on they do just as well in school as other children . '' if mr . bernard 's action succeeded , she pointed out , immigrant children would end up staying at home , where they would continue to speak their parents' native languages . ''that certainly wo n't help integrate them into france , '' she said . many immigrants call mr . bernard a racist , but some privately express relief that he has brought attention to their decaying neighborhood . the national government is proceeding with a program to provide funding to improve education in montfermeil and to speed the integration of its immigrants . the government has also agreed on a far reaching project to demolish part of les bosquets and renovate other sections .",has a topic of education
"the rain struck the windshield of the bus waiting outside the children 's aid society 's hope leadership academy on madison_avenue and 114th street . in the agency 's renovated basement , michael roberts , wearing baggy jeans and a loose fitting pullover , was commanding the attention of 16 teenagers , ages 14 to 18 , spread across three bright_yellow sofas and a round plastic table . ''o . k. , listen up if you want to call your parents , do it now , '' mr . roberts , the society 's 38 year old director of youth development services , advised . the society is one of seven agencies supported by the new york times neediest cases fund . the academy is a post_9_11 initiative promoting solutions to violence and community leadership . it was september , and mr . roberts and ernesto isaac , 34 , the academy 's assistant_director , were about to accompany a group of students on a trip to germany . mr . roberts ran through the drill ''stay together and stay positive , '' he said . ''it 's going to be a long trip . '' the students had met strict requirements , including being nominated by directors for outstanding participation in the academy 's programs , writing two essays about germany , and making a two minute presentation to their peers and mr . isaac . to qualify , students like robert jackson and calvin harris , both 17 and both from east_harlem , had to learn about world_war_ii and the holocaust . ashley knoll , 17 , of brooklyn , wrote about learning more about her family her grandfather is of german heritage . for the next 10 days , the teenagers would feel like royalty , staying in an 11th century castle , burg hohenzollern , in hechingen , which is partly owned by the princess kira von preussen stiftung foundation . the foundation was started after world_war_ii to foster american german relations . for the last three years , it and another group , atlantic br cke , have underwritten the visits as a way to reach out to new york 's underprivileged families affected by the sept . 11 terrorist attack . after the first year 's success , the organizations continued the program and extended it to all low income teenagers associated with the children 's aid society . this year , it cost 3 , 000 to 4 , 000 for each student . for many of them , it would be the first time they had left new york . for jasmine akins , 17 , of harlem , the opportunity was one she could not pass up . ''the chances of a kid from the ghetto going to germany is about as common as bill gates moving into my neighborhood , '' she said . through the application process , the students had learned a lot about their destination , but after mr . roberts 's briefing , their hands shot up for some practical questions . mr . roberts responded ''yes , you can drink the milk . it 's fresher . '' ''their water 's good it comes right from the mountains . '' ''there will be showers , but there is only so much hot water . it 's a castle , so we 'll have to make a morning and night schedule . '' in germany , with the castle as their base , they would go on daily excursions visiting the mayor of bisigen a fire department , for a barbecue a high_school a holocaust museum the city of stuttgart and a pasta factory in trochtelfingen . before leaving new york , each teenager had certain expectations . ''what i hope to get out of this is a sense of thinking beyond and outside this borough or that borough , '' ashley said . ''i want a sense of learning different things , eating different food , reading different books , you know , poetry . '' mr . roberts said the transformation of the young men and women who have taken part in the program has been remarkable . ''they really start reading more , paying attention to the news and thinking about careers differently , '' he said . he and mr . isaac spent months planning the trip . the most consuming issue was getting passports for first time travelers and , for those who are resident noncitizens , visas . ''it 's always a process , '' said mr . isaac , who noted that many parents did not have documentation like social_security cards or birth certificates . this year , five families could not afford the 90 fee for a passport . mr . roberts drew money that neediest cases had allocated to the children 's aid society . he used it to pay for five passports , as well as for the rapid processing of two of them . on that rainy day in september , the teenagers at the academy wheeled their black suitcases , each bearing a white children 's aid society logo , outside to wait under an awning until everyone was ready to board the bus to newark liberty international airport . ashley 's preflight jitters did not lessen her excitement . ''hopefully , '' she said , ''i can tell my children one day 'this is what i did . ' '' ten days later , after the group returned to new york , mr . roberts summed up the trip ''the world came into harlem for our young people . it has changed their walk . '' mr . roberts is now at work to bring young germans to new york . ''we are trying to raise money for them to come here , '' he said . ''it is time for them . it has been three years of them opening their doors for us they treat us like royalty . we want to do the same . '' how to help checks payable to the new york times neediest cases fund should be sent to 4 chase metrotech center , 7th floor east , lockbox 5193 , brooklyn , n.y . 11245 , or any of these organizations brooklyn bureau of community_service 285 schermerhorn street brooklyn , n.y . 11217 catholic_charities , diocese of brooklyn and queens 191 joralemon street brooklyn , n.y . 11201 catholic_charities of the archdiocese of new york 1011 first avenue new york , n.y . 10022 children's aid society 105 east 22nd street new york , n.y . 10010 community_service society of new york 105 east 22nd street new york , n.y . 10010 federation of protestant welfare agencies 281 park_avenue south new york , n.y . 10010 uja federation of new york church street station p.o . box 4100 new york , n.y . 10261 4100 donations may be made with a credit_card by phone at ( 800 ) 381 0075 or online , courtesy of nycharities . org , an internet donations service , at www . nytimes . com neediest or www . nycharities . org neediest . for instructions on how to donate stock to the fund , call ( 212 ) 556 1137 or fax ( 212 ) 556 4450 . no agents or solicitors are authorized to seek contributions for the new york times neediest cases fund . the times pays the fund 's expenses , so all contributions go directly to the charities , which use them to provide services and cash assistance to the poor . contributions to the fund are deductible on federal , state and city income taxes to the extent permitted by law . to delay may mean to forget . previously recorded 2 , 178 , 657 . 75 recorded thursday 18 , 287 . 00 total 2 , 196 , 944 . 75 last year to date 1 , 867 , 692 . 55",has a topic of education
"a jewish school in a northern paris suburb was burned early saturday in the first attack on a jewish institution in france in about a year . the french interior_minister , nicolas_sarkozy , visited the charred and smoldering school in gagny , an area with a large muslim population , and said afterward that the arson attack had ''evident racist and anti semitic connotations . '' ''when a jewish school is set afire , '' mr . sarkozy told a 24 hour news channel , ''it is difficult for me to believe that it is not a matter of anti_semitism . '' he said there was evidence that the building had been illegally entered and that at least two fires had been set , one in front of the building and one inside . the fires appear to have been set about 3 a.m . local time , when no one was in the building . violence directed at jews flared last year in france , which has the largest jewish population in western_europe , about 600 , 000 , as well as the largest arab population , around four million . commentators blamed anger at the increasing violence in the middle_east for the attacks .",has a topic of education
"though happily ensconced in california , when in earshot of my 17 year old son , i invariably tout the advantages of college in canada , generally with the jingoistic fervor that the sportscaster don cherry brings to ''hockey_night_in_canada . '' with a solid grade_point_average and some heavy duty letters of recommendation , adam , i am sure , will have little trouble gaining a berth in a film program nearer home . still , 100 , 000 plus tuition for four years at the private university of southern_california ( and perhaps half that again to finance a student film ) is 10 to 15 times the cost in canada , where educational quality compares quite favorably , although u.s.c . probably offers the best film program in the world . canada 's 91 degree granting institutions are almost entirely financed and regulated by their home provinces . as a result , they offer undergraduate programs that can be remarkably uniform in funding , scope , quality and curricula . consequently , those bound for canadian schools focus on other factors , like campus size , student to teacher ratio , ambiance and location . despite frequent tuition_increases , college in canada remains a great deal more affordable than south of the border even before the weak canadian_dollar is factored in . for those americans who can , through parentage or birth , lay claim to dual canadian citizenship , it is a steal . tuition for an american student attending , say , simon fraser university , eight miles out of downtown_vancouver , runs about 3 , 500 a semester in canadian dollars , or ''loonies , '' as the coin has been dubbed after the bird on it . at today 's exchange_rates , this is 2 , 340 american a semester . since adam holds canadian citizenship , he would pay just over a third that amount , slightly under 1 , 700 american a year . quebec is the only canadian province that places a surcharge on nonresident canadians , but even there , tuition tops out at about 4 , 000 in loonies a year . of course , there are also living expenses , which can equal or surpass the cost of tuition . at simon fraser , which does not offer a meal plan , rooms run between 1 , 800 and 2 , 500 canadian ( 1 , 200 and 1 , 650 american ) a year . at ryerson polytechnic_university , in toronto , room and board are from 3 , 500 to 5 , 000 ( 2 , 340 to 3 , 340 ) a year . factor in books and supplies at 600 to 1 , 000 a year ( 400 to 670 ) , a couple of hundred loonies in fees , 250 or so ( 165 ) a month for fun and sundries , and , say , one flight home each semester at about 350 american , and we 're still laughing . with the money saved , i declared in one of my more forceful rants , we could travel first class coast to coast by air , rail and car in search of the ideal program and still stay in the black . hearing this , adam suddenly perked up . like many people in this country , his eyes tend to glaze over at the first mention of our neighbor to the north . this time , however , he displayed a wide_eyed exuberance reminiscent of mickey rooney on the eve of staging one of his backyard musicals . ''i think you 've got something there , '' he said . so , at the end of july , we flew in business_class to vancouver , from whence , four or five days later , we headed for jasper , alberta , and later still points east , aboard a silver sleeper called the canadian . adam could do worse than apply for admission to a west_coast school . the weather in vancouver and victoria is the most temperate in canada , the scenery spectacular , the schools only a two hour drive from the nearest southwest_airlines hub and the ambiance not unlike california 's . after a night 's pampering on the entree gold floor of the fairmount vancouver airport hotel , replete with platters of pate , cheeses and chilled chocolate dipped strawberries , followed by cocktails at 5 and two hours each in a whirlpool bath the size of a meat locker , adam was beginning to share my enthusiasm . subsequent visits to the three contending campuses , though , quickly put us both in a goldilocks frame of mind . one institution was simply too big , the other too small and a third , maybe , met our respective comfort levels . the university_of_british_columbia is lauded as one of canada 's most prestigious colleges , and a friend from montreal who attended graduate school there said he wished he had taken his b.a . there too . but i think he was more taken with the city and the free sailing available to students than with the institution , which struck us as too big , impersonal and bureaucratic for an undergraduate . according to ''the student 's guide to canadian universities'' ( key porter books , 19 . 95 canadian ) , as diverse as they may be culturally and ethnically , u.b.c . 's 30 , 000 students share a pronounced alienation from campus life . for all its accouterments golf and nearby skiing , as well as the legendary sailing some say the place resembles a factory . maclean 's , canada 's national newsmagazine ( and the consumerist bane of the country 's reluctantly ratings conscious academe ) , awarded u.b.c . second place in its 1999 annual ranking in the category of institutions with a broad range of ph . d . programs and research as well as medical_schools . the school did not even appear on the comprehensive or primarily undergraduate lists . becoming just another brick in the wall is not what adam wants or needs . so after a back to reality night in one of the campus 's spartan dorms we scratched u.b.c . from our list . situated just outside the provincial capital on the southern tip of vancouver_island , a two hour ferry trip from vancouver , the university of victoria placed fourth on the maclean 's comprehensive listing in '98 and '99 . the uvic campus is renowned for a crackerjack marine biology program , and the engineering school and robotics program are highly_regarded . the ''student 's guide'' characterizes uvic as ''a place where people from small towns and big cities alike can find elements of their home town , making the transition to a new urban dwelling much easier and a lot less scary . '' this certainly seemed to be one of the lures for 16 year old meghan buller , of university city , mo . , whom we met on a campus tour in the company of her parents , mark and joslyn . mark buller , a microbiologist who studies viruses at the st . louis university school of medicine , was born and grew up in victoria , and the family now summers there regularly . ''people make of school what they will , '' dr . buller said . ''but for me , it does n't feel as if she 'll be going away to college . it feels more like she 's coming home . '' pulling into the visitors' parking_lot at simon fraser university , which is perched atop a mountain in the vancouver suburb of burnaby , i experienced a similar frisson of recognition . the award winning main campus , designed by the architects arthur erickson and geoffrey massey , consists of a central mall bordered by five main buildings of precast concrete set amid lush parkland . simon fraser reminded me of the negev based officer training school in israel , which i attended in 1979 . cement oases erected in splendorous natural settings , both campuses offer welcomed shade and cool breezes in the summer . but do you really want to endure rain soaked winters in a place that shares a color_scheme with a pillbox ? actually , adam decided he would n't mind , s.f.u . that is . although still regarded by some locals as a repository for u.b.c . castoffs like many others in canada , the university was built after world_war_ii to accommodate returning veterans simon fraser consistently tops the comprehensive category in maclean 's . the magazine 's editors cite the university 's academic iconoclasm , a tightly maintained teacher student ratio and a challenging yet manageable campus experience . the university 's film major program , offered by the department of fine_arts , accepts only 50 students a year through a review process ( apart from the university 's general admission requirements ) that includes filling out a questionnaire and undergoing an interview . a portfolio is not required , for some candidates may not have had access to a camera or to professional editing software . others may not have been fortunate enough ( or industrious enough , i considered interjecting ) to land an internship during their junior year with a hot hollywood production_company , as had adam . ''we do n't just teach the cookie_cutter tools , '' a department representative told us after a brief campus tour . ''we train our students to be thoughtful filmmakers . what 's the point of mastering the technology if you do n't have any ideas to make your movies about ? we care about the esthetic and social context to filmmaking , as well as the technical skills . '' ''and how easy is it for your graduates to find work in the industry'' i asked , biting my tongue even as the words came out . ''how easy is it for anybody ? '' she retorted . well put . adam picked up a calendar and application on the way out . we booked train tickets through via rail from vancouver to , ultimately , halifax , but booked a return flight from halifax , praying that air_canada 's pilots would refrain from calling a strike in the interim . first class rail was a hoot , although we learned rather late in the trip that the real fun was to be had at the head of the train , in coach , where a horde of kids was rumored to be engaged in a marathon ''diablo ii'' and beer chugging tournament . we contented ourselves with a single player version of the game in our stateroom . our stateroom was not quite as well turned out as the velour and mahogany caboose stateroom in the old ''wild wild west'' tv series . indeed , with reclining seats that set me in mind of a barber 's chair , it was more of a cubby . but we did have our own bathroom ( even if we had to wrestle with our suitcases to get into it ) , and there was a shower up the hall , rather like a college residence hall . there is , to be sure , something to be said for four course meals in the dining car , followed by a nightcap in the glass covered observation car . the young attendants were friendly , open and cheerful . the lady who tended bar did not even grimace , bless her , when i started chatting in french . once the pleasures of bingo paled , we returned to our freshly turned out beds for a night of flashing lights , train whistles and alternately gentle and vigorous rocking . i would have slept like a dead man but for the sugar rush i got from a bag of werther 's candies and for peter newman 's rousing three volume history of the hudson 's bay company . pulling into jasper the next day , we picked up a rental car at the station , and after a day trekking alongside the glacier fed athabasca river and the swollen gorges at lake maligne , we headed for edmonton by way of lake louise , banff and calgary . after several days of pampering at the palatial hotel macdonald in edmonton , we boarded the train for toronto . after two long days and three very flat prairie provinces , we arrived at our own brand of heaven a two room suite at the royal york hotel , just across from the train_station and a heartbeat from the skydome , where we would witness the unfortunate spectacle of the blue_jays crumbling under the heels of anaheim . inspired by a herd of fiberglass cows in chicago , toronto now sported a stampede of custom painted moose , each ostensibly epitomizing aspects of the city 's culture . we saw a hockey moose , a yuppie moose , a ballerina moose and even a fish moose , this unlikely creature shellacked in aquamarine and covered with tropical varieties . although toronto boasts one of the finest universities in the country in the university of toronto , we made a beeline for a nondescript , 20 acre campus nestled next to the city 's historic st . james square . ryerson polytechnic_university , which began as a community_college in 1948 , has been issuing degrees since 1971 and is known as a sure fire route to full time jobs for graduates in applied computer science and image arts , journalism , radio , tv and , yes , even filmmaking . james cameron , the director , studied here . indeed , ''rye high , '' as it is sometimes called by detractors , may be the only production oriented school on the continent that throws in a union card with a diploma . according to james mccrorie , an academic coordinator and new media instructor for the school of image arts , ryerson students often get a head_start while employed part time on the myriad films and tv shows in production in toronto . so many ryersonians scurried about the set of bryan singer 's ''x_men'' movie that they sometimes seemed to outnumber the mutants . at a recent convocation , lorne michaels , producer of ''saturday_night_live'' and a toronto native , told graduates , ''you 're young , you 're canadian , you 've got a degree . you can do anything . get clear , and take your shot . '' i could tell that adam , a sci_fi film aficionado who has accompanied me on magazine assignments to such sets as paul verhoeven 's ''starship troopers'' and clive barker 's ''lord of illusions , '' was taken with the place . walking back to our hotel , he asked if i could part with my 500 ''arctic program'' parka and matching iditarod snow boots . after toronto , we spent a couple of days in ottawa lolling about at the magnificent chteau laurier , taking in a light show on parliament hill , a night of scrabble at a downtown pub with my cousin peter and his son jakob , the city 's reigning scrabble meisters , and visiting the national mint . but we decided to skip visits to carleton , which has taken a lot of abuse in recent years for its liberal admission standards , and the university of ottawa , which adheres to a doctrine of bilingualism that appears to have resulted in stark linguistic and cultural bifurcation . and adam concluded that the english and french concept of bilingualism most likely did not embrace his own fluency in modern hebrew . i grew up in montreal and attended concordia , alma_mater to at least one of my own youthful role models , the firebrand novelist and political muckraker mordecai richler . so when the train pulled into le gare central , and we mounted the escalator into the lobby of the queen elizabeth hotel , we decided we would do the city in style , we rented a mustang convertible and set out , only to dine at the kitschy orange julep drive in on burgers , frites and the continentally emulated nectar of the gods . when i was a freshman in 1974 , my school of choice had evolved from the continent 's first y.m.c.a . into an institution called sir george williams university . by the time i graduated , three years later , sir george had joined up with loyola_university , a jesuit college in the west_end , and adopted the dubious moniker concordia . the merger did nothing to dispel the university 's reputation for being where english speaking students went when mcgill would n't have them , and it did absolutely no good to assert that if you wanted to study history , engineering , music , fine_arts or ( shudder ) film , this really was the only game in town . still , i have few regrets about having eschewed a mcgill diploma . concordia is a terrific school , and my instructors were outstanding , even the ones who took unseemly pleasure in making my life miserable . today , i learned from richard diubaldo , one of my more kindly disposed professors who is now engaged in international recruitment , the school boasts a renowned film department and an animation program that has contributed more than its share to disney and warner 's bottom lines . in montreal , he added , the cost of living is low and the club scene legendary , making this most european of north_american cities an ideal backdrop for coming of age . but adam and i had misgivings . both ryerson and concordia are urban campuses , so ivy covered buildings , leafy avenues and the other trappings of campus life were at a premium . ryerson , however , is concentrated within 20 densely_packed acres replete with three or four distinct residences where students will presumably experience a recognizable variant of campus life . they will be much harder put to do so at concordia . the downtown campus exists in disparate clusters of buildings strewn along a nebulously delineated five or six block radius . there is no downtown residence , so students must either rent or share accommodations in the city , or take up lodgings on the loyola campus . it is a half hour away by bus in a sleepier part of town . we also had questions about the film program . montreal is the world 's second largest french speaking city after paris . it is also the nexus of several discrete and venerable filmmaking traditions , one of which is european . these are people who take the ''auteur'' concept quite seriously . the school prides itself as a source of art house films as well as the kind of place that could give rise to a christian duguay , who was director of the latest wesley snipes debacle , ''the art of war . '' and although it remained unspoken between adam and me , there was also the groucho factor to consider . not to put too fine a point on it , but both of us had to wonder about a university whose history department listed ' 'moi'' in its promotional material among those of its graduates who had successfully parlayed a history degree into something other than a teaching career . in montreal , we decided to cancel the halifax leg of our trip . i found myself missing my 17 month old baby , due home with my wife and daughter momentarily upon their own return from abroad , and adam wanted to spend the last days of summer with his buddies in california . on visiting quebec_city , however , i stood firm . i had not been there since grade school , adam had never been there , and my mom , who grew up there , insisted that the chteau frontenac , the jewel in the crown of the canadian_pacific fairmont_hotel chain , was not to be missed . she was right . our room , in essence a two story suite replete with sitting room , loft bedroom and a marble bathroom with a sunken pool cum hot_tub and several hygienic appliances whose function adam could not discern , was almost as big as my house . as our stay came to an end , i found myself wondering how i could ever live without it . maybe if i handcuffed myself to the louis_xiv bedpost . jet_lagged and sleepless after the flight home from montreal , i still could not suppress a certain sense of pleasure and , yes , even anticipation . i have two other children whose college educations i will have to bankroll . with the money saved if they enroll in canada , maybe next time i can get a few more days in that suite at the chateau frontenac . sheldon teitelbaum ( sheli earthlink . net ) is a los_angeles based senior writer for the jerusalem report .",has a topic of education
"lead at one of beijing 's elite universities not long ago , students were subjected to another of a series of propaganda films intended to insure the reindoctrination of china 's future leaders along the correct communist road . at one of beijing 's elite universities not long ago , students were subjected to another of a series of propaganda films intended to insure the reindoctrination of china 's future leaders along the correct communist road . these same students had led ''the counterrevolutionary_rebellion'' crushed so brutally in june , and they have since been subjected to steady , numbing sessions of political education . the film that evening , ''wei wei kunlun , '' which translates roughly as ''towering mountain , '' depicted china before the communist takeover in 1949 . a scene of a demonstration being violently broken up brought cheers because unlike the case in june no tanks were used . party officials asked the students why they had applauded . ''because it was such a good film , '' they said . common on the campuses stories of quiet mockery of this sort are common on the campuses . the familiar slogan ''only socialism can save china'' has been slightly altered to become , ''only without socialism can china be saved . '' freshmen at beijing_university have been sent off to hebei_province for military and political training for a year older students say that when the freshmen return they will practice ''peaceful_evolution'' on them the party catch phrase for the supposed capitalist strategy to undermine chinese communism through the introduction of alien cultural influences . one upperclassman , a party member , said , ''we will pass on to them their proper education in the four evils'' excessive eating , drinking , gambling and promiscuity and he seemed to be quite serious about the task . the rapid changes in eastern_europe , and especially the overthrow and execution of nicolae ceausescu , the rumanian leader who was a longtime ally of the chinese leadership , have brought a few daring gatherings and posters . like the mockery , they are indicative of a lasting disgust and a resoluteness of spirit largely untouched by the ideological corset being tightened everywhere in intellectual and academic life . but while the investigations are winding down and students and teachers await the party 's judgments on punishment , there is wariness and mistrust everywhere and a general depression about the future that argues against any rapid re emergence of the sort of demonstrations that electrified the world last spring . a sense of caution the unexpected death of a prominent figure like deng xiaoping or zhao_ziyang , the party leader who lost his job after showing some sympathy with the june demonstrations , could create a pretext for students to gather and march , but few believe the leadership would react a second time with so much confusion and delay . students and teachers interviewed over the last three weeks described caution and lack of purpose . among many students there is a self imposed cap on political discussion and an aimless escapism . there are increasing experiments in casual sex and alcohol_abuse . ''we 're watching trashy movies and reading trashy novels , '' one student said . ''sidney sheldon is very popular now , and so is 'i 'll take manhattan . ' '' students speak of a sense of isolation from the larger society . ''the campus is a very small world , '' one said . ''it 's like living in a cage , and you feel watched all the time . '' people are ' 'depressed and discouraged , '' she said . ''life seems meaningless now , and they are cynical . they feel bored . life is boring if you 're in school or out , boring if you have a boyfriend or not , boring if you work or not . '' students still speak of politics to their closest friends , ''but that gets boring , too , '' the student said . ''we do n't disagree about anything . we all want change . but politics once again seems like empty talk . '' something to hide the analogy of rumania frightens the government right now , another student said . ''all the killing frightens us , too . we do n't think the chinese_army will crack so quickly as in rumania , and many more could die . '' most students , one said , had made less than fully forthcoming self criticisms and protected their friends , and there is a feeling that many teachers and deans are also protecting students from the authorities . ''but there are a lot of people who participated and have something to hide , '' he said . ''so people do n't trust one another . it is one of the biggest successes of the government . '' some students said many wanted either to go abroad or to make a lot of money and live an easy life . everyone seems to be learning english and trying to pass the language examinations required to study abroad . but freshman are now judged too young to study abroad , and graduating students are told they must stay in china and work off their debt to society . ''it 's a way of keeping people here , '' a teacher said . teachers describe relatively open political discussion in the faculty rooms , but they are under strict orders not to discuss politics in class or with students . ''the party tells us , 'if you have your own views , o.k. , but do n't pollute them , ' '' a teacher said . another described a faculty meeting with the party secretary , who complained that while some students had informed on others , no teachers had done so , behavior that set a bad example . the party secretary was particularly outraged because he had received anonymous letters purporting to inform on him . ''we felt he had no sense of shame , '' the teacher said . ''only the die_hard leftists or the careerists pursue this witch_hunt . '' caution is still needed one must nonetheless be careful , another teacher said . she was teaching a night class in english to adults who were behaving passively while she was trying to explain the prefix ''octo . '' ''so i finally said 'why do n't you talk ? you 're as stubborn as octogenarians ! ' ''the class laughed , but the next day she was called in by the party secretary and asked why she had made fun of the party leadership , which is largely composed of elderly officials . ''i said that it was in the textbook , '' she said , ''and that was that , but it worried me . someone obviously made a report . '' another teacher said that while he understood his students' anger and shared it , he tried to caution them that the situation could get worse , as it did in the 1950 's and '60 's . ''the students are impatient , of course , and want rapid change , and they have their own ideas . but i do n't want them to get into trouble or waste their lives . we 've all been inspired by a few demonstrations and by rumania , but i tell them 'right now , your lives are more important . do n't throw them away . ' ''",has a topic of education
"the assignment in the rev . william j . o'malley 's fourth period english class at fordham preparatory school in the bronx posed a question people were grappling with before the united_states invaded iraq and will most likely be pursuing after the last gunshots in baghdad decide whether you believe the war is moral , then defend your position . father o'malley had asked his class of 23 seniors in this all boys school on the fordham_university campus to express their views in a mock letter to the editor . he himself had written such a letter , which was published in newsweek on march 24 . ''as a priest for more than 40 years , '' he wrote , ''i have yet to encounter the god who counsels , with certitude , pre_emptive slaughter in the name of peace . '' as this letter made clear , father o'malley opposed the war . yet his students seemed to trust him as an honest broker in a difficult conversation . part of his authority stemmed from his showmanship . at 71 , he is extroverted in the way of a school drama club moderator , a position he has held for 16 years . part of the deference paid to him seemed to derive from his authorship of a score of books with titles like ''meeting the living god'' and ''daily prayers for busy people . '' in many places in the city and beyond , the rightness of the war has been debated in political , military or emotional terms . but there are places , like fordham prep , where the issue is being faced on a moral plane . like other institutions where religion is an essential part of the curriculum , this is a place devoted to exploring the moral dimensions of personal and public actions . discussions of morality occur not only when the subject is religion but also in english and history classes . these students had extra incentive for such a debate . most of them are 17 , not much younger than many of the men and women fighting in iraq . perhaps more than others , these students could imagine what it might be like to take part in bloody combat and whether they could , in good conscience , do it . if the united_states embarks on another war soon , they may have to . the discussion part of the class , held two weeks ago in a small windowless classroom , seemed to model itself on britain 's house of commons . the students often talked all at once and derailed one another 's stem winding speeches with boisterous , boyish insults . ''steve , get out ! '' one student ordered another , who had had the temerity to claim , amid wisecracks and hooting , that the war in iraq was ''not a liberating activity . '' some students struggled to articulate the principles on which they based their support or opposition to the war others had n't made up their minds . still others seemed to change their minds in mid sentence . ''would n't it be wrong to see the horrors in iraq and not go in to replace that repressive government with the freedom we have here ? '' one student asked . ''you 're making a good moral point , '' father o'malley replied . ''our relationship as human beings compels us to go in and help . if the man next door is battering his wife , you have an obligation to step in . '' ''do you have a right to blow up his house ? '' another student retorted . another said ''maybe not , but you might have the right to shoot him , especially if he is killing thousands of people . '' ''what if you were a grunt , '' father o'malley asked , ''and you came up against an iraqi position and they had children out there with guns ? '' ''i 'd kill them first . '' ''and you call yourself a christian , '' another student muttered in disgust . ''they 're carrying guns ! '' ''you 're an idiot . '' ''let 's not all choke one another , '' father o'malley said . ''this is not 'the mclaughlin report . ''' he turned to the student who said he would shoot . ''could you really do it ? , '' he asked . ''i do n't know , '' the student said . ''i do n't either , '' father o'malley said . the students' letters , written late last month , when american_troops seemed to be having more bad days than good ones , reflected a similar split . ''the decision to end thousands of human lives and upset world order for the foreseeable future is a foolish decision , and one mr . bush will live to regret , '' alex petry wrote in his letter . michael distefano disagreed . ''the blood spilt in iraq these 24 years is no different from the blood spilt in europe under the nazis . we have now , just as we did then , the ability to stop this , and as contemptible as it is to wager human life , the amount of people a saddam free iraq will save outweighs the casualties of today . '' none of the letters refer to the antiwar statements of catholic leaders made before the war started . shortly before the bombing of baghdad began , pope_john_paul_ii declared that ''war is always a defeat for humanity . '' and bishop wilton t . gregory , president of the united states conference of catholic bishops , urged president_bush to ' 'step back from the brink of war'' because it ''would not meet the strict conditions in catholic teaching for the use of military force . '' several students were asked after class whether such views affected their thinking . their answers were firm . ''the pope does n't define the thinking of catholics our age , '' john hunt said bluntly . chris clark , who described himself as a devout catholic , agreed . ''you do n't look to the pope , '' he said . ''you look to what is happening in the world . '' still , these students were among several who tested their views against the just war theory , a christian doctrine that offers five standards for deciding that in waging a particular war , the end justifies the means . or , as patrick looser put it ''it 's comparative justice . is the evil in the war justified by the expected good to come out of it ? '' he did n't think so . by the time statues of saddam_hussein were toppling in iraq 's capital , the students seemed a little less split in their views . ''i still feel the same , '' michael distefano said . ''i saw a couple of hundred thousand people lining the streets of baghdad . although i was n't sure it was going to turn out this way , i did have faith that we were over there for the right reasons . '' patrick looser added , ''i feel a little toward the other side of the coin now that we 're seeing people rejoicing in the streets if baghdad . '' but both boys expressed wariness about what comes next in iraq . ''the conversation is far from over , '' patrick said . ''even though baghdad has fallen , there is still postwar iraq to rebuild . it 's going to be pretty tough . '' michael chimed in ''i 'm thinking the same thing as pat . we 've shown people that they can have their freedom , but now implementing democracy is a whole different story . '' on tuesday , a vigil for peace and the safe return of the soldiers is to be held in the school 's chapel students have signed up to pray in 10 minute shifts . outside the chapel hang seven bronze plaques with the names of former fordham prep students who died in the vietnam_war . ( the rev . joseph p . parkes , the school 's president , said at least two alumni were fighting in iraq right now . ) the chapel was hung with the purple drapery of lent , the season of suffering and waiting . after lunch , on the day of father o'malley 's class , some students spilled into a courtyard ringed with the first blooms of forsythia . the day was bright but chilly . more to stay warm and stave off boredom than anything else , two students started boxing in front of a crowd of their classmates . they advanced and retreated in stiff legged scuttles , raising cheers with each flurry of blows . it seemed the most natural thing in the world . urban tactics",has a topic of education
"when cattaneo middle_school 's sixth_grade history teacher , ornella orlandini , removed a crucifix from her public_school classroom recently , she hoped the gesture would make a new muslim student feel more comfortable . with any luck , she thought , it might even jolt her 11 year old pupils into a little give and take about tolerance before the new boy arrived later that morning . it never occurred to ms . orlandini that she was the one in for a lesson . ''i did n't expect what happened then , '' ms . orlandini said . ''it was supposed to be a welcoming act . i did n't mean to offend anyone . '' but since then , parents and school , church and elected officials in this northern port town have furiously condemned her action . they see what she did as an attack on the country 's catholic culture , an assault on their central religious symbol in the middle of a war that many here clearly see as islam versus christianity . for them , ms . orlandini was giving in to the enemy when she touched that crucifix . ''the teacher underestimated the impact this would have after the attack on the twin towers , and i did not agree with her , '' said ms . orlandini 's principal , gabriella tartarini , the longtime administrator of seven local public schools , including cattaneo . ''it 's true that catholicism is no longer the state_religion , '' ms . tartarini said in an interview in her office , where another crucifix hangs over the door . ''but italians are catholic just as i 'm catholic , not practicing but believing and it 's part of our history . ''last night on tv they flashed a picture of our school , and some islamic man i 've never heard of was on saying these crucifixes have to be taken down because they are just wood with dead bodies on them ! '' ms . tartarini said , clasping her hand to her head . ''it 's terrifying ! '' ''muslims , '' she added , ' 'should know when they come here that this is a catholic state . '' certainly , the legal lines between church and state are far fuzzier here than in the united_states , though italy 's constitution erects a similar wall between the two . a fascist era law requiring that crucifixes be hung in public buildings was never taken off the books , and the country 's solicitor_general has ruled that such displays do not violate the law that made italy a secular_state . still , while italy may be the home of the vatican , it is also the land of the nearly naked quiz show , an aggressively secular society where the abortion debate was wrapped up more than 20 years ago and the inside of some of the world 's most awe inspiring places of worship are seen largely by tourists . there is no evidence that church attendance has swollen recently , either , though there is a lot more talk now about the need to rise up in defense of catholic culture . ms . tartarini says that is what she was doing when she sent the teacher a disciplinary letter . the principal said she did not have the legal right to suspend her . but because ms . orlandini does not have tenure , the principal offered , smiling , ''i do n't know if she 'll be here next year . '' asked whether anyone at the school had spoken to the new muslim student or his family to see how they were faring through all the uproar , ms . tartarini said ''i do n't think they even know about it . they 're nomads , living in a camp outside town , very simple people , let us say . '' moulay el akkioui , a leader of the local islamic community about 1 , 200 people in a town of just under 100 , 000 said the family was well aware of the controversy but had chosen to remain in the background . la spezia is actually one of the most welcoming places in the country for muslims , he said , and hastened to say that he , too , felt the teacher had been ''a little excessive . '' ''we do n't care if the cross is there or not , '' he said wearily . ''but she created more problems than she solved . '' though ms . orlandini must have defenders here , they are hard to find . waiting outside the school as classes let out , the mother of one of her students said the parents were united . ''she did n't have the authority to do such a thing , '' said the woman , a soft_spoken blonde . ''in italy it 's always been like that , with a crucifix on the wall . '' predictably , an official with the anti immigrant northern league , francesco bruzzone , cast the matter as a signal event showing ''the subordination of our culture to an increasingly aggressive islamic fundamentalism . '' but a legislator from the center left coalition , egidio banti , also said the parents were right to respond angrily . the rev . giuseppe savoca , a catholic priest who works with the islamic community , said , ''we want at all costs to avoid this talk of a war of religions , '' and made clear that even he placed the teacher 's gesture in exactly that context . ''if it was n't for the twin towers , what the teacher did would n't have been such a big deal , '' father savoca said . ''but in this moment , it means going against christian traditions and pro islam . to take crucifixes down now would be cowardly , out of fear of terrorists . '' at the end of another school day at cattaneo , the teacher at the center of the controversy , ms . orlandini , looked exhausted and wary , fiddling with the blue silk scarf around her neck . that morning the school had received a call threatening her . yet as she settled into a chair in the teachers' lounge and lighted a cigarette , she still seemed to feel less beleaguered than her critics . ''the beautiful thing , '' said ms . orlandini , another nonpracticing catholic , and an educator for 14 years , ''the thing no one has said , is that in the class itself there is no problem , because the children have welcomed this boy . tolerance , too , has to be taught . '' la spezia journal",has a topic of education
"christmas chocolates were recalled from schools in the northeast french town of coudekerque branche because they violate the country 's ban on religious symbols in schools , le_figaro reported on its front page . the 1 , 300 chocolate figures , depicting st . nicholas , were recalled earlier this month after an elementary_school teacher unwrapped them only to discover that there was a cross on the miter worn by the saint . christian crosses , as well as other religious symbols , including islamic head_scarves , jewish yarmulkes and sikh turbans have been banned since september . for more than a decade , the mainly flemish region has celebrated the saint 's day , dec . 6 , by delivering chocolates to schools . andr delattre , the mayor , called the incident ''a politically unhealthy incident , '' agence_france_presse reported . he added ''st . nicholas was a bishop . he is always portrayed with his cross . '' elaine sciolino ( nyt )",has a topic of education
"the cabinet of bavaria agreed today on a new bill ordering crucifixes to be hung in school classrooms after the german supreme_court ruled that the southern state 's current law was unconstitutional . the ruling in august by the federal constitutional court had outraged the strongly roman_catholic state . the court ruled that bavaria 's ordering that crucifixes be hung in classrooms violated religious freedoms in the constitution . the new bill notes the "" historical and cultural character of bavaria , "" and says , "" a cross is to be put up in every classroom . "" if parents or children oppose the crucifixes , school principals should reach an "" amicable agreement "" with them , it said . if that is impossible , the principal must make a decision respecting the beliefs of all pupils and "" taking appropriate consideration of the will of the majority . "" the bill needs approval by the state legislature , in which governor edmund_stoiber 's christian_social_union has a majority .",has a topic of education
"canadian soft_drink manufacturers , including the local units of coca_cola and pepsico , said they would withdraw carbonated drinks from vending_machines at elementary and junior high_schools in the country by the start of the next school year . the move follows pressure from politicians , educators and parents seeking healthier food choices for children . half the beverages stocked in the schools will be water and pure fruit juice , while noncarbonated juice and sports drinks will make up the rest . high_school students will still be able to buy carbonated soft_drinks . bernard_simon ( nyt )",has a topic of education
"an italian philosopher and political theorist who was scheduled to teach at new york_university this semester has decided not to do so , as a protest against the new american policy of fingerprinting arriving visitors and employees from other countries . the philosopher , giorgio agamben , also called for other intellectuals and teachers to join his protest . ''i have no intention of submitting myself to such procedures , '' professor agamben wrote in an article in le_monde , the french newspaper , on jan . 10 , according to a translation forwarded by an n.y.u . official . in the article , professor agamben said that he deeply opposed the use of biological methods to track citizens , including procedures like finger and retina prints and subcutaneous tattooing , for political purposes . ''by applying these techniques and these devices invented for the dangerous classes to a citizen'' he continued , according to the translation , governments ''have made the person the ideal suspect , to the point that it 's humanity itself that has become the dangerous class . '' le_monde was one of several european newspapers that ran statements from professor agamben , and translations of those articles are now circulating at some american universities . richard foley , dean of the faculty of arts and science at n.y.u. , said that professor agamben had been named one of about a dozen global distinguished professors at n.y.u. , which would have brought him to teach at the university for short periods over several years . dean foley said the professor notified the university about a week ago that he would not be coming . ''we were disappointed by his decision , '' dean foley said yesterday . ''but we recognized this was a matter of conscience for him . we are eager and hopeful that in future years he can take up the appointment again . '' professor agamben had been scheduled to teach an intensive , seven week graduate course ''the life of the images benjamin , warburg and the genealogy of western imagination . '' sixteen students were registered to take the class and more were expected to audit it , and the graduate students had organized a national conference on his work . nancy ruttenburg , the chairwoman of n.y.u . 's department of comparative literature , where professor agamben was to have taught , said she was concerned about the effect of american security policies on international educational exchange . efforts to reach professor agamben by e mail and telephone in italy yesterday afternoon were unsuccessful . sheldon e . steinbach , general_counsel for the american council on education , said he was not aware of other professors who had declined to come to the united_states because of its fingerprinting policies , and suggested that professor agamben 's decision was an overreaction . ''there is an undertone of massive paranoia that is speculative and anticipatory that is seemingly permeating some elements of the professoriate , '' he said yesterday .",has a topic of education
"until mid august , louis gearing might have felt that in his 18 years he had achieved just about as much as he could have hoped for . he had been appointed head boy at his school . he was set for a place at oxford_university . he even had plans to share his college years there with his fianc e . then the_dream withered . at that moment of frenzy familiar to americans in particular , when teenagers join the annual joust for places at college , possibly thousands of britons like mr . gearing discovered that their grades in the exams that are crucial for university entrance had been arbitrarily lowered . the ensuing outcry led today to the dismissal of the chief regulator of examinations and strong calls from the political opposition for the ouster of britain 's education minister . the dispute has turned a classroom drama into a lightning_rod for political_dissent , adding to a litany of complaints over public services . in the case of mr . gearing , the unraveling began on aug . 15 when he went back to his school to learn his final grades . he expected that he had earned an a in french and german and a b in history , to satisfy oxford_university 's requirements . the examiners disagreed and gave an ''unclassified'' grade for his course work in history , equivalent to a failure . the grade brought his overall score down to a figure just fractionally below the required level , and he thus lost his place at st . anne 's college , oxford . ''i felt i must have done something wrong , '' he said . ''at the pinnacle of our education , it 's just all gone wrong for a lot of us . '' he was not the only disappointed student at his state financed school in baldock , 30 miles north of london . james lacey and hannah rose also discovered that their overall grades needed to study psychology at a university had been dragged down by failing grades . ''i was pretty confused , '' mr . lacey , 19 , said . ms . rose , 18 , added , ''i went home and cried . '' the results were all the more bewildering because the award winning school had been improving its passing rates on the nationwide advanced exams , known as the a levels and taken by all british college candidates , to its best ever . yet , according to the principal , peter chapman , 14 out of 20 students were given ''fail'' grades on their psychology course work . at first , mr . chapman thought the puzzling grading affected only his school . then word spread of setbacks at other schools . ostensibly , the lowering of grades was intended to avert accusations that with the introduction this year of a new testing system the a levels were getting systematically easier . but the furor also touched other unresolved debates about university education in britain whether it is too elitist , or too lax , and whether it admits too many students from state financed schools . none of that made much difference to the students . mr . lacey and mr . gearing are now preparing to take their exams again , or get their papers regraded , and finally qualify for a university , one or even two years later than expected . some , like karolina stein , a student in birmingham who missed a place at bristol university , argue that their lives have simply been put on hold . a levels have no clear equivalent in the united_states . they were introduced in 1950 , when a smaller percentage of students went on to college , to provide what was called a gold_standard of excellence . critics of the system say academic standards have steadily fallen to accommodate increasing numbers of poorly qualified students . others argue that higher_education is still elitist . at the same time , educators have wrestled with the a levels , trying to broaden the curriculum . the furor stirred by this year 's puzzlingly low grades led eventually to an official inquiry . michael tomlinson , the former chief schools inspector , concluded today that no one was specifically at fault . but sir william stubbs , the top regulator overseeing three examination boards , quit today after a bitter dispute with estelle morris , the education minister . ms . morris rejected calls for her own resignation and said sir william had been fired . mr . tomlinson suggested that pressure originating with sir william had filtered down the system to examiners , who lowered some grades in order to ensure that this year 's results did not show a surge of passes , which might have been taken as evidence of lower standards . he promised that some papers would be regraded , none of them downward .",has a topic of education
"a judge suspended for now an earlier court order that a crucifix be removed from a school in ofena , about 90 miles east of rome , and scheduled a hearing for next month . the earlier order came in response to a lawsuit filed by a local muslim resident and inflamed many italians . pope_john_paul_ii directly addressed the issue in remarks to european_union officials , saying that recognizing a nation 's religious heritage ' 'means recognizing the symbols that set it apart . '' an overwhelming majority of italians are nominally roman_catholic . frank bruni ( nyt )",has a topic of education
"when she went to school , nina vasilyevna recalled , nobody questioned the teacher . "" now , "" she said , "" my third graders not only ask me about moses and stalin , they ask me about love . they even criticize my makeup . "" next door down , olga arkadyevna 's history classroom was decorated with reproductions of russian icons . in the next classroom , robert friel of stoneham , mass . , was discussing "" stream of consciousness "" and robert frost with his 11th_grade english class . granted , this is not an average neighborhood school , and kaliningrad is not an average russian city . home to space_program school no . 11 is one of scores of special schools set up in the soviet_era to give talented children intensive language and technical training . it was specifically developed to emphasize english , and english_language signs read "" toilet "" or "" director 's office . "" kaliningrad , just north of moscow , is home to star city and much of the former soviet_union 's space_program . until recently the area was tightly closed to foreigners , but for school no . 11 , that exclusiveness has only intensified the changes that have come over russian education in the seven years since glasnost first wafted through . though the russian government still sets some basic requirements , state ordered courses have given way to experimental programs and marxist textbooks have given way to privately copied texts . private schools have cropped up in every city , and entry into better schools has become so competitive that at school no . 11 , for example , half the seniors pay for private tutoring before state exams . this year 's seniors 11th_graders in the russian school system were only 10 years old when mikhail s . gorbachev came to power . for them it is already hard to believe that there was a time when talking about the czar was taboo , or when foreigners were not only exotic but potentially dangerous . "" my parents always tell me that the k.g.b . would have punished them if they talked to foreigners , "" said a senior in american accented english , a girl who was preparing to enter the journalism_school of moscow_state_university . "" is that really true ? did they really follow you ? "" to the students it seems a curious notion , now that one of the teachers is an american , american students visit regularly and eight graduating students are headed for a year in the united_states . classrooms on the fourth floor are wired for the american television_program "" channel one , "" which includes news broadcasts . under pressure from students and parents , the elite school has also set up an extracurricular class in the basics of market_economy . membership in the komsomol , or young communist league , is no longer mandatory when students turn 14 indeed , the organization was abandoned at the school two years ago . there is still a museum of military glory , but the ideological overlay is long gone , and the theme now is the heroism of their forebears , not the glory of leninism . "" i remember my oldest daughter coming home from exams very sheepishly , "" nina vasilyevna recalled . "" 'mama , ' she said , 'when they asked how i love lenin , i said i loved him more than mama but only a teensy bit more . ' "" she laughed , remembering a past that now seems almost quaint . teaching children to think students range from 7 to 17 . for the last two years , miss vasilyevna said , the lower grades have been taught according to a system worked out by prof . leonid v . zankov in the 1970 's but never formally adopted by the soviet education ministry . the fundamental principle of the zankov system was almost antithetical to the old government . instead of learning by rote , children were actually taught to think for themselves . a problem in a third grade arithmetic text , photocopied and neatly stapled , began , "" just imagine you have 10 apples . "" margarita v . solomonovna , the deputy director and herself a graduate of school no . 11 , said "" zankov treats children as friends . they accepted it immediately . the harder part was to retrain the teachers . they were not used to kids thinking or challenging them . contributions from parents "" no , "" she said , "" there has been no problem with discipline . on the contrary , there 's a lot more respect now for teachers and for students . it 's a much more creative situation . "" among other changes , parents have been drawn much closer to the schooling process . one parent , a successful local entrepreneur , contributed six television sets , another contributed furniture and others photocopied textbooks . waiting for her daughter to finish class , vera ivanovna thought of her own schooling . "" we were beaten down , "" she said . "" we avoided teachers . we never asked them questions . they were 'authority' they were always right . "" "" these kids are completely unfettered , "" she added , using a word heard many times that day raskrepo shchyonnyi literally , "" de serfed . "" "" we just wanted to get school over with , "" she said . "" now everyone wants to go to a prestigious institute , to moscow state , to imemo "" the institute of international economic relations . "" this school is free for now , but everyone pays for tutoring . if they started charging for my daughter , i would pay , even though i ca n't afford it . "" school no . 11 does not charge fees . given the financial strictures of the russian space_program , on which most parents depend , not many parents could afford the tuition charged by some of the new private schools in moscow , where tuition of 25 , 000 rubles a month about what a secondary_school teacher earns is not unknown . 'hunger for education' entry into school no . 11 is prized . about 170 children applied this year for the lowest grades , and only 70 were accepted . "" there 's a tremendous hunger for education here , "" said mr . friel , a teacher for 29 years in stoneham who was the first american teacher sent to russia under a fulbright exchange program . "" i suspect it has something to do with the threatened space_program . parents here want to make sure their kids pick up some transfer skills . "" but if the parents wonder about their future , the students do not seem anxious . a poll last year found the pupils far more concerned about the fate of the world than about their own futures . "" my grandmother does nothing but complain about prices , "" one girl said . "" i think they 're normal . "" she plans to be a critic for one of the new newspapers , she said . a group of teachers of english joined mr . friel . "" education used to be a system of taboos , "" said one . another interjected "" our whole life here was a system of taboos . six years ago i was barred from going to czechoslovakia because of what my husband does , and i did n't even know what he does . last year , i took a group of students to denver . """,has a topic of education
"france 's embattled government struggled today with a powerful challenge to its economic austerity program as postal , electric_utility and airport workers joined tens of thousands of striking transport employees in protests that have immobilized much of the country . the worst labor unrest in a decade began a week ago with a walkout by train , subway and bus workers over proposed welfare cuts . the shutdown has forced millions of people to walk , bicycle , hitchhike and even roller skate to work . the crippling upheaval spread to air_traffic this morning at orly , one of two airports serving paris , when strikers from air_france began blocking runways , forcing incoming flights to be diverted . an increasing number of flights were canceled as the day progressed . with the widening protest squeezing the economy and fraying nerves , government ministers promised to engage trade_unions in talks next week but would not retreat on proposed reforms in france 's huge public_sector or promise increased spending for universities , where thousands of students and teachers have joined the strike . the currency , stock and bond markets registered the impact of the crisis by posting steep losses today . the strike has also affected tourism , an important sector in a country visited by 60 million tourists a year . museums and travel services have shut down , and small businesses dependent on tourism from restaurants and hotels to taxi services have suffered . the christmas retail season has been seriously disrupted with shoppers unable to reach stores . train stations are eerily empty , with lighted panels everywhere flashing "" traffic interrupted . "" taxis have done little to help stranded commuters , with many drivers unwilling to enter streets where they would be stuck for hours with the buses and private cars . factories have been laying off workers . today , peugeot citroen idled two thirds of the 11 , 800 workers at its mulhouse auto assembly plant for a day after running out of space to store finished cars that could not be loaded onto freight trains . some industries began experiencing power shortages as electric_utility workers joined the strike . mail , including bills and payments , was piling up because of the postal strike . newspaper deliveries have been held up in many parts of the country . the swelling number of motor_vehicles in the streets of paris has worsened air_pollution and increased altercations among commuters trying to get to work . "" what really annoys me is that i go home at night with my face blackened and a horrible headache from all the fumes i inhale from all these cars , "" said a 23 year old motorcycle messenger near the opera at the heart of paris who identified himself as cadieu . "" with all this traffic , it takes much longer to reach my destination , and by the time i get there the people have left to make their way home . i am earning less . "" a shopper named alain at a marks spencer department_store complained "" they are really bugging us with their strikes . we live in the suburbs and it takes us a few hours to get to work every day . i only work four hours a day , but i have to catch up for the lost time by working on weekends . "" the pro government newspaper le_figaro wondered in a front page editorial this morning , "" is france having a nervous breakdown ? "" the government stands on "" a razor 's edge , "" it said , comparing the mounting crisis to such national traumas as the french_revolution and the 1968 revolt , when rioting students joined by workers and leftist political movements created an upheaval that eventually forced president charles de gaulle to resign . a spokesman warned today that the government would start laying off workers , a move that could further inflame the situation . as it stands now , this is france 's worst labor unrest in a decade . and no easy resolution is in sight because of pressures on president jacques_chirac to adhere to the austerity program in order to qualify for a single european currency under the 1992 treaty on european union . michel_camdessus , managing director of the international_monetary_fund , said today that the government should stand firm against the trade_unions . "" it would be dangerous if they watered down what has been announced , "" mr . camdessus said . "" the problem is that governments are too slow in addressing underlying problems and even slower in telling their people what must be done . "" at issue is a 50 billion deficit in france 's generous social_security system , which the government proposed to remedy with a sweeping overhaul including a new tax of one half of 1 percent on incomes above the poverty level and an increase in how many years public employees must work to receive pensions with full benefits . prime_minister alain_juppe indicated in november the importance he attached to the reform despite worker opposition when he formed his second government in six months , asserting that "" everything depends on the next three months . "" and he added , in a statement that is now becoming ominously prophetic , that , "" if two million people take to the streets , my government will not survive . "" trade_unions are arguing that the overhaul hurts their members' standard of living and undermines a deeply imbedded notion of social equality . it is penalizing the working_class , they contend , by stripping it of its welfare benefits and cutting back on the country 's comprehensive health system , which the government says was being abused by patients . "" france needs to work , "" said alain lamassoure , a government spokesman . "" our economy is still convalescent . numerous companies risk having to stop their activity and laying off their employees temporarily . "" while clearly irritated by the disruptions caused by the strikes , a growing majority of the french appear to support the workers' movement . last week , a poll by the daily le parisien found 54 percent of those questioned backing the strike . in a new poll published by the paper today , that number had risen to 64 percent , although many also said they favored the restoration of "" a minimum service in the capital . "" for his part , president chirac appears determined to push through his overhaul of the welfare system , perhaps counting as president de gaulle did in 1968 on a public backlash when he charged that the crisis was being fomented by communists . this upheaval , however , is economic , not ideological . furthermore , the 1968 crisis eventually led to a rejection of president de gaulle , who was forced to step down after proposed reforms were resoundingly rejected in a referendum .",has a topic of education
"seven years ago , britain 's conservative government decided to give publicly financed schools the opportunity to govern themselves , in a sense . under the plan , primary and secondary_schools could for the first time opt out of their local educational authorities and choose to be run instead by an independent board of governors . now school control has become a hot political issue here , with the conservative and labor parties divided over how well the change in control has worked and whether to move completely in that direction or to dismantle the plan . in creating the new system , the conservatives felt it would serve two purposes . first , it would remove the schools from control by the 117 local authorities in the country , many of which are liberal leaning . second , it would give the schools more autonomy , in keeping with the government 's general philosophy . the schools that have taken the option , known as grant maintained schools , receive money from a quasi_governmental central agency . the boards of governors include parents and teachers who set admissions policies , control hiring and firing and spend the school 's money . some 1 , 000 primary and secondary_schools have taken the government up on its offer , the department for education and employment said about 25 , 000 , however , have decided to remain under local government control . proponents of the new system say it has been an unequivocal success , pointing to a recent study showing that although london 's 93 grant maintained schools had more students per teacher than the 185 traditionally run schools , they also scored higher on standardized_tests . opponents of the schools pointed out , however , that students in grant maintained schools tended to be better off and have fewer special needs than those in other schools , which might explain the figures . in addition , many school principals have argued that the financial perks the government gives the grant maintained schools siphon resources from other schools and would be impossible to maintain if too many schools became self governing . labor 's confusion over the issue was compounded this year when tony_blair , the party leader , sent his son to a grant maintained school in west_london . he was , he said , making the choice "" as a parent , not a politician . """,has a topic of education
"a man wearing a long black coat and carrying a semiautomatic rifle shot and killed a woman and wounded 19 other people , at least five critically , at the downtown campus of a junior_college on wednesday . the man himself died after exchanging shots with the police . the shooting wednesday at dawson college brought chaos and fear to the core of canada 's second largest city as major thoroughfares were closed , office towers were evacuated and subway service was disrupted . it also evoked bitter memories of a shooting in 1989 at another downtown college where 14 women died before the gunman killed himself . in the dawson case , the police said an autopsy would determine whether the assailant was killed by the police or by his own weapon . the montreal police said it received the first call about the shooting at 12 41 p.m . several witnesses reported seeing the man start shooting students near an entrance without a word or provocation . as the police arrived , witnesses said , he entered the building , continuing to fire randomly as he made his way toward a crowded cafeteria . video recorded with a camera phone showed the gunman exchanging fire with the police inside the college . dawson has an enrollment of about 10 , 000 students , most of them teenagers . about half were believed to have been on campus at the time . despite the early arrival of the police , the college and the neighborhood an affluent , largely english speaking district fell into confusion with herds of people fleeing along streets and pouring out of a nearby shopping_mall . like much of downtown montreal , the college is connected to a network of underground walkways that also feeds into the subway system . in what appeared to be a bid to prevent the escape of the gunman , a major subway line was closed temporarily . simon davies , who teaches film studies at the college , said he had heard a student shouting about the shooting in a hallway and then saw him run past with a bloodied face . ''i went out to the hallway , i went around the corner and saw a policeman run by with his gun drawn and heard more gunshots , '' he said . ''i thought , 'this is foolish , i should n't be here . ' '' a panic grew among students in the screening room for two film classes as an overloaded cellphone network made calling impossible . another film studies teacher , dipti gupta , said her students had carried a badly wounded woman in from the hallway and rested her on a desk . adding to the panic were rumors , later disproved , that more than one gunman was stalking the campus . the woman died in a hospital during the early evening . officials did not identify her , but the head of montreal 's police force , yvan delorme , told the french news service of the canadian_broadcasting_corporation that she had been in her 20 's . the s ret de qu_bec , the provincial police force , which investigates all killings involving municipal officers , did not disclose the gunman 's name . but it said he was 25 , born in quebec and a montreal area resident . mr . delorme said the motive for the shooting spree was a mystery , adding , ''there is no racist connotation or no terrorist link as far as we know . '' the 1989 killings at the ecole polytechnique , an engineering school , were by a man who blamed women for his financial and career problems . the shock that followed those killings prompted a national new gun registry law that was unpopular in rural areas . the conservative government that came to power in january is winding down that registry in favor of longer mandatory sentences for gun related crimes .",has a topic of education
"lead because of an editing error , a front page article thursday about chinese plans to cut back on foreign study misidentified the source of reports that only 3 , 000 students a year would be allowed to go abroad . that number was cited by chinese students who had spoken with chinese consular officials in the united_states it was not based on official chinese or american figures . because of an editing error , a front page article thursday about chinese plans to cut back on foreign study misidentified the source of reports that only 3 , 000 students a year would be allowed to go abroad . that number was cited by chinese students who had spoken with chinese consular officials in the united_states it was not based on official chinese or american figures .",has a topic of education
"six toddlers and their teacher were freed unharmed this morning after being held by a masked gunman for two days at their nursery_school in this leafy suburb of paris . the fate of the gunman was not immediately known , although it was reported that he had been shot . the police were reported to be looking for explosives inside the school . it was not clear whether this morning 's action was the result of a planned police operation or whether there had been an incident that provoked the shooting . the gunman first entered the school a little after 9 a.m . on thursday . over the next two days , he released 15 of the 21 children who were in the class . according to unconfirmed_reports , the gunman insisted on using the remaining children as a shield during his getaway . those reports said the police suggested that adult hostages be used instead . while adults negotiated , the six children who had not been released were put to sleep friday night after eating dinner and taking what was described as a "" mild sedative . "" their teacher , who refused to leave her charges for any extended period , watched over them as they slept . the police said at 11 00 p.m . friday that the teacher , laurence dreyfus , 30 , had returned to her classroom after slipping out to sleep for two hours . in her absence a police captain took over her watch alongside the gunman . carefully prepared scheme the incident has shocked and mesmerized the french public , which has been informed of each twist and turn . the gunman , who claimed to have a bomb attached to his waist , threatened to "" bleed the children "" to death or blow them up if his demands were not met . the police said he had carefully prepared his scheme , issuing instructions on computer printouts from the classroom where the hostages were held . the nature of the crime , the huge ransom and the age of the children kept the story in the headlines and at the top of the television and radio news . experts interviewed on news programs warned of the long term impact of such a trauma on the children , who are 3 to 4 years old , and on their parents , who were not been permitted to see them for two days . ms . dreyfus , who is in her first teaching job , has become the subject of growing admiration in france as the details of her courage and self control have emerged . she was allowed to leave the classroom several times , but insisted on returning to it each time . 'gun to hunt a wolf' mothers of some of the children released since thursday said ms . dreyfus told them it was a game and that the hooded man was carrying a "" big gun to hunt a wolf . "" according to the police , she kept the toddlers calm and entertained all day thursday before putting them to sleep , and repeated that performance friday . the gunman , described as a man in his mid thirties who acted calmly and deliberately , reportedly told the police , "" i shall not be taken alive . "" interior_ministry officials who handled negotiations said the gunman was methodical in the planning and execution of his crime and "" truly motivated . "" shortly after the police arrived at the school , he asked for a ransom of 100 million french francs the equivalent of 18 . 5 million from the banque de france , the french federal_bank , in used bills in denominations of 20 , 100 , 200 and 500 francs . police officials said the gunman 's notes were signed with the initials h.b. , and that many of them were printed in advance . links to a bombing on may 8 , the same initials were found in a tract claiming responsibility for a bombing in neuilly that caused no injuries . the note , which threatened further bombings , demanded that president_francois_mitterrand and interior_minister charles pasqua resign , the authorities said . friday , however , a television_journalist , jean_pierre about , who met with the gunman at his demand , told reporters that the hostage taker wanted only money and had no political demands . the gunman allowed a pediatrician into the classroom , which is part of a primary_school complex that accommodates about 1 , 000 pupils . all children were evacuated immediately after the gunman entered the nursery , and the school has been closed . the complex lies on a quiet street in this affluent upper_middle_class suburb lined with broad villas and luxury apartment buildings . the police set up several roadblocks around the complex friday , and masked sharpshooters nestled on the roofs overlooking the building . an aide to mr . pasqua emphasized that the primary concern of the authorities would be to insure the safety of the children . parents of the children held in the school waited inside the compound during the siege but were not allowed to talk to hundreds of journalists camped out by the school complex . there were unconfirmed_reports that a white van entering the complex late friday afternoon was loaded with the cash demanded .",has a topic of education
"heir to the throne , defender of causes ranging from organic food to alternative_medicine , prince_charles has cast himself as a man for modern times . but he has become embroiled in a much older dispute in this class conscious land should people simply know their place and stay there , as was once expected of them , or should they reach for their dreams in the way americans hope to ? either way , the prince may find that , once again , his image has been tarnished by what some people see as his magnetic attraction for gaffes . the debate was inspired by testimony on wednesday at a court in south_london where elaine day , a former staff member in the prince 's household , alleged that she was dismissed unfairly from her job after complaining of unwelcome sexual advances by a royal aide . but the debate broadened beyond the perennial questions of sexual misbehavior in royal circles , inspiring an unusual public spat involving a government cabinet minister and prince_charles himself . it began when ms . day told the tribunal that during her time in the prince 's employment between 1999 and 2004 , she had asked whether the royal household offered a route to promotion for secretaries . ''what is wrong with people these days ? '' the prince responded with evident exasperation in a memo written in 2002 and made public wednesday at the tribunal . ''why do they all seem to think they are qualified to do things far above their capabilities ? ''this is all to do with the learning culture in schools , '' it added . ''it is a consequence of child centered education system which admits no failure . people seem to think they can all be pop stars , high_court judges or brilliant tv presenters or infinitely more competent heads of state without ever putting in the necessary work or having the natural ability . '' it was not clear whom the memo was addressed to or how ms . day obtained it . but at the tribunal , she said its message was clear . ''the culture in the royal household extends from the prince of wales , '' ms . day said . ''it was a household which was structured very much in the edwardian fashion . everyone knows their place and if you forget it the system will punish you . '' the airing of such accusations plays into britain 's long running debate between those who support the monarchy and those who believe it is an anachronism . the prince himself acknowledged on thursday that he had some ''fiendishly old fashioned views , '' but did not refer directly to the hearings . but , unusually , the memo also drew a tart personal attack on the prince on thursday from a government minister charles clarke , who is in charge of education . ''to be quite frank i think he is very old fashioned and out of time and he does n't understand what is going on in the british education system at the moment , '' mr . clarke told a radio interviewer . ''we ca n't all be born to be king but we can all have a position where we can really aspire for ourselves and for our families to do the very best they possibly can . '' paddy harverson , prince_charles 's spokesman , insisted that the prince had , in fact , been pleading for individual rights in education . ''he thinks everyone is not the same and everyone has different talents , '' mr . harverson said . ''what education should be geared toward is giving everyone the chance to make the best of those talents in their own way . '' prince_charles is hardly a stranger to the swirl of public debate , but some politicians clearly wished they could steer clear of this dispute . at a news conference alongside visiting president jacques_chirac of france , prime_minister tony_blair was asked what he thought about the dispute . ''if everything that i wrote on a memo in a moment of exasperation was given widespread publicity , i might make for a few headlines myself , '' he told reporters . ''i 'm staying out of this one . ''",has a topic of education
"the day when sawako mitsui , 20 , and midori usuta , 21 , score above 500 on the test of english as a foreign language is the day they will celebrate . the two are studying in the intensive english program at temple_university 's branch here , and only by scoring at least 500 on the toefl , which assesses the english proficiency of foreign students preparing to study at american or canadian universities , will they be able to enroll at temple_university 's main campus in philadelphia . ''i never thought toefl was going to be this hard , '' said ms . usuta wearily . after three years of concentrated study and 10 tries at the test , she had managed only 450 . ''the listening comprehension section of the test is a nightmare , '' sighed ms . mitsui . ''grasping spoken english is really hard for me . '' they are not alone . each year , 250 , 000 japanese take the one hour and 50 minute test . with an average score of about 490 , the japanese ranked 152d in average score out of 171 national groups in 1995 , according to data compiled by the educational testing service , the toefl administrator . japan trails nearly all industrial countries and most of its asian neighbors , including china , which scored a respectable average of 549 out of a possible 677 . ( the netherlands tops the list with a 607 average . ) in a curious paradox , japan has for decades displayed a national enthusiasm for learning english , with an english_language industry estimated at nearly 5 billion annually . almost every large bookstore in japan has large displays of publications on learning english , and private english conversation schools can be found all over large cities like tokyo . english is also considered an essential subject at school . english classes are compulsory from seventh to ninth_grade and most students study it until the 12th_grade , when they cram for college entrance_examinations . the college entrance tests usually give english disproportionately higher weight than other subjects . the japanese are among the most avid takers of the toefl . the number of japanese test takers , just over 250 , 000 in 1995 , is far greater than second place korea , which had about 120 , 000 test takers in 1995 . the discrepancy between the national effort to teach english and the mediocre performance on the toefl has been especially disheartening for leaders in english education . ''it 's pathetic , '' said ikuo koike , professor emeritus at keio_university and the president of the japan college english teachers association . ''i am very disappointed at the results . i really am bordering on anger . '' he said the results cannot be discounted simply by asserting that the high number of test takers may have brought down the national average . he pointed to countries like korea and taiwan , which outperform japan by about 15 points , and where more people take the toefl as a percentage of total national population . ''you cannot explain away japan 's low scores , '' he said . experts like professor koike cite such factors as inadequate english education , the country 's history of isolation , japanese sentence structure and japan 's inward oriented culture as inhibiting people 's ability to communicate with the outside world . among these factors , japan 's english education , with its focus on grammar and reading , is often the first to be criticized . in japanese schools , teachers tend to focus on meticulous points of grammar . english passages are carefully analyzed , and word to word japanese translations are prepared . english speakers complain that english is taught and studied like math and science rather than language . yoshiaki sato , a professor of english at the university of tokyo , blames his fellow academics for having created such ' 'distorted english . '' ''university entrance_examinations have been the root of all evil , '' he said . ''and these tests are designed by english professors who have little or no command of spoken english . '' professor sato said that english , as treated in college entrance_exams , has been emulated in secondary_education because a chief mission of high_school is to insure students' smooth entries into universities . why then do japanese academics and intellectuals prefer bookish english to a more conversational brand ? eiichi chino , a linguistics professor at wako university , sees an answer in japanese history and its geographic isolation . he argues that the japanese have historically learned foreign languages for the purpose of absorbing advanced knowledge from abroad rather than for communicating with foreigners . many english conversation teachers complain that their biggest obstacle is overcoming students' negative attitudes toward english grammar , a byproduct of high_school classes that rigidly emphasize arcane points of grammar at the expense of conversational english . ''students are trained to be worried about making mistakes , '' said kenneth crown , an english instructor at toefl academy , a private preparation school in tokyo . ''every time i ask students a question , they see it as a mini test rather than a chance to say something . '' some scholars assert that the japanese face an inherent difficulty in mastering english . ken kanatani , a professor of english education at tokyo gakugei university , argues that two crucial factors help determine the difficulty a nation will face in learning english the differences between one 's first language and english , and whether the country was a western colony . ''you cannot blame school teachers in english , because the japanese_language is structurally so remote from english , '' professor kanatani said . while english sentences typically follow a subject verb object sequence , japanese sentences commonly finish with a verb . english is also phonetically challenging for the japanese . ''the japanese_language encompasses a far narrower range of sounds than english , '' said shoichi watanabe , professor of linguistics at sophia university here . ''the japanese_language has about half the sounds of english , so the japanese are at a severe disadvantage both in listening and speaking english . '' the reverse is also true . the language training institute at the state_department says japanese is among the most difficult languages for americans to learn , along with korean , chinese and arabic . but americans are not nearly as eager to learn japanese as the japanese are to learn english . hiroshi sugita , a professor of linguistics at tokyo gakugei university who is an expert in several languages , including english , asserts that the japanese do poorly in just about any language . ''japanese are , for example , terrible at chinese , '' he said . ''even with the korean language , which closely_resembles the japanese_language , we do not do nearly as well as the koreans do in our language . '' the failure to establish solid communication lines with the english speaking world can result in a clear cost . ''japan pays a significant diplomatic cost for not being able to communicate effectively in english , '' said ryuhei hosoya , a senior diplomat at the japanese foreign ministry . ''very few top officers of the government are able to handle business in english . '' he concedes that , by and large , the english proficiency of his fellow diplomats is very low . ''even compared to other non english speaking countries , there is a lot to be desired . '' mr . hosoya says the price japan pays is often invisible , like not being able to build firm relationships with foreign diplomats , and losing access to informally conveyed information . prompted by a sense of crisis , mr . hosoya proposes adopting english as a second official language of the nation and bringing in more native english teachers in the school system . but mr . hosoya and other scholars are not hopeful of meaningful change in the near future . ''it is going to take decades to change , '' he said . but in these days of computers and the internet , where english is the dominant language , the need for mastery of english is more acutely felt than ever , and the japanese will face mounting pressure to redouble their efforts on the english front . mr . hosoya of the foreign ministry said , ''it is a matter that concerns our national interest . '' think you understand english ? here are some sample questions from an english test that is part of the entrance_exam at waseda university in tokyo . 1 . choose the one word that does not belong . a . calmly . b . friendly . c . patiently . d . quickly . e . sweetly . answer b . reason a , c , d , and e , all derive from adjectives while the word friendly does n't . 2 . supply a word in the parentheses so that the each pair of sentences have the same meaning . ( 1 ) a . were it not for the 250 guards on patrol to protect the elephants in the park , none of them would survive for long . b . elephants in the park survive ( ) to the 250 guards on patrol to protect them . ( 2 ) a . this is really a very challenging job . b . this is a very difficult job but ( ) doing . ( 3 ) a . you should have made sure i was expecting you before you came to see me . b . you should have ( ) your appointment before you came to see me . answers ( 1 ) thanks ( 2 ) worth ( 3 ) confirmed no other answers are correct . miki_tanikawa , a freelance writer , works in the tokyo bureau of the new york times .",has a topic of education
"right on the edge of this tiny mountain town , snug beside the main road into it , stands a cross . there is another cross atop a church that looms above all the other buildings , and yet another cross high on the wall of the room where the city_council meets . ''we have many crosses , '' said the mayor , anna rita coletti , in an interview inside that room on wednesday . but one cross in particular has caught the attention and stirred the passions of italians far and wide . it has also prompted an intense discussion about the proper place of christianity in italy 's identity about the right way to adjust to immigrants of different faiths that reflects unresolved tensions throughout western_europe . that cross hangs in the only elementary_school in ofena , about 90 miles east of rome . on saturday , a judge ruled that it should be taken down . the judge was responding to a lawsuit by a muslim man who has several children in the school and claims that the cross is discriminatory . italians responded to the ruling with a fury that dominated news coverage around the country for several days and has not yet abated . leading politicians of all ideological stripes denounced the decision as an affront to italy 's history and heritage . the vatican newspaper on monday and again on wednesday used its front page to protest the court ruling , and pope_john_paul_ii on wednesday made a point of saying that ''the cross of christ is the eloquent symbol'' of a loving , caring civilization . the pope , making brief public remarks , also called the cross ''the source of light , of comfort and of hope for mankind through all of time . '' italians do not always agree with him . although about 85 percent of italy 's 57 million residents are nominally roman_catholic , the majority of them do not attend church with any regularity . roman catholicism ceased to be the official state_religion nearly two decades ago , and both abortion and divorce , which run contrary to catholic teaching , are common here . but the idea that a cross should be banned from a classroom seems , for many italians , to be a step too far from their roots and too close to a kind of multiculturalism that is still largely foreign . ''the cross has always been there , '' said anna berardi , 56 , as she stood outside the elementary_school on wednesday , marveling at the phalanx of television news trucks in the parking_lot . ms . berardi , who said that she seldom attends church , was referring to the cross as a visual motif throughout italy , and she kept repeating herself . ''it 's always been there , '' she said . ''it 's how we were taught . it 's the way it 's always been . '' other italians said that the very ubiquity of the cross had turned it into a general cultural symbol as opposed to an exclusively religious one . they also said that to banish it from schools or city halls would be to deny the importance of christianity in italian art and even ethics . ''the crucifix has always been considered not only a distinctive sign of a particular religious credo , but above all a symbol of the values that are at the base of our italian identity , '' said italy 's president , carlo_azeglio_ciampi , earlier this week . mayor coletti rendered a similar assessment , saying that the crosses in public buildings were not so much spiritual symbols as civic ones . she compared them to the italian flags and portraits of president ciampi that also tend to hang in those buildings . ''they 're part of our history , '' she said . that opinion is shared by people who have fought unsuccessfully to have a reference to christianity inserted into the preamble of a constitution for the european_union . those advocates have lost out to political leaders who say that europe has become too diverse for any one faith to be singled out . italy has a relatively small muslim population 500 , 000 to 800 , 000 people , according to estimates . but new immigrants arrive every day , and there is an almost constant , palpable sense of unease about that in political debate and everyday conversation . italians openly wonder what the future will hold , and how far they will be asked to budge . ''we are trying to coexist with the immigrants , '' said alessandro ortenzi , 25 , one of about 650 year round residents of ofena . ''we build them mosques , and in milan they get two hours off every day during ramadan , '' he said . ''can you imagine an italian asking for an hour off work to say the rosary ? '' ofena survives mostly on agriculture and , in fact , has few immigrants . but it happens to be the home of adel smith , the outspoken , peripatetic advocate for muslims who filed the lawsuit . mr . smith is an egyptian immigrant with a scottish father . town residents said that no one in ofena had ever treated him or his children badly and that he was just looking to promote himself and several little known books he has written on religion and politics . mr . smith said he was seeking social_justice . ''either everyone is equal before the law or no one is equal , '' he said during a brief telephone interview from milan , where he had traveled to make the latest of many television appearances this week . ''either all of the religious symbols should be respected or none of them , '' he said . the italian constitution says all religions are ''equally free before the law . '' but a law from the 1920 's that has never been overturned says schools must display crosses . according to italian legal scholars and government officials , saturday 's court ruling is unlikely to usurp that law or apply beyond ofena . but the ruling is nonetheless reverberating throughout the country . several mayors of other towns near ofena have declared that they are going to distribute crosses to residents as christmas presents . the cross in the school in ofena has not yet been taken down . the italian justice minister has ordered an investigation into the ruling . local residents are waiting , watching and worrying . claudice d'adario , 60 , said that if muslims wanted to come ''with the koran printed on their outfits , that 's fine . '' ''but to get rid of a symbol that 's existed for so long , '' ms . d'adario said , ''is not right . '' ofena journal",has a topic of education
"conservatives returned today from the coastal town of blackpool , where their annual party conference ended on friday with an address by prime_minister john_major in which he proclaimed that the tories were "" united , healed , renewed and thirsting for the fight with labor . "" despite his rallying cry , the three day conference saw the party in power lurching to the right and a raucous and divisive tone that was not customary for the tories . in his keynote speech mr . major promised he would lead them to a fifth straight election victory by offering tax cuts , a greater choice in schools and strong stands against scottish autonomy and european federalism . he said he would put 10 , 000 more closed_circuit security cameras in shopping areas and 5 , 000 more police officers on the streets , and allow m.i . 5 , the internal security agency , to fight drugs and organized_crime . the opposition , tony_blair 's labor_party , has jettisoned the principle of common ownership in a move to capture the middle ground . so mr . major may have been flogging a dead horse when he looked into the television cameras and exhorted the public to "" beat labor one more time and you have beaten socialism out of this country for good . "" an election must be held by may 1997 . mr . major 's party is down in the opinion_polls from 20 to 28 points , depending on who is doing the polling . it is suffering from the sort of scandals and fatigue that might be expected from 16 years in power . and it is badly divided over how much sovereignty to surrender to the european_union in brussels . but much of that seemed beside the point as the thousands of delegates cheered after listening for 70 minutes to the impeccably groomed , mild_mannered man whom many find uninspiring but comforting for his ability to bridge differences and project an image of decency and up from the bootstraps rectitude . mr . major played into that theme today by reminding his listeners that he came from basic , lower middle class stock . "" my father made garden ornaments 40 years ago , and some fashionable people find that very funny , "" he said . but , he added , his upbringing put him in touch with the dreams and sacrifices of small business men , especially when his father 's enterprise failed . conservative_party conferences are usually occasions for some tough sounding oratory from the delegates . no conference is complete without a delegate or two demanding restoration of hanging . but this time much of the tough language at the podium came from cabinet members and so more or less reflects the government 's official position . michael portillo , the new defense secretary , delivered a scathing attack on closer european_integration , asserting that a tory government would never allow britain to be part of a common european army . ( such a proposal does not exist . ) just imagine it , he said , his voice dripping with sarcasm , they would "" stop our men from fighting for more than 40 hours a week , "" and "" send half of them home on paternity leave . "" the gibe brought cheers in the conference hall but condemnation from brussels . jacques santer , president of the european_commission , called the remarks "" grotesque . "" mr . major 's address was noticeably softer . he promised to double to 60 , 000 the number of government grants for lower income students to go to private schools , and to find a way to "" give people more of a say "" in scotland . this was an attempt to hold off huge gains in scotland for labor , which has promised devolution of power through a proposed scottish parliament that would have limited powers .",has a topic of education
"under a new plan intended to address britain 's growing problem of school absenteeism , the british_government today proposed granting principals , welfare caseworkers and police officers the right to fine parents of students who are chronically absent from school . ''we need to increase the instruments that are available so that we can deal with parents who collude in persistent truanting , '' a spokesman for prime_minister tony_blair said . according to the proposals , announced by the education secretary , charles clarke , parents of students who miss an undue amount of school without permission would be obliged to sign a contract pledging to improve their children 's attendance . if the children continue to avoid school , the parents would be subject to fines of up to 2 , 500 , about 3 , 900 at current exchange_rates , or , if that fails , criminal_prosecution . the government , whose previous efforts have made little dent in the truancy problem , says that some 50 , 000 pupils a day miss school without permission and that many more behave in an unruly manner in school . it is up to parents to turn the situation around , mr . clarke said in a speech , adding that ' 'discipline begins at home . '' ''quite simply , we ca n't raise educational standards if pupils miss school and behave badly when they are there , '' he said in announcing the new package . ''these measures are about ensuring we as government do all we can to restore order in our classrooms . '' but david hart , general secretary of the union representing school principals , said he was worried about giving school officials powers that , he said , should be handled by law enforcement officers . ''i am not sure it will do much for the relationship between the heads and these parents , '' mr . hart said in a television interview . all previous efforts by mr . blair 's labor_government to tackle the problem of chronic absenteeism has met with little success in reducing the numbers of students missing school . last spring , in a case that received wide publicity , and is believed to be the first of its kind , a mother in oxfordshire was sentenced to 60 days in jail after being found guilty of allowing two of her children to miss school chronically . the mother , who had been repeatedly warned about the situation by school officials and whose children were usually at home with her when they should have been at school , was released after two weeks following an appeal .",has a topic of education
"the supreme court of canada has ruled that the provincial government of ontario need not finance non catholic religious schools even though for more than a century it has paid for schools run by the roman_catholic_church . the court 's 7 to 2 decision ends a five year effort by non catholic religious groups in ontario , canada 's most populous province , to force the government to finance jewish , hindu and other parochial schools . in their ruling , late last month , the justices found that the current arrangement of government support for public schools and catholic schools alike stemmed from ''a historical compromise crucial to confederation . '' in 1867 , french speaking and largely catholic quebec joined english speaking and protestant ontario in a political confederation that became canada . the dual school system was a way to accommodate both sides , and the court 's ruling held that an expansion of the system to include additional religious groups had never been intended . the justices noted , however , that nothing in law actually prevented the provincial government from supporting the schools of other religions . this means that unlike the united_states , where there is strict separation of church and state , ontario could give money to religious schools of all types if the proper legislation was approved . manuel prutschi , executive director of the ontario region of the canadian jewish congress , said his organization would lobby provincial officials for partial financing . ''we 've already spoken to them , '' mr . prutschi said , ''about the possibility of receiving government funding for the secular portion of the school curriculum'' that is , for the teaching of subjects like geography , history and mathematics that all students in ontario must take . ontario 's minister of education , john snobelen , has said that he is willing to discuss support for religious schools but that issues surrounding the financing of public schools must first be taken care of . in its effort to eliminate a large deficit , the current provincial government has slashed spending in many areas , including 300 million ( united_states ) from education last year .",has a topic of education
"an article on nov . 8 about klaus j . jacobs , a german born billionaire who is donating more than 250 million to the international university bremen , misstated the name of an institution that another german businessman , otto beisheim , endowed . it is the whu otto beisheim school of management in the rhine valley at vallendar . despite its use of the acronym whu , derived from german , it is not affiliated with the witten herdecke university in the ruhr_valley .",has a topic of education
"newspapers and politicians around the country reacted with dismay to a report that a teacher in the northern town of como had substituted the word ''virtue'' for ''jesus'' in an italian christmas carol to make it more acceptable to muslim pupils . ''jesus banned in christmas songs'' read one front page headline , while an official of the rightist northern league suggested that italy was losing its identity and asked , ''are we going crazy ? '' jason horowitz ( nyt )",has a topic of education
"lead when japan recently announced plans to place its first american japanese high_school in harrison , it became the second foreign government to claim educational territory in westchester . when japan recently announced plans to place its first american japanese high_school in harrison , it became the second foreign government to claim educational territory in westchester . a few miles away , the deutsche schule new york the german school new york is completing its eighth year of providing primary and secondary_education for 353 students under the authority of the federal republic of germany . the deutsche schule new york is one of only two such schools operating in the united_states and one of about 60 operated by the german_government worldwide . the deutsche schule new york receives additional financial support from both the austrian and swiss governments . occupying a building once known as the north street elementary_school in white_plains , the deutsche schule new york is preparing its first group of candidates for the prestigious abitur , or high_school_diploma . the diploma is awarded to the approximately one fourth of the german student population . those who successfully master their 13 year curriculum are guaranteed university placement . the opportunity to try for the abitur comes only after students master earlier steps in the demanding gymnasium , the seventh_grade to 13th grade secondary_school curriculum that includes at least two foreign languages in addition to german . biology , physics and chemistry , history , social_studies , geography and mathematics are also required . there 's also a high dose of art , music and sports , subjects that the principal , jurgen f . hildebrand , acknowledges are more heavily emphasized because of local american influences . the boys' soccer team did quite well in this , its first season , mr . hildebrand said proudly , losing by only one goal the championship game in the fairchester league , made up of private_school teams from westchester and fairfield counties . during a recent lunchtime break at the deutsche schule , children whose parents work for deutsche_bank , commerzbank , the goethe institute and the german diplomatic corps gathered on the playground to discuss their school . social isolation is a ''big problem , '' one young man said , adding , ''i do n't have any american friends . '' others disagreed . american friends are different , they said , and must be met on their own terms , in their own language and through their own sports . one young woman in the group , none of whom wished to be identified , said she was a ranked tennis_player in new england and she added , ''if you can concentrate on something , like tennis , you 'll make lots of friends . '' attending the german school is important , the students agreed , because it reduces the pressure about university acceptance , and , one student added , ''a german school reminds you of home . '' although german schools traditionally offer four types of secondary_education , mr . hildebrand said his school was so small that it could offer only a broad version of the most demanding course of study one for which some potential students cannot qualify . managing a school population that is constantly changing and that has outgrown its elementary_school space is not easy , mr . hildebrand said . fluctuation in the student population averages 25 percent a year , he said , adding , ''every four years , you have a new school , '' a reference to the four years german corporate executives traditionally serve abroad . ''next year , '' mr . hildebrand said , he expects to lose ''a sizable portion'' of his winning soccer team . ''you cannot count on anything , '' he said , ''but it 's the price you pay . '' mr . hildebrand also said he was concerned about the recent decision of the white_plains zoning board of appeals denying the school 's request for a zoning variance to add classroom space . although the deutsche schule completed a 1 million expansion in 1986 , school officials insist that the additional space is necessary to accommodate the demands of the german educational structure and not because of any plans to add students . however , neighbors said the expansion created the potential for more traffic . students accepted at the school must be completely bilingual , although mr . hildebrand said ''english is the language of choice'' within four months after a student 's arrival . ''they love to be in this country , '' mr . hildebrand said . ''they have an experience before them which they have accepted with joy , an acceptance that includes the country and everything that goes along with it . '' the deutsche schule represents an opportunity for children of transplanted foreign nationals to keep up with stiff academic requirements at home , requirements that once forced whole families to remain at home and threatened the development of west_germany 's economic_growth . ''it 's a typical european problem , '' siegfried a . kessler , the school 's founder , said recently from his retirement_home in hilton head , n.c . ''while access to universities in europe is free , it is also limited , '' mr . kessler said . 'numerus clausus , ' the latin term for closed enrollment , became a frequently heard cry at these universities , said mr . kessler , the retired chairman of the board of carl zeiss , the optical company , just as german companies were attempting to recover from world_war_ii and expand their trade relations with the united_states . the situation became so intolerable , he added , that 20 years ago , german parents , fearing that their children would be inadequately prepared and would fail to pass the examinations , began turning down foreign assignments . corporate demand for a german school in the new york area grew quickly . the second school is in washington . in 1978 , mr . kessler founded the german forum , a nonprofit_organization with the primary goal of establishing a school in the new york city area offering german speaking children an education recognized in their home country . the school would also serve as a forum for german_language and culture and , mr . kessler said , ''one that would contribute to improving relations between nations . how better to accomplish that than with the young . '' a group organized by mr . kessler and including top executives of several german companies operating in the united_states began planning for the school . the organizers included prince peter wittgenstein , president of the mannesmann capital corporation karl fried nordmann , president of mercedes_benz of north_america , and werner schmidt , president of em industries , as well as leading bank officials and lawyers . in september 1980 , the deutsche schule new york opened in white_plains with numerous corporate supporters , a 1 . 2 million loan from west_germany and a student enrollment of 64 . white_plains was selected , mr . kessler said , because most of the school 's organizers lived in the county , and space could be obtained for less money than in manhattan . eight years later , mr . kessler said , ''practically all german families with children coming to new york moved to the white_plains area in order to be near the school , '' an educational institution that also transports students by bus and private car from new jersey , connecticut and new york city . the students are from eight countries , including the united_states , and mr . kessler said a major goal of the school was to begin accepting american students who are not already bilingual . the other countries are austria , chile , switzerland , england , mexico and finland . classes are taught in english and german . mr . hildebrand is one of eight members of a staff of 40 whose salary is financed by the west_german government , which also provides yearly subsidies to the school , last year amounting to 350 , 000 . with this help and continued corporate support , tuition at the school is 3 , 000 to 3 , 700 a year . an 18 member board of trustees , including parents , founders and ''friends'' of the school administer the school 's 1 . 5 million a year budget . the board 's chairman is werner gerstenberg , senior vice_president of boehringer ingelheim pharmaceuticals . although mr . hildebrand does not know if the deutsche schule new york influenced the japanese government 's decision to establish a school of their own in westchester , students from the german school have exchanged visits with the japanese primary_school in queens . perhaps , mr . hildebrand said , ''they went back and said , we could do that , too . ''",has a topic of education
"in a case that has stoked fears about academic_freedom in this former british colony , a prominent pollster said on friday he had been warned by the head of hong_kong_university not to publish surveys critical of the beijing appointed chief executive of hong kong , tung_chee_hwa . the pollster , robert chung , said the university 's vice_chancellor , cheng yiu chung , told him through a deputy that the university would ' 'dry up'' the financial support for his work if he did not stop conducting polls on the popularity of mr . tung or the postcolonial government . ''i felt it was a very clear message , '' said dr . chung , at an emotional news conference in which he broke down twice . dr . chung 's disclosure capped a week of bitter accusations and denials that began on july 7 , when he wrote a column for the south_china_morning_post describing how he was pressured . ''more than once , i was given a clear message from mr . tung via a special channel that my polling activities were not welcomed , '' he wrote . ''mr . tung did not like me polling his popularity , or the government 's credibility . '' a government spokesman , stephen lam , said today that neither mr . tung nor anybody on his staff had instructed the university to stop polling . with dr . chung 's decision to name names , a personal dispute has escalated into a furious debate over whether hong_kong is stifling academic_freedom . such questions have been raised about press_freedom and the legal system since hong_kong reverted to chinese rule in 1997 . but its eight publicly funded universities have been generally untouched by political pressure . ''this is potentially more serious than those other disputes because hong_kong 's future depends on the free flow of information , '' said michael degolyer , a professor at baptist university who also conducts polls about the government . ''if hong_kong gains a reputation for limiting or restricting its news flow , any hope of making this the financial center of asia are gone . '' dr . chung 's surveys have revealed a marked deterioration in the popularity of mr . tung a trend that mr . degolyer 's polls also show . although hong_kong has rebounded from the asian_financial_crisis , this normally tranquil city has been disrupted by protests over falling real_estate prices and the lack of government reform . mr . degolyer said dr . chung 's polling methods were sound . but he noted that the professor brought a ''pro_democracy'' perspective to his work . dr . chung did not return calls seeking comment . hong_kong_university , one of the most highly_regarded institutions in asia , said it would set up a commission to investigate dr . chung 's allegations . but student groups marched on the hilly campus , calling for the vice_chancellor to resign .",has a topic of education
"a student strike against government moves toward a europewide system of degrees and higher tuition spread to 17 universities . the strikes started in rennes in brittany two weeks ago . standard european diplomas have three levels , while in france there are five . h l ne fouquet ( nyt )",has a topic of education
"the downtown streets with their georgian row_houses and victorian clock towers have names that have long been thought of as typically british queen , wellington , duke , bank , castle . the shops and storefronts nestled among them have names that are fast becoming typically british marcia 's caribbean takeaway , imran 's southern fried_chicken , the kebab house , the somalian and mediterranean food hall . but the 40 , 000 nonwhite residents of this city of 530 , 000 in the heart of britain , many of them born and raised here and speaking in the distinctive broad vowels of a yorkshire accent , identify themselves as anything but british . they do not even say afro british it 's afro caribbean not asian british , simply asian . this self definition strikes a nerve in britain , where the government has made taking on a common_sense of british nationhood by the immigrant population a critical measure of progress in its push for racial_integration and assimilation . experience in cities like sheffield proves that it is one thing to transform churches into mosques , tea rooms into curry houses and old depots and cutlery workshops into ethnic community centers and something else again to turn people who feel foreign into self proclaiming britons . ''the only times i call myself british are when i go to get a passport and when someone asks me where my accent comes from , '' said jenni i'anson , 33 , a mental_health aide of jamaican parentage who was born in sheffield . ''otherwise i would never class myself as british . there is no sense of belonging here . i would only say that i am african caribbean . '' her nephew , theo hamilton , 15 , a third generation sheffielder , said , ''british to me means white , and i do n't get treated like a white person , so i do n't think of myself as british . '' european_countries are experiencing profound changes in their population mixes , and britain 's reputation as one of the region 's more stable multiethnic societies was shaken during the summer by a series of riots in cities with substantial immigrant populations . in the aftermath of sept . 11 , the country also found that it had been a breeding ground for young islamic radicals linked to terror groups and committed to holy_war against the west . according to the office of national statistics , britain is 7.1 percent nonwhite , with 2.2 percent of the population categorized as black , 3.4 percent from the asian subcontinent and 1.5 percent chinese and ''other groups . '' of the 82 , 000 people granted british citizenship in 2000 , 27 percent were from asia , 35 percent from africa and the caribbean and 8 percent from the middle_east . a government report on the summer outbreaks concluded that whites and ethnic minorities in britain were leading separate lives with no social or cultural contact and no sense of shared nationality . it urged immigrants to become active british citizens . in february , home_secretary david blunkett recommended that minorities speed the process of integration by adopting british ''norms of acceptability , '' and he proposed that newcomers take an oath of allegiance , study british history and culture and embrace ''our laws , our values , our institutions . '' sheffield , england 's fourth largest city , would seem to be a place where that project would enjoy more success than elsewhere in britain . race relations have been less combative here than in cities like london , birmingham , liverpool , bradford and leeds with histories of rioting . the local government has been more attentive and the police more communicative . ''here we do it better , '' said mohamed awale , 56 , a development worker of somali background who came here in 1994 . ''it 's not so explosive . '' but even nonwhite people in sheffield who have had success in getting educations , finding jobs and building stable lives say they still do not feel they are part of the same nation inhabited by white residents , and they resent the official entreaty to think otherwise . ''of course it 's the wrong thing to be asking of us , '' said zahid hamid , 46 , who came here from pakistan in the early 1960 's . ''what a lot of so called english want us to want is leafy oxfordshire . ''but what we want is a job , a decent place to live , safety , a chance to educate our children . we want to preserve our separate identities . and remember , we must still also maintain the economic link with our original homes . forty years later , i am still sending money back . '' britain 's policy had been one of championing multiculturalism , an approach that seeks to guarantee equality of opportunity while respecting and even celebrating cultural differences . many nonwhites in britain thought they witnessed a departure from that ideal with the publication of the report and the subsequent recommendations of citizenship classes and pledges . they reacted with bewilderment and anger . ''you ca n't give your allegiance to a country that is trying to exclude you , '' said seaton gosling , 63 , the jamaican born chairman of sheffield 's black community forum . ''everyone wants to keep the right to preserve his culture and identity . '' the exclusion that arouses their anger is the barrier they feel white society places in the way of job advancement . ''i have a ph . d. , and i find it impossible to get past a certain level , '' said abdul shaif , 40 , an education officer with the city_council who came here in 1971 from yemen . ''not one black manager has made it onto the ladder . '' uttering a lament common to minority workers in immigrant societies , raja shaffique , 44 , a pakistani born housing officer , said , ''we have to be twice as good as our white colleagues to get the same job . '' while sheffield , like other british cities , has largely segregated residential patterns , that form of separation upsets minority residents less than the blockage in workplace advancement . for many of them integration appears to be less of a goal than it is for the government . ''even after 40 years here , i like to see a black face close by , '' said mr . gosling of his afro caribbean neighborhood . ''it 's a kind of comfort . but i have to add that if society had shown us years ago that it wanted us , it would n't have driven us into this kind of protectiveness . '' ms . i'anson said young people were even less interested in integration . ''the young generation is more segregated than we were , '' she said . ''they 're more aware of the issues . '' she said she recently gathered a group of black youths to try to interest them in a job that had come up . ''do you know what the first question always was ? '' she asked . '' 'is the boss black or white ? ' '' her nephew theo said the only white people he ever encountered were police officers who regularly stopped him on the street . ''i do n't know any white kids , but i try to mingle with them so i wo n't get picked up so much , '' he added . isadora aiken , 50 , a jamaican born business manager who came here in 1967 , said ''people are simply not integrating . i go out onto the high_street and into the downtown department_stores , and black people are not visible there at all . '' mr . shaif protested the imperative the government was putting on integration . he said a teenager he had a conversation with days earlier explained the quandary of being asian and british at the same time . ''by day i 'm english , '' she said . ''but at night i 'm yemeni . '' angela baugh , a 39 year old filmmaker of jamaican background , and her two children were born here . ''i am second generation and the mother of the third , and none of us say we 're british . '' she said she was reminded of her outsider status every time she came back to britain from abroad and went through customs . ''when i go into the european_community line , i 'm stopped and quizzed and made to feel like i 'm either an asylum seeker or a refugee , '' she said . ''so how am i expected to ever feel british . ? ''",has a topic of education
"france replaced a regional school board president , alain morvan , for vigorously opposing a new muslim high_school in a lyon suburb and for publicly complaining about pressure from the government to stop obstructing its opening . the school began admitting students this month after an eight month struggle with mr . morvan , who said the school 's founders were ''fundamentalists . '' it is the third islamic school in france . john_tagliabue",has a topic of education
"lawsuits filed by thousands of former indian boarding_school students in canada , claiming sexual , physical and ''cultural'' abuse , threaten to swamp the financial resources of four mainstream christian_churches that ran the schools until 1970 . ''i simply see us going broke , '' duncan d . wallace , the anglican bishop of qu'appelle , which encompasses regina , said of his diocese . with resignation , he added , ''when you get down to it , all we need is a bottle of wine , a book and a table , and we are in business . '' settlements could snowball into billions of dollars , devastating the financial resources of canada 's four old line christian_churches anglican , roman_catholic , presbyterian and united church . by the end of next year , the canadian government forecasts , 16 , 000 indians will have entered some form of claim that number is equal to 17 percent of the living alumni of the boarding schools . already there are four class_action suits against the churches and the government , which had the churches run schools in distant communities under contract . indian plaintiffs have won all five boarding_school abuse trials held in the last two years two in saskatchewan and three in british_columbia . in the saskatchewan cases , both involving sex abuse , and both filed against the government , one plaintiff won 54 , 000 and the other 114 , 000 . in the british_columbia cases , lawyers for the government and the churches negotiated secrecy over damage awards . auditors for the anglican church of canada predict that legal fees alone will push the church into bankruptcy next year . ''there is a lot of denial , people thinking this is a bad dream , '' bishop wallace said of the responses of priests and parishioners to the claims . ''i told a priest recently , 'when your rectory gets sold out from underneath you and you are living in the street , maybe you will understand this is for real . ' '' parishioners have proposed selling the oldest church in alberta to raise 2 million for legal costs and settlements faced by the united church of canada . in manitoba , the missionary oblates of mary immaculate , a roman_catholic order , want to hand over to the federal_government virtually all their property in the province in return for ottawa 's assuming liability for about 2 , 000 claims against the order . the oblates fear that legal bills will eat up their assets before any money can flow to legitimate claimants . in british_columbia , some members of the now bankrupt anglican diocese of cariboo , embittered with the government , propose complying with a government order to inventory church art for auction by sending their sunday school drawings to ottawa . behind the suits is the real pain of many canadian indians who were rounded up and forced into the schools . in the late 19th_century , canada 's government turned to established churches to carry out federal obligations to educate the new nation 's indians . with few civil_servants willing to work in remote areas , churches agreed to run a network of aboriginal boarding_schools , which numbered about 100 at its peak . in a forced assimilation popular in north_america a century ago , children as young as 5 were taken from their families to faraway boarding schools where their hair was cropped short , they were often dressed in uniforms and they were forbidden to speak their native languages or learn their traditional arts , religion and dances . ''how do you get 6 year olds who only speak sioux , who only speak lakota , who only speak cree to speak english ? '' asked anthony merchant , head of a group here that represents about 4 , 000 claimants . ''you use gestapo type tactics to punish this 6 year old . punishment becomes increasingly barbaric , sadistic . '' mr . merchant , who said there were no statutes of limitations for sex abuse cases , said that about one third of his clients charged such abuse . with the pace of trials picking up , he estimated that his firm would handle half of the roughly 70 cases scheduled for trial next year . ''you could n't say one word or you would get slapped , '' said jerry shepherd , a plaintiff from the white bear nation , recounting in an interview his days at gordon school , about 65 miles north of here , in the mid 1960 's . with parents often forbidden to visit , boarding schools sometimes became places where pedophiles freely preyed on defenseless , disoriented children , indians say . ''the sexual perverts went all over the west , '' mr . merchant said . ''we have some that were in six or seven schools . '' school defenders say that for aboriginal canadians to survive in the modern era , it was essential for them to learn english , to adopt western style dress and to learn vocational skills . anger over the schools surfaced in suspicious fires that decimated the buildings , most recently an arson attack last summer that destroyed a boarded up building that once housed the edmonton indian residential school in alberta . some indians remember that their abusers were fellow indians . edmund gordon , 39 , a former student at the gordon school , recalls that the supervisor who gave him marijuana and then tried to rape him was ''an aboriginal , he taught powwow . '' mr . gordon , a claimant who now runs a residence for h.i.v . positive indians here , said that he blamed the supply of free drugs and alcohol for derailing his boyhood goals of becoming a policeman or professional hockey player . according to ''sins of the fathers , '' a report on the schools published by the anglican journal , the church 's monthly newspaper , last may , eight indian men committed_suicide after they were subpoenaed to testify about their sexual_abuse at the boarding_school in the cariboo diocese . ''when they got handed a piece of paper , they knew their secret was out , '' fred sampson , a former student of st . george 's indian residential school , said about friends called to testify in an abuse suit that went to trial last year . ''they thought , 'everybody 's going to know that i let this guy do it to me for candy . ' '' robert desjarlais , 53 , a saskatchewan indian , walked 1 , 500 miles from here to ottawa last summer , demanding educational programs to restore lost languages . walking the last 100 miles barefoot , mr . desjarlais said that in the mid 1950 's he was regularly abused by a catholic priest at a church school . the royal_canadian_mounted_police , which once was charged with enforcing mandatory school laws for indians , started a task_force in 1995 to investigate allegations of boarding_school abuse . since then , the mounties have received 3 , 400 complaints against 170 suspects . so far , only five people have been charged , with crimes like sexual_abuse , a low tally that the police attribute to faulty memories and deaths of teachers . seeking redress through civil suits , lawyers believe that the british_columbia judge in the cariboo case set a national precedent when she assigned a 60 percent share of liability to the anglican church and 40 percent to the federal_government . the churches protest that they ended their involvement in the schools around 1970 , though the government took them over and did not close the last one for two more decades . anglicans say their primate , archbishop michael peers , made a full apology to indians for abuses at the schools in 1993 , five years before canada 's government made a similar apology . faced with selling churches , rectories , women 's shelters and soup kitchens , churches say that settlements should be mediated outside the courts , that the federal_government should pay the greatest part of the claims , and that a fact finding panel similar to south_africa 's post apartheid truth and reconciliation commission should be set up . blurring battle lines , canada 's anglican church today has four aboriginal bishops and 130 aboriginal priests . some tribal_leaders have banned from their reserves lawyers working on contingency fees seeking claimants . rejecting charges of ''cultural genocide , '' john clarke , the anglican bishop of athabasca in northern_alberta , told the anglican journal , ''there 's a whole pile of upper_middle_class guilt here that 's running the show , not much common_sense . '' arguing that the most effective therapy is counseling , apologies and moderate settlements , church leaders say that additional steps like teaching lost languages could be paid out of a 240 million ''healing fund'' the federal_government set up in 1998 . most suits did not originally name the churches . instead , ottawa drew the churches into the legal wrangles by naming them as third party defendants . the anglican church is urging parishioners to write prime_minister_jean_chretien using lines like , ''your department of justice is literally driving my church into bankruptcy . '' compounding bureaucratic caution , clouds were recently cast over one of canada 's largest school abuse settlements , in nova_scotia . a provincial justice_department report in september on the 25 million that the province paid in the late 1990 's to 1 , 237 reported victims at a boys' reform school concluded that , in retrospect , ' 'most of the allegations are either unsustainable or implausible . '' with a national election scheduled for nov . 27 , some christian commentators are urging people to vote against mr . chretien 's liberal_party and for the canadian alliance , a conservative_party led by stockwell day . ''jean_chretien and the liberals have basically announced it 's open season on our nation 's mainstream churches , '' paul jackson , a columnist , wrote in the calgary sun . mr . chretien recently asked herb gray , canada 's deputy prime_minister , to find a negotiated solution . without setting a timetable , mr . gray said he sought a solution ''that is fair to all , that primarily does not involve litigation . '' but with no solution near , church leaders nervously await a court test here in december of a new legal concept ''cultural abuse , '' or loss of language , oral traditions and spiritual beliefs .",has a topic of education
"a ban on muslim teachers wearing head_scarves in public schools must also apply to christian nuns , the federal administrative court in leipzig ruled . the court said a law passed this year in the southwestern state of baden w rttemberg was unfair because it was being applied solely to muslim women who teach . ''there can be no exception , '' the court said , for ''any form of religiously motivated clothing . '' nuns in the predominantly roman_catholic state , who often teach in the public schools , will now have to remove their habits before entering the classroom . legislators have said they will fight the ruling . victor_homola ( nyt )",has a topic of education
"lead chinese students at many colleges and universities across the united_states have signed a petition to their government on behalf of an american educated molecular biologist who was arrested nearly a year ago in shanghai during a crackdown on political_dissent . chinese students at many colleges and universities across the united_states have signed a petition to their government on behalf of an american educated molecular biologist who was arrested nearly a year ago in shanghai during a crackdown on political_dissent . the petition , dated dec . 18 , is addressed to zhao_ziyang , the chinese party leader . it cites recent reports that the prisoner , yang wei , was about to go on trial in shanghai ''on charges of promoting and instigating counterrevolutionary propaganda . '' the charges refer to articles mr . yang had written for the journal ''china spring , '' published in new york city since 1982 by a chinese emigrant physician , wang bingzhang , founder of the chinese alliance for democracy . in addition , mr . yang was accused of joining dr . wang 's organization and of handing out leaflets during student demonstrations for freer speech and democracy in december 1986 . he was arrested at his parents' home last jan . 11 . constitution is cited the petition noted that some signers might not see eye to eye with mr . yang on his politics and that many did not belong to any political organization . nevertheless , it declared , prosecuting mr . yang for joining an organization and expressing ideas were violations of china 's constitution . ''human_rights situation in china , '' the open_letter said , ''is a major concern of many chinese students and scholars abroad and has drawn a lot of attention of the international_community . '' it said mr . yang 's case was entirely political and belied mr . zhao 's recent assertion that there were no political_prisoners in china . detaining mr . yang for 11 months without formal charges or trial was also contrary to the country 's law on criminal_procedure , the signers said . the petition demanded that the detention of mr . yang be explained and that he and his family be given the right to choose their own defense lawers . it further asked that mr . yang be tried in public , and that his rights to a proper defense be fully assured . finally , the petition requested that representatives of chinese students abroad be allowed to attend the trial or testify for mr . yang and that they be guaranteed freedom to return overseas to resume their studies .",has a topic of education
"the first week in june , students in fred close 's ninth year english class in london sat down to 12 pages of word drills and reading exercises , part of a new nationwide examination intended to measure how well they and other 14 year olds were absorbing the lessons of britain 's five year old national_curriculum . but when the students turned in their work , the only grade mr . close handed out was to the government ministers and bureaucrats who had designed the test he flunked them for designing an exam he said was badly organized and cumbersome to grade , and bore little relationship to what is actually taught in the classroom . "" it has absolutely nothing to do with measuring real student progress , "" said mr . close , who gave the test only to confirm his own doubts , and says he will not record the results of his class , at quintin kynaston , a secondary_school in north_london similar to a high_school . officially , mr . close joined teachers in all but a handful of britain 's 4 , 400 secondary_schools in boycotting the june examination , which dealt a sharp setback to government plans to provide , for the first time , a comparative national measure of math , science and english skills among 14 year olds across england and wales . five years after government ministers and educators embarked enthusiastically on their ambitious campaign to raise standards and insure equal educational opportunity , britain 's grand experiment in a national_curriculum is foundering . a focus of angry and paralyzing debate while there is widespread acceptance of the curriculum 's overall ambition to set down agreed curriculum standards in the hope of improving pupils' basic skills in reading , writing and mathematics arguments over how to institute the curriculum and its proposed protocol of tests and assessment measures have become the focus of angry and sometimes paralyzing debate between government ministers and teachers , from the shires of rural england to london 's inner city . "" i 'm a strong believer in establishing national standards and a national_curriculum , "" said mr . close , whose own class of 23 students includes 11 who do not speak english as a first language . "" but if we keep the system as it is , 40 percent of the children in my class ca n't even sit for the test as written . the point is , they are learning and they are making progress , but the test does not measure that . "" as the boycott threat gathered steam , john patten , the former oxford geography don who took over as britain 's education secretary last year , agreed to order a full scale review of the way the curriculum was being carried out , especially the schedule for testing and assessment . but so far , even that concession has failed to diminish the acrimony of the debate , which has often been more like a schoolboys' lunchroom brawl than a policy disagreement among adults . when mr . patten rose earlier this month to speak at a conference of school headteachers , or administrators , in newcastle , the audience responded with sustained booing and heckling , a chorus that peaked when he declared , "" the measurement of children 's progress is one of the keys to raising standards . "" cries of "" rubbish ! "" and "" nonsense ! "" came from the hall . the growing divide between the government and educators is such , said peter mortimore , the deputy director of the institute of education at the university of london , that "" the whole idea of a national_curriculum is now at a crossroads . "" the national_curriculum was adopted by the government of prime_minister margaret_thatcher in 1988 . it set out national standards for england and wales in 10 subject areas , including technology , physical_education and a modern foreign language , as well as mandating national testing for every schoolchild at ages 7 , 11 and 14 to assess performance of schools and pupils in meeting the new standards . for its part , the government has described the teachers as throwing up obstacles to badly needed education reforms , which are intended to enable parents and the public as education consumers to better measure the progress of students and their schools . setback to reforms at downing_street , a senior adviser to prime_minister john_major acknowledged that the boycott had dealt a setback to the government . but he contended that both mr . major and mr . patten were undeterred in their effort to enforce the reforms , which they describe as part of an effort to bring "" market oriented "" thinking to an education establishment that consumes public revenues without having to adhere to any real performance standards . "" we acknowledge that the measurements we proposed were not perfect , "" the aide said , noting that a review was under way that would , among other things , simplify the next round of tests . but he said britain had no choice but to press forward , given both the nation 's educational achievement , which he described as well below that of both germany and france , and continuing problems of young people leaving school early . according to one recent survey by british business , for example , illiteracy and poor basic learning skills cost british industry some 8 billion annually . but it was n't until this year that the festering complaints of teachers reached full chorus , focused mostly on the plans to begin testing 14 year olds . "" in a nutshell , the national_curriculum is a good idea that has gone very , very bad , "" said henry iven , of the national association of school masters union of women teachers , one of britain 's major teaching unions . "" it is not well thought out , and it has added enormously to the workload of teachers . "" some teachers and educators have taken issue with specific aspects of the curriculum on which the tests were based , particularly its efforts to set out national standards for the teaching of english . there have been complaints that proposed reading lists give too little leeway to teachers , and that the emphasis on so called "" standard english "" syntax and pronunciation ignores the richness of regional dialects . in june , for example , 600 university teachers joined a letter to the times of london , condemning the government for its "" doctrinaire preoccupation "" with grammar and spelling , "" as well as its insistence that the study of shakespeare should be an integral part of the curriculum . but the heart of many teachers' complaints is the government 's insistence on publishing what it calls league tables , which will rank the nation 's schools according to the performance of the pupils on tests , without allowing for differences in teaching resources or social and cultural backgrounds . "" they are wasteful of people , time and resources , "" said geoff thomas , a history teacher at quintin kynaston . "" and at the end of the day , they only damn you . you do n't need tests to know the kids in my class , most of whom come from africa or india , wo n't do as well as students in a lot of other schools . why rub their noses in it ? "" in many ways , the debate over the national_curriculum in recent months has had more to do with politics than educational philosophy . the national_curriculum was part of a broader education_reform that the sunday_times of london recently described as one of mrs . thatcher 's "" big ideas , "" and part of a larger conservative agenda that also included her determination to privatize public utilities and diminish the authority of labor_unions . to that end , the thatcher_government bloodied the teachers' unions in the early 1980 's , when they sought unsuccessfully to mount national pay strikes . 'get their own back' now , some educators and teachers acknowledge , the unions seem determined to "" get their own back , "" by defying the major administration 's effort to carry through with the thatcher reforms . the unions are shrewdly reading the political winds , which in recent months have been blowing against mr . major . public opinion_polls this spring have ranked him as the least popular prime_minister since such opinion_surveys began in the 1930 's . interestingly , surveys that showed strong support among parents for the original reforms in the late 1980 's also now show parents siding with the teachers in their current dispute over the testing . "" the program is not lost yet , not if the government works more closely with teachers and educators , "" said professor mortimore . "" but that means the government must say they were wrong to push it ahead as fast as they have that they were wrong to do it without closer consultation with teachers , and that some of the goals they set were not attainable . """,has a topic of education
"lead when hiroshi yamamoto goes for his first job_interview and is asked what he did in four years of college , he plans to look his potential employer in the eye and tell him the truth he played table_tennis . when hiroshi yamamoto goes for his first job_interview and is asked what he did in four years of college , he plans to look his potential employer in the eye and tell him the truth he played table_tennis . mr . yamamoto , a senior at the prestigious keio_university in tokyo , works hard at table_tennis . he practices with the other members of his table_tennis club five hours a day , six days a week . for mr . yamamoto , as for most other college students in japan , a club , not academic study , is the center of his university life . to a degree unthinkable in american universities , japanese students forsake their studies for their clubs . students will choose classes at which attendance is not taken so they can devote more time to club activities . indeed , clubs are so important that prospective employers scrutinize not grades but club_memberships . on the surface , clubs are about having fun , an escape from the years of grinding study required to enter a japanese university . but clubs are where students are schooled in the all important ways of japanese society how to work together in harmony , how to devote themselves to group goals , how to make and preserve relationships , how to defer to their seniors and guide their juniors . a plus for a student ''in japanese colleges , many students spend four years without doing much of anything , '' a spokesman for sumitomo bank said in describing his company 's recruiting process . ''so it is a plus for a student if he can say he did something with devotion . if a student was a captain of the club , then he is likely to be trained in harmonizing the team to produce good teamwork and to work under pressure . we do n't require them to submit grades . even if grades are bad , it does not necessarily mean that we do n't want a student . we stress personal characteristics . '' mami hasegawa , a junior at keio , learns these lessons on the tennis_court . during the hot summer months , when her club goes on a tennis retreat , she wakes at dawn to begin chasing tennis balls . ''we have to yell , 'fight ! fight ! ' '' she said , describing her regimen . ''if our senior hits a good shot , we have to call out , 'nice ball ! ' during the summer it is very hard physically . but i think have learned from this hard training . i feel like i 'm pushing my limits of physical and mental strength . but we can do that because afterward we organize small groups and each one puts on entertainments , and that 's fun , too . '' even though miss hasegawa 's club is not particularly strict compared with the table_tennis club table_tennis is a serious team sport in japan members are required to attend at least one training session a week during the school year . her club practices tuesday through friday , from 9 a.m . to 11 a.m . and from 1 p.m . to 5 p.m . students receive points for attendance . ''we race to attend as many sessions as possible , so people skip class , '' miss hasegawa said . curriculum called unrewarding many students seek in clubs a community and sense of purpose that japanese university education does not offer them , said toshiaki izeki , a professor of sociology at keio . ''the popularity of clubs is not something we completely approve of , '' he said , ''but it shows the underlying problems of the japanese college system . '' top level japanese universities , professor izeki and his students say , are huge and impersonal and offer a narrow scholarly curriculum that does not seem useful in the world outside the university . at keio , as at many japanese colleges , only a limited number of students can gain entrance to small seminars . without any direct contact with a professor , said daisuke nakagawa , a keio senior and an avid member of the school badminton club , students have little incentive to show up on campus , and he knows many who come to keio only once a month . japanese have even coined a phrase , ''may sickness , '' for the dislocation many college freshmen feel after the excitement of entering school in april has worn off . it is during may of their freshman year that many students gravitate toward clubs . ''students feel very uneasy unless they belong to something , '' mr . nakagawa said . ''in clubs , you can find close friends , you know you can have fun , and when you get older and become a leader , it 's fun to be able to mold an organization . it 's kind of like training to be an adult . '' a long lasting relationship for years , students have sought that training in sports clubs noted both for their demanding physical workouts and for the formal relations between the older members , known as senpai , and the younger ones , or kohai . junior members must use honorific language when addressing their seniors , and run errands for them that include fetching them refreshments or doing their laundry . but in return the seniors try to watch out for their juniors , coaching them and protecting them , in a relationship that often lasts a lifetime and will have its counterpart in company life . many companies want to hire students who are members of these ''hard training'' clubs because they believe the students have learned discipline , teamwork and good manners there . ''to be a member of the baseball_team is worth 100 a 's to company recruiters , and the mountain climbing team is worth 50 a 's , '' said nobuhiro tominaga , a keio junior . but ''hard training'' clubs have fallen out of favor with a new generation of students who have come of age in an affluent and relatively self confident japan . ''hard training is a drag , '' mr . nakagawa said . indeed , kentaro kakihana , a keio junior , started out as a member of a tennis club . but he found the regimen too onerous and the club so big that he had little chance to play . so he decided to organize an informal baseball club . the main attraction no practice and no scheduled games . ''we work so hard just to get into college , and when we get out , we can expect a life without any vacations , '' he said , exaggerating somewhat to underline the rigorous work life that lies ahead . ''so we want a four year moratorium . ''",has a topic of education
"after a review of final exams in many high_schools , examiners gave improved grades to almost 2 , 000 of some 91 , 000 students who had complained of their grades being lowered in tests crucial for university entrance . the issue had threatened to undermine confidence in britain 's higher_education and caused a political furor . but the regrading showed that the impact on college entrance had been limited to 168 students who failed to secure places at their universities of first choice and a further 73 who had been denied entry to their preferred courses of study at their first choice universities . alan_cowell ( nyt )",has a topic of education
"it was a typical exercise to promote orderly response . the teacher called on each student , who was to shout out his name . ''here ! yuuki tamori , i am fine . '' but yuuki , 10 , was shy . ''why ca n't you do it when everybody else is doing it ? '' the teacher admonished him . he was made to stand beside his desk for the rest of the class . yuuki failed to respond to his name on several more occasions . ''the more the teacher pressed him , the more difficult it was for him to do it , '' said his mother , haruko tamori . ''i felt a sense of crisis after a while because yuuki was losing self confidence . '' mrs . tamori decided to send her son to the learnnet global school in kobe , one of a growing number of ''free schools'' that have emerged in reaction to the rigid curriculum , group oriented instruction and large class size ( typically 40 students ) of the japanese school system . like alternative schools in other countries , free schools in japan range broadly in quality and mission , from helping children who have difficulty adjusting to regular schools to offering nontraditional approaches to education . but unlike in other countries , they are by definition unaccredited in japan . while not enforced , the law requires that children up to age 15 attend schools that comply with government stipulations on curriculum , facilities and number and qualifications of instructors . strictly speaking , free school attendance is illegal . nonetheless , 300 to 500 such schools have opened over the last 10 years , fueled by a phenomenon known as toko kyohi , or refusal to go to school . nearly 140 , 000 children refuse to attend one in every classroom in japan and more than double the number a decade ago , according to the ministry of education , culture , sports , science and technology . while poor grades and boredom often lead to chronic truancy , the reason most often cited is bullying , a problem so severe that it has drawn international attention . the government is considering accrediting a school in tokyo designed for toko kyohi children , and it has deployed counselors to schools around the country . but nothing has stemmed truancy , which is a particular problem in junior high . critics say that the problem is too entrenched , and that the emphasis on regulation breeds school phobia and makes misfits of children who are just a little different say , with a peculiar mannerism or even curly hair . the growth of free schools , they say , has been a reaction to the failure of conventional schools to change with the times , with a society that now demands individual leadership , creative thinking and entrepreneurship . ''conformity and assimilation have been critically important'' in schools , says hidenori akiba , a professor of educational psychology at osaka kyoiku university . ''they have bred the disposition to reject even a slightly different behavior . '' in an attempt to inspire more creative thinking , the ministry of education introduced several radical changes this school year , including reducing the material that teachers must cover by 30 percent and adding two to three hours a week of nontraditional studies , anything from a computer class to english conversation to exploring museums . the retrenchment is intended to reduce pressure on students and teachers , allowing time ''to think of the meaning of the subjects more for example , how math applies in their life , '' says ken terawaki , deputy director general at the ministry of education . he concedes that schools turn off many students , both academically and socially . ''there has been a terrible pressure to conform at japan 's schools , '' he says . the changes have not been embraced in all quarters . with concerns that the curriculum cut could mean less preparation for important entrance_examinations , cram_schools report an enrollment boom . teachers also worry about being held accountable for the new nontraditional hours , which they have to fill with field trips and activities of their own imagination , says ichiko higashi , a deputy director of the teachers union . all agree that ingrained behavior is not something swiftly changed by government order or by unions . ''the change may have some impact , but i do n't believe it will reduce the number of kids refusing school attendance , '' says masaharu hata , a professor of education at osaka_university . ''you have to change the way you teach , instruct and orient the students . there have to be qualitative changes . '' most free schools are privately initiated , often by a parent whose own child refuses to go to school or by professors and pastors with strong views against conventional education . administrators have sprung from a range of professions , from homemaker to artist to businessman . toshiki sumitani , who founded the learnnet global school in kobe in 1998 , was a management consultant with mckinsey_company in denmark when he sent his 4 year old daughter to a school that emphasized individual talents . ''my daughter was very shy but by the time we left , she had a network of friends , '' he says . on returning to japan , he could not find a similar school so decided to start one himself . free schools are not exactly free the 35 students at learnnet global elementary to middle_school age pay about 6 , 000 a year in tuition . aside from math and reading , which follow the government curriculum , students engage in self directed field study projects like investigating the role of prices in the economy or how a rocket launches , and share the findings in classes . ''here , we do n't give tests , '' mr . sumitani says . ''some kids learn in five years what is designed for six years , some take longer . '' students drill individually with the help of teachers called navigators because they assist in students' intellectual development by helping them become autonomous learners . students attend group classes for english , music and other subjects organized loosely by age . personal projects are posted at the back of one classroom ''will compile a pictorial book on smap'' ( a japanese pop group ) , ''will become ping_pong champion of the school , '' ''will master standing on my head . '' students draw up their own objectives and pursue them on their own time to instill initiative and motivation , two qualities lacking in many japanese students , mr . sumitani says . in a typical japanese school , ruler bearing teachers enforce a panoply of musts and must nots . personal belongings like watches might be forbidden . regulations cover hairstyles , the length of uniform skirts and the shape of trousers . even the amount of money to be spent on snacks for excursions ( the only occasion children can take snacks to school ) is regulated . mr . terawaki , the education official , says the school system has merely reacted to parents' wishes . ''it was parents who wanted the school to impose rules on how much snack you can bring to excursions , '' he says . ''it was parents who wanted the school to introduce uniforms . it was a question of passing responsibility to the school rather than teaching children how to decide how much snack would be appropriate . it 's easy to ask the school to impose rules on children , escaping the burden to think for themselves . '' professor hata , however , points out that for generations the teachers' role has been to micromanage student behavior and to keep class harmony and group orientation . until the new two hour a week reprieve , curriculum has also been standard . ''japanese schools have been all the same around the country , '' he says . ''you will find that fifth graders in math class at this time of year are studying exactly the same thing from okinawa to hokkaido . '' japan 's scrupulously standardized approach to education took shape in the late 19th_century , when the nation ended its isolationist policy and began importing products and ways of life . to catch up with the west and under a perceived threat of colonization , speed was crucial . the need to rapidly educate the public led to standardized methods and reliance on tests . this style of education was strengthened after world_war_ii , when economic_growth was the country 's new objective . well educated masses equipped with uniform skills proved powerful in producing globally competitive products like cars and home electronics . ''in an industrial economy , what you need is people who can read the manuals , press the buttons and operate a machine in a plant and so forth , '' says takashi sakata , associate professor of law and education at the japan women 's university in tokyo . today , however , the economy is loaded with slumbering corporate giants with little growth potential . ''in an information oriented society , what you need is people with creativity and spontaneous energy , '' he says . japanese children have famously scored at the top in international contests for math and sciences . but in a 1996 survey of scientific literacy by the organization for economic cooperation and development , an international organization for developed economies , japanese adults placed second from the bottom among the 14 most advanced countries . ( danish adults scored highest , with the united_states sixth . ) ''i am hypothesizing that japanese kids do well on tests when they are forced to study , '' says mr . sumitani of learnnet . ''but they did not learn out of curiosity and did not go through a self motivated process of why they are learning and how studying will serve them . '' while free schools aim to shake up the status_quo , most struggle to survive . many are poorly financed , lack good facilities and equipment , and open and close quickly . ''you may see them in a directory or something at one time , but they are gone by the time you call , '' says keiji muto , president of the japan free schools association and principal of a free school for toko kyohi children with slight learning_disabilities . some schools wrestle with the very question of freedom exactly how and how much should be given . dream planet international , a free school for teenagers in okinawa , allowed students to take as many classes as they liked , or none at all . students loafed , and in the fall of 2001 some classes became mandatory . nearly a quarter of the 130 students boycotted the classes and holed up in the dormitory . the principal , who advocated the laissez_faire curriculum , was dismissed . freeing students from all rules is swinging to the other extreme , mr . sakata says . he also notes that some teaching methods at free schools are without track_records in japan . ''they have to prove themselves to the society with some convincing results , '' he says . but everyone credits the movement with at least one thing providing an alternative . one school promotes outdoor activities others focus on music , art , dance or international education . philosophical foundations range from religion to rudolf steiner and montessori . removed from the pressure to conform and keep up , students at learnnet global seem generally satisfied with their environment . mrs . tamori says that yuuki is much more independent minded . he had to live with his grandparents in kobe while attending learnnet , spending summer breaks in tokyo , where his parents live . mrs . tamori remembers her pleasant_surprise when yuuki declined her offer to accompany him back to kobe on the bullet_train . he wanted to go alone . ''mom , '' he said , ''i want to have an adventure ! '' miki_tanikawa is a freelance writer in tokyo .",has a topic of education
"ignoring opposition from muslim leaders within france and beyond , president jacques_chirac on wednesday called for a new law banning the wearing of head_scarves for muslim girls , large crosses for christians and skullcaps for jewish boys in public schools . in a speech at lys e palace broadcast live on television , mr . chirac recalled centuries of history that , he said , defined france as a guarantor of individual liberty , and said the secular identity of the french_state was at stake . if france succumbs to the demands of its religious communities , mr . chirac said , ''it would sacrifice its heritage it would compromise its future it would lose its soul . '' calling secularism a ''pillar of our constitution , '' he said that he would urge parliament to pass the law in time for the start of the next school year , in september 2004 . ''in all conscience , i believe that the wearing of dress or symbols that conspicuously show religious affiliation should be banned in schools , '' mr . chirac told an audience of 400 guests , including members of the cabinet and parliament , representatives of the major political_parties and religious , human_rights and union leaders . he added ''the islamic veil whatever name we give it the yarmulke and a cross that is of plainly excessive dimensions these have no place inside public schools . state schools will remain secular . for that a law is necessary . '' mr . chirac was responding to an official report presented to him last week on the place of religion in french society and how best to preserve the french republican ideal separating church and state . among other proposals from the expert commission mr . chirac appointed in july was a recommendation that public schools add religious holidays , like yom_kippur for jews and id al kebir for muslims , a proposal that mr . chirac rejected in his speech on wednesday . more holidays would burden working parents , he said , but he added that students should be able to take time off for their religious holidays , so important exams should not be given on such days . but mr . chirac embraced the commission 's recommendation to pass a law banning ''conspicuous'' religious symbols but allowing ' 'discreet'' ones . as the argumentative french news_media have been pointing out , there is no indication of who will make that determination , or how . mr . chirac also called for a law to prevent patients from refusing treatment by a doctor or health_care professional of the opposite sex for the development of the teaching of basic religious facts in schools for a ''code of secularism'' for civil_servants to use as a guide in the workplace and for the creation of a watchdog agency to monitor violations . although mr . chirac spoke about the general need to prevent religion from encroaching into the public sphere , it is the increasing demands of france 's growing muslim population and the wearing of the islamic veil that has infused the issue with new urgency . many schools quietly allow girls to keep their heads covered . but there is a conviction , both within the government and among a large swath of society , that the veil is as much a defiant political challenge as it is a religious display . at the same time , leaders of the country 's christian and jewish communities have joined muslim leaders in criticizing a ban . the struggle to integrate france 's estimated five million muslims into french society is also a hot_button political issue , one that has been exploited by the far right national front , which has criticized the chirac government for not being tough enough on crime and illegal_immigration . regional elections are scheduled for march , and with the country suffering high unemployment and a poor economy , mr . chirac 's government has been losing popularity . in his speech , mr . chirac acknowledged the alienation of france 's muslim youth . ''i share the feeling of incomprehension , of disarray and sometimes even of revolt by those young french people immigrants by origin whose job applications go into the garbage because of the sound of their names , '' he said , ''and who are too often faced with discrimination when they want to find housing or even get into a place of recreation . ''all the children of france , whatever their background , whatever their origin , whatever their belief , are daughters and sons of the republic . '' mr . chirac 's announcement follows the recent unveiling of draft legislation by the german states of bavaria and baden w rttemberg to ban muslim teachers from wearing head_scarves in public schools .",has a topic of education
"lead it was a few seconds before the start of high_school , and as usual several students were dashing to arrive before the close of the entrance gate . but this time , a 15 year old girl fell , and a teacher slammed a heavy_metal gate into her head . she died later of a concussion . it was a few seconds before the start of high_school , and as usual several students were dashing to arrive before the close of the entrance gate . but this time , a 15 year old girl fell , and a teacher slammed a heavy_metal gate into her head . she died later of a concussion . the death this month of ryoko ishida , the student at kobe takatsuka senior_high_school in western japan , has spread shock and cries of outrage throughout the country and brought an anguished re examination of the way rules are often arbitrarily and rigidly enforced in schools . japan 's school system is generally admired for turning out high caliber students . but critics say schools rely too heavily on rote learning and on a multitude of rules on clothing , hair length , what movies or coffee shops students can go to , even the number of pleats in girls' dresses . corporal punishment is also fairly routine in schools , with many parents saying that they prefer the schools to carry out disciplinary_actions that they are reluctant to carry out at home . 'preoccupied with rules' ''certain rules are necessary for schools because they are places of group responsibility , '' said the yomiuri newspaper , japan 's largest circulation daily . ''but what a cruel punishment this was . we see a teacher who was preoccupied with enforcing rules and forgot all other things . '' the teacher who was closing the gate , toshihiko hosoi , has been dismissed and faces possible criminal_charges for negligence in shutting the gate on its tracks as a dozen youngsters were scrambling to get inside . according to some reports , the teacher was aware that young miss ishida had fallen on the tracks , but other accounts said he was looking in another direction . still others said he was taunting the students , counting down and warning them that the gate was about to shut . by most accounts , the school gate was only occasionally slammed at 8 30 a.m. , the start of school , and students were being warned that this would be one of the times . mr . hosoi , the teacher , has been quoted in the press as complaining that he has been made a scapegoat , and saying he would now seclude himself at a buddhist_temple . 'so much effort to my work' ''i will make this sacrifice alone , '' he was quoted as saying this weekend . but he added ''the board of education is setting me up as an abnormally violent teacher . why did such a tragedy happen to me , when i devoted so much effort to my work ? '' the high_school principal has also been severely criticized because after the incident on july 6 , he called a school assembly to express sorrow and grief but also to remind students that this was the kind of thing that could happen when they are late for school . his comments were widely reported in news articles , with many commentators denouncing him for insensitivity and cruelty . two weeks after the initial outcry over the incident , the board of education of hyogo prefecture , where the incident occurred , reprimanded the principal , atuo nomura , and accepted his resignation . by coincidence , the occasional cruelty of teachers was reflected this month in the suspension of seven junior high_school teachers in fukuoka for alleged involvement in beating two students and then burying them up to their necks on a beach as waves crashed in . the incident occurred last september , apparently in response to charges that the students had been extorting money from a student . the fukuoka authorities have not determined who carried out the punishment or why , and there is an investigation by independent civil_liberties lawyers in the area . in kobe , where miss ishida was killed , her parents are suing the school_district for damages but have generally not said anything in the press . little re examination many of the commentaries in recent days have criticized the hyogo prefectural school system for failing to order any kind of re examination of the way in which school rules and discipline are carried out , which they say is the core of the problem . for instance , morkatsu imabashi , a professor at ibaraki university in central japan , wrote in a newspaper that the punishments announced so far were ''absolutely meaningless as a solution to the problem if they are treating the accident as an isolated case of negligence . '' mr . imabashi , who has conducted research on corporal punishment in schools , said ''the serious legal and educational responsibilities of the principal in the school 's administration have been unfairly played down . '' some news accounts said the school authorities might have tried to cover up the incident in the first days . the mainichi newspaper reported that students who witnessed the incident wrote reports to the school but that the official school report to the police omitted the accounts blaming the teacher for negligence . later , the newspaper said , the police asked students to write a second report directly to them , and several students refused a request from the school to make copies available to the school . the suggestion in the report was that the students and the teachers did not trust each other .",has a topic of education
"texas a m university is one of the largest institutions of higher_education in the united_states and prides itself on the academic programs there . but that did not impress people four years ago when the college opened a campus in this city north of tokyo and tried to attract japanese students . people "" think this is an english_language school , "" takeshi watanabe , a student , said as he stood in the asphalt yard of the nearly deserted campus shortly before it was shut down in august . "" they do n't look at it as a university . "" texas a m is only the most recent american college to fail in japan . in the late 1980 's , american colleges flocked to start programs in japan , mainly to funnel students to their american campuses , but also to provide a place for americans to study in japan . by 1991 , japan had more than 20 american campuses . but at least nine programs , including that of lehman_college of the city_university of new york , have already been terminated , the victims of japan 's recession and recruiting difficulties . many of the remaining programs are suffering from a shortage of students . the closings could widen what both countries agree is a serious imbalance between the more than 40 , 000 japanese students studying in the united_states and the estimated 1 , 800 american students in japan . the small number of american students here reflects japan 's high cost of living , the language_barrier and a lack of programs for american students , experts say . the texas a m campus here grew out of meetings in 1986 between american and japanese politicians who felt that having american colleges in japan would promote mutual understanding . instead , it became the focus of a dispute between the college and its host city and another symbol of friction between the two economic superpowers . koriyama , a city of 320 , 000 that lies 90 minutes north of tokyo by bullet_train , wanted another campus to help keep young people from fleeing to the big cities . with the mayor 's strong support , the city assembly pledged about 25 million in 1989 to back the effort and to help build a permanent campus . the college opened in 1990 in a temporary campus consisting of four prefabricated buildings surrounding an asphalt lot that doubled as a parking area and a basketball court . the college offered freshman level courses taught in english and intensive english lessons . after two years , students would transfer to the main campus in college station , tex . but the campus had fewer than 100 students its first year and never attracted the 300 new students a year needed to break even . the city decided that it would be foolhardy to build a new campus . b . a . stout , the director of the program here , said the city 's reneging on the permanent campus was the "" fatal blow . "" college officials also say the campus had a poor reputation . "" texas a m was not understood for what it really was , "" said demar taylor , assistant_director for external_affairs at the campus . "" it was looked at by most citizens as a place where students who could n't make it elsewhere would come to school . "" american colleges in japan say such reputation problems result from unfair_trade_practices . japan 's ministry of education refuses to accredit the american branch campuses , so many japanese students shun them and their american students cannot get student visas . last year , in response to pressure from washington , japan agreed to give such students cultural visas , with some of the privileges of student visas . officials of american colleges here concede that they do not meet all the requirements for accreditation , nor do they want to . offering an american style education is their main selling point . an official at the american embassy in tokyo said japanese colleges must specify four years in advance every course that will be offered and who will teach it , allowing little flexibility . when the american colleges began to open here in the 1980 's , japan was in an economic boom . many of the colleges that came were small , obscure ones invited to enter partnerships with japanese businessmen who saw an american education as a marketable commodity in a nation trying to internationalize . and the colleges wanted the income . but with the recession in japan the last three years , their plans fell by the wayside . an early casualty was the u.s . international university , a san_diego based college that was already in serious financial difficulty at home when it opened here . "" certainly , there were too many at one time and many were here for the wrong reasons , "" said william young , associate dean of temple_university japan , which opened in 1982 . it is the oldest american branch campus and has the most students , 1 , 800 . by the time texas a m koriyama closed its doors , the campus had run up a_7 million debt . the city , the college and an entity set up by the city to run the college are fighting over who will pay . the remaining students have been sent to the main campus in texas , even if they had not yet finished their english training . "" eventually , "" mr . young said , "" there will be only three or four american universities left here . """,has a topic of education
"two employees at one of japan 's prestigious private universities were dismissed today over charges that they were involved in a growing scandal over cheating on entrance_examinations . meiji university said the two workers had helped stand ins pass examinations for more than 10 applicants . the employees kentaro takizawa , 48 years old , and takashi shimohara , 56 were arrested and indicted last week on charges of forging school documents . last week , the police arrested tsuyoshi mitsuzawa , the former manager of the school 's baseball_team . news reports said the police suspected that mr . mitsuzawa had arranged stand ins for applicants and received payments from parents of successful applicants reportedly more than 100 , 000 in some cases .",has a topic of education
"in the cozy top floor of the vysoko petrovsky monastery , where russian_orthodox monks once immersed themselves in ancient manuscripts , natasha nikolayeva and her classmates were taking their final exams in russian housing law recently . the icons that adorn the walls of the tiny lecture room comforted ms . nikolayeva , who came from ukraine to study here . ''i knew that here i would find people close to me in spirit , faith and style of life , '' said the 21 year old senior . ''the jurisprudence was secondary , but i was looking for an education that would be a mix of the spiritual with the practical . '' in soviet_times , it was common for church buildings to be confiscated by the state and turned into government offices , schools , museums or even granaries . but now , for the first time , people are studying secular subjects in a russian religious institution . ms . nikolayeva is one of the students at the russian_orthodox university of st . john the theologian , the only church run university in the country that is training young people for the professional world of the new russia rather than priests . ''we did not create this university to train people to serve the church , '' said the rector of the university and head of the monastery , ioann economtsev . ''our purpose was to bring about a synthesis between scholarship and faith , and religion and morality , because scholarship without morality at its core is dangerous . '' despite the university 's religious name and leanings , mr . economtsev said most of the applicants are seeking to enter the law and economics department and as a result the competition is steeper than in other departments . in contrast with soviet_times , law and economics have become prestigious careers as the russian media publicize the growing wealth and political influence of the country 's top bankers . based on the traditions of the academy of slavonic , greek and latin studies , a church university in pre revolutionary russia , the russian_orthodox university is a major departure from the kind of schooling the church was able to involve itself in during the soviet_era . it also reflects the church 's attempt to consolidate its hold on russian society and turn itself back into the country 's official religion . although russia 's constitution guarantees freedom of religion , president boris n . yeltsin signed a hotly_debated bill last year at the urging of the russian_orthodox_church that limits the growth of new religions in russia and gives priority to the russian_orthodox_church . the bill drew fierce criticism from international_human_rights groups and a threat from the united_states_congress to cut off aid to russia . the financing of the university is indicative of the church 's willingness to involve itself in politics . though the church oversees the university , it is primarily financed by private sponsors , the largest of which is the powerful oneksimbank . the bank 's president , vladimir_potanin , one of the most politically influential figures in the country , is a major donor to the church . his annual gift of 100 , 000 to the russian_orthodox university makes up 40 percent of the university 's budget . anna parshikova , a spokeswoman for uneximbank , said that the bank hopes to employ future graduates of the university 's law and economics departments . ''they have attracted a great number of moscow 's elite scholars to teach there , '' she said . ''there are few institutions that can compare . '' with religion experiencing a revival since the fall of communism and the collapse of the soviet_union in 1991 , the university 's religious leanings are an attraction for many students . so is the prospect for a free education , a mainstay of the soviet_union , an opportunity which is slowly diminishing as the cash_strapped government finds itself unable to finance higher_education . with departments in law , economics and ecology as well as philosophy and theology and related fields , and with a new medical department to begin next fall , the university has increased its enrollment 10 fold to 500 students since it opened in 1993 . the university offers a rigorous academic program . students in the departments of philosophy and theology , and history and philology are required to study ancient greek , latin and russian in addition to a modern language , while bible students are required to add ancient hebrew and aramaic , to their studies . yulia butskikh , 20 , who is in her third year of study in the philosophy and theology department , said the university had found an educational niche that is not available at other institutions . ''m . g.u . does not have the religious depth and religious academies do not have the scholarship , '' she said comparing the university with moscow_state_university , one of the country 's best known universities . ''this is a good combination of the two . '' the faculty includes professors from moscow_state_university , two from england who give their lectures on literature in english and nikita tolstoy , who until his death last year headed the slavonics specialty in the history and philology department . mr . tolstoy is the son of the soviet novelist aleksei tolstoy and a distant relative of leo tolstoy . unlike religious universities elsewhere , the russian_orthodox university does not require its students to attend services and there are no stringent housing rules since the school does not have dormitories for its students . nonetheless , all students are required to complete courses in the history of christianity as well as the old and new testaments . in addition , economics students also have the opportunity to take courses like ''economics in the world of the bible'' and ''the economic views of the fathers of the church . '' irina pankova , who is in her last year of study in the university 's law department , said she hoped the education she received at the university would allow her to bring about change in russia . ''i think this education allows us to look at the future with a human view , '' she said , ''not the way things are now , like in economics , where there is no humanity . '' mr . economtsev said he too hopes to see his graduates transform russia . ''my goal is to prepare the intellectual and spiritual elite of russia , '' he said . ''we are not preparing students for the russia of yesterday , and not the russia that exists today . we are preparing students for a regenerated russia , for a highly cultural , highly moral russia of great intellectual and scientific potential . ''",has a topic of education
"hundreds of british college lecturers borrowed tactics once reserved for their students on thursday to demonstrate with bullhorns and banners for higher pay . the protest was part of a sharpening dispute , after months of failed negotiations , in which academics are refusing to grade final examinations and course papers unless their employers increase a pay offer . the dispute could mean that thousands of students will be unable to graduate . ''the money 's there , '' about 500 lecturers chanted as they gathered on thursday in leafy tavistock square . ''give us our share . '' examinations have been canceled or postponed at many colleges and universities , and the dispute has left many of the lecturers saying they are torn between their students and their paychecks . ''i would like to be back helping my students graduate this summer , '' said gavin reid , a senior lecturer in chemistry from the university of leeds in northern_england . but , he told cheering protesters , ''we have got to stay out . '' there are indications that the dispute is troubling the government , which wants to increase the number of high_school graduates who go to college and can barely afford campus chaos when it is embattled on so many other fronts . bill rammell , the higher_education minister , said the lecturers appeared to have rejected ''out of hand'' a slight increase to 13 . 1 percent over three years from 12 . 6 percent over the same period offered by the universities and colleges employers' association , which represents public institutions . concern is widespread that the dispute could devalue the degrees members of the class of 2006 receive . passions have intensified as colleges across the land prepare to raise tuition . the additional money is to be used to improve education . lecturers , currently paid on a scale from about 44 , 000 to 84 , 000 a year , had hoped for substantial raises . the dispute affects more than 100 , 000 higher_education academic personnel and other staff members grouped in a new union the university and college union which came into being on thursday after a merger between the association of university teachers and the national association of teachers in further and higher_education . the colleges insist that , despite increased government spending and tuition , they cannot afford to increase their pay offer . ''we have responded constructively to every request they have made in the course of talks and negotiations over the last weeks and months but each time we do so , they move the goalposts , '' said jocelyn prudence , the chief executive of the universities and colleges employers' association .",has a topic of education
"no overall change is likely to come in the next couple of school years , in part because britain is facing a general_election sometime before next may , and neither political_party wants to commit itself to a particular education budget that might force the universities to charge tuition . an independent panel , led by sir ron dearing , an authority on educational issues , is studying the tuition issue and is expected to make its report in late summer , but the writing already seems to be on the wall . to americans resigned to paying close to 30 , 000 for a year at an ivy_league institution , the british system seems like a throwback to an old style socialist state . currently , all college students who are from britain or another european_union country are awarded free tuition at any british school for which they meet admittance requirements . the government also pays maintenance grants directly to students for living expenses , based on need the amount depends on such factors as where the students are enrolled and whether or not they live at home . the most any student gets is 2 , 340 ( the equivalent of 3 , 740 ) a year . if the fees are imposed , it is unclear how much money a british student would have to pay . about 30 to 40 percent of british university students are awarded the full maintenance grant for which they are eligible , said iain crawford , a member of the london school of economics' education funding research team . but many students find that the grants , which are meant to cover room , board , books and all miscellaneous living expenses , are not enough to account for even basic costs . as a result , they 're forced to do what students in the united_states have long done take out interest free student loans , albeit for much smaller sums than their american counterparts . ''the grant has been frozen for several years , '' said liz llewellyn , a spokeswoman for the national union of students . ''already some students are leaving university with debts of 6 , 000 ( nearly 10 , 000 ) . '' mr . crawford agreed . ''the package is about 25 percent lower than the absolute bare_minimum of expense , '' he said . at the same time , universities are increasingly hard pressed to meet all their own costs with the government allotted tuition money . the money is paid to the universities on a per student basis , according to a complicated funding formula that , for example , pays out more for pre med students and less for liberal_arts students . according to figures provided by the vice chancellors' committee , in the last school year , the average amount paid by the government for each student was 7 , 195 , far less than the universities say they need . since the 1988 89 school year , the number of students attending universities has increased dramatically , to 1.7 million from 830 , 000 students . ( the government made an effort to increase the number of students by adding schools and expanding existing schools . ) but at the same time , mr . nield said , per student government funding has decreased by 30 percent in real terms , in large part because government funding in the current fiscal year , its entire higher_education budget is 10 . 3 billion has n't kept pace with the increase in students . the financing situation , mr . nield said , has left universities with a cash crisis , forcing them to make choices between cutting capital programs or slashing recurring expenses . in most cases , said mr . nield , capital programs have been the most heavily hit . ''the reason universities have n't gone bankrupt is that they 've deferred maintenance on buildings , '' he said . ''the buildings have gotten more tatty and out of date , the universities have n't invested in infrastructure and equipment , and there 's a growing obsolescence problem , particularly in the sciences . '' universities have also frozen teachers' salaries and stopped spending on things like libraries , classrooms and dormitories . ''what we are seeing is a falling off in the standard of the student experience , '' mr . nield said . ''the classrooms are becoming overcrowded and there are fewer books and fewer places to study in the libraries the number of workstations , for example , has n't risen in line with student numbers . '' the vice chancellors' group met in early december to consider whether to advise its members to consider imposing tuition fees on british and european_union students ( foreign students already pay roughly between 10 , 000 and 24 , 000 a year , depending on their discipline , according to the vice chancellors' committee ) . in part because of the tory government 's last minute decision felt by many to be politically_motivated to pump an extra 160 million into the system over the next two years , the group put off a decision on the issue until next fall , after the dearing panel makes its report . but while the universities say that the extra funds are just a stopgap_measure that hardly settles future funding problems , the government itself , understandably , argues that the money should be enough to prevent the politically damaging imposition of tuition fees . ''our position is that we do n't think the universities need to charge these fees , that they already get enough money from their own sources and from the central government , '' said david peale , a spokesman for the british department of education . still , educators estimate that at least seven british universities are seriously considering having to charge tuition within the next few years . one of these is the london school of economics , which recently announced that it will probably charge fees for some students in the realm of 800 to 1 , 600 starting with new students in the 1998 school year . currently , about one third of the school 's 3 , 000 or so undergraduates are from countries other than britain or the european_union . the school needs their tuition payments which can go as high as 14 , 055 a year per student to subsidize the cost of educating its british and european_union students , for whom the government pays only about 4 , 100 to 5 , 000 ) a year each . ''we are concerned about the current u.k . funding situation , '' mr . crawford said . ''a lot of university governing bodies are putting themselves into a position where they will be able to make contingent decisions , '' such as being able to charge tuition should the next budget be unfavorable . a serious consideration for the london school of economics and other universities , mr . crawford said , would be to make sure that any imposition of tuition would not deter eligible students from attending the schools . ''the question that needs to be answered is to what extent do you insure that someone who is bright enough to go to l.s.e . is backed by loans or scholarships of some sort , '' he said . ms . llewellyn of the students' union , though , warned that charging tuition would deter many poorer students from attending a university at all even if the government was able to set up a favorable loan program . ''students now have to pay to live and eat and house themselves , so the least they can expect is for their education to be paid for , '' she said . ''if tuition fees were charged , a lot of people you would think of as middle_class would be priced out of going to university . '' college and money sarah lyall reports for the new york times from london .",has a topic of education
"toru kondo , an english teacher at a public_high_school here , had never before been reprimanded in his 32 year career . but he was recently required to take a two hour ' 'special retraining course , '' lectured on his mistaken ways and given a sheet of paper on which to engage in half an hour of written self examination . his offense was to defy the tokyo board of education 's new regulation requiring teachers to sing the national_anthem while standing and facing the national flag . he and scores of colleagues refused , because for them the rising sun flag and the anthem , ''kimigayo , '' or ''his majesty 's reign , '' are symbols of imperialism . ''when the japanese_military invaded asia , the rising sun flag led the corps and the 'kimigayo' was sung when japanese soldiers won a battle , '' mr . kondo said . ''i 've been telling students that the two are linked to japan 's militarism . '' many japanese felt the same way for decades after world_war_ii . but perhaps because they are now more comfortable with their history , or perhaps because japanese society has moved right , the authorities here have made respect for the flag and anthem mandatory for teachers and students . to supporters , the move is a step to make japan into a so called normal country that can be patriotic and proud of itself . to critics , it is dangerous indoctrination that has no place in a democracy . in a city in fukuoka prefecture , education officials conducted a survey this year on how loud students sang the anthem at graduation and enrollment ceremonies , classifying each school as ''high , '' ' 'medium'' or ''low . '' in tokyo , 243 teachers have been punished this year because they did not stand before the rising sun flag and sing the anthem 67 more have been warned because they did not instruct their students to do so . the police raided the home of one former teacher here who handed out copies of a magazine article about the issue at a graduation_ceremony . in tokyo , the only municipality to have meted out broad punishments , the authorities were hoping to use the capital 's influence to make respect for the flag and anthem compulsory nationwide . while newspaper polls show voters here opposing such a movement , voters have still remained firmly behind its leader , shintaro_ishihara , the rightist governor of tokyo . the movement suffered a setback recently , from an unexpected corner emperor_akihito , who stated his opposition to the regulation . the imperial_household_agency , some politicians and newspapers played down the comment by the emperor , who , according to the constitution , is forbidden from interfering in political matters . but others saw in his rare political utterance a sign that he was worried about japan 's direction . after japan 's defeat in world_war_ii , the rising sun flag was banned for more than three years under the american occupation . asian neighbors remain suspicious of japanese nationalism and of the country 's new assertiveness overseas , including sending 550 troops to iraq . the young in seoul or shanghai may consume pok mon or other symbols of the new japan . but since they are thoroughly taught about the brutalities of japanese colonialism , unlike their japanese counterparts , their often visceral reactions to symbols of the old japan lie near the surface . japan long was ambivalent toward its flag and anthem , and it was only in 1999 that the government made them legal national symbols . since 1990 , public_school teachers have been told they ' 'should instruct'' students to pay respect to both . but in october 2003 , tokyo made respect compulsory at graduation and enrollment ceremonies in public schools , and disobedience punishable . the regulation states that the national flag must be raised in front of the stage , with the tokyo government flag to the right . an official will cry out , ''singing of the national_anthem , '' then teachers and students must rise , face the flag and sing . board or school officials instruct sitting teachers to stand and sing and take the names of those who refuse . ''the deputy principal walked down the aisle between the wall and the teachers' seats and approached me and said , 'please stand up and sing , ''' said mitsuo kondo , 61 , a martial_arts teacher , who is not related to the english teacher . ''so i said 'i wo n't stand up . i wo n't sing . ''' mr . kondo , whose teaching contract was canceled as a result and who now is a part time carpenter , said he had not opposed the anthem and flag until showing respect was required . he said he used to sing the anthem at the top of his voice . ''patriotic feelings ca n't grow by force , '' he said . takayuki tsuchiya , a tokyo assemblyman , said the new regulation was necessary to counterbalance decades of leftist lectures by teachers , especially members of the japan teachers' union . for decades , he said , the teachers have led a campaign to denigrate the nation 's symbols , placing the flag next to toilets . ''the japan teachers' union has been teaching students that the white of the rising sun flag is the color of bone and red is the color of people 's blood , '' he said . ''they are depriving students of the freedom to stand up . they hate the emperor and they hate japan . would american kids stand up if you teach them america did terrible things in vietnam ? '' the teachers' union , considered one of japan 's largest left leaning organizations , has been losing membership and influence in keeping with japan 's overall political shift . yuzuru nakamura , the union 's secretary general , said the group did not oppose the flag or anthem , but rejected the tokyo government 's regulation . mr . nakamura said he saw it as part of a rising nationalism in a japan made increasingly insecure by its generation long economic malaise and china 's ascendancy . ''the government needs symbols of unity for the country , '' he said . ''i think the national flag and anthem are being used to establish japanese ethnicity or identity . '' tokyo officials clearly hoped they could spur the stand and sing movement to grow nationwide by drawing the emperor to their side . in october , kunio yonenaga , an education board member who oversees the new regulation in tokyo but evidently wants his influence to reach beyond , told the emperor ''making sure that students and teachers raise the rising sun flag and sing the national_anthem at schools across the country is my job . i 'm doing my best . '' mr . yonenaga , who had expected encouragement , was instead rebuked by the emperor , who said , ''it 's not desirable to do it by force . '' taken aback , mr . yonenaga , who declined to be interviewed for this article , interrupted the emperor and blurted out , ''thank you for your wonderful words . '' mr . tsuchiya , the tokyo assemblyman , could barely disguise his disappointment . asked why he thought the emperor held such a view , mr . tsuchiya mentioned the influence of elizabeth vining , a quaker schoolteacher from philadelphia , who tutored akihito , then the crown_prince , from 1946 to 1950 , and even gave him a nickname . ''the emperor was raised by mrs . vining , who called him jimmy , '' he said .",has a topic of education
"germans love to go to school . it is not uncommon here to find someone well past 30 who is still an active university student and has no interest in leaving academe . over the years this german syndrome has become well known across europe , and there is even a colloquial name for its victim the "" ewige student , "" or the eternal student . now the government is trying to adopt new policies that will push students into the working world more quickly . in various states and in bonn , politicians are urging shorter courses of study and cutbacks in subsidies . in germany , the equivalent of high_school lasts 13 years instead of 12 , the norm in the united_states . men must then complete a year of military or alternative service . so , most students are at least 20 years old when they embark on a two year or four year university course . some are eager to begin their working lives as soon as possible , but a substantial number become comfortable with campus life . with most universities free or nearly so , and with students eligible for bargain prices on everything from subway fares to health_insurance , incentives to stay in school are considerable . german law guarantees everyone with a high_school_diploma the right to study at a university . this has been interpreted to mean that students are entitled not just to a single course of study , but to as many courses as they care to take . some choose to pursue training in a second or third career without ever having practiced their first . and foreign students often seek to prolong their studies as long as possible in order to maintain their visa status . this year , the government said , overcrowding at universities meant that 1.8 million students were not able to pursue the course of their choice . "" we have to get the length of time people spend in school back to a reasonable level , "" said hans uwe erichsen , director of an association of college deans . but student leaders , supported by some professors , are resisting limits , arguing they will ultimately produce a less intelligent nation . "" it seems that there are only three mantras in german politics these days , "" sighed a weary albert von mutius , head of a large student organization . "" do more research , sell technology , and make students leave school sooner . "" stephen kinzer international reports a changing world of education",has a topic of education
"bereaved families observed the second anniversary of the start of a hostage siege at a public_school in beslan , tolling a bell slowly in the remains of the gym where more than 1 , 100 hostages were held by a chechen terrorist group . a total of 332 people were killed in the siege . families and survivors demanded , as they have since the siege ended in gunfire and flame , an honest government accounting of the bungled government response . many questions remain unanswered . a russian opposition politician recently advanced his own theory , claiming the final battle began when troops fired two rockets at the school . the official version holds that the terrorists' own bombs exploded in error or by chance . the evidence for each theory is unclear and in dispute . c . j . chivers ( nyt )",has a topic of education
"three new york students are among this year 's winners of the marshall scholarships , it is to be announced today by the british ambassador to the united_states , sir christopher meyer . two of the three , tara helfman and her classmate joseph stern , share the honor of receiving the first two marshall scholarships awarded to queens_college seniors . a history major at queens_college , ms . helfman plans to study for a doctorate in history at cambridge as preparation for an academic career in history and a legal career in constitutional_law . mr . stern , with a double major in mathematics and philosophy , plans to study pure mathematics at imperial college , london , in preparation for doctoral work in the united_states after he completes his marshall scholarship . eric nelson , a history major at harvard , is the third new yorker to win the scholarship this year . he expects to study political thought and intellectual history at cambridge . the marshall scholarships often equated in prestige with rhodes scholarships were established in 1953 by the british_government as a gesture of thanks to the people of the united_states for the assistance provided by the marshall_plan after world_war_ii . the scholarships provide an oppurtunity for american students who have demonstrated academic excellence and leadership potential to continue their studies for two or three years at a british institution . twenty eight american colleges and universities are represented in this year 's list of recipients . following are the other marshall scholars bagert , broderick , boston_college . bahcall , orli , m.i.t . beerbohm , eric , stanford_university . benjamin , daniel , harvard_university . benson , jocelyn , wellesley_college . boyadzhyan , lucy , occidental college . brown , christopher , harvard_university . chuhta , jesse , colorado school of mines . cohen , andrew , yale_university . cutler , jillian , yale_university . dasgupta , anisha , yale_university . defrance , daun , university of texas at austin . evenson , elizabeth , university of chicago . foster , dante , university of alaska at fairbanks . goldstein , miriam , harvard_university . gudzowska , justyna , rice_university . halabi , sami , kansas state university . heuer . thaddeus , brown_university . johnston , richard , princeton_university . joyner , valencia , m.i.t . keefe , patrick , columbia_university . martinez , leonardo , northwestern_university . mcmullin , jaremey , georgetown_university . miyake , yuka , m.i.t . oppold . paul , m.i.t . pacold , michael , indiana_university . riemann , timothy , kansas state university . roberts , david , cornell_university . ross , bertrall , university of colorado at boulder . ruscio , lea , northeastern_university . seshamani , meena , brown_university . smith , stacey , virginia polytechnic institute . spires , tara , university of texas at austin . stephens , chris , oklahoma state university . sykes , jennifer , michigan_state_university . young , evan , duke_university . zapetis , craig , johns_hopkins_university . following are the marshall sherfield post doctoral fellowship recipients kaufman , jordy , duke_university . savla , ushma , northwestern_university .",has a topic of education
"taking extraordinary action to counter charges of sexism and racism in the classroom , the university_of_british_columbia has halted admissions to its graduate political_science program until it can improve the department 's social climate . the action has touched off a rousing debate in canada about harassment and academic_freedom . it was applauded by women and minority groups but seen by some others as defaming an entire department and chilling academic discourse . reacting to a report that criticized the university for failing to act against the widespread allegations of discrimination in the political_science department , david strangway , the university president , ordered on june 21 that no more graduate students be admitted to the program until its social climate improves . "" the suspension will remain in effect , "" he said in his order , "" until there are satisfactory provisions in place relating to educational equity and a learning and working environment that is free from harassment and discrimination . "" the university , with 32 , 000 students and 2 , 000 teachers , is canada 's third largest , after the university of toronto and mcgill in montreal . this year , the department had 73 graduate students and 25 professors . the action is likely to eliminate or severely reduce a new graduate class in the 1996 97 academic year , if not longer . new students already registered for this september will be admitted . but they have been sent copies of the report , and university officials suggested that some may elect not to come as a result of its findings . the dean of arts and the dean of graduate studies have been asked to address the concerns and to file a report by dec . 31 . the report a 174 page enumeration of student allegations of racist attitudes and "" sexual terrorism "" by the faculty_members in the department , most of them white men touched off the dramatic move by mr . strangway . "" i ca n't think of any precedent for such a step , "" said dr . donald c . savage , executive director of the canadian association of university teachers . bernice sandler , senior scholar in residence at the national association for women in education in washington , said that even in academic circles in the united_states the events in british_columbia were being monitored closely . the report gave the most attention to comments by an unnamed professor , who allegedly told his teaching assistant , a master of arts candidate "" of color , "" after she had issued her first grades to undergraduates , "" yeah , now they probably think that you are just one big , bad , black bitch . "" the assistant , described in the report as "" shocked and horrified , "" made a formal complaint and later demanded 40 , 000 for refunded and continued tuition and expenses and the right to choose the scholars on the committee that would judge her master 's thesis . the university rejected the demands , but the conflict heated up to a point where the university called for an independent inquiry . it selected joan mcewen , a vancouver lawyer who is a specialist on the issue of sexual_harassment . while no one was actually called on the carpet at the university , dr . savage and tony sheppard , a tenured law professor who is president of the faculty association , pointed out that the highly public suspension has inevitably put the entire department under a cloud . the professor who was alleged to have made the remark to the master 's candidate is no longer with the university , but officials insist that his dismissal had nothing to do with the episode . he was untenured and knew nine months before the event that his contract would not be renewed , said steve crombie , associate director of university relations . ms . mcewan interviewed 225 faculty_members and students over a_10 month period for her report , which included complaints that the faculty is dominated by white males and that most doctoral candidates are men . without supplying corroborating evidence , the report cited a number of charges of improper behavior , from posting crude cartoons on office doors to provocative questioning during oral exams . "" the response of the university in respect of those allegations has been inadequate , "" ms . mcewen wrote . but mr . sheppard faulted the report for failure to provide evidence to support the complaints . "" why is it necessary to close admissions in the first place ? "" he said . "" the innocent are suffering . "" in the national debate , the globe and mail of toronto weighed in with an unusually strong censure of the report and the suspension . "" one day , long ago , universities were considered bastions of free_speech and open inquiry , "" it said . "" if u.b.c . 's experience is any guide , they are now the site of the most cringing conformity . "" but miche hill , program coordinator for the vancouver status of women , a group promoting women 's equality , disagreed . "" obviously there 's a major problem with sexism at the university , "" she said . "" and this was a good start at dealing with it . """,has a topic of education
"the government announced today that for the first time , britain plans to impose tuition fees on all college students , effectively abandoning the country 's long held commitment to free higher_education for everyone . for americans used to paying fees for state run schools or tuition approaching 30 , 000 a year at ivy_league schools , the proposal to charge up to 1 , 600 a year may seem laughably modest . but the plan also means students would no longer be eligible for government grants covering room and board , and many graduates will face debts of more than 16 , 000 . in a nation where free education is considered a basic right , the announcement was taken as a further sign that prime_minister tony_blair 's new government is intent on dismantling many most sacred vestiges of britain 's welfare_state . ''free tuition is seen as a right , '' said liz llewellyn , a spokeswoman for the national union of students , which says the prospect of leaving school deeply in debt will deter many young people from attending college at all . ''we 've always been told that if you choose to go on with your education , the state should pay because you 'll give so much back to the state by getting a better job and paying more in taxes . '' the government 's plan was outlined in a speech to the house of commons this afternoon by david blunkett , the secretary for education and employment . he said britain 's universities , which face a deficit of up to 3 . 2 billion in the next decade , had fallen into a financial_crisis that could be addressed only by imposing fees . tuition at british universities is free to citizens of britain and other european_union countries room and board is paid for by a combination of government grants , student loans and parental help . postgraduate and part time students and students from countries outside the union already pay tuition . under the government 's plan , all but the poorest students would be expected to pay tuition of up to 1 , 600 a year , as well as several thousand dollars for room and board . student loans , to be paid back according to income and over a number of years , would be available for both tuition and living expenses . some students said today that the new charges would put an almost unbearable strain on their already shaky finances . others said that while they would benefit from the more relaxed loan repayment schedule , they felt the government had abdicated a basic responsibility . ''the issue is whether or not it 's fair for students to pay fees , '' said kat myers , 21 , a student at loughborough university in leicestershire , who does clerical work to help meet her living expenses . ''the ethos of this country has always been that it should lie with the government . '' in most other european_union countries , university costs are paid for out of taxes and governments spend a comparatively higher percentage of gross_domestic_product on college level education . but not even in germany , for instance , where there has been considerable pressure to reduce social spending , has the government proposed to levy university fees on students . for a number of years , britain 's universities have been warning of an impending financial_crisis . while the number of students has increased drastically in the early 1960 's , one in 20 young people in britain was enrolled in higher_education today the figure is one in three government aid to universities per student has declined . some colleges at oxford and cambridge have their own endowments and have soldiered on with relatively few problems . but other institutions have had to scrimp and save .",has a topic of education
"for centuries this venerable university has been a citadel of academic prowess and social privilege , one of those nearly timeless institutions that like the monarchy and the bank of england define the soul of britain . but in recent months , both cambridge and its counterpart at oxford have become the focus of a new and at times sharp debate here about who it is , exactly , that oxbridge as the two schools are known collectively ought to serve . the disagreement grows out of a decision last fall by five cambridge colleges to seek applications from bright students who are deemed the products of "" substantial social and economic disadvantage . "" some may be considered for admission , the schools said , even if their secondary_school grades are lower than those expected of cambridge candidates . begun at st . john 's college here , the project is the most recent in a long series of attempts to widen the pool of applicants from which oxbridge 's best and brightest are chosen , and make the schools more broadly reflect the country 's growing ethnic and racial differences . efforts to diversify the student body at oxbridge go back at least to the end of world_war_ii , when the new labor_government fostered changes that started a steady flow of working_class and lower middle class youngsters to oxbridge . class consciousness strong nevertheless , the new debate over the cambridge plan reflects in part the degree to which class and class consciousness still help shape life and manners here . while only a small handful perhaps fewer than a dozen of cambridge 's 10 , 000 undergraduates are involved in the program , the perception that one of britain 's most hallowed institutions is somehow lowering its standards in return for cultural and racial diversity has provoked indignation and even outrage in some quarters . among the headmasters and private schools whose often upper_class charges make up 20 percent of the country 's college bound population , yet continue to fill nearly half of oxbridge 's places , the new admissions plan is described as an egregious example of "" reverse discrimination . "" and among those educators and commentators who see themselves as guardians of the nation 's standards and traditions , it is an example of "" destructive social_engineering . "" in a column in the daily_mail last month paul johnson , a conservative commentator , described the plan as wrongminded because it is attacks oxbridge for being "" elitist . "" elitism equated with quality "" of course it is , "" bristled mr . johnson . the reason that cambridge and oxford are so good , he wrote , is "" precisely because they pursued an unswerving policy of elitism . "" in an interview , ian beer , the headmaster at harrow , one of britain 's most prestigious prep schools , said cambridge had embarked "" on a dangerous road of social_engineering "" by choosing poor students with lower grades over private_school students with better grades . "" it is not the fault of harrow boys that they are well taught , "" he said . but dr . ray jobling , the admissions tutor at st . john 's college here , says the special entrance plan is part of an ongoing effort to "" widen access to cambridge , and encourage students who would n't ordinarily think of coming here to take a chance . "" "" we are not accepting poor students or reducing academic standards , or establishing quotas , "" he said . "" we are merely looking to encourage bright students with high potential , but whose grades or situations might not accurately reflect that potential . "" the proof of the program 's success , he argues , is that students brought in under the program so far have performed as well or better than students whose secondary_school grades were higher . 4 among 175 in program while the symbolic import of the program is large , he said , the numbers are small . of about 175 new students enrolled at st . john 's last fall , only 4 came in under the program . one of those is shelley shenkel , who grew up in london 's tough hackney neighborhood . "" if it had n't been for the encouragement i got from the people at st . john 's , i never would have thought of coming to cambridge , "" said miss shenkel . "" the idea was , it 's just a place for the upper_class . "" over the years , both oxford and cambridge have embarked on programs to broaden access and rebut those critics who have long argued that the schools are havens for the elite . as a result , the number of students from state supported schools has increased , and now makes up about half the population , as have the number of women , who account for about 4 of every 10 students . working with inner city schools both oxford and cambridge work more closely with schools in poor neighborhoods to encourage applications . although no statistics are released on racial composition of the student body at cambridge , it is estimated by members of a black student group that fewer than 250 students about 2.5 percent of the enrollment are non white . over all , non whites are estimated to make up about 5 percent of the british population . nicole austin , a cambridge graudate and a black from trinidad , now serves as a paid special assistant in the admissions office , working mostly with inner city applicants . "" attitudes are changing , "" said miss austin , who is a member of the black caucus , a group of about 65 black and asian students . "" but the culture is still very white , very anglo_saxon . "" shankar balasubramanian , a student whose family is from india , said white students from upper_class private schools have historically benefited from what he called "" positive discrimination . "" "" we do n't want quotas , "" he said . "" all we want to see is a lessening of that positive discrimination . """,has a topic of education
"two years ago , a 16 year old high_school girl who lived near here was hospitalized with a high fever . after doctors found that she had an acute case of genital herpes , she told her parents that her teacher had had sex with her . when approached by the parents , the teacher denied the claim , warning them that their daughter would be expelled if they reported him . experts say molestation and statutory rape are commonplace in schools across japan , and that victims rarely come forward . to do so would violate a host of powerful social conventions , said akiko kamei , a retired teacher who is the country 's only nationally known expert in classroom sexual_abuse . ''in japan there is a rape myth , which says that the victim of a rape is always to blame , '' ms . kamei said . ''moreover , women are told that if you suffer molestation or groping , you have to be ashamed . if you talk about it to anyone else , you are going to be tainted for the rest of your life . '' beyond that , even when they are identified and caught , molesters rarely receive more than a slap on the wrist . speaking at a public symposium , a member of parliament , seiichi ota , recently made light of reports of gang rapes at a tokyo_university . ''boys who commit group rape are in good shape , '' mr . ota said . ''i think they are rather normal . whoops , i should n't have said that . '' ( the legislator 's comments were carried in many japanese newspapers . ) recently , however , the public tolerance for rape has begun to change as a handful of victims or their families have pressed charges against classroom molesters . the mother of the girl infected with herpes , for example , went to the police , which led not only to the dismissal of the 49 year old teacher , but to a one year prison sentence for him as well . in an interview about the incident , the mother requested_anonymity , as do most people involved in such cases . she said that if her identity were revealed , she would be ostracized and could even lose her job . as if to underline the family 's concern , the daughter has left japan , fleeing the taunts of fellow students and the cold shoulder of teachers at her former school . ''whose interests would it serve for us to go public ? '' said the mother , who asked not only that her name not be used , but that the name of her town , which is near hayato , in western japan , not be revealed . ''we would have liked to receive solidarity from other people , but that is not how it works in japan . i grew up in this community , and although a foreigner might not understand , it is a fact that the victim is always cast in a negative light . '' this reality was vividly demonstrated in another recent molestation case in osaka , where a 13 year old girl insisted , against her parents' advice , on bringing charges against a 51 year old teacher . in february , the man was fired and given a two year prison sentence for fondling the girl in a school office , though more than 40 teachers , friends and colleagues signed a petition requesting leniency . the victim 's best friend told her she had ruined the teacher 's life , according to one newspaper , the mainichi_shimbun . when the girl answered that it was the other way around , the classmate replied ''well , you are young . you have a second chance . '' the victim told the court that after the teacher 's arrest she became an object of ridicule . ''when i was at a supermarket , i was surrounded by some senior students i had never spoken to before , '' she said , according to the newspaper account . ''they shouted , 'that 's the sexually harassed one ! ' and laughed at me . '' the girl 's family and lawyer would not agree to requests for further interviews . ms . kamei , who published books on sexual_abuse under a pseudonym while she was a teacher , came to her field more than a decade ago , when an alarmed mother approached her to say that her 8 year old girl was masturbating . it emerged that a teacher had been fondling the girl . ms . kamei said that at the time , she and the mother merely insisted that the teacher be sent to another school . ''even today , if a prosecutor fails to bring an indictment , the teacher is completely off the hook , '' she said . ''even after administrative dismissal , some of these teachers find work in other schools in other districts , or even as volunteers with children , although some people estimate there is an almost 100 percent chance of recidivism . '' there are no generally accepted statistics on classroom sexual_abuse in japan . according to figures compiled by the education ministry , which parents and advocates for victims say reflect vast underreporting , there were 27 cases of molestation by teachers in 1992 , a number that included cases in which teachers themselves were victims . by 2001 , the most recent year for which statistics are available , the number of reported cases had risen to 122 . in tokyo , an education ministry official minimized the extent of the problem . ''compared to other issues such as bullying , truancy and school_violence , the rate of incidence is not so high , '' said yoshiyasu tanaka . ''of course i do n't think the official reporting shows everything , but still , this is not something that occurs in every school , whereas problems like bullying occur almost everywhere . '' that is small comfort to the mother from the school near here . when asked whether she felt satisfied with the punishment meted out in her daughter 's case , she paused and shook her head . ''it is a fact that he was punished , when lots of other cases are swept under the rug , but i ca n't say that we got 100 percent justice , either , '' she said . ''one year in prison is too light . the disease given to my daughter was n't taken into account . i just wonder what the judges were thinking about . ''",has a topic of education
"''we 're interested in people 's wastebaskets as much as anything else . '' martin andrews , deputy director of the center for ephemera studies at the university of reading in england . b9",has a topic of education
"an article on feb . 10 about president vladimir v . putin 's appeal for russians to become fit misidentified the sea into which the volga_river flows , in the astrakhan region where a television_station began a morning exercise program . it is the caspian , not the black_sea .",has a topic of education
"the specter of communism has long dominated the discourse of silvio_berlusconi , who casts himself as italy 's last line of defense against a tenacious scourge . it has also had a leading role in his legal stratagems , which portray the prosecutors who have charged him with corruption as left_wing zealots wielding hammers and sickles . but the prime_minister 's fear of the red menace has crept unexpectedly into a new sphere of italian life , and some of his political opponents are wondering how it got there . the evils of communism appear front and center in one of the themes that hundreds of thousands of italian high_school seniors could choose to write about in graduation exams given this month . that topic invited students to ponder ''terror and the political_repression in the totalitarian systems'' of the 20th_century and gives brief descriptions of fascism in italy , nazism in germany and communism in the former soviet_union and other countries . communism is blamed for the executions of about 100 million people , five times greater than the killings attributed in the exam to nazism . in the wording of the topic , it takes one sentence to denigrate fascism . it takes four to vilify communism . some historians and teachers have complained that the balance of the question is out of whack . ''i teach my students that of course communism must be seen in a negative light , but the goal of nazism was to kill people , and the goal of communism was to unite them , '' said giuseppe costantino , 61 , who teaches history in a high_school in naples . a few of mr . berlusconi 's political opponents have suggested that he or his allies might be trying to mold young minds . ''there 's been an increase a boost in historical revisionism since the center right came to power , '' said enzo carra , a center left member of parliament who follows education issues . piero fassino , the liberal leader of one of the principal opposition_parties , asked reporters when italians could expect to see the ''free distribution in schools , to all students , of all the works of berlusconi . '' mr . fassino 's statement was prompted by another of more than half a dozen essay options on the test , called the maturita , or maturity , exam . that topic was the importance of water to agriculture and development , and one of the pivots that students were given was a remark to that effect by ''the president of the council of ministers . '' in other words , the prime_minister mr . berlusconi . his opponents have raised enough concern about the exam that the education minister , letizia moratti , is scheduled to appear in parliament next week . ministry officials said that the fuss was ludicrous and that the exam was put together as it had always been , by scores of education experts . the prime_minister was not involved , they said . valentina aprea , an under secretary in the ministry , said the essay on totalitarianism ''was just one of many themes that the students had a choice to write about . '' students had to write just one essay from among the topics offered , including totalitarianism and the importance of water . the essay section was a quarter of the exam . ''if a student picked that question , they could have written much more about fascism than communism , '' ms . aprea added . ''we do n't dictate the balance in the answers . '' in regard to the essay on water , another official with the education ministry said most students would not connect the quotation that was provided to mr . berlusconi , who is not explicitly named . mr . berlusconi is the country 's richest man , and his holdings include three of the seven national television networks . three others are owned and operated by the state , which means that he has indirect influence over them as well . he also owns one of italy 's biggest publishing houses , mondadori , which several years ago released ''the black book of communism , '' a harshly negative appraisal of the ideology 's legacy . he once distributed hundreds of copies at a political rally , and it is mentioned and quoted in the essay topic on totalitarianism . verena gioia , 25 , who manages an internet chat_room for high_school students , said she sensed from the electronic conversations there that most students avoided the totalitarianism topic . they found it politically loaded , ms . gioia said , and they realized they could not guess the biases of whoever would grade their exam . many chose the essay option on water , she said , apparently not realizing what they were wading into . ''i did n't do the one on the dictatorships because it seemed too skewed and based on a distorted historical vision , '' wrote one student in a chat_room missive . ''now i find out that i did the question based on what berlusca says , '' the student added , using a derogatory nickname for the prime_minister . ''everywhere you turn , that dwarflike president appears . we have to do something . we must do something . ''",has a topic of education
"the national_assembly voted by an overwhelming majority on tuesday to ban muslim head_scarves and other religious symbols from public schools , a move that underscores the broad public support for the french secular ideal but is certain to deepen resentment among france 's large muslim population . the 494 to 36 vote , with 31 abstentions , came hours after the minister of national education , luc ferry , said in a radio interview that the law would stretch much further than religious symbols and require all students to attend physical_education classes and accept what is taught on the holocaust and human reproduction . three weeks ago , mr . ferry , a philosopher and best selling author , said bandannas and excessive hairiness would be banned from public schools if they were considered religious signs . the draft law bans ''ostensibly'' religious signs , which have been defined by president jacques_chirac and a government advisory commission as islamic head_scarves , christian crosses that are too large in size and jewish skullcaps . sikh turbans are also likely to be included . but the legislation also includes a lengthy preamble that demands that public schools guarantee total equality , including ''coeducation of all teachings , particularly in sports and physical_education . '' schools , it said , are ''the best tool for planting the roots of the republican idea . '' on tuesday , mr . ferry made clear that religious beliefs could not be used as an excuse to avoid gym or biology classes , and that questioning the veracity of the holocaust would not be tolerated . mr . ferry also said the law ''will keep classrooms from being divided up into militant religious communities , '' noting that there had been a ' 'spectacular rise in racism and anti_semitism in the past three years . '' in recent years , teachers have complained that some muslim students have been so disruptive in rejecting the veracity of the nazi slaughter of the jews that it is impossible to teach the subject . teachers have also said some muslim girls have boycotted classes on human reproduction because they are too graphic , and have demanded sexually segregated gym classes . there are also reports that male and female muslim students have demanded prayer breaks within the standardized baccalaureate exams at the end of high_school and a ban on pork in school cafeterias . in the europe 1 interview , mr . ferry did not single out muslims for censure , but he did not have to . most orthodox_jewish schoolchildren who would object to mixed sex gym and biology classes , for example , go to private jewish schools that are already sex segregated , keep kosher kitchens and teach the torah . the first and only private muslim high_school in all of france opened last fall in lille . despite france 's insistence that secularism must govern french schools , there are exceptions . france spends billions of dollars a year to finance private religious schools , most of them catholic , for example . private religious schools that receive state financing are required to follow the national_curriculum strictly , but policing by the state is not universal . for example , at the merkaz hatorah school for orthodox_jews in the paris suburb of gagny , which receives state financing and was vandalized in an arson attack last november , evolution is taught as a theory , not as fact . ''we do n't teach that man comes from monkeys , '' said jacques benisty , the school 's deputy director , in an interview shortly after the attack . the catholic catechism is taught and the crucifix is hung in public schools in alsace lorraine , which is exempt from france 's 1905 law strictly separating church and state because the area was still in german hands when it was adopted . meanwhile , during a brief debate in parliament , before the adoption of the law , alain bocquet , a communist_party deputy who voted against the law , said that it would ' 'stigmatize'' citizens of immigrant origin and ' 'set things on fire rather than calm them down . '' the draft legislation now goes to the senate , which is also expected to pass it by a wide margin when it votes on march 2 .",has a topic of education
"one newspaper said six ''known sex_offenders'' were teaching in britain 's state run schools . another put the figure at 20 . a third said there could well be more than 100 . after two weeks of feverish language in the news_media and around parliament , the government announced on thursday that it would tighten its background_checks for teachers and that anyone who had been convicted or even cautioned by the police for committing a sex offense involving children would be permanently barred from teaching . ''we need a system where child protection comes first above all other considerations , '' ruth kelly , the education secretary , told the house of commons . the notion that the british schools are riddled with pedophiles has consumed national attention since early this month , when the observer reported that a registered sex_offender had been allowed to work as a gym teacher at a school in norfolk . the teacher , paul reeve , was visited by the police in 2003 on suspicion of accessing child_pornography from the internet in connection with operation ore , which has charged thousands of people across britain with downloading child_pornography onto their computers . people netted include judges , police officers , politicians and the rock star pete townshend of the who . mr . reeve was released with a caution , meaning he was not charged but agreed to accept guilt . he was automatically placed on the sex_offenders register . the register , which contains 28 , 000 names , includes people convicted or cautioned for sex related offenses . the revelation cost mr . reeve his job and unleashed disclosures about other school employees suspected of sex offenses as well as outrage from critics of prime_minister tony_blair 's labor_government . school change is a major piece of mr . blair 's domestic agenda in this legislative term , which he has said will be his last as prime_minister . but with a reduced parliamentary majority and a suddenly strong conservative opposition , mr . blair is at a vulnerable moment , one his opponents have seized with glee . ''either ruth kelly does know how many sex_offenders have been cleared to work in our schools , in which case she should tell anxious parents now , '' david willetts , education spokesman for the conservative opposition , said . ''or she does not know , in which case her department is shockingly incompetent . '' meanwhile , an article in the daily_star carried the headline ''pervs now rife in our schools . '' the mirror reported that ''at least 10 pedophiles have got jobs'' in the school system . in the daily_mail , the columnist melanie phillips warned that the disclosures so far were ' 'merely the tip of an iceberg . '' pedophilia preoccupies britain like almost no other issue . this is a country where a doctor 's house was once attacked because some of his neighbors confused the word ''pediatrician'' with the word ''pedophile . '' ''this is a_level of hysteria that makes mccarthyism look benign , '' said frank furedi , a professor of sociology at the university of kent and the author of ''paranoid parenting . '' ms . kelly revealed thursday that a search of school records in england and wales since 1997 had turned up 10 registered sex_offenders who had not been placed on list 99 , a roll of some 4 , 045 people who are barred from teaching because of a range of offenses . ( scotland has an independent education system , and its own lists . ) none is teaching now , she said . under the government plans , lists of potentially unsuitable teachers will be more closely_aligned , and schools would be required to run criminal_record checks on prospective employees .",has a topic of education
"france needs a new law to keep religion and racism out of state schools , education minister luc ferry told europe 1 radio . ''we have to reaffirm very strongly the principles of republican secularism , '' mr . ferry said , against the rise of racism and anti_semitism . ''that requires a new law . '' the ideal , he added , would be to have ''no sign of religion in school . '' the wearing of veils or head_scarves by muslim girls and other open displays of religiosity , including crucifixes , are banned in french schools , although some teachers turn a blind eye . at a muslim conference on saturday , interior_minister nicolas_sarkozy was booed when he said muslim women must remove head_scarves for identity card photographs . elaine sciolino ( nyt )",has a topic of education
"three months after the germans celebrated their national unity with a holiday , teachers and students at universities in what used to be communist east_germany fear for the future . hundreds of professors and students packed into the big humboldt university in eastern berlin on friday to protest steps by government officials who are moving to sweep out remnants of marxist scholarship . the universities are fighting back , with charges of western german patronizing that they say is hindering a self purification process . at the meeting in the main assembly room , still called the marx engels auditorium , there was only thin applause when the dean of the medical_school , dr . harald mau , called for the voluntary departure of communist teachers who "" distorted scholarship . "" "" i demand this , "" he said . "" renewal without this is impossible . "" but there was stormy , rhythmic applause when the rector , heinrich fink , accused the government of stripping the school of its autonomy and pledged to test the constitutionality of the government steps . the history of the humboldt university stretches back to the glory days of german scholarship . situated along eastern berlin 's broad unter den linden boulevard , it was once known as the royal friedrich wilhelm university , but was renamed by the communists for the 19th_century scholars wilhelm and alexander von humboldt . after the communist takeover following world_war_ii , it became the showpiece of communist control of education , forcing dissident professors in 1948 to desert to west_berlin , where they founded the free_university . with the fall of communism , chancellor helmut_kohl 's conservative christian democrats say that since the universities have not done their housecleaning , government education planners will have to step in . but measures designed to push out former communist professors and rid the universities of institutes dealing mainly with communist theory and practice have bogged down in the intricacies of labor law and the resistance of teachers fighting for their jobs . government officials have reached an agreement with humboldt university to abolish and then re establish the law , philosophy , history and teacher training departments , affecting about one quarter of the nearly 20 , 000 teachers and students there . at karl_marx university in leipzig , the institutes of law and political_science are to be closed along with the journalism_school , whose training courses for communist propagandists earned it the nickname "" the red cloister . "" but prof . fink said humboldt university would go to court to fight government interference . "" we now find ourselves in a state of law , "" he said , "" and we will employ all the means that we were once unable to use . "" students have been organizing strikes and occupying university buildings in leipzig , halle and rostock , on the baltic_sea , to press demands for maintenance of their schools .",has a topic of education
"about 100 to 120 muslim girls in the eastern alsace region are defying the law banning head_scarves in schools , the education minister , fran_ois fillon , said . but , he said , ''i think we will be able to convince almost all of these young girls to change their minds . '' students face expulsion if they refuse to abide the law . in bobigny , near paris , about 30 sikh boys have refused to remove their turbans in school . h l ne fouquet ( nyt )",has a topic of education
"an employment tribunal found that aishah azmi , the muslim classroom assistant suspended from her job for wearing a full face veil , had not been discriminated against or harassed on religious grounds . but she was awarded 1 , 850 in damages for ''injury to feelings . '' her case has been a part of a furious debate in britain about the wearing of the niqab , the veil that covers all but a woman 's eyes . after the hearing in northern_england , ms . azmi , 24 , criticized prime_minister tony_blair and other government ministers for commenting on her case while it was under way . alan_cowell ( nyt )",has a topic of education
"lead like many 18 year olds in japan , mayumi yamamoto has long been immersed in serious training for her college entrance_examinations . but she went into high gear in early february , two weeks before the first in a series of exams . like many 18 year olds in japan , mayumi yamamoto has long been immersed in serious training for her college entrance_examinations . but she went into high gear in early february , two weeks before the first in a series of exams . most of her six targeted schools were in tokyo , so she flew there from her home in kanazawa , on the sea of japan , and moved in with a family friend . her life became a relentless grind of study , followed by mock exams , followed by more study . this dragged on , as it already had for months , from 8 a.m . to 10 30 p.m. , seven days a week . late winter in japan is known as a period of ''examination hell . '' for hundreds of thousands of japanese students like miss yamamoto , it is make or break time . admission to the right school , like tokyo_university , means they can accept on faith that they will find jobs with top ranked corporations and government ministries . this january , a record 377 , 400 students took the first round of tests another occurred last month . but despite hard study and equally hard prayer at popular shinto shrines , two thirds of them were doomed to fail . while the winners got to breathe easy for the next four years japanese colleges are not noted for taxing their students many of the losers will try again next year . not that they could n't get into a school at all this year . most were accepted somewhere . but they did not land in their schools of preference , and so they decided to become ronin . in japan 's feudal past , ronin were masterless samurai who wandered the countryside . today 's ronin attend full time cram_schools , looking for an edge that may bring success the next time . some will subject themselves to this for two or three years . ''examination hell'' is a well known , much condemned phenomenon . critics charge that the system emphasizes rote memorization and stifles creative thinking . japanese children , they say , emerge as worker bees with stunted personalities . every year some students crack under the strain . in february , a 23 year old man who had tried six times to get into kyoto 's ritsumeikan university hanged himself after having looked at the wrong list and concluded that he had failed again . his body was found just after the telegram arrived informing him that he had passed . former prime_minister yasuhiro_nakasone encouraged reform before he left office last november . indeed , revisions will go into effect next year , giving universities more leeway in weighing test results . but this is mainly change at the edges , not enough to satisfy critics such as ikuo amano , an education professor at tokyo_university . ''just as the japanese adults are supposed to be workaholics , '' he said , ''the kids have become testaholics . '' if anything , professor amano added , the situation is growing worse . pressure to get into the ''right'' colleges is so intense that an increasing number of parents enroll their children in private preparatory schools that ride a steady track to the top . so many of the brighter youngsters are in private schools now that public_school students find themselves virtually locked out of the more prestigious colleges . but instead of easing anxieties for many youngsters , the tough competition for prep schools has simply advanced the process by six years . this disheartens professor amano . for about a century after the meiji restoration of 1868 , the exam system acted as a quality_control system , he says , ''allowing japan to establish a broadly effective educational system and to develop a top flight elite at the same time . '' but today , he said , ''it is stifling student aspirations . they know that despite their efforts they can only go so far , and they are losing the will to study hard . ''",has a topic of education
"seeking to import a measure of new world innovation and technology to the old world , the british_government will announce a 108 million investment today in a joint_venture that will link research and educational programs at the university of cambridge in england with those at the massachusetts_institute_of_technology . the cambridge m . i.t . institute , as the new enterprise will be known , will seek to develop technologies , products and companies to improve the productivity and competitiveness of british manufacturing industries , officials of the two universities said yesterday . the new institute will receive 80 percent of its planned 135 million budget over the next five years from the british_government , with the remaining 27 million to be raised from british industry . gordon_brown , the chancellor of the exchequer , is expected to announce the agreement today in london . the agreement is unusual in several ways , education experts say . though universities often establish joint research programs , rarely do those efforts receive any significant investment up front . equally rare are programs in which a foreign government pays for the expertise of an american_university and its faculty . ''the aim is not so much to develop specific technologies as to enhance the culture of entrepreneurship at cambridge and the understanding of how a university can work with industry , '' charles vest , the president of m.i.t. , said . ''we will be giving them access to our decade and a half of experience working to couple engineering and management and working in partnership with industries on manufacturing , product development and industrial competitiveness . '' robert m . zemsky , director of the institute for research in higher_education at the university of pennsylvania , said the agreement demonstrated how universities , like private industries , were trying to adjust to a more competitive world . ''we 're seeing the emergence of a world market for name brand education , '' he said . but , mr . zemsky added , the cambridge m . i.t . institute seems to have a built in advantage . ''the key is that the british_government seems to be putting real money on the table , '' he said . ''these types of joint_ventures are more often formed out of good will but with no real money behind them . '' the cambridge m . i.t . institute 's activities will also include exchanges of undergraduates , graduate students and faculty_members between the two universities , which will build computer and other technological links to foster the development of virtual classrooms that span the atlantic_ocean . the agreement to be announced today is a preliminary one , mr . vest said , with many important details to be worked out . among them are what compensation , if any , the british_government will receive if the research projects undertaken by the new institute result in technologies or products that can be licensed or sold for profit . mr . vest said he did not think the programs undertaken by the new institute would trigger controls on exports of american technology . ''we have informed a few people in the federal_government that this was under discussion , and we received a very positive reaction , '' he said . in addition , mr . vest said , the benefits will flow to american students and industries as well as to those in britain . ''we 're aiming to build a better global basis of education for m.i.t . students and the people who will lead businesses in this country in the future , '' he said . sir alec broers , the vice_chancellor of the university of cambridge , said the joint_venture with m.i.t . could ''create entrepreneurs who can use their inspiration and perspiration to build a stronger british economy . '' he added , ''they could change the face of entrepreneurship and wealth creation in the u.k . '' m.i.t . has extensive experience working with profit making companies to develop new methods of engineering and manufacturing , and the university 's faculty_members , students and alumni have had a hand in the founding of more than 4 , 000 companies . according to a 1997 study by the university , those companies employed more than 1.1 million people and , in 1994 alone , generated 232 billion in sales around the world .",has a topic of education
"the supreme court of british columbia ruled that a teacher who wrote a series of anti gay letters published in a local newspaper was not wrongfully punished in receiving a one month suspension . chris kempling , a guidance_counselor at a high_school in quesnel , argued that his suspension was a violation of his freedoms . the court found the letters to be discriminatory and the suspension just , saying that a public_school teacher should be held to more stringent standards than the general public . colin_campbell ( nyt )",has a topic of education
"klaus j . jacobs , a german born billionaire who lives in england and studied at stanford , came back to his hometown here the other day to announce that he was donating more than 250 million to the international university bremen . the gift is the biggest private donation ever made to a german university so big , in fact , that its only real parallel is the kind of mega philanthropy that periodically swells the coffers of american universities . that is precisely the point for mr . jacobs and for the newly appointed president of the university , joachim treusch . ''i hope that this sets a precedent , '' mr . jacobs , 69 , said . ''there is a lot of wealth in private and corporate hands in germany . it certainly would be desirable to see more of it going to institutions . '' mr . treusch aspires to vault the international university bremen into the front rank of german universities . to do that , he has decided to rename this five year old institution jacobs university bremen to honor its benefactor and to serve notice of its american style ambitions . ''stanford is not a place but a name harvard is not a place but a name , '' mr . treusch said in an interview after the announcement . ''international university bremen was a rather flat name . '' it was also on the verge of bankruptcy . now restored with the money from mr . jacobs , this fledgling institution is determined to chart a new course in a country that helped pioneer the modern research university in the 19th_century but has lost its edge in recent decades . mr . jacobs , a swiss citizen who was born in this bustling northern german city , said he hoped his gesture would encourage more large scale philanthropy in a land where it is largely unknown . private giving to german universities is limited by several factors , ranging from the lack of a philanthropic tradition to rules that limit the amount of tax free donations . the biggest hurdle , however , is the state , which has historically been the main financier of higher_education . one result is that german universities lack the resources of their american rivals . the united_states spends 2.6 percent of its gross_domestic_product on higher_education the germans , only 1.1 percent . germany 's most famous universities heidelberg , humboldt and munich are public institutions , largely financed by federal and regional governments . until recently , tuition was nominal . starting next year , they will be allowed to charge 500 euros ( 635 ) a semester . ''in germany , the call for the state is the easy one to make , '' said mr . jacobs , who inherited his family 's coffee company and expanded it into chocolate , amassing one of europe 's great private fortunes . ''it 's always there , and if you shout loud enough , you get the money . '' the bremen university , which teaches engineering , science , humanities and social_sciences , is private one of a few dozen in germany . though it received some start up capital from the bremen government , it has had to survive on tuition and fund_raising . tuition for undergraduates is 19 , 050 a year , and 550 a month for room and board . fund_raising has been erratic , apart from a gift of 10 million swiss_francs ( 8 million ) from the jacobs foundation in 2001 , which established the jacobs center for lifelong learning . without this new gift , the university would have run out of cash by next april . ''it 's about the minimum we needed to stay open , '' said mr . treusch , a theoretical physicist who negotiated the donation with mr . jacobs over three months . ''we still have to struggle , but that 's o.k . '' the decision to rename the university for a businessman was not universally welcomed . a few students complained that it was not dignified . in germany , extreme wealth is still viewed with suspicion rather than reverence . others countered that the jacobs name and money would help the university establish a distinct brand image , not to mention keep it afloat . it is to receive 15 million_euros ( 19 million ) a year from the jacobs foundation for the next five years to defray its operating expenses . in 2011 , mr . jacobs will turn over the balance of the gift 125 million_euros ( 158 million ) to support teaching and research ''at a competitive level . '' the notion of competition is also evolving in germany . since the early 1970 's , when admissions were thrown open by government decree , there has been a sort of artificial equality among german schools , which masked disparities in the quality of teachers and students . now germany is acknowledging those differences by channeling hundreds of millions of euros into so called elite universities , chosen last month by a panel of public officials and scholars . the international university bremen did not make it into that charmed circle , but the gift from mr . jacobs is double the amount that the three elite schools the university of munich , the technical university of munich and the university of karlsruhe will each receive over the same period . germany has other private universities , but they tend to specialize in disciplines like law or management . otto beisheim , a wealthy merchant , endowed a management school at witten herdecke university , germany 's oldest private university , in the industrial ruhr_valley . jacobs university is housed on a converted german_military base . three quarters of its 1 , 000 students come from outside germany , with half from eastern_europe and russia . classes are taught in english . that cosmopolitan mix appealed to mr . jacobs . ''there is no other university like this in europe , '' he said . putting his name on the door in bremen , mr . jacobs said , was as big a risk for him as it was for the university , since their fortunes are now publicly linked . still , he said , he would play only an advisory role . why did n't mr . jacobs give his millions to his own alma_mater , the university of hamburg ? ''they did n't ask , '' he said . correction november 17 , 2006 , friday an article on nov . 8 about klaus j . jacobs , a german born billionaire who is donating more than 250 million to the international university bremen , misstated the name of an institution that another german businessman , otto beisheim , endowed . it is the whu otto beisheim school of management in the rhine valley at vallendar . despite its use of the acronym whu , derived from german , it is not affiliated with the witten herdecke university in the ruhr_valley .",has a topic of education
"an article in the special_education life section on sunday about andrew p . n . erdmann , senior adviser to iraq 's higher_education ministry , misstated the name of the university in st . louis where his wife is an assistant professor . it is washington_university , not the university of washington .",has a topic of education
"it is the end of a school day , and hiroyo ikoma is laughing in the junior high bathroom , doing what 12 year old girls in japan normally do with their classmates at this time . she 's scrubbing the floors . "" bathroom duty is the worst , "" miss ikoma complained lightly as she sprayed a hose in the direction of her partner 's mop . "" of course , we 're supposed to scrub the toilets , too , but we do n't . "" in japanese schools , like this one in the verdant hills near ise in central japan , it is children rather than janitors who do the cleaning . from first grade through the senior year of high_school , children spend 15 minutes to half an hour a day to take out the garbage and remove any graffiti that their buddies have unkindly left behind . "" kids write graffiti in pencil , "" explained miyuki shibahara , a teacher at the junior high_school in the nearby town of nishiki , since they have to clean it themselves . "" they do n't have the stomach to write in pen . "" as americans dissatisfied with their own educational system look at alternatives , japanese schools stand out in many ways . they offer discipline , orderly classes , safe corridors , rigorous training in basics like reading and mathematics , and practical lessons in physics like this one for every action , like sticking gum under a desk , there must be an equal and less pleasant reaction , like removing it . several days around omiya , a town of 5 , 700 set at the foot of hills covered with cedar forests , leave one with a feeling that schools here are not so much institutions of learning as of social_engineering . much of japanese society , good and bad , seems rooted in school practices if the battle of waterloo was won on the playing fields of eton , the japanese economic_miracle was won in the ( student scrubbed ) classrooms of omiya and a thousand towns like it . no diverse country can be captured in a single microcosm , but omiya has rhythms and anxieties that resonate beyond the rice_paddies that mark the edge of town . in tokyo , nearly 200 miles away , people talk about who will be the next prime_minister in omiya , folks chat about whether fireflies are visible and whether schoolgirls will be allowed to wear skirts that rise above their kneecaps . these days the young people of omiya ( pronounced oh mee yuh ) are eagerly anticipating the beginning of summer vacation on july 21 , for if they sometimes seem angelic during the school year , perhaps it is only because they are too busy studying to get into trouble . japanese schools provide a crime free and drug free environment , but sometimes they also risk providing a fun free environment . in omiya , as in many japanese towns , loudspeakers broadcast a message each evening during the school year "" good boys and girls , it 's almost 6 o'clock . let 's be careful of cars and go home now . "" regimentation lots of rules some rebellion schools are social cookie cutters in japan , assembly lines that press students into the same shape and constantly remind them that they are members of a larger community . rules are ubiquitous , and the atmosphere even at public schools is a bit like that of an american military academy . omiya junior high , for instance , not only stipulates the uniform but also bans wristwatches , hair ribbons , curled hair , bleached hair , perfume , scented deodorant , earrings , makeup , money , non standard school bags or anything else that could set one student apart from another . the school even bans colorful shoes , although footwear is left at the entrance and exchanged for identical slippers that students and teachers wear inside the school building . yet the student whom the others describe as the coolest kid in the junior high_school , kazuhiro fujikura , has triumphed over the homogenization process and that is what makes him so kakkoii , or cool . that plus the fact that , although mediocre academically , he is a good baseball_player and , as 14 year old asaha shimomura gushed , "" he 's so cute . "" mr . fujikura bored a hole in the heel of his slippers . this creates a distinctive "" thump , thump "" when he walks down the hall , sending pulses soaring among his admirers . it is striking that for all their reputation for docility , students in japan seem as rebellious in spirit as american youths . the difference is degree they smoke cigarettes instead of marijuana , get into fistfights instead of knife fights , and mostly just get kissed instead of pregnant . mr . fujikura rebelled by showing up at school earlier this year with brown hair . the teachers made him dye his hair black again , but he is unapologetic . "" it 's interesting to have a funny hair style , "" he said as he sat on the floor in a corridor . "" i 'd love to have blond_hair . "" students test the rules in many other ways . skirts are supposed to extend to at least the kneecap , but girls pull them up at the waist to titillate with an inch or two of flesh above the knee . one boy used a fragrant mousse in his hair only to have a teacher drag him by the hair to a faucet and wash it out . a problem for students is that the school uniform requires white socks , and it is difficult to be kakkoii while wearing white socks . but white socks are regarded as acceptable if they are bunched up a bit above the ankle . so to keep socks at this height , without having them drop further , students use sock touch , a special glue stick marketed for just this purpose . one girl demonstrated by applying sock touch to her bare calf and then putting on the sock at just the kakkoii height . schools in japan freely set standards for students not only in the classroom but also at home and even during summer vacation . the idea is that schools not only teach students but also train them how to fit into society and remind them that the school is the source of their identity , and that they can no more escape it than they can flee their other family , the one at home . junior high_schools bar students from stopping anywhere on their way home from school , even at a store to buy a drink . on vacation , they are not allowed to visit karaoke restaurants , coffee houses or arcades . romances are scrutinized as well . some of the 154 students in omiya junior high_school have boyfriends and girlfriends , and teachers try to keep an eye on them and make sure that no one gets hurt . "" if they 're really going out , then we have to talk to the parents and make sure that they do n't get in trouble , "" said akio murata , the principal . schools begin to inculcate the values that dominate japanese society , like the emphasis on hierarchy . beginning in junior high_school , for instance , everyone is cast as senpai , or elder , or as kohai , or junior . "" if a senpai says 'morning , ' we 're supposed to answer politely with 'good morning , ' "" explained naomi yoshida , an eighth_grader . "" if a senpai says 'bye' in a casual way , we 're supposed to say 'goodbye . ' "" miss yoshida is addressed by older students as "" yoshida "" or with the diminutive "" yoshida chan . "" but to younger pupils she is "" yoshida san , "" just as if she were an adult . work , work , work school pressure means little play mr . fujikura , the coolest student , says he does no homework and does not go to a cram_school , but that is unusual . most japanese students work far harder than their american counterparts . for starters , there is a half day of school two saturdays a month , and summer vacation lasts only six weeks . during vacations , teachers assign homework , so that students will not forget what they have learned . shingo horie , a 16 year old junior , catches a train each morning at 7 a.m . for the hourlong ride to senior_high_school . omiya has no senior high , so the 7 a.m . train is jammed with the town 's young people commuting to several high_schools in the larger city of matsuzaka . mr . horie dozes or does homework on the train , and then plays on the basketball_team after school . he gets home at 8 p.m . and then does two or three hours of homework before going to bed . "" i have hardly any time to play with friends , "" he said . why do young people work so hard ? "" we want to go to good universities and get good jobs , "" mr . horie said . "" then there 's also pressure from parents and teachers . "" pressure from teachers includes the requirement that students take all school books home each night . the high_school has lockers though nearly all students leave them unlocked , for theft is unknown but even so , students must lug all their books home as an inducement to use them . the pressure from parents is even greater , particularly from the "" education mama . "" these are devoted housewives whose mission in life is to wheedle and bully their children to spend every moment studying . some "" education mamas "" have been quoted in the japanese press as saying they had sex with their own sons , so that the boys would not need to waste time dating girls . soap_operas and a movie have been made about such mother son relationships . the japanese themselves refer to the teen years as "" examination hell , "" a time of extraordinary pressure when a few failed exams can peg a student as a prospective lathe worker instead of a corporate executive . but japanese youths also have intact families and sometimes a close_knit community of students to provide support , and in fact the suicide rate for japanese teen_agers is well below that for americans . in any case , the academic pressure perhaps pays off , for japanese students learn a lot . at matsuzaka high_school , where some of the best omiya students go , all pupils learn calculus , chemistry and trigonometry . international studies have consistently shown that japanese students perform among the best in the world in math and science . a survey of 13 year olds in 15 countries found that in math , japanese ranked first and the united_states ranked 11th . japan excels in these comparisons even though government spending on education accounts for a smaller proportion of its gross_national_product than in the united_states . the lower spending is partly attributable to spartan physical conditions not only do students do all the window cleaning and floor waxing themselves , but students are left to shiver in the winter in unheated classrooms . shortcomings some learning omits thinking while the academic side of the ledger is generally very impressive , there are some subjects that japanese schools teach miserably . one is english , and after visits to english classes in omiya it is easy to see how japanese manage to study the language for six or more years without learning to speak it . english classes are taught almost entirely in japanese , by a teacher lecturing at a blackboard with very little class participation . english words are memorized as if they were chemistry symbols . takeshi niwa , the english teacher at omiya junior high_school , notes that the all important college entrance_exams test only the students' knowledge of written english . "" if we taught a lot of spoken english , we would be behind on the grammar , and students would fail the entrance_exam , "" mr . niwa said . another area that seems poorly taught , perhaps because it conflicts with the japanese desire for consensus , is world_war_ii . the young people in omiya seem to learn almost nothing of the war and their country 's role in it . the rape of nanjing , in which japanese soldiers killed tens of thousands of chinese civilians , was a central event in the war and remains a major sticking point in relations between japan and china . yet of a dozen students interviewed only a few had even heard of it . none knew that the massacre had happened in china , and one said he thought that it had occurred in the united_states . the textbooks edited by the government suggest why students know so little about the war . the high_school textbook simply records in one sentence that "" nanjing was occupied , "" without specifying that more people may have died in the course of that occupation than immediately after the atomic bombing of hiroshima . more broadly , while american students learn to question , japanese students learn to obey . the network of rules seems intended partly to teach the same lesson that is central to marine boot_camp that people must obey even rules that they think are silly , that they must subsume themselves to a larger community . students in omiya are taught to memorize but perhaps not to think . class participation is rare , and the ideal educational task is an equation for which there is only one precise answer . perhaps as a result , japanese students do very well in international mathematics comparisons with questions that are purely equations . but in story problems , where students have to think as well as compute , they do not do nearly so well , though still much better than americans . some scholars say japan 's educational system served admirably over the last century , in building an industrial society with a labor force skilled at bolting together cars or even engineering steadily smaller radios . but these scholars worry that "" trained seals , "" as one japanese critic described graduates , will lack the creativity to master the information_age in the coming decades . "" i serious believe that if we do not change our educational system , it will be the ruin of our country , "" morihiro_hosokawa , a former prime_minister , warned in an essay this month . he complained that the system is so regimented and so focused on cramming information into young minds that it stifles the children . whatever the merits of these concerns , it would be too harsh to suggest that schools around omiya are nothing more than bleak assembly lines of memorization . in rules and rigidity , the overall atmosphere is a bit like that of parochial schools or especially private boarding schools in america or britain earlier in this century . the system can be brutal for those who do not fit bullying is a big problem in japanese schools , though not in omiya but it also creates a tight sense of family for most of the students . "" i 've never seen any system that is so family oriented , where teachers and students are together as one , "" said matthew low , an american who lives near omiya and has taught english for two years in japanese high_schools . "" you see the kids crying at junior high_school graduations , and then they hold reunions . whoever heard of a junior high_school in the u.s . having reunions ? "" main_street , japan later articles will examine other aspects of life in a small town in japan .",has a topic of education
"defying the president they helped bring to power five years ago , nearly half a million russian coal miners went on strike today to demand 200 million in unpaid wages . so did one million coal miners in ukraine , who say they are owed 367 million in back pay . the russian strike , joined by about half the country 's miners , carried particular political resonance , signifying far more than an economic setback for the government of president boris n . yeltsin . in 1989 , the soviet coal miners' wildcat strike signaled the decline of mikhail s . gorbachev . another major strike in 1991 , which mr . yeltsin championed , helped topple mr . gorbachev and sweep his rival into the kremlin . as miners in the coal rich donets basin in ukraine stopped working to protest the wage halts and subsidy cuts of their free_market minded government , 250 , 000 russian teachers , who were also part of mr . yeltsin 's original base , stayed away from schoolrooms for the second day in a row . unlike the strike in 1989 , when miners demanded more consumer goods , this strike was over unpaid wages , one of the most widely shared grievances of russian voters and most politically sensitive issues of the presidential campaign . mr . yeltsin is expected to run for re election in june , and the strike is likely to play into the hands of his strongest opponents , the communists . the workers are also demanding that the government pay overdue subsidies to the mines . but much of the mines' money is owed not by the government , but by ailing industries that cannot pay for the coal they consume . as he celebrated his 65th birthday today , mr . yeltsin said nothing about the revolt of what had once been his most loyal constituency . he had tried to head off the strike last week by signing a decree offering the coal miners 127 million in back wages , about half of what union officials say the miners are owed . saying today that they had yet to see any of the promised money , the coal miners unions went ahead with the strike . in the icy arctic city of vorkuta , 5 , 000 miners , teachers , railway workers and doctors gathered at a rally in the main square . some held up signs reading , "" where is our money ? "" others demanded the resignation of prime_minister viktor s . chernomyrdin . mr . yeltsin 's chief economic adviser , aleksandr y . livshits , said tonight that the president had ordered his government to draw up a "" tough , monthly schedule "" to pay the miners . the russian independent_television_network ntv reported tonight that close to 75 percent of the country 's coal concerns had joined the strike . it was not clear what the miners' plans were for prolonging the strike . there was as much anxiety as there was defiance among striking miners today . "" we have nothing to do , we have nothing to live on , "" a miner from the closed down gryzlovskaya mine in the region of tula told a russian television_crew today . he said he would have to borrow money from his mother 's pension check to buy bread . although coal miners are less essential to the russian economy than they were five years ago , they are still vital to many russian industries and provide the heat for 60 percent of russian homes . once the symbol of mighty socialist labor , coal miners are now emblematic of russia 's steep industrial decline and a harbinger of public discontent . if the strike is long , it will not only further damage russia 's ailing industrial economy , it could also have grave consequences for mr . yeltsin 's political survival . the coal miners have long been restive . in a brief , nationwide strike one year ago , 215 of russia 's 235 mines closed in a culmination of protests that began in rostov , where miners and their families live in miserable conditions , often with no heat or running water . the government had long dreaded today 's strike , and sought to avert it with promises of payment it can ill afford to keep . "" the consequences of the strike could be very grave , because we are in the middle of winter , and coal is vital to our energy plans , "" mikhail g . delyagin , an economist in the presidential analytical center , said last week . miners are better paid than most russian workers , earning up to 500 a month in a country where the average wage is 125 . but prices are high in cities like vorkuta . a loaf of bread costs a dollar , and vodka is twice as expensive there than in moscow . working conditions remain as ghastly as they were in the 1950 's . and the jobs are disappearing . the world_bank recently issued a study that concluded that the state of the russian coal mining industry is "" catastrophic "" and that huge subsidies equivalent to 1.2 percent of the gross_domestic_product are needed to keep it alive . but such subsidies are counterproductive , maintaining excessive production levels that undermine the profitability of russia 's low cost mines . the world_bank estimated that only two thirds of russia 's coal industry , which has been only partly privatized , is viable , meaning that more than half of russia 's 900 , 000 miners may have to lose their jobs . in the harsh and remote pechora basin which includes vorkuta , where the most determined strikers were the world_bank calculated that the number of pits should be cut from 18 to fewer than 7 . the number of miners , it said , should fall from 70 , 400 to between 21 , 000 and 32 , 000 . the social consequences of such closures would be heightened by the role russian mines have traditionally played as the main providers of social_welfare benefits like housing and medical care in their communities . the situation is even more dire in neighboring ukraine , with close to million of the country 's 1.2 million miners on strike . they are clamoring for soviet_era subsidies that the government cannot begin to afford . an extended strike could cripple the country 's struggling industries . in moscow , union leaders talked tough . "" we 'll make them respect us and teach them a lesson , "" said ivan mokhnachuk , deputy head of the union of coal industry workers . "" they 'll have to hear us sooner next time . "" but in the areas where the strikers are milling about in icy temperatures , there was less bravado . "" the miners' demands are fair , "" said mikhail kislyuk , head of the kemerovo region administration in southern siberia . "" but it 's painful because i know how difficult it was before the strike , and it may become even worse after it . """,has a topic of education
"prime_minister tony_blair narrowly_defeated a revolt in his own labor_party on tuesday night over legislation in parliament to revamp the country 's higher_education system , thus avoiding a political humiliation that threatened to bring down his government . the close vote , 316 to 311 in favor of substantially raising tuition fees , gave an important lift to mr . blair on the eve of a potentially greater challenge to his government on wednesday , when lord hutton issues the findings of his investigation into the events surrounding the death of dr . david kelly . he was the specialist on iraq 's weapons whose concerns , privately expressed to the bbc , formed the basis of news reports that mr . blair and his aides had overstated the intelligence on iraq 's illicit_weapons programs to make a stronger case for war . the university financing bill will require british university students , who like most europeans make only nominal tuition contributions toward the cost of a college degree , to begin paying as much as 5 , 500 a year starting in 2006 . the existing tuition , which is means tested and therefore paid by fewer than 50 percent of students , was put in place by mr . blair in 1998 . it has been the object of protests and demands for repeal . the bill on tuesday essentially calls for tripling those fees , and adds a number of features to convert them into loans and defer repayment . the bill set off a rebellion within the labor_party when 159 members declared opposition last month and forced a series of concessions and negotiations . the conservative_party , departing from its traditional free_market stance , joined the opposition and called for a complete rollback in university tuition . after the vote was tallied tuesday evening , tim yeo , who led the conservative_party in the debate , called the five vote margin of victory an ''utter humiliation for the government . '' he later told the bbc that it appeared that mr . blair was ''losing control'' of his party . mr . blair did not speak during the debate on tuesday . but he indicated in an interview with the observer on sunday that he had reached a point in his premiership where he understood that the convergence of any series of political crises risked toppling his government . ''i think in this job you spend the entire time at risk , so there is not a moment when you are not , '' he told the newspaper . almost from the outset , the legislation on university finances became a referendum on mr . blair 's hold over the party after six and half years in office , and a reflection of deep discontent both with his iraq policy and his style of governance . clare short , who quit her ministerial post last spring over the war in iraq , accused mr . blair of acting more like a president than a prime_minister on tuesday , by not consulting the party before introducing major social initiatives . alan johnson , mr . blair 's minister for higher_education , told several television interviewers after the vote , ''we could have handled it better . '' still , mr . blair worked the telephones feverishly , demanding loyalty from backbenchers and engineering , by a slim margin , the rescue of a flagship piece of legislation . the higher_education funding bill is part of the broader social reform agenda mr . blair would like to extend to the national health system and the beleaguered railways . but the vote on tuesday calls into question whether labor is capable of the kind of consensus necessary to move forward on large legislative projects . part of the revolt seemed inspired by supporters of gordon_brown , the chancellor of the exchequer who is regarded as mr . blair 's most likely successor if he should step down . but the burgeoning popularity of the conservative_party under its new leader , michael_howard , makes the prospect of new elections a threat for the first time in years a factor in whipping labor narrowly back into line . the debate on tuesday began with a signal that the knot of opposition to mr . blair was loosening when nick brown , a leader of the opponents and a loose associate of the chancellor , declared that he would vote in favor of the bill . but 71 opponents voted in opposition and 24 more abstained , suggesting that mr . blair 's troubles in holding the party together may continue . charles clarke , mr . blair 's education secretary , began the seven hour debate on tuesday by telling the house that their decision ''will determine the future of our universities and so determine the future ability of this country to prosper in the increasingly competitive global economy . '' he said that as more students enter the system , ''we cannot continue to rely on the taxpayers alone'' to finance university education .",has a topic of education
"moscow_state_university , one of russia 's most prestigious , has opened an investigation into accusations by students that teaching standards and living conditions in one of its academic departments have been severely eroded , students and university officials said in recent days . the investigation , into the conditions in the sociology department , will be conducted by a commission of faculty_members and administrators that was formed last week . it follows a rare and remarkable burst of defiance and student activism on a russian campus , a case of grass roots organization and civic activity that private groups and critics of the kremlin have said has been in decline in recent years . the accusations , many of them circulated to western universities by a small group of students in an effort to gain support , also strongly suggested that official anti western attitudes and creeping nationalism were undermining the quality of the teaching . the students said , for example , that extremist views had become institutionalized and that conspiracy_theories had infiltrated the teaching . ''the dean 's office has distributed a brochure to all students that approvingly quotes the 'protocols of the elders of zion , ' blames freemasons and zionists for the world wars , and claims that they control u.s . and british policy and the global financial system , '' the students wrote in one of their public appeals . ''studying conditions at the department are unbearable . '' vladimir i . dobrenkov , the dean of the sociology department , dismissed the complaints about the curriculum in a telephone interview , saying that the student claims ''are full of hints , rumors and half truths'' and that no anti_semitism has been taught or tolerated on campus . he conceded only that the living conditions were poor and said that they would be improved . students have said that ventilation is inadequate and that their cafeteria has been outrageously overpriced a suggestion of profiteering . ''we should have a constructive dialogue with the students , '' the dean said . mr . dobrenkov also said that the complaining students represented a small fraction of his department 's 2 , 000 member student body and that their influence was exaggerated . on this point the students disagreed , saying they had a nucleus of more than 20 core members and had signatures of support of nearly 10 percent of the department 's student body a remarkable number , they said , given a climate of surveillance and worries of retaliation . russian universities are typically highly centralized . the students said they worried about possible expulsion for their defiance , but felt compelled to act after several years of decline of their curriculum . ''the quality of the education has become so low that it has become terrible , '' said one of the students , who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation by staff members . ''for the last two years all of my education has had to be self education . ''",has a topic of education
"the british court of appeal ruled wednesday that a muslim teenager 's rights had been violated by a school 's refusal to let her wear a concealing muslim gown instead of the school uniform . the court stopped short of ordering the school to allow the girl , shabina begum , to wear her choice of dress the jilbab , a long shapeless robe . but it said that the school , denbigh high_school in luton , bedfordshire , had erred in not considering her human_rights when it ordered her to wear the uniform . ''her freedom to manifest her religion or belief in public was being limited , '' lord_justice brooke , vice_president of the civil division of the court of appeal , one of britain 's highest courts , said in his opinion . as an extension of the state , he said , the school should be required to ''justify the limitation on her freedom created by the school 's uniform code and by the way it was enforced . '' miss begum , 16 , called the decision ''a victory for all muslims who wish to preserve their identity and values despite prejudice and bigotry . '' she told reporters that the school 's policy was not ' 'merely a local decision taken in isolation'' but part of a pattern . ''it was a consequence of an atmosphere that has been created in western societies since 9 11 , '' she said , ''an atmosphere in which islam has been made a target for vilification in the name of the 'war on terror . ''' but a spokeswoman for luton borough council , which is responsible for denbigh , said that the case had been lost on a ''technicality'' concerning the way the decision to deny miss begum the right to wear the jilbab was reached not , significantly , on the merits of its uniform policy or on its right to set policy . ''the court held that the school governors , when holding an oral hearing to consider her complaint , should have considered , first , whether there had been any infringement of their pupil 's right under the european convention on human rights to manifest her religion , '' said the spokeswoman who , according to borough policy , asked not to be named . ''and , secondly , that if there had been such an infringement , could that infringement be justified ? '' denbigh has an unusually liberal uniform policy , which lord brooke went out of his way to praise . in contrast to french_state schools , where students are prohibited from wearing head_scarves , denbigh allows girls a choice wearing standard pants or skirts , or dressing in a shalwar kameez , a traditional muslim outfit consisting of loose pants covered by a tunic . head_scarves are allowed if they meet certain criteria . luton is one of several towns in britain with a large muslim population . seventy nine percent of denbigh 's 1 , 000 or so students are muslim those students speak 40 languages and come from 21 ethnic groups . the uniform policy , the school said , was established after widespread consultation with students , parents , muslim organizations and others , and ''takes into account the cultural and religious sensitivities of pupils at the school . '' the luton spokeswoman said no one had complained about the uniform until 2002 when miss begum , accompanied by her brother ( their parents are dead ) came dressed in a jilbab . she was sent home and told to change into a regular uniform . other students , including muslims , said they felt threatened by the jilbab because they associated it with extremism , the school said . in his decision , lord brooke said that the government should give schools more guidance in how to comply with human_rights_law when setting school uniform policies . miss begum has moved to a school where she is permitted to wear a jilbab .",has a topic of education
"as women walked with bouquets of flowers , gifts from the men in their lives on this women 's day , a small group of friends here in russia 's northern industrial and cultural center were celebrating in a different way . two were sitting in a smoke filled art scene cafe watching the film ''i shot andy_warhol , '' about the radical american feminist valerie solanis . another was home with her children . still another was painting banners for a demonstration to remind residents what the russian observance of international women 's day a national holiday here since soviet_times is really about . ''it 's a fake holiday , '' said olga lipovskaya , 49 , chairwoman of the st . petersburg center for gender issues . ''all these flowers , they are false offerings of affection . i do n't want a tulip . i would rather have rights , power and money . '' while for most in russia , women 's day is a a time for flowers , perfume and boxes of candy , for these st . petersburg intellectuals , it is a time to reflect about what it means to be a woman in this society . only one of the four friends would call herself a feminist . but they find a certain sisterhood with each other and live in ways that even the most emancipated western women might find intimidatingly liberated . for st . petersburg , women 's day has a particularly meaningful past . many historians argue that it was the women of st . petersburg , who celebrated the day in 1917 with a demonstration ''for bread and peace , '' who touched off the overthrow of the czar . soon thereafter , russian women were among the first in the world to receive the right to vote , in part as a result of efforts by radical russian feminists like aleksandra kollontai . women 's day ''is a holiday to celebrate the absolutely wonderful radicalism of the 1920 's , '' said alla mitrofanova , one of the four friends , who helped russian women learn about the internet in the early 1990 's . the soviets imposed egalitarianism from above . a quota system ensured that women occupied a certain number of government posts . women studied at universities alongside men . cafeterias , laundries and day care centers opened in cities to ease women 's burden at home . in today 's russia , however , the quota system has been eliminated and women have all but disappeared from top government posts . the privatization of state assets after the dissolution of the soviet_union in 1991 overwhelmingly benefited men . at the same time , women , who for years had worked in factories and on construction sites , took pleasure in abandoning such toil for the life of a homemaker . ms . mitrofanova , 43 , made such a choice . despite her nontraditional approach to motherhood she chose a father for her children by asking various male friends she decided to become a stay at home mother for her two sons . she deplores the fact that women 's work in the home is not valued and talks wistfully of the social_services , like free day care , secured by feminists during the early soviet_era , but now in decline . ''women will never win in the fight within the establishment for power , '' she said , in her disheveled kitchen in central st . petersburg . ''why should i try when i can achieve so much more at home ? '' in russia_today , feminism , and activism more generally , is regarded with suspicion . russians , cynical from the economic chaos of the past decade and the force fed politics of soviet_times , scorn activism as pathetically na_ve . besides , the problems of other social groups , like migrants from the caucasus who face tremendous prejudice in russia , are much more serious , the women in this circle said . even so , ms . lipovskaya and her helpers were painting signs on friday for today 's demonstration . a self described former hippie , who worked in low paying cleaning and doorman jobs in soviet_times , she is one of the very few advocates of political protest . in 1992 , a year after the demise of the soviet_union , she founded the gender center . ''feminism in russia is associated with primitive stereotypes , '' she said in her sun drenched office , which is based in a worn but stately st . petersburg apartment . ''feminists are either lesbians , ugly women who could n't get a man , or crazy . no one here understands it 's a huge field , not just activism . '' ms . lipovskaya asserts that women have lost out in the last decade during russia 's transition to capitalism . even so , when men and women found themselves adrift in the free for all that followed communism 's collapse , suddenly facing the loss of jobs and identities , it was women who proved more adaptive , landing jobs in the service industry and in small businesses , while men groped for jobs with similar status . ''the situation for women compared with soviet_times got worse , '' she said . ''most women 's organizations are self_help centers . but these problems need to be resolved in politics . '' despite the sharp decline in political representation , which many argue was in any case only for show and did not give women any real power , women seem to have done better than men in the economic transition . while life expectancies for men fell four years , to 59 years from 63 , in the decade ending in 2001 , women 's life spans fell by only two , to 72 . alcoholism was largely responsible for men 's catastrophic decline . another member of this group of friends , roza khatskelevich , provides a model for other women through the sheer force of her professional success . ms . khatskelevich , an administrator in an arts academy in soviet_times , runs a large resource center for nongovernmental_organizations that she founded in 1992 . she shies from the feminist label , though , saying it puts her in a box . ''i have no political platforms , '' she said . ''i do n't like the system of rules the word 'feminist' implies . '' even so , she has reared her son as a single mother , while providing leadership to her mostly female staff , and , by all accounts , she has lived the life of an empowered woman . russian women do not identify with western models of feminism , she said , because , quite simply , they do not feel discriminated against . that could be changing , as younger women come of age . irina aktuganova , director of the cyber femin club , a group that helps women use the internet , and the small cafe where the film was showing , said universities were starting to create gender studies departments . younger women , who remember little of the soviet_union , no longer think of the gender studies as something alien . in addition , women are beginning to enter local_governments , although in the lowest positions . the st . petersburg league_of_women_voters , affiliated with the american group , says 43 percent of local administrators are women , up from 32 percent in 1998 . women 's rights were not appreciated in soviet_times because they were imposed by decree and never fought for , said ms . aktuganova , adding , ''young women do n't fear the word feminism . '' that is true for elena gres , 20 , a third year student at the nevsky institute of language and culture , a new private college . ms . gres , from a siberian oil town , has discussed gender issues in class , something that got her thinking about women 's political representation . ''i thought a feminist was someone who poured her own wine and opened doors for herself , '' said ms . gres , in a st . petersburg cafe . ''a woman should be able to bring her understanding of the world to politics . that seemed to me very right . the exclusion of women is just unhealthy . ''",has a topic of education
"a student reads aloud during a graduate seminar at the university of tokyo in classic japanese literature , and an american , prof . robert campbell , gently corrects a reading error in the soft mannered way of a traditional japanese teacher , or sensei . in this class , students from korea , italy and japan are interpreting and analyzing travel writing by japanese visitors to western countries in the late 19th_century , and the class seems not to care that their professor is not japanese . ''i 'm completely at ease , '' with learning japanese literature from an american teacher , said lee han jung , one of the students . still , professor campbell 's presence is remarkable . the university , which stands at the pinnacle of the japanese educational system , has been considered the most exclusive and closed of academic institutions here . admission and recruitment standards have been inflexible , and unlike many american institutions , the university did not value diversity . in a nation that has long stressed rote learning over creative thinking , the university has been criticized for graduating smart but uninventive minds . but it is changing , now recruiting foreign professors for tenured positions , admitting more international students and increasing the proportion of women faculty_members . ''it is a new trend , and it is a good trend , '' said tetsuo shimomura , professor of education at waseda university . leading this change is a decidedly nontraditional president , shigehiko hasumi , 64 , a professor of french literature who seemingly knows everything about movies and spends a good deal of time watching them so much so that japanese movie buffs have coined a new term . to hasumi means to watch one film after another . mr . hasumi , who saw 400 films a year before becoming president in 1997 , pointed to a wall sized poster for the 1934 movie ''design for living , '' starring gary cooper , miriam hopkins and frederic march . ''only one in three presidents of an american_university who have visited this office could tell what that poster is , '' he said . ''when they do recognize it , they are ecstatic . '' before becoming president of the university , mr . hasumi developed a course on cinema studies . ''i am hoping that film directors will emerge out of my class , '' he said . one of his primary goals as president has been to diversify and internationalize the university , which is now dominated by japanese men . some progress was made in that direction before mr . hasumi took office . in the last 10 years , the number of foreign full time professors and lecturers has jumped to 73 from 29 , while the number of tenured foreign professors has grown to 23 from just 2 . international students have more than tripled in the last 15 years to 1 , 614 , just over 6 percent of the university 's 26 , 000 students . ''i want to see this university gain greater diversity in age , gender and nationality , '' mr . hasumi said . however , much will remain to be done under his successor , for mr . hasumi will complete his four year term next march , and will be succeeded by takeshi sasaki , a political_scientist who is a member of the law faculty . mr . sasaki said at a news conference announcing his selection , ''the days are gone when being from the university of tokyo gave you some guarantee in life . '' the university of tokyo , or todai , as it is popularly known here , dominates academia in japan in ways that no single institution dominates american higher_education . it outranks all other universities in most fields of research and has served as a breeding ground for most of the country 's government officials . approximately 70 percent of the bureaucrats who guided japan through its postwar economic_growth to unrivaled financial prosperity at least until recently graduated from the university of tokyo . at the ministry of finance , the most elite department within the government , about 90 percent of the officials are todai graduates , and most of them graduated from the faculty of law , the most prestigious at the university . so , quite naturally , the appointment of ikuo kabashima , 53 , as a professor at the university of tokyo 's faculty of law in 1997 created a stir , not only was professor kabashima not a graduate of the university of tokyo , he had not even gone to a japanese university . after graduating from a high_school in the southern prefecture of kumamoto , where he said he finished 220th in a class of 250 , he went to work for a local agricultural cooperative . going to a university was not even a consideration , professor kabashima said . he dreamed only of running a large farm of his own one day . but an agricultural exchange program in the united_states took the young mr . kabashima to a farm in idaho . he then studied reproductive physiology at the university of nebraska and later went to harvard to earn a ph . d . in political_science . he taught at tsukuba university in ibaraki prefecture before coming to tokyo . despite his progress , professor kabashima said of his appointment to the todai law faculty ''i was impressed that they hired me . it was beyond my imagination . '' except for a few foreign professors , he is the only one in the 80 member todai law faculty who is not a graduate of the faculty . hiroshi watanabe , dean of the faculty of law , said ''the perception that we were closed is not accurate . we have always wanted to hire the best people . '' but , he added , they happened to be graduates of the law faculty . today , professors like dr . kabashima , while still a rarity , no longer surprise people . tadao ando , a japanese architect who was appointed a professor recently , had no higher_education at all . the outsiders said they rarely faced discrimination or barriers . ''my bicultural aspects have been more comfortably and naturally integrated into my life as a scholar , '' said professor campbell , 43 , a tenured associate professor of literature who teaches in japanese . he added that he believed his tokyo appointment would not have happened 10 years ago . professor campbell , a native of new york , joined the university after teaching and researching at a few other japanese institutions . the acceptance of diverse talents at japan 's top educational institution is emblematic of the times . people here are opening up to outside competition and integrating foreign products and people into their lives , although slowly . the days are gone , education critics say , when japan 's exam oriented educational system served the country well . the formula raised the educational standards of the masses , equipping people well for an industrial economy that produced high quality , standardized industrial products like electronic goods and automobiles . at the top were todai graduates , always in demand among corporate recruiters . ''they figured if they passed that difficult exam at todai , they should be fine , '' mr . hasumi said , but the needs of society today , he added , are ' 'much more diverse , and it is important to be able respond to those various needs . '' in 1991 , the faculty of law established a graduate law program intended in part for those already established in careers . ''that was a big change for us , '' mr . watanabe said . the university has also begun to put greater emphasis on graduate education , attracting students of diverse backgrounds and people who have started their careers . and at the graduate level , the university competes more with overseas universities , leading to a move to internationalize its programs . befitting the changes at the university and the larger society , students' career interests are undergoing a significant shift . mr . hasumi said more students were interested in taking jobs at foreign companies . students used to shun working for foreign companies , and many still do , ''because they thought those jobs were not stable , '' mr . hasumi said . now , there are students who want jobs where they can test their skills , he said . kiyoshi kameshima . a fourth year law student who has been active in organizing sports events at the university , is representative of the growing ranks of students who are ready to take chances . he wants to go directly into politics after graduation next year , perhaps by working as a secretary for a member of parliament from his home town of ooita , a southern prefecture on the island of kyushu , rather than work his way up in the government bureaucracy or in a company . ''i want to be in a position to move and take action , '' mr . kameshima said . ''i get the feeling that things are not working properly in japanese politics . i want to change this country . '' abroad miki_tanikawa writes for the new york times from tokyo .",has a topic of education
"when she left the university of california at berkeley to become dean of the london_business_school nearly two years ago , laura d'andrea tyson was struck by her new colleagues' penchant for meetings . ''there 's a lot of minute writing , and minute review , '' she said . for david vandelinde , arriving in britain meant adopting a new terminology . ''some of my colleagues in the states were surprised that i was taking the no . 2 job in a british university , '' recalled mr . vandelinde , the vice_chancellor of the university of warwick and former vice_chancellor of the university of bath . few americans realize that the vice_chancellor is actually at the top of britain 's academic hierarchy , whereas the chancellor is essentially a figurehead . adjusting to the quirks and foibles of a different system is the easy part of the job for the small but growing set of academic leaders in britain who , like ms . tyson and mr . vandelinde , got their training in the united_states . kings college london will get an american head next september , and in october , alison richard , formerly yale 's provost , became vice_chancellor of the university of cambridge , britain 's top university by most counts . ms . richard is british and holds her undergraduate degree from cambridge . but she has spent the last 30 years at yale , where she established a reputation for careful budget management good news for cambridge , which predicts a deficit of 8 . 3 million for this academic year . today , more and more foreigners are securing the top administrative posts at britain 's best universities . the united_states is not the only source of recruits the future vice_chancellor of the university of oxford , john hood , is from the university of auckland , in new zealand . ''twenty years ago i think the attitude was probably , 'we want to have a domestic person , ' '' mr . vandelinde said . now , british universities and their boards ''are saying , 'o . k. , fine , we 'll look wherever we can find the talent . ' '' gillian evans , a history professor at cambridge , cites a ''talent vacuum'' for administrators in britain , possibly compounded by the wish to bypass internal politics , which can be fierce at ancient institutions like cambridge . ''if they had appointed people from inside the u.k. , we would all have known too much about them we 'd have read them in who 's who , '' she says . but most of all , experts say , the importing of top administrators may signal a growing sense of the need to keep pace with their global counterparts , especially in the united_states . even institutions like oxford and cambridge are awakening to the fact that many britons are ending up in highly paid academic posts across the atlantic . ''british universities are starting to face competition , more than they have before , '' says nicholas barr , an economics professor at the london school of economics and political science . ''it would therefore not be surprising if they were to look for vice chancellors who have experience of competitive environments . '' as british universities join the worldwide battle for talent , experience in fund_raising is increasingly a factor . american candidates are considered particularly savvy on this issue . ''there does seem to be a sense in the u.k . that obviously the u.s . understands this magical world of fund_raising in some way and that the british institutions have to take strides to close the gap , '' said ms . tyson of london_business_school , which is planning a capital campaign . the school also wants to burnish its image as an international school , she said , ' 'so having a dean who was not british is a very important signal to send . '' britain 's new administrators will need financial skills , because universities here may soon face what mr . barr calls their ''biggest shake up'' in 40 years . at issue is a policy proposal , backed by tony_blair 's labor_government , that would move the heavily state subsidized universities closer to an american style system as students pay more for their education . the proposal would allow universities ( in england only , as opposed to scotland , wales and northern_ireland ) to raise tuition fees for english students from their current limit of 1 , 900 to 5 , 000 , starting in 2006 . legislation on fees is expected to be debated in parliament in the coming months . students vigorously oppose the proposal , fearing that higher fees will increase their debt and deter applicants from poor families . others see increased fees as the universities' only recourse . without it , mr . barr said , ''we will be a declining industry under central_planning , and britain can kiss goodbye forever to having any pretense of world class universities . '' separately , the government plans to raise spending on higher_education in england from 12 . 6 billion in 2002 03 to nearly 16 . 7 billion in 2005 06 . the cash_flow problem at british universities is stark . between 1989 and 2002 , government spending per student fell 37 percent in real terms as the number of students increased by 94 percent , according to universities uk , an association of university heads . faculty student ratios have worsened . the united_states spent 2.7 percent of its gross_national_product on higher_education in 2000 britain spent 1 percent . even london_business_school , which sets its own m.b.a . fees , is a poor cousin to its american rivals . its net assets , which include its endowment , total 84 . 6 million compared with the 215 million endowment of its partner and rival , columbia business school . british institutions , ms . tyson notes , face challenges like those of public universities in the united_states they are trying to make headway against the private universities , with their great fund_raising prowess . even if the proposal goes through and british universities adopt a more market oriented financial structure , will the new crop of foreign administrators be able to reverse the slide ? ''running a university in britain is an appallingly difficult task , '' cautioned mr . barr of the london school of economics , citing financial pressures . bringing britain 's strong_willed professors to heel will also be tough . ''there is , in most universities , a suspicion amongst many of the faculty_members about increasing levels of management , '' said kenneth edwards , a former vice_chancellor of the university of leicester and a cambridge professor . ''therefore , a lot depends upon the individual , at how skilled they are at actually managing this change and keeping people on board . '' that is especially true of cambridge , where ms . richard has taken the helm at a time when the relationship between the administration and the faculty is strained . ''this is a small , very closely knit , highly_politicized community of very clever and articulate people who are used to being able to say no to anything they like , '' says ms . evans , the history professor . ms . richard 's first order of business , ms . evans says , will simply be getting faculty_members to like and trust her . ''it 's like taming a wild animal . ''",has a topic of education
"lead playground bullies in britain may be learning a lesson or two these days , thanks to an experimental program that encourages schools to set up ''bully courts . '' playground bullies in britain may be learning a lesson or two these days , thanks to an experimental program that encourages schools to set up ''bully courts . '' the idea comes from kidscape , a nonprofit london group dedicated to child safety . michele elliott , the organization 's director , considers school thuggery to be part of the prism of child_abuse . ''but kids here see it as the biggest problem'' on that continuum , she said . in a survey of 4 , 000 students that kidscape conducted not long ago , nearly 70 percent of those ages 5 to 16 said they had been victims of bullies . the courts , which typically meet once a week , consist of four students and a voting adult adviser . two pupils are elected , two are appointed by teachers ( to prevent bullies from packing the court ) . usually , the four young judges read accounts of the incident one version from the alleged bully , another from the victim . then they hold a confidential hearing to elicit details from every child involved . punishments for convicted bullies vary . the courts ca n't suspend a child , for example , but they can order an offender to stay after school each day for a few weeks or to eat lunch in a supervised setting away from other children . one court devised what it called ''the long and tedious punishment'' making a bully repeatedly tear up paper and then pick up all the pieces . other schoolyard toughs have been denied field trips . bully courts are not the answer in all cases , ms . elliott said , especially if criminal assault is involved or if an offender 's actions stem from serious abuse at home . but in some schools they can reduce the more routine instances of physical and verbal intimidation , she said . so far , tribunals have been set up in 30 schools , mostly in and around london , with students from about 7 to 16 . ''in the schools they 're in , they have certainly brought a reduction of bullying , '' ms . elliott said . but schools adopting the bully courts are likely to be those in which teachers have already taken a firm stand against bullying . many schools do not have such an ''anti bullying ethos'' in place . they may disparage a victim 's complaint as ''tale telling , '' or deny that thuggery exists . in such settings , ms . elliott warns , a bully court is likely to be ineffective . but there 's evidence that more schools may be sharpening their awareness of the bullies in their midst . after a recent bbc_television show tackled the topic , a rush of students and teachers contacted kidscape for help . ''we got 5 , 000 letters , '' ms . elliott said . blackboard",has a topic of education
"like many japanese , naoto eguchi feels relentless pressure to get ahead . rising at dawn , he works a full day with his regular colleagues and an additional three hours each evening in special study sessions . he then does a couple of hours of work at home before going to bed at midnight . it is a heavy burden for an 11 year old . naoto 's immediate goal is to pass entrance_exams for a private junior high_school , a crucial step for eventual admission to a prestigious university . but he is already thinking about the future . "" my goal is to get a good job with a good company , "" he said . competition early the struggle to succeed in one of the world 's most competitive societies is starting earlier and earlier , and nowhere is it more evident than in the growing popularity of cram_schools that train students for examinations for private schools and colleges . once on the fringe of the system , cram_schools , or jukus , are so pervasive and time consuming in japan that , especially for the elite , they have begun to function as a kind of shadow educational system , supplanting regular schools in importance for parents and students and reaching down to 2 and 3 year old children . the rise of jukus is praised as a secret of japanese success , a healthy reflection of a system of advancement based on merit . it is also criticized as forcing a new generation to surrender its childhood out of an obsession with status and getting ahead . "" jukus are harmful to japanese education and to children , "" said ikuo amano , professor of sociology at the university of tokyo . "" it 's not healthy for kids to have so little free time . it is not healthy to become completely caught up in competition and status at such a young age . "" recently the respected yano research institute found that nearly 4.4 million students were enrolled in 50 , 000 to 60 , 000 jukus . that represents 18 . 6 percent of elementary_school children and 52 . 2 percent of students in the seventh through ninth grades . japanese spent 10 . 9 billion on tutoring and cram_schools last year , according to the institute , including 9 billion on jukus for students in the ninth_grade or below almost double the figure spent seven years ago . the people who run and teach at jukus say the schools are popular only because they work , creating a lively and interesting environment in which students learn because they are enjoying themselves . one of the most prestigious cram_schools for 2 and 3 year olds , shingakai juku , sends most of its pre_kindergarten graduates to prestigious elementary schools . these students can even opt out of the "" examination hell , "" because if they get good grades in a prestigious school , they can advance all the way to a university without having to take examinations . "" we really do n't push knowledge on them , "" said kigen fujimoto , head of a branch of this juku at a huge office building in northwest tokyo . "" we are interested in teaching them how to play and enjoy learning . "" in a nearby class , eight children about 3 years old sat politely in little chairs in a row as a teacher held up pictures of a kite , a dragon and other objects , calling on the students to identify them . "" what is this shape ? "" she then said , holding up first a square , a triangle and then a circle . a mother 's misgivings several mothers who were waiting to pick up their children expressed anxiety about subjecting their youngsters to such pressures . but they reasoned that it would be worth it if their children got into private schools early and did not have to worry about passing examinations later on . "" it 's not an ideal thing to send your kids to such a place , "" said one mother , asking not to be identified for fear of criticism from other parents . she said she thought her daughter was having a good time in this school but "" if i told you i was n't thinking about entrance_examinations , i would be lying . "" juku teachers and administrators say that since their schools are profit making enterprises , they have to guarantee results to succeed . the results are easy to measure since they depend on how many graduates pass the examinations for private_school . the profit motive , in other words , provides an incentive to create an atmosphere in which students want to learn . "" do n't believe what the mass_media says , that all we do is force kids to memorize and pass tests , "" said ryuichi nakatsuka , a 52 year old science teacher at yotsuya otsaka , a big juku chain . "" we use experiments and we break the information down into more digestible bites . the kids enjoy it . "" kunio kijima , head of a private association of jukus and director of his own juku chain , nihon kyoiku gakuin , said that regular schools tend to bore the smartest students and leave the weakest students behind . "" our goal is to help all kids get ahead , "" he said . on a recent evening , the atmosphere at a branch of mr . kijima 's juku chain in an office building in tokyo was filled with the boisterous byplay of boys and girls 11 to 13 years old . it was nearly 9 p.m. , but they were attentive . teachers joked in class but frequently paused , saying , "" pay attention , because this is important for the examination . "" but when asked what they would be doing if they were not in school , the first answer among the students was , "" sleeping ! "" many said it was common for them to get to bed close to midnight , only to rise the next morning at 6 30 a.m . for regular school . "" i know it 's a sacrifice , "" said terumi saeki . "" i know i 'm cutting down on my son 's play hours . he 's sacrificing two years of his adolescence . if he had more leisure , i 'm sure he 'd be a more lively boy . but look at what he 's gaining in the long run . "" critics say the growing influence of jukus means in effect that education policy is set by institutions whose main motive is profit , not education . shares in 5 juku chains are traded publicly , and 25 others are said to be ready to issue stock as well . the "" examination hell "" inflicted on children is widely criticized here . in a recent survey , two thirds of parents said competitive examinations were their worst problem in raising children . but parents are also eager to give their children every advantage . "" jukus are playing on the status anxieties of these parents , "" said makoto oda , an author who taught in jukus in tokyo for more than 20 years . "" all parents are absolutely terrified that their children will fall behind . "" juku defenders say students gain the discipline and ability to withstand pressure that they will need in life . but the very success of jukus in training youngsters to pass exams has made the competition worse jukus help more students pass exams , so the exams have to be made more difficult to screen out the students . many educators feel that examinations are growing increasingly esoteric , and compounding the emphasis on education as merely a means of memorizing the "" right "" answer . "" jukus are raising a generation of kids who can only pass entrance_examinations , "" said hiroyuki tsukamoto of the japan teachers union . "" but the most important educational purpose is giving children the ability to live in society . that 's being left out . "" the education ministry has tried to combat the juku system by improving public schools , reducing class_sizes , upgrading teacher training and making the curriculum more flexible . but ministry officials acknowledge that those steps have not worked . "" we worry that parents are plunging their kids into such fierce competition at such a young age , "" said motoyuki ono , director of lifelong learning at the education ministry . "" education should be more humane than that . "" the ministry and others also fear that jukus are undermining the goal of an egalitarian society , since only the affluent can afford them . the average fee is 160 a month for elementary_school and 175 a month for junior high_school , but the best ones are several times that amount . finally , there is fear about the stress . a principal of a public elementary_school who insisted on not being identified said juku children cannot take up after school pursuits like sports , music or hobbies . "" whenever we organize something , the parents tell us , 'let my kids come home , they have to go to juku , ' "" the principal said . "" the kids are really suffering . they ca n't even stay awake in school . they have no time for themselves . "" 'not enough sleep' increasingly , energy drinks with vitamins , sugar or caffeine are being marketed to youngsters . one popular title song for a television cartoon , "" not enough sleep , "" has these lyrics "" as always , i did n't get enough sleep today . i get headaches . sleep , sleep , not enough sleep . "" one of the most successful jukus , yotsuya otsaka juku , which has 18 , 000 fifth and sixth_graders in 24 offices in metropolitan tokyo , is famous for giving sample 30 minute tests every sunday at 8 30 a.m. , the only day those youngsters have free . the tests are followed by a three hour review sessions , frequently attended by parents who then drill their children at home . "" the teachers are so wonderful , "" said one mother , fumiko oda , who gets her 11 year old daughter up at 6 30 on sundays , and then attends school with her . "" she enjoys the tests . i never worry that she 's too tired . "" in a way , jukus are a reflection of the relentless pressure that japanese society brings to bear on everyone workers , students , executives , government bureaucrats . the achievement of japan 's system , some say , is that it trains youngsters for the adult world . "" jukus are part of the tightening of screws on kids as they go from first to 12th_grade , "" said thomas p . rohlen , a professor of education at stanford and a specialist on japan . but he said japan may be evolving into a "" duller and less robust society "" even as it turns out increasingly competent students . thus the most serious critics of the system see it as a symptom of a larger problem in a nation that not only does not value individualism , but actually discourages it . jukus survive , many say , because they serve what probably is the most hierarchical and regimented society that exists outside the remnants of the communist world . "" there can be no real solution except to break up the entire education system , "" said mr . oda , the former juku teacher . "" we should have a revolution like they had in eastern_europe and russia . you know , schools should n't be like prisons . kids need to have some freedom to fool around . """,has a topic of education
"the cabinet approved a draft law banning the wearing of religious symbols in public schools , paving the way for its consideration by the national_assembly on tuesday . president jacques_chirac and his center right government have said the law , which would ban muslim head_scarves , jewish skullcaps , large christian crosses and perhaps other symbols from school premises , is needed to preserve the secular nature of the french_state . but it is widely seen as a move to stanch the rise of militant islam among the country 's large muslim population . ''the government bill clearly reaffirms the neutrality of public schools , '' mr . chirac told the cabinet , according to a spokesman . ''it does not aim to ban religious symbols in everyday life . '' elaine sciolino ( nyt )",has a topic of education
"lead facing discord within his government and the prospect of a confrontation with the roman_catholic_church , prime_minister giovanni goria withdrew a plan today to make religion classes optional in public schools . facing discord within his government and the prospect of a confrontation with the roman_catholic_church , prime_minister giovanni goria withdrew a plan today to make religion classes optional in public schools . the scrapped parliamentary resolution defining the status of religious instruction in state schools was the product of three years of negotiations , first between the government and the church and then among the political_parties that make up the governing coalition . government officials had expressed hope that their proposal had satisfied all sides in the controversy . but the italian bishops' conference stated its opposition to several elements of the resolution in two strongly worded statements last week , and pope_john_paul_ii publicly endorsed the bishops' position saturday . the bishops' major complaints involved language that defined religious instruction as optional as well as a directive to schedule religion classes at either the beginning or the end of the school day so as not to inconvenience students who chose not to attend . this morning the vatican officially informed the government of its opposition to the plan , according to several members of parliament . a vatican spokesman said tonight that there would be no comment on the subject , while government supporters in parliament said new negotiations would be opened with the church . the case highlights the continuing controversy over the role of the church in modern italian society . although the vatican and the local hierarchy are not as dominant as before , the church proved again today that it retains considerable influence . continued conflict over religious instruction seemed assured tonight as communist_party leaders announced plans to demand a full parliamentary debate on the issue , and some members of the governing five party coalition protested that the vatican was unjustifiably interfering in government affairs . spokesmen for two parties within the coalition , the republicans and the liberals , called into question the concordat , the treaty that governs relations between italy and the vatican . there were also signs of upset among christian democrats , who form italy 's largest political_party and who have generally supported the church . education minister giovanni galloni , a christian democrat , told reporters tonight that within the party ''there is a great deal of worry . '' new government regulations on religion classes became necessary after italy and the vatican signed a revised concordat in 1984 . the previous treaty , enacted under mussolini in 1929 , had given catholicism the status of a state_religion and gave the church a variety of benefits , including mandatory classes in catholic doctrine in state schools . the new treaty established the principle of religious liberty and stated that catholic education would be offered to any public_school student who wanted it . but the new concordat has been applied unevenly , forcing a new round of negotiations that led to the plan canceled today by the government . although the current debate involves some fine legal distinctions over how to implement the concordat , such as the precise meaning of ''optional , '' broad accusations of bad_faith have been made by several participants . paolo battistuzzi , the liberals' floor leader in the chamber of deputies , said monday , ''this pope has not understood the difference between italy and poland . ours is no longer a monopolitical society , not even from the religious point of view . '' the bishops' conference in turn has accused the government of trying ''unilaterally'' to amend the concordat . church state relations have been the subject of harsh exchanges on several occasions earlier this year . a broad range of political_parties and newspapers protested what they perceived as the church 's endorsement of the christian democrats in parliamentary elections in june after the pope and the bishops issued statements advising catholics that they had but one choice if they were to uphold their religion at the ballot_box .",has a topic of education
"lead while beijing 's university students won much of their renown for the hunger_strike by 3 , 000 students in the center of the capital , the strike has ended and for most of the tens of thousands of students in the area , fasting is nearly impossible . while beijing 's university students won much of their renown for the hunger_strike by 3 , 000 students in the center of the capital , the strike has ended and for most of the tens of thousands of students in the area , fasting is nearly impossible . the problem is that students walking in the area are given free food everywhere they go , as a sign of support . housewives hand students loaves of bread , restaurants give them free meals , vendors give them free ice pops , and so on . it is often rude to refuse , so students often find that whenever they walk around town they must face the burden of carrying the food back . the students have also collected large amounts of money , more than they know what to do with for now , because of a combination of a few large donations and aggressive solicitation by young people all over the capital . ''please contribute money for our dear college students ! '' a teen_age girl from the no . 132 middle_school shouted to a large crowd the other day , as her friend passed a cardboard box around . ''they risk their lives and fight for the interests of our people . ''",has a topic of education
"a 16 year old dropout who held four students and a teacher at gunpoint in a school in waiblingen , a stuttgart suburb , surrended to police officials after a six hour standoff . the hostages were unharmed . the boy , whose name was not released , had demanded a million_euros . the episode had echoes of a school shooting in april in erfurt , where an angry dropout killed himself and 16 others . mark_landler ( nyt )",has a topic of education
"new business students may yearn to chat with one another in wall_street english , but the bottom line is that the conversations are a little stilted . in the spacious student building at essec , a business school in the paris suburb of cergy pontoise where a quarter of the instruction is in english , the hallways are plastered with fliers promoting local plays in english . but students gather in the common area to speak to one another in french . karen huggins , 28 , a first year american student in the m.b.a . program , said that when she arrived in september , she quickly realized that she had to change her own style of speaking . ''there are still a lot of french students who do n't speak very fluent business english with all its terms , '' ms . huggins said , adding that a classmate once pulled her aside to urge her to speak more slowly . the shift to english has also brought cultural change to the school , one of france 's elite grandes_coles , said bruno heraud , director of international recruitment . english speaking foreign students increase competition with french students , who traditionally believed that the toughest challenge was to pass the admissions test . ''once you were in then , you were finished , '' said mr . heraud , describing the prevailing view , which is also being challenged at other grandes_coles . ''you could have fun because you will get the degree , and you will get all the best jobs . '' these days , recruiters say , students are conscious of the reality they face beyond the protected confines of the campus when they seek jobs in international companies . jean_luc decornoy , president for france of the global consulting_firm kpmg and chairman of the essec alumni association , said the shift to english at his own company started in 1998 coincidentally , the year france was host of the world_cup soccer tournament . resistance may still come from those over 50 , he said , but he believes new students are comfortable with the basic concept that ''english is the language of business . '' there are other signs of cultural and linguistic change at essec . this year , for the first time , an american student was accepted into foy 's , the school 's exclusive bar club and the equivalent of a posh fraternity . ''for the first time , most of student life is moving into english , '' said olivier arnaud fenaud , 23 , a second year french student in the m.b.a . program . ''it 's going on kind of slowly because essec traditionally was very , very french . '' many former club members , he said , were surprised to learn an american had been accepted , but the newcomer has already made an important cultural contribution to night life introducing beer pong , a drinking game that is a staple of american fraternity life .",has a topic of education
"the palace of young_pioneers was one of those ideas that could have been born only in the brain of a bolshevik . conceived by lenin 's wife as the world 's biggest recreational complex , the building had open exercise space for 5 , 000 robust young communists , a lecture hall with 1 , 000 seats , dozens of rooms for meetings and clubs , a movie_theater , a concert stage and a pool . it took the party 's youth group three million hours of collective labor to build the palace , and nearly every great hero of the soviet_union appeared there at one time or another . rudolf_nureyev danced in the palace as a young man it was there that garry kasparov emerged as the strongest chess player in the world . and in 1991 , while casting his vote at the palace for the dissolution of the soviet_union , boris n . yeltsin issued one of his fiercest attacks on the party that he had deserted . ''this place is just so full of history , '' valentina malnova , 25 , said as she straddled a machine called a sit master , which uses electronic measurements and a series of timers to help people in search of an ideal abdomen perform the perfect situp . ''history is definitely part of the reason this club is so cool . '' still a monument to the notion of fitness on the grandest possible scale , the 45 , 000 square_foot palace is under radically new management . after months of negotiation , hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of reconstruction and the installation of what its owners swear are more treadmills and stair climbing machines than existed in the entire soviet_union , the place has been transformed into the high tech home of russia 's newest , biggest and trendiest health_club , gold 's gym . in a city where marketing experts long ago learned that the best way to attract the right shoppers is to charge high prices , and where the new rich buy more mercedes sedans and 100 , 000 stereo sets than in any other place on earth , it was only a matter of time before the fitness craze if that is a proper way to describe an elite club with 500 members and a snack area that offers espresso and latte made from beans flown in each week from seattle took hold of the imagination . ''it was just a gaping need in the community , '' said james b . weinstock , a recent graduate of the university of pennsylvania who is one of the club 's three main partners . ''we are not pretending this place is for the average russian . obviously it is n't . but we are hoping that it will help start the ball rolling . we will do everything we can to help people understand how health and fitness can improve the quality of their lives . '' that may not mean a lot to the man working on the zil assembly_line , but for those who can come up with the 2 , 000 annual membership fees , gold 's gym can do quite a bit there are two indoor tennis courts , a nike sport court for basketball and volleyball , and scores of cybex weight machines . also on hand are personal trainers , a playroom for toddlers , nannies ( to look after children whose parents are busy with the personal trainers ) , aerobic classes taught by graduates of moscow 's elite institute of physical_culture , tanning booths , squash courts and a store that sells 25 gold 's gym t shirts and 210 nike gore tex athletic shoes . then there is the latte . ''it 's not from starbucks , believe it or not , '' said paul j . kuebler , another partner . ''it 's from a small roaster that i have always loved . '' mr . kuebler , 31 , mr . weinstock , 25 , and a russian partner , vladimir grunlik , 31 , have a 25 year lease on the premises . both of the americans had been in moscow for some time before deciding to open the club they raised the money mostly in the united_states , although a majority of those seeking to join so far are russian . the partners have paid gold 's , which has hundreds of gyms around the world , a licensing fee for use of the name . it may be a club famous for introducing the world to arnold_schwarzenegger 's finely tooled and incredibly huge chest ( in the film ''pumping iron'' ) , and it is still revered in california as the temple of bodybuilding ( where else could you see keanu reaves , mickey rourke and wilt_chamberlain work out ? ) , but gold 's is hardly a brand name in moscow . ''i had never heard of it , '' said angela kushinikova , 23 , an aerobics instructor . ''people are here because it is a wonderful place to work out . it 's a pleasant break from a stressful life . nobody is going to pay that kind of money for the name alone . '' mr . weinstock , who is generally called jake , is an animated and excitable young man . on a tour of the seemingly_endless complex he is eager to point out every sophisticated piece of equipment in the place . he clams up only when asked about the mob . mafia members are famous for hanging out at moscow 's sporting clubs keeping them from infiltrating gold 's while trying to triple the current membership is clearly one of the partners' trickiest tasks . ''we never say we do n't want you , '' mr . weinstock said with a tight smile . ''we tell them we are full up , or we are not taking members for awhile . we have it worked out . so far it has n't been a problem . '' that may be because the club has very conspicuous and very large guards of its own . and it may be because it has not even held its official opening party yet . ''i just love the atmosphere in this place , '' said one well dressed man who declined to be quoted by name . ''it 's so spacious , so inviting . you almost think you are in another country . '' asked how he managed to come up with the money to join , the man issued a reply that invited no further questions . ''savings , '' he said , laughing harshly . ''i am using my savings . '' moscow journal",has a topic of education
"even as the fires smoldered in france 's working_class suburbs and paramilitary police officers patrolled paris to guard against attacks by angry minority youths last month , dozens of young men and women dressed in elaborate , old fashioned parade uniforms marched down the champs_lys_es to commemorate armistice day . they were students of the grandes_coles , the premier institutions of higher_education here , from which the upper echelons of french society draw new blood . few minority students were among them . nothing represents the stratification of french society more than the country 's rigid educational system , which has reinforced the segregation of disadvantaged second generation immigrant youths by effectively locking them out of the corridors of power . while french universities are open to all high_school graduates , the grandes_coles great schools from which many of the country 's leaders emerge , weed out anyone who does not fit a finely honed mold . of the 350 , 000 students graduating annually from french high_schools , the top few grandes_coles accept only about 1 , 000 , virtually all of whom come from a handful of elite preparatory schools . most of the country 's political leaders , on both the right and the left , come from the grandes_coles . president jacques_chirac and his prime_minister , dominique de villepin , studied at the national school of administration , which has produced most of the technocrats who have run france for the last 30 years . two opposition leaders , fran_ois hollande and laurent_fabius , did , too . ''it 's as if in the u.s. , 80 percent of the heads of major corporations or top government officials came from harvard_law_school , '' said fran_ois dubet , a sociologist at the university of bordeaux . these schools officially there are 200 but only a half dozen are the most powerful have their roots in the french_revolution and the napoleonic empire . just as the sat 's were meant to give all american students an equal shot at top universities , the examination based grandes_coles were developed to give the bourgeoisie a means of rising in a society dominated by the aristocracy . it worked for nearly two centuries . throughout the 19th_century , french administrations drew establishment cadres from the loyal ranks of the grandes_coles , avoiding the universities , which , outside the control of the government establishment , they saw as potential pools of dissent . even in the 20th_century , the merit based system allowed young people from modest backgrounds to move up into the corridors of power . but children of blue_collar workers , who made up as much as 20 percent of the student body of the top grandes_coles 30 years ago , make up , at best , 2 percent today . few are minority students . in the 1950 's , only a small proportion of french students pursued higher_education , leaving room for a slice of the working classes to get into the schools , said vincent tiberj , a sociologist who studies social inequalities in france . since then , the number of candidates for the schools has expanded far faster than the schools themselves . at the same time , the channels leading into the schools have narrowed the vast majority of students entering the grandes_coles today come from special two year preparatory schools , which draw their students primarily from high_schools in the country 's wealthiest neighborhoods . ''the top five or six grandes_coles recruit students from fewer than 50 high_schools across france , '' said richard descoings , director of the elite paris institute of political studies , better known as sciences po . administrators at the grandes_coles say students who do not follow the focused , specialized curriculum of the preparatory schools have almost no chance of being accepted . and while , theoretically , top students from any high_school in the country can apply for the preparatory schools , the system has become so rarefied that few people from working_class neighborhoods are even aware that the opportunity exists . ''there 's a lack of information , no one talked to us about the preparatory schools , '' said alexis blasselle , 20 , the daughter of working_class parents and now a student at the exclusive cole polytechnique . she learned of the preparatory schools by chance the summer after graduating from high_school . ''the solution is n't to open up another avenue to get into the grandes_coles , but to make people aware of the possibility . '' sciences po ( pronounced see ahns po ) , alone among the elite schools , has opened a new avenue of entry for students . high_schools from disadvantaged neighborhoods nominate students , and sciences po then gives them oral examinations for intellectual curiosity and critical_thinking . this year , 50 students were admitted through the program , while 200 entered through the normal examination process . the conference of grandes_coles , an association of the 200 schools , has also started a program that reaches out to top students in working_class neighborhoods to help guide them through their high_school years and better their chances of getting into a preparatory school . but the top half dozen grandes_coles , those that provide the country 's leaders in politics and business , remain more or less closed . the barriers for second generation immigrants are enormous . schools in poor , often immigrant neighborhoods get the most inexperienced teachers , who usually move on as soon as they have gained enough tenure for a job in a better area . the initial fork in the lives of many young people comes when they are about 13 and have to choose between a general course of study or vocational training . many young second generation immigrants are guided into technical classes or , at best , post high_school associate degree programs in marketing or business that are of little help in finding a job . second generation immigrants also often ''live in an environment that is outside of french culture , '' said mr . descoings of sciences po . ''they are not in the proper social network . there is n't the socialization that exists in a wealthy family in an exclusive neighborhood of paris . '' sitting outside paul luard high_school in saint denis , one of the poorest suburbs north of paris , b linda caci , 16 , calls the school guidance_counselor ''the head of disorientation , '' saying that the school cares only about making sure that the students graduate , not what happens after that . ''to become part of this cr me de la cr me , you have to have benefited from a favorable social environment and education , '' the sociologist , mr . dubet , said , calling graduates of the grandes_coles a sort of state nobility . ''it 's like the olympics you have to begin very , very early . ''",has a topic of education
"as russia began two days of national mourning for the victims of a school siege in north ossetia , criticism mounted over the government 's handling of the wave of terrorism that has taken more than 500 lives in the past two weeks . television news programs showed processions of coffins in muddy fields where more than 150 people were buried monday after the three day siege at the school last week that left at least 338 people dead , about half of them children . mourners left candles at makeshift shrines but also bottles of water , which the hostage takers had denied their captives . a frightened , unshaven man , identified on state television as a captured hostage taker , said the attack on the school in the town of beslan in the southern russian_republic of north ossetia had been intended to set off a war in the caucasus region . taking an unusually harsh tone , newspapers and independent commentators said the government of president vladimir v . putin had failed to protect its citizens from an escalating campaign of terrorism or to be honest about that campaign 's roots in the decade long war in the breakaway republic of chechnya . just six months after riding a huge wave of popularity into a second term , mr . putin found himself facing the most direct criticism of his tenure . ''the president 's contract with the people is not being fulfilled , '' wrote vladimir ryzhkov , an outspoken independent lawmaker , in the newspaper nezavisimaya gazeta . ''the point to consider here is that president putin has been given a vast amount of power personal power , '' he wrote . ''the parliament , the political_parties and the media have retreated into the background . essentially , they are no longer independent . the president was awarded a contract to restore order in russia and ensure that russia 's people are safe . today we see that this contract has been broken . '' in a speech on saturday , mr . putin said russia had let down its guard after the collapse of the soviet_union 13 years ago and would now need to rebuild its defenses against internal and external enemies . human_rights groups said they feared that this might be a signal for a further restricting of civil_liberties . the images of death and mourning seemed at least briefly to embolden newspapers to take to task a government that has been working hard to tame public criticism . the president 's explanations were not satisfactory , a number of them said . the newspaper kommersant said mr . putin 's emphasis in his speech on the evils of international_terrorism was a dodge that ''allows governments all over the world not to assume their responsibilities for the deaths of their citizens . '' ''it 's as if the children died not because of a war in chechnya that has been going on for 10 years , but because international_terrorism has been on the attack , '' it said . the newspaper vedemosti wrote , ''it is strange that the president neglected the question of chechnya in his address , '' trying instead ''to shift responsibility to the people who divided up the country in 1991 . '' even state television , which had characteristically played down the extent of the hostage taking at the school last week , conceded sunday that the government had a duty to keep the public better informed . ''at such moments , society needs the truth , '' said sergei brilyov , a commentator on the rossiya station . last wednesday , on the first day of the school siege , authorities said there were 120 to 150 hostages . on thursday , even as released hostages were saying there were more than 1 , 000 people inside the school , officials maintained that there were no more than 354 . finally the government put the number at 1 , 181 . nevertheless , the impulse to play down bad news appeared to remain strong here . on monday , the editor_in_chief of izvestia , raf shakirov , announced his forced resignation after publishing a front page on saturday that carried nothing but one huge , harrowing photograph of a man carrying a wounded child . speaking on radio_liberty , mr . shakirov , who had built the former communist government newspaper into one of the country 's most forthright publications , said he had been forced by the newspaper 's owner to resign for what he called his ''emotional'' coverage of the siege . ''we ran that photo to show what this means to our country , '' he said . ''and basically this image was later confirmed . this was a war . '' commenting on mr . shakirov 's dismissal , viktor loshak , the editor of the popular magazine ogonyok , told the radio_station , ''this scares me because we are moving far away from the country that we had been trying to build for the past 10 years . "" among the most arresting television images here on monday , along with the parade of coffins and the keening of crowds of mourners , was the face of a terrified man , gripped tightly by two masked soldiers , who was identified as the only hostage taker to be captured alive . ''by god , i did not shoot ! '' he mumbled when asked if he had fired on fleeing hostages . ''by god , i have not killed ! '' asked by the soldiers if he had not had pity on the children he had held for 51 hours without food or water , he pleaded ''yes , i did have pity ! i have children , too . '' speaking in a slurred voice , he said , ''they gathered us in a forest , a person known as 'commander , ' and they said that we must seize a school in beslan . '' he said the orders had come from aslan maskhadov , a chechen rebel leader , and shamil basayev , a militant warlord . the man , whose name and nationality were not given , was said to have been captured as he hid behind a group of children , firing with an automatic weapon . the television commentary said , ''he is ready to answer all questions providing we do n't hand him over to the families of the victims . '' the desire to strike back in response to the televised images of traumatized children also seemed to focus on mr . putin , who found few defenders on monday . the communist_party , which has survived as one of the last centers of organized political opposition , seemed to fire with all barrels as it blamed the government 's shortcomings for the hostage taking . it listed ''economic breakdown amassed social problems unemployment a high crime rate corruption , in particular in law enforcement departments endless and thoughtless reforms of law enforcement departments neglected inter ethnic problems weakening cultural relations between the peoples of this country , and the mistakes made in chechnya . '' monday was the first of two days of mourning announced by the government , and in st . petersburg as many as 15 , 000 people gathered to observe a minute of silence . other gatherings were held in the cities of omsk and sochi . a similar gathering has been relentlessly promoted on television for tuesday afternoon near red_square in moscow . meanwhile , the dubai based television_station al_arabiya said its moscow bureau chief was arrested monday as he prepared to fly back to moscow after covering the hostage_crisis , agence_france_presse reported . the station gave no reason for the arrest of amr abdul_hamid , an egyptian born russian citizen . in brussels on monday , nato 's secretary general , gen . jaap de hoop scheffer , called a meeting of the nato russia council for tuesday to discuss the hostage taking . ''the intention is to demonstrate solidarity with russia in the fight against terrorism , '' said a nato spokesman , james appathurai . embassy open for condolences ( by the new york times ) , washington , sept . 6 the russian embassy here opened its doors to the public for two days through tuesday to allow visitors to sign a book of condolences for those killed in the hostage taking last week in beslan . the embassy said it was accepting donations for families of the dead , through checks payable to the victims of beslan attack .",has a topic of education
"twenty six members of the iona class of '94 who received their m.b.a . 's at commencement exercises at the college on may 21 have already had several good job offers . the jobs are in noyabrsk , an oil producing city in western_siberia , where the recent russian graduates , now armed with the latest business management skills and their master 's degrees , intend to apply the principles and dynamics of a market driven economy to various enterprises in russia . dr . charles f . o'donnell , dean of the hagan school of business at the college , said that the group , made up of 17 men and 5 women , was the first to graduate from the innovative m.b.a . program that has been offered jointly by the hagan school at iona , the plekhanov academy , which is moscow 's leading management institute , and sinerghia , a private management organization in moscow . "" the iona m.b.a . program in moscow was started with the assistance and initiative of dr . ehiel ash , associate professor of accounting , and dr . eduardo paderon , associate dean , and members of our faculty , "" dr . o'donnell said . "" dr . ash is recognized as one of the leading authorities on accounting in the soviet_union and a former professor of accounting at moscow 's plekhanov academy and the author of accounting textbooks still used there . "" it was through his contacts , four years ago , that iona sponsored the first business program for training soviet executives to move into the free enterprise economy . the new m.b.a . program is a logical outgrowth of the relationship we have built up with russia . "" the program , dr . o'donnell said , is an accelerated one year , 54 credit , degree program offered in four trimesters , with the final trimester spent on the iona campus in new rochelle , where russian students live in dormitories . in addition to their studies , they are required to work for an american company as an intern . dr . o'donnell , dr . ash and dr . paderon traveled to russia several times to make arrangements before the program was started in moscow last fall . dr . paderon , the program director , and dr . ash temporarily moved to moscow where they were joined by other iona professors and adjunct faculty_members from plekhanov academy and sinerghia . candidates applying for the program were required to have some proficiency in english , a bachelor 's degree or its equivalent or a higher degree , letters of reference and a personal interview . "" more than 100 candidates applied , many of them with advanced degrees in such disciplines as petroleum engineering , economics and accounting , and they were already working in their fields , "" dr . ash said . "" it was hard to make the selection because so many of them were highly qualified . "" the students , he reported , all came from noyabrsk which has a population of about 100 , 000 because its mayor , alexander busalov , saw the program as a way to insure the future of the city 's economy in the global market . what is especially interesting , dr . paderon said , is that noyabrsk was a secret town , completely concealed by the soviet regime so that it never appeared on a map or atlas until recently . time for reflection dr . ash said "" the mayor believes so strongly that the program would help prepare the students , many of whom work at the major employer , neftegeophizika oil and gas company , for future leadership positions , that he asked at a meeting that the city officials invest 300 , 000 to pay the students' fees . "" the city fathers agreed , he said , possibly because the oil company is in the process of privatization from 100 percent state ownership to 49 percent private ownership . stock in the company was sold for the first time last december . dr . ash added , "" the mayor was wise enough to know that new skills are required to survive in a global economy . "" on the day before graduation , just before the group was given a farewell barbecue at the rockland_county home of dr . paderon , they assembled in a classroom at iona for the last time to reflect on their experiences . galina sulimova , a 24 year old mining engineer and geologist , said , "" i , for one , was very happy with the studies , because my ambition is to work internationally for the oil company , and first i had to learn how the free enterprise system operates . "" 'we have no checks' natalya seskutova , 26 , a chief economist at the oil company , said she wanted to learn how to organize transportation systems . "" i experienced myself how a big american company operates because i was given an internship at trans america leasing company , and in my studies i learned budgeting and accounting procedures which are used here which is important because when i go home , "" she said . "" i am hoping to establish transportation joint_ventures with other countries . i was impressed with the progressive culture of america , which i did not expect . "" other internships in the region were provided by nynex , holiday_inn crowne_plaza hotel , natwest bank and the union state bank in nanuet . vladislav seskutov , 23 , an engineer who said he intends to pursue a career organizing and administering privately_owned oil and gas extracting companies , said "" i had an internship at the union state bank . it was so interesting for me to observe how a bank in a free economy operates . i especially was fascinated by the procedures with checking . in russia , we have no checks . i never had seen one until i came here . "" sergey vinogradov , who is 30 and a production mining engineer , said he was most interested in subjects dealing with financial management and accounting procedures . "" i would like to go back to my job at the oil company and be able to use my knowledge to make it run more efficiently and to make better use of people , "" mr . vinogradov said . "" we in russia will now be competing in the global market , and we will have to have the same skills people in other countries have if we want to succeed . "" progressiveness makes impression when some of the students were asked what they found most enjoyable about their stay in the united_states , mr . vinogradov replied "" the tour to atlantic_city . i won 65 , and that made me very happy . "" mr . seskutov said "" i enjoyed everything here . i made many american friends , compared cultures with them , and i had a wonderful stay . "" and so did ms . sulimova and ms . seskutova . "" for me it was a great experience , "" ms . sulimova said . "" my internship was at united_parcel_service in manhattan , and i even delivered a package . what i was impressed with was the high status the managers gave the workers . they were equals . "" ms . seskutova said she enjoyed the tours , especially those to museums , general_motors in tarrytown and the new york stock_exchange . "" i was impressed with the progressiveness and the culture in america , "" she added . an exciting opportunity the future russian business leaders are back home now , said dr . paderon , adding that mayor busalov told him that they can apply for any job they want . "" they are now equipped to help an emerging entrepreneurial nation adopt the free enterprise system , "" dr . paderon said . "" it is a tremendously exciting opportunity for us at iona to help shape a new generation of leaders in russia and the emerging new republics of what was the former soviet_union . "" dr . paderon added that he had forged strong ties with the students during their time here and already misses them . "" they were so enthusiastic about all things american , from the appliances in the dormitory to the barbecue we held for them , "" he said . "" what i think is valuable is they will go back home and tell others who we are here as a people . their eyes widened , i remember , when they saw that we had a swimming_pool at our house , and i could sense that already they were beginning to think like entrepreneurs . """,has a topic of education
"lead from palermo to turin , and on more than a dozen campuses in between , italian universities are being rocked by student protests that had all but disappeared in the passive , self absorbed 1980 's . from palermo to turin , and on more than a dozen campuses in between , italian universities are being rocked by student protests that had all but disappeared in the passive , self absorbed 1980 's . the principal issue is the quality of academic life , or , more commonly , the lack of it in a system that is universally denounced as obsolete , overcrowded , inefficient and at times dehumanizing . over the last few weeks thousands of students have demonstrated in at least 17 cities , forcing the wholesale cancellation of classes in many departments . at la sapienza , the main campus of the university of rome , protesters have occupied eight buildings , denouncing the government and demanding the ouster of the university rector . reflecting the high technology age in which these students were born , their symbol is not the bullhorn of earlier generations but rather the fax_machine , which they use to follow developments elsewhere . looking back at '68 perhaps inevitably , the italian press has alluded frequently to 1968 , that landmark year of ferment , when campuses exploded in italy as elsewhere . but students resent the comparisons as glib attempts to trivialize their grievances as imitations of past activism . their immediate target is a proposed law , endorsed by the governing five party coalition , which would give individual campuses more autonomy to set course requirements than they now have under a highly centralized system . they would also be able to sign research contracts and start other joint projects with private companies . in theory , the changes would nudge italy 's 50 universities and 1.1 million students closer toward the united_states model of privately run colleges . they amount to a government acknowledgment that it has totally failed to correct decades old inefficiencies . ''i do n't believe that anyone can deny that the italian university system needs reform , '' said antonio ruberti , the government minister in charge of colleges and the architect of the new law . what the students fear on that score , no one disagrees . but students say they worry that big corporations may be given a free hand to reshape the country 's schools to fit their own needs . while the sciences and engineering are likely to get adequate financing , they argue , the liberal_arts will fall by the wayside . laboratory researchers , who joined the protests this week , fret that they will lose their independence and become tools of industry . large companies , it is also argued , are more likely to invest in the well developed italian north , further widening the considerable gap with the relatively poor south . not coincidentally , the campus protests first erupted in palermo , where the unemployment rate is over 20 percent , three times that in turin . ''students do n't count for anything now , '' said francesco bucci , a 22 year old physics major at la sapienza . ''they 'll count for even less , if that 's possible , in the hands of industry . '' although the university of rome rector , giorgio tecce , calls such concerns overwrought , italian skepticism about industry 's good intentions runs high , not only among students . dissatisfaction is widespread objections to the ruberti plan reflect widespread cynicism about the concentration of economic and political power in the hands of a few industrialist titans like giovanni_agnelli of fiat , carlo de benedetti of olivetti , raul_gardini of the ferruzzi montedison agrobusiness group , and silvio_berlusconi , a television magnate . a recurring student theme dwells on perceived slights of their cause by the leading national newspapers , most of which are controlled by these men . in their protest the students are supported by the dominant opposition force , the communist_party , and judging from their slogans , most demonstrators seem to fall on the political left . but such characterizations are not especially meaningful , for dissatisfaction with italian universities goes deep and cuts across political lines . the basic issue is not the ruberti plan so much as the system itself , which is little changed from 1968 or from 1977 another milestone year of protest , when , unlike now , violence was epidemic . the litany of complaints is long , tending to focus on shabby equipment and overcrowding . la sapienza , italy 's largest campus , has 180 , 000 students , or 100 , 000 more than it should , mr . tecce said . if not for the fact that fewer than 30 percent show up for classes , the rector said , ''this place would look like a soccer stadium . '' even so , an engineering major here says he must arrive an hour early for one of his courses to get a seat in the lecture hall . the university of bologna 's law department has only 40 teachers for 10 , 000 students . most students drop out at most colleges , libraries stay open only a few hours a day . campus housing is meager , forcing most out of town students into apartments that are undersized and overpriced . a common lament is that professors are aloof . one result is that most students give up , with two thirds dropping out in the first two years . and as they do , italians worry that the country will wind up academically ill equipped for western_europe 's economic_integration in 1992 . ''we will enter europe , '' wrote miriam mafai , a commentator for the newspaper la_repubblica , ''with a backward scholastic system , like haughty ragamuffins , fatuously proud of the past but incapable of preparing for the future . '' that is why immediate change is critical , says mr . ruberti , who complains that protesting students , while well intentioned , overlook the need for quick action . the government , he says , is prepared to modify his plan , but the basic framework will remain intact . ''no one is proposing alternatives to this law , '' he said . ''sometimes , it seems as though there is no will among the students to reform . ''",has a topic of education
"the government said today that it would ban the wearing of muslim head_scarves in public schools , asserting that the widening practice violated a tradition of secular education in france . the wearing of head_scarves has become increasingly common among muslim schoolgirls in france , particularly in areas with large concentrations of arab or turkish immigrants . education minister francois bayrou said in a published interview that he was issuing instructions to principals of all public schools to start enforcing the ban immediately . asked if the scarf worn by some muslim girls was the specific target of the ban , mr . bayrou said yes . he said the scarf had the effect of dividing muslims and non muslims in schools and therefore circumvented the principle of separation of church and state . schools and secular society "" we must respect the culture and faith of muslims , but history and the will of our people was to build a united , secular society , specifically where schools were concerned , "" the education minister said in an interview published today in the weekly le_point . "" the national will cannot be ignored . "" "" my instructions to school heads will be very clear , "" he said . "" we will continue to accept discreet religious signs , as has always been the case . but we cannot accept ostentatious signs that divide our youth . "" among france 's 56 million people , an estimated 5 million are muslims , mostly of arab descent . the majority are members of families that migrated to france from algeria , morocco , tunisia and some black african_countries . the dispute over the head_scarves , which cover a girl 's hair , ears and neck , first flared when a few muslim girls began wearing them to schools in 1989 . the socialist government that was then in power urged that the girls be persuaded to take off their scarves but be allowed to wear them if they insisted on doing so . some muslim girls were suspended from school by their principals nonetheless , but the clamor subsided when a government council ruled that the issue would be left to local school officials to decide . increase in recent months but the practice of wearing the scarves has been revived over the last few months , in what many of the french regard as an echo of the islamic fundamentalist movement that has been challenging algeria 's military backed government . the phenomenon spread to more schools , with an estimated 700 girls across france wearing the scarves , or hijabs . a commentary published today in le_monde said , "" the wearing of the veil has often become an arena of combat for radical muslim fundamentalists who are fighting secularism , testing the resistance of french society in the immensely sensitive area of the school . "" the federation of national education announced its "" total support "" for the move , but the edict is expected to draw strong protests from fundamentalists and from several groups that represent immigrants or campaign for civil_liberties . the article in le_point went so far as to link the scarves to a reported campaign by hard line muslim fundamentalists to win converts among arabs in france and to slayings in algeria of french citizens and other foreigners by muslim militants seeking to oust the government there . raids in arab neighborhoods in the last few weeks france has conducted mass police sweeps in arab neighborhoods and arrested and expelled more than 20 muslim militants of algerian and moroccan origin . the government charged that they formed a network of underground militant fundamentalists supporting the islamic salvation front , the movement in algeria that is struggling against military rule there . reflecting france 's mood of anxiety about those developments , the education minister seemed to place his decision in the wider context of confrontation with religious fundamentalism . mr . bayrou emphasized that his ministry intended to enforce the ban and that if educational boards failed to comply , the government would present the edict as a proposed law to the conservative controlled parliament for approval .",has a topic of education
"several regions in russia are including mandatory courses in the orthodox christian_faith as the new school year begins today , the moscow times reported . the courses will teach the subject from a secular and cultural point of view , and not be religious instruction , education officials told the paper . the addition of religion to public_school curriculums is further sign of the recovery of the orthodox faith in a nation still evolving from soviet_times , when atheism was state policy . c . j . chivers ( nyt )",has a topic of education
"prof . muhammad s . eissa has never been busier . each weekday he teaches arabic to students at the illinois institute of technology , and because the demand for experienced arabic instructors has overwhelmed the supply nationwide , his lectures are videotaped for replay in classrooms at a college and a university in utah . in his free time , dr . eissa , an egyptian born muslim , has also been lecturing church groups and rotary clubs that are suddenly eager for information about islam . as the pursuit of al_qaeda and america 's confrontation with iraq intensifies , arabic speaking educators and islamic organizations , as well as universities and schools across the nation , are straining to respond to requests by students and the public for information and instruction about the language and culture of islam . ''it 's just snowballed , '' said karin ryding , who heads georgetown_university 's arabic languages department , which offered five beginning arabic classes last semester , instead of the usual two . other universities reported similar increases or new courses because of the demand . historically , most americans have been only dimly aware of islam and its liturgical language , arabic , but this is not the first time that national interest has built to a fever . the 1979 hostage_crisis in iran led to a burst of study of the muslim_world , and the federal_government made more money available to train teachers of mideastern languages and for study abroad . by the mid 1980 's , however , government and public interest had waned , only to increase again , for a while , at the time of the persian_gulf_war . but now some of dr . eissa 's students are digging in for the long term , betting that an intellectual investment in arabic will pay off in their careers . ''if we go into iraq , we 're going to need to be over there for a long time to build it back , '' said lars longnecker , a third year law student who decided in december to study arabic . ''so i see our involvement in the mideast increasing , and i figured arabic would give me a leg up in that area . '' students across the country appear to agree . kirk belnap , a professor of arabic and the director of a federally_financed consortium , the national middle_east language resource center at brigham young university , said many universities were reporting ' 'double or triple enrollments'' in arabic classes . ''there 's been an explosion in interest , '' said john c . eisele , executive director of the american association of teachers of arabic . the college of william and mary in williamsburg , va . , where dr . eisele teaches , offered two beginning arabic classes last fall , but had to turn away 20 students . because the demand is similar nationwide , many colleges and universities , as well as half a dozen federal agencies , are seeking to hire people fluent in arabic . ''there 's a ton of jobs out there , '' dr . eisele said . it is not only college campuses that have experienced the surge in interest . in alabama , so many middle_school and high_school students asked about islam that nearly 200 alabama teachers signed up last summer for a course , understanding islam , taught by dr . angelia mance , associate director of the national council on geographic education . ''it was the most popular course i 've given , '' said dr . mance , who taught it in classrooms packed with teachers in the alabama towns of florence , jasper and hamilton . one of her students was gail spann , a public_school librarian whose son , johnny michael spann , an officer in the central_intelligence_agency , was killed in afghanistan in november 2001 , dr . mance said . ''war is god 's way of teaching world geography to americans , '' dr . mance said , quoting ambrose bierce , the 19th_century satirist . the islamic networks group , formed in the mid 1990 's by california muslims who believed their religion was being misrepresented in the public schools , has in recent months expanded its network of speakers bureaus to 25 cities from 18 , said maha elgenaidi , the group 's co founder , who grew up in ohio and pennsylvania . the speakers originally lectured about islam mostly in public schools , she said , but in recent months , the group has been flooded with invitations to explain the religion to police departments , groups for the elderly , community centers and rotary clubs . but if some americans are suddenly eager to learn about islam , there is much ignorance to overcome . even many university students ''lack a rudimentary knowledge of the nature of the islamic faith , '' according to a study published in the september issue of the journal of instructional psychology . after hearing statements betraying ignorance of islam , its authors , thomas mastrilli and deborah sardo brown , professors at west chester university in pennsylvania , circulated a questionnaire among 218 students about to become teachers in public schools . about half the students could not identify the koran as the islamic holy book or mecca as the holiest islamic city ( one in seven guessed jerusalem ) , their report said . not one of the students surveyed could name the world 's three most populous muslim countries pakistan , indonesia and bangladesh . the two professors called for more education about islam to foster religious tolerance . in contrast , a study released this month warned against too much tolerance of islam . it was written by gilbert sewell , a former education editor at newsweek who heads the american textbook council , a new york group opposed to multicultural teaching . mr . sewell examined seven widely used middle_school and high_school world history textbooks and concluded that publishers made ''an effort to circumvent unsavory facts that might cast islam in anything but a positive light . '' for instance , textbooks have ' 'defanged'' the term jihad , mr . sewell contended , defining it as muslims' struggle for spiritual improvement rather than more narrowly as holy_war . but several textbook publishers criticized mr . sewell 's objectivity . ''a lot of his language is just slanted against the religion of islam , '' said collin earnst , a spokesman for houghton_mifflin . bernard lewis , a princeton mideast scholar cited extensively by mr . sewell , declined through his assistant to comment on the report . rashid khalidi , a professor of history and near eastern languages at the university of chicago , called mr . sewell 's study ''a terribly biased document full of bigoted statements . '' mr . sewell and his critics agree on the importance of increasing americans' familiarity with islamic civilization the challenge to which dr . eissa has devoted his professional life since he began teaching arabic at american universities in 1978 . ''american interest in islamic affairs comes in waves and then it ebbs , '' dr . eissa said , just before video cameras focused on him as he began conjugating arabic verbs at the start of another class here . ''but this current tide of fascination seems more intense and wider in perspective . ''",has a topic of education
"lead nine centuries ago , give or take a couple of decades , a small group of students and scholars banded together and started a university here that is today the oldest in the western_world . nine centuries ago , give or take a couple of decades , a small group of students and scholars banded together and started a university here that is today the oldest in the western_world . almost from the beginning , it was touch and go between the city and its school , and that is still true . ''it is not , '' said antonio la forgia , a city commissioner , ''a relationship of mutual affection . '' but town versus gown rivalries are on hold these days while the university of bologna marks its 900th anniversary . since last november , hundreds of academic conferences , sporting_events , concerts , symposiums and ceremonies have been held , drawing thousands of visitors to a city often overlooked by foreign visitors despite the classic beauty of its cobblestoned alleys and colonnaded boulevards . not all bolognese mind being ignored . mayor renzi imbeni , a communist like all his predecessors for the last four decades , commented amiably that bologna is interested in ''quality guests'' and not the ''fast_food tourism'' of florence , 50 miles to the south . perhaps . but hotel and restaurant owners have raised no audible objections to the extra business they have received this year . an arbitrary date a few sticklers for accuracy point out that while the university unquestionably got its start around the turn of the 11th century earlier than all but a few , now defunct schools in the arab_world no one can pin down the exact date . the year 1088 was picked arbitrarily in 1888 because the city was committed then to celebrating the 800th anniversary , no matter what . a local architect , pier luigi cervellati , says that all one can say with certainty is that this is the 100th_anniversary of the 800th anniversary . such details have not been permitted , however , to dampen the celebratory mood . there have been inevitable recollections of the good old days , when the campus boasted illustrious students such as petrarch , copernicus , erasmus and dante , who , according to some accounts , had trouble keeping up with his tuition payments and thus became a renaissance dropout . there has been unabashed touting of latter day stars , conspicuously the semiotics professor umberto eco , author of the international best seller ''the name of the rose . '' mostly , there has been hopeful talk about how the anniversary might spur a needed campus revival . ''the university of bologna may be able to regain the place of importance it had over the centuries , '' said fabio roversi monaco , who presides over the school with the suitably baroque title of magnificent rector . truth be told , mr . roversi monaco said , ''it is not possible now to say that the university is so important throughout the world . '' a soured relationship whatever its value as a morale booster , the 900th anniversary cannot glaze over abiding concerns . one of them is the relationship between city and campus . like many university towns , bologna has a tolerance , even an affection , for genteel eccentricity . the streets around the central piazza maggiore are awash in mexican bands , bagpipers and a joke telling saxophone player of debatable talent . but while the city may still vote communist , in shrinking numbers , its 470 , 000 residents are fundamentally bourgeois , enjoying one of the highest average per capita incomes in italy , 15 , 600 a year . no revolutionaries need apply here . attitudes toward the campus soured greatly a decade ago when waves of student protest brought army tanks into downtown bologna . even with the decline of mass demonstrations in the 1980 's , a measure of ill will lingers , townspeople say . for their part , the students , many of whom come from other regions , complain of being made to feel like unwelcome guests , and overcharged ones at that . their tuition payments are negligible , less than 200 a year . but they say they must pay many times that amount in rent for the few tiny apartments that become available each year . ''it 's a difficult marriage between the two sides , '' a student leader said . classrooms are overcrowded academic problems are even more serious . students and professors alike talk of overcrowded classrooms and outdated equipment . the law department has 10 , 000 students and only 40 teachers . one lecture course with an enrollment of 1 , 000 takes place in a converted movie house . an innovative arts program that began in the 1970 's is now losing professors to other schools and careers . in large part , bologna 's troubles mirror those of most italian campuses , where changes in admissions policies that go back 20 years led to a rapid growth in student populations . growing affluence has given italian parents the luxury of letting their children go to college instead of forcing them to join the work force as teen_agers . but at the same time , youth unemployment remains stubbornly high . recognizing that their immediate job prospects are dim , many students choose to bide their time by extending their academic lives well into their 20 's . italians call their universities ''the parking_lots of society . '' many students skip classes in bologna , enrollment shot up from 20 , 000 in the late 1960 's to 65 , 000 today . the overcrowding that resulted would be even worse were it not that more than half the students stay away from classes . under the italian system , they are obliged only to pass end of year exams . hearing what a professor might have to say along the way is not required , nor in many cases desired . solutions to these problem , if they come at all , will have to wait until after the anniversary celebrations , which officially ended two months ago but continue nonetheless . the pride on campus is evident . ''if there were no university of bologna , there would be no bologna , '' mr . roversi monaco said . other bolognese take exception . but no one seems eager for a public argument , at least not until the party is over . correction december 17 , 1988 , saturday , late city final editionnded an article on nov . 21 about the 900th anniversary of the university of bologna compared its longevity with that of other universities incorrectly . al azhar university in cairo opened in 988 it is still functioning .",has a topic of education
"lead in britain , new national tests will be a key tool in the government 's effort to enact the most far reaching changes in that nation 's education system in 40 years . introduced in parliament last november , the education_reform bill calls for a unified national_curriculum backed up with a series of tests administered to children at the ages of 7 , 11 , 14 and 16 . in britain , new national tests will be a key tool in the government 's effort to enact the most far reaching changes in that nation 's education system in 40 years . introduced in parliament last november , the education_reform bill calls for a unified national_curriculum backed up with a series of tests administered to children at the ages of 7 , 11 , 14 and 16 . the overhaul of the system reflects prime_minister margaret_thatcher 's free_market philosophy and her commitment to modernizing british classrooms to strengthen the national economy . under the reform legislation , the national_curriculum and testing regime will be set up by 1992 . the test results of individual schools will be publicly reported . parents will be free to place their children in the nearby school of their choice , effectively forcing a school to bid for students by improving its test rated performance . the aim , says kenneth baker , britain 's education secretary , is to ''introduce competition into the provision of public education . this competition will introduce a new dynamic in our schools system which will stimulate better standards all round . '' the thatcher_government already has taken a step toward reshaping education standards with tests . this year , a new general certificate of secondary education exam is being introduced in england and wales , replacing the traditional ordinary , or o level , examination . because it includes questions on such subjects as technology , business studies and design , the new test has required many secondary_schools to broaden their course offerings . greater emphasis is placed on analysis and everyday skills the old exam mainly gauged students' ability to memorize facts . in addition , more than 20 percent of a student 's grade under the new system will be determined not by a one time written test but by continuous assessment by teachers of course work and oral presentations an effort to take account of communications skills . according to educators , this represents a shift away from the narrower academic orientation of the past , often skewed to producing university scholars , and toward developing students as ''competent citizens . '' the call for school reform has come from observers of every political persuasion , left and right . it has been based on a recognition that the well intentioned drive of the 1960 's and 1970 's to make schools more egalitarian , pulling away from class patterns and abolishing state ''grammar'' schools for high achievers in favor of all inclusive ''comprehensive'' schools , also resulted in an erosion of standards . recent international comparisons between british students and their counterparts in economically competing nations have caused alarm . according to one study , the average 14 year old in britain is a year behind a german contemporary in mathematics , while the bottom 40 percent are two years behind . some critics view the reform package as an effort by the government to take power from local education authorities often controlled by the labor_party to tighten the conservative_party 's grip on the nation . others worry that national competitive tests could classify some students as slow learners at an early age , undoing the long term trend toward more egalitarian schools . yet the debate in britain is not about the need for reform and national testing but mostly about how those tests are to be instituted , and about the resources for increased testing . even the national union of teachers , which backs the labor_party , is not opposed to the reform plan . ''to be effective , '' explained douglas mcavoy , a senior union official , ''the introduction of the tests must be linked to better support for the profession , including an increase in the number of teachers employed . ''",has a topic of education
"moscow_state_university , an architectural and ideological monolith towering above the country 's capital , has been left an orphan . the ideology that fathered it , at least in its current incarnation , is comatose . the state that nurtured it has passed away . but it retains a stubborn devotion to its progenitors . courses like the once required history of atheism are gone , but many of the same men and women who stood behind the lectern then are still there , teaching new offerings like history of religion . the men and women who were once listed as experts in "" scientific communism "" now call themselves "" politologs , "" or political_scientists . a new charter , decentralizing the school 's command management , has been written and approved by the faculty . but the rector , anatoly a . logunov , who has run the school for 14 years , has yet to adopt it . refusing to let go demands are cresting for the retirement of mr . logunov , who came to the university with the blessing of mikhail suslov , the communist_party 's chief ideologist during the now discredited era of stagnation before the rise to power of president mikhail s . gorbachev . but mr . logunov hangs grimly on . many expect his retirement in the next year , if not in the next month , but he has given no indication he intends to fulfill these expectations . during the days of the august coup , when mr . logunov and other top officials were on vacation , the university 's other leaders remained silent , an act that may provide the stimulus for an overhaul of the academic bureaucracy . it is a perilous time for an institution that once stood at the top of the ivy_league of the soviet educational establishment . although a system of high prestige institutes , unfamiliar in american academic life , shared in the university 's high reputation , it still retained a place above the rest , much as the university building stands out against the moscow skyline from atop lenin hills . the massive central building , last of seven wedding_cake structures in moscow that are the signature tune of stalinist architecture , was the alma_mater of many communist comers , most notable among them mr . gorbachev . now , to be a communist no longer means to be a comer . but the school is still grasping for a new creed , and several professors and students interviewed during a recent trip to the university said the zest for learning is being supplanted by a zest for earning . "" the interest of students in education has fallen off dramatically , compared to five years ago , "" said nikolai zlobin , a 34 year old docent the equivalent of a tenured associate professor on the history faculty . "" it used to be considered prestigious to be part of the university . not anymore . "" what 's the good of economists , if they do n't know what a market is ? "" he asked . "" what 's the good of historians , if their basic knowledge is the history of the communist_party of the soviet_union ? the first thing we have to do is restore the status of the university as a place that produces highly qualified people to do things that are useful in real life . "" two weeks ago , a rump caucus of history professors held a news conference to defend lenin , the founder of the now extinct soviet_state . such events notwithstanding , a cadre of reform minded professors , mostly from the sciences , are trying to jump start a revolution among the 70 , 000 students , faculty and administrators , trying to get the new charter approved so individual academic departments can take power in the university the way the republics have taken power in the country . but it is not easy amid the glum , gray uncertainty that succeeded the euphoria over the failed coup . in the last two years , some professors' paychecks have been held up by financial tangles . other professors have taken extended leaves to teach in western_europe or the united_states , and increasing numbers of students are deserting academic life to find a place in fledgling commercial enterprises . the statistics that might bear out such apparent trends are hard to come by , though the trends were discussed repeatedly in conversations with supporters of change , with professors still loyal to the communist_party , and with students here , whose words all produced a sense that academic life in general , and life at m.g.u . ( pronounced em gay ooo ) in particular , has fallen on hard times . it is not clear where the university 's next budget will come from . at the moment , the school is looking for 50 million rubles to supplement the 230 million granted it by the old central state structures , according to valery v . lunin , a chemistry professor who is also a member of the parliament of the russian federated republic and a leading exponent of radical restructuring of the academic bureaucracy here . as for the next budget , he said , "" we need more than double that amount , nearly half a million rubles . "" he hopes to get it from the government of boris n . yeltsin , president of the russian_federation , on whose territory the university is situated . "" we 're in a very bad situation , particularly in our dorms , "" mr . lunin said . "" there are broken windows , ancient furniture . and there are other material needs , like the equipment necessary to keep our science up to date . "" politics and potatoes he said the weakened financial foundation of the institution , plus the opportunity to work abroad , "" has led many professors to seek jobs abroad to take on posts for extended periods , particularly the mathematicians . "" mr . zlobin , who works with a two year old group of professors and students called the community political center , said students are concerned that academic life is a financial dead end . in the mid 1980 's , the undergraduate student body numbered 28 , 000 , he said , but the figure is closer to 23 , 000 now . and , although m.g.u . students were very much a part of the ad_hoc civilian army that went to defend the barricades around the russian_parliament on the nights of aug . 19 and 20 , politics is not the activity of choice here . "" many of us are still studying potatoes , "" one student said wryly . every year , there is a so called voluntary monthlong exodus of about 20 percent of the students to collective farms , where they help gather in the harvest . while this harvesting is not technically required anymore , and many students beg off with notes from their doctors , those who do not harvest potatoes are given other non academic work , like filing , said mr . zlobin . another said that he and his friends have no more yen for politics than they have for potatoes . "" you know what braudel writes , "" said 19 year old ivan volkov , a second year student , referring to the french historian fernand braudel . "" you can put some really delicious ingredients in a soup , and people will say how good it tastes . then , the more they get used to it , the less delicious it is . it 's like that with politics . three years ago , when the idea of political participation was new , there was a lot of interest . but it 's not new anymore . people have their own things to do . "" many of his contemporaries are working on informal , extracurricular majors in contemporary finance . a bulletin_board in the school 's central dormitory overflows with classified advertising . one card offers a "" turkish sweater "" for 750 to 800 rubles , no small price in a nation where the average worker in a government enterprise has a salary of about 300 rubles a month . a pair of german hiking boots go for 1 , 450 rubles , a kiev brand camera for 800 . re evaluating marxism "" i 'm not rejecting marxism , "" he said in an interview this weekend . "" the question is , what is marxism ? now we know there can be lots of interperetations of marxism . which of them are right , which of them are adequate , that 's another question . "" the question is how to re evaluate things , "" he said . "" you can do what some people do , and simply substitute pluses for minuses and minuses for pluses in your equations . whatever was good yesterday is bad today , whatever was bad yesterday is good today . i do n't think that brings us any closer to the world we 're living in right now . "" mr . zlobin said "" when everything was going slowly , all gorbachev 's reforms were beginning , people could cope with things , they had some idea how things were going to work out . since the coup no one has any idea what 's going to happen tomorrow , much less how this will all turn out . so people do n't think they can have much influence . "" mostly , "" he said , "" they 're just trying to figure out how to get along without getting caught under the wheels of history . """,has a topic of education
"the french government presented measures on wednesday intended to make the french feel more european . the minister for european affairs , no lle lenoir , said language study would be extended to all primary schools , where pupils would be required to learn at least two european_union languages , including french . at 18 , all french youths would receive a handbook explaining their rights as union citizens . the european_union now includes 15 nations but will increase to 25 next year . ms . lenoir told reporters that while many of the french saw how ''europe affects their everyday lives , '' they often regarded european institutions as ' 'distant , and do not see what they have to offer them . '' she said the measures would also require schools to display maps of the european_union the text of the union constitution . ( details are being debated by national representatives before a final text is ratified . ) at sporting_events , schools would be urged to display the union 's distinctive blue flag with gold stars alongside the french flag . most european_nations have been struggling almost since the inception of the idea of a united europe after world_war_ii to give citizens a stronger sense of common identity , with varying_degrees of success . the european flag is prominently displayed on public buildings in most nations alongside the national flag . in france , preschool children have for years learned songs like one that now begins , ''fifteen little europeans , united under one flag . ''",has a topic of education
"high_school students demanding smaller classes , greater safety and vastly increased educational spending demonstrated in paris and other french cities for the fourth straight day today , in a fast growing movement that has thrown the socialist government on the defensive . with a big demonstration planned for paris next monday , the government is groping for a way to appease the students , asserting that its recent increase in school spending of 9 percent a year already showed a big commitment to improving education . following a decades old french student tradition of mass protest in the streets , an estimated 15 , 000 students marched today in toulouse , 10 , 000 in brest , 4 , 000 in rheims while a few thousand demonstrated at the bastille in paris as well as in quimper , toulon and besancon . student leaders say they hope the march in paris on monday will attract 100 , 000 students . these rallies come after a nationwide protest last monday , in which more than 20 , 000 students demonstrated in paris while tens of thousands of others marched in lyons , strasbourg , bordeaux and montpellier . in banners and chants they demanded more money for education . 'we want cleaner schools' "" we want cleaner schools , more money to renovate them , less violence and more teachers , "" said remy lachaise , an 18 year old student demonstrating today in paris . after the protests gathered momentum late last month , the government promised to hire 3 , 000 more teaching assistants , 1 , 000 maintenance people to brighten up the schools and 100 more security people . but the students say these measures do not go nearly far enough . "" it 's true they are making efforts , but when we 're in school , we do n't see that things have changed , "" delphine batho , president of one of the chief student groups , said in an interview . "" the situation in the schools is unsatisfactory . there are n't enough desks , professors or classrooms . one ca n't work properly in these conditions . we need an emergency plan . "" the tangible issues mindful of how the student demonstrations of 1968 helped push president charles de gaulle to resign , the government of prime_minister michel_rocard is paying close attention to the protests , concerned that they could spiral into a major social and political crisis . president_francois_mitterrand has been eager to show his government is listening . "" youth should be listened to when they say what they want today and what kind of world they would like tomorrow , "" he said . the current protests are different in many ways from the massive protests of 1968 that shook all of france . today 's demonstrators are from high_schools , while most of the 1968 demonstrators were university students . most of the 1968 demonstrators were from middle_class or wealthy families and protested the overall capitalist system bourgeois values , social stratification and a lack of equality . in contrast , many of today 's marchers are working_class and immigrants primarily concerned with tangible issues like safety and size of classes . the current wave of protests began in late october after a 15 year old girl was raped in a school lavatory in st . ouen , a working_class suburb of paris . the first protests began there and in neighboring communities as students demanded more security guards . these students later began calling for newer schools , complaining that schools in richer communities were more modern . the protests quickly snowballed into a nationwide movement and the demands broadened freedom of speech in schools , a greater say in how schools are run , and a reduction in the average high_school class size to 25 . classes of more than 40 students are common . march to national_assembly education minister lionel_jospin has been exasperated by the protests , responding to the demand for classes of 25 students , he said , "" this would represent 40 , 000 additional teaching posts . "" last monday , the demonstrators_marched to the national_assembly , where legislators were debating the education budget . mr . jospin outraged student leaders by advancing the debate to a week earlier than scheduled in the hope of disposing of the subject before the student movement grew any larger . many officials are puzzled by the protests because the government has made education , to use president mitterrand 's term , "" the priority of priorities . "" this year france can boast for the first time that its education budget exceeds its military_budget . even before the protests , the government planned to raise school spending by a total of 25 percent between 1989 and 1991 , or almost 15 percent after inflation . to increase educational quality and equality , the government is pursuing plans so that by 2000 , 80 percent of all high_school students will have the academic preparation to take the baccalaureate examination , which is a crucial stepping stone to university . that compares with a rate of 40 percent in 1985 .",has a topic of education
"canada 's leading journalism_school has settled an unusual case involving a writing instructor suspended last year for revealing that he was a part time prostitute and for arguing in class that sexual relations between children and adults should be made legal . the amount of the settlement was not disclosed , but the instructor , gerald hannon , said in an interview that he had agreed not to seek reinstatement by the university , ryerson polytechnic . mr . hannon , a two time winner of canada 's national magazine award , had a one year contract last academic year to teach freelance writing . in november 1995 , the administration suspended him , after he disclosed that he was also a part time prostitute and that he had argued that prohibitions on child adult sex were ethically inconsistent . ''children and adults interact in fact , must interact in many , many areas , '' he wrote in an essay for a toronto gay newspaper . ''why is sex exempt ? '' a university committee later found that while he was within the bounds of academic_freedom in discussing sex , by discussing his work as a prostitute ''in detail'' he engaged in ''conduct unbecoming a faculty member , '' said michael dewson , a university vice_president . clive thompson on campus",has a topic of education
"prime_minister tony_blair joined a passionate and increasingly contentious debate on tuesday over the full face veils worn by some british muslim women , calling it a ' 'mark of separation . '' it was the first time mr . blair had so explicitly backed jack_straw , the leader of the house of commons , who raised muslim ire this month by saying he did not believe that women should wear the full face veil , a headdress with only a narrow slit for the eyes . mr . straw had asked muslim women meeting with him to remove their veils , arguing that it prevented communication and set the wearer apart . ''it is a mark of separation , and that is why it makes other people from outside the community feel uncomfortable , '' mr . blair said at a regular news conference , echoing some of mr . straw 's sentiments . his remarks reflected a sense that british society is heading toward ever deeper fissures between muslims and non muslims , evoking questions about the nation 's readiness to embrace muslims , and muslims' willingness to adapt . the discussion mirrors earlier public disputes in france , turkey and elsewhere about head_scarves , though in britain it is largely limited to the use of the full face veil , the niqab . ''no one wants to say that people do n't have the right to do it , '' mr . blair said . ''that is to take it too far . but i think we need to confront this issue about how we integrate people properly into our society . '' there were signs that the dispute had spread farther across europe . in an interview in italy , prime_minister romano_prodi was quoted tuesday as saying that women should not be hidden behind veils . ''you ca n't cover your face you must be seen , '' mr . prodi told reuters . ''this is common_sense , i think . it is important for our society . '' in muslim societies , the full veil is sometimes worn to shield a woman from the view of men outside her immediate family . the debate about its use among a small number of british muslims has crystallized around aishah azmi , a teaching assistant suspended by a local council for refusing to remove her full face veil during class in the presence of male teachers . mr . blair said he could ' 'see the reason'' for mrs . azmi to be suspended from her job at a church of england school in dewsbury , yorkshire , where there is a substantial muslim minority . within hours , her lawyers issued a statement accusing mr . blair of interfering in a labor tribunal case and demanding a retraction . ''we have to deal with the debate , '' mr . blair said . ''people want to know that the muslim community in particular , but actually all minority communities , have got the balance right between integration and multi culturalism . '' the debate is characterized by muslims as a symbol of the stigma they face among the non muslim majority . muhammad abdul bari , the secretary general of the muslim council of britain , said in an open_letter that some muslims had been considering changing their names ''to avoid anti muslim remarks . '' ''this is what happens when a community is singled out by those at the helm of affairs , '' he said . non muslims say the veil wearing shows a reluctance among the estimated 1.6 million muslims 3 percent of the population to compromise for the sake of social harmony . david davis , the conservative opposition spokesman on home affairs , said last weekend that british muslims risked ''voluntary apartheid'' by displays of separateness like the full veil . the gulf has been widening since the london bombings by four british muslims on july 7 , 2005 , but the argument has sharpened in recent weeks . after mr . straw questioned the wearing of the niqab in early october , a government education minister , phil woolas , went further last weekend , calling for mrs . azmi , the teaching assistant , to be dismissed . other government ministers , now including mr . blair , have joined the debate . the discussion spills over into britain 's broader embroilment in the campaign against terrorism and the war in iraq . mr . blair and others say muslims must do more to police their own ranks , while some muslims say britain 's deployment in iraq and afghanistan accelerates the radicalization of young muslims like the london bombers . last week britain 's new army commander , gen . sir richard dannatt , said british_troops should be pulled out from iraq ' 'some time soon . '' but mr . blair said tuesday ''if we walk away before the job is done from either of those two countries , we will leave a situation in which the very people we are fighting everywhere , including the extremism in our own country , are heartened and emboldened , and we ca n't afford that to happen . so we have got to see that job through . ''",has a topic of education
"armed with a few tattered iraqi schoolbooks , maria talat sets out each morning to do battle against an educational system that often seems to be an arm of saddam_hussein 's vast propaganda machine . "" i took the books with maps of the middle_east and redrew the boundary between iraq and kuwait myself , "" said miss talat , 26 , a kurdish primary_school teacher , referring to baghdad 's claim that kuwait is part of iraq . "" i ripped out the front page with the picture of saddam_hussein . i crossed out the passages that glorify him and his baath_party . and i began to teach , for the first time in my life , what i believe to be true . "" there have also been other , more obvious changes in north since the iraqi authorities withdrew 18 months ago , when the persian_gulf_war coalition set up a security zone for the four million kurds in the region . the kurdish government here , elected in the spring , has removed huge paintings and billboards of mr . hussein and has ended the fawning press coverage and the songs and poems written in his honor . in their place are portraits of kurdish martyrs , kurdish radio and television stations and ballads extolling the century long struggle for a kurdish homeland . change in the schoolroom but it is in the educational system where change seems to have the most meaning . "" we see education as the foundation of our nation , but then so did the iraqi baath_party , "" said dr . nasir ghafoun ramadan , the kurdish minister of education . "" the educational system was the main tool the ruling baath leaders used to propagate their ideology . and in this we are determined to be different . our schools are strictly apolitical . "" the more than 1 , 100 schools in the kurdish state have banned political organizations , pictures of kurdish leaders and political slogans . "" students are not marched out into the street to greet some kurdish political leader , "" dr . ramadan said , "" as they once did in the past when some iraqi official was in town . "" the kurdish authorities also administer their own versions of iraqi national exams and grant diplomas , although the results are not recognized by the government in baghdad . classes are conducted in kurdish . teachers use iraqi textbooks , which are written in arabic , and translate the lessons into kurdish . no kurdish language textbooks are available . although strapped for funds , the kurdish government devotes 25 percent of its budget to the region 's 840 primary schools , 153 junior high_schools , 100 high_schools , assorted trade and agricultural institutes and two universities . still , schools are unable to print their own books and students are forced to make do with what the iraqis left behind . students , for example , fill up notebooks and then erase them to use again . subjects including kurdish history , which was forbidden under iraqi rule , are taught without the aid of textbooks . they also face other obstacles like those at the kurdistan primary_school here , where 800 students study in two shifts with too few desks , broken windows and doors , chipped plaster and insufficient lighting . boys and girls , often without proper coats , wrap their arms across their chests in an effort to keep warm in a room where the heating system does not work . among the teachers are dissidents who were once banned from the classrooms . one of them is adel_abdel rahman , a_37 year old physical_education teacher who deserted from the iraqi_army in 1986 . he spent five years taking care of chickens in a village before returning to his profession after the iraqi withdrawal . the only piece of gym equipment he has is a ball , paid for by the teachers . home is a concrete hovel before the iraqis left , the building housed an elite school for the children of baath_party officials . next door is a walled in compound that once belonged to top party members . the houses there are now used by kurdish government ministers . across the road facing the school , lies a sprawling slum of concrete hovels , which are home to many kurds who were evicted from 4 , 000 villages demolished by the iraqi government over the last 15 years . the children from the slum were not allowed to study in the party school , but once the iraqis departed , the doors were opened to everyone . many of the students suffer from the food shortages that torment the north . and the students are often sick . the combined effect , teachers say , makes it difficult for them to concentrate . "" when karzan comes home he is cold and hungry , "" said nachine hamed of her 7 year old son . "" he keeps asking me for a notebook . "" the teachers , too , find it difficult to feed their own families because prices have risen more than 100 times since iraq imposed an embargo on the north 15 months ago . after school the other day , maadi kako habib , the school 's director , stood next to the taxi he drives at night to earn extra money . the school 's 18 teachers and 2 assistants filed past , many to their second jobs as store clerks or vendors . "" we lack everything from chalk to books , "" mr . habib said . "" we do not earn enough to live on , but then before we were not allowed to teach . we only acted in political theater . "" miss talat , the schoolteacher , added , "" each day our life is more precarious , and i teach with urgency now , trying desperately to instill in the children something they will always carry with them . """,has a topic of education
"an earthquake sent a jolt through northern_italy , sending frightened residents out onto the streets and prompting officials to evacuate some schools . two people were injured in the quake , which registered a magnitude of 4.6 and had a center near alessandria , about 55 miles east of turin , local officials said . the tremor was felt in cities as far away as milan and genoa . jason horowitz ( nyt )",has a topic of education
"the labor_government today unveiled plans to change the way higher_education is financed , proposing that universities be allowed to charge students higher tuition fees and that students in turn be allowed to delay paying until after graduation . the government said the plan would make it easier for poorer students to go to college and would help raise revenue for ailing british universities , which still rely on government aid for the bulk of their financing . but critics including opposition politicians , legislators from the left_wing of the labor_party , and student groups denounced the proposals as a sure way to discourage young people from attending college because of fears of amassing huge , american style student debts . ''the student funding review was called in order to address the balance of contribution between the student and the state , '' mandy telford , president of the national union of students , said in a statement . ''that balance has certainly been addressed today , with students footing the bill . '' under the plan , she added , medical students in six year programs could be left with post university bills of almost 90 , 000 . university education was free to britons until 1998 , and the new decision to impose higher fees rather than scrapping them altogether , as some members of the labor_party have proposed is a tacit_acknowledgment that free higher_education , one of the tenets of the oldtime welfare_state , is now irrevocably dead . under the proposals , universities that met various criteria for attracting students from less privileged backgrounds would be allowed to charge annual tuition as high as 3 , 000 almost 4 , 900 at current exchange_rates starting in 2006 . universities now charge about 1 , 800 per student per year . students would not be required to pay the money until after they graduated and began making at least 15 , 000 ( about 24 , 000 ) a year , after which annual payments would be made as a percentage of income . currently , any student loans must be repaid after the graduate 's annual salary reaches 10 , 000 ( about 16 , 000 ) . the government estimates that most students would graduate with debts of 24 , 000 to 34 , 000 . the proposals are now to be subject to a comment period , after which they will be translated into legislation likely to be voted on in the current parliamentary session . laying out the government 's long awaited and much debated plan , the education secretary , charles clarke , said a thorough overhaul of financing was essential if colleges were to achieve their goals of attracting more students and maintaining budgetary health . since 1990 , the number of students attending colleges and universities has increased to 43 percent of the college age population , from just 20 percent the government wants that to increase to 50 percent . ''if they have to rely_solely or mainly on public_sector resources , '' mr . clarke said , speaking of universities , ''the result is pressure on staff student ratios , capital investment and innovation . we cannot risk slipping into that sort of decline . '' damian green , the education spokesman for the conservative_party , condemned the plan as a mishmash , and said that labor 's bitter internal debate before the announcement detracted from its impact . ''many of us have followed with fascination the leaks and counterleaks of the rows within the cabinet that has led to today 's half baked compromise , '' he said .",has a topic of education
"in a damp and windy corner of eastern england , a large run down victorian mansion stands as an unlikely monument to a revolutionary idea in education . it was here in the 1920 's that a scottish teacher founded summerhill as the first modern ''free school , '' where classes were not compulsory and key decisions were made by an assembly of pupils and teachers . the objective was even more unorthodox that children should be happy at school . it proved to be a powerful idea that challenged the authoritarian tradition of british schooling and appealed to anti_establishment intellectuals . in the 1960 's , summerhill became a role model for alternative education in the united_states , and to this day , the prolific and passionate writings of its founder , a . s . neill , are studied widely by progressive educators . yet , 26 years after neill 's death , the school is largely forgotten in britain . or , rather , it was until last spring , when the british_government threaten ed to close it after inspectors from the office for standards in education , or ofsted , concluded that ''summerhill is not providing an adequate education for its pupils . '' suddenly it was back in the news . it had last been featured in london tabloids in 1992 , when a television documentary showed teachers and pupils swimming naked together . this year , newspapers have had fun with headlines like ''kool skools rool o.k . ? '' and references to ''lord of the flies'' aplenty . but if summerhill is used to controversy , the recent ofsted report was cause for particular alarm , because it attacked the school 's defining policy of allowing children to decide whether they wanted an education . ''the school has drifted into confusing educational freedom with the negative right not to be taught , '' the report said . ''as a result , many pupils have been allowed to mistake the pursuit of idleness for the exercise of personal liberty . '' this verdict did not come out of the blue . ofsted inspectors have been dissatisfied since at least 1990 . traditionally , british schools have been reviewed every five years or so , but inspections as a whole have become tougher and more frequent since 1997 , when prime_minister tony_blair 's labor_government took office , pledging to raise educational standards across britain . a spokeswoman for britain 's department for education and employment said that the secretary of state , david blunkett , had a duty to ensure that children were safe and being educated . she added , ''he has said that he cannot allow what is happening at summerhill to continue . '' now summerhill is fighting for its life under the command of zo readhead , neill 's daughter , a lanky farmer 's wife of 53 who attended summerhill in her father 's day . ms . readhead has turned her modest office at the school into battle headquarters , where she sells t shirts and coffee mugs to raise money for the cause , and lobbies parents , alumni and politicians for support . she has appealed three of the government 's six complaints to an autonomous government_agency , the independent schools tribunal , which is to meet in february . if she loses , she plans to carry the fight to england 's courts . if frustrated again , she says she will turn to the european_commission for human_rights . the perils of defying the government are very real . a formal letter from the registrar of independent schools addressed to ms . readhead as the proprietor warned that summerhill might be struck off the official register if her appeal is rejected and she fails to carry out the ' 'remedies'' improved accommodation and ''efficient and suitable instruction'' that have been demanded by the government . ''the penalties for conducting an independent school which is not on the register , '' the letter added darkly , ''are set out in section 39 of the criminal justice act 1982 . '' still , for the moment , daily school life seems largely unaffected . one drizzly morning in late september , the pupils , in their baggy jeans and loose sweaters , were doing what they normally did hammering in the woodworking room , playing with computers , even going to class . set in four acres of woodland a few miles from the north_sea , the school has a main building surrounded by cabins and one mobile_home , which are used as classrooms and sleeping quarters , and which the inspectors complained were ' 'very basic . '' ( the report also noted that sharing toilets by boys , girls and staff members contravened government regulations , and that some floors had ' 'dangerous'' holes in them . the holes , it turned out , were not too large . ) despite the somewhat crude conditions , the children seemed cheerful enough . ''i hated state_school , '' said alexander coad , a boisterous 14 year old whose home is in ipswich nearby . ''at first , i was really scared here . but once you get settled , it 's very friendly . '' his sentiment was echoed by john benneworth , 11 , who came here last year after he received a diagnosis of dyslexia . ''in primary_school , they did things i did n't want to do , like tests , '' he said softly . ''here they do n't make you do things . i like that . '' many of the children seem remarkably self assured perhaps because of the twice weekly gatherings of students and teachers one a democratic assembly , the other a ''tribunal'' to deal with disciplinary questions where they learn to speak up . at one recent hourlong assembly , sternly presided over by daniel kaburger , a 14 year old german student , debates were followed repeatedly by votes on whether machetes could be carried around the school , on whether a classroom and teacher should be assigned for late evening homework , on whether everyone should be obliged to see an antismoking video . young daniel even chastised a teacher for being late . considering its fame , the school seems small , with just 59 boys and girls ranging in age from 6 to 17 , all but 11 boarders well below what ms . readhead considers the ideal 75 . but summerhill may well be britain 's most international school there are 18 british pupils , 14 germans , 10 japanese , 6 taiwanese , 4 koreans , 3 americans , 2 swiss , 1 french and 1 israeli . a japanese edition of neill 's most influential book , ''summerhill school a new view of childhood , '' and at least four summerhill inspired schools in japan explain why , at one time , half the pupils came from there . although summerhill has a japanese teacher and offers classes in french and german , english is the lingua franca . the school 's nationality breakdown clearly underlines the lack of interest in alternative education in britain . that is not surprising . when neill founded summerhill in 1921 , teaching in britain was infamously repressive . in fact , it was neill 's own unhappy childhood and early teaching experience in scotland under the tutelage of his father , a stern , puritanical schoolmaster in the village of forfar that inspired him to find a way of ''liberating'' children . but today , neill 's philosophy is overpowered by the marketplace , in which the aim is to raise standards by stimulating competition among schools . to do so , the government issues school performance tables based on results in annual nationwide examinations , which newspapers publish in order of excellence . all of which leads to the prevailing equation good results equal good colleges equal good jobs . few parents , it seems , are ready to experiment with their children 's education . in contrast , alternative education has always stirred interest in the united_states , where there has been a sharp increase in home_schooling and even ''unschooling , '' in which home schooled children can choose their own curriculum . dozens of ''free schools , '' like the sudbury valley school in framingham , mass . , have adapted neill 's ideas . ''the british have always been the least interested in summerhill , '' said ms . readhead , who took over the school when her mother , ena , retired in 1985 . ( her father died in 1973 . ) ''i think the ideal for many people is a school with summerhill 's philosophy but one where kids have to attend classes . but this is the raw edge of our approach . you have to be prepared to stand back and watch a kid take another path . '' neill himself set little store in formal education . ''personally , i do not know what type of teaching is carried on , for i never visit lessons , and have no interest in how children learn , '' he wrote in a typically provocative vein . the freedom to skip classes , though , was a consequence of his fundamental view that , left to their own devices , children find their own ways of learning , and eventually derive pleasure from doing so . it is that view that ms . readhead is unwilling to abandon . ''you 're free to do as you like as long as it does n't interfere with anyone else 's freedom , '' she said . ''neill 's basic idea was that kids should be treated as human beings , that their emotional and social life was as important as their education . '' the ofsted report , which was based on a five day visit in march by eight of her majesty 's inspectors of schools , nonetheless zeroed in on the lack of regular class attendance . ''whether the pupils make sufficient progress and achieve the standards of which they are capable is left to each child 's inclination , '' the report stated . ''as a result , those willing to work achieve satisfactory or even good standards , while the rest are allowed to drift and fall behind . '' but the remarks follow a disclaimer ''this report cannot and does not pass judgment on the unique philosophy on which summerhill is founded . '' similarly , in response to protest letters about the threat to summerhill from the school 's defenders , mr . blunkett , the secretary of state , has stated that ''we are not requiring summerhill to abandon its educational philosophy and force children to attend all lessons and follow particular educational courses . '' but for ms . readhead and her supporters , this is precisely the government 's objective . in a heated response , which was posted on the school 's web_site and will serve as the basis of the appeal in february , ms . readhead called the report 's style and language ''emotive and unprofessional'' and its contents ''biased and prejudicial . '' ''ofsted has its role and place in the educational system , '' she wrote . ''it should not be allowed to bully those who do not agree with it . '' nonattendance , she said , generally occurs at what neill called ''the gang stage'' of early adolescence , when children tend to rebel . but as the children 's interests become more defined , she noted , they are eager to sign up for classes . ''at summerhill , we have been observing this process for 78 years and find that students do return to learning with fresh interest and enthusiasm as they get older and mature . '' summerhill charges about 10 , 500 a year , far less than the average 24 , 000 other private boarding_schools in britain charge . one side effect of its lower fees , however , is high staff turnover because teachers are paid poorly about 15 , 000 a year , as well as board and lodging . those who stay on , on the other hand , are true_believers in the school 's philosophy of social and emotional development over formal education , and the report found that 75 percent of the teachers were ' 'satisfactory or better . '' paradoxically , the school follows a traditional government approved curriculum . ''we have no new methods of teaching , '' neill wrote in a book , ''because we do not think that teaching very much matters . '' thus , students at a school built around the notion of personal freedom , even to the detriment of learning , must sit for the same examinations as students in more conventional schools . it is by these results that summerhill is judged by the government . the school does not prepare pupils for college entry , which in britain usually requires 18 year olds to take the so called ''a'' level examinations in at least three subjects . rather , the curriculum here ends with the general certificate of secondary education exams , taken by everyone at age 16 and , in the best schools , involving 9 or 10 subjects . at summerhill , since students are usually drawn only to the subjects they enjoy , they are more likely to test in only three or four subjects . thus , if they continue studying with a view to attending college , they have to try to catch up . it is therefore not surprising that summerhill does not feature in the performance tables , which tend to list the 500 to 1 , 000 schools with the best results . because of insufficient data from the school , the government says it cannot compare summerhill test scores with the national average , but in 1998 , 75 percent of the students who took certificate qualification exams passed . ''we do n't pay attention to the league tables , '' ms . readhead said . ''everyone recognizes that in a school of 60 children , they do n't tell you anything . also , in a school where only one third of students are british , two thirds are sitting exams in their second language . '' more important to summerhill , when pupils pursue further studies it is because they are motivated to do so , and therefore have an advantage over their peers . the evidence supporting this is mostly anecdotal . but , with a view to answering ofsted 's criticism , the school is now collecting information on the activities of alumni who have left summerhill in the last 12 years . ms . readhead herself seems to give little importance to higher_education she dropped out of art school and became a horseback_riding instructor before returning to summerhill . despite her title as head teacher , she does not teach . ''for me , what 's important is who you are , how you feel about yourself , how you feel about your fellow man , '' she said . ''i can put you in touch with a doctor who was here who is no happier than another man doing a part time job and playing music . '' and yet there appears to be no shortage of former summerhillians who have successful careers , from the actress rebecca de mornay to john burningham , the children 's book author and illustrator . alex ruhle umlaut on u , a 29 year old equity analyst for a hedge_fund in new york , was sent to summerhill at age 9 by his german diplomat parents , who worked in paris then . ''the school in paris was so strict that i no longer wanted to go , '' he recalled . ''once i got to summerhill , i definitely enjoyed it . you have a real sense of freedom to develop what you want . '' he left with only two general certificate qualifications , but he promptly collected five more and passed four a_level exams . ''i was very motivated , much more than the others , '' he said . he then attended the university of sussex and completed an m.b.a . at baruch_college of the city_university of new york . when martha neighbor , 39 , returned to the united_states at age 14 after five years at summerhill , she had difficulty adjusting to more orthodox schooling , and even dropped out after two years at the university of arizona . but she has no regrets . ''i think academically neill 's theories were right , '' she said . ''once i found my motivation , i finished well and was very disciplined . '' today , with a degree from hunter_college in new york and a master 's in art_history and museum studies from the university_of_southern_california , in los_angeles , she is the managing director of risa jaroslow and dancers , a modern_dance troupe in new york . still , the experience of these and other alumni may not be considered relevant when the independent schools tribunal hears summerhill 's appeal . by demanding that ''the school ensure that all pupils engage regularly in learning , '' the government seems more intent on attacking the very idea behind summerhill . perhaps the only real surprise is the timing of the attack . summerhill survived the conservative orthodoxy of margaret_thatcher 's long rule . now , under a labor_government , its days may be numbered . alan riding is the european cultural correspondent for the times .",has a topic of education
"most of the 126 , 000 public and catholic_school teachers in ontario went on strike today in the largest teachers' strike ever in north_america . even though a strike had been threatened for weeks , it was not until this morning that the parents of more than 2.1 million students found out that nearly all of the province 's 4 , 742 schools had been closed . the province has offered to reimburse parents the equivalent of 30 a day for child_care costs incurred during the strike and is offering home tutoring plans on the internet . some teachers were jeered as they picketed schools in wind , rain and , in places , snow . in the view of some canadians , the strike is an unnecessary struggle for power between the teachers' union and the provincial government . at other schools , sympathetic parents brought coffee to strikers , and students joined their teachers on the picket_line . the teachers are protesting a provincial government proposal to overhaul the education system by weakening local school boards and giving the government the power to determine class size and tax rates . teacher preparation time would be cut , and noncertified instructors would be allowed to teach some subjects . teachers fear that as many as 10 , 000 teaching positions could be lost . ''this would be completely contrary to 150 years of local decision making for schools in ontario , '' said eileen lennon , president of the ontario teachers' federation . ''there will be practically no local decision making left . it 's just not going to be workable . '' she said she did not know how long the strike would last . ''we 're as far apart as we ever were , and we do n't have a settlement , '' she said . ontario 's premier , mike harris , has refused to back down on his plans to restructure an education system that he says costs too much to run and has allowed academic standards to slide . ''there 's enough money being wasted that we still should be able to find some efficiencies , '' he told reporters today . talks between the government and the teachers broke off on sunday_night , and no new negotiations are scheduled . mr . harris said the government would seek an injunction ordering the teachers back to work . teachers said they had gone on strike reluctantly . ''i 'm very gentle and mild_mannered and law abiding , but i will stand here for as long as it takes , '' said rose mais , a special_education teacher who was picketing the loretto college school , a publicly financed roman catholic_school in toronto . some districts opened schools under the supervision of nonteaching staff , but few parents took advantage . in oakville , south of toronto , robin dimarco kept her two grade school children home . ''initially i was annoyed because it is an illegal strike , '' she said . ''but i do n't think the government should have total control in the classroom . ''",has a topic of education
"prime_minister jean_pierre_raffarin of france said on tuesday that muslim head_scarves must be banned from public schools because they undermine the french republican ideal of freedom and equality . ''certain religious signs , among them the islamic veil , are multiplying in our schools , '' mr . raffarin told the national_assembly in introducing a divisive bill to ban most religious symbols from public schools . ''they are taking on a political meaning . some want to know how far they can go . we are giving them a response today . '' he rejected arguments from observant muslims and jews that their religions require head coverings and that the ban would violate their freedom of belief . ''religion , '' he said , ''cannot be a political project . '' until now , most french officials , including president jacques_chirac , have avoided casting the debate on the banning of religious symbols as singling out islam . but in ''us against them'' language , mr . raffarin spoke of france as ''the old land of christianity , '' and he called on france 's muslims to behave like good citizens . ''today , all the great religions in the history of france have adapted themselves to that principle , '' of secularism , he said . ''for the most recently arrived , i 'm speaking here of islam , secularism is a chance , the chance to be a religion of france . '' the bill , as drafted , would ban from public elementary and high_schools ''ostensibly'' religious symbols , including the muslim head_scarf , the jewish skullcap and large christian crosses . it would not apply to private schools or to french schools in other countries . the punishment for violators of the new law would range from a warning to temporary_suspension and expulsion . with passion and anguish during the debate , which is expected to last four days , some speakers defended the measure as a necessary step to stop the spread of radical islam , while others predicted it would be impossible to enforce . pascal clement , the head of the law commission of the national_assembly , called the measure ''the flag of france whose colors we want to raise today , once again , above the schools . '' but the measure , proposed by mr . chirac in december after the recommendations of a presidential commission , has met with unexpected opposition from a small center right party , the union for french democracy , and criticism from some members of mr . chirac 's own commission that its work has been distorted . it also has divided the french cabinet and enraged france 's muslim minority and some of the teachers' unions , even as it has heartened both muslim and non muslim feminist groups . the conference of french catholic bishops and france 's tiny sikh minority oppose the measure french jewish leaders are in favor . still , the draft law is expected to pass because mr . chirac 's party , union for a popular movement , holds 364 seats in the 577 seat national_assembly , and a bill needs only 288 votes for passage . even within the french government , there is no agreement on what the new law would ban . last month , the minister of national education , luc ferry , said bandannas and even beards would be banned if they were considered to be religious symbols a few weeks before , the interior_minister , nicolas_sarkozy , had said muslim girls would be allowed to wear small bandannas . foreign_minister dominique de villepin was widely quoted in the french press as warning in a cabinet meeting that the measure was misunderstood abroad and would damage french relations with muslim dominated countries . the foreign ministry officially denied he made the remarks , but officials confirmed mr . de villepin 's intervention . some speakers suggested amendments that would ease the penalty for violators or replace the word ''ostensibly'' with ''visibly'' to better define prohibited symbols . a leader of the union for french democracy , fran_ois bayrou , said that a ban on all visible religious symbols would violate the french constitution and european_union human_rights regulations . in a new poll issued by the polling organization sofres on tuesday , 57 percent of the french said they believe that ostensibly religious symbols in school are ''a threat to national cohesion . '' but in a separate survey by the bva polling organization for the left leaning newspaper lib_ration on jan . 28 , 58 percent of the french said they think that the new law would be difficult to enforce . about 140 lawmakers in the national_assembly , the lower_house of parliament , are expected to speak about the bill , which is scheduled to go to a vote on feb . 10 . if passed , it will go into effect in september for the next school year .",has a topic of education
"a report delivered to president jacques_chirac on thursday called for a new law banning the wearing of ''conspicuous'' religious symbols in french public schools large crosses for christians , head_scarves for muslim girls , or skullcaps for jewish boys . the recommendation was the most striking in an official reassessment of how to preserve the principle of the separation of religion and state in france in light of such developments as the rise of a large muslim population and a new wave of anti_semitism . that principle , the report said , would be guaranteed by impartiality and the banning of all conspicuous religious symbols in official institutions , but individuals using those institutions would not be barred from wearing ' 'discreet symbols like , for example , medallions , small crosses , stars of david , hands of fatima , or small korans . '' in today 's france , no social issue provokes more emotion and debate and cuts across political lines more sharply than the islamic veil . this week 's elle_magazine , for example , printed an open_letter to mr . chirac signed by leading french women muslim and non muslim calling for an outright ban . the report , prepared by an independent commission appointed by the government , also recommended that public schools add jewish and muslim holidays to the christian holidays now observed , a move so far untested in europe , and to provide special meals for jews and muslims in school cafeterias . in addition , employers were urged to allow employees to choose the religious holidays they take off for example , yom_kippur for jews , id al kebir for muslims or the orthodox christmas for orthodox christians . the 67 page report is the work of a_20 member commission of religious leaders , teachers , politicians and sociologists that was created in july by mr . chirac . it is certain to intensify rather than quiet the increasingly shrill debate in france over the intrusion of religion into public institutions as the country struggles to retain the ideal of strict separation between religion and state it codified into law a century ago . the report highlights the challenges that france , like much of europe , faces in coming to grips with islam . in one measure of the significance of the report , le_monde published it in its entirety in an eight page supplement . the report 's whole tenor indicated that the state intends to reassert what it regards as its traditional right to pronounce on how religion influences public life in france . the commission said that a 1905 law codifying the separation of church and state was no longer adequate given the cultural and religious composition of present day france . it said that organized groups were testing the secular_state by demands on public services in the name of religion and pressuring muslims to identify first with their faith and then with their french citizenship . ''in one century , because of immigration , french society has become diverse in terms of its spiritual and religious aspect , '' the report said . ''the challenge today is to give space to new religions while at the same time to succeed in integration and struggle against political religious manipulation . '' bernard stasi , a former education minister who headed the commission , said at a news conference announcing its conclusions that the commission had been ''astonished to see that the situation was more serious than what we previously thought . '' ''there are without any doubt forces in france that try to destabilize the republic , and it 's time for the republic to react , '' he said . currently , there is no uniform regulation on wearing veils in public schools . a ruling in 1989 by france 's council of state declared that religious symbols could not be worn in public schools if they ''constitute an act of intimidation , provocation , proselytizing or propaganda , '' threaten health , security or the freedom of others or ' 'disturb order . '' mr . chirac will decide next wednesday whether to accept the commission 's recommendations , including whether to support a law banning head_scarves in schools . some opponents of a ban argue that it will harden the ideological battle lines and spawn the establishment of private islamic schools that will be hard for the state to monitor . many french muslims defend the wearing of the veil as a religious obligation dictated by the koran . supporters of a ban say that it is the only way to stop what they see as increasing demands by france 's large muslim community for special privileges , like the separation of men and women in public swimming_pools and treatment of female patients exclusively by female doctors . the open_letter in elle said , ''the islamic veil sends us all muslims and non muslims back to a discrimination against women that is intolerable . '' it was signed by dozens of prominent women , including the actresses isabelle adjani and nathalie baye the historian elisabeth badinter the writer catherine millet and the fashion_designer sonia rykiel . among the muslim signers was fadela amara , founder of ni putes ni soumises ( neither whores nor doormats ) , a movement that represents women from the immigrant suburbs of paris . by contrast , a letter this week from the council of christian_churches , representing roman_catholics , orthodox christians and protestants , warned that any law banning the islamic head_scarf ''would be felt as discriminatory . '' one motivating_factor behind the declaration was that the wearing of crosses would most likely also be banned . some conservative politicians , like christine boutin , a deputy in parliament , oppose a ban because , as she argues , it is better to ''trivialize'' the veil and get used to it rather than ' 'stigmatize'' it and make it more of a crisis . even within the french government , there are deep divisions . mr . chirac has made no secret of his opposition to head_scarves in schools , telling students at the french high_school in tunis last week that he saw ' 'something aggressive'' in the wearing of muslim veils and pledging that the french_state would forbid students to wear what he called ''ostentatious signs of religious proselytism . '' by contrast , france 's interior_minister , nicolas_sarkozy , opposes such a law , arguing that an outright ban would represent ' 'secular fundamentalism . '' r my schwartz , the commission 's secretary , said at thursday 's news conference that members were shocked in the course of their hearings to find that some muslim girls said they were pressured into wearing veils by family and ''outside groups , '' a reference to muslims who advocate strict religious practices . ''many asked for protection from the state , that the state forbid the wearing of religious symbols in school to guarantee their protection and their individual freedom , '' mr . schwartz said . the report also dealt with issues much broader than women wearing a veil . among them was the issue of pressure brought by some muslim prison inmates on other prisoners to insist their families wear ' 'religiously correct'' clothing during visits , and demanding strict religious observance while in prison . the report also touched on the different religious traditions in burying the dead and religious prejudices in everyday french life like the de facto job discrimination against candidates of foreign origin or foreign parentage . it also addressed the anti semitic sentiment among alienated muslim youth and the hostility in some schools toward the teaching of the holocaust . other topics in the report were related to health and education issues , like the refusal by some muslim women to be treated by male doctors , and the refusal by some girls taking first aid courses to give emergency treatment to male accident victims . another part of the report dealt with social differences like the refusal of some muslim women to shake hands with men . among the report 's other recommendations were the development of arabic_language programs in public schools the creation of a national school for islamic studies the recruitment of muslim chaplains in the armed_forces , prisons and hospitals the elimination of ''urban ghettos , '' neighborhoods heavily_populated with one ethnic_group , through urban_renewal projects the teaching of the ideal of secularism and the ' 'solemn adoption'' of what will be called a ''charter of secularism'' to explain the republican ideal of the secular_state .",has a topic of education
"there are 32 , 000 students at the nanterre campus of the university of paris , but no student center , no bookstore , no student run newspaper , no freshman orientation , no corporate recruiting system . the 480 , 000 volume central library is open only 10 hours a day , closed on sundays and holidays . only 30 of the library 's 100 computers have internet_access . the campus cafeterias close after lunch . professors often do not have office hours many have no office . some classrooms are so overcrowded that at exam time many students have to find seats elsewhere . by late afternoon every day the campus is largely empty . sandwiched between a prison and an unemployment office just outside paris , the university here is neither the best nor the worst place to study in this fairly wealthy country . rather , it reflects the crisis of france 's archaic state owned university system overcrowded , underfinanced , disorganized and resistant to the changes demanded by the outside world . ''in the united_states , your university system is one of the drivers of american prosperity , '' said claude all gre , a former education minister who tried without success to reform french universities . ''but here , we simply do n't invest enough . universities are poor . they 're not a priority either for the state or the private_sector . if we do n't reverse this trend , we will kill the new generation . '' it was student discontent on campuses across france that fired up the recent protests against a law that would have made it easier for employers to dismiss young workers . college students were driven by fear that their education was worth little and that after graduation they would not find jobs . the protests closed or disrupted a majority of france 's universities for weeks , labor_unions declared solidarity and eventually the government was forced to withdraw the law . ''universities are factories , '' said christine le forestier , 24 , a 2005 graduate of nanterre with a master 's degree who has not found a stable job . ''they are machines to turn out thousands and thousands of students who have learned all about theory but nothing practical . a diploma is worth nothing in the real world . '' the problems stem in part from the student revolts of may 1968 , which grew out of an unexceptional event at nanterre the year before . one march evening , male students protesting the sexual segregation of the dormitories occupied the women 's dormitory and were evicted by the police . a year later , nanterre students protesting the war in vietnam occupied the administration building , the first such action by students at a french university . the student revolt spread , turning into a mass movement aimed at transforming the authoritarian , elitist french system of governance . ultimately 10 million workers left their jobs in a strike that came close to forcing de gaulle from power . one result was that the country 's university system guaranteed a free or almost free college education to every high_school graduate who passed the baccalaur at exam . university enrollment soared . the value of a bachelor 's degree plummeted . but the state failed to invest much in buildings , facilities and professors' salaries to make the system work . today the french government allocates about 8 , 500 a year to each university student , about 40 percent less than what it invests in each high_school student . most students are required to attend the universities closest to their high_schools . although certain universities excel in specific fields of study , the course offerings in , say , history or literature are generally the same throughout the country . compounding the problem , france is caught between its official promotion of the republican notion of equality and its commitment to the nurturing of an elite cadre of future leaders and entrepreneurs . only 4 percent of french students make it into the most competitive french universities the public ''grandes_coles . '' but the grandes_coles , along with a swath of semiprivate preparatory schools , absorb 30 percent of the public budget . they are well organized , well equipped , overwhelmingly white and upper_middle_class , and infused with the certainty that their graduates will take the best jobs in government and the private_sector . students are even paid to attend . the practice in the united_states of private endowments providing a large chunk of college budgets is seen as strange in france . tuition is about 250 a year , hardly a sufficient source of income for colleges . but asking the french to pay more of their way in college seems out of the question . when the government proposed a reform in 2003 to streamline curriculums and budgets by allowing each university more flexibility and independence , students and professors rebelled . they saw the initiative as a step toward privatization of higher_education that they feared would lead to higher fees and threaten the universal right of high_school graduates to a college education . the government backed down . at nanterre , alexandre frydlender , 19 , a second year student in law and history , complained about the lack of courses in english for students of international_law . but asked whether he would be willing to pay a higher fee for better services , he replied ''the university is a public service . the state must pay . '' a poster that hangs throughout the campus halls echoed that sentiment ''to study is a right , not a privilege . '' professors lack the standing and the salaries of the private_sector . a starting instructor can earn less than 20 , 000 a year the most senior professor in france earns about 75 , 000 a year . research among the faculty is not a priority . because students generally are required to attend the university closest to home , most do not live on campus . at nanterre , for example , there are only 1 , 050 dormitory rooms and a long waiting list . the amenities are few . twenty two students share three toilets , three showers and a small kitchen furnished with only a sink and a few electric burners . ''there 's no place where students can hang out , no place to play cards or to watch a movie , '' said jean giraud , 20 , a second year law student who lives in one of the dorms . ''people come for class and then go home . '' while students are ready to protest against something they dislike , there is little sense of belonging or pride in one 's surroundings . during the recent protests over the contested labor law , that attitude of alienation contributed to the destruction of property , even computers and books , at some universities . the protests also were the latest warning to the french government and private corporations that the university system needs fixing . officials , entrepreneurs , professors and students alike agree that too many students are stuck in majors like sociology or psychology that make it difficult to move into a different career in a stratified society like france , given the country 's troubled economy . the fear of joblessness has led many young people in different directions . students who have the money are increasingly turning to foreign universities or private specialized schools in france , especially for graduate school . and more young people are seeking a security for life job with a government_agency . in a speech at the sorbonne in late april after the labor law was rescinded , prime_minister dominique de villepin pledged ''a new pact between the university and the french people . '' mr . de villepin , a graduate of the cole nationale d'administration , the grandest of the grandes_coles , promised more money and more flexibility , saying that as in the united_states , a student with a master 'sdegree in philosophy should be able to become a financial_analyst . when a student asked him to explain how he proposed to do that , mr . de villepin had no concrete answer . instead he talked about the ''happiness of the dog that leaves its kennel . '' but flexibility is not at all the tradition in france , where students are put on fixed career tracks at an early age . ''we are caught in a world of limits where there 's no such thing as the self made man , '' said claire de la vigne , a graduate of nanterre who is now doing graduate work at the much more prestigious institut d' tudes politiques de paris . ''we are never taught the idea of the american_dream , where everything is possible . our guide is fear . ''",has a topic of education
"the sports hall doubles as a prayer room and dining hall for male teenagers , at other times for young women , but never the two together . in the kindergarten , female teachers , warned of an impending visit by a man , draw full facial veils before receiving their guest . when the guest arrives , the children offer a chorus in arabic ''as salaam aleikum'' peace be upon you . ''here we can keep ourselves on the path of religion , '' said nasir nathalia , a 15 year old student at the leicester islamic academy . his friend mohammed seedat agrees . ''there is less chance here of going off the track , '' he said . this is the piety that britain 's expanding islamic schools seek to project , casting themselves as typical of the thousands of faith schools , mainly christian , that make up roughly one third of all publicly financed british schools . but the visible differences the way female teenagers wear the full length dress and head covering and the boys wear black robes and skullcaps play into a ferocious debate about the sense of separateness or readiness to integrate britain 's estimated 1.8 million muslims , about 3 percent of the population . and the discussion touches on a much wider theme of ethnic segregation across the british state financed educational system . ''segregation is now so extreme in some schools that there is not much further it can go , '' trevor phillips , the chairman of the commission for racial equality , told a parliamentary panel . ''it does n't help to prepare children in these schools for the real world . '' neither , some believe , does it bridge the gap between a largely secular society and a profound commitment to a single faith . ''if you are going to have islamic schools , the question is whether they are going to embrace western values , '' said patrick sookhdeo , a pakistan born anglican priest who converted from islam and who runs a not for profit institute committed to maintaining christian values . ''i would argue that islamic values are not compatible with western values . '' others disagree just as boldly . ''if you think faith schools are divisive , it would help a great deal to know why is there empirical evidence ? '' said mohamed mukadam , the principal of the leicester islamic academy . students from islamic schools , mr . mukadam said in an interview , were not associated with either the religious and racial riots in northern_england in the early 2000 's or in any of the recent terrorism conspiracies . ''if you want to examine the northern riots , or the terrorism , '' he said , ''i have not come across a single person from faith schools or who went to faith schools . '' it is a debate shot through with fear and resentment after terrorist attacks by muslims and alleged plots in london , leaving the british_government to ponder how it can properly deny state financing to islamic schools that teach the core subjects of the national_curriculum when it provides money for much more numerous schools of christian , jewish or other faiths . only 7 islamic schools receive public financing , compared with 36 jewish schools , and about 7 , 000 christian schools . the parents of just 3 percent of muslim students enroll them in islamic schools , where the education is generally rigorous and there is a code to nurture their islamic identity , shield them from discrimination and provide moral guidance . the bulk of the 140 islamic schools charge tuition . at leicester , for instance , tuition is 2 , 700 a year . ''muslim children in this country tend to live separate lives anyhow , '' said mark halstead , a professor of education at the university of huddersfield in northern_england . ''whether they go to muslim school does not make much difference to their segregation . they are concentrated in the inner cities . they could be attending a state_school that is 90 percent muslim anyway . '' a report by simon burgess , a professor of economics , discovered that , for instance , in the blue_collar tower hamlets district of east_london , where ethnic minorities form 48 percent of the population , nearly half the schools were ''exclusively nonwhite . '' the issue of islamic separateness is magnified by a recent debate about a full face veil that shows only the eyes and is known as the niqab . some non muslims , most notably foreign_secretary jack_straw , have said the veil illustrates that muslims are rejecting british norms others say simply that britons are discriminating against muslims . the debate cuts to the heart of britain 's stated philosophy on multiculturalism , defined 40 years ago by the labor politician roy jenkins when he was home_secretary . in laying out a new immigration_policy , he said immigration should not lead to a ''flattening process of assimilation'' but instead should provide ''equal_opportunity accompanied by cultural_diversity . '' but now , as the country is struggling so publicly with muslim assimilation , some analysts like mr . phillips of the commission for racial equality fear that a premium on cultural separateness has britain ' 'sleepwalking into segregation . '' on another level , the debate over islamic schools here also involves equity in the use of tax money . according to the department of education in london , private schools must meet laborious and detailed criteria to gain access to state financing , and many islamic schools have failed to do so . since 1997 , according to government figures , only 25 ' 'minority faith'' schools have qualified for government financing 15 of them jewish and the rest muslim , sikh , greek orthodox and seventh day adventist schools . islamic schools typically teach the same basic subjects as in other faith or state run schools . all private and public are subject to inspections . but there are differences . while christian schools say 25 percent of their seats are open to non christians , mr . mukadam said there were so few islamic schools that it would be impractical to offer admission to non muslims . in leicester , many students attend koranic recitation and memorization lessons at separate madrasas schools run by mosques without regulation outside normal school hours . still , a survey by the islamic human rights commission last year said that muslims in several categories people who are older , wealthier and more secular , and students in their late teens placed academic success ahead of religious affiliation in choosing a school . according to the most recent government inspection of the leicester islamic academy educational standards in 2002 , most of its teenage students achieved twice the national average grades in the examinations that high_school students take around the age of 16 . but that does not necessarily immunize students from the broader pressures of life as british muslims , even in leicester . this city in the english midlands , once known as a center for manufacturing shoes and textiles , prides itself on diversity . more than one third of the 300 , 000 residents are members of britain 's ethnic minorities , and leicester is expected to become britain 's first city with a nonwhite majority in less than a decade . but it has not been protected from the threat of terrorism in early 2002 , the police rounded up what they called an al_qaeda cell here . the sight of muslims under attack in palestinian areas or iraq , said nasir , the student at the academy here , ' 'makes us want to help , through giving or charity . '' yusuf parekh , a 15 year old classmate , said some people felt the pain and anger particularly because ''their people are being killed back home . '' but is violence justified ? ''only as a last resort , '' he said . but mr . mukadam , who is also chairman of the association of muslim schools , insisted that his school taught loyalty to britain as a land that offered religious and other freedoms . if an islamic school were found to be ''fomenting radicalism , '' he said , ''it is my first duty to say this school should not exist . '' he acknowledged that some students might feel passionately about the plight of fellow muslims elsewhere . ''my job , '' he said , ''is to understand their deep hurt but get them away from the radicals that promote violence . ''",has a topic of education
"in the 1950 's and 60 's , china mobilized higher_education to produce physicists and rocket engineers capable of giving the communist_party leadership the ultimate in international prestige a thermonuclear weapon deliverable by intercontinental ballistic missile . it was an enormous achievement for a nation of peasant farmers led by rough_hewn revolutionaries . but mao_zedong , the communist_party chairman , then decided to tear it all down in the name of permanent revolution and class struggle , and higher_education was suspended during the years of the great proletarian cultural revolution . when it recovered in the late 1970 's , higher_education was still permeated by the tradition of excellence in hard sciences . today , after a wave of chinese immigration to the west following the reform policies of deng_xiaoping , the discipline and excellence of chinese students have made significant contributions to western universities . but at home , higher_education remains hobbled . chronic , crippling fiscal limitations coupled with draconian political_repression on campuses are eroding any prospects for serious education_reform . as a result , china 's stated goal of developing 100 universities of "" international repute "" by the 21st_century is little more than official sloganeering . since the late 1970 's , when higher_education began rebuilding , both the number of colleges and total enrollment have more than doubled . but state funding in real terms has made only small gains . the result bleak dormitories with six to eight students crammed to a room teaching material typed by hand and run off on archaic mimeograph machines , and libraries pathetically short of up to date books and periodicals . professors live on subsistence salaries , and an alarming percentage of them are leaving their posts to sell their talents in china 's burgeoning private_sector . "" the more you teach , the thinner you get , "" goes the ditty that is a play on the chinese_characters that stand for "" professor . "" life is little better for students , who are under increasing financial pressure to pay a greater share of their education costs . fees and other expenses now have risen beyond the income of an average public_sector worker . the number of "" self paid "" students has grown to nearly 15 percent of enrollment , and some professors bemoan the loosening of admission criteria that is evident for the children of china 's new wealthy . the commercialization of chinese universities has not loosened the ideological grip on history , the humanities , social and political sciences . textbooks are highly_selective , and sensitive subjects like tibet and the 1989 protest movement are banned from classrooms . but mandatory military training and manual labor for students have been eased . last summer , one class of sophomores was shepherded out of beijing to "" engage in agricultural labor "" for 10 days in a peasant village . upon returning , they confided all they had had to do was watch . patrick tyler international reports a changing world of education",has a topic of education
"for the first time since her marriage to prince_charles on saturday , camilla , the duchess of cornwall , took part in a royal event , cutting a ceremonial ribbon with gold plated scissors to open a school playground at ballater , scotland . the couple , who are known as the duke and duchess of rothesay in scotland , interrupted their honeymoon at the nearby royal estate of balmoral for the occasion . the prince wore a kilt and the duchess wore a crimson coat with a tartan trim . alan_cowell ( nyt )",has a topic of education
"the new education minister , fran_ois fillon , suggested that the law prohibiting the wearing of religious symbols in schools , including islamic head_scarves , could be interpreted to allow bandannas . ''it is only necessary that it not be ostentatious , because that 's what the law says , '' he said . ''there were bandannas in school before the question of the head_scarf issue came up . '' at a gathering of the union of islamic organizations of france last weekend , the group 's leader proposed that muslim girls learn to use bandannas as ' 'discreet headwear . '' h l ne fouquet ( nyt )",has a topic of education
"lead the morning after he was denounced in the house of commons as the ' 'most hated minister of education there has ever been , '' kenneth baker brushed aside suggestions that his headlong push for a new education policy could backfire politically against his boss , prime_minister margaret_thatcher . the morning after he was denounced in the house of commons as the ' 'most hated minister of education there has ever been , '' kenneth baker brushed aside suggestions that his headlong push for a new education policy could backfire politically against his boss , prime_minister margaret_thatcher . throughout their weeklong post easter meetings , the unions representing 410 , 000 teachers have threatened to mar the spring examinations and presumably the campaign season with strikes , ''clockwatching'' and other protests . ''there will be a small number of fairly sporadic half day strikes in a variety of regions for the next fortnight , '' mr . baker , the secretary of state for education and science , predicted friday , the day after the attack in the house of commons . ''i suspect when it comes to an election they 'll call it off , and i doubt whether they 'll resume after it . '' in any event , he said the teacher protests would not halt the preparation of an election manifesto containing the ' 'most radical'' educational changes in four decades . that kind of tough talk has made mr . baker a rising star of the conservative_party and , despite his suspect background as a tory moderate , one of mrs . thatcher 's seeming favorites in a cabinet generally short of dashing public figures . the education secretary 's comments were also significant in other ways . a glimpse of their cards since he is slated for a key campaign role , his offhand references to an election during the current school year seemed intended to underscore signals from 10 downing_street and the conservative central office that mrs . thatcher is leaning toward calling an election for june 4 , 11 or 18 provided her lead in the polls holds up and the conservatives do well in the local elections on may 7 . moreover , mr . baker 's combative response to threats of the union leaders coupled with a quieter effort to placate the rank and file provided another glimpse of the tories' election cards . after emphasizing economics in 1979 and 1983 , mrs . thatcher 's campaign team would like to make social_policy , including education_reform , the center piece of the re election effort . mr . baker , education secretary since mid 1986 , singled out education and housing as the two most important social_policy areas to watch . conservative strategists added three others urban_renewal , health_care and unemployment changes such as workfare to the list . in part , this approach is intended to patch up mrs . thatcher 's key vulnerabilities an unemployment figure over three million and a widespread perception that she is hostile to the national_health_service . but no one questions that education will be the main plank in the social_policy platform and that it can represent an offensive weapon for the conservatives . ''in education , we are producing probably the most radical set of proposals for reform since 1944 , '' said mr . baker , citing the year of the butler act , which established the basic framework of britain 's ' 'state'' schools . ''the system that was set up has largely not changed for the better , and there is a need now for major educational reform . '' these proposals include several measures to increase the authority of the central government at the expense of professional educators , such as the establishing of a national core_curriculum , nationwide testing of children at 7 , 11 and 14 , and the forming of new secondary_schools that would be financed by ' 'direct grants'' from the national education authority . target is union power there are also measures clearly intended to break the power of the teachers' unions and the local_governments . these include increased authority over pay and performance of ''head teachers , '' the formation of parental advisory units , and the formation of 20 new ''technology colleges'' with financing from the central government and private industry . the politics of these moves are clear , and mr . baker makes no effort to disguise them . the unions and local government are labor strongholds . the baker changes are devised to appeal over the heads of the ''educational hierarchy , teachers , the professionals'' to the 10 million parents of state_school children british education , mr . baker said , ''has been run as a producer operated service , and i do n't think the consumers got too much of a voice in edgeways . '' ''what i 'm trying to do is to find ways of enhancing the voice of the consumer , which is the parent , the student , '' he said . mr . baker 's skill at applying to schools mrs . thatcher 's view of government services that they should be run for the convenience of the ''consumers , '' or taxpayers , rather than the government employees helped his rise . so did his monthslong battle with the teachers over pay , which he won by getting parliament to approve legislation giving him the authority to bypass the bargaining process with unions and impose a pay settlement on teachers , as he did in march . but he almost overplayed his hand , and last week he was forced to back away from an earlier position that he would retain his power to set teacher pay for the three years allowed by the new law . elitism called the object this move was clearly an effort to contain teacher unrest in the election season , and it seemed to have a fair chance of success , if only because labor fears widespread protests in the schools , too . giles radice , the labor spokesman on education , warned the teachers' conventions that strikes would hurt labor 's chances . whatever happens to the protests , labor and union leaders plan to continue accusations that mr . baker 's call for testing and more ''rigorous'' new schools are codeword appeals for a return to elitism . they want to remind voters that in the early 70 's the labor_government abolished highly_selective ''grammar schools'' in favor of ''comprehensive'' schools open to all . in the campaign , labor officials plan a broad counterattack built around the idea that the conservatives' move to social issues was part of an effort to undermine free education , the public_health_service and other elements of the welfare_state . london journal",has a topic of education
"the french economy may be stagnant and unemployment still rising , but it took a perceived threat to the public_school system to bring hundreds of thousands of people into the streets of paris today in the first major protest against the rightist government of prime_minister edouard_balladur . the demonstration was enthusiastically backed by socialist and communist opposition leaders , who , still nursing their wounds after the conservatives' overwhelming victory in parliamentary elections last march , were eager to be seen identifying with a genuinely popular cause . organizers of the daylong march to the place de la nation in eastern paris maintained that one million people had taken part , while the paris police estimated the turnout at around 260 , 000 . the most recent demonstrations of this size , in 1984 and 1986 , were also protests over education policy . this time , the protest went ahead even though the government decided to abandon its disputed plan to increase state financing of private and religious schools after some of its features were declared unconstitutional by the watchdog constitutional council last week . with stuntmen and bands providing entertainment , the crowds marched under banners reading , "" schools belong to the people , not to the pope ! "" and "" no money for the clergy ! "" "" this is a loud protest scream so that it never happen again , "" said guy le neouannic , head of the teachers' union . end to ceiling proposed the government 's plan was to eliminate the 10 percent ceiling on municipal financing of private schools , so they could spend more on improvements . but protesters said that abandoning the limit would divert much needed resources from the public_school system and weaken a 150 year old tradition of secular education . around 17 percent of french students now attend private schools , most of them run by the roman_catholic_church . because those schools take the pressure off public schools , the state has in fact long paid the salaries of teachers in private schools . last week mr . balladur tried to silence critics by promising an extra 420 million to public schools over the next five years . but such was public opposition to the new bill that even the president , francois_mitterrand , a socialist , spoke out against the bill and implicitly backed today 's protest . the leftist opposition jumped at the chance of embarrassing a government that despite its failure to revive the french economy to date , has remained enormously_popular . today some organizers of the protest said it marked the rebirth of the left . political experts said that even though mr . balladur has been forced to back down in much the same way as he abandoned a plan to restructure air_france after a disruptive strike last summer , there is no certainty that the dispute will mark the end of his honeymoon with the electorate . a poll published today in the journal du dimanche said 70 percent of those surveyed favored the government 's decision to drop its educational reform bill and 50 percent believed the protest today would be "" useful . "" but 59 percent also said the constitutional court 's ruling against the bill did not represent a personal failure for the prime_minister .",has a topic of education
"lead the french will never again have to complain about having oignons ( onions ) and huitres ( oysters ) at their pique niques . the french will never again have to complain about having oignons ( onions ) and huitres ( oysters ) at their pique niques . as a result of new rules that the french government is recommending to simplify the sometimes mind bending complications of french spelling , the french will now be able to eat ognons ( no i ) and huitres ( no accent mark ) at their piqueniques ( no hyphen ) . ( the ''i'' in the word oignon , pronounced ohn yonh , with a diphthong , has long been silent huitre is pronounced hwee truh . ) aware of france 's deep pride in the language of moliere and proust , prime_minister michel_rocard cautiously called on the nation 's schools this week to begin teaching the new rules in september 1991 . the changes affect about 1 , 200 french words . the high commission on the french_language , which was appointed by the prime_minister , issued its report this week after it won the approval of the academie francaise , the academy of intellectuals that has for centuries been the guardian of the french_language . ''it was never a question that the government legislate in such matters , '' mr . rocard said . ''the language belongs to those who use it . '' nevertheless , he said , it is the government 's role to recommend usage that ''appears most satisfactory . '' the spelling report comes after years of angry debate between purists who say their beautiful language should not be tinkered with and dissenters who complain that french schoolchildren are wasting thousands of hours memorizing illogical spellings when that time could be better spent studying computers and quarks . hoping to fend off a backlash by the purists , the high council played down the importance of its recommendations , saying they were not full scale reforms but ' 'rectifications'' that were ' 'modest in content and scope . '' the high commission , which included writers , journalists , corporate leaders , scientists and the film_director jean luc godard , noted that it was careful not to make recommendations so sweeping that ''a novel of the past century would become unintelligible . '' the commission said that on average just one word per page would be changed in a novel like ''les miserables'' by victor hugo . the recommendations focused on eliminating many hyphens and circumflex accents and creating uniform rules for the plurals of many words . retiring the circumflex ? the circumflex accent that often appears over the letters ''i'' and ''u'' will be eliminated in many words . thus ''ile'' ( island ) becomes ''ile , '' ' 'diner'' ( dinner ) becomes ' 'diner'' and ''cout'' ( cost ) becomes ''cout . '' the circumflex will remain on well known verbs like ''apparaitre'' ( to appear ) and ''naitre'' ( to be born ) . circumflexes will remain on the word ' 'sur'' ( sure ) , to distinguish it from ' 'sur , '' meaning ''on . '' the commission also called for a huge reduction in the number of hyphens , so that ''contre espionnage'' becomes the fused word ''contrespionnage'' and ''croque monsieur , '' the grilled ham and cheese sandwich , becomes ''croquemonsieur . '' some american imports , like ''week end , '' ''cow boy'' and ' 'strip tease , '' will drop their hyphens . but hyphens will be added in numbers over 100 , so that ''cent vingt neuf'' ( 129 ) will become ''cent vingt neuf . '' bernard pivot , who for 15 years has run a popular television_program on literature called ''apostrophes , '' said , ''the purists are going to scream , but children and foreigners will be happy . '' the national association of schoolteachers backed the recommendations . but the societe des agreges , an elite group of scholars with advanced teaching degrees , said ''once more , parents and teachers will be disoriented and will no longer come to accept any rule . once again under the pretext of remedying supposed anomalies , new ones are being introduced . '' a matter of logic ? prime minster rocard asked the high commission last october to issue recommendations on spelling after a series of books were published attacking french spellings for being illogical . in addition , some government officials pushed for the changes because they believed that making french spelling easier would help france gain in its fight with english to be taught as the second language in many countries . but the high council said current spelling rules should continue to be tolerated for many years . other recommendations include changing many anomalies . thus ''bonhomie'' will become ''bonhommie , '' so that it is consistent with ''homme'' ( man ) , while ''imbecillite'' becomes ''imbecilite . '' ''combatif'' will become ''combattif'' to agree with the verb ''combattre'' ( to combat ) . the rules also call for changing some plurals . the plural of ''apres midi'' becomes ''apres midis'' rather than simply ''apres midi . '' it also seeks to regularize the plurals of foreign words that have been adopted in france , although those plurals might cause many foreigners to wince . the plurals of ''ravioli'' and ''graffiti'' become ''raviolis'' and ''graffitis , '' and the plural of ' 'match'' becomes ' 'matchs . '' avant et apres these are some of the changes recommended by the french government to simplify french spelling . changes in accents some words that will lose the circumflex huitre ( oyster ) becomes huitre aout ( august ) becomes aout murir ( to ripen ) becomes murir bruler ( to burn ) becomes bruler gouter ( to taste ) becomes gouter diner ( dinner ) becomes diner but certain verbs keep the cirumflex , among them paraitre ( to appear ) naitre ( to be born ) the word ' 'sur'' will keep its circumflex when it is used to mean ' 'sure , '' and will still be spelled ' 'sur'' when it is used to mean ''on top . '' changes in hyphenation some words that will lose their hyphens pique nique becomes piquenique porte monnaie ( purse ) becomes portemonnaie contre offensive becomes controffensive contre espionage becomes contrespionage week end becomes weekend cow boy becomes cowboy changes in spelling some words with new spellings bonhomie becomes bonhommie oignon becomes ognon ( the word is pronounced ohn yoh ) chariot becomes charriot combatif becomes combattif",has a topic of education
"a headline in the world briefing column on saturday about a rise in the death toll from the beslan school siege by chechen led fighters in 2004 misstated beslan 's location in southern russia . it is in south ossetia , not chechnya . correction december 14 , 2006 , thursday a headline in the world briefing column on saturday about a rise in the death toll from the beslan school siege by chechen led fighters in 2004 misstated beslan 's location in southern russia , and a correction in this space on tuesday also misstated the location . it is in north ossetia not chechnya or south ossetia .",has a topic of education
"the chancellors of at least 50 universities resigned to protest spending cuts to higher_education in the 2003 budget . ''there are n't enough funds for universities to survive , '' said mario santamaria , a spokesman representing the chancellors . ''we ca n't even pay our professors' salaries . '' the finance ministry spokesman , fabrizio ravoni , said that the resignations were a stunt to attract attention and that ''guarantees for more research funds have already been promised . '' many italian scientists leave the country because it has among the lowest budgets for research in europe . jason horowitz ( nyt )",has a topic of education
"japan broke two postwar taboos on friday as the upper_house of parliament approved laws that would officially bring patriotism back into the classroom and upgrade the status of its defense agency . the new education law revises the country 's 1947 fundamental law of education , which had been drafted during the american occupation to prevent a revival of prewar nationalism and avoid encouraging patriotism . the new law stresses ''love of country , '' ''public spirit'' and ''tradition'' while handing greater control over schools to politicians . the upper_house , controlled by prime_minister shinzo_abe 's liberal democratic_party , also passed laws turning the country 's defense agency into a full fledged ministry and defining overseas missions as a main duty . the lower_house had already enacted the bills . the laws were passed in keeping with mr . abe 's drive to instill pride of country among japanese and claim a larger role for japan in the world . but to critics , especially of the education law , the moves take japan further from its postwar pacifist ideals while harking back to vaguely_defined , prewar japanese values . the bills were enacted despite a motion of no confidence by opposition_parties against mr . abe 's administration , two days after a government report revealed that the government had routinely staged town meetings since 2001 to manipulate public opinion . the government had paid people to ask questions and make statements supportive of its policies , including the revision of the education law . the meetings took place under mr . abe 's predecessor , junichiro_koizumi . but mr . abe had organized them as chief_cabinet_secretary , and he had championed rewriting the education law as a pillar of his conservative agenda , which also includes revising the pacifist constitution . japanese conservatives had long contended that the 1947 education law put too much emphasis individual rights over the public good , with negative results ranging from the erosion of communities to the rise in juvenile crime . across the country , conservative politicians have been leading efforts to bring patriotism into the classroom . tokyo 's nationalist governor , shintaro_ishihara , has punished hundreds of teachers for failing to force their students to sing the national_anthem and stand before the national flag during school ceremonies . other school_districts have started grading students on their patriotism . ''based on the spirit of the education law , we will drive to revive our education to build a respectful , beautiful nation , '' mr . abe said in a statement . mr . abe 's approval_ratings have fallen sharply because he has backpedaled on mr . koizumi 's political and economic changes . the new laws related to the defense agency continue to solidify the role of the self_defense forces , which are still exclusively defensive and governed by strict rules of engagement . conservatives have sought to upgrade the agency 's status almost since it was created in 1954 , but an aversion to the military remained strong until recently . the change to ministry status is largely symbolic . but it will now allow the defense ministry to submit legislation to parliament and make budget requests directly . ''we will have to deal with other countries as not just an agency , but as a ministry that can discuss policy and the country 's security , '' fumio kyuma , the defense agency director , who will become defense minister next month , told the japanese news_media . government officials have indicated that they want to expand the self_defense forces' role further by pressing for a permanent law that would allow them to be deployed overseas and to exercise the right to collective self_defense .",has a topic of education
"on a recent thursday evening , a courtyard on the 19th_century campus of swarthmore college was unusually quiet . the beer pong tables near the dormitory rooms were temporarily empty , and students had scattered except for a few who were inside one of the stone buildings , preparing to work into the early morning . haley loram , 19 , was typing a report on the abrupt resignation of iraq 's beauty_pageant winner . ''she 's being called queen of the infidels , '' ms . loram mused . ''that sounds like a band name . '' amelia templeton , 22 , was working on a piece about baghdad 's real_estate market , while other reporters were examining an expert 's analysis of the counterinsurgency . this is the home of war news radio , a weekly half hour broadcast that aims to supplement the american news_media 's coverage of iraq by using computer software and 20 something ambition . ''they know more about iraq than most reporters , except those reporters actually in iraq , '' said marty goldensohn , a radio veteran and journalist in residence at the university . on the air since march 2005 , the program is gaining in popularity . thousands of listeners hear it via the web_site , www . warnewsradio . org , where broadcasts are available every friday through streaming audio or mp3 downloads . also , 22 public radio stations in the united_states broadcast it weekly , as well as stations in australia and italy . david gelber , a producer for ''60 minutes'' and a 1963 alumnus of swarthmore , came up with the idea in 2004 after remembering a similar program on pacifica radio during the vietnam_war with paul fischer as host . mr . gelber also realized the danger that makes it difficult for reporters in iraq . ''a lot of stories were n't getting covered , '' he said . so he suggested the radio broadcast , even though swarthmore had no journalism program and no reliable recording studio . marjorie murphy , a history professor , agreed to oversee the program , though some of her colleagues at this liberal arts college near philadelphia initially pooh poohed it as not meeting swarthmore 's rigorous academic standards , ms . murphy said . the college recruited about a dozen students who soundproofed their first studio with egg cartons . later , swarthmore invested 100 , 000 in recording and editing equipment , and downloaded computer software , skype , which allows users to call free anywhere in the world via the internet . students interviewed mr . goldensohn and hired him , he said , even after he told them their early writing samples were ''incomprehensible , academic english . '' but they were fast learners . ''now i rewrite maybe one sentence , '' mr . goldensohn said . tevye kelman , 22 , said the staff members decided to focus on stories they thought listeners could relate to , rather than ''one long body_count . '' their favorite broadcasts include an iraqi 's futile attempt to compete in the skeleton at the winter_olympics and the dangerous experience of being at a checkpoint , both from the viewpoint of a solider and from an iraqi father whose daughter was killed at one by a car_bomb attack . over the last year , the students have put together an online database of potential iraqi sources . ''i 've talked with american reporters , and we 're both calling baghdad , '' said eva barboni , 21 . ''they ca n't leave their hotel room , and they 're calling a mile away . i 'm calling from 6 , 000 miles away . '' ms . templeton checks in regularly with an iraqi college student . once , when she could not reach him in a period of rising violence , she began to worry . a few weeks later she learned he had been caught in a crackdown a parental one . he had not performed well on exams , and his father took away his cellphone . ''it was an amazing moment'' of cultural common ground , ms . templeton said . the marine_corps recently added a link to war news radio from its web_site . barak a . salmoni , a civilian who provides educational and cultural resources to the marines and who has taught a course about conflicts in the middle_east at swarthmore in past years , said marines serving in iraq have told him they sometimes listened . ''they slap it on their ipods , '' mr . salmoni said . wren elhai , 19 , said the war news radio staff had not absorbed the increasing attention ''we 've all been too busy to really stop and think about how crazy all this really is . ''",has a topic of education
"lead when communist rule was toppled last year , and the old order swept away , one of the most abrupt changes in this town of modest villas and vineyards centered on the small building where elisabeth aust 's children attend elementary_school . when communist rule was toppled last year , and the old order swept away , one of the most abrupt changes in this town of modest villas and vineyards centered on the small building where elisabeth aust 's children attend elementary_school . for four decades the school had prepared pupils to be communist citizens , passing on to them the rituals and lore of the party . like their counterparts at all other east_german schools , the teachers taught that communism was superior to capitalism . repeatedly and as part of the syllabus , they lauded east_germany 's indestructible bond of friendship with the soviet_union . it was at schools like this one that generations of pupils received the red scarves that showed them to be members of the communist youth movement . and then suddenly all that changed . what had been required instruction was no longer even mentioned . indeed it was often disparaged . the same 20 teachers who had been telling youngsters about the inevitable triumph of communism were now being called upon to explain and extol democratic elections . an overnight change ''without a single explanation , everything changed from one day to the next , '' recalled mrs . aust , who was chosen to head the parents and teachers' committee . she had been a quiet critic of the old system , a woman who had been kept from going to college because she attended protestant church services . still she is alarmed about the speed with which the educational atmosphere has changed , and concerned about the long term effect the change is likely to have on the children . ''not one single time was anything talked about or explained to the children , '' she said the other afternoon as the first school year under a democratically_elected government began . mrs . aust said she was particularly troubled as she watched teachers pass from communism to democracy in virtual silence . she recalled an incident that took place shortly before the communists fell from power in which a teacher refused to enter a medieval church during a field trip for fear that some pupils might report her to their orthodox communist parents . now , mrs . aust said , ''we have children who tell their teachers , 'you were a stasi agent , too . ' '' she made it clear that she found the atmosphere of intimidation in both examples to be reprehensible . but just as there were pupils who denounced their teachers in the past , she said , so too are there now teachers in some schools who did work for the east_german secret_police , or stasi . in january , under the government of the last communist prime_minister , hans_modrow , as many as 1 , 000 to 1 , 500 former stasi agents were given jobs as schoolteachers in the east_berlin system . the goal was apparently not to infiltrate the schools , but to find jobs for some of the tens of thousands of agents who were dismissed as part of the spy agency 's dismantling . mrs . aust recalled how old , publicly revered symbols had vanished right before the eyes of her children and their classmates . communist youth organizations like the young_pioneers and free german youth , once the sole centers of extracurricular activity , have disappeared without a trace . red flags , portraits of communist leaders and heroes , and symbols of the former system are gone as well . mrs . aust , who is in her early 40 's and works as a furniture restorer , said that after the war many germans swept their memories clean . she said she does not think that a society can bear such forgetfulness twice within a short span and she asserted that such questions should be raised in schools . ''we have to come to grips with the moral question of how an entire people that was blinded once already in this century could have been seduced a second time , '' she said . compounding the educational and moral confusion that so worries mrs . aust are traces of the old system that remain in textbooks yet to be replaced . math books with soldiers ''their readers , their geography books , even their arithmetic books are filled with texts and problems involving soldiers and tanks , '' mrs . aust said of the books in her children 's school . first graders there began the school year with a reader that told them , ''we live in the german_democratic_republic , '' the offical name for the east_german state . ''this is our fatherland . '' while people like mrs . aust are concerned largely with questions of curriculum and teaching methods , east_german schoolteachers , in their own debates , appear much more concerned with issues of their own job_security and salaries as they ponder their future in the new germany . the insecurity comes partly from the much publicized crumbling economy , with its shortages and increasing unemployment . it is also a response to calls for purging teachers considerd to have been too closely_aligned with the former communist government . at a recent meeting of teachers from east_berlin schools , dieter pavlik , the schools commissioner , was bombarded with questions about salaries , tenure and the future of teachers whose specialty was marxism leninism . mr . pavlik , supported by his west_berlin counterpart , sybille volkholz , struck a note that found sympathy among the teachers when he declared that no teacher need fear for the future , nor would there be dismissals based on ''unfounded suspicion . '' in an interview , ms . volkholz , a former teachers' union official , recalled that in the first flush of freedom most east_german school principals had been summarily fired , and teacher assemblies had been formed to democratically elect successors . but she said that in more than half the schools the newly formed faculty boards , evidently fearful of setting off abrupt changes , had re elected the old school directors . she said that once the educational systems merged , teachers suspected of having tainted pasts would be given an opportunity to answer the accusations against them . ''our jurists cannot simply fire people , '' she said . ''they have to examine them individually to see which people , on the basis of their past , cannot be kept . '' change in the east_german schools is accelerating , at least in berlin , by pairing schools from eastern and western parts of the city to establish cooperative partnerships , ms . volkholz said . teachers are also being exchanged across the old divisions that were breached last november when the berlin_wall was opened . berlin 's school system is to serve as a model for change in the rest of east_germany , she said . schools produced party cadres east_germany 's communist led school system , like those throughout the former soviet_bloc , was regarded by the ruling party as a transmission belt from the leadership to youth . a primary function was to provide party cadres . ''control of the schools was one of the success stories of this state , '' said karl ulrich mayer , an authority on the east 's school system at the max planck institute in west_berlin . control of the schools began at the teacher training colleges , he explained . there students , quartered in closely_watched dormitories , were organized into collectives of 20 or 25 under the control of the free german youth , the party 's youth wing , and were carefully drilled in communist ideology . all school principals were required to be members of the party . to promote change from the bottom up , mr . mayer said , east_german teacher colleges will be restructured on the west_german model . west_germany has already fostered the process of change by sending millions of copies of schoolbooks to the east to replace those laced with marxist ideology . but the sluggishness of the east 's centrally controlled system has meant that many of these books are lying in warehouses while teachers in many schools are still using the old books .",has a topic of education
"the inuit of the canadian arctic have forsaken their sod houses and dog sleds for satellite_television and snowmobiles in less than two generations . assembling a smoothly functioning government and a solid educational system has been another matter entirely . the initiative to grant nunavut , a land of frozen fjords , desolate tundra and roaming herds of caribou , self rule seven years ago was heralded worldwide as an enlightened attempt to right past wrongs against a suffering aboriginal people . but two recent federal_government reports tell a disheartening story of frustrated hopes and local failures that do not bode well for nunavut 's exceptionally young population ( 38 percent of its people are under 14 ) , one still plagued by widespread drug abuse , alcoholism , suicide and family abuse . one report found that only 25 percent of inuit students graduate from high_school . the lack of basic skills means that the territorial government has filled only 45 percent of its 3 , 200 public positions with inuit , once known as eskimos , although inuit are 85 percent of the population . meanwhile , unemployment for the territory is at 30 percent , with some communities suffering 70 percent unemployment . ''nunavut faces a moment of change , a moment of crisis , '' wrote thomas r . berger , a former british_columbia supreme_court judge , in his report to the federal minister of indian_affairs and northern development . noting that 75 percent of nunavut 's 30 , 000 people speak inuktitut as their first language while the principal language of the government remains english , judge berger added , ''the people of the new territory speak a language which is an impediment to obtaining employment in their own public service . '' a second report , by sheila fraser , the auditor general of canada , disclosed widespread public financial mismanagement that was responsible for errors , bad decisions , waste and fraud in the spending of nearly 1 billion in annual federal and other financing . she noted that the territorial government 's efforts to decentralize operations to spread public jobs beyond the capital , iqaluit , had spread accounting talent too thinly . she recommended ' 'recentralizing'' government accounting operations so senior staff members could more closely supervise less experienced public workers . ''probably we need more time , '' said levi barnabas , a member of the nunavut legislative assembly , acknowledging in an interview the central conclusions of the two reports . ''education in southern canada is 200 years old , and our education system is only 60 years old . '' few sociologists are surprised by the lack of significant improvement since the establishment of the territory despite the highest per capita federal aid budget for any jurisdiction in the country . the inuit are a traditionally nomadic people who migrated about 1 , 000 years ago from western alaska toward what is today arctic canada . until very recently , they had no formal political organization . nuclear families lived together and occasionally joined other families to compose small , fluid bands to share their hunt . since world_war_ii , the inuit have been forced by the federal_government to abandon their nomadic lives for remote settlements approachable only by airplane . the federal police killed their sled dogs , saying they were sickly . young inuit were required to leave their parents and sent to residential schools , where they were routinely abused physically and sexually . modern life has its benefits , but the inuit diet of hunted game has largely been replaced by sugary and fatty packaged foods . welfare has become a way of life , and 30 year old grandparents are not uncommon . housing is scarce , so crowding only exacerbates social ills . the new conservative government of prime_minister stephen_harper has earmarked nearly 200 million for new housing in the territory in its budget , but that fell short of what the previous liberal government had promised . judge berger recommended in his report that a good way to start fixing nunavut would be to restructure its bilingual educational system in which children are taught in inuktitut through fourth or fifth grade and then introduced to english as the sole language of instruction . ''this reintroduces the colonial message of inferiority , '' he wrote . ''the inuit student mentally withdraws . '' he recommended that both languages be used through elementary and secondary_schools . territorial and federal officials say they are studying the recommendation . daniel iqaluk , 22 , whose main employment is washing dishes in the hamlet of resolute , said he quit school after 11th_grade because his classes were boring and confusing . he said his problems started early while his parents spoke to him at home in english , his classes in early elementary_school were in inuktitut . ''i could n't understand what they were talking about so all i did was watch and i never learned , '' he added while taking a break from cleaning an oil slick from a leaky snowmobile . he said he did not think the establishment of self government for the territory made a difference , ''but i do n't know why . '' many others here say they do like self rule , and think it will bear fruit with time . ''job wise we 're not better off , '' said mayor susan salluviniq of resolute , who was unraveling a ball of yarn for a worker who knits on the floor of an office equipped with high speed internet , maps and a fax_machine . ''but it 's slowly coming along . ''",has a topic of education
"in an unusual departure from the tradition of regal silence , prince_charles fought back on monday against accusations by a government minister who called his views on education ''old fashioned'' and ''out of time . '' the heir to the throne , who has often courted public debate with seemingly idiosyncratic views on topics from architecture to agriculture , carried out his counterattack at a closed meeting with church of england bishops . while reporters were not permitted to attend the gathering , prince_charles 's aides released the text of his remarks to journalists . the kerfuffle began last week when education minister charles clarke himself broke with protocol , faulting the prince for asking in a leaked private memo ''what is wrong with everyone nowadays ? why do they all seem to think they are qualified to do things far beyond their capabilities ? '' the prince 's comments and mr . clarke 's criticism reopened a long standing debate about the role and future of the british monarchy . the prince 's aides were quoted as expressing alarm that this latest debate would further damage his credentials as a future king . in his remarks on monday , prince_charles said it was a ''travesty of the truth'' to suggest , as his critics had done , that his earlier remarks meant that he opposed ambition or believed that people should not rise above their station in life . ''not everyone has the same talents or abilities , but everyone with the right nurturing can make a real difference to their communities and to the country , '' he said . ''ambition is a good thing and should never be constrained by a person 's starting point in life . ''but success can come in many forms , '' he said . ''in my view , it is just as great an achievement to be a plumber or a bricklayer as it is to be a lawyer or a doctor . '' following his remarks last week , the prince 's supporters sought to highlight his lifelong charitable work , particularly the prince 's trust , a not for profit body that , according to its web_site , ''helps young people overcome barriers and get their lives working . '' but his decision to put his views on record on monday raised concerns among some royal watchers that he risks being dragged into a demeaning debate that could endanger the monarchy . ''it is simply not the role of the prince of wales to plunge into public debate , '' said peter oborne , a columnist for the evening_standard in london . ''charles has failed to follow the example of his mother , the queen , who has heroically kept her mouth shut for more than 50 years . '' ''the british monarchy saved itself in the 17th_century by coming out of the political arena , '' mr . oborne wrote . ''since then it has preserved its authority through maintaining its silence and mystique . if prince_charles tries to engage with democratic politics , he will be destroyed , and rightly so . ''",has a topic of education
"in the first year of the new russia , a group of students enrolled in a new western style graduate school to learn a long forbidden academic discipline market economics . they were heady days . the soviet_union had just collapsed . economic reforms were beginning , sending prices spinning . new social classes of the fantastically rich and painfully poor were beginning to emerge . the students , 20 year olds from moscow universities , wanted to understand it . now , 10 years later , the graduates of the new economics school have grown into some of russia 's most promising young leaders . one became the youngest deputy minister in the government at age 29 . another was hired by the sloan school of management at the massachusetts_institute_of_technology as one of the few women to teach there . yet another is chief_executive_officer of a large investment fund in moscow . the first graduating_class gathered for its 10th reunion in moscow late last month . the event , held as a conference on the russian economy , was attended by many leading policy_makers , including the russian finance minister and the former no . 2 official at the international_monetary_fund . even president vladimir v . putin sent his congratulations . the 34 graduates of the first class , now in jobs in business , education and government , were the first to receive a western style graduate education in economics after the soviet_union fell apart . many went on to receive advanced degrees from american or western_european universities . those who returned brought fresh ideas and outlooks to russia , and now are a powerful force for change . ''their worldview is much wider than ours was , '' oleg v . vyugin , 50 , first deputy chairman of the russian central_bank , said during the reunion . ''they are not afraid . they are capable of working here or anywhere . it 's all the same for them . that 's new . '' they were a generation on the cusp of change . the one just ahead of them , already in the work force at the end of the soviet_union , produced the young reformers of the 1990 's , who taught themselves economics from textbooks and set russia careering toward capitalism . it also begot the business tycoons who profiteered during the free for all that followed . the generation after them barely remembers communism . ''our generation has a mix of old and new , '' said arkady v . dvorkovich , a new economics school graduate who is now a deputy minister on the government 's economic_reform team . ''we still had marx and pioneer camps . for students several years younger than us , that did n't exist . for those who were older , it is all they knew . '' the graduates are also distinctly less cynical than the preceding generation . while tycoons were grabbing oil companies and reformers were dismantling the economy , mr . dvorkovich and many of his fellow students were trying to understand it . after receiving a master 's degree from duke_university , mr . dvorkovich returned to take a job in government . at 27 he became one of the architects of mr . putin 's economic program . his current position as deputy minister pays less than he could expect in private business , but he lives frugally , helped by savings from previous consulting work . ''we can think in soviet ways or in new ways , '' he said at his office recently . ''it leads to easier compromise , but sometimes it creates conflict inside yourself . we see that it is not right to smash everything from the past . some of it was good . '' other graduates have also influenced public_policy . the economic expert group , a research organization run by former students , provided the first reliable economic statistics to the russian government , an important service in a country where the state of the economy had long been treated as a state secret . the new economics school brought leading economics professors from american and other western universities to teach the equivalent of the first two years of a western style doctorate in economics , with a certificate at the end that is comparable to a master 's degree . it was started by an israeli economics professor with a grant from the american philanthropist george_soros and is based in a drab moscow high rise that once housed the soviet_union 's top mathematicians . ''the change was already in the air , '' said yekaterina zhuravskaya , 30 , a graduate who is now a director at the center for economic and financial research here . russian colleges , she said , ''taught the same old stuff political_economy , socialism , weird things like that . there was a lack of something new . '' lifestyles also differ from a decade ago . graduates travel abroad freely , speak foreign languages and change jobs easily . ms . zhuravskaya , who shares a two room apartment with her husband and baby , rarely cooks , buys groceries over the internet and drives to work . she went on to receive her doctorate in economics from harvard and had her pick of jobs , but chose to return to russia , in part , she said , because she saw more opportunities here . since returning , she too has had a hand in shaping the russian economy . a world_bank financed study of small business that she led has shown moscow officials the shortcoming of their policies for reducing red_tape for small businesses . other graduates , however , stayed abroad . anna pavlova , now 29 , joined the sloan school 's faculty in 2000 . she said she had not returned to russia to work because her field finance is not an academic discipline here . back at the reunion , young people packed an auditorium . under the lights , top policy_makers were debating recipes for economic_growth . among them was mr . dvorkovich . ''sooner or later probably sooner they will come to take over the reins of power , '' andrei n . illarionov , 41 , one of the other panelists and an economic adviser to mr . putin , said of the young graduates . ''they will do a better job than my generation . i certainly hope so . ''",has a topic of education
"over the next three years , 12 professors from four universities in russia will spend a semester each at fairfield university learning about american culture and teaching methods under a program sponsored by the state_department . the university , in fairfield , conn . , received a 294 , 806 federal grant for the program . for the last three years , fairfield has had an exchange program that sent professors to herzen university in st . petersburg for two weeks . lia miller bulletin_board",has a topic of education
"the government unveiled a bill that would let universities nearly triple their annual tuition fees , charging as much as 5 , 500 a year . in concessions to labor_party critics in parliament who have threatened to vote against the bill , the bill 's sponsors said it would provide almost complete financial aid for students whose families earn less than 27 , 500 a year . under the plan , students would not have to pay their tuition fees until after they had begun earning 27 , 500 a year , and outstanding loans would be written off after 25 years . sarah lyall ( nyt )",has a topic of education
"europeans , led by britain , are rethinking their long held belief that university education should be financed almost entirely by the state . with costs rising , more students enrolling and universities lagging behind their american competitors , there is a growing sense that universities need to look beyond the government for money . in continental_europe , where universities charge either nothing or nominal tuition fees , governments are just beginning to talk about if , and how much , they can reasonably expect students to pay . here in britain , which introduced tuition fees in 1998 , prime_minister tony_blair faces a bruising fight next month over his government 's bold and unpopular proposal to allow britain 's universities to triple their annual tuition fees , to 3 , 000 a year , or 5 , 300 , starting in 2006 . the government argues that the move is essential if the country 's universities are to remain internationally competitive . but mr . blair is confronting formidable opposition from inside and outside his party , as well as from student groups who say that the plan would discourage would be students and contradict the deeply held believe that higher_education is a citizen 's right , as much as , say , health_care . ''there 's a long welfare_state tradition in this country in which it 's assumed that taxation will fund all public services , including education and higher_education , '' said prof . ivor crewe , president of universities u.k. , an organization made up of the vice chancellors of 122 british universities , which supports the government 's proposals . that may have been reasonable when fewer britons aspired to go to college , he said , but ''it 's quite different when 40 percent expect to go . '' in a recent report , the european_commission said that european_countries spend just 1.1 percent of their gross_domestic_product on higher_education , compared with 2.3 percent in the united_states , with the difference coming from private funding , including tuition fees . american universities also have higher endowments and better fund_raising operations , meaning that american universities have two to five times as much to spend on each student , according to the commission report . this translates into smaller classes , better facilities , a wider range of available courses , and higher paid teachers . ''countries have to get real about mass higher_education , '' said nicholas barr , professor of public economics at the london school of economics . ''the way they 've done it in mainland europe is to cram more and more people in the universities without raising the financing per student . '' in france , where undergraduates pay from 280 to 350 euros a year , or 350 to 435 , to take classes in sprawling , chaotic universities , students recently took to the streets to protest against a number of proposed changes to the system that , they feared , would lead to competition between universities and pave the way for increased privatization and higher tuition fees . in germany , where undergraduate education is still free in public universities , a number of state governments have gone to court to challenge a federal law , passed last year , that forbids public universities to charge tuition . at the same time , impending budget cuts in state university financing have touched off student strikes and protests in berlin and other cities . ''it is part of the social democrat ideology that one of the prime rights of humanity is to have a free_university education , '' toni schmid , an official in the bavarian education ministry , said of the german_government . with about two million students , compared with some 200 , 000 in the early 1970 's , mr . schmid said , the ratio of students to teachers at german universities is currently about 80 or 90 to 1 . bavaria , which has to cut 5 percent cut from its higher_education budget of 1 . 86 billion this year , is one of the states suing for the right to charge tuition . ''in bavaria , there 's a saying , 'if it 's free , it is n't worth anything , ' '' mr . schmid said . ''studying at university is very valuable , and we think it should cost something . '' under the british plan , low income students would have access to scholarships and grants to help with living costs , and no one would have to pay the tuition up front . rather , the fees would be handled as loans , which students would be required to repay only after after they have left school and begun earning about 25 , 000 or 30 , 000 a year . mr . blair all but staked his job on the plan 's passage . ''it is a huge argument to make , and it is as big an argument as people made when they were founding the welfare_state , '' he said earlier this month . but students' groups are suspicious , saying the plan would deter poorer students from entering a university and lead to higher fees in future years , sending britain down an american style route of spiraling costs and debt laden young people . ''i do n't think anyone is in doubt that higher_education is underfunded , '' said dan ashley , a spokesman for the national union of students , which represents student groups . ''but we do n't believe that asking the person who has the least the cash_strapped student to pay the most is the answer . '' the british_government and the schools say they have no choice but to pursue this course . the universities , which are receiving 14 . 6 billion this year from the government , need some 14 billion more over the next three years in order to maintain standards , mr . crewe said . this is a time of rapid expansion in the student population , as britons increasingly accept that higher_education is not simply for the middle_class . in 1985 , only 14 percent of high_school graduates went to college the figure is now close to 40 percent . at the same time , physical plants are languishing university departments are closing and talented faculty_members are being lured to the united_states , where salaries are higher and research conditions more attractive . while british institutions produced 46 nobel_laureates in science in the past 51 years , according to the government , only 14 won in the last 20 years . ''oxford and cambridge are lagging behind , not in faculty quality , but in replacement , '' said prof . david hendry , chairman of the economics department at oxford . ''one worry i have about the system is that 35 to 40 percent of our top academics will retire by 2012 , and there 's nobody to replace them . '' oxford estimates that it loses about 4 , 000 per student per year and is running at a 40 . 5 million annual deficit , a gap it has filled by transferring cash from investments and other outside income . undergraduates from outside the european_union pay 13 , 000 to 18 , 400 a year , depending on what courses they take . that range provides some insight into what the market would bear if the universities were free to set their own fees . if objections to the proposal are formidable , many education experts feel it does not go far enough . lord butler , the master of university_college , oxford , recently suggested that tuition be at least 8 , 800 a year , while sir richard sykes , rector of imperial college , london , has suggested 17 , 600 to 21 , 000 a year . the conservative_party is fighting the plan by reversing its traditional free_market position and vowing to scrap university tuition altogether if it comes into power . the liberal_democrats , meanwhile , favor raising taxes to close the financing gap . more worryingly for mr . blair , 159 labor members of parliament signed a motion criticizing the plan this month , saying it contradicted labor 's fundamental philosophy . with a vote expected in january , it is unclear whether mr . blair will have enough support for his plan . ''introducing a market into higher_education is something the labor_party should not be doing , '' nick ashley , a labor member of parliament who opposes the measure , told sky_news recently .",has a topic of education
"one is the son of a new york city cab_driver , who dreams of becoming an investigative journalist . another is a budding composer . the pair , sewell chan and matthew lima , both of harvard_university , are among the 40 americans whose receipt of marshall scholarships was announced on monday by the british embassy . students may use the award to spend up to three years studying at any british university after graduation from an american college or university . the other marshall scholars , to begin study next fall , are adamson , daniel , yale_university beirne , katherine , university of notre dame bell , mark , stanford_university berg , jason , united_states_naval_academy cazares , shelley , massachusetts_institute_of_technology chen , eric , vanderbilt_university cheng , guang len , m.i.t . christensen , romy , naval_academy das , rhiju , harvard_university driver , justin , brown_university drury , annmarie , university of houston eickman , jordan , arizona_state_university gray , robert , m.i.t . heneveld , alex , princeton_university huynh , van , university of indiana johari , ramesh , harvard klein , daniel , cornell_university lack , jeremy , cornell majorowski , meghan , university of pittsburgh mcdermott , joshua , harvard michaels , jon , williams college neitzke , andrew , princeton pexa , christopher , arizona_state post , alison , stanford rapp , geoffrey , harvard sabin , warwick , university of arkansas saccente , brian , harvard sellers garcia , sylvia , brown sharifi , payam , columbia_university sheu , eric , harvard skomp , elizabeth , university of indiana tompkins , jeffrey , cornell vernon , ann , university of tulsa west , joshua , yale williams , aisha , princeton wykoff , charles , m.i.t .",has a topic of education
"forty students from 28 colleges and universities have won this year 's marshall scholarships , which pay for american students to continue their studies for two or three years at british universities . worth about 50 , 000 over two years , the scholarships will cover tuition , books , travel and living expenses for students while in britain . they are financed by the british_government . the winners were announced recently by the british ambassador , sir christopher meyer . the marshall scholarships were established in 1953 as a british gesture of thanks to the people of the united_states for the assistance received after world_war_ii under the marshall_plan . more than 1 , 000 marshall scholarships have been awarded . following is a complete list of this year 's marshall scholars agarwal , nisha , harvard_university bagby , sarah , university of chicago bass , jacqueline , west virginia university cerrito , jonathan , united_states_naval_academy chacko , jacob , university_of_southern_california chen , jasper , massachusetts_institute_of_technology chenault , robert , university of chicago cleary , yahonnes , columbia_university clelland , khalilah , fordham_university cox , melissa , university of tulsa depristo , mark , northwestern_university einbond , aaron , harvard_college grant , monica , university of kentucky haglund , david , university of chicago hubbard , rebecca , university of pittsburgh jacobsohn , michael , harvard_college jay , julianya , mount holyoke college kirksey , scott , new college of university of south florida leach , bryan , harvard_college march , andrew , university of pennsylvania mccarville , megan , northwestern_university miller , thomas iii , texas a m mitchell , olivia , u.s . air_force_academy morgan , letisha , university of minnesota nana , chavi , wellesley_college oreskovich , annemarie , harvard_university painter , geoffrey , university of portland rama , sujit , harvard_college rau , alexander , cornell_university rea , susan , princeton_university robson , laura , tulane_university roddenberry , david , harvard_college sexton , jay , university of kansas smithers , jessica , george_washington_university spence , mathew , stanford_university stewart , sarah , miami university ( ohio ) ward , robert , university of new mexico weinberg , richard , columbia_university wiik , katherine , macalester college willis , avery , stanford_university",has a topic of education
"lead in a major blow to the authority of prime_minister li_peng , seven senior military figures formally objected on monday to the government 's plan to bring troops into the capital and suppress china 's democracy movement . in a major blow to the authority of prime_minister li_peng , seven senior military figures formally objected on monday to the government 's plan to bring troops into the capital and suppress china 's democracy movement . the signers of the strongly worded letter , among them a former defense minister and a former army chief of staff , command great prestige and influence , although they are no longer on active_duty . ''in view of the extremely serious situation , we as veteran soldiers demand that the people 's liberation army not confront the population , nor quell the people , '' the letter said . ''the army must absolutely not shoot the people . in order to prevent the situation from worsening , the army must not enter the city of beijing . '' rebuke to li and deng the letter was the clearest indication yet of the opposition within the military to the crackdown begun early saturday by prime_minister li and deng_xiaoping , china 's senior leader . it was not clear if the government would still be able to muster enough compliance in the army to bring troops into the center of the capital . for more than three days , troops have stood idly at barricades put up on the edge of the city by ordinary citizens . in another blow to mr . li and mr . deng , newspapers and television seemed on monday to criticize the leaders' call to bring troops into the capital . the tone of the criticism was indirect but its point was unmistakable . propaganda purge still , mr . li was in sufficient control of the communist_party on monday to replace the entire leadership involved in propaganda work , including those who control mass communication , chinese officials said . they said mr . li personally took charge of propaganda , which had been the responsibility of hu qili , a member of the politburo . it was not clear whether that move would lead to a tightening of controls on the television news programs and of the newspapers , which have grown much more independent in recent days . the reorganization of the propaganda bureau may also make it more difficult for the official party newspaper , people 's daily , to publish the letter from the seven military leaders . although the letter has not been publicly released , copies are circulating among officials in the capital , and people 's daily has received a copy . crouds grow thinner enormous crowds continued to demonstrate for more democracy on monday afternoon and monday evening , but the numbers seemed to be thinning . on monday_night , fewer than 50 , 000 people spent the night in the area around tiananmen_square , half the number of two days ago . as the risk of a direct military confrontation seemed to ease , many beijing residents apparently decided to sleep instead of staying up all night to challenge tanks that might never arrive . ''they are tiring us out , '' warned a new poster that students pasted all over the center of the city . ''now they plan to attack us by surprise . '' but the army did not attack , and there appeared to be little military enthusiasm for a fight that would draw swarms of citizens . on monday , military helicopters buzzed tiananmen_square and several univeristy campuses , dropping leaflets urging demonstrators to cooperate with the army and leave the square . each time the leaflets dropped , the crowds seemed to surge in every direction as demonstrators frantically grabbed at the sheets of paper . but after reading them , they mostly threw them down in disgust . the signers of the military letter include zhang aiping , a former defense minister xiao ke , a former deputy defense minister yang dezhi , a former army chief of staff song shilun , a former commandant of the academy of military sciences chen zaidao , a former commander of the wuhan military region ye fei , a former commander of the navy , and li jukui , a former leading member of the military academy . well known figures the seven leaders are among the best known figures in military circles , and their influence seems likely to make itself felt through networks of fellow officers in high military commands . in addition , about 100 military officials and members of the communist_party central advisory commission have signed the letter , said a chinese familiar with the efforts to prevent martial_law from being carried out . their names were not listed on a copy of the letter obtained in beijing , and their identities could not be determined . it could not be learned how many of those signers were on active_duty . ever since his call on saturday morning for a military crackdown was essentially ignored , there has been growing doubt about prime_minister li 's hold on power . although some troops entered the capital , they were stopped and in some cases turned back by large numbers of students and workers who blocked their way . most of the troops seemed content to be held up , and none tried very hard to keep going . stalemate in capital for the last few days , there has been an uneasy stalemate in the capital . tens of thousands of university students are occupying tiananmen_square , in the center of the city , and each evening hundreds of thousands of beijing residents turn out to guard local intersections and keep back army troops in the case of an attack . police and army troops are nowhere to be seen in the center of beijing , except for a few traffic policemen . at several locations in the suburbs , convoys of army trucks and armored_personnel_carriers have been sitting for the last few days , held hostage by large crowds who refuse to let the soldiers advance or retreat . many of the students in the square are showing the wear of more than a month of pro_democracy_demonstrations , and splits seemed to appear on monday among the student leaders . one leader , wuer kaixi , now seems to be widely criticized after trying twice on monday to convince students to leave tiananmen_square . parley falls apart negotiations between the students and the communist_party collapsed on monday afternoon when mr . wuer failed to persuade other students to support an agreement to leave the square , said an official familiar with the negotiations . the party proposal called for the students to leave the square in exchange for a pledge that troops would not enter the capital , the official said . student morale seems to be waning slightly , partly because of growing exhaustion and partly because of the increasing squalor on tiananmen_square . most of the tens of thousands of students who sleep each night on the square have not taken a bath or changed clothes in a week or so , and some are beginning to think of exams . now that the hunger_strike by 3 , 000 students has ended , there is not quite the sense of urgency that there was a few days ago , and the romance of living in the filth of the square is fading . nevertheless , many students and workers are clearly determined to continue indefinitely . ''almost all of us want to keep going , '' a woman who is a student leader said late monday_night . ''some will go home , but more are coming all the time . '' power struggle grows the crisis seems more likely to be resolved by the highest levels of the party or the military than by what the students decide in the square . the power struggle seems to be continuing between mr . li and the party leader , zhao_ziyang , but neither side has made any statement lately . there has been no indication that mr . zhao 's situation has changed , even though senior party officials say that in fact he has been stripped of his authority , although he retains his title as general secretary of the party . mr . zhao has requested a ''vacation'' but remains in beijing to plan what he hopes will be his comeback , officials close to the party leadership say . mr . li is also in the capital , and mr . deng may be as well , although there are scattered rumors about trips he is making to other parts of the country . army 's hallowed role mr . li has been vulnerable to several criticisms for his decision , with president yang_shangkun and mr . deng , to call in the people 's liberation army . the most obvious is simply that the army fills a hallowed role in china as helper of the people , and it is extremely reluctant to be used by one political faction to suppress the opposition . a senior chinese journalist said that the military is also upset about the use of field armies in the capital because of a long tradition , dating back to imperial times , that the capital would be protected only by the palace guard . the modern equivalent of the palace guard is the beijing garrison command , and military leaders are said to feel that intrusion of field armies into the capital suggests military interference in the political process . the reorganization of the propaganda structure , traditionally one of the most important areas of the party , suggests that mr . li is still calling the shots at the central party level . the loser in that power play appears to be hu qili , a reformist who now is believed to be supporting mr . zhao on the five member standing committe of the politburo . prime_minister li was said by the government official to have dismissed two top party officials associated with mr . zhao bao_tong and rui xingwen from the working group on propaganda . as new members of the group he has appointed two of his own associates , yuan mu and he dongchang , as well as zeng jianhui , a deputy president of the official new china news_agency . the group will have its work cut out for it , as there were signs today that news organizations were opposing mr . li 's call for a military crackdown . 'quite reasonable' the television news broadcast a long interview on monday evening with an army officer whose convoy had been blocked by local citizens . the officer said he had reported the problem to his superiors and was awaiting orders . ''since we arrived , we have seen that the students are quite reasonable , '' the officer said . ''those of us on both sides share the same feelings . ''",has a topic of education
"lead for one student , emanuela gentile , the choices under italy 's ' 'religion hour'' order were few but not simple . for one student , emanuela gentile , the choices under italy 's ' 'religion hour'' order were few but not simple . like every public schoolboy and girl in italy , she had to decide whether to take a course in religion for an hour a week , which in this country means roman_catholic studies , or one of four alternative programs being offered by her high_school , liceo mamiani in rome . taking nothing at all was not an option . ''wherever you go , the church has some role it has always been true and probably always will be , '' miss gentile , 17 years old , said . ''i felt like protesting . '' that , she explained , was how she ended up in a once a week economics class . but to a 16 year old schoolmate , veronica cutolo , a weekly dose of religion made sense . ''i 'm not really sure about the existence of god , but i think that in this class i can find some answers , '' she said . ''at least , i might find out why other people believe . '' so she sat attentively at liceo mamiani one recent saturday morning as a priest , the rev . angelo arrighini , roamed a field of subjects from the newly discredited shroud of turin to satanic cults , with occasional detours into questions such as whether jesus 's hair was long or short . 'tradition of this country' it was not his intention to teach catholic doctrine , father arrighini said . ''what i try to do , '' he said , ''is simply to show how catholicism is part of the historical and cultural tradition of this country . '' the very existence of his course was proof enough . four years ago , the vatican and italy 's government signed a revised concordat that ended catholicism 's status as the state_religion . but today , the two sides continue to wrestle with the problem and their relationship . the focus of the dispute , early in the new academic year , is the court ordered ' 'religion hour , '' a contentious issue embroiling students , parents , teachers , school administrators , religious groups and politicians . under the old concordat , concluded between pope pius xi and mussolini in 1929 , classes in catholic doctrine were compulsory in state schools unless students or parents asked for exemptions . the changes made in 1984 were intended to make such instruction voluntary . choice is mandatory that is not exactly how things have worked out , however . in a recent ruling , a high level court , the council of state , interpreted the new agreement to mean that all students from nursery_school through high_school are obliged to take either a weekly hour of religious instruction or an alternative of some sort . the point was that they had to choose something . the practical result is that 90 percent of italian public_school students continue to receive religious education , from catholic priests selected by the church and paid as all priests are by the state . some students actively prefer the religion hour , or their parents do . but many are also responding to group pressure , or to the imperatives of tradition , or to the fact that some schools , especially in more remote districts , offer no desirable alternatives . ''many of them are so disenchanted , they simply do n't care , '' said luigi covatta , an under secretary in the ministry of public education . ''they 're not afraid of one hour of religion , so they take it . but it 's not important to them . '' even so , protestant and jewish groups protest what they regard as the preservation of the special status of catholicism , whether or not it is called the state_religion . lay political_parties , including some that belong to the five party governing coalition , complain that at least a third option should be added that of taking no course at all . avoiding temptation that idea hardly appeals to church leaders , who assume that most students would simply stay away . ''even i as a catholic boy would have gone home , '' said msgr . cesare nosiglia , an official of the italian bishops' conference . ''one less hour of school is a temptation that 's too strong . '' the church 's concern is underlined in schools that provide genuine alternatives to the religion hour . at liceo mimiani , for example , students may choose among courses in economics , music , law and computers . one consequence is that barely half the students signed up this term for religion classes . despite the fact that organized religion has fallen on troubled times in italy surveys show , for instance , that only 25 percent of catholics attend sunday mass the cultural grip of the church remains formidable . in overwhelming numbers , italians continue to be baptized , married and buried by priests . ''it 's still a catholic country that 's the reality , '' said carlo cardia , a lawyer who sits on a church state commission that deals with concordat questions . mr . cardia typifies the tug of war within the italian soul . he is a communist . yet on the wall behind his desk hangs a large oil portrait of the magi adoring the infant jesus . asked to reconcile the apparent contradiction , he shrugged . the new system is a challenge for priests as well . they must figure out how to teach the basics of their faith and yet not disaffect parents who want catechism kept out of public schools . under the old concordat , priests had a captive audience , if often an indifferent one . now , the assignment is tougher , says the rev . gianni todescato of santa chiara church in northern rome . ''if we do n't live up to students' expectations , '' he said , ''we will lose them . ''",has a topic of education
"a man carrying four handguns stormed into a school here this morning and opened fire on a gym class filled with 5 and 6 year olds , killing 16 children and a teacher , and reserving a final bullet to take his own life . twelve more children from dun blane primary_school were wounded , three critically , the police said . the scottish police identified the gunman as thomas hamilton , 43 , a loner and avid gun enthusiast who lived in a housing_project in nearby stirling . mr . hamilton arrived at the school , in a well to do section of town , at about 9 30 a.m . and began firing his weapons haphazardly on the playground , according to louis munn , a spokesman for the strathclyde police . no one was hit and mr . hamilton made his way inside . "" several people saw him , but i do n't think they had the opportunity to challenge him , "" officer munn said . the shootings took a matter of minutes . the gunman entered the first floor auditorium where children from primary 1 equivalent to an american kindergarten or first grade were in gym class , and began to fire . he apparently shot the children even as they ran from him in panic . "" the bodies were all found in the same vicinity close together , "" officer munn said . ambulance workers told the police that after shooting the children and the teacher , gwenne mayor , mr . hamilton shot himself in the head . the police received an emergency call at 9 38 a.m. , and rescue workers later said they arrived to a scene of unspeakable horror . "" it was a like a scene out of a medieval torture chamber , "" john mcewan , who coordinated the rescue operation , told the scottish daily record . "" there were literally piles of dead bodies , most of them just little kids . blood was splattered all over the floor and walls and there was literally blood everywhere . "" pat greenhill , a town official , said emergency workers were devastated by what they found . "" the policemen had seen nothing like that before , "" she said , "" having to go into that gymnasium and see all those little children lying there . "" meanwhile rumors that something terrible had happened were spreading fast around the ancient cathedral town , where life is centered on one main_street , the enormous dunblane cathedral at its top , and the allenwater river , which cuts dunblane in two . it is impossible , residents say , not to be personally touched by the shooting through relatives , friends or neighbors . "" it 's been a horrible day , "" said a woman working behind the cash_register at nicolson 's pharmacy , where the talk from lunchtime on was of nothing but the shootings . "" and it affects everyone here . "" the attack focused immediate attention on handgun legislation and school security in a country where most police officers do not even carry guns , and where most schools are more concerned about budget cuts than about violence . but at a news conference this evening , officer munn said that as horrific as the incident was , it appeared to have been "" totally random "" and without explanation . "" at the moment we are unaware of any motive , "" officer munn said . but it later emerged that mr . hamilton , the gunman , had a long history of working with children and generating complaints from parents who found his behavior odd and "" improper . "" in recent years , mr . hamilton led several local boys' clubs . in 1973 he was made a boy_scout leader in stirling , the scout association said . but in 1974 he was asked to resign "" following complaints about unstable and possibly improper behavior , "" a spokesman for the group told the press association , britain 's domestic news_agency . "" since then , he has made a number of attempts to get back into scouting , "" the spokesman said , "" but has never been accepted . "" in a nation where most guns are in the hands of inner city criminals and country sportsmen , today 's incident stirred immediate memories of a similar one in berkshire , england , in which a gunman in hungerford used an arsenal of weapons to kill 14 people before killing himself . that incident , in 1987 , led to a law banning the use of automatic weapons and requiring permits for any guns taken off the premises of authorized gun clubs . mr . hamilton was a member of several local gun clubs and appeared to have permits for some of his weapons , officer munn said . reaction to today 's incident was swift . prime_minister john_major said the shootings were a "" sick and evil act that almost passes belief . "" and some teachers' groups began calling for better security at schools by , for example , insuring that each school has only one central entrance . there were 31 children in the affected primary 1 section , and only one who was in class today escaped without harm . two were home sick . tim campbell , an engineer in dunblane whose 6 year old daughter attends primary 2 at dunblane , said in an interview that he knew something had happened when his assistant , who has three children at the school , answered the telephone and turned ashen . "" 'something 's happened at the school' "" he said she told him . "" 'someone 's been shot . ' "" with that , they closed their office and rushed down to the school , but found it already cordoned off . they were directed to the lobby of a nearby hotel , mr . campbell said , where they joined a growing crowd of parents desperate to find out what had happened . "" eventually they told us if we had a child in primary 1 to go to one place , and everyone else go to another , "" mr . campbell said , describing his almost triumphal relief when he realized that his daughter was not a victim . he said his relief turned to immediate grief for the other children . two of the most critically_wounded children were taken by helicopter to hospitals in glasgow , while the rest went by ambulance to stirling royal hospital , where they were treated for gunshot_wounds to the stomach , chest and limbs . witnesses said doctors and nurses , some of whom had children at the school , were crying in the hallways as the children arrived . by evening , dunblane had fallen eerily_quiet . the police were still concluding interviews with children , teachers and parents in an attempt to piece together the exact sequence of events . and in the center of town , the rev . colin mcintosh , pastor of the majestic dunblane cathedral , said that its doors would be open well into the night . "" today we are are simply struggling to take in the reality of what has happened here , "" he said . "" we want to keep the cathedral open as long as necessary so that people have somewhere to come . """,has a topic of education
"with paris nursing its wounds after looting and violence disrupted a huge demonstration here on monday , french high_school students announced plans today to continue their campaign of protests against overcrowded classrooms , inadequate security and too few teachers . although the government responded to monday 's heavy student turnout by promising an emergency plan to help the country 's 4 , 700 high_schools , a student protest committee called for new demonstrations in paris and otherfrench towns and cities on friday . the government faced growing criticism not only for failing to respond to the students' demands but also for not controlling vandals who used monday 's demonstration to cause trouble . while the teen_age students marched peacefully from the place de la bastille into the latin_quarter on their way to the champs_elysees , older youths , many wearing_masks and carrying truncheons , looted shops in montparnasse , burned cars and repeatedly attacked the police . as a result of more than four hours of disturbances , 83 youths were arrested , close to 200 police officers were hurt , around 100 cars were burned and some 120 stores were looted . even the metro station at the pont de l'alma , where the police prevented rioters from crossing the river seine toward the champs_elysees , was damaged by fire . today the police chief of paris , pierre verbrugghe , defended the action of the police , arguing that it was more important to protect the 100 , 000 students than to attack the 1 , 000 or so vandals who , he admitted , acted "" with a speed , violence and tranquil cynicism that surprised us . "" opposition political_parties nonetheless criticized the interior_minister , pierre joxe , for the slow and inadequate response by the police , noting that looting during a smaller demonstration one week earlier had served as a warning that bigger trouble could come monday . aware of considerable public sympathy for the students and mindful of the widespread demonstrations by university students that rocked france in 1968 , the government has been anxious not to be seen as repressing the three week old movement . president_francois_mitterrand , who received a student delegation on monday , has suggested that the government of prime_minister michel_rocard should listen to the students' complaints . several prominent ministers as well as pierre mauroy , secretary general of the governing socialist_party , have distanced themselves from the education minister , lioneljospin . some french newspapers , including le_monde , have even speculated that , unless the crisis is rapidly resolved , the tensions created by the student movement within the government and the socialist_party could force the resignation of mr . rocard 's government . although mr . mitterrand chose mr . rocard as his prime_minister two years ago , it is widely believed that he considers the leader of the government to be a political rival . further , political experts believe the president would not like to see mr . rocard as his political successor . a more immediate question , though , appears to be whether mr . jospin can convince the students that his emergency plan can bring rapid improvements to high_schools in need of extra teachers and more classroom space .",has a topic of education
"the bavarian state parliament today passed a new law ordering crucifixes to be hung in school classrooms after the german supreme_court ruled the southern state 's previous law unconstitutional . the federal constitutional court ruled in august that bavaria could not insist that crucifixes hang in state classrooms because this violated the religious_freedom enshrined in the constitution . the new law , which could be again be challenged in the constitutional court , says that "" in view of the historical and cultural character of bavaria , a cross is to be put up in every classroom . "" if parents or children oppose the crucifixes , it calls on school principals to reach an "" amicable agreement "" with them . world news briefs",has a topic of education
"you could call it exhibit a . it 's a drawing in a text used to teach islam to muslim students at german elementary schools , and it shows a family at a table , a father , two children , and a mother , with plates of food in front of everybody except the mother , who wears a head_scarf . ''the mother is shown like a servant , '' said marion berning , the principal of the rixdorfer grundschule , a large elementary_school in neuk lln , a largely immigrant neighborhood of berlin . ''this is a big problem for the girls . '' ms . berning has become something of a figure in berlin lately for the complaints she has been raising about the way a german muslim group , the islamic federation , has been teaching about islam in the local public schools . her complaints , moreover , are echoed by some people in the berlin educational establishment , who believe that , under the cover of giving court mandated religious instruction to muslim children , a sort of fundamentalist or , at least , separatist philosophy is being imparted to children inside the very schools that should be teaching equality and the essential sameness of all people . representatives of the islamic federation , which is believed to have about 30 , 000 members in germany , vehemently deny that accusation , saying that the difficulty they confront in trying to carry out a program already being carried out by other religious groups is a bias against islam , not an accurate description of what takes place inside any classrooms . ''whatever we do , the way the schools look at this , we 're going to disagree , '' burhan kesici , the chairman of the board of governors of the islamic federation and the person in charge of the islamic education program , said in an interview . mr . kesici , a german born , german educated political_scientist whose parents came to germany as ''guest workers'' several decades ago , recounted a long list of incidents showing what he regards as this bias . in one case , he recalled , a school principal actually washed his hands after shaking hands with mr . kesici . in many ways the argument about religious instruction seems to bring together several currents in germany today , not least the uncertainty palpable in a country fully realizing for the first time that the muslim population that exists here is both large and permanent . there are 2 , 300 mosques across this country . in the school where ms . berning is principal , some 74 percent of the children are foreign born or have parents who were , and a vast majority of them are turkish muslims . berlin , which is both germany 's capital_city and a state , has a special situation in this regard . unlike the practice in other german states , where classes in religion are part of the regular school curriculum , in berlin , parents decide whether they want their children to have religious instruction or not , and outside groups , in the past almost entirely protestant or catholic , have the right to teach their religions inside the public schools . for many years , the berlin government tried to keep the islamic federation , which it plainly did not and does not like , out of its schools . but the federation went to court , and then went back to court again , and after 20 years of trying , it finally won a ruling identifying it as a ' 'religious community'' with the right to do the same thing that the other religions were doing . it now holds classes in 28 schools in berlin , and plans to expand to 15 more schools next year . so what 's the difference between the muslims and other religious groups , whose presence causes no alarm ? ms . berning and those who share her view note several things most important , perhaps , that the islamic federation does not allow outsiders like ms . berning to attend their classes , so the impression is given that something secret is taking place in them . but beyond the specific worries is the more general feeling that the islamic federation 's version of islam is a very conservative one , possibly fundamentalist , and therefore at odds with german values . ''i do not believe that they are teaching their pupils to make bombs , '' klaus b ger , the senior education official in the berlin city government , said of the federation , ''but i think they are rejecting our society and are teaching an intolerant form of islam . '' ms . berning says that some muslim girls , under the influence of their outsider muslim teachers , have stopped taking gym and swimming classes , and that a few of them have started wearing head_scarves . the broader notion that worries her , as she summarized it , is that ''there are two kinds of people'' muslims and non muslims , with the implicit suggestion that muslims are better . mr . kesici 's rejoinder is that , in fact , very few girls have stopped gym classes or wear head_scarves in school and that there is no evidence that more of them do those things in schools where his group teaches than in schools where they do not . his teachers , he said , do not talk about head_scarves or swimming lessons , since parents are going to decide those issues themselves . as for the two kinds of people , the idea taught , he said , is that ''in islam , we have obligations to our muslim brothers and sisters , but we should not forget that we are all human beings and we are all created by god and we have to find a way that we can all live peacefully . '' but just last week , the credibility of explanations like mr . kesici 's was shaken when an advisory board in the state of north_rhine_westphalia announced the conclusions of a study of textbooks used in a private islamic school in bonn . according to german television , which reported on the board 's conclusions , muslim children are taught that ''the muslim people 's existence has been threatened by jews and christians since the crusades , and it is the first duty of every muslim to prepare to fight against these enemies . '' there is no evidence that such ideas are being taught by the islamic federation in berlin , but that has not lessened the widespread suspicion that something wrong takes place in the muslim classes . ''it is a political organization it represents political islam , '' a turkish born member of the local state_assembly , ozcan mutlu , said of the islamic federation , explaining why he opposes the group 's presence in the schools . ''i feel they do a good job in many ways , like teaching muslim women to read and setting up programs to help children with their homework , '' mr . mutlu said . ''but they also say 'we do n't belong to this society . we are different . ''' letter from europe",has a topic of education
"lead the latest campus of the city_university of new york sits on a mountaintop in japan . the branch opened this month in chiyoda , a suburb about 25 miles southwest of hiroshima . the latest campus of the city_university of new york sits on a mountaintop in japan . the branch opened this month in chiyoda , a suburb about 25 miles southwest of hiroshima . the 50 million campus on 37 acres is being built and paid for entirely by japanese investors . it will primarily serve japanese students , but its academic program was developed and will be administered by herbert h . lehman_college in the bronx , part of the city_university . ''they wanted an american style college in japan , one that emphasizes flexibility , creativity and problem_solving , '' rather than the more rigid , rote style learning favored by japanese educators , said emita b . hill , vice_president of institutional advancement at lehman . lehman_college is the latest of four american colleges to establish a branch campus in japan , joining temple_university of philadelphia , the university of nevada at reno and southern illinois university . the minnesota state university system is scheduled to open a campus in japan next month . something special to offer officials at city universityy say lehman has something special to offer the japanese a wealth of experience in teaching students for whom english is a second language . ''we admit a lot of students with very little english at lehman , '' said robert carling , an english professor and director of the bronx office of cuny lehman at hiroshima . ''there 's no other college i know that could go into japan this quickly and be so ready . '' negotiations for the campus began about a year and a half ago when a representative of japan 's association for cultural exchange , on behalf of a millionaire businessman , tatsuo tanaka , approached lehman_college officials about creating a japanese twin to the 37 acre bronx campus . after several months of discussions , mr . tanaka and city_university officals reached agreement , but construction started in chiyoda even before the agreement was approved by the city_university 's board of trustees in january . a six story academic building , three dormitories and athletic facilities are being built . mr . tanaka , who is president of the nihon anaen kizai company ltd . , a manufacturer of road construction signs , put up most of the money to build the campus , professor carling said . in return for its educational expertise , lehman will receive 3 . 5 million from mr . tanaka over the next six years . 'an extraordinary opportunity' in the first year , about half the 30 member faculty in chiyoda will be from lehman , and a few lehman_college students will be granted scholarships to study in japan for a semester . ''for poor , minority and working_class students this represents an extraordinary opportunity , '' professor hill said . cuny lehman at hiroshima enrolled 300 students for the spring semester that began in april a total enrollment of 1 , 200 japanese students is planned . the campus will follow the traditional japanese academic calendar , with the first semester ending about july 31 and the second semester beginning in mid september and concluding at the end of january . the japanese campus will offer the same core_curriculum as the bronx campus , including natural sciences , social_sciences , humanities , computer science and english as a second language . all classes will be in english . after the two year program , the japanese students will be eligible to complete their degrees at lehman or at another city_university campus . in japan , where about 30 percent of the high_school graduates go to college , as against about 50 percent in the united_states , the school may be an option for students excluded from the highly competitive japanese system , professor carling said . the japanese students will pay an entrance_fee of 1 , 113 , plus tuition of 1 , 621 a year and nearly 500 in examination and facility fees annually . room and board will be extra . education",has a topic of education
"the government offered a fast track settlement plan to indians who say they were abused while attending church run residential schools . the court system cannot physically handle the 12 , 000 claims filed , ''the sad legacy of the indian residential school system , '' said the minister in charge of resolving the claims , ralph goodale . under the new process , victims would have the option of taking their claims , most of which involve sexual and physical_abuse , to hearings with an independent adjudicator . the project is expected to cost 480 million over seven years . colin_campbell ( nyt )",has a topic of education
"in russia , a child is everybody 's business , and perfect strangers think nothing of offering their uninvited advice . teachers got plenty of it today , as 19 million russian children started a new school year in a new country with plenty of problems . there are shortages of money , teachers and textbooks . and in a new candor unlikely even during the most liberal days of the old soviet_union , education minister eduard d . dneprov disclosed that across the vast expanse of russia , 29 percent of the schools have no heat , 38 percent have no running water , and nearly half have no sewage systems . but for vera muravskaya , mother of 7 year old ira , starting her first day in the traditional brown dress and white apron , with a white nylon bow in her blond_hair and gladiolus gripped in her hand for her teacher , the feelings were as familiar as those of any mother at any time in russian history . "" she 's afraid , "" mrs . muravskaya said of ira , who , of course , wants to be a ballerina . "" but i think i 'm more nervous than she is . i feel like i 'm going myself . "" parents and children gathered by 7 30 a.m . in bolshoi vuzovsky lane in central moscow , outside what was once school 1227 and is now the pokrovsky classical gymnasium . as usual , a little first grader was carried aloft , ringing a bell , and the 16 and 17 year olds , entering 11th_grade , their last year here , led the first graders by the hand into the school . but the traditional welcoming speech by the school director , nikolai m . frankevich , 35 , was short and nonideological . and instead of the red pioneer scarves and pins a visitor would have once seen , there are now a few gold crosses around young necks , and a lot of eye makeup . ira was in traditional russian school dress , but the older students have had no required uniform for three years now , and instead of demure blue skirts or trousers , there were jeans , sportshirts , miniskirts and even some red stockings . andrei pozdnyakov , 15 , wore a shirt printed with dollar bills and smoked american cigarettes , which makes him modish these days . in conversation he 's polite and fascinated by chemistry and medicine . marya lisyevich , 16 and a senior , wore a two piece black outfit , with bare midriff , that might have graced a dance floor . she intends to go to moscow_state_university and study chinese . in her years at this school , which specializes in foreign languages , she 's been able to study subjects like psychology , philosophy and rhetoric , as well as french and english . she particularly likes american slang . her favorite expression ? "" oh , i like , 'it 's my own business , ' "" she said , which may not be slang , but it 's as good a theme as any for this new school year in a much changed russia . why the two piece outfit ? "" it 's my last year , "" she said , "" and i wanted to wear something special . "" inside , there was not a portrait of lenin to be seen , not to mention marx , engels or even boris n . yeltsin . mr . frankevich , in a gray pinstriped suit , was all enthusiasm . "" we think schools should be different , as all kids are different , "" he said , speaking in a refurbished office with a grandfather clock . moscow university 's first "" classical gymnasium "" originally a german form of secondary_school was housed here until the gymnasiums were banished after the bolshevik revolution . mr . frankevich is especially proud of the teachers who , with the help of teachers from moscow_state_university , devised a new curriculum for 10th and 11th_graders to include natural sciences and latin taught from new texts . in april , he said , a special commission allowed the school to call itself a "" classical gymnasium "" again . there are now courses in ancient history and ancient_rome , mr . frankevich said . for modern history , there are new texts and articles taken from contemporary journals . rewriting history again "" history of the fatherland , "" a new textbook for russian 11th_graders , published this year , goes through the breakup of the soviet_union last december . it gives a clear and almost neutral view of political events , speaking of deportations and the gulag , of chernobyl and andrei sakharov , and how "" the presence of soviet_troops "" in eastern_europe "" created a powerful political and psychological background that helped soviet supporters come to power . "" it treats struggles within the communist_party as the ordinary maneuverings of ordinary men , rather than of saints or icons , and at one point speaks of the party 's "" political bankruptcy . "" even 5th graders get a new course concentrating on their neighborhood 's history . vladimir bogoslovsky , a colonel in the russian_air_force whose daughter , masha , is entering the 6th grade , spoke appreciatively of her project last year into the environment of the neighborhood in the 16th_century . "" i think education has to be different in a democratic russia , "" colonel bogoslovsky said . "" the children here are asked to do a lot of work on their own , and they act more like students and not like little soldiers . "" sex_education is still a delicate topic , however . "" in socialist times we closed our eyes and said there was no sex under socialism , and the problem was not really studied , "" mr . frankevich said . "" but we 'll solve it . "" last year , he said , he showed an american sex_education video to 9th and 10th graders , "" who reacted calmly . "" parents get very involved , he said . the richer ones have created a fund for repairs and to increase teachers' salaries to nearly 5 , 000 rubles a month , only about 24 these days but well above the average russian teacher 's salary of 3 , 600 rubles . many teachers are going into private business or tutoring , and the education ministry says it needs 23 , 000 more secondary_school teachers . "" i never tire of telling parents they must invest money in their kids , "" mr . frankevich said . "" a lot depends on who teaches them , and their environment determines what kind of people they will be . "" money is a problem for nadezhda a . kopylova , 51 , director of a school on nearby mechnikova street . so she rented some space to the moscow school of managers , which also provides 10th and 11th_graders "" a commercial course , "" including , in russian , "" menedzhment , marketing , komputer "" and "" business english . "" it 's popular , she said "" many of our best students are in it . "" marya a . lazerova , director of school 330 in arkady gaidar street , still requires uniforms for her 500 pupils . but she is trying to introduce "" extra services "" for which parents will pay , like class trips and lectures by outside experts . "" a lot of parents are against it , "" mrs . lazerova said . "" not because they ca n't pay . but the habit of getting things for free is very strong . "" she spoke dismissively of schools that pick students partly on their parents' ability to pay , because gifts are sometimes required to assure admission to reputable schools . and there is a gradual growth of the number of private schools in large cities . but those visited today are all neighborhood schools that do not charge admission mr . frankevich does , however , accept students from all over moscow to fill empty slots on the basis of a competitive interview . mrs . lazerova has introduced a two track system starting in the 8th grade for students choosing to specialize in humanities or math and science . there is also a third track for slower children , which some parents dislike as a regression from traditional socialist equality . "" the changes come so fast , a person ca n't change fast enough , "" mrs . lazerova said . the level of public morality is falling , she complained . "" we could paint in rosy colors , "" she said , "" but the children go out into the world and see black . "" in fact , most of the schoolchildren interviewed today see the world vividly . "" it 's a better world than before , "" marya lisyevich , the language student , said . "" there 's a lot of democratic feeling . """,has a topic of education
"naomi levine was reading about alberto w . vilar , the arts philanthropist , last year and noticed that he had studied economics at new york_university . mrs . levine , a senior vice_president at n.y.u. , knew that he had given millions of dollars to the metropolitan_opera , carnegie_hall and an array of other organizations . why not n.y.u. , she asked herself . she urged n.y.u . 's longtime former chairman , laurence a . tisch , to invite mr . vilar to breakfast . after a few proposals that went nowhere , the university hit pay dirt with a plan for a rhodes scholarship type program named after him for foreign students in the arts . mr . vilar recently pledged 23 million . ''that 's typical of how we do fund_raising , '' mrs . levine said . ''you find someone you think would be interested in what you are doing , and you go after them . '' some universities have armies of fund_raisers , as many as 100 . n.y.u . has a development staff of 25 ( including three people in alumni relations ) . it is a lean operation that spends about 6 cents for every dollar raised , one of the lowest spending rates among major universities . and at its heart is mrs . levine , a straight talking , no nonsense , 78 year old dynamo , who helped the university raise 2 billion over 15 years and 335 million last year alone , more than all but a handful of other universities . ''the roosevelt administration had a saying 'clear it with sidney , ' '' n.y.u . 's chairman , martin lipton , said recently , referring to president roosevelt 's close adviser , the labor leader sidney hillman . ''here it is . 'clear it with naomi . ' '' mrs . levine came to n.y.u . in 1978 to handle public_relations , government relations and a little bit of fund_raising . ( n . y.u . was raising 30 million a year then . ) but she gradually cut back on the other roles and focused more and more on the money . she had a knack . she thought strategically , capitalizing on the connections between ego , tax considerations and imaginative ways to spend money . she knew the university well . and in a business that depends heavily on personal relationships , she had many , both inside and outside the university . she presides over n.y.u . 's fund_raising apparatus in much the same way she held sway over the campers and counselors at camp greylock , the girls' camp she once ran in the adirondacks . she calls on people daily and lets them know what she needs and expects . her office is only a few doors down from n.y.u . 's president , l . jay oliva , and they chat with each other several times a day about ideas and prospects . dr . oliva came up with what he called an ''amorphous idea'' for the vilar scholarships , but mrs . levine helped structure it . ''we 're like a songwriting team , '' dr . oliva said . ''i 'm the composer she 's the lyricist . i have the idea for the music , and she makes the words . '' she talks daily to h . dale hemmerdinger , a real_estate executive who is chairman of n.y.u . 's development committee . she also relies heavily on mr . lipton and mr . tisch to open doors to prospective donors . ''once you open the door , '' she said , ''hardly anyone says no . '' and she leans freely on other well heeled trustees . trustees who have recently made significant donations include helen kimmel and her husband , martin , who gave 15 million for a new student center , and michael steinhardt and his wife , judy , who gave 10 million to the school of education . yet another trustee gave the medical_school 100 million last year but asked to remain anonymous . in all , the trustees gave n.y.u . 173 million last year , more than half of the 335 million in total gifts . as mrs . levine put it , in her typically blunt fashion ''our trustees are brought on to give money or to get money . to be crass , if you ca n't do those things , you get off the board . '' there is no embarrassment in her voice . she believes deeply in the product she is selling . she quotes her close ally , mr . tisch , as saying , ''this is a poor place and we have to work at getting money for it . '' she works to get to know the trustees and to strengthen their ties to each other and the university by taking them on trips to france , to london , to n.y.u . 's villa in florence . earlier this year , much of the board gathered in palm_beach , fla . ''there is nothing like living with each other for a few days for bonding , '' she said . she also ropes in others with little or no previous connection to the university , always looking for intersections between their interests and the university 's . edgar m . bronfman , for example , whom she knew in her previous role as executive director of the american jewish congress , has endowed n.y.u . 's jewish life center as well as a professorship . n.y.u . officials say that she thinks big , dreaming up ideas like a 1 billion fund_raising campaign in 1985 . ''at first we were all a little taken aback by the idea , '' mr . tisch recalled . ''then we got to like it . there was a shock value in a billion dollars . '' but mrs . levine also focuses on detail . she acknowledges spending hours and nights figuring out who is going to sit next to whom at a dinner . ''one little detail can ruin a deal , '' she said in a schoolmarmish tone . ''a letter with bad grammar . or spelling a name wrong . '' she admits that n.y.u . has failed to cultivate the university 's broader alumni base . most universities try to cultivate donors of smaller gifts soon after they graduate because it is hard to predict who will be successful later on . but with alumni who were mostly commuter students , that did not become a priority until recently . perhaps the biggest questions for n.y.u . is what will happen to development when mrs . levine moves aside . she recently announced her intention to cut back and run a philanthropy institute at n.y.u . 's school of continuing and professional studies . ( later this month , she plans to lecture on her approach to fund_raising . ) mr . tisch suggests that she may be indispensable . ''the most important thing for the university is to keep her active for another 15 years , '' he said . ''there is no after naomi . ''",has a topic of education
"british authorities proposed new rules on tuesday to allow schools to forbid muslim students to wear full face veils in class , reflecting a wider debate over britain 's relationship with its muslim minority . the recommendation was the latest episode in a saga of rancorous discussion of the full face veil , known as the niqab . last october , prime_minister tony_blair described the niqab as a ' 'mark of separation'' that made ''other people from outside the community feel uncomfortable . '' the department of education published the new guidelines after a court in buckinghamshire rejected a_12 year old muslim girl 's demand to wear the niqab in class last month . the proposed regulations , which have yet to be formally adopted , said the individual right to ' 'manifest a religion or belief'' did not bestow a right to demonstrate faith ''at any time , in any place or in any particular manner . '' school principals should be allowed to order pupils to show their faces because otherwise ''the teacher may not be able to judge their engagement in class , '' the proposed regulations said . moreover , they said , ' 'schools need to be able to identify individual pupils in order to maintain good order and identify intruders easily . '' the issue of islamic dress in schools has been contentious in many parts of europe , sometimes pitting secularist ideologies against the religious beliefs of growing islamic minorities . but islamic dress made headlines in britain for another reason recently , when a trial of terrorism suspects included surveillance television footage of a male suspect at a bus station as he fled london in what appeared to be an all covering burqa style dress . jim knight , the schools minister , said tuesday that schools should consult with parents when setting their regulations on permissible uniforms . ''while they should make every effort to accommodate social , religious or medical requirements of individual pupils , the needs of safety , security and effective learning in the school must always take precedence , '' he said in a statement . the government 's position drew angry responses from some muslim groups , including the islamic human rights commission , whose chairman , massoud shadjareh , said it was ' 'simply shocking'' for the government to ''issue guidance against muslim communities . '' ''successive ministers dealing with education issues have failed to give proper guidance when requested by human_rights campaigners about schools' obligations regarding religious dress , including the head_scarf , '' he said . others sought to defuse the debate by insisting that disagreements over dress codes could be resolved within schools . ''the vast majority of schools are able to solve these issues locally , and that should continue to be the case , '' said tahir alam , a spokesman for the muslim council of britain . the proposed dress regulations also included recommendations enjoining school principals not to discriminate indirectly against minorities by banning hair styles ' 'more likely to be adopted by specific racial groups . '' the rules urged school authorities to outlaw forms of dress ''associated with gangs , '' but said students should not be expelled for refusing to wear standard school_uniforms except in the event of ''persistent and defiant'' transgressions .",has a topic of education
"for a decade or so , anime a high quality , sci_fi japanese cartoon film has been a college phenomenon , with computer clubs spinning off or turning into japanimation fan clubs and increasingly net savvy students putting up web_sites and sharing still shots from videos . it 's a fair bet the collegiate visionaries are about to get a lot of company . buena vista home entertainment , the distribution arm of disney , recently acquired a library of japanimation created by a man often hailed as ''the walt_disney of japan , '' hiyao miyazaki . eight already completed miyazaki films will head into the home_video market , and one currently in production , ''minonoke hime ( monster princess ) , '' will get a theatrical release this summer . and once that happens , could films with a grittier take , like mamoru oshii 's ''ghost in the shell , '' be far behind ? disney 's move is a logical step because of the growing fandom heavily_populated by primarily college age americans , who grew up on japanimation in their saturday morning cartoons , like ''gigantor , '' ''speed racer'' and ''voltran . '' in the 80 's , students picked up bootleg , unsubtitled videos at comic_book conventions and hustled them back to the dorm for pop and pretzel parties . ''it 's a big nerd thing , '' said b.j . johnson , a recent graduate of the cleveland institute of art . ''i 'm not going to deny it . '' the first foreshadowing of popular success came with the founding in 1988 of streamline pictures , a california company that brought anime ( pronounced ah nih may ) films for theatrical release to college and art house theaters . in 1990 , it scored a hit with ''akira , '' now regarded as a classic of the genre . mr . johnson saw it at the cinematheque at the art institute because the director there , john ewing , was one of growing number of curators who started programming japanimation weekends . ''we seat 616 , '' mr . ewing said , ''and the second time we showed 'akira , ' we came as close as we ever have to selling out . '' blackboard the reel world",has a topic of education
"it was fatigue that finally gave the police a chance to rescue six young hostages from a suburban nursery_school early_today by killing their dozing captor with three silent gunshots to the head . "" man neutralized , "" was the first message that crackled over police radios overheard by the crowd outside the school complex . barely thirty seconds after the man 's death , the smiling 3 and 4 year old girls held captive for two days were delivered to anxious parents outside . one child was overheard protesting that she wanted to return for her toy giraffe . the hooded gunman , with dynamite sticks strapped to his body , burst into the classroom of 21 children at the school in neuilly sur seine on thursday morning , demanding 18 . 5 million in ransom . the police identified him today as eric schmitt , 42 , an algerian born french citizen , but his background could not be confirmed independently . over the next 46 hours , through painstaking negotiations , he was persuaded to release 15 of the 21 children in batches . teacher refused to leave throughout the ordeal , the children 's teacher , laurence dreyfus , 30 , refused to leave the children for more than short periods of time . she left the classroom to get food and bedding , to speak with the parents clustered outside , and at one point to get a few hours' rest . ms . dreyfus , who calmed the children by telling them the armed , masked man with the gun was chasing a wolf , entertained and fed the children for the two days and nights , then put them to sleep with the help of sedatives . she was assisted by capt . evelyne lambert , a french_army pediatrician who was allowed into the classroom . in a televised news conference , charles pasqua , minister of interior , praised the two women who risked their lives to care for the toddlers . mr . pasqua announced that the two women would be given the legion of honor , france 's highest civilian commendation , for their bravery throughout the ordeal . it was not clear whether the teacher was in the classroom when the captor was killed , but she did emerge from the school with the children when the siege was over . gunman talked to psychiatrist after hours of negotiations with the police , the gunman , who was being observed by camera , spoke with a psychiatrist , gilles nakab . dr . nakab said the gunman was "" calm and cool "" and that most of the time he "" was determined to keep his distance from the children . "" toward the early morning hours , it was evident that mr . schmitt was becoming irritable and "" destabilized "" and asked to be left alone to rest at about 3 00 a.m. , dr . nakab said . when mr . schmitt , who never removed his hood or gloves , appeared to doze off about 7 25 a.m . two separate teams of french police burst into the classroom . one team headed for a corner of the class to secure the children who were asleep on mattresses and covered with blankets , while the other team moved toward the sleeping gunman . when he stirred , they shot him in the head with guns equipped with silencers . children did not see shooting the six little girls , whom he said he would use as a shield during his getaway , were insulated from the brief burst of violence , having been kept in a corner of the room separated by a desk and other furniture . "" the girls saw absolutely nothing , "" capt . lambert said . "" it all took a few seconds . "" some french journalists were allowed to look at the classroom , which was decorated in bright , happy colors . mr . schmitt , whose highly organized siege included prepared printouts of instructions for the police , had mapped out an entire escape plan in which the police would have to fake his "" elimination . "" the authorities said the flaw in his planning was counting on too much physical stamina . parents wait in school the children 's parents , who spent the anxious wait in the school complex , were visibly wary and made no statements . ms . dreyfus visited the parents several times during the ordeal . the school complex , nestled in an elegant tree lined street , had as many as 1 , 000 students on thursday morning . it was emptied to be surrounded by police barricades and sharpshooters hidden around the leafy villas and luxury buildings of this suburb just a 15 minute drive from the center of paris . throughout much of the day thursday and friday , scores of french volunteers presented themselves at the schools offering to substitute for the children as hostages . a tiny chapel near the school was kept open all night thursday and friday for many ordinary citizens who streamed in to light candles and pray silently as round the clock television vigils kept the whole nation informed of every development .",has a topic of education
"insurgents attacked at least nine police and security buildings on thursday in this southern russian city in coordinated daylight raids , witnesses and the authorities said , further spreading russia 's battle beyond its roots in the breakaway republic of chechnya . russian officials said at least 85 people had been killed , most of them insurgents . one band of the masked_gunmen overwhelmed a police station and captured hostages , including police officers , and held them into the night . two gun shops were also sacked . on friday morning , a senior official for the interior_ministry said all the hostages had been freed , and the terrorists who had held them had been killed in an early morning action . russian officials cautioned that the military operation was continuing and that the death count could rise . according to initial tallies , 12 police officers and 12 civilians were among those killed . there were also signs of a planned russian sweep of areas suspected to hold more gunmen , as a senior government official announced that president vladimir v . putin had told the authorities to block the routes in and out of nalchik , and had ordered the destruction of any insurgents who resisted . a local radio_station called on residents to stay in their homes . ''the president has ordered us to keep every militant within nalchik and to eliminate any armed person resisting detention , '' said first deputy interior_minister aleksandr chekalin . ''the order of the president will be fulfilled . '' armored_vehicles and a heavy presence of russian troops set up checkpoints . the city , which was almost fully under the authorities' control by late afternoon , fell mostly quiet at night . the attacks , in russia 's caucasus region , took place in a city that had remained free until now of the worst violence that has stalked southwestern russia since war began in nearby chechnya in 1994 , and cast fresh doubts on the kremlin 's insistence that the region has been stabilizing and returning to its control . violence this year had already flared anew in dagestan , where insurgents have been killing police officers and soldiers with near regularity , and last year guerrillas and terrorists conducted large operations in the nearby republics of ingushetia and north ossetia , where 331 people died in the school siege in beslan . a web_site that often carries messages from the chechen terrorist shamil basayev , who planned the school siege in beslan , said the attackers were islamic fighters aligned with chechen separatists . it said the attacking bands included local cells as well as fighters from elsewhere who had traveled to the republic for battle . the fresh attacks sent ripples through the region . the president of the kremlin installed government in chechnya announced that his local forces had been put on alert , as did leaders in ingushetia . ramzan kadyrov , the leader of an irregular force of former chechen guerrillas that is at least publicly loyal to moscow , offered to send his fighters to nalchik 's aid . nalchik itself , a city of about 275 , 000 and the capital of the internal russian_republic of kabardino balkariya , was crowded with reinforcements , including special russian army units . late thursday night , convoys of trucks carrying soldiers and an armored_personnel_carrier were also visible on the roads north of the city , heading toward it . the attacks on thursday were also reminiscent of a raid in june 2004 in nearby ingushetia , when mr . basayev led hundreds of guerrillas in simultaneous attacks against police and security offices and barracks . nearly 100 people were killed , and hundreds of weapons stolen before mr . basayev and his gunmen slipped away . kabardino balkariya , a small and principally muslim republic with a stagnant economy and about 800 , 000 residents , has been destabilized in recent years by what the authorities describe as the growing presence of islamic guerrillas and terrorists , who have had several smaller skirmishes with the authorities . its long serving president , whose recent management of the republic was criticized for corruption and a repressive police force , was replaced only two weeks ago by a moscow businessman and kremlin loyalist , arsen kanokov . mr . kanokov , 48 and an ethnic kabardin , arrived at a time when the insurgency had deepened . late last year , an islamic group , yarmuk , was accused of seizing a drug police post , executing four officers , and then escaping with a cache of arms and munitions . early this week , the police announced the discovery of a large bomb laboratory here . marina kyasova , spokeswoman for the republic 's interior_ministry , said thursday 's violence began when law enforcement officers raided an apartment in belaya rechka , an area on the outskirts of the city , at 3 a.m. , trapping several suspected islamic terrorists inside . the men , who were suspected of being connected to the recently raided bomb laboratory , resisted fiercely , she said . and at 9 a.m. , as the fight in belaya rechka continued , the police realized they were being attacked elsewhere throughout the city , she said . insurgents attacked three police district buildings , she said , as well the headquarters of the interior_ministry , the office of the special riot_police , a police foot patrol command , a counterterrorism center , an office of the corrections department , and a building used by the f.s.b. , or federal_security_service , one of russia 's successors to the k.g.b . two gun shops were also struck at the same time , in an effort by the insurgents to gather weapons . liuan gunzhafov , 26 , a lawyer who lives above the arsenal gun shop on kirova street , said he saw a car and a tractor carrying a total of seven masked men arrive at the store at 9 a.m . with several insurgents with kalashnikov assault_rifles standing guard , others tied ropes and cable to the shop 's window bars , and used the tractor to tug the bars free of the window frame . after masked men climbed through the window to try stealing the store 's contents , he said , two traffic police officers arrived . a gunfight ensued . one police_officer was killed , he said , but not before three insurgents were also shot and the other four had fled . blood was pooled in the parking_lot , where two black ski_masks had also been left behind . the masked men , who spoke russian , had seemed uninterested in the civilians who peered at them or drove past , mr . gunzhafov said . they simply warned people to stay clear . ''i leaned over the balcony to watch and one wagged his finger at me , '' he said . at government buildings , however , the insurgents fought . the f.s.b . said it had turned back the assault on its building , although one officer was killed . most of the other attacks were rebuffed as well , ms . kyasova said , but police district no . 3 was overrun , and at least seven gunmen remained inside with hostages . ms . kyasova said the ministry had confirmed that there were hostages because it had spoken to some of them by telephone . the area around the building was surrounded by police officers in the night . the interior_ministry declined to say how many hostages were inside , or their condition . one official , speaking on condition of anonymity because he said he was forbidden to speak publicly about a continuing operation , said police officers were among them . as the authorities regained control of the city , the initial tallies indicated the 61 insurgents had been killed , as were 12 law enforcement officers and 12 civilians , ms . kyasova said . many more civilians and security officers were wounded , she said . it was not clear how many insurgents had attacked some officials said as many as 300 . but ms . kyasova said the ministry estimated that 80 or 100 fighters had attacked . she said some were local men , but ''there are also those who are from somewhere else . '' she declined to elaborate . she also said about half the insurgents wore civilian clothes , and the rest were in camouflage . nikolai n . zakharov , deputy spokesman for the f.s.b. , said in a telephone interview that it was too soon to know the number of attackers , or their precise affiliations . there were scattered reports that at least one school had been seized , but that was denied by the pro chechen web_site , www . kavkazcenter . com , and as well as by dmitry kozak , the kremlin envoy in the region . similarly , the interior_ministry said early reports that the airport had been attacked were incorrect rather , two ministry officials said , airport security forces had assisted the police in a skirmish nearby . correction_october 15 , 2005 , saturday a map yesterday with an article about an insurgent attack on police and security buildings in nalchik , capital of a southern russian_republic , misspelled the republic 's name . it is kabardino balkariya , as the article said , not karbardino balkariya .",has a topic of education
"nearly 750 police officers and british_army troops guarded the entrances to dozens of schools in northern belfast yesterday because of a death_threat to teachers and other workers at roman_catholic schools issued by a protestant paramilitary group , the red hand defenders . the threat , issued on friday , included other public_sector workers and was followed on saturday by the slaying of a catholic mailman , daniel mccolgan , 20 , by the ulster defense association , another protestant group . to protest the killing , northern_ireland postal workers suspended deliveries until after mr . mccolgan 's funeral today , and other unions plan to stage a half day walkout on friday . brian_lavery ( nyt )",has a topic of education
"the death toll climbed to 36 on monday in an early morning fire that raged through a five story dormitory full of african and asian students . the police said they were investigating the possibility of arson . deputy interior_minister rashid nurgaliyev reported at a meeting with president vladimir v . putin and cabinet members that there were ''no signs of criminal action'' in the fire at the people 's friendship university . he said the most likely cause was ''the malfunctioning of an electric household appliance . '' but by evening , education minister vladimir filippov , a former rector of the university , told reporters that investigators were trying to determine whether three young african women who lived in the room where the fire was thought to have begun were involved in starting it . some students said the women were dead . others said that they were in a hospital and denied that the fire had started in their room . mr . filippov said they were not in the room during the fire . ''the investigators are currently trying to find out why they ran away , or whether they intentionally set the room on fire , '' he said , according to the interfax news_agency . by evening , interfax reported that more than 170 people were still hospitalized , with 10 in critical condition . the fire left foreign students across moscow , who have already been the targets of skinhead attacks and other threats , feeling even more vulnerable . students huddling in the slush outside the charred building , where red carnations left in memory of the dead rested on mangled pieces of metal , described haphazard rescue efforts by emergency workers who distinguished the dead from the living with a tap on the chest . shattered from a night of carrying fellow students to ambulances and watching them struggle to break glass and jump out of windows , they spoke of a perpetual threat that hangs over students from third world countries studying in russia . ''we 've had bomb threats , '' said dailo encoge , a political_science student . ''a dormitory was evacuated on friday . '' a spokesman for the moscow city police denied that any threats had been received . the campus courtyards are filled with cafes with names like simbad and beirut . on monday evening , near the scene , one was decorated with balloons and flashing christmas lights . the stench of smoke was still heavy in the air . in hushed conversations in corridors of neighboring dormitories , residents spoke of bodies posed in window_frames in mid escape . ''i was afraid , '' said ant nio joakaim , a student from angola who lives in an adjacent dormitory that was engulfed in smoke as the fire spread . his shock was apparent in his tear filled eyes and nervous laughter . he said students had jumped out of the flaming building . ''i saw many people , '' he said . ''legs and arms were broken . '' mois s lopes of angola , who studies at a moscow technical university , said , ''i 'm going to return home . '' ''how can i stay here if they 're setting us on fire . i do n't think it was caused by electrical_appliances . '' he said he avoided the subway for fear of racial attacks . according to some reports , dormitory rooms were overcrowded and overloaded with electrical_appliances . sitting in the cramped room he shares with two other students , han , a journalism student from beijing who refused to give his last name , said their electric teakettle had been confiscated . ''i think i need to return to beijing , '' he said . ''i do n't have to be careful of fire , careful of hooligans , and careful of the militia there . '' police officers demanding bribes often shake down foreign students . the university , formerly named for patrice lumumba , the congolese revolutionary , opened in 1960 to serve students from the countries the soviet_union supported in africa , asia and latin_america . the moscow police told the interfax news_agency that dormitory residents included students from angola , china , vietnam , ecuador , ethiopia , afghanistan , ivory_coast and tahiti . many are refugees from wars . most victims had just arrived and knew no russian , which complicated efforts to treat them . an unsolved case of arson at the university killed seven in 1995 , russian television reported . on monday , at a neighboring grocery_store frequented by students , russian employees cried as they discussed the fire and the disorganized rescue effort . but they were n't surprised . they said they have seen it all before . ''it 's always like this here , '' one woman said .",has a topic of education
"high_school students flooded the streets of france again today to campaign for more teachers and better schools , but the march in paris turned violent when troublemakers looted stores , burned cars and clashed with riot_police . the police arrested at least 110 youths . five people , including two policemen , were injured . today was the largest demonstration and the most violent day in a campaign that has gathered strength over the last two weeks . student leaders disassociated themselves from the violence , which they blamed on unemployed youths . with about 500 , 000 students mobilized throughout france , according to police estimates , the growing strength of the movement has shaken and embarrassed the socialist government of prime_minister lionel_jospin , which has felt obliged to express sympathy for the student demands . in contrast to the violence in paris , the demonstrations in a score of other french cities went off peacefully . the education minister , claude allegre , who met with student leaders in paris this afternoon , said he was ' 'shocked that a peaceful demonstration has been distorted and disrupted by these acts of violence which have nothing to do with the young people 's democratic protest . '' after the meeting , the students pledged to continue their movement , which began with a sit down strike by just a few hundred students in southwest france and quickly spread across the country . claiming that their demands for new funds to improve their overcrowded high_schools had not been met , the students scheduled another nationwide mobilization for next tuesday . the violence erupted around the place de la nation in the east of the city today , and was traced to unemployed youths from outlying suburbs who are nicknamed ''casseurs , '' literally ' 'smashers , '' and who in the past have taken advantage of student demonstrations to cause trouble . the student complaints , echoed in marches in cities from bordeaux to rennes today , are relatively straightforward and remarkably consistent they say that many french high_schools , or lycees , suffer from a chronic shortage of teachers and classrooms as well as growing violence and that the burden of courses required for the final baccalaureat examinations is far too heavy . ''this is our third day on strike , and we really want to make a difference , '' said laetitia wildebrand , 17 , a student from a high_school outside paris who joined today 's demonstration here , which involved an estimated 28 , 000 students and sympathizers . ''we need more teachers , more material and more classrooms . we have classes in the school cafeteria because of overcrowding . '' as early as wednesday , the police urged shopkeepers to close their shutters along the planned route of today 's march . after the violence began around noon today , with glass telephone booths shattered , several stores and cafes looted and a dozen cars set on fire by about 100 casseurs , some students immediately left the demonstration . ''i 'm disgusted with the violence , disgusted and saddened , '' said marius turlet , 18 , the leader of a group of 200 students who had come in from the paris suburb of villiers . ''we 're leaving . '' the march eventually set off from the area , with students chanting and waving banners , but plans to walk several miles to the education ministry on the rue de grenelle in the 7th arrondissement were canceled . as the march dissipated in the afternoon , students said they hoped that the violence would not distract attention from their demands . ''our school is ugly , '' complained issam fadlhawi , 19 , who is completing his studies at the gustave ferre lycee in eastern paris . ''it looks like a factory . it 's unheated and there 's still asbestos that has to be removed . but the real problem is security . gangs come to our school with weapons . i 've spent four years fighting in this school . the other day , a friend of mine was thrown through the window of the cafeteria and had to have 52 stitches . '' four teen_age girls from the jean jacques rousseau high_school in the paris suburbs regretted the day 's violence , but said they were not surprised . ''we 're not being heard , '' said toure astrid , 16 . ''they 've been promising to renovate our school for 10 years and they have done nothing . there are 40 students in my class . my friend , who 's majoring in science , has no biology teacher . we 're also demonstrating for the students who will come after us . '' with next year 's education budget about to be debated in the national_assembly , mr . allegre , the education minister , has pledged to reduce the workload of lycee students and to make it easier to transfer teachers to cover critical shortages . but he has also indicated that some improvements can only be introduced in the next school year . significantly , some high_school teachers have joined the student protests to increase pressure on the government . franck palliot , 17 , said conditions at his st . louis high_school in the affluent 8th arrondissement were fine , but he joined today 's demonstration in solidarity with other students . ''new classrooms , more teachers , better supplies , they 'll all take time , '' he said . ''we ca n't expect these things to arrive tomorrow . '' education experts said that some of the most neglected high_schools are to be found in the suburbs of large cities where the concentration of immigrants is heaviest . the unrest among high_school students contrasts with the relative tranquillity in the country 's universities , which have steadily lost their reputation as hotbeds of political agitation since the student movement of may 1968 . ''students today are in too much of a panic about finding jobs to think about politics , '' one university professor said . ''no one is interested in demonstrating . ''",has a topic of education
"two years after it began an investigation into accusations against him , the vatican on monday formally rebuked a belgian jesuit theologian , the rev . jacques dupuis , over his writings . obedient but unbowed , father dupuis said this week that he could ''in good conscience'' continue with his work . ''the notification was not very pleasant , '' father dupuis , 77 , said of a vatican document published on monday that concluded that his writings on religious pluralism ''contained ambiguities'' about doctrine that could lead readers to ''erroneous or harmful positions . '' ''but after two and a half years of imposed silence , i feel free . '' father dupuis said on tuesday . only up to a point , though . father dupuis complained that after he finally signed a notification last december that the church had found errors in his work , the vatican added a paragraph explaining that his signature obliged him to ''abide'' by the vatican 's objections . father dupuis said he felt he had agreed only to take them into account , ''which is very different , '' he said . the long and secretive vatican investigation of father dupuis , a theology teacher at the pontifical gregorian university in rome , is only one example of how pope_john_paul_ii is determined to rein in catholic theologians who stray from strict doctrinal orthodoxy . the compromise reached by the vatican allows father dupuis to publish his book as long as he attaches the vatican 's conclusions a kind of theological surgeon_general 's warning . but in defending his position and pointing out where he felt the vatican had erred , father dupuis lifted a veil from one of the most ancient and mysterious procedures of the roman_catholic_church , rooting out heresy . in a commentary on tuesday in l'osservatore romano , a vatican newspaper , cardinal joseph ratzinger , director of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith , regretted the seemingly harsh tone of the notification , but said he had no choice . ''the clear , declarative assertive tone of a magisterial document , '' he wrote , ''aims at communicating to the faithful that one is not dealing with opiniable arguments or disputed questions , but with the truth . '' on sept . 26 , 1998 , cardinal ratzinger notified the leader of the jesuit order that father dupuis 's 1997 book , ''toward a christian theology of religious pluralism , '' was under investigation . ''i received 12 pages of questions , '' father dupuis recalled . ''i sent a 200 page reply . '' after seven months , he was informed that his answers were not ' 'satisfactory'' and received an additional 12 pages of questions . he said he responded with 60 more pages . on sept . 4 , 2000 , he was summoned to meet with cardinal ratzinger and asked to sign a draft of a notification that found ''grave errors'' in his work . ''it became clear , '' father dupuis said , ''that the text submitted for my approval contained false accusations against my book . '' on sept . 5 , the vatican issued a document by cardinal ratzinger that laid out the primacy of the roman_catholic_church and described other denominations as ' 'deficient . '' several cardinals criticized the document , but it was mostly aimed at reining in theologians like father dupuis . the next day , father dupuis received a new draft that toned down charges of ''grave error'' to ''ambiguities . '' father dupuis said that his superiors persuaded him that by signing ''i would be able to continue my theological work and remain faithful to my conscience and also to the church . ''",has a topic of education
"lead education minister lionel_jospin of france , seeking to resolve a national dispute , ruled today that muslim girls could wear traditional head_scarves but could not refuse to attend classes . the suspension early this month of three students who wore the head_scarves had stirred debate over whether their mode of dress violated france 's long tradition of secular public schools . education minister lionel_jospin of france , seeking to resolve a national dispute , ruled today that muslim girls could wear traditional head_scarves but could not refuse to attend classes . the suspension early this month of three students who wore the head_scarves had stirred debate over whether their mode of dress violated france 's long tradition of secular public schools .",has a topic of education
"trying to change the education system in a country that fears any change is a thankless job , claude allegre , the feisty french minister of education , says with some exasperation . teaching and research in geophysics , his real profession for most of the last 35 years , were much more fun , he said over lunch with a group of foreign correspondents . eyes twinkling behind professorial rimless spectacles , hands clasped around his ample middle , mr . allegre , 61 , looked like a man with a taste for work and joie de vivre . if schools could just teach children how to appreciate both those things , he said , they would be doing their job . but since his old friend lionel_jospin , the prime_minister , picked mr . allegre in 1997 to run the large french education bureaucracy , he has become one of the most vilified politicians in france . he does n't mince words with his fellow teachers in the national system . when he took the minister 's job , he said , he saw his task as cutting out the fat . that put the more than a million teachers on their guard . but when he criticized them for excess absenteeism and said it was a scandal that so many did not show up after summer vacation , some declared open war . now , ''allegre out'' graffiti are plastered all over the latin_quarter . some 4 , 000 teachers took to the streets of paris last month to demand his resignation , and one of the biggest secondary_school teachers' unions has called for a national demonstration on saturday against legislation he has introduced to change the way french high_schools , or lycees , prepare students for a university education . mr . allegre takes it all in stride . ''not all teachers hate me , '' he said . ''they see that the profession is in a period of great change , so they are anxious and defensive . '' the french press often takes him to task for provocative statements , but he ca n't seem to help himself . ''i said once that english is no longer a foreign language , '' he recalled with a laugh , ''and did i get into trouble for that ! '' it was an iconoclastic remark in a country where crusading against inroads from english is a sacred duty . ''i do my bit every time i massacre the language by trying to speak it , '' he said modestly , in french . mr . allegre , a professor 's son , studied at the faculty of sciences of the university of paris and in fact knows english well . he got a postdoctoral scholarship to the california_institute_of_technology in 1964 and knows his way around places like harvard and m.i.t . he is also a member of the american_academy of sciences and several american professional organizations . british and american higher_education , he says , is the envy of the world . ''universities are the american education system , '' he said . ''the rest is n't so good . '' ''i think our education system is still one of the best in the world , alas , '' he said , meaning the french system , ''because the others have deteriorated even more than ours has . '' but because , as he put it , ''the lycee was the sickest part of our system , '' he began consulting teachers , parents and students soon after taking office about how to change the syllabus that leads up to the ''bac'' the baccalaureate diploma , without which no university study is possible . to get it , students have to pass a rigorous final examination that has been an annual spring ordeal dreaded by millions of families . five years ago , 65 . 5 percent did pass it . now , partly because of juvenile delinquency and alienation among minority students of north_african heritage , 62 percent of a generation has the bac . but , mr . allegre pointed out , 20 years ago , only 34 percent got it . most of the rest dropped out at 16 and entered the labor force . ''today we generate more young unemployed people than any other society in europe , '' he said . ''the lycee broadened its syllabus and extended the school day , but lowered its standards and neglected the fundamentals . 'close' is n't a good enough standard , but that 's all a lot of teaching aims for . '' mr . allegre 's plan to change the system was announced in final form early this month . if approved by the french legislature , it would among other things institute individual tutorials in small groups for first year lycee students having trouble with mathematics or french . schools in disadvantaged areas like the heavily north_african close in suburbs of paris would have priority . another part of the plan would create interdisciplinary independent study groups , guided by teachers , for students in the last two years of the three year lycee cycle , with increased use of computers and information_technology . special instructors artists for art courses , native speakers for languages would supplement the work of regular teachers . and new fields like physical and sports education would appeal to students turned off by the traditional curriculum of the past . ''the whole idea is to get teachers to help students , '' mr . allegre said . ''in america and britain that 's understood . '' here , the tradition always was that teachers taught , and students had to figure out for themselves how to learn . ''there 's a great global challenge to education nowadays , '' he said , ''and no country has really figured out the answer . '' meanwhile , mr . allegre said jokingly , he seizes any opportunity he can to teach physics . he was alluding to a running feud with the satirical weekly le canard enchaine about a television appearance he made last month . he had used the occasion to illustrate the inherent difficulty of mastering physics if a beginning student was asked which would fall faster , a tennis ball or a heavy_metal ball the same size dropped at the same time , he said , the answer would usually be the metal ball . ''the truth is , '' he said , ''that they land at the same time . '' a few days later , the newspaper said mr . allegre was technically right , but only if the two balls were falling in a vacuum . air resistance would slow down the tennis ball , it said , so the smoother , metal ball would indeed land first . mr . allegre says he does not read newspapers but was alerted by his staff and sent a handwritten_note to the editor , who published it on march 3 . ''one of your journalists thought he 'd be smart and give me a physics lesson , '' the minister 's note read . the acrimony continues in print , but mr . allegre says he does n't mind . ''i 'm sure all the canard enchaine 's readers have plunged into their physics books and are learning a lot , '' he said with a laugh .",has a topic of education
"it is one of the more extraordinary sights in france the future elite of the country , the exquisitely articulate men and women who will rule ministries and state industries , gathered in a small classroom in a mouse infested , semiderelict former prison hundreds of miles from the corridors of power in paris . earnestly , they take notes from labyrinthine diagrams in red , blue , black and green ink illustrating an aspect of the state budget . as students of the exclusive ecole nationale d'administration , the school that is a passport to the inner sanctum of french power , they know the importance to the civil_servant of discreet obedience . their sang froid seems intact despite provincial exile . but their dignity is being severely tested . for these 105 students from the school that shaped former president valery giscard_d'estaing mayor jacques_chirac of paris defense minister pierre joxe the socialist_party leader , laurent_fabius peugeot 's chairman , jacques calvet , and others in the who 's who of contemporary france have become guinea pigs in a bitterly_contested experiment in the decentralization of europe 's most centralized state . the idea is that ena ( pronounced ay na ) , as the school founded in 1945 is known , should be moved to strasbourg on the german border in eastern france from its traditional home in the chic rue de l'universite in central paris . the first strasbourg classes began in january and the establishment 's transfer to the city , most commonly known as the home of the european_parliament , is due to be completed by next year . many are troubled although apparently simple , the plan is profoundly troubling to many members of the french establishment . its effect may be compared to the notion of , say , moving harvard_law_school and the georgetown school of government to kansas_city . moreover , france has long run on the conviction that the nation should be directed by its supremely well educated mandarins that the state sector should be large and influential in order to regulate the economy and reduce social conflict , and that the governors to be of this system need to breathe the refined air of the capital to grasp the subtleties of running a country administered from the center for centuries . "" france has one of the finest , best trained groups of civil_servants in the world and depends on ena to provide the elite , "" said raphael alomar , the president of the association of former students , who are known as enarques ( pronounced ay nark ) . "" moving to strasbourg amounts to a costly recipe for destroying the place . "" but the socialist government , which decided on the move , thinks otherwise . it believes that putting the school in strasbourg will further its drive to shift power progressively to regions and local authorities , so diminishing the overwhelming role of paris in french life that was developed in the 17th_century by jean baptiste colbert , the brilliant servant of king louis xiv . "" the government wants decentralization , and there is no more potent symbol of a governing elite in paris than ena , "" said the school 's director , jean coussirou . "" it is hoped that by putting the school in strasbourg , a city at the heart of europe , the european awareness of the students will be developed . "" asked if he approved of the move , mr . coussirou said "" i am a civil_servant and so my role is to obey the government . but the decision strikes me as a little bold . maybe 10 years from now , when a federal europe has developed futher , it could be justified . "" others are more forthright . "" no to the transfer , "" proclaims a huge banner hanging from a window of the otherwise elegant school premises in paris . delegations of former students , led by mr . alomar , have visited ministers to protest . and , in strasbourg , the mood is one of , well , diplomatic disgust . "" strasbourg is a nice town and we have been warmly received , "" said laurent menard , a first year student . "" but i think there is a serious danger that the level of teaching could fall here and , as we 're being formed to govern , we should probably be close to the administration . "" another student , thierry rogelet , said "" this move is supposed to bring us closer to europe and brussels . but it 's a very theoretical notion . brussels is five hours away by train and i do n't feel more european here . "" few students accepted mr . menard and mr . rogelet already know they are destined for the top . the school accepts only about 100 french students a year , as well as about 35 foreigners . entry exams are intensely competitive , and the french students are all assured state posts after their two year course , which consists of one year of classes and one of practical experience in a ministry , an embassy or a state industry like renault , the automaker . teaching is provided mainly by senior civil_servants , many of them former students of the school , who take time off from their jobs . the course is free , with each student costing the french_state about 150 , 000 . "" the danger is that the course could become more theoretical and less practical , "" said philippe durand , a senior budget ministry official and enarque who had made the journey to strasbourg to teach a two hour lesson . "" it will be hard to get ministry officials to take a day off to come here , and you may have to resort to full time professors . "" but for the moment the government is pressing ahead with the rapid conversion of a former convent and prison into the new ena at a cost of about 20 million . about one third of the commanderie saint jean , which dates from 1150 , has already been rebuilt , and the rest is due to be completed by december . students enter through a courtyard littered with timber , cement and the top of a bell tower placed there while restoration continues . good reason for haste there is a good reason for the haste it is aimed at creating a fait accompli . parliamentary elections in march are expected to result in a defeat for the socialists and the formation of a center right government . what its views would be on uprooting the school are unclear . "" we still believe there could be a reversal of the decision to move from a future government , "" mr . coussirou , the director , said . meanwhile , the precipitation is causing problems for martine lucet , the official administering ena 's arrival in strasbourg . the new school has been invaded by mice , attracted from the ruins of the prison to the heated new premises where secretaries keep intriguing cakes in drawers . "" i just found this one , "" miss lucet said , presenting a dead mouse neatly placed in a cardboard box . "" i am going to show it to the director so he knows what is going on . "" such are the tribulations of life in the provinces and such the thorny issues with which the french elite , long secluded amid the boulevards and cafes of the capital , now has to contend .",has a topic of education
"several hundred students stormed a building in leipzig to prevent chancellor_gerhard_schr_der from signing an official application for the city to hold the 2012 olympic_games . the students were part of a group of 4 , 000 protesters shouting , ''first education , then games ! '' the signing ceremony was moved to a nearby hotel . students all over germany have been on strike for more than a month against proposed cuts in university financing . victor_homola ( nyt )",has a topic of education
"lead for the first time in years , propaganda loudspeakers boomed out today over the low_slung houses and orange tiled imperial monuments of beijing , all but submerging with the sheer power of sonic amplification the lesser loudspeaker belonging to pro_democracy protesters still occupying tiananmen_square . for the first time in years , propaganda loudspeakers boomed out today over the low_slung houses and orange tiled imperial monuments of beijing , all but submerging with the sheer power of sonic amplification the lesser loudspeaker belonging to pro_democracy protesters still occupying tiananmen_square . the government 's high decibel message urges the demonstrators to withdraw from the square . it repeats in thunderously syrupy tones what the newspapers have been saying lately that the student protesters are motivated by laudable patriotic sentiments . but it adds a note that , like amplified messages themselves , has not been heard in a number of years . ''why did this movement begin ? '' the voice asks . ''because , '' it answers , ''we have slackened our attention to political education . '' then the voice , shuddering backward over the forbidden_city , echoing forward toward the orange fringed mausoleum of mao_zedong , goes on ''if we do n't stop the movement , we will lose the gains made during 10 years of reform . our government and party have the power to solve the country 's problems . '' students' answering voice the students camped out in tiananmen_square were trying their best to keep up their end of the loudspeaker competition , broadcasting their own messages . and tonight , when a large , enthusiastic crowd cheered as a model of the statue of liberty was set up in the middle of the square , the loudspeaker blasting propaganda into the humid night air seemed a strange commentary , one obviously ignored by the excited throngs . but for the most part , the superior amplitude of the government 's loudspeakers seemed a not very subtle emblem of the balance of forces emerging in the confrontation between student protesters and the communist authorities of china . two weeks ago , when a million people took to the streets to prevent the army from entering beijing to enforce martial_law , it seemed as if ''people power'' was winning . but now , like a giant kicked in the stomach , the vast and powerful chinese state , with its total control of the propaganda apparatus , has regained its breath , showing that , if it cannot persuade the students to give up their pro_democracy_demonstrations , it can at least shout them down . from out of the past while the government 's renewed recourse to loudspeakers as a propaganda tool is probably only temporary , they are reminders that several features of life long gone have been resurrected lately . one is the very call for more ideological education being made over the loudspeakers . that harkens back to an era when mao was still alive and the effort to instill politically ''correct'' ideas in the population was constant and time consuming . another returned element of chinese life is the language of the power struggle at the top , particularly the incessant repetition of slogans intended to portray the losers of the struggle as secretive and scheming but numerically insignificant ''counterrevolutionaries . '' the newspapers and television news broadcasts , for example , are filled with a new phrase in the lexicon of chinese communism ''the very , very small number of people . '' the phrase refers to the party leader , zhao_ziyang , and a group of his lieutenants who have apparently been eliminated from power . a slight variation reminiscent of expressions like ''the gang of four'' a reference to the maoist group that was purged in 1976 the new term has the virtue of succinctness . more important perhaps , it conveys the impression that it was just a tiny , isolated fragment of the leadership that formed an ''anti party clique , '' endangering communism and striving to gain power for itself . ''the very small number of people who have instigated and created turbulence must be exposed , '' wan li , the chairman of the national people 's congress , said , varying the ' 'very , very small number'' formula just a bit . as in past power struggles , it is for the propaganda apparatus to give the impression of a great outpouring of support for what , in the present case , is being called ''the important decisions of the party center'' meaning prime_minister li_peng 's declaration of martial_law on may 20 and the move apparently to purge mr . zhao and his closest allies . 'resolute support' expressed the newspapers have been reporting that well known people , large organizations and octogenarian revolutionary veterans alike have expressed their ' 'resolute support'' of mr . li , making , virtually without exception , some reference to that ' 'very , very small number of people'' inside the leadership whose ultimate goal was said to be the overthrow of the communist system . for the dwindling numbers of students of tiananmen_square , the phrase has become an object of mockery . they repeat the words in chinese derisively over and over again . the students' notion is that the ostensible ' 'very , very small number of people'' includes the majority of people in china . ''they want to isolate us , '' a student from beijing_university said today . ''they want to separate us from the mass of the people . but , in fact , the very , very small number of people are the leaders themselves . '' square with a history some new things in old forms have also appeared in the last few weeks , not the least of them the very appearance of student protesters in the vast square in front of the forbidden_city . tiananmen , or the gate of heavenly peace , was created by the victorious revolutionaries in the years after coming to power as an open expanse where events like triumphal parades celebrating the revolution could take place . before , the square was smaller and narrower , encroached upon by traditional courtyards surrounded by walls and two imperial style arches , all demolished after 1949 . under mao , tiananmen was used for the mass rituals of fealty to the communist government that were an essential part of his governing style . the square became the place of annual military parades , of huge fireworks exhibits , and , most important , of supposedly spontaneous mass rallies to support the victors in struggles for power . the symbolism changes when , for example , the radical clique known as the gang of four was purged in 1976 , hundreds of thousands of well organized demonstrators_marched through the square under red banners , beating the drums of celebration . years before , during the cultural_revolution , tiananmen was where delirious teen_age red guards demonstrated their worship of mao . in 1976 , there was an anti maoist protest at the square , later known as the tiananmen incident , that drew hundreds of thousands of people . it was a one day affair quickly suppressed by the government of the time , the one led by the ill fated gang of four . but the demonstration showed for the first time that the square , intended for the ritual of mass fealty , could also serve opponents of the party and the government . now , its occupation for over a month by pro_democracy protesters has probably changed its symbolism forever , transforming it from the place to show support for the government to the place where official policies are protested .",has a topic of education
"koichi ishikawa was a brilliant , dedicated student at a top high_school , passed japan 's toughest entrance_exam to study medicine at tokyo_university and was destined for a promising career . then he joined aum_shinrikyo , the religious sect suspected of staging the poison_gas attack on the subway system that killed a dozen people and injured 5 , 500 . now mr . ishikawa , 26 years old , is sitting in a jail_cell , a suspect in various crimes committed by aum . in cells nearby are his aum comrades , also graduates of japan 's equivalents of harvard , princeton and yale , trained scientists who proved that they had what it takes to get ahead . as japan struggles to assess what went wrong with these serious , smart young people , many scholars and commentators are pointing their fingers in an unusual direction the schools . japan may have one of the world 's most admired educational systems , but the critics say it teaches young people to memorize instead of to think . young people spend so much time hunched over desks , the critics say , that they fail to develop sufficient social_skills . many of them and they seem to be more common in japan resemble the stereotype of the computer nerd brilliant and driven , but utterly lost when in human company . inability to discern basic human values "" it reflects a profound crisis in the educational system , "" said alfons deeken , a longtime japanese speaking professor of philosophy at sophia university in tokyo . "" many japanese students are absorbing ever greater amounts of information , but they do n't acquire the ability to make value judgments on basic human values like responsibility for human life or respect for freedom of the individual . "" typically , japanese students attend school for about 240 days a year , one third longer than american students . in addition , many go to cram_schools or after school lessons almost as soon as they learn to read , and they test their way into classes from kindergarten to college . they are taking calculus when american students are struggling through geometry , and english about the same time that many americans are learning their rules of grammar . but while many japanese have studied english for nearly a decade by the time they reach college , very few can speak it . perhaps that is indicative of the system students are able to absorb rules and vocabulary but often cannot use what they have learned in the real world . no plan to develop mature personalities "" these guys in the science division have no time to relax , "" said yoichi masuzoe , a former politics professor at tokyo_university who taught some of the aum members but hardly remembers them . "" they should have read more literature , like shakespeare . then they could have learned what human beings are . they lack an understanding of human nature . "" takeshi sasaki , a professor of political_science at tokyo_university , was more pointed . "" in this society , there is n't any organization which can train young talented people into mature personalities , "" he said . "" the deficiency in social relations in japan is a serious issue . social relations are more or less being destroyed by the examination centered life . "" scholars , of course , do not blame japan 's educational system entirely for aum 's terrorism , and by many standards the system is a model one . many americans would love to have japanese style schools , which do an admirable job in teaching reading , writing and trigonometry . japanese students often have some of the highest average test scores in international comparisons . there is also no doubt that aum 's techniques in recruitment and mind control play a more direct role in roping in its members . but the complaint is that in turning out naive , vulnerable students , japan 's schools leave the students as open prey for a charismatic leader like aum 's guru , shoko asahara , a 40 year old yoga expert . college students are often searching for explanations to life that cannot be found in their textbooks . and mr . asahara , with his flowing pink robes , open arms and assertions that aum is the key to enlightenment , may appear as a fatherly savior to them . fumihiro joyu , the sect 's 32 year old spokesman and a graduate of waseda university , told an interviewer recently that he joined the sect because it gave him a purpose in life . "" i wanted my life to be meaningful , "" he said . "" i did not want my life to be meaningless . "" mr . asahara , who was arrested on tuesday in his hideout , had insisted on complete obedience from his disciples . but once they proved their loyalty , they were apparently given substantial freedoms , important jobs in the organization and prestigious titles . at least 11 of asahara 's top disciples effectively his cabinet members were educated in science and engineering at top universities , where experimental laboratory budgets are tiny and competition is fierce . some say that aum basically bought out these scientists . they were given enormous sums of money to pursue research projects , so long as the research advanced aum 's interests . bond with the guru , then blindly obey "" it is a big jump to believe in the guru , "" said akira asada , an economics professor at kyoto university . "" but once they make the jump , they are simply given freedom and financial support to pursue maniacal projects . "" of course , the motivations for joining the cult are easier to understand than those for committing mass_murder . but the very strong sense of identity with mr . asahara , and of loyalty to the sect rather than to society , may have helped cultivate a blind obedience . "" i kept hesitating because i realized many people would die , "" ikuo hayashi told the police in a jail house confession , according to the newspaper asahi . dr . hayashi , a cardiac surgeon and aum official , is said to have confessed to taking part in the subway attack . "" again and again , i tried to stop what i was about to do , but i was unable to disobey the sect 's orders , "" the asahi quoted dr . hayashi as saying . another example is hideo murai , who graduated from osaka_university . specializing in aerospace physics , mr . murai worked for kobe_steel doing research in aerospace technology before he became an aum member . he soon won the trust of mr . asahara and became the head of the sect 's "" science and technology "" department . in this position , he is believed to have been given an important challenge to help organize the sarin gas attack on the tokyo subway on march 20 . but mr . murai may have done or known too much . he once revealed that aum had assets worth 100 billion_yen , or nearly 1 . 2 billion . in april mr . murai was fatally stabbed by a member of an underworld gang . mr . murai 's disclosure remains one of the mysteries of aum . while aum demanded that its 10 , 000 japanese members donate all their possessions to the sect when they joined , it is still unclear how or why aum accumulated such large assets . it has led some scholars to suspect that mr . asahara was intent on building some sort of empire . mr . asahara 's motives are unclear , but some say he had both material and political ambitions and had set up a hierarchical structure to support those goals . "" it was similar to the nazi_party and the stalinist system in that the same kind of mass hypnotism exists , "" said hiroyoshi ishikawa , a professor of social psychology at seijo university . "" the young people in the group have many frustrations and are discontent with society . in this situation , the group can easily become a big psychological apparatus , a psychological machine that substitutes their frustration with revolution . "" partly blind , mr . asahara showed a desire to be a leader while attending a school for the blind . his eyesight was apparently stronger than that of the other children and he would often strike a deal with them he would lead them all to a restaurant in exchange for their paying for his meals . as a young man , mr . asahara appears to have been unusually ambitious or , as people now say , obsessed with power . he told a number of acquaintances , for example , that he wanted to be prime_minister . in 1990 mr . asahara ran for parliament and lost . giving up on the electoral system , he sought power in other ways . his organization was growing into a mini nation , a state within a state with cabinet members and various ministries from health and welfare to finance and self_defense . moreover , he had begun to amass a giant stockpile of tons of chemicals , some of which are suspected of being used to make sarin gas . meanwhile , he was telling his followers about an imminent world war iii , an armageddon that would strike the world but permit aum to survive . "" asahara is a total materialist , "" said yoshiya abe , a religion professor at kokugakuin university . "" he 's interested in assuming assets and acquiring control . power and money . "" some scholars say mr . asahara staged the gas attack on the subway as a way of waging war on the japanese government . but it is still far from clear exactly how the sarin gas attack fit into his overall grand designs . one theory is that having predicted armageddon , he wanted to make it come true . another is simply that he was obsessed by power , including the power to use toxic_chemicals and see their effects . a third theory has to do with reports that mr . asahara is in poor health , that he is dying of one ailment or another . thus mr . asahara , newly reminded of his own mortality , wanted to lead people not only in life but into death as well . the one person who could shed the most light on this is shoko asahara himself , but he is not saying much . he sits in his jail_cell , exchanging small talk with the police but insisting on his innocence and refusing to enter substantive interrogation . "" how could a blind man like me commit such a crime ? "" mr . asahara is said to have told the police soon after his arrest . "" but i do n't think you will believe what i 'm saying . """,has a topic of education
"down the road from the grand dachas that once belonged to molotov and stalin 's daughter and gorbachev lies zhukovka humanities school , one of russia 's most expensive private schools . founded last year , zhukovka offers latin , tennis and etiquette . beneath sweet scented birch and pine_trees , armed security guards in camouflage jackets patrol the playground . in a humbler neighborhood , the 726 students of moscow 's overcrowded public_school 615 are taught in two shifts . the course work is erratic . some teachers have embraced academic_freedom and created their own innovative courses , but many more have resisted giving up the familiar soviet lockstep instruction methods and learning by rote . civil_defense renamed for example , the vice principal , valentin a . malinin , taught civil_defense in the days when it was a prep course for military service . now the class is called "" basics of everyday safety . "" but mr . malinin has not quite shed a lifetime 's preoccupations . a question on his final exam this month was , "" what do you do if the enemy attacks using biological_weapons ? "" ( answer "" defume and quarantine . "" ) as in the united_states , there is a wide gulf between private schools and the state run education system . but all of this is new here . to russians long accustomed to free and relatively equal schooling , the appearance of hundreds of newly_minted private schools is mind_boggling . and that is not the only disparity in the classrooms of the new russia . in a country that once prided itself on high and uniform standards and a curriculum cast in iron , courses and instruction now vary wildly even from public_school to public_school . in many , low salaries have driven out the best teachers . classrooms are overcrowded . there is no money for light_bulbs , let alone field trips . lenin 's portrait still hangs in one classroom . an icon of jesus adorns another . the education system in the post communist era has become so balkanized that even along the same school corridor , the teaching varies from room to room . euphoria has waned the euphoria that swept schools during perestroika , when teachers , parents and students reveled in the novelty of free_speech , has waned . in russia , as in the united_states , there is growing concern about freedom 's excesses , as well as fear that standards are falling and only the rich are being taught well . there is even nostalgia for the cheap , sturdy brown uniforms that in soviet_times concealed class differences . "" you can hear that our schools are fantastic now or that they are the worst , and both will be true , "" said a rueful yevgeny v . tkachenko , russia 's education minister . "" we are in a transitional phase . "" this year was the first in which the government 's new , non communist curriculum was applied a sweeping but nonmandatory basic program that allows choice and innovation in the public_school system . as in many european_countries , students in their last two years of high_school can now focus their studies in either the humanities or the sciences , and elective courses in fields like art or foreign literature are permitted . so is religious instruction . the new curriculum , which is to be put in place over five years , is intended to give more say to regional authorities and local school_districts . though once tightly centralized , the basic russian school structure resembles that of a typical western system public education is divided into primary , middle and high_schools , and children attend the nearest school in their district . some elite districts but like beverly_hills and scarsdale , some districts are more equal than others . the communist elite could pull strings to send children to the public_school of their choice , and now so can the business elite . but many of them now prefer to pay for private education . the new freedom granted to public schools has often confused and paralyzed even well meaning administrators . but educational reformers are finding that many schools relish their freedom not to change . so far , fewer than a third of the country 's 67 , 000 schools have adopted the new program . most , like p.s . 615 , are muddling through with some of the new and much of the old . disgustedly waving a popular , newly published fifth grade history textbook , mr . malenin spoke contemptuously of its pro democratic tone and lack of reverence for lenin and marx . "" napoleon did bad things , but they still have monuments to him , "" he said . "" these people are part of our history . what is better ? democrats ? "" he spat the word . "" let them first prove that their system is better . "" natalya lepeknova , who teaches seventh_grade history two flights up , calls her course "" the ethics of life "" and flavors her lessons with the teachings of the existential christian philosopher nikolai berdyayev and nikolai roerich , a painter and mystic with a devoted following in russia . borrowing teaching methods there is less confusion in private schools , where teachers are enthusiastically rediscovering prerevolutionary russian pedagogy and borrowing teaching methods from england , france , germany and the united_states . parents and children , preoccupied with getting ahead in business , consider english their most vital subject . in a recent grammar lesson at zhukovka , four 14 year olds sat in leather armchairs and intently deconstructed gerunds with the poise of graduate students in a selective seminar . in the lunchroom , where a snack of hot cereal was served , sonia , 11 , wore jeans , sneakers and a sweatshirt bought while vacationing in cyprus . she said her father usually drove her to school . "" we have a chauffeur , of course , "" she explained , "" but it 's more fun when daddy drives . "" tatyana kravtsova , the principal , said running the small , lavishly equipped school of 57 students and 30 teachers was a fantasy come true . teachers there earn 300 , 000 rubles ( about 170 ) a month , nearly three times as much as the teachers at p.s . 615 . favoring creativity and self expression over homework and learning by rote , the teachers echo the reformist zeal of many american teachers in the early 1960 's . but the security guards , and the parents' edginess , speak of more contemporary russian concerns . "" no last names , "" marina , 37 , insisted . a parent and the wife of the computer executive who founded the school , marina hovers in the principal 's office , acting as the school 's board chairman . "" we have to worry about the security of our children . "" subsidies from company the computer company , mikrodin , one of russia 's most dynamic businesses , is the school 's sole sponsor and pays the expenses that are not covered by the 3 , 000 a year tuition . and while the school requires applicants to pass a rigorous entrance_exam , children of mikrodin 's top executives are given special consideration . mrs . kravtsova confided that special tutoring was provided for students who did not measure up . there are private schools for the rich , and there are private schools that try to accept students regardless of their parents' income . at the piragov school in moscow , parents pay according to their means . the richest pay 30 , 000 rubles ( about 17 ) a month . more than 15 percent pay no tuition at all . mikhail v . smola , who founded the school as an antidote to moscow life , said "" our schools are falling apart , just like our whole society . there are too many outside factors television , commercialization that diminish teachers' influence . "" his 140 students are taught by 32 teachers who try to teach ethics and moral values as intensely as english , drama , science and art . the piragov , unlike state schools , must pay for its own rent , utilities and textbooks . his budget is scraped together with tuition money and occasional donations from a few wealthy parents . education as a calling other parents help out by washing windows . the teachers are paid no better than those at state schools , so mr . smola recruits those who consider their jobs a calling . he railed against the commercialization that has overtaken society and even schools , which have to compete and compromise to stay afloat . and he soon will be forced to join the fray . the city has decided to tear down his building and put up a sleek , modern office complex . mr . smola must either relocate , and lose most of his students , or find a commercial sponsor , like a bank , willing to subsidize his share of the building . the education minister suggested that such setbacks were not likely to end soon . citing a recent opinion_poll that showed that schools ranked ninth in a list of moscow residents' most pressing concerns ( crime was first ) , mr . tkachenko sighed . "" the real problem is that education is no longer a priority in our society , "" he said .",has a topic of education
"to a generation of japanese who created the world 's most disciplined work force from the chaotic ruins of world_war_ii , tsuyoshi mitsuzawa was the hero of an era , an ace amateur pitcher who parlayed an accurate arm into a career as a university coach , television commentator and successful businessman . but to members of a very different generation that often find themselves trapped in the system their parents built , mr . mitsuzawa was apparently a hero of a different kind a man who knew his way around the notoriously rigid university entrance_exam system . almost everything in a young japanese 's life hinges on getting into a big name school , and it is alleged that for a price the police say some parents paid in excess of 100 , 000 mr . mitsuzawa and mid level university officials could guarantee entry into meiji university , one of the country 's more prestigious private schools . this week , the former baseball star , who has denied any wrongdoing , became the latest to be arrested in a widening scandal . it has shaken whatever remaining faith young japanese retain in the system that offers them a single shot at access to the country 's best jobs , government posts and chances for the prestige credentials that japan covets . daily newspaper stories no one knows how far the meiji exam scandal will ripple . every day the japanese press has been disclosing new details of how corrupt university officials secretly hired bright undergraduates many from waseda university , an even more prestigious private_school to take entrance_exams on behalf of wealthy applicants with dubious qualifications . in the three months since this year 's entrance_exams ended , at least 20 cases of fraud have been discovered , including ones involving the sons of several company presidents and a famous television personality . there are suggestions that this has been going on for years , and not just at meiji university here in tokyo . it should surprise no one that corruption has spread to japan 's campuses . this country is accustomed to paying dearly for scarce resources , and as a baby_boom generation hits college age , parents are acutely_aware that seats at prominent universities rank among the scarcest . that is why , at 10 p.m . on any school night , subways are jammed with weary students returning home from "" juku , "" the famed cram_schools that take years to prepare students for a two day exam . still , people have come to expect a sort of mechanical fairness from "" exam hell , "" the period in which many japanese face more sheer pressure than at any other time in their lives . in a country that prides itself , often falsely , on its egalitarianism , entrance_exams are supposed to be a great leveler . recommendations from teachers , family name and political influence count for little . another recent scandal indeed , the meiji exam scandal is only the latest . three months ago the police in hyogo prefecture in central japan arrested the principal and a teacher in the region 's oldest high_school , charging that they altered the entrance_exams of 15 students to assure that they would get in . the school has some prominent alumni who are powerful in the area , and leaders of the alumni association reportedly demanded "" special handling "" of a select group of children . but the temptation to meddle with the system is particularly intense at the university level , because as any college age student here will readily admit , getting into the right school is far , far more important than getting out with honors . "" it is the reverse of america , "" said hiroyuki takase , 19 years old , as he and thousands of other students emerged a few months ago from the most withering of all the entrance_exams , the test to get into the state run university of tokyo . "" you have to prepare yourself for exactly what the exam requires , "" said the haggard looking student . "" but once you are in , you are not expected to work very hard . "" so far , the taint of scandal has not come to the university of tokyo , the pinnacle of japan 's education system . but because it has such influence here as virtually the sole gateway to the top positions in the country 's powerful bureaucracy there are charges that todai , as the university is usually called , is responsible for much of the pressure that has led students and their parents to such desperate tactics . there has been a rising chorus from critics who say that too little attention has been paid to assuring that the admissions process finds the students who are truly japan 's best . at the same time , todai has come under nearly incessant attack in the japanese media for allowing its laboratories and classrooms to deteriorate , reinforcing the perception that the todai name is more important than the education it imparts . "" as the entrance_exam becomes a big social issue , people blame todai for the whole thing , "" said akira takeda , the assistant dean of the university , in a recent interview . "" they say that we are responsible for the pressure , in the high_schools , the junior high_schools , even the kindergartens . i do n't think that is true . "" 2 tracks at todai in an experiment , todai is now trying two different exams its normal test , which requires students to prove their proficiency in everything from english to advanced calculus , and a new exam for students who excel in one or two areas . ninety percent of the entering class is chosen from the first exam 10 percent , a few hundred students , are now let in from the second . the results have been mixed , and there are heated arguments within the faculty over whether the new system threatens to ruin the university 's good name . meanwhile the pressures seem unlikely to lessen until late in this decade , when the university age population in japan will drop by nearly a quarter . until then , a quarter million "" ronin "" will still roam japan 's streets . the phrase , a reference to the masterless samurai who wandered the countryside in ancient times , is used to describe students who have graduated from high_school but failed to pass the university exam . they spend a year , sometimes more , grinding away in preparation for a second chance , with their parents often too embarrassed to mention them in public . "" it is an awful time at home , "" a senior government official said recently , describing the pressure his ronin son is under . and what if he does n't make it ? "" i guess , "" the official said , "" we 'll send him to america . """,has a topic of education
"no one , it seems , thought about the sikhs and their turbans . as part of a struggle to separate religion from the state , france is poised to pass a law banning religious symbols like muslim veils , jewish skullcaps and large christian crosses from public schools . but a report by an official commission of experts and a speech by president jacques_chirac last month recommending passage of a legal ban said nothing about the head coverings worn by sikhs . after all , france is home to only several thousand sikhs , compared with about 600 , 000 jews and 5 million muslims . historically , the sikh population is quiet , law abiding , apolitical and almost invisible living , working and worshiping mainly in a few isolated pockets of suburban paris . now they have found their voice , demanding that they be exempted from the anticipated prohibition . sitting barefooted and cross_legged in a large worship room in the gurdwara singh sabha temple in the working_class paris suburb of bobigny , two dozen sikhs sounded a chorus of protest . ''i 'm 100 percent french , i speak french , i was born here , '' said dhramvir singh , a 17 year old student who wears a dark blue turban knotted in front to school everyday . ''but it 's impossible for me to take off my turban . if they force me , i 'll have to drop out , and never be able to do anything except a job that no one else wants . '' he said he had no identity card a violation of french law because he refused to remove his turban for the official photo . others said that sikhs in britain , canada and the united_states were now allowed to work turbaned in police departments and in the military and that sikh soldiers fought and died for france in world_war i with their turbans on . ''if marshal foch were still alive , he 'd be fighting against such a law ! '' exclaimed manprit singh , dhramvir 's older brother , referring to the french general who commanded allied troops in world_war i . the sikhs' situation underscores the perils that confront a state when it ventures into the complicated world of religious practice . the impetus for the law stems largely from the increase in the number of muslim girls turning up at public schools in head_scarves , or even in long , black veils that hide their chins , foreheads and the shape of their bodies . most jewish students who wear skullcaps attend private jewish schools there has never been a problem with catholic students' wearing crosses that mr . chirac described in his speech as ''obviously of an excessive dimension , '' members of the government 's commission said . in a recent letter to mr . chirac asking for an exemption for sikhs , chain singh , a leader of the bobigny temple , said that if sikhs could not wear turbans to school , ''this will not only be a failure of our freedom to practice our religion here in france but also of the attitude of the french toward the sikh community . '' the sikhs' outcry so late in the game has stunned and dismayed french officials and experts involved in the commission . ''why did n't the sikhs come forward , why did n't they protest while we were doing our investigation ? '' bernard stasi , who led the commission that produced the report , said in an interview . ''i have finished my job and it 's too late to change the report . now it 's in the government 's hands . '' he acknowledged that no french sikhs were among the more than 200 people interviewed by his commission during its six month investigation . an official at the ministry of national education , which is responsible for negotiating the law with parliament , declined comment , except to say ''what ? there are sikhs in france ? '' a senior official at the ministry of the interior responsible for religious matters said ''i know nothing about the sikh problem . are there many sikhs in france ? '' the ideal of the secular republican state in which all frenchmen are equal is so strong that the census does not count people according to race , religion or ethnic origins . affirmative_action laws do not exist . the bobigny temple has begun collecting signatures on a petition that calls on all ''citizens of france , religious or not , believing or not'' to help protest a law that it contends will be ''inhuman . '' even though a vast majority of sikh students are french citizens , the sikhs have also sent a letter of protest to the indian embassy in paris , asking the indian government to intercede . the sikh letter to mr . chirac injects a new twist into the debate , arguing that the turban should be allowed because it is a cultural , not a religious , symbol . ''different from a muslim veil or a jewish yarmulke , a turban has no religious symbolism , '' the letter said . one of the tenets of the sikh religion requires sikh men never to cut their hair , but says nothing per se about wearing turbans . the distinction between cultural and religious dress cuts both ways , though . on the one hand , the french government could argue that if the garment is purely cultural , then there is no reason why sikhs must wear it , just as schools traditionally ban students from wearing baseball caps and other head coverings . denis matringe , one of france 's leading specialists on india , said , however , that ''for sikhs to remove their turbans and show their long hair would be to humiliate them . '' on the other hand , the sikhs could contend that there is nothing intrinsically religious about the turban and recommend that french school principals continue to turn a blind eye to the practice , as some do when muslim girls turn up in veils . in its current draft form , the law states only that in public schools , ''signs and dress that ostensibly show the religious affiliation of students are forbidden . '' some politicians are calling for the ban to apply to political symbols in schools as well , like the palestinian kaffiyeh and t shirts emblazoned with the face of che guevara . a debate also rages on about whether the law should ban religious symbols that are ''ostensible , '' ''ostentatious'' or just plain ''visible . '' bobigny journal",has a topic of education
"lead on my first day as an exchange teacher at the ipswich high_school for girls in suffolk , england , i entered the classroom and 30 14 year old girls , identically dressed in gray skirts and red sweaters , rose to their feet and stood in utter silence . i walked to the front of the room . i could barely suppress a giggle what a far cry , both in distance and behavior , from my suburban connecticut students . on my first day as an exchange teacher at the ipswich high_school for girls in suffolk , england , i entered the classroom and 30 14 year old girls , identically dressed in gray skirts and red sweaters , rose to their feet and stood in utter silence . i walked to the front of the room . i could barely suppress a giggle what a far cry , both in distance and behavior , from my suburban connecticut students . i looked each of the 30 squarely in the eye and intoned , ''good morning , girls . '' the girls , well prepared , chorused back , ''good morning , mrs . reade . '' still they stood , and still silence reigned . like a queen instructing her subjects , i gravely announced , ''you may sit down . '' and they sat . as i surveyed my new realm , it was impossible not to compare the neat rows of docile girls , uniformed right down to gray knee socks ( ribbed only ) and black shoes , with a rather boisterous line of american high_school students , individually clad in vari colored jeans and t shirts . when the english girls opened their mouths to speak , not a trace of chewing_gum instead , glorious articulation crisp t 's , light l 's , unstressed r 's and precise vowels . as an english teacher , i felt as if i had died and gone to a very orderly heaven . i was certain i had when i received their first written assignments , lovely , clear and in real ink . no ballpoint pens allowed in england for serious writing . ( no typewriters either , i later discovered . ) as the weeks passed , i became used to the orderliness of the students , but i was increasingly puzzled as to how it had occurred . some of the apparent docility obviously stemmed from the school being private , but the caliber and socioeconomic background of the students differed little from those in my american public_school . nor were the students , once they got to know me , and i them , much different . they were lively and occasionally rambunctious . so what accounted for their different values and behavior ? as in america , much stems from the children 's homes . english parents , asked what they want for their children , would reply much the same as americans a good , well rounded education . what each parent english or american means by ''good , '' however , varies enormously , as do the ways in which one obtains these benefits . american parents seek a community with good schools and will pay a premium to buy a house there . if the schools fail to measure up to their standards , they either move or , more probably , agitate vigorously ( and usually successfully ) at the local level for improvements . they pay for improvements with taxes and time devoted to the schools in volunteering and watchdogging . british parents , restricted by nationally set examinations , have in many cases lost faith in the state ( public ) school system . those who want their children to go to college ( a smaller percentage than in america ) will spend 10 to 20 percent of their income to send them to private schools . about 145 11 year olds will take the entrance_examinations for ipswich high_school this year , vying for 32 places . there are more differences . english parents and teachers have two all important words sensible and silly . the former means one does one 's homework , comes to school even if not feeling well and acts responsibly ( remembering to get one 's clothes name taped , taking attendance for the teacher and helping the younger girls ) . silly means forgetting any of the above , talking in morning assembly , not paying attention and going into an emotional funk . if a girl misbehaves , i have but to remind her she is being silly , and she reforms . american parents like the phrase ''well rounded . '' this means their child plays one or two sports , gets a solid b average , has a part time job ( to teach responsibility ) , is reasonably courteous and has ''nice'' friends . to british parents , well rounded means simply sports , music and the ability to speak in front of an audience . to this end , their children take speech and drama , fencing , music , dance , riding and a host of other lessons . american parents , concerned about their children 's grades , monitor them throughout high_school , seeking college entrance credentials from teachers , coaches , employers and friends . british parents expect good grades too , but only in the form of results from the national examinations given at ages 16 and 18 . what the children do in school up to that point seems of relatively little importance , except as preparation for the exams , the ''0'' and ''a'' level ( ordinary and advanced ) tests . no one fails a grade or repeats it . the curriculum , once the children are 13 , is set by the state . the english respect and demand mechanical accuracy and neatness . when i complimented a parent on his daughter 's writing , he assumed i meant her penmanship and was pleased . he was less so when i explained i was referring to her ability to express herself on paper . state examinations specify that correct spelling and neatness affect the grade . all students carry with them pencil cases containing not only fountain pens but also rulers ( to underline titles ) , ink , erasers and bottles of white out , which they apply liberally . crossing out a word and presenting a messy paper seem as heinous a sin as egregious grammatical errors . almost all english children wear uniforms , both in public and in private schools . these are considered by parents and students to be practical and thrifty as well as to foster group identity . yet students manage to express their individuality . socks get pushed down stylishly around the ankles , shirttails flop out beneath pullovers and sweater sleeves rise and fall with fashion . at times i find myself thinking that american children in mufti often look neater than their english counterparts in an unkempt uniform . the array of required athletic equipment for britons is vast sweatsuits , gym uniforms , gymnastics leotards , sweaters , at least three different kinds of athletic shoes , all paid for by parents . no american public_school , regardless of affluence , would dare require so much , though i 'm not sure why . do we feel sports are less vital to our development ? english parents are , in short , conservative , and so are their schools , with all the pluses and minuses ''conservatism'' implies thoroughness and civilized behavior on the one hand , narrow curriculum and class consciousness on the other . the educational product varies fully as much as that in the united_states , and certainly american public schools have fulfilled their goals to greater public satisfaction than is the case in britain . in the best of all possible worlds , i would like to see americans dedicate themselves as conscientiously to their education as my english students do and acquire some of their civility and responsibility . i would also like my british students to have the opportunity to explore , without the specter of national exams spelling success or failure , the breadth of subject matter that makes school and the world really exciting . end paper",has a topic of education
"shotaro kamegai is naturally busy on weekday mornings , but life in the afternoons has grown unusually hectic as well . every monday and thursday he went to a special program to develop his powers of thinking . on tuesdays he took karate to learn traditional japanese discipline . and on wednesdays he had classes in art and gymnastics to enhance creativity and agility . it would be a grueling pace for anyone , but shotaro is a 5 year old kindergarten student . still , the effort has paid off . after more than a year of these cram_schools , shotaro passed his entrance_exam for the first grade in one of japan 's most competitive elementary schools . so now he has returned to cram_school to start another class for children entering elementary_school how to write poems and compositions . cram_schools have been a hotly_debated facet of japanese education for years , but experts say the problem is getting much worse the burden is spreading to younger and younger children . in fact , half the parents in one major survey said they had had their preschoolers tutored to gain an edge in an increasingly competitive society . "" this frenzy over early age education is not a happy thing , "" said keiko takahashi , professor of developmental psychology at sacred heart university here . "" i 'm sure parents themselves are wondering if it 's worth putting a toddler with diapers into cram_school . "" shotaro 's busy schedule and that of his 3 year old brother , daijiro who also began cram_school last year underscore the challenges of being a child in japan . at about age 3 , children in some families here begin a string of cram_schools and exams that will play a crucial role in determining whether they retire from first_rate jobs 60 years later . these days , to be a tiny tot in many japanese families is not to play leisurely on swings and seesaws , but to spend hours at desks in classrooms memorizing stories , learning homonyms , making calendars , putting colored chips in sequences , taking achievement tests and walking on balance beams all before a child is 4 . while the phenomenon of competing to get into preschool , and competing once there , may not be entirely alien to , say , a new yorker with young children , it is carried to greater lengths in japan . more than ever before , the "" examination hell , "" as many japanese describe the education system , is beginning with the rush by 2 and 3 year olds to get into a good cram_school to pass entrance tests for the best kindergartens . japan 's most famous elementary_school may be yochisha , which last fall had 1 , 302 applicants for 132 slots in the first grade , a fraction of the 19 , 000 first grade spots in elite elementary schools across the country . shotaro made it into yochisha , meaning that he and the 131 other pupils will have a free pass through affiliated schools all the way up to keio_university , one of the nation 's best institutions . but his best buddy , yutaro , a lively , friendly boy , did not get in and will have to go to public_school . the two 5 year olds play with each other at kindergarten and then their mothers , who are close friends , take their sons to many of the same private classes in the afternoon . "" many of the kids from his kindergarten are going to the keio school , and naturally he does n't understand why he ca n't go too , "" said the boy 's mother , mariko inakazu , 31 , as her son played with shotaro in a nearby playground . "" i explained to him that he has to go to school near us and since he knows kids in the neighborhood , he 'll have friends . but he also has his pride , of course . "" many parents are deeply troubled by the shiken jigoku , or examination hell . but if they try to spare their sons and daughters the ordeal of cram_school and exams , they may be sentencing them to second_rate futures . good schools make a difference everywhere in the world . but the advantage of a good school is hugely magnified in japan . the best jobs go almost exclusively to those who have just graduated from prestigious universities , and companies and ministries almost never hire midcareer professionals . but to get into a first_rate university , one should go to a top high_school , and to enter a prominent high_school , one should study at a good elementary_school a worry of many parents of japan 's 1.3 million first graders to be . a result is that the salary and prestige that a japanese executive has in his 60 's may have less to do with his job_performance in his 40 's or 50 's and more to do with whether he went to cram_school and was a good test taker as a_4 or 5 year old . that 's why satomi hosono takes her 1 year old daughter , reina , to a cram_school each day . "" i want to do the best i can as a parent to give my daughter good opportunities , "" mrs . hosono said . it has worked , in that her elder daughter , 3 year old shino , began her lessons a year ago and can bellow out her name and age like a soldier on roll call . she recently passed an entrance_exam for prekindergarten . cram_schools for 3 and 4 year olds are not so oppressive as the name might suggest , and parents say their children often enjoy the classes and the friendships they make . "" these cram_schools are very clever at appealing to kids , "" said professor takahashi at sacred_heart . successful cram_schools , or jukus , which range from national chains to small classes in an apartment , may charge more than 9 , 000 a year for essentially two and a half hours of instruction each week . often exclusive , they sometimes have no listings in the phone book . application is by recommendation only , and gaining admission is extremely difficult . on a recent day in the classroom of shingakai educational institute , a nationwide juku chain , 10 children between ages 2 and 3 sat at their little desks as a teacher explained the assignment . they were asked to deliver a certain fruit or vegetable to a stuffed toy rabbit , a bear or a squirrel sitting on a chair , and then hop , shuffle or scurry back to their desks in the manner of that animal . it was a past exam question . but for 3 year old kodai enomoto , who comes four times a week , the task seemed tedious , and he stretched his arms across his desk as other children hopped about . "" i was sleepy , "" kodai explained after class , although he perked up when the class moved on to calisthenics . at keiokai educational institute , another juku , the first part of the 90 minute class was devoted to improving results on i.q . tests . six 3 and 4 year olds sat at their desks and strung beads . the children followed the teacher 's instructions first , string as many colored beads as possible within two minutes second , string only six beads or ten beads third , string colored beads without letting two beads of the same color touch . then , the teacher pinned pictures of fruits on the blackboard , arranging them in a line . which fruit is in the middle ? which is second from the left ? second from the right ? then the fruits were rearranged vertically and the exercise was repeated . sure enough , entrance_exams for kindergarten have included similar skill testing tasks how many blocks are in this drawing ? what is the name of these yellow leaves ? what was in the box we just showed you ? many first grade entrance_exams also include a 15 minute written part , where test takers have to identify relationships and shapes and perform other exercises . while most experts say stimulus for young children is generally good , they warn that cram_schools could end up smothering a child 's ability to think independently . "" from a broad perspective , there 's no positive effect from cram_schools and exams , "" said toshiyuki shiomi , a professor of education at tokyo_university . "" it would be better both for the life of the child and for japanese society if we did n't have to have them . "" but that does not prevent mothers from going crazy with concern about packing their children 's schedules with different classes . mrs . inakazu , yutaro 's mother , for instance , applied two years ago for a gym class for her 3 year old daughter , asako . the girl has just begun the class , in which she learns how to jump rope , bounce balls a hundred times , run backward and in circles and jump onto a mat . not all exams have a physical test , but some parents believe that gym classes teach discipline . japan 's educational system produces students who perform far better on international examinations than americans , and japanese students are indisputably among the best in the world in solving mathematical equations . yet the system is also criticized , here and abroad , for depriving children of the joy of youth and for turning out mechanical thinkers and "" trained seals . "" the nation 's best and brightest often take jobs in government or prominent corporations where they might speak three languages , solve differential equations and play the violin , but have no compassion . "" preparation for entrance_exams makes students turn everyone into rivals , so they come to find pleasure in another 's failure , "" said toshihiro yoshida , headmaster at keio 's yochisha . "" what is most important for human society is not nurtured in japan . "" now , despite the increasing pressure on preschoolers , japan 's educational system is struggling to reshape itself , starting with the youngest pupils . parents and educators alike say they want to nurture more individuality and independent thinking . "" until recently , the education was very uniform , producing children like manufactured_goods , "" said michiro iida , a teacher at shingakai . "" now , they 're putting more emphasis on creativity , trying to turn out kids like in america . """,has a topic of education
"when robear alain , a fourth year native studies major at canada 's university of alberta , in edmonton , runs out of money he goes to a campus bread line operated by students . its staff hands out 30 bundles of food a week , serving a regular monthly clientele of about 45 students . mr . alain , one of the regulars , is a 45 year old former aircraft mechanic looking for a new career who has discovered that his 7 , 800 student_loan and summer work savings do not keep him fed . the university 's graduate students' association started the operation two years ago after an increasing number of students drained their savings and began inquiring about food assistance , according to rita egan , a second year student who helps run the bank . "" i never thought i would see the day when a university would have to set up a food bank , "" ms . egan said . "" but when you see students coming in here you realize something 's drastically wrong . "" food programs have sprung up at 14 canadian universities , where student groups hand out aid to up to 90 students per month on each campus . administrators at several of the campuses agree with the alberta dean , henry miller , who calls the food distribution projects an "" inappropriate response "" to students' financial problems . though few records are kept , organizers said that those who use the food banks are generally the so called non traditional students those who are older , with families , for example , who do not enjoy the same parental financial support as their younger peers , according to kelly lamrock , chairman of the canadian federation of students . unemployment has also hit students hard canada 's student jobless_rate reached 18 percent last summer , soaring above the national level . not all administrators oppose the banks . "" i 'm a pragmatic person by nature , "" said peter dueck , head of financial aid at the university of manitoba , in winnipeg . "" when i have a student sitting across from me and i 've met his two children , it 's pretty hard to just ignore that . "" clive thompson blackboard",has a topic of education
"lead china is turning to an american foundation to help it overhaul its university system with a view to using such non socialist devices as an education tax and the imposition of tuitions . china is turning to an american foundation to help it overhaul its university system with a view to using such non socialist devices as an education tax and the imposition of tuitions . under an agreement to be signed tomorrow in washington by chinese educators and officials of the carnegie foundation , american educators will travel extensively in china chinese officials will study american universities . carnegie officials said the project , to last three years , was the largest of its kind ever undertaken by china and a private_foundation . no dollar value has been estimated for the project . the carnegie foundation for the advancement of teaching , an independent policy center in princeton , n.j. , will pay the expenses of the chinese officials here . china will pay for the expenses of foundation officials traveling in china . trying to 'change one concept' in an interview in princeton last week , the chief chinese delegate visiting in connection with the agreement , hao keming , who is also a member of the powerful state education commission , said through an interpreter that china was already considering imposing tuition at some universities , implementing an education tax and making concerted appeals to the wealthier members of communities to donate funds to their local institutions . ''the purpose of all these efforts is to change one concept that the state is responsible totally for education , '' mrs . hao said . ''education is an endeavor that the whole society should support . it affects the future and the happiness of everyone in society . '' talks between visiting chinese officials and american educators have centered around how to decentralize universities , how to give institutions more decision making powers , and how colleges and universities can best serve the social , economic and scientific needs of their own localities . key themes of the agreement more specifically , the agreement that will be signed tomorrow in the library of congress is organized around five themes finding a balance between central and regional authority . encouraging diversity among colleges and universities . examining ways to integrate institutions more closely with local economic and social needs . determining how responsive curriculums should be to changing economic and social needs and whether there should be a core of study for all students . examining how to measure excellence and ''above all , what is , or should be , higher_education 's impact on society . '' for the past two weeks , a five member delegation from the national center for education development and policy research in beijing has toured universities and met with american administrators and chinese scholars . they have visited the university of north carolina at chapel hill , the university of massachusetts at amherst , the state university of new york at albany and the city_university of new york and talked to chinese scholars at princeton . some of the measures the chinese are considering implementing are a departure from the expected practices of a communist_state . education and modernization the renewal of the education system from early childhood years to post graduate levels is part of the overall effort by china to double per capita income and improve living standards by the end of the century , mrs . hao said . the chinese are seeking a way to link education with modernization efforts so that higher_education can better serve social and economic_development , she said . by the middle of the next century , mrs . hao said , ''china aims to reach the level of medium level industrialized_nations . '' last summer educators from around the world were invited to an international forum of higher_education in beijing . after the meeetings , ernest l . boyer , president of the carnegie foundation , was asked by mrs . hao about the possibility of a collaboration between the carnegie foundation and the chinese to share information and help develop policy . since then , chinese educators have visited the soviet_union , west_germany , japan , britain and france . a collaborative agreement has been signed with the soviet institute of higher_education , mrs . hao said . the responsibility of parents mrs . hao said she had been impressed with the economic sacrifices that american parents make to educate their children . eyes twinkling , mrs . hao referred to a classic chinese text , the ''three character classic , '' which teaches that ''it is the fault of the father if the son is not educated . '' ''we hope to guide the parents to spend more money for the intellectual investment of future generations , '' she said . in the past decade , higher_education has undergone phenomenal growth in china as it recovered from the ravages it suffered in the cultural_revolution from 1966 to 1976 . in 1978 there were 600 universities in 1987 the number had grown to 1 , 063 . in that period the number of undergraduates grew from 860 , 000 to 1 , 960 , 000 . graduate education is also thriving . between 1978 and 1987 , the number of graduate students grew from 10 , 000 to 120 , 000 . in the last seven years , more than 50 , 000 master 's degrees and 1 , 000 ph . d . 's have been granted . 'a great sense of urgency' the first phase of the agreement includes the current visit of the chinese delegation and the signing of the agreement . in the winter or early spring dr . boyer , president of the carnegie foundation , will head a united_states delegation to china to visit selected campuses , discuss critical issues and share the successes and failures of united_states institutions in developing systems of higher_education . ''there is a dramatic shift to re establish integrity , '' dr . boyer said . ''they are asking how does one provide national leadership while allowing diversity . they have a great sense of urgency . '' mrs . hao said that because education was a national priority , major funding for the restructuring of the universities would come from increases in annual state expenditures . beginning next year , however , tuition fees will be charged . the process will start gradually with only a few universities taking part . an experiment is now being conducted in guangdong_province , in the south , where a tuition of 200 yuan about 50 is being charged a year . the annual per capita income in china is variously estimated at between about 400 and 600 . mrs . hao said that currently there is a surtax for education . a proposal is under consideration to change this to an outright education tax . asked if everyone would be subject to the tax , she replied , ''not necessarily . ''",has a topic of education
"tens of thousands of students marched through central bonn today , blowing whistles and blasting trumpets in a demonstration that crowned weeks of protests and years of discontent over the underfinancing and overcrowding of germany 's colleges and universities . thousands more boycotted classes across the country . the protests were the biggest displays of student anger in germany for more than two decades . but , while a previous generation 's protests focused on such political themes as the american presence in vietnam , the huge turnout today reflected student annoyance at overcrowded lecture halls , libraries without books , long waits for access to computers and suggestions that tuition fees be introduced in germany 's state financed universities similar to those in the united_states . germany 's 230 colleges and universities were intended to accommodate some 950 , 000 students but , over the last 20 years , the number of students has risen to 1.8 million , many of them spending much longer than is usual in the united_states to complete their studies . at the same time , spending reductions have cut teaching staff , leaving lecture halls bulging with students who say they sometimes wait for years to meet with professors . one protester today , barbara muller of cologne , said some seminars were so crowded that she started lining up for a seat at 4 a.m . ''and i still did n't get a place . '' the protests today , after demonstrations and strikes by students in other cities in recent weeks , were the latest reflection of a broader crisis in germany europe 's biggest economy as it struggles to pare away a padded welfare_state to meet the challenges of economic globalization and european plans for a single_currency based on fiscal_restraint . the students , from 40 universities , converged on bonn in a cavalcade of buses and four special trains . one small group bicycled the 400 miles from berlin . there were as many as 40 , 000 protesters , according to estimates by the police and organizers of the march . students at 50 universities and colleges boycotted classes today to back the protest . many carried banners urging the government to spend money on higher_education rather than on a projected european warplane , the eurofighter , for which germany has committed 13 billion . ''for a billion_marks , 6.5 eurofighters or 6 , 481 smart students which do we need more in the future ? '' a banner said . student leaders maintain that universities are underfinanced by as much as 3 billion a year . the complaints have drawn broad support from professors , lecturers and politicians . chancellor helmut_kohl , who said he sympathized with the students , blamed mismanagement by germany 's 16 federal states , most of which are run by the opposition social democrats , for the crisis an assertion denied by the social democrat leader oskar_lafontaine . the question of introducing tuition fees raised by some state legislators has drawn criticism from students that universities will become elite establishments for the rich . the federal education minister , jurgen ruttgers , said on television today that the government wanted ''people to be able to study in germany , whether they are rich or poor . '' that was met with some skepticism . ''ruttgers hypocrite , '' a marchers' banner replied . a new law , currently before parliament but not yet approved , seeks to streamline education by making universities compete for state financing , reducing the time it takes to get degrees and introducing a credits system . it does not provide specifically for the introduction of tuition fees , but mr kohl 's government has refused to rule out the idea as the students demanded today . many academics maintain , though , that the proposed law does not address the basic issue . ''we in germany are faced with a question , and it 's a value judgment , '' said klaus borchard , vice_chancellor of the university here . ''what price do we set for the education of our young people ? ''",has a topic of education
"like the now defunct empire it sought to understand , the field once known as sovietology is undergoing a painful transition . once heavily subsidized and often first among equals in the american academic world , it is now a discipline in turmoil . the world some professors thought they understood has become increasingly unpredictable . the institutions they devoted their lives to decoding have vanished . their academic departments are renaming and rearranging themselves , the better to survive in straitened times . fields like arms control and kremlinology that once commanded pride of place are thought by some to be about as valuable as the ruble . the languages nobody studied , including uzbek , kazakh and georgian , are now being taught in classrooms where students once tried to twist their tongues around russian consonant clusters . "" there 's been a certain loss of capital here , just as there 's been in russia , "" said robert campbell , former director of the russian and eastern_european studies center at indiana_university . "" our wealth was in a knowledge of systems that do n't exist any more . "" 'skill is transferable' none of this means that the study of the former soviet_union is defunct . "" a lot of that skill is transferable , "" mr . campbell said . "" it can be put to work . but it 's not the same society now . that was a society that despite changes taking place was characterized by stasis . once that ends , we have all these problems with transitions . that 's something nobody knows how to study very well . "" as a result , the discipline has developed complex fault lines and the dialogues held across them sometimes often develop into angry exchanges . in some cases , historians and political_scientists who have argued for two decades about how to understand the soviet_union are refighting old battles , arguing whose analyses best predicted or explained mikhail s . gorbachev and boris n . yeltsin . "" there are a lot of recriminations "" among scholars at the moment , said frederick starr , the president of oberlin college , who has written books on subjects from russian history to russian architecture to soviet jazz . "" i think there 's a good deal more of that because a lot of things people have written in the past are going to haunt them . "" but something much more interesting is just beginning . on an intellectual level , the question is , 'what can we learn about the breakup of the soviet empire and events likely to follow from earlier examples the breakup of empires in spain , portugal , britain , turkey and austria hungary ? ' this is an extraordinary intellectual challenge . "" upheaval breeds upheaval as they face the new constellations , experts trained in both old style communist politics and in russian_language and culture are finding themselves supplanted in the press by economists with grand designs for economic conversion . experts in nationalities , once the field 's wallflowers , have new prominence . political_scientists like jerry hough of duke_university try to apply western tools , like survey research and voting analysis , to the once closed society . still , recent events have brought political_scientists back to center stage for the moment , as mr . yeltsin , the russian_president , and his rival , ruslan khasbulatov , the speaker of the parliament , have locked themselves and their country 's capital in a state of crisis . but the upheavals in their academic world continue . "" so much emphasis and effort went into explaining how the system worked , "" said harley balzer , director of the russian area studies program at georgetown_university , "" that there was relatively little time or energy devoted to how it might ever change . "" sovietologists who were once favored by the federal_government and foundations are now watching financial support evaporate . "" since the dangers are supposed to be less , the chance to tap the public purse for those activities is also less , "" said edward l . keenan , professor of history at harvard_university . financing could vanish the federal_government has provided money specifically for soviet studies since 1983 the allocation totals nearly 10 million this year . president_clinton 's proposed budget lists no money for this purpose . the prestigious kennan institute in washington , which relies heavily on this money , will have to cut its operations drastically if that budget proposal is adopted , says its director , blair ruble . "" we would be losing half our budget , "" he said . in addition to their worries about federal financing , program directors are watching private_foundation support dwindle in some cases diverted to the fledgling institutions of russia , ukraine and other newly independent states . supporters like the andrew e . mellon foundation and the john d . and catherine t . macarthur foundation are also finding new places to put their money . even the foundations that continue to support studies in the field are switching their emphasis . dorothy atkinson , executive director of the american association for the advancement of slavic studies , emphasized the need for change , saying "" our perspectives better shift pretty rapidly or we 're headed for a bunch of trouble . we ca n't even talk to these people in their languages . georgian , uzbek , estonian we 're terrible . "" "" why did n't we do that training ? we were snookered "" by the old communist apparatchiks , she said . "" we bought what they were selling , their invincibility , their monolithic terrible potential . it 's like growing up in a faith . it takes something to shake you out of what you were believing . "" meanwhile , graduate students in russian and post_soviet studies attracted to the field in the heady days of glasnost and trained to master the old theories are finding themselves as sought after as typewriter repairmen . "" i 'm in history now , "" said peter blitstein , 25 , a doctoral_student at the university of california at berkeley . "" i was in political_science . a number of other soviet studies people in political_science did n't go into history . they dumped it and did something else eastern_europe , western_europe , trade . "" mr . blitstein 's roommate david woodruff , 26 , who took his first soviet politics course in 1986 , now says , "" i 'm going to study the russian monetary system , "" but with a strong skepticism about grand theories . it is dangerous , he said , to assume monetary theory works in a country whose banking institutions are unrecognizable to westerners . "" my formulation of the mission of my generation is to have a grounding in comparative politics and economics , to point out where things happening in the rest of the world are not applicable in a blanket way "" to the old soviet empire . where will mr . woodruff get a job ? "" i 'm very nervous "" he said .",has a topic of education
"thousands of students from across the country marched in london today to protest reported government plans to let british universities start charging american style tuition fees . ''education should be based on your ability , not your ability to pay , '' mandy telford , president of the national union of students , told the placard waving demonstrators . ''going down that road is putting a price_tag on degrees , and that 's not positive for society . '' which road the government will choose will not be known until next month when it publishes its formal proposals , but trial balloon comments and leaked discussions from more than a year of meetings and ministerial consultations have made the issue one of the most contentious for the british public and within the governing labor_party . the british university system says it needs 16 billion in new financing to become competitive with universities abroad , principally those in the united_states , that offer teachers higher salaries and better working conditions and students better facilities and smaller class_sizes . the government does not quarrel with that figure , but an internal debate has raged over how to come up with the money . proposals to raise general taxes have run into objections from prime_minister tony_blair , who does not want to revive the party 's tax and spend image . suggestions of an after graduation repayment , based on the notion that a student with a degree makes substantially more money than a person without one and can therefore afford the expense , run into objections because the revenue would take too long to come in . the proposal that brought students into the streets today is the one that mr . blair is said to favor giving universities the right to charge ''top up fees'' to supplement the 1 , 700 tuition now asked of students . the tuition , which is means tested and therefore paid by less than 50 percent of students , was put in place by mr . blair in 1998 and itself has been the object of protests and demands for repeal . imperial college in london has already drawn up plans to charge 16 , 500 a year , the amount that non english students now pay in anticipation of restrictions on top up fees being lifted . ''the government says it wants to be able to compete on a global scale , yet it is willing to price thousands of our most talented students out of education , '' ms . telford of the students' union said today . she told the rally that the average graduate already ends up 19 , 000 in debt from course fees and living expenses . the current quandary arises out of the national transition in britain from an elite to a mass system of education . in 1992 , the conservative government of prime_minister john_major put an end to the division between universities and so called polytechnics and furthered moves to open up higher_education to a larger number of students . mr . blair continued that push by setting the target of getting 50 percent of high_school graduates into higher_education by 2010 . but while student numbers went up , investment did not . according to figures from universities uk , which represents higher_education heads , since 1989 student financing has declined by 37 percent while numbers have risen 90 percent . where only one in 20 high_school students went on to college in 1960 , one in three do now . british universities do not have the kinds of alumni supported endowments to finance scholarships and subsidies for low income students that american institutions do , and american tuitions are disparaged here as blocking university education for all but the rich . but margaret hodge , the secretary for higher_education , cited the american example more favorably . ''in the u.k. , we see paying for education as a cost , '' she said . ''the americans see it very much as an investment . '' mr . blair faces objections within his party . the former health_secretary , frank dobson , said today , ''if we have got very high top up fees , then the only people who would be able to go to the most prestigious and expensive universities would be rich brits and rich foreign students . '' barry sheerman , the chairman of the house of commons education select committee , said he believed the government was having second thoughts about top up fees in the face of such public protest , but that inaction was not an option . ''we have wonderful ambitions for expanding universities and keeping them world class and getting more kids from working_class backgrounds into higher_education , '' he said . ''if we do n't like top up fees , we have to come up with something else , because it is a very big bill . ''",has a topic of education
"as the class got under way , the diminutive teacher standing before an overcrowded lecture hall in this city 's most exclusive university handed out a survey . the first of several multiple_choice questions asked students what their feelings would be if they encountered two male lovers total acceptance , reluctant acceptance , rejection or disgust ? as a way of breaking the ice , the teacher , sun zhongxin , 35 , with a ph . d . in sociology and a fondness for powerpoint presentations , read_aloud some of the answers anonymously . in her survey , most of the 120 or so students said they would reluctantly accept gay lovers in their midst . the fudan_university class , introduction to gay and lesbian studies , is the first of its kind ever offered to chinese undergraduates , and ms . sun briefly wondered why it was so well attended , before providing her own answer . ''the attitude toward homosexuality in china is changing , '' she said . ''it is a good process , but it also makes us feel heavy hearted . what 's unfortunate about such heavy attendance is that it indicates that many people have never discussed the topic before . '' ''not only are people hiding in the closet , '' she concluded , ''but the topic itself has been hiding in the closet . '' a class like this would be unremarkable on most american_university campuses , where many students are quite open about their homosexuality and the curriculum has long included offerings reflecting their interests . but among china 's gay and lesbian population , which may be as large as 48 million by some estimates though it remains largely invisible , the new course is being portrayed as a major advance . less than a decade ago , homosexuality was still included under the heading of hooliganism in china 's criminal_code , and it was only in 2001 that the chinese psychiatric association removed homosexuality from its list of mental_illnesses . ''this is definitely a big breakthrough in the contemporary society , because for so many years , homosexuals , as a community , have lived at the edge of society and have been treated like dissidents , '' said zhou shengjian , director of a gay advocacy_group in chongqing , an inland city far from shanghai 's cosmopolitanism . ''for such a university to have a specific course like this , with so many participants and experts involved , will have a very positive impact on the social situation of gay people , and on the fight against aids . '' however much they welcomed the academic breakthrough , which is likely to spur similar courses on other campuses and perhaps eventually give rise to a gay and lesbian studies movement , many of today 's gay and lesbian activists say they are no longer willing simply to wait patiently for the society to accept them . in particular , gay activists have been able to leverage the rising alarm over the spread of aids to win more maneuvering space , including more acceptance from the government . today , for example , by some estimates there are as many as 300 web_sites in china that cater to the concerns of gay men and lesbians . some of the sites focus strictly on health issues . others tread into the delicate area of discrimination and human_rights , and these are occasionally blocked temporarily or shut down by the government . others feature downloadable fiction by gay writers , who deal candidly with matters of sexuality in ways that few publishers in china 's tightly_controlled book industry would allow . one of the most popular sites ( www . gztz . org ) includes detailed maps of gay entertainment areas , from saunas to nightclubs , in china and overseas . ''in each provincial capital there is at least one gay working group that is active on h.i.v . aids prevention , '' said zhen li , 40 , a volunteer for a gay hot line based in beijing . ''aids is not the main focus of our lives , though . we use the discussion of aids as a way of coming together on other issues , from getting coverage of gay life in the media to starting a discussion with the society . '' for the most part , activists say , the government 's attitude has been pragmatic . groups that say they want to work on aids get official support . those that focus on equal rights for gay people generally do not . in almost the same breath , though , many also acknowledge that their strategy of using aids to create greater freedom carries a risk that they will be blamed for the spread of the disease . ''this is a very sensitive issue among homosexuals , thinking that outsiders are equating them with aids , '' said gao yanning , a professor in the school of public_health at fudan_university , whose course on homosexual life for the medical_school was a precursor of the new undergraduate class . ''but we , the professors , have been very careful about this . when i was first thinking of a course called the theory and practice of homosexuality , i was approached by another professor who told me i should call the class 'homosexuality and aids . ''' mr . gao said he would have refused to teach the class if he had been forced to use such a name . many gay and lesbian chinese say that it is social conservatism more than the government , whose policies during the communist era have veered from repressive to prudish , that has discouraged gay people from publicly acknowledging their sexual_orientation . chinese are hard pressed to name a single celebrity or notable person from their country who has lived an openly_gay life , meaning that except for foreigners , young gay men and lesbians have no prominent role models . explicitly gay literature or cinema and television roles are equally scarce . a 52 year old lesbian in the northeastern city of dalian , who gave her name as yang , said she had discovered her sexual identity only at age 36 , after marriage , when she had her first relationship with another woman , a factory co worker . ''when we were together , people would talk about our relationship behind our backs or sometimes ask outright whether we were gay people , '' ms . yang said . ''i was just ashamed and did n't know what to say , so i avoided my girlfriend in public occasions . the young gay people in dalian today , though , seem to live in a very comfortable time . '' ''they 're not forced to get married , '' she said , ''and they take new partners one after another . '' many others , however , said the issue of marriage continued to weigh_heavily . ''if you tell your parents you have a boyfriend , that may be o.k. , but you 've still got to get married , '' said wang xieyu , a junior at fudan_university . ''the parents have their own concerns , their friends and their reputations . china today is like the u.s . in the 1960 's , but we are changing faster . what took 40 years in the states may only take 10 years in china . ''",has a topic of education
"mildred s . kennedy was flabbergasted when she first came to america six years ago on a desperate alms seeking mission to stabilize her pioneer integrated public_school for protestant and catholic youngsters living along belfast 's violent sectarian divide in northern_ireland . she was shocked , first , to see irish_republican_army slogans scrawled in an irish neighborhood in boston , as if it were the falls road . "" ca n't they come and live in another world and forget about it ? "" she asked then in a conversation . but even more , ms . kennedy had virtually no success in tapping into the fabled generosity that irish america likes to celebrate of itself at this time of the year as it gets ready to parade along fifth avenue and other showcase main streets . "" i came home disgusted , "" she said back then in a lament that finally stirred considerable sympathetic attention and led to a fast reversal of her mission once she wondered_aloud about america in a news story . thousands of dollars of donations poured in from this side of the atlantic and became , she says gratefully , a steady and critical bulwark in making that experimental school a mainstay now of incremental progress in belfast . "" if it could be seen we were n't viable educationally or any other way , it would have stopped the others , "" ms . kennedy , principal of the forge integrated primary_school , explains , celebrating the fact that where before there was one integrated school , now there are 20 in the troubled north . "" we can compete with the best , "" she says of her school , one of only two that have elected to join fully the state public system rather than be maintained as virtual private schools with government grants . "" we should be prepared to take our stand with the other schools , "" the principal says , explaining the school parents' pushing their philosophy a step further . they are staying as a model amid the larger public system , still segregated by the violent troubles afflicting nationalist catholics and loyalist protestants . as ms . kennedy explains the success of the forge school and extends her thanks to the generous heart of irish america , she puts to shame the clay pipes , green plastic leprechaun derbies , and hyperbolic intimations of drunkenness about to be trotted out on this side once more as symbols of her land . the sight of the old tribalistic fervor up from steerage but watered down across the generations being channeled lately into foiling the attempt of gay and lesbian irish_americans to parade on st . patrick 's day seems ludicrous by comparison . ms . kennedy is talking of the real ireland , for those who care , and of its latest lesson in tolerance . she and the parents of the forge school are not alone in this endeavor . mostly lost in the clamor and irish pride at the recent city visit of gerry_adams , the political spokesman for the i.r.a. , was the appearance , too , of john_hume , political leader of the nonviolent tradition in most nationalist catholic neighborhoods . while mr . adams gets the popular acclaim ( and denunciation , too ) as the charismatic militant patriot , mr . hume bears less sensational watching as the critical irish peacemaker who reached across to mr . adams in sparking the latest irish anglo peace initiative . "" st . patrick 's is a holiday for all our children , protestant and catholic , but we do n't make a big deal of parading , "" says ms . kennedy , curious as ever about the gulf between the irish and irish_americans . down in the irish_republic to the south , there are parades and , in most , the homosexuals of eire have been as welcome and proud as any other irish people . but on this shore , in boston , the imminent possibility of just such a mixing has caused the parade sponsors to abruptly cancel this year 's st . patrick 's celebration . organizers would rather stop everyone 's parading than yield to a new court order that is the opposite of the ruling in new york , a ruling that permits the ostracizing of the gay amid the wearing of the green . outsiders puzzled by these new world irish troubles increasingly wonder how long the st . patrick 's parade can retain its front and center hold on civic privilege in new york . this is understandable for anyone who watches and toe taps as the city 's newer , larger immigrant groups parade in the relative hinterlands . singing , dancing , strutting in wondrously snaking lines , the newer comers seem befeathered and bemused in celebrating life , hardly writ ensconced and wary about their perceived identity . in truth , the beauty of the city is that tolerance will likely extend the irish parading hold on fifth avenue well beyond their actual power years . this seems appropriate , if lately ironic , for the irish were the first to teach the city underclass it could parade , a great lesson as each succeeding wave arrives , gets on its feet and marches forth in search of open acceptance .",has a topic of education
"the chinese often say students are the conscience of the nation . if so , the nation must be unusually concerned about traffic safety these days . an estimated 10 , 000 students at hefei industrial university in eastern china took to the streets earlier this week to protest the government 's failure to provide a safe way to cross a busy thoroughfare near their campus . the protest erupted after three students were knocked down by a truck that ran a red_light , killing two and putting one in a coma , students involved in the protest said . it may have been the largest student unrest in china since the tiananmen_square demonstrations of 1989 , which the government ended by shooting hundreds of unarmed demonstrators in beijing . but unlike the tiananmen protesters , who sought democracy and human_rights , students in the provincial capital of hefei say they want pedestrian rights . ''there is no background to this other than telling the government that traffic safety must be a priority , '' li pan , a student at the college , said in a telephone interview . ''some of our friends have died and this should be taken seriously . '' students said that the university had proposed building a pedestrian bridge over the intersection , but that the city authorities had rejected the request as too expensive . in china 's one party state , demonstrations of any kind are risky . but they get attention . wen_wei_po , a chinese_language newspaper based in hong_kong that has ties to the authorities in beijing , reported today that hu_jintao , the new chief of the communist_party , had intervened to address the students' concerns . that report could not be confirmed . students taking part in the online discussion said that the authorities in the provincial government of anhui had acted to mediate the dispute . as a result of the unrest , students said , the driver of the truck was arrested and the city agreed to build the pedestrian bridge immediately . ''we got results , '' one student said in a telephone interview . ''people are satisfied . ''",has a topic of education
"france , whose schoolchildren read better than students in most other developed countries , spent most of this century testing different teaching methods before concluding a decade ago that the teacher probably knows best . in a nation as centralized as france , it is something of an anomaly that primary_school teachers are allowed to decide how to teach their 6 year olds to read as long as they can read by age 7 . the education ministry offers only guidelines . for example , to prepare children for the passage from preschool games to primary_school lessons , it suggests that 5 year olds be given some reading instruction . but the teacher is free to pick the books to be used or even to decide against using books . "" we do not recommend any specific approach , "" said christian jahan of the education ministry . the long debate over whether to teach children how to recognize letters and say words or to emphasize the meaning of a word has produced a french method that borrows from both approaches . in a report released today , the organization of economic cooperation and development rated the 14 year olds of france and finland as the most proficient readers in their age group . but it is evident that at least in france , the die is cast much earlier . alain chevrel , a school inspector , said that until the 1950 's french_state schools adhered to the "" decoding "" approach of teaching children to read letter by letter , syllable by syllable , word by word . the result , he said , was poor comprehension . today 's approach focuses on making children comfortable with words . beginning with 2 year olds , preschool teachers make a point of reading and re reading stories aloud . "" this enables the children to memorize the structure of words and phrases , "" mr . chevrel said . "" they become readers without knowing how to read . "" mr . chevrel added that children are also encouraged to play with books so that by the time they are 5 , they are ready to learn simple words . but it is not until they start primary_school that they make the jump between reading and understanding . "" this is the point where children realize there is no link between a word and reality , "" mr . chevrel said . "" for example , 'train' is a short word that represents a long object . 'cigarette' is a long word for a short object . they understand the difference between the word and what it means . "" alan riding france",has a topic of education
"it is an ambitious task , nothing less than the creation of an official islam for france . last month , pressed by the law and order interior_minister nicolas_sarkozy , the center right government reached an important agreement with france 's unwieldy and diverse community of five million muslims that created a national , elected council to represent them . today , president jacques_chirac rewarded those muslim leaders who chose to join , welcoming nearly a score of council members to lys e palace to offer new year 's ''best wishes'' over fruit juice and water but no wine . an exchange of ''voeux'' or ''best wishes'' for the new year is a time honored ritual , and the month of january is filled with back to back receptions hosted by mr . chirac and his ministers for groups as diverse as the country 's military , journalists and bakers and pastry chefs . but the event for the muslim community was more than a party . it was part of a campaign by successive governments since the 1980 's to establish a formal channel of communication with a community that includes muslims of varying_degrees of religiosity and political activism from places as far reaching as algeria and cameroon . only half are french citizens . similar bodies exist for catholics , jews and protestants , enabling the government to address issues like education , dress , work and the administration of places of worship . ''in the eight years that i have exchanged greetings with religious authorities , i have regretted that there was no organized dialogue between muslim representatives and the french authorities , '' mr . chirac told his guests , according to catherine colonna , his spokeswoman . mr . chirac also expressed hope that muslims could achieve ''the same status with equal rights and duties as all our other citizens . '' the effort to organize the country 's muslims took on more urgency in the aftermath of sept . 11 , 2001 , when anti muslim feelings among french citizens increased . meanwhile , the conflict between palestinians and israelis and what is seen as america 's determination to overthrow saddam_hussein in iraq but to let israel do what it will has fueled anti american sentiments among muslims and arabs in france . since the new center right government came into office last spring , dozens of terrorism suspects have been arrested . the government has concluded that the threat from radical islamic groups is much more deeply_rooted than previously suspected . in a recent interview with europe 1 radio , mr . sarkozy called the creation of the council good news for france . ''it 's a chance to create an official islam of france and a way to fight the islam of cellars and garages an underground , clandestine islam that feeds fundamentalism and extremism , '' he said . prime_minister jean_pierre_raffarin told journalists recently that it would be a forum for the muslim community to express itself and its religion within france 's traditionally secular republican structure . citizens here are not polled by religion in the census , at school or on the job . interior_ministry officials say that , because of terrorism fears , activities in mosques , including friday sermons , are monitored . but they express concern that the mosques remain places where muslims may be radicalized and terrorist plots against the state hatched . critics of the new council contend that the diverse muslim groups that have joined can never work together . some of the most conservative muslim groups are boycotting , the skeptics note . the 16 member government appointed executive includes only one woman , and the groups represented range from westernized ones like the grand mosque of paris to those with anti western views linked to the muslim_brotherhood . abderrahmane dahmane , 55 , who has lived in france for almost 40 years and is president of a strict islamic group called coordination of muslims , said in an interview ''they are trying to set up a council under the tutelage of the state like in colonial times . sarkozy wants to be archbishop of france , rabbi of france and now he wants to be the grand mufti of france too . '' despite the inherent problems , several of the muslim leaders on the council said they were pleased with its creation . ''the entire nation and the entire muslim_world is watching us , '' said kamel kabtane , the imam of the lyon mosque , as he left lys e palace tonight . ''we have to put aside our individual egos . there may be some problems later on but right now we are building the foundations . ''",has a topic of education
"bending to pressure from a student protest movement that put more than 100 , 000 demonstrators onto the streets of paris today , the french government announced an "" emergency plan "" to improve conditions in the country 's 4 , 700 senior high_schools . about 150 , 000 students marched peacefully in dozens of other french towns and cities , but the demonstration in paris ended in confusion after gangs of troublemakers began looting stores , attacking journalists and clashing with the police in montparnasse and other left bank neighborhoods . later , the police used tear_gas and water cannons to prevent groups of youths , some wearing_masks and hurling stones , from crossing the river seine . at least 50 people , including 12 policemen , were wounded , and 10 cars were set on fire along the quai d'orsay near the foreign ministry . the huge turnout of students here and elsewhere in france nonetheless underlined the strength of a movement that in barely three weeks has posed the government of president_francois_mitterrand and prime_minister michel_rocard with its most serious social challenge in two years . set off by rape of student the movement was set off by the rape of a student in a high_school in a paris suburb in late october . complaints about inadequate security soon led to broader demands for increased government spending to end overcrowding in classrooms , to increase the number of teachers and to improve schools . significantly , the movement , which is being coordinated by three ad_hoc student committees , has won considerable public support across france , not only from several teachers' unions and major political_parties but also from local mayors and parents' associations . in a conciliatory_gesture , mr . mitterrand , who has previously expressed sympathy for the students , received about 20 of their representatives tonight . an official spokesman said he endorsed their demand for greater "" democracy "" at school and said their other claims should be discussed . earlier , after meeting the same group , education minister lionel_jospin , whose handling of the crisis has been widely criticized , promised that the details of an emergency plan would be discussed with student leaders this week . in france , administration and financing of all secondary_education is centralized in paris . students want further increases the government , which has announced a 9 percent increase in its education budget for 1991 , has already agreed to create 1 , 000 maintenance jobs , 100 supervisory posts and 3 , 000 security positions in the high_schools . but student committees have said this is not enough . some of the student leaders who met both mr . mitterrand and mr . jospin said tonight that they wanted guarantees that the education budget would be further increased . "" they did not talk about the budget , "" said one student , lelia monteuil . "" we 're still waiting . "" the demonstration today , the largest to date , brought student representatives from all over france who gathered first at the place de la bastille , but police ordered dispersal of the march before it completed its planned route to the champs_elysees after trouble erupted in the latin_quarter . the students themselves demonstrated in an orderly manner , chanting slogans and holding banners , including one that said , "" money for schools and not for the gulf_war . "" rachel fardel , an 18 year old from strasbourg , said her high_school was dilapidated . "" we 're asking the government to do something about it , "" she said . student organizers had taken measures to prevent infiltration by agitators who engaged in looting during a smaller demonstration here last monday , but gangs of older youths appeared alongside the march and began causing trouble in the latin_quarter . this evening , long after most students had left the area , roaming bands of youths first tried to set fire to the metro station at pont de l'alma and then were chased by heavily armed police in a large area of central paris , stretching from the quai d'orsay to the eiffel_tower .",has a topic of education
"sifting through his papers , claude desvaux counted 203 foreigners among the 280 students attending his public_school in the crowded belleville section of paris . but the real_number , he added with a resigned smile , is much higher . "" we have children born in france who remain culturally foreign because they speak arabic or some other language at home , "" the school principal said . "" we have kids from the french antilles who are french citizens but they do n't feel french . "" across france , foreigners represent around 9 percent of all students under the age of 16 , but in districts with high concentrations of immigrants , they invariably account for more than 70 percent of pupils . throughout western_europe , there is a perception that immigrants arabs in france , turks in germany , pakistanis in britain and so on are "" taking over "" schools , housing complexes and neighborhoods . that in turn has led to the movement of european families and the entire process has become known as the ghetto phenomenon . that in turn has become a major factor contributing to rising opposition to new immigration . viewed with hostility whether in birmingham , frankfurt , florence or marseilles , third world communities have become the target of simmering xenophobia and occasional racist violence , with some ultra nationalist groups even trying to court popularity by demanding that poor foreigners be forcibly repatriated . yet , with immigration already strictly controlled in western_europe , many experts are now arguing that the problem and the solution lie elsewhere . today 's immigrants are viewed with hostility , they say , because earlier waves of immigrants and their children were not properly integrated . with many governments under strong pressure to do something about immigration , this view is also gaining favor in european capitals . a recent report by the european_community 's executive commission said the focus should now switch to integration , while france 's new council on integration has just published its first findings . in many european cities , as in the united_states , the ghetto phenomenon occurs almost naturally . immigrants are drawn to where their relatives or friends already live . and as they start crowding schools , apartment blocks and hostels , often changing the local scenery with their shops and places of worship , european families move away . the result is evident in the patio below mr . desvaux 's office at the college de fontaine au roi in paris 's 11th arrondissement . at different times of the day , teen_agers of 28 nationalities , five religions and all races take breaks there between classes , but hardly a white french child is to be seen . "" the ghetto phenomenon is a permanent danger to us , "" mr . desvaux said . experts argue , though , that race is not the principal obstacle to integration . asked in a recent french poll why cohabitation with immigrants was difficult , respondents overwhelmingly identified different customs and religion and , to a smaller extent , language , while skin color was barely mentioned . attitudes have also hardened as immigrants have gone from guest workers to permanent residents . for example , when france , britain , germany , belgium and the netherlands were welcoming the cheap foreign labor of single men between the late 1950 's and the early 1970 's , they represented an economic solution . but by the 1980 's , many immigrants had brought their families , customs and religions and had formed highly visible communities in countries with little "" melting_pot "" tradition . western_europe 's economies still need them but , often trapped in poverty , they are now considered a social problem . "" they continually run the risk of unemployment , of having to accept the worst housing and of facing disproportionate difficulties in schools , "" according to the european_commission 's recent report on immigration and integration . "" they run the risk of becoming marginalized and remaining marginalized . "" the report stressed that the problem not only affected newly arrived immigrants and refugees . "" their children and grandchildren also comprise a social and economic underclass , "" it said , "" and this will not change until integration policies become stronger and more imaginative . "" in france , it was only last year after a wave of violent racist incidents and rising support for the extreme rightist national front that the socialist government of president_francois_mitterrand concluded that there was no viable alternative to speeding integration . as a first step , it appointed a high level council on integration to analyze the crisis and recommend action . and last month , the council issued its first report , drawing a dark picture of an immigrant population that is largely cut off from french society in its schools , housing and employment . 'equality of rights and duties' dealing first with principles , it declared that france 's concept of integration meant guaranteeing "" equality of rights and duties "" for everyone rather than reinforcing segregation of immigrants by treating them as special communities or minorities . but it also recognized that , while earlier generations of immigrants and refugees from eastern_europe had been naturally assimilated , "" patient , vigorous and inventive "" measures would be needed to integrate the arabs , africans and asians now crowding schools , housing complexes and hostels . the problems involved are apparent enough in paris 's 11th arrondissement , where parents can choose among five public schools . and that means , in mr . desvaux 's words , "" they can choose not to integrate . "" as a result , his school carries the main burden of handling local immigrant children that in turn has predictable consequences . while 80 percent of pupils at a nearby lycee continue studying after the age of 16 , only 40 percent of mr . desvaux 's students do so . similarly , nationwide , while 30 percent of immigrants between the ages of 16 and 24 are unemployed , the figure for french youths is 20 percent . french schools in turn mirror the concentration of immigrant housing . about 120 , 000 immigrants live in some 400 "" temporary "" hostels owned and managed by the government . but most other immigrants live in low cost housing that quickly brings the ghetto phenomenon to districts and towns . the french government has established greater integration of the hostels and the low cost housing blocks among its objectives , but the problems are myriad . in one well run hostel in evry , 30 miles outside paris , the fact that most of its 271 guests are foreign permanent residents means there is little room for french workers . a few hundred yards away , a low cost housing complex crowded with algerians , moroccans , tunisians and growing numbers of sub saharan africans poses even greater obstacles to integration because , in evry at least , it is already identified with uncollected garbage , violence and frequent police raids . at the college de fontaine au rois in belleville , mr . desvaux said he had no difficulty maintaining order inside the school . "" but there is a problem of delinquency outside , "" he said . "" the problem is that when the kids go home , there 's no one there , so they hit the streets . often the only social structure is a street_gang . "" but winding up a two hour french lesson before a class of 15 year olds , claude beaudoin insisted that the children of immigrants were gradually becoming integrated . "" we get young arab girls asking for our help to prevent them from being sent home to get married , "" the young teacher said . in the class , impatient for lunch after studying a poem by paul verlaine , there were children from sri_lanka , india , cambodia , mali , yugoslavia , the french antilles and all the countries of north_africa . but when asked who wanted to go home , only one boy from guadeloupe raised his hand . "" i miss the weather , "" he said .",has a topic of education
"for the first time , the canadian government has formally apologized to its 1.3 million indigenous people for 150 years of what indian groups have charged were paternalistic assistance programs and racist schools that devastated their communities as thoroughly as any war or disease . along with the formal apology , the government promised today to establish a 245 million ''healing fund'' for the thousands of indians who were taken from their homes and forced to attend the schools , where they were sometimes physically and sexually_abused . some social and economic_development programs were also outlined . the government was responding to a report last year that condemned its treatment of indigenous people , but fell far short of fulfilling the report 's recommendations . indian leaders have long demanded an apology but federal officials refused to give one until now because of fears of setting a legal_precedent . just as soon as the apology was read , it exposed a rift among indians . some leaders called it a historic step but others invited to the ceremony in the parliament building here today said the apology and the offer of compensation did not go far enough . ''the federal_government is insulting aboriginal people with this response , '' said marilyn buffalo , president of the native women 's association of canada . leaders representing the inuit , as eskimos are called here , were upset that forced relocations of their people were not mentioned . and the metis , people of mixed indian and european ancestry , said the government 's actions were insincere . indian leaders also pointed out that the compensation package is less than the 350 million that the government acknowledged it wasted when it canceled a fleet of rescue helicopters . on monday , it reordered essentially the same helicopters . prime_minister_jean_chretien , a former minister of indian_affairs who has not made indian_affairs a priority in his government , was criticized for not having personally endorsed the apology by signing it . still , the formal ''statement of reconciliation'' represents a significant reversal and a difficult acknowledgment for a government that prides itself on its compassion . speaking after an elaborate ceremony punctuated by drumbeats and traditional dances , phil fontaine , the national chief of the assembly of first nations , referred to the officials present as partners . his conciliatory attitude is thought to have played an essential part in getting the government to act . he said it took courage for officials to take a ''historic step to break with the past and to apologize for the historic wrongs and injustices'' committed against indian people . jane stewart , the minister of indian_affairs and northern development , who also is considered a moderate voice in indian_affairs , said , ''history cannot be changed . '' she said , however , that ''it must be understood in a way that reflects that people today are living out the legacy of decisions made in a different time . '' indigenous people are among the poorest and least healthy of canadians . rates of infant_mortality , youth suicide and unemployment are significantly higher than those for other canadians , and most live below the official poverty_line . the apology , read by ms . stewart , specifically mentions abuses that took place at the residential schools . the system began in 1849 but was most active earlier this century . the government took thousands of youths from their families and forced them to attend schools where they could not speak their languages or practice their customs or beliefs . ''to those of you who suffered this tragedy at residential schools , we are deeply sorry , '' the statement said . several religious orders that ran the schools have already apologized for abuses , and a number of individuals who were victimized during the 1950 's , in the waning years of the schools , have filed lawsuits . residential schools were also operated in the united_states , and similar abuses took place . the closest the united_states_government came to apologizing was a 1969 senate investigation , initiated by senator robert f . kennedy , that documented abuses . in addressing the broader pattern of historic injustices and prejudices here , the canadian government seems to have managed to avoid inviting new claims for reparation by expressing regret rather than admitting guilt ''the government of canada formally expresses to all aboriginal people in canada our profound regret for past actions of the federal_government which have contributed to these difficult pages in the history of our relationship together . '' the government also tried to reverse an emotional source of tension involving louis riel , the metis leader of a rebellion who was hanged for treason in 1885 . the statement of reconciliation pledges the government will ''look for ways of affirming the contributions of metis people in canada and of reflecting louis riel 's proper place in canada 's history , '' but it stops short of revoking the treason charge , as indigenous people have demanded . gerald morin , president of the metis national council , also criticized the government 's apology because it did not resolve the question of the group 's status , which prevents them from pursuing land claims and some support programs . ms . stewart said today 's declarations were the government 's formal response to the november 1996 report by the royal commission on aboriginal peoples , established by the federal_government in 1991 after a violent confrontation between indians and the police on the oka reserve in quebec . while supporting the commission 's conclusion that canada 's indian policy for the last 150 years has been wrong , the government 's actions do not come close to meeting any of the 440 recommendations the commission made . among those were establishing a separate aboriginal parliament , abolishing the current department of indian_affairs and increasing annual spending on indian_affairs by about 1 . 4 billion by the end of the century . current federal spending exceeds 4 billion .",has a topic of education
"in this rich and leafy part of england once known as the stockbroker belt , police officers searched the grounds and buildings of an islamic school on sunday , continuing the hunt for jihadist recruiters and trainers that led to 14 arrests in london late friday and early saturday . it is no ordinary school either by the standards of its failed academic record , its precarious financial status , its enrollment or its mere size and appearance . it is an enormous , gothic former convent built of red brick on 54 acres of woodlands , with a reported total of 100 rooms housing less than a dozen pupils . on sunday , the police cordoned off the school , named for the charity that operates it , jameah islameah . reporters were not allowed close to the location , except for a brief ride in a police van to a closed , black iron gate barring access to the building . by the admission of its director , bilal patel , the estate has been visited by abu hamza al masri , a firebrand islamic cleric now serving a seven year jail term . mr . masri used its weekend campgrounds with his followers before being asked not to return . mr . patel did not return calls . police officials said that he and other staff members and their families had been moved to a hotel . no arrests had been made among the school staff , they said . people who live nearby in this predominantly white and middle_class area said they had harbored vague suspicions about the doings at the estate since it was bought by jameah islameah in 1993 , but did not anticipate the turn of events . ''everyone is surprised , '' said steve hayes , 46 , whose modest red brick home is about 500 yards from the school . ''you do n't expect international intrigue on your doorstep . there were rumors though . the mere fact that there is an islamic school of only nine pupils , you think to yourself that 's a bit odd . '' another neighbor , nicky newton , 38 , said , ''the suspicions were always in the back of your mind . you drive around the corner and see a muslim man in white robes , and that 's a little out of place in this village . '' a resident , who declined to be identified by name because , he said , he was an army reservist not permitted to speak to reporters , said he had met a white south_african accompanying young muslims at the school . ''i have mostly seen young men aged 18 to 20 in muslim dress , '' he said . ''i used to fish in the lake on the property , and there was a white south_african man who was with the muslims . and we used to joke that he was there to train them . '' the search began early on saturday after the 14 arrests , mainly at a chinese restaurant in south_london . those arrested were men aged between 17 and 48 , mainly british muslims of pakistani descent , according to british news reports . the police have not said what exactly they are looking for , but have indicated the search may take weeks . on sunday , the police said they planned to search a lake on the estate 's grounds . the web_site of jameah islameah says that the estate boasts a tree whose branches have grown into the exact shape of the word ''god'' in arabic . ''jameah islameah is an islamic institute designed to cater for the needs of muslim students , '' it says . the school aims ''to provide a high standard of academic and islamic education'' for boys ages 11 to 16 , the web_site says . it is privately run and teaches subjects including koranic recitation . ''it is our aim that through the curriculum we will provide pupils with an education , which will encourage each individual pupil to achieve his highest intellectual , spiritual and moral potential within an islamic environment , '' the school publicity material says . jameah islameah is a registered charity whose records at the charities commission show that it has never made more than around 145 , 000 a year from donations and fees , spending around 130 , 000 on upkeep in 2002 , according to filings with the commission . its latest accounts are overdue , according to the commission . its students pay fees of around 1 , 500 a year . the charity bought the former convent in 1992 or 1993 and turned part of it into a boy 's school in 2003 , according to the british education authorities . the charity also advertises islamic teacher training courses and other courses for people with no access to islamic instruction . but british education ministry inspectors recently deemed it unfit for registration as a private_school , meaning that it will be obliged to close if it does not make major improvements . in december , an inspector spent three days at the school and reported that it ' 'does not provide a satisfactory education for its pupils . it has not made sufficient progress towards fulfilling its aims since it was established . it does not provide an adequate preparation and strong foundation for the next stage of the pupils' education . '' last year , the report said , the school had only nine pupils . it identified mr . patel as the proprietor and principal , and gave the name of the chief teacher as rachid boukhelifa . the report said the school building was run down and ''in a poor state of decoration . '' the roof over one large room used by pupils had sprung a leak , the report said . ''it has not yet entered any pupils for national tests or examinations . '' while the report said the school had created ''an orderly , well disciplined and secure islamic environment and a friendly atmosphere in which learning can take place , '' it listed seven major areas of improvements needed to comply with educational regulations . mr . masri , an egyptian born cleric who is now a british citizen , is currently serving a seven year sentence in britain for inciting racial hatred and soliciting murder . he is wanted in the united_states on charges relating to an attack in yemen in 1998 on 16 tourists , including two americans . he has also been indicted in the united_states , accused of attempting to set up a terrorist training camp in bly , ore . , between 1999 and 2000 . threats and responses hunt for jihadists correction september 8 , 2006 , friday a picture caption on monday with an article about an islamic school in britain being searched as part of an investigation into jihadist recruiters and trainers misstated the date the photograph of a police_officer in front of the school was taken . it was saturday , not on sunday .",has a topic of education
"by any standard , su dake , a 26 year old chinese student , should feel satisfaction with his six years spent in japan . he expects to graduate from college in april and hopes to enter a master 's program in business management . by working hard , and sleeping only a few hours each night , he has paid his college fees and won scholarships from his employer . individual japanese have been kind to him , like his boss , who called mr . su 's landlord when the faucets in his apartment froze . still , he said he had never felt particularly welcome in japan . like other foreign students interviewed recently , mr . su said he had not made any japanese friends here and planned to return to china after earning his master 's degree . ''it 's a sad fact to be unable to become friends with the people here , '' mr . su said after delivering newspapers on a recent morning . ''living in japan is like staying in a hotel forever , never in a home . i 'm always waiting to go home . '' to many asian students , japan is merely a place to get a degree and earn some money before returning home , often with the opposite impression japan had hoped for . neither side is pleased . as one newspaper , nihon_keizai , put it , if foreign students ''tell everyone how they hate this country once they go home , we should ask to what purpose we are hosting them to begin with . '' japan attained a two decade old goal recently by playing host to more than 100 , 000 foreign students at once . but the fulfillment of the goal , announced with fanfare in 1983 when japan saw itself as a beacon for asia , has gone largely unreported . the students , mostly from asia , were to acquire japanese knowledge , learn the culture and help mend japan 's relations with a continent that has not forgotten the country 's imperial past . instead , news of crimes committed by foreign students has grabbed headlines and shaped their image . even in this city in western japan , which is close to the asian continent and has traditionally had many asian students and residents , the killing of a family of four by a chinese student has changed attitudes . in a sharp reversal of recent policy , the government has now tightened visa requirements for foreign students , citing their involvement in illegal activities . when the full effect of the strict rules is felt a few years from now , the number of foreign students will probably dip below the once cherished goal . to prevent such a decline would require either a loosening of visa requirements by the justice ministry or fundamental changes in education ministry procedures for how japan deals with foreign students . neither seems likely . norifumi ushio , director of the office of international student education policy , said the budget for foreign students was insufficient but politically impossible to increase . ''there is now a mood in society that says , 'why should we support foreign students ? ' '' he said . the place occupied by foreign students touches on the question of what kind of society japan should be will it forge closer ties with asia , the better to draw workers for its own shrinking and aging population ? or would japan prefer to accept economic decline rather than bring in more asians ? for a century and a half , japan has focused on the west , first playing catch up and then competing on equal terms . it did not want to be associated with an asia it considered backward . he zhi , a 26 year old chinese student , is enrolled in a master 's program at kyushu university here , and owns an internet cafe popular among foreign students . he has no regrets about his eight years here . ''i have feelings toward japan , '' mr . he said . ''compared with talking to someone from britain , it is easier for me to talk to the japanese . i can speak the language , and i know the culture . after eight years , i feel i could not have had a good student life without japanese help . i feel a sense of obligation . '' still , he has mixed feelings . ''the japanese envy western developed nations and the united_states because they view them as superior and therefore respect them , '' he said , speaking fluent japanese . ''but the japanese share an attitude that it is not necessary to respect asians . '' in 1983 , there were 10 , 000 foreign students in japan . the number rose steadily over the years , especially after immigration rules were relaxed in the early 1990 's . then , in the past five years , the number shot up because of the growing wealth of chinese and their desire to study abroad . asians now account for 90 percent of foreign students chinese make up 65 percent of the total . a common problem for the asian students is japan 's high living costs . many work more than the legally permitted number of hours . according to the police , students account for one of every four foreigners arrested on criminal_charges . most of the charges are for things like theft and shoplifting the involvement of a chinese student in the killings here of a couple and their two children , found weighed down at the bottom of a river last year , was an exception . there are problems on the japanese side , too . many colleges , suffering from a declining japanese student population , accept foreigners with little regard to their long term financial wherewithal . the problem of students working illegally attests to japan 's need for cheap labor , even as it has been unwilling to reform immigration laws . kunikazu sasaki , chief of inspection for foreign students at the justice ministry , said immigration officers would now examine the ability of a prospective student 's family to pay educational expenses . colleges where students overstay their visas will also be scrutinized , he said . organizations supporting foreign students call for simple governmental changes . fumio takano , the leader of such an organization in tokyo , said japan 's rental system requiring a guarantor , among other assurances made it onerous for foreign students to find apartments . mr . takano said he acted as a rent guarantor for 200 foreign students . huang tian shu , 33 , a chinese student who has been in japan five years , said she was rejected 10 times before finding a 180 square_foot apartment . at midnight , while ms . huang was moving her things , she said the police stopped her , apparently because they suspected she was a thief , and took her to the local station for interrogation until the next morning . ''i felt discriminated against , '' she said . katsuya tanaka , an official at the national_police_agency , said the law made no distinction between japanese and foreigners . but ms . huang said it was not only the police who looked askance at foreign students . she works as a supervisor of a dormitory for foreign students , and , she said , ''japanese neighbors look at us as if they 're asking , 'why are you foreigners here ? ' '' ''i want to go back to china , '' she said . ''it 's too hard in japan . i ca n't see a future here . ''",has a topic of education
"when the british_government decided to move higher_education from a system that caters to the elite to a system that educates the masses , it did n't reckon so many of the masses would be interested . six years ago , when only one out of six high_school graduates entered universities , the government announced that times were changing . it vowed to give more people the opportunity to get a university education and it set a target one out of every three high_school graduates would go on to higher_education by the end of the century . it did n't take nearly that long . as the government , which subsidizes higher_education in britain , encouraged expansion by increasing the funds it provides to universities by almost a third , the number of students rose from 261 , 900 in 1988 to 436 , 200 in 1993 . at the same time , the number of "" mature "" students those who begin their undergraduate work after the age of 25 nearly doubled , from some 30 , 000 in 1988 to 59 , 000 in 1993 . and the majority of undergraduate students now come from working_class and lower middle class families . since the british_government pays college bills , it suddenly found itself with the expensive problem of having got what it wished for . with 31 percent of young people now entering a university , the government has just about reached its goal six years too soon . so at budget time last november , the government was forced to cap the bottle it had uncorked . further expansion was abruptly halted . while the government continues to pay full tuition for all full time undergraduate students , it has begun to substitute low interest loans for maintenance grants . applications have dropped . the freeze came just as higher_education was undergoing broad change . as it becomes less elitist , university education is also becoming less narrowly academic , offering the practical , job oriented courses once scorned as "" merely vocational "" and taught in the former polytechnic schools , which since 1992 , have been upgraded to full university status . the challenge for the government and the universities is to find a way to continue the drive toward a more egalitarian system without lowering standards , creating financial impediments or draining the national budget . maybe now is the time to offer a good course in juggling . nina darnton international reports a changing world of education",has a topic of education
"aleksandr krutov , headmaster of the tsarskoselsky cadet corps and a retired army colonel , takes a rather cynical view of contemporary youth . ''today in russia , few young people have a desire to make something of their lives , '' he said as he surveyed several dozen boys in black and red pinstriped uniforms training on the rifle range . ''they just want to sit around , watch tv , go to clubs , and expect that their parents will decide and do everything for them . ''i want them to become useful and responsible citizens in what is a disintegrating society . '' mr . krutov 's assessment is not unique in modern day russia , where drugs and drinking among youth have become rampant and the old ways have taken on a nostalgic glow . his corps is one of some 50 military style schools that have cropped up over the last decade to try to whip young_boys into fine young men . the new civilian corps is also selling itself as a remedy for what many consider an uninspired educational system based on rote learning . the kadetsky korpus , or cadet corps , a string of schools for boys , were closed as a czarist remnant just after the 1917 bolshevik revolution . founded in 1731 by the empress anne , the corps prepared sons of the elite for a career in state service , civil or military . the ministry of defense runs its own corps a dozen state financed schools like the suvorov military school in st . petersburg , which opened in 1943 for teenage_boys seeking a career in the military . the civilian corps independent schools financed either by the ministry of education or privately are a result of a grassroots initiative , and despite the ostensible military trappings , only a few boys go into the military . aside from offering an academic curriculum , the schools stress traditional russian virtues , including music , dance and social_skills and moral character especially honor , patriotism and sense of service to russia . ''today in russia , there is an attempt at a rebirth of the old ways of schooling that were common before 1917 , '' said lev savulkin , senior analyst at the leontief center for social and economic research . ''a strong element of military training has a long tradition in russian and soviet society . '' the tsarskoselsky cadet corps , founded in 1992 in the st . petersburg suburb of pushkin , has 87 students ages 7 to 17 . average class size is 10 boys , opposed to the typical 25 to 40 children . also unlike other russian elementary schools , discipline is the rule . the school day begins at 9 45 a.m . with a lineup to inspect uniforms and appearance , followed by physical_fitness . no one goes home until homework is completed , around 7 p.m . all students must study and take to heart the corps' 12 ''commandments , '' written in 1913 and calling for service , honor and faithfulness to the cadet corps and fellow cadets . also in keeping with pre revolution tradition , about half the students are sons of military officers there are now only a few orphans , in contrast to czarist days , when as much as half a corps might have consisted of children who had lost their fathers in war . while some corps are free , the tsarskoselsky corps costs about 30 a month , a steep figure in a country with an average monthly salary of 35 . there are few scholarships , and little money . the corps is housed in a worn two story building that served as a garage for the czar 's carriages . classrooms have only a blackboard , there is no photocopier and the one computer is in mr . krutov 's office . to provide russia 's corps with financial and organizational support , the foundation for the support of the russian cadet corps was founded in december by boris_jordan , an american born banker who heads the moscow based financial group sputnik holdings . some high profile names have joined the board aleksandr lebed , a retired general who has helped open four cadet corps in krasnoyarsk , the resource rich region of siberia where he is now governor the director nikita mikhailkov , whose romantic 1999 film ''barber of siberia'' celebrated cadet life in the czarist era vladimir spivakov , director of the national orchestra of russia , who has a foundation to help young musicians and aleksy ii , the patriarch of the russian_orthodox_church , which supports the corps for their moral instruction . mr . jordan , the grandson of a white army officer who left russia after the civil_war of 1918 20 , has donated 1 million to corps schools since 1992 and has pledged an additional 1 million . mr . jordan 's father graduated from a cadet corps established by exiled officers in yugoslavia in the 1930 's . ''in russia , there are many serious problems raising children , '' mr . jordan said , explaining his passion for the corps . ''the cadet corps will help russian society solve these problems . they offer russia a healthy generation of children , both physically and morally . '' john varoli is a freelance writer in st . petersburg .",has a topic of education
"lead chinese students in the united_states say they have been harassed by representatives of the beijing government and threatened with reprisals if they take part in demonstrations on sunday to show support for the democracy movement in their homeland . chinese students in the united_states say they have been harassed by representatives of the beijing government and threatened with reprisals if they take part in demonstrations on sunday to show support for the democracy movement in their homeland . a state_department spokesman said today , ''we have informed chinese officials that harassment of students in the united_states is completely unacceptable to us . '' but , he said , it is unclear whether the activities violated american law . the students said officials from the chinese embassy and consulates infiltrated meetings of chinese students on american college campuses , made threatening telephone calls and paid unannounced visits to them at their homes in an effort to discourage them from protesting against the policies of the beijing government , which violently suppressed the democracy movement in june . ''they have been calling students nationwide and threatening them , '' said haiching zhao , a postdoctoral fellow in biochemistry at harvard_university , who is also a leader of chinese students in the united_states . he said that chinese students had been told that their passports might not be extended and that their relatives back home might suffer if the students expressed support for china 's democracy movement . similar complaints were voiced by some students after the killings around tiananmen_square on june 4 . merle goldman , a professor of chinese history at boston_university , said today that efforts by the chinese government to exert political control over chinese students in this country were nothing new , but had ''gotten much worse'' in the last few months . she said chinese diplomats were ''trying to replicate what goes on in china , where the government interferes in student activities . '' mrs . goldman said that some of her chinese students received telephone calls and visits from officials of the chinese embassy and its consulate in new york . the chinese officials told the students that there would be ' 'repercussions'' for their relatives in china if the students did not curtail their political activities in the united_states , she said . 'blacklists' reported representative jack brooks of texas , the chairman of the judiciary committee , said the chinese government was ''keeping blacklists of pro_democracy students here in america . '' chen defu , press counselor at the chinese embassy , said today that there was no basis for the students' complaints . ''our consistent policy is to oppose monitoring , harassing or intimidating overseas_chinese students , '' he said . ''the chinese embassy and consulates have never been engaged in such activities . '' he said the chinese government had promised to take ''a lenient attitude toward students who , without knowing the truth , participate in demonstrations or rallies in the united_states . '' the state_department estimates that there are 40 , 000 chinese students in this country , and it says that 80 , 000 to 100 , 000 have studied in the united_states in the last decade . by many accounts , the ideas and values they absorbed here contributed to the outpouring of support for democracy that was evident throughout china before the military crackdown in june . students in washington and other american cities plan to hold protests , fasts and demonstrations on sunday , the 40th_anniversary of the establishment of the people 's republic of china . in china , the authorities have been beefing up security to make sure that protesters do not disrupt official celebrations of national day on sunday . a report prepared by the independent federation of chinese students and scholars , which has members at 200 colleges across the united_states , said , ''the chinese embassy and its consulates around the country have dramatically stepped up their efforts to intimidate chinese students . '' ''some students are now afraid to participate in the march'' from the lincoln memorial to the chinese embassy in washington on sunday , the report said .",has a topic of education
"a proposal by rome 's mayor to name a street for the mussolini era government minister who ordered jews ejected from italy 's education system has rekindled an impassioned debate about the country 's fascist past . the proposal to name a street for giuseppe bottai , who helped found fascism in 1919 and served as minister of national education from 1936 to 1943 , came from mayor francesco rutelli , a former communist who was elected three years ago as a green_party candidate . mr . rutelli defends the idea as a step to reconcile italians and re evaluate the contribution of figures like mr . bottai , who was also mayor of rome . the far right national alliance , the party that traces its roots to fascism , immediately welcomed the idea , as did the vatican newspaper , l'osservatore romano , which criticized opponents for their "" ignorance "" of mr . bottai 's contribution to italian culture . he was editor of several cultural journals and as mayor was responsible for important archeological excavations . others have bitterly attacked the proposal . the leftist daily la_repubblica , calling mr . bottai "" one of the most zealous promoters of the racial campaign , "" accused him of having helped to enlist italy in nazi_germany 's anti_jewish crusade . other newspapers depicted him as a vicious anti semite . gabriele turi , a writer on the period , recalled that as education minister mr . bottai had begun accumulating lists of jewish teachers and students even before the fascist government formally enacted its racial laws in 1938 . italy 's jewish_community bitterly opposed honoring him . tullia zevi , the jewish_community president , called mr . bottai "" one of the most detestable promoters of the total expulsion of jews from the education world , "" and said that naming a street for him would open a "" revisionist pandora 's box . "" since mussolini 's fall in 1943 , anti fascism has been a kind of national creed in italy , extolled , institutionalized and at times politically exploited . only recently especially since last year , when the neo_fascist national alliance entered the government for the first time since world_war_ii has anyone argued that it is obsolete . in 1992 , mr . rutelli won a hard fought mayoralty race against the popular leader of national alliance , gianfranco fini . critics of mr . rutelli have attacked the idea of honoring mr . bottai , who died in 1959 , as political expedience . fascist italy 's campaign against the jews began in july 1938 under pressure from nazi_germany with the publication of a "" manifesto of fascist racism . "" later that year , a law went into effect , signed by mr . bottai , that banned jewish students and teachers from the school system .",has a topic of education
"conservatives returned today from the coastal town of blackpool , where their annual party conference ended on friday with an address by prime_minister john_major in which he proclaimed that the tories were "" united , healed , renewed and thirsting for the fight with labor . "" despite his rallying cry , the three day conference saw the party in power lurching to the right and a raucous and divisive tone that was not customary for the tories . in his keynote speech mr . major promised he would lead them to a fifth straight election victory by offering tax cuts , a greater choice in schools and strong stands against scottish autonomy and european federalism . he said he would put 10 , 000 more closed_circuit security cameras in shopping areas and 5 , 000 more police officers on the streets , and allow m.i . 5 , the internal security agency , to fight drugs and organized_crime . the opposition , tony_blair 's labor_party , has jettisoned the principle of common ownership in a move to capture the middle ground . so mr . major may have been flogging a dead horse when he looked into the television cameras and exhorted the public to "" beat labor one more time and you have beaten socialism out of this country for good . "" an election must be held by may 1997 . mr . major 's party is down in the opinion_polls from 20 to 28 points , depending on who is doing the polling . it is suffering from the sort of scandals and fatigue that might be expected from 16 years in power . and it is badly divided over how much sovereignty to surrender to the european_union in brussels . but much of that seemed beside the point as the thousands of delegates cheered after listening for 70 minutes to the impeccably groomed , mild_mannered man whom many find uninspiring but comforting for his ability to bridge differences and project an image of decency and up from the bootstraps rectitude . mr . major played into that theme today by reminding his listeners that he came from basic , lower middle class stock . "" my father made garden ornaments 40 years ago , and some fashionable people find that very funny , "" he said . but , he added , his upbringing put him in touch with the dreams and sacrifices of small business men , especially when his father 's enterprise failed . conservative_party conferences are usually occasions for some tough sounding oratory from the delegates . no conference is complete without a delegate or two demanding restoration of hanging . but this time much of the tough language at the podium came from cabinet members and so more or less reflects the government 's official position . michael portillo , the new defense secretary , delivered a scathing attack on closer european_integration , asserting that a tory government would never allow britain to be part of a common european army . ( such a proposal does not exist . ) just imagine it , he said , his voice dripping with sarcasm , they would "" stop our men from fighting for more than 40 hours a week , "" and "" send half of them home on paternity leave . "" the gibe brought cheers in the conference hall but condemnation from brussels . jacques santer , president of the european_commission , called the remarks "" grotesque . "" mr . major 's address was noticeably softer . he promised to double to 60 , 000 the number of government grants for lower income students to go to private schools , and to find a way to "" give people more of a say "" in scotland . this was an attempt to hold off huge gains in scotland for labor , which has promised devolution of power through a proposed scottish parliament that would have limited powers .",has a topic of education
"thousands of the 2.3 million high_school students in france plan to resume protests against poor study conditions with a demonstration in paris on thursday . but at the lycee gaston bachelard in this paris suburb students are torn about how hard they should keep pushing . ''we 've got some promises on paper , '' said abdenbi benammar , 20 , a student leader , referring to promised remedies for shortages of teachers and shortcomings in the curriculum made by the ministry of education after last month 's national protests . ''but until we actually see changes made we should keep up the pressure . '' sarah devannes , a classmate , disagreed . ''we achieved a lot of things , '' she said . ''we got six teachers' assistants who 'll be here in january , and if we continue the strike too long , we 'll start losing support . '' discussions like this are going on in schools all over the country after a two week october vacation that followed some of the biggest school protests since 1995 . then it was university students who were on strike . they wanted better classrooms and study conditions , more teachers , smaller classes and curriculums designed to help them compete for jobs in an economy where many graduates find no jobs waiting for them when they get out of school . in france these days , with unemployment at 11 . 7 percent , students are now striking for the right to study harder to be better prepared for the job market . that is only one of many things about french schools that might amaze americans . even in troubled neighborhoods , schools have no metal_detectors at the door because guns in france are strictly controlled . ''i 've been in teaching for 19 years , and i 've never seen a knife flashed in all that time , though i 've worked in some pretty tough schools , '' said daniel bach , the principal at the lycee bachelard , where 2 , 000 students from all racial and ethnic groups prepare for the ''bac , '' the baccalaureate diploma that qualifies them to study at university . looking at the school , a visitor might ask what there was to strike about . in a neighborhood of single family houses and gardens next to a housing_project , the school has big picture windows and wide , spotlessly clean corridors in four story buildings organized around a central courtyard where students gather during breaks . the openness turns out to be one of the problems . ''kids from the neighborhood can come in and sell hashish and other stuff , '' mr . benammar said . ''we used to have draftees doing alternative service who helped with administrative work and insured security , but the draft ended this year and we do n't have them any more . '' so one of the student demands , here as at other schools around the country , was for more supervisory workers and better safety . the education minister , claude allegre , promised to increase school staffs with part time students as part of the socialist government 's national youth employment program . another complaint of students here was academic schedules that had scheduled some of them right out of lunch , a problem mr . bach laid to computer foul ups that have since been solved . he discusses problems like these regularly with student representatives who , like mr . benammar , tend to be older than their american counterparts . students commonly repeat years before passing the national examination thresholds to higher levels of education , and the examinations , particularly for the ''bac , '' are so rigorous that there is little stigma attached to staying back a year or more to prepare for them . ''one of the strains on the system is that nowadays 60 to 65 percent of all students want to go on to university , '' mr . bach said . ''it used to be 30 percent . so it 's no longer just an elite that wants to continue . '' in a country where until a decade or so ago schools were run by a huge bureaucracy centralized in paris , and providing education is still seen by almost everybody as a state responsibility , students are as apt as their parents to take to the streets to demand solutions to their problems . last month , the high_school protests in paris turned violent when unemployed youths joined student marches and started breaking windows , looting stores and setting cars on fire in scenes reminiscent of the student revolution in the latin_quarter in 1968 . but the violence this time was an aberration , agreed these students , who seem more preoccupied with fitting into today 's global economy and their increasingly competitive society than with changing it . when mr . allegre responded to last month 's strikes by promising to lighten the weekly class workload , which keeps many students on the campus here from 8 15 a.m . to 5 15 p.m. , at least some of them thought he had missed the point . ''if they cut back the workload too much , we could find that we are n't prepared when we get to university , '' miss devannes said . ''they could assume we know math we have n't even studied , and then how would we cope with our courses ? '' what exactly the relief in the study load that mr . allegre promised would mean was not clear to muriel navarro , a history and geography teacher who meets regularly with student representatives more concerned with passing tests than avoiding work . remedial study programs are unknown in the state university system , which leaves students to figure out their own deficiencies and make up for them , if necessary . at the high_school level , according to mr . bach ( whose ancestors came from germany , though he says he has not had the time to research whether they were related to johann sebastian ) , it is up to professors and students together to meet diploma requirements . worry about that was one of the reasons students at this school decided to strike , he said , after they got back to school in september from summer vacation and found that they were short of 4 teachers out of 170 . that meant that some students were unable to sign up for required courses in life sciences and mathematics . ''i had asked the district administration for a replacement for the math teacher last june , when she asked for maternity leave , '' mr . bach said . ''but i did n't get one . '' now that mr . allegre has promised to recruit 3 , 000 new substitute teachers in answer to the strikers' demands , mr . bach thinks he will get replacements for the ones he is missing . but he says it will be up to them and their students to figure out how to get through the required syllabus by the end of the year .",has a topic of education
"a sexual revolution of sorts is under way in china , not because the world 's largest population has just discovered sex but because it is discovering how to talk about it . in newspaper columns , on radio talk_shows and over dinner , the chinese are discussing sex , how to enjoy it and how to deal with its consequences more than at any time in this century . and what they are discovering is that even though millions have already thrown off the constraints of the orthodox communist era , china is still struggling against huge pockets of ignorance as it tries to normalize the role of sex in society . some chinese "" are still very shy about sex , "" said wen jingfang , the proprietor of beijing 's only shop for sexual aids , the adam and eve health_care center . "" with so much shyness , scientific_knowledge about sex cannot spread widely , "" he said . the chinese couple that everyone seems to be talking about may be most famous not for what they did but for what they failed to do during more than a year of marriage have sex . their story has been publicized on the front pages of official newspapers and has been tittered about on late night radio shows . the official legal daily , which reported their amorous ineptitude , spared them the mortification of public identification . but their loss of face occurred when the newspaper reported that after months of trying to conceive a child , the couple sought the advice of a doctor , who discovered the wife was still a virgin . both highly educated university lecturers , they thought that sleeping together , literally just sleeping in the same bed , was a reproductive act . "" it 's no joke , "" the official guangming daily reiterated this week in retelling the story . a 22 year old female university graduate , who like most of her classmates giggled through mandatory sex_education videos as a freshmen and decided by her third year that having sex with her boyfriend was o.k. , said , "" maybe this couple is the only one that could make such a mistake . "" maybe , maybe not , say chinese officials who want to reinforce sex_education programs that began in the mid 1980 's . in guangdong_province , one magazine devoted to sexual topics gave out 16 essay awards for the best version of "" my story of contraception . "" the winner was a man in his 50 's whose contraceptive bunglings had brought him "" psychological trauma "" through two marriages . the popular southern weekend newspaper now carries a regular column on sex , which this month posed the question . "" what do women need from sex ? "" in mandarin , the answer is a "" high tide , "" or orgasm . the newspaper said that women reach high tide 40 percent of the time but that one sixth of the women surveyed had never experienced a high tide . "" husbands should understand women 's needs about sex , "" the article said . "" sexual high tide not only benefits women 's health , but also benefits women 's spirit . "" such openness was not only unheard of a decade ago but it might also have been illegal . for decades under mao , prudery was the ideological fashion , at least out in the open . but in deng_xiaoping 's era of reform , sex like capitalism has enjoyed a huge resurgence . not only is there enormous public interest in sex , but the old icons of communist restraint have been toppled as well , most recently in the account of mao 's prolific private sex life , as revealed by his personal physician , li zhisui . on a trip to shanghai in 1976 , martin wollacott , a british journalist , wrote that he remembered "" gasps of astonishment when journalists saw that a young woman shipyard worker "" was "" wearing a pink blouse under her mao jacket . "" "" that scrap of cloth sticking out from under her collar , a tiny signal of a forbidden femininity , was the basis for many an essay on how the wind was shifting in china , "" he wrote . and indeed it was . "" the majority of chinese have experienced a great change in their attitudes toward sex in the last 10 years , "" said liu dalin , china 's best known sex researcher . but he adds , "" feudal ideas still exist , but they are getting less and less influential . "" as the legal daily pointed out in a recent front page commentary "" lots of people still think sex is a crime . under china 's traditional education system , people are afraid of talking about sex . "" but now there is growing evidence to the contrary . china 's airwaves are awash with "" sex talk "" radio shows , like the pioneering "" secret whispers "" program that is heard after midnight in shanghai . before a live radio audience , young and old bare their anxieties about finding a mate , discovering venereal disease and coping strategies for the humbling effects of nature 's endowments to human anatomy . in may the official new china news_agency reported that "" radio stations in such major cities as tianjin , shanghai , guangzhou and jilin have invited experts to answer listeners' questions "" about sex . one recent survey of 100 , 000 callers to shanghai 's information radio line showed that "" sex "" and "" banking "" were the two topics most often asked about . mr . liu 's landmark sex survey of 23 , 000 respondents in 1990 revealed what many chinese instinctively understood about their country more people were having sex and were also enjoying it . although only 60 percent of the respondents said they were "" often or sometimes "" naked during sex , nearly 75 percent of them said sex was necessary for both emotional and physical health . in a society were 120 million chinese live without electricity , the removal of clothes and foreplay does not seem to be a critical issue . the communist_party leadership has been more ambivalent about eradicating sexual taboos than the masses , who seem to be pursuing their sexual liberation with vigor . because of china 's large population , some conservative_party cadres argue , the less people know about sex the better . official revulsion over the return of prostitution and pornography virtually eradicated under communism incites the authorities to crack down on vice . security forces have executed dozens of pimps and pornographers this year , though there is no definition of what constitutes pornography . yu jisheng , a researcher at the chinese academy of sciences , said "" people often put the blame for sexual_misconduct "" on sex_education . therefore , mr . yu added , "" a considerable number of cadres have a strong bias against sex_education . "" for now , prudery and promiscuousness exist side by side , as they do in many developed nations , and this may be the most important indicator of china 's evolution .",has a topic of education
"the first hint that all was not well with the new neighbor came the day he moved in , when he seemed strangely proud of his prison issue electronic ankle bracelet . things went downhill from there . first came demands to ''borrow'' items like light_bulbs , food , money for the bus . then , when nearby families objected to his late night fights and banging on the walls , the neighbor , ian dickens , embarked on a one man terror campaign , blasting his music at night , shouting abuse from his windows and threatening to kill the local children . in november , a birmingham court decreed that enough was enough and served mr . dickens with an ''antisocial behavior order'' made possible by one of an array of measures enacted by prime_minister tony_blair 's government since 1999 to confront what is widely seen as an erosion of civilized norms in this once polite country . in the past four years , about 1 , 600 britons have been served such orders as part of an aggressive effort by the state to police behavior that would once have been the purview of families or neighborhoods everything from truancy and vandalism to drunken brawling on the street . using an arsenal of additional measures , the authorities can also fine or jail the parents of children who chronically skip school , impose on the spot fines for things like drunkenness and defacing public property and evict ''neighbors from hell'' from public_housing . recipients of the antisocial orders , perhaps the most extreme of the new measures , can be banned from entering certain neighborhoods or hanging out with a particular group of people even from wearing certain clothes or visiting members of their own families . mr . dickens , 35 , was banned for five years from menacing his neighbors or setting foot around the public_housing_project where he had lived . when he quickly violated the order , he was nearly as quickly jailed . not everyone loves the new antisocial orders . some say they stigmatize and marginalize a population that is already on the fringes of society , leaving the offenders with little hope of improvement or rehabilitation . others argue that the orders are not used enough and are dauntingly difficult to enforce . ''the antisocial orders have become almost a joke , '' norman brennan , director of the victims of crime trust , a victims' rights group , said in an interview . ''they 're almost impossible to implement and very easy to break . '' but in a country where gun crimes and murders are still relatively rare , conduct loosely defined as antisocial has proliferated in recent years , proponents of the measures say . in a 24 hour experiment meant to provide a snapshot of a typical day last fall , the home_office recorded 60 , 000 instances of such behavior from abusive words to urinating in public more than one every two seconds . ''it 's the single most important issue raised by voters , and it denotes how politics has changed , '' frank field , a labor member of parliament and the author of ''the politics of behavior , '' said in an interview . ''when i started , it was the politics of class , and now it 's the politics of behavior . '' the reasons for the rise in antisocial behavior are complex , but include the breakdown of traditional families , a decline in old habits of deference and respect and , in the view of many in government , the emergence of a social_security dependent culture that promotes a feeling of entitlement but not a feeling of responsibility . writing in the observer in 2002 , mr . blair said the problem was a result of both the postwar welfare_state as well as the individualistic philosophy espoused by conservative governments in the 1980 's and early 90 's , which , he said , went too far in the other direction and cut off support to those in need from whole swathes of society . ''by the mid 1990 's crime was rising , there was escalating family breakdown and drug abuse , and social inequalities had widened , '' the prime_minister wrote . ''many neighborhoods became marked by vandalism , violent_crime , and the loss of civility . the basic recognition of the mutuality of duty and reciprocity of respect on which civil_society depends appeared lost . '' alison parsons , a policy manager in birmingham 's housing department , said mr . dickens 's was by no means an isolated case . a lack of respect for others is an increasing component of life in crowded inner cities and on vast housing_projects , she said . the problem is just as bad or worse among children , she said , because their parents no longer seem willing to discipline them . since 1999 , when the government first empowered the courts to begin issuing the antisocial behavior orders , a large number have been served on teenagers . in leeds , a girl said to be the ringleader of a gang of shoplifting youths was forbidden to travel into the city center without an adult , or to wear hooded jackets , which she was in the habit of pulling over her face to conceal her identity . in swansea , a 16 year old boy with a string of convictions for muggings , car thefts and harassment , was sent to prison and banned , on leaving it , from seeing 19 of his partners in crime , including two members of his family . in neasden , northwest london , seven local youths were banned from a local housing_project after terrorizing residents with foul and abusive language , committing thefts and burglaries , threatening neighbors with knives and urinating on people 's doorsteps . the authorities printed their photographs on a pamphlet and distributed it to hundreds of houses and businesses in their area . ''standards of behavior have really deteriorated , '' ms . parsons said . ''often with these kids , their parents do n't set boundaries for them . here the court is setting boundaries for the child to follow . in many cases , it might be the first time in their lives that they 've been told what they can and ca n't do . '' but ben overlander , a spokesman for shelter , a charity that supports people in public_housing , said antisocial orders could be too drastic a step , particularly for families with children . ''the government is too quick to issue antisocial orders and to evict people from their homes , and does n't invest or care about rehabilitative work that addresses the root causes of antisocial behavior , '' he said . ''if you take away someone 's home and drive them into a worse situation , it 's not going to give them the impetus to make their life better . '' at the woodgate valley north housing_project here , the behavior of mr . dickens , the antisocial neighbor , provides a window into what life can be like in cities across britain . the neighborhood from which he was banned is notable chiefly for how deserted it looks , even though it is full of tenants . on a recent afternoon , no one was out on the streets . little bits of debris swirled in the wind . signs everywhere commanded , ''no ball playing , '' as if anyone would want to . the houses , low_slung concrete boxes the color of ash , seem designed to ensure that people ''keep themselves to themselves , '' as the british say . mr . dickens moved in about three years ago and it soon became clear that he was trouble , said ken dowling , who lived next door with his wife and three children . ''he would have his girlfriends in , and you could hear them screaming and beating each other up , '' mr . dowling said . ''when i complained , he revved up his motorcycle at 2 a.m . outside our window . '' he had all night parties and turned the music up so loud that the pictures shook in the dowlings' living room . ''things got worse and worse , until at one point he was sitting outside the house threatening to bomb it , '' said mr . dowling , 34 . mr . dickens started menacing his neighbor on the other side , a single mother named kelly johnson , too . but it was not until he shouted abusively at officials in the local housing office that birmingham took action . in court , mr . dickens argued that he had felt unsafe in his apartment . ''i am in a hole , and i do not want to dig any deeper , '' he said . but the authorities were unconvinced . ''efforts were made to change this man 's behavior , but he would n't respond , '' said phil murphy , a city_council member . back at his now quiet home , mr . dowling made a familiar complaint behavior has changed irrevocably since he was a child and felt constrained by the potential discipline of his parents and their neighbors . he remembered , as a boy , breaking a neighbor 's window . ''he kicked me all the way back to my dad 's , and then my dad kicked me all the way back in the other direction , '' he said . ''i never did it again . ''",has a topic of education
"in a long delayed conclusion to a dark chapter of canadian history , negotiators have reached an agreement to compensate 80 , 000 native canadians who attended a government financed school system where many suffered physical and sexual_abuse . the widespread incidence of alcoholism , family_violence and incest in many native canadian communities has long been linked to the experiences of generations who attended the so called residential schools , which were dedicated to forced assimilation and operated for more than a century , until the 1980 's . typically , government agents forced inuit , cree and other children to leave their parents and attend the schools , where they were harshly punished for speaking their own languages or practicing their religions . negotiators representing the government , native peoples and several churches that administered the schools agreed that nearly 2 billion would be paid out in damages . payments are set to begin next year , but will possibly be accelerated for the elderly and the sick . the accord , which negotiators called one of the largest damage settlements in canada 's history , needs cabinet and court approval , but that is considered a formality . jim prentice , the indian_affairs and northern development minister , announced the agreement without fanfare on the floor of the house of commons on tuesday afternoon . there was no official apology , although the federal_government had already admitted that sexual and physical_abuse in the schools was widespread . the residential schools have long been a source of embarrassment to canadians , and the announcement of the agreement received little news_media attention . but native canadian leaders reacted with excitement over the culmination of years of painful negotiations and government efforts to fight the litigation that cost 80 million . ''we 're extremely pleased , '' said phil fontaine , national chief of the assembly of first nations , an ojibwe speaker and one of the negotiators . he attended two manitoba residential schools where he says he suffered sexual and physical_abuse . ''it 's about symbolic recognition of the loss of languages and cultures . '' he added that he was still hopeful that prime_minister stephen_harper would apologize for the schools . a former minister of indian_affairs did apologize in 1998 but native canadian leaders have long sought an apology from a prime_minister . the agreement allots payments of about 20 , 000 to the 80 , 000 former students . it will also provide about 120 million for a foundation that will promote traditional native healing therapies , as well as a ''truth and reconciliation'' commission that will hear testimony from victims . perpetrators also may come forward if they want to confess , but kathleen mahoney , one of the negotiators , said they would not be granted amnesty . the presbyterian , anglican , united and roman_catholic churches have agreed to open their archives so that documents relating to the schools they ran can be included in a national archive devoted to the residential school experience . about 1 , 500 residential school victims have received court compensation over the last 12 years , about one in 10 who filed claims . the government has also distributed hundreds of small out of court settlements . in recent years the federal_government tried to make amends by forming the aboriginal healing foundation , an agency that studied the legacy of the residential schools . there has been a cultural renaissance of sorts in many of the communities , with public schools teaching languages and dance to revive pride and identity . nevertheless , joblessness and poverty are forcing many young native canadians to move to the cities , where there are more economic opportunities .",has a topic of education
"the office of bavaria 's million member committee of catholics was a bit more frantic today than its director , elke hummeler , would have liked . but the office was only a pale reflection of the upheaval into which this tradition rich state has been thrown by a court decision that many bavarians consider sacrilegious and hateful . germany 's highest court decided this month that the bavarian law requiring a crucifix to be hung in each of the state 's 40 , 000 classrooms was unconstitutional . "" because attending school is a general obligation , crosses in classrooms mean that the state confronts pupils with this symbol during their lessons , leaving them no alternative to learning 'under the cross , ' "" the constitutional court ruled in a 5 3 decision . "" as a result , the presence of crosses in classrooms differs from the normal presence of various religious symbols in other areas of daily life . "" many people here , supported by like minded citizens across germany , are demanding to know why one of their most cherished symbols is being banished from schools . "" when i first heard the news , i was completely confused , "" mrs . hummeler said as she juggled phones and set fax machines . "" i did n't think german judges could even consider doing such a thing . the cross is a symbol of the values we love most and want to transmit to our children . it 's almost unthinkable that it can be taken away from us like this . "" mrs . hummeler is helping to organize a protest in munich at which she hopes 20 , 000 people will turn out . senior religious leaders and politicians from the christian_social_union , the heavily catholic party that dominates bavarian politics , are expected to attend . the party chairman , finance_minister_theo_waigel , has already declared himself "" horrified and astonished "" by the decision . chancellor helmut_kohl also criticized it . "" the crucifix as a symbol of christian belief harms no one , "" mr . kohl said in a statement . "" after this century 's bitter experience with anti christian ideologies and their awful and inhuman effects , we feel a special obligation to pass these values on to future generations . "" educational policy in germany , like most domestic policy , is shaped principally by the states . bavaria , which with 11 million inhabitants is germany 's second most populous state , is the only one that requires religious symbols in classrooms . other states ban them or leave the decision to local communities . politicians from germany 's left oriented social_democratic and green parties welcomed the court 's decision . a senior social democrat , herta daubler gmelin , accused critics of resorting to "" demagogic populism and intentional falsehoods . "" the head of the german teachers' union , richard sigel , said the decision "" fits with the times . "" "" ties that bind us to the christian religion are not as strong as they once were , "" mr . sigel said . a constitutional court judge who voted with the majority , johann friedrich henschel , suggested in an interview that the court had been influenced by the growing number of non christians entering german schools . "" how would a practicing christian in a class with something like 80 percent muslims feel if the majority suddenly decided to hang a verse from the koran on the wall ? "" judge henschel asked . many prominent bavarians have gone beyond protest and are urging that the ruling be ignored . governor edmund_stoiber said he would not order the removal of crucifixes "" for the time being , "" and asserted that he was under no obligation to remove them in schools where parents unanimously opposed such action . friedrich cardinal wetter of munich , the bavarian capital , said parents alone should have the power to decide whether crucifixes should hang in classrooms . "" we guarantee tolerance for people who think differently from us , and we demand in return that same tolerance , "" cardinal wetter told pilgrims in the bavarian town of altotting last week . he declared , "" insist on your right and you will not err . "" the court decision was on a case brought 10 years ago by ernst seler , a bavarian artist and composer who did not want to send his three children to schools where the "" image of a bleeding , half naked male corpse "" was displayed . a local court and then a bavarian appeals court rejected his suit , ruling that the crucifix was a valuable symbol of "" the general christian occidental tradition . "" mr . seler is a follower of the philosopher rudolf steiner ( 1861 1925 ) , whose school of "" anthroposophy "" deals with knowledge produced by the spiritual side of man . mr . seler said that after years of abuse and anonymous death threats , he felt "" tremendous relief and joy "" at his victory .",has a topic of education
"it was the second serious and random attack on a group of british schoolchildren in four months and , inevitably , memories of march 's horrific murders at a primary_school in dunblane , scotland , came flooding back . this time , the intruder was wielding not a gun but a machete , which he used it to injure three children and four adults at a nursery_school in wolverhampton before fleeing into a nearby housing_project , where a suspect was arrested today . the attack , which took place on monday , just as authorities were wrapping up their public_inquiry of the events in dunblane , spurred new pleas by teachers , parents and administrators for increased security at schools that , it seems , are no longer safe from the world outside . "" schools can no longer think that they 're immune , that they 're invulnerable to intrusion , "" said john bangs , head of the education unit at the national union of teachers . although british schools are hardly subject to the same kind of day to day student on student violence as some inner city schools in the united_states , there have been an unusual number of incidents of armed intruders gaining access to schools here in recent years . in 1993 , a youth with a shotgun and a machete terrorized a class at a girls' school in birmingham . the next year , a_12 year old girl was stabbed to death at a school in middlesbrough . a principal at a west_london school was stabbed to death last december while trying to help a student being attacked by a gang of youths outside the school . then in dunblane , a crazed gunman killed 16 children and their teacher before taking his own life . in monday 's incident , a man with a machete climbed over a school fence and attacked a group of three and four year olds having an end of the year picnic in the yard . a three year old boy , two four year old girls and four adults received injuries ranging from severe facial cuts to a fractured skull and a broken jaw , and several underwent extensive surgery . today , the police arrested a 32 year old man , horett irving campbell , who they said had a long record of convictions for violence , in connection with the attack . the incidents have prompted numerous calls to action . at the very least , said mr . bangs of the teachers' union , every school should limit the number of exits and entrances to its grounds and buildings , and should install security cameras that could be monitored by staff members . schools should work with local police departments to help improve security , he said , and the police should keep tighter control of potentially dangerous people near school neighborhoods . in the view of mr . bangs and others , the government 's efforts to address the problem are coming much too slowly . in may a new law made it an offense to carry weapons on school grounds , and gave the police greater powers to search people suspected of carrying weapons . and after the death of the london principal , parliament convened a group of parents , teachers and administrators that called for an immediate infusion of cash to allow schools to institute a variety of new security measures , from building fences to improving the layout of buildings to hiring security guards . but on monday , robin squire , britain 's schools minister , said it would be at least a year before more money it has n't been specified yet how much would be available from the government . "" the suggestion that i could produce a check book today and insure that the money was going to the right place is just not sustainable , "" he said . "" we are talking about millions to be spent over several years , not just a big_bang . "" this year , a spokesman for the department of education and employment said , the government has allotted 3 . 5 million to enable 120 schools to install security cameras . he said that fewer than 100 schools , out of a total of 30 , 000 primary and secondary_schools in britain , currently have such cameras . teachers' groups say is another sign of the government 's unwillingness to move quickly enough . "" it is not enough to say that money will be available next year , "" said david hart , general secretary of the national association of head teachers . "" parents will want to know why it is n't available now . "" with each new incident , mr . hart said , the matter becomes more urgent . "" it seems shocking , but there may be some kind of copycat syndrome developing , "" he said .",has a topic of education
"it was time for the mandatory session in daily worship at the lauriston school in hackney , east_london . several children recited a poem about an anthropomorphic tree who realizes he is more than the sum of his parts . the head teacher , heather rockhold , led a discussion of the school 's values ( "" musical instruments ? "" suggested one tiny child ) . and then everyone joined in "" the family of man , "" a song about togetherness . what was left out ? well , references to christianity , for one thing , even though worship in state financed schools is meant to be "" broadly christian "" under british law . "" i worry about the mainly christian emphasis on things , which i think is unrealistic in this day and age , "" ms . rockhold said afterward . "" we try our best to follow the guidelines , but i think that most schools break the law in some way . "" the law , it seems , is becoming harder and harder for schools to follow these days , as britain enters an era of diversity of language , culture and of crucial importance in a country that has its own state church religion . it is especially hard to keep up a strictly christian pace at a school like lauriston . many of the teachers are atheists or agnostics . and the student body , 265 children aged 3 to 11 , is made up of not just anglicans and roman_catholics , but also seventh day adventists , jews , rastafarians , hindus , atheists , jehovah 's witnesses , sikhs , buddhists , evangelical protestants , muslims and greek orthodox christians . forty seven percent of the students are members of ethnic minorities . "" i think the government has some notion of schools and communities being the way they were in the 1940 's and 50 's when village churches were full , "" ms . rockhold said , sitting in her office , a center of calm in the noisy , bustling school . "" but i have a strong feeling that most synagogues and mosques are much more likely to be full now . "" what does the school do ? it tries , teachers say , to follow the requirements which call for religious instruction in the classroom as well as the daily worship sessions by emphasizing values common to all religions , like sharing and compassion , and by teaching that there are alternatives to christianity . "" i would always say , 'christians believe this . . . ' "" said peter sanders , lauriston 's deputy head teacher , who happens to be an atheist . "" i would never say , 'this is the way it is . ' "" that means , too , that the school devotes much of its time to what , if it were a university , might be called comparative religious studies . throughout the year , students learn about christmas , passover , ramadan and all the other major holy days ( indeed , teachers say they worry about fostering the impression that religion is an endless series of festivals ) . the bulletin_boards are crammed with information about things like diwali , the hindu festival of light . mr . sanders recently spent an assembly teaching the students about greek orthodox easter . "" i do n't find it a problem to talk about the stories involved or the history of a particular religion , or about why things are done and why they happen , "" he said . at the same time , he objects strongly to the government 's requirements . "" i think they make a very clear statement that what is right in this country is christianity and christian beliefs , "" he said . "" for many of our students , that has strong implications and puts their standing in the community very much in perspective . "" there are inklings that some members of the church of england are rethinking their positions , too . this year , the archbishop of york , one of the church 's highest ranking officials , said that a review of at least some of the regulations might be desirable . school worship , he said , "" is valuable if it can be done with integrity by those involved , but may be counterproductive if that integrity is lacking and the attitude toward worship is resentful . "" but gillian shepherd , the government 's secretary of state for education , warned teachers not to flout the law , which conservative christians find not strict enough anyway . "" teachers must be very clear about the requirements of the law as it stands , "" she said . "" there are no plans to change it . "" if the regulations can be irritating for teachers , they can also perplex non christian children . "" i think it is a good thing for them to learn both religions , "" said tariq hussain , a muslim whose twin sons , aged 9 1 2 , study the koran after school . "" but they do get confused a bit when they read the koran and what they are told is different from what christians are taught . "" and as hard as lauriston tries , it cannot accommodate everyone all the time . the jehovah 's witness children do n't go to assemblies with celebratory elements . some of the muslim children do n't take part in the school 's annual christmas carol service ( although some do ) . and once , a parent told ms . rockhold that her daughter had come home upset because the jehovah 's witness viewpoint was not included in that day 's assembly . "" and she 's jewish , "" ms . rockhold said .",has a topic of education
"members of a jewish soccer team , practicing in a deserted suburban sports field , were attacked by a gang of hooded and masked youths on wednesday evening in what authorities are calling the first organized assault on jews since the recent sharp increase in anti semitic attacks in france . the attackers some shouting ' 'death to jews'' wielded sticks , metal bars and , in one case , a heavy ball used for p tanque , a kind of bowling , as they swarmed onto the playing field . most of the soccer players , ages 16 to 18 , were able to run from the field unhurt . but three received minor_injuries and one was taken to a hospital for stitches after being pummeled and hit in the head with the p tanque ball . ''the really disturbing part of this is that it was premeditated , '' said patrick gaubert , leader of a human_rights group called league against racism . ''until now , most of the attacks have sprung up on the street . but here , there seems to have been an element of planning . these kids are there every wednesday night and the attackers knew it . '' mr . gaubert , who has met with the families of the victims , has filed a complaint with the local public prosecutor to highlight the need , he said , for arrests before the unrest that has gripped this country claims its first victim . ''the authorities must do their jobs before things get out of hand , '' he said . ''people are excited . the parents are very upset , and it 's important they feel their concerns are being addressed . '' france , which has the largest muslim and jewish populations of any country in europe , has had a sharp increase in anti semitic attacks in recent months , especially since israel began its military offensive in the west_bank two weeks ago . the attack on the soccer players in bondy , a working_class suburb north of paris , has left the community stunned . ''for us , this is the first time that anything like this has happened here , '' said gilbert roger , the mayor of bondy . ''today , i went out walking and talking to all the shopkeepers and , believe me , it 's all anyone is talking about , and we are appalled . '' the most seriously injured youngster told agence_france_presse that he had been looking the other way when the attackers invaded the field and so was taken by surprise when he was hit in the back . ''i found myself on the ground , and there were several of them beating me , '' he said . ''they were screaming at me ' 'dirty jew . ' '' mr . roger said the attackers appeared to have planned things carefully . the attack took place after 9 p.m. , when a nearby police post closes . after the assailants took over control of the field , they rifled through the belongings of the soccer players , stealing anything of value , including several cellular_phones , the mayor said . ''this was an anti semitic incident , but they were opportunists too , '' mr . roger said . ''they took what they could . '' while some of the attacks in france have been in places with large muslim populations , others have been in areas that have had problems with skinheads . commentators have linked the increase in attacks to the conflict between the israelis and the palestinians . the police said after a recent series of arrests that most of the people involved had been in trouble before . the police have stepped up patrols at potential targets , including synagogues , schools and community centers , and more than 40 arrests have been made . but the arrest numbers seem paltry to many french jews .",has a topic of sports
"lead le quarterback backpedaled , turned and tried to hand off le ballon to un running , unaware that le cornerback was coming fast . ''attention au blitz , '' part of the crowd screamed , but it was too late and le quarterback was flat on the ground , sacke . le quarterback backpedaled , turned and tried to hand off le ballon to un running , unaware that le cornerback was coming fast . ''attention au blitz , '' part of the crowd screamed , but it was too late and le quarterback was flat on the ground , sacke . football is making inroads in france and in much of the rest of western_europe . as proof , the paris castors , or beavers , routed the paris jets , 75 0 , today in casque d'or vi , or what was billed as le super_bowl francais . while it was not exactly super bowl xxi in pasadena , calif . , it was by far the biggest event in the short life of football americain in france . some of the razzle dazzle along the sidelines ( or lignes de touches ) was familiar to those who saw the national_football_league title game in january . there were majorettes here , too , and a musical salute and a cheering squad known as les pom pom girls . however , the crowd at jean bouin stadium in paris was somewhat smaller , 2 , 500 or 3 , 000 instead of the 101 , 000 who filled the rose bowl . tickets cost 50 francs ( about 8 ) instead of the face price of 75 in california . not much prize money nor did the winners' prize money total in the millions . the castors , the favorites after they beat the blue angels of joinville le_point in the semifinals , won 20 , 000 francs worth of football equipment . the jets , who beat the argonauts of aix_en_provence to enter the championship game , went home empty handed and humiliated . they could console themselves though , in thinking that the game had been another step forward in the growth of the sport across europe . starting early in this decade , leagues have been formed and are expanding in england , italy , finland , the netherlands , belgium , west_germany and france . in england , where the london ravens were the sole team in 1983 , there are more than 200 registered football teams , 146 of them in the senior , or adult , category . the organizers of the 29 team french championship league hope for the same surge of interest to lift their sport from the status of a curiosity . as a help , the united_states embassy and the national_football_league players association combined to provide a weeklong visit by harry carson , the giants' all pro inside linebacker , and brian sipe , the former quarterback for the cleveland_browns and new jersey generals of the united states football league . limit on foreign players both men have been interviewed extensively by french magazines and television , which this year began showing n.f.l . games in edited , week old film but did show the n.f.l . super_bowl live for the first time . french teams are limited to five foreign players , with no more than two allowed on the field , or le terrain , at the same time . to help further the development of french players , foreigners are banned as quarterbacks , as they are in many other european leagues . this rule inspires long debate over a fine point if a foreigner is a running back , can he legally throw an option pass ? ''we 're still feeling our way with many of the rules , trying to get people to understand and agree on them , '' said stephane wephre , the president and starting center of the jets . like most of the others on the field today , wephre had no football experience until a few years ago . he was recruited by an english friend at the s.t.c . corporation , where he works as an engineer in fiber_optics . at 187 pounds and 5 feet 11 inches , wephre is standard size for a french lineman , although some defensive linemen go up to 6 feet 3 inches and 220 pounds . but he finds pass blocking easier than serving as president of his team . predicting a bright future ''on the field , we have no problems , '' he said proudly . ''we were formed in 1984 , played our first games in 1985 and won the casque d'or that same year . we slipped a little last year , losing in the quarterfinals , but here we are again . '' he spoke before the blowout on the field . still , he predicted a shiny future for the game , especially if it catches on with school children , to whom football is usually just the european name for soccer . football",has a topic of sports
"lead james ( buster ) douglas of columbus , ohio , will be the next opponent for mike_tyson , the undisputed heavyweight champion , on feb . 12 in toyko . tyson had been scheduled to meet donovan ( razor ) ruddock tonight in edmonton , alberta , but withdrew after he came down with a lung infection . the fight was rescheduled for jan . james ( buster ) douglas of columbus , ohio , will be the next opponent for mike_tyson , the undisputed heavyweight champion , on feb . 12 in toyko . tyson had been scheduled to meet donovan ( razor ) ruddock tonight in edmonton , alberta , but withdrew after he came down with a lung infection . the fight was rescheduled for jan . 20 , but home box office , the cable network with the television rights , withdrew its support when no assurance could be given that the fight would come off then . al braverman , director of boxing for don_king , tyson 's promoter , confirmed the plan . ''that 's the date we 're going to go , because the razor ruddock fight has been pushed off , '' braverman said . ''james douglas is next for mike_tyson . '' hbo intends to telecast the tyson douglas fight , said ross greenberg of the cable network . tyson will reportedly receive 5 million for the bout , and douglas will get a minimum of 1 . 3 million . ( ap ) sports people boxing",has a topic of sports
"his introductory e mail message had the humble , respectful tone of a college student listing his credentials for a summer job . ''this year , i hit 50 home_runs with 107 r.b.i. , and my batting_average was . 334 , '' hideki_matsui wrote to each of the 30 major_league clubs in the fall . ''i hope your team will be interested to offer me a contract for next season . '' long before the message flashed across the screen , the yankees were very interested in matsui . as the most famous player in japan , he needed no introduction . the yankees wanted him badly , for his skills on the field and his appeal off it . yesterday , they got him . matsui agreed to a three year , 21 million contract , contingent on his passing a physical next month . matsui , a 28 year old outfielder known as godzilla , will be paid 6 million next season , 7 million in 2004 and 8 million in 2005 . in choosing the yankees over the baltimore_orioles and the mets , matsui leaves the most storied japanese franchise , the yomiuri_giants , for its american equivalent . the yankees were his first choice all along , but he had conditions . according to a person familiar with the negotiations , matsui insisted on having the contract be for only three years . the yankees wanted to include an option year but abandoned the idea late in the talks because of matsui 's desire to be a free_agent after three years . matsui was even willing to give up potential bonuses in return for the yankees' allowing him to be a free_agent after three years . for matsui to do that instead of waiting six years , as the rules require the yankees could take other steps , including not tendering him a contract after the third season . matsui is not the first elite japanese hitter to sign with a major_league team , but he is the first power hitter to make the jump . the yankees believe he can do it . ''from our viewpoint , he 's one of the few people over there that swings the bat similar to what we teach over here , and what we 're looking for , '' said john cox , the yankees' coordinator of pacific_rim scouting . ''he uses his hands , keeps his right shoulder in , and he 's not flying off the ball like you see ichiro do . he 's not that type of hitter . '' those who have seen matsui stress how different he is from ichiro_suzuki , who has had great success with a more traditional japanese hitting technique . in 2001 , his first season with the seattle_mariners , suzuki won the american_league most valuable player award , slashing singles and doubles and almost stepping out of the batter 's box when swinging the bat while dashing to first . matsui is a far more disciplined hitter . at 6 feet 1 inch and 209 pounds , he is a thick masher who led japan 's central_league in on base percentage ( . 461 ) and slugging percentage ( . 692 ) . ''he 's definitely more of a u.s . hitter , '' said mark johnson , the former mets first baseman who played against matsui in japan . ''he does n't drift . he stays back and rotates , a lot like barry_bonds . he really lets the ball come to him . he 's not like ichiro , who glides into the ball and slaps it around . '' shortly after leading the giants to the japan_series championship , matsui declared his free_agency and said he wanted to play for an american team . he might have earned 10 million a year in japan , but his yankees contract does give him a raise from last season , when he made 5 million . it is an expensive commitment for the yankees , who were burned by their last foray into japan the overweight , underachieving pitcher hideki_irabu and are trying to cut payroll . matsui will displace rondell white in left field or raul mondesi in right , and the yankees were comfortable making the deal before trading those players . the yankees owe 5 million to white , 7 million to mondesi . they would gladly trade either , but it may make more sense to keep mondesi than white . mondesi has a strong arm and could stay in right while matsui , whose arm is only average , plays left . cox said matsui has excellent instincts in the field and a quick release when he throws . but offense is his strength . ''he makes contact , '' cox said . ''he 's got plus power and he can take a pitch . he 's got a good idea of the strike_zone . he 's just a very good hitter . '' the deal goes beyond baseball . the yankees and the giants have a new working agreement , an informal arrangement in which the teams exchange ideas and scouting information and share facilities . the yankees maintained that their association with the giants would not give them an edge in negotiations with matsui , and yesterday they emphasized that there were no inherent financial gains by signing him . lonn trost , the yankees' chief_operating_officer , said that the yankees and the yes network could not make side deals to broadcast games in japan , and that any revenues from the sales of yankees merchandise would go into a central fund split by all teams . but the yankees clearly expect matsui to broaden their fan base and attractiveness to advertisers . ''when you look at how small the world has become , you look at atlantic_city and las_vegas and you see a substantial number of people from foreign countries , '' trost said . ''i would hope that we would be a destination for more people , and our ticket sales would go up . when ticket sales go up , i would hope that companies dedicated to japanese customers would have advertising here that we 'd be able to benefit from . '' baseball",has a topic of sports
"it certainly seemed to be an englishman 's sort of afternoon as the dark clouds hung low and the spectators kept their overcoats buttoned and their umbrellas at the ready . but it turned out to be ideal argentine weather instead , as guillermo coria put an end to an unlikely and deeply diverting run by tim_henman of britain with a 3 6 , 6 4 , 6 0 , 7 5 victory in the semifinals at the french open . for coria 's pains and henman caused him plenty with his risky , net rushing style he earned a place in his first grand_slam final . and whoever wins sunday at roland_garros , argentina will be the winner , because coria 's opponent will be his countryman gaston gaudio . even in the heady days when guillermo vilas and jos luis clerc were whipping ground strokes heavy on topspin and machismo , argentina never put two players in the same major final . but argentine tennis is much more than a two man show in this era , as the unseeded , 25 year old gaudio proved with his 6 3 , 7 6 ( 5 ) , 6 0 victory in friday 's first semifinal over yet another argentine , eighth_seeded david nalbandian . nalbandian was not at his best after straining a rib in his quarterfinal victory over gustavo kuerten , but even at his best , nalbandian would have had difficulty overcoming gaudio 's consistent forehand and beautiful one handed backhand . gaudio still had to overcome a 1 5 deficit to win the second set , and when it ended , he sat in his chair at the side of the court and sobbed into a towel , his mind flooded with memories . ''all those practices , all those sacrifices , all the people who helped me , it was all playing like a movie in my head , '' he said . now argentine tennis will have its hollywood ending , and vilas , who won here in 1977 , will finally have his successor . ''this final is going to be something historic , '' coria , who is seeded third , said . ''the truth is that argentine tennis deserves this . we 've been fighting and working hard , and it 's been difficult because we 're often far from home . '' though an all argentine final is a first in a major tournament , it fits neatly into the modern tennis continuum . since 1994 , there have been three all spanish men 's finals at roland_garros , and all williams or all belgian finals have been the rule of late in the women 's game at grand_slam events . this year , the nationalities have changed . on saturday , anastasiya myskina and elena_dementieva will play the sport 's first all russian grand_slam final . the next day , coria and gaudio will renew their occasionally testy rivalry , which boiled over in hamburg , germany , last year when they exchanged harsh words and according to some reports shoved each other in the locker_room after gaudio said coria taunted him on court during his three set victory . ''yeah , but we talk about it , and that 's it , '' gaudio said . ''it 's over . everything is clear now . '' it is also clear that coria deserves to be the favorite . since losing last year in the french open semifinals to martin verkerk , coria has won 37 of 38 matches on clay . ninth seeded henman played superb tennis in the early going , attacking the net selectively and effectively and hitting bold winners with his forehand from the baseline . after henman broke coria 's serve to take a 5 3 lead in the first set , coria broke his racket on the clay , receiving a warning for racket abuse . henman then coolly served out the set . henman took a_4 2 lead in the second set before coria began producing more depth with his strokes and henman 's level began to sink . henman 's forehands began to fly and coria 's passing shots regularly found the inside of the lines . he won 13 games in a row , taking a 3 0 lead in the fourth set before henman shifted the momentum by winning five consecutive games . but when the time came to serve out the set at 5 4 , he was unable to convert , double faulting at 15 15 , then losing the next two points . as the set wore on , the 29 year old henman began to look leg weary . the match ended with a backhand long . unlike gaudio , coria kept his composure in victory . ''it 's been my dream to win roland_garros , '' he said , ''not to get to the final of roland_garros . '' it turned out to be argentina 's day , despite the very english weather and the very english ending . does n't henman always lose in the semifinals at wimbledon , too ? match points martina_navratilova 's bid to win the women 's doubles title here at age 47 ended in the semifinals friday , when she and lisa raymond were beaten by svetlana kuznetsova and yelena likhovtseva of russia , 6 2 , 6 4 . kuznetsova was navratilova 's regular partner last year . . . . there is one american still in contention in paris . alex kuznetsov , a 17 year old who was born in ukraine but now lives in richboro , pa . , will face gael monfils of france in the boys' singles final on sunday . tennis",has a topic of sports
"offered an automatic invitation as the team to play host to the tournament , japan qualified for the first women 's olympic hockey tournament because of geography , not skill . wally kozak , the team 's canadian coach , figures he will need a few trick plays to avoid finishing sixth in a six team field . that 's where an 18 year old , baton twirling forward named aki tsuchida comes in . ''maybe i could get her to distract someone on face offs , '' kozak said . ''have her throw the stick up and twirl it . '' japan opens the round robin tournament against canada , the three time world champion . also on the schedule is the united_states , which defeated the japanese in their last three meetings by a combined score of 42 0 . the americans and the canadians are expected to play for the gold_medal . japan is playing for something that may be just as satisfying respect . ''realistically , it might be a_10 goal differential with the americans and canadians , '' kozak said today as his team prepared for next sunday 's opener . ''if we lose by less than 10 , it 's a victory . '' there is not a more unlikely team in the tournament than japan , whose captain is a kindergarten teacher and whose most indispensable player is a defender from houston who graduated from brown_university . while other teams field full time players , the japanese players are part time athletes and full time students , office clerks and secretaries . they play 10 or so games a season in industrial leagues and practice three or four times a week . for the olympics , they have either taken leaves of absence or quit their jobs because of uncooperative bosses . ''women 's ice_hockey in japan is starting in nagano , '' maiko obikawa , the team captain , said . ''we are the pioneers . we have to play well , then maybe elementary schools will get interested . they never televise games . no one knows about women 's hockey . if we play good , maybe attitudes will change . '' ten of the team 's players are from hokkaido , japan 's northernmost island , which has a russian influence and a long hockey tradition . there are about 30 women 's club teams on hokkaido . most players on the women 's olympic team are affiliated with the iwakura trucking company . the team has little speed and struggles to control the puck , but it spackles over the lack of talent with an olympian sense of dedication . last fall five players paid their way to a hockey camp in calgary , alberta . on a recent european swing , japan defeated the german national team in germany . ''they are at the stage where people are watching them and not feeling sorry for them , '' kozak said . when he first coached the team , at the 1996 winter asian_games in harbin , china , kozak said that even he struggled to keep from laughing at the haplessness of his players . ''they could n't complete passes , they could n't shoot and they fell down a lot , '' he said . it was at that tournament , however , that japan collected its first international victory with a shutout of kazakhstan , which had never played a game and which unsuccessfully tried to convert speed skaters into hockey players . ''they were the best skaters out there during warm_ups , '' kozak said of the kazaks . ''then they threw the puck out and no one could stand up . '' a 9 4 loss in the tournament final to china was encouraging , given that japan had lost by 18 0 in the previous meeting . but the japanese preferred their own coaches , so kozak returned to calgary to teach physical_education and coach hockey until he was hired again in december with the olympics approaching . he uses an interpreter at practice to overcome the language_barrier . but he sometimes finds himself struggling to scale the cultural barrier . today , for instance , some of his players were sick with colds , which raised a larger , sensitive question of how hard japanese women should be pushed during practice . ''they say there is somewhat of a danger because they will allow you to push them without stopping themselves , '' kozak said . in general , however , kozak said he preferred to coach japanese women over japanese men because of a cultural reticence that he found in the men who play . in a country that prides itself on respect for elders , he said , younger male players are hesitant even to body check an older player . women , on the other hand , do not seem bound by japan 's rigid cultural restraints while playing hockey , he said , displaying aggressiveness , passion and emotion often lacking in the men who play . ''in japan , out in public , women have to be reserved , '' said defenseman chie sakuma , a graduate of brown in management who followed her older brother into hockey as a girl in houston . ''on the ice , it 's just women . they do n't have to worry about the outside world . they can be themselves . '' sakuma , according to her coach , is the ''glue that holds the team together . '' kozak said , ''you can call her the coach . '' she first played hockey in japan as a_10 year old , when her father , hajime , now an importer exporter in new york city , coached her houston peewee team on an international tour . after women 's hockey joined the olympic roster , sakuma moved to japan in 1994 and now works as an interpreter for the iwakura trucking company while playing for the company team . she also serves as an interpreter for the japanese olympic team , which has made her invaluable to kozak , but has also somewhat alienated her from her teammates , he said . ''sometimes , i have to do interpreting for the team that 's not why i do n't fit in as well , '' sakuma said . ''i think it 's just different ways we were brought up . it 's not too bad , though . we just do our thing on the ice and that 's what matters . '' what matters at the olympics is securing at least one victory . finland is out of japan 's league , but kozak believes a victory against sweden is possible . the game everybody wants to win is the unofficial asian championship match against china , which learned its chippy style by watching videotapes of national_hockey_league games . ''they 've improved a great deal , '' kozak said of his players . ''now they want to see how much they 've learned . '' olympics",has a topic of sports
"in the former east_german sports system , athletes were chosen the way some people choose tomatoes . body type meant everything . gunda_niemann was told that her legs were too short for track and field . determined to succeed anyway , she switched to speed_skating at the age of 17 . nine years later , at the 1992 winter_olympics in albertville , france , she became the first woman to win a gold_medal for a reunified germany . ''i am very proud of this medal , '' niemann , 31 , said from her home in erfurt , germany , speaking through an interpreter . ''it is close to my heart . i was skating for all of germany . '' she won two gold medals and a silver in albertville and a silver and a bronze at the 1994 winter_games in lillehammer , norway , becoming as dominant in distance skating as bonnie_blair was in the sprints . currently the world champion at 1 , 500 meters , 3 , 000 meters and 5 , 000 meters , niemann could add three more golds at the nagano games , matching blair 's career total of five . niemann keeps the medals in a safe place , outside of her home . on occasion , she takes them out and looks at them as if they were photographs , each one defining a surpassing moment in a brilliant career . because she won all of her medals for a unified germany , no one is asking that she give any of them back . her predecessors in the east_german system are not so lucky . east_germany is gone , but revelations and suspicions about its dishonest athletic past continue . some swimmers and officials in the united_states , and elsewhere in the west , have demanded that so called tainted medals be returned and perfidious accomplishments be erased from the books . documents and admissions in recent years have revealed what many had expected , that the east_germans championed communism by building an international sports power , in part through a state sponsored system of doping . many athletes apparently did not know they were receiving drugs , believing instead they were taking vitamins . four former east_german swimming coaches and two physicians have been charged with causing harm to 17 teen_age athletes in the 1970 's and 1980 's by giving them muscle building anabolic_steroids . at the recent world swimming championships in perth , australia , german coach winfried leopold had his accreditation taken away , then later restored by an australian court . leopold , a former east_german coach , admitted to the systematic doping plan in 1991 and was banned from the sport for two years . ongoing investigations by german prosecutors have produced disturbing findings . petra kind schneider , a gold medalist swimmer at the 1980 moscow olympics , has said that she was given steroids beginning at the age of 14 , without her knowledge , and that she now suffers from liver and heart problems . heidi krieger , the 1986 european champion in the shot put , has charged that she was given such massive doses of the male sex hormone testosterone , which serves as a steroid , that she developed facial hair , an adam 's apple and acute psychological problems . according to the german magazine der_spiegel , she considered the process irreversible and has changed her name to andreas after two operations intended to make her a transsexual . reverberations from the doping issue have reached the upper levels of the german_government . on jan . 9 , manfred kanther , the interior_minister , rejected as ''one sided'' and ''absurd'' the demands that former east_german athletes be stripped of their olympic medals . walter troger , president of the german olympic_committee , agreed , saying in a statement that erasing the results of previous olympic_games is ' 'surely not the proper way'' of overcoming the problem of doping . niemann , the star speed_skater , and others have pointed out that athletes in the west also use performance_enhancing_drugs , so the east_germans should not be singled out for punishment . one of the most glaring problems with drug testing is that there are no certified tests for two performance enhancing substances that athletes are widely suspected of using human growth hormone , and epo , or erythropoietin . ''this problem in sport is worldwide , '' said niemann , 31 , who is now married to her manager , oliver stirnemann , and skates under the name niemann stirnemann . ''it 's not appropriate to find a scapegoat in the former east_germany . '' the international_olympic_committee feels the same way . at meetings in nagano before the winter_games begin , the i.o.c . is expected to put a four year limit on challenges to athletic performances . for instance , if someone questions a gold_medal accomplishment at the nagano games , the matter will have to be successfully challenged by the 2002 salt_lake_city games , or it will stand forever as a gold_medal . ''it is a policy not to rewrite history , '' francois carrard , director general of the i.o.c. , said recently in new york . ''you cannot reopen cases forever . '' niemann has repeatedly , sometimes heatedly , said that she did not use drugs as an east_german athlete and that she was never an informant for the stasi , the former east_german secret_police . and she has not been linked to either matter . speaking calmly and without any trace of defensiveness on the telephone , she pointed out that she had become a prominent athlete after the berlin_wall fell in 1989 , not before . german skating authorities said that she is now drug tested up to 30 times a year , sometimes twice in one day , and that she had never failed a drug_test . ''i 'm very clean , '' niemann said . asked if she were concerned that she might have been given drugs without her knowledge as an east_german and might later suffer health consequences , niemann said ''i 'm as fit and healthy as i can be . i do n't spend any time worrying about that . i 'm confident about my health . '' claudia pechstein , 25 , the 1994 olympic champion at 5 , 000 meters and niemann chief rival , is also from eastern_germany . but the former figure_skater was only 16 when the berlin_wall came down she said that she was not concerned that drugs that might have been given to her furtively would damage her health . ''i do n't have drugs , i will not have drugs , '' pechstein said from berlin . ''i was too young for this in east_germany . i 'm really a woman , not a little bit man . '' niemann has continued to live in the eastern german city of erfurt , which remains a center of speed_skating . with her 17 inch calves and 23 1 2 inch thighs , she powered her way to gold medals at 3 , 000 meters and 5 , 000 meters at the 1992 albertville olympics . but disaster struck four years ago in lillehammer , norway . she had not lost a 3 , 000 meter race in three years when she hit a lane marker early in the olympic race and fell . she settled for silver in the 5 , 000 when pechstein skated her career best by an astonishing 19 seconds , and managed just a bronze in the 1 , 500 . ''i was very sad in 1994 , '' niemann said . ''i was in very good form , but i was under incredible pressure from the press back home . they were writing that i was going to win three gold medals . '' she has adjusted smoothly to the new hinged clap skates , but continued recovery from arthroscopic knee surgery last april made her skip the recent european championships . still , niemann is expected to challenge for three gold medals in nagano . and she may continue to salt_lake_city in 2002 . ''everything is possible , '' she said . ''if the health and joy and spirit remain , why not ? '' nagano '98 speed_skating",has a topic of sports
"brides_les_bains , france , feb . 4 the residents of brides_les_bains might be excused a certain cynicism about the 1992 winter_games . the small resort_town poured 13 million into renovations , which included a new tramway plus a revitalized casino and city hall . the investment drew the town 's treasury close to bankruptcy and has meant nothing but inconvenience . as the olympics approach , quaint brides_les_bains has been dissected by a quarter mile chain link security fence that prevents inhabitants and tourists from crossing the street into the main downtown district . the residential section of the village and the casino are off limits to everybody but the international athletes and official delegation members who are housed there . "" i am angry , "" said jacqueline raffaud , who runs the hotel le centre and has few tables to wait these days . "" i ca n't cross the street anymore . "" the streets were virtually empty today , but there was still hope among residents that the proximity of the olympics would translate into revenue . "" it is not so terrible now , "" said sandra marzolf , a hair stylist at christiff 's in brides_les_bains . "" and the improvements and publicity will help us for the next 10 or 20 years . "" albertville '92",has a topic of sports
"major_league_soccer seems to have two developments working for it and two working against it as the league 's third season gets under way . the two positives are its expansion from 10 teams to 12 with the addition of franchises in chicago and miami and a vast improvement in its television coverage , most notably in abc 's coverage , which will increase from 1 game to 12 . the two negatives are the 15 percent drop in attendance it absorbed in its second season , and the world_cup that will take place in france in the midst of this season . but the m.l.s . hopes a bit of reverse psychology will turn at least one of those negatives into a positive . instead of worrying about being overwhelmed by the world_cup tournament , the league will try to capitalize on it by staging at least two ' 'doubleheaders , '' showing a world_cup match on a stadium screen before an m.l.s . game . it is a daring move because audiences will be drawn to making comparisons between world_cup games and the league 's own games , which will inevitably be below world_cup standards . but it will also draw attention to m.l.s . players who are competing in the world_cup , particularly the americans . the americans' performance in the world_cup will have an impact on the league , one way or another . a quick exit by the americans will mean they will be available to their m.l.s . teams more quickly . but a poor performance by them could also be viewed as a letdown , much in the same way the performance by the united_states men 's hockey team was in the winter_olympics . on the other hand , if the americans advance to the second round , as they did in 1994 , it will help the sport gain credibility with mainstream american fans . the league 's new television contract should help in that regard , too . the 12 games being telecast by abc include two playoff_games and the championship game on oct . 25 , m.l.s . cup '98 . espn and espn2 will televise 29 games plus the playoffs and univision , the spanish network , will televise 20 games plus the playoffs . the league has made other changes in response to last season 's drop in attendance . last season , the league scheduled 149 of its 160 games on friday , saturday and sunday , thinking it would capitalize on strong weekend attendance numbers from the first season . instead , it seemed like too much of a good thing . this season the emphasis will be on saturday , with 92 of its 192 games being played then , and a return to more midweek games . the tinkering seems to be working . season_ticket sales by the original 10 teams are up by an average of about 5 percent from last season , although that figure still lags about 10 percent behind 1996 . and , the three weakest teams are showing dramatic improvement . tampa 's season_ticket sales are up by 200 percent , colorado 's are up 135 percent , and dallas 's are up 140 percent . each team is allowed five foreigners , an increase from four the first year , when 90 percent of all the foreign players were signed from south_america and the caribbean . of the 50 foreigners the league has signed this year , 12 are european . sunil gulati , the deputy commissioner in charge of signing players for the single entity league , said last week that the league set aside some of the 1 . 6 million that has been allotted for each team in hope of signing world_cup players . the metrostars , for example , hope to sign someone the caliber of roberto donadoni , who returned to a.c . milan . ''we can wait until after the world_cup if we get a name player like roberto donadoni , '' said charlie stillitano , the vice_president and general_manager of the metrostars . one of the first big name players expected to join the league after the world_cup is germany 's jurgen_klinsmann , a charismatic striker . several of the most popular players in the league 's first two seasons have changed teams . colombia 's carlos valderrama went to miami from tampa_bay , mexico 's jorge campos left los_angeles for chicago and alexi_lalas of the new england revolution has joined the metrostars . the strongest team in the league continues to be d.c . united , the champion in the league 's first two years . the metrostars , who missed the playoffs last year , are expected to have more stability and continuity with alfonso mondelo as the coach . soccer",has a topic of sports
"and would n't it be a treat if those games turned out as successfully as these ? for all the anxieties associated with organizing winter_games spread across 600 square miles of mountainous terrain and holding a 16 day party for a reconfigured world , the albertville olympics worked . the glorious french_alps became a warm and welcoming maitre d' in sight , sound and emotion . so often , the french get a bad rap beyond their borders . maybe in paris , the reputation is justified . not here . there was not a hint of haughtiness in the haut savoie . as the games unfolded , the organizers and their volunteer staff of thousands could not have been friendlier or more accommodating . for that , they deserved to celebrate themselves . "" we delivered what we promised , "" jean_claude_killy , the 1968 olympic ski champion who served as co president of the 1992 winter_games organizing_committee , said today in a final news conference . he was ebullient , proud , even jocular , admitting that "" we still have not found our colombian athletes . "" colombia became the running joke of these games . that country 's athletes were on the entry lists but never appeared to compete . anyway , 2 , 174 athletes did compete , a record for the winter_games , and so did 64 countries . that was a record , too . in the grandest way , friendliness and accommodation became the themes of these games . with the recent melting away of political philosophies that used athletes as propaganda tools , the albertville olympics became the first devoid of any major "" us versus them "" mentality . there were new divisions , like separate teams from slovenia , croatia and yugoslavia and something called a unified team , a combination of athletes from five former soviet republics , and separate teams from three other former soviet republics , independent estonia , latvia and lithuania . not that it all made much of a difference in practice . the unified team finished second in the overall medal standing , with 23 to germany 's 26 , and the independents won none . nor did yugoslavia or any of its former republics . a world turned upside down more change was evident at the micro level . vyacheslav tretiak , a goalie for the soviet_union through four olympics , 1972 1984 , watched ray leblanc of the united_states playing well in goal one night and turned to edwin moses , the american hurdler . "" that 's my boy , "" said tretiak , now a goalie coach for the chicago blackhawks leblanc is a minor_leaguer in the chicago system . germany 's success 10 gold medals , 10 silver , 6 bronze was another reflection of new relationships . the team arrived at the games as a nervous mix of athletes from vastly different political systems and made the best of it . in 1988 , with nearly twice as many athletes , east_germany and west_germany had a combined total of 33 medals . in their new forms , germany and the unified team kept touch with tradition as two of the leading medal_winners . the united_states held the same place it did four years ago , fifth , but with more medals , 11 , compared with the 6 it garnered in 1988 in calgary , alberta . but four of those 11 medals came in sports that were not on the 1988 program , which means the 10 million more in financial support that american athletes training for albertville had over their counterparts preparing for calgary produced exactly one more medal . at least no american athletes embarrassed themselves , as several did at the summer games in south_korea in 1988 , when several swimmers were caught shoplifting . this time the bad behavior came from a coach . dave peterson , who led the hockey team to a fourth place finish , refused to shake hands with the swedish coach and one of his assistants after the teams tied , 3 3 . if the medal chart reflected disappointments , like switzerland 's drop to 3 medals from 15 in calgary , it also showed other countries filling the breech . norway jumped from 5 to 20 , with 9 golds , and 9 over all in cross_country_skiing events . austria increased from 10 to 21 , dominating alpine ski events with 8 medals . as the host country , france won more medals , 9 , than any previous host since the united_states won 12 medals at the 1980 lake placid games . and over all , 20 countries won medals , 2 more than in calgary . the games also produced a snowfall of poignant moments . cbs_sports always made sure nancy_kerrigan 's mother had a monitor to watch her daugher skate . brenda kerrigan is nearly blind and must sit with her nose to the screen . the night her daughter won the bronze_medal , she was at rinkside , cheering , in front of her set . when dan_jansen finished his 500 meter speed_skating race , albeit in a time that won him only fourth place , his mother , gerry jensen , looked as if she were finally drained of tension . four years before in the same event , on the same day his sister died of cancer , jansen had fallen . and there on the podium stood viktor petrenko , the new men 's champion in figure_skating , an athlete from ukraine , a former soviet_republic that is part of the commonwealth_of_independent_states . as a flag bearing the olympic rings was raised and the olympic anthem was played , as agreed upon last month by officials of the unified team , his face was blank . "" if it had been his flag and anthem , "" said paul wylie of denver , the silver medalist , "" he 'd have bawled . "" the sadness of russia was evident elsewhere . athletes were selling their training suits and competition uniforms , some bearing the cyrillic letters "" cccp "" that stood for u.s.s.r . and as their events ended , they left their olympic villages immediately , rather than spend more hard_currency , so precious now in all the republics . but then there was the french hockey team , whose practice the day after the team clinched a place in the medal round was canceled because of too much celebrating the night before . in the end , the french had much to celebrate , and not just the hockey players . by any measure , the albertville olympics , a risky gamble for their disparate nature , were a resounding triumph . they brought the savoy region the new roads it needed . they brought alpine resort owners exposure of inestimable value through worldwide television . and for 16 days , at least , they brought a fast changing world together in the harmonious spirit of competition . albertville",has a topic of sports
"the teammates of s bastien grosjean and arnaud cl_ment were shaking champagne bottles and chasing after them , and though grosjean and cl_ment did their best to dodge on the red clay at roland_garros , they were not quite quick enough to avoid a drenching . but they were certainly quick enough to beat the americans , quick moving and quick thinking , and because of their resourcefulness and the opposition 's youthfulness , the french davis_cup squad is back in the final for the third time in four years after its 3 2 victory . grosjean gave the french all they required in today 's first reverse singles match with a 6 4 , 3 6 , 6 4 , 6 4 victory over andy_roddick . while there was no fifth rubber match full of jaw locking import , there was still typically baroque davis_cup drama , and much of it came in saturday 's doubles match . the united_states' crossgenerational doubles team of todd_martin and james blake overcame a disastrous start to defeat france 's crossgenerational doubles team of fabrice santoro and micha l llodra in five rollicking sets . that victory brought the americans within range at 1 2 , but grosjean , whose combativeness and character have occasionally been questioned , held them off today . already the defending champion in the davis_cup , tennis 's premier team event , france will next play host to russia , which advanced today by defeating argentina in moscow , 3 1 . the french are expected to hold the final indoors in late november in paris , although marseille is a possibility . early in today 's match , it looked as if grosjean might need lots of help when he rolled his right ankle leading by one set and trailing by 1 4 , 15 15 in the second . grosjean tumbled to the court , but part of the reason he fell was that he felt the ankle hyperextending . his fall may have saved him serious damage . it also threw off roddick 's concentration and caused him to miss a forehand into the open court . after grosjean received treatment and had his ankle taped , he still managed to hold serve . though he lost the second set , he gradually resumed piling up momentum and flashy winners against roddick , with whom he occasionally trains near their homes in boca raton , fla . when it ended , with the last of many overhit forehands by roddick , grosjean arched his back and shrieked with joy at the overcast sky , while roddick slumped forward on the opposite baseline . ''he just stayed there mentally the whole time , '' roddick said . blake later beat cl_ment in straight sets in a meaningless final match . but by then , cl_ment had already taken part in his team 's latest victory lap . watching it all was yannick noah , who was the inspirational captain behind france 's victory over the united_states in the 1991 final . a back problem nearly kept grosjean out of this semifinal , but the french captain , guy_forget , decided to take the risk . there must have been relief as well as delight in their extended embrace today after grosjean had played a cool and confident final set . it was not without controversy . with roddick serving at 2 2 and deuce in the fourth set , he fired what he thought was an ace , only to see grosjean with his hand raised to announce that he was not ready . the chair umpire andreas egli called for roddick to serve again . roddick was not happy his captain , patrick mcenroe , was not happy . a frustrated roddick proceeded to lose the next two points and his serve on a forehand winner and a double fault . that was all the lead grosjean required , and on the changeover mcenroe did a brief impression of his older brother when he was slapped with a warning for unsportsmanlike behavior after using an expletive while complaining to egli . roddick , a_20 year old power server , did not always look ready this week . he had six aces today to the much smaller grosjean 's seven , and a minor injury was part of the explanation for roddick 's difficulties , as has often been the case in his short career . he was treated for a sore lower back twice during the match . ''going into the match it was something i knew i had to deal with , '' roddick said . ''it was tough . i do n't think i served my best today . '' roddick has all the power and endorsement deals that any young tennis star could require , but he is still lacking in understanding of how best to benefit from his power . in all , it has been a sobering season after his freshman joy ride in 2001 . ''i 'm just learning , '' he said . ''this year has been a learning experience after another . i 'd like to think these experiences will make me stronger . '' tennis",has a topic of sports
"equaling records and exhausting both participants , the fourth match of an extraordinary davis_cup meeting concluded with dmitry tursunov beating back andy_roddick 's challenge to send russia into the final against argentina with a 6 3 , 6 4 , 5 7 , 3 6 , 17 15 victory over the united_states . the match lasted 4 hours 48 minutes and included the longest fifth set played in world group history , tying the mark set by michael westphal of germany and tomas smid of czechoslovakia in 1985 . ''i do n't know which is worse at that stage the physical or the mental stress , '' roddick said . ''both equally , i suppose , because everything is made worse by the tension of the occasion . '' with russia leading , 2 1 , roddick needed to win to keep united_states hopes alive . he seemed poised to complete a comeback from a two set deficit when he served for the match at 6 5 in the fifth set . but his forehand , which had recovered some accuracy after a wayward opening , suddenly slipped out of sync again , and two errors allowed tursunov to break . tursunov , a surprising selection for reverse singles , was cheered by a capacity crowd of 10 , 000 at olympic_stadium . he had three match points on roddick 's serve in the 24th game , but roddick got out of trouble . they continued to hold serve until the 32nd game . roddick hit a forehand into the net at 30 30 , giving tursunov a match point . tursunov converted with a backhand winner down the line . ''davis_cup losses are the toughest because you are not playing for selfish motives , '' roddick said . ''you feel like you let your country and your teammates down . but credit to dmitry . i was surprised he was selected , and he played with a lot more consistency that i expected . he had a rough day in the doubles on saturday , and the way he bounced back is testimony to how much he has improved . '' the decision to go with tursunov , whose clay_court record is 3 7 this year , belonged to the russian captain , shamil tarpischev . tarpischev was upset with nikolay davydenko , the world no . 4 , who is said to be unfit after flying to and from beijing to play an atp event instead of training with the team . and tarpischev felt tursunov 's bigger serve would give him a better chance against roddick than mikhail youzhny , who played well in defeating james blake on friday . the gamble paid off , leaving the united_states team frustrated once again in a quest to win its first davis_cup since 1995 . ''we just have to figure out a way to get past the current away tie on clay roadblock , '' roddick said . ''more specifically , i have to figure it out . '' blake defeated marat_safin , 7 5 , 7 6 ( 4 ) , in the irrelevant second match sunday , making the final score 3 2 . russia will play host to argentina in december . argentina finished a 5 0 rout of australia on sunday . a twist in this american defeat is that it was inflicted by tursunov , who has lived in california since age 12 . patrick mcenroe , the united_states captain , said ''it was a classic davis_cup match , and i am only sorry so many people back home wo n't appreciate just what it takes for both guys to play at that level for nearly five hours . andy laid everything on the line and you ca n't ask for more . '' tennis",has a topic of sports
"waad hirmez plays midfield for the san_diego sockers of the major soccer league . the eight year veteran is a favorite of the few , but loyal , fans who follow the indoor league . like many of his teammates and opponents , hirmez was born in another country . but , it is that country , iraq , that carries a dramatic significance today . "" iraq is my childhood , my blood , where i was born , "" said hirmez , who is the sockers' leading goal_scorer with 33 . "" but i am an american citizen now , and if i was not loyal to this country , i would not be here for this length of time , "" he said . "" i 've been here 12 years . i moved here for more freedom and a better opportunity for myself and my family . "" hirmez became an american citizen in 1989 . hirmez , 29 years old , grew up in baghdad , the son of a wealthy contractor , in an influential neighborhood , one mile from saddam_hussein 's presidential palace . soccer in the streets "" living there was peaceful , "" hirmez recalled . "" playing soccer in the streets with my friends . many of those friends are dead from the iran iraq_war . "" his family , intent on the best education for their son , sent hirmez to a jesuit school , where an older classmate , uday_hussein , the son of saddam , was a fan of the young athlete . "" he would come and see the finals of my soccer , "" said hirmez , who was a team star and a catholic among muslims , speaking of saddam_hussein 's son . "" he kept up with me through my friends and videotape , even after i left . he became the president of the iraqi soccer federation . but his father never came . "" memories of saddam the grotesque image americans have of saddam_hussein today , wasnot so for hirmez in the the early days . he only remembers an idyllic time when the president walked the streets , visited the churches and mosques , and helped the people . "" he is not a religious fanatic , "" said hirmez , who has two uncles , two aunts , 15 cousins and in laws , still in baghdad . "" we were allowed to be catholic . i continue to believe in him . he 's done a lot for the country . just because war broke out now , does that mean he 's a bad person ? "" hirmez left iraq in 1979 , returning once , in 1982 , to visit his father , the only remaining member of his immediate family still in iraq . his father had to stay behind because men were not allowed to leave during the iran iraq_war . he died two years ago of heart problems at age 61 . he wears the american flag no one has treated him with hatred . instead , there are letters from children , wondering about the status of his family still in iraq , and applause from the fans . his coach , ron newman , promised him that time would heal everything . the other day , his teammates , from countries similarly weary of war , like northern_ireland ( brian quinn ) and liberia ( ben collins ) , shared their gallows humor with him , yelling , "" scud attack ! "" on his practice shots . "" i 've never heard anything about iraq before , "" said hirmez , who joined his teammates , one week after the war began , in wearing the american flag on his uniform . "" and i do n't know about war . i have never tasted that feeling . "" for now , hirmez is going back to his normal routine . in the beginning , when he was n't practicing , hirmez raced home to watch coverage of the bombing of baghdad on cnn , with his mother and sister . now , he flips the channels . soccer",has a topic of sports
"on her way to the french open , maria sharapova had to make an important decision face her fear of needles and receive a painful shot in her injured , inflamed shoulder , or take time off and skip one of the biggest tournaments of the year . there was never any doubt what she would choose , sharapova said . one cortisone shot and nearly two months later , she walked onto the red clay courts at roland_garros , sore shoulder and all , and played her first round match . in her second tournament since returning from her injury , sharapova beat emilie loit , 6 3 , 7 6 ( 4 ) . ''as long as the doctors give me an o.k. , as long as i can play through the little aches and pains that i get from time on , then i 'm o.k. , i 'm willing to do it , '' she said . ''i take the good with the bad . '' on another rainy day , the second seeded sharapova was one of nine russian women to win their matches wednesday . with success like that , the american men playing at the french open should have asked them for their secrets . never before have american men fared this miserably on the red clay at roland_garros . all nine in the draw lost in the first round . eight were beaten on tuesday , including no . 3 andy_roddick and no . 8 james blake . on wednesday , robby ginepri was their final hope . he could not redeem them , losing to diego hartfield , 6 4 , 1 6 , 5 7 , 6 4 , 6 2 . this is the first time in the open era , which began in 1968 , that all the american men entered in a major tournament lost in the first round . ''i do n't know if it 's because they are not willing to grind for the points , '' said meilen tu , one of the five american women still in the singles draw . ''i do n't know if they 're trying to finish the points too quickly . '' she added , ''you 've got to be ready to hit one more ball . '' ginepri suggested that the americans hold a camp before next year 's clay_court season in which they could be tutored by one of the better clay_court players . but the americans will not give up . though they expect pain and disappointment , ginepri said , they will still come to paris , if only to hope for a breakthrough . on the women 's side , four americans , including venus_williams , showed that they could win here . williams made it to the third round in a tight match against her countrywoman ashley harkleroad , 6 1 , 7 6 ( 8 ) , though not without a struggle . williams took control of the match early and was leading by 5 1 in the second set when the mistakes flooded in . suddenly , the score was 5 5 , with the schoolchildren filling the stands wildly cheering every point . ''i really just got overconfident , '' williams said . ''i was just feeling like i could n't lose , and then it was even . so it was definitely a mistake that i 've made before , not often . '' williams fended off five set points to finally win . one of her serves was clocked at 128 miles an hour , setting the record for the fastest women 's serve in a grand_slam event . elsewhere , the no . 1 seeds , roger_federer and justin henin , advanced to capture some attention . still , the day belonged to the russian women . third seeded svetlana kuznetsova , no . 9 anna chakvetadze and no . 10 dinara safina won their matches . but anastasia myskina , who started the wave of russian women 's success in 2004 , got only a quick taste of roland_garros before being sent home . when myskina won the french open in 2004 , she became the first russian woman to win a grand_slam_singles title . the russians have won three titles since , and they continue to occupy many places in the top 10 . myskina returned wednesday , despite missing five months after foot surgery in january . she was in search of the magic that made her a champion three years ago . instead , it was a bittersweet return . it took 55 minutes for her to lose to meghan shaughnessy , 6 1 , 6 0 . myskina , 25 , said she knew she was not going to win a title here , considering the operation that left her left big toe painful and swollen . she did not , however , expect the comeback to be so physically and mentally jolting . now she realizes that the doctors may be right she may never play again , at least at a top level . ''you remember how you used to run or you used to play , and now it 's completely different story , '' she said . ''it 's difficult not to be sad right now , you know , to say like everything is fine . '' it is painful to push off of her left foot , but also to walk normally because of the inflammation . ''you can see that i 'm moving like a big cow now , '' she said . but if her tennis career is waning , or over , myskina said she was not devastated . during her time off , she stayed at home in moscow and realized what life was like without tennis . it was not so bad . myskina said she had a soccer show on television and was providing commentary on tennis tournaments . she continued to practice her tennis game . she described it as ''a great life . '' ''really , i do n't know why i 'm here , '' she said , giggling at the end of her postmatch news conference , which might have been her final one . tennis",has a topic of sports
"manchester united suspended eric cantona , the striker who was last season 's premier_league player of the year , yesterday for kicking and punching a fan during a match on wednesday . france also dropped cantona , its captain , from the national team . cantona jumped into the stands at crystal_palace and aimed a two footed kick at a spectator who had been taunting him . cantona then punched the fan , matthew simmons , before being restrained by officials and teammates . simmons has been banned from the stadium . the club also fined cantona the maximum sum permissible under his contract , reportedly 32 , 000 . cantona will miss 16 league games as united currently second in the premier_league standing tries to retain the league title it has won for the past two seasons . the suspension comes amid speculation that cantona may be transferred to the italian club inter_milan . ( ap ) sports people soccer",has a topic of sports
"the ceremony , the speeches and the throng of photographers at the net are usually reserved for the final of the french open , but rafael nadal of spain received the full treatment monday after winning his first round match . the victory was his 54th in a row on clay , which broke his tie with guillermo vilas and gave him the record for the longest such streak in the open era . vilas , seldom one to miss a tennis occasion , was there in the stands at the philippe chatrier court , where nadal beat robin soderling of sweden , 6 2 , 7 5 , 6 1 , but not without some difficulty . vilas then walked onto the court with christian b mes , president of the french tennis federation , to present the 19 year old nadal with a glass encased cross section of a clay_court , showing the crushed red brick on top of the layers of sand and gravel . it was an appropriate gift , but in truth , there was a shortage of the red stuff monday , the second day of the tournament . the wind whipped through the stadium throughout the match , sending waves of reddish grit into the chilly air and forcing fans and even the players , at times , to twist away . at one point in the second set , soderling even stuck his face inside the collar of his shirt as he prepared to receive nadal 's serve . a concerned nadal asked the chair umpire if it would be possible to put a little more clay on the baseline to improve the footing . he had a 5 4 lead in the second set at the time . his request could not be granted , and he ended up losing his serve in the next game , shanking ground strokes and hitting other shots too short in the court . soderling quickly helped restore order by losing the 5 5 game at love . it was not spectacular , but it was more than enough . ''one of the worst days to play on clay , because it was not a clay_court , '' nadal said . ''it was a hardcourt today . '' it will still count as a clay_court match , however , and nadal now stands alone in the record book , an unusual place to be with a grand_slam_tournament just beginning . ''obviously , the record is something just extra , '' said nadal , the defending french open champion . ''it 's something you want . you want to go for it , but the first round in a grand_slam_tournament is always difficult . the first round in i think any tournament is difficult , but in a grand_slam there 's a little bit more pressure . ''i 'm very happy , because i started playing very well in spite of the conditions . it was very difficult one of the most difficult matches i have played . '' there was no fanfare or ceremony when vilas established his mark in 1977 . in fact , he said , he was not even aware he held the clay_court record until nadal 's victories started piling up . he said he knew of his open era record for consecutive victories , regardless of surface ( 46 ) , and of his record for tournaments won in a year ( 16 ) , both also accomplished in 1977 . ''i 'm not sad to lose the minor record , '' vilas said , ''but i 'll be mad if he breaks the others . '' nadal 's streak began in april 2005 , with the first round in monte_carlo . since then , he has captured nine clay_court titles , a no . 2 ranking and plenty of respect from his peers and elders . ''it 's a pleasure to see him fighting , '' vilas said . ''he will inspire a new generation of players . i think bjorn_borg and myself , we made every player train harder and prepare physically to endure long matches , and i think we changed the game . this guy is going to tell the guys to get tougher in their head . that 's the way he is . i think that 's the message he puts through when he plays . '' nadal has even been sending that message to the man at the top of the rankings , roger_federer . he has beaten him four times in a row , most recently in an epic final this month in rome . nadal saved two match points in that match , and on monday , he counted that victory and his five set victory over guillermo coria in the rome final in 2005 as the most difficult moments of his streak . the last man to beat nadal on clay , igor andreev of russia , is not even in this tournament he withdrew with an injury . ''you ca n't be a little better than the field you have to be so far above and beyond , '' james blake of the united_states said of the streak by nadal . ''there 's so many days you come out and you 're not a hundred percent . you 're 95 percent . you 're 98 percent . he 's been able to win every one of those . '' blake , who has beaten nadal twice on hardcourts in the last year , won his first round match monday , 6 0 , 6 4 , 7 6 ( 3 ) over paradorn srichaphan of thailand . but the next round represents a big step up for the eighth_seeded blake he faces nicol s almagro , an explosive 20 year old from spain who has had his best results on clay . nadal will take on the unseeded kevin kim of the united_states in the next round . robby ginepri of the united_states , seeded 17th , was close to elimination against another spaniard , albert monta s . he has been enduring a nightmarish season after his run to the united_states open semifinals last year . ginepri was down two sets to one and 0 3 in the fourth when play was suspended until tuesday because of rain . for the united_states women , ashley harkleroad and venus_williams secured their spots in the second round . williams , seeded 11th , advanced with a 6 4 , 6 3 victory over sybille bammer of austria , despite 33 unforced_errors . ''i do n't like to see myself floating randomly outside the top 10 , '' she said . ''it 's not where i belong . '' no . 2 kim_clijsters of belgium moved on to the second round with a 6 0 , 7 6 ( 4 ) victory over the flat hitting virginie razzano of france . alicia molik of australia , a former top 10 player , defeated antonella serra zanetti of italy , 7 5 , 7 6 ( 3 ) . it was her first victory of the year after missing much of the last two seasons because of an inner ear infection that affected her balance .",has a topic of sports
"hideki_matsui 's broken left wrist is brangelina level news in japan , the type that prompted a former prime_minister to offer solace and sent a nation of his fans to mourn the end of his streak of consecutive games played . ''fans gasp over the broken bone , '' the mainichi_shimbun 's headline said last week . ''his professionalism amplifies the shock . '' so it was no surprise that most of the 65 to 70 japanese journalists credentialed to cover matsui ( and the yankees , often their secondary interest ) gathered with the smaller non japanese press corps to question , photograph and videotape him yesterday at yankee_stadium in his first post fracture news conference . ''he 's a superhero in japan , '' yasuko yanagita , a reporter for the hochi shimbun , said in the steamy , packed auxiliary clubhouse . ''not only in the baseball world , but in the sports world . '' many of the japanese journalists in the yankee_stadium press box last thursday held up tape_recorders when matsui 's injury was announced over a loudspeaker by rick cerrone , the team 's senior director for media relations . scores lingered outside the stadium after he was taken for x rays . five days later , there was matsui , his left arm in a sling , his chin jutting , his expression unreadable , the center of a bilingual news conference that was a microcosm of the frenzy in japan of which he professed ignorance . first came the english_language portion , with translation by roger kahlon , then a longer one in japanese , moderated by isao hirooka , the yankees' media adviser for japanese affairs . matsui relaxed a bit in the japanese session even as a dozen photographers , nearly all japanese , closed in on him from his left and right flanks , clicking like cicadas . matsui offered few clues as to how quickly he would recover and said he did not want to come back short handed , according to the translation . in japanese , he said that he had worried for a while that an injury would end his streak , and that now he could relax , yanagita said . it is a journalistic predicament for the japanese contingent , here largely to chronicle the matsui era , to see him unable to play , his streak of playing 1 , 768 games consecutively with the yomiuri_giants and the yankees ended . ''he was the treasure of japan , '' said go egawa , a producer for the public broadcaster nhk , which may now reduce its slate of 15 yankees games by adding games featuring teams with other japanese players . japanese fans and the news_media were so spoiled by matsui 's nearly gehrigian resilience and hitting feats that he remains bigger than any star still in japan . ''we were too used to seeing him , '' said takeo nakajima , a reporter for nhk . ''him so suddenly hurt and out for a couple of months is a big deal . '' hiroshi kanda , a reporter for kyodo_news , said confidently , ''no other player 's broken wrist would be front page news . '' egawa added ''the whole nation of japan is worried . viewers want to know how he 's doing . '' he said that the news conference ended too early to be shown live on nhk 's morning show but would be seen on a tape_delay . news of the broken wrist led nhk 's morning and evening news . just what will the large japanese news_media contingent do while matsui 's wrist heals , a period that could stretch to the end of the season ? the reporters may cover lesser japanese stars like closer akinori otsuka of texas ( who gave up the winning home_run to jorge_posada in the yankees' 14 13 victory last night ) , outfielder so taguchi of st . louis or second baseman tadahito iguchi of the chicago_white_sox . they may spend a little time with the other , less accomplished , less beloved , often injured matsui , kazuo of the mets . but you sense they would rather not leave , that hideki_matsui , ensconced on the disabled_list and unable to hit , remains their most compelling option . ''i 'm covering hideki , '' said kanda of the kyodo_news . ''but i wo n't be here all the time . i 'm going to cover his practice , his rehabilitation . it 's still an interesting story . but maybe i 'll go to st . louis or texas . '' some other japanese reporters , a few of whom kanda had never seen until yesterday , may return to japan until matsui returns , he said . perhaps a few will find their way to seattle games , but 25 japanese journalists are already embedded with the mariners , chiefly for ichiro_suzuki , but to a degree for kenji johjima , the first japanese catcher in the major_leagues . but if matsui stays in new york , as he said , and is asked to root from the dugout , as he said he would , yanagita said she needed to follow him . ''if something happens , there has to be a hideki update , '' she said . ''fans want to see what he 's doing . i 'd like to stay here . '' tv sports",has a topic of sports
"lead harry carson , the giants' linebacker , and brian sipe , the former cleveland_browns' quarterback , have been selected by the national_football_league players association and the united_states_information_agency to represent the united_states as ambassadors of good will at the french equivalent of the super harry carson , the giants' linebacker , and brian sipe , the former cleveland_browns' quarterback , have been selected by the national_football_league players association and the united_states_information_agency to represent the united_states as ambassadors of good will at the french equivalent of the super_bowl . the game , for the casque d'or , or gold cup , will be played june 21 at the stade jean bouin in paris . there are 35 teams in france that play american style football , and two of them will meet for the casque d'or . bill peters , a u.s.i.a . spokesman , said the french teams are in what he called a developmental stage . carson and sipe will participate in the u.s.i.a . 's sports america program , which tries to produce good will toward the united_states through sports . they will meet with people from the french teams to explain how football is organized in the united_states and will participate in clinics with youngsters . sports people",has a topic of sports
"by the last night in japan , things were so normal that baseball reverted to the usual fare of bobby_valentine 's managerial etiquette and incipient feuds , to say nothing of benny_agbayani 's announcing loud and clear that he really ought to stick around . the brief experiment in exporting north_american baseball like a traveling rock show ended tonight with agbayani clobbering a pinch hit grand_slam homer with two outs in the top of the 11th inning to give the mets a 5 1 victory over the cubs , who had won the first overseas game wednesday night . agbayani knows he is due to be demoted to the minor leagues as soon as the mets need to activate glendon rusch to be their fifth starter , probably within a week . he has not been thrilled with the prospect , since he showed considerable power as a part time starter last year . on wednesday night he had dinner with konishiki , a prominent sumo_wrestler in japan , who is of hawaiian descent , as is agbayani . ''he told me to keep the faith and work hard , '' agbayani recalled . in the 11th inning , danny young , making his first major_league appearance , loaded the bases and agbayani blasted the ball over the 406 foot sign in deep center to send all the hard working salarymen home for a few hours of sleep . agbayani leaped in the air , ran around the bases and was soon rewarded with a replica of a shogun 's helmet , the traditional prize for the star of every baseball game here . but agbayani also realized that his precarious state with the mets still exists because he can be optioned to the minors , while several other players notably his fellow outfielder jay_payton are out of options . ''i 'm glad he 's here today , '' said valentine , who has made it clear he prefers to keep agbayani with the mets . ''i 'm glad he was here last year , helping us win games . i think he 's a good player . '' then valentine added , ''he 's a big boy , and he knows life is not always fair . '' true to the code of a loyal samurai serving the shogun , agbayani said ''it 's only one game . it 's not like i did it for 50 games . '' the agbayani situation replaced the earlier controversy , involving the itchy relationship between valentine and cubs manager don baylor . baylor had been annoyed wednesday night by valentine 's ninth_inning protest of an irregularity on the cubs' lineup card . baylor had written jeff reed 's name twice as a reserve and omitted jeff huson 's name , and valentine decided that could mean the cubs were using an ineligible player . it was merely a slip of the hand , and valentine soon admitted ''there is no protest , '' but in the meantime , he had introduced an american style litigious note in front of a bemused japanese audience . ''i would n't have done it , just out of respect for the guy on the mound , '' baylor said tonight , defending his closer , rick aguilera . ''aguilera has over 200 saves in the major_leagues . you keep him standing out there trying to distract him . for me , it was pretty much nonsense . '' valentine seemed astounded that baylor would be upset , saying ''the manager makes up his lineup card and the other manager protects his team by protesting . i said five times in the dugout , 'i do n't want to do this , ' but i had guys telling me i had to do it . '' fred_wilpon , the co owner of the mets , said he ''would n't have been terribly disappointed'' if the cubs actually had 26 men , and valentine had not protested . wilpon added ''we lost the game on the field . we gave up 10 walks and a hit batsman . '' bud_selig , the commissioner , thrilled with this expedition , did not want to fan the little controversy , saying , ''i 've watched managers for the last 50 years and i 'm never surprised , good and bad . '' baylor 's set jaw suggested he might remember the incident after the cubs crossed the international dateline . but tonight , it was mostly straight baseball . the mets scored first off kyle farnsworth in the fifth on two walks , a sacrifice bunt by rick reed and a sacrifice fly rickey_henderson . the cubs tied the game in the fifth after a walk to joe girardi . farnsworth put down a bunt , and todd_zeile , who has been converted to first base this season , heaved the ball wide of second base , sending girardi to third . girardi scored on an infield double_play . reed pitched eight innings for the mets , giving up four hits and the one unearned run . both teams went deep into their bullpens , which they could afford because they did not have another game until their stateside openers on monday . a bemused laugh went around the ball park at the end of nine innings when the announcement was made in japanese that the game would be played to its conclusion . in the central_league here , all games must stop after 15 innings if tied , and in the pacific_league the limit is 12 innings . in the 11th , zeile hit a single with two outs , rey ordonez and melvin mora walked , and agbayani put in his bid to cancel his exile . how can you farm out a player with a shogun helmet ? inside pitch rey ordonez fumbled a first inning grounder by eric young , his first error in 101 games , a record for major_league shortstops . he had handled 418 straight chances in that streak . armando_benitez finished the game but did not get a save . dennis cook was the winner . . . . in the spirit of this international series , fans were allowed to keep all foul balls that went into the stands . when the giants open the central_league season friday night , the fans will have to exchange balls for inexpensive trinkets . . . . the winner of the john j . murphy award for the outstanding rookie in spring_training this year is none other than garth brooks , the country singer who was hitless in 17 at bats in exhibitions . his charity work and spirit made brooks accepted by players and fans . he will receive his award next monday , before the home opener against the padres . baseball",has a topic of sports
"tim montgomery had been predicting this moment for much of the last two seasons the end of the maurice greene era and the start of his own . how odd then that when his brash words and enormous talent finally translated into the fastest time in the 100 meters , it seemed to catch him by surprise . when montgomery , the compact 27 year old from gaffney , s.c. , crossed the finish line first today under a pale blue sky in half full charlety stadium , he did not even glance at the clock positioned to his left on the infield . instead , he twisted instinctively to the right , windmilling his arms with pleasure to the crowd at having outsprinted dwain chambers of britain in this otherwise understated i.a.a.f . grand_prix final . ''my goal today was to show everyone by how far i could beat dwain , '' montgomery said . it was not until his coach , trevor graham , chased him down well past the finish line and wrapped him in his arms that montgomery realized he had shown everybody much more . the time on the clock was 9 . 78 seconds one hundredth of a second better than greene 's three year old world record . ''the day was perfect , that 's all i can say the whole race , the whole day , '' montgomery said . ''to break a world record , the race must be perfect , and that 's what happened . '' the conditions were certainly ideal on this mild , gorgeous afternoon . montgomery had a following wind of exactly two meters a second the maximum allowed if a time is to be ratified as a record . a breath of wind more and the celebration would have been much less boisterous . his start was also right on the edge of legal . his reaction time out of the blocks was 104 thousandths of a second , four thousandths of a second above the minimum . but if montgomery came blasting out of the start , he still had 100 meters to run , and though he clearly had command at the midway mark , he did not ease off . wary of chambers , he accelerated smoothly and ruthlessly and never let up until he was well clear of the finish . chambers had to settle for second place , in 9 . 87 seconds , a record for a european . the american jon drummond was third in 9 . 97 . watching from the stands was greene , who was entered and contractually obliged to run in the race but who was allowed to withdraw by the international association of athletics federations after complaining of fatigue and poor form . ''when i saw tim 's time , i said 'oh man ! what was the wind ? ' '' greene said . but the wind was not quite fast enough to save greene 's record or his hard won status as the sprinter to beat . after winning the 100 at the last three world_championships and the last olympics , he has slumped badly this season . chambers has done most of the damage to his aura , beating him five times in six races . but montgomery has remained greene 's primary and most openly antagonistic rival . the two have been exchanging glares and bulletin_board material throughout the season , with montgomery predicting as early as march that greene 's record was ripe for the picking and saying he was ' 'ready to do something that no human has ever done before . '' greene responded by beating him convincingly in the semifinals of the 100 at the united_states championships in june , staring him down with 10 meters to go and shouting , ''this is not a game ! this is real ! '' but the margin was much closer in the final , and last month , at the prestigious one night meet in zurich , montgomery finally beat greene on a big stage . today , he improved on that . greene said ''of course , i would love to be out there . but i only want to be out there if i 'm in 100 percent form , and i 'm not . '' surprisingly , there were no barbs from either man today . ''he ran a very great race it 's all you can say , '' greene said . ''he 's very talented . he 's been gaining confidence and getting better and better . '' when montgomery was asked whether he still considered greene the best 100 meter_runner in history , there was a long pause and lots of chuckling in a room full of reporters . surely , the voluble montgomery would seize his opportunity to gloat . he declined . ''one performance does n't make anyone , '' he said . ''he has proven in major championships that he can overcome anything , and it 's time for me to prove it . i proved it today , but in my mind he 's still greater , by paper . '' but by any measure , montgomery is now faster . he has seen the 100 meter record fall from painfully close range . he ran in the race in lausanne , switzerland , in 1994 when leroy burrell broke the record . he was in the stadium in atlanta two years later when donovan bailey broke it during the olympic 100 meter final . he was in the race in athens when greene broke bailey 's record . but montgomery has long believed his time would come , becoming convinced in 1997 when he broke 10 seconds on six occasions . ''i did not train more than three times a week , so i knew when i got into a program where i was training six times a week and putting in the work that something big was going to happen , '' he said . for the last three years , montgomery has trained with graham in raleigh , n.c . graham also coaches marion_jones , the world 's dominant female sprinter , who often dominates any news conference she attends . she spent most of her time listening today after she and montgomery clinched overall grand_prix titles . ''when you 're able to see something that has never happened before , you are in awe , and that 's pretty much how i am right now , '' she said . track and field",has a topic of sports
"it made page 1 of the nation 's most prestigious newspaper . it plunged spectators clustered around television screens in homes and boulevard cafes into grief and immense gallic shrugs . but , ultimately , said one french student who watched his national team 's exit from the world_cup on his computer screen here today , it was ''the story of a death foretold . '' france , the world soccer champion , had lost 2 0 to lowly denmark . france , the team held in thrall by the star player zinedine zidane , was out . its performance did not even carry it from the first round or notch up a single goal in three games against senegal , uruguay and the danes . ''we would like to have thought that the first two results were aberrations , '' said olivier helias bean , the computer watching , 25 year old student . ''but that was really too difficult to believe . '' it was all , of course , so different from that night in 1998 in the huge stade de france when , with soccer 's hyperbole , a new nation seemed to be rising on the roars that celebrated france 's 3 0 victory over brazil . today was a day for national mourning and national blame . it was suffused with the kind of introspection that illuminates the hold that world class soccer has on those nations that raise their teams as their champions in a joust of nations . ''world_cup france eliminated , '' said the prestigious afternoon newspaper le_monde across page 1 . it called the french team ''champions of missed opportunities . '' glum and accusing this morning , the watchers drifted on . ''i was disgusted , '' said juliette vibes , a 16 year old high_school student . ''the team was too old . there were no good players . '' in 1998 , a million people stormed the champs_lys_es to celebrate france 's first world_cup championship . ''black and white , muslim and christian , arab and asian , the people of paris trooped down the avenue as they had during victory parades after world wars i and ii , '' craig r . whitney of the new york times wrote at the time . not today . among the thousands gathered in front of a huge television screen in central paris , there was a howl of disbelief , then a glum silence . for the losers , there was no forgiveness . ''they deserved it they played badly , '' said christoph charre , a night watchman who rose early to watch the game . marie louise vanharen , a 29 year old doctoral_student , said that because the team had not changed tactics since 1998 , ''everyone knew the french game . '' ''they 're overpaid , '' snapped anne_marie durville , a 45 year old homemaker . ''they were in so many advertisements and getting paid for so much publicity , and now it 's boomeranged on them . '' lucien partry , an 80 year old retiree , concurred . ''they had been in the media so much they thought they were invulnerable . '' ''these blas golden boys no longer had the will , without which even the most simple task is impossible , '' le_monde said . some even tied the defeat to the political rise of the far right national front . ''for france there has been the national front and now defeat in the world_cup , '' said emmanuelle juran , a 22 year old student . ''this is a time of shame . ''",has a topic of sports
"to the sports editor one of my problems with the cbs coverage of the olympics is the time spent on commercials . richard sandomir reports 10 1 2 minutes of commercials per hour ( "" when the time is right , so is cbs , "" the times , feb . 15 ) . i timed the commercials on monday , feb . 17 , with the following results during the live hockey game between 2 and 5 p.m. , i recorded 36 minutes , or 12 minutes per hour , of commercials . during the evening primetime i recorded 19 minutes of commercials between 8 and 9 p.m. , 17 minutes between 9 and 10 p.m. , and 15 1 2 minutes between 10 and 11 p.m . if this is n't enough to drive anyone to pbs , what is ? bernard kleinman brooklyn",has a topic of sports
"the world_cup final today between france and italy may be zin dine zidane 's last game . then again , it may not be . zidane , a 34 year old midfielder for france , has had a renaissance of sorts during the monthlong tournament in germany . he had long said he would retire after the world_cup . but there is a possibility he could soon join his compatriot youri djorkaeff in the midfield for the new york red_bulls of major_league_soccer , according to several people involved in soccer in the new york area who were granted anonymity because of their unofficial relationship to the club . zidane 's contract with real_madrid has expired , so he would not cost m.l.s . a transfer fee . by contrast , ronaldo , a brazilian striker who was zidane 's teammate in spain , was reportedly offered a_10 year , 120 million deal by the red_bulls and could command a transfer fee of more than 50 million . zidane , with his skill , tactical sense and field vision , could easily play several more years in a less stressful environment in the united_states , if he can be lured out of retirement by the red_bulls . eric tosi , a red_bulls spokesman , said by telephone from texas that the club had no comment on any player or front office transactions . the red_bulls ( 2 6 8 ) , who are in last place in the eastern conference , lost by 2 1 to f.c . dallas last night in frisco , tex . dominic oduro and david wagenfuhr scored first half goals for dallas , and mike magee narrowed the gap in the 80th minute for the red_bulls . red_bull , the austrian based maker of a popular energy drink , purchased the club in march and changed the name from the metrostars . last week , djorkaeff received permission to return to france to attend to family business , but he was shown on television sitting in the stands on july 1 during france 's victory over brazil in the quarterfinals . djorkaeff was a teammate of zidane 's when france won the 1998 world_cup . ''no doubt youri 's mother is sick , but it 's not far fetched to think that youri went there to talk to zidane , '' shep messing , a television analyst for espn and the red_bulls , said yesterday in a telephone interview from houston . ''why would n't he come to new york to play for a year ? will he ? i really do n't know . '' germany wins third place game capping its jubilant world_cup run in style , host germany defeated portugal by 3 1 yesterday on two sensational goals by bastian schweinsteiger . he also set up another , when his free kick was deflected in for an own goal by armando petit of portugal . portugal added a late goal when nuno gomes headed in a cross from lu s figo , who came in as a second half substitute . winning the third place medal was an unexpected achievement for the young german team behind their innovative coach , j rgen klinsmann , and gave the home fans one last chance to party . the germans savored the celebration that followed , locking arms , waving_flags and smiling beneath the popping lights of camera flashes and fireworks . the sellout_crowd of 52 , 000 serenaded the team for 20 minutes in stuttgart 's gottlieb daimler stadium . ''these are special moments , '' klinsmann said . ''we told the players to soak them up . '' ( ap ) rooney barred striker wayne rooney was suspended yesterday for two competitive international matches and fined 4 , 085 by a fifa disciplinary panel , which reviewed his ejection from england 's quarterfinal loss to portugal . two argentine players were suspended for being in a skirmish after their quarterfinal loss to germany . leandro cufre was barred for four matches and fined 8 , 170 for kicking germany defender per mertesacker , and maxi rodr_guez was suspended for two matches and fined 4 , 085 for throwing punches . ( ap ) soccer notebook correction july 20 , 2006 , thursday a sports article on july 9 about the possibility that zin dine zidane , the french soccer star , would join the new york red_bulls of major_league_soccer next season referred incorrectly to his availability . to obtain zidane , the red_bulls would indeed have to pay a transfer fee because he has one year left on his contract with real_madrid it has not expired .",has a topic of sports
"like so many other sigh filled days and nights of the past two years , this one ended for pete_sampras earlier than he expected as he walked off the court once again searching for his gilded game . at the very least , he had hoped to find some confidence in a warm up tournament for the united_states open . but sampras left himself with a long week of practice . paul henri mathieu of france , 20 years old and ranked no . 85 , defeated sampras in a spirited 2 hour 20 minute first round match , 6 3 , 6 7 ( 7 ) , 6 4 , at the td waterhouse cup ( formerly the hamlet cup ) at the hamlet golf and country club . ''i wanted to do more here , i needed some confidence , i needed some matches , '' sampras said heavily , before repeating his refrain ''i 'm not panicking here . i lost to someone who was playing really well , as well as he could play . i wish i had done a little bit better here . '' sampras , who turned 31 a week ago , has not won a tournament in 33 attempts , dating to his record breaking 13th grand_slam title , at wimbledon in 2000 . and yet , his eyes brightened at the prospect of returning to the place where he is a four time champion , even if he is seeded a career low 17th at the united_states open . ''but you have to remember who i am and where i 'm playing next week , '' he said . ''i know i 've had a pretty disappointing year , and it is the u.s . open , that 's where i shine , and that 's where i hope i shine . i know i 've done well there , but it 's a long run . i hope i can get myself going and get myself in contention there . i 'm a little discouraged , but you got to look at the big picture . '' for mathieu , the picture is unfolding in front of him . with blistering service returns , brazen passing shots and unfailing confidence , mathieu did what he was unable to do in june dismantle a legend . he won the first two sets against andre_agassi in the round of 16 at the french open this season , but agassi responded by winning the last three sets , 6 3 , 6 3 , 6 3 . this time , mathieu would not give in . ''this is the biggest win of my career , '' he said . ''i had the same feeling i had against agassi in the french open . you see them on tv but you try not to be in awe of them . '' mathieu was anything but awestruck in his backward baseball_cap , shouting ''come on ! '' rallying cries with his french accent that sounded like the world 's no . 1 player , lleyton_hewitt of australia . mathieu punctuated a fierce first set by ripping a backhand down the line . in the second set , sampras fought off four break points in the seventh game and two match points in the tie_breaker . in the seventh game of the third set , mathieu fended off three break points . after a linesman called sampras 's next shot out , sampras yelled in frustration because he said he knew his shank shot spun in , and the chair umpire overruled . mathieu walked over to the chair umpire and said ''you know why you do that ? because he 's pete_sampras . '' afterward , sampras smiled and said , ''it 's about time , if my reputation does n't help out there when it comes to line calls , i do n't know what would . '' last year , sampras got to the final here before losing to tommy haas , and defeated patrick_rafter , agassi and marat_safin at the united_states open before losing to hewitt in the final . this season , he has reached only one final losing to andy_roddick in houston this past april . ''i just need one close match to get through and all of a sudden things can explode , '' sampras said . ''i know i can turn it around very quickly . i 've been patient all year working hard , doing all the things i should be doing to break through and win some titles here . the most frustrating part of the year is that i have nothing to show for it . '' tennis",has a topic of sports
"france 's soccer coach , gerard houllier , resigned yesterday , eight days after the national team was eliminated from the 1994 world_cup . although houllier had a contract through 1994 , the resignation was considered imminent after france lost nov . 17 to bulgaria in the final minute and failed to qualify for next summer 's tournament in the united_states . ( ap ) sports people soccer",has a topic of sports
"on the verge of winning a medal in men 's figure_skating , todd_eldredge ticked off the name of other athletes whose redemptive success had come after years of failure . it was a club he hoped to join by saturday night . ''i think it would be a great ending , like john_elway , like dan_jansen , like paul wylie , '' eldredge said . ''to end it that way would be fantastic . '' wylie was the last american man to win an olympic figure_skating medal . he took silver at the 1992 winter_games in albertville , france , while eldredge was beginning a three year slump caused by injury , illness and a lack of confidence that even led him to briefly quit skating . while wylie skated the program of his life in albertville , eldredge finished an undistinguished 10th . he had skipped the united_states championships with a back injury , receiving a bye to the olympics . in albertville , he was stiff and tentative . the takeoff on his triple_axel ''felt like someone was sticking a knife in my back , '' eldredge said . he fell on the double_axel . ''when you 're in pain , it 's hard to be aggressive , '' he said . a year later , eldredge finished sixth at the 1993 national championships . he had won consecutive titles in 1990 91 but appeared to be washed up at age 21 . his confidence was already shaken , and when he overheard a judge criticizing his skating , his self assurance shattered . after the national championships , he quit the sport and returned home to chatham , mass . , where he had learned to skate at age 5 on hockey skates . ''i was n't having a good time , '' eldredge said . ''every time i got on the ice , i wondered if i would be able to land a jump or if i would stand up . '' for two months , he played golf , hung out with his brother , scott , and tried to untangle the knot of bad feelings about skating . eventually , he said , he grew bored and felt unfulfilled . so he called his coach , richard_callaghan , in bloomfield_hills , mich . , and decided to give skating another shot with a different approach . he would skate for the enjoyment of it if he fell , so what , he would still have fun . ''i wanted to get back in there and make it right , '' eldredge said . a year later , though , he suffered another misfortune at the 1994 olympic trials in detroit . several days before the competition , eldredge began suffering from flu like symptoms and passed out in his hotel room . still weak during the competition , he finished fourth , while only scott davis and brian_boitano qualified for the winter_games in lillehammer , norway . while he watched on television , all the favorites collapsed . boitano , viktor petrenko and kurt browning were replaced on the medal stand by the kids on the block aleksei_urmanov of russia , elvis_stojko of canada and philippe candeloro of france . ''when i saw what happened in the olympic_games , that spurred me to keep going for another four years . '' eldredge said . by 1996 , eldredge had become world champion . a year ago , he won a silver_medal at the world_championships . he has recovered from a shoulder injury earlier in the season , and thursday night he finished third in the olympic short_program to ilya kulik of russia and stojko . he has got to this point with consistency , not risk , and he is not likely to attempt a quadruple_jump in saturday 's long program . ''i want a clean , strong program , '' callaghan said . ''he 's going to have to prove to me that the quad is a piece of cake . '' if kulik , stojko and aleksei_yagudin land the quad , so be it . eldredge , 26 , would rely on his advantage in spins and speed and blend of athleticism and artistry . dependability is his main strength . during warm_ups before the short_program , eldredge felt his legs were dead , so he left the ice and rehearsed his jumps in a hallway . having regained his composure , he skated a clean program and landed a flawless double_axel , flashing back to albertville . ''do n't miss like '92 , '' he told himself , and he did n't . he added more elaborate footwork and change of direction to his long program after skating dull crossover strokes at the national championships . and he would count on the possibility that suffocating pressure would leave the men 's competition resembling boxing , with the man left standing declared the winner . ''that 's what we 've tried to work on consistency , '' eldredge said . ''going out and making everything happen . if things do n't go great , do n't dig it into the ground . let it roll off and keep plugging away . '' the xviii winter_games figure_skating",has a topic of sports
"slava fetisov is expected to return to new jersey today from a visit to moscow . but he may soon make a return trip to russia to stay on a more permanent basis . fetisov , a former hockey star in the soviet_union and the national_hockey_league , has talked with president vladimir v . putin of russia about a high level position in the sports program there . according to several people in north_america who are familiar with russian hockey and with fetisov personally , the new job could be roughly equivalent to a ministry role in the kremlin to oversee many sports , not just hockey . fetisov was coach and general_manager of the russian hockey team that won a bronze_medal at the salt_lake winter_olympics in february . the disappointing performance of that team , and of other russian athletes in salt_lake_city , has created the momentum for change and improvement in a sports system that has fallen in prestige since the disintegration of the soviet_union a decade ago . an n.h.l . general_manager , a player agent with numerous russian clients and a close friend of fetisov 's who also works in the n.h.l . all said that fetisov had visited russia several times since the olympics ended on feb . 24 and had talked with putin about the new role . there has been no official announcement from moscow , and efforts to reach fetisov by telephone on tuesday were unsuccessful . late last month a moscow radio_station reported that fetisov had received a proposal from putin to head the goskomsport , the state sports committee . fetisov , 43 , is a member of the hockey_hall_of_fame in toronto , the first russian player so inducted . as a defenseman in the 1980 's , he was the captain of the red_army team and the soviet national team . as the old soviet system began to come undone late in that decade , fetisov led the effort of soviet players to play professionally in north_america . in 1989 he was among the first group to transfer , signing with the devils . he also played for the detroit_red_wings when two of their teams won the stanley_cup , in 1997 and 1998 . after detroit won its first cup , fetisov and several russian teammates on the red_wings took the stanley_cup with them on a tour of red_square . after retiring in 1998 , fetisov became an assistant coach with the devils , a position he held until january , when he was reassigned after the dismissal of the team 's head_coach , larry_robinson . he was the first russian trained coach employed in such a visible and powerful role on a full time basis in the n.h.l . fetisov became head of the olympic hockey team only after struggles with the russian ice_hockey federation , which turned him down for the position in the spring of 2001 . but he got the job last summer through the intervention of putin , a fan of sports , particularly of hockey . during the olympics , on the day the russians played the united_states in the semifinals , putin criticized the officiating of the tournament because the international ice hockey federation used referees from the n.h.l . who were from north_america . the russians lost to the united_states , 3 2 , and played for the bronze_medal two days later , defeating belarus . on the night before the semifinals , russian olympic officials held an angry news conference to complain about officiating , particularly in figure_skating . they also threatened to boycott the closing ceremony and the semifinal game , threats that did not materialize . but the concern over russian sports involves more than the olympics . since the breakup of the soviet_union , what was once a state controlled system has devolved into many privately run enterprises , not always coordinated with one another . in addition , many sources of talent now represent different nations that were a part of the soviet_union . the recent 14 team olympic hockey tournament included belarus , latvia and ukraine . under the old system , those players would have been part of the soviet program . even russian junior hockey players , ages 16 to 20 , are leaving to train in north_america . it is believed that fetisov , should he accept the new position , would work to reverse the migration of talent and attempt to negotiate larger transfer fees from the n.h.l . to russian teams . in the 30 team n.h.l. , there are about 60 russian players , with many more in the minor leagues and junior amateur leagues of north_america . although fetisov is respected in many hockey circles , he has rivals within russian hockey circles . one of them is aleksei kasatonov , his defense partner in russia and with the devils . kasatonov ran the russian olympic team that won a silver_medal in 1998 . and although fetisov commands respect and attention in russia and north_america , he has little administrative experience . hockey",has a topic of sports
"the best indication of how important it is to irina slutskaya to have the figure_skating world_championships in her hometown can be found in the stands at luzhniki sports palace . her mother will be watching . despite a long and successful career that includes a silver_medal at the 2002 olympics , a world championship in 2002 and six european titles , the 26 year old slutskaya is such a nervous competitor that she does not allow her loved ones to attend her competitions . even in moscow , her husband will not be here . but her mother , natalya , who has had a kidney disease for more than two years , will finally be there to watch . the women 's competition begins wednesday with the qualifying rounds . ''it will be hard for me because it is always so much harder to skate in your hometown , '' slutskaya said during a teleconference last week . ''i do n't like it when people come to look . but because the world_championships are in moscow , i think she would like to see it . '' slutskaya is a favorite to win the ladies' competition , despite being past the prime age for female skaters and despite having vasculitis , a blood_vessel disorder that sidelined her for much of last season . she has returned to form this season , winning her sixth european_championship in january to tie the record held by katarina_witt and sonja_henie . her resurgence has come just in time for the world_championships and to renew an 11 year rivalry with michelle_kwan of the united_states . at 24 , kwan is also considered old for the sport . she and slutskaya first competed against each other at the 1994 junior world_championships in colorado_springs . kwan recalls seeing slutskaya in a fluffy costume that looked more like a tutu than a skating dress and remembers her placing a small toy outside the boards for good luck before she skated . slutskaya does not remember the costume , but she remembers seeing kwan skate for the first time and meeting her . ''it was my first time in the states , and i did n't speak english at all , '' slutskaya said . ''i saw a girl and i think , 'this girl is really good . ' i try to talk with her , and she 's really surprised because i had black skates . she said , 'wow , you have black skates . ' it was really funny . it was all we had in russia then . '' since then , they have met in two olympics and eight times at the world_championships , including this competition . the two are chasing an elusive olympic gold kwan won silver in 1998 and bronze in 2002 slutskaya was fifth in 1998 and second in 2002 . but slutskaya has not been nearly as successful as kwan at the world_championships , winning one title , while kwan has won five . slutskaya does more difficult jumps in her program than kwan does , however , so if they each skate well , slutskaya will probably rank ahead of kwan under the new judging system , which rewards difficult elements with higher scores . that system figures to benefit the men 's favorite , yevgeny plushenko , another skater with a home country advantage . russians are also expected to do well in the pairs and ice_dancing competitions . tatiana totmianina and maxim marinin of russia were in first place after the pairs short_program monday_night , ahead of the russians maria petrova and alexei tikhonov and the two time world champions shen xue and zhao hongbo of china . the pairs long program is wednesday . the united_states team of rena inoue and john baldwin jr . was 12th , and kathryn orscher and garrett lucash were 14th . if slutskaya can thrive in front of the russian crowd during the women 's competition , she will have achieved something impressive , not just because of her age , but also because of the vasculitis . she remains on medication to treat it and says she tires easily . ''i push so hard , '' she said . ''what i can do , i do . sometimes i wake up in the morning and i ca n't move my legs and other parts of me hurt . but i put everything for skating because i love it . '' slutskaya also continues because her income supports her and pays for her mother 's medical care . natalya requires dialysis and is on a list to receive a transplant . slutskaya , who is married to a physical_education teacher , sergei micheev , watches over her constantly . now , her mother will be there to watch over her as she takes on kwan once again . slutskaya said that their rivalry had been a positive one . they commiserated after the 2002 olympics , when they were crushed by sarah_hughes 's victory . ''she is a great skater and a great competitor , '' slutskaya said of kwan . ''i 'm very happy we can compete for a long time . i think we both grow more strong and powerful and are smart girls . this is an important thing . '' figure eights johnny weir , timothy goebel and evan lysacek of the united_states qualified for the men 's competition , which continues tuesday night with the short_program . weir and goebel did not have an easy skate monday . weir said he was bothered by an old foot injury when he woke up it took two injections of lidocaine for him to skate . he placed third in his qualifying group and fifth over all . ''i did n't feel right and i did n't feel like myself , '' weir said . ''i 'm glad i stuck with it and was able to get through it . '' lysacek qualified sixth over all , despite a fall on one jump . goebel fell twice , placing 9th in his group and 15th over all . the qualifying score counts toward the final result , but not much . the score is divided by four the short and long programs are counted at full value . figure_skating",has a topic of sports
"lead the japanese have a word for people like hiromitsu ochiai . the word is ''goketsu . '' it is not a quality japanese parents encourage in their sons . the japanese have a word for people like hiromitsu ochiai . the word is ''goketsu . '' it is not a quality japanese parents encourage in their sons . ''goketsu'' translates roughly as ''individual hero . '' in a country that talks of trying to promote individuality as a group effort , ochiai stands apart . he does so both in performance and in character . last season , the 32 year old ochiai won his third triple_crown and his second in succession . he batted . 360 , hit 50 home_runs and drove in 116 runs . now he stands apart in salary , too . in december , ochiai became the highest paid player in the history of japanese_baseball . his new team , nagoya 's chunichi_dragons , will pay him roughly 850 , 000 a year this after a month 's speculation on the front pages of japan 's sports dailies about where he might play after he refused to sign with his former team , the lotte orions . that he refused to re sign after lotte 's manager was dismissed , that he insisted on holding out for what is in japanese_baseball an inordinate amount money , only reinforced the image ochiai has fostered . he is not only japan 's best hitter , he is also the japanese game 's most celebrated character character being the polite assessment of a man who titled his autobiography , ''whatever you may say , i 'll do it my way . '' generally , the only time a japanese will publicly use the words ' 'my way'' is when he is in a bar and very drunk and is singing the song that bears the words as its title . his own training method ochiai 's way means training the way he wants to train , which has meant refusing to swing at a single pitch in an exhibition_game so that he could sharpen his batting eye . it has meant opening the season by openly predicting he will win another triple_crown . it has meant going to see the same romantic movie five times rather than join everyone else in practice . of such behavior , in japan , heroes are made , heroes who become heroes for all the wrong reasons . ''it 's rare in this country to find someone who will do it his own way , '' ochiai said . he smiles and jokes . he has the look of a boy forever being sent to the principal 's office . ''it 's hard to find a person worthy of the word goketsu , '' he said , ' 'someone with his own ideas who cannot be bothered by someone else . i do n't think i 'm that kind of person . but people want to see that kind of image in me . '' that they do tells much about what this country looks for in a baseball idol both the acceptable and barely acceptable sorts . ochiai 's emergence has come at a time when japan has been eagerly trying to fill the void left by the retirement of her two greatest baseball heroes , shigeo nagashima and sadaharu oh . oh hit more home_runs than anyone else in the world . nagashima won the nation 's heart . he was to japan what babe_ruth was to america , a man whose lusty , ebullient play encapsulated a society on the upswing japan of the 1960 's , as compared to america of the 1920 's . played with 'guts' nagashima was polite . he did not brag . he was deferential and a team man . he hit the game winning home_run at emperor_hirohito 's first game . he displayed proper ''fighting spirit'' and played with ''guts . '' and in so doing he defines a socially acceptable japanese sporting hero . heroism , like all things japanese , is achieved according to a specified ''way . '' that ochiai did not follow the way of the hero set him apart all the more . ''first you become a star at koshien , '' daigo tamura , a writer for baseball magazine , said of the stadium near osaka where each summer the nation turns to watch japan 's most popular sporting_event the high_school baseball tournament . stardom at koshien can lead to a professional contract , or to a good college team , or perhaps to a company team . ''but ochiai , '' tamura added , ''was quite unknown when he was a high_school boy . he entered the university and quit after one year . he worked for a company that was not even famous in the inner city corporate tournament . '' even at an early age , tamura said , ochiai was prone to flouting the rules . ''he was not an obedient student in high_school and college , '' he said . ''he would be told to go to practice and not go . when he did n't go to practice he would go to the movies , to romantic movies made for women . always romantic movies . '' teammates cool to him still , it was while he was playing for a company team in a tokyo suburb that lotte noticed him and signed him . ochiai was not an immediate hit with his teammates , according to those who remember his early years with the team . the older players , they said , did not much care for his public declarations of personal ambitions . he talked of batting titles . he talked about what he wanted for himself . in his third season he led the pacific_league in batting and did so again in his fourth and fifth years . in his fourth season he also won his first triple_crown . and although he has always played for a team with a limited following the orions play in an old , decaying stadium in the gray industrial city of kawasaki people began taking notice of him . the joy of being an ochiai booster , tamura said , came in the vicarious pleasure of watching someone saying and doing things that are very hard to do here . ''everybody has a sort of desire to be like ochiai , '' he said . ''japanese company employees are such a suppressed people . parents may say , 'do n't be like ochiai . ' but today 's kids may themselves want to be like him . '' understanding his appeal ochiai , too , understands the nature of his appeal . ''everybody envies the other person 's way of living , to be like the boss , or to be like me , '' he said . ''if i were a salary man i could n't succeed like i do in the baseball world . this is a world based upon true ability . i can do or say anything i want to say . '' for a long time , ochiai said , ''i walked on the dark side . now i walk on the bright side . '' he talks about helping his new team . he practices with the other players . but perhaps , he added , it was his early reluctance to conform and his subsequent life as an outsider his years on ''the dark side'' that freed him from the constraints that keep most people here from straying too far . having been already deemed a failure , or at least a disappointment , he said , he stopped worrying about what people thought of him . ''i felt that once i had failed i no longer cared , '' he said . ''if someone can think that way , they can be like me . '' and although ochiai may speak to a certain place in the japanese heart and he remains one of the few dynamic personalities , tamura said , in a sea of bland sports personalities last season provided a reminder that , given a chance , japan will seize upon a hero who might represent her more noble qualities . ochiai may have his followers among the disaffected , but last season was the season of the ''golden rookie , '' a 19 year old first baseman named kazuhiro kiyohara . another baseball 'genius' kiyohara is tall and handsome and by the season 's end was being dubbed as a baseball ''genius . '' he hit 31 home_runs , breaking the record for a rookie , and helped his team , the seibu lions , win the japan_series . there were stories told of 20 , 000 people leaving the ball park after kiyohara 's final time at bat because they had seen what they had come to see just as they had once left when oh and nagashima had finished batting . kiyohara has done everything right . he was a high_school star . he was signed by a popular team . and when he was not signed by the team of his choice , the yomiuri_giants , he bravely fought back tears . tears can score points for a hero in japan . kiyohara 's rise brought with it the remarkably intensive news_media scrutiny accorded to those who the media has deemed worthy of watching . no detail of his life was left unreported not his weight at birth more than 10 pounds his hobby sleeping his least favorite food fermented bean paste , or his romance . in kiyohara , it seemed , the nation had finally found a suitable replacement for nagashima and oh . and though ochiai continued hitting , and talking his mind , it became clear that although japan has a place for an unconventional hero , the greater glory goes to those who become a hero in a suitable way .",has a topic of sports
"in the final dual meet of goodwill_games swimming , the contest that everyone looked forward to tonight the 50 meter_freestyle sending aleksandr_popov of russia against bill pilczuk of the united_states turned out to be a rout . the near capacity crowd of 1 , 229 at the nassau_county goodwill_games swimming and diving center watched popov draw away in the last 20 meters to a five foot victory over his teammate roman yegorov in 22 . 27 seconds . pilczuk , from cape may , n.j. , was six inches behind yegorov , a disappointment for someone who upset popov at this distance in last january 's world_championships . that was popov 's only loss in seven years , a slight blemish for one who had swept the olympic sprints in 1992 and 1996 . popov said he lost because he made mistakes . here , he made no mistakes against pilczuk . popov made light of the rivalry . ''i always swim fast for myself , '' he said . ''it does n't matter who the competition is . '' pilczuk agreed ''there 's really no rivalry . we 're good friends . '' the united_states led russia , 59 56 , going into the final race , the 4x100_meter freestyle_relay . but russia , helped by popov 's second leg in 48 . 50 seconds , won the relay by seven meters in 3 minutes 18 . 18 seconds and won the meet , 63 59 . the united_states , whose women were undefeated , lost all three men 's meets . the men 's champions were the unbeaten world all stars , who defeated germany , 85 37 . earlier in the day , goodwill officials addressed a sticky situation by awarding 10 , 000 to penny heyns , a 23 year old olympic champion from south_africa . on saturday night , on the first lap of the women 's 100 meter_breast_stroke , heyns set the first world record for the 50 meter_breast_stroke . the international swimming federation , known by its french acronym of fina , said in january that it would recognize such 50 meter records if they bettered existing world bests . heyns swam 50 meters from a buzzer start to electronic touch pad finish in 30 . 95 seconds . the best previous time was 31 . 58 seconds in 1988 by silke horner of east_germany . goodwill literature distributed to officials and competitors listed a 50 , 000 bonus for a world record here . heyns expected that bonus , but when meet officials said after her race that she was ineligible for a bonus because the 50 meter_breast_stroke was not on the program , she was more puzzled than angry . ''all i know , '' she said then , ''is that there was no fine_print . it said , 'world record 50 , 000 . ' and the name of the meet is goodwill . '' today , mike plant , the goodwill_games president , met with his officials . they decided to give heyns 10 , 000 . ''it was a superlative performance by an outstanding athlete that could n't be ignored by being outside the list of events , '' said michael lewellen , a games spokesman . goodwill_games",has a topic of sports
"when christie welsh was a youngster , her father accidentally entered her in a beauty_pageant , believing he had signed her up to play baseball in the little miss little league . ''they gave me no . 13 and my mom kept telling me it was really bad luck , '' welsh said on her web_site . ''i ended up winning this beauty_pageant thing , and from that point on , i always wanted to wear no . 13 . '' until now , that is . in her new job playing for olympique lyonnais in france , welsh ''wears whatever jersey they give me because they just sort of toss them out , '' she said . as a junior at penn_state in 2001 , welsh , a striker from massapequa park , n.y. , won the hermann trophy as player of the year in women 's college soccer . she also played in the defunct women 's united soccer association for her hometown new york power . she has parachuted in and out of the united_states national team program the past couple of years . in landing softly in a field of clover last month , welsh scored five goals and led the united_states to its third straight championship at the algarve cup in portugal . she is part of a changing of the guard that is likely to transform the national team as it prepares for the 2007 world_cup in china without a domestic professional league as a backstop . on friday , greg ryan , who picked welsh for the team when he coached the united_states in the algarve , was named the coach of the women 's national team . ''training in lyon definitely helped my performance in portugal , '' welsh said recently in a telephone interview from france . ''it has been especially nice to have the other american girls here so we can all do things together . our practices with the team have been filled with a lot of playing , which i think has only benefited all of us . '' the absence of a women 's professional league in the united_states , and the unlikely prospects for resuscitating the w.u.s.a. , have sent american players to germany , sweden , england and france . lyon engineered a package deal in december , signing welsh , goalkeeper hope solo , defender danielle slaton and midfielders lorrie fair and aly wagner . last year , welsh and solo played for different teams in sweden . their six month contracts , which pay about 30 , 000 through the end of the season , include housing and two cars for the five women . they live in a residential hotel within walking distance of lyon 's stadium and first class training facilities . the men 's team from lyon , a city in eastern france , is on track to win its fourth straight title in the country 's top division and has advanced to the quarterfinals of the european_champions league . the lyon women are unlikely to win the french title this season , but the city is committed to building a top women 's team as continental club competitions become more important in europe . last summer , welsh was one of the last players cut from the united_states olympic team by april heinrichs , the former national team coach . the team went on to win the gold_medal in athens . ( welsh was also one of the final cuts in 2000 , when the united_states won a silver_medal in sydney , australia . ) on the long drive home from tryouts in california , welsh received an offer she could n't refuse . ''i was heartbroken , '' welsh , 24 , said . ''i thought i had played the very best i could . it was very hard . on the way home i got a call about sweden . my coach from penn_state once asked me about playing overseas , and i said that i did n't think that 's me . but when i got the call , i decided i was ready for something new . '' for many players first men , now women the notion of going to europe to play soccer has been like the holy_grail , confirmation that they have made it in the world 's sport . but leaving home , friends , family and familiarity may not be for everyone . welsh admits that she has struggled with the language and a different approach to the game at lyon . ''you can look at it two ways that we are being forced to go overseas to play soccer , but then at the same time it is great , a privilege to play soccer in europe , that we are wanted , '' welsh said . ''i am glad to have this opportunity , but i would love and hope that something happens with the league at home so i do n't have to keep uprooting my life to keep doing this . she added ''in sweden , english is like their second language . as americans , it 's hard for us to come over here . we 're used to having a set schedule and set plans . here things seem to be much more spur of the moment . that 's o.k. , but you have to be ready for it . things are slower . things happen , but only when they sort of get around to it . '' soccer",has a topic of sports
"the criticism piled upon tim_mccarver during his 16 day stint as co host of cbs 's prime time winter_olympics broadcasts was unlike anything the lauded baseball analyst had ever experienced . the large chorus of disapproval said mccarver was miscast in albertville , france , that without previous hosting and olympic experience he lacked the right stuff for the job . but cbs did n't let mccarver be mccarver . his duties to read scripts off teleprompters , tell stories about athletes to fill time , manufacture immediate chemistry with his co host , paula zahn , and work in fits and starts until 5 a.m . conspired against mccarver 's talents for wit , analysis and spontaneity . "" i expected some of the criticism , but i did n't think it would be to the degree it was initially , "" mccarver said . "" i do n't think anybody would have gone into that anchor position without realizing that jim_mckay was the dominant anchor and host of the olympics . the natural thing was to compare . "" mccarver 's elevation to prime time anchor was cbs 's recognition of his popularity , of his attraction to female viewers . but cbs played down the importance of the roles of mccarver and zahn , keeping them on the air for no more than 15 minutes a night , using them as ports of call between events , features or commercial breaks . in praising their performance , howard stringer , the president of the cbs broadcast group , said they "" were effective transitions . "" what a geyser of praise ! imagine roone arledge , the former president of abc_sports , calling jim_mckay an "" effective transition . "" "" from day one , "" said mccarver , "" we were told we would be venue oriented . we realized that people were n't tuning in to see paula and me , but to see the events . i knew what i was in for . it was n't a surprise . "" his best work consisted of ad libbed interviews with analysts like john davidson ( hockey ) and scott hamilton ( figure_skating ) or athletes like hockey goaltender ray leblanc . "" i ca n't say it was more enjoyable than looking into the camera or talking to paula , "" he said . "" it was just different . "" mccarver , speaking by telephone from his pennsylvania home , had rested for a few days in geneva before his return thursday night . zahn , however , was back at her "" cbs this morning "" co host perch last tuesday . mccarver will not work again until saturday , a wwor broadcast of a mets exhibition_game in florida . "" i kept an eye on the sports pages while i was in france , although i wo n't be as prepared as i normally would be , "" he said . did he miss his wwor playmate , ralph kiner , master tale spinner and malapropster ? "" there 's a certain amount of ralph i always miss when i 'm not with him , "" said mccarver . mccarver did not return home noticeably numbed by the criticism of his performance in albertville . in fact , an exhibition baseball game seems puny in comparison . "" it was the experience of a lifetime , "" he said of the olympics . "" the hours were killers . you do n't have a chance to kick up your heels . it 's not a celebratory type of fun , but the fun of realizing you 're doing what 's asked of you . everything was so new for me . i loved it . it was one of the great experiences of my life . "" his lobster shift found him coming to the broadcast center between 4 p.m . and 7 p.m . meetings and studio work kept the prime time crew working until 5 a.m . mccarver and zahn 's segments were not always shown on the air in the order that they were taped . after completing each show , mccarver slept from 6 a.m . to 12 30 p.m . after lunch , it was a short time before he was back in the studio . he watched few events in person visiting the hockey arena twice and seeing some women 's downhill skiing from a window in his hotel room . he got out of the studio only to work on one feature , which was not aired . the hours and the flu circulating around the olympic venues laid low more than a few cbs staffers . "" one night , "" said mccarver , "" i did n't know if i could get through the broadcast . i felt i would lose it . my stomach and head hurt . but when i woke up the next day , it was gone . then i got a bad head cold . "" mccarver professes not to possess any lofty studio ambitions though he confesses to being fascinated by the ins and outs of studio production and says it 's too early to say whether he wants to repeat his olympics gig when cbs goes north to lillehammer , norway , in 1994 . mccarver 's mind has now shifted to remembering the difference between a slider ( of the luge variety ) and a slider ( of the john_franco variety ) . tv sports",has a topic of sports
"for many , his quest had come to say as much about japanese provincialism and insularity as as it did about baseball . but in the end , tuffy rhodes , a veteran american player with the kintetsu_buffaloes , came up short in his bid to set a single season home_run record in japan . in his final game of the season tonight , a grimacing rhodes showed the first signs of the frustration that has surely eaten away at him for at least a week . he swung for the fences but could do no better than a short fly ball in going 0 for 4 in a_7 1 loss to the orix blue wave . rhodes had been stuck at 55 home_runs since sept . 24 , leaving him tied with sadaharu oh , the legendary japanese slugger , who set the record 37 years ago . rhodes , 33 , had bounced around the major_leagues for several years before landing in japan , where he found his groove as a highly productive hitter . but near season 's end he seemed to come unglued by a blatant effort by oh 's team , the daiei hawks , to deprive him of a shot at the home_run record . rhodes was deliberately walked time after time in a weekend series that had no bearing on the standings . rhodes had no hits in that series and could do little in the season 's final series against the blue wave , the former team of the japanese sensation ichiro_suzuki . but rhodes will enjoy postseason play because the buffaloes comfortably won the pacific_league pennant . in addition to leading the league in home_runs and tying the record , he came close to winning the triple_crown with a . 327 average and 131 runs batted in . the sweetest reward , however , may be the new seeds of doubt about the spirit of openness to outsiders and about fair play in japanese_baseball , especially at a time when the united_states is proving more cosmopolitan than ever , not in the least through the celebration of suzuki , the seattle_mariners' new standout . in an ichiro mad japan , where a 1 for 4 performance leads the sports news , rhodes 's run at a storied home_run record merited scant_attention . tonight 's game was not televised nationally , or even in the kansai region where the game was played . ''it was an insult to the fans , and japanese_baseball will decline if such behavior continues , '' said kunihiko ichimura , a 58 year old from kyoto who took a half day off from work to attend rhodes 's season finale . ''daiei 's conduct violates basic sportsmanship . records exist to be broken , and if rhodes was a japanese , i do n't think he would have been walked that way . '' randy bass , another american , was the last player to threaten oh 's record , and his season ended in a similar way . oh was the manager of the team that walked bass throughout the final series of that 1985 season , leaving bass at 54 home_runs . baseball",has a topic of sports
"roland_garros is the house that the four mousquetaires built , and today their latest generation of successors stood at various stages of attention as the draw for this year 's davis_cup semifinal was conducted . henri cochet , jean borotra , jacques brugnon and ren lacoste are all dead , part of tennis lore , and in the case of lacoste a part of sportswear lore , as well . but their bronze statues ring a square at roland_garros that bears their nickname . and as the french and american teams gathered inside the world 's most famous clay_court stadium , there , in front of the tousle haired young stars like andy_roddick and s bastien grosjean , were borotra , ''the bounding basque , '' leaping high for an overhead , and cochet , stretching for a forehand . ''i knew all four of them , '' said georges deniau , france 's former davis_cup coach and one of many french tennis luminaries in attendance . ''and for me it is marvelous to see , 70 years later , that there is this mix of the past and the present for this ceremony . they were different men , but they had one common trait , and it was that they were very open and encouraging to young players . '' they wanted the bourgeois game they played to continue thriving , and they would surely have liked what they saw today . tennis might not rival soccer here or anywhere else in europe for popularity and attention , but it remains a vibrant crowd pleaser in france , where the 15 , 000 tickets to this semifinal were sold in a matter of days earlier this year . though the americans invented the davis_cup in 1900 and have won it more times than any other nation , the culture of this rollicking , oft dramatic team event is now more strongly anchored in this country , which has just 9 cup victories to 31 for the united_states . la coupe davis generates widespread interest and emotion here never more than in 1991 when the current french captain , guy_forget , and henri leconte shocked pete_sampras , andre_agassi and the americans in the final in lyon . but la coupe stirs up warm , nostalgic feelings , too , especially on these grounds , which were built in a hurry after the mousquetaires placed france more firmly on the world sporting map by defeating bill tilden and the americans in 1927 in philadelphia . the french needed a stadium worthy of the rematch , and though tilden would dispose of lacoste in the opening match in 1928 , the mousquetaires would defend the title in style . they then defeated the americans in the final the next four years . the last of those successes came here in 1932 , although it was a less gallant display . with france leading , 2 1 , and a match from victory , borotra served an apparent double fault against wilmer allison on match point . allison celebrated by smacking a ball into the stands and approached the net , only to realize that the second serve had never been called out . borotra went on to win the match , and the french won the cup . ''we 're hoping that wo n't happen this time , '' deadpanned the american captain , patrick mcenroe , today during a good humored news conference . his cross generational american team features the 20 year old roddick , the 20 year old mardy fish , the 22 year old james blake and the 32 year old todd_martin . it does not feature agassi or sampras , who faced off in the united_states open final less than two weeks ago , with sampras winning his 14th grand_slam_singles title . agassi 's and sampras 's commitment to the davis_cup has experienced gallic like mood swings over the years , and though the presence of either would have raised the profile of this semifinal , mcenroe and martin are philosophical and optimistic . ''i 've said it from the start , '' mcenroe said . ''it 's not worth it to have guys who are n't excited about it . it wo n't be successful in the long run . '' martin , who is part of sampras 's and agassi 's generation , said ''this is a completely , completely different composition of the team . we 've had more camaraderie this time than i can remember . in the past , everybody was still there as individuals . here , these three young guys seriously enjoy being together all the time . it 's like nothing i 've experienced in my time in davis_cup . it 's preparing me for parenthood . '' the actual competition begins friday , when roddick is scheduled to face arnaud cl_ment in the opening singles match . next , the fast rising blake will face grosjean in a replay of their second round match at this year 's french_open , which grosjean won in four sets . a doubles match is to be played saturday , followed by the two reverse singles matches sunday . the winner will face either russia or argentina . the french are the defending champions , and despite roddick 's and blake 's youthful enthusiasm and superior power , they deserve to be the slightest of favorites here if grosjean is healthy . while the americans are building camaraderie under mcenroe , the french already have it , and is n't it a french word , after all ? tennis",has a topic of sports
"call these the spectator games , too . there has never been a winter_olympics spread over more than 600 square miles . in the bus , out of the bus . no , you ca n't get there by car . only official business . walk ? with inches to spare between you and the village 1 , 000 feet below ? even events nearby , as the crow flies , do n't count . the way these mountain roads twist , a mile or two can take 20 minutes by vehicle . so to call these the albertville games is like calling the football team the new york giants . on the map it appears close , but you ca n't walk to giants_stadium from broadway , and it can take up to two hours to try to get from albertville to other olympic sites . it will be different , much different , at the 1994 games in lillehammer , norway . there are seven athletes' villages here , which indicate how far it is from place to place . in lillehammer , there will be only two . the only events held in albertville which became prominent centuries ago as the gateway to france because of pilgrimages to the holy_land are figure_skating and speed_skating , except for the opening and closing ceremonies . it 's all spread out "" we knew the games would be spread out over a region , not a city , "" conceded michele verdier , spokeswoman for the international_olympic_committee . "" it would be over winding mountain roads . "" as the games drew to a close , she pronounced , "" it has been a positive outcome to games that presented a very real challenge . "" the guiding spirit behind having the games as a celebration of the savoy and all the extra travel that entailed was jean_claude_killy , the three time skiing gold medalist of 1968 who has adopted this area even though he was born in paris . his co chairman of the organizing_committee is a local politican and member of the national_assembly , michel_barnier . they wanted all of the savoy region involved . killy estimated that by bringing the games here , "" the building of roads has been speeded up by 15 years . "" no price_gouging here for the most part , prices have been kept down by killy fiat . the exception is the top level of living at courchevel , known as courchevel 1850 ( for meters ) , where the royals such as prince albert of monaco stay and the shops are as glitzy as fifth avenue . but 80 percent of foreigners who come to france to ski do it in the savoy . killy did not want to antagonize visitors . a typical price fixed meal in a local restaurant , at the height of the winter season and even during these olympics , is about 25 . americans are not accustomed to having the tip included in the meal . some local restaurateurs wanted to jack up the tip , but were ordered to leave prices stable . a bottle of the local wine , which no one ever sees in america because it is n't worth shipping , costs only 12 in a restaurant . visitors here will remember that . it is likely the games have lost money despite an estimated 900 , 000 spectators . certainly not every seat is filled at every event and there are empty stretches at lesser skiing events . hotels did not fill because tourists were concerned about reports of price_gouging . but making money would have been only a bonus to a man who wanted to show off to the world the mountains in his backyard . albertville",has a topic of sports
"takeshi komatsu should have been at his office this morning . instead , dressed in his suit and carrying his briefcase , he was standing with about 200 other people in a light rain , staring at a huge television screen mounted on the side of a building . "" i 'm going to go right after nomo finishes , "" promised komatsu , who works for a construction company . japanese_baseball fans , and many people who are n't fans , turned out in large numbers to see los_angeles_dodgers pitcher hideo_nomo , who has become a hero in japan , start for the national_league in the all star game at arlington , tex . the game was broadcast live on satellite_television via channel nhk , the public_broadcasting company , but many people do not have satellite antennas . and the game started at 9 30 a.m. , when japan 's diligent salarymen are supposed to be at their desks . so , many people gathered to watch the game on big screens set up by nhk in public places . others crowded into electronics stores . still others , at places ranging from nomura_securities , toyota and the powerful ministry of international_trade and industry , watched the game in their offices , even though this might have been against the rules . in shibuya , a fashionable shopping district , people stood under umbrellas . some people gasped when kenny_lofton , the first batter against nomo , pulled what appeared to be a home_run toward the right field stands . they let out their breath when the ball curved just foul . a minute later , they applauded as nomo struck out lofton , the first of the three strikeouts he recorded in two innings of shutout pitching . still , this being japan , where reserved behavior is the norm , most of the onlookers did not cheer or applaud at all . the 26 year old "" tornado , "" who was a star pitcher for the kintetsu_buffaloes in japan for five years , has become the pride of his country for making it in the supposedly superior major_leagues . his story has struck a particular chord with japan 's salarymen , who labor long hours for the same company their whole lives and cannot easily change jobs . nomo , by contrast , had a dispute with his bosses at kintetsu , and got his revenge by leaving and making it big elsewhere . "" he 's a typical success story , following his own dreams , "" said mario kamo , who works for a government affiliated institute . "" many salarymen ca n't do that the same way . "" today 's morning television news shows were filled with live reports from the ballpark in arlington , focusing on how nomo , the national_league 's strikeout leader , had inspired a mania in the united_states . japan 's colorful sports newspapers , with their garish tabloid style headlines and girlie pictures inside , splashed nomo stories on their front pages . sports nippon stretched a string of big yellow k 's across its front page . nikkan sports said that nomo had "" hijacked "" the all star game by stealing all the attention . some of the papers ran small profiles and photographs of all the starters in the all star game , a sign that nomo 's success has led to increased interest in american baseball in general among the japanese . nonetheless , most people had come only to see nomo . after his two innings were over , nhk interrupted its broadcast of the game for a few minutes of news . when the game broadcast resumed , many of the onlookers had left . "" he did pretty well , "" said minoru tsuchida , who came to watch after working the graveyard shift . "" he 's cool , "" said akinori uchiyama , a_20 year old college student . he added that he wished catcher mike_piazza had dropped frank thomas 's foul pop in the second inning so that nomo would have had a chance to strike out the white_sox slugger . baseball",has a topic of sports
"to the sports editor there 's "" no us or them "" anymore , wrote dave anderson ( "" the olympics do n't need us vs . them , "" the times , feb . 16 ) . this sounds like a sportswriter 's version of the fantasy about the "" end of history "" no more patriotic nation states , no more international rivalry , only the "" world community of nations "" and state less "" citizens of the world . "" no one , of course , will follow anderson 's line . otherwise , generous monetary contributions by americans to our teams would end . the tears would dry up that run down american athletes' cheeks as the american flag is raised and they hear "" the star spangled banner "" in the prize awarding ceremony . justified pride in country will always be a worthwhile sentiment , whatever the time , whatever the country , whatever the state of the world . the patriotic fire that burns in some , if not all , athletes' hearts in international olympics competition is not inflammatory . it is an expression of gratitude and respect . albert l . weeks sarasota , fla .",has a topic of sports
"if ''the closer'' is n't any good , blame the winter_olympics hype . among cbs 's perks for broadcasting the olympics despite lower than expected ratings was its ability to unleash torrents of promotions for its programming , including last night 's premiere of tom selleck 's new situation comedy . having spent about 80 hours in cbs 's company , i know selleck is back . ( but where 's courteney cox ? ) i 'm certain ''cybill'' is moving to wednesdays . and i 'm glad to declare that i love raymond , too . ( now , will channel 2 finally stop the sappy olympic athlete and family profiles ? ) so it was n't one extended , 17 night hermann_maier tumble for cbs . by various measures , the 1998 winter_games were highly successful for the network , even if the 16 . 2 prime time nielsen_rating was far below guarantees to advertisers . even if critics were cranky and viewers appeared dissatisfied . ''the olympics were not without disappointment , '' said gil schwartz , cbs 's senior vice_president of communications . ''but in substantial ways , they did exactly what they were supposed to do for cbs . '' john tinker , an analyst with nationsbank montgomery securities , said ''the stations did well , the network rating was way higher than the competition 's and letterman was matching leno . in that sense it was successful . '' a peek at the numbers ( but if you do n't want to know , turn away ) for the february sweeps really the main reason to pay 375 million for the winter_olympics cbs won every night but sunday ( when oprah winfrey 's film ''the wedding'' beat all ) . cbs 's 16 . 0 rating was 70 percent better than nbc 's 9 . 4 , 122 percent better than abc 's 7.2 and 132 percent better than fox 's 6.9 . the 12 stations that cbs owns in nielsen 's 38 metered markets averaged an 18 . 2 rating in prime time , up 88 percent from the same period a year ago . in new york , channel 2 jumped to a 16 . 3 from a 9.3 . the minneapolis station leaped 89 percent to a 23 . 3 . kdka in pittsburgh rose 81 percent to a 22 . 6 . plus , the stations' late news averaged an 11 . 6 rating , up 40 percent from 1997 . ( so if you fancy how fetching warner wolf looks on channel 2 's new set , you might stay . that 's the great thing about having the olympics as your lead in . ) ''late show with david_letterman , '' which seemed to revive creatively , beat ''the tonight show'' by a 5.6 to 5.4 nielsen score . the race culminated with letterman 's 8.5 overnight rating last friday , which thumped the 4.8 of ''tonight . '' ''a significant number of people rediscovered letterman , '' schwartz said . but now it 's back to regular programming . ''the nanny'' will have to do more than deliver reports from nagano . whatever halo effect the olympics provided for the network and the stations may disappear tonight . ''you ca n't expect the halo to go on forever , '' said neal pilson , an industry consultant who was the cbs_sports president when the nagano deal was made . ''your programming still has to be good . '' said schwartz ''it 's back to the usual battle . there are no gimmes . '' but at least more people know where to find their cbs station 184 million are said to have watched all or part of the olympics . now , the olympics are all nbc 's , from 2000 in sydney to 2008 in a city to be named much later . will cbs 's struggles with the 14 hour time difference from nagano to the eastern time zone bear on nbc 's efforts in sydney , which will have a 15 hour time difference ? will cbs 's woes with event postponements in a blizzard beset winter locale shift plans for 2002 in salt_lake_city ? dick ebersol , the president of nbc_sports , anticipates no problems . ''the summer_olympics is a 26 ring circus , and there 's never a paucity of events to put on , '' he said by telephone from sydney . ''and americans are medal participants in all sports . '' despite the time difference , despite everything being on tape , ebersol said his production will be propelled by storytelling . nbc should have an easier time in salt_lake_city than cbs did in japan . besides being a domestic enterprise , ebersol said , ''we 've shown that the olympics have to be produced more as an entertainment than a sporting_event . '' pilson had a scheduling idea for salt_lake_city nbc should show an indoor event , like pairs figure_skating , on the first night of competition , to avoid a weather related postponement of downhill skiing , which bedeviled cbs . ebersol is convinced that storytelling will triumph over choices offered by other media , which will surely expand and morph over the next four years . ''there is a lot more fragmentation out there , from on line , so they 'd better hit the emotional high points all the time , '' tinker said . emotion ? at nbc ? no problem . john tesh will be playing his keyboards at the luge and halfpipe . weeping snowboarders should move us all . airwaves bob page , set to leave ''msg sportsdesk'' april 1 because his contract was not renewed , anchored his last show sunday . his reference to ''politics behind the scenes at madison_square_garden management'' during a report on the rangers' firing of coach colin_campbell ired network brass . ''we had an arrangement with mr . page and his representatives that he would be professional , and we are not pleased with the results of that arrangement , '' said mike mccarthy , executive_producer of msg . sandy montag , page 's agent , said ''it 's no big deal . '' tv sports",has a topic of sports
"in a resolution that sends everything back to the beginning , outfielder kevin millar was freed from his agreement with the chunichi_dragons last night and returned to the roster of the florida_marlins . the next step , a lawyer close to the situation said , will be for the marlins to sell or trade millar to the boston_red_sox , who want him to play first base . the lawyer said the language of the agreement still had to be completed . major_league_baseball announced the settlement shortly before midnight . under the agreement , the dragons , of japan 's central_league , will receive an undisclosed amount of money for dropping its claim on millar . the dragons paid the marlins 1 . 2 million last month for rights to the 31 year old millar , then reached an agreement with him on a two year , 6 . 2 million contract . the marlins then placed millar on waivers to release him so he could go to the dragons , and the red_sox claimed him . however , acting on his agreement with the marlins , millar rejected the claim . millar then changed his mind about playing in japan , saying his family did not want him to leave at a time of possible war with iraq . baseball",has a topic of sports
"the rookie season of the los_angeles_dodgers pitching star hideo_nomo has been selected as the top sports story of the year in japan by both the daily yomiuri newspaper and the kyodo_news service , a japanese news_agency . nomo , 27 , the national_league rookie of the year who is from japan , had a 13 6 record with a 2 . 54 earned_run_average and led the n.l . with 236 strikeouts . he started in the all star game and pitched two scoreless innings . ( ap ) sports people baseball",has a topic of sports
"when the two old friends first joined forces more than a decade ago to try to bring the winter_olympics to their native savoy , the fact that one of them was jean_claude_killy at least insured they would be noticed , even if they seemed to be dreaming of the impossible . now , less than two weeks before the opening of the 1992 winter_games here , killy , the 48 year old former skiing champion , who was a triple gold medalist at the 1968 olympics , is still drawing the greater share of public attention . but to those in the know , his partner , michel_barnier , has played no less a role in organizing the spectacular . indeed , from the birth of their idea in 1981 , during the long campaign to win official approval of albertville 's candidacy and the five years of intense preparations that will result in the lighting of the olympic flame here feb . 8 , they have proved to be a formidable team . as co presidents of the 1992 winter_olympics organizing_committee , known here as cojo , the acronym of its french name , they agreed to make all decisions together . "" we had the same office and the same assistant , "" barnier explained recently , "" but we also exploited each other 's strengths . "" with his star appeal and business experience , killy focused on marketing the albertville games , above all on finding commercial sponsors in france and the united_states . in contrast , it was the job of barnier , a young politician , to secure the french government 's support for the adventure . quick moving political career for more than a year , barnier had to carry the load alone . in january 1987 , killy resigned after his effort to reduce the number of venues for the games brought angry protests from the mountain village of les menuires . fourteen months later , he was persuaded to return to his post . this was a crucial period for barnier , however , because he won the admiration of savoy , the region in southeastern france on the borders of italy and switzerland , for his determination to press on . and for a man whose political ambitions stretch far beyond the valleys and ski_resorts of the tarentaise valley , this is no small asset . barnier , 41 years old , has had a quick moving political career becoming a local councillor at the age of 22 winning election to the french national assembly as a gaullist party deputy when he was 27 , and being chosen as president of the savoy general council at the age of 31 . his party affiliation was particularly useful in persuading the government to back albertville 's candidacy in 1986 because , at the time , the gaullist leader , jacques_chirac , was prime_minister . "" but the olympic_games do not belong to any political_party , "" barnier noted diplomatically . indeed , even though his party has been in the opposition since 1988 , barnier , as the committee 's "" on site "" co president , has been able to share credit for the 1 . 2 billion spent by the france state in preparation for these olympics on highways , railroads , hospitals and sporting centers . not always an easy job his job , though , has not always been easy . occasional squabbles between cojo and municipal authorities in some of the 13 different olympic venues , as well as technical problems and cost_overruns , routinely landed on his desk to be settled . also , the tall , slim politician pledged that the albertville games would be the first winter_olympics to be planned with environmental_protection in mind . and so far , he has been less than successful in convincing local nature conservancy groups that the results have been positive . "" i listen to them , "" he insisted , "" but i am convinced that the games have been good for the environment . until recently , the drainage system of many communes went straight into local rivers . thanks to the olympics , we have had the resources to build treatment plants . we have 'repaired' the savoy . "" but he concedes that construction and expansion of ski_resorts in the 1970 's and 1980 's took place without adequate controls . "" the ecologists are right to complain about land speculation , "" he said . "" i say that we must now pause in our development . "" defining environmental_protection barnier is understandably eager not to alienate nature groups because he has defined environmental_protection as the subject that he hopes will continue to advance his political career . indeed , he has already drafted his own version of a marshall_plan to save the devastated environment of eastern_europe . before then , however , his political future hangs on the success of these winter_olympics not only that they take place without mishap between feb . 8 and 23 , but also that he can balance the budget once they are over . and in that sense , of the two old friends , he now has more to lose . killy can go back to the highly lucrative job of being a sports goods and clothes promoter . but barnier is gambling on a place in a conservative french government that may well be elected as soon as next year . olympics",has a topic of sports
"they call themselves the ultras . they are the hardest of the hard core soccer fans of france , the ones with the edgy reputations for being racist , right wing , anti semitic and even violent . for two decades , they have operated openly as fan associations without much interference from the police or soccer officials , who have claimed that they have limited authority to stop them . on thursday night , a group of these ultra right wing supporters of the paris st . germain team set off a chain of events that ended with one of their own being shot to death by a black policeman . the episode has set off nationwide soul searching and finger_pointing as the french government as well as soccer officials , analysts and fans have confronted the violence and hate that have poisoned the sport . nicolas_sarkozy , the interior_minister and a presidential hopeful , who describes himself as a fan of paris st . germain , has vowed to clean up the paris stadium , considered the most hostile in all of france , even if it means emptying it of spectators . ''we prefer to see stands that are empty than full of unwanted people , '' mr . sarkozy told journalists , after meeting with soccer officials and supporters' groups on saturday . ''we no longer want racists , nazi salutes , monkey noises in stadiums . soccer is not war . '' but there is sharp criticism that the government , the paris st . germain team and the official fan clubs that support it have not done enough to curb the phenomenon , for fear of driving away fans . fines have been imposed only sporadically for racist or violent behavior , and only a small number of unruly fans have been banned from stadiums . ''this problem has gone on since the 1980s , but there has n't been the political will to crack down , '' said dominique bodin , a sociologist and author of a book on sports and violence in europe . ''we 're a democracy , and there are laws on the books that have to be enforced . there needs to be better education of the young . '' the police knew in advance that the game on thursday evening at the parc des princes stadium on the edge of paris could turn ugly . the adversary was a team from tel_aviv . extra police officers were on duty . the trouble began outside the stadium , as is often the case , after the paris team was defeated , 4 2 . dozens of paris supporters pursued and cornered yanniv hazout , 25 , a french fan who is jewish . a 32 year old plainclothes transport police_officer , antoine granomort , who was guarding a nearby parking_lot , rushed to shield him from the crowd . ''the crowd hurled insults 'dirty jew , ' 'dirty negro' and monkey cries and raised nazi salutes , '' a paris prosecutor , jean_claude marin , said afterward . he added that they also shouted , ''le_pen , president ! '' a reference to jean marie le pen , the far right national front leader who plans to run for president in the election in april . according to mr . sarkozy , some fans shouted , ''death to the jew ! '' before attacking mr . hazout . when the crowd began kicking and beating officer granomort and apparently threatened to kill the fan he was protecting , he fired his service revolver , killing julien quemener , 25 , a home appliance technician , and wounding mounir boujaer , 26 , a truck driver , according to several witness accounts . a fan who called himself maxmax wrote friday on an ultra internet message board that someone shouted , ''jews to the ovens ! '' after the shooting . mr . quemener was identified as a member of the ''boulogne boys , '' a group of far right soccer supporters , some of whom are officially registered as troublemakers by the police and banned from the stadium . a judge must determine officially whether officer granomort acted in self_defense , although both french officials and police union representatives have thrown their support behind him . not all agree . ''i 'm telling you , the cop screwed up , '' said a witness to the shooting , who refused to give his name because he feared the police would put him under surveillance . ''this was n't self_defense . '' about 300 supporters of the paris team held a silent march on sunday in nantes in memory of mr . quemener , walking behind a banner that read , ''murdering authorities truth for julien . '' violence , some of it racially_motivated , is a ritual at soccer games throughout europe , and some french sports experts say the phenomenon is more dramatic elsewhere . last week , for example , about 600 italian supporters of the naples team , throwing stones and pieces of metal , clashed with police officers as they forced their way through security barriers to watch a game . three cars were destroyed and another was set on fire . one 25 year old fan remains in a coma . complicating the situation in france is that there are rival gangs of ultras that divide along racial and ethnic lines , but all support the paris team . last february , for example , members of a multiethnic group known as tigris mystic , some apparently wielding machetes and pieces of wood studded with nails , attacked members of an all white gang at a gas station near the town of angers after a match . five people were injured . but france , with its long history of secularism and official colorblindness , is particularly sensitive to racist , ethnic and anti semitic insults and acts , both on and off the soccer field . the fact that so many of the players on french teams are either black or of north_african arab origin has cut both ways . ( on france 's national team that played in the world_cup last summer , 17 of the 23 players were members of minorities . ) while the multiracial character of the sport has long been praised for reflecting diversity in france , some right wing politicians have criticized soccer teams for not being white enough . two weeks ago , georges fr che , the socialist president of the languedoc roussillon region , was quoted as telling a local council that he was ashamed that so many of the 11 starters on the french national team are black . ''it would be normal if there were three or four that would be a reflection of society , '' he was quoted as saying . ''but if there are so many , it 's because whites are no good . i 'm ashamed for this country . soon there will be 11 blacks . '' president jacques_chirac immediately condemned the remarks . mr . fr che said his comments had been taken out of context . before the 1998 world_cup , mr . le_pen called the french team ''artificial'' because of its ethnic and racial_makeup . last june , before the world_cup , he said france ' 'does n't totally recognize itself in this team , '' because there may be too many ''players of color . '' at a news conference on tuesday , mr . le_pen accused mr . marin , the paris prosecutor , of defamation for suggesting that he was somehow linked to the racism on display on the night of the shooting . he said he was filing a lawsuit . certainly , the message of mr . le_pen , who faced mr . chirac in a runoff in the 2002 election , resonates in france . in a poll published in le_monde last week , 17 percent of the respondents said they intended to vote for the 78 year old for president .",has a topic of sports
"lead christophe tiozzo of france makes the first defense of his world_boxing_association supermiddleweight title friday night against paul whittaker of kenner , la . christophe tiozzo of france makes the first defense of his world_boxing_association supermiddleweight title friday night against paul whittaker of kenner , la . the fight , scheduled for 12 rounds , will take place in an ancient roman arena used for bullfights .",has a topic of sports
"the general managers are staying six to a chalet , standing in line for their tickets , paying 30 or more for every lousy seat they get in the corner of the ice_rink . they are not complaining about it , either . the national_hockey_league executives pouring into meribel to watch the olympic tournament learned long ago that international scouting trips are short on luxury and long on rewards . if one unified team member can be signed , if one new czechoslovak star can be spotted , the trip will have been worth the inconvenience . "" we 're just another business , as far as the olympics are concerned , "" said nick beverly , assistant_general_manager of the los_angeles kings , who was denied admission to one game when he showed up late with his ticket . "" that 's the philosophy worldwide , and it 's right . why should we get special treatment ? "" nowhere where to hide by the weekend , n.h.l . executives were as easily spotted around meribel as the stars they were scouting . bill torrey of the islanders , harry sinden of boston , bob pulford of chicago , serge savard of montreal , cliff fletcher of toronto , glen_sather of edmonton , pierre gauthier of quebec , and gerry meehan of buffalo had all checked into overcrowded lodgings . "" there are n't any more secrets , "" pulford said . "" i even know what time bill torrey goes to bed every night . "" many were busy comparing notes , over pulford 's home cooked breakfasts . some were here with checkbooks in hand , ready for contractual number crunching . fletcher said he expected to sign canada 's sturdy forward kent manderville at the end of the tournament and bring him back to the maple_leafs immediately . "" an adept , two way hockey player , "" fletcher said of manderville . "" i do n't have to scout him anymore to know we want him . "" most of all , the officials were wishing they could go backward in time , and show as much foresight as teams like the nordiques and the winnipeg jets , who own the rights to the most impressive superstars here . bright future for jets the jets would seem to be the biggest winners here , owning rights to the russian star aleksei zhamnov and the finnish superstar teemu selanne . both are young , fleet , and looking to the west for financial security . selanne could sign next week , or wait until the summer . the jets also have the rights to keith_tkachuk , a tough checking american forward who is very close to signing a contract . but there are other n.h.l . teams sitting on a silo filled with talent . quebec has the rights to vyacheslav bykov , andrei kovalenko and andrei khomoutov of the unified team mikael johansson of sweden and , of course , a reluctant canadian named eric_lindros . boston owns the rights to the canadian star joe juneau , who already has five goals and six assists , plus american players steve heinze and ted donato . torrey is keeping an eye on scott lachance , the no . 1 pick in 1991 who has helped to anchor the rugged united_states defense marty mcinnis , an american forward , and vladimir malakhov , the unified team defenseman who will be difficult to extricate from russia . "" i 've really been impressed by lachance , for a 19 year old , "" torrey said . "" he got beaten once by mikko makela , but that 's happened to a lot of n.h.l . defensemen too . "" ranger pick seems rusty the rangers , represented for now by the msg and cbs network analyst john davidson , must be a bit concerned by the obvious lack of polish shown by their first round pick , aleksei_kovalev of the unified team . asked how the top international players slipped away from them to winnipeg and quebec , some of the general managers get a bit defensive . "" part of it is philosophy , but part of it is where you 're picking , "" said fletcher , whose maple_leafs have finished so poorly they have picked very high in the draft . "" we just never had the picks to fool around with . "" there are still a few unclaimed talents , but they are no secret any longer to anybody . on the unified team , yuri khmylev has two goals , four assists , and belongs to nobody . there is also the lithuanian defenseman darus kasparaitis , who is being watched closely by fletcher . "" we 've kept an eye on him for a couple of years , "" fletcher said . "" he 's simply a decent player , and now with things more open over there , it could work out for somebody . "" you 've got to grab these players before they get too old , and set in their ways , "" fletcher said . "" by then , you have a heck of a time getting them out and adjusted to a new place . "" albertville",has a topic of sports
"lead the sprinting jrivals ben_johnson of canada and carl_lewis of the united_states will compete head to head in the 100 meter_dash at a french meet on june 27 , their first showdown since johnson 's world record performance last september during the world_championships in rome . the sprinting jrivals ben_johnson of canada and carl_lewis of the united_states will compete head to head in the 100 meter_dash at a french meet on june 27 , their first showdown since johnson 's world record performance last september during the world_championships in rome .",has a topic of sports
"a forecast of cloudy weather was good news today for officials here at the bobsled and luge track that will be used in the winter_olympics , which start saturday . low humidity has made the 1 , 500 meter run brittle . it cracked on saturday , opening up a fist size hole at one point in the frozen layer . after crews quickly worked to repair the ice , two hours of unofficial training runs this morning seemed to go without major problems . the first official practice runs for the luge were scheduled for tuesday . but brilliant sunshine did soften a few parts of the course , which some athletes say could alter results . "" it 's not the sun . it 's the dryness , "" said andre broche , the la_plagne site 's sports manager . "" we expect clouds tomorrow , maybe even slight snowfall . that means the humidity is rising . "" critics say the track , the most expensive construction for these olympics , catches too much morning sun because of its location . bobsledding and luge both are scheduled for the mornings . organizers proposed moving the second runs on medals days to late afternoon , but television officials rejected that idea . another solution would have been to put up sunshades at the exposed spots , but television officials did n't like that idea , either . the shades would hide parts of the course from the camera 's eye . luge teams including the united_states , european medal_contenders and an extreme long shot the two member virgin_islands team arrived today . "" they 've worked a lot on it since december . the first impression is good , "" said markus prock of austria , the world_cup champion . "" we 'll see for real after the first training runs . "" the art of making snow skiers and skaters here will benefit from the inventions of a company thousands of miles away in pennsylvania . york international corporation , a 118 year old refrigeration company , will make all the artificial snow and will chill the ice for four rinks at the winter_games in albertville . only speed_skating will be held on ice not handled by york international . "" we 're able to very closely approximate mother nature 's snow , "" said michael j . ricci , director of corporate marketing for york . "" we pioneered snow making technology . "" york snow will be available for 513 acres of downhill and cross country ski events . the international_olympic_committee requires snow making equipment to guarantee skiing conditions . computers regulate york 's snow making systems , and weather sensors tell workers how to adjust gauges when there 's a change in wind , humidity or real precipitation . york uses a mixture of cold air and water to create the snow and fires it from cannons onto the slopes . ( ap ) skating on outdoor ice the manager of the olympic speed_skating oval in albertville today defended the decision to stage the event in an open air stadium . organizers decided against building a costly indoor rink like the one used in calgary in 1988 , opting instead for an outdoor stadium , which means competition might be hampered by bad_weather . "" speed_skating is predominantly an outdoor sport in which luck and the weather play a part , "" said robert dureville , who is in charge of the oval . world_cup races in albertville last february on the new track were delayed a day after sleet made the arena almost unusable . "" we have the same worries as any other sport held outdoors , "" he said . "" snow , rain or fog are factors we may have to deal with , but we can always delay races or move them to a free day . "" ( reuters ) role for bush 's daughter dorothy leblond , president_bush 's daughter , will head the united_states delegation at the opening ceremonies for the winter_olympics , the white_house said today . bush also picked for the delegation his sister , nancy ellis the husband and wife movie stars melanie griffith and don johnson , and a business executive , osborne day . vice_president dan_quayle and his wife , marilyn , are also planning to attend the opening ceremonies on saturday . the quayles will be on a weeklong trip to eight european_countries . ( ap )",has a topic of sports
"french teams in the tour de france surged to the front early_today , attacking left and right until a seven man breakaway took wing . even such teams as bigmat auber 93 and jean delatour proved they were not dead , only sleeping through the first two and a half weeks of the tour , which ends sunday in paris . one rider from each joined colleagues from festina , cr_dit_agricole , la fran_aise des jeux and ag2r prevoyance french teams all and a danish rider from csc tiscali of denmark . four of the french teams were represented by mercenaries jens voigt , a german bradley mcgee , an australian luis perez , a spaniard and aleksandr botcharov , a russian . the dane was nicki sorensen . all seven riders stood low in the overall standing and presented no threat to lance_armstrong , the leader , so were allowed to speed away on a blazingly hot 16th stage , 227 . 5 kilometers ( 141 miles ) over a rolling course with two small climbs . at the finish , voigt and mcgee were alone at the front and the german , who rides for cr_dit_agricole , passed his weary la fran_aise des jeux companion with 300 meters ( 984 feet ) left to win by five seconds . ''empty , empty , '' said mcgee , who added that in the last 500 meters ( 1 , 640 feet ) , he ' 'saw black . '' voigt had labored through the pyrenees in the hope of excelling once the tour returned to the plains yesterday . today , he had recovered his usual strength and powered the two man attack 25 kilometers ( 15 . 5 miles ) to the finish . he finished in 5 hours 27 minutes 11 seconds for the ride north from castelsarrasin to sarran , down among the sheltering chestnut trees of the corr ze region , the nut 's home territory . the speed translated into 42 kilometers an hour ( 26 miles an hour ) . botcharov , who rides for ag2r , was third , 1 59 behind , with sorensen of csc fourth , perez of festina fifth , st phane heulot of bigmat sixth and eddy seigneur of jean delatour seventh . disrupted by a mass crash , the main pack finished at least 25 45 behind the winner and there was no change in the overall leadership . armstrong , the leader of the united_states_postal_service team and the nearly certain winner of his third successive tour de france , remained first by 5 05 over jan ullrich , the german leader of telekom . before the pack got here , nearly two dozen riders were left sprawled on the road outside the city of tulle , 200 kilometers ( 124 miles ) into the stage . five of them had to be taken to a hospital with probable broken collarbones . of the 189 riders who started the tour , 146 remain . voigt also wore the yellow jersey for a day a week ago and was asked to compare that sensation with his victory in the daily stage . ''about the same , '' he said , ''but the stage victory will probably remain with me longer . '' a model team worker , the german is at the end of his contract with the team and is listening to offers to remain or to join postal_service or coast , a second division team in germany that is trying to bulk up and win a tour invitation . whatever happens , his price just went up . cycling",has a topic of sports
"of all the spectators filing into center court today , bill clinton 's arrival had the strangest effect on andre_agassi 's mood ring . more than s bastien grosjean 's shirt flapping speed , clinton 's movements were linked to the bizarre end of agassi 's grand_slam buzz . maybe it was an absurd coincidence , but the charted ups and downs of agassi 's 1 6 , 6 1 , 6 1 , 6 3 quarterfinal loss at the french open had nothing to do with reason . before clinton was greeted with a standing_ovation by the french as he entered the stadium after the start of the second set , agassi had been unflappable while picking on the jangled nerves of grosjean . once clinton sat down in a box 25 feet behind the baseline , agassi came undone on grosjean 's home clay , losing six of the next seven games to the revived frenchman . for three games at the start of the fourth set , the former president departed briefly . in that time , agassi pulled out a drop shot on his way to breaking grosjean 's serve and taking a 2 1 lead . then clinton returned . agassi won one more game . ''sounds like you have it all figured out , '' agassi said in an edgy tone . several reporters saw him make eye_contact with clinton , but agassi insisted he did not see clinton arrive or notice he was there . milling near the players' lounge area at roland_garros a half hour after the match , clinton smiled at the odd parallel . ''i was bad for him , '' clinton said . ''i was bad luck . when i left , he won three games . i hated to come back . '' the weird corollaries aside , agassi was simply not himself on the court . he was not as methodical , as measured or as savvy as usual . with the vulnerable grosjean in front of him , hearing cries of ''do it for france'' from the crowd , agassi could not put him in a position to fold under the pressure . instead , agassi let grosjean off the hook with erratic form that led to 52 unforced_errors . ''do n't ask me anything , '' agassi 's coach , brad gilbert , snapped after the match . ''i said , do n't ask me anything . '' maybe there was no explanation for the way agassi 's brief flirtation with a grand_slam title ended . after winning the australian_open in january , agassi 's pursuit of the french open ended when grosjean served an ace on match point . in a group leap , the french jumped out of their seats like a jack in the box . ''it was amazing i saw everybody stand up , '' said grosjean , who is scheduled to play alex corretja in the semifinals on friday . ''actually , to play on this court , it 's like a dream . '' the center court scene was unreal for agassi , too . the tournament was not scripted to end like this . if agassi had lost a tight quarterfinal_match , it would have been more understandable . but agassi made his irritable exit without creating the least bit of suspense . in 1 hour 49 minutes , agassi 's french_open was over , severing his high expectations of a title . ''about three matches higher , '' agassi said . ''three matches would have been nice , three more . '' there was no chance of that . on every point that might have lengthened the match , providing agassi a chance to outlast grosjean 's deep pocket full of winners , he lapsed . in the third game of the fourth set , agassi , up a service break , lost his serve after a stunning double fault . suddenly , the same unfocused pattern of play he exhibited in the second and third sets resurfaced . he stopped moving and started missing . ''it was strange because sometimes he hits the ball really hard , but you know , it 's like tanking sometimes , '' grosjean said . ''i started to play better after that , so maybe he got mad . '' grosjean became more confident . in between points , the crowd chanted ''gros jean , gros jean . '' during the tense silence of an exchange , grosjean manufactured winners that left him pumping both fists . in the fourth game of the fourth set , he conjured a reflex volley to save a break point . then , he sealed his service game when he raced to retrieve agassi 's drop volley , scooped it up with a forehand and flicked it crosscourt for a winner . ''his speed puts a lot of pressure on you because you have to hit not just quality shots , but you have to hit a number of them , '' agassi said . ''the conditions today , i could n't come up with it . '' there was more to it than merely the wind whipping and dark clouds forming overhead . three games later , agassi tried an ill advised drop shot on game point . next , agassi pulled grosjean wide off the court , but on a floating defensive lob , he inexplicably failed to tuck it away . grosjean tracked the soft smash down , then magically brushed a topspin lob over agassi 's head . on cue , the cameras swung to catch clinton as he covered his eyes , prompting one french announcer to say ''do n't let him leave now . '' a few points later , on a backhand slugged into the net , agassi 's serve was broken . the same fans who usually act as agassi 's emotional support system were roaring for their hero , grosjean . he did not let them down as he served out the match . as grosjean bathed in the celebration , agassi rushed off the court . meanwhile , clinton shook hands until he worked his way to the stadium exit . the door could be closed on the bizarre day . but a few minutes later , when asked about the clinton effect on the match , a happy grosjean smiled and said ''we 're going to have to invite him back for the semifinals . '' tennis",has a topic of sports
"when the detroit_tigers signed cecil_fielder three years ago for 3 million over two years , many people wondered why the tight fisted tigers would spend so much money on a player returning from japan who had been a part time player before he left . now comes orestes destrade , and the florida_marlins hope he will be cecil ii . destrade , 30 years old , has played in japan for the last four seasons . before that period , he batted 76 times in the major_leagues with the yankees and the pittsburgh_pirates after laboring in the minor leagues for seven seasons in the yankees' organization . so why should the expansion marlins sign destrade to a two year contract worth 3 . 5 million ? "" our scouts felt he would help the big_league club , "" general_manager dave dombrowski said . "" he 's got tremendous power . he always has had that . you 're not looking at a guy who 's been taking advantage of short fences . no question , there 's some gamble in it , but we felt it was worth it based on the reports we received . "" destrade , a first baseman , led japan in home_runs each of the last three seasons the first foreigner to do so with 42 , 39 and 41 . not so coincidentally , his team , the seibu lions , won the japanese championship all three years . the lions were prepared to give destrade about 6 million for two more years , but he could n't pass up the chance to go home . "" it 's a great opportunity , me being a cuban from miami , "" he said , speaking from hawaii , where he and his seibu teammates were celebrating their most recent championship . "" my family "" his wife and two young children "" and i love japan , but there 's nothing like being at home . "" montreal , cleveland and st . louis also made him offers , destrade said , "" but i would n't have gone to any of those places . it was either miami or back to japan . "" in his younger days , destrade had difficulty reaching the majors with the yankees because don mattingly was the first baseman . when he was traded to the pirates , he found sid bream at first . finally , in june 1989 , destrade gave up on baseball in this country and went to japan . when fielder spent a season in japan , destrade said , he gained greater confidence in his ability and learned to play while being the center of attention . fielder returned to the major_leagues and has become their most awesome slugger . what has japanese_baseball done for destrade ? "" definitely i 'm better , "" he said , "" but a lot has to do with maturing age wise . i had to become mentally stronger . i was on a team with only one other foreigner , and he was a taiwanese pitcher . i had to mentally motivate myself . i did n't have coaches and friends when i got in slumps . that 's where my game has gotten stronger . "" santiago 's plunge benito santiago was once considered the premier catcher in the major_leagues . in the last couple of years , however , his reputation plunged precipitously both as a catcher and as a personality in the clubhouse . despite his more recent status , the marlins decided to sign him as a free_agent for 7 . 2 million for two years . "" we felt a change of scenery will benefit him a great deal , "" dombrowski said . "" we felt he was eager to play here . he had a good visit with rene lachemann . lach felt very comfortable after visiting with him and felt he 'd like to have him . "" with top flight catchers a rarity , the earlier santiago would have commanded at least 5 million a year . if lachemann and dombrowski have guessed right , they could have a bargain . if they guessed wrong , the marlins would have squandered money better spent elsewhere . the definition of chaos on the last day of the winter_meetings , dec . 9 , bud_selig of the milwaukee_brewers , the man in charge of the major_leagues in the absence of a commissioner , told assembled reporters in no uncertain terms that contrary to whatever they may have written or thought , baseball was not in chaos . one week later , participating in a panel discussion , richard_ravitch , the owners' chief labor executive , said , "" there is chaos in baseball and nobody can deny that . "" selig , who as chairman of the player relations committee board is also ravitch 's boss , was said not to be amused by the contradiction . on the other hand , charlie sutton , the agent for terry steinbach , must have been amused at least puzzled when the yankees made what they said was a four year , 16 million offer to the free_agent catcher . adding the numbers , sutton got 17 million and informed general_manager gene michael of his mathematics . "" then i guess it 's 17 million , "" michael was said to have replied . unconvincing the son in law insists he is running the yankees himself with no help from his still exiled father in law , but he has n't convinced anyone in baseball . although no one has first hand , eyewitness evidence , owners and executives who are asked their opinion see the fingerprints of george_steinbrenner all over the yankees' deals of recent weeks . asked if there were any doubts that steinbrenner was orchestrating the club 's moves , one executive laughed and said , "" of course not . "" joseph molloy , who has added the duties of general_manager to those of general managing partner , denied last week that he toots his tuba to the beat of steinbrenner 's baton , although he admitted that sometimes he has to "" bite his tongue "" to resist temptation . they did n't even discuss free agents at thanksgiving dinner , baseball 's best known and best behaved son in law said . perhaps not . but one can imagine a coded conversation at the dinner table in which the father in law clearly gave molloy instructions to sign four free agents . and the shrewd steinbrenner was so clever that anyone listening would have thought just the opposite . chomping on a big turkey leg , steinbrenner might have said , "" owin' as to how the key to our season is my return , we ca n't get bogged down in discussions about free agents now . "" sad days for pirates now that the dismantling of the three time division champion pittsburgh_pirates has been completed , syd thrift has only the memory of his success in resuscitating the team and insuring its continued residence in pittsburgh . "" it 's sad , "" thrift said when asked how it felt to see the developments of the past 13 months , in which barry_bonds , bobby bonilla , doug drabek , john smiley and jose lind have left the pirates . thrift was the general_manager who built the team that manager jim leyland molded into a champion . their efforts came just as the pirates were teetering on the precipice of disaster and departure to another city . looking at the remains of the pirates , thrift , now the chicago_cubs' assistant_general_manager , acknowledged that they have a difficult task ahead . but he added "" they 're better off than we were in 1986 because of the players they have . they 're stronger . "" bonds at the podium barry_bonds should know when he 's ahead and stop talking about his years in pittsburgh . he 's becoming offensive . during the national_league playoff in october , bonds went on and on about what a great place pittsburgh was to live in ( it was the best , he said ) , what a great bunch of guys the pirates were to play with and what a great manager jim leyland was to play for . of course , bonds was n't willing to take fewer millions to remain in his personal eden . with his agent , dennis gilbert , maneuvering to make him the highest paid player , bonds became a free_agent and held out for top dollar . when he got it from the san_francisco_giants , he instantly told the world how wonderful it was to go home ( his father played for the giants from the time barry was 3 years old until he was 10 ) . then , at his unveiling in san_francisco last week , bonds told a rally of giants' fans , "" when i was in pittsburgh , we would 've played for jim leyland for nothing . "" in truth , he would n't have played for leyland for 7 million a year , because even that would n't have made him the highest paid player in the game . notebook",has a topic of sports
"just because the national_basketball_association does n't seem to want kelly tripucka anymore does n't mean the 10 year n.b.a . veteran is n't wanted . tripucka , a former detroit piston who played the last two seasons with the charlotte hornets before becoming an unrestricted and apparently unwanted free_agent , has signed to play with limoges in france . contract details were not disclosed , but a team offical told the french sports daily l'equipe that the deal represented "" a financial effort without precedent . "" ( ap ) sports people basketball",has a topic of sports
"government officials and businessmen in japan reacted with indignation and puzzlement today over reports that american baseball officials were opposed to the offer by a japanese company to help buy the seattle_mariners . hiroshi yamauchi , president of the nintendo company , which has teamed up with a group of businessmen in washington_state to bid for the mariners , held a news conference today to explain the offer . he said he might be forced to withdraw the bid if the public reaction was negative . although the reception in seattle was favorable , the baseball_commissioner , fay_vincent , said it was unlikely the bid would be approved . yamauchi said the company should not be criticized for making a takeover attempt because it was first approached by political leaders in the united_states . "" this is entirely different from an acquisition of an american corporation by a japanese corporation , "" said yamauchi . 'simply a response' "" it is simply a response to the urgings of the senator and governor of washington , "" yamauchi said at a news conference in kyoto , where his company has its headquarters . "" a foundation was established , and upon request , i invested in that foundation . "" if accepted and approved by baseball officials , the offer by the family that founded nintendo would represent the first time that a potential investor outside north_america had bought a controlling interest in an american club . the controversy over the bid for the mariners was one of a string of episodes in the last week that have emphasized what some say is growing american resentment of japanese economic strength . news reports have focused all week on american anger over a comment by a leader of the japanese parliament that american workers are lazy and illiterate . there has also been considerable publicity over the rejection by los_angeles of a previously awarded bid by subsidiary of the sumitomo corporation for construction of railway cars . japanese officials have been careful not to denounce the county of los angeles by name , but some warn that the cancellation of the los_angeles contract could have damaging repercussions for the american drive to get construction contracts in japan . "" this new japan bashing is very unfortunate , "" said a senior economic policymaker , asking not to be identified . "" any backlash in japan will make it more difficult to make progress in our own government_procurement procedures . "" he was referring to japan united_states pacts in recent years permitting american construction companies to bid on dozens of projects , many of them airports and other projects put up by local authorities . a spokesman for the foreign ministry , masamichi hanabusa , said that the latest efforts to block japanese activity may be part of a wave of criticism or japan bashing , but that this was a temporary phenomenon caused in part by the recession . in defending the nintendo baseball proposal , yamauchi said the bid was in keeping with the community minded spirit of the american subsidiary of the company , which has made considerable money in america . "" this is a kind of social service , not a business activity intended to make a profit , "" yamauchi told the yomiuri newspaper today . he said it was not his intention to change the name of the mariners or to utilize the mariners' name in the nintendo business . echoing this view , hanabusa of the foreign ministry said he could not understand why there would be a negative reaction to a possible nintendo purchase , because it should be seen as part of japanese efforts to support community activities . baseball",has a topic of sports
"a strange thing has happened on the way to the world_cup final this fractious country , never in agreement about anything , eternally divided , deeply skeptical , has united around a soccer team that is now lauded by workers , politicians and even intellectuals . the world_cup had been approached with the usual grumbling . there was the cost 433 million for the main stadium alone . there were the predictable left bank comments about the inanity of 11 grown men chasing a ball . and there were the dismal pre tournament showings of the french team , confirmation , if any were needed , that an early exit was inevitable . there was also something deeper . this is a country that has traditionally been touched by the individual endurance of the tour de france bicycle race , by the rugged splendor of rugby and by the grace and elegance of the roland_garros tennis_tournament . as for ''le foot , '' it was foolish . but a shift has occurred , fleeting perhaps , remarkable without doubt . in the place of the dismissive ''bof , '' accompanied by a gallic shrug , a wave of enthusiasm has engulfed the french as their team , on home ground , has reached the semifinal , a stage it has reached on three previous occasions only to be eliminated . this time , said aime jacquet , the villain turned hero who coaches the team , ''we are going all the way . '' just how far france does go will be decided in wednesday 's semifinal against croatia . meanwhile , the team has already become the upbeat symbol of a country that is experiencing sturdy economic_growth for the first time in years and appears to be emerging from a protracted bout of the blues . during the quarterfinal_match against italy last friday , played at 4 30 p.m. , the country shut down . renault and citroen plants were closed . the employees of the ministry of employment and solidarity sat watching the match on a large screen with their minister , martine aubry . cafes were full of cheering fans . when the game was finally won in a shootout , the champs_elysees became the scene of joyous mayhem . ''i was not too enthusiastic at first , but then this strange fever grabs you , '' said frederique chevalier , who works for an airline company . ''there is a strange atmosphere at the moment . '' surveys suggest that women like chevalier have by no means shunned the world_cup , as expected before the tournament started . while most men have watched at least eight games , a majority of women have seen at least four , according to french media research centers . ''before the tournament started , i did not know anybody who believed we could reach the final , '' noel henoeque said . ''but i always thought we could do it , and i still do . '' henoeque has found one of more than 15 , 000 temporary jobs generated by the world_cup , serving coffee at a stand of one of the sponsors . with such enthusiasm prevailing , and jobs even being created , it was only natural that ''le foot'' be suddenly elevated to the realm of political debate and rivalry . jacques_chirac , the center right president , and his rival , the socialist prime_minister lionel_jospin , have engaged in a cat and mouse game about who should be present at which match , and who gets into the dressing room first to congratulate the players . ''i salute the unity of a team representative of french diversity , '' the prime_minister said this week . referring to the sons of north_african immigrants known as beurs , he added , ''when i see blacks and beurs , with the french flag , singing the marseillaise , i find that these are timely images . '' france has been deeply concerned for some time with the apparent fragmentation of its republican ideal , the model that allowed generations of portuguese , italian and other immigrants to be transformed into patriotic french citizens largely through an excellent public_school system . high unemployment and the spread of bleak suburbs populated largely by out of work immigrants have dented this ideal . but now there is a soccer team to suggest that integration still works in france . zinedine zidane , the star midfielder , is of algerian descent . marcel desailly and lilian thuram , two members of a four man defense that has conceded only one goal in five matches , are black . david trezeguet , a striker , was born in argentina . youri djorkaeff , a midfielder , is of georgian origin . the contrast with the monochrome german and italian teams had indeed been striking . ''this hybrid team thumbs its nose at the national front , '' francois armanet wrote this week in the daily liberation , referring to the xenophobic right wing party that takes about 15 percent of the french vote . ''one can admire it without chauvinism . these players belong fully to the modern world . '' even intellectuals , who once scoffed , have discovered that soccer is an area for exhilarating debate . where soccer was once dismissed as a mere opium of the people , it has been elevated to a higher plane . thus the writer christophe gallaz suggested this week that , ''when we applaud youri djorkaeff sprinting diagonally across the opposing defense and scoring , we are consoled about our impotence before our own objectives . '' the idea was intriguing . unfortunately , djorkaeff has in fact proved largely impotent before his own objectives , scoring one goal in the world_cup , and that from a penalty . but when soccer enters the realm of psychology , it is a fair certainty that it has penetrated the inner sanctum of french intellectual debate . several decades ago , the french writer albert camus observed that , ''all i know about morality and the duties we all have , i owe to soccer . '' until recent days , his was a voice in the wilderness , but now france has found a new popular identity . if the country can beat croatia and reach its first final , who knows what may happen . already jospin has portrayed himself as ''a mixture of the coach jacquet and the midfielder zidane . '' for a graduate of france 's elite national school of administration , this must have been a first . the floodgates , it seems , are open . world_cup '98",has a topic of sports
"two police officers , imposing figures in futuristic white helmets and old school black boots , rode motorcycles ahead of the buses ferrying the international_olympic_committee 's evaluation commission through the streets thursday . the officers were ready to clear a path to the city 's proposed olympic sites through whatever chaos overflowed from a national strike by trade_unions . instead , with many parisians deciding to take the strike day off , the police needed only to sound a few sirens and wave a handful of cars out of their path . so paris pulled off its touring day of the evaluation commission 's four day stop seamlessly , the striking workers steering their 35 , 000 strong demonstration far clear of the commission 's path . the 13 commission members who had similar experiences during visits to madrid , london and new york , with moscow 's yet to come traveled easily in their well marked buses through a gray day in the french capital , the atmosphere cheered a bit by the eiffel_tower lit in sparkles and a sea of colorful paris2012 banners draping buildings and poles around every turn . all week , the city 's bid leaders had been calling the strike an unhappy coincidence , stressing that the unions had , by and large , expressed support for the bid despite the painful timing of the strike . on thursday , they pushed aside the issue the way the police had waved aside the traffic . ''nothing disrupted the work we did together today , '' bertrand delanoe , the mayor of paris , said . ''nothing . '' delanoe walked a fine line between sounding strident and appearing defensive , intent not to let this irrepressible bit of french society mar a bid that has carefully airbrushed the flaws that sank two previous bids , for the 1992 and 2008 games namely , that they were too french . stung by criticism that they had pursued the 2008 games with off putting arrogance , the french bid leaders have labored to soften their image as this race comes down to a decision on july 6 , when the full 117 member i.o.c . will choose the host city for the 2012 summer games . ''we know france is perceived as being a little arrogant , '' philippe baudillon , head of the paris bidding committee , said . ''this is something we have to cope with . we do n't want to be arrogant . '' until thursday , their efforts at humility were largely successful . they had coasted into the role of favorite , played up the benefits of having the 80 , 00 seat stade de france and promoted a plan to use less expensive temporary facilities for many of their sites to win over the debt conscious i.o.c . but just as they were about to show off that low hassle plan in person , the strike issue reared its head . delanoe tried to put it in a positive light , predicting that handling the demonstrations smoothly would reflect well on the city . still , they were left to hope that all went well . government officials estimated that 570 , 000 people participated in marches across france , 35 , 000 of them in paris . unlike a student protest earlier in the week that burst into fits of violence , this one proceeded peacefully . some of the paris protesters even wore 2012 t shirts . ''we ca n't hide from it abroad , france is seen as a country of strikes , '' baudillon said . ''what we have to do is show that we are capable of positive discussions to overcome the problem . '' so paris took its place in line with its rivals , who have encountered all the tumult that paris had been avoiding . london has endured a stream of it , from queen elizabeth reportedly predicting a paris victory to claims that even its bid committee had lost hope . madrid has been rocked by terrorist bombs and a skyscraper fire . new york seems mired in the political squabble over building a stadium on the west side of manhattan . moscow fights the image that it should not even be included among the finalists . during their turn with the evaluation commission , the paris bid leaders have painted a picture of their dream olympics . the tour included the proposed village site , a mix of open rail yards and unsightly warehouses , one of the last undeveloped spots on the edge of central paris . the plan relies on two clusters that encompass most of the event sites and are proclaimed to be a_10 minute drive from the village . the western one surrounds the roland_garros tennis complex and the parc des princes soccer stadium . the northern one is anchored by the stade de france , site of the 1998 world_cup and the 2003 world track and field championships . the committee 's stop there included lunch and a meeting with many of france 's prominent athletes , and a highlight film that cleverly included a clip of the sprinter frankie fredericks in the 2003 world_championships . fredericks is a member of the evaluation commission . ''i think that was one of the high points , really , '' jean_fran_ois lamour , france 's sports minister , said . ''it was a context that showed the stadium was ready to wake to its future as the olympic_stadium . it is a symbol that could tip the bid . it shows that we have 65 percent of the sports infrastructure needed for the games . the stade de france was the symbol of that today . '' paris tried to return to the themes that had made it the front runner . the strikers were far from view . and the police tried to clear the rest of the way . olympics",has a topic of sports
"a mother gets up in the middle of the night to watch her son and to worry . typical story . only her son is a continent away . and he happens to have her heartbeat and her jump shot . boris diaw remembers playing pickup games with his mother , elizabeth riffiod , several years after she stopped playing center for the french national team . ''she was beating me really easy when i was so young , '' diaw said thursday in a telephone interview after practice in phoenix , where he is a reserve for the suns . ''once i got a little size and quickness and could have beaten her , '' he added with a laugh , ' 'she stopped playing with me . '' a mother knows when it is time to step away . still , even when diaw grew to match her 6 foot 2 height as a teenager , riffiod could not envision that he would reach the n.b.a . ''it was n't something i had as a goal for him , '' riffiod said thursday in a telephone interview from her home in talence , france , in bordeaux . she spoke in french , through a times interpreter . ''it was so selective for a french player , i never imagined it . '' now riffiod follows diaw 's progress in the western conference semifinals against the san antonio spurs over the internet , agonizing play by play . ''i cannot put up with that level of torture at that hour , '' riffiod said . or , if the games are broadcast live , she will awaken at 3 a.m . to watch diaw with the sound muted so she will not hear commentators drone on and possibly criticize her son . after a breakout season last year , the 6 8 diaw won the league 's most improved player award , then signed a 45 million contract extension . but he has been inconsistent this season , and his playing time decreased when center amare stoudemire returned from injury . ''boris has adapted for the team , '' riffiod said . she understands from experience . on the day of the interview , riffiod , nearly 60 , retired from teaching at the university of bordeaux , where she was a biology professor and basketball coach . she will still be the president of diaw 's charitable_foundation . for 13 seasons , riffiod played professional club basketball and participated in international competitions . diaw , 25 , never saw her play , but he remembers her uniforms from the 1970s hanging in her closet . they were vestiges of a time when women in europe predominantly from the soviet_union were slowly gaining acceptance for competing at an elite level . ''i want to be like my mom , but more like her career and the way she did it than how she plays , '' diaw said , reciting how riffiod won six french club championships . although competitive in the european championships , france never qualified for the olympics while she played . like his mother , diaw is an undersized center ( he has played every position with the suns , from point_guard to center ) . riffiod recently discovered that she and her son also share another trait they each have an extraordinarily low resting heart_rate . ''it 's a good thing for endurance , '' she said of her 32 beats per minute . ''in the morning during the season when i am in shape , it can be 35 , '' diaw said . he and his mother say that riffiod gained recognition as the first woman in france to shoot a jump shot . she learned the skill at 20 from watching a videotape of bill russell and the boston_celtics with her teammates in paris at the french national institute for sports and physical_education , known in france by its acronym , insep . riffiod was a quick study . as a child , she was prohibited to play sports because of a type of anemia . in her first year at the university of besan on , a teacher noticed her size and agility and directed her to insep . by then , riffiod said her blood condition had gone away . at the sports university , she met issa diaw , a high jumper from senegal . the couple were a contrast but riffiod said she never experienced bigotry because of her mixed_race relationship . ''as athletes , we were given a free pass , '' she said . playing basketball was her full time job , she explained , and she was paid by her country to train and compete , leaving no time to think about starting a family . finally , riffiod decided to quit , and she and issa had two sons , boris and martin , who is four years older . she and issa never married , and when he returned to senegal ( where he is a lawyer ) , she taught and raised her children as a single parent . ''i think all her life was a sacrifice , '' diaw said . ''when she was playing , she sacrificed everything for basketball . when we were born , she made a life for me and my brother and put everything else on hold . '' but she did not channel her basketball ambitions through her children . ''a lot of people said i should train my children , '' riffiod said . ''i said that 's too young nobody should be trained in a sport before 10 years old . '' martin was more interested in soccer . boris tried judo and fencing . neither loved basketball until the 1992 barcelona_olympics , when the united_states' dream team ignited the sport 's international popularity . martin 's sudden enthusiasm rubbed off on his brother . ''i think he identified with black american players much more than with a blonde french mother , '' riffiod said of martin , who played professionally in france 's second division . diaw went to insep 20 years after his parents met there . his roommate was tony parker , the spurs' point_guard and diaw 's opponent in this series . they are such close friends as captains on the french national team that diaw will be the best man at parker 's wedding this summer to the actress eva longoria . diaw is not the only player in the n.b.a . whose mother was a prominent basketball_player . yao_ming 's mother , fang feng di , was the top center on the chinese national team . ray allen 's mother , flo , played professionally in britain , and dwight howard 's mother also played . in france , riffiod explained that mother 's day is not celebrated today , but june 3 . if the suns are still playing then , that could mean they will soon be headed to the n.b.a . finals . ''yes , that would be a nice mother 's day gift , '' riffiod said . pro_basketball",has a topic of sports
"two of the first three figure_skating competitions of the olympics , the men 's singles and the dance , have produced minor flaps over nationalistic judging . a canadian judge appeared to score the performance of kurt browning of canada too high , and a french judge helped isabelle and paul duchesnay in the dance by scoring the eventual winners , marina klimova and sergei ponomarenko of the unified team , too low . it would seem that the olympics , the most visible of international competitions , might be the last place a judge would exercise selfish tendencies . but the judging here , according to the chairman of the international skating union technical committee , is no worse than it ever is . "" the quality of the judging has been normal , in the sense that i have n't seen cases worse than in recent years , "" said ben wright of cambridge , mass . , the skating union official . complaining about judging in figure_skating is as old as the sport , because of the subjective nature of the system . nine judges watch a performance , then score it on a scale of 6 . 0 , once for technical merit and once for artistic impression . in the past , the skating union has looked for a better system and even considered the kind of scoing format used in diving , in which the highest and lowest scores are dropped and the remaining marks are added . "" but that eliminated the majority rules principle , "" said wright . "" in our system , each judge is only one ninth , so no one can affect the result more than that . "" in the absence of a better system , wright said the judges are urged to judge a skater on what happens in competition , not what the judge has seen in practice or what reputation the skater might have . for those judges who ca n't , another system awaits disciplinary . when a judge 's marks are beyond a reasonable range in comparison to the other scores , the judge must provide a rationale in writing . if the explanation is insufficient , the judge can risk varying_degrees of response from the skating union , including an advisory , a warning , a demotion or a suspension . in the case of the questionable marks here , wright said the judges might receive "" one of the messages in the middle . "" brief career envisioned paul wylie , the surprise silver medalist in the men 's figure skating competition , recently signed with the international management group to represent him in the brief professional career he envisions . unlike nearly all other skaters who join tours after their competitive careers , wylie intends to make use of his harvard diploma to pursue a legal or business career . asked how much he expects to make as a profesional , he responded in a manner hardly befitting an athlete , "" enough to cover law_school . "" failure of speed skaters except for bonnie_blair 's two gold medals , this has been a disappointing olympics for american speed skaters . the highest finishes by the men were dan_jansen 's fourth in the 500 meters and eric flaim 's sixth in the 5 , 000 meters . jansen was a favorite in the 500 , and flaim was hoping to improve on his 1988 four race peformance , when he finished second once and fourth three times . "" we 've had a good world_cup season , "" said peter mueller , the united_states coach . "" if the olympics had been held two and a half weeks ago , we would have had a great olympics . but at least we have two gold medals . the dutch are so good , and they do n't have any . "" we need a good development program . we have to get good young kids into the sport . good coaching has been a problem for us . funding has to be a priority . "" touch of home the norwegian team has brought a touch of home to these olympics . the norwegians are eating their own food and sleeping on their own beds . their team arrived with smoked_salmon , caviar , pate and the norwegian whole wheat bread known as fullkornbroed . it also brought wooden slats for beds . the swedish team had problems with the beds here , too . the swedes asked the norwegians the brand name of the norwegian slats . the norwegians refused to tell them . hockey fights a concern la lechere , france , feb . 19 ( special to the new york times ) traditionally , the beauty of olympic hockey has been the fast , clean play . unlike national_hockey_league games , olympic_games are usually free of fights . but there have been several fights in games here , and the i.o.c . is concerned . "" this is a question for the hockey federation , "" said michele verdier , a spokeswoman for the i.o.c . "" maybe we are opening a new era . this is not something the i.o.c . likes to see . maybe it 's time for the hockey federation to look into this . "" albertville notebook",has a topic of sports
"they stared at us marathon runners as if we were exotic beasts shipped in from the jungle . some of the hundreds of parisians lining the streets near the bastille opera took photographs . others pointed us out to their children . most simply looked on in silence as we descended toward the narrow quai des celestins on the bank of the seine . there , at mile 15 or so last sunday , my mind was so focused on finishing the 26th paris marathon that it blocked out the few yells from the sidelines . later , my girlfriend , guillemette , told me that she could not help laughing at some of the taunts she had heard ''you 'd better run faster because they 're opening the street up to cars soon'' and ''only 500 kilometers left . '' when she registered us last fall for the race , she warned me that the french do not express quite the same enthusiasm toward sports amateurism as americans do . it was our first marathon , and though the paris run was not as competitive as the races in london and boston , both also this month , it was still considered a tough race , with about 26 , 000 runners jostling through the city 's narrow streets . so i needed all the fan support i could get , and i wanted to believe that guillemette 's seven years as an expatriate in new york had distorted her view of the french and of sports . but during the marathon , and in the months leading to it , i discovered that one of the most noticeable cultural gaps between americans and the french lies in the idea of mutual support , a difference that becomes apparent during amateur sports events . the french have no equivalent for the word cheerleader . after all , they invented the word blas . last year , guillemette gave me a wry book on new york life by the french cartoon satirist semp . one drawing shows a weak runner struggling to stay on his feet during the new york city marathon . from the sidewalks , enthusiastic americans yell out phrases like ''looking good ! '' even though the runner is on the verge of collapse . our culture of encouragement is as inflated as our national ego , and the fact that we call something ''great'' when it merits only a ''good'' is as alien to the french as s.u.v . 's clogging the roadways . our french friends regarded us with bemusement during our four months of training before last week 's race . they warned us at dinner parties that running too much could be dangerous to our health , or asked us with a sort of existential probing the purpose of such an endeavor . our american friends , on the other hand , gave us such ridiculously hearty pats on the back that we felt as if we were the second coming of frank shorter and joan benoit samuelson . there is something paradoxical in the french attitude toward sports . the french have a long tradition of embracing extreme pursuits , like the seven day marathon des sables through the scorching sands of the sahara and the grueling , monthlong tour de france , which is still the most celebrated athletic event in the country . but guillemette thinks those events reflect a french appreciation for expertise rather than any kind of american style go for it attitude , and she still has fond childhood memories of making fun of the laggards in the tour de france ( ''you have a flat tire ! '' ) . in early march we ran in a half_marathon in brooklyn as part of our training regimen . it was the second race i had done , and my first long distance one . the number of spectators was small , but i found myself buoyed by their enthusiastic cries of ''you 're almost there'' and ''you 're all winners . '' passing them , i raised my fist in the air and screamed , and they yelled even louder . afterward i asked guillemette what i should do to rile up the crowds while running through paris . she stared at me as if i had asked her how to turn water into wine . then she sent an e mail message with my question to her friends and family as a joke , and wrote about the shouts of confidence she had heard during the half_marathon , a discovery apparently as shocking as the fact that , yes , americans really do eat lunch at their desks . we flew to france a week before the marathon to get over jet_lag . one afternoon , while running in the countryside outside paris , we met an old man who warned guillemette that such exercise would leave her breathless . another afternoon , atop an old viaduct near the bastille , a young girl stared incredulously as we sprinted . and over dinner in an apartment above the rue du faubourg saint antoine , right on the marathon route , two of guillemette 's friends joked that they would throw food out the window to us during the race , but did not even seriously consider stepping out their door to cheer us on . after all that , i was actually surprised by how many supporters did turn out . true , most of the spectators stared in silence , there were fewer cheers per person than at the brooklyn half_marathon and some of the loudest supporters were americans . but i heard enough brass bands and cries of ''allez ! allez ! '' and ''bon courage'' from the champs_lys_es to the place de la nation to the bois de boulogne to spur me on . i finished the race with an official time of 3 hours 58 minutes 59 seconds . guillemette came in 1 hour 12 minutes later . her friend nadine was standing by the finish line and , having read guillemette 's e mail message about the brooklyn half_marathon , yelled out ''looking good ! '' in english . her brother , who had never run in his life , sprinted the last mile with her , pushing his youngest daughter in a stroller . a few days later , his legs still sore , he said he was going to start training for next year 's marathon . backtalk",has a topic of sports
"the most anticipated and potentially heated match at the french open so far serena_williams against justine_henin fizzled nearly from the start tuesday . williams , an eight time grand_slam_singles champion , hit backhands long and forehands short . she stretched her muscular limbs to put a racket on some of henin 's shots , only to double over , nearly kissing the clay . she shouted , ''c 'mon ! '' as motivation , but never took her own advice in a 6 4 , 6 3 loss in the quarterfinals that lasted only 78 minutes . only once did williams look as fierce as usual . in the second set , she threw her racket with such force and anger that it landed several feet behind her . the crowd , otherwise polite , jeered and whistled . later , williams said her performance was ''hideous and horrendous'' and worse than ever . ''serena kept hitting the balls in the net and serena kept making errors , '' she said at her news conference , then flogged herself for playing ''like a maniac . '' for henin to win , williams said , ''i think all she had to do was show up . '' exiting in the quarterfinals was particularly deflating for williams after making such a spectacular comeback to win the australian_open in january . she was ranked 81st then , after missing several months with an injured left knee . she was no . 8 in the rankings and seedings entering the french open . for the top seeded henin , tuesday 's victory was a confidence boost in her pursuit of a third consecutive title at roland_garros . henin 's coach , carlos rodr_guez , said henin was surprised at how easy it was to beat williams . later , henin said she had been braced for a tough , unpredictable match . ''i knew that mentally , she 's a real fighter and she can come back in the match at any time , '' henin said , explaining why she stayed aggressive , even when williams seemed helpless . henin had seen williams falter before only to come back . in the final at miami in march , henin dominated the first set , 6 0 , but williams rallied to win the next two and take the title . henin , a tiny ball of power compared with williams , remained stone faced throughout the match . only after williams 's final forehand hit the net did henin let her guard down . she grinned and pointed to the crowd . afterward , as the fans cheered , henin and williams shook hands and left the court smiling . the scene was entirely different four years ago , when they met in a semifinal that ended in controversy . then , williams left the court in tears as the spectators booed . a dispute over henin 's gamesmanship and a hostile crowd left a mark on that match . this time , williams , the final american in the singles draw , left dry eyed but disgusted . she will return to florida to train in the heat before wimbledon , a trip she called penance for losing here . henin will meet jelena jankovic , the fourth seed , in the semifinals . she is 5 0 against jankovic , with three victories against her this year . jankovic defeated the sixth_seeded nicole vaidisova , 6 3 , 7 5 , in another quarterfinal tuesday . she will be joined in the semifinals by her serbian compatriot ana ivanovic , seeded seventh , who beat no . 3 svetlana kuznetsova , 6 0 , 3 6 , 6 1 . kuznetsova , who complained of abdominal pain , was a finalist last year . ''wherever you go , it 's just serbians all over the place , winning all these matches , '' jankovic said . ''it 's just incredible . '' ivanovic will play no . 2 maria sharapova , who defeated a russian compatriot , no . 9 anna chakvetadze , 6 3 , 6 4 . earlier in the tournament , sharapova said she felt like ''a cow on ice'' when she played on clay , but she has managed to remain smooth enough to reach her first semifinal at roland_garros . for the men , no . 1 roger_federer advanced to the semifinals tuesday , but showed that he could be beaten at least for one set . federer set the record for consecutive sets won at a grand_slam_tournament when he took the first set against no . 9 tommy robredo , then immediately lost the second set . federer had won 36 sets in a row , a string that began at the 2006 united_states open he broke the record held by john_mcenroe since 1984 . ''well , not looking for excuses , but it was windy , '' federer said of that second set . ''i did n't play well in that set , that 's for sure . but he played solid . did n't miss much , used forehand well . ''i was actually playing wrong in that point of time . '' federer came back to win the match handily , 7 5 , 1 6 , 6 1 , 6 2 , setting up a semifinal_match against no . 4 nikolay davydenko . in the only other men 's quarterfinal tuesday , davydenko beat guillermo ca as , 7 5 , 6 4 , 6 4 . davydenko has never beaten federer in eight meetings , but ca as has figured out the secret . he is 3 1 against federer , including two victories against him in march . ''against federer nobody feel comfortable , only ca as , '' davydenko said . then , he laughed . ''you need to play your best game , '' he said . ''that 's what i need to find . '' tennis",has a topic of sports
"i have an odd confession to make . i have listened to chicago_white_sox games in baghdad . through the entire blazing summer , amid the violence and political turmoil that the new york times sent me to iraq to cover , the play by play of a comparatively trivial drama crackled in my room via internet radio as the local white_sox announcers , john rooney and ed farmer , charted the team 's quick rise and near collapse in the regular season . in my room , within a secure compound on the banks of the tigris_river , the weirdness of juggling those two story lines came home to me in july , when the sox were playing detroit after sweeping a four game series in cleveland . the sunnis had walked out of talks on the national constitution , sectarian_strife rippled across the country , and casey blake , the indians' right fielder , had said after the sweep that the white_sox were no better than the indians . hubris like blake 's did not sit well with farmer , the color man and former journeyman relief_pitcher who grew up in illinois , and who had latched on to the idea that the sox , at 62 29 and 15 games up on the indians in the american_league central , were not receiving the national respect that they deserved . besides , blake had gotten only one hit in the series . ''you just had your ears pinned back in a four game sweep ! '' farmer said , outraged . ''and you were 1 for 12 in the series ! come on ! '' call it weariness with the often murky and contradictory pronouncements of the iraqi political class , but i liked the straightforward taunt , so i laughed and wrote it down . and as july and august passed and the sox lead melted to a game and half while the indians charged , my reasons for listening to farmer and rooney changed . at first , the ordinary and comforting sounds of the ballpark were just one more way to promote an aura of sanity in a less than sane place . like a youngster hiding a portable radio in english class , i looked forward to the slightly guilty pleasure of listening in . but then , in common with most fans of a team that has n't won a world_series since 1917 , i really thought the sox might blow it , and the games became more and more of an obsession . after a while , in the ninth_inning of a close game , it no longer seemed jarring to look out over the lines of concrete blast_walls toward the tigris_river and saddam_hussein 's old palaces on the other side and hear rooney 's finely polished voice say something like , ''and there 's a looooooong throw to first for a white_sox winner ! '' it was easy to listen in with the fractional attention that most games deserved as i did other things . the time in my middle_eastern room was eight hours later than in my midwestern homeland , but radio broadcasts on both the home and away stations are archived on the league 's web_site ( www . mlb . com ) . for 7 . 95 , i got a password that let me check in on a night game the next morning . the idea of following baseball in iraq first occurred to me while watching a television broadcast of the third game of last year 's american_league_championship_series at a marine base in the region dubbed the triangle of death , south of baghdad . as a yankees hater from birth , i found boston 's humiliation in that game unpleasant , although i could n't stop watching , all the way to the end , deep into the small hours of the morning . my father was a small time sportscaster at various stops around the midwest , and although he did radio and television , his baritone pipes left me with a permanent conviction that there is something sublime about a voice doing play by play without the pictures . and distance adds another layer of complexity to a radio broadcast . at the risk of becoming all literary , like a boston fan , i recall thoreau 's assertion that it was the long passage through the woods that gave the sound of a distant train whistle its peculiar soulfulness . there is a more general kernel of truth in that observation . in 1990 , when i was working in a stubby office tower named after a russian physicist on the college campus in boulder , colo . , the broadcasts from chicago faded harrowingly in and out as white_sox closer bobby thigpen set the major_league record for saves with 57 . the broadcast would dissolve into static and men would appear on the bases . more static , and the other team was down to its last strike . thigpen would blow the ball past the final batter . in iraq , what shines through is the way in which simple sequences of things ground ball to third , he steps on the bag combine with tiny admixtures of the unexpected to make it just interesting enough . in a place where the unexpected is what everyone worries about , this is a form of homeopathic medicine you voluntarily take a little of the poison , like that surprising ground ball under the glove of boston second baseman tony graffanino in the white_sox red_sox playoff_series last week . sure , graffanino 's error caused a controlled kind of joy or anguish , depending which side you were rooting for , but as they say , life goes on . what a beautiful game . backtalk",has a topic of sports
"nice , it was another stranger than fiction day in figure_skating , a sport that seems as drawn to the melodramatic as aleksei_yagudin does to the medal stand . ''skating never ceases to amaze me on or off the ice , '' said elvis stojko , canada 's three time world champion , shaking his head after tonight 's men 's short_program . off the ice on the second day of these world_championships , the french pairs skater stephane bernadis was slashed on the arm in his hotel room , a very short walk from the arena where this event was being staged . according to french skating officials , bernadis said he heard a knock on his door at about 3 30 p.m . and opened it , thinking it was his partner , sarah abitbol . instead , bernadis told the officials that he found a man wielding a razor . although he said he shut the door quickly , he said the assailant still managed to leave him with a long cut that required ''three to four stitches'' said didier gailhaguet , the president of the french ice sports federation . bernadis later practiced briefly with abitbol while wearing a bandage on his arm . the french pair , who have never won a medal in the world_championships , are in fourth place heading into wednesday night 's decisive free program and although gailhaguet at first indicated that the injury would not affect their participation , they are expected to make a final decision on whether to compete after practicing again on wednesday . gailhaguet said he had been given no indication that this incident was linked to attempted sabotage , and even though a complaint was filed with the nice police , no assailant had been apprehended by early evening . ''stephane is o.k . , '' gailhaguet said . ''he was shocked . the injury is not serious , but he was certainly psychologically shaken . '' the incident came two days after the reigning pairs champions yelena_berezhnaya and anton_sikharulidze withdrew from this event because berezhnaya had tested positive for a banned substance . the french skaters had been assigned body guards for the duration of this competition a move taken in the wake of telephone threats received by the french ice dancer gwendal peizerat in france before the 1998 world_championships in minneapolis . but gailhaguet said that bernadis had actually asked for security to be less strict because ''he felt safe and there were no problems . '' gailhaguet also said the guard assigned to the pair was not at the hotel at the time of the incident because he had left to provide security for abitbol during a shopping trip . security at all the hotels where skaters are staying was immediately tightened . ''they have guards now on every floor and in every elevator , '' the american singles skater tim goebel said . ''i do n't feel unsafe at all . '' goebel , who finished second at the united_states championships to michael weiss , did reveal that he was not healthy , however . he offered no explanation after performing poorly in the qualifying_round on monday , but tonight , after finishing seventh in the short_program , he said he had recently strained a muscle in his lower left leg and had been receiving treatment . ''yesterday was just an off day , and i did n't want it to sound like i was making excuses , '' he said . there was no need for yagudin to make any . the two time defending world champion was brilliant again , skating last and best to a jazzy version of the ''nutcracker suite'' and landing his quadruple toe_loop and triple_axel triple_toe_combination with relative ease . he received nothing lower than 5.7 for technical merit and nothing but 5 . 9 's for presentation and is the leader heading into thursday night 's free program , which counts for 50 percent over all . in second is his russian teammate and the reigning european champion yevgeny plushenko . figure_skating",has a topic of sports
"viktor tikhonov is out as coach of the russian national hockey team after nearly 15 years running the squad that represented the former soviet_union , the weekly moscow_news reported . it said that boris mikhailov , who had been tikhonov 's chief assistant , was named to replace him . boris babich , executive director of the russian ice_hockey federation , told the associated press that tikhonov had decided to quit . "" fifteen years is just too long and we have to make greater progress , "" babich said . tikhonov was disliked by some players and federation officials for his hard style . ( ap ) sports people hockey",has a topic of sports
"lead baedeker , the trusted world travel guide , offers some forbidding advice to a horseplayer visiting japan ''betting is under state control and offers poor odds . in particular the system is so complicated that it is virtually impossible for foreigners to participate . '' baedeker , the trusted world travel guide , offers some forbidding advice to a horseplayer visiting japan ''betting is under state control and offers poor odds . in particular the system is so complicated that it is virtually impossible for foreigners to participate . '' to this foreigner , that sounded mighty like a dare , and the challenge was accepted . we were merely willing to dine on eel and jellyfish , and merely resigned to paying 8 for a cup of coffee , but absolutely determined to make and cash a bet here in the land of the rising yen . there are two types of thoroughbred horse racing in japan at small regional tracks , where second class racing is conducted by local_governments , and at the major tracks , where rich racing is conducted by the national government under the auspices of the japan racing association . being broad minded sort of travelers , wishing to taste the full variety of japanese culture , we thought it was only right to try both types . a night at the races the first stop was oi rhymes with ' 'snowy'' a local government track located eight miles south of tokyo . oi is sort of the meadowlands of japan , presenting horses a notch below the very best but the only night racing in town . our japanese hosts provided the local racing sheets . there are five competing versions of the equivalent of the daily racing form , all printed only in japanese . we were , however , able to make out the system by which the public handicappers designated their top selection a double hoop above the horse 's name seemed to mean ''best bet . '' we have made larger bets on even less information . so it was decided to risk 5 , 000 yen about 38 on the chances of a son of kauai king named kauai fountain , no . 8 in the program . he also was the top choice of a selector calling himself ''chief track man . '' there was nothing terribly complicated about the betting system . accompanied by an interpreter , who proved unnecessary , we walked to the window , handed over 5 , 000 yen and held up eight fingers . ''win ? '' asked the clerk . we nodded , and the bet was struck . kauai fountain won easily at odds of 3 to 1 , and the international bankroll was up to 15 , 000 yen . we stayed for only one more event , and managed to give back only 6 , 000 yen on a slow grandson of northern_dancer . takamatsu no miya cup several days later , we tried again at chukyo , a huge , modern track near nagoya , the nation 's third largest city with a population of more than two million . the featured event was the grade two takamatsu no miya cup , at 2 , 000 meters ( just about the kentucky_derby distance of 1 1 4 miles ) . the heavy favorite was oguri cap , who began his career at the local government tracks and made a rare leap to the major circuit , where he had won four consecutive stakes races , as if a claimer from west_virginia had become the best horse at belmont_park . oguri cap , a 3 year old grandson of native dancer , might have won some or all of japan 's triple_crown races this spring , but he was not nominated to them because of his humble beginnings . his chukyo debut was also his first start against older horses , but he was still the 1 to 10 favorite , far too short a price for any self respecting horseplayer to accept . it was time to move into the realm of exotic betting , to hook up oguri cap with someone else in the race in order to improve the price . the only forms of betting offered at japanese tracks are win place and quinella , so the latter was the way to go . who would run second to oguri cap ? the public selectors all favored a son of bravest roman named land hiryu , meaning flying dragon , and we liked two longshots who looked lively in the paddock . so we decided to go for broke and divided our 9 , 000 yen bankroll into three parts , taking quinellas of oguri boy with land hiryu and our two longshots for 3 , 000 yen apiece . oguri boy rallies it should have been a superfecta . oguri boy rallied strongly to run down land hiryu in deep stretch , with the two longshots finishing third and fourth . what an easy game ! we went to cash our winning 3 , 000 yen quinella with one of the ticket clerks . either baedeker was right about the odds being poor , or we had just hit the smallest quinella in asian racing history , the equivalent of 3 . 40 for 2 , or 5 , 100 yen for our 3 , 000 yen quinella . we could have done nearly twice as well just putting the whole 9 , 000 yen on oguri cap to win . our profits for the trip were now down to a single tin coin worth 100 yen , about 77 cents . but not to despair . one can buy many things for 100 yen in japan these days , such as a box of wooden matches , or about an eighth of a cup of coffee . in any language , it beats losing .",has a topic of sports
"lead how does a staten_island native who speaks only english become a star of the french national basketball_team ? by having a mother who is a french citizen . that was enough to get geraldine saintilus , a junior forward for seton_hall and a former big_east rookie of the year , invited to try out for the french team in mid july . how does a staten_island native who speaks only english become a star of the french national basketball_team ? by having a mother who is a french citizen . that was enough to get geraldine saintilus , a junior forward for seton_hall and a former big_east rookie of the year , invited to try out for the french team in mid july . to her surprise , she made the team , and now plans to stay with it at least until the end of the european national championships , sept . 5 11 in spain . if france finishes in the top four there , it will move into a qualifying_tournament for the 1988 olympics . ''i do n't think i can fully understand what a great experience this is until i come home and have a chance to let it sink in , '' said saintilus , whose mother was born in french guyana and whose father is haitian . ''i have to admit i miss home , though , '' saintilus said . ''i have had a difficult time with the language . everything i do is affected by that , both on and off the court . the other girls on the team speak some english and they are very helpful , but it 's still very tough . ''",has a topic of sports
"the men 's high bar individual final last night in athens exemplifies what infuriates some people about how nbc ( and other networks before it ) present a taped olympics from outside the united_states namely how they save the best events for prime time . and under nbc , the end of prime time has extended from 11 p.m . to midnight , the better to sell advertising to offset a 793 million rights fee . by the time nbc showed the high bar final at 11 11 eastern , eight hours had passed since the event . the controversy that ensued from the cascade of boos for the 9 . 725 score for aleksei nemov 's routine until judges upgraded it , to the continued jeering that kept paul hamm from starting his routine for about eight minutes was ignored by nbc in the afternoon and by its cable networks , despite the time to report it during an olympic update on msnbc from 4 to 5 p.m . ( based on practice , it would not go live with an athletic imbroglio a terrorist incident would be a very different circumstance ) . in new york , channel 4 's sports report by len berman made no mention of it . but 12 minutes into the nbc_nightly_news , brian_williams delivered a brief report , accompanied by still photographs because no one can break the embargo on using olympic highlights until after they are seen in prime time . ''another scoring controversy erupted , causing a raucous clash between the crowd and judges , '' williams said . ''the fate of the american paul hamm hung in the balance . it all airs in prime time tonight on nbc . '' the program last night would have to go through the decathlon , the women 's gymnastic individual finals , the women 's 200 meter heats and the men 's parallel bars finals before nbc got to the high bar . too late ? perhaps . but that 's the way it is , and has been since abc_sports invented the format . put it on at 8 30 or 9 30 , and too few people see it . this was climax of the night material , and hopefully those who were wobbling toward nighty night on the east_coast stayed up to see it . in the end , nbc handled the 24 minute event with aplomb and plenty of outrage . when nemov 's score popped up , nbc 's al trautwig said to his colleagues elfi schlegel and tim daggett , ''you guys are n't going to believe this . '' ''sometimes , '' daggett said , ''judges just make mistakes . '' nbc 's camera cut from nemov to hamm to the angry crowd . ''this is amazing , '' trautwig said . as an official from the international gymnastics federation arrived at the judges' table , trautwig pointed out the malaysian and canadian judges , whose marks pushed nemov 's overall score down . ''they have to change the score , '' said trautwig , now more advocate than announcer . ''they will , '' said daggett . ''a 9.6 on that is inexcusable . '' nemov , a beloved and storied figure in gymnastics , now began to gesture to the crowd that he was grateful for their support and that they needed to calm down . nbc shifted from nemov to hamm and his brother , morgan , to the malaysian judge and back to nemov . finally , nbc 's camera found a computer screen on the judge 's table that showed how the malaysian and canadian judges had raised their scores . nemov was now up to a 9 . 762 , but it still did n't push him to first place . ''it 's still too low , '' said daggett . the boos continued , and trautwig , his indignation rising , said ''this is not right . i do n't care who would be up next . '' the reference was to the all around gold_medal that hamm won last week but which south_korea protested because a scoring dispute on the parallel bars forced yang tae young to accept a bronze . ( interestingly , early yesterday , daggett explained on nbc that yang did n't get the deductions he should have received for executing an extra hold during his routine . ) finally , nemov rose to the platform , gestured again for quiet , and got it , allowing hamm to do his routine . gradually , there was applause for him , but booing began again when hamm was given a 9 . 812 . ''now what are they doing ? '' a frustrated trautwig said . ''now they 've put paul hamm in a position where he 'll have to explain another gold . '' trautwig was a trifle premature . italy 's igor cassina followed hamm , with what daggett said was potentially a gold_medal routine . after cassina showed two incredible flying , twisting movements ''outrageous gymnastics , '' daggett called them , trautwig asked if he was crazy to suggest that hamm was hoping for cassina to win . ''no , i do n't think it 's crazy at all , '' daggett said . ''i 'd say that routine should do it because of elements like this . '' cassina 's 9 . 812 tied hamm , but cassina took the gold with a better tie_breaker . in the end to a breathless part of the broadcast , trautwig asked , ''what 's the summary here ? '' ''i 'm speechless over the judging , '' daggett said . ''hopefully , some changes can be made . they 've got to be . the athletes deserve it . '' tv sports",has a topic of sports
"as he listened to the questions being translated into japanese , his sunglasses were perched atop his blue "" la "" cap and he held his hands behind his blue jersey with "" dodgers "" in white across the chest above a red 16 . sometimes he smiled , sometimes he shook his head , sometimes he muttered , "" mmmmmmm . "" but when hideo_nomo was asked if he was overwhelmed by all this attention , he answered quickly , in english . "" yes , "" he said . at tonight 's all star game , more clouds than stars will be in baseball 's sky because of its lingering labor dispute , but between all those clouds is a rising sun . hideo_nomo is the dawn of the future , not only the first japanese player to merit making an all star squad but the national_league 's starting_pitcher . sometime in the next decade or two there will be a real world world_series our world_series champion against japan 's best team . "" that 's the japanese obsession , "" said tom lasorda , the dodger manager . "" to have a real world_series and beat the americans . "" when that happens , hideo_nomo , a 26 year old right hander whose wife and son have remained in japan , will be remembered as the first japanese missionary who proved he was as good as any of our major_leagues' best . "" the level of play in japan is pretty much the same as it is here , "" he said . "" there are talented players in japan just like here . "" nearly half a century ago , jackie_robinson was the first of the african_american players in the big leagues , then roberto_clemente , orlando cepeda , juan marichal , minnie minoso and luis aparicio were the best of the early latin_american players . and now there 's hideo_nomo . "" the all star game is not just americans , "" he said . "" i see more coming here from all countries , not just japan . "" but when asked if he felt any "" undue pressure "" because of all the attention on him , he listened to the translation and had another quick answer that his interpreter , kent brown , relayed . "" no , "" he said . at a sturdy 6 feet , 2 inches and 210 pounds , he has a 6 1 record with a 1 . 99 earned_run_average . his opposing batters are hitting . 158 . his 119 strikeouts lead the league his 50 strikeouts over four starts broke the dodger record of 49 that supposedly had been chiseled in granite by sandy koufax . he 's done it with a windup that resembles a fast_food counterperson turning to grab a hamburger before tossing it onto a tray . "" i did n't have anybody to teach me , "" he said , alluding to his windup . "" this is the way i learned how to throw that is most effective for me . "" his forkball , alias split fingered fastball , is his two strike pitch . "" i listened to others in japan , "" he said , "" and developed my own . "" maybe his second time around the league , he wo n't be so effective . maybe he 'll develop arm trouble . but over five seasons with the kintetsu_buffaloes of japan 's pacific_league he had a 78 46 record with a 3 . 15 e.r.a. , including 1 , 204 strikeouts . he declared his "" voluntary retirement "" there in order to be eligible to go to the united_states to pitch . accompanied by an american agent , don_nomura , he visited the seattle_mariners and the san_francisco_giants before stopping in los_angeles , then was scheduled to visit the yankees , the atlanta_braves and the florida_marlins . when the dodgers owner , peter o'malley , offered a 2 million signing_bonus to go with the 109 , 000 minimum salary , he signed . o'malley had relied on information from what he called a "" great number of longtime friends "" in the orient over four decades of dodger trips there . "" when he came to vero beach , "" lasorda recalled , "" i told our coaches , 'i do n't want nobody trying to change him . let 's see what he 's got . ' his windup did n't bother me . luis tiant got hitters out with that windup . "" but in spring_training his pitches were higher than lasorda wanted . in japan , where the strike_zone is higher than it is here , those pitches had been called strikes . but the n.l . strike_zone is much lower than the japanese strike_zone , even lower than the american_league strike_zone . "" when he gets two strikes , watch out for the forkball , "" lasorda said . "" and he 's been striking out good hitters . "" tonight he 'll be facing the american_league 's best hitters . but he knows who they are , saying , "" i 've seen them on television . "" and they know who he is .",has a topic of sports
"there were concerns in this northern suburb of paris that michael johnson 's sore right hamstring might keep him from crossing the atlantic and headlining this grand_prix meet . johnson came and , with the crowd cheering him on wildly , he did not disappoint tonight , cruising in his uniquely rigid style to his 20th straight victory in the 200 meters in a meet record 20 . 23 seconds . but the texan was not the most impressive sprinter on the program . that honor belonged to a namibian , frankie fredericks . fredericks 's time of 9 . 95 seconds in the 100 meters matched the personal best he established in 1991 and re established him as a threat for olympic gold in atlanta next month . only three men have run faster this season ato boldon , the u.c.l.a . senior who ran 9 . 92 on saturday at the national_collegiate_athletic_association championships dennis mitchell , who ran 9 . 93 at the grand_prix stop in atlanta last month , and carl_lewis , who finished second to mitchell in 9 . 94 . but mitchell 's and lewis 's times were slightly wind aided . fredericks 's was not , and he might have gone faster if the nigerian olapade adeniken had been able to push him down the stretch . "" i did not expect to run this fast tonight , but i got a great start , "" said fredericks , an olympic silver medalist in the 100 and 200 in 1992 . in recent years , fredericks has had more success in the 200 , winning the world championship in 1993 . but at age 28 , he has regained his form over the shorter distance and gives some of the credit to the defending olympic 100 meter champion linford_christie , the 36 year old briton with whom fredericks trained in australia and florida in recent months . fredericks has not decided whether he will run both the 100 and 200 . there are no doubts about johnson 's intentions . the olympic schedule has been rearranged to make his unprecedented 200 400 double possible . but after dominating both events for the last two years , there have been whiffs of vulnerability of late . in atlanta , a fellow american , mike marsh , pushed him hard in the 200 , losing the edge down the stretch as johnson barely won in 19 . 83 seconds . johnson then pulled out of the prefontaine classic in eugene , ore . , with a sore hamstring . his time tonight was far from spectacular , but he said his right leg did not bother him and that he anticipated no problem when the olympic trials begin later this month . "" this race let me know everything was fine , "" johnson said . "" the time was n't important . i was a little tentative coming out of the blocks . i did n't want to just blast out . i wanted to take it easy the first part of the race to make sure it would hold up , and it did . "" in other events , marie jose perec of france won the women 's 200 in 22 . 30 seconds . lyudmila narozhilenko enquist , the former soviet who is now running for sweden after serving a two year suspension for using a banned substance , won the women 's 100 meter_hurdles in 12 . 61 seconds . derartu tulu of ethiopia won the women 's 5 , 000 in 14 minutes 50 . 89 seconds . track_field",has a topic of sports
"before gloom , doom , fog and brown_tide swallow up major_league_baseball , let this be said its all star game outdraws those of all other sports . there is still potency in one of the beleaguered sport 's family jewels . but how much of that power will be evident tonight during abc 's telecast ? will the game 's nielsen_rating approach last year 's pre strike 15 . 7 ? will it drop by as much as baseball 's 20 percent attendance decline ? will the relative meaninglessness of the midseason exhibition be rendered more meaningful than before ? will viewers opt instead for nick at nite 's "" i love lucy "" 8 11 p.m . marathon ( including stomping grapes in italy ) , nbc 's "" frasier , "" cbs 's "" rescue 911 "" or american movie classics' "" thunderhead son of flicka "" ? for abc 's tim_mccarver , a player in the 1966 and 1967 all star games , and the broadcaster of six others , the first post strike all star game the first post strike broadcast network game may be of paramount importance . "" it could be a good jump start for the second half if it 's a great_game with great performances , "" he said yesterday from arlington , tex . "" if hideo_nomo strikes out seven of nine hitters . if tony gwynn gets four or five hits . i think it can really escalate attendance in some ball parks and get people talking . "" mccarver who felt his glove hand nearly flatten from tom seaver 's stinging fastballs in the 15th inning of the 1967 game said that he expects to feel subtle pressure to do or say something extra to make tonight 's game special . "" i do n't feel any direct pressure , "" he said . "" realistically , i 'm not going to make any overly dramatic comments . you try to handle this like any other all star game , with the realization that it 's not like any other . it should be like any other one , and in this one , the big story should be nomo . it 's not an important game , but it 's important to baseball . with the atmosphere , it is more important than the six others i 've done . "" but whether it 's a blowout , a slugfest or a pitchers' duel , no one should make too much of the all star game . it 's no secret that only a labor deal can change baseball 's tarnished image , not personal appearances or autographs . "" saying players will sign autographs had a ring of artificiality to it , "" he said . "" but it 's an unfair rap . in what other sport are players supposed to sign autographs a half hour before the game ? do fans lean over the boards at hockey for autographs ? as long as there 's speculation a labor deal wo n't be done , why should a fan invest money in tickets to games ? "" the strike 's damage may continue to be discussed , but that 's not what concerns pancho ito , the self proclaimed tim_mccarver of the fuji television crew that will call the all star game for viewers in japan . that concern is , naturally , nomo . fuji tv , and nhk , a second network , will carry the game live . "" forty to 50 percent of all baseball fans will watch , "" he said . "" we 're expecting a 15 rating . "" that compares with a 25 to 30 for the japan_series . ito said there are more japanese players in their prime playing years who want to play in the major_leagues . "" they want to play in the big leagues , "" he said , "" but i think the league president might be very upset . "" the party most upset by nomo 's smashing first half season with the dodgers is his former team , the kintetsu_buffaloes , for whom he played since 1989 . said ito "" their president resigned after he could n't get nomo to stay . "" but for the most part , ito said , japanese fans are happy about nomo 's 6 1 start , as evidenced by the run on nomo merchandise in japanese stores . "" we 're all very excited , "" he said . "" it 's fanatastic . "" how do you say , "" oh , baby , i love it , "" in japanese ? at the net nbc 's john_mcenroe was scintillating on the wimbledon telecasts , whether it was insulting ivan_lendl 's golfing skills , joking about his tantrums as a player , or being brazenly blunt about a player . chris_evert , already working at a high level , seemed enlivened during her time on air with him . dick enberg was a quantum leap more at ease than he is on golf . what of bud collins ? relegated to interviews , he was almost invisible . i missed his madcap ways and historical knowledge , but not his grunts or chattering . nbc and hbo both paid a lot more money to retain their wimbledon rights and they got good news nbc 's wimbledon men 's final telecast on sunday produced a 5.6 overnight nielsen_rating , up 68 percent from last year the women 's final on saturday rated a 5 . 3 , up 4 percent . hbo 's overall rating rose 36 percent . the good and the bad good yarns about boston 's mo vaughn and others made nbc 's "" baseball 's brightest stars "" on saturday worth watching . . . . espn 's "" voices of the game , "" about great baseball announcers , was so good that it begat a disappointing sequel , which will air on sunday . this one uses 20 voices to tell the story of franchise movement and expansion but the presence of so many means no single one says much . . . . jim dolan , doing fill in weekend sportscasting at wabc_tv channel 7 , tosses around creative yet lugubrious phrases like "" smoking like a pinto in a rear end collision "" to augment clips . it 's amusing but numbing jim , relax , turn down the volume . tv sports",has a topic of sports
"you are fox_sports and you have a message your world_series demographics last year were better than nbc 's for the summer_olympics . so you take out full page newspaper advertisements that gleefully trumpet and , to some degree , distort your statistical side of the story . in the ads , you morph images of mets and yankees players in olympic poses ( mike_piazza hurdling in catching mufti , roger_clemens in a bodsled ) and tell your tale among men 18 to 34 , the world_series rating was 44 percent higher than the summer games rating , and for men 18 to 49 , the world_series won by 22 percent . ''to quote jack webb , we just wanted to get the facts out , to show how well baseball has done , '' david hill , chairman of the fox_sports television group , said . the campaign is part of a joint marketing effort by fox and major_league_baseball begun last year after fox_sports acquired five seasons of network and cable_television rights for 2 . 5 billion . ''advertisers look for the best way to spend their money , and if two or three advertisers' eyes are opened to the value of the world_series , we 've done our job , '' hill said . the newspaper ads , which have run the past week , oversell the message by distorting it slightly . headlines say , ''mlb demos 44 vs . olympics'' and ''mlb postseason demos more upscale than summer games . '' that implies that the demographics are for more than just the world_series , which they are not . ''we do n't believe a single media buyer would fall for this , '' said dick ebersol , the chairman of nbc_sports . ''it 's apples and oranges . '' while the fox baseball ads compare the two events' male demographics , those young males are not nbc 's olympic raison d' tre . ''they 're sold as the biggest event in sports television for the family , not just women , not just young men , and not just children , '' ebersol said . he added , ''this is all rather sad , silly and desperate . '' and serious enough for the united_states_olympic_committee to have demanded last week that fox cease using the olympic name . ''what escapes the notice of most people is that nbc is our most important sponsor , '' said matt mannelly , chief marketing officer of the u.s.o.c . ''this type of marketing takes money out of the pockets of our athletes . anyone who does anything to take aim at nbc is engaged in ambush marketing . '' lou d'ermilio , a fox spokesman , said that the network disagreed with the u.s.o.c . but that it would proceed with the campaign for two more weeks with mentions of olympics replaced by summer games . mannelly said fox 's alteration could evade infringement of the u.s.o.c . 's rights , but ''it still creates an association in the consumers' minds with the olympics . '' he also wondered why major_league_baseball was part of a campaign that questioned the impact of the olympics . ''major_league_baseball is one of our partners , '' mannelly said . ''it did a tremendous job putting together the gold_medal winning team in sydney . '' tim brosnan , an executive vice_president of major_league_baseball , said ''the campaign is not meant to disparage anyone . it 's intended to highlight good demographics for baseball . '' gehrig 's digital remake if a greater speech than lou_gehrig 's farewell to baseball exists in sports , find it . to a nearly packed yankee_stadium , gehrig delivered a short , impromptu and unforgettable oration . leave it to alcatel , a telecommunications company based in france , to use it for commercial gain . alcatel is pushing a campaign that asks what would happen if there were no audiences to hear the ideas in famous speeches . in its first commercial , it used industrial light and magic 's technology to empty the washington mall of the crowds that heard martin_luther_king_jr . deliver his ''i have a dream'' speech . starting monday , a new alcatel spot will do the same for gehrig 's ''luckiest man'' speech . part of the commercial will show him speaking to a digitally altered , empty ballpark . the campaign verges on the unthinkable can anyone imagine king or gehrig speaking to no one ? why would an estate license the rights of an icon 's best known words to alcatel ? ''it 's designed to make people question if those powerful words did not connect with people , '' said brad burns , senior vice_president for corporate communications at alcatel . the company understands , and even seems to relish , that by reimagining the king and gehrig speeches , it will generate renown and notoriety that will not hurt its image with its customers , investors and employees . ''it 's our intention to honor lou_gehrig 's legacy , '' burns said . george pollack , the executor of the estate of gehrig 's widow , eleanor , said he licensed gehrig 's name and likeness to bring more attention to the funds needed to research the disease named for the yankee , amyotrophic_lateral_sclerosis . ''i 'm on safe ground in saying lou_gehrig would want his image and name used to help treat or cure a.l.s . patients , '' pollack said , adding ''on balance , we are not endorsing the alcatel product . no way . '' the estate received a six figure fee . the money will go to a fund in the gehrigs' name at columbia presbyterian hospital benefiting a.l.s . research and the rip van winkle foundation , which was founded by gehrig 's doctor and supports medical research . pollack said the notion of anyone gaining commercially from gehrig 's famous words can be viewed in different ways . alcatel is using the speech for its benefit , but a.l.s . charities also benefit . yet , he added ''when espn interviews me for three hours , uses the speech and sells commercials for a show about lou , a.l.s . does n't get a nickel . i know that doing this will help a.l.s . patients . '' tv sports",has a topic of sports
"paris on sunday shut down the champs_lys_es for a huge street party in support of its effort to be selected as the host of the 2012 olympic_games . the event provided a poignant counterpoint to the gloomy political mood that has pervaded france since it rejected the european_union 's constitution last month . while madrid , another contender for the games , held a similar event on sunday , the daylong sports festival in paris carried more symbolism as both officials and citizens tried to look beyond france 's economic and political malaise toward what most agree would be a prize around which people could unite . ''the french have had it with politics , the social situation , everything , '' said rapha lle monteau , a television_producer watching a table_tennis match on the avenue with her two children . ''the games would boost morale . '' the olympic_committee will issue a report on monday evaluating the efforts of the five cities in contention . their decision will be announced on july 6 . many people regard paris as the front runner for the 2012 games , partly because the city already has about two thirds of the required venues in place and its plans to build the rest are neither prohibitively_expensive nor politically difficult . new york , by contrast , has yet to win 300 million in public financing for a stadium it would build on the west side of manhattan . if the stadium issue is not resolved , new york 's chances of landing the games may be diminished . on friday , supporters postponed a vote on the financing in albany when they appeared destined to lose . in new york on sunday , intense lobbying by mayor michael r . bloomberg failed to break the political logjam . the leader of the state_assembly , sheldon_silver , met several times with the mayor throughout the day , but said he remained opposed to the stadium proposal . madrid would have to do far more building than would paris one proposed stadium would cost more than all of the construction planned by paris combined . moscow , another candidate , has already been the host for more international championships in olympic sports than any of the other candidates and , plagued by power failures and organized_crime , is not believed to be the likely choice . london , which plans a new rail line to connect the city with stratford , where most of the events would be held , is considered the most serious competition to paris . there is a widespread feeling in france that this country needs a lift and that losing the olympics again the city lost the chance to be host for the 2008 games to beijing would only deepen the sense that it has lost its direction . france has been gripped in a torturous struggle between the government and powerful unions over the future of expensive worker entitlements that the government insists that the country can no longer afford . the economy has sputtered and unemployment has surged , while frequent strikes have played havoc with people 's lives . one result has been widespread popular discontent , which found an outlet in the may 29 referendum on the european_union constitution . the overwhelming no that voters delivered was less about the constitution , which few people read or understood , than it was about frustration with the status_quo . in response , president jacques_chirac reshuffled his already well shuffled cabinet in a vain effort to appease the public , but the national temper remains grim . that was the context to the festivities on sunday , which turned the champs_lys_es into a long series of sporting arenas , from a running track near the arc de triomphe to a swimming_pool near place de la concorde . olympic athletes and sporting clubs put on exhibitions of everything from fencing to baseball . children were invited to participate between events . of course , no one believes that if paris is chosen the host for the olympics , it will solve the country 's many problems . there was still plenty of pessimism to go around on sunday . ''the reality is that companies are moving to the countries in the east , '' said philippe wramour , a mechanic , when asked if paris 's being chosen would help france . the loss of jobs to the european_union 's new members in the former soviet_bloc is among the most emotional issues causing anger toward the government . ''it 's a mess here , '' mr . wramour said . many people worry that the country 's frequent strikes could cost paris its chance to be the host . unions angry at the government 's effort to loosen the rules around the country 's 35 hour_workweek called a strike the day that the olympic inspection committee came to town in march . but the olympics is a popular cause here . even many of the striking workers wore paris 2012 t shirts . ''to have the games would bring a little fun , as you say , a breath of fresh_air , '' said beno t g nuini , president of the french operation of accenture , a global consulting company , on a balcony of the louvre last week during an event to highlight the city 's cultural attractions as an olympic host . he remarked that the country was morose and that the city itself had become a sort of museum . ''the games would put paris back in the saddle and lead it into the 21st_century , '' he said , ''get it out of its stupor . ''",has a topic of sports
"the surprise 400 meter champion won late at night while wearing sunglasses . a kenyan native won the steeplechase but ran a victory lap while carrying the flag of qatar . an american sprint phenom turned pro right out of high_school . expected champions wilted like tourists on an endless line at the louvre . few track and field meets have proved as bizarre as these ninth world_championships of the international association of athletics federations . the strangeness began last saturday , when an afghan woman who had never stepped on a track ran the 100 meters in a t_shirt and long pants . a day later , jon drummond of the united_states lay on the track and refused to leave in protest of a controversial false start rule . today , the weirdness continued . tyree washington of the united_states had not lost a 400 meter race all season , but he ran a sluggish race tonight , losing to his teammate jerome young , who took the world championship in 44 . 50 seconds . a look of resignation crossing his face , washington finished second in 44 . 77 , far slower than his world best of 44 . 33 , which he had posted in winning the national championship in june . he said he felt shellshocked at not winning . he returned to track this season after taking a sabbatical last year , in part because his sister was on trial and later convicted of killing her 18 month old daughter . washington appeared rejuvenated this season , ready to replace the retired michael johnson as the world 's best quarter miler . but young has that title now . ''i think i 'm tired , '' washington said . ''taking 18 months off and coming back , i think i felt it a little tonight . '' a native of jamaica , young grew up in hartford and was persuaded by a teacher to try track and field at prince technical high_school . he became an american citizen in 1995 and attended st . augustine 's college in raleigh , n.c . he won national titles in the 400 in 1998 and 1999 , but until tonight his greatest international accomplishment had come as a member of the gold_medal winning 4x400 relay team at the 2000 sydney olympics . now he has a medal he does not have to share . the gold was unexpected , given that young had not run under 45 seconds the past two years . ''i knew that if i stayed focused on myself and not worried about anyone else and stayed in contact coming off the turn , i 'd do good , '' young said . for odd occurrences , little can match tonight 's 3 , 000 meter steeplechase . the winner was saif saeed shaheen of qatar , who until a couple of weeks ago was known as stephen cherono of kenya . he changed his name and citizenship after qatar agreed to pay him a monthly sum of 1 , 000 for the rest of his life . the steeplechase has been dominated by kenyans , who had won the world championship six consecutive times . shaheen and a teammate rushed to the lead early , and the kenyans became desperate to keep up . first , shaheen 's brother , abraham cherono , tried to stay with shaheen , but he could not hold the pace . then ezekiel kemboi sprinted furiously to pass shaheen with two laps left , slowing down the race , trying to control it . exchanging the lead , shaheen and kemboi engaged in a riveting finish as a crowd of 54 , 340 cheered wildly at the stade de france . they cleared the final hurdle together with about 70 meters left , then kemboi edged into the lead , only to be passed in the final 25 meters by shaheen , who seemed to be grasping fistfuls of air with his hands as he sprinted toward the finish . he won in 8 minutes 4 . 39 seconds after running the last lap in 57 . 4 seconds . ''fifty percent of the people are so happy with my decision , and 50 percent are not happy , '' shaheen said of opinion in kenya . ''in qatar they are proud for the first gold ever won by a qatari . '' he did not speak with abraham before or after the race . ''my brother is a kenyan i am a qatari now , '' shaheen said . although perhaps not everyone believed him , kemboi , the silver medalist , said he was not upset that a qatari had won . ''he 's still a kenyan , '' kemboi said of shaheen . ''he has been in kenya since he was born until now . it 's like kenya won the medal . '' just as the kenyans fell , so did other favorites . gail devers of the united_states , a three time world champion in the women 's 100 meter_hurdles , clipped the fourth hurdle in the semifinals and twisted awkwardly as she landed . thrown off stride , she did not qualify for the final . one of the sport 's most dominant athletes , lars riedel of germany , failed in his attempt to win a sixth world title in the discus , finishing fourth . in the men 's 200 , the reigning world and olympic champion , konstadinos kederis of greece , withdrew with a hamstring injury . also today , drummond withdrew from the meet as the i.a.a.f. , track and field 's governing body , threatened to suspend him for his behavior on sunday . the americans' chances in the 4x100 relay seemed to dim further when tim montgomery , the world record holder at 100 meters , left after finishing a disappointing fifth in the 100 on monday . it was unclear why he left , a usa track and field spokeswoman said . in the women 's 200 , the high_school star allyson felix of los_angeles had posted the world 's fastest time this year , 22 . 11 seconds , in may . tonight , though , she appeared spent after a long season and finished sixth in her heat in 23 . 33 and did not advance to the semifinals . felix plans to enter the university_of_southern_california , but she will not compete for the trojans' track team . instead , felix announced today that she had turned professional , signing a six year contract with adidas that will pay her tuition at u.s.c . many consider college track harmful to the development of sprinters because they are forced to run too many races . this figured significantly in her decision , the 17 year old felix said . ''you have to take it into consideration because you do n't want your season to be too long in an olympic year , '' felix said , already looking to the 2004 summer games in athens . track and field",has a topic of sports
"he is a frenchman who has always been tugged by his wanderlust first to new york , then back to france , off to hong_kong , before landing in california and then a summer stop here upstate . no matter where he lights , patrick biancone distinguishes himself as a horse trainer . some remember his two victories in the prix de l'arc de triomphe in the early 1980 's , or the jet setting filly and turf runner he campaigned on both sides of the atlantic named all along , who was named horse of the year in 1983 in the united_states . he even captured the hong kong derby twice in the 1990 's . but since coming to saratoga with his own stable last year , biancone , 50 , was committed to realizing an american_dream , one particular to the sport of kings , that he first tasted 20 years ago as an assistant to the hall of famer leroy jolley . ''the american_dream is dirt racing , '' said biancone , who until returning stateside was considered a peerless trainer of grass horses . ''if i wanted to train horses on the turf , i would go to europe . i noticed last year that if you want to have a very good horse at 3 , you have to be able to perform well at 2 . '' as his colt whywhywhy showed today by romping off with the grade_ii , 150 , 000 sanford stakes for 2 year olds , biancone has learned his lessons well . whywhywhy , a son of mr . greeley , may have failed to inspire bettors he paid a generous 11 . 80 for a 2 bet but he overcame a disastrous start to win by an emphatic 2 3 4 lengths over eight others in a rapid time of 1 10 . 40 for three quarters of a mile . asked his reaction when whywhywhy was pinched coming out of the gate by a colt named posse on the inside and hear no evil on the outside , biancone blurted out an expression that was neither french nor printable . he caught himself and with a wry smile explained that he believed that his inexperienced colt , who had persevered to capture the flash stakes last month at belmont , may have made another rookie mistake . ''when the gates opened , i thought we were done , '' biancone said before becoming buoyed by a wicked , 21 . 74 second quarter mile that hussar and run production were tossing off in the front of a strung out pack . ''but when i saw 21 and change , i thought now we have a good chance . the plan was to sit behind anyway . the first time he was beaten when we rushed him a little at the start and he forgot to breathe . he was just a baby . now he 's starting to be more mature . '' the colt 's rider , edgar prado , refused to panic when whywhywhy was better than seven lengths behind the leaders as they sizzled down the backstretch . instead , prado reflected on what biancone had told him about the rigorous training he had put the colt under . ''if they break slow , do n't rush him , '' biancone told prado in the paddock . ''he 's been working inside horses , outside and behind them in the mornings . '' so while jerry_bailey , aboard the favorite , wildcat heir , waited_patiently for hussar and run production to run out of gas , prado moved his colt four wide around the turn and staked out the middle of the track as the field hit the stretch . wildcat heir briefly held the lead . but bailey felt the power of his colt draining beneath him . ''he ran as good as he could , '' bailey said . ''he 's got a problem getting all of his air . i could feel it and hear it . '' when whywhywhy zoomed by in midstretch , biancone had another famous race to add to his r sum , as well as a 90 , 000 first place check to split as part owner of the colt . the sanford , after all , is the same race secretariat and affirmed used as a springboard to sweep the triple_crown . scarier still , however , is that whywhywhy is the trainer 's second string 2 year old . the star of his barn , as well as the juvenile division , is zavata , who just missed breaking the track record at belmont_park for five and a half furlongs when he rocketed to a 6 1 4 length victory in the tremont stakes last month . biancone decided to wait until the grade_ii saratoga special on aug . 14 for zavata 's next start . now , he has the kind of problem every trainer on the backstretch would like to have how to keep his two stars apart . he is apparently not worried . ''i think they will discuss it together between the two of them , '' biancone said . ''then , they 'll tell me what to do . '' of course , he 's counting on one or both of them to lead him to another destination that he has not seen much of louisville and the kentucky_derby . horse_racing",has a topic of sports
"in the inky blackness of the alpine night , 15 , 000 of jean_claude_killy 's friends roared their appreciation tonight for their olympics . oh , sure , it has n't actually started yet . but that was just a formality . killy , the man from nearby val_d'isere , is the hero hereabouts . he won the three men 's alpine gold medals in the 1968 olympics at grenoble , and was the mastermind behind bringing the winter_games to albertville . he serves as the co chairman of the organizing_committee . and tonight he gave a party by inviting every one of his neighbors from the savoy region in free to view the rehearsal for the opening ceremonies . "" jean_claude wanted people from the savoy who did n't have tickets to be able to see the games , "" explained a member of the organizing_committee . the cost for opening day will be about 250 a ticket . so they streamed into what has been dubbed the world 's largest temporary stadium , where 30 , 000 people on saturday will view the real opening ceremonies . killy did n't stop at inviting people to watch free , though . he brought in kids as participants in a ceremony that captured the imagination of the crowd and lent a tender touch to the rehearsal . the schoolchildren of albertville took the place of the athletes who will march on saturday . of course , the youngsters were too small to carry the flags . so , for example , an adult came out hoisting the flag of greece , traditionally the first country to parade . but instead of muscled young men and women following , children dressed in snowsuits , parkas and ski clothes marched in . then in alphabetical order , starting with algeria , more youngsters filed in while killy , beaming , observed the goings on with other french officials . he sat in the center of a private section , proud of what he had accomplished . this is what they think of killy here when the names of president francois mitterand of france and the head of the international_olympic_committee , juan_antonio_samaranch , were announced , there was no applause . after all , they wo n't actually be here until saturday , and this was just a rehearsal . but then killy strode out , and they greeted him as if he had just roared down the mountain at val_d'isere , 53 miles away , to take the downhill once again . the theatrical part of the ceremonies will feature young europeans , predominantly french . but there is one contingent of americans in the opening ceremonies show . the curtain raiser includes roller bladers doing some fancy skating while waving banners . "" they brought them in from los_angeles , "" explained toi pua la'a norwood of park_slope , brooklyn . "" as far as i know , i 'm the only dancer they flew in from america . "" norwood is part of a group of women who will hang from bungee ropes and dance with a partner on the ground . this is part of a series of airborne ceremonies , including musicians suspended over the stadium , that is designed to surprise the crowd and worldwide television viewers .. "" i was traveling in europe last year and heard they were giving tryouts , so i went to paris and i got hired , "" explained norwood . a more mature bowman ? once a child actor , christopher bowman remains a 24 year old enfant terrible , the united_states men 's figure_skating champion who is preparing for albertville with his third coach in 16 months . john nicks , his coach of the last three months , said today "" in his value judgment , i 've instituted a very demanding self discipline that he 's not used to . but he 's responded very well . the other day he did 15 laps and a triple_jump . but if he had n't hit the triple_jump , it would 've been five more laps . little motivational things like that . "" nicks also uses little strategic , if not psychological , things . like demanding that bowman work harder in practice . "" it 's very apparent , "" nicks said , "" that the christopher bowman you see in practice is not the christopher bowman you see in competition . when the television cameras are on , when the judges are sitting there , when there are 10 , 000 people in the stands , you see a different young man . the higher the standard in practice , the higher he can raise the standard in competition . "" nicks replaced toller cranston , who briefly succeeded frank carroll after bowman 's longtime coach had been annoyed at his protege 's improvised final portion of his free skating in winning a bronze_medal at last year 's world_championships . "" it 's been very smooth , "" nicks said . "" in our three months together , i 've been agreeably surprised by christoper 's work habits and self discipline . at this point i 'm enjoying it very much . what the next 10 days will bring in surprises in the men 's competition here , we 'll have to wait and see . "" kurt browning , the world champion from canada , is the favorite to succeed brian_boitano of the united_states as the winner of the olympic gold_medal . now an ice show skater , boitano prevailed at calgary four years ago in a showdown with brian orser of canada . bowman finished seventh in calgary . "" john 's coaching style puzzles me , "" bowman said . "" it 's hard for me to understand why you have to work so hard . it 's not like sports like boxing where without it , you 're dead . but now i have a more positive approach . "" in a sport that often caters to robots , bowman has a reputation as an individual who refers to himself as "" bowman the showman "" and "" hans brinker from hell . "" "" i think they play important roles in my skating , as well as with my own psyche , "" he said . "" i think the emotional part of my skating is what gives me an edge and helps to take some pressure off . i think that 's why you see some people belly up after the competition . i do n't want to be taken away by the guys in the white coats with the butterfly nets . "" but the question remains which bowman will appear when the men 's figure skating competition starts next thursday , with a saturday final ? "" i 'm an emotional person and an emotional skater , "" he said . koch to carry flag cross_country_skier bill koch will carry the american flag at the opening ceremonies . the united_states_olympic_committee said koch , 36 years old , who made a comeback to qualify for the olympics , was a unanimous choice of the seven american team captains for the ceremonial job . ( ap ) big sky country in france hotel le montana in la tania is a few yards from the united_states hockey team 's quarters . that may explain why people who telephone the hotel and are put on hold can hear "" do n't fence me in "" while waiting for their party . . . . there are 8 , 000 volunteers for these olympics , and all of them were promised handsome silver jackets and pants . each outfit was adorned with the olympic rings . but many of the newer volunteers are wearing their civvies . the factory of the company that made the outfits recently burned down . . . . vice_president dan_quayle is expected to arrive at the lyons airport at 7 10 p.m . on friday . on saturday morning , he will greet the united_states presidential delegation ( including president_bush 's sister nancy ellis ) and then have lunch with american athletes at brides_les_bains . in the evening , he will attend the opening ceremonies with president mitterand .",has a topic of sports
"lead as mike_tyson glowered , hung his head in boredom and bobbed to music only he could hear from the earphones he wore , the subject that had many onlookers abuzz at the heavyweight champion 's last news conference before his fight sunday was whether or not they would meet donald_trump and michael_jackson . as mike_tyson glowered , hung his head in boredom and bobbed to music only he could hear from the earphones he wore , the subject that had many onlookers abuzz at the heavyweight champion 's last news conference before his fight sunday was whether or not they would meet donald_trump and michael_jackson . the scene was a measure of the relatively flat interest in the fight . in an effort to add some spark , tyson 's publicity people had spread the word that trump and jackson were coming to town for tyson 's bout with the earnest underdog , james ( buster ) douglas , no less to announce details of tyson 's next fight in june with evander_holyfield . the publicists also let it slip that the rolling_stones , in tokyo for a concert two days after the tyson douglas fight , had inquired about tickets . but the rock stars need not have asked for any special favors so far , only about 60 percent of the 63 , 000 seats in the tokyo_dome , known as the big egg , have been sold for the fight , said a dome official . the rock concert , also to be held at the dome , has been sold out for weeks . big difference in two years two years ago tyson created a sensation in tokyo when he came to fight tony tubbs . japanese reporters and cameramen followed tyson 's every step japanese fans pawed at him , then spoke in awed terms as tyson pummeled the challenger into the canvas in the second round . the novelty has clearly worn off , with the only real flash of interest being a knockdown tyson suffered during sparring two weeks ago . he insisted at the conference today that it was a slip . tyson has met with a nearly 500 pound sumo_wrestler and has visited a martial_arts school , but he has not been swarmed with quite the same enthusiasm . japanese sports reporters said , barring an upset victory by douglas , they doubted that the tyson douglas fight would outdo the headlines made this week when hideyuki ohashi , a japanese straw weight contender , ended a two year drought of japanese occupying world boxing titles by knocking out a korean , choi jum hwan , and taking the crown . kazuhiro imanishi , deputy sports editor of nikkan sports , a daily newspaper , said part of the reason for the lukewarm interest is the feeling that there was no real competition for tyson . discouraging prices imanishi added that with ticket prices 50 percent higher this time it costs 150 , 000 yen or a little more than 1 , 000 for ringside seats and the prospect that the fight will last just a few minutes , many fans have been discouraged . tyson has a_37 0 record , with 33 knockouts . for his part , douglas has been training hard and was cool today , even after tyson kept him waiting 30 minutes before arriving for the news conference . dressed nattily in a suit , douglas waved to his friends , said he weighed 230 pounds , about 4 pounds heavier than he wanted to be sunday , and emphasized that he thought he was in the best mental shape in his career . douglas , the son of a professional fighter , has a 29 4 1 record . tyson strode in wearing a t_shirt and jeans . he declared himself in perfect condition , and then stunned both his manager , don_king , and the audience by responding to a question about his mental preparation by saying ''if you ca n't fight , you 're . . . . '' and then a japanese translator used an expression for the unprintable english , one which roughly meant ''in a difficult position . '' is tyson 219 or 223 ? tyson said he weighed 219 pounds , but a member of his staff said his weight was closer to 223 pounds , a bit over his best fighting weight . after the news conference , douglas said he gave little credence to reports that tyson had not trained hard and was not in good shape . that opinion was seconded by trevor berbick , a former heavyweight contender , who is here as one of tyson 's sparring partners . ''let me tell you something , '' berbick said in an interview . ''this guy is ready . i hurt my elbows hurt . he nearly took my head off a couple of times because i did n't know he was taking this so serious . he has never been in better shape . '' berbick , who lost in a seventh round_knockout to douglas two years ago , gave the challenger what he considered a compliment . ''i think he 'll last four or five rounds , '' berbick said .",has a topic of sports
"lead the american television rights to the 1992 winter_olympics in albertville , france , were awarded yesterday to cbs_sports , whose bid of 243 million exceeded the international_olympic_committee 's expectation by 43 million and nbc 's bid by as much as 68 million . the american television rights to the 1992 winter_olympics in albertville , france , were awarded yesterday to cbs_sports , whose bid of 243 million exceeded the international_olympic_committee 's expectation by 43 million and nbc 's bid by as much as 68 million . in a one bid auction involving only the two networks , nbc bid 175 million plus 50 percent of any advertising sales over 325 million . abc did not participate in the bidding . despite the vast difference in the two bids and abc 's loss of 65 million on rights fees of 309 million paid for the calgary games last winter , neal pilson , the president of cbs_sports , said he expected cbs to achieve a ' 'modest profitability'' on its investment , which will paid through installments over the next four years . ''if you subtract abc 's losses from what they paid , although that is not how we determined our bid , you get very close to our number , '' pilson said at an afternoon news conference . ''we project a market growth by 1992 and that the sales climate will be somewhat better . we feel comfortable with our bid . '' to say nothing for the representatives of the i.o.c . and the albertville organizing_committee . ''a good day , a very useful day , '' said michel_barnier , a co president of the organizing_committee . ''we had hoped for around 200 million . '' 10 percent to u.s.o.c . besides the organizers and the i.o.c. , the chief beneficiary was the united_states_olympic_committee , which , according to the i.o.c . 's television rights distribution formula , will receive 10 percent off the top , or 24 . 3 million . of the remaining 218 . 7 million , the organizing_committee will get 116 . 64 million for its general fund and 43 . 74 million for facilities , which are spread throughout the savoie region of central france the i.o.c . will receive 58 . 32 million . the award procedure was much simpler than it was in 1981 , when abc succeeded after five rounds of bidding . this time , a minimum figure of 200 million was placed in a sealed envelope , after which the two participating networks submitted their offers . the networks were told that the games would be awarded to the higher bidder , provided the offer at least equaled the secret number . ''we figured 200 million was a sensible minimum to expect , '' said richard pound , a vice_president of the i.o.c . and chairman of its television negotiation committee . ''we recognized that calgary was an aberrational bid at the time and that this time , there would not be as much live , prime time coverage . '' by comparison , abc paid 91 . 5 million for the 1984 winter_games in sarajevo , yugoslavia . cbs last televised the winter_olympics in 1960 . puzzlement over abc pound said that he thanked arthur watson , the president of nbc_sports , for his active participation , but that he was mystified over abc 's decision not to bid . ''it 's incomprehensible to me why they dropped out before the bidding , '' pound said . ''i do n't know on what basis they made their decision . '' in preliminary discussions with abc , he said , the network asked about negotiating a package deal that would include the albertville games and the barcelona summer games later the same year . the i.o.c responded by saying it was unable to negotiate on behalf of both organizing committees . by the end of the i.o . c 's discussions with abc , it was clear to pound that the network wanted ' 'some kind of edge'' in the bidding for the albertville games , such as a chance to match the higher offer . but in the end , the procedure was designed to give each network an equal chance . watson , whose network paid 300 million for the rights to the seoul olympics later this year , said that he was disappointed to lose the bid , but that his offer still put nbc at ''a considerable risk , '' based on his analysis of the market . ''you 're always disappointed when you lose , '' he said . ''we came in with what i thought was a reasonable figure , but that was as far as we wanted to reach . '' abc officials have declined to comment since their decision not to participate in the bidding .",has a topic of sports
"any high flown palaver about the selfless idealism underlying the original olympics concept rings increasingly hollow while watching the current cbs_sports coverage of the "" xvi winter olympic games . "" this is a gigantic business undertaking on every level , from network executive suites to advertiser campaigns to possible future payoffs for the athletes . on this scale , the word hype is hopelessly puny and inadequate . the good news the pictures from albertville , france , are superb whether capturing the athletes in close up or giving viewers a you are there ride down a ski slope . the marvels of television camera work tend , quite unfairly , to be taken for granted . the images can be riveting . it 's the broadcaster additions that keep getting in the way . as hosts for the coverage , paula zahn and tim_mccarver are curiously superfluous , she burbling too much , he a bit testy . sitting in a nondescript space that looks like a leftover set from the dull old days of "" the cbs morning news , "" they pop up on screen every so often with pointless small talk and assurances that the mostly delayed coverage will provide , as it was put on tuesday , "" another day of chills , thrills and spills . "" obviously , the network team of commentators are on notice to smile into those cameras and drum up business . if the ratings fall below a certain level , cbs will be in hock to disgruntled advertisers . exaggeration is therefore inevitable . for last saturday 's opening ceremonies , we were solemnly told , "" once again , the world pauses . "" rushing to my apartment window , i was reassured to discovered little or no pausing on the busy streets of manhattan . the parade of nations ? "" you wo n't want to miss it , "" we were assured . and then there 's the old standby "" the pressure is really on . "" all right , already . i 'm watching , i 'm watching . television dotes on personalities , and cbs_sports has been doing its best to cut a few to order . americans would clearly be preferred but , on the whole , americans do not excel at winter_games in which russians and scandinavians keep seeming to hog the medals . but that does n't stop cbs . one unavoidable candidate for color features was christopher bowman , a born in hollywood actor ( "" little house on the prairie "" ) who openly courted attention by trying to be outrageously flip . he seems to have been inspired by the comic howie mandel , not as funny , perhaps , but equally irritating . a far more ambitious promotional campaign was lavished on the figure_skating team of calla urbanski , 31 , and rocky marval , 26 , she a waitress in a delaware tavern , he the owner of a new jersey trucking firm . perfect contenders for stardom , right down to rocky assuring an interviewer that he was not a sissy . "" they 've got so many great qualities , "" an announcer gushed about "" this gutsy duo . "" only one problem their skating was uninspired and they failed to get very close to winning a medal . "" well , "" the commentator wistfully observed , "" regardless of how they finish in the standings , it 's been quite a week . "" it certainly has , for the winded publicity minions . when last heard from , they were turning their attention to the entire hockey team , u.s.a . cbs is shrewdly reaching out to female viewers . coverage of tuesday 's figure_skating was focused carefully on the female half of the teams ( "" the women of this sport must be fearless , "" a commentator declared ) . in an essay on the spectators in the stands , charles kuralt paid attention almost exclusively to the determined mothers of competitors , ignoring the husbands who might have been sitting right next to them . the commentator scott hamilton recalled how , after his own mother 's death ( "" my mother was really perfect "" ) , he won a skating medal at sarajevo in 1984 . a clip showed him accepting the gold with tears streaming down his face . "" so that , "" concluded kuralt , "" is what a skater 's mother can be . "" the commercialism of the games has gone beyond shameless to preposterous . early on , morley safer observed that the event , following the breakup of the soviet_union , is "" now serving no particular national purpose , though perhaps a corporate one . "" well , nationalistic fervor is as pronounced as ever , as is evident on united_states television when the americans even come close to winning a medal . and there is no "" perhaps "" about the corporate purpose . forget the avalanche of formal commercials , plugging everything from candice bergen starring in "" murphy brown "" to candice bergen selling a telephone service . a maker of pain tablets offers clips from the games the day before . a maker of sneakers is already setting up a superstar competition between dan and dave at this summer 's games in barcelona . but beyond that , there are the athletes themselves who serve as moving billboards , brand names emblazoned on their shirts , helmets , equipment and even , for tight close ups , goggles . inspired ? or merely enervating . mcdonald 's offers one of the few truly thoughtful commercials , showing champion medalists of years past , their graceful aging putting the youth oriented hoopla of the present into some perspective , even if only for a passing moment . but television marches on . "" tomorrow , "" shouts the announcer , "" the potential to win the gold in other sports ! "" hooray , i think . ratings stay high the winter_olympics continue to power cbs to prime time victories , as the tuesday evening program , with pairs figure_skating and men 's combined slalom , recorded a 21 . 5 rating and a 32 share . the telecast trumped abc 's 15 . 4 23 and nbc 's 12 . 2 18 . even so , cbs 's rating trailed abc 's rating of 25 . 5 39 for the first tuesday evening during the 1988 winter_olympics , the first time in four nights that cbs lagged behind abc on a comparable night . but cbs 's 19 . 7 30 four night rating leads abc 's 18 . 4 28 from calgary . each national rating point equals 931 , 000 television households . the share is the percentage of homes with televisions in use that are tuned to a specific program . albertville tv critic's_notebook",has a topic of sports
"midway through the third period yesterday , after the devils killed a major penalty , the fans who filled continental arena rose to their feet to cheer . the home team , trying to extend its winning_streak to 14 games , trailed the pittsburgh penguins by a goal . an unscripted and genuine moment like this sometimes sustains momentum and increases emotion , changing the course of events . ''it should have , '' devils coach larry_robinson said . ''i do n't think it picked our guys up as much as it should have . i do n't know why . '' perhaps because the emotion was stifled as soon as it started , silenced by a recorded blast of ''y . m.c.a . '' so the fans settled back in their seats as a television timeout dragged on . the scoreboard then showed a cartoon noise meter , playing different sounds to make the fans cheer . by then , their spirit had waned , and they responded halfheartedly to the artificial stimulation . a potentially pivotal moment had been nullified . no , this was not the only reason the penguins prevailed by 4 2 , the last goal into an empty net . the streaking devils were due to lose and the slumping penguins were due to win . pittsburgh got heroic contributions from lesser lights like the rookie goalie johan hedberg , who made 25 saves center martin straka , who scored two goals and right wing aleksei morozov , who scored once and assisted on two goals . morozov was also bloodied by sean o'donnell 's illegal elbow , crashed into the boards by colin white 's legal check and flipped onto the ice in a cartwheel crash by brian_rafalski 's magnificent hip check . ''good , clean check , '' said morozov , who wore ice on his left knee as a result . ''nice . i liked it . '' that 's how good the pittsburgh mood was afterward . the penguins might meet the defending champion devils in the stanley_cup_playoffs , and they might give them some grief . as underdogs two years ago , pittsburgh eliminated the devils . although the penguins are an incomplete and ragged collection , they have plenty of talent . by winning yesterday , pittsburgh ensured that its national_hockey_league record of 17 consecutive victories set in 1993 before mario_lemieux 's first retirement will not be broken this season . ''yeah , it was something we talked about , '' lemieux said of the streak . ''it 's something our franchise is proud of , to have won 17 games in a row . we were able to do something about it today . '' although lemieux failed to add to his totals of 31 goals and 31 assists , he had some moments of motion and emotion . when his teammate bob boughner misread lemieux 's setup pass and retreated instead of moving forward , lemieux gestured in obvious irritation . when lemieux sailed in on goalie martin_brodeur and faked him out of position but failed to score because of brodeur 's skate save , he first stared at brodeur , then tapped him in congratulations . when the devils pressed for a tie in the final moments , lemieux lost his stick but cleared the puck from the danger zone by sliding across the blue line and kicking it down the ice . how often does he do that ? ''last time was 1989 , '' lemieux said . morozov has only two goals this season , both against the devils . he enjoyed plenty of ice time yesterday because aleksei_kovalev is under a three game suspension for shooting a puck at a referee , an allegation kovalev angrily denied yesterday . hedberg , who played his fourth n.h.l . game , had spent most of the season with the manitoba moose . he may be pittsburgh 's first string goalie in the playoffs . he wears a pale blue helmet decorated with a cartoon moose and pine_trees . wearing figurative goat horns was jaromir_jagr , the penguins' captain , who is contending for the league scoring title but too often seems uninterested . in 23 minutes 8 seconds yesterday , he had no shots and no points and accidentally set up a devils goal with a turnover . after showering , he breezed past reporters waiting for interviews . it was his biggest burst of speed all day . jagr wears the captain 's ''c , '' but it is said that his salary demands and pouty attitude have turned him into summer trade bait . a player like this would fit right in with the dysfunctional rangers . but rangers topics and the islanders , too are for another day . as for the devils , the end of the streak may be a blessing in disguise . neither the coach nor the players seemed too upset . this defeat could end the worried murmurs that they are ''peaking too soon'' and might let down for the playoffs . their bigger concerns , as robinson said , are the race with ottawa for first in the eastern conference and getting ready for the playoffs . time to refocus , fans . just watch and listen to the scoreboard . it alone will tell you what to think and do . on hockey",has a topic of sports
"lead she is the michael_jordan of figure_skating , a dazzling athlete of uncommon skill who performs at a_level unattained by many skaters , unattainable by most others . she is the michael_jordan of figure_skating , a dazzling athlete of uncommon skill who performs at a_level unattained by many skaters , unattainable by most others . ''i remember watching her in practice last year , '' said jill trenary , a three time american champion . ''i was in awe of how high she jumps . i did n't expect her to be as good as she was . '' and now , as the women 's competition of the 75th world_figure_skating_championships begins wednesday , midori_ito of japan may be even better . in the year since she won the 1989 world title in paris , she has found ways to bring her artistic scores closer in line with the typically high technical marks that reflect the difficulty of her programs . last year , she became the first and remains the only woman to complete a triple_axel jump , the only triple in which the skater takes off from a forward position , spinning three and half times in the air before landing . her free skating program includes that little trick , five other kind of triples , seven triples altogether . even if she were to falter this week , losing to trenary or evelyn grossmann of east_germany , the european champion , or another of the 29 women competing , ito 's absence from the victory podium would appear to be only temporary . this is the last major tournament to include compulsory figures , an exercise in which skaters cut loops on the ice and trace them twice . they count for 20 percent of a skater 's overall score , which makes them not unimportant . she 'll miss compulsories compulsories are the weakest of ito 's skills , and their passing would be like telling jordan he had to play only offense . ''in training , i spend about two thirds of my time on the figures , '' she said at a crowded news conference on monday . ''so i will sort of miss them as part of my life . but i will not miss them in the actual event . '' she smiled as she spoke , and that has always been part of her charm since she burst into international prominence at the 1988 calgary olympics , where katarina_witt of east_germany won her second consecutive singles title . after placing 10th in compulsories , ito skated the fourth best short_program and third best freestyle to finish fifth over all . at the conclusion of her performance , the audience was on its feet , roaring . ito , smiling and waving , was so overwhelmed , she left the ice by the wrong exit . later that year in budapest , she had her best finish in four world championship appearances , finishing sixth . then last year came her breakthrough . with witt and most of the other past olympians retired from competition , ito soared to new heights , winning the world title to earn uncommon prominence for a 19 year old daughter of ordinary japanese citizens . upon her return home to nagoya , she found herself a frequent target of admiring , sometimes intrusive fans , wanting handshakes , autographs , even pictures . invitation to meet emperor in june , she was invited to meet emperor_akihito , a rare honor for athletes other than sumo wrestlers . by the end of the year , she was regarded as something between a national hero and a shrine , her victory earning recognition as japan 's top athletic performance of 1989 . ''i could not even go to a doughnut shop without people recognizing me , '' she said through a translator . she is five months short of her 21st birthday , just 4 feet 9 inches , but chunky at 97 pounds . her legs are unusually thick and are the power source of her remarkable jumps . and , can she jump . the ability became apparent not long after she discovered skating , at the age of 4 . the first time she stepped onto a rink , in nagoya , she spotted machiko yamada in the middle , giving a lesson . ito wobbled over and said she , too , would like to learn . today , yamada is still her coach . in the 1981 world_junior_championships , she completed three triple_jumps , an unheard of accomplishment for an 11 year old , to win the free skating and finish eighth over all . four years later , she landed five triples in competition . a quick study in jumping ''as a child , i could master the jumps , '' ito said . ''jumps that took others three hours to learn in practice , i learned in an hour and a half . '' although she barely grew , she found that her height , especially the length of her legs , did not impede her development . she was not only adding jumps , she was jumping higher , and by last year in paris , higher than ever . trenary , a 22 year old skater who was fourth in the olympics , found herself in ito 's practice group then . a skater known more for style than strength , trenary remembered being somewhat unnerved by the experience . ''it bothered me , '' she said . ''i did n't realize what a perfectionist midori was . '' as usual , when the paris competition began , ito was trailing the leaders after compulsory figures , this time in sixth place . trenary was second , behind claudia leistner of west_germany . but ito won the two skating programs , leaving leistner second and trenary third . still , for all the honors that followed , she was unsettled by the usual manner in which she won the title . she decided she wanted more grace in her routines , more elegance and beauty . the answer was ballet lessons . artistry is new challenge ''last year , the challenge was the triple_axel , '' she said . ''since i can do that now , this year i am trying to be more artistic . '' in the months since paris , the new efforts have proved worthwhile . she won the japan national championship for the fifth consecutive year and the nhk trophy , a prestigious annual international tournament in japan , for a fourth time . her success over the years , however , has not come without personal cost . when she was 6 , her parents separated , and she moved in with yamada 's family . she spoke of the episode delicately . ''i do n't have much memory of what happened , '' she said . ''i merely did what i was told . she accepted me as one of her children , so i did n't feel it was a hardship . '' even now , she rarely sees her parents , who have never watched her perform anywhere outside of japan . communication is more frequent by telephone , and the situation is not likely to improve . eyeing long term objectives while she was vague about her intentions beyond this week , the obvious long term objectives are far flung . among them are the olympics of 1992 and 1994 , the first on the new four year cycle , or the start of a professional career . ''i am still undecided , '' she said , looking a bit perplexed . but ask her about the near term and she brightens a quadruple_jump , she said , is within reach . only one skater , kurt browning of canada , has landed one in a major competition . ''if i am in condition , i will try it next year , '' she said , for now , leaving the most tantalizing question of all for another time . how long before you can dunk ?",has a topic of sports
"the quadrennial secret of the winter_olympics' opening ceremony always is who will light the flame ? but saturday 's ceremonies may be the most theatrical of all the olympics and so even the well connected french sporting newspaper , l'equipe , professed ignorance today of who that torchbearer will be . "" we will announce it 15 minutes before the event , "" a member of the organizing_committee insisted today . "" i do n't even know . "" still , a good guess would be nathalie bouvier , the country 's top downhill skier , who suffered serious knee injuries in an accident last year and is unable to ski . there would be nothing more dramatic than 30 , 000 fans , most of them her countrymen , seeing her once again in a sports setting . television viewers around the world will see , and hear , a noisy , clattering , jumpy affair on saturday . it was created by philippe decoufle , a choreographer who likes high things . so he will be working at altitude in more ways than one . not for him is the more staid tradition of first day goings on . people will hear , and see , this event for miles around . decoufle has brought in a flying angel , he has yo_yo dancers hanging from bungee cords , he has musicians tethered a hundred feet in the air , high over the stadium . even the flame that lights the olympic torch will fly through the air . down in the valley , baleful alpine horns will wail , then fireworks will crackle and pop . this is a celebration of the savoy as well as of sport . the ceremonies will open with carpenters , of all people , carrying planks of wood . they will build a podium right before your eyes the good old mountain work ethic . the podium will be festooned with hand carved savoyard sculpture . the torch will be brought to the top of the stadium by an athlete perhaps bouvier and a child . they will light a bowl that will turn into a ball of fire . immediately , attached to wires , the flaming ball will fly toward the torch and ignite the gas . eldredge still feels twinge one week after his first , unsuccessful attempts to execute a triple_jump after returning from a back injury , todd_eldredge is still not at his peak as he prepares for the men 's figure skating competition . "" well , maybe 99 percent , "" he said thursday , sounding somewhat forced in his optimism . the 20 year old three time united_states champion fell during last month 's nationals . he reinjured a congenitally deformed joint in his back . his long program next week will include eight triple_jumps . "" because of the stress , his back acted up , "" said his coach , richard_callaghan . "" i think the way the skaters are going these days , they 're too busy . he 's in heavy training from the middle of december to the middle of july . then he took only a week and a half off . that 's going to change after the olympics . "" breaking the ice dave peterson , the united_states olympic hockey coach and self proclaimed curmudgeon , met the assembled media friday , in meribel , for the first time at the winter_games . it was , as expected , a delicate moment . "" you missed the story in 1988 , "" peterson told reporters about his team 's seventh place experience at calgary . "" you focused way too much on me . part of that was me . i said what i thought , and that was a mistake . am i irritable ? yup . am i cranky ? yup . i plead_guilty to that . "" nevertheless , peterson said he had learned a bit from a special training course on dealing with the media . money talks skaters skate in the 1988 calgary olympics , eric flaim of quincy , mass . finished second , fourth , fourth and fourth in four speed_skating races . now , at age 24 , he is still competing because of a new jersey connection . "" after calgary , i went to the soviet_union for the world_championships , "" he said . "" my coach could n't afford to go , but george_steinbrenner heard about it and paid his way . "" a new york newspaper wrote about that , and this man in new jersey read the story and clipped it out . he got in touch with me , and now he and a group of new jersey businessmen formed a sponsorship entity for dan_jansen , nick thometz and me . "" do n't jump to conclusions women 's figure_skating , one of the glamour events of the winter_games , has been described as a potential battle between artistic and athletic skaters . not so , says christy kjarsgaard ness , the coach of kristi_yamaguchi . the 20 year old yamaguchi is from fremont , calif . she is considered an artistic skater , instead of an athletic one . one of her chief rivals , midori_ito of japan , is a jumping jack . "" a lot of times , "" ness said , "" that talk about athleticism and artistry is labels . kristi does seven triple_jumps . that 's athletic . she thinks as an athlete . she works out as an athlete . she was n't brought up just to do pretty things . "" albertville",has a topic of sports
"before lou_piniella could finish his answer , the giggles started bouncing through the room . at a postgame news conference on sunday , piniella , the tampa_bay_devil_rays' manager , explained why hideki_irabu looked different while pitching for the hanshin_tigers in an exhibition_game . his understatement needed no translation . ''he looked much more relaxed pitching here than he did before , especially when he pitched for the yankees , '' piniella said . then the laughter started . ''i 'm telling the truth . that 's what i saw . his demeanor on the mound he seemed like he was in control of the ballgame . he pitched exceedingly well . '' as the interpreter repeated his response in japanese , piniella had another thought . ''with new york , '' he said , ''it just seemed like he fought himself a little more on the mound . '' irabu was a lost soul with the yankees , never coming close to the expectations that came when he signed a four year , 12 . 8 million contract in 1997 . he left in a trade with montreal in 2000 , meandered to texas and returned to japan last season , for two years and 7 million . the yankees play hanshin in an exhibition on monday , and irabu missed them by a day . he worked six innings and gave up two runs against tampa_bay , leaving with a lead in a game that would end in a_7 7 tie . though he failed to break 90 miles an hour with his fastball , irabu spotted his pitches well and allowed no walks and six hits while striking out five . ''he was mixing up his pitches , '' said tampa_bay 's julio lugo , who struck out twice and singled . ''he threw some tough curves , and i could n't pick up his split at the beginning . i think he 's a big leaguer . he 's got great stuff . '' irabu retired eight of the first nine hitters he faced , striking out the first two on breaking balls . the scoreboard measured his fastball no higher than 89 m.p.h . asked if he wanted to see any of his old teammates , irabu replied in english , ''no , i do n't . '' one of his old teammates , tampa_bay 's first baseman tino_martinez , grounded out , singled and flied out against irabu . ''his stuff today was sharper than i had seen it before , '' martinez said . ''he also looked like he was in better shape . '' once derided as a fat toad by george_steinbrenner , the yankees' principal owner , irabu has lost weight since returning to japan . but his face is still puffy , and his conditioning habits are still poor . a notoriously weak finisher , irabu started last season 9 2 but went 4 6 thereafter . he was the goat of the japan_series , going 0 2 with a_12 . 60 earned_run_average . irabu never pitched in the world_series for the yankees , despite making a combined 55 regular season starts for the 1998 and '99 champions . his failure in new york was not a question of talent . ''i 'm not going to criticize him for not trying hard , '' manager joe_torre said . ''i just saw his personality waver a little bit . '' baseball",has a topic of sports
"when the call came last april from jared palmer , richey reneberg was ready . palmer proposed that they play doubles together . "" i did n't have to think twice about it , "" reneberg said today . "" i felt we 'd make a strong team . "" it was a distinctive meshing of a top level service returner in reneberg with one of the world 's top volleyers , palmer . "" i always knew that he and i had the potential to be a team that could represent the u.s . on a regular basis , "" palmer said . and so it has come to pass . a week after winning the australian open doubles title , the pair gave the united_states a 2 1 edge over france in the first round of davis_cup by defeating guy_forget and oliver delaitre , 6 4 , 3 6 , 6 3 , 6 4 , today . the victory before 4 , 052 inside the bayfront center arena gives the united_states two chances on sunday to advance in this three of five match competition . in the first match , todd_martin , who lost badly to cedric pioline on friday , will play forget , himself a loser to jim_courier . courier will then take on pioline . "" if there 's one day in the year i want to play my best tennis , it 's sunday , "" forget said . the 30 year old left hander came in today with a 16 2 record in davis_cup doubles , but this clearly was a day he wo n't want to remember . french coach yannick noah estimated that forget is playing at 80 percent physically after two knee surgeries since 1993 . and because of delaitre 's request , forget agreed to play in the deuce court , where being a left hander hurt him on many slicing serves . "" i could n't get my returns together , especially in the third and fourth sets , "" forget said . palmer and reneberg won the first set in large part by breaking forget 's service at 2 2 . reneberg hit two winners to put the frenchmen in an 0 40 hole and , after palmer hit a wide forehand , reneberg clinched the game with a rocketing return of forget 's service . france got the break in the second set , on palmer 's service . today represented the sixth event in which palmer and reneberg have played together . they 've won two tournaments , finished second once and reached the quarterfinals on another occasion . and now they 're 1 1 in davis_cup competition . "" i think they have the game to dominate for a long time if they stay together , "" said tom_gullikson , the united_states team captain . palmer , a new york city native who now lives in nearby tampa , made perhaps the shot of the match in the third set 's third game , with the united_states on the verge of having its service broken . his shoe top volley clipped the back line , and the u.s . went on to win the game . noah called the shot a "" miracle . "" said gullikson "" eighty percent reaction , 20 percent luck . "" gullikson was asked if he feels some peace of mind knowing france needs to win both of sunday 's matches to pull out the tie . "" i 'll have peace of mind when we get to three , "" he said . becker , stich clinch victory ( by the associated press ) for the sake of the davis_cup , boris_becker and michael stich put aside their personal rivalry yesterday in karlsruhe , germany , and clinched a 3 0 victory for the germans over croatia in the first round . becker and stich were 6 4 , 7 6 ( 7 3 ) , 7 5 winners over croatia 's goran_ivanisevic and sasa hirszon . also advancing was russia , last year 's runner up . in antwerp , yevgeny_kafelnikov and andrei olhovskiy beat libor pimek and filip dewulf of belgium , 2 6 , 7 5 , 7 5 , 6 3 , and gave russia a 3 0 lead . sweden , the defending champion , stayed alive by winning in copenhagen . jan apell and jonas bjorkman defeated kenneth carlsen and morten christensen , 6 7 ( 6 8 ) , 6 3 , 6 4 , 6 2 . denmark still has a 2 1 lead . taking 2 1 leads with victories in doubles were italy , austria and the netherlands . tennis",has a topic of sports
"the narrow roads winding through the snowy mountains of the savoy region of france are a different topography from charles kuralt 's usual rural travels along the backroads of america for cbs . but kuralt 's gentle , let the news proceed without me approach has found a welcome home at the 1992 winter_olympics . he does n't have his "" on the road "" bus or izzy , his cameraman , or larry , his soundman . just a little ford , a producer , peter schweitzer , and rambling conversations about what to do next . but kuralt has grown comfortable with his tales and essays of the savoy . "" these have all been little 'on the road' stories , "" he said in a telephone chat friday . "" the kind you can find easily in america you can find here . "" as he talked , the united_states unified team hockey game had entered the second period and kuralt was nearly alone in the broadcast center in moutiers . "" i 'm writing an essay for the closing ceremonies , a thank you note to the savoy , with pretty pictures and rural folks , "" he said . kuralt 's alpine travels have led him away from the crowds filling the hockey arena or the downhill slopes . he did n't come to france to cover any events , which works out well because , he said , "" i have n't seen one second of competition . "" he profiled the mothers of figure skaters the "" icemeister , "" the man who devotedly tends to the tricky ice at the speed_skating venue a latvian bobsledder , and a wisconsin curler . "" i 'm not much of a winter sports fan , "" kuralt said . "" i 'm a baseball fan . i grew up in north_carolina and never saw a pair of skates or skis . but i kind of got interested in curling . there 's more to it than you think . there 's a great deal or subtlety and strategy . it 's a lot more than shuffleboard . "" kuralt has been the most regular presence from cbs_news . mike wallace starred in a few features . morley safer was around , but not much . dan rather appeared , but looked hopelessly stiff and out of place on pat o'brien 's late night , rock and roll party . "" i was reluctant to do this because i thought it would be a zoo , "" kuralt said . "" in a sense it is if you 're trying to cover the men 's downhill . but it 's been possible to get away . "" kuralt got away to seek out his slovenian roots among those who traveled to watch the team from slovenia which until the recent civil_war was a part of yugoslavia competing for the first time independently . in a lighthearted feature , kuralt climbed an alp to the chalet slovenia to ask if people knew his name . one after another knew the name , which is common in slovenia . kuralt was also the surname of a heroic slovenian skier . "" imagine , "" kuralt asked during the piece , "" a national hero named kuralt . that must be a very nice nation . "" the piece had its own roots in an ancestral search undertaken by kuralt 's brother , who invited all the kuralts in a tiny slovenian village 's telephone book to a party . "" they all came , "" kuralt said . "" the kuralts who were n't in the phone book were upset that they were n't invited . "" kuralt superbly tied his sense of journalism to his feel for the unusual in a feature about a group of marines who , in 1944 , parachuted into what is now the cross_country field at les saisies to aid the french_resistance . after a shootout with a convoy of german soldiers , three of the marines surrendered to save the village in which they were trapped from being burned down . "" the young men skiing across the plain at les saisies do n't know what happened , "" he said in the piece . "" they were not born when seven young americans about their age landed in this field to bring arms and hope to france . "" kuralt will leave the savoy feeling warmth toward the notoriously cool french . "" they 've been so nice , "" he said . "" if your only experience in france is paris , you think the french are haughty and rude , but gee , i have n't run into any of that . that 's true in most rural areas , which is why i 've traveled to rural places for 25 years . people have more time for you . "" after a few days of relaxation in geneva , kuralt will return to his sunday morning program next sunday . soon after , he 'll return to his bus with izzy and larry to explore again his beloved rural byways . and , he said , he 'll return for the 1994 winter_olympics , in lillehammer , norway , which cbs will also broadcast . "" if they want me , i 'll go , "" he said . "" if i 'm still around . when you get to be 57 , two years seems a long time . "" airwaves the women 's figure_skating finals at the winter_olympics recorded a 25 . 0 rating with a 40 share for cbs , raising the network 's 14 night average to 19 . 4 30 , 3 percent greater than the comparable period for abc during the 1988 calgary winter_olympics . although abc earned only a 14 . 5 25 for the comparable friday night in 1988 , it posted a 26 . 4 43 rating for the saturday night it aired the women 's figure_skating finals . each rating point equals 921 , 000 television households . a share is the percentage of televisions in use that are tuned to a particular program . tv sports",has a topic of sports
"argentina 's idle soccer star , diego_maradona , said yesterday that he might continue his professional career in france if the italian club naples releases him from his contract . the 31 year old world_cup hero , banned from the sport for 15 months for failing a drug_test , told a local news_agency that after a stint in france he would like to finish with the buenos_aires first division team boca juniors , with which he originally made his name . ( reuter ) sports people soccer",has a topic of sports
"prime_minister lionel_jospin said today that the french government was ready to step in and push air_france pilots and management to settle a strike that has grounded most of the airline 's flights just as hundreds of thousands of soccer fans begin to pour in for the world_cup soccer tournament . with air_france the official carrier of the games , which start here on wednesday , the strike over a management demand that its highly compensated pilots take a 26 , 000 pay cut in exchange for company stock has embarrassed the country . the strike began last monday , and negotiations broke off early this morning . ''it is not the world_cup that concerns me , '' mr . jospin said this morning . ''it 's the recovery under way of the company and its future . i believe everyone must be concerned about this , and for that reason if the government can be useful , naturally respecting the autonomy of the management , we will play a role in the hours to come . '' after skirting bankruptcy in 1994 , the airline merged its operations with those of air_inter , the state owned domestic airline . last year it went into the black for the first time since 1989 , earning 414 million . but mr . jospin 's socialist coalition_government canceled the previous leadership 's plan to privatize the state owned carrier , prompting the chief executive who had presided over the airline 's recovery , christian blanc , to resign in protest . the french government decided in february to sell 20 percent of the shares to employees and private investors later this year . officials in the prime_minister 's office said today that he had not yet decided what to do , but that he might appoint a mediator . the main pilots' union said some progress had been made toward an agreement that would meet the airline 's demand for a savings of 84 million over three to five years in the salaries of its 3 , 200 pilots . management says it needs the savings to compete with more efficient carriers . air_france says it now pays the highest pilot salaries in the world , an average of more than 10 , 000 a month , counting payroll taxes and benefits . with the government 's backing , the airline had proposed giving shares to the pilots when 20 percent of it is offered to public investors . the daily le_monde said the pilots were close to accepting an agreement , if it was voluntary and if they received a guarantee of what the stock they got would be worth . management , now under jean cyril spinetta , has said it will give up a two tier salary system if new pilots reimburse the company for their training expenses . under the two tier system , newly hired pilots start at an average of 53 , 000 a year , 5 , 000 less than the previous minimum starting salary . early this morning , negotiators for the union that represents all but 600 of the pilots stormed out of the talks at charles de gaulle airport outside paris without explanation . later , the union accused management of trying to reach a deal separately with a minority of the pilots , and warned that doing so would only deepen the impasse . ''if we do not find an agreement on monday , '' the union 's chief , jean charles corbet , said , ''then i would say that the world_cup will start without air_france planes . '' the airline has said it will take at least two days to get schedules back to normal after a settlement . in the last week , air_france has canceled most of its european flights , and many trans_atlantic passengers have found themselves booked on other carriers , from british_airways to pakistan international airlines , despite assurances that their planes would continue to fly as scheduled . ''the world_cup will go ahead as usual , '' mr . jospin said today . ''the french do not need to take a plane to go to the matches , nor do europeans , while there will be plenty of other airlines to bring everyone else here instead of air_france . ''",has a topic of sports
"it was 3 30 on a cloudless afternoon and the members of the tigers new era fan club were already assembled in the far corner of the right field bleachers . the ragtag group of two dozen or so factory workers , shopkeepers and hangers on were there to cheer the hanshin_tigers , working their way through the team 's fight songs even though game time was more than two hours away . ''we 're all crazy for the tigers , '' said yoshio morita , a 55 year old businessman draped in a black and yellow tigers happi coat . between slugs of beer and choruses of ''the wind of mount rokko , '' the tigers' anthem , he ran through his game day routine , which includes driving two hours from neighboring shiga prefecture to get to the stadium by 9 a.m . and line up for a ticket . morita 's devotion , a tale repeated by many of the 53 , 000 fans packed into koshien stadium , is typical of the baseball fever in nishinomiya , a city of 400 , 000 in the osaka metropolitan_area , japan 's second largest . the tigers , japan 's oldest baseball franchise and long one of its worst , are on a march toward only their second championship since 1950 , when the two league system was started . their sudden success this year has turned this recession bit region into something bordering on a permanent party . to understand the excitement , imagine what might happen if the boston_red_sox or chicago_cubs ever exorcised their demons and won the world_series . in fact , the baseball fates seem to be working on something of a parallel universe , with the red_sox and the cubs remaining stubbornly competitive at the halfway point of the major_league_baseball season . unlike the red_sox , who last won the world_series in 1918 , or the cubs , who last won in 1908 , the tigers last won the japan_series just 18 years ago . but their record of ineptitude has left scars on their fans the tigers have finished in the bottom half of the six team central_league 15 times since . as a result , tigers fans , like those of the red_sox and the cubs , talk of a mystical burden their team must overcome . in hanshin 's case , the burden is known as the curse of colonel sanders . after the team won its lone championship in 1985 , fans assembled at the dotonbori bridge in osaka 's flashy entertainment district . one by one , those who resembled tigers players jumped into the river to raucous cheers . but since no one looked like randy bass , the team 's star slugger , fans stole a statue of colonel sanders from a nearby kentucky_fried_chicken outlet and tossed it in . legend has it that the tigers will not win a championship until the colonel is found . efforts to dredge the river and recover the statue have proved fruitless . this season , tigers fans seem to be putting their fatalism behind them , and for good reason . the tigers have become the fastest team to reach 50 victories , and they are already 30 games above . 500 , the first time they have reached that mark in a half century . their batters are hitting nearly . 300 and their pitchers are the league 's stingiest . crucially , the tokyo yomiuri_giants , the league 's pre_eminent team , have stumbled this season with their longtime star , hideki_matsui , now playing for the yankees . coincidentally , the tigers have benefited from the return of a former yankee , pitcher hideki_irabu , who returned from north_america after six seasons and has already won 10 games . another major_league_baseball refugee , jeff williams , a former dodger , is the league 's top closer . ''we have a big chance to win it all this year , '' said irabu , who also has the league 's lowest earned_run_average . ''it 's right in front of our eyes . '' the tigers have perhaps the best manager in japanese_baseball , senichi hoshino . pugnacious and crafty , he leads much the way earl weaver did in baltimore in the 1960 's and 1970 's , relying on strong pitching , scrappy hitting and aggressive base running . like weaver , he kicks dirt on umpires and screams at his players , a brand of leadership that the fans embrace . the passion surrounding the tigers this year is about much more than victories . like the red_sox and the cubs , the tigers suffer from a permanent identity crisis . since world_war_ii , osaka has been in the shadow of tokyo , where the nation 's government , media and business elite are centered . home to many of the country 's leading manufacturers , the osaka region now has one of japan 's highest unemployment rates as companies move their factories to china . because of osaka 's blue_collar roots and hard knocks , any victory over a tokyo team and its white collar fans is particularly satisfying . ''basically , hanshin fans are against centralization , against power and against money , all the things that the giants represent , '' said koichi kunisada , an osaka based economist who embroiders the names of his favorite tigers players in gold silk on the inside of his suit jackets . while jaded fans in tokyo have come to expect winners , people in osaka cannot hide their fanaticism . on a major thoroughfare in the amagasaki district , shopkeepers unfurled a banner that included the team 's magic number on it even though it was still june and the tigers needed 79 more victories or losses by their opponents to clinch the pennant . ( the magic number fell to 54 on july 2. ) ''some people might say we are brash , but we 're simply having a good time , '' said kenichiro yoshioka , the 43 year old camera shop owner who put up the sign . politicians are also getting into the act . the governor of osaka prefecture , fusae ota , wants to clean up one of the city 's dirtiest rivers , one that fans jump into to celebrate hometown victories . the government 's economics minister , heizo_takenaka , said a tigers pennant run would change japan 's economic landscape just as it did in 1985 , the last time the tigers went all the way . the tigers' success is already giving the ailing economy a lift . tickets are suddenly scarce , even when the tigers are on the road . the broadcast of a tigers giants match up earlier this season drew a record high 30 . 2 percent share , twice the typical audience for a baseball game . shops are also doing a brisk business in anything emblazoned with the tigers logo , even stores in enemy territory . at the keio department_store above tokyo 's shinjuku station , the hanshin_tigers shop sold 696 million yen ( 5 . 8 million ) worth of towels , megaphones and cellphone straps in june , five times the level in may . shares in hanshin department_store ltd . , whose parent company owns the tigers , have risen nearly 40 percent since the season began . in all , a tigers championship could generate 113 . 3 billion_yen ( 945 million ) in extra spending , according to the japan research institute . the party , though , would come to an end if the tigers reverted to their old ways and performed a late season swoon . the biggest hurdle is shino roodo , or the road trip of death that the tigers endure every year . for three weeks in august , their crumbling , ivy covered stadium here holds the national high_school baseball tournament . few tiger squads have fared well over this stretch . back in right field , morita and his fellow merrymakers shrugged off such concerns . the tigers , they say , are on destiny 's road . as the tigers completed their victory against the chunichi_dragons , the fans released thousands of whistling balloons in celebration . the customary ''hero interview'' was conducted near the dugout and broadcast over the stadium loudspeakers . once finished , outfielder shinjiro hiyama received another round of cheers for hitting for the cycle in the game . a half hour after the final out , the fans finally filed out , many hoarse from all the screaming . yet morita , who faced a numbing ride home through traffic , seemed energized . he taped the television broadcast of the game and planned to watch it again . ''i was so busy cheering , '' he said , ''i did n't even see all those home_runs . '' baseball",has a topic of sports
"touring major_league stars realize it will take a better effort than they gave two years ago to keep from losing a series to their counterparts from the japanese league . the major_league stars , who suffered their first series loss to japan on the last goodwill tour in 1990 ( 3 4 1 ) , take the field in tokyo tomorrow night with boston 's roger_clemens on the mound to start an eight game series against the japanese stars . the major_leaguers , chosen from among the best players in the game , include ken griffey jr . of seattle , cecil_fielder of detroit , ozzie smith of st . louis and wade boggs of boston . ( ap ) sports people baseball",has a topic of sports
"like many sons of horsemen , julien leparoux grew up around his father 's barn counting the days until he became a jockey . robert leparoux , however , wanted more for his boy . he wanted julien to become a financier , a lawyer , anything but a pint sized athlete who tempts fate nine times a day on the back of a fast moving 1 , 200 pound athlete . at 14 , julien pleaded with his father , an assistant trainer , to allow him to enter a jockey academy near his home in chantilly , france . robert refused . ''he told me the horses would wait , that after i went to regular school , i could do whatever i wanted , '' julien said . so julien went to school , studied hard and became a better than average student . schoolbooks , however , failed to dampen his passion for the horses . as soon as he graduated , he began as an exercise rider for trainers in france . it was a start , but robert knew his son needed a better leg up if he was to succeed in a dangerous career . his son had kept up his end of their agreement , so robert urged julien to contact an old acquaintance , a trainer named patrick biancone whose skill at developing fast horses was rivaled only by his reputation for turning out top riders like the perennial french star olivier peslier . it was 2003 , and biancone was based in america . he was willing to take julien on , but he wanted julien to understand that , in addition to undertaking a transcontinental move , he would have to endure a long education . ''i told him that he was going to begin by cleaning stalls , and if he did well , then i 'd let him gallop a few horses , but there were no guarantees , '' biancone said . ''i like turning out finished products . i believe great jockeys are like great racecar drivers . they understand everything about the machine they are on or in . they need a foundation . '' three years later , leparoux is an exemplar of the benefits of arrested development when it comes to grooming race riders . he is 23 , old by apprentice , or rookie jockey , standards , but he leads the nation in victories with 279 and is 11th in earnings . his mounts have won more than 6 . 7 million . hot ''bug boys , '' as apprentice jockeys are called , are as ubiquitous in racing as promising 2 year old colts . many trainers like to use apprentices because of the 5 to 10 pound break in weight they are allowed as novices in everyday races . apprentices rarely put up big numbers once they graduate to become journeymen jockeys and ride at equal weight , because trainers no longer have an incentive to put a less experienced rider on their horses . no one , however , expects leparoux to fall from the standings when he loses his apprentice status in late september . since a stealth debut at saratoga race course last summer , he is turning in an apprentice campaign that is perhaps rivaled only by steve cauthen 's . cauthen was named champion apprentice as a teenager in 1977 and swept the triple_crown aboard affirmed the next year . leparoux won the riding title at turfway park in northern kentucky in the winter spring meet with a meet record 167 victories . next , he went to keeneland race course in lexington , one of the nation 's toughest circuits , and tied for the top jockey title with rafael bejarano to become the first apprentice in the storied track 's history to do so . he came here from churchill_downs in louisville , where he rode to a meet leading 87 victories . in running off with 13 stakes races 6 of them graded , where weight concessions are not allowed for apprentices leparoux has demonstrated that , pound for pound , he is as skilled as any rider . jerry_bailey , the recently retired hall of fame jockey , first took notice of leparoux here last summer , when leparoux won three times from 20 mounts and piloted his horses around the oval as if he had already ridden 2 , 000 races . ''you could tell then he was very talented , and very , very patient , '' said bailey , now an analyst for espn abc_sports . ''what i 'm most impressed with now is how calm and thoughtful he is in these big stakes races . usually when riders get thrown into the fire , it takes them years to find that sort of calmness . '' while leparoux credits much of his success to biancone 's painstaking tutelage and to the fact that he rides first call for his powerful stable , biancone says his investment in leparoux was a privilege that he knew would eventually pay dividends . leparoux is a fixture at barn 86 here , coiling his 5 foot 5 , 108 pound frame onto several horses a morning for workouts . he makes far more in the afternoons now than he did as a 50 a week groom for biancone , but his work ethic remains the same . ''he is not one of the great riders yet , but he 's going to be , '' biancone said . ''he 's a gifted horseman . now all he has to learn is not to overanalyze things . michael_jordan did not think about why he could jump past someone he just did it . that 's all julien has to do . '' leparoux 's agent , steve bass , said that robert leparoux 's wish for his son to get an education might have kept him from the track for four years , but it had benefited him off it . in a deep and talented jockey colony at saratoga that includes eclipse award champions like john velazquez and kentucky_derby winners like edgar prado , jose santos , mike smith and kent desormeaux , leparoux is much in demand . as the opening week of the meeting comes to a close , leparoux is averaging six mounts a day and , with three victories , is tied for third in the standings . ''he 's a smart kid and courteous around owners , '' bass said . ''when he gets off a horse , he can tell a trainer exactly how it went and what he thinks it needs . he 's mature and has some polish . '' last april on the final day of the keeneland meeting , leparoux experienced , in a harrowing split second , what his father had feared most about his son 's ambition to become a jockey . in the stretch , his horse , a first time starter named sanibel storm , ducked into the inside rail and launched leparoux into an aerial somersault into the infield . remarkably , he sprang to his feet and began waving his whip as if he were angry or frustrated . leparoux said that was not the case at all . he was exuberant . ''i was celebrating the fact i was not injured , '' he said . he also said he was thinking of his father . robert leparoux died in 2003 as his son 's education in race riding was just beginning . his son has little doubt that the success he is enjoying now is because of him . his father taught him about horses as a boy . he then insisted julien go to a real school so he could be a better man . ''he wanted me to happy , '' he said , ''he wanted me to do what i wanted to do . he knew this was it . '' horse_racing",has a topic of sports
"howard carter , a former louisiana_state forward who has been playing basketball in france , was charged with buying and using drugs after the police arrested him and seized a dose of heroin , the authorities in le havre said yesterday . carter , 33 , freed on friday , was arrested with five suspected drug dealers in the stairwell of a building shortly before his team , pau orthez , was to play saint thomas le havre on tuesday . his case is to be heard in court april 25 , and carter was suspended by the team until his court appearance . if found guilty , he faces five years in prison . ( ap ) sports people basketball",has a topic of sports
"a videocassette is making the rounds in this small , thoroughbred rich community an hour 's drive north from paris . it is a cassette containing footage of the breeders' cup juvenile in churchill_downs last nov . 2 , a race in which a lamorlaye resident named arazi exploded past 13 other horses to win by 4 3 4 lengths and become an instant kentucky_derby favorite . "" we 've all seen it five or six times , "" said yves de chevigny , director of the training sites in lamorlaye and nearby chantilly . "" arazi was the porsche . the others were the motor scooters . "" robert durepaire , arazi 's assistant trainer , prefers another analogy "" it was like an american film . the horse starts in last place to build the suspense . then he blows everybody away for the happy ending . i just hope this film is n't finished . "" durepaire need not worry the suspense is building again . arazi , the kentucky born chestnut colt with the extra gear , has resumed full workouts in lamorlaye under the watch of his silver haired french trainer , francois boutin . horse and trainer spend the early morning on an enormous , rolling expanse of terrain called "" les aigles , "" a short walk from boutin 's estate and 200 horse stable . arazi spends the remainder of the day in an inconspicuous barn at the end of a narrow street lined with middle_class residences . trying to be a european first no european trained horse has won the kentucky_derby ( the british trained bold arrangement finished second in 1986 ) , but an arazi victory would be more than a coup for old world racing . it would set a precedent for economical preparation . american trained 3 year olds normally race three , four or five times before trying the mile and a quarter derby . arazi will only race once in the 1 , 600 meter prix omnium in saint_cloud , france , on april 7 . that race , like most in this country , will be on grass . boutin selected it , in part , because saint_cloud is the only major french track where horses run clockwise , as they do in the united_states , instead of counterclockwise . according to churchill_downs records , which date only to 1955 , no horse has raced in the kentucky_derby with only one start as a 3 year old . fifteen have raced with two starts in that span , including one winner , sunny 's halo in 1983 . "" i think that for arazi , one race is enough , "" said boutin . "" maybe i 'm fooling myself , and if things do n't work out , people can say it 's my fault . but arazi is a horse who ran a lot as a 2 year old . he does n't need a lot of racework to show what he can do . he prepares very quickly . he 's not a horse to put on weight . this should be no problem for him . "" was this really necessary ? boutin , 55 , is a farmer 's son from the normandy region who has been one of france 's top trainers for the last decade . he expressed confidence in the health of his colt , who underwent arthroscopic knee surgery in kentucky to remove bone chips in his left and right forelegs just four days after his breeders' cup victory . "" he 's fine . i see no difference , "" boutin said . "" but i must admit that personally , i was against the operation . it was n't necessary . he was n't suffering in the least . "" the decision to operate was made by arazi 's co owners allen e . paulson , an american aerospace executive , and sheik mohammed ibn rashid al maktoum of dhubai , who purchased a half share of the colt last october . "" after we bought our share , we had arazi x rayed all over , and they picked up some small lesions on his knees , "" said anthony stroud , a briton who manages sheik mohammed 's breeding farm in newmarket . "" the veterinarians recommended arthroscopic removal , and we believe in listening to veterinarians . "" safe in his stall arazi resumed light workouts in france in mid december and resumed full workouts on feb . 15 . the two thick bandages he wears in his stall are the only physical evidence of the operation . "" just a precaution , "" durepaire said . "" we do n't want him banging into anything . "" the majority of arazi 's work is done on the sand tracks that rim les aigles , which is the centerpiece of a thoroughbred community that includes 100 trainers and over 3 , 000 horses . on tuesdays and saturdays , arazi takes to the grass , where he runs in a group of other horses in an attempt to simulate competition . this approach is rare in the united_states , where horses often train alone on the same dirt tracks where they race . although arazi will not race on dirt before the derby , boutin plans to run him twice on the dirt track in lamorlaye , which is the only dirt track in france and based partly on the design of santa anita in california . arazi trained there before the breeders' cup . a smooth transition "" i think arazi already has proved that he can make the transition from grass to dirt , "" said the american trainer charlie whittingham . "" he blew by them others like they were tied . "" while americans are busy comparing him to secretariat and swaps , the french are busy comparing him to their sea bird , who in 1965 won the epsom derby , the most prestigious race in europe . "" we see a horse like this once every 30 years , "" said de chevigny . the french are quick to point out that his sire , blushing groom , and mother , danseur fabuleux , each trained for a time in france . "" arazi is really very french in his style , "" boutin said . "" in my mind , he 's most marked by weld risk , a french horse who was the grandfather of blushing groom . i knew weld risk well . he could handle distance , and i think arazi can , too . "" arazi came to lamorlaye in december 1990 , after boutin picked him out of a group of paulson 's yearlings who had been selected for their "" european "" potential . "" mr . paulson 's manager showed me 12 horses , and i was permitted to choose five , "" boutin said . "" i liked arazi from the start . "" the colt placed second in his first race as a 2 year old and then won his next six starts all on grass heading into the breeders' cup . his first victory came in a low level 1 , 200 meter race his last three came in grade i events , including the 1 , 600 meter grand criterium , france 's most prestigious race for 2 year olds . "" he 's got a big engine , simple as that , "" said john hammond , an englishman who is one of the top trainers in france . "" and like all great horses , he has a marvelous turn of foot . "" arazi also appears to be blessed with a fine temperament . first time visitors to his stall are greeted with a rub of the nose and a lick . "" he 's very curious about everything around him and extremely easy going , "" said raymond lamonarca , arazi 's groom and exercise rider . "" he can fall asleep in a flash . nothing seems to bother him . you put some horses on an airplane , and they panic . you put arazi on an airplane , and it 's just like another day in his stall . "" arazi has grown about a half inch and gained some weight in his haunches since his 2 year old campaign but remains a colt of average size and unremarkable appearance . "" he 's not a whole lot to look at , "" said jockey steve cauthen , who won the triple_crown aboard affirmed in 1978 and will ride arazi for the first time in saint_cloud . "" but once he starts moving , he 's exceptional . he reminds me a lot of affirmed in comportment and demeanor and intelligence . my only hope is that i get to ride him more than once . "" two jockeys , two continents because of a pre purchase agreement between sheik mohammed and paulson , cauthen , who is based in england and under contract with the sheik , will ride arazi only in europe . when arazi races in the united_states , he will wear paulson 's colors and be ridden by paulson 's jockey of choice , patrick valenzuela . "" it would , of course , be better to have just one jockey , "" boutin said . "" but what can we do ? "" the more provocative question is what arazi will do if he wins the kentucky_derby . paulson would like arazi to race for the triple_crown , but there is a strong possibility that the colt would skip the final two legs and return to europe to train for the epsom derby on june 3 in england . no horse has ever won the kentucky_derby and epsom derby . "" we will discuss it with mr . paulson prior to the kentucky_derby and probably wo n't arrive at any decisions until after , "" stroud said . "" obviously , we would favor a european campaign . "" whatever arazi does this summer , he will spend the bulk of his future in europe . as part of the purchase agreement , he will stand at stud for sheik mohammed in newmarket . "" we feel he will greatly enhance the breed in europe , "" stroud said . "" that was our main reason for going ahead and buying part of this horse . "" for the moment , however , arazi 's spirit belongs to neither paulson nor the sheik . it belongs to lamorlaye and the region of chantilly , where thorougbreds have been training and racing since the early 19th_century . "" this is really marvelous , "" de chevigny said . "" we are beginning to believe that our community is home to the best horse in the world . "" horse racing correction march 21 , 1992 , saturday a sports article yesterday about the french race horse arazi referred incorrectly to the track where he will make his competitive debut as a 3 year old . the track , saint_cloud , is the only major one in france where horses run counterclockwise , as they do in the united_states .",has a topic of sports
"spring_training has begun , but all is not right with our national pastime . still troubled about the dismal nielsen ratings for last year 's world_series , the lords of baseball surely must be intrigued with the packaged , made for television melodramas being broadcast on the winter_olympics . maybe they 'll push for some changes . . . hello , everybody , this is jim_nantz at the cbs autumn games broadcast center , where we 're moments away from the final round of the men 's baseball interleague championship between the los_angeles_dodgers and the new york yankees . let 's go to verne lundquist and scott hamilton , who are standing by at beautiful , time honored dodger stadium . verne ? thanks , jim . we 're here at beautiful , time honored dodger stadium , and our first contestant , representing new york , is leadoff_hitter charles knoblauch , or chuck , as he 's known to friends and teammates . the opening pitch from hideo_nomo of japan is swing and a miss ! strike one . verne , chuck clearly overextended himself on that pitch . looking at the cyber simulation replay , you can see how he failed to lock his hips , then swished his bat in a tight loop , barely inches below the oncoming curveball . when you do that , the umpire subtracts a point . that 's not the chuck_knoblauch we saw back in new york . but i watched chuck during his practice session this morning , and he did not look comfortable . at one point , he threw his bat in disgust and spat onto the playing surface . i 'm worried about him . there 's a short delay . in the meantime , for those you who may not be familiar with chuck_knoblauch , our own christin cooper had a chance to visit with chuck , and she filed this report . ( theme from ''chariots of fire , '' scene of sun rising over field of corn . ) it is said that baseball is a metaphor for life . there are wins . there are losses . and there are many other things , too . so it is with chuck_knoblauch . . . . ( fifteen minutes later . ) . . . so as this plucky twin turned yankee battles on , chuck_knoblauch strives to reclaim the_dream that he and his father once shared the_dream of a world series ring . ( music up . scene of sun setting over field of corn . ) we 're back at dodger stadium , where it is now the fifth inning , and things have not gone well for chuck_knoblauch . in the first inning , he was called out on strikes and then ejected from the game after his urine tested positive for chewing tobacco . meanwhile , the dodgers have opened up a 3 to 1 lead , thanks to a home_run by mike_piazza of los_angeles . and that 's where our own fran drescher is standing by , with some very special people . fran ? thanks , verne . with me here are the parents of mike_piazza , the handsome young pixie of this dodger dream team . mrs . piazza , you 're sitting here , watching , and everybody in america has fallen in love with your son . it must make you feel proud , happy . how does it make you feel ? proud , happy ? ( six minutes later . ) . . . ha ha ! and , hey , if he gets 70 million , maybe mike will buy you that hockey team ! back to jim_nantz at the broadcast center . thanks , fran . there has been a major development in the men 's finals . tim ryan and yekaterina gordeyeva are standing by in deep center_field . tim ? jim , it is now the top of the ninth , and momentum has again shifted . the dodgers lead , but the yankees have loaded the bases with two outs , and they 're sending star outfielder bernie_williams to the plate . but before we bring you the winning runs , which actually were scored yesterday , let 's revisit a truly special moment that happened just prior to the game the ceremonial playing of the national_anthem . . . . hart seely is a reporter for the syracuse post standard .",has a topic of sports
"bernard tapie was charged yesterday in valenciennes , france , with complicity in a corruption case involving olympique marseilles . he was ordered to step down as team president by april 20 . judge bernard beffy also charged tapie with witness tampering in the bribery scandal , which caused european soccer authorities to ban the team from defending its european_cup title . beffy placed tapie under judicial surveillance , forbid him to contact people involved in the case and ordered him to pay a 43 , 000 bond . ( ap ) sports people soccer",has a topic of sports
"sometimes tennis has little to do with hitting a ball over a net . sure , the french take the game seriously , and the two week spring ritual known as the french_open or roland_garros in france attracts the world 's best players . but as important as the defeat of the williams sisters on wednesday is the action off the court . even the real mr . garros was not much of a tennis_player . a record breaking aviator who preferred rugby , he spent three years in a german prison camp and then escaped , only to be killed in battle in 1918 . but he was such a popular hero that france named its international tennis_tournament and stadium after him . so perhaps it is not surprising that the roland_garros complex on the edge of the bois de boulogne is a somewhat artificial world . the 20 acre , 19 court site is at once an upscale theme_park and an open air corporate boardroom . here , deals are done , products are promoted , hooky is played , frenchness is celebrated . in the past few days , sting and jean paul belmondo have turned up . last weekend , interior_minister dominique de villepin played a game of doubles on a side court . ''it 's the first open air event of the season , a reminder that it 's time to leave the office and capture the feeling of well being , '' said fabien grobon , the tournament 's director of corporate sponsors . ''the women are beautiful , the atmosphere is pleasant , the food is good . '' undeniably , the mystique of tennis and france is inseparable from roland_garros . unlike flushing_meadows , the semi industrial mega stadium in queens where the united_states open is played , roland_garros is set amid hydrangeas , bamboo , red and purple bougainvillea and maple , chestnut and palm trees . it is the only grand_slam_tournament played on clay ( three inches of limestone coated with crushed red brick ) , allowing linesmen to inspect ball marks with cartesian precision . roses have been specially bred for roland_garros . ( the steffi_graf is large and pink the flushing_meadows is small and coral colored . ) the center court is lined with perfectly trimmed red geraniums . hostesses with the french tennis federation , which runs the tournament , wear tight fitting white suits and pointy pumps designed by dior . the food concessions smell of belgian waffles and nutella , not crisco . important games are broadcast not only on french television but also to more than 190 other countries . in fact , only about 20 percent of the tournament 's revenue is drawn from ticket sales the rest comes from television rights and corporate sponsoring . that helps makes roland_garros one of the country 's biggest marketing events , generating nearly 240 million in revenues last year for the french economy . next to the center court , l' cole des hautes tudes commerciales , france 's elite business school , has a private area of tables and chairs partly hidden by trees and sun umbrellas where alumni can meet friends and business contacts . sponsors like adidas and i.b.m . use private boxes at courtside and corporate spaces at private restaurants to reward their best clients with free champagne and meals . bnp_paribas , the french bank and the main corporate sponsor , invites 5 , 600 guests to the tournament every year . its most successful media moment in recent years came in 2001 when former president bill clinton sat in the tennis federation 's v.i.p . box just above the bnp_paribas banner . ''the impact is enormous for us , '' said antoine sire , director of communications for the bank . the annual investment of nearly 10 million is , he added , ' 'very good value for the money . '' roland_garros also brings together dozens of french and foreign corporations that rent booths and hawk their wares to potential customers . one of those , al_jazeera sport , a new satellite television_channel of the al_jazeera arabic_language news service , is broadcasting roland_garros matches to the arab_world . in central paris , meanwhile , tennis themes abound . louis_vuitton is featuring a 2 , 700 leather tennis racquet carrier with a shoulder strap . chanel has 550 high heeled sandals with net heels and monogrammed tennis ball pompoms on the toe . peugeot , one of the main sponsors , manufacturers a special roland_garros car every year . but on another level , roland_garros is a great leveler of french society , thrusting together the political , business and social elite with ordinary lovers of what used to be an exclusively upper_class sport . ''you have people who come with their sandwiches full of mayonnaise , who open their umbrella when there is just a drop of rain and forget to close their cellphones , '' said anne_marie waser , a sports sociologist and author of a book on the democratization of tennis in france . ''and you have the connoisseurs , those who created the roland_garros ambiance , who keep quiet and eat their strawberries with whipped cream . the two groups have to coexist . that 's democratization . '' there is an ambitious plan to build a satellite stadium on a nearby plot of land if paris succeeds in becoming the site for the summer_olympics in 2012 . but the project is bitterly opposed by some neighbors and politicians who feel that the roland_garros already has too much of an impact on paris . ''the roland_garros people are very good in business and want to make money and that 's perfectly fine , '' said fran_ois douady , president of a group called the preservation of the bois de boulogne . ''but we cannot let them grab more pieces of the green parts of paris . '' paris journal",has a topic of sports
"life looks very good from the top of the french_alps , where prince albert of monaco can be seen cavorting when aristocrats are in season , and where downhill racers begin their breakneck journeys through fat snowflakes during the winter_olympics . at the highest courchevel settlement , host to international_olympic_committee officials , chalets sell for 45 , 000 francs per square meter ( about 760 per square_foot ) , among the most expensive rates in all of france . here at meribel , site of the olympic ice_hockey tournament and the women 's alpine events , french and american tourists spend the equivalent of 100 on taxi rides to shuttle buses . but down in the valley , where the figure and speed_skating events are being held in drizzly albertville , year round residents are trying to cope with a sagging economy and with an olympics they often cannot attend because of prohibitive ticket prices . "" people from the valleys do n't even go skiing anymore because it 's more and more expensive , "" said renaud perroux , an 18 year old security guard at the pechiney electrometallurgie ( p . e.m. ) plant outside d'aiguebelle . "" maybe the olympics will be good for tourism . but in the valley , we are more worried about the industry . if it closes , there will be a lot of unemployment . "" high up looking down at the venues of the albertville olympics , where three valleys and five mountains provide incongruous backdrops , status is measured by altitude . one thousand meters straight up can cost a chalet renter several thousand francs extra per month . the inn crowd at ethereal meribel , val_d'isere and courchevel is very different than the more modest visitors at brides_les_bains , halfway down the mountain , who pay reasonable rental prices for their soothing thermal baths . "" everybody wants to go higher to the top , "" said xavier clouet , a real_estate agent in la tania , who lives lower , down in the valley , in bozel . "" i would like to live there , too , but . . . "" clouet rubbed his thumb and forefinger together , the universal sign for money , and access . a typical family house sells for about 800 , 000 francs in the valley , 25 percent more at intermediate elevations , another 50 percent more higher up . so clouet stays below . "" i am in the tourist business , "" he said . "" for me , the mountain is my factory . "" for most , however , the mountains of the savoy region are winter playgrounds . each resort has its own personality and draws its own clientele . courchevel , built around five levels of increasingly expensive chalets as it rises to 1 , 850 meters , plays host to the richest international set . variety in the heights meribel , originally built by the british , draws french , british and american tourists . les menuires is for french professionals , mostly doctors and lawyers . val thorens is so high , at 2 , 300 meters , that it attracts only the fittest and richest of the young set . the olympics have not brought more business to these resorts , but they have enhanced the region 's image with their glamorous world class skiers , sledders and telegenic events . down in the valley , however , there is a concern that the working people are being overlooked , priced out of the olympics . automation has cut into the job market along the lower tarentaise valley , where strings of rudimentary factories were built 100 years ago to take advantage of the isere river . there is no fun money here . at the p.e.m . factory , nine employees have become olympic volunteers , working for no pay at venues , to see the events . tickets for preliminary round hockey matches , ranging from 24 to 60 , are simply too costly . "" for us , the olympics mean nothing , "" said joseph de la bastie , director of p.e.m . "" we export our products . but we can hope that in the long run , these sports will mean jobs for the region . "" sense of pride there is , at least , a sense of pride among the workers in the valley , who understand that the olympics could not be happening without their efforts . christian lecaillon is manager of the electricite de france hydroelectric plant at la bathie , and he is proud to guide visitors through a subterranean tunnel to a cavernous turbine room in the middle of a mountain . here , there is enough power generated to run the olympic timing scoreboards , press centers and ice rinks . lecaillon will not go to a single olympic event because he must work longer hours during the olympics . "" we have put in second lines , made skiing , made special preparations , "" lecaillon said . "" for us , the snow does not not mean skiing . it means more run off , which is good , and more danger of breakdowns , which is bad . "" "" in the valley , "" lecaillon said , "" it is business the same as other days , only maybe busier . "" albertville",has a topic of sports
"they have seen it so often that they come to expect it . so here , in such an emotional and intense setting , hideki_matsui 's teammates had a feeling he would come through again . this was matsui 's homecoming to the tokyo_dome , where he starred for a decade with japan 's most revered team , the yomiuri_giants . playing against them with the yankees in an exhibition_game sunday , matsui came up for the first time as the leadoff batter in the second inning . the fans in the right field bleachers chanted , ''home_run matsui ! '' on the yankees' bench , manager joe_torre said to a coach , rob thomson , ''would n't it be something if he hit a home_run here ? '' the backup catcher john flaherty turned to the catching coach , gary tuck , and made the call . ''i said , 'knowing this guy , he 'll probably go deep the first at bat , ' '' flaherty said . ''you almost have come to expect it now . we saw it last year when he hit the grand_slam on opening day in new york . it 's his personality . you expect it , and he delivers . '' on a 2 2 pitch from a former teammate , the left hander hisanori takahasi , matsui blasted a curveball deep into the center_field seats . it produced the yankees' first run in a 6 2 victory that also included homers from jorge_posada and derek_jeter . nobody yelled for those players to do that . matsui had hit 332 homers for the giants , and when the fans asked for another , he provided . ''that 's hard to do , '' jeter said . ''it 's hard enough to hit a home_run in batting practice , let alone in a game . he 's a special player to be able to deal with all the attention and scrutiny and deliver like that . '' after the homer , jeter told matsui , ''you can hit . '' matsui demurred . ''japanese pitching , '' he said . that may have had something to do with it . in their exhibition games here , the japanese pitchers throw japan league baseballs , which pitchers say feel smaller and have tighter seams . ( the yankees pitchers throw major_league balls . ) matsui , who hit only 16 homers last season after ripping 50 for yomiuri in 2002 , said he noticed a difference . ''it feels like it flies a little bit longer , '' matsui said through an interpreter . at a news conference on saturday , a japanese reporter asked torre where matsui would bat . knowing the importance of lineup spots to japanese fans , torre was prepared . matsui , he said , would bat sixth . later , in a smaller interview session , new york reporters asked torre if he had considered batting matsui cleanup and playing him in center , as a nod to his giants career . torre said he had not thought of it , but he seemed to like the idea . overnight , he decided to do it . ''we allow someone to be bigger than the team today , which is not our nature , '' torre said before the game . ''but today is an exception . '' matsui scored two more runs after the homer . he singled to lead off the fourth and scored on posada 's three run blast . when he walked in the fifth and sixth , some fans razzed the pitchers . more hooted in the ninth at the plate_umpire who called matsui out on strikes . many filed out of the dome as soon as that at bat was over . matsui was given a check for 500 , 000 yen ( about 5 , 000 ) as the game 's most valuable player . fans screamed for him as he thanked them , and yomiuri 's m.v.p. , shinnosuke abe , bowed toward matsui . for all of the pomp , matsui said repeatedly that he was able to treat it as if it were a normal day . ''of course there was an excitement , but it was business as usual , '' he said . ''the way i dealt with the game itself , i was able to approach it in the usual way , with a bit of enthusiasm and excitement . but in the batter 's box , my approach and attempt was to go about business as usual . '' closer mariano_rivera , who allowed an unearned run in the ninth the yankees made four errors on the artificial_turf said matsui had mastered the trick of making intense environments seem casual . ''i tell you what , he 's good at handling that pressure , '' rivera said . the rest of the yankees seemed to share that feeling . they have come this far to reconfirm their belief in the magic of matsui . ''special , '' general_manager brian_cashman said , as he left the clubhouse sunday_night . ''very special . '' inside pitch the hanshin_tigers beat the yankees , 11 7 , at the tokyo_dome on monday . donovan osborne , trying to secure the fifth starter 's spot , gave up seven runs in the second inning the other candidate , jorge depaula , followed and allowed one run in three innings . tony clark crushed a 521 foot homer that damaged a small section of the scoreboard high above center_field . officials said the scoreboard would cost 5 , 000 to repair . . . . on sunday , jos_contreras baffled the giants , striking out six in five innings and allowing three hits and an unearned run . ''when you go to the plate , you have an impression of where the balls are going to go , '' yomiuri manager tsuneo horiuchi said through an interpreter . ''but the pitches tonight went in a different direction . '' contreras had command of his fastball and a wicked slow forkball . . . . the yankees will keep center_fielder bernie_williams active , joe_torre said , leaving them the option of using him in their series at tampa_bay on april 6 7 . williams is in tampa , fla . , recovering from an appendectomy and will play in the field for the first time this spring in a minor_league game on monday . baseball",has a topic of sports
"patrick biancone , the french born trainer who handles zavata for michael tabor , originally wanted to name the bay colt houdini , as a sort of play on the sire 's name , phone trick . ''but the name was already taken , '' biancone said today . so he named zavata for france 's most famous circus clown . either name would have provided a worthy fit today . in the 100th running of the grade_ii saratoga special stakes , zavata pulled a disappearing act on his four rivals , cruising to a seven and a quarter length victory to reinforce his credentials as the top 2 year old in training . ''he is just so much better than the other ones , '' biancone said in the winner 's circle as he watched a replay of the race . ''he is a galloping machine . '' even though he raced four wide , zavata covered the six and a half furlongs under jerry_bailey in 1 17 . 65 in 93 degree heat on a hazy , humid day . zavata tracked the early leaders before drawing away in the stretch . lone star sky finished second in the 150 , 000 race , three and three quarter lengths ahead of spite the devil , whose progress was impeded on the turn when he was pinched by the eventual fourth place finisher , awesome of course , who had set the early pace . it would not have mattered . zavata , who returned 2 . 90 on a 2 bet to win as the 2 5 favorite , was much the best . ''i really did n't want to get hung that wide on the turn , but he did , '' bailey said . ''but he had the 5 hole and i thought it was best to just leave him in the clear . the track is pretty slow . it was slow this morning . it was slow all day . my horse handled the track o.k . he just lost a lot of ground . it will make a good horse look ordinary , if he is five or six wide , which he was . and he still drew off and won with authority . '' today 's victory was zavata 's third in four career starts . after finishing a fast closing second to the filly holiday runner in the three chimneys juvenile on the kentucky_derby card on may 4 , zavata trounced maiden special weights at belmont by five and a half lengths on may 27 , then rolled to a six and a quarter length victory in the grade iii tremont at belmont on june 29 . biancone 's other star 2 year old colt , whywhywhy , has won the grade iii flash at belmont and the grade_ii sanford here , giving biancone the top two 2 year olds in the east thus far . it is still early , however . and the last derby winner to capture the saratoga special was swale in 1984 . zavata 's bloodlines phone trick and the cox 's ridge mare pert lady would seem to suggest his strength will be as a sprinter . ''for sure , he is bred for speed , '' biancone said . ''but the mother is by cox 's ridge , and there is a little stamina there . a good horse like zavata makes his own statistics . and he is just so much superior at this stage for the competition . '' the key phrase being ''at this stage . '' biancone said he was pointing zavata for the grade i hopeful at seven furlongs here on aug . 31 . next up for whywhywhy , he said , is the grade i futurity at a mile at belmont on sept . 15 . the two could meet in the grade i champagne at belmont on oct . 5 or , more likely , the breeders' cup juvenile at arlington park on oct . 26 . the breeders' cup juvenile will be run at a mile and an eighth this year , a sixteenth of a mile longer than in the past . ''for me , i think it 's better like that , '' biancone said . ''not for the rest . but for me , the longer will be the better . '' whether the same can be said for zavata , nobody yet knows . ''i know it is a long time to the kentucky_derby , '' biancone said , ''but hopefully , he can stay sound and he will stay like that as long as possible . '' finish lines freedom 's daughter , the 2 year old filly who won the grade_ii schuylerville stakes at saratoga in her second career start , died monday of what was diagnosed as colitis x , a large bowel disease of the large intestine . ''it took her by storm , '' her trainer , todd pletcher , told the blood horse magazine . horse_racing",has a topic of sports
"it was a sign , bob sapp knew , that his self described beast phenomenon had gone too far he shaved his chest for a television commercial and someone swept up the hair and sold it for 500 . it was also a sign of how far sapp had helped take k_1 , japan 's kick boxing league . since arriving in japan nearly two years ago , sapp , a former n.f.l . lineman and pro wrestler , has become perhaps the most popular entertainer and sports figure in the country . his ring name , the beast , has come to symbolize not only his fearsome 6 foot 7 , 375 pound build , but also a media frenzy that has turned a burly fighter into a multimillion_dollar enterprise . sapp , who will take on akebono , a hawaiian born former sumo grand champion , on new year 's eve in a baseball stadium , says he has fought 3 pro wrestling matches and 10 kick boxing bouts in the last year . he also says he has been interviewed 1 , 000 times , made 200 television appearances and 10 commercials , and been the subject of four books . hundreds of products from clocks to dolls to a video_game have flooded the market with his image . his promoters are now trying to arrange a fight with mike_tyson next year the format , k_1 or traditional boxing , is still to be negotiated . sapp , who is 29 and calls seattle home , also has hopes of becoming a hollywood action hero . while sapp ate dinner recently at a restaurant in tokyo , dozens of people walking by stopped to take pictures of him through the window . two young assistants worked on his schedule on a laptop computer his two daily training sessions , media appearances and other commitments were blocked out in different colors . ''how do you say no to that ? '' sapp asked , pointing at the computer . ''it 's so hard . this stuff is really selling . '' the main product sapp is selling , k_1 , was created 10 years ago by kazuyoshi ishii , a seidokan karate school owner who wanted to settle the age old question which fighting style trumps all ? ishii set up single day tournaments in which fighters competed in three three minute rounds , with the winners working their way to a title bout . the k in k_1 stands for karate , kick boxing , taekwondo and kung_fu , all styles that can be used during the short and often violent fights . the 1 represents the winner . knockouts are the most common outcome , and more than a few fighters leave the ring bloodied . the nature of the fights conjures up images of gladiators . sapp is an unlikely star of the sport . after a brief and unhappy career in the national_football_league with the minnesota_vikings , sapp , who is not related to warren of the tampa_bay_buccaneers , joined a pro wrestling league that soon folded . ishii 's organization spotted him boxing in a celebrity event against william_perry , the former chicago_bears defensive lineman . facing the prospect of working at a funeral_home , sapp went to japan to fight in k_1 , a sport he knew nothing about . although not much of a kicker , sapp used his size and tongue_in_cheek character to become an instant hit with the japanese . purists say his fighting style has turned the sport into a farce . other critics accuse him of reinforcing negative stereotypes of african_americans among other things , he has appeared in advertisements eating bananas . sapp 's critics are offset by thousands of fans who adore him and dozens of companies that are eager to use his image . ''as sapp gets more popular , he gets more endorsements , which lead to bigger sponsorship deals and then bigger purses , '' said daisuke teraguchi , the international operations manager for k_1 . ''it 's like a chain reaction . '' sapp missed a shot at the k_1 world championship when he was disqualified for hitting his opponent while he was down during a match in october . still , sapp received a huge round of applause when he appeared at the k 1 world grand prix finals on dec . 6 he was there to promote the idea of a fight against tyson . sapp remains so popular that tickets for his dec . 31 fight with akebono sold out in a day . the bout will be held in a domed baseball stadium in nagoya , a two hour bullet_train ride south of tokyo . the same kind of fanaticism was on display at the tokyo_dome , where eight finalists vied for the world title . the fighters had worked their way through about 20 tournaments held in more than a dozen countries during the year . in a testament to the sport 's international appeal , the contenders came from australia , belarus , france , japan , the netherlands , new zealand and south_africa . the kicking and the punching in the k_1 ring are real , but k_1 events are elaborately orchestrated a cross between the pyrotechnics and theatrics of pro wrestling and the drama and blood curdling energy of boxing . at the world championship , fighters entered the cavernous stadium on cranes and cars , with smoke , strobes and fireworks . music blared over the public_address system . like pro wrestlers , the k_1 fighters adopt personas . fran_ois botha , known as the white buffalo , is a former international_boxing_federation champion who resembles hulk hogan . the three time grand_prix champion peter aerts enters the ring dressed as a lumberjack . remy bonjasky , a former banker known as the gentleman , earned a second nickname , the flying dutchman , for his high kicks . legions of fans follow the fighters . musashi , the only japanese finalist , is the envy of nozomi tsuchimura , a 30 year old office worker , and her three friends , who cooed at the thought of his chance to win the title . ''if he wins , i 'll cry , '' tsuchimura said . an hour before fight time , she and her friends met in front of the tokyo_dome . like many fans , they had traveled from afar for the event . the four women met a few years ago while chatting on a musashi fan club web_site . since then , they have attended three or four fights a year together . with its rock concert like feel , a k_1 event draws a mixed audience . about half the fans at the tokyo_dome were women . the crowd was mostly young people . ringside seats cost 35 , 000 yen ( about 325 ) , and upper deck seats went for 5 , 000 yen ( about 46 ) . yet k_1 had no trouble filling more than 60 , 000 seats at this year 's finale . millions more watched the fights on television they were broadcast in prime time . sponsors are eager to be involved . sapporo breweries and the consumer loan company aiful had billboards at the tokyo_dome . konami , another advertiser , developed a k_1 video_game . kick boxers have helped sell everything from noodles in a cup to sports drinks to electronics . sapp even appeared in an ad for the government 's small business agency . just like a fight night in las_vegas , k_1 bouts draw comedians , television stars and pop singers to ringside . kazuhiro_sasaki , a relief_pitcher for the seattle_mariners , took his young son to watch the title bouts . ''i came here to see the championship , to see what i can look forward to , '' said al faccinto jr . , the president of mgm_mirage international , which has staged k_1 fights at the mirage and bellagio hotels in las_vegas . ''k_1 is not a fight , but an event . people want to be here . '' the bouts are short and unpredictable , largely because the fighters' styles are often quite different . some are strong with their fists but weak at kicking others use their speed to surprise larger opponents . fights can end violently in seconds . peter graham crumpled after bonjasky jumped high to drive his knee into his chin . graham staggered to his feet , but within a moment bonjasky floored him again with another kick , this time ending the bout . several hours later , bonjasky was crowned champion , after having won two more fights . all the fighters returned to the ring with their retinues to hug and watch as bonjasky was given a golden olive_branch for his head . with the tournament season completed , fans and the sports media are focusing on the year 's final event , the showdown between sapp and akebono . the fight promises to be a spectacle , mostly because neither fighter is a kicker , but also because sapp will finally face someone as large as he is . mike_tyson , who is being courted by k_1 , will offer commentary via satellite from hawaii , where he will be on vacation . having sapp and akebono , who are both american , battle it out in japan should help the sport in the united_states , said scott coker , the chief executive of k_1 usa . coker has struck deals with espn to expand its coverage of k_1 , and he calls sapp an ambassador for the sport . k_1 is still relatively unknown in the united_states , but as more children take up martial_arts , k_1 is bound to grow , coker said . he has hired a scout to search for more bob sapps . ''we 're overturning stones to find them , '' coker said . ''it 's just a matter of getting them not to play baseball or football . '' k_1",has a topic of sports
"another long breakaway formed early in the tour de france today and once again rolf sorensen failed to make the train . at age 36 , it gets harder and harder to get good position near the front of the pack , to anticipate every move by rivals and to unleash that burst of speed needed to join them as they bolt away . ''i do my best , i 'm still ambitious , but i 'm a realist and i know when it 's time to go for it and when it 's time to back off the battle a little bit , '' the danish rider for the csc tiscali team of denmark said . although the words applied to his attempts to win a stage , sorensen was talking about his overall career and his plan to retire at the end of next year . ''i 'm very happy with my career , '' he said . ''everything i did in 16 years of pro cycling is a gift . '' ''everything'' includes victories in most of the major one day classics , stage victories in the tour and the giro d'italia , and a short spell in the yellow jersey a decade ago before he crashed and had to withdraw . sorensen dreams now not of the emblem of overall leadership , but of a smaller triumph . ''i 'm not the kind of guy who just wants to make it to paris , '' where the race ends sunday , he said . ''i want to accomplish something before i finish the race . '' not today . for the 17th stage , he was not part of a 17 man group of low ranking riders that was allowed to go its way on a scorching day , 194 kilometers ( 120 . 5 miles ) from brive la gaillarde north to montlu on in the heart of the country . the breakaway was subject to repeated internal attacks until only three riders remained ahead near the finish . they had enough of a lead left to be able to slow down , look one another over , peer back to see where the pursuing pack was and then begin their sprint . serge baguet , a belgian with lotto adecco , was a clear winner with jakob piil , a danish teammate of sorensen 's , second in the same time , 4 hours 13 minutes 36 seconds , a rapid 45 . 8 kilometers an hour ( 28 . 5 miles an hour ) over rolling and twisting terrain . massimiliano lelli , an italian with cofidis and another member of the breakaway , was third , five seconds behind , with the main pack of most of the remaining 145 riders another eight seconds back . lance_armstrong , the american leader of the united_states_postal_service team and the two time defending champion , was part of that main pack . he continued to lead jan ullrich , a german with telekom , by a comfortable 5 05 , with andrei kivilev , a kazakh with cofidis , third , 5 13 behind . armstrong was less interested in this stage than in the one friday , a 61 kilometer ( 37 . 9 mile ) individual time trial over a route that he said is more hilly than advertised . ''i feel better than i have ever at this point , '' armstrong said in an interview this morning as he sat in the team bus and awaited the start . ''i 'm ready for tomorrow . i want to do a strong ride tomorrow . '' armstrong added ''it 's important for the yellow jersey to ride a strong final time trial . '' why ? ''to respect the jersey , to show the yellow jersey is strong and worthy . '' had not he shown that by dominating the tour in the alps and pyrenees as he headed for his third consecutive victory ? armstrong laughed . ''i 'll try to do it again . '' in 142nd place , sorensen has no such ambitions , but he is enjoying himself as much as armstrong . ''this is my eighth tour de france , not so many , '' sorensen said , noting that his last was in 1997 . ''i 'm here because it 's the biggest race in the world and i wanted to say a good farewell before i end my career . ''i just wanted to be in the tour once again . i 'm going to ride again next year but probably not the tour . ''i love it , even though i 've been suffering on the mountains . when i crossed the finish line in the last stage in the pyrenees , i said , 'how can something that i love so much , that is so beautiful , hurt me this much ? ' '' cycling",has a topic of sports
""" arms up , sir , "" said the man in the yellow security jacket who was standing outside of gate 1 at tampa stadium yesterday afternoon . in the warm sun , a man wearing a cap with a miniature buffalo head dutifully raised his arms as instructed . the man in the security jacket then patted the man down with a black metal detector that looked like a fraternity paddle . "" turn around , "" the security man said . the black paddle made a buzzing sound , as if there were bees inside it , as it roamed over the man 's body . "" what 's that in your pocket ? "" the security man asked . "" just keys , "" said the man wearing the buffalo head , who also had on a buffalo_bills jacket . "" gonna have to see them , "" security said . the bills fan dug them out . overhead , there was the whir of helicopters . behind those people being searched at the gate was a long line of fans also waiting to get into the stadium . nearby were the concrete barriers and the chain link fences that had been erected especially for this event . mounted police officers patrolled those areas . on top of the stadium were men in camouflage uniforms , part of a swat team . they held machine_guns . everyone and everything was searched as thoroughly as possible before the football game , or was supposed to be . every car that drove into the stadium area was stopped . every hood was raised . every trunk was scrutinized . there had never been a super_bowl like this super_bowl . and the super_bowl had n't even started yet . if there were fears that the super_bowl was a dangerous place because it posed an irresistible temptation for terrorists , those fears appeared to be subsumed for many fans by the excitement of seeing a football game . the constables , of course , had a different perspective . suddenly , however , it seemed indecent that there were bombs exploding and gas_masks at the ready and troops facing a terrible ground war and countries besieged in the persian_gulf , and that there was this football game over here a sports bacchanal , and people pressing in to cheer it all on . but then one recalled that reports from the front showed great interest there in the game , and that soldiers eagerly planned to watch and listen to it . unless , of course , as one said , there was an attack . all of this celebrations at home while a war is being fought elsewhere has happened before , and the republic has survived . and rather nicely . so maybe there is indeed something to be said for going on with the game . at tampa stadium it was a literally isolated world . there were no radios and no portable television sets allowed into the game . so people could n't keep up with any late breaking developments in the war . inside the stadium , before the game , fans waved small flags and viewed scenes on the huge television screens behind each end_zone depicting american_soldiers on the home front with their children , or with compatriots in the battle zone . at halftime , and in between plays by jim kelly and jeff hostetler and thurman thomas and ottis anderson and bruce smith and lawrence taylor , there were more shots of soldiers , more flag waving . next on the screen , president_bush and barbara_bush spoke about the war_effort and the bravery of the troops . immediately afterward on the field , huge mickey_mouse and minnie mouse and goofy floats were inflated . all of it lent an air of unreality . in a nation that was built on the strength of diversity , this was diversity at its maddest edge . our attention shifted from saudi_arabia to the white_house to the football field to disneyland . what was the game ? what was the marketing ( another word for propagandizing ) ? what was the message ? all of it seemed to blur , into colors of red , white and blue . "" i 'm thrilled that they 're doing this , "" said bill robertson , from sayville , l . i. , before the game , as he was being searched . "" i feel safer . but nothing would keep me from this game . i 'm a giants fan all the way . "" "" we 've been overlooking a lot of little things today , "" said ken jackson , of the pasco county_sheriff 's office . "" like some of the drunks that we 'd normally haul into jail . we just tell their friends to get 'em outta here . "" somewhere else , a man began to scream "" my wallet 's gone ! someone just took my wallet ! help ! oh , all my credit_cards are gone ! all my money ! i 've had my pocket picked ! "" war or no war , super_bowl or no super_bowl , security or no security , for many it was still business as usual . super bowl xxv sports of the times",has a topic of sports
"in the 15 winter_olympics since they began in 1924 , the united_states has won more medals in speed_skating than in any other sport . in all likelihood , the team heading to france for the albertville games in february will keep the margin in place . among the 12 men and 8 women who qualifed for the team in trials that concluded tonight is a nucleus of 12 skaters who competed in the 1988 games in calgary , including two medal_winners bonnie_blair and eric flaim as well as one skater , mary docter , who made an olympic team for the fourth time . it also includes michelle kline , a 23 year old first time olympian who finished the trials as a starter in four events and the alternate in a fifth . if blair , a starter at 500 , 1 , 000 and 1 , 500 , decides to remove herself from the 1 , 500 a possibility , she said tonight , depending upon her international races leading to the games kline would start all five events . more remarkable is that kline is skating at all . six months ago , she was badly hurt in an automobile accident , prompting her surgeon to say she would not have survived had she not been in such strong physical condition . 'it 's a miracle' "" it 's a miracle , i think , "" she said tonight . "" he said if it had been one of my parents , they would n't be here today . "" she was one of four skaters in a jeep driven by nathaniel mills when it spun out of control and crashed into a light pole along an interstate between chicago and milwaukee . she suffered a lacerated spleen and kidney , a punctured lung , three broken ribs and torn ligaments in her neck and shoulders . of the three other skaters , only moira d'andrea was hurt , suffering a concussion . neither mills nor mark greenwald were injured . all three of them also qualified for the team this weekend , d'andrea in the 1 , 000 , mills in the 1 , 500 and greenwald in the 5 , 000 . kline spent 12 days in the hospital and went home with a foot long scar below her sternum . over the next six weeks , she left bed only to try regaining her strength by walking . "" at first , it took me 15 to 20 minutes just to walk to the bathroom that was terrible , "" she said . "" two weeks after the accident , it took me 30 minutes to make it up and down the driveway . "" at the time , skating in the olympics seemed an impossible goal , but she clung to the thought if she were ever well enough to skate again , she could resume her career . it finally happened sept . 1 . "" i was n't sure about the trials or competing this year or if my body would allow me to skate , "" she said . "" but once i got back on the ice , i knew i would be back . "" mills became the second member of his family to qualify for the olympics his sister phoebe was the only united_states gymnast to win a medal in the 1988 seoul games . mills denied he was driving too fast when the accident occurred , an assertion d'andrea agreed with . but , for some reason , he was unaffected by the accident or the coincidence that all four people in the car ended up making the team . "" it was not like it was a load off my chest or anything , "" he said , adding that he did not feel the accident necessarily affected kline 's chances to make the olympic team . "" i think the rest helped her , "" he said . the strength of the team appears to be athletes in the shorter distances , specifically blair and dan_jansen . but the united_states coach , peter mueller , predicted that as many as seven skaters could win medals blair possibly winning three , in the 500 , 1 , 000 and 1 , 500 , and jansen two , in the 500 and 1 , 000 . the others he cited were docter , nick thometz , david besteman , flaim and brian wanek . all but thometz specialize in middle and long distances . "" that 's the way it looks to me now , "" said mueller , a gold medalist at the 1976 olympics . "" i ca n't say other people do n't have a chance , but these are the best hopes for a medal . "" short_track teams set lake placid , n.y. , dec . 22 ( ap ) cathy turner and amy peterson earned spots on the united_states olympic team with a 1 2 finish today here at the short_track_speed_skating trials . turner , of hilton , n.y. , near rochester , was the overall winner in the women 's division , finishing with 303 points . peterson , of maplewood , minn . , finished second with 238 points . both will skate in the 500 meter event in february at the winter_olympics in albertville , france , where short_track_speed_skating will make its debut as a medal sport . the united_states men 's team was completed saturday with andy gabel of franklin , wis . , and charles king of studio city , calif . , earning positions . speed_skating",has a topic of sports
"karyn bye , a forward on the united_states women 's gold_medal winning hockey team at the olympics , has been learning to be a celebrity in new york this week , doing the talk_shows and signing_autographs . ''i come into the hotel and people are stopping and asking me what it was like in japan . 'do you have your medal on you ? can i see your medal ? ' '' she said . ''if i did n't have the olympic jacket on , i do n't think they 'd recognize me . but i still glow every time i look at the medal . i did n't take it off for three or four days straight . '' public lives",has a topic of sports
"a wave of injuries to some of international soccer 's top stars has now crashed upon world champion france . zinedine zidane , the brilliant midfielder considered by many the world 's best player , sustained a thigh injury sunday_night in an exhibition against south_korea and will miss france 's opening world_cup match . the team said zidane had partially torn a muscle in his left thigh in a 3 2 tuneup victory and would miss friday 's match against senegal . his status for the second match , against uruguay on june 6 , is day to day . an absent , or even less than healthy , zidane could be a devastating blow to the french team , which has a threatening draw as it seeks to repeat as world champion . after closing out the first round against denmark on june 11 , the french could face matches with england in the second round , brazil in the quarterfinals and argentina in the semifinals . already , the star striker thierry henry is bothered by a knee injury , and the defense , which has no starter younger than 30 , has suddenly become vulnerable . while zidane was home for the birth of his third son , france suffered a rare home defeat , losing to belgium nine days ago . it was lucky to scratch out a victory in the final minute against south_korea on sunday . though sometimes seeming to disappear from matches for long stretches , zidane has developed an enchanted presence on the french squad . he scored a pair of goals as france defeated brazil , 3 0 , to win the 1998 world_cup . and his algerian heritage has come to symbolize the diversity of a nation that also fields soccer players from ghana , armenia and senegal . he had seemed to be entering the world_cup on top of his game , having scored a magnificent volley on may 15 to help give his club team , real_madrid , a victory over bayer_leverkusen in the final of the european_champions league . now , all of france will be consumed by every update on the condition of his injured leg . soccer",has a topic of sports
"joe bryant resigned yesterday as an assistant coach at la salle university to follow the career of his son , kobe , who hopes to jump from high_school to the n.b.a . kobe_bryant , a 6 foot 6 inch forward honored as the national scholastic player of the year by several organizations , announced on april 29 that he would skip college to enter the draft . in selecting the pros , kobe_bryant , who went to lower merion high school , decided against playing for la_salle . ( ap ) sports people basketball",has a topic of sports
"eleven years in the planning , 1 . 6 billion in the spending , the xvi winter_olympics opened today under crystal clear skies , with a lavish cermony that was typically french and a political controversy that was typically american . for nearly two hours , an audience of 30 , 000 spectators in the world 's largest temporary stadium , as well as millions watching on television around the world , were dazzled by screaming jet_fighter planes , strobe lights , fireworks and an entertainment pastiche that seemed to run the gamut of modern french culture . besides the usual elements that make up these festivities , like the parade of athletes and the official proclamation that the games have opened , there were also modern dancers simulating the winter sports , roller bladers , a flying angel , clowns amid a surrealistic circus , bungee jumpers hanging from a central column , people on stilts with giant golf balls above their heads , women dressed in giant snow globes , men adorned with expansive gold stars and , at all times , music either jazzy , rhythmic , operatic , baroque or simply haunting , as in a score from a costa gavras film . ambitious in every way in its entirety , the production seemed as stylistic as any celebrating the start of an olympics , but in this case , absolutely fitting , given the unique nature of these games . for 16 days , starting with a 3 2 victory today by canada over france in a hockey match and moving into high gear with the men 's downhill on sunday morning , they will involve more than 600 square miles of albertville and the alpine regions beyond . no olympics of the past have dared be so ambitious in breadth or scope . even the organizing_committee 's choice of the final torch bearer was unusual . running the perimeter of the stadium , then up the stairs to light the flame that burns for the duration of the games a sacred honor at any olympics was michel platini , the greatest soccer star of france , now a director of the national team . soccer is played in the summer_olympics , sure , but platini 's only olympic experience was as a member of france 's fifth place team in the 1976 games . "" he is a great personage of our country , "" one french journalist said of the 36 year old platini . "" but as a choice today ? tres bizarre . tres bizarre . "" as was the controversy over whether bill koch would dip the american flag when he led the american delegation past francois_mitterrand , the president of france , thereby endorsing the spirit of globalism but violating federal law . he did not , thus deflating a potential controversy . for the most part , the spectators enjoyed it all , even if it was not entirely evident by their subdued responses . only on rare occasion did they cheer loudly , and each time for their own for jean_claude_killy , the three time gold medalist in skiing at the 1968 grenoble olympics who greeted the audience with a welcoming speech as co president of the organizing_committee for mitterrand , who officially declared the games open and later stood at the right time , his arms aloft , when an audience wave reached his section and for the french team , led into the stadium by its flag bearer , fabrice guy , a nordic combined skier . for the traditionalists , the parade of athletes was the highlight of the show , despite the ersatz french and english poetry used to introduce each team as it entered . who could forget such verse as "" winning with grace and competing so prettily , here comes the team from italy . "" or "" it 's almost a mania , cheering the team from lithuania . "" but enough . these winter_games have attracted a record number of countries , 64 , and athletes , 2 , 196 , some of them from the unlikeliest of sources of winter sport , like swaziland , mexico and senegal . their march illustrated the new world order in sports . together for the first time since 1968 were germans of all geographic backgrounds , no longer divided as east_germany and west_germany . athletes from estonia , latvia and lithuania once the baltic_republics of the soviet_union followed their own flags for the first time in 50 years . and with no more soviet_union , athletes from five former soviet republics russia , belarus , ukraine , kazakstan and uzbekistan marched into the stadium as members of the united team , as they will be known for these games . without remants of the past , like their familiar red and white uniforms bearing the cyrillic letters of c.c.c.p. , they followed the olympic flag into the stadium , each athlete carrying a smaller flag of his or her own republic . other changes were reflected in the trifurcation of what was once yugoslavia 's team . just as recent civil_war has redrawn political boundaries , its team marched without athletes from croatia and slovenia , who had national flags of their own . americans act grown up the united_states team , too , was different from those hundreds of athletes who entered the olympic_stadium more than three years ago at the summer_olympics in seoul , south_korea . there , the americans distinguished themselves by their rowdy behavior . while nearly all other athletes comported themselves with decorum , the americans waved to the crowd , threw out souvenirs , yahooed and mugged for cameras . within a day , a senior i.o.c . official sent a letter of complaint to the american delegation . "" of course , we were very embarrassed by the protocal lapses in seoul , "" chuck foster , the head of the united_states delegation , said before today 's ceremonies . "" we 're working on procedures so this does n't happen again . "" this time , the americans looked and played the part of honorable statesmen , dressed in sober navy and burgundy and acting respectfully . that included koch , an iconoclastic 36 year old cross_country_skier and four time olympian who was selected as the united states flag bearer . he had hinted earlier in the day he might "" dip "" the american flag as he passed before mitterrand and the other dignitaries of the host country . according to federal statute , the american flag "" shall not be dipped to any person or any thing . "" it is olympic protocol that all flag bearers do so , out of respect to representatives of the host country although the custom is generally ignored . today , only the flag bearers from bermuda ( wearing yellow shorts and black high socks , no less ) , canada , croatia and monaco dipped . sixty others did not , including koch . as the ceremonies drew to a close , the americans were perched high in the stands , along with all the other athletes . below them a man dressed like a bird was interacting with hundreds of individuals carrying colorful flags before a lone skier , who zigged and zagged his way through people dressed like fir trees . finally , the skier , whose skis were actually mounted on hidden roller blades , passed below a banner bearing the french word "" depart "" and disappeared out of the stadium . that meant the games were about to begin . albertville",has a topic of sports
"phil sorenson did n't hear a knock at the door , but he knew his best friend had let himself in again because there was a commotion in the kitchen . cody wentz was standing at the refrigerator , chugging milk from a half gallon carton . he wiped his mouth on his sleeve , and sorenson could guess what would come next . ''you want to play some football ? '' sorenson said wentz would always ask . sorenson knew wentz 's dream was to leave williston , a prairie town of 12 , 512 so isolated that it shares a telephone book with a city two hours away . everyone around knew wentz wanted to play professional football . ever since they met on the high_school freshman team , sorenson had helped wentz chase that goal . so without hesitation , he trailed wentz to a field where they played catch , a ritual they followed even in winter , when the temperatures could dip to 50 below . football was there for sorenson and wentz at 17 , when they joined the national_guard to pay for college , and united them at 21 , when they were shipped to iraq , where the sport provided a connection to less complicated lives back home . but halfway around the world , it was the war that would separate them . to sign up for the north_dakota national_guard , phil sorenson drove seven hours to the military entrance processing station in fargo . he remembered thinking , ''woo hoo ! college money ! '' as he took the physical , signed the papers and repeated the oath . his brother jeff had enlisted after disappointing jobs at wal_mart and subway , and sorenson was drawn by the 5 , 000 enlistment bonus , the 150 monthly training pay and the tuition assistance . in williston , where the median_household_income is less than 30 , 000 , the money mattered . as soon as wentz heard from sorenson what the guard paid , he signed up , too . with a commitment of one weekend a month and two weeks a year for six years , they were confident their lives would stay pretty much the same . both high_school juniors then , they still drove to the dairy queen parking_lot at night and sat atop sorenson 's mother 's 1985 econoline van to holler at passers by . days revolved around football . their senior year , in 2000 , they started on the williston high_school_football team , which went 2 7 . sorenson , at 6 feet and 160 pounds , was the quarterback and the all conference safety . wentz , a bear of a guy at 5 11 and 215 , played defensive_tackle . ''they were always together , '' fred douglas , their former coach , said . ''no one could outwork cody . phil was n't as hard core , but he always got the job done . '' they could not have been more different , said jake schmitz , a tight_end who was a close friend . he said wentz was opinionated , driven and uncomplicated . ''but phil was different , '' he said . ''he was more of a mystery . '' to relax , sorenson went on long runs , drove to an empty field to listen to the wind or cross stitched football logos . wentz was forever restless he worked long shifts as a waiter and a cook to save money for football training and cars . after high_school , wentz won a partial athletic scholarship to the university of mary in bismarck . as a freshman , he played linebacker in practice but never dressed for games . the next semester , he left because he did not want to pay for tuition if he was not going to play . wentz developed an alternate plan , however far fetched train on his own and improve so that an n.c.a.a . division i team would recruit him . then , maybe , some pro_football team would notice him . wentz bulked up to 275 pounds . leo warmsbecker , his training partner , said wentz could bench press 375 pounds and squat 550 . meanwhile , wentz studied nursing at williston state , a two year college . sorenson took classes there , too , while working in the grain fields , still undecided about a career . once a month , they did their routine duty with the guard . off to war when phil sorenson and cody wentz enlisted in 2000 , the recruiter told them not to worry , sorenson recalled , because the last time the williston unit had been activated for federal duty was in 1961 for the berlin crisis , and it did not leave the country . but in december 2003 , their unit , trained to build bridges and roads and to demolish structures , was mobilized to go to iraq . sorenson thought it was his duty to serve . wentz thought fighting a foreign war was not a guardsman 's job . two nights after christmas , as a frigid 30 mile an hour wind swept the falling snow sideways , 105 soldiers boarded buses headed to fort_carson , colo . , to train with the 141st engineer combat battalion . fifty five of them were from williston 's unit , the rest from a unit in dickinson , three hours south . police officers and firefighters marched ahead of the buses as they drove out of williston . people lined the street , honking car horns and cheering . sorenson said wentz , usually boisterous , was silent as they waved goodbye through the bus windows . sorenson remembered that he and wentz tried not to cry . they climbed onto a pile of duffel bags and lay side by side for a trip that took nearly 25 hours on icy roads . the hum of the motor lulled them to sleep . after two months at fort_carson , phil sorenson and cody wentz were driving in an unarmored five ton gravel truck near balad , 50 miles north of baghdad , inside the unstable sunni_triangle , 6 , 500 miles from home . ''we better pray to god that we do n't get hit in this thing because we 'll all be dead , '' sorenson recalled saying to wentz , m_16 rifle in hand , as they stood surrounded by plywood boxes filled with sandbags in the back of the truck . fully armored_vehicles did not arrive for six months , sorenson remembered . sorenson said his unit was initially told it would conduct searches for insurgents . but for the next year , the 141st 's mission was to travel 15 to 20 miles an hour in search of roadside_bombs , a task for which sorenson said they had trained for about one day . infuriated by poor equipment and the lack of preparation , wentz wrote a four page letter to lloyd omdahl , a former lieutenant governor of north dakota who writes a newspaper column . in crisp , neat handwriting , wentz explained that he had been duped into believing his unit would not face overseas combat . ''we are doing a good job , but one of these times , 'good' will not be enough , '' he wrote . to allay their fears , he and sorenson talked about williston . wentz said he wanted to buy his parents a new house so they could move out of their trailer . sorenson missed the chicken supreme from the truck_stop restaurant kalley 's kitchen . they promised each other that if neither married , they would buy a house together , sit on the lawn in undershirts and whistle at women . they talked about dying or , worse , being wounded . ''we always said , 'if i lose any one of my limbs , make sure you 're behind me to shoot me in the head , ''' sorenson said . he and wentz turned to sports to feel tied to home , tossing a football in 130 degree heat and playing basketball on a makeshift court with some fellow soldiers from north_dakota and a national_guard unit from new york , the second battalion , 108th infantry . meanwhile , wentz wrote to his parents , ''i do n't want to look back on life and say i never did everything i could to make football become a dream come true . '' he lifted weights , often past midnight when it was cooler , using wheels and parts from a bradley_fighting_vehicle because there were no barbells . sorenson 's hobby was taking digital photographs and making videos , which he would send to friends and family . in one video that became a hit back home , he filmed wentz eating a four pound can of tuna sent by sorenson 's father because it had 300 grams of protein . sorenson had his camera along on an evening patrol last nov . 4 as his armored_humvee inched its way down a paved four lane highway between balad and ad dujayl . early in the mission , a roadside_bomb exploded between vehicles in their convoy , putting sorenson , the driver , and wentz , his gunner , on edge . to take their minds off the danger , they debated the virtues of their favorite n.f.l . teams , the minnesota_vikings and the detroit lions . suddenly , another bomb exploded , sending shrapnel into their humvee . it jumped the curb , hit a tree and caught fire . wentz was thrown to the floor , unconscious . sorenson leaped out and collapsed . his left foot and ankle were gone . he saw a hole in his left hand . as a medic placed a tourniquet on his leg and gave him morphine , sorenson cursed , screamed and asked , ''where 's cody at ? '' wentz , who was n't breathing but had a faint pulse , had been pulled out of the humvee and was lying on the ground . soon they were loaded onto a black hawk helicopter headed for a hospital . wentz died onboard . back in williston , his father , kenny , was mowing the lawn around a sign that said , ''cody 141st waiting for your safe return . '' his mother , joyce , was out playing bingo . a black hawk appeared in the sky , a signal that officers were arriving to notify a soldier 's family of his death . joyce wentz returned home and found them standing in her kitchen . no one had the heart to tell sorenson that wentz had died until late the next day . survival and guilt half a year later , in may , phil sorenson pulled up to the wentzes' new house in williston and tried to stay composed as he took it all in . parked in the driveway was cody wentz 's souped up purple 1973 plymouth duster . hanging in one closet were his extra large fatigues . scattered in a bedroom were his detroit lions memorabilia , from banners to beanie babies . inside a wooden box with an army silver seal were wentz 's ashes . sorenson looked away . wentz 's parents purchased the home in april with part of their son 's 250 , 000 life_insurance , which he had bought at the last minute . they received the standard death benefit , 12 , 000 , from the government . as sorenson toured the house , limping on his prosthetic leg , he clutched his wooden cane with his left hand , now held together by six metal rods . joyce wentz led him to a room in the finished_basement . ''this bedroom is yours , '' she said . on the way out , she whispered to visitors ''we do n't have cody , so we have phil . he 's all we have left of our son . '' though the wentzes say their pain has been unbearable , they insist that sorenson feels worse because he was there when cody died . they know he feels guilt about surviving , and they have gone out of their way to help him deal with that emotion . ''if you and cody had switched places , cody would n't have been able to handle it , so please do n't feel bad , '' kenny wentz told him . the 141st sent 475 soldiers to iraq . twenty six of them , including sorenson , received purple_hearts . four died wentz was the only one from williston . the unit returned on feb . 16 , which would have been wentz 's 22nd birthday . sorenson was promoted to sergeant that day . the next time he saw his unit was in may for a parade in williston to welcome the returning guard soldiers . at a party later that day at the community center , those soldiers were introduced . sorenson , wearing a t_shirt with wentz 's picture on it , rose slowly when his name was called . he turned toward the gathering of about 1 , 800 , who cheered loudest for him . flanking him , kenny and joyce wentz sat frozen and stared at the floor . ''how do you think i felt standing there in between my best friend 's parents ? '' sorenson said later . ''i 'm here and cody is not , and there are his parents crying , and there is the whole crowd looking at me wondering why i 'm still here . ''to tell you the truth , i think that is how i 'm going to feel my whole life . '' he dropped his forehead onto his cane and began to sob as the master of ceremonies said , ''soldiers , make sure to wear your name tags , so all of these burka free girls know who to kiss . '' ground zero phil sorenson said if he had not been injured , he would probably have gone back to school or applied for a full time job with the guard . he might have become a recruiter . although north_dakota 's national_guard and reserves have the country 's second highest number of deaths in iraq per million population , enlistments are strong . in april , recruiters enlisted 52 soldiers , the highest monthly total in three years , according to the state 's national guard bureau . while sorenson was in iraq , his brother jeff , 28 , re enlisted for six years to get the tax free 15 , 000 bonus . his brothers adam , 19 , and brent , 26 , are also in the guard . but now sorenson cannot imagine a military career . he has fallen in love . seven months ago , he met alaina sacramo , a volunteer with an organization called operation second chance . he was recuperating at walter_reed_army_medical_center in washington and she was visiting wounded soldiers as part of the group 's mission to assist returning soldiers with their return to duty or with their transition home . they clicked when she told him that her best friend had been killed in a car accident . he is convinced that wentz sent her from heaven . sorenson said he was angry because he thought his friend had died for nothing . but sacramo and others have helped him change his view . parents and spouses of some of those who died in the world trade center attack thanked sorenson when they visited washington . and in mid june , he and sacramo visited ground zero , and engine company 9 and ladder company 6 in chinatown . he said he wanted to talk to firefighters because he felt it would help him understand why he and wentz had gone to iraq . ''lots of us think you 're real heroes , especially after what happened here in new york , '' the firefighter nick lucenti told him . ''your sacrifices were not in vain . '' sorenson will leave the military at the end of july . even though sacramo lives near washington , sorenson said he would return to williston for at least a year , to be with his parents but also to spend time with the wentzes . he wants to take kenny and joyce wentz hunting with the rifle some townspeople recently gave him as a welcome home present . or , he said , he may simply hang out at their house . he imagines drinking a few beers , playing pinochle and reminiscing about cody before descending the stairs to his new room . about the series this article is one in an occasional series on the iraq_war 's effect on athletes . a previous article focused on two women who had shared a dream of playing pro_basketball and who sustained serious injuries in the war . in two arenas",has a topic of sports
"as he sat in a hotel ballroom filled with american_league all stars yesterday , jeff zimmerman was in a unique position . not cal ripken , not derek_jeter or bernie_williams , not roberto_alomar or rafael palmeiro or john wetteland or ivan rodriguez or pedro martinez could make the claim jeff zimmerman could . he is the first graduate of the northern league , an independent minor_league , and the french national_league yes , the league plays in france to be named to a major_league all star team . oh , did we mention that he 's canadian , too ? ''i was actually the first canadian player , '' zimmerman said yesterday , ''to win a french championship . that had been my claim to fame up until today . '' zimmerman 's claim to fame in reality is the 0 . 86 earned_run_average and . 106 opponents' batting_average he has produced for the texas_rangers as the most effective setup reliever in the major_leagues this year . those numbers do n't look real , but they represent his rookie performance and the reason zimmerman , who two years ago was pitching in an independent league , will have a seat in the american_league bullpen at fenway_park tonight . ''this is not even a dream come true for me because it 's just something i never dreamed of , '' zimmerman , a 26 year old right hander , told a host of reporters . ''maybe i dreamed of playing hockey in the n.h.l . i grew up in a real small town back in rural alberta . this is just an amazing thrill for me . it 's tough enough for me to imagine myself playing major_league_baseball , let alone having the success i 've had so far this year and to find myself in the all star game as a middle relief pitcher . it just blows me away . it 's fantastic . '' his presence in boston represented a great leap from the days when he resorted to sending his resume to all major_league clubs and could not hire an agent to represent him . ''my brother had the hendricks agency in houston , '' zimmerman said , referring to his brother , jordan , a reliever with the seattle_mariners . ''i talked to them , hoping they 'd represent me , but they did n't want to give me the time of day . '' zimmerman comes from the farming community of carseland , a town of 500 with an elementary_school but no traffic lights . ''if you blink , you might miss it , '' he said . the area offered so few baseball opportunities that when he and jordan were teen_agers , their parents arranged games with american_legion teams as far as an eight hour drive away in the united_states . jeff zimmerman became more mainstream when he attended texas christian university , but his efforts in two seasons there did not attract even one major_league club . he went undrafted and contented himself playing for the canadian national team in international tournaments . it was that experience that led him to france . ''i had a pitching coach from team canada who coached in france , '' he said . ''it was a good opportunity to go and work with him , develop some pitches and experience another culture and another country . '' the 1994 season in france was crucial to zimmerman 's development . that was where he mastered the slider that leaves a.l . hitters muttering and shaking their heads . ''the competition was about on the level with junior colleges in the united_states , '' he said . ''i was able to experiment a little bit . i could throw the slider and not worry about getting hurt on it . if i got into situations where i fell behind , i could just throw three fastballs by the guy . '' his season on the shores of the mediterranean left zimmerman with a terrific slider , but it eventually became a source of jokes among his texas teammates . ''i get teased about that a lot , especially by veteran guys like mike morgan , '' zimmerman said . ''he 's always ribbing me , telling me he 's going to go over there in the off season and try to pick up a slider . he said if i could find one , he could find one . '' the slider , zimmerman said , is not comparable to ones thrown by pitchers like david_cone , john smoltz and kevin brown . but , he said , ''i have a herky jerky , funky delivery , and that might hide my slider a little better . it might be a little more deceptive . '' wetteland , the rangers' closer , said zimmerman 's motion made his slider ' 'difficult to pick up and identify as a slider . '' zimmerman played professionally for the first time in 1997 as a starter with the winnipeg gold eyes of the northern league , going 9 2 with a_league leading 2 . 82 e.r.a . it was after that season that he sent out resumes telling clubs who he was and how he had developed slowly but was improving each year . the rangers , seeking players to fill out a new class a minor_league team , were the only club to respond , but they signed him and made him a reliever , and zimmerman advanced rapidly . last year at class a charlotte and class_aa tulsa , he was a combined 5 2 with nine saves , a 1 . 28 e.r.a . and 81 strikeouts in 77 1 3 innings . wetteland said zimmerman got his attention in spring_training this year when he struck out five batters in a two inning appearance against the yankees . the rest of the league has since witnessed what scott brosius , rickey ledee , chad curtis , joe girardi and derek_jeter experienced that day . in 35 games and 52 1 3 innings , zimmerman has struck out 46 , walked 11 , allowed 18 hits ( only one home_run , by paul o'neill ) and gained eight victories against no defeats . it earned him a rare all star spot for a reliever who is n't a closer . recounting his flight to boston with his all star and ranger teammates , rafael palmeiro , wetteland and rodriguez , zimmerman said ''it was the first time i 've ever flown first class . we 're taking up the entire first class cabin . i said i ca n't believe i 'm playing on the same team as these guys , let alone going to the same all star game as these guys to represent the texas_rangers . it was just amazing . '' then he added , ''i 'm glad i have three other teammates to come to the all star game with me because i might be intimidated coming here myself , trying to talk with cal ripken or derek_jeter or stuff like that . '' it has been zimmerman , though , who has been doing the intimidating this season . on baseball",has a topic of sports
"turning a cold shoulder to tennis history , the french davis_cup captain , guy_forget , has taken a big risk that might turn out to be a master stroke . at yesterday 's draw in paris for this year 's davis_cup final against russia , forget finally revealed publicly what his players already knew paul henri mathieu will be france 's second singles player despite never having played in the davis_cup in his life . in the last 30 years , only five players have made their singles debuts in the final of tennis 's most emotionally demanding and routinely dramatic event . four of the five have lost , including pete_sampras , who lost to henri leconte and forget in 1991 when the french stunned the heavily favored americans . only john_mcenroe made a successful singles debut , defeating john lloyd of britain in 1978 , but mcenroe already had played davis_cup doubles and reached the semifinals at wimbledon and the united_states open . mathieu , who made his breakthrough this autumn by winning consecutive indoor tournaments in moscow and lyon , is a true rookie , and his first assignment will be one of the most daunting possible , because he faces marat_safin , the world 's no . 3 player , in today 's opening singles match on the indoor clay of the palais omnisports de bercy . what could make it less daunting for mathieu is that he beat safin in moscow just last month . in friday 's second match , france 's no . 1 sebastien grosjean will face russia 's yevgeny_kafelnikov , a two time grand_slam_singles champion whose ranking has dropped this year . on saturday , kafelnikov and safin are scheduled to play doubles against another first time french davis_cup combination , fabrice santoro and nicolas escude . clay is not escude 's best surface , but forget likes to put contrasting players together and santoro 's craftiness and escude 's explosiveness were good enough to win the doubles title at the masters series event in paris earlier this month . christopher clarey plus tennis",has a topic of sports
"justine_henin awoke on this drizzly , miserable day with symptoms fit for the label of a nyquil bottle . instead of pulling the bed covers over her head today , henin grabbed the nasal spray , a tissue box and her racket . if the fifth seeded henin could only stand up for her first round match at the french open , if she could just pull her wicked backhand from its sheath a few times for show , maybe the wide_eyed aniko kapros would fold under the pressure of her first stadium court appearance . but no one knew that kapros , the 179th ranked player in the world , had the genetic makeup for the big top . as she explained , her parents once made stops in places like las_vegas to perform a circus act that went something like this ''they have this board in the middle of the stage and my dad jumps and my mom flips and my dad catches her , '' she said . nothing to it . on cue , kapros , just 18 , remained poised on her stage , keeping henin on the court long enough to pull off a_4 6 , 6 1 , 6 0 upset on a day when 34 matches were postponed because of rain . huddled under the concession_stand awnings for much of the chilly afternoon , the fans would have to wait another day to see serena_williams , andre_agassi and andy_roddick . eighth_seeded roger_federer wished that his match had been among the postponed . unlike henin , he was healthy , but he still found an excuse after his straight sets collapse against morocco 's hicham arazi . ''i 'm still tired from hamburg , '' said federer , who won the masters series event there on may 19 . ''even though it has been a week , i still have n't gotten over it yet . i guess it was enough to beat me today . '' federer 's dreary display in a 6 3 , 6 2 , 6 4 defeat matched the weather , but few players managed to play well on clay courts that grew softer by the hour , hitting balls that became fuzz less under the damp conditions . fourth_seeded kim_clijsters needed three sets to advance to the second round , as did monica_seles , the sixth_seeded woman . and the russian yevgeny_kafelnikov , the fifth seeded player on the men 's side , had to extend himself five sets over two days to beat germany 's tomas behrend . ''at this moment , i 'll take any win , '' said kafelnikov , whose match was suspended after the second set on monday . ''what we had in two days , it was very difficult mentally . '' henin 's problem was n't mental , but physical . with every point between the raindrops today , henin staggered a little more , exhibiting the languid movement of a jellyfish . at times , henin could not even keep up with kapros 's painfully slow serve , which clocked speeds normally reserved for school zones . ''pretty bad , '' said kapros , a candid teenager who was born in hungary and grew up in the bahamas . ''i served really bad today . it was surprising to win points on my serve . i mean , it was n't a hard serve . maybe it even surprised her . you have to get used to it . if you get a soft serve , you have to hit it in . '' henin failed to tag kapros 's league tennis junk . by lengthening the rallies and placing her ground strokes on the lines , kapros pushed henin over the edge . if kapros had thought about whom she was playing , she would have realized that henin entered the french open after having been in two clay_court finals this spring , splitting the results against williams . other than williams , no player had been as impressive as henin over the last month . ''this morning when i woke up , i said , 'it 's going to be hard today , ' '' henin said . ''i was too tired to compete . and i wanted so much to do it , but i was n't able to do this . '' she tried , despite a doctor who told her it would be a mistake . but this is the survivor in henin . last year , as she advanced into the semifinals of the french open , everyone discovered how difficult her childhood had been in belgium , especially after her mother died when she was only 12 . this year , henin was known less as the waifish unknown with the traumatic past and more as a talented regular in the top five . ''if i am 100 percent today and i lose , o.k. , i have to ask myself a lot of questions , '' said henin , who made 64 unforced_errors and won only 12 points in the third set . ''that 's not the situation now . '' today , kapros needed 1 hour 52 minutes to outlast the fading henin and win the match of her life . match points monica_seles took a stand last month in support of the fed_cup captain , billie_jean_king , who dismissed jennifer_capriati from the team when she violated team practice rules . on tuesday , seles was told to be quiet by the united_states_tennis_association in an apparent attempt to make the controversy go away . ''yeah , they asked me not to talk about it , so i have to respect the u.s . t.a . 's wishes on that matter , '' seles said . tennis",has a topic of sports
"like a toll on a turnpike or a personal seat license at a new stadium , an upfront fee is required these days for a 26 year old ace pitcher from japan . the bidding for daisuke_matsuzaka has begun , and no one knows quite how high it will go . but these facts are irrefutable teams are desperate for power starting pitchers , and matsuzaka 's agent , scott_boras , is not known for discounts , even when negotiating with only one team . when asked how to get fair value for a player who goes through the japanese posting process , boras said ''i think for a midlevel player , it would have an effect . but when you have a player this gifted , the loss of the player 's skill is outcome determinative to your team . '' the posting process is a system used by japanese players who want to play in the majors but do not have the service time to be free agents . matsuzaka has seven full years of service japanese players must have nine years to become a free_agent . matsuzaka 's team , the seibu lions , made him available for posting through the japanese commissioner 's office . that office contacted the major_league baseball_commissioner 's office , which notified all 30 teams late thursday . thus began a window of four business days for teams to submit sealed bids to lou melendez , a vice_president of major_league_baseball . the bidding ends at 5 p.m . wednesday , when baseball will notify the lions of the amount of the highest bid , but not the team that submitted it . the lions then have four business days to accept or reject the bid . if they reject , they will keep matsuzaka . if they accept , matsuzaka has 30 days to negotiate with the team that made the bid . if he fails to work out a contract , he returns to japan , and the bid is returned to the team that made it . the winning bid is expected to be around 20 million , with the yankees , the mets , the boston_red_sox and the chicago_cubs among the teams said to be interested . all sides have incentive to make a deal . the winning bidder will badly want matsuzaka , a hard throwing right hander who went 17 5 with a 2 . 13 earned_run_average this season . and matsuzaka badly wants to play in the majors . ''during these past two years , my feeling toward participating in major_league_baseball has grown more and more , '' he said last week , through an interpreter , at a tokyo news conference . he added ''i 'm not nervous about anything . i think i have to raise my level a bit , but i think i have it within me to succeed . '' the lions will almost certainly accept the bid . the team is in financial peril after the conviction in october 2005 of its owner , yoshiaki_tsutsumi , for insider_trading and falsifying company records . tsutsumi , whom forbes_magazine once ranked as the richest man in the world , is a resort and railroad mogul who pleaded_guilty to conspiring with other executives to falsify the financial_statement of seibu_railway in 2003 . he was fined and given a suspended prison sentence . if the lions hold onto matsuzaka , they may very well wind up with nothing in return . by posting him , they will get a windfall . precisely how much , though , may never be known . quoting an unnamed lions executive , the japanese newspaper sankei sports reported last friday that three unidentified major_league teams had approached the executive about setting up a prearranged deal for matsuzaka . the executive told the newspaper that he did not engage the teams in conversation because he considered it tampering . but , in theory , a team could effectively tell the lions ''we want to get matsuzaka . what if we bid 50 million to make sure we win his rights , and then we paid you 20 million ? '' the seattle_mariners had a working agreement with the orix blue wave , ichiro_suzuki 's old team , before winning his negotiating rights with a 13 million bid in 2000 . there have long been rumors that the mariners never had to pay the full amount . the baseball spokesman pat courtney said that in a case like matsuzaka 's , the commissioner 's office would ask for a copy of the paperwork between the japanese team and the major_league team . courtney also said one team could not block another from signing matsuzaka by submitting an outrageous bid ( say , 100 million ) and then not negotiating in good faith with boras . ''that would be something we would have to get involved in , '' courtney said , adding that the team with the next highest bid would probably win negotiating rights . still , a feeling persists in some circles that the posting system is far from ideal . ''there are a lot of holes in the system , so some teams can cheat , '' said gaku tashiro , a baseball reporter for sankei sports . ''that 's not a fair system . if you have a good connection to the team , you can do anything you want to . also , the japanese player cannot choose the team . '' boras has tried to give matsuzaka some control over his destination . the seattle_mariners said last week that they would not make a bid , without stating a reason . the los_angeles_dodgers also publicly dropped out , citing the cost . boras would not say so directly , but he might have let those teams know that matsuzaka did not want to play for them . ''we 've been candid with teams about where we would want to go , or more importantly where we would not want to go , '' boras said . ''and you 've probably seen the response to that . '' whoever lands matsuzaka will have a potential top of the rotation starter , but a pricey one . the yankees , in particular , can attest to the importance of starting pitching . in 13 postseason games since taking a three games to none lead over the red_sox in the 2004 american_league_championship_series , the yankees' starters have gone 2 7 with a 5 . 82 e.r.a . not surprisingly , the yankees have lost 10 of those 13 games . but a larger question is whether it is wise to pay top dollars to free agent pitchers . the st . louis_cardinals just won the world_series with a rotation that included no pitchers who had signed rich free_agent deals with the team . chris carpenter initially signed with st . louis for one year and 500 , 000 because he was an injured free_agent . jeff suppan was a bargain ( three years , 10 million ) coming off two shaky months in boston . jeff weaver had been designated for assignment by the angels . the yankees have randy_johnson signed for 16 million and would like to bring back mike_mussina at a cost of more than 10 million a year . two winters ago , they paid premium prices for carl pavano and jaret wright , ignoring a track record of injuries and concentrating instead on their performance the year before free_agency . the yankees do have a young , inexpensive and proven starter in chien ming wang , along with the 20 year old phil hughes , who dominated class_aa last season . the free_agent market offers other starters besides matsuzaka , including suppan and weaver . but it is considered a mediocre pool , headlined by barry zito , jason schmidt , gil_meche and ted lilly . two others roger_clemens and andy_pettitte are unsure if they want to keep pitching . baseball",has a topic of sports
"high above tampa stadium , in a grim counterpoint to children cavorting on the field in a pre game extravaganza , antiterrorist police in camouflage and black uniforms patrolled the roof . in the twilight before the game , super bowl xxv seemed secured . yet the elaborate precautions stemming from the persian_gulf_war were cut back an hour before game time because of the bottlenecks created by extra cautious screening of each fan . a huge force of yellow jacketed young men and women used hand held metal_detectors to check every person coming in . "" what happened was that their bags were checked when they entered a fenced off area , and then again when they had to show their tickets , "" said steve cole , a spokesman for the tampa police . "" that slowed people down . finally , we opened up additional gates and we told them , 'check them and let them in . ' people were waiting 30 to 45 minutes . "" cole said that in terms of crowd_control , this super_bowl went better than most tampa_bay buccaneer games . there were a total of 17 people arrested for scalping and 26 others ejected for various reasons . he said there were no threats and "" as far as i know , no weapons were found . "" three and a half hours before game time , the guards were taking up to a minute to clear some people . when a car pulled up to the press entrance , the occupants were asked to get out . "" pop the trunk and hood , "" the driver was asked . then several guards examined the engine and the trunk while another ran his hands under the fenders , searching for explosive_devices . still , only about 500 cars were permitted . there were , however , about 72 , 500 fans . "" it 's just taking too long , "" a tampa police_officer said an hour before the game . "" they 'd never get the crowd in on time , so they just stopped being as thorough with the metal dectectors . searches become briefer until then , some people waited on line for upwards of 30 minutes . but the guards started to move the "" wands "" more quickly . and the searches of the bags became more perfunctory . forty minutes before the game , the stadium was virtually filled . "" it took me a good 45 minutes to get from the hospitality tent to the gate , "" said reggie williams , the former bengals linebacker and now the general_manager of the new york knights of the new world league of american football . two men from new york , standing next to each other , had contrasting experiences . although each was searched with a metal_detector , one was asked to open his bag and the other was n't . super_bowls always have a huge behind the scenes security force . this was not the first time explosives sniffing_dogs have been used . but the public and private security force of 1 , 700 exceeded anything at a previous super_bowl . concrete barriers ringed the stadium to prevent anyone from crashing into the structure . and the whole stadium was surrounded by a six foot chain_link_fence . perhaps because of the police , or simply because things were quiet , it seemed like business as usual to glenn eickhoff , the supervisor of the budweiser clydesdale horses . "" this is a piece of cake compared to mardi_gras , "" he said . at the budweiser compound , guests were asked to show blue ribbon wrist bands . no wrist band , no free beer . as the lines started to swell , there seemed to be little shoving or complaining . "" i felt like a sardine , "" said bonnie ciardi of tampa . "" on the other hand , "" said her companion , jim starks , "" we made lots of new friends . "" "" i have n't seen anyone who was annoyed , "" said one fan , while another complained that "" the abc people came in and the officers parted the crowd for them . "" georgia cogwell , a ticket taker since the stadium opened in 1976 , described the crowd as "" beautiful . "" the giants had an uneventful trip getting in . they had a siren blaring , light flashing police_car escort from front and back . they also were joined in the team buses by two private security guards . "" the most exciting thing that happened was that a car came down the road from a local strip joint and the people inside started to advertise , "" cole said . super bowl xxv security",has a topic of sports
"even if iraq qualifies today for the world_cup_finals , it is not certain whether iraqi soccer players will qualify for visas to enter the united_states , according to a state_department official . if iraq loses to japan in the asian qualifying_tournament in doha , qatar today , the question will be moot . if iraq wins , and other circumstances play out , the iraqis would qualify for the 24 team field next summer in the united_states . but , given the international economic embargo against iraq in place since the persian_gulf_war , the state_department is not giving any assurances that the iraqis would be allowed into the united_states to compete . we shall see "" we 're not saying , 'if they qualify , yes they can come , ' or 'if they qualify , no they ca n't come , ' "" a state_department spokesman , david johnso , n said yesterday . "" we 're going to deal with the issue if it comes up . we ca n't come to a determination about their visas until we 've got their applications in front of us . "" last summer , libyan athletes were prohibited from entering the united_states to participate in the world university games in buffalo . there is no blanket prohibition against granting visas to iraqis , but the international embargo would have to be considered , johnson said . this noncommittal stance has created a delicate situation for officials of world_cup usa '94 , who were given assurances by the reagan_administration in 1988 that all eligible teams would be given permission to enter the united_states next summer . "" we do n't anticipate any problems with the teams from iraq 's group , "" said jim trecker , senior vice_president and press officer of world_cup usa '94 . binding assurances andreas herren , a spokesman for fifa , said that the world soccer federation also had no doubt that iraqi players would be granted entry into the united_states to compete in the world_cup . "" the guarantee of the reagan_administration is binding for subsequent administrations , "" herren said . apparently , the state_department will be the final arbiter on that contention . soccer",has a topic of sports
"when the cannon sounds on sunday , 2 , 007 french runners will become a five borough foreign legion in the new york city marathon . "" running is not in our national character , "" said muriel verrier , an actress in children 's theater in paris who will run in her seventh new york marathon . "" but more people are now running to overcome stress , not just in paris , but in the country . we need movement , just like the americans . "" the movement , very clearly , is from france to the streets of new york city . french runners represent a remarkable 7.7 percent of the field of 25 , 945 participants registered for the 26 . 2 mile race . there are more entrants from france than from any other foreign country . there are more french citizens here for the race than italians ( 1 , 980 ) , germans ( 1 , 118 ) , dutch ( 804 ) or canadians ( 796 ) . special event the numbers have soared over the last decade . last year , there were 1 , 788 french entrants . five years ago , there were 1 , 476 . ten years ago , there were 681 out of 15 , 906 total runners . "" new york is special , "" said noel robert , a 49 year old margarine inspector from paris readying for his first new york marathon . "" this race is a goal by itself for the french . my dream is to run three hours here . "" the french entrants represent almost every profession and every level of runner . except a true marathon champion . "" the best runners still have to work at something else in france , "" said verrier , 43 , who is also one of the organizers of the french road runners friendship association . "" this is a problem . "" good , but no cigar there are several seeded french runners , none of them expected to wear the laurel wreath . dominique chauvelier took fifth place in the 1989 world_cup in milan with a time of 2 hours 11 minutes 24 seconds . among the women , maria lelut rebelo and sylvie bornet have both run under 2 30 . "" good , but not first place , "" verrier said . about 1 , 500 of the french contingent , including 1 , 150 runners and their husbands or wives , arrived here on package tours through the french road runners . costs vary , from a bargain four night stay at 6 , 500 francs ( about 1 , 300 ) to a 13 , 000 franc ( 2 , 600 ) stay that includes five nights and a return trip on the concorde . loyal display most of the visitors are staying at the edison and roosevelt hotels in midtown_manhattan , where they can easily spill out into central_park for daily jogs and photo taking . tomorrow at 6 30 a.m. , the french runners will gather in front of the edison hotel to take their final training run . it will cover about 10 miles , perhaps two loops around the park . the runners promise to carry their flag and make themselves generally known . "" it is the only time we can run together , because there are four different starts , "" robert said . "" it is not an easy race . "" new york city marathon",has a topic of sports
"all the cheering , clapping and stomping in the world , as well as the benevolence of a french judge , could not help isabelle and paul duchesnay achieve the_dream of a lifetime tonight , winning a gold_medal before a home country in the albertville winter_olympics . what the audience and armelle van eybergen could not provide them with was a free_dance program that compared well enough in style and intricacy to that skated by marina klimova and sergei ponomarenko , muscovites of the unified team . the russians won the gold on a night of high drama , leaving the silver for the duchesnays and the bronze for another couple from moscow , maia usova and aleksandr zhulin . the same three couples had shared the podium at the last three world_championships , with klimova and her husband winning in 1989 and 1990 and the duchesnays moving up a spot each year to gain the title in 1991 . for that reason , there was wide , growing and reasonable expectation that they would continue their ascent in the olympics . and was not all of france sitting there , in the olympic ice hall or at home , just waiting to cry at "" la marseillaise "" ? wildly different performances in truth , the title was not so much decided by their four minute , wildly different programs tonight as what preceded them . after the two compulsory dances , worth 20 percent of the overall score , and the original_dance , worth 30 , klimova and ponomarenko were in first place , the duchesnays far enough behind in second that they could only have won the gold with a combination of their winning the free_dance and klimova ponomarenko finishing no higher than third , which was virtually impossible . they had not finished so low as third in any major competition since the 1984 world_championships . "" tonight we knew very well that , barring a miracle , we had lost the competition last night , "" paul duchesnay said , referring to the original_dance . "" there was very little hope after that . "" even so , their showdown with klimova and ponomarenko as the final two couples after 17 others created one of those rare , electrified moments that makes the olympics so special . klimova and ponomarkeno were first , and they skated a passionate , sultry program to chopin and bach in almost continuous embrace . at worst , they were shadows of each other , as lovers loving , brooding , then loving again ending their dance , lying in each other 's arms on the ice . this was all relatively easy to portray they have been married since 1984 . all nine judges awarded them comparable scores for presentation , 5.8 or 5.9 of a perfect 6.0 . for technical merit , only eight were in the same ball park , with 5 . 7 's , 5 . 8 's and a 5.9 from the unified team judge . the exception was van eybergen , who awarded a 5 . 5 , which appeared as a flagrant attempt to prop up the duchesnays . combined , her scores ranked klimova and ponomarenko third behind the duchesnays and usova and zhulin . while the judges' marks did not necessarily guarantee that klimova and ponomarenko would win the round , they were high enough to beat usova and zhulin for no worse than second place , and that clinched the gold . it did not , however , dampen the enthusiasm for the duchesnays , although it quickly became apparent they were suffering from another disadvantage . as brother and sister , they could not rely on romance , a staple item for most couples . performing to the opening music from "" west side story , "" they portrayed maria and her brother , bernardo , in a staccato , acrobatic routine almost devoid of emotion . further , as choreographed by christopher dean , who became isabelle 's husband last spring , it included many of the moves he had used before in other programs for the duchesnays . the judges were not unimpressed , but only three , besides van eybergen , graded it best . less daring moves by the end , paul duchesnay looked back further than the previous rounds of the competition to spot a reason for their failure to earn the gold . their program had been tamer than usual , not the daring kind dean gave them in past years , programs that flirted with violations of the rules in the name of entertainment and artistic license . "" we could have taken a riskier program , "" paul duchesnay said . "" but we liked 'west side story , ' but we did a lot of sacrificing for the rules . we could have done much more interesting moves . christopher felt chained by the rule book , and basically , they told us to do it this way . naturally , you do n't get the freedom you would like . it was tough for us . "" he also mentioned the physical problems he and isabelle endured throughout the year . she broke a toe , causing them to miss 10 weeks of training , and he injured a thigh muscle , causing them to withdraw from the european championships . in between , their half brother , gaston , died of cancer . the weight of so many difficulties only added to the pressures of appearing in the olympics as the home country favorites , a circumstance klimova and ponomarenko acknowledged and tried to igore . they had their own problems to deal with , training in russia during a year of remarkable political change , overcoming their failure at the world_championships last year , coping with expectations that they would succeed after winning the silver_medal at the 1988 calgary games behind the last gold medalists from the soviet_union , natalya bestemianova and andrei bukin . "" it was very hard for us last year when we lost our title , "" ponomarenko said . "" from the beginning of this season , we never stopped practicing , never stopped thinking about the olympics . "" and when they finally mounted the podium , he turned to her to whisper something . "" i say , 'i love you , marina , ' "" he said , smiling broadly . "" i say it three times . that 's it . "" albertville",has a topic of sports
"athletes on the german olympic bobsled and luge teams have been told to reveal any past ties they might have had to the former east_german secret_police , a national sports official said here today . a champion bobsledder has already admitted he was an informer for the agency , known as stasi . athletes or coaches whose cooperation with stasi led to arrests or the loss of other persons' jobs will be thrown off the team , said klaus kotter , president of the german bobsled and luge federation . the european four man bobsled champion , harald_czudaj , has acknowledged he was a stasi informer , but kotter said he urged german olympic_committee officials not to ban czudaj . "" one must be prepared to forgive , "" he said . "" you have to imagine what the system was like . "" kotter said he asked each athlete and coach on the teams to sign a confidential statement on any past links with the agency . the letters will remain sealed unless there are public charges of collaboration , he said . german team members were given a choice of three form letters to submit on their stasi past , kotter said . one letter denied collaboration with the stasi the second admitted work as an informer , expressed_regret and promised to face the people spied on the third admitted the most serious offense , causing harm to others . czudaj signed the second version , kotter said . czudaj and other members of the four man crews are due to arrive here later this week . the rest of the letters are in a hotel safe at the olympic bobsled and luge venue , la_plagne . according to germany 's bild newspaper , czudaj was blackmailed into collaborating with the stasi after the police caught him driving drunk , an offense that normally would have ended his career . the dresdner neueste nachrichten newspaper said friday that czudaj , 28 , started as a stasi informer in mid 1988 . part of his work involved reporting on the three other sled members , the paper said . german bobsled and luge officials launched the self purging program about two weeks ago , fearing incidents like the czudaj case . kotter said he did not know whether other german teams were looking into the pasts of athletes from east_germany . after east_germany united with west_germany in 1990 , their two sports organizations merged . koss resumes training albertville , france , feb . 9 with the nine speed_skating events scheduled over the next 11 days , the medal possibilities in three of them remained uncertain today as johann olav koss of norway , the gold_medal favorite in the men 's 5 , 000 meter and 10 , 000 meter races , continued to recover from an inflamed pancreas . koss , the world record holder in both events , was released from a hospital in germany and resumed training . he was taken to a hospital in traunstein , germany , on saturday for tests and observation after suffering severe stomach pains . but the team doctor for norway said today that even if koss 's condition improved enough for him to participate in the 5 , 000 , he would be unable to compete at his accustomed level . albertville notebook",has a topic of sports
"lead callit of sweden , who had been in danger of being scratched from the race because of muscle spasms , came from fifth place at the top of the stretch to register a one length triumph over potin d'amour of france in tonight 's 29th annual 200 , 000 international trot at roosevelt raceway . callit of sweden , who had been in danger of being scratched from the race because of muscle spasms , came from fifth place at the top of the stretch to register a one length triumph over potin d'amour of france in tonight 's 29th annual 200 , 000 international trot at roosevelt raceway . tabor lobell of the united_states was third , 1 3 4 lengths behind the winner . callit , driven and trained by karl johansson , was 3 1 4 lengths behind the leader , esotico prad of italy , at the start of the stretch run . callit became the first winner from sweden since pluvier iii captured the mile and a quarter race in 1965 . twenty one horses from sweden had failed since before callit scored tonight in 2 33 4 5 . the 6 year old son of tibur calotta earned 100 , 000 to boost his career earnings to 831 , 642 . callit is 11 1 2 in 16 starts this year . wednesday , callit suffered cramps but was given muscle relaxers , and the horse responded to the treatment . ''if he did n't , '' explained johansson , ''i would have scratched him . this morning 's workout was good , so everything was o.k . and i was confident . '' whip it wood of the u.s. , driven by john patterson , jr . , went off as the second choice at 3 1 , broke at the start and wound up last in the field of nine horses from seven countries .",has a topic of sports
"the knicks looked overseas instead of in their own backyard , chose foreign over the familiar and selected potential rather than the popular choice . ron artest of st . john 's was available when the knicks used their no . 15 pick in the national_basketball_association draft last night , but they took a gamble and selected a_7 foot 2 inch , 260 pound frenchman , frederic weis . weis , a soft but skilled center from limoges , france , is a fresh faced 22 year old and an intriguing project who will have time to develop under patrick_ewing . inching toward his 37th birthday , ewing will give in to time one day . for now , he is still one of the best centers in the game when healthy . and on sunday , he proclaimed himself the missing link to the title that an undermanned knicks team fell short of grabbing in the finals last week . on the day when age or injury finally nudges ewing into retirement , weis may be the chosen one to take over his hallowed place in knicks lore . ''there was a chance to get a talented big man at the center position , and it was too much to pass up , '' said ed tapscott , the knicks' vice_president for player personnel . ''we 're delighted to have a center to work with patrick , to learn from him and then ultimately , down the road , step into his very , very large shoes . '' right now , weis is something of an enigma . he did not work out for n.b.a . teams because of his commitment to playing overseas . the knicks caught a peek at him by spending a lot of time watching games in europe . ''we ate well in france , '' tapscott said . ''the pants still fit , fortunately . '' what they saw , they liked . but the issue of weis 's health also caused concern for some teams . he had surgery on april 1 to repair a disk in his back . but tapscott said his understanding is that weis has made a full recovery . as evidence , weis is currently playing in the european championships . by next season , the knicks hope he is in their uniform . ''if we are at the top of the draft , we are ready to come , '' weis 's agent , didier rose , told sports illustrated . ''if not , then perhaps we want more time . '' perhaps being selected no . 15 is just good enough . tapscott said he did not anticipate any problems in signing weis , who is a pick for the future . the knicks were unable to address their most immediate need point_guard when the last of the quality players at that position , duke 's william avery , was snatched up by minnesota with the 14th pick . with the depth the knicks have at other areas , including small_forward , which is artest 's position , they were willing to pass him up , even though he is a local player with an apartment view of the empire_state_building . coach jeff_van_gundy was highly complimentary of artest , noting his heart and will to win as major draws to take him , but said ''big is always good . if it 's close , we 'll go with size . '' weis has plenty of height , but his spindly frame is an issue to be taken up in the weight room . in europe , where the style of play is more focused on finesse than being physical , weis was considered a star . this past season , weis averaged 13 . 4 points , 7.3 rebounds and shot 64 . 5 percent from the field . just when he 'll crack the knicks' rotation is uncertain . ''if he is able to play and that 's something we 'll find out , and like i said , i see him more as a future pick we 'll see whether he has the potential to get some minutes this year and help out , '' tapscott said . ''all of that is up to jeff and the coaching staff . i know one thing , he is a hard worker . '' the knicks also had a pick in the second round and chose j . r . koch with the 46th selection over all . koch , a 6 10 , 225 pound forward , led the university of iowa in blocked shots and was second in scoring last season , his senior year . he averaged 10 . 4 points and had 32 blocks while grabbing 4.2 rebounds per game . in some ways koch is more of a known quantity than weis . ''european basketball is different but the ball is the same , '' tapscott said . ''the height of the basket is the same and the intensity of the competition is the same . they want to win . he is a back to the basket player and needs to work on his body , and he also has the task of adapting to a different culture . his english is good , but he 'll miss the baguettes . '' rebounds dave checketts , the madison_square_garden president , was in the war room last night but was not available to comment on the meeting he had with coach jeff_van_gundy yesterday . before van_gundy appeared to talk about weis , reporters were told by a team spokesman that no questions concerning his discussion with checketts would be answered . checketts is expected to talk with van_gundy again today . van_gundy 's agent , rob ades , is scheduled to come to new york this weekend to meet with his client , which may be a sign that the knicks are willing to tinker with his deal . although van_gundy weathered a difficult year and coached the knicks to the finals , the knicks do not normally rework deals before a coach reaches his contract year . pro_basketball",has a topic of sports
"the united_states bobsled federation is still trying to sort out its team for the 1992 olympics in albertville , france , and it now appears that an independent arbitrator will have to help . at issue is whether all aspiring bobsledders had a fair chance in olympic trials held last july . at least three athletes with better known pasts in other sports edwin moses , the world champion hurdler , and two football players , willie gault and greg harrell claimed that , among other things , they were not properly notified of the trials schedule . several months after they had failed to make the team , they filed a grievance with the federation . a hearing was held dec . 20 before a three member panel of federation board members , who decided in favor of the athletes and recommended to the full board that new trials be held . but in subsequent consultation , the full board voted , 7 5 , against adopting the recommendation . that left the athletes one recourse to file for arbitration through the united_states olympics committee . the situation has left the federation in a muddle , with precious little time before the games begin , on feb . 8 . in various international competitions the last two years , moses and the others had impressive results , infusing the united_states efforts in albertville with a legitimate expectation for a medal . then after the trials , they quit the program in frustration , they said , over an improbable tangle of unfair procedures and missed communications . in truth , with them probably went any chance for a medal . so their plight has not been wasted on neil richardson , the new federation president who was appointed earlier this fall after the federation was reorganized by the u.s.o.c . because of administrative and financial mismanagement of its previous leaders . "" it 's a mess , "" said richardson , sympathetic to the athletes' complaints but also to the hopes of the 12 men who assumed they made the olympic team . "" there are defintely plenty of issues on both sides of the table , and everybody is trying to find the right solution . i just want to make sure there is equity here , whether we 're talking about an athlete like these guys or a high_school superstar or a bobsled club in texas . i want people to know they have an equal_opportunity this sport needs to be opened up . "" if an arbitrator were to decide for the athletes , the federation 's biggest problem would be organizing a trials competition , with time enough before the olympics . another football player who was not a party to the original grievance , hershel walker of the minnesota_vikings , is scheduled for a push off in january against the 12th member of the team , ton allen . "" by then , "" said richardson , "" we could have a lot of push offs . "" swan song of sorts the recent decision by jill trenary to withdraw from the national figure_skating championships next month in orlando , fla . , thus making her ineligible for the olympics , was not necessarily greeted with universal disappointment within the skating community . there are no hard and fast rules and certainly federation officials would never say so publicly but there is an implicit feeling among many of them that a natural progression should continue , with each new skater given time to maximize his or her talents , then move on to make room for the next . trenary , who is 23 years old , has been skating at the highest national level for nearly eight years . three times she won the national singles title , and once , in 1990 , she was the world champion . it was simply her misfortune that an olympic_medal just eluded her in 1988 , as she finished fourth in the 1988 winter_games in calgary , alberta , behind katarina_witt of east_germany , elizabeth manley of canada and debi_thomas . in the four years since calgary , a new group of skaters has emerged , three of whom kristi_yamaguchi , tonya_harding and nancy_kerrigan have produced exceptional results on the international scale , notably , their sweep at the world_championships last march . other younger skaters , like tonia kwiatkowski and nicole_bobek , will challenge them , if not in orlando , then a year later in phoenix . the mere presence in orlando of the world medalists would have made it difficult for a fit trenary to qualify for another olympic team . and as things developed , problems with her ankles , which affect her jumping , would have made finishing in the top three that much harder . there is the additional thought by some in the federation that the united_states might be better served in albertville by skaters more in step with the trends of the sport . over her career , trenary , a beautifully artistic skater , has become a throwback amid jumpers like harding , midori_ito of japan and surya bonali of france , who have brought a new level of athleticism to the sport . one of trenary 's great skills was the compulsory figures , an element of competition phased out after the world_championships of 1990 . inasmuch as judges are now awarding higher scores to the jumpers , as evidenced by harding 's victory over yamaguchi in this year 's nationals , when trenary was absent with an injury and yamaguchi had fewer impressive jumps , trenary would have had to overcome formidable odds and competition to gain a medal . and so long as olympic success is measured in that manner , trenary 's departure might become a benefit to united_states efforts . building for the future while experience generally accounts for some advantages at the highest levels of competition , it has a disturbing backside . among the 20 men and women who qualified for the united_states olympic speed_skating team , 11 are former olympians . that might speak well for 1992 , but it raises questions about the future . where are the olympic skaters of 1994 and 1998 ? "" hopefully , there will be some young guys coming up , "" said nick thometz , who qualified for his second consecutive olympic team this month . "" you look at all the same guys from '88 , and it 's good for this team , and usually there is a good sprinter or two on the horizon . but that 's hard to see now . there 's no one over the hill . "" a significant part of the reason has been the lack of a modern training facility , like the indoor rink on the university of calgary campus that served as the olymic venue in 1988 . only one other facility of its kind exists , in heerenveen , the netherlands . speed skaters in the united_states have only three places to train milwaukee , butte , montana and lake placid , n.y . and all of them are outdoors . by next year , however , american skaters will have their own indoor facility , the pettit national ice center in milwaukee , which is being built with the help of an 8 . 1 million revenue bond from wisconsin , and a 2 million private donation . another 4 million is expected to be raised through public donations . "" our all around program has been lacking the last few years , "" said peter mueller , a 1976 olympic gold medalist and a coach of the 1992 olympic team . "" there 's a gap in the 18 to 21 year olds . but once the new rink goes up , that will be real important to our program . "" brace for hunger pangs albertville , the nominal center of the olympics , is a town of some 22 , 000 year round residents and only a few outstanding restaurants . a british journalist phoned one of them recently and asked for a table on a particular day during the olympics . he was told the restaurant was booked that night . he asked for another and was told the same . "" then what night do you have open ? "" he asked . "" none , "" he was told . "" we 're booked every minute of every day we 're open during the olympics . "" coping and in control technical problems still arise now and then as the final preparations for albertville continue , although none especially bothers jean_claude_killy , the organizing_committee president . recently , noxious gas was found to be leaking from the refrigeration pipes of the bobsled run in la_plagne , provoking complaints from nearby conservationists . "" we 'll cope , "" said killy , confident the leak would be fixed in time . . . . to minimize the financial burden of the olympics on albertville , the indoor rink being used for the figure_skating events has been sold to a nearby ski resort for use after the games . . . . annabelle nash is britain 's leading luge athlete , and with good reason . her father , tony nash , was a luge gold medalist in 1964 . . . . the breadth of the games , spread over 600 square miles of southeastern france , has produced expectations of a handsome bill for security . the security director for the region , jacques lambert , said he expects the cost to be about 31 million . . . . with team_usa 's loss to a soviet select hockey team saturday night in richfield , ohio , the americans have a record of 0 12 1 in their last 13 games . olympics",has a topic of sports
"when todd_martin awoke today , he felt the gravity of the task ahead . his davis_cup teammate jim_courier took him aside in the morning simply to remind him "" to do what you do best . "" "" it was just a nice gesture , "" said the 24 year old martin . "" i was pretty nervous and pretty anxious to get going . "" reverting to a net rushing style that best complements his big serve , martin dispatched guy_forget , 6 3 , 7 6 ( 7 3 ) , 7 6 ( 7 5 ) , to give the united_states the first round victory over france before 4 , 327 at the bayfront center arena to clinch the series for america . courier later provided icing on the cake with his 6 4 , 6 3 victory over cedric pioline . with its 4 1 victory in the three of five match series , the americans advance to the davis_cup quarterfinals to face italy in palermo march 31 april 2 . "" it 'll probably be on clay , "" tom_gullikson , the united_states captain , said . "" we 've got some guys who play well on clay , so we 'll be competitive . "" martin viewed today 's match as "" probably my biggest hurdle in the last couple of years . "" he had come here off a straight set loss to yevgeny_kafelnikov in the australian open quarterfinals . the "" bad taste in his mouth "" continued , according to gullikson , with a lopsided loss friday to pioline that gave france a 1 0 cup lead . "" i 'm no steve young , "" martin cracked , referring to the san_francisco quarterback who finally started in and won his first super_bowl . "" i just needed to change things around a little . "" one thing he did was to charge the net . he went there 63 times today and won 48 of the approaches , a 76 percent success rate . by contrast , he tested his net game just 42 times , winning only 25 points , in his opening loss . several people close to martin , including gullikson , were in his ear over the last two days recommending that strategy . "" when you 're 6 foot 6 , "" the coach said , "" you ca n't play baseline tennis . "" martin 's net game was boosted by his serve today . he produced 20 aces and was accurate with 59 percent of his first serves , winning an eye_catching 90 percent of those . still , the match 's only service break came in the fourth game of the first set when martin , down by 40 30 , won the next three points . that was enough for him to take the opening set . in the second set tie_breaker , the american forged a_4 1 lead on three straight winning forehands . after the second one , he leaped in the air , yelling , "" yeah ! "" for all to hear . forget closed to 5 3 , but martin hit a winning backhand and closed out the set on forget 's netted backhand . ahead by 5 4 in the third set tie_breaker , martin reached match point when he hit a forehand service winner of forget 's second serve . he squandered the first match point with a long forehand . at 6 5 , a forget forehand hit the net , bounding high and invitingly . martin ripped it for the match winner . that sent him into a frenzy of celebration . he punched the air , hugged gullikson . then he threw a sweatband into the crowd and hit a ball into the rafters . this was a reversal of form for martin , yannick noah , the french team captain , acknowledged . "" you can tell when someone is comfortable by the way they play on key points , "" noah said . "" on key points , he served well and he went for the shots . "" forget was one of the heroes when france upset the united_states in the 1991 davis_cup final . but this weekend , he lost three matches , two in singles and one in doubles . he was asked about the americans' chances to win davis_cup this time around . "" with all the different possibilities they have for players , they have by far the best team , "" he said . "" but anyone can lose . "" sweden rallies by the associated press sweden , the davis_cup defending champion , came back after being down by 0 2 and won its first round series over denmark when stefan_edberg and jonas bjorkman won in copenhagen . bjorkman , substituting for the ailing magnus larsson , defeated frederik fetterlein , 6 7 ( 5 7 ) , 6 4 , 6 7 ( 5 7 ) , 6 3 , 6 4 , in the final match . earlier , edberg beat kenneth carlsen , 2 6 , 6 3 , 6 2 , 7 6 ( 7 3 ) . italy advanced to face the united_states when andrea gaudenzi beat salva dosedel , 6 3 , 6 2 , 4 6 , 6 2 , for a 3 1 lead . the series in naples was one of few sporting_events taking place in italy . vitually everything else was canceled following a fan 's death before a soccer game last weekend . tennis",has a topic of sports
"it had been 70 years since the french were host to the americans in a davis_cup match at roland_garros . during that span , rackets went from wood to titanium , tennis attire from long flannel pants to sweat wicking shorts , and players from amateurs to full blown professionals . but what has not changed with the decades is the french team 's ability to bedevil its american visitors on red clay . in 1932 , it was the mousquetaires giving the tennis lessons to the americans . today , it looked more as if the mouseketeers were doing the instructing . and when the diminutive arnaud cl_ment and s bastien grosjean had finished scrambling and counterpunching and andy_roddick and james blake had shuffled off court looking grim , the french , who won the cup last year , had a rather surprising and very commanding 2 0 lead in this davis_cup semifinal . cl_ment struck first , beating roddick , 4 6 , 7 6 ( 6 ) , 7 6 ( 5 ) , 6 1 . grosjean struck next , overcoming the demoralizing effects of squandering three match points in a slightly surreal third set to beat blake , 6 4 , 6 1 , 6 7 ( 7 ) , 7 5 . ''it was the little guy who beat the big guy today , which is nice , '' said the french captain , guy_forget . in terms of physique , that was accurate . cl_ment is 5 feet 8 inches , grosjean 5 9 . roddick is 6 2 and hits his serve as consistently hard as any other man in tennis . blake is 6 1 and has a fearsome forehand . but in terms of results and experience , the americans were the slighter figures . neither has advanced past the quarterfinals in a grand_slam event , and until today neither had competed against top players in meaningful davis_cup matches on the road . ''i think it was a real learning experience for our guys , to be honest , '' said patrick mcenroe , the united_states captain . ''i think they played well , but at crucial times , they did n't play smart . '' it did not always feel like a road trip . early in roddick 's match , the contingent of about 1 , 500 american fans was louder than the late arriving french , but the other 13 , 500 seats were soon full . ''this is the most disappointed i 've ever been in myself in my life , '' the 22 year old blake said . ''it 's not a feeling i want to repeat . unfortunately , it 's the chance you take when you step out on a court for a davis_cup match . '' in truth , all four men had difficulty handling the moment . cl_ment looked nervous and adrift in the first set and had to save break points to avoid trailing , 0 5 . grosjean looked lethargic and off rhythm late in the third set and early in the fourth , when he fell behind , 1 4 . but the two frenchmen soon shook themselves free of their troubles . cl_ment , a former australian open finalist , was particularly impressive , all the more so when you consider that roddick got a high percentage ( 69 ) of his usually overwhelming first serves into play . cl_ment 's idea or perhaps it was forget 's idea was to use his quickness to defend brilliantly , vary his pace and trajectories , and allow the explosive , inconsistent 20 year old roddick ample_opportunity to shoot himself in the sneaker . but the pi ce de r sistance was cl_ment 's ability to rush the net and make the most of it . he lacks wingspan , but makes up for it with reflexes and anticipation . the match turned in the third set , when cl_ment saved five set points , often with spectacular shot making . after that , roddick , whose emotional , free swinging style burns more energy than cl_ment 's more compact , composed approach , ran out of fuel and optimism . ''even if i followed my strategy perfectly , it was really a match that came down to almost nothing , '' the 42nd ranked cl_ment said . the second match was even more difficult to read . it started with blake playing poorly and acting negatively . but what looked like a straight set french victory became more complicated when both men struggled with nerves and consistency late in the third set . blake served for the set at 5 4 and was broken grosjean then had three match points at 6 3 in the tie_breaker . but blake survived and rolled to a_4 1 lead in the fourth , only to lose his momentum by playing a careless game on his serve . ''i think i was playing two against one for a lot of the match playing against myself and him , '' blake said . it was fitting that this mood swing disguised as a match ultimately concluded with grosjean falling behind by 0 40 on his serve and winning the next five points . now the french need to win only one of the three remaining matches to earn a spot in the final , as does russia , which went up by 2 0 against argentina today in moscow . and just in case the french need another confidence boost , the united_states has a 1 30 record in the davis_cup when it trails by 0 2 . the americans must win saturday 's doubles fabrice santoro and micha l llodra are expected to play for france against blake and 32 year old todd_martin . if blake does not recover well from today 's 3 hour 3 minute ordeal , mcenroe indicated he might use 20 year old mardy fish . ''i 'd cherish the opportunity to play in a fifth match and make up for this , '' blake said . ''i 'd like the opportunity to make up for it even quicker tomorrow , but that 's pat 's decision . '' tennis",has a topic of sports
"the yankees played an exhibition_game here on sunday_night , slept for a few hours and came back to the tokyo_dome for another exhibition_game on monday afternoon . it was the dreaded day game after a night game routine , but this time the yankees welcomed it . the schedule gave them more than 24 hours to relax for their faraway opening act . the baseball season was to start for real on tuesday at 5 a.m . in new york and 7 p.m . in tokyo with the first of two games against the tampa_bay_devil_rays . it was to be the first game for the yankees' new star , alex_rodriguez , and the start of what could be an historic season . ''i think everyone 's a little curious to see how good we can be , '' derek_jeter said . ''but that takes a little time to find out . '' the yankees split their exhibition games against japanese teams , beating the yomiuri_giants and losing to the hanshin_tigers . jos_contreras dominated the giants in the first game , and the tigers rocked donovan osborne in the second . for all of the yankees' offensive thunder , manager joe_torre said , they were only as ready for the start of the season as their starting_pitcher , mike_mussina , who was to oppose the devil_rays' victor zambrano . ''when you look at these two games we played , the success was spelled 'pitching' and the defeat was spelled 'pitching , ' '' torre said . success , of course , will also be determined by torre 's hitters . one batter torre has not been impressed with this spring is kenny_lofton , the longtime leadoff man who was signed in the off season to spark the lineup . lofton was to bat ninth in the opener , with jeter leading off , followed by hideki_matsui and rodriguez . with bernie_williams recovering from an appendectomy in tampa , fla . , ruben sierra was to start at designated_hitter and bat seventh . williams is on the active roster and could be available when the yankees play their united_states opener on april 6 in tampa . jon lieber , the fifth starter , is out with a strained groin , and torre decided to keep both of the candidates to replace him , osborne and jorge depaula . the team will not need a fifth starter until april 10 . general_manager brian_cashman said the fifth starter is probably his biggest area of concern as the season begins . but cashman has not been compelled to seek a trade because he expects lieber back by may . the bigger question was contreras , and he starred in spring_training . in five march starts , including the game against the giants , contreras went 3 0 with a 1 . 83 earned_run_average . he struck out 28 in 19 2 3 innings , throwing his fastball with more confidence and baffling hitters with his tumbling forkball . ''if you 'd asked me a month ago about jos_contreras , i would have said him , '' cashman said , referring to his most pressing concerns as the exhibition schedule began . ''but not the way he 's pitched the last month . he 's pitching more like a no . 1 . i think all of our starters , even lieber when he 's healthy and right , have the ability to pitch like a no . 1 on any given day . '' kevin brown , who starts the second game of the season on wednesday against tampa_bay 's jeremi gonzalez , had a 1 . 86 e.r.a. , in five starts in spring_training . javier_vazquez , who did not make the trip to japan so he could continue working out in tampa , allowed one earned_run in 11 spring_training innings . if the front of the rotation mussina , brown and vazquez holds up as the season progresses , contreras could thrive in the back . ''a lot of it depends on moose and kevin brown and all those guys , '' torre said of contreras . ''if they pitch well , i think it 's a lot easier , as opposed to piling everything on him and saying , 'we need this game . ' not that he 's not capable , but i 'd like to get him in a consistent mode . '' the yankees fortified their right handed setup relievers in the off season , signing tom gordon and paul quantrill , who have pitched well . the left handers felix heredia and gabe white have looked shaky at times , but torre said , ''i anticipate our bullpen will improve from the left side , because the ability is there . '' cashman acknowledged that the yankees have some problems that will not go away . the lumbering jason_giambi is manning first base , and even if lofton plays himself up to the top of the order torre said he wants lofton there eventually the yankees are still slow . ''we 're not going to be the fastest team in the league and we 're not going to be the best defensive team in the league , '' cashman said . ''that 's just a byproduct of who we are , the collection of talent we have . that 's an area of weakness . but i think our positives far outweigh the negatives . '' rodriguez , giambi and gary_sheffield the yankees' 3 4 5 hitters as the season opens have slumped lately , but torre was not concerned . all three have joined the yankees since their last championship , in 2000 , and torre and cashman have called this lineup the best of their yankees tenures . in many ways , it is george_steinbrenner 's dream team . ''there 's no question there is a quiet confidence that 's within this team , '' rodriguez said . ''i think when you collect talent like we have here , our biggest challenge is , how do we channel that and hone it and come up with wins ? the biggest thing is not to try to do too much . '' then again , too much is never enough for steinbrenner , the principal owner , who was to watch the opener from his home in tampa . the rodriguez trade in mid february brightened steinbrenner 's mood and energized the yankees' empire . but with games that count upon them , the yankees know the good vibe could turn at any time . ''will it help us win games on the field ? '' cashman said . ''only if we perform at our best . '' inside pitch outfielder bubba crosby made the 25 man roster , beating what he guessed were 100 to 1 odds . crosby had an advantage over the veteran darren bragg because bragg was a nonroster player , but manager joe_torre said crosby earned the spot with his spirited play . crosby , 27 , has one major_league hit in his six year pro career . he said he was so nervous before torre told him that he could not eat a peanut_butter and jelly sandwich . . . . as expected , catcher joe girardi did not make the team and will join the yes network as a broadcaster . baseball",has a topic of sports
"gentlemen , start your zambonis . up to now , the olympic winter_games have consisted mostly of japanese soldiers dutifully tamping down the slopes after the latest blizzard , but now it really does n't matter if they ever run those outdoor events . you people with the rosy cheeks and the red noses you can throw away your sorels and your gore tex . it 's all happening indoors . this is not just me talking . this is juan_antonio_samaranch . he 's the one who invited the millionaires who hit millionaires with sticks to the winter_games , thereby making it harder than ever to take seriously the curlers with their cigarettes and the snowboarders with their nose rings . when quinn the eskimo gets here , everybody 's gonna jump for joy . the winter_games became official yesterday morning when michelle_kwan floated on the practice ice , a few hours off the plane , batting her eyelashes as if to say , ''oh , was everybody waiting for me ? '' you bet we were . if these games could be boiled down to one event , it would be a week from saturday when michelle_kwan and tara_lipinski and nicole_bobek and a few others skate for the medals , without which we would all be back home writing about the knicks without patrick_ewing . some will quibble that kwan should have been here for the opening ceremony , but let 's face it stars arrive late . jackie o . the spice girls . greta garbo . monica_lewinsky . they know we 'll wait for them . kwan arrived at 1 30 a.m . yesterday and was on the ice at 11 30 a.m. , skating her long program , and turning the quiet practice rink into the bolshoi_ballet , center court at wimbledon and the fashion runway at milan . ''i hope you folks know what that took for her to skate her long program a few hours after getting off a plane , '' raved carol heiss jenkins , the 1960 gold medalist who is coaching other skaters but intently followed every second of kwan 's practice . ''i have taken that flight , '' heiss continued , ''and i know how you feel the next day . you 're dying . michelle showed mental toughness doing her long program . i was so impressed . '' a few hours after kwan turned up the lights and the music , the big_boys tromped into nagano prefecture , amazingly alert from being so many time zones from the red lines and the blue lines . they were here to cement the holy alliance between the international_olympic_committee and the national_hockey_league . when the canadians took the bullet_train from tokyo and arrived in nagano station , a huge crowd awaited them . ray bourque reported ''there was an alley between the fans . i was amazed how many of them had hockey cards and knew who we were . actually , i think they were trying to get to gretz . '' so were the international journalists who had heard that wayne_gretzky has been as durable as sergei_bubka and as brilliant as pele . the scrum of news_media around gretzky would have embarrassed the other canadians , if they did not feel the same way about gretzky . i could not get within five yards of him . the americans flew from san_francisco to tokyo , with a long stopover in anchorage for refueling and stretching of those giant bodies . the yanks even had an exercise bicycle on their chartered flight . mike_richter of the rangers kept busy on the flight by reading , then he checked into an athletes' village for the first time since he represented the united_states in 1988 in calgary . back then , the hockey players at the winter_games were young hopefuls . but now , through the open door policy of samaranch , the olympic hockey players are athletic gods , articulate and muscled and worldly and famous and rich . ''just because we get the media attention does n't make us better than anybody else , '' richter said . ''these guys train hard but they 're not as singled out . '' asked if he thought other athletes would resent the attention , richter said , ''i hope not too much . '' pat_lafontaine , richter 's teammate on the rangers , an olympian in sarajevo in 1984 , said , ''back then , americans just hoped for college scholarships . '' he admitted to having mixed emotions about professionals taking over the winter_games . ''i feel for that kid who wo n't have the chance , '' lafontaine said , ''but the way i see it , it 's an opportunity to promote hockey . '' oddly enough , the n.h.l . and the i.o.c . and the television networks feel the same way . the great gretzky is at the winter_games , but even he is an opening act . you 've not seen nothing like the mighty kwan .",has a topic of sports
"after patrolling places in places like falluja , where he was shot at and shot back , juan salas , a united_states_army sergeant , would pose his platoon around a sign destined for his soccer team back home . he would e mail the photo he had taken , asking his manhattanville_college teammates , in turn , for updates on their games . his teammates , who saved sergeant salas 's soccer jersey for him in the hope that he would return to wear it , sent back reports . the sergeant , 23 , pored over every last word and statistic from the games the valiants played without him , before going to sleep , often to the sounds of incoming shells . war is always about lives interrupted and , for those skilled and lucky enough , taken back up again . sometimes warriors return to peace with renewed perspective or relish other times with emotions more deadened . but whatever the soldier 's state of mind , there is in a sense no more peculiar place to return to than an idyllic college campus . and as sergeant salas runs with choppy , purposeful steps on the soccer field here , kicking a ball , backpedaling and kicking again , in the late afternoon sun , he has to shake himself from the surreal thought that he is here and not there . to him , even basic necessities seem extravagant . ''it 's the flushable toilet , the college food and the fact that you do n't hear artillery and can just wear normal clothes , have conversations and feel safe every little thing you appreciate , '' he said , a plane flying overhead while he played . it was only a corporate jet taking off from the nearby airport . the sergeant , a native of venezuela who is a naturalized american citizen , joined the national_guard at the start of college . raised by his mother in south_america new jersey and new york , he said he had learned not to sit still to keep moving or get old instantly . ''i just needed something to spice up my life , '' he said , his inky hair still shorn tight , military style , but with an easy laugh that seemed anything but regimented . he never expected to be called into action . then came his junior year and the callup . sergeant salas could hardly believe it was a reality . soon , he was in fort_bragg for a month , then landing in kuwait_city , then working in special_operations in various spots in the restive sunni_triangle , where he was shot at frequently and returned fire , killing more than once . sergeant salas seems overwhelmed with the joy of being home once more , a management student and stalwart of the soccer team . he was the fourth leading_scorer during his sophomore year . there are new frustrations , however . his fellow students , happy in their lives , untouched personally by war , occasionally seem irresponsible or slow moving . david baron , a junior on the soccer team , said that one day a bunch of players were bellyaching about a preseason run because the weather happened to be a touch humid . midfielder salas suddenly became sergeant salas he let the others know that until a person has been in 140 degree temperatures , carrying heavy equipment and taking fire , a person has not seen heat . ''we sort of shut our mouths and did n't complain , '' said mr . baron , who , like other teammates , says sergeant salas has boundless exuberance and keen insight . scott vieira , a junior soccer player , said ''when something goes wrong , he tells us to keep our heads up . he says people on that other side of the world have it a little worse than us . '' the sergeant , for his part , is comforted by the camaraderie that his team offers , though in a way a pale imitation of the ''amplified'' experience of the army . there are side benefits to being a war hero returning to a small liberal arts college . asked if his status helps in dating on campus , sergeant salas laughed . ''you have no idea , '' he said . ''they are treating me a lot better than before . '' in fact , he said , all students even those against the war , are curious about it . and they do n't let their political stance color their view of soldiers . he is glad to have served , he added , but cannot help reliving his joy the moment he was told that he would be coming home . he called his mother , elizabeth , and his sister , yurley , a junior at columbia_university . then he thought back to the valiant teammates who had saved his jersey for him and knew , finally , that he could look forward to seeing them , too . for the record e mail fuchs nytimes . com",has a topic of sports
"lead he was france 's star soccer player throughout the glory years , when the french national team made the semifinals of the world_cup in both 1982 and 1986 , and he won the european player of the year award in 1983 , 1984 and 1985 . now , with france floundering as it tries to qualify for the 1990 world_cup , michel platini has been named head_coach of the french national team . he was france 's star soccer player throughout the glory years , when the french national team made the semifinals of the world_cup in both 1982 and 1986 , and he won the european player of the year award in 1983 , 1984 and 1985 . now , with france floundering as it tries to qualify for the 1990 world_cup , michel platini has been named head_coach of the french national team . platini , the captain of the national team from 1979 to 1987 , replaces henri michel , whose tactics came into question after france tied lowly cyprus , 1 1 , in a world_cup qualifier on oct . 22 . platini , 33 years old , recently retired as a player . he last played for juventus , of turin , italy , and helped that club win the 1984 cup winners' cup and the 1985 european champion clubs' cup . ( ap ) sports people",has a topic of sports
"at first it seemed as if whoever planned the match had made some kind of mistake . only weeks away from a possible american attack on iraq , a professional soccer team from erbil , a city in kurdish controlled northern iraq , today played a team from baghdad , the capital . iraq 's president , saddam_hussein , has consistently repressed the kurds . the players from baghdad arrived unarmed , did their level best to win and depended on the kurdish police to protect them from more than 5 , 000 screaming kurdish fans , some openly hostile , others more conciliatory . ''this is sport , '' said mazar hossein , 24 , a barber . ''it has nothing to do with politics . '' the game was part of a nationwide professional soccer league featuring teams from the areas controlled by baghdad and from kurdish controlled regions . the players cross back and forth over the lines of control , along with thousands of other civilians . so today club erbil and club nafet whose name means oil squared off against each other at 2 30 p.m . spectators packed the sides of a utilitarian , two story concrete stadium where men and boys ate ice_cream , doughnuts and other snacks . the players from baghdad , dressed in green , struggled throughout , dominated by the yellow clad erbil squad . erbil 's fans danced , pounded drums and played dozens of dahauls , a traditional instrument that sounds like a high pitched clarinet . when the home team took a 1 0 lead , they danced in the aisles . the goal was the only one scored in the game , winning it for erbil . kurdish fans admit that they cheer more aggressively when teams from baghdad come to town , but said the roars should not be misunderstood . ''we dislike them as sports rivals , '' explained rehman majid , 16 , a restaurant worker . ''nothing more . '' the squads are a mix of players from across the country . kurdish fans cheered the loudest today for no . 34 , ahmed judea , a prolific scorer . mr . judea is an arab from baghdad , but he plays for erbil in the kurdish controlled north . ''there are arabs who play for us , '' said mr . hossein , the barber , who sounded proud of the fact . ''four or five . '' salah muhammad , 56 , a music teacher who brought a group of young girls to sing at the match , said iraqis blamed their government , not average iraqis , for killings of kurds . ''this is a struggle against the regime , '' he said . ''not against the people . '' yet fears of ethnic and religious strife if mr . hussein is removed from power are rising . kurds , shiite_muslims and other ethnic and religious groups have scores to settle with members of the arab sunni_muslim minority that rules iraq under mr . hussein . players from the baghdad team shied away from speaking after the game , which mr . majid , the restaurant worker , said represented that invaluable thing escape . ''the moment is different when we come out of the stadium and listen to the news , '' he said . ''this changes , and we are afraid . '' threats and responses friendly combat",has a topic of sports
"mets manager art_howe apologized on saturday to a small group of japanese reporters who cover the team after admitting that he had intentionally made a false statement about tsuyoshi_shinjo . howe had said shinjo , a reserve outfielder , might be demoted to the minors to make room for jeromy burnitz , who came off the disabled_list on may 23 . but howe later admitted that he had never considered such a move . howe ''apologized to them if he offended anybody , '' jay horwitz , the mets' media relations director , said yesterday . horwitz , who witnessed the apology , added ''he was kidding around and was trying to add some levity . there was nothing malicious about it . '' jeff duncan , who had spent five days with the mets , was optioned to make room for burnitz . shinjo , a flamboyant athlete who played 10 years in japan for the hanshin_tigers , made his major league debut with the mets in 2001 and played with san_francisco last season . several japanese newspapers have reporters covering him in the united_states . baseball",has a topic of sports
"when yannick noah announced yesterday that he was resigning as the nonplaying captain of the french davis_cup team , it was n't because as it might appear of france 's stunning quarterfinal loss to lowly switzerland over the weekend . he retired because tennis is simply no longer his primary interest . noah said he had made the decision to quit three weeks ago , because he wanted to concentrate on his new singing career . although noah had been criticized for using a couple of untested players against switzerland after concluding that guy_forget and henri leconte were not playing up to par , french tennis officials confirmed that noah had indeed told his players of his plans to step down before the match against switzerland . "" he did n't want anyone to say he left after a defeat , "" said francois jauffret , the french tennis federation 's technical director . "" we 've fallen from the heights , "" he added . "" it 's an incredible blow . "" ( ap ) sports people tennis",has a topic of sports
"she is a native of guadeloupe , lives in hollywood and runs for the french olympic team . now marie jose perec is making huge splash in atlanta . grace . fearlessness . confidence . while michael johnson embarks on his well publicized quest for a historic double , and carl_lewis crusades for a spot on the united_states olympic team , perec has quietly dazzled the audience here with the seemingly effortless ease and grace with which she has dominated competition . perec warmed the track for johnson on monday when she set an olympic record in the 400 . she won the race in 48 . 25 seconds , a comfortable 38 tenths of a second ahead of cathy freeman of australia . few noticed that perec pulled the second and third place finishers higher freeman set an oceania record and fali ogunkoya of nigeria set an african record . after a day off , perec was back on the track today beginning her attempt to win a medal in the 200 meters . the women 's world record in the 400 , 47 . 60 by marita koch of germany in 1985 , was set at a time when athletes from the eastern_bloc nations were suspected of , and in some cases proven , to use performance_enhancing_drugs . earlier this month , perec said , ''that record is not human it 's not possible . '' after winning the gold_medal at the barcelona games in 1992 , she said her winning time , 48 . 03 , was the legitimate time . in the intervening years , as she has gained strength and confidence , perec no longer regards koch 's mark as beyond reach . this is part of an evolution that began on guadeloupe where she was raised by her grandmother . she moved to france when she was 14 after a french coach timed her in a 200 meter race in guadeloupe and informed her that she had qualified for the french national team . perec was dropped by the french coach jack piasenta in 1994 after skipping the european indoor_championships . that led her to her current coach , john_smith , who she credits with instilling in her a heightened self confidence and a quiet killer attitude . ''he has a way of approaching things that 's much more positive than i was used to , '' she said . ''he puts my goals very , very high and it 's worked . as time goes on , i begin to believe that the 400 meter record might be possible . '' in the past , perec was content to simply run fast smith conditioned her to run to break records . ''he told me i was wrong not to think about the world record , '' she said . ''i think i 'm exceptional . i know that sounds pretty american , but he has an american way of expressing himself . in france , i did n't think i was exceptional . that 's what he 's brought to me . '' ato bolden , the men 's 100 meter bronze medalist , said that perec reminded him of the deadly venus flytrap , a flower that lures prey with sweet fragrance and appealing looks . ''people think she 's timid , '' bolden said . ''that is a mistake . '' perec does n't crush the opposition like johnson , or step on it like gail devers . she sails past the field , easily , virtually expressionless . she can be disarmingly unassuming . at the same time perec is aware of how she affects her competitors . during the track and field trials , perec noted with typical candor ''when i run , the other girls freeze . they run slower when i am there . '' that wo n't be the case on thursday when she runs against the likes of of carlette guidry , merlene ottey , freeman and juliet cuthbert . today , she won her first two heats without sweating the first in 22 . 62 seconds , the second in 22 . 24 , the fastest qualifying time of the day . yet her approach to the possibility of winning two gold medals is a marked contrast to johnson 's bold declarations and the advertiser 's grand marketing schemes . when she speaks about going for a double , perec reveals a genuine sense of uncertainty . ''i do n't know what 's going to happen , '' she said . critics say she is a pure 400 meter_runner who does the 200 meter only to improve her speed . perec disagrees , not loudly , but firmly . ''i 'm not a 400 runner , '' she said . ''i 'm a sprinter . '' the difference between her quest and johnson 's is experience , she said , not intensity . ''michael johnson knows what it 's like to go for the 400 and training for the 200 in the same meet , '' she said . ''i 'm just going to try . it 's no risk . '' atlanta day 13 track and field",has a topic of sports
"at the start of the women 's 200 meters tonight , kelli white felt tired , empty . this was her eighth round of sprints at the world track and field championships . she rocked from side to side in lane 6 and wondered if she had anything left . ''the start , 12 or 15 steps , was all i had , '' white said . ''it gave me enough oomph to get down the track . i was just hoping they were n't coming . i kept pushing . '' she blasted from the blocks desperately , unable to see her most threatening opponents behind her , and she built a clear lead out of the turn . with half of the race left , it was essentially over . white powered across the finish line in 22 . 05 seconds , a personal best . her celebration was restrained . even hoisting the american flag took some effort in her depleted state , yet nothing could undercut the breadth of her accomplishment . white became the first double winner at these world_championships , having won the 100 on sunday in another personal best of 10 . 85 seconds . a career that did not produce a state high_school title in california or a national collegiate title at the university of tennessee has blossomed into international versatility . white , 26 , has a chance to win a third gold on saturday in the 4x100_meter relay . only two east_germans , silke gladisch in 1987 and katrin_krabbe in 1991 , had won the 100 and the 200 at the world_championships . if white can repeat the accomplishment at the 2004 summer games in athens , she will join a rarefied list of american women who have won the olympic sprint double wilma rudolph in 1960 , florence griffith joyner in 1988 and marion_jones in 2000 . jones took this season off to have a baby . presumably , she will regain her form , which should establish an intriguing sprint rivalry next spring and summer . her personal bests of 10 . 65 in the 100 and 21 . 62 ( altitude ) and 21 . 76 ( sea_level ) in the 200 are considerably faster than white 's , but jones has not been at her speediest since the 1997 and 1998 seasons . ''marion is a great athlete , '' white said after winning the 100 . ''i have a lot to go to catch up to where she is . i look at her as a mentor , not as some competitor i 'm going to take down . '' there is speculation that the two might meet next month in a 100 meter race in moscow , though jones 's comeback has not been confirmed . white said she had not meant to send a message to jones with her own double sprint title . ''things can change from month to month , '' white said . she seemed glad , though , to have finally escaped jones 's considerable shadow , as is her american teammate torri edwards , who won bronze in the 200 in 22 . 47 after taking silver in the 100 . anastasia kapachinskaya of russia won the silver in the 200 in 22 . 38 . ''i finally made a mark for myself and hopefully i 'll be appreciated in the track and field world , '' white said . ''i think a lot of women here feel underappreciated . we 've now proven we can run very fast . '' sprinting roots run deep from the white family tree . white 's mother , debbie byfield , ran for jamaica in the 1972 munich olympics . her father , willie white , finished sixth in the 100 meters at the 1960 united_states olympic trials . in 1994 , white ran the nation 's fastest high_school 200 in 23 . 80 seconds . a horrific accident soon after , however , threatened her career and the vision in one eye . as she waited at a mass transit station after school in union_city , calif . , white said she and several friends were attacked by two girls , one of whom wielded a knife . white 's face was slashed , and the wound required more than 300 stitches . the cut missed her left eye by only about a quarter of an inch . a thin scar is still visible on her forehead , inside her left eye and across her cheek . white says she does not think about the incident unless reporters ask , which is often . her standard reply is ''things happen in life . you have to get over it . '' it is a kind of mantra that has guided her through the rough patches of her career . last summer , white tore the plantar fascia , or connective tissue , that ran beneath her right foot , and could not compete at her accustomed level . the pain felt as if her foot were being ripped apart . still not fully fit in february , white failed to qualify for the world indoor_championships . as late as april , she thought she might have to curb her outdoor season . eventually , things began coming together . white is coached in the bay_area by remni korchemny , who also coached valeri borzov of the former soviet_union to olympic gold medals at 100 and 200 meters at the 1972 olympics . to build strength and endurance , white gained 13 pounds and added 400 meter sprints and two mile runs to her training regimen . this reserve power apparently got her through tonight 's race , even though she felt exhausted after four rounds of the 100 and another four rounds of the 200 . ''this is a great accomplishment , '' white said . ''it shows how much courage i had to be able to put everything out there . '' track and field",has a topic of sports
"about 5 o'clock yesterday afternoon , i decided to take my own olympics poll . this would be personal and unscientific . my sample population two middle_aged women , a middle_aged man and three female students in the luxembourg garden . earlier in the day , i sat in the office of jean_fran_ois lamour , france 's minister of youth and sports and a former olympic gold medalist in fencing . i wanted to know why he thought paris was prepared to be host for the 2012 summer games after two failed attempts . paris lost the 1992 games to barcelona and the 2008 games to beijing . from the outside , paris , with a solid , unified front , appears to be the front runner in this race against new york , moscow , london and madrid . the boulevards here are lined with 2012 olympics banners , and the airports and the train_station sing the gospel of the 2012 games with signs and artwork . there is evidence of a city that is truly eager to be host for the olympics . even at roland_garros , site of the french open , center court is surrounded with ''paris 2012'' banners . several players competing in the french open even agreed to tap their chest twice after matches to signify the slogan , ''my heart beats for paris 2012 . '' two were from rival bid countries james blake of the united_states and svetlana kuznetsova of russia . but what about the people of paris ? new york has a similar corporate and governmental push behind its olympic bid , but what has bothered me is a man on the street ambivalence over the city 's effort to be host of the games . are the people here behind the paris bid ? ''of course , '' lamour said . ''the polls show that 85 percent of the french population supports our bid the french and parisians are behind the bid . '' what about the other 15 percent ? five percent do n't like anything , lamour said . ''we need that 10 percent . we have to find a way to show them that the olympics are good for paris and good for france . '' on sunday , french voters will participate in a referendum on whether to ratify a new european constitution . polls indicate that they will reject the constitutional treaty , and lamour said yesterday that the result would have no bearing on paris 's olympics bid . ''a negative vote will not have any impact on our ability to organize the games , '' he said . opposition in france to the charter for the european_union seems based , to a large extent , on the fear of or the resistance to an expansion of europe , and a potential loss of jobs . such an opening up is precisely what the olympic_games are an opening up to the world . if a country is afraid to open up , how can it hold the olympics ? ''it 's a paradox , '' lamour said . ''we want the games , but we say no to europe . '' i left lamour 's office with an interpreter and headed toward the luxembourg garden in the latin_quarter , near the sorbonne . as i approached my six poll participants , the subject was paris 's 2012 olympics bid , and the question was simple do you want the games in paris ? josianne plessis and paulette boissonnette said they were in favor . yes , plessis said , the traffic would be a nightmare , but the new people , the visitors , would be worth the headaches . ''different nationalities , young people , that will be good , '' she said . what about the crush of humanity , all the crazy people who would descend on paris ? what about that burden ? ''on the contrary , '' she said . ''that would be very good . '' the only downside , she said , shifting into english , ' 'maybe we will pay more taxes . '' farther along in the garden , three female students from the sorbonne sat and talked , enjoying a marvelous afternoon in the sun . they expressed the same theme of openness . hakima abchiche called the games a good thing and a way to bring different nationalities to paris . each of the six parisians i polled referred to the 1998 world_cup , held in france , as the basis of their support for the olympics . france won the world_cup that year , and paris was on a high that lasted for months . ''everybody was in the streets , '' abchiche said . ''that was real nice . '' a little farther along , i came across a gathering of chess players who , in my experience , tend to be contrarians , so i expected that they would object to the paris bid . but one competitor , gerard schindler , said he was all for the games in paris . he , too , referred to the 1998 world_cup for the power and joy a great sporting_event could bring to one 's hometown . ''all of paris was celebrating , '' he said . paris , schindler added , needed another celebration . ''in france , people are not always happy , '' he said . '' maybe the games can boost our spirits and our solidarity . '' schindler said that after the world_cup , people seemed to draw closer together , and there was a bit more congeniality among strangers . many new yorkers expressed the same feeling after the tragedy of sept . 11 , 2001 , tore our city apart . the concept of the olympics as a healing force i like it . sports of the times e mail wcr nytimes . com correction june 6 , 2005 , monday a sports of the times column on may 27 about public support for paris 's bid for the 2012 olympics misstated one of the five finalists to be the host city in some copies . it is madrid , not lisbon .",has a topic of sports
"now after mike powell 's record breaking long_jump , the question is asked anew what are the limits of human potential ? how much farther can a person jump ? how much higher ? how much faster can he run , or swim , or hop and skip ? some people once said , "" well , they pole vaulted 14 feet but they 'll never pop over 15 feet . "" now , they 're soaring past 20 feet . some maintained that the human body could never run a mile in under four minutes . oh no ? and they also said that robert fulton 's newfangled steamboat some called it the folly would never start when it did , they said it would never stop . other people are obstinate enough to continue proving that the impossible , the incredible and the unassailable are possible and credible . and yesterday in the track and field world_championships in tokyo , mike powell faced an extraordinary record and sailed right through it . in powell 's event , the world record had held up for almost 23 years , the longest standing record on the track and field books . some thought it might be there forever . and we ask what are the limits of human potential ? it is said that sports mirrors society ( or is it the other way around ? ) . sports is often held up to show what we are capable of , what can be done with our heads and hearts and muscles and will . we see what our heroes can do , and they establish a mark for us to shoot at . naive maybe , but true . our sports heroes allow us to tell our kiddies and ourselves that look , if you work hard , this is what you can sometimes do hit a home_run , or score a touchdown , or break through a barrier . "" barrier "" is metaphorical sometimes . in the soviet_union now , the citizens are actually dismantling an institution that has lasted 74 years , which breaks a pretty good record in itself , better even than the records of communist domination that have been ended in nearby countries . so , by dint of better cereals , better informed trainers , better communication systems , and an old time wondrous and gritty spirit , men and women fly around on tracks and fields like never before while some struggle to improve their way of life in other arenas , and sometimes succeed to a startling degree . mike powell smashed the record of bob beamon , and we are startled afresh . powell jumped 29 feet 4 1 2 inches , two inches farther than the record , and this was said to be extraordinary . when you set it against beamon 's feat , however , it 's somewhat less awesome , though nonetheless sensational . beamon broke the record by nearly two feet , or 21 3 4 inches , to be precise . the record before beamon was 27 4 3 4 , so even after beamon broke the mark no one else had yet jumped 28 feet . beamon just flew right through it , all the way to 29 2 1 2 . "" i was training to jump 27 feet , maybe 28 feet , "" said beamon when i spoke with him a few years ago . "" but i never dreamed of 29 feet . "" how did he do it ? some say the high altitude of mexico_city helped him by reducing the air density and giving loft to his invisible magic carpet . some attributed it to a nice wind at his back . others said that every factor was just right in his favor . regardless , no one else was able to surpass what he did , then or after , until yesterday . even beamon never jumped past 27 feet again . beamon said he had "" gone across the board with explanations "" and he had decided this "" a person is capable of performing some phenomenal things when people least expect it . "" like most others , beamon believed that if the record would be broken , carl_lewis would do it . lewis , after all , had not lost in a long_jump event since 1981 , a 65 meet winning_streak . his best jump until yesterday was 28 10 1 4 . powell 's previous best was 28 5 , jumped last year . "" i was a little confused with the person that had set the record , mike powell , "" said beamon , upon hearing the news . "" it was a surprise . "" lewis finished second to powell . mike powell , born in philadelphia , is 27 years old , and the winner of a silver_medal for the long_jump in the 1988 olympics . but he was , for the most part , just another track guy until yesterday . yesterday he accomplished the prodigious . it changed the record book . nice to dream that it could change the world a little , too "" what , mike powell broke beamon 's record ? wow , if powell can do what he did , we can do the extraordinary , too . let 's stop hating people . let 's stop hurting people . let 's stop oppressing them . "" the impossible is possible , the unassailable sailable . powell proved it . as his predecessor in the record book said , "" a person is capable of performing some phenomenal things when people least expect it . "" i guess that means all of us .",has a topic of sports
"to the sports editor cbs 's coverage of these winter_games is so disjointed and fragmented that it seems as if all i am seeing are quick edit summaries of whole events . this is truly maddening . it is no wonder viewership of these games is down . i wholeheartedly agree with john krimsky , the united_states_olympic_committee 's managing director for business affairs , when he says , ''the networks have got to be able to sustain sports competition for a longer period of time and they 've got to stop interrupting at critical points to throw in one more ad , and one more billboard . '' in addition , the judging of the ice_dancing competition is a perversion of the open and fair competitive spirit that the olympic_games symbolize . the whole panel of judges should be removed and penalized . competitive ice dancing for me ( an avowed figure_skating fanatic ) has lost its credibility . judith rivera schneider brooklyn",has a topic of sports
"first of all , avoid asking a luger if he steers . ''beginner question , '' said the american wendel suckow . lugers do steer , even though their sleds have no steering mechanisms . they shift their body weight and applying pressure on the runners , the only part of the sled that touches the ice . for some reason , german speaking people seem to do this best twenty seven of the 28 olympic golds awarded in current luge events have been won by germans , austrians or northern italians . the setup there are three luge events men 's singles , women 's singles and doubles , which is , in theory , open to both men and women but , in practice , is a male only domain . the men 's singles sliders start from a higher point than the women and doubles teams . luge tracks are nearly as distinctive as formula one tracks , and this olympic track , a 90 million creation known as ''spiral'' and located in iizuna kogen , is more distinctive than most . it is the only track in the world with two uphill sections ( the environmentally minded designers chose to follow the lay of the land ) . maximum sled weights for singles are 50 . 6 pounds and 59 . 4 pounds for doubles . the scoring in the olympics competition , during which singles competitors take four heats over two days , the fastest aggregate time wins . the doubles format is two heats on a single day . luge and short_track skating are the only olympic sports timed in thousandths of a second . the strategy the goal is to relax every part of the body that is not being used to steer or maintain optimal aerodynamic position . and an advantage of one hundredth of a second at the start is believed to translate to three hundredths at the bottom . the names in the men 's singles , georg hackl of germany and markus prock of austria will renew their rivalry , and the lighter hackl will have to contend with the fact that spiral is expected to favor heavier lugers . armin zoeggeler of italy and suckow , who won the olympic test event last february , also bear watching . one favorite among the women is susi erdmann of germany . the americans have never won an olympic_medal , although that looks more likely in nagano . sheer and chris thorpe became the first american doubles team to win an overall world_cup title last season , and mark grimmette and brian martin became the second this season . christopher clarey nagano '98",has a topic of sports
"lead last autumn a diverse group of local and national french politicians joined with sportsmen in persuading the international_olympic_committee to designate the alpine resort of albertville as the site of the 1992 winter_games . the i.o.c . appeared pleased that the albertville cause was led by jean_claude last autumn a diverse group of local and national french politicians joined with sportsmen in persuading the international_olympic_committee to designate the alpine resort of albertville as the site of the 1992 winter_games . the i.o.c . appeared pleased that the albertville cause was led by jean_claude_killy , the former skiing superstar , whose involvement seemed to guarantee that the athletes would not be overshadowed by political and economic interests . albertville , a municipality of 18 , 000 , had the solid support of some dozen other towns in the economically depressed savoy region , which relished the prospect of the billions in development and tourist francs that would be attracted by the host 's role . the organizers promptly budgeted 450 million , and the french government made plans to spend 500 million to improve the region 's roads and bring in the super fast tgv train , putting savoy within three and a half hours of paris . the government also promised to pick up the tab if the games produced a loss . soon after he was named to head the organizing_committee in january , however , killy began having second thoughts . they concerned the official albertville plan , a vaguely_worded document implying , though not quite promising , that all of the olympic largesse would be spread over a wide area of savoy , with some sites of competition and housing as far as 50 miles from albertville and even farther from one another . killy was not alone . a number of i.o.c . members shared his view that widely dispersed sites would prove a travel nightmare for competitors and spectators alike and would also increase the costs of television coverage , thus cutting the organizers' income and leaving them at the mercy of government financing . what that implied was control by politicians . killy 's dream that the games would be run by a sportsman 's committee acutely sensitive to athletes' wants now seemed in jeopardy , and he called for consolidation of the events . the region 's mayors revolted , at one point leading a mass demonstration to albertville demanding that killy stick with the plan . faced with what has been described as ''a war between the village steeples , '' killy resigned . ''i had a certain vision of the games , '' he said . ''i wanted them designed for athletes and kept rigorously economical . but it seems this is not possible . so i 'm giving my place to those who think they can be run differently . '' that place is being taken by michel_barnier , a local member of parliament who is heading a committee now made up entirely of politicians and savoy businessmen . ''all the villages in the original olympic application , '' barnier has said , ''will participate in organizing the games . '' sports world specials",has a topic of sports
"howard carter , a former louisiana_state forward who has been playing basketball in france , was charged with buying and using drugs after the police arrested him and seized a dose of heroin , the authorities in le havre said yesterday . carter , 33 , freed on friday , was arrested with five suspected drug dealers in the stairwell of a building shortly before his team , pau orthez , was to play saint thomas le havre on tuesday . his case is to be heard in court april 25 , and carter was suspended by the team until his court appearance . if found guilty , he faces five years in prison . ( ap ) sports people basketball",has a topic of sports
"after her first grand_slam final had ended in a 6 2 , 6 3 loss to martina_hingis , amelie mauresmo sat at a table outside the players' lounge today and talked calmly and confidently about her decision to make her homosexuality public knowledge . even before arriving at the australian_open , the 19 year old mauresmo said she had decided to talk about the topic , not because she wanted to become a symbol or the focus of attention , but because she did not want to dance around the subject throughout her career . ''when the media asks me what 's going on in my life , i 'm obliged to talk about this because it 's part of my life , '' she said . ''and here it is . it 's clear that i 'm not going to get unanimous support for this . not everybody is going to be behind my back saying , 'super . ' but no matter what i do , there will always be people against me . with that in mind , i decided to make my sexuality clear . ''there will be people who i hope will respect me for doing it because it was my decision , and because there are many other players who are the same way as i am and say nothing and act as if nothing is going on . '' mauresmo , who is from bornel , france , was asked if her decision might serve as an example to those players . ''perhaps , '' she said . ''i hope so for them , because right now they are the ones who are having a hard time dealing with their situation . i feel sorry for them . '' mauresmo 's resolve to talk about her sexual preference will be tested most obviously by the corporate world . the last high profile tennis_player to acknowledge her homosexuality , martina_navratilova , never received sponsorship and endorsement contracts commensurate with her achievements before retiring in 1994 . ''this will be a good test , '' said pam shriver , a former president of the women 's tennis association and navratilova 's former doubles partner . ''if the commercial world embraces her , then it 's a different era . '' mauresmo , who has a clothing contract , said ''i think things have evolved and , in my opinion , if they want to set me aside , there will be dozens more who will take me . it 's clear . and if they let me go for that , they are jerks anyway . '' shriver expressed her belief that ''there certainly wo n't be any repercussions long term with the players in the locker_room or the way amelie is treated at tournaments . '' but in the short term , there were repercussions in melbourne . mauresmo came here with her new coach , christophe fournerie , and her french girlfriend , sylvie bourdon . on thursday , after her semifinal victory , hingis was asked about mauresmo at a news conference with swiss journalists , which was broadcast around the tennis center . the journalists reported that she answered in a joking tone in german ''she 's here with her girlfriend . she 's half a man . '' hingis later denied making the comment and explained that she had said only that mauresmo played like a man , but neither fournerie nor mauresmo was convinced . ''i listened to the press conference , and she really said that 'she was half a man because she was with a woman , ' '' said fournerie , who did not explain where he had listened to hingis . ''she would do better to think before speaking . despite her young age , she has got responsibilities in light of her ranking . she needs to understand certain things . '' mauresmo said hingis 's comment ''was a very bad joke . '' ''i saw another interview after the doubles where she said , 'i did n't want to say it that way , ' '' mauresmo said . ''but for me , it was stupid on her part , really stupid . '' hingis 's news conference with the swiss came on the same day that a remarkably poised mauresmo upset top seeded lindsay_davenport in three sets . when davenport met with reporters , she said , ''a couple of times , i thought i was playing a guy . '' she also made references to mauresmo 's broad shoulders and power . unlike hingis in her purported comment , davenport made no reference to mauresmo 's sexual preference , and she later made it clear that she had been talking only about mauresmo 's tennis . but the remarks from the world 's two top ranked players made the front pages of several australian newspapers on friday . and when mauresmo picked up the papers that morning to revel in her upset , bourdon said , she was quite disappointed . ''she was so happy when she saw herself on the front pages , and then we saw that what was below the pictures had nothing to do with tennis , and she was clearly affected by this , '' bourdon said . on friday night , before she left melbourne , davenport sent a note of apology to mauresmo , saying she was sorry that her comments had contributed to the commotion . ''her message was very important for me , because i was very disappointed by what happened , '' mauresmo said . ''it was good , and i appreciated it . '' the 5 foot 9 inch mauresmo expressed surprise that the 6 2 davenport would be in awe of her power . ''lindsay hits the ball harder than me she is more powerful than me , and she 's six inches taller than me , so that really shocked me , '' said mauresmo , who was also surprised by suggestions that her powerful shoulders and solid build were new developments . i 'm getting the impression from people that in the last 15 days it suddenly became like this , but i 've always been like this . '' hingis , who began the match with four grand_slam_singles titles already to her credit , would prove the better and more consistent player on center court . mauresmo was nervous from the start , and though she improved her performance in the second set and saved six match points in the final game , hingis 's victory would take little more than an hour . after it ended and before they climbed the steps into the president 's box to accept their trophies and give their speeches , the two european teen_agers exchanged a few words . according to mauresmo , hingis apologized for what had happened . but hingis said after the match that she had told mauresmo something she wished to keep private but that ''there 's nothing to apologize for . '' hingis added , ''i think we will talk a little bit more . '' the last unseeded woman to reach a grand_slam_singles final was venus_williams , at the 1997 united_states open . within a year , williams was in the top five . mauresmo will be ranked at least 18th on monday . ''it 's going to depend on how i 'm going to handle this final and everything , '' mauresmo said of her future . ''i know my ranking can go up very quickly . i just do n't want to expect too much . '' tennis",has a topic of sports
"the free_agent forward j . r . reid , who finished last season with the knicks , will play in france next year for about a third of the money he made in the national_basketball_association . the move is an effort to increase his future value to n.b.a . teams , his agent said yesterday . reid , 28 , signed with psg racing basket of the french first division . the one year contract is valued at more than 800 , 000 , his agent , lee sentress , said . reid made 2 . 4 million this past season in the last year of a four year pact he signed in 1992 . the signing comes after reid finished a season in which he averaged 6.6 points and 3.9 rebounds , below his career averages , in 65 games with the san antonio spurs and knicks . the knicks , who used reid mostly as a reserve , obtained him in the trade that sent forward charles smith to the spurs . ( bloomberg ) sports people basketball",has a topic of sports
"there is no repeating what happened in france in 1998 . only once can you win the world 's biggest sporting_event for the first time . and when that first time happens to be in your own country and comes by way of an unequivocal 3 0 victory over brazil brazil ! the uniqueness becomes even more obvious . surprising your planet , your nation and yourself is indeed a tricky act to follow , but that is what the french soccer team will attempt to do over the next month at the world_cup in south_korea and japan . different continent . different context . same ugly gold trophy . same leading man zinedine zidane , the son of algerian immigrants and the friend and relation of all those who like their soccer with an irresistible dollop of panache . it has been not quite four years since zidane scored two of france 's three goals with his head in the world_cup final not quite four years since about 500 , 000 parisians massed on the champs_lys_es on the night of july 12 for the biggest spontaneous celebration there since liberation not quite four years since huger than life portraits of the french players were projected one by one onto the arc de triomphe . in that span , zidane 's profile , in particular , has continued to grow . now 30 , he is not only the artful force in midfield for the world 's best national team ( france won the prestigious european_championship in 2000 , too ) , he is also the artful force for the world 's best and most recognizable club team , real_madrid . last summer , real paid a world record 64 . 5 million transfer fee to italy 's juventus to acquire zidane . ''no player is worth this amount of money , '' zidane said appealingly upon arrival in madrid , perhaps , but only perhaps , unaware of the pay scale in major_league_baseball or in the n.b.a . ''i 've got four years to repay the debt on the field . '' real may consider the debt repaid already . this season , real 's centennial , zidane led it to the title in the champions_league , the world 's most prestigious club competition . the champions_league was the only major title missing from zidane 's career , and just as he proved decisive against brazil in 1998 , he proved decisive in the final . he scored the winning goal against bayer_leverkusen of the german bundesliga with an exquisitely timed left footed volley off a ball that dropped from a great height . believe it or not , zidane does not score often . his true talent comes in creating opportunities for others with his vision , touch and ball as extension of foot control . but he certainly picks his moments well , and his latest perfect strike sparked another city center celebration by hundreds of thousands , this time in madrid . ''for me , he is now the best player in the world , '' said aim jacquet , who coached the french team in 1998 . zidane , otherwise known as zizou , is not yet nearly as polished or as comfortable with a microphone as those american global figures michael_jordan and tiger woods . nor is he nearly as rich , with an estimated annual income of 15 million . but zidane is still the highest earning soccer star , with endorsement contracts from adidas , volvic mineral_water , ford and satellite_television and mobile_phone companies . since 1998 , he has also grown more comfortable about using his influence off the field , chiming in confidently during france 's recent presidential_election against the far right candidate jean marie le pen and his national front party . ''a party that does not at all correspond with france 's values , '' is how zidane described it . he grew up in a housing_project in the suburbs of marseille , where his parents were hardly the only recent immigrants . in 1998 , zidane and his multihued teammates became a symbol of france 's increasingly multiethnic identity . unlike in italy , spain , england and germany , where club teams remain highly competitive , france 's club teams struggle internationally , mostly because their stars play elsewhere to avoid the french tax rate . with no powerhouse clubs to generate huge followings and enthusiasm , the national team takes on an even larger cultural role . there is no questioning the results of les bleus . since 1998 , they have been beaten only twice in games that counted once by the russians in qualifying for the 2000 european_championship and once by the netherlands in pool play at that tournament , which france eventually won against italy . though the 1998 captain , didier deschamps , has retired , there has been continuity . jacquet was replaced as coach in 1998 by his assistant , roger lemerre , and 7 of the 11 men who started against brazil should start against senegal in the world_cup opener on friday . the french should have a more potent attack this time . in 1998 , they lacked a proven world class striker . now they have two thierry henry and david trezeguet , who were part of the 1998 team but had not yet reached maturity . henry scored 32 goals for arsenal , the english champion , this past season , and trezeguet did the same for juventus , the italian champion . each poses a different challenge to the defense henry with his acceleration and trezeguet with his remarkable ability to put awkward shots consistently on target . that success helps explain why jacquet did not hesitate when asked how this year 's team compared to his team . ''it is better , without any need for discussion , '' he said . the star defender lilian thuram is not so certain . ''in 1998 , we had this internal fire that was shared by the team as we chased for every ball , '' he said . ''i hope it will still be there . today , we 're on top . we control the game well . but who knows if subconsciously , when we 're in trouble , if there will be the same desire to sacrifice ? '' another question_mark is the defense , whose members are nearly all 30 or older and where goalkeeper fabien barthez , brilliant in 1998 , has been inconsistent with his club , manchester united . there is also concern about the lack of recovery time between the club season and the world_cup , particularly for zidane , and concern about france 's potentially brutal draw , which could have it face england in the second round , brazil in the quarterfinals , argentina in the semifinals and italy , germany or spain in the final . since it began in 1930 , only two countries have won consecutive world_cups italy in 1934 and 1938 and brazil in 1958 and 1962 . so while there is no way to repeat what happened not quite four years ago on that summer night in st . denis , making it through that gantlet unscathed and away from home would arguably be a greater accomplishment . ''without being pretentious , we fear nobody , '' zidane has said . ''but we do n't have a superiority complex . we simply know we have a great team , a great chance to win a second world_cup in a row and grab a piece of history . '' world_cup 2002",has a topic of sports
"bonjour . my name is jean_marie and i am your olympic guide on this bus tour of the venues for the xvi winter_games that open tomorrow here in the savoy . for you americans , that 's pronounced sav wa , as in sav wa fare . here in albertville where you do n't pronounce the t , you can see the stadium where tomorrow 's opening ceremony will be held , as well as the rink for figure_skating and the outdoor oval for speed_skating . but before the driver turns onto the main road to the mountain venues , i must inform you of the event that is new to these winter_olympics the 55 seat bobsled . you are familiar with the two man bobsled and the four man bobsled , i am sure . and for all the beauty of the snow capped mountains surrounding us , you may not be happy to know that coming back you will be on a 55 seat bobsled as this bus comes down the twisting two lane mountain roads with their hairpin turns and sometimes no guard rails . any questions so far . yes , monsieur ? "" where do we get on this bobsled ? "" you are on it now . your 53 seats , the driver 's seat and my jump seat here in the front . the same buses will be transporting spectators , journalists and yes , the olympic athletes , too . as we climb , you will see that these mountains are not like your american mountains . compared to the french_alps , your rocky_mountains are , how do you say , foothills . yes , monsieur ? "" what about the catskill mountains ? "" "" i have never seen the catskills , but an american friend of mine who plays golf told me that compared to the french_alps , the highest mountain in the catskills is just an uphill par 5 . that same american described these mountains as , how do you say , big time . yes , madame ? "" how high are these mountains ? "" for more than 20 minutes now , we have been going up , up , up . and when we get to the top , to courchevel 1850 , the altitude will be 1 , 850 meters . that is why it is known as courchevel 1850 , more than a mile high . over there at the byblos hotel where the international_olympic_committee met this week , rooms are more than 500 a night . "" you mean 500 francs . "" no , monsieur , 500 american . it is a jet set hangout . only the i.o.c . members could afford it . but when it snowed all day tuesday , there was no view . all they saw were snowflakes so big it was as if you opened a down pillow and the feathers fluttered out . that is the charm up here . clouds float below your room . or sometimes past it . then poof , sunshine again . "" where are we now ? "" we are on the way around the mountain to meribel , where the women 's alpine_skiing will be held across the valley from the new 6 , 500 seat arena where all the hockey games will be held halfway up this twisting road . "" who will use that arena when the olympics end ? "" that , madame , is a very good question that nobody has an answer for . but now , as we go down the mountain , i suggest that you close your eyes . or if not that , please do not look out the window . "" there 's no guard rail here ! "" please , do n't all speak at once . yes , occasionally there is no guard rail but your driver knows the road . "" if he skids , he wo n't know it ! "" in the 55 seat bobsled , that is the chance we must take . but now that we are safely down off that mountain and while we go up to la_plagne where the real bobsled and the luge runs are , then on to tignes for the freestyle , i will tell you the history of the savoy , pronounced sav wa . beyond that mountain , it is said that hannibal drove his elephants through the pass from italy , although i do n't see how . it is also said that caesar 's legions later came through that pass . in time the savoy , pronounced sav wa , was a separate region on both sides of what are now the french_alps and italian alps , with the swiss alps only a few miles away . after the year 1000 , a vassal of the holy roman empire , humbert the white handed , founded the house of savoy , pronounced sav wa , but for centuries there were many hard wars fought here . this region did n't belong to france until 1860 but some famous people grew up here , rousseau the philosopher and st . francis de sales . up ahead of us now is val_d'isere , where jean_claude_killy , who won three gold medals in 1968 at grenoble , learned to ski . sunday the men 's downhill will be here and later the other men 's alpine events . but now our 55 seat bobsled is about to go down the mountain again . please close your eyes . "" can we win a gold_medal ? "" only if nobody peeks .",has a topic of sports
"anastasiya myskina , the french open champion , accused gq magazine in a federal lawsuit yesterday of failing to prevent a photographer from reselling two topless pictures from a photo shoot to a russian magazine . some of the photographs taken by mark seliger appeared in the october 2002 issue of gq . but this year 's july august issue of the russian magazine medved includes a topless shot of her , wearing jeans , on the cover , and three other photographs inside , including another topless one , according to the lawsuit . myskina , who is seeking at least 8 million in damages , said that the defendants gq its owner , cond_nast publications and seliger had agreed that the photographs would appear only in gq and could not be resold . her lawyers said in the lawsuit that the photos in medved ''are highly embarrassing and have caused ms . myskina great emotional distress and economic harm . '' the suit , filed in united_states_district_court in manhattan , accuses seliger of profiting from her rise to prominence and it says that gq and cond_nast should have known that seliger and his studio had sold the pictures to medved without myskina 's permission and ''had a duty to prevent'' the sale . maury perl , a cond_nast spokeswoman , declined to comment , and a call to seliger 's studio seeking a response was not returned . ''it 's not a question of being photographed nude , '' alexander berkovich , myskina 's lawyer , said in a telephone interview from his office in new york . ''it 's about a decision that others made without her permission . '' the topless photographs , he said , were not supposed to be published . ''it was a total surprise to anastasiya and to me , '' berkovich said . berkovich said that by selling the topless photograph to medved , the defendants were showing that they ''want to capitalize on her status . those photographs did n't show up for two years . '' myskina , 23 , is the fourth ranked women 's tennis_player in the world . tennis",has a topic of sports
"for more than two hours , rafael nadal played his quarterfinal_match at the french open as if he had never seen the man on the opposite side of the net . as soon as he stepped on to the court , he knit his brow and glared . time and again , he rudely aimed his shots out of his opponent 's reach . unemotionally , he sent his signature forehands spinning over the net , without consideration that his opponent might be unable to handle them . to make it to the final of this tournament , nadal would not place nice , even for one second , even against his longtime friend and mentor , carlos moy . so nadal went out wednesday at roland_garros and disposed of moy , 6 4 , 6 3 , 6 0 . ''so , well , the match was better for me , like than for him , that 's for sure , '' nadal said later , as he morphed back into the goofy young spaniard he is off the court . nadal , who turned 21 this week , was only 12 when moy , a fellow majorcan , lifted the french open champion 's trophy in 1998 . now nadal is looking to win his third french open in a row , and his victory against the 30 year old moy put him one step closer to that . one look at nadal at the start of the match showed how much he wanted the victory . he had warmed up so thoroughly he was dripping with sweat , his dark shaggy hair matted to his head . he knew he had to be ready against moy , who had practiced with him for many years and knew his moves well . after the victory , nadal , seeded second , said he was happy because he had played his best tennis of the tournament . he has not lost a single set here . ''that shows how much better he is to the other guys , '' said moy , who had 38 unforced_errors to nadal 's 15 . ''i think that there are just a few players who can , not just not beat him , but even get a set from him , '' he said . novak djokovic , seeded sixth and one of the three serbs in the men 's and women 's semifinals , is one of those players . djokovic , 20 , is next in line to play nadal at roland_garros . no . 1 roger_federer will play no . 4 nikolay davydenko in the other semifinal . in march , djokovic found a way to beat nadal at this year 's masters series event in miami , which was played on a hard court . but even here on roland_garros 's clay , djokovic said he had a chance of beating nadal again . even if it was only a small one . ''he 's the best player in the world on this surface , and everybody knows that , '' djokovic said . on wednesday , djokovic continued to lead the surge of serbian players here by defeating 125th ranked igor andreev in straight sets , 6 3 , 6 3 , 6 3 . his compatriots no . 4 jelena jankovic and no . 7 ana ivanovic will play in thursday 's women 's semifinals . ivanovic will play no . 2 maria sharapova , while jankovic will meet no . 1 justine_henin , who has been the french open champion three of the last four years . the serbian cheering section , which is growing by the moment , made itself known during djokovic 's match wednesday . about a dozen of djokovic 's family and friends cheered and clapped in unison while he was on the court . djokovic was wearing his lucky yellow shirt , and more than a dozen of those fans followed suit . glimpsing that sea of yellow made djokovic laugh as he went on to beat andreev without too many problems . andreev had beaten no . 3 andy_roddick in the first round , but was not surprised that his tournament ended with the match against djokovic . ''i think his stronger point is that he hits no bad shots , '' andreev said . ''he does very good everything . he 's defending very well . he 's serving well on important points . ''so he 's a strong guy , '' he said . ''i 'm surprised , like , mentally , he 's so strong for the young age that he is . '' later , nadal called djokovic a ''potential future no . 1'' because of his big serve and aggressiveness . both parts of djokovic 's game have improved this year , turning him into one of the few players who could challenge nadal or federer for the title here . djokovic said he could not see himself as a grand_slam winner yet because he would have to beat nadal to get there . last year , he lost to nadal in the quarterfinals after retiring with a back injury . he is bracing himself for another round . ''he plays with a lot of motivation and confidence , '' djokovic said of nadal . ''and physically he is very ready and probably the most prepared player on the tour . '' against moy , nadal made sure he was prepared . he loosened up by running and bouncing around the locker_room as if he were a child who had ingested too much sugar . as the days go on , the pressure grows for him to win again at roland_garros . but this year , more than any other , he said he feels more physically and mentally ready for this tournament . ''i feel better because i can play a little bit different , '' he said , comparing his performances with last year 's . ''i can play a little bit more aggressive . i can play defense sometimes , but i can attack , too . so that 's a little bit of an advantage . '' at the same time , federer is feeling good , too , particularly after beating nadal last month in hamburg , germany , to break nadal 's 81 match winning_streak on clay . ''yes , do n't mention the name federer again , '' nadal said earlier this week , with a grin . tennis",has a topic of sports
"o . j . simpson is not a household name in france . here , it is the trial of bernard tapie , a french socialist politician , that has the country enthralled . mr . tapie , a former urban affairs minister , is accused of fixing a match involving the marseilles soccer club he owned in 1993 . more to the point , he is accused of lying to cover it up , a charge he hardly bothers to deny . "" i have lied in good faith , "" he told the judge as his trial continued monday after his alibi , provided by a fellow socialist , jacques mellick , crumbled . that was because mr . mellick , who is a member of parliament and also a former government minister , admitted friday night that he had lied under oath about being somewhere else with mr . tapie when the fix was allegedly put in . mr . mellick has been in jail since the weekend . the prosecutor asked for an 18 month sentence for mr . tapie . it was just one more episode in an unending drama of political_corruption , bribery and attempts to manipulate justice that is gripping france even more than the campaign to elect a successor to the socialist president , francois_mitterrand . whoever of the three leading candidates is elected the front runner , the conservative mayor of paris , jacques_chirac , his fellow conservative , prime_minister edouard_balladur , or the socialist , lionel_jospin will face a growing crisis of confidence in the credibility and integrity of the french political process , for no party is untouched . concern about where this will lead does not stop at the french border . "" is france headed into an italian style political crisis ? "" a german policy maker said recently . thierry jean_pierre , a former investigating judge , does not think france is about to throw away its political system the way italy did after its established parties were discredited by links to organized_crime . "" the level of overall corruption is lower than in italy , and we do n't have the mafia based here , "" said mr . jean_pierre , the investigating magistrate in a scandal about alleged kickbacks to a consulting_firm whose sole function turned out to be financing the socialist_party . "" but the general setup is the same , all the big companies and all the political_parties are involved in it , and everybody has gotten used to thinking of corruption as being normal , "" he said . until the past year or two , it was also considered normal for french politicians to approve periodic amnesty laws letting themselves off the hook . they approved one in 1988 and another in 1990 as an amendment to a law reforming the system of financing political_parties . for mr . jean_pierre and some of his fellow investigating magistrates , that was the last straw . "" we were shocked that government ministers could use the law this brazenly to escape prosecution , "" mr . jean_pierre said . initially , the socialists of president mitterrand seemed the most deeply implicated , and in parliamentary elections in march 1993 a center right coalition under prime_minister balladur swept to victory . but the conservatives are now just as much under fire as the socialists , with three former ministers of the current government forced into resignation last year under clouds of suspicion . at center stage in alleged wrongdoing by the socialist_party is a consulting_firm called urba . until it was exposed and forced to stop its operations in 1990 , urba was the indispensable key for concerns hoping to land public works contracts in socialist run regions of france . "" the consultancy firms kept books listing all the companies in every area , and if any of them wanted to bid on a major public contract , they had to pay money to be considered , "" mr . jean_pierre said . "" then the company that got the contract had to kick back 3 to 4 percent of it to the consultancy firm . "" urba was hardly unique in the french party political system it was just among the first corruption cases to be uncovered . this month , at saint brieuc in brittany , the socialist_party chairman , henri emmanuelli , and 16 other defendants were tried for illegal financing practices from 1988 to 1991 , when mr . emmanuelli was party treasurer . mr . emmanuelli said that he had met urba 's chairman , gerard monate , two or three times a year to discuss the party budget , but denied that he knew the details about how the firm came up with the money . yves boivin , the prosecutor in the case , said "" of course you knew very well how urba worked . as party treasurer , you made the decisions . "" he asked the court to impose a two year suspended_sentence on mr . emmanuelli . the verdict will be rendered after the decisive second round of the presidential elections on may 7 . the socialist candidate , mr . jospin , a former education minister , has not been personally tainted . neither have the two conservatives in the race , mayor chirac and prime_minister balladur , but their rally for the republic party has been as deeply implicated in sleazy dealings as the socialists . a former conservative internal security minister , robert pandraud , was accused this month of being involved in siphoning money for the party from the public_housing authority of the paris region while he was mayor chirac 's chief of staff from 1983 to 1986 . prosecutors say the setup was for companies allowed to do work for the housing authority to submit inflated bills so they could make kickbacks to the party functionaries who had made the contracts possible . mr . pandraud denied knowing any such thing , but another former close aide of mayor chirac , michel roussin , was forced last year to resign as foreign aid minister in mr . balladur 's cabinet after his initials were found next to a receipt for 52 , 000 on a list of such payments . mayor chirac has not been charged with involvement in such payments , which also used party consultancy firms as conduits . mr . chirac 's poll ratings have risen to the point where he is now favored to win in both rounds of the election , on april 23 and may 7 , no matter who else runs . his fellow conservative , prime_minister balladur , has seen his ratings steadily fall , partly because of the corruption scandals . mr . balladur and his chief cabinet supporter , interior_minister charles pasqua , were accused late last year of trying to remove eric halphen , the energetic chief investigating judge in the cases involving the conservative_party . the removal of the judge was suggested after his father in law , dr . jean_pierre marechal , was arrested in december after accepting a bag containing 200 , 000 at charles de gaulle airport in paris from didier schuller , a conservative member of parliament the judge was investigating . the police said dr . marechal had asked for the money in return for getting his son in law , the judge , not to investigate mr . schuller . "" he insisted on coming to see me at the airport , "" dr . marechal said later . "" he gave me a blue duty_free bag with a box inside . i thought it was cigars . "" in february , the paris court of appeals found that the arrest had been tantamount to entrapment of dr . marechal by mr . schuller and the police . the case collapsed after the court ordered the transcripts destroyed . other scandals have involved the french communist party , which is accused of having its own consulting_firm to provide finances , and one of the current government 's coalition partners , the republican_party , has been reportedly implicated in illict financing by the electronic giant alcatel c . i.t. , despite denials by all concerned . "" we have just begun to scratch the surface , "" mr . jean_pierre said . "" all the biggest industrial groups in france have been involved , and there is corruption in every economic sector . """,has a topic of sports
"snowboarding , which makes its olympic debut , is a young sport , a product of american youth looking for an alternative good time . one part of it the freestyle event known as halfpipe is skateboarding on snow . the other olympic part the giant_slalom is a combination of surfing and skiing on snow . the setup the halfpipe is a giant snow trough . at nagano , the course is 394 feet long and 49 feet wide , with walls 11 1 2 feet high . the snowboarders travel down the course from one wall to the other , performing inverted flips , horizontal spins and other tricks of their choosing . the giant_slalom is similar to a skiing giant_slalom , with two courses of 40 to 50 gates each . men and women compete separately , always riding with both feet on a custom made board . for halfpipe , the boards are 5 feet or a little longer for men , maybe 4 inches shorter for women . the giant_slalom boards are longer and narrower , ranging from 5 feet 7 inches to 6 3 for men , a little less for women . the scoring the morning preliminaries in halfpipe will trim the field of 35 men to 16 , and 20 women to 8 . the qualifiers will advance to finals of two runs each , with combined scores deciding the standing . five judges will score the competition on style and technique , each judging one element . in the giant_slalom , the 35 men and 30 women will race over two courses with total time the deciding factor . the names a few of the best competitors , notably terje haakonsen of norway , are unhappy with what they perceive as the regimentation of the olympics , and they have declined to compete . however , the most celebrated woman , 33 year old sondra van ert of hood river , ore . , will be there as the favorite in the giant_slalom . a former world_cup skiing competitor , she won a snowboarding world championship last year . other american medal_contenders include mike jacoby of hood river , ore . , in the men 's giant_slalom todd richards of breckenridge , colo . , in the men 's halfpipe , and michelle taggart of salem , ore . , in the women 's halfpipe . the united_states could win more medals in this sport than in any other except figure_skating . among the favorites in the giant_slalom are martin frienademetz of austria , the world champion thomas prugger of italy , karine ruby of france and margherita parini of italy . in halfpipe , fabien rohrer and anita schwaller of switzerland are the world champions and medal favorites . frank_litsky nagano '98",has a topic of sports
"lyudmila narozhilenko of russia , the 1991 world indoor champion in the women 's 60 meter_hurdles , tested positive for a banned substance in toronto and faces a four year suspension , a source said . the illegal substance was unknown , but it was learned that the positive test occurred feb . 13 at lievin , france , where narozhilenko equaled her world record of 7 . 69 seconds . narozhilenko was to compete at the world indoor_championships , which began yesterday at the toronto skydome . ( ap ) sports people track and field",has a topic of sports
"his name is termite and he came to iraq to kill bugs . instead , he works in a gym down the road from where bombs go off and policemen get shot , honing a different sort of violence . ''hit him ! hit him ! hit him ! '' termite yelled on a recent day , squatting ringside , watching two boxers slug it out . ''how do you say faster ? '' he said , turning to a translator . ''essra ! essra ! '' termite , whose real name is maurice watkins , is a 47 year old chevrolet salesman from houston , now in charge of iraq 's olympic boxing team , a quixotic bunch of teenage_boys and lumpy men , statuesque prospects and human punching bags . for a team that just received shoes , it 's a long road to athens . but where others see challenges , termite , who used to be a prizefighter , sees talent . every day , he bursts into the hilla sports club , where the boxing team trains , and belts out , ''iraq is back ! iraq is back ! '' the motto has become the rallying cry for all of iraq 's athletes . they have waited years in a shadowland of corruption and abuse . this summer , for the first time in decades , swimmers , wrestlers , weight_lifters , soccer players and runners have a chance to compete freely and without fear . even a 50 year old woman who is blind in one eye is trying to make it as a javelin thrower . ''we are very optimistic about our athletes , '' said salah hadi , a spokesman for the iraqi olympic_committee . ''but it is very hard for the iraqis because they have gone through so much . '' boxers were treated especially brutally under the old regime . if a fighter lost a key match , he might have to square off with uday_hussein , the son of saddam_hussein and the former head of the iraq 's olympic_committee . ''no one wanted to spar with uday , '' said razool jabur , one of termite 's assistant coaches and a longtime cornerman . ''it was like he watched rocky too many times . uday would hit you and hit you . but if you returned a punch , he would shoot you . '' there were other horror stories , too . uday_hussein made soccer players who lost kick cement balls . some female athletes were raped . the situation became so bad , the international_olympic_committee suspended iraq from the games in may . it was reinstated last month . the country has not groomed an olympic boxer since 1992 . iraq has not won a medal in any olympic event since 1960 ( a bronze in weight_lifting ) . but this year , the i.o.c . guaranteed the country at least one boxing slot and several slots for other events . some of the biggest obstacles are gone uday was killed in july , during a shootout with american_soldiers . part of the budget for the boxing program comes from assets seized from saddam_hussein 's fallen regime . but problems remain . hilla , a mostly shiite community about 50 miles south of baghdad , is a violent place . two cnn employees were killed here in january , and not far away , two american civilians working for the united_states_government were shot to death last week . because the streets are so dicey , termite 's boxers , ages 17 to 31 , do their road work indoors . they run their miles in small laps , around and around again . termite said there was a bounty on his head . but he does n't wear body_armor because , he said , ''i do n't want anyone to think i do n't trust the iraqi people . '' termite used to be a contender . he even fought for a title once . but the highlight of his boxing life , it seems , was coming to iraq . ''i was in texas and the war was fixing to start , '' he recalled . ''and i looked at my wife , and i says , 'honey , i think i 'm the one to change that country . ' ''and she says , 'termite , you ca n't go around changing countries . ' ''and i said , 'honey , you can try . ' '' his eyes mist up every time he tells the story . even his wife calls him termite . that was february 2003 . two months later , termite was in basra swatting flies . his family owns a pest_control business that is how he got his nickname and even though termite had moved on to selling chevys , he has never forgotten his roots . he went to work for kellogg brown root , a military contractor in iraq , as a fumigator at army bases . his work ethic so impressed a general that he was hired to do pest_control at camps across the south . word soon spread that termite had been a boxer . he looks like one . his shoulders are thick . his nose has that recrafted by blunt force quality . he brims with the energy of a shaken soda can . after ditching his olympics chances to turn professional , he compiled a 58 5 2 record under different weight classes he took a shot at the junior_welterweight title in 1980 , when he fought on the muhammad_ali larry_holmes undercard in las_vegas . he lost . in october , american administrators hired termite as a sports adviser . when he arrived at the hilla sports club , he had little to work with . no ropes , no heavy bags , no mouthpieces . many boxers were going toe to toe with bare toes . ''the first thing i did was get them shoes and socks , '' termite said . then he turned to their style . ''these guys were n't boxing , '' he said . ''they were going to war . '' but one middleweight stood out , zoheir jabbar . he was fast . he was graceful . he was built like a piece of art . and he was hungry . ''man , this kid went six rounds during ramadan while fasting , '' termite said . ''look at him shuffle . he 's my sugar_ray . '' at a recent practice , jabbar , 26 , danced and jabbed against a heavyweight , chipping away at the bigger man 's chin and his resolve . ''mr . termite , he 's like a scientist , '' jabbar said afterward . ''he gave us a specific program . he gave us a goal . '' termite settled on a tempered fighting style that was part power , part precision . but it 's not clear how well it is working . in january , termite took 11 boxers to a qualifying_tournament in the philippines . none placed . he is now sorting out complications so the team can travel to china later this month for another match . some of the money for travel comes from the occupation authorities , along with new equipment , snazzy green and red sweatsuits and a small computer lab . and better grub . ''meat , meat , meat that 's all they ever ate , '' termite said . ''i had to introduce them to carbohydrates . '' he kept some rituals , though . instead of hugging at the end of the sparring matches , the fighters kiss on the cheek . ''it 's an iraqi thing , '' termite explained . language does not seem to be a barrier . termite usually has translators with him . when he does n't , the boxers understand what his body says . at the recent practice , he bobbed up and down outside the ring , hurling punches into the air , barking out instructions , using every ounce of self restraint to keep from leaping back into the ring and mixing it up with the young fighters himself . as practice drew to a close , he gathered the musky team around him and shouted out one last time ''iraq is back ! iraq is back ! '' the chant pumped them up . then they charged out of the gym , gloves over their shoulders , shadows of sweat under their arms , their eyes glowing like the medals they are chasing . olympics",has a topic of sports
"gilles grimandi has seen the soccer world from the apex of the english game as a member of last year 's arsenal team , which won the english_premier_league and the f.a . cup , the fabled double . now he has assumed a new perch , a mile high in denver with the colorado rapids , as the first frenchman to join major_league_soccer . ''i felt very comfortable when i came here , very similar to where i come from in france , '' said grimandi , a midfielder from gap , france , in the southern alps . ''but what was more important was the good feeling i got when i came here . '' grimandi , 32 , left london after five years at arsenal and entertained offers from japan , middlesbrough in england , and french clubs like nice , sedan , strasbourg and troyes . earlier in his career grimandi played for arsenal coach arsene wenger when monaco won the french title in 1997 , and he followed wenger to england . ''when i told him i was thinking about going to america , wenger was a bit surprised , '' grimandi said . ''but , like me , he thought it would be a good challenge . he understood my feelings . '' grimandi , who at 5 foot 9 and 160 pounds has a reputation as a defensive midfielder , signed a three year contract with m.l.s . for 280 , 000 a year , although he could have made more money elsewhere . still , his signing does not follow the trend in m.l.s. , which has neither the money nor the inclination to pick up older stars from overseas . ''six months ago this guy was playing for arsenal at the highest level of the world club scene , '' colorado coach tim hankinson said . ''with his experience , gilles will bring a professional approach , one that our players have already embraced . they are picking his brains . he will be of particular help to pablo mastroeni in our midfield . '' grimandi practically dropped into the rapids' lap last summer when his agent , patrick mccabe , contacted hankinson after grimandi called him ''out of the blue . '' ''he wanted a different cultural experience , '' mccabe said about grimandi , who speaks excellent english . while grimandi trained last summer with the rapids , the metrostars also expressed passing interest . but that was before bob bradley took over as coach and changed the focus to younger players , both foreign and domestic . ''there are many players in europe who are interested in my experience in america , '' grimandi said . ''i am here to help the game go up , and i do believe that a few top players would be interested in coming here . for me , it was just time to move , to find a new life experience . '' confederations cup the tournament the soccer world loves to hate will not continue beyond 2005 , said michel platini , the president of fifa 's technical committee . platini said last week that the 2003 and 2005 confederations cups must be played because of contractual_obligations . the draw for the tournament , which will be played in france in june , was held last week , and the hosts were either extremely lucky in drawing japan , colombia and new zealand , or else the draw was stacked . the united_states ended up in a group with brazil , turkey and cameroon . ''it is not a compelling competition , '' paddy harverson , a spokesman for manchester united , said last week during an interview in manhattan . ''it is a competition too far for a lot of players whose season ends in may . if they played in this tournament , they would only have 10 days' holiday before our preseason begins . '' corner_kicks whither the golden goal ? uefa , the sport 's governing body in europe , has decided to do away with potential game winning sudden death goals in the champions_league and 2004 european championships . . . . the switch to a new defensive scheme and a prominent role for central defender gregg berhalter have given the struggling energie cottbus some hope in the german bundesliga . cottbus returned from the six week winter break by winning three and tying one as berhalter , who plays for the united_states national team , anchored a defense that has allowed one goal in the last four games while taking 10 of a possible 12 points . . . . the english second division club queens park rangers and milwaukee wave united ( a_league and major indoor soccer league ) have signed an agreement that will include player exchanges and clinics beginning this summer , according to the london based soccer investor newsletter . . . . japanese officials said they would not come to the united_states next month for matches against uruguay and the united_states because of security concerns . goltv is a new 24 hour soccer channel available on the dish network and soon on some digital cable services . it is aimed at the hispanic market in the united_states , but about 60 percent of its broadcasts will be in english on the secondary audio program , said enrique carrillo , the network 's vice_president for sales and marketing . there will also be a 60 minute weekend magazine wrapup in english . the schedule includes about 800 games , 300 live , from south and central_america , italy and real_madrid tv . jack bell beckham cut after being hit by shoe david_beckham , the captain of england 's national team , was cut over his left eyebrow saturday when he was struck by a shoe kicked in anger by his manchester united coach , alex ferguson , after a 2 0 defeat to arsenal . the dressing room incident came after united 's loss to arsenal in the f.a . cup 's fifth round . television footage showed beckham arriving for united 's training yesterday with a cut above his left eyebrow . ''it was a freak act of nature that happens , and it 's over , '' ferguson said in an interview shown on british television . ''it was more than just me upset in there . '' the medical staff at united 's old trafford stadium closed beckham 's cut with two stitches , the sun newspaper said . ( bloomberg_news ) soccer notebook",has a topic of sports
"and so , the 7 , 110 minutes of cbs 's winter_olympics broadcast are over . so are the 2 , 700 minutes of tnt 's coverage . share a moment with the world ? how about share a never ending marathon ? or an iditarod across all of the arctic ? devoted albertville watchers deserve a documentary made of them by the olympic filmmaker , bud greenspan . imagine the narration "" the relentless mr . couch potato head . . . weary from his previous night 's labors . . . arises once more at 7 a.m . . . . to challenge anew the murderous course before him . . . to watch many more hours of slalom and skiing with guns . . . for he is a champion . . . spending 164 hours seated quietly on his sofa . . . taking copious notes . . . wearing out the tape heads of his video_cassette recorder . "" time now to empty out those notebooks and take a last look at some of the good and bad of cbs and tnt in albertville why , they're cast as well as , let's see , harry reasoner and barbara_walters poor tim_mccarver and paula zahn . they are talented in their real life jobs , but blended as the prime time hosts about as badly as harry and barbara did during their years as nightly news anchors at abc . zahn loosened up , went to a few venues during the morning shows , but mccarver never left the studio . the job should have gone to one person greg gumbel . we haven't seen this much hype since the bay city rollers cbs played the melancholy dan_jansen song long after we cared to listen . after he lost the 500 meter race , the hype continued . he headed for the 1 , 000 . the hype rose . he lost the 1 , 000 , badly , and the broadcast that night still nagged us to watch . cbs seemed more upset than jansen about losing the races . sam kinison sounds like marceau compared with these folks cbs 's freestyle_skiing announcers , greg lewis and park smalley were so loud we could hear them just by opening our windows . and we still needed earplugs . local police in tignes reported avalanches from your volume . simplicity is underappreciated , or , "" let's put a big photo of mountains behind us and pretend it's albertville "" tnt was smart and low tech enough to think that an oversized photograph of the alps behind anchors nick charles and fred hickman , in an atlanta studio , would convey an ersatz sense of place . the cbs sets , save pat o'brien 's in late night , were as inviting as a speed skiing slope . "" what did you want us to do , put up pictures of mountains ? "" said duke struck , who supervised set design for cbs . yes , duke , that would have been nice . get these people a new abacus cbs claimed it had 10 1 2 minutes of commercials per hour during prime time . not so . a random walk through a few hours showed more ads were crowbarred . the 8 9 p.m . hour on feb . 22 featured 13 1 2 minutes of national commercials , plus 90 seconds of promotions for cbs programs and one minute of local spots . time to put arnold ( shame on you ) diaz of wcbs ( channel 2 ) on the case . stars are born cbs 's andy mill came out of the lengthy shadow of his wife , chris_evert , as the men 's downhill skiing analyst . when he made a point , he explained it , tersely and without bombast . tnt 's peter carruthers shone on figure_skating and kept quiet during skaters' routines until the replays . a star fizzles scott hamilton is an enthusiastic , but not fully credible analyst . he needs a thesaurus to find synonyms for "" unbelievable . "" he needs a governor on his emotions . and he needs to learn not to excuse bad routines by saying what skaters do is difficult enough without his criticizing them . there are ways to critique without worrying if midori_ito is going to slug you . can we see even more of those split screens ? the technical star of the games was cbs 's use of the split screen . during hockey , replays were shown on one screen while live action continued on the other . during skiing , we saw how one skier handled turns around gates against another at the same point on the course , thus showing how one gained or lost precious time . just what did baron pierre de coubertin mean ? so often we heard what the founder of the modern olympics intended the olympics to be . did he want elite athletes ? did he want amiable klutzes ? cbs 's al trautwig decided that he meant some of both , and gave us a tad more than we needed of an inept cross_country_skier , the cheerful faissal cherradi of morocco , who found it difficult to stay on his feet for very long . trautwig mined much more than that out of cross_country and was the most inventive venue reporter . they get a lot for their money sure , tnt was n't swimming in technical overkill , but it showed more and better events than it could have imagined . ted_turner 's network made its presence known for just 20 million one twelfth cbs 's 243 million rights fee . you need the right man for the job no better announcing team emerged from the olympics than cbs 's hockey team , john davidson and mike emrick . they call hockey full time and are always prepared . but cbs needed an expert on inanity for the opening and closing ceremonies . nobody knew what to say about the bubble ladies or the dancers with hula hoops glued to their waists or the epcot center vikings . but who knows the french better than jerry_lewis , their adopted saint of comedy ? he 'd have known what to say about that bewinged man fluttering about in an angel costume . airwaves sunday 's final night of olympic coverage on cbs garnered a preliminary overnight nielsen_rating of 14 . 4 the full national rating will be smaller , when released today . through saturday night , cbs 's 15 night rating average was 19 . 1 , down 2 percent from the 19 . 5 for abc during the 1988 winter_olympics . albertville tv sports",has a topic of sports
"it has been nearly 24 years since soviet tanks rolled into wenceslas square , but the czechoslovakia olympic hockey team continued to memorialize the event tonight with a visceral 4 3 victory over the unified team . the czechoslovaks pressed hard for 60 minutes , giving up their bodies all over the ice until the final buzzer and the sing song celebration in the locker_room . the effort was not unusual for the eastern_european underdogs , who usually come up big against the russians , or their latest namesakes , in mid tournament . after that , it is a roll of the dumpling . "" there is a problem between the russians and czechs , "" said jiri slegr , the czechoslovak defenseman , explaining his team 's success . "" it is still there . "" 'we kept hitting them' all of the unified team goals were scored on power plays , and referee george mccorry of canada warned both benches to stop the rough stuff midway through the third period . the czechoslovaks did not listen , and finally scored the winning goal on a snap shot by petr rosol from the slot at 16 minutes 42 seconds of the third period , their first victory in olympic competition over the former soviets since 1968 . "" my team is more tough than the russians , "" slegr said . "" we kept hitting them . "" it was a day for tough going , as competition in the olympic hockey tournament began to get serious for the first time . today it was the teams in group b and thursday it will be group a 's turn , with the key match pitting the united_states against finland both teams have two victories in their first two olympic_games . it will be a match between ego bruised powers finland , team of reluctant refugees from the national_hockey_league , versus the united_states , squad of do it yourself inferiority complexes . let the chips fall as they may , mostly from their shoulders . today was more a time to settle old scores . the czechoslovaks , like the unified team , have lost several of their stars to the n.h.l . but unlike their young opponents , the czechoslovaks have gone to older , more experienced players to fill the breach left by the departure of jaromir_jagr , robert reichl and michal pivonka . the older players , apparently , have no problem remembering the prague spring . the victory tonight , in the first matchup of medal_contenders , was achieved with politically_correct backchecks and opportunistic sniping in front of the net . "" to win against this team is the same like in canada winning against the canadiens , "" said czechoslovakia 's coach , ivan hlinka , who insisted the victory was no political statement . "" they are just one of the best teams in the world . "" a berth in quarterfinals the victory clinched a spot in the quarterfinal round for the czechoslovaks , who could claim the no . 1 seeding in group b with victories over powerful canada and weak switzerland . the defeat , however , did not eliminate the unified team from tournament . earlier today , france earned a dramatic victory in front of the home fans , 4 3 , on a goal by stephane barin at 16 42 of the third period . the french now are likely to advance to the quarterfinals as the fourth qualifier from group b . canada defeated norway , 10 0 , to remain in a first place tie , and also to clinch a quarterfinal berth . eric_lindros had a goal and two assists , as canada completed the easy portion of its schedule . for the united_states , the hard part is ahead . the americans face finland doubting how seriously their opponents take them . "" we do n't know if they respect us , "" center ted donato said today of the finns . "" in practice , they 're a lot fancier . they watch and giggle at us . these teams believe they 're more intelligent than we are . they see us as a bunch of young kids . "" when the puck is dropped , that 's when emotion comes in , "" donato said . "" we 'll give them the puck for 55 minutes and go for the results . go take all your stickhandling and go celebrate with that . "" donato 's belligerent attitude is no accident . it has been carefully nurtured by the american coaches and by the players themselves . in their hotel in la tania , there is only talk of the europeans' superior airs , not of their accessibility or friendliness outside the arena . when it was discovered that the united_states players would be sharing the same hotel with its opponents , hockey organizers provided nintendo and monopoly games for team members to curtail socializing . with the exception of 31 year old veteran moe mantha , who ca n't stop himself from greeting old teammates and opponents in every hallway , the americans stick to themselves . finland , a team with 10 former n.h.l . players , is taking the match on thursday quite seriously . as finland 's assistant coach , sakari pietila , put it , from a broken lexicon of a hipper past , "" this whole 'nother happening . "" "" now that we play the u.s . , "" said right wing hannu jarvenpaa , "" the tournament is starting . "" albertville",has a topic of sports
"lead the bidding for the television rights to the 1992 winter olympic games will be held next month and will probably go to about 200 million , a drop of more than 100 million from this year 's games . the bidding for the television rights to the 1992 winter olympic games will be held next month and will probably go to about 200 million , a drop of more than 100 million from this year 's games . one reason for the lower price is that the time difference between albertville , in the french_alps , and the united_states will result in many events being shown on tape rather than live . the calgary games cost abc 309 million , a price the network said was too high . jean_claude_killy , the legendary french skier and a co president of the albertville organizing_committee , was in new york yesterday to make arrangements for a may 24 meeting that will include abc , cbs and nbc . bob wussler , executive vice_president of turner_broadcasting system , said cable companies would also be represented at the meeting .",has a topic of sports
"laure manaudou was 14 and she had just won a silver_medal in the 100 meter_backstroke at the 2002 french championships behind roxana maracineanu , the world champion backstroker who was 11 years her senior . for most youngsters , such a result would have been cause for a shriek of delight , but up on the podium , manaudou looked as glum as a teenager who has just had her cellphone confiscated . ''her face said it all , '' maracineanu said . ''she 's always been very ambitious . '' five years later , that ambition and the sacrifices and heavy workload that go with it have transformed manaudou into one of swimming 's dominant and most versatile figures . she left her parents and her home at 14 to train in melun , france , with the taskmaster coach philippe lucas . she stopped formal schooling at 15 , but her range now extends from the 50 meter_backstroke to the 1 , 500 meter_freestyle . but she is at her very best in the middle distance freestyle events , as she has underscored here at the world swimming championships . she broke the world record in the 400 on sunday and in the 200 on wednesday in a stirring final that left her gasping for air and forming a heart shape with her fingers in a message to her boyfriend , the italian swimmer luca marin , who is also competing here . ''the 400 is my race , and i was definitely feeling the pressure , but in the 200 i could just let it go and enjoy myself , '' said manaudou , who broke through by winning the 400 free at the olympics . like michael phelps , who smashed his 200 butterfly record earlier in the evening , manaudou has no fear of doubling or tripling up in the same session . on tuesday night , she swam the 100 backstroke , taking the silver_medal behind natalie coughlin of the united_states , then jumped back into the pool for the 1 , 500 free and then the semifinals of the 200 free in the same session . ''she 's had a breakout year , '' phelps said . ''she 's definitely a talented swimmer . i was pretty impressed about that triple . '' it did not all work as planned . manaudou finished in last place in the 1 , 500 final tuesday . but after a rare morning off , the 20 year old did not look the least bit world weary in the 200 free , as she took command of the race at the halfway mark with her brutally quick stroke rate and then held off annika lurz of germany on the final lap to win in 1 minute 55 . 52 seconds . in any given lap , manaudou might take as many as 15 strokes more than some of her less manic rivals . ''her stroke rate is huge , '' maracineanu said . ''it 's perfect for middle distance . i think if you watched a tape of janet evans , i think you 'd see she was even faster than laure . the real middle distance swimmers have a capacity to turn their arms really quickly , and it 's usually to compensate for the fact that they do n't have the strength under the water . but that 's where laure is different . she has power to move the water as well . she gets loads of leverage , which is why she 's also good in the backstroke . '' manaudou 's 200 time was nearly a second faster than the world record set by federica pellegrini of italy less than 24 hours earlier . it has been that sort of championships , one where seven world records have already fallen at the halfway mark . phelps , in the rarest form of his career , has already broken two . in the 200 butterfly , he led from the first wall to the finish to break his own mark by a stunning 1 . 62 seconds in 1 52 . 09 . it was the biggest improvement in the record in 48 years , and as the one man show disguised as a race progressed , there was as much awe as applause in the stands , as fans looked at each other and the clock and back at each other again . the winning margin was also the greatest in world championship history for the 200 fly as the silver medalist wu peng of china finished slightly more than three seconds back . ''i feel like a_12 year old being able to drop more than a second off my best time , '' phelps said . ''i feel like an age group swimmer again . i 'm definitely really pleased . '' he has set 18 individual world records , and his performance wednesday was , in some respects , more of a jaw dropper than his beating ian thorpe 's world record in the 200 freestyle tuesday . at this stage , one where phelps is making an increasingly convincing case for being the best swimmer in history , it is difficult to imagine anyone lopping 1 . 62 seconds off one of his records . leave it to phelps , and perhaps everyone should have seen a big gain coming . he already had broken his 200 butterfly record last month in a preliminary meet in the united_states when he was not yet shaved and tapered . that performance was so recent that the record had not yet been ratified by swimming 's international governing body . ''i honestly did n't really know what to expect in the butterfly , '' phelps said . ''i felt horrible in the warm up pool . '' phelps had felt terrific in the same place tuesday night , but it does not seem to matter what happens before he gets in the pool at this stage . the result is going to be a lower number than even he expects . ''my goal was to break 1 53 , '' phelps said . ''but i never thought i would be that close to 1 51 . '' he said ''since i went 1 54 , it 's pretty much been piece by piece . it 's never been a whole chunk out of the record like that . i guess we 're doing something right in the pool back home . '' though this has been an upbeat championships for phelps and the americans , there was a downbeat note thursday when brendan hansen , the reigning world champion in the 200 breaststroke , had to withdraw from the heats of the event , citing a virus . hansen , who already had won the 100 here , looked fit wednesday night when he finished second in the 50 . but according to a statement issued by the american team , he later felt ill and was monitored by doctors throughout the night . there is still a chance he may race in the 400 medley_relay sunday . swimming",has a topic of sports
"lead the tour de france entered its final week today by shaking out the leadership during a time trial up mont ventoux in provence . the tour de france entered its final week today by shaking out the leadership during a time trial up mont ventoux in provence . to general surprise , the overall leader 's yellow jersey is now worn by jean fran 3cois bernard , the 25 year old leader of the toshiba team based in france . bernard , who had been second over all before today 's event , is a frenchman , which made his victory in the 22 . 6 mile time trial especially popular with the hundreds of thousands who watched him climb the mountain . known as a strong competitor in time trials and a splendid all round rider , bernard was not expected to overpower the pure climbers in the long ascent over gradients that often exceeded 9 degrees . easily defeats climbers yet , by finishing in 1 hour 19 minutes 44 seconds , he easily defeated climbers like luis herrera , who was second , 1 39 behind pedro delgado , who was third , and fabio parra , who was fourth . another all round rider , stephen roche , was fifth . the day 's results put bernard in first place just before the 25 day race enters the alps . second over all in least elapsed time is roche , an irishman with the carrera team , 2 34 behind . he was third before today 's race . third over all is charly mottet , a frenchman with the systeme u team , 2 47 behind after leading the race for a week . delgado , a spaniard with the pdm team , is fourth , and herrera , a colombian with cafe de colombia , is fifth . attack in alps all may be expected to carry the attack in the alps to bernard and his team , which raced last year under the sponsorship and name of la vie claire health_food stores . the time trial was two races in one the first half over rolling road , the final half straight climbing over a mountain rated beyond category in steepness and difficulty . luckily for the racers , it was a sunny , cool day with the weather at the summit positively chilly . it was near the ventoux summit in 1967 that the tour de france recorded its only death of a contestant . tom simpson , an englishman , collapsed during a climb in high humidity and heat exceeding 110 degrees . rushed to a hospital in avignon by helicopter , he died late the same afternoon . an autopsy found traces of amphetamines in his blood not enough to have been fatal , but enough to have overcome simpson 's pain threshhold . the death , which was marked today when tour organizers placed a wreath at a memorial plaque , helped bring about drug checks of riders . canins regains lead saint nizier , france , july 19 ( ap ) maria canins of italy won the ninth stage time trial of the women 's tour de france today and regained the overall leader 's yellow jersey by a margin of 2 seconds . she covered the 15 mile course from correncon to saint nizier 22 seconds ahead of jeannie longo of france , who had replaced canins as the overall leader on the fifth stage at luz ardiden . canins was timed in 32 minutes 29 seconds . tamara poliakova of the soviet_union finished third , 30 seconds behind canins . 2 fail testing carpentras , france , july 19 ( ap ) guido bontempi of italy and dietrich thurau of west_germany failed drug tests after earlier stages of the tour de france , race officials said today . bontempi of the carrera team tested positive on july 7 after the seventh stage , which he won . he has now been demoted to last place in the stage , with 10 minutes deducted from his overall time . thurau , who tested positive after the eighth stage on july 8 , was similarly penalized . he finished 101st on that stage and was relegated to last place . the west_german abandoned the tour at the beginning of the 15th stage with a knee injury . tour de france",has a topic of sports
"during a changeover in the middle of her third round match , venus_williams whipped out a notebook and flipped through its pages , desperately looking at strategy and inspirational sayings she had compiled for times just like this . in her first grand_slam event since wimbledon last year , williams struggled at the french open on friday . one glimpse at her opponent during that changeover showed how badly things were going . jelena jankovic , seeded fourth , sat in her chair at courtside , giggling . she stole glances at the box in the stands where a crowd of boisterous friends and family from serbia cheered and sang . she needed to bury her face in a towel to repress her laughter . jankovic had plenty to be happy about in her 6 4 , 4 6 , 6 1 victory that knocked williams , a five time grand_slam_singles champion , out of the tournament . going into the fourth round at roland_garros , the only american remaining is the eighth_seeded serena_williams , venus 's sister , who beat michaella krajicek , 6 3 , 6 4 , on friday night . ''i have really positive people in my player box , so it really helps me to play , and it releases the tension on the court , '' said jankovic , who referred to herself and her entourage as clowns , because they are so giddy when they are together . later , jankovic wondered why so many players looked solemn during their matches . ''why go to the court like you are going to a cemetery ? '' she said , grinning wide . ''it does n't make any sense to me . '' for williams , there was not much reason to smile . with her wrists taped , she remained stoic throughout the match , although she shrieked several times when her shots flew wide or long . her stinging first serve , which reached a grand_slam record 128 miles an hour earlier this week , did not rattle jankovic . neither did her powerful shots that landed in nearly every spot on the court . with grace and ease , jankovic returned those shots , skillfully and joyfully hitting on the lines or into the corners . without much resistance from williams , jankovic won the first set . williams recovered , taking a 3 0 lead in the second set before winning it , 6 4 . the third set flew by for williams , who was worn down by long rallies and jankovic 's ability to stay peppy on the clay . jankovic broke her serve three times . williams double faulted twice . her shots , particularly her forehands , often floated long . she hit a backhand into the net to end the match . ''i 'm disappointed that i lost , but i feel like i 'm playing well , '' williams said . ''i think i just got a little bit tired at the end , too . it 's tough on clay . '' williams , who turns 27 this month , had played the 22 year old jankovic four times before . jankovic now has a 3 2 edge , having won their past three matches . in april , jankovic beat williams in the semifinals of the clay_court event in charleston , s.c . jankovic also eliminated williams in the third round at wimbledon last year , preventing williams from successfully defending her title . williams said that those previous losses did not affect the way she played friday . considering how much tennis she has missed in the past year because of wrist problems , williams said that she was happy with how she played at roland_garros . her father , richard williams , said he thought she looked intimidated . ''venus played with fear because she lost to that girl a couple of times now , '' he said , shaking his head . ''i 've never ever seen her play like that before . she has never been that scared of hitting the ball . ''if i was her and i kept playing like that , i would just quit . i 'd just retire . '' zina garrison , venus_williams 's coach on the united_states fed_cup team , said she thought williams looked strong , but that she lacked the energy to keep up with jankovic . williams lost a few pounds recently , garrison said , and that may have weakened her . garrison seemed impressed with every part of jankovic 's game , saying , ''it 's been a long time since i 've seen anyone who moves as easily as her . '' it has also been a long time since there has been a player as bubbly as jankovic , whose upbeat attitude seems irrepressible . her mother , snezana , takes credit for that . snezana jankovic , an economist in belgrade , serbia 's capital , said she made a point of reminding jelena to stay happy . she added ''i tell her , 'do n't ever cry about tennis because i do n't want to see your tears . when you cry , it hurts me , too . if you lose , just stay happy and forget it . if you are good enough , the results will come . ' '' notes both no . 1 seeds won matches friday to reach the fourth round . roger_federer , the world 's no . 1 , beat potito starace without breaking a sweat , 6 2 , 6 3 , 6 0 . justine_henin , the two time defending french open champion , only looked as if she had broken a sweat because it rained during her match . on her 25th birthday , henin defeated mara santangelo , 6 2 , 6 3 , while fighting through stomach cramps . ''no , it was nothing to do with my being 25 , although i 'm aging , that 's true , '' she said . she said that the cramps were probably a result of stress as she waited for her match to begin . tennis",has a topic of sports
"alex_rodriguez 's honeymoon with the yankees lasted nine sluggish innings in a country 6 , 800 miles away from his new baseball address in the bronx . it took one game against the tampa_bay_devil_rays before he learned how certain things evolve in george_steinbrenner 's demanding world . only with the yankees could an 8 3 loss in a faraway season opener lead to questions about the immediate future . after rodriguez was asked if he had ever been on a team for which the second game of a 162 game grind was a must victory , he pressed his nose with his fingers , began to smile and stayed silent . stop teasing , rodriguez 's body_language said . but the reporters , who know that steinbrenner is maniacal about losses of any shape and size , especially to a team from tampa , where steinbrenner lives , did not let rodriguez escape without responding . ''it 's a first , '' rodriguez said . there will be hundreds of firsts in rodriguez 's career with the yankees , hundreds of times when rodriguez 's actions will prompt steinbrenner to congratulate himself for approving his acquisition from the texas_rangers . but rodriguez 's debut , a game that he compared to a sideshow , was mostly memorable because the yankees were abysmal . nothing rodriguez did , with two strikeouts , a double and some slick fielding , was nearly as memorable . ''it was 5 a.m . and hopefully not too many people were watching it , '' said rodriguez , maybe trying to overlook that turtleneck wearing owner whose alarm clock probably activates his personal feed from the yes network . mike_mussina , who spent the days before the 17 hour journey to japan complaining about how the long trip could adversely_affect the yankees , continued moaning by his locker before the game , then was probably dreaming about home after failing to protect leads of 2 0 and 3 2 . mussina was gone by the sixth inning , the yankees gone with him . he seemed to prove the notion that if you talk enough about being uncomfortable , you will end up feeling that way . that is what happened with mussina . he disliked the idea of pitching a major_league game here because it disrupted his routine he expected the adventure to be a misadventure and it was . ''we looked flat , '' said reggie_jackson , the yankees' special adviser . ''but how do you look good when you give up 15 hits ? you do n't look good . you do n't pitch good , you do n't look good . '' jackson agreed that steinbrenner could react harshly after sending his team to another part of the world and seeing it falter against tampa_bay , although steinbrenner took a stab at profundity after tuesday 's loss and issued a statement that evoked tommy tune instead of joe_torre . still , these are the lowly devil_rays of manager lou_piniella , a former yankees player and manager , and of don zimmer , a devil_rays adviser who was a longtime bench coach with the yankees . zimmer has repeatedly accused steinbrenner of mistreating him and of hastening his exit from the bronx . and unlike rodriguez , jackson did not suppress a smile when he was asked if wednesday 's game was a contest the yankees needed to win . ''yeah , it is , '' jackson said . ''you lose that and we 'll go straight to new york . '' jackson knows that the yankees are scheduled to return to tampa after wednesday 's game to play two more exhibition games this weekend before resuming the regular season next tuesday , in tampa , against the same devil_rays . ''if we lose tomorrow , we wo n't be in a 747 going home , '' jackson said . ''it will be b o , the baltimore ohio railroad . '' jackson 's comments were made as a joke , but the point about how steinbrenner handles losing was earnest . steinbrenner 's crew is being branded as the 183 million all stars , a team clearly expected to win a world_series title . so the pressure begins . ''you hear people say , 'this year , they better win , ' '' general_manager brian_cashman said . ''i know george thinks that every year . '' he added , ''i do n't think the pressure can get higher . '' it is true there is no greater pressure in baseball than being expected to win a championship . but when the team with the highest payroll adds the player with the largest contract in history , the intensity grows . ''i do n't think there 's a 'we better not lose mentality , ' '' cashman said . 'i think we recognize that we 're good enough to win . '' a few hours before the first pitch of the season , a shipment of 100 plush blue towels arrived in the visiting clubhouse from the new otani hotel . the yankees were apparently unhappy with the flimsy towels they had been provided , so they ordered out . shampoo and conditioner were not included . on an unusual opening day , the desire for different towels sounded like something out of the steinbrenner handbook . a lot was different for the yankees , but the season 's mandate remained consistent . they better not lose . not with rodriguez . not this year . baseball analysis",has a topic of sports
"mohammad ali fayadh and afrah abas stood on either side of a poster for the 42nd world archery championships , flanked by members of the international_olympic_committee and officials of the state_department yesterday at the roosevelt hotel in manhattan . it was not their skill as archers that brought attention to ali fayadh and abas , but rather that they are members of the iraqi delegation sent to the championships . they are among the first athletes to compete in the united_states since saddam_hussein was deposed . five other archers from iraq , three men and two women , will also compete in the championships , scheduled for july 14 20 at van_cortlandt_park in the bronx and in central_park in manhattan , hoping to earn a spot in the 2004 olympic_games in athens . ''we are very happy and excited to participate in this event , '' mustafa saraj , the coordinator of the iraqi team , said . in june , i.o.c . members and state_department officials worked out a plan to send iraqi athletes to international competitions and to try to rebuild iraq 's athletic programs . iraqi athletes are also expected to compete in the wrestling world_championships in september . the archery team have no facility in iraq and its members are spread throughout the country . after this week 's competition , the iraqi archers will train at the national archery center in chula vista , calif . brandon lilly olympic sports archery",has a topic of sports
"once his match was over and the final beads of sweat had trickled down roger_federer 's glistening face , he disappeared into the tunnel off the main court at the french open . and for hours , he waited . he had just defeated fourth_seeded nikolay davydenko in straight sets on friday , 7 5 , 7 6 ( 5 ) , 7 6 ( 7 ) , to advance to the final at roland_garros his record eighth grand_slam_tournament final in a row . but the question of whom he would play in that final still loomed . would it be rafael nadal or novak djokovic who would stand between federer and a fourth consecutive grand_slam_singles title ? ''i mean , i probably prefer djokovic , to be honest , '' federer said before that second match was done . ''never lost against the guy , and the guy has never played in a grand_slam final . so that would be stupid to say the other guy . '' hours later , federer learned that his wish would not be granted . that other guy , nadal , ended up defeating djokovic , 7 5 , 6 4 , 6 2 , to set up the match everyone has been waiting for . on sunday at roland_garros , it will be roger versus rafa , no . 1 versus no . 2 , one of the best players in history versus the best in the world on clay . neither would admit he had the edge . ''he has already won the title twice , so i 'd say he was the favorite , '' federer said . nadal said , ''he beat me the last time in hamburg , but for that reason , maybe , he 's the favorite . '' so far , at least at roland_garros , nadal has had the secret to beating federer . he defeated him in the finals last year , and in the semifinals in 2005 . this year , he has not dropped a single set at this tournament , and he said this was his best clay_court season ever . just one tiny thing has marred nadal 's season so far one week before the french open , federer finally figured out how to beat nadal on clay , halting nadal 's 81 match winning_streak on the surface . federer had not beaten nadal on clay in five previous matches . that victory a quite convincing 2 6 , 6 2 , 6 0 win in the final at the masters series tournament in hamburg , germany set up a perfect situation for federer at this french open . it may have given him the confidence that he needs to stop nadal , the 21 year old who has never lost here . still , djokovic , the sixth seed , said federer would need much more than confidence to win on sunday . ''if you win on clay against him , you 've got to do more , you 've got to push him more , push him over the limits , '' he said . ''you 've got to play really great tennis , and it has got to be your day . '' between matches at the french open , nadal squeezed in an excuse for his loss to federer in hamburg . he said he had been tired from playing in so many tournaments , then traveling home to majorca to film commercials . here , he has not shown any signs of fatigue , even off the court . for a show being broadcast pre and post tournament , he was videotaped singing ''la bamba , '' in a type of karaoke gone wild . on the court , he said he felt loose , too . ''i 'm not playing for the grand_slam , whereas he is playing for the grand_slam , '' he said . ''why should it be a pressure for me ? i do n't see why . '' on friday , whether he could feel it or not , nadal was under pressure to make the final , at least from the fans . djokovic , a_20 year old serb , stood between him and that achievement . djokovic had a breakout tournament , weathering marathon matches and spectators who cheered his opponents . he was gracious , snapping off his wristband and handing it to a man in a wheelchair after winning his quarterfinal . he was expected to be one of the few players good enough to challenge nadal or federer . but after the semifinal , djokovic was left shaking his head . ''he 's physically stronger than any other player on the tour , '' he said of nadal . ''i think that 's his advantage . '' although federer lacks nadal 's strength most notably the bulging biceps he is usually known as the tour 's most graceful player . that was not the case friday . in an uncharacteristic display , federer showed that he was human , looking clumsy as he made 45 unforced_errors and saved 14 break points along the way . for federer , there is pressure to be perfect , even on clay , his worst surface . he has set expectations unbelievably high . he has won 10 grand_slam_singles titles but at the french open has always come up empty handed . federer 's father , robert , says that winning this tournament has been an important goal for his son . it is all he has thought about for the past four months , he said . ''you can tell that he is feeling the pressure , '' robert federer said . ''when you have grand_slam win after grand_slam win , it 's difficult . it is not as easy as everyone thinks . '' tennis",has a topic of sports
"when they burst into worldwide consciousness at the calgary winter_olympics four years ago , the judges did not know quite what to make of them . amid all those other dance couples with their orthodox presentations to classical_music , isabelle and paul duchesnay of france wore simulated animal skins and used percussive rhythms to evoke images of africa . they finished eighth . if there was a message from the judges , as there often is in figure_skating , they ignored it . plunging ahead with new provocations over the next three years , the duchesnays not only rose in international standing from third at the 1989 world_championships to second in 1990 to first in 1991 they began influencing the way other skaters performed . more and more , the traditionalists began breaking out , even those from russia , the seat of ice dance conservatism , which produced all the champion couples but one since dance was added to the olympic program in 1976 . not coincidentally , the exception was christopher dean and jayne torvill of britain , the iconoclasts of the 1984 games in sarajevo , yugoslavia . three years later , dean became the duchesnays' choreographer and just last spring , isabelle 's husband and the discipline has not been the same since . 'this is definitely it' for those who have warmed to the duchesnays the 30 year old son and 28 year old daughter of a canadian father and french mother who reared them in quebec it may come as sad news that these albertville olympics will be their last . "" this is definitely it , "" paul said wednesday . yet there was not a tinge of regret in his voice . just as the duchesnays have shocked and entertained , they have stretched their sport to the point mere classicists risk lower consideration by the judges . when the dance competition starts friday night in albertville with compulsories , they will clearly be the favorites for the gold_medal among 19 couples despite the presence of the 1988 silver medalists , marina klimova and sergei ponomarenko of the unified team of former soviet athletes , twice world champions . the duchesnays are an odd pair as innovators . by their kinship , they cannot use romantic themes as so many others do , like klimova and ponomarenko , who are married . for their free_dance program , dean has chosen music from "" west side story , "" but not with isabelle and paul as maria and her boyfriend , tony . paul is maria 's brother , bernardo , and they skate an energetic , complicated , almost frentic program that speaks to the tribulations of life . to succeed , the program demands a unison of movement , but that has seldom been a problem for the duchesnays . even off the ice , they play well off each other , although their roles are not necessarily predictable . she has the more dominant personality he , the more introspective . when paul was asked how their relationship might have changed with dean as a brother in law rather than mere colleague isabelle whispered to him , "" it has n't changed , "" before he could answer . then "" it has n't changed at all , "" he said into the microphone . "" the only thing that 's changed is that it 's a little more fun in the dressing room . now , i 'm not the only one joking around with chris . "" isabelle nodded slightly , an apparent sign of approval . as workmates , they get along as well as any brother and sister . she recalled their last flare up , when paul became disturbed the other day because she had forgotten her sewing kit to replace a button on his costume . "" no , "" he said . "" it was when you stepped on my foot during practice . "" then he turned to the reporters "" when she wants to say something , she lets me know by squashing my foot . "" while their past performances have cast them as favorites and potential national heroes if they win , their preparation has not proceeded as smoothly as planned . in august , isabelle broke a small bone in one foot . in september , their older half brother , gaston , died of cancer . then last month , paul suffered a groin injury the week before the european championships . they were forced to withdraw . the lost time was critical , in that both regard their current free_dance program as the hardest they have performed in competition . "" i find it quite difficult , "" said isabelle . "" it took me a long time to master everything . "" ' albertville",has a topic of sports
"the officials who run the game of baseball in japan made it clear this week that an american owned company would find it very difficult to do in this country what the nintendo company wants to do in the united_states acquire a major_league_baseball team . the reason , they say , is that japanese fans regard baseball as a part of the national culture no less than some americans do . "" i believe japanese fans would not approve a foreign company owning a professional_baseball team , "" ichiro yoshikuni , commissioner of baseball in japan , said in an interview this week . "" japanese_baseball is for japanese , and japanese fans would try to exclude the possibility of foreign country involvement . "" rules adopted by the baseball owners here in 1971 limit foreign investment in japanese teams to 49 percent at most . yoshikuni said this rule could be waived by the owners , and he suggested there may even be loopholes . but he said in an interview wednesday that such a step was unlikely . yoshikuni 's statement was similar to the response american baseball officials and owners have had to the proposal by nintendo , the electronic games company , to buy a controlling interest in the seattle_mariners . shortly after the nintendo bid was announced last month in seattle , fay_vincent , the american baseball_commissioner , issued a statement saying it was unlikely that baseball owners would approve the proposal , since baseball had a policy against investment from outside north_america . coming at a time of considerable tension between the united_states and japan over trade issues , vincent 's statement has generated much debate in both countries . much of the commentary here about nintendo 's bid for the seattle team has been favorable . a spokesman for the foreign ministry said he thought the japanese bid should be seen in the context of philanthropic activities by japanese companies operating in the united_states . sports newspapers and other journals also seem to be cheering on nintendo . in an editorial entitled "" cheers to the mariners ! "" the mainichi newspaper , a major daily , said japanese should be pleased by the "" voices in many parts of the u.s . that welcome japan 's capital and factories . "" but japanese also acknowledge that when it comes to their own sport , they regard baseball as a home grown product with its customs and traditions that should be protected from foreign influence . japanese teams are barred , for instance , from having more than two foreign players at any one time . and these players invariably encounter a love hate relationship among fans who are pleased when they do well but subject them to scorn when they fail to perform or adapt to japanese customs . difficulty for american players some writers have noted that although many rules seem to be the same , the sport is entirely different here . introduced in 1873 , it spread first in universities and went professional in the 1930 's . today it is the most popular team sport in japan , with fierce pennant races dominating the news each year . japanese_baseball emphasizes grueling workouts , fanatical team spirit , an almost martial discipline and elaborate customs of saving face , making it difficult for many american players to adjust . but another big difference between the sports in the two countries relates to ownership . all japanese teams are owned by large corporations , usually highly visible companies that own newspapers , railroads , department_stores and other retail operations . they own the teams for publicity rather than profitability . yoshikuni said that of the 12 major_league_baseball teams in the central and pacific leagues , only a third are profitable , a third break even and a third are in the red . he said he doubted that an american company would be interested in making a purchase because of the low profitability . team do n't 'belong to citizens' "" japanese_baseball does n't belong to the citizens the way it does in the united_states , "" said robert_whiting , author of books about the sport in japan . "" the nippon_ham_fighters do n't belong to tokyo , where they happen to play , "" he added . "" they are there to sell nippon ham . usually , the company does n't care about losing money as long as its name is on the sports news every night . it 's free advertising . "" for this reason , he said , any american company interested in purchasing a japanese team would probably have to be one with a high visibility in japan already , eager to gain more publicity . an exception in american ownership for example , a spokesman for mcdonald 's co . ( japan ) ltd . , which operates the hamburger chain as a franchise , and is owned half by japanese and half by the american parent corporation , said that a financially troubled team approached the company about 10 years ago about a possible purchase . he said mcdonald 's was not interested . yoshikuni said that a team could be owned by mcdonald 's , i.b.m. , coca_cola or any other american company that was licensed to operate as a japanese company , as long as more than 49 percent of the individual shares were not owned by a foreigner . other sports fans agreed that an american company 's name attached to a japanese team would not pose a problem . "" a lot of kids think mcdonald 's or coca_cola are japanese brands anyway , so they could easily accept it , "" said uhei ohba , staff editor of the hochi shimbun , a popular sports newspaper . korean owned team there actually is a japanese team that is already owned by a foreign company , although the actual percentage of which individual owns the team , and the identities of their nationality , is murky . that team is the lotte marines , who play in a new stadium in chiba prefecture east of tokyo , owned by the lotte corp . , owner of department_stores , hotels and confectionaries . the president of lotte is takeo shibemitsu , a korean national operating in korea under the name of kyok ho shin . lotte is often identified by japanese as a korean company because many of its operations are in korea . a spokesman for the marines said the team was 78 percent owned by lotte corp . , but declined to give out details about the level of personal ownership of shigemitsu . a spokesman for yoshikuni , the baseball_commissioner , also said it was not known how much of the team was personally owned by shigemitsu . but ohba , the editor at the hochi shimbun , contradicted yoshikuni , saying it was indeed known at the baseball organization that shigemitsu did not own more than 49 percent of the lotte team , and therefore his presence as a foreigner was acceptable to other owners . as it happens , yoshikuni said vincent told him two years ago privately that one day the japanese might try to buy an american baseball_team . "" he jokingly said it was inevitable , "" yoshikuni recalled . "" i told him it was just not conceivable . he turned out to be right . "" baseball",has a topic of sports
"the proposed purchase of the seattle_mariners by the nintendo company of japan is disconcerting to a majority of americans , according to the latest new york times_cbs_news_poll . there is "" something about "" japanese companies buying north_american major_league_baseball teams that "" bothers "" 57 percent of the 1 , 673 adults nationwide who were interviewed by telephone . eight percent said they thought it was all right for japanese companies to buy major_league teams and 34 percent said it did n't matter to them . the survey was conducted from feb . 26 to march 1 and has a margin of sampling_error of plus or minus 3 percentage_points . real_estate ownership troubling although a majority are bothered by the thought of japanese ownership of baseball teams , even more people are bothered by japanese ownership of office buildings and real_estate in the united_states . the times and cbs_news surveyed americans with a similar question in june 1990 , several months after the tokyo based mitsubishi estate company bought a controlling interest in the rockefeller group , the management company that owns part of rockefeller_center in manhattan . at that time , almost three quarters ( 72 percent ) said they were bothered by japanese companies buying office buildings and land in the united_states , only 14 percent said it did n't matter , and almost as many ( 13 percent ) said it was all right . northwest least upset while the question of japanese ownership of major_league teams has centered on the seattle_mariners , respondents polled in that part of the country were the least upset . half the people interviewed in the west said they were bothered . respondents in the northeast and midwest were the most troubled , with 61 percent reporting that something about japanese ownership in baseball bothered them . fifty five percent of southerners said they were bothered . respondents with negative views of the economy were more concerned with the possibility of japanese owned major_league teams than those with a more favorable opinion of the state of the economy . baseball",has a topic of sports
"a hundred days from now , a grand experiment in outsized olympic_games begins across 600 square miles of french alpine countryside , where thousands of athletes , officials and spectators will be ready to prove that traipsing has been made an official winter_olympic sport . oh , the places they 'll see . the last winter adventure was staged four years ago in the relatively tight confines of calgary , alberta . but the albertville olympics named for the town of 20 , 000 beside the mountains where skating events and opening and closing ceremonies will be held will be spread among 10 competition sites , some of them lavish ski_resorts connected only by long , winding , narrow mountain roads . for most people , getting from one place to another could take hours , longer during a snowstorm . at least the organizers had the foresight to house athletes near their competition sites . smooth preparations despite the expansive nature of the games , covering a wider area than any previous winter_olympics , the preparations have advanced rather smoothly . there have been occasional glitches along the way for example , the village of bride les_bains , the site of a large village for athletes , ran short of money several months ago , and some of the major roads have only recently been completed . but with the french minister of sport , frederique bredin , assuring the international_olympic_committee just last week that the government would keep all promises made to cover costs involving infrastructure , the major concerns remain unchanged from when planning began that bad_weather might make travel hazardous , that some visitors will not find accommodations convenient to the competition sites and that hotel and restaurant owners might raise prices to record levels . "" these concerns could have been seen from the first day , "" francois carrard , the i.o.c . executive director , said in a recent interview . "" essentially , we are satisfied . "" in addition to the geographical spread of the games and albertville 's position as the last winter_olympics on a four year cycle that began in 1924 a new four year cycle starts with the lillehammer , norway , olympics in 1994 this olympics will be noteworthy for several other reasons . a weaker soviet team with worldwide recognition of estonia , latvia and lithuania as independent states , albertville will be the first major competition with a soviet team of diminished strength . how diminished remains to be seen the soviet_union has been the leading country in the medal count in 7 of the last 10 winter_olympics and 4 of the last 5 . the baltics have produced good athletes in a variety of sports , and they have notified the albertville organizers that they will send teams 20 athletes from estonia in cross_country_skiing and biathlon , 30 from latvia in bobsled , luge and skiing and about a dozen from lithuania in cross_country and biathlon . all three countries had hoped to send more athletes but scaled back their plans because of limited money . among those expected to participate are two athletes who won medals for the soviet_union in calgary , vida venciene , a lithuanian cross_country_skier who won the 10 kilometer event and finished third in the 5 kilometers , and janis kipurs of latvia , a gold medalist in the two man bobsled competition with a russian partner , vladimir kozlov . not all baltic born athletes have had their interests served by independence , however . darius_kasparaitis , a 19 year old defenseman for the moscow dynamo hockey team the last five years has told the authorities he wants to play for the soviet national team in albertville . he is a native of lithuania , whose hockey team did not qualify for the olympic tournament . yugoslav picture unclear the yugoslav olympic team might encounter a problem similar to the soviet_union 's . with civil_war in yugoslavia continuing , the international ski federation has contingency_plans to recognize an independent team from slovenia . if the same is not true for croatia , which has also applied to the ski federation for recognition , it might be because a vast majority of yugoslavia 's best skiers , including franci petek , the world champion in jumping , and natasa bokal , a leading slalom and giant_slalom skier , are from slovenia and have refused to compete under the yugoslav flag . another uncertainty surrounds south_africa , which was readmitted to the i.o.c . in july after more than 20 years of banishment because of the government 's policy of apartheid . despite south_africa 's readmission , it seems very unlikely that the country will make an appearance in albertville . and that 's part of the reason , appearance . south africans compete well enough to avoid embarrassment in only two winter sports , figure_skating and short_track_speed_skating , and all the athletes who would qualify are white . "" i do n't think that 's the message they want to send out , "" said one i.o.c . official , who agreed with prevailing opinions that the 1992 summer olympics in barcelona , spain , would be a more likely place for south_africa 's return . sam ramsamy , the president of the national_olympic_committee , said from johannesburg this week that a final decision would be made this weekend . more medals for u.s. ? as the countdown to albertville continues , attention will also focus on the athletes from the united_states , most of whom bear no responsibility for the added pressures to win medals placed upon them in the midst of the calgary games . that 's when the united_states_olympic_committee chose to announce that a committee would be formed and headed by george_steinbrenner to figure out why americans were n't winning more medals . more than a few american athletes thought the timing of the announcement was heavy handed and mean spirited , but their position was hardly enhanced by the fact americans won just 6 medals , a far cry from their soviet counterparts , who won 29 . anyway , the committee recommended ways the u.s.o.c . could help its athletes perform better , and this will be the first olympic team since changes were made . it 's possible they helped , but probably not to any significant degree . based on performance results of the last year or so , the american team would appear to have the same strengths as in calgary , in figure_skating and speed_skating , with a few other isolated areas of hope . they include donna weinbrecht , who is regarded as a strong medal contender in free style skiing , a sport in which medals will be awarded for the first time , and anna sunnerup , a possible medalist in the new women 's biathlon events . all olympic_games have their oddities . calgary had bobsled teams from jamaica and the virgin_islands and a british ski_jumper known as eddie the eagle , who amused spectators around the world by finishing last among 58 jumpers on the 70 meter hill and last among 55 on the 90 meter hill . both jamaica and the virgin_islands plan to send bobsled teams to albertville , but the eagle was grounded when the british olympic association , unamused by his sudden fame , raised the qualifying standards to make the team after the calgary games . olympics",has a topic of sports
"the olympic marseilles soccer club , plagued by one of france 's biggest sports scandals , is being purchased by adidas . the sporting_goods company will become sole owner of the club , mayor jean claude gaudin of marseilles said yesterday . he did not give the price for what was once france 's most popular team and one of the strongest in europe . olympic marseilles was involved in a match throwing scandal in 1994 . ( ap ) sports people soccer",has a topic of sports
"with a hefty offer of 13 , 125 , 000 , the seattle_mariners beat out the mets and two other teams for the rights to the latest foreign phenomenon , ichiro_suzuki , an outfielder who has won seven successive batting championships in japan 's pacific_league . if he is signed by the mariners by the 9 p.m . dec . 9 deadline , suzuki will join his good friend , reliever kazuhiro_sasaki , on the seattle roster . no details were disclosed about the other bidders or bids , but one baseball official said the mariners' figure dwarfed the one the mets had submitted . the other bidders were believed to be the los_angeles_dodgers and the anaheim angels . the yankees , who have signed more than their share of foreign free agents , passed on the bidding for the 27 year old suzuki because they did not see the talent others saw . thus far , all the japanese players who have played in the major_leagues have been pitchers , so suzuki would be the first position player . more than four teams had been interested in pursuing suzuki under the relatively untested posting system , which allows a japanese player to join a major_league team when he is not a free_agent . but some might have decided not to bid after speaking with his agent , tony attanasio . ''i talked to 10 teams , '' attanasio said by telephone from san_diego . ''i might have dissuaded some by telling them , 'if you do n't have a strong japanese influence in your community , do n't bid because it 's not going to work . ' '' new york , attanasio said , fit the desired picture , noting that the reliever , sasaki , ''has good friends there who wined and dined him . '' but if suzuki is to experience that new york hospitality , it will be on road trips . only one team could gain rights for the 30 day negotiating period , and the mets fell short . ''i 'm not surprised that we did n't get the winning bid , '' steve_phillips , the mets' general_manager , said . ''i anticipated there were going to be some teams that extended beyond us . most teams expected seattle would be aggressive . '' asked what he thought of the mariners' bid , phillips said ''every team has to make a decision for their own organization . i do n't think any judgment can be made on the package until the player is signed and we see what that deal looks like as well . right now , the number does n't mean anything until it 's defined by the player 's contract . '' deciding how much to bid was probably the most difficult part of the procedure . attanasio said one general_manager told him he was confused about how to go about it if he wanted to submit a bid . ''you decide on what you view the total package to be , '' phillips said . ''then you chisel out what part you think you pay the team up front . '' that method was basically how the mariners did it , pat gillick , their general_manager , said . although gillick said pursuing suzuki was a baseball decision and not an ethnic one , the mariners have a large japanese presence . their owner , hiroshi yamauchi , is japanese he is the chairman of nintendo in japan . howard lincoln , the mariners' chairman and chief_executive_officer , is the retired chairman of nintendo of america inc . the mariners have also played host to a japanese team at their spring_training site in peoria , ariz . suzuki , in fact , was there last year . a year ago , they signed sasaki , a japanese free_agent , who became their closer . he finished third in the american_league in saves with 37 and attracted fans from the city 's large japanese community . the mariners were unveiled as the winner of the rights to suzuki after his team , the orix blue wave , announced that it had accepted the bid . had orix rejected it , suzuki would have had to remain in japan for another year before becoming a free_agent . ''he can do everything except hit with power , '' gillick said . ''in the united_states i think he 'll be a contact type hitter . he 's a very , very good defensive outfielder . he 's got an above average throwing arm , and he 's an above average defensive player and an above average runner . '' gillick added ''there 's always a risk with any player you sign , be it an amateur , a professional free_agent or a free_agent coming from another professional league . our people felt that he 's worth the risk . '' the mariners , gillick said , plan to make suzuki their right fielder and have him bat first or second in the lineup . they have to sign him first , of course . attanasio has compared suzuki to kenny_lofton of the cleveland indians and said that he should get lofton money , 8 million a year , in a contract of more than three years . asked about that figure , gillick said ''we 've got a budget that we have to operate within and we 're going to operate within that budget . if he fits into the budget , it will work . if he does n't , then it wo n't work . but we do have budgetary restraints . '' gillick was quick to say that the signing of suzuki would not prevent the mariners from attempting to re sign alex_rodriguez , now a celebrated free_agent . ''this is a separate issue than a rod , '' gillick said , using rodriguez 's nickname . ''we 're still very committed to bringing a rod back to seattle . a rod has told us he wants a winning situation . if we 're able to sign this player , that 's just going to ensure our ability to compete in 2001 . '' attanasio said he expected the mariners to tell him that they are paying orix so much that they have to spend less than they otherwise would on suzuki 's contract . on the other hand , the agent said , ''knowing ichiro , he may be so honored with the japanese owner and everything , there may be more pressure to sign than there would have been , say , with the dodgers . '' baseball",has a topic of sports
"we were having lunch outdoors the other day , the way one does on the first warm afternoon in lyon or paris or new york , three cities where youri djorkaeff has lived . a stocky argentine man , dining a few tables away , did a double take when he spotted the alert dark features of the patron at the corner table . ''it 's like talking to god , '' the argentine man sputtered in english , as djorkaeff accepted a hug and posed for a photo . ''i know maradona , '' the stranger continued . ''he used to come to my house when he was hiding out . who do you think will win the world_cup this year ? you think my country has a chance ? '' this question is being asked in 32 nations around the world this week . djorkaeff replied that argentina and italy are always good , but in the end brazil has so much talent . ''it 's like an exact science , '' djorkaeff said . ''the same three , always , and maybe france or england or germany . '' reluctantly but civilly , the argentine man went back to his lunch , letting djorkaeff get back to his seafood salad and ros . in 1998 , in the world_cup final won by france , youri djorkaeff aimed a corner_kick toward the talented scalp of zin dine zidane , who headed in a goal against brazil . now playing for the new york red_bulls of major_league_soccer , djorkaeff , like billions of other people , is preparing to watch the world 's most popular sports event next month , on the tube from germany . ''this will be my first world_cup , '' djorkaeff said the other day . ''i will sit on the sofa and watch , like a good fan . i am checking the web to get all the information on the french team . '' djorkaeff and his wife and three children are living in the gramercy_park section of manhattan . as a proud frenchman of armenian and kalmuk ancestry , djorkaeff is a little disappointed there is not more of an armenian presence in new york , but he loves the long and mostly anonymous walks around this city . he also does not mind being lionized at french places like frederick 's lounge at madison and east 65th street , where he is one more sporting prince of this international city where soccer is a thriving daily presence . he was born to the spotlight , since his father , jean , was captain of france in the 1966 world_cup in england . when djorkaeff was a child , he played with a fuzzy replica of world_cup willie , the mascot of the english cup . he became a star for inter_milan , living close to the fabled duomo . ( ''milan is an amazing city , but a lot of it is hidden . you open a door , and there are these amazing courtyards and gardens . '' ) he joined the french national squad after the breakup of the beautiful underachieving team of the 1980 's . in the sunlight on madison_avenue , djorkaeff pointed to goose bumps on his arms as he recalled how the charismatic , multicultural french team rolled toward the 1998 cup . ''half of us played in italy , '' djorkaeff said , recalling those heady days a decade ago , when italy had the best league in the world . he still marvels at how the french coach , aim jacquet , confided in 1997 that ''everything is ready'' to win the world_cup . djorkaeff thought jacquet had gone mad , ''coach , are you o.k . ? '' exactly eight years ago , jacquet assembled 23 superb individuals at a rural camp . ''those little games in training , six men on a side , were fantastic , '' djorkaeff recalled . ''you ran a drill , the ball never went out . but it 's not just you . it 's the other team . your whole group . i never saw soccer like this . on our team , if anything went wrong , jacquet had two or three solutions . everybody was together . '' after the 3 0 victory over brazil for the championship , jacquet gave the players two options celebrate in the city of lights or go back to the training base with their wives ''the last time we would all be together , '' djorkaeff said in a hushed voice . the players chose to go back to the chateau , while millions of fans celebrated along the champs_lys_es . in 2002 in south_korea , djorkaeff and his mates were older , more brittle , and did not make it out of the first round . ''it is harder when you are champion , '' djorkaeff said . he retired from the national team , and last season he chose to play in m.l.s . for the experience of living in manhattan . ''if you think about football in italy or france , you would go home in a week , '' he said , respectfully , ''but i am at a point where i want to help build something here . '' he is busy on the phone these days , plugging his new book , ''snake'' the english nickname by which he is known in france written with arnaud ramsay , and published only in french by grasset . the american_league will soldier on during the world_cup , with the red_bulls playing a game the same day , june 17 , the united_states plays italy . still djorkaeff is marking off all the games he can possibly catch . he has helped win a world_cup . now it is time to watch one . sports of the times e mail geovec nytimes . com",has a topic of sports
"the international_olympic_committee 's evaluation commission sat in a room under a huge dome the walls were covered with paintings , windows framed with statues , and the light from a giant crystal chandelier overhead glimmered off the gold colored walls . it was the kind of atmosphere only paris could muster a ballroom in the grand hotel decked out saturday for a fairly routine news conference for 13 people intent on saying little about their four day visit to evaluate paris 's bid for the 2012 olympics . as she did during the commission 's previous stops in madrid , london and new york , the chairwoman nawal el moutawakel praised the city 's efforts . but she was even more vague than she had been in the other cities . ''i would like to note the high caliber of paris 's bid for the 2012 olympics , '' she said . ''there is a lot of competition and we can be glad of that . '' the commission has vowed not to handicap the chances of the five bid cities , even when it makes its final report on june 6 , a month before the 117 member i.o.c . votes to choose the winner at a meeting in singapore . the commission 's final visit , to moscow , begins monday . the substance of the evaluation was kept behind the closed doors of the meetings here , but paris 's style came across clearly during the visit . the bid leaders decided to strike a lower key tone than their counterparts in the other cities , letting most of paris 's grandeur speak for itself , like the room where the news conference was held . there was no lavish dinner with royalty , as in madrid and in london , or star studded entertainment , as in new york . their dinner friday night at the home of jacques_chirac , the french president , had prestige , but the parisians let their surroundings do most of the talking . the bid team ferried the committee around the city , which was plastered with the bright , festive paris 2012 logo large lighted versions were on the eiffel_tower , the national_assembly and the h tel de ville . the requisite athletes were rolled out to express support for the bid . the bid leaders showed off a plan that included an existing olympic_stadium , the stade de france , and a modest building program , which included 13 temporary sports sites for the games . moutawakel would say nothing about the commission 's opinion of such extensive use of essentially disposable sites , but the stadium had its good and bad points . she noted that transportation problems marred the world track and field championships there in 2003 , but that paris was the only city with a stadium that did not need to be built or renovated . ''of course , having the infrastructure already ready is very important in our process , '' she said . as they had been all week , the paris bid leaders were optimistic but cautious in their assessment of their performance , careful not to appear overly confident in their position as the presumed front runner . ''i will answer your question on july 6 , '' mayor bertrand delano of paris said when asked how the visit went . delano took center stage in every news conference , usually flanked by the french sports minister , jean_fran_ois lamour , and other politicians . ''we are a team because this is a team sport , '' delano said . when he asked if anyone else wanted to offer general comments , the eight people at the table declined . the lowest profile of all was struck by philippe baudillon , who hardly spoke despite being the director of the bid committee . the bid leaders in new york ( daniel l . doctoroff ) and in london ( sebastian_coe ) orchestrated the visits , deferring to their political leaders on special occasions . the paris bureaucracy , though , painted itself as a positive force in the bid , demonstrating the depth of support across france . together , the bid leaders and officials managed to dodge most of the effects of the general_strike across the country on thursday , their assurances seeming to placate the commission 's concerns . ''this was an expression of democracy in france , '' moutawakel said . ''the fact that they marched in t shirts supporting the bid was very important . '' the depth of support for the games after two previous failed bids was paris 's emotional sales pitch . the bid leaders wanted to replace paris 's reputation for arrogance with one of eagerness . so the signs went up and the motto was everywhere l'amour des jeux , or roughly , love of the games . that love has to translate until july 6 . olympics",has a topic of sports
"at the end of a long , tumultuous and ultimately demoralizing afternoon , oracene price sat down in the players' lounge , composed enough to smile , to surmise that she was ''not going to have a heart_attack'' over a semifinal defeat in a grand_slam event . it was , conversely , understandable how her daughter , still three months shy of her 22nd birthday , could be brokenhearted and moved to tears by the unruliness of a crowd that desperately wished for her to lose . on a court with the initials p ( for philippe ) and c ( for chatrier ) , political_correctness and primal compassion were lost on unfeeling fans who combined with a whirlwind named justine henin hardenne to put the first dent in serena_williams 's third set psyche and grand_slam armor in more than a year . the fans' behavior was ugly and everything else that price would call it arrogant , lacking in class and understanding of the game . ''she knew it was a dangerous job when she took it , '' price said of serena , her youngest daughter , after henin_hardenne advanced to an all belgian final against kim_clijsters with a 6 2 , 4 6 , 7 5 victory . ''that 's what i always told her . '' it made perfect sense that henin_hardenne , an underdog with a french name , would be the overwhelming favorite , especially after clijsters had qualified for tomorrow 's final by defeating the russian nadia petrova in straight sets . geographic and cultural partisanship are one thing . turning raucously on williams the way the fans did in the third set , even cheering her first service faults , was patently cruel . ''a little bit too much , '' henin_hardenne would say , admitting she was the beneficiary of what she could not condone . price did not invoke the undercurrent of race and serena said she did n't think the derision was related to the recent political tensions between the united_states and france . so what was it ? since the williams sisters have taken over women 's tennis , winning nine grand slams from the 1999 united_states open on the last four by serena it is always something . standing not far from price , pam shriver commented that the fans' reaction yesterday was mild compared with their treatment of martina_hingis in the 1999 final against steffi_graf . hingis was punished for a temper tantrum when the match turned for graf . all williams did was point to a couple of marks in the red clay on balls called in by the line judge before the umpire subsequently checked and overruled . on what is her least favorable surface , this was n't serena 's most memorable effort , she was quick to admit . henin_hardenne , a rising star , had beaten williams earlier this spring on clay , as had am lie mauresmo . for that matter , clijsters had her down by 5 1 in the third set of the australian open final on a hard court in january before a collapse that had nothing to do with being physically outclassed . no one is unbeatable , or indestructible , despite such unthinking portrayals of the williams sisters during their respective runs of tour dominance . this has always made me uncomfortable , the notion that they represent some huge leap on the athletic evolutionary chain , the genetic_engineering experiment of their father , richard . yes , the slender venus and the buff serena are superior athletes , but they are not the only tall power players in this era of big babe tennis . muscle does n't make the champion , and for all the requisite size and racket technology , women 's tennis especially is still a game that often comes down to guile and raw nerve . so seldom have the williams sisters been given the credit they deserve for their mental acumen and toughness too often under adverse conditions you wonder if , in the context of them being viewed as machines , it leads to misadventures like yesterday 's , fans forgetting that this is a 21 year old woman , a human being . as she has since winning here last year , serena had persevered , reaching the third set despite being outplayed for most of the first two . with the benefit of the first chair overrule , she had broken her sagging opponent at love for 4 2 . the second call on a 0 15 point in the seventh game turned the fans loose . price said she thought most of the louts were upstairs , in the cheaper seats . ( some did cry out for the others to stop and a few went so far as to cheer a later henin_hardenne fault . ) stunned , williams surrendered the break . ''it does n't make it any harder , '' she would say later . ''i just . . . '' she paused to let the tears flow and stuttered , ''actually , that 's a lie . '' henin_hardenne , dealing with her own nerves , would soon fail to serve out the match at 5 4 , double faulting twice . it seemed certain that williams would soon quiet her tormentors for good but , as price would say ''she was nervous . i think both players were , because of the crowd . '' serena was rattled , serving poorly , offering up drop shots to a speedy player . henin_hardenne broke back and , finally after 2 hours 20 minutes , served out the match . price , like serena , said henin_hardenne deserved to win . when richard williams was on tour with venus and serena , he often brought disdain upon the family by antagonizing opponents . price , now divorced from richard , has been the essence of comportment and class . asked how she as coach as well as mom could be so calm so soon after the match , she laughed and said , ''i 'm a cool lady . '' serena_williams lost her composure in a theater of howling fools . she and her grand_slam streak deserved far more appreciation and respect upon its end . sports of the times",has a topic of sports
"jean_claude blanc was ready on friday . blanc , the president of the french tennis federation , sat in his spacious office on the ground floor of roland_garros with a stack of papers filled with numbers . he knew that i would advocate pulling the french open into the 21st_century by paying female players the same prize money as their male counterparts . the question of the day was simple when will women make as much as the men at roland_garros ? ''we 'll get there , '' he said . ''we 're closing the gap . '' i could n't believe i was having this discussion in 2005 in paris , the city of lights and enlightenment . a woman who wins the french open will receive 13 , 000 euros less than the men 's winner just because . the women 's winner receives 867 , 000 euros ( about 1 , 090 , 000 ) , the men 's champion 880 , 000 ( 1 , 106 , 000 ) . perhaps the difference is a gender tax . in blanc 's view , women do n't put in enough hours on the court , they do n't have the depth in their ranks , and the television networks prefer the men . ''when we look at what the television networks are picking for images , there are two thirds men 's and one third women 's matches , '' said blanc , who earned his m.b.a . at harvard . men , he said , also play more challenging matches in the early rounds because of their depth . ''you do n't have that much density yet , '' he said of the women 's game at the french open . ''the u.s . open is ahead of us on this matter , but we do believe we have reason not to go too fast on equitable prize money . '' he also cited the length of the matches . the men play best of five sets , women best of three . so blanc used some numbers to back up his contention . last year 's french open men 's champion , gaston gaudio , spent 19 hours 49 minutes on the court in his singles competition , and another 4 hours 21 minutes in doubles . the women 's champion , anastasia myskina , spent 9 hours 24 minutes on the court in singles and 3 hours 26 minutes in doubles . i made a proposal to blanc if women agreed to play best of five , would he consider making the prize money even ? ''in that case , '' he said , ''i think we have no argument not to give them the prize money . '' frankly , i think five sets is too much tennis to watch , for men or for women . but to make a point and force blanc 's hand , the women should play best of five matches . blanc is not sure that the women , especially at the bottom of the top 100 , can take the physical pounding of marathon five setters on the clay at roland_garros . this is silly and outdated . across the board , women athletes are giving world class performances in full measure . female sprinters do n't run 95 meters they run the full 100 . women run the full court in basketball , not half of it . zina garrison , in a telephone interview friday from maryland , said she would support best of five matches . she figured the reaction from players would be 50 50 . ''a lot of people would be on the fence , '' she said . preparing themselves to play a more grueling five set regimen would require women players to make a new commitment to conditioning , but this is a commitment the younger generation has already made . sesil karatantcheva said she would adjust to playing best of five . ''it really does n't matter because it 's part of the game , '' she said . ''if we play five , we 'll have to be a bit more prepared , a bit stronger . but it 's nothing that ca n't be done . '' venus_williams said the prize money issue was larger than tennis . ''larger than sports , '' she said . ''it 's about discrimination against women in the workplace . '' blanc 's biggest criticism of women 's tennis is what he calls a lack of depth . the top ranked man playing the 100th ranked one , he said , could be a close match . ''on the women 's side , no . 1 ranked and no . 100 ranked , you do n't have that much density depth , '' he said . ''the no . 1 ranked woman player playing against the 100th ranked is usually not competitive . '' when she heard this , garrison was incredulous . ''the depth of women 's tennis has never been better , '' she said . the wta furnished statistics showing that , among other things , television ratings for women 's grand_slam matches were often higher than those for men throughout the world , particularly in later round matches . a number of female players , including lindsay_davenport , have been fighting the prize money battle for years and have simply been worn down . ''personally , i 've given up , '' davenport said . ''i do think a lot of it is cultural . i 'm proud of how women are treated in the united_states and how the u.s.t.a . does that at the u.s . open . ''it 's a lot more difficult over here in europe . i think it depends on how strong the women get . at one point i was willing to boycott we were talked out of it . in 1995 , there was talk of a boycott . the powers that be do n't think it 's a huge fight . '' an hour after my interview with blanc , karatantcheva convincingly beat williams , a former wimbledon and united_states open champion . karatantcheva is 15 years old and ranked 98th . seems like density to me . sports of the times e mail wcr nytimes . com",has a topic of sports
"what do you do after you win your second straight french open and finish rolling in the clay with delight ? if you are rafael nadal , you get rid of the sleeveless shirt and put on a crisp , long sleeved white one , then head to the same paris restaurant with the million euro view of the eiffel_tower where you celebrated the first time . then drop off the weary at the hotel and head to a below ground disco on the champs_lys_es with your father , uncles , agent and a few others . nadal has been impossible to miss on the tennis courts of europe this spring , stretching his record winning_streak on clay to 60 matches and shutting down roger_federer in his quest to make tennis history in the final sunday at roland_garros . but keeping track of nadal was trickier after midnight . he started out by sitting with his parents and sister at a small outdoor table on the terrace of the palais de chaillot with a huge statue of a man and a bison looming over them . the nearby tables were full of friends , relatives , former champions and admirers , including the film_director pedro alm dovar and the n.b.a . player pau gasol , each from spain . nadal is a spanish icon now , too he signed napkins , posed for dozens of group photographs and absorbed slap after congratulatory slap on his broad back . as he moved easily from group to group in the candlelight , it was no stretch to imagine the nadal clan occupying the same terrace at the same time next year . nadal is only 20 and still capable of improving his serve and his transition game . what needs no work for now is the mental game . what separates nadal from his peers and elders is not just his vicious left handed spin and soccer striker 's agility . it is his shot in , shot out zeal and his match in , match out belief . after making 12 unforced_errors in the first set sunday , nadal made a total of six in the next two . after putting 61 percent of his first serves in play during the first set , he was above 80 percent the rest of the way . and his 1 6 , 6 1 , 6 4 , 7 6 ( 4 ) victory stopped federer from winning a fourth straight grand_slam title . but the statistic that matters most now is that nadal is 14 0 at roland_garros , a place that once seemed anything but lucky for him . in 2003 , when he was on the verge of making his first appearance , he injured his right elbow while training on the grounds and had to head home to majorca . the next year he had to withdraw again because of a stress_fracture in his left ankle . nadal may look robust , but his body tends to break down , and it did so again in november . he was forced to stop playing for more than two months because of pain in his left foot , which , according to his uncle and coach toni nadal , was caused by a crack in a small bone . nadal had to adjust to a new insole in his tennis shoe that toni nadal said had affected his movement . ''i think last year he was moving better , with more ease , '' he said . ''now it 's requiring more effort from him , but he has improved the serve , and i think he 'll be a better player in the long run than he is now . we needed months to prepare this season properly , and we did n't get them . '' nadal is heading straight to the grass this week . he is seeded first but is hardly the favorite at the queen 's club tournament in london , where the low bounces and quick conditions do not fit his game . but he said he was excited about the prospect of returning to wimbledon , which starts june 26 . ''i still have to improve some parts of my game , but you need to prepare yourself , and we do n't have much time , '' nadal said , referring to the two week gap between roland_garros and wimbledon that seems to have prevented any of the men from winning them back to back since 1980 , when bjorn_borg captured both titles for the third straight year . ''the circuit is not well organized , in my opinion , '' nadal said . ''we do n't have much time between the two major tournaments of the year . federer is more adjusted to grass , so it 's going to be difficult for me to go there with good chances . '' rarely is a player who holds a 6 1 advantage over another so publicly deferential to him . ''he 's the most incredible opponent i 've played in my career , '' nadal said about federer . ''i 've never seen anyone so complete since i was born . '' toni nadal took the same tone . ''rafa being 6 1 against roger is not a source of pride for me , '' he said sunday at roland_garros . ''i 'm happy that rafa won the tournament , but i would have liked that federer could have won the grand_slam , because i think he 's a phenomenal player . for me , he is the player i enjoy watching the most . '' more than his nephew ? ''actually , yes , '' said toni nadal , who was soon exchanging handshakes with federer and apologizing as federer headed off the grounds . several hours later , early monday morning , nadal was headed to the champs_lys_es in a van full of other nadals and the former french open finalist alex corretja . once inside the disco , nadal did more posing for photos and text messaging than wild dancing . but he still looked fresh for someone who had just won the game 's most demanding tournament for the second straight time . it was nearly 4 a.m . when he finally called it a night . tennis",has a topic of sports
"lead ralph bryant , formerly of the los_angeles_dodgers , hit a two run homer in the eighth inning today to lead the kintetsu_buffaloes to a 5 3 japanese_baseball victory over the fukuoka daiei hawks . the homer was bryant 's 19th of the season . ralph bryant , formerly of the los_angeles_dodgers , hit a two run homer in the eighth inning today to lead the kintetsu_buffaloes to a 5 3 japanese_baseball victory over the fukuoka daiei hawks . the homer was bryant 's 19th of the season .",has a topic of sports
"the opening night of men 's figure_skating at the albertville olympics produced one improbable performance after another as several of the world 's best skaters , including two from the united_states , found themselves in altogether unexpected positions . by the time the last of 31 athletes had skated his original program , about the only thing that seemed reasonable was viktor petrenko of the unified team holding first place . but take a look at the scramble beyond that kurt browning of canada , the three time world champion and a consistently spectacular jumper , missed the front end of a triple_triple combination jump and stood in fourth place , virtually out of contention for the gold_medal . christopher bowman , the united_states champion who finished seventh at the 1988 calgary olympics , was back there again after a flat performance . todd_eldredge , the 1990 and 1991 united_states champion who missed this year 's nationals with a back injury , landed the one triple_jump his injury had most affected , but then missed an easy double jump to finish in ninth . dream come true and most improbable of all was paul wylie . a wonderful skater of unfulfilled dreams , who has never finished higher than second in 11 tries at a united_states title , he delivered one of the best short programs of his career to take third place , behind petrenko and petr barna of czechoslovakia . in figure_skating 's weighted style scoring system , placements in the original program account for one third of the final score . in essence , that means that any of the leaders petrenko , barna or wylie can win the gold_medal by finishing first in the free skate saturday night , regardless of what anyone else does . it also means that browning , the prohibitive favorite , could win only if petrenko finishes no higher than third , and that bowman would be fortunate to finish in the top five . "" i need help , "" browning said , still uncertain how such bright hopes could have dimmed so quickly . his trouble came barely 40 seconds into his program as he took off on a triple_axel jump that was supposed to be followed immediately by a less difficult triple_toe_loop . he fell on the first jump and never tried the second . "" basically , when i went up , i felt great , "" he said . "" but i went down so fast , i do n't know what happened . someone told me i have a bad habit of dropping my arm when i take off . maybe i did that a little bit . "" showman that he is , he still won impressive scores for his artistic impression maybe that orange , jeweled gladiator outfit helped . but not only had petrenko and barna skated more effectively and entertainingly by then , so had wylie . talk about a happy athlete . this is a skater a 27 year old harvard graduate , no less who has always found a way to tighten up approaching a major international title . he has been 9th , 10th and 11th at the world_championships . he was 10th in the calgary olympics . this was to be his last chance to prove he could exorcize the psychological demons that separated him from the world 's elite . this time , he was among them . he was flawless in his combination jumps , one of the eight required elements in the short_program , and elegant as usual in presentation . only the judge from finland marked him down , maybe , someone said , because the united_states had beaten her country in hockey earlier in the day . "" i 'm definitely elated , "" wylie said . "" i am so surprised , actually , that i really pulled it off . i proved a lot of things to myself tonight , and that 's why i came to the olympics a second time . "" bowman 's performance was uncharacteristically emotionless , a fact he blamed on external_affairs . he was the first in a group of five to skate , just after the ice had been regroomed . he did n't think the audience was quite ready for him to start . usually , he is an overwhelming crowd favorite , which he milks to enhance his show . this time , he sensed nothing to milk , and it did n't help when he touched the ice on his first triple_jump . bad first impression "" there was no real buzz , "" he said . "" people were still munching their croissants and euro burgers . it is very difficult to pull an olympic audience into your program when they 're out at the concession stands or finding their seats . "" this was a devastating blow to bowman , who said , "" i have to get myself ready for saturday . it will be difficult . mentally , i 'm pretty banged right now . "" eldredge really did n't know what to expect after dealing with one back injury at the nationals and a different one after arriving here . the triple_axel jump was his nemesis , vital to success . when he converted his triple_axel double toe_loop combination 12 seconds into his routine , a smile was on his face . but as he neared the end , and a routine double_axel that would take him into his concluding spins , he took off too close to the boards , dropped his shoulder and fell . as he skated off the ice , he put a finger to his head , then his hand around his throat . "" a fluke thing , "" he said . "" i bet i 've done that jump 10 million times . i do n't know if i ever missed one in competition . i slipped off an edge , one of those things i would never have expected . "" at least he was n't alone . albertville",has a topic of sports
"figure_skating pairs , short_program yelena_berezhnaya and anton_sikharulidze , the european_champions , are expected to battle their russian compatriots oksana_kazakova and artur_dmitriev for the gold . the short_program counts one third of the score , with tuesday 's free program the remaining two thirds . freestyle_skiing men's and women's moguls , elimination skiers attack a bumpy course that features two jumps , trying to make the final cut of 16 for the medal round tuesday . jean_luc brossard of canada , the defending olympic champion , and ann battele of the united_states are among the favorites . ice_hockey women sweden vs . finland canada vs . japan china vs . the united_states debut as a medal sport . the six team field plays a round_robin , with the top two facing off for the gold_medal on feb . 17 . canada plays the united_states on saturday in their final round_robin match . luge men's singles , first and second runs how close are the top two rivals in this sled event , where competitors race feet first while lying on their backs ? try 13 one thousandths of a second , the margin of george hackl 's victory over markus prock in the 1994 lillehammer games . hackl , a german , and prock of austria will be at it again , this time on the 90 million spiral course in izuna kogan . the final runs will be held on monday , with the gold going to the lowest aggregate time . speed_skating men's 5 , 000 meters norway 's triple gold winner johann olav koss is gone to the broadcast booth , opening the door for rintje ritsma , a big dutch skater who could win several medals in the distance events . ritsma has criticized the ice at the m wave oval in nagano because of cracks . not so , said takashi taskano , the technical director at m wave , who added , i want as many world records as possible . records are more than possible with the new clap skates that favor the gliding strokes of power skaters . the xviii winter_games",has a topic of sports
"lead bob gainey , the left_wing and captain of the montreal_canadiens , confirmed yesterday at a news conference in montreal that he had signed a two year contract to serve as player coach with the epinal ecureuils , a second division hockey club in france that is on a par with junior b hockey in canada . bob gainey , the left_wing and captain of the montreal_canadiens , confirmed yesterday at a news conference in montreal that he had signed a two year contract to serve as player coach with the epinal ecureuils , a second division hockey club in france that is on a par with junior b hockey in canada . ''i 'll be expected to be the team 's dominant player on the ice , '' said the 35 year old veteran of 16 seasons with the canadiens . ''as a coach , i 'll be expected to teach the players , help them improve their skills and develop a playing style that is suitable to their caliber . '' gainey had 239 goals and 262 assists in 1 , 160 games for the canadiens . he won the selke trophy as the league 's top defensive forward four times . ( ap ) sports people hockey",has a topic of sports
"from the 22nd floor of a retirement_home , with a sweeping view of a rundown section of east_london , the international_olympic_committee 's evaluation commission was asked to envision an olympic_park that would include a new stadium , various arenas and fields , and an athletes' village , all ready to spring from the grime and poverty that stretched below . a week later , from the 14th floor of a building on new york 's west 26th_street , the commission took in a panoramic view of an open railyard and an expanse of the underdeveloped far west side while the leaders of new york 's bid painted a vision of a stadium with a retractable_roof , parks , pedestrian boulevards and a new neighborhood radiating from all sides . but as the 13 members of the evaluation commission assess paris this week on their tour of the cities that are finalists for the 2012 games , no such flights of imagination will be necessary . the parisians will present a finished stadium , the stade de france , that successfully held the final of one of the world 's most important international sporting_events , the 1998 world_cup . their plan includes only eight permanent construction projects , and only the athletes' village involves a development more complicated than a single building . this lies at the center of the i.o.c . 's choice of the 2012 olympic city , to be made on july 6 at a meeting in singapore . paris , long considered the front runner , seems to be the safe choice , the city with less to transform in the name of the games , and it could cement its favored status with a flawless visit this week . new york and london , its main challengers , have aimed to position themselves as the visionary choices . ''i think it 's the job of every bid to leave the evaluation team with two very clear answers to two very clear questions why and how ? '' sebastian_coe , the chairman of london 's bid , said in a telephone interview . the commission begins its evaluation of paris today , after having made stops in madrid , london and new york . the commission will tour the final city , moscow , next week , a visit that coincides with the world_figure_skating_championships . it is focusing on the technical aspects of each bid , with a heavy emphasis on saving the i.o.c . the stress of its experience with athens , when dragged out preparations turned into a mad sprint to be ready for the opening ceremony last august . so , while new york and london require mental pictures , computer renderings and a belief that urban transformation would leave both cities and the olympic movement with rich legacies , paris 's simplicity has become its greatest strength . back for a third bid in the past 20 years after losing the 1992 race to barcelona , spain , and 2008 to beijing , paris draws no questions about its commitment to the games . its motto l'amour des jeux translates roughly to love of the games . its infrastructure draws few concerns . its metro needs no overhaul . its construction plan is minimalist , relying on 13 temporary facilities including ones to play host to basketball and baseball . and the stade de france , which has also held the world track and field championships , speaks for itself . ''we have had time , '' philippe baudillon , paris 's bid leader , said in a telephone interview . ''working for 20 years allows us a little more time to understand what we need for the organization of the games . '' it is also a reason why paris intends to take a more low key approach toward the evaluation team , which has been treated to lavish dinners with royalty in madrid and london , and received star treatment in a new york draped in olympic banners and dinner with celebrity guests . paris is responding with a dinner with president jacques_chirac and the mayor , bertrand delanoe , and has festooned itself in paris 2012 paraphernalia , including five million baguettes swathed in bid sponsored wrappers . but the bid is guided by people who have been through this process before and understand that ceremony goes only so far . baudillon led the team that prepared paris 's bid for the 1992 games , which lost to barcelona , the hometown of juan_antonio_samaranch , the i.o.c . president at the time . baudillon was not involved in the effort to land the 2008 games , a race paris lost badly to beijing , knocked out in the first round of voting amid complaints of the bid team 's arrogance . at the time , baudillon was an adviser to the prime_minister , which gave him a hand in what is now considered a paris strength , the building of the stade de france . ''the choice was whether we would build a stadium just for soccer or a stadium that could host an olympic_games , '' baudillon said . ''and i had to convince them because i knew we had to have this kind of stadium . i know it is a very important venue . '' now , baudillon can show the evaluation commission how paris 2012 plans to surround the stadium with six temporary facilities , to hold everything from basketball to judo , and a permanent aquatics center and an arena for gymnastics . for the other major cluster of sites , the centerpiece would be roland_garros for tennis and the parc des princes stadium for soccer . most of the sites around them would also be temporary . it leaves paris with much less of a physical legacy the gritty neighborhood around the stade de france , for instance , would probably return to grittiness but it gives the feeling that paris could be ready to play host to the games with a little heavy lifting . even the smallest sign of a setback , like paris announcing its aquatics center would not be ready to hold swimming 's world_championships in 2009 , has been trumpeted by rivals like london as a sign of weakness . it rang less than convincing , considering how much paris already has in place . ''not only do we have the stadium , we know how to use it , '' baudillon said . ''i think it 's an asset but it is important that we know how it works for a big event , how the public can get in and out . '' the proposed athletes' village , midway between the two clusters , is the one project that qualifies as any kind of urban_renewal project . currently dominated by railway tracks and warehouses , the batignolles district of the 17th arrondisement is considered the last piece of undeveloped real_estate in central paris , a_12 minute metro ride from the champs_lys_es . but it pales in comparison to the makeovers proposed by london and new york . london 's olympic_park would replace a depressed area with a mix of sports facilities and an olympic village that would become much needed mixed income housing after the games . the plans include a new rail_link to central_london , which is seen as a lifeline to a dying part of the city . ''i think our olympic_park is next generation thinking , '' coe said . ''we want to use sports as part of the regeneration process . '' new york not only proposes to remake manhattan 's far west side , but also etches new life into stretches of the queens and brooklyn waterfronts , as well as reclaiming two polluted lakes in queens for the rowing competition and turning part of staten_island 's fresh_kills_landfill into a park with a mountain biking course . ''the thing we hear over and over and over is 'legacy , ''' daniel l . doctoroff , the deputy_mayor and the nyc2012 founder , said . ''based on what we have heard , it is very important . these are an important part of our legacy . '' but they are also much more difficult to demonstrate to the entire i.o.c. , whose members are no longer allowed to visit the bid cities en_masse , and they do not provide the safety of a less ambitious plan like paris . new york 's efforts are also tangled in the controversy over the west side stadium , something doctoroff knows must be settled before the vote in july for the city to avoid giving the i.o.c . athens like flashbacks . paris , meanwhile , has slid easily into its role as favorite . the i.o.c . remains eurocentric 53 of its 117 members are from european_countries . four of the five finalists are european capitals . and even though the 2004 summer games were in athens and the 2006 winter_games will be in turin , italy , the next two 2008 in beijing and 2010 in vancouver , british_columbia are outside europe and that qualifies as a respectable gap . but the leaders of the paris bid are careful not to get comfortable as the theoretical front runner . ''we never take that into account , '' baudillon said . ''each bid has some assets and has problems to cope with . so i do n't believe paris is leading the competition . i think it is like a track and field competition . if you start to look at what people around you are doing , you do n't make your race . i want to make my race . '' that race is a bit more uphill for new york and london . the i.o.c . will have to decide whether it wants to make the extra effort . olympics",has a topic of sports
"during this long summer of unrelenting heat waves , young and old alike across the japanese archipelago have found distraction in an unlikely drama about baseball . the drama revolves around the future of the financially endangered kintetsu_buffaloes here in western japan 's largest city . but it has also become a drama about many things at this particular point in japan 's history , including the clash between the old and new , collusive business practices , the role of sports in society and the neglected voices of the ordinary japanese . as expected , there is a good guy and a bad guy . wanting to save the buffaloes is a 31 year old self made multimillionaire who dropped out of japan 's top university to build his own internet company , a complete outsider who wears t shirts at news conferences and wheels around town in his silver blue ferrari . wanting to kill the buffaloes is a 78 year old insider , who over the decades navigated the shadowy corridors of politics and media to seize control of japan 's , and the world 's , largest newspaper and , ultimately , japanese_baseball . emperor and emperor slayer , the two share the very un japanese habit of tossing verbal grenades at each other , making no attempt to hide their mutual contempt . it all began in june with the announcement of a merger of the buffaloes and a kobe team called orix bluewave . japanese_baseball teams , long considered publicity arms for their parent companies , are not necessarily expected to make money . but the parent companies themselves began struggling during the long economic slump . and the teams' losses have grown especially heavy with the increasing popularity of a new soccer league and the fading allure of baseball . japan 's two league , 12 team system is controlled by the 12 ''owners , '' with no voice given to the commissioner , players or , least of all , the fans . many owners are in reality salarymen who rose inside their companies and who , with no particular background in sports or baseball , ended up heading the baseball division . standing first among equals was the chairman of the owners' committee , tsuneo watanabe , the owner of the yomiuri_giants , the tokyo team around which all of japanese_baseball revolves . to increase each share of a shrinking pie , mr . watanabe was long known to be the strongest proponent of reducing the sport to one league of 10 , or perhaps 8 , teams . fans , who would lose their teams , and players , who would lose their jobs , were unhappy . but what could they do against the likes of mr . watanabe , also chairman of the yomiuri media group ? enter takafumi horie , the 31 year old chief executive of livedoor , which offers internet related services and generated revenues of 100 million last year . he proposed buying the buffaloes , taking its stock public and letting fans and employees own shares . he would tie the team 's identity to its hometown , not its company . little known outside his industry , mr . horie became famous overnight and a darling of buffaloes fans . there was one problem , though . the buffaloes' owners said they were n't interested in selling . it took mr . watanabe to explain why . "" you ca n't enter without the approval of the owners' committee , '' mr . watanabe said . ''we ca n't let some unknown person in , someone even i do n't know . in professional_baseball , each team has its traditions , and you ca n't buy a team so easily just because you have money . '' mr . horie was equally generous in his contempt , repeatedly describing the team owners as ''the club of old men . '' in an interview inside his office in tokyo , mr . horie , asked why the team owners were refusing to talk with him , answered , ''pride , maybe , from old age . '' ''those salarymen chief executives do n't have many personal assets compared to business owners who started their own business , and so they 're rather greedy and cling to power , '' he said . ''they 're smug in their little world and , lacking fresh blood , they can only think about shrinking the industry . '' asked about mr . watanabe , who declined to be interviewed , mr . horie said ''i ca n't regard him highly as either a company president or manager . he is a symbol of old japan . '' masayuki tamaki , a sports critic , said neither mr . watanabe nor the other owners had attempted any real reforms to revitalize baseball . ''the baseball teams' presidents are people who are dispatched to the teams from their parent companies for two , three years , '' mr . tamaki said . ''what they do is spend their time getting autographs to present them as gifts to bar girls . '' masaru kaneko , a professor of economics at keio_university , said the baseball brouhaha symbolized a larger problem in japan 's business world the older generation in charge , bankrupt of ideas and unwilling to accept them from the younger generation , engaging in mergers simply to project the image of reform . ''mergers are happening everywhere banks , trading companies , local_governments , public highway corporations , '' he said . ''while mergers are occurring in the name of reform , they are actually just cutting the number of participants and lack any substantive reforms . '' while the fans and players rooted for mr . horie , there was the resigned belief here that unless something drastic happened , the team owners led by mr . watanabe would endorse the merger at their next meeting in september . then another act unfolded in summer 's baseball drama . announcing that his team scouts had improperly given 20 , 000 to a prospective player , mr . watanabe resigned abruptly from the team and the owners' committee . suspicions arose immediately . why would he step down over a minor violation ? was the resignation simply a ploy for mr . watanabe to bail out ? after all , he will remain the chairman of the yomiuri media group and a subordinate will become the owner of the baseball_team . mr . watanabe , it seemed to many , was stepping into a role that may be new to him but is old to japan that of shadow shogun . then it was mr . horie 's turn . evidently frustrated that the buffaloes' owners would not sell him the team , he announced he would create a new one . both men , in this new chapter of this unfinished drama about the old and new japan , were true to type . letter from asia",has a topic of sports
"a few hours after arriving in japan , jets quarterback chad pennington ventured out for sushi with buccaneers center john wade , a former teammate of his at marshall . ''i was the guinea pig , '' pennington said . ''i had to taste everything before he 'd eat it . the whole time i was wondering , 'am i doing this right ? ''' the n.f.l . 's ambassadors to japan stepped into oz today with a bilingual news conference and tentative attempts by some to get out of the hotel and see the city before the american bowl_game between the jets and tampa_bay on saturday at the tokyo_dome . all the familiar signs of professional sports are here , as if transplanted directly from an american city in autumn autograph hounds albeit very polite ones in the hotel lobby and coaches who give cryptic answers when asked about game plans . but some things seemed to be lost in the translation . when the hotel elevator doors opened , all 317 pounds of the jets rookie defensive_tackle dewayne robertson stepped inside , in full uniform , causing a japanese family of four to cease talking and back farther into the elevator . robertson and others less adventurous than pennington wound up eating in a nearby mcdonald 's . saturday 's game is intended to promote the league throughout japan , but there clearly are still a few cultural chasms that have yet to be traversed . tampa_bay coach jon gruden unleashed his japanese ( ''domo arigato , '' meaning ''thank you'' ) during the news conference , and he joked that shinzo yamada , the japanese player who will join the bucs for the game , had saved the day because he was able to lead kicker martin gramatica to the restrooms at narita_airport . the story drew laughs from the english speaking reporters and , after it was translated , total silence from the japanese reporters . bucs defensive lineman warren sapp , one of the best known n.f.l . stars , was addressed by an american reporter based in japan as mr . wapp . and though everyone was astounded at how clean tokyo is , cuisine seemed to divide the players . as he had promised before leaving new york , jets center kevin mawae ate at the sizzler in the team hotel . ( ''go where you know , '' he said . ) but he said he hoped to ride an enormous roller_coaster that sat directly outside the hotel doors . ''we 've had no experience with the culture other than the language_barrier at the hotel , '' mawae said . pennington , however , not only ate sushi , but also agreed when a local television reporter asked if he would videotape an encouraging word for a japanese flag football team . at least both teams knew what they were doing for a few hours today as they practiced for the game ( 5 a.m . saturday , eastern time ) . practices took place in the tokyo_dome outfield , which sported a 50 yard grid . as soon as the jets finished , the grid was erased so a baseball game could be played there tonight . the jets practiced as full speed as they could under the conditions . later , jets coach herman edwards asked if the tampa_bay defense , which he once helped coach , could take it easy on the jets after the starters leave the game . edwards said that he wanted yoshi imoto , the japanese receiver who will play with the jets in this game only , to catch a pass . that should n't be a problem . none of the starters on either team are expected to play more than a few series saturday . that will give quarterback chris simms , the bucs' third round draft choice , the opportunity to play much of the second half . simms said today that he is passionate about getting the chance to prove the rest of the league wrong for passing on him in the draft . but first he was going shopping with a teammate , receiver keyshawn johnson , to find a pair of dress shoes for a jacket required reception . ''i get to hang with the blond bombshell he 'll be like beckham in a couple of minutes , '' said johnson , invoking the soccer megastar david_beckham , who is an icon in japan . the n.f.l . would love for its stars to achieve beckham like status here , but , as sapp can attest , they are not yet close . gruden responded to a question about the possibility of using trick plays in the game by saying ''a lot of plays are still in the laboratory . and they are n't ready for consumption yet . '' the n.f.l . must hope that in its 11th try , the american bowl in tokyo will move the league beyond that . extra points bucs linebacker derrick brooks , the defensive player of the year last season , did not make the trip because his mother , who lives in florida , is ill . pro_football",has a topic of sports
"as the leaders practiced their free skate programs today , simulating what they hope will become medal winning performances friday night in the concluding round of the olympic women 's figure_skating competition , surya bonaly of france converted nine triple_jumps , the most of any skater , but left out her backflip . how critical was this , with the glamour event of the albertville games just a day away ? not very , from the whimsical look on bonaly 's face , as she left the arena , not talking because of a sore_throat . her mother , however , seemed downright annoyed , and she had no sore_throat . thus , the serenity of a routine day of preparation was broken , providing at least one minor diversion from the building drama of who would succeed katarina_witt as olympic champion the ever steady and imperturable kristi_yamaguchi of fremont , calif . , who held first place after the original program on wednesday night nancy_kerrigan of stoneham , mass . , whose growing elegance brought her to second place or the two participants in this little subplot , bonaly and midori_ito of japan , who held third and fourth ? ito first overshadowed in practice suzanne bonaly had been told by the competition referee , ben wright of the united_states that surya could do no more backflips in practice , as she had wednesday morning , just a shadow length from ito . wright saw it happen and viewed it as sheer intimidation , inasmuch as backflips are not allowed in performance . sure enough , in her original program , ito fell on the most difficult triple_jump she tried and left the ice looking appropriately distraught for a favorite who had just skated out of serious gold_medal contention . she wore the same haunted look this morning in practice . "" of course , it was intimidation , "" wright said today . "" whether or not it was intentional or not , i do n't know . but these people have enough problems putting their mental state in order without this kind of bashing going on . "" suzanne bonaly thought it was intimidation all right , wright intimidating her daughter to make certain the two americans stay closer to the gold than her daughter . besides , she said , surya needs those backflips as part of her daily workout routine . "" to do it at that time is to unnerve surya , "" she said of wright 's admonition . "" it made her very upset . "" in any other sport , this would be little more than a tempest in a teapot , but this is figure_skating , a virtual china shop of emotions . the pressures are that much more acute upon bonaly as european champion , the home country favorite and a skater of uncommon background . she is the 18 year old adopted daughter of an administrator with the french defense ministry , georges , and his wife , who works as one of surya 's trainers . for years , the parents perpetuated the story that surya was from reunion , a french island in the indian_ocean . more recently , they have said that her natural parents were from reunion and that she was born in nice , where georges and suzanne lived when they adopted surya . they have since moved to paris . in any case , the daughter grew in rapunzel fashion , never cutting her hair . she eats only natural foods , travels with her dogs in a van , preaches environmentalism and thrives in a sport in which nearly every participant is white or oriental . surya is black . her distinctiveness was reflected by her athletic career . once a gymnast and world junior tumbling champion in 1986 , she eventually narrowed her focus to skating . by 1989 , she finished 10th at the world_championships and in 1990 won her first of two european championships . other top jumping skaters have struggled to match their athleticism with artistry notably ito and tonya_harding of portland , ore . , who was sixth after wednesday . bonaly found her disparity stubbornly in tact until only recently , when her coach , didier gailhaguet , finally coaxed some elegance out of her . her jumping still dominates her programs , however , even if ito and harding are the only women to have converted a triple_axel in competition . bonaly has landed a quadruple toe_loop in practice and included one today . in all likelihood , she will skip the quad in her free skate and try about eight triples . most other skaters attempt no more than seven . "" what she does is her decision alone at the time , "" said suzanne bonaly , who frequently speaks for her daughter . for her program , bonaly has chosen a medley of spanish music as background for a simulated bullfight , in which the bull proves so courageous , the matador allows him to live . given her remarkable athletic ability , it once might have been fair to wonder which role she plays . but befitting her place in the standing and proximity to a medal no french woman has won since jacqueline du bief was third 40 years ago , bonaly as matador has proved herself a challenger worthy of serious consideration . even if her bull could not distinguish the rink from a china shop . albertville",has a topic of sports
"albertville , france as the 1988 winter_olympics in calgary , alberta , ended and organizers were congratulating themselves for a job well done , senior members of the international_olympic_committee observed that only cities at least that big , 636 , 000 , might assure success for future winter_games . six months later , the committee awarded the 1994 games to lillehammer , a town of 22 , 000 in norway . meanwhile , there were the 1992 winter_games to consider , and they are likely to disprove the observations of 1988 in a different way . while it is hard to imagine a more spectacular olympic setting than the savoie region of france , no winter_games in history have fanned out across so many square miles , 615 of them . for those who want to see more than one event a day , which was relatively easy in calgary , bring a helicopter . o.k. , that 's impractical . pack a hang glider . the only concentrated area of competition is in albertville , where an indoor arena for figure_skating and short_track skating , a new medal sport , sits beside an outdoor oval for speed_skating . a 30 , 000 seat stadium for opening and closing ceremonies is under construction nearby . otherwise , it 's one narrow road and switchback turn after another to reach nine other competition sites . skiing events alone will be held at seven different places . few doubt organizers' ability few doubt that the albertville organizers can pull it off . olympics have been canceled for war , never for inconvenience . but unlike the games in calgary , where the venues were situated in the metropolitan_area or at mountains easily reached by freeways , the albertville games will severely test the patience and comfort of those who experience them , even with all the buses designated for ticket_holders and officials . with less than a year before opening ceremonies on feb . 8 , the man most responsible for the disposition of the games sat at his desk one recent afternoon , baffled by a sudden and relentless ringing of his telephone , one of those newer models with more buttons than numbers . "" i do n't know how to work these phones , "" jean_claude_killy muttered . "" how do they expect me to run the games ? "" with respect to the olympics , he was kidding . once a national hero and heartthrob for winning three gold medals in skiing at the 1968 grenoble games , killy is the 47 year old co president of the albertville organizing_committee , the first olympic champion to serve in such a position . he grew up in val_d'isere , site of the men 's alpine events , and knows the twists and turns of the savoie as well as anyone , not to mention its storied ski_resorts and challenging slopes . "" cities like sapporo , calgary and innsbruck probably made more sense , "" he said . "" these will be mountain olympics , real winter_olympics . "" was that a diabolical smile , or just his confidence showing ? staging the olympics is nothing new to france . the first winter_games , in 1924 , were held in chamonix , and 44 years later they came to grenoble , where killy won the downhill , slalom , giant_slalom and the hearts of his country . but like the host cities killy mentioned , they were relatively compact affairs , nothing so complicated as staging events across seven valleys of the savoie , where the idea to try again had floated about for years like mountain fog , never materializing . it was n't until late 1981 that a formal campaign crystalized behind the efforts of killy and michel_barnier , a savoie native serving in the national_assembly and president of the region 's governing_council . together , they saw what a bid could mean to the area 's principal industry , tourism . in a word roads . "" the state was late 20 years , "" killy said , referring to promises of help . "" that 's the reason why we wanted to do it . the biggest winner of these games will be tourism . "" the campaign was won five years after it began , when the international_olympic_committee chose albertville over six other candidates , including anchorage . for killy , a wealthy businessman who made big money in real_estate and sportswear , the jubilation was short lived . as the organizing_committee had grown to unwieldy proportions , with too many resorts promised competitions , he recommended scaling back , an idea that did not please civic leaders of villages left out of his consolidation . he was shocked and offended when some of them demanded he resign . rather than fight , he did . "" i was disappointed to have to leave and not do the thing i wanted , simplify the system , "" he said of his resignation in early 1987 . "" there were just too many people involved . having gotten the games for these guys , i thought i had more credibility . the idea is so large , i just thought everybody would go for it , whether they got events or lost them . "" the year that followed was traumatic for killy as well as the organizing_committee . within 10 months of his resignation , his wife of 14 years , daniele gaubert , died of cancer . meanwhile , i.o.c . officials began to consider it ludicrous , a savoie olympics without its native_son . in time , juan_antonio_samaranch , the i.o.c . president , and a man ever sensitive to image and public perception , made it clear he wanted killy back . "" barnier is known only in france , "" said jean_marie choffel , the director of tourism at meribel , the site for hockey and women 's alpine events . "" jean_claude_killy is a flag for the world . "" killy returned in march 1988 with an enthusiasm bordering on obsessive as plans narrowed to 10 competition sites , with other towns for the athletes' villages and centers for press and television . now an unsalaried co president with barnier , who handled the political side of issues , killy immersed himself in every phase of the mammoth project , reveling in the variety . "" i have a natural curiosity , "" he said . "" i want to know why and who does what . i try to grab onto everything . i did n't think i would enjoy it as much as i have . "" the objects of his curiosity abound . in recent months , environmental concerns developed over the ammonia being used to refrigerate the bobsled and luge runs in la_plagne , construction was slowed on the ski_jump slope in courchevel because of undetected underground springs and sections of the speed_skating track in albertville had melted in sunlight , exposing the sand beneath the ice . in each case , the problem was solved . but some continue . throughout the region work continues on projects designed to move people along faster , financed by the largest allocation from the 567 million guaranteed by the federal and regional governments . improvements to the highway from albertville to moutiers , a town where most roads leading to the mountains begin , is nearly complete , with two lanes added to the existing two . and tracks for a high_speed_train line have been laid in beside it . but few of the snaking mountain roads have been touched , leaving many rutted in spots and still dangerous in others , with soft shoulders and no guard rails . "" work is scheduled to start on them this summer , "" said anne quantin , a member of the public_relations staff , as she steered a van around the hairpin turns . even so , it 's scary to imagine what they might be like under ice and snow , with cars and buses straining to get ticket_holders , journalists and officials to the venues in time . under normal circumstances , traffic_jams during peak ski season are legendary . killy stressed that it 's far too soon to worry , citing all the work that has been done as reason enough to remain optimistic . then he recalled the 1984 summer_olympics in los_angeles , which would have been doomed under all the dire_predictions of stifling smog and traffic . "" i never heard of games that did n't create negativity beforehand , "" he said . "" if you listened to the press before los_angeles , all you heard about was the smog and traffic . what never materialized ? smog and traffic . "" even by factoring into his enthusiasm a qualifier , his lifetime love and familiarity with the area , it 's hard to resist his passion . as a skier , he never found a mountain he could n't conquer . he skis less these days , but his attitude is unchanged , thanks to a lesson he learned too late from his seven years as a member of the french national ski team . careening down mountains so fast , he had little time to appreciate the experience in a larger context . "" i always thought to myself , 'why do n't i enjoy this more ? ' "" he said , drawing a parallel to his current position . "" i know we 're at the end now . i 'm missing it already . "" olympics",has a topic of sports
"six years ago , as the major_league playoffs dominated the attention of american baseball fans , bobby_valentine was asked about the potential impact of a player from japan . valentine , then managing the mets , said he believed the player was already one of the five best in the world . that player was ichiro_suzuki , who quickly proved valentine right by winning the american_league most valuable player award for seattle the next season . now , as the manager of the chiba_lotte_marines in japan , valentine has a more intimate knowledge of japanese talent . if his instincts are the same , then daisuke_matsuzaka will be the next big star in the majors . ''this guy is the real deal , '' valentine said last week in an e mail message . ''he has the ability to be one of the top starters in m.l.b . '' matsuzaka , a 26 year old right hander , was the most valuable player of the world_baseball_classic in march . his team , the seibu lions , gave him permission last week to pursue a career in the majors , and the yankees are among the teams expected to show strong interest . japanese players need nine seasons before becoming eligible for free_agency , but matsuzaka will be using the loophole suzuki and others have used . the lions will post him for blind bids by major_league teams . the team that bids the highest will get exclusive negotiating rights with matsuzaka for 30 days . if there is no deal within that window , the team 's buy in is returned and matsuzaka continues to play in japan . teams can begin bidding around nov . 1 . ''you 're trying to assess how much interest there really is in the player , '' said san_diego_padres general_manager kevin towers , speaking of the bidding process . ''it depends on how much you want the player . if you want him , you do n't want to make a lowball bid . but also , if there 's not a lot of interest , you do n't want to overpay . '' after the 2003 season , towers made a successful bid of 300 , 000 for the rights to reliever akinori otsuka . the matsuzaka bid should dwarf that figure . valentine predicted it would cost a team more than 20 million for the right to negotiate with matsuzaka . ( the mariners' winning bid for suzuki was 13 . 125 million . ) then the team must negotiate a contract with matsuzaka , who has leverage because he can return to japan and put off free_agency until next season , when all teams can talk with him . matsuzaka , who will surely command a high salary , is expected to name scott_boras as his agent soon . boras visited japan this summer to see matsuzaka . not surprisingly , he called him an ace who can dominate with his fastball . ''he can pitch upstairs in the strike_zone at 95 96 miles an hour , '' boras said . ''he 's in his mid 20 's , and he 's a strong , disciplined athlete . he certainly has no . 1 potential , no question . '' one scout who has seen matsuzaka extensively said his skills went beyond talent . the scout , who asked not to be identified , said matsuzaka had the competitive drive to battle out of jams . ''it 's not only his stuff his ability to pitch is even more impressive , '' the scout said . ''he 's a bulldog . '' the scout said that while matsuzaka could throw 95 miles an hour , his fastball was usually around 92 93 valentine described the fastball as ''a little above average . '' but matsuzaka 's command is excellent , his slider called a ''gyroball'' in japan is sharp , and valentine called his changeup devastating . matsuzaka will be on display again in the first week of november , when a contingent of major_leaguers , including carlos beltr n , jos_reyes and david wright of the mets and mike myers of the yankees , will play an exhibition series in japan . it will be still more work for a pitcher who was used heavily this season , perhaps because the lions expected to let him go . matsuzaka went 17 5 with a 2 . 13 earned_run_average and exceeded 120 pitches in 12 of his 25 regular season starts . in his final start , a shutout in the playoffs , he threw 137 pitches and had 13 strikeouts . as polished as matsuzaka is , valentine said , ''he lost a little this year . '' ''it was probably because of the w.b.c . , '' he said . ''he did have a few small injuries for the first time in his life . '' fans in japan are used to improbable feats from matsuzaka . he rose to fame in 1998 , when he led his high_school team to a national championship with a remarkable three days of work . on the first day , he threw 250 pitches over 17 innings . the next day , he played the outfield and recorded a save . the third day , he clinched the title with a nine inning no_hitter . by the next season , matsuzaka had joined the lions . according to time asia , the lions allowed him to attend that year 's braves yankees world_series at yankee_stadium while the other players were in training camp . the magazine called him the biggest draw in japan 's pacific_league . ''i 've never seen anything like it , '' reggie jefferson , an american then playing in japan , told the magazine . ''he 's like a rock star . '' matsuzaka went on to compete in two olympics for japan , and he is 108 60 in eight years with the lions . few seem to doubt that his skills will translate to the majors . while hideki_irabu and kaz matsui have been disappointments , most japanese stars tend to play as well or better than expected . that group includes tadahito iguchi , hideki_matsui , hideo_nomo and takashi saito , among others . ''for every one of them that 's struggled , you have stories like saito and otsuka , guys that probably were n't expected to do as well as they have , but have performed even better than what their clubs hoped , '' towers said . ''i do n't know how risky it really is anymore . most of those guys have come over and improved our game . '' the secret is out , and the price is going up . baseball",has a topic of sports
"the former world figure_skating champion midiro ito has applied for reinstatement that would make her eligible for future world_championships and the 1998 winter_olympics in her native japan . however , the biggest surprise on the list released yesterday by the international skating union was the omission of last year 's olympic gold medalist , oksana baiul of ukraine . ineligible skaters had until april 1 to apply , via their national federations , for reinstatement . during last month 's world_championships at birmingham , england , the i.s.u . tried to entice many of the sport 's big names to return by introducing prize money for all its competitions starting next season . ( ap ) sports people figure_skating",has a topic of sports
"we all know about george 's obsessions . he is often fixated with the mysterious gunslinger on the big horse who will ride into town and make everything all right . sometimes george does persuade the big guy to materialize , the way he did with reggie and catfish . sometimes the big guy spurns him , the way greg maddux and roger_clemens did . sometimes they are shooting blanks by the time they arrive in george 's corral . but he never stops trying . right now george is totally absorbed with a pitcher from japan named hideki_irabu , who may , in turn , be obsessed with pitching for the yankees . george is perfectly willing to spend the msg network 's television money and adidas' money and some talent to get irabu from san_diego , and he has no qualms about plunging his team into turmoil just before the season ( george would call it ''creative tension'' ) . while the yankees were rained out of a game in grambling , la . , yesterday , steinbrenner was in florida , perhaps even working on the irabu deal , which must be clarified in the next several days . normally , i would be skeptical about bringing in a pitcher from a foreign league , but i cannot help remembering last year , when the yankees won the world_series , and steinbrenner did not mess it up by making bad trades or shooting off his mouth , as he has done a few times in the past . is it possible george is on a psychic hot streak that leapt from 1996 right into 1997 ? last year he did not panic into sending mariano_rivera away in a trade . last year he was willing to upgrade the yankees by trading ruben sierra for the very expensive cecil_fielder . also last year , he forced his ''baseball people'' to bring in doc gooden and darryl_strawberry , using his intuition that these two guys had something left . he was also willing to live off somebody else 's magic in their case , the aura of the mets of the 1980 's . doc and darryl made huge contributions to the world championship . doc pitched well until his body ran out of gas and darryl played well at times , including in the field . just as important , they and david_cone , of course , took the heat off the newer , younger , more modest yankees . they knew how to act in a pennant race . steinbrenner 's tropism to sadder but wiser older guys helped pay off in rings for everybody . the boss hears that the burly 28 year old irabu can bust fastballs with the top 10 percent of major_league starters . george must also like irabu 's ultimatum that he will play for the yankees or nobody . the padres made their own little joke by saying they would accept derek_jeter as payment for the rights to irabu . everybody knows jeter is a classic yankee with the 1950 's stamped all over his body and his mind . now the padres seemed willing to take ricky ledee as payment for irabu , if steinbrenner dares give him up . ricky ledee surely looks like a player . he filled up most of the television screen during the yankees' first exhibition broadcast . ledee is the best chiseled yankee prospect since ruben rivera . since hensley meulens . since fred mcgriff . since willie mcgee . since roger repoz . since mickey_mantle . you see my point . it 's a gamble . while chasing irabu , the yankees are also considering a long contract for cecil_fielder , who has been nothing but duplicitous since helping to win the series . i say the yankees could live without fielder . he 's already ticked off the manager and the players . money is no big deal right now because steinbrenner arranged that 90 million , 10 year deal with adidas that his lawyers say is legal . and i would not count on major_league_baseball being able to get its act together to challenge george 's lawyers . the part i really like is phil knight of nike saying that baseball had blown it big time by allowing steinbrenner to make that deal . is knight not the same man who cooked up a similar deal with jerry jones of the dallas_cowboys ? this phil knight is now criticizing baseball and adidas and steinbrenner ? the man has chutzpah . he should worry about his sweatshops in asia producing goods that make michael_jordan and jerry rice and tiger woods even richer . it 's a bad time to be telling the boss what to do . the man won a world_series on instinct . what if he 's right about irabu ? sports of the times",has a topic of sports
"an american tour company said today that 15 , 000 world_cup tickets were stolen from its paris office this morning , the latest twist in the uproar over the sale of tickets for the monthlong tournament . gillian pattison , a spokeswoman for prime sports international , said burglars broke into the company 's offices early_today , smashed a safe , grabbed more than 560 , 000 and made off with tickets for most of the remaining matches , including the final in st . denis on july 12 . the police confirmed that the robbery had taken place . but it was not clear why the company , based in beverly_hills , calif . , had so much cash or so many tickets in its office . a news release from the company offered a no questions asked reward of one million francs ( 166 , 500 ) for information leading to the return of the tickets . it quoted a company official , steve yovetich , as saying the tickets , all promised to customers , were ''important to our reputation . '' yovetich declined to respond to a telephone call , and pattison said she could not elaborate beyond saying that all the tickets had been sold to ''overseas customers'' who would be reimbursed if the tickets were not recovered . matt thacker , an official at prime sports international in beverly_hills , said he had no information , adding , ''we are a little in the dark because of the time difference . '' the theft came as complaints continued to pour in from thousands of supporters , including large belgian , brazilian and japanese contingents , who say tour operators have promised them tickets that have not been delivered . at least one paris hotel had to call the police to calm an irate crowd of brazilians whose promised tickets for the opening match 10 days ago had not appeared . the police and prosecutors have opened investigations into possible fraud that have already led to the arrest of two officials linked to isl worldwide , the official marketing agency of the international soccer federation , fifa , which organizes the world_cup . as is customary in france with ongoing investigations , the police have declined to comment . the world_cup , held every four years , has turned into an enormous business , with fifa reaping large payments from the sale of television rights and sponsoring contracts . as the fever to get tickets for games has mounted , prices for tickets have soared , with some reports suggesting that tickets for the final on july 12 may fetch over 15 , 000 each . there appear to be fortunes to be made on the black_market , and advertisements have begun to appear daily in newspapers from people seeking tickets . to date , the police and judicial investigations here have focused on isl france , the french subsidiary of isl worldwide , which is based in switzerland . the general director of the subsidiary , marc loison , and a consultant , gilles favard , have both been detained by the police for questioning on the possible fraudulent sale of tickets . the arrests followed a lawsuit filed by a french lawyer , francis debacker , representing four japanese tour operators who said they had paid for 15 , 000 tickets promised by favard but never delivered . in theory , isl france is supposed to market the world_cup but not sell any tickets . the sale of tickets was directed by france 's central organizing_committee for the world_cup , which was further embarrassed today by reports that a confidential phone_number leaked to a few privileged fans allowed them to buy huge blocks of seats when 170 , 000 tickets were put up for sale on a first come , first served basis on april 22 . bruno travade , a spokesman for the organizing_committee , said the committee had asked france telecom , the country 's main telephone company , to conduct an investigation into the existence of a secret number and would file charges if necessary . official phone lines were constantly busy when the tickets went on sale , and newspapers here were full of calculations from mathematicians putting the odds of getting through at one in several million . ''the system of ticket sales was not organized in a perfect manner , '' said sepp blatter , the president of fifa . ''indeed it was far from perfect . '' as the ticket scandal raged , the police moved to stop trouble on another front . the sale of alcohol around a paris stadium , the parc des princes , was banned during matches and for several hours before and after them . during the germany united_states game on monday , a number of german fans outside the stadium were arrested after minor clashes with the police . alcohol sales were also banned in the vicinity of five large video screens erected in the capital to show the games . ''we want to reassure parisians of their security , '' philippe massoni , the chief of police , said . english soccer hooligans have not yet disturbed the peace of paris , but reports of their behavior in the southern city of marseilles have caused concern here despite the fact that england 's next two games are in toulouse and lens . world_cup '98",has a topic of sports
"when the city of nagano in central japan was competing against salt_lake_city to win the right to be host for the 1998 winter_olympics , it made a rash campaign promise . "" in order to achieve full participation from all over the world , following the guidance of the i.o.c. , we are prepared to bear the transportation , meals and lodging expenses of all the delegations , "" the city pledged in its formal bid to the international_olympic_committee . that promise helped nagano beat salt_lake_city , the front runner , by a mere four votes . but nagano is running short of funds and now says it will not pay all expenses after all . japanese officials deny that they are breaking their promise , or that they beat salt_lake_city with bait and switch tactics . instead , they note that costs have soared , and they say they simply cannot afford to pay all the costs . "" we never thought of breaking our promise , "" said fumio watanabe , the deputy director general of the nagano olympic organizing_committee . "" we are basically making our utmost efforts in a sincere attempt to keep our promise on this point and others . "" watanabe and other officials declined to say what proportion of travel expenses nagano would pay on the ground that this issue is now being negotiated . but they said that they would probably pay expenses only up to a cap for each country 's delegation . so far , japan 's plan to back out of its pledge has not stirred up much of a fuss , but the issue remains a sensitive one . the nagano committee agreed to an interview on the issue only with great reluctance , and it said that it would disclose the proportion of expenses it would cover only after negotiations with the i.o.c . are finished in another month or so . in addition , salt_lake_city is not in a mood to complain because last year it won the right to be host for the 2002 winter_olympics . the i.o.c . has no formal policy on general payments for expenses , according to mike moran , director of public information for the united_states_olympic_committee . the first host city to offer to pay travel and lodging expenses to all competing nations was calgary , alberta , in a successful bid for the 1988 winter_games . since then , the practice has been used as a bargaining_chip in the bidding process . but the definition of expenses has never been clear , and it is left to the host organizing_committee to make the final determination . the shortage of funds is hampering plans for the nagano olympics in other ways . a new ice_hockey stadium was originally supposed to have 12 , 000 seats , but that has been cut back to 8 , 100 plus standing room for 2 , 000 people . more fundamentally , the whole idea of nagano 's having the olympics no longer seems as heartwarming to japan as it did in 1991 . the city planned its bid when the country 's economy appeared much stronger . the economy has been stagnating since then , and the rise of the yen means that television rights sold in dollars will bring in fewer yen than organizers had thought . watanabe and a foreign ministry spokesman , ken shimanouchi , argued that nagano was not necessarily reneging on a promise . they said that the phrasing "" expenses of all the delegations "" did not necessarily mean "" expenses of all the members of all the delegations . "" as a result , shimanouchi said , japan 's credibility would not be affected as it bids for other international competitions . japan is vying fiercely with south_korea for the right to be host for soccer 's world_cup in 2002 . one of the two countries will be chosen june 1 to be the first asian nation to be the site of the world_cup . olympics",has a topic of sports
"todd hays , the top bobsled driver for the united_states , crashed in a world_cup four man race yesterday in lake placid , n.y . hays 's team was disqualified and earned no points in the competition . the russian team , piloted by alexandre zoubkov , won the gold . john eligon sports briefing winter sports",has a topic of sports
"before the opening ceremonies , jean_claude_killy , the co president of these winter_olympics , spoke of how he wanted visitors to go home with "" the feeling of having spent a fortnight of their lives on another planet the planet of the french olympics . "" but by last night 's closing ceremonies , it had evolved into the planet of the french_alps olympics . with jagged snow capped peaks kissing a canopy of crystal blue sky , the views on the trips to the mountain venues will endure in the distant replays of the mind . on the up , up , uphill road to the ski events at val_d'isere , seeing the huge face of hercules on a dam . on the twisting turns to the bobsled at la_plagne and the ski_jump at courcheval , seeing clouds floating below . on the ski lift to meribel , seeing a hang glider suspended above the ice arena where the united_states hockey team flashed and floundered . in this land of potage and fromage , in a meribel chalet restaurant named yorky 's , the view for some wanderers even included a cheeseburger and fries . if it snowed in the mountains , it rained down here in albertville , which for the last 16 days has been the olympic capital at the wide mouth of the tarentaise valley . on a warm afternoon during the first week , people were walking around albertville in shirtsleeves . some were even playing playing tennis in shorts outside the figure_skating rink and across the street from the speed_skating oval . in the coolers at the centre principal de press in the valley town of la lechere , the most popular drinks were not coca_cola and sprite , but small plastic bottles of evian water and a liquid yogurt , yop , in lemon , strawberry and peach . "" bonjour "" was enough french to get you almost anywhere and almost anything . when a journalist 's luggage was finally recovered after 24 hours on a wayward bus , the french volunteers in their silver olympic parkas celebrated by opening a bottle of champagne . when a rented car with thousands of dollars of photographic equipment was stolen , the french gendarmes considered it a routine report until they were informed that the loot included hundreds of olympic pins . "" mon dieu , "" one of the gendarmes said , "" we must get those pins back . "" even more than most olympics , pins were in demand . in a la lechere restaurant one evening , a bashful 6 year old blond girl in a pink sweater and pearls walked over to a nearby table and spoke in french to four americans who were dining on filet de bouf . "" parlez vous anglais ? "" she was asked . with a smile and perfect english , she said , "" do you have any piiiiins ? "" they did , and moments later she did . as in any olympics , the events were sometimes dazzling , sometimes dull . instead of some of the goofy events , the international_olympic_committee ought to consider a snow and ice version of the track and field decathlon , a winter_games pentathlon . competitors would participate in five events over 10 or 12 days 1 , 000 meter speed skate , luge , slalom , ski_jump and 15 kilometer cross country ski . if the decathlon supposedly produces the world 's best athlete , the snow and ice pentathlon would produce the world 's best winter athlete . the collapse of the soviet_union and its transformation into the commonwealth_of_independent_states , and the formation of one germany , created in these winter_olympics a new common_market for olympic expertise . coaches from what was once east_germany are for hire . and when a unified team figure_skating coach was asked to divulge the secret to landing smoothly after a double_axel , she smiled . "" certainly i will tell you , "" she said , "" for money . "" some of the unified team hockey players , with gold medals in hand , will soon be for sale , notably aleksei_kovalev , the 18 year old right wing . his blistering blur of a shot produced the first goal in a 5 2 victory that ended the united_states team 's hope for a gold_medal . kovalev , whose national_hockey_league rights are held by the rangers , is more available than some unified team players . the members of the red_army team in moscow , for example , are literally in the army of the former soviet_union , which will make it more difficult for them to go elsewhere , especially a younger player . in contrast , kovalev , is on the dynamo team in moscow . "" kovalev 's future depends on the leadership of his club and the federation , "" a tass journalist said . "" if the contract is good , he will be free to decide . "" but when a french volunteer in an olympic parka overheard some americans talking about how kovalev would bolster the rangers in the drive for the franchise 's first stanley_cup since 1940 , he stared at them and smirked . "" when the playoffs come , "" the volunteer said , "" the rangers lose like always . "" even on the planet of the french_alps olympics , the rangers ca n't escape their haunting heritage . but there 's always the view .",has a topic of sports
"the iraqi men 's soccer team continued its unlikely run in the olympics when it beat costa_rica , 2 0 , on sunday_night to make the quarterfinals with one round of qualifying_matches left . while empty seats heavily outnumbered fans at karaiskaki stadium , where the capacity is 33 , 353 and attendance was announced at 12 , 150 , the game was nonetheless played in a frenzied atmosphere . most of the fans were iraqis who had congregated in athens to support the team , and on sunday_night they were massed along one side of the field . none of the fans seemed to be sitting . shirtless young men balanced on the railing separating the stands from the field , unconcerned by the drop to the track below . every cut and thrust of the game and every call was greeted with wild cheering or enraged booing . one young fan who gave his name as sizar and said he had come to athens from iraq three years ago yelled joyously ''it is mad ! iraqis from germany , netherlands , england ! '' midway through the second half , iraq , which beat portugal in its first game , 4 2 , began to apply pressure with a series of corner_kicks , and the costa ricans finally paid for their inability to clear the ball . on the third consecutive corner , in the 67th minute , the ball fell to muhammad mulla hawar on the edge of the penalty area . he struck it sweetly on the volley with his left foot and into the goal , rippling the net a couple of feet off the ground . before the ball dropped to the grass , half a dozen fans brandishing iraqi flags raced onto the field , where they were chased by dozens of security guards . five minutes later , with costa_rica pressing , iraq launched a counterattack . hawar dashed up the left and curled a high ball across the goal mouth , where karim mahdi drilled in a header . ''i am very pleased that iraq has reached the quarterfinals , '' said adnan hamad majeed , iraq 's coach . ''especially considering the very difficult times . '' olympics soccer qualifying_round",has a topic of sports
"the united_states , which has struggled to find the net in recent warmup matches , put away four goals against a french second division club yesterday in st . jean d'ardieres , france . brian_mcbride , cobi jones , brian maisonneuve and ernie stewart all scored in the 4 0 victory over gueugnon , which was played behind closed doors at the americans' training facility at trevoux , about 25 miles north of lyons . all but 2 of the 22 american world_cup players took part in the game , which was their first chance to gain match fitness since arriving in france last thursday . midfielder chad deering sat out with a slight ankle strain and defender marcelo balboa was unable to play because he has two infected toes and is on antibiotics , coach steve_sampson said . the three goalkeepers , kasey_keller , brad friedel and juergen sommer , shared duties , each playing for 30 minutes . most important for sampson was to see whether forward eric_wynalda and midfielder frankie hejduk would perform well enough to be considered for the united_states' opening game on monday against germany in paris . sampson told reporters he was delighted with the performances of both men , who each played just 45 minutes . ( reuters ) england england 's squad looked fresh and relaxed when it flew into nantes last night en_route to its training base at nearby la baule . the england players , none of whom has played in a world_cup_finals match before , must have felt very much at home as they arrived in a wet and windy nantes 30 minutes behind schedule after a behind closed doors friendly against the french second division side caen . manchester united 's paul scholes scored the only goal in the 1 0 victory , and coach glenn hoddle , asked if the game had been a worthwhile exercise , smiled_broadly and said yes . very good . ( agence france press ) fifa dream team pele , michel platini and franz_beckenbauer on the same team . with diego_maradona , garrincha and johan cruyff in support . a dream team for the century was unveiled yesterday when mastercard announced the fifa world football team . the group featured four brazilians , two argentines , a german , a frenchman , a russian , an englishman and a dutchman . the team was chosen by a worldwide panel of journalists . the team consisted of the brazilians pele , garrincha , nilton santos and carlos alberto the argentines maradona and alfredo di stefano beckenbauer of germany platini of france , the co chairman of the 1998 world_cup lev yashin of russia bobby moore of england , and cruyff of the netherlands . ( ap ) world_cup notebook united_states",has a topic of sports
"hundreds of news articles and opinion pieces have described president_bush 's decision to escalate the iraq_war as a ''hail mary pass . '' but that 's the wrong metaphor . mr . bush is n't roger staubach , trying to pull out a win for the dallas_cowboys . he 's charles keating , using other people 's money to keep lincoln savings going long after it should have been shut down and squandering the life savings of thousands of investors , not to mention billions in taxpayer_dollars , along the way . the parallel is actually quite exact . during the savings and loan scandal of the 1980s , people like mr . keating kept failed banks going by faking financial success . mr . bush has kept a failed war going by faking military success . the ' 'surge'' is just another stalling tactic , designed to buy more time . oh , and one of the favorite techniques used by the owners of savings and loan associations to generate phony profits it involved making high interest loans to crooked or flaky real_estate developers came to be known as the ''texas strategy . '' what was the point of the texas strategy ? bank owners were certainly gambling with other people 's money , of course in the hope of a miraculous recovery that would bail out their negative balance_sheets . but the real point of the racket was a form of looting as long as they could keep reporting high paper profits , s . l . owners could keep rewarding themselves with salaries , dividends and sweetheart business deals . mr . keating paid himself a million dollars just weeks before his holding_company collapsed . which brings us to iraq . the administration has spent the last three years pretending that its splendid little war is n't a big disaster . there have been the bromides ( we 're making ''good progress'' ) the promises ( we have a ' 'strategy for victory'' ) and , as always , attacks on the media for not reporting the good news from iraq . who you gonna believe , the president or your lying eyes ? now mr . bush has grudgingly sort of admitted that things are n't going well but he says his ''new way forward'' will fix everything . so it 's still the texas strategy the war 's architects are trying to keep their failed venture going as long as possible . the hail mary aspect the off chance that somehow , things really will turn out all right is the least of their motivations . the real intent is a form of looting . i 'm not talking mainly about old fashioned war profiteering , although there is no question that profiteering is taking place on an epic scale . no , i 'm saying that the hawks want to keep this war going because it 's to their personal and political benefit . true , mr . bush ca n't win another election with phony claims of success in iraq , the way he did in 2004 . but escalation buys him another year or two to claim that we 're making progress and it gives him another chance to prove that he 's the decider , beyond accountability . and as for pundits who promoted the war and are now trying to sell the surge for a little while longer they can be very important people who have the president 's ear . meanwhile , the nation pays the price . the heaviest burden in death , shattered bodies , broken families and ruined careers falls on those who serve . to find the personnel for the bush escalation , the pentagon must lengthen deployments in iraq and shorten training time at home . and the back door draft has become a life_sentence there is no limit on the cumulative amount of time citizen soldiers can be required to serve on active_duty . mama , do n't let your children grow up to be reservists . the rest of us will pay a financial price for the hundreds of billions squandered in iraq and , more important , a price in reduced security . escalation wo n't bring victory in iraq , but it might bring defeat in afghanistan , which the administration will continue to neglect . and it has pushed the military to the breaking point . mr . bush calls his critics ''irresponsible , '' saying that they do n't have an alternative to his strategy . but they do setting a timetable for withdrawal , so that we can cut our losses , and trying to save what can be saved . it is n't a strategy for victory because that 's no longer an option . it 's a strategy for acknowledging reality . the lesson of the savings and loan scandal was that when a bank has failed , you should n't let the owner string you along with promises you should shut the thing down . we should do the same with mr . bush 's failed war . op_ed columnist",has a topic of sports
"the yankees were pleased with their foray into japan last winter , when they signed outfielder hideki_matsui , and they may be poised to recruit more talent from there . the star infielder kazuo_matsui interests the yankees and will begin negotiating with major_league teams soon . in the meantime , the yankees have met with shingo takatsu , the career saves leader in japan . takatsu , a sidearming right hander who had 34 saves for the yakult swallows last season , met with general_manager brian_cashman at yankee_stadium on wednesday . takatsu , who turns 35 on tuesday , would be a low cost alternative to the other free_agent setup men who interest the yankees tom gordon , shigetoshi hasegawa and latroy hawkins . ''brian made it very clear that shingo is somebody he 's very interested in , '' takatsu 's agent , joe urbon , said . ''he certainly would n't be a closer i do n't think he expects to come over here and close for many clubs . but brian made it clear he would fit very well . the yankees are going to explore their options , shingo being one of them . '' urbon said that the yankees did not make an offer and that takatsu had a one year , 2 . 4 million offer to return to the swallows next season . although gordon , hasegawa and hawkins will probably command much more money , takatsu 's expectations are realistic , urbon said . ''his preference by far is to come over here , '' urbon said . ''he would take a discount to do it . '' takatsu , who returned to japan after the meeting , ran into manager joe_torre and hideki_matsui at yankee_stadium . urbon said matsui , who was working out , chatted with takatsu for about five minutes . takatsu has spent 13 seasons with the swallows and has 260 saves . he has saved at least 29 games in each of the past five seasons , with a high of 37 saves in 2001 . he had a 3 . 00 earned_run_average last season . takatsu is a ground ball pitcher , not a hard thrower like gordon or hawkins . but one major_league scout who has watched him said takatsu could make a successful transition . ''thirty four saves , no matter what league you 're playing in , is pretty good , '' the scout said . ''he 's a strike thrower , and he 's gotten big outs throughout his career with his sinker . his delivery is a little unorthodox , which might make a few hitters nervous because of the different angles and different style . '' urbon said he had spoken with 15 teams about takatsu . but kazuo_matsui will undoubtedly attract more interest . matsui , who is not related to hideki , is expected to start talking with teams next week and has said he will hire arn tellem as his agent . tellem represented three free agents the yankees have recently signed mike_mussina , jason giambi and hideki_matsui but that relationship will mean nothing if kazuo_matsui insists on playing shortstop . ''some people say miguel tejada is a better player than matsui , but they 've never seen matsui play , '' the scout said . tejada is a free_agent after seven seasons with oakland . ''tejada has more power , but i do n't think you 'll see any drop off defensively with matsui . he has such quickness and agility and athleticism , and he may even be a shade better than tejada , over all . '' the switch hitting matsui , 28 , is a . 309 career hitter who has stolen as many as 62 bases in a season . he is expected to draw more bidders than hideki_matsui , who never really considered any team besides the yankees . kazuo_matsui , who has a flashier personality than hideki_matsui , must also decide whether he wants to be the only japanese player on his team and whether he wants to play on the west_coast , where most japanese players have signed . the dodgers , the angels and the mariners are among the west_coast teams expected to pursue matsui , and while the yankees and the mets are interested , they have other issues to resolve . the yankees have derek_jeter at shortstop and would have to accommodate matsui at third base , replacing aaron boone , or at second base . alfonso_soriano would have to move to the outfield or be traded . the mets might have to ask their best young player , shortstop jos_reyes , to switch positions . matsui said at a tokyo news conference on monday that he might play another position if he were to lose a competition to start at shortstop . one official of a team interested in him took that to mean that matsui would not sign unless given a chance to play shortstop . matsui is one of the finer defensive shortstops in japan , and he will have several other adjustments no matter where he signs . ''if you can play shortstop , you can usually play everywhere , '' the scout said . ''but now you 're dealing with not only a new position , but a new league and a new culture . that 's a lot of things to overcome . '' inside pitch the free_agent outfielder gary_sheffield is intrigued by the idea of playing for the yankees , but the braves have made an offer to re sign him and sheffield has not ruled out a return to atlanta . ''gary has enjoyed atlanta , and atlanta is very much a possibility , '' said sheffield 's agent , rufus williams . sheffield saw the yankees' principal owner , george_steinbrenner , two weeks ago while having dinner with braves officials in tampa , fla . , but steinbrenner and sheffield have not met formally . . . . while it still seems as if andy_pettitte will sign with the yankees or the houston_astros , another team is in the mix . one baseball official said yesterday that the philadelphia_phillies had contacted pettitte 's agents . philadelphia , which is also pursuing the free_agent bartolo col n , nearly acquired pettitte in a trade in 1999 . baseball",has a topic of sports
"lead lou_gehrig 's consecutive game record in baseball , achieved from 1925 39 , was surpassed today when sachio kinugasa stepped onto the playing field for the 2 , 131st straight time . lou_gehrig 's consecutive game record in baseball , achieved from 1925 39 , was surpassed today when sachio kinugasa stepped onto the playing field for the 2 , 131st straight time . today 's game at hiroshima stadium was stopped at the end of the fifth inning and kinugasa , the toyo carp third baseman , came onto the field , his arms raised in triumph . music played and streamers were tossed out onto the field . spectators holding sheets of red paper formed the numbers 2131 across the stands . kinugasa 's teammates and the visiting chunichi_dragons presented him with bouquets . and after bowing to the spectators , an emotional kinugasa told them , ''i thank god for making it possible for me to play baseball . '' for kinugasa , the achievement is the high point of a 23 year career that , if nothing else , has been a triumph of endurance . he has suffered injuries , once playing with a broken shoulder blade . he has gone through batting slumps so severe that last year , when his batting_average dipped below . 200 , he was pulled from the starting lineup for the first time in 916 games . only a pinch hitting appearance kept his streak alive . and he has endured the taunts of hometown fans who last year heckled him with calls for retirement when he finished with a . 206 batting_average . ahead in homers , too though never quite the hitter that gehrig was kinugasa is japan 's career strikeout leader with 1 , 526 his career batting_average is . 271 , while gehrig 's was . 340 his home_run total of 495 is two more than gehrig hit . his 495th homer came today , the only hit kinugasa had in four times up . he 's batting . 255 . yet , in hiroshima , streetcars bear kinugasa 's picture . an english_language high_school textbook has been revised for next year to include a chapter titled ''kinugasa 's great record . '' it is only the second time a japanese_baseball player has been so honored . the first was sadaharu oh , whose 868 home_runs in japan are more than henry aaron 's 756 in the major_leagues . kinugasa also shares with oh the distinction of having brought to japan a triumph in the seemingly_endless comparisons made here between the american game and what , in japan , is always called ''japanese_baseball . '' japan has been playing baseball since the 1870 's legend has it that the game was introduced by a japanese engineer who came back from a visit to the united_states with a bat and three baseballs . barnstorming americans in the 1930 's babe_ruth among them routinely came to japan and throttled the local competition . 'real world_series' but since the end of world_war_ii there has been talk in japan of ''a real world_series , '' between the two nations' champions . although the japanese now win their share of games with visiting major_leaguers , there is still the prevailing belief here that for all its vast improvements , the japanese game is not the equal of the american . last fall an especially strong american all star team humiliated the japanese all stars . kinugasa 's record , however , is being lauded as vindication of the japanese model of the game one built on a premise that will ( the term most often heard here is ''fighting spirit'' ) can compensate for a lack of prowess . kinugasa is regarded as a man who embodies the right values . he displays a sort of modesty and self effacement that japan cherishes in its heroes . ''only in the number of games can i exceed gehrig , '' he said during a recent interview . ''but i have never thought of myself as surpassing him as a ballplayer . '' baseball",has a topic of sports
"this open marked the first time in any grand_slam_tournament that three russian men made it to the round of 16 . four russian women made it that far . russians are fourth through seventh in the women 's world rankings . safin said the russian women had been more successful than the men because it was easier to make it in women 's tennis and because they had been more committed . the russian men , ''when they 're young , they want to fool around , '' safin said . ''that 's why a lot of talents , they never became anything . '' john eligon ( nyt ) tennis u.s . open notebook",has a topic of sports
"curling joins snowboarding as a medal sport after being an exhibition at the 1924 , 1932 , 1988 and 1992 winter_games . the sport was invented in the 16th_century by scottish farmers who curled on frozen bogs using smooth stones found in channels . scottish immigrants imported the game to canada in 1759 and to the united_states in 1832 . since then , the sport has undergone two significant advancements the standardization of the curling stone and indoor , refrigerated ice . the setup the olympic tournament will consist of eight men 's teams and eight women 's teams . each team is composed of four members the captain is called the skip . a game consists of 10 ends , or innings . each granite stone , which has a handle and resembles a tea kettle , weighs 42 pounds . the ice surface is 146 feet long and 15 feet 7 1 2 inches wide . the scoring a_12 foot circle , called the house , is the scoring area . the center of the circle is called the tee . each end , or inning , the 4 members of each team curl 2 stones apiece , or 16 total stones . as in shuffleboard , one team tries to knock the other 's stones outside the scoring area . the team that leaves a stone closest to the tee receives a point . teams to watch sweden is the men 's world champions , and canada is the top women 's team . the united_states teams are medal candidates . jere longman nagano '98",has a topic of sports
"i was actually at the super_bowl . yup . and i too was upset about the halftime show but not just because of janet jackson 's antics . after the show ended , i said to my wife how can we present something to america and the world that is this frivolous and gross when we have 115 , 000 u.s . soldiers at war in iraq , dying at one per day ? i realize this is irrational there 's no rule that says the super_bowl show must honor america 's soldiers at war . but that halftime show has become a kind of national moment and the grotesque way it came out really captured what has bothered me most about how this war is being conducted the whole burden is being borne by a small cadre of americans the soldiers , their families and reservists and the rest of us are just sailing along , as if it has nothing to do with us . and what bothers me even more is that this dichotomy is exactly what the bush team wants . from the outset , it has adopted the view that this war will be handled by the pentagon alone . we do n't need the state_department and its ideas about nation_building . we do n't need the u.n . we do n't need our traditional allies . and most of all , we do n't need the public . the message from the white_house has been ''you all just go about your business of being americans , pursuing happiness , spending your tax cuts , enjoying the super_bowl halftime show , buying a new hummer , and leave this war to our volunteer army . no sacrifices required , no new taxes to pay for this long term endeavor , and no need to reduce our gasoline consumption , even though doing so would help take money away from the forces of islamist intolerance that are killing our soldiers . no , we are so rich and so strong and so right , we can win this war without anyone other than the armed_forces paying any price or bearing any burden . '' this outlook is morally and strategically bankrupt . it is morally bankrupt because 1 percent of america is carrying the whole burden of this war . after the super_bowl , i went to tampa to visit centcom headquarters and gen . john_abizaid and his staff . they run the war in iraq . i met many soldiers there , from the women serving as analysts in the intelligence center to the strategic planners just back from baghdad , who had been separated for months from their families or knew comrades killed or wounded in iraq . yet their morale , their professionalism and their belief in this mission are still amazingly high . if you want the antidote to all the creeps in that super_bowl show , spend a day at centcom . i promise you , you will walk away with one overriding feeling we do not deserve these people . they are so much better than the country and the administration they are fighting for . we owe them so much more respect , so much more sacrifice of our own and so much better leadership from a bush team whose real sin is not hyping saddam 's threat , but sending americans to remove him without a plan for the morning after . all i have to do is see what happened to the kurds the other day this proud mountain people who have built a nice little democracy and free_market in northern iraq , only to have it suicide bombed by islamists to be reminded that this is a just war . it is a war of the forces of tolerance , pluralism and decency against the forces of intolerance , bigotry and religious fascism . ''but the great mistake of the neocons and this administration , '' notes my friend george packer , the new yorker writer who has done great reporting from iraq , ''was to think that america could fight this war alone . we could not win the cold_war without our democratic allies abroad , and without real sacrifice at home , and we cannot win this one without both either . this is a huge , long term war of ideas that needs our public 's participation and that of our allies . but this administration has never summoned that . '' we can defeat saddam alone . but we ca n't build a decent political center in iraq alone . we do n't have enough legitimacy or staying power . we need to enlist all our allies including france , germany and the u.n . security_council in this titanic struggle . the bush team has eaten crow on w.m.d . the europeans have eaten crow on saddam . it 's time now to put the alliance that won the cold_war back together . the antiwar left is wrong however mangled was the bush road to war , it is a war for the values of our civilization . but the bush conservatives are also wrong . it ca n't be won with an ''idealism'' that is selfish , greedy , arrogant , incapable of self_criticism and believing that all that matters is our will and power and nothing else . op_ed columnist",has a topic of sports
"as a convoy of humvees crawled down a sandy , bumpy road , a bomb exploded . inside one vehicle , the gunner collapsed . ''we have a casualty down and wounded , '' a sergeant yelled into his radio handset . ''we need a medical evac and helicopter . '' specialist jeffery kavanaugh , 21 , the gunner , lay motionless , still breathing but gurgling . the driver tossed him a bandage . no one else in the vehicle moved to help . later , recalling those moments , specialist kavanaugh said he wondered what would have happened if this were iraq , not a training exercise in the pine forests of new jersey . ''if i was really hurt , would they let me just die there ? '' he said . the bush_administration has announced troop_reductions , and some politicians in washington are debating whether the united_states should pull out altogether . but none of that matters to the men of the 654th military_police company , a newly formed unit of the virginia army_national_guard . their reality is that american_soldiers are still needed to patrol the streets of iraq , and within a few weeks this patchwork company will be doing just that . ''if there has been ups and downs in the news about the war , we have n't noticed , '' said capt . lowell nevill , the 654th 's commander . ''we 're in another world here . '' for two months , the group of 157 veterans and rookies has lived on tiger base , a 30 acre re creation of iraq at fort_dix , one of two bases in the united_states that offers an immersion course for new security forces , said lt . col . norberto cintron , who is in charge of the training . they awaken before 5 a.m . and hear muslim prayer calls five times a day . they eat flavorless food , use portable_toilets and sleep on cots , 12 to a tent . in military exercises , simulated grenades and improvised_explosive_devices , or i.e.d . 's , explode , and soldiers like specialist kavanaugh dramatize severe or fatal wounds . despite the emphasis on physical preparation , the trainers and soldiers at fort_dix say the most important skills they will learn here are loyalty and teamwork , which will help them survive a year at war . ''none of us thought we were going to be able to come together and do this , '' said pfc . michael goodrich , 19 , who had straight a 's in high_school and gave up college_basketball scholarships to join the national_guard last year . ''after awhile , we pretty much gave up complaining , because we realized we were stuck with each other for a year . ''it 's just like working together on a basketball_team . but being on a basketball_team wo n't get you killed going to iraq just might . '' the 654th arrived here in early november , a mixture of men whites , blacks , asians and hispanics from different economic backgrounds plucked from more than 10 national_guard units from virginia and pieced together to form a unit big enough to serve as a military_police company in iraq . like a weekend softball team , these men represented a range of ages ( 19 to 50 ) , athleticism ( college athletes to couch potatoes ) and professional backgrounds ( including policemen , a cook and a dog trainer ) . most came from field_artillery units . some , slightly less than 10 percent , had served in iraq and volunteered to return . captain nevill , 33 , who has a bachelor 's degree in cultural anthropology from the university of virginia , is in charge of this unit . at home , he is a patrolman for the manassas police department . here , he is responsible for these men . in the shared misery of tiger base , captain nevill said , he saw his soldiers transformed from individuals to a cohesive unit , especially after a grueling transition to military life limited sleep and no days off . many of his men contracted nagging coughs or upper respiratory infections , particularly when temperatures dipped into single digits and the tent heaters stopped working . ''we 're not running or lifting weights , but we 're athletes of another kind , '' captain nevill said , wearing his required helmet and bulletproof_vest . ''it 's endurance and toughness . it takes the body a long time to get used to that . '' although the gym often goes unused , soldiers work out during drills more mental than physical . the training for the guard has evolved . units deployed early in the war sometimes received a week or two of training . now , the training for security forces at specialized sites like fort_dix lasts at least two months and includes more complex simulations . but the 654th will not know how prepared it is until it comes under live fire . ''what 's going to take them to get with the program is a bullet whizzing by their head or an i.e.d . blowing up next to them , '' said sgt . first class donald wilson , a trainer here who likened this work to his days as an adult league basketball coach . only then , sergeant wilson said , will they find out ''how good a team they 've become . '' every day , convoys from the 654th roll through a makeshift iraqi city with hidden threats . when the men see the sign ''the city of balad welcomes you , '' gunners grasp their m 249 's and 50 caliber machine_guns . the convoys pass a blue mosque and aluminum shipping_containers made to look like buildings , each spray_painted with arabic or english phrases like ''go home usa . '' sometimes snipers shoot blanks at the humvees , inciting a simulated firefight . civilians , including iraqis living in the united_states , occasionally linger in the streets like movie extras . some are instructed to look friendly and wave , others to grimace and yell in arabic . soldiers must react to cues purple smoke means a rocket_propelled_grenade has hit , white means a roadside_bomb . and when a trainer hands a soldier like specialist kavanaugh a pocket size card describing an injury or death , he must act the part . the first time pvt . christian chandler , 20 , traveled through fort_dix 's balad , he was a nervous wreck . hoping to become a cosmetologist or a massage therapist , he joined the guard to earn extra money and then trained to be an administrative specialist . now he is a gunner , which he said , ' 'surprised and shocked and scared me'' because gunners are vulnerable . private chandler said he felt sick when he saw the arabic words for ''stop or i will shoot'' written phonetically on the windshield of his vehicle so he could memorize them . he was so skittish , he once lost control of a humvee and plowed into a tree . his team leader , sgt . jamie padgett , said private chandler was initially unwilling to pop out of the gunner 's hatch . ''we had to pretty much push him up there , '' he said . as weeks went on , private chandler convinced himself he could be a worthy gunner because he was athletic . he played high_school basketball in smithville , va . , though as a senior his team lost every game . in the final weeks here , he began wearing a black ski mask , revealing only his eyes , to keep warm and to look menacing . one day , he picked up his machine_gun and growled . ''do i look mean now ? '' he said , before laughing . going back to look for revenge not everyone in the 654th is a rookie . about a dozen have served in iraq in the same tightly_knit engineering unit . they returned from a yearlong deployment in march after losing two men on dec . 21 , 2004 , when a suicide_bomber blew himself up in a dining hall in mosul . the returning soldiers volunteered for this mission out of loyalty to their buddies . sgt . jon faulkner was friends with those soldiers , both 20 , and took it hard when they died . he said all he could think about was returning to iraq , where he could help protect less experienced men in his new unit . he keeps rereading a poem another soldier sent in an e mail message to him , including these lines this is the life i have to live . this is the soul to the devil i give . you have your parties and drink your beer while young men are dying over here . ''i 'm here kind of for revenge , '' said sergeant faulkner , a 21 year old archaeology student . ''i 'll keep going to iraq until the war is over . '' sergeant faulkner , from fredericksburg , va . , said that as a boy he was the target of bullies but that he grew into an aggressive young man . he played on two state championship soccer teams in high_school , then joined the national_guard because , he said , ''i love getting shot at and i love shooting back . '' he is serious about his work , always giving orders , hardly smiling . his commanders say he is a good soldier . still , his colleagues shy away from asking him about iraq because they are afraid to upset him . when his fellow soldiers said goodbye to their families in october , sergeant faulkner said , he wanted the emotional moments to end . ''let 's get boots on the ground , '' faulkner recalled thinking , ' 'so we can kill something . '' 'we 're basically dinosaurs' specialist david newton worried about the na_ve , overzealous and hardheaded young soldiers both rookies and veterans he saw when he arrived at fort_dix . ''these guys will need me as a medic , '' said specialist newton , 40 , a cook and college student from chesterfield , va . , who re enlisted in the national_guard in 2004 after a_10 year break . ''before i left , i made a promise to some of these young guys' wives that i 'd bring their husbands home in one piece . well , maybe not in one piece , but they 'll come home . '' specialist newton and guardsmen like him , many with active_duty experience , weather jokes about being old enough to have had moses as a boot_camp instructor and about their lack of technological expertise . but they have developed a paternal bond with the rookies . staff sgt . lee stanford , 50 , a former marine_corps chief_warrant_officer nicknamed old school , said , ''it takes all types to make a good squad . not everybody has to be 19 and in perfect shape to be a good team player . '' his job , he said , was to bring his 12 man squad home . sgt . ernest grigsby , 39 , who is unmarried and has no children , is out of shape but said he had nothing to lose by going to iraq so ' 'some 20 year old would n't have to die or lose his legs . '' while keeping a humvee warm for officers during a seven hour training exercise one night at fire base falluja , specialist newton said , ''we 're basically dinosaurs here , but i really do believe they need us for our experience and patience . '' outside , the wind and freezing_temperatures cut through the soldiers' gore tex jackets , reddened their faces and numbed their hands . the gunners aimed for pop up targets glowing in the dark . the barrage of gunfire echoed as tracer_rounds zoomed like red lasers . trainers were also simulating an attack on the base , detonating fake mortars every few minutes , causing blinding flashes and deafening blasts . ''i 'm not going to lie to you , 90 percent of us are apprehensive about going to iraq , '' specialist newton said as another mortar hit . ''we 'd be crazy if we were n't . '' to relieve stress , he smokes two packs of cigarettes daily , cracks jokes and serenades his buddies with songs from elvis_presley films like ''harum scarum'' and ''kissin' cousins . '' but at night in his bunk , he becomes solemn . ''every day i think about the chances of these kids dying there , '' specialist newton said . ''it 's my burden . in the end , i 'll watch their back , and i hope they 'll watch mine . '' anxious , but ready the 654th completed its final test this week . on one day , the men reacted to six car_bombs , two incoming mortars , two roadside_bombs , one rocket_propelled_grenade and several hand thrown grenades , resulting in a total of seven casualties . after one of those exercises , one of the trainers , sgt . first class tony paden , told them , ''you guys stay tight , stay a good team , because you 're going to need each other to stay alive over there . '' the soldiers stood in the biting wind , faces drawn , camouflage uniforms dirty , knowing those words were true . by this time , they also knew what to expect death or injuries , maybe lost limbs . their wives or girlfriends could leave them . they could welcome newborns , not by touch but by e mail . ''you can see it in their eyes that they are scared , '' said sergeant wilson , the trainer . ''but it 's good to be scared . nothing brings a group of guys closer than sharing the same fear . '' the men were given nine days' leave to spend the holidays with their families . private chandler , the reluctant gunner , planned to take his girlfriend to dinner at an applebee 's . specialist newton , the veteran , wanted to embrace his wife . sergeant faulkner , the serious soldier , hated the thought of wasting time . private goodrich , the basketball_player who had three friends die in iraq , left early to marry jacqueline mccown in richmond on christmas_eve . early next month , each soldier in the 654th will return alone to fort_dix and begin packing for iraq . soon after , they will board a flight together , their world now shrunk to a team of 157 men . about the series this article is the last in a series about the role sports play in the lives of american_soldiers deployed to iraq and of their families . in two arenas",has a topic of sports
"her long blond ponytail soaked with sweat , maria sharapova stood at midcourt sunday , smiling and blowing kisses to the crowd booing her . the stadium rumbled with jeers as she defeated patty schnyder in a tense fourth round match , 3 6 , 6 4 , 9 7 . sharapova struck the ball with unrelenting power for 2 hours 37 minutes , eventually saving two match points . still , the fans , reacting to what they perceived to be an earlier moment of poor sportsmanship , seemed to see nothing but a villain in a blue clingy tennis dress . ''it 's tough playing tennis and being mother_teresa at the same time and making everyone happy , '' sharapova said , unemotionally , after the match . the second seeded sharapova advanced to the french open quarterfinals for the third time in her career . she has never made it past that round . she will play no . 9 seeded anna chakvetadze , who defeated no . 25 lucie safarova in three sets sunday . by then , the fans may have settled down . on sunday , even schnyder failed to persuade the audience to quell its anger . as the spectators booed , she lifted her right index_finger to her lips , to try to hush them . but her effort was useless . in the third set , those catcalls had reached ear splitting decibels . as sharapova was serving with the score 7 7 , 30 love , a fan shouted . rattled , schnyder had lifted her hand to indicate that she was not ready , but the serve had already landed on her side of the net . when the umpire refused to replay the point , and sharapova did not offer to do so , the crowd erupted . sharapova said she never considered offering to replay that point , considering the closeness of the match . later , schnyder did not complain . ''i was distracted , and it was the public 's choice to do it i did n't boo , '' schnyder said . ''i think we should appreciate the champion she is . '' she added ''at the end , she was the big champion . i 'm the little one who could not win . '' schnyder , who is ranked 15th in the world , ended the match with a forehand that flew wide . on the opposite side of the court , sharapova buried her face in her hands , as emotions washed over her . she held her fist to her chest as she looked around the stands , seemingly deaf to the crowd 's angry roars . though she looked on the verge of tears , she denied it later , saying she was simply grateful to have won . in other fourth round matches sunday , roger_federer , the world 's no . 1 men 's player , defeated mikhail youzhny for the 10th time in a row , 7 6 ( 3 ) , 6 4 , 6 4 . federer will play ninth seeded tommy robredo in the quarterfinals . nikolay davydenko , seeded fourth , also advanced and will play no . 19 guillermo ca as . on the women 's side , no . 1 justine_henin and no . 8 serena_williams both won their matches , setting up a rematch of the 2003 semifinal here . that match four years ago was similar to sharapova 's match sunday . there was jeering and a disputed call for time that added to the intensity of a crowd that was already on henin 's side . williams left the court in tears . henin left with her first grand_slam title . but much has changed since that emotionally charged match , which signified the best moment of henin 's career and the worst of williams 's . both say they have matured since then . ''i 've been through death , '' williams said . ''i had surgery i think since then . i 've been through a lot . '' williams , the 2002 french open champion , said she had become more cynical since 2003 . her half sister yetunde price was murdered that year . also , left knee problems resulted in surgery and have plagued her career . last year , williams nearly fell out of the top 100 because of those injuries . this year , though , she came back to win the australian_open , ranked 81st . ''it takes a strong person to be at the bottom of the barrel , '' said williams , 25 . ''i was really down there , and it 's hard to be able to come back , especially when everyone seems against you and you have so many doubters . '' henin has changed in completely different ways . she has gone from aloof to outgoing . after her 6 2 , 6 4 victory against no . 20 sybille bammer on sunday , she turned to the crowd and even giggled as she soaked up the atmosphere . until recently , henin had been a loner on the women 's tour . there were reasons for that . her mother died of cancer when henin was 12 . afterward , henin distanced herself from her father and three siblings to make a life on her own . but since separating from her husband , pierre yves hardenne , late last year , henin has begun to emerge from behind the wall she had built around her . she said that two weeks ago she restored contact with her estranged father and siblings , whom she had not spoken with in years , calling it ''a lot of joy . '' ''i just tried to become a better person , '' said henin , 25 , who added ''i want to get more concerned , more involved , and a lot of things have changed . i feel much better about myself . '' henin said that she and williams had not discussed that stressful 2003 semifinal . but both players have one thing in common they want to forget that conflict . they played a final in miami in march without incident . williams won in three sets . ''i let it go , and obviously she did , '' williams said . ''or whether she did or not , it does n't matter anymore . this is a new year . '' tennis",has a topic of sports
"one night recently , just after dusk , a convoy of humvees came to an abrupt halt as it was leaving this military base . a soldier in the passenger seat of the lead vehicle climbed out , camera in hand , and stared , agape , at the silhouettes of seven figures gliding in skates atop a large concrete slab . ''hey guys , can you believe this ? '' he yelled to his fellow soldiers inside the humvee , just before snapping a few photos and driving off . ''hockey in iraq . now i 've seen everything . '' there is basketball for soldiers in iraq , college courses for soldiers in iraq , even salsa dancing lessons for soldiers in iraq . but roller hockey for soldiers in iraq must be among the rarest recreational activities of all . here at warhorse , though , near the city of baquba , about 35 miles northeast of baghdad , hockey has become a nightly ritual . soldiers from company b of the 203rd forward support battalion , third infantry division , gather at 7 p.m . to lace up their skates and play hockey on an area of concrete separated from the base 's helipad by blast_walls . the soldiers' 16 sets of in line skates and 13 hockey sticks were donated by sporting_goods stores in wisconsin . the single goal the soldiers use was fashioned with tent poles they welded together and netting normally used as a sun barrier . some soldiers had skated before . some had played roller hockey before . others , like staff sgt . glennville fox from palatka , fla . , had done neither . ''i 'm not very nimble , but this just helps me pass the time , '' he said after missing a shot on goal , losing his balance and falling to the ground face first , spread eagle . on the other side of the goal , specialist eric armstrong let out a belly laugh as he weaved around other players , an orange rubber ball on the tip of his stick . he shot and scored . then the players promptly lost the ball in the darkness . ''while still in kuwait , i joked that we 'd be playing hockey here in a few months , but i was totally kidding , '' said specialist armstrong , 20 , who is from appleton , wis . , and has played hockey since he was 10 . ''now it 's weird to play this here , because iraqis have probably never even seen hockey , or ice , for that matter . ''but after awhile , i could n't watch another movie , could n't play another video_game , '' he said . ''i needed hockey . '' specialist armstrong and a few other players work security , escorting convoys down the perilous roads to and from warhorse , an area rife with roadside_bombs . other times , specialist armstrong searches people entering the base , including injured iraqis en_route to the aid_station . ''we search them even though they have cut up legs and shot off arms or flesh hanging off of them , '' he said . ''people have been known to strap bombs to their legs even then , so we have to keep the base safe . now you know why we use hockey to distract us from our day jobs . '' convoy security missions are just as stressful , but sometimes boring because there may be long waits at either end of the trips . before his hockey equipment arrived , specialist armstrong said he often spent that down time dreaming about playing in the national_hockey_league or trying to remember how it felt to dance across the ice with a hockey stick in his hand . in other times of ennui , he found different ways to occupy his time . once , he ran full speed at a giant roll of bubble wrap to see if he would bounce off . ( he did . ) he then had grand plans to leap from the top of his housing unit while bear hugging that bubble wrap , but one of his noncommissioned_officers put a stop to it . finally , after a few months in iraq , he decided to ask his mother , kris armstrong , to buy 13 sets of inline skates , 13 hockey sticks and 2 sets of goalie equipment with the money he had saved while overseas . when she went to sporting_goods stores to buy them , specialist armstrong said , she ended up persuading the managers to donate more than 2 , 000 worth of equipment . kris armstrong spent about 150 to send that gear to iraq . the equipment arrived two weeks ago and was the best package from home that specialist armstrong could dream of , he said . since then , more and more soldiers have shown up to play . one night last week , more than a dozen soldiers in desert camouflage uniforms or gray t shirts and black shorts sat in a row of dusty plastic chairs , most of them smoking cigarettes before the game began . they leaned their weapons most have m_16 rifles , some with grenade_launchers against concrete barriers and slipped on their skates while a group of cafeteria workers from africa played cricket in the background . before the game began , specialist armstrong quickly fixed the goal with duct_tape . the night before , another soldier had trouble braking and skated through the metal frame . when specialist armstrong was finished , the group set out for nearly two hours of gliding and , in some cases , colliding . ''hey , did you do this damage to me yesterday ? '' sgt . thomas miller , 25 , from carmine , ill . , said to specialist armstrong , while pointing to a welt on his right shin . ''better me than some iraqi , '' specialist armstrong said , as he skated off smiling . roller hockey",has a topic of sports
albertville,has a topic of sports
"france won its first european basketball championship with underdog limoges 's 59 55 victory over benetton treviso thursday night . the tournament 's most valuable player , toni kukoc , in what might have been his last such european game because he is close to signing a contract with the national_basketball_association 's chicago_bulls , simply waited too long to take over for treviso . after limoges took its first lead at 44 43 on a 3 pointer with 8 minutes 32 seconds left , kukoc , who had 15 points , nailed three 3 pointers , the last for a tie at 55 with 1 01 left . limoges went ahead by 2 points with 41 . 8 seconds left , then kukoc set himself for a 3 pointer from the top of the key , but limoges point_guard frederic forte stripped kukoc of the ball .",has a topic of sports
"dressed in his signature pirate outfit , bright blue bandanna clinging to his sweaty brow , rafael nadal won his fourth round match monday at the french_open , defeating lleyton_hewitt , 6 3 , 6 1 , 7 6 ( 5 ) . the victory moved him one step closer to his third consecutive title at roland_garros . this is the first time in his three years here that he has reached the quarterfinals without dropping a set . the victory also means that nadal , seeded second , will play his mentor and fellow majorcan , the 30 year old carlos moy , in the quarterfinals . moy , the 23rd seed , was the 1998 french open winner . until now , their only competition at roland_garros has been playstation soccer matches . but with joysticks in hand , instead of rackets , those matches have been fiery . ''you get so nervous , like if it was a tennis match , '' moy said of the nightly video_game matchups . ''but it 's good to have some fun . there 's a lot of pressure here , and it 's a way not to think about tennis . '' nadal wrote about those matches on his blog , saying moy was ''quite good and assertive'' in those games . he added that the loser was often forced to do push_ups . each was assertive on the court monday , with nadal , wearing his usual sleeveless shirt and cropped black pants , having to work extra hard in his match . hewitt , seeded 14th , was overwhelmed by nadal 's forehands and the spins he put on them , and he seemed helpless in the first two sets . but hewitt did not let go of the third set without a struggle . his forehands did him in . at crucial points , several of them should have been easy winners , but they smacked into the net instead . his final forehand also landed in the net . later , he said the sun had blinded him . ''he moves so well on his side of the court on this surface that you feel like you 've got to hit perfect shots against him , '' hewitt said , adding ''sometimes he is a different player when it gets a little bit tighter . if he 's 6 3 , 6 1 up , he 's all guns blazing and going for every shot . if you can get that tight situation , then it 's a different ballgame . '' moy had a few of those tight situations in his 7 6 ( 5 ) , 6 2 , 7 5 victory against jonas bjorkman , a meeting of veterans whose combined age was 65 . through it , he never felt old , moy said , although he has lost some of his explosiveness . against the 35 year old bjorkman , moy lunged after shots . he leaped to return serves . he scurried every which way on the red clay , as if it were 1998 , the year he defeated alex corretja , another spaniard , in the final . nadal , who turned 21 on sunday , was only 12 when moy hoisted that trophy . ''i still remember when i was the youngest guy in the draw , and now i became the oldest , '' said moy , who is the oldest player left in the men 's draw . ''the time passed so fast . '' while moy looked spry in his match , bjorkman did not . he had played two five set matches at this tournament he has also advanced to the fourth round in the doubles competition , in which he and max mirnyi are seeded second . he was the oldest player in the men 's draw , and was the oldest male to reach the round of 16 since 1972 . that age began to show . after the second set , bjorkman called for a trainer to work out a knot in his right shoulder . then , he needed a painkiller . bjorkman said that he expected his body to feel even worse later . ''it could be tough sometimes to put the socks on , '' he said , referring to the morning after a match . while the old timers moy and bjorkman were playing , the youngest player left in the men 's draw , the 20 year old novak djokovic , was trying to make it to the quarterfinals for the second year in a row . last year , he played nadal in that round but retired with an injured lower back . healthy now , the sixth_seeded djokovic played his best match yet in paris , defeating fernando verdasco , 6 3 , 6 3 , 7 6 ( 1 ) . he is considered one of the few who could rival nadal or no . 1 roger_federer in the final . ''i did n't come here with the goal to win the tournament , like that was my goal before i started to play , '' djokovic said . ''like i said before , i am trying to go step by step . '' in the quarterfinals , djokovic will play igor andreev , who is ranked 125th and who knocked no . 3 andy_roddick out of the tournament in the first round . he beat marcos baghdatis , the 16th seed , 2 6 , 6 1 , 6 3 , 6 4 . djokovic 's victory also means that three serbs have made it to the quarterfinals . compatriots jelena jankovic and ana ivanovic will play their quarterfinal matches tuesday . jankovic , the fourth seed , will take on no . 6 nicole vaidisova . ivanovic , seeded seventh , will meet no . 3 svetlana kuznetsova . in another quarterfinal , no . 2 maria sharapova will play no . 9 anna chakvetadze . but the most anticipated women 's match will pit serena_williams , winner of eight grand_slam_singles titles , against no . 1 justine_henin , the two time defending french open champion . it is a rematch of the 2003 semifinal , which was marked by an angry crowd , henin 's gamesmanship and williams 's tears as she was booed off the court after losing in three sets . the moy nadal quarterfinal will not end up that way . each said he admired the other 's game and friendship . nadal said that having a player like moy to look up to in majorca was ' 'very , very important'' to him . he often practiced with moy and received tips from him . moy said ''i do n't think he learned anything from me . and if he learned it , he did much better than me . '' tennis",has a topic of sports
"lead despite the leaden skies , it was a bright and wholly unexpected day of triumph for french tennis . two of france 's lightly regarded young players defeated the world 's third ranking man and fourth ranking woman while another young frenchman buried in the depths of the computer listings beat an american 262 places above him . despite the leaden skies , it was a bright and wholly unexpected day of triumph for french tennis . two of france 's lightly regarded young players defeated the world 's third ranking man and fourth ranking woman while another young frenchman buried in the depths of the computer listings beat an american 262 places above him . the three victories were all accomplished in straight sets eric winogradsky over stefan_edberg of sweden , 7 6 , 7 6 , 7 5 nathalie herreman over hana mandlikova of czechoslovakia , 6 4 , 7 6 , and patrice kuchna , no . 325 on the men 's professional computer , by 6 4 , 6 3 , 6 3 over andre_agassi of las_vegas , nev . france is a country with a rich tennis tradition , but it has a history of frustration in its own national championships . since suzanne lenglen and the famed musketeers ruled the sport in the 1920 's and early 30 's , french singles players have won what is now called the french open only five times . before yannick noah triumphed in 1983 , the last french player to capture the men 's singles title was the all but forgotten marcel bernard in 1946 . no woman has won the french title since francoise durr did it in 1967 and none had done it for 28 years before that . the most history minded officials of the french tennis federation could not remember today when one of their female compatriots last reached even the quarterfinals . tournament gaining prestige meanwhile , the french open itself has been steadily gaining in stature . it is now regarded as the third most important tournament in the world , behind wimbledon and the united_states open . all the french open lacked was good french players . noah changed that in the men 's ranks . so did henri leconte , the world 's ninth ranked player , and guy_forget , a top doubles player . yet until today the french had little to cheer for in women 's tennis . each new hopeful who joined the tour performed respectably but no better . for the tennis itself , played on a wet slow court , today 's french victories were unexceptional . winogradsky beat an edberg who nowadays seldom plays well on clay . and herreman caught mandlikova on one of her frequent far off days . both of the french players showed admirable poise bearing the weight of center court history and the hopes of some 15 , 000 spectators . the reactions of winogradsky and herreman to their upset victories differed strikingly . the tall , slender winogradsky , who had played his serve and volley game despite the slowness of the court , treated the occasion almost matter of factly . ''i thought if i served well , i had a chance , '' he said . ''and i did that . anyway , when i take the court , i always like to think i can win . '' however , he had never before beaten a player in the top 50 . victory at 'chez moi' herreman , on the other hand , was clearly elated . her eyes sparkled and the words tumbled forth as she described her play and thoughts . coming on court right after winogradsky 's victory had , she said , been difficult ''i thought , 'i 'll never be able to win like that . ' but then i thought , 'no , it 's a day for the french . i 'll have to do it , ' '' she said . competing in roland_garros stadium , she added , was a special incentive ''i play all year other places and when i get to roland_garros , that 's chez moi . it 's the_dream of all french players , men and women alike , to do well here . ''",has a topic of sports
"jean pierre papin , a forward for olympique marseilles and the french national team , was taken to a hospital with a concussion after he was struck on the head by a beer bottle as he stepped off the team bus at the st . etienne stadium on saturday . papin was later released , but may not be available for olympique 's european_champions' cup match against czechoslovakia 's spartak praga tomorrow . sports people soccer",has a topic of sports
"the athletes of what is almost certainly the last unified team have returned after a triumphal olympics , with their future no more certain than that of their varied homelands . the supremacy of the unified team in barcelona had a bittersweet feeling to many , as the last hollow victory of an intensive sports system and the totalitarian empire that spawned and funded such excellence . the huge governmental investment in socialist sport stemmed not from any love of athletic competition , but from the cold_war , and now it is gone . this was the first team from the former empire to train and perform with minimal government money , and the sudden commercialization that made the airline flights to barcelona possible will not be enough to preserve the foundations of such superb performances the local coaches and clubs , the centralized institutes of physical sport and science , the expensive central training centers for gymnasts , wrestlers and so many other specialist athletes . for instance , smirnoff , the american vodka company , which spent so much western cash to sponsor the team , and whose repetitive advertisements on russian television put so many local teeth on edge , is unlikely to support these teams in non olympic years . and except for large states like russia and ukraine , it is extremely doubtful that the other republics , like kazakhstan or kyrgyzstan , will spend much tax money on keeping up their superb , inherited sports facilities , or that georgia , armenia and azerbaijan , where so many of the good weight_lifters and wrestlers seem to come from , will worry much about them in the midst of ethnic warfare and economic chaos . going for money vitaly shcherbo , the extraordinary belarussian gymnast who won a record six gold medals in barcelona and wore an old soviet emblem on his jersey , summed up the new , commercial "" one for one and all for one "" spirit when he spoke of his plans in the west "" i 'll go for the most money , "" he said . "" we all will . "" it is not that too many of the citizens of the former soviet_union would blame him in the current economic climate , but it is yet one more measure of how empty the socialist ideal has become , and how confused people are about their patriotism , both topics for some sadness and irony here . commentators on the lengthy and much watched olympics television broadcasts had their favorites , speaking of "" nashi komanda , "" or "" our team , "" even when the unified basketball_team was playing lithuania . one said , with some irony "" i wish our weight lifter will win . i want so much to hear the moldovan national_anthem . "" today 's sovetskaya rossiya , under the headline , "" olympians of the former u.s.s.r . leave undefeated , "" asked why the unified team was "" the best "" in barcelona . "" how could it happen that the athletes of the unified team , representing countries which are experiencing such political storms and economic difficulties , managed to perform better than the teams of the prosperous west ? "" 'the system survived' the answer , the paper suggested , was not that the team found sponsors and solved its financial problems , or that there was some "" new splash of patriotism . "" what really counted was that "" in sports , counter to many other aspects of life , the system survived . "" this time , at least . pravda , the longtime organ of the communist_party and now a mouthpiece for the conservative reaction here , had an extraordinary headline today "" the cause of the new u.s.s.r . combined team is alive and victorious . "" it was extraordinary because , after all , the union of soviet socialist republics is dead , however much mourned by pravda , and this was not the u.s.s.r . combined team at all , since the baltics are long gone . it was not even the commonwealth_of_independent_states team , since georgia and azerbaijan have not joined the commonwealth but participated in the unified team . pravda went on to use the unified team 's success as "" a good example "" for commonwealth politicians . the athletes "" really turned their team into a commonwealth without borders and differences , and proved that the cause of the u.s.s.r . combined team lives on victoriously , "" a hackneyed phrase normally used in olden days about the "" cause "" of the communist_party . rivalries and problems beyond the obvious reservation that the people of ukraine and the other independent states want to keep their new borders and even accentuate their differences , the team had its own rivalries and problems , though more among the sports bosses of the various states than among the athletes themselves . even before the games began , vitaly smirnov , president of the unified team 's olympic_committee , complained_bitterly about nationalist politics interfering with the selection of team athletes , with some ukrainian rhythmic gymnasts ( one of whom won the gold ) being chosen ahead of a russian woman . in barcelona , he finally said "" to the very last , let us be polite to each other . "" smirnov , before the games , predicted flatly that the unified team would win 43 gold medals and win the medals table . in fact , the athletes of this great , dying institution of superb athletics and totalitarian politics won 45 . celebration becomes disaster moscow , aug . 11 ( ap ) one spectator was killed and nine seriously injured when scaffolding collapsed during a welcoming_ceremony for estonia 's olympic team in its capital , tallinn , according to reports from itar_tass and eta news_agencies . dozens of people had climbed the scaffolding around a four story building under renovation . they were seeking a good vantage_point from which to cheer the return of the olympic athletes from barcelona . most of those injured in the accident monday_night were teen_agers . olympics",has a topic of sports
"reopening the second front in the olympique marseilles match_fixing scandal , investigators yesterday inquired deeper into allegations that the club owner , bernard tapie , tried persuading a rival coach to take the fall . the investigating judge , bernard beffy , questioned boro primorac , former coach for valenciennes , on primorac 's charge that tapie offered him money and career opportunities to become a scapegoat . the encounter was expected to last several hours . the primorac affair is the only part of the bribery scandal directly implicating tapie , who called the coach a liar and accused prosecutors of taking a new tack in trying to destroy him . the scheduled meeting between beffy and primorac in valenciennes followed sunday 's resignation of marseilles 's general_manager , jean_pierre bernes , accused of being the money man in the main part of the scandal . a court freed bernes from prison thursday after two weeks detention failed to get him to confess that he orchestrated bribe offers to three valenciennes players to throw a_league match may 20 . the league 's disciplinary board will start punishing those involved within two weeks . asked whether he thought that corruption by bernes and three players charged had been established , le graet said , "" yes , i think it 's relatively clear . "" ( ap ) sports people soccer",has a topic of sports
"a total of 317 horses were nominated for the triple_crown races , 37 fewer than last year . ten came from britain and , for the first time , two were nominated from japan . "" the drop in nominations , "" said edward seigenfeld , executive director of triple_crown productions , "" reflects the recent decline in the foal crop in north_america . but the list includes all the runners from last year 's breeders' cup juvenile as well as all the top 3 year olds in the country . "" six horses are fillies , led by the d . wayne lukas star serena 's song , who probably wo n't run in the kentucky_derby . among trainers , lukas and bill mott led the list with nine horses each . dermot weld of england nominated six . among owners , william condren , william farish , bob and beverly lewis and allen paulson nominated six horses each . last year 's derby was won by go for gin , owned by condren and cornacchia and trained by nick zito . the preakness and belmont_stakes were both won by lukas 's tabasco cat . horse racing",has a topic of sports
"the first time michael_jordan came to play basketball in this fair city , he could sit outside at a cafe of his choosing and watch the world go by without it watching him . that was in august 1985 . twelve years later , the world is a considerably smaller place , and the multifaceted , multimedia jordan is one of its most recognizable inhabitants . even if it had not been drizzling on the chicago_bulls' first full day of dribbling in the french capital , jordan 's days of lingering over a cafe au lait in public are long gone . ''it 's hard for me to go anywhere unnoticed and to get out in public without people bothering me , '' jordan said at a very crowded news conference on tuesday , after the bulls' first practice in preparation for this weekend 's mcdonald 's championship . ''this was like my last area i could go where no one really knew who i was to some degree , and now it 's been exposed . '' this is the bulls' first trip to europe , and though they were busy scurrying about paris on their national_basketball_association appointed rounds today luc longley signed autographs at galleries lafayette jud buechler and bill wennington signed at a mcdonald 's on the champs_elysees this is no tourist junket . this tournament is the only opportunity for n.b.a . teams and the world 's other top clubs to meet . what the bulls want to avoid as they take to the floor without their ailing mainstays scottie pippen and dennis_rodman is becoming the first n.b.a . team to lose to one of those clubs . the other five teams participating here are the french champion , psg racing the spanish champion , fc barcelona the south_american champion , atenas de cordoba of argentina the italian champion , benetton treviso , and the european champion , olympiakos piraeus of greece . ''i have n't had the opportunity to see these teams we 're facing , '' jordan said . ''but i still feel confident that if we go out and play our type of basketball , it does n't matter who we play europeans or americans . '' jordan was even more direct later tuesday evening when he was a guest on a popular french talk show , ''nulle part ailleurs , '' which means ''nowhere else . '' ''any team can lose , '' he said . ''but we 're not going to . '' jordan was more evasive about his recent announcement that this season would be his last . ''it 's not definite , '' he said . then , referring to bulls coach phil jackson , he added ''if phil stays , i will stay another year or at least i will try . but if the team decides to change and build , i do n't want to be a part of it . '' it was a sign of these marketing driven times that jordan was the third bulls player to appear on ''nulle part ailleurs'' in the last six weeks . rodman was on the show on sept . 5 , when he was in paris to do promotional work for an american shoe company pippen appeared with reggie miller of the indiana pacers one week later , when both were in paris to play in an all star game organized by yet another american shoe company . the n.b.a . is one of several american cultural exports to make serious inroads with young people in france , along with baseball caps , home delivered pizza and ''the x files . '' in october 1991 , magic_johnson and the los_angeles_lakers played in the mcdonald 's championship in paris to sellout crowds . and after jordan , johnson and the_dream teamers romped in barcelona , spain , at the 1992 summer olympics , jordan was voted the most popular athlete in france in a poll of 300 french teen_agers . but his retirement after the 1993 season to play baseball took a bite out of his fan base , and even after two more n.b.a . titles in 1996 and 1997 , neither jordan nor his sport possesses quite the same cachet in france . still , the bulls' two games here on friday and saturday nights have been sold out for weeks , largely because of jordan . he might no longer be france 's no . 1 sports hero with next year 's world_cup of soccer looming , but he is still capable of stirring considerable passion . ''you 're hosting god , '' the french soccer star youri djorkaeff told guillaume durand , the talk show 's host , when he found out jordan would appear on the show . but the media savvy , baritone voiced jordan was not altogether ethereal during his first full day in the french spotlight . asked about his plans for his stay , he said he planned to focus on basketball but that his wife and two children would ''go on some tours and go into the luge . '' he was presumably referring to the louvre , and though museum going is often a winter sport in the city of light , no sled is required . however , this much is certain if jordan were to visit the louvre this week , the mona lisa would n't be the only famous face drawing a crowd . pro_basketball",has a topic of sports
"the weirdest prediction about this year 's tour de france is that marco pantani , the italian climber who won the tour in 1998 but whose team was denied an invitation this year , will be at the start on saturday . his team , however , will not . not that pantani will be riding solo , which nobody has been allowed to do in the tour in 75 years . according to speculation , pantani will quit his italian team , mercatone uno , and join a spanish team at the last moment . weird ? yes . legal ? again yes , it seems . in 1991 , ronan pensec , a french rider , left the seur team , which had not been invited to the tour , and joined amaya , which had , just before the start , mainly so that he could be there when the tour finished a stage in his hometown in brittany . so it could happen ? pantani 's many fans need only wait until saturday , when 21 teams of 9 riders each will set off in dunkirk on their three week , 3 , 462 kilometer ( 2 , 151 mile ) journey through france . this would be a good tour for pantani , who flies up the mountains most others curse . or did fly up them he was left far behind in major climbs in the ill starred giro d'italia last month . that lack of form was the reason cited in april by the tour 's organizers when they declined to invite mercatone uno . the team is nothing without pantani , who has barely raced since the last tour , when he won two mountainous stages . since then , he has been disciplined on drug charges . as a result , he seems to have lost his morale and zest for the sport . ''is he still a bicycle racer ? '' asked jean_marie leblanc , the tour 's director , when he refused the wild_card . ''it remains to be shown . '' a grand place to have shown it would have been the second and final day in the alps , july 18 , the 11th of 20 daily stages . following a strenuous climb over three peaks to alpe d'huez on the 10th stage , the tour will present a rare uphill time trial , 32 kilometers long ( just short of 20 miles ) . riders will set off one by one and face a final ascension of 18 . 4 kilometers ( 11 . 4 miles ) with a grade of 7.2 percent . ( the second long individual time trial , over 61 kilometers , about 38 miles , will be flat it is scheduled two days before the finish july 29 in paris . ) for those who want more mountains , two days after the alps , the race will enter the pyrenees for three stages . peaks like luz ardiden , the tourmalet , the aspin and st . lary soulan will be highlights . while there will be plenty of mountains , the big question is whether there will be men to match them . in addition to pantani , richard virenque , five times the tour 's king of the mountains , alex zulle and fernando escartin will be missing . virenque is serving a nine month suspension for drugging , and zulle and escartin , both of the coast team , received the same empty envelope from the tour 's invitation committee that pantani did . that reduces the competition for the favorite , lance_armstrong , who is seeking his third consecutive overall victory , and for jan ullrich , his german shadow . although joseba beloki and christophe moreau , a spaniard and a frenchman who were third and fourth in the last tour , are riding strongly now , they remain uncertain in the highest mountains . beyond those two , nobody expected in the field seems likely to duplicate armstrong 's and ullrich 's day in , day out resilience when the road turns uphill . cycling",has a topic of sports
"i was at the hobby shop when it happened . ''i have some bad news for you , '' my wife said to me when i arrived home that day , her comforting hand on my shoulder . ''better get in your den real fast . '' i handed her my brand new hulk hogan bobblehead doll and a pile of oldie but goodie baseball cards i had just purchased . ''who 's duffy dyer ? '' she said as i bolted out of the room . in an ebay minute , i was staring down in disbelief at a twisted pile of broken glass and shattered wood . crushed bobbleheads were everywhere , and the stench of scattered rawhide filled the dusty air . one of the huge shelves that displayed some of my large memorabilia collection had collapsed . i grew numb surveying the wreckage that resulted when a number of bobbleheads , framed autographs , sports statues , figurines and signed baseballs went from top shelf to ground chuck in a single plunge , victims of a handful of underachieving nails . more than a little piece of me died that day . in fact , hundreds of little pieces of me were strewn everywhere . the head of rudolph w . giuliani was buried beneath a mountain of plastic and papier mach , olive oyl and bluto lay side by side , popeye nowhere to be found . jeff bagwell , ken griffey jr . , roberto_clemente and sammy_sosa were now on my permanent disabled_list , and jockey laffit pincay jr . was unceremoniously tossed from his mount . a piece of shattered art was imitating life , because one of mike_tyson 's ears had come unglued in the fall . as i bobbed my own head in sorrow , my wife consoled me i think . ''better get away from here for a while , '' she said . ''i 'll need some time to vacuum . '' i was still in mourning the next day when i shuffled out to get the mail . i found a package sent by a sister who is familiar with my expensive and time consuming pastime . inside was a fascinating piece of what i consider to be art . it resembled a large easter egg , an oblong wooden doll with a picture of mets catcher mike_piazza my favorite player painted on it . the doll twists open to reveal a smaller piazza in a different mets uniform , and twists open again to reveal an even smaller piazza , in yet another mets uniform . a note attached read ''vin this is called a babooshkah doll enjoy ! '' did my sister know this memorabilia junkie needed a quick fix ? or was this some sort of divine intervention , by way of china , where this piazza babooshkah had been made ? ''a new collection to conquer ! '' i shouted . ''i 'll keep the vacuum_cleaner out , just in case , '' my wife shouted back . since that day , my babooshkah collection has grown considerably . i now own several of the babooshkahs that were issued to baseball fans who attended major_league parks this season on various giveaway days . each doll contains three to five pieces . i own the barry_bonds babooshkah , which celebrates his career . bonds is featured in his san_francisco_giants threads , his old pittsburgh_pirates get up and in his arizona_state attire . i also own the george brett and the texas_rangers babooshkahs , the latter a star studded troika featuring alex_rodriguez , juan gonzalez and rafael palmeiro . troika is a word more closely associated with these babooshkah dolls than i first thought . the word troika originated in russia , and so did the babooshkah concept . in russian , babushka has several meanings that help to bridge a gap between two cultures . it can mean grandmother , or the scarves that many russian grandmothers wear . it is also a term of endearment that echoes the affection that people have for their favorite sports stars . nesting dolls like the babooshkahs are more commonly known as matryoshkas and made their first appearance on russia 's cultural landscape in 1890 . the first doll was created in sergiyev posad , near moscow , at the abramtsevo estate owned by savva mamontov , an industrialist and patron of the arts . carved mainly from birch , matryoshka dolls commemorated russian royalty , like the family of the last czar , nicholas ii . the dolls also depict scenes from russian fairy_tales , churches and towns , and life scenes of the people and the arts . much like painters in works on canvas , the matryoshka artist tells a story by nesting chapters in paintings on wood . ''major_league teams are extremely excited about babooshkahs because it is bringing more fans out to the stadiums , '' said jay deutsch , the chief executive and co founder of bensussen deutsch and associates , a merchandising agency in woodinville ( where else ? ) , wash . , which created and is now promoting the item . ''i 've been through the trading card and bobblehead crazes , and i think this is going to be the next collectible craze . the players themselves love it because it is a way of honoring and immortalizing them . '' sitting in my den the other day in the company of my newest collection , i glanced at a list of coming giveaway days and saw that 41 , 000 tony gwynn babooshkahs will be given out in san_diego on saturday . i then took a quick peek on ebay to find that some of these babooshkahs were selling from 15 to 75 . the bobblehead ? yesterday 's news . ''long live the bobblehead , '' i thought out loud . my wife overheard me . ''i 'll get the vacuum_cleaner again , '' she said . backtalk",has a topic of sports
"the french soccer league 's disciplinary commission , after daylong questioning of the principals in the olympique marseilles game fixing scandal , said yesterday that it still lacked enough information to penalize anyone . the announcement left the future of both marseilles and the french national soccer team in doubt . marseilles faces possible expulsion from the european_champions cup , and france has been threatened with suspension from international soccer unless its soccer federation takes action by sept . 23 . the disciplinary commission said its eventual action hinged on the outcome of criminal investigations now under way . the marseilles team 's owner , bernard tapie , was the last of seven players and officials to appear before the commission at the league 's headquarters in paris . after his 45 minute session , he said his team 's future would be at stake monday when european soccer 's ruling body , uefa , decides whether to ban marseilles from defending its champions cup title . ( ap ) sports people soccer",has a topic of sports
"even as the united_states bobsled team assembles tomorrow in albertville , france , for the 1992 winter_games , the group will still be feeling the effects of a controversy that has engulfed it since last summer . ray pratt , the team 's executive director , disclosed recently that the team would pay "" out of pocket "" expenses to todd snavely . snavely is the sledder who made the team last july but then was displaced last month when new trials were held . his expenses are believed to be considerable , more than 10 , 000 . snavely 's family booked french hotel rooms with nonrefundable deposits and also bought airline tickets . but the sledder might never recoup the money he lost in his two years of training for a team that he made , then did n't make . another unhappy person around the bobsled team is jerry malinowsky , an independent sled designer who says he created a four man sled with the 180 pound snavely in mind . taking snavely 's place will be either greg harrell , a former pro_football player who weighs 245 pounds , or robert weissenfels , who weighs 205 pounds . either one would put the malinowsky sled over the maximum limit of 1 , 389 pounds and thus could not be used . but jim hickey , the united_states bobsled coach , said malinowsky 's sled would not have been the team 's first choice for the four man event . "" even with its original weight , it never would have been used , "" hickey said . "" we bought a sled in italy that was better . "" malinowsky estimates his cost of developing the unused sled was "" in the hundreds of thousands of dollars . "" the new sled cost 21 , 000 . some like it cold while americans are storming puerto_rico these days to put a little sun in their lives , that island 's bobsledders will be convening in new york on wednesday for their trip to the albertville games , which start saturday . the winter_olympics are n't just for nordics and cold_weather nuts anymore . indeed , a listing of the countries competing in the winter_games includes many we think of as warm_weather destinations bermuda , fiji , jamaica , lebanon , mexico , morocco , the netherlands antilles , the philippines , puerto_rico , senegal and the united states virgin islands . puerto_rico had been enjoying olympic winters even before the jamaican bobsled team three words that still look funny on paper made such a splash , so to speak , in the 1988 games at calgary , alberta . "" george tucker of puerto_rico was in the luge in 1984 at sarajevo , "" recalled rich kolko , who coaches puerto_rico 's bobsledders . "" he was the one who set the standard for caribbean nations competing . "" like many of the winter athletes who represent warm_weather countries , though , tucker actually learned his craft someplace else lake placid , n.y . but because he was born in puerto_rico , he was eligible to compete for the island . national olympic committees set their own standards on who is eligible to compete . in puerto_rico , for example , those who are born there , or who currently reside there , may represent the commonwealth . but the athlete may not have competed for another country , even the united_states . kolko is a former united_states luge champion . but he thinks that outstanding athletes can quickly learn to master the luge and the bobsled , unlike , say , figure_skating or ski_jumping . just look at the football player herschel walker . in large part , sled sports require strength ( to get off to a fast start pushing the vehicle ) and speed . all the practice in the world wo n't make an experienced "" pusher "" better at it than walker , a pusher as well as brakeman on both the united_states' top two man and four man sleds . "" when i was in calgary , coaching puerto_rico in luge , i saw liston bochette he had been a decathlete for puerto_rico , "" kolko said . "" i said , 'you 're the kind of guy we want to get into bobsledding . ' "" four years later , bochette , who has a doctorate in english , is the driver of puerto_rico 's top two man sled and its only four man sled . strikers and protesters less than a week before the winter_olympics open , strikes and protests by dancers and taxi_drivers blotted the pristine alpine landscape in and around albertville , france , over the weekend . about 150 dancers scheduled to perform at the opening and closing ceremonies held a 24 hour strike in their rehearsals saturday to demand better housing and pay . taxi_drivers , meanwhile , blocked roads linking albertville , headquarters of the games , to moutiers , the telecommunication center , with about 30 taxis . the drivers were angry because of regulations established by regional authorities prohibiting them from taking clients freely throughout the region during the two week games . under current rules , aimed at reducing traffic , taxis registered in one zone cannot enter another , and must turn over their clients at the imaginary frontier to different drivers . ( ap ) alpine team is picked the united_states olympic alpine ski team will have 11 men and 11 women , including 7 former olympians . the united_states skiing alpine director , dennis agee , announced the team yesterday . coach ueli luthi chose the men 's team and coach paul major selected the women 's team , following the final pre olympic world_cup races . a . j . kitt of rochester , n.y. , heads the men 's team . in december , he won a downhill at val_d'isere , france , becoming the first american man in seven years to win a world_cup ski race . julie parisian of auburn , me . , who won a world_cup event last year , topped the women 's team . ( ap )",has a topic of sports
"for any american television viewer who overdosed on luge last february , ray leblanc and 16 days of snow capped , tape delayed winter_olympic scenery from the french_alps , a return to the savoy region one year later reveals an area indelibly marked by the olympic experience . the enormous olympic rings are still painted on the highway in the workaday outskirts of albertville . windows full of magique the mascot dolls and "" albertville '92 "" duffel bags at 40 percent off still fill the stores on the city 's main_street . at the edge of town , past signs for "" le parc olympique , "" stands the ice hall , where kristi_yamaguchi 's combination of artistry and athleticism carried her to a gold_medal in ladies figure_skating . now , anyone can rent a pair of skates , open a door and lurch gamely onto the ice . only this is no longer quite the same arena where yamaguchi starred . although the hall 's interior shell is unchanged , only 1 , 200 of the original 9 , 000 seats remain . it is as if someone has laid out a little league stadium in a space_shuttle hangar . gone to barcelona across a two lane road from the ice hall , the site of the whimsical and memorable opening ceremonies bears little resemblance to the place where 1 , 808 athletes from 64 nations paraded on feb . 8 , 1992 . the 30 , 000 seat stadium is gone , shipped off piecemeal to barcelona to accommodate summer_olympic fans . in its place is a huge dirt lot that contains only one vestige of its former function the elaborate steel mast that served as an axis for the imaginative choreography of the young ceremonies director , philippe decoufle . across the lot at the speed_skating oval where bonnie_blair once again warmed middle america 's collective heart , the stadium has been left untouched , but the ice has been replaced by a rubberized , all weather track . "" before the olympics , the foreigners never stopped in albertville , "" said nathalie miege , who works in a souvenir shop . "" they all come through now and take their pictures , but i think they 're a little disappointed because there 's not much left anymore . not in albertville anyway . "" up the serpentine roads that lead to the ski_resorts , the evidence is more plentiful . in courchevel , the two ski jumps still tower over their wooded surroundings . in val_d'isere , the men 's downhill run , la face de bellevarde , is now open to recreational skiers . in meribel , the hockey rink is home to junior tournaments and figure_skating exhibitions . 'a good source of income' even the bobsled and luge track , which gave organizers such fits because of environmental safety concerns , has finally resumed operation in the hamlet of la roche , offering bold tourists the chance to glide top to bottom with a driver for 400 francs ( about 75 ) . "" we see this is a good source of income , "" said andre broche , the track 's director , who must balance the track 's books over the next three years to keep it open . money remains an everyday topic in the savoy . the good news is that the 52 million deficit run up by the olympic organizing_committee was quickly covered by the federal_government and the savoy regional council . the troubling news is that some small communities who viewed the games as an excuse to think big continue to struggle . brides_les_bains , site of the principal olympic village , is still searching for financing to underwrite a deficit that exceeds 11 million . pralognan , which was host to the demonstration sport of curling , ended up paying 2 million ( about 3 , 400 for each of its 600 inhabitants ) to cover its share of constructing an ice_rink . les saisies , site of the cross_country events , has reportedly been ordered by the government to spend no more on infrastructure improvements until 1997 because of its financial difficulties . local taxes are up in many areas of the region , even in the tony commune of meribel les allues . "" my taxes have increased about 15 percent , "" said jean_marie choffel , meribel 's director of tourism . "" of course everybody resents it , but it 's the price you pay . there are n't many places who have the chance to hold the olympics . there is a cost , and the hope is that you will benefit in the long term . "" strong start to season some short term benefits have already become apparent . tourism was up significantly in the olympic region throughout the summer , and with some help from an early snowfall , the first month of the winter season produced record occupancy rates . "" we have never started a season like this the lifts in the three valleys have seen their receipts go up 60 percent , "" said michel_barnier , the president of the savoie general council who was a co president of the organizing_committee with jean_claude_killy . "" it will be a very good season , but i want to be prudent . i wo n't say we 've really succeeded until i see the same sort of numbers after two or three seasons . "" the pre olympic improvements made in local transportation have certainly played a role in the early success . new and improved roads have cut traveling times from lyons to the high altitude stations by as much as a third during peak periods . but the fact remains that nearly 25 percent of the savoy 's visitors this winter have been first time visitors , and the majority of those have been foreigners who discovered the savoy last february . the optimism over tourism has helped soften the psychological blow to an area that in the last year has seen unemployment rise from a relatively low 7.5 percent to 10 percent , which is near the national average . despite the difficulties , it is no easy task to find someone who regrets embarking on the olympic adventure . "" we miss the olympics here , "" said daniel marret , an albertville bartender . "" for five years before the games , it was like people dared to dream . they worked toward a common goal and forgot some of their petty differences . now , albertville is becoming again just another small town . i guess it 's inevitable . you only live an experience like that once in your life . "" 'we made it to the end' although barnier can wax nostalgic about the lighting and extinguishing of the flame , it is clearly his relationship with killy that marked him the most . "" we started together on this project 10 years ago , and we made it to the end , "" he said . "" i was very happy to show that two different men could live such an adventure together and come away friends . "" in june , killy was named president of amaury sports , a paris based organization that among other tasks , negotiates television rights for the tour de france and the paris dakar automobile rally . barnier , a neo gaullist member of parliament , recently authored a book on environmental trouble spots and is preparing to stand for re election in march . he plans to make his second trip to lillehammer , norway , this summer to meet with the next olympic organizers . "" i do n't want to give them too much advice , "" barnier said . "" i will go see them out of friendship because we have always had a good relationship . all i would say is not to lose a minute . the last year goes very quickly . "" olympics",has a topic of sports
"when john register walked in front of a group of injured soldiers at brooke army medical center , he wore a big , easy smile and spoke from his heart . his space_age left leg extended from a pair of khaki shorts , and he had the soldiers' attention even before he told them that he too had been in the army , and that he too had fought in iraq . register looked out over a group of men battered by a war in which roadside_bombs have become the daily nightmare across iraq and afghanistan each one tearing a hole in more lives , sending more soldiers home to navigate life as amputees . into their confusing and painful journey , register walks with his prosthetic leg , magnetic smile and absolute belief in the message he brings . on this steamy june day in san_antonio , he stood in an airless gym and cut through the heartache by preaching about the magic of sports . as the head of the united_states_olympic_committee 's paralympic military program , register is not only a veteran and an amputee , but he is also a two time paralympian who believes in the healing power of competition . register 's mission was to coax a group of wary new amputees into trying games that seemed as foreign as they were familiar routine sports adapted for the disabled . ''they may not be ready to hear about the paralympics'' the international competition for the disabled ''and becoming a paralympic athlete , '' register said . ''but we do see it as a way they can look at the possibilities . '' register , 40 , began to unveil those possibilities by bringing accomplished athletes and coaches from four paralympic sports sitting volleyball , wheelchair tennis , wheelchair fencing and archery . he had staged enough exhibitions to know what to expect . at first , most soldiers sat back and watched skeptically . when they were finally drawn into the game , their hesitance vanished . ''the disability disappears , '' register said , talking about his favorite moment of the job . ''and the game is on . '' at brooke , register had the usual cautious audience , with one notable_exception . justin hollenbach , 22 , of lacy , wash . , volunteered eagerly , no matter the sport . ''i 'll try anything , '' hollenbach said . ''i want to skateboard . i hope there 's a para x games . '' after the wheelchair tennis exhibition , an instructor brought a hand operated bicycle to the court . hollenbach plopped into the seat , and with a few cranks was flying around the court and eventually down a grassy hill with the instructor chasing him . ''woo hoo ! '' hollenbach bellowed . ''i 've got to get one of these . '' his fellow soldiers shook their heads and laughed . they were familiar with hollenbach 's exuberance , seemingly untouched by the roadside_bomb that tore off his right foot while he was on patrol march 14 in baghdad . hollenbach described himself sitting by the side of the road , calming the soldiers around him even though he was the one who was injured . eventually , most of the other soldiers joined hollenbach in the sports . in the sitting volleyball game , it took only a few minutes for the trash talking to erupt and for the players to begin diving for shots and slapping hands . wheelchair tennis was a tougher challenge , learning to manipulate a wheelchair as well as hitting a ball . the plan is to have these sports become a regular activity at brooke , as an outlet and an escape . ''look at these guys , '' said dan seefeldt , 42 , of manitowoc , wis . , who lost almost all of his left leg to a roadside_bomb in baghdad . ''they 're all happy . it gets them out of their rooms , away from the hospital . it 's a really good experience . '' the doctors and commanders at fort sam houston , which houses brooke , agreed quickly to the u.s.o.c . 's introducing sports to their patients . they see it as another way to care for a growing number of soldiers facing an altered life . they have organized a family assistance center for spouses and parents . they arrange fishing trips and picnics . the people of san_antonio have donated money and time and entertainment . one night , a picnic brought together all of the injured , not just the amputees , and their families . latin dancers performed . a restaurant donated the barbecue . the heartache was universal , but a spirit of resilience persevered . army officials believe sports can have a special place in the healing process . ''we consider these guys tactical athletes , '' said col . robert granville , one of two orthopedic surgeons who care for the amputees at brooke , ''and we are trying to return them as near as possible to their pre injury state of function . so this type of activity really plays right into it . most of these guys are late teens , early 20 's , so they 're very competitive . '' this program brings the paralympics back to its roots as an activity for injured veterans after world_war_ii . sir ludwig guttmann , a german born neurosurgeon who fled nazi occupation for england in 1939 , believed in sports as a rehabilitation tool and organized wheelchair competitions in several sports among spinal_cord patients . his idea grew , and the first paralympics was staged shortly after the 1960 olympics in rome . now the event draws about 4 , 000 athletes in 21 summer sports and 4 winter ones to compete after every olympics . still , joe walsh , the director of u.s . paralympics , said the paralympic profile remained so low that even most disabled people do not know it exists . he said the military 's amputee centers gave his organization a place to spread the word to those likely to benefit . ''the no . 1 goal is to open up opportunities for people wounded in the military to participate in sports , '' walsh said . ''by doing that , we are sure to end up with some top level athletes . it 's almost a sure thing . '' most of the soldiers here had never heard of disabled sports , much less an olympic level competition . the clinics provided a revelation . seefeldt started out the wheelchair tennis drills struggling to move the chair quickly enough to reach the ball . once he practiced for a while , he began scorching forehands into the corners , shots he learned playing tennis on two legs . he finished the game and announced he would ask the army for a chair , realizing he could play tennis with his two children . ''that was awesome , '' he said . other soldiers never ventured from the sidelines . a few were outright bitter , refusing even the gentlest approaches . seefeldt , somewhat of an older brother figure , tried to persuade them . most , though , were simply shy or reluctant and joined after a few encouraging words . moses sonera , 31 , of puerto_rico , was one of those . it had been more than a year since he came home from iraq , but his injured foot was not responding to treatment . register 's clinics came a few days before sonera had his left leg amputated below the knee . but trying each game made sonera smile and gave him a new perspective . ''i 've never seen all these different sports , '' he said . ''it makes me realize i can do everything . '' that , of course , is the heart of register 's message . ''he is the ideal person for this job , '' walsh said . the irony of register 's injury is that he came home from the persian_gulf_war in 1991 without a scratch . he returned to the army 's world class athlete program he was a four time all american in track at the university of arkansas and was training for the 1996 olympic trials when a routine hurdles run in 1994 changed everything . he hit a hurdle , landed badly , dislocated his knee and severed an artery . he was flown to brooke for the amputation . for a time , the idea of being an athlete again struck register as nothing short of absurd . but he took up swimming as a way to get back in shape , then began timing himself . someone told him the qualifying time for the paralympic trials , and he used it as a goal . he made it not only to the trials , but also to the 1996 paralympics . in 2000 , he qualified as a runner , in the 200 meters . ''people asked me , with advancements in artificial leg technology , do you think you will run as fast as michael johnson or jump as far as carl_lewis ? '' register said . ''the question is , if either of them lost a limb , would they run as fast or jump as far as john register ? can you get over the limb loss and can you get back on the track and get running again ? or are you going to hide yourself in a shell ? '' register saw enough people make the latter choice , and he found a new cause . the u.s.o.c . hired him 18 months earlier . register now sees his injury in a new light . ''i do n't believe in coincidences , '' he said . when he talks to soldiers , he shows them a paralympics video , one filled with as many crashes as triumphant moments . he wants them to know disabled people can still be tough and resilient . he tells them there is hope and redemption in the crashes and the triumphs . ''i have mad respect for him , '' hollenbach said . ''when he first came here , he really opened up our eyes . '' they watched and they listened because he is one of them . paralympics",has a topic of sports
"there may be no olympics this year for dan o'brien , but there may still be a world record . the world decathlon champion said his failure saturday in the united_states olympic track and field trials in new orleans had led him to accept an invitation to a major competition in early september in talence , france . o'brien said a world record there would soothe his unexpected failure to make the olympic team when he failed to clear his opening height in the pole_vault . hours after that failure , the tears had vanished . o'brien returned to his hotel room and showered . then he went to bourbon street for dinner with tanya hughes , who won the women 's high_jump in the trials , and his massage therapist . they did the same sunday_night . "" we listened to some good music and tried to think about good things , "" o'brien said . "" it was the first time i had been able to relax all week . now i 've got to look ahead . i compete best when i 'm hungry , and after this week i 'm hungrier than ever . "" sports people decathlon",has a topic of sports
"as costs rose and problems multiplied , there were times when even the chief organizers of the 16th winter_olympics questioned the wisdom of holding this month 's albertville games at 13 sites sprawled over a 600 plus square_mile area of the french_alps . everything , it seemed , had to go that little bit farther new highways and improved access roads , telecommunications , transportation , security , accommodations , even food supplies . and it also meant dealing with 13 municipal governments . yet in the end , thanks to patient planning and a good deal of money from french taxpayers , the last minute scramble that so often precedes such major sporting_events was averted . now , with everything apparently ready for saturday 's opening ceremony , the only remaining worry is the weather . if a reminder were necessary , the area was struck in late december by its worst snowstorm in 47 years . but it also gave both the olympic organizing_committee and the regional government a chance to test their ability to prevent heavy snow from disrupting the games , feb . 8 23 . ready for snow "" we 're not in senegal , you know , "" said michel_barnier , the savoy region politician who is co president of the organizing_committee . "" we ca n't be surprised if it snows here . it will be easier if it does n't snow during the games . but we 're now ready for it . "" perhaps as important , the scattered venues of the 57 events stadiums , ski jumps and ski runs , hockey rinks and bobsled runs have all been tested in competition or practice in recent weeks and have been declared in working order . the opening ceremony will take place before a crowd of 30 , 000 in albertville itself and this valley town with no ski_slopes of its own will also be host to the speed_skating , figure_skating and short_track events . in the days that follow the inauguration of the games by president_francois_mitterrand , attention will switch to courchevel , val_d'isere , meribel , la_plagne and other mountain resorts that will be the venues for such popular competitions as ski_jumping , alpine_skiing , bobsledding and hockey . olympic villages at brides_les_bains and les saisies are already spruced up to receive 2 , 200 athletes in unusual comfort , new highways from chambery to albertville and from albertville up the tarentaise valley are open and a press center has been built to handle 7 , 000 journalists and technicians . indeed , in recent days , jean_claude_killy , france 's former skiing idol who is the other co president of the organizing_committee , has felt relaxed enough to start thinking about sports . "" it 's very important for the games that we have one or two international stars and one or two french stars , "" he said . french fans and , by his own admission , killy are counting on the french brother sister team of paul and isabelle duchesnay to take the ice_dancing gold_medal here . certainly , the 1968 winter_olympics in nearby grenoble are still remembered in france and beyond for killy 's spectacular victories in the slalom , giant_slalom and downhill events . and he recognizes that the best gauge of the success of the albertville games will be the excitement they generate . tv audience is key variable the key variable , though , will be the television audience because the problem of moving large crowds around the valleys and mountain roads of this region has prompted the organizers to limit ticket sales to 800 , 000 compared with the two million spectators who watched in calgary , alberta , in 1988 . some hoteliers in the savoy region have even complained that they still have rooms available this month because some winter holiday makers have chosen other resorts rather than risk being caught in traffic_jams . but they concede that they should profit later from publicity surrounding the event . already the region has benefited from the 1 . 2 billion spent by france 's central and regional governments to insure the success of the games by improving roads , railroads , hospitals and cultural facilities . on top of that , they have contributed 155 million to the organizing_committee . "" from the first day , looking at the costs and revenues , we knew we could not do this without public investment , "" barnier recalled . "" we 're in france , not the united_states . and in france you cannot organize olympic_games without a solid partnership with the state . "" aim is to break even as a result , while other recent olympic_games have returned profits , barnier 's aim is merely to break even . if he does , he can perhaps thank cbs , which paid 243 million or almost one third of the organizing_committee 's 750 million budget for the american rights . if he does not , he can count on the government 's picking up the difference . the main unexpected costs so far were associated with construction of the bobsled and luge run at la_plagne and of the two 90 meter and 120 meter ski jumps at courchevel . in both cases the costs came about , in part , because of difficulties with the terrain on which they were built and , additionally at la_plagne , problems handling and containing the ammonia needed to cool the run . some resorts , though , have spent themselves into trouble . pralognon la vanoise built a 6 million ice_rink , but it was assigned only the demonstration curling event and is now heavily in debt . brides_les_bains , which has just 600 permanent residents , gave itself a 56 million face lift to prepare for becoming an olympic village and it now owes 14 million to construction companies . test for resorts after games the real test for many of the resorts will come after the olympics when they must manage the installations that they will inherit . the ski_jump bequeathed by the grenoble games 24 years ago , for example , was recently put on sale for one franc because local authorities could no longer maintain it . "" the people of the area have to think big , "" killy said , speaking with the conviction of a man who was brought up on the slopes of val_d'isere . "" the sales pitch must not be just one resort but the whole tarentaise valley . if the people of the valley can sell the area for competitions and recreation into the next century , we will have won the olympic bet . "" albertville '92",has a topic of sports
"miriam jenkins refueled everything from kerosene heaters to jet planes during her five months in iraq and kuwait in 2003 as a sergeant with the marine_corps . for sport , she kicked giant bugs along dirt roads , only to see them bounce up , unfazed by her thick boots . and in down times , she thought of wrestling in athens , where she hoped to win a gold_medal in the olympic women 's freestyle competition . instead , late friday , jenkins fell short of making the united_states team , dropping a 9 2 decision to mary kelly in a quarterfinal_match at 48 kilograms ( 105 . 5 pounds ) at the olympic trials at the rca dome . ''even though i lost , you still know what your no . 1 priority is serving your country , '' said jenkins , 24 , her eyes focused . ''i can still look at the 2008 olympics . '' she was not a favorite to make the olympic team this year , but she was a compelling figure at these trials , a person whose athletic talent and passion to serve in the military seemed to echo that of pat tillman , the former arizona cardinals player who was killed in afghanistan last month . though jenkins has been in the united_states for nearly a year and will have her enlistment end in november 2006 , she is contemplating a career in the military , the dangerous days and nights abroad notwithstanding . ''i want to be in with the best , '' she said , summing up the credo of her branch of the armed_forces . while she is on temporary duty in quantico , va . , she remains a supporter of the war in iraq , despite the chaos there and revelations of abuse in abu_ghraib_prison by some soldiers . to jenkins , the good has outweighed the bad . ''my proudest moment was helping a woman 's father see her daughter for the first time , '' said jenkins , one of nine children . ''you see starving kids on commercials , but you do n't really think about that until you see it happen in person . ''i know i did good running this guy out of the country , '' jenkins said , referring to saddam_hussein . jenkins , a shade over 5 feet , never ducked a question , including those pertaining to the intersection of war and sports , an issue brought to light recently when minnesota timberwolves forward kevin garnett used military analogies to describe his preparation for a game 7 against the sacramento kings in the n.b.a . playoffs . ( he apologized the next day . ) jenkins , who has studied for battles real and imagined , chewed hard on the question before ultimately giving garnett a pass . ''to athletes , it is another battlefield , but he probably did n't mean it that way , '' jenkins said . ''sometimes you say things that you do n't think are going to offend anybody , and he probably did n't mean to offend anyone . '' jenkins understands the chasm between war and games , acknowledging that ''when i go on the mat , my chances of dying are very slim . '' still , she appreciates the character building and accountability she believes she has received from both . that is why she will continue to wrestle and consider a career in the armed_forces . ''you ca n't blame anybody except yourself , '' she said , ''and that 's what i like . '' wrestling",has a topic of sports
"after years of bobbing , weaving and semantical tomfoolery , the sport of track and field will take a step toward clarity on friday when the world indoor_championships begin in the palais omnisports de bercy . for the first time at any track world_championships , there will be prize money available to the medalists . not luxury cars , not ribbons , thumps on the back or conspiratorial winks . there will be prize money , and it is hardly a token amount , with an overall purse of 2 . 3 million and 50 , 000 going to each gold medalist . among the luminaries who will compete are gail devers of the united_states in the women 's 60 meter_dash , wilson kipketer of denmark in the men 's 800 , the fast rising hicham el guerrouj of morocco in the men 's 1 , 500 , mary decker slaney of the united_states in the women 's 1500 and haile gebrselassie of ethiopia in the men 's 3 , 000 .",has a topic of sports
"scandal plagued olympique marseilles was barred yesterday from playing in the intercontinental cup , which is for the world club championship , and the european super cup . earlier this month , marseilles was stripped of its 1992 93 french league title and barred from defending its title in the european_champions cup . "" we have to protect soccer , "" fifa 's general secretary , sepp blatter , said . "" we have to maintain order , respect and discipline in an organization which groups 178 national associations and more than 200 million players . "" fifa imposed worldwide suspensions on the former marseilles general_manager , jean_pierre bernes the former marseilles player , jean_jacques eydelie , and the former valenciennes players christophe robert and jorge burruchaga , all accused in a bribery accusation . ( ap ) sports people soccer",has a topic of sports
"with about a month to get ready for the world_cup , the biggest event in the world 's most popular spectator_sport , soccer , france has spiffed up tens of thousands of hotel rooms , taught surly taxi_drivers to say , ''sank you , veri meutch , '' to english speaking visitors , and built a futuristic 450 million stadium on the outskirts of paris for the june 10 opening match . ''france welcomes the world , '' the slogan goes . but , even at the world_cup , the french have made it difficult for foreigners to feel welcome even though they received 67 million tourists and took 34 billion from them last year . ''bonjour 98 , '' a booklet prepared by the french tourist office to help travel professionals cater to the needs of the more than 40 nationalities expected in the 10 french cities that will be host to the 64 games , also tells users how to say thank you in german ( ' 'danke cheun'' ) , in spanish ( ' 'moutchas gracias'' ) and in a score of other languages . it also warns that what people from country after country dislike most about the french is their unwelcoming attitude , starting with the refusal of many natives to speak anything but french . even putting their best foot forward , the french manage to trip themselves up . the organizing_committee has made it so difficult for anybody who does not live in france to buy any of the 2.5 million tickets , for example , that the european_union in brussels will probably charge it with violating european rules on fair competition , according to officials who said a guilty finding could bring a fine of a few million dollars . for tourists who managed to snag tickets , hotel rates have been increased , according to some of them who have tried to make reservations . ''they made it all but impossible for people from a foreign country to buy tickets , '' said a spokesman for the european_union 's commissioner for competition , karel van miert , who expects to hold hearings this summer on the charges and reach a ruling in september . ''they made you use the minitel , which you ca n't connect with from the internet they made you give a ticket delivery address in france , and they made you transfer 350 francs , a large sum of money for some people , to a french bank , '' one official said , referring to a sum of 59 american . ''it appears to be an infraction of european_union rules that say a monopolistic or dominant company cannot discriminate , and they appear to have discriminated by nationality . '' in any event , legal action would not help would be spectators with the bad luck not to be french because most of the tickets have already been snapped up by french fans and because the championship game will be played on july 12 . like the final game , the opening one and seven other matches in the 64 game series will take place to the north of paris in the 80 , 000 seat stade de france , an engineering marvel with a cantilevered roof the size of the place de la concorde , but with only 6 , 000 parking_spaces . it seems to hover like a giant , sleek flying saucer over the northern approaches to paris in the ancient royal capital of saint denis . but with french truckers , railroad workers and subway drivers all threatening strikes during the games , fans could have a hard time getting aboard . ''i do n't think it 'll happen , and if it does , i 'll walk to the stadium , '' said michel platini , the former soccer player who heads the french organizing_committee . tickets remain a huge headache . under pressure from the european_union commission , the committee put aside 50 , 000 tickets for foreigners , and allowed foreigners as well as french fans to try to call in for the final allotment of tickets , 110 , 000 of them , which went on sale april 22 . but the 60 operators taking telephone orders were immediately swamped by an estimated 20 million attempted calls , making the odds of getting a ticket about the same as those of winning the lottery . frustrated fans all over europe are furious , and even a french daily newspaper , le_monde , called the telephone scheme a french farce . ''you ca n't please everybody , '' platini said , shrugging . ''french taxpayers built the stadiums and are paying for a lot of the cost of having the world_cup here . it 's only fair that they should get more tickets . '' andreas herren , a spokesman for the federation of international football associations , the sport 's world governing body in zurich , said the french were getting a bum rap for the tourist troubles . ''with millions of affluent fans living within a few hours' driving time from france , and only 2.5 million tickets available , there were bound to be 25 or 30 unhappy fans for every one who got a ticket , '' he said . he defended the ticket distribution , 60 percent for french customers and 20 percent for participating soccer clubs and organizing officials , as standard practice , and said it had been approved by the federation . there were fewer complaints at the last world_cup final round , in the united_states four years ago , he said , but that was because fewer foreign fans had the money to make the trip to the united_states to see the games , and larger american stadiums meant that a million more tickets had been available . the practical professional guide prepared by the french tourist office did not anticipate the ticket troubles , but it did anticipate other problems . americans , the guide says , ' 'deplore prices that are too high , the insufficient use of english and prevailing anti_americanism , '' but , hey , you ca n't have everything . do not force brazilians to eat meals in their hotels , the guide says , and do not serve brains or horse meat to chileans . it says that eastern europeans , among many others , find prices much too high . platini , in a wide_ranging talk with reporters , said one of his biggest problems was french official indifference to the excitement of having millions of visitors for the world_cup here . speaking of plans to have a free open air entertainment spectacular in the streets of paris the night before the opening match , he wiped his brow and said getting the state to actually organize a program had been one of the hardest tasks he had faced . soccer",has a topic of sports
"basking in the reflected glory of france 's world_cup soccer championship , president jacques_chirac appealed to his compatriots today , bastille day , not to lose the upbeat victory spirit . ''at heart this victory showed solidarity and cohesion and showed that france had a soul , or more precisely was trying to find one , '' he said in a nationally_televised conversation with two journalists at a reception in the vast garden of the presidential elysee_palace . the festivities quickly turned into yet another celebration of the french national soccer team , mr . chirac 's guests of honor , who won the championship with a 3 0 victory over brazil on sunday . ''i hope we keep a good part of this national feeling after these festivities , '' added mr . chirac , whose popularity has soared to the highest level in three years as the national mood has improved , primed by an upswing in the economy . the socialist prime_minister with whom the conservative mr . chirac has had to share power since last year , lionel_jospin , came to the festivities today with half his government and several thousand other guests . most of them were soccer tournament volunteers , athletes , low ranking soldiers and sailors , and students mr . chirac invited to liven up the party . liven it up they did , greeting the soccer team 's arrival with an impromptu version of the national_anthem , the ''marseillaise , '' even before mr . chirac had finished the interview with the two television journalists at the other end of the garden . later both he and mr . jospin happily submitted to the crush of the crowd around the players as a recorded chorus of ''we are the champions , '' a long ago hit by the british rock group queen , rattled the palace . speaking of his sometimes uneasy ''cohabitation'' with mr . jospin , the president said , ''france should speak with one voice to the world , and it does . '' but asked whether he thought the government , which took office on june 1 last year , had brought about the economic_recovery , mr . chirac said , ''the government shares responsibility , '' but added , ''the growth we see now is due in large part to the efforts of the previous governments . '' the last two governments before mr . jospin 's were headed by mr . chirac 's conservatives , who were defeated last year by a socialist led coalition that promised to make jobs the priority instead of deficit cutting policies that the conservatives had said were needed to qualify france for a european common currency . with the recovery , the socialists were able to bring the deficit down to 3.1 percent of france 's gross_domestic_product , and mr . jospin , who is more popular than the president now , has said france should be able to get it down to 2.3 percent this year . but mr . chirac said that , with unemployment still at 11 . 9 percent despite the recovery , ''we should remember that growth is n't enough to reduce long term unemployment , and that 's a big problem . '' he also indirectly criticized mr . jospin 's government for changing immigration rules this year in response to leftist criticism that conservative policies were inhumanely strict . ''we should take a position and then stick to it , '' he said . mr . jospin 's new policies , under which illegal_immigrants were invited to register and then half were told they did not qualify for residence and would have to leave , have also been criticized by the socialists' green and communist coalition partners . still , with the sun shining and a breeze blowing over the garden , today was another day for celebrating the symbolism of france 's team , itself evidence of the racial and cultural integration of many ethnic groups . its key playmaker , zinedine zidane , a native of algeria who grew up in marseilles , got more cheers in mr . chirac 's own backyard than the president did . the team with the tricolor , mr . chirac noted , was itself multicolored ''a nice image of france , '' he said . ''they showed an image of a france that wins , and wins together . '' post soccer crash claims a life paris , july 14 ( ap ) a man hit by a car on the champs_elysees during a celebration of france 's world_cup victory died today , hospital officials said . thirty three people are still hospitalized because of the accident on monday , when a woman plowed into revelers . about 80 people were injured . ten were still in serious condition today , hospital officials said .",has a topic of sports
"yelena_berezhnaya and anton_sikharulidze spent the afternoon in nearby monte_carlo , their chances of winning their third consecutive world title gone because of the drug_test failed by berezhnaya at the european championships last month . but while berezhnaya and sikharulidze drove dejectedly along the mediterranean , and while their coach , tamara moskvina , met the news_media and tried to explain how her pupil had inadvertently ingested a banned stimulant , the rest of the world 's top pairs were busy filling the unexpected power_vacuum . by the end of the short_program tonight , the revised pecking order was first , xue shen and hongbo zhao of china second , mariya petrova and aleksei tikhonov of russia third , jamie sale and david pelletier of canada and fourth , sarah abitbol and stephane bernadis of france . the top americans after the short_program , which counts for one third of the final score , were kyoko_ina and john zimmerman , who skated very cleanly and received marks of 5.4 to 5.6 for technical merit and 5.4 to 5.8 for presentation . in previous world_championships , that performance might have been enough to keep them in strong medal contention . tonight , even in the absence of the defending champions , it was only good enough for sixth place . ''i 'm happy and excited about the fact that pair skating made such a big step forward , '' tikhonov said . ''last year we saw the beautiful lines and style of yelena and anton , but they made mistakes sometimes . and we also saw the dynamic and strong performances of the chinese couple . but now most of the couples skated great technically . '' the product was not as consistently eye_catching in the men 's qualifying_round , which took place earlier on the first day of these championships too early for the brilliant russian teenager yevgeny plushchenko . plushchenko , the reigning european champion , performed his free program shortly after 10 a.m . and promptly fell while attempting a quadruple_jump . later in his program he downgraded two triple_jumps to doubles . plushchenko still qualified comfortably by finishing second in his group behind the three time world champion elvis_stojko . the defending world champion , aleksei_yagudin , was just as impressive in the other group while performing his revamped free program to puccini 's ''tosca . '' yagudin changed his music after losing to plushchenko at the european and russian championships . ''after all my success last season , it was really hard to start working hard again , '' he said . ''but i now understand that if i do n't work , i will lose . '' yagudin led in group b , just ahead of the american champion , michael weiss , who landed nine triple_jumps and skated cleanly . figure_skating",has a topic of sports
"the french delegation at the atlanta_olympics said it would stage a protest at friday 's opening ceremony against government plans to cut funding for sport . henri serandour , president of the french national_olympic_committee , said his team would be led during the opening ceremony parade by a group of trainers dressed in track suits . under olympic rules , delegations have to wear official team uniforms at the ceremony . serandour said he and his colleagues were protesting against government plans to stop paying some 1 , 500 national trainers out of the sports ministry budget . the plans would mean that each national sports federation would be responsible for paying its own trainers , a step that could put many of them out of work . ( reuters ) olympics notebook",has a topic of sports
"france 's richard gasquet has the look of any 16 year old who has just grown to 5 feet 11 , his 157 pounds stretched to new , not entirely comfortable proportions . he accentuates the look with a backward baseball_cap and an attention span that wanders visibly even during tennis matches . in the united_states open qualifying_tournament two weeks ago , gasquet 's attempt to make the main draw of his second straight grand_slam took a left turn when that typical teenage attention span ran out . he had taken the first set against the journeyman dick norman when he started looking around , watching the adjacent court , focusing on everything but his match . he dropped the next two sets . gasquet is paying attention again , at least as much as needed to storm through the open junior tournament . he played ryan henry of australia in yesterday 's semifinals , vying for a berth in today 's final against marko baghdatis of cyprus , who won his semifinal over robin soderling of sweden , 7 6 ( 6 ) , 7 6 ( 4 ) . after the quarterfinals , gasquet said , ''i am getting more into the tournament , and i really want to win . '' gasquet has been anointed the future of french tennis , lifted onto a perilously high pedestal by a country desperately looking for its next champion . he has been dubbed richard the future great by the bbc and is regularly referred to as le petit prince by the french news_media . all this reached frantic proportions when he won a first round match over franco squillari of argentina at an atp masters series event in monte_carlo in april , took the eventual champion albert costa of spain to a fourth set in the first round of the french open , then dominated the open junior tournament at roland_garros , where he often trains . gasquet , then 15 , was the youngest ever to win that title . he seems to take it all in stride . his parents , francis and maryse , are tennis coaches . he picked up his first racket at 3 , and when he started showing the first signs of his precocious talent , the family moved from their hometown , serignan , to paris . this year , gasquet won a futures tournament and jumped up to playing challenger tournaments . he won one in montauban , france , and reached the final of another in tampere , finland . all were on clay , the surface that suits his lleyton_hewitt style game . he has speed , a solid forehand and backhand , and an improving serve . ''it 's not so difficult to go from juniors to the professional tennis , '' he said . ''it 's the other thing which is difficult , to go from professional tennis to the juniors . this is not easy . '' doubles time before the men 's final today , the women 's doubles final will pit the second seeded team of paola suarez of argentina and virginia ruano pascual of spain against sixth_seeded elena_dementieva of russia and janette husarova of slovakia . dementieva and husarova have not lost a set so far , but suarez and ruano pascual have had the more impressive season . they won the french open for the second straight year , have four other tournament titles and reached the wimbledon final , where they lost to venus and serena_williams . ruano pascual also made a big splash at wimbledon in 2001 , when she knocked out martina_hingis , 6 4 , 6 2 , only the third time in wimbledon history that the top seeded woman was beaten in the first round . grounds crew the united_states_tennis_association is selling grounds passes for today for 5 . the proceeds will go to the u.s.a . tennis foundation , which provides scholarships and finances the national junior tennis leagues . fans can watch the men 's final on the big screens on the grounds of the national tennis center . the gates open at 11 a.m . ratings up cbs announced a 3.0 overnight rating for friday 's broadcast of the women 's semifinals and men 's doubles final , up 11 percent from 2001 . the second women 's semifinal between the americans serena_williams and lindsay_davenport registered a 3.8 . it was the best overnight rating since a 1999 semifinal between venus_williams and martina_hingis drew a 6.0 . heartfelt thanks serena_williams has been understandably reluctant to talk about the man who has been arrested several times for stalking her , albrecht stromeyer of germany . but after her semifinal victory , she was quick to praise the new york police department for keeping him away . ''the police here did a very good job , '' she said . ''i know a couple of people who stayed up over 24 hours , just for me . you can see why new york has been applauding so many of their police and firefighters . i really owe them a lot of thanks . '' stromeyer is scheduled to be turned over to the immigration and naturalization service and deported this week . ''hopefully , it will all be settled now , '' williams said . ''this is a big step because he 's been doing this for a while . he came to new york . he came to the wrong state maybe . '' tennis notebook",has a topic of sports
"jean_claude_killy and michel_barnier , co presidents of the albertville winter_olympics this year , announced today that the committee that organized the games recorded a 56 . 8 million loss , equivalent to 6.8 percent of its 836 million budget . in a news conference today , killy , a former french skiing idol , and barnier , who heads the savoy regional council , played down the significance of the deficit , arguing that the success of the two week long games in february was more important . prime_minister pierre_beregovoy has said that the central government will cover 75 percent of this loss . barnier said the savoy region , which embraces albertville , will assume the balance of the debt , most of which , he added , had already been paid . many empty rooms "" obviously we have a small regret , "" killy said . "" we would have liked to have presented a perfectly balanced_budget . it 's a pity . but there was no single major mistake . "" he said the sale of 941 , 000 tickets was higher than expected . but he noted that the organizing_committee had been asked to book 40 , 000 hotel rooms in and around albertville on behalf of foreign olympic delegations and that many rooms had remained empty . "" this was very expensive for us , "" killy added . the committee 's responsibilities were restricted to preparing the olympic installations spread over 13 different sites because the central and regional governments shouldered the 1 . 2 billion cost of building and upgrading highways , railroads , hospitals and cultural centers in the area . but the committee suffered several unexpected setbacks technical problems increased the cost of the bobsled run at la_plagne to 44 million and of the ski jumps at courchevel to 33 million . the bill for housing and feeding athletes and officials also grew to a massive 92 million . resorts hit hard having planned a budget of only 470 million six years ago , though , it was clear that cost_overruns were a problem from early on . and in the end , even with mounting revenues , including 243 million paid by cbs for american television rights , the french taxpayer was handed a stiff bill for the honor of hosting the games . some ski_resorts around albertville have also been left with a hangover because they ran up debts of their own in the hope of cashing in on the games . in pralognan , la vanoise , a 6 million ice_rink was built but never used . brides_les_bains , which built a ski lift and spruced itself for the apres games , owes 40 million . les saisies is also in the red . for french numbers watchers , however , all this seems familiar . the previous winter_olympics held in france took place in 1968 in grenoble , which is still paying off some of its debts . in contrast , the 1988 winter_games in calgary , alberta , returned a profit of 40 million . olympics",has a topic of sports
"lead not long after cecil_fielder joined the detroit_tigers in spring_training , george ( sparky ) anderson asked how the 6 foot 3 inch , 230 pound first baseman preferred to pronounce his first name . ''just call me cess , '' he told the manager . that 's cess , as in success . with a major_league leading 16 home_runs , a . 324 average and 37 runs batted in , cess fielder is the success story of this baseball season . not long after cecil_fielder joined the detroit_tigers in spring_training , george ( sparky ) anderson asked how the 6 foot 3 inch , 230 pound first baseman preferred to pronounce his first name . ''just call me cess , '' he told the manager . that 's cess , as in success . with a major_league leading 16 home_runs , a . 324 average and 37 runs batted in , cess fielder is the success story of this baseball season . before the toronto_blue_jays sold him to hanshin of the japanese league following the 1988 season , he was available to any of the other 25 major_league teams for 1 waivers . but after he hit 38 homers in japan last year , the tigers signed him to a two year , 3 million contract . ''most players who go to japan are in the last years of their careers , '' said bill lajoie , the detroit general_manager . ''he 's the first guy to go there at a young age . '' now 26 years old , fielder used japan to retool his home_run swing and his confidence . as a platoon first baseman and designated_hitter , he had batted . 135 over the last two months of the 1988 season for the blue_jays , including an 0 for 26 slump . but the hanshin club offered him 1 . 05 million , quite a boost from his 125 , 000 salary with the blue_jays . ''the year in japan made all the difference , '' fielder was saying now from his detroit home . ''it was the first time since 1985 that i played every day and hit against right handed pitching . '' in addition to crashing 38 homers in japan in only 384 times at bat , fielder also discovered an escape clause in his hanshin contract . when his agent , bob gilhooley , sounded out a few major_league teams , the tigers and the boston_red_sox , who had lost nick esasky to free_agency , displayed the most interest . but the tigers offered the most money . and now fielder has a chance to hit the most home_runs for the tigers in one season since hank greenberg threatened babe_ruth 's record with 58 in 1938 . ''cess is strong , very strong , '' sparky anderson said . ''if he makes contact and gets the ball in flight , it 's gone . '' after last night 's game , an 11 6 victory over the kansas_city_royals , fielder 's home_run ratio would produce 65 over a 162 game season . not that he has even begun to think about roger_maris 's record of 61 homers in 1961 that surpassed babe_ruth 's total of 60 that had endured since the 1927 season . ''all the talk about roger_maris , babe_ruth and me is farfetched , '' he said . ''i just want to stay consistent and make solid contact . '' but it 's reasonable to think about fielder 's chances of joining greenberg , rocky colavito , norm cash and darrell evans as the only tigers ever to hit 40 or more homers in a season . greenberg hit 58 , 44 , and 40 twice . colavito hit 45 and cash hit 41 , both in 1961 . evans hit 40 in 1985 . ''how he handles the dry spells will be important , '' anderson said . ''the dry spells catch all of 'em . when you 're hitting home_runs like he is , it becomes too big a burden . '' the burden was too big for kevin mitchell last season . at the all star break , the san_francisco_giants' outfielder had 31 homers but finished with 47 . quite a year , but in major_league history only nine batters have hit 50 or more homers in a season . ruth did it four times . jimmie foxx , ralph kiner , mickey_mantle and willie_mays each did it twice . maris , hack wilson , george foster and johnny mize each did it once . ''cess hits the ball high and his best power is to right center , '' anderson said . ''in our ball park , from the first of june on , you get a drift , a breeze , blowing to right center . '' fielder likes to say , ''i just hit 'em , i do n't know how far they go . '' but he remembers a little league home_run he hit as a youngster growing up in west covina , calif . , a los_angeles suburb . ''it went into somebody 's backyard about 150 feet beyond the 200 foot mark on the center_field fence , '' he said . ''i think i was eight or nine years old . that 's when i first knew i could hit the ball farther than other kids . '' with his heavy hipped physique that fits his teddy_bear personality , fielder has had a tendency to put on weight . ''i 'm just built that way , '' he said . ''my whole family on my mother 's side is big . i 've got an uncle who 's 6 6 and 270 . but playing every day has helped . not sitting around , i can control my weight a lot easier . '' as a platoon first baseman with the blue_jays in 1987 , he hit 14 homers in only 175 times at bat . when he slumped in 1988 , he went to japan with the consent of every other major_league team that could have obtained him for 1 waivers . ''i 'd like to see cess have a big year , '' sparky anderson said , ''just to prove that none of us in this game are very smart . '' but the tigers were smart enough to give cecil_fielder another chance in the big leagues . and he 's making the most of it . sports of the times",has a topic of sports
"in 1973 , when marcel philippe , a native new yorker , was named to the french track and field team , he could hardly speak french . now he speaks it so well that he spent the last two weeks in new orleans as the expert commentator for french television at the united_states olympic track and field trials . philippe was a half miler and miler at fordham , good enough to have won the 800 meter silver_medal in the 1973 world university games . his parents , yves and leonne , were born in france ( yves became a celebrated chef in new york , known as philippe of the waldorf ) . "" they could speak english , "" the son said . "" in fact , my mother was a graduate of hunter_college . but french was more natural to them . they spoke to my sister and me in french and we talked to them in english . i understood french , but i did n't speak it much then . "" philippe , 40 years old , lives in manhattan and is a lawyer in the manhattan district_attorney 's office . at the track trials , he was on television live from 30 minutes to three hours a day . "" i 'm comfortable with the french_language , "" he said , "" but i 'm not 100 percent with it . i have a very good vocabulary , but i 'm always amazed at how many nuances there are in the language , how it is so much more precise than english . when you juggle the vocabulary , you can be more precise . i 'm getting there . "" sidelines",has a topic of sports
"the mets have yet to lure the likes of a hideo_nomo from japan or a chan ho park from south_korea for their pitching staff , but they are starting to take some steps toward the orient . today , they introduced koichi taniguchi and takashi kashiwada , pitchers with the tokyo yomiuri_giants who are here to train with the mets in what was called an educational exchange . though the two players are under contract with the giants , both expressed hope that they could make enough of an impression to lead the mets to try to arrange for them to stay here , if only at the minor_league level . ''he would like to stay , but he cannot make the decision , '' isao ojimi , an interpreter for the pitchers , said of taniguchi , a 23 year old right hander . though a shoulder injury cost taniguchi some power three years ago , the right hander said he still throws 90 m.p.h . ''he has a very good opportunity to learn american style baseball , '' ojimi said . ''in japan , baseball is sneaky . in america , baseball is power against power . '' kashiwada , 26 , was invited because he is a left hander , mets manager bobby_valentine said . when asked of his repertory , the pitcher said , ''sidearm , curve , sinker . '' baseball",has a topic of sports
"the jerseys fit just fine , but , what with age , their pants were somewhat tight . lacking locker_rooms , they had to yank their socks on in the parking_lot , though being brooklyn boys , they did n't seem to mind . at any rate , that 's how doug levien wanted his send off to the war a last night with his old pals from xavier high . so it was home_runs and hot_dogs in the coney_island dusk . he came to win the trophy tuesday night with two old teammates , kevin sherman , who played left field and got them drinking in the old days , and mike amoroso , the former shortstop , who everybody said did n't need a pistol at his head to have a beer . but the night belonged to major levien , 33 , who is headed to iraq next month as a logistics officer for the army 's 10th_mountain_division . it was he who bought the 60 tickets to the home run derby for friends and family . it was he who found the vintage uniforms , even brought the bats . ''i love baseball and i love the military , '' he said as the evening crowd poured into keyspan park . ''eating hot_dogs with your buddies in the summer ? it does n't get any better than that . '' there are certain men who are simply born with the gold glow of success . doug levien is one . he hit . 710 his senior year . made major on the fast track . holds a master 's degree in international_relations . was once assigned as a military aide to the white_house . it was the power of his bat , in fact , that got the team into the derby to begin with . in late july , the team placed first in an early qualifying_round with all the other joe soaps . he was the only one of the three to hit one out of the park . now they were up against players from the new york penn league about to play in their all star game single a boys , the real thing . his mother , barbara , and his father , doug sr . , were sitting in the stands . she had just returned from fort_drum , his army base upstate , where she had learned about the active_duty life . there was power of attorney to consider . and a funeral to arrange in advance . but this was dougie 's night and no one wished to spoil it . his friends would speak only begrudgingly about the war . doug was leaving . not much more to say . in the end , xavier was beaten by the minor leaguers , five home_runs to three all of them the major 's . they lost , though not where it counted most . ink",has a topic of sports
"the last time cbs ventured into winter_olympics broadcasting was in 1960 in squaw valley , calif . a sum of 50 , 000 was paid for 15 hours of coverage over 11 days . walter_cronkite anchored the action that was captured by 12 cameras . seven winter olympiads passed without cbs . but nearly four years ago , cbs paid ( some say overpaid ) 243 million for the rights to the albertville games . cbs 's albertville effort will differ a tad from its squaw valley coverage . over 16 days , 116 hours of mostly taped coverage from 60 cameras will schuss here by satellite . that 's 21 1 2 hours more than abc broadcast from calgary , alberta , in 1988 . for the first time , two people will anchor the games in prime time paula zahn , the co host of "" cbs this morning , "" and tim_mccarver , cbs 's baseball analyst . zahn and mccarver have been warming up , somewhat tentatively , on cbs 's pre albertville "" olympic winterfest "" programs . they acknowledge that they will operate in the shadow of abc 's jim_mckay , but by teaming up , they hope to avoid the comparison . "" this is all about storytelling , "" said zahn . "" we think we can draw people in with the stories of the athletes and the beauty of the region . "" mccarver is thrust into the more difficult role transforming himself from a superior one sport analyst into a host . he is n't worried because , he said , "" it 's not our job to be the experts . "" mccarver and zahn will be lucky to see a single event in person , being ensconced in moutiers , site of the international broadcast center . from there , the coordinating producer , mike pearl , will test the power of the cbs and french technical armory to synchronize feeds from 10 competition venues stretched over a staggering 600 plus square miles . cbs 's effort probably wo n't break technical ground . "" people are always saying they 're the first do this or that , but you end up finding out it 's been done before , "" said pearl . thumb sized video cameras , for example , will be placed on the men 's and women 's alpine runs and on a luge sled . cbs has a daunting_task in airing 116 hours . winter events are in short supply compared with those in the summer , and skiing can easily be postponed by snowstorms , blanking out a major chunk of programming . most of the extra cbs hours , compared with those from calgary , are slotted for 7 9 a.m. , replacing "" cbs this morning . "" the morning hours will feature almost all the live hours during the 16 days . all else will be taped . choreographing a taped olympics is a marathon events are monitored live for inclusion in the taped package some that seem crucial are thrown out as more important races or runs overtake them . voice overs are added on the run . one former olympic producer called the process one that "" leads to a breakdown of all other social mores , diets , sleep and exercise . "" "" live is easier , "" pearl said . previous winter_olympics have taught cbs to put figure_skating on often because it attracts more women than any other event . cbs will present figure_skating in 10 of 16 prime time slots . "" the first thing we did after winning the bid , "" said rick gentile , cbs 's vice_president of olympic programming , "" was to go to the international skating union to lay in the figure_skating and speed_skating schedule . after that , everything fell into place . "" the schedule shares the wealth of air time unequally . skiing of all sorts is on each day at some time . biathlon gets six days and bobsledding four . a clicker will be needed to watch events from 1 6 p.m . over nine weekdays on ted_turner 's tnt . this is the first olympics on cable_tv , one that tnt stands to lose most of its 20 million investment in . tnt paid cbs the 20 million and cannot sell advertising . it will get a rebate on cbs 's ad sales 5 million if tnt is very lucky . tnt will not present the prime events and will go heavy on hockey , although not medal games . cbs will tell tnt what it can and ca n't have , and will do so on a day to day basis depending on what sports or athletes are hot . "" our approach will be to show people more of the sports they have n't seen a lot of , "" said kevin o'malley , senior vice_president of programming for turner sports . "" if cbs does nine ski_jump runs , we 'll have access to 35 . "" don mcguire , tnt 's executive_producer of turner sports , insists that he sees beyond showing jamaican bobsledders or spending 6 million on production . "" to have the olympic trademark associated with us is valuable , "" he said . "" how valuable we wo n't know until later . "" nick charles will be the host for the tnt effort from atlanta john naber will be the host from albertville . albertville '92",has a topic of sports
"when jackie_joyner_kersee and nourredine morceli set foot inside the costly , graceful stadium that is the latest addition to this city 's venerable skyline , the sun was shining brightly and their familiar faces were clouded with doubt . when the day 's running and jumping were done , they stood side by side in the rain and quietly rejoiced . coming into today 's i.a.a.f . mobil grand_prix final , joyner_kersee was nursing the latest in a string of nagging injuries a strained right hamstring . morceli was fighting the flu . but in the end , both managed to overcome their aches , pains and opposition to win the women 's and men 's grand_prix titles and the 130 , 000 that goes with them . perhaps the bigger surprise was that neither of these dominant athletes had managed to win the overall title before . 'great end' to season "" i think this fills in a gap in my career , "" said joyner_kersee , the lithe american who has won four world_championships and three olympic gold medals two in the heptathlon and one in the long_jump . "" this is really a great end to my season . "" joyner_kersee clinched the women 's title by winning the long_jump with a leap of 23 feet 8 inches , which gave her 72 grand_prix points . sonia o'sullivan of ireland , who won the 5 , 000 meters today in 15 minutes 12 . 94 seconds but fell far short in her bid for a world record , and svetlana dimitrova of bulgaria , who won the 100 meter meter_hurdles in 12 . 66 seconds , also finished with 72 points . but they fell short of joyner_kersee in the complex scoring system that serves as the tie_breaker . morceli , the world 's top middle distance runner , took the men 's title outright with 78 points by holding off the rising star venuste niyongabo and winning the 1 , 500 meter race in the deliberately unspectacular time of 3 minutes and 40 . 89 seconds . 'only 80 percent' "" i was hoping the beginning would be slow , "" said morceli , the world record holder in the mile , 1 , 500 meters and 3 , 000 meters . "" this morning i was feeling much better than yesterday , but i still was n't sure what was going to happen . i was only 80 percent . "" on an average day , 80 percent would not have been enough to beat niyongabo , the 20 year old from burundi who burst from obscurity this season , winning eight races and clocking the year 's second fastest time in the 1 , 500 ( 3 30 . 66 to morceli 's 3 30 . 61 ) . but instead of pushing the pace early , niyongabo elected to hang back with morceli , who had to win to clinch the overall title . "" it still has been a great season , "" said niyongabo . "" morceli was motivated today because he knew there was a lot of money to earn . "" 'sick to my stomach' morceli , who reportedly commands 70 , 000 per appearance , is used to big paydays . he is also used to fielding questions about his troubled country , algeria , where the islamic salvation front is attempting to topple the military backed government . "" i feel sick to my stomach because of what 's happening , "" he said . "" but i 'm not scared of anyone . this is sport , and i am an athlete . all i can do is do my job . "" others also did their jobs well today at the new , 130 million charlety stadium . mike conley of the united_states , the defending world and olympic champion , came up with the year 's longest triple_jump , 58 feet 1 4 inch . in the women 's 100 meters , jamaica 's 34 year old star , merlene ottey , continued her late season surge , recording a personal best of 10 . 78 to knock gwen torrence of the united_states out of contention for the overall grand_prix title . torrence , who finished second , had a time of 10 . 82 , a personal best . britain 's linford_christie , the defending world champion in the 100 meters , was beaten for the third consecutive race within a week , finishing one hundredth of a second behind dennis mitchell of the united_states . track and field",has a topic of sports
"the mystery about which team will win the right to negotiate a contract with daisuke_matsuzaka , the japanese pitcher , continued yesterday . the seibu lions know the amount of the highest bid , but , as of last night , they had not told major_league_baseball if they would accept the bid , although they are expected to . still , the delay has helped create speculation about which team has made the top bid . espn reported that the boston_red_sox might have made the bid , and it might be as high as 45 million . the fort worth star telegram reported that the texas_rangers might have bid as much as 30 million , and might have a chance for matsuzaka 's rights . both outlets relied on anonymous sources . the yankees , who , along with the rangers , have acknowledged that they bid on matsuzaka , had no reaction to the news_media speculation that they might have been outbid for a pitcher they desperately want . ''no one knows , '' yankees general_manager brian_cashman said . but yankees manager joe_torre was influenced by the reports . when torre was asked about matsuzaka before his safe at home foundation 's charity event yesterday , he spoke as if the yankees had lost out on matsuzaka . ''we 've put in a bid ourselves and we 've come up short , evidently , '' torre said . ''he was obviously of great interest to us . '' but cashman said that torre 's comments were not based on anything the yankees had told him . ''i have n't spoken to joe about it , '' cashman said . ''joe is basing it on media reports . '' the lions were notified about the bid thursday , and have until tuesday to respond . the team that wins matsuzaka 's exclusive rights will have 30 days to try to negotiate a contract with his agent , scott_boras . if a deal cannot be agreed upon , matsuzaka would return to japan and become a free_agent after 2007 . the lions would not be able to keep the bid money . inside pitch andy_pettitte indicated yesterday that he was leaning toward retirement after 12 seasons . ''if i had to make a decision right now , it would probably be not to play , '' pettitte said . pettitte , who was in manhattan for joe_torre 's safe at home foundation charity dinner , stressed that he was undecided about his future but that he wanted to make a decision quickly , though he provided no timetable . pettitte , a 34 year old left hander , filed for free_agency monday after three seasons with the houston_astros . pettitte was 14 13 with a_4 . 20 earned_run_average last season , missing the postseason for the first time . he struggled with elbow problems , especially at the end of season . he also missed much of the 2004 season with an elbow injury . ''i want to do the right thing for me and my family , '' pettitte said . ''i 'm just weighing through my feelings . '' about 16 players from the 1996 world_series champion yankees attended the dinner . baseball",has a topic of sports
"when the islanders unveiled their first russian player today , it was a little like many of their games last season a nice , modest event that went unwitnessed by too many no shows . coach al arbour was planning to attend today , but he canceled because of an illness in the family . the team 's new president , jerome grossman , was scheduled to appear , but he sent regrets because of a sudden business commitment . several television crews were supposed to be there , too , but most were detoured at the last minute by the mets' trade of david_cone . even the traditional russian folk dancers failed to perform , as scheduled , as defenseman vladimir malakhov was introduced at fyodoroff , a russian restaurant . malakhov arrived on time , stayed late and made a pleasant impression . donning a jersey with the no . 23 once worn by bob nystrom ( who arrived fashionably late ) , malakhov posed for pictures and spoke with the aid of a translator . "" i 'd like to learn english quickly , "" he said . he already knows hockey , at least the kind they play on the red_army team and the olympic squad and the national team that appeared in the canada_cup . malakhov , who will turn 24 years old on sunday , is a veteran of six seasons in the major_league of what used to be the soviet_union . he is known for a rugged , defensive approach . a familiar partner malakhov may soon have a teammate with whom to speak russian and learn english . he is darius_kasparaitis , a defenseman who played against malakhov in the former soviet league and with him in international tournaments and who was drafted by the islanders on the first round last june . the two would join scott lachance , who made a favorable impression last season as a rookie defenseman straight from the united_states olympic team . malakhov said he has a three year contract that pays him "" enough , for now "" and that he hopes to buy a metallic blue bmw . he said he saw the statue of liberty from the air and liked it enough to plan a more earth based visit . hockey",has a topic of sports
"stefan_edberg , loath to retire without a french open title to balance out his grand_slam collection , still has paris . today at the french open , where 88 degree sunshine sent more than one fair weather spectator to the hospital , the 30 year old swede kept his cool against a long haired spanish hotshot in a headband . edberg , using a game of fearless and relentless serve and volley on center court , trampled 20th ranked carlos moya , 6 2 , 6 1 , 6 1 . "" i think it was one of those days where everything that you do turns into gold i felt like i was 20 today , "" said edberg , who received a standing_ovation when he left the court . the chastened moya made his most succinct comment in the second round match when he clenched his towel between his teeth in a clear gesture of surrender just after edberg soared off to a 5 0 lead in the final set . "" it 's his last french open , and he must really be motivated he never let me into the game , "" said moya , who more than once simply tossed his racquet in the direction of edberg 's laser esque volleys . moya is just 19 , but already a bigshot on red clay earlier this month he ended the 38 match winning_streak of thomas muster . edberg , however , made short work of the teen_ager . "" maybe i took him a little bit by surprise , "" said edberg , who owns six grand_slam_singles crowns , but in a dozen visits here got no closer to this one than the 1989 final . edberg has less than fond memories of that match , which was won by michael_chang . as fate would have it , he next faces chang , who outlasted richard fromberg by 6 4 , 3 6 , 7 6 ( 7 5 ) , 6 4 today . meanwhile , the defending champion , muster , treated 171st ranked gerard solves , a french wild_card , like a homegrown punching bag in a 6 1 , 6 3 , 6 0 victory . muster has lost just once on clay this season , to moya . but muster has also been beaten this year by his next opponent , adrian voinea . the same romanian who ambushed boris_becker here in the third round a year ago , voinea handed muster , who was then ranked no . 1 , an opening round loss on hardcourts at indian wells , calif . , in march . after the upset , voinea said he did n't quite feel as if he had defeated a no . 1 player to feel that way , he said he had need to beat muster here at roland_garros . "" and i do n't really want to play him on clay , "" voinea said . muster , who said hardcourts turn his toenails black , is n't playing in the olympics for his native austria . but his abstention , along with that of germany 's becker , is the exception rather than the rule for players from every nation except , it seems , the united_states , where elbow twisting is the rule at selection time . yesterday 's selection of the united_states olympic team raised eyebrows here , mainly for the exclusion of the oft injured mary joe fernandez , a fed_cup mainstay and olympic gold medalist in doubles at barcelona , spain , in 1992 . billie_jean_king , the team 's captain , observed the computer rankings in her selection of the team 's three singles players , but chose to pass over fernandez , seeded 11th in singles here , in favor of the doubles specialist gigi fernandez . according to a statement released by monica_seles , who was selected as the top united_states singles player despite not yet having participated on a fed_cup squad , "" the only negative is that mary joe fernandez , who truly deserves to be on the team , was not included . "" the united_states_tennis_association sought wild_cards for fernandez and for jennifer_capriati , the defending olympic gold medalist in singles , but the request was denied by the international tennis federation . "" i would love to play , "" said capriati , who calls her 1992 olympic experience the highlight of her career , "" but i guess it 's not my time . "" things were only slightly less muddled on the men 's side , where the fourth_seeded chang , eighth_seeded jim_courier , and the davis_cup regular todd_martin all took their names out of contention . courier originally said he would compete , but suddenly cited a scheduling conflict . martin had his heart set on playing singles and refused the doubles only role the captain , tom_gullikson , offered him . the third singles spot behind pete_sampras and andre_agassi went to malivai washington , who made a sudden surge in the rankings over martin by winning at bermuda . sampras , who faces martin here in the third round , said he would play only singles at the atlanta_olympics and made it clear that the event is third in precedence to wimbledon and the united_states open . "" as soon as wimbledon is over , the u.s . open is always in the back of my mind , "" said sampras . "" that 's where i really want to be playing my best tennis . the olympics , i 'm going to use it as a chance to see some other events , kind of feel the whole olympic feeling , which i did n't get a chance to in barcelona . "" match points there were a couple of setbacks to the french cause thursday 11th seeded arnaud boetsch , beaten by 29th ranked paul haarhuis of the netherlands , was the only seeded player to lose . a_10 year veteran and 1994 quarterfinalist , 19th ranked julie halard , was upset , 6 7 ( 4 7 ) , 6 4 , 7 5 , by the smallest player on the women 's side , 66th ranked gloria pizzichini , who is just a shade over 5 feet_tall . moreover , the french 30 somethings , yannick noah and henri leconte , lost to jeff tarango and olivier delaitre , 7 6 ( 7 4 ) , 4 6 , 6 2 . tennis",has a topic of sports
"until just recently , the french motto seemed to be , ''i could have been a contender . '' now france , for the first time , is a contender in a ' 'dream match'' against brazil in the world_cup soccer championship final here on sunday . hundreds of thousands of delirious french fans celebrated the victory over croatia wednesday that got them into the finals by taking to the champs_elysees , demonstrating joie de vivre rather than the more usual griping they call ''la grogne . '' how long the new mood will last is a good question in a country where people say , ''the more things change , the more they stay the same . '' but for the moment france is back , after a long period of querulous gloom , introspection and self doubt . and many people give the socialist led government of prime_minister lionel_jospin credit for the change . mr . jospin has had an extraordinary run , after having had the good luck to replace his conservative predecessor , alain_juppe , a little over a year ago just as the french economy unexpectedly took a turn for the better . paris stock prices have climbed 40 percent this year and the economy is expected to grow this year by 3 percent , the best in years . unemployment , a dismal 12 percent during mr . juppe 's term , is now easing . more people are going to the movies than at any time in the last 10 years . ''i 'm not usually an optimist , but everybody feels we 've finally found something that works , '' said emmanuel roumagere , a postal_worker in paris . ''we 're beginning to believe what they 're telling us . '' mr . jospin 's poll ratings are now the highest they have been since he was elected . polls published this week showed that between 63 and 70 percent of the voters say he is doing a good job . and while mr . juppe 's unpopularity dragged his fellow conservative , president jacques_chirac , into the doghouse with him , mr . jospin 's boom has pulled the president to new heights , with an approval rating of 58 to 68 percent . ''the people of france can say today that things are going better , '' mr . jospin said the other day as the french anticipated the start of their annual five week vacations and the climax of the world_cup . ''a year and a half ago , our fellow citizens were disoriented , fed up with politics and with what the leaders of the time were planning for them . they did not see the relationship between what they had been told during the presidential_election campaign and the policy that was followed . at least today it can be said that there is a connection between what has been said and what is being done . '' nicolas barbey , now a management consultant in rheims after long unemployment , said ''i would not say it was all jospin 's doing , but things do look better now than they did a couple of years ago . the only thing i can complain about is that i do not have enough time to get on the phone to drum up more work . '' like mr . juppe , mr . chirac and many other leaders , mr . jospin is a graduate of the elite national school of administration . but his intense , ebullient style and his way of preparing for major decisions with extensive debates inside and outside the government contrast with his predecessor 's more autocratic methods . mr . jospin brings to mind the tousle headed schoolboy he looked like when he leapt to his feet to cheer the french goals wednesday mr . juppe , by contrast , was compared to a dour tax inspector . mr . jospin , who turns 61 on sunday , was elected on promises to end years of painful budget cuts intended to get france ready for the euro , the common european currency , which will kick off next year . but after coming into office , mr . jospin dutifully helped make the euro a success by reining in spending , just like his predecessor . the task was made easier by the unexpected tax revenues brought in by the economic_recovery , so mr . jospin did not have to cut into generous pension benefits or raise taxes , as mr . juppe tried to do during a recession , proposals that were greeted with endless protests . but where mr . juppe infuriated doctors , normally staunch conservative supporters , by threatening to tax their fees if they did not help the state health_insurance system keep costs down , mr . jospin 's government said this month that it would look to the powerful pharmaceutical_industry to cut drug prices , or pay billions of francs in fines , if health_care costs continue to rise . almost from the time mr . chirac defeated mr . jospin for the presidency in 1995 , he was highly unpopular . now the president is riding high again . ''politicians do n't normally have much to do with soccer , but they like to benefit from it , '' said bruno moerman , who is in the travel business in paris . ''the fans are certainly full of spirit , and it 's having side effects in other areas . '' mr . chirac and mr . jospin share power in what the french call ''cohabitation . '' it may have been an unintended_consequence of the fifth republic 's 1958 constitution , which splits executive power between a strong presidency and a government that depends on a separately elected majority in parliament . unintended or not , the french seem to like this particular cohabitation . according to a poll this week in the weekly l'express , 70 percent want it to continue until the end of mr . chirac 's term , in 2002 . even 64 percent of those who support the right thought cohabitation was working fine . american officials here were also very pleased with the results of mr . jospin 's maiden voyage as prime_minister to washington last month . mr . jospin 's visit made headlines here when he praised the creation of millions of jobs in the united_states , the first time a french leader had acknowledged publicly that the jobs were not all , as some gallic economists snidely suggested , dishwashing positions at mcdonald 's . now mr . jospin is doing his best to persuade skeptics that the most controversial measure his government has passed , a law requiring all companies to go from a 39 hour week to a 35 hour one by 2002 , will actually create jobs rather than endanger them , as mr . chirac keeps warning . the law rewards companies that reach agreements with their employees on reorganization by giving the companies small subsidies for a few years for the jobs they create . an earlier conservative program did the same , permitting companies like cofinaga , a financial_services subsidiary of the galeries lafayette department_stores , to create 182 new jobs this year while reducing the average work week to 35 hours . overall , cofinaga executives say , they saved more than the 8 . 3 million cost of the new employees by agreeing with employees on flexible work schedules that allow the company to stay open longer on weekends and later at night . some employees may work more hours some weeks and fewer in others , but such work schedules , which french unions have often been reluctant to accept , increased productivity . but many french executives fear that the change in working hours that mr . jospin pushed through may make it difficult to get more concessions on productivity from unions . ''there 's no tradition of spontaneous negotiations between employers and employees in france , '' mr . jospin said . ''the state has to play the role of catalyst . '' mr . chirac warned the cabinet last winter against ''rash experiments , '' prompting mr . jospin to observe caustically that he owed his job to mr . chirac 's own rash experiment in calling elections . and , as mr . jospin pointed out , the threat of a 35 hour week did not discourage the toyota_motor_corporation from picking france for a 666 million assembly plant that will create 2 , 000 jobs in northern france over the next three years . within the government , mr . jospin claims that he leads with a more collegial style than mr . juppe did , partly out of necessity as head of a leftist coalition that includes communists and environmentalists who do not always agree with the socialists . if mr . juppe clearly outshone his cabinet intellectually , mr . jospin filled his with some of the socialist_party 's brightest lights , powerful political figures like foreign_minister hubert_vedrine , economics minister dominique_strauss_kahn and labor minister martine aubry . though he was bound by the terms of the coalition 's electoral commitment to oppose the privatization of france telecom , air_france and major french military industries , after the election mr . jospin proceeded nonetheless to make these enterprises more competitive by what he calls ''opening'' their capital to private investment . ''i 'm less interested in who owns an enterprise than in how it contributes to the prosperity , '' he said . with everything going so swimmingly , some fear the new mood may not last , particularly if france loses to brazil on sunday . if the asian economic crisis takes the wind out of europe 's sails later this year and the boom collapses , the french could revert to their usual snappishness when they come back from their vacations at the end of august . ''we 're enjoying it as long as it lasts , '' one presidential aide said .",has a topic of sports
"kevin mitchell has gained support from an american doctor in his dispute with his japanese employers over the seriousness of a knee injury . joe sroba , mitchell 's agent , said yesterday that dr . ron kvitni of the jobe clinic in california found that the outfielder has cartilage damage in his right knee that requires medication and three weeks of rehabilitation . kvitni , who examined mitchell last week , said the knee should be re evaluated then and did not rule out surgery , sroba said . he said mitchell was told in japan that he had minor ligament tears that should not prevent him from playing . the dispute became so heated that mitchell left japan to seek a second opinion without permission from the company that owns the team . the hawks have accused mitchell of breaching his 4 . 5 million contract , but sroba said the hawks have breached it by their actions . the team suspended mitchell without pay for two weeks , from may 25 june 8 , sroba said , because he had been critical of the club . mitchell , 33 , signed with the hawks when it appeared that the players' strike would jeopardize the season . if he were free of the contract and healthy , he most likely would command attention from some major_league clubs . mitchell injured his knee when he ran into a wall during a game april 14 . he tried to continue playing but left the lineup may 11 . sports people baseball",has a topic of sports
"on the campus of the national institute of sports and physical_education set in the lush greenery of the city 's southeast outskirts and down the road from the ch_teau de vincennes , lucien legrand gave a tour of the educational facilities today to prospective students who , in the united_states , might be called very young recruits . at 14 , they could become part of the incoming freshman class here at what is essentially a high_school for gifted athletes . but for this group of young male basketball players , there was only one subject to discuss , in the lingo of the game . ''i am a guard , '' m'baye alodoulaye of orl ans told a reporter in his limited english . ''a shooting_guard , not like tony parker . '' basketball is far from the most popular sport in france , but for those who play or follow the sport , these are the best of times . nearly three years after france won the silver_medal at the sydney olympics , tony parker , 21 and homegrown , is the starting point_guard for the san antonio spurs as they play for the n.b.a . championship against the nets . when one of the boys taking the tour this morning along with their parents asked legrand , the institute 's basketball director , if he knew parker , it was as if legrand had been cued . in the gymnasium a short walk away was hard evidence in the form of team photos and memorabilia that here was where it all began . here was where parker set out to prove that a skinny french kid who would grow to only 6 feet 2 inches and 180 pounds could take a once unfathomable path to n.b.a . stardom . true , parker is the son of an african_american , tony parker sr . , a former college player at loyola in chicago his mother , pamela , is a former fashion model from amsterdam . but parker , born in bruges , belgium , was raised here and brought by his father , who played pro ball in france , to the institute , known here by its acronym , insep , when he was 14 . parker thus qualifies as an indisputable product of the french basketball system , and another exponential advancement in the internationalization of what not long ago was practically an all american_league . parker is not the first frenchman to play in the n.b.a. , but he is the first with star quality and with the opportunity to win a championship ring . the way legrand tells it , parker knew where he was going from the moment he suited up at the institute and began leading the freshmen to victories over the older students . ''i never meet a player like him , and i am coaching and teaching since i am 25 , 26 , '' legrand , 55 , said . ''he wants to play , play , play . his first year , i pick him for a team to play in the european championships for our cadets . i say to tony , 'i am happy for you . ' he says 'lucien , for me , this is not a finish . it is a beginning . i want the team to win the championships and i want to be the m.v.p . of europe . ' i was surprised , what is in the mouth of this little guy , but not , you know , arrogant . he says and after , he makes . '' too fast and furiously competitive for his classmates , parker progressed at the speed he runs the spurs' fast_break . by 15 , he was playing against third division adult professionals and was selected for the national junior team by its coach , pierre vincent . ''at the beginning i had a lot of problems with my team because nobody saw what i saw , '' vincent said by telephone from bordeaux . ''but at the championships , he was the best player even though he was two years younger than most of the others . ''i think what made him so special is that he has the best of both cultures , american and french . because of his father he is thinking he can win no matter who he plays against , but he also wants to win for the team more than himself . i used to talk to him about lance_armstrong and say , 'tony , you look at the end he is there , the winner , but on the way there he is on a team . ' ''he listens , he understands , always . now people tell me , 'it is incredible what he is doing . ' i tell them , 'no , it is not incredible if you have known tony , to see him play in the finals . ' '' the games are televised at 2 30 a.m . here , one of the 205 countries receiving the games via satellite . even most basketball fans , legrand included , are not loving it live . ''i record and watch in the morning , '' he said , admitting it is something less than world_cup fever . back at the insep gymnasium , where a black no . 9 spurs jersey autographed by parker hangs in the window of legrand 's office , legrand laid out two copies of l' quipe , the french sports daily . one edition had a team photo including parker in his first year at insep . the other edition , today 's , had as its cover the serena_williams justin henin_hardenne tennis match , with a modest story on the spurs' game 1 victory deep inside . ''soccer and tennis , soccer and tennis , '' legrand lamented , much the way an american soccer coach might complain about football and baseball . nearby , christophe allardi , a coach in insep 's girls' program , pointed out that most french children do know who parker is and where he plays , more so than french basketball pros at home , because he is unique . ''yesterday i was trying to find a parker jersey for a young child and i could n't , '' he said . ''all sold . '' as much as he is french , parker has quickly taken his place in the american mtv cultural pantheon that european youth are typically quick to embrace . legrand hopes his developing legacy will sell more talented young french athletes on the game he loves . once they get here , the spurs jersey in his gymnasium office is the proof of how far they may go . pro_basketball",has a topic of sports
"philippe chatrier , who steered tennis through boycott and hot pants controversies and then back into the olympics , steps down today after having served for 24 years as president of the french tennis federation . chatrier was president of the international tennis federation from 1977 to 1991 . he also was president of the men 's international pro tennis council from 1979 to 1985 before pro tennis was taken over by the players . chatrier , 65 , was once a player himself , reaching the fourth round at wimbledon when he was france 's no . 6 ranked player in 1951 . one of his greatest thrills was watching france upset the united_states in lyons to win the 1991 davis_cup . as president of the international federation , he was instrumental in returning tennis to the olympics as a medal event . ( ap ) sports people tennis",has a topic of sports
"the tour de france is one of those great sports events that has eluded live coverage in the united_states . in past years , espn and abc carried it on tape , but the three week race was seen as it happened in most of the rest of the world . that has changed this year , yet there is a twist . it is live on the outdoor life network , but because the cable channel is available in only 36 million households nationwide , many people cannot see it . nielsen market_research does not rate it because it is so small . locally , oln 's two to four hours of morning coverage can be seen on time warner 's digitally upgraded system in new york city , several comcast systems in new jersey , the rcn outlet in manhattan and a cablevision system in ossining , n.y . peter englehart , the senior vice_president of programming and production for oln , said ''we 've been inundated with calls from cyclists who say it 's about time america saw it live , but others who complain 'i ca n't get it . what do i do ? ' '' englehart said it was not a hard sell to persuade tour de france officials to accept oln 's bid over espn abc 's because it promised live coverage . but it also had to promise to go beyond its universe of 36 million cable homes , which is less than half of espn 's , so it bought time on fox_sports net to provide half hour weekday updates and on cbs to offer one hour of taped coverage on three sundays . cash did not hurt , either . ''outdoor life 's offer was quite satisfactory , '' said barry frank of the international management group , who negotiated the deal for the tour . one consequence of outdoor life 's deal is that , having brought the race live to the united_states , it must step away on sunday for cbs , which will exclusively carry on tape the last stage into paris . armen keteyian , the narrator and co writer of cbs 's version of the tour , in a telephone interview from cauteret , france , said ''with due respect to outdoor life , we feel very proprietary toward this . we want to finish this off in the manner it deserves on sunday . this is a crown_jewel , the most exhilarating event i 've ever been associated with . '' outdoor life produces the daily live stages using the french world feed , with phil liggett and paul sherwen calling the race . fox_sports net 's coverage is a truncated version of outdoor life 's , while cbs uses footage from outdoor life and the world feed to create a story that encompasses a week of action . ( for its july 15 program , cbs earned a 1.3 nielsen_rating , or about 1.3 million television homes . sunday 's program produced a 1.6 overnight rating from 51 major markets . ) the cbs crew works feverishly to whittle five to seven hours of daily race footage down to the essence of each stage , then adds music , keteyian 's narration and new voice overs from liggett and sherwen . the goal is to tell a bigger tale than live coverage can , mix it with scenic beauty , all to engage both the uninitiated and those who may know the result , which requires a storyteller 's touch . in recent olympic races , al trautwig and john tesh , to name two , had it . the week of action that culminated sunday was exciting live or on tape because it featured lance_armstrong 's surge to the overall lead , winning three of four stages . in stage 13 , armstrong waited on the course until his chief rival , jan ullrich , returned to the race after cycling into a ravine . in stage 14 , as they finished , ullrich offered his hand to armstrong as they approached the finish . ''what lance did , and the gesture from ullrich that was as rich as you can hope to get , '' keteyian said . ''you want the writing to live up to what they 're doing . '' and at times , the script by keteyian and jeff sarokin achieved that goal . as armstrong pulled away from ullrich in stage 13 , keteyian said ''there is an expansive wellspring of heroism in each of the riders . it is in those who set the pace and those who struggle in vain to keep up . so what do we call it when one man time and time again so easily parts company from a battalion of heroes ? a dance of spirit or an act of will ? one thing is for sure there is a place lance_armstrong can go where others cannot . life and training experiences he draws upon memories both dark and golden he can replay for inspiration . '' the greenspan connection when the international_olympic_committee members gathered last week to vote on the host city for the 2008 summer games , they saw two small promotional films about the benefits of choosing beijing . the films' producer was bud greenspan , who has made so many official olympic documentaries . greenspan chronicles sports dreams , not political fights . let others discuss scandals . greenspan focuses only on athletic ideals . ''we had done the same thing for china nine years ago , '' said greenspan , referring to beijing 's bid , and two vote defeat to sydney , australia , for the 2000 summer games . ''we had shown them our commitment . '' what was missing , not surprisingly , from greenspan 's films for beijing , were questions about china 's dismal human_rights record . ''the human_rights in istanbul were never brought up , '' greenspan said , referring to one of beijing 's competitors . ( turkey 's human_rights record is awful , according to amnesty international . ) ''if we had boycotted the '36 games , we would n't have had jesse_owens , '' he said . ''moscow in 1980 and los_angeles in 1984 proved boycotts meant nothing . ''if we have any part in reversing the human_rights situation in china by helping to open it up to the world , we 're happy . '' tv sports",has a topic of sports
"the ice_dancing competition began tonight with 19 couples dancing the paso doble , with its bullfighter themes , then gliding to blues music . it sounds like good entertainment , and it is , but there 's a catch everyone dances to the same music . to make matters worse , except for a couple of fancy moves at the start and finish , everyone dances to the same steps , as outlined in the rule book . the bottom line ? compulsories may be a thing of the past in figure_skating , but they are very much alive in ice_dancing . the same dearth of creativity will be on display sunday_night in the original_dance , when every couple dances the same dance ( the polka ) to its own choreography . but then the competition moves to its conclusion on monday_night with the free_dance , when everyone has four minutes to do almost anything almost anytime . the compulsory dances count 20 percent of the total score , the original_dance , 30 percent , and the free_dance , 50 percent . to no one 's surprise , the favorites sergei ponomarenko and marina klimova of the unified team , husband and wife , the 1989 and 1990 world champions led after the compulsory dances . second were aleksandr zhulin and maya usova of the unified team , also husband and wife . third were paul and isabelle duchesnay , a brother sister team that represents france . their choreographer is christopher dean , who skated to gold with of jayne torvill in 1984 and now is isabelle 's husband . russ witherby of cincinnati and april sargent thomas of ogdensburg , n.y. , ranked 10th mark janoschak of bramalea , ontario , and jacqueline petr of winnipeg , manitoba , tied for 11th and peter breen of brockton , mass . , and rachel mayer of minneapolis were 14th . on monday , janoschak tripped in practice and knocked over petr . her right skate cut a_4 inch gash in her left calf that required 22 stitches . the canadian team physician advised her not to compete . instead , she skated around the rink thursday and competed tonight . the predominantly french crowd of 7 , 000 cheered wildly for the duchesnays and booed when the italian judge scored another french couple low . it booed when the italian judge scored an italian couple high . it even booed when a french judge gave ponomarenko and klimova a score of 5.4 when the other judges gave them 5 . 8 's and 5 . 9 's . paul duchesnay was unperturbed by the scoring . he knows that the duchesnays' avant_garde freestyle program always excites the spectators , if not the judges . "" if we skate well enough , "" he said , "" we have a shot to win . if we skate well enough , we will be satisfied . you ca n't always make the judges happy . i do n't even look at the marks they give us . "" albertville",has a topic of sports
"the president of the world governing body for soccer confirmed yesterday that the organization would outlaw the kind of temporary seating that collapsed in corsica earlier this week , contributing to the death of 11 spectators at a french cup semifinal_match . speaking to reporters in east_rutherford , n.j. , after a tour of giants_stadium , one of the nine sites for the 1994 world_cup , dr . joao havelange , the president of the governing body , the federation internationale de football association , said the new provision would go into effect after a meeting by telephone today by members of fifa 's committee for urgent matters . the stands that collapsed in bastia , corsica , were the same kind used in albertville , france , for the opening and closing ceremonies of the winter_olympics in february . both events took place without a problem . "" but at the olympic_games , people did not move , "" said havelange . "" they just applauded . during football matches , people are very vibrant . they are moving . they are very emotional . "" sports people soccer",has a topic of sports
"the contentious relationship between hideki_irabu and the japanese news_media boiled over today when , according to reporters from japan , he angrily took film from photographers and then stomped on the foot of one cameraman and battered his videotape . the incident occurred in the runway outside the yankee clubhouse as irabu was about to leave legends field after pitching four shutout innings in an 11 inning , 5 5 tie with the detroit_tigers . irabu , who has been upset with what he believes is unfair and erroneous reporting by journalists from japan , stopped to talk to the group outside the clubhouse . several of the newspaper reporters said that irabu agreed to speak off the record about how to improve their relationship with him . but as irabu looked to the side , he saw a cameraman with his videotape running . irabu told him to stop , the reporters said , and when the cameraman did not , the pitcher demanded the videotape . irabu walked away , then ran back . keiichiro hoashi , a television cameraman from the tokyo broadcasting system , said irabu wrestled for his machine , stomping on his foot . hoashi agreed to give up the videotape . ''i did n't want him to trash my camera , '' hoashi said . threatening legal action , irabu demanded that the still photographers hand over their film , which they did . the reporters said irabu then unraveled the rolls of film , threw down the videotape and stomped on it , then waved his hand as he walked away . irabu left the complex and was not available to discuss what happened . george rose , irabu 's interpreter , declined comment other than to say that he was gathering information from the japanese reporters . george_steinbrenner , the yankees' principal owner , said an hour later , ''i do n't know anything about that . '' but other club executives were meeting three floors above him to discuss the incident . brian_cashman , the yankees' general_manager , released a statement that said ''we 're aware of the incident . we intend to review the facts . there 's nothing more we can say about it at this time . '' earlier in the day , steinbrenner said tampering charges leveled against the yankees last year in the irabu matter are pending . ''i believe we will be cleared , '' he said . a wry grin formed on steinbrenner 's face . ''you know what could happen is , if he has another year like last year , if they think we tampered , we 'll give him back to whoever had him , '' steinbrenner said , laughing . baseball",has a topic of sports
"the metrostars are looking for a new coach . in a move that was expected , carlos queiroz informed the team late sunday_night that he had accepted a 2 million offer to coach in japan . queiroz will leave the metrostars at the end of the major_league_soccer season . with two games left in the regular season and the metrostars ( 14 16 ) in danger of missing the playoffs , the timing of queiroz 's decision is awkward . but he had no choice . queiroz had to make a decision by sunday_night or the offer would have been rescinded . ''we 're sad to see him go , '' charlie stillitano , the vice_president and general_manager of the metrostars , said yesterday . ''we made a substantial offer to carlos , but the offer from japan was too big . '' stillitano started looking for a replacement about two weeks ago , about the time when he heard of the japanese offer to the 43 year old queiroz . ''we intend to hire someone of international stature , '' stillitano said . queiroz , 11 11 since replacing eddie firmani last may 28 , said , ''i cannot give any negative reasons for leaving , but japan is a new challenge for me and i must take the new challenge . '' with their 2 0 loss at columbus on sunday , the metrostars ( 36 points ) lead columbus ( 34 ) and new england ( 33 ) in the eastern conference . columbus will visit giants_stadium tomorrow night and new england will face d.c . united . nice view for tampa_bay with two victories in three days , the tampa bay mutiny ( 18 12 ) clinched first place in the eastern conference . los_angeles leap frogged into first place in the western conference with a_4 2 victory over san_jose on sunday . los_angeles has 43 points to 41 for dallas and kansas_city , while san_jose has 38 . colorado became the first team to be eliminated from the playoffs , and it has cleaned house . coach bob houghton , general_manager rich levine and bruce brown , the goalkeeping coach , all have been dismissed . the playoffs will start next week and the championship game will be oct . 20 at foxboro stadium . surprise from jamaica jamaica , better known for cricket than soccer , pulled off a huge upset in world_cup qualifying on sunday . jamaica shocked honduras with a 3 0 triumph at kingston 's cricket stadium . mexico , playing in the same group , also played in a world_cup qualifying game on sunday , beating st . vincent , 3 0 . coached by brazil 's rene simoes , jamaica eliminated suriname earlier this month for the right to play in this group , while st . vincent eliminated puerto_rico and st . kitts . two of the top teams in each group will advance to the final stages of the region . the united_states , which is in a group with costa_rica , guatemala and trinidad and tobago , will begin competing nov . 3 with a game against guatemala , at robert f . kennedy stadium in washington . testing in england professional players in england will face random breath tests after matches and training sessions , the football association , england 's governing body announced yesterday . soccer notebook",has a topic of sports
"the weather was glorious today for the opening ceremonies of the xvi olympic winter_games in nearby albertville . but snow was likely at several mountain venues sunday , and there were reports that starting times for various events might be changed . the men 's downhill skiing was scheduled to start at noon sunday ( 6 a.m . eastern standard time ) in val_d'isere . olympic skiing officials were said to be considering an earlier start so the race might be completed before the snow began . a different type of weather problem was affecting speed_skating at the outdoor rink in albertville . skaters have complained that the ice is slushy most of the day because of temperatures in the high 40 's . they would like the 10 olympic races to be run late in the day , when the sun has fallen behind the mountains . the skating competition will start sunday with the women 's 3 , 000 meters at 4 p.m . eight of the speed_skating races are scheduled to start at 4 p.m. , one at 2 30 p.m . and one at noon . today , the international skating union refused an appeal by many leading skating nations to run the races in the evening . gert zimmermann , the federation 's technical director , said the federation would reconsider new starting times for the two longest men 's races ( 5 , 000 and 10 , 000 meters ) , but indicated there would be no changes . a crash course in survival this has been a successful alpine_skiing season for julie parisien of auburn , me . , who has placed in the top five this winter in three world_cup slaloms . but four weeks ago , in austria , she crashed into a recreational skier and lost four teeth . three days later , she hooked a gate at the bottom of a giant_slalom and broke her left wrist . "" the wrist is not a problem for the slalom and the giant_slalom , "" she said . "" my teeth are a problem for eating , so i do n't have enough energy . but it 's just mental now . my goal is to have three top five finishes in my three events . "" skater is hospitalized johann olav koss of norway , a gold_medal favorite in the speed_skating competition , was hospitalized in germany early_today after suffering severe stomach pains . koss holds the world records in the 5 , 000 and 10 , 000 meters . he is a top contender for the gold_medal in those events and in the 1 , 500 meters . the 23 year old skater had been relaxing and doing some light skating in the german city of inzell when he suffered stomach pains and was taken to the regional hospital in traunstein , the norwegian news agency ntb said . koss' first race , the 5 , 000 , is set for thursday , followed by the 1 , 500 on feb . 16 and the 10 , 000 on feb . 20 . counting on herschel the united_states bobsled team has named herschel walker , the minnesota_vikings running back , as the brakeman for its two no . 1 sleds . brian shimer of naples , fla . , will drive walker 's two man sled . randy will of plainview , l.i. , will drive walker 's four man sled , with joe sawyer of denver and karlos kirby of des_moines , iowa , as pushers . sounds like the n.h.l . aleksei_kovalev , the rangers first round_draft_pick in 1991 from moscow dynamo , is enduring a tough initiation period with the united team at the winter_olympics . kovalev was battered in two scuffles with teammates during a practice scrimmage here , while his coaches looked the other way . kovalev , expected to join the rangers by next season , has demonstrated his usual flashy skating during early workouts . his english and his fighting skills , however , have not improved past the rudimentary stage . john davidson , the msg broadcaster working with cbs during the olympics , spotted kovalev resting along the boards and coaxed a smile from the young russian 's face with three words "" new york rangers . "" as for the intramural rumbles , igor dmitriev , the assistant coach of the united team , did not seem concerned . "" this is a younger team , and a more emotional team , than ever before , "" he said . notebook",has a topic of sports
"some people are not convinced that figure_skating , with its ballet music and its style points , is even a sport . i say , let rickey_henderson try to steal second base while staying in sync with erik satie or tchaikovsky , and see what kind of marks he gets . whatever figure_skating is , cbs is going to show 44 hours of it from albertville , all of them in american prime time . without figure_skating , the winter_games would feel like just another afternoon of "" wide world of sports "" people you never heard of performing sports you notice once every four years . figure_skating is the reigning monarch of the winter_olympics . and it is the only sport in the world in which the women are vastly more popular than the men . some of us feel that women 's tennis has been just as compelling as men 's tennis in the past generation , what with billie_jean_king and martina_navratilova and chris_evert , but the touts outside the stadiums and the television officials remind us that men 's tennis is the hot ticket . in figure_skating , it is just the opposite , going back to sonja_henie and peggy fleming and dorothy hamill . at the recent nationals in orlando , fla . , the men 's finals were held at 3 p.m . on a saturday and the women 's finals were held at 9 p.m . showtime . and for good reason . "" we think of our audience as being women , 35 to 65 my grandmother from des_moines , "" said rob dustin , the cbs feature producer for figure_skating at the winter_games . "" in 1988 , the ratings for the battle of the carmens and the battle of the brians were close to super_bowl ratings , "" dustin added , referring to the different interpretations of carmen performed by katarina_witt and debi_thomas in calgary in 1988 , and the rivalry between brian_boitano of the united_states and brian orser of canada . figure_skating was the absolute best thing i covered in the last winter_games in calgary . i had never been around it before , and i found it to have some of the best of the bullfights , a wimbledon final , and the ballet . from the sensational press section , just above the ice , where the skaters entered , you could see the looks on their faces , who was ready , who was tense . it was one of the rare times a sportswriter has a better vantage_point than the television audience . you could actually see the serenity of witt , the favorite from east_germany , the energy of elizabeth manley , the surprise from canada , and the intelligence and ambiguity of debi_thomas , the american . when thomas hit the ice wrong in the early seconds and plodded away to a bronze_medal , none of us knew that this complex pre med student had just secretly married her college boy friend . she was in love you could see something was distracting her . it is this up close and personal drama that makes figure_skating so popular with live audiences on several competing tours . some of this demand traces to the creative and attractive jayne torvill and christopher dean , the absolute stars of the 1984 games , but the answer is bigger than any one draw . "" many of the sports do n't lend themselves to being there , unless you 're at the finish line , "" said dr . franklin nelson , the president of the u.s . figure_skating association . "" i love the other sports . i went to see eddie the eagle . i love hockey , "" said dr . nelson , a former olympic figure_skater . "" but the way this builds , it is n't over in a few seconds . it is elegant . it is appealing because of the art of doing difficult things and making them look easy . "" it is easy to ridicule figure_skating with its routines set to music , its often gaudy costumes , the prejudging by officials , the bizarre names of the figures , but the performers are also athletes , attempting feats as difficult as the long_jump or the dunk . fleming has often praised the men for showing ways to mix muscle with grace , and the current trend for women seems to favor the jumping ability of midori_ito of japan over the smoothness of kristi_yamaguchi of the united_states . that tension between power and style will be worth watching , particularly because fortunes are at stake . "" under normal circumstances , for an american girl to win the gold_medal is worth 10 million over the next five six years , although obviously , the recession changes that , "" said michael rosenberg the business agent for the tough little american buzzbomb , tonya_harding . "" any of the skaters can blow it with one opened up jump , one fall , "" rosenberg said . "" one little split second on the ice and anybody 's life changes . "" that drama will be played , with music and color , in 44 hours over the next two weeks . if there were any more figure_skating , cbs would show it , too . albertville '92",has a topic of sports
"isabelle and paul duchesnay , a french brother and sister team , will carry the enormous expectations of the home country onto the ice with them . but that should hardly faze them . the duchesnays have spent their careers inviting challenge , as the most innovative and provocative couple since jayne torvill and christopher dean mesmerized audiences at the 1984 sarajevo games . with dean as their coach and , since last spring , isabelle 's husband , the duchesnays have stretched their discipline into such distant dimensions that even russian couples , with their deep classical traditions , are beginning to emulate them . but it has been only recently that judges have begun accepting the duchesnays' varied and unorthodox themes . at the calgary games , they skated to african rhythms and drumbeats and brought down the house but finished eighth . by the 1990 world_championships , they had moved to second place with a performance resonant of represssion and human suffering in south_america . then last year at the world_championships , with an updated version of their 1990 material , they broke through to win the gold . for the olympics , they have chosen themes from "" west side story , "" but injuries , more than bias , could be the only thing to hold them back . isabelle missed a period of training in the summer with a broken toe . a thigh injury to paul kept them out of the recent european championships . in their absence , three couples from the former soviet_union swept the medals . albertville '92",has a topic of sports
"one quiet saturday morning in new jersey , 7 , 000 miles from an alter_ego appearing on television dribbling basketballs for beer or gas or shoes , yuta tabuse was just a gardener 's son playing a game . practicing next to him on the court at continental arena , his phoenix_suns teammates shawn marion , amare stoudemire and even steve nash towered over him . tabuse , listed at 5 feet 9 inches but closer to 5 7 , had become the first japanese born player in the n.b.a . a lightning quick third string point_guard , tabuse made brief appearances in two of the suns' first three games before phoenix put him on the injured list with a strained quadriceps in order to add forward bo outlaw . but tabuse 's no . 1 jersey continues to sell , marketing opportunities for the suns are developing , and their web_site feeds the frenzy of japanese interest . ''i want to be the pioneer for japanese people , '' tabuse , 24 , said last week in new jersey . ''i just want to keep playing hard . i want to play for myself . '' the last goal seems a tall order . the news_media and potential advertisers have tracked tabuse ( pronounced ta boo say ) since he led his high_school in yokohoma to three national titles . since then , he has been followed to division_ii brigham young hawaii , to his rookie of the year season in the japan super league , to his preseason stint in denver last year , and to a season in which his team , the long_beach jam , won the american_basketball_association title . thirty three reporters from japan were in phoenix for opening night on nov . 3 as tabuse scored 7 points in 10 minutes in a 30 point rout of atlanta . it was a media blitz usually reserved for baseball stars like ichiro_suzuki . tabuse made the front page of the major daily newspapers in japan . ''the guy can play he 's not a novelty , '' suns coach mike d'antoni said . ''he 's a great story , and it 's something we can all get caught up in . but we do n't keep him because he 's a great story . '' although the suns insist that tabuse is not on the team for marketing purposes , it does not hurt the team or the league when such opportunities arise , in phoenix and in japan . in japan , television stations want to broadcast more suns games , said hideki hayashi , n.b.a . japan 's managing director , who said tabuse was photogenic and had an easy going personality . the suns are in discussions with japanese based companies for advertising agreements , according to an official in the league with knowledge of the negotiations . the suns also receive royalties from sales of tabuse jerseys . ''it 's nice that people want to buy my jersey , but i want a chance to play in the games , '' he said . ''i 'm making the team now . but at this level , staying on the team is very hard . '' the suns are one of the surprises in the western conference , which has more to do with nash than tabuse , the other point_guard with a mop of hair . tabuse played baseball growing up but said he never found real joy as a catcher . in 1988 , when he was 7 , he watched magic_johnson and the showtime lakers outshine the detroit_pistons in the n.b.a . finals and was hooked . after not losing a game in high_school , tabuse was steered to the united_states by someone who had an affiliation with nike , said b.y.u . hawaii 's coach , ken wagner . tabuse redshirted the first year , spent the second recovering from back surgery , then helped the team to a 19 10 record in 2001 2 . tabuse averaged 7.6 points and a_league leading 6.5 assists a game . wagner recalled how a japanese telephone company showed up at the university unannounced to shoot a commercial with tabuse , only to be turned away because of n.c.a.a . rules . wagner said he expected tabuse to leave early for a professional opportunity , but he said tabuse might have developed into a better shooter had he played one more season in hawaii . after trying out with dallas , then being cut by denver before the season last year , tabuse has impressed the suns with his work ethic and his quickness in getting the ball upcourt . ''he 's a good decision maker , a great passer , '' nash said . d'antoni said , ''it 's about him getting confidence and him having a presence on the court and not letting his rookie ness , his height and his novelty affect him in any way . '' tabuse has a two year contract , but it is only partly guaranteed . if the suns decide that it makes sense to keep him past jan . 10 , they will guarantee his contract for the rest of the season . ''yuta deserves a shot whether it 's a long term or short term , time will tell , '' the suns' president , bryan colangelo , said . faces from afar",has a topic of sports
"herschel walker made his olympic debut today , and his rookie eagerness might have added the microsecond that decides a medal in the two man bobsled . these might be the winter_games , but for walker , a heisman_trophy winner who is a minnesota_vikings running back , this was only his second bobsled event in competition . after two runs , the no . 1 united_states sled , with brian shimer as driver and walker as brakeman , finished the day in ninth place over all , going into sunday 's final two runs to decide the champion . they had a sixth and 10th today . shimer and walker , and everyone else , trailed an amazing and perhaps amazed british team , mark tout and lenny paul , who were in first place after today 's runs . britain has not won a winter_games medal since 1984 and has not won an olympic bobsled medal since 1964 . keeping it close gunther huber and stefano ticci of italy were a close second , . 03 seconds behind . austria 's no . 2 sled , ingo appelt and thomas schroll , was third , . 13 behind . today , walker , who says he has been on a bizarre , mostly bread and water diet for five weeks , and wants to try to compete in the olympic summer games , in martial_arts , did the bobsledding equivalent of trying to run with the ball before he had possession . as the brakeman , he is the muscle man , the second into the sled . after shimer , the driver , had climbed aboard following their push , walker jumped in behind him about 35 meters down the run . but he made a rookie mistake . he hopped on before the sled reached its optimal velocity for the trip , which would last almost a mile at speeds exceeding 70 miles an hour . walker later denied that he had climbed aboard too quickly , but the united_states coach , jim hickey , conceded that "" he may have been in one or two steps too quickly . "" it 's up to gravity after the push , gravity takes over . it took the americans 6 . 14 seconds , respectable at that , to speed the first 50 meters . the germans , by comparison , did 6 . 03 while the british came along at 6 . 08 . the american time for the first run was 1 00 . 34 . then walker and shimer cut their 50 meter start time by 5 hundredths of a second . still , the track was slower now and they produced a 1 01 . 27 their second time around . their total placed them 41 hundredths of a second behind britain , and 28 hundredths of a second out of third place . back home , the british press has been wondering why good money was being thrown after this british olympic team . but today , tout and paul , who have been helped in training by a sports psychologist and the former east_german coach , wooshed their way to the lead with a first and an eighth in their two runs . the first british run was a stunner in 1 minute and 1 tenth seconds . after calgary and a finish barely in the top 20 , tout threatened to leave bobsledding . the british organization was revamped . a sports psychologist was brought in to help tout , a driver who gets angry easily . perhaps the key move , though , was the the arrival of horst hornlein from germany as the "" ice "" coach . his east_germans had been the best . the four man british bobsled team was accorded a chance in these games , but the two man was not . only two years ago , it finished 27th in the world championship . now , tout and paul are leaders . after the competition today , the team manager , tony wallington , shielded his would be heroes from reporters . "" we want to provide the most stable environment possible , "" wallington said . "" the guys are going straight back to village to concentrate on the next phase . this is the first time we have led the olympics like this and we ca n't afford anything to go wrong . "" the american team was not so silent . "" this is fun , "" walker said . "" it 's competition . "" "" i was more tired running on and off the field , "" he said of his football playing . "" i had a 70 yard run against tampa and i did n't touch the ball the rest of the way . "" walker said he had been on a bread diet since early january ( although he admits to the occasional french_fries and m m 's ) , sleeps about three to four hours a night , and does 1 , 500 pushups and 2 , 000 situps daily . puerto_rican sledder injured la_plagne , france , feb . 15 ( ap ) a puerto_rican bobsledder , jorge bonnet , suffered a slight concussion today in a crash during his sled 's second run . puerto_rico 's no . 2 sled flipped over in a turn near the top of the 1 , 508 meter track and slid uncontrollably down through the finish , trapping the driver , john amabile , a new jersey optometrist , and the brakeman , bonnet , inside . the crew members lost control when they went too high in the no . 6 curve . bonnet suffered a slight concussion , bumps and bruises , and he was put in a neck brace , the puerto_rican coach , rich kolko , said . amabile , of ocean township , walked away from the crash . albertville",has a topic of sports
"halfway through its 16 day marathon broadcast of the winter_olympics , cbs is gradually balancing , rather than juggling , daily deliveries of action , features and studio chitchat . the 10 1 2 minutes of commercials each hour , the cutaways to features at dramatic junctures and the still stilted repartee between the prime time anchors , tim_mccarver and paula zahn , remain apparent . but even the most jaded viewer must be swayed when cbs hits it right , as it did in its friday night coverage of the finnish team 's surprise victory in ski_jumping called by the crack team of phil liggett and jeff hastings , or yesterday 's victory by the american hockey team over poland , presided over by john davidson and mike emrick . emrick is peerless in dropping key nuggets of information , like the offsides rule , into breathless action . "" we 've improved and will continue to in terms of keeping the programs interesting from beginning to end , "" said mike pearl , the 48 year old coordinating producer for cbs 's olympics broadcasts , a refugee from abc 's olympics unit . "" of course , it does n't hurt to have good events . "" it does n't hurt to have the best prime time hosts to anchor the broadcast , and pearl defended the mccarver zahn team , while acknowledging that they have had problems . they are the image of cbs in albertville , even if they are on camera each night for no more than 15 minutes ( probably less time than bonnie_blair and family are viewed ) . "" it 's a matter of getting them used to their roles , "" pearl said . "" these are roles neither one of them has experienced before . they 're improving , but i think in the first week , we 've laid a foundation that we can build from . "" mccarver and zahn have loosened up slightly . zahn has let her hair down ( literally ) , which makes her warmer . mccarver has donned eyeglasses . instead of the two chatting uncomfortably on their own , they have conducted interviews with analysts like scott hamilton ( figure_skating ) and athletes ( team_usa goaltender ray leblanc ) who appear on the studio monitor . others like analyst john davidson ( hockey ) , have shown up in the studio . "" the idea was to get them comfortable first and expand their roles a little bit , "" said pearl . "" at some point , we 'll send them out of the studio . but we wo n't invent things for them to do . "" he added that teaming the two was "" a gamble . "" "" we knew their backgrounds were n't known in this area going in , "" he said . "" it 's something new , something you ca n't rehearse . "" the success of the american hockey team makes it nearly imperative to have mccarver and leblanc swap ideas on catching and goaltending . can somebody at cbs please send timmy 's old catcher 's mitt by overnight mail ? viewers are not showing mass frustration with much of cbs 's effort . they 're watching in big numbers . friday night 's 16 . 8 national rating and 30 share brought cbs 's seven night average to 18 . 8 29 , compared with the seven day 18 . 1 28 for abc four years ago during the calgary winter_games . "" with numbers like that , you have to think you 're doing something right , "" said pearl . "" twice as many people are watching us than would watch a highly rated college_basketball game , so twice as many people may not like some part of what we 're doing . "" one eager group gathered last night before five tv sets at the westchester home of doug wilson , who directed figure_skating at six winter_olympics for abc . among those scheduled to show up were 30 of abc 's olympic veterans , including dick button and frank gifford . "" it 'll be heart wrenching , "" said wilson . "" but we 'll be over there in spirit with them . "" how 's cbs doing ? "" sometimes you wonder why they do this or that , but over all it 's very admirable . every situation that comes up bears their fingerprint and their format . they 're putting on a good show . "" tv sports",has a topic of sports
"for the second time in 24 hours , hundreds of thousands of ecstatic and patriotic french soccer fans thronged the most famous avenue in paris today , this time to thank their national team for bringing france its first world_cup soccer championship . ''on est champions , on est champions , on est , on est , on est champions , '' supporters with the tricolor painted on their faces chanted victoriously on the champs_elysees this afternoon as members of the national team , bearing the gold cup to thunderous cheering , slowly worked their way up the avenue toward the arc de triomphe on an open air double decker bus . french flags waved in the fresh breeze under a day that made people happy to be alive . some flew the tricolor alongside the flag of algeria , a salute to zinedine zidane , the team 's playmaker . zidane , the son of algerian parents , scored two of france 's three goals in sunday_night 's 3 0 victory over brazil . marseilles , where zidane grew up , celebrated far into the night after the game . ''merci zizou ! , '' his nickname , became a chant in itself on the champs_elysees this afternoon . people were hanging from sycamore trees , street_lights , traffic signals , and jumping up and down on top of steel and plastic bus shelters . and there in the middle of the packed milelong avenue stood martel chatelain , wearing a new york yankees windbreaker . ''i watched the game at home last night on television , '' he said . ''the guys played so well i just had to come down this afternoon to tell them how grateful we were . '' so grateful , in fact , that the country 's politicians let this be the team 's day , since tuesday is the bastille day national holiday , when the champs_elysees will fill again with tanks and marching soldiers to mark the 209th anniversary of the storming of the bastille . defense minister alain richard paid tribute today to the 8 , 500 soldiers and gendarmes who had worked throughout the monthlong tournament to assure public safety , recalling that one of them , a policeman in lens , still lay in a coma after being attacked by german hooligans there on june 21 . on tuesday , president jacques_chirac , the french team 's honorary no . 23 , plans to talk in a nationally_televised interview about ''the france that wins , '' his aides said . the president , a gaullist conservative , has been trying to get his compatriots to cheer up and be happy for the past three unemployment ridden years , and the national team 's victory on sunday finally did it just as the french prepared to set off on their annual five week summer_vacations . the president also invited team members as guests of honor to the sprawling gardens of elysee_palace , the french equivalent of the white_house , for the bastille day garden party tuesday afternoon . a million and a half parisians surged through the city sunday_night after the game ended shortly after 11 p.m. , most of them on the champs_elysees . there , after a moonlight night turned to clouds and rain shortly after 3 a.m. , a black volkswagen driven by a woman whom the police said was under psychiatric treatment plowed into the crowd and hurt 80 people , 11 of them seriously , according to hospital officials . none of the injured was in critical condition , they said today . the driver , a 44 year old teacher , fled the scene of the accident but surrendered to the police in yvelines , the western parisian suburb where she lives , this morning . the police said she was still in their custody this evening . soccer",has a topic of sports
"the clinic in the sky is coming down closer to earth . for decades the union health center has occupied six floors near the top of the 27 story building at 275 seventh_avenue , between 25th and 26th streets , in an area that is at the confluence of the garment_district and chelsea . the center provides health_care for 31 , 000 active members of the main clothing workers union and 60 , 000 retirees in the new york area . but it has gone without remodeling for over 30 years and was designed for a type of assembly_line medicine not in keeping with modern practice . meanwhile , office tenants being squeezed out of midtown by rising rents are looking at locations in chelsea and other areas of midtown south . ''with its eclectic mix of former industrial and back office loft properties , chelsea now boasts an availability rate of 2.1 percent , down from 15 . 8 percent a year ago , and a rental rate of 31 . 81 per square_foot , a year over year increase of 94 . 3 percent , '' according to a recent report by newmark company real_estate . at 25th_street , 275 seventh is a little north of the heart of chelsea , but the trends in the neighborhood are clear . an old veterans_administration ambulatory care center at the southwest corner of seventh_avenue and 25th_street is being converted into housing . so union health is going to vacate the 21st through 26th floors of the building . the space will be gutted and offered to commercial customers who are willing to pay for fine views of the empire_state_building to the east and the hudson_river to the west . the center might have been moved elsewhere , but the current location is close to the subway lines that can bring patients in from their working_class neighborhoods in brooklyn , queens , the bronx and the west side of manhattan . beside , the labor organization the center is affiliated with , the union of needletrades , industrial and textile employees , owns the building , and the clinic 's medical services are closely_aligned with the union 's social programs . the health center is operated as an independent , nonprofit_corporation , said paul cheng jr . , the chief_financial_officer . ''we are a tenant of the union and we pay rent , '' mr . cheng said . moving from the upper to the lower floors will trim the rent bill somewhat , said dr . darrell r . halverson , the chief executive of the center . dr . halverson added that because of the union ownership the rent is already somewhat below the market rate , which he said ranges from about 20 to about 28 a square_foot in the neighborhood . when renovations are complete , the center will occupy the fourth , fifth and part of the sixth floors of the building . because of the wedding_cake design of the building , the center will occupy on two and a half lower floors about the same 68 , 000 square_feet it had on five floors in the tower . the 14 million project is being financed by the new york state dormitory authority , which is authorized to back nonprofit ventures in addition to dormitories . ''starting in january 1999 we will have a big mortgage we will have to pay back , '' mr . cheng said . ''as a nonprofit we could have never afforded conventional financing . '' the lower floors are being gutted to adapt a manufacturing building , which was once known as the lefcourt clothing center , to the demands of modern_medicine . the fourth floor is about one third taller than others in the building , suggesting it was built as showroom space . in addition to new quarters , the leaders of the clinic are using the interior_design to install a new approach to delivering medical care . ''we are adding services , like obstetrics and gynecology and pediatrics , '' dr . halverson said , ''and that affects the architectural plan . '' he said that the clinic , which dates back to 1911 and claims to be the oldest union affiliated health center in the country , provides care for people who might fall through the cracks of the city 's medical establishment . just as at the turn of the century , its patients are largely immigrants , with the difference that today 's immigrants are from latin_america and asia , rather than from italy and eastern_europe . ''we provide health_care through thick and thin for people who could not afford it otherwise , '' said dr . halverson . indeed , he said , the drug resistant tuberculosis of today is reminiscent of the turn of the century tb outbreaks that led to the founding of the health center . the new floors are being designed to accommodate a system of medical care that emphasizes prevention rather then cure . ''the old system was based on a conveyor belt mentality , '' dr . halverson said . ''we 'd load 40 people on a bus , bring them here and run everybody through the same series of tests . that was a misapplication of resources . '' he said it is now clear that a 28 year old latino male is likely to have different medical needs than a 50 year old asian woman who has been working for years in a noisy environment where hazardous chemicals are used . ''we used to have the annual physical by the union doctor , '' he said , ''and many immigrants thought this was good health_care . '' he said the new approach was much more individual , with a lot more emphasis on family history and medicines taken and lifestyle . after conducting these interviews , primary_care doctors can order tests based on each person 's likely condition . taking personal histories and asking questions is a complicated undertaking given the number of languages spoken by the recent immigrants . all signs and printed materials in the health centers are in english , spanish and chinese . ''almost everybody in primary_care is bilingual or trilingual , '' dr . halverson said . ''but even so , i employ 25 translators . '' he admits that using translators is less than ideal , even if it is necessary . ''with three people in the room , something gets lost in translation . '' the medical space will have two of its own elevators to separate the patients from the rest of the tenants , a task now more or less performed by lobby guards . the fourth floor will have a block long waiting room facing on seventh_avenue and will be dedicated to primary_care . two sets of examining rooms are farther back in the building with a secure area for doctors' offices at the far eastern area . each of the examining rooms with be equipped with a computer terminal on which information on patients , their ailments and treatments will be displayed . the display will include a picture of the patient to minimize confusion among patients with similar names . ''we want to make sure that the mrs . yen that 's in the room is the right mrs . yen , '' dr . halverson said . nevertheless , the new design has had to provide room for 30 , 000 paper charts because of the prohibitive cost of entering the old data into the new system . ''we have tried to move away from paper , '' mr . cheng said , ''but paper , like nicotine , is addictive . '' all new charts , however , will be electronic . the system is designed to reduce delays in moving people through . if the primary_care doctor prescribes medicine , the system alerts the pharmacy so that medicines will be ready as the patient is walking out . the fifth floor , which is connected to the fourth by a steel and glass staircase ( the infirm can always take an elevator ) is devoted to specialty medicine , including a big gym near the offices of orthopedic specialists and other doctors concentrating muscle skeletal disorders . this is a big area for workers in an industry where they operate machinery that often requires moving the hands and arms in the same motion over and over . this type of work often leads to carpal tunnel syndrome and other repetitive motion disorders . ''we are putting physical_therapy where it belongs , '' dr . halverson said of the gym 's location near the doctors' offices . because of the scope of the problem , dr . halverson said the union would often order therapy for workers , even when insurance coverage is in dispute . ''the union takes people in so they get therapy and fix the problem , '' he said . ''afterward they will go after the employer 's insurance . they do n't always get paid , but the union considers that part of its social mission . '' this attitude and the union 's history of helping immigrants adapt to a new land helps in staffing the specialists' offices . unlike the primary_care doctors , who are on salary , the specialists have independent practices where they could probably make more money than devoting part of the time to the health center . ''many of our specialists are the sons and daughters of immigrants , whose parents were members of the union , '' dr . halverson said . ''they have a lot of loyalty to the union . '' he said the basic objective of the new facility was to give the working_poor something higher income people take for granted good medical care in reasonably pleasant surroundings . ''we are building a medical home for people who never had one before , '' dr . halverson said .",has a topic of estate
"to the editor i read with interest your article on feb . 12 headed "" old victorian style , but computer ready housing "" about the village of montgomery being built at orangeville , ontario . but nowhere , in that article or anywhere else , have i read about the similarities between this neo traditional trend in new communities and certain planned communities built by the federal_government during world_war i to house defense workers . the village of montgomery , especially , bears a strong resemblance in the underlying concept of its design to the former war housing_project for 200 families called colonial terraces , where i live , in newburgh , n.y . at both places one sees short rows of attached houses and groups of semi datached housesalong tree lined streets , with common driveways to the rear both have a town_square ( of sorts ) with some commercial space . and , happily , at both places the houses are affordable yet exude considerable charm all in a quaint village atmosphere . my community is also interesting as an early example of the work of the community planning pioneer henry wright , before he teamed up with clarence stein to design sunnyside gardens in queens and radburn , n.j . it is a tribute to the timelessness of the war housing communities that key elements of their design are being rediscovered by a new generation . brian flannery p.o . box 2981 newburgh , n.y . 12550 9998",has a topic of estate
"to the editor our office has been extensively involved in the restoration of the historic building fabric of new york city . this work has included numerous cornice reconstructions and the restoration of the facade elements in proximity to these cornices . our findings of actual field conditions and our investigations of the original detailing of cornices have without question led us to conclude that these cornices provide weather protection to upper facade elements . it also appears that in most cases this protective function was at least a part of the intended purpose of the cornice . what i found most disturbing in your article on jan . 19 entitled "" for utility alone , a restored cornice "" was the comment that five out of six "" restoration specialists "" said they have never seen any evidence of a rain shielding function by a cornice . the evidence is clearly present in the structures of our city . the evidence is also present in such historical texts of architecture as "" the stones of venice , "" where its author john ruskin , in volume i , chapter vi , discusses in detail the origins and evolution of the cornice . the chapter opens by describing the two "" offices "" that the cornice serves . the first office is related to structure and bearing . the second office is said to be the defense of the wall from weather . this is a time when architects casually apply such elements as cornices and watertables without concern for or knowledge of the meaning of such constructions . this trend is of course consistent with our culture 's obsession with appearance and our disregard for substance . kevin bone the writer is a principal in kevin bone associates architects in manhattan .",has a topic of estate
"two residential developments under construction in fairfield_county are widely different except for one thing they are responding to demand for maintenance free luxury housing . in stamford , buyers have already committed to 15 single family homes in a country style subdivision of 59 homes , while in a changing industrial neighborhood in the town of fairfield , 16 apartments have been spoken for at a three building development of 70 condominium units . both developments offer a villagey communal atmosphere with many amenities and are expected to be ready for occupants by the end of spring . homes at river oaks on long ridge road in stamford are selling for 1 . 445 million to 1 . 56 million . ''this is an extraordinarily robust upper end boom in luxury housing with maintenance free living that is not available in greenwich or new canaan , '' said james fieber , head of the fieber group , builders of the 28 acre subdivision . ''demographically , it 's a segment that will increase in viability . it 's not downscaling , it 's life scaling that appeals to people from their 30 's to their 70 's . '' at stone ridge in fairfield , where one to three bedroom apartments are priced from 500 , 000 to 900 , 000 , the developers use very similar words in talking about their prospective customers . robert s . skolnick , the co principal developer with david h . small , said , ''we are creating a lifestyle here for people in their 30 's to their 70 's who are accustomed to quality and convenience . '' the 3 . 3 acre site on kings_highway east , which is surrounded by commercial buildings and backs up to route_1 , is barely two blocks from a huge project to be developed over several years that includes a new railroad station , fairfield 's third , to be built near black rock turnpike , and hundreds of thousands of square_feet of privately developed commercial space . when mr . skolnick and his partner bought the property for 9 . 3 million , mr . skolnick said , ''we saw it as an opportunity to buy in on the ground floor . '' the state 's commitment to build the train_station was seen as a key element for attracting investment in offices and retailing at the site , which is named metro center . black rock realty of stamford is the commercial developer , and it is now demolishing one of the huge foundries that once dominated the landscape along black rock turnpike . the area is close to the bridgeport border and began to emerge from stagnation a few years ago with the conversion of a foundry into a bj 's wholesale club . two multiplex cinemas and various retailers and businesses have since moved in . next fall , a pedestrian bridge , starting virtually in stone ridge 's backyard , will be built over the tracks to the station . local brokers assessing stone ridge tend to agree with al del vecchio , a broker at guttman realty 's fairfield office , who regards the development as less than a sure thing . ''while there definitely is a demand for upscale condos in town among people trading down from a big house , '' he said , ''for real luxury i can see 500 , 000 to 700 , 000 . i do n't know about 900 , 000 . it 's a first . '' back in stamford , jayne jassey , a broker at prudential connecticut realty , said ''i 'm not surprised that river oaks is selling well . they are just a few minutes from downtown . they have city water and sewers , interior appointments like nine foot_ceilings , lovely moldings , hardwood floors , in a planned_community where people do n't have to worry about a gardener and where everything is brand new . people love that . '' pipers three , which is a partnership of the fieber group , the spinnaker companies and hoffman investment properties , owns the hilly arcadian tract . it has the rippowam river running along its west side , and pipers pond , nestled in the trees and stocked with fish , awaits resident anglers . the land was assembled by the fieber and lampke real_estate families over 40 years for 2 million and given to their several children , including mr . fieber . the lampke and fieber children sold it to pipers three for 18 million . amenities include a clubhouse and swimming_pool , walking and jogging trails , and a putting green . the basic homes cover 3 , 200 to 4 , 000 square_feet but can expand to 6 , 000 if the attics and basements are finished some buyers are investing 250 , 000 in such extras . two of the five models have ground floor master bedrooms . three bedrooms are standard , as are three and half baths separate dining_rooms state of the art kitchens lofts , studies or breakfast rooms 260 square_foot decks or patios and two car garages . homes here will all be one color gray , with darker gray decks , black shutters and white trim . ''we find that in upscale communities one color creates a more classic appearance , '' mr . fieber said . buyers will own their homes and about five feet of land around them the rest will be held in common by a homeowners' association . on a hilltop overlooking the new homes sits apicella 's castle , a faded 15 room norman mansion built in 1937 by salvatore apicella , who made a fortune in the furniture business . the empty house was saved from demolition by local preservationists , and now the developers will fold it into river oaks by creating two 4 , 000 square_foot town homes inside the restored exterior . noteworthy elements at stone ridge 's apartments of 1 , 245 to 2 , 039 square_feet include 10 foot_ceilings , 8 foot doors , viking stoves , refrigerators and dishwashers , fine cabinetry , walnut floors , individual utility rooms , elegant moldings , a variety of eat in kitchens , dens and office nooks , and a porter handyman and a concierge on 24 hour duty . each morning , coffee , bagels , croissants and the major newspapers will be available to residents in the 5 , 000 square_foot clubhouse and fitness room opening onto an outdoor terrace . all of this is to be included in the association 's common charges , which have not yet been set . one buyer , theodore cohen from rye_brook , said he had investigated the unsettled neighborhood and was convinced the metro center would succeed . ''by 2008 it 's going to be a much different area , '' he said . meanwhile , he and his wife , benita , are moving to florida and plan to be in fairfield only in summer , for golf and the beach . in the region",has a topic of estate
"windsor_park , a robust 1 , 822 unit co op apartment complex in bayside , queens , has embarked on an aggressive refinancing plan to free cash to make improvements and bring long term financial stability to the enclave of 20 six story red brick buildings . last month , the co op , set on 46 acres along 73d avenue and bell boulevard , arranged with its lender , the republic national bank , to refinance its underlying_mortgage , increasing it to 40 million from 29 million for 15 years . at the same time , the co op locked in an interest rate of 7 . 07 percent , down from the 8 . 43 percent it now pays , days before rates moved upward . the new loan is to close in two weeks , said robert p . corso jr . , director of the mortgage brokerage division at insignia residential group , which manages windsor_park and represented the co op in the refinancing . mr . corso said the new loan would give the co op enough money to pay off an existing 4 . 5 million construction loan , invest 3 . 5 million more to complete a continuing renovation program and establish a 300 , 000 reserve fund . but crucial to the refinancing , he said , is that it will let the co op shift into the new loan a 2 . 7 million prepayment_penalty for retiring the old balloon mortgage three years before it was to expire . making the prepayment_penalty a part of the new mortgage will allow the co op to amortize that payment over 30 years , minimizing the financial impact on the corporation . windsor_park , which has one to three bedroom apartments of 650 to 1 , 400 square_feet , is late to the refinancing trend . many co ops have already refinanced to take advantage of lower interest rates , which are still reasonable though they have risen a full percentage point since last november , said ellen bitton , president of the park_avenue mortgage group , a manhattan mortgage_broker . the refinancing market is not as strong as it was in the last two years , but it is still active , she added . greg carlson , president of the federation of new york cooperatives , said that some co ops like windsor_park that faced large prepayment penalties had hesitated to plunge into refinancing . ''sometimes it pays for them to refinance and take advantage of lower rates , but sometimes it simply does n't , '' he said . lawrence r . vitelli , senior vice_president of the insignia residential group , added , ''boards do not always readily see the benefit in paying a large sum of money today for a lower rate tomorrow . '' he said that for windsor_park , which wanted to complete a renovation program it started three years ago , the debate was whether to raise the needed funds for the work through a special assessment on shareholders , take out another construction loan at a high interest rate or refinance . what persuaded the board to refinance , mr . vitelli added , is that the new underlying_mortgage , the result of three months of negotiations , is structured so it will not significantly increase the co op 's 12 million annual operating budget . meanwhile , he said , the monthly_maintenance costs that co op owners pay , which range from 325 to 930 , will remain unchanged , and the owners will get a onetime tax_deduction for their pro rata share of the prepayment_penalty . for example , the tax reduction on a typical 1 , 200 square_foot , two bedroom apartment will be 1 , 700 , he said . ''it 's an insurance policy , '' larry kinitsky , president of the co op board at windsor_park , said of the new loan . as part of the co op 's long term strategic plan , the stability of a 15 year low interest rate mortgage coupled with the added improvements ''will keep windsor_park ahead of the financial curve and take it where it needs to be to remain competitive , '' he said . and it will also help increase the value and marketability of the apartments for unit owners , he said . windsor_park was converted from a rental to a co op in 1986 . since then , even when the residential market fizzled in the late 1980 's , it remained a financially viable upper middle_income co op where residents own 80 percent of the apartments . of the remaining 20 percent of the units , which are owned by a manhattan investment group , most are rented for 600 to 1 , 750 a month . still , owners watched the prices of their units plummet by up to 50 percent at the nadir of the recession in the early 1990 's , with little upward movement through the first half of this decade , as the co op market outside the plusher manhattan neighborhoods remained dormant . but as the overall housing market has improved , prices for co ops in queens have risen by about 5 percent a year for the last five years , said mr . carlson , the president of the co op federation , who also heads a real_estate brokerage bearing his name in forest_hills , queens . while sales have picked up , prices in many co op buildings have not yet rebounded to where they were at the time of conversion , he said . ''but in some of the better buildings in the better neighborhoods , units are selling for close to their original prices and in a few instances exceeding them , '' he added . at windsor_park , two bedroom units that sold for an average of 75 , 000 two years ago are now selling for 115 , 000 , mr . vitelli said . the added hope of the refinancing and , in turn , the renovation program , he said , is that those prices will rise 15 to 20 percent more , bringing the value of the units back to at least their original prices . the 3 . 5 million renovation program calls for completing capital improvements , like installing new heating systems and roofs , as well as making cosmetic upgrades to the complex . they include refurbishing the lobbies and hallways in the buildings as well as enhancing the landscaping of the grounds of the community , whose amenities include outdoor swimming_pools and tennis courts , which have already been improved . the work will take place over the next 18 months , mr . kinitsky , the board president , said .",has a topic of estate
"lead one of the few grand old hotels still left in spring_lake , n.j . the hewitt wellington is now being divided into the seaside community 's first condominium hotel . the town became known for its victorian architecture when it was called the irish riviera for the many wealthy irish families who summered there . one of the few grand old hotels still left in spring_lake , n.j . the hewitt wellington is now being divided into the seaside community 's first condominium hotel . the town became known for its victorian architecture when it was called the irish riviera for the many wealthy irish families who summered there . the 1892 hotel being reconstructed was modeled on their estates . buyers of the 29 one bedroom apartments and suites priced from 125 , 000 to 299 , 000 will carry maintenance charges of 292 to 490 . a hotel manager with a staff of 10 will rent apartments for them . income earned by apartments will go directly to the owner , not a rental pool , and can range as high as 200 a night during the summer , said the converter , marc j . thomaes . since buying the hotel last october for 1 . 75 million , mr . thomaes and his partner , the prospect savings bank , have spent 2 million on its renovation . many resorts have suffered this summer ( the beach at spring_lake was closed one day in july when grease balls and what officials said appeared to be human waste washed up ) , but mr . thomaes said a new pool will offer an ocean alternative for guests when the hotel reopens next weekend . and , he said , ''there 's the beach to walk along even if sometimes they do n't want to go in . ''",has a topic of estate
"lead construction started this month in valhalla , n.y. , on the third of six planned reflective glass and blue granite buildings of the summit , an office development that will incorporate a stream into its landscaping . when finished in 1996 , the summit will have 1.5 million square_feet of commercial space spread over 102 acres in central westchester construction started this month in valhalla , n.y. , on the third of six planned reflective glass and blue granite buildings of the summit , an office development that will incorporate a stream into its landscaping . when finished in 1996 , the summit will have 1.5 million square_feet of commercial space spread over 102 acres in central westchester_county . the third building , 200 summit lake drive , will have 210 , 000 square_feet and is the largest new construction start in the county this year . it is expected to be finished in july 1990 . ''we are trying to manipulate the design of the buildings to fit the landscape , rather than the other way around , '' said louis r . cappelli , a partner in the cappelli development corporation of valhalla , developers of the summit . he noted that parking , for 750 cars , will be placed under the third building , as it was in the first building , completed in 1986 , and the second , finished last year . the structure will have four floors of office space and be divided by an atrium 60 feet high and 205 feet long . a health_club and cafeteria will be incorporated into the structure , which was designed by the architects collaborative of cambridge , mass .",has a topic of estate
"4 indexes of housing costs n.y . northeast n.j . area change from change from dec . nov . dec . 89 rents 164 . 5 0.5 8.7 homeowner 's costs 166 . 0 0.5 3.6 fuel and utilities 102 . 9 1 . 6 3.0 source bureau_of_labor_statistics 4 five counties of new york city plus nassau , suffolk , westchester , 4 rockland , putnam , bergen , essex , morris , union , hudson , middlesex , somerset and passaic . indexes 1982 84 100 mortgage interest rates ( averages ) last week previous week year ago new york conventional ( 30 yr ) 9 . 94 9 . 82 10 . 06 adjustable_rate ( 1st_yr ) 7 . 93 7 . 95 8 . 56 new jersey conventional ( 30 yr ) 9 . 77 9 . 67 9 . 90 adjustable_rate ( 1st_yr ) 7 . 74 7 . 81 8 . 35 connecticut conventional ( 30 yr ) 9 . 76 9 . 66 9 . 97 adjustable_rate ( 1st_yr ) 7 . 82 7 . 84 8 . 51 co ops ( n . y. ) conventional ( 30 yr ) 10 . 14 10 . 00 10 . 35 adjustable_rate ( 1st_yr ) 8 . 22 8 . 22 8 . 70 4 indexes for adjustable_rate_mortgages 1 yr . treasury security 6 . 71 6 . 78 7 . 78 national mortgage contract rate 9 . 69 9 . 69 9 . 69 rates on most adjustable_mortgages are set 1 to 3 percentage_points above these indexes . ( source_hsh_associates )",has a topic of estate
"closings in the week ended july 17 manhattan chelsea 275 , 000 161 west 15th street 1 bedroom , 1 bath , 1 , 170 sq . ft . loft co op dining_area , 13 ft . ceilings , curved glass brick wall in bedroom , live in super maintenance 874 , 70 tax deductible ( broker delson ginsberg real_estate ) chelsea 170 , 000 250 west 16th street 2 bedroom , 1 bath , 850 sq . ft . postwar co op elevator , remodeled_kitchen and bath , 2 exposures maintenance 732 , 30 tax deductible ( broker herbert h . kliegerman_associates ) upper east side 485 , 000 30 east 65th street 2 bedrooms , 2 1 2 bath , 1 , 600 sq . ft . postwar co op 24 hr . doorman , concierge , dining_room , eat in kitchen maintenance 1 , 866 , 50 tax deductible ( brokers charles h . greenthal_residential_sales freda green associates ) upper west side 450 , 000 895 west_end avenue ( 104th st . ) 3 bedroom , 2 bath , 1 , 900 sq . ft . prewar co op part time doorman , dining_room , maid 's room , flower balcony , 2 exposures maintenance 1 , 206 , 50 tax deductible ( broker a.j . clarke real_estate ) west_village 195 , 000 708 greenwich_street 1 , 000 sq . ft . open loft co op elevator , 1 bath , fireplace , exposed_brick_walls , north exposure maintenance 430 , 50 tax deductible ( broker coleman neary real_estate ) bronx baychester 180 , 000 4153 gunther avenue 3 bedroom , 1 1 2 bath , one family detached frame house dining_room , eat in kitchen , semi_finished_basement , 1 car garage , 25 by 100 ft . lot taxes 1 , 200 ( broker era besmatch real_estate ) yankee_stadium area 115 , 000 1058 university avenue 3 family detached frame house 3 bedrooms , 1 bath , dining_room in each unit private driveway , 25 by 100 ft . lot taxes 900 ( broker marland real_estate ) brooklyn carroll_gardens 240 , 000 28 second street 2 family , 3 story attached brick house 2 bedrooms , eat in kitchen in primary duplex unit 1 bedroom , den in simplex 1 bath in each , 20 by 90 ft . lot taxes 1 , 500 ( broker harborview realty ) ditmas_park 215 , 000 825 east 18th street ( fiske terrace ) 5 bedroom , 4 bath , one family detached center hall colonial_dining_room , eat in kitchen , 2 porches , 1 car garage , 50 by 100 ft . lot taxes 2 , 600 ( broker wilk real_estate ) park_slope 155 , 000 420 12th street ( ansonia court ) 2 bedroom , 1 1 2 bath , co op in a renovated prewar clock factory dining_room , high beamed ceilings , terrace , private roof rights maintenance 579 , 62 tax deductible ( broker warren lewis realty ) queens forest_hills 205 , 000 67 91 exeter street 2 family attached brick house 1 bedroom , 1 bath , eat in kitchen in each unit finished_basement , 1 car garage , 18 by 100 ft . lot taxes 1 , 489 ( brokers f.h . realty executives kingdom realty ) rego_park crescents 305 , 000 63 52 elwell crescent 3 story , 4 bedroom , 3 1 2 bath one family detached stucco and aluminium sided house dining_room , eat in kitchen , fireplace , finished_basement , 2 car garage , 40 by 100 ft . lot taxes 2 , 200 ( broker_terrace_realty ) staten_island great kills 165 , 000 216 brookfield avenue 4 bedroom , 1 1 2 bath , one family semi_attached frame house dining_room , sunken_living_room , fireplace , finished_basement , 24 by 101 ft . lot taxes 1 , 360 ( broker century 21 papp realty ) mariners harbor 114 , 900 173 maple parkway 2 family semi_attached brick and frame house 2 bedrooms , 1 bath , dining_room in each unit 1 car garage , 44 by 56 ft . lot taxes 850 ( broker wonica realtors )",has a topic of estate
"two teenagers who responded to the screams of a woman who had just been robbed in the bronx have been charged with beating the woman 's assailant , the authorities said yesterday . the woman , terry cornish , 55 , and her 10 year old son entered an elevator at 1481 washington avenue , part of a public_housing development in bathgate , around 4 40 p.m . on friday , the police said . a man in the elevator pulled a knife and took ms . cornish 's purse and some jewelry . ms . cornish and her son got off the elevator on the fifth floor and ran down the stairwell to the lobby , where they shouted for help , the police said . some of the neighbors beat the suspect , identified as wesley williams , 25 , and took back ms . cornish 's purse and jewelry , the police said . officers found mr . williams lying on the sidewalk , bleeding from the head . tyrone cooper and cynthia boachi , both 17 were arrested .",has a topic of estate
"q . my stepmother has a rent controlled apartment in manhattan . at the moment , her daughter lives there with her family . however , they may move and i was wondering if , as her stepson , i have any legal right to take over the lease and move into the apartment ? . . . nicholas bernstein , manhattan . a . david ng , a manhattan real_estate lawyer , said the general rule in such cases is that a stepson is entitled to succession rights to a rent_regulated apartment , provided he has used the apartment as his primary residence for the two years before the stepmother leaves . ( the residency period is reduced to one year if the person who is seeking to succeed is 62 or older or disabled . ) there are a number of elements that could produce a different result , however . for example , he said , it is not clear from the question whether the stepmother is currently living in the apartment with her daughter and the daughter 's family . if so , mr . ng said , and if the letter writer moves in for the requisite period of time , then he and , presumably , the daughter would both have succession rights after the stepmother moves out . on the other hand , he said , if the stepmother is not living in the apartment with her daughter and the daughter 's family , it is unclear whether the letter writer would have succession rights to the apartment even if the daughter has legally acquired those rights from the mother . mr . ng explained that while the rent laws specifically provide succession rights to a stepson or stepdaughter , they do not provide for succession rights to a stepbrother or stepsister . so , he said , if the daughter has legally taken over the apartment from her mother and the daughter is the sister of the letter writer , then the letter writer would have succession rights to the apartment but from the sister provided he lives there for the requisite period of time . on the other hand , mr . ng said , if the daughter is the letter writer 's stepsister , the letter writer would not be entitled to succession rights , even if the stepsister had legally acquired the right to the apartment from her mother . cable_television for an apartment q . we moved into our apartment more than six years ago . in the apartment was cable_television . we were out of the country for seven weeks , and on our return , we turned on our television only to find that we could n't get any reception . we later discovered that the cable service to our apartment had been cut . is it the responsibility of the landlord to reinstate this service , which we have had over the past six years ? . . . sally f . kabak , manhattan . a . joel abramson , a manhattan real_estate lawyer , said that the answer would probably depend on whether the lease agreement , if there is one , requires the landlord to provide the letter writer with cable service . if cable_television is required by the lease , mr . abramson said , the writer can complain to the state division of housing and community renewal , which can order a rent reduction because the cable service was discontinued . but if cable_tv is not included in the lease agreement , mr . abramson said , it is not likely that the landlord would be required to reinstate it , even if the landlord had been inadvertently providing it at no expense to the tenant . ''it seems to me that it is more likely that the provision of cable_tv at no cost to the letter writer was an oversight by the cable company , '' mr . abramson said . ''and if this tenant received a windfall for six years , i do n't think the landlord has any responsibility to continue it . '' q . a .",has a topic of estate
"the view from the hudson_river waterside here is expansive , with the palisades visible across the broad stretch of water and the scene bracketed by the tappan zee and george_washington bridges . the developers of bridge street properties are counting on the view and the prospect of modern office space adjacent to a major commuter railroad to lure tenants to a speculative 25 , 000 square_foot office building they plan to start constructing next month . the building , whose facade will be 70 percent windows to allow occupants to enjoy the views and to admit as much natural light as possible , is the latest undertaking in a development that has transformed a large part of an old factory complex to offices and retail space . it is also part of an effort by private interests and municipalities along the hudson , stretching from yonkers to troy , to reclaim waterfronts long blocked by obsolete industrial plants that once relied on water transportation to bring in raw_materials and ship out finished goods . the manufacturing operations have mostly ceased or moved elsewhere , leaving decaying buildings , often with contaminated land , between the communities and their waterfront . the current trend is to clear away the problems and use waterfronts as an attraction , said thomas wright , executive vice_president of the regional_plan_association . ''water and rail transportation is the reason places developed in the first place , '' he said . ''over the last 10 to 15 years there has been a trend of putting amenities on waterfronts that will tie them into the regional economy . '' the nine acre bridge street site , which is west of metro_north 's hudson_river rail line , is the kind of place that could not happen if it were not already in existence . in 1890 , according to the developers , a local company called lord burnham acquired the right to fill in the river to create new land for its expanding business , something that would not be permitted today . the factory complex , which produced large greenhouses and boilers to heat them in winter , was built from 1910 and 1913 , said andrew lyons , one of the co owners of bridge street properties . in those days the river was a major transportation artery , with riverboats carrying bricks from numerous brickyards in the area and stone from nearby quarries to build apartment buildings and brownstone houses in new york . river traffic has decreased since , although fuel_oil and other commodities are still shipped upriver by barge . manufacturing at the site ceased in 1985 ( burnham steel boilers still operates in lancaster , pa . ) and by the early 1990 's the buildings were being used as a warehouse for a moving and storage company . after joining his father 's moving company in the mid 1980 's , william thompson decided that the complex of buildings could be better used as a waterfront business community . the development of parks to the north and south of the site by the village of irvington added to its attractiveness . the partners first leased and then bought the 200 , 000 square_feet buildings and began converting them to office space . large windows were cut into previously featureless brick walls and in some places floors were raised so that office workers would have river views while seated at their desks . but the industrial exterior of the buildings was preserved , as was much of the maple flooring and the cypress columns and ceiling planks . new glass was installed in the sawtooth skylights to bring in additional natural light . inside the old factory walls , new heating , air_conditioning and power and telecommunications equipment were installed to meet modern business requirements . the complex is now home to about 50 businesses employing about 550 people and includes the eileen fisher women 's clothing design company , the developers say . about a dozen of the tenants relocated from new york city , they add , and close to 100 workers reverse commute from the city in another example of how good public transportation can promote development . the rail_link also allows companies who left the city to stay in touch with clients who remained behind . executives can take uncrowded daytime trips into the city , hold meetings and depart before the crush of commuters starts heading home , mr . thompson said . mr . lyons said that ''it is a lot different here than in the city , and the access to good transportation gives people the opportunity for a new lifestyle . '' that new lifestyle includes practices that would be unheard of in manhattan . ''we like dogs , '' mr . thompson said . ''we must have half a dozen people who bring their dogs to work occasionally . '' the office complex also is close to the center of irvington , a town of about 6 , 000 whose main_street runs down to the train_station . ''it 's a close_knit kind of place , '' mr . thompson said . ''my daughter walks down here to my office once a week or so to do her homework . '' mr . thompson and mr . lyons also own a small boat club at the north end of the property . in addition to the new three story building , which is expected to be completed by the end of the year , the partners are continuing to renovate parts of the old factory . combined , the two projects are expected to add 75 , 000 square_feet of office space at the site this year . one inhibitor to waterfront development , said mr . wright of the regional_plan_association , was what he called ''well intentioned environmental laws'' that require unrealistically pristine cleanups and leave uncertain the legal_liability of developers and their lenders . these so called brownfield issues were not much of a problem at the site , despite its manufacturing history , mr . lyons said . old fuel tanks are a common source of pollution as they rust and leak over time . but here the tanks were above ground and protected in vaults , he said the design intention for the new building is that it appear to be the offices of the factory complex , mr . thompson said . ''it needs to look as if it was designed in 1900 , '' he said , ''not a century later . '' the new building is being designed to green standards , he said , which means maximizing energy efficiency and using recycled materials . because so much of the facade will be enclosed by glass windows ( with old style sashes that can be opened ) the glass chosen is one that admits light but reflects solar heat rays . in addition , the core of the building that contains the utilities has been compacted in the center , so that daylight can reach all the working spaces of the structure . the architect for the project is walter sedovic of irvington . the developers are exploring recycling some of the cypress planking taken out of the old buildings into wood blocks that could be used as flooring in the new building or in the continuing renovation of the old ones . but they have been forced to order old looking new brick for the outer_walls of the new building . ''we tried to use recycled brick , but there was just not enough of it from the renovation operation , '' mr . lyons said . mr . thompson said he expected to sign either a single tenant for the entire new building or tenants for each of the three floors before the building was completed . he said prime candidates were financial industry companies interested in following concerns like morgan_stanley and new york life that have recently established operations in westchester country . ''the floor sizes , at 8 , 000 square_feet , are well suited to small mutual_funds and financial consulting companies , '' mr . thompson said . ''we hope it will be attractive to companies whose executives already live in westchester . '' commercial property westchester",has a topic of estate
"after three years of sharp local debate , crews will start construction this week on a_12 story apartment house for 94 homeless and low income families on east 13th street , along with an adjacent complex of retail shops on 14th_street . the apartment project , genesis ii , will include medical care , day care , recreation , classes and counseling for its residents . the sponsor is housing enterprise for the less privileged , a nonprofit_organization founded by andrew m . cuomo , the son of gov . mario m . cuomo . opponents are still fighting the project in court as an illegal use of public money and have appealed to mayor elect rudolph w . giuliani to halt the work when he takes office . but the sponsor , help , says the project has final city_council approval and mr . giuliani would not be able to change it . his transition office had no comment . the site is a rubble strewn lot , vacant for two decades , running from 114 east 14th_street through the block to 113 east 13th street . the koch administration tried to develop luxury housing there , and later the site was considered for public_housing . "" this space has been a sore spot , a haven for drugs and a public hazard , "" said maria cuomo cole , who took over help after her brother became an assistant secretary of housing_and_urban_development in the clinton_administration . "" now it will revitalize the neighborhood . "" occupancy is planned for early 1995 . the city and state will provide 3 million to build the shops and 14 million for the apartments . no leases have been signed yet . shop rents will go to the city apartment rents , from 400 to 750 for one to three bedrooms , will pay operating expenses . the sale of 14 million in tax_credits will finance the social service programs , including advice for parents , job training and computer classes . there will also be a roof_garden above the two story shops and a playground between the buildings . half the apartments will be for families from temporary shelters the rest will be for low income residents ( a family of four can earn up to 27 , 000 a year ) . people from the neighborhood will receive preference . city councilman antonio pagan said that mr . cuomo "" has bullied this project through against the will of the community . "" another opponent , joanna d . underwood , president of the east 13th street community association , said the money would provide more housing instantly if used to buy or rent existing apartments . she also argued that "" putting a whole group of families with instabilities into one high rise building "" harms them and burdens the neighborhood . her association filed two suits , one now awaiting its first ruling and the other on appeal after being rejected . they contend that the sponsors used a condemnation procedure to avoid the city 's land use review process and an auction of the property for the top bid . proponents call the project an innovative way to aid the neighborhood and the needy , with services to foster self_sufficiency . they say it conforms to zoning , was the subject of 16 hearings and is legal . bruce lambert neighborhood report 14th_street",has a topic of estate
"though a 320 acre former dairy farm along route 31 in washington township in warren county has been eyed for residential development since the mid 1980 's , not a single house has been built . but new owners , working with township officials , have carved part of the site into an 18 hole golf course and now plan to build a villagelike complex of 120 homes and 100 , 000 square_feet of commercial space . the first phase of building construction will be 96 detached and 24 attached houses , which will rise adjacent to the 250 acre golf course , hawk pointe , which opened last june . the residences are for active adults age 55 and older and offer social and recreational_facilities and maintenance services like lawn mowing or snow clearance . the 40 million housing component , the reserve at hawk pointe , will be on 30 acres of the wooded site , which looks out at point mountain and is near interstate 78 . pinnacle communities of millburn will develop the homes with the developer of the golf course , an investment partnership led by richard cotton of franklin_township . construction is expected to start this summer . both groups will develop the commercial portion once two thirds of the homes are built . the plan is for the retail stores and professional offices to be linked to the housing by walking paths . the residential project is among the first active adult housing developments in the northern half of new jersey . such projects had previously been concentrated in ocean and monmouth counties . it reflects a way to allow development with minimal adverse_impact on the quality of life of existing residents , officials from the township and building team said . during the mid 80 's , a developer proposed building 2 , 600 units on the site and sued the township under the state 's mount laurel doctrines when his plan was rejected . ( under the doctrines every new jersey municipality must zone some land for residences for low income people . if not , they are vulnerable to lawsuits by builders seeking to build high density projects . ) by the end of that decade a settlement was reached , reducing the number of homes to 350 and requiring the developer to contribute money to the township 's affordable_housing plan . but by then the developer had gone bankrupt and the site was taken back by the lender . in 1996 after a sale of the site to another housing developer fell through , the bank sold it for 1 . 25 million to the partnership led by mr . cotton , who owns a farm in neighboring franklin and is involved in preservation efforts in the area . he said that after he had been unable to secure public money to preserve the washington farm , he began working with the township , which by then had met its mount_laurel obligation , ''to develop the site in an economically , environmentally and socially'' responsible manner . after a year of negotiations the township rezoned the site for the current project . ''we would rather see the farm , but the golf course is better than more houses , '' said michael a . kovacs , a member of the township council and a former mayor . ''this is the best compromise . '' the township also ''negotiated for active adult housing'' because it will not have an impact on schools and it also had considerable ''input into the design of the project , '' mr . kovacs said , adding that the traditional style houses will blend with the area . indicative of the growing antisprawl sentiment in the state in recent years washington , like other towns , has put in place more restrictive zoning . it has increased the size of residential lots in certain areas to four or five acres from two ''to preserve the township 's rural atmosphere , '' mr . kovacs said . it has also acquired 1 , 526 acres for open space and is working to preserve 300 more . development in western new jersey , as in other rural areas , is expected to become more constrained because the state is buying one million acres over the next decade . and through various initiatives , it is encouraging growth in urban_areas , where utilities , roads and mass transit are in place . mary boorman , director of sales and marketing at pinnacle , said her company became involved with the washington township project because the zoning was in place and ''there are not many opportunities available to build an active adult community on a golf course . '' with selling prices expected to range from just under 300 , 000 to just under 400 , 000 , the homes at the reserve at hawk pointe , each with 2 , 200 to 3 , 000 square_feet , are considered big and expensive by market standards . the project is also one of the first high priced adult communities in a part of the state known for its affordability . william e . becker , a housing consultant in teaneck who focuses on active adult communities , said there are 5 , 500 adult housing units under way or planned in the state . the average unit costs 200 , 000 , he said . among the most expensive are the 120 attached homes at the four seasons at chester , which the k . hovnanian companies of red_bank , the state 's largest developer , is building on 60 acres off old chester gladstone road in chester township in morris_county . in the year since sales began , 76 of the 2 , 100 to 2 , 900 square_foot homes have been sold at prices of 389 , 950 to 456 , 950 , michael villane , vice_president of sales and marketing at hovnanian , said most buyers are adding some 80 , 000 in upgrades to the houses . in general , he said , the buyers are scaling down from larger and more expensive homes in the area . jeffrey otteau , president of the otteau appraisal group in east_brunswick , said there is a demand for bigger and more costly active adult houses and ''the demographics are certainly in place to support it . '' state figures show that baby_boomers people born between 1946 and 1964 make up 2.8 million of the new jersey 's 8.1 million population , about 35 percent . this year the first wave of boomers will turn 55 . there are other factors stoking the active adult market and by extension the luxury end of it , developers and housing professionals said . among them are that today people over age 55 have more money and prefer to retire closer to where they once lived or where their children live . they are also able to sell their homes at a profit , john g . udell , president of weichert new homes and land in morris plains , said , adding that ''they will continue to do well unless there is some economic catastrophe . '' still , mr . otteau and mr . becker said the challenge for the reserve at hawk pointe is not its concept , but its rural location . the question , both said , is whether it will support the project 's high prices . though the median price of existing homes in washington is 185 , 000 , according to township figures , new single family houses are selling in the 200 , 000 to 300 , 000 range . and just across the border in franklin_township , toll_brothers inc . of huntingdon valley , pa . , among the state 's larger developers , is building 80 homes with 3 , 000 to 4 , 000 square_feet and set on at least one acre lots , priced from 387 , 000 to 454 , 000 . since sales began at late in 1999 , 37 homes have been sold and prices have been raised 70 , 000 to the current level , said wayne patterson , a senior vice_president at toll . he said while the prices may seem high for the area , they are 100 , 000 less than those for similar homes in closer in hunterdon_county . that is also expected to be the case at the reserve at hawk pointe , ms . boorman said , adding ''we are creating a community and in turn value . '' a new home of equal size on a golf course in closer in affluent communities in somerset county would cost at least 200 , 000 more , if there was land available to build it , she said , stressing the lack of available alternatives in north_jersey . the market , she added , will be couples in somerset , morris and hunterdon counties who are scaling down from homes worth 400 , 000 to 500 , 000 or more , but who do not want to compromise on size and open space or to migrate to south_jersey . she noted there are more than 100 , 000 people age 65 or older with median yearly income above 70 , 000 living in those three counties . at the reserve at hawk pointe the single family detached homes will sit on relatively small lots of 7 , 000 to 9 , 000 square_feet , with the larger ones backing up to the golf course or woodlands . lots directly on the course carry a 50 , 000 premium . the attached houses will be in eight buildings , each with three units . all the one and two story residences will have two car garages and front porches and the master bedroom will be on the first floor in most models . they will be clad in a combination of shingle , brick and stone . in addition to the golf course , planned amenities include a clubhouse and outdoor pool . monthly_maintenance fees , though not yet set , are expected to be almost 200 a month , ms . boorman said , adding that she expected to start preconstruction sales this spring and to take three years to complete the homes .",has a topic of estate
"elenita torres and her husband , dean sherriff , did n't want to leave the city after having children . so about two years ago , the couple bought a two bedroom , 1 , 440 square_foot town house in the coal harbour neighborhood , one of several waterfront developments that have sprung up in downtown_vancouver over the last few years . ''the area is safe , appealing and convenient , '' said ms . torres , a toronto native who owns a company with her husband that produces storyboard and art illustrations for movies . the couple live a few blocks from a large forested park and have enrolled their 5 year old daughter , sequoia , in a nearby child_care center . they get to meet other families at a community center down the street . ''we have no intentions of moving , '' ms . torres said . over the last 10 years , cities across north_america have attracted thousands of new residents to revitalized urban_areas . vancouver is no exception . about 40 , 000 people have moved into the downtown peninsula in the last 15 years the downtown population is expected to reach 110 , 000 by 2015 . but there is a difference between the urban growth taking place in vancouver and the development occurring in many american cities . in the united_states , many of the new urban residents are young professionals or older , wealthier people whose children are grown . in fact , enrollment in portland , ore . , and seattle public schools has dropped by thousands of students because of declining numbers of urban families with children . in vancouver , the number of children living downtown has doubled since 1990 there are now 5 , 000 children living in the central core . last year , the city opened the first new elementary_school in an inner city neighborhood in more than 30 years . ''we have to bus children out of the downtown because of the burgeoning numbers of school age children , '' said michael gordon , senior central area planner for vancouver . ''it 's happening more quickly than we expected . '' mr . gordon , who is making a documentary about children in the city 's new high density neighborhoods , said the urban demographic is a result of ambitious policies established in the late 1980 's , after the provincial government sold former expo '86 world 's fair property on the south side of the downtown peninsula to li_ka_shing , one of hong_kong 's most powerful businessmen . as part of the 277 million deal , the city asked mr . li 's company , concord pacific developments , to provide an array of public amenities , including child_care and community centers , parks , playgrounds and land for schools . another goal was to set aside 20 percent of the housing units for low income residents , and 25 percent for family size units . the city 's housing guidelines grew out of concerns that vancouver was becoming an ''executive city'' for the childless rich , mr . gordon said . ''as much as real_estate is the ethos , there is also a consensus that this is a really important place and we have to do the right thing , '' he said . on a recent friday morning , children in the false_creek north neighborhood , site of the former expo lands , streamed out of town houses and shimmering green glass residential towers and walked along the sea wall , a heavily used pedestrian and bicycle path , toward elsie roy elementary_school , which opened in the fall of 2004 directly on the marina . ''we 're at capacity , '' said the principal , isabel grant . ''it 's a fabulous neighborhood . '' the school has 330 children enrolled , and there is a waiting list for several grades . the bustling false_creek north community , which features 12 foot_wide sidewalks and double rows of street trees , houses a new urban fare grocery_store , the dorothy lam children 's center and the roundhouse community arts and recreation center , which offers arts , music and sports programs . there is no exterior distinction between affordable and market rate housing . in one complex , two market rate residential towers frame a midrise structure with low income families and seniors . ''you quickly lose sight of the fact that one is market and one is subsidized , '' said john b . davidson , a local architect who helped develop the neighborhood plan . ellen clague and michael mortensen , who have two young children , live in a two bedroom condo on the north side of the downtown peninsula . their cylindrical glass high rise is walking distance from the seawall , from coal harbour community center , which is underground and designed to resemble a submarine , and from the 1 , 000 acre stanley_park , which features walking , biking and roller skating trails , water parks , an outdoor swimming_pool , several beaches and an aquarium . ''the element of spontaneity , surprise and fun in a city is wonderful for children , '' said ms . clague , a y.m.c.a . program coordinator . ''it 's a giant cross section of society . '' large numbers of pacific_rim and eastern_european immigrants , who are accustomed to high rise living , also fuel vancouver 's downtown market , according to michael geller , a developer who managed the 880 unit bayshore project in coal harbour . most developers accept the ' 'social_engineering'' conditions the city has imposed , he said . mr . geller 's 256 million development included , among other things , a seawall extension , two neighborhood parks and playgrounds , public_art and a child_care center . he also contributed to the community center and after school facilities . the development was nonetheless profitable . ''nobody is losing any money , '' said mr . geller , who recently put his own three bedroom bayshore condo on the market for 1 . 9 million . despite the public benefits , downtown_vancouver is not a utopia , residents and planners say . housing prices are skyrocketing . an 800 square_foot condo sells for around 380 , 000 , and on the water it would be double that , according to bob rennie , a local real_estate agent . the city 's housing guidelines encourage developers to reserve the first eight floors of residential buildings for family size units and to design these apartments so they overlook outdoor play areas . but parents say the units , mostly two bedrooms , are too small . ''when you have a boy and a girl , you need three bedrooms , '' ms . clague said . she also said that the landscaping has not kept pace with the city 's child friendly amenity policy . her 4 year old son , lucas , has toppled into the building 's outdoor goldfish pond several times , she said . mr . gordon , who helped push for a new skateboard park in false_creek north , said the city also needs to provide more facilities for teenagers . but for many parents , the urban package is still hard to beat . simon hill , a magazine editor , enrolls his two children in false_creek elementary_school , which is on the seawall and has views of residential skyscrapers , snowcapped grouse mountain and english bay . ''just think of the mental landscape the kids are getting , '' he said . national perspectives",has a topic of estate
"lead about 60 masked_gunmen burst into a vacation camp on this island today and held tourists at gunpoint while they set off explosives to destroy vacation homes . about 60 masked_gunmen burst into a vacation camp on this island today and held tourists at gunpoint while they set off explosives to destroy vacation homes . the police said about 15 tourists , most of them germans , were seized by the raiders and taken into a restaurant , where they were gagged and bound and held for more than two hours . the gunmen , suspected of belonging to the corsican national liberation front , set off explosives that destroyed two thirds of the 60 or so bungalows in the camp , near bastia in the north . there were no casualties .",has a topic of estate
"in the following reports the ''listed at'' price is the price when negotiations began that ended in the sale . time on market is from the most recent listing to contract . manhattan east midtown 5 . 7 million 641 fifth avenue ( 51st st . ) ( olympic tower ) 3 bedroom , 3 1 2 bath , 4 , 171 sq . ft . duplex penthouse condo in a postwar building 24 hr . doormen , concierge , manned_elevator and elevator in duplex , maid 's quarters , floor to ceiling windows , 2 exposures , central_park view common charge 3 , 623 taxes 40 , 025 , listed at 7 million , 26 weeks on market ( sandy neuringer associates sloane square ) upper east side 132 , 000 179 east_79th_street 1 bedroom , 1 bath , 850 sq . ft . prewar co op 24 hr . doormen , den , high ceilings , h w floors , original moldings and detail maintenance 1 , 024 , 43 tax deductible , listed at 139 , 000 , 13 weeks on market ( broker balaban real_estate ) upper east side 350 , 000 150 east 69th_street ( imperial house ) 1 bedroom , 1 1 2 bath , 1 , 050 sq . ft . postwar co op 24 hr . doormen , concierge , manned_elevator , dining_area , remodeled_kitchen , balcony maintenance 1 , 032 , 60 tax deductible , listed at 350 , 000 , 3 weeks on market ( broker charles h . greenthal_residential_sales ) upper west side 487 , 500 176 west 87th_street 2 bedroom , 1 1 2 bath , 1 , 400 sq . ft . prewar co op 24 hr . doormen , manned_elevator , windowed eat in kitchen , central_park view maintenance 1 , 218 , 40 tax deductible , listed at 499 , 000 , 4 weeks on market ( broker corcoran group ) bronx riverdale 69 , 000 3333 henry_hudson_parkway ( whitehall ) 1 bedroom , 1 bath , 800 sq . ft . postwar co op 24 hr . doormen , dining_area , wall to wall carpet maintenance 603 , 45 tax deductible , listed at 75 , 000 , 5 weeks on market ( broker mcdonagh properties ) riverdale 207 , 500 223 west 255th street 2 family , 50 year old semi_attached brick house 3 bedrooms , 1 1 2 baths , dining_room in primary unit 1 bath in 300 sq . ft . studio full basement taxes 2 , 350 , listed at 219 , 900 , 1 week on market ( broker mcdonagh properties ) brooklyn brooklyn_heights 205 , 000 60 pineapple street 1 , 250 sq . ft . recently renovated open space co op in a prewar building elevator , high ceilings , h w floors , exposed_brick_walls , south exposure maintenance 701 , 50 tax deductible , listed at 225 , 000 , 8 weeks on market ( broker harbor view ) midwood 210 , 000 259 newkirk avenue 2 family detached_house dinette in lower simplex eat in kitchen in other 2 bedrooms in each full basement , 50 by 95 ft . lot taxes 1 , 500 , listed at 230 , 000 , 16 weeks on market ( broker homes 'r' beautiful ) sea gate 140 , 000 3716 nautilus avenue 2 family , 50 year old semi_attached brick house 2 bedrooms , 1 bath , dining_area in each unit 1 car garage taxes 1 , 191 , listed at 149 , 000 , 1 week on market ( broker wilk ) queens forest_hills 325 , 000 100 29 75th avenue 3 bedroom , 1 1 2 bath , 65 year old detached stucco sided house dining_area , fireplace , porch , expandable attic , 1 car garage , 50 by 88 ft . lot taxes 2 , 200 , listed at 359 , 000 , 5 weeks on market ( broker terrace ) hollis hills 300 , 000 82 42 210th street 4 bedroom , 2 bath , 50 year old detached brick cape_cod dining_room , eat in kitchen , finished_basement , 1 car garage , 70 by 100 ft . lot taxes 2 , 300 , listed at 349 , 000 , 1 week on market ( broker goller costi ) staten_island great kills 210 , 000 27 acacia avenue 4 bedroom , 2 bath , 35 year old ranch_dining_room , eat in kitchen , remodeled bath , 40 by 95 ft . lot taxes 1 , 311 , listed at 219 , 900 , 9 weeks on market ( brokers neuhouse realty century 21 papp ) new jersey franklin lakes 1 . 125 million 95 loch road 5 bedroom , 3 full , 2 half bath , 6 year old lakeside ranch 3 car garage , c a , patio , 1 acre lot taxes 12 , 000 , listed at 1 . 25 million , 5 weeks on market ( brokers prudential atlantic lambert coldwell_banker ) mahwah 140 , 000 1282 paddington road 2 bedroom , 2 bath , 10 year old condominium town house deck , terrace , eat in kitchen monthly_maintenance 97 , taxes 2 , 177 , listed at 158 , 700 , 1 week on market ( broker prudential atlantic lambert ) randolph 514 , 900 9 brandywine court 4 bedroom , 3 bath new colonial deck , c a , florida room , 1 acre lot taxes to be announced , listed at 469 , 000 ( sale price includes upgrades ) , 9 months on market ( broker prudential new jersey ) waldwick 193 , 000 54 harrison avenue 3 bedroom , 1 1 2 bath , 40 year old cape_cod enclosed_porch , fireplace , nursery , 1 car garage taxes 4 , 298 , listed at 196 , 500 , 1 month on market ( broker abbott caserta ) connecticut new milford 165 , 000 3 lamplighter lane 3 bedroom , 2 bath , 21 year old raised ranch family room , h w floors , deck , 1 car garage , . 94 acre lot taxes 2 , 547 , listed at 168 , 900 , 26 weeks on market ( brokers settlers traders william_raveis ) norwalk 439 , 000 4 kristen lane 4 bedroom , 3 bath , 11 year old split level contemporary styled house family room , decks off bedrooms , 2 car garage , 1 . 87 acre lot taxes 6 , 303 , listed at 439 , 000 , 12 weeks on market ( brokers_coldwell_banker norwalk prudential connecticut ) ridgefield 550 , 000 356 north street 5 bedroom , 2 1 2 bath colonial built in 1875 oak floors , playroom , skylights , 3 fireplaces , 3 . 08 acre lot taxes 6 , 148 , listed at 565 , 000 , 6 weeks on market ( brokers finch associates coldwell_banker ridgefield ) westport 432 , 000 517 harvest common ( harvest common ) 2 bedroom , 2 1 2 bath , 2 , 012 sq . ft . condo in a 14 year old building family room , den , patio , c a , pool and tennis courts common charge 186 taxes 4 , 790 , listed at 439 , 000 , 2 weeks on market ( brokers william_pitt prudential connecticut ) westchester chappaqua 342 , 500 1000 hardscrabble road 3 bedroom , 2 1 2 bath , 42 year old colonial stone and slate patio , fireplace , eat in kitchen 1.1 acres taxes 10 , 760 , listed at 365 , 000 , 35 weeks on market ( brokers holmes kennedy houlihan_lawrence ) larchmont 850 , 000 6 douglas lane 5 bedroom , 4 bath , 45 year old ranch colonial private dock , deck , jacuzzi , fireplace , dining_room , eat in kitchen taxes 16 , 734 , listed at 899 , 000 , 30 weeks on market ( broker merritt_associates ) pelham_manor 365 , 000 489 manor lane 4 bedroom , 2 1 2 bath , 80 year old colonial heated sunroom , office , eat in kitchen , family room , full unfinished_basement taxes 10 , 436 , listed at 399 , 000 , 43 weeks on market ( broker c.s . mcclellan company ) tarrytown 325 , 000 10 castle heights avenue 3 bedroom , 2 bath , 45 year old ranch entry_foyer , stone fireplace , dining_room , eat in kitchen , den , attached 2 car garage , . 75 acre taxes 10 , 591 , listed at 325 , 000 , 9 weeks on market ( brokers houlihan_lawrence tarrytown real_estate ) long_island bay_shore 420 , 000 35 west lane 4 bedroom , 4 bath , 5 year old cape_cod dining_room , eat in kitchen , family room , attic , fireplace , 2 car garage taxes 9 , 400 , listed at 449 , 000 , 4 weeks on market ( broker eric g . ramsay jr . ) oyster bay cove 1 . 6 million 5 tall oak court 5 bedroom , 6 bath , 2 year old colonial_dining_room , eat in kitchen , den , media room , office , finished_basement , fireplace , 3 car attached garage , 2 acres taxes 22 , 000 , listed at 1 . 78 million , 24 weeks on market ( brokers_coldwell_banker sammis frost pond ) sea cliff 260 , 000 25 maple avenue 5 bedroom , 2 bath , 120 year old colonial_dining_room , eat in kitchen , florida room , porch , fireplace , attached 2 car garage taxes 3 , 900 , listed at 279 , 000 , 10 weeks on market ( broker harmonious homes ) williston park 175 , 000 19 brown street 3 bedroom , 1 bath , 70 year old colonial_dining_room , eat in kitchen , basement , attic , 1 car garage taxes 3 , 000 , listed at 179 , 000 , 1 week on market ( broker atanas )",has a topic of estate
"with scaffolding up , defects identified and 8 . 6 million in financing from the city and state in place , the brooklyn_academy_of_music is about to undergo a significant restoration of its facade . the exterior of the building at 30 lafayette avenue has been virtually untouched since 1908 when it went up to replace bam 's first home on montague street , which was destroyed in a fire . the architect , hugh hardy of hardy holzman pfeiffer associates , who has also done restorations of radio_city_music_hall , central synagogue and the new amsterdam theater as well as the interior of bam , said that henry beaumont herts and hugh tallant , the original architects , had given him extraordinary material with which to work . ''this is a truly great building , '' he said , calling herts and tallant ''the finest theater architects new york ever produced . ''their use of decorative elements , juiciness , robustness , authority and scale is distinctive in every way . this is a very heavily textured , colored and detailed facade . all the bricks , for example , are individual pieces of terra_cotta . '' elaborate steps will be taken to repair potentially dangerous conditions as well as to correct aesthetic defects and replicate missing decorative elements . ''the top of the poor thing was lobotomized , '' mr . hardy said , referring to the removal years ago of balusters and piers that supported 22 full size lions' heads complete with red tongues that will be recreated . in addition , peter gee , vice_president for operations , said renovation or replacement work will be done on marble columns , lintels , parapet , stained_glass_windows and bricks . cupids surrounding the entrance doors will have missing noses , fingers , arms and elbows restored . exterior lighting , signage and handicap access will also be improved . there will be one contemporary touch an undulating 130 foot long glass entrance canopy . ''strangely , there never was a canopy , '' mr . hardy said . ''we did n't want to fake it and we did n't want to obscure the facade . '' the academy will offer a full performance schedule , including the 20th_anniversary of the next wave festival , during the two year project . ''we are working on ideas to make the scaffolding more interesting , to make the construction as painless as possible for the audience and the workers , '' said karen brooks hopkins , president of bam . nadine brozan",has a topic of estate
"as anyone who has embarked on a long distance home renovation will testify , such projects are prone to delays , disappointments and sometimes disaster . ''my friends warned me 'you are a fool . he does n't speak english and your french is appalling . it will take three years , ''' said susan jacobs , a new york based advertising sales executive . she wanted to employ a local builder to add two rooms , totaling 70 square meters , or 750 square_feet , a covered patio and a swimming pool to her vacation home in the dordogne region of southwest france . to her friends' surprise , and surpassing even ms . jacobs 's most optimistic expectations , the story of her addition is the stuff of householder dreams and she credits dominique legoux . in october , nine months after the start of construction , ms . jacobs bustled about her new master bedroom suite sitting room , planning a dinner party to celebrate the unprecedented success of her transatlantic building adventure . ''you can be on the spot and all hell can happen . i 've been 3 , 000 miles away and it 's been heaven , '' she explained . ''dominique did exactly what he said he would do and in less than nine months . '' ms . jacobs is no newcomer to the dordogne , having owned her house called ''la boite d'allumettes , '' because it is as small as a matchbox for the last 20 years . and experience might have given weight to the warning . she described her original purchase of some dilapidated agricultural out buildings as ''a hen house and a pig singeing operation with a terracotta domed oven , where the animals were prepared into hams , sausages and tripe . '' she added , ''i bought the footprint of the building , most of which was torn down , salvaging some tiles , some stone and the fireplace . '' as a stipulation of the sale , the owner , an english artist living in the large house across the road , would build a two floor , two bedroom house for ms . jacobs . ''it took two years and doing it nearly killed him off . we had the most frightful fight , '' she said . ''he was going through a divorce and he walked off the job without finishing it completely . '' a few years ago , she decided to add to the one hectare , or two and a half acre , property and began negotiations with a neighboring farmer . negotiations stalled , but re opened with alacrity when she returned a year later . ''my maid was almost gray with worry , '' ms . jacobs said . ''the farmer had put in for building permission to construct an old ladies' home right where the pool is today . i was in a state of shock . we negotiated for the whole month i was here . i finally got the two hectares , plus written in the deed that no building would take place in the farmer 's fields for 12 , 000 . he was thrilled , and actually so was i . '' in august 2005 , the plans drawn up by french architect were approved during her summer vacation visit and she began to look for a builder . and through friends of friends , ms . jacobs discovered mr . legoux . the builder and his craftsmen had come to the rescue of the owners of a beautiful chartreuse , or small manor , built in 1823 on the ruins of a small 12th_century chateau near brantome , france . the first contractor had left the house ''with only half a roof after 18 months of work and looking worse than when we bought it , '' said sally ridley day , the owner . ''we were on the verge of selling up when we met dominique through the real_estate agent . '' impressed by his work for the ridley days , ms . jacobs chose mr . legoux 's estimate over those of three other contenders . in november 2005 , mr . legoux took ms . jacobs shopping in nearby riberac . with the help of a bilingual houseguest , they went over the plans , deciding on quality of materials and where to put light fixtures , switches and electrical outlets . construction was to begin the following january . ms . jacobs hoped for completion by the end of 2006 mr . legoux figured it at just six months . then , his regular mason fell ill and the starting date had to be rescheduled so he could find a replacement . from february to april of this year , an outside staircase on the original house was demolished and excavation began foundations were laid for the new rooms and the pool . as the work took shape , mr . legoux updated his client by e mail . ''he was at the house every day and sent photos every week of what had been done , '' ms . jacobs said . ''i saw immediately how it was progressing . '' the builder also sent photos of different doors and the air_conditioning heating unit , as well as samples of various paints . when ms . jacobs arrived at the end of april , the walls were up , roof tiles were laid and work on the interiors was beginning . but by then , the builder had decided to find yet another mason . ''i 'm a perfectionist , maybe too much so , but i want to be proud of what i have done , '' mr . legoux explained . from may to october , work on the pool , which had been delayed , took off with the new mason reinforcing the structure . indoors , insulation , partitions and plasterboard were installed . mr . legoux painted the interior walls himself . floor tiles and then the bathroom wall tiles were placed . outdoors , the patio tiles were finished and roughcast was applied to the exterior walls . by mid september , when ms . jacob 's container of furniture arrived from her former weekend house in upstate new york , the house extension and pool were in the final stages . just before she arrived in october , however , ms . jacobs discovered ''the only hiccup , lost in translation . '' ''i wanted heating in the pool and he thought i did n't and was saving the money , '' she said . they are going over options to correct it . the price of the project was 15 , 000 for architectural plans and 200 , 000 in building costs . mrs . jacobs declared herself ''thrilled'' with her new domain . ''the quality is absolutely wonderful , '' she said , adding of mr . legoux '' ''he has been able to handle me and my french . that is a test of patience ! ''",has a topic of estate
"a front page map on march 10 with an article about house sales in new york city misplaced the queens community of sunnyside . it is west , not southeast , of woodside . in addition , an anecdote in the article , about a couple who bought a town house on west 19th street for 1 . 25 million , misstated both the original asking price and the date on which the house went on the market . the asking price was 1 . 95 million , not 1 . 1 million . it went on the market may 1 , 1991 , not last feb . 8 .",has a topic of estate
"on wednesday , alan g . hevesi , the new york city comptroller , is to be the first of the four democratic mayoral candidates to discuss zoning , land use and preservation issues at the first in a series of forums organized by a coalition of more than 80 neighborhood preservation groups . fernando_ferrer , the bronx borough_president , is to appear on june 13 , followed on june 20 by peter f . vallone , the city_council speaker , and on june 27 by mark green , the public advocate . the four wednesday breakfast forums are to take place from 8 to 9 30 a.m . at the saloon restaurant , 1926 broadway , at 64th street . the events are open to the public admission , including breakfast , is 10 for one forum or 25 for all four . issues the candidates are likely to address , according to the sponsors , are the future of governors_island , the gansevoort market , the high line viaduct , the preservation of modern architecture and the landmarking of culturally significant structures . audience members will be able to ask questions after the candidates' presentations . sponsors of the four wednesday forums include the historic districts council , the municipal_art_society , the new york landmarks_conservancy and landmark west , an upper west side preservation advocacy_group .",has a topic of estate
"germans are expected to invest 4 billion to 6 billion in american real_estate over the next three years , according to a survey of 60 german investment groups by jones lang lasalle , a real_estate services and management company . assuming that the equity investments would be leveraged by mortgages of 50 to 60 percent of the total value of a property , the company estimated , that could mean that the investors could acquire 10 billion to 15 billion in property by the end of 2003 . the investors have been particularly interested in office buildings in manhattan , acquiring such properties as 1211 avenue of the americas and 95 99 wall_street , according to jones lang lasalle . the company also noted that in recent months rfr holding , an american company with german financial backing , has added the buildings at 1328 broadway , 390 park_avenue , 17 state street and 521 and 608 fifth avenue to its portfolio . in recent years , said jones lang lasalle , the surveyed german investment groups have had heavy cash inflows and that regulations require them to invest more than half their funds in real_estate . it also noted that a 1989 agreement exempts german investors from paying taxes in their country on earnings from investments in the united_states as long as they have paid the usually lower tax in the united_states .",has a topic of estate
"even in its truncated state , the 1881 schepp building dominates duane park and most of tribeca . now this structure at the northwest corner of duane and hudson streets is in the first stage of a major facade repair , a 500 , 000 project to restore the slate roof and dormers and cure persistent leaks . but the piece de resistance , the restoration of the long gone corner mansard tower will have to wait indefinitely . leopold schepp was born in new york city in 1841 and by the age 10 was supervising a crew of boys selling goods on third avenue railroad_cars . seven years later he was in the spice business and in 1873 he entered and soon concentrated on the field of dried coconut . he had a loft at 178 duane street , between hudson and greenwich streets , in the emerging commodities district . schepp 's successful techniques in preserving what had been a perishable item from the tropics brought him a fortune and in 1880 he began work on a large manufacturing building at 165 duane street . present tenants have heard that the building once was new york 's tallest . kevin bone , the architect working on the facade , said that it measures 145 feet to the base of the mansard tower , which would have added about 20 feet more . research by dr . sarah landau , the architectural historian , indicates that both the tribune and western union buildings of 1873 far exceeded this , at 260 and 230 feet , respectively . trinity church spire 's height is generally given as 280 feet . but the form of the schepp building was in the vein of both of the tribune and western union buildings , with a battered stone base , a red brick midsection dotted with stone trim , and a mansard tower . however , the schepp building tended toward a romanesque feeling , with round arched windows , blackened bricks and an emphasis on virtuoso brickwork rather than carved stone detailing . the little triangle of duane park at its base gives it a commanding presence . it appears that the schepp building was used principally for coconut processing and packaging , and millions of coconuts flowed through the building yearly . schepp himself became active in the stock_market and , according to the new york times in 1887 , had "" a temper that would make the north_pole melt . "" what the newspaper termed "" unparliamentary language "" led to several fracases at the stock_exchange and at least one suspension for schepp . in 1925 , at a time when schepp 's sales of preserved coconut averaged 1 million a year , he began to give away his fortune , making gifts of 500 to 5 , 000 to his employees . in the same year he established the leopold schepp foundation with a gift of 2 . 5 million , to assist boys who pledged "" to abstain from bad habits . "" he also asked for other suggestions from the public . in the next day 's mail he got 2 , 000 begging letters and crowds gathered outside his ground floor office . according to the times , schepp had to "" decamp from office to escape besiegers for help . "" ultimately , schepp expanded his philanthropy to include girls . he died at his residence at the old san remo apartments in 1926 . according to the times , the "" cocoanut king "" had already given away 7 million and still left over 1 million . the leopold schepp foundation awarded about 200 partial scholarships last year . the mansard tower was removed at some point between 1915 and 1928 and some prior owner also stained the facade red , which suppressed the rather fussy stone trim . paul goldberger 's "" the city observed new york "" calls it the best building on duane park , "" grand and self assured . "" in 1980 , the building was converted to co op apartments and last spring it was included in the tribeca historic_district . joseph levine , the project architect with kevin bone associates , said roof drains had been rerouted to the cornice at the base of the mansard and overloaded the drainage system . now the co op is restoring the original drainage and repairing damaged cornices , dormers and slate , although it does not have the 100 , 000 or 200 , 000 to clean the facade . don wiss , a computer expert who designs software for bond trading , owns the base of the tower and would like to rebuild the mansard , which would give him sweeping panoramic views to the north and west from a giant , double height room . but it would cost about 250 , 000 . "" some day i 'll be able to do it . "" mr . wiss said , "" but for now it 's just a dream . """,has a topic of estate
"a historic rehabilitation project along the riverfront faces foreclosure because nearby renewal efforts failed to live up to expectations . the 83 year old pennsylvania building on the christina river , listed on the national_register of historic places , seemed likely to benefit from the public private renewal efforts around the building . those efforts began 1986 , when the city , state and two development firms initiated the christina gateway project . plans called for 10 acres near the river to be redeveloped with four office buildings and a festival marketplace . the project was to be completed in 1992 , but only two office buildings have been built . the first , with 311 , 193 square_feet , has 74 , 250 available the second , with 321 , 511 square_feet , has 271 , 356 available . when the 55 , 000 square_foot pennsylvania building was bought in may 1986 by edward w . davis and richard m . kahn , new york city real_estate investors , and robert b . patton , a baltimore architect , it was hoped it would be an integral part of the festival marketplace . the building was designed by the victorian architect frank furness , who also did philadelphia 's pennsylvania academy of fine arts and broad street station . the pennsylvania building , on a 1 . 7 acre site , had been the headquarters of the delaware railroad . to finance the rehabilitation , the developers got a 2 . 5 million loan from wilmington savings fund society and 1 . 3 million from transportation associates of philadelphia , the former owner . despite the rehabilitation , the six story building has four vacant floors . richard d . berl of b . gary scott , the bank 's real_estate company , which is handling the leasing , said that there are no longer set rental rates . "" we 'll listen to anyone with a reasonable offer , "" mr . scott said . unable to get tenants , the developer stopped making payments after june 1989 . a bankruptcy petition was filed but was dismissed in september after the bank challenged the action . the dismissal lets the bank move forward with the foreclosure and a sale of the building . real_estate agents say the building lost much of its marketability because land along the river , which had been used as a parking_lot , was sold by the developers . "" it was the wrong move because any investor interested in the building will know that the view of the river could be blocked , "" said p . gerald white , head of an eponymous real_estate company here . but mr . white also said that the building could not compete with the two completed christina gateway buildings or with other buildings with available space throughout downtown .",has a topic of estate
"lead a 600 million , 800 unit condominium project is planned for one of the most desirable pieces of waterfront remaining in the downtown of this canadian west_coast city celebrated for its vistas . a 600 million , 800 unit condominium project is planned for one of the most desirable pieces of waterfront remaining in the downtown of this canadian west_coast city celebrated for its vistas . the project , announced by the westin bayshore hotel , is adjacent to its hotel on coal harbor , a prime two mile stretch of land with spectacular views of the coastal mountain peaks . coal harbor begins at stanley_park 1 , 000 acres of forests , meadows , ponds , trails , roads and a five mile seawall walk used by strollers , joggers and cyclists and goes past the bayshore lands , wharfs and railyards to the canada_place convention_center . the bayshore 's plans call for a marina and 1.5 million square_feet of condominiums on 14 . 2 acres , including two blocks fronting on coal harbor . the number and height of buildings will be determined once zoning is approved by the city , expected in about three months . the existing hotel on an eight acre site on georgia street at cardero also will expand with 150 , 000 square_feet in a new 250 room tower whose height , too , will depend on the zoning action . the bayshore was built in 1961 adjacent to stanley_park because hotel owners expected commercial and retail expansion toward the park . but the city imposed a moratorium on expansion because trains on 89 acres next to the bayshore carried hazardous cargoes . the cargoes were halted and the moratorium was lifted so the waterfront canada_place convention_center could be built next to the railyards in time for expo 86 . the railyards soon will yield to a multiuse development proposed by marathon realty company . denis forristal , bayshore 's manager , said the time is right to develop coal harbor because of ''phenonemonal growth'' given momentum by expo 86 . in 1989 , 25 , 000 foreigners and 18 , 000 canadians moved to the city , creating pressure for housing . westin international hotels was acquired in 1988 by aoki corporation , a construction company based in tokyo . aoki , mr . forristal says , ''is definitely expansion minded . '' in the first phase , which will get under way in 1991 , 50 to 100 condominiums will be built , ranging in size from 1 , 200 to 3 , 000 square_feet . prices have not been set because vancouver housing prices are rising rapidly , but the range will be between 500 , 000 and 1 million per unit . the city requires 20 percent of the units to be developed as 750 square_foot subsidized rentals for the needy who have been displaced from housing elsewhere . ''the thinking was that we should not create neighborhoods of just one income , '' said mike kemble , a city planner . national notebook vancouver , b.c .",has a topic of estate
"lead there was a series of muffled explosions and then , to cheers and shouts , two 13 story buildings at the scudder homes project collapsed into rubble today . there was a series of muffled explosions and then , to cheers and shouts , two 13 story buildings at the scudder homes project collapsed into rubble today . as 800 pounds of explosives went off at 10 42 a.m. , the two buildings , each 350 feet long , appeared to sag in the center , where they shared a common wall , and folded into each other . to housing officials , the demolition was ''a new beginning'' for the troubled housing_project , which has been the scene of rent strikes , vandalism and poor maintenance for 24 years . the demolition signaled the first phase of a plan to eliminate high rise projects in newark and replace them with lower density town houses . but advocates for the homeless criticized the loss of the 400 apartments in the two buildings near mercer street in the central_ward . they are to be replaced by 100 town houses . vacant six years ''this is a very sad event , because the city has no real plan , '' said the rev . david burgess , director of the metropolitan ecumenical ministry and one of 30 people protesting the demolition . ''for every three apartment units demolished or bulldozed , only one housing unit is coming up in its stead . '' the demolished buildings had been vacant since 1981 . two more 13 story buildings in the project will be demolished in three months . one is empty . the other has 75 families who are being relocated . the seven high rises at scudder were completed in 1963 and had almost 1 , 700 apartments , with 252 of them for the elderly . a master plan the redevelopment and housing authority adopted in 1985 calls for the demolition of an undetermined number of high rises and their replacement with town houses . other high rises are to be reconfigured to house families on the lower three floors and the elderly on the upper floors . officials have acknowledged that the high rises were poorly designed for families , especially those with many children . the large size of the buildings led to poor supervision of children , and the buildings suffered from vandalism , burglaries and an inability to keep up with repairs . 7 , 000 vacant and boarded at one time , the city had 13 , 133 units of public_housing in 27 projects . however , many of the 46 high rise buildings , with 7 , 000 apartments designed for families , are vacant and boarded . the executive director of the housing authority , milton a . buck , said that 437 town houses had been completed or were under construction and that there were plans to build 225 more . ''they are basically declaring war on the poor , '' said city councilman donald tucker . he added that the housing authority had a waiting list of 13 , 000 people seeking housing and that there were an estimated 5 , 000 homeless people in the city . mr . tucker asserted that the loss of such a large number of apartments and their replacement by relatively few town houses would drive low income families from the city . ida clark , a resident of the scudder homes and a tenant member of the board of commissioners of the housing authority , praised the demolition and called it ''a new beginning for public_housing in the city of newark . '' ''we beg you not to condemn us , but to look ahead for a new day , '' she said . ''look ahead for better living conditions for your children . those of you who have lived in public_housing , as well as myself , have witnessed the deterioration . now you are going to see something happening that we will be all proud of . ''",has a topic of estate
"an article on aug . 6 about raw space referred incorrectly to the residence of jan hashey , a broker who discussed the history of the conversion of lofts into apartments . she no longer lives in the crosby street loft in soho that she bought in 1977 . she moved to the far west_village in 1996 .",has a topic of estate
"the immigrant influx and a tight housing market appear to be reshaping the way many new yorkers live , according to census figures released yesterday that show more city residents doubling up , a drop in the percentage of people living alone and the biggest increase in average household size in 50 years . the number of boarders , roommates and relatives living in other people 's homes has risen significantly , the data show . fewer elderly new yorkers are living by themselves . even the percentage of manhattan residents living alone , long far higher than anywhere else in the country , has dropped . the census figures underscore a growing impression of new york as a rapidly evolving place , where once spacious single family homes in queens now accommodate multiple immigrant families and perhaps others , and where even manhattan studio dwellers find themselves more likely to take in a roommate . ''it 's fascinating , '' said andrew j . cherlin , a demographer and professor of public_policy at johns_hopkins_university who studies families and households . ''there is no question that immigration and the tight housing market have affected new york city households . '' the numbers also indicate some slowing of the rate of change in the makeup of new york city families . the number of married couple households rose in the 1990 's after dropping by nearly 9 percent in the 1980 's . and the percentage of households made up of married_couples with children under 18 rose slightly . that small rise , thought to reflect the relatively high fertility rates among some immigrant groups and an abundance of baby_boomer families , is in contrast to a downward trend in recent decades that continued nationally in the census numbers reported last week . meanwhile , nearly one in five new york city households is now headed by a woman . while the number of female headed households with children rose at a rate that some sociologists said was slower than in the past and slower than the increase nationwide , the number did continue to rise . ''i think it 's interesting that new york is becoming a more child centered place , '' said kathleen gerson , a professor of sociology at new york_university . ''there are growing percentages of family households , married couple households and female headed households with children . '' she added ''new york can only benefit from being a place where children live and thrive , not simply a place where adults spend some time before or after building families . ''but this also suggests the challenges the city faces educating young children and providing for their welfare . '' the data also shed new light on precisely how much the city 's population grew in the 1990 's . while the official count released in march topped eight million for the first time , planning officials have suspected that the increase was a product not only of growth but also of better counting . the new data support their thinking . the number of households rose by more than 200 , 000 over the 1990 number , or six times the rise recorded for the 1980 's an increase so improbably large that some say it suggests that the city 's record breaking population count must have included some households that were simply missed before . ''it 's probably about half and half , '' said joseph b . rose , chairman of the city planning commission , suggesting that half the increase in numbers was due to growth and half to better counting . he said the department of city planning intended to try to come up with a definitive answer over the next few weeks . the figures , part of a series from the 2000 census being released over three years , include preliminary_findings on who lives with whom . more detailed data on those households and families , including information about income , education levels and nation of origin , are due out later . professor cherlin said his calculations indicated that 39 percent of the city 's population_growth fell into two census categories ''other relative of head of household , '' which includes , for example , grandparents or cousins and ''nonrelative of head of household , '' which can include a friend or someone from an immigrant 's village or home country ( this category does not include unmarried partners ) . nationally , less than a quarter of all growth fell into those categories , he said . ''those are just the kind of people you 'd expect to find in a city with many immigrants and a tight housing market , '' professor cherlin said . ''because immigrants often double up with host families when they come to a new country , and because grandmothers may not move to a separate household if they ca n't afford the rent . '' the percentage of new yorkers living alone declined slightly to just under 32 percent . while some experts said that the drop in people over 65 living alone might reflect simply a cyclical decline in the number of people in that age group , professor cherlin pointed out that the number of elderly living alone nationally rose by 10 percent . the number of new yorkers of all ages living alone rose by less than 4 percent , compared with a 21 percent increase nationwide . the percentage of new yorkers living with an unmarried partner rose slightly . as a result of those changes , the average household size in the city rose to 2 . 59 people per household , a figure close to the national average . household size in the city peaked in 1950 at 3 . 2 , dropped to 2.5 in 1980 , then rose to 2 . 54 in the last census , according to planning department statistics . much of the overall increase in household size can be attributed to the large increase in the average household size in queens . similarly , the bulk of the increase in housing units occurred in queens , where city officials say they found the largest share of the units that they say were missing from the census_bureau 's address list . the overall number of households rose to 3 , 021 , 588 . several demographers said the number reflected in part the city 's efforts to update the census_bureau 's address list before the 2000 census . the department of city planning found several hundred addresses that it said had been missing . mr . rose of the city planning commission said that according to building permit records , 82 , 000 new housing units were built in the city between 1990 and 1999 . the roughly 120 , 000 remaining new units found by the census_bureau probably included addresses that the city had unearthed as well as subdivided homes , especially in queens , he said . in the area of family structure , married couple households now make up just over 37 percent of city households . the percentage of married couple households with children under 18 rose to nearly 18 percent . the national percentage dropped to 23 . 5 percent , according to the numbers released last week . the percentage of city households headed by women rose to 19 . 7 percent , compared with 12 . 2 percent nationally . households headed by women with children under age 18 rose to 312 , 600 , or 10 . 4 percent of the total , up from 9.4 percent in the 1990 census . in the bronx , however , they accounted for nearly one in five households . ''i was surprised , '' said emmanuel tobier , a professor of economics and planning and an expert on the census at the robert wagner graduate school of public service at new york_university . ''female headed families continued to increase , but not running away as fast as before . '' there were also differences borough by borough . for example , the percentage of households consisting of elderly people living alone dropped in every borough except staten_island , which still has the lowest level at 8 percent . the percentage of households with adults of all ages living alone was nearly 48 percent in manhattan , but just 23 percent in staten_island and 26 percent in queens . the percentage of households with children under 18 was highest in the bronx , at 44 percent , and lowest in manhattan , at 20 percent . homeownership rose . the percentage of owner occupied units in the city reached 30 percent , up from 23 percent in 1980 and 29 percent in 1990 . in a city with some of the highest rental rates in the country , many experts believe that a rise in owner occupancy is a healthy sign because homeowners are presumed to have a greater stake in maintaining their property and the community . ''we 're continuing to get a portrait of the city emerging from the census as an increasingly diverse , fundamentally healthy and stable place that 's growing , '' mr . rose said . ''which means we have to think in terms of a growth agenda , both in terms of housing units and employment opportunities for these young people that are coming through the educational system , as well as infrastructure and the like . that 's the clear message the city can take from this . '' correction may 23 , 2001 , wednesday an article yesterday about an increase in the average household size in new york city referred incorrectly to efforts by the department of city planning to update the census_bureau 's address list before the 2000 census . the department found that several hundred thousand addresses , not several hundred , were missing .",has a topic of estate
"washington , march 14 two of the nation 's largest pension_funds announced today that they would use some of their assets to help finance housing for low income families . the announcement is significant because it involves the california public employees' retirement system , which has long been the trend setter in the pension industry , and because the pension money will actually be spent on bulldozers and cement . in the past , state_pension funds have mostly confined their low_income_housing investments to the purchase of mortgages on existing buildings . clinton_administration officials hailed today 's announcement , calling it an innovative approach to addressing homelessness that does not require a lot of taxpayer money . besides the public employees' fund , the california state teachers' retirement system will also take part . officials at the funds said they expected to earn returns as attractive as those offered by more conventional investments . the public employees' fund , the nation 's largest pension_fund , with 81 billion in assets , agreed to lend 150 million for the construction of town houses and apartments for california families earning 12 , 000 to 45 , 000 a year . the california teachers' pension_fund , with 50 billion in assets , will guarantee the repayment of an additional 75 million in bank loans to low_income_housing developers in the state . the developers will be charged a fee equal to roughly 1 percent of the value of these loans in exchange for the guarantees , said patrick l . mitchell , the fund 's director of equities and fixed_income investments . "" we 're doing this with the primary objective to benefit the fund , "" he said . the teachers' pension_fund is not lending the money outright , he added rather , it is putting its cash in long term investments like 30 year treasury_bonds instead of one year and two year construction loans . 'very innovative' a few pension_funds have begun to buy mortgages issued by banks to low income families . but it is extremely unusual for a fund to become involved in providing construction loans or guarantees , particularly on such a large scale , said lee smith , the executive director of the excelsior capital corporation , a not for profit firm in manhattan that helps pension_funds find investments that help their communities . "" it 's very innovative for them to be playing these roles , and it shows what pension_funds can do when they break out of traditional roles , "" mr . smith said . housing secretary henry g . cisneros said the two pension_funds provided an example for others to follow . "" the model that you have established here has tremendous applicability across the country , "" he told pension executives and bank officials . "" it is truly a historic innovation . "" mr . cisneros spoke here in a live video news conference with the executives , who were in san_francisco . the two pension_funds' moves are the latest sign of financial_institutions' renewed interest in low_income_housing . the treasury department has increasingly linked regulatory approval of bank mergers to the banks' participation in such loans . and the federal national mortgage association , which is the nation 's largest provider of mortgage money , is expected to announce on tuesday that it will increase its lending for low_income_housing to 1 trillion in the next six years . the a.f.l . c . i.o . housing investment_trust , a coalition of 400 pension_funds including the california public employees' fund , has begun to put 110 million a year into the financing of low_income_housing , but more than half of this money is being used to buy mortgages on homes that have already been built , said stephen f . coyle , the trust 's executive director . banks to participate the two california funds are part of a broader financial coalition , the world bridge initiative , which will finance low_income_housing in california , particularly in the san_francisco area . the wells fargo bank and the bank of america are lending at least 100 million . the ford_foundation is providing a 750 , 000 grant and a 3 million loan at 1 percent interest to subsidize rents for low income apartment dwellers and to train other nonprofit organizations in how to build low_income_housing with pension money . world savings is a savings and loan based in oakland , calif . , that started the project with an interest free loan of 15 million . and the bridge housing_corporation , a not for profit developer , will build the homes . credit risks monitored herbert m . sandler , the chairman of world savings and organizer of the coalition , said the pension_funds were able to participate partly because the two banks and his institution would be assessing credit risks for the nearly 5 , 000 town houses and apartments scheduled to be built . the federal_government guarantees benefits from pension_funds managed by companies and labor_unions , although not state run funds of the sort involved in today 's announcement . the federal national mortgage association , or fannie_mae , is a congressionally chartered , shareholder owned enterprise that may also carry an implicit federal guarantee . mr . cisneros said that loans for low_income_housing were safe and consistent with pension_funds' responsibility to seek the best possible returns . "" i believe there are sufficient safeguards to assure that for both the pensioners that may be involved and for enterprises like fannie_mae , substantial progress can be made toward these goals within fiduciary bounds . """,has a topic of estate
"lead the construction of 75 new town houses as the first phase of a development called salters_square in the east crotona_park section of the south_bronx is driving home some lessons about residential building in new york city . the construction of 75 new town houses as the first phase of a development called salters_square in the east crotona_park section of the south_bronx is driving home some lessons about residential building in new york city . the houses are in concrete block strips of two story houses with pale gray masonry facades on intervale avenue and boston road . in the once devastated neighborhood that includes charlotte street and others east of the park , the salters_square project is the successor to the manufactured houses on quarter acre lots known as charlotte gardens , a development that edward j . logue nursed into being in the early 80 's . it took three builders more than four years to finish the 90 houses of charlotte gardens , in part because of unexpected site preparation difficulties . ultimately the supplier of the houses , deluxe homes of pa . inc . , completed the job itself as developer . now the well maintained homes stand in impressive array on the site that president_jimmy_carter visited in 1977 to dramatize the plight of urban communities ruined by housing abandonment . the suburban like properties , often extensively landscaped by their owners , stand as something of a showcase for the possibilities of inner city home ownership , and they are periodically visited by admiring housing officials from around the globe . but the extreme low density of that development made it unlikely that the concept would be replicated on additional city sites nearby . its successor is instead a masonry and concrete structure produced on the site , rather than in a factory , and divided into simple boxlike units 18 feet wide . ''we like this new house it 's a tight house , it 's efficient , '' said genevieve s . brooks , executive director of mbd community housing_corporation , the nonprofit group based in the neighborhood that marketed the houses . the project was developed by the new york city partnership for the city , which supplied the land , using a state capital grant . ''we had to convince the bank that there was a market out here , and we did , '' ms . brooks said . the next phase of salters_square is already in construction for occupancy next year , and similar site built housing in two family form is planned . the project is demonstrating that despite its past , east crotona_park can attract moderate income working people who are willing and able to pay 92 , 000 for a new house , making a_10 percent down payment . the waiting list of eligible buyers was more than adequate to make the project a success . salters_square has also shown that a major construction company , procida construction corporation , based in the bronx , and a large construction lender , chemical_bank , are willing to get behind the production of for sale housing in the area . the developer earns a fixed fee . at the same time , salters_square is giving explicit evidence of the extraordinary cost , on a per unit basis , of producing single family houses in new york city , especially when the site is one in which the most restrictive aspects of the fire code apply and the land is filled with the rubble of apartment houses , which had far deeper foundations than small homes need . ''the costs were significantly higher than we anticipated , '' said mario procida , president of procida construction , ' 'due to the unusual subsurface conditions , our unfamiliarity with the city 's requirements on on site retention of water and the high costs for guard service . '' according to kathryn wylde , president of the housing partnership development corporation , the average development cost of new houses built under partnership auspices has risen to 110 , 000 citywide . in 1982 , when the partnership started to develop new homes , the projected average cost was 75 , 000 . a variety of statutory and regulatory impositions that have sprung up in the interim are the biggest cause of the increase , she said , although they have not contributed to improving the house that the consumer buys . at the first phase of salters_square , the development cost per unit was 117 , 000 , or 101 a square_foot , of which only 12 , 200 was for the ' 'soft'' costs of construction period interest and fees . the difference between the 117 , 000 cost and the 92 , 000 sale price is made up by a 25 , 000 a unit public subsidy . ( a nominal charge by the city of 2 , 000 a house for the land must be repaid by the buyer only after the house is resold . ) when mr . logue started to develop charlotte gardens , he was looking for a sale price of 50 , 000 with no subsidy except free land . eventually , the early houses required a subsidy of about 10 , 000 a unit to compensate for the unexpected cost of coping with subsurface conditions . as it happens , the three bedroom , one and a half bath house by itself at salters_square cost 62 , 560 , according to figures developed by procida construction . that covers only the costs above the slab foundation . procida also found itself paying 11 , 690 per house for the foundation work and slab , including the piling to get to firm ground below apartment house foundations 11 , 590 per house for excavation , rubble removal and grading , and 4 , 300 per unit for water , sewer and drainage work . in other words , for each house there was 27 , 500 additional cost under the ground . add in sundry additional expenses such as ''general conditions'' expenses of 10 , 000 a house which includes field labor supervision and 3 , 000 a house for guard service during construction and the costs reach 42 , 100 a house , or 36 a square_foot , beyond the cost of labor and materials for the building . it is no surprise , accordingly , to find that a minimum has been spent on upgraded housing design . the houses have a look as simple as cement block cells , with little facade ornamentation beyond red plastic awnings over the doors and some windows . individual owners have in some cases spent generously to give their units a look of individuality , mainly by purchasing decorative wrought_iron gates , which also help provide privacy and security . as for living space , the houses provide 1 , 150 gross square_feet on two floors , of an estimated 500 square_feet of living space per floor . the houses are 18 feet wide and 32 feet deep . in the second phase of salters_square , the depth of the house will be lengthened by one foot . the project is named for the late june salters , a community leader who died in 1987 . sales of the first phase units began in may 1987 . occupancy began last june and was completed in september . the second phase 50 single family houses on intervale avenue between freeman and home streets has gone into construction for occupancy in may of next year . sales are expected to start in the spring . the unsubsidized cost is expected to be about 123 , 500 a unit . after that there will be a third phase called thurston plaza , with 50 town houses built as two family houses . each owner will have an apartment to rent out . according to mbd community housing officials , most buyers in the bronx prefer the concrete and masonry building , and are uneasy with the use of wood in structural elements . one of the buyers , cynthia wilkins , a legal secretary working in manhattan , agreed . ''people think our house is sturdy because it is made of concrete , '' she said . another accommodation to market preference , procida officers said , is the presence of a parking pad on each buyer 's property in front of the house . like many other established construction companies in the city , the procidas prefer to give construction work to subcontractors in the city whom they have dealt with for years , rather than purchase out of state manufactured houses . the manufactured product probably would give more space and amenities for the same price , according to builders who have used it . a manufactured unit 14 feet wide and 40 feet deep , with two or two and a half baths , could be delivered to the site for under 50 a square_foot and be accepted by the market , they contend . but some trades still resist their use in the city . to buyers , nearly all of them former renters , the main point is the opportunity to own a house at all . there were 700 applicants for houses in the first phase of salters_square , and 350 qualified for mortgages , said michael e . reed , the project director for mbd community housing_corporation . that suggests that as an effort to rebuild a seriously depopulated south_bronx neighborhood , the city 's policy of encouraging home construction is working .",has a topic of estate
"a historic group of cordage factory buildings several dating to the post civil war era in jersey_city had seemed at the end of their rope only months ago , but are now on the way to a new life as apartments . a bankruptcy court judge had authorized tearing down all eight buildings of the whitlock cordage factory and auctioning off the land to pay accumulated taxes and fines . but over the past few months local preservationists and community group members intervened , arguing strenuously that the onetime rope making factories represent a significant part of local history . a proposal by a maryland based company , the housing trust of america , to save the complex and convert it into housing , including hundreds of units priced to be affordable by blue_collar people ''the same ones who historically worked and lived here'' tapped into a groundswell of public support . the city 's historic_preservation specialist , daniel w . wrieden , filed a brief with united states bankruptcy court saying the group of buildings is important because ' 'so little of the industrial matrix of the lafayette neighborhood has survived , yet it was a major determinant in the socioeconomic and physical development of the area . '' mr . wrieden told the court , ''failure to preserve the whitlock cordage site would be a great loss of historic fabric and a travesty to the efforts of historic_preservation affecting not only the city of jersey_city , but the state and the nation . '' in april , the court ordered the sale of the distinguished but dilapidated whitlock buildings to housing trust for 4 . 2 million . plans to convert four of the two and four story structures now a haven for drug dealers and vandals into more than 300 apartments are before city planners . a second developer recently proposed turning a fifth whitlock building into live work space for artists . the three remaining buildings are to be razed . two brick structures are beyond saving , too badly_damaged by fire and water , to rehabilitate , developers say . the third building , a concrete block structure put up in 1950 , is in better shape , but has no architectural or historical significance , according to the local preservation officials . john gomez , president of the jersey_city landmarks_conservancy , said his group thinks the lafayette neighborhood is the oldest african_american community in the state and has reason to believe the labyrinthine cobblestone paths among the whitlock buildings were once part of the underground_railroad for runaway slaves . mr . wrieden said there is evidence that there were industrial buildings on the site as early as 1855 . the passaic zinc works built the five story main building on the existing whitlock site , featuring a two level clerestory fit for a cathedral , some time around 1870 , he said . in 1905 , the whitlock cordage company moved to jersey_city from elizabethport , where benjamin whitlock had founded it in 1815 as a producer of rope for maritime uses , like mooring line and hawsers . whitlock cordage took over the zinc works property and expanded several times over the years , most notably with construction of a window studded reinforced_concrete building around 1930 , mr . wrieden said . together , mr . wrieden said in his statement to the court , the whitlock buildings represent a rare illustration of industrial design from 1870 to 1930 . the preservation officer cited the main building , with its numerous windows and imposing bulk , as an excellent example of 19th_century industrial architecture . the complex 's tar house , which also features a clerestory , probably dates from the same period , he said . other buildings include the hemp storehouse , finished goods building , boiler house , repair shop and office . meg manley of the housing trust described the structures as ''gorgeous'' by today 's industrial architecture standards , featuring exposed beams , graceful lines , extensive windows and various degrees of ornamentation . ''the beams , support trusses and columns are carolina pine , '' she said . ''in one building where there was a fire , this wood is so strong that while the columns are charred , the wood just crystallized rather than burning away , and they will be retained . '' two tall brick smokestacks that are no longer functional but serve as landmarks on the property will also be retained , she said . ''we want to do well by doing good , '' said wallace scruggs , one of the housing trust 's principals , in explaining the company 's focus on housing for lower income families . mr . scruggs worked as an accountant advising affordable_housing developers for 25 years before helping to start his company , which is based in columbia , md . , in partnership with stewart marcus of florida . ''we want to do good for the community by creating housing for people who ca n't afford a nice place to live near where they work and at the same time , we want to make a profit , '' he said . mr . scruggs said the housing trust will apply for tax_credits under the federal housing preservation program . the developer 's proposal , already endorsed by top city officials including the mayor and deputy_mayor , would create 330 apartments 198 of them ''affordable , '' under federal housing guidelines , which say rent should be no more than 30 percent of an area 's average household_income , which is pegged to the prevailing wage according to a government formula . this means most apartments' rents will be under 1 , 000 a month , mr . scruggs said . the rest of the apartments , 40 percent of the total , will be rented at market rate , he said but not at the higher end of the market . an average rent for a ''luxury'' waterfront apartment in jersey_city is about 2 , 500 the whitlock rents will run from 1 , 500 to 1 , 900 a month . ''we believe that we are serving a market that is underserved , '' mr . scruggs said , ''for example , a one bedroom with at least 750 to 800 square_feet , a parking space , a_10 minute walk to the path station and maybe a shuttle will be arranged . this is what we 'll be providing in both the affordable and market rate apartments , and it 's extremely hard to find right now . '' the developers said they had originally planned to make 60 percent of the units market rate and 40 percent affordable , but reversed the percentages after surveying the market . over the past decade , hundreds of new higher end apartments , designed for commuters to manhattan , have risen along jersey_city 's waterfront . meanwhile , the existing housing continued to age and to serve lower income people , whose numbers remain strong here long after the industrial jobs that once defined the workplace have disappeared . according to census figures , 40 percent of jersey_city 's apartment units were built before 1940 . the median_household_income in the city is 37 , 862 , according to census data , compared with 38 , 293 in new york city , and 26 , 913 in newark . the lafayette neighborhood lies almost entirely within a city redevelopment area , and much of the housing east of the whitlock cordage site , an area that extends to the hudson_river waterfront , has been renovated , mr . scruggs said . ''the area west of us still needs to be redeveloped , '' he said , ''and i believe the city will make that happen . '' as part of the effort to revive the lafayette neighborhood , the city_council also approved 1 . 5 million in bonding to refurbish a derelict park adjacent to the factory buildings . the park 's baseball diamond , gazebo and landscaping will be refurbished . ''this is a very old city with very much of a small town feel , '' said jeffrey w . herrmann , the lawyer who handled the purchase of the property by the housing trust . ''everybody knows everybody and seems to care about what goes on in town . when the housing goes in and that park is beautiful again , it 's going to be a real gem of a neighborhood . '' commercial property jersey_city",has a topic of estate
"lead northwestern_university and the city of evanston are clearing more land , including a historic_landmark , for a new phase in the development of a 400 million , 24 acre research park aimed at speeding technology to the marketplace and putting university and city land on the tax rolls . northwestern_university and the city of evanston are clearing more land , including a historic_landmark , for a new phase in the development of a 400 million , 24 acre research park aimed at speeding technology to the marketplace and putting university and city land on the tax rolls . the master plan calls for 1.8 million square_feet of office , research and commercial space on the northwest edge of downtown evanston , a city of 74 , 000 along lake_michigan just north of chicago . of that , 184 , 000 square_feet is completed and occupied by 31 companies . at completion in 10 years , the park will comprise 15 buildings with about 200 technology oriented businesses , according to william ihlanfeldt , chairman of research park inc . , a joint city_university corporation . mr . ihlanfeldt said that the project , which he conceived five years ago , is the nation 's first in which a university and municipality contributed land to be jointly governed . seven buildings , including four with residences , remain to be bought and razed . the latest phase calls for razing a two story 8 , 000 square_foot building not one of the seven that belonged to henry butler , a black business leader who developed a thriving livery business at the turn of the century . the butler building was designated an evanston landmark in 1984 by the city 's preservation commission , whose 90 day moratorium on demolition has expired . ''here we have an example of a man who is a typical horatio alger model who happens to be black , and the city fathers want to virtually obliterate his mark upon society , '' said bennett j . johnson , president of the evanston branch of the n.a.a.c.p . according to david a . galloway , chairman of the evanston preservation commission , the structure is believed to have been built with brick custom made and installed by the tuskegee institute , a training ground for blacks founded by booker t . washington , the black philanthropist , educator and rights advocate . mr . ihlanfeldt said that part of the facade will be retained but that the building ''would not fit into the master plan of the park at all'' and would be razed and replaced . six acres of the 24 acre park were owned by the university , six were privately_owned and the rest was owned by the city . one acre will be retained by the university for its birl industrial research laboratory , a 130 , 000 square_foot building that anchors the park . the rest of the land will be leased , with a later option to buy , by research park inc . to charles h . shaw company , a private development concern in chicago and new york . national notebook evanston , ill .",has a topic of estate
"as day faded into night on a recent sunday , people began streaming into the 13 month old new jersey performing_arts center in downtown_newark for the new jersey symphony_orchestra 's 4 p.m . christmas show . instead of passing by new jersey 's largest city , long a symbol of urban decay , more than 2 , 000 patrons young and old , black and white , well to do and working_class were pouring into its heart . the scene captured a potential for change that even the most ardent supporters of newark 's current revival are quick to admit seemed almost unimaginable three years ago in this city , which was brought to its knees by race riots some 31 years ago . evidence that the struggle for recovery is far from over can be found by weekend concertgoers in the lonely streets and sparsity of customers in shops a few blocks from the 180 million arts center , streets and shops that are livelier during the working week . and poverty still clings to many of the city 's crumbling neighborhoods . but there have been other signs of progress in the core of this 24 square_mile city in addition to the arts center , which in its first year of operation drew more than half a million visitors . one of the clearest has been the purchase over the last 18 months of eight office buildings at least two of which were sold twice . four more are on the market , with deals reported to be close . and the longtime owners of a fifth property a 467 , 000 square_foot office building that one of the owners said they could not rent or even give away earlier this decade are sprucing it up and marketing it to tenants . for the investors who are buying buildings in downtown_newark , ''the bet is to buy older , mostly vacant buildings , upgrade them to compete for corporate tenants and , in turn , be able to achieve a higher rental stream , '' said arthur della salla , regional director of research at grubb_ellis , the national commercial brokerage . his firm puts the sales price for such buildings in newark at 9 to 27 a square_foot . mr . della salla said the recent sale of one of the city 's most modern buildings the only class a building to have changed hands recently told a similar story an investor sold the building for double what he paid for it after securing a long term lease from a financially secure tenant . in that case , he said , the first investor purchased the 720 , 000 square_foot gateway ii building , part of a complex of four office towers adjacent to penn_station , for 34 million , or 40 a square_foot , and sold it 19 months later for 78 million , or 94 a square_foot . the prudential insurance_company of america , whose corporate headquarters has been in the city since 1875 , has moved some 3 , 800 workers back to newark after having dispatched them to the suburbs years earlier , raising its city workforce to 7 , 000 . prudential now occupies about 2.2 million square_feet of office space in newark . bell_atlantic has also has made a commitment to move back employees , starting with 85 workers in the last six months and with the potential for some 600 more at its partially occupied 428 , 000 square_foot new jersey headquarters at 540 broad street . it now has 1 , 000 workers in newark . regaining those jobs will help compensate for the loss of 500 expected at mutual benefit life_insurance company , based at 520 broad street . the insurer which was seized by state regulators after it collapsed in 1991 and has operated under a rehabilitation plan since then has announced that it will sell its insurance assets at year 's end and close its doors this summer , an indication that despite the good news , newark still faces an uphill battle . ''it is an evolutionary process , '' said alfred l . faiella , the city 's deputy_mayor for housing and economic_development . ''the idea is to put so much into the hopper that more will eventually come . '' mayor sharpe_james added that newark was ''following the format of other cities by starting to build an arts core and give people a reason to come back . '' that is why people like lawrence p . goldman , president and chief_executive_officer of the arts center , consider the current wave of investment in downtown office buildings so important . ''the depopulation and disinvestment in some of the buildings around the arts center was worrisome from the standpoint of the health of an urban center , '' said mr . goldman . ''what is happening now is astounding , and if you asked me the week before the arts center opened how long it would take for the impact on real_estate to be felt i would have said three to five years . '' estimates from grubb_ellis , the national commercial brokerage , are that about 400 million will have been invested in downtown_newark over the next few years , counting from mid 1997 . that figure includes what the new owners paid for the office buildings and what they and existing landlords say they have spent or will spend to renovate the structures . the new investors are looking at forces at play outside of newark , as well as within the city . ''the fundamentals of the new jersey economy are as good as they have been in 30 years and the office market is as healthy in the state as in manhattan , '' said james w . hughes , dean of the edward j . bloustein school of planning and public_policy at rutgers_university . ''so areas left behind like newark are benefiting from that and seeing more activity . '' after renovating the buildings , investors are betting they can make money by leasing space at higher rents . the appeal to tenants is that the rents will still be lower than those in manhattan and along the hudson_river waterfront in jersey_city , which has been the first stop for companies willing to cross the river to new jersey . grubb_ellis put the average annual asking rent for prime space in newark defined as newer buildings close to penn_station at 25 per square_foot , compared to 22 a year ago . in contrast , such space goes for an average of about 30 along the riverfront in jersey_city and 35 in downtown_manhattan , according to the brokerage_firm 's figures . asking rents for space in second tier buildings in newark range from 15 to 21 a square_foot annually . ''tenants looking for space at lower rents can find it in newark , which has a labor supply and accessibility by train to manhattan , '' said donald p . eisen , executive managing director for the new york area at cushman_wakefield . newark has shown ' 'signs of life'' recently and could take off as an office market , but over time , he said , ''it needs a commitment from an outside company , and people fueling 24 hour activity . '' so far , most of the new buyers are from out of state , including some from manhattan , such as the cogswell realty group . with lehman_brothers and other new york investors , cogswell bought two buildings , totaling about a million square_feet , most of it empty . the investors plan to modernize the 641 , 000 square_foot office building at 744 broad street , which they purchased late last year for 7 . 5 million from newark building associates . that company 's general partner is peter l . malkin of manhattan , whose extensive holdings include investments in the empire_state_building . the 440 , 000 square_foot 1180 raymond boulevard , which the cogswell lehman partners bought for just under 3 million , is to be converted from offices to a 915 bed student dormitory . arthur r . stern , a partner at cogswell , said he was discussing customizing sections of the building to meet their needs with officials of the city 's five institutions of higher learning the city 's rutgers campus , seton_hall law_school , the new jersey institute of technology , the new jersey university of medicine and dentistry and essex county college . ''it is easy to take potshots at newark , which everyone was writing off as a dead city in 1990 and 1991 , '' said mr . stern . ''but the perception is changing . '' steven c . witkoff , president of the witkoff group , a real_estate investment concern based in manhattan , purchased gateway ii , an occupied class a building , last may from the townsend company of towson , md . mr . witkoff is under contract to buy the other three buildings totaling 1 . 26 million square_feet at the gateway complex . though mr . witkoff declined to say how much he will pay for the buildings , he said it was less than the reported 175 million asking price . prudential is selling the buildings as part of a plan announced a few years ago to sell the properties it owns and invest the proceeds in more liquid real_estate , such as shares in reit 's . ''we 've bought the best buildings in newark and if the tide goes up we go up with it , '' mr . witkoff said . among the other buyers of downtown_newark buildings in recent months were read properties of manhattan , which bought the 485 , 000 square_foot 24 commerce street for 2 . 3 million , and townsend , which purchased for 12 million the half vacant , 380 , 000 square_foot former headquarters of blue_cross_blue_shield of new jersey at 33 washington street . and at the end of the year the kushner companies of florham_park , n.j. , is expected to close on the purchase of the 440 , 000 square_foot headquarters of mutual benefit life . ''it says something that at a time when the capital_market has shifted from institutions to private banks , which have upped the ante , there are still investors who believe in newark , '' said dudley ryan , senior vice_president at the teaneck office of the cb richard ellis real_estate brokerage . other investments are also being made in downtown_newark . rutgers is building a new law_school and construction has begun on a 6 , 700 seat minor_league_baseball stadium . some 10 million in public funds are in place to begin work this summer on the initial phase of what eventually will be a 1 . 75 mile esplanade along the passaic river as well as on the first phase of a 175 million light_rail line linking the downtown to newark_international_airport . the activity has helped encourage new investors , whose arrival is significant in a long overlooked city where schools are substandard and unemployment , though lower than a few years ago , is still high 11 percent in 1997 ( the latest figure available ) , compared with 16 . 6 percent in 1991 , according to state data . other encouraging factors include the growing influence of public private partnerships willing to promote development and the city 's newly established downtown special improvement district , which includes the performing_arts center . the district allows property owners to tax themselves and spend the money on services such as extra security forces and more frequent garbage pickups . and there is a sense that local residents are beginning to believe that change is possible . until recently , said raphael gesumaria , a retired medical secretary who has lived all her life in newark and raised her two daughters in the same north ward house she grew up in , ''i stayed away from downtown because there was no place for me to shop and i did n't feel safe . now , i go to broad street to shop and twice a week i volunteer at the arts center . '' she said the arts center had brought positive attention to the city . ''i saw newark when it thrived and when it died , '' she said . ''i have hope . '' but what is most important for investors is that newark offers substantial old office buildings at prices that are cheap compared with much of the metropolitan_area . it is also a city that offers tax incentives and other sweeteners to developers who help in its revival program . the question now is if enough tenants will follow to fill the newly_renovated space . newark can still be a tough sell because ''tenants are still skeptical , '' said richard mirliss , a broker at the west_orange office of grubb_ellis . ''the arts center has been a big positive , '' he said , but ''there has been a lot of talk about redevelopment for a long time . '' now there is even more talking , including a proposal for a basketball arena and soccer stadium for the new jersey nets and new jersey metro stars , respectively . another proposal calls for portions of eight blocks along broad street , one block in to halsey street , between cedar street and central avenue to be transformed into a greenwich_village like streetscape with housing and office space over shops . the redevelopment would link the business_district to the arts center to the north and the university heights neighborhood to the west . such linkages , analysts , developers and city officials say , are needed for the downtown revival to spill into the rest of newark . the nonprofit group pushing the linkage plan , the new newark foundation , is led by raymond g . chambers , a philanthropist and newark native who is considered a prime mover behind the city 's revival . ( he , along with other investors , also owns 19 percent of the nets and has made it clear he wants to bring the team to newark . ) the foundation has control of about eight acres between broad and halsey streets and hopes to start implementing the plan to redevelop that property into a mix of uses within a year , said mort goldfein , the group 's chief executive . the former hahne 's department_store , part of the assemblage , sits across broad street from the arts center and is a focal_point of the plan . city officials said discussions were under way with continental_airlines to rent two of the building 's upper floors for use by flight_attendants , bringing people to the downtown . ''we need to continue to create a draw for the downtown , that brings people to the city and gets them walking on the streets , '' said deputy_mayor faiella . such projects , he said , will not solve all the ills downtown or in the rest of the city , which , mayor james emphasized , have not been ignored . as examples of investment outside the downtown core , the mayor pointed to projects under way or expected to start in the next six months near newark_international_airport . they range from a 100 , 000 square_foot warehouse distribution building rising in the south ward to coca_cola 's plan to start construction this spring on a 425 , 000 square_foot service , production and distribution complex on 50 acres . and hartz_mountain_industries of secaucus expects to begin construction at a cost of 85 million this summer on two hotels , with a total of 800 rooms and a 50 , 000 square_foot conference center on 55 acres near the airport . the site will be linked to the airport 's monorail system , as well as to the planned light_rail system to downtown . ''our perspective is that newark has turned around , '' said emanuel stern , president of hartz . and early next year , mayor james said , the city will turn its attention to the construction of market rate housing , up to 1 , 000 two family homes in the neighborhoods . a key to the success of these plans is what happens downtown . ''a lot of balloons are being floated , '' said dean hughes , ''and many may never see the light of day , but newark has no choice but to follow that road and try to build on the momentum of the arts center . now is an opportune time for the city to pull the pieces together and make its core work as an office node . '' but getting the revival to spill into ''the balance of the city so residents benefit is the real challenge , '' said dean hughes , who noted ''that has not yet happened in any american city that has fallen has far as newark . '' downtown_newark began its slide in the 1960 's as the middle_class exodus and poor economy drained commerce from its once vibrant core . that exodus was followed by a long caravan of retailers , including macy 's , which closed its doors in 1992 . by the 1980 's a wave of renewal helped create a swath of glass walled office towers , including the gateway complex . but the gateway complex did little to reclaim the neighborhood , given the aerial bridges that connect it to penn_station , easing safety concerns but keeping workers off city streets . the last downtown office building was completed in 1991 , before the recession hit and the market soured . now that the market has regained some strength , many of the new office investors are betting on newark and are courting tenants . but while prudential continues to look for more space , there has not been a stampede of other users into the city . ''commitments from the larger companies in the city have absorbed most of the class a space and those following suit now have to look at the secondary space , '' said mr . eisen of cushman_wakefield . mr . mirliss added that back office users who want to beat manhattan rents might also start to drift to newark . ''if not jersey_city , why not newark ? '' he asked rhetorically . some of that is starting to happen . mccarter english , a large law_firm , has leased 35 , 000 square_feet of space to expand into 1100 raymond boulevard , a mostly vacant 467 , 360 square_foot building just across the street from the gateway complex , where the firm is based . negotiations are under way at 1100 raymond boulevard with office users that would take a total of 70 , 000 square_feet , as well with retailers , said jerald kaufman , one of the building 's owners . the structure is now being renovated . a few new york companies have been drawn to newark because of the lower rents , among them is the lza group , a large engineering and architectural firm that leased a floor at 24 commerce street and is planning to expand into a second , said robert wolf , president of read properties , the owner . mr . wolf said his company , which bought the building in august , was targeting small tenants who are priced out of manhattan . telecommunications firms , including the giant worldcom , recently leased a total of 300 , 000 square_feet , much of it to set up switching stations , on the upper floors of the former 1 . 2 million square_foot macy 's building at 165 halsey street , which was purchased 18 months ago by market halsey urban_renewal of manhattan . the company has leased the ground floor to 14 retailers . ''i do n't expect newark to boom overnight , '' said sam jemal , a market halsey principal . ''like wall_street , the streets at the shopping area go desolate at 7 p.m . it will be a slow climb back , and that is healthier . ''",has a topic of estate
"roger tilles has spent a long , high profile career buying , developing and selling real_estate . throw in a dollop of philanthropy on the side . now he 's retiring , opting for a life that will not automatically be described as ''high powered . '' his brother , peter , who is the co director of the family owned tilles investment company , is leaving , too . although the official date for their departure has n't been set , mr . tilles said it would most likely come in early march . the company has already sold off many of its holdings , which at one time accounted for about three million square_feet , he said . the brothers' intention , mr . tilles said , is to divest themselves of all their real_estate holdings . the tilles company was well known as a powerhouse in developing industrial and office parks . while such developments did not always find favor with environmentalists and the like , the family has earned a lot respect for providing the money , initially 2 million , to renovate the auditorium for music and dance at the c.w . post campus of long_island_university . the complex is now the tilles center . in making the transition from active businessmen to retirees , in december the tilles brothers sold the nassau crossways international plaza and the gateway executive mall , two office parks in westbury with a total of 2.1 million square_feet . the buyer was a joint_venture formed by the clk management corporation of great_neck and houlihan parnes realtors of white_plains . the sales price was reported to be 335 million , a figure mr . tilles declined to confirm but said did not warrant a substantial correction . last february , the tilles company sold a 81 acre parcel in jericho that is known as the underhill property . now , as a final step in their retirement preparations , mr . tilles said he and his brother were negotiating to sell what is known as the pumpkin farm , 54 undeveloped acres on walt_whitman road near the long_island_expressway in melville . in an interview last month , mr . tilles said that in retirement , he planned to continue as the acting chairman of the long_island regional_planning board , an unpaid post , and to devote time to philanthropic and educational projects , as he already does . he is the chairman of long_island_university 's trustees and is involved in fund_raising for the long_island philharmonic . mr . tilles said his brother was investigating several post retirement investments and would continue as a trustee of the planting fields arboretum , in oyster bay . mr . tilles said he and his brother decided it was time to retire partly because of their age he is 58 and his brother is 63 and because neither of them had children who were interested or old enough to take over . ''at this point in our lives , we knew that sometime in the next five years we would be selling , '' mr . tilles said , and because the current market is strong , ''the prices that came in were unbelievable . '' the tilleses' business grew from a single piece of farmland in levittown that the brothers' grandfather eli tilles willed to their father , gilbert , in 1949 . at the time , william j . levitt , the developer , approached gilbert tilles and asked how much he wanted for the property . rather than sell , gilbert tilles decided to build a shopping_center . in the next decade or so , gilbert tilles built two dozen more shopping centers . then , around 1960 , he sold many of them and bought two farms on jericho turnpike , where the nassau crossways now stands . peter tilles joined his father in the business after graduating from college , but roger tilles , who describes himself as a ''product of the 60 's , '' held out . after graduating from amherst college in 1968 , mr . tilles moved on to the university of michigan law school . in 1971 , he graduated and went to work as a lobbyist for the michigan department of education . three years later , he became chief of staff for the speaker of michigan 's house . then , in 1978 , he ran for congress in michigan and lost . shortly_afterward , he moved to washington , where he started a law_firm involved in political lobbying . the firm was prospering when he decided to return home in 1983 to learn the family business . for the next 22 years or so , the brothers ran the family business . peter tilles was mr . inside and was mainly responsible for maintenance , construction and day to day issues . roger tilles was mr . outside and tended to land use and zoning matters , financing and the tilles family foundation . desmond m . ryan , the executive director for the association for a better long_island , a developers' lobbying group , said mr . tilles had the reputation of being well grounded , matter of fact and something of an intellectual . ''when he speaks , you realize you 're listening to someone with a great deal of knowledge , '' he said . richard amper , the executive director of the long_island pine_barrens society , recently worked with mr . tilles on preserving 50 acres of the underhill property . ''he was a very reasonable man who used his considerable influence to bring about a very reasonable compromise and limit development , '' mr . amper said . ''we do n't have a lot of developers on long_island like that . '' mr . tilles said he did not expect retirement to have a drastic effect on his life . ''instead of getting my money from an actively run business , i 'll get my money from an investment , '' he said . he said he would devote much of his time to the long_island regional_planning board . both county executives have publicly discussed expanding the number of voting board members to 14 from 10 and increasing the board 's scope . echoing those sentiments , mr . tilles said he would like the board members to develop a closer working relationship with town and county governmental officials by holding regular meetings with them . mr . ryan of the developers' lobbying group said mr . tilles would be effective in helping the different factions to reach consensus . ''roger tilles is astute enough to know the ability to effectively compromise is what solves problems , '' he said . ''his philosophical view is not 'my way or the highway . ''' l.i . work",has a topic of estate
"every morning about 6 30 , arthur quinby walks his golden retriever from his house in daniel_island park to the moo na lisa gourmet ice_cream and coffee shop downtown . there he meets about eight other men who gather most days . ''it 's like the old cracker barrel or hardware_store , '' said mr . quinby , an advertising executive who moved here four years ago from beverly_hills , calif . ''we get together and fix all the world 's problems . '' the small town quality of daniel_island , a planned_community 15 miles from the historic_district of charleston , was an integral part of the development 's master plan . charleston is an old fashioned city , not eager to see change take place within its boundaries . but to its residents , daniel_island seemed so far away that progress could be seen from a comfortable distance , and developers sensitive to local attitudes took a ' 'slow growth'' approach . in 10 years , the island has grown into a separate community , though still governed by charleston , where real_estate values have drastically appreciated and commercial revenues have bolstered the city 's coffers . the project has worked so well that in february , the daniel_island company bought a 2 , 300 acre tract of land in the neighboring city of goose creek . active development of a similar mixed use community is scheduled to begin in early 2007 . overseen by the daniel_island company , which describes itself as a ''lifestyle community developer , '' daniel_island is not just another subdivision . as the marketing slogan goes , it 's ''a town , an island , a way of life . '' and lots of people are buying it . the first house sold in 1996 in those days , the place had the air of a fisher price town , with main_street seemingly plopped down in the middle of nowhere , an american flag flapping lazily above an empty sidewalk . a decade later , daniel_island is home to 5 , 000 residents ( from 45 states ) , 8 distinct neighborhoods ( each with its own park ) , sophisticated landscaping that has matured into vistas of live oak and pistachio trees , thriving schools and churches , several corporate headquarters , the charleston battery soccer team and the family circle cup , a major stop on the women 's professional tennis tour . daniel_island has become an authentic town , where the monthly newsletter contains everything from a list of baby_sitters and hurricane tips to a calendar of activities like outdoor fat loss boot_camp for busy women and alcoholics anonymous meetings . ''the word 'town' means a lot of different things , '' said matthew r . sloan , the chief_operating_officer of the daniel_island company . ''but it harks back to a simpler era and the feel good things that people remember from small town americana , like the friday night football game . '' until 1992 , daniel_island was a rural 4 , 000 acre parcel used mostly for farming and hunting . originally inhabited by an indian tribe known as the etiwan , the island was bought by harry frank guggenheim in 1947 for 70 , 000 when he died in 1971 , it passed to the harry frank guggenheim foundation . in 1991 , it was annexed by the city of charleston , but it was largely inaccessible until the mark clark expressway was completed in 1992 , linking the island to downtown charleston . the foundation sponsored a master plan , which was approved by the city in 1993 . development began in 1995 , and the island was sold to the daniel_island company in 1997 . in the age of ''intentional communities'' ( for example , country club , private gated , resort , etc . ) , the master plan for daniel_island aimed to mix residential , commercial , retail , civic and recreational components , taking into account low country traditions and regional architecture . when mr . quinby , 63 , and his wife were looking for a place to retire , they flatly refused to consider a retirement_community . they bought on daniel_island the day of their initial visit . ''it was new and exciting , '' he said . ''you 've got little toddlers all the way to people like us . '' in 2005 , 53 percent of property sales were to current property owners and their referrals . most are buying primary homes , from brick town houses to 6 , 000 square_foot mansions , and the supply of condominiums can barely keep up with demand . sales have boomed , and property values have soared . when 36 home sites were offered for sale earlier this year , all but four sold on the morning of their release ( totaling over 25 million in gross sales ) . in 2002 , a single story three bedroom house with plantation shutters and a front porch close to the sidewalk in the center park neighborhood sold for 218 , 803 it 's now on the market for 459 , 000 . in june 2004 , a six bedroom , six bathroom house with upper and lower porches ( or piazzas , as they 're called in charleston ) in the daniel_island park neighborhood sold for 1 . 85 million today , it 's listed at 2 . 99 million ( which includes a social membership in the country club ) . ''it 's one of those oddities in urban development that you had an undeveloped interior at the center of a metropolitan_area , '' said joseph p . riley jr . , the mayor of charleston . ''we 're very concerned about sprawl , but it was a perfect place for some of the region 's growth to occur . '' native charlestonians , many of whom can trace their ancestry to the earliest days of american history , are notoriously anti change . but while they bemoan the traffic and chain stores that the tourist boom has brought to historic charleston , many of the old families do n't seem to mind the progress on daniel_island . ''not a lot changes here , '' said mariana hay , 46 , the third generation owner of croghan 's jewel box , a jewelry shop , who lives in the same house her grandparents had in downtown charleston . ''a lot of the old people do n't leave charleston . going over the bridge is a whole other world . but daniel_island has been well received . it 's not like a sprawling suburb . it 's tasteful and nice . it mimics charleston . '' it also provides a more affordable option for younger generations who have been priced out of the downtown area , where people ''from away'' have bought up many of the old houses , gutted them and then resold them for millions of dollars . as its residential base grows , daniel_island has also caught the interest of retailers and entrepreneurs . the sole supermarket , publix , was an early pioneer , and plenty of local businesses have followed . ken vedrinski , the former chef at the five star woodlands resort and inn in summerville , s.c. , bought a town house in the barfield park neighborhood on the wando river in 2003 . a year later , he opened his own restaurant , sienna , in the business_district . ''everyone told me that i was crazy to open here , '' said mr . vedrinski , 40 . ''but i 've got a huge garden in back of my restaurant , and i can walk to work . '' ''some people call it pleasantville , but i like it , '' mr . vedrinski said . ''there 's a great sense of community , there are younger families , and it 's accessible without the traffic . everyone knows everybody . it 's so cool . like tonight , it 's like cooking for 50 friends . '' national perspectives",has a topic of estate
"the basic rule comes from the bible , proverbs 22 28 "" remove not the ancient landmark . "" but for those people who own or reside in a landmark , and are looking for an easy way to be up to date on the regulations regarding their building , the landmarks_preservation_commission has come up with an additional text , what might be considered the commission 's own bible . it 's called "" title 63 , "" the formal name for the rules the commission uses to regulate more than 20 , 000 buildings in new york city that have been designated landmarks or are in historic districts . the 64 page illustrated booklet includes information on how to apply for approval of proposed alterations and how to obtain expedited review of certain kinds of applications . there are chapters on rules for changes in designated broadway theaters , on the facade improvement program , on alterations and new construction of structures and landscapes in the riverdale historic_district and on guidelines for replacement and repair of windows . "" in most historic buildings , "" the booklet points out , "" the window sash , window framing , and the architectural detail surrounding windows were carefully designed as an integral component of the style , scale and character of the building . it is important to retain the configuration , operation , details , materials and finish of the original window as well as to maintain the size of openings , sills , decorative moldings , and the sash itself . "" the booklet also contains regulations on specific alterations , such as through wall air_conditioners , installation of retractable awnings , removal of fire escapes , rooftop additions , rear yard additions or enlargements , sandstone restoration , temporary installations and restoration of a building or building facade features . "" the first time publication of our rules is a milestone in the commission 's ongoing effort to clarify and streamline the process for new yorkers who seek to adapt and use the city 's great landmarks , "" said laurie beckelman , the commission chairwoman . the booklet is available for 4 from the public information specialist , landmarks_preservation_commission , 100 old slip , new york , n.y . 10005 . information ( 212 ) 487 6782 .",has a topic of estate
"this quaint seaside community that has for years been in the shadow of its southern neighbors is beginning to come into its own , thanks in part to the 2 million restoration of a former boarding_house on the city 's main_street . the new devon inn is getting to be a major lodging attraction in this city of 2 , 245 , particularly for couples without children who want to spend a holiday on the atlantic_coast . "" the inn has been a big plus , "" said betsy w . alwood , a washington transplant whose husband , john , a former high_school principal , opened a neighborhood bookstore a year ago . "" it provides quality accommodations for tourists who like the nostalgia of lewes . "" the former valley of the swans hotel was restored by a local real_estate agent and a washington attorney . d . dale jenkins , a delaware realtor who had been doing condominium conversions of older properties , felt that the boarding_house , which had declined steadily since the 1970 's , was a key deterrent to the revitalization of the city 's downtown . built in 1926 by the lewes hotel company and named the caesar rodney hotel , for the 18th_century delaware patriot , it had been an attraction on the delaware shore as late as the 1950 's . by the time ms . jenkins brought her investor partner , bernard nash , to look at the property , it had become a residence hotel with efficiency apartments and a pool hall in the basement . the pair bought the property in the late 80 's for 387 , 000 , then gutted the three story building , with ms . jenkins acting as the general_contractor . she removed everything but the main staircase and the pine floors in the guest rooms . efficiency kitchens for the boarders were removed , and bathrooms were added for each of the 24 new rooms and two suites . ms . jenkins furnished the hotel with antiques so that each guest room has a different character . the renovation includes six shops , most already leased , exhibiting space for the local art league and still vacant space for a restaurant . the management does not encourage booking of children under 16 , and television sets are available only on request . the occupancy_rate of the new hotel has been strong , increasing steadily since the reopening early last year . the hotel was completely booked for new year 's eve , when lewes holds its own version of the new york city ball dropping . "" lewes is getting on the map , "" said mayor alfred a . stango , who led the city for 24 years . "" the hotel has helped a lot . """,has a topic of estate
"bedford stuyvesant town house 799 , 000 brooklyn 471a macdonough street ( at malcolm x boulevard ) a 3 , 402 square_foot limestone with an owner 's triplex and a one bedroom rental with a separate entrance on the garden level . leshah williams , the corcoran group ( 718 ) 923 8081 www . corcoran . com taxes 1 , 940 pros on a landmark block , the house has been completely updated while retaining all the original wainscoting , mantels and wood shutters . cons the new kitchen with a center island in the former back parlor is large and well thought out , but there is no dining_room . chelsea three bedroom loft 2 , 850 , 000 manhattan 66 ninth_avenue ( at 15th street ) , 6w a 2 , 271 square_foot , three bedroom , three bath condo on the sixth floor of the porterhouse condominiums . ed hickey , meisel real_estate ( 212 ) 674 5643 www . meiselrealestate . com common charges 1 , 828 . 38 plus 1 , 639 in real_estate taxes pros this is a sophisticated remodeling in a building residents began to occupy only two years ago . panels and doors conceal closets , electronic equipment , a desk and other storage areas . cons the size of the apartment is the trade off for the lack of a view ( apartments on higher floors are smaller ) . the river can be seen , but only through canyons between other buildings . jackson_heights four bedroom co op 699 , 000 queens 33 16 81st_street , 41 ( at northern boulevard ) a bright , recently renovated co op in the jackson_heights historic_district with four bedrooms , three bathrooms , working fireplaces and a formal_dining_room . michael p . carfagna ( 718 ) 446 6787 www . mpcrealestatebroker . com maintenance 1 , 208 pros this 1 , 750 square_foot apartment has a renovated_kitchen that is all polished wood and steel , and four different exposures allow for lots of light . the building connects to an enormous private garden with a children 's play area . cons two of the bedrooms are on the small side , and the third bathroom is quite narrow . the walk to the no . 7 train at 82nd street and roosevelt_avenue , which is not an express stop , is half a mile . colonial charm close to manhattan 949 , 000 westchester 430 stellar avenue , pelham_manor this 1923 center hall colonial has five bedrooms and three and a half baths . carol brown , c.s . mcclellan real_estate ( 914 ) 738 5150 www . mcclellanrealestate . com taxes 18 , 830 pros the first floor includes a spacious dining_room and living room with a fireplace , conducive to entertaining . cons the kitchen and two of the bathrooms could use updating . large city hall two bedroom 1 , 275 , 000 manhattan 176 broadway , 5d ( at maiden lane ) an 1 , 800 square_foot , two bedroom , two bath co op loft . michael rauschenberg or michael raab , the corcoran group ( 917 ) 670 3904 or ( 646 ) 732 5500 www . corcoran . com maintenance 1 , 567 pros a huge open living space , large enough for suburban sized furniture , can even accommodate a pool table . the kitchen is a wide u shape with stainless_steel appliances and rows of cabinets . a dressing area in the master bedroom has one walk in and five other closets . pets are fine , basement storage is free and the laundry room is on this floor . cons buyers will need to have a dedicated fund for light_bulbs bulbs for recessed fixtures , track lights , sconces , overheads , task lights , lamps because the living space and kitchen do not have any windows . there are windows in each bedroom .",has a topic of estate
"work will begin in december on the conversion of the landmark loft building at 35 west 19th street in manhattan to five luxury rental_apartments . the renovation of the six story structure will create 1 , 900 square_foot , two bedroom , full floor apartments the ground floor will be commercial space . the property is owned and is being developed by mkf realty company of manhattan . dominick maiellaro , a vice_president at platt white of manhattan , the architects and construction managers for the project , said that the black cast_iron facade of the 100 year old building would be restored to its original condition and conform to the requirements of the new york city landmarks preservationcommission . "" the developer brought the buildings up to standard in order to collect rents under the intermediate dwelling law , "" mr . maiellaro said . the current residents of the building , artists not paying rent , will be given the first opportunity to rent the renovated apartments . rents will range from 900 to 2 , 000 a month , depending on tenure . the renovation is expected to be completed by next summer .",has a topic of estate
"mills house no . 1 , opened in 1897 on bleecker_street between sullivan and thompson streets , set a standard for clean and sanitary accommodation for the poor and working classes that may never be matched , sheltering thousands who might otherwise have become tramps . converted to apartments in the 70 's , the light , airy building has been at the center of a long legal dispute that has left most of the ground floor stores empty . lately the poor have returned to bleecker_street , to sleep along the long , barren retail frontage , but a sale on oct . 28 week will again force their migration . darius ogden mills , a banker and philanthropist who lived on fifth avenue , sought to improve the housing situation in new york . between 1897 and 1904 he built three single_room_occupancy hotels in an effort to create an alternative to existing housing options . the first and largest of these , the 11 story mills house no . 1 , was built in 1897 at a cost of 1 . 25 million . it was designed by ernest flagg . trained at the ecole des beaux arts in paris , flagg was interested in fireproof construction , daylight , ventilation and housing policy . for the full blockfront site millsproduced a tall , light colored building with two 50 by 50 foot courtyards , 100 feet high , topped by giant glass skylights . the 1 , 560 rooms were almost all 5 by 7 feet , with either a glazed window facing the street or a screen window facing the courtyard . the lacy iron bracketing of the deep copper cornice is a typical flagg touch . each room had an iron bedstead , a hair mattress and pillow , a feather pillow , a chair and a clothes rack there was no room for anything else . the walls stopped about a foot short of the ceilings , apparently to assure good ventilation . on each floor four toilets and six basins served 182 men , with the main bathrooms on the ground floor . a writer for the magazine municipal affairs expressed astonished approval that more than 300 men showered every day . in 1897 the new york tribune quoted mills as to his goal to help others not with charity , but "" in a strictly business way , without offending the pride or praiseworthy independence of those i serve . "" the charge was 20 cents a night , with meals costing an average of 10 to 15 cents a day , perhaps half the rate of a decent boarding_house . the charge included the use of a network of lounging rooms keeping the working man away from pool halls , saloons and worse was a favorite goal for victorian reformers . although the hotel was planned for people of limited means , its quality attracted those from all income levels . the 1900 census taker found clerks , cashiers , janitors , coachmen , laborers , porters , waiters , one acrobat and a doctor , a lawyer and a stockbroker among the residents . a reporter for the new york tribune in 1899 also found a man who would not give his name but was called by others "" old solitaire "" because he played cards by himself in a lounge every night without a word to anyone else . the man sold collar buttons on the sidewalk on lower broadway , buying them by the gross for 1 1 2 cents each and selling them for 5 cents . mills , who died in 1910 , built two other hotels , at christie and rivington streets and at seventh_avenue and 36th_street a family trust operated the buildings until the 40 's , when they became conventional hotels . the landmarks_preservation_commission considered landmark_designation for mills house no . 1 in 1967 but backed off when the owner 's lawyer , james h . powell , protested , noting that the hotel charged 10 a week and was occupied by "" the most unfortunate members of society . "" in the 70 's the building was reconstructed as an apartment house , although the airy courtyards and much of the exterior detailing survived . the residential portion of the building was converted to a co op in the mid 80 's , with the stores held by a separate entity . according to the residents' attorney , robert anesi , the original sponsor kept 106 of the 189 units but fell behind on maintenance payments in the late 80 's . this caused the co op itself to fall behind in mortgage payments , and in 1990 the lincoln savings bank began foreclosure proceedings . at the same time the owner of the stores went into bankruptcy , and the stores gradually emptied . the village gate , the historic jazz nightspot that opened in 1958 , closed this summer and now only a deli remains in business . lisa goldberg , residential chairwoman of the bleecker area merchant and resident association , says that the swath of closed stores there were half a dozen hurt the area and that the homeless now occupy the doorways of the empty stores . it appears that they will soon have to move on . david scherl , a lawyer for the stillman organization ltd . , said last week that his group had bought the store units and would now seek "" top quality tenants "" for what he saw as "" a special location with an interesting history . "" as for the apartments upstairs , mr . anesi says that the residents are trying to work out new financing for their 4 . 4 million mortgage and he predicts "" we will save the cooperative . """,has a topic of estate
"an article last sunday about living in cortlandt_manor , n.y. , misstated the price of a two bedroom apartment in the wild birch farms condominium . recent prices have averaged 297 , 500 , not 160 , 000 .",has a topic of estate
"there are certain risks inherent in buying a house . finding a tombstone in the cellar is n't normally one of them . in watertown , two couples who went in together to buy a 249 year old farmhouse and its 23 1 2 acres of land , with plans to tear the house down and build new ones on the property , soon discovered there was a mystery in their basement a tombstone dating from 1802 was cemented into the floor and state law blocked them from doing anything to the house as long as a body was underneath . at first , the couples thought it was a joke . when they bought the property , they had n't bothered to go into the basement . there was no electricity and the basement was dark . ''we did n't really care what the house looked like , '' cristina francisco , one of the buyers , explained , ''because we planned to tear it down . '' they found out when they applied to mary greene , the zoning enforcement officer , for approval to demolish the house . ''she said o.k. , but then she asked us what we would do about the tombstone in the basement , '' mrs . francisco said . ''that was the first we had heard about it . we asked if she was kidding ? she said no . '' armando and dunia rodrigues , pedro francisco , his cousin , and mrs . francisco , bought the property on nova_scotia hill road in mid july . they had to post a sign informing citizens of the impending demolition for at least 30 days and then allow anyone who believed the structure had historic value to file objections . the ramshackle farmhouse , dating to about 1750 , was found to have no historic value , but susan zuraitis , a member of the zuraitis family who sold the property , called florence crowell , watertown 's historian , in august and informed her that a farmhand was buried in the basement . the farmhand was levi peck , who was born in 1748 and died in 1802 . according to records , his entire estate , valued at 9 . 15 , was distributed in april 1803 . items included glass bottles , earthen pots , spoons , a bible , a saddle and several chairs . how he might have ended up in the basement is unclear . although nicholas bellantoni , the state archeologist , said that while finding bodies in the basement was rare , bodies had turned up in odd places . ''we 've found tombstones in people 's patios , '' he said . four years ago in danbury , mr . bellantoni said a work crew cutting a trench near main_street turned up a cast_iron casket dating to 1870 . after some research , he narrowed it down to belonging to one of two men . ''the body was sealed in a metal coffin and was well preserved , '' mr . bellantoni explained . ''charles ryder and henry taylor both died about the same time . both had been in st . james episcopal_church cemetery . in 1934 35 , the church had a court order to excavate , give the land over to school development , and move the graveyard to wooster street . i guess they missed this one . '' an exact identification was never made . in new london , where the third burial ground was established from 1835 to 1890 , relatives were later asked to retrieve their loved ones' bodies and move them to cedar grove . some relatives responded and some did n't . ''in every building project there , bodies have come up , '' mr . bellantoni said . real_estate law requires sellers to disclose material facts things like leaky roofs and toxic_waste . they are not bound to tell buyers about things that might have happened on the property that could ' 'spook'' potential owners . sellers are also required to sign a title_insurance affidavit to disclose other things that might not appear in a title search , such as whether a cemetery or family burial ground is on the site . joseph diblasi , the real_estate agent who represented the owner of the watertown property , alice zuraitis , would not say if he knew about the tombstone . mrs . zuraitis , who had lived in the house with her husband , joe , until his death two years ago , never believed a body was under the stone . ''i just think someone made that up , '' mrs . zuraitis said . ''she thought it was a joke , '' mrs . crowell explained . ''she told the grandchildren she 'd send them to the basement to levi if they did n't behave . '' a mother and sister , judy , of joe zuraitis also used to claim that the house was haunted . ''the story was that someone used to come in and kiss judy good night , '' mrs . crowell added . joke or no joke , before the couples could go ahead with the demolition of the house , they had to find out if levi was indeed in their basement . state statutes prevented them from disturbing any human remains without first notifying the chief medical_examiner and state archeologist . mr . bellantoni , the state archeologist , came to the house to conduct ground penetrating radar tests in the third week of august . when he got indications that there was something under the cellar floor , the next step was to start digging . so on the foggy , overcast morning in late august that mr . bellantoni arrived to dig up the tombstone , about 20 people were huddled in the cramped basement to watch . ''there 's no such thing as ghosts . i know that for a fact , '' said mr . rodrigues , a cement worker who used his jackhammer and pry bar to break the gravestone loose and pry it from the cellar floor . maybe so , but when the gas powered generator failed , leaving the cellar in darkness , everyone got out of there and moved into the backyard until the generator was fixed . mrs . crowell came armed with her research and the belief that the middle of the cellar floor was a strange place for a tombstone . ''i had the feeling they would 've gone in the corner to bury him , '' she said . the fact that levi peck existed was demonstrated by mrs . crowell 's research . the census , which has been taken every 10 years since 1790 , listed a levi peck in litchfield that year , with three males under 16 and eight females in the home . he appears again in the 1800 census , but not in the 1810 census . mr . peck apparently died , if the tombstone is accurate , in 1802 . mrs . crowell took her research to the mormon genealogical library in salt_lake_city where they had records of a levi peck born june 23 , 1748 , in litchfield . further records indicated that land , belonging to heirs of mr . peck , was sold nov . 16 , 1802 , to a john parker . however , even with all these details , there is no record of where levi peck is buried . mrs . crowell joined the crowd for the excavation , believing that levi peck 's body was n't there , but knowing full well that it was n't unusual to bury a body in the cellar during winter or inclement weather , disinterring it later for a proper burial . ''like many other families they could have had their own private cemetery , out back of the house , '' mrs . crowell said . ''there was a bryan family cemetery in watertown once and all the stones were removed to pave a basement . i do n't know how many other cemeteries have just disappeared . '' mr . bellantoni knew that the radar could have hit rocks or a coffin that was no longer intact . once mr . rodrigues lifted up the gravestone and loosened up the hard packed soil , mr . bellantoni and his assistants set to work sifting through layers of dirt . they dug down three feet and found nothing but dirt and rock . ''it was hard packed glacial soils , never disturbed , '' mr . bellantoni said . ''i can look at feature stains which are indicative of burial shafts . that kind of activity would change the soil color and this was completely intact strata . ''levi is simply not in that basement , '' mr . bellantoni said . ''he 's probably in watertown , maybe in an old grave , with no marker . we 've seen lots of gravestones in strange places before . also , this stone says he was 55 years old , but he was actually 53 , and there was a quarry nearby the farmhouse . this gravestone could have been a reject that ended up in the basement . '' the dig did turn up a section of iron_ore , perhaps what had shown up on the radar , but even a metal_detector turned up not so much as a coffin nail . so just where exactly levi peck is resting is still unknown , although his tombstone is now on display at the watertown historical society museum . now that it 's clear that he 's not in the basement , the couples are free to tear down the house . mrs . francisco said that if she buys property again , she plans to be more careful . ''now my attorney is buying property in watertown , '' she said , ''and i told him to be sure and look in the basement , too . ''",has a topic of estate
"with more and more space flooding into an already glutted london office market , many of the age old british leasing practices that heavily favored the landlord over the tenant are finally starting to crumble . as a consequence , commercial tenants will no longer have to sign up for a minimum of 25 years . nor will they have to assume full responsibility for repairs during the lease period , although they may still be responsible for paying the property_taxes . such terms , which used to make leasing space in london so burdensome , grew to be the norm following decades of shortages caused , in part , by highly restrictive planning and zoning regulations . "" it was more like a feudal system than a normal business relationship , "" said geoffrey marsh , managing director of applied property research , a statistical service that monitors central_london real_estate . the easing of those regulations by the thatcher_government followed by the 80 's construction binge ended all that . today , the oversupply and thus the rise of tenant power has been further enhanced by shrinking demand , intensified by the fact that so many companies who might have otherwise moved are still locked into top priced , 25 year leases signed as recently as five years ago . the situation locks even interested players in place , since finding a subtenant at anywhere near the same price is tantamount to impossible . thus , an unprecedented 40 million square_feet is available for rent in the central_london , which comprises the city , the west_end and the docklands , reports ralph pearson , a director of chestertons , a local property brokerage . this represents an overall vacancy_rate of around 18 percent , rising to 25 percent in the city where modern office towers many still empty stand in close encounters of the most jarring kind with the noble architecture of robert adam , john nash and sir christopher wren . as a consequence , asking prices per square_foot in central_london , which had been among the highest in europe , have become far more competitive , down about 40 percent from a peak of about 125 in 1988 to around 65 today , and still falling , say brokers . even this disguises the true extent of the problem , they say , because deals are being struck for as much as 20 percent less , made even lower by free rent concessions ranging from several months to two years . further concessions are being won in the form of caps on the cost of repairs . and though , on paper , the 25 year lease remains the norm , break clauses at five year intervals are increasingly common . "" the tenant has become king , "" said david beales , a property partner with slaughter and may , a firm of london lawyers specializing in commercial leasing . so far , however , the relaxation is proving as ineffectual in improving demand as is the recent drop in interest rates in the united_states . one manifestation of the extent and intractable nature of the gridlock was a decision in march by the westminster council to ban the hundreds of large "" to let "" signs littering the facades along some of the great historic streetscapes , as though london itself had been humbled into holding a giant going out of business sale . these billboards had become ignoble symbols of the wider economic woes facing britain today , showing up in newspaper cartoons and even theatrical productions as the icons that best depicted the despair of the 1990 's . ironically , it was the prevailing 25 year lease , seemingly as immutable as the monarchy , that at the height of the 80 's led to the current oversupply , recall brokers , drawing the international investment community interested in the emerging european_community from competing commercial centers such as paris , brussels and frankfurt . investors from abu_dhabi , for instance , completed one knightsbridge , a_7 story , 141 , 000 square_foot structure facing hyde_park in september 1991 . itis still empty . a dutch company built henrietta house near oxford street , a 9 story , 96 , 000 square_foot building that is nearing_completion and has yet to sign up a tenant . further compounding the problem was the added money pumped into property following the deregulation of the british financial markets in 1987 . at the time , many of the great financial houses of the world rushed to seek a presence in the city . they welcomed the chance to finance lavish office towers for themselves with extra space left over for speculation , said colin hargreaves , the partner in charge of city leasing for healey baker , another firm of london property brokers , in an interview in his offices in austin friars , a dickensian alley near the bank of england . it turned out to be the worst of investments . many of these branch offices have since contracted or disappeared from london . meanwhile , some of those projects are only now reaching completion , worsening the glut . a further depressant has been canary_wharf , the vast office development going up in east_london . olympia york , its canadian developers , is in bankruptcy and the best of its anticipated anchor tenants , like the american_express_company and texaco , are pulling out for fear of being left in a ghost_town . thus anyone in a position to make a move faces opportunities this summer that could n't be finer . coca_cola , for example , has just taken 80 , 000 square_feet of brand new space for its british headquarters in hammersmith at the western end of central_london , consolidating operations out of three different locations . jonathan bekenn , financial director for united_kingdom operations , said that since it was a major user and a high profile tenant , the developer was willing to purchase lease obligations at one of its former and largest sites . moreover , coca_cola was able to bypass a traditional commercial lease entirely by "" buying "" a 185 year occupancy agreement that gives it , in effect , ownership of the property . "" it was an incredible deal , "" he said , noting that the location was also highly desirable , midway between the fashionable neighborhoods of mayfair and st . james and the airport . a hammersmith location is also being sought by the british division of the walt disney company which has been expanding into shops and consumer products over here , too . interestingly , both coca_cola and disney refused to consider any of the vacant space in the city or the docklands , despite fire sale terms , because so many of their employees live in the western suburbs , which would have created a commuting nightmare . it 's been a bonanza , too , for smaller firms moving into the area . consider the experience of dimensional fund advisors of santa_monica , calif . last fall , while seeking to establish a london branch for its emerging european investments , it was able to afford the cachet of an address in mayfair . deborah ferris , administrator of its london office , said it had also decided that a city location , though more appropriate , was out of the question because of commuting difficulties . further , its visiting american institutional clients tend to stay in mayfair hotels . it now has a_10 year lease on 2 , 000 square_feet in fashionable berkeley street with a 5 year break clause . the details were not revealed . but brokers say it 's probably costing around 45 a square_foot . "" everything could n't have been easier , "" said deborah ferris , administrator of the london office . "" we even got it all fitted out without any delay . """,has a topic of estate
"in the early 1970 's , when ranne warner and her husband , ray , lived in new york city , they were among the very few to call tribeca their home . far from the chi chi , coveted enclave it is today , back then the neighborhood was all but deserted an area of artist studios , warehouses and manufacturers . by the mid 1970 's , the couple had moved to boston , where ms . warner pursued an m.b.a . at harvard and a career as a real_estate developer . she and her husband , an architect , renovated town houses in boston , and starting in 1980 , she developed commercial property . in 1995 , the warners moved from their beacon_hill town house , where they were raising their son , to suburban lexington , mass . but they never gave up their dream of once again living in a loft , surrounded by a vibrant creative community . ''my idea was that i would find a great building and get all of my friends , many of whom are artists of one sort or another , to come and we could all live together , '' ms . warner said . ''would n't that be fun ! '' in 2000 , she began to search for a mill in boston to convert into residential space . but there were none to be found . so when , in november 2001 , a business acquaintance suggested that she check out a 100 , 000 square_foot mill in pawtucket that sits on the banks of the blackstone river , she jumped . ''it was love at first sight , '' despite the fact that , she recalls , ''the windows were either boarded up or covered with plaster , and the fire escape was so rusted and unsound that it looked as if it was about to fall off . '' ''nonetheless , '' she said , ''it was beautiful . i call the building one large window surrounded by bricks . it was in excellent structural condition . i could just see what an amazing space it could be . '' following her instincts , in early 2001 ms . warner agreed to buy the building for 550 , 000 , and her husband helped with the redesign . she has since named it riverfront lofts . by then , she was committed not only to the mill but to the city of pawtucket , which dates back to 1793 , when john slater built the country 's first cotton processing mill . ( the slater mill , which sits across the blackstone river from the riverfront lofts , is now a museum and historic_landmark . ) pawtucket flourished in the 19th and early 20th centuries , but by the 1960 's the mills began to close down . by the mid 1990 's , pawtucket was known as the home of the minor_league team for the boston_red_sox , the rhode_island department_of_motor_vehicles and not much else . ''we had kind of a dormant , moribund type of city here , '' said james doyle , the mayor of pawtucket . ms . warner agreed that pawtucket had a bad reputation . ''everybody called it 'the bucket . ''' but she saw magic in the city 's raw_material , which includes a prime location along the interstate_95 corridor , 45 minutes from boston and 10 minutes from providence . ''this was a very wealthy city in the 19th and early 20th centuries , '' she said . ''during that time , the mill owners built very beautiful buildings the mills , the library , the armory , the y.m.c.a. , the city hall , the churches and post_office . '' ms . warner was also attracted to pawtucket 's commitment to the arts . in 1998 , the city created a 307 acre arts and entertainment district , with tax incentives for artists either living or working in downtown . ''we have latched on to the artist community and embraced them and brought them in as fast as we can , '' mayor doyle said . ''and the best way to describe it is that it has started a kind of renaissance . '' that may be , but in 2001 the banks that ms . warner approached for construction loans to finance her 15 million renovation were skittish . before one bank would give her loans for the riverfront lofts , with 60 condominiums , it required that she first have commitments from buyers worth 4 million . by the time she closed on the loan , she had 18 units signed for , with a value of 4 . 46 million . ''buyers had to commit to purchasing the units before any construction was started or even final finishes were selected , '' she said . those buyers definitely had vision . ''we arrived at riverfront and the place was a disaster , '' says dr . steven cohen , a surgeon who lived in providence with his family for more than 30 years and was one of the early buyers to commit to riverfront . ''there were holes in the windows , holes in the floor , pigeons flying through the building , '' he said . ''it was just disgusting . but we fell in love with it . '' his wife , linda cohen , said , ''there was nothing good about it except it was a fabulous building , next to a fabulous river , next to a gorgeous stone bridge . it sounds so absurd that we are talking about depressed , blue_collar pawtucket . our friends were appalled that we would move to pawtucket . they thought we had taken leave of our senses . '' another buyer remembers how he first heard about the lofts . ''i was having brunch with a friend who told me about the riverfront project , and i said , 'no way am i moving to pawtucket , ''' said brian w . casey , an assistant provost at brown_university . ''then i saw this absolutely beautiful building . it has this sort of gravitas about it . '' buyers like mr . casey and the cohens were also attracted to the price . units at riverfront lofts go for 190 to 215 a square_foot , versus 265 to 300 in providence and 500 to 600 in downtown boston . to date , ms . warner has sold 51 units . the buyers are coming from all over boston and its suburbs new york city nantucket , mass . arizona oregon san_francisco long_island tennessee and st . louis . and , as ms . warner had envisioned , all but a few are actively involved in the arts . owners include architects , painters , sculptors , designers and writers . meanwhile , things continue to look up for pawtucket . currently , according to herbert weiss , pawtucket 's economic and cultural affairs officer , 684 , 027 square_feet of mills and commercial buildings are being used as studios , live work lofts and performance space . fueled by the success of the riverfront lofts , another project , the bayley lofts , is well under way , with plans for 25 residential loft units . ''pawtucket feels a little bit like a frontier , and ranne paved the way for us , '' said peter gill case , one of the developers of the bayley lofts . ''we had no trouble getting the banks to finance us . at first , people had cold_feet , but ranne warmed their toes . she blazed the trail . '' mayor doyle agreed . ''ranne is kind of the daniel boone of the area , '' he said . ''her project has been the watershed in major residential development here . she has improved the economic climate of the city . '' and she ca n't wait to call pawtucket her home . the warners plan to move into their 4 , 700 square_foot space at the riverfront lofts this summer . ''we are thrilled to go back to loft living , '' she said . ''it feels like we have come full circle in our lives . '' national perspectives",has a topic of estate
"until recently , a tenant that wanted to buy its way out of a lease was pretty much out of luck . with prime real_estate going begging throughout the recession ravaged city and with financially troubled tenants demonstrating a tendency to default on their rents few landlords would let reliable bill payers out of their lease obligations . the few that did asked such high prepayment penalties that tenants went scurrying after sublessees anyway . times are changing . as the real_estate market continues to firm up , more and more landlords are letting tenants out of leases , for as little as half their remaining obligation . in fact , many actually welcome the chance to accommodate new tenants who are likely to stay well beyond the original tenant 's lease expiration_date . and many welcome even more the opportunity to combine the departing tenant 's space with other space in the building to create a larger , and thus more marketable , block of contiguous floors . "" lease buyouts are a classic win win situation , "" said robert constable , a managing director at the real_estate firm edward s . gordon . "" the tenant gets to avoid risk and consolidate its balance_sheet and the landlord reduces downtime between tenants . "" examples abound . the cigna insurance_company had two years left on a floor at 1185 avenue of the americas , at 47th_street . w m properties , the building 's manager , was having no luck renting the vacant floor below cigna . so anthony e . malkin , w m 's president , let cigna buy its way out of its lease and began marketing the two floors together . "" we actually had two tenants compete for the two floor block , "" mr . malkin said . gerald w . griffin , a partner at cooper dunham , helped get the two floors for his law_firm . mr . malkin , who has done several lease buy out deals at w m properties in stamford , conn . , wants to do more at 1185 . he will probably take back cigna 's remaining floor , as well as a floor from another tenant that wants to give up space , and again market them as a two floor block . management at 199 water street , near fulton_street , went through similar maneuvers to attract the big news_agency reuters . it let lloyds_bank buy its way out of 30 , 000 square_feet , even though lloyds was paying more than 50 a square_foot and had 10 years left on the lease . the reason reuters was looking for 90 , 000 square_feet and the building had only 60 , 000 square_feet to give it . "" if reuters had n't been in the wings , lloyds would still be looking to sublet , "" said mr . constable , who represented lloyds . sometimes a departing tenant has enough space on its own to make a lease buyout palatable . quantum chemical , which had two years left on a lease for 72 , 000 square_feet at 99 park_avenue , at 40th street , was making no bones about its plans to move to cincinnati . "" it seemed a good time to find a credit worthy , long term tenant , "" said bruce mosler , a vice chairman at galbreath riverbank , who handles the building 's leasing . he let quantum out of its obligations for half of what its remaining cost would have been and rented the space to r.r . donnelly , the printing firm , for 15 years . not everyone is enamored of the buyout concept . many tenants either do not have the cash to make a large upfront payment or do n't want to confront their shareholders or boards with that prospect . some landlords are equally reluctant to confront their lenders or investors with deals that terminate a stable source of cash_flow . "" i have a fiduciary responsiblity to get every dime of cash_flow i can get , "" said joseph t . wright , a senior vice_president of jmb realty , which manages 1211 avenue of the americas , at 47th_street . indeed , most tenants whose leases are winding down now are paying above market rents . yet most landlords believe manhattan rents are creeping up again . many cannot see the logic of letting a tenant who is paying , say , 40 a square_foot in a building that commands no more than 30 now , end its lease when chances are good that , when the lease term ends , the space can be rented out for more than it can be today . moreover , by waiting , they can also put off paying for tenant improvements , broker 's commissions and other costs of doing a deal . "" i'm still better off getting cash_flow now and putting off new deals until concession packages are down and rents are up , "" said caleb d . koeppel , vice chairman of koeppel tener real_estate services , which manages 26 broadway , at beaver street , and 575 lexington_avenue , near 51st street . still , arguments for buying space back seem to outnumber those against . tenants with a few years left on a lease have little chance of subletting . those with a more marketable term often do not want the headache of being a sublessee 's landlord or the risk of having the sublessee default . and commissions and tenant improvements can be as costly in a sublet deal as they are when a landlord is renting space direct . sometimes tenants can even spread out the cost of buying out their lease . mitsui fudosan , which owns 1251 avenue of the americas , at 49th_street , took back 226 , 000 square_feet under lease to coopers_lybrand , the accounting firm , to provide kidder peabody with the 350 , 000 square_feet it wanted . no cash changed hands the japanese owner sublet back much of the accounting firm 's space , thus reducing the rent paid rather than exacting a lump payout . one reason mitsui was so agreeable kidder is paying several dollars a square_foot more in rent than coopers was paying . no one involved would say whether mitsui took a large profit or whether it gave the departing tenant a deal on a sublet . barry gosin , the newmark company chief executive who handles the building 's leasing , said simply , "" it was a winning situation all around . "" generally , landlords try hard to hide from existing tenants the fact that they need the space for another deal . tenants , for their part , like to pretend they have sublessees ready to move in . whoever 's bluff gets called generally bears the lion 's share of the costs . mr . wright recalls one tenant at his building who paid dearly to get out of the six years left on its lease . less than a month later , jmb had rerented the space . "" the first tenant did not realize i already had another tenant on my arm , so we got a real home_run deal , "" mr . wright said . many landlords are settling for single base deals as well . those with a disturbing number of leases rolling over at the same time often want to write a new lease in an off year , thus easing the risk of sudden high vacancies . others want to appear to be actively seeking deals . ( "" brokers who see you as proactive will ask if you can make space available , rather than just rely on what you 're actively marketing , "" mr . malkin noted . ) . and some owners just do n't like to gamble . after all , no one can be sure that a new tenant will show up when an existing lease runs out . as for rising rents well , everyone knows what happened to hapless owners in the mid 80 's who gambled that the real_estate boom would last forever . in fact , some of the more conservative owners are letting tenants buy out of some space in exchange for agreeing to stay longer in the space that remains . james b . frederick , a principal at colliers abr , recently represented a tenant that wanted to shed 10 , 000 of its 70 , 000 square_feet . the tenant 's space was on low floors that the owner knew he would have trouble re renting . so he let the tenant turn back the small fraction of space , in return for extending its lease for an extra five years on the remainder . "" the owner felt that keeping a large credit worthy ) tenant in the building 's base would add to the building 's financial stability , "" mr . frederick recalled . sometimes landlords will agree to lease buyouts because it lets them remeasure the space . first city securities , a financial_services firm , had three years left on a lease for what , 12 years ago , had been rented as a 6 , 450 square_foot floor at 767 third avenue , at 48th_street . since then the owner had remeasured the building and is now renting the floors at 6 , 850 square_feet . he found a new tenant for the "" larger "" floor , and let first city buy out for what came to about 60 percent of its remaining obligation . "" the change in the way the space was measured , combined with the strengthening market , made the deal work , "" said mr . frederick , who represented first city . chances are that , as the market continues to strengthen , landlords will need fewer and fewer extenuating_circumstances to agree to lease buyouts . in fact , some are even considering letting existing tenants out of leases before new tenants show up . "" two years ago i would have needed a new tenant 's signed lease in hand before i 'd even consider letting an old tenant off the hook , "" said peter di capua , a senior vice_president at atco corporation , which manages several manhattan buildings . "" in this market i 'm more likely to bet on the come . """,has a topic of estate
"lead to the editor to the editor i am writing to comment on christopher gray 's ''time erodes unity of a 1 , 665 unit city within a city'' on oct . 30 , which focused on the 60 year history of london terrace , chelsea 's largest apartment complex . he outlines its ownership complexity while concluding that recent facade maintenance has improved the building 's general appearance . i take exception to his approval of the new replacement windows . as a chelsea resident , i have many times walked the perimeter of london terrace and enjoyed the tension of its design its ability to be both massive and picturesque at once . unfortunately , the original multipaned windows , an important ingredient of its current charm , are now being replaced by large single paned casements of the kind common to modern suburban homes . no doubt the new windows meet certain economic and energy requirements , but they hardly warrant mr . gray 's measured endorsement of the improved facades as''fresh and spiffy . '' with or without their interior clip in grids ( meant to resemble muntins ) the new windows are insensitive to the architectural unity of the original facade . special as it is , london terrace is not high on the priority list of historic buildings warranting protection . ironically , it was built at the expense of another group of landmark buildings , dating back to 1845 , which previously occupied the same site . these residences , with their stripped down greek_revival facades and expansive front lawns and gardens , were a draw for tourists as well as something of an artist 's colony . in 1988 , we tend to question more frequently buildings destroyed or disfigured in the name of progress . the current exterior work on london terrace should be given a second look . pamela belyea manhattan",has a topic of estate
"a 110 , 000 square_foot building in new rochelle , n.y. , next to the new roc city entertainment complex , has been reconfigured from office space to luxury rentals . the decision to change the use of the building , known as summit at new roc , came after an unsuccessful two year effort by its owner , cappelli enterprises , to find a single commercial tenant for the four floor structure above a six story parking_garage . joseph v . apicella , a vice_president of cappelli , which is based in valhalla , n.y. , and also developed new roc city , said that market_research , along with data from avalonbay communities , a real_estate_investment_trust that has built 500 luxury rental_units in new rochelle and is planning to build more , indicated the need for more luxury rentals . because summit at new roc was originally designed as an office complex , it features apartments with 11 foot high ceilings and hallways wider than usually found in apartment buildings , mr . apicella said . the units , 70 percent of which look out on long_island_sound , range from a 402 square_foot studio to a 1 , 835 square_foot , 2 bedroom , 2 1 2 bath apartment . monthly rents range from 975 for a studio to 5 , 000 for a 1 , 166 foot two bedroom penthouse . sharon hart , executive vice_president of cappelli 's multifamily division , said that a third of the 50 units already finished had been rented .",has a topic of estate
"lead in heightened efforts to prevent overdevelopment and to preserve the character of suburban communities , several nassau_county municipalities have recently revised their zoning codes , and in most cases , the amendments provide more restrictive requirements for single family homes , two family housing , parking_lots and building heights . in heightened efforts to prevent overdevelopment and to preserve the character of suburban communities , several nassau_county municipalities have recently revised their zoning codes , and in most cases , the amendments provide more restrictive requirements for single family homes , two family housing , parking_lots and building heights . on jan . 11 , the four member rockville_centre village board unanimously_approved a revision of its zoning code . a village trustee , jeffrey greenfield , said that under the new amendments , the minimum lot size for single family houses was increased to 8 , 000 square_feet , from 6 , 000 square_feet , with a garage now required . tighter restrictions for two family houses include a minimum lot size of 9 , 000 square_feet , a two car garage and four parking_spaces . the maximum height for any new commercial building was lowered a full story , from 72 feet to 60 feet for high business areas and from 60 to 48 feet for lighter business areas . in addition , business must now provide one parking space for every 250 square_feet of office space . ''this was the first major rewrite of our zoning code since 1941 , '' said mr . greenfield . ''we wanted to rewrite the entire code , but there was too much controversy within the community so in order to satisfy the residents , we decided to focus on the most important points . it was vital , in order to protect the residential character of rockville_centre . '' minimum lot size has been a major concern in village development , said another trustee , eugene yourch . rockville_centre has many oversized homes on large lots , he said . ''we 've seen outside developers and speculators buy a lot , then knock down one house in order to build two or three in its place , '' he said . ''residents wanted to stop this policy . what if a builder took down 20 houses , and put up 35 ? it would destroy the character of our community . '' the community supported the zoning revisions , said mr . yourch . the concerns of several residents who have side yards on which they had planned to subdivide and build on were addressed by a provision that the zoning board of appeals could approve such construction if it was consistent with the flavor of the specific neighborhood . ''in essence , we are saving property values and preserving the community , '' mr . yourch said . the zoning revisions are directed against land speculators and profiteers , said mr . greenfield . the southside civic_association of rockville_centre , concerned with the increasing development in the village , supported the zoning revision . ''people bought their homes in the suburbs so as not to be closed in , '' said the president of the association , ray ventura . ''we 're trying to avoid sandwiching in homes between others . we do n't want to see a queensification of this village . '' zoning restrictions will go into effect 30 days after the board 's approval . in a similar action , the hempstead town board voted jan . 12 to amend its zoning code . a town spokesman , anthony santino , said the changes , effective immediately , would limit the number of homes that could be developed on each parcel of land . single family homes will require 6 , 000 square_feet , with a minimum street frontage of 60 feet , increased from 40 . ''the town is trying to eliminate shoehorn or spot developing , and thereby preventing crowding , '' mr . santino said . a complete revision of the 1982 zoning code of valley_stream was recently submitted to the nassau_county planning commission . a series of public meetings was held , and the response was positive , said the village attorney , michael hopkins . highlights of the valley_stream zoning revision include contraction of its commercial district , expansion of its residential district and requiring building heights to be lowered and lot coverage reduced from 90 percent to 75 percent . ''reducing the percentage of lot coverage is especially important for areas where residential and commercial zones abut , '' mr . hopkins said . ''it provides a buffer state between them , stabilizes these blocks and prevents intensification of use . '' in the city of long_beach , sweeping changes in zoning were enacted last summer . ''the city_council and residents were on the same side to get a hold on development and protect the quality of life , '' said the long_beach supervisor , bruce nyman . ''the only opposition came from developers . '' zoning amendments lowered the heights of high rise buildings along the shoreline , increased minimum lot sizes for residential homes and off street parking requirements for multiple dwellings in shorefront and residential areas . zoning changes in several other municipalities lynbrook , old westbury , freeport , great_neck , and designated areas of unincorporated villages in the towns of north hempstead and oyster bay have been primarily the result of concern over the splitting of lots , said donald lister , planner with the nassau_county planning commission . most of the zoning revisions have increased the size of lots and frontages , he said . but housing advocates have expressed concern that increasing lot size would have a negative effect on affordable_housing . ''high density housing is not necessarily incompatible with the suburban quality of life on long_island , '' said jim morgo , president of long_island housing partnership inc . , which promotes establishing more affordable_housing . if a municipality revises its zoning code without providing an affordable_housing plan , it is not making sufficient housing available for the many young couples who are trying to buy homes on long_island , he said . but if the municipality enforces zoning amendments and makes plans in other parts of the community for high density housing , then it would create a more realistic balance . mr . morgo said it was possible to have high density housing , especially cluster zoning , and keep the nature of open space . cluster zoning provides for putting four or five housing units on an acre and keeping the several surrounding acres open . the five houses , which might be attached , have their own front yards but share a rear lot . ''if a builder can put more units in a smaller area , costs can be kept down , '' said mr . morgo . ''this type of housing is compatible with suburban , even rural , settings . '' ''what is needed is a balance , '' he said . ''intelligent long range planning will bring about a balance that will create affordable_housing and still retain the suburban nature of our two counties . '' the deputy director of the nassau_county planning commission , jack follis , said the size of single family lots was not related to the issue of affordable_housing . ''irrespective of the size of the lot , we 're still putting expensive houses on it , '' he said . ''when we talk about affordable_housing , i ask affordable for whom ? everything is relative . ''",has a topic of estate
"lead closings in the week ending may 28 manhattan clinton 307 , 500 344 west 38th street 1 bedroom , 1 bath , 1 , 700 sq . ft . postwar co op large dining_area , hardwood floors , hudson_river view maintenance 650 , no tax_deduction ( broker sinvin realty ) greenwich_village closings in the week ending may 28 manhattan clinton 307 , 500 344 west 38th street 1 bedroom , 1 bath , 1 , 700 sq . ft . postwar co op large dining_area , hardwood floors , hudson_river view maintenance 650 , no tax_deduction ( broker sinvin realty ) greenwich_village 169 , 000 81 bedford street 1 bedroom , 1 bath , 550 sq . ft . postwar co op windowed_kitchen , hardwood floors , 125 sq . ft . terrace maintenance 342 , 67 tax deductible ( broker thompson realty ) murray_hill 143 , 000 132 east 35th street ( murray_hill house ) 1 bedroom , 1 bath , 575 sq . ft . postwar co op 24 hr . doorman , concierge , dining_area , roof_deck maintenance 490 , 48 tax deductible ( broker a.j . clark ) upper east side 178 , 000 370 east 76th street ( newport east ) 1 bedroom , 1 bath , 700 sq . ft . postwar co op 24 hr . doorman , dining_area , pool , new kitchen_appliances maintenance 457 , 45 tax deductible ( broker_bellmarc_realty ) upper east side 345 , 000 515 east_79th_street ( asten house ) 1 bedroom , 2 bath , postwar co op 24 hr . doorman , concierge , dining_room , terrace , east_river view maintenance 780 , 58 tax deductible ( broker sulzberger rolfe ) upper west side 660 , 000 60 riverside drive ( 78th st . ) 2 bedroom , 2 bath , 1 , 250 sq . ft . postwar co op 24 hr . doorman , dining_area , terrace , hudson_river view maintenance 1 , 100 , 50 tax deductible ( broker hahn gifford ) bronx riverdale 96 , 000 555 kappock street ( riverpoint towers ) 1 bedroom , 1 bath , 800 sq . ft . postwar co op 24 hr . doorman , dining_area , partial hudson_river view maintenance 386 , includes gas and electricity , 50 tax deductible ( broker marilyn morris b . sopher ) west tremont area 110 , 000 2023 morris avenue 3 family , attached , brick house 3 bedrooms , 1 bath , large kitchen in each unit full basement , 21 by 100 ft . lot taxes 1 , 700 ( broker albert r . bryan real_estate ) brooklyn brooklyn_heights 230 , 000 54 willow street 2 bedroom , 2 bath , 1 , 000 sq . ft . co op in a recently renovated prewar co op dining_area , fireplace , c a , high ceilings , washer dryer maintenance 439 , 50 tax deductible ( broker barbara d'erasmo ) park_slope 250 , 000 331 16th street 3 family , 3 story , semiattached , brick house 2 bedrooms , 1 bath , large kitchen in each unit full basement , 20 by 100 ft . lot taxes 855 ( broker john p . barry realty ) queens forest_hills 96 , 000 69 10 yellowstone boulevard ( mayflower ) 1 bedroom , 1 bath , 750 sq . ft . co op in a recently renovated prewar building part time doorman , entry_foyer , dinette maintenance 317 , 52 tax deductible ( broker kraham realty ) queens village 190 , 000 101 06 224th street 4 bedroom , 1 1 2 bath , single family , detached_colonial_dining_room , large kitchen , den , finished_basement , detached 1 car garage , 40 by 100 ft . lot taxes 1 , 000 ( broker john e . miller realty ) staten_island eltingville 190 , 000 702 barlow avenue 3 bedroom , 1 1 2 bath , single family , semiattached house dining_room , large kitchen , 30 by 100 ft . lot taxes 1 , 572 ( broker century 21 papp realty ) westerleigh 178 , 000 291 wardwell avenue 3 bedroom , 2 bath , single family , detached , side hall colonial_dining_room , large kitchen , 2 enclosed porches , above ground pool with deck in backyard taxes 1 , 090 ( broker george k . wonica )",has a topic of estate
"it was a challenge to the zoning laws of mount_laurel , n.j. , in the 1970 's that led to a statewide requirement that all communities open their doors to low and moderate income residents . among the projects helping mount_laurel meet its own affordable_housing obligation is the commons at stonegate , a condominium complex being developed near the intersection of i 295 and route 38 . the developer , the orleans company of huntington valley , pa . , plans to build 440 homes there over the next three years , completing 48 by the end of the summer . the architect is the murphy architectural group of westchester , pa . the homes , priced for the budgets of first time buyers , range from 78 , 990 for some two bedroom units to 111 , 000 for the largest three bedrooms . those set aside for qualifying low income buyers will be about one third below market rate .",has a topic of estate
"in the following reports , the ''listed at'' price is the asking price when negotiations began that ended in the sale . time on market is from most recent listing to contract . manhattan east_end avenue 138 , 000 55 east_end avenue ( 82d st . ) 1 bedroom , 1 bath , 750 sq . ft . postwar co op 24 hr . doormen , concierge , terrace , east_river view maintenance 860 , 55 tax deductible , listed at 142 , 500 , 4 weeks on market ( broker charles g . brophy ) battery_park_city area 510 , 000 71 warren_street 2 bedroom , 2 bath , 1 , 500 sq . ft . condo in a loft building elevator , exposed_brick_walls , 10 ft . ceilings , washer dryer , 2 exposures common charge 377 taxes 7 , 464 , listed at 515 , 000 , 8 weeks on market ( broker corcoran group ) inwood 70 , 000 62 park terrace west 3 bedroom , 1 1 2 bath , 1 , 200 sq . ft . duplex elevator , dining_area , renovated_kitchen and bath , 500 sq . ft . terrace , hudson_river view maintenance 1 , 035 , 34 tax deductible , listed at 79 , 000 ( broker new heights ) upper east side 475 , 000 26 east 63d street 1 bedroom , 1 1 2 bath , 830 sq . ft . prewar condo concierge , marble baths , c a , 11 ft . ceilings , west exposure common charge 575 taxes 3 , 500 , listed at 495 , 000 , 26 weeks on market ( brokers walter samuels douglas_elliman ) upper west side 415 , 000 201 west 72d street ( alexandria ) 2 bedroom , 2 bath , 1 , 100 sq . ft . postwar condo 24 hr . doormen , concierge , dining_room , 3 exposures , health_club and pool common charge 582 taxes 2 , 700 , listed at 425 , 000 , 22 weeks on market ( brokers sumitomo bellmarc ) bronx city_island 185 , 000 620 minneford avenue 2 bedroom , 1 bath , 50 year old detached ranch dining_area , eat in kitchen , deck , finished_basement , attic storage , 30 by 100 ft . lot taxes 1 , 300 , listed at 185 , 000 , 6 weeks on market ( broker_jacqueline_kyle_kall ) riverdale 252 , 500 525 west 238th street ( fieldston gardens ) 4 bedroom , 2 bath , 2 , 300 sq . ft . prewar co op dining_room , center courtyard , 3 exposures maintenance 766 , 43 tax deductible , listed at 299 , 000 , 2 years on market ( broker sopher ) brooklyn clinton_hill 345 , 000 137 clinton avenue 2 family , 130 year old attached brick house 3 bedrooms in primary duplex 2 bedrooms in other 2 baths , dining_room in each 25 by 150 sq . ft . lot taxes 1 , 456 , listed at 375 , 000 , 8 weeks on market ( broker realty on the green ) fort_greene 330 , 000 428 clermont avenue 2 family , 4 story attached brick house 4 bedrooms in primary unit 2 bedrooms in other 2 baths , dining_room , marble mantels in each 21 by 100 ft . lot taxes 1 , 736 , listed at 339 , 000 , 4 weeks on market ( broker cole ) park_slope 300 , 000 188 17th street 2 family , 3 story brownstone 4 bedrooms , dining_room in primary duplex 1 bedroom , eat in kitchen in simplex 21 by 100 ft . lot taxes 1 , 100 , listed at 300 , 000 , 4 weeks on market ( broker warren lewis realty ) queens forest_hills gardens 169 , 000 20 continental avenue ( inn apartments ) 2 bedroom , 2 bath , 1 , 400 sq . ft . prewar co op part time doormen , dining_area , h w floors , 2 fireplaces , health_club maintenance 1 , 036 , 48 tax deductible , listed at 195 , 000 , 22 weeks on market ( broker sarah jones ) staten_island lighthouse hill 444 , 000 280 edwinboro road 4 bedroom , 3 bath , 44 year old detached brick contemporary dining_room , fireplace , jacuzzi in master bath , 140 by 100 ft . lot taxes 3 , 600 , listed at 499 , 000 , 21 weeks on market ( broker kingsley ) new jersey fair_lawn 158 , 000 1 19 lambert road 3 bedroom , 1 bath , 52 year old cape_cod finished_basement , eat in kitchen , new bath , 1 car garage taxes 3 , 441 , listed at 164 , 900 , 22 weeks on market ( brokers century 21 property place weichert ) oakland 345 , 000 44 wilson street 4 bedroom , 2 bath , 30 year old lakeside expanded ranch fireplace , finished_basement , 2 car garage taxes 7 , 100 , listed at 354 , 900 , 10 weeks on market ( broker abbott caserta ) perrineville 327 , 005 5 graham place 4 bedroom , 3 bath , new colonial_dining_room , eat in kitchen , walk in closets , full basement taxes 7 , 488 , listed at 309 , 900 , 6 months on market ( broker prudential new jersey ) park ridge 255 , 000 86 fourth street 4 bedroom , 1 1 2 bath , 50 year old colonial den , 1 acre , enclosed_porch , full basement taxes 5 , 012 , listed at 269 , 900 , 4 weeks on market ( brokers prudential_higgins re max r.e . associates ) connecticut greenwich 1 . 51 million 1 indian knoll place 4 bedroom , 3 1 2 bath , 15 year old postmodern house vaulted_ceilings , c a , kitchen with center island , 2 car garage , 4 acre lot taxes 9 , 408 , listed at 1 . 598 million , 40 weeks on market ( brokers william_pitt real_estate coldwell_banker greenwich ) norwalk 287 , 000 6 devil 's garden road 3 bedroom , 2 1 2 bath , 13 year old colonial_dining_room , country kitchen , family room , hot_tub , 1 car garage , . 51 acre lot taxes 4 , 100 , listed at 295 , 000 , 10 weeks on market ( brokers_coldwell_banker norwalk william_pitt darien ) stamford 470 , 000 244 shelter rock road 5 bedroom , 4 bath , 32 year old ranch eat in kitchen , family room , 2 fireplaces , 2 car garage , 1 acre lot on lake taxes 6 , 500 , listed at 469 , 000 , 2 weeks on market ( brokers wolfe mehlman coldwell_banker ) westport 549 , 000 10 lyndale circle 5 bedroom , 3 1 2 bath , 27 year old colonial kitchen with built in barbeque , fireplace , pool , deck with hot_tub , 2 car garage , 1 . 61 acre lot taxes 5 , 858 , listed at 599 , 000 , 34 weeks on market ( brokers william_pitt country living ) long_island jericho 363 , 000 4 montgomery place 4 bedroom , 2 bath , 32 year old high ranch_dining_room , eat in kitchen , den , attic , 2 car attached garage , pool , deck taxes 5 , 800 , listed at 379 , 000 , 12 weeks on market ( broker era gatewood ) oakdale 230 , 000 127 edgewood avenue 5 bedroom , 2 1 2 bath , 32 year old colonial_dining_room , eat in kitchen , den , 2 car garage taxes 6 , 400 , listed at 259 , 900 , 16 weeks on market ( broker century 21 bay 's edge ) old bethpage 251 , 000 24 sherman road 4 bedroom , 2 bath , 31 year old high ranch_dining_room , eat in kitchen , den , deck , 2 car garage taxes 5 , 800 , listed at 259 , 990 , 4 weeks on market ( broker prudential long_island ) oyster bay 200 , 000 45 sampson street 3 bedroom , 3 bath , 7 year old colonial_dining_room , eat in kitchen , pantry , basement , enclosed_porch taxes 4 , 000 , listed at 204 , 500 , 9 weeks on market ( brokers cruse oyster bay ) westchester bedford hills 260 , 000 82 crescent terrace 3 bedroom , 1 bath , 65 year old colonial breakfast nook , barn , flagstone patio , fireplace , . 25 acre taxes 5 , 762 , listed at 276 , 000 , 15 weeks on market ( brokers prudential_ragette houlihan_lawrence ) mamaroneck 185 , 000 175 maple avenue 4 bedroom , 1 1 2 bath , 66 year old colonial den , dining_room , eat in kitchen , fireplace , powder_room , attached 3 car garage taxes 8 , 213 , listed at 195 , 000 , 31 weeks on market ( brokers houghton banks ) waccabuc 490 , 000 4 five ponds drive 4 bedroom , 2 1 2 bath , 10 year old contemporary entry_foyer , dining_room , fireplace , cathedral ceiling , 4 acres taxes 12 , 722 , listed at 509 , 000 , 9 weeks on market ( brokers houlihan_lawrence frances billingsley ) white_plains 265 , 000 12 gene place 3 bedroom , 1 1 2 bath , 67 year old colonial center hall , brick fireplace , dining_room , family room , deck taxes 3 , 228 , listed at 269 , 000 , 11 weeks on market ( brokers century 21 wolff nelson vrooman )",has a topic of estate
"few people ever noticed the anonymous one story building running along the franklin d . roosevelt drive from 49th to 51st streets , its southern end at the foot of the majestic co op at 1 beekman_place , which was built by the rockefeller family . now the unusual structure a 460 foot long garage whose origins reflect a civil war era height restriction is largely demolished . and the co op has hired the architects fox fowle , otherwise known for their new times_square skyscrapers , to rebuild it . the new garage wo n't have pulsing screens or high tech metal and glass , as do the fox fowle designed conde_nast and reuters buildings in times_square only a plain brick and rubble stone wall , in keeping with the super quiet character of this low profile co op . the beekman family , colonial era merchants , built a riverfront mansion near the foot of east 50th_street in 1764 . many sources say that the patriot spy nathan_hale was first arraigned there after his capture by the british in 1776 . by the mid 19th_century the east_river waterfront had fallen far from its resort status , and coal yards , lumber mills and other industries dotted the shoreline , at least where there was good river access . perhaps because the beekman mansion 's grounds were on a high , rocky bluff without good water access , the house remained standing until the 1870 's . but in 1865 the family sold off much of its land around the newly established beekman_place , including most of the river facing lots between 49th and 51st street . to protect the light and air of the brownstone row_houses that soon went up at 13 39 beekman_place , the beekmans promised to restrict the height of future buildings on their remaining waterfront strip of land , directly below the houses , to no higher than that of beekman_place itself . by the turn of the century bigger and bigger factories were crowding the shoreline among them the huge cremo cigar factory on the current site of river house at 52nd street and the once genteel private houses were filled with boarders . still , a clipping from the new york sun at the museum of the city of new york , undated but probably from the 1910 's , painted a bucolic picture of the clifftop houses looking down on the rocky shore below ''mothers in the neighborhood take their knitting and embroidery every afternoon and bask in the shade . . . . even coney_island and rockaway have nothing on the beach at beekman_place . '' by this time the beekman family estate was trying to void the 1865 height restriction on the waterfront strip with a free hand , it said , it could have wiped out the beach and replaced it with a giant steam plant . in 1920 the new york times reported on what had been a six year fight to remove the restrictions , which the row_house owners on beekman_place had fought strenuously to keep . the beekmans' lawyer , herbert l . fordham , said that radical changes in the area should void the restriction because it was ridiculous to hang on to the ''half forgotten vision of terraces and gardens . . . in the midst of towering steam plants , electric light plants and coal pockets . new york needs its waterfront for business . '' by 1922 the beekmans gave up the fight and leased the waterfront strip 460 feet long , stretching from 49th up to 51st , and including the empty plot on beekman_place now occupied by 1 beekman_place . the lease was acquired by a development group that announced plans for a studio_apartment on the beekman_place frontage , and a one story garage on the waterfront strip . the studio_apartment was not built , but the garage , designed by john j . dunnigan , later a state senator from the bronx , did go up . it had simple rubble stone walls and a curved , wood truss roof . the garage entrance was at 49th_street . perhaps the beekmans should have held out , because just as they surrendered , fashion came to beekman_place , and house after house was turned into elite occupancy . the natural outcome , for the empty plot at the south end of beekman_place , was the luxurious 16 story co op at 1 beekman , built in 1930 by a syndicate headed by david m . milton , the son in law of john d . rockefeller jr . milton 's wife , abby , was called by the new york times ''the wealthiest young woman in america . '' the times reported that the couple were taking an 18 room triplex with a 33 by 25 foot living room . the building had 335 rooms divided among 24 apartments , most of which were duplexes . milton 's syndicate reached an accommodation with the garage operator and reduced the southerly section of the garage to a narrow driveway encased in the building and running through 1 beekman 's waterside complex of tea room , gym , swimming pool , squash courts and additional duplex apartments . early tenants at 1 beekman included the diplomat david k . e . bruce , william j . donovan who founded the office of strategic services , the forerunner of the c.i.a . the miltons and john d . rockefeller iii . the architects were sloan robertson , with corbett , harrison macmurray . the latter firm was also designing rockefeller_center , for john d . rockefeller jr . rockefeller lent his son in law 1 million to build 1 beekman , and the contractor was webster b . todd , whose father , john r . todd , was working with rockefeller on the plans for rockefeller_center . the younger todd also took an apartment in the building his daughter , christine_todd_whitman , is the governor of new jersey . partly because it is tucked away on beekman_place , the building has had a low profile and is far less well known than river house , 10 gracie square and comparable structures . photographs of the garage in the 1930 's show that people still sat along the water 's edge , and it was not the beekmans but the east_river drive , completed in 1939 in this section , that finally wiped out the quiet river view , although a small park , reached from 49th and 51st street , was inserted between the garage and the highway . although now the traffic noise is almost overwhelming , over time the park has grown in , and the garage structure was surrounded by weed trees and vines , many growing out of the clifflike retaining wall rising above the garage up to beekman_place . from the park the garage was mysterious the southern third in the polite georgian style of 1 beekman_place incongruously joined to the northern two thirds , a primitive , anonymous structure . now the northern portion is demolished almost to ground level , and work crews are stripping off the vines and weed trees , some of which are more than a foot thick . fox fowle declined to comment on the reconstruction . metropolitan planning and management , the construction consultant for the 1 million project , said that the roof of the garage had been leaking and that except for a flat roof with some plantings , the building was being put back almost the way it was , keeping in place the lower half of the rubble stone wall and adding brick above .",has a topic of estate
"lead the district known as vieux montreal ( old montreal or old city ) is being targeted for a major revitalization in time for the city 's 350th anniversary in 1992 . the district known as vieux montreal ( old montreal or old city ) is being targeted for a major revitalization in time for the city 's 350th anniversary in 1992 . old montreal , whose buildings date to the 18th_century , is where canada 's second largest city its population , 1.7 million , is second only to metropolitan toronto 's 2.1 million was founded by the french in 1642 . however , as the commercial center relocated away from the banks of the st . lawrence river , with businesses no longer tied to the port or railroads , buildings in the old neighborhood became underused , protected under provincial historic_preservation statutes . by far the most ambitious project is the million square_foot world trade centre now under construction on a block bounded on the north by rue st . antoine , on the east by rue st . pierre , on the south by rue st . jacques and on the west by rue mcgill . the project will cost 230 million about 185 million in united_states dollars . backed by the city and the province of quebec and with devencore inc . as developer , it will be the first major new construction in old montreal in decades . ''everything moved out in the 1960 's and moved uptown , '' said philip o'brien , president of both the world trade centre montreal development corporation and devencore . ''now there is an interest in coming back to the old city . '' the project is also representative of a new confidence in the strength of the city 's business community , attributed generally to a lessening in friction between the french speaking majority and english speaking residents . it is also a sign of the high expectations associated with the united_states canada free_trade agreement , approved by the canadian government last month . the center , incorporating several century old facades , will include 650 , 000 square_feet of office space in 10 buildings , none over 10 stories , as well as a 300 room , 20 story hotel . six levels of parking under several buildings are planned , together with an underground connection to the victoria square subway station . construction began last july after three years of planning , including review by several historic commissions . the project was delayed by a two week archeological dig that began after remnants of the wall that fortified the old city were found . several powder vaults found next to the wall are to become a restaurant and wine_cellar . the entire project is expected to be completed by january 1991 . mr . o'brien conceded that drawing tenants back to old city about a mile south of rue sherbrooke , the city 's upscale commercial retail spine will be a challenge . he is counting on demand from major transit and trading companies , small businesses interested in entering the international market and lawyers and other professionals doing business in the nearby city hall and courthouse . some civic leaders are predicting that by 1992 montreal will recapture from toronto its status as a center of trade and finance , a position it lost in a decade of business stagnation and political controversy over language and the separatist_movement . after the loss of about 50 , 000 executives employed in the 140 corporate offices that pulled out of montreal in the late 70 's many of them moving to toronto voters in 1980 turned down by a 60 40 margin a proposition that quebec begin negotiating with ottawa on the province 's separation from the rest of canada . in 1987 , quebec ratified the national charter which recognized the province as a ' 'distinct'' french speaking society but the charter does not become law until all 10 provinces ratify it . ''during the dim days , the separatist days , there was a lack of confidence in the business community , '' said eugene n . riesman , chairman of first quebec corporation , a development company . ''but things have turned around in just the last few years . '' office vacancy_rates reached a high of 12 percent in the central area in 1983 . current vacancies range from 6.4 percent in the central area to 9.4 percent in the city overall . and much of the 925 , 000 square_feet of office space added to the city 's central area in 1988 was absorbed rentals , assessed annually , currently range from 28 to 31 ( canadian ) a square_foot . in addition to the world trade centre , one million square_feet of new office space is planned for completion in the city 's central area by 1991 , according to projections by royal lepage ltd . , a real_estate brokerage . on the housing side , the average price of a single family home in the metropolitan_area in 1988 was 107 , 739 canadian about 86 , 000 u.s . up 12 percent from 1987 , according to the montreal real_estate board . spurred on by the promise of 100 million in federal funds announced in october 1988 , civic leaders have also agreed to begin a 450 million transformation of the old port , which , like old city , grew with the city 's reputation as a center of finance , commerce and transportation . when completed in the next 10 years , the project for the long neglected waterfront will include a series of museums and parks . in contrast to the successful development of toronto 's harbourfront and vancouver 's granville island , much of the 131 acres of federally owned land along the st . lawrence river in montreal has stood idle while the federal , provincial , regional and municipal governments rejected proposal after proposal for more than two decades . the newest design emphasizes improved public_access rather than , as under earlier plans , commercial development . it is viewed as an effort to complement the revitalization under way in adjacent old montreal . ''rather than set up the old port to compete with the old city , it was the consensus that there should be a complementary development , '' said david powell , partner at martineau walker , a law_firm involved in the planning . ''commercial development in the old port would just draw away from projects in old montreal . '' according to cameron charlebois , an executive member of the urban development institute , a local developer 's group , the message from the public hearing process was clear ''do n't urbanize . '' the federal commitment followed a feasibility study prepared by the not for profit old port corporation in january 1988 . the funds are to be used to reopen the lachine canal for recreational use and provide the foundation for underground parking . this is in addition to the 40 million already spent by the federal_government to repair decaying wharves , remove several grain elevators and add a pedestrian throughfare . the first phase of the redevelopment , to start this spring , is to include a national railway museum and be completed in 1992 . a maritime museum , a science and technology center and a training school for the cirque_du_soleil , a performing_arts group , are planned for additional phases . for the city 's part , 90 million is to be spent in the next five years in both the old port and old montreal for street repairs and renovation of city buildings . in the preliminary stages , the city plans to add 2 , 500 units of low and moderate income housing on abandoned railroad yards bought from the canadian_pacific railroad . a seven block extension of the rue de la commune , the major waterfront thoroughfare , is to provide access to the new development . at the same time , city officials have begun developing the first master plan for the central business area , including old montreal . a first draft , to be released by the spring , is expected to provide zoning bylaws , identify higher and lower density areas and address the need for low_income_housing over the next decade . still , the issue of language continues to cloud the city 's international image . in december , premier robert_bourassa took advantage of a clause in the as yet to be approved federal charter and overrode the supreme_court 's striking down of an ordinance prohibiting the posting of outdoor signs in any language other than french , raising concern among some montrealers that nationalistic fervor will again be a negative force in the city 's economy . but mr . riesman , among many others , takes a more optimistic view . ''the language issue is a symbolic one , '' he said . ''there has been some fear that it is a negative aspect , but we believe that logic will prevail . '' focus montreal",has a topic of estate
"lead a 14 unit condominium apartment development is nearing_completion on the former site of the rectory of christ church of bay_ridge in brooklyn near shore road park and the narrows . called the ridge terrace condominium , the 2 . 3 million project at 228 74th_street near third avenue is due to be completed next month . a 14 unit condominium apartment development is nearing_completion on the former site of the rectory of christ church of bay_ridge in brooklyn near shore road park and the narrows . called the ridge terrace condominium , the 2 . 3 million project at 228 74th_street near third avenue is due to be completed next month . the four story structure has eight one bedroom and six two bedroom apartments ranging in size from 675 to 1 , 000 square_feet and in price from 175 , 000 to 260 , 000 . monthly_maintenance charges range between 110 and 190 . all the units have either balconies or terraces . the price of each unit includes ownership of one space in the building 's underground garage . some of the units and the building 's elevators have been designed to facilitate movement by the handicapped . none of the units has been sold . the architects for the project are di fiore , giacobbe and associates of brooklyn . the project was undertaken by joseph a . jabour , a civil_engineer turned developer who has built two other condominiums in brooklyn . the church , which is nearby at 7301 ridge boulevard , sold the rectory building and its land three years ago . the building was subsequently demolished . church officials and its rector have declined to publicly discuss the reasons for the sale .",has a topic of estate
"when jim gieske retired for the first time 15 years ago , he and his wife , judi , bought a sailboat and went on a two year trip , sailing from chesapeake_bay to venezuela . in 2001 , after he retired again , they bought a century old converted barge and set out to cover some of the thousands of kilometers of canals and rivers around france . ''i had never been out of sight of land before we went on this sailing trip'' to venezuela , mrs . gieske said . ''but i loved it . so when jim came up with the barge , i thought , 'i 'd better not fight it . ' '' the gieskes bought the boat for about 200 , 000 euros , or 263 , 000 , from a retired dutch operator , who had transformed the barge into a home for his wife and later their two children , both of whom were born on the barge . over the past five years , the gieskes have spent the equivalent of about 46 , 000 on renovations , furnishings and enhancements . the barge , called joli coeur , or pretty heart , is moored for the winter in saint symphorien sur sa ne , on the canal du rh_ne au rhin near saint jean de losne , in the heart of burgundy . it is a hub for pleasure boaters , who converge from the main waterways of the rh_ne , the seine and the rhine through an intricate web of canals that run through the picturesque vineyard region of eastern france . instead of seeking a second home , the couple , who are from easton , md . , felt they would rather take their house along with them . ''we 're retired , '' mr . gieske said . ''we do n't want to get old sitting at home . there 's nothing like being immersed in a system . you just ca n't get it in a two week vacation . '' mr . gieske , 68 , was a surgeon his wife , 66 , was a pediatrician . with two bedrooms and a wood paneled living room brightened by a sunny , yellow couch , the barge gives the impression of a small , but well appointed cottage with somewhat low ceilings . the living area totals about 50 square meters , or 540 square_feet . despite its 103 year old history , joli coeur is deceptively modern . its 40 , 000 liter , or nearly 10 , 600 gallon , water tank and its fuel tank both are so large that they have to be replenished only once a year , which allows for worry free trips . satellite tv and an internet connection through a cellphone mean civilization is never too far , either . there is even a bathtub . the gieskes have spent about five months a year on the barge . they have used saint jean de losne as their hub , venturing onto the nearby sa ne river and many others , like the meurthe river . they loved the meurthe so much they stayed five weeks in the city of nancy . they have also traveled around the champagne region , and they fell asleep in the shadow of the eiffel_tower when they tied up at the grenelle port in paris . during their first summer aboard , in 2002 , they cruised from cambrai , in northern france , to bruges , belgium . ''when we bought the boat , we had intended to go everywhere in europe with it , '' mrs . gieske said . ''we wanted to go to st . petersburg and moscow and every country in europe . but we fell in love with france and we never wanted to leave . we fell in love with the food and the sights and the culture and the country . everything . '' the gieskes have discovered the french countryside gradually , almost by chance . ''i generally make a rough itinerary for the summer , that 's as tight as it gets , '' mr . gieske said . ''if we like the place , we just stay . otherwise , we leave the next morning . '' to get around on land , the couple use bikes that they keep on the barge renting motorized scooters is another option . the boat moves at about 5 kilometers an hour , or a little more than 3 miles an hour , so it is possible for one of them to go into the nearest town to pick up fresh bread and later catch up with the boat . the gieskes tell stories of becoming friends with strangers strolling on the canal banks , and of being recognized by people who crossed their path several years before . they describe their labrador , honey , swimming in the canals , and jim hugging a broken toilet bowl as he pedaled into the nearby village to look for a repairman . most of all , they tell stories about taking time to see where the river might go , of simple things enjoyed because they were not overlooked . on the water , the couple said , they mostly meet other foreigners . the dutch , britons and australians make up the bulk of their fellow barge dwellers , the gieskes said . ''you see more anglo saxons than you see french people , '' said bruno tirmant of the development department at voies navigables de france , the public authority in charge of the country 's 6 , 700 kilometers , or 4 , 165 miles , of managed canals and rivers . ''the river culture , going through the locks , it works for the british in particular . in all seasons , they love it . it 's a culture , a way of life . '' the agency is planning to take a census of houseboats in france , but the process will be tricky because most large ones are converted commercial barges and are not registered as houseboats . the disappearance of trade_barriers within the european_union also means that e.u . registered boats come and go unnoticed on the waterways of france . in fact , joli coeur , which was bought in the netherlands , is registered as a dutch ship , and the gieskes fly the dutch , french and maryland flags . perhaps the most unexpected part of the cruising lifestyle is its very reasonable price , even in light of the current strength of the euro . ''we find it is cheaper to live on a boat than to live at home , '' mr . gieske said . maintenance and improvements average 1 , 200 euros , or 1 , 599 , a year , and the barge burns through about 500 euros , or 666 , in fuel each season even though ''we travel more than anybody we know , '' mrs . gieske said . they also have to have a cruising permit , which costs 400 euros , or 533 , a year , to go through locks and to moor in designated areas . the couple says private ports charge a reasonable fee for example , the grenelle port in paris charges 30 euros , or 40 , a night . but living on a barge for an extended period may not be for everyone . ''you have to be self sufficient in every way , emotionally and mechanically , '' mr . gieske said . ''you have to be content with your companion because there 's not as much socialization as there is at home . and it 's not luxurious by the usual measure . '' the gieskes recently put the boat up for sale with a broker in saint symphorien because they want to spend more time in new york , where their first grandchildren , twins , were born this summer . ''i 'm afraid to sell the barge , '' mrs . gieske said , ''because i 'm afraid of what else jim might come up with next . ''",has a topic of estate
"when jim gieske retired for the first time 15 years ago , he and his wife , judi , bought a sailboat and went on a two year trip , sailing from chesapeake_bay to venezuela . in 2001 , after he retired again , they bought a century old converted barge and set out to cover some of the thousands of kilometers of canals and rivers around france . ''i had never been out of sight of land before we went on this sailing trip'' to venezuela , mrs . gieske said . ''but i loved it . so when jim came up with the barge , i thought , 'i 'd better not fight it . ' '' the gieskes bought the boat for about 200 , 000 euros , or 263 , 000 , from a retired dutch operator , who had transformed the barge into a home for his wife and later their two children , both of whom were born on the barge . over the past five years , the gieskes have spent the equivalent of about 46 , 000 on renovations , furnishings and enhancements . the barge , called joli coeur , or pretty heart , is moored for the winter in saint symphorien sur sa ne , on the canal du rh_ne au rhin near saint jean de losne , in the heart of burgundy . it is a hub for pleasure boaters , who converge from the main waterways of the rh_ne , the seine and the rhine through an intricate web of canals that run through the picturesque vineyard region of eastern france . instead of seeking a second home , the couple , who are from easton , md . , felt they would rather take their house along with them . ''we 're retired , '' mr . gieske said . ''we do n't want to get old sitting at home . there 's nothing like being immersed in a system . you just ca n't get it in a two week vacation . '' mr . gieske , 68 , was a surgeon his wife , 66 , was a pediatrician . with two bedrooms and a wood paneled living room brightened by a sunny , yellow couch , the barge gives the impression of a small , but well appointed cottage with somewhat low ceilings . the living area totals about 50 square meters , or 540 square_feet . despite its 103 year old history , joli coeur is deceptively modern . its 40 , 000 liter , or nearly 10 , 600 gallon , water tank and its fuel tank both are so large that they have to be replenished only once a year , which allows for worry free trips . satellite tv and an internet connection through a cellphone mean civilization is never too far , either . there is a even bathtub . the gieskes have spent about five months a year on the barge . they have used saint jean de losne as their hub , venturing onto the nearby sa ne river and many others , like the meurthe river . they loved the meurthe so much they stayed five weeks in the city of nancy . they have also traveled around the champagne region , and they fell asleep in the shadow of the eiffel_tower when they tied up at the grenelle port in paris . during their first summer aboard , in 2002 , they cruised from cambrai , in northern france , to bruges , belgium . ''when we bought the boat , we had intended to go everywhere in europe with it , '' mrs . gieske said . ''we wanted to go to st . petersburg and moscow and every country in europe . but we fell in love with france and we never wanted to leave . we fell in love with the food and the sights and the culture and the country . everything . '' the gieskes have discovered the french countryside gradually , almost by chance . ''i generally make a rough itinerary for the summer , that 's as tight as it gets , '' mr . gieske said . ''if we like the place , we just stay . otherwise , we leave the next morning . '' to get around on land , the couple use bikes that they keep on the barge renting motorized scooters is another option . the boat moves at about 5 kilometers an hour , or a little more than 3 miles an hour , so it is possible for one of them to go into the nearest town to pick up fresh bread and later catch up with the boat . the gieskes tell stories of becoming friends with strangers strolling on the canal banks , and of being recognized by people who crossed their path several years before . they describe their labrador , honey , swimming in the canals , and jim hugging a broken toilet bowl as he pedaled into the nearby village to look for a repairman . most of all , they tell stories about taking time to see where the river might go , of simple things enjoyed because they were not overlooked . on the water , the couple said , they mostly meet other foreigners . the dutch , britons and australians make up the bulk of their fellow barge dwellers , the gieskes said . ''you see more anglo saxons than you see french people , '' said bruno tirmant of the development department at voies navigables de france , the public authority in charge of the country 's 6 , 700 kilometers , or 4 , 165 miles , of managed canals and rivers . ''the river culture , going through the locks , it works for the british in particular . in all seasons , they love it . it 's a culture , a way of life . '' the agency is planning to take a census of houseboats in france , but the process will be tricky because most large ones are converted commercial barges and are not registered as houseboats . the disappearance of trade_barriers within the european_union also means that e.u . registered boats come and go unnoticed on the waterways of france . in fact , joli coeur , which was bought in the netherlands , is registered as a dutch ship , and the gieskes fly the dutch , french and maryland flags . perhaps the most unexpected part of the cruising lifestyle is its very reasonable price , even in light of the current strength of the euro . ''we find it is cheaper to live on a boat than to live at home , '' mr . gieske said . maintenance and improvements average 1 , 200 euros , or 1 , 599 , a year , and the barge burns through about 500 euros , or 666 , in fuel each season even though ''we travel more than anybody we know , '' mrs . gieske said . they also have to have a cruising permit , which costs 400 euros , or 533 , a year , to go through locks and to moor in designated areas . the couple says private ports charge a reasonable fee for example , the grenelle port in paris charges 30 euros , or 40 , a night . but living on a barge for an extended period may not be for everyone . ''you have to be self sufficient in every way , emotionally and mechanically , '' mr . gieske said . ''you have to be content with your companion because there 's not as much socialization as there is at home . and it 's not luxurious by the usual measure . '' the gieskes recently put the boat up for sale with a broker in saint symphorien because they want to spend more time in new york , where their first grandchildren , twins , were born this summer . ''i 'm afraid to sell the barge , '' mrs . gieske said , ''because i 'm afraid of what else jim might come up with next . ''",has a topic of estate
"when the rev . stephen s . garmey , the vicar of calvary episcopal_church , arrived 33 years ago , ''not a single person'' lived on park_avenue south between 17th and 23rd streets , he recalls . the strip was all commercial , an urban canyon of skyscrapers and office buildings , busy by day , a little gritty by night . the residential incursion began slowly , with some converted lofts just around the corner on side streets , and picked up speed in the 1990 's as destination restaurants and trendy hotels opened one after another , often side by side . another spike came after the sept . 11 attacks , when young downtown professionals decided to move uptown , but not that far uptown , and found they could get almost anywhere from park_avenue south by public transportation . today , the avenue is in full renaissance , not just to 23rd_street but on up to where ' 'real'' park_avenue addresses begin at 32nd . several major residential conversions of commercial space are under way , restaurants continue to multiply and a youthful energy infuses the street at all hours of the day and night . ''it 's definitely all changed now a whole new life and for the better , '' mr . garmey said , noting that the neighborhood now has its share of small nursery schools as well as the eating places that make this one of the best restaurant neighborhoods in the city . park_avenue south stretches from union square to murray_hill and nudges against gramercy_park , the flatiron_district and rose hill , and it has never been identified as a prime residential area , but that is what makes it such a find today , said pamela huson , a douglas_elliman sales agent . ''there are sleeper buildings in the area that are better priced because people do n't think of it as a neighborhood , '' she said . in the current market , one bedrooms , about twice as common as two room apartments , are ''where a lot of the deals are , '' she added , after calculating a median price of 416 , 000 for one bedroom co ops , up 3 , 000 from last year . conversion from commercial space often means unusual floor plans and loftlike apartments with soaring ceilings and windows to match . even rear windows at the new bullmoose condominum , above the gramercy tavern at 42 48 east 20th street , invite the sunlight . although occupancy is not projected until late fall , 21 of the 24 units , developed by alchemy properties inc . , are under contract . priced from 807 , 000 to 2 , 225 , 000 , the one and two bedroom loftlike apartments come with top of the line kitchens and high speed internet_access , but they also are seeped in history . bullmoose recalls the political_party established by theodore_roosevelt , who was born a few doors away . the 1890 's beaux_arts building once housed a military badge manufacturer . a block north , max capital management plans to convert two former office buildings into a residential tower with a doorman and more than 100 high end units starting at 850 to 900 per square_foot . sales are to begin early in 2004 . the buildings , which are at 260 park_avenue south and 48 east 21st street , until recently were headquarters of the united_federation_of_teachers . every building along the street has its story . ''what 's nice is that you can look out and see history , '' said david mandl , an architect who lives and works on park_avenue south . he recites the building names like an architectural tour guide , beginning with the hotel w new york union square . it is the former guardian life_insurance building , which was germania life before anti german sentiment in world_war i caused a name change . jim naureckas , an editor at fairness and accuracy in reporting , has researched the street for his online guide to new york city , home . nyc . rr . com jkn nysonglines 4av . htm , starting at 14th and working north . among the lore he has collected the tiffany glass and decorating company had design offices and manufacturing facilities at nos . 333 335 from 1871 to 1905 the dionysian at no . 303 was named by isadora duncan , who lived there in 1914 1915 the n.a.a.c.p . was founded at no . 287 in may 1909 the velvet underground played at no . 213 when it was home to max 's kansas_city , where andy_warhol and david_bowie could be found inside but patti smith and robert_mapplethorpe were not cool enough to get in tammany hall was at 17th street . the rooftop pyramid on the new york life building , built in 1928 , remains a landmark , but mr . naureckas reminds web visitors that the site at east 27th street had earlier been the home of an early train depot , p . t . barnum 's hippodrome , the original madison_square_garden and its replacement designed by stanford_white , who was shot and killed in the roof_garden by his lover 's husband . the street today seems to change character at 23rd , with most of the energy pulsating to the south . virginia juliano , a publishing executive who has worked at 27th street for 14 years , can remember when streetwalkers , drug dealers and fleabag hotels coexisted with office workers and insurance executives . but things have changed of late as the restaurant scene marches north . dos caminos , chango and park_avenue country club opened north of 23rd , joining pioneers like huston 's . at 25th_street , owners of sushi samba plan a 9 , 000 square mediterranean restaurant called barbounia , to be designed by karim rashid . a new alchemy properties project is planned for the northern section . this involves five adjoining brownstones on east 29th between park_avenue south and lexington that formerly housed the sheltering arms children 's services . the length of the street has become a mix of tourists dropping by to visit gramercy_park male and female models represented by top agencies in the neighborhood celebrities like kate hudson spotted walking with her mother , goldie hawn and insurance executives on business lunches . but perhaps the most surprising addition has been the nannies and young mothers pushing strollers home from nursery schools . real_estate agents and developers say that schools are rarely a prime concern for people moving in , but the new conversions are attracting young families . diana schmitter , an advertising vice_president and creative director moving into the bullmoose with her husband , a lawyer , thinks the neighborhood will be great for their 17 month old son , luke . they settled on their 1 , 704 square_foot , two bedroom apartment because of the greenmarket and newly redone children 's park at union square park and ''getting home from work much faster . '' fran shapiro , sales manager at an italian glass company , is buying a similar apartment , and for her , it is like coming home . she grew up on 21st and third , attended the friends seminary , a private_school on east 18th street . she and her husband , now a lawyer , were classmates at stuyvesant high . their daughter , ella , is only 18 months ago , but they are already considering public_school 40 , augustus st . gaudens school , with prekindergarten through fifth grade , at 319 east 19th street . insideschools . org , a web_site run by the nonprofit group advocates for children of new york , describes the school as ''a cozy neighborhood school where a love or reading and writing is combined with an appreciation of the importance of play . '' class size is 24 to 28 with more than three fourths of the students meeting english arts and math standards . slightly less than half of the students go on to public schools , most of them to middle high_school 104 , simon baruch school at 330 east 21 street . the nearest high_school is washington irving high_school at 40 irving place between 17th and 18th street . the neighborhood attracts the most urban of the urban young professionals to empty nesters who like being within walking distance of movie_theaters stage theaters indian food shops on lexington_avenue baruch_college , also on lexington and , of course , the restaurants and bars . ''the neighborhood is buzzing at night , '' said jessica duffy , manager of the citi_habitats office on east 22nd street . ''old rundown storefronts have been turned into hip , posh nightclubs with w hotel at the bottom of it all . '' from a real_estate standpoint , many rental_apartments have unusual configurations that make them attractive as shares . jeremy steinberg , 24 , a fox_news_channel account executive , and two friends converted a one bedroom apartment into a three bedroom . ''i 'm from los_angeles i wanted a real new york city living experience , and you ca n't get more new york city than this , '' said mr . steinberg whose block has city crab restaurant at one end , l'express at the other and sushi samba expanding in between , taking over the space that was occupied by a stationery store . patria is across the street . ''i like the vibes of the union square area . '' the distinction between park_avenue and park_avenue south can be confusing . early on , the bowery above cooper square was renamed fourth_avenue in an effort to improve its image . in the 19th_century when the new york harlem_line , the city 's first railroad , asked to extend service north of 14th , the granite ridge under what is now park_avenue south was blasted away to make room for the tracks . steam bellowing up along the line discouraged all but the poorest of the poor and a tough gang called the fourth_avenue boys . in the 1860 's , as the cut in the ridge was paved over , landscaped stretches to the north began calling themselves park_avenue . the remnant between 32nd street and union square was later named park_avenue south . it may be time for another name change . ''we need a name for our little neighborhood , '' says josh baron , a public_relations consultant , who has lived on upper park_avenue south since the mid 90 's , choosing the rental apartment , which has since been converted to a co op , for its location and good value . ms . huson , the real_estate agent , agreed . ''it has its own little niche , '' she said . ''it just does n't have a name . '' if you 're thinking of living in park_avenue south",has a topic of estate
"lead closings in the week ending april 30 manhattan gramercy_park area 143 , 000 330 third avenue ( 23d st . ) 1 bedroom , 1 bath , 600 sq . ft . postwar co op 24 hr . doorman , hardwood floors , southern exposure maintenance 391 , 35 tax deductible ( broker klara_madlin_real_estate ) closings in the week ending april 30 manhattan gramercy_park area 143 , 000 330 third avenue ( 23d st . ) 1 bedroom , 1 bath , 600 sq . ft . postwar co op 24 hr . doorman , hardwood floors , southern exposure maintenance 391 , 35 tax deductible ( broker klara_madlin_real_estate ) greenwich_village 470 , 000 69 bank_street 2 bedroom , 2 bath , 1 , 400 sq . ft . condo in a recently renovated prewar building dining_area , fireplace , tiled terrace , high ceilings common charge 397 , 100 tax abated ( broker_ambrose_mar_elia ) madison square area 400 , 000 45 east 25th_street 2 bedroom , 3 bath , 1 , 200 sq . ft . postwar condo 24 hr . doorman , dining_room , balcony , windowed_kitchen common charge 100 , taxes 600 ( broker molk associates ) upper east side 1 million 29 east 64th street 2 bedroom , 3 bath , 2 , 000 sq . ft . prewar co op 24 hr . doorman , dining_room , large kitchen , high ceilings , hardwood floors , central_park view maintenance 1 , 075 30 tax deductible ( broker m.j . raynes ) washington_heights 108 , 000 870 west 181st street 2 bedroom , 1 bath , 1 , 200 sq . ft . prewar co op dining_area , windowed_kitchen , high ceilings maintenance 377 , 47 tax deductible ( broker c uptown realty ) bronx riverdale 138 , 000 601 kappock street ( presidential ) 2 bedroom , 2 bath , 1 , 150 sq . ft . postwar co op part time doorman , dining_area , terrace maintenance 570 , includes gas , 50 tax deductible ( broker marilyn morris b . sopher ) wakefield 235 , 000 4054 edson avenue 4 bedroom , 2 bath , single family , detached ranch_dining_room , large kitchen , den , full basement , 89 by 100 ft . lot taxes 1 , 640 ( broker sterling realty ) brooklyn cobble_hill 295 , 000 327 clinton street 3 bedroom , 2 bath , 1 , 500 sq . ft . duplex co op in a_4 story brownstone building dining_area , fireplace , high ceilings , roof rights maintenance 635 , includes heat and hot water , 60 tax deductible ( broker dowling peltz ) park_slope 590 , 000 552 4th street 4 bedroom , 2 1 2 bath , single family , attached 3 story brownstone dining_room , large kitchen , deck , four decorative mantels , original moldings and details , 17 by 100 ft . lot taxes 1 , 499 ( broker f.j . kazeroid ) queens kew_gardens 247 , 500 82 14 austin street 4 bedroom , 2 1 2 bath , single family , attached , brick tudor_dining_room , large kitchen , fireplace , front and rear gardens , 18 by 100 ft . lot taxes 1 , 000 ( broker_terrace_realty ) jamaica hills 62 , 000 164 20 highland avenue ( highlander hall ) 500 sq . ft . postwar , alcove studio part time doorman , separate kitchen maintenance 272 , 50 tax deductible ( broker glenjay realty ) staten_island oakwood 175 , 000 319 chesterton avenue 3 bedroom , 1 1 2 bath , single family , semiattached , frame house dining_area , large kitchen , full basement , 24 by 100 ft . lot taxes 1 , 300 ( broker kingsley real_estate ) port richmond 165 , 000 87 palmer avenue 3 bedroom , 2 bath , single family , detached , colonial_dining_room , large kitchen , den , full basement , 50 by 100 ft . lot taxes 900 ( broker george k . wonica ) snug_harbor 405 , 000 5 bedroom , 2 1 2 bath , single family , detached center hall colonial_dining_room , large kitchen , fireplace , 1 car detached garage , 130 by 109 ft . lot taxes 1 , 700 ( rand properties )",has a topic of estate
"lead closings in the week ending jan . 23 manhattan gramercy_park area 154 , 500 102 east 22d street 2 bedroom , 1 bath , 640 sq . ft . co op in a recently renovated prewar art_deco building fireplace , original moldings and details maintenance 603 , 53 tax deductible ( broker h.h . closings in the week ending jan . 23 manhattan gramercy_park area 154 , 500 102 east 22d street 2 bedroom , 1 bath , 640 sq . ft . co op in a recently renovated prewar art_deco building fireplace , original moldings and details maintenance 603 , 53 tax deductible ( broker h.h . kleigerman associates ) greenwich_village 150 , 000 49 west 12th street 1 bedroom , 1 bath , 700 sq . ft . postwar co op 24 hr . doorman , dining_foyer , new windows , roof_deck maintenance 500 , 50 tax deductible ( broker buchbinder warren ) tribeca 650 , 000 105 hudson street 2 bedroom , 2 bath , 2 , 800 sq . ft . loft co op in a renovated prewar building 3 exposures , high ceilings , partial hudson_river view maintenance 750 , no tax_deduction ( broker interiors real_estate ) upper east side 1 . 09 million 1049 park_avenue ( 87th st . ) 3 bedroom , 3 bath , 2 , 000 sq . ft . prewar co op 24 hr . doorman , concierge , formal_dining_room , maid 's room , central_park view maintenance 1 , 900 , 47 tax deductible ( broker corcoran group ) upper west side 275 , 000 275 west 96th_street ( the columbia ) 2 bedroom , 2 bath , 980 sq . ft . postwar condo 24 hr . doorman , concierge , dining_area common charge 514 , taxes 360 ( broker charles h . greenthal_residential_sales washington_heights 100 , 000 17 chittenden avenue ( chittenden house ) 1 bedroom , 1 bath , 750 sq . ft . co op in a prewar building sunken_living_room , roof_deck , garden , hudson_river view maintenance 355 , 25 tax deductible ( broker c uptown realty ) bronx riverdale 195 , 000 555 kappock street ( riverpoint towers ) 3 bedroom , 2 bath , 1 , 350 sq . ft . postwar co op 24 hr . doorman , dining_room , terrace , c a maintenance 706 , includes gas electricity 40 tax deductible ( broker stephen eldridge realty ) wakefield 142 , 000 830 east 231st street 3 bedroom , 1 bath , single family , detached_house dining_room , large kitchen , aluminum sided , 1 car garage , 25 by 114 ft . lot taxes 823 ( broker sterling realty ) brooklyn midwood 275 , 000 2612 avenue j 2 family , semiattached , stucco frame house 2 bedrooms , 1 bath , formal_dining_room , large kitchen in both units 2 car garage , 35 by 100 ft . ft . lot taxes 1 , 482 ( broker dwork korn ) park_slope 267 , 500 322 4th street 2 family , attached , brick house 2 bedrooms , 1 bath , large kitchen in each unit full basement , 16 by 100 ft . lot taxes 810 ( broker century 21 joseph t . king ) queens forest_hills 92 , 000 102 32 65th avenue ( the richards ) 1 bedroom , 1 bath , 750 sq . ft postwar co op dining_area , remodeled_kitchen maintenance 360 , 44 tax deductible ( broker gala realty ) neponsit 360 , 000 214 beach 148th street 4 bedroom , 2 bath , single family , detached ranch dining_area , large kitchen , 80 by 100 ft . lot taxes 1 , 600 ( broker mitchnick kramberg real_estate ) staten_island eltingville 182 , 000 61 thorneycroft avenue 3 bedroom , 1 1 2 bath , single family , semiattached , frame house dining_area , large kitchen , rear_deck , 28 by 85 ft . lot taxes 1 , 300 ( broker victoria realty ) west brighton 200 , 000 482 bard avenue 6 bedroom , 1 bath , single family , detached , colonial formal_dining_room , large kitchen , open front porch , 1 car detached garage , 50 by 100 ft . lot taxes 1 , 213 ( broker rand properties )",has a topic of estate
"lead downtown white_plains is getting something city officials have wanted for a long time medium priced condominiums in the midst of a half dozen new , large office buildings near the railroad station . downtown white_plains is getting something city officials have wanted for a long time medium priced condominiums in the midst of a half dozen new , large office buildings near the railroad station . the foundations for the project a 316 unit , 17 story condominium apartment house at martine and south lexington avenues called the seasons are now being poured . martin berger , president of the robert_martin company , developer of the project , said the one bedrooms 80 percent of the total are tentatively_priced from 140 , 000 to 190 , 000 , with the remainder , all two bedrooms , priced at 200 , 000 and up . mr . berger who called his project affordable said prices would be somewhat higher when the seasons is ready for occupancy late next year . the most recent available figures , gathered by the westchester multiple_listing_service for the first quarter of 1987 , show that the median sale price of condominiums was 171 , 000 and would require an income of 55 , 214 . the study reported the median_family_income in the county as 39 , 000 . the seasons will be one of the tallest apartment houses in westchester with the largest number of units in a single building . it will have its own three quarter acre park , with a swimming_pool with a retractable_roof , at sidewalk level , something of a novelty in the middle of a business_district . the building will adjoin the area 's only other apartments a 124 unit rental building , plaza 25 , that was completed last summer and was the first nonsubsidized apartment building built in westchester in more than a decade . the apartments rent for 1 , 000 and up a month , and the building is about 65 percent rented . the developer of the rental project also is the robert_martin company , a major westchester developer that has concentrated on office buildings for the last 15 years . one office project is the westchester financial center , two buildings with a total of 600 , 000 square_feet of space adjoining both apartment buildings . mr . berger said the condominium tower will have a_12 , 000 square_feet of retail space and 3 , 800 square_feet for a restaurant to serve residents of the seasons and draw other people to the area . the new building is two blocks from the new railroad station , completed last year after three years of construction . the station , which is next door to a transportation center , adjoins a parking_garage for 1 , 200 cars and a bus station , both of which opened recently . work is being completed on a ''kiss and ride'' section of the transportation center , a dropoff point for commuters using the station . mayor alfred del vecchio and the common council have for several years been urging construction of residential buildings near the railroad station to bring to life an area that is deserted at night when several thousand office workers go home . the section is the white_plains urban_renewal area , which has been under reconstruction for 20 years . the condominiums are being built on a 2 . 3 acre site that the city sold to robert_martin for 361 , 560 a price set 10 years ago when the company was designated as developer by the city . mr . berger acknowledged that the price would be considerably higher if it were negotiated today . the developer was ready to go ahead in 1978 , but held off at the request of the city , because the lot , which was in the middle of a sea of construction , was needed for parking until the new municipal garage was built . at that time , the developer was planning larger units and fewer of them , in line with the market of the 1970 's . but today , with higher costs , the developer is keeping prices down ''by virtue of the fact that the units will be small . '' the one bedroom units , for example , will start at 675 square_feet , and 25 percent of the units will sell at 150 , 000 or less . ''this kind of design is like what is being built on the east side of manhattan for yuppies , '' mr . berger said . ''it has small living space . it has the same number of rooms as any one bedroom apartment living room , bedroom , kitchen and bath and you can build them as big as 1 , 300 square_feet . but here we 're providing small living space and major recreation space , with the pool , a jogging track and a health_club . '' mr . berger said that the two residential buildings are the beginning of a new emphasis by his company on residential construction after years of building mainly office parks . it is also the beginning of a trend away from the the luxury market . ''you ca n't keep building cadillacs and rolls royces you 've got to build some fords and buicks , '' he said . ''there are many , many alternatives in the 350 , 000 town house world , but not many at 140 , 000 . '' the company has built its share of cadillacs , most recently an all suite hotel a few blocks from the new , more moderate priced housing . the hotel was la reserve , completed four years ago , and every suite consisted of a bedroom , living room , bath and a small kitchen area . the suites were designed for the executives visiting large corporations in and around white_plains , or for house hunting visits by corporate employees being transferred into the area . they rented at 150 per night and up , and there were two penthouse suites that rented at 800 per night and were generally used for cocktail parties and wedding receptions . the company is now selling off half of the 140 suites as condominiums , at 150 , 000 and up , with the penthouses on sale at 750 , 000 , while retaining the rest as rentals . mr . berger said he hoped that his new condominiums , and others he said he hoped to build , will help ' 'refuel the office market . '' he said that there are occasions when office tenants will not come to westchester because of the shortage of reasonably priced housing for their employees .",has a topic of estate
"for most people , owning a centuries old ''appartamento'' in a medieval italian town is the stuff of dreams . for chris and meg phillips of austin , tex . , the fantasy has become reality . the couple shared a love for italy dating to their college days . after making annual visits between 2000 and 2004 , chris phillips convinced his wife that they should buy . on their first official shopping trip , in november 2004 , they visited casperia , a hilltop hamlet 40 miles north of rome , and fell in love with the shell of a place crumbling stone walls , antiquated beams and all . when the couple saw the hills , the ancient narrow streets of casperia ( no cars allowed few would fit ) and the view of the town from the property , they were sold . within 24 hours they had put in an offer and met with the husband and wife architecture team of conti rowland architetti . the umbria based team was recommended by johannes hermel and luisa biaocco hermel , who run a real_estate agency and www . casambiente . com , where the phillipses first found the property . exactly two years later , the couple are owners of il sogno , italian for the_dream . ''it was a hovel , really a wonderful hovel , '' said mr . phillips , a 59 year old lawyer , who is thrilled that his wife overcame her objections . nowadays , when the couple are not using the house , their four adult children are or it is being rented out . before her change of heart , ms . phillips , 59 , who teaches private_school , says she remembers thinking ''oh , come on ! we do n't need a second home in italy . '' ''i 'd always thought we would travel when we retired , '' she added , ''and i did n't want to be limited to one place . i thought buying a house , not just in italy , but anywhere , would do that . '' but when the phillipses wound their way up the via mazzini in casperia , they felt breathless with anticipation partly because of the 220 odd steps they had had to climb and partly because , when they stepped across the threshold of no . 26 , ''it felt like we were coming home , '' mr . phillips said . home , at that time , was two levels of ancient stone and dirt , shards of undated pottery , a hidden ( and , thankfully , long unused ) toilet outflow and walls that needed plaster . from all that , their builder , stefano fagiani , fashioned a living room , dining_room , kitchen and master bedroom suite , and , downstairs , a guest room and a second bathroom , all totaling a little more than 110 square meters , or 1 , 200 square_feet . early on in the process , mr . fagiani deduced that in the 12th_century , the lower floor had been used to store food he believes an ancient ''cisterna'' uncovered during construction was once a communal olive_oil vat . the second level ( the couple bought the whole thing from the same owner , who owns the apartment above il sogno ) was a 15th_century addition . while working on the kitchen , mr . fagiani also found remnants of an ancient stoop and what he suspected was an early road , possibly roman . the phillipses' need for a kitchen outweighed their fascination with the past , but not before the find was documented for what eventually became a privately published book , ''restoring il sogno . '' ''apparently that sort of thing happens all the time in italy , '' said mr . phillips , noting that the village 's origins also are somewhat obscure . ''i do n't think anyone really knows how long casperia has been there . virgil mentions a town in his writings that some people think is modern casperia . '' one thing is certain il sogno 's structure is part of a classic ''borgo , '' an ancient combination of houses , shops and even stables , built and rebuilt over many centuries , creating a plaster stone dirt continuum that can stretch for blocks . some surprises were not so pleasant . the casperia commune council refused their request to build a balcony off the master bedroom , something that mrs . phillips in particular had set her heart on . and last spring their neighbor and caretaker told them that there was a two inch layer of mold forming on the apartment walls , endangering the antiques and valuable textiles that the phillipses had started moving into the house . apparently moisture from the curing plaster had created the hazard , which fortunately was dealt with by repeated airing and the addition of shutters on the windows . the couple said it was the only problem that had truly challenged language barriers and spotty communication between texas and italy . and despite such issues , they said , they love the house and look forward to retiring in four or five years , when they will split their time between their american and italian homes . in the last two years , casperia has begun to attract more outsiders and expatriates , pushing up prices . mr . hermel , the phillipses' real_estate agent , said the cost of property in the city 's oldest section had increased by 30 percent since late 2004 . he estimates that , per square meter , a renovated space would sell for 2 , 000 euros to 2 , 500 euros , or 2 , 620 to 3 , 275 , and a ''fixer upper'' for 800 euros to 1 , 200 euros , or 1 , 050 to 1 , 570 . andrew rowland , the english half of the conti rowland architectural team , thinks the phillipses made a great find . he and his wife , olimpia conti , work frequently with americans who want to restore homes in italy . ''i think americans in particular like to restore , even if the restoration in some cases is quite extreme , '' mr . rowland said . ''they like to buy something as wrecked as possible . emotionally , most of the americans want to get into the history , to see the bricks and stone , the age . maybe they want to come back to their roots in some way . ''",has a topic of estate
"lead time equities , the real_estate investment company whose investments in renter_occupied cooperatives have been hurt by a slow sales market , is synonymous with one individual , francis greenburger , 41 years old , who founded it 20 years ago . time equities , the real_estate investment company whose investments in renter_occupied cooperatives have been hurt by a slow sales market , is synonymous with one individual , francis greenburger , 41 years old , who founded it 20 years ago . it was and still is one of new york city 's leading co op conversion companies , devoting itself to this activity almost entirely until three years ago , and reaching a point where it reportedly owns about 3 , 000 renter_occupied apartments . the company 's sales are believed to have reached 5 , 000 apartments in the 1980 's . mr . greenburger said he believes co op conversions also help new york city housing , bringing new investment and value to rental buildings hobbled by rent_regulation . in the 70 's , his purchases of buildings for conversion probably saved them from abandonment and foreclosure , he said . but even before the market slowdown in the city in the last two years and the difficulty in reselling vacant apartments at the prices he had counted on , mr . greenburger had begun looking to other sorts of ventures . he began buying and renovating office buildings in new york and acquiring industrial properties in the middle west . critical of tax policy he made no secret of his feeling that government policies were forcing him out of the business of buying rental buildings for conversion . he said , for example , that the state was taxing sponsors' profits on resales too heavily by refusing to allow them to deduct their true costs of business from their capital gains on the sales . the undeductible costs include the interest on money borrowed to hold onto the renter_occupied apartments and the costs of marketing them . the city and state saw conversion as a revenue source and taxed it heavily , he contended in letters and public statements . this was acceptable when the market was strong , he said , but not when the market turned down , as it did . personally , mr . greenburger is almost the antithesis of the stereotypical real_estate operator . he speaks slowly and carefully and is deliberate in mannner , and so serious most of the time that one colleague said , ''he has always been 70 years old . '' classical_music plays in the background at time equities' offices at 55 fifth avenue , at 12th street , and paintings adorn the walls . a prodigy mr . greenburger has a reputation among his colleagues as one who strived for purity in his dealings with the attorney_general 's office , the internal_revenue_service and the innumerable tenant committees with which converters must deal . accordingly , time equities kept free of the troubles with regulators that some converters encountered . he was a prodigy in real_estate . born in forest_hills , queens , he was barely in his 20 's when he was leasing commercial space in manhattan and subdividing it to sublease portions to others . at that time he was in the business of selling book remainders . his late father , sanford greenburger , ran a literary agency , which mr . greenburger took over at his father 's death . but real_estate dealmaking was his love . with an older partner , philip rudd , handling the management , he built up a portfolio of 65 smaller manhattan properties before the 70 's ended , and in the 80 's started bigger ventures , sometimes with partners . mr . greenburger is married and has a 2 year old son .",has a topic of estate
"lead tomorrow morning in the high bridge section of the bronx , worlds away from bedroom views of the statue of liberty , work will begin on the first city owned shells to be renovated using surplus battery_park_city revenues . tomorrow morning in the high bridge section of the bronx , worlds away from bedroom views of the statue of liberty , work will begin on the first city owned shells to be renovated using surplus battery_park_city revenues . the two year project by lehrer , mcgovern and bovis , a construction firm , will create 895 apartments for homeless and low and moderate income families . a ceremony to mark the occasion will be held at 11 a.m . in the 1512 townsend avenue courtyard , the first time that once pleasant spot will be filled with people since no . 1512 , like the 13 other apartment houses being rebuilt , was abandoned a decade ago . the 65 million project is the first use of 400 million in bonds issued by the state last year . eventually , 1 . 2 billion will be spent on such housing . built in the 1930 's for middle_class families , the bronx buildings are scattered throughout a four block area on townsend and walton avenues between jerome and mount eden avenues . first occupancy is expected in the fall of 1989 . the nonprofit operator of the completed project , settlement housing fund , is seeking private contributions to create a community center and garden .",has a topic of estate
"lead working and middle_class people have long been stoical about the lack of consideration they receive from various levels of government . working and middle_class people have long been stoical about the lack of consideration they receive from various levels of government . in particular , they are expected to , and do , pay the taxes that make the country work , while they collectively receive less in return than any other group . nevertheless , nothing done in the past equals the deliberate slap in the face the new york state court of appeals has just given working and middle_class families . in the recent baer vs . brookhaven decision , the court of appeals has voided any restriction on the number of unrelated individuals residing in a single house . this means every neighborhood in new york state is now a rooming house neighborhood , and the premise of local zoning control that has existed throughout american history has been gutted by the court . the court 's ruling amounts to a calculated dismissal of family and community values . working and middle_class people in this state have generally had to work and save for years before owning their homes . they have paid some of the highest home prices in the nation and their property_taxes are the nation 's highest . with one contemptous stroke the court of appeals has jeopardized middle_class new yorkers' most important investment . no home can maintain its value if the surrounding area can be rendered rooming house territory at the whim of any individual . consequently , the court of appeals has expropriated at least part of the real_estate value of every homeowner 's residence . this state directed theft opens the door to challenges of real_estate tax assessments throughout new york . if taxes are based on the value of property and property values shrink because of this court mandated downzoning , the taxes paid must be reduced as well . in the end local and state governments will suffer along with the citizenry . the court 's ruling belittles the primacy of the family in a manner unprecedented in american law . according to published reports , the court decided that towns can not limit the number of unrelated individuals since it does not regulate the number of related individuals . in tradition , common_sense and cultural self interest , the needs of families have always received special consideration . no society has ever survived and flourished that has not recognized the primacy of the family . by treating families like some shifting group of individuals , the court has struck a major blow against the community cohesion that allows the nurturing of young people . by permitting rooming houses in any area , the court has undermined neighborhood stability and promoted transiency . whether the roomers are college students , workers , the handicapped or one of the many types of halfway houses currently proposed , placing such rooming houses in family neighborhoods has typically led to a decline of neighborhood standards . crowding and garage problems ensue and a safe environment for children is jeopardized . it is no secret that crime is on the increase in new york state . any moves that increase transiency will make crime detection and control even more difficult . while not all renters are unconcerned about the appearance of their place of residence , many are indifferent , and rental neighborhoods are frequently less well maintained than those in owner occupied areas . the green_light given to rooming house situations is likely to lead to a general decline in the physical appearance of the neighborhoods involved . not only will this make current single family areas less pleasant to live in , but will also accelerate property devaluation . at a time when there is general agreement that more land use planning is needed , the court 's decision is a regressive action . had the court wished to aid the establishment of halfway houses for specified groups of people in need , which was the origin of the brookhaven case , this could have been easily done without destroying any reasonable standard of zoning control . in particular , the court could have supported the clear interest new york state and the nation has in the maintenance of a viable middle_class . the court 's decision is unfortunately so blind to the interests of the majority of the most productive group in this state as to constitute contempt . middle_class and working_class taxpayers and property owners must reply in kind . although the arrogant court of appeals implied that there was no recourse to federal courts , there is actually good reason to apply to the supreme_court . one can only hope that the town of brookhaven will do so . all the towns , villages and municipalities in the state should join brookhaven in this issue . additionally , every voter in new york state must contact his state representatives and the governor to express outrage over the judicial pearl_harbor the court has launched on its citizens . if need be the court itself can be changed . court of appeals judges serve 14 year terms after nomination by the governor and confirmation by the state_senate . citizens can contact both cuomo and their state senator demanding that the middle_class receive the rights and protections so extravagantly proferred to every special interest group in the state . if nothing results from these protests , it is time to take a few scalps . no redress , of course , will happen unless the citizens of this state act . failure to do so will cost them their investments , their neighborhoods and a culture that respects work and commitment . long_island opinion",has a topic of estate
"lead corsican separatist guerrillas blew up about 40 vacation homes under construction today and pledged to continue fighting foreign investment on the french mediterranean island . armed and hooded members of the corsican national liberation front staged the attack on the oasis resort , a complex of 120 homes being built near the northwest port of calvi . corsican separatist guerrillas blew up about 40 vacation homes under construction today and pledged to continue fighting foreign investment on the french mediterranean island . armed and hooded members of the corsican national liberation front staged the attack on the oasis resort , a complex of 120 homes being built near the northwest port of calvi . no one was hurt but a third of the houses were destroyed .",has a topic of estate
"being smack in the middle of new jersey , less than an hour 's drive from either new york or philadelphia , is both a blessing and a curse for the middlesex county township of north_brunswick . it makes two major employment centers accessible to residents and keeps taxes among the lowest in the county by attracting large corporate ratables , such as johnson_johnson and bristol_myers squibb . on the other hand , it makes the township a natural corridor , chopped up by three major highways routes 1 , 27 and 130 . the tree lined residential streets , with their large lots , reflect the township 's once rural character , but the noise of traffic , which can be heard in most of north_brunswick , is a reminder that those times are no more . "" our major problem here is getting people from one side of the township to the other safely , "" said mayor paul j . matacera . "" for years , the township has been discussing constructing a recreation center , "" said superintendent of schools edward j . leppert . "" but because the town is so divided no one could decide where it should be located . "" until the early 60 's , most of north_brunswick was farmland . then the first large developments indian head and brunswick knolls were built and , said mr . leppert , he bought a four bedroom , one and a half bath split level in brunswick knolls for 20 , 000 . today , similar houses in both developments sell for 165 , 000 to 200 , 000 , depending on how much they have been upgraded . luxury housing came in the late 60 's with the innovative , 1 , 500 unit hidden lake development in the northwestern section . that development , which includes 3 , 000 square_foot one family homes , town houses , patio homes and apartments , more than doubled the population of the township . even today , hidden lake accounts for nearly 20 percent of north_brunswick 's dwelling units . housing prices in hidden lake range from 110 , 000 for some one bedroom condominium apartments up to 350 , 000 for some one family houses . from its earliest days , north_brunswick drew from the large cities to its north and south . its first settlers arrived in 1761 from new amsterdam . some of them are memorialized in the names of streets or sections . the north_brunswick government and community complex , for instance , opened in 1992 on hermann road in the berdine 's corner section . berdine is a corruption of the last name of nicholas bodine , a blacksmith and early settler , whose shop was near the corner of what is now route 130 ( also known as georges road ) and hermann . by 1784 , records show , more than 1 , 400 people lived on 137 farms in what is now north_brunswick . there were also 19 stores , eight taverns , five mills and a brewery . of the three major highways routes 27 and 130 follow old leni lenape indian trails . the section of route_1 that passes through the township was built as an entirely new road , called the trenton new brunswick turnpike , in 1804 . the builders , the trenton and new brunswick company , charged a toll of one cent a carriage per mile and half a cent per mile for a horse and rider . the abundance of water made the township an excellent site for mills , the most famous of which was the parsons snuff mill along the lawrence brook . according to a township history , the mill produced 125 , 000 pounds of snuff , worth 80 , 000 , in 1872 . today , farrington lake , fed by the lawrence brook , is the site of the township 's largest and most expensive homes . according to gloria r . zastko , president of gloria zastko realtors on route 130 , four to six bedroom houses on lakefront lots there sell for up to 1 million . similar homes two blocks away , without lake views , go for less than half that . the least expensive one family homes are in the older northeastern section of town three bedroom , turn of the century colonials there sell for as little as 135 , 000 . the township has about 3 , 000 apartments , mostly around the highways . one of the large garden apartment complexes , north village apartments , off route_1 , has 490 one and two bedroom units starting at 705 a month . among the newer residents are victor r . stankiewicz and his wife , maribeth , both 30 years old . the couple moved from a condominium apartment in neighboring new brunswick last may into a_37 year old custom built four bedroom split level on huff road in the colonial gardens section . mr . stankiewicz manages food service for a philadelphia law_firm and mrs . stankiewicz works in the finance department of gmac in linden . "" one of the reasons we chose north_brunswick was its centrality , "" mr . stankiewicz said . "" it 's an hour 's commute to both new york city and philadelphia . we plan to live here for a long time and raise a family here . so its being between two employment centers was very important . "" the couple , who are expecting their first child in january , say they investigated the school system and township activities for children and were satisfied that they were excellent . "" we also noticed , "" mr . stankiewicz added , "" that there is a lot of turnover in the housing on our block and in the township in general , with the older folks selling their homes to younger families . "" the school system has a total of 4 , 300 students , reflecting a growth of 1 , 000 in the student body since 1986 . in the same period the number of dwellings in north_brunswick increased by more than 30 percent . the district consists of four k 6 elementary schools , the 680 student linwood middle_school and the 1 , 200 student north_brunswick township high_school . the largest elementary_school is judd school , which has 680 students . there is a computer laboratory in each of the elementary schools and in the middle_school the high_school has two computer labs . according to mr . leppert , 35 percent of the teachers have master 's degrees or higher and 88 percent of the graduating_seniors go on to higher_education . along with the high_school , judd is in the 25 acre veteran 's park between routes 1 and 130 . the park , one of three large ones in the town , has five baseball fields , four tennis courts and three soccer fields . all its facilities are also used by the schools as part of a relationship between the township and the school system . it is also the site of the annual heritage day , one of the efforts the township makes to draw the population together , despite the divisive highway system . this year , it will be held on sept . 18 . there are clowns , ethnic bands , pony rides and other events , and one of the traditions of the 11 year old event is that the mayor sits in a dunking chair as his political rivals and others throw balls at a target to raise money for the fire department . if a ball hits the target , the mayor gets dunked . "" i started this 11 years ago , when i was 34 , "" the mayor said , "" and i do n't know how much longer i can still do this . "" the township has three supermarkets , a large shopping_center on route_1 and an abundance of strip centers along the three highways . the closest regional mall is the brunswick square mall , five miles away in neighboring east_brunswick . among the better known restaurants are the hearth ( american ) on route 130 . ferraro 's ( italian ) off milltown road , whalebones by the sea ( seafood and meat ) on church lane and sir john 's restaurant ( continental ) on washington avenue . although no buildings in north_brunswick are on the national_register of historic places , it has many historical structures . one of the oldest is the georges road baptist church , circa 1843 , on old georges road . the structure was built on a foundation of logs and has the original stained_glass_windows .",has a topic of estate
"an article on aug . 15 about the financing of commercial projects in philadelphia misstated changes in federal tax benefits for renovating historic buildings . benefits have been reduced , but not eliminated , and restrictions have been placed on eligibility . the article and an adjoining picture caption also referred incorrectly to the packard building at 15th and chestnut streets . it is not the former headquarters of the packard motor car company it was named for charles s . w . packard , a banker .",has a topic of estate
"when robert stidham , an executive at a chicago company , relocated to long_island last year , he had no chance to learn about the area . having moved several times , he knew the difficulties involved in settling in a new location disconnecting and reconnecting utilities , finding an insurance_broker , a mover and other service_providers that he hoped would be reputable . ''i knew nothing about the area , '' said mr . stidham , recently employed by dunhill staffing systems in hauppauge . ''it was important that i hit the ground running and begin work . it 's such a hassle . '' the problem was compounded when he found that the house he had bought in selden required oil delivery and a connection for satellite_television . he was unfamiliar with both services . within a short time , mr . stidham , who bought his new house through the daniel_gale agency in stony_brook , said he experienced ''an unexpected pleasure . '' the agency had just begun a service that offers a range of free personal assistance available before , during and after the move and for as long as he owns the house . as part of the service , which is guided by a computer program called home link , the agency arranged for oil delivery and the satellite hookup . ''i was a bit leery at first when i was told that someone else would handle all this for me , '' mr . stidham said . ''but , as time went on , i saw what a great job they did . '' services that schedule and arrange assistance with the chores involved with moving and home maintenance are gradually becoming popular with real_estate companies . with many prospective home buyers turning to the internet for real_estate information , agencies are trying to offer clients added value . while at most independent one office real_estate agencies the agents still personally recommend local services to clients , many national agencies , as well as larger long_island based brokerage_firms with a number of offices , are establishing referral programs and hiring employees trained in dealing with utility companies , contractors and moving companies to run them . ''it is a new concept in realty services , '' said barbara franco , marketing manager for coldwell_banker sammis in huntington . more than two years ago , it began offering what is commonly called concierge service to its long_island offices . ''we are no longer the keepers of real_estate information people can get it online , '' ms . franco said . ''and , everyone is so busy . we definitely have to offer something more to our clients . this service is one of the best tools we have . it 's a win win situation and has been well received in the community . '' in the last two years , other large real_estate companies have either established a home service program or are looking into setting one up . national homefinders signature properties inc . in ronkonkoma , with 10 real_estate brokerage offices on long_island , established a home services program last year . prudential long_island , with 35 offices , ''is in the process of investigating with a few companies'' that have the service , said dorothy herman , its owner . ''it 's a great concept , '' she added . ''however , it 's a lot more difficult to do than meets the eye . '' the programs are basically organized in the same manner , with the service being free to the client . providers of such services as fuel delivery , carpentry and landscaping pay a fee to be on the agency 's referral list . they are recommended by company agents familiar with the area , receive a background_check and must be licensed and insured . in each agency , one or two employees coordinate the service with the individual agents and their clients . the service coordinator , working with the agent , contacts a service provider requested by the client . if the client uses that particular vendor , the coordinator monitors the service . the real_estate agencies themselves generally require that home buyers sign documents absolving the agency of any liability as a result of the service_providers' actions . the computer program used by the daniel_gale agency to manage the service , called home link and developed by the company of the same name , based in shelton , conn . , helps agents keep track of all aspects of the sales process . ''people are taking advantage of the program like crazy , '' said marie montchal , director of home link services for the gale agency , which has 11 offices on long_island . ''people are busier now than ever in their personal and work life . they appreciate people who will stay on hold with a utility service , follow up and make sure the work is done and that they are satisfied . '' each client is registered in a separate portfolio in the computer program , ms . montchal said , which contains his or her data along with continuing information about the sales process and home needs . ms . montchal works with two ''personal move coordinators , '' donna etergineoso and janet m . silver . a sales account manager , william byer , develops the list of service_providers and monitors their performance . home link service_providers have a choice of two programs . currently , there are 29 vendors , including doctors and antiques dealers , who pay a fee , which ms . montchal declined to specify , to be listed in the service directory , which is available on home link 's web_site , and in its quarterly magazine . an additional 20 vendors pay a higher fee and are directly referred to customers seeking the type of services they offer , ms . montchal said , as well as being given advertising space on the web_site . these are usually companies that address typical home needs , like movers and insurance agencies , she said . there are a few services for new homeowners that the agencies cannot arrange . for example , some water districts will not allow a third party to arrange for hookups , ms . montchal said . ''so , we get all the information and advise the client what to do . eventually , we 'll convince the water districts we can do a better job , that we would call during their downtime and make their job easier . '' the only problem that the national homefinders agency had with a vendor was when one did not respond to the client within 24 hours as required , said kathy ash , director of the program . ''if someone does n't meet our quality standards , '' she said , ''i have no problem eliminating them from our list . '' the home service at coldwell_banker sammis , which has 16 offices on long_island , has 65 vendors , with carpenters being the most popular , according to carol leite , the agency 's concierge representative . at the national homefinders agency , ms . ash , director of its signature home services division , works with one coordinator who sends a mailing to the agency 's clients . the mailing includes a checklist of services offered and a self addressed , stamped envelope . ''the response is unbelievable , '' she said . ''then they get a personal phone call from us , and we hook them up to a vendor . '' the 40 vendors , referred by the company 's 300 agents , pay a referral fee and in turn get advertising on national homefinder 's web_site and in the agency 's offices , as well as being referred to buyers in need of their services . contact with home buyers is not made directly , however , but comes through the coordinator at the real_estate agency . margy hargraves a broker at the daniel_gale agency who has been selling houses for 30 years , is enthusiastic about the home service program . ''it 's like a giant present to agents from the agency , '' she said . susan verdu , an agent with coldwell_banker sammis in smithtown who specializes in serving older clients , said the program was especially popular with older people and with buyers being relocated from out of the area . she also noted that it relieved a burden from agents , many of whom had been referring contractors and other services on their own for years . ''for 10 years we 've been putting together packets for corporations and seniors , '' she said . ''we were already doing it on a certain scale providing lists of elder attorneys and contacts we knew that have a good reputation . '' small independent realtors say they can handle the competition by continuing to do what they have always done . owners of one office agencies , like the 20 year old atanas realty corporation in williston park , say their agents offer referrals constantly . ''i have built up a four star list with a wide variety of services , including landscapers , doctors , restaurants and termite control people , '' said the owner , evelyn atanas , who has lived in the central nassau_county area all her life . ms . atanas does not charge vendors to be on her list , she said . ''i refer people i know who are good at their occupation , and i call around for other recommendations , '' she said . ''all i want is a job well done , or i 'll drop them . i 'm a stickler about them being good , and i know who is expensive , who is not , and who is good and who is not . ''",has a topic of estate
"as the conversion of old industrial buildings to residential use continues and new apartment buildings rise in the dumbo area of brooklyn , the number of developers active in the neighborhood has also been increasing . one of the more active in dumbo , or down under the manhattan bridge overpass , is boymelgreen developers of brooklyn . the company , along with partners , has five residential projects in various stages of development that by 2005 will yield 268 apartments , mostly new condominiums but including some conversions of industrial or office buildings into apartments . several other developers plan an additional 500 apartments in that period , said richard mauro , a principal of dexter haven realty in dumbo . among them is two trees management , a pioneer in dumbo 's rejuvenation and its major property owner . mr . mauro said other developers included the kay organization , which plans to develop 50 to 60 condo apartments in a conversion and new construction project involving the old kirkland soap factory and an adjacent industrial building at bridge and plymouth streets . guma construction , he said , has started site work on a_12 story condo building at 133 water street that will also have 50 to 60 apartments , and cara construction has begun work on a 30 story mixed use tower on jay street between york and front streets that is to have 200 condos . dumbo began to take its current residential form in 1997 when two trees started to convert four of its industrial buildings into 131 rentals . a fifth structure , one main_street , was turned into 124 condo apartments that went on sale in 1998 and stamped the area a neighborhood . since then , additional housing has been created , new shops and restaurants have opened and more are anticipated , said jed walentas , a principal of two trees . christopher d . thomas , president of the brooklyn office of the william b . may residential brokerage company , said that because demand had so far remained in balance with supply ''there was no trouble absorbing'' the first wave of residences . and since they were in buildings closest to the east_river with views , sales prices were high but have now leveled off , he said , noting that prices were 500 to 700 a square_foot on average . but he said future prices might be closer to the lower end of that scale because many of the remaining buildings are far away from the water and offer lesser views . mr . walentas said that next year two trees planned to convert to housing 70 washington street , when the artists' studios and light industrial tenants in the 13 story structure move as their leases expire . he said the building , a few blocks from the water , would be converted into more than 200 condo apartments . in the last 18 months , the company has transformed the sweeney building at 30 main_street into 87 condos with 1 , 500 to 1 , 600 square_feet on average . all but two of the apartments have been sold for an average of 650 a square_foot , or 1 . 143 million , according to toby klein , executive sales director of two trees . sara mirski , a developer for boymelgreen , said that her company entered dumbo roughly three years ago and that its current projects represented a total investment of 150 million . the company 's first development , bridgefront , a 21 apartment condo , is nearing_completion at main and front streets . in the three months since sales began , all but one of the 10 story building 's 1 , 010 to 1 , 700 square_foot apartments have been sold for 600 , 000 to 1 . 15 million , ms . mirski said . boymelgreen has also begun work on an 11 story glass and chrome condo building with 44 apartments at 84 front street . the company is also converting two interconnecting , 1920 's commercial buildings at 57 front street to 33 one and two bedroom rental_apartments . residential real_estate",has a topic of estate
"in the following reports , the "" listed at "" price is the asking price when negotiations began that ended in the sale . time on market is from most recent listing to contract . manhattan chelsea 255 , 000 22 west 26th_street 2 bedroom , 1 bath , 1 , 780 sq . ft . co op in a loft building part time doorman , elevator , dining_area , common roof_deck maintenance 1 , 124 , 40 tax deductible , listed at 289 , 000 , 1 year on market ( broker silverman group ) tribeca 262 , 000 39 white street 1 , 869 sq . ft . open loft co op elevator , 12 ft . ceilings , 1 bath , 2 exposures maintenance 1 , 000 , 80 tax deductible . listed at 275 , 000 , 3 months on market ( broker elise ward i.b.c. ) upper east side 925 , 000 630 park_avenue ( 66th st . ) 3 bedroom , 4 bath , 2 , 000 sq . ft . prewar co op 24 hr . doorman , concierge , manned_elevator , maid 's room , dining_room , 2 fireplaces maintenance 1940 , 40 tax deductible , listed at 1 . 025 million , 1 year on market ( broker key ventures , inc . ) upper west side 810 , 000 175 west 88th_street 2 family , 4 story town house 3 bedrooms , 2 baths , 2 fireplaces in each unit finished_basement taxes 6 , 191 , listed at 875 , 000 , 11 weeks on market ( broker vandenberg real_estate ) bronx city_island 117 , 500 346 william avenue 2 bedroom , 1 bath , 50 year old cottage family room , living room , full basement taxes 800 , listed at 125 , 000 , 1 week on market ( broker_jacqueline_kyle_kall ) morris park 178 , 000 1729 white plains road 2 family , semi_attached brick house 3 bedrooms , 1 bath , dining_room in each unit finished_basement taxes 1 , 300 , listed at 185 , 000 , 4 months on market ( broker marland real_estate ) brooklyn brooklyn_heights 285 , 000 22 pierrepont street 2 bedroom , 2 bath , 1 , 400 sq . ft . co op in a brownstone elevator , study , fireplace , terrace maintenance 759 , 50 tax deductible , listed at 325 , 000 , 7 weeks on market ( broker william b . may ) prospect_heights 283 , 500 273 prospect place 2 family , 52 year old , attached , brick house 4 bedrooms , 2 baths , eat in kitchen and sitting room in primary triplex 1 bedroom , 1 bath in other renovated baths , new floors in each taxes 1 , 275 , listed at 295 , 000 , 5 months on market ( broker cole cole realty ) park_slope 320 , 000 544 8th street 2 family , 3 story limestone 3 bedroom , 2 bath , dining_room , eat in kitchen in primary duplex 2 bedrooms , 1 bath in simplex original moldings in each taxes 1 , 600 , listed at 345 , 000 , 1 week on market ( broker f.j . kazeroid realty group ) queens forest_hills 195 , 000 95 24 72d street 3 bedroom , 1 1 2 bath , 62 year old , wood frame colonial_dining_room , eat in kitchen , finished_basement , 1 car garage taxes 1 , 400 , listed at 225 , 000 , 3 months on market ( broker dix realty ) forest hills gardens 545 , 700 92 greenway north 5 bedroom , 4 bath , 70 year old , brick , center hall colonial_dining_room , eat in kitchen , solarium , fireplace , 1 car garage taxes 3 , 964 , listed at 549 , 000 , 1 week on market ( broker_terrace_realty ) staten_island grasmere 215 , 000 136 providence street 3 bedroom , 2 baths , 30 year old , detached , raised ranch_dining_room , eat in kitchen , full basement , 1 car garage taxes 1 , 700 , listed at 229 , 000 , 4 weeks on market ( broker coldwell_banker desimone realty ) great kills 150 , 000 60 lindenwood road 2 bedroom , 1 bath , 65 year old ranch dining_area , eat in kitchen , new roof , windows and siding taxes 1 , 200 , listed at 165 , 000 , 6 weeks on market ( broker linda nasta realtor ) long_island commack 173 , 000 32 schuyler drive 3 bedroom , 1 1 2 bath , 35 year old colonial_dining_room , eat in kitchen , finished_basement , den , fireplace , 1 car garage taxes 4 , 300 , listed at 179 , 000 , 5 weeks on market ( brokers coach real_estate associates re max one ) . jericho 379 , 250 21 hunt court 4 bedroom , 2 1 2 bath , 4 year old condominium town house dining_room , eat in kitchen , finished_basement , fireplace , pool , tennis taxes 10 , 000 , common charge 392 , listed at 395 , 000 , 6 months on market ( brokers east brook realty eldon realty ) . muttontown 635 , 000 98 sterling court 5 bedroom , 3 1 2 bath , 18 year old ranch_dining_room , eat in kitchen , den , basement , fireplace , 2 car garage , 1 acre taxes 10 , 000 , listed at 685 , 000 , 3 months on market ( brokers sterling properties east brook realty ) . west_islip 162 , 000 78 parkwood road 3 bedroom , 2 bath , 37 year old ranch_dining_room , attic , fireplace , 1 car garage taxes 5 , 000 , listed at 167 , 000 ( broker the prudential long_island realty ) . new jersey denville 259 , 000 10 whitman drive 4 bedroom , 2 1 2 bath , 32 year old raised ranch 1 . 25 acre lot , 2 fireplaces , 2 decks taxes 4 , 387 , listed at 269 , 900 , 1 month on market ( broker prudential new jersey realtors ) lawrence township 361 , 000 54 fackler road 4 bedroom , 3 bath , 30 year old colonial 2 fireplaces , french doors , flagstone terrace taxes 5 , 139 , listed at 379 , 000 , 1 month on market ( broker richard a . weidel realtors ) lower township 59 , 000 713 winslow avenue 2 bedroom , 1 bath , 37 year old ranch handyman special , eat in kitchen , laundry room taxes 1 , 110 , listed at 59 , 900 , 27 weeks on market ( brokers demusz real_estate ) wyckoff 325 , 000 468 meer avenue 3 bedroom , 2 bath , 30 year old ranch c a , fireplace , 2 car garage taxes 4 , 886 , listed at 335 , 500 , 11 weeks on market ( broker_weichert realtors ) westchester peekskill 186 , 000 626 cardinal road 3 bedroom , 2 bath , raised ranch family room , eat in kitchen , dining_room , 2 car garage taxes 4 , 910 , listed at 188 , 400 , 5 weeks on market ( broker chris markatos associates ) pelham_manor 761 , 500 49 hillcrest drive 8 bedroom , 6 1 2 bath , 75 year old colonial modern eat in kitchen , family room , sauna , gym taxes 17 , 825 , listed at 825 , 000 , 2 years on market ( broker mcclellan company ) mamaroneck 330 , 000 1041 taylor avenue 5 bedroom , 3 bath , 32 year old raised ranch family room , fireplace , deck , 2 car garage taxes 11 , 253 , listed at 375 , 000 , 13 weeks on market ( brokers_coldwell_banker , reality 3 real_estate ) somers 166 , 250 1 dellworth drive 3 bedroom , 2 bath , 11 year old ranch entry_foyer , eat in kitchen , playroom , pool taxes 3 , 229 , listed at 179 , 900 , 14 weeks on market ( brokers_coldwell_banker michael st . george realty ) connecticut darien 290 , 000 1 old stone road 3 bedroom , 2 bath , 47 year old cape_cod eat in kitchen , fireplace , recently remodeled , 1 car garage , 0 . 50 acre taxes 2 , 612 , listed at 309 , 000 , 2 months on market ( brokers preferred properties prudential connecticut ) fairfield 180 , 000 528 old field road 3 bedroom , 2 bath , 90 year old colonial_dining_room , eat in kitchen , family room , solarium taxes 2 , 830 , listed at 205 , 000 , 38 weeks on market ( brokers ravis real_estate century 21 coastal realty ) greenwich 1 . 025 million 87 perkins road 5 bedroom , 4 1 2 bath , 25 year old colonial_dining_room , family room , library , entrance hall , eat in kitchen , c a , 3 fireplaces , pool , screen porch , circular driveway , 2 acres , 2 car garage , full basement taxes 7 , 100 , listed at 1 . 135 million , 3 months on market ( broker coldwell_banker_schlott realtors ) stamford 491 , 000 76 ridgecrest road 4 bedroom , 2 1 2 bath , 25 year old brick colonial finished_basement , 2 fireplaces , remodeled baths , pool , 2 car garage , 1 acre taxes 7 , 146 , listed at 535 , 000 , 16 weeks on market ( brokers_coldwell_banker schlott_realtors william_pitt real_estate )",has a topic of estate
"when the city_council decided last week to sever the contract that gave xanadu properties associates exclusive rights to build a luxury residential colony on davids_island , the developer had gone as far as he could go , he said , in reducing the density of the project . "" you reach a point where a project cannot be further downsized , "" said james m . kozak , a vice_president of the xanadu partnership . "" to further reduce the plan 's density would be to end up with a scheme that no bank would finance . "" the city , for its part , had concluded that the 1 billion project would win neither the necessary two thirds vote of the county board of legislators nor approval by the secretary of state in albany . so reluctantly , at least for three of five members of the city_council , xanadu 's request for a contract extension was rejected tuesday night . mayor timothy c . idoni , who had been in favor of extending xanadu 's exclusive rights for another five years , changed his mind after a six hour public hearing monday_night . he praised the plan , nevertheless , as a proposal of "" exceptional quality "" before joining the rest of the council in rejecting it . he also said that "" environmental concerns have been carefully and thoroughly addressed "" by the developers , in what amounted to their third major version of the plan , and that they had produced "" real public_access "" to the island , a sore point that arose when the original plan barred the public . mr . kozak said , "" everyone wanted public_access and parks , but no one was giving us abatements . "" "" there must be a balance between economics and the environment , "" he said . "" our plan struck that balance , but it was on a razor 's edge . if the plan was downgraded any further it would have been no longer feasible . "" 'they left the door open for us' gordon marshall , a xanadu partner , said he was "" gratified that they left the door open for us , "" referring to the mayor 's stated intention to "" open the process to new proposals from other developers , including xanadu . "" but mr . marshall said it would be improper to approach gail s . shaffer , the state secretary of state , "" or anyone else , without being the designated developer . "" "" if the city should reopen the process , we would like to participate , "" he said . he said his partners had been having discussions with ms . shaffer "" and felt we were on the right track "" when the city_council acted . he said there was no way of knowing how any new proposal would differ from the most recent version . he had some words of caution for any interested developer . "" i do n't think there is an understanding of what has to be done before you can develop that island , "" he said . "" people think it is a bucolic island that only needs to be built on . "" "" davids_island has the remnants of fort slocum , which it took the army a year to build , "" he said . "" buildings are burned out and the former gymnasium , which had a metal arched roof , looks like a pile of metal spaghetti . it would cost 60 million just to dismantle the buildings . "" the bridge , which became a focus of disagreement at many levels , "" would have cost 40 million , "" mr . marshall said . "" we spent over 20 million for all the studies , "" an investment that other developers would have to repeat "" because we consider our results to be proprietary . "" "" then there 's another 10 . 35 million we would owe the city upon closing , "" mr . marshall added . "" so that 's a total of more than 130 million , "" he said . "" how many developers are prepared to spend that before a shovel goes into the ground ? "" any return to negotiating over davids_island might be delayed , meanwhile , in the wake of last week 's vote . mayor idoni said , "" davids_island will still be part of our development process , but downtown has to be our immediate interest . "" many proponents of granting xanadu an extension cited the poor economic condition of new rochelle 's downtown as underscoring the need for new ratables , or taxable property , that davids_island promised . robert angarola , president of the school board , put it this way "" new rochelle is in dire need of development , and it needs it now . some say the developer has inflated the property taxes the project will produce , but any new revenue is acceptable . "" the process is called the problem richard syracuse , a builder and developer , said , "" you wo n't get another developer in this current economic situation and with new rochelle 's viability in question . "" the process is the problem , not the developer , he added . mayor idoni , speaking after the vote rejecting xanadu , was more optimistic about the chances of improving the city 's long stagnant downtown . "" we are negotiating with the starrett housing_corporation for the construction of 300 rental_units and could have a preliminary agreement next month , "" he said . "" in addition , we are one of four finalists as the site of a new headquarters for unicef , "" he said . "" two others are in new york city , and the other is in new jersey . "" the mayor said he hoped new rochelle would be favored because it "" sits astride i_95 , "" the new england thruway . unicef is now situated near united_nations_headquarters in manhattan . mayor idoni said the proposal would bring 700 to 1 , 000 unicef employees to new rochelle . they would work in a new 20 story building near the metro_north tracks opposite a mall on huguenot street . a development framework sought the mayor suggested another reason for delaying resumption of davids_island activity . he thought it would be useful if city officials sat down with interested parties at the county , state and even federal level to agree on a framework in which a developer could work . stephen p . tenore , the chairman of the board of legislators and the new rochelle representative on the board , said , "" i see an opportunity for the county , the secretary of state and the city to jointly establish what is acceptable to all before we deal with another developer . "" "" we should become pro active instead of reactive , "" he said . mr . tenore had warned that only 1 of 17 county legislators had indicated support for the proposed bridge to davids_island , and that warning did as much as anything else to kill xanadu 's extension . "" my own interest , "" mr . tenore said , "" would be less density , much less height in the apartment buildings and complete public_access to the island . he had also objected to a projected 800 boat marina "" that would be only 1 , 000 feet from glen island beach . "" lack of an escape clause cited he also objected to "" the fact that the projected extension for xanadu provided no escape clause , "" which would mean the city "" would be unable to act for five years even if xanadu 's proposals were rejected by albany . "" the disagreements over xanadu 's proposal covered several aspects of the ambitious plan to turn the desolate island into a luxurious community of residential towers with only two apartments on a floor , scores of town house units , a yacht club , a marina , a heliport and a 3 , 465 foot bridge . the developers first introduced the concept of residential exclusivity , with the public barred from the island . ms . shaffer , among others , found this to be elitist and said that turning publicly owned coastal land into private use was unacceptable . xanadu then offered a half acre site near the bridge 's island terminus that would be open to the public during daylight hours . that , too , was rejected . the final version contained 19 acres of public promenades and parks , with access extended to a crescent shaped rocky jetty protecting the marina . residents protested loss of view as for density , the original plan called for four 50 story apartment towers , with other families living in town houses on landscaped grounds . mr . marshall said the city had hoped for a_4 , 500 unit colony but that figure was cut to 2 , 000 and then 1 , 750 . shoreline residents in new rochelle and the communities to the north on long_island_sound bitterly protested that the plan would adversely_affect their view . building heights were cut to 31 stories and , finally , to one tower of 19 stories and three of 15 stories . environmentalists and others were most strongly opposed to the bridge and to a waste treatment plant that they said would pollute the atmosphere and the fragile waters of the sound . xanadu changed its original plan , which provided secondary treatment , to a promise to build a more effective tertiary treatment plant . experts hired by the developers said the tertiary process would reduce the introduction of harmful nitrogen into the sound to a negligible four parts per million . the federated conservationists of westchester_county said the developer 's study of sound waters overlooked information generated by the long_island_sound study , a five year effort . bridge stirred heated debate the argument over the bridge was probably the most heated and the least likely to be resolved because it hinged less on esthetics , which the developers recognized with a slimmer , more graceful design , than on the fact of the span itself . the environmentalists said ferry_service was an appropriate alternative . xanadu said ferry_service would be hazardous in the busy waters between the island and the mainland . the developer also said that automobiles moving across a bridge would produce less pollution than 100 cars starting up cold at the ends of the bridge . a ferry would require construction of a huge parking_lot in south new rochelle near the shore facing the island . eight homes would have to be removed from that area for construction of a bridge , the developers said .",has a topic of estate
"last month , when swiss bank announced it would leave new york for stamford , conn . , it was big news in both cities . new york , still smarting from the defection of small but high profile mastercard to westchester , now faces the prospect that 1 , 300 swiss bank jobs and 700 planned new ones will vanish up interstate_95 . stamford not only gets the jobs , but also a new office complex in a seedy part of town . stamford officials and landlords profess delight , but not surprise . after all , connecticut gave swiss bank tax breaks that could amount to 120 million over 10 years . and , they note , swiss bank is just the latest albeit the largest company leaving new york for stamford these days . "" swiss bank is just an exclamation mark to what is happening here , "" said h . darrell harvey , president of the ashforth company , a stamford real_estate concern . indeed , stamford is going through a renaissance . according to christopher p . bruhl , president of the business council of southwestern connecticut , more than 300 companies have relocated to fairfield_county most to stamford in the last five years . very few of those , mr . bruhl notes , were given incentives to come . "" those relocations are n't because of incentives or cheap rents , "" mr . bruhl said . "" if you want cheap , you go to brazil or north_carolina . we 're about value . "" stamford afficionados predict even more newcomers in swiss bank 's wake . "" all the service companies that will follow , the accounting firms , the legal firms , even the messenger services , will gobble up the remaining space , "" said michael j . cacace , a partner in cacace , tusch santagata , a stamford law_firm . apparently , investors believe that , too . in the last few years zell merrill_lynch has spent 132 million to buy five office buildings . equity office properties has paid 146 . 45 million for another five stamford buildings and has been renovating them . "" we feel all of these buildings are undervalued assets and that the stamford market has hit bottom , "" said patrick lerch , equity 's northeast regional manager . stamford 's nascent revival is being actively nurtured . local officials persuaded the state to put a university of connecticut campus in downtown stamford , at the site of a closed bloomingdale 's . a new cultural center has opened . so have nightclubs , discos and restaurants that cater to a young , lively crowd . the train_station will be getting a 50 million overhaul next year , which will double its capacity for trains by 1998 . but all that is nothing compared to stamford 's overhaul in self_image . over the years , the city has gradually metamorphosed from an old line manufacturing center into a service industry hub . the business council 's statistics show that employment in finance , insurance and real_estate the so called fire sector in the greater stamford area has grown 45 percent in the last five years . "" this area has a tremendously well educated , highly professional labor pool , "" said mr . harvey . "" those companies that can afford to tap into it are getting the best . "" the new service emphasis has been a wrenching change for stamford . during the 60 's and 70 's , stamford evolved into a corporate campus city , a place where industrial companies like olin , xerox and combustion engineering built palace like headquarters . lawyers , accountants and others looking to serve the industrial behemoths soon followed . well paid executives for those companies moved nearby , to parts of stamford and to such neighboring communities as greenwich , new canaan , darien and westport . for no small reason is fairfield_county known as connecticut 's gold_coast . but in the late 80 's the lagging economy forced many corporations to cut staff , and thus space . many others subscribed to the growing belief that american corporations had too many layers of management . they , too , began pruning their staffs . the effects of downsizing , as well as of the highway congestion that had accompanied the earlier expansion , rippled throughout stamford . many downtown stores closed or moved to the stamford mall . the f . d . rich company , for decades stamford 's premier office building developer , lost its buildings to its lenders one by one . "" by 1991 stamford real_estate was dead in the water , "" said anthony e . malkin , president of w m properties , which owns two class a office buildings in the city . the aftershocks continue . according to the edward s . gordon company , the real_estate concern , the international_business_machines corporation , olin and abb combustion engineering returned more than 650 , 000 square_feet to the fairfield_county market in the second quarter of 1994 . cummings lockwood , perhaps the area 's largest law_firm , champion international and lone star industries each put big blocks of space on the market for sublet . gte and other companies that are not looking for sublet tenants have nonetheless shrunk enough to rattle around in their buildings . but the good news has been considerable , too . stamford never relied heavily on now beleaguered industries like military contracting . ge_capital , now its leading corporate citizen , has expanded to several buildings and is buying olin 's 277 , 000 square_foot headquarters . a few other large companies are looking at stamford with renewed interest . brokers say elizabeth arden is looking for 100 , 000 square_feet and that two computer related companies are also looking for large chunks of space . swiss bank is expected to rent more than 100 , 000 square_feet of interim space while its new downtown complex is being built . and stamford has been enjoying the same "" flight to quality "" that buoyed much of manhattan 's midtown during the recession . small companies found they could move into a premier stamford building like metro center or the general reinsurance building for annual rents in the low 20 's per square_foot and operating costs that , at about 8 to 10 , are half what they are in midtown . "" twenty dollars will buy you a lot more here than in manhattan , "" said michael trolle , a first vice_president of the cb commercial real_estate brokerage . "" stamford has become a place where 5 , 000 square_foot deals are the norm and where a 30 , 000 foot tenant can drive a hard bargain , "" said michael siegel , an executive director of edward s . gordon . the influx of smaller companies has lent a new aura of stability to the market . "" in the 80 's , four tenants moving could mean 600 , 000 square_feet of vacant space , "" said mr . malkin . "" today , you 'd have to lose 30 tenants before you had a 150 , 000 foot vacancy . it 's the end of the corporate elephant as the dominant factor . "" indeed , owners are actively courting smaller companies . realty venture_capital associates recently bought a 140 , 000 square_foot stamford office building from its lenders . harold siegelaub , a general partner , says he thinks the going market in town for space in a property like his is about 22 a foot . "" but , "" he says , "" i 'll do 3 or even 5 a foot better for a software company , a marketing firm , any company in a business that i feel will grow with us . "" and tenants , do , indeed , grow . jmw consultants moved from about 5 , 000 square_feet in midtown_manhattan to 15 , 000 square_feet in metro center in july . "" we came because of real_estate values , but we love it here now , "" said one jmw employee . thompson publishing 's information publishing group moved from park_avenue , where its corporate headquarters was , to metro center in 1989 because "" there was no business reason to be in new york city , so why pay twice the rental , "" said gerald d . tenser , a vice_president . since then thompson has brought over an operation from teaneck , n.j. , and is about to move its headquarters staff to stamford . "" yes , there 's an energy level , excitement , work pace in new york that we do n't get here , "" mr . tenzer concedes . "" frankly , it 's boring . but it costs less , and the quality of life is just terrific . "" indeed , even shrinking companies seem disinclined to move out . savin corporation , an office machine company , emerged from bankruptcy in december . it has moved from a total of 37 , 000 square_feet in two stamford buildings into 26 , 000 square_feet in a third stamford building . "" we 're in a building with a health_club , a sundry shop , a cafeteria , and we even got an incentive from the state to stay , "" said a savin spokeswoman , louise stix .",has a topic of estate
"the brooklyn_bridge is not for sale , but how about a short term monthly lease , one day less than a year , on a parking_lot underneath it on the northeast corner of pearl and dover streets ? a gavel pounding auctioneer will be looking for a minimum opening bid of 15 , 900 a month for the lot at a city public lease auction to be held in the second floor auditorium at 125 worth street on sept . 14 at 10 a.m . the 10 , 500 square_foot unimproved lot ( parcel 8 ) , owned by the city since 1886 , is among 22 city owned vacant_lots and commercial properties available for short and long term leases . "" this is the first time we are holding an open bid lease property auction , "" said charles v . walker , spokesman for the city 's department of general services , which manages the properties . "" we think it 's fairer and increases competition . "" although there are advance requirements and limitations on use pre auction paperwork , proper licensing , zoning regulations anyone in good standing can participate . translation no scofflaws or anyone in default on a loan . the 10 parking_lots in the auction include two on the future site of the bronx criminal court complex , on which construction is scheduled to begin in 1998 they require minimum monthly bids of 15 , 000 each . also available is a_20 by 60 foot billboard on the henry_hudson_parkway , north of west 146th street the billboard requires a minimum bid of 6 , 500 a month , and no tobacco advertisements are allowed . for information , and to obtain a required bid packet , call ( 212 ) 669 8888 .",has a topic of estate
"traditionally , the gold_coast towns of fairfield_county barely flinch when the rest of the state may be in serious economic pain . in the current economic slowdown , there is softening in the support for high house prices , but many real_estate agents say that wall_street 's problems have affected them very little . most towns had fewer homes for sale between may 1 and july 31 than they did in the corresponding period last year . but prices have risen . some brokers attribute the increase to a shallow inventory , while others say that multiple_bids for well maintained homes in desirable neighborhoods keep driving prices up . however , more buyers are negotiating down than up . amounts have varied_widely from 2 , 700 off on a house listed at 134 , 900 in bridgeport to a 50 , 000 reduction on a 1 . 095 million new canaan house . multiple bid situations , and the consequent nudging of prices up rather than down , have not disappeared , however , agents from a number of real_estate offices around fairfield_county say . last month , elayne jassey , an agent at prudential connecticut realty in stamford , had four multiple bid situations . since may 1 , 141 homes have been contracted for in stamford at prices averaging 603 , 013 . last year , there were 237 contracted for or sold in the same time period at an average price of 534 , 793 . ''young couples are coming from manhattan , where they are spending 3 , 000 a month on a one bedroom apartment , '' ms . jassey said . ''we also have people from westchester . taxes of up to 30 , 000 in scarsdale on a 1 million house are about 10 , 000 to 13 , 000 here . '' in greenwich , where prices rarely fall , 269 contracts from may through july of last year averaged 1 . 8 million , according to figures from preferred properties . this year , 295 contracts in that period dropped to an average 1 . 76 million . two homes priced at more than 6 . 5 million one at 7 . 9 million and the other at 16 . 8 million were contracted for this year in the may july period , down from nine sales in that price range last year . the high ranges ''are suffering'' in norwalk , said carol ann falasco , a sales agent at coldwell_banker . ''there are more 500 , 000 to 700 , 000 homes staying on the market longer , '' she said . ''anything you can find in the 300 , 000 's or 200 , 000 's goes right away . people are going back to condos . they ca n't afford houses any more . '' last year 's total of contracts on 164 homes from may through july dropped to 143 this year . attractive lending rates , down to 7 . 375 percent from 8.5 percent last year for a 30 year fixed rate mortgage , are stimulating the market . renters and people priced out of the lower fairfield_county market are becoming buyers in bridgeport . ''we have been signing contracts and closings on about 150 homes a month since may , '' mark greengarden of century 21 in bridgeport said of the local market . ''foreclosed properties start at 40 , 000 and the upper end is around 319 , 000 . we are 20 percent up in sales from last year and 27 percent up in prices . '' the usual influx of corporate transferees has dwindled with the contraction of corporations but has not completely dried up . starwood hotels moved thomas conophy , an executive his wife , jody and their two daughters from texas to new canaan in march . ''the house went for 1 . 456 million , over the asking price of 1 . 435 million , '' said denise gannalo , a vice_president at william_raveis real_estate , which represented the seller . there have been 80 new canaan homes for sale on which binders have been signed this year , up from 78 last year . westport 's coldwell_banker office tabulated 132 contracts this year , with an average sale price of 909 , 772 . last year , 149 homes were contracted for and sold at an average of 862 , 841 . ''everything under 1 million continues to sell , '' said gino kelly , who owns kelly associates real_estate in darien . ''we had 114 transactions from may through july at an average of 1 . 022 million . last year , we had 100 homes contracted in that period at an average of 956 , 970 . '' summing up the market , casey jones , a managing partner at william_pitt real_estate , said ''last year , the market was white hot . what we 're looking at now is a return to normalcy . we 're operating at 1999 levels and the good news is pricing has gone up since then or held . last year , there were boatloads of money around . this year , there 's just a lot of money around . ''",has a topic of estate
"siri eklund looked at 54 apartments here before finding one with a perk that she simply could not resist proximity to britain 's first whole foods supermarket , scheduled to open in june . ''my friends all laughed that i was the only person in the world who would choose an apartment based on the location of a whole foods store , '' said ms . eklund , 32 , a new yorker whose home in the kensington neighborhood is within walking distance of the supermarket 's site . but actually ms . eklund had to consider a little more than grocery shopping when it came to renting her spacious two bedroom flat in the observatory gardens complex just north of kensington high street , one of west_london 's most popular shopping strips . she pays a weekly rent of 802 , or nearly 1 , 600 , for her 900 square_foot home . ''rent is paid by the week here and not the month , '' said ms . eklund , who was transferred to london in december 2005 to become senior brand manager for mo t chandon . ''and renters not landlords have to pay the local property council tax here . '' the monthly rent works out to 3 , 208 , or 6 , 309 . and the monthly tax adds another 110 , or more than 200 , for a total of 3 , 318 , or 6 , 525 . in comparison , rents in new york averaged 3 , 460 for a two bedroom apartment in a building without a doorman and 5 , 346 for a two bedroom apartment with a doorman , according to january 2007 figures from the real_estate group new york . still , ms . eklund 's rent seems nearly a bargain considering that london is now the world 's most expensive property market . with rents in the central part of the city having climbed 5 percent last year , a penthouse in nearby knightsbridge might have a weekly rent as high as 15 , 000 , or 29 , 000 . and when it comes to buying , things are n't much better . buyers pay an average of 5 , 860 per square_foot for luxury housing in central_london , compared with 5 , 276 per square_foot in new york . the market is being driven by a variety of factors generous salaries and bonuses , especially those being paid out by the capital 's thriving financial sector demand from foreign buyers and renters and a simple lack of supply . yolande barnes , director of savills research in london , said she expected both consumer confidence and appetite to remain high in the coming years . she predicts that house prices in britain will grow by an annual average of 6 percent over the next five years . ''growth will be even greater than this in the most supply constrained locations , like london , '' she said . the pound is approaching the 2 mark for the first time since 1992 that strength is actually what is keeping ms . eklund from buying a home . ''i 've got my assets in dollars , '' she said , ''and so i 'm waiting to see what the pound will do . everything costs about twice as much in london , but salaries are only about 20 to 30 percent higher . '' in addition to establishing rents by the week , property companies in london conduct exhaustive inventories on rented properties that can often take hours , making note of every little scratch on the wall or mark on the carpet before a renter moves in . while the examinations are designed to protect both landlords and renters , ''they would n't be so picky in new york , '' ms . eklund said . during her apartment search , she added , she got ''gazumped . '' in britain , that is slang for being dumped by a seller or landlord who has agreed to a deal with you but gets a better offer . ''i made an offer on the first apartment i wanted and it was accepted , '' she explained , ''and then someone later came in and offered more money and the landlord just took it . '' when ms . eklund finally came across the apartment in observatory gardens , she had to bid against others , raising her offer three times in the process . ''in the end , i had to pay six months' worth of rent in addition to a six week security deposit in order to finally win the apartment , '' she said . ''it can be very challenging trying to rent in london . '' yet she really likes what she found . foreigners have always been drawn to kensington by its museums , including the natural_history museum and the victoria and albert by its proximity to hyde_park and by the many restaurants and specialty stores lining kensington high street . observatory gardens , which occupies an entire block , is a magnificently renovated victorian brick terrace that once was home to sir james south , founder of the royal astronomical society . during world_war_ii the building was seriously damaged when a german bomber crashed nearby and its decline continued as its ownership changed several times in the decades after the war . but these days , from the exterior , it looks just as it did when built more than a century ago . northacre , a development company , bought the site in 1992 . rather than rebuild the norm in london during the 1980s it chose to refurbish the facade while creating 53 flats and 74 underground parking_spaces behind it . ''you wo n't find any radiators around this apartment like you would normally in london , '' ms . eklund said , ''because there 's under floor heating . the apartment really does have everything . '' the airy open plan apartment , which has seven large windows in the kitchen and living room , also has 24 hour monitoring . ''if the porter detects too much heat in my kitchen , he 'll call up and ask , 'are you cooking right now ? ' '' ms . eklund said . ''they want to make sure everything is o.k . ''",has a topic of estate
"under fire from democrats and tenants' groups for not playing a more active role in resolving the fight over new york state 's rent laws , gov . george e . pataki said yesterday that his staff had begun talks with both tenants and landlords about a possible compromise . but when pressed by reporters for details about those talks , mr . pataki repeatedly said that he did not know much about the discussions and was not at liberty to release what information he had . later , mr . pataki 's director of communications , zenia_mucha , said she did not know what the administration was doing to spur talks over the rent rules , which limit rent increases on more than one million apartments in new york city and its suburbs . the current laws are scheduled to expire after june 15 . billy easton , executive director of new york state tenants and neighbors coalition , the state 's largest tenants' group , also said that no one from the administration had contacted his group to discuss possible solutions to the rent fight . mr . pataki has said for several weeks now that he wants to keep his position on the rent laws purposely vague so he can act as a mediator between senate republicans , who want the laws to be phased out , and assembly democrats , who want to maintain the laws unchanged . metro news briefs new york state",has a topic of estate
"lead on the east side of manhattan , from 96th_street north , empty lots still outnumber condominiums , boarded up windows are more common than ''for sale'' signs and trash far exceeds brass . nonetheless , people who live there are worried that the neighborhood is getting trendy . on the east side of manhattan , from 96th_street north , empty lots still outnumber condominiums , boarded up windows are more common than ''for sale'' signs and trash far exceeds brass . nonetheless , people who live there are worried that the neighborhood is getting trendy . given the grisly condition of the area known as east_harlem or el barrio and the neighborhood 's bleak statistics on poverty , drug abuse and crime , such fears might seem premature . and though community leaders have been alarmed by property speculation and private development in the neighborhood , especially in the blocks just above 96th_street , they agree that there is no ''land rush'' surging through east_harlem . still , the ' 'discovery'' of east_harlem , just across 96th_street from the northern limits of the glitzy upper east side , seems inevitable . what community leaders aim to do by acting early is to control the redevelopment they are certain is on its way so that it comes as a benefit to current residents , not at their expense , as has been the case in other parts of new york . city officials and urban planners think that a number of unusual conditions set east_harlem apart and make it possible to achieve there what has so far proved elusive in new york a balanced regeneration that provides economic opportunity and housing improvements both for newcomers and for residents who have managed to survive the bad times . ''it 's an area where the opportunities are greatest'' for that kind of a mixed community , said peter marcuse , a professor of urban_planning at columbia_university . mr . marcuse said the most confounding problem is achieving a balance between not enough private investment and too much . ''what you want is investment that benefits current residents , '' he said . east_harlem 's strengths are obvious . it has a setting of great beauty , bounded on the north and east by the east and harlem rivers and on the west , in part , by central_park . institutions such as mount_sinai medical center exert a stabilizing influence on the neighborhood . on the south is 96th_street , with its sparkling new condominium towers on the edge of the upper east side . but east_harlem 's limitations are equally obvious . its housing stock is among the oldest and most rundown in manhattan one out of every three buildings is a turn of the century tenement and there are few elegant brownstones . publicly assisted housing_projects loom over the neighborhood from almost every angle , and act as breakwaters against surges of redevelopment . thirty eight percent of the population receives public assistance , and the median_family_income at the time of the last census was 9 , 102 . rents are too low in many occupied buildings to support much in the way of remodeling and upkeep . the city owns most of the vacant buildings and nearly a quarter of all the land is empty . ''this is going to be a tough area to gentrify , '' said eugene sklar , director of the east_harlem settlement house , a nonprofit_organization that has served the community since 1895 . ''but it 's an area where we have a great opportunity to create a mixed community . it has the potential of becoming an interesting place , rather than being ripped to shreds by redevelopment . '' the potential may be present , but achieving any sort of equitable mix will require strong political , economic and social will . so far , even the community itself cannot agree on just what kind of a mix it wants to see . some argue that all the city owned property should be used for low income families . others claim there is room enough for some moderate income units , including opportunities for working_class families to own their own homes . the city so far has supported both approaches , but it has also come to rely heavily on east_harlem as the receiver for some 1 , 700 units of housing for the homeless , with still more to come . the current flashpoint over redevelopment of east_harlem is the area just north of the 96th_street dividing line , where developers have renovated old tenements , many of them vacant , into market rate condominiums . east_harlem community leaders expect this type of development to continue , creeping up slowly from the south . but they think it will be contained by the substantial wall of housing authority projects and other subsidized_housing complexes that begins at 97th street and second avenue and spreads unevenly throughout the area . the private developers who have so far undertaken the scattering of redevelopments believe east_harlem is making a strong comeback , but their enthusiasm , which burned brightly a year or two ago , has cooled over the last few months . ''east_harlem is a good area to work in , '' said victor politis , a developer who sold 34 apartments at east 102d street last year . even so , mr . politis said he does not have any current projects in the neighborhood and probably will not begin any for another year or two . ''with all the development on the upper east side and the changes we 've seen in the market lately , i personally think it 's going to take a little longer than anticipated for east_harlem to come back . ' mr . politis said that after the stock_market came unglued last oct . 19 he began sensing ''a bit of hesitation on the part of first time homebuyers in certain areas . '' he also noted that so many new apartments have come on the market in the more established area between 86th and 96th streets that units in east_harlem are hard pressed to compete . before oct . 19 , he said , he had considered converting the old public_school 168 on 104th and 105th streets , between first and second avenues into 108 condominium units . however , he said , the current owner had increased the price beyond what he was willing to pay ''especially in a risky neighborhood . '' the old school building is a good example of what the anticipated rebirth of east_harlem has done to property values in some areas , even before the streetscape changed in any way . triple action realty of carmel , n.y. , purchased the school building in 1981 at a city auction for 121 , 500 and sat on it for five years before selling it to harry skydell for 2 . 5 million . mr . skydell , who was involved in some of the earliest renovations in the east_village , another up and coming neighborhood , has done no work on the elaborately detailed building . last year , when he planned to enter a partnership with mr . politis , its value had risen to 5 million . mr . skydell said he now is negotiating with other potential partners on the school project and is trying to arrange financing for several other redevelopments in east_harlem . ''the school is a big , very visible development like the christadora in the east_village that will have a positive impact on the overall development and perception of the area , '' mr . skydell said . mr . skydell and his partners converted the christadora , a vacant 16 story building across from tompkins square park in the east_village , after it too had been bought and sold several times at progressively higher prices . the project helped set the tone for east_village redevelopment four years ago . in spite of the condition of p.s . 168 , some projects have moved forward nearby . across east 105th street from the old school , david scharf , who has done rehabilitations in the east_village and the upper west side , recently renovated two tenements into 36 one and two bedroom condominiums selling for 135 , 000 to 144 , 000 . the project , at 319 east 105th street , between first and second avenues , optimistically called renaissance east , has been on the market since last fall four units have been sold . ''it 's a little slower than it was two years ago , '' mr . scharf said . ''unfortunately , we opened in a very slow sales period but over the last two weeks things have picked up quite a bit . '' john g . tiralosi , a midtown_manhattan accountant , is buying a two bedroom unit at renaissance east . mr . tiralosi said he and his wife have rented an apartment on east 106th since june and both feel safe in the neighborhood where his mother in law has owned a tenement building for 11 years . ''i had more problems with my car when i lived in park_slope than i do in this neighborhood , '' said mr . tiralosi . he added that he can get taxi_drivers to take him to 106th street , and that ''as far as safety goes , we have n't felt unsafe yet . '' two years ago , mr . scharf completed another conversion at 307 309 east 105th street , but most of the purchasers were from outside the neighborhood and many who bought apartments do not live there . diana finch , an attorney , purchased a 1 , 000 square_foot duplex there in december 1986 for 85 , 000 and she rents it out for about 1 , 000 a month . ms . finch , who works for the bedford stuyvesant restoration corporation in brooklyn , said she had some difficulty at first renting the apartment because ''people were skeptical of safety in the neighborhood . '' but she said her tenants seemed to have ''adapted easily , '' and though their apartment has been broken into , they have not been physically harmed . she said she considers east_harlem still to be a good investment and she is looking at other projects in the area . ''although the physical condition of the neighborhood is daunting at first , '' she said , ''anyone who gives it a chance will be impressed . '' the low prices attracted most of the buyers . a spot check of other real_estate offerings shows that prices are now beginning to come closer to the rest of manhattan , though they remain far below the choicest areas . a four story brownstone at 344 east 120th street , on a block with a junior high_school and several vacant city owned buildings still boarded up with the bizarre painted curtain panels put up a few years ago , is on the market now for 269 , 000 though the agent at rivera realty said the price was ''negotiable . '' a brick tenement on lexington_avenue and 104th street that a local community group purchased in 1979 for less than 10 , 000 was sold in 1984 for 160 , 000 . george e . calvert , executive director of hope community inc . , the community based organization that sold the lexington_avenue tenement , said he believes that ' 'speculators have hit their peak'' in east_harlem . he said that investors came in buying buildings for around 100 , 000 anticipating that prices would escalate the way they did on the upper west side . ''but they found they had eight unit buildings that needed 400 , 000 in work that they could n't sell or rent . '' mr . calvert said his group is working on or planning to undertake the construction or rehabilitation of some 600 apartments throughout east_harlem . at least 400 of the apartments , he said , will go to low income families in the neighborhood , but others would be offered for rent or sale at levels that middle_income and working_class families could afford . for instance , hope is rebuilding 12 apartments on 104th street that will range in price from 41 , 500 to 87 , 500 , including reductions of 13 , 500 per unit through state subsidies . monthly_maintenance and debt service on the condominiums would be roughly 450 to 900 , depending on the size of the apartment . hope also is involved in renovating city owned buildings using city and federal funds . in these buildings , 75 percent of the units will be reserved for low income families , with the rest renting at market rates of about 560 a month for one bedrooms and 790 for two bedrooms . mr . calvert maintains that mixing the income levels targeted for the new apartments is not a problem ''except for the political bosses who are terrified to pieces . '' he said east_harlem ''has always been diverse , '' and that many neighborhood residents over the last few years have raised their incomes , which has improved their economic standing and made them ready for home ownership . other community leaders are more cautious . john vaughn , director of east_harlem interfaith , a coalition of religious groups , said he agreed that a mixed income community was potentially a valid goal for east_harlem , but ''we do n't want to get caught in all the things that happened on the upper east side there used to be diversity there , too . '' he considers the spillover of more affluent people at 96th_street and the potential for redevelopment along the upper reaches of fifth avenue to be warning signs that east_harlem has caught the development community 's eye . he said people in the neighborhood are scared to death they will be thrown out of their apartments , and are ' 'reacting to that happened in other parts of the city where officials said redevelopment would be mixed but it did n't turn out that way . '' in a community where the city owns or controls so much of the land and building stock , uncertainty over the city 's intentions is a constant source of fear and anxiety . ''the city 's housing policies in east_harlem have been idiotic , '' said carolyn b . maloney , the councilwoman representing the area . ms . maloney said the city owns 60 percent of the property in east_harlem , and the housing problems in the area are ''tremendous . '' henry calderon , an east_harlem realtor who is president of the local chamber of commerce , said ''the city has in its hands the fate of east_harlem . '' in such an atmosphere , limited city actions such as the proposed rezoning of upper fifth avenue are seen as just the opening gambit in a broad attack on the neighborhood , in spite of city protestations to the contrary . the proposed rezoning would end the special park improvement district that covered fifth avenue from 59th_street to 110th_street since 1974 . in the district , developers were allowed to build bigger buildings if they contributed to a special improvement fund for central_park . the city removed that bonus in 1982 . now the city planning commission has approved a plan to make that stretch of fifth avenue a contextual zone in which new buildings mimic the exterior characteristics of existing buildings , at least to a certain height . the new zone will permit bigger residential buildings than the previous zone , and it will also give developers the chance to build even higher if they agree to construct or rehabilitate apartments within the community for needy families . mr . vaughn fears that when developers construct expensive apartment buildings facing the park , rents and prices in adjoining areas will rise and cause the displacement of current residents . daniel perez , the housing specialist at community board 11 , which covers east_harlem , said he opposes the zoning change because no one in the community could afford to live there . ''we do n't want high rises , '' said mr . perez . tracy greer , an associate with general_atlantic realty , a developer that converted a former nursing home on fifth avenue and 107th street into market rate apartments and owns an adjoining lot , said her company was committed to making east_harlem ''a real , true mixed income community . '' using the new zoning bonus , general_atlantic could build a 26 story luxury apartment building containing 180 units . in exchange for the 20 percent increase in space , the developer will renovate 21 apartments on madison_avenue in east_harlem that would rent for less than 300 a month . officials at the department of city planning deny the community 's assertions that they are encouraging gentrification and displacement . ''this not only assures the continuation of a certain number of affordable units , '' said robert e . flahive , director of the planning department 's manhattan office , ''but it means there will be a mix of incomes , too . '' the rezoning was voted down by the local community board , but approved by the planning commission . it now awaits action by the board of estimate . a spokesman for david n . dinkins , the manhattan borough_president , said mr . dinkins has not yet reached a conclusion on the issue . meanwhile , as the community awaits the board of estimate vote , it also has submitted a second application to the state for designation of park_avenue , from 111th to 125th streets , as an economic_development zone in which light_industry and small manufacturing operations in the shadow of the elevated railroad trestle gain tax advantages . when the state turned down the initial request last year , some people in east_harlem concluded that there had to be some comprehensive long range planning about the community 's future so that other opportunities would not be wasted . that led local political and religous leaders to the door of east_harlem 's biggest land holder the city of new york . robert esnard , deputy_mayor for policy and physical development , said that several city agencies , along with planning consultants , are now going through all the city 's holdings in east_harlem in order to develop an overall land use plan for the neighborhood 's future . ''the objective will be to get as much housing as we can possibly get , '' mr . esnard said . he added that because there is so much land , there should also be room for industry and business programs . although he is aware of the split in the community over which economic group should have priority over any new housing , mr . esnard said the city will have to make the private_sector play a role in east_harlem 's reconstruction . ''i do n't think gentrification is a bad thing , '' he said . ''it adds other people to the community and its adds a richness , not in the sense of money but diversity . '' mr . esnard said that to the extent the private_sector gets involved , the government can use its limited resources elsewhere . ''we could never rebuild the whole city by ourselves , '' he said . ''eighty to 90 percent of the current housing stock was built by the private_sector . to assume we can rebuild it all is a mistake . '' correction february 7 , 1988 , sunday , late city final edition",has a topic of estate
"an entry in the ''on the market'' column last sunday for a 649 square_foot condominium with one bedroom and one bath in a gated_community in greenburgh , n.y. , misstated the price . it was 249 , 500 , not 629 , 000 .",has a topic of estate
"the roads have names like flying cloud and top gallant . the directory of owners lists the house number , the children 's names and the name of the family boat , with separate symbols for types of boat a silhouette of a sailboat next to one family , a silhouette of a power boat next to another . kelly and bob ramsden say they picked the dolphin cove development a 22 year old enclave of 107 houses in stamford , conn . because it reminded them of florida , where they lived before hurricane_andrew wiped them out a year ago last august . "" coming here was like a tonic , "" said mr . ramsden , head of information systems for saks fifth avenue in new york city . "" it 's not really like the northeast . it reminds me of the midwest or maybe the south . people are sophisticated , but they 're consistent and friendly . it 's very refreshing . "" before the ramsdens moved into the large gambrel with the dock off the backyard last october they lived in south miami , near biscayne bay , "" right where the north wall of the hurricane struck , "" mr . ramsden explained . "" by the time it was over , "" he said , "" the birdcage was sitting in the pool , the plantings were wiped out , the ceilings were down . we had installed a circle drive on friday we never even had a chance to drive on it . we were sailing in tampa_bay and could n't get back . "" the hurricane was not the only reason the ramsdens decided to leave florida , they said , but it was the catalyst . once they decided to move , ms . ramsden , who is a senior personnel executive at the manhattan office of arthur_andersen and company , the national accounting firm , looked over 50 waterfront houses from westport , conn . , to larchmont , n.y. , in 10 days . not surprisingly , one of the first things they looked at was how the neighborhood had stood up to the major storm that struck the northeast on dec . 11 , 1992 . "" dolphin cove went through that big storm with virtually no damage , and that was important , "" ms . ramsden said . the couple looked at several houses within the development and chose the 2 , 911 square_foot natural cedar clapboard house on a corner lot , at 1 flying cloud road . they paid 572 , 000 for it . the house has a dock large enough for their 30 foot lippincott sailboat , named "" pathfinder , "" and their 31 foot searay power boat , "" playray . "" according to lorraine leonard , the william_raveis real_estate agent who listed the house , the price is not high for dolphin cove where two houses sold last year for more than 950 , 000 largely because the ramsdens' view is a "" boater 's view "" rather than an open long_island_sound view . "" boaters want to look at their boat , "" she said . "" they can walk right out their door to do their maintenance . normally if your boat is in a marina , you feel you have to clean and pack up every time , but when it 's right there , you tell your guests you 'll do the dirty dishes tomorrow . people really get a kick out of that . "" after they bought the house last summer , the ramsdens embarked on a massive renovation that brought the gambrel closer to their ideal , a florida house . "" we just sort of waved our hands around , and the architect figured out what we wanted , "" mr . ramsden said . the ramsdens ripped out the rear of the main house and built out as far as building codes would allow 3 feet along the back of the living room and 10 feet along the rear of the master bedroom . they replaced the windows and sliding glass doors with french doors and built an 11 by 28 foot deck on the second floor , off a large recreation room over the garage . in the rear wall of the master bedroom ms . ramsden added a round window as "" a surprise for bob . "" "" she made it into a ship 's wheel , "" said mr . ramsden . "" it 's fitting that every time i come up from the dock i see it . """,has a topic of estate
"in warmer_weather , when alan hochberg looks out his window he can see a tractor tilling the land on a farm across the street from his home in hartsdale , a hamlet in the town of greenburgh . "" it 's amazing to me that i 'm living in southern westchester and i 'm right near a farm , "" said mr . hochberg , administrator of the scarsdale synagogue tremont temple . he and his wife , faye , a lab technician in the bronx , moved from that borough 13 years ago . it was always our dream to come up here , "" he said , "" and it 's been everything we 've dreamed of . "" hartsdale has a 17 acre and a 15 acre working farm , both on secor road and both operated by westchester greenhouses and farms , a local company that sells produce and flowers from a roadside stand . "" i do n't know of any other farms in the area , "" said joseph chiocchi , the company 's owner . "" there are other nurseries , but no one else who cultivates their own produce and flowers . "" the farms are in a section called poet 's corner , whose 26 streets , all named for poets , are lined with single family homes . the majority of the houses are cape_cods , ranches and some colonials , built mostly in the 50 's and 60 's , with a scattering from the 20 's . the presence of farms lends a sense of spaciousness to what would otherwise be a traditional suburban community . hartsdale has several similar neighborhoods of single family homes scattered throughout its two square_mile area . around its train_station are several apartment buildings , most of which have been converted into co ops . the hamlet also has condominium complexes and a highly diverse population . mr . hochberg says much of hartsdale remains unchanged from when he first arrived . "" the essence of hartsdale is the beautiful mix of people , "" he said . "" and everyone works hard to maintain our quality of life . "" paul j . feiner , the town_supervisor , added "" people do n't say i live in greenburgh . they always identify with the section , whether it 's hartsdale or elmsford another hamlet . in fact , most people think of hartsdale as a village . "" its central_business_district near the train_station is a collection of small , mostly local shops . some have been there for more than 30 years . hartsdale liquors , for instance , has been at its present location on west hartsdale avenue , the hamlet 's main_street , since 1933 . richard o'leary has owned and operated the store since 1959 . "" since the apartment buildings went co op , there 's not as much turnover , "" mr . o'leary said . "" it 's a more stable customer_base . and recently , there been an increase in the number of asians . they 're excellent customers . "" but last year 's closing of the area 's only supermarket , gristede 's , mr . o'leary said , "" has definitely made a difference it 's been a hardship for the people who live in the apartments . "" while the hamlet has been a magnet for the japanese in particular , reflected in the number of japanese shops and restaurants , "" just about every ethnic_group is here , "" said dorothy jensen , president of dorothy jensen realty . ms . jensen opened her real_estate office in hartsdale in november , after selling in the hamlet for years at another office . so far , she said , business has been "" phenomenal . "" she had sold six houses by late last month . "" buyers come up primarily from the city to find a single family home , priced between 225 , 000 and 250 , 000 , "" ms . jensen said . "" most people who buy here have incomes in the 65 , 000 to 85 , 000 range . "" the fact that hartsdale is a moderately_priced community makes it vulnerable to market fluctuations , said stephanie w . bellino , president of blum bellion realtors , in hartsdale . "" many of our customers are in middle management , which makes them uncertain about their job_security , "" ms . bellino said . "" when interest rates come down , everybody comes in . but if they blip up , they 're all gone again . "" ms . bellino has two current listings that represent the range of houses available . one is for a two bedroom , one bath ranch for 179 , 000 and the other for a four bedroom , three and a half bath colonial on a half acre for 376 , 000 . "" that 's about the range , "" she said . "" most sales fall in the middle . "" in addition , there is a wide range of co ops and condominiums . most co ops are within walking distance to the train , ms . bellino said . their prices can range from 50 , 000 for a one bedroom , to 219 , 000 for a three bedroom . condominiums , which usually offer amenities like pools and tennis courts , are priced from 139 , 000 for a one bedroom to 329 , 000 for a three bedroom , ms . bellino said . hartsdale was once part of the manor of philipsborough , presided over by frederick philipse , a dutch merchant . after the revolutionary_war , the third and last lord of the manor , also frederick philipse , a great grandson of the first lord of the manor and a tory , fled to england . the state confiscated all of the family 's 90 , 000 acres stretching from the bronx to the croton river and later resold it at auction to tenant farmers and other buyers . one of the successful bidders was robert hart , and what is now the intersection of central_park avenue and west hartsdale avenue was once hart 's corner . ( it is now known as the four corners ) . in the 1870 's , the surrounding area became known as hartsdale . in the 1800 's , the hamlet was made up of several large estates owned by prominent new york families . the woodlands junior senior_high_school , for grades 7 through 12 , is on 190 acres of the former 500 acre estate of felix warburg , the financier . in 1956 , his widow , frieda schiff warburg , donated the land to the school_district . in addition to the woodlands school , the greenburgh central school_district no . 7 also includes three k 8 elementary_school . there are also two roman_catholic schools sacred_heart for kindergarten through eighth_grade and maria regina high_school and the state university of new york 's empire state college , an independent study institution . the woodlands senior_high_school was designated a new york school of excellence in 1995 by the state_department of education , according to elizabeth weinberg , district clerk . it offers advanced_placement courses in biology , calculus , french , spanish , english and american history . it also has a research projects room , funded by texaco , for use by science students . texaco employees serve as student mentors , ms . weinberg said . another estate , now owned by the archdiocese of new york , was once the home of jack gaisman , chairman of the gillette razor company from 1930 to 1938 . the manor of the 130 acre estate , now a residence for nuns , on ridge road , was built in 1913 , and serves as the focal_point of the surrounding residential area known as the estate section . patricia garner and her husband , melvin , have been living there for 21 years . "" when we first came here , we both worked in the city and just came home to eat and sleep , "" ms . garner said . after they had children , a son , now 19 , and a daughter , 16 , "" we got more involved in the community , "" ms . garner said , adding "" the supervisor really gets people involved . if you 're upset about something or want something done , he says , 'you 're on that committee . ' "" ms . garner is now co chairwoman of a downtown beautification program . "" we want to spruce up the area , get coordinated signage and make it more inviting for shopping , "" she explained . the closing of gristede 's last year dealt the central shipping district a severe blow , with business shrinking by 40 percent , according to a report prepared by the town planning department . "" foot traffic has definitely fallen off , "" said john falzarano , owner of the hartsdale beauty_salon , which has been in business for 35 years . "" i think it will come back , we just need another food store . "" between central_park avenue and the train_station , hartsdale is comprised mostly of co ops . "" there are 2 , 500 families along that strip , "" said michael paschkes , who is also on the beautification committee . "" many of these people are senior citizens who used to walk for their groceries . what are they supposed to do now ? "" a new supermarket should be in place by the spring , mr . feiner says . "" i 've heard from four or five people interested in the location , "" he said . the parent company of gristede 's , r.a . holdings , wanted to bring in a rite aid drugstore , which was opposed by the community . "" there are already two local drugstores on the street , and it would have driven them out of business , "" said ms . bellino . a greenburgh town judge recently ruled that under existing lease restrictions , the site could only be used by another supermarket . "" the town believes that a grocery is not only vital for the large number of elderly residents who live in the area , "" mr . feiner said , "" but also serves as an anchor for other businesses along the avenue . "" last summer , the town began operating a farmer 's market by the train_station , open from 9 a.m . to 1 p.m . on saturdays , from july through november . and large , full service supermarkets , as well as every other kind of shopping imaginable , is available within a five minute drive along central_park avenue . one of hartsdale 's main attractions is its ample recreational opportunities . there are 19 tennis courts and 7 pools at anthony f . veteran park , in nearby ardsley . residents can also swim at the fairview greenburgh community center , in white_plains . there is also ample open space with the 170 acre ridge road park , owned by the county the 86 acre east and west rumbrook park , half of which is a nature preserve the 25 acre secor woods park and the private scarsdale golf club . another celebrated feature is the hartsdale canine cemetary , on central_park avenue , which was created in 1896 by samuel johnson , a new york city veterinarian . more than 40 , 000 pets are interred there , including those of al jolson , george raft and irene castle . the cemetary has also accommodated birds , mice and even a pet lion , which was buried there in 1912 by a divorced russian princess , vilma lwoff parlaghy . on the market 3 bedroom , 1 bath colonial at 72 lawton avenue , 209 , 000 . 3 bedroom , 2 bath ranch at 8 keating place , 245 , 000 . 4 bedroom , 3 1 2 bath colonial at 10 hawthorne way , 376 , 000 . gazetteer_population 9 , 590 ( 1995 estimate ) . area 2 square miles median_household_income 62 , 275 ( 1995 estimate ) . median price of one family house 270 , 000 taxes on median house 6 , 500 . median price a year ago 267 , 500 . median price five years ago 235 , 000 . median price of 2 bedroom condominium 193 , 555 . median price of 2 bedroom co op 83 , 240 . median price a year ago 83 , 400 . median price 5 years ago 120 , 000 . median rent on 2 bedroom apartment 1 , 512 . public_school spending per pupil 12 , 050 . distance from midtown_manhattan 21 miles . rush_hour commutation to midtown 45 minutes by metro_north 's harlem_line 6 . 50 one way , 141 monthly . government town_supervisor ( paul j . feiner , democrat ) , elected to 2 year term 4 member town board , elected every 4 years . codes zip , 10530 area , 914 . revolutionary retreat the odell house , at 425 ridge road , was built in 1732 . it served as comte de rochambeau 's headquarters during the revolutionary_war and george_washington is said to have planned strategy there for the battle of yorktown with the french general . john odell , washington 's guide to westchester , purchased the house in 1765 . his descendants deeded it to the town in 1965 , and it is now a museum .",has a topic of estate
"the story of vera coking 's property fight with the casino people is developing a mythic life of its own . two weeks ago , a new york weekly mentioned that not only had ms . coking turned down millions for her rooming house ( usually called ' 'dilapidated rooming house'' ) , but that she had also rejected a free luxury hotel room , with free room service , for the rest of her days . not true . neither is last week 's rumor that vera coking had died . died in that dilapidated rooming house , broke and alone , when she could have enjoyed her last years with riches and free room service . it gets curiouser and curiouser the other day , four women in bermuda shorts , casino tourists from king of prussia , pa . , stood in front of ms . coking 's house taking pictures of one another . asked why , one said , with an embarrassed giggle , ''well , that 's the house . '' as if it were the last one on earth . ms . coking 's is the only private house left on columbia place , the block between pacific avenue and the boardwalk and better known these days as the alley between caesar 's and trump_plaza . but it is not the only remaining building on the block that the state casino reinvestment development authority ( creeda ) has been trying for three years to condemn . creeda wants to seize ms . coking 's property and two others , a family owned bar restaurant and a pawn shop , claiming eminent_domain . why ? to hand it to donald j . trump to put up a few bushes and a limousine staging area for his newly expanded casino . ms . coking is the famous holdout because she 's the easy target . her white two story house stands empty and forlorn ( especially now that it is surrounded on three sides by a trump_plaza parking_lot ) . the balustrade , undoubtedly a selling point once , looks like a set of bashed in teeth . and the whole house needs paint . many would say she should take whatever money is offered . so officials point to her , as atlantic_city 's mayor , james whelan , has done , to show how a stubborn homeowner can use the courts to stymie progress . and so when a superior court judge ruled last year that creeda could not seize ms . coking 's house and the other properties to allow a casino to expand , an atlantic_county state senator , william gormley , drafted a bill that would give creeda the power to do just that . the bill has passed the legislature and gov . christine_todd_whitman is expected to sign it any day . james kennedy , creeda 's executive director , said once the bill is signed he expects an appellate_court to void the superior court ruling . robert m . pickus , a lawyer for trump_plaza , sounded even more definite . saying that the governor had already signed the bill , he said , ''the condemnation of the properties will proceed . '' this news stuns clare and vincent sabatini , who run sabatini 's restaurant on the corner of pacific avenue and columbia place with three of their sons . the sabatinis know too well that the vera coking saga has diverted attention from important issues . it obscures the fact that creeda wants to give private_property to a private developer . it makes ms . coking , who wants something like 2 million for her house and lot , sound greedy , a little crazy . when it is not crazy or even greedy in the free_market to expect that property a rich developer is clamoring to have must be worth quite a lot , no matter what it looks like . not least , the coking saga ignores sabatini 's restaurant , in business for 30 years . the sabatinis have been offered 700 , 000 for their life 's labor . after capital gains taxes , paying for a required environmental cleanup of the property and settling their lawyer 's fees , they would not be left with enough to open another restaurant . then there is peter banin , a russian immigrant who bought the golden island pawn shop , next to sabatini 's , three years ago . two months after he opened , he received notice that the property he bought for 500 , 000 would be condemned . he was offered 174 , 000 for his trouble . mr . banin , weary after an 18 hour day at the store , sounded betrayed by his adopted country . ''laws rewritten to overrule a court , '' he said , shaking his head . ''not even in russia would the government do something like this . '' our towns",has a topic of estate
"lead while the justice_department has firmly insisted that yonkers comply with a court order to desegregate its neighborhoods , other communities have little reason to fear similar legal pressure , the head of the department 's civil rights division said this week . while the justice_department has firmly insisted that yonkers comply with a court order to desegregate its neighborhoods , other communities have little reason to fear similar legal pressure , the head of the department 's civil rights division said this week . the official , william bradford reynolds , who as president_reagan 's assistant attorney_general for civil_rights inherited the yonkers case from the carter administration , said in an interview that it was ''unlikely'' his department would again experience ''the kind of drawn out litigation'' and intense resistance encountered in yonkers . the reason , he said , was that yonkers stood out as a case in which the city ''was engaged in intentional segregation , '' there was ' 'sufficient evidence for the court to find liability , '' and there was a ' 'struggle in fashioning a remedy'' to the racial_segregation . mr . reynolds said he did not believe ''the same backdrop'' existed in other communities , even where the construction of public_housing had concentrated blacks or other minority groups in certain neighborhoods . 'intent' vs . 'effect' standard ''if the economics of the marketplace are what is responsible for the particular makeup of the neighborhood , there is no law on the books that says that is a violation of civil_rights , '' he said . mr . reynolds and the reagan_administration have been sharply criticized by civil_rights advocates for what they assert is a failure to enforce the nation 's civil_rights laws . critics have attacked the administration for its opposition to discrimination remedies like hiring quotas and school busing , and accused it of greatly weakening enforcement of fair housing and voting rights laws . ''the reagan_administration 's record on civil_rights has been the worst of any administration in the last half century , '' said ralph neas , executive director of the leadership conference on civil_rights , a coalition of 180 national organizations . ''in terms of fair housing , the justice_department has been woefully inactive in bringing good cases , '' he said . ''mr . reynolds has sought to apply the 'intent' standard , '' meaning that intentional discrimination must be proved , rather than the ''effect'' standard , requiring only a discriminatory effect , ''that federal appeals courts have said should be applied . '' municipality discrimination the yonkers case was unusual in having such strong evidence that a federal_judge concluded that the city intended to maintain the racial_segregation of its neighborhoods by placing , over four decades , virtually all of its subsidized_housing in one section of the city . mr . reynolds said yonkers had not fostered large numbers of complaints in other communities . ''we 've had housing discrimination'' elsewhere , he said . ''but i tend to think it 's not been driven by the elected officials . the discrimination that we are going to see , for the most part , is going to be done by owners or developers of housing_projects or by individual landlords . '' a spokesman for mr . reynolds said later that the justice_department had brought 86 suits under the fair_housing_act , but that they were normally brought against municipal housing authorities , landlords or builders . he said yonkers which actually was filed late in the carter administration ''was the only one brought against a municipality . '' 'no legal impediment' though justice_department lawyers have generally refrained from commenting on the yonkers case , mr . reynolds 's office reached out to explain the department 's position this month as the city , paying daily contempt fines for refusing to accept a housing desegregation plan , faced sweeping layoffs of municipal workers . hours before the city_council finally gave in and voted on sept . 10 to approve the plan , there was anger in mr . reynolds 's voice as he described the defiance of four councilmen as ''every bit as offensive as that of george wallace standing in the schoolhouse door . '' the justice_department would not discuss modifying the housing plan until the council gave in , he said then , and he was ''not willing to talk to people just to help them save face where they have demonstrated to me they cannot be trusted . '' he also indicated that he had been close to advising governor cuomo to intervene when the city_council finally acted . he said at the time that there was ''no legal impediment'' to mr . cuomo removing any or all of the four councilmen whose rejection of the housing plan that the council had approved six months earlier had prompted the judge to find the city in contempt . mr . cuomo had said he was reluctant to act until all legal appeals had been exhausted . yonkers resistence unusual ''we were very close to the point , '' mr . reynolds said , ''where it would have made sense for the governor and myself to get in the same room and take a hard look at where we were and where this was going , and to collectively try to determine where the best judgement would be for him to step in and do something . '' removing elected officials would have been ''a bad precedent'' to be used only as a last resort , he said , but ''you reach a point in some instances , and yonkers was pretty close to it , if not over the line , where a governor has to take that kind of extraordinary measure in order to save the city . '' mr . reynolds said yonkers 's resistance to the desegregation order had been unusual . where officials ''have engaged in these practices'' and justice officials ''came after them , '' he said , ''our general experience has been that we are able to come to an agreement fairly quickly . '' he discounted warnings by some people in yonkers and beyond that the yonkers case portended action against other communities with public_housing and concentrations of minority groups in certain neighborhoods . ''if we are going to move into a mode where we 're simply going to say , 'if your neighborhood is not proportional as to all races and all ethnic backgrounds , you 're in violation of the law , ' then the fear is a real fear , '' he said . ''but congress has not done that , in my view . ''",has a topic of estate
"lead closings in the week ended july 11 manhattan chelsea 405 , 000 7 east 20th street 1 bedroom , 1 bath , 1 , 117 sq . ft . loft condo in a renovated prewar building windowed_kitchen , high ceilings , living work area common charges 562 , taxes 1 , 716 ( broker closings in the week ended july 11 manhattan chelsea 405 , 000 7 east 20th street 1 bedroom , 1 bath , 1 , 117 sq . ft . loft condo in a renovated prewar building windowed_kitchen , high ceilings , living work area common charges 562 , taxes 1 , 716 ( broker_ambrose_mar_elia ) chelsea 277 , 000 7 west 14th_street 2 bedroom , 2 bath , 1 , 120 sq . ft . postwar co op in a renovated prewar building 24 hr . doorman , dining alcove , remodeled_kitchen , maintenance 934 , 38 tax deductible ( broker h.h . kliegerman_associates ) greenwich_village 475 , 000 37 west 12th street 2 bedroom , 2 bath , 1 , 700 sq . ft . co op in a renovated landmark prewar building 24 hr . doorman , dining_area , two exposures maintenance 1 , 017 , 50 tax deductible ( broker m.j . raynes ) inwood 80 , 000 75 park terrace east 1 bedroom , 1 bath , 750 sq . ft . co op in a renovated prewar building sunken_living_room , private garden , roof_deck maintenance 367 , 40 tax deductible ( broker c uptown realty ) upper east side 158 , 000 515 east 89th street ( gracie gardens ) 1 bedroom , 1 bath , 750 sq . ft . co op in a renovated prewar building 24 hr . doorman , dining_area , garden maintenance 633 , 52 tax deductible ( penthouse properties ) bronx riverdale 117 , 000 3777 independence avenue ( hudson towers ) 1 bedroom , 1 bath , 650 sq . ft . postwar co op 24 hr . doorman , dining_area , terrace , outdoor pool maintenance 373 , includes gas and electric , 40 tax deductible ( broker susan e . goldy ) williamsbridge 168 , 000 7 east 220th street 2 family , detached , aluminum frame house 3 bedrooms , 1 bath , large kitchens in each unit finished attic , semi_finished_basement , private driveway , 50 by 114 ft . lot taxes 836 ( broker j.a.v . realty ) brooklyn brooklyn_heights 172 , 000 35 pierrepont street 2 bedroom , 2 bath , 1 , 000 sq . ft . co op in a renovated prewar building manned_elevator , large kitchen , parquet_floors maintenance 600 , 48 tax deductible ( broker the markgraf group ) park_slope 230 , 000 409 third street 3 bedroom , 1 bath , 1 , 250 sq . ft . condo in a recently renovated prewar building laundry room , large kitchen , etched glass doors common charge 207 , taxes 394 ( broker barbara d'erasmo realty ) prospect_heights 215 , 000 295 st . john 's place 3 bedroom , 2 bath , 1 , 500 sq . ft . postwar co op maid 's room , dining_area , hardwood floors maintenance 627 , 47 tax deductible ( broker william b . may ) queens beechhurst 133 , 000 7 24 166th street ( le havre ) 2 bedroom , 1 bath , postwar co op dining_area , terrace , parking space , l.i . sound view maintenance 538 , 48 tax deductible ( broker century 21 weber rose ) south ozone_park 150 , 000 132 19 114th street 3 bedroom , 1 1 2 bath , single family , detached , frame house dining_room , large kitchen , full basement , 25 by 100 ft . lot taxes 800 ( broker glenjay realty ) staten_island hamilton park 235 , 000 11 harvard avenue 5 bedroom , 1 bath , single family colonial entrance hall , formal_dining_room , study , 1 car garage , 50 by 102 ft . lot taxes 850 ( broker rand properties ) todt_hill 870 , 000 70 milden avenue 5 bedroom , 6 bath , 8 , 200 sq . ft . single family house formal_dining_room , family room , sitting room , 4 zone heat , central a c , 3 fireplaces , 1 3 acre lot tax abated ( broker pearl foreman realty )",has a topic of estate
"moscow does an apartment building originally constructed for heroes of socialist labor have market cachet ? just ask peter falatyn , an american living in moscow . real_estate prices have doubled in the last year , pushing him out of the apartment he has been renting for the last six and half years . ''i 'm moving because , according to the landlord and his real_estate agent , there 's been a market hiccup , '' he said . the basic brick building is one of the more reasonably priced in the chic moscow neighborhood known as patriarch 's pond . some former heroes an honorary title often given to communist_party officials still own apartments in the building and , like many owners in moscow , have found themselves sitting on gold mines and decided to sell , sometimes forcing out renters like mr . falatyn . evans ( www . evans . ru ) , a real_estate agency with offices just two blocks away , says two apartments in mr . falatyn 's building are for sale . one is the same size as his 74 square meters , or almost 797 square_feet and is listed at 792 , 000 . ( he initially paid 1 , 200 a month , but that was increased to 1 , 700 a month last year . ) according to karina kheifetz , one of evans 's two managing partners , listing prices in moscow now average a little more than 5 , 000 per square meter , or about 463 per square_foot . in the patriarch 's pond neighborhood , they are a minimum of 10 , 000 per square meter , or almost 926 per square_foot . at the very top of the market , ms . kheifetz said , some apartments are selling for as much as 30 , 000 per square meter , or almost 2 , 780 per square_foot . in mr . falatyn 's building , she added , prices are 10 , 700 per square meter , or 990 per square_foot . and as for rentals there , three room apartments now range from 3 , 000 to 4 , 200 a month . ( real_estate here usually is priced and paid for in dollars , although euros are occasionally used . and since rooms in crowded communist era apartments were almost always multipurpose , apartments in russia are categorized by the total number of rooms , not the number of bedrooms . ) the unsettled political and investment climate in russia might decrease future demand for real_estate in moscow somewhat , but there would have to be a drastic change in supply and demand to bring the prices down significantly , ms . kheifetz wrote by e mail from new york , where evans has just opened an office in soho . ''even though it sounds crazy , it is a fact , '' she wrote . ''the reasons for the hike in property prices are the rapid growth in demand ( more cash and mortgage money available ) , lack of other trustworthy investment instruments and extremely limited supply of housing . '' muscovites generally want to trade up from their cramped communist era quarters , where three generations often shared one tiny apartment . and just about anyone in russia who has profited from the booming oil and commodities market wants a piece of moscow real_estate , either as a home or an investment . foreigner investors , ms . kheifetz said , have little impact on the market . ''their number is small and is shrinking due to the growing prices which increase the barriers to entry , '' she said . ''they do , however , exert a larger influence in special segments such as prerevolutionary buildings in the center of moscow . '' location is everything in moscow . so , in desirable districts , even ugly prefabricated soviet buildings with facades that look like moldy bathroom tile can cost as much as top of the line housing in neighborhoods with less cachet . additionally , neither price nor history is any guarantee of good maintenance , as mr . falatyn , a native of upstate new york , found when he traded up to his current three room apartment less than a mile from the kremlin . ''there was a horrible humidity and a smell in the building entryway'' when he first moved in , he said as he sipped tea in the kitchen , adding that he was the only tenant to pursue the source of the stench . it turned out to be a pool of sewage in the basement , the result of a burst pipe , he said . ''i paid for the zhek , '' he said , using the russian acronym for the residential maintenance offices that serve each city neighborhood . ''they had to clean it up and reseal the pipes . '' in moscow , persistence and money are the keys to problem_solving . and for a foreigner like mr . falatyn , it helps to have a sense of humor about it all . he described the incident with a smile . after all , he got a good deal on the place , on the condition that he renovate the kitchen , which was dark and dreary , he recalled , with a soviet elektra brand stove and a hanging lamp that , at 6 foot 4 , he kept walking into . those days are a distant memory now . the new kitchen 's yellow and blue color_scheme is reflected in everything from the cabinets and vases to a flower motif that mr . falatyn recently stenciled on the wall . in the apartment , plants vie for space with photos of friends and family , and souvenirs from his travels across the former soviet_union , like tajik knives and georgian goat horns used for drinking wine . rather than overhauling the bathroom , with its shocking green tiles that were no doubt the height of chic in the 1970s , he decided to complement their color with his choice of towels and even soap . lining the hallway wall are prints from his favorite parisian shop , to remind him why he has not bought an apartment in moscow . ''in the sixth and seventh districts in paris , in saint michel and saint germain , you can buy an apartment for 10 , 000 to 12 , 000 euros a square meter , '' or about 1 , 200 to 1 , 445 a square_foot , he said . ''it will be in a beautiful building , overlooking parks . ''you do n't have pools of sewage in the basement . '' a massachusetts_institute_of_technology graduate with a business degree from the university of california at los_angeles , mr . falatyn came to russia in 1993 as an aerospace consultant , then worked for eight years for an inter governmental agency dealing with weapons nonproliferation . by now , he knows the real_estate market in moscow , where buildings can be torn down for new developments and apartment owners left with minimal compensation . also , the city 's convoluted system of residence permits means that it is possible for an apartment 's former residents to suddenly turn up and dispute a real_estate transaction , potentially leaving a buyer out in the cold . nonetheless , mr . falatyn keeps returning to moscow , whose ineffable tug that turns many expats into long term residents . he loves the convenience and remarkable peace and quiet of his street , which is a block moscow 's noisy central thoroughfare , ulitsa tverskaya , and amenities like a 24 hour supermarket . ''i do n't know another city in the world where you can live so close to the center and have it be so quiet , '' he said . ( the patriarch 's pond neighborhood is the setting for the opening scene in mikhail bulgakov 's mystical novel ''the master and margarita'' and one of its main themes , along with jesus 's crucifixion , is the city 's housing woes during the early soviet_era . ) but now , after nearly 14 years in the city , mr . falatyn is packing up and will room with a friend until he settles into a new job and decides what to do . he is not alone , ms . kheifetz said . ''a client of ours , who has relied on the rental income from a small moscow apartment for a while , is considering trading it for a villa in italy , which she can afford at the current price levels . '' when mr . falatyn does buy a home , he said , it may very well be stateside . ''i 'm very seriously considering palm_springs , '' he said . ''for 300 , 000 to 350 , 000 , you can buy a house with a pool . ''",has a topic of estate
"lead facing contempt of court fines of 1 million a day , drastic employee layoffs and cuts in municipal services , yonkers yesterday ended its defiance of a court ordered housing desegregation plan and stepped back from the brink of fiscal and political crisis . here are some answers to major questions on how facing contempt of court fines of 1 million a day , drastic employee layoffs and cuts in municipal services , yonkers yesterday ended its defiance of a court ordered housing desegregation plan and stepped back from the brink of fiscal and political crisis . here are some answers to major questions on how yonkers came to this pass , and where it might go from here q . what is the trouble in yonkers all about ? a . on the surface , it is a confrontation between a federal_judge who has ruled that yonkers must build 1 , 000 units of low and middle_income housing in predominately white neighborhoods , and four city councilmen who last month blocked the plan and were held , with the city , in contempt of court . but underlying that dispute is a sweeping and historic battle over the judge 's ruling that yonkers for almost 40 years has racially segregated its housing and schools . while the focus in recent weeks has been on the legal fight between the judge and the defiant councilmen , the case is also a continuing struggle over deeper emotional issues the hope of civil_rights advocates to redress decades of racial injustice in yonkers , and the fears of homeowners there who regard public and subsidized_housing as harbingers of crime , slums , eroded property values and a breakdown of the neighborhoods they have worked all their lives to build . q . what are the origins of the case ? a . since world_war_ii , yonkers , a city of 194 , 000 on the hudson , north of new york city , has built 6 , 644 units of subsidized_housing , or 97 . 7 percent of city projects , on its southwest side , where most black and hispanic residents ( 19 percent of the population ) live . most of the city 's minority children have attended schools in that area , while neighborhoods and schools on the east and northwest sides have remained nearly all white . the school board repeatedly rejected plans for busing children and integrating schools . in the 1970 's , state and federal task forces investigated segregation in yonkers and began to document the case . school officials contended that they bore no responsibility for segregation caused by housing patterns . federal officials sought to avoid a trial by seeking a consent_decree to integrate the schools . but yonkers refused . in 1980 , the justice_department later joined by the yonkers branch of the national association for the advancement of colored people filed a lawsuit charging yonkers with intentionally discriminating against its black and hispanic residents . the suit , for the first time in the nation , linked housing and school segregation it asked that the schools be integrated and that subsidized_housing be built in white residential areas . q . with segregation extant in many cities , why was yonkers singled out for the historic lawsuit ? a . it is true that segregation afflicted many cities , but yonkers did stand out . in lima , ohio , and other cities , even new rochelle , white_plains and mount vernon in westchester_county , settlements were reached or officials voluntarily moved to integrate . in some other cities , the cases were less clear cut . in yonkers , the resistance was deep and the case was powerful links between segregation in housing and education were compelling , there was a clear record over decades showing elected officials had repeatedly rejected integration proposals to satisfy community sentiment , and there were formal complaints by minority groups on record with federal and state agencies . q . what were the main arguments of the yonkers desegregation case ? a . the city did not dispute that black and hispanic residents had been concentrated in the southwest sector . but it contended that it had not segregated them intentionally . it said that federal housing_and_urban_development officials had urged public_housing on the southwest side , that property there was cheaper and developers did not want more costly sites elsewhere and that minorities themselves wanted housing in the southwest . but in 1985 , after a 14 month trial that saw 84 witnesses and thousands of exhibits , judge leonard b . sand of federal district court in manhattan ruled in favor of the plaintiffs , saying in a 600 page decision that the city , in scores of actions over nearly 40 years , had concentrated nearly all its public and subsidized_housing in southwest yonkers to maintain residential segregation . he also ruled that board of education officials had enforced segregation by having children attend schools only in their own neighborhoods . the evidence , judge sand wrote , clearly shows that public officials , under community pressures , sought to ''preserve existing patterns of segregation . '' q . what remedies were proposed ? a . in 1986 , judge sand issued a housing remedy order that directed the city to establish a fair housing policy , to immediately construct 200 units of low income public_housing in white residential areas and to build 800 additional units of subsidized middle_income housing as part of a long term plan . he also ordered the city to create a program to break down school segregation . the orders were general guidelines that left city officials latitude to work out details such as where to put housing and how to integrate schools subject to the judge 's approval . q . did the city act on the judge 's proposals ? a . only in part . the school system began an integration plan in 1986 87 that included the busing of children to schools outside their neighborhoods , closing some schools and adding a ' 'magnet'' program of enriched curriculums to attract students to schools in different neighborhoods judge sand and school administrators say that program , now in its third year , is working . but there was no progress on the judge 's housing order . q . what did judge sand do about that ? a . the judge first proposed four building sites , then accepted another solution offered by oscar newman , a housing expert hired by the city at the judge 's direction . mr . newman suggested seven sites with smaller developments to reduce their impact on any one neighborhood . the city_council at first took no action . but when threatened with contempt citations and escalating fines it voted in july 1987 to approve the scatter site plan . the next step was to buy the sites , but it did not do so . mr . newman found nine sites , but the city objected , saying that buying the land was ''beyond the scope of an appropriate remedy . '' amid the new deadlock , the united_states court of appeals for the second circuit upheld judge sand 's 1985 ruling the supreme_court would later refuse to hear yonkers 's appeal . q . how did yonkers and the judge resolve the dispute ? a . again under a threat of crippling fines , the council voted 5 to 2 on jan . 27 to accept a consent_decree providing for 200 units of low_income_housing to be financed by the federal department of housing_and_urban_development these were designated as two and three story buildings on seven specific sites in predominantly white areas of east and north yonkers . the decree also committed the city to 800 apartments for families with median incomes now defined from 14 , 750 to 35 , 400 built in mainly white , middle_class areas over the next four years by developers , who would be given tax abatements and zoning incentives to price 20 percent of the units at rates affordable to such families . in effect that meant authorizing the construction of 4 , 000 housing units in yonkers , 800 of which would be set aside for middle_income families . all the council had to do was pass ordinances creating the incentives for builders and other details . after a seven year , 15 million legal struggle , the case appeared to be all but over . q . things were seemingly settled last january . what went wrong ? a . the suit might have been settled in court , but it was not in the community . the council 's acquiescence to the consent_decree infuriated neighborhood associations and others opposed to the settlement . council members received death threats meetings were drowned out by shouting . yonkers , with 25 percent of westchester 's population and 43 percent of its subsidized_housing , asked why neighboring bronxville and scarsdale had none . in march , yonkers officials asked judge sand to release them from a promise not to appeal the most controversial part of the decree , the 200 units of low_income_housing . he refused and the council moved further into retreat . on june 14 , the council declared a moratorium on all new public_housing in yonkers , and on june 28 it refused to reaffirm its commitment to the long term plan for 800 units and agreed to halt legal action to acquire one of seven sites for the 200 units , part of st . joseph 's seminary of the roman_catholic diocese of new york . judge sand , reacting quickly , had the justice_department and the n.a.a.c.p . draw up a timetable for the city to withdraw its resolution and begin carrying out the housing plan . q . how and why was the city held in contempt of court ? a . while the defiant councilmen called their opposition a legislative prerogative and claimed constitutional immunity from the court , judge sand noted that the council , in approving the consent_decree on jan . 27 had already agreed to the housing plan , and , far from a question of separation of powers , he viewed the council 's retreat as a test of the court 's right to enforce its own orders . in july , judge sand threatened the city and the councilmen with contempt citations , fines and even jail if they did not approve an ordinance to carry out the january order , providing incentives for potential developers of the 800 middle_income units . on aug . 1 , the council voted 4 to 3 to reject the legislation , the affordable_housing ordinance , a 27 page amendment to the city 's zoning law . the ordinance would have allowed tax abatements , increased the site density , discounted utility rates , changed the zoning of some sites and allowed developers to buy building materials tax free . those against the measure were councilmen henry_spallone , edward j . fagan jr . , nicholas v . longo and peter chema . those in favor were mayor nicholas c . wasicsko , charles a . cola and harry oxman . on aug . 2 , judge sand found the city and the four opposing councilmen in contempt . the councilmen were fined 500 a day and sentenced to jail after the 10th day the city 's fine was 100 the first day and , doubling daily , rising within 15 days to 1 million and thereafter into astronomical realms . q . what , briefly , has happened since then ? a . on aug . 9 the state 's emergency financial control board took control of yonkers 's finances , imposed a hiring freeze and blocked discretionary_spending . that same day , the federal appeals court suspended the fines pending an appeal on aug . 26 , the appeals panel affirmed judge sand 's ruling , but capped the city 's fines at 1 million a day and continued the suspension of penalties for a week pending an appeal to the supreme_court . the high_court on sept . 1 rejected the city 's appeal , and its fines were reimposed , but continued suspension of the councilmen 's penalties pending a possible hearing on their argument that , under the constitutional doctrine of separation of powers , a federal court does not have authority to order them to enact specific laws . the high_court majority did not explain its ruling , but two justices who dissented from suspending the councilmen 's fines rejected their main arguments . meantime , with little breathing room , the council and mayor last week entered into marathon talks in search of a way to accept the housing plan and escape the crushing fines . with the city 's fines reaching 1 million friday and the control board about to impose major cuts in city services and lay off one fourth of the city 's 1 , 900 workers , a compromise of sorts was found . councilmen longo and chema changed their votes early yesterday , the affordable_housing ordinance was passed and the fines and cutbacks were halted . q . what was the compromise ? a . judge sand had said no compromise could be formally discussed until the council unconditionally accepted the affordable_housing ordinance , and it did so . but in informal talks , the councilmen and the n.a.a.c.p . had agreed that , after the measure was passed , certain changes could be considered in the ordinance and the consent_decree . among these that instead of 200 stand alone low income units , there would be only 100 , with the rest to be in developments combining low , affordable and market rate housing that to reduce the density of low_income_housing , two of the seven sites , including the seminary of st . joseph , would be eliminated and others added elsewhere that the developments would not be managed by yonkers 's municipal housing authority but by a nonprofit agency that would include representatives from the minority community and the clergy . and to allay_fears of eroded property values , the city said it would consider offering homeowners insurance that would underwrite the value of houses , in effect making up the difference in a loss of value when a property was sold . q . in what ways is judge sand 's order likely to be modified ? a . while it is unclear to what extent the judge , the justice_department or the department of housing_and_urban_development will accept any of the modifications to be proposed by the council and the n.a.a.c.p. , it appeared highly unlikely that any substantial changes would be made in the scope and goals of the original consent_decree . judge sand has said repeatedly that he would only consider ways in which the housing plan could be carried out . q . is the settlement in yonkers likely to be a critical legal_precedent for resolving segregation cases in other cities ? a . civil_rights lawyers and fair housing advocates say probably not , partly because the yonkers case was so distinctive and partly because judge sand 's ruling a finding of conscious intent to discriminate set a standard that would be extremely difficult to prove in most other housing discrimination cases . civil_rights lawyers and supporters of integrated housing prefer to argue a less demanding legal standard that the effect of government decisions produced segregated housing , whether intentionally or not .",has a topic of estate
"manhattan 's downtown financial district , where old office towers and factories are being reborn as residential buildings , remains perhaps not surprisingly in these days of enduring wall_street strength hot rental property , according to a survey by benjamin james associates , a real_estate brokerage company . based on the 116 leases that the company arranged in june , the benjamin james report found that the median rent in the area was 1 , 400 a month for studios , 1 , 897 for one bedrooms , and 3 , 222 for two bedrooms . three bedrooms in the area are rare , and the four three bedroom leases brokered in june ranged from 2 , 550 to 3 , 600 . the survey also reported that rent increases on vacated apartments in the downtown area are in the 10 to 12 percent range , and that existing leases are being renewed at increases of 10 to 12 percent . dividing downtown into smaller districts , the benjamin james report found that in the wall_street area , studio rents ranged from 1 , 400 to 2 , 000 , one bedrooms from 1 , 910 to 2 , 550 and two bedrooms from 2 , 700 to 3 , 695 . compared to the company 's deals in 1997 , the prices reflected an 8 to 10 percent increase over the initial leases in the converted rental buildings . in soho , where 4 , 000 a month ' 'dream lofts'' were common 18 months ago , the report said , 800 square_foot minilofts now go for about the same price .",has a topic of estate
"dana hamel , a local interior_designer , works an average of 10 hours a day , eats in restaurants four nights a week and spends three months every year traveling to california on business . so when mr . hamel , who is 34 and originally from santa_monica , calif . , heard about a new building with hotel rooms , condos and stores going up in the south lake union neighborhood a few blocks north of the city 's downtown , he jumped at the opportunity to be part of a new lifestyle trend . ''i lead a hectic life , and having those amenities gives me some of my time back , '' said mr . hamel , who recently put down a deposit on a 450 , 000 , 950 square_foot condo in 2200 westlake , a joint project by the milliken development corporation and vulcan , the company founded by paul g . allen , one of the founders of the microsoft corporation . the amenities mr . hamel is referring to include valet parking , 24 hour concierge and maid services provided by the development 's five star pan pacific hotel , a whole foods market store accessible from his condo by elevator , and assorted shops and restaurants . mr . hamel said he is particularly looking forward to ordering room service from his sixth floor condo , which will be in one of 2200 westlake 's three residential towers . ''i actually fantasize about it , '' he said . ''the idea of getting up on a sunday morning , picking up the phone and having room service brought up to your house is pretty enticing . '' luxury developments combining five star hotels with condominiums have been available in east_coast cities and chicago for many years . a new concept in the seattle area , hotel condos have become all the rage , with five such projects scheduled to open over the next two years . one block from the pike place market and harbor steps , the seattle hotel group is developing a four seasons hotel featuring 150 hotel rooms capped by 30 condominiums . a few blocks south is 1000 first avenue , with 47 condominiums perched above a 120 room boutique hotel . next fall , the developer r.c . hedreen will begin construction on a 35 story tower with 350 hotel rooms and 190 condos . ''the seattle office market is not supporting development right now , '' said david thyer , hedreen 's president . ''so developers are looking to condos , and the market appears to be very strong . '' condominiums attached to high end hotels also sell for up to 25 percent more than regular condos , according to thomas callahan , a hotel analyst for pfk consulting in san_francisco . buyers have been snapping up the new condos several months before most of the sales offices officially open . ronald smith , a vice_president for the kemper development company , which is building a westin hotel topped by 148 condos in downtown bellevue on the shore of lake washington , said his buyers are mostly baby_boomers who look at their lives this way ''the kids are grown , the dog is dead and we 're tired of taking care of the yard . '' residential development in seattle 's downtown has lagged compared with its neighbors to the north and south vancouver , british_columbia , and portland , ore . concentrating new housing in the central core is part of mayor greg nickels 's plan to create a ''24 7'' downtown , built around walkable , mixed_use_development , light_rail and streetcars , and apartment and condo towers that would be allowed to exceed current height restrictions . expanding retailing and service amenities and dazzling civic institutions like the new seattle public library , designed by the architect rem koolhaas , are also attracting a growing downtown residential population . another reason to live downtown is terrible freeway gridlock . hotel condos raise the bar for the sophisticated urbanite , said pete de leuw , a partner in 1000 first avenue . ''it 's entirely about lifestyle , or the perception of lifestyle , '' he said . justin mohatt , a 31 year old physician , is concluding negotiations on a 1 , 450 square_foot condo at 1000 first avenue , where such units start at about 900 , 000 . in addition to an on site maintenance team , wine storage for residents , and sub zero and wolf appliances , mr . mohatt said , he liked the ''intimate scale'' of the project . ''it 's about a certain level of personal service , '' he said . ''it 's about having staff who know your needs and desires . '' richard pruner , who retired as seattle managing director of the investment_banking firm rbc dain rauscher , and his wife , sue pruner , are downsizing from a 5 , 500 square_foot home in nearby bellevue to a 2 million penthouse in 2200 westlake , a complex that don milliken , the president of milliken development , describes as ''a city within a city . '' the pruners , who like the convenience of the hotel and stores in the complex , own a boat they will moor on lake union , just seven blocks from the complex . the couple also expressed confidence in mr . allen , whose experience music project , an interactive museum designed by the architect frank_gehry , sits in the shadow of the space needle , a few blocks from 2200 westlake . ''richard and i both feel this will be the address to live , '' mrs . pruner said . the new building complex is part of a grander vision set forth by vulcan , which owns 58 acres in south lake union , a languishing commercial and industrial neighborhood that the company seeks to develop into a mixed use biotechnology hub . city officials are considering proposals to finance a westlake avenue streetcar and a south lake union park and rezone the community as an urban center . ada healey , a vice_president of real_estate for vulcan , said that ''2200 westlake is the gateway to south lake union , and it is a major flagship project for us . '' the design of the four seasons hotel seattle , which is about 10 blocks southwest of 2200 westlake , features a terraced , u shaped glass , stone and metal building , cascading greenery and a european style plaza that accommodates both pedestrians and automobiles . hotel condos enhance a sense of public place , said bill bain , a four seasons project architect . ''the character is much more energetic , the proportions are better , and the movement of cars , taxis and doormen animate the whole ground level . '' not everybody , though , is enthusiastic about seattle 's new housing trend . ''hotel condo is just another dimension of the trend toward gentrification , '' said john fox , coordinator of the seattle displacement coalition , an affordable_housing advocacy_group . ''it promises to accelerate the loss of low_income_housing and lead to greater disparity between rich and poor . '' the new buyers are undeterred . mr . hamel , who persuaded several of his friends to buy residences in 2200 westlake , said he considers himself something of a pioneer . ''everybody 's turned on by the concept of living in a hotel , '' he said . ''it has a glamour , a cool factor . '' national perspectives",has a topic of estate
"to save the residents of a brooklyn building from drugs , prostitution and shootouts , the rev . hardy smallwood , a pentecostal minister and former professional boxer , decided he had no choice but to move in himself . searching for a superintendent , he tried to persuade a young man living in a similar building to take the job . "" you 're getting shot at and you 're paying rent , "" mr . smallwood told him . "" in my building you get shot at and you do n't have to pay rent . "" police officers at the 67th precinct in east_flatbush say the story is typical of mr . smallwood 's practical approach to helping people . and yesterday , at a ceremony at police headquarters in manhattan , mr . smallwood received the department 's first citizen of the month award , a newly created honor to recognize residents who work with officers , as the department implements its new philosophy of community policing . in presenting the award to mr . smallwood , the 58 year old pastor of holy tabernacle no . 1 at 610 eastern_parkway , police commissioner lee p . brown praised him as "" a tireless ally of police officers who patrol some of brooklyn 's toughest neighborhoods . "" he added that "" cooperation "" of residents is the "" keystone "" of the new approach , in which officers seek to prevent , rather than respond to crime . "" when it 's there and it 's strong , "" the commissioner said , "" it can turn frustration and despair into satisfaction and security . "" such cooperation is not a matter of theory to the residents of 2921 tilden avenue . before the ceremony yesterday , residents chatted in front of the six story brick building with mr . smallwood and two officers , jim murray and timothy acosta , about their common struggle to make the building safe . "" the building has done a 180 from what it was before rev . smallwood , "" said officer murray , the crime prevention officer of the 67th precinct . "" in the old days , you were tripping over crack vials when you passed the building , and now you 're tripping over toys . "" officer acosta , a beat patrolman , recalled that standing in the station house a block away , shots could be heard from the building . the police used to be called there four times a day now it is about once a week . allen watkins , who has lived there 10 years , said the tenants had tried before but failed to rid the building of crack peddlers and prostitutes . "" i guess it was god 's will he came around , "" mr . watkins said of mr . smallwood . when mr . smallwood moved in in april 1990 , at the request of its owner , the star realty corporation , half of the 54 apartments were empty . "" the junkies had put holes through the walls , "" he said . "" it was a total disaster . "" he moved about a dozen members of his own family in . then he and the precinct commander , capt . richard j . graf , and other officers and residents came up with a step by step plan clean the building up establish a police presence identify the good people and introduce them to individual officers appoint floor captains who can guide the police when they respond to a crime in the building , and create a tenant council . mr . smallwood , who lost an eye as a middleweight in the 1950 's his record was 27 and 9 said that he was scared , "" but the grace of god kept me . "" at the ceremony , he asked captain graf and the community officers to share the award . "" i want you to understand , i 'm not superman , "" he said . "" i could n't have done this alone . it was police and community working together , so they deserve this award too . """,has a topic of estate
"peter s . kalikow opened the newspapers one morning in february and found himself staring at display advertisements that were clearly designed for the sole purpose of infuriating him . there in the new york times and the new york post were what appeared to be legal notices listing more than 400 creditors from his personal_bankruptcy proceeding in 1991 . the ads suggested that he had misled the bankruptcy court about the extent of his assets . but the ads were not really legal notices . the bankruptcy had been settled years before , and there were no outstanding creditors . someone was trying to embarrass mr . kalikow , a prominent developer and the chairman of the metropolitan_transportation_authority , by bringing up a painful reminder of a time when his empire was in jeopardy . in the high powered world of new york real_estate , where dark , nefarious plots are a matter of course , mr . kalikow vowed to discover who was out to get him . the trail would take mr . kalikow from manhattan to florida and back again , and would expose to the world a caustic feud between two of the city 's wealthiest real_estate tycoons . ultimately , the answer lay only 18 blocks from mr . kalikow 's 25th floor office in his skyscraper at park_avenue and 41st_street . as mr . kalikow 's lawyer said in a june court hearing , ''the man behind the curtain is sheldon solow . '' mr . solow , a onetime friend and a developer ensconced in his own skyscraper aerie at 9 west 57th_street , was not an aggrieved creditor , the lawyer said , but someone who had concocted a plan to hurt mr . kalikow out of a ''bitter personal animus . '' at the hearing , judge burton r . lifland of united states bankruptcy court agreed that mr . kalikow had proved that mr . solow was the man behind the notices . the judge said that even a man from mars would conclude that the ads represented ''an affront to the court'' and a ' 'somewhat sleazy course of conduct . '' he reached for a thesaurus for synonyms ''tacky , shabby , base , low , malicious , petty , nasty , unsavory . '' he ordered mr . solow to pay mr . kalikow 's expenses , which exceeded 200 , 000 , and practically invited him to pursue claims against mr . solow 's law_firm before ''professional or legal tribunals that govern professional conduct . '' the ads , which ran on feb . 9 and 12 and solicited others to make bankruptcy claims against mr . kalikow , generated 58 phone_calls to the law_firm hired by mr . solow , dreier l.l.p. , and 18 letters from creditors , eight of which hired lawyers to pursue potential claims against mr . kalikow . there was also an inquiry from the city 's finance department and an investigatory call from the inspector general at the transit_authority , both of which were eventually dropped . there is little question that the affair is rooted in mr . solow 's longstanding bitterness over a_7 million loan he made in 1994 to mr . kalikow , who repaid it , apparently too quickly , while in bankruptcy court in 1994 . the early repayment deprived mr . solow of interest he had expected . mr . solow asserts that mr . kalikow must have had assets he failed to disclose if he was able to repay the loan within four months , a complaint that was thrown out of court in 1997 . ''i feel it is inappropriate and ungrateful for mr . kalikow to bring an action against me in bankruptcy court after mr . kalikow was going broke and in bankruptcy and i was so instrumental in aiding him and lending him 7 million so that his reorganization plan could be successful , '' mr . solow said in a statement from his lawyer . mr . kalikow said he was mystified by mr . solow 's enmity . ''what compels him to do this , i have no idea , '' he said in an interview . ''he was one of my closest friends . '' mr . solow is a tall , white haired man with a stylish , urbane affect and an extensive personal art collection . like mr . kalikow , his office is in a tower he built , the 45th floor of 9 west 57th_street , arguably the premier commercial tower in manhattan because of the quality of its office space and its panoramic views . his office , which features an enormous erotic painting by balthus , as well as works by matisse and picasso , overlooks central_park . mr . kalikow has a dems and does , man of the people persona that spills out of the bespoke blue or gray suits he puts on every morning and betrays his queens origins . he loves trains , has a multimillion_dollar collection of rolls royces , maseratis and ferraris , and counts gov . george e . pataki and former senator alfonse m . d'amato among his friends . but where mr . solow 's father was a bricklayer , mr . kalikow is the son of a wealthy queens developer . mr . kalikow is no longer active as a developer , while mr . solow controls one of the last developable sites on the east side of midtown , a nine acre stretch south of 42nd_street . although mr . solow is a director of the benjamin n . cardozo school of law , his adventures in state and federal court , where he has filed as many as 200 lawsuits , have won him scathing reviews . he has been chastised by one judge as ''one of the most litigious parties in our court , '' sanctioned and fined by another , and barred from bringing any additional suits relating to a dispute in east_hampton . but his battle with mr . kalikow did not begin in court . the two men have known each other for 20 years . when the real_estate boom collapsed in the early 1990 's and mr . kalikow was forced to seek protection from creditors in bankruptcy court , he turned to mr . solow to borrow 7 million . mr . solow also obtained an option to buy 16 . 33 percent of mr . kalikow 's company for 16 . 33 . at the time , mr . kalikow listed his personal liabilities at 350 million , although he said his 3 . 8 million triplex on fifth avenue and his 6 million home in montauk were never threatened . instead of taking years to pay back mr . solow , mr . kalikow repaid his friend in four months , at 9 percent interest . in addition , mr . solow bargained for 2 million before he would return the option . ''i never would have thought in a thousand years that he would have exercised his option , '' said mr . kalikow , who also borrowed money from his mother and from david s . mack , a real_estate investor who is now vice chairman of the transit_authority . mr . kalikow said he sold his 8 . 5 million yacht and two apartment buildings to pay them back . his reorganization plan was approved by the bankruptcy court in 1994 . unsecured_creditors , who were owed about 317 million , got 18 cents on the dollar . three years later , mr . solow tried to reopen the proceeding , saying that he had given up the option only after being harassed by mr . kalikow and to end ''a distasteful situation . '' he complained that mr . kalikow had refused to provide him with financial information that would have allowed him to make a rational decision . he said the accelerated repayment suggested that mr . kalikow had millions of dollars in unencumbered cash that he had failed to disclose to creditors . ''he felt he had been duped , '' said marc s . dreier , mr . solow 's lawyer . considering that mr . solow got back his money , with interest , and made 2 million on his option , it is difficult to discern why he is so incensed . he has suggested in court papers that mr . kalikow had a secret stash of cash . real_estate executives who know him say they are often puzzled by his penchant for litigation in general and his anger with mr . kalikow in particular . the court rejected his 1997 request , judge lifland said at a june 10 hearing , ' 'due to the fact that mr . solow had shown no legal basis for the relief he sought . '' mr . kalikow said he thought the matter was dead until the ads appeared in february , with the one in the post marked as a legal notice . the ads listed more than 400 creditors and said ''you may have additional rights of recovery based upon a failure by the debtors to make truthful disclosure . '' the deadline for additional recovery was feb . 17 . at the bottom of the ad was the name of a company , evergence capital advisors , and a telephone_number . mr . kalikow 's detectives and lawyers discovered that evergence was a dissolved florida company that had been headed by kosta kovachev , who had since been named in a civil complaint by the securites and exchange commission for his role in a 28 million ponzi scheme . the phone_number led to mr . dreier 's law_firm on park_avenue . during a subsequent deposition , mr . dreier acknowledged that mr . kovachev was his client and that he had a second client involved in the case . but he refused to name that client , until judge lifland ordered him to do so . it was mr . solow . ''the notices were designed to mislead the public into thinking that they had a right to reassert discharged claims , '' said judge lifland on june 10 , ruling in favor of mr . kalikow . judge lifland said the parties behind the ads were mr . solow , who was acting out of disappointment with the deal he made with mr . kalikow , and mr . dreier , ''who apparently solicited'' evergence and mr . kovachev to participate in the matter . a lawyer for mr . kalikow , stanley s . arkin , criticized mr . solow 's ''irrational animus for peter , '' but he reserved his sharpest jab for mr . dreier . ''he was facilitating an angry and vicious assault on his client 's perceived enemy , '' mr . arkin said , adding that he may seek sanctions against him . mr . dreier said , ''we think the court is clearly wrong . we feel fairly certain it 'll be reversed on appeal . '' correction july 7 , 2004 , wednesday an article on monday about a feud between the new york city real_estate developers peter s . kalikow and sheldon solow used a misspelled given name in some copies for the former senator who is a friend of mr . kalikow 's . he is alfonse m . d'amato , not alphonse .",has a topic of estate
"the b.c . hydro and power authority , one of this city 's largest employers , is planning to build a corporate complex in suburban burnaby that will be linked by the skytrain light_rail system to an office tower the public_utility corporation is building downtown . the suburban development is expected to cost about 57 million in united_states dollars and the downtown tower about 35 million . david shipman , property manager for the utility , which now has 3 , 000 employees downtown , said the suburban project is the most notable outgrowth of the greater vancouver livable region plan , developed by officials here and in surrounding communities . the regional plan urges companies to locate offices away from downtown and take advantage of skytrain for commuting . the 14 mile long skytrain runs east from vancouver through what seems like one continuous residential area , running through burnaby and then new westminster before ending in surrey near the united_states border . the power authority is planning a 1 . 7 million square_foot development in burnaby at the edmonds station , 20 minutes from downtown . this was the only skytrain station site where b.c . hydro could assemble 20 acres . the company paid about 26 million for the land . it will build 850 , 000 square_feet of space on part of the site , and sell the remaining land to developers who are expected to erect three more office towers . in the first phase of its project , which will begin this summer , b.c . hydro will spend 65 million to build a 250 , 000 square_foot high rise , three low rise buildings with 80 , 000 square_feet each and a 50 , 000 square_foot warehouse . it will relocate 2 , 300 of its employees there . another 250 , 000 square_foot high rise and another low rise complex are being planned . for operations that must remain downtown , the company is putting up an 18 story , 40 million office building with 292 , 000 square_feet plus four levels of underground parking , near the skytrain line . about 700 employees will work there . the company sold its 33 year old downtown high rise , which it had outgrown , for about 49 million . a bedroom_community at the eastern city limits of vancouver , burnaby has in the last 15 years experienced rapid commercial growth . phillip sanderson , the city 's economic_development coordinator , said he welcomed the b.c . hydro project , noting that its objective "" is to decentralize vancouver so that people live and work in their own community . """,has a topic of estate
"there was a time when kirk henckels , director of private brokerage for the tony firm of stribling_associates , would refer to an apartment on the market for 10 million as ''a trophy property . '' no more . ''now i just call it a_10 million property , '' mr . henckels remarked . the term trophy does not enter his vocabulary until the asking price hits 20 million . the boundary between ultrahigh luxury prices and routine high prices depends , of course , on who 's drawing the line and from what vantage_point . but by and large , brokers , developers and appraisers agree that it lies somewhere north of 10 million . ''it used to be that you would walk into a_10 million property and it would be like seeing someone wearing a 25 carat engagement ring , '' said michele kleier , president of gumley haft kleier . ''now you look at something at 10 million and say , 'where do i start gutting ? ' and 'how many more millions do i have to put in ? ' '' jonathan miller , president of miller samuel , a firm that appraises about 5 , 000 properties a year , also sets the bar higher . ''i think that 10 million is not high enough for the 'wow' factor , '' he said . ''it 's probably more like 12 million to 15 million . '' but there is ''wow , '' and there is ''wow ! '' to mr . henckels , '' 'wow' with a small 'w' is 10 million to 20 million while capital 'w' 'wow' is over 20 million . '' wherever ''wow'' rests , it was certainly uttered more than once when word spread about a 45 million transaction the highest ever recorded in manhattan in the aol time warner center on columbus_circle . the purchase of a gargantuan ( 12 , 000 square_feet ) loft assembled by combining one entire floor and part of another there remains breathtaking , even for movie stars and corporate tycoons . the buyer was david martinez , a london based financier who made his fortune buying the debt of nations and companies . but he remains in a class by himself . as stephen kotler , executive vice_president of douglas_elliman , put it , ''there is no rash of 45 million buyers . '' if there were , they might find some latitude on asking prices , which slipped noticeably in the upper reaches last fall , mr . miller said . but that was due more to overpricing , he said , than to real decline . ''list prices were being set as if the market were continuing to see double_digit increases , '' he said . ''now we are seeing prices at this level remaining flat , but there is a modest uptick in the number of transactions . '' there is a good inventory of properties for people able to bid 10 million or more . mr . kotler conducted an informal online survey of 10 million plus apartments last week . above that cutoff , he said , ''our database shows there are 144 available apartments , with an average asking price of 16 , 286 , 000 for an average of 2 , 680 per square_foot . the average square_footage of these units is 6 , 100 . '' ( a survey done by mr . miller for douglas_elliman shows the average sales price in manhattan over all for the second quarter of 2003 at 660 a square_foot . ) some specialists believe that price per square_foot is a more sensitive barometer of high end luxury than absolute price . ''at 1 , 000 per square_foot , you get something very nice 1 , 500 , something extravagant and 2 , 000 plus , hotel quality service , concierges , parking , five star restaurants with catering and usually premium addresses with views , '' said bret bobo , senior vice_president of sales and marketing for the athena group , a development firm . so what can buyers crossing the 10 million and up threshold expect to get that they would not for a single digit million ? ''five million dollars or 6 million can buy you a great location , a terrific apartment , a beautiful home , but they are not palaces , '' said hall f . willkie , president of brown_harris_stevens residential sales . ''it 's like the difference between buying a mercedes versus a rolls_royce . '' in general , ms . kleier said , ''what you 're getting is more space , larger rooms , higher ceilings and views . if you 're buying at trump world tower or the aol time warner building and you 're spending that kind of money , you wo n't buy on the 15th floor but on the 70th . you want to walk in and have drop dead airplane views . if you are buying in a prewar co op , '' she said , ''you will be getting something that will never be built again , an old world building with snob appeal . '' no matter how unique any particular residence may be , real_estate specialists agree that there are three essential factors in catapulting a property into the megamillion range location . size . view . the way those factors balance one another is different for stately old co ops ( for which location , and all that it implies , is paramount ) than they are for glamorous new condos ( views are essential ) . for town houses , width more than 20 feet dominates all other considerations . clich though it may be , there seems no way to overstate the pull of location , especially in the co op sector . the most expensive and exclusive buildings sit on fifth and park avenues from 59th to 96th streets . although there are certainly other neighborhoods and streets with prestige , like sutton and beekman places , central_park south , central_park west and gramercy_park , none command quite the same cachet . some buildings on fifth and park are known simply by their numbers . ''people do n't say '740 park_avenue , ' they just say '740' and no one asks '740 what ? ' '' ms . kleier said . ''everyone knows you are worth a billion dollars or you would n't get through the board . it is the prestige of having that address on your stationery . '' though many consider central_park west to be as desirable as fifth and park , ''there are not as many really expensive apartments there , '' said dolly lenz , executive vice_president of douglas_elliman . ''for the most part , you only get humongous apartments when they are combined . on the east side , they were built huge . '' in the town house market , the gap in prices between east and west sides has been narrowing in recent years . ''but they are still 25 percent higher on the upper east side blocks between fifth and madison , '' said jed garfield , the managing partner at leslie j . garfield company . there are , to be sure , some multimillion_dollar properties downtown as well , but not in the concentration of the upper east side . still , it takes more than a high status address to escalate prices . ''it must be an apartment in a very fine building , '' said kathy sloane , a broker at brown_harris_stevens , ''fine being defined as address , original architect and designer and provenance , meaning the people who have lived there . if the building is by rosario candela or james carpenter , you know it will have certain ceiling heights , a scale that creates a sense of graciousness , sufficient attention to areas for servants , a very fine lobby and a handsome exterior and possibly a terrace . '' to mr . kotler , size is paramount . ''you can get something as nice for 6 million or 7 million with the same level of finishes , but the difference comes down to size . '' he said . the most recent buzz around fifth and park concerned the contract reportedly signed for the duplex at 770 park_avenue owned by giovanni_agnelli , the chairman of fiat and elder_statesman of italian business , who died in january . ''it is not big , 6 , 000 feet , but it is one of the best apartments in new york , '' said alice mason , a broker who was not involved in the sale . ''there were 22 appointments to see it the first week it came on the market . '' sotheby 's , the brokerage_firm handling the sale , declined to comment . though the duplex is rumored to have gone for 20 million , ''in that same building you can find something for 6 million , '' said roger erickson , senior managing director of william b . may . ''they share a location . what they do n't share is the location within the building and that , along with size , is the key factor that vaults you to 15 million . '' the fact that the stately prewar co op buildings , particularly those by revered architects like candela and carpenter , cannot be expanded or duplicated , adds to their mystique and their value . ''you ca n't replace the prewar buildings on park that were built in the 1920 's , '' ms . mason said . ''the location is 100 percent gone and the type of craftsmanship used in the old buildings no longer exists . '' that is what makes the building at 838 fifth avenue , at 65th street , unusual . known as the ''love thy neighbor'' building for the biblical injunction carved into its limestone facade for its previous owner , the union of american hebrew congregations , it is both a condo in a sea of co ops , and a gut renovation . ( according to lawrence sicular , director of appraisal and consulting for brown_harris_stevens , there are 63 co ops and five condos on fifth avenue between 59th and 96th_street . ) among the amenities at 838 fifth , which commanded 10 million to 20 million per apartment quarters on the ground floor for employees . ''with square_footage so expensive upstairs , over a million per bedroom , it was decided that staff did n't have to live in the same apartment , '' mr . bobo said . ''so we put in one staff room for each floor , and they sold out at 500 , 000 each . '' not all the residents house staff there , however . ''one owner put in a gym , another a wine_cellar and storage , '' said mr . bobo , whose company converted the building to residential use . the differences between co ops and condos , of course , range from the basic condominiums , like houses , are real_property , while co ops are corporations in which tenants own shares , with rules , and admission , in the hands of a board to the subtle . in old world co ops , ''there is a snobbery that no condo can have , '' ms . mason said . ''a condo is only about money , and these buildings are only partly about money . '' dolly lenz , executive vice_president and managing director of douglas_elliman , disagreed . ''people used to think you were odd if you were a new yorker and said you wanted to buy a condo , '' she said . ''now , thanks to buildings like the westbury at 15 east 69th_street and 838 fifth avenue , it is not just acceptable but preferable to be in a condo because of the incredible people who have bought there . '' ultraluxury condominiums can also be found beyond in some cases well beyond traditionally affluent neighborhoods . they can even bestow a new identity on their locations , as the twin richard meier buildings , at 173 and 176 perry street where prices ranged from 1 . 6 million to 18 million , have done on perry street and one beacon court is expected to do on lexington_avenue . at one beacon court , part of the development on the old alexander 's store site , prices will top out at 26 million . ''some buildings make the location , '' ms . kleier said . ''who would have thought people would be fighting to live on columbus_circle ? '' to compete with co ops , mr . sicular said , condos must offer newness and extraordinary services and amenities . ''co ops have personnel but not the bells and whistles amenities of pools and , with a few exceptions , in house restaurants , '' he said . ''while many high end co ops have views , many do n't , and park_avenue is a premier example of that . condos tend to need a view . '' it would be hard to find views more spectacular than those visible from the two behemoths soaring into the skyline across town from one another the aol time warner center at columbus_circle and one beacon court at 151 east 58th_street . prices in the aol time warner center start at 2 . 5 million ( for a two bedroom 1 , 283 square_foot unit facing west ) . the largest single sale there registered at 30 million . though mr . martinez 's purchase was for 45 million , he bought two units . the towers , one to be known , because of the hotel at its base , as the residences at mandarin oriental ( 65 apartments ) and the other as one central_park ( 135 apartments ) , are equal in height to a building 80 stories tall but because of the unusually high ceilings , and the retail complex at their bases , they actually have only 55 floors . ''this is five star living , and money is no object , '' said louise m . sunshine , president of the real_estate marketing company bearing her name . the developer has trademarked the phrase ''five star living . '' the aim , ms . sunshine said , is to provide a remarkable array of services and facilities and be ready to fulfill any request , no matter how challenging . as the promotional literature breathlessly says , ''discover how expectations are surpassed whether it 's 3 , 000 roses upon request or monogrammed pillow shams for your houseguests , here the comforts of home have been exquisitely elevated . '' in ms . lenz 's opinion , ''if you are marketing a new building today and do n't have really great services , it 's a hard sell . ''people are purchasing lifestyle . they can afford everything and want everything . '' and they get it at buildings like aol time warner , one beacon court and the new ritz_carlton at 50 central_park south . ''any building can do maid service , but here they will dedicate the maid to your home , '' ms . lenz said of the ritz_carlton . ''if you want her , she must drop what she is doing . if there is a dog in residence , you get a dedicated dog walker who knows your dog . '' ''there are two bentley limos available , '' she continued , ''and they have fractional ownership of a jet , so if you decide you want to go to palm_beach for the weekend , you can do that . '' prices for 11 floor through apartments were initially set at 15 million to 26 million , but one floor was split into two units priced at 12 million and 17 million after construction began . ''we decided we wanted to be able to offer something below 15 million , '' said matthew hall , spokesman for millennium partners , the developer . only the 23rd floor has completely finished interiors , with the rest offered as raw space . ''at this price point , buyers want their own architects and interior_designers , '' mr . hall said . ''if we put in the finishes , we would never select the right ones . '' it is not unusual for buyers at this level to rip out kitchens and bathrooms and to redo finishes , but donald_trump , who has put up some of the more opulent condos around town , said that purchasers tend to leave well enough alone in the kitchens of his trump world tower at 845 united_nations plaza . in an advertisement currently running in several magazines , mr . trump stands over a pizza in a box in a kitchen there equipped with g.e . monogram appliances . the penthouse apartment is described as ''90th floor 10 rms w vu , new york at your feet 17 million . '' he is beaming as he holds out a slice . ''people very rarely tear out what i build , '' he said in an interview . in town houses , services are virtually_nonexistent and high end finishes may be attractive , but they do not have much impact on prices , according to mr . garfield , who said , ''there is not much difference between what you get for 8 million or 9 million and 15 million or 16 million . you can only spend so much on a house . there is no such thing as a viking plus range a viking is a viking . '' what does count is easier to quantify width . ''twenty feet is standard , '' mr . garfield said . ''there are lots of buildings at 15 , 18 , 19 feet , but once you break the 20 foot barrier , you start moving up disproportionately . plenty of multimillionaires have 20 feet but not many have 22 or 25 . '' whatever the extravagance of luxuries offered , at some point they become irrelevant . as ms . sunshine put it , ''they are for the 3 million to 10 million buyer , not the 45 million buyer . those people come with their own luxuries . they have their own major domos , drivers , concierges . if they want to exercise they put in their own gyms , but they still want to know that the building 's gym is there . '' correction september 14 , 2003 , sunday an article last sunday about high end homes in manhattan gave an outdated affiliation for lawrence sicular , who commented on the differences between co ops and condominiums at that level . he is an independent appraiser and researcher on the housing market , no longer director of appraisal and consulting for brown_harris_stevens .",has a topic of estate
"may is the finest month in montclair , or so they say in this town of 39 , 000 about 12 miles west of manhattan . the presby memorial iris garden unfurls its floral rainbow on a hill , signaling the start of a season of jazz concerts , downtown dances , block parties , school talent shows , craft fairs , sidewalk sales , ball games and tennis matches . ''and what is everybody talking about at all these social gatherings ? '' says linda grotenstein , a real_estate agent with coldwell_banker , and the president of the west essex board of realtors . ''how much the house next door just sold for . '' mayor bob russo agrees . ''people move here for the cosmopolitan lifestyle , not necessarily the property values , '' he said . ''but what is happening with the prices of homes is so incredible , it 's got everybody 's attention . '' the only down side to the excitement about montclair real_estate , the mayor said , is that ' 'regular folks are starting to worry people like us wo n't be able to afford to move here . '' the numbers so far this year are startling 65 percent of the 123 homes that were both listed and sold from jan . 1 to may 13 went for more than the asking price many for 20 percent to 40 percent more . one colonial , with four bedrooms and two and a half baths , on dryden road , which dead ends at brookdale park , went for 60 percent more than the asking price . it was put on the market for 399 , 000 in march , garnered a dozen bids , and sold for 637 , 000 . ''it may have been underpriced , '' ms . grotenstein said . ''it 's a very nice house , an elegant small house . one house had sold on that street for a high price the year before . maybe that should have been a sign to all of us realtors . ''but , really , '' she said , ''it is difficult to say what any house will sell for in a market like this . buyers are drawn by a well regarded school system and the prospect of a fast commute to manhattan in addition to the wealth of activities and attractive housing choices . montclair 's market has featured such high demand combined with such a low inventory of homes for sale , in fact , that sellers have come to expect that houses will be sold in one weekend . typically , a house is opened on wednesday to real_estate brokers , advertised on thursday , shown through the weekend and then sealed bids usually at least two , sometimes more than 20 are opened monday . ''people who come into this market to buy well , let 's just say , it takes them a while to get up to speed with it , '' said mary louise hogarty , an agent with burgdorff era . ''i 've had people miss out on 8 , 10 , 12 houses they put bids on . '' sometimes , a buyer has the winning bid accepted and then loses to someone who comes forward with a significantly higher bid in the three day period of ''attorney review'' required of each sales contract in new jersey , ms . hogarty said . this happened with a house on elston road at park street . a four bedroom colonial was offered at 539 , 000 and generated frenetic interest , and 12 offers . when the bids were opened , ms . hogarty 's clients had the second highest bid . the couple , who had been in this situation before , were told that this time it had been very close , ms . hogarty said , although the exact amount of a winning bid does not become public until after a sale has closed . the buyers still wanted the house . so , carolee jones , the manager of the burgdorff office , said the agency helped them devise a strategy . ''our buyers bid 700 , 000 , '' ms . jones said . ''so , the other guy was probably in the low 700 , 000 's . we told our buyers we would have to go significantly above that to get the house . they said , 'how about 751 , 000 ? ' that 's what we offered . '' when a bid is received during a lawyer 's review , the seller has the option of giving the original winning bidder a chance to match or better the new offer , and the process continues another step . in this case , burgdorff 's buyers got the home for 751 , 000 . they were ''thrilled , '' said ms . jones , to pay almost 40 percent over asking price . jay schweppe , whose schweppe company is based in montclair , observed , ''even as prices go up , up , up , buyers still see value there and that 's what matters in real_estate , the perception of value . '' montclair 's real_estate value has been increasing 20 percent a year for several years . one factor has been the promise of the midtown direct train service scheduled to start in montclair in the fall , when commuters will be able to commute into manhattan without switching trains in hoboken . other towns like maplewood , south orange and short_hills have all had increases in property values when the improved rail service cut 30 minutes or more off the commute to manhattan . ''another part of it , '' ms . grotenstein said , ''is the very brisk market in manhattan and brooklyn . with the prices people are getting in new york , they are coming here with buckets of money to spend and considering montclair a bargain . '' george j . bolton , who sold the house on summit avenue in march that he and wife , catherine , had lived in for 27 years , said he thought the sept . 11 attacks were also a factor . the boltons asked 395 , 000 for their four bedroom house and sold it for 475 , 000 . several offers came from people who wanted to leave manhattan after the attacks , mr . bolton said . ''really , though , i think people will pay a lot to come to montclair just because it is a cool place to live , '' he added . ''i 'm 64 , and tired of mowing the lawn , shoveling the snow , and trying not to get strangled by high taxes , '' he said , ' 'so we moved to a town house , less than a mile away , in cedar grove . '' mr . bolton asserted there is no place as interesting to live as montclair and reminisced about his neighbors on summit avenue over the years a retired navy admiral , the chief etomologist of new york , the drummer in woody_allen 's jazz band , a romance novelist , a fire chief and various journalists including a magazine publisher who started the street 's easter egg hunt five years ago . mayor russo concurred about the source of montclair 's magic . ''it 's the diversity of people and activities , '' he said , ''along with the beautiful houses and good schools . '' on park street , a boulevard cutting north to south through the town , two houses within a block in the upper montclair section sold recently for over 1 million . one colonial , with six bedrooms and three and a half baths , which had been remodeled , was listed at 925 , 000 and sold for 1 . 1 million a 19 percent premium . the other , a slightly larger tudor , sold for 1 , 335 , 999 , which was 285 , 999 over the list price the highest amount over list of any sale closed this year . a house on south mountain avenue that sold for 1 . 51 million was runner up in the dollars over list category . the seven bedroom stucco , with a columned porch , widow 's walk and a lace curtained two car garage , went for 260 , 000 over the list price . montclair broke the 2 million sales price barrier earlier this year , when a mediterranean style house on lloyd road sold for 2 . 1 million , after being on the market for six months . it had been listed at 2 . 395 million , and mr . schweppe had publicly called the asking price exorbitant . carol rhodes of rhodes van note company , another agency in montclair , said she was also surprised at the price . ''every week it seems something happens to make us liars , '' she said . on may 17 , two houses were put on the market with asking prices of more than 3 million . ''only a few years ago , young families starting out could get really nice houses for 250 , 000 , '' ms . grotenstein said . ''now if they come in , and they only have 300 , 000 , we may have to tell them we ca n't do it . '' mayor russo said this is a concern . the town has worked with developers of apartment buildings , he said , seeking pledges that low and moderate income units be included in projects . but with residential sales , he said ''there is no way to stop it . even the 't . l.c . 's' in neighborhoods that are a little more rundown are going for a lot of money . people are buying just to have a piece of montclair . ''if property values and the cost of our homes becomes so high , '' mr . russo said , ''we 're going to price out the average buyer . we 'll still have diversity but it will be wealthy folks of all backgrounds . '' recent sales of five bedroom houses may bolster his point . a clapboard dwelling with a porch overlooking grove street , a busy thoroughfare , sold for 485 , 100 39 percent , and 136 , 100 , over list price . a house on wilde place , a side street a couple of blocks from downtown , sold for 625 , 000 30 percent , and 146 , 000 , over asking . ''looking at the plus side , '' mr . schweppe said , ' 'real_estate continues to make many people very wealthy here in montclair . '' mr . bolton said it was wonderful to receive such a high price for his place . ''the tragedy is , '' he said , harking back to buying the house as a younger man , ''i did n't buy two houses . '' new jersey",has a topic of estate
"for more than a month , politicians and housing officials from albany to washington have tried to outdo one another in vilifying david bistricer , the developer who bid 1 . 3 billion for the complex of low and moderate income apartments in brooklyn known as starrett city . they suggested he would raise rents , slash services and throw longtime tenants into the streets . yet not so long ago some of the same officials warmly embraced another developer , jerry i . speyer , after he bid billions of dollars for an even larger complex of affordable apartments on the lower east side stuyvesant town and peter_cooper village . ''i think the tenants in stuyvesant town will be well protected , '' mayor michael r . bloomberg said about mr . speyer , whom he called a ''great landlord . '' in the same radio interview on feb . 9 , mr . bloomberg described mr . bistricer as a potentially bad landlord , with a ''worrisome'' history of building violations . concerns about mr . bistricer 's plan reached a head yesterday as the federal housing secretary , alphonso r . jackson , flanked by attorney_general andrew m . cuomo and senator charles e . schumer , rejected his bid . ''the department will not stand by idly while the community and its people are unnecessarily placed at risk , a risk of losing their homes and their way of life , '' mr . jackson said . the starkly different reactions to the two sales , the two buyers and the two complexes that stand 12 miles apart reveal much about new york in an era of seemingly unprecedented prosperity . the city 's population is growing . wall_street is reporting record profits . the average price of an apartment in manhattan is more than 1 million , rents are spiking and increasing numbers of new yorkers are worried that the cost of housing is exceeding their grasp . against that backdrop , concerns about the declining supply of affordable apartments in new york 's hot market have risen sharply , spurred in part by mr . speyer 's 5 . 4 billion purchase of stuyvesant town . and in that light , mr . bistricer may have been a victim of bad_timing . but there were other factors that may have contributed to the sharply different responses to the two sales . a member of manhattan 's aristocracy , mr . speyer is a consummate insider , comfortable with the news_media , a well known fixture in the glamorous world of manhattan that the mayor is familiar with . he is chairman of the federal_reserve_bank of new york , vice chairman of the museum_of_modern_art and an owner of the yankees . mr . bistricer , by comparison , is a soft_spoken man who is so shy around the news_media that he will not allow his photograph to be taken . he is unknown at either the real_estate board of new york or the partnership for new york city , two institutions once headed by mr . speyer . he lives in a three story house in borough_park , rather than a mansion on the upper east side , and his favorite charity is the hebrew academy for special children . he has also had legal problems thousands of building violations a prohibition from converting rental buildings to condominiums in new york because of past improprieties that do not show up on mr . speyer 's r sum . ''it was jerry speyer , the former chairman of the real_estate board and the partnership , who owns landmarks all over town , versus someone who most people never heard of , '' said steven spinola , the president of the real_estate board . in a city where nearly every apartment receives some form of tax_break or subsidy , the political storm at starrett city is also a measure of the extraordinary level of federal , state and city assistance over the past 30 years that has gone into the complex , whose residents are far less well to do than the middle_class tenants at stuyvesant town and peter_cooper village . the current owners , a group led by the investor disque d . deane , receive generous tax breaks , have a tax free federal mortgage and receive rent subsidies for 90 percent of the 14 , 000 tenants and substantial property_tax breaks . that assistance gave officials at several levels of government additional leverage to push mr . bistricer out of the picture , at least for now . ''you did n't have the level of federal , state and city subsidies at stuyvesant town that you did at starrett , '' mr . cuomo said . ''taxpayers paid the entire cost of starrett , some would argue , twice over . the taxpayers have a tremendous investment in this . '' tenant advocacy_groups like tenants and neighbors and acorn say that in the current market , affordable_housing has become an issue not only for the poor and working_class but also for the middle_class . mayor bloomberg has a well regarded plan to build 165 , 000 units of affordable_housing by 2013 . but advocates say that will not be enough to keep pace with the loss of affordable units as more apartments become deregulated or leave the state 's mitchell_lama program for middle_income tenants . ''the administration is feeling a lot of heat and pressure on this issue , '' added brad lander , director of the pratt center for community development . ''they 've positioned this as good actor versus bad actor . but the public outcry has been over the deeper issue preserving affordable_housing . '' shaun donovan , the city 's housing commissioner , defended the administration 's support for mr . speyer , saying stuyvesant town and peter_cooper village would remain under rent_stabilization laws . he also asserted that mr . bistricer 's bid for starrett city was so high that it would put its 5 , 881 units of affordable_housing at risk . but rents at stuyvesant town and peter_cooper village , where 28 percent of the 11 , 200 apartment are now deregulated and thousands more will be in the coming years , are fast escalating beyond the reach of the construction workers and police officers who traditionally lived there and even some of the middle_class tenants . ''i did n't feel protected , '' said evan horisk , a market rate tenant who rented a two bedroom apartment at stuyvesant town until january , when his rent jumped 26 percent to 3 , 350 . ''i was basically booted out of my apartment . '' mr . bistricer contends that he has unfairly been painted as an evil landlord and that he has poured millions of dollars into rehabilitating a brooklyn property that has received numerous building violations . he also still hopes that he can devise a plan that passes muster with federal and state officials , though mr . jackson , the federal housing secretary , clearly expressed strong doubts about a deal . ''we remain convinced that we can provide the assurances that secretary jackson , and other officials , responsibly require , '' a spokeswoman for mr . bistricer 's group , clipper equity l.l.c. , said in a statement yesterday . not everyone at starrett city is upset about the prospect , however unlikely , of mr . bistricer buying the complex . rabbi avner german , who has lived at starrett city since it opened in the mid 1970s and leads the congregation b'nai israel , said his concerns about the sale of the complex changed after he learned more about mr . bistricer , who , he said , had quietly donated ''thousands of dollars'' so that children from the former soviet_union who attend his school could have bar mitzvahs . ''he 's not the person who would want to purge the tenants here , '' rabbi german said . ''he happens to be very religious , a noble kind of person . '' news analysis",has a topic of estate
"black public_housing tenants have been systematically consigned to segregated , poor neighborhoods of baltimore city as a result of the policies of the united states department of housing and urban development , a federal_judge concluded on thursday . by not placing more public_housing residents in suburban counties , hud has failed to meet its obligations under the fair_housing_act , judge marvin j . garbis of federal district court ruled in a decade old civil_rights lawsuit . judge garbis 's decision is the latest turn in nationwide efforts intended to reverse public_housing policy that has historically sent public_housing tenants to poor neighborhoods consisting of minority residents . in the 322 page decision , judge garbis said hud must adopt a ' 'regional approach'' to public_housing that would disperse poor , black residents instead of concentrating them in city neighborhoods . the decision came in a class_action_lawsuit brought by the american_civil_liberties_union against hud , the baltimore housing authority and elected city officials . the suit , filed on behalf of 14 , 000 baltimore public_housing tenants , claimed local and federal_government policies had created ''black ghettos . '' judge garbis ruled that the plaintiffs did not prove their claim that the city of baltimore had failed to take adequate steps to try to reverse the effects of previous race discrimination in public_housing . but the judge rebuked hud for not ensuring public_housing ''free from discrimination . '' speaking before a packed courtroom in downtown baltimore , judge garbis said hud has been ''effectively wearing blinders'' through its failure to provide more public_housing beyond the city 's boundaries . ''it is high time that hud live up to its statutory mandate'' and consider ' 'regional approaches to promoting fair housing opportunities for african_american public_housing residents in the baltimore region , '' judge garbis said . in his decision , the judge wrote , ''baltimore city should not be viewed as an island reservation for use as a container for all of the poor of a contiguous region'' that includes surrounding counties . in baltimore , the decision noted , 97 percent of public_housing for families went to black families , mostly in poverty stricken neighborhoods . in 2000 , the judge said , the city was 64 percent black , while the baltimore region , comprising the city and five suburban counties , was about 15 percent black . as a result of a consent_decree issued earlier in the a.c.l.u . case , baltimore demolished numerous high rise projects and replaced them with new housing in the 1990 's . while praising those improvements , judge garbis said , ''there have not been significant opportunities for african_american residents of baltimore city public_housing to reside in racially_mixed , rather than predominantly african_american , areas . '' the case , the judge said , will now move to the ' 'remedial phase , '' in which the court will hear evidence and take action intended to ensure hud officials adequately consider a regional approach to the desegregation of public_housing in the baltimore region . lawyers for the plaintiffs , along with national housing and civil_rights advocates , hailed the decision and said it underscores the importance of spreading public_housing beyond the city . ''the core of the case has been a failure of political will to locate public_housing anywhere other than the poorest , blackest neighborhoods , '' said andrew d . freeman , a lawyer representing the a.c.l.u . hud , mr . freeman said , is largely responsible for concentrating public_housing in poor areas of the city and has an obligation to break the pattern by dispersing public_housing . philip tegeler , executive director of the poverty and race research action council in washington , said that in the 1990 's the clinton_administration had settled 17 class_action complaints stemming from public_housing discrimination claims , agreeing to create public_housing outside of areas of minority concentration , allocate more housing vouchers to be used outside high poverty areas and revitalize public_housing . william f . ryan jr . , a lawyer representing baltimore city , said the decision heartened him . ''our position from the beginning was that the city has done everything it could over the last 50 years to provide good housing for its citizens , '' mr . ryan said . ''and the city needs all the help it can get from the federal_government and other sectors . ''",has a topic of estate
"chatham 385 , 000 94 lisa street 3 bedroom , 3 1 2 bath , 18 year old ranch master bedroom suite , deck , screened_porch taxes 2 , 001 . freehold 127 , 500 18 yard avenue 3 bedroom , 2 bath , 22 year old colonial fireplace , den , 1 car garage , patio taxes 2 , 698 . howell 157 , 000 13 chestnut hill road 4 bedroom , 2 1 2 bath , 23 year old colonial 1 car garage , w w carpeting , eat in kitchen taxes 3 , 150 . jackson 122 , 000 21 aldrich road 3 bedroom , 2 bath , 27 year old ranch family room , 1 car garage , pool , finished_basement taxes 3 , 452 . oakland 155 , 000 22 oneida avenue 4 bedroom , 2 bath , 34 year old split level new carpeting , deck , eat in kitchen taxes 3 , 288 . ramsey 343 , 000 23 joshua drive 5 bedroom , 2 1 2 bath , 13 year old tudor fireplace , patio , skylights taxes 6 , 665 . other areas norwalk , conn . 178 , 000 10 quintard avenue 2 bedroom , 1 1 2 bath , 60 year old victorian completely renovated , new furnace , 0 . 10 acre taxes 2 , 133 . bronxville , n.y . 765 , 000 30 sturgis road 5 bedroom , 3 1 2 bath , 62 year old tudor family room , breakfast nook , library taxes 12 , 295 . massapequa , l.i . 300 , 000 131 bellaire road 5 bedroom , 3 bath , 37 year old ranch_dining_room , eat in kitchen , den , 2 car garage taxes 8 , 500 . correction_october 27 , 1991 , sunday an entry in the recent sales column on sept . 22 misstated the address and age of a house in chatham and the taxes on it . the address is 94 lisa drive , and the house is 11 years old the taxes are 6 , 829 .",has a topic of estate
"to the editor concerning ''from a ring for horses to a studio for anchors'' streetscapes , march 28 , about durland 's riding academy at 66th 67th street off central_park west there must be other old timers who regret , as i do , your omission of the period after the closing of the n.y . riding club in 1936 when the ''complex returned to service as a public stable . '' it became aylward 's ( or so it was in 1946 when i became a regular patron ) , presided over by a strict lady , mrs . smith ( nee aylward , it was rumored ) . there were , at a guess , 60 or 70 horses in my time , including a large number of stable horses , several of very high quality . there was no longer polo in the ring , but the space was glorious , with ample and safe room for jumps in the center . the location was glamorous we had a short , exciting hoof clopping distance , then the gracious park entrance , with tavern on the green on our right . hearts were broken when the property was sold . and with the subtraction of so many horses , central_park has never been as elegant again . doris dodge princeton , n.j .",has a topic of estate
"as construction work begins on 9 metrotech south , a 670 , 000 square_foot building that will house 1 , 300 employees of empire blue cross and blue shield , planning is under way to lay the zoning and other groundwork for other development in downtown_brooklyn . while the new building will complete development of the 16 acre metrotech complex , its developer and others active in the borough think brooklyn could become increasingly attractive to companies that are expanding or that want to spread out their work forces for increased security in the wake of the sept . 11 attacks , while still remaining in the city . to help make this happen , efforts are under way to revise the zoning for certain parts of the downtown area to permit the construction of buildings both office towers and housing larger than zoning now permits . the designated sites include four blocks along livingston street between smith street and flatbush_avenue , several blocks on both sides of willoughby street near flatbush_avenue and several blocks on the east side of flatbush_avenue closer to the brooklyn_bridge . others are working to add amenities by upgrading or expanding two existing malls . work is to begin next month above the long_island_rail_road 's brooklyn terminus on the four story , 400 , 000 square_foot atlantic terminal mall , almost half of which is to be occupied by a target department_store . the project includes foundation work for an eventual office tower , and city and metropolitan_transportation_authority crews have been preparing the site for construction . some customers for the malls are expected to come from the area 's student population , which will take on a more 24 hour character with the opening of a new dormitory this fall , with another one , at a different school , also being planned . further in the future with the other demands on city and state coffers raising questions about timing are ambitious plans for developing a park along the waterfront below brooklyn_heights and , in the area around the brooklyn_academy_of_music , expanding cultural facilities while adding housing and office space . since many of these projects are dependent on city money , they are likely to be delayed by the current budget pressures . but backers say the preliminary work is necessary to prepare the area so that developers will be able to move quickly when demand is felt from companies that are expanding or are relocating some of their offices . ''downtown_brooklyn has got to be ready to go in the next up cycle , '' said james whelan , director of the downtown_brooklyn council . the council is asking city planners to increase zoning in the designated locations to permit the development of 12 million square_feet of space 9 million commercial and 3 million residential . he said residential construction was an important part of the plan to create what he terms ''a true downtown . '' he added , ''we need to have people here after 5 30 in the afternoon . '' one criticism of metrotech has been that while thousands of people work there during the day , most leave for homes elsewhere in the city or in the suburbs after office hours , leaving the streets empty and lifeless . similarly , educational institutions in downtown_brooklyn are trying to turn at least a small number of the estimated 30 , 000 students who flood into the area each day into residents . as part of a 100 million renovation and expansion of its brooklyn campus , polytechnic_university has built its first dormitory , a 400 bed facility that is scheduled to open in the fall . brooklyn law school has announced plans to build its first dormitory as well , with 350 beds , at the northwest corner of boerum place and state street . having a larger 24 hour population should attract retailers and make the neighborhood more attractive to companies looking for office space , mr . whelan said . ''we serve midtown and lower_manhattan , and we compete with the new jersey waterfront , '' he said . also among potential competitors is long_island_city , queens , where a_37 block area was rezoned for greater density last year , although no projects are yet under way . while planners and developers agree that new commercial projects will most likely wait for the next economic upturn , the development of 9 metrotech south is an indication of how fast things can happen when a site is ready to go and there is a client in need . before sept . 11 , the forest_city ratner companies , the developer of metrotech , did not have an anchor tenant for the site , at the northwest corner of myrtle avenue and flatbush_avenue extension , and had no plans to build . then , ''the deal was done in two months , '' said bruce c . ratner , the company 's president , of the decision by empire blue cross and blue shield to sign a lease for 322 , 220 square_feet , or about one half the 19 story building . because the company 's employees are currently scattered in different locations , construction is proceeding urgently . ''we are working double shifts and should have the building ready in 18 months , rather than the 24 to 30 months it would usually take , '' he said . mr . ratner said events of sept . 11 appeared to have changed corporate attitudes toward brooklyn . in the past , financial_services companies placed back office operations in the borough because the rents were lower , while keeping their headquarters in manhattan . now , he said , there is interest in moving whole entities to brooklyn , which is , among other things , on a different power grid than manhattan . ''prior to this , downtown_brooklyn was strictly a low cost alternative , '' he said . ''now companies that are interested in spreading out their space are interested in brooklyn for reasons not based solely on costs . '' dr . george bugliarello , the chancellor of polytechnic and also the conceptual father of metrotech , said sept . 11 might lead corporate executives , city officials and developers to question the value of concentrating businesses in manhattan . ''in medieval times cities were a place of protection , '' he said . ''now cities are hostages , and we have to rethink the distribution of activity . '' but he said it would be difficult to replicate metrotech , because few developers are willing to take on a 1 billion project that takes 15 years to plan and build . in addition to the developers of office and academic projects , retail developers are paying increasing attention to downtown_brooklyn . joseph j . sitt , the principal owner of thor equities , a real_estate investment company , has purchased the somewhat threadbare albee square mall , between flatbush_avenue and fulton and gold streets , and plans to transform it into an upscale shopping_center called the gallery at fulton_street . mr . sitt , who developed the ashley stewart retail clothing chain , aimed at urban women , into a business with annual sales of more than 300 million , said there is money to be made in urban locations as well as suburban malls . he said the first task is to fix the leaky roof of the three story mall , but then he plans to improve the appearance of the entire building . ''i 'm going to rip out the linoleum floors and replace them with granite , '' he said . he said that in the late 1990 's companies he calls ''white bread retailers'' discovered the urban market , increasing competition for ashley stewart , and mr . sitt sold his interest in the company . he said he decided to buy real_estate in urban_areas to present a variety of retail concepts . the mall has toys ''r'' us as one anchor , and mr . sitt said he was hoping to attract a department_store as another anchor . he said the plan is to create the same shopping experience as in top quality suburban areas . ''we are going to take the finest quality mall in white , suburban areas and bring it to downtown_brooklyn , '' he said . the site includes a five story parking_garage that thor equities owns and is in one of the areas designated for increased zoning . mr . sitt said he is prepared to demolish the existing structure and build a 900 , 000 square_foot building if a tenant signs a lease without waiting for the zoning to change . he said he would build it in such a way that it could be expanded if the zoning is changed to allow 2.5 million square_feet of development . included in that figure would be another building over the retail space . more immediate retail development plans are about to be executed by forest_city ratner on a 3 . 6 acre site bounded by atlantic and flatbush avenues , hanson place and fort_greene place . the mall , to be called atlantic terminal , is to sit atop the long_island_rail_road terminal , which is connected to 10 subway lines . forest_city ratner officials say 50 million subway , commuter_rail and bus passengers pass by the location each year . the 400 , 000 square_foot , four story atlantic terminal will be adjacent to the atlantic center retail mall , which opened in 1996 . atlantic terminal is the third and final phase of the project , which also includes 417 units of owner occupied affordable_housing and a public park . the anchor store for atlantic terminal will be a 194 , 000 square_foot target discount department_store . other retailers that have signed leases at the project include payless shoesource , rockaway bedding , daffy 's and avenue , a women 's clothing store . these stores will join macy 's , pathmark , old navy and circuit city , which are already in operation at atlantic center . work on atlantic terminal is scheduled to begin next month , with completion scheduled for march 2004 . mr . ratner said an office building could be built on top of the retail space at atlantic terminal and center if demand warrants . closer to fort greene park , the bam local development corporation is seeking to establish a residential and cultural district on land that is now used mostly for surface parking_lots . the district would be anchored by the brooklyn_academy_of_music , hence the name . ''our goal is to develop a mixed use , multicultural arts district by using underused city owned property , '' said jeanne lutfy , president of the development group . ( harvey lichtenstein , the former president of the music academy , is chairman . ) she said the plan is to develop low cost housing along with cultural , meeting and rehearsal spaces so there will be people on the streets day and night . she said the city had earmarked 80 million in its capital budget , with additional financing expected from the state and programs intended to promote the development of affordable_housing . one of the group 's first projects is the renovation of 80 hanson place , a 30 , 000 square_foot state owned building that had stood vacant for 10 years . the development corporation will renovate the building as offices and meeting spaces for small nonprofit arts groups , with the work scheduled to start in march and to be completed by the end of the year . part of the financing is coming from the city and the remainder from a 1 million grant from the state . already in the area is the mark morris dance center , which opened last fall in a long vacant space after a_7 million renovation . the center includes a permanent home for the mark morris dance group along with space for dance classes for the public and dance rehearsal space for rent to outside groups . ms . lutfy said the next project is the development of the so called east site with the ubiquitous mr . ratner , who controls the property . she said that it would be a mix of about 50 , 000 square_feet of cultural space and 100 , 000 square_feet of housing and that construction should begin early in 2003 and be complete by the end of the year . city funding is to pay for the cultural part , and existing housing programs are expected to be tapped to aid the residential component . plans for the other parcels of land are further in the future , she said , particularly the west site , which is entirely in private hands . while plans for the cultural district develop , another local development corporation is seeking to develop a public park along the east_river waterfront . it is to run from the footing of the manhattan bridge past the developing dumbo neighborhood past the brooklyn_bridge and south onto piers little used by their owner , the port_authority of new york and new jersey . the park would cover 67 acres of land stretching from jay street in the north to atlantic avenue in the south . the park would include some commercial development , including a hotel and conference center . but officials of the brooklyn bridge park development corporation say 80 percent of the park will be open space in an area of the city with little of it . like many waterfront areas of new york , the industrial docks near the fulton_ferry landing were made obsolete by the emergence of containerized shipping and the development of container ports in new jersey . joanne witty , the president of the development corporation , said the park would emerge ''as the industrial glacier recedes from the waterfront . '' ms . witty said the park has an 85 million commitment from the state through the port_authority , which is treating the pilings supporting the docks to prevent further damage from marine pests , and 65 million from the city . she said she thought the state commitment was solid , but admitted that the city funds have to be appropriated on a yearly basis . ''the park can be seen as economic_development that provides jobs and improves the attractiveness of the harbor , '' ms . witty said . ferry_service is expected to resume this summer between the fulton landing and various points in manhattan . the 90 passenger boats are to be operated by new york water taxi . retail and leasing activity have been increasing in the dumbo area , said jed d . walentas , an executive of the two trees management company , which owns and manages most of the buildings in the area . he said williams sonoma , a housewares and cookware company , is building two separate design studios on the eighth and ninth floors of the building at 55 washington street , and abc carpet has been holding warehouse sales in 40 , 000 square_feet of space at 20 jay street while negotiating for a permanent location . he said his company is also prebuilding small office spaces in the 2 , 000 to 4 , 000 square_foot range for design , architectural and consulting companies at the rate of ''about a dozen a month . '' also in dumbo , jeffrey m . brown associates is planning a mixed_use_development on what is now a surface parking_lot on jay street between front and york streets . the proposed development , called light bridges at 100 jay street , would include retail stores and office space in the base of the building and two residential towers connected by a light bridge . since the site slopes 17 feet downward toward the east_river , the building incorporates an unusual design . ''we are going to have one and one half levels of retail with about 24 , 000 to 30 , 000 square_feet of space and one and a half levels of parking for 250 to 260 cars , '' mr . brown said . five levels of office space would be on top of the retail space and rise to the level of the deck of the manhattan bridge . the residential towers would be built above the commercial space . regarding the proposed zoning change , mr . whelan said his group had worked with city planners and the economic_development commission , and he expressed confidence that the floor_area_ratio a measure of construction density of 3.5 along livingston street and 6.5 along willoughby street would be increased to the 12 that has been approved for the commercial district in long_island_city . he said many of the brooklyn sites included in the proposal had been identified in previous studies as suitable for development . he said the large sites available on willoughby street would make it logical for commercial development , while the livingston street properties would be suitable for residential development because of their proximity to the boerum_hill residential neighborhood . mr . whelan said the proposal still faced an environmental and land use review before being submitted to the city 's planning commission . as with all zoning changes , approval by the city_council is needed as well . he said he expected the process to be completed by the end of 2003 . a spokesman for marty markowitz , the new brooklyn borough_president , said mr . markowitz ''cautiously supports'' the change as long as emphasis is placed on public transportation to avoid having larger buildings add to passenger vehicle traffic . developers say that while the proposed zoning change will not be enough by itself to spur development , it is an essential prerequisite . ''nothing will happen unless there is an up zone , '' said jane marshall , a vice_president of forest_city ratner and project manager for atlantic terminal and 330 jay street , which is being built to house the kings_county family_court and part of the new york supreme_court . ''you need to have the density to encourage development . '' joshua l . muss , who is seeking to build a 280 room addition to his highly successful marriott_hotel in downtown_brooklyn , said the city needs to encourage development in the boroughs because the process is so drawn out that it discourages most builders . ''we need to focus now on getting sites ready so we can act quickly when companies are ready'' to sign leases , mr . muss said . ''to do that , we need the support of the city and community groups . ''",has a topic of estate
"lead the scene at the construction site for the queenswood apartments in the corona section of queens these last few weeks could not have failed to mesmerize onlookers . huge cranes , bobbing and nodding like steel giraffes , raised and fitted whole walls and floors of two eight story buildings into place . the scene at the construction site for the queenswood apartments in the corona section of queens these last few weeks could not have failed to mesmerize onlookers . huge cranes , bobbing and nodding like steel giraffes , raised and fitted whole walls and floors of two eight story buildings into place . forest city enterprises , the cleveland company that builds multifamily_housing across the country , was fitting together its factory made components to form a 296 unit ''mac rental'' project , as the city 's low and moderate income multifamily construction program was labeled five years ago . it is assisted by tax exempt financing and revenue generated by the municipal_assistance_corporation . as it happens , the construction technique at queenswood is only one aspect of the development that compels attention . it is also interesting as a specimen of one of the handful of successful new construction projects under the mac rental program itself , and as a kind of measuring rod in a consideration of the pace , direction and costs of the city 's accelerating housing construction programs . forest_city has trucked the panels for these light colored , rough textured buildings 480 miles from one of its factories in ohio . all the walls , floors and stairs were made there , as was the elevator shaft and the facade panels . the architect was carl r . meinhardt . occupancy is planned in the spring . the three acre site , at 100th street and lewis avenue , is part of the property that the city acquired years ago for a high_school . local opposition led by mario m . cuomo as counsel blocked that project and in recent years it has been developed mainly with low rise housing . lefrak city and another multifamily development , sherwood village , are nearby . the company developed the housing system during the operation breakthrough days when george romney was secretary of housing_and_urban_development in the late 60 's , and has used it in 225 projects with about 60 , 000 apartments in 18 states . currently six projects with 1 , 700 apartments are using it , all within 500 miles of ohio . in teaneck , n.j. , forest_city is using it to build a residence for the elderly called the classic residence that hyatt hotels will operate . despite the factory assemblage , 75 percent of the construction work is done on site by local subcontractors using local labor , forest_city says . but the opportunity to produce precast elements in the factory has meant that construction will take only 13 months instead of the conventional 18 or 19 months . construction methods aside , queenswood is by no means inexpensive housing . it is costing about 33 million , or 110 , 000 an apartment ( including 1 , 000 a unit for land ) . to get rents down to low to moderate income levels , the city is providing 18 million in subsidies , or about 60 , 000 an apartment . the 18 million subsidy is repayable after 25 years at a rate of 1 . 1 million a year , which includes interest of 1 percent , with a final balloon payment after 40 years . when the mac rental program started , city officials were predicting its cost at about 3 , 500 per apartment per year . housing consultants warned that the costs would range between 4 , 000 and 5 , 000 a unit . they were right . the 60 , 000 a unit subsidy is equivalent to about 4 , 800 a year if the money were invested in government securities . the first project awards were made in 1985 , all for privately_owned sites . there were nine , one a rehabilitation and eight new construction . the rehabilitation and three of the new construction projects were completed and occupied , but the others never got off the ground , for reasons involving financing , the developers' inability to get site control or physical site conditions . after additional awards in 1986 for new buildings on city owned sites , two more went into construction queenswood and a 151 unit building on fifth avenue and 112th_street in manhattan . the five new projects are providing 843 apartments . two more new rental projects are still in the pipeline 62 units in astoria , queens , and possibly 57 on columbia street in brooklyn . in addition , mac subsidies have been used on seven gut rehabilitions on city owned sites , providing 410 new apartments in the shells of old buildings . these 1 , 200 to 1 , 300 apartments are well below the 4 , 000 to 6 , 000 units that city officials said in 1984 they hoped the mac rental program would by now have produced . the sites on which the program was workable were hard to come by . but much has changed in five years . mayor edward i . koch started what he called a_10 year , 5 . 1 billion housing production plan in 1986 . it absorbed the mac rental program , changed the approach to multifamily construction and widened the scope of production programs generally . the emphasis is on rehabilitating the tax foreclosed housing stock for low or moderate income tenants , or the homeless , where most city money is going building new housing for the middle_income for sale market , and utilizing so called cross subsidies from market rate condominiums to lower the cost of new assisted rentals nearby or assisting new low rise housing on city owned land . other events have overtaken the mac rental concept . the tax_law changed in 1986 , and investors in low_income_housing were allowed to earn tax_credits only if the renters had incomes below 50 percent of the area median , instead of 80 percent . accordingly , the queenswood low income rents have been pegged at 183 for a studio 229 for a one bedroom 292 for a two bedroom , and 321 for a three bedroom . when the mac rental program began it was thought that the rents for the 20 percent low income component would be 300 for a studio , 350 for a one bedroom , 400 for a two bedroom and 500 for a three bedroom . in future rentals , the city would have to use the 50 percent figure ( about 16 , 000 ) on 20 percent of the apartment for new construction to utilize tax exempt bond financing on any project . as for the rest of the tenants , their incomes are to be limited to 180 percent of the median , or , for queenswood , 58 , 000 for a family of page x , col . 5 four ( the median having risen to 32 , 400 ) . in reality , most of the tenants probably will have incomes of about 40 , 000 . the queenswood rents for what the city now calls middle_income tenants are set at 600 for a studio 750 for a one bedroom 950 for a two bedroom , and 1 , 050 for a three bedroom . under current city policy , which is to be applied in the cross subsidy developments , the assisted middle_income renters are defined as those with incomes between 100 percent and 165 percent of areawide median , or about 32 , 000 to 53 , 000 a year at present . an interesting question is whether the market in corona would permit rents somewhat higher than what queenswood will charge . the city would have had to provide only 36 , 000 an apartment instead of 60 , 000 if the 80 percent component could rent for an average of 200 more a month . city officials think the allowable rents are in fact at market , but in a limited income rental there is no mechanism for judging what the market really is . the policy goal under the mayor 's 10 year housing plan is to give more subsidies to serve the people who by definition cannot afford market rate apartments . but there also is a case to be made for obliging middle_income people getting new assisted housing to put at least some of their own equity into their housing , as they do in homes sold through the nehemiah plan and the new york city partnership , and as they once did in publicly aided limited income co ops . under abraham biderman as housing commissioner , the city has shifted to a cross subsidy approach to producing new publicly assisted high rise buildings . the models , both planned in manhattan , are a lefrak organization project on the south side of delancey street and a milstein properties development in clinton . the proceeds from condominium sales in market rate buildings will be used to assist new rental buildings nearby . since no one can tell how successful the condominium sales will be , it is difficult to judge how much subsidy will be applicable to the rental buildings , or how much the city will have to apply to make the rents affordable to the population it wishes to serve . there will be no cross subsidy at the prospective tibbetts garden development in the kingsbridge section of the bronx , however . this is a 700 unit condominium on city owned land backed by the real_estate board of new york but essentially financed by the city . the probable per unit subsidy is at least 50 , 000 some say it will be higher with part of it repayable from sales proceeds . the city will provide 25 , 000 a unit in site preparation expense , and 25 , 000 in an interest free construction loan from the housing development corporation , repayable from the sale proceeds once they are generated . the key question is how well the project sells , which in turn depends on the cost and the pricing . but whether it is for sale housing or rental_housing , the high rise multifamily units in new york city are far more costly than low rise nonelevator buildings , or one and two family houses . for each homeless household for which the city produces a new apartment in an old tax foreclosed building , the average cost now is 75 , 000 a unit . the tenant gets the apartment free , which is to say that none of the rent is used to pay off the construction cost . rent pays for upkeep only . in the mac rental program , for new high rise construction targeted to working people , the subsidy cost per unit is not that far behind .",has a topic of estate
"for most people , owning a centuries old ''appartamento'' in a medieval italian town is the stuff of dreams . for chris and meg phillips of austin , tex . , the fantasy has become reality . the couple shared a love for italy dating to their college days . after making annual visits between 2000 and 2004 , chris phillips convinced his wife that they should buy . on their first official shopping trip , in november 2004 , they visited casperia , a hilltop hamlet 40 miles north of rome , and fell in love with the shell of a place crumbling stone walls , antiquated beams and all . when the couple saw the hills , the ancient narrow streets of casperia ( no cars allowed few would fit ) and the view of the town from the property , they were sold . within 24 hours they had put in an offer and met with the husband and wife architecture team of conti rowland architetti . the umbria based team was recommended by johannes hermel and luisa biaocco hermel , who run a real_estate agency and www . casambiente . com , where the phillipses first found the property . exactly two years later , the couple are owners of il sogno , italian for the_dream . ''it was a hovel , really a wonderful hovel , '' said mr . phillips , a 59 year old lawyer , who is thrilled that his wife overcame her objections . nowadays , when the couple are not using the house , their four adult children are or it is being rented out . before her change of heart , ms . phillips , 59 , who teaches private_school , says she remembers thinking ''oh , come on ! we do n't need a second home in italy . '' ''i 'd always thought we would travel when we retired , '' she added , ''and i did n't want to be limited to one place . i thought buying a house , not just in italy , but anywhere , would do that . '' but when the phillipses wound their way up the via mazzini in casperia , they felt breathless with anticipation partly because of the 220 odd steps they had had to climb and partly because , when they stepped across the threshold of no . 26 , ''it felt like we were coming home , '' mr . phillips said . home , at that time , was two levels of ancient stone and dirt , shards of undated pottery , a hidden ( and , thankfully , long unused ) toilet outflow and walls that needed plaster . from all that , their builder , stefano fagiani , fashioned a living room , dining_room , kitchen and master bedroom suite , and , downstairs , a guest room and a second bathroom , all totaling a little more than 110 square meters , or 1 , 200 square_feet . early on in the process , mr . fagiani deduced that in the 12th_century , the lower floor had been used to store food he believes an ancient ''cisterna'' uncovered during construction was once a communal olive_oil vat . the second level ( the couple bought the whole thing from the same owner , who owns the apartment above il sogno ) was a 15th_century addition . while working on the kitchen , mr . fagiani also found remnants of an ancient stoop and what he suspected was an early road , possibly roman . the phillipses' need for a kitchen outweighed their fascination with the past , but not before the find was documented for what eventually became a privately published book , ''restoring il sogno . '' ''apparently that sort of thing happens all the time in italy , '' said mr . phillips , noting that the village 's origins also are somewhat obscure . ''i do n't think anyone really knows how long casperia has been there . virgil mentions a town in his writings that some people think is modern casperia . '' one thing is certain il sogno 's structure is part of a classic ''borgo , '' an ancient combination of houses , shops and even stables , built and rebuilt over many centuries , creating a plaster stone dirt continuum that can stretch for blocks . some surprises were not so pleasant . the casperia commune council refused their request to build a balcony off the master bedroom , something that mrs . phillips in particular had set her heart on . and last spring their neighbor and caretaker told them that there was a two inch layer of mold forming on the apartment walls , endangering the antiques and valuable textiles that the phillipses had started moving into the house . apparently moisture from the curing plaster had created the hazard , which fortunately was dealt with by repeated airing and the addition of shutters on the windows . the couple said it was the only problem that had truly challenged language barriers and spotty communication between texas and italy . and despite such issues , they said , they love the house and look forward to retiring in four or five years , when they will split their time between their american and italian homes . in the last two years , casperia has begun to attract more outsiders and expatriates , pushing up prices . mr . hermel , the phillipses' real_estate agent , said the cost of property in the city 's oldest section had increased by 30 percent since late 2004 . he estimated that a renovated space would sell for 2 , 000 euros to 2 , 500 euros , or 2 , 620 to 3 , 275 , and a ''fixer upper'' for 800 euros to 1 , 200 euros , or 1 , 050 to 1 , 570 . andrew rowland , the english half of the conti rowland architectural team , thinks the phillipses made a great find . he and his wife , olimpia conti , work frequently with americans who want to restore homes in italy . ''i think americans in particular like to restore , even if the restoration in some cases is quite extreme , '' mr . rowland said . ''they like to buy something as wrecked as possible . emotionally , most of the americans want to get into the history , to see the bricks and stone , the age . maybe they want to come back to their roots in some way . ''",has a topic of estate
"the northeast states continue to lead the nation in the number of people losing their homes for failing to meet mortgage payments , a trade group said today . california and other sun_belt states are catching up , said the group , the mortgage bankers association of america , registering some of the sharpest increases in what economists call perhaps the most telling indicator of individual households in economic crisis . "" this is the highest we 've ever seen , "" thomas e . hylinski , a first vice_president in charge of residential lending at people 's bank , one of connecticut 's largest mortgage lenders , said of the number of connecticut residents who were losing their homes . foreclosures in new jersey in its quarterly report , made public here today , the association said that lower interest rates had buoyed many family budgets as homeowners refinanced mortgages and reduced their monthly payments and that throughout much of the country the numbers of late mortgage payments had fallen to an 18 year low . but the group said that in the northeast and in southern_california , where hundreds of thousands of jobs have been lost in the aerospace industry and across a wide swath of white collar jobs , lower monthly payments had not been enough . those areas , perhaps by coincidence , also have some of the highest housing prices in the nation , meaning that laid off homeowners , carrying bigger mortgages than they might elsewhere in the country , have a shorter time to sink or swim . in new jersey , for example , 2 . 44 percent , or nearly one in 40 residential mortgages , was in some stage of foreclosure in the last quarter of 1992 , by far the highest rate in the nation , according to the mortgage bankers' survey . massachusetts was second , with 1.8 percent , followed by connecticut at 1 . 73 percent . new york and new hampshire were tied for the fifth highest rate at 1 . 52 percent . foreclosure , when a lender actually begins taking back a property , is always the last resort , economists say , after monthly payments have been missed for at least three months and far longer than that in many cases . with prices of houses falling in many parts of the country , banks have been reluctant to take back properties that they will then have to try to resell . they say the high foreclosure rate also indicates the persistence and depth of the economic downturn , since people who lose their homes have generally exhausted their savings . "" it 's really a sure sign of distress , "" said emanuel tobier , a professor of economics at new york_university . professor tobier said that the rate of late mortgage payments , or delinquencies , are the "" first bell , "" in gauging the degree of economic turmoil in any one region , or in individual household . "" foreclosure is where the curtain comes down , "" he said . "" it 's a very drastic step . "" and while mortgage lenders said they expect the northeast to continue to lead the nation in repossessions through this year , other regions that fell later into the recession are catching up fast . setbacks in west among new foreclosures begun in the last three months of 1992 , arizona led the nation with 52 hundredths of a percent of all the surveyed residential mortgages entering foreclosure in just one three month period , the mortgage lenders group said . california showed one of the sharpest increases in the number of mortgages in foreclosure , nearly doubling in 1992 , to 98 hundredths of a percent , the report said . the mortgage bank numbers are based on a survey of 16 . 1 million mortgages , representing about one third of the total residential mortgages in the country . there were some indications that what had been an improving trend through part of 1992 , even in the northeast , has perhaps stalled . the group 's report said that in many northeastern states , the percentage of delinquent mortgages , defined as late by 30 days or more , had fallen through the first three quarters of 1992 , raising hope that economic_recovery and lower interest rates would carry the region out of its housing slump . but then , in the fourth_quarter , the numbers began to climb again .",has a topic of estate
"when they bought it , the place looked like bomb scarred beirut , said thomas bagg , the retired head of a major oil company 's tax department , surveying what is still a very rugged apartment . ''this is the command post , '' mr . bagg continued , proudly surveying a makeshift desk created by the contractor in the remains of what had been and will be again the master bedroom . ''he ripped out a closet , flipped it over on its side and made a place to work . he probably runs his business from here . '' the desk , complete with telephone and blueprints , sits in a room at 870 fifth avenue , overlooking central_park from 68th_street . and even though the room is covered with plaster dust and devoid of all furniture except the ' 'desk , '' there are still the views not only of the park , but down fifth avenue to the plaza_hotel . the wrecked apartment in the postwar co op apartment building will someday soon , if mr . bagg and his wife , janet , have their way and there is no reason to think they wo n't become a fine two bedroom apartment with a dining_room , a large foyer and several bathrooms . it will be trimmed out in the federal style . ''we bought a carved federal mantle at danny alessandro , '' said mrs . bagg , naming a major manhattan seller of fireplace accessories . ''and we 'll have cornice moldings and niches and archways very much in keeping with the style . '' a couple of years ago , the baggs bought an intriguing sea captain 's brick house in old lyme , conn . , and planned to end up there someday . but change came more quickly than they might have anticipated , after mr . bagg , 65 , suffered a heart_attack last june , followed by quintuple bypass_surgery . ''we were going to slowly migrate from washington to new york to old lyme , '' he said . ''but the whole thing was pushed into high gear . '' mrs . bagg had already been looking at apartments about 60 of them , on park_avenue , on fifth avenue , on east_end avenue , on sutton_place . ''there were some good values over there , '' mr . bagg said of what he called ''the river stuff . '' but in the end , the baggs felt that the difference came down to the street ''even on sutton_place , when you walked down the nearest street , you could be anywhere , the stores , the grubby buildings you could be in houston , or queens . '' mrs . bagg agreed , and told of one particular apartment on east_end avenue , with killer views up and down the east_river . ''but then , downstairs , there was only sotheby 's and a lot of hardware stores . '' and while the prewar apartments on park_avenue were fabulous , mr . bagg added , there were no views except those of other park_avenue buildings or , as he put it ''you 're looking into someone 's aquarium . '' but the area around fifth avenue , he continued , ''is wonderful central_park you could n't be anywhere else . '' when they looked at the fifth floor apartment at 870 fifth , it had been vacant for years , off and on the market . ''when i first looked at the place , it had been empty for six or seven years and it was so dirty , '' mrs . bagg said . the realtor had told her the small pullman kitchen would need complete renovation , ''but when we washed the window and started scrubbing , we discovered the subzero refrigerator , '' she said . they also found that the cabinets were black really black , with shiny black lacquer . they decided to install only a different countertop white corian and white floor tiles , a job that will cost only a small fraction of a complete overhaul . the couple were also impressed with the construction in the 1948 building . ''postwar buildings have their own subspecies , '' said mr . bagg . ''this is an early postwar the construction is similar to those in the prewar buildings . '' in the end , the baggs paid 641 , 562 for the apartment , and closed at the end of june . and while they are leaving virtually no surface inch of the two bedroom apartment untouched , they are nowhere near a gut renovation , which , for an apartment this size , could easily run several hundred thousand dollars . ( the baggs declined to give their budget for renovating , adding that it ''was n't big'' and that they expected to be finished in two months . ) the baggs are doing what is known in the trade as a ''heavy cosmetic'' renovation basically massaging every inch , but leaving the walls , closets and kitchen pretty much intact . starting with the floor , they will sand and polish the basketweave parquet to a dark chestnut color . they will extend the parquet into the dining_room , a smallish room off the kitchen to the left of the entrance foyer . the mirrored walls will come down one in the dining_room , the other in the living room . so will the foil fish stenciled wallpaper in the dining_room . while the living room has beautiful treetop views of central_park , its current incarnation makes it look badly proportioned and a tad boring small , and too narrow , partly because of some very deep bookcases that cover the entire south wall . to give it more drama , and three quarters of a foot more width , the baggs and their architect , naomi benamy , plan to install a faux fireplace topped off with the antique federal mantle in the center of the wall , and then put back some bookcases . but the new bookcases will be much thinner they will only stick out nine inches , half the existing depth . and they will be detailed , with arches and columns . and the entrance to the living room will be revamped instead of a 94 inch opening , ms . benamy has designed a 48 inch archway and created a twin for the entrance to the dining_room . on the wall to the left of the living room entrance arch , the architect has created a purely decorative niche designed to lend visual interest . cove molding will line the edges of the ceilings . ''we 're some of those people who are trying to turn a postwar into a prewar , '' mr . bagg said . ''well , it 's really about our furniture , '' mrs . bagg explained . ''we have a lot of 18th_century american some pieces from my mother , some from tom 's family . we 've got oriental rugs my mother 's highboy , 1740 , a connecticut piece . i think we wanted a more neutral background . we certainly were n't looking for some ersatz period thing . '' for ms . benamy , a young architect with an office on grand street , the request was a challenge . ''she 'd done a lot of very postmodern things , '' mrs . bagg said . ''i think she had to reacquaint herself with pilasters and cove moldings . '' the architect laughed . ''it 's been fascinating , '' she said . ''i 'm not as used to dealing with period styles , but our tastes meld we both like formal spaces . '' habitats 870 fifth avenue",has a topic of estate
"because of an editing error , the national perspectives article last sunday , about development on salt spring island , in british_columbia , misstated the time it takes to travel to the island from vancouver . the ferry takes two to three hours , depending on the route , not 35 minutes . it takes about 35 minutes to travel from swartz bay on vancouver_island to fulford harbor on salt spring island .",has a topic of estate
"king 's college in briarcliff_manor , n.y. , is selling its campus , including the three stately homes that lie along its "" millionaire 's row . "" the sale of a 15 bedroom stone castle on 11 acres , an imposing , six bedroom white frame colonial on 13 acres and a smaller colonial on 1 . 75 acres are among the steps in the college 's move to warwick , n.y. , in the summer of 1993 . for 40 years , the 83 acre campus has been in briarcliff_manor , which was created at the turn of the century as one of the nation 's first planned communities and a playground for the wealthy . the 19 , 640 square_foot castle , which includes a 2 , 000 square_foot ballroom , was the home of walter law , the town 's founder . most recently used as a dormitory , its offering price is 2 . 5 million . the large colonial , with 10 , 000 square_feet , is called braeview and is the king 's college president 's home . it is priced at 3 . 5 million . the small one , with 4 , 000 square_feet , is called the gronauer house and is priced at 475 , 000 . it now is used for administrative offices . it also has an operating room , which was installed during world_war_ii by a doctor who planned to treat casualties that might have occurred had new york been attacked . the three properties are being offered by the briarcliff_manor office of houlihan_lawrence . the rest of the campus , with eight buildings , is being offered for sale at 33 . 5 million .",has a topic of estate
"malcolm freeland cannot say enough about the benefits of coastal living . he has had a home on the water 's edge in south devon , near the pretty sailing resort of salcombe , england , since 1972 . he described his seven acres , which includes his own beach and a jetty for his 38 foot sailing boat , as ' 'simply beautiful . '' ''we raised five children here and certainly they enjoyed growing up along the water , '' he said . ''we moved here for the coastal lifestyle and we 've stayed because of this lifestyle . '' and , since telecommunications has improved , mr . freeland also has had another benefit he has been able to continue his career as an engineer from home . indeed , coastal regions of britain like devon are drawing a growing number of professionals who are not required to work in specific locations . and britons in general are finding it harder to resist life by the seaside , and they are willing to pay a premium for the pleasure . the growing demand for homes along britain 's coast has meant rising prices .. ''in my area houses usually sell before they are even advertised so it 's definitely a hot property market , '' mr . freeland said . a recent real_estate survey by halifax estate agents showed that house prices in more than half of britain 's seaside_towns have soared by at least 50 percent over the past three years , with most communities recording jumps that have far exceeded the 31 percent average increase in house prices across the rest of the country . seaham , in the northeastern county of durham , is the country 's best performer over the past three years , with average house prices increasing by 172 percent to 117 , 266 , or nearly 200 , 000 . much of the improvement in this former coal_mining town on the north_sea coast is credited to a major injection of money from the government and the european_union , part of which financed a number of residential projects . across the country , ''firm demand for second homes has clearly been a factor pushing up prices near the sea but regeneration efforts in seaside_towns have also been a positive for prices , '' said colin kemp , managing director at halifax estate agents , which completed its annual seaside town review over the summer . the surge also has been powered by retirees and families eager to find spacious victorian and edwardian homes at reasonable prices , a rare find in almost any british city these days . it is not surprising that dorset is one of the most expensive seaside counties , with an average home price of more than 222 , 853 or about 400 , 000 . for one thing , its 95 mile coastline has been given natural world heritage status by the united_nations , placing it in a_league with the grand canyon in arizona and the great barrier reef in australia . each year , millions of tourists visit the fossil rich beaches of dorset 's lyme regis , a hilly town of pretty white georgian homes mixed with a smattering of thatched roof cottages . ''dorset is a location which has grown enormously in popularity in the last decade as people have become happier to commute further and further from london , '' said liam bailey , head of residential research for the knight frank estate agency . ''this is so much more practical as an increasing number of people enjoy the option of working from home part of the week , '' he said . but mr . bailey warned about the limited number of available properties , noting that the supply is now 20 percent smaller than it was last year . one example is sandbanks , a town near bournemouth that was all but a shantytown until the 1960 's and is now called ''monte carloby the sea'' by the locals . homes in the town , known for its quiet streets and white beaches , now top 500 , 000 , or nearly 1 million . ''high demand and short supply in a very concentrated area make the prices high , '' said simon milledge , a waterside properties specialist at the buying solution , a search agency that finds homes for wealthy buyers . ''the south coast economy is strong and entrepreneurs like the idea of moving to sandbanks . '' part of the town 's appeal may be its celebrity cachet . many well known british soccer stars have moved to sandbanks and even the british actor hugh grant and his girlfriend , jemima khan , recently were reported to have viewed properties nearby . sandbanks also has flown the european blue flag , an award for the cleanest beaches , for 17 consecutive years , longer than any other coastal area in britain . eight of britain 's 10 most expensive seaside_towns are on the country 's west_coast four in cornwall three , including sandbanks , in dorset and two in devon . a survey earlier this year by the sunday_times of london found that properties with boat moorings are typically 30 percent more expensive than identical properties inland . top quality homes without moorings , but with uninterrupted water views , are on average 25 percent more expensive , while properties within modern marinas , along lakes or on the banks of canals command 15 percent to 25 percent more . yet property hunters still can find good value in some coastal communities , property experts say . according to the halifax review , there are 14 seaside_towns where homes sell for an average of less than 100 , 000 pounds , or about 185 , 000 . britain 's most affordable town is wick in scotland , where prices average 64 , 612 pounds , or about 100 , 000 . in general , mr . milledge said , the people seeking coastal properties are searching for a better quality of life and , for those looking along the southern coast , one that is only a two and a half hour drive from london . ''they are coming for the landscape , the peace and quiet and the seemingly slower pace of life , '' he said .",has a topic of estate
"like thousands of new yorkers eager to join the real_estate gold_rush in the mid 1980 's , eric marcus bought an apartment in a newly converted co op building . and like many new yorkers in the mid 1990 's , mr . marcus has seen his investment collapse . his co op , the lincoln spencer on the upper west side of manhattan , is in foreclosure his equity , about 25 , 000 , is in danger his 350 square_foot studio , bought for 65 , 000 , is unsalable . even if he rented the apartment out , he says , the money would not cover the 486 monthly payments on his loan and the unit 's 613 a month maintenance . "" buying in this building was like buying swampland in florida , except that people did n't live in the swampland , "" said mr . marcus , a writer and vice_president of his co op 's board of directors . "" we were young and stupid . "" it has been six years since large numbers of co ops in new york and its suburbs started falling into default and , less often , foreclosure on their underlying mortgages . at the peak of the crisis , hundreds of buildings were afflicted by financial ailments of varying_degrees of severity sparked by a variety of causes . gary r . connor , the deputy new york state attorney_general who heads the state 's real_estate finance bureau , estimated that 10 percent of the 4 , 000 buildings converted to co ops in the city since 1980 have , at one point , fallen into default , a category that can range from one missed payment to several missed payments to foreclosure and , the ultimate and extremely rare nightmare for those involved , deconversion . some co ops are still struggling . mr . connor estimated that about 60 buildings in the city 15 percent of the 10 percent that went into default are currently behind in their underlying_mortgage payments . "" it was a rolling process , "" mr . connor said . "" we started to see a large number of defaults in late 1989 and early 1990 . some were resolved fairly quickly . some took two or three years to get worked out . "" "" most co ops in the city are healthy now , though , "" he said . to decipher the arcane financial troubles that have hurt many co op buyers in new york , it is first important to understand the difference between a share loan and the underlying_mortgage . the underlying_mortgage is the loan used to buy , renovate or maintain the building . it can be taken out by existing shareholders or , in the case of conversions from rental to co op , by a developer , or sponsor . during a conversion , the obligation to repay the underlying_mortgage is transferred from the sponsor to the co op corporation , which now holds the shares in the building although the sponsor may , and usually does , continue to own many or even all shares in the co op corporation . the sponsor then starts to sell its shares to individuals . the buyers , using cash or share loans to buy their shares , become part owners of the co op they are also given leases for apartments that relate to the number of shares they purchased . to pay off the co op 's underlying_mortgage , the shareholders make maintenance payments , which are also used for taxes , repairs , cash reserves and operating expenses . most of the problems , according to stuart m . saft , a manhattan real_estate lawyer and chairman of the council of new york cooperatives , occurred when co op sponsors saddled co op corporations with high underlying mortgages by overstating the value of the apartments to lenders . ( unlike a residential mortgage , which runs for 15 or 30 years , an underlying_mortgage on a co op is usually due in five or 10 years and generally has to be refinanced . ) then the sponsor who often used the unsold shares as collateral to borrow more money to convert another building into co ops would be unable to sell any more than 25 to 70 percent of the shares . then , the sponsor would default on its maintenance payments on the unsold units . this led to the co op corporation defaulting on its payments on the underlying_mortgage . defaulting on underlying_mortgage payments then made it all but impossible for any shareholder to sell an apartment because lenders were extremely reluctant to refinance an underlying_mortgage or provide financing for a share loan to prospective_buyers . the specter of foreclosure and a subsequent loss of equity scared away potential all cash buyers , too . the problem was exacerbated by a long recession ( unemployment rose to 10 percent in the city ) , demographic changes ( the end of the wave of affluent , real_estate obsessed baby_boomers moving to the city ) and a sharp drop in the value of much residential property in many parts of the city ( as much as 30 percent in some neighborhoods and for some types of apartments , like studios ) between 1988 and 1993 , though prices appear to have firmed in the past year ) . "" the problems exist either because no one wants to buy apartments , and there are many sponsor owned unsold_apartments , or it is because the mortgage is too high because of greedy sponsors , "" mr . saft said . many of the problems , he added , involved conversions that occured between 1985 and 1989 , in buildings in poor physical shape and housing families with moderate incomes . many of the lerger defaults also occurred in brooklyn , queens and the bronx . "" developers saw that people were making a tremendous amount of money doing conversions in manhattan , but they could n't afford to convert in manhattan , "" said edward t . braverman , a manhattan lawyer specializing in co op law . "" so , they went to brooklyn and queens and bought properties at inflated prices . "" during the early 90 's , many co ops have reached work out agreements that reduced their debt . for example , the mortgage on the four five story former tenement buildings at 328 334 west 17th street in the chelsea section of manhattan was recently restructured by the cheshire group , a private real_estate investment company in manhattan , which bought the loan at a discount . "" i was approached by the co op , and it was a 100 percent amicable deal , "" said susan hewitt , the group 's president . the co op 's problems began in 1990 when shareholders discovered that they were in default on a three year old 1 . 4 million underlying_mortgage , and the sponsor , who still owned 75 percent of the shares , was nowhere to be found . making matters more complicated , the bank , central federal savings bank , which had started a foreclosure proceeding on the co op , went under . so the resolution_trust_corporation , a federal entity created to sell off assets and collect loans of failed savings institutions took over the loan and placed the co op in receivership . "" the building has been in the twilight zone , "" ms . hewitt said . then , last fall , ms . hewitt 's group bought the mortgage from the r.t.c . for 300 , 000 and agreed to pay about 500 , 000 in back taxes . she also wrote down the mortgage the shareholders owed to 750 , 000 over 5 years at 9 percent annual interest . the interest will provide the a small profit for the investors . they will realize more profit in an arrangement whereby the shareholders will divide the proceeds of the sale of unsold shares . this will also help bridge the gap between the original 1 . 4 million loan and the new 750 , 000 loan . the sale of unsold shares may never be enough to erase the 650 , 000 gap . an attempt must be made to make up the difference , however , or the co op could be held liable for taxes on a forgiven debt . there are 64 apartments in the co op , but only 32 are rent_regulated 16 of the others are shareholder owned 5 are vacant and 11 are occupied at market rents . "" one of the things that made the building appealing was that 50 percent of its apartments were owner occupied or market rentals , "" ms . hewitt said . that percentage means that it is likely that the building will eventually become 50 percent owner occupied , as rent_regulated tenants have less incentive to buy their units or leave . ( co op apartments in buildings with less than 50 percent of the units owned by occupants are extremely difficult to sell because lenders are reluctant to make share loans , the co op equivalent of a mortgage on an individual apartment , on them . ) some co ops have had more trouble arranging workouts . the 305 unit cruger holland co ops in the pelham section of the bronx , for example , are on the verge of completing a complex agreement that will help it out of bankruptcy . "" we are lucky that we got a deal to begin with , "" said mary white , an assistant operations manager for paine_webber in manhattan and president of the cruger holland association . the buildings were converted from rental_units in 1989 and 1990 . the sponsor , who held 80 percent of the shares in the co op , literally abandoned the project , however , in 1991 the r.t.c . eventually became the owner of the shares . meanwhile , the bank that issued a 9 . 5 million underlying_mortgage on the building sold the loan to a private investor , pelham realty associates , in march 1993 , at a discount it will not divulge how much . just before pelham realty associates was to foreclose on the co op , though , the co op filed for bankruptcy_protection . an arrangement worked out this month with the investors requires the co op to pay a 9 million mortgage at 7 percent annual interest over 5 years and continue paying the loan at 7 to 9 percent for another five years . the original loan was at 9.5 percent and 10 . 5 percent . the investors also retain control of the board for eight years and will provide financing for new apartment buyers . prospective_buyers can get financing elsewhere , but it is doubtful that lenders would be willing , at least in the beginning , because of the high percentage of unsold shares . "" we went through a living nightmare , practically running the building ourselves , hiring contractors , dealing with shareholders and tenants , financial reports , everything , "" ms . white said . "" nobody would buy into a bankrupt building . "" "" we are hoping that pelham realty associates will start selling apartments again , and we will become a normal co op again . "" the situation could be worse . at the 227 unit lincoln spencer co op , at broadway and 69th_street , the shareholders and the lender are at loggerheads over a 9 million underlying_mortgage that started in 1987 . simply put , the shareholders' maintenance payments do not cover the mortgage , taxes , operating expenses and repairs , even after the co op raised the maintenance several times . mr . marcus 's maintenance increased by about 23 percent , to 613 from about 500 . "" raising it any more would have made apartments unsalable and bankrupted individual shareholders , "" mr . marcus said . so , with the loan due in 1997 and the prospects for refinancing looking dim , the co op contacted the lender , the dime_savings bank , and sought a loan reduction , asserting that the building 's value had dropped to 5 million . thus far , though , the two parties have not been able to reach an agreement . the bank filed for foreclosure last year after the co op fell behind in its underlying_mortgage payments . a receiver was appointed earlier this month . "" we 're not saying we wo n't pay , "" mr . marcus said . "" we are saying , 'let 's find a way to make us whole . ' "" such brinkmanship is common in workout negotiations , which can last years even after a foreclosure is filed . oftentimes , a co op also files for bankruptcy to buy time during the foreclosure or in an effort to get a lender to accept a reorganization in which they will receive less than they are owed . mr . saft of the council of new york cooperatives , however , cautioned that lenders often become very adversarial when a co op files for bankruptcy . "" we do n't think it is the right strategic move , "" he said . "" we would rather fight in the foreclosure arena . in the bankruptcy arena , you can quickly lose control of the process . "" co ops , generally , have an unusual amount of leverage , though , largely because of the state 's rent_regulation laws , a system that consists of both rent control and rent_stabilization . ( rent controlled apartments are those built before 1947 that have been continuously occupied by a tenant , or a legal successor , since 1971 . when rent controlled apartments are vacated their rents rise to market level and they become rent_stabilized . apartments built between 1947 and 1974 are also rent_stabilized . last year , the state also deregulated apartments occupied by households earning 250 , 000 or more for two consecutive years in units with an authorized rent of at least 2 , 000 a month as of oct . 1 , 1993 . ) widespread co op conversions started in the early 1980 's because landlords , who were financially constrained by rent_regulation , found that they could realize a larger return on their property by selling their buildings to their tenants . "" you can blame the whole co op phenomenon on rent_stabilization , "" said doug heller , a real_estate lawyer , who represents lincoln spencer co op . another effect of the rent_regulation system is to make lenders reluctant to take back a co op building in a foreclosure because apartment owners caught in a deconversion often become rent_regulated tenants . and their rents , generally , would not be high enough to offset the building 's expenses . "" only in new york does a foreclosure reduce the value of real_estate , "" mr . saft wrote in an article published in the quarterly real_estate finance journal this winter . of course , deconversion from a co op to a rental building also results in shareholders losing their equity . such scenarios , however , have been rare . "" we have only seen three foreclosures on an underlying_mortgage in new york that went all the way , and the buildings deconverted , "" mr . connor said . regardless , the threat of staying in the building as tenants paying below market rents after a deconversion gives shareholders an unusual amount of clout . imagine , for example , the owner of a typical single family house in the suburbs losing the home in a foreclosure but being allowed to remain in the home indefinitely at a substantially reduced rent . "" the bank may think that we are frightened , but we have a lot of tough people here , "" said mr . marcus , who could become a rental tenant paying a mere 200 a month to keep his lincoln spencer studio . "" no one wants the building to go bankrupt , but . . . """,has a topic of estate
"in the following reports , the "" listed at "" price is the asking price when negotiations began that ended in the sale . time on market is from most recent listing to contract . manhattan chelsea 375 , 000 77 seventh_avenue ( 14th st . ) ( vermeer ) 2 bedroom , 2 bath , 1 , 300 sq . ft . postwar co op 24 hr . doorman , eat in kitchen , 500 sq . ft . terrace , 2 exposures maintenance 1 , 103 , 44 tax deductible , listed at 395 , 000 , 16 weeks on market ( brokers debra kameros co . douglas_elliman ) gramercy_park area 335 , 000 280 park_avenue south ( 21st st . ) 2 bedroom , 2 1 2 bath , 1 , 260 sq . ft . co op in a_7 year old building 24 hr . doorman , dining_area , windowed_kitchen , common roof_deck , 2 exposures , health_club and pool common charge 720 , taxes 7 , 500 , listed at 359 , 000 , 4 weeks on market ( broker_bellmarc_realty ) tribeca 415 , 625 170 duane street 2 bedroom , 2 bath , 1 , 600 sq . ft . duplex loft condo private elevator and roof_garden , exposed_brick_walls common charge 175 , taxes 7 , 157 , listed at 475 , 000 , 26 weeks on market ( brokers douglas_elliman tabak realty ) upper east side 999 , 000 55 east 86th_street 3 bedroom , 3 bath , 2 , 000 sq . ft . prewar condo 24 hr . doorman , manned_elevator , maid 's room , 2 exposures common charge 1 , 308 , taxes 6 , 000 , listed at 1 . 175 million , 12 weeks on market ( brokers corcoran group halstead property co . ) bronx baychester 165 , 000 4206 wilder avenue 3 bedroom , 1 bath , 68 year old wood frame detached_house dining_room , eat in kitchen , finished_basement , 2 enclosed porches , 1 car garage taxes 1 , 168 , listed at 179 , 000 , 1 year on market ( broker j.a.v . realty ) fordham 130 , 000 2308 cambreleng avenue 2 family , 77 year old brick detached_house 2 bedrooms , 1 bath , dining_room in each unit finished_basement , 2 car garage taxes 850 , listed at 150 , 000 , 8 weeks on market ( broker fasons realty ) brooklyn brooklyn_heights 250 , 000 60 pierrepont street 2 bedroom , 1 bath , 1 , 250 sq . ft . co op in a brownstone fireplace , terrace , private 18 by 24 ft . gazebo maintenance 921 , 78 tax deductible , listed at 265 , 000 , 4 weeks on market ( broker michael dowling ltd . ) east_flatbush 145 , 000 87 remsen avenue 5 bedroom , 2 bath , 52 year old brick attached house dining_area , laundry room , rear_deck , 1 car garage taxes 1 , 300 , listed at 165 , 000 , 33 weeks on market ( broker aguayo knox ) park_slope 440 , 000 212 st . john 's place 4 family , 4 story brownstone 3 bedrooms , 1 1 2 baths , dining_room , eat in kitchen in primary duplex 1 bedroom , 1 bath floor through and 2 studio units on upper floors taxes 3 , 509 , listed at 495 , 000 , 3 weeks on market ( broker f.j . kazeroid real_estate ) queens forest_hills 210 , 000 108 43 65th avenue 3 bedroom , 2 bath , 45 year old brick attached town house eat in kitchen , 1 car garage taxes 1 , 800 , listed at 229 , 900 , 9 weeks on market ( broker kremer real_estate ) forest hills gardens 435 , 000 52 deepdene place 4 bedroom , 3 1 2 bath , 65 year old pebblestone detached_house dining_room , eat in kitchen , powder_room , solarium , finished_basement taxes 3 , 000 , listed at 550 , 000 , 33 weeks on market ( broker madeleine realty ) staten_island great kills 170 , 000 198 sandalwood drive 2 family , 9 year old semi_attached house 3 bedrooms , 1 1 2 baths in primary unit 1 bedroom , 1 bath in other taxes 1 , 600 , listed at 174 , 500 , 2 weeks on market ( broker kingsley real_estate ) stapleton 132 , 000 570 van duzer street 3 bedroom , 1 bath , 65 year old detached_colonial_dining_room , den , stained_glass_windows , harbor view , 25 by 200 ft . irregular lot taxes 832 , listed at 134 , 900 , 16 weeks on market ( broker gateway arms realty ) connecticut hamden 188 , 000 40 busher lane 3 bedroom , 2 bath , 4 year old vinyl sided colonial fireplace , rear_deck , finished_basement , 2 car garage , 1 . 6 acre lot taxes 5 , 030 , listed at 197 , 800 , 16 weeks on market ( broker beasley co . realtors ) milford 127 , 400 7 norway street 3 bedroom , 1 1 2 bath , 44 year old vinyl sided ranch_dining_room , full basement , 1 car garage taxes 2 , 596 , listed at 128 , 400 , 10 weeks on market ( broker beasley co . realtors ) riverside 1 , 438 , 750 8 cathlow drive 5 bedroom , 3 1 2 bath , 37 year old colonial_dining_room , eat in kitchen , family room , library , 2 fireplaces , terrace , greenhouse , pool , 2 car garage , 1 . 97 acres taxes 7 , 858 , listed at 1 . 525 million , 16 weeks on market ( brokers preferred properties inc . cleveland duble arnold ) stamford 215 , 000 245 hillandale avenue 3 bedroom , 2 bath , 11 year old split level eat in kitchen , h w floors , cathedral ceiling in living room , 1 car garage , 0 . 25 acre lot taxes 3 , 407 , listed at 275 , 000 , 14 weeks on market ( brokers_coldwell_banker schlott_realtors william_pitt real_estate ) long_island muttowntown 600 , 000 66 spring court 4 bedroom , 2 1 2 bath , 25 year old colonial fireplace , pool , deck , 2 car garage , 2.1 acres taxes 9 , 000 , listed at 659 , 000 , 21 weeks on market ( brokers coach realtors daniel_gale associates gatewood realty ) oyster bay 265 , 000 78 east main_street 5 bedroom , 2 bath , 153 year old colonial eat in kitchen , den , basement , patio , 2 fireplaces , 0.5 acres taxes 3 , 900 , listed at 298 , 000 , 32 weeks on market ( brokers douglas_elliman jane hays and piping rock associates daniel_gale associates ) rocky point 127 , 500 14 bunker street 3 bedroom , 1 bath , 23 year old ranch_dining_room , den , partial basement taxes 4 , 300 , listed at 134 , 500 , 9 weeks on market ( brokers linda albo agency mil matt agency ) searingtown 380 , 000 416 elm drive 4 bedroom , 2 1 2 bath , 29 year old split level dining_room , eat in kitchen , den , skylights , 2 car garage taxes 7 , 000 , listed at 399 , 000 , 20 weeks on market ( broker u.s . 1 laffey ) new jersey demarest 188 , 000 73 knickerbocker road 3 bedroom , 1 1 2 bath , 45 year old split level c a , new kitchen taxes 4 , 780 , listed at 199 , 900 , 13 weeks on market ( broker_weichert realtors ) mahwah 385 , 000 11 forest hill road 5 bedroom , 4 bath , new center hall colonial 2 car arae , c a , fireplace , den taxes to be assessed , listed at 385 , 000 , 4 weeks on market ( broker prudential_higgins realtors coldwell_banker schlott ) middletown 147 , 500 14 butler lane 3 bedroom , 1 bath , 35 year old ranch country kitchen , deck , formal_dining_room taxes 3 , 039 , listed at 164 , 900 , 3 weeks on market ( broker the prudential new jersey realty ) rockaway 190 , 000 73 valley view drive 4 bedroom , 2 1 2 bath , 10 year old bilevel brick fireplace , c a , one car garage taxes 3 , 931 , listed at 191 , 500 , 3 weeks on market ( brokers remax leading_edge the prudential new jersey realty ) westchester bedford 310 , 000 11 delano drive 3 bedroom , 1 1 2 bath , 41 year old ranch entry hall , fireplace , family room , playroom , 1 car garage taxes 4 , 698 , listed at 319 , 000 , 20 weeks on market ( brokers_coldwell_banker preferred realty ) katonah 281 , 000 141 cedar road 2 bedroom , 2 bath , 35 year old ranch office , studio , darkroom , loft , screened_porch , carport 1.2 acres taxes 6 , 759 , listed at 299 , 000 , 22 weeks on market ( broker randolph properties ) mohegan lake 146 , 700 3554 lakeland 3 bedroom , 1 bath , 43 year old ranch_dining_room , family room , fireplace , unfinished_basement , attic taxes 5 , 700 , listed at 156 , 000 , 36 weeks on market ( broker century 21 robert david coldwell_banker ) pelham 343 , 000 1334 roosevelt_avenue 5 bedroom , 3 bath , 74 year old colonial heated sun room , maid 's room , fireplace , detached 2 car garage taxes 10 , 721 , listed at 398 , 000 , 1 year on market ( broker mcclellan company )",has a topic of estate
"the brockholst , built in 1890 at 85th_street and columbus avenue , is something of a poor man 's dakota lesser in all respects than the famous apartment house farther south , but still majestically craggy , with wide , rambling marble paneled halls and some of the most interesting apartments on the west side . when marcus retter bought the romanesque_revival building nearly half a century ago , the west side was headed downhill . but now the neighborhood and the brockholst are on the way up . the six story gingerbread colored building was designed in 1889 by john g . prague , a prolific west side row_house architect who owned the building with a partner , thomas e . d . power . along with other investors , prague and power built 232 row_houses in the area from 85th to 87th streets and from columbus avenue to amsterdam_avenue , creating an entire community where , in the mid 1880 's , there had been only open land . an 1890 issue of the real_estate record guide , a trade_magazine , called the 250 , 000 brockholst ''truly noble , '' with an interior ' 'such as one would expect to see in one of the old english castles . '' the lobby ceiling was decorated with aluminum leaf by tiffany company , and two dining_rooms , a cafe and a barbershop served tenants and passers by . most of the 32 apartments had three bedrooms and rented for 125 a month . they had gas and electric lighting , and wilton carpets in the hallways . the earliest tenants were prosperous leaders in the mining , brokerage , printing and fancy goods businesses . but a 1917 article in building management , another trade_magazine , noted that rents had declined to 75 a month at that time , dinner in the restaurant could be had for 75 cents , and full board was 10 a week . by the 1920 's , when the brockholst had been eclipsed by more advanced buildings , a more varied group of tenants had moved in . they included margaret beecher white , a christian_science practitioner who lived there with her mother , harriet beecher , daughter of the controversial brooklyn preacher henry ward beecher . another was katherine devereux blake , who spoke widely on the peace_movement , women 's rights and education , and was principal of public_school 6 for many years when it was at 85th_street and madison_avenue . hilda englund , the swedish born actress well known for performing in the plays of henrik ibsen , also lived there , and the census returns for the 1920 's show occupations like ' 'manager musical , '' ''artist painter'' and ''writer literary critic'' among the lodgers in the informally subdivided apartments . by the 1950 's , the dining_rooms had been replaced by stores on the columbus avenue side , cornice and trim details had been removed and ''the west side was very much on a downward movement people wanted to move to westchester , long_island and new jersey , '' said mr . retter , who was head of the group that bought the building in 1956 . his father in law , charles rosen , was the principal partner . in march 1939 , as a teenager , mr . retter fled vienna for england . he had hoped that his parents would follow , ''but they were with the unlucky ones they were deported to riga and gassed , '' he said from his office at 88th_street and riverside drive . his desk is awash in papers , and his own office has a 1960 's i.b.m . electric typewriter and an old adding machine , although his employees work at computers . in the early 1940 's , mr . retter was an assistant to lord josiah wedgewood , a labor member of the british parliament , while winston_churchill was prime_minister . mr . retter easily imitates churchill 's stance and diction , which he observed during their wartime meetings . after the war , he came to the united_states and assembled a group of real_estate investors . he saw that the west side was in rocky shape , ''but it was solid , '' he said , his voice slightly layered with his native german and the english accent he acquired in the 1940 's . his group assembled a considerable portfolio of buildings , which has at times included the eldorado on central_park west and 90th_street , 640 west_end avenue and 425 riverside drive . mr . retter said that when he bought the brockholst he had planned to divide the large apartments into smaller units , but that plan was too expensive , and so most of the large apartments remain intact . the rent on these apartments was about 300 a month in the 1950 's now , he estimates that the market rent is 2 , 500 a month . in the last few years mr . retter has installed new windows throughout the building , and he is now creating a three bedroom roof duplex , designed by his regular architects , feingold gregory , for one of the top floor apartments . the brockholst is in the central_park west historic_district , and paul gregory , a partner in the architectural firm , said the landmarks_preservation_commission was eager to have the extension clad in matching brick and one of the window bays extended upward , ' 'stuff we probably would have done anyway . '' except for those changes , the interior and exterior of the brockholst are essentially unchanged from the time when mr . retter bought it . the lobby has a marble floor and ornate column capitals with the monogram b , but the decorative work has long been painted over . the upper halls are more than six feet wide , with multiple windows providing much better light and ventilation than that available in far more pretentious buildings . the apartments , 41 in all , have large doors and high ceilings the ceiling in the apartment of oscar rivera , the superintendent , is 11 1 2 feet high and unusual floor finishes , fireplace mantels and other details . at least one apartment still has intact period kitchen woodwork and cabinets , rare in a building of this age . the trim , doors and floors are worn , but not fatally so surprising , given the wear the building has had . outside on 85th_street , the large areaway in front of the brockholst is intact , adding to its dignity , and the heavily worked iron fencing and other details have a magnificent crust of flaking black paint . up the weathered facade , large sections of brownstone have fallen away , but much is perfectly intact checkerboards , gables , leafy chimney stacks and other details . startling , bright gray mortar recently applied between the bricks on the columbus avenue facade will have to be removed and redone . terri rosen deutsch , a spokeswoman for the landmarks_preservation_commission , said that the contractor had been instructed to do test patches to find the correct mortar color , but he proceeded to point the whole wall without the commission 's approval . half a century of navigating new york 's housing laws has toughened mr . retter , and he does not let problems like this one annoy him . the commission , he said , is ' 'very , very tough , but if you comply , there 's no problem one can live with them . '' correction january 16 , 2000 , sunday the streetscapes column on jan . 2 , about the brockholst apartment house at 85th_street and columbus avenue , misidentified the landmarks_preservation_commission official who commented on mortar work on a wall . she was katy mcnabb , not terri rosen deutsch .",has a topic of estate
"there were some seesaw dramatics concerning the pace of house sales during the last two months of summer down in july , up again in august according to fresh numbers on signed contracts in the state 's 18 largest counties . meanwhile , the demand for housing in the state keeps growing , according to statistics and analysis from the otteau appraisal group , a private company based in east_brunswick , which supplies information to the real_estate industry . demand keeps rising , according to jeffrey g . otteau , who heads the company , because the state 's population keeps growing so fast . referring to federal census figures and updates , mr . otteau noted that in the 1990 's , new jersey 's population grew at a rate of 68 , 000 a year . but from 2000 through 2003 the pace of growth racheted up to about 75 , 000 new new jerseyans a year a large proportion of them immigrants . ''of the 224 , 000 more people in the state during those three years , '' mr . otteau said , ''191 , 922 were foreign migr s . '' nationally , mr . otteau noted , foreign born residents now account for about 12 percent of the population over age 25 . he added that 27 percent of foreign born residents hold bachelor 's degrees , compared with 22 percent of those born in this country . mr . otteau said he had not been able to calculate precisely how that played out in new jersey , but his advice to real_estate professionals is , ''we are dealing with an educated population , part of the work force , who are moving into the housing market at a relatively young age . '' during july , there was a distinct slowdown around the state in the number of contracts signed , as mortgage interest rates began to inch up and the number of houses put up for sale continued rising . there were 6 percent fewer contracts signed in july 2004 compared with july 2003 , while there were 14 percent more homes on the market . but in august , while the supply of homes for sale remained 14 percent greater than last year , contract sales were up 10 percent over the previous august . for the year to date , sales contracts are up 8 percent compared with 2003 , which was itself a record setting year . these statistics are based on numbers of signed contracts , rather than the number of sales that have actually closed , which is the data that more widely reported multiple_listing_service reports employ . statistics may shift slightly by the time the listing service analyses become available , according to knowledgeable real_estate brokers , as some deals fall through or are renegotiated . but reports on signed contracts provide early tips to brokers and homeowners and homebuyers , for that matter who try to stay on top of industry trends . the otteau group 's july august report shows that what heated the market back up again in august was very high demand for the lower priced half of the residential market houses priced at roughly 500 , 000 and below . ''while i was expecting to see a drop in the number of home sales july to august , based on the june to july drop , '' mr . otteau said , ''instead , interest rates moderated , and there was a real surge in sales in lower priced areas . '' those counties with the biggest increases in sales activity during august included camden , cumberland , hunterdon , ocean , salem , sussex and warren . by contrast , places where homes are more expensive , such as bergen , essex , monmouth , morris , somerset and union counties , had lower increases , or in some cases declines , in the number of home sales . first , the good news about this trend ''the overall trend of continuing strong demand for homes is pretty clear , '' mr . otteau said , ''giving the new jersey market good underlying dynamics across the state . '' ''by the same token , '' he quickly added , ''once interest rates begin to rise further , the effect may be disproportionate on those buyers in the market who can afford the least and cause a more serious slowdown in sales . '' in the state 's poorest county , camden , the number of contract sales were down 10 percent in july when interest rates had risen slightly compared with the previous july . in august , as interest rates dropped ever so slightly in new jersey , the county registered a 19 percent increase in sales . at the beginning of august , the 30 year fixed rate mortgage rate in the state dropped from about 5 . 75 percent to 5.5 percent , according to otteau 's analysis . other things affect the picture in camden_county and elsewhere , of course . the inventory of housing for sale in camden was up 32 percent compared with the previous year with strong redevelopment efforts including construction of hundreds of condominiums along the riverfront in the city of camden , which has been identified as the state 's poorest city for more than a decade . in more affluent morris_county , sales volume was sharply down from the year before 21 percent in july , and rebounded in august to 7 percent ahead of the previous august . in bergen_county , the number of contracts fell 16 percent from last year in july , and rose 1 percent in august . in essex county there were declines in the number of contracts signed in both july and august , of 11 and 5 percent , respectively , compared with 2003 . mr . otteau , who said he tries to keep national trends in mind when analyzing the new jersey market , said that he sees three main factors driving its success right now and that all of them are expected to continue the high rate of foreign immigration , migration from new york , and baby_boomers buying vacation homes , particularly along the jersey_shore . the new york to new jersey movement , which heightened after the sept . 11 attack three years ago , is the second highest rate of interstate migration in the country just behind the rate of new yorkers moving to florida , according to updated federal census figures . in ocean_county , the hottest spot for new housing for over 55 's , inventory is up 39 percent this year to date . the otteau report noted that although the general inventory of homes for sale is up 14 percent from a year ago , the inventory last year was ' 'drastically undersupplied . '' demand will continue to rise faster than new housing , mr . otteau predicted , citing diminishing land for construction , increasing land prices and increased regulation of development . in the region",has a topic of estate
"with british_columbia 's economy and real_estate market improving , two local developers have been trying to redevelop the waterfront in two affluent communities across the harbor from downtown_vancouver and have run into opposition on several levels . land in the two communities north vancouver and west vancouver is scarce and expensive . the developers , the larco group of companies and the viam group , are concentrating on an eight mile stretch of marine drive , proposing new projects and speeding work on those already under way . they have clashed with residents who fear that more traffic and people will change their neighborhoods and with marine based industries that need the harbor to survive and feel threatened by commercial development . the communities are linked to downtown by the lions gate bridge . east of the bridge lies north van , which from downtown looks like a mystical city built on hollyburn mountain 's lower slopes . at sundown , the windows of its tall office spires , condominiums and hillside homes blaze with reflections . west of the bridge , where burrard_inlet empties into howe sound , is the resort like west van , one of canada 's wealthiest residential areas . and eight miles east is the working harbor for tugboat companies , drydocks , railroads and terminals for grain , potash and coal . until 55 years ago , the area directly across the bay from renowned stanley_park was accessible only by private boat or ferry . but the guinness family of england famous for stout acquired vast tracts there through a company called british pacific properties and built many homes . to entice people to move there , the company built the lions gate bridge in 1938 . as a further lure , it built canada 's first regional shopping_center , park_royal shopping_center , on marine drive , in 1950 . in 1990 , larco bought the million square_foot park_royal mall and is now doing a_20 million revitalization , including 95 , 000 square_feet of streetfront retail space and a golf range , which is expected to open soon . "" the shopping_center needed a facelift , "" said robert heaslip , larco 's chief planner . "" it looked tired . it was time to look at the retail mix and how we wanted to take the center into the year 2000 . "" the center , which has had major additions through the years , is split by marine drive . "" the problem that needed solving was how to give a sense of unity , "" said john cochran of the callison partnership , the seattle architects who did the revitalization design . "" we needed an upgrade consistent with the charm of the upscale neighborhood . "" mr . heaslip said larco was one of 10 investors who owned land on clyde avenue , parallel to and a block north of marine drive , adjacent to the quaint park_royal hotel . they plan to upgrade streets , utilities and landscaping and sell or lease sites for office , retail and residential development . larco also owns a_4 . 5 acre site a few blocks away . it plans two high rise residential towers there with 400 , 000 square_feet . the plan would require razing the capilano athletic health_club , now on the site , but the club 's owner , whose lease runs to mid 1996 and who has refused larco 's offer of 400 , 000 for lost business , has vowed to go to court to halt construction . some residents say the development will destroy the character of their neighborhood . larco counters by saying it will put something back into the community by including a community center and 40 units of housing for the elderly . larco will have to get the city to rezone its site before it can proceed . controversy nearly killed a 50 million condominium project on 3.5 acres next to the park_royal mall . west vancouver owns the land , which had housed a municipal works yard and a car_dealership . in the early 80 's the municipality requested proposals from developers on a 99 year lease . the one selected fizzled when the economy soured . in 1989 the municipality tried again . viam group and its proposal for a residential complex won out over four other bidders . steven nicholls , west van 's planning director , said that viam , which had 20 years of construction experience , won partly because it offered to pay 10 million up front for the lease . but residents grew concerned that the two towers , 18 and 24 stories high , would be out of scale for the neighborhood and that increased traffic would create gridlock on marine drive . in a 1989 referendum voters were asked whether they thought the project should be built . they split 50 50 . mr . nicholls said the district 's council , seeing opinion was divided , decided the project should proceed . construction recently ended and marketing is under way for the 182 condominum units , which start at 269 , 500 and average 1 , 300 square_feet . in west van 's business_district , many older stores are being remodeled and on back streets new low rise stores , offices and houses are being built . the same is true eastward along marine drive where a dozen years ago there were few fast_food restaurants today cafes and pizza houses abound and there are strip malls as far as lonsdale avenue , eight miles away . "" ten years ago we were quite lonely here along the water , "" says claire johnson , president of c.h . cates sons ltd , . a 108 year old company at the foot of londsale that operates 18 tugs on a five mile stretch of burrard_inlet between the lions gate and second narrows bridges . "" the lot next to us was vacant . we used to play horseshoe and volleyball and grow tomatoes there . "" today that lot is lonsdale quay and thousands of north_shore residents stream onto seabuses there to speed across the harbor to downtown . adjacent to the seabus terminal is a waterfront mall , built in time for expo '86 , with a farmers_market , meat and seafood shops , ethnic fast_food restaurants , boutiques and the lonsdale quay hotel . "" change has been dramatic , "" says amin karim , the hotel 's general_manager . "" upland from marine drive the rundown stores are gone , along with the feeling it was not safe to walk the streets at night . now there are a lot of expensive condos . this is creating an environment for expensive shops . "" cates nearly became a victim of the pressure to sacrifice industry for tourism and commercial development . in the mid 70 's while the province was planning the new seabus terminal , a sheriff 's deputy served notice on its owners that the province had expropriated their land . they were ordered to vacate within 30 days . the deputy tried to give them an envelope with a check as property compensation , but they refused it . "" we were in shock , "" said mr . johnson . "" for us to pick up and move made no sense . our business was between the lions gate and second narrows bridges and our 115 employees live close by . "" the company refused to move and in 1981 , after a hard fought battle , it regained title . some people and developers are looking at the potential of the abandoned versatile pacific shipyards , just east of cates , where the only operating business is the vancouver dry_dock . many developers , municipal officials , businessmen and residents want the lonsdale quay retail shops and boutiques to be extended there . this does not sit well with the vancouver port corporation , an autonomous federal crown corporation that owns part of the land , which is valuable to industry because it is a deep water seaport . the corporation is negotiating with the private owner of the remaining land to acquire the property . "" we want to safeguard this land for future industrial and marine business , "" says dietmar setzer , the corporation 's director of property administration . he believes all land east of lonsdale should be industrial . community leaders say that if the powerful corporation wants the land it will get it . james o'hara , a corporation vice_president , says "" because of the scarcity of land , there is pressure from people who want to move back to the waterfront . but it just does n't make sense to build a condo next to a grain terminal . """,has a topic of estate
"the subway system , which opened nearly 100 years ago , on oct . 27 , 1904 , is one of new york 's most astonishing engineering projects miles and miles of track strung through a dense network of building foundations , basements and water , gas , electric and sewage lines . but it was also an architectural effort the lacy iron street kiosks , the careful marble and tile subway stations , the delicate faience tile decorations . and heins lafarge were the architects who did it . george l . heins and christopher grant lafarge met as students at the massachusetts_institute_of_technology around 1880 and then worked in the architectural office of cass gilbert . in 1886 , they set up their own new york practice . they did some designing for lafarge 's father , the painter , stained_glass artist and muralist john lafarge . but by 1891 , they had done little of note when they suddenly struck oil , winning the competition for the cathedral_church of st . john the divine at amsterdam_avenue and 112th_street . only fragments of their original design survive the cathedral as built is drastically different but their principal elements were a south facing exposure , looking down over the city from the site 's high bluff a byzantine decoration of mosaics and murals and a great wide interior , so unlike the relatively narrow english gothic models typical for churches at that time . the next year , they designed the lovely villagelike church at 91st street and west_end avenue now the annunciation greek orthodox church . in 1896 they got another plum commission , the buildings of the bronx zoo , witty neo_classical temples festooned with heads of elephants , turtles , cockatoos and other wildlife . they later designed several unusual town houses , like the greek renaissance bowen house at 5 east 63rd street ( 1900 ) and the bliss house at 9 east 68th ( 1905 ) , with its giant columned facade . in the spring of 1900 , heins lafarge met the financier august belmont , head of the consortium that was building new york 's first underground mass transit system . belmont donated a chapel to st . john the divine and may have encountered heins lafarge through that connection . the following march , they were appointed architects for the first subway line , to run from city hall to grand_central , across to times_square , and up broadway to west 145th_street . for such a huge work of engineering , any architectural design was little more than window_dressing the stations were not even free standing , as they would be with a railroad . the architects did design the little cast_iron , wire and glass kiosks aboveground at the station entrances , and several aboveground brick and stone shelters , like those at bowling_green and west 72nd_street . although the shelters look charming to modern eyes , they were roundly condemned when built . ''a miserable monstrosity as to architecture , '' the new york times wrote in a 1904 editorial about the shelter at 72nd_street and broadway . but the architects' toughest charge was the stations themselves , narrow platforms in what was essentially an industrial environment . their most obvious additions are the distinctive terra_cotta plaques and mosaic designs . the columbus_circle station features the santa maria , one of columbus 's ships , with billowing white sails on a green sea with tiny white seagulls . for stations without obvious symbolic connections , they designed elegant mosaic work , like the great curved panels in the walls of the west 72nd_street station , with a chain of flowers connected by red rope . the gallery wall for these artworks was the stations' basic finish lovely straw colored iron spot brick mosaic bands and terra_cotta cornices and friezes and glassy white tile , to reflect light from glass vaults in the sidewalks above . the ceilings are networks of decorated plaster strips and intricate cast_iron ceiling fixtures flush with the surface . the centerpiece was the domed city hall station , no longer in service . despite their success , disappointment loomed . heins died in 1907 , and the trustees of st . john the divine had become disenchanted with the medieval character of the 1891 design and also with heins lafarge themselves , believing they had spent too much time on the subway contract . four years after heins 's death , the gothicist architect ralph cram worked in secret to wrest the cathedral contract away from lafarge . he reoriented the building plan to face amsterdam_avenue and restyled it in the gothic . according to andrew dolkart 's ''morningside_heights a history of its architecture and development'' ( columbia university press , 1998 ) lafarge never spoke of his profound disappointment , but much later wrote cram , calling the cathedral episode a ''greasy performance . '' lafarge by himself and in partnership with others went on to design a variety of buildings , elegant but often rather spare , like the 1915 brooks_brothers headquarters at 44th and madison , and the 1929 new york genealogical and biographical society , at 122 east 58th_street , a work of bostonian reserve . he died in 1938 . by the 1940 's , the subway system had begun a long decline . the vaulted city hall station closed in 1945 , and the delicate kiosks were destroyed in 1956 a letter to the editor of the times from dan wallack noted that ''two ugly , grimy i.r.t . subway kiosks'' still survived at columbus_circle , calling them ''anachronistic monstrosities . '' the platforms in the rest of the system were brutally extended to accommodate longer trains their institutional tile walls give them the look of a grubby housing_project . the elegant old incandescent fixtures were replaced by fluorescent ones , and the decorative trim was gouged , drilled or simply demolished . a reversal began in the 1980 's , when the architects prentice chan , ohlhausen replicated one of the original kiosks at astor_place . other restorations have followed , like those of the brick and stone shelters at bowling_green and west 72nd_street . west 72nd also features the latest and most sophisticated of the station platform restorations . the subway system celebrates its centennial this month , and there are several web links to online narrated gallery talks , photo exhibitions and similar activities . the metropolitan_transportation_authority 's web_site , www . mta . info , also connects to the new york transit_museum . another site , www tech . mit . edu subway , has historical photographs of every original station . there is also a great deal of information on a third site , www . nycsubway . org . look for for the station at bleecker and lafayette streets , the subway 's architects , heins lafarge , designed a broad oval medallion , glazed faience in cobalt blue , with white letters . at astor_place and fourth_avenue , the walls have a reproduction of a beaver , a reference to the multimillionaire john jacob astor 's start as a fur trader . built 1904 address bleecker and lafayette streets astor_place and fourth_avenue . how to get there no . 6 train to bleecker_street or astor_place . streetscapes",has a topic of estate
"margarita rodriguez works as a clerk for century 21 , the discount department_store . she is 22 and lives with her 9 month old baby , rafael leroux . most people her age , especially if they hold jobs like hers , do n't own their living spaces . and yet not long ago ms . rodriguez moved out of her parents' home and into her own , a condominium in a newish development in staten_island where children can play ball in the evening in public spaces safe from traffic , and where neighbors stop and talk in front of the attractive town house style buildings . she says she never even considered renting and would not have left her parents if she could n't have bought something . ''this is my first place , '' ms . rodriguez said , giving a tour of the two bedroom apartment with its tiled bathrooms , central air_conditioning and galley kitchen with new laminated countertops . because she always knew she wanted to own , she said , she began saving money as soon as she started work at century 21 after high_school . she really does n't understand people who do n't save , she said , or people who do n't have plans . she said she expected to be engaged at 22 , married at 23 and pregnant at 25 . although that part of her life has not gone according to schedule , she is a person who thinks ahead , who has always put money away with the intent to own a home . ''i ca n't just spend money on nothing , '' she said . ''if i bought anything , it was just things i needed . '' sometimes , she would put her entire paycheck in the bank . although she wanted her own place , she probably would n't have started looking , she said , if she had n't become pregnant . she felt she needed her own place and looked for help from the same people who had helped her parents . both social workers , her parents had raised their family in apartments in brooklyn . but a few years ago , they bought a house in the rosebank section of staten_island with the guidance of neighborhood housing services , a nonprofit_organization with offices in all five boroughs that provides counseling as well as loans and grants , primarily to low and moderate income families , for buying and rehabilitation . ms . rodriguez began looking , and rather quickly found the development , called heron pond , in the arlington section of southwest staten_island , closer to new jersey than to most of the city . she immediately liked the two bedroom apartment because although it is on only one floor , the ground floor entrance and the small patio in the back give it the feeling of a house . it was new , which she also liked , and she was able to specify some of the details she wanted , like the burgundy colored wall to wall carpeting in the entrance hall . ''i love it , '' she said . ''this is the rug i 've always dreamed of having . it 's my favorite color . '' she had saved 2 , 500 , which was used for a down payment on the 49 , 900 condo , and the size of her 30 year mortgage was substantially reduced by a_20 , 000 grant she received from neighborhood housing . now , with a monthly mortgage payment of 207 . 15 and monthly carrying costs on the condo of 74 . 07 , her total monthly bill for housing is 281 . 22 . although she and her son 's father also named rafael leroux are not yet married , ''we practically live together now , '' she said ''we 're doing it little by little . '' mr . leroux , who lives with his mother in new jersey , contributes financially to the baby 's costs by paying the mortgage , while she pays for day care for the baby . although her commute to the bay_ridge , brooklyn , warehouse of century 21 takes an hour , she says it 's worth it , because she far prefers living in staten_island . ''it 's nice and peaceful , '' she said . ''i do n't like to be around a lot of noise . '' in brooklyn , her family lived in the flatbush section , where , she said , there were sometimes gunshots . the apartment complex has its own security force , she said , ''and there are a lot of cops that live here . '' she grew up in apartments , she said , but has always wanted a house , ''because they look nicer , and they 're more roomy . '' so she is making plans in that direction . ''i want to pay this off and buy a bigger one , '' she said . ''hopefully by then i 'll have a better job and make more money . ''",has a topic of estate
"new co op for soup executive archbold d . van beuren , the great grandson of the man who invented the process for making condensed soup for the campbell soup company , bought a co op last month at 1 east 66th_street whose previous owner had a long and colorful life . mr . van beuren , known as archie , is president of away from home , a campbell_soup brand . his mother is hope hill van beuren , whose campbell derived wealth puts her at no . 620 on the forbes list of the world 's richest people , with a fortune estimated at 1 billion . the two bedroom apartment on east 66th_street was listed for 1 . 85 million with kathryn steinberg , a broker at edward lee cave . apartment owners in the building pay an annual fee that gives them access to the services of a private kitchen and chef that provide the equivalent of in house room service . the apartment had been occupied for decades by vera tucker , who died in 2003 , when she was 104 years old . mrs . tucker made headlines in 1986 , when in her mid 80 's , she whacked a would be purse snatcher with her parasol and knocked him off his bicycle . according to media reports at the time , mrs . tucker was about to enter the building on east 66th_street when a man on a bicycle grabbed her purse and tried to pedal away . mrs . tucker held onto her bag and started hitting the man repeatedly with her blue parasol , until he fell off the bicycle . a passer by and a policeman then intervened to collar her assailant . in shrugging off the experience , mrs . tucker , who had lived in london when she was younger , said , ''listen , i 've been through two wars with bombs flying all around me . '' she also said ''i was very happy they got the fellow . i wanted to go up and hit him some more . '' mark romney , mrs . tucker 's grandson , said his grandmother had a large collection of hats and parasols for every occasion . she was married five times and her husbands included mr . romney 's grandfather , hugh cassel , a financier , as well as johannes schiefer , a painter siegfried f . hartman , a prominent new york lawyer and charles tucker , a theatrical agent who represented a young julie andrews . ''her attitude was , if you 're going to get married , you might as well marry interesting men , '' mr . romney said . he said his grandmother moved into the apartment when the building was new , shortly after world_war_ii . mr . van beuren and his wife , helene , who also have homes in bryn mawr , pa . , and in rhode_island , did not return phone_calls . filmmaker 's farewell to the dakota this month the documentary filmmaker albert maysles sold the duplex apartment he had lived in for 35 years in the dakota , at 72nd_street and central_park west , and moved up to harlem , where he bought a four story town house on west 122nd street . mr . maysles , 78 , is a seminal figure in the world of documentary filmmaking and is best known for works like ''gimme shelter , '' about the 1969 concert tour of the rolling_stones , during which his crew filmed the murder of a young concertgoer at a show at the altamont speedway near san_francisco and ''primary , '' which tracked john f . kennedy and hubert h . humphrey through the 1960 democratic primary campaign in wisconsin . he has also spent more than a quarter of a century documenting the efforts of the artist christo to create one of his projects in central_park , which finally came to fruition in february . he is now editing the film , tentatively called ''the gates , '' and said it would be shown on hbo later this year . it is only coincidental , mr . maysles said , that he is leaving his home by central_park just after christo 's long delayed artistic achievement was finally realized . he said that he and his wife , a family therapist , decided to move a couple of years ago . they have four children , who are currently spread across the country and around the globe , and they envisioned creating a place where , over time , the clan could congregate . ''we had this idea that since our kids are all in their 20 's and on their own , if we had a bigger place , even if it meant neighboring buildings , we 'd be able to keep the family together , each kid could have his or her own apartment , '' he said . so they bought two town houses in harlem one on 122nd street , for 999 , 900 , and the other on west 120th street , for 699 , 000 and started to renovate . he and his wife have now moved into the bottom two floors of the town house on 122nd street . eventually , they will complete two apartments on the upper floors for children or houseguests . the other town house will undergo a gut renovation and be configured into two more apartments for members of the far flung maysles clan . the couple also paid 1 . 3 million last july for a commercial building on lenox_avenue , near 127th street , which , after renovations , will become the home for mr . maysles 's film studio , now on west 54th_street . the maysleses put their apartment at the dakota on the market last year . they soon found buyers they thought would be perfect for the building the actress melanie griffith and her husband , the actor antonio banderas . but they were flabbergasted when the co op board came back with a rejection . ''what 's so shocking is that the building is losing its touch with interesting people , '' mr . maysles said . ''more and more , they 're moving away from creative people and going toward people who just have the money . '' ultimately , his broker , robert browne of the corcoran group , found a buyer who agreed to pay 3 million for the apartment . although no celebrity , the new buyer passed the board . ''all i know is he can afford it , '' mr . maysles said . asked what he will miss about the dakota , he spoke of the neighbors who over the years became his friends , including yoko ono and lauren bacall . but mr . maysles said the move has been ' 'made all the easier by our disappointment with the way the building seems to be changing . '' as for harlem , mr . maysles said he is ' 'delighted'' with his new surroundings . their house , which was built in the 1880 's , has fireplaces on every floor and the original woodwork . they have filled the house with artwork , much of it by their children . they have found an ethiopian restaurant that they like . one day shortly after moving in , he struck up a conversation with a neighbor and discovered that his current studio was near the woman 's workplace . they shared a cab downtown . mr . maysles said he has found harlem to be ' 'more friendly than in the other parts of manhattan . '' besides completing work on the christo documentary , mr . maysles is getting started on a new sort of project an autobiography in film . he will call it ''hand held and from the heart . '' hedge_fund manager sells apartment the art collector and hedge_fund manager steven a . cohen sold an apartment at 308 east 72nd_street last month for 1 . 75 million , according to city_records . the sale comes as mr . cohen , the founder of sac capital advisors , is in the process of buying two apartments at one beacon court , for about 24 million . he plans to turn the apartments into a duplex . big deal",has a topic of estate
"lead this dairy farming and agricultural town dating from the 17th_century has annexed four farms totaling about 500 acres where development could triple the current population of 3 , 700 . this dairy farming and agricultural town dating from the 17th_century has annexed four farms totaling about 500 acres where development could triple the current population of 3 , 700 . ''we want to control our own destiny , '' said mayor kenneth branner , explaing the annexations . during delaware 's residential building spree of the 1980 's , middletown officials realized that they could be surrounded by unwanted development without getting the tax benefits . residential and commercial builders have increasingly sought development sites in the open area south of the chesapeake and delaware canal as land surrounding wilmington has become scarce . middletown is in southern new castle county , delaware 's northernmost county it is halfway between wilmington , the state 's largest city , and dover , the state capital . most of those who come to the area are young , two income families looking for affordable_housing , said mayor branner . they tend to commute to jobs in large corporations and banks north of the canal , near wilmington , or to dover , for state government jobs . the annexation will let developers build 1 , 215 new single family houses , 1 , 858 apartments and town houses , and 3.6 million square_feet of commercial space . an earlier rezoning in middletown allows for 813 mobile homes . single family houses in middletown are now priced as low as 70 , 000 , but some have risen to as much as 200 , 000 . if the farms had not been annexed , zoning for the projects would have been handled by new castle county council and the developments would not have had access to middletown 's sewer , water , electric and sanitation services . a landowner in this case , four farmers can petition for annexation , which must be approved by the town council . the land is still being farmed but at least three developers have contracts to buy the properties . the lower land in places around middletown is not always good for septic systems and wells , mayor branner said , adding that middletown is the only community in the county that can promise to provide sewage_treatment in the immediate future . the town can increase its sewage_treatment from a current usage of 350 , 000 gallons to 750 , 000 gallons daily . ''this new development will give us a base for taxes , '' mayor branner said . middletown has become popular with developers because they can avoid the new castle county rezoning or permit and approval process , which has become increasingly difficult and extended because of overdevelopment and opposition from community groups .",has a topic of estate
"there is something new on top of old watnong mountain that many morris_county residents can see every day . and that 's a shame , some people around here say . even though the new project , called the powder mill heights condominiums , is still under construction near the top of the mountain off route 10 , critics of the 6 story ( or 10 story , depending on how you look at it ) , 355 unit luxury development are giving their negative reviews now and not waiting for the last act , as the builder suggests . "" the monstrosity on watnong mountain "" was the headline in a newsletter published by the citizens for controlled development , a conservation group based in morristown . an editorial written by leonardo fariello , the group 's president , said the unfinished three building complex , which wraps around the eastern and northern slopes , was "" an ominous , obtrusive concrete structure "" that scarred "" the beautiful skyscape of eastern morris_county . "" mr . fariello went on to assert that the condominiums were "" the most outstanding example of inappropriate suburban development ever to be built in morris_county . "" he said recently that his 600 member organization was founded in 1990 , four years after the project 's approval , and that he was not planning to oppose it actively but only to use it as an example of what he considered poor planning . "" i do n't think you can get a judge to say , 'tear it down , ' "" he said . but he does plan to produce t shirts with a picture of the condos and a caption that reads , "" never again in morris_county . "" 'it will be more attractive' edward mosberg , the builder , said in a recent interview that some people were making a premature judgment about his project . "" once this is finished , it will look different , "" he said . "" it will be more attractive . right now the buildings are without windows , and we have to finish the landscaping . when this is finished , it will be something that everybody will be proud of . "" he said three or four models would be ready this summer and two buildings wouldbe finished this year and a third next year . the units will be offered only as rentals . "" we already have hundreds of people asking about it who want to buy or rent , "" he said . mr . mosberg said the 355 apartments would vary from one to three bedrooms and some would be duplexes . he said there would be 720 "" underground "" parking_spaces , but critics say they will be completely visible from the eastern side of the 35 . 5 acre site , effectively adding four stories . "" what bothers me is this is 6 stories on one side and 10 on the other , "" mr . fariello said . he said that the plan contradicted the variance granted to the property owner , lake lenore estates , and that the condominiums were much more visible than residents had been led to expect . the original plan called for two 12 story buildings in an area zoned for single family homes and town houses . it was denied by the township of parsippany troy hills , but the planning board approved a variance for eight story condominiums . the plan was ultimately revised to include six story buildings . preliminary approval for the site was granted on in 1986 . construction began soon after on what mr . mosberg called "" a really difficult site . "" minutes of the 1984 hearings before the township council and the planning board indicate that some citizens expressed approval of the project . sharon thompson , president of the nearby powder mill home owners association , said the 200 members favored the eight story concept . others called the condominiums a good alternative to one family housing and disagreed with those who predicted that the project would add to traffic_congestion . shirley daniels , a parsippany resident , said she welcomed "" a nice looking building with affluent people paying top dollar for these apartments . "" mr . mosberg declined to say how much the project cost , but a published estimate from an unidentified source was 71 million . last year , mayor frank priore was quoted as predicting that annual tax revenue from the condominiums would be more than 2 million . ( mr . priore left office after his conviction last month on corruption charges unrelated to this development . ) opponents of the project who spoke out at the 1984 council meeting included spokesmen for the civic associations of the nearby sedgefield and brooklawn developments . both predicted increased traffic , as did several other people . one of the few who mentioned the visual impact of the development was muriel berson , who asked the council to prohibit building higher than tree level to preserve the town 's suburban character . in a recent statement , mrs . berson said , "" none of us in the audience could visualize what the builder was going to do with the mountain , that in reality it would become an eyesore , the butt of various ill comments about parsippany . "" william masters , the township 's planning director , recently said there was actually a condition in the plan approval about the relationship of the buildings and the tree heights . "" the requirement was that the height of the building would not protrude above the top of the tree line at the top of the mountain , "" he said , and explained that since the 960 foot peak was in back of the buildings , the restriction was not intended to hide them . "" it 's not something that 's going to be masked , "" he added . "" it 's possible with landscaping that it will blend better into the surroundings , but it 's not going to become invisible . "" lot donated by developer the township also requested that the developer share the cost of increased fire protection in the area . frank scerbo , president of the district 1 board of fire commissioners , said recently that the developer had donated a nearby lot where the town will construct a fire substation . the building will house a 600 , 000 ladder truck with a rescue platform that the developer will pay for . mr . scerbo said the customized truck would take over a year to deliver and provide improved rescue and firefighting capability for other tall buildings in town . some residents expressed their reservation about the condominiums to local papers as soon as the buildings began to take shape last year , and continue to do so . "" i 'm sure they 're going to be very nice , but i do n't like looking up from my backyard and seeing that monstrosity up there , "" said karen tortoriello , who lives on the lower slope of watnong mountain in morris plains . "" they should never have been allowed to build something so big . "" but bobbie smith , who lives in the same laurel ridge development as mrs . tortoriello , said development did n't bother him . mr . smith said , "" i heard from a few people who do n't like it , and to me it 's not really attractive , but my view is not that great from here , so i do n't pay much attention . """,has a topic of estate
"nolan kerschner , a norwalk developer who has built more than 3 , 000 houses and condominium units in connecticut since 1947 , is now completing site work on his 528 unit rosinka development in suburban moscow . the project , begun feb . 6 , is designed for foreign corporate executives . foundations for the first 44 units are to be installed this month . the complex four villages each with 132 units is scheduled for completion in the fall of 1992 . mr . kerschner is among just a few americans whose attempts to build housing in the soviet_union are moving forward . he decided to change venues radically four years ago "" when we saw that the 80 's were not going to be so swift , "" he said . while his publicly subsidized complex of 39 condomimium units in norwalk sold out last july at 65 , 000 to 85 , 000 , his market rate projects faltered . only 200 of a planned 300 units were built at farmington woods and only 15 units were sold of the 25 completed in the proposed 680 unit stillwater complex in torrington . his 176 unit four beaches in east haven was one of the first connecticut developments to be sold at auction last year . "" we did a market study in 1987 and got an overwhelming response from international companies citing a need for housing in russia , "" said mr . kerschner . at a 1989 moscow business exposition , he went on , "" we signed up about 30 companies on nonbinding reservations . general_motors , caterpillar tractor , dupont all said they wanted low rise , family oriented housing . "" last april , senie kerschner international housing of westport , formed by mr . kerschner , his lawyer , alan senie , and mr . senie 's son , christopher , entered into a joint_venture agreement with zavet ilicha , an 800 member farm collective that grows vegetables for moscow stores . the collective donated 80 of its 2 , 500 acres for the project in return for a 50 percent share of its profits , which christopher senie said , "" could come to about 40 million in the 6th through 10th years , when we are debt free . "" situated 15 . 5 miles from red_square in the krasnogorsk ( "" beautiful hills "" ) district , the site overlooks a 35 acre lake surrounded by birch forests and farmlands . zane yost , a bridgeport architect , is the designer of the 160 million community , and it will be built by the astaldi construction company of rome , with about 100 jobs reserved for russians . concerned but not deterred by the unstable political climate within the soviet_union , mr . kerschner said "" barring a total apocalypse , international companies believe that perestroika will be up and down , but will continue . russia is an enormous market of 290 million people who need everything . "" "" financing is the barrier , "" mr . senie said . "" most of it comes from europe , but we are putting out feelers in moscow because of the reluctance of western lenders . "" senie kerschner has invested 2 . 1 million in promotional costs , and it has sold 1 percent of its shares to a quasi_governmental soviet agency for 600 , 000 . mr . senie declined to identify the agency because of ongoing negotiations to buy an additional 18 percent at the same rate by may 1 , when leases for 15 units held by various companies expire . there is enough money to do foundations and bring in utilities while negotiations continue for financing construction of the first 44 units scheduled to open this fall . the milan office of an american bank , which mr . senie declined to name , will lend 5 . 8 million provided the partnership produces equity of 7 . 8 million . "" we have 6 million in letters of creditfrom companies that signed leases , "" he said , citing johnson_johnson , dupont , and ralston_purina in the united_states , ciba geigy in switzerland , oyhuolintakeskuas shipping company in finland and phillips electronics in the netherlands , among others . thomas chizmadia , a spokesman for ciba geigy in ardsley , n.y. , said "" we can confirm an interest in one unit , but we are not aware of a signed lease . "" mr . senie responded that "" he did not talk to the right people at the swiss headquarters . "" leases are for six years at 40 , 000 to 80 , 000 a year . three years are to be paid in advance , triggering immediate income for the next cluster of units . common charges are estimated at 300 a month . twenty percent of the units will be reserved for ruble paying soviets , the rest will be leased to hard_currency tenants from abroad . units will vary from two bedroom , one bath flats of 1 , 200 square_feet to five bedroom town houses of 2 , 700 square_feet with three baths and a den . among the amenities are fully equipped kitchens , tile baths , balconies , walk in closets , an indoor_pool , day care center , tennis courts , supermarket , telecommunications center , interior decorating and bus service . leslie beach , president of design and construction technologies of south plainfield , n.j. , feels that "" suburban activity will not be effective in russia because of the high cost of creating an infrastructure to support it . "" his soviet american turkish venture called interstroy is working in the center of moscow on 10 story apartment buildings and reconstructing them as 1 , 000 to 1 , 500 square_foot , two and three bedroom flats for the business community . "" rehabs are the most cost effective thing to do , "" he said . in matters of financing , he is as secretive as mr . senie . "" we raised the money in the united_states through a combination of banks and other lenders , "" he said . "" we are not about to give away our sources . "" "" arrangements like rosinka are going to be few and far between and have a very difficult path to completion , "" said leonard sylk , president of shelter systems , prefabricated housing manufacturers in hainesport , n.j . after accompanying secretary of commerce robert a . mosbacher to moscow last september as an adviser on creating housing , he said "" i came away discouraged . political factions at different levels of government are so suspicious and envious of each other that they stymie development , creating a feeling of insecurity among investors . "" "" the potential for housing in the soviet_union is great , "" he observed , "" but they need to work out their internal problems . in meantime , thank god for pioneers . """,has a topic of estate
""" it's great to be alive "" runs the unusual advertising campaign for 40 wall_street . and indeed , although the 71 story building is in financial difficulty , the lobby still looks smart and neat , with elevator starters and other attendants at their stations . opened in 1930 , 40 wall has seen disappointment before foreclosure , a plane crash and the unexpected loss of its title as the tallest building in the world . now brokers are working to fill 200 , 000 square_feet left vacant when manufacturers_hanover bank moved this summer and the building , more than half empty , heads toward foreclosure . in 1929 , the 1913 woolworth building , at 792 feet , was the world 's tallest . early that year , george l . ohrstrom , a young investment banker , filed plans for a 47 story office building at 40 wall . he then amended his plan to 60 stories , still short of the woolworth and the projected 808 foot high chrysler_building , announced in 1928 . but in april his architect , h . craig severance , drew new plans , for a 67 story , 840 foot building , edging out the woolworth by 48 feet and the chrysler by 32 . severance had made a name designing unusual modernist commercial buildings in the early 20 's with william van alen , and he may have found satisfaction in the new plan for 40 wall van alen was the architect of the chrysler_building . in july 1929 a gold rivet was driven into the steelwork at 40 wall and work proceeded at a furious pace . but in the fall , as the stock_market crashed and the final steelwork was going into place , it was clear that something was afoot at the chrysler_building . severance got a permit for a huge lantern at the top , increasing the height to 875 feet , plus a 50 foot flagpole , and settled on a total height of 925 feet . but van alen had designed a 175 foot high "" vertex "" a spire that was built secretly inside the chrysler_building and hoisted into place in november , after changes to 40 wall were impossible making the chrysler_building 1 , 030 feet high . accounts of the exact stages of the race and the degree of rivalry between the former partners are incomplete and contradictory , but it was an indisputable competition , one that severance lost . however , he won in critical opinion , as most serious writers considered the chrysler building a commercial stunt whereas they liked the reserved , french renaissance style of 40 wall . van alen was the subject of many interviews and articles , but no one , it seems , interviewed severance , the second place finisher , as to his thoughts . faith hackl stewart , severance 's daughter , says he "" never made any remark about it , "" except to say that "" there really was n't any race . "" she says that her father got most of the business for the severance van alen firm and that "" he was a very outgoing , charismatic person . "" his nephew , malcolm severance , remembers him as "" a commanding , inspiring presence , "" kind but also tough in a tennis game , his uncle once advised him , "" when you get a guy down , do n't let him up . "" according to leonard levinson 's history , "" wall_street , "" published in 1961 , some of the leases signed in 1929 for 40 wall at 8 a square_foot were made by companies that were bankrupt by 1930 . the building was half empty and other space rented for 3 a square_foot , but foreclosure came only in 1940 . in 1946 a military transport plane crashed into the 58th floor , killing four on board but no one in the building . in 1988 , the developer jack resnick bought 40 wall and planned ambitious improvements . but as the office space market has fallen , tenants have left and remaining tenants are complaining about services . the building is in receivership . "" it can take half an hour to get an elevator , "" says herbert rubin , the senior partner of herzfeld rubin , a law_firm on the 50th to 56th floors . john brod , one of the brokers working on 40 wall , says the manufacturers_hanover space on the first through seventh floors is really "" a building within a building , "" with a giant banking hall , separate access and elevators and 30 , 000 square_foot floor plates . he is confident that his firm , koeppel tener riguardi , can fill the tower floors with spaces of 8 , 000 to 10 , 000 square_feet , but "" now we 're really focused on securing a tenant for the lower part . "" according to robert f.r . ballard , an executive director at cushman_wakefield , listing services show the 903 , 000 square_foot building has 585 , 000 square_feet vacant and available immediately .",has a topic of estate
"on june 15 , 1994 , manhattan district_attorney robert m . morgenthau sent shock_waves through the new york city real_estate industry when he announced that more than 80 managing agents and four companies had been charged with engaging in a large scale kickback_scheme that ended up costing co op and condominium owners millions of dollars . and while no trial has yet been conducted , the charges resulted in guilty_pleas by 69 individuals and the four companies and the establishment of a_4 million restitution fund designed to reimburse victims . in late june , a lawyer appointed by the new york state supreme_court to oversee distribution of that fund received court approval of a plan that will result in some earnest number crunching in co ops and condominiums throughout the city . and while the plan is expected to move millions of dollars out of the fund and into the bank accounts of buildings that were victimized , some co op lawyers say that since the names of all the vendors who paid kickbacks to the indicted managing agents were never released , it will be virtually impossible to accurately identify victims and their losses . and that , they say , will result in victimized buildings being short changed while some buildings that escaped victimization may be unjustly enriched . ''the goal was to allow victimized co ops and condominiums to submit a claim to the fund and then equitably distribute the money in the most effective manner , '' said eric d . herschmann , a manhattan lawyer who was appointed by the supreme_court as special_master to oversee distribution of the fund . mr . herschmann , who was appointed last december , has been digging through the district_attorney 's files and meeting with co op lawyers for six months in an effort to devise a plan that will be fair , efficient and manageable . like a trustee in a bankruptcy proceeding , however , mr . herschmann knows that no matter how carefully he slices the pie he is about to distribute , there will be some inevitable grumbling about the size and destination of the slices . ''there is always the possibility that a building that has not been victimized will submit a claim and receive some money , '' mr . herschmann said . ''but what we are proposing seems to be the only feasible way to distribute the fund without going through a tremendous expenditure of time and money . '' the first step in carrying out the distribution plan , mr . herschmann said , will be to notify as many co ops and condominiums as possible regarding the procedure for filing a claim . according to the plan approved last month by judge leslie crocker snyder of the state supreme_court , advertisements are to be published in area newspapers and magazines advising co op and condominium boards of the availability of claim forms at mr . herschmann 's law office the firm of kasowitz , benson , torres friedman , at 1301 avenue of the americas , between 52d and 53d streets , new york , n.y . 10019 . the ads , according to the plan , would include a list of the names of management companies and individual agents who have either pleaded_guilty or who have contributed to the restitution fund . the purpose of the list would be to provide boards with a way to determine whether any of the listed agents and concerns had been employed by their building at any time during the years 1986 through 1993 . last thursday , however , publication of the list was stayed by an appellate_court justice after one of the management companies on the list objected to the publication of the company 's name . a hearing date on the matter has not been set . regardless of whether the list is ultimately published , victimized boards will still need to receive claim forms from mr . herschmann 's office . ''anyone who has already contacted us or the district_attorney 's office will automatically receive a claim form , '' mr . herschmann said , adding that letters will ultimately be mailed to more than 1 , 700 co op and condominium boards this month . ''it 's the only feasible way to do it , '' mr . herschmann said , explaining that since the names of all the vendors in the kickback schemes have not been identified , a method had to be devised that would allow boards to quantify their possible losses without having to specifically prove each of them . as a result , he said , the plan requires boards first to identify the time period during which an agent or firm on the list worked for the co op or condominium , and then tally certain defined expenditures that were of a type most likely to have been inflated if the agent had been extracting kickbacks from a vendor . ''since we could n't identify specific vendors , we identified specific expenditures , '' mr . herschmann said , explaining that the expenditure categories include capital improvements , repairs , maintenance and supplies . the expenditures must be substantiated by certified financial_statements , copies of original contracts or copies of canceled checks . after a board has identified a specific time period and has enumerated calculated expenditures for the defined categories during that time period , mr . herschmann said , the form must be returned to his office . ''claims will be accepted until nov . 30 of this year , '' mr . herschmann said , explaining that once the claim forms are received by his office they will be examined to determine whether they qualify based on the content of the claim and the proofs submitted . since the amounts of the individual claims are based on total expenditures in each of the defined categories , mr . herschmann said , they will clearly exceed the actual dollar amount that a specific building may have lost in the form of higher prices charged while they unwillingly and unwittingly subsidized the kickbacks being paid by vendors to agents . with that in mind , mr . herschmann said , the total expenditure amount is used merely to calculate the prorated value of one building 's claim as compared to another . for example , he said , if the total amount of money available for distribution is 3 million , and the aggregate value of all approved claims is 30 million , then each claimant would receive 1 for every 10 in substantiated claims . ''we have no idea how many buildings will file claims and no idea how much those claims will be , '' mr . herschmann said , adding that the restitution fund now has about 3 million available for distribution and expects to collect and distribute about 1 million more after all agents and firms have paid their restitution in full . he added that since the amount an individual claimant will receive will represent a proportion of the total claims filed , the more substantiated claims that are filed , the smaller each claimant 's proportionate share will be . and that troubles some co op lawyers . errol brett , a manhattan co op lawyer who has been informing clients about the fund since it was created , said that while the distribution proposal may succeed in getting some money to some victims , the amount that those victims receive will be diluted by money paid albeit with good intentions to buildings that may not have been truly victimized . ''that 's always been my gripe , '' mr . brett said . ''you can have one building where a managing agent was taking kickbacks and another building where the same agent was on the straight and narrow . '' since the distribution plan is based on expenditures and not on being able to prove actual losses , mr . brett said , in the foregoing example the second building benefits at the expense of the first . marc j . luxemburg , a manhattan lawyer and president of the council of new york cooperatives , agreed that the plan was imperfect and potentially unfair , but acknowledged that under the circumstances a perfect plan would be impossible to devise . as a result , mr . luxemburg said , he essentially favors no plan at all . ''i think the money should be put into an educational fund to train board members and managing agents , '' he said . ''that would be a meaningful use of the fund that might help prevent this from happening again . '' your home",has a topic of estate
"one unusual feature of runyon_heights is the large number of dead end streets . situated on 110 hilly acres in the northeast corner of yonkers , new york 's fourth largest , the suburban neighborhood , the former estate of charles runyon , a new york city industrialist , was designed in the years before world_war i with few through streets a geographic entity unto itself and separate from the other neighborhoods in what was then a predominantly white metropolis . in yonkers , which was riven by racial tensions for much of the 20th_century , runyon_heights was , according to residents and a scholar 's recent book about the neighborhood , the only area that welcomed black home buyers . ( the largely minority southwest section of the city is mostly low rent tenements and public_housing . ) about 17 miles from midtown_manhattan , runyon_heights also became one of the first predominantly black suburban areas in the metropolitan region , drawing residents north from harlem . today , the neighborhood is home to about 600 middle_class families and is much like any other suburban home owning community , according to bruce d . haynes , an assistant professor of sociology at the university of california at davis . in his book about runyon_heights , ''red lines , black spaces the politics of race and space in a black middle_class suburb , '' mr . haynes wrote , ''residents are mostly concerned with maintaining good schools , safe and clean streets and the middle_class suburban lifestyle . '' like kenneth w . jenkins , a vice_president of the yonkers chapter of the national association for the advancement of colored people , many residents living in the neighborhood 's colonials , cape_cods and ranch style homes have been drawn to runyon_heights by the affordability of its houses . the median price of a single family home is 319 , 500 , compared with the mean for the county of 570 , 750 at the end of september . but that is only one of runyon_heights' assets . its friendly ways and the sense of stability it affords residents are other attractions , residents say . ''many people stay here for a lifetime , '' said mr . jenkins , who purchased his first house in runyon_heights in 1986 and has since moved on to a second house in the neighborhood . ''everyone knows their neighbors and looks out for each other 's kids . '' mr . jenkins , an associate real_estate_broker for century 21 dawn 's gold realty , and his wife , deborah , a software asset manager for i.b.m. , first purchased a three bedroom , one and a half bath fixer upper in runyon_heights for 135 , 000 . they redid the kitchen and the roof , put a stone facade on the house , made other improvements and lived in it for the next decade . in 1996 , the couple , with an expanding family , sold their home for 185 , 000 to a relative and purchased the four bedroom , three bath brick raised ranch next door for 235 , 000 . when runyon_heights , which is sometimes also called nepperhan , was being developed , the residents of homefield , an all white neighborhood directly to the north , did not want traffic coming onto their streets from the black community . to the south , tuckahoe road , a major thoroughfare , provides a natural boundary between runyon_heights and other neighborhoods . to the west , the saw mill river parkway performs a similar function . and to the east , there is a cemetery and sprain road contributing to runyon_heights' isolation . with no such boundary in the north , white residents created a four foot_wide strip of land , like a racial dmz , to separate the two areas . hence , the dead end streets . in the early years , a chicken wire fence also separated the two neighborhoods . but the fence failed to deter homefield residents from walking through backyards in runyon_heights to catch their trains to new york city on the putnam railroad , which is now defunct , according to milton holst , 76 , whose family moved to runyon_heights in 1926 , when he was an infant . and vice_versa in the early years , before homefield was built up , many children from runyon_heights picked pears and apples in the open fields of the neighboring community , he said . but the overwhelmingly black , cohesive neighborhood has begun to change in recent years , with ''new people'' many hispanic moving in . according to mr . holst , there is no friction between black and hispanic residents , but ''each group tends to keep to themselves . '' in particular , mr . holst said , many newer residents have not joined the runyon_heights improvement association , a social and civic minded group to which three fourths of the neighborhood 's residents belong . among other things , the group has been active in monitoring traffic generated by warehouses and other businesses in an industrial section of runyon_heights . the social focal_point is the runyon_heights community house , built in 1961 by the association . the one story red brick center on runyon avenue bustles most days with meetings and events for all age groups . tomlin coleman , a home builder with his brother windsor both long time residents of the community said koreans , arabs , west_indians and indians have also been buying houses in runyon_heights recently . and the new houses being built by their construction company tend to be larger and more expensive than the homes it built before , he said . the brothers' latest house in runyon_heights , a 3 , 000 square_foot , four bedroom , two and a half bath colonial , will be selling for 400 , 000 , he said . he added that there are only a few buildable lots remaining in the neighborhood . a major selling point for the neighborhood , according to mr . coleman and real_estate agents , is its proximity to major roads leading to new york city . it is less than a mile from the sprain brook and saw mill river parkways and interstate 87 . for prospective home buyers considering runyon_heights or any other part of yonkers the city 's often troubled school_district is sometimes a deterrent . the federal_government has put 10 schools in the district on a list of low performing schools . as part of the resolution of a long running racial_segregation lawsuit against the city and its school system , the school_district has replaced neighborhood schools with magnet schools , and it buses students when necessary to their choices . for families , the emphasis on magnet schools has meant both opportunity and transportation complications . mr . and mrs . jenkins , for instance , are sending their two oldest children to the public schools . both alana , 11 , and jamal , 6 , are in programs for gifted and talented students . alana walks a quarter mile to a bus , which takes her to a magnet_school 20 minutes away , and jamal walks two blocks and then rides for a half hour to a different magnet_school . as an active member of the n.a.a.c.p. , mr . jenkins a former past president of the yonkers chapter said he believes that ''it 's my responsibility to make sure the right programs are in place in the schools . '' he explained that under a court ruling last spring , 300 million from the state is earmarked for district programs intended to eliminate disparities in achievement between white and minority students . of about 26 , 400 students currently enrolled in the district , 5.7 percent were asian , 30 percent were black , 44 . 4 percent were hispanic , 19 . 7 percent were white and 0.2 percent were categorized as ''other , '' the school_district reported . the number of students who live in the district and go to private and parochial schools is 7 , 718 . in all , the district has 30 public elementary schools , four middle schools , one combined middle_school high_school and four high_schools . for the most part , elementary schools cover kindergarten through fifth grade and middle schools have sixth through eighth_grade . all of the elementary schools offer magnet programs . the eugenio maria de hostos microsociety school , for example , is set up as a small society , with its own schoolwide bank , businesses , court and constitution , which are incorporated into the school curriculum . at the high_school level , yonkers students taking the sat reasoning test last spring had an average score of 422 in the verbal section and 426 in math , according to eric schoen , a district spokesman . the state average was 494 in the verbal test and 506 in math . nationally , those averages are 504 and 516 , respectively . in yonkers , 69 . 5 percent of the graduates went on to college . on state mandated fourth_grade english_language arts tests , 59 . 5 percent of yonkers students in the 2001 2 school year scored at levels 3 and 4 competency and mastery levels compared with 61 . 5 percent statewide . for mathematics , 59 . 2 percent met or exceeded the competency standards , compared with 68 percent statewide . per pupil expenditure for the current school year is 13 , 375 , the district said . since the earliest days of the community , a religious focal_point has been the metropolitan a.m.e . zion church , which began as a small prayer group meeting in members' homes in the early 1920 's and then in the basement of another church on sunday evenings , according to a church history . within a decade , parishioners found a church building for sale in the bronx for 150 and moved it to its present home on belknap avenue , a site that they purchased for 100 . today , the church has about 100 members . winston a . ross , executive director of westchester community opportunity programs , said , ''this church for those of us growing up in the 50 's and 60 's contributed to our success later in life because of the values we learned from it about education and succeeding in one 's goals . ' there are now two other churches in runyon_heights faith mission , a baptist mission church , and king 's highway apostolic church . while there is no shopping_center in runyon_heights , there are several convenience_stores , supermarkets and a fast food restaurant a short drive away on tuckahoe road . while the neighborhood is a product of an era when minority home owners were not free to go wherever they wanted , some residents today would be sorry to see the neighborhood lose its identity as a black enclave . ''we want our own neighborhood , '' said estelle holst , mr . holst 's wife . if you 're thinking of living in runyon_heights , yonkers",has a topic of estate
"apartment house owners and the union representing doormen , porters and handymen reached a tentative agreement on a new three year contract yesterday , averting a strike that would have left front desks , elevators and garbage in the hands of tenants or temporary workers . union leaders and officials from the owners' bargaining group , the realty advisory board on labor relations , said that wages and other economic issues were the main sticking point in the all night bargaining session . the talks ended shortly before 7 a.m . with an agreement on what the owners said was a 9.5 percent increase in wages and benefits over the life of the contract , a figure that real_estate specialists said was unlikely to jolt landlords' ledgers or the dollar conscious budgets of co ops and condominiums where union members work . "" what these numbers will do to the overall maintenance of individual apartments will be very small , "" said clark p . halstead , the managing partner of the halstead property company , a manhattan brokerage concern . "" everyone needs some modest raise , and this is n't even in accord with the cost of living . by those standards , this is modest . "" handymen and superintendents the contract that expired at midnight yesterday , negotiated in 1991 after a_12 day strike , provided annual increases averaging about 4 percent . the new contract calls for wage_increases averaging about 2 percent a year . the union , local_32b_32j of the service_employees_international_union , said most workers would receive an extra 10 a week this year , another 10 next year and 12 in the final year of the contract . that will increase a doorman 's salary to 528 a week this year , 538 in 1995 and 550 in 1996 . handymen will receive a raise of 12 a week this year , another 12 a week next year and a 14 a week increase in 1996 . superintendents' salaries will increase 13 a week this year , 12 a week in 1995 and 14 a week in 1996 . anger among rank and file but some of the local 's 30 , 000 rank and file members , who work at 2 , 800 rental , cooperative and condominium buildings in four of the five boroughs , grumbled that the deal was inadequate . apartment house employees in the bronx are represented by a different local workers in commercial buildings and housing_projects run by the new york city housing authority are covered by different contracts . "" ten bucks a week i do n't think it 's fair , "" said joe pappas , a doorman at 327 central_park west , at 93d street . "" with taxes taken out , you clear about 6 or 7 . it costs more than that just to come to work . i 'd have given up two sick days to get more money in my salary . "" ratification , though , by a 41 person committee instead of the rank and file appeared to be a virtual certainty . dennis sheehan , a spokesman for the union , said the committee fanned out through the city yesterday , visiting union members at the buildings where they work "" to get a sense of how they feel "" about the terms of the deal . the negotiations reflected the evolution of the residential real_estate industry in the 1980 's . when building service workers walked off their jobs in 1979 , the strikers and most of the people who lived in the buildings where they worked shared the same foe the landlord . this time , as in 1991 , apartment dwellers are often the owners . the 1980 's co op and condominium conversion boom shifted the balance of power on the owners' bargaining team . longer probation time co op and condominium owners have a personal investment in their buildings and day to day relationships with the members of local_32b_32j , who keep track of residents' lives as well as their comings and goings , feeding their pets , watering their plants and bringing their dry_cleaning to their doors . as a result , co op and condominium owners might be more willing than rental landlords to let their desire for service override pocketbook issues . another aspect of the new contract is a longer probation period for new workers 60 days instead of 30 under the old contract . owners maintained that they had raised other issues in the negotiations that could be brought up again in 1996 , including a possible two tier wage system under which new workers would be paid less than the experienced ones they replace . while two tier wages have not been uncommon in corporate labor settlements in the 1990 's , another issue on some owners' minds was peculiar to the local_32b_32j negotiations summer employees . under the contract , replacements for vacationing workers are paid at full salary , even though the substitutes are often college students . some owners say they should not be paid as much as full time workers who have families . but others familiar with the negotiations say the issue is not so clear cut some building workers spend their vacations moonlighting as relief employees in other buildings . their earnings would drop if replacements were paid less than regular doormen and porters .",has a topic of estate
"median resale house prices aug . 91 jul . 91 aug . 90 nation 101 , 800 103 , 000 97 , 200 northeast 144 , 400 143 , 500 145 , 300 midwest 78 , 900 79 , 200 75 , 100 south 91 , 100 93 , 600 87 , 200 west 144 , 700 148 , 800 140 , 200 4 source national_association_of_realtors 4 mortgage interest rates ( averages ) last week previous week year ago new york conventional ( 30 yr ) 9 . 06 9 . 15 10 . 35 adjustable_rate ( 1st_yr ) 6 . 83 6 . 86 8 . 37 new jersey conventional ( 30 yr ) 8 . 94 9 . 02 10 . 15 adjustable_rate ( 1st_yr ) 6 . 65 6 . 73 8 . 05 connecticut conventional ( 30 yr ) 8 . 94 9 . 04 10 . 20 adjustable_rate ( 1st_yr ) 6 . 67 6 . 78 8 . 26 co ops ( n . y. ) conventional ( 30 yr ) 9 . 15 9 . 27 10 . 53 adjustable_rate ( 1st_yr ) 7 . 37 7 . 39 8 . 56 2 indexes for adjustable_rate_mortgages 1 yr . treasury security 5 . 40 5 . 50 7 . 58 national mortgage contract rate 9 . 10 9 . 10 9 . 70 rates on most adjustable_mortgages are set 1 to 3 percentage_points above these indexes . ( source_hsh_associates )",has a topic of estate
"most people think of venice as a romantic background for films or a one of a kind vacation destination , but frank o'halloran and liesl odenweller have called it home for the last nine years . ''liesl and i met in 1991 when we were both living in rome , '' mr . o'halloran said as he sipped prosecco on his altana , or balcony , overlooking most of venice . ''i was working at a nongovernmental agency , and liesl was studying opera . '' they moved back to the united_states , to new york , the next year but before they left , they spent a month in venice and , mr . o'halloran said , ''we fell in love with the city . '' so in 1998 , when they moved back to italy , venice was the natural choice . ''when we first met , in rome , both of us had to be in that city me for work and liesl for studies , '' he said . ''but by the time we moved back , we were both freelancing and so could choose to live wherever we wanted in the world . so why not pick one of the most beautiful cities ? '' mr . o'halloran is a corporate training consultant and executive coach ms . odenweller , is a freelance opera singer . ''we lived for years in an apartment on the grand canal , '' mr . o'halloran said . ''it was a bit like living on main_street , but with amazing views off of our balconies . '' their neighbors complained of the hustle and bustle , but the couple felt it was almost village like after new york . yet , ''although we loved our apartment , our goal was to buy something for ourselves , '' he said . there are always places for sale in venice , but finding something that met their criteria was not easy . ''since we both work full time , and have very hectic travel schedules , we knew that we wanted something that would be very easy to take care of , and that also would not involve any restoration work , '' he said . in italy , most properties are large scale fixer uppers that require a series of complex and lengthy negotiations with the authorities to secure the various permits needed for the project . ''add to this the fact that we wanted great views and some sort of outdoor space , and the search became even more difficult , '' he added . although venice is small roughly three miles across and surrounded by its lagoon it is decidedly urban , a warren of old buildings and narrow canals with few terraces or gardens . ''although there are apartments on the market in venice , most people , especially foreigners , tend to be very choosy about what they want , '' said serena bombassei , owner of venice real_estate ( www . venicerealestate . it ) . ''everyone wants two bedrooms , two baths , a great view and something that they can move right into . '' the most requested areas are along the grand canal the dorsoduro district , just across the canal from san_marco and the san_marco quarter itself . ''a great apartment in these neighborhoods , fully restored , can cost from 11 , 000 euros to 15 , 000 euros a square meter , '' ms . bombassei said that is about 14 , 470 to 19 , 730 a square meter , or 1 , 345 to 1 , 834 a square_foot . in comparison , top end properties in belgravia and mayfair , london 's most exclusive neighborhoods , are selling for around 2 , 440 a square_foot . ms . bombassei added , ''something away from the center , without a great view will cost a bit less , from 8 , 000 euros to 10 , 000 euros'' a square meter ''or even as low as 6 , 000 euros for something that needs more work . '' last spring mr . o'halloran and the couple 's 3 year old daughter , anna , were in the giudecca neighborhood to look at an apartment for sale . deciding to make the most of the outing , he stopped to visit some friends , an american couple , who had been living in the area for the last 15 years . ''as it turned out , the property we had seen was n't for us it was a real wreck and would have involved too much restoration work , '' he said . ''i was bemoaning this fact to our friends when they said , 'buy our place ! ' '' they had put their apartment on the market only the day before . ''it took me about five minutes to say 'yes , ' '' mr . o'halloran recalled . at 119 square meters , or 1 , 280 square_feet , it was the perfect size , and had two bedrooms , he said . the couple did not want to disclose the price , but ms . bombassei said that an apartment of that size probably would sell for 580 , 000 euros to 650 , 000 euros , or 761 , 000 to 853 , 000 . the couple consider the apartment 's location a bonus . the giudecca , which encompasses several islands south of the touristy san_marco quarter and across the wide giudecca canal , is much quieter and greener than the rest of the city . ''it 's a great place for kids , and has a nice mix of people , '' mr . o'halloran said . ms . bombassei said she recently sold elton_john a house at one end of the neighborhood , while publicly subsidized_housing at the other end ensures that venetians can continue to afford to live in their homes . in general , the agent said , giudecca is ''a bit like the notting_hill of venice there are a lot of artists living here and , since it is facing san_marco , it definitely has the best views in town . '' in fact , mr . o'halloran and ms . odenweller say the views from the windows and the balcony were what persuaded them to buy the place . a trompe_l'oeil mural in the living room depicts the venetian skyline , but the real views are equally dramatic the city 's towers , cupolas and facades reflected in the sparkling water . as the sun set , mr . o'halloran looked out across the lagoon . ''i think you can understand now why we chose venice , '' he said .",has a topic of estate
"for years , the community group acorn taught its members how to rally , demonstrate and hold sit_ins to get what they wanted . the group gained wide attention in 1987 , when it occupied 30 vacant buildings in east new york and forced the city to turn them over to squatters . now , after learning the art of confrontation , some acorn members are using confrontational tactics against one of their own acorn 's head organizer . the dispute centers on what some members say the group owes them . the dissidents say that in return for their efforts fighting for affordable_housing , fair lending practices and educational improvements acorn should find them low income apartments . acorn officials say there has never been a quid_pro_quo . last week , three dozen demonstrators_marched from the group 's flatbush_avenue headquarters to the home of the organizer , jon kest , and held a brief but noisy rally . when five patrol cars , a police van , an officer on a bicycle and a private security van showed up a few minutes later , the demonstrators pointed out the irony . "" he taught us to do this ! "" one protester , elena trevino , told the officers before she departed peacefully . acorn , an acronym for the association of community organizations for reform now , is a nationwide group with headquarters in new orleans . its 1987 battle in east new york led to the creation of a separate but related entity , the mutual housing association of new york , to administer the apartments . since then , acorn claims to have enrolled about 20 , 000 dues paying members in new york to campaign for improvement in low income neighborhoods . many of the demonstrators who marched to mr . kest 's home said that they were upset that acorn had not found them apartments . the immediate catalyst for their march was a vote last week by the mutual housing association board to remove its executive director , nan e . wilson , whom the demonstrators supported . ms . wilson could not be reached for comment . "" i guess it goes with the territory , "" said mr . kest , who recently moved out of his post as the head organizer for new york to take a job with the national organization . "" we 've never held ourselves out to our members as a place to go to get an apartment . this organization is not a real_estate agency . there are thousands of people waiting for housing . that 's why we have to keep organizing . "" michael_cooper neighborhood report flatbush",has a topic of estate
"sometimes , if the house you want is n't for sale , you have to entice the people to move by offering something they want even more . your house , perhaps . for 15 years , camilla calhoun and aldo rafanelli lived in a wonderful old place on an acre and a half in millwood , in westchester_county , next to a nature preserve with 140 acres . it was definitely private . but , any time they wanted a magazine , or a quart of milk , they had to get in the car and go out . their older son , marco , was in college , and their younger one , alessandro , was about to go . suddenly , their house seemed way too big and way too much work . ''the kids were not going to be around to cut the grass , '' mr . rafanelli said . but finding a house in the suburbs is only marginally easier than finding an apartment in manhattan . prices have been escalating , and in the most sought after towns , there is n't much on the market . wanting to cut down on maintenance chores , they first tried condominiums , but ''we could n't find any lovable , or likable , condos , '' mr . rafanelli said . then one day ms . calhoun was driving around with a broker in the village of tarrytown and passed grove street , which she had always admired for its collection of architecturally arresting houses . she pointed to a particular one she liked , manageable in size but charmingly victorian , and the broker said that the people who lived there were looking for a larger place because they had three young children and were definitely too crowded . but they had been looking for quite a while and had n't yet put their own house up for sale . ms . calhoun asked to be notified if the house went on the market . soon after , she and her husband found a house they liked well enough , and they made a bid on it . they were n't in love with it , but choices were limited . ''you have to think of a market where they take you around and there 's nothing for sale , '' mr . rafanelli said . but ms . calhoun could n't get the other place out of her head , and so she asked the broker to suggest a trade their large house , which has the additional lure of being in the highly_regarded chappaqua school_district , at the market price , for the grove street house , at the market price . the broker for the other couple said she would come over immediately and assess the possibilities . she did , ms . calhoun said , and ' 'she said , this is definitely it . '' the next day , ms . calhoun and mr . rafanelli went to look at the house on grove street , and they , too , were sold . after a bit of negotiating , they worked out the sales , setting a price of 624 , 000 for the larger house and 349 , 000 for the smaller one . a month ago , ms . calhoun and mr . rafanelli moved into the house , which is perched high on a hill above the hudson_river . ''they left us wine , we left them wine , '' ms . calhoun said . ''neither family wanted to leave . '' like their old house , this one has four bedrooms , but all the rooms are much smaller . their distinguished furniture , much of it from mr . rafanelli 's family home in florence , more than fills the space . ''it looks like an antique shop more than a house , '' he said . but they are adjusting to the smaller space , and thinking of doing some renovations that will make the main floor more open and give the dining_room a river view . their new house is just 15 minutes from the old one , but it 's a completely different way of life . in the evening , they can stroll down the hill to the village shops , maybe sit_in a cafe and watch the people go by . at their old house , they could n't even go for walks in the evening , because there were no sidewalks . ''we like the village life , '' mr . rafanelli said . ''i can buy bagels without getting into the car . here , you have everything you need . '' it reminds him of home . ''the village is everything in italy , '' he said . ''there is no such thing as suburbia . '' ms . calhoun , an environmental consultant , calls it the ''anti sprawl choice . '' still , it 's a radical change , and there are reasons that people like sprawl . here , their neighbors are quite visible . and sometimes audible . ''the first morning we woke up , we heard somebody coughing , '' ms . calhoun said . ''we had never been in a neighborhood before . it 's a little more intimate . '' but they joke that the move will change their personalities for the better . ''i 'm going to be very calm and quiet , '' ms . calhoun said . in the old house , her husband said , ''you could scream at the kids all the time . '' but they obviously relish the large porch with the panoramic view of the river . on a recent evening , they were drinking some wine from villa antinori ( mr . rafanelli oversees its marketing and sales for north_america ) and preparing to grill some fish . since they moved in , they have only eaten indoors twice . now , they ca n't just walk out to their garden to pick some herbs , because they do n't have one . but there 's a good gourmet shop nearby , and mr . rafanelli says he does n't really miss the battle of the garden . ''i had a large vegetable garden to be defended every year against the wild , '' which included coyotes and turkeys , he said . talking and watching the river view , ms . calhoun suddenly looks away , seeing something out of the corner of her eye . then she realizes ''that was a bird . i did n't know if i would see any more birds . '' once they are more settled , they plan to take advantage of their new environment , more watery than woody . for her birthday in march , mr . rafanelli gave his wife a kayak . by the end of this month , they 'll be empty nesters , responsible only for their dog , d'oro . it 's a very different time for them . as mr . rafanelli puts it , ''camilla 's going to go kayaking , and i 'm going to go fly fishing , and no one 's going to cut the grass . ''",has a topic of estate
"the police arrested a brooklyn man yesterday in the stabbing of a 11 year old boy who was found on the roof of a dyker heights apartment building late saturday after apparently being abducted in an attempt to extort money from his parents , the authorities said . the man , arturo garcia , 26 , was being interviewed by detectives investigating the stabbing of the boy , roberto muniz , who was found wrapped in a blanket , his arms bound with duct_tape . the boy 's parents own the four story brown brick building , a walk up , and mr . garcia lived on the top floor . roberto , who had been stabbed 17 times , remained in critical but stable condition at lutheran medical center late yesterday . investigators said they had pieced together a rough outline of the events that led to the stabbing , and were trying to determine why the boy was apparently chosen as the victim in the extortion plot . they said that they were pursuing a report that mr . garcia knew roberto because the boy was part of a bicycle theft operation masterminded by mr . garcia and had threatened to disclose it . they said they were also looking into whether mr . garcia and roberto 's father , armando muniz , were involved in a dispute over money . ''it 's all under investigation , '' deputy chief judy j . mcginn , the head of brooklyn 's detective unit , said when asked about the report of the bicycle theft ring , which first appeared sunday in the new york post . the story of the boy 's stabbing unfolded in fits and starts throughout the day , and yielded only sparse details after roberto was found bleeding on the roof . the police said that officers responded to a call of a possible child abduction around 8 p.m . saturday at the apartment building in the 6700 block of 14th avenue . they said they were not certain who called the police . the family lives in windsor terrace . when officers arrived , they were told that the family , which also owns a convenience_store on the building 's first floor , had received two phone_calls that day . the first , those close to the investigation said , was a call for roberto asking him to come up to mr . garcia 's apartment . the second , the police said , was brief and simple robert had been abducted , the caller said before demanding money . the police did not disclose the ransom amount . after speaking with members of roberto 's family , the police began a routine search of building when , those close to the investigation said , officers came upon a drop of something that looked like blood . not far from that spot were several other bloodstains , which formed a trail that eventually led officers to the roof . there , they found roberto and called for an ambulance . as paramedics arrived , the police began cordoning off the street and residents of this otherwise quiet block streamed out of their homes . ''i was scared to death , '' said carol graziano , 55 , who was watching a television_program on frank_sinatra when she heard the commotion . ''i ran out and i saw them carrying somebody out on a stretcher , '' she said . ''it looked like a big person , but it was an 11 year old boy . '' the street was briefly illuminated by searchlights from a police helicopter that was aiding in the hunt for the suspect . police officers with dogs also swarmed on the scene . roberto , who was stabbed in the chest and abdomen , was taken to lutheran , where he underwent_surgery to repair internal injuries and close the stab wounds . he was being treated in the hospital 's intensive_care_unit , surrounded by his family . because he has been unconscious since he was found , the authorities said , investigators have not yet been able to interview him . jesse gehman , a hospital administrator , said that roberto had improved since he arrived at the hospital but that it was still too early to make a detailed prognosis . ''he 's progressing , '' mr . gehman said . mr . garcia was charged with first degree assault . he was arrested around 4 15 p.m . in bay_ridge , near ridge boulevard and bay_ridge parkway a little more than a mile from the building where robert was found by two officers who spotted him while on routine patrol . neighbors said that roberto is an active youngster who is fond of in line skating and bike riding and sometimes turns the apartment building his parents own into his own four story playground . ''with him , it was always going up and down , up and down , '' said perfecto diaz , 28 , who smiled as he recalled how roberto and friends would gambol along on the staircase . jesus mizhquiri , 10 , described roberto known to friends as beto as a playful youngster who delights in teasing buddies with nicknames like porcupine head . jesus said he and his playmates could not believe it when they learned of the stabbing . ''i felt really terrible , '' jesus said . ''i do n't know who would do this to him . '' parents said they , too , were concerned . ''starting today , i 'm not going to let him play out in the street , '' said deanna garcia , whose 7 year old son , nicholas gonzalez , is a friend of roberto 's . she is not related to mr . garcia . and such fears just were not reserved for neighborhood children . jaime canales who lives with his wife , lydia ortiz , in an apartment not far from mr . garcia 's , said ''i 'm scared . we do n't know who we 're living with . '' yesterday afternoon , things were quiet again on this largely latino block wedged between bay_ridge and bensonhurst . the chaos of the previous night was betrayed only by fluttering tendrils of yellow police tape that were twisted around trees and ''no parking'' signs . the narrow bodega run by mr . muniz , the armando and pablo deli and grocery , was closed . a graffiti scarred metal grate covered the front door . a rusted fire escape dominated the facade of the building , a teddy_bear affixed to a peeling railing on one landing . and all afternoon yesterday , it seemed that the eyes of practically everyone who passed by the store were inevitably drawn to the roof . ''this is a shame , '' ms . graziano said . ''my heart breaks for this boy . '' correction february 19 , 2002 , tuesday an article yesterday about the arrest of a brooklyn man in the stabbing of an 11 year old boy misstated the boy 's given name . he is alberto mu iz , not roberto .",has a topic of estate
"dowdy old dover , n.j. , is putting on a new face as it lifts itself from its postindustrial doldrums . in the past five years , it has spent more than 5 million in federal , state and county grants and local bonding funds to spruce up its downtown . drainage and parking have been improved , storefronts have been updated , brick pavers and victorian style street lamps have been installed and flowering pear trees have been planted all along blackwell street , the core of the downtown business_district . that district , which had been largely boarded up in the 1970 's and early 1980 's after nearby malls drained off customers and caused chain stores and supermarkets to close , now has practically no vacancies . the business mix including a number of large thrift shops , hispanic groceries , ethnic restaurants and antiques establishments reflects the town 's rich history and its current population mix . the compact 2 . 5 square_mile town is one of the most densely_packed municipalities in morris_county , which is largely rural . it is overwhelmingly blue_collar , 60 percent hispanic and 42 percent immigrant and has the lowest median_household_income in the county . its housing is equally split between owner occupied and rental . much of it is overcrowded , forcing the town 's two full time and two part time zoning officers to wage a constant struggle against illegal apartments , according to michael a . hantson , who serves as town engineer , planner and one of the zoning officers . ''it is a place where people can get a start in life , '' explained yvette aponte , president of the concerned hispanic political_action_committee , a nonprofit group that helps to register legal residents to vote and directs all immigrants many illegal to health , social and educational services . ''it 's natural that they come to stay with friends and relatives until they get settled . here , they can find work , the transportation is good and people are friendly and speak their language . after you 've been here just a short time , you ca n't walk down the street without meeting someone you know . it 's friendly and comfortable . '' dover was started in 1722 , when a john jackson built an iron forge along granny 's brook , a tributary of the rockaway river , which bisects the town . because of an abundance of iron_ore , which the indigenous leni lenape indians called ''heavy rock , '' jackson 's forge prospered and drew woodcutters and other iron forgers to the area . by the revolutionary_war , dover was an important industrial center . in 1826 , when the morris canal was built to take pennsylvania coal to new york city , it passed through dover , spurring an industrial boom along its banks . a generation later , in 1848 , the morris and essex railroad was built , with dover as its terminus , cementing the town 's role as a manufacturing and commercial center . when incorporated as a town in 1869 , dover had 3 , 300 residents . in the early 20th_century , blackwell street was a shopping and cultural mecca . among the landmark buildings that remain , the baker theater is now a catering facility , and the baker opera_house is now a private office and commercial building . the opera_house is listed on both the national and state registers of historic places , as is the whole blackwell street historic_district , covering 45 acres of the downtown , including much of blackwell street and surrounding areas . w . h . baker was a businessman who owned a dry goods store and a grocery in addition to the opera_house , whose entire exterior back wall still holds an early 20th_century advertisement for mail pouch tobacco . by 1960 , when dover started slipping into decline because of the disappearance of manufacturing jobs , the town had 15 , 000 residents . though the population has grown by only 3 , 000 since then , the housing market has come back strongly in recent years . most homes are sold within a month of being listed , according to john e . cramer , owner of cramer realty on north essex street . in mid june , 20 single family houses were for sale on the multiple_listing_service , roughly half the number normally listed , mr . cramer said . the sellers include empty nesters and the buyers are often young immigrant families , a trend that has increased school population from 2 , 600 to 3 , 300 in just three years . houses on the market in mid june ranged in price from 199 , 900 for a small three bedroom colonial to 549 , 000 for a large victorian . about half of the houses in town are prewar colonials on narrow 50 by 100 foot lots . according to mr . cramer , an older three bedroom colonial on richards avenue near the center of town recently went for 215 , 000 . selling for slightly more are 1950 's cape_cod style houses on streets off morris street . a four bedroom expanded cape recently went for 225 , 000 . most of the higher end newer houses are in a 15 unit development called scandia acres , built two years ago off livingston avenue . the highest priced house offered for sale there is a four bedroom , two and a half bath colonial listed at 349 , 900 . there are also about two dozen large victorian homes . all but a handful were long ago subdivided into multifamily_dwellings . two multifamily victorians are currently on the market , with a three family in a flood zone near the rockaway river advertised for 295 , 000 and a two family going to 299 , 000 . a single family five bedroom victorian in excellent condition on an oversized lot on sandford street recently sold for 260 , 000 . of about 150 condominium apartments , two thirds are on east blackwell street two blocks from the new jersey transit train_station . according to mr . cramer , a two bedroom condominium in the 69 unit dover park plaza sold in early june for 148 , 900 . the town also has a 76 unit co op apartment complex called fox hill , off fox hill road , where a one bedroom unit recently went for 65 , 000 . mr . cramer said there are currently no two bedroom units on the market , but they would normally fetch about 10 , 000 more . dover has roughly 500 apartments for rent , with about 10 percent of them in small two to four family houses or over stores in the business_district . the remainder are in a dozen apartment complexes the largest is the 180 unit dover gardens on highland avenue . according to mr . cramer , rents in small houses average about 1 , 100 a month for a two or three bedroom unit , and in apartment complexes , one bedroom units go for about 900 and two bedrooms for 1 , 050 . small apartments over stores in the downtown fetch about 700 . like many home buyers in dover , fernando rossy , who moved into a fox hill co op two years ago , grew up in town . his two bedroom unit cost 56 , 000 , and he believes it is currently worth close to 80 , 000 . mr . rossy said the friendliness and the rich ethnic mix kept him in dover . ''we have so many different ethnic groups here , '' he said , ''and we all get along and enjoy each other 's festivals . '' a recent study conducted by new jersey transit for the town of dover called the housing vacancy_rate ''quite tight'' and predicted that by the year 2010 dover would require at least 600 new housing units to keep pace with a projected 6 percent population_growth . the study was conducted as part of new jersey transit 's effort to help in the redevelopment of small cities along its routes . dover is the western terminus of the midtown direct rail service to penn_station . dover has been actively pursuing redevelopers and other businesses , with considerable success . it has been designated by the state as a small city and as a regional center , making it eligible for two major pools of grants . it also recruited a developer to construct an office complex on a former landfill site near the wharton line . a 50 acre tract of its old industrial zone on the western edge of town on richboynton road named for a former cast_iron stove manufacturing company was bought by another developer who has been sandblasting a century of grime and paint off the old brick factories , replacing broken windows and turning them into modern light industrial and warehousing space . every sunday from the week after easter until two weeks before christmas , much of blackwell street is closed to vehicular_traffic as the center of town is turned into a giant flea_market . this year , dover business college , a 70 student facility that had moved out of dover to parsippany five years ago , moved back into its old location at 15 east blackwell street . it offers courses in information_technology , business computer services and health_care services . ''we are business friendly and are looking for white knights , '' mayor newman said . the 3 , 300 student dover public_school system consists of three elementary schools for prekindergarten through sixth_grade , dover middle_school and the four year dover high_school , with 800 students . according to the school superintendent , charles p . delorenzo , 58 percent of the district 's students come from homes in which english is not the first language . mr . delorenzo said that one focus of the system is technology education . every classroom has internet_access , 200 laptop computers are being used in special programs in the middle_school and a special cisco_systems business network training program is being offered . ''by the time they leave middle_school , every student can word process and by the time they graduate from high_school , they can all use databases , spreadsheets and do powerpoint presentations , '' he said . the high_school offers seven advanced_placement classes . on last year 's college_board tests , dover students achieved combined verbal and mathematics scores of 931 , which is 80 points below the state average . forty nine percent of the graduates went on to two year colleges and 38 percent went to four year colleges . with more than 95 percent of the town developed , dover is lacking in open space . its largest public park is the five acre hurd park off west blackwell avenue . it is distinctive because it is bisected by a path lined with flowering cherry trees and a statue of a world_war i soldier , which serves as a memorial to war veterans . if you 're thinking of living in dover , n.j .",has a topic of estate
"q i have a co op apartment with an enclosed terrace . the enclosure is not a permanent structure in that it can be removed , leaving the terrace in its original condition . the coating on the surface of the roof above the terrace , the underside of the terrace above , has developed some cracks that are not considered potentially dangerous . there are two paragraphs in the proprietary_lease that relate to repairs . one provides that the co op is responsible for the entire building except for portions of apartments expressly stated to be the responsibility of the shareholder . the other seems to create an inference that the co op is responsible for the structural parts of the terrace . the board is taking the position that i am responsible for repairs to the terrace . is it right ? . . . sam parker , manhattan . a ''if the questioner 's complaint relates solely to surface cracks in the terrace roof , and not to structural_damage , the board is probably correct , '' said arthur i . weinstein , a manhattan lawyer who is also vice_president of the council of new york cooperatives and condominiums . mr . weinstein said that if the enclosed area is considered a room of the apartment , then the shareholder 's responsibility to maintain ceilings in the apartment would be applicable to the ceiling of the terrace as well . ''the co op would only be obligated to repair structural_damage inside the ceiling itself , '' he said . if the area is considered an outdoor terrace or balcony , mr . weinstein said , a standard provision in the proprietary_lease used in most co ops gives the co op the right to establish rules and regulations respecting the use of that area . ''in that case , the board can require a shareholder who wishes to use the space to maintain its exterior surfaces , '' he said , adding that while the co op has an obligation to maintain the safety and structural integrity of the building , it does not appear from the letter writer 's question that there is any safety hazard or structural_damage present that would require repair by the co op . fixing all terraces in a co op building q i am one of 20 shareholders in a 120 unit building whose apartments do not have terraces . the building is anticipating terrace repairs at a cost of approximately 5 , 000 per shareholder . our board has determined that the repairs fall into the category of general building maintenance and that the cost must be shared by all shareholders . can you help me understand how repairs of noncommon areas become the responsibility of all shareholders ? . . . ingrid finnan , the bronx . a aaron shmulewitz , a manhattan co op lawyer , said that while a precise response would depend on the specific language of the co op 's proprietary_lease , it is likely that the co op can pass along the cost of terrace repairs to all shareholders , including those whose apartments do not have a terrace . mr . shmulewitz explained that most proprietary leases obligate the co op to repair , maintain and replace all structural elements of the building . accordingly , he said , if the board has determined that it is necessary to repair terraces in the building to maintain the building 's structural integrity , it has the right and obligation to do so . in addition , mr . shmulewitz said , most proprietary leases require the co op to finance such repairs from the building 's maintenance revenues , cash reserves or , if necessary , an assessment on all shareholders . ''the fact that some shareholders may not enjoy the use of terraces is irrelevant to their obligation under the proprietary_lease to pay for maintenance and repairs in the building , '' mr . shmulewitz said . it is that principle , he said , that obligates first floor shareholders to contribute , for example , to the cost of the repair and maintenance of elevators and the roof , even though those may not be elements of the building they use or enjoy . q a",has a topic of estate
"along st . joseph 's avenue , once a respectable neighborhood of working_class families here , bare chested men now occupy the street corners like sentries on a watch . among the burned out buildings , the weeds where gardens thrived , rubbish on the streets and abandoned mattresses along the sidewalks , they snarl at passers by and while away the long , hot summer days . mulford gardens , built in 1937 as a model federally_subsidized apartment complex , is still the focal_point of this tough riverfront neighborhood except that over time , what was once a community 's proud centerpiece has become its shame . graffiti is everywhere , along with a robust crack_cocaine trade , the police say . in the beginning , the apartments were a first stop for hard working_families who would eventually save enough money to buy houses of their own . alexander g . votta , a yonkers resident who is now 80 , remembered it as a stylish place to live in the early 1940 's , and a good place to raise a family . but by the 1950 's , the economic landscape began to change as jobs dried up at the local carpet mill . when an elevator manufacturing plant also cut back production , some residents moved away in search of other opportunities . many who stayed behind went on the public dole . today , a few roses still grow outside the 125 year old sisters of charity convent next door to mulford gardens , although armed robberies , pit_bull fights and unrelenting poverty occlude most memories of a better past . it is a neighborhood where boys learn to be tough according to the unforgiving rules of the street , where bodega owners barely eke out a living and customers pay with food_stamps , where most mothers will not let young children play outside and the elderly are too fearful to leave home even to attend mass . according to census data for 1990 , 38 percent of the neighborhood 's population lives below the poverty level . ''it breaks my heart to see the problems here , '' said abraham santiago , a deacon for 25 years at st . joseph 's roman_catholic_church . for mr . santiago , it has become a neighborhood of lost souls . to the police , it is yonkers 's fourth precinct and one of the toughest areas in the city . capt . patrick j . mcmahon of the precinct called it ''ground zero . '' ''we see everything here , '' he said . from the perspective of determined municipal officials , the ashburton avenue corridor , as it is also known , has become a part of the city needing to be reclaimed . yonkers has applied for a 27 million federal housing_and_urban_development grant to rejuvenate the area . similar federal projects in poor neighborhoods are under way in detroit , hartford and newark , among other places . bruce harmon , a housing consultant for yonkers , who also worked in hartford and newark , explained that the recent round of federal grants is fueled by the idea of rebuilding down and out neighborhoods by teaching poor residents how to better themselves . ''instead of just looking at changing the housing , as it did in the past , the federal_government is now also looking at changing the lives of the people , '' he said . joe l . farmer , special assistant for housing and community redevelopment to mayor john d . spencer , explained that rather than raze blighted housing , the idea was to ''try and build things up again . '' mr . farmer is charged with carrying out the second phase of a federal court order , issued in the late 1980 's , to desegregate the state 's fourth largest city by creating 600 units of affordable_housing for prospective low and moderate income home buyers . part of the plan calls for creating 146 units of affordable_housing for minority groups on the city 's predominantly white east side , and that is under way . but the order also calls for improving the quality of life in southwest yonkers , where mostly minorities live . the area that includes mulford gardens is perhaps westchester 's poorest . known as united_states census track 5 , the median_household_income is 9 , 306 . it was once a predominantly irish_american neighborhood of one and two family houses with a ' 'smattering of polish , italians and germans , '' said lawrence christopher , a member of the housing authority from 1952 68 . now the residents are predominantly black and hispanic , with a third of the population speaking spanish , the census data show . of the 3 , 358 people older than 16 , fewer than half are employed . residents here like tony sepulveda , who owns the park_avenue deli worry most about safety issues , studies made by the city show . mr . sepulveda was robbed in june by two men with a sawed off shotgun . it was 10 30 at night , near closing time for the 44 year old immigrant from the dominican_republic , who rose that day at 4 to buy produce and supplies in the bronx for his spanish speaking customers . he knows most of his clientele well , even their first name , and that night he thought he recognized the voices of his masked assailants . ''before they left , one of them said , 'thanks , poppy , ' which is my nickname , '' mr . sepulveda recalled . ''they knew me . '' in quick succession the next morning , there were three more armed robberies in the neighborhood by an assailant with a sawed off shot gun , confounding the police who had cordoned off mulford gardens but failed to catch a suspect . lieut . salvatore j . dimaggio , commander of the yonkers police housing unit , said the apartment 's 70 exits and entrances and maze like layout render it a difficult area to patrol . the complex is equally attractive to drug dealers and buyers who come from other neighborhoods to do business here , he said . when they make arrests , the police often encounter ''a lot of resisting kicking and biting and slashing with a razor , '' said lieutenant dimaggio , who described it as a perilous beat for officers . although pets have been outlawed in the projects , the sound of dogfights continues . last year , the police raided a pit_bull and betting rink in the basement of mulford gardens that had been set up like a theater with video cameras . the police had to shoot the dogs , who turned on them as the raid began . in a park across the street from the complex , some residents described the neighborhood as dangerous , while others said it was safer than most in other cities . ''by day , it 's nice , '' said fran foltan , 52 , who was relaxing on a park bench . ''but by night , this place becomes a jungle . '' margarita santiago , 18 , a single mother who is expecting a baby in september , described the neighborhood as ''better than the bronx or brooklyn , even though i would still never let my kids go out and play alone . '' a 35 year old single father of six , frederick cardwell , said he had chosen to raise his children in mulford gardens where he grew up . he said strict parenting and an emphasis on values would see his family through any difficulties . a caddie at a scarsdale country club said that even if he could afford to leave the neighborhood , he would not . ''i like it here because it 's never boring , '' ernest asiedu , 20 , said . ''even if i had a better job , i 'd stay in the neighborhood , only in a house of my own . '' as it is for mr . asiedu , home ownership is a dream of many residents here , said peter smith , executive director of the 2 , 609 unit yonkers municipal housing authority . a focus of the grant would be on rebuilding mulford gardens and assisting some residents to buy units there . ''for most people in westchester , finding housing can be difficult , '' he said , ''but for poor people it is extremely difficult . '' mr . farmer , the special assistant to the mayor , said that under income guidelines established for the renewal project , a family of four earning up to 71 , 600 a year would be eligible for assistance in buying a home or apartment along the ashburton avenue corridor . under legislation pending in congress , 65 percent of families admitted to public_housing in a year could earn as much as 80 percent of the area 's median_income . the rest could earn no more than 30 percent of the median . mr . smith of the housing authority said those guidelines , which are aimed at helping the working_poor attain home ownership , could ' 'squeeze out the very poor . '' ''then where would they go ? '' he asked .",has a topic of estate
"brick and stone houses built in the late 19th_century fill the tree lined block , shaded by a canopy of leaves that meet overhead in an arboreal dance . sometimes television crews , among them cameras from hbo 's ''sex and the city , '' set up on the street , using its character as a backdrop for their stories . a plaque identifies the block as part of a historic_district , which protects the houses from demolition or inappropriate exterior alteration . the street feels like a block of greenwich_village , but through the trees , a glimpse of the looming citicorp skyscraper says otherwise . this is the hunters point historic_district , which is part of long_island_city , a section of queens more often associated with industrial buildings , struggling artists and gritty streets . these houses on 45th avenue are an anomaly , not only for long_island_city but for queens , where much of the housing was built in this century , not the last one . orestes gonzalez , an architect who works in manhattan , found the block , between 21st and 23d streets , 10 years ago when he took the subway to long_island_city . ''i came to a warehouse sale here , '' he says , ''and wandered into this beautiful street quite by accident . '' he saw a for rent sign and was so taken by the street that he immediately inquired about the apartment and put down a deposit . ''four weeks later , '' he says , ''i was living in a duplex apartment with a garden , '' having moved with no regrets out of a tiny two bedroom apartment in hell 's kitchen , on 51st street near ninth_avenue in manhattan . although most of his friends are in manhattan , he found he liked the separation between work and home . at the end of the day , he says , ''there 's something to be said for leaving manhattan behind . '' and he likes the less dense urban feeling . ''i 've traveled through italy and spain , '' he says . ''this is like living in a large european city , '' where people lean out of their windows to call hello , where women hang their laundry out of doors . ''manhattan , '' he says , ''is too extreme , too concentrated . '' so the minute a house came up for sale on the street , seven years ago , he bought it , for 145 , 000 . ''this was a semi abandoned house , '' he says , giving a tour of a place now filled with light , paintings and comfortable furniture . then , three years ago , mr . gonzalez , a 42 year old native of cuba who grew up in florida , bought two adjacent houses , from a neighbor 's estate . he continued to live in the first and rent the others , combining the three backyards into a magical space with a wall of bamboo , a pumpkin vine that emerged from last year 's halloween decoration , and a pergola covered in morning glories and honeysuckle . then , a few months ago , he extended his reach again , buying a house down the street for 370 , 000 that he is now renovating . he plans to rent out both duplexes of the four story westchester stone building for one year . then , although he is happy in his current place , he expects to move to the new house because , he says , its grander architecture appeals to him more . he expects that renovations on his new house will cost about 90 , 000 , bringing his total to 460 , 000 , the price of a very nice one bedroom apartment on a similar street in greenwich_village . the renovations are being done by budimex , a contractor that has worked a lot on the street . ''i think it 's a bargain , '' he says , ''but to people in queens , it 's a lot of money . '' although he heard about the new house from someone on the street , which is how , he says , most real_estate news is conveyed on his block , he ended up buying it through a queens broker , charles sciberras of remax today . when he moves , he will photograph the wall in his kitchen that lists all of his friends' phone numbers and transfer the numbers to the new place . he plans to decorate the duplex with objects and furniture from his travels , including tiles from portugal and armoires from mexico . although he can take the e train to manhattan , one stop away , he finds that he needs a car for restaurants and grocery_stores , which are not plentiful in long_island_city . ''i think what we need here is more population , so we can get the variety of services , '' he says . ''we do n't have fine restaurants , or a dean deluca . '' he makes the five minute drive to astoria for greek food , and travels to flushing for korean restaurants . friends from manhattan come to visit , of course . and invariably , he says , when they open the door of his second floor clothes closet , once a bedroom , they say it is larger than their studio apartments .",has a topic of estate
"since 1964 , fanny schlomowitz , an 84 year old holocaust survivor , has been kept from poverty by the monthly payments she receives from the german_government to make up for her mistreatment by nazis in world_war_ii . but now , those same payments are making it difficult for her to afford the federally_subsidized one bedroom apartment where she has lived for the last 12 years in the kivel campus of care , a sunny , well tended project for the elderly where she helps take telephone messages and puts together the daily bulletin_board announcements . "" the manager came last spring and told me she knew i was a holocaust survivor , and she knew i was getting money every month , and she said that counted as income , so she raised my rent from 63 a month to 227 , "" mrs . schlomowitz said . "" that leaves me very tight . "" most residents at kivel , one of hundreds of projects for the elderly that are subsidized by the department of housing_and_urban_development , pay rent of 30 percent of their income , which often consists entirely of social_security payments . and under the department 's guidelines , those with high medical expenses pay even less . beating by nazis until this spring , mrs . schlomowitz paid 63 a month for her apartment , a figure determined on the basis of her 370 monthly social_security payment , and her large medical bills . but mrs . schlomowitz also receives about 500 a month from the german_government in reparation for the headaches and dizziness she has suffered ever since a wartime beating in the jewish ghetto in budapest . at the time , she was eight months pregnant when she was kicked in the head by nazis so severely that she was unconscious for two days . "" i did n't earn this money , i suffered for it , "" mrs . schlomowitz said . "" and i never reported it to h.u.d . because i have a letter from my lawyer saying it is not income . the internal_revenue_service ca n't touch it , so how can h.u.d. ? it 's not right . "" senator dennis_deconcini , an arizona democrat to whom mrs . schlomowitz wrote for help this month , agreed . "" the department 's current interpretation is grossly unfair to those who suffered through the most appalling event in modern history , "" mr . deconcini wrote in a letter last week to housing secretary henry g . cisneros . "" these gifts by the federal republic of germany are merely an attempt to atone for an unforgivable horror . "" in another letter sent today , mr . deconcini cited a 1984 ruling by the federal court of appeals for the ninth_circuit that holocaust survivors' reparation payments not be counted as income for determining welfare eligibility . mr . deconcini 's press_secretary , robert maynes , noted that japanese americans who receive reparation payments from the united_states_government for internment during world_war_ii do not have that money included in computing their subsidized rent . federal law is cited a spokesman for the housing department in washington said that although german war reparation payments were not counted in deciding residents' eligibility for subsidized_housing , federal law required that such payments be counted as assets in setting rent . any change , he said , would have to be made by congress , not by the department . "" h . u.d . is the only agency that counts this money as income , and it 's something we need to change , "" mr . maynes said . "" it 's kind of a nonsensical bureaucratic approach to say you do n't count the money for eligibility but you will count it as income . the i.r.s . does n't tax this money . h.h.s . does n't count it as assets . h.u.d . should n't count it , either . "" nonetheless , since june , mrs . schlomowitz has been paying the higher rent of 227 a month 100 of which is to pay back the government for the years in which she paid the lower rent . "" i really ca n't afford this , "" she said . "" i pay every three months more than 800 for health_insurance and nursing home_insurance . i need food and medicine and special shoes because my foot is not so good . and i do n't want to take charity from anyone . but like this , i ca n't buy anything . "" rebecca flanagan , the manager of the local office of the federal department , said she was seeking guidance from agency officials in washington . "" we have sent a fax to washington , explaining the situation and asking for further directions , but we have n't got an answer yet , "" she said .",has a topic of estate
"the first house built by habitat for humanity in teaneck may also be the town 's last . the georgia based nonprofit_organization , which builds housing and provides low interest mortgages for poor families , is converting an abandoned fire station on morningside terrace into a two family home . volunteers also want to build a house on a vacant lot on tilden avenue , but the township council has rejected the plan . tilden avenue residents complained about the building plans , saying the lot was too small for the house that volunteers want to build . they also said the construction project would cause congestion in a neighborhood of mostly single family homes . habitat for humanity , which was started in 1976 , has built more than 10 , 000 homes nationwide , including more than 50 in some of paterson 's oldest and poorest neighborhoods . the project on morningside terrace in teaneck is scheduled to be finished by march . margaret cook , president of bergen_county habitat for humanity , expressed concern last week that the situation in teaneck might make it difficult for the group to establish itself in the county . abby goodnough in brief",has a topic of estate
"addressing rising anger about the cost of owning a home in florida and the recent troubles of the state 's real_estate industry the legislature on thursday approved a plan for a property_tax cut it said would be the largest in state history . the plan was championed by gov . charlie crist , a republican who has vowed to make taxes ' 'drop like a rock , '' and marco rubio , the republican speaker of the house of representatives , who has made property_tax relief the main goal of his first year in power . the cost of the package was initially estimated to be 31 . 6 billion over five years , but a last minute change pushed by republicans in the senate may have blunted the savings by as much as 7 billion . even so , many local_governments that levy property_taxes said it would ravage their budgets , potentially forcing layoffs of police officers and firefighters and deep cuts to public schools . some counties and cities have raised the possibility of a legal challenge . florida does not have an income_tax , and lawmakers did mention imposing one to make up for lost property_tax revenue . republican leaders had hoped to substantially decrease or even eliminate property_taxes in exchange for a sharp sales_tax increase . but that idea proved too controversial . the tax reduction is a two part plan . the first piece would require cities and counties to roll back rates this fall and impose a cap on future spending that local government bodies could override only with a supermajority . the second , more contentious piece of the plan is a proposed constitutional_amendment for a ' 'supersized'' homestead exemption . it would shield from taxes 75 percent of the first 200 , 000 in assessed property value , and 15 percent of the next 300 , 000 . should the amendment pass , homeowners could choose instead to keep their current exemption of 25 , 000 a year and a cap that prevents assessments from rising more than 3 percent a year for a primary residence . those measures , in place since 1995 , have kept property_taxes low for longtime homeowners but not for part time residents whose primary homes are elsewhere , or for business owners or recent home buyers . they are the ones who have clamored for change . the plan would save property taxpayers an average of 174 this year , and , if voters approve the constitutional_amendment , 948 in 2008 , lawmakers said . ''i am so impressed , '' mr . crist said in a news conference after the vote , indicating he would approve the first piece . because the second piece requires a public referendum , it does not need mr . crist 's approval perhaps providing him political cover if it proves unpopular down the road . the vote on the property_tax amendment is scheduled for jan . 29 , the same day as florida 's presidential_primaries . if approved , it would take effect in november , the start of the next budget year for local_governments . but counties , cities , teachers unions and democrats who oppose the plan say they will strive to persuade voters to reject the proposed amendment . it would reduce public_school spending by as much as a_7 . 2 billion . ''i think we could really devastate education , '' said representative shelley vana , a democrat from lantana and former teacher . ''i think we are going off the deep end . '' but mr . rubio and other architects of the plan said that somehow they would not provide details the legislature would bridge the difference . mr . crist has repeatedly said property_tax cuts would not force layoffs , but local government and union officials insist otherwise . ''they are huge cuts , the largest we 've ever seen , '' said andy ford , president of the florida education association , predicting that the cuts would block school_districts from hiring new employees , from teachers to bus drivers to cafeteria workers . ''it will affect absolutely everybody . '' the real_estate and building industries , which are suffering from the housing slump , lobbied relentlessly for the cuts . the revenue that florida collects from real_estate transactions dipped 25 percent over the last year , causing overall tax revenue to fall for the first time since the 1970s . this year the legislature approved a series of measures to reduce home_insurance rates , which have soared as major hurricanes have struck in recent years . but many homeowners are finding the savings to be much smaller than they had hoped .",has a topic of estate
"when louise orkin , 60 , a sculptor , and her husband , leonard , 63 , a lawyer in manhattan , decided to leave their seven room central_park west apartment and buy a big house in the park_slope section of brooklyn , she said her friends were more than incredulous . "" they were horrified , "" she said , with a laugh . "" it was bizarre . i ca n't really explain it . it 's not like i wanted to live in brooklyn . but we like houses , and we like outdoor space . we had a boring new york apartment . it was n't like a mansion , it was a regular apartment , laid out in an ordinary way . "" the orkins were both long islanders they had lived on the south shore and had moved to their large house in oyster bay cove in 1968 . when they moved to oyster bay cove , she explained , they had considered moving to the city , "" but we did n't want to be sending all of our children to private schools . "" but eight years ago , when their three children were grown up all three are in their 30 's , all three are married and all three have one child each louise and leonard orkin left their house on long_island and moved to the white_house , at 86th and central_park west . "" that apartment was great and we made a lot of friends , "" said mrs . orkin . "" and i always felt there was something more exciting out there . "" she started looking two years ago . mrs . orkin has been a textile weaver , then a photographer ( she is not related to the noted photographer ruth orkin ) and is now a sculptor of cloth figures . so perhaps not surprisingly , she looked at soho lofts first , where the sculptors hang out , then at the flatiron_district , where the photographers are camped . "" but leonard did n't really like the lofts , "" she explained . "" all that open space , the graffiti outside and no doorman . of course , we do n't have a doorman here , either , but that 's different . "" i gave up that idea , "" she said wryly . "" after all , i did n't want it enough to break up the marriage . "" then her son moved to park slope . "" what did i know of brooklyn , "" she said . "" nothing . but my son 's talking about it sort of softened me up , and then i started reading all these articles about how the artists were moving there . "" one day last spring , her son telephoned her a common occurrence judging from a recent visit . "" he said there was an open house for a place on montgomery place and it sounded fabulous and would i come over , "" she recalled . "" well , i had a lot to do and it seemed like a long way to go i told him , 'do n't be ridiculous' "" she said . "" but i told him to go check it out . an hour later , he called and said it was the most beautiful house he 'd ever seen . "" so the orkins traipsed over to park slope the next day . "" and that was it , "" she said , as she led the way from the huge front parlor with the fireplace and the unusual marbled blue cornice into the dining_room behind it . the four story house on the one block side street just off prospect_park was in great shape they paid 700 , 000 but they wanted to decorate . they painted the whole interior and scraped the floor . the price they paid for the house seems high , but the broker , anna hamlin of william b . may , said that the condition of the one family brownstone and its location justified the price . in any case , mrs . orkin does n't care . "" we sold our new york apartment for 900 , 000 , so 700 , 000 for a whole beautiful house seemed cheap , "" she said , with a shrug . "" maybe we could 've gotten it for 10 , 000 or 15 , 000 less , but what 's done is done . """,has a topic of estate
"lead five years ago peter schorr made a tactical mistake at a new york city board of estimate hearing . assured by a clerk that the board would adjourn before it reached his request to demap a paper street in the college point section of queens , he left the chamber prematurely . five years ago peter schorr made a tactical mistake at a new york city board of estimate hearing . assured by a clerk that the board would adjourn before it reached his request to demap a paper street in the college point section of queens , he left the chamber prematurely . at 2 a.m . the matter came up . the only speaker was an opponent , trying to upset mr . schorr 's plan to build six two family houses on a 35 , 000 square_foot lot that included the unbuilt street , now a well worn footpath . the city planning commission was in favor of the demapping . but community board 7 in college point opposed it . the board of estimate voted against the proposal . now the 34 year old developer , the son of a partner in schorr development corporation , which is building town houses on college point 's east_river waterfront in a development called riverview , is back with his proposal in a new forum . his is the first land use matter to arrive before the city_council under the new ''borough_president 's appeal'' procedure of the revised city charter . one case will prove nothing . but in the longer_term the handling of this new procedure by the borough presidents and the council may well determine whether it is the achilles heel of charter revision . when charter revisers debated it last year they called it the ''triple no . '' critics warned that it would weaken the department of city planning and leave parochial interests with too much power to thwart the use or reuse of private land for residential and commercial growth . at the very least , it seems likely to cause many property owners to hold back in the pursuit of land development plans . a strong market may awaken interest despite any institutional constraints , but in a weak or uncertain one , the new hurdles are likely to have an additional inhibitory effect . under the charter revision , certain types of land use actions go automatically to the city_council once they are acted on by the city planning commission . these are text or map changes in the city 's zoning law , changes in urban_renewal plans and all comprehensive land use proposals . but the revised charter does more than provide for council decisions on these essentially legislative matters . if a community board and then the borough_president vote ''no'' on a specific street mapping or demapping proposal , or an application for a special permit under the zoning law , and the city planning commission votes in favor if it , the borough_president can appeal for a city_council review . the appeal is spoken of as the third ''no . '' there is a separate but complementary procedure called the city_council call up , by which a majority_vote by the city_council can bring any land use matter before the council for a review . the charter revisers disagreed about how widely these procedures would be used or how significant their mere existence would be . the number of cases to have reached the stage so far in which a council call up is possible is 15 , council aides say . so far none has been called up . peter f . vallone , the queens democrat who is the council speaker , has issued a memo urging council members to use the procedure with restraint . but borough presidents may come to feel that the use , or threat of use , of the appeal may strengthen their role in influencing property owners' land use planning . ruth w . messinger , the manhattan borough_president , wrote to manhattan 's community boards earlier this year advising them to vote ''no , unless . . . '' on land use applications that come before them , rather than vote yes with reservations , a customary approach in the past . that would preserve her right of appeal to the council if the planning commission voted ''yes . '' borough_president claire_shulman of queens was the chief advocate of the borough_president 's appeal system before the commission on charter revision . robert f . wagner jr . , a former chairman of the city planning commission , is known to have been influential in persuading the charter revision commission to accept it as a means of winning majority support for the new land use review system in the revised charter . the mayor has a veto_power , but the council is now the final body for legislative review . in the college point case , the newly constituted 13 member city planning commission voted_unanimously in favor of the demapping after the two ''no 's . '' at the time of the vote , the queens borough_president 's appointee to the commission , joel miele , was not present . deputy borough_president peter magnani and fred gross , director of planning and development in the borough_president 's office , appeared before the zoning , planning and land use subcommittee of the council 's land use committee to argue against the demapping . the subcommittee is chaired by councilman robert j . dryfoos , democrat of manhattan . the queens officials say that demapping a 60 foot road would effectively cut off the best public_access to city owned land along the waterfront . they call for a ''comprehensive waterfront plan'' before the road is demapped . the planning commission 's position is that the demapping would not affect the city 's waterfront planning in northern queens . the borough_president also says that the demapping would leave some privately_owned lots with no legal access . josephine mercurio , chairwoman of the community board 7 subcommittee that studied the issue , said that the area has suffered from overbuilding . ''we do n't have enough schools , or bus service , or a hospital or a clinic , '' she said . ''we do n't even have a movie_theater . '' mr . schorr assembled four plots for his site in the shape of a t with a long stem . the stem would remain as an undeveloped land amid private houses . the tip , which back up to schorr development 's offices , would be built with six houses along the demapped sixth avenue from 129th street to 131st street . a pedestrian strip would be preserved for access to the water , 300 feet away . since the mid 80 's , schorr development has built 300 town houses at riverview at college point , the villas of riverview and silverpointe estate . on part of its 40 acre tract it plans to build 200 more units . currently , the enclave at riverview has 56 town house units priced from 190 , 000 to 230 , 000 on the market . mr . schorr , whose father and uncles are principals in schorr development , says he has pursued his silverpoint commons plan independent of his relatives in his first real_estate venture . he has worked as a manager of the construction company that built the schorr development projects . the charter gives the city_council 50 days to act on a land use matter . it can accept , reject or modify a plan on recommendation of the land use committee . if it wants to modify a proposal , the plan goes back to the city planning commission for to determine whether a new land use review is required . if it is , the commission could launch the entire land use review all over again . but the commission can also send the plan back to the council for a direct vote without the modification . the land use committee has a professional staff of 27 , led by gail benjamin , former director of the division of environmental impact in the department_of_environmental_protection . it briefs council members after making site inspections and keeps in touch with staff people in the department of city planning . in the short term , it may not be heavily tested . because of a slow market and hesitancy about the new procedures , the application pipeline is light . the board of estimate , before it went out of business in august , completed action on several major development proposals . in the long term , the best test may be the volume of actions filed , compared with the volume filed in past years . a significant slippage would suggest that the charter revision has had a chilling_effect on development .",has a topic of estate
"was it a live work space she needed , a smaller work studio or a cheaper apartment ? beck hickey was n't quite sure , but she knew she needed to downsize . excited at the growth of her business handbags made from skateboards ms . hickey found herself split between three locations , spending way too much on rent . ''high hopes , '' ms . hickey said . ''i took on more than i should have , too soon . '' she had her 2 , 300 apartment in the east_village , her 1 , 500 work studio in the garment_district and her parents' garage in holbrook , on long_island , which she used as a woodworking shop . that cost her nothing but it was 80 minutes away by train , and 26 round trip . ms . hickey , who rarely uses her given name , rebecca , studied design at syracuse_university . after the terrorist attacks of sept . 11 , 2001 , she was laid off from her job at an advertising_agency whose main client was united_airlines . she then earned her keep by freelancing , baby sitting , waiting on tables and making gifts including handbags from upholstery fabric . one day , browsing through the bags in the prada store on broadway in soho , with its curving ''big wave'' design that reminded her of a skate ramp , she had a brainstorm why not make handbags out of used skateboards ? so she did . people admired them , word got out , and she began to sell her sk8bags online at beckycity . com , as well as at boutiques . after teen magazine wrote that the pop star ashlee simpson loved her sk8bag , orders streamed in from teenage_girls . ms . hickey , now 36 , loved her one bedroom apartment on avenue c in the east_village , where she had lived for about three years . ''i was convinced i was never moving out of that apartment , ever , '' she said . but the dining_area , which she used as her office , was filling up with paperwork and , sometimes , bolts of satin and stacks of skateboards . her work studio in the garment_district , and the 3 , 000 rent , was shared with a wedding dress designer , but it did n't allow for any dirty work cutting and sanding so she kept those operations in her parents' garage . it was far from ideal cold in winter and hot in summer . ''and my mom was complaining she could n't put the car in the garage anymore , '' ms . hickey said . a year ago , her parents announced that they would be retiring to florida . her garage workshop , where she had a workbench and a table saw , would vanish . she had to make a move . she figured she would pare her expenses and eliminate her constant running around by consolidating . but there were n't many live work spaces suitable for her equipment . ''it was n't as though i could sneak a home_office in , '' she said . the first plausible place was on south fifth street in williamsburg , brooklyn . it was nicely divided , with a storefront workspace in front and living quarters in back . though it was on a ''weird dead end'' with little foot traffic , the place was ''insanely cheap , '' at 1 , 500 a month for 1 , 200 square_feet . but it was run down and had little natural light . ''i was afraid of spending days on end there , '' ms . hickey said . ''sometimes when i am working , i do n't go outside . i could be in this cave and it was sort of depressing . '' she took her father , steve hickey , to whom she spoke daily about her hunt , to see the place . ''it really worried me , '' he said . he envisioned her ''coming home at 10 or 11 at night , and there was nobody around , '' except maybe for transients beneath the williamsburg bridge , he said . she soon found a 1 , 700 square_foot place in washington_heights , with 12 foot_ceilings and a wall of north facing windows , renting for 2 , 800 . the raw space was being fully renovated . ''i said instantly i was taking the place , '' ms . hickey said . but the agent was discouraging , telling her the landlord would n't want a self employed tenant . she begged and pleaded , offering her parents as guarantors , but the agent was adamant . so she figured she would hunt for a cheaper work studio and a cheaper apartment . but nothing was quite right . she found a work space in williamsburg , but she would be paying 800 a month to share it with two other people . ''i got sucked into apartment hunting thinking there 's something better out there , '' she said . ''i would get swayed by seeing a cheaper apartment that sounded great , and i would look at it and see it was not that great . '' a nice looking rental building was going up on east second street , but when ms . hickey visited , she found that studio apartments started at around 2 , 000 . ''i realized that to stay in the east_village and find a place as nice as mine was impossible , '' she said . meanwhile , she kept encountering the listing for the washington_heights place . ''i was bitter , i was sad , i was definitely still looking , but the fact i kept seeing this place was derailing my hunt , '' she said . she assumed that nobody else was interested , so she was now a more appealing tenant . but her messages to the agent went unanswered . fed up , she went to the building to ask the construction workers who their employer was . she tracked down the owner 's phone_number . but it took weeks of calling before he answered the phone . ''i said , 'i am an artist looking for a live work space , ' and he said , 'this is perfect for you . ' he was not the least put off by the fact i was self employed , '' ms . hickey said . only later did she find out the agent had never passed her application along . the renovations took longer than expected , and the certificate of occupancy was delayed . ''becky was complaining so much and i did n't want to hear her complaining , '' said her father , who works in the construction field . he helped her navigate through the department of buildings , and she prodded the landlord . finally , in late fall , the building received its certificate of occupancy . ms . hickey , with all her skateboards and equipment , moved into her new apartment , which occupies the entire top floor . her friends say she has the nicest apartment they have seen in new york . it has one gigantic room , though the landlord added a wall to partition off the work space . there 's even a washer and dryer . ''it has improved my life and has made my bag business much less stressful , '' ms . hickey said . she can work around the clock if she likes . after dinner , ''i can make a few bags , drink a glass of wine , make more bags , '' she said . the hunt e mail thehunt nytimes . com",has a topic of estate
"lead rene anselmo , like many residents here , is a man of wealth and taste . he drives a bentley . he modeled his mansion on the petit trianon in versailles . he has donated money to plant thousands of daffodils and tulips along local roads . he even replaced the chain link barricade at a nearby elementary_school with a rail fence more in keeping with this town 's country flavor . rene anselmo , like many residents here , is a man of wealth and taste . he drives a bentley . he modeled his mansion on the petit trianon in versailles . he has donated money to plant thousands of daffodils and tulips along local roads . he even replaced the chain link barricade at a nearby elementary_school with a rail fence more in keeping with this town 's country flavor . ''it looked like a reform school , '' he said . lately , though , mr . anselmo 's beautification efforts have turned ugly . this month he was arrested on charges of spray painting a realtor 's for sale sign in front of a home on north street , the tree shaded thoroughfare where he lives . he has admitted to vandalizing eight or nine other signs . and he has threatened further attacks . ''they are trashy , cheap and repulsive , '' said mr . anselmo , the 64 year old owner of a television satellite company . ''first , it was real_estate signs now it 's building contractors , roofers , painters , plumbers . the newest craze is burglar alarms 'security by westec . ' ''the signs are advertisements . it 's an overcommercialization of the neighborhood . '' in a year when greenwich is celebrating its 350th anniversary , mr . anselmo 's arrest has pushed the unlikely issue of sign pollution to the top of the political agenda . though many residents are aghast at mr . anselmo 's tactics , they have applauded his goal of eliminating the signs or making them as esthetically pleasing as possible . even some real_estate agents have allied themselves with mr . anselmo , who has received many letters of support . ''bravo for your courageous actions , '' wrote dolores d . deck of realtech . ''we share your outrage , '' wrote sally o'brien of sally o'brien and associates . bobbie pickering shannon of douglas_elliman pickering associates recently placed an advertisement in greenwich magazine that criticized the use of for sale signs , which were rarely seen here until the mid 1980 's . her firm uses them only ''under duress'' and when an owner insists . ''it 's an ecological consideration , '' she said . town officials , meanwhile , are developing rules for signs that may allay esthetic concerns a public hearing is scheduled for aug . 13 . as for mr . anselmo , who is charged with third degree criminal mischief , his trial is set for aug . 24 in state superior court in stamford . the signs he painted have been replaced . ''i should have used a chainsaw , '' he said . a landmark is lost greenwich may be best known to outsiders for its mansions , but for many longtime residents few structures were as much of a landmark as the 74 year old cos cob elementary_school , which was gutted by fire sunday morning . ''it was a center of the community , '' said the superintendent of schools , john a . whritner . some 300 students in kindergarten through fourth_grade were enrolled at the two story red brick school , which was adorned with a cupola and a clock_tower and sat on a hillside . the school , which was almost closed several years ago , was about to be renovated to accommodate the growing number of children in the area . education officials will meet this week to determine where the school 's pupils will attend classes this fall . ''it 's a shame , '' said susan tritschler , director of the historical society of the town of greenwich . ''it was just such a charming building . '' opie short circuits tower one of the many celebrities who live in this fairfield_county town of 60 , 000 is ron howard , the film_director whom successive television generations remember as opie on ''the andy griffith show'' and ritchie on ''happy days . '' mr . howard and his wife , cheryl , have led what appears to be a successful fight to relocate a radio transmission tower that was to be placed on the property of a closed elementary_school north of the merritt parkway , the parkway school . hundreds of residents opposed the 180 foot microwave tower , which is needed to replace the town 's antiquated police and fire radio system . the howards' organization was called hurtz , humans urging the relocation of towers . they flew balloons over the proposed site to show the visual intrusion . they also warned residents that the health hazards of electronic and magnetic_fields , particularly for children , are not known . some studies have suggested that electromagnetic fields can cause cancer and other illnesses , though no connection has been proved . last month , after several meetings with town officials and the consideration of many locations , a new site was selected in a rural area that neither blights the horizon nor threatens nearby neighbors . the choice is awaiting approval by the town 's board of selectmen . mrs . howard credited the movement to a community spirit exemplified by greenwich 's 229 member representative town meeting , a governing body that meets annually and is one of the largest of its kind . ''in greenwich , you have more of a voice than elsewhere , '' she said . ''people get involved and demand more . '' solomonic sod decision greensward is a word seldom heard except in places like greenwich . it is the rectangle of neatly trimmed grass upon which various leisurely lawn sports are played . the greenwich greensward was constructed by the works progress administration in bruce park , and for decades it was the domain of lawn bowlers , a group of elderly men and women , dressed in white , gently rolling wooden balls . ''retired men have found that it 's the best exercise you can do , '' said one lawn bowler , bert schinto , 83 . ''i lose six or seven pounds each summer . '' two summers ago , though , a hubbub erupted when croquet players arrived , and , without asking , began using the greensward for their own games , puncturing the pristine lawn with their wickets . eventually , the board of selectmen was asked to mediate the dispute . the resulting settlement was a classic compromise the greensward was divided into two sections , the croquet players promised to use special wickets to ease the damage to the grass , the equipment storage shed will be shared and priority is given to whichever sport is holding a tournament . ''it has worked out well , '' said the town 's director of parks and recreation , francis h . keegan . ''most people here are reasonable people . ''",has a topic of estate
"lead pressing to close the 1987 session of the state legislature , lawmakers worked through the night and into this morning , reaching agreement on a renewal of new york city 's j 51 real_estate tax abatement program , state economic_development initiatives and a range of other outstanding issues . pressing to close the 1987 session of the state legislature , lawmakers worked through the night and into this morning , reaching agreement on a renewal of new york city 's j 51 real_estate tax abatement program , state economic_development initiatives and a range of other outstanding issues . negotiations remained open on disagreements over new york city corporate taxes and stricter penalties for crimes involving racial or other forms of bias . but as the time for new compromises slipped away , the prospects for agreement on several key issues , including extension of mitchell_lama housing regulations , a court merger package and hospital cost reimbursements , appeared remote . lawmakers also considered final legislation on a number of issues that were resolved earlier this week , includ ing state corporate taxes , new york city personal income taxes and the date for new york 's 1988 presidential primary . aides to the assembly speaker , mel_miller , said he had warned assembly democrats on friday that they would work as late as necessary to complete the remaining business of the session . across the capitol , the leader of the senate 's republican majority , warren m . anderson , appeared outside his office wearing his traditional end of session sports jacket an eye jarring collage of colors apparently calculated to send his colleagues running for the doors . chief among the agreements reached in the marathon session was an extension of the j 51 tax incentive program , which offers real_property tax_exemption and abatements to developers who rehabilitate or improve existing apartment buildings . tenant and developer support efforts to extend the j 51 program had been supported by developers , and by many tenant advocates who saw it as an important tool for alleviating the city 's shortage of affordable_housing . tenant groups , however , had lobbied for safeguards in the law to insure that it would be used to create low and moderate income housing , and not to develop luxury apartments . under an agreement reached friday , the j 51 program would be extended by three years , through 1991 . in some parts of the city , the legislation also would lift a cap that now limits the program to apartments whose assessed value , after rehabilitation , is 38 , 000 or less . the cap , which had been strongly supported by tenant groups , would be retained for buildings south of 110th_street in manhattan . it would no longer apply elsewhere in the city . the agreement would extend the provisions of the j 51 program regarding rental buildings that are converted to cooperatives and condominiums . under current regulations , those conversions are eligible only if renova tions are completed within three years of the filing of the ''black book , '' when the sales period begins . the new bill would date the three year time period from the closing date of the first apart ments or shares sold , giving owners an additional one and a half to two years to complete the renovations . after that period , the j 51 benefits would apply only to apartments with an assessed value , prior to improvements , of less than 25 , 000 , and abatements would be limited to a maximum of 2 , 500 per apartment in any tax year . the legislation would expand the j 51 program to include improvements to publicly supported mitchell_lama housing developments , provided the rehabilitations involved are not financed with government assistance . other items under consideration included these legislative salaries . legislative leaders confirmed their plans to put through a 33 percent increase in the base salary for state legislators , raising it to 57 , 500 from the current 43 , 000 . the salary bill , which was still under final discussion early this morning , would also raise the salary for state agency commissioners by 5 percent , bringing salaries of the highest ranking commissioners to 93 , 700 from 89 , 250 . the salary for chief judge sol wachtler would rise to 120 , 000 from 95 , 000 , and the salaries for state supreme_court justices would rise to 95 , 000 from the current 82 , 000 . hospital reimbursement . talks between governor cuomo and legislative leaders on a formula for reimbursing hospital costs appeared to reach an impasse that could set the stage for a confrontation . the formula determines the way in which hospitals are reimbursed for care of patients covered by medicaid , blue cross and commercial insurers . during negotiations , aides to mr . cuomo asserted that a reimbursement bill approved by both houses of the legislature would be inflationary and would reward inefficient , high cost hos pitals . in the absence of an agreement , the governor would have to decide whether to veto that bill and order state health officials to take direct responsibility for setting reimbursement_rates . economic_development . legislative agreement was reached on a 160 million package of economic_development programs , including a 24 . 2 million strategic resurgence fund that would provide financing to attract and retain businesses in the state , skills development programs , high risk loan fund , and other programs . high_schools of excellence . a proposal by governor cuomo to establish two residential ''high_schools of excellence'' for talented students in science and mathematics appeared unlikely to receive legislative approval . the schools would have provided free , specialized education to gifted students from all parts of the state .",has a topic of estate
"brendan gill , the new yorker writer , moved to this middle_class neighborhood of armour_villa in yonkers 15 years ago , just after his youngest child left home for college . previously , he and his family had been living in lawrence park , in bronxville , for 50 years . "" we owned a classic westchester tudor with 27 rooms , "" mr . gill said . "" our present house is much more modest , about 12 rooms . it was a slight moving of our kingdom . "" it was a "" slight "" move because armour_villa , although part of the city of yonkers , is just over the border from the village of bronxville . it 's a hilly "" roller_coaster of a place , "" as mr . gill described it . tall , mature trees line narrow streets bordered on both sides by graceful tudor , colonial and victorian homes . "" i was attracted by the huge oak and maple trees , "" said claudia wald , who with her family moved to armour_villa from manhattan 10 years ago . "" i also loved the 100 year old houses , the queen anne victorians and the little tudors . "" armour_villa , along with several abutting yonkers neighborhoods , is actually considered to be within the bronxville community . that 's because it has a bronxville zip_code . according to real_estate brokers , that makes it much easier to sell a house there because buyers can feel a part of the bronxville community , but do n't have to pay the village 's high taxes . in a current listing , taxes on a 239 , 000 house in armour_villa are 3 , 038 . in bronxville , they would be twice as high , brokers say , adding that houses there can cost up to 200 , 000 more . "" it 's like a little demilitarized_zone here , "" said katherine sutton , who 's lived in armour_villa for 10 years . "" it 's a funny little strip that looks like bronxville . but it 's ignored by everyone . we 're completely autononous . "" the neighborhood was incorporated in 1889 as the armour_villa park association . there is a theory that a relation of herman o . armour , head of the new york house of armour meat packing company , built one of the first houses . "" information is very scant , "" said emily simpson , who serves as neighborhood historian . "" but we believe there must be a connection to the chicago armour family . "" armour , who was born in 1837 and died in 1901 , is buried in woodlawn cemetery , in the bronx . another clue to the armour name , ms . simpson said , is derived from cornelius smith , who , in 1880 , purchased the 48 acres that now constitutes armour_villa . he bought the land from a local farmer for 6 , 500 , and quickly turned around and sold it to a group of investors for 39 , 000 . in smith 's 1918 obituary , he was said to have a surviving son , h . armour smith , a car salesman and later director of the hudson river museum . "" would n't you think the h . stands for herman ? "" ms . simpson said . "" i do , until someone tells me differently . "" several of armour_villa 's houses date to its earliest days . nancy little 's house , an arts and crafts victorian farmhouse , was built in 1890 . "" it has a front porch , clapboard siding and upper eaves . a real early arts and crafts feeling , "" said the art historian . "" i 'm an old fashioned girl . i love victoriana , but with all the modern conveniences . "" mr . gill , who is also a staff writer for architectural digest , dates his house to the 1880 's . "" it 's no older than the other equivalent houses nearby , "" he said . he describes it as a "" modified palladian style with some architectural distinction . and a very steep driveway . "" the majority of homes were built in the 20 's and 30 's . they are mostly tudors , colonials and victorians and are priced between 200 , 000 to the low 300 , 000 's . there are also a handful of houses in the 400 , 000 's . interspersed with the older houses are ranches , mostly built in the 60 's and '70 's . that 's what debbie kavanagh , a nurse 's aide , and her husband , patrick , a fireman , were looking for when they started shopping for a house in westchester a year ago . "" we wanted a high ranch in good condition , "" ms . kavanagh said . the couple , who have two grown children , had been living in the bronx and were used to being within walking distance to a roman_catholic_church and shopping . "" we liked it here because we could walk to st . joseph 's in bronxville , "" ms . kavanagh said . "" i also like going to bronxville and browsing the shops . "" to katherine sutton , one of the neighborhood 's greatest appeals is its "" interesting mix of people , "" she said . "" every kind of person lives here . it 's a great place to raise a child so they can be exposed to lots of different people . "" it is also great to be near bronxville 's downtown , she said . "" you can feel safe having kids 8 , 9 , 10 years old walk to the movie_theater or to the ice_cream store . it 's like 'leave it to beaver' land . "" ms . sutton , an interior_design consultant , and her husband , james , a banker , both commute to manhattan . their house is a five minute walk to the bronxville station . "" i like to do clothes shopping in manhattan , "" said ms . sutton , "" my eye faces south , but i do n't think that 's typical . "" a lot of armour_villa residents say they do their primary shopping in bronxville , which has clothing stores and a supermarket . there is also every kind of shopping imaginable nearby within a few minutes' drive to central_park avenue . the only school in the neighborhood is the patricia a . dichiaro early childhood school for grades k 3 . it 's part of the yonkers public_school system . and like all schools in yonkers , it is a magnet_school , meaning it offers a specialized curriculum . the dichiaro school approaches learning through an emphasis on mathematics and science , said alice listi , the school 's principal . "" all of our students are in science labs once a week . they also take spanish and computers are introduced in kindergarten . ten years ago , when ms . wald , a professional singer , was looking for a house in westchester , she answered an ad for a house in armour_villa based on the reputation of school 8 , as the dichiaro school was then known . "" that was before yonkers was ordered to desegregate its schools , "" she said . "" that was the end of local schools . instead children got bused to magnet programs , and the quality of the education really suffered . "" ms . wald has two children , a_10 year old son in the yonkers public_school 's pearls , a program for early and rapid learners , at the hawthorne school , in the southwest section of the city . her other son , who 's 12 , attends a private_school in tarrytown . "" most of the people i know send their kids to private or parochial schools , "" she said . one of the major gripes is that the yonkers schools are too crowded . "" they average 29 to 30 kids to a class , "" said ms . wald 's husband , joel , "" whereas other school systems have class_sizes around 14 to 15 . "" mr . wald , a management consultant in manhattan , writes the local newletter , the villa voice , which is published by the armour_villa colony association , a homeowners' group . his job is to keep on top of local controversies . one of the hottest is the city 's plan to build a 22 unit moderate income housing development on tuckahoe road and cross street . it is part of the city 's fulfillment of a desegregation order to build 200 units of low_income_housing and 800 units of moderate income housing throughout the predominantly white , middle_class north and east sections of the city . this summer the city completed the low income component and is just starting to select sites for the moderate income units . the developments are to be privately_owned and for families with incomes up to 67 , 000 a year who would be eligible to receive federal and state_housing subsidies . "" half of the units will be market rate and half will be subsidized . "" said robert l . miller , president of the yonkers housing partnership . construction , he said , is expected to begin in the summer , with occupancy by the spring of 1996 . "" some people wonder if we 're going to throw our bodies in front of the tractors , "" said mr . wald . "" but from the experience with the low income projects in other areas of the city , most people have decided that this is going to happen . we might as well make the best of it . "" that means inviting the moderate income residents to join the armour_villa homeowners' association . "" we normally have not included residents of multiple family housing , "" said ms . sutton . "" but we 're batting around the idea of making an exception . with this project , all eyes will be on us . we 'd like to do it right , and get the new residents involved in the community as soon as possible . "" another concern in the neighborhood , according to mr . wald , is the existence of illegal accessory apartments and two family houses . neither is permitted in the neighborhood 's zoning . "" but a few years ago , builders came in and put up two families and ranches with accessory apartments in violation of the law , "" said lee ellman , the city 's planning director . "" armour_villa is a very activist community with an informed and concerned population . they 've alerted us to the problem . and we 've been cracking down on known violators and taking steps to insure no such building happens again . """,has a topic of estate
"to the editor as a native of the bronx from different times , i enjoyed reading your article about the reservoir keeper 's house ''for an 1890 reservoir keeper 's house , a new use , '' dec . 20 . of course , in those days there was no norwood , only the bronx , or , to use the local landmarks , near the oval or near montefiore . for us young_boys growing up in the 1940 's on reservoir oval and the nearby streets , that building was called the haunted house . for apartment dwellers , which most of us were , any unoccupied stand alone house obviously had an ominous history . on halloween eve , or on summer evenings when it became too dark to continue our curb ball or stoop ball games , the bravest would attempt to explore the mysteries within that haunted house . for intrepid pre teen_agers , there were always ways to find entry into an abandoned building . i can still remember when we heard the news that someone had bought the building and was actually going to move in . the new owner quickly barred our known entry points and forevermore ended a local activity . for the sake of historical accuracy , i must confess that i was one of the timid ones who never had the courage to face those particular terrors . but i certainly did admire my more adventurous neighborhood friends . also for the sake of the historical record , back in those days i never thought that i would be writing letters about how things used to be . alvin wald manhattan",has a topic of estate
"the big sky region , just north of an entrance to yellowstone national park , has boomed in recent years , attracting skiers and other outdoor enthusiasts and fueling a construction and employment boom . but soaring land prices and building costs have put the price of housing far beyond the reach of many new resort and construction workers . faced with a severe housing shortage for its workers , at least two resorts , the yellowstone club and big sky resorts , picked an unusual solution . each bought a motel it intended to continue operating for travelers , as well as for housing workers and contractors . with its purchase of the whitewater inn , formerly a comfort inn , big sky resorts picked up 56 rooms . ''we 're a growing resort with 900 staff , and we want to attract the best staff , '' said dax schieffer , public_relations manager for big sky resorts , which is owned by boyne u.s.a . ''the plan is to have the employees stay here during peak season . '' the yellowstone club is the new owner of buck 's t 4 lodge , a 72 room motel just up the road from the whitewater inn . the owner of the yellowstone club , tim blixseth , said his company had 500 employees and 1 , 000 subcontractors . using buck 's to help house them will help reduce the ''couple of million'' dollars a year that the company spends for buses and mileage . ''it was a good strategic buy for us , '' bob sumpter , vice_president for real_estate_development for the company , said . ''we do not plan to change the operation one iota . '' both companies said workers would receive discounts on rooms , which rent for 100 to 150 a night depending on the season . who gets those discounts and how much they amount to depend on what a worker 's ''job is and how much we need them , '' mr . schieffer said . many workers are choosing to double or triple up to save money , which can make for lively , if cramped , quarters . isabella silva of belo horizonte , brazil , lives in a whitewater inn room with three young male co workers from brazil . each pays 230 a month for the crowded living space that is mostly taken up by three beds and a mattress on the floor . ms . silva and her roommates do most of their cooking in microwave ovens they have wireless internet and access to the motel pool and waterslide . ''these boys , oh my , '' ms . silva , 21 , said shaking her head and smiling . ''but it 's o.k . we work most of the time . so we do n't spend much time in the room . '' mr . schieffer said he did not think that guests would mind sharing space with employees . ''i 'd like to think everyone can get along , '' he said . ''you do n't say , 'employees , do n't go here , ' or , 'do n't go there . ' '' instead , he said ''it 's self segregating . it works itself out . '' lots that sell for more than 200 , 000 today were going for a fifth of that three years ago , and construction costs run 700 or more a square_foot , compared with 100 to 200 in most montana cities . compounding the problem is the region 's location , which is awkward to accommodate the boom . big sky is 32 miles southwest of bozeman . but the two lane road between the two runs through a narrow canyon that is ice covered and treacherous in winter . an estimated 1 , 500 cars commute back and forth each day . ''they all have to drive from bozeman every morning and back , '' cathy gorman , a real_estate_broker here , said . ''it 's bizarre , and it 's dangerous . we 've had a lot of deaths on that road . '' public transportation is infrequent . the yellowstone club runs four or five buses a day between here and bozeman . ms . silva said she and many other workers took the ski bus to bozeman at the end of a day and shopped all night at the wal_mart store there because there was no bus back until morning . as a result , housing at the mountain resorts is the best option for many . kyle zimmerman , born in chicago , just moved from a two bedroom condo crammed with skis , clothes and furniture that he shared with four other people . the monthly rent was 1 , 300 plus utilities , and mr . zimmerman , who has two jobs , including one at a pizzeria , paid 200 for the right to sleep in a closet . ''to make it affordable , you have to cram people in , '' mr . zimmerman , 22 , said . ''it was all right for a year . '' his replacement in the closet ? ''the guy that had the couch . '' not surprisingly , mr . zimmerman applauded the resorts' buying the motels . ''every year , i hear there 's going to be new employee housing , but it never happens , '' he said . ''you 've got to put them somewhere . '' big sky journal",has a topic of estate
"don't let the softness of summer days lull you into letting your guard down . summer homes , especially those unoccupied for days at a time , are a burglar 's dream . people who would never leave their car windows open or their keys in the ignition the other nine months of the year get careless during the summer . you may be on vacation but it is high season for thieves . by taking the proper precautions , crime prevention specialists say , you can insure that no unpleasant surprises will interfere with your rest and relaxation . the most important security measure is to install motion sensor lights at the beginning of your walkway , triggering lights to go on 20 feet away from the house . use timers to turn lights on each evening and change the zone each week . do the same with a car that is left at home , backing into the driveway one week , pulling in the next . tell your neighbors which pool , gas or oil companies and landscapers you employ . your neighbor 's eyes and ears are the best source of information for the police . thieves often disguise themselves as utility workers . if a neighbor sees an unfamiliar truck parked in your driveway , tell her to alert the police . at the beginning of the season , get information about the neighborhood watch program in your community . also call the local police department and ask for a security survey . a crime prevention officer will perform a ''target hardening'' survey , which will give you information to help protect your property . insert heavy dowel rods in the sleeve at the bottom of sliding glass doors so they cannot be jimmied open . put alarm protection stickers on the windows . if you are out , drop the drapes to prevent anyone from looking in . put small televisions , radios and other electronic gear behind solid blocking , out of view . close doors to any entertainment centers . instead of having a solid front door , there should be some sort of window , whether side panel or a small one in the middle , so you can get a quick view out . prune back high trees . in homes that are hidden from view , once a thief is in , he can take his time . when you are at the beach , think ' 'designated driver'' when you go into the water . never leave a camera , portable radio or other valuables unprotected . and leave your cell phone at home . remember why you are at the beach in the first place . marcia byalick",has a topic of estate
"rent control applies to apartments in buildings constructed before feb . 1 , 1947 , in which the tenant or an authorized successor has been in continuous occupancy since before june 30 , 1971 the date when vacancy_decontrol for rent controlled apartments took effect . rent controlled tenants may be subject to 7.5 percent increases in most years until a maximum rent is reached , as well as increases stemming from fuel and labor costs that can result in actual annual rent increases of a maximum of 15 percent . rent_stabilization , which took effect in 1969 , covers buildings built from 1947 to 1974 , as well as formerly rent controlled apartments in pre 1947 buildings that are added to the rent_stabilized category when the units become vacant . some post 1973 buildings have opted to become stabilized in return for tax abatements . stabilized apartments are subject to rent rises set annually by the rent guidelines board , which is appointed by the mayor . in the last decade , stabilized rent increases have ranged from 6 percent for a one year lease and 9 percent for a two year lease in 1986 , to 2 and 4 percent increases in each of the last two years .",has a topic of estate
"lead final approval for the redevelopment of 32 acres on the humber river in york , a city of 135 , 000 on the northwest border of toronto , promises to add much needed moderately_priced housing to the region . final approval for the redevelopment of 32 acres on the humber river in york , a city of 135 , 000 on the northwest border of toronto , promises to add much needed moderately_priced housing to the region . the site of an automotive parts plant that went bankrupt two years ago , the property had been targeted for redevelopment as part of the city 's long range plan . as approved by york officials in october , the west pointe development is to include 2 , 150 units in an as yet undetermined mix of town houses and condominiums , as well as a 200 , 000 square_foot retail center . over 500 residences are to be set aside for low and moderate income households . construction is expected to begin by next spring and take five years . toronto 's growth in recent years has pushed up housing prices throughout a metropolitan_area that includes york and four other neighboring municipalities to an average resale price of 249 , 800 ( canadian ) for a single family home , double what it was four years ago . at the current rate , a canadian_dollar is worth about 0 . 81 u.s. , making the average resale price about 202 , 330 u.s . at the same time , many apartments have converted to condominiums , creating a squeeze in the rental market . the apartment vacancy_rate is less than one percent and waiting_lists are common . to address the housing shortage , municipalities have turned to a bonus system . m c developments , the developer of west pointe , was allowed 650 more units than had been targeted for the site in exchange for an increase in parkland from 1.6 to 3.8 acres , the addition of a_20 , 000 square_foot indoor recreation area and a guarantee that 25 percent of the units would be affordable_housing . most of the condominiums will start at 200 , 000 for a 1 , 000 square_foot , two bedroom unit . those set aside as affordable_housing are to be targeted to both low income ( under 25 , 500 ) and moderate income ( under 47 , 500 ) families . for these units , prices are to be held to 79 , 000 and 140 , 000 , respectively , or 650 and 1 , 150 a month for rentals . the developers are counting on the growing demand for moderately_priced housing as well as the convenient location within a 30 minute drive of downtown toronto and 15 minutes from highways 400 and 401 , the city 's major arteries . york has lagged behind adjacent communities in new housing , primarily because of the large stock of modest homes built more than 50 years ago and lack of undeveloped property . its three year old plan targets several properties for redevelopment .",has a topic of estate
"lead the fake six pane windows overlooking the cross bronx expressway have disappeared . so have the half open window shades and gray and blue louvered shutters . by the end of 1990 , the koch administration hopes , these newly gaping frames will hold real windows , real shades and real shutters with real people behind them for the first time in more than a decade . the fake six pane windows overlooking the cross bronx expressway have disappeared . so have the half open window shades and gray and blue louvered shutters . by the end of 1990 , the koch administration hopes , these newly gaping frames will hold real windows , real shades and real shutters with real people behind them for the first time in more than a decade . in preparation , workers have stripped hundreds of vinyl decals that were applied in 1983 to abandoned , city owned apartment houses across crotona_park to create the appearance that they were still occupied , even though they were dangerous shells or six story garbage dumps . meant to shore up neighborhood morale and convey a less dispiriting impression for the thousands and thousands of people who enter the city over the cross bronx expressway , the decals were greeted with considerable ridicule and national attention . today , mayor edward i . koch is to remove one of the few decal plates that remain on the crotona_park site . in the autumn of 1990 , homeless people and low and moderate income families are to move in . the project is part of the city 's 10 year , 5 . 1 billion plan to build or rehabilitate housing . 'decals did n't fool anyone' ''the real lived in look looks better than the fake lived in look , '' said abraham biderman , commissioner of the housing preservation and development department . ''it was a stupid program from the inception , '' said e . eldred hill , district manager of bronx community board 3 , which includes crotona_park . ''the decals did n't fool anyone . the first time i saw them , i laughed . those dollars could have been put into rehabilitating one building instead of putting decals on all of them . '' at the height of the decal program , which began in 1980 and ran until about 1986 , trompe_l'oeil seals were placed in the windows of more than 500 abandoned buildings around the city . but because of their high visibility , those along the cross bronx expressway received by far the most attention . and even when more than 33 , 000 vacant units are in some stage of redevelopment , the bronx buildings still stand out . ''the decals were an emblem of a lack of hope , '' mr . biderman said . ''their removal symbolizes the rebirth of these buildings and of these neighborhoods . '' koch says idea was his mr . koch , who said the decal idea was his , recalled that the point was to preserve structurally sound buildings and the overall appearance of the neighborhoods while waiting in vain , it turned out for housing money from the federal_government . ''the communities understood the difference , '' he said . ''it was n't a question that we were faking anything . '' he said decals were applied only in areas where they were requested by community boards . mr . koch also responded to the suggestion that removing the decals was no more than an election year stunt . ''what should i do , '' he asked , ' 'stop constructing apartments so that people will say i 'm not doing it in order to get re elected ? that 's stupid . renovating 1 , 284 apartments ''i get blamed for the bad , '' mr . koch said . ''and you bet i want to get credit for the good . '' the crotona_park project has 562 apartments in 20 buildings bounded by fulton and third avenues , claremont parkway and the cross bronx expressway . it will be owned and managed by phipps houses of manhattan , a nonprofit owner and developer . the other rehabilitation project involving buildings that became notorious for their decals is called highbridge . it involves 722 apartments in 23 buildings on an irregular site bounded roughly by 170th and 175th streets , university and jesup avenues . it will be owned and managed by the archdiocese of new york . together , the two projects will cost 111 million .",has a topic of estate
"a report in the postings column on may 26 about house tours in harlem misstated the title of a novel by ralph ellison . it was "" invisible man , "" not "" the invisible man . """,has a topic of estate
""" it 's quite a corporate roster we have , "" said mayor mark a . lauretti of shelton , conn . most recently , pitney_bowes decided to build a new center for its shipping and weighing division on a 22 acre site where research and development operations are already based . carm adimando , vice_president and treasurer of pitney_bowes , said the company hoped to break ground for the 234 , 000 square_foot building next month . also on the roster are sikorsky aircraft and philips medical systems . and there is talk that lever brothers may join the crowd , taking the former richardson vicks complex . "" i do n't have any official confirmation , "" mayor lauretti said , adding , "" i know there is a lot of interest . "" richardson vicks moved to cincinnati last september to join its corporate parent , procter_gamble . it left behind a 75 acre site with a 300 , 000 square_foot , 4 year old office building . could this mean a departure from lever house on park_avenue ? a spokeswoman for lever brothers said only , "" at this time , we have no comment . "" sal buono , of cushman_wakefield , which represents procter_gamble , acknowledged the lever brothers rumor but said , "" we have no deal pending with anybody on the richardson vicks facility . """,has a topic of estate
"back when 1994 was ending , any real_estate executive predicting a less than stellar 1995 was drowned out by the sound of champagne corks popping , as a euphoric industry toasted the end of five years of woe . the revelers turned out to be the pollyannas , the pessimists the realists . the much touted "" recovery "" turned out to be an explosion of pent up demand , as tenants who had waited for the rental trough ran out of time to make deals . along about april , leasing activity slowed to a crawl , and nothing since has nudged the market out of complacency . people thought the scarcity of big blocks of quality space would cure the market , but it just has n't happened , "" said robert f . works , a managing director of lasalle partners . corporate consolidations and partnership dissolutions made the situation worse . "" a lot of law_firms bit the dust and freed up space , "" said michael myers , chairman of corporate realty partners . all told , while 1995 was not particularly bad , it broke 1994 's promises . "" last year was a year of unmet expectations , "" said michael t . cohen , president of williams real_estate . indeed it was . vacancy_rates throughout new york remained in the double_digits , well above the 8 percent that is considered healthy . rents stayed stuck in place . buildings that had expected annual rents beyond 50 per square_foot 590 madison_avenue , the i.b.m . building on 57th_street , for one found few takers , brokers say , until they dropped rents as much as 10 a foot . in may , after five years of depressed rents , the partnerships that own 12 of the rockefeller_center buildings filed for protection under the bankruptcy code . ( alan l . stein , rockefeller_center management 's senior vice_president of marketing , says that the properties in bankruptcy are nearly 86 percent full , and the center as a whole is more than 93 percent full . ) "" the only way the market will get better is if the economy creates more jobs , "" said steven spinola , president of the real_estate board of new york . but if the optimistic pundits were disappointed , the pessimistic ones were pleasantly_surprised . "" we rented 350 , 000 square_feet , at rents that certainly met our modest expectations , "" said a delighted douglas durst , whose durst organization owns several midtown_manhattan buildings . indeed , nearly every one of the year 's clouds had a silvery aspect . downtown_manhattan remained glutted with empty space , but saw an influx of interactive technology companies with high growth potential . leasing was sluggish , but building sales soared . construction loans were elusive , but refinancing money was ample . and landlords and tenants alike invested in refurbishings . "" we went ahead with interiors projects that had been on hold for years , "" said john l . tishman , head of tishman realty construction , which is refurbishing 1290 avenue of the americas ( 52d street ) for olympia york , and is building the interior of four columbus_circle , steelcase 's owner occupied building on 58th_street . no big companies established headquarters here but then , none fled new york either , in sharp contrast to 1994 , when swiss bank and mastercard announced their defections . and , many companies established their first new york toeholds . "" we 've had unbelievable activity from companies that want to tap into new york 's intellectual capital , "" said william c . rudin , whose family owns numerous buildings . retail sales were lackluster and there were a few sobering bankruptcies , but retail space remained tight . "" the doom and gloom that pervaded apparel sales did not hit hard goods , furniture or home entertainment , "" said faith h . consolo , a senior managing director of the garrick aug brokerage . times_square redevelopment , which city officials had said was imminent for decades , finally began happening . madame_tussaud , a 25 screen multiplex , countless theme restaurants and food shops , all clamored for space on newly unseedy 42d street . long shuttered theaters are being refurbished . annual rents for retail space climbed well over 100 a square_foot , rivaling the rents on that other entertainment strip , west 57th_street . throughout the city , streets were cleaner , neighborhoods safer , due in good part to active business improvement districts . the business_improvement_district movement was rocked by charges that the grand_central partnership , one of the biggest bids , had deployed "" goon squads "" to harass homeless people , and that daniel biederman , its head , had used bid money and time to set up a bid in jersey_city . mr . biederman denies both charges . nonetheless , the bids' successes were palpable . bryant_park held many cultural events and has a new cafe . crime was down in most bids , and many streets sport new lights , lampposts and trees . "" it was a year of huge leaps , of doing the things the private_sector is n't inclined to do , "" mr . biederman said . all in all , 1995 was a respectable , if not gangbusters , year . following , a closer look at how some sectors did last year , and how this year is shaping up for them . the office market last year the "" flight to quality "" tenants taking advantage of cheap rents by moving to better space reversed itself . avon , equitable life , cs first boston and countless others announced they would leave glitzy quarters for more utilitarian space . "" a lot of companies traded down , "" said bruce mosler , the galbreath company 's vice chairman . or , they saved the views and corner offices for the top brass , and put the hoi polloi elsewhere . "" there 's still a market for the top floors , which are best , and the bottom floors , which are cheapest , "" said jerry l . cohen , cushman_wakefield 's vice chairman . "" filling in the middle is the problem . "" tenants looking for big blocks of space did not have that many options , though . "" maybe it 's a game of musical_chairs with fewer chairs , but we 're seeing everyone who 's out there looking , "" said anthony e . malkin , president of w m properties , which will soon have big blocks available in 1185 avenue of the americas , at 47th_street when some large tenants move out . the big block shortages may finally lead to new construction . brokers report that morgan_guaranty and swissre have committed to enough space to enable hro international to finance the tower it wants to build on madison_avenue and 47th_street ( hro remains mum ) . mr . durst says he will erect a times_square building on spec , and , while none of the principals will discuss it , industry sources say that young_rubicam is interested in moving in . "" i never thought i 'd be talking new construction in 1995 , "" mr . durst said . "" but demand for big blocks exceeds supply . "" there are big blocks to be had , of course . there are plenty of sublets available . avon will open huge blocks at 9 west 57th_street . the old mobil building at 150 east 42d street and american home products' old building at 685 third avenue ( 43d street ) still have plenty of space . in fact , the entire grand_central area was one of 1995 's disappointments , with vacancies remaining high . but the area is looking up . a 200 million refurbishment of grand_central_terminal is in the works . some brokers expect the impact of times_square 's redevelopment to extend to grand_central . and the area 's landlords are offering bargain rents . "" the grand_central market will take off , and that will signal the market 's overall recovery , "" said mr . works of lasalle . small space remains in ample supply . there is lots of it at 570 lexington , the landmarked former g.e . building at 51st street that the mendik company has renovated . rockefeller_center is prebuilding whole floors of move in ready space for smaller tenants . for brokers , the plethora of small spaces could mean more work for less pay . "" we 'll do plenty of leasing this year , but it will be for more tenants in smaller spaces , "" predicted stephen b . siegel , the edward s . gordon company 's president . building sales by all rights , with the rental market mired , no one should have wanted to buy commercial property last year . but buy they did . the paramount group bought 32 old slip , donald j . trump bought 40 wall_street , george comfort sons bought 63 madison_avenue ( 27th street ) , a bunch of scandinavian investors bought 1500 broadway ( 43d street ) . the former b . altman building on fifth avenue and 34th_street is a sold out condominium . the list goes on . "" lenders had so much money to put out that 1995 was the biggest , busiest sales year we 've ever seen , "" said peter r . hauspurg , chairman of the investment_banking firm eastern consolidated properties . some high profile sales are in the offing . a group led by goldman_sachs , tishman_speyer and david rockefeller is poised to buy rockefeller_center 's bankrupt buildings . the daily news building , at 220 east 42d street , just went on the market . many brokers expect that 40 west 40th street , 598 madison_avenue ( 58th_street ) and other buildings will find buyers soon . "" we 'll see lots of sales in 1996 , "" mr . siegel predicted . the retail market in manhattan , 1995 was the year of mallization . the once elegant 57th_street turned into an urban festival center , rife with theme restaurants and entertainment oriented stores . soho moved further away from being an art world bastion . the old a s plaza on 32d and broadway became manhattan mall . rockefeller_center gave its labyrinthine concourse a boost with herman 's , a two level store that draws pedestrians with its street level frontage , then has them leave through the concourse . the world trade center 's concourse , once a hodgepodge of nondescript stores , grabbed disney , the limited , and other mall denizens . so did third avenue , madison_avenue in the 50 's and the flatiron_district . the same retail names kept cropping up , as companies like 9 west , the limited and gap blanketed the borough with new stores . big_box retailers grabbed any large spaces they could find . "" this sounds like heresy , but the availability of space drove the market more than location , "" said benjamin fox , a partner of new spectrum . barnes_noble opened its largest store ever , a 60 , 000 square_foot behemoth on broadway and 66th_street . borders announced its first new york book store , in the world trade center . compusa , williams sonoma , pottery barn , all expanded . "" last year will go down as the year of the category killers , "" said richard a . seligman , a senior managing director at gordon . even the many bank branches coming on line in the wake of consolidations and mergers were not enough to satisfy demand , and retail rents rose all over the city . that did not faze european and asian retailers , for whom even madison avenue rents are cheap compared with what they pay on the ginza or bond street . ferragamo , prada , myriad others took new stores . now retail brokers are waiting to see what branch spaces the mergers of chase and chemical , and of fleet and natwest will make available . "" banks will be the source of some of our best retail space over the next two to three years , "" ms . consolo predicted . "" but until we get that space , rents will keep climbing . "" the hotel industry the hotel industry 's resurgence was one of 1995 's true highlights . "" it was one of the best years since the mid 80 's , "" said joseph e . spinnato , president of the hotel association of new york city . "" the economy was part of it , but so was the perception of the city as cleaner , safer and friendlier . "" hoteliers clearly feel bullish . host marriott spent 141 . 5 million to buy the downtown vista hotel . cdl hotels international , a singapore group that already owned the millenium and the macklowe , bought the plaza . the omni berkshire went through a 65 million facelift , and mr . tishman is hoping the st . moritz , which his company manages , will get spruced up this year . lenders , too , are feeling buoyant . "" people who said they would never again lend to a hotel are throwing money at them , "" said mr . hauspurg of eastern consolidated . hotel developers bear that out . "" hotels are no longer redlined by the banks , "" said mr . tishman , who is seeking an equity partner and debt financing for the huge hotel he plans to build on 42d street and eighth_avenue . "" the hotel market is really ripe . "" downtown_manhattan the long beleaguered financial district may not be healthy yet , but it no longer seems terminally ill . while the overall area is still plagued with vacancies , the world trade center and the area 's other premier buildings are about 85 percent full . the reason , suggests mr . cohen of williams , is that last year was the first year that cost outweighed location as a driving force for tenants . "" the financial district emerged as a place where 35 buys you what 45 buys in midtown , "" he said . if that is so , then downtown must benefit if midtown rents rise . "" people might not move to save 8 a foot , but they will move to save 18 , "" said julien j . studley , head of the real_estate firm that bears his name . city hall is helping , too . last year mayor rudolph w . giuliani passed a long awaited program of tax incentives to bring businesses to the area , and to encourage owners to convert obsolete office space to residential use . carl weisbrod , head of the year old downtown bid , predicts that the latter program will eventually yield some 5 , 000 new housing units , which in turn could draw stores and restaurants to the area . that could reposition downtown as a 24 hour community a crucial factor if mr . weisbrod is to realize his dream of "" transforming downtown from the hub of the age of capitalism to the prototypical urban center of the information_age . "" stated less poetically , mr . weisbrod and several developers want to make the area a mecca for interactive technology companies , which have always spurned classic 9 to 5 hours . they 've made a good start . last year rudin management inaugurated the new york information_technology center at 55 broad street , which has been renting so well that some nearby buildings already are getting a spillover effect . but there is competition for this nascent industry . for example , hudson_square that once industrial area bounded by sixth avenue , canal street , morton street and the hudson_river is grabbing its share . small technology companies like avalanche systems , sensenet and radical media "" materialized out of thin air , "" said frank lepera , a commercial real_estate executive for trinity church , hudson_square 's primary landlord . "" we 'd have been happy to rent 200 , 000 square_feet last year . we rented 250 , 000 . "" hudson_square , soho and midtown south all offer the architecturally interesting buildings and all night , funky feel that downtown does not have . but they are fast running out of space . and mr . weisbrod 's bid is readying its area to pick up the slack . it has spruced up sanitation and lighting , and has unveiled the heritage trail , a series of four historic walks patterned after boston 's freedom trail . the bid is running a free jitney linking ferry terminals to other parts of the area . a ferry may soon run from the upper east side to wall_street , and the state is studying whether to extend commuter_rail lines to downtown . gov . george e . pataki said on jan . 3 that he would like the port_authority of new york and new jersey to use the proceeds from an eventual sale of the world trade center for this purpose . "" we wo n't see track laid yet , but at least we 'll learn if it is doable , "" said mr . spinola . outside manhattan most talk of new construction revolves around the durst organization and hro . but joshua muss may beat them both with renaissance plaza , the hotel and office complex he has wanted to build in downtown_brooklyn for more than a dozen years . "" the financing is in place , the drawings are ready , the paperwork should be done within weeks , "" mr . muss said . "" we intend to be in the ground in a couple of months . "" mr . muss will not give details , but others report that leucadia national has leased about half of the office building 's 800 , 000 square_feet , and that the brooklyn district_attorney 's office will rent space . the marriott_corporation will run the 385 room hotel . the retail prognosis is chancier . shopping centers sprang up all over the city last year , but that activity is slowing . apparently , the bankruptcies of caldor and bradlees and ongoing concern about kmart 's financial shape have made lenders skittish . "" developers , bankers , institutions , the entire retail sector has become uneasy , "" said guy morris , managing director of investment sales at garrick aug . still , mr . morris noted that "" the a list locations "" fulton_street and 86th_street in brooklyn , much of greenwich , conn . , all of westchester and nassau counties are still attracting tenants , and supermarkets and strong credit stores like target may fill in the gap if the troubled discounters close stores . "" as long as interest rates stay down , 1996 may be a decent year , "" he said . suburban office properties , which sank even lower than their manhattan counterparts during the recession , are bouncing back , too . according to mr . malkin of w m , which has numerous properties in connecticut , the greenwich market is "" drum tight . "" he said rents were up to the mid 30s a square_foot in prime locations . "" a year ago , the mid 20 's was considered good , "" he said . stamford . meanwhile , is likely to see a boom . according to jay s . hruska , a cushman_wakefield director , stamford 's vacancy_rate has dropped to 15 percent , from 17 percent last year . but swiss bank is building its headqurters there , and most brokers predict its entourage will sop up far more space . "" the law_firms , the accounting firms , all the ancillary firms that service a company like swiss bank will be nosing around , maybe even committing to space this year , "" mr . hruska predicted . correction january 28 , 1996 , sunday an article and a picture caption on jan . 14 about the commercial property outlook referred incorrectly to two manhattan hotels owned by the cdl group of singapore , which has altered their names since purchasing them . the former macklowe is now the millennium broadway the former millenium is now the millenium hilton . the company has retained the "" millenium "" spelling for the hilton .",has a topic of estate
"lead a state board declared yonkers to be in financial_crisis today and froze all hiring and discretionary_spending by its government . hours later , an appeals court panel suspended the daily fines imposed on the city for its defiance of a federal desegregation order , giving it temporary relief from the threat of bankruptcy . a state board declared yonkers to be in financial_crisis today and froze all hiring and discretionary_spending by its government . hours later , an appeals court panel suspended the daily fines imposed on the city for its defiance of a federal desegregation order , giving it temporary relief from the threat of bankruptcy . the three judge panel also suspended 500 a day fines against the four city councilmen who were found in contempt of court on aug . 2 after rejecting the housing plan ordered by a federal_judge , leonard b . sand , and it stayed his threat to imprison them thursday if they had still not reversed their vote . the full united_states court of appeals for the second circuit in manhattan will hear the city 's and councilmen 's appeal of the contempt ruling and fines on aug . 17 . had the fines not been suspended , the daily fine on the city , which began at 100 and doubled each day , would have been 12 , 800 today , for a cumulative total of 25 , 500 . on aug . 17 , the daily fine would have been 3 , 276 , 800 . the councilmen 's fines were not doubled daily . freeze on hiring in the meantime , the state board , the emergency financial control board , will carry out the resolution it approved today , 5 to 1 , blocking all pay increases for the city 's 1 , 900 workers , imposing a hiring freeze and taking control from the city government of all discretionary_spending , such as promotions and consultants' fees . the action also nullified 50 pending contracts totaling 2 . 4 million . it was the first time since the state legislature established the current control board for yonkers in 1984 , when mismanagement had brought yonkers to the ede of bankruptcy , that the board had assumed full responsibility for the city 's fiscal moves . ''perhaps this will be a wake up call to the city_council as to the seriousness of their actions , '' said secretary of state gail s . shaffer , who is the chairwoman of the board . in a sweltering room in city hall , ms . shaffer appealed to yonkers residents to put pressure on the four councilmen who voted on aug . 2 to reject a plan to scatter 800 middle_income apartments through the city 's neighborhoods . 'let reason prevail' that 4 to 3 vote was widely seen as a response to residents' anger last january after the council , under similar threats from judge sand , approved the first phase of the desegregation plan , 200 low income units to be built on several sites in mainly white neighborhoods . ''as you ponder the future of your city , as america watches yonkers , you have the power to let reason prevail , '' ms . shaffer said . ''you have a responsiblity to yourself and to your city 's future to express your reasoned concern to the four people you elected who have brought you to this precipice today . '' after the fines were suspended , she said this would not affect the control board 's approach to yonkers 's fiscal troubles . judge sand ruled in 1985 that yonkers , which , with 194 , 000 residents is new york 's fourth largest city , had deliberately discriminated against blacks in housing and education over four decades , in part by placing nearly all public_housing in the southwest corner of the city . a school desegregation plan has been in place for two years , but last winter the city 's continued resistance to a housing desegregation plan led judge sand to threaten yonkers and its councilmen with fines . because the crippling fines were temporarily halted today , the city will not have to follow through with its preparations to lay off all city employees by aug . 21 , when the total fines would have surpassed the 63 . 8 million in cash the city has available . 'it gives us a week' ''this buys us time , '' said neil j . deluca , the interim city_manager and the only one on the seven member control board to vote against the resolution today . ''it gives us a week for cooler heads to prevail . '' the vote was 5 to 1 because one member , dr . alice ilchman , the president of sarah lawrence college , was on vacation and not at the board meeting . the government will not be able to fill the 60 to 70 positions that are now vacant out of the municipal work force , and its plans to hire 28 police officers at the end of the month must be scrapped . the resolution does permit the city to continue to pay for its defense in the eight year old lawsuit , which so far has cost 15 million in legal fees . before the stay was issued today , it appeared that the four councilmen in contempt had planned to go to jail thursday and continue their defiance . councilman edward fagan , a conservative who had seemed ready last week to change his vote or resign , said jokingly to a colleague at city hall ''what kind of prison is this , anyway ? '' mr . deluca , who said he voted against the control board 's takeover because it alone would not have saved the city from bankruptcy , told reporters that he would seek a settlement of the case by calling for negotiations among city , county and state officials , citizen groups for and against the housing plan , the roman_catholic archdiocese of new york and the national association for the advancement of colored people , which brought the suit against the city , along with the justice_department , in 1980 . but if the city and councilmen lose their appeal next week and the fines and threat of jail are reinstated , the pressure to approve the housing plan will be back on the council . 'a direct result' today , at the meeting of the financial control board , ms . shaffer described the total collapse of city services that would come if the council did not ''purge its contemptuous behavior . '' ''the prospect of no municipal services whatsoever , '' she said . ''no policeman when you call for help , no firefighter when your house is burning , no garbage pickup as the trash piles up on your curb , no senior citizen services , no water as the tap runs dry can you reasonably accept these consequences which loom as a direct result of your city_council 's refusal to uphold the law ? '' the control board will continue to oversee all of yonkers 's budgetary operations until the financial_crisis is over , which could be some time after the contempt ceases and the fines stop , ms . shaffer said . she also said that if the fines were reimposed after the appeal hearing next week , the councilmen could face criminal_prosecution for incurring the bankrupting fines . if the appeals court rules in the city 's favor next week , all of the money paid in fines to date would be returned to the city and the councilmen , paul pickelle , the city 's corporation_counsel , said . a spending freeze is put on yonkers",has a topic of estate
"lead the first section of rehabilitated apartments has opened at the 700 unit alden park development , part of a 66 million project that the developer says is the nation 's costliest rehabilitation of a historic residential property . the location is between the communities of east falls and germantown , 20 minutes from center the first section of rehabilitated apartments has opened at the 700 unit alden park development , part of a 66 million project that the developer says is the nation 's costliest rehabilitation of a historic residential property . the location is between the communities of east falls and germantown , 20 minutes from center_city . the developer , bennett kaplan of new rochelle , n.y. , has added air_conditioning , a health_club and cable_television , has upgraded the electrical system and is reroofing alden park , which opened in 1927 with what was then unusual automobile parking_garages and electric refrigerators . alden park 's original developers , c . c . mitchell and kenneth devos , had a vision of cooperative apartments and plush amenities within a private park . their first phase here was the manor , which provided 250 apartments in three towers connected by a great_hall reminiscent of a classically appointed men 's club library . there were two efficiency units per floor for guest quarters or servants . after the manor was completed , an investor in the project , lawrence jones , bought out the developers . he went on to build phases 2 and 3 the kenilworth , in 1927 , and the cambridge , in 1929 , each with about 200 apartments . he lived at alden park until his death in 1961 . mr . kaplan bought alden park in 1986 for 28 million but did not get development financing , 40 million , until 1989 , when river bank america joined as a partner . he got a 15 million construction loan from national_westminster_bank . the first renovated units , called only towers a , b and c , opened in mid march , and 66 of 107 apartments are leased , mr . kaplan said . rents include parking and the use of two outdoor tennis courts , a health_club and pool . they range from 450 a month for a 280 square_foot studio to 675 for a 750 square_foot one bedroom and 1 , 350 for a 1 , 375 square_foot two bedroom penthouse . the renovation is expected to be complete within 18 months . because of federal historic tax_credit restrictions , alden park must remain rental for five years after completion . mr . kaplan said he believes it should again be owner occupied eventually . the exterior architect , david hollenberg , a principal with john milner associates of philadelphia , said alden park 's jacobean revival design and quirky construction has been difficult to restore to its original appearance . building technology , in addition to style , has changed since 1925 , and anchors were required to secure concrete slabs , which were not connected to ornate exterior brickwork , he said .",has a topic of estate
"nineteen new hotels have been built in this coastal city and near its suburban airport since 1996 , adding more than 6 , 000 rooms . the hotels' developers were enticed in part by a plan to expand greatly the waterfront convention_center at canada_place . that plan was later rejected , although the tourism_industry is still pushing for an upgrade at canada_place . a construction crane perches atop the 48 story sheraton vancouver wall center , which will be the tallest building on vancouver 's skyline when completed in march . newly opened hotels carry such names as marriott , hilton , sandman , fairmont , delta , westin , holiday_inn and hampton inn . numerous companies also hold options on land . in 1995 , when plans first emerged to expand the convention_center , the greater vancouver area had 17 , 731 hotel rooms . today it has more than 24 , 000 . downtown , hotels were built close to canada_place or wherever developers could find space in the compact business_district . vancouver 's downtown , with its stunning architecture and reflective glass buildings , is squeezed into the southern end of a narrow three mile long peninsula in burrard_inlet . at the northern tip , water laps around the 1 , 000 acre stanley_park , where joggers have views of ships anchored in the harbor and rugged coastal mountains across the bay . the city of two million people sprawls southward on the mainland , where hotel owners have also built heavily near the vancouver international airport , a 15 minute drive from downtown in the suburb of richmond . sixteen million passengers pass annually through the airport , which just completed an expansion that cost 58 . 3 million ( united_states dollars ) . ''there are a number of international name hotels who would build tomorrow if they could find the right spot if the convention_center is expanded , '' says gordon johnson , past president of the vancouver hotel association and a regional director for delta hotels , a toronto based company . since 1998 , the company has opened two new hotels that are a_10 minute walk from canada place the 434 room delta pinnacle and the 225 room delta vancouver suites . the building spree began after british_columbia 's provincial government in 1995 called for expressions of interest for an expansion of the vancouver convention and exhibition center . many international associations had outgrown canada_place , which can accommodate a convention of up to only 2 , 500 people . the tourism_industry feared that the benefits the city realizes from conventions would decline and the city would not be able to compete with seattle , san_francisco and san_diego . the plan that emerged was called the portside project it was to have been a 650 million complex containing a convention_center , a 1 , 000 room hotel operated by marriott and more berths for cruise_ships to alaska , which dock at canada_place . but that proposal was rejected by the provincial government as too expensive . unwilling to let the cruise industry languish because it brings a million people a year into the city , contributing 330 million a year to the economy , the vancouver port_authority immediately began its own 51 million berth expansion , which is to be completed in 2003 . in october the tourism_industry unveiled a proposal for a 320 million expansion adjacent to canada_place , which could be built by 2005 . meeting and exhibit space would quadruple to 553 , 000 square_feet from 134 , 000 and enable the center to play host 7 , 000 delegates , almost triple the current capacity .. ''we must take advantage of this unique opportunity to build on the previous success of this important economic engine , '' said rick antonson , president of tourism vancouver . ''the status_quo is not an option . '' under the proposal , tourism companies would provide 58 million in financing and the provincial and federal governments 262 million . mr . antonson is confident financing can be secured soon because tax revenues derived will , he estimates , pay back investments in 10 . 7 years . delegates are expected to spend 310 million a year , according to estimates of a task_force made up of tourism , hotel and business representatives . no government action has yet been taken on the proposal . the expansion proposal does not include a hotel . but marathon developments inc . , the development arm of canadian_pacific ltd . , the transportation , energy and hotel company , owns 81 acres of former rail yards and marinas near canada_place on which the vancouver tourism_industry would expand the the convention_center . graeme stamp , marathon 's executive vice_president , is seeking approval from the city for an 800 room hotel there as well . he is talking to executives of hotel companies about operating the hotel after it is built . james kaufman , general_manager of the new sheraton vancouver wall center hotel , owned by the wall financial corporation , which has its headquarters here , said , ''maybe we 'd like to build the hotel ourselves . '' the company is completing a 308 room tower addition that is the last phase of sheraton vancouver wall center , which will be the largest hotel in british_columbia , with 762 rooms . peter wall , the company 's chairman and chief executive , said he believes his new hotel will succeed even without an enlarged convention_center . he is building 45 , 000 square_feet of meeting space , believing that convention hotels that do not put in meeting space , spas , restaurants and lounges will have a hard time filling their rooms . this strategy was echoed by the tokyo based aoki corporation , which in june completed a 32 million renovation of its 510 room westin bayshore resort and marina adjacent to stanley_park one of eight existing hotels that have invested in extensive renovation in recent years . the westin bayshore built a 48 , 000 square_foot conference center , including 23 meeting rooms and the city 's largest ballroom , at 16 , 000 square_feet . ''we want to serve a niche market for planners who want to do smaller conferences that require 300 to 400 hotel rooms with a resort atmosphere , '' said mark andrew , the westin 's general_manager . while his hotel is aiming at groups holding smaller meetings , he would be happy to be part of larger gatherings . ''hopefully , we will get an expanded convention_center and large citywide conventions like seattle enjoys , '' mr . andrew said . if the center becomes a reality , the westin bayshore would build a 200 to 300 room addition within five to 10 years . as new hotels have sprung up , occupancy rates have dropped , from 76 percent in the greater vancouver area in 1996 to 67 . 5 percent in 1999 . hotel executives expect a further decline this year to 65 or 67 percent . the empty rooms are taking a toll . ''some big convention hotels are becoming predatory and going after the leisure and individual corporate travelers , the mainstay at nonconvention hotels such as ours , '' said stephen darling , general_manager of the new 207 room westin grand , which o'neill hotels and resorts of vancouver opened last year at the south end of the downtown in a high tech district . ''last spring , they waged a rate war . '' yet the 31 story westin grand , whose tower is curved in the shape of a grand_piano , will post a better than average occupancy_rate this year , 72 . 8 percent , because it is conveniently located near the high tech companies , where most of its corporate clients are doing business . francis parkinson , general_manager of the recently opened 42 million , 392 room fairmont vancouver airport hotel , said suburban richmond and the airport ''had the province 's highest occupancy , in the 85 to 95 percent range . '' he added , ''that attracted us , plus the airport was looking for a high end hotel . '' the fairmont is the only hotel in canada located on an airport concourse and its lobby overlooks departure gates . guests can check into flights though an in room check in service , and some canadian_airlines will deliver boarding passes to guests' rooms . arriving travelers can hand baggage claim tags to bellmen . two years ago , richmond had 2 , 000 hotel rooms , but this has exploded to 4 , 200 rooms today . ''business is not as good as we anticipated , '' mr . parkinson said , ''but we are holding our own . '' nine proposed hotels with 1 , 495 rooms have either been postponed or canceled because of the convention_center delay . a billboard on a downtown parking_lot bears a sketch of a 170 room hilton suites vancouver hotel and the slogan ''the land where dreams become reality . '' it was to have opened on the site by late 2000 , but has yet to break ground . ''there will be some short term pain for the hotel industry until the new convention_center is built , '' said mr . johnson of delta hotels . ''but we will pull our socks up and get through the next few years . this is an extremely healthy market with good prospects to come . ''",has a topic of estate
"most people think of venice as a romantic background for films or a one of a kind vacation destination , but frank o'halloran and liesl odenweller have called it home for the last nine years . ''liesl and i met in 1991 when we were both living in rome , '' mr . o'halloran said as he sipped prosecco on his altana , or balcony , overlooking most of venice . ''i was working at a nongovernmental agency , and liesl was studying opera . '' they moved back to the united_states , to new york , the next year but before they left , they spent a month in venice and , mr . o'halloran said , ''we fell in love with the city . '' so in 1998 , when they moved back to italy , venice was the natural choice . ''when we first met , in rome , both of us had to be in that city me for work and liesl for studies , '' he said . ''but by the time we moved back , we were both freelancing and so could choose to live wherever we wanted in the world . so why not pick one of the most beautiful cities ? '' mr . o'halloran is a corporate training consultant and executive coach ms . odenweller , is a freelance opera singer . ''we lived for years in an apartment on the grand canal , '' mr . o'halloran said . ''it was a bit like living on main_street , but with amazing views off of our balconies . '' their neighbors complained of the hustle and bustle , but the couple felt it was almost village like after new york . yet , ''although we loved our apartment , our goal was to buy something for ourselves , '' he said . there are always places for sale in venice , but finding something that met their criteria was not easy . ''since we both work full time , and have very hectic travel schedules , we knew that we wanted something that would be very easy to take care of , and that also would not involve any restoration work , '' he said . in italy , most properties are large scale fixer uppers that require a series of complex and lengthy negotiations with the authorities to secure the various permits needed for the project . ''add to this the fact that we wanted great views and some sort of outdoor space , and the search became even more difficult , '' he added . although venice is small roughly three miles across and surrounded by its lagoon it is decidedly urban , a warren of old buildings and narrow canals with few terraces or gardens . ''although there are apartments on the market in venice , most people , especially foreigners , tend to be very choosy about what they want , '' said serena bombassei , owner of venice real_estate ( www . venicerealestate . it ) . ''everyone wants two bedrooms , two baths , a great view and something that they can move right into . '' the most requested areas are along the grand canal the dorsoduro district , just across the canal from san_marco and the san_marco quarter itself . ''a great apartment in these neighborhoods , fully restored , can cost from 11 , 000 euros to 15 , 000 euros a square meter , '' ms . bombassei said that is about 14 , 470 to 19 , 730 a square meter , or 1 , 345 to 1 , 834 a square_foot . in comparison , top end properties in belgravia and mayfair , london 's most exclusive neighborhoods , are selling for around 2 , 440 a square_foot . ms . bombassei added , ''something away from the center , without a great view will cost a bit less , from 8 , 000 euros to 10 , 000 euros'' a square meter ''or even as low as 6 , 000 euros for something that needs more work . '' last spring mr . o'halloran and the couple 's 3 year old daughter , anna , were in the giudecca neighborhood to look at an apartment for sale . deciding to make the most of the outing , he stopped to visit some friends , an american couple , who had been living in the area for the last 15 years . ''as it turned out , the property we had seen was n't for us it was a real wreck and would have involved too much restoration work , '' he said . ''i was bemoaning this fact to our friends when they said , 'buy our place ! ' '' they had put their apartment on the market only the day before . ''it took me about five minutes to say 'yes , ' '' mr . o'halloran recalled . at 119 square meters , or 1 , 280 square_feet , it was the perfect size , and had two bedrooms , he said . the couple did not want to disclose the price , but ms . bombassei said that an apartment of that size probably would sell for 580 , 000 euros to 650 , 000 euros , or 761 , 000 to 853 , 000 . the couple consider the apartment 's location a bonus . the giudecca , which encompasses several islands south of the touristy san_marco quarter and across the wide giudecca canal , is much quieter and greener than the rest of the city . ''it 's a great place for kids , and has a nice mix of people , '' mr . o'halloran said . ms . bombassei said she recently sold elton_john a house at one end of the neighborhood , while publicly subsidized_housing at the other end ensures that venetians can continue to afford to live in their homes . in general , the agent said , giudecca is ''a bit like the notting_hill of venice there are a lot of artists living here and , since it is facing san_marco , it definitely has the best views in town . '' in fact , mr . o'halloran and ms . odenweller say the views from the windows and the balcony were what persuaded them to buy the place . a trompe_l'oeil mural in the living room depicts the venetian skyline , but the real views are equally dramatic the city 's towers , cupolas and facades reflected in the sparkling water . as the sun set , mr . o'halloran looked out across the lagoon . ''i think you can understand now why we chose venice , '' he said .",has a topic of estate
"swathed in the lush spring greenery of riverside and morningside parks , this upper west side neighborhood is a lot quieter since columbia_university students went home for the summer earlier this month . the wide sidewalks still have a pleasant buzz , but instead of backpacks , the accessory of choice seems to be strollers . once considered something of a ' 'secret'' among residential neighborhoods , morningside_heights is experiencing a surge in popularity , particularly among young families lured by the spacious apartments , the parks , excellent private schools and access to transportation . jane blumenstein , a mother of two who arrived as a graduate student at columbia in 1994 , has seen the change among members at congregation ramath orah , the orthodox synagogue on 110th_street that she has attended for 10 years . five years ago , she said , there were many more older people , among them holocaust survivors , and only about five children in the shabbat program . now there are almost 20 , all of them from the neighborhood . ''lots of young families have moved in , instead of moving to jersey and riverdale , '' said ms . blumenstein , who with her husband , jay , bought a two bedroom co op on riverside drive in december 2005 . ''people are seeing this as a place they can make their life . '' anchored by the spires of the interdenominational riverside_church to the north and the episcopal cathedral_church of st . john the divine at the southeast corner , but dominated by the presence of columbia , the 0 . 3 square_mile enclave is often described as laid back . according to barbara hohol , who calls morningside_heights ''the last refuge of the surviving hippies , '' newcomers are quick to embrace the unhurried spirit of the neighborhood , which is bordered by 110th and 125th streets and the parks on its eastern and western flanks . small businesses and mom and pop stores line broadway , which has carefully tended plants in all its medians . ''the new people coming in are blessedly casual , '' said ms . hohol , a jewelry maker who arrived in 1957 as a barnard college student . ''it 's totally unpretentious . '' what you 'll find a multiethnic community of 33 , 250 , morningside_heights is 53 percent white , 15 percent hispanic , a little over 14 percent asian , and almost 14 percent african_american , according to census data . its landscape is dominated by institutions . besides columbia , barnard , riverside and st . john the divine , these include teachers college , the union theological seminary , the jewish_theological_seminary , the bank street college of education and the manhattan school of music . residential buildings vary from grand structures with views of the hudson_river along riverside drive to a few small but elegant doorman buildings on some side streets , and tenement style structures , many of which are still rent controlled or stabilized . there is a new 95 unit condominium at 110th_street and broadway , and a new 20 story rental building , avalon morningside park , being developed by avalonbay communities , near st . john the divine . a portion of the 296 avalon units will be reserved for lower income tenants , the first of whom will arrive in a year . cynthia white is moving soon to a two bedroom , one and a half bath co op on west 111th street after having shopped for a couple of years . it has exactly what she wanted character , but modest renovations . ''i wanted prewar , unmolested charm , and i wanted light , '' said ms . white , a macy 's executive . she paid 800 , 000 for the 1 , 200 square_foot fifth floor co op , with river views from the dining_room . columbia is the biggest property owner , and according to jordi reyes montblanc , the chairman of community board 9 , its relationship with the community is contentious at best . describing it as ''a 2 , 000 pound_gorilla , '' he said , ''columbia does wonderful things for the community in general , but when it comes to what columbia wants , they do n't care what anyone else has to say . '' the situation is unlikely to improve over the next three decades . the university has announced plans for a_7 billion expansion on 17 acres west of broadway and north of morningside_heights , between 125th and 135th streets . it will include 18 academic and research buildings as well as housing , and will bring in 9 , 000 more workers and students . while the site is not in morningside_heights proper , residents say they are already concerned . at morningside_gardens , a 983 unit middle_income self managed co op , and the general grant houses , a 1 , 940 unit public_housing development , residents feel particularly vulnerable . ''for morningside_gardens and all the surrounding buildings , it is going to be 30 years of dust and trucks and rats , '' said joan levine , a retired teacher who moved into morningside_gardens when it opened in 1957 . university officials maintain that they do their best to accommodate the community . recently , for example , said la verna j . fountain , assistant vice_president for public affairs , columbia decided not to put the student health services department in a building it owned on west 113th street after residents protested . what you 'll pay while prices have gone up in morningside_heights , it still offers good value compared with the rest of the upper west side , said michael t . stansfield , an associate broker with bellmarc_realty . people who ca n't afford the west 70s , 80s and 90s are migrating north , where ''the same size apartment is going to be cheaper by 200 , 000 to 300 , 000 , depending on what you 're looking for , '' he said . james perez , a senior vice_president with brown_harris_stevens , has two two bedroom , two bath units on riverside drive , one listed for 1 . 549 million , the other for 1 . 895 million . because of the varied housing stock , mr . perez explained , ''two bedrooms can be anywhere from 800 , 000 to 1 . 5 million . '' a one bedroom on 111th sold for '' 500 plus , '' he said , while at the strathmore on riverside drive , a one bedroom would top 1 . 5 million . sabrina seidner , a vice_president of nest seekers international , has a one bedroom , one bath listing on 110th_street for 690 , 000 and says there are still some bargains out there . ''a one bedroom whose asking price was 295 , 000 recently sold for 286 , 000 , '' she noted . ''you can find a funky little space for 300 , 000 , but you have to focus on it and make it a job for six months or a year . '' studios are rare . mr . stansfield says they range from 255 , 000 to 375 , 000 . an alcove studio is currently available in a new condo building at 545 west 110th_street , said ronnie russo landau , a corcoran vice_president . it is listed at 699 , 000 . morningside_gardens apartments rarely come on the market , but range from 165 , 000 for the smallest studio to 710 , 000 for a three bedroom , two bath unit with a terrace , according to michael j . mcmahon , general_manager of the morningside_heights housing_corporation . area rents range from an average of 1 , 435 for a studio to 2 , 863 for a two bedroom , according to citi_habitats' monthly average for april . what to do the 323 acre riverside and the 30 acre morningside parks are a big reason that duane cranston , a lawyer , and his fianc e , sara holliday , an account manager for a graphic_design firm , are looking forward to moving here . they expect the renovation of their two bedroom co op on west 111th street to be completed in the next two or three months . ''the park is going to be a huge asset , '' said mr . cranston , who works for espn , the cable_television sports network . ''all the greenery and being able to feel like you 're in the city but not in the middle of it were important factors . '' morningside park has basketball courts and a baseball field riverside park has volleyball , tennis , soccer and a bird sanctuary . broadway offers all kinds of shops , many of them small businesses like liberty house at 112th_street . it started 40 years ago as a crafts collective to benefit the civil_rights movement but now sells clothing . ms . hohol , the jewelry maker , laments the absence of a movie_theater but says the restaurant scene has some affordable options . ''there are still low end restaurants if you do n't feel like cooking , '' she said . there is also a good bit of variety . broadway between 112th and 113th streets has le_monde nacho 's kitchen nussbaum wu , a chinese jewish bakery deli and the mill korean restaurant . there are chain supermarkets in addition to the milano market and the west side market , which reopened recently at the corner of broadway and 110th_street . the schools among the public schools are three in the same building , nearby at 234 west 109th street . one of those is public_school 165 , the robert e . simon school , which teaches kindergarten through grade 5 . among its fourth_graders in 2006 , 54 . 3 percent scored at or above grade level in english , versus 58 . 9 percent citywide . the math rating was 56 . 4 percent , versus 70 . 9 percent citywide . mott hall ii , at the same site , has a college preparatory curriculum for grades 6 through 8 . of eighth_graders , 79 . 6 percent met english standards , versus 36 . 6 percent citywide 78 . 6 percent met math standards , versus 38 . 9 percent . the closest high_school is edward a . reynolds west side high_school on west 102nd street , where 2005 sat averages were 387 on the verbal , versus 497 statewide , and 389 on the math , versus 511 . private schools abound . among them , the cathedral_church of st . john the divine has a preschool program as well as a free program for 4 year olds in conjunction with the department of education . riverside_church also has preschool offerings . other private schools include the cathedral school , also at st . john the divine on amsterdam_avenue , and the bank_street school for children on west 112th_street . both teach prekindergarten through grade 8 . the commute commuters to midtown can get the no . 1 local train at the 110th_street cathedral parkway stop , then switch to the nos . 2 and 3 express trains at 96th_street . the trip takes about 20 minutes . bus routes include the nos . 7 , 11 and 104 , which go north and south , and the no . 4 , which goes to 110th_street , then heads east and down fifth avenue . the nos . 100 and 101 travel 125th_street , and the no . 60 goes to kennedy airport . the history farms dominated what was called vandewater heights , after a local landowner , until 1818 , when the bloomingdale insane asylum opened between 116th and 120th streets and started the influx of institutions . the asylum eventually moved to westchester , and columbia moved from midtown to take over the site in 1897 . the encyclopedia of new york city details major change in the late 19th_century riverside drive was built in stages riverside park was built in the 1870s , morningside park in 1887 . in 1906 came the subway . living in morningside_heights correction june 3 , 2007 , sunday the ''living in'' article last sunday , about morningside_heights in upper_manhattan , misstated the destination of the no . 60 bus . it is la_guardia airport , not kennedy airport . in addition , a map with the article mislabeled the neighborhood 's northern boundary . it is 125th_street , not 125th avenue .",has a topic of estate
"lead closings in the week ended july 18 manhattan carnegie_hill 780 , 000 40 east 88th_street 2 bedroom , 3 bath , 1 , 700 sq . ft . co op in a prewar building 24 hr . doorman , dining_room , maid 's room maintenance 1 , 250 , 38 tax deductible ( broker corcoran group ) closings in the week ended july 18 manhattan carnegie_hill 780 , 000 40 east 88th_street 2 bedroom , 3 bath , 1 , 700 sq . ft . co op in a prewar building 24 hr . doorman , dining_room , maid 's room maintenance 1 , 250 , 38 tax deductible ( broker corcoran group ) chelsea 146 , 250 433 west 24th street 1 bedroom , 1 bath , 550 sq . ft . co op in a renovated prewar building remodeled_kitchen and bath , fireplace , maintenance 360 , 75 tax deductible ( broker h.h . kliegerman_associates ) tribeca 436 , 000 181 hudson street 2 bedroom , 1 bath , 1 , 480 sq . ft . loft condo in a renovated prewar building dining_area , large kitchen , high ceilings common charge 238 , taxes 840 ( broker bartlett associates ) upper east side 185 , 000 163 east 81st_street 1 bedroom , 1 bath , 550 sq . ft . co op in a renovated prewar building 24 hr . doorman , large kitchen , separate dressing area maintenance 544 , 50 tax deductible ( broker edward lee cave ) washington_heights 127 , 250 17 chittenden avenue ( chittenden house ) 1 bedroom , 1 bath , 700 sq . ft . co op in a renovated prewar art_deco building sunken_living_room , roof_deck , garden , hudson_river view maintenance 285 , 25 tax deductible ( c uptown realty ) west_village 440 , 000 16 hudson street 1 bedroom , 1 bath , 1 , 500 sq . ft . loft co op in a recently renovated prewar building 1 , 100 sq . ft . private roof space , fireplace maintenance 776 , 60 tax deductible ( broker wells gay ) bronx city_island 310 , 000 156 marine street 2 bedroom , 2 bath , single family , detached , brick house common driveway , large kitchen , eastchester bay view , 29 by 90 ft . lot taxes 1 , 500 ( broker_jacqueline_kyle_kall ) pelham gardens 198 , 000 2418 westervelt avenue 3 bedroom , 2 bath , single family , detached , house formal_dining_room , large kitchen , 1 car garage , 25 by 100 ft . lot taxes 1 , 100 ( broker vincent s . tolentino real_estate ) brooklyn brooklyn_heights 222 , 500 28 cadman plaza west 2 bedroom , 2 bath , 2 , 100 sq . ft . loft co op in a renovated prewar building 24 hr . doorman , recreation room , large kitchen maintenance 767 , 50 tax deductible ( broker barbara d'erasmo ) flatbush 146 , 750 772 east 48th_street 4 bedroom , 1 1 2 bath , single family , semiattached , brick stucco house formal_dining_room , finished_basement , 2 car garage , 20 by 100 ft . lot taxes 785 ( broker dwork korn ) queens forest_hills 385 , 000 111 11 76th avenue 4 bedroom , 2 bath , single family , attached brick tudor_dining_room , fireplace , front and rear gardens , 20 by 85 ft . lot ( broker_terrace_realty ) st . albans 129 , 990 114 35 196th street 2 family colonial 2 bedrooms , 1 bath , dining_room , in primary unit 1 bedroom , 1 bath in other large kitchens in both 2 car garage , 40 by 100 ft . lot ( broker john e . miller realty ) staten_island new springville 265 , 000 370 arlene street 2 family , detached , high ranch 3 bedrooms , 1 1 2 baths , dining_room , in primary unit studio with separate bath in other c a , 42 by 100 ft , lot taxes 1 , 800 ( broker century 21 appleseed agency ) oakwood 305 , 000 525 falcon avenue 3 bedroom , 2 1 2 bath , single family , broadside ranch_dining_room , large kitchen , fireplace , screened_porch , 100 by 100 ft . lot taxes 1 , 330 ( broker salmon real_estate )",has a topic of estate
"next month , almost 10 years after public officials removed part of an elevated freeway in the embarcadero district here , private developers plan to start rehabilitating the first of two historic waterfront buildings that had been largely hidden from view by the freeway . work on both structures , pier one and the historic ferry_building , is part of a plan to reclaim large parts of san_francisco 's waterfront that were difficult or uninviting to walk to when the freeway existed . ''we see this as a real opportunity to rehab these buildings , which are just gems , '' said jennifer sobol , development project coordinator . first to be renovated will be the 90 , 000 square_foot pier one , a building that served as a sugar warehouse . the developer is the amb corporation , which has leased the building from the port of san francisco and plans to redevelop it as office space . the port agency , which occupies space in the ferry_building , has agreed to be a tenant in the rehabilitated warehouse . in addition , the developer itself plans to occupy another part of the building . the building 's character complements the business of the developer , a real_estate_investment_trust that invests in transportation related industrial properties . ''the building is unique and very symbolic of our business , '' said janice thacher , regional manager for asset_management at amb . the 38 million project is expected to be completed in a year . built in 1931 , the pier one building , with its fortress like facade , was the last structure to be completed in a city beautiful plan for the san_francisco waterfront . the city beautiful movement promoted classical architecture and formal , european inspired planning in the first two decades of the century . the building recalls san_francisco 's largely vanished role as a commercial port . during its heyday into the 1950 's , ships deposited refined sugar at the warehouse , where workmen then loaded freight cars of the southern pacific railroad that lined up on a rail spur along the southern side of the building . the building also accommodated ferry passengers with a second story gallery for disembarkation from the upper decks of the ferryboats of the period . pier one stopped being a warehouse in the 1960 's because the building could not accommodate the cargo containers that have become the dominant mode of shipping goods . in recent years , pier one has been a parking_garage for downtown business commuters . the old warehouse has a high central space that runs the length of the building . to convert the warehouse into modern office space , the san_francisco based architectural firm of simon martin vegue winkelstein moris plans to leave the central section of the office building open , while providing mezzanine like ''partial floors'' that will flank the open section on both sides . the partial floors will add 50 , 000 square_feet of floor space to the building . the openness of the plan , according to dan cheetham , the project designer , preserves the abundant natural light that is one of the building 's most attractive features . the rehabilitated pier one building will include a 2 , 100 square_foot ''history walk'' that will have metal inlays in the floorway indicating the original path of the rail tracks that guided trains inside the building . the original tracks will not be removed , but will be hidden by a new floor . ( the trains had entered the building on a floor that was several feet lower than the rest of the building . ) to provide more access to the waterfront , the architects have also designed a so called apron around the building that allows pedestrians to walk out on the 700 foot length of the pier . at the same time , cathy j . simon , a principal of simon martin vegue winkelstein moris , said she did not want to erase the rough edges of the building 's warehouse years entirely . ''we are attempting to keep the building 's industrial character , as well as making it a people place , '' she said . the impetus for a large scale planning effort in the embarcadero started in 1989 , when the loma prieta earthquake caused widespread damage throughout the bay_area , including the structure of the elevated embarcadero freeway in front of the ferry_building . the freeway was so severely_damaged in the earthquake that state_highway officials soon dismantled it in 1991 . the port commission of san_francisco , the city agency that has jurisdiction over the city 's waterfront , created the port of san francisco waterfront land use plan for a_7 . 5 mile stretch that covers much of the city 's bay front from fisherman 's wharf to india basin . completed in 1997 , the plan calls for historic_preservation of a number of buildings , including the ferry_building , pier one and others on or along the embarcadero 's outmoded ''finger piers . '' the demise of the embarcadero freeway restored the ferry_building , with its distinctive tower , to its prominence as a landmark in the san_francisco skyline . that prominence is all the more important because it stands at the visual end point of market street , the city 's ' 'main_street . '' renovation of the 250 , 000 square_foot ferry_building , by cornerstone properties , is expected to begin in january 2001 . the building , said ms . simon , the architect who is designing the renovation , is ''the diamond in the necklace'' on the san_francisco waterfront . the two upper stories of the century old building will be rehabilitated as office space , while the first level will be a market hall devoted largely to food . the developers are studying a proposal to remove parts of the second floor , recreating a continuous ''nave'' similar to the one that that once ran the 600 foot length of the building . beyond its prominence as a landmark , the building is meaningful to san_francisco because it is one of the few major buildings to have survived the 1906 earthquake and the subsequent fires that ravaged much of the city . under construction in front of the ferry_building is a large plaza that features two ''light cannons'' capable of projecting a pair of column like shafts of light into the night air . the designer is roma design group of san_francisco . port officials see the ferry building 's renovation as a way to re establish it as a transportation_hub . for the first time in decades , the muni light_rail system is being rerouted to stop directly in front of the ferry_building . the 1989 earthquake ''was a tragedy , but it also opened up the whole city , '' said ms . sobol , the port official , adding that it ''allowed us to connect the waterfront with the city again . '' the removal of the freeway ''opens up the view of the water , , '' she said , ''and has reactivated interest in the waterfront . ''",has a topic of estate
"lead it exists , but not for long a community in the metropolitan_area without condominiums . elmsford , n.y. , only one square_mile between tarrytown and white_plains , has remained a community of single family homes some , now , holding two families and just a few rental apartment houses . it has been , in fact , elmsford 's small size and central location that have prevented things from changing . it exists , but not for long a community in the metropolitan_area without condominiums . elmsford , n.y. , only one square_mile between tarrytown and white_plains , has remained a community of single family homes some , now , holding two families and just a few rental apartment houses . it has been , in fact , elmsford 's small size and central location that have prevented things from changing . ''it 's surrounded by golf_courses and developed properties , and there have n't been many opportunities , '' said henry reiter , a developer who finally found a spot and is building a 31 unit condominium there . his one acre site , on nob hill , the highest point in the village , is prominent and at the intersection of a thruway , a parkway and an expressway . the 6 million project was made possible when the village added a multiple dwelling zoning to the commercial zoning of tarrytown road , its main_street . the one and two bedroom units are priced from 179 , 000 to 239 , 500 . more condominiums should follow another developer plans 980 units for the other side of nob hill . posting",has a topic of estate
"with street signs naming blocks after george_balanchine and leonard_bernstein , and a renowned performing_arts center , the vibrant lincoln square neighborhood abounds with cultural and entertainment opportunities . at its heart is lincoln_center , a mecca for opera , ballet , classical_music , theater and film audiences . on summer nights , jazz and salsa get the crowd swinging on the fountain plaza at lincoln_center . the 13 screen sony lincoln square at broadway and 68th_street attracts large audiences nightly , and the latest foreign films may be seen a few blocks south at the six screen lincoln plaza cinemas . o'neal 's , fiorello 's and josephina are among the longstanding restaurants catering to the theater set . cafe des artistes attracts prominent people from the arts and media to its tables . neighborhood stores like 67 wine spirits and soutine 's bakery are part of the mix on or near columbus avenue . a 24 hour food emporium at 68th_street and broadway and the recently expanded fairway market on broadway at 74th_street deliver to many busy homes in the area . ''the neighborhood is incredibly convenient , '' said arlene simon , the president of landmark west , an upper west side preservation group , who has lived with her family on west 67th street for 29 years . ''central_park is our front lawn . '' the slides at adventure playground at central_park at west 67th street are a magnet for children , and the flea_market in the schoolyard on columbus and 76th street , which showcases collectibles , is a popular weekend meeting place . in the last four years , lincoln square has increasingly become a shopping destination . among the large chain stores are barnes_noble , tower records , pottery barn , eddie bauer and the disney store . gracious home , the upscale housewares store , is coming this fall . abc has its headquarters in the neighborhood and there are also a number of associations near lincoln square , which is zoned for mixed use residential , entertainment and commercial development . in 1969 , the city planning commission created the special lincoln square district to encourage development from west 60th to 68th_street between amsterdam_avenue and parts of central_park west . the city amended its zoning for the district in 1994 , restricting the height of buildings on broadway to 25 to 30 stories , depending on various factors . ''the neighborhood has changed enormously , '' said barry rosenberg , a of community board 7 member who has lived on west 67th street 30 years . ''we are becoming more like times_square north and less like a mixed use residential community . '' dennis rooney , a producer in the music business , and his wife , jacqueline jones , who works at the metropolitan_opera , have just paid 275 , 000 for a 900 square_foot , two bedroom , one bath co op with a terrace on west 66th_street near west_end avenue . ''public transportation is convenient , and for my wife it 's walking distance to the met , '' mr . rooney said . ''one thing we will enjoy being close to is the walter reade theater . '' the theater , which is part of lincoln_center , specializes in film festivals , retrospectives and international movies . in the 1990 's , the lincoln_center area has become one of the city 's prime condominium settings , said jeff sholeen , a broker with the corcoran group . there are about 20 condominium buildings in the west 60 's the most luxurious is the 52 story trump international tower at one central_park west . following closely are three millennium partners towers , from 66th to 68th streets and from broadway to columbus avenue . opera stars , television talk show hosts and athletes are some of the residents of the 27 to 56 story millennium buildings , which were constructed in the last five years with retail spaces as their lower floors . their 1 , 000 square_foot one bedrooms sell for about 500 , 000 , and 1 , 600 square_foot two bedrooms fetch about 800 , 000 , said gayle porigow , a broker with vandenberg real_estate , which specializes in the area . central_park west in the 60 's is all co op except for two condominiums , trump international and , at no . 25 , the century . on the low rise side streets between columbus avenue and central_park west is a mixture of single family town houses , brownstone apartment buildings and rental and co op apartment houses . at the nearly completed trump place rental building at 180 riverside boulevard , the first building in the contentious 16 building riverside south development in the former penn yards site to the west of lincoln_center , available studios rent for 1 , 650 to 1 , 780 , one bedrooms for 2 , 275 to 3 , 200 and two bedrooms for 4 , 000 to 6 , 000 . west_end towers at 75 west_end avenue rents studios for 1 , 400 to 1 , 600 , one bedrooms for 1 , 700 to 2 , 100 and two bedrooms for 2 , 800 to 3 , 200 . a five bedroom , five story town house on west 68th_street sold for 2 . 7 million in june . many properties on west 67th street between columbus avenue and central_park west were built as artists' studios in the early 20th_century and are now three bedroom duplex co ops with double height ceilings that sell for more than 1 million . the extension of the ninth_avenue elevated railway in 1879 , which ran from 53d to 145th streets , spurred residential construction in the area . the affluent settled on central_park west and the middle_class moved into row_houses on 68th_street and above . tenements on ninth ( columbus ) and 10th ( amsterdam ) avenues and the side streets in between housed many working_class immigrants . in 1908 , a 55 foot statue of liberty was installed on the roof of the liberty warehouse building , now the site of o'neal 's restaurant at 43 west 64th street . before world_war i , the lincoln square theater was one of several vaudeville houses in the area . the artists raphael soyer and george bellows had studios in the lincoln arcade building at broadway and west 65th street , now the site of the juilliard school . amsterdam_avenue between 56th and 69th streets , a deteriorating area with a high crime rate , became known as san juan hill . in 1957 city officials designated an 18 block area as the lincoln square urban_renewal project . the construction of lincoln_center , a branch of fordham_university and public schools from 1959 to 1969 helped to restore confidence in the neighborhood . tenements in the neighborhood were demolished and families were relocated . parts of the 1961 movie ''west side story'' were filmed in streets in the area , with abandoned tenements as backdrops , noted peter salwen , the author of ''upper west side story . '' about 2 , 400 people live in the new york city housing authority 's 13 building amsterdam houses , bounded by 61st and 64th streets and amsterdam and west_end avenues . the average income of the families living there is 14 , 978 . the neighborhood , which is in community school_district 3 , has three public elementary schools . liz sostre , district spokeswoman , said that the pre k through grade 5 p.s . 191 had ''a strong focus on literacy'' and that the k 5 p.s . 199 focused on science . the k 3 special music school of america at 129 west 67th street is a public elementary_school for musically gifted children . parents may apply to any middle_school in district 3 . the 5 8 center school at 270 west 70th street focuses on theater arts . the 6 8 lincoln academy at 210 west 61st_street , with 180 children , provides a small , supportive learning environment . the five year old , 700 student beacon high_school at 227 243 west 61st_street has a rigorous academic curriculum and sends about 80 percent of its graduates on to higher_education . some advanced students are able to take classes at the nearby fordham campus . the other neighborhood secondary_school is the martin_luther_king_jr . high_school at 122 amsterdam_avenue . a dmission to the fiorello h . laguardia high_school of music , art and performing_arts at 108 amsterdam_avenue is by audition . in addition to the academic program , students spend several hours in an arts studio . the private ethical culture school at 33 central_park west educates about 510 students in pre k through grade 6 . the school was founded in 1878 by felix adler , a humanist philosopher . tuition ranges from 15 , 475 to 16 , 625 , depending on grade . about 200 students attend the grade 4 to 12 professional children 's school at 132 west 60th_street . tuition ranges from 13 , 000 to 15 , 000 . at the college level juilliard school , for music , dance and drama , the tuition is 15 , 200 . admission is by audition and only 9 percent of applicants are accepted , a school spokeswoman said . the west side y.m.c.a . at 63d street has preschool classes , day care and a nursery_school for children aged 2 1 2 to 5 . annual tuition ranges from 3 , 800 to 7 , 000 . the y offers a gym , two pools , basketball , squash , racquetball , as well as classes in self_defense , tai chi , yoga and aerobics . working out , networking and celebrity spotting are all possible at the reebok sports club on columbus avenue , where the initiation fee is 1 , 175 and monthly dues are 170 . community and preservation groups are concerned that the trump project , which is eventually to have 5 , 700 apartments , as well as the proposed development of the coliseum site at columbus_circle , will add to the congestion in the area . ''it 's a wonderful neighborhood , but sometimes you can barely walk on the street because it is so crowded , '' said councilwoman ronnie eldridge , a democrat , who lives in the area .",has a topic of estate
"constance k . newsom takes pride in her prewar row_house in boerum_hill , brooklyn pre civil_war , that is but she is also looking forward to some new neighbors across the street , a row of 14 starkly modern single family town houses taking shape in cinderblock outlines . the town houses on state street , priced at about 2 . 6 million , are the leading_edge of a series of projects that are to fill in lots that were cleared decades ago in the name of urban_renewal , only to become a battleground of urban dreams . for years , ms . newsom and her neighbors on state street fought off proposals to turn the block into high rise low_income_housing , or a huge court complex . now they are mostly thrilled with the plans but anxious about how things will finally look . the town houses are part of a larger project it will eventually include condominium developments , lofts , commercial space , a theater and subsidized_housing , much of it for people working in the entertainment industry . the houses , under construction by two developers , abby hamlin and francis greenburger , were designed to embrace the lightly ornamented greek_revival brick buildings across the street built in the late 1840 's , and the more elaborate italianate 1870 's brownstone down the block , while at the same time remaining decidedly different . averaging just under 18 feet wide , the houses are to include front stoops , iron railings , cast limestone details , and facade lines to echo those of their older neighbors , along with patches of old fashioned red brick . but the new buildings dropped the ornamentation of their neighbors and added some modern strokes swatches or entire facades of more contemporary white and black bricks , and dramatic window layouts , some set off by wide copper panels , that change from house to house . every facade is different . ''we were looking for a way to respond to the neighborhood , but in a way that was original , '' ms . hamlin said . ms . hamlin managed the portfolios for several families with large real_estate holdings in new york as president of swig , weiler arnow , before setting up her own development company , hamlin ventures . the project is a joint_venture of her firm and the much larger time equities , a real_estate_development and management firm headed by mr . greenburger . the design by rogers marvel architects was one of nine winners of housing design awards to be presented later this month by the american_institute_of_architects new york chapter . ( richard meier was also a winner this year for his recent glass tower at 165 charles street , as was davis brody bond , for strivers gardens , a condo project on west 135th_street . ) ms . newsom , who was chairwoman of a subcommittee that reviewed proposals for the site , said that although some neighbors ''wanted corinthian columns , '' people are ''essentially happy , '' based on the renderings they have seen and the plans reviewed by their architect . ''modern design is the only thing you can do credibly , '' she said . ''but it will be like avery_fisher_hall , until the bands start to play , we wo n't know what it sounds like . '' the new town houses are priced somewhat above the prevailing prices for older town houses in the neighborhood , where , brokers say , recent sales have ranged up to about 1 . 9 million . but unlike older houses , which often require restoration or redesign , the new houses will be completely finished , ms . hamlin said , with materials like honed slate , marble and teak , which are offered in the latest manhattan condo developments , but with far more space , along with a private backyard and a working fireplace . and unlike older town houses , which often let in little light through their narrow windows and northern exposures , these will include a 21 foot wall of windows facing the backyards , which are 37 feet deep . some of the town houses will have a fifth floor penthouse and gardens , other smaller ones will have front balconies on the fourth floor , framed by a roof cornice line , like a giant picture window . unlike condos , each house will also have a 900 square_foot cellar . ms . hamlin said most of the potential buyers one house is now in contract have been from manhattan , families with two or three children , seeking more space . the town houses are around the corner from the a line subway and about 20 minutes to times_square . jonathan j . marvel , a principal in rogers marvel , said that the opportunity to design a unified block of individual row_houses was extraordinary , almost unknown because many of the last blocks of speculative row_houses were built in harlem at the turn of the 20th_century . ''it is something of our time , and not out of place in the neighborhood , '' he said . ''it is also something playful , that creates a sense of individuality , yet all within the composition as a whole . '' if the houses sell , the developers plan to build 10 more around the corner of state and hoyt street , and other developers might be prompted to follow their lead , especially where the zoning already bars more dense development . town house developments have been rare for the last century because developers usually want to put up the most housing in the smallest possible space . there have been only a few rows of luxury town houses built , and they have had their troubles . in the 1980 's , sheldon solow built a row of 11 18 foot_wide granite clad town houses on east 67th street near second avenue in manhattan , adjacent to a 45 story building he built that used up most of the zoning rights for the site . the houses were offered for sale in the mid 1980 's for several million dollars each , but amid the real_estate recession that followed , they were never sold , and are now offered for rent , with some now divided into two and three apartments . many row_houses built outside manhattan in recent years have been two or three family houses constructed under city programs for buyers with moderate income . but richard bearak , the deputy director for planning and development in the brooklyn borough_president 's office , said new contextual zoning rules in neighborhoods like park_slope that limit building sizes could encourage the construction of row_houses , because they are smaller . four and a half years ago , the developers bought the state street site from new york state for 4 . 6 million , after being selected in response to a request for proposals . the market value of vacant land in downtown_brooklyn has since soared . though the developers paid less than 10 a square_foot for 500 , 000 square_feet of development rights , after excluding the subsidized project , land in the area has recently been offered for sale for as much as 150 per square_foot of development , ms . hamlin said . a few years back , karen sebiri , a broker for prudential_douglas_elliman ( the new town house project is being marketed by corcoran ) , considered buying a row_house on this section of state street , but was scared off by the uncertainty of what might be built next door . now she said she believes the new project will be ''a big boost for the entire neighborhood . '' ''when you put something like this in , you are only going to bring up prices in the neighborhood , '' she said . ''had i known there would be luxury town houses across the street , i would have bought . '' postings",has a topic of estate
"lead bernadette mclaughlin lives on the east side of this city , margaret puryear on the west . the two women share a deep nostalgia about a lost past and fears about the future . but they inhabit separate worlds , divided by far more than the saw mill river parkway , the concrete barrier that runs between them . bernadette mclaughlin lives on the east side of this city , margaret puryear on the west . the two women share a deep nostalgia about a lost past and fears about the future . but they inhabit separate worlds , divided by far more than the saw mill river parkway , the concrete barrier that runs between them . mrs . mclaughlin is white . mrs . puryear is black . they are two women who both reflect their neighborhoods and help to lead them mrs . mclaughlin is president of her civic_association , mrs . puryear active on her tenants' council . in a city found liable in federal court for keeping black and hispanic separate from white , to talk to them and their friends is to discover the depth and complexity of emotions behind a seven year old lawsuit . mrs . puryear lives in a crime ridden public_housing_project in a run down neighborhood . she has had few alternatives , according to a federal_judge , who ruled in 1985 that over 40 years yonkers built 97 . 7 percent of its public_housing in one corner of the city in an effort to keep its neighborhoods and schools segregated . the judge has threatened yonkers with bankrupting fines and a freeze on new development , immediately affecting four projects , unless it stops resisting his two year old order to desegregate by building new public_housing in neighborhoods like mrs . mclaughlin 's . she says , ''we do not want low_income_housing in our neighborhood . '' mrs . mclaughlin lives with her husband , patrick , and their four sons in the dunwoodie section on a street lined with cape_cods , near catholic churches and italian delicatessens . the neighborhood is only 15 minutes from the south_bronx , from which her family fled with other whites 20 years ago , when they no longer felt secure on once familiar streets . ''i remember coming home one night and thinking , 'who are all these people out on the street i do n't know them , ' '' mrs . mclaughlin said . the houses in southeast yonkers are filled with people like the mclaughlins , the children of italian and irish immigrants who settled in the bronx , themselves refu gees from old neighborhoods . they are teachers , police officers and small business owners . what they are saying has been said before , in other cities confronting court ordered desegregation . much of it can be found in the court transcript here , recounting passionate community debates from the 1960 's through the 80 's . to hear the talk about what is happening in yonkers now is to wonder again where concern for family and community ends and racism begins . ''are we really prepared to live in a society that guarantees equal opportunities regardless of race ? '' asked joshua p . bogin , who was the lead trial counsel for the justice_department , which , with the national association for the advancement of colored people , sued yonkers in 1980 over discrimination . ''what we 're finding , in the 1980 's , is that it 's not as easy as we had thought . '' the old fears are returning ''all of us have worked for our homes , '' patrick mclaughlin said . ''our houses are our major investments . we are not anti integrationists . show me some black guys who are working , and i 'll go out and get people here to sell them houses . ''but we do n't want any free rides . we 're talking about a subculture of poverty the crime ridden , nonworking poor , people with lesser values that we do n't share . '' the mclaughlins sat at their dining_room table with two friends , jerry longarzo and bob guldner , talking about the judge who says yonkers must build low_income_housing in their neighborhood . they talked for hours about their lives , their homes and their fears . they are solid citizens . mr . mclaughlin is assistant chairman of a committee on the handicapped in a community school_district in the bronx . mr . longarzo is assistant principal at a bronx elementary_school . mr . guldner is retired from the new york city police . struggled to buy homes around that table , the issues of public_housing and civil_rights seemed inseparable from their own experiences . when they talked about discrimination , they talked about that suffered by their immigrant parents . when they talked about housing , they talked about how hard they struggled to buy their homes . when they talked about their fears , they talked about the bronx . they described it in idealized terms an urban america where everyone worked hard and no one locked doors . ''the bronx was a paradise lost , '' mr . longarzo said . urban experts attribute the bronx 's decline to forces ranging from the building of the cross bronx expressway to the exodus of the middle_class to co op city . but many of those who fled here see it in stark , simple terms people on welfare moved in , many into huge public_housing projects . the decay of the bronx stands as one of the principal experiences of their lives , seeming to inform all of their fears about low_income_housing . ''we could see the projects going up from our kitchen window , '' mr . guldner said . ''i remember my mother saying , 'that 's the end of the neighborhood . ' '' ''there was a transition , '' mr . mclaughlin said . ''it was no longer working_poor , it was welfare poor . it was n't color , it was the way they acted . '' little is that simple in yonkers , a city of 195 , 000 that is 18 percent black and hispanic . the federal_judge , leonard b . sand , of district court in manhattan , found that arguments like some of those being heard today had been used by yonkers residents and officials to conceal racial concerns as they kept public_housing out of white neighborhoods . among the evidence of discrimination testimony from real_estate agents about middle_class blacks who had not been able to buy homes in those areas . oscar newman , a housing expert assigned to come up with a plan , which initially calls for 200 new units of public_housing , has said at community meetings that the fears in eastern yonkers are both justified and distorted . ''their neighborhoods were ruined by massive projects , '' he said . ''property values do decline when there is a high concentration of low income people . '' proposal 20 years ago he has also noted , however , that he has proposed not high rises but town houses , scattered among as many as eight sites in northern and eastern yonkers . there should be little effect on surrounding neighborhoods , he said . such a plan was proposed two decades ago . but the city rejected scattered site housing after an outcry like that heard today . instead , more high rises were built in southwest yonkers . the lawyer for the n.a.a.c.p. , michael sussman , referred to the high rises as ''apartheid like neighborhoods . '' ''you have to break the pattern , '' mr . newman has said . the mclaughlins and their friends are unconvinced . ''they call it scattered site housing , '' mr . longarzo said . ''we call it scattered site cancer . '' in a city buffeted by political turmoil , they have been urged on by city councilmen like nicholas longo and henry_spallone , both originally from the bronx . vowing to fight judge sand 's order up to the supreme_court , they were recently re elected as part of a coalition opposed to the new public_housing , that apparently controls the new council . ''they basically played on people 's fears , '' said councilwoman vinni restiano , who with this year 's redistricting , ran against mr . longo and lost . each man at the table talked angrily about his struggle to buy his house working two and three jobs , borrowing money from reluctant relatives , facing humiliation from bankers who saw them as poor risks and their fears of losing what they had gained . 'i 'm getting the shaft' ''you know how i got this house ? '' mr . mclaughlin demanded . ''we did n't eat out for two years . i hustled at yankee_stadium . i was a helper on a truck . i was a bartender , a stagehand . i worked my butt off . '' one site proposed for public_housing is six blocks from his home . ''and now i 'm getting the shaft , '' he said . he and the others say they are certain the proximity will sharply reduce the values of their homes . prices in the neighborhood start at 200 , 000 . mr . newman , again , has indicated that he both agrees and disagrees . ''if they start panic selling , property values will go down , '' he said . ''they will fulfill their own prophecy . '' they talked about how they had struggled to overcome poverty , and how their parents had and how unfair it was for a new group of poor people to be given instant entry . they have known discrimination . ''my father went to boston to look for work , '' mr . mclaughlin said . ''it was 'irish catholic need not apply . ' '' mr . newman has warned ''do n't make the mistake of thinking yonkers is a special case . the sentiments being expressed'' are ' 'really the sentiments of most suburbs that abut cities . '' last summer mr . longarzo wrote to judge sand on behalf of his civic_association . its opposition , he wrote , ''is not a question of race but of shared values a sense of personal responsibility coupled with self and civic pride . '' what kind of people would he and his neighbors welcome ? ''if any person of any race has sacrificed and can afford the market value of our homes , then they have shown personal responsibility coupled with self pride and will work to maintain and improve our community . '' in the projects , 'who thrives ? ' the commercial opened with a suburban scene a little white girl sang nursery rhymes on a swing while her mother hung out the wash . birds chirped . the film switched from color to black and white and the scene to a high rise housing_project . the camera focused on graffiti , garbage and beer bottles . traffic roared . the commercial switched back and forth between the project and the backyard several times before ending ''do n't let them do it ! say no to low_income_housing . vote for nick longo . he has the courage to fight , the wisdom to listen . '' ''that commercial won nick longo the election , '' said one city official , who did not want to be identified . mr . longo said part of the commercial was filmed at schlobohm houses in southwest yonkers . if the commercial implied that the people east of the saw mill stand to lose the most from projects like schlobohm , it is margaret puryear and 410 other families who live in schlobohm 's eight seven story buildings , part of the city 's 2 , 039 units of public_housing . she has lived there for 21 years , keeping her three bedroom apartment immaculate even as the project has fallen into decay . graffiti and broken glass on a recent saturday , mrs . puryear , who is 47 , gave a tour . she pointed out the trash and graffiti , broken glass in the playground , light fixtures missing in hallways . she indicated a group of young men near one building . they were drug dealers , she said . mrs . puryear , a factory worker 's daughter who has spent her entire life in southwest yonkers , saw mr . longo 's commercial . she is painfully aware of how her neighborhood looks to some people across town . ''i really ca n't blame them for not wanting us after seeing this , '' she said . ''it was n't always like this . it used to be beautiful . '' peter smith , executive director of the yonkers municipal housing authority , said , ''if we ever replicated another schlobohm , i think it would be an obscenity . '' schlobohm opened in 1952 . housing was tight in the postwar years , and the tenants included police officers , postal workers and laborers in the factories that once flourished in southwest yonkers . most were white . mrs . puryear and two other longtime schlobohm residents , mary wilson and mable hendricks , also remember those early years . in mrs . puryear 's living room , they spoke in resigned tones about the transformation of their world . ''we were the only blacks on our floor when we moved in , '' said mrs . wilson , 65 , a widow who has spent most of her adult life as a domestic worker . ''there was a directory in the lobby with all our names on it . '' she had brought snapshots , taken two decades ago . they showed the black and white children of schlobohm playing together . ''it was safe , '' she said . ''there were no drugs . we used to have hall inspectors . '' the wilsons had moved to schlobohm from the east side , where they had been living with a white family that employed her as a maid and cook and her husband as a chauffeur . the move was enormous . mrs . wilson 's children , age 7 and 8 , left a school on the east side where they had been the only blacks in their class for a predominantly black and hispanic school near schlobohm . ''the schools were more advanced on the east side , '' she said . ''my children said they were bored in the new school . '' according to judge sand 's ruling , housing segregation had contributed to segregated , and inferior , schools in southwest yonkers . schlobohm began to change in the 60 's when whites , many of whom by then earned too much to remain , began to move out . with the project in a mostly minority neighborhood , new whites were reluctant to live there , said mr . sussman , the lawyer for the n.a.a.c.p .. schlobohm grew overwhelmingly black and hispanic . maintenance deteriorated . crime rose . there were not enough city police and there was no federal money for housing police , mr . smith said . ''the anonymity of the project makes it a perfect environment for dealing drugs and all sorts of street_crime , '' he said . ''in a situation like that , who thrives ? '' but most of the tenants are law abiding . most of the crime , he said , is committed by outsiders ''they are the ones that people are afraid of . they are the ones that have somehow been identified as the project people . '' the women said they were gratified , but not surprised , by judge sand 's decision . ''yonkers has always been segregated , '' mrs . puryear said . 'people do n't want us' they have heard on television what some yonkers residents say about the judge 's order to build low_income_housing for people like them in new neighborhoods . ''it makes you want to cry that some people do n't want us , '' mrs . puryear said . while mrs . wilson and mrs . hendricks , a food service manager , have worked all of their adult lives , mrs . puryear , who was divorced , and is in poor health , has spent much of hers on public assistance . but she is not idle . she telephones the police for more patrol cars and urges the housing authority to make repairs . ''not everyone is on public assistance because they want to be , '' she said . a movement of cooperation there are other voices in yonkers . last summer , with judge sand threatening the city with crippling fines , a movement for cooperation was born . ''we clearly want to be responsive to the law , '' said george austin , a spokesman for those behind the movement . ''the judge has found the city guilty and has ordered a remedy . we 'd much rather work with the court and with the outside housing adviser and come up with a plan than have it shoved down our throats . '' mr . austin , an investment adviser , lives in lawrence park west in northeast yonkers , where tudor and colonial houses that start at 500 , 000 surround sarah lawrence college . 'pragmatic point of view' his civic_association joined with seven others from the northeast in urging the city to adopt mr . newman 's scattered site plan . but they also drafted a resolution stating their support for the city 's appeal of judge sand 's ruling . ''it 's not that we want it , '' anthony root , a corporate_lawyer from lawrence park west , said of the low_income_housing . ''but our position is that from a pragmatic point of view everyone should take their fair share . '' ''i think , '' he said , ''people in my community are not concerned about it from a racial point of view , but from an economic one this is the nest_egg . '' last july 7 , at a raucous meeting , the city_council voted to adopt mr . newman 's scattered site plan . the vote was 8 to 5 . but in november three of those who voted for the plan were defeated . judge sand called everyone back into court and made further threats . and an already divided city became more so , not just east against west , but neighborhood against neighborhood . yonkers has spent more than 15 million fighting the case . this week the city hired a third law_firm , skadden arps slate meagher flom of manhattan , to plead its cause .",has a topic of estate
"lead closings in the week ended aug . 15 manhattan greenwich_village 605 , 000 2 fifth avenue ( 8th st . ) 2 bedroom , 2 bath , 1 , 000 sq . ft . postwar co op 24 hr . doorman , formal_dining_room , terrace maintenance 1 , 400 , 50 tax deductible ( broker_bellmarc_realty ) closings in the week ended aug . 15 manhattan greenwich_village 605 , 000 2 fifth avenue ( 8th st . ) 2 bedroom , 2 bath , 1 , 000 sq . ft . postwar co op 24 hr . doorman , formal_dining_room , terrace maintenance 1 , 400 , 50 tax deductible ( broker_bellmarc_realty ) murray_hill 220 , 000 155 east 38th street 1 bedroom , 1 bath , 835 sq . ft . postwar condo 24 hr . doorman , remodeled_kitchen and bath , washer dryer , hardwood floors common charge 238 , taxes 2 , 748 ( broker b.j . gottesman co . ) murray_hill 630 , 000 311 east 38th street ( whitney ) 2 bedroom , 2 bath , 1 , 600 sq . ft . condo in a 3 yr . old building 24 hr . doorman , dining_room , wrapped terrace , fireplace common charge 700 , taxes 2 , 000 ( broker_ambrose_mar_elia ) upper east side 230 , 000 239 east_79th_street 2 bedroom , 2 bath , 1 , 200 sq . ft . postwar co op 24 hr . doorman , dining alcove , hardwood floors maintenance 1 , 500 , 70 tax deductible ( thompson realty ) upper west side 130 , 000 101 west 81st_street 1 bedroom , 1 bath , 750 sq . ft . co op in a renovated prewar building 24 hr . doorman , fireplace , hardwood floors maintenance 420 , 50 tax deductible ( broker hahn mann realty ) bronx baychester 130 , 000 3329 delavall avenue 2 family , detached , frame house 2 bedrooms , 1 bath , large kitchen in both units full basement , 35 by 100 ft . lot taxes 792 ( broker j.a.v . realty ) riverdale 165 , 500 611 west 239th street ( croyden house ) 2 bedroom , 2 bath , 1 , 100 sq . ft . postwar co op part time doorman , dining_room , terrace maintenance 470 , 52 tax deductible ( broker kahn kahn realty ) brooklyn brooklyn_heights 205 , 000 89 state street 1 bedroom , 1 bath , 850 sq . ft . co op in a recently renovated prewar building den , fireplace , private roof_deck maintenance 525 , 60 tax deductible ( broker william b . may ) flatbush 225 , 000 1522 new york avenue 2 family , 3 story , detached , queen anne house 6 bedrooms , 2 baths , wrap around terrace in primary duplex unit 2 bedrooms , 1 bath in other formal dining_rooms , large kitchens in both 1 car garage , 40 by 102 ft . lot , taxes 1 , 064 ( broker dwork korn ) fort_greene 84 , 500 21 south portland street 500 sq . ft . postwar studio separate bath and kitchen , high ceilings , hardwood floors maintenance 390 , 75 tax deductible ( broker renaissance properties ) queens forest_hills 132 , 000 110 45 queens boulevard ( park briar ) 1 bedroom , 1 bath , 800 sq . ft . postwar co op 24 hr . doorman , dining_area , remodeled_kitchen maintenance 397 , 52 maintenance 315 , 49 tax deductible ( broker penthouse properties ) forest hills 85 , 000 66 10 yellowstone boulevard 2 bedroom , 1 bath , 750 sq . ft . postwar co op dining_area , remodeled_kitchen , parquet_floors , new windows maintenance 365 , 50 tax deductible ( broker nu place realty ) staten_island heartland village 285 , 000 41 brunswick street 2 family , detached_house 4 bedrooms , 2 baths , formal_dining_room , family room in primary unit 1 bedroom , 1 bath in other large kitchens in both 56 by 100 ft . lot taxes 2 , 400 ( broker pearl foreman realty ) randall manor 195 , 000 55 walbrooke avenue 3 bedroom , 1 1 2 bath , single family colonial formal_dining_room , fireplace , sun porch , 2 car garage , 50 by 100 ft . lot taxes 1 , 100 ( broker rand properties )",has a topic of estate
"lead the board of estimate unanimously_approved a change in the city 's zoning law yesterday that would make it more difficult for developers to raze habitable single family homes and build higher density housing . the board of estimate unanimously_approved a change in the city 's zoning law yesterday that would make it more difficult for developers to raze habitable single family homes and build higher density housing . the amendment to the zoning law was sought , in particular , by residents of queens , who were concerned that the existing regulations threatened the villagelike atmosphere of many queens neighborhoods . the law , passed in 1973 , had allowed more dense development on vacant_lots in ''predominately built up'' areas zoned for one and two family houses . at a public hearing thursday afternoon , hundreds of queens residents had contended that , because of increasing land values , the zoning law had in effect encouraged developers to buy single family houses , demolish them and then construct more profitable multifamily houses . the amendment , approved early yesterday morning , would disallow the ''infill'' zoning rules on blocks where 75 percent of the houses are one or two family . the amendment will effectively prevent infill construction on half of the streets in queens where it had previously been allowed , according to the city 's planning department . in brooklyn , it will prevent such construction on a third of the previously eligible blocks . suit filed by builders' group the queens_county builders and contractors association said yesterday that it had filed a lawsuit wednesday in state supreme_court in manhattan , seeking to have the amendment declared invalid . the builders' group , which said the zoning change would severely limit the construction of housing , contended that the city had failed to conduct an environmental impact study of the zoning change . in another matter , the board approved regulations that would require developers in manhattan 's theater district to set aside 5 percent of the floor space in any new building for ''entertainment related uses . '' the rules define such uses to include , among other things auditoriums , movie production studios , dance , music and theatrical studios , theaters and ticket sales offices . the board approved the regulations by a vote of 9 to 2 , with comptroller harrison j . goldin voting against the rules . and in a third zoning matter that included turtle bay and parts of sutton_place , the board unanimously_approved a change that requires new buildings in the middle of the block from 48th_street to 59th_street , between first and third avenues to be compatible with existing buildings . sections of the upper east side , the upper west side , murray_hill and beekman_place are already covered by such mid block rules .",has a topic of estate
"lead barely a century old and now canada 's third largest metropolis , this energetic port city of british_columbia is about to embark on a development spree that will dramatically change its look , character and style . barely a century old and now canada 's third largest metropolis , this energetic port city of british_columbia is about to embark on a development spree that will dramatically change its look , character and style . invigorated by the success of the expo '86 world 's fair , business leaders have announced plans to transform the waterfront on two sides , replacing the last downtown industrial vestiges with futuristic office towers , more than 20 , 000 new residences , and esplanades and plazas most linked by canals or elevated trains . some civic leaders predict that when all the projects are completed by the turn of the century , their city will become a sort of hong_kong of the pacific_northwest , an international financial center surrounded by mountains and saltwater inlets . ''the idea is to make vancouver a true world city , '' said craig aspinall , a spokesman for pacific_place , the biggest of the new devlopments now on the drawing boards . with an estimated price_tag of 1 . 6 billion in u.s . dollars , pacific_place is being called the most expensive land development in canada . financed largely by li_ka_shing , a hong_kong billionaire whose assets make up one tenth of the stock_exchange in hong_kong , pacific_place is expected to transform the expo site into a 207 acre community of offices , town houses , parks and canals . the idea for pacific_place was that of mr . li 's 25 year old son , victor , who maintains a residence here . the family 's corporations own supermarkets , utilities and office buildings in canada , and commercial properties in phoenix , denver and san_francisco . mr . li 's purchase of the site , for a purported 237 million ( u . s . ) , is further evidence of the hong_kong capital now pouring into vancouver in anticipation of the 1997 deadline for turning over control of the british colony to china . as a british commonwealth nation , canada has immigration policies that are less strict than those of the united_states , which has made it easier for hong_kong businessmen to develop projects in growing canadian cities . as a result , the city built at the mouth of the fraser river , about 140 miles north of seattle , has taken on more of an international air in the last few years . it has a vibrancy and bustle to match those of the new projects going up all over the city . both the sale of the old expo site , from the government run british_columbia enterprise corporation , and the designs for pacific_place have generated considerable controversy . some critics say that developers other than mr . li were not given an opportunity to bid on the property , while others argue that the design does not include enough moderate income housing . the government says it wanted to complete the sale with minimum delay , to a developer with enough capital to complete a project large enough to cover the expo site , now a tract of asphalt and grass near the british_columbia place stadium . plans call for construction on pacific_place to begin next year and to proceed in phases over the next 15 years . the commercial core , which is to be built first , would contain more than 3 million square_feet of retail and office space , including a high tech research park , a 400 room hotel and a 45 story international financial center . the tower is designed to be a 24 hour telemarket for currency , securities , metals and commodities trading with the principal world financial centers . the residential component of pacific_place will be built along the waterfront of false_creek , within walking distance of the commercial core , and will provide housing for up to 20 , 000 people , half the number who currently live downtown . the units are planned as a mix of town houses and apartments , low and high rise . most would be built on two manmade islands in false_creek , a saltwater inlet on the southern end of downtown . a tidal lagoon , basically a canal extension of false_creek , would provide waterfront for some of the other housing units . underground parking for 21 , 000 cars , a marina with berths for 630 pleasure boats and 40 acres of public parks are also part of the design for pacific_place . the lagoon has led several canadian newspapers to call pacific_place the ''venice of the west . '' but mr . aspinall said the overall look of pacific_place , which was designed richard hulbert , a vancouver architect , is not supposed to duplicate other cities but is an effort to give this city of 1.5 million people a more sophisticated look . false_creek used to be lined with cement plants , pulp mills and other industrial enterprises . most either relocated to less expensive and environmentally_sensitive property , or were lost to a recession that began in the 1970 's . today , restaurants , open markets , marinas , parks and houses now face much of the waterway . burrard_inlet , on the north side of downtown , is the site for the other part of the facelift planned for vancouver . there , on waterfront property now crossed with railroad tracks , a canadian developer is set to start work this fall on the first phase of cole harbour , a plan to transform 82 acres of mostly industrial property into a mix of hotels , office towers , esplanades , marinas and public plazas . the ambitious project is to be built by marathon realty ltd . , a subsidiary of canadian_pacific ltd . , the railroad builder that owns numerous hotels , offices and industrial parks throughout north_america . it has yet to gain full approval from the city . tentative plans call for an 11 acre boat harbor , a 75 foot_wide promenade adjacent to a 15 acre shorefront park and two circular plazas . the project , bordering a scenic waterway across from the coast mountains , would connect much of downtown_vancouver to the waterfront through a series of parks that would replace the rail tracks and industrial buildings at the ends of many streets . construction is set to begin this fall on waterfront center , the 160 million commercial core of the marathon realty plan , which has been approved by vancouver officials . next to the vancouver trade and convention_center , the project will include a 500 room hotel , a 21 story tower with 410 , 000 square_feet of office space and about 65 , 000 square_feet of retail space on the ground level . prices for housing and office and retail space in the two projects have yet to be determined , but class a office space here is going for 25 ( u . s. ) a square_foot . business leaders associated with the two large developments have been criticized for forcing low income residents from the area in search of less expensive housing . but they say the projects will bring more people into the traditional neighbhorhoods of chinatown and gastown , two prime summer tourist destinations on the edge of downtown that suffer slumps when the season ends . marwyn thomas , project manager for waterfront center , said vancouver should be able to support both pacific_place and the marathon realty complex as long as british_columbia 's economy , long based on forest products and mining , continues to diversify . the area is emerging from a recession that began in the 1970 's and hurt most of the resource based communities in the province . tourism reached new levels following expo '86 , which attracted more than 20 million visitors and introduced many to the breathtaking scenery of british_columbia . ''what 's happened is that after mining and lumber took a hit , tourism really started to take off , '' mr . thomas said . ''the hope now is to play up the area as a big pacific_rim center of finance and high tech and information services . ''",has a topic of estate
"lead gifted sara , psychic and priestess of the paranormal , had forgotten her crystal_ball . a mental lapse , she said . unfortunately , palm reading would n't work in this situation . neither would tarot cards . ''does n't matter , '' she said , holding open the curtain on her seaside soothsaying stand . ''i use esp . gifted sara , psychic and priestess of the paranormal , had forgotten her crystal_ball . a mental lapse , she said . unfortunately , palm reading would n't work in this situation . neither would tarot cards . ''does n't matter , '' she said , holding open the curtain on her seaside soothsaying stand . ''i use esp . '' minutes later , sitting at a small table , she pondered the question before her . predict , please , the future for this city 's blighted boardwalk . hands folded , eyes squinted , brow wrinkled , gifted sara answered quickly . ''i see , '' she said , ''condominiums . '' it was just over a year ago that a fire , fanned by near gale force winds , destroyed the 175 yard fisherman 's pier and the block long commercial center of the long_branch boardwalk . razed by the fire on june 8 , 1987 , were local landmarks such as shooter 's bar , the kids' world amusement_park , the haunted mansion , a roller_coaster , several small restaurants and a score of t_shirt shops . saved was a nearby strip of adjacent businesses , such as wizard 's world pinball arcade , gifted sara 's and jimmy liu 's cafe bar . though the privately_owned boardwalk was not much to look at before the fire and was a mere midget compared with the monstrosities farther down the shore in asbury_park , seaside heights and wildwood , local businessmen mourned its loss , state leaders pledged relief and city officials vowed restoration . boosted by the support , patsy cicalese , the owner of the largest amusement_park destroyed , announced a month after the fire that he planned to reopen for the 1988 summer season . a few weeks later , governor kean even sent a letter to mr . cicalese lauding his ' 'substantial progress'' toward recovery . since then , however , virtually no movement has been made to rebuild the pier and the gutted 150 foot section of boardwalk . many of the surviving stands are boarded shut . the few that remain open attract only a few customers a day . ''it 's sad , '' said 21 year old walter jace of hackensack , n.j. , who used to run a ''guess your age'' stand on the pier . ''we do n't even have the games or any wheels anymore . did n't even have fireworks this year . '' ''between this and the waste and everything in the water , there is nothing to come here for , '' added shannon peterson , 17 , of ocean township , n.j. , a clerk at the boardwalk 's silver mark gift_shop . ''it 's dead . '' such requiems do not sadden everyone . in fact , some seemed pleased that the century old wooden walkway had perished . after all , the fire , which caused 10 million in damage but left no fatalities , has made the area 's long sought transition from honky tonk to condo kingdom vastly more plausible . that 's especially true now that mr . cicalese has decided to build a 200 unit high rise residential complex on the site of his former arcade , not far from where the hilton corporation plans to build a beachfront hotel . other boardwalk businessmen also believe the days of barkers and ferris wheels are over . they are simply waiting for the right offer before selling out . ''everything has a price , '' said mr . liu , 60 , who owns a strip of shops that survived the fire . mayor philip d . huhn , 43 , has cheered the change . ''what 's there now , i do n't think attracts a family tourist trade , '' he said . ''it 's been a big hangout for unsavory types . '' he described the site now as ''burned out and empty lots . '' he said he favors maintaining a small , lightly commercialized boardwalk . ''i 'd like to see a promenade , '' he said . ''we 're hoping , '' added a long_branch councilman , frank_pallone , 36 , ''for something kind of like that place in baltimore , the harbor something . '' what is it about boardwalks ? true , they 've always been neon nightmares , titanic in their tackiness . true , they tend to attract a range of riffraff and rapscallions . but where else could a grown man spend an evening in pursuit of a giant stuffed platypus ? where else could a kid discover how many times he could ride the tilt a whirl before throwing up ? . where else could a teen_ager taste cotton candy in her very first kiss ? ''i do n't think it will ever be the same , '' said miss peterson . so , let 's tear it all down and build condos . never mind the city 's soul . never mind that such a radical renovation would be taking place in a city that 75 years ago was the east_hampton of its time . never mind that the city lies only a few miles away from the home of bruce_springsteen , the bard of boardwalk life . this is the wave of the future . it 's happening everywhere on the north_jersey shore . look at what condos have done just two miles away in long_branch 's west_end . are n't they beautiful ? perhaps . it 's just hard to imagine a young bruce cruising the paddle ball courts .",has a topic of estate
"crammed into a less than commodious conference room one recent monday afternoon , 15 sales agents from the halstead property company hunched over a distressed wood table , sipping soda , crunching potato_chips and poring over column after column of real_estate classifieds . ''flawless condo gem , '' ''mint condition exclusive , '' ''palace in the sky , '' the teaser lines on the ads read . the agents were on a search and secure mission , hunting down those listings that other brokerage_firms had not shared or , in the industry 's parlance , co brokered with halstead . ''page 22 , are you all with me ? '' said diane ramirez , halstead 's director of sales . ''top of the page , fourth column from the left , second ad under the sotheby 's banner , a prewar duplex . '' ''we have it , '' piped in one of the brokers , indicating that the sotheby 's listing was already in the halstead company 's computer . ''first column , second from the bottom , 'airplane view condo , ' sutton beekman area , '' ms . ramirez said , citing another ad . but ''airplane view condo'' was not in the company computer and , soon after the two hour session , one of the halstead brokers was on the phone with an agent from the other company , wondering why that listing had not yet been faxed over or , at least , mailed . ''we call it our adbuster meeting , '' ms . ramirez said . ''every monday , we literally go over all of the ads in all of the newspapers , the magazines . if we do n't have the listing , we go after it . if the other company 's broker does n't cooperate , we call the head of the firm . '' in the keenly competitive , status conscious culture that is residential real_estate brokering in manhattan where the term ''exclusive'' is subject to widely divergent definition , where old line firms often decline to deal with upstart companies and where finding the ''right buyer'' is mandated , in one executive 's phrase , by an apartment 's ''geographical appropriateness'' there is great and historical resistance to bringing more openness to the market . manhattan does not have a multiple_listing_service one of those regulated , computerized systems through which all member companies must post a new listing and , if another company secures the buyer , divide the traditional 6 percent commission . the 1 , 400 firms in nassau , suffolk and queens that belong to the multiple_listing_service of long_island , for example , are required to submit all new listings within 48 hours of receiving them , unless a seller specifies otherwise , said joseph mottola , executive officer of the long_island board of realtors . and so , there are currently about 25 , 000 listings in the service 's computer available to all members . instead , manhattan relies on co brokering a term that is often colloquially contracted to ''co broking . '' ''it 's the unofficial multiple_listing_service of new york , with a fault , an achilles heel , '' said barbara corcoran , chairwoman of the corcoran group . ''it 's an optional cooperation service among brokers , and the key here is optional , so that individual brokerage_firms can choose , listing by listing , which ones they wish to share . '' thus , the manhattan market is something of a free for all with companies drawing up their own co brokering policies , creating a , b and c lists of which other firms will receive their listings and in what order or , simply , holding onto the deal for themselves . as a result , contend proponents of a formal listing service , sellers are denied full exposure to all potential buyers in the market and , consequently , may not get the best price for their apartment . ''some agencies want to earn the entire commission for themselves , '' said clark halstead , founder of the company that bears his name . ''that clearly puts the agency and the seller at odds when , in fact , they should be unified . often the companies are representing themselves instead . '' as a result of co brokering , argue conservators of the current system , the privacy of sellers who do not want wide dissemination of information about their property is protected and they do not face the inconvenience of too many would be buyers traipsing through their apartment , especially those who are not financially qualified to pass increasingly rigorous co op admission requirements . and co brokering maintains professional standards , they say , keeping select listings out of the hands of freelance , part time brokers . ''i think the current system works well as it is , '' said alan j . rogers , managing director of douglas_elliman . ''i believe that a formal multiple listing in manhattan would encourage individual brokers to work out of their homes . that 's not in the best interests of the customer . '' ''in a firm , '' mr . rogers said , ''there are rules of professional standards , and also proper resources to promote and market properties . and that 's better for the seller and the buyer . '' kent swig , co chairman of brown_harris_stevens , said ''right now , from our firm 's perspective , we like it the way it is . our firm has been doing business in new york since 1873 , and the hamptons as well , and while co brokering is cumbersome for some of the newer players , i think it works well for the manhattan marketplace . '' manhattan is unique , said iverson moore , a spokesman for the national_association_of_realtors . ''no other major metropolitan_area in the country does not have a multiple listing system'' although there are some areas , like the hamptons ( perhaps for similar demographic reasons ) that also rely on co brokering . asked for historical perspective on how the practice came about in manhattan , charles m . staro , executive vice_president of the new york state board of realtors , said , ''it 's probably what did n't come about . '' ''in the old days in new york city , brokers only operated in certain areas , like murray_hill , gramercy_park , and pretty much stayed within their realm of understanding , '' mr . staro said . ''consequently , brokers in the area were able to share information relative to listings and co broke on that basis . ''but take a community outside of manhattan , '' mr . staro said , ''where the area was much greater , the distance between brokers made for less communication , so there was a need to establish a focal_point whereby listings could be disseminated on a much wider scale . there are brokers on the upper east side who are not interested in selling apartments in soho or tribeca . '' those ingrained attitudes have melded with today 's tight market in which many buyers vie for few listings and apartments are often snatched up within days after or even on the day they are first shown . and so , brokers know they can often earn the full commission by keeping the deal in house . it is not uncommon for an individual sales agent ''to drag his or her feet on co brokering without the knowledge of the company management , '' mr . halstead said . but there also may be ''an unspoken secret policy inside the firm to hold the listing for some period of time before releasing it to co brokers . '' and there are some agents and agencies , said joanne kennedy , president of coldwell_banker hunt kennedy east , who will propose to a seller that in exchange for permission to keep the listing in house for a month , the commission will be reduced to , perhaps , 5 percent . and then , if the property is not sold during the month , the commission will revert to the customary 6 percent . ''the problem is that the first month is when the fireworks should be going off , when you will have the most activity because all of the buyers on record will be informed of that property , '' ms . kennedy said . ''they may save a point in commission but lose much more than that in selling price . so then they 've lost twice the initial market exuberance and , then , if it was n't sold in that month , end up paying 6 percent anyway . '' but some sellers are simply not interested in too much fireworks . ''i think the only reason that the m.l.s . has not come to manhattan heretofore is because of the system of cooperative housing , '' said elizabeth f . stribling , president of stribling_associates . ''many of the tenant shareholders in some of the co op buildings are very aware of the financial criteria and the personal references that have to be supplied to the board of directors , '' ms . stribling continued . ''and i think , therefore , they want to make sure that they have some idea of who is bringing the prospective purchasers to the apartment . you will find that in some instances the sellers of these apartments are more selective in who they want to list their property with because of this form of ownership . '' when debra and denise lachance twin sisters who are partners in style industrie , a company that produces fashion trade shows sold their apartments in greenwich_village recently , they felt that co brokering served their sales effort well . debra lachance sold a one bedroom co op in a brownstone on 13th street ''that was once owned by one of the roosevelts , '' she said . her original asking price was 450 , 000 . ''all the bidders came in through co broking , '' ms . lachance said , ''and , basically , it sold in a day . i was swamped it was a bidding war , a frenzy , but a good frenzy . ''we just stopped the process after a day , '' she said , ''because at that point it was 25 , 000 over the asking price , and the asking price was really what my husband and i considered to be , you know , a bold statement . '' seeing an opportunity to capitalize on her sister 's success , denise lachance decided to sell her two bedroom , prewar co op on 10th street . ''one of the backup buyers for debra was really looking for an apartment , '' ms . lachance said . ''she 'd lost a couple of deals before she lost debra , so you 're talking now about the third lost deal . '' ms . lachance used the same broker as her sister , a friend of the family named bennett goldworth and , once again , he was co brokering . she and her husband , victor , priced the apartment ''at what we thought was really a high number 550 , 000 . '' the frustrated backup buyer came to see the apartment . ''she wanted , she did n't want , she wanted it again , '' denise lachance said . ''the bottom line was , we said to her , 'look , if you do n't do it now we 're going to put it on the market for a higher price . ' '' the woman continued to waffle . ''so , of course , we had to follow through and put it on the market for a higher price , 575'' 575 , 000 . ''she did n't come back , '' ms . lachance said , ''but a ton of people did , because bennett had an open house right away and he permitted brokers to come . and we immediately got bids which came up to the asking price , and one of them above , at 585 . '' for reasons other than price , ms . lachance and her husband eventually chose a buyer other than the highest bidder , accepting one of four offers at the original asking price , 575 , 000 . ''there was broad exposure through the co broking , '' denise lachance said , ''the ability to access more clients than you ever would if you just had someone who did n't let other brokers be part of the process . '' ms . kennedy of coldwell_banker hunt kennedy , however , said she believed that in too many cases , ' 'sellers are unaware of the actual mechanics of co broking , of who is actually receiving the listing and when . '' ''this is a major problem in today 's marketplace , where properties are being held off until the agent decides to co broke them , '' she said . ''those sellers are being denied the full impact of the market they are just getting one little band width . '' mr . swig of brown_harris_stevens argued that selective co brokering ' 'maintains a_level of professionalism in the marketplace . '' ''a part time broker ca n't gain the same kind of access to information as a full time one , '' he said . ''you go into other marketplaces and anybody can get a salesperson 's license and work out of their home for four hours a week . it gives a bad reputation to the industry . '' ms . corcoran pointed out , however , that she ''learned a very early lesson on the first multimillion_dollar sale we ever had , which was a 6 . 5 million park_avenue apartment in one of the most exclusive buildings in the city top , top tier . ''the buyer was brought in by an independent broker who operated out of her kitchen . and that taught me that the sale can come from anywhere . and it was on that sale that i built a giant net to get our listings out to as many brokers as we could . '' statistics from her company , ms . corcoran said , indicate a fivefold increase in the number of would be buyers for a given property when it is co brokered throughout the market . ''why do i only want my 250 brokers working for me when i could have 5 , 000 ? '' she said . ms . corcoran 's campaign for total co brokering caused her some trouble in may when the city 's department of consumer affairs fined her firm 5 , 000 for what it determined was a deceptive advertisement . the ad claimed that when a seller lists a property with the corcoran group it is ''immediately made available to 100 percent of the market , '' as opposed to a_12 percent average with other firms . without admitting wrongdoing , ms . corcoran agreed to desist from such advertising . ''the consumer affairs charge and the brokerage community 's reaction to the ad was another indication of how much the topic needed to be addressed , '' ms . corcoran said last week . ''the numbers were totally accurate . the difficulty was that because there is no m.l.s . there were no public numbers to support our claim , which was based on our hard research . '' there have been several attempts in recent years to create quasi multiple listing services in manhattan . one system , called metrolist express , makes listings available to the general public as well as to brokers . there is no cost to a seller , but a fee of 175 is charged to buyers for six months' access to the company 's web_site . two other firms , autolist and online residential , also accept listings directly from sellers for free , but the information is only available to member brokers . and in an effort to bring order if not mandated compliance to the market , 20 of the leading members of the real_estate board of new york recently formed the listing exchange , with ms . kennedy of coldwell_banker hunt kennedy as its president . ''it is simply a system to transmit listing information electronically , '' ms . kennedy said . ''it replaces the current system of faxing , mailing , pony express and the grapevine . '' each of the founding companies contributed 10 , 000 toward the development of a computer system to be housed at the real_estate board 's offices that will allow them to input and access new listings at the push of a button . listing standards have been established , ms . kennedy said , and a ''translation language'' has been chosen so that all the members can access the information through their own computers . the listing exchange is expected to be operational by the end of the year . ''we all want to eliminate the current redundant data entry process that is not only costly but is subject to error , '' ms . kennedy said . ''but it is not a multiple listing system , it 's a communicating system . the agents will be able to send their listing with one stroke on their keyboard . ''but the thing is they can still say who to send it to , and when , '' ms . kennedy said . ''it 's still optional . ''",has a topic of estate
"lead in a major decision involving landlord tenant rights , a state appeals court in manhattan has ruled that a building owner is not legally responsible when one tenant harms another unless an incident can be predicted on the basis of previous behavior . in a major decision involving landlord tenant rights , a state appeals court in manhattan has ruled that a building owner is not legally responsible when one tenant harms another unless an incident can be predicted on the basis of previous behavior . the court also ruled that a tenant cannot be evicted simply because he might eventually prove dangerous . the decision overturned a lower court jury verdict awarding nearly 200 , 000 to the family of a stabbing victim at a bronx public_housing_project . it said the landlord in the case , the new york city housing authority , could not be held accountable for the victim 's injuries because it did not know the attacker was dangerous . even to have made such a determination would have been a violation of the tenant 's rights , the court said . the tenant to the landlord 's knowledge had never before been violent . he had a history of mental_illness . lawyers said the decision , released thursday by the appellate_division of state supreme_court , was a victory for landlords because it could reduce the legal_liability of a landlord who is sued after tenants harm each other . tenant organizers and advocates for the homeless said the ruling could prove an even greater victory for mentally ill tenants because the court said that such people could not be evicted simply because of eccentricities or the suspicions of the landlord . the court ruled that a specific act or a previous attack must be cited . ''it means you have to be careful before you evict anybody , but that you are under no obligation to investigate every loud noise , either , '' said allen h . isaac , a lawyer who represented the authority in the lawsuit . according to court documents , a 16 year old tenant , marvin gill , was stabbed repeatedly and was permanently injured by another tenant , ernest lamb , in a hallway of a housing_project on fort independence street in the kingsbridge section of the bronx in 1982 . mr . lamb , who was 23 , had been institutionalized several times and treated for mental_illness . verdict reversed mr . gill 's mother , frances , who brought the suit , argued that mr . lamb should have been evicted , or that warnings should have been posted in the building , or other steps taken to insure the safety of the other tenants . a state supreme_court jury in the bronx agreed and awarded the gills 198 , 699 . 52 in damages in november 1985 . the housing authority appealed . in its unanimous decision reversing the verdict and dismissing the case , the appellate panel said that allowing the lower court verdict to stand would have meant that ''the housing authority would then be obligated to look into its crystal_ball to assess the likelihood of harm and then , where indicated , to take protective measures for which it has no expertise or authority . '' the result , the court said , would have been that ''those with psychiatric disorders would be dispossessed from the low income accommodations to live in the streets'' because that would be almost the only recourse for the authority to meet its responsibility for safety in its building . presiding justice francis t . murphy , who wrote the 17 page decision on behalf of the five judge panel , said it would have meant forcing landlords to perform tasks that were not part of being a landlord , and would have subjected every tenant ''to a degree of scrutiny about his private affairs and his living accommodation that is intolerable . '' the deputy general_counsel to the authority , frank gulino , said that while there have been other cases affirming the limits of the agency 's responsibility in maintaining the safety of public_housing , the ruling was significant because of its emphasis that a tenant 's rights cannot be investigated without due cause . ''it has never been stated this strongly before , '' mr . gulino said . ''you have to have a showing that a tenant was guilty of nondesirable acts before he can be evicted , not just rumors . '' the lawyer for the gill family , fred r . profeta jr . , could not be reached for comment on whether the decision would be appealed .",has a topic of estate
"lead hundreds of children could be ousted from their day care programs because of a change in policy at the submarine base in groton . hundreds of children could be ousted from their day care programs because of a change in policy at the submarine base in groton . the policy now requires that home day care centers in navy housing be open just to navy dependents . the policy would place hundreds of children into a tight day care market in the southeastern region , state officials said . day care operators who work in their homes have been told that starting at the end of the month they will have 90 days to remove civilian children . a spokeswoman for the base , chief kathy dietrich , said the family home_care program tried to insure that navy buildings were solely used by military dependents . there is a question , chief dietrich added , about extending the government liability_insurance to the children of civilians . availability is also a question . a survey showed 500 day care spots were needed . the navy center accommodates 100 . if there is day care in navy housing , the chief said , it should benefit navy personnel . two hundred names are on the waiting list for the navy day care center . a spokesman for the department of human_resources , david dearborn , said 90 of the 105 licensed home day care operations , which care for a total of 521 children , were in navy housing . ''we are concerned about the impact , '' mr . dearborn said . ''how significant it will be will depend on how many new homes we can recruit to replace them . '' carla a . pintauro , child_care information coordinator for the infoline office for new london and middlesex counties , said the loss of the homes would add pressure to the system . her office receives 350 to 400 calls a month from people looking for day care , ms . pintauro said . last month , the office received 33 calls alone from people in groton , most of whom were referred to centers in navy housing , she said . ''it is going to have a significant impact , '' ms . pintauro predicted . ''it 's going to be a problem for some people , because there are gaps in day care services to begin with . '' the policy has also angered customers . one , david waterman of groton , put his 4 year old daughter into a program operated by a navy wife six months ago , after receiving assurances that the woman 's husband was not going to be transferred and that the navy would allow the arrangement . ''as far as we 're concerned , stability is very important in day care , '' mr . waterman said . ''now , after six months , we 're being told we have to find a new place . '' cindy newsome of groton , whose husband is in the navy and whose 2 year old girl is in day care in navy housing , said the policy upset her , even though she would not , apparently , be affected by it . ''they 're going to overregulate it , and they 're going to force a lot of people out of it , '' mrs . newsome said . ''they 're going to make it so difficult a lot of them are going to quit , then where do we turn ? '' out of a dozen women contacted who operate day care from their homes in navy housing , none would agree to discuss the policy change on the record . ''they do n't want to lose their licenses , '' said jenny p . mccord , a navy wife and the mother of two children in day care in navy housing who has agreed to act as a spokeswoman for the group . all the operators , she said , must have licenses from the state and the navy . because there is considerable discretion in the licensing , mrs . mccord said , the operators fear that if they speak out the navy will refuse renewals . ''some of these people are making 160 or 180 a week in day care , and they ca n't afford to lose that , '' mrs . mccord said . she said the navy had a waiting list for its center because it is cheaper than the rates charged by most private operators , 45 a week instead of 65 to 90 . also , mrs . mccord added , the navy counts all children in a household under 12 toward the total of six allowed in day care . the state counts just preschoolers . that means many women with young children in school will have to cut back the number of kids they care for . ''the way they 're cutting back , a lot of providers are going to decide it is n't worth the trouble , '' mrs . mccord said . ''they 're trying to take it over without any thought behind it . '' the department of human_resources , the united way and the capitol region education council have been co sponsoring recruiting sessions to find replacements . home operations , mr . dearborn said , can care for up to six preschool children , including the provider 's . the program can provide companionship for single children , as well as a steady income for the family . the state provides advice and training opportunities . ''it 's a career , in the home , that can be very satisfying , '' mr . dearborn said . operators in navy housing said they were encouraged by signs that the navy might be relenting a bit . after recent meetings , ms . dietrich said , the base had proposed policy changes to defense_department officials . ''we now have a better understanding of the situation and what the effects are on the program , as the policy currently stands , '' ms . dietrich said . ''we are currently exploring alternatives . ''",has a topic of estate
"the rent guidelines board , embarking once again upon the annual drama of deciding the size of the allowable rent increases for rent_stabilized_apartments , reviewed yesterday a hodgepodge of statistics some of them contradictory intended to shed light on how much new yorkers can afford to pay . at a meeting in lower_manhattan , the board received its staff 's yearly study of ''income and affordability , '' one of several reports it will consider before june 22 , when it will decide the rent increases that landlords can claim for the city 's one million rent_stabilized_apartments . the report found unemployment down , wages up and gross city product growing but it also found the household_income of tenants in rent_stabilized_apartments shrinking . evictions were up by almost 8 percent in 2006 , according to housing court statistics in the report . the number of homeless families moving into permanent housing was down , and fewer people on public assistance were being placed in jobs . at the same time , overall homelessness levels were down in 2005 and 2006 , though they started to rise in late 2006 , the report found . ''i 'm trying to just make plain old sense of it , '' said betty phillips adams , a longtime advocate for low_income_housing who is one of the five public members on the nine member board . it appeared to her , she said , that while the rents in stabilized apartments had been going up , the income of residents in those apartments was going down . but magda l . cruz , a real_estate lawyer who is one of the board 's two members appointed to represent building owners , said , ''all the indicators seem to be very , very positive . '' and she said to ms . adams , ''i 'm taking the same data that you 're looking at and seeing a much rosier picture . '' when a member of the board 's staff judiciously declined to draw conclusions from the data and suggested instead that the numbers spoke for themselves , marvin markus , the chairman , said , ''we give diplomacy classes for that . '' the report , which examines housing affordability and tenant income in the new york city rental market , found that the city 's economy grew in 2006 for the third straight year and that the gross city product ( the total value of goods and services produced ) grew by 3.7 percent . unemployment dropped for the third year in a row , labor force participation rose slightly , and overall real wages for workers grew by 0.8 percent in 2005 , the latest year for which there were statistics . but the report also found that income levels for tenants in rent_stabilized_apartments dropped by 8.6 percent between 2001 and 2004 , the latest figures that were used , and that nearly 23 percent of all renter households had incomes below the poverty_line . between 2002 and 2005 , the median monthly contract rent for all tenants , excluding fuel and utility payments , rose by 20 percent . while the median ratio of gross rent to income in 2005 was 31 . 2 percent , nearly 29 percent of rental households spent more than half of their household_income on rent . and while the total number of people on public assistance dropped between june 2005 and june 2006 for the second consecutive year , the number of new applications rose in the first four months of the 2007 fiscal year . job placements among recipients of public assistance declined , and the number of food_stamp recipients grew . ms . cruz asked the board 's staff to find out what percentage of people on public assistance live in rent_stabilized_apartments , as opposed to public_housing . and adriene l . holder , a legal_aid_society lawyer and one of the two board members appointed to represent tenants , said that the city 's economy might appear robust but that many people working multiple jobs earned so little that they still qualified for food_stamps and legal services .",has a topic of estate
"barbara rohregger and harris barer have spent years around real_estate , but not as developers until this year . mrs . rohregger is still a broker with wra weprin realty in manhattan , and mr . barer is still a real_estate lawyer with the manhattan firm of fischbein , badillo , wagner harding . but by this time next year , the first tenants should begin moving into the apartments that the two of them are jointly developing in what will be two contiguous loft buildings running between essex and ludlow streets in the lower east side historic_district . the 9 million project involves converting three buildings into two . a three floor building and a five floor building at 149 151 essex street will be combined to make a single building seven stories tall . a one story building at 152 ludlow street will be demolished and replaced with a five story building that will connect to the essex street building with which it will share a courtyard . when the project is completed , probably next june , there will be three retail spaces as well as 22 apartments 14 one bedroom apartments , 6 two bedrooms and 2 four bedroom duplexes . each apartment will have a balcony and will overlook the landscaped 50 foot by 25 foot courtyard separating the essex and ludlow street buildings . designed by meltzer mandl architects of new york city , the buildings will in effect be turned around so that the residential lobbies will open onto the courtyard , and tenants will enter their apartments from ludlow street . customers of the buildings' two retail spaces facing essex street , which will total 2 , 010 square_feet , will enter off essex , while customers of the 2 , 463 square_foot retail space on ludlow street will enter from there . ''this is the kind of project that the lower east side needs if the historic_district designation is to succeed in protecting the neighborhood 's culture and character , '' said marvin h . meltzer , president of meltzer mandl . ''it is small scale , it repeats the patterns of the original facades in the restored ones , and the new higher floors are set back from the street wall to maintain scale . '' deterioration of the original facades of white terra_cotta will result in replacement of the facade by a system of metal panels that essentially replicate terra_cotta . the other surfaces will be finished with a stucco type material . until it was recently bought out , the sole tenant in the buildings , mrs . rohregger said , was a retail store selling buttons , thread and other notions . the lower east side , the historic destination of waves of immigrants from europe and asia , was added to the national_register of historic places in april . the rental prices will be established as the project , whose official groundbreaking was held a few weeks ago , moves further along . the calleo development corporation of manhattan is the contractor , and the halstead property company will handle the rental of the apartments and retail space . correction july 8 , 2001 , sunday a short article in the postings column last sunday about the redevelopment of two loft buildings on the lower east side misstated the leasing arrangements for the project . leasing of the retail spaces is being handled by newmark new spectrum . the halstead property company is leasing only the apartments , not the stores . in addition , a headline with the article misstated the number of stores in the project . there are three retail spaces , as the article said , not two .",has a topic of estate
"the chief witness against mel_miller , the speaker of the new york state_assembly , was portrayed by a defense lawyer yesterday as a liar , a forger , a fraudulent businessman and a tax cheat . in the second day of cross_examination in federal district court in brooklyn , the credibility of the witness , avi cohen , who owns a real_estate business , was vigorously attacked by mr . miller 's lawyer , gerald b . lefcourt . after mr . cohen admitted that he had forged the name of a dying elderly tenant on a document as part of a scheme to obtain a valuable apartment in a brooklyn building that was being converted into a cooperative , mr . lefcourt asked if he had forged other documents . "" i may have forged others , "" the witness answered . "" i do n't recall . "" mr . miller is on trial with a top aide , jay adolf , on charges that they defrauded clients of their law_firm in some investments that involved buying and selling cooperative apartments . the defense contends that mr . cohen put together the deals , concealed them from mr . miller and mr . adolf and then offered to testify against them in exchange for immunity from prosecution . under questioning from mr . lefcourt yesterday , mr . cohen acknowledged that he operated a money lending business without a license , that he concealed large amounts of money by cashing checks through religious institutions and that he cheated extensively on his tax returns . turning to a central dispute in the case , mr . lefcourt suggested that mr . cohen arranged for a group of investors to buy about 2 million in apartments in brooklyn , that he arranged to buy eight apartments in the same building for himself and that mr . miller served as a lawyer to negotiate the purchases for him . but mr . cohen denied that he was the one responsible for buying the eight apartments in the building . instead , he supported the prosecution 's contention that mr . miller and mr . adolf fully participated in the arrangements . his testimony focused on the prosecution 's charges that mr . miller and mr . adolf , who represented clients buying many apartments in the building as an investment , secretly bought eight of the apartments for themselves , improperly depriving the clients of the 200 , 000 in profits from reselling those apartments . the cross_examination is scheduled to resume on monday .",has a topic of estate
"q . my family has owned the town house at 254 west 93rd street since 1970 . in february , demolition began on the adjacent one story commercial building at the corner of broadway and 93rd , exposing an old brick party wall , which hinted of a historical neighbor before the commercial building went up . would it be possible to trace the history and possible photos of our building and our former neighbor ? . . . helen chung , manhattan . a . although only nos . 254 , 256 and 258 survive , the original row of seven houses ran from 252 to 264 west 93rd , designed in 1893 by the architect c.p.h . gilbert ( whose buildings include the former warburg mansion at 92nd and fifth , now the jewish museum ) for william c . hill , an engineer and builder . in the designs for these row_houses , gilbert moved beyond the somber brick and brownstone of the 1880 's row_house to a lighter , more sophisticated palette , with limestone on the ground floor and lacy terra_cotta work in a field of white gray brick . the ribbonlike detailing in the keystones above the second floor windows and the paneled window surrounds ringing the fourth floor windows are particularly deft . the landmarks_preservation_commission , which included the building in its riverside west_end historic_district in 1989 , describes the style as beaux_arts . but architectural style was not the most important thing about gilbert 's row . these houses were part of a new generation of dwelling design in manhattan , known as the american basement house . the term english basement had been used to describe houses of the 1840 's entered via four or five steps , with a reception hall in the front of the ground floor and a dining_room at the rear . a kitchen and laundry were placed in the cellar rendering them quite dark and the principal floor , the second level , contained the parlor . by the 1860 's , the high stoop row_house , the classic ''brownstone'' ( even though they were not all in brownstone ) , had emerged , with a different design . the ground floor was slightly below grade , with a room at the front and a kitchen at the rear and fairly good light . it was essentially a service floor , directly accessible from the street for deliveries and tradesmen . the owner and family had to mount a high stoop of 10 to 12 steps to the main entrance , leading to a parlor in the front and a dining_room at the back . there were complaints about the high stoop house , not simply because of the lugubrious brown stone , but for functional reasons . the front room on the ground floor perhaps the best real_estate in the house was never considered as having a logical use . it was often referred to as a family dining_room , or a servants' sitting room , or a billiard room . in addition , a narrow vestibule just inside the front door at the top of the stoop narrowed the width of the parlor by at least five feet . in a 16 or 18 foot_wide house , this was a dramatic reduction in size for the principal room . around 1890 , for the developer richard g . platt , the architect clarence true developed the american basement house in his design for three dwellings on west_end avenue from 88th to 89th ( no longer standing ) . true discarded the high stoop and worked out what became a new solution for the urban row_house . the entrance was through the ground floor , just a few steps above the sidewalk and leading into a reception room . the kitchen , at the rear of this floor , had daylight , and a stairway in the center of the house led to the second floor . there , the parlor ran the full width of the house at the front , and the dining_room was similarly sited at the rear the stairway remained in the center . instead of having to walk upstairs to answer the door , as in a high stoop house , the maid in an american basement house simply went from the kitchen directly to the front . and there was no high stoop . in 1893 , the real_estate record and guide first published ''a new descriptive title the american basement house , '' apparently a coinage by true or platt the journal said that of the first 27 houses using the new plan , 25 had been sold before completion . gilbert 's other 1890 's west side buildings include the suite of town houses at 72nd_street and riverside drive , including 311 west 72nd , 1 riverside drive and 3 riverside drive . the first two were more conventional limestone town houses elegant but hardly memorable but the philip kleeberg house at 3 riverside drive , designed in 1896 , is a lacy froth of french gothic curlicues , moldings and other details . the earliest identifiable resident of 254 west 93rd was hugo s . mack , a lawyer listed in the 1900 census along with his wife , ida , two young children , a cook and a nurse . this tally was typical for the other houses in the row . the 1910 census listed a lawyer , frederick j . stone , at 254 west 93rd , with his wife , margaret , a 26 year old son and a servant . in 1916 , mr . and mrs . stone went to the french line pier at west 15th street to await the arrival of the steamship rochambeau , which had sailed from bordeaux . they were there to meet their married daughter , margaret corrigan . four years earlier , she had tended her ill 3 year old son for three months until he died afterward , she became profoundly depressed . an honors graduate of barnard , fluent in french and an accomplished musician , she had gone to france in july 1914 to recover , just before war broke out . she threw herself into hospital work for wounded soldiers , but sank deeper into melancholy . en_route home , she jumped into the ocean , leaving a note in her room asking the company to notify her parents . but mr . and mrs . stone had not been told , and found out only in an accidental encounter with a reporter . mr . stone bitterly denounced the french line , but it responded that wartime restrictions had prohibited radio messages . by 1930 , that year 's census indicated , no . 254 had been converted to six apartments . nos . 260 , 262 and 264 were demolished in 1925 when 670 west_end avenue was built . no . 252 was demolished in 1936 and replaced by the one story commercial building that was torn down this year . according to records at the department of buildings , the letter writer 's new neighbor will be a_20 story apartment house , designed by costas kondylis partners . streetscapes reader 's question e mail streetscapes nytimes . com",has a topic of estate
"built in 1881 by the son in law of a whaler on the site of a cotton mill built by out of work whaling captains , the bulova watch case building once anchored sag_harbor 's industrial economy . the largest factory in a village of factories , it gave sag_harbor a blue_collar tinge that made it the ''unhampton'' even into the booming 1980 's . no one calls sag harbor the ''unhampton'' anymore . but in a village where lavish renovations have put a polish on scores of 19th_century houses in recent years , the bulova plant stands an ugly contradiction , its gutters dangling and its windows broken . lost under a tangled mantle of ivy is a sign that went up more than 20 years ago , proclaiming the building 's renaissance as the watchcase condominium complex . it faded to illegibility even before the ivy took over . another legacy of sag_harbor 's industrial past is to blame . for a century , workers poured waste water containing heavy metals from cleaning solvents into the building 's drainage system . despite several years of cleanup efforts , the soil and ground_water around the building are still saturated with it . until new york state removes the building and its grounds from its list of superfund toxic_waste sites , it ca n't be redeveloped . but after nearly 20 years of difficulty and delay , there are new hopes the cleanup will be complete soon and that by this time next year work may begin to convert the building into a posh , tribeca style condo with high priced , high ceilinged apartments accented by exposed brick and beams . most villagers are eager for the conversion to take place . ''i think the whole thing is terrific , '' said arleen ball , a local real_estate_broker . ''for years , all of us have looked at that sad building . let 's get on with it . '' she said the market for condos has been taking off in the hamptons and that the bulova units would be snatched up quickly . hundreds of sag_harbor men and women used to work at sag_harbor 's factories , including the grumman plant on long wharf , where components of the apollo lunar lander were manufactured , and rowe industries on the bridgehampton sag_harbor turnpike , which made small electric motors for toys and toothbrushes . patrick e . malloy , a local entrepreneur , converted the former grumman property into a retail mall , restaurant and marina in the late 1970 's . rowe industries , now known as sag_harbor industries and owned by kraft foods , is the only site in the village still devoted to industrial use . it too is a superfund toxic_waste site . a cleanup , paid for by nabisco a subsidiary of kraft that bought the property is just getting under way . but the bulova plant , on washington street a block east of downtown main_street , was the biggest of sag_harbor 's factories . generations of local men and women worked there beginning in 1881 , when joseph fahys , a german immigrant , married a local woman and moved his watch making business from queens to sag harbor . he was asked to do so by local business leaders , most of them former whalers or their sons , after the cotton mill they had built on the site burned down . they had begun transporting cotton with their whaling ships in the 1860 's after petroleum replaced whale oil as the nation 's primary fuel and lubricant . bulova bought the factory from the fahys heirs in 1936 and closed its operation there in 1981 . in 1984 the building 's next owners made a deal to sell the property to mr . malloy . the deal hit a brick wall when mr . malloy 's agents discovered that the ground inside the factory 's courtyard was saturated with heavy metals , including mercury and arsenic . he reported those findings to the state_department of environmental conservation and the federal environmental_protection_agency . it took a year and a half , mr . malloy said in a recent interview , for the e.p.a . and d.e.c . to decide which of them would have jurisdiction . it took the state another two years to decide how the cleanup should proceed , he added . and it took a lawsuit , filed by mr . malloy and the original developers , before bulova agreed to pay for the cleanup , which did n't get fully under way until the mid 1990 's , according to ray cowen , regional director of the d.e.c . meanwhile , watchcase factory associates , which bought the building from bulova for an undisclosed sum , remains the owner . mr . malloy remains the contract vendee . he , in turn , has a contract to sell the site and its zoning approvals to a group headed by robert gladstone , a new york businessman . neither will discuss the selling price . in may , all the interested parties and the state agreed on an outline that makes clear how the property can be ' 'delisted'' as a toxic_waste site , said randolph croxton , the new york architect for the gladstone partnership . ''there are no ambiguous , open ended things , '' he said . the key to the building 's restoration remains its delisting . completing that process soon ''is certainly the hope of all the parties , including me , '' mr . cowen said . but he warned that ''any time you 're dealing with environmental contamination , you 're dealing with the unknown . '' gases produced by the polluted soil and ground_water are still collecting inside the building and remain at unacceptable levels for residential uses , he said . a soil vapor extraction system was operated on the site for several years in the 1990 's at bulova 's expense , and for a brief time it appeared to solve the vapor problem , mr . cowen said . but subsequent testing showed that air_pollution levels were on the rise again inside the building . more tainted soil must be removed , a process that should take only a few weeks . another process , called soil sparging , in which air is forced into ground_water to make it bubble and release gases , will take months . it must be conducted until the air_quality in the building remains acceptable for full time habitation , and no one knows for sure how long that will take , mr . cowen said . there is also an emerging question about who will have the right to develop the site . in the 17 years since mr . malloy signed a contract to buy the bulova plant , and the two years since he agreed to sell it to the gladstone group , real_estate prices have skyrocketed . mr . malloy indicated that he and mr . gladstone 's madison equities , which has been building commercial real_estate in new york for 40 years , may be headed for a court fight . ''there were various time frames and conditions'' in their contract , he said , and ''we believe they have all passed and they have not closed . it 's up in the air whether or not they can close at any time . '' now there are ''notices going back and forth'' between the two sides , he added . mr . gladstone asserted that ''there is a contract . all of his people are speaking to my people they clearly recognize it . '' although mr . gladstone thinks the property could be developed successfully as a luxury hotel , which he proposed informally last november only to meet with some local resistance , he sees a loft style condominium project as a valuable addition to sag harbor as well . ''it would probably be the only lofts available on the east_end , '' he said . ''sag_harbor has been the most dramatically changed of all the east_end communities in the last 25 years , generally for the better . it has kept its character and somehow you do n't feel it 's a snobby part of the hamptons . we 're banking on the fact that a lot of people will become permanent residents , young and old , and people in the arts . ''",has a topic of estate
"jitters from the gyrations of the stock_market and the uncertain economic outlook for the country appear to be finding their way into the market for office properties in new york , real_estate executives report . they say that the pace of leasing deals has slowed as prospective_tenants reassess their space needs and that properties outside the central_business_district in midtown have seen an erosion in pricing . nobody is panicking . the overall vacancy_rate in manhattan is between 5 and 6 percent , still well below the 9 to 10 percent that is considered an equilibrium market . and rental rates in core areas are firm . but the euphoria of the last few years appears to be gone . ''economic pessimism seems to be spreading to the commercial real_estate market , '' said mary_ann tighe , vice chairwoman of insignia_esg , the brokerage and services company . one indicator is that more space is coming onto the market , mostly via subleases , than is being removed by direct leases , a condition known as negative absorption . ''we have negative absorption in all three submarkets for the first time since october 1998 , '' she said , referring to the first two months of this year . citing the negative absorption figures area by area , she said ''there was 1.4 million square_feet in midtown , 1.2 million in midtown south and 500 , 000 in downtown . '' robert l . billingsley , executive vice_president of colliers abr , another brokerage and services company , said that ''we began to see a slowdown in activity and a slowing of the increase in rental rates in the october , november , december quarter . '' ''and in january and february it was definitely down , '' mr . billingsley said . ''it 's as if we were going 85 miles an hour and suddenly slowed to 50 . '' the collapse of numbers of dot com firms and the shrinkage of others , along with cutbacks at the advertising_agencies and other service companies that had grown swollen with dot com work , are the major reasons for the space being returned to the market , real_estate specialists say . and since financial_services companies typically lay off large numbers of people when the economy turns down , more space is expected to become available , particularly downtown , where the industry is concentrated . ''a lot of these companies took space in anticipation of growth or as a defensive gesture , '' said anthony e . malkin , president of w m properties , an investment and development company . ''so it is not surprising that things are getting softer downtown , because the securities industry is the only one it has . if the securities industry gets the sniffles , downtown gets a bad cold . '' uncertainty about the future is leading many companies to put off making decisions about office leases as long as possible , market participants say . ''people are on the sideline and there is very little market activity , '' said james meiskin , president of plymouth partners , which represents tenants . ''companies do not know where the economy is going and whether they are going to have to lay off people . so if they do not have to make hard and fast decisions , they are not doing so . '' mr . meiskin said the slowdown is giving tenants more negotiating power after several years of a market where landlords were able to dictate terms . he said that while asking rents have shown little movement downward , owners are willing to contribute more toward the cost of interior construction and to extend the period of free rent . ''owners who were offering 20 a rentable square_foot in work are now offering 35 a square_foot , '' he said . ''nine months ago the free rent period was one month . now it is three to six months , in addition to construction time . '' tenants who have the luxury of time to make a decision on whether to move or renew a lease are best off waiting , because some bargains may be coming to the market , said peter pattison , who runs a real_estate advisory business under his name . ''the market has peaked and is due to come down considerably in the next six months , '' he said . he said cutbacks in the financial_services industry could have a major impact on the office market in manhattan . if a big financial_services company ''cuts 10 , 000 people , that throws about 2 million square_feet of space back on the market , '' he said . ''that is a lot of space . '' mr . meiskin , the tenant broker , said that some of his clients were estimating that 3 million to 5 million square_feet of space would come back to the market as a result of layoffs and cutbacks over the next year . ''demand is evaporating in places like midtown south and downtown , even if a lot of owners do n't want to admit it yet , '' said joseph t . palombi , executive vice_president of trinity church real_estate , a major landlord in the midtown south area . he said about 500 , 000 square_feet of the church 's 6 million square_foot portfolio remains available , much of it upgraded to office space from industrial use over the last five years . he said he was willing to negotiate to fill the space with desirable tenants . ''we are not panicking , but we 'll deal , '' he said . but some real_estate executives say any weakness is confined to class b and c properties , generally older buildings less well equipped and located than class a buildings , in places like midtown south and the far west side of manhattan . rental rates and demand for class a buildings in midtown remain strong , they say . and , unlike the late 1980 's , there is no surplus of newly_constructed buildings to overhang the market . ''i do n't think we are going to see a significant drop in asking prices in midtown , '' said allan b . rothschild , a senior vice_president in charge of the new york office of cb richard ellis , a brokerage and services company . ''although the pace of transactions has slowed somewhat , we recently concluded one in midtown where there were three backup bidders . '' he added that there is so little space available in prime buildings in midtown that landlords have little incentive to lower their prices or offer more attractive terms . statistics , of course , tend to lag a changing market , but figures published by colliers abr for the month of january tend to back this assessment of the situation in midtown . the vacancy_rate for class a properties in midtown fell to 4.7 percent in january , down from 4.9 percent in december and 5.8 percent a year earlier . the same report noted that asking rents for these properties stayed essentially flat at 65 . 34 a square_foot a year , 10 cents a foot below the december average . for all of manhattan , the vacancy_rate for class a buildings fell to 4.3 percent in january , down from 4.5 percent in december and 6 percent a year earlier . asking annual rents increased to 60 . 08 a square_foot , up from 58 . 53 a square_foot in december and 49 . 11 a square_foot in january 2000 . barry gosin , the vice chairman and chief executive of newmark company real_estate , a brokerage and management company , described the market as ' 'relatively solid , because the amount of people let go is still small . '' he said that unlike the late 1980 's , when layoffs and vast amounts of empty space drove rental rates down sharply , the current situation more closely_resembles the early 1980 's . ''the market has flattened out the way it did in 1982 , and is likely to remain flat for several years as it did then , '' he said . although demand has softened on the west side and in midtown south , he said the situation varies on a building to building basis . ''it is the marginal product that is being affected as tenants opt for a better product in this kind of market , '' he said . space in the chelsea_market building between ninth and 10th avenues and 15th and 16th streets remains strong , he said , despite its location away from the midtown core . josh n . kuriloff , an executive vice_president of cushman_wakefield , the brokerage and services company , said ''there has been a slowdown in demand , but there has been no increase in supply to drive up vacancy_rates . the euphoria is out of the market and we are back to basics . '' those basics , he added , include locations close to public transportation , shopping , restaurants and other amenities . he said that far west side locations , such as the starrett lehigh building at 26th_street and the west side highway , are likely to experience a sharp dropoff in demand . ''using shuttle buses to get to public transportation makes no sense , '' he said . ''i did not understand it during the euphoria and i do not understand it now . ''",has a topic of estate
"lead to the editor to the editor the statement in your article on astoria that john jacob astor ''was instrumental in incorporating the area'' is incorrect . according to ''history of queens_county'' ( munsell company , 1882 , p . 272 ) , the village was named after him when he donated a small sum of money to help start a school there for young ladies . the village fathers thought this might attract some of astor 's business to the area . unfortunately , his interests lay in vast real_estate holdings in new york and the fur trade in astoria , oregon . all he ever saw of astoria was the view across hell gate from the front porch of his summer residence in manhattan . i have never found a mention of astor ever setting foot in astoria , queens . i 'm afraid it was small potatoes for him . george henke sunnyside , queens",has a topic of estate
"lead for the better part of an hour last tuesday in federal district court in manhattan , judge leonard b . sand seemed to be weighing alternative sanctions in his two year effort to force yonkers to comply with a housing desegregation plan . for the better part of an hour last tuesday in federal district court in manhattan , judge leonard b . sand seemed to be weighing alternative sanctions in his two year effort to force yonkers to comply with a housing desegregation plan . one was the formation of a court appointed commission that would ' 'replace'' the recalcitrant city_council in seeing that the housing was built . the other was to bring contempt charges , including fines and imprisonment , against the city and its council members to force compliance . the 'classic' contempt route judge sand chose the ''classic'' contempt route , as he put it , perhaps because it was simpler , clearer and less likely to be overturned by a higher court , but he indicated that the commission proposal , which he had introduced two weeks earlier , might be more effective in the long run . glancing from brian heffernan , the lawyer for the justice_department , and michael sussman , representing the yonkers branch of the national association for the advancement of colored people , he said , ''you disagree as to which is the most compelling sanction . '' mr . heffernan , apparently reflecting a strongly held position of the reagan_administration , proposed the fines and imprisonment , saying that formation of a commission would allow the city to ''take the ultimate cop out . '' ''we 're not there yet , '' he said , indicating that , at best , it was too early to consider establishment of a commission . it was ''important for the city to retain some input , '' he said in calling for the contempt charges and penalties . others involved in the case said that the justice_department had long indicated opposition to anyone being empowered by a judge to stand in his stead . ''if such a person or body is given real power , '' one official said , ''justice is dead_set against it . '' but mr . sussman , in arguing for a commission , said that the ' 'spectacle'' created by the imposition of fines or imprisonment ''will only be a distraction . '' he said , ''we do n't need to pay more attention to henry_spallone , '' the deputy_mayor and councilman who has led the fight against the housing plan . ''this city_council , '' he said , ''is bent on avoiding compliance . '' mr . sussman argued that the council had exhibited contempt again and again , and that the time had come to see that the housing was built , through a commission that would supplant the city_council in matters dealing with the court ordered plan . judge sand said there was ''great strength'' in both arguments , and he was reminded of the old joke dealing with the judge who hears one side and says , ''you 're right , '' then hears the other side and says , ''you 're right . '' asked by an aide how both sides can be right , the judge says , ''you 're right . '' ''you disagree as to which is the most compelling sanction , '' judge sand said . ''my response is that we will use any and all appropriate means to implement the housing order . '' the object , he said , ''is not to establish abstract principles of law , but to get the housing built . '' 'why should we not do both ? ' the judge asked at one point ''why should we not do both , '' indicating that the imposition of sanctions might be followed by establishment of the commission . ''the commission is not only an appropriate route , but the only meaningful route to take , '' judge sand said . one of its main ''virtues , '' he added , ''is the assurance it gives to private builders and developers that proposals they advance will not be sabotaged or reviewed in a hostile climate . '' mayor nicholas c . wasicsko , who has supported the judge 's recent efforts to gain compliance in the city_council , said he thought the commission was the ''worst'' alternative facing the city , ''and i thought the judge was going to use it . '' other members of the city_council had also indicated their distate for the establishment of a commission , because it would severely reduce the council 's political power . 'more punitive than remedial' michael sculnick , the city 's lawyer , told the judge that he opposed both methods of forcing compliance . the city 's position , he said , is that the fines ''would be more punitive than remedial . '' judge sand rebuked him for proposing no alternative action . he acknowledged mr . sussman 's assertion that the council might , as it has in the past , vote to approve the court 's order to avoid contempt charges , but then refuse to go further . ''if there is a begrudging adoption of the housing ordinance and then a pattern of frustrating implementation , '' judge sand said , ''it is something the court will have to address . '' in fact , the judge took a step in that direction by approving a 27 page ordinance , drafted by the plaintiffs , spelling out the building incentives , zoning benefits and other proposals that would be used to attract developers to build the 800 units of subsidized_housing in mostly white eastern and northwestern neighborhoods . commitment on 200 housing units the council had agreed in principle to the long term plan last january , under threat of contempt citations and heavy fines , but has since voted to reverse that affirmation . the january vote also included approval of a more immediate commitment to build 200 units of public_housing , but a majority of councilmen , facing community opposition , have since indicated they now also oppose that aspect of the plan . under the terms of the affordable_housing ordinance approved by judge sand on tuesday , yonkers will require that ''all new multi family housing developments in east and northwest yonkers will be required to provide assisted housing units not to exceed 20 percent of the maximum aggregate number of units authorized for construction in exchange for a variety of zoning and other mandated incentives . '' in other words , a total of 4 , 000 units would have to be built to create the 800 units of assisted housing . in return , developers would be allowed to build higher than is currently permitted and to go beyond the maximum floor space allowed . limits also would be exceeded in other areas and tax abatements would granted where appropriate . assisted financing provision other benefits also would be provided to developers , such as assisted financing from the industrial development authority in cases where the builder is willing to go beyond the 20 percent of space set aside for assisted housing . the ordinance , which could provide the framework for a court ordered commission to function outside city_council participation , contains an office of implementation ''to monitor and insure implementation of the housing remedy order'' of 1986 , which the judge imposed following his finding the previous year that yonkers had discriminated intentionally and illegally in housing and education for nearly 40 years . the implementation officer , according to the ordinance , will ''work with developers in determining the incentives they require , '' insure that ''construction of the assisted units is taking place according to schedule , '' review and approve sales prices and rent levels and take other actions . sand interviews applicants judge sand said he had interviewed ' 'several applicants'' for the post of executive director of the office , describing all of them as being ''extraordinarily well qualified . '' he said he would announce his selection by the middle of this week . the independent commission , as proposed by judge sand in mid july , would include the lawyers for the two plaintiffs and two city officials , the city_manager and either the planning commissioner or the head of the municipal housing authority . the executive director of the office of implementation would have a tie breaking vote . judge sand 's proposed commission would replace the city_council in giving final approval of arrangements such as those made with developers , but would not interfere with normal procedures allowing planning , building , zoning and other departments to function before final approval , unless it found their resistance to giving approval to be politically inspired . mr . sussman 's proposed commission , according to the assessment of others involved in the case , would be a much more powerful body than the judge had envisioned . under the n.a.a.c.p . proposal , the commission would have many of the rights normally vested in city departments and thus would control all stages of the housing plan . tentatively identified as the yonkers affordable_housing commission , it would , as outlined by mr . sussman , solicit development proposals , review site plans , recommend building proposals , provide building and other certificates and otherwise implement the long term housing plan . the executive director , as proposed by mr . sussman , would ''have authority to direct all employees and staff of the yonkers planning department , the department of development , the bureau of building and housing and the community development agency'' to implement the long term housing remedy order . judge sand promised to ''consider promulgation of a commission'' but said that its structure ' 'required further thought and analysis . '' he added , however , that ''the road to implementing the housing remedy order is going to be a direct and expeditious road , and it would be foolhardy for anyone to think otherwise . ''",has a topic of estate
"malcolm freeland cannot say enough about the benefits of coastal living . he has had a home on the water 's edge in south devon , near the pretty sailing resort of salcombe , england , since 1972 . he described his seven acres , which includes his own beach and a jetty for his 38 foot sailing boat , as ' 'simply beautiful . '' ''we raised five children here and certainly they enjoyed growing up along the water , '' he said . ''we moved here for the coastal lifestyle and we 've stayed because of this lifestyle . '' and , since telecommunications has improved , mr . freeland also has had another benefit he has been able to continue his career as an engineer from home . indeed , coastal regions of britain like devon are drawing a growing number of professionals who are not required to work in specific locations . and britons in general are finding it harder to resist life by the seaside , and they are willing to pay a premium for the pleasure . the growing demand for homes along britain 's coast has meant rising prices .. ''in my area houses usually sell before they are even advertised so it 's definitely a hot property market , '' mr . freeland said . a recent real_estate survey by halifax estate agents showed that house prices in more than half of britain 's seaside_towns have soared by at least 50 percent over the past three years , with most communities recording jumps that have far exceeded the 31 percent average increase in house prices across the rest of the country . seaham , in the northeastern county of durham , is the country 's best performer over the past three years , with average house prices increasing by 172 percent to 117 , 266 , or nearly 200 , 000 . much of the improvement in this former coal_mining town on the north_sea coast is credited to a major injection of money from the government and the european_union , part of which financed a number of residential projects . across the country , ''firm demand for second homes has clearly been a factor pushing up prices near the sea but regeneration efforts in seaside_towns have also been a positive for prices , '' said colin kemp , managing director at halifax estate agents , which completed its annual seaside town review over the summer . the surge also has been powered by retirees and families eager to find spacious victorian and edwardian homes at reasonable prices , a rare find in almost any british city these days . it is not surprising that dorset is one of the most expensive seaside counties , with an average home price of more than 222 , 853 or about 400 , 000 . for one thing , its 95 mile coastline has been given natural world heritage status by the united_nations , placing it in a_league with the grand canyon in arizona and the great barrier reef in australia . each year , millions of tourists visit the fossil rich beaches of dorset 's lyme regis , a hilly town of pretty white georgian homes mixed with a smattering of thatched roof cottages . ''dorset is a location which has grown enormously in popularity in the last decade as people have become happier to commute further and further from london , '' said liam bailey , head of residential research for the knight frank estate agency . ''this is so much more practical as an increasing number of people enjoy the option of working from home part of the week , '' he said . but mr . bailey warned about the limited number of available properties , noting that the supply is now 20 percent smaller than it was last year . one example is sandbanks , a town near bournemouth that was all but a shantytown until the 1960 's and is now called ''monte carloby the sea'' by the locals . homes in the town , known for its quiet streets and white beaches , now top 500 , 000 , or nearly 1 million . ''high demand and short supply in a very concentrated area make the prices high , '' said simon milledge , a waterside properties specialist at the buying solution , a search agency that finds homes for wealthy buyers . ''the south coast economy is strong and entrepreneurs like the idea of moving to sandbanks . '' part of the town 's appeal may be its celebrity cachet . many well known british soccer stars have moved to sandbanks and even the british actor hugh grant and his girlfriend , jemima khan , recently were reported to have viewed properties nearby . sandbanks also has flown the european blue flag , an award for the cleanest beaches , for 17 consecutive years , longer than any other coastal area in britain . eight of britain 's 10 most expensive seaside_towns are on the country 's west_coast four in cornwall three , including sandbanks , in dorset and two in devon . a survey earlier this year by the sunday_times of london found that properties with boat moorings are typically 30 percent more expensive than identical properties inland . top quality homes without moorings , but with uninterrupted water views , are on average 25 percent more expensive , while properties within modern marinas , along lakes or on the banks of canals command 15 percent to 25 percent more . yet property hunters still can find good value in some coastal communities , property experts say . according to the halifax review , there are 14 seaside_towns where homes sell for an average of less than 100 , 000 pounds , or about 185 , 000 . britain 's most affordable town is wick in scotland , where prices average 64 , 612 pounds , or about 100 , 000 . in general , mr . milledge said , the people seeking coastal properties are searching for a better quality of life and , for those looking along the southern coast , one that is only a two and a half hour drive from london . ''they are coming for the landscape , the peace and quiet and the seemingly slower pace of life , '' he said .",has a topic of estate
"homeless is like the government wanting you locked up and the people in america do not like you . they look at you and see beast ! i wish the people would help the homeless and stop their talking . frank s . rice , the rio times the building is beautiful , white and beige and oak , the colors of yuppie . the rehab of the rio came in 700 , 000 under budget , two months ahead of schedule . the tenants say they will not mess it up , no , no , no . "" when you do n't have a place and you get a good place , the last thing you want to do is lose it , "" said one man who slept in shelters for seven years , seven years during which you might have gotten married , or lost a loved one , or struck it rich , but all this guy did was live on the streets . mayor david_dinkins has announced that he will study parts of the study he commissioned from a commission on the homeless , the newest in a long line of studies . one study , done in 1981 , was called "" private_lives , public spaces . "" it was researched by ellen baxter , who now runs the nonprofit company that has brought us the rio and four other buildings that provide permanent housing for the homeless in washington_heights . another study , done in 1987 , was called "" a shelter is not a home "" and was produced by the manhattan borough_president , david_dinkins , who now runs the city of new york . at the time , the koch administration said it would study mr . dinkins 's study , which must have taught mr . dinkins something . robert hayes , one of the founding fathers of the movement to help the homeless , once told me there were three answers to the problem housing , housing , housing . it was an overly simplistic answer , and it was essentially correct . despite our obsessions with pathology and addiction , ms . baxter has renovated one apartment building after another and filled them with people . at the rio , what was once a burnt out eyesore is now , with its curving facade and bright lobby , the handsomest building on the block what were once armory transients with dirt etched in the creases of hands and face are now tenants . the building needed people the people needed a home . the city provided the rehab money columbia_university provides social service support . some of the tenants need to spend time in drug treatment and some go to alcoholics anonymous and some of them lapse into pretty pronounced fugue states from time to time . so what ? how would you behave if you 'd lived on the streets for seven years ? what is better to leave them out there while we lament the emptying of the mental hospitals and the demise of jobs ? or to provide a roof over their heads and then get them psychiatric care and job training ? what is better to spend nearly 20 , 000 each year to have them sleep on cots at night and wander the streets by day ? or to make a one time investment of 38 , 000 a unit , as they did in the single rooms with kitchens and baths in the rio , for permanent homes for people who will pay rent from their future wages or from entitlement benefits ? years ago i became cynical enough to envision a game plan in which politicians , tussling over government stuff like demonstration projects and agency jurisdiction and commission studies , ignored this until it went away . and , in a sense , it has . we have become so accustomed to people sleeping on sidewalks and in subway stations that recumbent bodies have become small landmarks in our neighborhoods . mary brosnahan , executive director of the coalition for the homeless , says she was stunned , talking to students , at their assumption that people always had and always would be living on the streets . my children call by pet names "" the man with the cup , "" "" the lady with the falling down pants "" the homeless people around their school . and when a problem becomes that rooted in our everyday perceptions , it is understood to be without solution . nonprofit groups like the one that renovated the rio prove that this is not so . the cots in the armory are poison the drug programs and job training are icing . a place to shut the door , to sleep without one eye open , to be warm , to be safe that 's the cake . there 's no place like home . you did n't need a study to figure that out , did you ?",has a topic of estate
"lead the new york city housing authority has run up 62 million in operating deficits in the last three years , and housing officials say that one of the prime causes of the shortfalls overcrowding is also one of the key reasons why they have not sought additional federal aid to cover the debts . the new york city housing authority has run up 62 million in operating deficits in the last three years , and housing officials say that one of the prime causes of the shortfalls overcrowding is also one of the key reasons why they have not sought additional federal aid to cover the debts . officials of the housing authority were afraid that if they asked for a larger federal subsidy , the reagan_administration would demand that they start evicting at least 100 , 000 illegal tenants estimated to be living doubled and tripled up with friends and relatives in many of the authority 's 178 , 000 apartments , according to two memorandums written by the authority 's general_manager . the housing authority decided instead to cover the 62 million deficit with money from its surplus fund , officials said . as a result , the authority in the last three years has consumed about 30 percent of the surplus fund , which reached a peak of 209 million four years ago . officials said , however , that the authority was facing no immediate crisis . ''our short term plan was to make it to the next president , '' the authority 's general_manager , joseph shuldiner , said in an interview last week . housing officials have long acknowledged that tens of thousands of people are living illegally in new york 's public_housing . there are about 470 , 000 authorized tenants . the officials have said that most of the illegal tenants would not be evicted because many would have nowhere to go , given the enormous shortage of low_income_housing in the city . the housing authority , however , has not previously detailed publicly the financial , operational and political burdens imposed by its unauthorized tenants . in a memorandum written last march about the availability of vacant apartments , mr . shuldiner said the overcrowding ''is having a major impact on the authority 's ability to maintain its housing and therefore , our viability . '' operating and repair costs have risen sharply in recent years , mr . shuldiner said in another memo , written last december . the cost of everything from utilities to cleanup has risen far more quickly than the inflation_rate or contracted labor increases , and are largely attributable to the huge number of unauthorized people living in the city 's projects , he wrote . ''there is no way any of this can be measured with any degree of accuracy , '' mr . shuldiner said in the interview . ''it 's probably a significant amount of money . '' he used a small example to illustrate the way additional tenants have increased the housing authority 's costs . a family of four will open a refrigerator a certain number of times each day , on average . two or three families , living in a typical two or three bedroom apartment , might open the refrigerator door two or three times as often each day . the result , mr . shuldiner said , is that the refrigerator will undergo more wear and tear , and probably will have to be replaced years ahead of schedule . 1 apartment , 23 occupants mr . shuldiner 's memos also indicated that the overcrowding has sometimes reached extraordinary proportions . in an informal survey by catholic_charities of a coney_island housing_project , he wrote , 33 of 37 families polled were living doubled up . four of the families each had 23 occupants in a single apartment , and another two households admitted having 22 occupants . the typical housing authority apartment has two bedrooms , although some have four , five and occasionally six bedrooms . the survey ' 'says it all'' about overcrowding in the city 's projects , mr . shuldiner wrote . a spokesman for the housing authority , val coleman , said the situation in the coney_island complex , called carey gardens , was not typical of overcrowding in other housing_projects . 'they know they can do it' but the families surveyed were representative of those in the coney_island project , according to robert marquez , a regional administrator for catholic_charities of brooklyn . ''these are very real numbers , '' mr . marquez said . ''people know that the housing authority looks the other way they do n't want to throw people on to the street . doubling up is an option that has developed for families . they know they can do it . '' most unauthorized tenants go to considerable lengths to avoid detection , housing officials said . several statistical measures , including the home addresses of children registered in public schools and the addresses of welfare_recipients , suggest the size of the unauthorized population in city housing_projects . plan to remove illegal tenants the housing authority projected last year that it had at least 93 , 000 unauthorized residents living doubled and tripled up . mr . shuldiner noted in a memo that the number ''is a minimum figure because this reflects only those people who are using their doubled up situation as their legal address . '' there are undoubtedly many more illegal tenants who either use an old address or someone else 's home address on official documents like school registration or welfare forms , he wrote . there are 190 , 000 names on the authority 's waiting list for vacant apartments . the housing authority spends about 800 million a year on basic operations and maintenance . tenants pay 484 million in rents , with most paying 30 percent of their household_income . the rest of the 800 million comes from government operating subsidies , with the federal_government paying 88 percent of the subsidies and the city and state paying the rest . mr . shuldiner said in the march memo that the housing authority intended to appeal the size of its federal subsidy this year to cover its growing deficits . the shortfall last year alone was 36 million . he also wrote that the authority expected it would have to submit a plan to remove unauthorized tenants ''as part of this appeal . '' housing officials believed that the reagan_administration would not approve a larger subsidy unless the city provided assurances that in the future it could prevent the added costs of unauthorized tenants , mr . shuldiner said in the interview . eviction orders feared the housing authority eventually decided not to ask for more federal aid , mr . shuldiner said . it did so , in part , because congress had not provided enough money in the current federal budget to give local public_housing agencies the full amounts to which they were entitled under complex federal formulas . the city housing authority received 98 . 4 percent of the federal subsidy it was scheduled to receive , he said . ''they do n't have the money to give us , even if they wanted to , and they probably would n't want to , '' mr . shuldiner said of federal housing officials . ''we thought we 'd get a better shot with the next administration . '' the fear that it would be ordered to evict illegal tenants was also part of the housing authority 's calculations this year . ''i think historically that 's been the reason , '' mr . shuldiner said . ken lampkin , a spokesman for the new york regional office of the federal department of housing_and_urban_development , said his agency would reserve comment until the city actually applied for a larger subsidy . ''we 've been around for 55 years , and we view our mission as providing housing for low income people , '' mr . shuldiner said . ''there 's obviously a tremendous shortage of low_income_housing now , and to toss people out would just be against our mission . as long as we can tolerate it to any degree , we 're not going to look to wholesale eviction . '' deficit and surplus fund city councilwoman ruth w . messinger , a manhattan democrat who is frequently critical of the city 's housing policies , said the housing authority 's decision to avoid a confrontation with the reagan_administration was ''judicious but problematic . '' ''i respect their capacity to continue to provide homes for more families than they have units , '' ms . messinger said . ''but i think the burden that the authority is carrying must be addressed by the city . this points to the need to renovate more of the vacant city owned stock , and more rapidly , for families of low and moderate income . '' mr . shuldiner said the housing authority was not in ''immediate financial difficulty . '' ''our financial situation has deteriorated in the sense that we 've had deficits , but it is not threatening our survival , '' he said . the authority will have an operating deficit this year of 15 million to 20 million about half last year 's shortfall , he said . the current deficit will also be made up from the surplus fund , which was created from operating surpluses in the early 1980 's . if another deficit is anticipated next year , mr . shuldiner said , the authority will probably ask the new federal administration for a larger subsidy . ''we 'll submit our budget and see how it plays out , '' he said .",has a topic of estate
"lead in four other cities that give developers density bonuses for child_care irvine , calif . , portland , ore . , cincinnati and hart ford proposed projects have been put on hold until sluggish real_estate markets im prove . in four other cities that give developers density bonuses for child_care irvine , calif . , portland , ore . , cincinnati and hart ford proposed projects have been put on hold until sluggish real_estate markets im prove . in the other areas where child_care centers or fees for a community day care fund are mandatory clayton , concord , danville , martinez , san_francisco and san_ramon , all in california , plus boston only a handful , mostly in california , have been built in new properties . most developers have chosen to put money in a community child_care fund rather than meet strict codes or negotiate with day care operators . in 1985 , a change in the zoning code here gave builders 12 square_feet of floor space for every foot of ground level space dedicated to day care twice the bonus proposed for new york city by the real_estate board of new york in a package of proposals to stimulate development . new york has no mandated or optional zoning statute on day care centers . the offer here meant wright runstad company , which provided a 2 , 000 square_foot day care center , could add 24 , 000 square_feet to its washington mutual tower . a moratorium that began in may 1989 and continues through next may on new down town office high rises has prevented any fur ther use of the bonus . but developers are expected to take advantage of it in the future . when the 1 . 05 million square_foot wash ington mutual tower opened in 1989 , wright runstad advertised it as "" an office building so friendly you can bring your kids to work . "" the day care center , with its 22 children , 2 months to 2 1 2 years old , is tucked into a courtyard behind a fountain . the center oper ates at capacity . the y.w.c.a . operates the center , which is subsidized by united way . "" it 's convenient for parents who work in the building , "" said tema nesoff , its assistant_director . "" they see what the child is doing during the day . "" costs range from 285 to 650 a month , depending on the child 's age , and 30 percent of the children come from low income fam ilies . another concern , harbor development company , lets the center use a nearby empty lot as a play area and local architects de signed outdoor equipment free of charge . steve trainer , senior vice_president of wright runstad , said his company had long wanted to place child_care in downtown projects . but state law required that centers be built at street level , eliminating most towers because first floors on seattle 's hilly streets often range from below to above grade . that law has since been eased . "" this is definitely a start on what the city envisioned , "" said rebecca herzfeld , the city 's manager of code development and coordination . but billie young , seattle 's child_care coor dinator , noted that the costs of providing care tend to be higher downtown than in neighbor hoods . centers downtown tend to be smaller , so there are no economies of scale that larger neighborhood centers can achieve . staff members are paid more to work in downtown than in the suburbs . because par ents who want to take their children down town demand high quality in care , more staff members are needed in the city core . but proponents say that day care centers in downtown offices tend to "" humanize "" the often sterile environments . the publicity surrounding the incentive program has encouraged developers to in clude day care even if they gained their permits prior to the zoning change and thus were not entitled to a density bonus , ms . herzfeld said . for example , pacific first centre , a pres cott development company project complet ed last year , provides an 8 , 000 square_foot day care center for 55 children , operated by pacific first montessori . the developer gave the operator a five year lease at nominal rent . dick clotfelter , president of prescott de velopment , said he was marketing the 1 . 07 million square_foot building with the day care center as an incentive . a store in the 8 , 000 square_feet the center occupies would have rented for about 12 a square_foot , or 96 , 000 a year , he said . kelly sandy , whose wife , linda , works in the pacific first building , said he felt a full day would be too tiring for his 3 1 2 year old son , curtis , so a nanny picks the child up after lunch . he chose the pacific first day care center over one near his home . suzanne haggard , director of the pacific first montessori , took out a small_business_administration loan to finance her school day care center , which opened in mid 1989 . costs range from 550 to 750 a month , depending on age of the child . "" we 're looking for new ways to finance child_care and have been pushing for help from developers nationally , "" said caroline eichman , research director of the child_care action campaign . "" seattle has a very good program . she said san_francisco has seen little success so far with its five year old law de signed to promote child_care in office build ings . it requires developers of buildings larg er than 50 , 000 square_feet to pay 1 for every gross square_foot or to set aside 2 , 000 square_feet of floor space or 1 percent of the total area , whichever is greater . "" the law was written to entice developers to pay the fee , "" ms . eichman said , "" so the city can have control over spending and community planning . "" no child_care centers have gone into new san_francisco towers , but one developer , ron kaufman companies , is seeking permits for a new building that would include day care for up to 40 children . lynne beeson , director of the mayor 's office of child_care , said most developers are paying fees and the city will receive 300 , 000 by year 's end . "" things are n't changing fast , "" ms . beeson said . "" we have got such a long way to go . "" some california cities , like concord and danville , have built day care centers and also collected fees . but in boston four new office buildings that would include child_care in the once blighted midtown cultural dis trict are on hold , and the same is true of a building in hartford . cincinnati has had a bonus law on the books since 1987 but nothing has come about , and in irvine , calif . , two projects still are pending . some of the 14 other cities now considering mandatory child_care laws are running into rebellion from developers opposed to what they see as mandatory zoning . pittsburgh will decide about mandatory laws this fall . city planners say it is crucial to plan centers now for future buildings because of the num ber of working mothers . pittsburgh 's centers near downtown currently handle only about 680 children and planners expect that within 20 years more than 50 , 000 women of child bearing age will work downtown . "" developers across the country have n't opposed bonus laws , but they have opposed mandatory zoning , "" ms . eichman said . "" they see these laws as unfair taxes and feel they 're being made scapegoats . they say day care is the responsibility of employers and the community as well . "" developers say they are being singled out because their buildings will create new jobs and new demands on city services like child_care . yet , ms . eichman said , "" we 've found that communities across the country are strapped for funds , and federal and state monies have been cut back . "" focus",has a topic of estate
"the tan house with the welcoming front porch at 56 risley street on the north end looks a lot like the other new homes in this inner city neighborhood . but because it was designed with energy savings in mind , its owners' utilities bill will be about 1 , 100 less a year than their neighbors' . the builder , hartford area habitat for humanity , set out to create a healthier , cost and energy efficient residence and to dispel the belief that building ''green'' is only for the rich . from photovoltaic solar_panels on the roof to engineered wood joists , more efficient toilets and energy star rated appliances , little has been overlooked in the effort to create a replicable , eco friendly home . ''this is probably the greenest house in hartford county right now , '' said adam ney , president of auctorverno , a marketing firm in bethany that promotes green construction and that helped habitat identify environmentally friendly products and supplies . each side of the duplex is 1 , 250 square_feet , with three bedrooms and one and a half baths . habitat and united_technologies , which sponsored the environmental upgrades , say they hope that aspects of the home will be copied by other habitat affiliates in the northeast as they build homes for needy families . ''what we 've learned here , we are already duplicating nearby , '' said shea hagy , the construction supervisor , referring to 16 other habitat homes going up in a two block radius and four more in new britain . while habitat follows standards for green design elsewhere in the country , it has not done so in the northeast because of the harsher climate and a reluctance to deviate from standard practice , mr . hagy said . ''it 's easy to put up solar_panels in san_diego , where it 's sunny all the time , '' he said . ''there 's less payback here , but it still makes a difference . '' solar_energy will provide 40 percent of the home 's electricity , yielding a savings of about 360 a year , preliminary estimates show . conservation should reduce water and gas bills by at least an additional 700 , the developers predict . ''the energy savings is one more leg up for our families , '' said julie donahue , executive vice_president of hartford area habitat . sunlight solar_energy , of milford , the installer of the solar system , took advantage of a rebate program started in october 2004 by the connecticut clean energy fund , which typically gives back 55 percent of the installation cost . to date , 100 homes have qualified . new homes account for some installations , but most are in existing homes , said bryan garcia , the fund 's director of energy_market initiatives . interest in solar_power is growing as electric rates skyrocket and fears of a fuel crisis loom , he said . upfront costs are often higher in eco friendly construction in this case , materials added about 15 percent . but habitat anticipates that reduced electrical and water consumption , the solar panel rebate , durability and longer product warranties will make the home more cost efficient in the long term . the ''green'' effort extends to framing , furnishing and landscaping . using two by six studs spaced every 24 inches , instead of two by fours at 16 inch intervals , created deeper cavities for insulation . overall , mr . hagy said , wood use is reduced by about 30 percent . household products and appliances were evaluated for air_quality and environmental impact , mr . hagy said . linoleum won out over vinyl flooring and carpeting for the high traffic first floor because it comes from renewable resources , is easy to maintain and emits fewer volatile organic compounds ( v . o.c . s ) , which emit potentially harmful gases . low v . o.c . paints were chosen , and on the second floor , low v . o.c . carpet squares , rather than rolls of carpeting and padding , helped reduce construction waste . water saving measures include restricted flow plumbing devices , a front loading washing_machine and rain barrels to capture water for gardening and car washing . in terms of eco building , ''we 're only scratching the tip of the iceberg , '' mr . hagy said , ''but for us , it 's a big step . '' environment",has a topic of estate
"lead for five years residents of the tribeca area have been pursuing historic_district designation . this spring they are redoubling their efforts with a promotional booklet , walking_tours and a benefit auction to draw attention to the area 's remarkable late 19th_century commercial buildings . for five years residents of the tribeca area have been pursuing historic_district designation . this spring they are redoubling their efforts with a promotional booklet , walking_tours and a benefit auction to draw attention to the area 's remarkable late 19th_century commercial buildings . but although designation for a district is now under active discussion by the landmarks_preservation_commission , it will be too late for the 188 year old federal style house at 114 hudson street , whose demolition last year cast light on the complicated web of paperwork and politics that surrounds preservation in new york city . the building was an unforgettable anomaly , an ancient red brick survivor among tall loft buildings . built in 1801 between franklin and north moore streets , 114 hudson was a good , plain federal style house a brick front with splayed lintels over the second floor windows and a single dormer projecting from a pitched roof . its first owner and occupant was john ferris , a ''cartman , '' according to an 1802 city directory . after the civil_war a wave of loft and factory construction transformed the area , sweeping away almost all the older buildings . at the turn of the century , 36 year old john d . haar lived above his butter and egg business at 114 hudson , but by 1910 the ground floor was operated by leopold bochner as an ''eating house . '' in the mid 1980 's , community board 1 and the tribeca community association began asking the landmarks_preservation_commission to designate a historic_district in tribeca roughly bounded by broadway and canal , greenwich and murray streets , with 114 hudson more or less at the center . at the suggestion of the commission , community volunteers photographed and did research on hundreds of buildings to speed the process . in 1987 charles m . smith jr . , commissioner of the department of buildings , began a new practice there applicants for permits for new construction , alteration and demolition in manhattan and brooklyn had to notify by mail the appropriate community board at the time of filing . the board , if inclined , could try to stop or delay the approval of an application . once approved , applications cannot be overridden by , for instance , the landmarks commission . last spring the tribeca historic_district proposal was gaining momentum and the community board expected the commission to act soon . but without warning 114 hudson was demolished in july . hal bromm , chairman of the board 's landmarks committee , said he never got notification of the application to demolish . ''if i had , '' he said , ''i would have called the landmarks commission and i think it 's extremely likely that the staff would have recommended a hearing on the building . '' although there have been complaints that the notification of building applications is sporadic , in this case the community board office did get a copy of the application , but neglected to notify mr . bromm . angelo ponte , a principal of owners maintenance carting inc . , owner of 114 hudson , declined to discuss the reason for the demolition . but jim smith , a spokesman for the concern , said the site is for sale for 1 million . would the commission have stepped in at the last minute to save 114 hudson until the entire district proposal was ready ? other individual federal style houses have been designated individual landmarks . ''landmarks_preservation_commission complete tribeca review , '' a document dated 1985 , systematically rated the area 's properties in terms of their significance on a scale of 1 through 4 . the 1 's are plain or modern buildings the few 4 's seem to be structures considered very significant . the woolworth building received a_4 , as did 114 hudson street . but the commission claims not to know about the document . ''we do n't have a copy of that , i do n't know what it is , '' said lillian ayala , a spokesperson . as for the ratings , ''we do n't even like to mention those numbers , those were probably put in by the volunteers , '' she said . but oliver allen , a community resident who organized the picture taking , said that not only were the survey and its significance ratings given to the volunteers by the commission , but the commission also asked the volunteers to make extra photographs , in color , of the buildings rated 4 . ''they want people to help them and they gave us this document , and then they say , 'do n't take it seriously , ' '' mr . allen said . ''well , we do take it seriously . '' there is a certain bitterness about 114 hudson that the landmarks commission has still not acted on the district , that it does not acknowledge its own survey , that 114 hudson did not get a last day in court , that tribeca lost a picturesque little pleasure in the heart of a likely historic_district three years after the commission 's ''complete tribeca review . '' and there is yet another irony . the lack of notice to mr . bromm was irrelevant . for demolition permits , owners are required to go through a rigorous preapplication process letters to neighbors , visits by inspectors and so on before they can even apply . indeed , the process is so rigorous that , when the actual application is finally accepted , there is nothing left to review , nothing to question . with 114 hudson , as with almost every demolition last year , approval was granted on the day of application . what reached the community board for review was the notice of an application that had been approved before it hit the mailbox .",has a topic of estate
"just to the north of centereach , along the north_shore of long_island , communities such as setauket , stony_brook and port_jefferson have flourished since the 18th_century . but until about a half century ago , efforts to develop centereach were unavailing . roads in the backwater hamlet were little more than dirt paths , gas and electricity were virtually_nonexistent and there was no public water system . in 1953 , bernard krinsky moved in to test his belief that a moderately_priced product would be the key to the success of selling housing in this eight square_mile hamlet in the town of brookhaven . the product was eastwood village , and he was joined in the venture in 1954 by hyman rosenblum and his rosdel corporation . in a coordinated effort , they laid out their own roads , made arrangements for utility services and began building homes targeted for first time buyers . within five years they and four other developershad built and sold 1 , 250 homes , marketing them through a single real_estate agency , harry klein realty . today the still moderate prices of the 7 , 800 houses in the hamlet are just one of the factors that make centereach desirable for home buyers . with abundant shopping , access to major roads 10 minutes to the northern state parkway or the long_island_expressway a swimming_pool complex , an award winning public_library and a desirable school system , centereach is a thriving community . john hurtle , an agent with national home finders in centereach , said prices for houses ranged from 80 , 000 for a two bedroom cottage on a 100 by 100 foot lot to 250 , 000 for a large colonial with a wraparound porch on half an acre . taxes range from about 1 , 800 to 6 , 000 . high end homes are newer , with many still rising in scattered subdivisions of 5 to 20 houses each . houses in rock island estate , a development of eight victorians that range from 2 , 200 to 3 , 200 square_feet , recently sold for 180 , 000 to 250 , 000 . ground has been broken to build an additional 18 . the rental market is tight . when available , one bedroom apartments go for 650 to 700 a month and 2 bedrooms for 850 to 900 . two to 2 bedroom single family homes rent for about 1 , 200 . mr . hurtle said that there were not many houses for sale . ''this is a very strong middle_class community , and people do n't move away that quickly , '' he said . ''many who do come back . '' kim ditomasso , who grew up in centereach and still has family there , moved back last november after living in brooklyn for five years with her husband , christopher . they have two children , christopher jr . , 7 , and nicholas , 9 months . the move back meant a commute of an hour and a half or more for her husband , who owns a pizza parlor in brooklyn_heights . but the couple felt that the public schools where the family lived in brooklyn were not up to their standards and that the 12 , 000 a year in tuition for a private_school did not fit in their budget . ''i looked everywhere in nassau_county for a house , '' mr . ditomasso said . ''but they were 40 , 000 to 50 , 000 more for half the house and double the taxes . '' the couple moved into a new 3 bedroom , 2 bath ranch with a cathedral ceiling , full basement and one car garage on a 130 by 100 foot lot . they paid 139 , 000 for the house property_taxes are 4 , 200 . mr . ditomasso said the neighborhood has many children , his wife has almost unlimited shopping opportunities and , he added , the quality of the public schools exceeds what brooklyn_heights offers . the 10 , 000 student middle country school_district has eight elementary schools , two middle schools and two high_schools , as well as a learning center for special_education . a total of 87 percent of last june 's 674 high_school graduates went on to higher_education . last year , 130 high_school students took advanced_placement courses in 11 subjects , including art , western civilization , french , spanish and italian . schools superintendent cecil ramsey said that in 1994 the district introduced an intense , half year course to prepare students for college entrance_exams and for the college application process . mr . ramsey said the district also offered a science research course . enrichment programs are available to students beginning in the fourth_grade , and every seventh_grade student takes a writing workshop to help in the development of writing and english skills . mr . ramsey said that although district enrollment had been increasing , it had not yet had an impact on space , noting that the student teacher ratio remained at 14 to 1 . ''the continued success of middle country students is the result of the unique teamwork , commitment and dedication of professionals and volunteers throughout the district , '' he said . the centereach civic_association , which began in 1961 and was reactivated in 1986 , is made up of volunteers who establish scholarships , sponsor clean up programs and serve as community watchdogs . vincent marino , president of the association , said that for the last few years the civic group had been monitoring state plans to deal with traffic_congestion on middle country road ( route 25 ) . these plans include widening the road to four lanes and an overpass at the intersection of middle country road and nicolls road , the latter now under construction . shopping is available along the entire stretch of middle country road , which is lined with stores and strip malls . the smith haven mall , anchored by macy 's , sears , j . c . penney and stern 's , is minutes away in lake grove . john and jill jarvis , who lived in an elmont , l.i. , apartment , had hoped to move to a starter home in nassau_county to minimize the commute to mr . jarvis 's job as a social worker in far rockaway , queens . like the ditomassos , they found they got more for their money in suffolk rather than nassau_county . in june 1996 , they purchased a 30 year old , 3 bedroom , 1 1 2 bath ranch with full basement , fireplace and deck for 110 , 000 . the house needed updating , but mrs . jarvis said it was love at first sight . ''although we 're far from family and friends , we have nice neighbors and i 'm happy that we made the move , '' said mrs . jarvis . mrs . jarvis said she was not always so happy . when they first moved to centereach she said she felt somewhat adrift . she soon made many new friends at the middle country public_library , where her daughter , emily , 2 , and 6 month old son , robert , take advantage of programs for toddlers on up . ''the library is a salvation for stay at home moms , '' she said . indeed , many residents say that the middle country public_library is their town_meeting hall . among the family programs are a discussion group for new mothers , readings of mother goose nursery rhymes for babies as young as 8 weeks old and computer programs for toddlers . the library 's 12 , 000 square_foot early childhood center has a puppet stage , dollhouse , wooden train set and a lego table . a sign_language program for youngsters 8 to 18 ends with demonstrations in nursing homes and fairs . the library also offers the elderly cholesterol and blood_pressure screenings and assistance in filing for medicaid and medicare payments . career counseling is also provided . cultural programs , music and performing_arts performances are offered at the library 's annex , an old school building in adjacent selden . the 15 . 5 acre centereach pool complex on hawkins avenue has a bathhouse , pool and water slide . it also has a separate baby pool , playground and picnic area , as well as three tennis courts and a handball court . town residents pay 140 a season for family membership to the pool . there are smaller pocket parks throughout centereach . the first documented settlement in what is now centereach began in the mid 18th_century when it was called west middle island . settlement proceeded at a snail 's pace with few individuals establishing homesteads on the densely wooded land . prominent among early settlers were the smiths , hallocks and hawkinses . eleazer hawkins , the first of his lineage to settle in the area , was both a farmer and a fisherman , according to a family history cited in ''a chronicle of centereach , '' whose co author , luise weiss , is on the library 's staff . on one voyage , the history recounts , he and his shipmates came upon an abandoned vessel laden with gold and other valuables . his share was so great that it enabled him to buy large farms for each of his nine sons on his return to the town of brookhaven . in the early 19th_century , west middle island became new village and the community had grown large enough to sustain both a church and school . by 1860 , the census listed 360 residents , many descendants of early settlers of the farming community . in 1916 , when new village wanted its own post_office , its congressman , representative lathrop brown , advised residents that another new village already existed in the state and that henceforth their community would be called centereach because , the history notes , the hamlet is in the center of long_island from each compass point . during the early part of the 20th_century , several developers tried to expand residential housing in the community , but the ventures always failed . ms . weiss , the librarian , said that the hamlet 's rapid growth in the 50 's and 60 's could have resulted in a sprawling suburb without a sense of community . instead , she said , with the help of the hamlet 's fine library ''the same concept of sharing and pride that the developers showed persists today . ''",has a topic of estate
"turning into untermyer park off north broadway , a visitor is struck by the incongruous sight of ornate greek gardens , canals , marble mosaic reflecting pools and a network of 40 lighted fountains all in the midst of the densely_populated northwest section of this city . "" from the street , it 's all walled off , "" said lee j . ellman , the yonkers director of planning . "" you would never know anything was there until you get to the garden path leading into the park . it was obviously designed to startle , and it does every time . "" the 13 acre park was once the estate of samuel untermyer , a multimillionaire lawyer , who developed the greek gardens in the early 1900 's and willed the property to the city . it opened as a park in 1946 . from 1973 to 1979 it underwent a 2 . 5 milllion renovation . but time has wrought havoc on the park 's delicate structures , which include a greek temple with crumbling mosaic tiles and fountains with damaged limestone , said ellen meagher , a consultant hired by the city to coordinate plans for another renovation . but a 284 , 000 federal grant awarded earlier this year will cover more than half what is needed to restore the park , said mr . ellman , adding that he had hopes that the task would begin by the fall . "" unfortunately , this kind of property ca n't be repaired with a slap of concrete , "" mr . ellman said . "" any time you have waterworks , there is a constant need for upkeep . just finding mosaic craftsmen today is a job in itself . "" the full cost of restoring the park has been estimated at 524 , 000 . in addition to the federal grant , the city will provide 150 , 000 from capital funds and 50 , 000 will come from the state 's environmental quality bond act . "" as soon as we get the money , we 'll start with the priority areas that need immediate attention , "" said mitchell a . tutoni , the city 's parks commissioner . "" the first step will be testing the plumbing , which should begin in a couple of months . "" the federal grant has allowed the first tentative steps , ms . meagher said , adding "" it 's given us a jump start and it 's made other funding sources take notice . the andy_warhol foundation has expressed interest in contributing . it 's like the opening of a dam . "" the federal money is coming from what might at first seem an unlikely source , the intermodal surface transportation efficiency act ( istea , pronounced "" ice tea "" ) . passed in 1991 , the act is designed primarily to help communities bolster their existing transportation facilities and develop new transportation technologies . but a provision also includes funds for projects that "" enhance the environment , "" which could involve rehabilitating "" historic sites . "" nationally , a total of 155 billion will be allocated from fiscal 1992 through fiscal 1997 ( the federal fiscal year runs from oct . 1 to sept . 30 ) . in the first round of grants , eight projects in westchester have received a total of 2 million . only three of these projects , accounting for 40 percent of the allocation , are directly related to transportation . the total allocation for them is 820 , 590 . the breakdown is 168 , 000 for the rehabilitation of the yorktown railroad station and expansion of an existing commuter parking_lot 604 , 590 to build a trailway in the southern part of the county , which will include rehabilitating seven bridges , and 48 , 000 that will go toward the construction of a boat launch ramp and a trail connecting the village of croton on hudson with the hudson_river . in addition to untermyer park , the other nontransportation projects include 306 , 700 for conversion the philipse manor railroad station into a writer 's center 200 , 000 to create a waterfront_park in north tarrytown 180 , 000 for physical improvements to downtown peekskill and 357 , 000 to restore the glenview mansion at the hudson river museum of westchester in yonkers . "" i would n't get bogged down in what 's transportation and what 's not , "" said state assemblyman richard l . brodsky , a scarsdale democrat liberal . "" this is a coherent attempt to enable people to travel through the state and see and take advantage of all its resources . the historic_preservation component is a very small piece of the overall pie . its genius is that a lot of the projects are small and citizen based and might be hard pressed to get other kinds of government funding . "" for glenview mansion , the 357 , 000 grant represents "" one of the largest awards in the museum 's history , "" said philip verre , the hudson river museum 's director . he credits senator daniel_patrick_moynihan , the new york democrat who sponsored the legislation , for the inclusion of historic_preservation in the bill . "" senator moynihan fought to have a provision made for capital historic_preservation funds in istea because of his commitment to new york state 's important historic resources , "" said mr . verre . the mansion , built between 1876 and 1877 , is considered one of the finest examples in the country of an eastlake influenced interior , said mr . verre . it was built for the family of john bond trevor , a stockbroker who was an admirer of charles locke eastlake , an english writer on design who favored geometric patterns and designs like those found in nature . the federal money will be used to return two rooms , now functioning as art galleries , to their original use as a parlor and billiard room . the grant represents about half of what 's needed to complete the restoration , mr . verre said . the city has committed 80 , 000 over four years . "" we 're also looking to the new york state council on the arts capital fund , "" mr . verre said , "" and hopefully we 'll get some donations of period furniture and a billiard table . "" once the additional financing is in place , the museum wants to restore an 8 by 20 foot hand stenciled stained_glass skylight rising three stories above the main staircase in the mansion 's great_hall . mr . verre said it had remained hidden from view for more than 60 years , sandwiched between two dropped ceilings . these obstructions will be removed and the glass refurbished . the museum also hopes to create an interactive multimedia interpretive gallery with a cd_rom station . "" this is a planned four year phased restoration , "" mr . verre said , that will require some demolition and construction . "" but , "" he added , "" hopefully there 'll be a minimum of disruption . we plan to keep the museum open to the public during the entire process . """,has a topic of estate
"applications for rent increases in co op apartments occupied by rent_stabilized tenants are expected to increase following the grant , for the first time , of a "" comparative hardship "" increase by the new york state division of housing and community renewal . the decision , issued late last year in a case filed in 1985 , involves a 149 unit building at 203 205 east 72d street . the applicant for the increase , the sponsor of the building 's co op conversion , had retained unsold shares for 75 rent_stabilized_apartments . the hardship application requested a 53 percent rent increase amounting to 73 , 182 a year . the state agency , which administers rent_regulation laws , awarded 20 , 160 a year , which comes to 5 . 54 a room a month , retroactive to june 1 , 1987 . the retroactive portion has been stayed pending the outcome of a request for reconsideration filed by the tenants . "" in my opinion , the die is cast , "" said jeffrey turkel , the manhattan lawyer who represented the applicant . eliot zuckerman , a manhattan real_estate lawyer , said that "" there are lots of buildings where sponsors still own blocks of apartments , and many may now file an application for an increase . "" the "" comparative hardship "" increase , mr . zuckerman said , is given when an owner can prove that the profit he or she is making or should be making on a rent_stabilized apartment has been diminished or wiped out by the effects of rent_stabilization . to prove the need for such an increase , he said , the owner must compare income and expenses over a three year "" base period , "" usually the first three years of ownership , with a three year "" test period , "" typically the three years immediately preceding the filing . martin heistein , a manhattan real_estate lawyer , called the decision "" a major plus for the owners . "" he said he had received a "" tremendous number "" of inquiries and had "" already begun the process of filing a large number of hardship applications . "" tenant advocates denounced the decision . "" it allows somebody who is not even the owner of a building to selectively apply for rent increases on top of the regular increases he gets and basically price nonpurchasing tenants out of the building , "" said michael mckee , director of development for the new york state tenant and neighborhood coalition .",has a topic of estate
"what lessons can be learned from tropical storm floyd , a weather event so rare that it will not likely occur again for centuries ? a climate historian , dr . jerome s . thaler , described floyd as a ''300 year storm , '' and gov . george e . pataki described it as a ''200 year'' event . and while some officials might reason that one can never be adequately prepared for such unusual disasters , liam murphy , the county 's director of emergency services , thinks otherwise . as mr . murphy observed last week , the hard financial fact is that the damage from the storm cost municipalities and school_districts in the county more than 13 . 5 million , according to the federal_government . arguing that the county is regularly hit by northeasters and other extreme weather , mr . murphy said no one can afford to forget the lessons from the devastation that floyd left behind . ''and that lesson is to be better prepared next time , '' he said . ''the cost has been heavy . '' the village of ossining was hardest hit , with damage estimates of 1 . 3 million . yorktown was next at 922 , 585 yorktown central school_district incurred 728 , 796 in damage . peekskill reported losses of 672 , 857 . and westchester 's parks had 801 , 146 in damage . ''we 're looking not to just fix things to the way they were , but to fix them so they wo n't break again , '' mr . murphy said . he cited the saw mill river , which he said stayed within its banks only in places where the army_corps_of_engineers had taken long range storm control measures like reinforcing the banks , grading and providing proper drainage . for example , the river did not overflow in ardsley , where work had been completed to remedy past problems that allowed the river to flood the adjacent saw mill river parkway , and in the process , strand cars . by contrast in elmsford and parts of greenburgh , where no reinforcement of banks have been done , residents witnessed heavy flooding , mr . murphy said . to pay for storm restoration work , the county is also using 827 , 000 in federal job training partnership act funds . the county has hired 55 people who had been unemployed for 15 months or longer and is paying them 9 . 25 an hour . the workers are also eligible for long term job training and career placement services . so far , the new employees have cleared downed trees and branches , repaired pipes , bridges and roadways at 18 county parks , including wilson woods , glen island and saxon woods , and in municipalities like ossining and peekskill . in ossining , much of the early work focused on reopening roads and getting people back to work . even with all that out of the way , lynn mccrum , director of community development in the village , said that problems remain . ''some residents' backyards are still a mess , '' he said , and road repair work and stream clearing continues . but he said that , according to federal_government estimates , it often takes municipalities 30 months to return to normal after a storm . heeding the harsh lessons that floyd delivered , many municipalities , like mount_kisco , are taking stock of their resources and their ability to handle future disasters . the village 's commercial area was hard hit by flooding , with about 10 stores closing in the storm 's aftermath . and although most reopened quickly , two had major damage and were shut for several months . ''even though we 're not supposed to get another storm like this for 100 years , we 're developing a plan now to deal with the next emergency , whenever that occurs , '' mayor patricia m . reilly said . ''we can get hit by hurricanes , tornadoes and other things , and we should know who is in charge of what and how we plan to evacuate people if that becomes necessary . '' while governments prepare , homeowners would be wise to do the same , mr . murphy said . all households should be prepared to survive three or four days by laying in extra supplies of water , nonperishable food , which does not need to be cooked before eating blankets and alternative sources of heat . ''why go to a shelter if you do n't have to ? '' he said .",has a topic of estate
"malcolm freeland cannot say enough about the benefits of coastal living . he has had a home on the water 's edge in south devon , near the pretty sailing resort of salcombe , england , since 1972 . he described his seven acres , which includes his own beach and a jetty for his 38 foot sailing boat , as ' 'simply beautiful . '' ''we raised five children here and certainly they enjoyed growing up along the water , '' he said . ''we moved here for the coastal lifestyle and we 've stayed because of this lifestyle . '' and , since telecommunications has improved , mr . freeland also has had another benefit he has been able to continue his career as an engineer from home . indeed , coastal regions of britain like devon are drawing a growing number of professionals who are not required to work in specific locations . and britons in general are finding it harder to resist life by the seaside , and they are willing to pay a premium for the pleasure . the growing demand for homes along britain 's coast has meant rising prices .. ''in my area houses usually sell before they are even advertised so it 's definitely a hot property market , '' mr . freeland said . a recent real_estate survey by halifax estate agents showed that house prices in more than half of britain 's seaside_towns have soared by at least 50 percent over the past three years , with most communities recording jumps that have far exceeded the 31 percent average increase in house prices across the rest of the country . seaham , in the northeastern county of durham , is the country 's best performer over the past three years , with average house prices increasing by 172 percent to 117 , 266 , or nearly 200 , 000 . much of the improvement in this former coal_mining town on the north_sea coast is credited to a major injection of money from the government and the european_union , part of which financed a number of residential projects . across the country , ''firm demand for second homes has clearly been a factor pushing up prices near the sea but regeneration efforts in seaside_towns have also been a positive for prices , '' said colin kemp , managing director at halifax estate agents , which completed its annual seaside town review over the summer . the surge also has been powered by retirees and families eager to find spacious victorian and edwardian homes at reasonable prices , a rare find in almost any british city these days . it is not surprising that dorset is one of the most expensive seaside counties , with an average home price of more than 222 , 853 or about 400 , 000 . for one thing , its 95 mile coastline has been given natural world heritage status by the united_nations , placing it in a_league with the grand canyon in arizona and the great barrier reef in australia . each year , millions of tourists visit the fossil rich beaches of dorset 's lyme regis , a hilly town of pretty white georgian homes mixed with a smattering of thatched roof cottages . ''dorset is a location which has grown enormously in popularity in the last decade as people have become happier to commute further and further from london , '' said liam bailey , head of residential research for the knight frank estate agency . ''this is so much more practical as an increasing number of people enjoy the option of working from home part of the week , '' he said . but mr . bailey warned about the limited number of available properties , noting that the supply is now 20 percent smaller than it was last year . one example is sandbanks , a town near bournemouth that was all but a shantytown until the 1960 's and is now called ''monte carloby the sea'' by the locals . homes in the town , known for its quiet streets and white beaches , now top 500 , 000 , or nearly 1 million . ''high demand and short supply in a very concentrated area make the prices high , '' said simon milledge , a waterside properties specialist at the buying solution , a search agency that finds homes for wealthy buyers . ''the south coast economy is strong and entrepreneurs like the idea of moving to sandbanks . '' part of the town 's appeal may be its celebrity cachet . many well known british soccer stars have moved to sandbanks and even the british actor hugh grant and his girlfriend , jemima khan , recently were reported to have viewed properties nearby . sandbanks also has flown the european blue flag , an award for the cleanest beaches , for 17 consecutive years , longer than any other coastal area in britain . eight of britain 's 10 most expensive seaside_towns are on the country 's west_coast four in cornwall three , including sandbanks , in dorset and two in devon . a survey earlier this year by the sunday_times of london found that properties with boat moorings are typically 30 percent more expensive than identical properties inland . top quality homes without moorings , but with uninterrupted water views , are on average 25 percent more expensive , while properties within modern marinas , along lakes or on the banks of canals command 15 percent to 25 percent more . yet property hunters still can find good value in some coastal communities , property experts say . according to the halifax review , there are 14 seaside_towns where homes sell for an average of less than 100 , 000 pounds , or about 185 , 000 . britain 's most affordable town is wick in scotland , where prices average 64 , 612 pounds , or about 100 , 000 . in general , mr . milledge said , the people seeking coastal properties are searching for a better quality of life and , for those looking along the southern coast , one that is only a two and a half hour drive from london . ''they are coming for the landscape , the peace and quiet and the seemingly slower pace of life , '' he said .",has a topic of estate
"opening the government 's fraud case against gov . fife symington of arizona , a federal_prosecutor told jurors here today that mr . symington had concocted an elaborate web of financial lies in a desperate effort to salvage a crumbling real_estate empire . mr . symington 's lawyer countered that his client was an honorable developer who took risks and sometimes suffered as a result but that he had never acted dishonorably . the prosecutor , david schindler , showed blowup after blowup of bank statements and other financial documents to the jury . that evidence , mr . schindler argued , showed that when mr . symington fell into financial trouble , he falsely inflated and deflated his true net worth time after time to obtain new development loans or have old loans forgiven from 1986 to 1991 . at one point in 1990 , he added , mr . symington told one lender that he was 5 . 3 million in the black and another that he was 4 . 1 million in the red . ''the defendant is a very smart and clever man who told lies , '' mr . schindler declared as he opened the prosecution 's attack in federal district court here . ''to get loans , he portrayed a man with millions . in financial trouble , he portrayed a different person . '' mr . symington 's lawyer , john dowd , himself a former justice_department lawyer , countered that the governor had done no more or less than make estimates of his worth at various points . mr . dowd said the lenders knew they were estimates and accepted them as such because they understood the extremely fluid nature of the real_estate market . ''they were highly subjective figures , '' mr . dowd argued . ''there are many different kinds of values in real_estate short term values , long term values , liquidation values , fire sale values . there is no hard and fast rule . '' the government prosecutors , mr . dowd asserted , did not understand the nature of risk or the fluidity in the real_estate market . mr . symington , a 51 year old descendant of an eastern family long involved in big_business and politics , faces 22 counts of fraud , perjury and extortion . most of the charges date back before he became the governor in 1991 . if convicted he could be sent to prison for dozens of years , depending on the charges proved . specifically , mr . symington is charged with giving false statements to federally_insured financial_institutions , with lying about his financial affairs during a bankruptcy hearing and with trying to extort less onerous terms for a loan , after he became governor , by threatening to use the power of his office to steer business away from the lender . ''the defendant abused his office by trying to force one of his lenders out of a promise to pay a_10 million loan , '' mr . schindler declared in enumerating the various charges against mr . symington . mr . dowd countered that mr . symington had made no effort to extort but had simply pointed out to the lender that the business climate was bad and growing worse . ''that was not threat , '' he added . ''that was just common_sense . '' the trial here is the second time in a decade that an arizona governor has been accused of felonious wrongdoing , and the current case , even though the trial is just getting started , has already created turmoil in the state 's political scene and interrupted in the day to day flow of decisions and actions from the governor 's office . in the earlier case , gov . evan_mecham , mr . symington 's predecessor , was accused of accepting illegal campaign money . he was acquitted , but not before being impeached . throughout much of the 1980 's , mr . symington was one of booming arizona 's most successful land developers . he built some of phoenix 's most expensive office parks and shopping_malls . but like many other developers in the southwest , he was laid financially low by the recession . eventually , he was forced to declare bankruptcy . ''fife symington was a risk taker just like the pioneers who settled the valley here , '' mr . dowd said early_today in defense of his client . in the prosecution 's opening statement , mr . schindler charged that mr . symington had kept a special list of which lenders were to get which estimates . mr . schindler said some symington aides and employees not only knew of the list but also , when instructed , ''fixed'' the figures on financial_statements to reflect whatever mr . symington instructed . ''he would tell which figures to fix , which to add to and which to subtract from , '' mr . schindler said . he also accused mr . symington of repeatedly overstating the share he held in various developments , as well as the value of those shares . the case is expected to take the better part of several months to try . testimony and presentation of evidence are to resume on tuesday .",has a topic of estate
"there are many ways to think of the 149 year old first unitarian church in brooklyn_heights . architectural treasure . spiritual hub . neighborhood cynosure . historical repository . two years ago , however , the trustee for buildings and grounds added a chilling new description crumbling sandcastle . "" we found that the stonework was falling off , "" said the trustee , allen j . kone . like so many of new york city 's most venerable and vulnerable synagogues and churches , first unitarian faces a maintenance crisis that will take hundreds of thousands of dollars to cure . "" danger coalesces a congregation , "" said constance newsom , president of the board . "" you do n't persuade them with esthetics . you have to connect the condition of the building with the health of your faith . "" not without trepidation , first unitarian embarked on what now promises to be a 1 . 2 million capital campaign to repair the stonework , which had been covered in stucco rebuild the organ and restore some windows . it seems safe to say they will have to battle for every dollar . when it comes to the repair and rejuvenation of religious landmarks , angels are few and far between . even the restoration of the eldridge_street synagogue on the lower east side , a well established and well publicized project begun in the early 1980 's , is becalmed for want of money 2 . 5 million , to be specific , to finish rebuilding the roof , repair exterior masonry , restore the skylights and install new electric , plumbing and heating systems . "" we are clearly stalled in the middle of the most challenging phase , "" said roberta brandes gratz , president of the eldridge_street project , the nonprofit_organization that oversees restoration of the 106 year old synagogue , which is still in use by a small congregation , khal adath jeshurun with anshe lubtz , and , even in its raw state , attracts some 8 , 000 visitors a year , with its educational and cultural programs . "" this is critical work , "" ms . gratz said . "" it is only so long that buildings can remain in stasis before they begin to backslide . "" the 70 year old abyssinian_baptist_church and community house , 132 42 west 138th_street , were designated landmarks last summer . earlier this week , the pastor , the rev . calvin o . butts 3d , was feeling the chill in his office . and the drafty steel casement windows will cost several thousand dollars to repair to landmark standards . "" we're still happy with the designation , "" dr . butts said . "" we 're not sorry we went along with it and did n't fight it . we 're trying to crack a 200 , 000 nut , however , because of the kind of maintenance considerations we have . "" "" there are not a lot of resources available for capital work , "" he said . "" the money we raise comes primarily from the pockets of poor people , so it 's very difficult for us . i feel badly for churches with congregations smaller than ours . i can understand why many fight landmark_designation . "" one congregation that has consistently fought designation is the church of st . paul and st . andrew , at west_end avenue and 86th_street . "" i do n't know how much money is in the community , when you 're talking about millions of dollars , "" said the rev . edward c . horne , pastor of the united_methodist_church . "" there is not a track record to back up the claims that if we ask , it will come rolling in . and it really diverts us from our mission of feeding people , housing people and attending to spiritual needs . "" the director of the sacred_sites program at the private new york landmarks_conservancy , edward t . mohylowski , said "" most religious groups like their buildings and want to maintain them to a good standard . but many times , they are overwhelmed by the size of the building and the amount of ornament and even the number of roof slopes . "" aggravating the problem is the tremendous secular demand placed on the structures , which function as community halls , soup kitchens , homeless shelters , day care centers , schools , theaters , galleries , 12 step meeting places and counseling offices . "" society is increasingly turning to the religious community for specific tangible help , "" said the rev . thomas f . pike , who is at once rector of the episcopal parish of calvary st . george 's in manhattan and a member of the landmarks_preservation_commission . "" we can get government money if we 're running a child_care program but we ca n't get money to maintain buildings , "" he said . "" these buildings are getting more use and are more vulnerable than perhaps they have ever been to misuse and overuse . "" "" the real breakthrough has not occurred within the religious community and the secular community to see that religious buildings have an importance that transcends their doctrinal focus , "" father pike said . "" we really have n't developed a sense that an important sacred place is a resource to the whole community . so private foundations are still reluctant to fund maintenance projects . and corporations are reluctant to do that . and religious institutions are skeptical of outside people telling them what to do . "" "" we must find a way in which foundation money and government money can help maintain the physical buildings without violating the mission of the religious institutions , "" father pike said . "" we run the risk of losing a major element of the fabric of our society if we do n't find a way to do that constitutionally . "" laurie beckelman , the chairwoman of the landmarks_preservation_commission , said she discerned "" a time of healing , productivity and partnership with the religious community , "" although she conceded that "" many foundations and corporations are still not inclined "" to help . one notable_exception to the overall absence of government support was the state environmental quality bond act of 1986 , which provided significant grants for the restoration and repair of historic churches and synagogues . "" there was serious debate about it , "" recalled julia s . stokes , a deputy commissioner in the state office of parks , recreation and historic_preservation . "" we worked long and hard with the attorney_general to structure how that was going to occur . "" to overcome the objection that the state was furthering religious ministry , grants were limited to elements that would enhance a structure 's historic qualities and therefore its value to the general public . for example , ms . stokes said , the state would not pay for a_20 , 000 asphalt shingle roof but might make up half the difference between that and an 80 , 000 restoration of an original slate tile roof . the eldridge_street synagogue received 250 , 000 under the bond act . other recipients on that scale were the episcopal_church of the holy apostles in chelsea ( 520 , 000 ) , the episcopal_church of st . ann and the holy_trinity in brooklyn_heights ( 516 , 000 ) , congregation b'nai jeshurun on the upper west side ( 250 , 000 ) and the episcopal_church of st . luke and st . matthew in the clinton_hill section of brooklyn ( 250 , 000 ) . but there were strings attached . recipients had to covenant that the work performed with government aid would not be altered for 26 years the life of the bond unless approved by state officials . "" it 's not free money , "" said richard janvey , a member of the board of congregation b'nai jeshurun , 257 west 88th_street . "" we did have a discussion concerning the full significance of the covenant . on balance , we thought we wanted to proceed . "" there is another problem with the environmental bond act money . it is virtually exhausted . and voters rejected a second bond act in 1990 . "" the e.q.b.a . was a breakthrough , "" father pike said , "" but unfortunately , at the second go around , it was turned down . "" a smaller but steadier stream of money comes from the sacred_sites program , which has dispensed about 1 . 2 million since 1986 , usually in dollops of 5 , 000 or 10 , 000 but not more than 15 , 000 . "" the fund was never intended to be a bottomless pit , "" mr . mohylowski said . "" it offers small grants that can get members of a building committee excited about a project or focused in a different way . "" this year , of 27 grants statewide , 7 , 500 went to the woodrow united_methodist_church on staten_island , 6 , 500 to the church of st . ann and the holy_trinity and 2 , 000 to the american buddhist academy at riverside drive and 105th street . besides small amounts of money , the sacred_sites program also offers technical assistance . last month , it was one of the sponsors of a workshop , "" caring for religious properties , "" in the interchurch center at riverside drive and 120th street . some 60 congregations sent representatives to get practical advice on maintenance , inspection and fundraising . for example , wesley haynes , the co author of "" inspecting and maintaining religious properties "" ( new york landmarks_conservancy , 1991 ) , told the audience "" water is a menace and i want you to leave today fearing the stuff . it 's not the staff of life . it 'll tear a building apart . "" william stivale , a building conservator who has been involved in several major restoration efforts , followed mr . haynes to the lectern and offered his own admonitions . "" avoid at all costs focusing on one area of the building until you have the bigger picture , "" he said . "" do n't repair the decorative ceiling until you 've repaired the roof . "" "" you 'll probably spend 80 percent of your maintenance budget on roofing alone , "" mr . haynes said . ms . beckelman said the landmarks commission was trying to be accommodating as it considered the use of less expensive materials . it permitted st . george 's episcopal_church in bedford stuyvesant to use asbestos roofing tile , she said , although "" our first choice would have been slate . "" "" we ca n't look at every single building as a faberge egg , "" ms . beckelman said , noting also that congregations can do much to reduce restoration and repair costs . "" if you have a long term maintenance plan and phase the work , it 's affordable , "" she said . affordability is not the issue in the eyes of many religious leaders , however . they do not seek a partnership with the government but the removal of state regulation , in the form of landmark controls , which they argue interferes with the right to free exercise of religion guaranteed in the first amendment . "" government simply does n't have the right to regulate churches and church ministries , "" said the rev . n . j . l'heureux jr . , executive director of the queens federation of churches . "" it is n't a question of whether the church can afford it . the fact that the government exacts anything from the church is wrong . it usurps the church 's time . it usurps the church 's resources . "" "" the landmark_designation of church property amounts to an intrusion by the state into the protected area of a congregation 's free exercise rights , "" he said . it was just this argument that church of st . paul and st . andrew employed in its unsuccessful efforts to overturn the landmark_designation of its 96 year old building . the united_states_supreme_court refused to hear the challenge in 1986 . three years later , the landmarks commission denied the church permission to raze the structure on the grounds of financial hardship . since then , said its pastor , mr . horne , the church has had to spend 45 , 000 simply to make emergency repairs to the facade . that was draining enough . the idea of raising millions of dollars is inconceivable . st . paul and st . andrew has been sharing its building with congregation b'nai jeshurun since 1991 , while the 88th_street synagogue is being restored . "" we decided we want to share this site with other faith groups , "" mr . horne said . the church envisions an "" interfaith center "" to replace the existing building and will submit an application next year . "" we certainly do n't have the capacity in this building to do anything like that , "" mr . horne said . two blocks east , the west park presbyterian church on amsterdam_avenue , a 103 year old romanesque_revival structure , remains a non landmark . although it was in the upper west side central_park west historic_district as first proposed , the landmarks_preservation_commission later excised it , in large measure because of the opposition of its pastor , the rev . robert davidson , who died last month . "" he was the most outspoken opponent , "" recalled arlene simon , president of the landmark west preservation group . "" there was such anger towards landmarking his building that the commission just buckled . "" sarah bradford landau , who is now vice chairwoman of the commission , recalled mr . davidson depositing a piece of brownstone from the church on the commissioners' table , in front of the chairman , "" as if to suggest that the building was literally falling down . "" also , at the time of the hearing in 1988 , st . paul and st . andrew 's financial hardship application was on the horizon and st . bartholomew 's episcopal_church on park_avenue was still in the midst of its legal challenge to the landmarks law . given that atmosphere , ms . landau said , the commission decided to redraw the boundaries around the west park church so that the designation of the whole district would not be delayed indefinitely . since that time , there have been relatively few designations of churches as individual landmarks . "" i would n't say we 've retreated , "" ms . beckelman said , "" but a lot of things we 've done have been in historic districts . my priority was doing as much as possible in the neighborhoods . "" in 1990 , the commission designated the antioch baptist church in brooklyn and the reformed church of huguenot park on staten_island . there were no individual designations in 1991 and 1992 . three major harlem churches were given landmark_status last summer . besides abyssinian , they are the mother african methodist episcopal zion church , 140 west 137th street and st . philip 's episcopal_church , 208 west 134th street . st . philip 's welcomed the designation , as did mother a.m.e . zion , which was founded in 1796 and is known as the oldest african church in new york state . the congregation was "" very pleased "" with landmark_status , said the pastor , the rev . alvin t . durant . he also acknowledged some uncertainty as to how the designation would affect the restoration work that had been envisioned for the 68 year old building , whose masonry facade and stained_glass_windows need attention . "" we 're not going to change the face of the building , "" mr . durant said . "" right now , we 're assuming that what we have in mind will not cause problems . "" the landmarks commission proved to be "" no problem at all "" in the first unitarian project , said dean k . koga , an associate in the firm of robert e . meadows p.c . architects of manhattan , which is also involved in the restoration of the eldridge_street synagogue . "" our basic approach was to retain as much stonework as we could , "" mr . koga said , "" and they liked that . "" originally known as the church of the saviour , the first unitarian church is a gothic revival composition by minard lafever , one of the leading architects of the early 19th_century . it is not an individual landmark but sits within the brooklyn_heights historic_district , at pierrepont street and monroe place . as such , it is regulated by the landmarks commission . over the years , the brownstone facade was covered in stucco . atop the stucco , raised strips were applied to imitate mortar joints . to the naked eye , this covering seemed to be in fairly good shape . mr . kone , the trustee for buildings and grounds , recalled church members asking about the facade "" hey , what 's wrong this ? it 's not too bad . "" "" and it was n't , "" mr . kone said , "" until you got higher and higher up . "" when the scaffolding was erected , mr . kone invited church members on inspection tours . in addition , ms . newsom said she "" walked around with pieces of stone in my hands at coffee hours . "" eventually , members of first unitarian approved a capital campaign that now amounts to 1 . 2 million , with the biggest tickets being 550 , 000 to repair the masonry facade and 250 , 000 to rebuild the hutchings organ . about 400 , 000 is to be raised from the congregation , which numbers about 170 families . church leaders hope to get 100 , 000 in grants . the rest would be borrowed . the eldridge_street project has already raised 2 . 5 million , which was used to shore up the foundations , rid the place of termites , replace structural timbers , enclose the windows with lexan and begin electrical rewiring . the second phase is also to cost 2 . 5 million , with the total price_tag likely to range between 6 million and 8 million , said amy e . waterman , director of the project . "" once the second phase is complete , "" ms . waterman said , "" the building is climate controlled , which enables us , for example , to do painting , which we could n't do while the building is too chilly , too warm or leaking . "" what makes this phase so tough is that it involves building elements that do not have innate donor appeal . it is one thing to contemplate one 's name associated with a restored window or pew . it is harder to imagine a brass plaque on a pipe chase , roof flashing or sump pump . "" it 's not very sexy in a fundraising sense , "" ms . gratz said , "" but it 's the necessary part before the esthetics . "" "" i wish we could restore the building with volunteers it would be done in months , "" she said . "" when we call for volunteers , they pour from the woodwork . unfortunately , that does n't get you a boiler or a roof . "" eldridge_street synagogue is not alone in its search for supporters with bankrolls to match their good intentions . abyssinian baptist hopes to raise 2 million and dr . butts said , "" if there are friends out there who respect the idea that we 're landmarked and cooperated with the designation and who have a couple of hundred thousand dollars i 'd be happy to talk to them . """,has a topic of estate
"the large yellow banner draped across the ornate castlelike building at 140th and riverside drive announcing that it is for sale has caught the eye of many a motorist on the henry_hudson_parkway . an eyesore to some , an object of fantasy to others , the building on the hill that gives harlem heights its height has been rented for movie shoots in recent years , including ''basketball diaries , '' ''search and destroy'' and ''bullet . '' other than that , the building has been vacant for years , apart from the rodents and birds that have taken up residence . ''occasionally a guy will try to live there , '' said david silberberg , a commercial real_estate_broker who is one of the owners . ''but we gutted the interior and the wind whistles through there . '' mr . silberberg has been trying to sell the building for the last year and a half . the asking price is 1 . 5 million , and he estimated it would take 3 million more to fix up the five story , 23 , 000 square_foot structure , which comes with 18 , 000 square_feet of land . mr . silberberg said there have been inquiries recently , one from a nonprofit group and another from a real_estate developer . he would not give details . michael adams , a harlem preservationist , described the style of the 1910 building as ''collegiate gothic . '' until 1957 , it was a roman_catholic boarding_school , st . walburga 's academy of the holy child . then the city bought it with the intention of putting a tuberculosis hospital on the site . but the plan stalled , and the building stood empty four more years . in 1961 , the city auctioned it off , and a yeshiva bought it for 160 , 000 . the yeshiva , which owed city taxes on the property , shut down in 1980 , and the city took over the building . two years later , samuel silberberg , a businessman , bought it for 125 , 000 with plans to develop it into condominiums . but because of declines in the stock_market and the real_estate market , those plans fell through . instead , the building continued to deteriorate . still , it has its admirers . ''it 's an amazing space with completely open floors and hanging metal stairs , '' said carl bellavia , a location scout who has used the building for album covers . janet allon neighborhood report harlem",has a topic of estate
"after a three month debate with employers over whether they would be allowed to vote on unionization , handymen , porters and superintendents employed by the bedford stuyvesant restoration corporation voted 32 to 9 last week to become part of teamsters local 966 . the vote came one month after the national labor relations board 's regional director in brooklyn ordered the corporation , which develops housing for the poor , to allow the workers to hold a vote . the vote affects employees at 11 of the corporation 's buildings a 12th was already unionized . ''it 's a spectacular victory , '' said ben weinthal , lead organizer for local 966 . ''we won decisively , even though management went to great lengths to block this . '' mr . weinthal said he thought that the corporation stalled the vote , which workers first proposed in december , using the extra time to send letters and show videos to workers in hopes of persuading them to vote against unionization . but workers said they thought local 966 could help them negotiate for better medical benefits , pay raises and safety equipment . ''they tried to scare everybody into voting against the union , '' said eric allen , a porter , who added that he had not had health_insurance or a raise since the corporation took over the buildings in 1997 . ''but it was too late for that . the movement was too strong . '' a spokesman and a lawyer for the corporation declined to comment . the corporation had a week to file an objection to the labor board , but did not do so by friday afternoon . an appeal would have to go through the united_states court of appeals . tara bahrampour neighborhood report bedford stuyvesant update",has a topic of estate
"a major renovation and expansion is under way at the white granite beaux_arts building near union station that once served as the city 's main post_office . in 1987 , the national capital planning commission rejected a postal_service proposal to add two and a half floors to the building and rent out it for revenue . then last year the postal_service 's private development team won final approval for a revised proposal , retaining the exterior but adding 400 , 000 square_feet to its original 800 , 000 . shortly after the 193 million project got under way , the general services administration , the federal real_estate agency , signed a 630 million , 30 year lease for 850 , 000 square_feet of office space there . when the renovation is completed in about a year , the bureau_of_labor_statistics will occupy 650 , 000 square_feet , and the architect of the capitol 200 , 000 square_feet . the latter agency provides support operations for congress . the ground floor of the building , on massachusetts avenue just west of union station , will house a post_office and a national postal history and philatelic museum . the museum will consolidate the stamp collection now at the smithsonian institution with other items , including early mail vehicles and airplanes . the historic lobby will be restored . also on the first floor will be 10 , 000 square_feet of retail or restaurant space . the building , which opened in 1914 , was washington 's main post_office until it closed in 1986 . the architect was daniel h . burnham of chicago , who also designed union station next door . the three story massachusetts avenue side has a classic two story colonnade porch . a seven story side faces north capitol street . in the restoration , an interior courtyard will be filled in around a glass enclosed atrium and a mezzanine level will be added in the 26 foot high space between the first and second floors except for the area above the lobby . together , they will add 400 , 000 square_feet . the 10 , 000 square_foot lobby , once the postal_service area , will be restored to its former grandeur , with the original ceiling revealed and marble writing tables installed once again . the developer , postal square associates , is a partnership of hines interests limited partnership and the original project development team of julien j . studley and arthur g . cohen properties , both of new york . shalom baranes associates of washington is the architect and a . s . mcgaughan company of bethesda , md . , the general_contractor . the project is being financed with 193 million in bonds sold in the private market last year .",has a topic of estate
"federal officials today ordered the general_electric_company and other previous operators of a hoboken loft building to pay the temporary living costs of 16 families who had to be moved out a year ago because of potentially dangerous levels of mercury . as a result , general_electric could have to pay as much as 50 , 000 a month for the families' housing until an investigation determines the full extent of the contamination and the ultimate fate of the property . the federal environmental_protection_agency called the order unusual . general_electric , which sold the building in 1948 , called it outrageous . the order affects a group of mostly painters , sculptors , musicians and film makers who bought units in the grand street building in 1993 in the hope of converting them to soho style lofts at something less than soho prices . but they had not counted on the legacy of the building 's 54 year life as a factory for the production of mercury vapor lamps . when renovations started , mercury began to turn up between layers of flooring , in crawl spaces and even within the bricks themselves . mercury can cause tremors , irritability , sleeplessness and , in high enough concentrations , kidney and neurological disorders . rich cahill , a spokesman for the federal environmental_protection_agency office in new york , said that it had been paying the residents' housing costs since they were moved out in january 1996 but that it would now force ''the parties that created the problem to take responsibility for their past actions . '' those parties , he said , were general_electric , a company it had acquired that made mercury vapor lamps there from 1910 to 1948 , another company that manufactured them until 1964 , and john pascale , a hoboken businessman who bought the building and ran a tool and die operation there . title to the building passed to his son , david pascale , who sold it to the artists in 1993 . david warshaw , a spokesman for general_electric , called the federal order ''outrageous and premature , '' since no final determination of liability had been made . he said that until the company left the site in 1948 it had operated it safely and it was not a health threat to anyone . even by today 's standards , he said , the levels of mercury in the building did not exceed the standard for industrial operations , although they did exceed the standards for residential use . ''the facts are that these people bought a factory building , and the circumstances of its conversion to residences was at best imprudent , '' he said . former residents of the building greeted the e.p.a . action with ambivalence . on the one hand , said corinne solter , 37 , a furniture restorer , it helped fix responsibility for the mercury contamination , but on the other , it left the residents somewhat at the mercy of the giant general_electric , based in fairfield , conn . , for rent payments or reimbursements for their temporary quarters . ''when e.p.a . is paying i have a belief that they will pay , '' she said , ''but with g.e . i 'm a little nervous . '' lawyers for mr . pascale , who lives in florida , could not be reached for comment . new jersey , with its 14 year old industrial site recovery act , is considered a leader in requiring sellers to disclose prior industrial uses and potential hazards at a site , said henry b . gold , vice_president of scs engineers , an environmental consulting_firm in nyack , n.y . richard gimello , an assistant commissioner in the state department_of_environmental_protection , said that in december , the agency withdrew the clean bill of health it had given the building when the artists bought it in february 1993 . he said that information filed by mr pascale inaccurately described the site as a former ''light_bulb factory'' and made no mention of mercury .",has a topic of estate
"in a timeless tableau , jay fetcher 's red angus cattle graze on meadows that stretch down a hidden valley here , cupped on three sides by federally owned forest and wilderness . but 15 miles and a few bends down the elk river lurks colorado 's modern resort economy in steamboat springs a ski area that sells one million lift tickets every winter , an airport with direct flights to chicago and dallas , and a spreading sea of vacation condominiums . here and across the rocky_mountain west , tourism and the second home industry have spurred a land rush that is carving up the ranch land that composes heart stopping western vistas , threatening the very landscape that draws so many people to the rockies . the pressures are so powerful that they are forging alliances of two longtime adversaries cattlemen like jay fetcher and environmentalists . together they are adapting a tool long used to preserve open space in the crowded east , land trusts , to save the west 's privately_owned wide open spaces by keeping cattle grazing on them . many environmental groups have complained that cattle harm fragile western lands by overgrazing and trampling stream banks , and have sought to limit grazing permits in national forests . but as subdivisions and ''ranchettes'' replace cattle , the new rallying cries are ''cows , not condos'' and ''herefords , not highways . '' ''i do n't see it as cows versus the environment anymore , '' said marty zeller , a denver land conservation consultant who advised mr . fetcher 's family on protecting its land . ''if you are going to be realistic about saving land in the west , you have to interact with the ranching community . in colorado , if you look at land people want to protect , 90 percent of that land is under agricultural management . '' with developers in steamboat_springs paying 20 times the farm value of land , the fetchers saved the family ranch by donating the development rights on 1 , 300 acres to a land_trust . in doing so , they cut future estate taxes in half and insured that the land would be used in perpetuity for ranching , without opening their land to public use . the experience proved so successful that mr . fetcher went on to form the nation 's first land_trust by and for ranchers , the colorado cattlemen 's agricultural land_trust . the idea of ranchers donating development rights to land trusts managed by fellow ranchers spread like wildfire . in february , the national cattlemen 's beef association endorsed conservation easements to protect agricultural land , and , in july , the california cattlemen 's association set up the rangeland trust . the trusts are set up to administer the easements . western ranchers in highly coveted mountain valleys realize that new times demand new tools to preserve open spaces and their way of life . ''my dad and his brother paid less for this ranch than i paid for that mower , '' said mr . fetcher , a soft_spoken 50 year old , nodding to a new piece of haying equipment . ''but , at dad 's death , the i.r.s . would come in and say the highest and best use of our land would be 35 acre ranchettes at 7 , 000 an acre . '' if it were not for the trust , much of the land would have be sold . the fetchers donated their development rights to the land_trust , but the rights can also be sold . and some ranchers prefer to sell their land outright to developers and use the profits as their retirement nest_egg . statistics bear out the joke that the last crop from ranchers approaching retirement will be a subdivision . in the past two years , colorado has been losing agricultural land at a rate of 200 , 000 acres a year . easements protect only 3 percent of the 10 million mountain acres in private hands . adding a critical twist , more than half of colorado 's agricultural land is owned by ranchers and farmers who are over 55 years old . ''we are going to see a major intergenerational transfer , '' said lynne sherrod , the executive director of the cattlemen 's trust and a ranching neighbor of the fetchers . ''without estate planning , it could really change the face of colorado . '' the change has already come to steamboat_springs , a town of about 7 , 000 people that in the past decade lost its john deere dealership , its fuel and grain cooperative , and a supply store that sold western wear and tack for horses as local ranchers went out of business . in the summer of 1992 , ranchers predicted another blow when jamie williams opened an office here of the nature conservancy , the conservation group . ''the big fear was that we would come in , buy up the valley , take land out of production and erode the local agricultural community , '' recalled mr . williams , who worked here for five years . ''what i found very quickly was that we had a tremendous amount in common with the ranching community . the common ground was the tidal_wave of development that was threatening . '' mrs . sherrod , a fifth generation routt county rancher , recalled that many ranchers associated conservationists with tighter federal restrictions on ranching . mr . williams ' 'spent a lot of time in kitchens drinking coffee people believed jamie before they believed his ideas , '' said mrs . sherrod , whose cattlemen 's land_trust now protects 22 , 000 acres in colorado . ''i did n't want to see him come . i was just horrified to see him go . '' after ranchers and conservationists recognized that they shared a desire to protect open space , they started to sell the idea locally . in steamboat_springs , which largely lives off its cowboy image , defenders of open space realized that tourists prized ranchers more for producing scenery than for producing food . in 1993 , colorado state university surveyed summer visitors to the town . about 90 percent of the 400 people who responded said that ranch meadows with wildflowers , birds and grazing cows and horses added to their enjoyment of their vacation . about 80 percent said they enjoyed looking at the hay fields , corrals , ranch buildings and working cowboys . and nearly half of them warned that if ranch land continued to be converted into golf_courses and condominiums , they would not return . ''the value of scenery far outproduces the value of the livestock and hay , '' said c . j . mucklow , a state agricultural extension agent who worked on the survey . realizing that vacationers would not fly from chicago to see condominiums , routt county voters in 1996 approved a real_estate tax to buy development rights from ranchers . to keep traditional pastures intact , the county also adopted incentives for developers to cluster new houses in one area of a ranch , to avoid chopping the treeless landscape into 35 acre lots . with 1 million in requests for buying development rights and ranchers vying to sell them , the county now has to choose conservation sites carefully to avoid creating unwanted development . ''it 's called beachfront property , '' mr . mucklow said , using real_estate jargon for developments next to protected farmland . ''within one month of one easement , a real_estate ad came out 'next to land conservation easement . ' '' steamboat springs 's fight for open space conservation is a microcosm of a battle being waged across the rocky_mountain west . in colorado , the land in local trusts had grown to 300 , 000 acres , or about 469 square miles , in 1996 from 140 , 000 acres , or about 219 square miles , in 1993 . and although the land_trust strategy may not completely stop the loss of agricultural land , it is a step in the direction of preserving open space . the number of colorado counties and municipalities that levy taxes for buying open space or conservation easements has risen to 28 today , from 6 a decade ago . this year the land protection budget of great outdoors colorado , a state supported trust fund , increased to 22 million , from 9 million last year . ''what we do in the next 10 years in colorado is going to determine what this state looks like 100 years from now , '' said will shafroth , executive director of the fund . as some real_estate prices rise by 1 percent a month , the fund is gradually shifting from buying land outright to joining with local groups to buy conservation easements . land trusts , long a preservation tool in new england , are now growing fastest in the rural west . in colorado , where the first land_trust was formed in the late 1960 's , there are 38 . in colorado and montana , the land protected by conservation easements has doubled in five years . ''it is happening very fast , '' said john wilson , managing director of the montana land reliance , the nation 's largest local land_trust , with 300 , 000 acres under easement . in colorado , preservationists are spurred by rapid population_growth . in july , state demographers forecast that colorado 's population would increase by 38 percent , to 5.5 million in the year 2020 , from 4 million today . with millions of baby_boomers expected to buy retirement homes in coming years , colorado 's mountain resort counties will probably grow far faster than the state as a whole . routt county , for example , is forecast to grow by 66 percent , to 29 , 588 residents in 2020 , from 17 , 860 today . according to these new forecasts , gunnison county , home to the crested butte ski area , is to grow by 40 percent pitkin county , home to aspen , by 52 percent eagle county , home to vail , by 69 percent summit county , home to copper , keystone and breckenridge , by 79 percent and san miguel , home to telluride , by 92 percent . ''you do n't come to colorado , wyoming or montana to see another wal_mart , '' said jean hocker , president of the land trust alliance , a group in washington that represents 700 of the nation 's land trusts . with 76 percent of metropolitan denver respondents saying in a local poll this summer that the area was growing too fast , ''cows , not condos'' is becoming a mainstream call . in june in wyoming , radical environmentalists demanding ''no more welfare for cowboys'' snipped barbed_wire in about 150 sections where fences crossed federal grazing lands . the region 's largest selling newspaper , the denver post , immediately fired back in an editorial ''what wyoming eco terrorists fail to appreciate is that the far ranging ranches of the cowboy state insure that some western land , at least , will be spared from strip malls . ''",has a topic of estate
"with british_columbia 's economy and real_estate market improving , two local developers have been trying to redevelop the waterfront in two affluent communities across the harbor from downtown_vancouver and have run into opposition on several levels . land in the two communities north vancouver and west vancouver is scarce and expensive . the developers , the larco group of companies and the viam group , are concentrating on an eight mile stretch of marine drive , proposing new projects and speeding work on those already under way . they have clashed with residents who fear that more traffic and people will change their neighborhoods and with marine based industries that need the harbor to survive and feel threatened by commercial development . the communities are linked to downtown by the lions gate bridge . east of the bridge lies north van , which from downtown looks like a mystical city built on hollyburn mountain 's lower slopes . at sundown , the windows of its tall office spires , condominiums and hillside homes blaze with reflections . west of the bridge , where burrard_inlet empties into howe sound , is the resort like west van , one of canada 's wealthiest residential areas . and eight miles east is the working harbor for tugboat companies , drydocks , railroads and terminals for grain , potash and coal . until 55 years ago , the area directly across the bay from renowned stanley_park was accessible only by private boat or ferry . but the guinness family of england famous for stout acquired vast tracts there through a company called british pacific properties and built many homes . to entice people to move there , the company built the lions gate bridge in 1938 . as a further lure , it built canada 's first regional shopping_center , park_royal shopping_center , on marine drive , in 1950 . in 1990 , larco bought the million square_foot park_royal mall and is now doing a_20 million revitalization , including 95 , 000 square_feet of streetfront retail space and a golf range , which is expected to open soon . "" the shopping_center needed a facelift , "" said robert heaslip , larco 's chief planner . "" it looked tired . it was time to look at the retail mix and how we wanted to take the center into the year 2000 . "" the center , which has had major additions through the years , is split by marine drive . "" the problem that needed solving was how to give a sense of unity , "" said john cochran of the callison partnership , the seattle architects who did the revitalization design . "" we needed an upgrade consistent with the charm of the upscale neighborhood . "" mr . heaslip said larco was one of 10 investors who owned land on clyde avenue , parallel to and a block north of marine drive , adjacent to the quaint park_royal hotel . they plan to upgrade streets , utilities and landscaping and sell or lease sites for office , retail and residential development . larco also owns a_4 . 5 acre site a few blocks away . it plans two high rise residential towers there with 400 , 000 square_feet . the plan would require razing the capilano athletic health_club , now on the site , but the club 's owner , whose lease runs to mid 1996 and who has refused larco 's offer of 400 , 000 for lost business , has vowed to go to court to halt construction . some residents say the development will destroy the character of their neighborhood . larco counters by saying it will put something back into the community by including a community center and 40 units of housing for the elderly . larco will have to get the city to rezone its site before it can proceed . controversy nearly killed a 50 million condominium project on 3.5 acres next to the park_royal mall . west vancouver owns the land , which had housed a municipal works yard and a car_dealership . in the early 80 's the municipality requested proposals from developers on a 99 year lease . the one selected fizzled when the economy soured . in 1989 the municipality tried again . viam group and its proposal for a residential complex won out over four other bidders . steven nicholls , west van 's planning director , said that viam , which had 20 years of construction experience , won partly because it offered to pay 10 million up front for the lease . but residents grew concerned that the two towers , 18 and 24 stories high , would be out of scale for the neighborhood and that increased traffic would create gridlock on marine drive . in a 1989 referendum voters were asked whether they thought the project should be built . they split 50 50 . mr . nicholls said the district 's council , seeing opinion was divided , decided the project should proceed . construction recently ended and marketing is under way for the 182 condominum units , which start at 269 , 500 and average 1 , 300 square_feet . in west van 's business_district , many older stores are being remodeled and on back streets new low rise stores , offices and houses are being built . the same is true eastward along marine drive where a dozen years ago there were few fast_food restaurants today cafes and pizza houses abound and there are strip malls as far as lonsdale avenue , eight miles away . "" ten years ago we were quite lonely here along the water , "" says claire johnson , president of c.h . cates sons ltd , . a 108 year old company at the foot of londsale that operates 18 tugs on a five mile stretch of burrard_inlet between the lions gate and second narrows bridges . "" the lot next to us was vacant . we used to play horseshoe and volleyball and grow tomatoes there . "" today that lot is lonsdale quay and thousands of north_shore residents stream onto seabuses there to speed across the harbor to downtown . adjacent to the seabus terminal is a waterfront mall , built in time for expo '86 , with a farmers_market , meat and seafood shops , ethnic fast_food restaurants , boutiques and the lonsdale quay hotel . "" change has been dramatic , "" says amin karim , the hotel 's general_manager . "" upland from marine drive the rundown stores are gone , along with the feeling it was not safe to walk the streets at night . now there are a lot of expensive condos . this is creating an environment for expensive shops . "" cates nearly became a victim of the pressure to sacrifice industry for tourism and commercial development . in the mid 70 's while the province was planning the new seabus terminal , a sheriff 's deputy served notice on its owners that the province had expropriated their land . they were ordered to vacate within 30 days . the deputy tried to give them an envelope with a check as property compensation , but they refused it . "" we were in shock , "" said mr . johnson . "" for us to pick up and move made no sense . our business was between the lions gate and second narrows bridges and our 115 employees live close by . "" the company refused to move and in 1981 , after a hard fought battle , it regained title . some people and developers are looking at the potential of the abandoned versatile pacific shipyards , just east of cates , where the only operating business is the vancouver dry_dock . many developers , municipal officials , businessmen and residents want the lonsdale quay retail shops and boutiques to be extended there . this does not sit well with the vancouver port corporation , an autonomous federal crown corporation that owns part of the land , which is valuable to industry because it is a deep water seaport . the corporation is negotiating with the private owner of the remaining land to acquire the property . "" we want to safeguard this land for future industrial and marine business , "" says dietmar setzer , the corporation 's director of property administration . he believes all land east of lonsdale should be industrial . community leaders say that if the powerful corporation wants the land it will get it . james o'hara , a corporation vice_president , says "" because of the scarcity of land , there is pressure from people who want to move back to the waterfront . but it just does n't make sense to build a condo next to a grain terminal . """,has a topic of estate
"beginning an aggressive push to reduce the number of people living on new york city 's streets , the city will start pressuring homeless men and women to leave makeshift dwellings under highways and near train trestles and will raise barriers to make those encampments inaccessible , mayor michael r . bloomberg said on monday . the city has found 73 of those sites inhabited by groups of chronically homeless people , the mayor said . ''humanely , respectfully and firmly , we 'll work to get these men and women to enter supportive housing , enroll in treatment programs or go into shelters , '' mr . bloomberg said to a gathering of government officials and social service_providers from around the country . the changes amplify the mayor 's longstanding effort to steer the city away from its emphasis on emergency_shelter for the homeless , and toward providing permanent housing and using social_services to prevent homelessness . the measures discussed by the mayor on monday represented a significant shift in the culture of the department of homeless services . ''while everyone has a right to emergency_shelter , that does n't always make emergency_shelter right for everyone , '' mr . bloomberg said , adding that his administration was working to replace ''the dead end model of managing homelessness with the new goal of ending it . '' he cited his administration 's program to create 12 , 000 units of supportive housing , which offers social_services like mental_health counseling and substance_abuse treatment . and he announced plans to expand another program , which helps people on the verge of homelessness hold onto their homes . but the new element is potentially controversial . the department of homeless services , under its new commissioner , robert hess , has identified 73 makeshift encampments , including 30 in manhattan , to which roughly 350 homeless men and women of a total homeless population of about 3 , 800 , according to the city 's last count return nightly . most of the encampments are little more than collections of cardboard_boxes , or tarpaulins hung over a beam , officials said . now , working with community and faith based organizations , the city plans to work more aggressively to persuade people to leave those areas and enter housing , treatment programs or shelters . the vigorous focus on the street population is an unusual approach that mr . hess brings from his time supervising services to adults in philadelphia , where he built a reputation for reducing the number of people living on the streets . the strategy , which officials say has been tried in only a few cities , reflects a growing consensus that a small number of long term , chronically homeless people account for a large share of the medical care and other services required by the homeless population over all . officials stopped short of saying that they would force people off the streets , but they do plan to clear the makeshift dwellings and make them inaccessible for others to return . ''we 're going to let them know that their days on the streets must come to an end , '' mr . bloomberg said in an address to the annual conference of the national alliance to end homelessness . ''and we 'll secure and clean up the places where they 've been bedding down , to make sure that they wo n't be occupied again . '' over the past four years , officials said , the administration has worked to shift its focus from improving and expanding shelters toward more permanent solutions . that effort has included the use of supportive housing or housing that affords a range of on site social_services and a program called homebase , which offers flexible subsidies or other support for people at risk of homelessness . mr . hess would not give the precise locations of the sleeping areas most of them out of sight of the public that the city plans to target , out of respect for the people who stay in them , he said . but officials said that some of the sites are already familiar to the department 's teams of outreach workers and that they will coordinate with the police and sanitation departments and with transit officials to identify other sites , both outdoors and in vacant buildings . one site , near riverside drive in upper_manhattan , is known to homeless workers as the bat cave . lately , it has been home to at least four people , including gladys anderson , 44 , who sleeps on a discarded bed propped on milk crates . monday afternoon , sitting on a red velveteen bedspread , she said she would gladly accept the mayor 's offer of more permanent housing . she said it was ''time to be out'' of the cave . ''i will drop it like it 's hot , '' she said . ''this is not no life adventure for me . we 're just passing through . '' city outreach workers stopped by a few days earlier , she said , and had the people in the encampment fill out paperwork needed to get apartments . her boyfriend , who would give his name only as country , was more skeptical of the offer . ''this is america , '' he said as he loaded 12 garbage bags full of cans and bottles onto a large rolling cart . ''this is living off the land . that 's how we built this thing . '' the largest group of street homeless identified by city workers , 195 , is in manhattan , officials said , spread over 30 locations . in the bronx there are 54 people living at 12 sites in brooklyn , workers identified 45 people in 10 areas in queens they found 40 people at 10 sites and in staten_island , they identified 24 people gathering at 11 spots . the city estimates that it will take six months to a year to clear the often squalid locations , which will then be secured with fencing or other methods , said mr . hess , who appeared with the mayor at a news conference after mr . bloomberg 's speech . both men emphasized that they would not forcibly remove people , pointing out that there are legal barriers to doing so . ''the objective is not in any way to force people from one area to another , '' mr . hess said . ''it is to take a social service intervention strategy approach to help people make a decision to move from these very unhealthy encampments . '' two years ago , mr . bloomberg pledged to create the 12 , 000 units of supportive housing , in addition to 21 , 000 built over the previous two decades . on monday , he said the money had been secured to keep his promise . he also said that the city would funnel an extra 10 million into homebase , which helps people to stay where they live by interceding with landlords to head off eviction , making temporary loans for rent or helping obtain needed job referrals , health_care or other services . mr . bloomberg faced a receptive audience , which interrupted his speech with applause more than a dozen times . as if to anticipate criticism of his efforts , he used the address to take several jabs at some advocates for the homeless , who have been a frequent thorn in the side of his and previous administrations , suing the city to force it to change its policies . ''to rid our society of homelessness we must first liberate ourselves from the chains of conventional_wisdom , from the fetters of political_correctness , from the tyranny of the advocates and their unwillingness to admit that we 're ever making progress , '' the mayor said .",has a topic of estate
"because of an editing error , the ''living in . . . '' article last sunday , about hell 's kitchen in manhattan , misstated the surname of the president of the intell management and investment company , which is building the orion , a condominium on west 42nd_street . he is gary barnett , not burnett . the article also referred incorrectly at one point to the vice_president for development at intell . she is raizy haas ms . haas , not ms . raizy .",has a topic of estate
"just as the american colonists were establishing their independence from britain in 1776 , the spanish rulers of mexico claimed a 1 , 400 acre plot here at the mouth of the san_francisco_bay as their northernmost military post , and called it the presidio . for the next 220 years , this expanse of rolling_hills and eucalyptus groves at san_francisco 's northwest corner was in the hands of the military , first the spanish expeditionary forces , then the mexican government and ultimately the united_states sixth army . long known as one of the cushiest military duties around , the presidio saw little combat , until now . it is the locus of a battle , brought on by limited urban space and soaring real_estate prices , to preserve scarce housing . since early 1989 , when the federal_government announced that the base would be closed , a variety of forces has clamored for control over the presidio . in 1995 , when the united_states sixth army folded its colors at the base , congress was still negotiating a deal to preserve the presidio as a national_park , jointly controlled by the presidio trust , a federally appointed board , and the national_park_service . the next year , the finishing touches were put on the public private partnership , and it was passed . two weeks ago , members of the trust presented their blueprint for financial self_sufficiency to the city . under the law , the trust is required to take control of 80 percent of the park by july 8 , and the park is to become self supporting within 15 years . members of the trust told san_francisco officials that the presidio would become a city within a city , where 4 , 800 people would work , 1 , 600 san franciscans would live and millions would visit each year . to generate the 36 million needed each year to make the park self supporting by 2013 , the trust will lease some three million square_feet of office space to businesses and nonprofit organizations . it will also rent housing units a two bedroom unit could go for 1 , 400 a month with top priority given to anyone who works at the presidio . those plans have angered the mayor and tenant organizers in san_francisco , where the vacancy_rate is around 1 percent , rents are skyrocketing a two bedroom apartment that rented for 800 a month five years ago costs twice that today and some 15 , 000 people are homeless . ''they are creating an elite city within a city , '' said sister bernie galvin , a sister of divine providence who has led the fight to preserve all of the presidio housing . a group called san franciscans for preserving presidio housing this year placed a measure on the city 's june ballot to make the majority of the housing at the presidio available for rent to people of all income levels . jim meadows , who is the executive director of the presidio trust and who lives in the presidio , said the trust was doing its part to meet the city 's housing needs . for example , he said , he is contracting with a city veterans service agency , swords to plowshares , to provide homes and training programs at the park for 100 previously homeless veterans . representative_nancy_pelosi , a california democrat who helped guide the presidio trust legislation through congress , said important members of congressional appropriations committees opposed any plan that would use federally_financed national_park property or lands ''for purposes outside the mission of the national_park_service . ''",has a topic of estate
"the price of air has gone up in manhattan . it 's now 430 a square_foot . two new york city developers have agreed to pay a record setting amount for ''air_rights'' so they can build a 35 story apartment tower with views of central_park from the high floors . the brothers william l . and arthur w . zeckendorf are set to pay 430 per square_foot more than twice the going rate for unused air_rights over christ church and the grolier club at park_avenue and east 60th_street . christ church will collect more than 30 million grolier will get about 7 million . air_rights allow developers to build taller by buying the space over low scale buildings and transferring it ( on paper , if not in reality ) to spaces over adjacent buildings . although such transfers occur elsewhere in the country , the prices do not run as high as they do in manhattan , which , after all , is an island and generally provides developers with one option up . the rights will be transferred to a site west of the grolier club on east 60th_street , where the zeckendorfs and their partners own three tenements that are to be demolished . if it all goes as planned , the developers will be able to build a taller tower than the zoning ordinarily allows . in a separate deal with christ church , the tower will also have a coveted park_avenue address , despite its location on 60th_street . the zeckendorfs are third generation developers . the brothers disagree with experts who warn about a bursting housing bubble , at least when it comes to what the zeckendorfs call ' 'super prime'' areas . ''we want to concentrate on the very high end market where we see tremendous strength and a limited inventory , '' arthur zeckendorf said . m . meyers mermel , a real_estate_broker and a trustee of christ church who helped negotiate the deal , said the money would help sustain the methodist church 's programs . carolyn l . smith , president of the grolier club , a storied society of bibliophiles , confirmed that her club voted on monday_night to approve the deal . previously , new york appraisers say that the high end for the price of air hovered around 200 a square_foot . ''nothing shocks me anymore , '' said daniel f . sciannameo , an appraiser at the albert valuation group . ''this market is absolutely crazy . ''",has a topic of estate
"city housing inspectors will get special training to better recognize the kind of structural problems that caused the partial collapse of a harlem building last month in which three people were killed , officials said yesterday . under the new policy , which will begin next week , 300 inspectors in the department of housing preservation and development will receive training from the buildings department about spotting structural defects . although housing preservation inspectors are mainly responsible for interior conditions , they are supposed to report any structural problems to the buildings department . the new training policy was described in a city_council committee hearing yesterday that was called to explore the causes of the march 21 collapse and ways of preventing similar problems . the 70 unit building at 142 west 140th street had been been plagued over the years with hundreds of housing code_violations . but despite 200 visits by inspectors from four different agencies including the fire department and the new york city housing authority over the last eight years , city officials were not aware of the structure 's extremely precarious state . on two occasions housing preservation inspectors noted cracks in the building , but reports of these flaws never reached the buildings department . while those cracks were not in the wall that collapsed , officials have since acknowledged that they may have signaled other structural problems in the building . committee members sternly questioned deborah wright , commissioner of the department of housing preservation and development , and joel a . miele , commissioner of the buildings department , on how such oversights could have occurred . both cited a breakdown in communication as the main reason . ms . wright told committee members that in addition to special training for inspectors , her department would improve its computer links to the buildings department . instead of relying only on paper reports , housing preservation will be able to transfer code violation information directly to the building department computer system .",has a topic of estate
"for roughly two months the landmarks_preservation_commission has been facing a challenge to its authority by a prominent new yorker , robert l . bernstein , who had objected to a commission demand that he replace two windows in the kitchen of his park_avenue apartment that are in violation of landmarks rules . yesterday , after a two hour session that went into minute detail about the history of the windows in question , the commission decided to adopt a formula that mr . bernstein had proposed at the outset of the case that he be allowed to keep his windows as long as he owns his co op but must change them if and when he sells . mr . bernstein is a former chairman of random_house and the founder of human_rights_watch . he is , in short , the type of person with the money , determination and connections necessary to draw attention to his complaint against the commission and to mount a legal challenge to it . in all , the solution of the case took roughly six hours of the commission 's time in three separate meetings , and , according to mr . bernstein , cost him nearly 15 , 000 in legal costs . if mr . bernstein had simply agreed to rectify the violation without fighting it , the cost to him would have been about 200 , his share of an expense that would have been shared with the other co op owners . he fought the case , he said , first because he likes his windows the way they are and , second , because it had become a matter of principle for him not to be coerced by the city bureaucracy . in a landmark district the building is in a landmark district , so any changes in the exterior require commission approval as consistent with the original architecture . the compromise formula was proposed at the end of yesterday 's meeting by stephen m . raphael , a commission member . mr . raphael said a way had to be found that would be fair to mr . bernstein but would at the same time eventually insure the replacement of the windows . "" the purpose of landmarking is to repair the world , "" he told the commission members during the meeting , "" but to repair it piece by piece . "" the case was nettlesome in large part because the violation that occurred in his apartment the installation of single pane windows on a back facade of his building was not caused by mr . bernstein himself but a previous resident . all along , mr . bernstein , who was represented by a lawyer , argued not only that he had not installed the illegal windows but also that the owner who did install them received permission from the commission when the renovations were done in 1985 . at a public hearing last month , the commission was presented with an affidavit from that tenant , john beerbower , who testified that he had shown plans for his renovation to a commission staff member who told him there was no problem with them .",has a topic of estate
"lead with its reputation as a center of manufacturing and finance as well as its proximity to major united_states cities , toronto has emerged as one of canada 's economic bright_spots . last year there was record demand for office space , and as a trade agreeement with the united_states nears approval , the business community is geared up for continued economic_growth in the 1990 's . with its reputation as a center of manufacturing and finance as well as its proximity to major united_states cities , toronto has emerged as one of canada 's economic bright_spots . last year there was record demand for office space , and as a trade agreeement with the united_states nears approval , the business community is geared up for continued economic_growth in the 1990 's . but the city , ontario 's provincial capital , also finds itself grappling with some of the major problems associated with urban growth a tight and expensive housing market and traffic_congestion . with major developments moving forward , there is no sign that a slowdown will ease the problems . since 1981 , the population of the toronto statistical metropolitan_area has jumped 9.2 percent , to 3.7 million , according to statistics_canada , making it the country 's most populous region . the population of metro , which includes toronto and six surrounding communities , has grown 2.6 percent , to 2.1 million . ''toronto has been running on all cylinders since mid 1986 , '' said edward carmichael , an economist and vice_president of the c . d . howe institute , a local consulting_firm . downtown developments such as the 1 . 6 million square_foot , four level eaton centre , a glass enclosed shopping_mall , and the striking 1 , 815 foot tall cn tower will in the next decade be joined by the first elements of the 500 million mixed use cityplace complex . while over 6.5 million square_feet of office space has been added to the metro market in each of the last two years , absorption of 9.2 million square_feet in 1987 set a record , according to royal lepage ltd . , a local real_estate brokerage . much of the estimated five million square_feet of office space added to the metro market in the first six months of this year was quickly absorbed current office vacancy_rates range from 6.7 percent throughout metro to 5.3 percent in the financial district here . rents exceeding 35 per square_foot for class a office space downtown are common , according to royal lepage . one of the newest additions to the city 's skyline , the 68 story scotia plaza , developed by campeau_corporation , will add 1.5 million square_feet of office space when it is completed by the end of this year . tenants have been moving into lower floors since april . with rents ranging from 27 to 39 per square_foot , the project is 65 percent leased . but along with the growth have come the big city problems . while the median sale price of a home has risen 61 percent in two years , to 160 , 400 , according to the toronto real_estate board , residential development has not kept pace with demand . the apartment vacancy_rate is less than 1 percent . also , traffic_congestion is severe , but the city hopes to partially address the problem by expanding its transit system . ''it is great to have success but there is a price , '' said mayor arthur eggleton . ''the squeeze on lower income families , an accelerated need for assisted housing , these are some of the issues we face . '' in 1976 , when the city drew up a long term plan for downtown development , concern about the impact of development led officials to impose strict limits on building density . but in 1983 , the city devised a system that would give a developer greater density allowances in return for providing community benefits such as day care centers and parks a system similar to provisions in several united_states cities . at scotia plaza , for example , campeau was granted increased density in return for providing a rent free day care center and an underground link to the subway system . ''we 're interested , as development is happening , '' said robert e . millward , commissioner of planning and development , ''in making sure the impact does not hurt the rest of the city . '' perhaps the most ambitious plans involve expanding the core of the city to make use of the underdeveloped lake_ontario waterfront now cut off from downtown by the eight lane gardiner expressway . ''for years we turned our back on the lake we cut people off from the water with rail yards and shipping yards , '' mayor eggleton said . ''the movement now is to bring the city back to the waterfront . '' it has been slow going . plans for the development , called harbourfront , were drawn up 10 years ago by the federal_government , as the city 's real_estate market foundered . they called for housing , commercial development and parks on 100 acres at lakeside . with about half of the 650 million project complete , 110 million in federal funds has been spent on land acquisition and renovation . private projects include a 152 room hotel , 1 , 900 housing units and the 750 , 000 square_foot mixed use queen 's quay terminal , a former warehouse , which now houses restaurants and shops below office and residential space . with a regular schedule of cultural events , harbourfront has also become one of the city 's top tourist attractions . development has come to a halt , however , as controversy over the height and design of three recently completed 19 story condominium towers and diminishing public space prompted the city to invoke a freeze . a new development plan must be approved at both the federal and city levels before harbourfront can be completed . meanwhile , north of harbourfront , site preparation is under way for cityplace , a 70 acre mixed use redevelopment on land owned by cn real_estate , a division of canadian national railways . the 20 year project is to include six million square_feet of office and retail space and 5 , 000 housing units . the project will include skydome stadium , now under construction , and about 30 acres of park land . work on the streets , utilities and other improvements , including a transit link paid for by the city , has been under way for two years . the first office building in cityplace is expected to be completed in 1992 . the potential impact of the united_states canada free_trade agreement , under consideration in both countries , is stirring speculation about toronto 's continued economic health . while the elimination of tariffs promises to increase trade , david peterson , the provincial premier , questions whether it will benefit ontario 's industry . but mr . carmichael , the economist , believes that anticipation of the agreement has in itself buoyed the city 's economy . ''all of southern_ontario , from windsor to toronto , which has been booming without the trade agreement , stands to benefit , '' he said .",has a topic of estate
"lead to the editor to the editor i was surprised to that you article on the audubon theater did not discuss more fully its early history . in its early years , the audubon was to washington_heights what the palace was to broadway . it was the home of the top vaudeville stars of the day . to name a few , and i will probably get carried away with nostalgia , there were fannie brice , belle baker , smith dale , wheeler woolsey , weber fields , al jolson and cantor joseph rosenblatt . justin d . colten manhattan",has a topic of estate
"property_taxes on long_island are among the highest in the nation , and lowering them has become a political_campaign pledge in nassau and suffolk counties . at the same time , the median price for a single family house hovers around 400 , 000 . as a result of high taxes and soaring home prices , according to a 2005 rauch foundation poll of 1 , 215 long islanders , 70 percent of the residents 18 to 34 years old are somewhat or very likely to leave the island in the next five years . among older long islanders , 64 percent of 50 to 64 year olds said they are also likely to leave the island , a 17 percentage point increase over 2004 poll results . the county executives of nassau and suffolk have promised to address rising property_taxes and to finance more multifamily_housing , including units for people making less than the median_income , which for a family of three , for instance , is 80 , 000 . but these two issues collide at public hearings for new developments . around long_island , a proposal for a building with hundreds of apartment rentals , or attached town houses , even if they are high priced , will raise fears among taxpayers . in oyster bay , for example , avalon bay communities proposed a 300 unit luxury rental project of studios and one and two bedroom units on a vacant five acre parcel , the site of a former chevrolet dealership . local groups have objected to the size of the three and four story buildings , the environmental impact on the waterways and sewage capacity , traffic_congestion and the burden that hundreds of new residents might add to school_district costs , the biggest piece of the property_tax pie . the oyster bay east norwich school district is relatively small it has only three schools and 1 , 450 students . to keep up with current population_growth , voters will decide in march on a 14 million bond proposal to add a new wing to one school and make other improvements . matthew whalen , the avalon bay vice_president for long_island development , gave the school board a report written by pearl kamer , chief economist of the long_island association , estimating that the building would add 30 students at most , based on the original proposal for 124 two bedroom units . ( avalon bay says it intends to change the proposal to 81 two bedroom units . ) property_taxes on the building would net 150 , 000 in revenue after covering the costs of the 30 students , the report estimates . but , as in many other communities , the school board in oyster bay is worried that the estimates might not reflect future growth . with 81 two bedroom units proposed for the building , said the school board president , james smiros , it is possible that there could be more children than expected . ''the reality is , if 100 kids moved in , we 'd need to put more classrooms in new buildings , '' said mr . smiros , who is an architect . ''we would need a substantial type of bond to be issued . '' avalon bay and multifamily_housing advocates say most rental_units have fewer than three bedrooms , limiting the number of children . avalon at oyster bay will have no three bedroom units , mr . whalen said . in 2004 , the company asked school_districts near the other four long_island avalon bay buildings how many schoolchildren the buildings added . the city of glen_cove reported that the 256 unit avalon at glen_cove building , which opened in 2004 , had added four children , mr . whalen said . in long_beach , the 109 unit avalon towers added no children . but the 494 unit avalon court and court north in melville added 154 school age children to the half hollow hills central school_district . more than half of the building 's units have two bedrooms and 74 have three bedrooms , mr . whalen said . he presented these numbers in november , along with similar findings by other developers and housing organizations , at the smart_growth summit , a planning and development meeting organized by vision long_island , a nonprofit planning consultant . at the meeting , the long_island housing partnership presented numbers for communities of below market rate homes that it had a role in helping to build and reported on others . the 486 unit park row development in central_islip , for example , added only 22 public_school children , the partnership reported . the 302 unit colony development in holbrook added 57 children . but local residents are often not persuaded . ''more than saying it 's too many , they say they do n't believe the statistic , '' said the president of the housing partnership , diana weir . ''the town board has to have the courage to say , 'this is a good project , ' '' and then approve it , she said . some planners are skeptical of statistics coming from developers , who have a vested interest in convincing residents that multifamily_housing will not increase taxes . david wasserman , the planning director for the town of north hempstead and a school board member in the east williston school_district , said the numbers at the smart_growth meeting represented a snapshot of conditions at a certain time . homes on long_island are expensive , mr . wasserman said , and many people will never be able to move into a single family home with a garage , three bedrooms and a yard . ''people are not limiting the number of children that they have by the size of their housing , '' he said . ''if it means they 'll share a bedroom and live in an apartment because they want to have two children , they 're going to have two children . '' in suffolk_county , the work force housing commissioner , jim morgo , said the county is pushing for new legislation to give more state aid to school_districts with new developments of lower priced multiunit housing , categorized as work force housing . advocates for lower priced rental_apartments say that predictions of property_tax increases are a red_herring for some opposition groups who want to control which people move in to their neighborhoods . ''people have these knee jerk reactions , '' said ron stein , board president of vision long_island . ''there 's this perfect storm of racist and classist sentiment that merges with the fear of high taxes . '' marge rogatz , the founder of long_island affordable rental_housing , an advocacy_group , said property owners who are genuinely burdened by school taxes on long_island ''have bought into the myths about rental_housing , because it really is a myth that apartment residents do n't pay for the services they use the property_tax is in their rents . '' in oyster bay , taxpayers and the school board are still worried about the combination of high home prices and high property_taxes , conditions that may stop growing families from stepping up to single family homes on one or two acre lots . ''my greater concern is the future impact here , '' said mr . smiros , the school board president . ''who knows what the future real_estate market will be like could it not result in more school age children than the 30 they propose ? '' in the region long_island correction february 5 , 2006 , sunday an ''in the region'' article in westchester and connecticut copies last sunday about a reported shortage of affordable_housing in connecticut misidentified the new hometown of a family that moved to idaho . it is idaho falls , not idaho springs .",has a topic of estate
"lead the district known as vieux montreal ( old montreal or old city ) is being targeted for a major revitalization in time for the city 's 350th anniversary in 1992 . the district known as vieux montreal ( old montreal or old city ) is being targeted for a major revitalization in time for the city 's 350th anniversary in 1992 . old montreal , whose buildings date to the 18th_century , is where canada 's second largest city its population , 1.7 million , is second only to metropolitan toronto 's 2.1 million was founded by the french in 1642 . however , as the commercial center relocated away from the banks of the st . lawrence river , with businesses no longer tied to the port or railroads , buildings in the old neighborhood became underused , protected under provincial historic_preservation statutes . by far the most ambitious project is the million square_foot world trade centre now under construction on a block bounded on the north by rue st . antoine , on the east by rue st . pierre , on the south by rue st . jacques and on the west by rue mcgill . the project will cost 230 million about 195 million in united_states dollars . backed by the city and the province of quebec and with devencore inc . as developer , it will be the first major new construction in old montreal in decades . ''everything moved out in the 1960 's and moved uptown , '' said philip o'brien , president of both the world trade centre montreal development corporation and devencore . ''now there is an interest in coming back to the old city . '' the project is also representative of a new confidence in the strength of the city 's business community , attributed generally to a lessening in friction between the french speaking majority and english speaking residents . it is also a sign of the high expectations associated with the united_states canada free_trade agreement , approved by the canadian government last month . the center , incorporating several century old facades , will include 650 , 000 square_feet of office space in 10 buildings , none of which are over 10 stories , as well as a 300 room , 20 story hotel . six levels of parking underground parking are planned , as is a connection to the victoria square subway station . construction began last july after three years of planning , including review by several historic commissions . the project was delayed by a two week archeological dig that began after remnants of the wall that fortified the old city were found . several powder vaults found next to the wall are to become a restaurant and wine_cellar . the entire project is expected to be completed by january 1991 . mr . o'brien conceded that drawing tenants back to old city about a mile south of rue sherbrooke , the city 's upscale commercial retail spine will be a challenge . he is counting on demand from major transit and trading companies , small businesses interested in the international market and lawyers and other professionals doing business in the nearby city hall and courthouse . some civic leaders are predicting that by 1992 montreal will recapture from toronto its status as a center of trade and finance , a position it lost in a decade of business stagnation and political controversy over language and the separatist_movement . after the loss of about 50 , 000 executives employed in the 140 corporate offices that pulled out of montreal in the late 70 's many moving to toronto voters in 1980 turned down a proposition that quebec begin negotiating with ottawa on the province 's separation from the rest of canada . in 1987 , quebec ratified the national charter which recognized the province as a ' 'distinct'' french speaking society but the charter does not become law until all 10 provinces ratify it . ''during the dim days , the separatist days , there was a lack of confidence in the business community , '' said eugene n . riesman , chairman of first quebec corporation , a development company . ''but things have turned around in just the last few years . '' office vacancy_rates reached a high of 12 percent in the central area in 1983 . vacancies now range from 6.4 percent in the central area to 9.4 percent in the city overall . much of the 925 , 000 square_feet of office space added to the city 's central area in 1988 was absorbed rentals , assessed annually , range from 28 to 31 ( canadian ) a square_foot . in addition to the world trade centre , one million square_feet of new office space is planned for completion in the city 's central area by 1991 , according to projections by royal lepage ltd . , a real_estate brokerage . on the housing side , the average price of a single family home in the metropolitan_area in 1988 was 107 , 739 canadian about 91 , 000 u.s . up 12 percent from 1987 , according to the montreal real_estate board . spurred on by the promise of 100 million in federal funds announced in october 1988 , civic leaders have also agreed to begin a 450 million transformation of the old port , which , like old city , grew with the city 's reputation as a center of finance , commerce and transportation . when completed in the next 10 years , the project for the long neglected waterfront will include a series of museums and parks . much of the 131 acres of federally owned land along the st . lawrence river in montreal has stood idle while the federal , provincial , regional and municipal governments rejected proposal after proposal for more than two decades . the newest design emphasizes improved public_access rather than , as under earlier plans , commercial development . ''rather than set up the old port to compete with the old city , it was the consensus that there should be a complementary development , '' said david powell , partner at martineau walker , a law_firm involved in the planning . ''commercial development in the old port would just draw away from projects in old montreal . '' according to cameron charlebois , an executive member of the urban development institute , a local developer 's group , the message from the public hearing process was clear ''do n't urbanize . '' the federal commitment followed a feasibility study prepared by the not for profit old port corporation in january 1988 . the funds are to be used to reopen the lachine canal for recreational use and provide the foundation for underground parking . this is in addition to the 40 million already spent by the federal_government to repair decaying wharves , remove several grain elevators and add a pedestrian throughfare . the first phase of the redevelopment , to start this spring , is to include a national railway museum and be completed in 1992 . a maritime museum , a science and technology center and a training school for the cirque_du_soleil , a performing_arts group , are planned for additional phases . for the city 's part , 90 million is to be spent in the next five years in both the old port and old montreal for street repairs and renovation of city buildings . in the preliminary stages , the city plans to add 2 , 500 units of low and moderate income housing on abandoned railroad yards bought from the canadian_pacific railroad . a seven block extension of the rue de la commune , the major waterfront thoroughfare , is to provide access to the new development . at the same time , city officials have begun developing the first master plan for the central business area , including old montreal . a first draft , to be released by the spring , is expected to provide zoning bylaws , identify higher and lower density areas and address the need for low_income_housing over the next decade . still , the issue of language continues to cloud the city 's international image . in december , premier robert_bourassa took advantage of a clause in the as yet to be approved federal charter and overrode the supreme_court 's striking down of an ordinance prohibiting the posting of outdoor signs in any language other than french , raising concern among some montrealers that nationalistic fervor will again be a negative force in the city 's economy . but mr . riesman , among many others , takes a more optimistic view . ''the language issue is a symbolic one , '' he said . ''there has been some fear that it is a negative aspect , but we believe that logic will prevail . ''",has a topic of estate
"some city_council members are deeply conflicted over competing tax plans proposed by speaker gifford_miller and mayor michael r . bloomberg , ensuring a vigorous debate at city hall over what kind of property_tax reduction residents are likely to see next year . mr . bloomberg wants to give a 400 rebate to most homeowners , and has said that a similar or larger one could be offered again in the future . speaker miller prefers a 2 percentage point rollback of last year 's 18 . 5 percent rate increase , a proposal that would include commercial landlords and businesses as well , but would result in smaller savings about 50 a year for homeowners . while the mayor 's tax plan , at 250 million , is slightly cheaper for the city , it would require the approval of the state legislature . the speaker 's plan would cost 297 million , but the council could act alone to roll back the rate if , of course , enough members signed on to it . his plan would require only a simple majority , or 26 votes , in the council . on monday , mayor bloomberg hinted in his budget presentation that mr . miller 's plan did not have support among the 50 other council members . mr . miller rejected that view , saying , ''i am confident that the council is extraordinarily unified behind our entire proposal . '' an informal survey of more than a dozen council members this week found that some seemed ambivalent about the speaker 's tax plan , saying that it would be easier to sell a 400 check to their constituents . councilman bill perkins , the deputy majority leader , said , ''i think it 's a healthy sort of debate going on that allows members and the public to look at the merits of each one . '' some council members , like mr . perkins , said they were even searching for a third option after finding neither plan much to their liking . ''i have a problem with both of them , '' said councilwoman margarita l pez of manhattan . ''before we talk about any tax_cut , i want to make sure we do n't hurt our community with cuts to vital services . '' councilman charles barron of brooklyn criticized both tax plans as political gambits for voter loyalty by mayor bloomberg , who faces re election next year , and mr . miller , who is expected to run against him . ''i do n't think either one really cuts the mustard , '' said mr . barron , who also plans to run for mayor . he has proposed rolling back the 18 . 5 percent increase entirely and replacing it with new taxes on the wealthy and commuters , among others . but other council members said that the speaker 's tax plan had broad support in their districts , particularly after they explained that the mayor 's 400 rebate was not permanent , and might not happen at all because it was contingent upon approval from albany . ''i 've been telling people that the mayor may as well be offering a_10 , 000 tax rebate , because he does n't have the authority to do it , '' said councilman joel rivera of the bronx , the majority leader . ''people say they do n't want a gimmick . they want something that 's realistic . '' although the public debate has largely centered on the property_tax cuts , several members cited additional reasons for choosing the speaker 's plan over the mayor 's . councilman philip reed of manhattan said he helped put an earned_income_tax_credit for low income families into the speaker 's plan . councilman lewis a . fidler of brooklyn said mr . miller 's plan better served the council 's interests . ''if i 'm out there separating myself from the speaker , then i 'm weakening his negotiating position , '' mr . fidler said . ''i think most us who are grown_ups realize we have to hang together to get through the budget process effectively . '' in addition to questioning how much support exists in the council for mr . miller 's plan , the mayor has said that the speaker 's plan would help big_business more than homeowners . indeed , some council members conceded that there were parts of the mayor 's plan its emphasis on homeowners , for example that definitely played better in their districts . ''homeowners were the ones who were hurt the most , and they should get relief before anyone else , '' said councilman peter f . vallone jr . of queens . ''as the city can afford it , everyone else who was asked to pay should be given relief . if it is a step by step basis , we should begin with the homeowners . '' no matter the outcome , councilwoman melinda katz of queens said that either tax plan was a vast improvement over last year 's tax increase . ''i like both of them , '' she said . ''i think it 's a wonderful day when the mayor and the council are trying to give money back . it does n't get better than that . ''",has a topic of estate
"with british_columbia 's economy and real_estate market improving , two local developers have been trying to redevelop the waterfront in two affluent communities across the harbor from downtown_vancouver and have run into opposition on several levels . land in the two communities north vancouver and west vancouver is scarce and expensive . the developers , the larco group of companies and the viam group , are concentrating on an eight mile stretch of marine drive , proposing new projects and speeding work on those already under way . they have clashed with residents who fear that more traffic and people will change their neighborhoods and with marine based industries that need the harbor to survive and feel threatened by commercial development . the communities are linked to downtown by the lions gate bridge . east of the bridge lies north van , which from downtown looks like a mystical city built on hollyburn mountain 's lower slopes . at sundown , the windows of its tall office spires , condominiums and hillside homes blaze with reflections . west of the bridge , where burrard_inlet empties into howe sound , is the resort like west van , one of canada 's wealthiest residential areas . and eight miles east is the working harbor for tugboat companies , drydocks , railroads and terminals for grain , potash and coal . until 55 years ago , the area directly across the bay from renowned stanley_park was accessible only by private boat or ferry . but the guinness family of england famous for stout acquired vast tracts there through a company called british pacific properties and built many homes . to entice people to move there , the company built the lions gate bridge in 1938 . as a further lure , it built canada 's first regional shopping_center , park_royal shopping_center , on marine drive , in 1950 . in 1990 , larco bought the million square_foot park_royal mall and is now doing a_20 million revitalization , including 95 , 000 square_feet of streetfront retail space and a golf range , which is expected to open soon . "" the shopping_center needed a facelift , "" said robert heaslip , larco 's chief planner . "" it looked tired . it was time to look at the retail mix and how we wanted to take the center into the year 2000 . "" the center , which has had major additions through the years , is split by marine drive . "" the problem that needed solving was how to give a sense of unity , "" said john cochran of the callison partnership , the seattle architects who did the revitalization design . "" we needed an upgrade consistent with the charm of the upscale neighborhood . "" mr . heaslip said larco was one of 10 investors who owned land on clyde avenue , parallel to and a block north of marine drive , adjacent to the quaint park_royal hotel . they plan to upgrade streets , utilities and landscaping and sell or lease sites for office , retail and residential development . larco also owns a_4 . 5 acre site a few blocks away . it plans two high rise residential towers there with 400 , 000 square_feet . the plan would require razing the capilano athletic health_club , now on the site , but the club 's owner , whose lease runs to mid 1996 and who has refused larco 's offer of 400 , 000 for lost business , has vowed to go to court to halt construction . some residents say the development will destroy the character of their neighborhood . larco counters by saying it will put something back into the community by including a community center and 40 units of housing for the elderly . larco will have to get the city to rezone its site before it can proceed . controversy nearly killed a 50 million condominium project on 3.5 acres next to the park_royal mall . west vancouver owns the land , which had housed a municipal works yard and a car_dealership . in the early 80 's the municipality requested proposals from developers on a 99 year lease . the one selected fizzled when the economy soured . in 1989 the municipality tried again . viam group and its proposal for a residential complex won out over four other bidders . steven nicholls , west van 's planning director , said that viam , which had 20 years of construction experience , won partly because it offered to pay 10 million up front for the lease . but residents grew concerned that the two towers , 18 and 24 stories high , would be out of scale for the neighborhood and that increased traffic would create gridlock on marine drive . in a 1989 referendum voters were asked whether they thought the project should be built . they split 50 50 . mr . nicholls said the district 's council , seeing opinion was divided , decided the project should proceed . construction recently ended and marketing is under way for the 182 condominum units , which start at 269 , 500 and average 1 , 300 square_feet . in west van 's business_district , many older stores are being remodeled and on back streets new low rise stores , offices and houses are being built . the same is true eastward along marine drive where a dozen years ago there were few fast_food restaurants today cafes and pizza houses abound and there are strip malls as far as lonsdale avenue , eight miles away . "" ten years ago we were quite lonely here along the water , "" says claire johnson , president of c.h . cates sons ltd , . a 108 year old company at the foot of londsale that operates 18 tugs on a five mile stretch of burrard_inlet between the lions gate and second narrows bridges . "" the lot next to us was vacant . we used to play horseshoe and volleyball and grow tomatoes there . "" today that lot is lonsdale quay and thousands of north_shore residents stream onto seabuses there to speed across the harbor to downtown . adjacent to the seabus terminal is a waterfront mall , built in time for expo '86 , with a farmers_market , meat and seafood shops , ethnic fast_food restaurants , boutiques and the lonsdale quay hotel . "" change has been dramatic , "" says amin karim , the hotel 's general_manager . "" upland from marine drive the rundown stores are gone , along with the feeling it was not safe to walk the streets at night . now there are a lot of expensive condos . this is creating an environment for expensive shops . "" cates nearly became a victim of the pressure to sacrifice industry for tourism and commercial development . in the mid 70 's while the province was planning the new seabus terminal , a sheriff 's deputy served notice on its owners that the province had expropriated their land . they were ordered to vacate within 30 days . the deputy tried to give them an envelope with a check as property compensation , but they refused it . "" we were in shock , "" said mr . johnson . "" for us to pick up and move made no sense . our business was between the lions gate and second narrows bridges and our 115 employees live close by . "" the company refused to move and in 1981 , after a hard fought battle , it regained title . some people and developers are looking at the potential of the abandoned versatile pacific shipyards , just east of cates , where the only operating business is the vancouver dry_dock . many developers , municipal officials , businessmen and residents want the lonsdale quay retail shops and boutiques to be extended there . this does not sit well with the vancouver port corporation , an autonomous federal crown corporation that owns part of the land , which is valuable to industry because it is a deep water seaport . the corporation is negotiating with the private owner of the remaining land to acquire the property . "" we want to safeguard this land for future industrial and marine business , "" says dietmar setzer , the corporation 's director of property administration . he believes all land east of lonsdale should be industrial . community leaders say that if the powerful corporation wants the land it will get it . james o'hara , a corporation vice_president , says "" because of the scarcity of land , there is pressure from people who want to move back to the waterfront . but it just does n't make sense to build a condo next to a grain terminal . """,has a topic of estate
"4 indexes of housing costs n.y . northeast n.j . area change from change from dec . nov . dec . 90 rents 172 . 6 0 . 8 4 . 9 homeowner 's costs 174 . 2 0 . 2 4 . 9 fuel and utilities 105 . 6 0 . 5 2 . 6 4 source bureau_of_labor_statistics 4 five counties of new york city plus nassau , suffolk , westchester , 4 rockland , putnam , bergen , essex , morris , union , hudson , middlesex , somerset and passaic . indexes 1982 84 100 4 mortgage interest rates ( averages ) last week previous week year ago new york conventional ( 30 yr ) 8 . 67 8 . 42 9 . 96 adjustable_rate ( 1st_yr ) 6 . 05 6 . 04 7 . 89 new jersey conventional ( 30 yr ) 8 . 51 8 . 32 9 . 77 adjustable_rate ( 1st_yr ) 5 . 82 5 . 84 7 . 70 connecticut conventional ( 30 yr ) 8 . 51 8 . 29 9 . 78 adjustable_rate ( 1st_yr ) 5 . 90 5 . 90 7 . 77 co ops ( n . y. ) conventional ( 30 yr ) 8 . 77 8 . 46 10 . 18 adjustable_rate ( 1st_yr ) 6 . 47 6 . 48 8 . 17 4 indexes for adjustable_rate_mortgages 1 yr . treasury security 4 . 17 4 . 06 6 . 62 national mortgage contract rate 8 . 43 8 . 43 9 . 58 rates on most adjustable_mortgages are set 1 to 3 percentage_points above these indexes . ( source_hsh_associates )",has a topic of estate
"in new york city , people tend to move for fairly ironclad reasons a growing or shrinking family , a shimmy up or down the material ladder , an expiring lease , a new job or a desire to spend one 's midlife crisis in tribeca . and then there are those who just ca n't take it anymore . ''i 'm out of here , '' marcia bielfield said to herself when she stumbled upon the source of the thudding coming from the apartment above hers . she had already complained to the managing agent of her sutton_place building , and the agent had asked the woman above ms . bielfield to cover 80 percent of the floor with carpet as specified by the building 's rules . ''one night , the sound was so horrendous i went up and knocked on the door for the first time , '' said ms . bielfield , a retired publishing and marketing executive in her 70 's . ''she opened the door and in the background i could see this youngster'' the neighbor 's 5 or 6 year old grandson ''jumping up and down on a trampoline . with no carpet underneath . she said , 'i 'll do whatever i want' and slammed the door in my face . '' even though ms . bielfield had lived there less than a year , she immediately put the apartment on the market . she said she broke even on the transaction . though new yorkers' breaking points include vermin , smells and view blocking construction , obnoxious neighbors seem to top the list , perhaps because no matter how tough people are at the office or battling for a cab , they shrink from a war of the roses battle where they live . ''people start with a nice note under the door , and then it escalates into a war where management and the co op board gets involved , and usually it becomes so unpleasant for the person victimized that they say , 'i 've had enough , ' '' said wendy sarasohn , a senior vice_president of the corcoran group . and , apparently , there are many ways to be a bad neighbor in the city . gerard splendore , an associate broker at halstead property , said his worst experience unfolded in the brooklyn_heights co op he bought in 1997 and shared with his wife and two children their upstairs neighbors' newborn baby began crying four to five hours a night . ''we were hysterical , '' mr . splendore said . ''we went upstairs and said , 'is there anything we can do to help you ? ' '' the neighbors reacted defensively . ''they started to avoid us , '' he said . ''they were obviously not having any sleep either , and they were irrational . '' the baby finally calmed down , and that family moved on . in came a single european woman . ''she just had no concept of how much sound could travel , '' mr . splendore said . ''she used to play rock_music really loud . '' at other times , there were other noises , equally disturbing . ''it sounded like she was dragging trunks , '' he recalled . ''and she wore big platform shoes that she would take off when she got home and throw them across the room one at a time . we literally waited for the other shoe to drop . '' a board emissary was dispatched , to little effect . two months later , mr . splendore was startled awake in the wee hours by a ''gigantic crash'' overhead . he swore , leapt from bed and tore upstairs . ''it sounds like the end of the world is going on here ! '' he said he told his neighbor when he confronted her at the door . the neighbor apologized for dropping her television from what mr . splendore believes was a ladder . but he and his family had finally had enough . they sold the apartment and bought a house in bay_ridge . while many last straw moments can be pinned on children engaging in behavior better suited to a playground or backyard , sometimes the aggrieved neighbor 's reaction is even worse . one downstairs neighbor , an elderly woman , grew irate when the 5 and 10 year old boys upstairs bounced balls . ''she would complain to the doorman , the super , the managing agent , '' said jennifer roberts , a senior vice_president at bellmarc who had sold the boys' parents their three bedroom apartment in the east 70 's . ''one day , she came upstairs when the mother was n't home , and she took the ball and hit the kid . '' the family put their apartment up for sale and moved to teaneck , n.j. , ms . roberts said . but if noisy toys and boys are torture , one could argue that three 200 pound teenagers wearing cleats and playing football overhead at 11 p.m . is more on the order of hell itself . in her old quarters on central_park west near 86th_street , michele kleier , the president of gumley haft kleier , brokered the sale of the apartment above hers to a family that included just such a trio of athletes . ''it was a small building , and i just could n't start a war with the upstairs neighbors because i felt they would just be noisier if i caused problems , '' ms . kleier said . ''and what could i say to the board when i had pushed them through the board ? i felt it was better to just move . '' people are more likely to vote with their feet when the solution begins to seem more bothersome than the problem , especially when the problem is the landlord . pam fica learned this the hard way during a two year tenancy in a town house near washington_square in greenwich_village . ms . fica , now 29 and an agent at djk residential , thought she had found the perfect share in september 2004 840 per month for a room in a sprawling four bedroom apartment at the top of a five story town house owned by a woman who lived downstairs and ran the establishment more like a halfway house . ''she had a whiteboard in her apartment where she would write our names and try to jot down our comings and goings , '' ms . fica said . the landlady , who had lived in the building since the 1940 's , also interrogated nonwhite visitors and disapproved of long haired tenants , who might clog the plumbing , she said . ( ms . fica wore her hair up during her initial interview with the landlady and passed inspection by accident . ) then , there were the mandatory ''team meetings'' organized every few weeks in the younger women 's living room . the object was to ''tear apart every problem , but she would focus on things like dirty dishes in the sink , that we had too many plants and too much furniture , causing damage to the ceiling below our apartment . and whenever we would bring up any problems with the lack of heat'' at times the temperature dropped to 50 degrees in the winter ''or the freezer , she would say , 'that 's not my problem . ' anytime you would challenge her on something , she would say , 'i 'm not going to renew your lease . ' '' ms . fica said she shivered it out for two years because of the prime location , good roommates , cheap rent and her own low maintenance personality . ''i think i lost sight of what normal was , '' she said . ''my friends started really getting concerned . 'you do n't even realize how unusual this is , ' they said . 'you 're being abused . ' the more i thought about it , the more i realized they had a point . '' finally , she listened to her friends and moved to a two bedroom share in harlem a month ago . ( when ms . fica left , she and her roommates were responsible for bringing a new candidate victim for their landlady to vet . their advertisement on craigslist asked , ''what is your tolerance for a crazy landlady high , medium or low ? '' with affordable new york city rentals an endangered_species , the ad received hundreds of responses . ) last straw moments can occur in plush park_avenue town houses , too . ms . sarasohn of the corcoran group described a couple who bought a 6 . 5 million duplex in an upper east side town house . the wife 's misgivings about not having a doormanwere partly soothed when she learned that her adjoining neighbor was said to be a high ranking member of the mafia , whose presence on the block ( and black car parked out front ) were thought to ensure the area 's safety . her clients lived there for two years , ms . sarasohn said , but the wife ''gradually started to really not like not having a doorman because she traveled a lot and needed luggage help , and she did n't like it when the elevator broke , and it needed work . but the straw that finally broke for them was when they were hosting an oscar party in the beautiful wood paneled library and the flat screen tv was n't working . '' the next day , ms . sarasohn said , a repairman said the tv was working fine the only possible problem could be a wiretap on the adjoining neighbor 's lines . the reality of the situation began to sink in , and her clients decided to move that night . they eventually bought a prewar co op in a doorman building . while renters may have an easier time severing ties to their apartments and leaving trouble behind , they can be as reluctant to pull the plug as owners are . ''it 's the same thing when someone decides to leave a relationship after 25 or 30 years , '' ms . sarasohn said . ''some people might go to counseling and work it out , or else there 's that moment where exhaustion and exasperation set in , and it 's enough . '' or it 's life threatening . a few years ago , brian kaplan and lambeth hochwald rented a two bedroom apartment on the upper west side that came with an emotionally_disturbed neighbor they nicknamed the glove because she wore long white ones even in july . when not dangling out of the kitchen window to cut her downstairs neighbor 's phone line or pulling an eight inch butcher knife on police officers knocking down the door to her rent_stabilized apartment , the woman stalked the lobby of mr . kaplan and ms . hochwald 's modest six story building . ''she would say terrible , disturbing , disgusting things , '' said ms . hochwald , 38 , a freelance_journalist and an adjunct professor at new york_university . the neighbor habitually called ms . hochwald a nazi because of her germanic last name , and characterized the couple 's relationship as incestuous . mr . kaplan , 39 , the president of impression public_relations in manhattan , said she often tried to prevent tenants from entering the building or from using the elevator . ''i got to the point where i would circle the block several times to get courage to enter the building , '' ms . hochwald said . ''i felt like a prisoner in my own home . '' reluctant to be chased from their large 3 , 000 a month apartment , the couple hung on for nearly three years . they tried to feel compassion for their obviously disturbed neighbor they tried to persuade the landlord to hire a security guard for the lobby they tried devising an alternate way to enter and leave the building . whenever things got out of hand , they called the police , whose sympathetic response boiled down to , ''we ca n't do anything until she hurts someone . '' the last straw materialized in the form of a sharpened stick . on a warm fall afternoon shortly after the couple 's son , zachary , was born in september 2004 , mr . kaplan was carrying the baby as he and his wife approached their building , and the disturbed woman saw them coming . ''she had a sharpened , jagged stick in her hand , '' mr . kaplan said , ''and she would not move out of way . i said , 'excuse me . ' '' the woman replied with an epithet , and mr . kaplan responded in kind . ''she pulled this stick and held it up to my neck , '' mr . kaplan said . ''i was terrified . i knew what she was capable of , with a baby there on my chest . somehow or another , i spun and got past her . she did not move the stick . '' mr . kaplan and ms . hochwald moved about as far away as they could within manhattan to a battery_park_city rental with a doorman . ''we are extremely happy , and the neighbors are nice , '' mr . kaplan said . in his newfound complacency , mr . kaplan is typical of others who have reached their limits they 're no longer seeking perfection , only the absence of a particular form of bother . ms . fica , who left greenwich_village for harlem and sometimes uses beer to bribe friends to take the subway ride up , said she misses the conveniences of her old neighborhood , but ''it does n't outweigh the happiness i have now just feeling at peace with my living situation . ''",has a topic of estate
"nearly all farmland 20 years ago , allamuchy township has preserved its rural character in most areas , while developing rapidly on just a fifth of its 23 square miles . the only densely_populated area is a 1 , 500 family gated_community called panther_valley , started in the mid 70 's on 1 , 700 acres in the township 's central section . the complex comprises attached town houses and , small apartment houses , all condominiums , and detached single family homes off route 517 in new jersey 's warren county . it is a mile from interstate_80 , making it a convenient commute to new york city . outside of panther_valley , development is limited , "" said mayor francis x . gavin . "" the township has 27 miles of roadway , one half of which is in panther_valley . outside the valley , we have almost no sewer hookups and only one street light . the old timers want it to stay that way . "" one of the oldest communities in new jersey , allamuchy takes its name from that of a leni lenape indian village called allamuchahokkingen the name of a chief that existed in the early 18th_century . the first european settlers were quakers , who arrived before 1745 from nearby hunterdon_county , bringing with them the beams that would support their houses , which were completed with local stone . although no buildings in allamuchy are on historic registers , several old farmhouses are believed to date from the 18th_century . many older roads also bear the mark of the quaker settlers , who scrupulously followed property lines , creating irregular bends that have inconvenienced travelers ever since . to many old timers , panther_valley is a foreign body in their midst . martha rydell , 76 , who immigrated from holland at age 10 and has lived most of her life on a farm in allamuchy , said she had come to accept the planned_community , but preferred things as they were . "" this was a place where people helped each other and had time for each other , "" mrs . rydell said . "" the people in panther_valley seem nice but are busy commuting to jobs in new york city and do n't seem to have time for others . whereas we used to leave our doors unlocked , panther_valley is a gated_community , where you ca n't even get in unless you know someone . "" that security and the country atmosphere are two things that attracted james l . kneese and his wife , mary_ann , to panther_valley , when he was transferred to florham_park , n.j. , from dallas by the dow_chemical corporation two years ago . mr . kneese is an executive and his wife was a nurse in texas and now does volunteer work in hackettstown , a town adjoining allamuchy . they live in a custom , four bedroom home with a scenic view of the delaware water gap . "" my husband travels a lot , "" mrs . kneese said . "" in dallas , we had an alarm system and i never felt really secure . because panther_valley is gated , there is virtually no crime . we love having friends come visit us from dallas because they just ca n't believe that there is such a section of new jersey . "" m rs . kneese said she found her neighbors "" very welcoming "" and that her husband , an avid golfer , spent much of his spare time on the 18 hole course of the community 's panther_valley country club . the club charges an 11 , 000 initiation fee and about 4 , 000 in annual fees , which vary with different memberships . housing prices in panther_valley start at about 85 , 000 for small one bedroom condominiums and go to about 400 , 000 for some custom , four bedroom houses , according to carolyn pulaski , broker manager at panther_valley realty , which specializes in selling the valley . town houses range from about 165 , 000 for small , two bedroom units to 275 , 000 for some four bedroom , 3 , 000 square_foot units just off the golf course . according to ms . pulaski , many of her sales are to people who owned houses elsewhere in panther_valley . rentals are hard to come by , she said , noting that they were mainly in condominium apartments or town houses . they go for 850 to 1 , 200 a month . o utside panther_valley , the largest residential concentration is in the village of allamuchy in the center of town , which has a total of 42 electric and water hookups . in addition to houses , the town has a general_store , a liquor_store and an auto repair garage . like panther_valley , he village has little crime . last year , no homes were sold in the village , according to saralan faherty , office manager for monetti realty in hackettstown . "" if i had to estimate what homes in the village would go for , it would be between 150 , 000 and 200 , 000 , "" ms . faherty said . three houses were sold in the township outside of panther_valley last year . a 15 year old , three bedroom colonial went for 163 , 000 a restored , three bedroom , 19th_century farmhouse sold for 267 , 000 and a six year old four bedroom colonial on 1.3 acres went for 269 , 900 according to literature published by mpw communities , the developers of panther_valley , panthers roamed the area until 1805 , when the last one was shot in a thicket overlooking what is now the fifth hole of the panther_valley golf course . the streets in panther_valley are named for birds and mountains , including mallard drive , rainier court , and mockingbird road , reflecting the natural attractions of the area . according to mayor gavin , the township is one of the finest bird watching , fishing and hunting sites in the state , with rare bald eagles sighted at times . much hunting takes place in the 4 , 000 acre allamuchy mountain state_park in the southern portion of the township . the park has hiking trails that are also used for mountain bikes and horseback_riding . the park includes the deer park pond , which is stocked with bass , pickerel and perch . some local farmers also sell hunting rights to clubs . among the game animals are deer , wild turkey and waterfowl . "" i live in panther_valley , "" mayor gavin said . "" and we see deer there all of the time . some people have also seen wild bear in their yards . "" the township owns one park , the 10 acre green acres park off alphano road , which includes two baseball diamonds , a basketball court , a tennis_court , a volleyball court and playground equipment . shopping in allamuchy is sparse . the main shopping area is the panther_valley village square , a colonial style 40 , 000 square_foot strip mall on route 517 with 20 stores . the businesses include panther_valley realty , a barber_shop , boutiques , a beauty_salon , a convenience_store , doctors offices , a fitness center and the 100 room panther_valley inn , which includes two of the three restaurants in town . the third is villa mattar , an italian restaurant on route 517 . residents mostly shop in hackettstown and in the rockaway mall , 15 miles to the east . the 332 student allamuchy elementary_school serves grades k 8 . according to a report by the school , technology education is being stressed , with computers available in all classrooms . the school is in the process of being wired with fiber_optic cable to expand the computer program . t he new jersey school report card issued by the state 's department of education for the 1994 95 school year gave allamuchy elementary_school high marks . of eighth_graders who took the state 's early warning tests , all scored either level one or level two , indicating competence in reading , writing and mathematics . the average class size is 13 . 2 , compared with a state average of 21 . 9 . the township sends 102 students to hackettstown high_school in hackettstown , paying an annual tuition of 8 , 500 per student , plus busing costs . of the school 's 195 student graduating_class last year , 84 percent went on to higher_education . the high_school offers advanced_placement courses in english , united_states history , physics and biology . on the scholastic assessment tests , hackettstown students last year scored 471 in math and 436 in verbal , compared with state average scores of 481 and 418 , respectively .",has a topic of estate
"construction is still under way on bridgefront , a_10 story condominium at 42 main_street in the dumbo area of brooklyn , but 18 of its 21 loft style apartments have been sold in the two months since sales began . the residences , including three penthouses , are offered with six different interior layouts and have 1 , 010 to 1 , 700 square_feet of space , as well as private terraces . sales prices range from 600 , 000 to 1 . 15 million , according to boymelgreen developers of brooklyn , the developer of the 10 . 5 million project . haysha deitsch , the project manager , said he attributed the rapid pace of sales to the building 's design and the neighborhood , whose name is an acronym for down under the manhattan bridge overpass . ''dumbo , '' he said , ''is dumbo . '' bridgefront is clad in glass and a stuccolike material and has a facade with a rounded corner at main and front streets . the architect is elena kalman of stamford , conn . in two weeks residents will begin moving into the building , which will have such amenities as a health_club , meditation garden and roof_deck . completion is expected next month . bridgefront marks boymelgreen 's entry into dumbo , but the company already has started a second residential project in the neighborhood and has plans for two more , as well as a commerical development . ''this is the first and a taste of what is to come , '' mr . deitsch said . postings",has a topic of estate
"if you take the a train next sunday to clinton_hill ( with , it is to be hoped , a duly licensed motorman ) you can visit one of brooklyn 's oldest and most beautiful neighborhoods and take part in the 1993 clinton_hill house and garden tour . the hill , as the american_institute_of_architects guide to new york city notes , was home in the 19th_century to many of kings_county 's merchant and industrial kings the bedfords , the pfizers , the underwoods and , most especially , the pratts . on view on the tour are nine homes that reflect the remembrance of things past and the imagination of things present , beginning with the caroline ladd pratt house at 229 clinton avenue , an 1898 mansion . the parlor floor and the second floor apartment of dr . warren ilchman , president of pratt_institute , are open to the tour . the house was built by charles pratt , a partner of john d . rockefeller in the standard oil company and the founder of the nearby institute . the building , an italianate manor house , was one of four mansions pratt gave to his sons as wedding gifts . other stops include a carriage_house that was once a handbag factory and now , renovated , is home to an architect and his family a brownstone replete with original ornate woodwork a 21 by 50 foot garden created by ken druse , the gardening editor of house beautiful magazine the irises , peonies , evening primroses , roses , herbs and trailing grapevine of abigail and larry golde 's 100 by 200 foot garden , and jon and mary cole 's 1858 semi detached italianate villa , with wallpaper based on e . f . benson 's "" lucia "" novels , set in the fictional english village of tilling . the tour runs from noon to 5 p.m . same day tickets are 10 and may be purchased at the caroline ladd pratt house . advance tickets , at 8 , are available at the brooklyn_academy_of_music ( 30 lafayette avenue ) and several other brooklyn locations as well as by mail from the clinton_hill society , 437 clinton avenue , brooklyn , n.y . 11238 . mail tickets will be held at the pratt house . information ( 718 ) 330 0197 .",has a topic of estate
"motorists , yes . bicyclists , too . strollers , certainly . sun bathers , ball players , nature lovers . they all stand to gain , officials say , from a rebuilt west side highway with a new hudson_river_park at its side . but what about developers ? would the tandem park and roadway projects simply open four to five miles of ramshackle manhattan waterfront to recreation ? or would they also fuel intense , even disruptive , speculation and development ? eight years after the death of westway , plans are progressing on several fronts to rebuild the corridor from battery_park_city to 59th_street call it the west side highway , west street , 12th avenue or , as transportation officials do , route_9a . as these projects inch forward , the debate also grows over their implications . no matter how much planners insist that riverfront construction will be limited and appropriately scaled , the suspicion persists among community leaders and civic activists that these ample public works are part of a larger development agenda . five alternatives for route_9a have been advanced by the new york state transportation department in a draft environmental_impact_statement . choices run from leaving the roadway as it is , to enhancing it at a cost of 370 million , to building a 965 million highway with viaducts and depressed bypass lanes . after a round of public hearings last month , the state scheduled another session in september at the request of elected officials . about a month after that hearing , it is expected that the hudson_river_park conservancy , a subsidiary of the new york state urban development corporation , will begin the design and environmental analysis of plans for the area from river to road , including 60 acres of parkland , 330 acres of water , four and a half miles of esplanade and 13 recreational piers . the conservancy was created last year by gov . mario m . cuomo and mayor david n . dinkins to build the park and , in the language of their agreement , "" identify and facilitate "" any "" private initiatives in the development sites "" chosen by an earlier west side waterfront panel . the largest of these would involve up to 1 . 775 million square_feet of space atop the vast pier 40 on the west_village waterfront . just how much a magnet the west side waterfront can be at least for blue sky thinking was made clear last month when talk turned to building a new yankee_stadium over the long_island_rail_road 's john d . caemmerer west side yard , which borders 12th avenue from 30th to 33d street . whether anything comes of the stadium or not , there are other signs of renewal . a development team called chelsea_piers management has completed a draft environmental assessment of its plan to turn piers 59 through 61 , from 17th to 21st street , into a sports center and film and television_studio . roland w . betts , a partner in the group , said construction might begin the fall . twelve developers have expressed interest in devising new uses for the passenger ship terminal , piers 88 through 92 , from 48th to 52d street , at the invitation of the city 's economic_development corporation and the port_authority of new york and new jersey , whose lease on the terminal expires at the end of 1994 . dan maynard , a spokesman for the authority , emphasized that any plan would have to allow continuing use by cruise_ships . the port_authority has also applied to the corps of engineers for permission to build a new pier 34 , from the foot of canal street to the holland_tunnel ventilation and exit shaft , roughly 900 feet offshore . the pier would be composed of parallel 18 foot decks , one of which would be open to the public . pier 62 , at 22d street , will open to the public next sunday , said tom fox , president of the hudson_river_park conservancy . there will be ball courts and areas for picnicking , roller skating and performances . by thursday , the conservancy expects to have received bids for construction of a 27 foot_wide interim pedestrian and bicycle path along west street , from chambers street to gansevoort street . that may open to the public next spring , mr . fox said . gazing farther into the future , it is conceivable that major development might accompany the new route_9a and waterfront_park . "" the creation of an urban boulevard with landscaping and a bikeway walkway may improve the overall ambience for development , particularly in locations close to the right of way , "" said the draft environmental_impact_statement for the route_9a project . taken alone , the report said , "" the effects of the highway on development trends , if any , would be imperceptible . "" but it added that "" parkland is a physical and visual amenity that tends to raise property values and widen the market appeal of nearby properties , particularly residential properties . "" indeed , potential financing for the park is tied in part to the expectation that property values and construction will increase in the surrounding area . "" actually , we 'll be banking on it , "" mr . fox said . the west side waterfront panel , predecessor to the conservancy , considered imposing an "" impact fee "" on new development within 700 or 1 , 500 feet of the park possibly 3 or 5 a square_foot . it also considered a zone within 700 or 1 , 500 feet of the park where a special property_tax levy would be assessed , akin to a business_improvement_district . a study prepared for the waterfront panel by the planning consultants of allee king rosen fleming projected some 4.7 million square_feet of new development by 1998 along a corridor within 700 feet of the park , from chambers street to 59th_street . among the projects identified by the consultants is hudson 42 , a plan by silverstein properties to build 1 , 500 housing units on a full city_block between 41st and 42d streets , 11th and 12th avenues . silverstein has owned the parcel for nine years , however , and it remains a parking_lot . another becalmed project is hudson_river center , a hotel with roughly 40 stories and 1 , 500 rooms on pier 36 , across from the jacob k . javits_convention_center . the development team , headed by julien j . studley , was designated six years ago . hudson 42 and hudson_river center are among several private undertakings on the shoreline that have stalled or died . judging from that record , michael slattery , senior vice_president of the real_estate board of new york , does not foresee an imminent building boom on the river 's edge . "" waterfront development has not been robust , to say the least , "" he said . "" either it has been heavily subsidized by the public or it has run into serious problems . "" "" the historical view here should n't be the development activity in the 80 's but waterfront activity , "" he said . "" look at the limited number of projects that have gone forward battery_park_city was subsidized and had substantial density . south_street_seaport had public investment in amenities . roosevelt_island was subsidized . "" a new waterfront zoning text is only weeks away from adoption by the city planning commission . officials say it would open private parcels to public_access , require visual corridors , limit building height , ban the transfer of development rights from underwater property to dry land and restrict the use of piers and platforms . "" the proposed amendment is a significant improvement , "" said richard l . schaffer , chairman of the commission . "" but if someone wants no development on the edge of the city whatsover , this will not satisfy them . "" while mr . slattery believes that the cost of following the new zoning rules would push waterfront development "" beyond affordability , "" others think the government is setting the stage for future construction . "" you do n't use an urban development corporation to take over a public waterway unless you 're planning development , "" argued marcy benstock , executive director of the new york city clean air campaign . "" when they wanted to build a road , they did n't go to a public authority , "" said assemblyman richard n . gottfried , democrat of manhattan . "" they went to the state transportation department . if they really want to build a park , why do n't they go to the people in the state and city parks departments ? "" in response , mr . fox noted the budgetary perils that faced those agencies . "" how easy a lift is it for the city and state_park systems to focus on constructing a new park on the west side ? "" he asked . he also questioned how effective either department would be in dealing with the welter of public agencies that have waterfront jurisdiction . "" what is needed , "" mr . fox said , "" is a centralized agency that represents both the city and state , with a specific mandate to build a park and the ability to bring both the city and state to bear in removing obstacles . "" last sunday , the assembly passed a bill sponsored by mr . gottfried that would strip power from the hudson_river_park conservancy to acquire an interest in the right of way , spend money on or receive revenues from the property , or enter into contracts . the measure did not advance in the senate , however , mr . gottfried said . opponents' suspicions were not allayed by the language in the agreement between gov . cuomo and mayor dinkins that the hudson_river_park conservancy 's proposals would be "" subject to all applicable public review and approval procedures . "" "" 'applicable' is a vast loophole , "" ms . benstock said . "" many local laws and public review and approval procedures are not applicable to state chartered authorities such as the h.r.p.c. "" even sewer , drainage and utility relocation plans for route_9a come in for wary scrutiny by those who wonder such work would provide infrastructure to serve development on the far side of the road . "" we 're not opposed to replacing and bringing up to date the appropriate water and sewer lines , "" said assemblywoman deborah j . glick , democrat of manhattan . "" but we do n't want those pipes upgraded to where they could carry a load far in excess of what currently exists . then it appears that they are in fact using route_9a as the nose of the camel , if you will . "" but douglas a . currey , of the route_9a office , said that "" all of the infrastructure work that 's costed out and included in the project alternatives is utility work necessitated by the roadway . "" mr . fox concedes that "" there 's such a fear of government run amok that an attempt to have it focus on creating public works is treated with great suspicion . "" "" as we gather momentum , "" he said , "" there will be less and less of that . "" mr . fox said the detailed design of the park , esplanade and public piers would be undertaken with consultants from the affected community boards . that work will occur simultaneously with the environmental assessment , by allee king rosen fleming . a broad plan drawn up in 1990 identified three development sites piers 81 through 84 , from 41st to 44th_street , might accommodate commercial structures up to 75 feet high , serving cruises and charter boats , possibly with dining and entertainment . these piers are across the highway from silverstein 's hudson 42 site . the chelsea_piers might accommodate up to 830 , 000 square_feet of new and rehabilitated space , with 800 housing units and 110 , 000 square_feet of commercial space . for the next 10 years , however , they would be leased to chelsea_piers management . pier 40 , at the foot of houston_street , might accommodate up to 1 . 775 million square_feet of new construction , with 1 , 700 residential units and 240 , 000 square_feet of commercial space . buildings might be 85 feet high , or about eight stories . the new floor area would be roughly equal to that of the general_motors building on fifth avenue . "" pier "" is almost a misnomer for the 14 acre structure , which is almost as wide ( 755 feet ) as it is long ( 800 feet wide ) . on its deck sits a three level structure with space for more than 2 , 000 cars and a center court that can park more than 100 buses and trucks . when it opened in 1962 , pier 40 was the largest and most costly single steamship terminal ever built in the port of new york . it was originally leased to the holland america line , for passenger and cargo operations . today , it is leased to the port_authority , which sublets it in turn for parking , warehousing , shipping and storage . in addition , the prison barge bibby venture , no longer in use , is moored on its south side . community board 2 in greenwich_village is opposed to the density and size of development proposed for pier 40 . borough_president ruth w . messinger of manhattan is opposed to residential development . other proposals in circulation include moving the wholesale flower market to pier 40 from the avenue of the americas or simply converting the pier into parkland . in a study of potential displacement pressures in the environmental_impact_statement for route_9a , allee king rosen fleming noted that "" the presence of the waterfront_park and the removal of a large , visible transportation use on pier 40 can be expected to strengthen the attractiveness of the westerly portions of the area for new residential development . "" because "" redevelopment is most likely to take place on currently industrial or residential sites , "" the study said , "" indirect displacement of residents would not be linked to new construction . "" however , the study continued , the park could raise the value of existing housing in the area . since tenants in unregulated apartments and single_room_occupancy hotels were already being squeezed by market forces , the study said , the "" waterfront_park has the potential to accelerate these underlying displacement pressures , particularly in locations west of seventh_avenue . "" elsewhere , the waterfront_park "" would make residential chelsea a more attractive place to live , would boost residential values and could contribute toward accelerating displacement pressures . "" the study concluded that the waterfront_park would have little or no effect on social and economic conditions south of chambers street , around the convention_center or in clinton . ms . benstock said the environmental assessment was inadequate . "" as long as the u.d.c . intends to take title to the entire river , "" she said , the route_9a impact statement "" ought to project development and the traffic it would generate far in excess of what they are assuming on the scale of the developed sites of battery_park_city . "" what the hudson_river_park conservancy would get , under the 1992 agreement , is "" possessory interest "" in the property from the roadway to the pierhead line . mr . fox said that was not the name as "" fee simple "" that is , direct ownership . it might take the form of ownership with a restrictive covenant or scenic easement , he said . a major hurdle that has yet to be overcome is the fact that the city and state may have to pay back 81 million to the federal_government that was used to acquire the right of way for westway . a waiver could be granted if local officials convinced the federal highway administration that the new project represented a "" transportation enhancement , "" like a pedestrian and bicycle path or a scenic area . an attempt to obtain a waiver in 1990 failed . in a response to questions from the conservancy , the highway agency said last month that a park "" may be consistent "" with the scenic requirement but that "" ball fields , marine facilities , or parks with food carts , benches , restrooms are not reuses which would , by themselves , qualify as transportation projects . """,has a topic of estate
"a striking hidden midblock complex on west 25th_street an 1855 episcopal_church , an 1866 clergy house and an 1870 school is partway into a restoration project likely to be long and expensive . since the 1940 's , it has been the serbian orthodox cathedral of st . sava , and even for native new yorkers both the exterior and interior are likely to be a surprise . the present trinity church at broadway and wall_street was finished in 1846 just as the last of the parishioners within walking distance were moving farther uptown . to keep them in the fold , trinity built a system of chapels in outlying areas . in 1851 , trinity adopted a plan by richard upjohn , who had designed the wall_street church , for a through block church on 25th_street just west of broadway reaching up to 26th_street trinity chapel . a random sampling of 20 of the original pewholders indicates just why the main church felt it had to reach out two lived in westchester , three in old trinity neighborhood , and the rest between 14th and 34th streets , like the lawyer and diarist george templeton strong , who lived on 21st street opposite gramercy_park . the outside of trinity chapel , in neo_gothic brownstone , was hardly unique . indeed , the notoriously demanding critic clarence cook , writing in new york quarterly in 1855 , called it ' 'decidedly a failure , '' adding that ''its front is tame , its side elevation meager'' but then he also panned grace church , at eighth street and broadway . however , the addition of the tiny clergy house at 16 west 26th_street ( now the church office ) in 1866 and the trinity chapel school at 13 west 25th ( now a parish hall ) in 1870 created a little ecclesiastical village that still surprises newcomers to the area , especially with the wide view running from 25th to 26th streets . the church interior stretching almost 180 feet , much longer than the typical urban church was widely discussed . the new york times praised the very slight outlining in red and other colors of the open truss work , saying ''the illuminated timbers of the roof form a perfect chef d'oeuvre of architectural effect . '' the interior is faced with a creamy caen stone , a limestone imported from france , making the interior as light as the exterior is dark . small alcoves along the walls held open pews . the new trinity chapel became one of new york 's most socially important churches edith jones had plenty of time to reflect on her imminent marriage as she walked down the long aisle to marry edward r . wharton in april 1885 . she did not turn back , although she soon became disenchanted with her husband and developed her writing career around the turn of the century . an 1892 issue of a parish publication , the trinity record , reflected on the changes in architectural tastes over four decades . it noted that , prior to the early 1870 's , trinity chapel had been quite plain , ''painfully guiltless of polychromatic effects , '' with the exception of the colored striping on the ceiling woodwork and the blue and gold cross striping on columns supporting the trusses , which the congregation contemptuously called barber poles . but soon thereafter the chancel walls were given a very elaborate decorative treatment and other painted effects were added , apparently including the soft blue ceiling with gold stars the roof is perhaps 80 feet high , and in the soft haze of the interior the painted effects are so gentle they are hard to read . fashion continued to move uptown and by the 1910 's the side streets west of madison_square were filling with loft buildings leaving the trinity chapel complex an oasis . trinity church decided to abandon its little outpost and the times observed that ''no tears will be shed it has never been considered a landmark , '' adding ''perhaps it is better to tear the building down than to build little additions to it and let the old church remain , battered and unsightly . '' trinity chapel remained open , and the trinity parish thought enough of it to remove stained_glass and other artwork in early 1942 , during air raid concerns after pearl_harbor . but later that year the parish put the chapel on the market , selling it in 1943 to members of the serbian orthodox church , who established the old trinity chapel as the cathedral of st . sava , named after a 13th century saint who became the first archbishop of serbia . king peter ii , the exiled king of yugoslavia , attended services here in the 1940 's and never returned to his native land , which was still under communist rule when he died in 1970 . later the communist_party of the united_states moved into 23 west 26th_street , and between 1964 and 1972 there were a half dozen bombings at their building . in 1966 a powerful one blew out the stained_glass_windows in the apse of st . sava , and the cathedral replaced them with ones of a byzantine design , more familiar to practitioners of the eastern orthodox religion . two years later the exterior of the complex was designated a landmark . now the cathedral of st . sava is several years into a major restoration of its historic complex , especially the slate roofs on the cathedral and the church office . under the direction of the building conservator william stivale , the cathedral is partway done with the roof and pointing on the little office , facing 26th_street , and hoping to resume work on the cathedral soon . the parishioners have spent about 600 , 000 on initial stabilization , in part for reinforcement for the roof framing , which was starting to skew out of alignment due to water damage . the church now has about half of the 1 . 8 million necessary to finish just the roof of the entire church complex . and it needs it . the interior of the church is a spectacular antique a vast , high space , with all of the 19th_century decoration , hanging brass lamps , wall coverings , oak pews and polychromed tile floor almost untouched . but there are also wide stains of at least a dozen large leaks visible , some just large white blooms where water has seeped in , others where great patches of the caen stone has been dissolved and fallen away . whether by poverty or intent , the serbs have been wonderful stewards of the building , making only the minimum changes necessary for their own worship , like the elaborate carved wooden iconostasis enclosing the former altar area . serbian orthodox services are usually conducted with the congregants standing , but at st . sava they have left the gothic style pews , with their rich patina , in place . ''here in america we 've gotten a little bit relaxed , '' said the rev . djokan majstorovic , dean of the cathedral , who was born in bosnia , educated in belgrade and was studying english in london , about to take up a post in zagreb , when war broke out . he came to the united_states seven years ago . ''raising the money is quite difficult , but we have overcome so many disadvantages , '' father majstorovic said . the church has made its third application for a 400 , 000 grant from the new york state office of parks , recreation and historic_preservation , and is hoping for success this time . father majstorovic added ''once people see the sincerity and honesty in our goals and efforts , they see the sincerity and honesty in it , they give we are really advancing , we believe that god is helping us and overseeing us . '' streetscapes the serbian orthodox cathedral of st . sava correction may 11 , 2003 , sunday the streetscapes column last sunday , about the serbian orthodox cathedral of st . sava built in the 19th_century as trinity chapel misstated the location of another church criticized along with it by clarence cook , an architecture writer of the 1850 's . that second church , grace , is at broadway and 10th street , not eighth street .",has a topic of estate
"lead on the wide open spaces of albuquerque 's west side of the rio grande , developers are facing a challenge from the past public awareness of the city 's rich archeology is raising preservation issue sthat could interfere with growth . on the wide open spaces of albuquerque 's west side of the rio grande , developers are facing a challenge from the past public awareness of the city 's rich archeology is raising preservation issue sthat could interfere with growth . they are responding to the challenge with a mixture of concern and exasperation . some projects have been delayed and others thrown into confusion . long standing public and private planning for 110 , 000 acres of land on the west side planning that has included preservation considerations is now the subject of controversy . ''what disturbs us , and what makes us hostile is that we go in 10 years ahead of time with a study , do our planning , put in infra structure and then are told 10 years later that we have to change things , '' said don robertson , senior vice_president of bellamah community development , which has temporarily stopped construction on some of its land . with a population of nearly half a million , metropolitan albuquerque is probably the oldest continuously inhabited major urban_area in north_america , according to david stuart , a university of new mexico archaeologist . the 600 square_mile albuquerque basin once contained as many as 8 , 000 archeological sites , but 70 to 80 percent have been lost to urban development . preservationists want to be sure that surviving sites will either be ' 'mitigated'' excavated and documented or preserved . urbanization is a special threat on the west side . with its expansive views eastward over the rio grande to the nearby sandia mountains , the land atop the river 's western palisades has appealed to both ancient and modern man . signs of prehistoric man 's presence are scattered across the mesas on the west side of the city a half buried docrated clay pot , a primitive pit house and an entire town built by relatives of the anasazi , ancient people who left impressive cities throughout the west . state officials believe that a recently uncovered site sheltered the first europeans who explored the area in 1540 . a spectacular west side landmark is a 17 mile long , quarter mile wide volcanic escarpment . not until 1985 , when an archeologist counted 11 , 000 ancient petroglyphs , or rock carvings , was its significance fully understood . tourism officials are considering the potential of what archeologists say is the largest documented collection of prehistoric rock art in any urban_area on the continent . the national_park_service is considering a national monument , and last month city planners released a study identifying parts of the escarp ment to be protected through land trades , donations or purchase . the proposal , which the city_council will consider this summer , affects as many as 2 , 000 individual and corporate property owners . bellamah community development is waiting until november to begin construction on 28 lots for homes that back up on the escarpment , giving the city a chance to put purchase of the lots before voters in an october bond election . the voluntary moratorium , mr . robertson said , shows that his company supports preservation . but last year , bellamah commissioned a private study that disputes the tourism value of the petroglyphs . also , mr . robertson is critical of the bureaucratic process , and he is impatient with suggestions that the company donate the lots to the city . on the basis of a 1973 company survey , mr . robertson said , bellamah has already dedicated 20 acres in the vicinity of the petrolglyphs for open space , at a cost of about 825 , 000 . but when the city last year asked for 28 additional lots , each averaging about one sixth of an acre , the company answered that the city would have to pay at a discounted price of 24 , 500 , compared with 26 , 000 it charges builders for each lot . bellamah is a joint_venture of the bellamah holding_company and meadows resources , a subsidiary of the public service company of new mexico and controls about 4 , 000 acres on the west side . for smaller property owners , delays can be disastrous , said joe fritz , a real_estate_broker . bruied under 10 of 50 prime acres of land that mr . fritz is trying to sell for a client lies an ancient pueblo with 1 , 100 rooms . sixteenth century spanish explorers found about a dozen such towns in the albuquerque area , but most have disappeared , so the mann site , as it is called , is important . to mr . fritz , the solution is to get the acreage out of private ownership at a fair price to the landowner . but determining a fair market value for the mann site , he said , has kept his client 's parcel tied up for two years . for amrep southwest , archeology is more troublesome . the company controls 91 , 000 acres , including 9 , 000 in several core areas , at rio rancho , a subdivision and town of 27 , 000 on albuquerque 's northwest edge that has been in development since 1962 . a dispute over a waste facility near an archeological site is delaying construction of 700 houses on a 300 acre parcel . the company refuses to comment on any site on its properties , said jim colegrove , director of public affairs . because of geographical constraints , the west side is the last area where developers can assemble large packages for albuquerque 's sprawling growth . by 1991 , about 40 percent of the estimated 7 , 000 new housing starts in metropolitan albuquerque will occur on the west side . on the east side of the river , the cost of a finished lot is nearly double what it is on the west side . while the average cost of a house in albuquerque in 1986 was about 91 , 000 , rio rancho houses sell for 40 , 000 to 80 , 000 . developers sometimes panic and deliberately destroy artifacts unearthed during construction , said lawrence kline , a planning consultant who also sits on a city and county task_force on archaeological resources . but only 5 to 10 percent of all finds require long term study the rest can be mitigated in a matter of days . mr . kline believes the city should hire every available archeologist to survey 200 square miles , at a cost of about 2 million . with a computerized inventory , site identification could occur before construction . if developers complain about delays , archaeologists tell horror stories about pots , shattered by bulldozers petroglyphs . as for further loss for both sides , mr . kline said , ''the best way to prevent it is to be forearmed with knowledge . '' focus albuquerque",has a topic of estate
"lead somewhere in the air over grand_central_terminal floating like an invisible , enormous , amorphous and very valuable mass are somewhere between 1.6 million and 1.9 million square_feet of unused development rights . just where these rights can descend to earth has been a matter of the most critical civic controversy since the late 1960 's . somewhere in the air over grand_central_terminal floating like an invisible , enormous , amorphous and very valuable mass are somewhere between 1.6 million and 1.9 million square_feet of unused development rights . just where these rights can descend to earth has been a matter of the most critical civic controversy since the late 1960 's . the metropolitan_transportation_authority said last week that it has an interest in seeing to it that the development rights are utilized so that it can take over the terminal and begin a 400 million master plan for its renovation . the authority has already prepared a possible receiving site for a small chunk of those air_rights by assembling the whole madison_avenue blockfront between 44th and 45th streets . in a stronger market , the 22 , 595 square_foot parcel comprising nos . 341 , 345 and 347 madison_avenue might be a most attractive development locale . since 1979 , the m.t.a . has owned and had its headquarters in the former equitable trust building at no . 347 , a_20 story structure with 187 , 000 square_feet of space . now , it owns 345 madison_avenue , a 15 story building with 81 , 250 square_feet , which it bought for 23 . 7 million from an equity fund managed by trammell_crow realty advisers of dallas . and it also owns 341 madison , a 19 story building with 46 , 250 square_feet , which it bought for 12 . 2 million from the vector real_estate corporation of manhattan . five floors at no . 345 are to be used for offices of the authority that are now at 11 west 42d street . also , the metro_north commuter railroad will move offices from the terminal into the newly acquired buildings . ''this is no net expansion , '' said frederick s . harris , director of real_estate at the authority . ''it 's not like the m.t.a . is growing . we 're reshuffling . when all is said and done , the idea was to utilize our own space and to make sure that we were n't forced to renew these outside leases . '' ''for the medium term , '' mr . harris said , ''we can hold these buildings . they are no real drain on our resources . and in the long term , we have put something together that would be very valuable as an assemblage . '' the deal has raised eyebrows , if not alarm . beverly dolinsky , executive director of the permanent citizens' advisory committee to the authority , an advocate on behalf of passengers , said ''we were somewhat concerned about where this money came from . we were really concerned about whether they should be in the real_estate business and whether this is a prudent investment . '' mr . harris said that the money came from an unrestricted capital fund at the authority 's disposal and that the plan now was to refinance the purchase , place full debt service on both buildings and replenish the unrestricted fund , which is nearly exhausted . ''in a couple of years we come out ahead , based on very conservative projections , '' mr . harris said . ''the buildings will be in the black . '' it might be said that the story of the madison_avenue assemblage began last december , when trammell_crow , one of the nation 's largest developers , acquired 345 madison_avenue as part of a package of 20 commercial and industrial properties nationwide that had been owned by a subsidiary of the british_coal board pension_funds . in march , peter j . berman , senior managing director of the julien j . studley brokerage , was looking for a property on behalf of a foreign bank . it struck him that 345 madison_avenue , a small , 73 year old structure , was out of place in the trammell_crow portfolio , which more typically would include ventures like the ambitious renovation of 1301 avenue of the americas , between 52d and 53d streets , formerly the j . c . penney building and soon to be renamed the credit_lyonnais building . ''that 's the sort of property and the magnitude of investment that they do , '' mr . berman said . ''three forty five madison did n't make any sense . so we called them and begged the question . '' it turned out that no . 345 might be for sale . ''then my associate todd wenner decided that maybe the thing to do was look at the property next door , because it might perchance be available , '' mr . berman recalled . ''indeed , it was available . with this information , the most logical thing to do was turn to our left and offer it to the m.t.a . '' mr . berman and mr . wenner were joined by stephen d . heyman , senior managing director of the galbreath company . ''mr . heyman initially wrote us a letter saying that both 341 and 345 could be for sale , '' mr . harris said . ''we were quite concerned that if anyone were to know we were interested , people might get unrealistic about their prices and the chance to buy the buildings would evaporate . '' ''when you have an institutional buyer of any sort , '' mr . berman said , ''you wave a name of that magnitude in front of a potential seller and there is always a good chance that the price goes up . so we made our initial proposals through their law_firm , paul , weiss , rifkind , wharton_garrison . '' from start to finish , the negotiations took less than four months . perhaps the most hair raising episode for the brokers was their learning that a japanese buyer , whom they would not identify , was less than a day away from committing itself to 341 madison . ''the m.t.a . did n't want to commit to 341 without a commitment from 345 , '' mr . berman said . ''we had to reach trammell_crow to get them to commit to a transaction so the m.t.a . could feel safe about signing a contract on 341 , which they would have lost to the other potential purchaser . it was a horse_race . '' a further complication was that trammell_crow executives were not reachable in dallas because business had taken them to stamford , conn . on a day that telephone service was interrupted . by evening , however , the trammell_crow executives were in new york city , a deal had been reached and , mr . berman said , ''we went out to a hell of a dinner . '' besides the madison_avenue assemblage , the authority is also involved in trying to resolve an impasse over 383 madison_avenue , a 72 story tower that would be developed by g . ware travelstead of new york and first boston . the developers have a contract to buy 1.5 million square_feet of grand_central 's air_rights . the terminal and its air_rights are owned by the penn central corporation of cincinnati , a successor to the new york central railroad , which built the terminal and its vast subsurface rail yard . in august 1989 , the city planning commission rejected a plan to transfer some 800 , 000 square_feet of development rights from the terminal to the site of no . 383 , a full block bounded by 46th and 47th streets , madison and vanderbilt avenues . among other objections , city planners said the resulting building , with 1.4 million square_feet on a 43 , 000 square_foot lot , would vastly exceed existing density limits . two months later , the developers sued the city in state supreme_court . oral_arguments are scheduled for october . but under the aegis of the authority , mr . travelstead and first boston might be able to build a structure that was larger than zoning rules would ordinarily allow . in exchange , they would transfer 800 , 000 square_feet of air_rights to the state , to remain forever unused . in addition , they would pledge that the remaining 700 , 000 square_feet would never be used directly above the landmark terminal itself . after the terminal 's air_rights had been drawn down thereby reducing the price that is eventually to be paid to penn central the authority would take title to the property . once it had done so , it could begin in earnest its 400 million master plan for the renovation of the 77 year old terminal .",has a topic of estate
"many things determine the price of a house location , construction quality , schools , recent sale prices of nearby houses and properties as well as the general mood of the market . but some people believe that out of the ordinary occurrences , particularly those that get a lot of media attention , can also affect the value of a property . on june 25 a suit was filed , which has since been dropped , by three neighbors of martin r . frankel , the fugitive financier who is suspected of embezzling more than 300 million from insurance_companies and a charity . the neighbors assert that the value of their properties has been adversely_affected by their proximity to the two houses mr . frankel owns at 889 and 895 lake avenue in northern greenwich . when reached last week , the plaintiffs' lawyer , philip russell of greenwich , refused to say more than that the lawsuit had been withdrawn . the three neighbors on lake avenue joseph jacobs , mirek klabal and robert knox had asserted that along with the impact of the projected disrepair of the buildings , the notoriety surrounding the property , the heavy police presence that resulted and the reputation that will linger , would negatively affect the worth of their multimillion_dollar homes . they were also looking for compensation for what they believe were nuisances created by mr . frankel operating his business , sundew international ltd . , contrary to zoning regulations . william kaszics , a stamford based appraiser who said he has been in the real_estate business many years , and whose estimates are cited in the lawsuit that had been filed against mr . frankel , said he believed that the former plaintiffs' properties had dropped 20 percent in value . he said his determination was based on several factors , including ''all the notoriety on the property . '' ''in other words , '' he added , ''it 's going to carry a stigma . and that stigma is going to be with it for years and years . '' according to the brief , mr . kaszics said mr . jacobs 's house had dropped in value to 2 . 48 million from 3 . 1 million , mr . klabal 's house had dropped to 2 . 52 million from 3 . 15 million , and mr . knox 's had gone to 3 . 2 million from 4 million . mr . kaszics also considered what he and the former plaintiffs believed would be the imminent decay of the two houses owned by mr . frankel , which he guessed would go into disrepair and adversely_affect the quality of the immediate neighborhood . mr . kaszics would not give an estimate for how much each concern factored into his determination , but said his estimates came through looking at ''the whole effect . '' the projected decrease in sale prices , he said , was roughly decided by his determining what price the houses would sell at in the average marketing period of 90 to 120 days . barbara pape , a redding based appraiser with more than 20 years in the real_estate business , strongly disagreed with his findings . ''twenty percent to a multimillion_dollar property is a lot of dollars , '' she said . ''it would really be suspect that in this short amount of time anyone would have that data . '' the process of appraising a property is a complicated one , said ms . pape , and includes studies of similar affluent areas . ''there 's definite procedures and steps that have to be followed in order to have a credible opinion , '' she said , wary of mr . kaszics 's determination of such a large decrease . ''that to me sounds rather artificial , '' ms . pape said . mr . kaszics , however , noted that ' 'most of this stuff is subjective . '' he said he did not do any case studies . instead , he said , much of his estimation was based ''on all the sales of the area , the most recent sales . there 's very little room for comparison and you 're into a subjective level when you do these larger houses . there are n't that many of them . '' ms . pape also said that the inclusion of potential problems , such as the projected physical decay of the house , were inappropriate in an assessment . ''you ca n't forecast the future and say it 's going to decay , '' she said an appraiser has to evaluate the current situation . in redding , problems of decay existed in the house at 166 portland avenue that was burned to the ground april 18 , 1995 , by its owner , geoffrey ferguson , who was convicted of killing three of his tenants in the fire after a dispute over a bounced rent check . even with the extensive physical damage , ms . pape said , and a very different kind of media story , property values were probably not affected in the area . ''it 's clearly not the top end of the market , '' she said , as compared with northern greenwich . ''and i do n't know if the market values have been impacted as much as market behaviors , where you want to know who you 're renting from and who you 're renting to . '' she said she believes that events in the media merely bring attention to markets , but do n't necessarily affect them . ''i think if it happens it 's extremely short lived , '' said david fugitt , a real_estate_broker with john d . hastings inc . , in westport . mr . fugitt , like most real_estate brokers and appraisers , agrees that determining overall changes in market value due to special circumstances is difficult , primarily because there are generally very few examples to look at . in their best estimation , most feel that media related effects are marginal and short lived , if they ever exist at all . ''if you have to sell it within a few weeks , it 's one thing , '' he said , although that would probably constitute a distress sale anyway , which means the seller should expect to get only a portion of the market value . westport has been home to another issue over the past few years that has combined some celebrity appeal with questions surrounding property use and its effect on the neighbors . the presence of trucks and workers coming and going at the turkey hill road south house belonging to martha_stewart has been annoying to neighbors in the greens farms section , who have found her use of the property for filming television programs a nuisance . ''that was a whole different story , '' mr . fugitt said . ''large tractor trailers were coming and going on a regular basis . '' martha salmon , a real_estate_broker with preferred properties inc . , in westport , sees any such situation as affecting property value . ''who you share your space with street wise is extremely important , depending on how your neighbors choose to use that space , '' she said . at the same time , she said , positive media exposure , particularly when it involves the presence of a celebrity , as often happens in lower fairfield_county , can improve the value of one 's property . bruce gallo , a broker with century 21 in darien , believes otherwise . ''it implies value , '' he said , ''but i do n't think anyone 's going to pay for that . '' darien saw a large share of news_media during the trial of alex kelly , who was found guilty of first degree sexual_assault in 1997 , after having been in europe for almost 10 years before turning himself in in may 1995 . the family 's home on christie hill road , mr . gallo said , is not even a consideration of prospective_buyers in the area . ''i would say the neighborhood was not impacted , '' he said . ''i 've never heard anyone say , 'i do n't want to see a house in that area' . '' alice mae orr , a real_estate_broker with kelly associates in darien , said she believed the influence of media exposure is never long lasting , and that the effects would not last in the case of mr . frankel 's neighbors . ''i think once that 's all died down there wo n't be any problem , '' she said . ''truly i do n't feel we had any problem with the kelly situation . ' ''it does n't take long for people to forget , '' she said .",has a topic of estate
"even at lunchtime , when it fills with people , the crystal_palace atrium at 805 third avenue feels cold , barren and forbidding . its features and fixtures are sharp , angular and spare its palette is virtually monochromatic , with stainless_steel columns and gray granite walls and floors . the cohen brothers realty corporation , which developed , owns and leases the 31 story office tower at 50th_street , is taking steps to make it a friendlier place . it has hired milton glaser inc . of manhattan to redecorate the atrium and lobby , using motifs inspired in part by the crystal_palace of victorian england . "" the things we 're doing are embellishing , "" said timothy higgins of the glaser office , who is working on the project with david freedman . "" we 're trying to make the building more livable . "" among other things , arches will be installed on the existing space frames outside the entrances . in some spots , colored floor tiles will be substituted for granite pavers . one expansive gray wall will get a mural depicting clouds , balloons and flying machines . flying fish sculptures will be added to a waterfall on the opposite side of the atrium . and a fanciful chandelier will be installed . work is expected to begin this spring .",has a topic of estate
"when the dust settled today after a 24 hour game of legislative brinkmanship , one political reality was clear the republican governor and the senate_majority_leader had patched up their differences and outmaneuvered the democratic majority in the assembly . just a month ago , the leader of the senate republicans , joseph l . bruno , was at war with gov . george e . pataki and forged an alliance with the assembly speaker , sheldon_silver , to pass a budget over the governor 's veto . mr . bruno suggested in public that mr . pataki was a liar . the governor vowed to go after senate republicans in the next election . there was talk of a new day in albany , with a lame_duck governor and a muscular legislature willing to take on the executive branch and win . the republicans were splintered and the governor wounded . the assembly democrats were crowing . but the partnership between mr . bruno , a rural conservative , and mr . silver , a manhattan liberal , evaporated during the chaotic last week of the regular legislative session , before the summer break . by the time it was over , mr . bruno and the governor had not only mended their ties but had also given mr . silver a beating on two critical issues rent laws and the regulation of lobbyists . ''what we observed on the budget turns out to be a momentary blip where people 's interests happened to coincide , '' said blair horner , a lobbyist for the new york public_interest_research_group and a student of albany politics . ''we are now back to where we always were , which is partisan bickering and policy gridlock on important issues . '' mr . bruno emerged from the fray as a clear winner . he left the bargaining table this spring with most of what he wanted this legislative session in the new state budget that he and mr . silver agreed upon . that left him with little incentive to compromise on any of the bills taken up in the last minute crush of the legislative session . so he did n't . mr . pataki , meanwhile , has worked to repair relations with mr . bruno since the veto override debacle in may . he went to a barbecue this week at mr . bruno 's farm to hobnob with senators he had threatened to oust only six weeks ago . he spent hours on the phone with mr . bruno , going over what went wrong in the budget battle , aides said . nowhere were the shifting alliances between albany 's powerful trio more apparent than on the issue of rent control , a question of importance to mr . silver and the block of urban democrats who support him . mr . bruno is opposed to government price_fixing on rents . he lost a fight in 1997 to repeal the law . this time , he refused every effort by mr . silver to tie rent laws to the budget , insisting that it be negotiated last . but , after waiting , mr . silver was handed a take it or leave it offer , a surprise senate bill that passed just before the law expired that would extend the current law for eight years . mr . silver could only accept the senate 's bill or allow the rent laws to expire . today , mr . silver called the bill ''a sneak attack , '' as the dejected assembly democrats voted to accept it . mr . bruno also joined mr . pataki to outflank the assembly democrats on a bill that would have made lobbyists who try to influence the awarding of state contracts disclose their earnings and clients . after voicing support for one bill , the senate shifted its support to the governor 's version . that version not only has a narrower definition of what qualifies as lobbying of state authorities and agencies , but also includes a task_force to investigate judicial corruption , a sensitive issue for new york city democrats because of the scandals over judge selections in brooklyn . as a practical matter , mr . bruno 's decision to pass the governor 's bill and then leave for summer vacation has effectively blocked the passage of any lobbying reform , for now . unlike other legislatures , new york 's legislature does not have a procedure for resolving differences between bills , so when the two chambers pass different versions of the same bill , often nothing is enacted . the governor and mr . bruno said today that they were over the acrimony from the budget battle . people who work for them , however , say the hard feelings are not entirely gone , and mistrust lingers . still , they say , the governor has softened his once imperious way of dealing with the senate . mr . bruno , in turn , has decided to help the governor on issues like lobbying and rent , so long as the governor continues to cooperate . one reason for mr . bruno 's return to mr . pataki 's side is that they share political philosophies on most issues . but another is personality . the senator hates wasting time , and mr . silver 's well known penchant for using delay as a negotiating tactic drives mr . bruno crazy , aides say . ''if you do n't have a deadline , you just keep rehashing , '' mr . bruno said today , ''and if you keep rehashing , you do n't even make good hash . '' endgame in albany politics",has a topic of estate
"come midnight , eighth_avenue in midtown is a street of neon thrills , lurking dangers and impossible expectation , a felliniesque montage where a group of giggling theatergoers crowds into a peep booth to have something to talk about on the ride home . but there is pain in the face of the old man jiggling two quarters in a paper cup , and an odd frenzy in the voice of a man passing out handbills for a topless bar . doris brown , a 41 year old prostitute looking for business across from the port_authority_bus_terminal recently , said life was n't getting any easier . "" there 's money out here , but some nights it takes so long to get it , "" she said . except for the part near eighth_avenue , 42d street is now largely a surreal ghost_town awaiting a new life . it is eighth_avenue itself that has become the most sex saturated street in the city , the police , business people and leaders of community groups said . in the last five years , sex shops and adult theaters have tripled to 15 from 40th to 48th_street , and the corridor south to penn_station is peppered with about a half dozen more . in addition , many stores are situated on side streets just around the corner from eighth_avenue . although crime_statistics are not broken down by street , the police believe the crime rate is the highest in the times_square area . this is the avenue that seems never to improve , even as broadway and seventh_avenue to the east have taken on a new sparkle , and the clinton neighborhood immediately to the west more or less succeeds in burying its hell 's kitchen past . "" eighth_avenue is like the same jungle it was i do n't know how many years ago , "" said a businessman running for a late bus . "" it just swallows people up . "" gerald schoenfeld , chairman of the shubert organization , fears the street 's continuing blight threatens the revitalized theater district . "" it is a street people try to avoid , "" he said . but there are gathering whisps of change . several weeks ago , the state urban development corporation took title to all of the east side of eighth_avenue between 42d street and 43d street to build a hotel as part of its redevelopment project disney is among the bidders . the businesses there now include peep shows , video shops and adult book stores . the condemnation process is expected to start soon . william h . daly , director of the mayor 's office of midtown enforcement , said that , in terms of square_footage , this one step will eliminate nearly 30 percent of sex businesses on eighth_avenue between 40th and 53d streets . even more important , mayor rudolph w . giuliani is pushing for a yearlong moratorium on the opening of sex businesses in the city . during that period , zoning changes would be formulated to push the sex shops to the city 's industrial periphery . current shops would likely be allowed to recover at least some of their investment before having to move , although details have not been determined . last week , the city planning commission approved the moratorium . it next has to go the the city_council , and the city planning department is drafting zoning regulations . although the rules will apply equally to sex shops from the bronx to staten_island , perhaps its greatest impact will be felt on eighth_avenue . "" the initiative is generic and citywide , but would certainly change eighth_avenue , "" said andrew lynn , executive director of the planning commission . for the times_square business_improvement_district , which is now focusing on eighth_avenue , such action is crucial to stemming the street 's slide . "" we absolutely need government intervention , "" said gretchen dykstra , president of the group . according to a recent study by her group , there is economic incentive for landlords to rent to owners of sex shops . the study found that rents from 40th street to 53d street for sex businesses range from 90 to 125 per square_foot per year . rents for nonpornographic uses along eighth_avenue are 40 to 50 a square_foot north of 48th_street and 50 to 80 south of it . still , the study found , there 's money to be made on the avenue average rent for nonpornographic uses elsewhere in western manhattan was 35 . the study also found a lower commercial vacancy_rate than for the city as a whole 9.6 percent , compared with 15 percent citywide a figure that attests to the strong commercial interest in the area . "" eighth_avenue could become a far more vibrant retail strip , "" the report declared . there is some evidence this is already happening . ben_jerry 's ice_cream says the company 's store at the northeast corner of 43d street is one of its highest volume sellers . partly as a result , green mountain coffee said it is planning to open an upscale coffee bar next door . between 46th and 47th streets , bright new awnings outside bustling establishments indicate a new retail energy . the once grubby port_authority_bus_terminal , at eighth_avenue and 42d street , bristles with new upscale fast_food outlets and , after years of trying , the port_authority finally convinced a bank to install automated_teller_machines earlier this year . it quickly became one of the city 's busiest a.t.m . centers . worldwide plaza , the five year old complex between 49th and 50th streets , has no vacancies for either commercial or residential space . as a result , real_estate executives and property owners voice much optimism about the avenue 's future . "" eighth_avenue is going to have a fantastic decade , "" said arthur zeckendorf , whose family built worldwide plaza and is scouting for other opportunities on the street . but it is premature to say any corners have been turned . the street still has a dangerous edge , and considerable low level drug dealing continues , despite beefed up police efforts . "" there are about 30 junkies on the corner every morning when i walk my dog , "" said the rev . dale d . hansen , pastor of st . luke 's lutheran church on 46th_street , just around the southwest corner of eighth_avenue . but things are still better than they used to be , neighborhood people say . child_pornography , a staple of the old 42d street a decade ago , is seldom seen on eighth_avenue , the managers of the video stores say . and the dozens of massage parlors , more dens of violence than sex , were chased from eighth_avenue in the early 1980 's . "" this was a meaner street back then , "" said mr . daly , of the midtown enforcement office . a backhanded compliment comes from ernest schroeder , who runs the full moon bar at 46th_street . "" they 've eliminated the low lifes up and down the street , "" he growled . "" those were my customers . "" the sex shop business has changed , too . mr . daly says that organized_crime 's hold on pornography has been loosened , largely , he said , because of aggressive federal prosecutions . smaller entrepreneurs , many from india or pakistan , have taken over , he said . with little capital , they tend not to offer live entertainment , but pirated , often crudely reproduced videos at 5 each or three for 12 . "" there are too many video stores , and all of us hurt each other , "" said a worker at xxx video at 778 eighth_avenue . "" it is a bad sign . "" rick travis , owner of the pleasure palace at 733 eighth_avenue , said that he voted for mr . giuliani and would do so again , but that the mayor was wrong in trying to control sex establishments . "" we pay millions of dollars in taxes and give jobs to a lot of people who normally would otherwise be unemployed , "" he said . he also contended that sex shops were a benefit to property owners . the oriental gift_shop that preceded him in his space did not generate enough business to pay the rent , he said , whereas he is prompt with his . "" my landlady wanted somebody who could pay the rent , "" he said . "" it does n't make her a porn queen . it makes her a businessperson . "" even so , there are property owners who are declining to rent to pornographers . reasons vary from moral considerations to concern that the value of upper floors will be lowered by renting to an objectionable tenant on the ground floor . "" we want to upgrade our property , not downgrade it , "" said richard barth , vice_president of corporate properties for chemical_bank . he said he has passed up many opportunities to get high rents from pornographers for the bank 's property on the northwest corner of 43d street . robert cohen , a developer who just bought four buildings , including the defunct covenant house social service agency between 43d and 44th streets , said he would never rent to a sex shop , despite the "" crazy numbers "" he said he has been offered . "" you end up cannibalizing the value of your investment , "" he said . peer_pressure is also a factor . carvel moore , executive director of the fashion center business_improvement_district , which includes eighth_avenue from 35th to 41st streets , says more than 80 percent of the landlords there have signed agreements not to rent to sex shops . among them is mark orbach , whose commercial space at 585 eighth_avenue was vacant for almost a year . he heard generous offers from sex merchants , but owners of neighboring buildings begged him not to accept them . they even enlisted his rabbi to lobby him . the result was that mr . orbach rented his space to a clothing store for 60 percent of what he could have taken in from a pornographer his neighbors gave him money to help him make up for the loss . "" i would like to clean up eighth_avenue , "" he explained .",has a topic of estate
"lead for most of the last two years , with this city bitterly preoccupied by a housing desegregation struggle , activity in city hall centered on the fourth floor , in the ornate city_council chamber and the office of mayor nicholas c . wasicsko behind it . for most of the last two years , with this city bitterly preoccupied by a housing desegregation struggle , activity in city hall centered on the fourth floor , in the ornate city_council chamber and the office of mayor nicholas c . wasicsko behind it . now , mayor elect henry_spallone is lowering the profile and seeking to change the focus . the councilman who came to represent defiance of the court ordered housing is setting up his office on the second floor , in the former office of management and budget . mr . spallone , who won the mayoralty by a narrow margin , does not dwell any more on the issue that eventually attracted national attention . ''it 's before the u.s . supreme_court , '' mr . spallone said , ' 'so in the meantime we will be working on bringing this city into the 21st_century . ''we 're concerned about support services for the needy , especially in the southwest corner of yonkers , '' he said , referring to the clustering of minorities that attracted the court 's attention . ''housing , crime , drugs , recreation , we 're looking for grants , and we 're not looking back . '' 'we 're thinking modern' mr . spallone , a 63 year old former new york city policeman and the son of a bricklayer from italy , can turn any question on any subject to the vision that he says he has for yonkers , a technique he pursued effectively in the mayor 's race against mr . wasicsko . ''we 're thinking modern , we 're thinking development , '' mr . spallone said . ''we 're prepared to be competitive with manhattan and with new jersey . we feel we 're a gold mine sitting here just waiting to be developed . yonkers is a great city , and when you look at it you realize some of the press we got was really undeserved . '' undeserved or not , yonkers became a focus of interest two years ago when the city_council refused to reverse its rejection of a consent_decree it had earlier approved calling for the construction of 200 units of low_income_housing in the city 's eastern and northern neighborhoods , which are predominantly white . judge leonard b . sand of federal district court in manhattan cited the council for contempt and imposed fines against the city that began at 100 and doubled each day . intentional discrimination after two weeks , with the daily fines approaching 1 million and with hundreds of employees of the nearly bankrupt city facing layoffs , two of the council dissenters , but not mr . spallone who had opposed the consent_decree from the beginning , changed their votes and the crisis appeared over . but the housing desegregation plan , drawn up by judge sand to help remedy what he found was 40 years of intentional discrimination , remains unfulfilled although construction of the first 200 federally_subsidized housing units on seven sites should begin in february . the mayor elect may soon have to decide the city 's role in the construction phase . mr . wasicsko , speaking in his nearly empty office , said ''the housing 's going to be built , and its up to spallone to calm the waters and try to make it as smooth as possible . ''it will be very interesting , '' mr . wasicsko said . ''i 've worked with hank for four years on the council and he 's never really said yes to anything . the decisions that he and the council will have to make in the first six months of their tenure will be among the most difficult ever made in this city huge tax increases , housing compliance , funding of school integration and there will be no running away for mr . spallone . '' incentives for builders mr . spallone , who takes office monday , says only that ''we 'll do nothing until the appeals come down , '' referring to what he and the councilmen hope will be a supreme_court finding that judicial orders to legislators are unconstitutional . but the high_court could simply find that they defied the federal court , and not deal with the question of judges as legislators . meanwhile , judge sand has apparently concluded that another portion of the plan , the construction of subsidized and market rate housing through the use of incentives for builders , is not working , and may have to be changed . the first formal discussions will not involve the mayor . mr . spallone said , ''i think the judge has to recognize that his remedy is all wrong , but i want to wait until the constitutional question is resolved before i even meet with judge sand . '' they have never met ''one on one , '' mr . spallone said , ''but now , when i 'm the mayor of the city , he has an opportunity to ask me . '' the mayor elect is known as independent and outspoken . as a councilman he was occasionally excluded from negotiating sessions seeking a consensus because he was deemed too difficult to deal with . soon after his election he said he would ignore a blue ribbon panel in naming two trustees to the board of education . ''i did that , '' he said , ''because i wanted my people in . '' he has since met with the yonkers p.t.a. , he said , ''and told them i would go through the panel , but i asked them to give me monthly reports on every school because i want to know exactly what 's happening . ''",has a topic of estate
"lead the 14 story esplanade hotel on the upper west side , which is is half transient and half residential and now under new ownership , is in the midst of a thorough renovation that will eventually turn it into a first class operation , with first class rates . the 14 story esplanade hotel on the upper west side , which is is half transient and half residential and now under new ownership , is in the midst of a thorough renovation that will eventually turn it into a first class operation , with first class rates . but for now , although rates have gone up 25 percent since renovation of the 1927 reddish brick building began in january , rooms can still be had for 75 to 140 a night . ''there 's a market for reasonable rooms , '' said joseph kain , who owns the hotel , at 305 west_end avenue between 74th and 75th streets , with muttle cohen , both real_estate investors with offices in brooklyn . ''that 's the reason that people come to us . they do n't want to spend 200 a night . we 're on the upper west side , not east 55th_street . '' the renovation , to be finished by the end of the year , will entail refurbishing all the rooms for overnight transient guests , renovating the lobby and hallways and replacing all the windows . about half of the 181 units , made up of singles and one and two bedroom suites , have views of the hudson_river . by mid 1988 , rates will be comparable to those at some of the more expensive hotels on the east side , mr . kain said . it is likely that as the long term residents on monthly leases in the rent_stabilized units leave , those rooms will be renovated and added to the transient stock .",has a topic of estate
"chances are that if a condominium looks like a warehouse or factory , it used to be a warehouse or factory . but that 's not the case with 495 west street , a newly built 11 story factory like loft condominium offering nine units of raw space overlooking the river , between west 12th and jane streets in the far west_village . ''we 're providing a blank canvas , '' said cary tamarkin , whose firm , tamarkin architecture development , is the architect and developer of the project , which cost 13 . 5 million . once the project is completed by the end of june , residents will be able to custom finish their lofts seven floor throughs and two penthouse duplexes . the no frills lofts include windows triple glazed to block out noise from traffic rumbling along the west side highway below . they also feature concrete floors , poured concrete columns and four sets of risers for gas , electricity and plumbing . ''it 's big , muscular space , '' said mr . tamarkin , who bought the site , then a weed strewn lot , in 1997 . the two 4 , 700 square_foot duplex penthouses with 20 foot_ceilings and two fireplaces selling for over 4 million are already spoken for . floor throughs on the second to seventh floors , each with about 3 , 100 square_feet of space , are expected to range in price from 1 . 4 million to 2 . 4 million . a ground floor 2 , 000 square_foot loft is expected to cost 995 , 000 . all have 10 1 2 foot high ceilings . ribbon steel windows , 48 feet long and 8 feet high , in lofts above the ground floor offer river views and 18 by 18 foot windows frame panoramic views from the duplexes . the ground floor apartment has a private garden at the rear . the windowless northern side of the building , which faces a parking_lot , houses two stairways and two elevators . the upper duplex has exclusive roof rights the lower one , situated along the building 's setback , has a_10 by 68 foot terrace facing the water . two 10 foot high , key operated elevators , each with a 3 , 500 pound capacity , will open directly into apartments . an unadorned lobby with poured concrete floors will have an part time doorman and video intercom . visible from its entrance will be a japanese maple in the minimally landscaped common yard . corbeled buff and brown bricks give the facade the appearance of corrugated cardboard and a water_tower sits atop the building . ''this is elegant , '' said jan hashey , a broker with douglas_elliman , the sales agent . ''factory elegant , '' she added . ''it could be a factory outside milan . ''",has a topic of estate
"everyone seemed to have come out ahead . in 1999 , shaking off its last few crumbs of foreclosed real_estate , the city sold a decrepit , century old brownstone at 330 west 86th_street , flanked by 15 story towers . under a special provision of state law designed to encourage the rehabilitation of ' 'slum or blighted'' dwellings , the city sold the brownstone to some of its half dozen or so tenants for the apparently modest price of 340 , 000 , on the condition that they clear up its building_code violations . according to city lawyers and local officials , the building 's new owners were also supposed to preserve the structure . ''we did it to prevent development , '' said former city councilwoman ronnie eldridge , who helped facilitate the transaction . ''it was to be housing for the people who had been living there for a long time . we felt that they were really committed , and that they were going to take care of the building . '' so much for intentions . in march 2001 , less than two years after buying the 20 foot_wide building , the residents sold it for 2 . 25 million to a company called darkhorse development , which plans a 17 story glass and brick residential building on the site . darkhorse 's redevelopment plans have sparked a six year legal fight involving the city , darkhorse , and the building 's next door neighbors . the suit was filed in 2000 by residents of one of the 15 story neighbors , who were alarmed at the prospect of having their windows blocked . in documents filed in january with the state court of appeals , city lawyers described the new owners' plans as an ''abuse of the public trust'' and argued that the city would have sold the building for much more if the plan had been to redevelop the lot . a decision is expected this month . but in an interview the other day , robert ricciardelli , one of darkhorse 's owners , argued that when selling the building the city had not intended that it be preserved , and that it would never have brought more than 340 , 000 at auction , because most or all of the apartments were rent_stabilized . noting the presence of taller buildings on either side of the brownstone , mr . ricciardelli said ''we 're not doing anything crazy . we have plans to basically fill in the skyline on that lot . '' some people , he said , would prefer to keep the neighborhood the same . ''but this is new york city , '' he added . ''things change . '' alex mindlin neighborhood report upper west side",has a topic of estate
"lead closings in the week ending april 16 manhattan carnegie_hill 265 , 000 16 east 96th_street 2 bedroom , 1 bath , 1 , 100 sq . ft . prewar co op entry_foyer , high ceilings , original moldings and details maintenance 473 , 52 tax deductible ( broker wallach management ) closings in the week ending april 16 manhattan carnegie_hill 265 , 000 16 east 96th_street 2 bedroom , 1 bath , 1 , 100 sq . ft . prewar co op entry_foyer , high ceilings , original moldings and details maintenance 473 , 52 tax deductible ( broker wallach management ) greenwich_village 675 , 000 77 seventh_avenue ( vermeer ) 2 bedroom , 2 bath , 1 , 200 sq . ft . postwar co op 24 hr . doorman , dining_area , wrapped terrace maintenance 1 , 048 , 54 tax deductible ( broker kingman associates ) inwood 70 , 200 70 park terrace east 1 bedroom , 1 bath , 618 sq . ft . prewar co op windowed dining_room , hardwood floors , high ceilings maintenance 447 , 59 tax deductible ( broker c uptown realty ) kips bay_area 155 , 000 140 east 28th street 1 bedroom , 1 bath , 720 sq . ft . co op in a recently renovated prewar building manned_elevator , dining_foyer , fireplace maintenance 764 , 49 tax deductible ( broker h.h . kleigerman associates ) upper east side 830 , 000 870 fifth avenue ( 68th st . ) 2 bedroom , 2 1 2 bath , 1 , 500 sq . ft . postwar co op 24 hr . doorman , manned elevators , dining_room , parquet_floors , central_park view maintenance 1 , 423 , 51 tax deductible ( broker william b . may ) upper east side 345 , 000 111 east 85th_street ( savoy ) 1 bedroom , 1 1 2 bath , 1 , 000 sq . ft . postwar co op 24 hr . doorman , concierge , large dining_area maintenance 770 , 58 tax deductible ( broker b.j . gottesman ) bronx dyre avenue area 130 , 000 3711 rombouts avenue 3 bedroom , 1 bath , single family , attached brick house dining_room , finished_basement , 25 by 100 ft . lot taxes 800 ( broker cancro realty ) riverdale 80 , 000 3875 waldo avenue 1 bedroom , 1 bath , 700 sq . ft . co op in a recently renovated prewar building new windows , remodeled_kitchen , high ceilings maintenance 240 , 50 tax deductible ( broker marilyn morris b . sopher ) brooklyn green wood terrace 200 , 000 210 23d street 3 family , attached , frame house 1 bedroom , 1 bath , dining_room , large kitchen in each unit large closets , original moldings and details , 19 by 100 ft . lot taxes 950 ( broker renaissance properties ) sunset_park 240 , 000 438 50th_street 2 family , 3 story , brownstone rowhouse 4 bedrooms , 1 1 2 baths , large kitchen in primary duplex 2 bedrooms , 1 bath in floor through rental unit dining_room in each full cellar , 20 by 100 ft . lot taxes 920 ( broker mcpyel associates ) queens cambria heights 179 , 000 119 45 234th street 4 bedroom , 1 1 2 bath , single family cape_cod dining_room , large kitchen , second kitchen and 1 2 bath in finished_basement , 40 by 100 ft . lot taxes 900 ( broker john e . miller realty ) forest_hills 160 , 000 72 10 110th_street ( euclid ) 2 bedroom , 2 bath , 1 , 000 sq . ft . postwar co op part time doorman , dining_area , windowed_kitchen maintenance 591 , 50 tax deductible ( broker m.j . raynes ) staten_island huguenot 225 , 000 763 ionia avenue 4 bedroom , 1 1 2 bath , single family high ranch_dining_room , large kitchen , family room , attached 1 car garage 42 by 100 ft . lot taxes 1 , 500 ( broker victoria realty ) west brighton 239 , 000 582 delafield avenue 5 bedroom , 2 bath , single family , detached_colonial_dining_room , large kitchen , fireplace , full basement , detached , 1 car garage , 50 by 150 ft . lot taxes 1 , 000 ( broker otto vitale real_estate )",has a topic of estate
"the once squalid holland hotel has stood empty since the city closed it in 1988 , a hulking symbol of the bureaucratic bungling and waste associated with the city 's homeless policies through the 1980 's . now , in a new life indicative of the city 's current move to shift homeless care to private nonprofit groups , the building on west 42d street is about to be resurrected as holland house , with 306 apartments for needy people . midtown community leaders and advocates for the homeless , who criticized the city 's earlier efforts to turn the welfare hotel into a homeless_shelter as classic mismanagement , are predicting holland house will be a great success . renovations are expected to be completed by july 1 , after which residents will start moving in . the 21 story holland , at 351 west 42d street , is managed by project renewal , formerly the manhattan bowery corporation , an agency specializing in drug and alcohol treatment and job training that manages four residences and shelters . "" it 's going to be wonderful , a model residence , "" said the chairman of the 42d street civic_association , william j . rappaport , whose group filed a suit to close the old hotel . now he hopes to help raise donations for amenities at the new holland . another former critic , the 42d street development corporation 's president , frederic s . papert , calls the current project "" just terrific . "" holland house will draw its residents from applicants referred by social service agencies . the mix of residents , worked out in negotiations with community board 4 , will include about 40 people with aids , 40 who are mentally ill , 100 who are recovering from drug and alcohol addiction and 120 who are homeless . the income ceiling is 22 , 000 , and monthly rents will range from 400 to 480 . a typical vinyl tiled room is 10 by 12 feet with a closet , private bathroom and kitchen alcove with a sink , small refrigerator and microwave oven . the modest furnishings include a bed , a table and chairs . every other floor has a laundry room and lounge . lower floors have offices , counseling and meeting rooms , an exercise room , an auditorium and a kitchen and dining_rooms , where some residents will prepare low cost meals as training for jobs in private business . the holland was built in 1919 as a women 's residence , then became a mid priced hotel and went into a slow decline until about 1981 , when it spiraled downward as a crowded single_room_occupancy hotel with vermin , shootings , drugs , prostitution and more than 1 , 000 health and safety code_violations . in the mid 80 's , the city spent millions of dollars a year on the holland rates were as high as 1 , 800 a week to cram a welfare family of four into one room . eventually the city , hoping to turn the holland into a temporary shelter , paid 13 million to buy it and another 12 million on a botched and unfinished renovation overseen by the human_resources administration . for years , officials were unable to find someone to run the hotel . last year , the city sold the 21 story building to project renewal for 2 . its current 11 million renovation , using federal money funneled through the city department of housing preservation and development , started in june and is running two months ahead of schedule and within its budget . "" this is undoubtedly going to stand as a textbook example of how nonprofits can outshine government in providing better housing and services for fewer dollars , "" said mary brosnahan , the executive director of the coalition for the homeless . "" you could n't write a more classic scenario . "" bruce lambert neighborhood report midtown flatbush",has a topic of estate
"lead the apartment building that general_atlantic realty is erecting on the former site of the children 's aid society will be tall . not twin tower tall , not even trump tower tall , but its 46 stories will make it a giant for the southwest corner of the 88th_street first avenue intersection . the apartment building that general_atlantic realty is erecting on the former site of the children 's aid society will be tall . not twin tower tall , not even trump tower tall , but its 46 stories will make it a giant for the southwest corner of the 88th_street first avenue intersection . the building will be so tall that its marketers are already hawking its corner windows and its unobstructed views of the city west over its short neighbor , the church of the holy_trinity , and of the east_river over the four short row_houses lined up just south of it . it will be so tall that its architect , james stewart polshek and partners , added horizontal bands and started the balconies at lower levels than normal to make the whole thing look shorter . but although the slender pinnacle of red brick and aluminum is rising from a small piece of ground , it was begun last fall as of right without zoning reviews . the project was made possible when general_atlantic transferred air_rights from the row_houses , 1681 to 1689 first avenue , which it owns , to the corner site , home to the children 's aid society before it moved to east 22d street . general_atlantic also received a_20 percent building bonus under the city 's inclusionary_zoning program for constructing an 18 unit moderate income apartment house nearby at 96th_street and second avenue . it is among the first companies to take the city up on the inclusionary_zoning offer . its president , philip e . aarons , is a former president of the city 's public development corporation . the building will be finished by the summer of 1990 . prices for its 167 condominiums , ranging from studios to four bedrooms , have not yet been set .",has a topic of estate
"lead the landlords of rent_stabilized_apartments in new york city said yesterday that they wanted rent increases of up to 18 percent on apartments whose leases are due for renewal in the 12 months beginning oct . 1 . the landlords of rent_stabilized_apartments in new york city said yesterday that they wanted rent increases of up to 18 percent on apartments whose leases are due for renewal in the 12 months beginning oct . 1 . at a news conference at its midtown offices , the rent_stabilization association , which represents landlords , said it would request an increase of 14 percent for one year leases and 18 percent for two year leases . the increases for tenants of 450 , 000 rent_stabilized_apartments are to be determined by the end of next month by the city 's rent guidelines board . the board begins hearings on the increases today at 1 police plaza . last year , the board granted rate increases of 6 percent for one year leases and 9 percent for two year leases . the landlords' initial request last year was for increases of 10 and 15 percent , respectively . almost one million apartments are covered by rent_stabilization . 'bleak future of rental_housing' the president of the landlords' group , john j . gilbert 3d , said the requested increases were based on a study for the landlords that concluded that their operating costs had risen 5.9 percent over the year that ended last month , led by a 62 percent jump in insurance costs . the study was prepared by the arthur d . little company . the issue before the board , mr . gilbert said , was ''whether that body is going to take seriously the bleak future of rental_housing'' in a city where ''nearly 2 , 000 apartments still are being abandoned each month because property owners cannot collect enough rent to pay their taxes . '' last month , the board received the annual price survey required by the rent_stabilization system . the survey , prepared by the urban systems research and engineering company of cambridge , mass . , found landlord operating costs had risen 2.1 percent , led by a jump of 33 . 7 percent for insurance . the chairman of the new york state tenant and neighborhood coalition , william rowen , described the landlords' requests as ''an expression of their greed . '' he added that he thought ''there ought to be a freeze , if not a rollback , '' of the increases granted last year . low rent surcharges mr . rowen said that although his group favored opening landlords' books to help determine rents , the finding of urban systems on costs was , ''in my estimation , a reliable figure . '' in addition to the percentage increases , the landlords' association is seeking additional monthly low rent charges of 30 for apartments renting for less than 200 and 40 for those renting between 200 and 400 . last year , the guidelines board approved an additional 15 for apartments renting for less than 350 a month . the landlords are seeking the end of a 7.5 percent vacancy allowance that applies when a stabilized apartment changes hands . it would be replaced with what mr . gilbert described as ''temporary decontrol , '' to allow an apartment to attain market rates before reverting to stabilized control . the landlords are also requesting a_10 percent rise for apartments that have been continuously occupied for at least eight years and that rent for more than 400 , as well as a once a year 10 surcharge on all stabilized apartments to cover an administrative fee paid by landlords .",has a topic of estate
"fourteen mostly wooded acres overlooking the mohingson creek in the center of aberdeen township will soon be transformed into a new neighborhood 290 upscale rental_apartments spread over six victorian style buildings , four stories tall . the 38 million gated_community , jefferson at aberdeen station , is the first development of any significant size in two decades in this nearly fully developed 5 . 4 square_mile monmouth_county municipality . it will rise over the next 20 months on the site , which is near both exit 117 of the garden state parkway and new jersey transit 's aberdeen matawan train_station , with direct service to manhattan , at the corner of atlantic avenue . the apartments will have one or two bedrooms and sometimes a den as well and such features as nine foot high ceilings , washers and dryers and high tech wiring , said jack englert , regional area managing partner for the developer , jpi . the company , based in dallas , is among the nation 's largest developers of rental_apartments . he said jpi , with ge_capital as an investment partner , builds an average of about 13 , 000 units a year and leases and manages more than 24 , 000 apartments nationally . the aberdeen project , which marks jpi 's initial foray into new jersey , will also include a 5 , 600 square_foot clubhouse with an exercise room and a business conference center , as well as an outdoor swimming_pool and garage parking . monthly rents for the units , with 767 to 1 , 297 square_feet , will range from 1 , 250 to 2 , 300 when leasing begins in august . mr . englert said the aberdeen location ''was perfectly suited'' for his company 's development , which he said is tailored to young professional couples as well as empty nesters . one reason is that few luxury rentals have been developed in northern monmouth_county in 20 years , he said . in addition , he said , the site is visible from the parkway and is close to ''a decent number of jobs in that part of the county , as well as a 45 minute train commute to manhattan . '' as part of the project , whose main entrance will be at the intersection of lower main_street and central avenue , there will be a walkway extending from the rear of the property two tenths of a mile to the rail station . the township welcomes the project because it will not strain services , said mark coren , the township 's manager . he pointed out that 40 percent of the units are one bedrooms , limiting the project 's impact on schools . the project is part of a larger redevelopment plan to revive the area adjoining the train_station . with 3 , 000 riders a day , the station is among the busiest on the north jersey coast line , according to new jersey transit , which oversees the state 's mass transit system . the plan is being pursued by the transit agency , aberdeen township and the neighboring matawan borough . the borough encompasses less than 2.3 square miles , is mostly developed and is nearly surrounded by aberdeen . the redevelopment district consists of 100 acres straddling the two communities . of the total , 60 acres are in aberdeen and are dotted with an empty paint factory , a warehouse , woodlands and some residences . the 40 acres in matawan , not far from the borough 's downtown , are laced with mostly old industrial buildings and vacant parcels that double as parking_lots . new jersey transit owns more than 20 acres that it now uses for two parking_lots . the area sits roughly between the garden state parkway to the northeast , matawan creek to the west and commuter parking_lots to the southwest and it is bisected by main_street and atlantic avenue , which form the border between aberdeen and matawan . explaining the importance of the redevelopment for aberdeen , mr . coren said that the only way for the township to grow or diversify ''is to change land use patterns . '' joseph p . leo , the borough administrator for matawan , added , ''with so many people coming into the borough to use the train and leaving , we can , '' through new development , ' 'reverse that flow into the community . '' at its heart the redevelopment plan , which still is being negotiated by the three parties , calls for transforming the now underutilized area into a vibrant patchwork of offices , stores , residences and entertainment uses . for aberdeen that translates to what mayor david sobel called ''a public place , '' where people could go to live , work and play . in matawan , mayor robert clifton said the train_station area could become an extension of the downtown and help turn the borough into a destination . both men said they also hoped the redevelopment would diversify their economic bases and , in turn , keep a lid on property_taxes and perhaps even lower them . the two communities have increasingly become more reliant on residential property owners for their tax revenue as industries close or move away . and matawan 's downtown a half mile strip of stores , offices and restaurants along main_street has also suffered as retailers fled to nearby routes 34 and 35 , where shopping centers and strip malls had opened . the plan also seeks to mitigate traffic , a major concern , by improving roads and traffic signals . new jersey transit is also contemplating expanding shuttle bus service to the train_station from surrounding communities . another hope is that having projects like jefferson at aberdeen station , with its direct walkway to the rail station , will promote use of the train . increased ridership would benefit new jersey transit , which for years has been encouraging mixed_use_development around its stations . last summer the agency awarded aberdeen and matawan a planning grant to help them ' 'define how best to approach redevelopment around the train_station and to crystallize development opportunities , '' said mark v . gordon , senior director of real_estate and economic_development at the transit agency . ''cooperation among the three parties has the potential for leading to an improved land use and plan for the area . '' agreeing with that assessment are officials from aberdeen , which has had its redevelopment plan in place since 1999 , and from matawan , which is to adopt its plan by april . the redevelopment area could also be designated a ''transit village , '' under a program administered by new jersey transit and the state 's department of transportation . under the program , participating communities are eligible for certain state and federal financing and grants . construction of jefferson at aberdeen station , mayor sobel said , ''will send the message that we are serious about the redevelopment plan . '' mayor clifton of matawan added that the project would also spur additional interest in the area . mr . englert , the jpi executive , said having the project in the redevelopment zone helped with ' 'securing permits'' and provided a ''cooperative environment'' for creating a rental project . the company will also receive a partial tax abatement from the township over a period of 20 years . for its part jpi agreed , among other things , to contribute 1 . 8 million to aberdeen 's affordable_housing trust fund . the project is proceeding at a time when new jersey 's rental market remains tight and the vacancy_rate low . it is about 5 percent for the state and less than that for northern monmouth_county , where development of luxury rentals has been limited , said nathan slovin , executive vice_president of the new jersey apartment association , a trade group in east_brunswick . jefferson at aberdeen station , designed by edi architecture of houston , is one of two major rental developments planned for monmouth_county . the other is a 296 unit project being developed on 70 acres of former farmland off route 79 in nearby freehold township by avalonbay communities of alexandria , va . there , the one to three bedroom apartments will have 750 to 1 , 325 square_feet , and monthly rents are expected to be 1 , 000 to 1 , 600 , according to the developer . several residential brokers said the highest rents proposed for apartments at jpi 's project 2 , 300 a month would test the upper limits of the area 's apartment market . ''i do n't know if there will be enough people willing to pay that much when a four bedroom colonial in the area rents in the 2 , 000 range , '' said deborah venedam , manager of the aberdeen office of weichert_realtors . mr . slovin added , ''the project will not be a slam_dunk , but there will be an audience for it because there is an extraordinary need for housing , whether upscale or any part of the scale . '' mr . englert of jpi said his company was willing ''to take the risk'' because ''there was a pent up demand for luxury rentals . '' he also said the project 's proximity to the train_station would increase its attractiveness for people living in north_jersey and working in new york city as well as for manhattanites seeking lower rents .",has a topic of estate
"london roman_abramovich , the russian tycoon who owns the chelsea soccer club , has an apartment there . so does bruce oldfield , princess_diana 's favorite fashion_designer . but knightsbridge probably is most familiar to americans as the home of harrods department_store , the shopping fantasyland where you can buy everything from high fashion to 300 varieties of cheese . this central_london neighborhood also has some of the most expensive property in london , with prices exceeding 2 , 500 , or more than 4 , 500 , a square_foot . a new report from the savills real_estate agency said the average house price in knightsbridge now tops 892 , 100 , or about 1 . 7 million . ''property prices have gone up 20 percent in knightsbridge in the last six months , '' said cliff gardiner of the buying solution , a property location agency in london . ''that simply reflects the massive demand for properties in this very popular area . '' and while such prices would result in an expensive second home , alexander millett , a real_estate agent , noted that the purchase would be a solid investment . after all , real_estate in knightsbridge ''has consistently outperformed the rest of the united_kingdom and other london areas in terms of capital growth and investment yield , '' said mr . millet , a negotiator at the w.a . ellis agency , which has operated in knightsbridge since 1868 . also , he added , the area ''has shown strong resistance to both national and global market corrections and shown exponential growth during upward trends . '' to meet the demand for housing , developers have moved into the neighborhood . one new project is the knightsbridge , a development of 203 apartments and mews houses , or town houses , which was completed in 2005 . its prices range from 660 , 000 , or more than 1 million , for a studio to 16 . 1 million pounds , or about 30 million , for a penthouse . the development includes 340 parking_spaces , which are being sold at 130 , 000 pounds , or about 250 , 000 , each . real_estate experts say one development in the area is destined to become the most expensive property in london the mandarin oriental residences at one hyde_park . the 86 apartment development is set to go up on the site of the 1950 's bowater house office block , which is being demolished . the apartments , which will be managed by the nearby mandarin oriental hotel , are expected to be complete by 2009 and will sell for at least 25 million , a sale price of about 4 , 000 , or 7 , 500 , per square_foot . ''we already have people interested in taking one of these flats , '' said robert bailey of robert bailey property , a buying agency that specializes in luxury housing . ''this development and others have a real appeal for overseas buyers , which is where much of the top end of the market lies . there 's been a big influx of russians , italians , australians . indeed , all the international jet set has come . '' what else does one 's money buy in knightsbridge ? real_estate experts say space , security and accessibility . knightsbridge is just a short stroll from hyde_park , where there is boating on the serpentine lake , and from luxury stores like harvey nichols , at the corner of knightsbridge and sloane street . the neighborhood also is not far from the theaters in the west_end . ''and what 's slightly hidden in knightsbridge is the strong diplomatic presence in the area , which means you have a great deal of visible and invisible security , '' said simon umfreville , director of the chesterton real_estate agency 's knightsbridge office . ''you can walk around at midnight or 1 a.m . and feel completely safe , which you ca n't do in places like covent_garden or some other areas of london . '' when it comes to space , knightsbridge offers the kind of large apartments that international buyers , and americans in particular , expect to see . ''the emphasis in knightsbridge is on large living spaces and there 's a strong market for good quality apartments that are 3 , 000 square_feet or more in size , '' mr . umfreville said , adding that many properties have high ceilings and large windows . but , unlike most of the rest of central_london 's neighborhoods , knightsbridge has a commercial heart that thrives alongside its tree lined garden squares and grand avenues . for example , trevor square , a distinguished area developed in the early 1800 's , is just off traffic clogged brompton road . ''knightsbridge is an area in which it 's difficult to buy a private garden and that appeals especially to international buyers , who prefer a communal garden square where they pay a service fee and someone else looks after it , '' mr . gardiner said . ''knightsbridge actually has the feel of a village in that it 's a very residential area but with some of the world 's best clubs , shops and restaurants within walking distance . '' related web_sites real_estate agent www . wa ellis . co . uk the w.a . ellis real_estate agency has been based in knightsbridge since 1868 . properties www . theknightsbridge . com general information http_www . holmans es tates . co . uk knightsbridgeinformation knightsbridgehistory . htm a history of knightsbridge , which is so old that it appears in the domesday book of 1086 . www . therealknightsbridge . com a directory of shops , restaurants and other businesses in the area . www . harrods . com",has a topic of estate
"just 35 minutes after leaving vancouver , the small white ferry glides into fulford harbor , one of two entrances to the island . the largest of canada 's southern gulf islands , salt spring offers 70 square miles of lush green fields and steep , pine forested hillsides , and only three towns ganges , vesuvius and fulford harbor . the few roads are narrow and winding , and local hitchhikers , including children , often rely on their neighbors for transport , because there is no bus service . canadians have long revered salt spring as a pristine refuge for the eccentric and creative . it was founded in 1859 by african_americans and portuguese who carved out homesteads in the fertile valleys . tiny st . paul 's catholic_church was built largely with labor from the hawaiian community that was established in the late 1880 's . in the 1970 's , americans avoiding service in the vietnam_war arrived and put down roots . and for many years , americans in search of affordable second homes , and looking forward to retirement , have also chosen this island a rarity with year round ferry and seaplane service , a hospital and more urban amenities than neighboring islands . but times are changing , and changing fast . fueled by the still strong american dollar ( around 1 . 20 to the canadian_dollar ) quick leaps in real_estate prices and new housing development , tensions are growing between longtime islanders desperate to preserve their quiet way of life , and real_estate agents , developers and investors who know a good thing when they see it . the island 's population has tripled in 30 years , and growth presents many challenges , from increased water pollution of its eight lakes and a falling water table that leaves some wells dry by summer 's end to a school week that has shrunk to four days because of a budget crunch . for years , salt spring was an affordable haven . but now a cottage with water views is 700 , 000 canadian dollars , ( about 560 , 000 ) more than double its 320 , 000 canadian dollars price of five years ago . that rate of increase is typical for properties on or near the water , brokers say . two forces have accelerated the surge in prices there are few properties to buy and two layers of government place restrictions on development . many of the new buyers are americans . ''there 's been a huge increase in the past three years in the number of americans coming here , which we predicted on sept . 12 , 2001 , '' says dick stubbs , the provincial government 's local building inspector . john sorensen , a developer whose town houses in the town of ganges sell for 260 , 000 canadian dollars to 420 , 000 canadian dollars ( or around 208 , 700 to 337 , 100 ) says half of his buyers are from the united_states . li read , a broker in business since 1989 on the island , says that 60 to 70 percent of her clients are now american . ''i think , after 9 11 , people began to revise their life scripts , '' she said . ''we 've always had u.s . buyers , and people who prefer to invest in real_estate , and people who want to get away from it all , but now there 's a lot of things coming into play . '' in addition to coming from the united_states , buyers are coming from the prosperous economies of ontario and alberta within canada , and from the united_kingdom . surging real_estate values are also shutting out the very people who have built the island , often literally . ''every morning on the ferry arriving from vancouver_island , you 'll see at least 40 guys coming to do construction they live off the island but work here , '' said myles wilson , a broker who has lived on the island for 30 years . for blue_collar workers , this island paradise has become a place for the wealthy , not a place to raise their own children . ''salt spring is getting out of reach for the first time buyer , '' mr . wilson said . houses on vancouver_island , an easy commute , cost 129 , 000 canadian dollars . peter levitt , 59 , a poet who had been living in california , moved to salt spring in 2000 with his wife , shirley graham , a psychologist , and their 8 year old son , tai . that year , the canadian currency was even weaker in relation to the american dollar than it is now . they bought a 2 , 800 square_foot home with a separate 400 square_foot studio and an 850 square_foot barn for 400 , 000 canadian dollars , then about 259 , 000 . ''we could not move here now , '' mr . levitt said . he had heard about salt spring from a friend , and after visiting for several years , moved here , a change made easier by his wife 's dual american canadian citizenship . while americans can easily buy property here , they must maintain residence in the united_states , and can stay in canada each year for a total of only six months minus a day . those wishing to become full time residents must apply for landed immigrant status , which can take up to three years . since settling in salt spring , mr . levitt said , he has been disheartened by some of the changes . development related pollution has so contaminated his local water source , a lake facing his house , that his family must now drink bottled_water . ''i attended a water meeting the other day , '' he said . ''there were four of us in the room , and between us we sit on 15 committees , all trying to fight for the environment here . it 's gotten completely out of hand . '' caught between the competing demands of real_estate professionals and part time residents and frustrated , less affluent locals is the islands trust , a federation of local_governments created in 1974 with the explicit mandate to ''preserve and protect'' the more than 400 gulf islands . depending on whom you ask , the trust is either moving too quickly , allowing overdevelopment and associated environmental degradation and density or too slowly , failing to address the pressing , growing demands for affordable_housing and increased services for an aging population . all development must be approved by the islands trust and the capital regional district , a branch of municipal government of the city of victoria , on vancouver_island . salt spring , which is unincorporated , has no mayor or city_council . it elects two representatives to the islands trust and one to the capital regional district to speak for its interests . one big development is channel ridge , a 1 , 400 acre project that will contain as many as 305 houses by 2010 . some residents view with alarm the increasing density and demand for services . ''water is finite , '' mr . levitt said . ''on an island there is only so much space , only so much water . with added density also comes traffic , air_pollution and parking issues . can this community sustain itself ? '' national perspectives correction may 8 , 2005 , sunday because of an editing error , the national perspectives article last sunday , about development on salt spring island , in british_columbia , misstated the time it takes to travel to the island from vancouver . the ferry takes two to three hours , depending on the route , not 35 minutes . it takes about 35 minutes to travel from swartz bay on vancouver_island to fulford harbor on salt spring island .",has a topic of estate
"lead barely a century old and now canada 's third largest metropolis , this energetic port city of british_columbia is about to embark on a development spree that will dramatically change its look , character and style . barely a century old and now canada 's third largest metropolis , this energetic port city of british_columbia is about to embark on a development spree that will dramatically change its look , character and style . invigorated by the success of the expo '86 world 's fair , business leaders have announced plans to transform the waterfront on two sides , replacing the last downtown industrial vestiges with futuristic office towers , more than 20 , 000 new residences , and esplanades and plazas most linked by canals or elevated trains . some civic leaders predict that when all the projects are completed by the turn of the century , their city will become a sort of hong_kong of the pacific_northwest , an international financial center surrounded by mountains and saltwater inlets . ''the idea is to make vancouver a true world city , '' said craig aspinall , a spokesman for pacific_place , the biggest of the new devlopments now on the drawing boards . with an estimated price_tag of 1 . 6 billion in u.s . dollars , pacific_place is being called the most expensive land development in canada . financed largely by li_ka_shing , a hong_kong billionaire whose assets make up one tenth of the stock_exchange in hong_kong , pacific_place is expected to transform the expo site into a 207 acre community of offices , town houses , parks and canals . the idea for pacific_place was that of mr . li 's 25 year old son , victor , who maintains a residence here . the family 's corporations own supermarkets , utilities and office buildings in canada , and commercial properties in phoenix , denver and san_francisco . mr . li 's purchase of the site , for a purported 237 million ( u . s . ) , is further evidence of the hong_kong capital now pouring into vancouver in anticipation of the 1997 deadline for turning over control of the british colony to china . as a british commonwealth nation , canada has immigration policies that are less strict than those of the united_states , which has made it easier for hong_kong businessmen to develop projects in growing canadian cities . as a result , the city built at the mouth of the fraser river , about 140 miles north of seattle , has taken on more of an international air in the last few years . it has a vibrancy and bustle to match those of the new projects going up all over the city . both the sale of the old expo site , from the government run british_columbia enterprise corporation , and the designs for pacific_place have generated considerable controversy here . some critics say that developers other than mr . li were not given an opportunity to bid on the property , while others argue that the design does not include enough moderate income housing . the government says it wanted to complete the sale with a minimimum of delay , to a developer with enough capital to complete a project large enough to cover the old expo site , now a tract of asphalt and grass near the british_columbia place stadium . plans call for construction on pacific_place to begin next year and to proceed in phases over the next 15 years . the commercial core , which is to be built first , would contain more than 3 million square_feet of retail and office space , including a high tech research park , a 400 room hotel and a 45 story international financial center . the tower is designed to be a 24 hour telemarket for currency , securities , metals and commodities trading with the principal world financial centers . the residential component of pacific_place will be built along the waterfront of false_creek , within walking distance of the commercial core , and will provide housing for up to 20 , 000 people , half the number who currently live downtown . the units are planned as a mix of town houses and apartments , low and high rise . most would be built on two manmade islands in false_creek , a saltwater inlet on the southern end of downtown . a tidal lagoon , basically a canal extension of false_creek , would provide waterfront for some of the other housing units . underground parking for 21 , 000 cars , a marina with berths for 630 pleasure boats and 40 acres of public parks are also part of the design for pacific_place . the lagoon has led several canadian newspapers to call pacific_place the ''venice of the west . '' but mr . aspinall said the overall look of pacific_place , which was designed richard hulbert , a vancouver architect , is not supposed to duplicate other cities but is an effort to give this city of 1.5 million people a more sophisticated look . false_creek used to be lined with cement plants , pulp mills and other industrial enterprises . most either relocated to less expensive and environmentally_sensitive property , or were lost to a recession that began in the 1970 's . today , restaurants , open markets , marinas , parks and houses now face much of the waterway . burrard_inlet , on the north side of downtown , is the site for the other part of the facelift planned for vancouver . there , on waterfront property now crossed with railroad tracks , a canadian developer is set to start work this fall on the first phase of cole harbour , a plan to transform 82 acres of mostly industrial property into a mix of hotels , office towers , esplanades , marinas and public plazas . the ambitious project is to be built by marathon realty ltd . , a subsidiary of canadian_pacific ltd . , the railroad builder that owns numerous hotels , offices and industrial parks throughout north_america . it has yet to gain full approval from the city . tentative plans call for an 11 acre boat harbor , a 75 foot_wide promenade adjacent to a 15 acre shorefront park and two circular plazas . the project , bordering a scenic waterway across from the coast mountains , would connect much of downtown_vancouver to the waterfront through a series of parks that would replace the rail tracks and industrial buildings at the ends of many streets . construction is set to begin this fall on waterfront center , the 160 million commercial core of the marathon realty plan , which has been approved by vancouver officials . next to the vancouver trade and convention_center , the project will include a 500 room hotel , a 21 story tower with 410 , 000 square_feet of office space and about 65 , 000 square_feet of retail space on the ground level . prices for housing and office and retail space in the two projects have yet to be determined . but class a office space here is going for 25 ( u . s. ) a square_foot . business leaders associated with the two large developments have been criticized for forcing low income residents from the area in search of less expensive housing . but they say the projects will bring more people into the traditional neighbhorhoods of chinatown and gastown , two prime summer tourist destinations on the edge of downtown that suffer slumps when the season ends . marwyn thomas , project manager for waterfront center , said vancouver should be able to support both pacific_place and the marathon realty complex as long as british_columbia 's economy , long based on forest products and mining , continues to diversify . the area is emerging from a recession that began in the 1970 's and hurt most of the resource based communities in the province . tourism reached new levels following expo '86 , which attracted more than 20 million visitors and introduced many to the breathtaking scenery of british_columbia . ''what 's happened is that after mining and lumber took a hit , tourism really started to take off , '' mr . thomas said . ''the hope now is to play up the area as a big pacific_rim center of finance and high tech and information services . ''",has a topic of estate
"lead over the years the board of estimate which can veto or modify landmark designations has seemed both the last hope for developers and a dreaded hurdle for preservationists . over the years the board of estimate which can veto or modify landmark designations has seemed both the last hope for developers and a dreaded hurdle for preservationists . now that it is about to be superseded by the city_council , a review of its record suggests that the board 's direct effect on actual landmark designations has been so unusually benign that the preservation community may someday even wax nostalgic about it . the first substantial interference followed the 23d designation in october 1965 by the new landmarks_preservation_commission , established the previous april . it involved the 1897 bronx borough hall , at the northwest corner of crotona_park , fronting on the southwest corner of third and east tremont avenues . in 1890 , the bronx was still manhattan 's ''annexed district'' but growing rapidly . in 1891 , it elected its first districtwide official , a commissioner of street improvements . his agency and others that followed required room and in 1895 , commissioner louis haffen , serving since 1893 , successfully organized a campaign for a new building . designed by george b . post prominent in civic and skyscraper work the bronx municipal building , as it was originally known , was renaissance in style , three stories high , with light yellow brick contrasting with brown terra_cotta . according to an article in 1969 by lloyd ultan in the bronx county historical society journal , the interior had both gas and electric lighting and fireproof document vaults on each floor . the building was completed in 1897 . russell sturgis , writing in architectural record in 1896 , called it a ''common_sense building with pleasant architectural results . '' in 1899 , a grand stairway was added down the steep slope to third avenue , perhaps also designed by post but possibly instead by the chief engineer of the bronx , louis risse , who had laid out the grand_concourse in 1892 . the elevation of the building , which was renamed bronx borough hall in 1898 when the ''annex'' became part of new york city , gave it excellent views to the south and west , and the third avenue elevated stopped right in front . but in 1909 , louis haffen , president of the borough since its creation , called the building he had promoted ''entirely inadequate'' and ''impossible to enlarge or adapt'' to the needs of the new borough . later in the year , he was forced to resign because of charges that he used borough construction projects as sources of graft . in 1934 , most borough offices relocated to the new bronx county building on the grand_concourse , and some of the space in the old borough hall was given over to veterans' and community programs . by 1964 only the marriage_license bureau remained and , amid reports of impending demolition , lloyd ultan , roger arcara and william romkey all bronx residents began efforts to save the structure , even though other groups sought to replace it with a neighborhood sports center . over the objections of newbold morris , the parks commissioner , the new landmarks commission designated the building a landmark . it was the first bronx landmark . the landmarks law gave the board of estimate 90 days in which to veto or modify any designation and in december commissioner morris wrote the board , calling the building ''rundown , unsightly'' and of ''no architectural importance . '' borough_president joseph f . pericone had supported the designation , but he was succeeded in january by herman_badillo . on jan . 27 , 1966 the last possible day of review the board of estimate deferred to mr . badillo and voted to overturn the designation . in 1968 , there was a major fire in the building , by then vacant , and it was demolished late that year , although the grand staircase was retained . the society for the architecture of the city , a preservation organization , said that of nearly 1 , 000 designations the board of estimate considered through 1989 , it vetoed or modified only 21 . of these , several were later successfully redesignated as landmarks , among them the coney_island parachute jump and the queensboro_bridge . all but five survive intact . besides bronx borough hall , loew 's triborough theater in queens ( vetoed in 1974 ) has been demolished the lalance grosjean factory in queens ( vetoed in 1981 ) has been brutally altered and the walker theater and rko keith 's flushing theater , in brooklyn and queens , respectively ( vetoed in 1984 ) , have been radically changed . but 5 such instances over 25 years and hundreds of contested cases is pretty conservative . whether the city_council will be as favorable will become evident only after it begins hearing landmark cases on aug . 1 . as for bronx borough hall , it was never replaced by a sports center . but preservation is returning nonetheless the department of parks is working on a 711 , 000 restoration of the deteriorated grand stairway that now leads to a parking_lot . when finished , it will memorialize an early chapter in new york 's preservation history . correction april 29 , 1990 , sunday , late edition final a streetscapes column on april 8 about the bronx borough hall erred in stating that the restoration of its grand staircase would cost 711 , 000 . that figure is for the entire project , including landscaping . work on the staircase alone will cost 175 , 000 .",has a topic of estate
"lead with its reputation as a center of manufacturing and finance as well as its proximity to major united_states cities , toronto has emerged as one of canada 's economic bright_spots . last year there was record demand for office space , and as a trade agreeement with the united_states nears approval , the business community is geared up for continued economic_growth in the 1990 's . with its reputation as a center of manufacturing and finance as well as its proximity to major united_states cities , toronto has emerged as one of canada 's economic bright_spots . last year there was record demand for office space , and as a trade agreeement with the united_states nears approval , the business community is geared up for continued economic_growth in the 1990 's . but the city , ontario 's provincial capital , also finds itself grappling with some of the major problems associated with urban growth a tight and expensive housing market and traffic_congestion . with major developments moving forward , there is no sign that a slowdown will ease the problems . since 1981 , the population of the toronto statistical metropolitan_area has jumped 9.2 percent , to 3.7 million , according to statistics_canada , making it the country 's most populous region . the population of metro , which includes toronto and six surrounding communities , has grown 2.6 percent , to 2.1 million . ''toronto has been running on all cylinders since mid 1986 , '' said edward carmichael , an economist and vice_president of the c . d . howe institute , a local consulting_firm . downtown developments such as the 1 . 6 million square_foot , four level eaton centre , a glass enclosed shopping_mall , and the striking 1 , 815 foot tall cn tower will in the next decade be joined by the first elements of the 500 million mixed use cityplace complex . while over 6.5 million square_feet of office space has been added to the metro market in each of the last two years , absorption of 9.2 million square_feet in 1987 set a record , according to royal lepage ltd . , a local real_estate brokerage . much of the estimated five million square_feet of office space added to the metro market in the first six months of this year was quickly absorbed current office vacancy_rates range from 6.7 percent throughout metro to 5.3 percent in the financial district here . rents exceeding 35 per square_foot for class a office space downtown are common , according to royal lepage . one of the newest additions to the city 's skyline , the 68 story scotia plaza , developed by campeau_corporation , will add 1.5 million square_feet of office space when it is completed by the end of this year . tenants have been moving into lower floors since april . with rents ranging from 27 to 39 per square_foot , the project is 65 percent leased . but along with the growth have come the big city problems . while the median sale price of a home has risen 61 percent in two years , to 160 , 400 , according to the toronto real_estate board , residential development has not kept pace with demand . the apartment vacancy_rate is less than 1 percent . also , traffic_congestion is severe , but the city hopes to partially address the problem by expanding its transit system . ''it is great to have success but there is a price , '' said mayor arthur eggleton . ''the squeeze on lower income families , an accelerated need for assisted housing , these are some of the issues we face . '' in 1976 , when the city drew up a long term plan for downtown development , concern about the impact of development led officials to impose strict limits on building density . but in 1983 , the city devised a system that would give a developer greater density allowances in return for providing community benefits such as day care centers and parks a system similar to provisions in several united_states cities . at scotia plaza , for example , campeau was granted increased density in return for providing a rent free day care center and an underground link to the subway system . ''we 're interested , as development is happening , '' said robert e . millward , commissioner of planning and development , ''in making sure the impact does not hurt the rest of the city . '' perhaps the most ambitious plans involve expanding the core of the city to make use of the underdeveloped lake_ontario waterfront now cut off from downtown by the eight lane gardiner expressway . ''for years we turned our back on the lake we cut people off from the water with rail yards and shipping yards , '' mayor eggleton said . ''the movement now is to bring the city back to the waterfront . '' it has been slow going . plans for the development , called harbourfront , were drawn up 10 years ago by the federal_government , as the city 's real_estate market foundered . they called for housing , commercial development and parks on 100 acres at lakeside . with about half of the 650 million project complete , 110 million in federal funds has been spent on land acquisition and renovation . private projects include a 152 room hotel , 1 , 900 housing units and the 750 , 000 square_foot mixed use queen 's quay terminal , a former warehouse , which now houses restaurants and shops below office and residential space . with a regular schedule of cultural events , harbourfront has also become one of the city 's top tourist attractions . development has come to a halt , however , as controversy over the height and design of three recently completed 19 story condominium towers and diminishing public space prompted the city to invoke a freeze . a new development plan must be approved at both the federal and city levels before harbourfront can be completed . meanwhile , north of harbourfront , site preparation is under way for cityplace , a 70 acre mixed use redevelopment on land owned by cn real_estate , a division of canadian national railways . the 20 year project is to include six million square_feet of office and retail space and 5 , 000 housing units . the project will include skydome stadium , now under construction , and about 30 acres of park land . work on the streets , utilities and other improvements , including a transit link paid for by the city , has been under way for two years . the first office building in cityplace is expected to be completed in 1992 . the potential impact of the united_states canada free_trade agreement , under consideration in both countries , is stirring speculation about toronto 's continued economic health . while the elimination of tariffs promises to increase trade , david peterson , the provincial premier , questions whether it will benefit ontario 's industry . but mr . carmichael , the economist , believes that anticipation of the agreement has in itself buoyed the city 's economy . ''all of southern_ontario , from windsor to toronto , which has been booming without the trade agreement , stands to benefit , '' he said .",has a topic of estate
"lead for a quick glimpse of the problem , take a two minute walk in brooklyn_heights , new york city 's best preserved enclave of 19th_century brownstones , its first landmark district and a neighborhood with a glut of religious real_estate . for a quick glimpse of the problem , take a two minute walk in brooklyn_heights , new york city 's best preserved enclave of 19th_century brownstones , its first landmark district and a neighborhood with a glut of religious real_estate . preservationists , clergymen and congregants in this brooklyn community and others across the nation are struggling to find ways to restore their old churches and synagogues . organized religion 's membership and financial resources have been dwindling for decades , and hundreds of its buildings are scarred by neglect . aggressive new fund_raising techniques are being employed . some congregations have opened their doors to commercial tenants . others have sold their buildings to developers to be rebuilt into housing or offices . in all cases , paying the bills for restoration has required a delicate balance between the goals of worship , community_service and preservation . the difficulties are not new , but deteriorating houses of worship are attracting a fresh surge of attention in communities that range from the impoverished inner cities of the northeast to small desert hamlets in the southwest . ''the bills to repair and restore these buildings can be quite staggering , '' said representative peter h . kostmayer , democrat of pennsylvania and chairman of the house subcommittee on oversight and investigations , who held a hearing last week in philadelphia to explore ways the federal_government might help finance restoration of religious structures . in brooklyn_heights , with more than a dozen ornate 19th_century churches in less than half a square_mile , the tour might start at the corner of clinton and montague streets , where the 146 year old church of st . ann and the holy_trinity looks forlorn , its entrances covered by protective sidewalk bridges and four of its 66 stained_glass_windows the earliest detailed , large scale examples of stained_glass produced in the nation temporarily replaced by plywood . st . ann has become a preservationists' cause celebre . about 15 million is needed to complete its restoration over the next 10 years . its congregation is sharing the landmark sanctuary with a church related performing_arts group , which has booked everything from chamber_music to a recent performance by the rock singer lou reed , best known for his 1988 hit ''dirty boulevard'' and his classic of the 70 's , ''walk on the wild side . '' one block south , at the corner of clinton and remsen streets , is the former first church of brooklyn , a 140 year old building . developers bought it in the early 1980 's , restored its exterior and , despite neighborhood protests , rebuilt its interior into cooperative apartments . two blocks farther south , at clinton and livingston streets , is the venetian gothic st . anne 's church , designed in the 1860 's by renwick and sands , the architects of st . patrick 's cathedral in manhattan . the deteriorating building is surrounded by sidewalk bridges . ''this could be a model of the dilemma facing a lot of wonderful landmark churches , '' said hal wilke , spokesman for the packer collegiate institute , a neighboring day school that bought the church from the episcopal diocese of long_island in 1968 and uses part of it for classrooms . but packer , unable to find uses for all the space in the church , has spent more than a decade looking for someone who could . it has sought other churches that might buy it , and talked to developers who proposed apartments , offices and even a nightclub . so far , the search has been futile . ''it would take enormous dollars to renovate that building , '' said mr . wilke . ''our mission is education , not renovation . '' the problems in brooklyn_heights are not as severe as those in many poor urban_areas . ''it has been a long time since this community had the financial strength to maintain a building like this , '' said the rev . isaac miller , rector of the george w . south memorial church of the advocate , a huge , 100 year old french gothic structure in a predominantly black area of north_philadelphia . the congregation of this episcopal_church has shrunk to less than a third its size before world_war_ii , when its vaulted sanctuary would be filled by more than 700 worshipers on a typical sunday . today its congregation numbers 200 . its financial resources have dwindled even more rapidly with the flight of affluent congregants to the suburbs . nonetheless , mr . miller said , the church has raised 600 , 000 in donations , principally from philanthropic foundations in philadelphia , to repair the badly deteriorated roof . another fund_raising drive is planned , he added , with a goal of 1 million more to have the facade repointed and waterproofed and to make other long delayed repairs . ''the building has incredible needs and the only way we can deal with this is with support from beyond our walls , '' mr . miller said . although paying for expensive restoration work is the overriding problem , the questions sometimes are more complicated . clergymen say many churches and synagogues , particularly those more than 100 years old , are now far too large for the smaller congregations of the 1990 's , and have too few meeting rooms suitable for neighborhood groups , day care , services to the poor and homeless and other functions . landmark regulations in many areas have added another layer of complexity . in new york city , designated historic landmarks cannot be torn down without the approval of the landmarks_preservation_commission , and any work on their exteriors can be done only with the permission of the agency and if it conforms in materials and design with the original structure . dozens of churches and synagogues have been given landmark_status in the city , but not everyone is pleased by the distinction . ''the question becomes whether we should struggle to maintain a building we would rather not have , '' said edward c . horn , pastor of the church of st . paul and st . andrew , a 100 year old methodist church at the corner of 86th_street and west_end avenue in manhattan whose 200 congregrants attend services in a huge , badly dilapidated structure capable of seating 1 , 200 in its nave . the church has been struggling for a decade for approval to demolish and rebuild . it was designated a new york city landmark in 1980 , waged an unsuccessful challenge in court to have the designation removed and now plans another challenge under financial ''hardship'' provisions of the city 's landmark laws . church officials across the nation say membership has been declining most rapidly among long established denominations , which built most of the large religious structures in the 19th and early 20th centuries . the national council of churches , an umbrella_organization of protestant and eastern orthodox denominations , said that although the number of people attending church has remained constant over the last 20 years , ''old line denominations , '' including the presbyterian church , the united church of christ , the episcopal_church and the methodist church , together have lost more than 5 million members . membership in the roman_catholic_church , the nation 's largest christian denomination , has not fallen off , the group said . but it added that demographic shifts had removed large numbers of catholics from urban neighborhoods where they had previously supported large old religious buildings . representative kostmayer said one way of tapping federal support may be to direct the national_parks service , either through legislation or congressional pressure , to set aside money to restore important , landmarked religious buildings . the agency has declined such support in the past , saying it might be challenged on constitutional grounds related to the separation of church and state . foundations in some regions of the country have been increasing their support . for example , the new york landmarks_conservancy , a preservationist group , established a fund for sacred_sites and properties in 1986 , and has so far raised 650 , 000 from the j . m . kaplan fund and other donors to be distributed in grants for the restoration of religious buildings . the conservancy 's fund has distributed 500 , 000 in grants to 129 projects . they include the repair of the roof at the church of the holy apostle , a 142 year old episcopal_church at ninth_avenue and 28th street in manhattan and the installation of an elevator and other work necessary to improve access for handicapped congregants at the brotherhood synagogue , a 131 year old building originally erected as a quaker meeting_house on gramercy_park south . ''the preservationist community recognizes that these churches and synagogues are important structures , and it is putting its money where its mouth is , '' said edward t . mohylowski , director of the fund for sacred_sites and properties , which has scheduled an exhibit of photographs of some of the churches it is working with from thursday through april 14 . the exhibit , ''landmarks of hope preserving sacred_sites in the empire state , '' will be held at the urban center , 457 madison_avenue at 50th_street . but even with expanding foundation support and calls for assistance from washington , no one holds out hope that money can be raised to repair and restore all the historic religious structures that are suffering from declining membership and scant financial resources . ''these buildings are immense and complicated , but that is their glory , '' said a . robert jaeger , a co founder of partners for historic places , a nonprofit preservationist group established in philadelphia last year to advise religious institutions around the country on restoration of their properties . ''without an awful lot of money , we are going to have to be inventive , '' he added . one unusual approach is in the blighted central_ward of newark , where the 115 year old roman_catholic st . joseph 's church was acquired for 130 , 000 in the early 1980 's by a nonprofit community group . it has since spent 2 . 5 million in a painstaking restoration of its facade and stained_glass_windows and a complete renovation of its interior . the building has been transformed into st . joseph 's plaza , a complex of two restaurants , a health spa , a group medical practice and offices for several nonprofit agencies . it is fully leased , with commercial tenants paying enough rent to support other operations of the community group , new communities , which has built more than 2 , 000 units of low and moderate income housing in newark . ''the church offered an excellent opportunity to provide something of a unifying force in the central_ward , a place that had a lot of negative feeling , '' said bill linder , a roman_catholic priest and founder of new communities . on a typical weekday , the building 's health_club and restaurants are patronized by a multiracial mix of professionals from the central_ward and elsewhere in newark . toward the other end of the preservationist spectrum is a project in new mexico to restore dozens of small 18th and 19th_century adobe churches and chapels scattered at remote crossroads in the state 's rural landscape . many of the congregations and communities they once supported have dispersed with economic shifts and urbanization . nancy arnon , project director for the new mexico community foundation , a rural economic_development group , said 800 of the historic adobe structures have been catalogued , most in need of repair . the principal problem , she said , is that adobe , a mix of soil , sand , water and straw , disintegrates when left to the elements without routine maintenance . since organizing a restoration campaign two years ago , she said , her group and others involved in the effort have had little trouble finding volunteer workers . she said hundreds of people with family roots in the rural towns had attended ''work weekends , '' some of them traveling hundreds of miles from their homes in larger southwestern cities , to work on the churches of their ancestry . one of the churches that has been almost totally restored is la capilla de san_antonio , built in 1865 in chacon , a community with less than 40 families northwest of santa_fe . ''work on our church has been a tremendous point of pride for all of us , '' said mary romero , an accountant in chacon who , with her husband , a firefighter , are caretakers of la capilla de san_antonio . last year they organized their community to provide food and lodging for dozens of people who visited on 10 work weekends and repaired the badly weathered adobe structure . the rocky road to restoration even when religious institutions succeed in raising outside financial support , the process of restoring their buildings can be difficult . take the case of st . ann and the holy_trinity , an episcopal_church in brooklyn_heights . renovation of the church , built in the gothic revival style in 1844 with the first detailed , large scale stained_glass_windows produced in the nation , has been going on slowly and erratically since 1979 when the new york landmarks_conservancy began raising money for the work . it raised 300 , 000 . in 1983 , when it became clear that a much larger fund_raising campaign would be needed than was originally planned , the st . ann center for restoration and the arts was created and took over the project . the group 's board includes the rector and members of the church , preservationists and an artistic director who books performances in the building . more than 1 million has so far been raised from individuals and foundations , including a 250 , 000 grant announced this month by the getty foundation of california . a stained_glass shop has been set up in the rectory , and 13 of the 66 badly deteriorated stained_glass_windows have been cleaned and rebuilt . lower portions of the church 's facade have been restored . but much more work is required , and much more money must be raised . members of the board of st . ann center say it will take 15 million more to complete the restoration of the church . a_10 year plan now being circulated spells out what work is to be done , but provides no assurance the funding can be obtained . those in charge of the restoration say the performances in the church , conducted most weekends in its 700 seat sanctuary and a separate auditorium , are an integral part of the effort . although ticket sales are devoted to the center 's support and do not generate enough money to contribute to the restoration unless performances are staged as fund_raising benefits , they say the performing_arts venture has drawn widespread attention to the building from people who otherwise might not have visited it or any other church . among performers who have appeared there are bob wills and the texas playboys , a country and western group john cale , the avante garde composer mariann faithfull , the rock singer , and peter serkin , the pianist . ''we sometimes feel as though our space is being invaded , '' said the rev . william d . persell , the rector of the church , whose 200 congregants often find themselves sharing space at sunday morning services with saturday night 's props . ''it is not my mission to produce rock concerts , '' he added . despite the aggravations , he said the mixed use of the church had succeeded in drawing new members , including young people who first attended performances and later joined the church . leaders of the st . ann center say the restoration plan , besides the ongoing work on the stained_glass_windows and facade , includes replacing the church 's heating , electrical and plumbing systems and making alterations in the sanctuary to more efficiently accommodate its combined use for worship and performance . one plan is for a moveable stage in front of the altar for performers and their props . on sunday mornings , the stage would be lowered and removed from view . thomas j . lueck",has a topic of estate
"you live where ? such is the reaction that ron saleh and other new residents of this long suffering city inevitably get when they tell friends they have moved here from new york , hoboken or one of the region 's manicured suburban bubbles . but the question , frequently delivered with an expression that combines awe with disgust , is often followed by another you pay how much ? mr . saleh , 37 , a public_relations executive who most recently had addresses in washington , atlanta and roosevelt_island , takes a certain pleasure in forcing manhattan centric friends to cross the hudson , and watching their skepticism melt to envy as he shows off the smartly restored two bedroom house he rents for 1 , 400 a month about 1 , 000 less than he would pay for a two bedroom apartment in manhattan . ''when they realize this is 20 minutes from midtown and they see all the energy and all the hip people living here , they want to make the move , too , '' he said last sunday as he mixed cocktails in his kitchen for a crowd of friends , most of them recent transplants like himself . ''it 's not quite there yet , but newark is about to get hot . '' after four decades of economic_stagnation and bad publicity , new jersey 's largest city stuck in the public imagination as a place of stolen cars , ailing public schools and a busy international airport is sprouting stylish new restaurants , art galleries and bars that dispense 10 cocktails . a new indie music_festival is expected to draw thousands to the heart of downtown next month , and city officials say that applications for 22 condominium projects have poured in since january , twice the number for all of 2006 , with shaquille_o'neal , queen latifah and tiki barber among those kicking around development proposals . though its struggle against blight and crime is hardly past , some residents say newark is enjoying the kind of psychic rebirth that has helped transform scores of other downtrodden cities into nesting grounds for the young , the creative , and , with time , the well heeled . adjectives like bohemian and funky are increasingly tossed around , and even some skeptics are starting to believe in the moniker newark adopted two decades ago renaissance city . ''i think there 's a growing sense that it 's cool to live here , '' said joseph aratow , a real_estate_broker who has persuaded some of his deep_pocketed clients to give their vacant commercial property to gallery owners in the hope of encouraging more artists , and the people who love them , to migrate here . last month mr . aratow helped deliver rent free for at least a year a 30 , 000 square_foot furniture warehouse on market street to rupert ravens , a curator who will turn it into new jersey 's biggest gallery . mr . ravens , who helps coordinate the city 's annual artist studio tour , dreams of a newark biennial to rival art extravaganzas in berlin , venice and miami . ''this is the first time in my life i feel like i 'm in the right place at the right time , '' he said . to describe newark as chelsea on the passaic would , of course , be a bit hyperbolic in many of the city 's neighborhoods , ''funky'' is a generous euphemism for dandelion choked lots , tumbledown houses and malodorous bodegas . residents both new and old complain about shattered car windows , sparse population and the lack of decent shopping . ''if you live downtown , you still have to drive to buy a banana , '' said ade sedita , who opened an arts supply store in the city in march . ''if you 're comparing newark to new york city , it 's still a tough sell . that said , the opportunities here are endless for the right person . '' after decades of depopulation since the 1967 riots , newark has gained more than 10 , 000 residents in the past five years , including jennifer girardier , a wall_street hedge_fund broker , rachel robbins , an actress who moved here from california , and ms . robbins 's husband , michael saltzman , an urban planner who is working on several local development projects . in a city whose residents are largely poor or working_class and more than 70 percent minority , many of the new arrivals are white and upwardly_mobile , though neither the census_bureau nor city officials have demographics available on the newcomers . ''sometimes i feel like i 'm in a foreign country , '' said ms . robbins , a platinum blonde known for her impolitic humor . ''let 's just say we 're pioneers on our block . '' last sunday , ms . robbins and a racially_diverse mix of two dozen newcomers and old timers gathered in the courtyard of mr . saleh 's home near lincoln_park , sipping vodka tonics and dragging on camel lights as a pair of chihuahuas darted through their legs . known as the beach , mr . saleh 's cape_cod is the scene of frequent soirees that draw rehabilitated gang members , underemployed artists , investment bankers and members of mayor cory a . booker 's inner circle . many who were originally drawn here by the inexpensive housing say they have become gripped by a passion for the city 's resurrection . ''i think all of us envision what newark can be and we all feel we are the seeds of that change , '' said mr . saltzman , 36 , who bought a three family house near lincoln_park five years ago that has since doubled in value . a dozen blocks south of the park on halsey street , a low rise neighborhood that once teemed with small shops now is largely forlorn after nightfall . but boosters have rechristened the area halsey village , and city planning officials say five new restaurants are on the way along with 650 condo and rental_units . ms . sedita , the owner of newark art supply , imagines the area as new jersey 's version of the east_village , its raggedy brownstones full of artists , office workers and students from rutgers , seton_hall law_school and the new jersey institute of technology . on june 9 , the first annual newark arts and music_festival will try its luck along halsey street . david anstatt , one of the festival organizers , said he thought the time was right to capitalize on the emerging buzz about his new home . ''i think people finally realize newark is more than just about crime and drugs , '' said mr . anstatt , who is an owner of 27 mix , one of the city 's new high end restaurants . ''everyone here feels like the city is going to pop in five years . '' that popping sound can already be heard around the corner at 1180 raymond boulevard , where cogswell realty is almost finished carving 317 rental_units out of an art_deco beauty that was once the city 's most prominent office tower . arthur stern , cogswell 's chief executive , boasts that more than 80 percent of the tenants , most in their 20s and 30s , work in new york city , suggesting that newark is drawing refugees priced out of manhattan and brooklyn . many people peg the city 's nascent resurgence to the inauguration of the new jersey performing_arts center in 1997 , followed by the opening of a baseball stadium for the newark bears , though the minor_league team has never drawn the crowds boosters hoped . while a drop in crime and new york 's soaring real_estate prices have helped polish the city 's appeal , some say the spirit of change was enhanced by last year 's election of mr . booker after two decades of rule by sharpe_james , who is under investigation by state and federal authorities . steve iglesias , an entrepreneur born and raised here , says the overhaul at city hall helped persuade him to turn his family 's sporting_goods store in the ironbound section into a tapas lounge that has become a popular draw for locals who used to trek to manhattan for designer meals and late night revelry . ''there 's a feeling here of endless possibilities , and a lot of that has to do with booker , '' he said one recent saturday night , as a d . j . played a medley of music from the 1970s and 80s . ''at this point , if you build it , they will come . '' the heavily portuguese and brazilian ironbound , with its low crime rate , teeming commercial corridor and proximity to new york bound trains , has become relatively expensive , and that has been a boon to nearby lincoln_park on the other side of the tracks . the young and the intrepid have been filling up a smattering of renovated buildings near the 19th_century greensward named for president lincoln , which was once known for its constellation of jazz clubs but is now dominated by a string of drug treatment facilities . the city 's oldest gallery , city without walls , forms the nucleus of the enclave , which includes apartments inside a former carriage factory and a graphic_design studio , tritonic , whose three young partners are the toast of newark 's corporate and political set . although the neighborhood is decidedly edgy balloons tied to a stretch of fencing mark the most recent homicide three dozen ''green'' lofts and town houses are just coming on the market . the lincoln_park coast cultural district , as its promoters call it , will ultimately be anchored by a smithsonian affiliated museum of african american music . ''the amazing thing is that we never have to advertise our apartments they just rent by word of mouth , '' said tony gibbons , a real_estate developer who , along with two partners , is turning the former mccarter mansion that faces the park into a lavishly appointed home for foundations and nonprofit groups . for now , mr . saleh 's house is the most happening spot in town . a white_house aide during the clinton_administration who learned the art of hospitality working for club_med , mr . saleh 's gatherings are part salon , part bacchanal , with revelers , goblets in hand , vying for seats last sunday on the oversized lifeguard chair that dominates his tiny backyard . as guests nibbled gouda and tossed around a giant rubber ball , the sinking sun cast a pinkish glow on the colleoni , a stately apartment building facing lincoln_park that is being turned into luxury rentals . in the foreground , a pack of stray cats roughhoused in the debris of a vacant lot , and a few paces away , recently paroled felons did pull ups in the yard of their halfway house . at one point , mayor booker 's father sauntered through as hip hop music blared from living room . day turned to night , someone called out for another cocktail , and nobody seemed to notice as a hungry cat howled and the halfway house residents , perhaps stirred up by the party on the other side of the fence , shouted at one another , their voices filled with joy .",has a topic of estate
"lead the sacred_sites and properties fund , a matching grant program for the preservation of architecturally significant religious sites in new york city , is a year old this month and once again is looking for beneficiaries of its largesse . the sacred_sites and properties fund , a matching grant program for the preservation of architecturally significant religious sites in new york city , is a year old this month and once again is looking for beneficiaries of its largesse . the fund , a program of the new york landmarks_conservancy , is inviting religious institutions to apply for its grants , which can run as high as 15 , 000 . the deadline for applications , originally set for may 1 , has been extended to may 11 . to be eligible , a property must be owned by a religious institution and be either designated as a new york city landmark or listed on the national_register of historic places . although priority is given to essential repair and restoration work , the grants also are available for planning aspects of a restoration project , including engineering analyses and feasibility studies . since last may , the fund has approved 40 grants totaling 145 , 750 to religious properties in every borough but queens , from which no applications have been received . institutions interested in the grant program should call the conservancy at 736 7575 or write to the fund , in care of the conservancy at 330 west 42d street , n.y. , n.y . 10036 . postings",has a topic of estate
"students at nontraditional employment for women , a nonprofit_corporation that trains women for jobs in the building trades , will participate in a "" practical exam "" this year as they perform much of the work on a renovation of the organization 's quarters in the old chelsea firehouse at 243 west 20th street in manhattan . in the mid 1980 's , nontraditional employment for women took over the abandoned , century old firehouse after winning a 35 year year city lease on the property . two years ago , a 1 million project to restore the building was completed . the "" spirit "" of the three story firehouse "" was retained , "" said the architect , barbara neski , including the facade with its arched lintels and federal style coping . but the old wooden door through which horse drawn fire wagons once raced was replaced , and the interior was gutted for classrooms , a tool shop , a fitness room and offices . what was not anticipated , said martha baker , the school 's director , was a backlog of applications from women , many on welfare , who want to be carpenters , electricians and construction workers . the organization teaches about 300 students a year , but has a waiting list of about 200 . to create room for more students , ms . neski said , the renovation will enlarge the "" tool shop "" in the basement where the basic use of all types of tools is taught by relocating the fitness room to the ground floor , where it will share a classroom . office space on the third floor will be concentrated "" to create a new large classroom in the entire front of the building , "" she said . up to 50 students will work on the 100 , 000 project , "" taking down walls , doing electricity , painting , plastering , "" ms . baker said . "" we are getting blueprints from the architect so that we can study them now . "" the project should be completed by the end of the year .",has a topic of estate
"lead first , vaudeville stopped being funny . then a fire burned off the top floor . finally , jersey_city , itself , began to slip . all in all , florida flats had hit hard times . first , vaudeville stopped being funny . then a fire burned off the top floor . finally , jersey_city , itself , began to slip . all in all , florida flats had hit hard times . an apartment building on barrow and york streets near jersey_city 's van vorst park , florida flats had once been a hotel favored by such entertainers as mae west , w . c . fields , george burns and the marx brothers when they performed at the majestic theater a block away . but then the theater was made into a movie house and later it was closed . the hotel was converted into apartments after a fire and fell into disrepair . in 1985 , as perceptions of jersey_city changed and it became an attractive alternative to high priced manhattan , sal dipaola , a partner with 424 baldwin associates , purchased the gray brick building for 2 million . a year later he began a 2 . 5 million rehabilitation . completed last month , the renovations created park house condominiums , 32 one and two bedroom apartments priced from 126 , 000 to 220 , 000 , of which 16 have been sold . in addition to restoring the fifth floor , mr . dipaola added two penthouses and a duplex to the building 's roof . to preserve the building 's street appearance , the additions are set back and disguised by a parapet . apartments above the second floor have views of new york harbor .",has a topic of estate
"lead in most cities the phrase luxury apartment refers to an apartment in a new building . but in new york , increasingly , it is also being used to describe a renovated apartment in a former tenement . in most cities the phrase luxury apartment refers to an apartment in a new building . but in new york , increasingly , it is also being used to describe a renovated apartment in a former tenement . a century after developers started building them to house the city 's immigrant poor and nearly 90 years after the city outlawed their construction nearly 200 , 000 apartments in so called old law tenements are occupied in new york city . in the areas where they are concentrated , such as on the lower and upper east sides , the tenements are a major source of new housing and the pressure to convert them into cooperatives or condominiums has increased . as architecture , they are among the city 's most familiar facades . usually five stories tall and built on a 25 foot lot , their exteriors are hung with fire escapes and the interiors are laid out long and narrow in fact , the apartments were dubbed railroad flats . along with its more recent sister style , the bigger and less confining new law tenement , the buildings are deeply_rooted in the housing market in manhattan . ''the inventory is still shrinking , and we would expect it to , because we are dealing with the most obsolete housing in the city , '' said michael a . stegman , professor of city planning at the university_of_north_carolina and principal author of new york city 's triennial housing and vacancy survey . ''what is extraordinary is that so much of it has managed to survive and , indeed , to prosper , '' he said . ''this very old housing stock has proven itself to be extremely adaptable . '' according to professor stegman 's figures for 1984 , the latest year for which numbers are available , some 6 , 400 old law tenement apartments have been converted to co op or condominium ownership . it is a small number by citywide standards a total of 57 , 000 rental_apartments were converted to co ops and condos between 1978 and 1984 . but at prices that usually stay below 200 , 000 , the new apartments represent relatively affordable_housing in a city that has little of it . over the years , tenements have continued to set the architectural tone of some streets of the lower east side , where the largest group of undisturbed tenements remain , as do the wooden triple deckers in parts of boston , or row_houses in baltimore . by 1929 , more stringent fire codes and the growing acceptance of elevators led to a new housing code in new york city that effectively replaced the tenement with the lighter and better laid out french flats that stand at some of the cities plushest addresses today . to some urban experts , the survival of any of the old tenements is a kind of blight that an unfettered market would have eliminated entirely and replaced with newer , better buildings . but new rules of the housing market , including rent control and tenant lease renewal rights , have preserved some of the old tenements for the latest twist of the new york city housing saga the mass conversion of rundown rental_units into renovated co ops and condominiums . in better neighborhoods , or even just close to them , these old buildings are being resurrected as middle range to luxury housing . ''you can do a lot with a tenement for less than building a new apartment , '' said j . harvey rosenthal , who owns more than a dozen tenements on the east side and is renovating them for conversion as quickly as vacancy_rates and the state 's real_estate laws will allow . ''you end up with something that more people can afford . '' converters of the buildings are , when possible , combining two structures into one or knocking out walls to afford a wider floor span . air shafts and stairwells are replaced by elevators rooftops sprout skylights and shiny steel chimneys for modern wood burning stoves grimy brick facades are repointed and steam cleaned . what emerges are dwellings at prices far below those of most of the newer condo or co op buildings . for example , a one bedroom co op in a renovated tenement on east 98th street , adjoining a public_housing_project , is on the market for 120 , 000 . a dozen or so blocks to the south , apartments in former tenements that have been redesigned for a more modern layout can cost a half million dollars . ''one of the questions we should ask is why we still have so much of that stuff around , '' said peter salins , chairman of the department of urban affairs at hunter_college , who says the city was unable to maintain the high rate of replacement of the old tenements with modern elevator apartments in the 1920 's . along with some other experts , he says , ''the city has created a whole bunch of conditions that prevent that kind of natural regeneration , and the result is that we 're stuck with a lot of that kind of building , a kind that has been obsolete for years . '' professor salins acknowledged the rehabilitation work that such developers as mr . rosenthal are doing to extend the lives of the old tenements , but says that in the long run modern apartment designs would serve the city better . ''you can always squeeze another couple of decades of life out of the shell , '' he said , ''but optimally you should n't have that quality of housing around this long . '' it is not the shell itself that is at fault , he said . in fact , new york was ahead of other cities in its requirement for masonry construction . ''but the layout , the amenities and facilities , are bad , '' professor salins said . ''these apartments are very narrow , there is a very high ratio of depth to width , which makes it hard to get air and light into them . there is a great meanness about them , and ordinarily they would really not be worth lavishing a lot of money on . '' but george sternlieb , who is on leave from his post as director of the center for urban policy research at rutgers_university in new brunswick , n.j. , said land acquisition and construction costs in new york city are so high that even the oldest building becomes precious . ''you have a very old housing stock in these tenements , '' mr . sternlieb said , ''but your big problem is that they are your only cheap housing stock , so you 've got to nurse them . '' narrowness and all , that is what the city 's tenement refurbishers are doing . stephen corelli , an architect and developer , has found that rebuilding old tenements for conversion is a good way to get a start in the city 's high powered building and development industry . his latest project is a five story walk up at 104 east 98th street , on the edge of east_harlem , where many of the problems of layout that prof . salins complains of are evident . built on the standard 25 foot lot , the apartments are only 11 feet 6 inches across at their widest and about 55 feet deep . this works out to about 550 square_feet for the upper floor apartments and less on the ground floor , where the living rooms are but eight feet wide , the width of a standard sofa . despite this layout , mr . corelli argued that , at 120 , 000 for the ground floor apartment to 145 , 000 for one of the third or fourth floor units , his project offers ownership in a ''new'' building for about the same monthly costs about 1 , 400 a month , including maintenance of about 200 as a one bedroom rental apartment in normandie court , the new , block size development on east 96th_street at third avenue that is visible from his building . the size and style of normandie court , where rents for one bedroom apartments begin at about 1 , 300 , amounts to ''architectural vandalism , '' mr . corelli said . he would prefer to see developers working to rescue more old tenements like his instead of demolishing them to build modern towers . he concedes , however , prof . salins 's point about the troublesome layout of the old apartments . ''there is a negative side in the way these buildings are laid out , particularly with the old law tenements , in terms of interconnecting rooms with inadequate light and air , '' mr . corelli said . ''but it is possible with a little imagination and scale to re configure the interior layout and come up with something that is as good or better than anything you get with new construction . '' ceilings tend to be higher than the usual eight feet in new apartment buildings , he pointed out , while the varied facades of the old buildings give a human scale to the street . one way to overcome the shortcomings of a long and narrow design is to assemble two or more buildings and remove intervening walls to create 25 foot_wide apartments , which mr . corelli did with his first project at 175 east second street on the lower east side . in that project , he and his partners invested 1 . 6 million to remove walls and to install new stairs , an elevator , hardwood floors and new kitchens and baths . mr . corelli calls the resulting studio a ''loft style'' apartment . they are about 800 square_feet in size and sell for close to 200 , 000 . about one third of the building 's 24 units have sold since going on the market in october . at the other extreme , mr . rosenthal 's ''gut rehab'' of his old law tenement on east 63d street at first avenue changed original layouts very little ( although he , too , followed the standard practice of putting his elevator in the former air shaft ) to end up with four co op apartments on each of his five floors . the apartments are small even by new york standards , with studios of about 300 square_feet and one bedroom units with 376 square_feet . but the location , near sutton terrace , which is an example of the french flats style , makes the apartments a good buy , mr . rosenthal believes . he did the original rehabilitation work on his 63d street building in 1962 as a rental project , meaning that he has had to convert to a co op with some rent controlled tenants still in residence . this is a common practice in the city , although it requires care to avoid running afoul of city laws against warehousing too many empty apartments in order to obtain a conversion . mr . rosenthal is investing heavily in such expensive design details as marble bathrooms , polished brass trim and built in microwave ovens in his co op apartments . under rent control , the developer said , putting in such improvements is uneconomical , while conversion to co ops makes such upgrading a natural marketing tool . one of mr . rosenthal 's tenants is paying 380 . 60 a month rent on a one bedroom apartment , for example . its renovated double , on the floor below or above , will be on the market for about 170 , 000 , with a monthly_maintenance charge of more than 600 . ''the controlled rents and allowable yearly increases the city permits unfortunately are not enough to let you keep operating a building , even an old building , as a rental , '' mr . rosenthal said . ''that 's why so many buildings , and even little buildings like mine , are being converted . ''",has a topic of estate
"lead mark green , who ran unsuccessfully against senator alfonse m . d'amato in 1986 , asked the senate ethics committee today to investigate the new york republican for ''questionable conduct , '' citing accusations that the senator was linked to the wedtech , pentagon and housing_and_urban_development department scandals . mark green , who ran unsuccessfully against senator alfonse m . d'amato in 1986 , asked the senate ethics committee today to investigate the new york republican for ''questionable conduct , '' citing accusations that the senator was linked to the wedtech , pentagon and housing_and_urban_development department scandals . mr . green filed a complaint with the committee seeking ''a preliminary inquiry and ultimately a full investigation'' of mr . d'amato , noting articles that ' 'reveal a pattern of exploiting his public office for the private benefit of his contributors and cronies . '' in new york city , mr . d'amato declined to comment on the complaint and called mr . green ''obviously a distraught former candidate . '' in the complaint , mr . green , a democrat and former associate of ralph_nader , said ''i 'm filing these papers not because of my campaign but despite it . also , this complaint is based almost entirely on public evidence disclosed since his 1986 re election . '' the complaint by mr . green , head of the democracy project , a liberal public_policy institute , contends that mr . d'amato lobbied h.u.d for low_income_housing subsidies for puerto_rico after several puerto_rican developers contributed 18 , 000 to his campaign . the complaint also cites apparent rigging of bidding for h.u.d . subsidized homes in mr . d'amato 's hometown of island park , l.i. , and possible conflicts of interest involving campaign contributions to the senator from wedtech , unisys a defense_contractor under investigation and some wall_street investment_banking firms .",has a topic of estate
"established in england as a new branch of christianity in the 19th_century , the catholic apostolic church built a striking midblock sanctuary in 1886 far west on 57th_street , where the congregation worshiped for more than a century . but convinced that jesus' return to earth was imminent , they never established a permanent church organization . last year the building was taken over by the lutheran church , which is restoring and renovating it . a group of well to do english protestants established the catholic apostolic church in 1832 . they chose 12 new apostles who alone could ordain ministers , but did not provide for any succession the return of jesus was originally prophesied for 1835 . the word catholic signified a return to the original principles of the church , not because they adhered to roman catholicism . in 1848 a group of catholic apostolics began worshiping in new york , and in 1885 the congregation , numbering about 400 , bought two lots at 417 west 57th_street , in a middling area of tenements and flats , and hired as its architect francis h . kimball , who had studied in england . the critic montgomery schuyler , writing about kimball 's church design in 1897 , said there was "" no more scholarly gothic work in new york . "" but the deep red brick and especially the abundant terra_cotta give the church an overriding victorian cast not really evident in black and white photographs . surrounded by a black iron fence of flame shaped posts , the blocky verticality of the tower and the hot red color face the street with the strength of a football lineman , ready to knock you over . molded terra_cotta leaves which run along the rims of the doorway arches seem to jump off the building . and the blocks of terra_cotta that surround them were scraped , before firing , with a tiny , comblike tool , leaving a vibrant , electric surface . each stroke varies , leaving the evidence of human hands on every inch . above , the apple sized heads of angels show each wave of hair , as if they were life casts . the interior of the church is simple , with plaster walls and a few oddly abstract brownstone columns , a cased ceiling and a polished oak apsidal chancel . in 1893 , king 's handbook of new york city said that there were two daily services , but the peculiar solitude of the catholic apostolics has left few other details . religious writers call the sect secretive , with no interest in proselytizing or cooperating with outside inquiry . even i . n . phelps stokes' massive and authoritative "" iconography of manhattan island "" erroneously identifies them as part of the roman_catholic_church . a manhattan clergyman who would speak only on condition of anonymity because he has friends in the faith said that the catholic apostolics were popular because their apocalyptic vision "" provided an explanation for everything "" and because "" their liturgy was breathtakingly transcendent "" with chanted psalms , incense and speaking in tongues . but in 1901 the last of the 12 apostles from the 1830 's died , and with him , the power to ordain priests or bishops ( called "" angels "" ) and perform other duties . no order of succession had ever been established , and outside accounts say that the catholic apostolics considered this "" the time of silence , "" of simply waiting for god 's instructions . henry o . dubois was ordained as an episcopal priest in 1880 , but in 1890 became angel of the catholic apostolic church on 57th_street . he retained his standing as an episcopal priest . but he was the last angel to survive in the new york church , dying in 1949 at age 94 . in the last 30 years the catholic apostolic church has been a tantalizing artifact on west 57th_street a mysterious , sophisticated work of architecture , made more so because it was completely unchanged , its red masonry made rich by a century of soot . now the facade is being cleaned , and workers are carefully restoring even the tiniest missing terra_cotta ornament . dr . david benke , presiding bishop of the atlantic district of the missouri synod of the lutheran church , says that last year the catholic apostolic congregation was down to just a handful of members . seeing the end of their occupancy of the space at hand they wanted to make sure the building would not be reused as a disco or a rug showroom , and donated it to the lutherans . dr . benke says that surviving members are dispersed , have no central place of worship and are not willing to speak with a reporter . in a renovation designed by the architect and engineer andrew levenbaum , the interior has been repainted and relit , and the facade has been cleaned and is being repointed . in the basement bob schuette , property manager for the lutherans , discovered the original terra_cotta cross , which had been removed from the top of the front gable and , for unexplained reasons , buried under three feet of dirt . ernesto arana , an architect , is using molds to remanufacture missing terra_cotta leaves , heads , crockets and other details , which are being remounted on the facade and are hard to tell from the originals . mr . schuette said that the church was expected to reopen this fall with a new organ and that concerts should attract new yorkers to one of the city 's most unusual places of worship .",has a topic of estate
"the first thing that david ling noticed one really could n't avoid it was the accident directly across the street from the plain brick building for sale on a corner in the clinton_hill section of brooklyn . a shiny black car , its front end completely smashed , was just sitting there empty next to a police_car with its lights flashing . the second thing mr . ling noticed was the junkyard on the side of the brick building , a wide lot full of trucks , buses and cars . ''it 's a context i 'm not used to , '' he conceded , ''but it 's exciting , especially the car wreck . it 's like a chamberlain sculpture . and the junkyard , too '' mr . ling , a 47 year old manhattan architect who has designed boutiques all over the world for alberta ferretti , came to brooklyn to create plans for the red building , currently on the market for 1 . 14 million . for his sketch pad project , the architect , whose transformation of a connecticut barn can be seen in the july issue of architectural digest , chose this building from a handful for sale in brooklyn . some had been pretty white columns on a perfect miniature yellow temple . some had been grand a queen anne mansion with angular towers . but this rather nondescript three story building at 46 putnam avenue seemed to him like the cleanest slate . ''i wanted to create a dialogue on several levels , '' he said . the building is larger than it looks , and the rents most of the apartments are occupied are higher than one might think , considering the context the downstairs duplex rents for 3 , 000 the two upstairs three bedroom apartments bring in almost 2 , 000 apiece . ''it 's a wonderful neighborhood , '' said tom le , one of the listing agents . ''it 's in the middle of everything , and the subway is only three blocks away the fulton_street station . '' the apartments were redone in the last five years in sheetrock and new strip flooring , but it was the basement where mr . ling spent the most time a catacomb with stone walls 16 inches thick punctuated with massive arches . from the tarred roof sticky on a hot day ''you can see the empire_state_building , '' he exclaimed , ''and there 's the williamsburg savings bank , and look ! there 's the woolworth building . '' from this height , the nearby view of the street was completely different , too much more charming , to say the least . on the side street , irving place , the brownstone row_houses , lower in scale and more ornate in detail , were set off by locust trees ( ''mies 's favorites , '' the architect said ) . to the right , putnam avenue , the street that runs in front of the building , led to a church , with wide steps and a garden . to the left was a senegalese restaurant where mr . ling ate_lunch . what would he do with this urban m lange ? ''i do n't want to say , '' mr . ling replied a little over a week ago , toward the end of his first visit . ''sometimes i just stand in front of a building and let the idea come to me . '' he paused . ''i like context , perimeters , a riff on what 's already there , like the junkyard and the beautiful houses , the church and the wrecked car , having lunch in a senegalese restaurant , eating plantains and watching a guy sell haring esque woodcuts at a table nearby . it 's a pretty intriguing mix . '' only five days later , mr . ling produced his renderings definitely an intriguing mix . the plans show a complete transformation the building 's facade and its double hung windows would be replaced by a glass curtain wall and a moat . but the most remarkable thing may be the solid sheet of steel or aluminum he 's not quite sure which that rolls right up one side and over the roof , creating another story beneath it . this metal side faces irving place and is perforated only by slotted windows in an abstract pattern , placed to frame the view of neighboring houses and a particularly lovely rose garden next door . this imaginary building now has two pools one on the top floor , visible from the floor beneath it a ceiling of light reflected through water and one in the catacomb like ground floor , spilling out to form the moat . ''in a transitional neighborhood , the moat is a security measure , '' mr . ling said , ''to protect the curtain wall . '' he also called it a buffer_zone ''between the street and the nest and the water is calming . '' the wall toward the junkyard will remain exactly the same a solid brick wall , which is one of the reasons that mr . ling estimated the cost of this highly original makeover at 950 , 000 to 1 . 5 million , and not more . ''the foundation is the same , '' he said . ''two walls remain the same and then the floors remain pretty much the same . and the basement 's already excavated . what we 're really talking about is the new metallic wrapper , the new glass and whatever one wants to do on the inside . '' in getting ready to sketch , mr . ling said he looked at a dozen art books about his favorite sculptors john chamberlain ( famous , of course , for his assemblages of crushed car parts ) and richard serra , whose metal works take up entire rooms . he also refreshed his memories of the painting and sculpture of eva hesse , brice marden , ann hamilton and martin puryear . ''i combined their art with the varied urban environment , '' mr . ling said . ''we taped up all our contextual photographs and sketched on scrap paper . the first sketch was more rectilinear i liked the cornice and the brick walls . i was dealing with the tension between new and old , but i still wanted to insert something to clad , or clamp on , something that evoked modernism . '' in the end , mr . ling came up with the curve . titanium was rejected ''i did n't want to copy gehry , '' he said . he likes the shine of aluminum , but rusted steel represents the strength of gritty urbanism . who would live here who are his imaginary clients ? ''an art collector who 's fascinated by the transitional nature of the neighborhood , '' he replied instantly . ''young youngish . i do n't want to lock myself into a certain age . it 's a couple of any gender , and the key is that they 're interested in collecting art and space and views . ''in the end , i wanted to create a lyrical curve to bookend the block , '' he said , laughing . ''i guess i was inspired by the car parts . '' the specs sketch pad focuses on an apartment , loft , house or shack now for sale that has unrealized potential . each month , a different architect or designer is asked to create a vision of what the place might look like . architect david ling ( 212 ) 982 7089 property 46 putnam avenue ( listed by the real_estate company as 70 irving place ) in clinton_hill , brooklyn a three story brick building , currently divided into apartments . price 1 . 14 million renovation cost 950 , 000 to 1 . 5 million real_estate agents tom le and dennis mccarthy corcoran group ( 718 ) 923 8024 sketch pad",has a topic of estate
"perugia , italy unlike many americans who decide to follow their dream of restoring an abandoned italian house in the countryside , douglas andrews knew exactly what he was getting into . not only did he have experience restoring other properties in italy , he also had very specific requirements for his ideal home . ''i had been living in rome for the past 15 years , '' mr . andrews said , ''and wanted to find a place in the countryside that could accommodate my ever expanding collection of contemporary_art . '' mr . andrews , 43 , first moved to rome as a student in temple_university 's junior year abroad program . while he studied art_history and did his share of the usual partying , he also began to dabble in real_estate . ''unlike some of my schoolmates , '' he explained , ''i made a lot of italian friends and it was through them that i discovered that rome had quite a lot of undervalued and nondeveloped properties . '' he was able to buy centrally located apartments and fix them up for relatively small investments . ''while i was able to turn them around pretty quickly , at a profit , '' he added , ''i also had the great pleasure in living in most of them . '' after 15 years in the city , mr . andrews decided to make a move to the countryside . ''by this time i had a rather large dog , argo , '' he recalled , ''and it just seemed like the right time to start looking for a weekend house . '' he and his partner chose umbria , which is close enough to rome for weekend commuting . after eight months they found what they were looking for an abandoned casa padronale . unlike run of the mill farmhouses , which traditionally are on the small side and have living areas for both man and beast , case padronali are more formal mini villas usually built by landowners . his find , the casa dei frati ( or house of the friars ) , was at the end of a farm road , and had privacy as well as sweeping views of the tranquil tiber valley . originally built by priests , the structure later had landowners as tenants . it was during that period that a wing was added and a grand entrance hall created . but the most recent residents were farmers , so that much of the ground floor had been subdivided and given over to stables . a tobacco drying tower 10 meters , or 32 feet , tall was an addition from the '50s . ''we had very strong ideas about how we wanted to restore the villa , '' mr . andrews said . his partner , who had studied architecture and already had a lot of experience fixing up places in rome , drew a plan that restored the house 's symmetry and , even more important , its wall space , which was soon put to use as a backdrop for their art collection . ''the symmetry and formality of the house was something we really wanted to emphasize , '' mr . andrews said . ''we did this by creating a semi enclosed courtyard between the main house and the 16th_century outbuilding in the back . '' low brick walls embrace that side of the garden , which has a bubbling fountain as its centerpiece . because of building restrictions , the restoration project had to follow the footprint of the original structure . the main villa is on two levels , with 350 square meters , or 3 , 367 square_feet , of living area . a large eat in kitchen and the formal living room both open onto a terrace with a panoramic view . on the upper level , there are four master suites , a den and an office , all of which look out over the valley . two small buildings were also restored . one , measuring 90 square meters , or 969 square_feet , is used as an artist 's studio , while the other , slightly smaller , is a garage and also has a small staff room . mr . andrews declined to specify how much they have spent on the house , but johannes hermel , whose real_estate agency , casambiente , specializes in umbrian properties , estimates that a similar villa would sell for about 2.1 million_euros to 2.5 million_euros , or 2 . 7 million to 3 . 2 million . ''it 's hard to give a firm square meter estimate of how much a house of this caliber would go for , '' mr . hermel said , but he added that , in certain parts of umbria , the price per square meter can reach about 4 , 000 euros . according to mr . andrews ''our idea originally was that this would be a weekend retreat . eventually , though , the weekends kept stretching from two days to three days , and finally we found ourselves spending most of our time in the country . i realized that it was time to give up the apartment in rome , and move full time to the country . '' ''this is our home base now , '' mr . andrews said as he walked through the fruit orchard , followed by argo and his two other dogs . when asked how he likes winters in umbria , which tend to be dark and dreary , he admitted ''since my family is in the states , and i have a lot of friends in berlin and london , i tend to travel a lot . and in the summer we both like spending time at the sea . '' ''also , '' he continued , ''the restoration bug is biting again , so while we are calling this home for now , we never get too attached to the places we restore . we may be moving on to our next project soon . '' but mr . andrews recently sank his roots even deeper into the umbrian countryside , establishing an olive_oil business , canonica verde , with a friend and neighbor , paula hughes . the company 's web_site , canonicaverde . com , also offers umbrian honey and spice blends . ''we realized that , while the trees are beautiful to look at , the oil is unique , delicious and surprisingly hard to get in the states , '' he said .",has a topic of estate
"bruce b . dayton , a longtime trustee at the minneapolis institute of arts , is a nudger and risk taker . in running the dayton hudson corporation , the retailing giant that his grandfather founded in 1902 , he was known as a man who said little , relying on firm but gentle prodding to get people to do what he wanted . two years ago , mr . dayton nudged robert d . jacobsen , the museum 's curator of asian art . the two men were looking over the 75 pieces of ming and ching furniture that mr . dayton and his wife , ruth , had bought and given to the museum since 1991 . construction of its expanded galleries was beginning , and mr . dayton and mr . jacobsen were discussing ways that the furniture could be exhibited . ''bruce always thinks about how things will look in the museum , '' mr . jacobsen said . ''so he asked me about how the furniture would be shown , saying , 'ca n't there be some context ? ' '' the result will be seen in two period rooms that are the centerpiece of the asian art complex , part of the museum 's expanded galleries , which will have their grand opening next sunday . initially , the men talked about making a replica of a period room . then mr . jacobsen proposed an alternative . ''it 's a long shot , but let me go to china and find an authentic period room , an all purpose space like a reception hall , '' he said recently . architectural elements from chinese buildings were showing up at that time in antiques galleries from hong_kong to new york and london . but no one had brought a room or house out of china in more than 50 years . backed by mr . dayton , who said such a trip might be risky and costly but was worth the gamble , mr . jacobsen flew to shanghai and traveled west to suzhou near lake tai . it was in that area that the literati style of furnishings flourished among the elite in the late ming period , when men preferred to write music and poetry rather than go to war . after inspecting seven structures in five villages , mr . jacobsen flew back to report his findings to mr . dayton . he and mr . jacobsen decided which structures would be most appropriate for the museum , and mr . dayton bought two a 17th_century house with a soaring reception hall , graced by a glorious carved ceiling , and an 18th_century lattice framed scholar 's studio with an adjoining garden . ''i never thought we 'd find a room you could prove was a library or scholar 's studio , '' mr . jacobsen said . ''the one we bought was storing iron pipes and beehives , but it had its own plaque , dated 1797 , and an inscription on a beam that described the room as 'the studio of gratifying discourse . ' '' a year ago , a crew of 13 chinese artisans spent five weeks dismantling the two structures . last winter , after the parts were cleaned and repaired , they were shipped here . and in april , four of the workmen who had disassembled the structures were flown in from china to reassemble them at the museum , a three month task . ''our timing in pursuing rooms was sheer luck , '' mr . jacobsen said . until the 1990 's , when the shift to private ownership began in china , the communist government had forbidden the export of houses and rooms . other american buyers have followed suit . a year ago , edward c . johnson 3d , chairman of fidelity_investments , the mutual_fund giant , bought a 16 room 18th_century merchant 's house and donated it to the peabody essex museum in salem , mass . mr . dayton , who is 80 , has been a trustee and generous donor to the minneapolis institute for more than 50 years . until 1991 , his gifts to the museum were mostly european art mondrians , manets , monets , matisses , maillots , renoirs and rodins . then the francophile collector became a sinophile . he said the change occurred around the time he and ruth stricker were married . mrs . dayton , who is 63 , is the founder and the executive director of the marsh , a health_care and meditation center , with a staff of 175 , where yoga and tai chi are taught . she also collects chinese bamboo furniture . ''it 's strong and flexible , so i admire it as the chinese do , '' she said . mr . dayton had never bought antique furniture until he gave the museum his first chinese pieces a scholar 's cabinet and a pair of chairs , all ming . chinese furniture had struck a chord with him the plain surfaces and stark silhouettes , the high backs on chairs , the legginess of lean , long tables , and the practicality of folding_chairs . they seemed akin to bauhaus designs and the mondrian paintings he collected . his love of landscapes , well known from the french paintings he has donated to the museum , is also seen in a ming marble screen , the stone striated with an image resembling mountains . ( he bought it at christie 's in new york in 1996 for 1 . 1 million , a record for chinese furniture . ) mr . dayton paid all of the costs to buy the structures , dismantle , ship and reassemble them a total of 1 million . the 75 pieces of ming and ching furniture cost 10 times that . the daytons' generosity , mr . jacobsen said , cut through a lot of red_tape . ''if we would have gone through an accessions committee , piece by piece , these chinese galleries never would have happened , '' he said . ''we were able to act quickly . '' for mr . jacobsen , the settings offer museumgoers the serenity that many people are seeking today . for mrs . dayton , they reflect chinese ideals ''oneness with nature and our surroundings . and tranquillity life is a dance , not an argument . '' arts artifacts",has a topic of arts
"after a decade of increasingly fraught debate over the place of memory in a society now two generations removed from the nazi_era , the german_parliament approved a plan today for the building of a vast memorial in the heart of this city to the six million jewish victims of the holocaust . the vote opened the way for the construction near the brandenburg_gate of a project designed by the new york architect peter eisenman . it will combine a field of more than 2 , 000 stone pillars with a building that is officially being called a ' 'documentation center'' but will have many of the attributes of a holocaust museum . ''we are not building this monument solely for the jews , '' said wolfgang thierse , the speaker of parliament . ''we are building it for ourselves . it will help us confront a chapter of our history . '' in fact , that confrontation has been going on for many years , often with a wrenching honesty . so insistent has reflection on hitler been that many germans have become impatient with it . indeed , the country 's protracted difficulty in reaching agreement on what sort of memorial , if any , to build in the berlin now being reborn as the capital of a united germany clearly reflected a tension between remembrance and a growing desire among young germans to emerge from history 's long shadow . but the debate on those issues had become increasingly circuitous and the vast site reserved for the memorial between the glistening , newly built potsdamer platz and the reopened reichstag had become a growing embarrassment . as other empty stretches of land were filled with new buildings , the 4 . 9 acre vacant lot began to resemble a hole in the city 's heart . since taking office eight months ago , the center left government of chancellor_gerhard_schroder has pushed for a decision , and its top cultural official , michael naumann , has led the quest for a compromise . the efforts evidently paid off today as parliament voted by 314 to 209 , with 14 abstentions , to approve mr . eisenman 's ambitious project . in many ways , the memorial 's size and position insure that it will be a central element in the emergent city of refurbished or newly built ministries and embassies mushrooming where the berlin_wall once stood and where hitler once presided . the vote backed a compromise reached between mr . eisenman and mr . naumann last january . the agreement involved reducing the number of stone pillars to about 2 , 000 from close to 3 , 000 and adding a building that will house an extensive archive , an information center and an exhibition space . in effect , the compromise reflected a desire to combine the purely artistic expression of remembrance and remorse with a center that would be accessible and useful . mr . naumann called the idea a ' 'superb synthesis . '' ''the 10 year discussion has at last reached a successful conclusion , '' said andreas nachama , the head of the berlin jewish_community . ''now the plans can finally be implemented . '' but it was evident in parliament today that strong reservations persist , particularly in berlin itself . mayor eberhard diepgen , a christian democrat , denounced mr . eisenman 's project for its ' 'monumentality'' and said it would have no resonance for future generations . mr . diepgen is known for his intimate sense of this city 's mood , and with elections later this year , he clearly took a position that he believes will be well received locally . in theory , city authorities could still stall the construction , now set to begin next year , but that seems unlikely given parliament 's clear message today that the time has come to get on with it . the mayor had backed a plan for a far smaller stone memorial inscribed simply with the words ''thou shalt not kill'' proposed earlier this year by a berlin theologian , richard schroder , saying that its ''precision , dignity and modesty'' gave it more power than mr . eisenman 's project . but the parliament voted today to reject that idea . one evident problem with the inscription ''thou shalt not kill'' is that it appeared to reflect the mood of the germany of the postwar years with its insistence that ''only peace'' would go out from german soil , rather than the germany that has recently been at war in the balkans and has now sent thousands of peacekeeping troops to kosovo . confronted by the conflict of two basic principles of the postwar german state ''no more war'' and ''no more auschwitz'' chancellor schroder 's government has sided with the latter , explaining its decision to join the nato bombardment of kosovo in terms of the need to stop ethnic persecution . before approving mr . eisenman 's plan , the parliament voted by 325 to 218 , with 8 abstentions , to support the building of a memorial specifically dedicated to the jews , rather than one to all victims of the nazis . one german jewish leader , solomon korn , expressed_regret over the decision . ''the bundestag made a mistake by voting for a memorial that commemorates only the jewish victims of the holocaust , '' he said . ''by doing so , it creates the impression that there is a hierarchy among the victims . '' but in general germany 's small but growing jewish_community swelled recently by the arrival of thousands of jews from russia expressed satisfaction at the outcome .",has a topic of arts
"bent over books once held by goethe and schiller , workers in white lab coats brush away ash and creeping mold , doing their best to salvage the centuries old victims of a recent fire that devastated one of germany 's cultural treasures . about 2 , 000 books are stacked on tables behind the workers in a large room at the center for book conservation here . the books are a small portion of the 62 , 000 heavily damaged in a fire at the anna amalia library in weimar in september . ''i was pretty crushed , because i know the library , '' said manfred anders , the center 's director and chief executive , as he thumbed through brittle pages . ''i know what sorts of books are in there . the value of the collection is in front of your eyes . '' in the weeks since the sept . 2 fire , mr . anders has served as a sort of nurse to the books rescued from the flames and water . about 10 percent of the library 's collection of a million books has been irreparably damaged , library officials say . but the 600 piece bible collection , including martin_luther 's 1534 copy , and the huge faust and shakespeare collections have been saved or only slightly damaged . and between 25 , 000 and 30 , 000 other rare books are presumed lost , listed like missing persons in a databank on the library 's web_site . ''the texts in weimar were of a special nature in that they had their own history , '' said michael knoche , the library 's director since 1991 , emphasizing their personal connections with the greats of german literature . ''they were used by goethe , schiller and wieland . they wrote on the book covers , or margins . '' geothe was himself administrator of the library , which was established in 1691 . the fire , which the police blame on an electrical short in the 473 year old building , started in the upper two floors and devastated the 18th_century rococo salon built by the library 's namesake , duchess anna amalia of saxony weimar . before firefighters could control the flames , most of the duchess 's personal musical collection , thousands of books from the 16th to 18th_century and 33 oil paintings were gone . those damaged by the fire and water were quickly shipped off to mr . anders 's center , one of the largest in the world . in the last few weeks , specialists there have dried and ' 'stabilized'' them . now , mr . anders and library officials are preparing for perhaps an even bigger challenge holding the interest of the government and the public long enough to help finance the tens of millions it will cost to rebuild the damaged collection . ''i am very worried about that , '' mr knoche said . he was among those in the human chain formed to pull books out of the library even as the roof continued to burn . ''the reaction we received after the fire , it was overwhelming , '' he said , adding that he feared that in the three years it is estimated the building restoration will take , at a cost of more than 12 million ( 10 million_euros ) , the public will have lost interest . and no one is ready to talk about how long it will take to restore the cultural treasures the building contained . in the week after the disaster , trucks filled with books arrived daily at the center , situated in a bland office complex on the outskirts of leipzig . about 34 , 000 had suffered heavy water damage and another 28 , 000 both fire and water damage . it will be up to mr . anders , mr . knoche and a team of book restoration experts to determine just how great a blow the fire was to europe 's cultural legacy . clearly , the scope of the disaster has not been lost on literary fans abroad , or on the residents of weimar , many of whom seem to have almost a personal attachment to the city 's treasures . more than 2 million has so far been donated to the library , either from benefit concerts or private donations . but the amount is not nearly enough , experts say . complete restoration of a single book , depending on how great the damage , can cost between 491 and 3 , 194 . with an estimated 62 , 000 books with various degrees of damage , the total could reach more than 73 million . a_4 . 9 million pledge from the state and federal governments will go to reconstructing and renovating the baroque library . the 1 . 8 million devoted to book restoration is only intended for immediate first aid brushing the books clear of debris and mold and forcing them back into their original shapes . that done , the books are wrapped in plastic bags and stacked in a large freezer at minus 68 degrees_fahrenheit . they are finally transferred to a gigantic freeze drying machine that evaporates the ice into gas , so that the books do n't suffer additional water damage . ''first we dry them , and then the question is what is possible , '' said mr . anders , a chemist by training . ''and that question is not necessarily dependent on the technology , but the financial possibilities . '' he said that when it comes to the country 's cultural legacy , german public officials are more inclined to invest in building preservation than in the written treasures contained inside . book restorers say their trade is a small but growing industry in germany ultimately limited by how much spare cash individual donors , foundations or governments have . ''restoration is a preventative measure for the future , '' said helmut bansa , a retired professor and publisher of the trade publication restaurator . ''like in other areas , it is often cut in order to save money , to the disadvantage of future generations . '' following the floods along the elbe river in germany in 2002 , book restorers saw a spike in interest in their work , but that curiosity ebbed . for the last several weeks , reporters and photographers have descended on mr . anders 's center asking for interviews and filming portions of the 80 tons of soaked and blackened books being pulled out of boxes . mr . anders is grateful for every photo_op , knowing that his business often depends on the free publicity . spun off of the german national library in 1998 , the center for book conservation has seen the number of contracts it receives sink in recent years , but it still has one from the library of congress in the united_states to work on 10 , 880 pages of american newspapers from the 1940 's and 1950 's to extend their lifespans . the weimar state agency responsible for the library estimates that the first books will not be restored until the end of 2005 at the earliest . to raise money for this work , a number of events are planned , including an exhibition of the art saved from the fire . ''at the moment , we have no other choice but to keep people talking about us , '' mr . knoche said . thousands of books , stabilized for the time being by the center , have already made their way back to weimar . the deliveries will continue at the rate of roughly 2 , 000 a week until the middle of 2005 . the library already has an underground storage_facility in which it had planned to hold the collection ahead of its move to a new building . it was five weeks before the move that the fire broke out .",has a topic of arts
"men climb high up tall poles and jump between them to the sound of drums . a woman in a shining gray python colored body stocking balances a lamp as she twists upside down on a pedestal , her body bending like cooling taffy so that it is hard to see where her limbs begin and end . paper umbrellas twirl effortlessly , held by a pair of upturned , kneading feet plates spin three at a time atop long , slender sticks and a man juggles balls at the top of a three man pyramid , effortlessly dropping down to the ground afterwards to screams from the audience . the golden dragon acrobats have arrived . from the central chinese city of xian , the troupe consists of jugglers , contortionists and prize winning acrobats , some still in their teens . a good deal of imagination has gone into devising colorful ways to use their skills and take advantage of their apparent total lack of fear as they form human totems and balance on perilous looking stacks of ladders that lean like the tower of pisa when it is time for the performers to return to earth . in one act , men and women circled and crossed the stage grasping the innards of fast moving neon bright hoops that spun them every which way , sometimes with a squishy look that drew giggles from the children in the audience at the new victory theater . ''how did they do that ? '' a small boy asked his mother , so intrigued by the mechanics of it all that he nearly did n't make it out for an intermission brownie at the theater 's concession_stand . those who did may have regretted it , staring up at the stomach churning tower of chairs act , in which a blithe young man hopped higher and higher as attendants brought him more and more chairs on which to balance , upside down , so high up that his feet could have touched the top of the proscenium arch . ''one more ? '' he asked the audience , holding up a single finger . yells of encouragement welled up from observers of all ages , faces upturned , until he balanced on one hand atop an eighth chair , legs opening into a 180 degree split and turning slowly as he balanced on the tilted back of the top chair . that exchange with the audience was charming , as were the performers' matter of fact trots off stage after seemingly defying death . watch out , ''nutcracker . '' performances continue through jan . 1 at the new victory theater , 209 west 42nd_street , manhattan , ( 212 ) 239 6200 . acrobatics review",has a topic of arts
"the 50th_anniversary of the people 's republic of china is being heralded here with a celebration intended by the government to top all celebrations . on friday morning , half a million invited citizens will gather in tiananmen_square in beijing for a speech by president jiang_zemin , followed by the biggest military_parade in the country 's history , with 90 floats , 140 , 000 marchers , numerous tanks and weapons , and 130 sorties by chinese air force planes . at dusk , 100 , 000 dancers and singers will perform . when darkness finally falls , fireworks displays with names like ''chanting the eulogy of the motherland'' will burst forth simultaneously from 10 locations around the capital . meanwhile , a performing_arts festival in beijing , which began an aug . 1 and runs until oct . 15 , is presenting theatrical and operatic groups from around the country . organized by the ministry of culture , it includes 100 different productions of traditional opera , western opera , drama , dance , symphonic music , puppetry , acrobatics and more . ''they represent all the different performing_arts in china , '' said wang wenzhang , the director of the ministry 's arts department . ''seventy seven come from outside beijing . these include troupes from the army , the railroad , the coal mines and the handicapped , but most are professional companies . also , 23 performances will be staged by the 11 companies that the culture ministry manages directly . '' preparations for the festival began in 1998 , when each province and region was asked not only to select two of its best stage performances to send to beijing but also to organize its own festival . ''most of the performances are intended to represent the new society , '' mr . wang explained . ''in the 50 years of new china , except for the cultural_revolution , literary and artistic thought has been liberated . '' in fact , the 50th_anniversary performing_arts festival underscores not so much the liberation of the performing_arts as the extent to which further liberation is needed . for , 50 years out , china 's performing_arts are stifling under the weight of the system created to support them . communist_party policies , some well intentioned and others deliberately repressive , have accomplished what no emperor ever could the virtual silencing of the performing_arts as an alternative voice in society . ''the speed at which culture has developed has no comparison to the economy , '' said jin xing , a modern dancer and choreographer . ''we have a very rich culture full of artists , but we do n't have art . propaganda and politics have messed everything up . '' the extent to which propaganda and politics have messed things up varies among the art forms . while film is subject to strict censorship , china has produced several acclaimed directors whose movies take top prizes in international competitions . pressure from hollywood helps the government does not want to see china 's film_industry supplanted by foreign movies , and it likes seeing chinese directors acclaimed abroad . and television the realm of schlock and kitsch , to be sure still attracts talent because it pays well . visual artists in beijing and shanghai increasingly push the limits of government control by staging unauthorized exhibitions that would shock even in the west with their explicit sexuality or extreme morbidity . though they may be closed within a day , exhibitions can be held almost anywhere , and others soon crop up . but with few exceptions , the performing_arts offer little innovation or creativity . and the prime factor keeping them moribund is their age old link to politics . the tradition of holding a performing_arts festival , which dates from the 10th anniversary of the people 's republic , is a contemporary illustration of this link . but antecedents are as abundant as some of them are ancient . a famous example was the celebration of the 80th_birthday of the qing_dynasty emperor qianlong in 1790 . opera was the main performing art in traditional china and troupes from around the country were invited to beijing for the occasion , touching off a major opera revival . as far back as the sixth century_b.c. , confucius considered music and dance so integral to political power that he fiercely opposed performances staged just for entertainment . history records that when the great sage found himself at a merry show mounted by jesters , singers and dwarfs in the home of a lord , he protested furiously ''commoners who beguile their lords deserve to die . let them be punished ! '' the performers were promptly killed . as china grew increasingly confucianized , so did its official arts policy . by the ming_dynasty , in the mid 14th century , all dramas critical of emperors , princes or sages were prohibited , while those about ''righteous men and chaste women , filial sons and obedient grandsons , and those who encourage the people to do good'' were encouraged . to give teeth to this policy , the yongle emperor ordered that those found with banned works ' 'should be killed , together with their entire families . '' the qianlong emperor adopted a more modern approach to censorship , establishing a committee that collected 1 , 000 dramas from around the country and expurgated or destroyed those deemed morally or politically suspect . of course , imperial efforts to foster pro confucian dramas and ban all others were far from uniformly successful . the mere fact that one emperor after another felt obliged to issue bans shows how popular heterodox dramas remained . still , by the 20th_century , traditional_chinese opera was so closely associated with confucianism , and confucianism with backwardness , that reform minded intellectuals argued for the abandonment or modernization of the ancient art form . they orchestrated the creation of ''new dramas'' with antifeudal and anti imperialist themes , featuring actors in contemporary costumes . they also introduced spoken drama to china , staging plays like ''uncle tom 's cabin'' and ''a doll 's house'' to encourage social and political change . ''spoken drama , opera , it was all in the service of revolution , '' said liu housheng , a drama critic who specialized in opera before 1949 and spoken drama afterward . when the overthrow of the qing_dynasty in 1911 failed to bring about constructive change , many intellectuals and artists pinned their hopes on the communist_party . the party widely employed performing_arts troupes to spread word of communism and the party 's own goals . art had always been a tool of ideology and regime maintenance in china , but mao_zedong made this relationship more explicit . in a 1942 conference on arts and literature held at the communist base in yanan , the future chairman of communist_china stated bluntly ''there is in fact no such thing as art for art 's sake , art that stands above classes or art that is detached from or independent of politics . '' that speech became seminal in determining arts policy in the people 's republic and remains influential to this day . once in power , the new regime built institutions through which art could be used to promote political goals . the ministry of culture sank roots throughout the country , setting up bureaus on the provincial and local levels and bringing all performing_arts companies under its umbrella . cooperation with the soviet_union was critical in that period , and the arts system that china established was essentially a mirror of that in the u.s.s.r . although mao stressed the political nature of art , he did not ignore the importance of artistic standards . if art was to serve politics , it had to be good . to insure high standards , and proper political thinking , training schools were set up nationwide , replacing the system of indentured apprenticeships that had long been the norm . indeed , one of the first and most laudable goals of the new regime was to improve the social status of actors . confucius 's attitude toward performers was not exceptional until the 19th_century , actors were commonly sold as slaves . the system of indenture that replaced slavery eight years of apprenticeship followed by three years of unpaid labor was only a minor improvement . many child actors were sexually_abused , and the profession was so closely associated with prostitution that its members could never mingle in polite society . reformers worked to remedy this situation in the early 20th_century with only partial success . in shanghai , for instance , gangsters demanded payoffs before shows right up to 1949 actors who refused found their performances interrupted by barrages of eggs , garbage and human waste . in the 1950 's , subtle battles were waged between political dogmatists and those who believed that the quality of art should take precedence over its politics . some forms of opera that had died out were revived , including kunqu , the style of ''the peony pavilion , '' which was performed at lincoln_center in july . previously ignored folk_art forms , like dance , puppetry and acrobatics , were given government support . efforts were also made to create performing_arts that were neither ancient nor western . one result was a kind of song and dance spectacle that combined folk_dance and melodies with western instruments and orchestrations . overall , however , the trend was toward increased politicization . ''art served politics , '' said mr . liu , the critic . ''everything was propaganda , about land reform or about opposing america and supporting korea . '' the politicization of the performing_arts reached its height in the 1960 's . in a perverse repetition of history , mao 's wife , jiang_qing , reviewed more than 1 , 000 operas and concluded that nearly all should be banned because they were about ''ghosts , emperors , officials , scholars and concubines . '' during the cultural_revolution , from 1966 to 1976 , all traditional operas were banned , along with virtually every other performing art . jiang_qing then engineered the creation of a new genre of ' 'revolutionary modern model operas , '' which featured heroic socialist archetypes . the model operas , which remain popular , were based on peking opera but incorporated western instruments , which she considered ''heroic'' and thought better inspired revolution . several of the eight model operas were also adapted for regional opera forms , symphony orchestras and minority nationality song and dance troupes , and even made into piano concertos . arts schools that had been established in the 1950 's closed down , and countless actors , musicians and dramatists died in prison or were driven to suicide . the cultural_revolution left all performing_arts utterly debilitated . but when it finally ended , a slow rebuilding began . artists were rehabilitated , and government controls were loosened by new officials , many of whom had suffered themselves . the subsequent flowering of the performing_arts , which lasted into the mid 1980 's , is widely considered the golden age of theater under the people 's republic . ''the period 1976 to 1986 was a high tide for drama , '' said mr . liu , the drama critic . but in the late 80 's , a slow decline set in . economic reforms brought reduced government financing of the arts and greater competition from movies , television and karaoke . the crushing of student protests in 1989 led to a tightening of restraints on all forms of public expression , including the artistic . the number of arts troupes began to fall according to mr . wang , of the ministry of culture , there were 4 , 000 performing_arts companies under the ministry 's supervision in 1978 as against 2 , 640 today . many of these companies exist in name only they are so short of cash that they almost never perform and must run side businesses just to meet payroll and pensions . performers' salaries failed to keep pace with inflation , and the average pay today barely amounts to a living wage . audience interest has also gone flat a survey last year in shanghai found that 75 percent of respondents had not entered a theater in years . if there is a bright spot , it is the decision of major cities like shanghai and beijing to invest heavily in world class theaters , which both excites public interest and creates a need for more and better performing_arts productions . the legacy left to the performing_arts by their age old linkage to politics is complex . government recognition of the importance of the arts remains strong , and relatively speaking , so does government support . most asian nations do not have even one western opera_company china has one in nearly every province . schools and conservatories continue to churn out actors , singers , dancers and musicians , giving china , in technical terms , one of the most artistically trained populations on earth . though performing_arts workers are not well paid , neither do they have to struggle and starve . yet official recognition of the power of the performing_arts is a double edged sword , bringing with it control . though deng_xiaoping denounced cultural_revolution era arts policies as ''preposterous , '' mao 's opinions on the arts have never been displaced , and official guidelines have been left conveniently vague . ''deng_xiaoping said that there should be no arbitrary meddling in the arts , '' mr . wang noted . that such arbitrary meddling still occurs is all too obvious . indeed , a classic case was played out in the international spotlight last year , when shanghai cultural officials banned the lincoln_center festival production of ''the peony pavilion . '' though many officials considered the action ludicrous and embarrassing , the decision was allowed to stand , because the ultimate right to judge the quality and usefulness of art belongs to the government , not to artists or audiences , and certainly not to foreigners . to emphasize this point , shanghai 's culture bureau has invested more than 350 , 000 to produce its own version of ''the peony pavilion , '' which will be performed in october as part of shanghai 's 50th_anniversary celebrations . the extent of meddling and control varies greatly , depending on region , art form , economics , personal relationships and the preferences of individual bureaucrats . beijing , for instance , is considered a more arts friendly environment than shanghai . ''beijing is much more free than shanghai , '' said a shanghai opera director who would speak only without attribution . ''shanghai is closed . in beijing , you have all the bureaucrats . if one says no , another will say yes . but in shanghai , it 's just shanghai . '' broadly speaking , there is greater freedom to innovate in imported theatrical arts than in traditional_chinese arts , about which many officials and ''experts'' have opinions , a lesson brought home by the ''peony'' debacle . the most innovative theater in beijing is spoken drama , with a heavy emphasis on works by western playwrights . classic dramas or new adaptations of old stories are also easier to stage than original works few of the productions traveling to beijing for the 50th_anniversary are actually brand new . there are , for example , two versions of ''wilderness , '' a play by the renowned dramatist cao yu one performed as western opera , the other as sichuan opera . to entice writers to produce new plays that could be staged for the 50th_anniversary , the shanghai government last year offered an award of more than 10 , 000 for a quality script , but none was found . indeed , many artists sneered at the offer , saying that no amount of money was worth the grief that would come when bureaucrats on every level capriciously demanded rewrites . while control of the performing_arts may vary , it never vanishes . ''the arts have always been a tool of politics , '' said a former arts official , who , once again , insisted on anonymity . ''after opening up , there was ping_pong diplomacy , and then there was cultural diplomacy . all the traditional arts troupes went overseas , and foreign ones came here . '' yet if the performing_arts remain a tool of politics , the nature of their political role has changed . audiences and officials alike still tend to scour even the most innocuous performances for hidden political meaning . but overt political content and blatant propaganda , still offered up by some theater directors , are for the most part just as actively discouraged by most officials . xie boliang , a drama professor and a member of shanghai 's committee to select 50th_anniversary productions , scoffed at the politicized pieces one local opera_company offered up . ''they were all about being a good comrade , '' he said . ''too political and too realistic . this is not the leftist era . you ca n't oppose politics or government , but your drama should still be art . '' mr . wang , at the ministry of culture , echoed these views . ''we stress artistic quality , '' he said of the performances chosen for the 50th_anniversary . ''this is not propaganda . the performances should reflect the lives of the people , but using artistic methods . this is an important principle . '' the adjective ''artistic'' crops up often in conversations with officials and critics , as does the seemingly innocent imperative that art should ' 'reflect the lives of the people . '' reflecting the people 's lives was , in fact , a key part of mao 's philosophy of art as espoused at yanan the only legitimate raw_material for art is the life of the people . while many artists are perfectly happy to reflect the people 's lives however ''people , '' ''life'' and ''artistic'' might be defined by prevailing authorities others chafe under such ambiguous constraints . some struggle on , but others turn to more lucrative work in television or business , or vote with their feet by moving to cities like new york . this more pragmatic approach may be one reason no influential arts underground has developed in china , as it did in the u.s.s.r . audiences , for their part , still tend to prefer pirated movies to theater , unless the show is an international co production or comes from overseas . there is no mad scramble for tickets to 50th_anniversary performances few outside arts circles even know the festival is going on . and china 's performing_arts , despite their rich traditions and talented performers , continue to make virtually no impact on the global stage . ''the talent is definitely there , but the support needed to give that talent direction and funding , and create an environment in which it could feed off itself , is n't , '' said william brent , the executive director of art and culture promotion , a company that specializes in performing_arts exchanges between the west and china . ''without it , it 's going to be really hard for anything exceptional to come out of here . '' a wish list of support would include a drastic increase in private financing of the performing_arts , especially in the form of endowed foundations backed by tax incentives . the dated quota system that requires troupes to perform hundreds of times a year in factories , schools and the countryside also needs to be relaxed . the fulfillment of such quotas is usually pro_forma a troupe that has not met its quota by early autumn will suddenly go to the suburbs and stage the same opera excerpt three times a day for several weeks but it is still a managerial and financial burden . the mainstream press , even leaving aside political considerations , could play a more constructive role . as it is , audiences know that most press coverage in beijing must be purchased the ''transportation fee'' for a print journalist to attend a press conference announcing a new production is typically 25 to 50 . theatergoers therefore believe nothing they read and rely almost exclusively on word of mouth in deciding what to see . indeed , so perverse is the relationship between the press and the public that if a production receives a strongly negative review , people will clamor to see it , though by that point it has usually been shut down . ''it 's a question of legacy versus creativity , '' said the former arts official , as she considered the current state of the performing_arts . ''china has the legacy , but the creativity ? i think first we need political change , then maybe there will be changes in the arts . '' still , like ms . jin , the choreographer , she is quick to point out that much progress has been made since the start of reform and ''opening'' in 1978 . ''twenty years is n't that long , '' the ex offical said hopefully . ''it seems long because human lives are short . but in the history of china , it 's not much time . '' music sheila melvin is a freelance writer based in shanghai .",has a topic of arts
"in the winter of 1944 , near the close of world_war_ii , two austrian mountaineers escaped from a british prison camp in india and fled on foot over the himalayas toward tibet . after an arduous journey of two years , they reached the "" forbidden_city "" of lhasa , the capital of tibet and the home of its incarnated god king , the dalai_lama . once there , they stayed on for five remarkable years , first as tolerated refugees , then as trusted officials in the tibetan government . one of the men , heinrich harrer now 81 , with a distinguished career as a photojournalist behind him recorded his experiences in the now classic book "" seven years in tibet , "" first published in 1954 . part field report , part diary , it is the study not only of an insular culture but of the author 's gradual shift in attitude from skepticism at what he took to be the crudities of a foreign land to a profound sense of respect and finally love . at least as evocative as his words , however , are the hundreds of stunning photographs that mr . harrer took during these years . using a leica camera and film that had serendipitously found its way to wartime lhasa , he became the first person to visually document a centuries old culture that is all but extinct today . a show of 42 black and white photographs titled "" seven years in tibet , 1944 1951 "" is on view , through dec . 19 , at the newark museum . organized by leslie dirusso , it has been touring the united_states since 1991 . but it can surely have found no more apt or receptive a venue than the newark museum 's himalayan galleries , which hold not only the religious objects including a full scale altar dedicated by the dalai lamai in 1989 but also a gathering of artifacts of tibetan material culture . the world that mr . harrer chronicles was in every sense extraordinary , and little of it escaped his fascinated eye . he recorded the topography of lhasa the great pyramidal western gate through which he first entered the city , the monumental obelisk , dating from the 8th century a.d. , whose inscription celebrates an ancient victory of the tibetans over the chinese , and the 17th_century potala place , looming as vast and white as a glacier over the city . ceremonies of state are documented , with ministers dressed in fabulous robes , an example of which , made of layers of french , indian , tibetan and chinese silk , is on display in the museum collections . although mr . harrer also photographed many details of daily life in lhasa its beggers and children and laborers few of these images are included in the exhibition , a curatorial decision that unfortunately skews the show away from the realities of the rigid hierarchical structure of tibetan society , with its wealthy aristocracy and impoverished underclass . ( for such images one must turn to the book of mr . harrer 's photographs titled "" lost lhasa , "" published in 1992 . ) what is ever present in these pictures is the evidence of religion . the image of 30 joyous monks carrying an immense , rolled up tanka , or religious painting , on their shoulders is matched by the shot of a similar tanka identified as the world 's largest hanging , several stories in height , from the walls of the potala . no object , however , embodies the spirituality of this culture as completely as the dalai_lama himself . born in 1935 , he is regarded as a living incarnation of the buddha , and his authority is absolute in matters temporal and spiritual . it was the present , 14th dalai lama , deeply interested in western technology and fearful of the threat posed to his country by international postwar politics , who encouraged mr . harrer 's interest in photography and commissioned him to document a tibetan way of life . these premonitions were realized with the chinese takeover of the country in 1951 . in november of that year , with mao tse tung 's troops advancing on lhasa , the dalai_lama left the city and headed south toward india , knowing that as long as he eluded capture , the spiritual core of tibetan_culture would be preserved . mr . harrer ruefully records the progress of that flight . the last photograph of the dalai_lama taken in a free tibet shows a frail looking 16 year old blessing an urn holding relics of the buddha . the final photograph in the show is of four small figures the dalai_lama among them hurrying on foot across a frozen , wind swept plain . in 1982 , mr . harrer returned to lhasa and found it dramatically altered . the great_western gate was gone , the inscription on the obelisk obscured , and many of the monasteries and schools were destroyed . no great tankas remain to adorn the potala walls , and the palace presides not over public gardens and a vibrant tibetan community but over a bleak military encampment . without the photographs in "" seven years in tibet , "" in fact , there would be little evidence of the rich culture that once filled this himalayan vastness . much of what remains of that culture is , in fact , now found in countries that 40 years ago knew tibet only as a myth . this fall , monks from the dalai_lama 's namgyal monastery , in exile in india , will create , entirely from loose , colored sand , the elaborate and minutely detailed religious design called the kalachakra mandala , or "" wheel of time . "" ( work on it will begin at the world trade center on oct . 19 ) . traditionally , when the mandala is finished , the sand is swept into a little pile , and the resident spirits are dispersed . to the buddhist way of thinking , the material world is transient everything is in the process of passing away but also of returning . seen in that light , the vanished tibet captured in mr . harrer 's images may hold the seeds of the free tibet of tomorrow , a tibet for which many observers , tibetan and non tibetan alike , continue to wait in vigilant patience . photography view",has a topic of arts
"with the end of the millennium threatening to provoke storms of banalities , why not ask the erudite and enlightened to offer some profundities to guide us into the unknown ? that , at least , is one inspiration for an international essay contest that has just been announced in weimar , germany . another is that weimar will hold the rotating title of european cultural_capital in 1999 and would like the world to take note . in the 18th and 19th_centuries , european academies of sciences and arts frequently challenged the best minds to wrestle with the philosophical concerns of the day . indeed , jean jacques rousseau was himself ' 'discovered'' in 1749 when he won an essay competition on the question of ''whether the re establishment of the sciences and arts has contributed to the purification of manners . '' these competitions , need one add , were treated with utmost seriousness . kant participated on several occasions , and schopenhauer won a royal norwegian society prize in 1839 with his famous treatise ''about will in nature . '' in 1780 , frederick ii of prussia , vetoing a topic proposed by the berlin academy , decreed the question to be whether ''it is useful that the people be deceived , either by being allured into new errors or by being confirmed in their present ones . '' this time round , the scope of the contest is much broader in that original contributions are being sought from all over the world and can be presented in any of seven languages . on the other hand , the chosen subject , while both topical and universal , could easily have been taken from a philosophy examination paper in any university ''liberating the past from the future ? liberating the future from the past ? '' still , to have agreed on a question is already an achievement . the organizers , weimar 1999 and lettre international , a european literary_magazine , invited some 900 philosophers , historians , scientists , artists and assorted luminaries from around the world to propose topics . in september , a cabal of experts sifted through 113 replies and eventually picked ''liberating the future from the past ? '' from a french philosopher , michel surya , although adding the same question in reverse . participants have until nov . 30 , 1998 , to present their papers unsigned , but with their names in accompanying sealed envelopes in german or in any of the six official united_nations languages english , french , russian , arabic , chinese and spanish . the maximum permitted length varies slightly with each language , but with english it is roughly 10 , 500 words . sub juries will be formed for each language , with a maximum of 49 essays presented to the final jury , which will pick the winners in october 1999 . the authors of essays placing first , second and third will receive prizes worth 28 , 500 , 16 , 950 and 11 , 300 ( at current exchange_rates ) . these and other selected essays will eventually be published in a book . details on the rules of the contest can be found on the internet site www . weimar1999 . de essay contest the organizers of the contest appear to be taken with the concept of globalization , which no doubt accounts for their global invitation . they also say that true knowledge today must be ''international , interdisciplinary , multilingual and multicultural , '' as they put it in an explanatory note . but can thought be global ? only an overview of essays written from divergent historical , racial , cultural and philosophical points of view can answer this question . more relevant perhaps , will ordinary mortals understand essays written and judged by superior minds ? the contest 's organizers , evidently pleased with their chosen topic , explained ''it is hoped that this question will prove sufficiently ambivalent in embracing associations ranging from nietzsche 's 'untimely' critique of historical formation to the surrealistic disassembly of the continuous universe . '' excuse me , can you repeat that slowly , please ? topics not chosen here are some of the topics suggested ( but not chosen ) for an international essay competition and their proponents why does intolerance persist ? ( stephen bronner , political_scientist , united_states ) europe source of the highest and font of the worst , of humanism and of barbarism . ( george steiner , literary critic , britain ) should we welcome or fear a revival of religion in the 21st_century ? ( hans magnus enzensberger , essayist and novelist , germany ) how does global civilization preserve the identity of each culture ? ( yanh lian , poet , china ) globalization will it threaten or enhance human freedom ? ( elemer hankiss , sociologist , hungary ) are there today areas of knowledge whose exploration should be restricted ? ( roger shattuck , literary critic , united_states ) think tank",has a topic of arts
"pbs is a tad tardy in getting around to ''spying on saddam , '' considering that scott_ritter , that disaffected former united_nations inspector , has been telling his story in print , on television and to congress for many a month . tonight 's account , produced by the bbc in cooperation with ''frontline , '' nonetheless puts the quarrels involving the united_nations , the state_department , the central_intelligence_agency , israel and other players into perspective , albeit a sometimes fuzzy one , and may help viewers get a sense of what went wrong . in 1991 , after the problematic united_nations victory over saddam_hussein , a united_nations special commission to dismantle iraq 's weapons_of_mass_destruction set to work . as the united_nations inspectors ran into ever increasing obstruction from iraq , the commission , known as unscom , turned to u_2 surveillance planes , which involved bringing in the c.i.a . even though this was not supposed to be an american operation . david kay , former chief inspector of the commission , calls the c.i.a . connection ''a bargain with the devil , '' but adds that without the satellite photographs , the inspectors could not have tracked down iraq 's ' 'shell game of moving material around . '' with the help of the u_2 's , the inspectors collected considerable evidence of secret iraqi efforts to make an atomic_bomb and conceal stocks of biological_weapons , and many weapons or potential weapons were destroyed . mr . ritter , a former marine intelligence officer who turned to israel for assistance in analyzing the photographs , led an increasingly aggressive series of inspections , pumping up his team with the news that there would be only one ''alpha dog'' and that was him ''when the iraqi comes up with their tail up , my tail goes higher , when they growl , i growl louder , when they bark , i jump on them and i kick them to the ground . '' his growls were also turned on the c.i.a . as he sees it , ''a turf war'' began that compromised the commission 's mission . moreover , he says that after repeated confrontations with iraq he felt let down by his superiors . when richard_butler , the commission chairman and the chief united_nations arms inspector , put pressure on him to ''keep his head down a bit , '' mr . ritter resigned with complaints about a lack of will on the part of the security_council , several of whose members were taking what he considered a soft line toward iraq . whether mr . ritter , who admits to going public to protect his own reputation , is a reliable critic or just an ''alpha dog'' remains in contention , but the result of all the infighting has been what one official calls ''the effective end of unscom . '' there tonight 's account ends , but no one doubts that iraq 's efforts to build and stockpile weapons goes on , uninspected . frontline spying for saddam pbs , tonight ( channel 13 , new york , at 9 ) produced by stephen talbot dana reinhardt , associate producer david carnochan , editor will lyman , narrator . for ''frontline'' michael sullivan , executive_producer david fanning , senior executive_producer . television review",has a topic of arts
"lead ever since leonardo da vinci 's first drawings of a flying machine , italy has made significant contributions to aerospace design and technology . the history of italian aviation is the subject of an exhibition at the intrepid sea air space museum through april 30 . ever since leonardo da vinci 's first drawings of a flying machine , italy has made significant contributions to aerospace design and technology . the history of italian aviation is the subject of an exhibition at the intrepid sea air space museum through april 30 . the italian aerospace show , organized with the caproni museum in taliedo , italy , includes aircraft , flight equipment , a photographic display called ''italy from the air'' and a survey of the country 's aviation industry and aeronautical achievements . the intrepid , at 46th_street and the hudson_river , is open wednesdays through sundays from 10 a.m . to 5 p.m . ( the last admission is at 4 p.m. ) . admission is 6 5 for the elderly , 3 . 25 for children under 12 . information 245 2533 .",has a topic of arts
"lead a fantasy theme_park similar to disneyland is to be built outside this city on italy 's northeast adriatic coast . a fantasy theme_park similar to disneyland is to be built outside this city on italy 's northeast adriatic coast . city officials said this week that construction of the 100 acre , 82 million park should be completed by 1990 . the officials said they expect the park to draw 1.5 million visitors a year . it is to include a 200 room hotel , restaurants and parking for 8 , 000 cars and 15 tour buses .",has a topic of arts
"picture rossano brazzi wooing jean peters in ''three coins in the fountain . '' giancarlo giannini manhandling mariangela melato in ''swept away . '' or even just fabio steering a gondola in ads for nationwide insurance . a latin lover would surely perk up the ninth edition of ''the bachelor , '' which begins tonight on abc . instead of competing over yet another clean cut , bleached tooth frat boy , the bachelorettes could vie for the attentions of a plate throwing faithless flirt , a cavaliere servente who wears his sweater over his shoulders , orders his espresso ''ristretto'' and can translate the latin graffiti under the erotic frescoes in pompeii . promos for the ''the bachelor rome'' tantalize with the words ''he 's a prince . really . '' but actually , prince lorenzo borghese is n't even really italian . he 's an american citizen , the son of an migr cosmetics executive . he grew up in connecticut , attended rollins college in florida , lives in new york and does n't speak italian . he calls his level of fluency ' 'menu italian . '' in short ''the bachelor'' does not signal a move toward globalization in the reality show market . though it is set in the eternal city , this round of catfights , champagne and rose giving ceremonies looks a lot like all the others . even the setting , a 17th_century palazzo in the italian countryside , is tricked up with red carpeting and flaming torches to look like las_vegas , not italy . reality_shows pretend to be daring , but they are actually surprisingly blinkered and conservative . once a formula works , producers are loath to shake it up a lot even when ratings begin to slip . ''survivor'' created a stir this season by dividing its contestants by race yet with that fillip of ethnic tension , the ratings were about the same as last time around . by the third episode the island was desegregated and back to normal . ''the bachelor rome'' is just as wedded to its inhibitions . this 34 year old bachelor is a distant relative of pope paul v and cardinal scipione borghese , but he wears his lineage lightly . lorenzo , who he says he does n't use his title , is a good looking , polite and personable young man who could as easily be a contestant on ''the apprentice'' or a shoe salesman at saks . he does have one distinctly italian trait he works in the family business . his grandmother marcella borghese founded the cosmetics company that his father , francesco , ran . lorenzo works with his father and also has his own cosmetics company , a line of bath , body and skin care products for pets called royal treatment pet spa . that alone helps explain why a young man with good looks , connections and plenty of money would want to be on a cheesy reality show like ''the bachelor . '' celebrity sells , and it can even sell puppy shampoo . many reality_shows , from ''big brother'' to ''american_idol , '' originated in europe yet , for some reason , the american adaptations rarely cross national boundaries . donald_trump 's reality show , ''the apprentice'' on nbc , is one of the few to experiment with foreigners , but only up to a point . a russian immigrant , lenny , was chosen as a contestant for the fifth edition of ''the apprentice , '' and the winner was a british businessman named sean . but that is about as far into international_waters as most reality_shows wade . the fashion world is a melting_pot of foreign models , teeming with young women from eastern_europe , brazil and australia . there is no real reason why tyra banks 's show needs to be called ''america 's next top model , '' except that old chauvinist habits die_hard . it 's mostly a class thing . reality_shows appeal to younger , less cosmopolitan viewers . some of the more sophisticated dramas are breaking the language_barrier . the cast of abc 's ''lost'' includes a couple who speak korean and whose conversations are translated in subtitles . ''heroes , '' a new drama on nbc , followed suit , including a tokyo based character who speaks to his friends in japanese , with english subtitles . the italian scenery on ''the bachelor'' is pleasant . the contestants are taped walking through piazza navona and on the spanish steps dates with lorenzo include nighttime rides on a motor scooter around the colosseum and side trips to venice . and the borghese family name is inscribed on all sorts of roman edifices , from villa borghese to st . peter 's . or , as erica , 23 , a houston socialite , put it , ''his family is , like , so important in italy . '' there is no need for subtitles on ''the bachelor rome . '' the bachelor rome abc , tonight at 9 , eastern and pacific times 8 , central time . mike fleiss and lisa levenson , executive producers david bohnert and martin hilton , co executive producers . produced by next entertainment in association with warner horizon television . chris harrison , host . with lorenzo borghese . television review",has a topic of arts
"zhongmei li moves like mist across the stage . offstage , she looks like a small , fragile boned bird . but there is steel in those bones . the young chinese dancer has resolutely made her way from a small farming village to the beijing dance academy , to the joyce_theater , where her zhongmei china dance company , which includes seven other young performers from china , is opening a week of dance tonight in "" dynasties china in dance . "" the first of two programs , the company 's new york city debut , will feature dance dramas based on chinese legends , created by miss_li , weiya chen and faculty_members of the academy . the dances in the second program are ones inspired by research into the music , dance , art and literature of several dynasties , beginning with the chou dynasty of nearly 3 , 000 years ago . but it is her own story that might make the most dramatic of dances . as a small child , miss_li loved to dance . "" i always danced on the flat earth , "" she said recently in an interview . "" that was the most happy thing for me . "" one day , when she was 11 , she and a sister found a small notice in a newspaper that the beijing dance academy would , for the first time , audition children from all over china . her parents were adamantly opposed to her auditioning , much less becoming a dancer . it would take her two days and three nights to reach beijing , sitting up in a train all the way because there were no sleeping cars . in any case , they did not have the money for a ticket . and besides , what was the point ? she had no training at all . the competition would be fierce . "" i went on a hunger_strike , "" she recalled . her parents gave in , borrowed 200 yuan ( about 24 now ) for the ticket and sent her on her way . she arrived at the academy to find thousands of children waiting to audition , in a line that snaked around the building and a nearby park . "" i had never felt so nervous , or so excited , "" miss_li said . when her turn came , she was measured , and then she danced . when she made a mistake , she told the auditioners she had to start again . "" i had come so far , "" she said . "" i wanted them to know i was a good dancer . "" out of 3 , 000 children , she was one of a handful chosen . "" i do n't know how , "" she said . "" there were some pretty , elegant girls at the audition . "" but dancing , she soon discovered , was not at all the joyous undertaking she had anticipated . she had no weekly allowance , and because she could not reciprocate gifts of candy , she pulled away from other young dancers and became solitary . some teachers at the academy looked upon her as an unpromising country bumpkin . "" i had to show my family i was happy , but i felt i wanted to kill myself , "" she said . "" i did n't know how to dance any more . "" the school , she said , was like an army , very strict . "" we worked from 6 in the morning to 9 at night , "" she recalled . "" i got up early to practice , before anyone else . but i had no alarm , so i put a string down the wall and tied it to my wrist . "" the night watchman agreed to tug the string at 4 every morning . by graduation time in 1986 , after eight years of study , she realized her teachers and the other students cared for her , miss_li said . she had won an impressive four major awards in national dance competitions and was taken into the academy 's youth dance ensemble . on tour in hong_kong , miss_li was exposed to western modern_dance and fell even more irretrievably in love with her art . "" i thought , 'the world is really big , ' "" she said . the director of the ensemble allowed her to leave the group and even gave her a solo program of her own , an unusual honor for a young dancer , which miss_li described as "" a very special present . "" she arrived in the united_states in 1990 to train as a dance teacher , with a scholarship at tarkio college in missouri . during summer break that year , she visited new york city . exposed to the city 's dance life , miss_li decided that training as a teacher was not for her . she wanted to perform , and began to study on scholarships at the alvin_ailey and martha_graham schools , working in a chinese restaurant to help support herself . she performed with several small groups before deciding in 1993 to create a company and a program of chinese dance for american audiences , with financial help from asian and american foundations . ( miss_li is still based in new york , but maintains strong ties with colleagues in beijing the other dancers in her company are visiting from china . ) professors from the beijing dance academy helped miss_li with research on ancient chinese dance forms . but she stresses that although she received intensive training in chinese folk dances , classical_dance drama and other traditional techniques , her modern_dance schooling could not help but temper her re creation of those dances at the joyce . she sees her work as a merging of old and new forms and techniques and as a bridge between two worlds . ( she and her dancers will participate in a free symposium on chinese traditional and modern_dance forms on friday at 11 a.m . at the loeb student center at new york_university . ) "" the modern sensibility will creep in , "" miss_li said . "" but i 'm comfortable with that . "" "" we are trying to let people see something different , "" she continued . "" i hope the company can go on , but for this time i 'm just testing myself . """,has a topic of arts
"keith de lellis gallery 47 east 68th_street manhattan through march 3 who can forget the neo realism of italian movies made at the end of world_war_ii , black and white films like vittorio de sica 's ''shoeshine'' and ''bicycle thief'' and roberto rossellini 's ''open city'' ? they were narratives of urban life in war torn italy , and one of their great attributes , as orson_welles said of ''shoeshine , '' was making you feel the camera was n't there . you tend to dismiss the artful camera , too , in nino migliori 's black and white stills , taken in the north and south of italy from 1952 to 1959 . inspired by the great film directors , mr . migliori captured what might be called italian quintessences , in images that range from three pairs of women 's white shoes clicking smartly along on a sidewalk to a couple of monks playing volleyball , their long robes billowing about them as they leap . in one shot , taken through a lighted window , the cozy domesticity of a family having supper , wine bottle on the table , enlivens the dark facade of a grim building in another , a lineup of scrubbing women , seen from the rear , animates an outdoor washtub of ancient stone . he photographs a signora who stands in a doorway beaming proudly at her pompous cat , posed smugly in front of her , and a man who reads a newspaper on a creaky old chair before the entrance to a bar as a rooster stands poised on the counter top inside . some of mr . migliori 's most eloquent takes occur in movielike mini sequences , like two shots of three black garbed women sitting on a flight of steps and talking with their hands , and four frames of boys having an exuberant pea shooter fight in a forbidding courtyard . everywhere , the presence of people is played off against timeworn urban architecture to suggest the vitality of a country struggling to life again . like those old movies , these photographs get to you . grace_glueck art in review",has a topic of arts
"for years , the last place to look for a modern display of chinese_art was in china . now that may be changing with the opening of china 's first western style museum here , more than a dozen years after its original sponsor first conceived of it . the arthur m . sackler_museum of art and archeology , which opened in beijing on may 27 , has joined a string of sackler galleries and museums around the world . this one primarily displays relics and fossils discovered by chinese archeologists . the opening was the culmination of years of trans_pacific dreams and headaches . but running a museum in china entails special challenges , and the headaches could get worse . it is not even clear , for example , whether the museum will be opened to the public , except to specialists who make appointments or to those chinese and foreigners pushy enough to talk their way past the guards . the museum is inside beijing_university , where guards stand at each gate to keep visitors out . for now , by appointment only "" they have assured us they will let in outside visitors , "" said jill sackler , mr . sackler 's widow , on a visit to beijing for the opening ceremony . still , for now , visits are by appointment . dr . arthur m . sackler , a psychiatrist and medical publisher who donated millions of dollars to the arts before he died in 1987 , gave 10 million to have the museum built in beijing in partnership with a group of chinese archeologists . but the sackler team has just handed over control and responsibility to the chinese partners and the authorities , who have no experience operating a modern museum . one major challenge is how the chinese will pay maintenance costs , including an estimated 70 , 000 a year in electricity bills . the museum was designed with two separate lighting systems , so the chinese can turn the lights up to make it look like any western museum , or dim them to save money . the success of the museum will hinge on how well the chinese manage it . one parallel , and it is not encouraging , is of western designed hotels that have been handed over to chinese management . inevitably , six months after they are turned over , cockroaches emerge , the plumbing leaks , the wallpaper and carpets accumulate a camouflage pattern of stains and the staff members replace their smiles with scowls . indeed , the american architect i . m . pei declined an offer to design the sackler_museum in beijing , apparently for just that reason . his previous effort in china , the fragrant hills hotel in beijing , is run by local managers and has quickly degenerated into a second_rate establishment . the bills are especially onerous for the chinese partners , the archeology department of beijing_university . the university may be among the nation 's leading institutions , and the department may be the best in the nation , but neither has much money to pay for the museum . so the department is seeking to raise money through a new museum shop and entrance tickets . but neither the shop nor the tickets are likely to raise much money if the public is not invited . while the department says it wants outsiders to visit , the university seems reluctant to ease its restrictions on visitors . in fact , university officials hesitated before allowing foreign reporters to attend the museum opening , and they escorted a restricted number of journalists in and out of the campus . "" we are in the middle of negotiating a way to resolve this problem , "" said li boqian , the director of the new museum and the chairman of the university 's archeology department . "" we want this museum to be a window for cultural exchange between china and the rest of the world . "" where to display artifacts ? with 4 , 000 years of history , china may have more archeological artifacts above and below ground than any other place in the world . today 's economic boom is sending construction shovels into the ground at breakneck_speed , so the number of accidental finds is growing every month . the problem is that there has been nowhere safe and attractive to show them off . in a typical local museum , most pieces sit_in dirty showcases under a faint yellow lightbulb . but at the new sackler_museum , 800 year old porcelains , 2 , 200 year old bronzes and 4 , 500 year old ceramics are displayed in pristine cases , like pieces in sackler galleries in the smithsonian institution in washington , the royal academy of art in london and at harvard_university . the new museum occupies a pavilion with a spacious courtyard recalling the imperial style residences in the summer palace , where chinese emperors would read poetry and listen to the lute . inside , however , a visitor walks through wide , open corridors and rooms painted in subtle tones of beige and white that reflect light . the inaugural exhibitions featured a few remarkable relics , including the fractured skull and bones of a golden buffalo mountain man the chinese call jinniushan man . the fossil , which chinese scientists say is 280 , 000 years old , is early and different enough that it has led some experts to cast doubt on the theory that all people are descendants of a single african ancestor . after the exhibition ends , the fossils are to be returned to a secret vault , and copies will be displayed instead . most chinese museums , which have poor security , do this , and the archeology department will do the same with its prized possessions . chinese archeologists say they hope the museum will inject new life into a field that is underfinanced and understaffed . these days , with money becoming the major focus of chinese society , the life of a chinese archeologist does not inspire envy , and its organizers say they hope that a modern museum will lure students who are genuinely interested in the field . from the start , chinese authorities said they considered the museum a sensitive project . initially , the government was even hesitant to accept the museum as a gift from mr . sackler , partly because it was generally suspicious of westerners . the project finally got under way in 1986 , but ran into many snags and the opening was delayed several times . one mundane , time consuming task , for example , was to properly clean and repair the collection 's 10 , 000 objects , many of which had never been restored . correction june 30 , 1993 , wednesday an article on june 30 about the new arthur m . sackler_museum of art and archeology in beijing omitted the name of the architect . he is lo yi chan of prentice chan , ohlhausen in manhattan .",has a topic of arts
"lead contemporary works by 14 young west_german photographers will be on view through sept . 6 at the international_center_of_photography , 1130 fifth avenue , at 94th_street . the show , which features about 100 photographs , was organized by the museum folkwang in essen , west_germany . shown with the exhibition will be screenings of west_german video art made since 1976 . contemporary works by 14 young west_german photographers will be on view through sept . 6 at the international_center_of_photography , 1130 fifth avenue , at 94th_street . the show , which features about 100 photographs , was organized by the museum folkwang in essen , west_germany . shown with the exhibition will be screenings of west_german video art made since 1976 . weekend hours are today , noon to 5 p.m. , and tomorrow and sunday , 11 a.m . to 6 p.m . admission is 2 ( 1 for students and the elderly ) . information ( 212 ) 860 1777 .",has a topic of arts
"italian glass has been prized for its magical transparency since roman times , until the 20th_century . what makes italian glass made between 1930 and the 1970 's so intriguing is how italy 's most innovative designers , working with the master glassblowers of murano outside venice , so often chose to deny glass its transparent properties . they were more interested in making it anything but clear and colorless . they carved it with tiny light catching chisel marks . they gave it a corroded surface so it would appear ancient , almost as if it had been submerged for centuries at the bottom of the sea . they designed it with wild glass mosaics , plaids and stripes in pure , saturated primary colors . they even ''painted'' portraits in glass . a new exhibition of 53 pieces of glass belonging to the steinberg foundation in liechtenstein surveys such tour de force techniques . the show , ''art and design in italian glass , '' is in manhattan 's newest secret space the 2 , 500 square_foot corning incorporated gallery , open daily and free . unmarked , it is hidden beneath the new steuben store at madison_avenue and 61st_street . the exhibition makes visitors reassess suppositions about glass . ''this is about as far from crystal as you can get , '' said tina oldknow , curator of modern glass at the corning museum of glass in corning , n.y. , who organized this loan show . ''here we see the italians exploiting the ideas of translucency and opacity in art glass . '' the show is really about the collaboration between italy 's most inventive 20th_century architects and the venetian master blowers during one 40 year period . in recent years this kind of artistic input has been in a state of crisis in murano , which may explain the new attention accorded glass of the earlier period . ''that and the huge interest today in all things italian , from fashion to design to food , '' ms . oldknow said . ms . oldknow organized the gallery show to complement ''20th_century italian glass from the olnick spanu collection'' at the american craft museum through jan . 7 . the corning show includes many of the same names in italian 20th_century art glass , but if top artists like carlo scarpa are well represented at the museum , they are less so at corning . the timing of the show is also fortuitous . it has opened right before the sale of the italian architect franco deboni 's collection of 20th_century italian art glass on thursday at christie 's east , 219 east 67th street , manhattan . the 119 lots are from many of the same venetian companies seen at the corning gallery aureliano toso , archimede seguso , venini , barovier and cappellin . mr . deboni is the author of ''venetian_glass'' ( umberto allemandi , 1996 ) . ''the focus of this collection is rarity , technique and quality , '' said beth vilinsky , the head of 20th_century decorative_arts at christie 's east . many top designers are also represented . ''part of the intrigue of 20th_century italian glass is not the form , because it is often traditional , but a combination of surface decoration , texture and colors , '' ms . vilinsky said . ''these pieces illustrate the fact that multiple techniques are used in a simple object . '' there is also some venetian_glass in sotheby 's dec . 1 sale of 20th_century works of art . but head first to the corning gallery , for its overview of the various designers and techniques , and for its informative 352 page catalog , ''italian glass , murano , milan 1930 1970'' ( prestel , 75 ) . at the gallery , for example , one 1956 vase looks like lace coated with glass . seguso is said to have invented this technique , known as meletto ( lace ) , in 1951 . born in 1909 in murano , he was from a glassblowing family that goes back to the 14th century . in 1947 he set up his own company to manufacture lighting_fixtures and make sculptures . he was a great experimenter , and though he invented the lace technique he never revealed how he did it . ''the workmanship is incredible , '' ms . oldknow said . ''unlike americans , the italians do not like to share their secret glassmaking techniques . only now , because there is a concern in venice that the number of highly_skilled glass workers is diminishing , are they going to start a school in murano , later this year . they are trying to get young people interested . maybe they will now share information . '' there are also two vases that scarpa designed for venini in 1940 . ''scarpa 's desire was to create a modern style in art glass , '' ms . old know said . ''his treatment of glass is very architectural . he was trying to break up the surface to allow light to get into the form . '' scarpa was a highly acclaimed venetian modernist architect , furniture designer and teacher . his interest in glass began in the 1920 's , when he designed for the cappellin firm . when cappellin went bankrupt , scarpa moved to the furnaces of paolo venini , where he collaborated with master technicians from 1932 to 1947 . he was obsessed with the textures that glass could take on , and introduced several innovative cutting and grinding processes . the corning show has two of scarpa 's battuto ( beaten ) vases vases covered with thousands of tiny chisel marks from 1940 . one is peach , the other red . ''you cannot imagine how incredibly labor intensive it is to chisel the surface , '' ms . oldknow said . ''what scarpa figured out was how the surface could both project light and take it in . '' sotheby 's dec . 1 sale also has a red battuto vase by scarpa . christie 's east is selling a baluster shaped battuto vase by scarpa in black . ''the glass is carved on a wheel , so the surface looks like fish scales , '' ms . vilinsky said . ''the form is extremely classic and the technique is revolutionary . it is exquisite in its understated elegance . '' black is also an unusual color in art glass . ''i 've never seen anything like it , '' ms . oldknow said . it is rare and has a truly modern appeal . fine 20th_century italian art glass should be much in evidence this weekend at the international 20th_century arts fair , tomorrow through wednesday at the seventh regiment armory , 643 park_avenue , at 66th_street . it can always be found at new york galleries like barry friedman , primavera and gansevoort , and in venice at the rossella junch and marina barovier galleries . ( marina barovier was the main adviser to the american collectors nancy olnick and giorgio spanu . ) the best general source of information is a quarterly called vetri italian glass news ( information 201 969 0373 ) . the careful collector can also find things at flea markets , usually vessels bought by tourists after world_war_ii . it is not an easy field to master , because almost no piece of venetian_glass is one of a kind . some models were made year after year , others were released in limited editions . as ms . oldknow explained ''the unique pieces were the ones that were not successful commercially . the venetian glassmakers did n't make huge distinctions between products made between the 1930 's and the 1970 's . what they were interested in was technique and quality . and making money . '' antiques correction december 1 , 2000 , friday the antiques column of weekend last friday , about venetian_glass , misstated the title of franco deboni 's book about the venetian art glass company venini . it is called ''venini glass , '' not ''venetian_glass . ''",has a topic of arts
"the broadcast tonight of ''war wounds home and still fighting'' on tlc is early enough that some people might tune it in while eating dinner . that would be a mistake . no flipness is intended one man profiled in the program , which chronicles the rehabilitation of several american_soldiers severely wounded in iraq , makes a similar observation himself . ''how are people going to eat at the dinner table with my arm looking like this ? '' the soldier , a marine named matt davis , jokes , looking ahead to family meals . his arm , sewn together from palm to elbow , is an indisputably gruesome sight , but it 's not even close to being the hardest thing to look at in this unflinching documentary . that distinction belongs to sgt . first class jeffrey mittman of indianapolis , whose face was basically blown off by one of those ubiquitous ''improvised_explosive_devices , '' leaving him looking several degrees more grotesque than the ''scream'' mask . that he survived such a wound is hard to imagine . that he somehow retained his good humor is an example for all of us , as is the support he gets from his wife , christy . wounded soldiers have become something of a cause , especially since bob woodruff , the abc newsman , used his own battlefield injuries to shine a spotlight on their plight in a television special in february . the tlc program , though , is particularly graphic in its images and its details . watch it and you 'll learn how a man vomits when his jaw is wired shut . you 'll learn the odd side effects when a chunk of skin from the scalp is used to reconstruct a nose . the documentary completely ignores the elephant in the room the war itself , and whether these men 's sacrifices were justified . that leaves it feeling vaguely voyeuristic , like the latest entry in an escalating game of who can find the most hideously wounded soldier and get him to agree to go on camera . but against that cynical view there 's another we 're obliged to look long and hard at the ghastly injuries these men have sustained . because , collectively if not individually , we 're the ones who sent them over there . war wounds home and still fighting tlc , tonight at 7 , eastern and pacific times 6 , central time . phil fairclough , executive_producer christina bavetta , producer for creative differences bill howard , executive_producer for tlc . produced by creative differences . television review",has a topic of arts
"architecture gets a somewhat desiccated treatment in "" the italian metamorphosis , 1943 68 , "" the guggenheim_museum 's epic survey of postwar italian culture . rows of somber little black and white photographs , lined up on racks that look like stylized gutters , scarcely throb with the poetry that architects like carlo scarpa , pier luigi nervi , gio ponti and franco albini brought to modern architecture at midcentury . still , the show ( on view until jan . 22 ) can bring on a serious case of period envy . what is most enviable about the presentation is not the quality of individual buildings designed in the postwar decades . it is the extent to which the period produced a sense of itself as a period an era when architects believed that they were collectively shaping a time and place . that faith , a cornerstone of the modern movement , has largely disappeared from architecture today . where architects once drew meaning from being part of something larger than themselves , many now derive it from the distance they can place between themselves and their contemporaries . certainly there has been no shortage of architectural movements since 1968 indeed , so many have come and gone that even the tireless chronicler charles jencks has grown weary of tracking them . but these movements have tended , on the whole , to splinter architecture rather than unify it . it 's customary to blame the media for this atomized state of affairs . post modernism , in particular , has been widely dismissed as a creature of the media 's insatiable appetite for novelty . and it is true that much of the movement 's intellectual substance seemed to fade in the paparazzi glare that bathed architecture and everything else in the 1980 's . by the end of the decade , when deconstruction and then new modernism rolled around , people were tired of feeling bamboozled into thinking that they had to keep up . they had come to believe that these movements were driven not by ideas but by the marketplace imperative to search out trends , invent them when necessary and kill them off before boredom set in . and if the point of the whole game was planned obsolescence , it became logical to ask why not beat the system ? why not just refuse to go along with the next thing ? whatever comes along , just say no . sorry , no more movements . no more shiny new playthings . folded planes ? sorry , ca n't use it . green architecture ? not today , thank you . infrastructure ? not in my backyard . the new urbanism ? return to sender . we like the old urbanism just fine . this knee jerk resistance to movements may be an understandable antidote to media manipulation . but it has also bred a kind of nihilism , an indifference to architecture 's public dimension . a movement does n't have to be a grand design on the world it can also be simply one of many stories about the world . and tuning out on what movements have to tell can be as pernicious as the withdrawal of the middle_class into gated residential enclaves . and it 's not even that effective a form of resistance to market pressures . in the 1980 's , with the proliferation of unbuilt "" paper "" architecture as a form of alternative practice , dropping out became a commodity , too . compared with the state of exhausted fragmentation in which much of the profession now finds itself , italian postwar architecture does indeed resemble a model of solidarity . expressed or exposed structure volumes reduced to geometric abstraction unadorned surfaces flat roofs , and the occasional free form fantasy , like luciano baldessari 's 1952 pavilion for the fiera internazionale in milan the buildings represented at the guggenheim share a common vocabulary of forms . but this picture of unity is partly the illusion of hindsight . as the guggenheim show makes clear , architects of the period split off into factions without any help from the paparazzi rationalists , neo realists , inspired by a rural vernacular , and organicists , descended from frank_lloyd_wright , competed to define the postwar moment . indeed , in his excellent essay in the show 's catalogue , the architectural historian dennis doordan persuasively argues that this period witnessed the first major challenge to the solidarity of the modern movement . italian architects had political as well as esthetic reasons for mounting such a challenge . in the 1930 's , many of them believed that modernism clean , muscular , transparent was the ideal style for a fascist society . mussolini gave them a good deal of support . after the war , architects were naturally eager to put the fascist connection behind them . one way they did this was to relax the regimentation of orthodox modernism and call for a more diverse vocabulary of forms . by the 1950 's , architects like ernesto nathan rogers had begun to advocate an approach that prefigured what kenneth frampton calls critical regionalism the adjustment of modern concepts to local traditions and methods of building . italian architects , for instance , showed relative restraint in the use of glass , an iconic modern material . masonry walls , they believed , were effective for integrating modern buildings into the historic context of italian cities . doordan cautions against regarding italian architects as precursors of post modernism . they did not fundamentally reject the ideological framework of modern architecture , nor did they abandon the sense of international solidarity it conferred upon them . they sought merely to adapt modern ideas to regional conditions in effect , to supervise a collision between a global sense of time and a local sense of place . today , the situation has completely flipped around . the solidarity of the modern movement is barely a memory , while the only movement that has come close to replacing it on a global scale is the movement for historic_preservation . if there 's an international movement in contemporary architecture , it is found in the travel itineraries of architectural superstars as they jet around the world , inscribing their distinctive signatures on sites in singapore , prague , seoul and berlin . far from imposing upon the world the kind of universal order envisioned by modernism , today 's leading architects now create something closer to what is known in chaos theory as the butterfly effect . consider , for instance , the recent reaction to the news that zaha hadid had won a competition to design a new opera_house for cardiff , in wales . just as ( in james gleick 's words ) "" a butterfly stirring the air today in beijing can transform storm systems next month in new york , "" so hadid 's outrageously beautiful design produced waves of delight and dismay from london to tokyo . some may say that 's movement enough . architecture view",has a topic of arts
"more than 15 years after the fall of the berlin_wall , the german capital 's senator for culture has presented a long awaited blueprint for a memorial that would unite the remaining sections of the wall into a coherent concept . the plan includes a main museum and memorial at bernauer strasse , the scene of several escape attempts from east to west_berlin . parts of the wall that were not torn down would be integrated into the memorial through bus or walking_tours offering multimedia features like video and audio guides . but it is not yet clear when the memorial might be built and how much it would cost the city , which has struggled in recent years to preserve its cultural institutions . kirsten grieshaber",has a topic of arts
"this small copper statue of bodhisattva avalokiteshvara ( 15th to 16th_century ) from western tibet is in the exhibition ''images of the divine south and southeast_asian sculpture from the mr . and mrs . john d . rockefeller 3rd collection'' at the asia_society in manhattan . the 50 sculptures in the show come from what is considered to be one of the finest small gatherings of such material in the united_states . review by holland_cotter , page 32 .",has a topic of arts
"the official vatican newspaper published an article this week labeling as ''correct'' the recent decision by a judge in pennsylvania that intelligent_design should not be taught as a scientific alternative to evolution . ''if the model proposed by darwin is not considered sufficient , one should search for another , '' fiorenzo facchini , a professor of evolutionary biology at the university of bologna , wrote in the jan . 16 17 edition of the paper , l'osservatore romano . ''but it is not correct from a methodological point of view to stray from the field of science while pretending to do science , '' he wrote , calling intelligent_design unscientific . ''it only creates confusion between the scientific plane and those that are philosophical or religious . '' the article was not presented as an official church position . but in the subtle and purposely ambiguous world of the vatican , the comments seemed notable , given their strength on a delicate question much debated under the new pope , benedict_xvi . advocates for teaching evolution hailed the article . ''he is emphasizing that there is no need to see a contradiction between catholic teachings and evolution , '' said dr . francisco j . ayala , professor of biology at the university of california , irvine , and a former dominican priest . ''good for him . '' but robert l . crowther , spokesman for the center for science and culture at the discovery institute , a seattle organization where researchers study and advocate intelligent_design , dismissed the article and other recent statements from leading catholics defending evolution . drawing attention to them was little more than trying ''to put words in the vatican 's mouth , '' he said . l'osservatore is the official newspaper of the vatican and basically represents the vatican 's views . not all its articles represent official church policy . at the same time , it would not be expected to present an article that dissented deeply from that policy . in july , christoph sch nborn , an austrian cardinal close to benedict , seemed to call into question what has been official church teaching for years that catholicism and evolution are not necessarily at odds . in an op_ed article in the new york times , he played down a 1996 letter in which pope_john_paul_ii called evolution ' 'more than a hypothesis . '' he wrote , ''evolution in the sense of common ancestry might be true , but evolution in the neo darwinian sense an unguided , unplanned process of random variation and natural selection is not . '' there is no credible scientific challenge to the idea that evolution explains the diversity of life on earth , but advocates for intelligent_design posit that biological life is so complex that it must have been designed by an intelligent source . at least twice , pope_benedict has signaled concern about the issue , prompting questions about his views . in april , when he was formally installed as pope , he said human beings ''are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution . '' in november , he called the creation of the universe an ''intelligent project , '' wording welcomed by supporters of intelligent_design . many roman_catholic scientists have criticized intelligent_design , among them the rev . george coyne , a jesuit who is director of the vatican observatory . ''intelligent_design is n't science , even though it pretends to be , '' he said in november , as quoted by the italian news service ansa . ''intelligent_design should be taught when religion or cultural history is taught , not science . '' in october , cardinal sch nborn sought to clarify his own remarks , saying he meant to question not the science of evolution but what he called evolutionism , an attempt to use the theory to refute the hand of god in creation . ''i see no difficulty in joining belief in the creator with the theory of evolution , but under the prerequisite that the borders of scientific theory are maintained , '' he said in a speech . to dr . kenneth r . miller , a biology professor at brown_university and a catholic , ''that is my own view as well . '' ''as long as science does not pretend it can answer spiritual questions , it 's o.k . , '' he said . dr . miller , who testified for the plaintiffs in the recent suit in dover , pa . , challenging the teaching of intelligent_design , said dr . facchini , father coyne and cardinal sch nborn ( in his later statements ) were confirming ''traditional catholic thinking . '' on dec . 20 , a federal district judge ruled that public schools could not present intelligent_design as an alternative to evolutionary theory . in the osservatore article , dr . facchini wrote that scientists could not rule out a divine ' 'superior design'' to creation and the history of mankind . but he said catholic thought did not preclude a design fashioned through an evolutionary process . ''god 's project of creation can be carried out through secondary causes in the natural course of events , without having to think of miraculous interventions that point in this or that direction , '' he wrote . neither dr . facchini nor the editors of l'osservatore could be reached for comment . lawrence m . krauss , a professor of physics and astronomy at case western reserve university , said dr . facchini 's article was important because it made the case that people did not have to abandon religious faith in order to accept the theory of evolution . ''science does not make that requirement , '' he said .",has a topic of arts
"the pentagon is having a rough year on television . first came hbo 's ''pentagon wars , '' about the billions of dollars wasted by the defense_department on arms procurement . hbo followed this month with ''a bright shining lie , '' a movie based on the pulitzer_prize winning book about the civilian military adviser who blew the whistle on the pentagon 's failed policies in the vietnam_war . but for the men and women responsible for burnishing the image of the defense_department , the worst of all may come at 8 tonight in the premiere of a three hour drama on showtime . the movie , ''thanks of a grateful nation , '' explores the so called gulf_war_syndrome , the mysterious health problems reported by thousands of american veterans of the 1991 gulf_war . truth in advertising is not a motto usually associated with the television_industry 's publicity machine . but in promoting ''thanks of a grateful nation , '' showtime 's advertising slogan , while certainly breathless , is also probably true ''the movie the government does n't want you to see . '' there are many people in the government in the whitewashed corridors of the pentagon , in particular who have reason to cringe at the prospect of millions of television viewers accepting the explosive premise of the 8 million drama , which stars ted danson , jennifer jason leigh , brian dennehy , steven weber and marg helgenberger . ''thanks of a grateful nation'' strongly suggests that thousands of american_troops were made sick by their exposure to iraqi nerve_gas and other chemicals on the battlefield during the gulf_war , and that the defense_department has tried to cover it up . the reviews are already in from the pentagon . bernard rostker , the defense_department 's chief spokesman on the issue , was provided with an advance copy of the movie and said that it was ''unfair to the sick veterans who deserve the full story'' and ''unfair to the american people , who need to know that those in the government care , listen , learn and act . '' ''we were very interested in seeing how the work of the federal_government the investigations and more than 100 million in medical research would be characterized , '' mr . rostker continued . ''we were sadly disappointed that the information was not only left out , but that the factual information that was presented was often out of its historical context and mixed with fictional information made up to dramatize the story . '' most of the central characters in the film are based on real people , including an ailing veteran ( played by matt keeslar ) his wife ( ms . leigh ) , who also falls ill a civilian contractor for the pentagon ( mr . weber ) who is struck down with brain_cancer after helping clean up the postwar battlefield a united_states_senator ( mr . dennehy as former senator donald w . riegle_jr . of michigan ) and a senate investigator ( mr . danson ) , who pursue the issue to the horror of the pentagon . when military commanders and other senior pentagon officials are portrayed , their words often come directly from congressional testimony . ''we try and present it word for word , '' said john sacret young , the screenwriter , who is best known as the co creator of ''china beach , '' the acclaimed series about american_troops in the vietnam_war . ''i did n't need to editorialize . i figured they 'd hang themselves with their own words . '' the movie is bound to draw criticism even from outside the pentagon . some public_health specialists have concluded that gulf_war_syndrome is more likely to be related to post_traumatic_stress_disorder than to any kind of chemical exposure , and so ''thanks of a grateful nation'' is likely to be accused of fanning the flames of hysteria . the film 's producers and stars are not apologizing . mr . danson who portrays james tuite , the senate investigator who in 1993 and 1994 unearthed the first evidence suggesting that troops were exposed to iraqi nerve_gas during the war said he considered the film a valuable national contribution to the debate over gulf_war_syndrome . ''the only right thing , the only fair thing , is to paint the complete picture of that war , '' said mr . danson , a longtime environmental activist who said he believed that soldiers might have fallen ill from a ''chemical cocktail'' on the battlefield that included nerve_gas , pesticides and experimental drugs given to some of the soldiers . ''what i see from the government is denial , '' he said . ''i do n't see anybody hellbent for leather to figure out what is making these people sick . '' jerry offsay , showtime 's president for programming , said that even after he gave the go ahead for the film in 1994 , he assumed that it would never be made . ''i assumed that the issue would become irrelevant , that eventually there would be no issue , that the government would have to come clean and admit that something happened out there in the gulf_war to explain why people were getting ill , '' he said . but four years after showtime approved the project and seven years after american_troops returned home in triumph after routing iraqi forces in what appeared to have a quick , brilliantly executed war the dispute over gulf_war_syndrome and its cause is still raging . scientists and physicians are divided on what is behind the health problems typically reported by gulf_war veterans , including chronic digestive and respiratory problems , rashes , memory loss and constant fatigue . some experts believe that troops were made ill from exposure to low levels of iraqi nerve_gas , pesticides or other chemicals that were released on the battlefield , and studies published last year by the journal of the american_medical_association and the general_accounting_office seemed to support the idea . but a number of scientists say there is insufficient evidence to support any connection between chemical_exposures and the illnesses . a white_house experts panel largely ruled out a chemical link and concluded last year that stress was likely to be a major factor in the illnesses , a finding that outraged many veterans' groups . ''thanks of a grateful nation'' sides squarely with those who believe that something did happen to thousands of troops on the battlefield and that the pentagon has disgraced itself by trying to hide the truth . tracey alexander , a former television news producer who is an executive_producer of ''thanks of a grateful nation , '' said she began work on the project almost five years ago after reading a magazine article about the mysterious ailments reported by gulf_war veterans and how , in some cases , their spouses had also fallen ill . ''i had thought of the gulf_war as this absolutely clean , perfect , high tech victory , '' she said . ''and i was struck by the contrast between this high tech war i saw on television and the description i was reading of these maladies . it absolutely hooked me . '' she said she took the project to all of the major broadcast networks and all turned her down . ''everybody passed , and i think they passed because at the time there was n't a whole lot of media coverage of the issue , '' she said . ''they thought it was just too complicated . '' she turned to showtime , which had underwritten and shown her earlier , much praised film , ''hiroshima . '' showtime , which had long operated in the shadow of hbo , has made its mark in recent years with programming choices that court controversy . most recently , it bought the rights to adrian lyne 's much debated new film , ''lolita , '' which has been attacked by conservative groups for its depiction of a love affair between a preteen age girl and a man in his 40 's . ''my job is to make people feel like they are missing something if they do n't have showtime , '' said mr . offsay . although she is expecting controversy , ms . alexander insists that the drama is based on thorough research , including interviews with nearly 200 ailing gulf_war veterans and their families . ''i do n't think we 're spreading hysteria , '' she said . ''we 're really not trying to scare people that was never our intention . but we do have to look at this and get our heads out of the sand . when you hear tale after tale about respiratory problems and rashes and awful flulike_symptoms among all these veterans , you ca n't keep saying that it 's all in their heads . '' television philip shenon is the former pentagon correspondent of the new york times .",has a topic of arts
"after watching adam_smith 's two part series on the chinese economy , the first impulse is to invest , to get in on the ground floor of china 's booming , astonishing economy . that is not an unreasonable impulse . on channel 13 tonight and on nov . 18 , mr . smith offers a vivid glimpse of china 's emerging middle_class , now 200 million people and climbing rapidly . supplying them makes china a golden market , not only for american companies with products to sell but also for americans with money to invest in the shanghai and hong_kong stock markets . mr . smith calls it the "" china play , "" and he brings on a western investment banker in hong_kong who says , "" i foresee a 50 year bull market developing . "" we have heard this sort of message , of course . the chinese economic_miracle is a favorite and important media theme mr . smith breaks no new ground . but in his simple , explanatory style , he makes the chinese marketplace understandable to americans only casually acquainted with china . the two half hour programs are a quick , viewer friendly course in chinese economics . they reflect mr . smith 's surprise , on his first trip to china since 1976 , at the buying power and size of the consumer population . he mentions in passing that for all its vigor , china 's economy could founder , given that nation 's various political and civil_rights problems , and even the possibility of regional conflicts . he notes that the 200 million middle_class consumers represent less than 20 percent of china 's population , clustered mostly in urban coastal areas , while 1 billion chinese inland still suffer from poverty and hardship . will this mix erupt in some unforeseen way after the death of deng_xiaoping , china 's 89 year old leader ? while other journalists raise these downside problems in detail , the message of mr . smith 's program is that the worst_case_scenarios wo n't happen china will stay on the high road , regaining the glory it enjoyed through most of history as a rich and powerful nation . so get aboard , america . or , as j . stapleton_roy , the american ambassador , puts it , china is a market that cannot be ignored . mr . roy makes several appearances , becoming a sort of assistant narrator , reinforcing mr . smith 's message and providing some startling statistics . the chinese economy , he says , is growing faster than any other nation 's , and at the current pace will be the wealthiest economy in the world in 30 years . for every 100 urban households , there are 101 television sets , 77 cameras , more than 55 vcr 's and good products , not cheap merchandise . in the rich guangdong_province near hong_kong , wages and incomes are rising by 20 percent a year , on average , and bank deposits by 40 percent , mr . roy reports . and other experts tell us that by the end of the century , china could have more billionaires than the united_states , while already 80 million people in the rising middle_class make 10 , 000 a year . this rich marketplace has already paid dividends for american companies , mr . roy explains , giving mr . smith 's documentary just the suggestion of a sales pitch for foreign investment . a visit to the a.t . t . operation , trying to supply china 's huge demand for telephones , demonstrates the payoff now and to come for one big investor . and then mr . smith and his camera crew move quickly to the next scenes and interviews , never bogging down as they portray , in broad strokes , china 's new wealth , its modern cities and rising , westernized middle_class . mr . smith 's great skill is in the insights that explain in some simple , memorable way how economics works . his visit to a beijing family parents and young daughter does this towards the end of tonight 's program . the parents , two of china 's new consumers , earn 141 a month , he as a property manager and she as a bookkeeper . but they spend only half this income on necessities in a nation where the state still subsidizes rents , utilities and three daily school meals for their daughter . that leaves half the income for consumption , a neat explanation of how china can be both a great source of low wage labor and also middle_class consumption . can the subsidies and the good times last ? no one knows , mr . roy says , but mr . smith bets that the good times will . adam_smith made in china pbs , tonight thursday at 8 ( channel 13 in the new york area ) first of a two part series produced by alvin h . perlmutter , inc . and wnet new york . peter foges , producer douglas p . sinsel , coordinating producer ellen egeth , associate producer laura blodgett , researcher nancy e . pelz paget , program administrator terence williams , creative consultant alvin h . perlmutter , executive_producer adam_smith , host and editor_in_chief .",has a topic of arts
"a team of weapons inspectors , studying satellite photography , have identified several nuclear related sites in iraq where new construction or other unexplained changes have occurred since the last international inspections nearly four years ago , a united_nations official said today . experts in new york and vienna have continued to scrutinize aerial photographs and pore over intelligence reports , even after united_nations inspectors pulled out of iraq in december 1998 in advance of bombing by the united_states and britain . officials representing the team of nuclear inspectors in vienna and a separate team on chemical and biological_weapons based in new york said united_nations inspectors are equipped , trained and ready to go to iraq and could begin their work within weeks if baghdad gave permission . but they said it would take about a year to complete work to determine whether iraq was developing prohibited weapons , and then only if iraq cooperated fully . a team of about 15 experts at the international_atomic_energy_agency in vienna noted the new structures and other alterations in photographs shot by a commercial satellite , said jacques baute , the french physicist who is the team leader of the nuclear inspectors . the shots were compared to pictures and information from the sites gathered by inspectors the last time they were in iraq . he declined to identify exact locations . ''we are very curious to see what is under the roof , '' mr . baute said , referring to the new buildings . ''there are some activities that could be part of prohibited activities , but we have nothing now that allows us to draw a conclusion . ''we want to open any door we want to open , '' he said . president_bush , facing concern from many nations over the possibility of a military strike by the united_states against saddam_hussein , the iraqi president , plans to consult over the next two days with leaders from security_council nations to see if new action can be taken through the united_nations to confront iraq on the weapons inspections . but even if inspectors were allowed to return , united_nations officials acknowledge that their timetable is slower than united_states officials say they want . the inspectors said it would take them about 12 months to examine locations , scrutinize documents and analyze samples to get a full picture of iraq 's weapons efforts if they could work unimpeded . iraq has continued to allow annual inspections of one warehouse in a baghdad suburb , part of the tawaitha nuclear research center , by a different team of the atomic agency . in their last visit , in january , the inspectors did not detect any illegal weapons activity there . but iraq has not been reporting to the united_nations its ' 'dual use'' imports substances that might be used for weapons production as well as nuclear_fuel as it is required to do , according to a report released today by hans_blix , the head of the biological and chemical_weapons team . that team , which is based in new york , was reorganized by the security_council two years ago to make it more professional and finance it with revenues from sales of iraqi oil , which is monitored by the united_nations . the team , which also will inspect for development of long range missiles , now includes 63 permanent staff members from 27 countries . after a meeting last weekend , european_union countries have been discussing the idea of setting a deadline to force iraq to allow the united_nations inspectors to return . but diplomats in new york said that european governments had not yet decided on that course , and were waiting to hear from president_bush . secretary_general_kofi_annan , increasingly impatient with baghdad 's delays , has resisted attempts by iraq since august to draw him into new talks about the purpose of the inspections . mr . annan told iraqi officials that their next exchange with him should be an invitation for the inspectors to return . traces of terror atomic anxiety correction september 7 , 2002 , saturday a headline yesterday about unexplained changes at nuclear related sites in iraq visible in satellite photographs misstated the source of the photographs . as the article said , they were commercial , not from the united_nations .",has a topic of arts
"for decades the bronze inscription on the reichstag , the seat of the german_parliament here , has been an awkward reminder of this country 's troubling past . the dedication says dem deutschen volke , or to the german people , and it has often been associated with the racist policies that led to the holocaust . but the inscription was created in 1916 , long before hitler came to power . it was intended to assert the values of parliamentary democracy . and though few people know it , the bronze lettering was produced by a successful jewish company , s . a . loevy ( pronounced luh vee ) . ''as a child i knew vaguely about the inscription , but it did n't mean anything to me then , '' said ruth kopf , 82 . a new yorker who fled nazi_germany with her family when she was 17 , ms . kopf is the granddaughter of albert loevy , who ran the firm with his brother , siegfried , when the project was commissioned . the story of the loevys is central to an exhibition that opened at the jewish museum berlin on march 21 and runs through june 15 . ''dem deutschen volke the story of the loevy bronze foundry from berlin'' traces the loevys from their arrival in berlin in the mid 19th_century to their persecution under the nazis . ''our family never talked about it , '' said ms . kopf , who was in berlin for the exhibition with her cousin renate soybel , 74 , also of new york . added mrs . soybel , ''we had a very traditional berlin childhood and were protected from family business matters . '' the loevy family had a typical success story of late 19th and early 20th_century berlin . they came to berlin from east prussia and established the foundry in 1855 . within two generations the foundry had become one of the top names in the business and was receiving commissions from leading architects like peter behrens , walter gropius and bruno paul . s . a . loevy took on the reichstag commission in 1916 after kaiser wilhelm ii gave his belated approval to dedicating the 22 year old parliament to the citizens of germany . the concept had been proposed in the early 1890 's by paul wallot , the building 's architect , but no agreement was reached on the wording . nothing progressed until 1915 , when a newspaper article argued that the dedication would reconcile the kaiser with an increasingly disgruntled populace . the inscription ( behrens designed its gothic script ) was bolted to the frieze above the portico entrance to show the democratic dimension of the german reich . produced from two bronze cannons captured in battle and melted , the dedication was also conceived as a rallying point for the nation in the throes of world_war i , in which loevy family members served for germany and one , peter loevy , died . ''the great irony is that the loevys were ordinary members of the german bourgeoisie , like so many other berlin jews , '' said armin steuer , a writer and filmmaker whose research on the family over the last decade provided the impetus for the exhibition . ''they belonged completely to 'the german people , ' and they were kicked out , excluded from the nation . '' after the nazis took power they took over the foundry , and the loevys had to emigrate or go to concentration_camps . the exhibition points out that family members who were most assimilated or who had been in mixed marriages stayed in nazi_germany , believing they would not be persecuted . ''but then we woke up and things happened , '' recalled mrs . soybel , who was 10 when the war started . although some escaped including ms . kopf and mrs . soybel branches of the loevy family died at auschwitz , chelmno , majdanek and theresienstadt . after the war , the reichstag , which was badly_damaged in the 1933 fire that coincided with hitler 's rise to power , was not used by parliament for a half century . the words ''to the german people , '' meanwhile , had taken on a different meaning . because of its use in nazi racial ideology , the term volk was associated with the worst elements of nationalism . ''there was a lot of talk about tearing down the building , or at least the inscription , '' said michael s . cullen , a berlin historian who has written extensively about the reichstag . ''a lot of people were bothered or scared by it . '' in the 1980 's , while writing a book about the reichstag , mr . cullen discovered an obscure reference to the loevy firm 's production of the bronze letters in 1916 . that reference , which mr . cullen included in his book , spurred mr . steuer to research the loevy family . ''when i first called the german_parliament about the inscription , they did n't have any information and were n't interested , '' mr . steuer said . but after the reichstag was refurbished and became the seat of parliament again in 1999 , mr . steuer 's work on the loevys caught the attention of several politicians . two years later , a small plaque commemorating the family was added to the building . ms . kopf and mrs . soybel express a mixture of interest and perplexity regarding their connection to the reichstag . ''it 's another town in another country , '' ms . kopf said . still , speaking alternately in german and english , the women acknowledged that their german heritage had left a mark on their lives . ''inside me it is a part of what i am , '' mrs . soybel said in reference to ''the german people'' of the inscription . ''i was raised in germany and i still identify strongly with berlin . ''",has a topic of arts
"during and after the persian_gulf_war , the pentagon dramatically oversold the effectiveness of its most expensive high tech aircraft and missiles , the most thorough independent study to date has found . the pentagon and its principal military contractors made claims for the pinpoint precision of their most impressive new weapons the stealth_fighter jet , the tomahawk land attack missile and laser guided "" smart bombs "" that "" were overstated , misleading , inconsistent with the best available data , or unverifiable , "" the study by the nonpartisan general_accounting_office found . the accounting office concluded that new , costly "" smart "" weapons systems did not necessarily perform better in the persian_gulf_war than old fashioned , cheaper "" dumb "" ones . it called into question the wisdom of the military 's plans to depend increasingly on weapons that extend the state of the art of war at a cost of tens of billions of dollars . the accounting office analyzes government programs for congress . its secret four year study of the air war conducted during operation_desert_storm is the most detailed analysis of its kind to be made public . it used more than one million pieces of information defense_department databases compiled for commanders , intelligence reports , after action analyses and reports from military contractors . the accounting office also interviewed more than 100 desert_storm pilots , war planners and battlefield commanders . an unclassified summary of the 250 page secret report is scheduled to be published this week . the report was commissioned in 1992 by senator david_pryor , an arkansas democrat , and representative john d . dingell , a michigan democrat , to help congress decide what weapons to buy in the future . the secret report contains facts and figures to buttress the 13 page unclassified summary , which was made available to the new york times by a government official familiar with the underlying report . during the war , pentagon briefers treated the public to videotapes showing a smart bomb diving down the air shaft of a baghdad building and told anecdotes about the extraordinary accuracy of tomahawk missiles . the study concluded that while some of those stories were true , they were not the whole truth . nor is this the first time that questions have been raised about praise bestowed upon pentagon weaponry in the flush of victory after the war . in 1991 , president_bush said the patriot_missile system had been nearly perfect , shooting down 41 out of 42 iraqi scud missiles aimed at israel and saudi_arabia . defense_department officials later said that the patriot was far from perfect , knocking out perhaps 40 percent of the scuds aimed at israel and 70 percent of those aimed at saudi_arabia . skeptics congressional investigators , israeli officials and a massachusetts_institute_of_technology scientist said the patriot may not have scored more than one clean hit . the pentagon did not dispute the new report 's main conclusions . in an april 28 letter to the accounting office , the defense_department said it "" acknowledges the shortcomings "" of its precision guided munitions , the aircraft that carry them , the tomahawk missiles and the department 's ability to assess the effectiveness of its bombing in the gulf_war . it said it would deal with those shortcomings by building improved smart weapons , studying whether it has the right mix of weaponry and proposing new ways to find and destroy targets . american air power overwhelmed the iraqi military during the 1991 persian_gulf_war , and helped win that famous victory . the united_states deployed nearly 1 , 000 combat aircraft and unleashed nearly as many tons of bombs each day as were dropped on germany and japan daily during world_war_ii . but for all their superior technology , pilots often could not tell whether a presumed target was a tank or a truck or whether it already had been destroyed , the report said . their sensors laser , electro optical and infrared systems could not see clearly through clouds , rain , fog , smoke or high humidity , it said . the sleek black f_117 stealth_fighter jet , despite its high cost and its highly touted ability to get close to a target while evading detection , did not necessarily outperform older , cheaper aircraft . ( the fighters cost more than 106 million each in 1990 the plane is different from the b_2 stealth_bomber , which costs more than 2 billion a copy thus far . ) the air_force claimed an 80 percent success rate on bombing runs by the stealth_fighter , but the reality was closer to 40 percent , the report found . "" it is inappropriate , given aircraft use , performance and effectiveness demonstrated in desert_storm , to characterize higher cost aircraft as generally more capable than lower cost aircraft , "" the summary said . nor did smart bombs necessarily deliver the bang for the buck . only 8 percent of the tonnage of bombs dropped on iraq were smart bombs . but they accounted for 84 percent of the cost of munitions in the war , the summary said . "" the air campaign data did not validate the purported efficiency or effectiveness of guided munitions , without qualification , "" the summary said . "" 'one target , one bomb' efficiency was not achieved . "" the cost of smart bombs being built by the pentagon and planned for the future is now estimated to be more than 58 billion , more than triple what the government will spend this year on the f.b.i. , the war on drugs , immigration control , customs , federal courts and prison construction . "" the cost of guided munitions , "" the summary concluded , "" and the limitations on their effectiveness demonstrated in desert_storm need to be addressed by the department of defense . """,has a topic of arts
"in the united_states , alain platel is just a name , if that . maybe he 's been heard of , maybe even fleetingly seen , but he 's hardly known to the general dance public , let alone the general public . what it says about culture in america that so many major choreographers and dancers saburo teshigawara , lloyd newson , mr . platel and more rarely appear there , i cannot say . perhaps we do n't care about or want them perhaps they do n't want us . but they regularly tour europe , where they are major stars . mr . platel was trained as a teacher of children with learning_disabilities , rather like robert wilson in that respect , but soon gravitated to his own particular form of dance theater . he founded les_ballets contemporains de la belgique in ghent two decades ago , a name soon shorted to les_ballets c . de la b . by now , like most european companies , it is wildly international in its makeup . mr . platel 's piece for 2006 , ''vsprs , '' was commissioned by a host of major festivals and companies and is being presented by them and in many other cities . friday night it was the turn of the ruhr triennale , one of the commissioners , with the first of five performances in a theater within the gargantuan bochum jahrhunderthalle ( centennial hall ) , carved out of a former steel mill . the ruhr triennale is an annual arts festival the term triennale seems to refer to the three year terms of its directors . founded to attract tourism to this fading industrial region of western germany , it rotates performances about the various closely knit cities of the ruhr and is devoted to determined avant gardism in all the arts . there is , however , a curiously strong connection with the once tradition laden salzburg festival in austria . the triennale 's founding director was gerard mortier , fresh from salzburg and on his way to the paris_opera . his successor was the stage director and arts administrator j rgen flimm , now appointed the new head of salzburg . this is mr . flimm 's second ruhr season he is busily preparing his third , as well as his first season in salzburg next summer . ''vsprs'' is short for vespers . the 90 minute piece is for 10 dancers and 10 onstage musicians , who play a jazzish arrangement by fabrizio cassol of monteverdi 's 1610 vespers for period winds and brass , soprano , violin , saxophone , electric guitar , string bass and drums , all amplified . a striking set , by peter de blieck , looks like ice floes rearing up at the back of the flat stage . it is covered with torn up white underwear , which is also scattered about the perimeter of the stage . dancers scramble up the walls of the set , crawl up its ridges , promenade along the top clinging to guide ropes like woodcuts from ''the ship of fools . '' toward the end , the set glows from within . the musicians are dressed in white , the dancers in fancifully varied everyday clothing . each dancer has a personality , with signature movements , although there is no narrative as such . pina_bausch 's revue aesthetic hovers in the background . one woman looks like the pop star madonna , another like the 60 's model jean shrimpton , yet another sternly spanish . there are an agile contortionist , two striking asian men , a man with dreadlocks , and so forth . each is vivid all move brilliantly , although sometimes mr . platel 's vision is clouded by individual display , as if he had not quite shaped his dancers' inventions . his vision seems to be a commentary on religion today , especially at its despairing , ecstatic extremes . most of the time , the dancers look like inmates of a lunatic asylum , holy fools or maybe mr . platel 's idea of everyday existence . electric shock spasms are the default mode of movement sometimes the dancers work themselves into a mass frenzy . usually they remain detached from one another , alone in their loneliness . toward the end sexual hysteria pervades the scene , with everyone apart and masturbating ( although there is no nudity ) . from the depths of this desperate depravity arises mr . platel 's most moving image . as monteverdi , now sounding mostly from behind the set , in the far distance to which the musicians have disappeared , the dancers struggle up an incline , dragging their fellows . they have n't made it to the top as the light fades , but at last humanity has come together , in its pained aspiration for something higher than itself . alain platel 's ''vsprs'' continues in bochum tonight , tuesday and wednesday , and again at the lyon biennale de la danse from sept . 26 to 28 . the ruhr triennale continues until oct . 15 ruhrtriennale . de , biennale de lyon . org . dance review",has a topic of arts
"a frieze of rabbits and dogs runs round the top of a wall papered with elephants , pandas , monkeys and palms . a pig and a squirrel share a tiny settee , and a teddy_bear drives a small car across the floor . this is the nursery of the goldschmidt rothschild children in berlin , two years before the coming of the third reich . their toys were captured in this state of implausible tidiness by a photographer named marta huth in the winter of 1931 , along with their father 's priceless collection of dutch paintings and french furniture downstairs . all were shortly to go under the hammer . erich goldschmidt rothschild had decided to pack it all in and go traveling as early as 1930 . the tiergarten villa was sold , nazified in 1933 and destroyed by bombs in 1943 . garden and foundations now lie under the middle of a six lane highway made necessary by the postwar zoning of the city and the building of the berlin_wall . a berlin story , one of countless like it , for this remains a haunted city of layers , disappearances and trails that come to nothing in the shallow local sand . the goldschmidt rothschilds left germany in time . erich is recorded in rome and america after the war , and presumably died ( unless he is 102 ) , but when and where ? this is one of many unsolved mysteries raised by an exhibition of the huth photographs at the bauhaus museum in berlin until nov . 17 . marta huth managed to take her 283 heavy negative plates with her when she moved to the united_states in the late 1930 's , settling in chicago with her husband , hans , who worked at the art institute . when she died in 1984 in carmel , calif . , where she and her husband had retired , she left the plates to a local charity , which sold them back to berlin . in a city that has tried to rebuild its metropolitan credentials for 50 years and is passing through a traumatically transient phase as it prepares to be a capital once more , the human diversity revealed by the huth archive has been welcomed as vital evidence from the past . this is not photojournalism these pictures were set up . huth was invited to photograph rooms in the homes of 27 financiers , doctors , writers , artists , heiresses , publishers and connoisseurs who contributed to the civilized image of berlin in the 20 's . some bore famous names max liebermann , the painter paul mendelssohn bartholdy , a banker and a descendant of the composer carl zuckmayer , a playwright , and emil lettre , a jeweler . many but not all were jews . most were avid collectors of porcelain , picasso , early musical instruments , italian primitives , tapestries , rare books and nearly all are known to have survived the war . of their villas , apartments , bungalows and palaces , however , only a handful remain . there are no people in these airless , scrupulously posed interiors . there is nothing more animate anywhere , in fact , than the odd aspidistra , spider plant and perfectly placed plum . yet the rooms are full of expectation , and the photographs speak volumes about the men and women who invited marta huth in . they mostly loved sunshine , for one thing , and they loved art . hermine feist ( 1855 1933 ) was perhaps the most exotic . she was the daughter of a coal and steel magnate and married into a dynasty founded on german champagne . she went bust spending all her money on china , particularly meissen , and rebuilding a large villa in fashionable wannsee to contain it . what remains of the feist collection in the modern kunstgewerbemuseum ( museum of applied arts ) gleams with a beauty and wit that suggest this must indeed have been the greatest private assembly of meissen in the world . feist favored rococo rooms and furniture to show off her collection . the painter fritz wildhagen hung viols all over his walls , leading the eye carefully through a half open door into the next room . victor hahn , who was viennese , shut out the vulgar kurfurstendamm completely and turned up the spotlights on rooms so stuffed with medieval treasures that you might think he was preparing for a visit from his acquisitive contemporary and fellow newspaper proprietor , william randolph hearst . none of this had much to do with the parvenu city of weimar berlin pulsing with new ideas outside , but not all huth 's subjects played with the melodrama of the past . some threw all their curtains and furniture out the window and commissioned mies_van_der_rohe or marcel breuer from the bauhaus to design a minimalist setting , something to clear their heads the minute they walked in after a bad day . there was modernist bravura , too , in the eye of the storm at the depth of the depression one banker took a 2 floor , 10 room apartment in charlottenburg and had it done over by ernst freud , son of sigmund , whose views on clutter were as severe as those of mies . since 1979 , walter gropius 's brilliant white , many funneled bauhaus museum has stood like an ark of hope between the tiergarten and the landwehr canal it is a shrine to the modernism that is already classic and a promise , always , of new things to come . as a setting for this show it is perfect , for several of huth 's ghosts lived only minutes away , along the southern edge of the tiergarten on roads then colonized by diplomats and private wealth . apart from the restoration of the old japanese embassy as a cultural center a few years ago , it has been a melancholy and neglected district since the 40 's , when most of the remaining trees in the tiergarten were cut down for fuel . ( the park was replanted , but few trees today are more than 40 years old . ) there is still more wilderness on and around tiergartenstrasse than in most of the old central west_berlin . look for the french and german libraries in hans furstenburg 's villa , and you will find a mormon church , to whom furstenburg sold the ruins and garden in the late 50 's . try to find the house where hanns heinz ewers lived with his books , buddha , italian majolica and chinese carpets , and you will stare through a wire fence into a dappled birch grove . there is no house only the plasterwork paneling of the bedrooms on the outside wall of the derelict villa next door . tiergartenstrasse now leads straight to the huge potsdamer platz building site and the heart of the reunified city . the whole area is coming to life again as landowners develop their wilderness . the biggest of these is , of course , the german_government . in 1915 the mendelssohn bartholdys stylishly completed one of the last palaces in berlin near the reichstag , on the other side of the park . the house was later requisitioned by albert speer and vanished , like everything round it , after less than 30 years . the new federal chancellery will be built on the site . michael ratcliffe is a former theater critic and literary editor of the observer in london .",has a topic of arts
"born of fire and molten metal , the hefty bronze helmets of the ancient greeks were worn as shimmering symbols of valor and vanity . the japanese in the 16th_century transformed samurai headgear into theatrical surprises . and today , artists on five continents are using the plastic crash helmet of warrior bikers as a canvas for creativity . some impressive expressions of the trends in helmet design wings , skulls , targets and trash can be found in "" art is life , "" an exhibition that originated in turin , italy , and features works by 148 artists from 14 countries . after touring automobile museums in italy , belgium and luxembourg , the collection was shown in london at sotheby 's , which will auction the helmets in milan on oct . 12 . bidding on each helmet will open at 300 , but the action will probably not stop there especially on the more unusual offerings or those by prominent artists like carl andre , stephen antonakos , alex katz , mimmo paladino , arnaldo pomodoro , kenny scharf and william wegman . organized last year by vezio tomasinelli , a turin dentist who collects contemporary_art and races motorcycles , the project will benefit a turin charity , sermig ( missionary services for youth ) , which helps the hungry , the needy and war orphans in third world countries . proceeds from the catalogue ( 18 ) will also go to sermig . "" art and motorcycles are my passions , "" dr . tomasinelli says . "" so , in trying to combine the two , 'art is life' was born . "" the artists , who donated their works , embellished helmets contributed by a.g.v. , an italian manufacturer . many depict the weird or wonderful sights , thrills or horrors that a biker discovers . several artists focused on the visual feasts of motorcycling starry skies , gleaming cityscapes and ancient landmarks . others convey speed by affixing plastic or metal wings . claudio destito of turin added a red_cross and inky blue wings to his helmet , which could pass for a comic strip version of what a crusader wore . ha schult of germany devised a heroic bronze toned helmet in the italian_renaissance style . kriki of paris painted cartoon faces rocketing through a night sky on a silvery winged helmet . alex katz of new york chose a familiar subject his wife , ada for his watercolor on wood portrait and attached it to a wire to wave in the breeze . sandro chia , an italian artist , painted one of his voluptuous women 's faces in blue and red mimmo paladino , also from italy , sketched in black the sort of faces , hands and trees he is known for . the drawings of men and angels by william wegman , the new yorker famous for his portraits of dogs , are nothing like his sartorial hounds . the only dog images in the collection , in fact , are the snarling beasts by piero bolla of italy . helmets protesting the violence of the motorcycle scene are among the most memorable . stephen antonakos , a greek born american artist , topped his helmet with a cross and a crown of thorns made from a los_angeles rosebush . "" it 's crazy to wear helmets , "" he says . "" it 's crazier to ride motorcycles . "" death on the freeway is obviously on the minds of other artists . in some cases , the results are remarkable . the helmet of the australian martine canneel looks like a charred skull . sergio ragalzi of turin swathed his helmet in what looks like blood soaked bandages . the parisian patrick raynaud used the photograph of a skull to line his helmet , which lights up like a pumpkin on halloween . and the lethal looking headgear of arnaldo pomodoro of milan is studded with 25 iron spikes , six inches long , and finished in a blue metallic paint that glows in the dark . why did costas tsoclis , a greek artist , add an ax to the top of his helmet ? "" it 's there , "" says dr . tomasinelli , "" in case the helmet is not sufficient protection for the driver . "" relying on one of his favorite themes , kenny scharf of new york decorated his helmet with the sort of roadside litter paper coffee cups , lids , soda bottles and plastic flowers that he routinely incorporates into his art . the few artists who borrowed from history did so with wit and deftness . the painted black helmet of tino stefanoni of italy seems , at first , as forbidding as those worn by evil minded knights in the late middle ages , until you notice the white castle in a green landscape painted on the visor in a scene as inviting as a travel poster . with or without recognizable messages , the works of these artists prove that whatever the material , even the most outrageous substitute for a canvas can amuse . certainly the collection 's two gaudiest helmets would stop traffic if seen together on any highway a flamingo pink hood by sylvie fleury of switzerland and a wig of green curls by giandomenico sozzi of italy . vrrroooom ! arts artifacts",has a topic of arts
"the american sculptor richard serra has abruptly pulled out of a project to design a massive and much debated holocaust memorial in berlin . mr . serra , who had joined with the american architect peter eisenmann to submit a design that was strongly favored by germany 's chancellor , helmut_kohl , said he had quit for ''personal and professional reasons'' that ''had nothing to do with the merits of the project . '' the surprising announcement by mr . serra , whose giant abstract works have both enraptured and infuriated people for decades , was yet another twist in the troubled efforts by german leaders to build a memorial to jewish victims on a site at the heart of hitler 's third reich , and almost on top of the line where the berlin_wall once stood . though mr . kohl and other german leaders had hoped to build a memorial to the holocaust in berlin by the time the city resumed its role next year as capital of the reunited germany , the project has been dogged by philosophical and political battles . though german leaders have not officially decided on a design , the proposal by mr . serra and mr . eisenmann , one of four competing proposals , has been the clear favorite of mr . kohl and of the nonprofit_organization that has led the decadelong effort to build a memorial . as envisioned by the two americans , the memorial would feature a forbidding labyrinth of 4 , 000 huge pillars that would sprawl over an area of 180 , 000 square_feet . it would be built between berlin 's brandenburg_gate and potsdamer platz , where a huge new commercial and office complex is being built on what used to be the no man 's land between east and west_berlin . echoing the years of debate in the united_states over building the memorial to vietnam veterans in washington , the proposal for a berlin memorial has brought endless argument and infighting over both details and fundamental philosophical issues . german leaders almost selected an entirely different design for the memorial that consisted of a huge tilting slab of concrete that was to have been covered with the names of 4.2 million known victims of the holocaust . chancellor kohl vetoed that design in 1996 , and a new competition led to the selection of the four competing designs , including that of mr . serra and mr . eisenmann . but the arguments did not end . many critics argued that the design should include names of victims , as well as the numbers of people killed and the places where the killings occurred . several months ago , a group of leading german intellectuals , including germany 's best known writer , gunter grass , argued that the monument should be abandoned . opponents of a memorial argued that no artistic monument could represent the full horror of the holocaust , and that it would be an ''abstract installation of oppressively gigantic proportions'' that would be ''neither a witness to the past nor a sign to the future . '' the letter said the memorial should remember other groups persecuted by the nazis , including as gypsies , homosexuals , soviet prisoners of war and the disabled . others are proposing that instead of building a monument , berlin should rename potsdamer platz ''juden platz'' or ''jews' place . '' it remained unclear today whether mr . serra 's unexpected withdrawal would lead to further delays in the memorial . in a statement issued by mr . serra 's dealer , the gagosian gallery in soho , the sculptor said he continued to support the design . mr . eisenmann said he would proceed on his own and that the design was nearly complete . ''as far as we 're concerned , the project is more than either richard serra or peter eisenmann , '' the architect said . ''in 50 years , nobody will remember who the artist and the architect were , '' mr . eisenmann added , dismissing the matter as ''a tempest in a teapot . '' lea rosh , head of the nonprofit_organization that has lobbied for a holocaust museum since 1988 , said mr . serra 's decision would not cause a problem . ''what is important is that eisenmann stands by his proposal and that his design is finally put on display , '' ms . rosh said today . a decision on the memorial has already been delayed for several months , and proponents are now hoping to reach a final agreement by the end of june . chancellor kohl is still insisting on numerous changes , but mr . eisenmann has indicated he can accommodate the requests . berlin 's mayor , eberhard diepgen , remains opposed to all four of the final designs and is supposed to have a say in the ultimate decision . mr . diepgen , who has been lukewarm about the project all along , recently questioned whether any monument could ' 'deal with this horror artistically . ''",has a topic of arts
"laura biagiotti makes the most exquisite handkerchief linen dresses and the most luxurious cashmeres . if only she had focused her energies on them in the spring collection she showed here today . too much of the show was devoted to heavy looking appliques of wild color combinations and tortured cutouts with brass borders . but heaven finally arrived in lighter than a cloud white linen dresses with uneven hems that looked like fine handkerchiefs sewn together and sheer linen beach coats with tucked yokes that floated over white shorts . what a way to look on a summer 's day . her signature beige cashmere knits looked best as long , pleated skirts worn with knit tops wrapped seductively around the body . the genny show today was awash in colors like peony pink , hyacinth blue , buttercup yellow and apple green . if you were looking for a synthesis of the trends of the season and there are many you could find them at genny . there were ladylike suits with welt seams that skimmed the body , trench coats with full skirts , organza dresses with full short skirts , organza jackets worn with soft pants , extremely short shifts and sheaths , bra dresses , chiffon dresses with fluttery handkerchief hems , and even a suggestion of bell bottom pants . david copperfield , the magician , sat in the front row at the ferragamo show , watching a slimmed down claudia schiffer add a whiff of sex appeal to clothes that were not designed to shock or startle . there were the well cut jackets and easy sweaters the house is known for , done in pretty color combinations like lime_green with azure . tailored jackets were paired with soft jersey pants , navy jackets with white stitching went over gold metallic leather miniskirts and shorts and organza coats swung over pale slip dresses . shine another trend of the italian shows gleamed subtly on black lame pants suits . max mara has a youthful approach to classics like blazers , trench coats , pants suits and sweater sets . today 's show had all of these but headed in a more advanced direction with knee length dresses , jerseys cut on the bias , sheer inserts and uneven hemlines . neat little jackets were shown over soft chiffon print dresses that skimmed the knees . black matte jersey dresses had bare tops crossed with skinny spaghetti straps , and a parade of bias cut jersey slips in nine colors ended the show on an upbeat note .",has a topic of arts
"culture is certainly good for tourism , and may also be good for the soul , but rarely has it been used to combat chaotic traffic , street hoodlums , prostitution , organized_crime and even corruption . culture , however , was antonio bassolino 's chosen weapon to clean up naples when he was elected mayor in december 1993 . and , remarkably , the strategy seems to be working . ''when i arrived here , i faced the paradox that for all of naples 's enormous cultural_heritage , cultural policy was at the bottom of the ladder of the municipal government 's priorities , '' said mr . bassolino , 50 , a former communist_party official . ''i made cultural revaluation our top priority . '' neapolitans , long resigned to living in what was arguably italy 's most rundown , dirty and dangerous city , were naturally skeptical . even after the national government provided 30 million to make downtown naples look safe and presentable for a group of seven summit in july 1994 , they stoically awaited a return to ''normality . '' but , by then , the communist mayor was convinced that culture was his strongest political card . the first step involved restoring and reopening scores of neglected churches , museums and palaces in dilapidated districts wisely avoided by most local people and tourists . the eviction of cars , prostitutes and muggers from many historic plazas not least the area around the royal palace , the san carlo opera_house and the piazza del plebiscito in turn liberated downtown for ordinary neapolitans . all this might resemble urban_renewal were it not also accompanied by a burst of creativity from local artists , writers , musicians , moviemakers and playwrights . they have livened up things up for neapolitans , but they are also being noticed elsewhere in italy . indeed , simply being neapolitan has suddenly become a passport to artistic success in rome , milan , turin and beyond . the most visible result of this mini renaissance , however , was a reawakening of neapolitans' pride in their city , not only in its extraordinary history dating back to its founding by greeks in the seventh century_b.c. , but also in its independent spirit , idiosyncratic personality and creative talent . and thanks to this new pride , mr . bassolino can now count on public support in his fight against the city 's deeper ills . ''through culture , we have rediscovered our identity because culture is identity , '' the mayor said in an interview in his office overlooking the piazza municipio . ''we have rediscovered the identity of the old city_state , of the neapolitan republic , of the great european city . '' his enthusiasm is to be expected , not least because he is up for re election in december . but it is widely shared here , not only by those benefiting from a revival of the tourist_industry . neapolitans readily recite what still has to be done about unemployment , traffic , drugs , pollution and the local mafia , known as camorra . but most are quick to boast that naples is on a roll . not all credit is due to the mayor . the anticorruption campaign that swept across italy in 1992 landed a good number of local politicians in jail . a new cultural association , napoli '99 , also started a program called monumenti porte aperte , under which long closed historic buildings were opened to the public , in 1992 for one weekend in may , two years later for the entire month . mr . bassolino and nicola spinoza , the director for cultural_heritage for naples , adopted and expanded the program . while many major buildings are owned by the roman_catholic_church and the national government , the mayor provided free security by reassigning 200 municipal workers to guard the sites . now , some 60 gothic and baroque churches of an estimated total of 200 historic buildings are open for several hours every day . the majestic capodimonte museum , which sits on a hill overlooking the city , has also been renovated . ''we have reorganized the museum , not chronologically , but by collections , '' mr . spinoza said , referring to the priceless farnese and bourbon legacies . in october , a huge exhibition dedicated to the 19th_century , ''civilta dell'ottocento , '' will open in the capodimonte and other museums . as much as polishing its past , however , the city has found ways of bringing old and new culture together . in december 1995 , a monumental artwork by mimmo paladino called ''salt mountain , '' a pyramid of salt encrusted with strange equine sculptures , drew vast crowds to the piazza del plebiscito . last december , in the same square , another artist , jannis kounellis , created a huge installation consisting of old kitchen tables , armoires and other odd pieces of furniture . artistic happenings and open air rock concerts in other squares have also consolidated the civic ' 'reconquest'' of the city . indeed , creative energy is evident in all art forms . the neapolitan singer pino daniele has long been popular throughout italy , but new rock groups are being born here every month . interest in traditional neapolitan music was also increased by the appointment of a respected composer , roberto de simone , to head the naples music conservatory last year . ''this is part of rescuing our identity , but i 'm not interested in recreating an 'authentic' sound for the sake of nostalgia , '' mr . de simone said . ''i want a new image of music in naples , above all by emphasizing choirs and orchestras . this collective approach is important . a society without a communal life is condemned to die . '' the city 's strongest postwar theater personality was the actor and playwright eduardo de filippo , whose neapolitan tragicomedies are still regularly presented . in the early 1980 's , though , a performance_art troupe called falso movimento was founded by a group of young neapolitans , headed by mario martone , and immediately brought a fresh experimental approach to theater . later , mr . martone joined forces with the actor directors enzo moscato and tony servillo to create teatri uniti . members of the teatri uniti now perform regularly at the teatro mercadante , a city owned theater on the piazza municipio that reopened in 1995 for its first full season in more than 30 years . in the works is a plan to create a permanent company at the mercadante modeled after giorgio strehler 's legendary teatro piccolo in milan . mr . martone , 37 , has now turned his energies to film , joining a group of young directors who are following in the footsteps of such fellow neapolitans as francesco rossi and gabriele salvatore . mr . martone 's recent film , ''amore molesto , '' was a box office hit , while antonio capuano made his mark with ''pianese nunzio'' and pappi corsicato with ''libera . '' these three directors , plus stefano incerti and antonietta de lillo , have recently completed ''i vesuviani , '' in which each directed one episode . even in literature , neapolitan writers have won recognition elsewhere in italy , among them ermanno rea ( ''mistero napolitano'' ) and the late mariateresa di lascia ( ''passaggio in ombra'' ) and the poet gabriele frasca . ''but there is no literary movement as such , '' mr . frasca said over a drink in gambrinus , the city 's most famous cafe . ''what is interesting is how poets , musicians and artists are finding new ways of working together . '' whether neapolitans living in depressed suburbs feel part of this cultural revival is perhaps doubtful , yet they cannot escape noticing that something is changing . ''bassolino is criticized for doing a lot for culture and not enough for unemployment , '' francesca del vecchio , an art historian , said . ''but give him time . four years ago , we could n't sit_in an outdoor cafe because of the traffic and the crime . now it 's like a mediterranean city again . '' correction may 27 , 1997 , tuesday a caption yesterday about a photography exhibit at ellis_island , with pictures of similar religious processions in the bronx and in sicily , misstated the date of the italian photograph . it was taken in may of 1996 .",has a topic of arts
"the half poetic , half academic title of the friday program at the peter norton symphony_space was ''yunnan revealed indigenous music and dance from china 's land of clouds . '' it was full of interesting bits , and everywhere it has been , which is mostly to east_coast colleges , it has been festooned with panels and classroom study and lecture demonstrations . ( the new york stop on the tour , jointly presented by the world music institute and the asia_society , had lecture demonstrations on saturday at the american_museum_of_natural_history . ) this is good , as far as it goes , a kind of live discovery_channel documentary . yunnan is a fascinating province in the southwest of china bordered by tibet , myanmar , laos and vietnam . it is home to 25 ethnic groups , as distinguished from the han , who dominate china . four of those groups the yi , the dai , the naxi and the wa , each symbolized by a hanging scroll at the back of the stage were represented in this program . there were 15 performers , each of whom sang , played , danced and spoke , offering snippets that could n't very well convey the cultural and social context from which they were torn . as dance , not much of interest transpired . one does not expect from folk_dance the ancient traditions and artistic subtleties of high art dance , from wherever in the world . but this was pretty rudimentary , even as indigenous dance , the least interesting aspect of this presentation . there were some hops and some skips and a circle dance or two and a couple of lifts and a nice swaying movement , and that was it . the program 's appeal lay , instead , in the gorgeous fabrics and costumes and above all the exotic musical instruments . no evening can be a complete loss when one is confronted with a moon guitar , a tobacco box , a spirit drum , a gourd pipe and gourd flute , a bamboo flute , a naxi jew 's harp and various other drums and percussion , along with a comparatively common chinese instrument , a two string erhu , all festively decorated . they were erratically amplified , sometimes audible and sometimes not , but they hinted pungently at life in a distant land . dance review",has a topic of arts
"the city contemporary_dance company from hong_kong , which began a short run on thursday night at the kaye_playhouse , is a sleek , sophisticated troupe founded in 1979 by willy tsao , who now also leads two other chinese modern_dance companies . the company , in its first new york appearance since 1994 , made a fine impression in ''365 ways of doing and undoing orientalism , '' choreographed by mr . tsao , xing liang and sang jijia . it 's a vividly pictorial and enjoyable work that mostly weathers its choreographic unevenness and somewhat odd structure . part 1 , ''earth , water , fire , wind , '' opens with mr . xing scantily_clad and crouching beside a small fire . to rumbling , incantatory sounds , he slowly unfurls his body , first traveling slowly with undulating , buckling tremors , then with smooth balletic propulsion . his dance is punctuated by various intrusions two men enacting a stylized combat , a conga line quintet in evening dress , a rather weak parody of the ''swan_lake'' cygnets all representing ( according to mr . tsao 's program notes ) western dance . mr . xing , a wonderful dancer , holds this part together with his easy shifts from slow , floor bound lunges , to sudden , silent , leg scissoring leaps . chinese traditions take center stage in part 2 , ''spring , summer , autumn , winter , '' which uses sections for each of the four seasons to bring on a fabulous plethora of swords , swirling sleeves , masks , dragons , lanterns , headdresses , parasols and tight satin dresses . ( a bow here to the set and costume designer , silvio chan . ) the dancing takes second place to these continually evolving visual effects , as does peter suart 's serviceable score , alternately jazzy , lilting and atmospherically sonorous . in a final section , ''nothingness , humankind , heaven , void , '' mr . xing walks through a forest of shining rods , a tiny figure against huge projections a buddha 's face , dancers' bodies , lotus flowers . mr . tsao may hope , as he indicates in program notes , to criticize stereotyped perceptions of eastern dance . but ''365 ways , '' with its ambitious roll call of chinese performing traditions , may do more to perpetuate them . deeper considerations aside , however , it 's a good night at the theater . the final performance of the city contemporary_dance company is tonight at the kaye_playhouse , 68th_street between lexington and park avenues ( 212 ) 772 4448 . dance review",has a topic of arts
"to the editor in his article "" in china 's orphanages , a war of perception "" jan . 21 , patrick e . tyler says only two foreigners , one of whom is me , appear in "" the dying rooms , "" the television film about chinese orphanages . he notes that i have been barred from china ( although it has been since 1991 , not 1989 ) and wonders why the film makers did n't seek out "" a slightly more neutral observer . "" how does my being barred from china destroy my "" neutrality , "" whatever that is ? in the film , made for channel 4 in britain , i comment only on china 's one_child_policy and on the traditional_chinese preference for male babies . mr . tyler says of the other foreigner in the film , steven w . mosher , that his "" enthusiasm for overstatement "" caused beijing to condemn him . i have met mr . mosher once , for about 60 seconds , but i know that many years ago he was permanently barred from china for his reports on forced abortions there , allegations that are now widely accepted as fact . as mr . tyler says , these revelations have troubled many abroad , especially potential a'optive parents . they should know that the evidence of dr . zhang shuyun is by no means the major evidence , damning though it is . official statistics show that mortality in china 's orphanages runs from 50 to 90 percent , the latter occurring in the shanghai orphanage . fourteen delegates to the shanghai municipal people 's congress condemned this orphanage they were disciplined . the report was quashed . one delegate is now detained . dr . zhang 's brother , accused of sedition , must report daily to the police . jonathan mirsky hong_kong the writer is east_asia editor for the times of london . the dying rooms'",has a topic of arts
"lead the color splashed and richly figured chinese_ceramics on view at the metropolitan_museum_of_art through aug . 26 are a highly personal document of more than 2 , 000 years of stylistic developments in pottery . the vessels and figures , which date from the han dynasty ( 206 b.c . to a.d . 220 ) through the ching dynasty of the 19th_century , are from a collection amassed over 50 years by stanley herzman , a new the color splashed and richly figured chinese_ceramics on view at the metropolitan_museum_of_art through aug . 26 are a highly personal document of more than 2 , 000 years of stylistic developments in pottery . the vessels and figures , which date from the han dynasty ( 206 b.c . to a.d . 220 ) through the ching dynasty of the 19th_century , are from a collection amassed over 50 years by stanley herzman , a new york collector and clothing manufacturer . the 94 jars , bottles , vases and tomb guardians exhibited in ''a selection of chinese_ceramics from the collection of adele and stanley herzman'' were either donated by the couple to the museum several years ago or are promised gifts . the collection is one of only three major holdings of chinese_ceramics given or promised to the museum since world_war_ii . most of the pieces reflect the interest of mr . herzman , 82 years old , in the boldly colored or patterned earthenware and porcelain he discovered on his first trip to china , in 1936 , when he was an importer of embroidered linens . over the years , said mr . herzman in a telephone interview last weekend from his office in englewood cliffs , n.j. , his taste became increasingly focused on ming blue and white and polychromed porcelains , tang earthenware vessels and tomb sculptures , and sung stoneware and porcelain . the most memorable object in the show , and one of mr . herzman 's favorites , is the essence of simplicity a potted , cone shaped dish with a shimmering brown black glaze . the glaze terminates in a ragged line near the base , revealing the chalk white clay . the egg shell fineness of this clay , which resembles porcelain , is also emphasized in the rim of the dish , where the glaze was wiped when wet to leave a thin copper colored line . one of the more arresting tang vessels , produced between a.d . 618 and 906 , is a ewer with a bamboolike handle and a bud shaped mouth . its spherical body is dribbled with greens and caramels the same palette and approach morris louis would usein his color field paintings of the late 1950 's . these colors appear in more muted lead glazes on numerous tang sculptures on women of the court wearing softly draped shawls that cover their hands , on a fierce faced tomb guardian , his right arm raised to stave off an unseen attacker . another impressive tang figure is an earthenware camel , its head reared back dramatically . according to suzanne vallenstein , the museum 's research curator who organized the show , mr . herzman 's tang and ming ceramics will fill out the museum 's holdings in key areas . ''it 's a dancing taste but with consistencies , '' mrs . vallenstein said . ''there 's an eye for color and pattern throughout . '' dragons are a dominant theme on the ming porcelain pieces whipping around jars , raging across dishes , slithering up and down the sides of vases . incised green dragons show up on three stunning buttercup yellow bowls . a fiery red dragon marches around the sides of a white dish , and green dragons embellish an incense vessel with bright green handles in the shape of elephant heads . calligraphy decorates several objects . the most exquisite is a white ming bowl on a stem base . blue tibetan characters that translate into the phrase ''prayer of blessings'' encircle the sides , visually balanced by a band of scrolls at the base . the show 's most arresting piece of stoneware is a two foot tall wine jar , painted with robust flattened flowers , which bears below its neck the inscription ''eighteen scholars , loving their cups , grasp them and ascend to ying mountain . eight mortals , after they 're drunk , are oblivious of their returning to their grottos . heavenly wine , immortal pool of dew . '' mr . herzman said he bought most of these pieces after world_war_ii . some were purchased during his textile buying trips to the far east and when he served as an adviser on cottage industries for the united_states_government in south_vietnam . others were bought over the last 10 years at auctions and from dealers in new york and london . during this period prices for these pieces have doubled and in some cases increased more than tenfold . mr . herzman said that most of the pieces in the collection were priced from 25 , 000 to 125 , 000 . ''my wife says to be a true collector it has to hurt , '' mr . herzman said . ''well , i have been in pain for many years . '' james j . lally , an oriential art_dealer based in new york and the former president of sotheby 's in north_america , said he has followed mr . herzman 's collecting strategy for more than 15 years . ''i think he is a vanishing breed a collector who bought for the fun of it , with a constantly active approach , willing to listen to anyone but always making up his own mind , '' mr . lally said . ''he has tried to find what was not well represented in american collections . he has tried to buy unusual things . '' giuseppe eskenazi , a london dealer in oriental art , agreed that mr . herzman is a collector with an independent spirit . ''he has done this collection on his own , '' he said . ''it is a very personal collection and very representative of the periods covered with different wares , different materials and different shapes . '' when the exhibition closes , the ceramics that are not among the herzmans' future gifts to the museum will be returned to the couple 's apartment on fifth avenue in manhattan . there , they are exhibited more casually on shelves and tabletops in rooms that also display mrs . herzman 's collection of 20th_century sculpture and paintings by matisse , david smith , henry moore , barbara hepworth and milton avery . antiques",has a topic of arts
"although television delivers the news instantly and graphically , it still has not pushed old fashioned photographs out of the picture . old fashioned in the sense of being unmanipulated , whether taken with a digital_camera or on photographic film old fashioned in the sense of bearing witness , providing evidence , even transmitting some believable kernel of truth old fashioned in the sense of forceful enough to affect opinion . photography has never stopped doing this , no matter how many wise thinkers have brought to light the medium 's glaring vulnerabilities . the career of letizia battaglia , who was the photography director of a left_wing newspaper in palermo , sicily , from 1974 to 1990 , provides a remarkable example of still photographs that made a difference , in part because they were only one element in ms . battaglia 's political engagement . ''letizia battaglia passion , justice , freedom photographs of sicily , '' an exhibition of 56 pictures at aperture 's burden gallery on east 23rd_street ( through january ) , is the first comprehensive show of her work . ( aperture published a book by the same name in 1999 . ) the photographs cover a wide spectrum of sicilian life , for ms . battaglia took some 600 , 000 images as she covered the territory for the paper . she is a fine photojournalist , more concerned with getting the message across than with flamboyant camera work , keenly attuned to the telling emotional moment . she photographed some good times , but focused more often on the constant tragedy that is sicily a child crying in a room so badly cracked that the house collapsed moments after the picture was taken a woman with three children who , too tired to respond to her newborn 's crying one night , discovered in the morning that a rat had gnawed off one of his fingers . only the captions reveal these stories photographs have their limits . she photographed the rich as well , looking rich , as they are meant to do . she photographed the extraordinary hold religion has on people without a great deal of hope in the present . they cry as the crucifix passes by in procession . the bare back of a murdered man is tattooed with a large image of jesus 's head crowned with thorns . she photographed the mafia , too , and the effects of its siege on sicilian life , eroded by poverty , despair and continual violence . a young girl 's face harbors a century 's worth of trouble and fear . two boys too young for real guns brandish toys that are near perfect copies while a friend too old to suck his thumb does so anyway . with a little background about ms . battaglia 's life , this show tells a story of photography and commitment that contributed to change , if only in making people so aware of how bad things were that they could no longer easily ignore or deny reality . according to one of the essays in the book , so many sicilians lived , or had to live , somewhere outside the law that they were wary of the authorities and became , in effect , allies of the mafia . then , too , italians generally dismissed sicilian killings as a local matter between gangsters and failed to understand how deeply organized_crime had penetrated society and politics . but the killings escalated to a point where they could not be dismissed when a war broke out between rival mafia factions in the late 1970 's and people brave enough to go after the killers were relentlessly assassinated . ms . battaglia photographed the dead so often that she was like a roving morgue . ''suddenly , '' she said , ''i had an archive of blood . '' one corpse lay beneath a sheet with blood strains seeping through as if to make a mask for eyes and nose others slumped in cars where they had been shot in broad daylight in front of their wives . she photographed the survivors , too , women stunned by grief , people weeping as funerals passed by . soon she , too , was threatened with death , yet she kept on , afraid every day , like a war photographer in an undeclared war . with her companion , franco zecchin , ms . battaglia not only photographed for the newspaper but also put up exhibitions of anti mafia pictures in schools and on streets where no one could avoid seeing them . mr . zecchin believes that photography had a powerful effect . criminals have long known that photographs could be dangerous in pictures ms . battaglia took at a trial of 114 people for mafia related crimes , some of the accused cover their faces with their hats . it would be useful to know whether and how often newspapers in mainland italy published such images . probably the mafia itself , by so feverish a murder campaign , undermined the immunity it had acquired through fear , the corruption of politicians and the collusive silence of the church and intellectuals . photography seems to have helped mobilize public opinion by putting a hideous and memorable face on a situation that everyone deplored but few truly grasped or were willing to confront . something like this happened during the american civil_rights movement , when northerners began to see horrifying pictures of the violence of southern segregation . in 1993 , when prosecutors in palermo indicted giulio_andreotti , who had been prime minister of italy seven times , the police searched ms . battaglia 's archives and found two 1979 photographs of mr . andreotti with an important mafioso he had denied knowing . aside from the accounts of turncoats , these pictures were the only physical evidence of this powerful politician 's connections to the sicilian mafia . the documentary and historical significance of photographs , including standard newspaper coverage , could not be more clear . as she has been battling truly fierce dragons , ms . battaglia 's struggle has by no means entirely succeeded , but changes have come to palermo . she has attacked many kinds of social problems , with various weapons . she made a film with psychiatric patients she and mr . zecchin set up a photography school and gallery in palermo she started a women 's theater project and a women 's newspaper and she ran a small publishing house . in 1985 , she stopped taking photographs to go into politics , and has since been a municipal councilwoman twice and a regional deputy once . in her political capacity she helped save the historic_district of palermo , which the mafia was destroying in order to get lucrative construction contracts . later she returned to photography . her parents may not have known how aptly they were naming her . letizia means joy in italian battaglia means what it sounds like battle . art architecture",has a topic of arts
"poor casanova ! on the 200th_anniversary of his death , even the city of his birth seems embarrassed to remember him for the single trait that made him famous . instead , venice has chosen to celebrate him not as the legendary libertine and latin lover but as a traveler , writer , freethinker , diplomat , spy , mathematician , gambler , gourmand and emblematic dilettante of 18th_century europe . well , he was also all these things . indeed , had he not been a writer of some talent , he would have left no greater legacy than broken hearts , cuckolded husbands and illegitimate children . on the other hand , had his 12 volume memoir , ''l'histoire de ma vie , '' or ''the story of my life , '' not detailed his seduction of women of all ages and social condition ( and his genuine love for some of them ) , he would certainly have been forgotten . it is , however , a somewhat revisionist portrait of the infamous rake that is presented in ''the world of giacomo casanova a venetian in europe , 1725 1798 , '' an exhibition at the museo del settecento veneziano in ca' rezzonico through jan . 10 . rejecting what they call ' 'stale cliches'' about the man and his behavior , the show 's organizers have focused on casanova 's wanderings , with only one gallery dedicated to his wooing . the anniversary exhibition might even be a tad opportunistic since venice hardly treated him kindly during his lifetime . he was imprisoned in the dreaded piombi or leads jail in july 1755 , and although he escaped 15 months later , he could not return to venice until 1774 . eight years later , he was again forced to flee and this time was never allowed back . in fact , he became a ''venetian in europe'' as much by accident as by choice . still , traveling clearly suited his restless spirit . in 1734 , he studied law in padua , and then , while preparing for a career in the roman_catholic_church , he visited corfu , calabria , naples and rome , discovering on the way that being a young cleric was no impediment to torrid affairs . at the age of 21 , though , he left the church and , while earning his keep as a violin player in a local orchestra , he turned to a life of pleasure . scandals soon drew him to the attention of the state inquisitors , forcing him to hop town from time to time and thereby expanding his horizons of passion . on one trip to france in 1750 , he became a freemason , an association that later provided him with crucial connections across europe . but in venice , as much as his philandering , it was his apparent links to magic and the occult that finally landed him in the leads in 1755 . after his daring escape from jail , casanova had little choice but to travel . it is this grand tour of love affairs , partying , gambling and deal making , but also of brief stints in prison , predawn flights from creditors and failed confidence tricks that ca' rezzonico 's exhibition tracks through a series of paintings of the cities he came to know , starting with views of venice itself by canaletto , guardi and others . accompanying each oil are amusing quotations from casanova 's memoirs . beside saint quentin 's 1755 painting of ''the entrance to the tuileries from louis_xv square , '' casanova offers ''in france , nothing is real everything is appearance . '' and beside ricci 's painting of the mall in london , casanova explains ''the island called england is actually a sea with vast sand banks , and those who sail there must navigate it with care . '' with a cityscape of dresden by bellotto comes the reminder that casanova considered the saxons decidedly ungallant . a painting of the somber escorial palace by michel ange houesse brings the suggestion that casanova enjoyed madrid ''the men in spain have a mentality conditioned by an infinity of prejudices , while the women are in general more open . both , however , are subject to passions as vigorous as the air they breath . '' while hardly a figure of social distinction , casanova frequently arranged to meet people of power . portraits of some of these are also in the show , among them catherine the great , louis_xv , madame de pompadour , empress maria theresa of austria , king stanislav of poland and pope clement xiii . of the tsarina , casanova wrote ''without being beautiful , she knew how to please with her charm , her friendliness and her intelligence . '' no doubt he would have delighted in including a member of royalty among his conquests . in practice , they came from all classes , from marquise to chambermaid , from landowner to convent girl . ''seducing is not my main characteristic , '' he wrote immodestly in his memoirs , ''because i have always done this unconsciously after first being seduced myself . '' in london in 1763 , though , he met his match in marianne charpillon , a young swiss prostitute . while he fell for her , she refused to surrender , and took his money . she broke his heart . to illustrate his life of loves , the exhibition displays some paintings of 18th_century women by longhi , boucher and fragonard in suggestive poses as well as jewelry , snuff boxes , watches and an assortment of silk items of clothing . ''the main occupation of my entire life has been cultivating the pleasures of the senses , '' he wrote . and in truth , these also included good food and good conversation . when he returned to venice in 1774 , he already considered himself enough of a writer to pen a fierce attack on voltaire , although he was forced by penury to spy for the very government that once jailed him . and in due time it turned against him and forced him anew into exile . no longer a youngster , he now wanted a patron more than adventure . in 1785 , he met count josef karl von waldstein , who offered him a job as librarian at dux castle near prague . in 1787 , he met mozart and , according to some accounts , may have offered first hand experience to help revise the libretto of ''don giovanni , '' written by his old friend , lorenzo da ponte . it was in dux that he wrote his memoirs , in french , albeit only recounting his life until 1774 . and it was in dux that he died in 1798 . it was not until the mid 19th_century that casanova became a synonym for seduction , but since then he has been a constant subject of fascination and opprobrium . he has inspired numerous films , a good many of them spoofs , while his life keeps providing writers with raw_material . lydia flem treated him gently last year in her book , ''casanova the man who really loved women'' ( farrar , straus giroux ) . this year 's new books include andrew miller 's ''casanova in love'' ( harcourt brace ) , just published , and , in france , philippe sollers 's ''casanova l'admirable'' ( plon ) . still , for all their caution , the organizers of the venice exhibition continue to view casanova as a potentially pernicious influence . visitors to the museum 's bookshop can buy the customary catalogue , t shirts and posters . but they can also pick up free condoms with casanova 's name on the packet , accompanied by a written warning of the risks posed by aids to latterday casanovas who engage in unsafe sex .",has a topic of arts
"ancient china did n't have a phrase for ''rite of passage , '' but if one existed , it would probably revolve around mastering appreciation of what the chinese called superfluous things . for the scholar , the sage and the monk , the creation of art was an act of self actualization , and the ' 'superfluous'' tools used in the creation of art were actually essential . ''in china , the holistic view of art was implicit , '' gerard tang and hugh moss write in ''arts from the scholar 's studio'' ( oriental ceramic society of hong_kong , 1986 ) , edited by susan ribeiro . ''it viewed the artistic process , involving artist , medium and audience , as a means to self realization . the end product was expanded consciousness , enlightenment rather than the physical work of art . '' for the ancient chinese literati , scholarship did not mean book learning alone . an educated man was supposed to spend hours occupying himself writing poetry , painting or doing calligraphy . the scholar expressed his refinement and erudition in the choice of his accouterments , which we now call scholar 's objects intricately carved brush pots , whimsical ceramic water droppers in the shapes of frogs or turtles , jade carvings , metalwork , lacquer wares , brush rests and scholar 's rocks . today chinese scholar 's objects are probably the most affordable chinese antiques on the market . there are many for sale in manhattan this season , and they make wonderful presents , as they have for a thousand years in china . chinese scholars spent years selecting the perfect brushes , brush pots and ink stones for their studies . they might add a table screen , a tray , a carved rhino horn cup , an ancient chinese bronze incense burner , a wonderfully made wooden box to hold seals or a ceramic container for seal paste . interestingly , scholars preferred antique objects . ''collecting and connoisseurship evolved the same profundity aspired to in the other fine_arts , '' mr . tang and mr . moss write . ''by tang and song times , both collecting and connoisseurship were widespread , encouraged not a little by the convenience of authentic works of art in influencing official careers . to offer direct bribes in the form of money was hardly conducive to the elegance of chinese life but the gift of a fine painting or calligraphy , an ancient bronze or stone rubbing , was a refined gesture and one where great value could easily be concealed from the unknowing mind . '' william lipton , owner of the gallery bearing his name at 27 east 61st_street , is currently producing a book with a california scholar , dr . sarah handler , about the woods of china . he said he planned to illustrate it with wooden scholar 's objects , which he has been collecting for nearly 30 years . ''i bought a brush_pot in hong_kong in 1974 that started me , '' he said . ''in those years one rarely found anything made of wood in hong_kong . i had just begun collecting . all the old peking dealers were still around then , and they knew what made a scholar 's desk interesting . by 1982 , i was a dealer . '' he opened his gallery in 1993 . he rejects the widely held view that chinese scholars were minimalists , as least when it came to the arrangements on their desks . ''today a museum might show a painting table with a brush_pot and one other thing on it , '' he said . ''in fact , chinese scholars loved diversions . they filled their desks with all kinds of interesting things , in addition to 'the four treasures of the studio' ink , ink pot , brush , paper . they had ruyis , '' scepters , ''trays , ink boxes and seals with auspicious greetings . many liked to play with contrasts they would place an elaborate ancient bronze ewer next to simple wood brush_pot . '' mr . lipton has several scholar 's objects for sale in his gallery . others are shown in thick notebooks kept in cupboards . the china 2000 gallery , at 5 east 57th_street , specializes in small scholar 's objects ( and the antique chinese pieces of furniture on which they sit ) from the 17th to the 19th_century . ''the setting for the literary and artistic endeavors of the scholar is a creative and uncommonly rich and delicate world , '' wrote the gallery 's owners , karen and leon wender , in ''an intimate world , '' a recent catalog . ''the objects with which he surrounds himself are there to express the ideals of scholarship , morality and refined taste . '' the gallery has a selection of antique painted fans , brush pots , brushes , ink stones , seal boxes and small bronzes , ranging from 500 to 20 , 000 . ''the chinese have always valued antique scholar 's objects , '' ms . wender said . ''it is not uncommon to find a brush_pot from the 16th_century inscribed by a famous 18th_century painter , who put his name on it because he loved it so much . '' the chinese_porcelain company , at park_avenue and 58th_street , has a variety of scholar 's objects ranging from 4 , 200 to 7 , 500 , including a celadon glazed ming table screen with two cylinders to hold incense and a cylindrical bronze ming censer with horses running beneath branches of pine , prunus and bamboo the ''three friends of winter , '' symbols of longevity . the gallery also has a pair of colorful , painted enamel incense holders from the mid 18th_century and a ming cloisonn box and cover for seal paste that is decorated with classic chinese motifs a lotus and chrysanthemum . scholar 's objects were meant to appeal to the senses sight , touch and emotion . ''certainly there is a tactile quality to all these things , '' mr . lipton said . ''but there is also emotion . the ruyi , for example , is not just a scepter it means 'may all your dreams come true . ' '' scholar 's objects are full of surprises . a brush_pot at william lipton is made of huanghuali , a prized dense yellow rosewood , and is carved to look like an ordinary gnarly tree trunk . after years of handling its bumps and indentations have the smooth sheen of silk . china 2000 has a brush_pot that looks as if it is full of knots and wormholes . it 's all trompe_l'oeil , of course . ''time and touch are what create the patina that is so difficult to duplicate , '' ms . wender said . during the later part of the ming_dynasty ( 1368 1644 ) , the chinese produced a literature of connoisseurship whose texts had titles like ''eight discourses on the art of living'' and ''treatise on superfluous things . '' craig clunas discusses them in ''superfluous things material culture and social status in early modern china'' ( university of illinois press , 1991 ) . ''these texts were widely read among the literati , '' mr . wender said . ''they were the heart and basis of confucian thought . '' the texts listed which possessions were the marks of the educated man . they were , mr . clunas explains , ''a way of sending and receiving messages about society and about an individual 's place within it . '' he explains that objects should be gu , or ''ancient and morally ennobling'' ya , which means elegant as opposed to vulgar and jia , or lovely . ''objects are carriers of ideas , '' he writes , quoting from chandra mukerji 's book ''from graven images . '' ''they help to make autonomous forces out of ideas by remaining in the physical world long after their production . '' superfluous , indeed . antiques",has a topic of arts
"cruise and holmes still married this just in ( at least , for anyone without an internet connection or television all weekend ) tom_cruise and katie holmes , right , chose the medieval setting of odescalchi castle in the italian town of bracciano for their much anticipated nuptials on saturday , reuters and the associated press reported . a scientology minister performed the evening ceremony , lighted with torches and candles , before more than 150 guests . the couple 's 7 month old daughter , suri , and isabella and connor , mr . cruise 's two children from his previous marriage to nicole kidman , were in attendance , along with richard_gere , jennifer lopez , will smith , jim carrey and even brooke shields , who apparently has forgiven mr . cruise for his criticism of antidepressants in their much publicized dustup last year . the ceremony included elements of a traditional wedding rings and vows but also some scientology fundamentals , like a vow to never to go to bed without communicating about any differences . since the scientology rite is not legally recognized in italy , the couple made their bond official in los_angeles before to the trip , said mr . cruise 's publicist , arnold robinson . the happy couple left rome yesterday for a honeymoon in the maldives . city center to announce 'follies' cast for 'encores ! ' new york city center will announce today that christine baranski , philip bosco , lucine amara , victoria clark , at left , donna murphy and joanne worley will appear in ''follies , '' the first production of the 2007 ''encores ! '' series at city center . next year 's three shows will honor the 100th_anniversary of the first '''ziegfeld follies'' by paying tribute to the broadway revue . ''follies , '' with music and lyrics by stephen sondheim and a book by james goldman , won eight tony awards in 1972 , including best original score . casey nicholaw ( ''the drowsy chaperone'' ) will direct , and eric stern will be the music director . ''follies'' will play for five performances , feb . 8 to 11 . the other shows in the series will be ''face the music , '' march 29 to april 1 , and the series' first original production , ''stairway to paradise , '' may 10 to 14 . babyshambles badboy behaving badly pete doherty , the lead singer of the british rock_band babyshambles , seems unable to stay out of legal trouble . he was released on bail yesterday after being arrested on suspicion of possessing crack_cocaine , reuters reported . mr . doherty , the 27 year old musician and sometime boyfriend of the model kate moss , was spotted driving his jaguar erratically near his home in east_london and was arrested along with another man and a woman who were in the car . all three were released pending analysis of the substances recovered , according to a spokeswoman from scotland_yard , and were ordered to return to thames magistrates court next month . less than two weeks ago the same court fined mr . doherty , above , 1 , 400 for assaulting a bbc reporter outside a london court in march after he pleaded_guilty to seven drug charges . he spent time in drug_rehabilitation in september , and last month he canceled part of a british tour with babyshambles because he needed time to recover from his drug addiction treatment . madonna 's baby 's father remarries in malawi yohane banda , the father of the year old malawian boy madonna wants to adopt , married his pregnant girlfriend , flora kamanga , on friday in lipunga , a tiny village in western malawi near the border with zambia , reuters reported . mr . banda previously agreed to allow the pop star to adopt his son david , whose mother died after giving birth . ''i am happy again because i can have a family and david has another mother , '' mr . banda told reuters . the adoption has encountered opposition from malawian human_rights groups who contend that it violates a decades old ban on adoptions by nonresidents . malawi 's high_court is expected to decide today whether to allow the opposing groups to formally challenge the custody order . footnotes the playwright sarah ruhl , below , will sign and read from copies of her first published collection , ''the clean house and other plays , '' tonight at 7 at the barnes_noble store on broadway at 66th_street . ms . ruhl will be joined by vanessa aspillaga , who plays matilde , the maid , in lincoln center theater 's current production of ''the clean house . '' in addition ms . ruhl 's modern interpretation of the myth of orpheus and eurydice will be produced by second stage next spring . bob dylan 's music did not fare so well on broadway recently ( ''the times they are a changin' '' closed yesterday ) , but perhaps an off_broadway house will be luckier . the british singer and chansonnier barb jungr will perform mr . dylan 's songs at 59e59 theaters for four consecutive nights beginning dec . 5 . ms . jungr 's performance will open the theater 's holiday cabaret series , which continues through dec . 31 .",has a topic of arts
"nothing but the faint sound of birds nesting on surrounding hilltops can be heard inside this new mountaintop site part museum , part monument that is the first public commemoration of one of the darkest chapters in china 's recent past . inside the circular pavilion that is the site 's centerpiece , the walls are lined with a series of gray tablets , each starkly engraved with images depicting the cultural_revolution , china 's decade long descent into madness , beginning in the mid 1960 's . there is mao swimming in the yangtze_river in 1966 , giving a bravura demonstration of his vigor at age 72 , and a false sign of hope to a country almost religiously devoted to him . the weeks and months ahead would instead reveal that time to be the dawn of a new and terrible era , during which perhaps a half million people were killed , a few of whom are buried in these hills alongside the trails that lead to the exhibits . ''under heaven , all is chaos , '' mao wrote , announcing the era 's tone exultingly to his wife and co instigator , jiang_qing , in a letter quoted on another tablet . from that point , the slate panels function almost like a newsreel as the events , ever more senseless , unfold . there are the huge rallies in beijing that august , where millions of young people , inspired by mao 's utopian oratory , waved their little red books in frenzied adulation as he spoke . there is the arrest and humiliation of the state president , liu shaoqi , who was denounced as a ''capitalist roader'' and beaten severely . he ' 'died under tragic conditions , '' in the delicate wording of the museum , a private institution opened earlier this year without the blessings of a government that still prefers to suppress discussion of past atrocities . there is the smashing of priceless antiquities and the burning of books by red guard militias , part of a heedless rush to sweep away the old and build a new society from scratch . there are the denunciations and beatings of teachers , and later of the students by students themselves , as the great proletarian cultural revolution began to devour its own children . then , finally , come the stunningly candid scenes of mao himself , growing more decrepit by the frame , physically decomposing , the communist demigod rotting in his armchair by the end of the decade of horror , like an overripe fruit . in some scenes , chairman_mao is barely able even to hold his head upright as his country falls apart around him . it has taken 29 years for anyone in china to mount a public exhibit on the period of state sponsored terror and turmoil that swept this country from 1966 to 1976 . and it is telling that it has happened here , on the outskirts of this out of the way city in the northeastern corner of guangdong_province , far from the public eye . just as remarkable is the hush that surrounds the museum , which provincial officials have reportedly ordered newspapers here not to write about . chinese intellectuals who have published novels and nonfiction accounts of the cultural_revolution describe restrictions like those as the product of a system that , while open like never before for the world 's business , still remains determined to manage what the public can and cannot learn and what they should remember and forget . ''i had to talk to 10 publishing houses before i could get my last novel published , '' said ke yunlu , a writer who has focused unrelentingly on the cultural_revolution . ''in it , a group of students stoned their teacher to death , and after 10 years , when there is an investigation , nobody admits anything . this is what history is like in china no stones are ever thrown , but people are dying . '' recently china has demanded that japan face up to the brutal history of its conquest of this country between 1937 and 1945 , but for the cultural_revolution , not yet a generation into the past , the country 's archives remain closed and academic conferences and seminars banned . ''it is very unhealthy for a nation to forget about its past , '' said zhang xianliang , one of china 's best known authors , who was arrested at age 20 for a poem deemed counterrevolutionary during another period of ideological fervor , in the late 1950 's . he spent most of the cultural_revolution in labor_camps . ''our history and our memory are full of empty pages . we still ca n't talk publicly about mao 's crimes , but that day will come . '' at the end of the 1970 's , many chinese vented their feelings about the arbitrary destruction of millions of lives and careers during the cultural_revolution , and for a time the subject enjoyed a vogue among writers . what could be said in the press , however , was strictly limited and debate was reined in by a government made nervous by the criticism . eventually , a bland official judgment said that during mao 's career he had been ''right'' 70 percent of the time . a visitor at first found the museum here abandoned but for a lonely guard , whose teeth were stained by constant intake of tea and tobacco . the hilltop is home to a pagoda steles in honor of communist leaders , like mr . liu , and deng xiaoping , who were victims of mao 's purges and , at the summit , a large cement ink brush and book , apparently intended to symbolize freedom of speech . on a return visit the next morning , the site was overrun with laughing schoolchildren , but their teachers insisted the cultural_revolution 's history was not being taught to them and said the outing was merely intended to give the students some fresh_air . pressed to say how she would explain the killings and purges if a curious student inquired , one teacher said , ''i 'd just say every country makes mistakes . '' later , a couple of elderly women who acknowledged living through the period dodged questions about their impressions of the museum , and walked away when asked about their experiences of the 1960 's and 1970 's . three local men in their 30 's , one of them using a video_camera , also toured the site . ''every family had some kind of experience of this history , '' one of them said . asked if he had heard the stories of his parents and grandparents , he said , ''they only say china is growing now , and it is better to look to the future . '' even the museum 's founder , peng qian , a former deputy_mayor of this city who raised money for it from private donations , including one from the hong_kong billionaire li_ka_shing , dodged a reporter 's requests to meet , saying he was too busy and later turning his telephone off to avoid further calls .",has a topic of arts
"the great glamour movement may look great in department_store windows . but it certainly has n't been great for design . fine fashion design does n't need cigarette holders or maribou or big diamond collars . it does n't need chinese fans or chopsticks in the hair or shar peis on leashes . elegance , as a fashion sage once said , is refusal . and great design needs that , especially now , with so many temptations so easily obtained . both gianni_versace and jil sander refused in their own ways this season . and their shows , with very few tricks and lots of real design , were highlights in milan . as much as designers do n't want to admit it , their influence in their field has slipped over the past five years . first , it seemed big_business had taken over fashion , then street style seemed to , then the magazines and stylists moved in . there are so many forces influencing fashion now that finding the designer 's message amid it all is a grueling task . mr . versace and ms . sander made it easy today . he showed a cleaned up , cautiously cut collection that spurned all the stylists' tricks that add flash on a runway . and ms . sander , whose collection was outright glamorous last season , designed a line that sought to define glamour without looking to the past for inspiration . "" the changes in fashion are more media and stylists than people coming from the atelier , "" mr . versace said before his show . "" i come from the roots of fashion . "" the show was his softest ever . instead of his flashy baroque prints , there were butterflies fluttering across dresses . instead of bright day glo colors , there were pastels . instead of leather straps binding dresses , there was the gentle support of sweet flower embroidered corsets . he opened the show with precisely tailored jackets with no shirts beneath , to the knee skirts and no jewelry just little diamond chips like crushed ice gleaming across the straps of stilettos . his corsets were beneath suits , worn separately with tiny tight silk printed shorts , built into dresses with long silken folds and paired with long silk side knotted pareos . tiny corset hooks traced up the seams in a line dresses and along tailored jackets , and one jacket was cinched in the back by laces through hooks . many silk dresses inspired , he said , by vionnet were slit to the waist and worn with matching bikini pants . it was an ambitious collection , an attempt to restore authority to design and move it forward . ms . sander had the same ambition . "" everyone is talking about glamour , but we ca n't become retro , "" she said . "" we ca n't say that glamour today is found by looking back . fashion trends talk one to each other . then , the trend is done . i do n't think retro style is right . we 're in a modern world with modern women . you have to feel when you see design that it 's going forward . "" there are two german views prevalent in milan right now that of helmut newton , when he photographed 1970 's new york , and that of the 1940 's berlin of marlene dietrich . so it is interesting to see where jil sander , a german , draws her inspiration . she has a third view of german design , inspired by the era of innovation that brought about bauhaus . so she supplanted last season 's bias cut , carpet sweeping glamour dresses with short , tidy black ones , some with sharply tailored little jackets with three quarter length sleeves . ms . sander has been experimenting with cutting a three dimensional pattern in a spiral , and the results were black dresses that swung restlessly from shoulders with a life of their own . while she normally opens her shows with tailored men 's suits , this season she featured harem pants with jackets that poufed at the buttons as if they were too tight . they were n't made from slimming silk but from a crispy pineapple fiber fabric that , as though human , held itself away from the body . ms . sander 's new dress shape , too , stayed just a little away from the body , with a seam that ran around the hips but did not touch them , and a hem length to just above the knee . the most body defining suits were futuristic cyber suits in techno colors . they were worn with stiletto shoes and pants that went over them like spats , with a little slit up the back . there was outright glamour in a series of silk organza dresses and pants suits , some banded across the body like strapless gowns , some twisted into a layered halter . there were body bulking washed cotton suits , ballooning parachute pants with jackets that puckered a bit at the buttons and coat dresses of a cellophane looking fabric with button lapels that peeled away . it all looked as if , in a moment of clinging corsets and clutching lycra , ms . sander wanted her fashion to stay a little detached , even from its wearer .",has a topic of arts
"shortly before his death last winter at 83 , helmut newton found a way of closing the circle of his life . he created the helmut newton foundation in berlin , his birthplace and the city where he learned to be a photographer . he also picked a suitably symbolic home for the foundation , a former prussian army officers' club that stands beside the railroad station where , as an 18 year old jew , he boarded a train to flee hitler 's germany in december 1938 . newton , who died in a car crash in los_angeles on jan . 23 , did not see the opening of the foundation in june . but now more than ever it has become his memorial , and an eye_catching one at that . where stern portraits of bewhiskered generals once presided over the foyer of the officers' club at jebensstrasse 2 , near the berlin zoo station , five of newton 's trademark ''big nudes'' now proclaim his place as a pioneer of erotic fashion_photography . he is even more present in one of the foundation 's two opening shows , ''us and them , '' which he described as ''a kind of photographic diary'' of the life he shared for 56 years with his australian born wife , june , herself a photographer who works under the name alice springs . through self portraits and portraits of each other , including a remarkable photograph of june with the dying helmut , the exhibition speaks_volumes of the humor and affection of their marriage . the other show , ''sex and landscapes , '' which also runs through the end of this year , offers a better known helmut newton , with statuesque nudes displayed in the kind of quirky poses that earned him the sobriquet king of kink some of these images were until recently considered too risqu for public viewing . mixed among them , though , are less familiar still lifes , landscapes and seascapes , one showing a desert highway near las_vegas , another of breaking waves off monte_carlo . newton selected these opening shows when he was organizing the foundation last fall . he and his wife decided to pay for refurbishing the first and second floors of the jebensstrasse building to receive the foundation . ( they did not disclose the cost . ) they also made an initial permanent loan of 1 , 000 prints of their work , although after their deaths , as newton instructed , their negatives and archives as well as all rights , royalties and income from sales of prints will go the foundation . ''it is my wish that the helmut newton foundation be a viable and living institution , not a dead museum , that will financially exploit these archives , '' he noted late last year . thus the foundation will exhibit not only his pictures , but also work by other photographers , artists and designers . further , it plans to organize workshops and lecture series which , newton noted , ''gifted and poorer students'' can attend at reduced or no charge . berlin 's first museum of photography will eventually occupy the third floor of the building , but a museum devoted to newton will soon open on the ground floor . ''a whole museum , '' ms . newton explained in a telephone interview from her home in monte_carlo , ''not just cameras , but his cars , his whole office from monte_carlo , some of his clothes with photographs of him wearing them , 50 meters of posters , the evolution of his life . if we 're showing work by other photographers , visitors can still see his life . '' understandably , berlin 's cultural establishment has embraced the helmut newton foundation with enthusiasm , not only for its artistic merit , but also for the message implicit in a berlin jew 's decision to return home . in fact both the city 's mayor , klaus wowereit , and klaus dieter lehmann , the president of the prussian cultural heritage foundation , ardently wooed the photographer until they found a building that pleased him . ''we were led into the building , and more wonders it is in almost perfect condition , like it was waiting for me , '' newton wrote in his 2002 ''autobiography'' ( nan a . talese doubleday ) . ''from the windows i can see across the road to the railroad station to the quay , where i said goodbye to my parents 64 years ago to go out into the wide , wide , world . i am not a sentimental guy , but i could not suppress a certain frisson as that day came back to me . '' yet despite his flight and the painful separation from his parents ( they were able to escape to argentina ) , newton looked back fondly on his teenage years in berlin , where he not only discovered his love of women , but also served an apprenticeship with a photographer known as yva . the bond of sex and photography , which newton first exploited in singapore and australia and which later made his name in paris , was seemingly forged in berlin . ''when we first returned there in 1956 , he was not resentful , '' ms . newton recalled . ''he was n't a dramatic person . he did n't connect the past with the present . he had given me a copy of christopher isherwood 's book 'berlin diary , ' and we followed it like a map . it was a real trip back for him . he was a man of the world , but he was also a real typical berliner , with his wit , his sardonic humor . he took life as it came . '' this much comes through in ''us and them , '' a show of 110 images built around a 1999 book by the same name . three photographs of newton at 16 one with three girls , the others posing with cameras in yva 's studio convey the self assurance of a young man who , he readily admitted , was spoiled by his wealthy parents . in the ''us'' section that follows , newton is occasionally seen working with nude models , but most images are far more personal . he and his wife frequently photographed themselves and each other naked at rest , exercising , posing , joking , bathing , with the passage of time slowly recorded in their bodies . mirrors were often used camera in hand , newton is seen covered with wires during a 1997 medical check up . on occasions he simply reached out and snapped himself , as with his mischievous self_portrait only his glasses and hair are visible in front of courbet 's famously scandalous painting , ''l'origine du monde . '' in the ''them'' part of the show , newton and his wife each photograph the same person , although not on the same occasion . catherine deneuve , karl lagerfeld , birgit nilsson , anjelica huston and yves_saint_laurent are among the models and , in each case , newton 's theatricality contrasts with his wife 's more austere approach . in an introduction to ''us and them'' ( scalo ) , newton noted ''i can see the truth and simplicity in the portraits of alice springs . as for myself , i recognize the manipulation and editorializing in my photographs . '' yet perhaps the most extraordinary pictures , shown in public here for the first time , are not in the book . they were taken by ms . newton of her fatally injured husband lying in the cedars sinai medical center after he lost control of his car and crashed into a wall outside the chateau marmont hotel in los_angeles , where they spent every winter . after that , newton had one final unplanned journey to make . ''the city of berlin offered him an honorary grave , '' ms . newton said . ''it was a big decision for me to make . but i thought it quite an honor since he loved the idea of the foundation so much and berliners loved him so much . it seemed fitting that i should accept for him . '' on june 2 , two days before the foundation 's inauguration , newton 's ashes were laid to rest in the friedenau cemetery in berlin .",has a topic of arts
"to the editor mr . tyler 's balanced report on conditions in chinese orphanages seems to indicate that there is indeed a distance between a deliberate government policy and neglect and the incompetence of individual orphanages . why else would , or could , "" some party members , lawyers and journalists working inside the system "" in shanghai press hard for an investigation ? he also points out that , contrary to steven mosher 's assertion that china 's one_child_policy "" is hated by the people of china , "" family_planning and population_control are concepts that many chinese willingly support . like alice a . jardine , the harvard professor quoted in mr . tyler 's article , i implore those watching "" the dying rooms , "" a film made with a hidden camera and with commentary by a known biased scholar such as mr . mosher , not to allow a taste for sensationalism to overwhelm their sense of fairness . timothy tung new york the dying rooms'",has a topic of arts
"a firebomb badly_damaged a holocaust museum near the northeast german town of wittstock , the brandenburg state police said today . . police officials posted a_10 , 000 reward for information leading to an arrest in the attack on thursday on the belower forest museum . half the museum 's exhibition space was destroyed , and swastikas and anti semitic graffiti were painted in pink on a nearby monument 's walls . the museum 's spokesman , horst seserens , said ''we were quite lucky because the police were very fast and stopped the fire . a few minutes more and the whole building would have burned down . '' the vandals also painted an anti semitic slogan , ''jews have short legs , '' a twist on the german saying that ''lies have short legs . '' mr . seserens said the intended message was that ''the holocaust is a lie . '' the belower forest memorial is dedicated to the victims of the nazi death marches of the spring of 1945 , when the nazis emptied concentration_camps that were about to be liberated by the advancing soviet_army and forced some 45 , 000 inmates to march farther into germany . thousands died , just days before the camps were liberated by soviet and american_troops .",has a topic of arts
"in the 50 years since mao tse tung decreed that art and science must serve socialism , china has not had much of an ivory_tower . mao 's brief romance of the nation 's top minds while the communist_party consolidated power gave way to repeated purges and persecutions that continued through his death in 1976 . his successor , deng_xiaoping , liberalized the economy and decriminalized free thought , at least as expressed in private salons . but the ranks of american universities are filled with exiled chinese scholars who clamored too loudly for democracy . others have simply been marginalized by the nation 's narrow focus on getting rich . aside from a clutch of influential scholars devoted to finding pragmatic solutions to china 's vast economic and social problems , intellectuals often have to choose between quiet irrelevance and public condemnation . despite the difficulties , some chinese intellectuals are today engaging in a full throated debate about the country 's future . in academic conferences at home and abroad and in journals of scholarly opinion that are cloaked in the protective veil of academic jargon ( and , often , english ) , political_scientists , sociologists and economists are sparring openly about the state of the country 's quasicapitalist , mostly antidemocratic government . the question that captivates leading minds there is the same one that engaged court intellectuals at the end of the qing_dynasty , when china first began opening itself to the west at the end of the 19th_century how to make the country modern . many of china 's leading scholars are not dissidents , and they see their task as constructive , not polemical . just as china 's economy has begun to resemble those of industrialized_countries , intellectuals have focused on issues familiar to scholars in europe and the united_states . their concern is not whether china should become capitalist , but what kind of capitalism it should have . one camp , arguably the dominant one , is what the chinese call neoliberal . its proponents argue that china should complete its economic and social evolution that began under mr . deng by selling off state companies , shrinking the government , strictly enforcing property rights and letting the market work its magic . the neoliberals in some ways tend to echo ronald_reagan and margaret_thatcher , though some also share the antidemocratic tendencies of augusto pinochet , the chilean dictator who governed with an iron fist but also pushed the development of a vibrant market_economy in the 1970 's and 80 's . they have enthusiastically embraced china 's integration with the world_economy . on the other side are a loose knit group of intellectuals who have begun to refer to themselves by a misleadingly similar name , the new left . many in this school want the government to reduce inequality , provide a social_safety_net and intervene more in the market to tame the economic cycle . they tend to reject the prevailing view among china 's elite that popular democracy is a luxury the country can afford only after it becomes rich . instead , they argue , china needs the dynamic energy of democracy to force change and combat corruption . xudong zhang , an associate professor of comparative literature at new york_university , has compiled a volume of essays , ''whither china ? , '' that explores the conflict . mr . zhang and several of the scholars who contributed essays , including cui zhiyuan , wang hui , wang shaoguang and gan yang , consider themselves proponents of the new left . they mostly attack neoliberals , though mr . gan and wang shaoguang were once considered pioneers in the rival camp . if their battle seems a little removed from the china portrayed in the news_media , that 's because it is . many chinese can read and write only on a rudimentary level . just 1 percent ever attend college . moreover , while many chinese intellectuals teach at universities in beijing and shanghai , others are as likely to take jobs in hong_kong , singapore or any number of american universities . discussion of china 's current problems often hinges on classical , western views of development , with scholars debating whether french radicals or british gradualists are better models for reform . rousseau inspired thinkers during mao 's time burke 's rejection of the french_revolution and his support for the aristocracy appeals to many today . there are postmodernists , feminists and libertarians in the mix . still , these scholars are not without influence . some so called neoliberals have become advisers to chinese leaders , including premier zhu_rongji , who has supported a faster pace of reform and who steered the country into the world_trade_organization . the change of leadership that is expected to take place at the 16th party congress in the fall has also provided an opening for a more general review of future options , even the scope of political change . neoliberal thinking came into vogue in the 1990 's . not unlike russia and much of eastern_europe , china has an early vision of capitalism , informed partly by past communist propaganda , as a system that works only in its crudest form . the state went from owning assets on behalf of the people to insisting that bureaucrats and well connected entrepreneurs had a right to profit from those assets . that approach was reinforced by two events , the 1989 military suppression of dissent around tiananmen_square and mr . deng 's 1992 ' 'southern tour , '' when he urged people to get rich . the state showed that it would enforce political unity but protect economic opportunism . one central task was reconciling the need to protect the new wealth of the few from the demand for equality from the masses . to justify the communist_party 's intervention on behalf of elites , some neoliberals reached for historical precedent . they disavowed china 's francophilic past and embraced england 's ''glorious revolution , '' which led to parliamentary rule by the aristocracy , championed by edmund burke . likewise , isaiah berlin 's 1958 essay on freedom , ''two concepts of liberty , '' became a touchstone . mr . berlin 's focus on ''freedom from'' instead of ''freedom to'' was treated as a guiding philosophy for a minimalist state that let the market work . partly inspired by these ideas , china 's economy expanded at nearly a double_digit clip for much of the decade , and it attracted more foreign investment than any other developing_country . but neoliberals have begun to encounter sustained opposition from fellow reformers . like the neoliberals , many of those in the new left are western educated , and they reject socialism . but this nascent opposition also questions the dogma of capitalism . there is no sure formula for development , they say , but surely it is not the bureaucratic capitalism that dominates the country today . mr . cui , now a research fellow at singapore 's national university , argues that china does n't understand the nuances of american and european economic policies . he cites , for example , china 's attempts to inject life into moribund state owned companies , still the backbone of the industrial economy , as an example of what has gone wrong . similarly , wang shaoguang , a yale educated political_scientist now at the chinese_university_of_hong_kong , argues that china 's leaders have allowed the central government to atrophy by placing blind faith in the market to provide public goods . in the 1990 's , he says , the government 's tax revenue as a share of the country 's overall economic output fell below 10 percent , as the government failed to collect taxes . in only three other nations , peru , bangladesh and the former yugoslavia , does the central government control such a small share of output . this forced even some seemingly essential institutions to generate revenue in other ways a phenomenon known as ''chuang shou . '' the military 's efforts to make money created a fuzzy subeconomy of military backed ventures that traded on connections and access to public goods , like the telecommunications spectrum and even missiles . the government has recently begun to restrain that practice , but the defense budget remains too low to stop it , mr . wang argues . mr . wang also bemoans the lack of a comprehensive safety net for the unemployed and uninsured . the new left also seems to have rediscovered democracy , which many intellectuals abandoned as impractical ( and politically dangerous ) after the 1989 crackdown . the prevailing view is that while democracy is fine in theory , in practice it risks shattering the stability that has allowed the country to prosper . but mr . gan , a research fellow at the center for asian studies in hong_kong , argues the opposite that china needs democracy to preserve social order . after mao 's cultural_revolution , which many in china view as a disastrous experiment in mass democracy akin to the jacobin terror that roiled france , most chinese became too alienated from politics , mr . gan argues . too few people pay attention to public_policy . it is that vacuum that allows local officials to steal state funds with impunity , or mass movements like falun_gong , the exercise and meditation society , to enchant millions of people . if the grandfather of china 's neoliberals is burke , it is alexis de tocqueville who guides many in the new left . tocqueville is quoted often , because as a french nobleman he rejected the excesses of the french_revolution but also saw the british as futilely resisting the ''universal spread of democracy throughout the world . '' and of course tocqueville made clear that democracy , not capitalism alone , was the key to america 's success , shaping not just its politics but its society , law , culture and economy . china became politically quiescent in the 1990 's , at least in part , because neoliberals endorsed the government 's authoritarian agenda . more diverse views , even those expressed in china 's wobbly ivory_tower , could rattle the country 's carefully managed political edifice . ''it still matters a great deal , '' mr . gan writes , ''if a nation 's intellectual mainstream considers democracy theoretically worth defending . ''",has a topic of arts
"lead china is changing , no question about that . tom_brokaw has been saying so since he first stood in front of the court of supreme harmony in the old forbidden_city last friday . since then , mr . brokaw has interviewed zhao_ziyang , and connie chung has met her cousin , and keith miller has floated down the yangtze . china is changing , no question about that . tom_brokaw has been saying so since he first stood in front of the court of supreme harmony in the old forbidden_city last friday . since then , mr . brokaw has interviewed zhao_ziyang , and connie chung has met her cousin , and keith miller has floated down the yangtze . jane pauley and bryant gumbel have watched a chef make noodles . china has been all over nbc_news , and nbc_news has been all over china . so , yes , we have a sense of change , although it is just possible that the really great change is in television . the quintessential image in the coverage may belong to willard scott . all week the ''today'' weatherman has been in beijing today he goes to shanghai reporting on snow flurries in the upper peninsula of michigan and a hot , dry patch in the southwest . then he says happy birthday to someone in oklahoma . we are getting the real global village it is no longer theory but fact . we are also getting nbc_news as a road show . it does n't matter where mr . brokaw and his colleagues pitch their tent . one place is as good as another . the only difference is that once the tent is pitched , we will see more of what lies outside . thus we have been seeing china . we 're not always sure why we 're there , but mostly the view has been pleasant . at the same time , nbc has been insistent on great stirrings . the changes in china , mr . brokaw said the first night he was there , might be ' 'some of the most sweeping changes in the history of mankind . '' well , are they ? garrick utley reported one night that most chinese peasants ''are experiencing something new prosperity . '' then we saw a segment on the new rural capitalism . old shacks were surrendering to two story houses with washing_machines . ''everyone is building a house , '' a chinese woman said , talking about her neighbors . ''they all have money . '' on the other hand , after mr . miller floated down the yangtze he said , ''the yoke of poverty has not been lifted . '' nbc_news has been giving us mixed messages , even if some of them are supposed to represent journalistic balance . immediately after mr . utley reported on rural prosperity , for example , mr . brokaw , as anchor , came close to contradicting him . ''everyone in rural china is not doing well , '' he said , and ''a steady stream of peasants is coming into the cities looking for work . '' then nbc went to a station break . that 's balance of a kind . one night mr . utley practiced it on himself . he reported on chinese young people . young people , mr . brokaw said when he introduced the segment , represented ''the greatest internal challenge'' to the chinese government . we saw a commercial photographer 's studio then . a young man and woman , smartly dressed and just married , were having their picture taken . ''today they want all the frills of the west , '' mr . utley said . he also said that ''everywhere we traveled , we heard the same hopes . '' peace , prosperity and consumerism , apparently , were flourishing all over china . ''a new set of values , '' mr . utley said , ''is emerging . '' but a moment later just after a young woman said she wanted to get rich mr . utley noted that ''this was still a marxist leninist dictatorship . '' then mr . brokaw said there were reports that the government might step up military training for disaffected youths . the television images , though , have n't given us a sense of disaffection mostly we have seen smiling faces . china does have dissidence , presumably from both left and right , but the television images mostly have suggested harmony . still , nbc has been trying . when mr . brokaw interviewed prime_minister zhao , who is expected to succeed deng_xiaoping as china 's paramount_leader , he asked him if the government was losing influence among young people . mr . zhao said that the more the young people understood what the government was doing , the more they would be content . the interview , on ''meet the press , '' was notable for mr . zhao 's easy asurance , and in its way , it was a sure sign that something really had changed in china . mr . zhao wore a suit and tie , smiled several times , and spoke about his home life . he said his wife was in poor health , and that she stayed home and raised flowers and four grandchildren . whatever happened to suspicious , even xenophobic , chinese_communist leaders ? on television , mr . zhao seemed like almost any other inhabitant of the global vilage . and that , in fact , was suitable for the coverage . whether china really did sell silkworm missiles to iran mr . zhao said it did n't was almost incidental . television mixes issues in a blender . mr . zhao , who presumably is one of the most powerful people in the world , just seemed like a regular guy . so , what are we truly learning from nbc 's china coverage ? it 's hard to know , but a lot of it has been fun . miss pauley visited a chinese school , and when she left the children sang ''goodbye , goodbye , '' which seemed to be from ''the sound of music . '' mr . gumbel , her co host on ''today , '' reported on the growing use of cosmetic_surgery in china . then he did a live interview with a woman who had her eyes made to look more western . could that be disaffection , or a lessening of cultural_identity ? mr . gumbel , sensing something important , asked the woman why she had undergone surgery . ''i do n't know , '' she said , and then fell into silence . a few minutes later , the noodle maker came along with a fat long twist of dough . he pulled and twisted and began turning it into noodles . then miss pauley surprised mr . gumbel with a big birthday cake he admitted to being 40 . the nbc crew , and , apparently , some of the chinese spectators , sang ''happy birthday . '' the singing was ragged , but it was another sure sign of the global village .",has a topic of arts
"explosions and the acrid smell of war still haunt the cnn anchor bernard_shaw . baghdad , once bob simon 's dreaded prison , is now familiar turf for him as a cbs correspondent . and after virtually vanishing from american television screens , arthur kent , formerly of nbc , is now reporting for cnn . five years after the end of the persian_gulf_war , the television correspondents whose familiar faces brought the 43 day conflict into living rooms across the country hold varied memories from and find myriad lessons in a war that propelled them in different directions afterward . peter_arnett and christiane amanpour of cnn have hopscotched from one hot spot to the next russia , somalia , haiti and bosnia . forrest sawyer of abc and wolf_blitzer of cnn are now anchors of news magazines or political programs in addition to their reporting duties . some correspondents , including mr . arnett , have written books about their war experiences and have been transformed into television personalities . brief as it was , the gulf_war was the first major conflict involving american_troops since vietnam nearly 20 years earlier . as such , it stamped an indelible mark in the passports of aspiring and veteran correspondents alike and ignited a running debate between the news_media and the military over war coverage . "" baghdad was clearly the most exciting story i covered , "" said mr . arnett , who has covered 17 wars in a 35 year career that has spanned the extremes of journalism , from the news service world to the 24 hour realm of cnn . he won a pulitzer_prize for his work as an associated press reporter in vietnam . "" if we 'd had the immediacy in vietnam that we had in the gulf_war , it would have changed history , "" said mr . arnett , 61 , who was the only western correspondent in baghdad for most of the war . "" the vietnam_war could not have lasted as long as it did . "" the anniversary of the gulf_war 's end amid the continuing nato peacekeeping operation in bosnia frames a larger debate on the future of war coverage . journalists criticized the pentagon 's strategy to conduct the gulf_war largely out of the camera 's view , restrict access to troops and showcase the most favorable gun camera film from allied bombings . but most of the news_media acquiesced to this stage managing . some reporters , including mr . simon , defied the restrictions . both sides invoked the vietnam example the military said that unchecked television exposure could jeopardize war plans and stoke opposition back home if casualties piled up journalists said full and open disclosure would help prevent a senseless war . vowing never to be shut out again , television has broadcast largely unfettered from somalia , haiti and bosnia . but those were peacekeeping operations . the real test will come in the next true shooting war . "" the battle i see today is an attempt by some to restrict the technological_advances we 've made and restrict our coverage in future crises involving american_troops , "" said mr . arnett . "" live cameras are going to be on the battlefield . it 's going to be a matter of how military works with them . "" many broadcast reporters say these advances , like improved satellite hookups , also shift more responsibility onto journalists . "" the networks are struggling with how to cover these conflicts , how to report fairly and not jeopardize lives , "" said mr . sawyer , 46 , who broadcast live from kuwait and is now anchor of abc 's "" turning point "" news_magazine . "" a lot of questions are yet unanswered . "" but to many of the correspondents who covered the gulf_war , its legacies are more visceral than theoretical . mr . shaw , 55 , cnn 's main anchor in washington , was one of three cnn correspondents who broadcast live the first night of allied bombing in january 1991 from baghdad . mr . shaw said he had never listened to those tapes , partly because of the painful memories they would stir . "" i 'm still rattled by certain exploding sounds and smells , especially that acrid smell of electrical equipment burning , "" said mr . shaw , whose patriotism was questioned by some viewers after he refused to tell the pentagon what he saw and heard in baghdad . for many ambitious young correspondents , the gulf_war represented a big break and their first taste of pentagon press constraints . christiane amanpour , now 38 , covered the romanian revolution in 1989 . but reporting the gulf_war from saudi_arabia and baghdad whetted an appetite for conflict that has made her the most visible war_correspondent of her generation . "" clearly , there is the drama , danger and immediacy , "" said ms . amanpour in a telephone interview from paris . "" but you also see the very best and very worst of human nature . "" ms . amanpour , whose signature story has become bosnia , believes she saw the very best in the besieged citizens of sarajevo , who "" did not lose their values , their hopes , their humanity . "" the worst moments , she said , were also in sarajevo , "" looking into the faces of women and children caught in the shelling . "" ms . amanpour 's passion for the bosnia story has led some people to question her objectivity , a criticism she rejects . "" there are some situations one simply cannot be neutral about , because when you are neutral you are an accomplice , "" said ms . amanpour . "" objectivity does n't mean treating all sides equally . it means giving each side a hearing . "" more than any other network , cnn set the standard for gulf_war television reporting . one of the network 's best known correspondents , wolf_blitzer , benefited from lots of air time and his martial name . "" i do have an unusual name , "" said mr . blitzer , who was cnn 's pentagon correspondent during the war and is now the network 's senior white_house correspondent and host of "" inside politics weekend . "" "" but it is my real name . i did n't make it up for the gulf_war . "" mr . blitzer , 48 , now works 14 hour days from cnn 's cramped booth in the white_house pressroom . "" but people come up to me to this very day , and say 'i remember your coverage of the gulf_war . you were so brave , ' "" mr . blitzer says . "" i say 'look , i did n't go to saudi_arabia , iraq or kuwait . i was standing in front of a map at the pentagon . ' "" no other gulf_war correspondent experienced the rise and fall of arthur kent , whose good looks and broadcasts during iraqi missile attacks on saudi_arabia won him the nickname scud stud . mr . kent covered the romanian revolution and the tiananmen square massacre in 1989 for nbc , but it was his gulf_war broadcasts that captured public attention . nbc dismissed mr . kent in august 1992 after he refused a balkans assignment in the midst of negotiations on his contract . he sued the network , and the two parties settled two years later . by then , mr . kent had disappeared for most american viewers , producing documentaries for the canadian_broadcasting_corporation . now 42 , mr . kent was hired by cnn 's london bureau in march , and recently covered the shooting of 16 schoolchildren and their teacher in dunblane , scotland . "" for a couple of years my career was in limbo in the united_states while i cleared my name , "" said mr . kent , who in his forthcoming book , "" risk and redemption , "" writes about his war experience and the television_industry . "" i still get mail from people who wrote me during the gulf_war , who are not interested in my leather_jacket or hair , but in my reporting . "" in his 24 year career at cbs , bob simon had covered vietnam , the yom kippur war in 1973 and tiananmen_square before the gulf_war . on the fifth day of the air campaign , he and three crew members were seized by iraqi soldiers after crossing into kuwait . mr . simon spent the next 40 days in iraqi prisons , where he was beaten and , for most of his captivity , locked in solitary_confinement as a suspected spy . "" what i did was a stupid mistake , "" mr . simon , 54 , said in a telephone interview from jerusalem , where he has been cbs 's chief middle_eastern correspondent since 1987 . "" it 's not like we were after some fantastic story and got unlucky . we were just careless . "" after his release , mr . simon wrote a book , "" forty days . "" he has returned to baghdad five times since the war 's end . mr . simon said he did not dwell on his gulf experience . "" what happened to me was like nothing that happened before and i hope never again , "" said mr . simon . "" but i survived . "" mr . arnett has been busy , too , and not just with broadcasting . reporting from the enemy capital under siege earned mr . arnett the enmity of many americans . after mr . arnett returned home , hecklers hounded him at speeches . but there were also dinners at glitzy restaurants with jack nicholson , warren beatty and annette bening . and mr . arnett received a 500 , 000 advance to write his memoir "" live from the battlefield . "" in exchange for this fame , he has become an ambassador for the news_media , mr . arnett says . "" since the gulf_war , i 've addressed the role of media in society and explained why journalists do the things we do , "" said mr . arnett , who lives in mclean , va . "" before then , i did n't feel that was my responsibility . "" mr . arnett spent the last month speaking in the united_states , europe , australia and his native new zealand ( he has been an american citizen for a decade ) . his speaking calendar is booked into 1997 , but he says he rarely charges a fee . "" i 'm available to go on any crisis story , "" said mr . arnett , who in the last year has reported from bosnia , vietnam and cuba . "" that 's where my heart is , and that 's what i want to keep doing . "" television eric schmitt , a washington correspondent for the new york times , covered the persian_gulf_war from saudi_arabia .",has a topic of arts
"a walk of fame planned for berlin will have to do without the name marlene dietrich . the dietrich family has barred the organizers from honoring the glamorous berlin born movie actress and singer ( 1901 1992 ) , left , because , it said , the proposed tribute , including an engraving of the star of ''the blue angel'' ( 1930 ) , does not do justice to her legacy . the site , including the hand imprints and autographs of german celebrities like ute lemper and caterina valente , is to open on sunday in front of the friedrichstadtpalast theater , on a site where dietrich performed in 1926 as a chorus girl . ''had the city of berlin initiated the project , this would have been a whole different story , '' said frieder roth , the dietrich family lawyer . ''however , this is a private matter of the friedrichstadtpalast , and therefore falls short of expressing significance of such a grand celebrity like marlene . '' the celebrity strip is berlin pflaster , translated as berlin sidewalk . kristen grieshaber arts briefing",has a topic of arts
"lead bush_administration officials are concerned that iraq is trying to develop a test site outside of its territory for firing new long range missiles . bush_administration officials are concerned that iraq is trying to develop a test site outside of its territory for firing new long range missiles . in a private diplomatic initiative , the bush_administration has asked mauritania , a west_african nation that borders the atlantic_ocean , about intelligence reports that it might permit iraq to build a missile test range there . iraq does not have enough territory to test long range missiles on its soil . the intelligence reports worry the administration , which is trying to prevent third world countries from developing long range rockets that could be used to deliver chemical or even nuclear_warheads . mauritanian officials are said to have denied the reports . but the bush_administration is still monitoring the situation and there are conflicting assessments within the administration . a senior defense_department official said in a recent interview that he believed iraq was in the process of acquiring a test range outside its territory , but did not disclose the country involved . another official said that iraq had expressed interest in such a test site but that the mauritanians do not appear to have agreed to the iraqi request . iraq 's apparent quest for a new missile test range is the latest in a series of developments indicating it is working to acquire more advanced military technology . earlier this month , iraqi officials were arrested trying to buy electronic devices that can be used to trigger nuclear explosives . iraq has also built missile launchers within range of tel_aviv , according to american intelligence reports , and is increasing its chemical_warfare capabilities . earlier this month , the british_government seized steel pipes bound for iraq , which british officials said were for use in launching rocket bombs . a senior defense_department official said that he believed the pipes were intended for a weapon because intelligence reports had established that the material was being purchased by the iraqi military establishment . according to the senior defense_department official , iraq is making strenuous efforts to build up its missile technology , including the development of longer range missiles . iraq announced late last year that it had developed a long range missile with a range of about 1 , 200 miles . the senior defense official said he believed iraq is trying to develop such longer range weapons but did not have its soil . ''it is too far to test inside iraq , '' he said , referring to iraq 's planned long range missile . ''they are in fact in the process of acquiring a place to test it . they have found a place to test it . '' the defense official declined to disclose where iraq planned to test its longer range missiles , saying that the information was classified . but other administration officials said intelligence reports identify mauritania as the possible test site . mauritania could be well suited for missile testing purposes , administration specialists said . the arid , sparsely_populated nation has a territory of about 400 , 000 square miles , the size of texas and california combined , and borders on the atlantic_ocean . but some state_department officials offered a more cautious assessment than the pentagon . a state_department official acknowledged intelligence reports about iraqi interest in acquiring a test range in mauritania , but said there was no firm evidence that the two countries have reached an agreement to allow tests or that iraqi missile equipment had been shipped to mauritania . the official said the issue had been discussed with officials from france and spain , which have long standing ties to the region . a spokeswoman for the state_department 's bureau of african affairs said its officials would have no comment on any aspect of mauritanian iraqi miltiary relations . ''we do not have anything to say on this subject at this time , '' the spokeswoman said . a spokeswoman for the mauritanian embassy , turkia ould daddah , said she was unaware of any reports that iraq wanted to test missiles in mauritania and said the idea was absurd .",has a topic of arts
"richard_gere , travel photographer molly ringwald , new yorker to be bruce roberts , recording artist at long last . richard_gere has been many things sexy leading man , impromptu spokesman for troubled asian nations , buddhist . now he is combining those roles in "" tibet the pure realm , "" an exhibit of photographs he took there . the show , with 22 black and white photographs that mr . gere shot between 1983 and 1993 , is on display at the menil collection in houston and will open at the robert miller gallery in new york on wednesday . "" the photographs represent the spiritual and physical voyage i have taken through various communities of the himalayan region , from zaskar to tibet , "" mr . gere said yesterday through his spokeswoman , emily bear . limited edition prints of the photographs are being sold in sets of portfolios at 12 , 500 each , and the proceeds will go to the gere foundation , which promotes awareness of tibet . mr . gere , whose films include "" pretty woman , "" is a longtime critic of china 's presence in tibet . he has studied there with the dalai_lama . in 1993 he interrupted the academy_awards ceremony to give a long speech on his cause , and was told he would not be invited back .",has a topic of arts
"in chinese_art , something new often turns out to be something old , reclaimed and transformed . and images that to the casual eye appear genial and carefree can be coded emblems of discontentment and nostalgia . such is the message conveyed by "" chinese porcelains of the 17th_century landscapes , scholars' motifs and narratives , "" organized by julia b . curtis at china institute . many of the 65 jars and bowls on view are virtuoso examples of the craftsman 's art . but as the exhibition and its informative catalogue suggest , they are also subtle indicators of political upheaval . the early 17th_century was an unhappy time for china . a succession of inept rulers had brought the ming_dynasty ( 1368 1644 ) to the brink of disaster . civil_war tormented the country . when the invading manchus finally breached the great_wall in 1644 , capturing beijing and establishing the qing_dynasty , the sense of a culture cut loose from its moorings was heavy in the air . all of this had its impact on art , particularly on a porcelain industry that had long been under imperial control . by 1630 the ming court , distracted and short of cash , dropped its support of the great kilns at jingdezhen in southern china and the potters turned to different clientele , the class of government officials called scholar gentry and the wealthy bourgeoisie who emulated their taste . the art created for these patrons is the subject of the china institute show , and to anyone familiar with late ming imperial wares , the change they represent is striking . opulent colors are traded for an austere , classical palette of blue on white . elaborate floral designs and fabulous beasts are replaced by dreamy landscapes , solitary figures , literary scenes and poems , all associated with the prevailing scholarly ideal . these motifs were of great anti quity , but by the ming period they were specifically associated with the sung ( 960 1279 ) and yuan ( 1279 1368 ) dynasties , the most recent of china 's several "" golden ages . "" the twist was that where such images were once restricted to paintings , they now appeared in the more democratic , often mass produced medium of ceramics . the adaptation of old motifs to new formats is most dramatic in the transfer of landscapes to porcelain . a panorama of hills and lakes wrapping around a ming cricket box has the same dynamic , eye leading pull as the painting in a horizontal hand held scroll . and a landscape of piled up mountains on a tall qing vase , its peaks interspersed with poems and figures of wandering scholars , ingeniously reworks the model of the sung period vertical hanging scroll . this vase is particularly noteworthy for including a poem that laments the death of a sung dynasty military hero who had tried to expell the tatars from china , a bold historical reference for the early years of the manchu usurpers . but such sentiments appear , usually more obliquely phrased , on other vessels . even the simplest images carry moral lessons . and the ethical value of detachment from a corrupt world is constantly reinforced . the orchid a flower that hides itself in the tall grass but gives off a sweet fragrance becomes a politically charged symbol of scholarly reclusion . the pine , the plum and the bamboo recall the wise man who survives life 's vicissitudes through a combination of fortitude and resilience . the manchus , it turned out , were not the barbarians they were feared to be . antiquarians at heart , they went to considerable lengths to preserve chinese_culture and under their rule the kilns at jingdezhen flourished again as imperial foundations , producing work of memorable beauty . among those included in the show are a small beaker with a misty hillside village spiraling around its body a brush_pot with lines of specklike descending geese , as delicate as an image on a southern sung album page , and a dish with a poem alluding to "" peach blossom spring , "" the story of a mythical land of perfect happiness , much sought after but virtually impossible to find . this last lovely , escapist image perfectly illustrates the interpretive approach of "" chinese porcelains of the 17th_century "" as a whole . in the historical context it has defined , even the most inconsequential vessel comes across as the visual equivalent of a schubert song , mingling effortless grace with a capacity for profound emotional ambivalence . "" chinese porcelains of the 17th_century landscapes , scholars' motifs and narratives "" remains at china institute gallery , 125 east 65th street , manhattan , through aug . 5 . art review",has a topic of arts
"the beijing modern_dance company , the most prominent of the new wave of chinese modern_dance troupes , made its new york debut last night at the joyce_theater and won the expected ovation . rightly so , in that the company includes some forceful , energetic dancers and presents its works ( or at least the work presented last night ) with high technical accomplishment . that said , ''rear light'' is for all its intermittent brilliance an odd duck of a dance . it is based on ''the wall'' by the cult english psychedelic rock_band pink_floyd or more precisely , and this makes a big difference , on the film that the director alan parker made of the album and its stage show in 1982 . in all its incarnations ''the wall'' is a big , rambling metaphor for alienation and angst . we gather from the album that our hero grew up traumatized by the horrors his father experienced in world_war i . unhappy at school , smothered by his mother , he turns into a drug addled rock star and eventually into a national front fascist . eventually the giant wall of his repressions is destroyed and innocence reigns his soul . but the album is equally well remembered as the soundtrack for rock 's most spectacular arena concerts , wherein a huge wall was literally built up and torn down . mr . parker 's film makes all this far more explicit , like some gigantic rock video . li hanzhong and ma bo , the choreographers of ''rear light , '' were attracted to the piece by the movie . the brooding , atmospheric music , a little lugubrious for dance , is mostly there . but the 70 minutes of excerpts include all the sound effects that trigger specific , highly british imagery for anyone who recalls the film . on top of which the beijing company enacts a far more abstract choreographic exercise . maybe those who read a chinese allegory into all this are right . maybe the outlines of fallen bodies are meant to evoke protest marches . maybe the hostile conformity of the crowd as set against the lone outsider is a comment on chinese society . there are certainly affecting moments , particularly a duet that recalls the tortured relations between our hero , his wife and his mum . or a fascinating bit with two dancers in white unitards that extend floppily into traditional_chinese water sleeves and , if you wish , water socks . but i , at least , was left with the odd feeling that the dance does n't so much bridge two highly disparate cultures as reveal the gulf between them . and it is odd telling , no doubt , for parsers of present day chinese dissidence that mr . li and ms . ma cut off the music after ''the trial . '' the wall 's actual destruction and the sappy hippie ending are gone . does that mean some chinese are still fearful to depict the actual end of repression ? the program repeats through sunday at the joyce , 175 eighth_avenue , at 19th street , chelsea . dance review correction february 16 , 2005 , wednesday a review in some copies last wednesday about the beijing modern_dance company , at the joyce_theater , misidentified the war in which the father of the hero on pink_floyd 's album ''the wall'' experienced horrors . ( a film about the album and its stage show was the basis of the dance company 's ''rear light . '' ) it was world_war_ii , not world_war i .",has a topic of arts
"there were no cutting edge eruptions , just the quiet pleasure of well made art , in four dances performed by kun yang lin dancers on friday night at queens theater in the park . the evening 's premiere , ''traces of brush , '' explored the parallels between dance and ancient chinese calligraphy . set to charged , atmospheric music by andy teirstein , ''traces'' began with a starkly suggestive poem about calligraphic art , written and read by myrna patterson on a dim stage , which she shared with a mysterious , crouching male dancer in a long white skirt . their move into the wings drew on six other dancers jillian harris , adam klotz , mr . lin , kimberly miller , wendy joy reinert and jennifer rose dressed in loose white costumes and moving through what looked like a physicalization of the poem . a solo followed for chi tsung kuo , a powerful performer whose wearing and manipulation of a soft feathered fan was filled with as much mystery as his presence at the start . the group then returned for a closing section that looked more like a finale than what was so compellingly suggested at the start the evocation of the stroke of a brush , the energy of that stroke and what it produced on paper , and the flow and abrupt completion of painted lines . the program , part of the theater 's asian cultural festival , also featured ''moon dance , '' a solo performed to music by dead can dance , in which mr . kuo suggested , and then seemed to become , a bird , the bird 's environment and the darkly unpredictable forces of nature , all on a dimly_lighted stage under a projected full moon . mr . lin 's eye for plotting and handsome thematic symmetry was evident in ''chi . '' his ''emptiness of snow'' stood out for his gift for moving his dancers fluidly and concisely through sculptural individual body shapes and massed groups . this last piece , to a score by kenneth kirschner and tibetan bell meditation music , was inspired in part by the asian tsunami of 2004 and by the zen buddhist state of an emptiness of mind that leads to spiritual fullness . at their best , mr . lin 's dances , simultaneously abstract and specific , create and inhabit worlds of their own , informed by that empty fullness . dance review",has a topic of arts
"rolf hochhuth , the german playwright whose provocative dramas have been setting off political controversies for 30 years , has ignited another one with a play that some say seeks to justify the killing of a senior german official in 1991 . the official , detlev rohwedder , was president of the treuhand agency , which is charged with privatizing businesses formerly owned by the east_german state . in his new play , which opened in berlin last month , mr . hochhuth accuses the treuhand of "" plundering east_germany "" and condemns mr . rohwedder as "" a useful idiot for speculators "" who practiced "" brutal economic darwinism . "" "" a person who does what rohwedder did to a defenseless population should not be surprised if he is shot , "" mr . hochhuth said in an interview before the premiere of the play , "" wessies in weimar scenes from an occupied land . "" wessi is a slang term for a western german . top politicians have sharply rebuked mr . hochhuth and condemned his play . chancellor helmut_kohl denounced mr . hochhuth 's position as "" a charter for murder . "" the playwright insists he seeks not to legitimize mr . rohwedder 's killing , but to explain it . by accusing the treuhand of "" overwhelming economic violence , "" he is venting the deep frustration many easterners feel at the way their former "" people 's property "" has been sold off over the last two years . intense debate over the play 's political message was accompanied by a last minute backstage feud between mr . hochhuth and the director , einar schleef . mr . hochhuth said he was aghast at what mr . schleef had done to his work , including cutting large chunks of the original text and adding choruses of nudes who chant texts from goethe , schiller and brecht . "" we have two very different artistic styles , "" mr . hochhuth said at a news conference . "" i do n't see how you can connect these things with what i 've written . "" mr . hochhuth 's effort to block the berlin production was unsuccessful , but he has said that a version he considers faithful to the text will open this month in hamburg and then be staged in more than 70 cities and towns . challenging the political establishment is a familiar pursuit for mr . hochhuth . he first came to world attention in 1963 with "" the deputy , "" a play implying that pope pius xii acquiesced in the holocaust by refusing to try to halt or even speak out against the roundup of jews . chancellor konrad adenauer apologized to the vatican over the play . other works by mr . hochhuth have also been attended by controversy . "" soldiers , "" for example , was a 1967 play that accused winston_churchill of moral responsibility for the firebombing of dresden in world_war_ii and connivance in the death of wladyslaw sikorsky , the polish general and head of poland 's wartime government in exile , who was killed in a plane crash near gibraltar in 1943 . other works have accused american leaders of abetting the spread of chemical_weapons , and explored the nazi past of west_german officials , the latter leading to the resignation of a prominent politician in 1978 . agency often criticized many german commentators , as well as opposition members of parliament , had criticized the treuhand before the premiere of "" wessies in weimar . "" they said that by rushing to close factories that employed hundreds of thousands of people , the agency had helped to cut an entire society adrift from its moorings . the treuhand was created after german_reunification in 1990 and assigned to take over the thousands of factories , mines , shops , restaurants , hotels , farm cooperatives and other enterprises that had been state property under the communist east_german government . it has been steadily selling them off to investors , most of whom are outsiders . treuhand officials insist they have no reasonable alternative to their current policies . eastern_germany 's economy needs vast private investment , they say , and most people who live there have no way to raise the required capital . mr . hochhuth is giving voice , however , to a sense among some easterners that treuhand policies constitute a form of theft through disinheritance . in the opening scene of the play , a woman confronts mr . rohwedder in his study to complain about treuhand 's policies "" you leave the east_germans 10 percent but steal 90 percent , and for that you will be executed . you steal from the people . they are being robbed for the second time . forty years ago , at the end of the war , by german communists in the service of the kremlin , and now through your treuhand . "" mr . rohwedder replies "" this sahel zone from rostock to erfurt is an ecological and industrial disaster area that can only be saved by selling it to foreigners , if it can be saved at all . "" the accuser continues "" an unprecedented act of violence , mr . president . you are practically giving away the best lands and properties , without giving local people the chance to bid on what used to belong to their country . something completely new in world history , a variant of colonialism that has never before been practiced against one 's own people ! "" the scene ends with the accuser telling mr . rohwedder that he is engaged in "" a predatory war that you will not survive . "" then a shot rings out and mr . rohwedder falls dead . in real life , mr . rohwedder was killed by a sniper who fired at him through the window of his study late on the night of march 30 , 1991 . the far left red_army_faction took responsibility . last year chancellor kohl attended a ceremony in berlin at which the treuhand building , once the headquarters of the luftwaffe , was renamed in mr . rohwedder 's honor . in a debate arranged by a german television_station recently , mr . hochhuth confronted a treuhand representative , wolf schode , who sharply rejected his assertions . "" you call the work of the treuhand violence , and say that those who commit acts of violence must reckon with an irrational violent response , "" mr . schode said . "" does your play make clear that hundreds of thousands of eastern_germans are working to build democracy in cities and towns , as labor organizers , politicians , entrepreneurs and managers ? "" does it make clear that 99 percent of the people who have responsibility in eastern_germany are from that region ? does it make clear that 130 billion_marks is going to be invested there during this year alone ? does it make clear that the treuhand is legally responsible for streamlining and privatizing companies and that we have sold more than 2 , 000 of them to eastern_germans ? does it make clear that 80 to 85 percent of retail businesses have been sold to eastern_germans ? "" mr . hochhuth replied by citing figures showing that 26 percent of formerly state owned property in eastern_germany has been sold to people from that region . "" i find that extremely small , "" he said . "" twenty six percent of it is being given to the people who once owned it all . """,has a topic of arts
"the decision on monday by the german_government to buy back religious artworks stolen by an american soldier at the end of world_war_ii drew both sharply negative and cautiously approving reactions yesterday from arts administrators , dealers and lawyers . a settlement of the lawsuit was announced in london by lawyers representing the german_government and jack meador and jane meador cook , the siblings and heirs of joe tom meador , the american soldier who stole the treasures from a cave outside the medieval town of quedlinburg and took them back to his home town of whitewright , tex . one of the provisions of the settlement was the payment of 1 million to the meador family . the german_government also agreed not to challenge the meadors' right to 1 . 75 million paid to them last april . "" it 's not so different from paying ransom to buy back your baby , "" said constance lowenthal , executive director of the international foundation for art research , which specializes in tracking stolen art . described as 'blackmail' ms . lowenthal said the payments "" constitute extortion because they 're buying back what they already own . "" robert t . buck , director of the brooklyn_museum , called the settlement "" blackmail , "" and said it was "" especially unfortunate at a time with pending u.s . participation in another international altercation . "" "" the timing is horrible as a lesson to every american g.i. "" he continued . "" this settlement says theft pays . you can sell whatever you steal . there 's a lot of art over there in iraq . "" roland folter , director of h . p . kraus , the rare book and manuscript dealer , said "" on one hand , i 'm pleased , but it does set a bad precedent . they took the easy way out . "" "" i think it 's unfortunate , "" said brian m . cogan , a new york lawyer who is representing the government of the netherlands in an effort to recover property expropriated by nazi_germany , "" when someone is the undisputed owner of valuable property that has been stolen and has to pay millions to get it back . "" more tolerant reactions some museum officials around the country took a more tolerant view . "" i encourage settlements , "" said linda f . pinkerton , trust counsel of the j . paul getty trust . "" when the courts are forced to make these decisions , they are very difficult decisions , and the wrong court decision would be something everybody would have to live with . "" "" museums are in a difficult position on this matter , "" said richard r . brettell , director of the dallas museum of art , which will exhibit the quedlinburg treasures for two weeks in february or march before their return to germany . "" there are an enormous number of artworks in museums that at one time were stolen or misappropriated . it 's easy to be moralistic and express opinions not based on a thoughtful review of the law . "" the director of a major museum , who spoke on condition of anonymity , said "" what may have been a theft 50 years ago is now , in the cycles of time , something else . one has to consider 50 years . the germans were right to pay something , even though this sounds like an enormous amount of money . "" gilbert s . edelson , a lawyer and administrative vice_president of the art dealers' association , said , "" as a lawyer , i can understand making a payment even if you think you should n't on principle just to get the objects back . "" doubts about provision john b . davidson , a chicago lawyer with experience in the international art field , expressed concern about a provision in the settlement under which the german_government would inform the appropriate federal agencies that it did not want the united_states_government to take any action against the meador family . "" it would be grossly inappropriate , "" he said , "" to seek to use a private agreement of this kind as a means of exerting diplomatic pressure to influence domestic law enforcement , if indeed that was the intent of the german_government and not just the meador family . "" speaking by telephone from berlin , dr . klaus maurice , the secretary general of the cultural foundation of the states , the quasi_governmental agency that agreed to the settlement on monday , defended his actions "" if we had pursued the lawsuit in dallas , the legal fees would have greatly exceeded the amount we agreed to pay yesterday . "" the settlement will not set a bad precedent because there are no other collections of stolen objects comparable to the quedlinburg treasures existing in the united_states . the only great collections of art that disappeared during the war and are still missing are those from the berlin museums , and in those cases if we can catch a big_fish with a little fish , then this settlement will have turned out to be a wonderful idea . "" dr . maurice said that the final decision to accept the settlement had been made by the rev . friedemann gosslau , pastor of the church of quedlinburg . "" pastor gosslau told us that the 6th of january is epiphany , "" dr . maurice said , "" and we three representatives of the ministry of the interior , my foundation and his church are like the three kings bringing the treasures to the christ child . """,has a topic of arts
"when the producer marcela gaviria and the correspondent martin smith traveled to iraq in november for the pbs series ''frontline , '' they found themselves without a translator after the man they had lined up canceled abruptly because his brother had been kidnapped , shot and left for dead . ( the brother lived , they were told . ) they forged on with the reporting , not always knowing exactly what their australian cameraman , tim grucza , had captured . so it was n't until they returned to new york and an arabic speaking employee was going through the videotape that they uncovered the eye opening scene featured in their report ''gangs of iraq , '' to be shown by pbs tomorrow as part of the weeklong ''america at a crossroads'' series . as the camera hovers , iraqi soldiers , ostensibly searching for cached weapons under the tutelage of american_troops , discuss among themselves where the contraband is hidden and why the americans wo n't find it , bringing home in a concise way the challenges faced by the united_states . ''gangs of iraq , '' a critical look at how iraqi sectarianism is hampering american efforts , is the fifth post saddam_hussein ''frontline'' film made by ms . gaviria and mr . smith , who work from a home base in a narrow warren of brownstone offices on the upper west side of manhattan , supplemented by lengthy location trips . ''gangs of iraq'' also includes video from freelance journalists working there and interviews with reporters who have been based there , including some from the new york times . starting with the dupont award winning 2003 report ''truth , war and consequences , '' the team , working under mr . smith 's independent production_company rain media , has charted the course of the war . ''truth'' looked at the planning for postwar occupation . ''beyond baghdad'' ( 2004 ) , a road trip across iraq that documented the fractured nature of the country , grew out of a challenge from l . paul_bremer iii , who was then the u.s . administrator in iraq and was frustrated by the attention placed on baghdad . a third film , ''reporting the war'' ( 2005 ) , chronicled the life of foreign journalists in iraq a fourth , ''private warriors'' ( also 2005 ) , examined the role of private contractors in the war_effort . ''frontline'' has also shown a string of reports , produced from washington , exploring american policy in iraq . the rain media team members travel light in iraq with a footlong digital_camera and about 10 cases of equipment , less than half of what they would use in the united_states . ''we 've always gone under the radar , without a lot of security , not working with soundmen or assistants , and so it 's often just the three of us , sometimes just the two us and occasionally sometimes just tim , '' said mr . smith , 58 , who sometimes handles the camera work himself . while most journalists live outside the fortified international zone ( formerly called the green_zone ) , ms . gaviria and mr . smith stay in a hotel inside the zone ''because we do n't have a network , we do n't have armored cars , '' ms . gaviria , 37 , said . when they traveled this time without troop protection , to the ministry of the interior among other places , it was in two beat up , unarmored cars , using drivers they trusted . ''those trips were terrifying , '' ms . gaviria said . ''other journalists would say that 's simply foolish , and frankly it probably was . but you 've got to get your story , and you 've got limited resources 'cause you are pbs , and you 're not a network , and you do n't have full time security . you try to weigh it . '' although the pbs size budget may be less than the commercial networks spend , the resources ''frontline'' has invested in its iraq and afghanistan coverage are considerable , said david fanning , the program 's executive_producer , who pinches money here and there from other projects to finance what are its most expensive reports . ''gangs of iraq , '' which received about 800 , 000 in production money from the corporation for public broadcasting , was produced on a budget of just about 1 million , far more than the usual 550 , 000 to 600 , 000 . the petite , soft_spoken ms . gaviria who walks with a cane was once held by guerrillas while on a reporting trip in her home country , colombia . still , while in iraq she chooses carefully which times she ventures out for her work . ''if something really bad happens , i ca n't really run , '' she says . ''you just have to weigh what you can and cannot do . '' mr . fanning stopped ms . gaviria from traveling to iraq for the film on foreign journalists , he said , ''because i did n't feel like we should take another risk at that moment . '' instead they relied on an on site cameraman to get the material they needed . mr . smith has been producing for ''frontline'' almost since the series began in 1983 and is one of the most prolific producers ''in the history of the series , '' mr . fanning said . he was on staff of the program at one point , and in the mid_1990s produced documentaries for abc_news before forming rain media in 1998 . it was mr . fanning who pushed mr . smith to become an on camera correspondent . ''he 's got a great authority and a presence , '' mr . fanning said . at 6 foot 6 mr . smith is something of a celebrity among the troops . but one iraqi driver on the last trip quit because he feared being seen with the obvious american . the rain media team also includes ali fadhil , an iraqi doctor studying in new york on a fulbright scholarship , who translated every shot they brought back . he discovered the patrol scene that mr . grucza had filmed ''on pure instinct , '' mr . smith said . the cameraman , he said , had ''just sensed that this little conversation off to the side was worth photographing . '' mr . fanning said that sectarianism in iraq was an obvious subject for this ''frontline . '' still , he said , ''frontline'' reports ''are never subjects we are always looking for the narrative thread'' that will persuade viewers to devote an hour to a single topic . in ''gangs of iraq'' ''we had two films , '' ms . gaviria said . ''it was the militia story , and it was 'standing up the iraqi forces , ' and how those two stories intersect and collide along the way . ''",has a topic of arts
"europe has no leader more easily lampooned than prime_minister silvio_berlusconi of italy , who recently made headlines by likening a german colleague in the european_parliament to a nazi concentration camp kapo . this self made media tycoon has always had an odd way with words . ''america ? i love america , '' he said to an american reporter in the middle of his 2001 election campaign . ''i am on whatever side america is on , even before i know what it is . '' a glimpse of mr . berlusconi 's power and folly can be seen tonight on ''wide angle , '' a weekly pbs news program about international affairs . this episode , called ''the prime_minister and the press , '' focuses on how mr . berlusconi 's control of italian television has hampered freedom of the press in italy . his media company , mediaset , controls the country 's three main private channels , while his government oversees the three state controlled channels . no politician looks statesmanlike while singing and waving_flags at his own campaign rallies , and mr . berlusconi , 66 , who was a crooner on a cruise_ship in college and used his soccer team , a.c . milan , to start his political career , has more embarrassing news clips than most . he has also been dogged by charges of corruption for more than a decade and has just won passage of a law in parliament that grants him immunity from prosecution while in office , derailing a trial he was facing in milan . italian politics , as minor_league as they are baroque , are more easily mocked than explained . to their credit , the producers resist the temptation to paint mr . berlusconi as a buffoon or a mussolini mini me . yet that same anglo_saxon sense of fairness and restraint is also a liability . it is a trusting world_view that cannot quite capture what is different about italian journalism and italian society and why it is that mr . berlusconi gets away with such outlandish statements and acts . the italian press is not built on the american model . as in many other european_countries , only more so , italian newspapers and magazines are ideological and opinionated , and facts are not always ruthlessly checked . with a few exceptions the italian media are not fair , balanced or tenacious . they were noisy but pliant under previous governments , and they are now ill prepared to fend off the far more shameless incursions of the current prime_minister . ''wide angle'' persuades viewers that the italian prime_minister is bad news for the press . but by casting italian journalists as oppressed champions of free_speech and fairness , ''wide angle'' misses the chance to explain why in some ways the italian press got the prime_minister it deserves . the clues are there , however . the documentary focuses extensively on mario travaglio , a young , slim reporter who is introduced by the narrator as ''one of italy 's most respected investigative reporters . '' mr . travaglio could more accurately be described as one of italy 's few investigative reporters . it is not a crowded field . mr . travaglio is a dogged muckracker . his book ''the odor of money'' charges that mr . berlusconi 's first real_estate ventures in the 1970 's relied on financing from associates with mob ties , a rumor that has floated around the billionaire for years but that has not been upheld in any of his trials on charges of financial misconduct . the documentary does not point out until much later that mr . travaglio is also a correspondent for l'unit , which it describes as a ' 'small , leftist paper . '' l'unit was once the newspaper of the communist_party and the most powerful left_wing news organization in italy . it is small , and foundering , but it is still financed by an offshoot of the old communist_party , the democrats of the left , which is the main opposition party to mr . berlusconi . that does not mean mr . travaglio 's reports about mr . berlusconi 's misdeeds are wrong . instead it suggests what the documentary leaves out that investigative reporting in italy is so difficult and so unrewarding ( mr . berlusconi in particular sues critics with abandon ) that only the most passionate and partisan journalists make the effort . the most respected investigative reporting on mr . berlusconi is not in any italian publication but in the economist , which in its aug . 2 issue published an open_letter to mr . berlusconi demanding answers to 28 questions about his 1985 financial dealings that were to have been raised in court before the immunity law was passed . the economist justifies its zeal by citing mr . berlusconi as ''europe 's most extreme case of the abuse by a capitalist of the democracy within which he lives and operates . '' the documentary rightly points out that after the election some television personalities lost their jobs at the state controlled network rai for criticizing mr . berlusconi on the air just before the voting . but it takes too seriously the whining of rai reporters who evoke a dark conspiracy of advertisers and executives at mr . berlusconi 's mediaset for rai 's declining ratings . mediaset was outperforming rai long before mr . berlusconi took office for the simple reasons that its programming was flashier and better and its operations more modern and more efficient . the documentary often quotes enzo biagi , 83 , one of the television commentators who was taken off the air after criticizing mr . berlusconi . he is a symbol of respectable italian journalism , but he is also a reminder of the gerontocracy that still controls italy media and much more the documentary is packed with trim , elderly experts who are a tribute to the mediterranean diet and mandarin rule . and there is far less mobility and opportunity in academia or medicine than there is in journalism . even business is still in the grip of spritely elders . mr . berlusconi won the 2001 election for many reasons , but one that is often discounted is that he promised sweeping change to a country that badly needs it . ''wide angle'' does a good job of illustrating how he has instead made sweeping changes that suit his own interests . the show has a harder time explaining to an american audience how he got there in the first place . the tv watch",has a topic of arts
"the trial of marion true , a curator at the j . paul getty museum in los_angeles charged with conspiring to import illegally excavated antiquities , was postponed here monday after a brief hearing in criminal court . the trial , which is being closely_watched in the art world because of its potential repercussions for other museums with recently acquired antiquities , is now set to open on nov . 16 . the court said it was deferring it because the defendants had not received notice of the charges translated into english . neither ms . true nor her co defendant , emanuel robert hecht , 86 , an american art_dealer based in paris , attended the hearing in a drab , low ceilinged courtroom near the vatican . both have denied the charges through their lawyers . as the getty 's antiquities curator , ms . true , 56 , oversees a vast collection of greek , roman and etruscan objects that began with purchases by j . paul getty in the 1950 's . during her two decades at the getty , it has expanded to 50 , 000 objects through ambitious purchases and gifts from donors . italy has adopted tough new policies to thwart the trade in looted and illegally exported antiquities , which often eventually find their way to museums and private collectors in other countries . ''this case is a signal to those who have despoiled italy 's underground patrimony , '' said maurizio fiorilli , a lawyer for italy 's culture ministry . ''it 's telling them we 've noticed . '' the case involving ms . true is linked to a 1995 raid on four warehouses in geneva that brought to light thousands of artifacts . italian investigators contend that some of them had been illegally excavated from sites in italy and other mediterranean countries . investigators also found thousands of photographs of antiquities in the warehouses , some of which they say depict artifacts now in museums , including the getty . the warehouses were later traced to giacomo medici , a rome resident described by italy 's police squad for art thefts as an ''orchestrator of much of the world 's illegal traffic in archaeological artifacts . '' mr . medici was originally indicted with ms . true and mr . hecht but opted for ''fast track prosecution , '' a procedure that reduces any sentence that results from a conviction . in december mr . medici was handed a_10 year prison term and fined more than 10 million_euros . the conviction is being appealed , and he has not been jailed . mr . medici , who attended monday 's hearing , scornfully dismissed the prosecution 's case against him , which he said was based mostly on the polaroid photos found in the geneva warehouse . he asserted that some of the photos were planted there by investigators and in any case did not constitute enough evidence to prosecute . ''by condemning me based on the photos , they want to strike american museums , '' he said . ''they want to empty out american museums . '' alessandro vannucci , the lawyer representing mr . hecht , said that mr . medici 's conviction ''unfortunately could have an influence'' on the case against ms . true and mr . hecht , noting that guglielmo muntoni , the judge who ordered the two defendants to stand trial , is the same judge who found mr . medici guilty . but a lawyer for ms . true , franco coppi , one of italy 's most prominent defense attorneys , argued that mr . medici 's conviction would have no bearing on this current case . ''each trial is its own story , '' he said . ''someone can be guilty , someone else innocent . '' the investigation of ms . true came as a surprise to many in the art world . in 1995 she oversaw the getty 's tightening of its ethics policy for antiquities acquisitions , and in recent years she has initiated the restitution of a number of objects to italy . mr . fiorilli , the lawyer for the culture ministry , said that this year the getty offered to return three pieces to italy a greek epigraph from selinunte , a bronze etruscan candelabrum and a red figure vase from paestum as a gesture of good faith . ''we accepted the restitution but proceeded with the trial , '' he said , adding that the ministry was open to discussing the return of additional works . efforts to reach getty officials for comment were unsuccessful yesterday . when the july trial date was announced in may , the museum issued a statement of support for ms . true , saying , ''we trust that this trial will result in her exoneration . '' it also emphasized that it had cooperated with italian investigators , providing thousands of pages of documents .",has a topic of arts
"one thing the academy_awards will not have this year is a speech on chinese repression in tibet by richard_gere , the actor who has led the way in hollywood 's growing concern for tibetan rights . but in a larger sense , mr . gere banned as an oscar presenter after his televised denunciation of china in 1993 no longer needs to steal a platform to advance his favorite cause . whatever happens at the academy_awards on monday , tibet is looming larger than ever on the show business map . last june , 100 , 000 people attended a two day free tibet concert in san_francisco , where saffron robed buddhist monks talking about their imprisonment mingled with music groups including the beastie boys and smashing pumpkins . in august , at an american himalayan foundation dinner in los_angeles , harrison ford , sharon stone , steven seagal , shirley maclaine and other stars lined up to shake the dalai_lama 's hand . and three weeks ago , at an anniversary benefit for tibet house in new york , founded 10 years ago by mr . gere and robert thurman , the columbia_university scholar , the performers included allen ginsberg , philip glass and natalie merchant . honorary chairmen included roy lichtenstein , henry_luce 3d and professor thurman 's daughter , uma . most important , perhaps , the isolated mountain kingdom , for the last decade the concern of a relatively small group of scholars , human_rights advocates and celebrities , is the subject of four movies being made . two of them ''kundun , '' martin scorsese 's movie based on the life of the dalai_lama , and one by jean jacques annaud are major productions that seem likely to draw worldwide attention to the tibetans' plight . ''tibet is going to enter western popular_culture as something can only when hollywood does the entertainment injection into the world system , '' said orville schell , a china scholar who is writing a book on western conceptions of tibet . ''let 's remember that hollywood is the most powerful force in the world , besides the u.s . military . '' why tibet rather than some other cause , whether the oppression of women in the islamic world or the continued detention of the burmese opposition_leader daw aung san suu kyi , who like the dalai_lama is a nobel_peace_prize laureate ? what is it about tibet , which has languished in obscurity for most of the last half century , that makes it the cause du jour for celebrities and noncelebrities alike ? western fantasies find eastern home the answer has several factors . there is the ferocity of china 's actions in tibet , and china 's status in the post cold_war world as the most important large country still holding another land in subjugation . but there is also the growing appeal of buddhism in the united_states , tibet 's remoteness and mysteriousness and the personality of the dalai_lama . for tibet is not just a good cause . tibet is also a state of mind , a distant place onto which westerners have long projected their fantasies . no other cause just now contains the full mix of ingredients of the tibetan plight the size and growing power of the occupier , the reputation for spirituality of the oppressed , the country 's continued image as a pristine place where spirituality takes precedence over materialism . ''the tibetans are the baby seals of the human_rights movement , '' said professor thurman , who is in a sense the academic godfather of the tibetan cause , a former monk turned scholar who has translated some of the tibetan_buddhist classics into english . the image is apt , suggesting the innocent , pacific and largely defenseless tibetans being clubbed by giant , powerful , merciless china . given the harshness of the chinese occupation , tibet is a legitimate and compelling cause . in some ways , the chinese occupation of tibet is a very old story . it began in the 17th_century , but since china put down an insurrection in 1959 and forced the dalai_lama , tibet 's political and spiritual leader , into exile , china has sought to eradicate the tibetan identity , to annex the territory culturally as well as physically , tibetan activists say . chinese spokesmen retort that chinese rule has brought modern ways to a poverty stricken and superstitious land run by a kind of medieval theocracy . but human_rights advocates accuse china of closing all but 13 of the small territory 's 6 , 254 buddhist monasteries , sending thousands of monks to re education camps , banning the display of photographs of the dalai_lama , and resettling tens of thousands of ethnic chinese colonists on tibetan land . the argument is that tibet 's existence as a distinct culture is threatened by chinese policies . and given the acceptance of that accusation in the west and the exotic appeal of tibet itself , the surprise may be that tibet took so long to become a celebrity cause . ''the fascination is the search for the third eye , '' said melissa mathison , wife of harrison ford and the screenwriter of ''kundun . '' ''americans are hoping for some sort of magical door into the mystical , thinking that there 's some mysterious reason for things , a cosmic explanation . '' growing enchanted steps on the road ms . mathison , explaining how she became interested in tibetan_culture , said the first step might be a search for spiritual meaning , which is soon replaced by an awareness of the tibetans themselves , especially of the personality and character of the dalai_lama . ''tibet offers the most extravagant expression of the mystical , '' she said , ''and when people meet his holiness , you can see on their faces that they 're hoping to get this hit that will transcend their lives , take them someplace else . '' in a telephone interview , mr . gere explained that he first became interested in tibet more than a decade ago when he became a buddhist and was introduced to the dalai_lama during a visit to the leader 's home in exile in dharmsala , india . ''it became clear to me that the situation for the tibetans was worsening , and they had no public voice , no contact with the media , no presence at the united_nations , '' mr . gere said . ''they had been gobbled up by the chinese and had no protector . '' mr . gere denies that there is a ''critical_mass'' of interest building on tibet . many of the same people who became interested in tibet a decade or so ago , he said , are still working for the cause . the work includes regular meetings in hollywood and elsewhere , as well as support for institutions like tibet house in new york and the international campaign for tibet in washington , a lobbying group with close ties to the tibetan government in exile . cycle of awareness the critical factors to be sure , other perceived injustices in the world have long generated their own movements , from opposition to indonesia 's occupation of east_timor to the detention of mrs . aung san suu kyi . indeed , there was a movie sympathetic to mrs . aung san suu kyi , ''beyond rangoon , '' directed by john boorman . but the military dictatorship of myanmar , as burma is now known , did not become the focus of a tibet style campaign . the movies on tibet , especially given their star quality , could now even become an issue in chinese_american relations , making washington 's efforts to improve the atmosphere with beijing more difficult . last november the chinese government warned the walt disney company that it was jeopardizing its future business in china by producing ''kundun , '' leading 59 prominent hollywood figures to call on president_clinton to resist china 's efforts at censorship . others close to the campaign say public interest in tibet is reaching a new high . ''the movement has had its ups and downs , '' said john ackerly , director of the international campaign for tibet . china 's suppression of student demonstrations in tiananmen_square in 1989 helped the cause , he said , because ''that validated what the tibetans were saying . then it kind of faded , and now it 's catching on again with these movies . '' tibet , in fact , has gone through several stages of fascination for westerners . at various times it has served the european and american imagination as a place of remoteness and immensely high mountains , of unspoiled physical beauty and a life style uncorrupted by the rampant materialism of the west . james hilton 's casting of tibet as shangri_la in his 1933 novel , ''lost horizon , '' mr . schell contends , was born out of the anxiety leading to world_war_ii , which fostered the yearning for a place apart , a peaceful realm divorced from the chaos of modern life . more recently , other events have paved the way for greater public attention to tibet , a territory of only 1.2 million people . the end of the cold_war and the democratization of eastern_europe removed the chief american obsession overseas . the release of nelson_mandela in south_africa and his election as president of a post apartheid nation lessened another concern . when the dalai_lama won the nobel_peace_prize in 1991 , he became not just world famous , but the world 's most famous symbol of a nonviolent , meditative philosophy of existence . he has turned out to be a man of quiet charisma and a shrewd , tireless spokesman for his cause . at the same time , with political idealists searching for a focus , china suddenly loomed as the chief remaining repressive state . ''we 're living in an era where self_determination has been acted out except in this one stark case , '' mr . schell said . ''you add to that a whole revival of interest in esoteric individualism , people searching for a spiritual side . next , enter the dalai_lama , crowned as a nobel laureate . tibet has done some of the most extraordinary public_relations i know of . '' the hollywood love affair with tibet",has a topic of arts
"to the editor in her review of marc riboud , ''a land ever in flux the pictorial record'' ( july 20 ) , vicki goldberg quotes from robert s . and helen lynd 's ''middletown'' about mankind 's sluggish adaptation to new conditions ''the process of social_change is epitomized in the fact that the first packard car body delivered to the manufacturer had a whipstock on the dashboard . '' this example seems both inapt and inept on the lynds' part , because being towed by a horse was an often necessary part of motoring in those days . robert c . curtis lexington , mass . marc riboud",has a topic of arts
"sarah stackhouse and lucas hoving went to the people 's republic of china and experienced a high point in their lives as teachers of american modern_dance . david hochoy , an american of asian descent , found that going home was possible in an unexpected way . and the student dancers of the guangdong modern_dance company which makes its american debut thursday at the american_dance_festival in durham , n.c . discovered a very different world of dance than the one they knew . all were involved in a program under which american dance teachers worked in china for three month periods to bring new ideas and insights to students trained in classical_ballet and chinese folk_dance . in recent conversations , several of the teachers , who ranged in age from their 30 's to their 70 's , talked of surprising challenges and rewards . it was sometimes a hurdle , they found , for the students to break free from the institutionalized , codified dance technique they knew . western music , too , presented difficulties . and though the idea of making dances about one 's emotions took some getting used to , the pieces developed by the students in choreography classes included a solo about abortion and a duet about two men struggling with their feelings for one another . in turn , the teachers had to get used to their students' lack of personal freedoms . "" i had been told they were fantastic technicians and wonderful mimics , "" said mr . hochoy , one of the teachers and a former member of the martha graham dance company . "" they are good at copying , because i think that 's the way dance has been taught for a long time in china . it was hard to introduce a conceptual approach . "" the idea of dancing from the inside out dance as an externalization of what 's happening inside was hard to get across , "" he added . "" society in communist_china discourages the individual . in chinese_culture , it is not considered good taste to show your inner life . i used the motivations martha would use with us . and ultimately , they understood that for choreography to be interesting it had to reveal something about who they were . "" but the 20 student dancers , some of whom had sacrificed higher paying jobs to enroll in the modern_dance program , were eager to learn . when miss stackhouse began to teach them a dance by jose limon , with whom she once performed , she realized that the bach score seemed fast to them . "" it was n't like their music , which is more romantic , more like tone poems , "" she said . "" but i was amazed at how quickly they dealt with that . "" the company , based at the guangdong dance_academy in canton , was the product of the summer yang meiqi spent studying at the american_dance_festival in 1986 . miss meiqi , director of the academy , thought chinese dancers needed more exposure to modern_dance , and by the next year she and charles reinhart , director of the festival , had developed a three year program of instruction in american modern_dance techniques , improvisation and choreography . the students , selected by audition , were graduates of state dance academies throughout china these schools offer a seven year program in ballet , chinese folk_dance and an amalgam of folk_dance and russian ballet called chinese classical folk_dance . modern_dance is being taught at the guangdong academy in twice yearly shifts by american teachers , who also included lynda davis , douglas nielsen , ruby shang and chiang ching , a classmate of miss meiqi 's at the peking dance_academy , who left china in 1962 . from its start , the program emphasized choreography as much as modern_dance techniques . mr . reinhart has asked that during the north_carolina festival the guangdong dancers perform choreography they created . "" i felt it was important to find choreographers , "" said mr . hoving , who has danced with graham and limon . "" so almost all my work was on the creative thing . we had a lot of discussions . i went to the city library and brought back books on art . i gave the students what one usually gives in composition class assignments having to do with time , space , energy , rhythms , shapes . "" some teachers noted that the student dancers seemed less competitive than their american counterparts . "" everyone is looked after , "" mr . hochoy said of the students . "" their salaries are paid , even if they do n't come to class . "" several students were on leave from large dance companies that are attached to military bases , rather like american military marching bands . "" during the cultural_revolution , the arts were to entertain the military , peasants and workers , "" miss stackhouse said . "" i was shocked when in came military trainers , and i saw these beautiful dancers up at 5 in the morning to do military drills . "" the project ended its first year with a dance demonstration . "" two of the students , excellent choreographers , had talked themselves into a second year in the project , "" miss stackhouse said . "" after the demonstration , an air_force plane flew down , and two big guards plucked them out and back to the air_force base in beijing . "" i made a goof or two , "" she continued . "" one goof , a pretty big one , was when i organized these open classes to get in people from the community to share in the program , so it was not all behind closed doors . we showed dances the students had done . i said , 'let 's have a discussion . ask questions , like why do we roll around on the floor ? ' "" her visitors did not respond . "" they are not into that kind of thing , "" she said . "" they do n't want to appear as if they do n't know something . they 'd hold forth in a big dialectic about the art of dance . so every once in a while i 'd ask a question for them . 'do you wonder why we roll on the floor ? ' i 'd say . then they 'd be glad i asked . "" she and her colleagues mr . hoving and mr . hochoy are all eager to return to china . born in trinidad , mr . hochoy talks of his paternal grandmother , who emigrated to that caribbean island from canton as a 16 year old mail order bride . living in trinidad and new york , he had come to think of himself as simply a "" skinny asian . "" in canton , he said , he began to feel "" beautiful "" for the first time . "" i thought , 'how ironic it is , going back to the land of my forefathers and taking with me an american art form as a gift . ' "" dance",has a topic of arts
"tour groups to china do n't always take in performances of the highest level . technicolor acrobatic spectacles and vendors' relentless song and dance routines along the great_wall do n't quite cut it . but on wednesday , the joyce_theater arrives in beijing for a two week fund_raising trip that promises to marry typical tourist pleasures with serious dance encounters . the 8 , 850 price_tag ( not including airfare ) ensures participants access to wonders like the labyrinthine ancient world of the forbidden_city . it also offers a glimpse into the equally dizzying world of contemporary chinese dance , through talks and performances in several cities . ten donors have signed up to join linda shelton , the theater 's executive director , and richard ablon , a board member who has helped organize international joyce forays since a 2001 trip to cuba . ''one of our selling points for the trip , '' ms . shelton said , ''is that the people that travel with me will be looking at dance the same time that i see it , and then will possibly see it on a joyce stage down the road . that 's very exciting , for me and for them . '' in recent years , the joyce has shown chinese troupes like the guangdong modern_dance company ( the nation 's first modern company , founded in 1990 ) , the beijing modern_dance company and the new york based shen wei dance arts . ms . shelton sees the trip as a fact finding mission , one she hopes will lead to surprises for her theater . ''there 's a little china boom going on , '' said ralph samuelson , the director of the asian cultural council in new york . ''it 's somewhat reminiscent of the japan boom of the '80s . '' for many american arts organizations , he added , ''this is new territory . '' but not for all . charles l . reinhart , who directs the american_dance_festival in durham , n.c. , first led a delegation of choreographers to china in 1980 . his voice still drops to an awe struck whisper when he describes how the director of the guangdong dance_academy , yang mei qi , approached him in 1986 after watching a modern_dance class at the festival , which she was attending as part of its international choreographers workshop . ''we do not speak a word of each other 's language , '' he said recently from the festival 's manhattan office . ''but boy , did we connect . '' by now the story is dance lore ms . yang and mr . reinhart hatched a plan to send american teachers to china over a three year period with the goal of introducing modern_dance to ms . yang 's students . the guangdong modern_dance company , which counted shen wei among its original members , was born of this effort . ms . yang endured many growing_pains with her fellow dance pioneers , from uninterested audiences to a government that was at times all too interested in monitoring this western import . in a 1992 article for contact quarterly , roger copeland , who teaches dance and theater at oberlin college in ohio , described choreographers' struggle to create in the repressive years after the tiananmen square massacre in 1989 . certainly censorship still exists . but so do the beginnings of a framework for understanding and supporting independent dance . mr . reinhart has been invited to send teachers and companies to shanghai for two weeks in august . ( his chinese colleagues are particularly interested in shen wei and pilobolus . ) new companies are springing up , and chinese choreographers are gaining more exposure to international works . last year , the tibetan choreographer and dancer sang jijia returned to china after an apprenticeship with william_forsythe 's company in germany . as in other sectors of chinese_culture , foreign visitors say , the rate of change is mind_boggling . ''these younger 30 year olds who were in midlevel positions have now moved up to higher positions , and they are much more open , '' mr . reinhart of the american_dance_festival said . ''it was impossible to talk about doing an a.d.f . shanghai in 2000 , and it 's possible now . '' if , that is , his hosts can raise the money . these days , the main hurdle faced by contemporary_dance in china is far more familiar to western artists financing . ''the idea of arts as propaganda no longer prevails , '' willy tsao , who runs three dance companies in china , wrote in an e mail message . ''the government sees that art serves more the purpose of entertaining the public than of education , thus wants the art groups to get more support from the audience through box office and commercial sponsorship . i see that this is a natural transition when the chinese government is adjusting its policies , shifting from a totalitarian state to a freer society . to me , this is a period of true test only those who are truly devoted will stay away from the 'entertainment trap . ' '' while supporters of china 's contemporary_dance scene are optimistic about its progress and its future , most say the choreography has a way to go before it can hold its own on international stages . ''i 'm extremely pleased , '' lan lan wang , a native of taiwan and a dance professor at connecticut_college , said of china 's progress . ms . wang has been active in modern_dance in china since the late 1970s , traveling there to teach and working to foster ties with american companies and institutions . ''however , '' she added , laughing , ''the works are not good . i hope , for presenters , it 's not about 'we 're bringing these works to america because china is popular right now . ' i think still we have to look at the art . '' criticism in china remains a fledgling trade . but american critics have often agreed with ms . wang 's assessment . reviewing the beijing modern_dance company 's debut at the joyce_theater in 2005 , robert greskovic , in the wall_street_journal , described its production ''rear light'' as ''earnest , contemporary_dance with little color or distinction . '' shen wei was more diplomatic in assessing his countrymen , who have yet to achieve anything like his recognition . his newest dance , ''re , ii , '' was given its premiere by les grands ballets canadiens de montr al last week alongside works by christopher_wheeldon and jiri kylian . his dance theater work ''second visit to the empress , '' based on chinese opera , will be presented at the lincoln_center festival in july . he will contribute choreography for the opening ceremonies of the 2008 olympics in beijing . ''i just think they need more education , '' mr . shen said of the beijing troupe . ''they need more research . they just need to do more work . you ca n't say bad or good . it 's just that they do n't yet have much experience . '' dance",has a topic of arts
"to the editor although i almost always agree with frank rich , i have to take issue with his dismissal of pornography as a causal factor in the abu_ghraib_prison abuse ''it was the porn that made them do it , '' may 30 . you do n't have to be a right wing bigot to recognize that the widespread availability of pornography has normalized degrading and abusive behavior in the minds of many . that the abu_ghraib abusers enacted obviously pornographic scenarios on their victims virtually proves their ( or their commanders' ) familiarity with it . liberals perennially underestimate the harmful effect of pornography that it licenses cruel and demeaning behavior and , unfortunately , mr . rich adopts the liberal line in this column . josephine donovan portsmouth , n.h . abu_ghraib",has a topic of arts
"''china was once known as 'the land of rites , ' '' said linda wrigglesworth , a london dealer in antique chinese , tibetan and korean textiles who exhibited at last weekend 's international asian art fair in new york . ''the formation of chinese civilization was synonymous with the establishment of its ritual system and religions , an establishment continuously illustrated through dress . '' and what dress it was . ms . wrigglesworth and jacqueline simcox , another london antique textile dealer , each showed resplendent chinese court costumes , antique silks and embroideries at the fair , which closed on wednesday . so did arthur leeper , a dealer from belvedere , calif . ms . simcox had a sumptuous lady 's costume from 1900 in purple satin embroidered with blue begonias . ''it was bought by belgium 's minister to china early in the century and was on display at the victoria and albert museum in the 1970 's , '' she said . ''it is in perfect condition . '' she also had an 18th_century table frontal , or tablecloth , with a red ground featuring a large white crane holding in its beak a branch with three peaches . both cranes and peaches symbolize longevity . ms . wrigglesworth showed a midnight blue , late 19th_century imperial overcoat that had belonged to empress longyu , the wife of emperor guangxu . ''we know who wore it because only an empress could wear the symbols of the sun and moon on her shoulders , '' said gary dickinson , a historian with wrigglesworth ltd . ''it may have come out of china after the 1911 revolution , or in the 1920 's , when a warlord known as the christian general took over the imperial palace , expelled the last emperor and sold some imperial robes to raise money for a military campaign . '' ms . simcox and ms . wrigglesworth were the previous owners of some of the fine antique chinese pieces in a ravishing new exhibition at the china institute in new york , ''weaving china 's past the amy s . clague collection of chinese textiles'' ( through june 7 ) . organized by the phoenix art museum , this show includes about 30 chinese silk textiles dating from the song dynasty ( 960 1279 ) through the qing_dynasty ( 1644 1911 ) . it is organized according to type ( brocades , tapestries and embroideries ) and includes throne covers , costumes , tibetan decorations and buddhist banners . ''in china , textiles were appreciated as fine_art , just like painting and calligraphy , '' said claudia brown , director of the center for asian studies at arizona_state_university and the show 's curator . ''our aim was to put these textiles in the context of the greater fabric of chinese_art . '' eight large , colorful banners from the qing_dynasty nearly steal the show . they were probably made for the interior of a nobleman 's house . ''i think they may have been hung as a room divider , visible on two sides , '' said ms . wrigglesworth , who sold the banners to mrs . clague . the banners are decorated on both sides , with tapestry on the front and painted silk on the back . the upper segment of each has a cloud shaped form with a narrative scene . in the large field of decoration , each banner has a trompe_l'oeil vase of flowers with a separate narrative scene on the base . inspired by 17th_century woodblock prints , the scenes illustrate ''the romance of the western chamber , '' a drama from the yuan dynasty ( 1279 1368 ) . ''these are rather like themes from shakespearean plays they were classics and everyone would have recognized them , '' ms . simcox said . ''the same stories were used in woodcuts , porcelains , paintings and textiles . '' in this romance , zhang , a young scholar , falls in love with oriole and they have a secret tryst . oriole 's mother finds out and chastises the maid , who is supposed to guard oriole 's virtue . mother and daughter take refuge in a monastery , which is attacked by a rebel known as the flying tiger . zhang writes to his friend general du , asking him to save the monastery from the flying tiger . the general succeeds . but oriole 's mother will not let her daughter marry until zhang passes the civil_service exam . after several more obstacles , zhang is finally allowed to marry oriole . ''these panels are exceptionally rare , '' ms . wrigglesworth said . ''the chances of finding anything like them again will be in my next life . '' mrs . clague was born in texas and has lived in phoenix for nearly 40 years . she has been involved with the phoenix art museum since 1967 . robert clague , her late husband , had collected chinese cloisonn enamels , chinese glass and bronzes . mrs . clague began collecting chinese textiles in 1989 . ''what 's wonderful about her collection is that it reflects one person 's taste , '' ms . simcox said . antique picture frames bonhams , the london auction house , has organized a sale of 272 picture frames for wednesday . ( items for sale can be viewed at www . bonhams . com . ) most are antique , ranging from a handsome 17th_century dutch ebonized frame ( think of rembrandt 's paintings ) to a 19th_century florentine frame , carved , pierced and gilded , with scrolling leaf motifs . ''we do four frame sales a year , '' said alan montgomery , the head of the frame department . ''we are the only auction house in britain that holds sales of fine frames . we schedule it for the week of the old masters sales . '' people use frames in unpredictable ways . ''antique spanish frames are incredibly popular among owners of picassos these days , '' mr . montgomery said . ''collectors of impressionists buy elaborate 19th_century gilded frames for their pictures because that 's what the impressionists used , mostly because they were cheap at the time . the impressionist painters would rub the gold so the frames did n't look so glitzy . '' some of the plainest frames are the most elegant . lot 225 is an 18th_century dutch rosewood veneered frame so simple it looks modern . most frames at bonhams are estimated at a few hundred dollars apiece . price depends on condition . ''it 's quite rare to find frames in good original condition that have n't been cut down or altered , '' mr . montgomery said . ''having the original gold is also rare to find , but quite important . '' he said interior decorators buy frames to install mirrors and these frames are often expanded or cut down . ''only about 30 years ago did people realize how valuable frames are if they are still in their original condition , '' he said . three years ago edward balfour and justin wessels founded framefinders in manhattan . they have a shop at 454 east 84th_street , a web_site and occasional auctions . mr . balfour once worked at eli wilner company , a period frame and mirror shop at 1525 york avenue , at 80th_street , in manhattan . ''we focus on american frames made from the 1840 's to the 1880 's , '' mr . wessels said . ''the architect stanford_white , for example , designed frames for his artist friends . no two were alike . we sold one last november for 44 , 000 . '' the firm 's next auction is scheduled for may 13 . antiques",has a topic of arts
"lead few matters in italian public affairs are free of partisan political considerations , and television news is no exception . aside from one program on a relatively small private station , televised news is confined to the state network , radiotelevisione italiana , or rai . but rai is divided into three parts , each in the hands of one of the three major political_parties the christian democrats , the communists and the few matters in italian public affairs are free of partisan political considerations , and television news is no exception . aside from one program on a relatively small private station , televised news is confined to the state network , radiotelevisione italiana , or rai . but rai is divided into three parts , each in the hands of one of the three major political_parties the christian democrats , the communists and the socialists . party bias can be seen on all three , although usually more in special documentaries than the regular news programs . perhaps not surprisingly , the christian democrats' rai 1 devotes more air time than the others to the pope . nor is it a surprise that the communist run rai 3 led the field in detailed coverage of an important congress the italian communist party held in march . somewhat more eyebrow arching were the occasionally derisive comments the gathering received on rai 2 , the socialist_party outlet . as the world turns , it's news with a spin",has a topic of arts
"beijing checks idol worship government censors in beijing moved yesterday to rein ''happy boy , '' china 's version of ''american_idol , '' agence_france_presse reported . the finale of last season 's version of the show , ''super girl , '' won by li yuchun , right , was watched by 400 million viewers , roughly one third of china 's population . ''no weirdness , no vulgarity , no low taste , '' were among the restrictions imposed on the show 's producers by the state administration of radio , film and television , according to a notice posted on the administration 's web_site . in addition , relatives and contestants must do their best not to cry , scream or wail in order to ' 'maintain a happy and inspiring atmosphere , '' and the judges are prohibited from ' 'mocking or humiliating contestants . '' contestants must only sing ''healthy and ethically inspiring'' songs , and the show must not indulge in ''gossip . '' the censor 's notice said the rules were aimed at ''preparing a good atmosphere'' before the communist_party 's national congress late this year . the publication of the new rules came amid the initial search for ''happy boy'' contestants . ten thousand people have already applied in changsha , the capital of hunan_province . the search goes nationwide today . a photographer 's legacy the foundation established after the death of the celebrity photographer herb ritts is donating 2 . 5 million and 189 of his works to the museum_of_fine_arts , boston , which plans to create a photography gallery in his name , the associated press reported yesterday . mr . ritts , who died in 2002 at 50 , photographed the famous , often for magazines like vogue and vanity_fair . the museum mounted a show of his work in 1996 that was derided by many critics but proved to be one of its most popular exhibitions . ''the museum was making a major statement about accessibility , about what we thought was art , and what we thought were the preoccupations of a younger generation in america , '' said malcolm rogers , the boston museum 's director . the gift is the largest ever by the herb ritts foundation , which has focused largely on aids related causes since it was founded in 2003 . venice 's pop menace conservation organizations say that st . mark 's square in venice , below , could be damaged by two concerts to be staged there on june 5 and 6 june by elton_john , the art newspaper reported on thursday . a 1989 concert there by pink_floyd was attended by about 200 , 000 people , who left a mess that took three days to clean up . two sixth century columns next to the basilica of st . mark 's were damaged when fans climbed them to get a better view . anna somers cocks , who leads venice in peril , a group seeking to preserve the city , said , ''there is no parallel with the pink_floyd concert as the numbers for elton_john will be strictly controlled , but there is some concern about the weight of the open air theater and the people on the square as there is a complex system of drains underneath it . '' maurizio zanetto , secretary of the venetian branch of the heritage organization italia nostra , said , ''we will do what we can to lobby against the elton_john concerts and raise awareness of the potential damage that will be done to st . mark 's square . '' but maurizio calligaro , chief of staff for the mayor of venice , noted that a crowd of 5 , 000 the size to which each concert will be limited pales beside the 35 , 000 people who gather in the square on new year 's eve . tickets are already on sale online for the concerts , though the city , which will be paid about 200 , 000 euros ( 268 , 730 ) for the use of the square , is not expected to give its permission for the events until next week . gary farrow , a spokesman for elton_john , said the singer ''looks forward to a beautiful and harmonious event in the city . '' art and abbatoirs some neighbors of the artist damien hirst in the cotswolds , in central england , are upset over plans to include an ''abattoir rail'' at one of his studios , the guardian reported on thursday . the rail could be used to move animal carcasses before they are suspended in formaldehyde , a technique mr . hirst , below , made famous through works like ''mother and child divided , '' a cow and a calf each cut in half and displayed in a tank of the preservative . a petition has been started and placards posted around the studio , an old manufacturing plant . vicky radwell , whose home overlooks the studio , pronounced herself ''gobsmacked'' by the news . ''most people around here are quite horrified that there are going to be dead animals there , '' she said ''dead animals in art is just outrageous . it 's not beautiful , is it ? '' a spokeswoman for mr . hirst said ''this is nothing to do with an abattoir . it is an area where we will be using formaldehyde . that has been approved and we have planning permission for it . we never have and never would need an abattoir . '' who 's the wild one ? the founder of the company that produces the ''girls gone wild'' video series has defied a federal_judge , refusing to surrender to united_states marshals on a contempt citation , the associated press reported yesterday . judge richard smoak of united_states_district_court ordered the company 's founder , joseph r . francis , into custody after settlement negotiations stalled in a lawsuit brought by seven women who were minors when mr . francis' company , mantra films , videotaped them at the beach in panama city , fla . mr . francis , 34 , who makes an estimated 29 million a year through the videos of girls exposing their breasts , drew the contempt order on wednesday after lawyers for the women said mr . francis had threatened them during negotiations . ''this judge has gone as far as to call me the devil and an evildoer , '' mr . francis said on thursday . ''it is a case of a judge gone wild . '' mr . francis 's lawyers have appealed the order , which would send him to jail .",has a topic of arts
"a lifetime of quilts and carousel horses among american connoisseurs of art , there are few names as legendary as havemeyer . the family patriarch , henry o . havemeyer , built the american sugar refining company into an early 20th_century colossus . he and his wife , louisine , amassed one of the great private collections of european impressionists , which they later donated to the metropolitan_museum_of_art . in 1947 their daughter electra havemeyer webb ( 1888 1960 ) founded the shelburne museum in vermont , an epicenter for american folk_art . the museum caused a stir in 1994 when it deaccessioned five of mrs . webb 's impressionist works at a sotheby 's auction to add 31 million to its endowment fund . now another chapter is about to unfold at a country_house auction that guernsey 's will conduct in old westbury , n.y. , next weekend a 700 lot sale is being offered by the family of one of mrs . webb 's granddaughters . the granddaughter , lillian bostwick davis , who died in 1966 , was the wife of dr . e . william davis , currently vice_president for medical affairs emeritus at newyork presbyterian hospital . he is selling about half of the contents of the couple 's colonial style house the rest will be divided among their four children . there is a preview , which begins thursday on the grounds of the long_island estate , of the sale 's contents english and american antiques , british ceramics , french and chinese_porcelain , antique rugs and , true to mrs . davis 's grandmother 's taste , lots of folk_art carousel horses , cigar store indians , folk sculpture , portraits , quilts and toys . the auction will be sept . 16 and 17 under a tent on the property ( information guernseys . com ) . dr . davis does not consider himself a serious collector . nonetheless he spoke knowledgeably about their collection during a recent visit . ''the webbs moved here to old westbury in 1923 because electra 's husband played polo , and this was the center of the polo world , '' dr . davis said . ( j . watson webb was a famous left handed champion player . ) like her grandmother lillian bostwick davis loved art , particularly folk_art . ''my wife was a serious artist , '' dr . davis said . ''i 'm no artist , but she got me started as a collector . we began with carpet balls and witches balls and it went from there . it was infectious . '' ( in 19th_century england ceramic carpet balls were used for indoor bowling hand blown glass witches balls were thought to capture evil spirits . ) throughout his eight bedroom house there are folk_art portraits of children , carved carousel horses , antique dolls and toys , including a two foot tall wooden noah 's ark , complete with 33 pairs of hand carved animals . the beds are covered with album quilts , pieced quilts and appliqu d floral quilts . display cabinets are filled with english lusterware , limoges porcelain , chinese export and royal doulton character jugs . walls boast needlework samplers , maritime paintings and etchings of trotters , a particular passion of dr . davis 's father in law , dunbar w . bostwick , a breeder of trotting horses in shelburne who died in january . dr . davis said none of the works are very important most of the auction estimates are in the low hundreds . ''these are not serious paintings , '' he said . he had access to expert advice john wilmerding , his wife 's cousin , is a professor of art_history at princeton and an authority on 19th_century american art . dr . davis is particularly fond of two carved wooden carousel horses made about 1900 , each estimated to sell for 15 , 000 to 20 , 000 . guernsey 's has attributed them to the firm of gustav a . dentzel , a german born carousel carver who immigrated to philadelphia in 1860 and founded a carving dynasty that lasted till 1929 . his two horses are considered rare because they are prancers , not jumpers or standers , and retain their original paint . ''the bay prancer has a wonderful expression in his eyes , '' said dr . davis , who kept it in his elegant paneled barn , which was moved many years ago from a nearby webb property to stable dr . davis 's real horses . dr . davis , who plans to retire next year , is selling the estate , with its house , barn , pastures and three bedroom cottage , for 5 . 5 million . now it 's up to his eldest_daughter , elliot bostwick davis , to carry on the family 's legacy . she is currently chairwoman of the art of the americas department at the museum_of_fine_arts , boston . the china_trade historic deerfield , the museum complex in western massachusetts , has a show of china_trade imports at its flynt center of early new england life ( through march 2007 ) . the 114 object show includes chinese export porcelains , silks , fans , metalwork , lacquerwares and paintings . among the most fascinating pieces is a canton album of 24 hand painted watercolors that record the entire tea production process , from harvesting to packing , around 1790 . ''i got interested because you hear of china_trade influence in america 's coastal communities , but you never hear about it in inland towns like ours , '' said amanda e . lange , the museum 's curator of historic interiors and the author of the show 's 284 page catalog . ''before the revolution residents of the connecticut river valley were very dependent on trade with the british west indies , where they sold beef , barrel staves , onions and flax seed , '' she said . ''once the american revolution was resolved , they were n't able to trade with the west indies and were looking for new opportunities abroad . china was on everyone 's list . '' china was n't interested in most american goods , but it did buy ginseng ( native to new england ) , silver coins , lead and turpentine . new england traders returned with shiploads of black and green_tea and new commodities that were considered ''benchmarks of style , fashion and status among the rural elite , '' ms . lange said . ''most people here could afford tea everyone was indulging in it twice a day but only those we call 'the mansion people' had access to such luxury_goods , '' she said . ''chinese porcelains and lacquerwares were real status symbols . by wearing chinese silk , you were making a statement about your place in society . '' less than 100 years after the deerfield massacre of 1704 , ''deerfield was not the sticks anymore , '' ms . lange said . ''people here aspired to the same things as new yorkers and bostonians . '' antiques",has a topic of arts
"mayhem intensified american action thrillers dish out violence with the best of them , but this week , by way of hong_kong , comes another breed of mayhem in "" the killer , "" a film by john woo released on tape by fox lorber . in a category called the hong_kong movie , "" the killer "" not only carries violence to the level of mass slaughter , it does so in an almost melodious balletic style that raises the emptying of an automatic to something of an art form . with the stylized killing there is also compassion , even nobility . for example , it is an unusual assassin who kills to earn money for a double cornea transplant for a woman he accidentally blinded in an earlier shoot out . uncommon , too , is the relationship between the hero , a brooding hit man played by the asian superstar chow yun fat , and a detective portrayed by danny lee . blazing away at adversaries , the two develop a starry eyed admiration for each other that , amid the flying gore , grows into brotherly love . "" alternately gripping and laughable , the movie 's mixture of blood and suds suggests an unlikely fusion of 'the wild bunch' and 'dark victory , ' "" wrote stephen holden in the times when the movie played in theaters last year . video dealers say "" the killer "" will be popular , especially in the dubbed version ( a subtitled tape is also available ) . the hong_kong style also appeals to hollywood . lured away from hong_kong , mr . woo is in new orleans filming "" hard target , "" a thriller starring jean claude van damme . mr . woo said he had often been approached by american producers but had turned them down . "" most of the scripts were kung_fu or karate , "" he said . "" hard target , "" he added , has a story that allows him to use some of the character elements he used in "" the killer . "" mr . woo said that the impending takeover of hong cong by china in 1997 had already curtailed film making in the colony and that he would now work in the united_states and in europe . he said he was confident american producers would honor his style . "" for me to make a good movie , i need to share all the happiness and sadness and love and beauty , "" he said . someday , he added , he would like to make a musical . data base delight video guidebooks commonly list films , but one new guide goes further . the book of video lists by tom weiner , published this week in an enlarged fourth edition by andrews mcneel , cross references movie titles with lists of directors and actors and breaks films into other lists in more than 650 categories . after that come 6 , 500 capsule reviews . the price is 12 . 95 .",has a topic of arts
"the impact of the designer joe colombo on the italian modern movement of the 1960 's was brief but decisive . his first design , a clear plastic arc of light called the acrilica lamp , won a gold_medal at milan 's triennale in 1964 . two years later colombo was described as italy 's most prolific and innovative designer . such early acclaim was justified by the succession of firsts credited to him , many of which used materials in ways that were new in offices and homes . those firsts included his elda armchair ( named after his wife ) molded of fiberglass with leather cushions ( 1965 ) , his stacking chair of molded abs plastic ( 1967 ) and his alogene quartz lamp shaped like an upside down metal serving dish ( 1970 ) . then , in 1971 , colombo , who was always seen with a cigarette or pipe in hand , died of a heart_attack on his 41st birthday . ''colombo was a true visionary in a time of visionaries , '' said paola antonelli , curator of design at the museum_of_modern_art . ''his vision was not for the single object but for systems and environments . his objects sold in the thousands , and there are very few visionaries of that period whose objects sold that way . amazingly , many of his pieces are still in production . '' now , a quarter century after his death , colombo 's design legacy is being reassessed both in italy and in this country . in the last year , major exhibitions of his work were held at the carrara academy in bergamo , italy , and at the milan furniture fair . a smaller survey , ''a colombo retrospective italian design in the 60 's , '' can be seen at the new york school of interior_design , on 70th street , east of lexington_avenue , through nov . 1 . his signature designs are well represented in this exhibition of 42 pieces , 29 of which are owned by charles gary solin , a new york collector who is the show 's curator . mr . solin , a former importer of modern furniture , supplemented his colombo pieces with others lent by the museum_of_modern_art , the montreal museum of decorative_arts , five manufacturers and several collectors . unlike most museum shows , this one has several pieces that show wear from years of use , injecting a dose of reality into the displays . colombo 's wizardry is evident in his use of hinges , wheels and interchangeable parts to make the pieces mobile and more functional . most of his designs combined technological sophistication with simplicity in both the shapes and surfaces . his storage system used plastic cubes that lock together at the corners with rods and screws . his portable kitchen , essentially a cart on wheels with a cooking surface , a refrigerator , a cutting board , cupboards and a can opener , was a tour de force of practicality . and his roll about boby cabinet , a kind of minidesk on casters with swing out trays , drawers and shelves , became a favorite of architects . of colombo 's 400 designs , 80 were put into production in his lifetime and 25 others after his death . ignazia favata , the architect who heads the joe colombo studio in milan and who supplied documentary information on the objects in the show , said there were still 30 colombo designs in production , including the acrilica lamp , the elda chair , the boby cabinet and a glass with a stem on the side so it can be be cradled between the thumb and index_finger . the china and plastic dinnerware he designed for alitalia airlines in the 60 's was until recently used on most of the carrier 's flights . colombo anticipated the multifunctional character of much of today 's furniture . ''now a chair or a table will only be designed as part of a system of furnishings , '' he said at the time . ''when these units are used in a child 's room , they look childlike . when an adult lives in them , they look adult . the individual client does n't exist any more . i 'm not creating tomorrow 's antiques . '' an artist in the 1950 's , colombo was a member of the nuclear school of painting , an italian derivative of abstract expressionism . when his father died of a heart_attack in 1959 , he joined the family 's electrical_wiring business . he sold it a few years later and then became a designer . but , because he came from the art world and worked independently for many manufacturers , he was never part of the design establishment . massimo vignelli , an italian born new york designer who had known him since high_school in milan , said , ''joe colombo was ahead of the time . '' ''he was a prime star of the italian design movement , '' mr . vignelli said . ''he had an incredible creative power , a familiarity with new materials , a language of his own and a trendiness . he was constantly working , and that 's what killed him . '' mrs . favata joined the colombo studio in 1968 . despite the fact that he had had a heart_attack the year before , she recalled , ''he was able to do 100 things at one time and was always working . '' she asked colombo why he worked 12 hours a day . he replied ''i have a short time to live . i have to make everything as soon as possible , very quickly . '' arts artifacts",has a topic of arts
"lead tibetan ritual dances performed by monks who followed the dalai_lama into exile in 1959 have been seen in new york sporadically since the 1970 's . tantric buddhism from tibet has increasingly attracted american followers in the past decade with the usual complement of artists and movie actors , among them robert rauschenberg and richard tibetan ritual dances performed by monks who followed the dalai_lama into exile in 1959 have been seen in new york sporadically since the 1970 's . tantric buddhism from tibet has increasingly attracted american followers in the past decade with the usual complement of artists and movie actors , among them robert rauschenberg and richard_gere . it was no surprise , then , that hunter_college playhouse was packed on saturday night for the performance billed as ''sacred dance of tibet . '' americans , with scores of children , outnumbered the tibetans , of course , and many seemed conversant with the teachings of penor rinpoche , the lama who heads the palyul namdroling monastery in south india . the four separate lineages within tibetan buddhism may not be distinct to an outsider , but it was obvious that the young monks who accompanied penor rinpoche on this visit dance differently from groups that have come here under the dalai_lama 's patronage in the past . the tradition represented here is nyingma , and this young indian born generation of musicians and dancers had a dramatic breadth and rawness that constrasted with the more classical precision of the tibetan monks from the namgyal monastery who performed here in 1981 . as usual , the basic step in these public sacred dances or cham is a hop on one foot with the other raised in front . yet there is also variety in pattern and dynamic , with the monks in this case reaching a vivid emotional crest in their unexpected swoops and shifts in weight . masks , skulls , daggers or beribboned whisks worn or carried by the dancers have a symbolic value . the dances are intended to eliminate negative feelings and to bring in auspicious circumstances . it is hard for all to be persuaded that the dancers on stage merge with the deities they portray . but the deer dance for two masked men received an exciting performance , and an invocation to the female spirits ( dakinis ) , in which the men rhythmically rocked forward and back with rattles and bells , had a trancelike beauty .",has a topic of arts
"highlights warning blacklisting performers who protest war with iraq has been denounced as intolerable by the screen actors guild . ''some have recently suggested that well known individuals who express 'unacceptable' views should be punished by losing their right to work , '' the union said in a warning to entertainment industry executives that was posted on its web_site on monday . although it specified no offending individuals or companies , the union added , ''even a hint of the blacklist must never again be tolerated in this nation . '' recalling the 1950 's hollywood blacklist of suspected communists among writers and actors , the guild said , ''during this shameful period , our own industry prostrated itself before smear campaigns and witch hunters rather than standing on the principles articulated in the nation 's fundamental documents . '' heritage in the spanish viceregal period ( 1521 1821 ) , many cultures left their marks on mexico . spanish taste , itself influenced by moorish cultures , was introduced . so , too , were the arts of china , as luxuries from manila were hauled from acapulco to veracruz en_route to spain . and the native mesoamerican cultures pervaded mexico 's own developing culture . this rich artistic heritage attracted franz mayer , a german immigrant who arrived in mexico_city in 1905 , succeeded in finance and banking , started collecting art in 1920 and left his holdings to the people of mexico . beginning on saturday and continuing through may 18 , about 130 works of fine and decorative art from the museo franz mayer in mexico_city will go on view at the san diego museum of art in ''the grandeur of viceregal mexico treasures from the museo franz mayer . '' fascinating rhythm greats by the gershwins get an airing at 6 30 tonight when the cabaret star mary cleere haran , with the pianist richard rodney bennett , sings at the world_financial_center 's winter garden , at 220 vesey street in lower_manhattan . the free performance is part of lincoln_center 's american songbook series . creations othmar ammann was his name . he designed the george_washington , bayonne , bronx whitestone and verrazano_narrows bridges . in boston , christian menn designed the recently constructed leonard p . zakim bunker hill bridge , below . what these men have in common with noted designers like robert maillart and heinz isler is that all are engineers trained at the federal institute of technology in zurich . beginning on saturday , they and others like them will be the focus of ''the art of structural design a swiss legacy'' at the princeton university art museum in new jersey . the driving force behind the exhibition is david p . billington , a professor of engineering and the director of the program in architecture and engineering at princeton , who regards structural engineering at its best as a new art form . where past meets present along the ancient silk road , among the inhabitants of remote mountain and desert areas , the composer bright sheng , right , encountered beautiful regional music and learned of the millennium long cross fertilization of ethnic musical traditions . these travels inspired mr . sheng 's tone poem ''the song and dance of tears . '' written for the pianist emanuel ax and the cellist yo yo ma , this work also for the ancient lutelike pipa , the chinese mouth organ called a sheng and for orchestra will have its premiere at 7 30 tonight when the new york philharmonic , led by david zinman , plays at avery_fisher_hall . from the fringes politics is the principal focus when the 10th new york underground film festival returns to the anthology film archives in the east_village for a run from tonight through tuesday . seven feature films , 10 feature length documentaries and 130 shorts will be complemented by cine phonic , four nights of live acts at the mercury lounge , cb 's gallery and tonic . the festival 's opening attraction , at 7 30 , is sam green and bill siegel 's documentary ''the weather underground , '' including reminiscences by former members of that radical group . now hear this theatergoers with mild to severe loss of hearing have regularly been served by the theater access project of the nonprofit theater development fund . since 1980 that project , known as tap , has presented american sign language interpreted performances . since 1996 the project has presented open captioned performances of broadway and off_broadway shows , which are accompanied by dialogue projected on a screen to one side of the stage . scheduled captioned performances are ''movin' out'' ( 2 p.m . on march 26 ) , ''adult entertainment'' ( 6 p.m . on march 30 ) , ''urban cowboy'' ( 2 p.m . on april 19 ) , ''humble boy'' ( 2 30 p.m . on june 7 ) and ''man of la mancha'' ( 8 p.m . on june 11 ) . sign interpreted performances are ''urban cowboy'' ( 8 p.m . on april 9 ) , ''aida'' ( 8 p.m . on june 3 ) , ''thoroughly modern millie'' ( 8 p.m . on june 6 ) and ''man of la mancha'' ( 3 p.m . on june 15 ) . footnotes the playwright arthur miller turns director today when the oscar winning actress marcia gay harden appears in a staged reading of his one act play ''elegy for a lady , '' one of two plays to be read beginning at 1 p.m . in the food for thought lunch hour theater series at the national arts club . mr . miller will take part in a post performance question and answer session .",has a topic of arts
"anointed as this year 's ''cultural_capital'' by the european_union , the eastern german town of weimar is basking not only in the accomplishments of such estimable sons as goethe , schiller and bach but also in the avant_garde of the golden 20 's walter gropius 's bauhaus , the paintings of oskar kokoschka and max beckmann and the drawings of george grosz , the collaborations of kurt weill and bertolt brecht and the theatrical excitement generated by erwin piscator and max reinhardt and movies like ''the cabinet of dr . caligari'' and ''the blue angel . '' but if weimar wants to live up to the artistic reputation of that decade 's cultural elite , it may also have to live down their politics . for even while the young and frail german republic struggled to find a road between the former autocracy and looming fascism , many of germany 's foremost artists and intellectuals displayed indifference or outright antipathy to the embattled democrats . true , few avant gardists joined the resurgent nationalist forces in the party political battles of the 1920 's that culminated in the victory of nazism , but not many became champions of the republic either . disgusted with what they viewed as bourgeois squabbling , artists failed to see how much their own freedom to experiment owed to the unexhilarating operations of democracy . even thomas_mann , who in time became a supporter of democracy , had expressed a widely shared german scorn for democratic arrangements in his 1916 book ''reflections of a nonpolitical man . '' what became known as weimar culture ( although berlin and munich were its centers ) had its roots in turn of the century expressionism , which one student of the movement summed up as ''a mood of revolutionary discontent and radical rejection of bourgeois values . '' reacting to military defeat , economic distress and political disarray , practically all the new fashions in cultural life after world_war i , whether of the left or the right , were radical . the historian hans kohn summed up their mood ''they despised and rejected the middle road , reasonableness and common_sense , the live and let live , the practical art of politics , the foundation of democracy . '' none of the expressionist activists became firm supporters of the republic , and some became determined enemies . grosz was at his cruelest in his cartoons of politicians , and the popular novelist franz werfel had only contempt for politics and politicians . he wrote , ''the politician looks at life coldly the evil of power has triumphed over him . '' brecht , that champion of a marxist ideal , called for violence to destroy middle_class politicking . a chorus in one play exhorts , ''submerge in the filth , embrace the butcher , but change the world it needs it . '' the british historian a . j . ryder called brecht ''a literary stalinist'' who was guilty of the ''trahison des clercs , '' the apostasy of intellectuals . others were equally dismissive of bourgeois politics , with dire_consequences . professor ryder brought this indictment against them ''in their wholesale rejection of weimar germany as an inadequate society , in jeering where they might have helped , such critics unwittingly contributed to the tragedy which engulfed both it and them . '' the avant_garde 's disdain for democracy spilled over into scorn for the mass audience . it was reciprocated . whether their creators called themselves expressionists or objectivists or just modernists , their works found limited appeal . eberhard kolb , a chronicler of weimar , drew attention to the ' 'scarcely bridgeable gap between the artistic achievement of the avant_garde and the taste and mentality of a large part of the population , middle_class and otherwise . '' not an unfamiliar phenomenon , but in germany cultural divisions reflected political divisions . what artists viewed as progress was seen by many of their countrymen as an insult to tradition . and the blame was laid on the weimar democracy . in his study of weimar culture , peter gay wrote , ''while not all expressionists loved weimar , the enemies of weimar hated all expressionists . '' so the avant_garde remained largely aloof from the critical decadelong conflict between socialists and right wingers for political power . while conservative writers became a major force against the democratic republic ( though drawing the line at hitler ) , no equivalent pro republican intellectual force made itself felt . paul sethe , a writer who was sympathetic to the beset democratic politicians at the time , lamented ''they could have used help . all they got was scorn and laughter . '' the artistic achievement of weimar 's best and brightest was a handmaiden to political disaster . critic's_notebook",has a topic of arts
"dancers move through a dream and try to escape a nightmare in ''nomad the river , '' which yin mei presented on wednesday night at dance_theater_workshop . ms . yin , a chinese born choreographer , grew up during mao 's cultural_revolution ( 1966 76 ) , and ''nomad'' is a haunting evocation of her feelings about that era 's political hysteria . the piece begins with a taped reading of excerpts from a diary ms . yin kept at the time . the recitations abound with fanatical slogans . but the choreography that follows the reading proceeds with a meditative calm . gaye atay , sonja kostich , pedro osorio and ms . yin appear to be on a visionary spiritual quest enhanced by the production 's setting and electronic score , both by christopher salter . people come dimly into view and fade away as they move in lea xiao 's atmospheric lighting through what appears to be a forest of translucent fiberglass panels . many of the musical sounds are delicate . others are not . outbursts of what sound like gunshots ring out . dancers run in panic . throughout the work , which lasts about an hour , there are sudden juxtapositions of calm and disruption , as if ms . yin were choreographically demonstrating how terrible memories can produce nightmares . there are flurries of nervous gestures . dancers roll up in pieces of sheet_metal as if entombing themselves . freed from these tombs , they shake the metal and create thundering noises . at one point , their steps forward suggest that they are wading in a river , perhaps a stream of purification at another , mr . osorio smears his legs and those of the women with bloodlike red paint . the production ends with repetitions of the revolutionary slogans . ''nomad'' poignantly acknowledges that although forgetting a painful past may be impossible , art may be one way of coming to terms with it . ''nomad the river'' will be performed again tonight at 7 30 at dance_theater_workshop , 219 west 19th street , chelsea , ( 212 ) 924 0077 . dance review",has a topic of arts
"lead television programming has been blamed for many things , but china is perhaps the first country to accuse a program of helping sow the seeds of a counterrevolutionary_rebellion . television programming has been blamed for many things , but china is perhaps the first country to accuse a program of helping sow the seeds of a counterrevolutionary_rebellion . the chinese government has ferociously denounced a previously acclaimed television_series , ''river elegy , '' whose six parts were broadcast twice last year on the government run national network . '' 'river elegy' was a propaganda coup for bourgeois liberalization , '' hong minsheng , the deputy director of china central television_station , said in a blistering self_criticism broadcast on the evening news . ''the broadcast of 'river elegy' provided theoretical and emotional preparation for the recent turmoil and rebellion . '' the attacks on ''river elegy'' represent the latest front in the century old debate about whether traditional_chinese culture should be glorified or scorned , whether the nation 's poverty is best diagnosed as the result of foreign imperialism or of a rotting indigenous civilization . oddly , the communist authorities are firmly on the side of ancient tradition , the defenders of the honor of the ''old china'' that they rebelled against in seizing power 40 years ago . a heretical strain most chinese are taught in school that theirs is a glorious cultural inheritance , but since late in the last century a heretical strain of intellectual thought has attributed china 's lack of economic and democratic development to flaws in its culture . ''river elegy , '' which suggests that chinese civilization is stagnant and needs to be refreshed by foreign influences , is the most powerful statement of this heretical strain so far . it has come to symbolize the debate about how china should modernize and whether it should cherish or discard certain values and symbols of the nation 's past . the television_series takes its name from the yellow river , a potent symbol of china , which is portrayed as violent , erratic and stagnant . what is needed to revive china , the film suggests , is the influence of the pacific_ocean trade , exchanges and the west . ''those who are now criticizing it as being a rejection of china 's national culture and a need for complete westernization that criticism is well founded , '' said andrew j . nathan , a professor of political_science at columbia_university , in a telephone interview . the television_series was firmly backed by zhao_ziyang , the communist_party leader who was ousted in june after the suppression of the democracy movement , and its principal scriptwriter , su xiaokang , was a leading dissident and the object of a nationwide manhunt before he escaped to hong_kong . the criticisms of the series thus have a political dimension , and the attacks on it have been on the airwaves and front pages since late july . 'bourgeois liberalization' '' 'river elegy' distorts chinese history , entirely negates the fine traditions of chinese_culture and vilifies the chinese people , '' the national television news declared , after convening a panel to castigate the program . ''the essence of the film is to negate the socialist system , oppose the leadership of the communist_party and propagate all round westernization . 'river elegy' is the product of bourgeois liberalization , in collusion with the doctrine of 'peacefully transforming china' as peddled by the international reactionary forces . we should see that behind the series there is a life and death struggle for the chinese nation and the socialist system . '' in another sign of the communist_party 's effort to rebuild its legitimacy by presenting itself as the defender of traditional culture , a politburo member , li ruihuan , called for more emphasis on the study of china 's cultural_heritage . mr . li said that while it was wrong to copy indiscriminately from ancient culture , china should devote more attention to ancient books and other emblems of the civilization . the role of defender of traditional culture is a somewhat delicate one for the communist_party , which had scarcely taken over china when it ordered the dismantling of the city walls and many other ancient sites in beijing . the desecration of ancient culture reached its peak in the cultural_revolution from 1966 to 1976 , when anything old was considered fair game for the red guards , who destroyed ancient temples , books , vases and furniture with equal abandon . horror and applause ''river elegy'' tried a more intellectual approach . the series which aroused an immense reaction of both horror and applause throughout the chinese speaking world complained that the chinese take such pride in their past achievements that they obscure their present failures . ''the fact remains that our civilization is moribund , '' mr . su asserted in the series . ''river elegy'' even criticized the great_wall , which it labeled ''a symbol of confinement , conservatism , impotent defense and timidity in the face of invasion . '' the television_series made some of the same points as the book ''the ugly chinaman , '' written by a taiwanese social critic , bo yang , five years ago . that book has been banned in china but remains in demand among young intellectuals . its popularity and that of the ''river elegy'' series reflect the struggle among chinese intellectuals to account for their nation having been left behind as the rest of the world industrialized in the last two centuries . '' 'river elegy' crystallizes in the 1980 's an issue that 's been around china since the 1880 's , '' said harry harding , a china scholar at the brookings institution in washington , ''and that is the degree to which chinese_culture provides the basis for modernization , or conversely , the extent to which western_culture provides that basis . ''",has a topic of arts
"the guggenheim_museum is planning to open three new museum sites in venice , with the italian city covering most of the costs . if things go as planned , officials at the guggenheim said , two of the 41 national pavilions in the castello gardens , the site of the venice biennale , would be converted into year round art spaces . the italian pavilion would become a museum of contemporary_art , and the american pavilion , already owned by the guggenheim , would exhibit works by contemporary artists . a third site , a 16th_century salt factory on the giudecca canal , would be transformed into the guggenheim_museum venice , also featuring contemporary works . because the details of the financing and renovation are not final , museum officials say , no opening dates have been set . since he became the guggenheim 's director seven years ago , thomas krens has been trying to open overseas branches to spread the museum 's name and to gain more exhibition space for its permanent collection . the guggenheim already owns and operates the peggy guggenheim collection in the palazzo venier dei leoni on venice 's grand canal . for the city of venice , the goal is not only to encourage year round tourism but to divert visitors from the crowded area around the piazza san marco . the castello gardens are about a mile from the piazza , and the salt factory is in the dorsoduro neighborhood on the giudecca canal , about half a mile away . the plan for additional museum sites emerged several weeks ago during previews of the venice biennale . "" this is a collaboration in the best sense of the word , "" mr . krens said at a news conference two weeks ago at venice 's city hall . "" making a strong link between italy and the united_states is an important theme here . "" gianfranco mosetto , venice 's deputy_mayor for culture and tourism , estimated that it would cost the city about 6 . 7 million to renovate the italian pavilion and the venice pavilion , which he said would be used to store many works when they are not being exhibited . ( the american pavilion has already been adapted for use in winter and has a climate control system . ) mr . mosetto said the renovation figure also included restoring the castello gardens themselves , which have fallen into neglect . the cost of transforming the old salt factory would probably come to at least 3 million , he said . italy 's central government will provide loans to help finance these projects , he added . the museums are part of a master plan devised by the mayor of venice , massimo cacciari , to alleviate severe overcrowding in the city 's piazza san marco area . with its cathedral , hotels , cafes and nearby docking area , the square is a magnet for tourists . "" this will give people alternatives , "" said mr . mosetto . "" until now , the gardens have been one of the most underutilized spaces in venice . "" the 41 national pavilions in the castello gardens , each of which is owned by its respective country , have traditionally been open only from june to mid october , when the biennale is in progress . in the years when there is no biennale , the pavilions are empty and for the most part so are the gardens . the city of venice has begun a campaign to persuade countries to use the pavilions for exhibitions for at least for six to eight months every year . "" at the moment we have the united_states , korea and possibly japan ready to stay open , "" mr . mosetti said . angela rose , director of visual_arts for the british council of the arts , which oversees the british pavilion , said the council did not have the money to renovate the pavilion for winter use or to staff it in years when there is no biennale . "" we might consider opening every summer , but there is no market otherwise , "" she said , adding , "" in venice , the winter months are dead . "" mr . krens is hoping that the arrival of year round contemporary_art spaces will change that . it is not the first time that the guggenheim has collaborated with a local administration in opening a museum . while the guggenheim will manage the branch it plans to open next year in the northern spanish port of bilbao , the basque region is footing the construction and operating costs of the museum , a 265 , 000 square_foot building designed by the architect frank_gehry . construction of the 100 million building is under way on the banks of the nervion river . operating expenses are projected at about 13 million a year . officials in the financially troubled basque region are hoping the new museum will attract enough tourists to justify the investment . in 1988 , mr . krens tried to open a branch in salzburg , austria , but the project was abandoned . venice has always been part of the director 's agenda . for seven years mr . krens has been negotiating with the italian government to lease an old custom house at the eastern end of the grand canal . his hope is to use the structure , roughly the same size as the wright building in new york , as another contemporary_art museum . the main reason for his persistence , mr . krens said , is that so many of the 6 , 500 works in the guggenheim 's permanent collection are in storage . despite the renovation that led to the fifth avenue building 's reopening in 1992 , "" the reality is that we have no space to show our permanent collection , "" he said . depending on what temporary shows are on view , the building can exhibit only about 20 percent of its artworks at a given time , though the museum 's soho branch occasionally mounts exhibitions drawing on the permanent collection . each of the venues in venice was conceived with a different focus . the italian pavilion will primarily be used for exhibiting artworks from two private collections that are being lent to the museum for five year periods . one is that of dakis joannou , an athens based collector who over the last 10 years has acquired 600 to 700 works by contemporary artists including eric fischl , jeff koons and rosemarie trockel . the second is being provided by giuseppe panza di biumo , an italian collector who over the years has donated , lent or sold a substantial number of artworks to the guggenheim in new york . count panza is now planning to lend the guggenheim about 2 , 000 works of predominantly minimalist work by artists including sol lewitt , stuart arens , peter shelton , mark lee and roni horn . mr . mosetto said he was seeking to complete arrangements for loans by 14 other collectors from across italy , making a total of about 3 , 000 works available for view in the italian pavilion . the american pavilion will primarily show works by contemporary artists invited to create art specifically for the space . the 350 , 000 square_foot salt factory , a short walk from the peggy guggenheim collection , will have several kinds of art spaces . the building will be used for in depth exhibitions on artists represented in the guggenheim 's permanent collection as well as traveling exhibitions . art that has been exhibited in the doge 's palace may also be shown there , but the plans are not final . some residents of the neighborhood surrounding the salt factory are angry at the prospect of tourists crowding their streets . "" of course residents are n't happy , "" mr . mosetto said . "" when given the choice , everyone wants to live in a non tourist area it 's like being asked if you want to pay taxes . "" mr . mosetto said the new spaces would bring a "" higher cultural level "" of visitors to venice , which lacks strong collections of contemporary_art . the goal is to sell "" tourist services "" to "" today 's cultural consumers , "" he said .",has a topic of arts
"the news that some movie actors are into buddhism may not cause you to sign up , but you do n't have to live in southern_california to subscribe to hollywood 's current interest in china and tibet . as orville schell , a veteran china watcher , reports on ''dreams of tibet , '' western movies have become the most powerful way to bring chinese repression , particularly with regard to tibet , to the world 's attention . even as president jiang_zemin , china 's leader , arrives in washington to talk with president_clinton about trade and human_rights , the director jon avnet is delivering ''red corner , '' with richard_gere playing an american jailed by the chinese . already released is ''seven years in tibet , '' which got its director and star jean jacques annaud and brad pitt banned from china . and promised in december is martin scorsese 's ''kundun , '' about the exiled dalai_lama . although tonight 's offering from ''frontline'' seems at times to be a cross between a hollywood promo and a travelogue , it finally gets beyond the picturesque and asks are american companies with an eye to the huge chinese market frightened of speaking out about china 's restrictions on freedom in general , and in particular on what this program views as its destruction of tibetan society ? the program asserts that tri star ( a division of sony ) , which put out ''seven years in tibet , '' ' 'did everything possible to play down the political message of the film . '' and to judge by a charlie_rose interview shown here , michael eisner , the head of disney , which financed ''kundun , '' is not likely to take on china soon again . henry a . kissinger , now an adviser on china for disney , serves as tonight 's main voice against coming down undiplomatically hard on what china has done to tibet and to its own dissidents . he cautions policy_makers against interfering in china 's ''internal affairs . '' while making little effort to sort out the complexities of chinese united_states relations , ''dreams of tibet'' is implicitly critical of the clinton_administration , which came into office breathing fire about china 's human_rights deficiencies but has since ' 'delinked'' trade policy and human_rights principles . that , mr . schell concludes , has reduced tibetan exiles to putting their faith in the generosity of entertainers and the power of the movies . 'on the brink of peace' pbs , tonight ( channel 13 , new york , at 10 ) if the condition of tibet does n't satisfy your evening 's discouragement quota , stay_tuned for abba eban 's review of the israeli palestinian peace effort put into motion by the famous 1993 handshake of yitzhak rabin and yasir_arafat . this being a fairly standard account from the israeli labor party 's point of view , mr . eban , the former israeli foreign_minister , does not go out of his way to praise prime_minister benjamin netanyahu . he does not come to bury the peace talks , which he favors deeply , but at the moment he ca n't find much to praise there either . frontline dreams of tibet pbs , tonight ( channel 13 , new york , at 9 ) a frontline co production with ben loeterman productions . produced and directed by ben loeterman nancy fraser and david breashears , co producers orville schell , correspondent . frontline is produced by a consortium of public television stations wgbh boston , wtvs detroit , wpbt miami , wnet new york and kcts seattle . michael sullivan , executive_producer and david fanning , senior executive_producer for frontline . television review",has a topic of arts
"for years , the last place to look for a modern display of chinese_art was in china . now that may be changing with the opening of china 's first western style museum here , more than a dozen years after its original sponsor first conceived of it . the arthur m . sackler_museum of art and archeology , which opened in beijing on may 27 , has joined a string of sackler galleries and museums around the world . this one primarily displays relics and fossils discovered by chinese archeologists . the opening was the culmination of years of trans_pacific dreams and headaches . but running a museum in china entails special challenges , and the headaches could get worse . it is not even clear , for example , whether the museum will be opened to the public , except to specialists who make appointments or to those chinese and foreigners pushy enough to talk their way past the guards . the museum is inside beijing_university , where guards stand at each gate to keep visitors out . for now , by appointment only "" they have assured us they will let in outside visitors , "" said jill sackler , mr . sackler 's widow , on a visit to beijing for the opening ceremony . still , for now , visits are by appointment . dr . arthur m . sackler , a psychiatrist and medical publisher who donated millions of dollars to the arts before he died in 1987 , gave 10 million to have the museum built in beijing in partnership with a group of chinese archeologists . but the sackler team has just handed over control and responsibility to the chinese partners and the authorities , who have no experience operating a modern museum . one major challenge is how the chinese will pay maintenance costs , including an estimated 70 , 000 a year in electricity bills . the museum was designed with two separate lighting systems , so the chinese can turn the lights up to make it look like any western museum , or dim them to save money . the success of the museum will hinge on how well the chinese manage it . one parallel , and it is not encouraging , is of western designed hotels that have been handed over to chinese management . inevitably , six months after they are turned over , cockroaches emerge , the plumbing leaks , the wallpaper and carpets accumulate a camouflage pattern of stains and the staff members replace their smiles with scowls . indeed , the american architect i . m . pei declined an offer to design the sackler_museum in beijing , apparently for just that reason . his previous effort in china , the fragrant hills hotel in beijing , is run by local managers and has quickly degenerated into a second_rate establishment . the bills are especially onerous for the chinese partners , the archeology department of beijing_university . the university may be among the nation 's leading institutions , and the department may be the best in the nation , but neither has much money to pay for the museum . so the department is seeking to raise money through a new museum shop and entrance tickets . but neither the shop nor the tickets are likely to raise much money if the public is not invited . while the department says it wants outsiders to visit , the university seems reluctant to ease its restrictions on visitors . in fact , university officials hesitated before allowing foreign reporters to attend the museum opening , and they escorted a restricted number of journalists in and out of the campus . "" we are in the middle of negotiating a way to resolve this problem , "" said li boqian , the director of the new museum and the chairman of the university 's archeology department . "" we want this museum to be a window for cultural exchange between china and the rest of the world . "" where to display artifacts ? with 4 , 000 years of history , china may have more archeological artifacts above and below ground than any other place in the world . today 's economic boom is sending construction shovels into the ground at breakneck_speed , so the number of accidental finds is growing every month . the problem is that there has been nowhere safe and attractive to show them off . in a typical local museum , most pieces sit_in dirty showcases under a faint yellow lightbulb . but at the new sackler_museum , 800 year old porcelains , 2 , 200 year old bronzes and 4 , 500 year old ceramics are displayed in pristine cases , like pieces in sackler galleries in the smithsonian institution in washington , the royal academy of art in london and at harvard_university . the new museum occupies a pavilion with a spacious courtyard recalling the imperial style residences in the summer palace , where chinese emperors would read poetry and listen to the lute . inside , however , a visitor walks through wide , open corridors and rooms painted in subtle tones of beige and white that reflect light . the inaugural exhibitions featured a few remarkable relics , including the fractured skull and bones of a golden buffalo mountain man the chinese call jinniushan man . the fossil , which chinese scientists say is 280 , 000 years old , is early and different enough that it has led some experts to cast doubt on the theory that all people are descendants of a single african ancestor . after the exhibition ends , the fossils are to be returned to a secret vault , and copies will be displayed instead . most chinese museums , which have poor security , do this , and the archeology department will do the same with its prized possessions . chinese archeologists say they hope the museum will inject new life into a field that is underfinanced and understaffed . these days , with money becoming the major focus of chinese society , the life of a chinese archeologist does not inspire envy , and its organizers say they hope that a modern museum will lure students who are genuinely interested in the field . from the start , chinese authorities said they considered the museum a sensitive project . initially , the government was even hesitant to accept the museum as a gift from mr . sackler , partly because it was generally suspicious of westerners . the project finally got under way in 1986 , but ran into many snags and the opening was delayed several times . one mundane , time consuming task , for example , was to properly clean and repair the collection 's 10 , 000 objects , many of which had never been restored . correction june 30 , 1993 , wednesday an article on june 30 about the new arthur m . sackler_museum of art and archeology in beijing omitted the name of the architect . he is lo yi chan of prentice chan , ohlhausen in manhattan .",has a topic of arts
"the chinese look at unusual , highly textured hunks of stone the way westerners gaze at billowing white clouds in a summer sky as sources of inspiration and fantasy . for those with imagination , rocks can embody animals , people , mythological dragons , craggy mountains , just about anything . ''rocks provided a kind of entertainment for the chinese in the old days , '' said ruby chan , the owner of chinart , a chinese antiques gallery at 273 fifth avenue , at 29th_street . rocks have been objects worthy of rapt contemplation in china for more than 1 , 000 years . ''the chinese consider rocks miniature versions of landscape , '' said arnold chang , the painting specialist at kaikodo gallery , at 164 east 64th street in manhattan , which has several for sale . ''the rocks represent nature . '' the chinese collect ancient stones for their abstract , formal and spiritual qualities . robert d . mowry , head of the department of asian art at the arthur m . sackler_museum at harvard , once wrote that the most prized rocks were ' 'descriptive enough to suggest natural forms weathered trees , lofty peaks , aged scholars but abstract enough to leave actual interpretation to the viewer 's imagination . '' on sept . 20 , christie 's will auction the niliuzhai collection of classical_chinese rocks , an anonymous group of 65 antique chinese examples . niliuzhai , a word created by the chinese consignor , is ' 'derived from a poem by a song poet that refers to the marks made by swans when they walk on snow , '' said laura b . whitman , christie 's vice_president in the chinese works of art department . the chinese have traditionally collected two kinds of rocks huge limestone garden rocks and scholars' tabletop rocks . an appreciation for garden rocks goes back to the tang_dynasty ( a . d . 618 to 906 ) , when special boulders became the subjects of essays and poems . large weathered rocks were installed outdoors , where they could be admired in groups or alone . in new york , such rocks are at the astor court in the metropolitan museum and the new york chinese scholar 's garden at the staten_island botanical_garden . rocks moved indoors during the song dynasty ( 960 to 1279 ) , when literati began taking what were called spirit stones into their studios . the chinese valued these tabletop rocks more than garden rocks . ''even if a confucian scholar could not go out to the mountains , he could always find inspiration in his studio , '' ms . whitman said . ''the rock provided a mind 's landscape . abstraction was not new to the chinese . '' the scholars' rocks , ranging from an inch to five feet_tall , were mounted on custom made wooden stands and sometimes served as censers , brush rests , ink stones or seals . the rocks at christie 's are in many sizes and styles . one looks like the wings of nike of samothrace another , like the rocky cliffs at etretat , france . a third resembles an eagle swooping down on its prey . did the scholars go out into nature looking for such odd rocks ? ''it seems that from the beginning there were finders , like antiques dealers , '' ms . whitman said . ''as early as the 11th century , rocks were in the antiques markets we read about them in poems . by the 17th_century , there were whole books on rocks . 'chats on rocks , ' for example , discusses both where elegant gentlemen and the nouveaux riches collected theirs . '' liang jiutu , the author of that 19th_century book , offers advice ''in collecting , it is the choice of rocks that comes first . if the rock does not seem like a painting by the powers of nature , then you should n't choose it . '' scholars' rocks encompassed different kinds of stones , shapes , colors , textures and sizes . they were ranked according to strict criteria . the preferred rock was a dense black limestone from the subterranean quarries in lingbi county of anhui_province , in eastern china . lingbi rock , fine grained and textured , seems moist to the touch . ''it tends to be glossier , '' ms . whitman said . ''sometimes you see white calcite deposits shot through it . '' the rock is also prized because it sometimes produces a metallic , bell like sound when tapped , a feature important to connoisseurs . ( lingbi rock was used for making chimes . ) the song emperor huizong inscribed one of his lingbi rocks with this statement ''the mountain is high while the moon looks small , the water ebbs and the rock juts forth . '' over the centuries , the supply of lingbi rock dwindled , and scholars turned to slate gray sandstone from yingde in the north central region of guangdong_province . by the ming period , more stones had become acceptable marble , malachite , yellow quartz , soapstone , turquoise and coral . ( ''in the time of the ming_dynasty , the chinese thought coral was a rock , '' ms . whitman said . ) even petrified wood was collected and displayed as scholars' rocks . christie 's has two examples in the sale one looks like a chestnut tree in winter , devoid of leaves . certain stones were appreciated for their distinctive markings , like the piece of soft gray limestone at christie 's called a chrysanthemum stone , which is embedded with radiating crystals of pale quartz . it was always permissible to ''complete'' the look of a rock by carving or chiseling . scholars' rocks always had custom wooden stands , which varied in style according to the region and era . usually the stand was fitted for a specific rock , with a cavity , if necessary , to cradle an uneven bottom . the carved hardwood stand was meant to raise the stone from the mundane realm to the sacred . ''the best bases echo the best furniture , '' ms . whitman said . ''a great stand affects the quality of the rock , but a lousy one does n't because you can always have another stand made . of course , having the original increases the value of a piece . '' a stand also helps orient the gaze . ''some stones have only one view others work like sculptures in the round , '' she said . who buys scholars' rocks ? ''we have had five years of rock mania , '' said carol conover , kaikodo 's objects specialist . ''people are n't buying them the way they buy other art . it 's very personal . they treat it like they do sculpture you either like it or you do n't . '' collectors have included roy lichtenstein , brad pitt , brice marden and the manhattan art_dealer c . c . wang . the most widely known collection , which belonged to the artist richard rosenblum , inspired one of the best books on the subject mr . mowry 's catalog ''worlds within worlds'' ( harvard_university art museums , 1997 ) . ''the rocks appeal both to classic old style chinese collectors and younger people who are more interested in their graphic qualities , '' ms . whitman said . the estimates for the scholars' rocks at christie 's start at a few hundred dollars apiece . for the garden rocks , the range is 10 , 000 to 50 , 000 . the manhattan galleries china 2000 fine_art , william lipton ltd . and chambers fine_art also show scholars' rocks regularly . antiques",has a topic of arts
"the season 's end of the wildly popular radio program ''viva radio 2'' has left millions of italian listeners feeling bereft and disconsolate . the show 's popularity lured many famous guests sports , music and movie stars to the rome studios of the state broadcaster rai to take part in the madcap madness , a mix of talk show banter and improvisational cabaret , pushing ratings through the roof . mostly , though , devoted fans are pining for their daily dose of the show 's star rosario fiorello , better known by his last name alone and the menagerie of italian celebrities he so uncannily mimics , from former prime_minister silvio_berlusconi to the growly voiced sicilian best selling author andrea camilleri to the model and singer carla bruni . ''do n't leave us orphaned for too long , '' wrote a blogger named mary , musing on the fiorello less months stretching before her . sarah nichele , who runs a web_site devoted to fiorello , said that many people had written to convey ''how empty their lives were'' now that ''viva radio 2'' is off the air . the show will not return until october . fiorello was surprised to hear that a non italian paper was interested in interviewing him . apart from a bit role in anthony minghella 's 1999 film , ''the talented mr . ripley , '' he has n't exported his shtick outside italy . ( ''can i use the opportunity to say hello to some of my friends in america ? '' he asked , reeling off a hollywood a list that included john turturro , john travolta , sylvester stallone and dustin hoffman ) . but here he 's a superstar , and one of the country 's most popular showmen . in recent months he 's been on the cover of several magazines , including the italian edition of vanity_fair , a popular women 's gossip magazine and famiglia cristiana , a widely read roman_catholic news weekly . and it was fiorello who , on live_television , wished the italian soccer team good luck on behalf of the nation before it kicked off the first game . fiorello , 46 , is a former d.j . and television entertainer . despite past successes , he has no intention of returning to the small screen , for now . ''people say that when i left television for radio , i was going backwards , '' he said . ''but i see it as a step forward . it shows that in italy you can use inferior means to get tremendous results . '' he also does funny celebrity endorsements for fiat and for infostrada , a telephone company . he just recently came out with a reading of one of mr . camilleri 's books on cd . ''the fiorello phenomenon , '' read the cover of the catholic magazine . actually , the real phenomenon is that he has managed to breathe new life into an old medium . ''if radio is alive , if it 's at the center of the interest of experts and advertising investors , it 's above all because of fiorello , '' aldo grasso , the media critic of the milan daily corriere_della_sera , wrote in june . fiorello , mr . grasso continued , should be credited with ''bringing back the most rare and least technological good that exists talent . '' at radio due , home of the lunchtime show ( which runs again each night and the next morning ) , the mood is buoyant . ''it broke records , '' said eodele bellisario , deputy director of the channel , citing high audience shares and some two million radios tuned in each day . ''it was the event of the year , '' he added , even though ''viva radio 2'' had just finished its fourth season . marco baldini , one of the main writers , explained the show 's popularity ''it 's because we have fun together . even at 46 , we 're still horsing around . '' mr . baldini has cast himself as the straight man to fiorello 's verbal metamorphoses . ''and we try not to be vulgar , '' he added . this does not mean banishing the puerile altogether . on june 8 , before the show went off the air for the summer , mr . baldini strutted down the streets wearing flesh colored underwear , paying a bet that the show 's compilation cd would not go to the top of the charts . in less than a month , it had reportedly sold 60 , 000 copies . but ''viva radio 2'' is not all lighthearted banter . the show is topical . daily meetings start with scouring the newspapers . ''you ca n't be detached from reality , '' mr . baldini said during a telephone interview . ''the ideas just happen . '' the two stars regularly rail against various social problems . still , it 's clear that above all fiorello and mr . baldini have fun doing what they do , and the fun is infectious . wearing a baseball hat , military pants and sneakers , fiorello bounded into the studio before the taping of one of the last shows of the season and exuded good cheer , a knack held over from his start as an entertainer in tourist villages . with 10 minutes to go before taping , he took time to sign autographs , shook countless hands and was immortalized with admirers on dozens of digital_cameras and cellphones . the same routine was repeated after the show . with barely a pause during 75 minutes on the air , fiorello periodically went in and out of his various personae . a talented singer and performer he is currently on a stand up tour that has reportedly been seen by 350 , 000 he excels at impersonations poking gentle fun at quintessentially italian foibles and politicians . fiorello said that feedback from his subjects had always been positive . ''berlusconi is smart he knows that it 's to his advantage to be imitated and poked fun at , '' fiorello said . in fact , he said , he got letters from the supporters of romano_prodi , mr . berlusconi 's foe , demanding that he be imitated too . fiorello complied . one of his new characters is the recently elected president of the republic , giorgio napolitano . ''two minutes after napolitano was elected , we were already working on southern stereotypes , '' mr . baldini said . fiorello 's impersonation of the last president , carlo_azeglio_ciampi , whose mandate ended in may , was rewarded by an on air phone call from mr . ciampi . the politician unexpectedly called during a show in the spring , thanking fiorello for ''keeping me in line . '' the radio show has become so popular that italian newspapers have reported on ''viva radio 2'' clubs , groups of friends that met daily to listen to the broadcast . ''when you capture people over time , you become a friend of sorts , '' mr . baldini said . ''you get into their hearts . ''",has a topic of arts
"''it 's not just a peak it 's a treat , '' the brochure says , and to prove the easily provable point it shows snow capped mountain peaks rising over a pristine alpine landscape . you can golf , you can swim , you can raft in the summer , ski in the winter and even visit the ancient salt mines that gave this place its name upper salt mountain . the only flaw here is that the intercontinental resort berchtesgaden , an upscale hotel and spa due to open in the spring , sits on the very stained plot of ground where hermann g ring had his rural retreat , just over a rise from the berghof , the luxurious house with the big picture window where hitler contemplated the mists drifting over the face of the untersberg and is said to have plotted his deeds . and so , the question in germany is there something inappropriate , unseemly , gratuitous about having a pleasure palace for affluent vacationers seeking wellness on the very spot where hitler lived out his myths about blood and soil and racial regeneration , even as he consigned millions to concentration_camps and death ? ''it 's too late now , but i still think it 's wrong , '' josef d rr , the head of the parliamentary faction of the green_party in bavaria , the state where obersalzberg lies , ''because obersalzberg is famous in the world for being the idyllic place where hitler tried to rule the world . '' in fact , the issue as it has been debated over the past few years is not so much about building a hotel and spa against the mountain backdrop where hitler treated blond children to strawberries and cream , portraying himself as an affectionate man of simple pleasures . on a nearby hilltop is the famous kehlstein , or eagle 's nest , as the americans later called it , built as a birthday gift to hitler by a grateful nazi_party in 1939 . the issue is more that in the process of transforming obersalzberg into a holiday center which it already was in the 19th_century , until the nazis made it their private preserve pretty much everything that was left over from the third reich has been razed . most controversially , in 2000 , the bavarian authorities tore down the platterhof , the old hotel that was turned into a ''people 's hotel'' during the nazi years , and became an american recreation center after the war , when obersalzberg housed a united_states_army contingent . officially , the hotel was torn down because it was old and in bad condition , but the suspicion remains strong among some germans that its demolition was part of an attempt to obliterate anything that would spoil the atmosphere . ''the bavarian government has tried to erase the physical memories , '' mr . d rr said , ''and if you want the nazi_regime to be useful for our democracy now , you have to have the physical traces . you need the physical contact with the past . '' certainly , there is no physical contact with the past left in obersalzberg except for the eagle 's nest , now a mountaintop restaurant accessible by the same elevator , cut into the stone , that hitler used on his own rare visits to the place . the place where hitler 's house stood , bombed by the allies in 1945 and cleared away entirely in 1952 , is a patch of second growth forest . and yet , it would be wrong to say that the plans for a revived tourist_industry have been allowed to bury the memory of the nazis . ''the bavarian finance minister had a two column model , '' said albert a . feiber , a historian at the institute for contemporary history in munich , referring to kurt faltlhauser , who after the departure of american_troops in the mid 1990 's devised an overall plan for the renovation of the area . one column envisaged by mr . faltlhauser is the hotel , a two winged structure of 138 rooms that is virtually complete already . the second pillar , about 200 yards away , is the obersalzberg documentation center , a museum of the nazi_era created by the state of bavaria in 1999 . the museum is not huge , but its displays occupying three floors of a modern , shedlike building in no way shy away from the horrors of nazism . in fact , the documentation center has had some beneficial unforeseen consequences , not least that many germans who would otherwise come to this area of the bavarian alps only for a holiday now spend some time getting a vivid reminder of savage plans and demented theories that were concocted in part right here . gerhard w hrl , a vacationing policeman from kassel who was touring the museum the other day with his wife , said ''i do n't approve of a hotel . it 's not a good use of this site . but it 's impressive what they have here in the way of documentation . '' the museum was initially expected to attract some 30 , 000 visitors a year , said mr . feiber , the historian , who was at the center conducting a tour for visitors from munich . in fact , the museum draws four times that many , which has led to plans for an expansion to include new displays as well as seminar rooms and classrooms to be used by visiting schools . moreover , while obersalzberg was for years something of a magnet for neo_nazis , who reportedly used to make pilgrimages here to pay homage on hitler 's birthday , this phenomenon has diminished since the documentation center was built , mr . feiber said . so , while the demolition of the old platterhof still stirs discontent , the argument can certainly be made that restoring tourism to obersalzberg has been done in a historically responsible way . that , anyway , is what 15 year old franziska otto from rosenheim , about 50 miles away , seemed to feel . she was there with her father and brother as part of a study group that was spending the day not gazing at the mountains or the lakes or even visiting the eagle 's nest , but touring the documentation center itself . ''i want to learn about it , '' she said . obersalzberg journal",has a topic of arts
"a nun in the central city of l'aquila was told that a photograph of her wearing a habit was not acceptable for a national identity card because her head was covered , italian newspapers reported , after a civil_servant there had also rejected a photograph from a muslim woman wearing a head covering . the equation between christian and muslim practices drew protest from the local roman_catholic bishop , and local officials are seeking clarification of a national law that requires photographs for the national identity cards to show a person 's features clearly . meanwhile , the papers reported , local officials are temporarily accepting photographs from women with their heads covered as long as their faces are clearly shown . ian fisher ( nyt )",has a topic of arts
"lead sir percival david 's 40 year pursuit of ceramics made from the tang through ching dynasties took him to beijing several times in the 1920 's and 30 's . there he acquired extraordinary 10th to 18th_century treasures installed for centuries in the palaces of china , some of which are on view in ''imperial taste chinese_ceramics from the percival david collection'' at the virginia museum of fine arts . sir percival david 's 40 year pursuit of ceramics made from the tang through ching dynasties took him to beijing several times in the 1920 's and 30 's . there he acquired extraordinary 10th to 18th_century treasures installed for centuries in the palaces of china , some of which are on view in ''imperial taste chinese_ceramics from the percival david collection'' at the virginia museum of fine arts . the show of 56 items remains here through dec . 10 and will then travel to the kimbell art museum in fort_worth and the museum_of_fine_arts in boston . sir percival , an heir to the sassoon textile and banking fortune , was born in 1892 in bombay , where his family 's mills were located . he studied at bombay university and london university and settled in england , where he became totally immersed in studying and collecting chinese_art . in 1924 he traveled to beijing to view the imperial collection , much of which he found stored in boxes . at his suggestion , these works were uncrated and exhibited in a building he paid to have restored . the show was a great success , and on sir percival 's next visit , in 1927 , he was named an adviser to the national palace museums . he also learned that art from the imperial collection was up for sale . after complex negotiations , he acquired about 40 pieces , and he added to his holdings during several more trips in the 1930 's . in 1952 he donated his collection , and its home , a 19th_century house on gordon square in bloomsbury , to london university . the exhibition here was organized by the los angeles county museum of art , where it opened last july , in collaboration with the percival david foundation . money came from the national endowment for the arts and the federal_council on the arts and humanities . rosemary scott , the curator of the percival david foundation , assembled the show and produced its splendid catalogue ( 22 . 95 ) . from the 1 , 500 objects in the collection she chose 56 ceramics , 31 of which were potted and painted for , or owned by , the princes of the realm . ''it is a very restricted but representative selection , '' said elizabeth jackson , the secretary librarian of the foundation , in a telephone interview from her london office . ''the exhibition spans the period of the collection and contains some of its finest pieces . '' thinly potted tang and sung vessels are among the show 's more exceptional works , in terms of both their form and their subtle decoration . a pale gray vase from the ninth century , incised from top to base with the mouths , scales , gills , fins and flipped tails of two fish that seem locked together like siamese twins , is a marvel of understatement . the stark simplicity of a 10th century spittoon , its flared cone top set on a ball base , is relieved by its silken gray green glaze . several basins and bowls of the 12th and 13th centuries are surfaced with lacy white on white tracings of leaves , flowers and calligraphic images . one of the most exquisite objects in the show is a 13th century narrow necked pear shape vase glazed icy blue . , the crackles on its surface are evenly spaced like stripes . this was sir percival 's favorite vessel and one of the most admired ceramics in the 1935 exhibition of chinese_art treasures he helped to organize . that show , sponsored by london 's royal_academy at burlington house , included loans from china 's imperial collection . notable among the later works now on display are several boldly decorated outsize vessels . a 25 inch tall temple vase of the yuan dynasty , dated 1351 , is described in the catalogue as one of the most important blue and white porcelains in existence . from chrysanthemum scrolls at the top to peonies at the base , the vessel is lavishly decorated . its handles are blue elephant heads , and its body is covered with soaring phoenixes and a dragon that sweeps around the vase enveloped in clouds . a wilder white dragon decorates a robust blue ming flask , one of very few vessels ornamented with this reverse decoration . a ming turquoise wine jar the size of a soccer ball is decorated with a gilded copper collar and calligraphy aligned like a zipper below the neck . the 18th_century porcelain teapots , jars and dishes are more delicately decorated with birds and blossoms . ''imperial provenance and imperial association have become essential parts of the price structure in the market , '' said james j . lally , a new york dealer in oriental art . ''it always was there , but now it has a renewed importance with the advent of taiwanese and some hong_kong collectors who share this taste . any porcelain in the market today is worth significantly more if it has an imperial reign mark . '' imperial reign marks , designating ceramics made for the sovereigns of china , are scarce , but vessels known to have been in a palace collection and others of comparable refinement are commanding extraordinary prices at auction especially in sotheby 's sales held over the last year in hong_kong . on may 16 , a sung bowl with imperial association once used by scholars to wash brushes was sold for 2 . 82 million , a record at auction for chinese_ceramics . the buyer was identified as a chinese man living in los_angeles . two 18th_century porcelain bowls , decorated with enamels by artisans at the beijing palace workshops , brought 1 million each in different sales . one , a kang hsi vessel formerly in sir percival 's collection that was sold in may , is glazed a bright pink and decorated with a sinuous branch . the other , a chien lung vessel auctioned a year ago , is painted with pink flowers and landscapes on a yellow ground . antiques",has a topic of arts
"lead to the editor to the editor comparing television 's role in the student demonstrations in beijing in 1989 and in chicago two decades ago ''on tiananmen_square , echoes of chicago in '68 , '' june 4 , reuven frank speculates on how long it might have taken to arrange television coverage of the ' 'storming of the winter palace by the bolsheviks in march 1917 . '' mr . frank has got his revolutions scrambled here . the march revolution was a completely spontaneous , unorganized uprising of workers and mutinous soldiers which swept away the monarchy and installed a democratic government in its place . the bolsheviks played almost no part in these events indeed , most of their leaders were in prison or abroad at the time . the bolshevik coup d'etat , which put an end to russia 's brief experiment in democracy , came the following november ( october by the old style russian calendar ) . louis jay herman new york tales of revolt",has a topic of arts
"teapots of silver and porcelain are undoubtedly luxurious , but chinese literati traditionally preferred theirs made of a particular type of purple clay , which they valued more than gold . called zisha ( literally ''purple sand'' ) , it is from yixing , a small town on the west_bank of lake tai about 120 miles west of shanghai . yixing ware is the focus of ''tea , wine and poetry qing dynasty literati and their drinking vessels , '' a small but fascinating exhibition at the china institute gallery , at 125 east 65th street in manhattan , through june 16 . ''this very special clay has been known since the 10th century , but the production of yixing teapots flourished with the popular fashion for tea drinking among the literati in the late ming_dynasty , '' said willow weilan hai chang , the director of the gallery . ''in yixing you have to dig 10 meters down to find the clay , then sift and purify it and let it settle in a hole for a certain period before you can mix it with other ingredients . according to the classics no family would ever share its recipe with another . '' ms . hai chang , a native of china with an advanced degree in archaeology , said the clay had distinctive qualities . ''teapots made of purple sand keep tea fresh , '' she said . ''they make tea vibrate with taste . '' ( yixing ware is still being made . ) edith frankel of the e . j . frankel gallery in new york gives a more scientific explanation in a catalog for a 2005 show on zisha ware . ''the composition of the clay allows for minimal shrinking during firing , and this makes for a tightly fitting lid , which reduces oxidation and holds the tea 's flavor , '' she wrote . ''the porosity of yixing clay also helps it to absorb the flavor of the tea brewed in the teapot . '' but the appeal of purple clay to the literati did not stop with the raw_material . it 's what artists did to it that they treasured . in this show yixing vessels , from the 1500s through the early 1800s , are organized by the potter or by who inspired the potter , whether it be a scholar , poet , designer , calligrapher or seal engraver . ( the qing_dynasty supplanted the ming in 1644 . ) these are thought to be the first chinese pottery items that bear the names of their artists . they are signed with seals and decorated with poetic inscriptions and willow and plum tree branches , some of which have been incised by collaborating artists . ''what is most appealing about qing drinking vessels is the complete integration of form with poetry , calligraphy , painting and seal engraving , '' said shu kong soong , a taiwan architect whose collection forms the core of the exhibition . ''the literary and artistic embellishments of these works arouse both the mind and the senses . no other object in the scholar 's studio can match their artistic complexity and richness . you ca n't get more intense than this . '' the works come in purplish brown , red , terra_cotta and russet , colors enhanced by the patina of long use . in addition to the seals and inscriptions , some are embellished with jade or coral finials , mahogany handles or pewter casings . ''the combination of refined workmanship and literati taste elevated a utilitarian pottery product into a cultural symbol , '' ms . hai chang said . ''yixing ware has remained the favorite choice of tea lovers and collectors until the present day . '' one section is devoted to chen hongshou ( 1768 1822 ) , a prominent artist who was also a magistrate . a bit like the contemporary architect michael_graves , he created teapots in a variety of shapes one resembles a crescent moon , another a bamboo hat . he sketched the shapes for a master teapot craftsman named yang pengnian , who then made ( and signed ) them . ''chen was also famous for seal carving , calligraphy and painting , '' ms . hai chang said . the show has a stone seal he engraved for a friend and album leaves he covered with loose brushstroke paintings of flowers . one bears the inscription ''not bound by rules but excelling over those that delineate without restraint . '' others also experimented with novel forms . one early ocher yellow teapot with the seal of chen mingyuan ( active from the mid 17th to the early 18th_century ) is square and looks completely modern . many of the teapots are small enough to fit in the palm of the hand . ( ''they are meant to be intimately appreciated , '' ms . hai chang said . ) they hold very little tea , which was to be consumed like a fine liqueur . ''only with a tiny sip can you really taste tea , '' said ms . hai chang . ''in fact everything affects the taste of tea . first you want tea grown in high mountains with fog . normally the best tea is harvested before april 5 , when you can find buds with only one leaf attached . then , when brewing the tea , you have more choices what kind of water ? spring water from the mountains is best . how to heat it ? boil it over a fire fueled by dry branches ? this at least is the_dream . '' the show also has a few wine vessels , including an unsigned ming cup in the shape of a curled lotus leaf . in the center is the figure of an old man , a scholar enjoying nature . the clay is covered with lacquer and gold finishes . the cup was designed for a wine drinking game . when it 's full , wine flows out of a hole in the base , which encourages the user to drink up quickly . these vessels are shown with porcelain teacups so small they look as if they were made for a dollhouse gold painted fans with calligraphy and depictions of bamboo and orchids ( ''good plants to show gentlemanly character , '' ms . hai chang said ) a scholar 's rock resembling an elephant 's leg a hanging scroll with a painting of a mountain studio ( to show that scholars were particular about the environment in which they drank their tea ) engraved ink slabs in leaf forms and a lacquer wrist rest with an inscription that tells you how to draw a plum tree ''in painting prunus the brushstrokes should be slim but not fat , similar to a crane standing on an empty islet . '' mr . soong has been collecting antique yixing wares , which are hard to find , since 1983 . ''i was brought up in a family in which the political and cultural demise of traditional china was a constant theme , '' he said . ''the impetus to collect was ignited by the desire to retrace the steps of the past so as to understand the disintegration of the present . the world of purple sand fits into this larger theme , because it evolved into an art form in the late ming and by the 19th_century lost all artistic momentum . the beginning and the end are always on my mind . '' antiques",has a topic of arts
"lead for many years , west_german programs have also brought news to east_germany . since the fall of the old regime in east_germany , that country 's news programs have become sources of serious information , but most east_germans still tune in from habit to the evening west_german newscasts . for many years , west_german programs have also brought news to east_germany . since the fall of the old regime in east_germany , that country 's news programs have become sources of serious information , but most east_germans still tune in from habit to the evening west_german newscasts . in recent months , of course , the drive toward unification has been the dominant story , with extensive reports from east_germany . the major news programs are all the product of the two west_german state owned nationwide networks , a.r.d . and z.d.f. , each with two newscasts every evening . though owned and financed by the state , the two networks are generally independent of government control . news programs lack much of the glitz of their american counterparts , and the four major daily newscasts are serious , balanced and influential . one a.r.d . anchorman , hans_joachim friedrichs , has become a national figure somewhat in the walter_cronkite mold he is respected for the accuracy of his reporting , for a dry humor , for a deep and serious delivery and for a mane of white hair that lends an added air of credibility . he is in fact a veteran reporter who worked for years as a.r.d . 's washington correspondent . as the world turns , it's news with a spin",has a topic of arts
"lead sotheby 's auctioneers recorded nearly 500 , 000 in sales today at their first auction in china , and the organizers said the profits would go to renovate half a mile of the great_wall . sotheby 's auctioneers recorded nearly 500 , 000 in sales today at their first auction in china , and the organizers said the profits would go to renovate half a mile of the great_wall . ''it 's super , '' julian thompson , an auctioneer and chairman of sotheby 's international , said after 73 chinese and western works of modern_art and rare objects brought a total of 1 . 76 million yuan , or about 475 , 850 . after auction costs of about 100 , 000 , half the remaining money is to go toward renovating the crumbling great_wall and half toward saving the italian city of venice , which is sinking beneath the waters of the lagoon of venice . danial vial , a parisian public_relations agent , who organized the auction as part of four days of events to benefit the great_wall and venice , said enough money was raised to rebuild a kilometer of the wall . parts of the wall were built more than 2 , 200 years ago , and many sections have been reduced to rubble by time and warfare . some bids were made by telephone from new york and los_angeles , but most of the purchasers were among more than 200 wealthy foreigners who paid 4 , 300 each to attend the benefit . the auction was held in the former imperial palace in a 15th_century hall where chinese emperors once worshipped their ancestors . some participants said their purchases would be souvenirs of the unusual benefit , which included a caviar luncheon on the great_wall , boating at an imperial palace and a gala performance by opera and ballet stars at the great_hall of the people . the painting that had been expected to bring the highest price ''china proverb'' by robert rauschenberg went for only 40 , 387 , half its presale_estimate . a painted pottery jug by picasso sold for 14 , 808 , also well below its presale_estimate . the cheapest item was a sevres porcelain cup that went for 500 yuan , or 135 , about half the annual salary of the average chinese factory worker .",has a topic of arts
"for many westerners , it takes a leap of faith to put craft based art like pre columbian textiles , islamic calligraphy or chinese_ceramics on the pedestal reserved for painting and sculpture . yet that leap can prove effortless in the right circumstances . such is the case in "" hare 's fur , tortoise shell and partridge feathers chinese brown and black glazed ceramics , 400 1400 , "" at the china institute gallery . the concentration of nearly 80 jars , ewers and bowls is physically gorgeous the chromatic variations in the iron rich glazes range from rich pumpkin skin russet to deep space black and has the additional intrigue of fresh scholarly spadework . the show , organized by robert d . mowry for the arthur m . sackler_museum at harvard , sets important precedents . it 's the first american exhibition devoted to the dark glazed wares that enjoyed an on and off vogue in china for nearly a millennium . and it is the first systematic study of where , when and why these elegantly somber works were made . much of the information comes from intensive archeological research in china , particularly in the last decade . the excavation of legendary kiln sites , some dating back to the han dynasty ( 206 b.c . to a.d . 220 ) has led to a refined chronology for the whole ceramic tradition . the show 's fine catalogue draws a complex picture of ceramic styles rising and falling with shifts in politics and taste . the green celadon wares preferred by aristocrats of the tang_dynasty ( 618 907 ) , for instance , gave way to darker wares during the sung ( 960 1279 ) , and these in turn were replaced by the polychrome porcelains of the mongol yuan dynasty ( 1272 1368 ) . different kilns were favored with patronage at different times , and those that sustained the highest visibility developed signature glazing techniques . the exhibition 's title comes from names of the three most famous styles developed in the sung period , the golden age of dark glazed ceramics . "" hare 's fur "" refers to radiating patterns of brown or silver streaks on the black grounds , associated with the jian kilns in the 11th century . the light brown mottling on a dark ground known as "" tortoise shell "" was characteristic of the jizhou kilns in the 12th and 13th centuries . "" partridge feathers "" describes the rust colored swells against jet black perfected by cizhou potters from the 11th to 14th centuries . these and other styles overlapped in time and few disappeared entirely . old forms were repeatedly updated consumers changed from aristocrats to bourgeoisie . sometimes a ceramic type found a vigorous life outside china . this was true when black glazed tea bowls were carried to japan by buddhist monks in the 12th_century and became permanent fixtures in the japanese tea ceremony . fashions in tea consumption , in fact , played a crucial role in shaping ceramic styles . teas preferred by taste makers of the tang_dynasty were red and were thought to look best in the green celadon bowls . sung enthusiasm ran to white leaf tea . ground to a powder and whisked into a milky froth , it was seen to advantage in the brown and black glazed wares on view here . in the slightly later yuan period , green_tea was all the rage , and only light or multi colored porcelains would do . in such domestic fads and they were domestic even when elevated to the status of court rituals the social and the esthetic tellingly merge . changes in ceramic forms and in gustatory habits were as much indicators of political activity as successive painting styles were in europe . and the fashion for different teas , which dictated the color of the bowls they were designed to hold , remains a fugitive , abstract component in the beauty of these objects . beauty and abstraction are the chief ingredients in the hard to define poetry of the ceramics at the china institute . the glazes themselves feel symbolically allusive , with colors and textures evocative of physical sensations a loamy brown seems to carry the scent of damp earth a russet orange suggests the heat of fire a mottled blue purple has the mouth watering tactility of the skin of a fruit . even monochrome surfaces seem to hold subliminal graphic images a sprinkling of silver dots on the inside of a conical bowl looks like a constellation filled night sky . and when images are made explicit , they are often stylized to near abstraction . flying phoenixes on a southern sung bottle have a calligraphic flair peonies on a wine jar are ornamental clusters of flamelike curves . images of nature resonate with deep moral significance in chinese_culture , and even a passing familiarity with taoist and buddhist thought is valuable for understanding chinese_art . one does n't have to look too far to see that the world_view animating the great landscape paintings is also implicit in the modest span of a ceramic dish . contemporary western viewers come to chinese_art with perceptual advantages of their own . fluent in the language of modernist abstraction , they are familiar with the concepts that pure color and line can be vehicles of thought , that the decorative can be a radically expressive mode and that accident and intention can have equal status in the making of art . seen from this perspective , the ceramics at the china institute would have been right at home in the guggenheim_museum 's recent survey of 20th_century abstract paintings . with one difference . where those paintings were created as icons , meant to occupy the shrinelike precincts of a museum , a jar or a bowl in "" hare 's fur , tortoise shell and partridge feathers "" was made for other places and purposes to warm the hand that lifted it on a cold winter evening or to bring tea to thirsty lips on a summer afternoon . such intimacy is foreign to the western concept of high art , though a careful look at mondrian 's touch rich abstractions might argue otherwise . yet it is the sense of a universe held in the hand that underlies all of the objects here . "" hare 's fur , tortoise shell and partridge feathers chinese brown and black glazed ceramics , 400 1400 "" remains at the china institute gallery , 125 east 65th street , manhattan , through july 6 . art review",has a topic of arts
"it billows in the wind , it glows in the sun , it is tailored as primly as a dress and engineered as heavily as a battleship . "" wrapped reichstag , "" by christo and his wife , jean_claude , is at once a work of art , a cultural event , a political happening and an ambitious piece of business . it has got berlin into more of a celebratory mood than anything since the fall of the wall five and a half years ago , and as the immense project of wrapping the 101 year old german_parliament building in more than a million square_feet of aluminum colored fabric nears its completion , crowds gather day and night to gawk , to cheer as sections of cloth are unfurled , and to watch for glimpses of the new york artist couple who are treated here like rock stars . the project has had numerous setbacks bad_weather , including winds so heavy that no work at all could take place today , has thrown tomorrow 's planned completion date into doubt , and the cost , originally estimated at 6 million , is now certain to exceed 10 million , say people close to the artists . the project is to be paid for by the artists , who say they will finance it largely out of the proceeds of the sale of the hundreds of drawings and collages of the wrapped reichstag they have made since the work was first conceived in the early 1970 's . christo and jean_claude for the last few years they have insisted on joint credit for their projects have stretched a 365 foot high curtain across a valley in colorado ( 1972 ) , surrounded 11 islands in biscayne bay , fla . , with pink fabric ( 1983 ) , and wrapped the pont neuf in paris ( 1985 ) . each of these has been an attempt to create art at monumental scale by temporarily transforming a natural or man made landmark . they have all been spectacular visually , although another of the christo projects 3 , 100 gigantic umbrellas installed in japan and california in 1991 turned disastrous when a california storm uprooted one of the 500 pound umbrellas , which crushed a woman to death . fickle weather is , of course , a serious issue here , although there is little that seems able to cause a tragic accident . the problem is more one of risks to the schedule . this enterprise , like all of christo and jean_claude 's efforts , requires intricate logistics and a huge staff there are 210 construction workers , including 90 specially_trained rock climbers 17 office workers , and 600 "" monitors , "" or guides , who answer questions and assist in crowd_control . the building is scheduled to remain wrapped only until july 6 , at which time the polypropylene fabric , the 17 , 060 yards of bright blue rope holding it tight and the 220 tons of steel structure to which the wrapping is attached will be dismantled and recycled . ( the steel is attached only to the roof and the interior , through the windows , and does not touch the ornate stone facade . ) when the wrapping comes off , work will resume on renovating the reichstag as the new home for the german_parliament when it moves from bonn at the end of the century . it was the fact of the reichstag 's pending renovation that made the project possible at all . it was first proposed in 1971 by michael cullen , a berlin historian who has written extensively about the reichstag and suggested to christo that the building , then little used except as an exhibition hall , would be an ideal place for him to realize his dream of wrapping a national capital . but cold_war tensions meant that there was little chance of getting the east_german government 's approval , and the project lay nearly dormant until the fall of the berlin_wall and the reunification of germany . when the reunified german_government decided in 1991 to return the capital to berlin , mr . cullen saw an opportunity , and working with the artists and with wolfgang volz , who later became the project 's technical director , he mounted an aggressive lobbying campaign that culminated in a close vote in parliament in february 1994 to approve the project . christo and jean_claude say that their art is as much about process as product it is no accident that the monitors wear t shirts with the legend "" wrapped reichstag 1971 95 , "" since the official view here is that the work of art began its existence when christo said yes to mr . cullen 's suggestion , and that every early sketch , every letter about the project to the german_government , every debate in the german press and every street corner argument about the merits of wrapping the reichstag is itself a part of the artwork . the artists think of the actual wrapping as only the final chapter in a 24 year work which is perhaps why the notion of leaving it up for only two weeks does not disturb them . the entire work , in their view , is as much a study in the way attitudes are transformed over time as a pure object in itself . yet none of this should deny the remarkable esthetic power the wrapped reichstag possesses . even today , with roughly three quarters of the facade wrapped , this immense stone hulk , a heavy , bombastic building that epitomizes german excesses of the late 19th_century , is rendered light , almost delicate . it takes on an ethereal beauty , and looks as if it could float away into the silvery , cloudy berlin sky . in no way , however , does the reichstag become insignificant , a fear that was expressed by many opponents of the project , including chancellor helmut_kohl , who argued that wrapping the building would trivialize it . indeed , this huge structure covered in silver gray fabric remains every bit as monumental as it was before perhaps more so , because the wrapping forces the eye to confront the reichstag anew . the building is shimmering where it once was solid , refined where it once was gross and heavy . but it has lost none of its power . the real transformation this work offers is not in any concept of the reichstag , but in the idea of monumentality itself . the wrapped reichstag makes lightness and softness , two qualities associated with intimate if not trivial objects , into characteristics of the greatest monumental power . it is a transformation that is particularly poignant right now in a country struggling over questions of identity with as much anguish , surely , as any nation in the world . if the architecture of the reichstag represents a kind of prussian hardness germany as it was the wrapped version can almost be seen as an ideal symbol of the new germany struggling to emerge from unification . in any event , there could not be a better moment in history to wrap the reichstag , if only because of the natural symbolism of unwrapping it now , a chrysalis out of which the new germany may emerge . though it was built only in 1884 to house the parliament of the recently unified german empire , it is as redolent of history as any building in berlin . the building was burned in 1933 by an arsonist thought to have been paid by the nazis , who blamed the fire on the communists and used it as an excuse to restrict civil_liberties . though nazis used the reichstag for propaganda exhibitions rather than as a capital , its capture by the russians became a symbol of the allies' victory in the battle of berlin that led to the german surrender at the end of world_war_ii . the surroundings of the reichstag are largely quiet , at the edge of the bleak void in the heart of berlin left by the wall . the building looms over the brandenburg_gate , more a shadowy mass in the distance than a part of the connective tissue of the city . not the least of the accomplishments of the wrapping is to bring the reichstag back into the mainstream of berlin . an auto free zone has been set up in the immediate area of the building , so the crowds are all on foot , making the area feel like a street fair . cars , usually banned from passing under the brandenburg_gate , are permitted to do so now to catch a distant glimpse of the wrapped building . all of berlin seems , in a sense , to have responded to this urban transformation . on the friedrichstrasse in the former east_berlin a cosmetic shop window display has a wrapped chair on which sit dozens of wrapped bottles of lotion all through the city there are billboards advertising berlin beer with a picture of wrapped bottles and the slogan "" just another berlin masterpiece . "" the advertising slogans prove , far more than the german_parliament 's grudging acceptance , that christo and jean_claude , who began as radical artists in the 1960 's , have now become figures of the establishment . so , too , does the size of the enterprise a large office and a buffet restaurant have been set up in an adjacent building that once served as hermann goring 's headquarters . one simple buffet offers free meals to the workers , while invited guests art collectors , museum curators and friends of the christos who seem this week to be pouring in from around the world can pay 80 marks ( roughly 60 ) for a more elaborate lunch . christo and jean_claude sit with invited guests , but make a point of getting their own food from the workers' line . most of the time , however , they are at the project site , driven in and out in a silver gray ford windstar minivan that is precisely the color of the reichstag wrapping on a cloudy day . ( the car is to give them some protection from the crowds , they say . ) they communicate constantly by walkie_talkie with the technical crews inside , and often go into the building to examine the intricate system of steel beams and cables that holds the fabric in place , or onto the roof to walk along the whitish snowscape that it has become . on wednesday , christo was ordering up pleats , nips and tucks in this huge object with the care of a tailor . the artists are sensitive to suggestions that the real work is done by the technical employees , and they do not want to be thought of as merely conceptual artists . "" the newspapers always write that christo and jean_claude 's assistants will wrap the reichstag , "" christo said yesterday . "" do they write that i . m . pei 's assistants made the pyramid at the louvre ? i have redesigned this building , i have made a new shape and a new structure to house the fabric , and i decide every drop and every fold in the fabric . "" jean_claude added "" everything has an esthetic purpose , to allow the fabric to cascade down from the roof in a particular way . without this , it would be just a covered reichstag . it would not be by us . "" correction june 24 , 1995 , saturday because of an editing error , an article in the living arts yesterday about the wrapping of the reichstag in berlin by the artist christo misidentified the government body that was first approached for approval , in 1971 . it was the parliament of west_germany , not east_germany .",has a topic of arts
"richard n . perle can sleep at night . if ''the case for war in defense of freedom'' is any guide , this former chairman of the defense policy board who so fiercely lobbied for the invasion of iraq enjoys the deep , flannelly slumber of infants and the well medicated . in an hourlong , first person tour of his thinking , mr . perle admits neither mistakes nor regrets . the war is not even his main concern . instead , mr . perle , a leading neo conservative , uses much of tonight 's segment of the weeklong pbs series ''america at a crossroads'' to argue that the united_states should foment regime_change in iran , regardless of what iran and other nations think . ''there 's got to be some advantage to being a superpower , '' mr . perle tells patrick j . buchanan , the conservative columnist who worked with mr . perle in the reagan_administration . ''this sounds like the neo comintern , '' mr . buchanan replies , looking more than a little aghast . ''i mean , the soviet_union , that was their idea . '' viewers worried that a video diary by mr . perle could be too one sided and self serving should relax . like the unreliable narrator in a novel , mr . perle exposes himself by omission and indirection . ''the case for war'' is not very persuasive about american policy . instead it is a fascinating study in rationalization , a lighter , less repentant version of ''the fog of war , '' errol morris 's documentary about robert s . mcnamara . as elizabeth jensen reported in the new york times earlier this month , bush_administration critics were suspicious of the entire 11 part series about the world after 9 11 , especially the portion turned over to mr . perle . the corporation for public broadcasting , which administers federal money to public television and radio , has long been under pressure by the white_house to include more conservative voices . ( the corporation 's chairman , kenneth y . tomlinson , was forced to resign in november 2005 after it was revealed that he had monitored the political leanings of some guests on pbs . ) it did n't help that brian lapping , the british producer who first proposed a film about mr . perle , turned out to be his friend . mr . lapping later recused himself from the project . mr . perle 's journey is a tour of the world as he sees it . it includes a trip to a girls' school in kabul , afghanistan , and an outdoor market , the kind of blinkered v.i.p . visit usually reserved for first ladies . ( mr . perle notes that the taliban is still active in southern afghanistan without acknowledging that it is also on the rise . ) in moscow he reminisces about his days in the reagan_administration battling the ''evil_empire'' during a visit with the former soviet dissident natan sharansky outside lefortovo prison , where mr . sharansky was interrogated 30 years ago . and mr . perle takes an even more remote skip down memory lane to los_angeles and his alma_mater , hollywood high , where the halls are lined with the names of famous students like tuesday weld , and where mr . perle says he first learned to distrust hollywood liberals . mr . perle links today 's antiwar demonstrators the film includes snippets of martin sheen and jessica lange speaking out against the president to the hollywood leftists who were soft on stalinism in his youth . he leaves out any discussion of the vietnam_war , perhaps because he did n't serve in it . iraq also has little room on his agenda , which could explain why the producers insisted that mr . perle attend an antiwar demonstration at the washington monument and face his most impassioned critics . mr . perle is shown in a tweed jacket , weaving his way confidently through the crowd , debating veterans and angry mothers of dead servicemen . when a march organizer calmly argues that the iraq_war is neither just nor necessary and should be ended , mr . perle listens , then waves his hand toward the rows and rows of boots placed on the ground to represent each fallen soldier . ''i do n't believe that 's fair to them , '' he says . afterward , mr . perle says he sympathizes with the mourning relatives , adding , ''but i believe the case for intervening in iraq was and remains valid . '' mr . perle was less adamant in a vanity_fair article in november titled ''neo culpa . '' mr . perle blamed the administration 's incompetence for the mismanagement of the occupation , but admitted , in hindsight , that the rush to topple saddam_hussein was too hasty . ''could we have managed that threat by means other than a direct military intervention ? '' mr . perle said in the article . ''well , maybe we could have . '' mr . perle makes no such admission in ''the case for war , '' and nothing and no one can shake him of his complacency , not richard c . holbrooke , former american ambassador to the united_nations , nor abdel bari atwan , editor of al quds al arabi , a london based newspaper , who angrily says that the occupation of iraq has revived and empowered al_qaeda . when simon jenkins , a former editor of the times of london , warns about british and soviet failures in afghanistan , mr . perle looks heavy lidded and even a bit bored . mr . perle comes alive in a hotel room in dubai , beaming as he listens to a young iranian dissident who recently escaped and wants the west to help overthrow the government of president mahmoud ahmadinejad . mr . perle listens and nods intently , even though the young man speaks in farsi . mr . perle does n't need the translator to know that his prot g is speaking of freedom , tyranny and insurrection . at that moment mr . perle is as rapt as an opera buff at the opening night of ''parsifal . '' he may not understand the words , but he loves the music . america at a crossroads the case for war in defense of freedom on most pbs stations tonight ( check local listings ) . phil craig and brook lapping productions , executive producers mick gold , producer . television review",has a topic of arts
"for weeks , dan rather has been giddy about going to his first olympics , to serve as co anchor with jim_nantz at the opening ceremonies of the winter_games on friday . but there will be no ski_slopes , no olympic flame , no nagano for mr . rather after all . the prospect of war in iraq and the simmering white_house scandal have combined to keep him at his anchor desk at cbs_news in new york . ''i was really up about it , and i 'm very disappointed , '' mr . rather said yesterday , the day he would have left for japan . ''but i understand and have no argument with the call whatsoever . '' the iraqi situation tipped the balance , he said . ''i do n't expect an attack this week or , for that matter , next week , but any time consideration is being given to sending our sons and daughters into harm 's way , that 's a big story , '' he said . ''that , plus the unpredictability of the 'white_house under fire' story . '' the allegations of sexual_misconduct between president_clinton and a former white_house intern had already interrupted an assignment dear to mr . rather 's heart , pope_john_paul_ii 's visit to cuba . at first , he did not want to come home . ''i could and did argue that one with the boss , '' he said , referring to andrew heyward , president of cbs_news . ''but not a whole lot . the only way i could 've stayed in cuba would have been to ask for asylum . '' with the other anchors returning home , both he and cbs would have been criticized as neglecting a big story had he remained . ''can you imagine what would 've been written if we 'd stayed there ? '' he said . on thursday , the night before the olympics begin , ''48 hours'' will devote its hour to nagano and , as usual , mr . rather will anchor that program just not from japan . lawrie mifflin",has a topic of arts
"lead beijing 's first large scale auction of antiques ended today with overpriced items going once , going twice and gone back to the warehouse . beijing 's first large scale auction of antiques ended today with overpriced items going once , going twice and gone back to the warehouse . of 33 antiques valued at 270 , 000 , only three of the cheapest items , bought by a japanese businessman and his friends for 2 , 168 , received bids . ''we 'd buy if the prices were reasonable , '' said a hong_kong businessman who left before the auction ended . ''but the prices are way too high . they do n't know how to auction . they 're starting far too high . '' 400 attend auction more than 400 people , including about 40 foreigners , attended the auction , which was sponsored by the beijing auction market , a state run organization that obtains most of its goods from antique stores . the auction market opened last month with a little publicized sale of less expensive items that garnered 27 , 400 . today 's auction , which the sponsors said was the capital 's first large scale official sale of antiques , attracted more attention , bringing in diplomats , foreign businessmen and their spouses looking for bargains . the only bargain was the entry fee , a modest 2 . 70 . many of the most expensive items were antique copies of older pieces , such as a 17th_century reproduction of a scroll from the song dynasty ( 960 1126 ) that had a starting bid price of 81 , 000 . an original 19th_century scroll with a starting price of 27 , 000 was ignored by bidders , as were several vases and bowls going for 8 , 100 and up . pottery figure brings 622 the japanese businessman finally broke the no bid ice on the 17th item when he paid 622 for the least expensive item on the list , a pottery figure dating to the sui dynasty ( 581 618 ) . the businessman and his companions also bought a song dynasty bowl for 868 and a bronze mirror from the tang_dynasty ( 618 907 ) for 678 . the auction market in beijing is the fifth to open in china . the press here has praised the markets as another means to speed up the circulation of goods and promote a market based economy . chinese will get a second chance to see high priced art on the block on sunday , when sotheby 's auctions off 67 lots of modern chinese and western art . proceeds are to go to a fund to restore the great_wall and the italian city of venice .",has a topic of arts
"after the fanfare of bilbao , the elegance of venice , the sweep of new york , the guggenheim foundation opens its newest branch on friday deutsche guggenheim berlin boasting a different theme modesty . berlin , modest ? the guggenheim , modest ? apparently , the answer dictated by limited space and the presence of existing major galleries in germany 's metropolis in the making is a qualified yes modest , but active , thomas krens , the guggenheim 's director , said today . he spoke at a news conference about the opening on friday of the berlin guggenheim 's inaugural exhibition , ''visions of paris robert delaunay 's series . '' ''we will play a very modest role in the cultural life of this community , '' mr . krens said . ''but it will be an active role , and it will be fun . '' the opening of the new guggenheim on the ground floor of the refurbished deutsche_bank building on the unter den linden reinforces a trend in which modern_art , once banished as degenerate by hitler , is making a comeback in the city 's artistic life . exhibitions that have opened here over the past year have included the berggruen collection of works by picasso , cezanne and other modernists , housed in the city 's former antiquities museum , and the hamburger bahnhof gallery 's display of works by artists including andy_warhol , cy twombly and joseph beuys . two other galleries have opened ambitious shows this fall ''art from a divided land'' at the martin gropius building , and ''exile the flight and emigration of european artists , '' at the neue nationalgalerie . the new guggenheim here is far less ambitious in architectural scope , budget and physical extent certainly than the titanium clad design of the 100 million bilbao guggenheim , which opened last month in spain . the soaring bilbao has some 112 , 000 square_feet of exhibition space and is displaying 247 works , while the berlin guggenheim measures just 3 , 800 square_feet and is 23 feet high . the delaunay show is a deliberately limited selection of works from three series painted between 1908 and 1914 the saint severin series , focusing on the ambulatory of the parisian church , the eiffel_tower series , and the windows series . but it is the very modesty of the physical surroundings and the tight focus of the exhibitions that the guggenheim foundation and deutsche_bank cite as virtues of the new gallery . they also mention the potential for commissioning artists to make works for the space inside the sandstone deutsche_bank building . ''smaller exhibits have a particular quality , and we want to use that , '' said rolf breuer , the chairman of the board of deutsche_bank , germany 's biggest bank , which plans to devote at least 1 . 3 million a year to what mr . krens called the ''project costs'' of setting up exhibits and commissioning work . the new guggenheim may well represent a curious symbiosis a modern_art museum bankrolled by a corporation that was a crucial financial_institution of the third reich . ''we look to the future , '' mr . krens said , however , ''not so much to the past . '' the works exhibited here will move between the various branches of the guggenheim network the delaunay show closes on jan . 4 and will be seen in the solomon r . guggenheim_museum in new york from jan . 16 through april 20 . similarly , work commissioned by the guggenheim foundation from james rosenquist for the bilbao branch will be displayed in berlin next year along with other work commissioned from the artist . three or four exhibitions are planned here annually . the two notions small shows and commissioning work by living artists were central to the appeal of opening the guggenheim in berlin , mr . krens said . ''the guggenheim sometimes tends to be associated with large projects , '' he said . ''and we were very interested in the notion of a small exhibit that focuses on very specific ideas . '' very little that happens in berlin can be separated from the city 's broader ambition to rival europe 's great capitals after the german_parliament moves here in 1999 . for both the deutsche_bank and the guggenheim , opening a new gallery on berlin 's most feted boulevard means having a slice of the action . ''we want the new capital to become a metropolis , and the difference between a capital and a metropolis is culture we want to contribute to that , '' mr . breuer said . the delaunay show has particular resonance here , according to mark rosenthal , the curator of 20th_century art at the guggenheim in new york . although the artist is often associated with france and the cubist era of picasso and braque , he said , ''the reality is that delaunay was most appreciated in germany , '' where he influenced kandinsky and the german expressionists august macke and franz marc . delaunay 's work figured in that group 's first exhibition in munich in 1911 , and his first solo exhibition was at der sturm , a berlin gallery , in 1913 . mr . rosenthal said the museum 's inaugural exhibition would illustrate delaunay 's ' 'special and unique vision'' and his ''accomplishments as an artist that have never been given their proper due . '' like many developments in modern day berlin , the new guggenheim is partly the fruit of the end of the cold_war . in 1993 , one year before the withdrawal of american_troops from the city , mr . krens said , he received a call from richard c . holbrooke , then the american ambassador . ''he pointed out that it might be a nice gesture to leave something behind , '' like a new guggenheim , he said . that idea took deeper root last year , when the deutsche_bank proposed the use of space at its refurbished offices for the latest guggenheim , which , mr . krens said , might well be the last . ''no more , either big or small , '' he said .",has a topic of arts
"a puckish question was raised on thursday night at new york_university ''was athanasius kircher the coolest guy ever , or what ? '' for those who have no idea who kircher was , let 's begin with the ''or what . '' the german jesuit athanasius kircher ( 1602 80 ) , a rough contemporary of descartes and galileo , was no ordinary man . he studied egyptian hieroglyphs and helped bernini with his fountain in the piazza navona . he made vomiting machines and eavesdropping statues . he transcribed bird song and wrote a book about musicology ( still used today ) . he taught nicolas poussin perspective and made a chamber of mirrors to drive cats crazy . he invented the first slide projector and had himself lowered into the mouth of mount vesuvius just as it was supposed to erupt . he proved the impossibility of the tower of babel and made a model of how the animals were arranged in noah 's ark . and he collected the objects that filled the museo kircheriano , rome 's first wunderkammer or collection of curiosities . kircher 's body is buried in rome . his heart is buried three hours away , at a shrine for st . eustace ( which he founded ) . and his star is on the rise . there have been recent conferences on kircher at stanford_university , the university of chicago and in rome . there was an exhibition of kircheriana , put on by david wilson at the museum of jurassic technology in los_angeles . on thursday , the new york institute for the humanities at new york_university threw a symposium for kircher 's 400th birthday . why the revival ? lawrence weschler , the head of the institute and the author of ''mr . wilson 's cabinet of wonders'' ( a book about the museum of jurassic technology ) , thinks it is because kircher is the premodern root of postmodern thinking . with his labyrinthine mind , he was jorge luis borges before borges . in the years before kircher 's death and for 300 years afterward , he was derided as a dilettante and crackpot . the rationalism and specialization of descartes had taken over . but now kircher 's taste for trivia , deception and wonder is back . wonder cabinets have become trendy . the j . paul getty museum recently had a show about wonder cabinets called ''devices of wonder'' and the new york public_library is opening ''a cabinet of curiosities'' in two weeks . the museum of jurassic technology , which is itself a modern day wunderkammer that includes replicas of kircher 's inventions , now has a small but fervent following . at thursday 's symposium , kircher 's postmodern qualities were evoked his subversiveness , his celebrity , his technomania and his bizarre eclecticism . ''in an age of polymaths , '' said anthony grafton , a professor at princeton_university , ''kircher was perhaps the most polymathic of them all . '' like other jesuits , kircher was a religious man and a world scholar trying to prove that aristotle and the bible were right . he knew hebrew , aramaic coptic , persian , latin and greek . but kircher was also ''a wild man , '' mr . grafton argued . he got away with all out heresy . one of kircher 's most daring acts was to write out a long list of egyptian kings , proving that egypt existed long before the world was even supposed to have been created . in a dry and sneaky way , kircher planted the idea that the bible was wrong . ''kircher found himself imagining deep time , '' mr . grafton said . and that was just the kind of thing that giordano bruno , the dogma hating metaphysician , was executed for . somehow kircher not only survived but continued to tweak authority in the open air of rome during the counter reformation . he made translations of egyptian hieroglyphs ( later discovered to be completely fanciful ) . he guided bernini in erecting an egyptian obelisk at the piazza navona and may even have helped him with the hydraulics for his fountain , which alluded subversively to kircher 's own ideas about the earth 's underground rivers . all that may not sound so radical , but in 17th_century rome it was an ''in your face'' thing to do , mr . grafton said . ''i used to think he was a fool , '' he added . ''and then i stood in the piazza navona . '' the folks in rome were n't the only ones kircher 's magic worked on . he had readers all over the world . paula findlen , a professor at stanford_university , says kircher was a celebrity in his own time , with a crazy fan club that extended all the way to the americas . kircher wrote some 60 volumes on astronomy , geology , magnetism , music and philology , in which he cited himself over and over again . kircher 's books were the first ''great coffee_table books , '' she said . people bought them to prove they were learned , to show that they were part of the international network of reading and writing . they did n't read so much as look at the pictures . one fan cut kircher 's picture out of a book and meditated on it to calm himself . another fan kept sending kircher chocolate in order to remain friends with him . kircher 's most ardent fan , a nun in mexico_city , decided to try to make herself over in the mold of kircher 's favorite goddess , isis , the mother of gods , the ruler of heaven and earth . she also transformed kircher 's name into a verb . kircherizing , she declared , is making connections among things . could such an astonishing man really have existed ? d . graham burnett of princeton_university demanded to know why no one in the audience was asking whether athanasius kircher , a master of deception , theatrics and play , was himself a fantasy . he got an answer . kircher would be nearly impossible to create , said michael john gorman , who is making an internet archive of kircher 's correspondence at stanford_university . if you wanted to make up kircher 's correspondence out of thin air , he suggested , you would have to write thousands of letters on 17th_century paper in suitable inks . the letters would be from 800 correspondents around the world writing in 30 different languages , including the universal language invented by kircher himself . and who else , mr . gorman asked , would think up such crazy machines as an organ driven by a drum that reproduces bird song , a fountain that lifts up a genie , a vomiting lobster , and a statue that pronounces delphic oracles ? what do these puzzling inventions have in common ? mr . gorman says kircher used them to explore and explode boundaries . take kircher 's talking statue , which is even trickier than it seems . it has a hidden intercom system . by standing in another room and speaking through a tube connected to the statue , you can make it appear to speak . or by putting your ear to the tube , you can overhear what the people in the other room with the statue are saying . kircher , mr . gorman said , was playing with ' 'deception and demonology , '' which was ''no laughing matter in the 17th_century . '' kircher also played on the boundary of decency . he made a magnetic jesus that would walk on water and embrace an image of peter . and a startling number of his machines do nothing but wretch and vomit . kircher was not beyond tormenting animals either . he planned a cat piano . if you struck a single key on this piano , a sharp spike would be driven into a cat 's tail , causing it to yowl . by arranging many cats according to the pitch of their yowls , kircher could make music . he produced a donkey choir on similar principles . one of kircher 's most cunning inventions was a catoptric box or chamber of mirrors , which could be used in a number of ways . if you put a coin in , you could watch people grab for the illusionary riches . or if you put a cat in , you could watch it chase the many reflections of itself until it would finally give up in a state of rage and indignation . kircher , mr . gorman said , ' 'made a spectacle of incivility , '' hoping that ''this theater of passions would reveal true natures . '' the last speaker of the evening was mr . wilson , the founder of the museum of jurassic technology . he credited kircher with inspiring a new kind of museum , one that evokes both wonder and skepticism . but is n't it possible that the ghost of kircher has seeped out of the museum 's walls ? mr . burnett says kircher did nothing less than set the terms for a new theory of knowledge , an epistemology based on deception and play . imagine that kind of approach to science . it is , mr . burnett said , ''a liberating way of thinking . '' or as the postmodern kirchenistas might put it , ''cool . ''",has a topic of arts
"for most people , chinese_ceramics means ming and ching dainty white vases with blue hermits meditating in soggy blue forests , hulking green pots with flowers crawling over them , or little teacups with red and blue dragons chasing in circles . even the museum quality examples of this stuff are uncomfortably reminiscent of hotel rooms and chinese restaurants . the ceramics in "" new finds , old treasures early chinese_ceramics from the meiyintang collection , "" at the asia_society , do not look like hotel room furniture . for one thing , the most recent objects in the show date from the 13th century and were made for the imperial court . in contrast , the ming and ching styles date from the 14th century to early this century and were made largely for export . the chinese kept the good stuff for themselves . ( did n't you always suspect as much ? ) for another , the exhibition begins in the fifth millennium b.c. , long before the emergence of anything recognizable as "" chinese "" culture . the pottery of the yangshao era ( 5000 to 1500 b.c. ) is decorated with geometric motifs similar to those on african and archaic greek pottery another reminder that abstraction is a fundamental tendency of the human mind , not an aberration of 20th_century art . the shang and chou dynasties , from around 1500 to 221 b.c. , are the great age of chinese bronzes , and the ceramics of this period are often the same shape as the bronze vessels . what 's surprising is that the ceramics seem to have different , more linear decorative motifs . the dragon mask ( tao tieh ) motif , which is nearly ubiquitous on the bronzes , is nowhere in evidence on the ceramics . a wonderful han dynasty jar ( just before the beginning of the christian era ) bears a scene of a mounted archer pursuing a tiger , surrounded by curving bands of white , beige and lavender it seems more reminiscent of indian than of chinese painting . only in the tang period ( a . d . 618 to 906 ) do the ceramics begin to look definitely chinese . several of the objects in this section of the show an earthenware camel , a tomb figure of a seated woman and a phoenix headed ewer have the distinctive combination of brownish red , blue and green glazes known as sancai . what 's special about sancai is not merely the choice of colors ( often imitated in later centuries ) but also the casualness of their application seemingly poured over the object , leaving large areas of raw clay bare . by the seventh century , chinese potters had reached a kind of sophistication that we often think of as particular to our own time . tired of technical perfection , they enlivened the exquisitely controlled forms of their work with a rough , haphazard use of color . this deliberate contradiction was refined in the sung period ( a . d . 960 to 1279 ) , which marks the high point of chinese_ceramics . in the ru , ge and guan styles of these centuries , simple shapes and subtle blue green glazes were enhanced with a network of tiny cracks called crazing . a label explains that the first cracks to appear were stained black , while the secondary cracks were colored golden brown the combination was known as "" iron wires and golden threads . "" after the imposing refinement of these pieces , it 's almost a relief to turn to the pottery of the liao , a "" barbarian "" tribe that conquered the north of china in the early 12th_century . the liao potters revived the warm colors of the sancai glazes , applying them over incised patterns of leaves and flowers that look like line drawings by matisse . throughout the exhibition , the objects are accompanied by wall texts and explanatory labels that provide just enough background for the layman while hinting at the more complex questions that preoccupy scholars . from room to room , the labels trace the technical evolution of the ceramics , from crude earthenware to harder stoneware up through the evolution of porcelain , made from special clays that fuse into the hardness and translucency of glass . a set of white bowls and cups from the eighth century may be nothing much to look at , but it is the direct ancestor of the plates of today . other labels explore the opposition between popular and court styles actually , it turns out that the latest archeological discoveries suggest that these were less different than scholars have thought . the unexplained mystery here has to do with the anonymous swiss collection from which the exhibition is drawn . ( "" meiyintang "" is not the name of the owners but a chinese word meaning "" hall among rose beds . "" ) the two volume catalogue available in the asia_society bookstore reveals that the 80 objects in the exhibition are merely a fraction of the collection . some of the objects here have long been famous , others are recent finds hence the show 's title , "" new finds , old treasures . "" it would be nice to learn more about the history of the collection in the meantime , it 's our good fortune to get a glimpse of its contents . "" new finds , old treasures early chinese_ceramics from the meiyintang collection "" remains at the asia_society galleries , 725 park_avenue , at 70th street , through june 18 . art review",has a topic of arts
"orville schell , a journalist and author who is one of the nation 's top china experts , has been appointed director of the asia_society 's newly established center on u.s . china relations , the society is to announce today . mr . schell , 66 , currently the dean of the graduate_school_of_journalism at the university of california , berkeley , will take over immediately but remain at the university until the spring . he will step down as dean but keep his faculty position . mr . schell said the center would conduct research , organize symposiums and work to educate the public on ''this incredibly important and complicated and sometimes manic relationship between the united_states and china . '' among the most pressing issues facing the two nations are the environment , intellectual_property , trade and human_rights , he said . ''global_warming is not going to be solved unless the united_states and china figure out how to do it , '' mr . schell said . ''everybody else is a bit player . '' equally important , mr . schell said , is whether china can ''peacefully evolve toward a more prosperous , democratic , environmentally sound society . '' based in new york , the center was established with a gift from arthur ross , a life trustee at the asia_society . ( mr . schell 's official title will be the arthur ross director . ) the organization will coordinate its research and education efforts with those of asia_society outlets around the world and with various institutes and policy organizations that focus on china . richard c . holbrooke , the chairman of the asia_society , who among numerous other past posts served as assistant secretary of state for east asian and pacific affairs from 1977 to 1981 , emphasized that the institute was not ''a lobbying group to set policy . '' ''this is to create a broader base of understanding between the two most important countries in the world , who are having an uncertain relationship right now , '' he said . mr . schell 's reporting on china has sometimes been highly critical , particularly after the government crackdown on tiananmen_square protesters in 1989 . but he is not associated with a political position , said vishakha n . desai , president of the asia_society . ''especially in the last decade , orville has been very involved with developing a collaborative relationship , without being an apologist or a critic , '' she said . ''that independent thinking is very important . '' mr . schell , the author of 14 books , 9 of them on china , contributes to numerous magazines and newspapers , including the new york times . he has also been a frequent commentator on network television . born in new york , he earned his bachelor 's degree at harvard_university with a major in far eastern history . he earned his master 's and doctoral degrees in chinese studies at berkeley . in the 1960 's he was an exchange student at national taiwan university . his wife , liu baifang , is chinese , and two of their three children are now studying in china . mr . schell also worked for the ford_foundation in indonesia and covered the war in indochina as a journalist for the new yorker and other publications . ''this country has worked its way into my life , lo , these 40 years , and in many ways it 's nice to come back to it full time , '' he said of china . ''china is one of those places where , once you get stuck on it or it on you it 's not easy to detach . '' correction_october 2 , 2006 , monday an article in the arts on tuesday about the appointment of the journalist orville schell as director of the asia_society 's new center on u.s . china relations included incorrect information from the society about his reporting on the war in indochina . although he wrote for several publications , the new yorker was not one of them . because of an editing error , the article also referred incorrectly to mr . schell 's academic record at the university of california , berkeley . although he worked toward a doctoral degree in chinese studies and passed his ph . d . oral examination , he did not earn his doctorate .",has a topic of arts
"cnn reported yesterday from iraq that it was keeping close tabs on the use of the satellite telephone that links its staff there with the rest of the world . two reports by the correspondent , peter_arnett , did not directly address allegations by other networks that cnn had made concessions to the iraqis in exchange for special access to news from baghdad . cnn has repeatedly denied such allegations . an article in the new york times yesterday quoted an abc_news vice_president , joanna bistany , as saying that she did not believe cnn 's assertion that the iraqis had been allowed to use the phone only to relay visa requests involving other journalists to the iraqi embassy in amman , jordan . when a cnn anchor tried to question mr . arnett about that , the correspondent said he had not heard the question but had been told about the article . he said he had heard reports that "" other news organizations are unhappy about not getting access to ours , "" referring to the cnn telephone . "" if you do n't have one in a place like baghdad , you 're on the outs and pretty sour about it . "" 'strictly supervised' mr . arnett 's second report showed journalists from french and british news organizations that have such devices . "" on instructions from cnn management in atlanta , "" he said , "" use of the telephones in baghdad is strictly supervised by the company 's six staffers at the al_rashid hotel . hours of transmission are limited to three times each day by the information ministry , each time around one hour . when the phones are not in use , they are dismantled and made inoperable . "" mr . arnett said other news organizations in baghdad were following similar procedures . one of his reports included interviews with employees of the independent television news of britain and agence_france_presse , who described dismantling their phones so that no one else could use them . "" when word of outside criticism was received here last week , "" mr . arnett said , iraqi officials "" agreed to use the english_language in any further communications abroad so we could monitor . "" "" one factor overrides all in our use of the phones , "" mr . arnett said . "" we believe that our conversations are being monitored by the eavesdropping resources of the u.s . defense establishment . none of us want to become targets , so we are careful about what we say and who says it . """,has a topic of arts
"to the editor as every new film about tibet is released , do we really need orville schell up on his high yak lecturing us about misperceptions of tibet 's past and the illusory nature of cinema ''under the spell of a culture opposite to the west 's , '' june 17 ? the ' 'many other westerners'' that i know , as opposed to those mentioned by mr . schell , are not sitting around in a shangri_la di da state of existential dread , craving some lost tibetan utopia . in fact , they are studying at the ever growing number of buddhist centers in the west , reading serious books by the dalai_lama and others , and using the brilliant tools imbedded in the deep wisdom of tibetan buddhism not only to help us see the true nature of our own culture , but also to help the world face up to the political realities brought on by the brutal chinese colonization of tibet . are artists , writers and filmmakers the authors of mr . schell 's ''virtual tibet , '' or is it a creation of journalists and critics who ca n't resist continually linking hollywood and tibet in the media ? anyway , it 's no longer about mr . schell 's antiquated notions of west versus east , of spiritual emptiness versus cross cultural nostalgia . it 's about our increased awareness of how the many wisdom traditions and cultures of the world complement each other . and that transcends both the virtual tibet and the real one . dana lafontaine minneapolis tibet",has a topic of arts
"'china and the far east photographs' westwood gallery 578 broadway , at prince street soho through aug . 7 john thomson ( 1837 1921 ) was a remarkable scottish born photographer who lived in and toured asia from 1862 to 1872 . lugging his big wooden view camera and 12 by 16 inch glass plates , he visited china , hong_kong , borneo , cambodia , siam , singapore and other exotic locales , braving hostilities to document the landscapes , people and customs of countries where westerners were commonly regarded with suspicion . he produced an important visual archive of the region , at which this show can only hint . fifteen of the prints on view are vintage 40 others are limited edition reprints from thomson 's original glass plate negatives , now owned by the wellcome institute in london . the vintage albumen photos naturally have much more appeal , but the others are carefully done as silver gelatin prints that retain the markings and imperfections of the originals . in the staid british outpost of hong_kong , a far cry from the glitzy skyscraper capital of today , thomson photographed such landmarks and events as the clock_tower , the botanical gardens , the happy valley race_track , the white stag temple , the central waterfront wharf with its long line of low , handsomely arcaded buildings , and the visit of the duke of edinburgh in 1869 , marked by a flotilla of bannered boats in the harbor . but while his views of hong_kong and other places are notable for their documentary quality , it was people who brought out the real photojournalist in him . the king of siam , photographed in european and in siamese regalia a farmer being trundled to market in a wheelbarrow with a pig lashed to it prosperous looking chinese merchants and ministers of state , street gamblers , a pigtailed schoolboy , the many denizens of an ornate yangtze house boat , a quartet of borneo tribesmen posing with spears and shields , the dignified profile of an old cantonese woman these are some of the more memorable ''people'' photographs in the show . the match of artistry and technical skill they reveal gives thomson 's work its power . grace_glueck art in review",has a topic of arts
"it was a cold night in the global village . the war in iraq was about to begin . across the street from the empire_state_building , in an auditorium at the graduate center of the city_university of new york , a celebration of marshall mcluhan , the media prophet of the 1960 's , was also beginning . the auditorium was nearly full . mcluhan , of course , is the man who coined the term ''global village , '' came up with phrase ''the medium is the message'' and drew the strange distinction between a ''hot , '' or sharp , medium ''one that extends one single sense in 'high_definition' '' and a ''cool , '' or fuzzy , medium . hot media ( like radio and lectures ) are packed with data , leaving little room for individual interpretation or participation . cool media ( like the telephone and seminars ) leave a lot of room . the mcluhan program included a hot medium , a film about mcluhan by kevin mcmahon titled ''mcluhan 's wake , '' followed up with a cool one , a panel discussion . then everyone was cast out into the cold night to return to their cool media sets ( their televisions ) to watch the war begin . why mcluhan now ? this is not an anniversary year for him . he was born in edmonton , alberta , in 1911 and died in toronto in 1980 . his two best known books , ''the gutenberg galaxy the making of typographic man'' and ''understanding media the extensions of man , '' were published in 1962 and 1964 , respectively . and anyway , before he died he had become something of a laughingstock . he railed against bureaucrats by citing the failure of the king 's men to put humpty dumpty together again and enthused over a juice commercial '' 'glug , glug , glug' that 's great television ! '' but the war in iraq particularly the television coverage of the war brings out something fresh and bright in mcluhan . one of the last chapters of ''understanding media'' is about weaponry . and it happens to come right after the chapter on television . mcluhan 's stroke of genius was to anchor his theory of history in the realm of the senses , as anne middleton wagner , an art historian at the university of california at berkeley , suggested last month at a boston symposium , ''mediators medium and its messages . '' because mcluhan saw the media as extensions of the human body printed books as extensions of eyes , radios as extensions of ears he believed that each new technological advance would reshape humanity and traumatize it , too . ''we shape our tools and our tools shape us . '' once upon a time , the city served as ''a collective shield or plate armor , '' an extension of our skins , mcluhan wrote in 1964 . but with the coming of the electronic age , mcluhan said , ''we put our whole nervous system outside ourselves . '' we live in a highly sensitized global village . the world , as laurie anderson said in the mcluhan movie , is like ''a buzzing forest , stirring all around you . '' this was a strange image to take home as the war in iraq began on television . suddenly the world and the war took on a mcluhanesque cast . the tanks rolling into iraq from the south were not just tanks but extensions of marching legs and protective skin . the night_vision_goggles were extensions of eyes . and what about those television cameras attached to the tanks ? they were harder to classify . mcluhan declared television a cool medium . he said that television , unlike film , radio or print , presents a fuzzy , low definition , mosaiclike image , which leaves a lot of details to be filled in by those who watch it . it is a ''participant medium , '' sucking people into its vortex and demanding ' 'maximal interplay of all the senses . '' of course , mcluhan did not live to see high_definition_television . but the grainy , jumpy videophone images being beamed back from iraq would have been familiar to him . indeed , they give him a second wind as a theorist of television . so what happens when a cool medium like television is attached to a hot weapon like a tank or a bradley_fighting_vehicle ? it exerts a powerful effect on the audience . suddenly everyone watching television is dragged into war . when there is a sandstorm , you , the audience , ca n't see ahead any better than the troops . when the fight 's going smoothly , you feel that maybe the war will be quick and easy . when the camera is attached to a smart bomb , you might feel that you have become the bomb . mcluhan understood this kind of tactile television experience . ''in closed_circuit instruction in surgery , medical students from the first reported a strange effect that they seemed not to be watching an operation , but performing it , '' he wrote . ''they felt that they were holding the scalpel . '' television , he continued , ''in fostering a passion for depth involvement in every aspect of experience , creates an obsession with bodily welfare . '' with the war rolling ahead on television , you the viewer are made a part of the invading army . even the local meteorologists participate in the illusion . they give two weather reports sunshine in new york , sandstorms in basra . meanwhile , just as the audience feels a part of the army , the army becomes part of the audience . american_troops on an aircraft_carrier watch cnn to see how the war is playing and progressing . soldiers are watching other soldiers on television . that is , there is general confusion as to who is acting and who is watching . and at the crux of the confusion are the traditional eyewitnesses to war , the journalists , ''embedded'' with the troops . are the television cameras the witnesses to war , or are they part of the weaponry ? or both ? in this war , the perception of winning is almost the same as winning . if saddam_hussein can appear to be in power on television , he is in power . if the united_states military can show the world that it is winning , then it is winning . this , in turn , puts the iraqi people in a bind . they have to appear loyal to anyone who might be in power . early in the war , when it looked as if the united_states and britain were going to have an easy victory , an american soldier starting tearing down the image of saddam_hussein , and an iraqi man took his shoe off and pounded on the picture , then turned and smiled for the camera . this is what i want you to know about me , he seemed to say . when space is filled with satellites , all the world becomes a proscenium arch , the narrator of the mcluhan movie suggested . the phrase ''theater of war'' becomes literal . almost four decades ago , mcluhan noted that war had become less ''hot , '' less a matter of tanks and soldiers , and more ''cool , '' a participatory event . ''the french phrase 'guerre de nerfs' '' war of nerves ''of 25 years ago has since come to be referred to as 'the cold_war , ' '' he wrote , linking his own lingo of cool and hot with the language of international_politics . he understood the cold_war as ''an electric battle of information and of images . '' maybe it is no accident that in ''understanding media , '' mcluhan 's brief chapter on weapons , follows his long chapter on television . he proposed that ''all technology can plausibly be regarded as weapons . '' and now , in his own muddled way , he seems to be right on target . television cameras are weapons . the battle in iraq is being fought with cool weapons mounted onto hot ones . it 's a warm war in the global village . critic's_notebook",has a topic of arts
"cavin morris gallery 560 broadway , at prince street soho through tomorrow with minimal resources and fanfare , new york galleries regularly open doors to new cultural realms . this splendid little show surveys the relatively unstudied terrain of ceremonial textiles and wedding objects ( blankets ) made by some of the dozens of indigenous ethnic minorities alternately ignored and persecuted who occupy china 's vast , sparsely_populated border areas . for centuries they have pursued their own traditions , absorbing elements from vietnam , laos , thailand and myanmar as well as from china 's han majority . techniques involve ikat , indigo dye , silk embroidery and appliqu . religion is usually a mix of animism , buddhism and ancestor worship . hybridization dominates , as does a penchant for geometric patterns that seem abstract but are usually encoded genealogies . a sumptuous long bei ( dragon cover ) from around 1900 , made by a subgroup of the li peoples of hainan_island off the coast of south_china , is embroidered with dragons and phoenixes . the motifs originated in 13th century commissions from the han emperors but gradually became so sacred to the li that objects like this are seldom displayed . another subgroup , the meifu li , takes a different tack ceremonial skirts whose intricate patterns have a fine grain , almost digital intricacy , represent rows of pacman like figures ( also ancestors ) and reflect the influence of buzzy indonesian ikat weaving . the yao , one of the hill tribes of south_china , are responsible for a shaman 's robe whose long stitch embroidery in red , black and gold conveys a bristling vitality not unlike a basquiat painting , while its mural like tiers of priests and guardians reflect vietnamese and laotian influences . also of yao origin are blankets of recycled fabric whose appliqu d motifs evoke american quilts and distill lotuses into diamonds fluted by eight gently curved lines . this show can give you a humbling inkling of how much you do n't know and new perspectives on what little you do . roberta_smith",has a topic of arts
"lead the weimar_republic was born in 1919 , one month after the treaty of versailles , and lasted until 1933 , when it was deposed by the nazis . except for a few years prior to the world depression , the period was one of political and economic chaos that was in large part the result of the harsh terms imposed on the weimar_republic was born in 1919 , one month after the treaty of versailles , and lasted until 1933 , when it was deposed by the nazis . except for a few years prior to the world depression , the period was one of political and economic chaos that was in large part the result of the harsh terms imposed on germany by the treaty . nevertheless , the weimar government gave germany the most democratic constitution that it had received so far and presided over what was probably the most influential culture ever to arise there . this was the era that produced the far from objective new objectivity of otto dix and georg grosz and the more substantial realism of max beckmann , as well as the german branch of dada , pioneered by kurt schwitters and max ernst . it was also the heyday of walter gropius 's bauhaus , where everything required for a whole new society was taught , from architecture to typography and from painting to photography . one of the six weimar photographers that are now featured at the state university 's neuberger museum in purchase is laszlo moholy nagy , who taught at the bauhaus . most of the images representing him were taken during his tenure . the futuristically angled bird 's eye views of figures and landscape epitomize the school 's avant_garde optimism . albert renger patzch , although he belonged to the new objectivity movement , was more the esthete than the social commentator . a print by this photographer , whether it be of essen smokestacks or a grove of conifers loaded with snow ( he evidently could not resist towering verticals ) , is invariably a deep focus exercise in design and exquisitely graduated grays . as they are hung here , renger patzch 's pictures relate to each other like the lines of a sonnet the view of a railway viaduct supported by blind round headed arches next to a study of perpendicular style vaulting in a danzig church the fleshy leaves of a succulent close to portraits of clear eyed young country women . stephen jarecki , the organizer of the show and a curator of photography at the worcester art museum , where it originated , notes that hugo erfurth ''carried over into the late 1920 's the best german art traditions of the pre world_war i era . '' this and his frequent use of oil pigment as a printing medium makes him seem more old fashioned than he was . in fact , nothing could be more of its disaffected time than his portrait of the blond , cross looking otto dix ( who could be a forebear of robert rauschenberg ) or , for that matter , the companion study of the painter 's dark_haired wife , who is as plump as he is lean . erfurth pounces upon the dark slanting eyes of the young konrad adenauer , making him seem to have just arrived from the steppes of asia . his lovis corinth has the air of a fugitive from justice ( the painter never fully recovered from a stroke sustained in 1911 ) and his gropius is a mid 1920 's ''j . r . '' ( both prints are included in the catalogue but not the show . ) it is these likenesses more than any other that bring germany alive not just as the perennial villain of history but also as the embodiment of the spirit that bedeviled the empire builders of rome but that contributed so much to the civilization that they inaugurated . and it is just as well , for such a show inevitably arouses an almost prurient need to search for the causes of nazism as if images could reveal them . there are plenty of pictures guaranteed to fan the flame of obsession but none are more mesmerizing than august sander 's portraits of a student and a lawyer , both of whom are marked by dueling scars . not a beauty in the first place , the student wears a quasi military_uniform with a pillbox hat and the scars meander across his face like stray hairs . but it is the lawyer who makes the blood freeze , perhaps because he is a mature man posed in his robes of office . the cicatrixes that initiate an african tribesman into manhood are usually organized into a becoming pattern . the scars clustering around the lawyer 's mouth and biting into his hairline are as random as those on a street wise tomcat . sander , a pioneer of the disinterested approach made notorious by diane arbus and her followers , stops the show with his laconic record of humanity . still , it is not detachment that makes his picture of a little blind girl explaining something to a smaller boy with a gesture that he , being also blind , ca n't see so memorable . werner mantz captures another aspect of the period with his crystal sharp photographs of interiors and exteriors , many of them bauhaus in style , and with softer focused portraits of architects and other celebrities . even so , the pictures that will arouse the greatest interest in american viewers will most likely be those by dr . erich salomon . the son of a banker , salomon became the scarlet pimpernel of photojournalism by virtue of the adroitness with which he could conceal his camera when necessary . a major coup is the literally black and white shot of a witness testifying at a murder trial that he took through a hole in his bowler hat . generally , though , salomon 's prints are more impressive for their content than their appearance . for instance max planck , ramsay macdonald and a smiling einstein consorting with a mr . schmitz , of i . g . farben , and assorted politicians mussolini and dr . heinrich bruning in a caucus that manages to look conspiratorial despite being perched on foolish little 18th_century chairs upholstered in a floral design . sad to say , salomon 's resourcefulness did n't save him from auschwitz . making their last stop at the neuberger , these wonderful photographs remain through march 29 . by the way , visitors should know that the catalogue , though informative , was designed for a another , smaller version of the show and , as such , is not the greatest buy at 15 . art",has a topic of arts
"for years , the last place to look for a modern display of chinese_art was in china . now that may be changing with the opening of china 's first western style museum here , more than a dozen years after its original sponsor first conceived of it . the arthur m . sackler_museum of art and archeology , which opened in beijing on may 27 , has joined a string of sackler galleries and museums around the world . this one primarily displays relics and fossils discovered by chinese archeologists . the opening was the culmination of years of trans_pacific dreams and headaches . but running a museum in china entails special challenges , and the headaches could get worse . it is not even clear , for example , whether the museum will be opened to the public , except to specialists who make appointments or to those chinese and foreigners pushy enough to talk their way past the guards . the museum is inside beijing_university , where guards stand at each gate to keep visitors out . for now , by appointment only "" they have assured us they will let in outside visitors , "" said jill sackler , mr . sackler 's widow , on a visit to beijing for the opening ceremony . still , for now , visits are by appointment . dr . arthur m . sackler , a psychiatrist and medical publisher who donated millions of dollars to the arts before he died in 1987 , gave 10 million to have the museum built in beijing in partnership with a group of chinese archeologists . but the sackler team has just handed over control and responsibility to the chinese partners and the authorities , who have no experience operating a modern museum . one major challenge is how the chinese will pay maintenance costs , including an estimated 70 , 000 a year in electricity bills . the museum was designed with two separate lighting systems , so the chinese can turn the lights up to make it look like any western museum , or dim them to save money . the success of the museum will hinge on how well the chinese manage it . one parallel , and it is not encouraging , is of western designed hotels that have been handed over to chinese management . inevitably , six months after they are turned over , cockroaches emerge , the plumbing leaks , the wallpaper and carpets accumulate a camouflage pattern of stains and the staff members replace their smiles with scowls . indeed , the american architect i . m . pei declined an offer to design the sackler_museum in beijing , apparently for just that reason . his previous effort in china , the fragrant hills hotel in beijing , is run by local managers and has quickly degenerated into a second_rate establishment . the bills are especially onerous for the chinese partners , the archeology department of beijing_university . the university may be among the nation 's leading institutions , and the department may be the best in the nation , but neither has much money to pay for the museum . so the department is seeking to raise money through a new museum shop and entrance tickets . but neither the shop nor the tickets are likely to raise much money if the public is not invited . while the department says it wants outsiders to visit , the university seems reluctant to ease its restrictions on visitors . in fact , university officials hesitated before allowing foreign reporters to attend the museum opening , and they escorted a restricted number of journalists in and out of the campus . "" we are in the middle of negotiating a way to resolve this problem , "" said li boqian , the director of the new museum and the chairman of the university 's archeology department . "" we want this museum to be a window for cultural exchange between china and the rest of the world . "" where to display artifacts ? with 4 , 000 years of history , china may have more archeological artifacts above and below ground than any other place in the world . today 's economic boom is sending construction shovels into the ground at breakneck_speed , so the number of accidental finds is growing every month . the problem is that there has been nowhere safe and attractive to show them off . in a typical local museum , most pieces sit_in dirty showcases under a faint yellow lightbulb . but at the new sackler_museum , 800 year old porcelains , 2 , 200 year old bronzes and 4 , 500 year old ceramics are displayed in pristine cases , like pieces in sackler galleries in the smithsonian institution in washington , the royal academy of art in london and at harvard_university . the new museum occupies a pavilion with a spacious courtyard recalling the imperial style residences in the summer palace , where chinese emperors would read poetry and listen to the lute . inside , however , a visitor walks through wide , open corridors and rooms painted in subtle tones of beige and white that reflect light . the inaugural exhibitions featured a few remarkable relics , including the fractured skull and bones of a golden buffalo mountain man the chinese call jinniushan man . the fossil , which chinese scientists say is 280 , 000 years old , is early and different enough that it has led some experts to cast doubt on the theory that all people are descendants of a single african ancestor . after the exhibition ends , the fossils are to be returned to a secret vault , and copies will be displayed instead . most chinese museums , which have poor security , do this , and the archeology department will do the same with its prized possessions . chinese archeologists say they hope the museum will inject new life into a field that is underfinanced and understaffed . these days , with money becoming the major focus of chinese society , the life of a chinese archeologist does not inspire envy , and its organizers say they hope that a modern museum will lure students who are genuinely interested in the field . from the start , chinese authorities said they considered the museum a sensitive project . initially , the government was even hesitant to accept the museum as a gift from mr . sackler , partly because it was generally suspicious of westerners . the project finally got under way in 1986 , but ran into many snags and the opening was delayed several times . one mundane , time consuming task , for example , was to properly clean and repair the collection 's 10 , 000 objects , many of which had never been restored .",has a topic of arts
"lead the trevi fountain , one of rome 's most famous landmarks , is to receive a waterproof basin as part of an 830 , 000 restoration scheduled to begin next spring . the trevi fountain , one of rome 's most famous landmarks , is to receive a waterproof basin as part of an 830 , 000 restoration scheduled to begin next spring . the superintendent of the city 's antiquities , maria luisi cardilli , said most of the work would be on the marble statues that form the backdrop to the fountain . she said the basin , which is made of porous travertine stone , had developed leaks . work on the baroque 18th_century fountain , into which tourists throw thousands of coins daily . is expected to last one year .",has a topic of arts
"to the editor it 's a sad , but hardly surprising , fact that conservative groups are targeting gays as scapegoats for the cruelty toward detainees at abu_ghraib . the peculiar logic seems to be that most pornography , especially gay pornography , is sadomasochistic , which it is n't . besides , sadomasochism , as it is usually understood , is a form of sexual acting out between consenting adults . when those adults are n't participating of their own free will , it becomes a form of cruelly violent dehumanization . the claim that gay porn can corrupt members of the military also makes the peculiar assumption that the soldiers have somehow studied it , which would give a new meaning to army training films . there were few protests when the grisly postmortem photos of uday and qusay_hussein were plastered all over the news_media . maybe those images , and not gay porn , served as inspiration for those military shutterbugs . michael ehrhardt manhattan abu_ghraib",has a topic of arts
"a sampling of opinion about the city 's future as a cultural_capital , compiled by kevin cote , editor of zitty , a biweekly guide to cultural events in berlin . thomas ostermeier theater director i think , yes , berlin will become the cultural_capital of germany . the question is what you believe culture to be , though . west_berlin was unique for a while an island city , no military conscription , a big university , lots of independent theater , a dream of an alternative life style come true . all this got a second wind with the fall of the berlin_wall . squatted houses , this time in east_berlin a new , impulsive music scene . theater was also part of it . it was possible to see a city emerging that was being created out of itself . but the official cultural policy today is more directed at drawing big names into the city . through this so called lighthouse principle , a kind of showcase culture is supposed to develop . in the theater business there is on the one hand a spreading hysteria , and on the other a certain overestimation of the value of what it might mean to produce works here . a number of theater people believe you 've got to be here because what took place here in the 1920 's when playing berlin was the goal of every provincial actor or director is being brought back to life . the situation is similar now . policy_makers are trying to create an image of berlin as the center of german theatrical life . anatol gotfryd art collector i 'm afraid berlin 's cultural scene wo n't amount to much as long as we do n't have a daily newspaper with an arts section that is influential across the nation . this has always been a problem in postwar berlin . richter and beuys first exhibited here , baselitz and lupertz lived here , but each had to go elsewhere to become famous . culture will not function in a city without influential criticism . another point is the presence of institutions that promote culture , and most of those in berlin have either disappeared or had their budgets reduced drastically . there was a microclimate of culture in west_berlin as long as there were subsidies . as a result of political lack of interest today , berlin 's culture is in a state of disintegration . it must be reorganized . you notice it most in the theater , where there have been closings . but the real problem is that there 's no real vision any more . in the 60 's and 70 's , there was upheaval straight across the board in the arts because there was a vision . and berlin , west_berlin , played a role impulses originated here . but today , what kind of vision can you expect from sponsors like the deutsche_bank ? jane garber fashion_designer berlin is definitely developing into a cultural_capital . i ca n't say much about the situation earlier in west_berlin i can only judge from the perspective of east_berlin 's former underground scene . and what 's happening now is a further development of what we were doing then . lots of people that i know from those days are still working , but under different conditions . sure , life has become more diverse in many respects , but it was also diverse back then . in comparison with paris , i 'd say berlin has lots more diversity in its arts and cultural life . i find paris much more conservative , stuck in a rut in a way . maybe it 's because here you had these two cities that suddenly came together , and in the process a clash of two fundamentally different cultures . the result was n't a unified german culture that could easily be interpreted . instead , you had two that complemented and advanced each other . a good example is on the club scene after all , that 's culture , too . you wo n't find anything comparable in paris . mirko heinemann rock musician berlin is on the way to becoming a cultural_capital . there are signs on the horizon . at the moment , the city is still off the beaten track in the pop and rock_music scene . we 're in the east , far from the music centers of london , paris and new york . the big record companies never paid a lot of attention to berlin , though that 's changing . columbia records is planning on moving here from frankfurt in september or october . the sony_corporation is moving its european headquarters here . these are signs that the music_industry will be placing more importance on berlin . virgin is expanding its presence here . columbia is searching for talent scouts . so it 's clear the big companies are looking more closely at the local music scene . a network of artists is just emerging from the underground and beginning to earn a bit of money . booking agencies are also becoming more important . earlier they were located in frankfurt or stuttgart or even smaller cities . now they 're moving here or working with local agencies , who are very busy at the moment . when the infrastructure is set up , it will draw talent . i already know of musicians from hamburg , cologne and munich who are all moving to berlin . sasha waltz choreographer in berlin the audiences are curious , and they are quite open for unknown performances and artists , so there is a lot of diversity on the cultural scene . but in other respects the city has changed a lot since i came here in 1990 . i had a grant and was looking for space , for opportunities to make things happen . there was plenty of open space in the eastern part of the city , in mitte . i had my first studio in the hackesche hof . a lot of artists from different countries were attracted there too they could feel the energy . then we all had to move out . the investors came in and tore the place apart , and now there is a huge new complex there . we 're hoping the sopiensaele , the space where i work now , will survive . the danger is that money is being redirected to bigger cultural projects . but when everything is too tightly organized , when funds are already apportioned in advance , it is very difficult to give a chance for something new . a city needs a free pool of artists and opportunities for the arts to take root and grow . i 'm often referred to as a ''young , up and coming talent'' but i 'm established now . there has to be something left over for artists who really are at the beginnings of their careers and need support . hans_joachim neumann film critic there is a lot of everything in berlin plenty on the stage , lots of film , lots of literature . quantitatively , there is much , but in terms of the quality that radiates out of berlin , it is less . compared with what was going on here in the first third of this century anyway , much less . quantity is always confused with quality here . there is no real metropolitan spirit in berlin . in paris , new york and london there are narrow minded , dimwitted people , but there are also business elites , artistic elites , technical elites . we do n't have any of these people in berlin . they have been eliminated in steps . it started with the immigration in 1933 , then the murder of the jews , and continued with the expulsion of the merchant class after 1945 in the east , and the exodus out of west_berlin after the wall went up in 1961 . berlin 's heyday as a cultural_capital cannot be reconstructed so quickly . barbara blickensdorff gallery owner everyone is living under the impression that the outlook is very good , that something is happening , developing . but at the moment , it 's more like marching through deep sand . you have to work incredibly hard to get anything organized . for visual_arts , berlin is truly tough going . we 're missing a broad , deep layer of private collectors . sure , there are good collectors and also highly cultivated people here , but far fewer than in other places like cologne or frankfurt or dusseldorf . in berlin , people like to look at art they are interested in artistic innovation . but buying is not necessarily the next logical step . so as a gallery owner you have it much harder here than elsewhere in germany . but at the same time , it is more exciting . there is all this creative potential just flowing into the city . a lot is taking place here , but only because of the extraordinary efforts of people behind the scenes . yotta kippe art student i 'm not sure berlin will gain in importance as far as the arts go . there is a lot going on , but the big things are somehow always subsidized , like the berlin biennial for contemporary_art . you can always do something with this kind of money , but it 's not the same as money from private individuals , from collectors . for that reason , it 's harder to make a living here as an artist than in other european cities . there is just not a collecting consciousness . even established artists here depend on their professorships for income . baselitz insists that he gets more for his teaching assignments . i also work in brussels , and there , people are truly interested in collecting . at every opening there you always see a few red dots on the titles of sold works , which is not the case in berlin . though it is difficult for artists here in general , i 'm not pessimistic . there is too much going on that is really positive . there are plenty of initiatives that are not motivated purely by profit , so we still have lots of idealistic galleries . volker diehl gallery owner there are few places in the world where so much is happening on the social and cultural fronts in such a short period as in berlin . the problem for the future is that the whole idea of location is not so important as it was 30 , 40 years ago . in those days , you could n't fly to anywhere in the world within a few hours for a few hundred dollars . in those days , the location , whether it was new york or paris , really was important . this is a danger because many people today wo n't decide for berlin , saying location makes less difference . the other problem is that development intervals have become so short , so tight , that if a place has n't evolved as expected in three or four years , people lose patience . there were a lot of investors with cultural interests in berlin at the start of the 1990 's . they looked around for a while , then said '''this is taking too much time . the politicians and bureaucracy are slow moving we ca n't make money i 'll invest somewhere else . '' today we hardly give a city a chance to develop . from the formation of the german reich in the 1870 's until the 1920 's , we had five decades to develop into a central , world class metropolis . the location issue and the compressed time factor are real burdens for the city 's future cultural development , and i do n't know what can be done to counteract them . the new berlin",has a topic of arts
"the ancient romans outdid almost everyone in making glorious glass objects . their italian descendants repeated that feat twice during two different periods . and while the impressive achievements of the renaissance have been well documented , those of the mid 20th_century are only now becoming widely known . the radical innovations that raised italian glass produced between 1930 and 1970 to the highest levels can now be seen in an exhibition at the corning museum of glass here in upstate new york and at two other exhibitions in manhattan . a remarkable example of the wit , daring and fragile beauty of these works is a frosty white bowl at the entrance to the exhibition here . with its rippled sides , it looks like a giant napkin of stiffened chiffon glowing in the light . the show , ''italian glass 1930 1970 masterpieces of design from murano and milan , '' which runs through nov . 9 , presents 200 pieces , forming the first comprehensive survey of this style in america . the white bowl was designed in 1935 by pietro chiesa , a milanese painter , and is a tour de force of glassmaking that has helped revive interest in works of this period . it was made from a thin , round windowpane , which , when heated , softened and collapsed into folds . chiesa 's savvy use of industrial glass to make such an elegant work anticipates the explosion of similar ideas with plastics and metals that took place in the 1960 's , when italian design revolutionized the look of furniture and lighting throughout the world . susanne k . frantz , curator of 20th_century glass at the museum , said the chiesa bowl epitomized the pioneering nature of these pieces . ''it was finished a year before alvar aalto 's more famous piece , a vase with rippled sides , was introduced in finland , '' she pointed out . ''and the bowl prefigures the biomorphic glass of the 1940 's and the modernist works of the 1950 's . '' the most innovative glass designer in the 1930 's and 40 's was carlo scarpa , a venetian architect . a master of deception , scarpa designed many pieces that looked like anything but glass a mottled blue bottle simulates stone , and a black bowl with a matte surface , speckled in white , resembles a piece of inlaid lacquer . scarpa 's transparent glass works are dazzlers delicately striped with wavering bands of reds and blues or patterned with miro like imagery . the colors intensify and the art images multiply in the work of fulvio bianconi , murano 's leading artist during the 1950 's . working with paolo venini , the producer most identified with 20th_century italian glass , bianconi designed vases and bottles that looked like abstract paintings as well as some high priced kitsch tall , masked theatrical figures wearing traditional venetian costumes . by the 1950 's , despite works by artists like picasso , miro and le corbusier , most of the excitement in murano came from lesser known designers . a bright_yellow ewer with a black zigzag handle by willy georges vuilleumier , a swiss sculptor , suggests a headless woman , living up to its name ''sensule . '' the pieces in the show at corning were collected in the 1980 's by the steinberg foundation of liechtenstein in consultation with rainer zietz , a london based german antiques_dealer who began buying 20th_century italian glass 20 years ago . another early collector , barry friedman , organized ''design italian style , '' an exhibition of furniture and 100 pieces of glass at his gallery on 67th street near madison_avenue , which runs through july 11 . some glass works are even included in ''masterworks italian design 1960 1994 , '' an exhibition of furniture , lighting and electronics at the bard graduate center on 86th_street off central_park west . scholars have only now begun to catch up with what collectors and dealers understood intuitively about the excellence of italian glass . the first such research on the style was done by eva schmitt , a german glass historian , and helmut ricke , director of the dusseldorf art_museum in germany , where the exhibition opened last fall . the two , who organized the exhibition , used information found in magazines and catalogues along with the production records of scores of glass factories and workshops in murano and milan to identify the designers and producers and determine when the pieces were made . ''italian mid century glass has been hot for 10 years , '' said ms . frantz , the curator at corning . ''but collectors and dealers who did most of the buying had to rely on their gut instincts in what they chose . there was no reliable information in print about most pieces . now , finally , we 're getting concrete documentation . '' vintage race car is sold a 1927 bugatti type 35b grand_prix race car , which was written about in this space last week , sold at christie 's on april 26 for 486 , 500 . arts artifacts",has a topic of arts
"when a fire broke out recently in an attic of the royal palace here , the flames were quickly detected and extinguished . but that accident reignited a simmering controversy over the way the palace is being used that is far more difficult to stamp out . the reggia di caserta , begun in the mid 18th_century for charles iii , the bourbon king of naples , to rival versailles , is one of the most imposing palaces in europe . president_clinton dined under its gold ceilings during the group of seven summit meeting held in naples in 1994 . the director george lucas chose its late baroque marble staircase for a scene in his coming ''star_wars'' movie , ''episode one the phantom menace . '' the palace has 1 , 200 rooms ( versailles has 700 ) and is surrounded by a 250 acre park that includes a 256 foot cascade . unlike versailles , however , the palace in caserta is not solely a museum . only 44 rooms are open to the public . eight hundred rooms are now under military_occupation specifically , the italian air force 's training school for noncommissioned_officers . the museum director , the culture ministry and art lovers want the military out . but the general in command at caserta and his men would prefer to stay , and they argue that they have no other place to go . local officials are caught in the middle they want the military to leave the palace , but they also want them to stay in caserta , where they provide 300 jobs and spend about 9 million a year . the emotional , many sided battle being fought in caserta , moreover , is decades old , and far from unique . it took nearly 50 years , but the culture ministry finally secured an agreement with the defense and finance ministries in 1997 to move an officers' club out of the palazzo barberini , one of italy 's national galleries , in rome . retired officers are still having genteel lunches there under the 17th_century dining_room 's ceiling fresco , but the museum is renovating a smaller 1930 's villa in the back of the property in the expectation that the officers will move someday . in italy , a country overflowing with art treasures and historical monuments , countless buildings have cultural significance . the italian military owns or occupies some of the finest properties , including a 14th century convent in perugia now used by the army as a foreign language school . but police academies , tax inspectors and dentists also work out of historic buildings . the incident at caserta , which occurred shortly after the new culture minister , giovanna melandri , was appointed , lighted a fire in rome . mrs . melandri , 36 , vowed to expel the military from caserta and from dozens of other cultural sites . she said the air_force had agreed to find a new location by feb . 2 . ''our patrimony is so rich and enormous , it would be impossible to turn it all into museums , '' mrs . melandri said in an interview in her office . ''but we have to look at improper use of historical buildings . in caserta , we need to find a use for the available space that is more compatible with a museum . a military school is incompatible . '' in caserta , from opposite wings of a palace spread over four courtyards , the soldiers and the museum workers seem as compatible as hostile neighbors in a crowded neapolitan high rise . vincenzo zuccaro , a museum public_relations official , indignantly pointed out an 18th_century vault fresco by mariano rossi that had to be restored because of water damage that mr . zuccaro said was caused by cadets' showers above . the museum director , livio ricciardi , complained about cooking smells from the school kitchens . but he confessed that he had no plans or proposals on how to use the additional rooms if and when the school moves out . ''we hope they 'll leave soon , but when they do , we 'll be at a loss , '' he said . ''for one thing , i do n't know what rooms they have and what they look like . '' asked why not , he replied , ''i 've never been invited . '' the commander of the school , which was established here in 1948 , said that as a soldier , he would obey orders to retreat from the palace . ''caserta is in our hearts , '' said the commander , gen . alessio santicchi . ''of course we would be unhappy to leave but that is a sentimental discourse . on a practical level , if they told us , leave so we can do this this and this , i would understand . but to be told just to go away , that i do not understand . '' like other officers there , general santicchi argued that the school spends 800 , 000 a year to maintain its part of the building , and is a useful tenant . he argued that the fire was detected , and put out , only because his men were living nearby . ''our fear is that if we leave , nothing will take our place , '' he said . ''it 's like seeing a home turn into an abandoned house . '' but his case is complicated by the fact that 10 years ago , the air_force decided that the palace was getting too small for the school , and began building a 125 million complex eight miles away in capua , with most of the money coming from the european economic community . it took 10 years to build , and by the time it was close to completion , cuts in the military_budget had whittled down enrollment at the school from 2 , 000 , to 900 today . now , the air_force argues , capua is too large for the school , and would be too costly to run . mrs . melandri said it was the military 's problem to find a new site by feb . 2 . general santicchi noted that even if the air_force chose capua , that site was not ready for habitation . ''they have n't built the barracks , and that could take another year or two , '' he said . caserta 's mayor , luigi falco , who said he wanted to convert other unused military buildings in town for the school , laughed merrily at mrs . melandri 's february deadline . ''that , '' he said , ''is not a realistic deadline . it 's an italian deadline . ''",has a topic of arts
"'photography and video from china' max protetch gallery 511 west 22d street chelsea through jan . 28 with a wealth of contemporary chinese_art soon to arrive in new york city ( starting with the guggenheim_museum 's ''china 5 , 000 years'' later this month ) , this group show gives at least a taste of some of the work being produced in at least two high profile media . as with much recent asian art that has circulated internationally , identity is a central issue . with a single exception , the emphasis among the chinese artists included here , however , is less on questions of ethnic or sexual self definition than on the position of the individual in a society that has traditionally placed high value on conformity and control from above . a sense of this cultural reality is vividly conveyed in a series of photographs by zhuang hui . part documentation , part conceptual art , each captures dozens of uniformed figures the entire staff of a shopping_mall in one case , all the soldiers in a battalion in another in neat as a pin formation , with the artist himself , another face in the crowd , included in every shot . other works are more direct sendups of accepted social models . yang zhenzhong 's photographs present ideal family units but substitute chickens for people . men in wang jinsong 's ''pledge series'' offer uniform maoist salutes but wear up to date western style clothes . a sense of constraint is physically suggested in li yongbin 's video of faces flattening themselves against the camera lens , and in a video by zhang peili , figures , apparently under surveillance , seem to be trying to work their way out from behind a gallery wall . the interactive , performance_art implications of mr . zhang 's video ( the viewer sees both the video and his own reflection in a mirror ) are picked up in the work of ma liu ming , a young artist who made his united_states debut in a show at the jack tilton gallery last summer . in a photograph he depicts himself dressed as a woman in a painting with the body of a baby in a video he appears nude but heavily made up , pacing rapidly back and forth through a crowded art gallery , continually adjusting a camera . in a new york context , mr . ma 's self referential , gender centered work will probably look most familiar , and he is the only artist given substantial representation here . but there are remarkable things going on in chinese_art and culture these days , and shows like this help to bring a local audience up to speed . holland_cotter",has a topic of arts
"lead covering the recent tumultuous events in china has proved a logistical challenge for american television . here are observations from several news correspondents sent to beijing by the various networks . 'the walkie_talkie became my lifeline' covering the recent tumultuous events in china has proved a logistical challenge for american television . here are observations from several news correspondents sent to beijing by the various networks . 'the walkie_talkie became my lifeline' once the shooting began , the camera crews were ordered back to the cover of the beijing hotel . the equipment was simply too unwieldy for anyone to operate while under fire . as the tanks rolled closer from the west , as the sound of machine_guns grew_louder , i stood with the protesters in tiananmen_square and waited . i clutched a walkie_talkie , through which i could at least describe the scene to my colleagues based in a hotel a few miles away . but during the bloody siege of saturday night june 3 , the walkie_talkie became my lifeline and my only means of communication . i described to those listening the roar of the tanks , the wailing of the injured and the smoke of the burning armored_personnel_carriers , set on fire by wild eyed civilians . one of the first tanks exploded from a molotov cocktail right in front of me . within moments , abc had engineered a way for my reports on the walkie_talkie to be broadcast live . i never could hear the anchorman in new york my only contact was bureau chief mark nelson at our radio base , who gave me a cue each time to start talking . the idea that these reports were airing live in america seemed as unreal as the bloodied bodies being wheeled past me . still , once the gunfire turned on those of us on changan avenue , even the walkie_talkie felt heavy . i knew the bullets were so close that the two way could pick up the sound . at times , the guns sprayed the protesters and me for a solid two minutes . after each barrage , there 'd be silence . more blood covered bodies would be wheeled past me on carts , and i 'd radio in again . during one lull , i climbed onto the seat of a rickshaw , 60 yards from the troops who 'd seized the square . i could see a line of soldiers seated on the ground in a semicircle facing us , protected by their shields . the protesters around me stared back in silence . it was an eerie calm , which on cue from our radio base , i began to describe to peter_jennings , our anchorman in new york . within seconds , machine_guns opened on us i stopped broadcasting and tried to race for cover , but there was no place to run except straight down the boulevard . at that moment , the walkie_talkie became my warning light as well as a microphone . my colleague jackie judd radioed that a convoy was racing our way from the east she could see it from the balcony of the beijing hotel barr seitz , my interpreter , and i were about to be trapped . the sound of approaching tanks was terrifying . within minutes , i crouched in a ditch in time to watch the first tank from the east bear down and crush the tractor on which i had just been perched . then came the automatic_rifle fire i could n't even use the walkie_talkie . i searched for a better place to hide , but people were throwing everything they could at the tanks , and the tanks were firing back . broadcasting , even on the two way , was now impossible . we started back toward the hotel , but soldiers continued to fire on us . someone told me my radio would be confiscated in the hotel , so i tossed it in the bushes near the door before escaping inside . i was reluctant to let go of it until a sniper fired on the few of us converging on the hotel entrance . the radio seemed a small sacrifice for the walls of the beijing hotel . kyle gibson , producer , abc_news 'a game of cat and mouse' it was 10 30 a.m . on sunday , june 4 . the slaughter had been going on for nearly 12 hours . a crowd of demonstrators lingered around the remains of a bus blocking changan avenue in front of the beijing hotel . three hundred yards away , a line of soldiers stretched across the street , each cradling an ak_47 . behind them , dozens of tanks and armored_vehicles stood guard over tiananmen_square . i had been watching the carnage from a balcony of the hotel , high enough to get an overall view , but close enough to dive for cover as bullets whizzed by and more protesters fell in the street below . throughout the night , my colleague tom mintier and i had struggled to control our horror as we telephoned live reports to cnn , using a room we had dubbed ''tokyo base'' in order to avoid revealing the exact location over obviously tapped phone lines . fronting onto changan avenue , it served not only as a vantage_point but as a staging area for our camera crews in the square , enabling us to collect and hand off the latest videotapes of the assault to be smuggled out of the country . now , there were rumors that soldiers would soon sweep through the hotel looking for reporters and tv equipment . already , plainclothes police officers had begun searching some of those entering or leaving the lobby . with two other colleagues , tom and i slipped out of the building , trying to look inconspicuous as we carried duffel bags loaded with tv cameras , sound recording equipment , cables and videotapes . we climbed aboard two rickshaws . as they moved north on wangfujing street , away from changan , shooting broke out again . around the corner , just out of view , the people 's liberation army had claimed at least 30 more lives . following the government 's ban on satellite feeds two weeks earlier , we had devised a system to ''pigeon'' our material to hong_kong or tokyo for transmission to the united_states . but as the military tightened its grip on beijing , the question became less one of getting the pictures out than of getting any material at all . by midweek , the police were in the beijing hotel in strength . cnn 's last crew departed just hours before the security forces moved in . on the streets , meanwhile , taking pictures became a game of cat and mouse , with tv crews sneaking a few shots and quickly moving on to avoid arrest . it did n't always work . cnn camerawoman cynde strand , sound man bill albers and producer bruce kennedy were among the many journalists detained by police or soldiers for shooting street scenes . their equipment was confiscated , and they were released with a warning that the military ''could do anything it wanted to'' to prevent pictures being taken . mike chinoy , correspondent , cnn 'television without pictures' suite 1535 of the beijing hotel became our bunker during china 's bloodletting . my perch was a balcony wrapped around a corner of the hotel , facing west , toward the square and along the expanse of changan avenue . with the phone gripped under my arm and keeping my head low , i simply told what was in front of my eyes and hoped my words conveyed the chaos and tragedy below . our cameraman worked from a nearby balcony , draping the camera in a white bath towel , so it would blend into the concrete wall and be less noticeable from the street . it was impossible to get the pictures out quickly , though , because the chinese authorities had cut off satellite_communications two weeks earlier . so , for many hours , the sophisticated technology of television was reduced to a single telephone_line television without pictures . we kept the telephone_line open for hours at a time . our immediate fear was that it would be cut or that we would be kicked out of the hotel . we took precautions against both . the new york control room played music over the phone line to let us know they were still connected . the doors to the rooms were always bolted . we began using a special knock to signal each other . it was essential , also , to protect the videotapes shot at the square and hotel . we hid cassettes in a ceiling panel and strapped to the underside of a toilet tank . when we felt it was safe , our young runners would tape the cassettes to their wrists and chests , sneak out the hotel 's back door and speed away on bicycles to abc 's base of operation a few miles away . late monday afternoon , a feeling of danger set in . all at once , we spotted fires erupting in the west , saw tanks moving below our windows with guns manned and heard a knock on our door . i grabbed the phone , ran into a bathroom and locked the door . ''good morning america'' was on the air , and the bathroom seemed like the safest place to keep our live broadcasts going . the last report out of suite 1535 came from that secure little room . i told our new york anchors that a hotel worker was in the hallway , just a few feet away , delivering orders to seal our windows and balcony doors . it was decided that the situation had become too precarious . we packed fast . most of the videotapes had been safely sent out , and the telephone , my lifeline , was left behind . jackie judd , correspondent , abc_news 'new york , are you there ? ' friday , may 19 , approximately 11 30 at night , beijing time . beep . beep . ''hello , new york . '' nothing . beep . beep . ''new york , are you there ? '' i 'm frustrated the fifth battery for the cellular_phone had died . i was with tom bettag , the executive_producer for ''the evening news , '' and we had only one battery left . we desperately needed to get through to anyone to find the cbs_news van . bettag and i had been out in tiananmen_square all day talking with students . deng xiaoping had outlawed the demonstrations , and protest leaders were trying to decide what to do . for them , it was a night of living dangerously . hundreds of thousands had congregated . lost among them was a cbs_news van or us , depending on how you looked at it . the cellular_phone was my only link to find them . the van had the microwave and was the only place to broadcast live from in the square . i had no idea where they were . students streamed into the square , despite the midnight deadline , which was less than three minutes away . without the van , there was no way i could broadcast . would the students leave ? hardly . would troops move in ? maybe . but first i had to find the van . bettag desperately popped in our last battery . before we could even call out , the phone rang . it was lane venardos , director of cbs_news special events . he was based at the shangri_la hotel but was in constant communication with new york and , more importantly , with the van i was to meet . ''get to the north end of the square , '' he shouted . ''near mao 's picture . you 'll do a special report as the deadline comes . '' bettag and i broke into a run . the world 's largest square was even larger when one was running through the dark against the tide of people streaming toward the center . with minutes to spare , we finally found the broadcast position . it was a flatbed_truck with a generator powering a microwave and lights . a crowd had formed . it was midnight . the deadline came and went . the students defiantly stayed . back in new york i was on the air not so much because of the microwave or the generator but because of a battery for a cellular_phone . dan rather , anchorman ''the cbs evening news'' 'taxi_drivers were our best allies' the day after tiananmen_square had been cleared by tanks and troops , chinese soldiers continued to fire off rounds at curious onlookers . understandably , our camera crews a seasoned , battle wary group with experience from vietnam to beirut were a little edgy . we decided on a ride and run format . we 'd cruise a neighborhood in a car with tinted_windows if the street seemed clear of military patrols , we 'd jump out and try to tape interviews or on camera reports . we had only mixed success . just a few days earlier , the streets of beijing had been jammed with people expressing solidarity with the tiananmen demonstrators . now , with chinese state television showing hundreds of suspects , many beaten and almost all flanked by armed soldiers , it was almost impossible to find a beijing resident who knew much about the demonstrations . ''i do n't care for politics , '' they 'd say . or , ''yes , i heard something about that , but i did n't pay much attention . '' many of the taxi_drivers were our best allies . they 'd park as innocently as possible near a military compound so we could surreptitiously tape the enormous troop presence . one , particularly , was eager to help because many of his friends and neighbors had been hauled away during nighttime roundups . our most successful technique for getting tv pictures in off limits areas involved what we called the bike cam . that meant that an enterprising nbc cameraman mounted a small 8 millimeter video_camera in an empty soft_drink box , exposed the lens through a hole cut in the cardboard and attached it all to the carrying rack on the back of a black flying pigeon , china 's all purpose bicycle . i rode a second bike a few feet behind , describing where we were , what we were seeing . at one point we lost our chase car , so we pulled over near the forbidden_city 's gate of heavenly peace , where a giant portrait of mao stares across to tiananmen_square . we pretended to be lost tourists , looking at a map and pointing in exaggerated confusion . the armed soldiers stationed there with a long line of tanks and armored_personnel_carriers were not amused . they ordered us to move on , which we did , while the camera recorded the startling juxtaposition of china 's past and present , the forbidden_city guarded by tanks in camouflage green paint . tom_brokaw , anchorman , ''nbc_nightly_news'' 'everyone wanted to express an opinion' dong dan park is a quiet little spot about one mile east of tiananmen_square . sunday , may 21 , the day after china imposed martial_law , i went to the park with three nbc_news colleagues to see how ordinary citizens were reacting to events in the square . because we were n't sure whether the chinese authorities would enforce prohibitions against news photography and conducting interviews , we posed as tourists , with a pair of home_video camcorders slung over our shoulders . we hired pedicabs for the ride to the park . beijing on that sunday did not have the appearance of a city under martial_law . there were no signs of soldiers or policemen . children in the park giggled as they climbed on playground equipment young lovers sat on benches and held hands . we were somewhat surprised when we began taping interviews . though we were trying to be as unobtrusive as possible , we knew that our ''cover'' as tourists was pretty thin , that people would probably shy from our cameras . but practically everyone we talked to wanted to express an opinion . and all of those opinions were against the government . a group of old men in mao suits told our translator in chinese ''the government is wrong . the students are right . the leaders of this country are corrupt . '' i asked one of the old men ''are n't you afraid of the government ? '' ''no , '' he scoffed , ''i 'm 87 . what do i have to fear at this age ? '' we returned to dong dan park five days after the massacre at tiananmen_square . children were still playing and lovers were still holding hands on the benches . but when we approached people , they covered their faces to avoid the cameras , refusing to talk to us . some warned us that we were breaking the law and that we could be arrested or shot . we found some of the same old men who had been so outspoken on our previous visit . we asked them what they thought of martial_law now . ''we ca n't answer that question , '' said one . chinese state run tv has begun running pirated excerpts of news stories taped by american networks . the images of people who have dared to speak against the government are replayed , and chinese viewers are urged to help track them down . we watch the chinese newscasts with a feeling of apprehension . will they replay one of our old stories and single out one of the people we interviewed as a ''counterrevolutionary , '' to be hunted down and imprisoned ? will we be part of that process ? george lewis , correspondent , nbc_news",has a topic of arts
"lead to the editor to the editor all praise for john russell 's compelling account of the new dangers threatening venice and other italian cities ''imagine venice as a floating disneyland , '' dec . 10 . as two writers living partly in italy , we wish to add our voices to the protest against unprecedented mass ''events'' planned for italy 's historic sites in a ruthless exploitation , by powerful investors , of that nation 's artistic patrimony . most of the ancient centers of italy are already overwhelmed by a volume of tourism detrimental to the monuments themselves and annihilating of their authentic context . the huge new incursions now proposed would add a scarcely conceivable degree of gratuitous destruction to the existing ill effects of natural decay , commercial and official rapacity , bureaucratic negligence , urban expansion and industrial development and to a rising phenomenon of attacks , made in the name of political protest , on prominent works of art an evil recently witnessed at florence and naples . against this onslaught are ranged in and outside italy , and even within italian official circles many responsible and energetic persons , who , together with private agencies working for cultural conservation , have sounded the alarm against the forms of impending doom eloquently described in john russell 's article . lovers of italy throughout the world should be aware that the new threats to that land 's historic beauty will , if not swiftly prevented , irreparably reduce the cultural bounty intrinsic to the italian ethos , inseparable from our concept of civilization , and enjoyed over centuries by millions of visitors . shirley hazzard francis steegmuller new york trouble in venice",has a topic of arts
"when museums recreate period rooms , they acquire an aura that lies somewhere between fact and fiction . the furnishings are real , but the setting evokes an imaginary scene the way a doll house does . the effect is amplified when museumgoers confront an entire house like the one created for the exhibition ''beyond the screen chinese furniture of the 16th and 17th centuries , '' on view here at the museum_of_fine_arts . leaving the museum 's chinese sculpture gallery , a visitor passes behind a screen to discover a labyrinthine house surrounded by courtyards and gardens that suggest the home of a wealthy scholar or prosperous merchant in the ming_dynasty . exposed timbers form the frame of the house , and the walls are made of plexiglas etched to resemble lattice screens . within these transparent enclosures are a reception hall , a study and a bedroom , placed around a series of courtyards . everything the visitor sees , from the relationship of the landscape to the house and the arrangement of the furniture and art inside it , has a ceremonial basis . the curator of the exhibition , nancy berliner , an expert on the interpretation of chinese_culture , has lived and studied in beijing . ''i looked to period literary sources and wood block prints for clues to the placement of the furniture according to the social customs of the time , '' she said , referring to the richly finished hardwood chairs , tables and chests among the 130 objects on display . the traditional relationship of courtyard to house is enhanced by the illusion of outdoor space created by high ceilings and skylights in the exhibition space . the house faces an imagined south following the chinese custom for good fortune . the circuitous route around the courtyard was believed to discourage evil spirits , which were said to travel in straight lines . the hong_kong born architect , yun sing jung , a principal of the boston firm jung brannen associates , said that he had designed the courtyard house from books and his own scholarly knowledge . he was already a trained calligrapher versed in poetry , painting and early wood block prints by age 19 when he came to north_america in 1949 . ( the calligraphy painted on the walls of the exhibition is his own . ) upon entering the reception hall , one first sees an elegant folding chair made from yellow pear wood with a foot rest and a back splat carved with the design of a flowering vine . ( china of this period , the catalogue notes , was the only asian nation in which chairs were used most of them folded , or collapsed , to be moved to other rooms or out of doors . ) this chair was the seat of honor , and according to a passage from a novel on the wall caption , a gentleman visitor would sit there , awaiting a lady as she finished dressing in a room off a rear courtyard . the reception hall is also furnished with couch beds to seat both host and guests . an unadorned couch bed on view demonstrates what the catalogue calls ''the calm and serene countenance'' that would have been perceived as more elegant by the literati than the more ornate openwork carving of the second one on display . ms . berliner contends that like the upturned crest rails on nearby ming chairs , the flanges on the long table relate to the roof ridge in chinese houses from the han period to the present . ''the furniture in these rooms is an extension of the architecture , '' she said . in a ming bronze vase displayed on the long table , a few sprigs of cherry blossoms herald the forthcoming season , while through a window the bright green fronds of young bamboo trees can be seen . such details reinforce the house 's sense of the realism . infused with simplicity , the rooms are peaceful , but nowhere more so than in the scholar 's study , where a painting table in front of a fan shaped window is prepared with an ink stone and brush_pot for the work at hand . a pair of stools in twisted root wood and a decorative rock displayed on a stand were the kind of natural forms that served as inspiration for the scholar . scrolls were stored in the adjoining bookcase . in the bedroom at the back of the house , furniture was elaborately decorated , particularly the six poster canopy bed , which , would have been carried through the streets as part of a woman 's dowry . this bed , covered in yellow brocade and carved with a dragon motif , bespoke the kind of intimacy often portrayed in period prints . clothes were carefully folded on an ornate garment rack placed next to the bed . most of the carved decorations were symbolic of the natural world and evoked the seasons . two armchairs in the garden are carved with a pattern of pine , bamboo and plum blossoms together , they are known as the ''three friends of winter'' because all three are at their peak in february . ming furniture is usually constructed without nails or glue . the components fit together like a sophisticated puzzle , the pieces of which are marked for assembly with characters that stand for familiar lines from calligraphic essays of the kind that mr . jung learned in his youth . four table legs are marked with characters that read ''the universe is vast and time is eternal . '' in the shadows of this domestic compound and its rich furnishings , time appears to stand still . arts artifacts",has a topic of arts
"this show does n't have a lawyer plunging to her death down an elevator shaft . it does n't have a foul mouthed cop making broadcasting history by mooning more than 20 million viewers . what it does have and what makes it unmistakably a steven bochco production is plenty of button pushing . it 's called ''over there , '' and it 's a television drama that takes direct aim at the single most polarizing subject in the united_states right now the war in iraq . mr . bochco 's show , making its debut on wednesday night at 10 on the fx cable channel , tracks a squad of eight young american_soldiers ( played mostly by unknowns like josh henderson , luke macfarlane and lizette carrion ) as they battle insurgents in the blazing deserts outside baghdad ( actually , it the show is shot outside los_angeles , near lancaster , calif . ) while their families wrestle with their own challenges at home . mr . bochco pointedly avoids plotlines about the politics of this war most center on more intimate human dramas , like one black soldier 's distrust of authority and his white superiors . the show is bound to shock and awe viewers just the same . ''you 're going to get controversy no matter what , '' said mr . bochco , who has courted it throughout his career with shows like ''hill street blues , '' ''l . a . law'' and ''nypd blue . '' ''we 'd get less controversy if we made an overt political statement about the war because half the people will agree with us and the other half will dismiss us . the controversy really comes when you present something like the iraq_war in such a nuanced way that it presses everybody 's buttons a little bit . now you 've got a game . '' other television shows , like ''m a s h'' and ''china beach , '' have ventured onto battlefields , but never while a conflict was still happening in real time , while real american men and women were targets . the concept was so provocative and dangerous that not even mr . bochco was convinced at first that it was such a hot idea . ''steven was reticent to get involved in something that might devolve into a political football , '' said john landgraf , president and general_manager of fx , who pitched the series to mr . bochco . ''but 'hill street blues' was the trailblazing series that brought that complex character orientation and frankness to a drama for the first time . it was the progenitor of everything that we 're doing at fx . '' fx has blazed a few trails of its own , even before working with mr . bochco , with series like ''nip tuck , '' ''the shield'' and ''rescue me . '' and that reputation ultimately proved irresistible to mr . bochco , who has produced some shows that changed television forever , and a few , like ''cop rock'' and ''blind justice , '' that did not . the success stories have left a lasting imprint on the medium . ''l . a . law , '' in which the conniving lawyer rosalind shays ( diana muldaur ) took her fatal elevator shaft plunge , was the first show to tackle previously taboo topics like lesbian relationships , workplace discrimination and living with mental_retardation . it was also one of the first dramatic series to feature an unapologetically amoral main character like the divorce attorney arnie becker ( corbin bernsen ) . ''nypd blue'' was an early dramatic series to use brutal language and gritty cinematic visuals to heighten the realism of the storytelling . there have been less innovative shows along the way , but at this point in his career , mr . bochco does not really have anything left to prove . nevertheless , he remains fearless in a field where fearlessness is seldom considered a good career move . ''given the givens , iraq is not a subject area that network television would be comfortable exploring because of the potential for conflict and controversy , '' mr . bochco said , sitting back on the sofa in his spacious office on the 20th century fox lot . ''controversy does n't sell soap . but even if a broadcast network made the show , i still could n't use the language that i use at fx . i would n't be able to show the reality of the kind of violence that exists in that form of combat . so what you 'd wind up with would be a much , much paler version of 'over there . ''' even on fx , the show treads carefully . ''steven and i were definitely concerned about what to do about the politics , '' says chris gerolmo , co creator , executive_producer and director . ''we decided to tell these stories about these young people and how they 're trying to live through the day . it 's not a show about policy_makers or policy questions . '' not that politics is ignored . on the contrary , all points of view are represented , with each of the show 's characters spouting off on subjects from the abu_ghraib_prison to the 9 11 attacks . ''the difference in 'over there' is that the characters tend to have different beliefs , much like the country , '' said erik palladino , who plays chris silas , known as sergeant scream . ''the politics are ambiguous . the show does n't come out one way or another . '' still , it 's hard to imagine the show not stirring up water cooler debates about the war . ''this is the first time on television that we 're seeing a female character in combat , '' said ms . carrion , who plays esmerelda del rio , one of the squad 's soldiers . nicknamed doublewide . ''women in combat is a hot issue . i play this woman who is not afraid to get down and dirty and knows she can handle whatever comes down the pike . '' the challenge for mr . bochco is that in iraq nobody really knows what is about to come down the pike . as the real war unfolds for viewers on cnn and other 24 hour news outlets , how will he keep up ? for that matter , how can he possibly compete with the drama of reality ? ''i understand that this is an incendiary subject and that there will be families of people in the military who do n't want to watch this , '' he said . ''i get that . but the fundamental drama of this war is no greater or no less than the daily ongoing urban war that 's occurring in our own backyards . nobody told me not to make 'nypd blue' because it was about an ongoing urban war . '' actually , somebody did . even before ''nypd blue'' had its premiere on abc in 1993 , protests erupted over its graphic content , raunchy language and nudity . several big advertisers bolted , and more than one abc affiliate initially refused to broadcast the show . but protests about the content of ''over there'' will probably only encourage fx to keep it on the air . ''they 're actually trying to put shows on their network that are viscerally engaging and that will generate a disproportionate response relative to the size of their audience , '' mr . bochco said . ''that 's how you brand yourself and get out there . people today are looking at fx and saying that it 's starting to feel like hbo did in the beginning . '' this show may make people regard mr . bochco the way they did when he started pushing buttons on television nearly 25 years ago . it certainly seems to be having a rejuvenating effect on the producer . ''years ago , '' he said , ''norman lear said to me 'do n't think that because an audience is angry at you that they hate what you 're doing . do n't be afraid of that , and do n't feel like you have to make nice with everybody . if the audience is angry , it 's because you 've engaged them in some fundamental way . ''' ''i 'm not afraid of anything when it comes to this show , '' mr . bochco said with a confident smile . ''it 's only television . ''",has a topic of arts
"the members of the national dance troupe of iraq are performers without an audience . they rehearse daily , but hardly ever put on a show . yet each turn of the hip and dip at the waist in their choreographed pieces has become weighted with a dangerous new reality , even as they wait for the chaos around them to subside so they can perform again . in today 's iraq , with conservative religious parties and radical militias exerting growing influence over every aspect of life , even dancing is an act of bravery . ''society is overwhelmed by these religious ideologies , '' said tariq ibrahim , a male dancer in the baghdad troupe , the iraqi national folklore group . ''now a woman on the street without a head_scarf attracts attention . what about a woman onstage dancing ? '' together they are a band of 10 women and 15 men from varied religious backgrounds . once they toured the world together . today they are simply trying to survive , hoping one day to thrive again as a troupe . but the religiosity sweeping iraq does not bode well for their future . female participation in folk dancing is considered haram , or forbidden , in islam . ayatollah al sistani , the leading shiite_cleric in iraq , has issued strict guidelines against dancing in various situations . the country 's shiite led government , the dancers said , is naturally trying to marginalize them . ''religion in its essence does not match with art , '' said fouad thanoon , the group 's director and lead choreographer . ''so when religion and government come together , that will affect art very much . '' the group has more immediate worries about extremists . recently one of its members , bushra yousif , 21 , a petite woman with delicate features who has been with the group for six years , received a note at home warning her to leave within 48 hours . a bullet was included in the envelope . she was probably singled out because of her profession , she said , but she will continue to attend rehearsals every day . she loves dancing too much , she said describing it as the highest form of art to ' 'deliver a message through your body . '' ''dying for this group would be like being martyred , '' she said , adding that it is a risk she accepts . the group , which began in 1971 , is dedicated to preserving the folk dancing heritage of iraq , performing traditional dances drawn from across that country 's history and geography . the troupe 's first two decades were golden years , when dancers trained with master instructors from overseas and frequently went on international tours . in 1980 the dancers performed at the united_nations in new york and visited paris . they have gone to italy , japan and china 60 countries in all and won numerous prizes along the way . the economic_sanctions imposed by the united_nations in the early 1990s brought most of that to a halt . but just a year before the american led invasion in 2003 , the group enjoyed a rebirth with a burst of freedom under saddam_hussein 's government , performing almost every week here . ''the audiences were huge , '' mr . thanoon , the group 's director said . ''the theaters were overbooked . '' but the group has been in suspended animation since the invasion began . it has performed just four times in iraq and made two brief trips to jordan and dubai since 2003 . the violence that surrounds it makes holding performances impossible . ''it is absurd , '' mr . ibrahim said . ''it is not logical to have a performance group that only practices . '' maysoun al damalouji , an outspoken secular member of parliament who was the iraqi government 's senior deputy minister of culture until march , said she had worried about being able to protect the dancers , as well as others involved in artistic endeavors that were objectionable to certain religious groups . ''the dancers were not the only ones , '' she said . ''we were worried about having fashion shows because we had to protect the models . we found we could n't really do that . the best way of protecting them was not to have them shown in public . '' the dance troupe had mainly supported itself with ticket sales before the fall of mr . hussein 's government , but when performances ended that became impossible . the current government has not compensated for that loss , the dancers said . they receive tiny stipends , amounting to about 140 a month , but even that is not guaranteed . the money often does not come and is usually barely enough to cover each dancer 's rent . because the dancers rehearse every day from 9 30 a.m . to 1 30 p.m. , it is almost impossible for them to get second jobs . the present government , controlled by conservative religious parties , cares little for the arts , ms . al damalouji said , so it is not inclined to support groups like the dance troupe . ''iraq is without a doubt an islamic society , but islam is not our only culture , '' she said . ''all the other cultures are being denied by this government . there is an attempt to change iraqi culture in general . '' in this climate the dancers said they must censor themselves . the group recently played a small role in a theatrical production in support of the country 's national reconciliation plan , put on for some employees of the ministry of culture , but mr . thanoon advised his dancers , for their own sake , to minimize any shaking of their hips or shoulders . the result was a rigid routine that seemed more martial than elegant . ''it should be like this , '' liqaa shukr said , demonstrating with plenty of gyrating flourish . ''instead it is like this , '' she said , switching to the languid movements they wound up performing . certain folk dances have been eliminated completely from the group 's repertory for performances inside iraq because they might be considered too provocative . ''we need to match what 's going on now , not stand out , '' said najwa subhi , another female dancer . most of the women in the group go to elaborate lengths to hide their occupation from their neighbors , even though some of their faces are well known in iraq from their performances on television under the old government . ms . subhi , who lives in a mostly shiite neighborhood dominated by militiamen , said she told her neighbors that she had quit her dancing and was working as a receptionist . she told them that even hannah abdullah , one of the group 's founders and iraq 's best known dancer , had retired . ''i spread this idea that we are no longer dancing , '' she said . on a recent trip to jordan for a cultural festival , she had her husband load her luggage in the car in the middle of the night . even her husband 's family did not know that she was going to perform . she told them she was visiting her brother in kirkuk . rana anwar , who successfully auditioned for a spot in the troupe three months ago , has let her neighbors and friends continue to believe that she is still a student at a tourism institute in baghdad . ''it is very hard with what 's going on to become a dancer , '' she said . ''but my main goal is to show iraq is not a backward country . iraqi people like to dance , they like to sing . '' so the dancers continue to practice daily in front of empty seats at the national theater in central baghdad . the dilapidated hall has become their sanctuary from the country 's tumult . dumoaa jamal was with the group for 10 years , but her uncle forced her to quit after the invasion because he deemed it too dangerous . but she returned three months ago , and tries to allay his fears by making sure she comes to rehearsals dressed in inconspicuous clothing and a head_scarf hiding her long flowing hair . ''i wish it could be 24 hours a day , '' she said about the group 's rehearsals . ''when i enter the theater , it is as if everything from outside is gone . it is as if i have entered a different world . '' she feels like a bird on stage , she said . later , when she has donned her head_scarf , scrubbed the makeup from her face and stepped outside , reality returns . there is no more dancing , only walking as invisibly as possible .",has a topic of arts
"lead in february 1986 , the central ballet of china arrived in new york to begin its first american tour . ''on the move , '' an hourlong ''great performances'' presentation on channel 13 at 9 this evening , follows the company around the city and includes a brief history of the company . the most lasting impression in february 1986 , the central ballet of china arrived in new york to begin its first american tour . ''on the move , '' an hourlong ''great performances'' presentation on channel 13 at 9 this evening , follows the company around the city and includes a brief history of the company . the most lasting impression dancers are dancers are dancers . the segments filmed in china focus on the rigorous demands of the dance school . most students begin at age 12 . they live together in dormitories . there is no privacy . a modest ballet tradition was snuffed out by the cultural_revolution and its condemnation of western influences as ''poison weeds . '' when that upheaval ended in 1976 , this new ballet_company was formed . the dancers are sometimes referred to as ''children of a lost generation . '' the students are seen being tutored by dai ailian , a major figure in chinese dance . some 1946 film clips show her performing folk dances , considered to be the first ingredient in developing a national chinese style . she acidly observes , ''the only good thing about the cultural_revolution is we 'll never have another one . '' but the bulk of ''on the move , '' directed by merrill brockway of ''dance in america'' distinction , focuses on the company 's stay in new york . rehearsing hurriedly for a performance at the brooklyn_academy_of_music , they are described by one observer as ' 'swans in pajamas . '' before going on stage , they ferociously play cards to relax . the performance itself is relatively smooth , although there is some carping about the orchestra conductor . but one dancer named johnny ( he once spent some time in texas ) is pleased , saying in english , ''we never enjoyed this much enthusiasm from chinese audiences , '' adding with a grin , ''i 'd like more . '' the performers then become tourists . they take a subway ride and get in one of the new cars , which prompts one young woman to complain that they should have waited for an old train with more character . figure that one out . and , of course , they visit several dance studios and schools . dancers are insatiable when it comes to watching other dancers . graciela daniele , the broadway choreographer , introduces them to break dancing . paul taylor , daring them to be foolish , conducts a class in modern_dance and the visitors discover that here is not just a new way of moving but a new way of feeling . at the american school of ballet , suki shorer demonstrates the balanchine method , prompting one chinese dancer to liken the experience to ''trying to swim in an ocean when you have known only quiet streams . '' finally , at the alvin_ailey studio , miguel godreau gets everybody bopping to the percussive lures of jazz dancing . needless to say , the enthusiastic reactions of the visitors end up making much of ''on the move'' a very effective commercial for american dance and dancers . the executive producers of ''on the move'' are sidney kantor and mary yung kantor , who arranged the company 's tour . as a showcase for the young chinese company , the documentary , written by glenn berenbeim , is charming . perhaps not surprisingly , given their country 's acclaimed culinary traditions , the dancers offer an abundance of food metaphors . one says , ''we do n't want to go home until we have a taste of everything . '' in the end , another says ''we have tasted american dance and we are still hungry . '' all in all , delicious . note channel 13 stays in an ethnic groove this evening with ''james galway and the chieftains , '' an hour of irish jigs , reels and traditional airs recorded in concert at wolf_trap farm park . mr . galway plays the flute and pennywhistle . led by paddy moloney on the uilleann pipes , the six man group known as the chieftains joins in for a program that includes everything from ''danny boy'' to ''down by the sally gardens , '' a love song composed by yeats . there 's even a bit of irish step dancing , supplied by brian grant . like the old country itself , the session , which gets under way at 10 p.m. , is enormously friendly and beguiling .",has a topic of arts
"john thomson china institute in america 125 east 65th street manhattan through june 11 in the early 1870 's john thomson , a scottish photographer based in hong_kong , traveled throughout china , recording the people and sights he encountered . when he returned to london in 1872 , he took with him 1 , 200 glass plate negatives , which he proceeded to publish in elaborate volumes . this fascinating show offers a wide range of thomson 's views of china . he was especially adept at photographing representative social types in carefully posed scenes , whether buddhist monks playing chess , an outdoor chiropodist , or the operator of a portable peep show . occasionally thomson photographed architectural details and landscapes , as well as such landmarks as the great_wall . but it is his pictures of people , whether manchu ladies in elaborate hairdos or a thief with his thumbs cut off , that are most fascinating . thomson published these and other images in high quality reproductions , with extensive captions describing the subjects and his own role in recording them . the pictures here , though , are based on copy prints from thomson 's original negatives and appear without his captions many are also marred by scratches and scrapes . thomson is best known for his later photographs of characteristic street types of london , but it is easy to see their roots in his pictures from china . despite their technical flaws , these images offer an intriguing window into the past , both of china and of photography . charles hagen",has a topic of arts
"the war in iraq may be complicated and confusing , but the memorial day story from it told in ''act of honor , '' tonight on the history_channel , is as basic and noble as war stories get one soldier chooses to die so that his comrades can live . the soldier was rafael peralta , a marine sergeant who was 25 when he was killed in the battle at falluja in november 2004 . the film reconstructs the path he took to reach that moment birth in mexico , immigration to san_diego in search of better schools , enlistment as soon as he got his green card . ( the program will also be broadcast in spanish on the history_channel en espa ol . ) it also provides a visceral look at street level life for the soldiers in iraq , drawing on a video diary shot by one of sergeant peralta 's platoon mates , sgt . timothy buquoi . sergeant peralta 's actions received considerable news coverage at the time , but the film finds additional compelling material after his death by looking in on his mother and siblings , who all sound as if the grief will never leave their voices . a younger brother named ricardo receives particular focus since he feels a duty to follow his brother into the marines , and he signs up for devil pups , a confidence building camp for teenagers held at camp_pendleton . in the muster at the end of the rigorous camp , a drill instructor tries to get him to voice pride in having made it through . ''you did it for yourself , right ? '' he says . but ricardo keeps answering , ''no , sir . '' the instructor finally gives up . the film does n't get into the difficult issues of the war whether the united_states should be there what the purpose is whether sergeant peralta died for nothing . his story as told here could be from any war , and his selfless act is awe inspiring in any context . does the film have a secondary agenda as a response to the anti immigration forces that would keep people like sergeant peralta from ever entering the united_states ? maybe , but so what ? heroism is heroism sacrifice is sacrifice . act of honor history_channel and history_channel en espa ol , tonight at 7 , eastern and pacific times 6 , central time . directed by lee hirsch edited by lars woodruffe marlene braga , executive_producer sarah foudy and lee hirsch , producers manny monterrey , co producer tinabeth pi a and michael skalicky , associate producers michael burke , director of photography . television review",has a topic of arts
"staidly english and exotically chinese , hong_kong became a photographer 's mecca after the british took it over in 1841 . as the crown colony on the south china sea developed from a barren rock into a bustling metropolis , westerners and asians among them felice beato , john thomson , lai afong , pun lun , william pryor floyd and the american milton m . miller recorded its scenes and events , selling images of prospering hong_kong to itself and the rest of the world . now , on the eve of the colony 's reversion to chinese rule , the asia_society and the hong_kong arts center have organized ''picturing hong_kong photography 1855 1910 , '' a sort of homage to the early years . the 75 images range from big panoramas of hong_kong 's harbor to the wallet size images known as cartes de visite . while for the most part they show the up side of life in the ''fragrant harbor , '' as the chinese called it , there are exceptions one is an anonymous 1890 's view of bystanders gazing at beheaded pirates of kowloon , a part of the territory . the fascination of hong_kong is partly based on the tension of british and chinese coexistence , but this the photographs do not often convey . the show 's curator , roberta wue , points out that scenes of the english settlement of victoria with its fine buildings , well tended streets and private residences were meant to stress hong_kong 's identity as a royal colony and to symbolize the beneficence of the british presence . by contrast , views of the chinese areas to the east and west promoted their exotically asian aspects narrow passages , quaint architecture and the commotion of street life . but even though they catered to occidental stereotypes of asians , these photographs provided for the western_world more glimpses of chinese life than any other source . scenes of the colony 's center and the superb harbor that made it the hub of asian trade dominate ''sights of hong_kong , '' the show 's first section . a splendid panorama of the praya , or waterfront , circa 1868 71 attributed to the scottish photographer john thomson shows the massive victoria peak rising behind a long line of ''hongs , '' the warehouses vital to the life of the city . the harbor also appears in a large print of the queen 's road , made by miller in the 1860 's . its focus is the road leading to the harbor and the handsome buildings that lined it , including the landmark clock_tower then under construction . a much sterner view is beato 's spectacular 1860 panorama of the harbor bristling with the fleet of the north china expedition . beato was an experienced battle photographer who , in the second opium war of 1858 1860 , accompanied the anglo french expedition north to beijing on its mission of extracting chinese trade concessions . the images of ''life in hong_kong , '' the second section of the show , run from groups and individuals to scenes of shops and classrooms . a rare thomson view of a chinese curio shop ( 1868 71 ) depicts fan wielding clerks awaiting business in its dark interior . ''leaving school'' ( 1897 ) , by the british photographer d . k . griffith , shows a custom unheard of in america pigtailed chinese boys ceremoniously bowing to their teacher at the end of class . and a vignette by an unknown photographer , dated 1887 , portrays an upper_class english child on her donkey in front of a large house , respectfully attended by a chinese groom . although western and asian togetherness is rare in these photos , there are a couple worth noting in one , europeans favor a chinese restaurant with their presence , accompanied by chinese guests and servants in the other , a group of white uniformed health officials pose assertively in a plague ridden chinese quarter . the last sections , ''portraits and people'' and ''cartes de visite and stereo views , '' is a potpourri of hong kongers in formal and casual poses , among them a lovely , late 60 's hand colored portrait by thomson of an elegant young chinese woman serving tea , with the ambiguous title , ''pay you chow chow ? '' facing the camera , too , are the formally attired staff of an american trading company , two ceremonially dressed japanese ambassadors , musicians , gamblers , a fortuneteller and a barber who did his customers' hair in the shaved front , pigtail back style imposed even in british hong kong . all told , ''picturing hong_kong'' is a lively , humanizing portrait of a complex community that throws some light on its situation today . not the least of the show 's treasures is its handsome , informative catalogue . ''picturing hong_kong photography 1855 1910'' remains at the asia_society , 725 park_avenue , at 70th street , through aug . 17 . photography review",has a topic of arts
"''china born under the red flag'' concludes the ambitious three part pbs history that began with ''china in revolution'' and continued with ''the mao years . '' tonight 's two hours cover the deng years , from the death of mao_zedong in 1976 and the ascendancy of deng_xiaoping to deng 's death in february . it is a story of economic resurgence and political_repression , of astounding successes and intractable problems . deng began his rise to power amid the commotion of the cultural_revolution . none of the students , teachers , journalists or officials interviewed tonight mourn the passing of mao or the fall of the gang of four , adversaries of deng who in those years carried mao 's policy of endless revolution to its brutal and chaotic extreme . a victim of the time says , ''when the big tree falls down , all the monkeys run away . '' with deng 's ascension and the appearance in 1978 of democracy wall in beijing , where people were allowed to criticize their rulers , hopes rose that the government 's rigors were being softened . what one man calls a genuine ''cultural fever'' excited the young western music and ideas spread . but that did not last long . tonight 's account also gives due attention to the 1989 democracy rallies in tiananmen_square , which , as television audiences around the world saw for themselves , ended with an army crackdown and the jailing of dissidents . the pictures , seen again last week in the coverage of hong_kong 's reversion to chinese rule , have lost none of their force , and the events still scar china 's past and darken its future . while freedom advanced temptingly only to be beaten back , the loosening of economic restrictions created a new prosperity . ''communism , '' deng said , ''will not be saved by rhetoric but by improving people 's living standards . '' with the breakup of communes , many farmers flourished , and deng 's opening to the west brought boom times to southern coastal cities . but as in russia and other formerly communist lands , millions of workers and farmers were left adrift , without the security they had enjoyed under communism . a displaced worker laments the loss of ''the iron rice bowl , '' the lifetime guarantee of a job , a place to live and food even if the factory where one worked was a dead loss . a side effect of turning china into an economic dynamo , the program reports , has been unemployment for 100 million peasants . this vivid history of 20 tumultuous years is at once an appreciation of the society 's strides toward a better life for many of its people and a condemnation of the unyielding grip of the communist_party bosses . tonight 's witnesses , who were born under the red flag and gave their lives to revolutionary ideals , look back with feelings of profound waste , and the narrator finds deng 's legacy to be a combination of ''brutal , outmoded communism and a harsh new capitalism . '' ( china night begins at 8 on pbs with ''himalaya . '' the bbc cameras offer spectacular views of peaks , plateaus and foothills and wherever they turn find living things , some in surprising forms . ) china born under the red flag pbs , tonight at 9 ( check local listings ) judith vecchione , executive_producer sue williams , writer , producer and director kathryn dietz , co producer john martin , editor jason kao hwang , music will lyman , narrator . television review",has a topic of arts
"since the hostilities in the persian_gulf began on jan . 16 , attendance has more than doubled at the intrepid sea air space museum in manhattan , which has had more than its share of financial problems in recent years . during the last few weekends there have been 5 , 000 visitors , compared with less than half that number in the same period last year . the curatorial staff of the museum a complex of the aircraft_carrier intrepid , the destroyer edson and the guided_missile submarine growler at 46th_street and the hudson_river is now racing to assemble and install the exhibition "" war in the gulf the liberation of kuwait , "" which begins on feb . 27 . "" everyone has been hearing about tomahawks and patriots and scuds , but they 're vague about them , "" lawrence sowinski , the museum 's executive director , said in an interview the other day . "" we felt we had a responsibility to our public to interpret this war that may change the world . "" explanation of deployment the new show will chronicle the events leading to the gulf conflict , explaining how the new high tech tools of the military trade are being deployed in the gulf . "" these are artifacts of war like the swords in the metropolitan 's collection of arms and armor , "" mr . sowinski said . "" many of the items in our collection are very rare , and in the future , some will be as treasured as the one of a kind swords in the metropolitan . "" the recent attendance boom has not solved financial difficulties . the museum currently has a deficit of "" several hundred thousand dollars , "" mr . sowinski said , because of the recession and the recent loss of about 200 , 000 in education grants from new york city . from 1985 to 1988 , the museum operated under chapter 11 of the federal bankruptcy code , but it had been in the black until last fall , when new york city tourism fell victim to the recession . "" right now , we 're looking hard to find some additional income , "" mr . sowinski said . ingenuity and strength at times , the peculiar nature of the intrepid 's exhibits tests the mettle of its curators . on a recent morning , a fragile , 1 , 000 pound artifact worth 700 , 000 had to be moved into a carefully prepared niche . "" not the usual museum installation , "" said scott koen , the aircraft curator , after the heaving and aligning was done . the object was a_12 1 2 foot long harpoon cruise_missile , of the kind that has reportedly destroyed much of the iraqi navy in the persian_gulf_war , and the niche was an a 6 intruder attack bomber , like the ones that have been harrying iraqi troops in kuwait . some of the items for the new show have yet to arrive . a patriot_missile and a diorama displaying its deployment will soon be on the way from the raytheon company in lexington , mass . the museum has also found a spare 21 foot long tomahawk_cruise missile disarmed , of course in the factory of a titusville , fla . contractor . "" we 're working with the national polish armed forces museum to get a scud_missile , "" said mr . sowinski . "" and we 've located a scud_missile launcher in germany but we have n't been able to find transportation for it yet . "" in addition , the museum is negotiating with the israeli government for scud_missile fragments from iraqi attacks on tel_aviv . specially built models the exhibition will display more than 30 scale models of aircraft , ships and equipment , most of which are being constructed for the show . a number of the elements come from the museum 's collection . in addition to the intruder fighter and the harpoon missile , the museum has an av8 harrier jump jet , of the kind being used against the iraqis an f 4 phantom similar to the wild weasel missile hunting aircraft used by the kuwaiti air_force an a 7 corsair attack plane , and an m 60 main battle tank , the kind used by the saudis in the recent battle for the town of khafji . the museum also has a 2 , 700 pound armor piercing shell identical to those fired by the 16 inch cannons on the battleship missouri toward iraqi positions in kuwait . despite the fearsome power of much of the museum 's inventory , a large part of the collection is quite fragile and needs constant maintenance . plexiglas cockpits deteriorate after too many hours in the sun on the intrepid 's 900 foot flight_deck , ship and airplane parts are corroded by the salt air , and the three vessels require 85 , 000 worth of paint every year . to mr . koen , the aircraft curator , the installation of the harpoon missile "" was pretty easy compared to some of the installations we 've done . "" his toughest museum installation was a_10 , 000 pound regulus missile , which had to be mounted on the launcher of the growler . "" but we found a way to do it , "" he said . "" once we got an 80 ton crane , the rest was easy . """,has a topic of arts
"lead anyone tempted to believe that the recent demonstrations led by chinese students and their brutal_suppression by the chinese government constitute an anomaly in chinese history will find remarkable evidence to the contrary at ''china between revolutions photographs by sidney d . gamble 1917 1927 , '' an exhibition now on view at the china institute in anyone tempted to believe that the recent demonstrations led by chinese students and their brutal_suppression by the chinese government constitute an anomaly in chinese history will find remarkable evidence to the contrary at ''china between revolutions photographs by sidney d . gamble 1917 1927 , '' an exhibition now on view at the china institute in america . the exhibition features 81 black and white images of chinese life taken by gamble , a western sociologist who had the rare opportunity to document chinese life in the years of the republic that followed the fall of the manchu dynasty in 1911 and lasted until the nationalist takeover in 1928 . it contains two historically significant pictures of student demonstrations that took place in beijing in 1919 . one photograph , which shows students speaking out against their government 's acquiescence to the treaty of versailles , which ceded chinese territories to japan , was taken 70 years almost to the day before the recent terror in tiananmen_square . in response to that earlier protest , the chinese republic arrested more than 1 , 000 of the students . the second picture , taken during a demonstration in november 1919 , shows a crowd of students in quilted jackets filling a square and holding banners of protest against the wounding of seven students in fuzhou , a city in southeastern china . the image is eerie , so closely does it resemble the protests of two months ago . sidney d . gamble , an heir to the procter_gamble fortune , was a witness to a convulsive period in china 's history . he made his first visit to china soon after the fall of the ching dynasty ended the manchu era and his last as chiang_kai_shek came to power . for the most part , however , his pictures were taken to illuminate china 's social life and culture , not its political upheavals . after studying at princeton and the university of california at berkeley , he was asked to undertake a social survey of beijing in behalf of the y.m.c.a . over the course of several years there he gathered statistics on incomes , occupations and health_care , and he supplemented these bare facts with his photographs , of which he took some 4 , 000 during his career . the selection of photographs in the exhibition reveals a deft eye and a fluid intelligence . unlike earlier western photographers in china , gamble did not search for spectacular landscapes or record exotically costumed individuals within the confines of a studio . rather , he photographed in a candid , deceptively casual way , taking street scenes and images of people at work that seem quite modern for their time . his pictures are in much the same spirit as the contemporaneous work of lewis hine , who is considered the guiding spirit of 20th_century documentary photography . the exhibition is divided into four sections , which correspond to the four areas of gamble 's picture making activity public life , the workplace , religion and family ceremonies . the images of public life , including those of the student demonstrations , are the most fascinating historically , while those in the other groupings often have primarily pictorial charm . for example , in a 1919 picture of a silk loom in operation , obviously taken with a slow shutter speed , the loom operator 's face appears to look in two directions at once at the loom , and at the camera . ''old lady sitting on burner , '' taken in the forbidden_city in 1918 , shows a haughty dowager whose feet taper to tiny points , a result of the tradition of foot binding . occasionally gamble 's eye would stray to subjects with no apparent connection to his sociological activities . one of the most beautiful of these shows a row of carved granite drums and a temple bell , displayed in a courtyard and raked by sunlight . as is true of all of the photographer 's work , the picture is exquisitely sharp and technically flawless . dr . nancy jervis , the director of chinese studies at the institute and the curator of the exhibition , says gamble 's photographic negatives lay unused in shoe boxes for more than 50 years . some 15 years after his death in 1968 , the trove of images was discovered in his home in the riverdale section of the bronx his daughter , catherine g . curran , has been instrumental in bringing the work to public attention . a deluxe book reproducing many of gamble 's photographs was published last year , and the exhibition , which was organized by the china institute and the sidney d . gamble foundation for china studies , will travel throughout the united_states under the auspices of the smithsonian institution traveling exhibition services . major financing was provided by the henry_luce foundation . because gamble 's photographs depict aspects of a culture foreign to most americans , the exhibition goes to some lengths to explain the images on view . the curator has written informative captions that in many cases are as detailed as the images themselves . in addition , the exhibition has been installed unconventionally , with the photographs all recently printed mounted on wire mesh scrolls and the captions printed on wooden plaques . the decorative effect smacks of chinoiserie , but it does not hamper one 's enjoyment of this historically fascinating show . at a time when photographs customarily are displayed on the basis of their esthetic merits , the exhibition of gamble 's work is something of an exception . it reminds us that part of what makes camera pictures so appealing is their power to render worlds far apart from our own both geographically and chronologically and to provide insights from the past that bear directly on the present . ''china between revolutions photographs by sidney d . gamble 1917 1927'' remains at the china institute in america , 125 east 65th street , until sept . 9 . it then travels to south hadley , mass . , glens_falls , n.y. , seattle and other cities .",has a topic of arts
"when kimberly dozier , a cbs_news correspondent , was nearly killed last memorial day by a roadside_bomb in baghdad that took the lives of her crew , she became the story instead of reporting it . now , more than 25 operations later , ms . dozier is finally telling her own story , which will be a core part of ''flashpoint , '' a cbs special to be broadcast on tuesday night about the many lives transformed that day . ''the hardest part of it was re living parts of it i did n't remember , '' ms . dozier said during a recent interview at the cbs headquarters in midtown , where she returned to work earlier this year . it has been ''weird'' to be the journalistic subject , she said , but tracking down and interviewing the people who were with her that day has been cathartic . ''i 've asked myself why did i make it when the others died , '' she said , admitting that she sometimes felt discouraged as she learned to walk again , in a gantlet of surgery and therapy that took her from iraq to germany to new zealand , as well as to walter_reed_army_medical_center in washington and the national naval medical center in bethesda , md . ''you ask yourself that over and over , especially in the beginning . '' in the last year , using her journalistic skills and her memories to help shape ''flashpoint'' has been one of the easier challenges for the 40 year old ms . dozier . a tall woman with short blond_hair tucked neatly behind her ears , she was given 50 50 odds of surviving on may 29 , 2006 . she and her two member crew were hit that morning after leaving their armored_vehicle to shoot video in the street for a report about americans soldiers working with iraqi_security_forces . ''we were shredded by shrapnel , '' ms . dozier said , a hellish end for a report on a slow news day at home . besides the cbs cameraman paul douglas , 48 , and the sound man james brolan , 42 , capt . james a . funkhouser , 35 , of the army , and his iraqi translator , called sam in the program , died that day . several american_soldiers were critically_injured . ms . dozier had lost virtually all her blood by the time she arrived at a treatment center . her heart stopped twice . she looks fine now , but her heavily scarred legs contain titanium rods , and she has screws in her skull . she took shrapnel to the head , fractured her femur and was burned from her hips to her ankles . still , she is eager to return to the middle_east and to work , she said , mindful that what she went through is what happens to american_troops 20 times a day in iraq . ''i always , always wanted to be a foreign correspondent , '' she said , recalling growing up partially overseas , one of six children of a homemaker and a former marine who did overseas construction . ''i knew there had been some sort of explosion , '' ms . dozier recalled of her last day in the field , recounting her story in a generally matter of fact way . ''i just got knocked into blackness . my mind was going , but i could n't see or hear for a few minutes . i could smell fireworks . i did n't know at the time that my eardrums were shattered , so that explains why i could n't hear a lot . '' her first concern was what happened to her crew , she said . she got through it all with support from her family , her boyfriend and the prayers , she said , of people around the world . she is also grateful for the therapist for her head and those ones for her body . ''they call me a poster girl for how to recover or how to avoid p.t.s.d . , '' ms . dozier said , referring to post_traumatic_stress_disorder . ''flashpoint , '' a one hour special with katie_couric as anchor , portrays the war through the detailed stories of the many lives touched by the explosion that monday morning . staff sgt . nathan reed lost his lower right leg , among other injuries , and sgt . justin farrar suffers from such post_traumatic_stress that he is still unable to wear his uniform . ''flashpoint'' shows him leaning on a cane , sobbing , at captain funkhouser 's grave in texas . the special is also a portrait of mr . brolan and mr . douglas , who left behind wives and children . there are close ups of bloody wounds and of coffins , glimpses of a young daughter of captain funkhouser who says , ''my daddy was a hero and he died . '' ''flashpoint'' also zeroes in on how improvised_explosive_devices ( i . e.d . 's ) , like the one that hit the cbs team , are responsible for roughly half the american combat casualties in iraq . while ms . dozier comes across in the film and in person as intrepid , bright , and loyal to her colleagues and friends , at least one friend sees her as changed by her ordeal . ''she 's tough in the right way , '' said lin garlick , the executive editor of cbs newspath , the network 's 24 hour news service . ''she 's still kimberly with her stories , with her depth of feeling for people . but there 's a slight guardedness to her now . i think she 's seen more than the rest of us want to see . that 's reflected in her eyes at times and i do n't think that will ever leave her . '' ms . dozier , a former print and radio reporter who has covered the middle_east as a cbs correspondent since 2003 , has repeatedly asked herself if there is anything she could have done differently that memorial day . her answer is no . still , she sheds tears in ''flashpoint'' only when ms . couric asks about her crew . ms . dozier said that it took bob woodruff , the abc_news correspondent who was injured in iraq earlier in 2006 , to ease her guilt about her crew . ''he said 'you 're thinking , you 're the correspondent . you were in charge , you took them there that day . ' he said , 'look , those two guys did not get taken anywhere . they were their own bosses , ' '' she recounted . ''and the thing i will always remember , that really stuck with me and i 've needed to pull it out several times he said , 'if you think any differently , if you think of it any other way , you 're dishonoring their memories . ' '' ms . dozier is working on a book about her life and just finished an article for the new york times about how iraq combat is responsible for injuries that doctors have never encountered , also a topic of one of her reports for cbs . her return to television comes this sunday on ''cbs news sunday morning'' with a report about female soldiers whose combat injuries made them amputees . the journalism fire remains bright , ms . dozier said , but she is a different woman . ''you know that ticker you 've got running in your head going , 'got to please mom , got to please boss , got to' you 've got all these judges out there , '' she said . ''especially women do this . i have a freedom i never had before in terms of saying 'you know what ? i do n't care . ' because i know what 's important . ''",has a topic of arts
"lead after an unexpectedly copious amount of political bloodletting , the italian parliament today enacted the country 's first law regulating television and press ownership and setting guidelines for broadcast commercials . after an unexpectedly copious amount of political bloodletting , the italian parliament today enacted the country 's first law regulating television and press ownership and setting guidelines for broadcast commercials . political maneuvering was so intense and parochial party interest so blatant that 10 days ago the government of prime_minister giulio_andreotti came close to falling apart over this issue . on all sides invective was uncommonly strong . mr . andreotti finally resorted to a series of confidence votes that had the effect of curtailing parliamentary debate and discouraging possible defectors within his christian democratic_party who have been unhappy over this matter . even so , the italian senate waited until almost the last minute today , parliament 's last day before its summer vacation , to approve the broadcast bill . if the august holidays were not so sacrosanct here , lawmakers would have quite probably talked on well into next month . limits on advertising revenue using different formulas for public and private television , the new law puts limits on advertising revenue for the first time . for example , the state network known as rai ( radiotelevisione italiana ) , which also receives public funds through television user fees , may carry no more than 7 minutes and 12 seconds of commercials in any given hour . private networks are treated more generously and may go up to 12 minutes an hour . the italian controls are appreciably less restrictive than those in other western_european countries , especially britain , france and west_germany . but even these measures were not easy to hammer out in a country where the state network is divided into three channels , each controlled by one of the three largest political_parties the christian democrats , the communists and the socialists and each reflecting its party 's views . under the regulations only three commercial breaks will be permitted during the broadcasts of films , dramatic programs and concerts lasting longer than 90 minutes . if a show goes beyond an hour and 50 minutes , a fourth break will be allowed . for rai this provision may actually amount to a financial boon because it has a tradition of interrupting films only once , at the approximate halfway point . but the law is certain to cost italy 's increasingly important private networks millions of dollars , for some of them tend to sprinkle commercials through their films like weeds across an unkempt lawn . a television magnate small networks say they will be pinched the most . but the regulations are also expected to strike hard at silvio_berlusconi , italy 's undisputed king of private television , who owns half a dozen of the country 's largest stations . in fact , much of the political heat generated in recent weeks stemmed from attempts by mr . berlusconi 's allies , notably in the socialist_party , to shape a law that would limit the damage to him . with mr . andreotti 's agreement , they accomplished this in part by delaying the regulations' effective date until dec . 31 , 1992 . opponents , mainly the communists and left_wing christian democrats , had insisted that italy obey a european_community directive calling for restrictions to begin in october 1991 . but they lost , and the result is that mr . berlusconi has more than an extra year of grace , worth millions . still , he hardly got off scot free . sections of the law strike at italy 's remarkable concentration of television networks and newspapers in the hands of a few business titans , including mr . berlusconi . from now on no one may own more than three television stations , and anyone controlling three of them may not also have a newspaper . newspaper owners controlling more than 16 percent of the national market in terms of readers will be banned from owning any stations at all . in addition no single business group may possess more than 20 percent of total national revenue generated by media sales , advertising and subscriptions . some losses ahead for mr . berlusconi , the losses are clear . he must give up the control he now has of il giornale , an influential newspaper based in milan , and also sell off several of his smaller television stations . officials at his holding_company , fininvest , say the lost advertising revenue from those stations alone could total 86 million a year . on the other hand , they see partially offsetting gains . all stations , private as well as public , will now have to carry news programs but they will also be permitted to have live broadcasts for the first time . that will include sports events and game shows , two lucrative sources . probably no sections of the new code generated more controversy than those governing commercials , which include an absolute ban on advertising during children 's cartoons . the emotional impact was reflected last year in a court decision , now superseded , that had ruled out any commercials during a film , on the ground that they violated the work 's artistic integrity . commercials during concerts the director federico fellini has been conspicuous in the anticommercial crusade , calling advertising breaks in movies ''a spit in the face . '' his basic theme was echoed , less colorfully , in parliamentary remarks this weekend by giorgio strehler , the stage director , who is also a senator from the independent left . referring to the breaks that will now be permitted in concert broadcasts as well as during movies , mr . strehler said , ''i cannot accept that a mozart symphony may be brutally interrupted by advertising . '' but opponents argue that without commercials , viewers would not get to see many films , including those considered classics . fininvest officials also point out that private networks and the rai system are the major sources of financing these days for italy 's ailing movie industry . if their advertising revenues shrink , they say , so will the available funds for new films .",has a topic of arts
"what exactly does it mean to be german ? few questions in our century have proven more formidable and fraught with strife . in "" u ni ty , "" an enigmatic but powerful new show at the museum_of_modern_art , michael schmidt , a photographer from berlin , addresses the puzzle of german identity yet again . he offers no easily graspable answers , but his stark installation of black and white photographs , some his own and others taken from the mass_media , set up a tense fabric of suggestions about the nature of germanness and the condition of german society . the immediate focus of mr . schmidt 's series of photographs is the recent reunification of the country , as his somewhat cutesy title makes clear . the hyphens are meant to suggest the uneasy assimilation of the formerly communist east into what was west_germany . but beyond issues of east and west , communism and capitalism , mr . schmidt creates a kind of meditation on history and identity by juxtaposing painfully familiar images from germany 's troubled past with scenes from its uncertain present . the results raise more questions than they answer , which is undoubtedly mr . schmidt 's intention . the work 's allusive meanings come not from individual pictures , but from the carefully sequenced whole . all the photos are verticals , printed exactly the same size and presented in identical dull metal frames hung in a single line around the room . this stark installation , suggesting a film strip or a series of photographic flash cards , undersc 'res the sense that the pictures are to be read as links in a subtly nuanced narrative chain rather than as separate images . the sparely designed b'ok version of the project , by scalo publishers , makes this even more apparent . perhaps two thirds of the photos are blown up details of images from newspapers , magazines or other sources , but even mr . schmidt 's own pictures have a deliberately anonymous style . most are portraits , with people shot in close up , their unflattering expressions frozen by stark flash lighting . mr . schmidt himself appears in one picture , an id photo of some sort behind a grid . other images display a range of social types virtually all are captured in off moments , metaphorically and sometimes actually in mid blink . perhaps the most striking aspect of the way the photos are presented is that mr . schmidt has done away with any identifying captions or titles . a noncommittal wall label introduces the overall project but gives no hint to the subjects of any of the individual pictures . as a result , german viewers are apt to get more from the work than other people would . for example , two s'ots near the entrance to the exhibition show a stanza from the german national_anthem photographed from a wall plaque one image has the wordp running from left to right while the other , presumably created by flipping the negative , presents them in mirror image . aside from the joke of the frontward and backward images , though , german audiences can be counted on to recognize the words . news photos of politicians like konrad adenauer , too , will be more familiar to germans than to other viewers . but few people of any sort are likely to recognize all the subjects of these pictures . by refusing to provide identifying captions , mr . schmidt creates a nebulous and unsettling texture of references and allusions . some of the comparisons between pictures have a blunt directness . for example , it 's hard to miss the point of the juxtaposition of a close up of a communist star with a historical photograph of nazi flags emblazoned with swastikas . but ambiguity is at the heart of mr . schmidt 's method . are the parading gymnasts in several other pictures from the munich olympics or some east_german celebration or a nazi rally ? what army do those soldiers belong to ? details of clothing and photographic style offer clues to these riddles , but seldom provide enough information to solve them . it is precisely this kind of uncertainty that allows mr . schmidt to take his audience past specifics of history and ideology to address deeper issues of national character . several photos evoke nostalgic images of german life a needlepoint curtain , for example , shows a mountain chalet while another shows strolling minstrels . other pictures , though , contrast these cheery cliches with grimmer realities . in several pictures mr . schmidt focuses on bleak , bunkerlike apartment buildings and drab interiors even the few landscapes in the group are besmirched with the smoke of oil fires or simply hunker under oppressive clouds . on one level , mr . schmidt 's power'ul work can be seen as an updated , media wise version of august sander 's classic study of german social types , published in the 1930 's . the use of mass_media photographs and the concern with national identity recall the work of such contemporary painters as sigmar polke and gerhard richter , while the direct style evokes the seemingly casual approach of american street photographers like lee friedlander and william eggleston . in the end , though , mr . schmidt has created a complex and unique essay that is all his own . this moving , resolutely difficult work succeeds in throwing harsh new light on a question that throughout this century has plagued not only germany but the world . "" u ni ty , "" by michael schmidt , is at the museum_of_modern_art , 11 west 53d street , through march 26 . photography review",has a topic of arts
"lead bug eyed dragons emblazoned on the chinese_ceramics exhibited at the yale university art gallery are bound to spark more fantasy than fear in viewers . for the winged , horned reptiles whipping energetically around beach ball sized jars , breathing fire as they stretch clawed paws on basins and raging , fangs bared , on the center of great platters , are propitious symbols not docile , but seemingly well disposed to all . bug eyed dragons emblazoned on the chinese_ceramics exhibited at the yale university art gallery are bound to spark more fantasy than fear in viewers . for the winged , horned reptiles whipping energetically around beach ball sized jars , breathing fire as they stretch clawed paws on basins and raging , fangs bared , on the center of great platters , are propitious symbols not docile , but seemingly well disposed to all . these mythical beasts dominate the images seen on the yuan and ming porcelains in this exhibition of works from the idemitsu museum of arts in tokyo , a privately_owned institution of a japanese petrochemical company . the show , ''in pursuit of the dragon traditions and transitions in ming ceramics , '' includes 90 porcelains , of which 31 are decorated with the bewhiskered monsters . they are but a small part of the idemitsu 's holdings , which also include japanese and middle_eastern ceramics , as well as european and american 20th_century art . organized by the seattle art museum , which produced the excellent catalogue ( 19 . 95 ) , the show will remain at yale through jan . 15 . what could be more appropriate in this the chinese year of the dragon than an exhibition of some of the world 's most spectacular crockery on which these beasts play a starring role ? ming blue and white wares are embellished with blue dragons or white ones . polychromed vessels are splashed with green , red , orange , yellow or brown beasts . dragons crown the lids of boxes , slither around the necks of ewers , rim basins and dramatize otherwise understated dishes . the animals are depicted in the traditional_chinese manner with a camel 's head , deer 's horns , cow 's ears , snake 's neck , hawk 's claws and tiger 's paws . the show 's most majestic ming monster is a marvelous blue dragon with bulging eyes and a scaly body wrapped around a massive blue and white jar about 20 inches in diameter . the vessel , made between 1425 and 1436 , is a rarity , one of only two known . the other one was donated in 1937 to the metropolitan_museum_of_art . the idemitsu 's porcelains , decorated with dragons , flowers , leaves , butterflies , landscapes or glorious washes of color , trace the evolution of ceramics in the yuan and ming periods , from 1260 to 1644 . porcelains flowered in china during a period of great artistic ferment more than 200 years before this technology reached the west . among the earliest major achievements are monochrome porcelains that include elegantly shaped stem cups a white one with straight sides , and a red one with a flared mouth and a sturdy meiping jar dipped in a rich cobalt glaze that accentuates the boldy rounded form . seeing the development of color and decoration on these vessels , one suspects that ceramists experimented with colored glazes cobalt blue , celadon , blood red , turquoise and egg yolk yellow the way bakers learn to ice cakes . first they frosted the surfaces without a whisper of decoration . then , after glassy coatings were mastered , they moved on to more complex techniques , such as carving images in the surface . two outsized 15th_century celadon platters , larger than hula hoops , illustrate these developments . on one of these vessels , 27 inches in diameter , the surface is a glowing lime_green glaze . on the other , the shimmering green coating is carved with fruits and flowers . painterly ceramics abound in this exhibition , and three shallow dishes show how images were modified over a century in the hands of different artists . these plates one blue and white , the others blue and yellow are decorated at the center with a flowering branch and on the rim with sprays of peaches , litchis , cherries , persimmons and pomegranates . the blue and white version , made between 1426 and 1435 , is the freest and most realistic botanical rendering . a yellow and blue dish decorated a half century later in the same tradition is strongly expressionistic . although beautifully drawn , the motifs on the third dish , which dates from 1506 to 1521 , are predictable . chinese_ceramics have commanded an increasingly enthusiastic international following since the early 1970 's . many of the finest porcelains in the collection of the idemitsu , which was founded in 1966 , were acquired over the last 16 years . in this period , prices for great rarities rose from well under 100 , 000 to 1 million or more . james j . lally , a new york oriental art_dealer , was a chinese_art specialist at sotheby 's and its president in new york during the period when the idemitsu bought many treasures from sotheby 's and christie 's in london . ''the idemitsu 's ceramics collection far outdistances anything done earlier in this century by the morgans or rockefellers , '' he said . ''they choose masterpieces of each form there are no compromises . '' among many of the works in the exhibition found at sotheby 's auctions in london was the massive dragon jar , which was bought in 1981 for 1 . 5 million , then a record at auction for chinese_art . in 1983 , the museum bought a large 14th century blue and white foliate dish , awash with lacy flowers , for 117 , 986 . in 1976 a bowl with a molded and incised dragon and cloud design , glazed blue on the outside and red on the interior , was bought there for 102 , 960 . the idemitsu also shopped at christie 's in london , where in 1982 it paid 618 , 624 for the 15th_century blue and white dish decorated with a pomegranate branch bordered by fruit sprays . money for the exhibition is from the national endowment for the arts , kyoto 's metropolitan center for far eastern art studies , the asian cultural council and the federal_council on the arts and the humanities . the exhibition is to travel through january 1990 , visiting the detroit institute of the arts , pittsburgh 's carnegie museum of art , the birmingham museum of art , the los angeles county museum of art and the honolulu academy of the arts . antiques",has a topic of arts
"lead it was a gripping day for sunday morning television news viewers the death of ayatollah_ruhollah_khomeini , a natural_gas explosion in the soviet_union and , most dramatically , details and pictures of the violent clearing of student demonstrators from tiananmen_square by chinese troops . it was a gripping day for sunday morning television news viewers the death of ayatollah_ruhollah_khomeini , a natural_gas explosion in the soviet_union and , most dramatically , details and pictures of the violent clearing of student demonstrators from tiananmen_square by chinese troops . suddenly , the downfall of house speaker jim_wright had become passe . instead of devoting part of its hour to ''ethics and politics on capitol_hill , '' as planned , ''this week'' on abc_news concentrated on iran and , especially , china , and representaive newt_gingrich , the republican whip , never made it onto ''meet the press'' on nbc_news . beginning saturday night and resuming sunday morning , the networks had been running still photographs and televised scenes from china as they came in . they conveyed action , confusion , crisis . what exactly was going on was not always clear , but that in a way added to their immediacy . taken together , they told a strong story soldiers , so many soldiers , moving in on the protesters students pounding with sticks on an armored troop carrier burned out buses and stranded bicycles the improvised barricades crushed by the military machines recorded voices of witnesses describing beatings of students by the soldiers . the large number of deaths reported by the morning papers were not documented by the pictures , but after two weeks of coverage of determined students , the heavy presence of troops shown on the screen left little doubt that there must have been many casualties . television had made heroes of the youths , and now hearing of the deaths , many viewers must have remembered some of the young faces and imagined some of the young bodies in the path of the tanks . on the talk_shows , nobody had a kind word for the chinese authorities . on cbs_news' ''face the nation , '' that epitome of conservatism , senator jesse_helms , found himself in agreement with , of all people , representative stephen j . solarz , the brooklyn liberal , that washington could not tolerate such behavior . though they and other experts differed on how far the administration should go in registering its displeasure , indignation was the prevailing mode . correspondents , too , entered the indignation stakes . jim laurie of abc went so far as to use words like obscene and unforgivable to describe the crackdown . even by television standards , it was a startling presumption of judgment . peter_jennings , the abc anchor , took on the role of editorial writer when he announced that the chinese rulers were sending their country ''back , back , not forward . '' richard roth of cbs had something personal to be indignant about he and his camerman , derek williams , had been roughed up by troops and held for 19 hours . his account of their experience on one of several cbs_news specials was all the more effective for its dispassion . the reporting was scrupulous he took pains to point out that his bruises were carefully tended by an army doctor and as an eyewitness , mr . roth never went beyond what he had actually seen . while cnn carried reports from beijing in its usual useful way through the day , the other networks confirmed the importance of what had happened by breaking into scheduled programs into the early afternoon , until the sports events took over . moreover , the presence of dan rather of cbs , mr . jennings ( who had been called back from london ) and tom_brokaw of nbc certified even for those who looked forward to nothing heavier on sunday than a golf game that something of moment had occurred . details and pictures kept coming in through the morning and early afternoon . not all were informative jackie judd , an abc correspondent , did her reporting from inside the beijing hotel . the network evening specials on china offered useful recapitulations of events leading up to the saturday night assault . nbc 's coverage of the decisive confrontation seemed especially close to the action . experts , including of course henry a . kissinger on abc , were brought in to offer analysis , advice , criticisms . among the more dramatic moments on cbs was a recording of a denunciation of the chinese government by an english_language announcer on radio beijing and an appeal to the world to do something about the ''barbarous'' action . dan rather reported that the speaker was soon replaced by a spokesman for the government line . mr . rather also quoted the plaintive last words delivered over the student loudspeaker in the square , ''chinese people do not shoot at chinese people . ''",has a topic of arts
"when an ancient and respectable family is reduced to selling its furniture , crockery , paintings and even hunting trophies to pay off its debts , thoughts about the transitory nature of wealth may be evoked . but as sotheby 's began auctioning off the entire contents of a castle owned by the venerable house of baden here this week , tears of sympathy were perhaps premature . germany may have abolished its principalities in 1918 , but the head of this dynasty still carries the august title of his royal highness max margrave of baden . more to the point , the family still owns three other castles in western germany packed with treasures that are not on the block . and after just two days of the 15 day auction , described by sothe by 's as the largest of its kind ever held , the family was already 21 . 2 million better off . some 6 , 000 lots comprising more than 25 , 000 objects from the grand ducal collections of the house of baden are involved in the auction , and the most valuable item sold so far was an ormolu mounted tea table made for the swedish royal family in 1780 , which went for 1 , 040 , 520 . almost as expensive was an 18th_century porcelain ludwigsburg marketplace , known as the "" venetian carnival , "" which sold for 960 , 480 . still , the house of baden , which traces its roots to the 12th_century , has heavy debts to pay . late last year , after a recession compounded by mismanagement of its agricultural , forestry and industrial holdings had left the family 184 million in the red , the 62 year old margrave reluctantly decided to liquidate some assets . the neues schloss , the castle that overlooks this delightful spa , seemed the obvious place to start . since 1918 , when the house of baden was stripped of 15 other castles , the neues schloss has been used as a warehouse to store the contents of those expropriated castles . and when teams of sotheby 's experts began sifting through the neues schloss early this year , they found it contained important collections of 17th and 18th_century german furniture , flemish tapestries , meissen procelain and myriad art objects . the margrave had hoped to keep the collection intact , and he offered it to the regional government of baden wurttemberg for what he described as "" a special price "" of 55 . 6 million . the margrave 's offer set off a fierce battle inside the region 's coalition_government . the conservative christian democrats favored buying the collection , but the left leaning social democrats felt exactly the opposite . "" not a penny for the margrave , "" became their war cry . finally , in true coalition style , a deal was worked out , with the regional government agreeing to pay 31 . 6 million for the pick of the collection , including its most valuable item , a set of five early 16th_century painted altar panels by the german artist bernhard strigel , for which the arts ministry paid 8 . 3 million . the margrave 's library was also part of the government purchase . christoph graf douglas , the head of sotheby 's in germany , who acted as an adviser to the margrave , said he was glad that the most important objects would now stay in the region of baden wurttemberg . but from a financial point of view , he added with a laugh , it was "" perhaps lucky "" that the government did not buy everything . "" in february , we had done a very rough inventory , "" he said , "" but the more we studied the collection , the more it seemed to be worth . "" this evening , after the first two days of the auction , his instinct was proved right sales had already exceeded the pre sale estimate of 20 million for the entire auction . to stir interest in the auction , which ends on oct . 21 , the most valuable items were offered early on , but takings appeared to be averaging about one third higher than expected . the controversy surrounding the sale has in turn helped draw the crowds . during five open days before the auction , more than 23 , 000 visitors looked over the collection , which filled four marquees as well as the 105 rooms of the four floor castle . some 17 , 000 copies of the seven volume catalogue have already been sold . and about 800 people filled a large marquee when the auctioneer , simon de pury , invited bids for the first item on thursday morning . preparing the collection for display , though , was not easy . glassware and porcelain sets , some still in their original boxes , had to be washed . delicate tapestries were rolled up in newspapers dating back to the 1850 's . and the attic was full of chairs , picture frames and hundreds of stag 's heads and antlers , many attached to plaques recording who shot the animals , where and when . while museums , dealers and collectors , many of them bidding by telephone , clearly know what items they want , sotheby 's is also counting on selling many fairly worthless paintings , sticks of furniture and even porcelain bedpans simply because of their association with a german royal family . mr . douglas said he expected some items to go for 20 percent more than their objective value , thanks to "" the royal markup . "" more of a problem is the castle itself . "" it 's on the market , "" said prince bernhard , the margrave 's 25 year old son , "" but we have no idea of the price . it will depend on who wants it , what restoration has to be done . perhaps in the medium term the government will buy it . not yet , of course . it 's a problem we 'll worry about after the auction . """,has a topic of arts
"helmut newton , left , the photographer famed for his images of fashion and nudes , has donated more than 1 , 000 of his pictures to a german cultural foundation for a museum scheduled to open in june in berlin and intended to become a national center for photography . announcing his gift at a news conference in berlin , mr . newton , 82 , said that it did not include his negatives , as he still needed them for his work , but he added that eventually they , too , would go to the foundation , stiftung preussischer kulturbesitz , in charlottenburg , the neighborhood where he grew up in a prominent jewish family and took his first photography lessons before leaving nazi_germany for exile in singapore in 1938 . he and his wife , june , a photographer who works under the name alice springs , are paying for the establishment of the new gallery . kirsten grieshaber arts briefing highlights",has a topic of arts
"the old man with memories and the young woman with questions had not met before this day , but seemed drawn to one another she to inquire , he to warn about the unwanted legacy that both binds and divides germany 's generations the nazi past . briefly , their paths entwined at an exhibit in the gothic city hall that has stirred unaccustomed passions in this southern city , confronting bavarians with evidence directly contradicting the fondly held belief that hitler 's army remained aloof from the holocaust . here , in grainy black and white photographs , some taken as grisly souvenirs , ordinary german soldiers not ss madmen are shown humiliating jews and conducting summary executions by firing_squad and hanging . here is a letter written home by a young soldier boasting that his unit had killed 1 , 000 jews ''and that was not enough . '' the exhibit has already toured 15 cities in germany and austria , but only in traditionally conservative munich , where nazism took root in the 1920 's , has it become an object of ferocious political division , to the extent that both the far right and leftist groups called rival demonstrations . ( thousands of local residents and left_wing activists rallied against neo_nazis protesting the exhibit on saturday , but a two hour standoff between the groups ended without major clashes , reuters reported . the police said 55 people were detained . ) yet , most remarkable of all , the exhibit has broken a wall of silence between young germans , who learned principally about the holocaust during high_school , and a much older generation that took part in the second world_war and then , by and large , took refuge in self imposed silence . ''up until today this had not been discussed across the generations , '' said lucy wilbers , a 22 year old student , whose encounter today with hubert endl , a 79 year old military veteran , touched off one of many spontaneous debates . the exhibit , sponsored by a private_foundation run by the tobacco heir jan phillip reemtsma , is called ''war of destruction the crimes of the german_army , 1941 1944 . '' its theme is that , as the catalogue puts it , ''in 1945 , barely after the defeat of nazi_germany , the generals of that period began the fabrication of a legend the legend of the 'clean army' , '' according to which ''the soldiers kept their distance from the nazi_regime and hitler , fulfilled their military duties with decency and dignity . '' however , the exhibit 's organizers said , ''from 1941 to 1944 , the germany army in the balkans and the soviet_union conducted not a 'normal war' but a war of destruction against jews , prisoners of war and civilians that claimed millions of victims . '' that conclusion , supported by photographs and documents , has inspired bavaria 's conservative rulers in the christian_social_union the sister party of chancellor helmut_kohl 's dominant christian democrats to urge a boycott of the exhibit on the ground that it besmirches a proud military record , inspiring clashes with left_wing parties that support a more open debate about the past . but , despite the boycott call , many bavarians , young and old , have stood in line for hours to view the exhibit , fascinated and introspective . ''i was drafted in 1942 , '' said a 73 year old veteran , who declined to give his name . ''i was n't in the places where these things happened , '' he said , gesturing to photographs of hangings and mass graves . ''and thank god i was n't . because if i had been , i 'd have done the same . the choice was to shoot or be shot for disobeying orders . '' all the same , though , he said , he had served in a place in the ukraine that he suspected was among the many sites where jews were known to have been killed . ''i said to my comrades if the things are happening that i think are happening , then we will all have to repent them . '' then , he turned to young people in their jeans and leather jackets who had clustered around him , waving his walking stick as he declaimed ''it must never , ever happen again . '' for ms . wilbers , the student who spoke with mr . endl about his time with the german_army in the ukraine and yugoslavia during the war , the old man 's stories illuminated what she had been told at school . ''there were books and videos and we studied them , '' she said . ''but , until today , they were not so real . '' ms . wilbers belongs to a generation of germans that has been taught never to suppress the memory of the holocaust and to accept , not guilt for it , but a national responsibility . mr . endl , by contrast , is from a generation much closer to questions of guilt and its denial . ''i believe that after 50 years , we should not bring all these things up again , '' he said , ''because what you see here is a result of the way german soldiers were mistreated . why is it always the germans who are blamed ? did no one else do any killing ? '' ''yes , but it must be aired , it must be out in the open , '' said a younger man who asked not to be identified by name . the exhibit has contributed to a surge of fascination in the reunified germany about the second world_war and the holocaust . indeed , such is the apparent hunger for explanations that , last year , a book by daniel j . goldhagen , a harvard academic , on the role of ordinary germans in the persecution of jews , became a best seller here . the book 's thesis in contrast to german historical works attributing the holocaust either to the inherent evil of the nazi leaders or to the system of genocide they created was that the killing of six million jews stemmed directly from a particularly virulent , german anti_semitism that sought the annihilation of the jews as a ''national project . '' the fascination with the past is ascribed by some germans to a generational shift . ''it has become so much easier for this generation to deal with the past , '' said josef joffe , a leading newspaper commentator here who has followed the debate closely . ''the young generation can relive the fascination without reliving the fear and stigmatization . it can look the evil in the eye . '' the debate , though , is more tangled than that , coaxing forth the array of emotions by which germans seek to absorb the notion that their forebears committed what many consider to be history 's most appalling crime . most notably , many argue that , whatever happened in the past , they should not be the only ones to shoulder guilt . ''other countries pushed out their jews and sent them to us is n't that true ? '' said a middle_aged woman who declined to be identified by name , bursting into a debate between two war veterans and a group of students in their early 20 's . and , cutting across generational lines , some asked why , after 50 years , germany could not shake its past . ''we should be creating a new europe , '' said bernhard ehreke , a 22 year old hotel administration trainee . ''we should be looking forward and not back . '' then , as if to answer his own question , he said ''war is cruel . war is hell . it brings out criminal instincts that we should lay aside . and we should never forget that . ''",has a topic of arts
"sale of chinese_porcelain from the hodroff collection porcelain collectors who care about provenance will like christie 's jan . 24 sale of the collection of chinese export porcelain being consigned by leo and doris hodroff , a couple who have been accumulating porcelain for 50 years . many pieces in the 255 lot sale still retain the labels of their former owners , including those of rafi and mildred mottahedeh , benjamin edwards iii and martin hurst . the hodroffs have donated porcelain to the minneapolis institute of art , the norton museum of art , the peabody essex museum and winterthur museum . ''they have given away a lot , but they still have a lot , '' said becky macguire , christie 's specialist in chinese export art . ''they collected across the board , 16th_century to 19th_century . the typical profile these days is to focus on one area . '' the collection is strong in privately commissioned porcelain made for the west , like dishes bearing a patron 's coat of arms . one small punch bowl , for example , was made for the ''society of bucks , '' a georgian men 's society dedicated to eating and drinking . its coat of arms shows the heads of the gods bacchus and ceres , hinting at some of the rituals of membership . another western commission , from about 1800 , is a grisaille saucer dish whose center is a portrait of west wycombe park , a house on the thames outside london . the house is shown in the distance surrounded by trees and parkland . in the foreground three deer graze on the banks of the river . the border is a diamond pattern in gold and blue . the estimate for the plate , formerly in the mottahedeh collection , is 1 , 500 to 2 , 500 . viewing begins jan . 18 . 20th_century sales the results of the 12 auctions of 20th_century decorative_arts this month were mixed . ''all in all there was too much on the market at one time , and things were too aggressively estimated , '' said barbara deisroth , a private consultant . ''if there is a lesson here , it 's that putting high estimates on pieces does n't mean those pieces will achieve those prices . '' business also may have been hurt because the auctions followed design miami , a small fair of 17 prominent international design galleries , which was held during art basel miami_beach . what follows is a chronological rundown of some of the results . the total reached by los_angeles modern auctions on dec . 3 of dr . basia gingold 's furniture designed by the architect r . m . schindler was an unremarkable 298 , 650 . ( it was estimated at 284 , 400 to 418 , 300 . ) the wolfsonian florida international university museum in miami bought a display cabinet , and the art institute of chicago bought four pieces a side chair with a built in radio cabinet , both from about 1945 , a pair of triangular end tables , from about 1943 , and a hand colored rendering of a medical office building . peter loughery , the owner of la modern , said the publicity that the sale generated may have scared off buyers . ''afterwards collectors told me they thought prices would go sky high and so did n't participate , '' he said . the dec . 14 sale at phillips de pury company in new york totaled 3 . 7 million , below the low estimate of 3 . 8 million . bauhaus era pieces were the big winners . a rare tea glass that was designed by josef albers , estimated at 60 , 000 to 80 , 000 , sold for 268 , 000 . an early barcelona chair by mies_van_der_rohe sold for 100 , 800 ( estimate 40 , 000 to 60 , 000 ) . the total for the three sales of 20th_century design at sotheby 's was 18 . 8 million , just above the presale high estimate of 18 . 7 million . ''the sale was an improvement on last december and similar to what we did in december 2003 and 2004 , '' said james zemaitis , the specialist at sotheby 's . ''each sale was driven by one monster masterwork that a half dozen people fought for . '' the krosnick sale of george nakashima pieces totaled 2 . 6 million ( against a high estimate of 1 . 9 ) . the two red roses foundation , a private museum in florida , bought the ''arlyn'' dining table for a record 822 , 400 . ''nakashima is the one american blue chip designer of the 20th_century , '' mr . zemaitis said . ''he is the only one on the level of such prewar giants as ruhlmann and rateau . '' the american renaissance sale totaled 6 . 9 million . an 11 piece dining suite that greene greene had designed in about 1908 for the freeman a . ford house in pasadena , calif . , sold for 2 . 1 million , a record for greene greene at auction . ( the high estimate was 600 , 000 . ) ''the suite descended through the family and had never been on the market , '' mr . zemaitis said . a tiffany studios ''tulip'' table lamp made about 1900 sold for 486 , 400 , against a high estimate of 300 , 000 . the various owners' sale totaled 9 . 3 million . the new york dealer french company bought the top lot , a life size bronze sculpture of a baboon by rembrandt bugatti , for a staggering 2 . 2 million ( against a high estimate of 800 , 000 ) . bonhams 's 20th_century sale in new york on dec . 16 totaled 1 . 6 million . a tiffany ''dragonfly'' lamp on a cattail base from a private collection brought 260 , 250 , more than twice its estimate . christie 's six sales of 20th_century works achieved 23 . 7 million . the sale of daum glass , from the collection of dr . simon pinhas , totaled 2 . 76 million . ms . deisroth , the consultant , was not surprised it did well . ''he was a beloved man , '' she said . ''the sale had the right estimates and the results were good . '' the tiffany sale totaled 5 . 9 million . mcclelland rachen , the new york art advisers , bought the top lot , a ''magnolia'' leaded_glass and bronze floor lamp made about 1920 for 1 . 47 million , just under the high estimate of 1 . 5 million . a private collection of pieces by french designers g . argy rousseau and ren lalique totaled only 2 . 9 million . ''the estimates were very aggressive , '' ms . deisroth said . the sale of works from the new york gallery historical design reached 3 . 88 million , including some crazy prices . ''the baby bootlegger , '' a two foot long red marble sculpture of a speedboat by michel karch , sold for 132 , 000 , against a high estimate of 35 , 000 . the los angeles county museum of art bought an adolf loos clock for 90 , 000 , against a high estimate of 60 , 000 . the various owners sale reached 5 . 66 million . the biggest surprise ? a european dealer bought a silver claret jug designed by carlo bugatti in 1907 for 688 , 000 , against a high estimate of 180 , 000 . the sale of mirrors and other works by the 1950s parisian designer line vautrin achieved a solid 2 . 64 million . antiques",has a topic of arts
"yoichi ohira has worked in glass for more than 30 years , first as a glass blower in his native tokyo , then , since 1973 , as a glass designer on the island of murano in venice . while not the first japanese artist to produce glass there , he was the only one to remain and make venice his home . today , mr . ohira 's murano glass , a fusion of asian forms and venetian surfaces , has attracted an international following . interest was spurred in this country by two one man exhibitions in 2000 and 2001 at the barry friedman gallery in manhattan . both shows sold out . mr . friedman , who represents the artist internationally but not in japan , said mr . ohira 's works were now owned by scores of collectors and seven museums in the united_states , including the metropolitan_museum_of_art , the american craft museum , the cooper hewitt national design museum and the corning glass museum in upstate new york . now mr . friedman has organized an exhibition of 200 objects that is four times larger than either of his previous shows . half the pieces on view were lent by collectors and are not for sale the rest are new works priced at 3 , 800 to 14 , 500 . ''i do n't know another market in the contemporary craft field that is as strong as glass , '' mr . friedman said . ''there are so many clubs and organizations of glass collectors more than 10 nationwide that are helping to fuel interest in contemporary work . '' curiously , mr . ohira 's works were not recognized until recently , possibly because the artist , who is 55 , never sought public attention . he lives modestly in venice in a one bedroom apartment , a 15 minute trip to the island of murano in the venetian lagoon . but his life and work began to change in 1992 , when he was invited to put on an exhibition by the art gallery of the isetan department_store in tokyo . to produce the objects for the show , he quit his job as the chief designer at a murano factory and started making one of a kind pieces , hiring two glassmakers to help him at the anfora glassworks on murano . the two men , livio serena , a master glass blower and giacomo barbini , a master glass cutter , have produced his glass ever since . ''working with them , i was able for the first time to make the kind of glass objects i had dreamed of creating , '' mr . ohira said . ''the exhibition in tokyo was a big success . '' at the time , mr . ohira was focused almost exclusively on producing transparent glass objects , a look that was dominating the field of contemporary glass . but he was eager to experiment , so he switched to ancient techniques , making opaque glass in forms inspired by chinese porcelains . he chose strong song dynasty shapes , like spheres and gourds , combining them with narrow necks and dynamic venetian surfaces that pulse with brilliant colors , abstract patterns , contrasting textures and jewel like luminescence . mr . ohira is a hands on designer , a trait common among studio artists and one that is increasingly seen in the factories of murano . he starts by selecting the opaque and transparent canes ( rods of glass ) that he uses in all his objects . he then cuts them to the desired thickness and length and assembles the pieces on a flat metal sheet , as if he were preparing a pizza . now he adds the sausagelike slices of canes called murrhines and sprinkles the surface with powders for glitter . the ''pizza'' goes into the furnace , where the canes fuse and the glass softens so that the object can be blown . mr . ohira is deft at devising more than a score of different traditional surface treatments , many of which are not at all what they seem to be . a vase in the shape of a double gourd looks as if red ink had been dribbled down its snow_white surface , when in fact the vase is made entirely of red and white glass canes of varying sizes . and a tall , cone shaped black vase , which appears to be painted on the outside with white petals and on the inside with red petals , is a tour de force of white murrhines coated on the inside with melted red glass beads . working in murano factories for so many years as a member of a team made mr . ohira sensitive to the roles of everyone in the production process . ''i am a foreign guest of this community , '' he said . ''my works are made by my hosts , the master glassmakers at the anfora factory who work with me on each piece . '' to acknowledge this collaboration , the designer took the unusual step of asking mr . serena and mr . barbini to add their signatures to his on the pieces they produce . ''by signing my name only , i would be deceiving whoever acquires my works , '' he said . ''we so called artists or designers of glass must always ask ourselves 'who gave us these forms ? who gave us these surfaces ? ' they should share the credit for what they make . '' mr . ohira began painting and drawing when he was 6 and later , at the urging of his parents , studied fashion design at the kuwasawa design school in tokyo . they hoped he would join the family business , manufacturing women 's clothes , which his mother designed and his father produced . but in 1969 , after completing his studies , he followed a dream he had had since he was a boy and became a glass blower at the kagami crystal company there . four years later , after seeing a television show on murano , he went to venice to study sculpture . within a few months he was working part time in murano , which he continued to do while studying for the next five years . several of the newer pieces in the show reveal his painterly instincts , especially a black and red pear shaped vase from 2001 , a work that looks like something by an abstract expressionist artist . ''perhaps i will continue to develop my painterly work , '' he said . ''i always compose images in my head that i have never painted but may realize in the future . but for me the most important things i do in glass are experiments . i made that vase last year , and my next approach may be quite different . i always want to find something new in my glass . today i made four pieces , and each one was different from all the others . they were all experiments , and that is exciting . '' yoichi ohira barry friedman gallery , 32 west 67th street . through nov . 9 . art architecture correction september 22 , 2002 , sunday an article on page 33 of arts leisure today about an exhibition of work by the glass designer yoichi ohira at the barry friedman gallery misstates the address . it is 32 east 67th street , not west .",has a topic of arts
"the oddly titled tuscan dance in movement series crept into new york almost unannounced . and audiences eager to learn something about modern_dance in italy and about the five participating companies , all new to new york , got no help from the italian government agencies presenting the mini festival as part of the promotional tuscan dream in new york . judging from the first two groups , which performed on friday and saturday nights at the john_jay theater , italian modern_dance is less about movement than production values and superimposed ideas . the series opened with the virgilio sieni dance company of florence , which performed mr . sieni 's two part ''empty space requiem , '' set to music by letizia renzini . marina giovannini began the piece with a long solo , in which she posed and moved about the stage , most often looking like a gawky bird with clenched flyaway wings and legs . as she moved , she put on and took off articles of fanciful clothing that lay in a pile on the dim stage . ms . giovannini lay face down , her head turned away from the audience , during the entire second section , while three men capered and sat , occasionally breaking into soft shoe bobbing or peering tentatively at the woman . the heads of all four were covered in latex hoods with animal ears . mr . sieni studied art and architecture and trained in dance with traut faggioni . he performed and choreographed in amsterdam , new york and japan , where he learned shintaido , a dance and martial_arts form that uses the voice . you could see the architectural influence in ''empty space requiem . '' the three men ( mr . sieni , samuele cardini and michele simonetti ) suggested a constantly shifting community that shaped the space around them as it went . their ears suggested they were strangers in a strange world . but their incessant cheeping of vowels was annoyingly cute , and the accompanying video images of rodents , village musicians and static cartoon images added little to the mix . there was a lot of fun to be had , with one haunting sequence of horror in ''il migliore dei mondi possibili'' ( ''the best of possible worlds'' ) , presented by robert castello 's aldes company , based in lucca , on saturday night . the seven dancers were stylish and engaging , with the sleek look and attack of merce_cunningham performers . mr . castello has danced with and created video for carolyn carlson , an american migr modern_dance choreographer who trained with alwin_nikolais . in the first section , the dancers strode about the stage , enacted strange but funny little vignettes and burst into sharp angled calisthenic motion . behind them , the second hand of a large projected clock ticked off the individual minutes . often the performers and small dances changed with the minutes . the dance , performed in silence and to a collage of sound and music fragments , darkened toward the middle . a woman repeated ''vote for him'' until the phrase became gibberish . two women danced sensuously to music overlaid with a voice chanting a litany , louder and louder , about wanting to do things like an american . then came the horror , as film of the sept . 11 attack on the world trade center was projected on the clock , running backward , gradually turning the towers back into serene monoliths with live inhabitants until a gnatlike airplane backed away . beneath the screen , a man paced in dim light . the choreography then became quietly lyrical , but darkness prevailed . the second section was a puzzling exercise for dancers dressed in superman outfits , to music that included bits of ''puttin' on the ritz . '' cleverness prevailed , as in mr . sieni 's piece , but without the smugness . mr . castello performed with valentina buldrini , valerie erken , francesca foscarini , silvia mercuriali , alessandra moretti and stefano questorio . the exquisitely beautiful lighting was by gianni pollini . the remaining performances in the series include the florence dance company ( tomorrow ) and the company of giorgi rossi ( friday ) , all at john_jay ( 899 10th_avenue , at 59th_street ) . dance review",has a topic of arts
"antique chinese glass is a stepchild in the family of chinese decorative_arts . there are only a handful of scholarly books on the subject , and few american museums have high quality chinese glass collections . ( the outstanding exceptions are the museum_of_fine_arts in boston and the corning museum of glass in upstate new york . ) much more attention is paid to chinese painting , calligraphy and ceramics from ancient times through the ming_dynasty ( a . d . 1368 to 1644 ) . ''lack of knowledge has made people afraid to touch chinese glass , '' said mostafa hassan , owner of a manhattan gallery , imperial oriental art . mr . hassan , a former specialist at christie 's , sells pink , amber , turquoise and ' 'mutton fat'' white examples of 18th and 19th_century chinese glass in his gallery , at 790 madison_avenue , near 67th street . the market for chinese glass has had dramatic ups and downs . in the early 1980 's it was relatively inexpensive because there was little demand for it . by the end of the 1980 's the market heated up and the prices for the finest examples increased dramatically . the stepchild status persists , however . as james b . godfrey , a sotheby 's specialist , said , ''glass can be a whimsical market . '' a few years ago two scholars , claudia brown and donald rabiner , tried to explain the prejudice against post ming chinese glass . in ''clear as crystal , red as flame later chinese glass , '' a catalogue for a 1990 exhibition at the china institute in america , they wrote , ''particular disdain has long been reserved for 'late' chinese_art , that is , works of the qing_dynasty ( 1644 1911 ) . '' ms . brown , curator of asian art at the phoenix art museum , and mr . rabiner , an art_history professor at arizona_state_university who died in 1992 , explained ''the obvious merits of qing period jade , enamel , lacquer and glass were sadly obscured by the belief that 'late' is but a euphemism for decadent , representing at best the triumph of technique over good design , and more commonly bearing witness to a notable decline in workmanship . '' a coming show at alvin lo oriental art limited , a gallery at 5 east 57th_street in manhattan , may challenge such attitudes . mr . lo , whose father , p . c . lu , was a renowned hong_kong dealer , has been collecting glass for 15 years . on sept . 14 he is opening an exhibition titled ''18th_century the golden age of peking glass , '' which includes 18 pieces , ranging from monochrome examples in egg yolk yellow , ruby red and opaline green with simple shapes ( what is called ' 'scholar 's taste'' ) to highly decorative pieces with multicolored glass overlays . the lo exhibition is timed to coincide with asia week in new york , a major period of sales of oriental antiques . the doyle sale is on sept . 13 . the ''art of pacific asia'' show runs from sept . 15 through 18 . sotheby 's sale is on sept . 15 and includes several pieces of later chinese glass . lot 10 , for example , is a pair of 19th_century yellow jars with covers . ''jars with covers always seem popular with people , because they like the shape , '' mr . godfrey said . ''what is also compelling is the color . yellow is the most sought after because it is the color associated with the chinese imperial_household . '' one lot at sotheby 's is a brush washer . mr . godfrey called it ''a typical scholar 's object , in that it is more subtle , simple and less complex . '' the estimates for the glass range from 2 , 000 to 10 , 000 . christie 's ''fine chinese furniture , ceramics and works of art'' sale on sept . 16 will have little glass , except for a handful of small bottles . mr . lo uses the popular term peking glass because people associate chinese glass with the imperial palace workshop and the commercial glass houses of beijing . in fact the chinese have made glass since about 700 b.c . it is just that glass apparently did not rate royal patronage until 300 years ago . in 1696 the second emperor of the qing_dynasty , kangxi ( 1662 1722 ) , established a glass house within the palace workshops , apparently after learning that a german missionary in beijing , kilian stumpf ( 1655 1720 ) , knew how to construct kilns , formulate glass batches and work the materials into forms . the founding of the imperial workshop was ''an event that would profoundly affect the history of chinese glass for at least a century , '' ms . brown and mr . rabiner wrote . ''imperial patronage greatly increased the status of this material , whose principal function had long been the economical imitation of jade and other hard stones . '' the palace workshops grew productive and glass became very fashionable , both inside the court and out . mr . stumpf 's influence over the forms the glass took was short lived . as ms . brown and mr . rabiner wrote in the phoenix art museum catalogue for the 1987 show ''chinese glass of the qing_dynasty 1644 1911'' ''however much technical assistance the european craftsmen may have lent , few surviving pieces of chinese glass owe a discernible debt to european styles . '' what happened in fact was just the opposite . by the time of the qianlong empire ( 1736 1795 ) , the chinese were making glass in the shapes of traditional_chinese pots , vases , dragon handled cups , even statues of horses . ''glassmaking had long encompassed the imitation of hard stones , '' the catalogue continues , ''but now , working side by side with lacquerers , enamelers and jade craftsmen , glassmen took inspiration from other crafts . '' in the lo exhibition , there are a pair of opaque green glass cups decorated with bas relief carvings of lotus leaves , birds , and flowering branches . mr . lo said that the carved glass cups were made to imitate carved jadeite . ''jadeite was always very expensive it was a precious material , '' mr . lo said . ''peking glass was made to look like jade , lapis lazuli , turquoise and rose quartz . it imitated rubies , sapphires and emeralds . '' collecting chinese glass can be a tricky enterprise . ''i do n't sell it because it 's so easy to copy , '' said ralph chait , a veteran manhattan dealer in chinese_art . mr . lo concurred . ''you have to buy from a reputable source , '' he said . ''some of the marks on glass are very deceiving . they could be from the imperial glass works , but they could also be marks added in the 20th_century . to make matters worse , there are genuine pieces that have no marks . you have to have a basic understanding of what pieces would have been marked , and which would not . '' mr . lo warned that there are fakes on the market . ''in the early 1980 's , when i started dealing in 18th_century glass , prices were so low that it was n't worth faking , '' he said . ''when prices shot up in the late 1980 's , i began to see decorative pieces with marks that should n't have had any marks . the chinese do a very good job at imitating old peking glass . '' mr . lo 's prices range from 8 , 500 to 150 , 000 ( for an unusual pair of glass horses ) . the show is to continue through sept . 24 . antiques",has a topic of arts
"to the editor frank rich exposes the conflict that the television networks face ''iraq around the clock , '' march 30 . neither sitcoms nor reality_shows can match the drama of war , especially among viewers who know some of the actors . the networks will vie to provide around the clock coverage , and we will soon witness the inevitable world war iii brought to us by burger_king , hasbro , exxon and any other consumption propagandists insufficiently embarrassed by the association . glenn alan cheney hanover , conn . war tv",has a topic of arts
"the buzz was palpable monday evening in manhattan at christie 's auction preview of the robert p . piccus collection of fine classical_chinese furniture . among those examining the folding stools and high yokeback armchairs were the dealers grace wu bruce and charlotte horstmann from hong_kong and nicholas grindley from london , along with collectors like george weiss of hartford , dr . marvin and pat gordon of san_francisco and robert blumenfield of los_angeles . until quite recently , the market for fine chinese classical furniture has been nearly invisible . while a small , select group of collectors including edward c . johnson 3d , the chairman of fidelity_investments the former hollywood agent michael ovitz charles b . wang of computer associates international bruce dayton , a trustee of the minneapolis institute of arts , and the contemporary_art dealer arne glimcher have been quietly willing to pay more and more for a dwindling supply of pieces , an appreciation for the masterworks of the late ming ( up to 1644 ) and early qing ( 1644 1750 ) dynasties surfaced in the public consciousness only last september . that is when christie 's sold the contents of the museum of classical_chinese furniture collection in california , for a total of 11 . 2 million , 3 million above the auction house 's top presale_estimate . it was the highest total for a single sale of chinese artworks this decade . christie 's piccus sale yesterday was the first in a series of asian sales that will continue over the next few days . as part of sotheby 's fall ''asia week'' in manhattan , an auction of chinese furniture and artworks will be held on tuesday . this weekend , 85 dealers are exhibiting chinese furniture , ceramics and bronzes at the new york arts of pacific asia show at the gramercy_park armory on lexington_avenue at 26th_street , through sunday . and a few new york dealers have organized special ''asia week'' exhibitions m . d . flacks ltd . , for example , is offering ''classical_chinese furniture ii'' through oct . 18 at its manhattan gallery at 38 east 57th_street . over the last decade , there has been ''a dramatic , steady increase in interest , '' marcus flacks said , in the finest classical_chinese hardwood furniture from the late ming and early qing dynasties . the furniture is highly prized , scarce , refined and elegant . although well proportioned and simple in form , ming furniture does not look like furniture from the west chairs have yoke or horseshoe backs , stools fold in the center , alcove beds have wood canopies . much of the furniture is made from woods in the rosewood family . most revered for its color , graining and depth is huanghuali , a wood found in hainan_island in southern china and also imported from southeast_asia . the other woods include the extremely rare jichimu , zitan , hongmu , tielimu and a variety of cedar , nanmu . ''the only reason this furniture is not more appreciated is that there is so little of it , '' said robert h . ellsworth , a longtime dealer in chinese artworks in manhattan and the author of ''chinese furniture'' ( random_house , 1971 ) , a standard work on furniture of the late ming and early qing periods . ''this furniture is more royal than versailles , '' he said . ''chinese furniture is the only true cosmopolite of the decorative_arts . it fits with any style if you give it enough room to breathe . '' mr . ellsworth has been collecting the furniture since 1956 . he says he does not sell furniture , only artworks . ''i 'm a dealer who collects , '' he explained . ''i refuse to be a collector who deals . '' the appeal of ming furniture lies in the richness of the wood , the simplicity of the design and the intricate construction . chinese furniture is made without nails . the wood is connected by a mortise and tenon system of joinery that requires great skill to master . it can be disassembled and reassembled fairly easily . ''at its core , this system is incredibly multifaceted , '' mr . flacks said . ''you are looking not at one man 's work but at the accumulated work of five or six centuries that reached its apex in the late 16th_century . the joinery remains unsurpassed to this day . '' people often say they find classical_chinese furniture very masculine in fact , most major collectors are men but as lark e . mason jr . , vice_president of chinese artworks at sotheby 's , said , the chinese designed some furniture specifically for women . ''it is on a smaller scale , '' he said , ''and has different decorations . there is pierced foliage on it and phoenixes instead of dragons . '' alice yuan piccus said that chinese furniture ''appeals to anyone with a sense of proper porportion . '' mrs . piccus said she introduced the style to raymond and mimi hung of hong_kong , who then went on to become serious collectors themselves . the hung collection will be shown at the asian art museum of san francisco in january . ''the demand for this furniture is increasing worldwide , '' said gisele groes , a brussels dealer who specializes in chinese works of art and shows at both the paris biennale and the international asian art fair held in the spring in manhattan . ''twenty years ago it was a matter of aficionados , '' she said . ''it was the rare person who was interested in ming furniture . my clientele now is french , italian , american , malaysian . people find the furniture very pure and modern . prices are going up dramatically . fifteen years ago , i could buy a pair of huanghuali ming chairs for 45 , 000 now the same pair is 80 , 000 . '' damon spilios , the owner of ming furniture ltd . on east 64th street in manhattan , attributes the increase in demand partly to the chinese themselves . ''i think the chinese had a high regard for this furniture even back in the ming period , '' he said . ''the chinese see furniture more as a craft than as an art . but after wang shixiang published his book 'classic chinese furniture of the ming and early qing dynasties' in chinese in 1985 , the chinese had their own reference book . the market has tripled since then . great pieces went from 5 , 000 to 15 , 000 . '' michael goedhuis , a london dealer who specializes in chinese artworks , said that not just furniture , but all chinese_art was becoming rarer on the market . ''this art is going to be the focus of the new rich in china , '' mr . goedhuis said . ''it 's part of a deep interest in being seen to be cultured . one way to show that is to have collections . chinese_art is going to be very expensive because there 's going to be an enormous push by the chinese to buy their own art , even as the supply declines . '' mr . goedhuis said he had new chinese clients from europe , singapore , vancouver , taiwan and hong_kong . james b . godfrey , director of the chinese artworks department at sotheby 's , agrees ''there are new collectors from china , taiwan , hong_kong and southeast_asia . it 's chinese people buying their own heritage . '' now , american mass market furniture companies are getting in on the act . century furniture is only one of the old north_carolina companies that is adding ming inspired pieces to its fall furniture line . can the pottery barn be far behind ?",has a topic of arts
"on the list of italy 's countless contributions to western civilization is the phenomenon of the paparazzi . immortalized in fellini 's ''la dolce vita , '' the italian character paparazzo was originally romanticized as a photographer of the stars who was more mischievous than hazardous , a necessary appendage to roman glamour . but that character has now been reduced to the likes of fabrizio corona . mr . corona , 33 , is entering his third week in jail in southern_italy where he is being investigated on suspicion of involvement in a sex and blackmailing scheme that has shocked this country , which is no stranger to scandal . ''i am like robin_hood , '' mr . corona said during a televised interview just before his arrest . ''i steal from the rich and i give to myself . '' the scandal , which has tarred an array of sports stars , respected politicians and actors , and general fame seekers , is called valettopoli because of the central role played by valettes , the lightly clothed showgirls who serve as ornaments on a number of television talk_shows . as investigators have framed their case , some valettes were lured by promises of stardom , only to be used as bait in a blackmailing scheme rigged by mr . corona and a well known talent agent , lele mora . investigators suspect that mr . mora , who has been warned not to leave the country and so is confined to one of his mansions , was drawing in the rich , the famous and the not so famous to parties where he hoped to create and document , with the aid of mr . corona and his camera , compromising situations involving celebrities and politicians . though some of the pictures were tame , the threat of publication was enough for some of the subjects to succumb to blackmail , according to news reports . mr . corona , who ran a well known photo agency , was arrested with a dozen other people this month . prosecutors are considering charging him and other suspects with bribery , prostitution and the selling of drugs in high end discos . mr . corona and mr . mora have denied wrongdoing mr . corona said he was offering stars the chance to buy pictures and gossip at the same rates he would offer to publications . investigators recently discovered mr . corona 's secret photo archive , which includes tens of thousands of photos , suggesting that more incriminating photos could be found . but the drama does not stop with mr . mora , mr . corona and the showgirls . there are the soccer stars francesco totti and adriano leite ribeiro , known simply as adriano , both of whom , according to the investigators , were threatened with the publication of photos and details of supposed dalliances unless they paid blackmail . ( according to widespread news reports , mr . totti paid but mr . ribeiro did not . ) there is the 22 year old daughter of the former prime_minister silvio_berlusconi , who allegedly paid 20 , 000 euros ( about 26 , 600 ) to keep a photo of her leaving a milan nightclub out of the newspapers . there is clemente mastella , italy 's minister of justice and a staunch defender of catholic values , who denied that he was present on a yacht off the amalfi coast on which prostitutes and cocaine were circulating there is no firm evidence against him . and there is silvio sircana , right hand man and spokesman for prime_minister romano_prodi . mr . sircana wrote a mea culpa letter after newspapers printed a photo of him in his car , pulled curbside , chatting with a transsexual prostitute through the passenger side window . he said this was an innocent mistake . the whole affair is spilling out in italian newspapers and on talk_shows and has more than one commentator making the obvious parallels between italy 's seamier side and its love affair with reality_television . ''unfortunately , valettopoli is something that is very much part of the italian culture , '' said aldo grasso , who writes a column for corriere_della_sera about television and italian culture . the foil to the type of people that mr . grasso objects to is the lead prosecutor in the case , henry john woodcock , a 39 year old anglo italian . mr . woodcock has interrogated a string of a list celebrities , businessmen and showgirls . and each day newspapers are filled with his plans for the investigation and the previous day 's discoveries . one of mr . woodcock 's calls was to raoul bova , a movie star in italy and hollywood . mr . bova was interviewed this week in potenza . he said investigators found a photo of him seated at a dinner table with more than a dozen people from mr . corona 's archive . investigators wanted to know if mr . bova had been blackmailed . he said he had not been . ''the sensation that i had was crazy , '' said mr . bova , who in an interview expressed anger at italian authorities , magistrates and the media over his treatment in what he said was obviously a trifling event . ''in some way , even being an honest person who did n't do anything , like me , and then to find myself in the newspapers and on the news programs and in italian magazines , in a certain way it has created suspicion or doubts , '' he said . ''like , if you are on the news , then you had to have done something . the people do n't think that is all just show business . it has become buffoonery . ''",has a topic of arts
"chinese and american dancers were the top medalists in the 2002 usa international ballet competition , which ended on sunday in jackson , miss . in the senior category , for dancers aged 19 to 26 , the winners were wu haiyan of china ( women 's gold ) li jun , china ( men 's silver ) sarah lamb , united_states ( women 's silver ) mikhail ilyin , russia ( men 's bronze ) and katia carranza , mexico ( women 's bronze ) . in the junior category , for dancers 15 to 18 , the winners were joseph phillips , united_states ( men 's gold ) danny tidwell , united_states ( men 's silver ) sarah kathryn lane , united_states ( women 's silver ) yudai fukuoka , japan , and jiao yang , china ( men 's bronze ) and sang yi han , south_korea ( women 's bronze ) . no gold medals were awarded in the men 's senior and women 's junior divisions . the medals carry cash awards ranging from 500 to 8 , 000 . professional dancers from 25 nations took part in the competition , which is held every four years . eight special awards and scholarships were also announced . among them were the award for best senior couple , won by eve andre and sergei upkin of estonia . the robert joffrey award of merit went to emi hariyama of japan . the jury award of encouragement went to agnieszka szymanska of poland and troy schumacher of the united_states . jury awards went to melisa hough and ashley canterna , both from the united_states .",has a topic of arts
"to the editor frank rich does n't like the fox_news coverage of the war on iraq because it is cheerleading . it seems the american people want positive coverage , because fox 's ratings lead the pack . is n't it the height of arrogance for mr . rich to want it otherwise sort of like the french rooting against our coalition ? paul knopick laguna hills , calif . war tv",has a topic of arts
"lead to the editor to the editor john russell 's article on venice was brilliant . i spent the winter of 1986 87 in venice writing about lord byron 's daughter , ada , and like almost everyone became smitten with that fragile city . i will go one step further . venice is a metaphor of human civilization the destiny we shape for venice will foreshadow the destiny we shape for human civilization . how can simple citizens help to prevent expo 2000 ? betty a . toole mill valley , calif . trouble in venice",has a topic of arts
"like millions of girls who had come before her , the choreographer yin mei was staunchly devoted to her diary . but the thoughts she poured onto its pages were drastically different from those of a typical angst ridden adolescent . she grew up in a town in central china during the cultural_revolution . at age 7 , she , along with her classmates , started a journal to record , as she puts it , ''her progress along the revolutionary road . '' ''we were the children of chairman_mao , '' ms . yin , now 42 , said recently . ''we wanted to offer our life to him . it was real . from the ages of 7 to 14 , i sincerely wanted to become a farmer or a soldier . during the cultural_revolution , everybody spoke the same meaningless words . but as i was reading my later diaries , i can tell i started to have other feelings and sensations . i started to think about myself . '' around the same time she began her diary , ms . yin watched a ballet film and fell in love with dance . one of her most treasured childhood memories occurred when her father surprised her with a pair of ballet slippers . ''as students , we had to work on the farm to help with harvest time , '' she said . ''we were basically doing all kinds of things except studying in school . i came home from the country and saw this pair of slippers . i was so excited that i did not even wash my feet . from then on , i was dancing . '' during the cultural_revolution , ms . yin , whose outward fragility belies a tougher inner core , performed with a traditional_chinese company before moving to new york in 1985 . in her newest piece , ''nomad the river , '' to be performed at dance_theater_workshop beginning on wednesday , she strives to resolve the experiences of her childhood , not through a linear depiction but through strange and bewitching imagery that is pieced together like a dream . ''nomad , '' a quartet , features a set by christopher salter so extravagant it could be taken for an installation . mr . salter collaborated with the choreographer william_forsythe and the director peter sellars before helping to found sponge , an art and research organization . he met ms . yin last spring at brown_university , where he was teaching a course in performance technology . he watched a showing of ''nomad , '' which she had staged with a group of students there , and was riveted . ''i 've worked on and seen a lot of dance , and what impressed me about yin mei 's work was the sheer visceral quality of it , '' mr . salter said . ''there 's very little work happening where you really feel it in your gut . i was also interested in the mix of vocabulary . you see edges of asian movement traditions , but you also see a lot of german expressionist dance and european influences . i was struck by the fact that it was very organic . it 's rooted in a real place . '' the title ''nomad the river'' refers to the yellow river in china and the ganges in india , both of which ms . yin considers at once sacred and destructive . the work begins and ends with voice overs taken from ms . yin 's diaries as well as revolutionary slogans , anchoring the dance in a concrete historical moment . the middle section wordlessly evokes horror and fantasy . ''i use words but not details in the piece , '' ms . yin said . ''it does n't become entirely personal . in the end , i want to establish a sense of place to make the audience feel something , but the work is very abstract . '''nomad' is about a journey on a spiritual path . to me , a journey causes you to look inward , and my experiences are in my memory . i wanted to look deep and to create something that would help me learn about myself . '' the set comprises 27 fiberglass screens , each three feet wide and seven feet high , which hang in three rows along bars that stretch the width of the stage . black and white images depict barren trees , snow scenes or light reflecting in a pool of water . ''we 've pushed the contrast ratio so they look like japanese or chinese woodcuts , '' mr . salter said . ''they 're very graphic and textural . '' the goal is to create something akin to a three dimensional forest . ''the screens are both opaque and translucent , '' mr . salter said . ''this way , they hold an image but also allow it to seep through to the next screen and the next . we 're being very judicious with how we use the images . they materialize very slowly . a white tree appears in a black field and then another and another , until the whole space seems to turn into water . we 're using technology to create a set of spaces that deal with consciousness and dreams and a kind of shifting reality . '' mr . salter 's score , which swells and recedes throughout , flitters between electronic and natural sounds . ''it opens up a world , yet you 're not sure what that world is , '' he said . ''you hear jungle noises and cicadas , but then there are strange low rumbles . at times , it will feel like there 's an earthquake erupting beneath you . '' the dancers supplement the score by striking pieces of sheet_metal , simulating claps of thunder . while much of the imagery in ''nomad'' is purposely mysterious , for ms . yin the alarming noise evokes a devastating childhood memory . one particularly hot july day when she was 12 or 13 , a young man was executed , and she and a friend , curious , followed the crowd to the scene . ''i saw an old lady hobbling by with bound feet , '' ms . yin said . ''i remember the way she tried to run . this was the mother collecting her son 's body . suddenly , very strong thunder started , and the sun started to shine as big raindrops began to fall . everybody started running backward , because they did not want to get wet . but it was also that nature happened , and they were afraid of ghosts . ''my mother always said when people do not treat others well , heaven will cry . how could the sun come out when it was raining ? it really meant that this man , whose only crime was that he was a counterrevolutionary , should not have been killed . so thunder is very strong for me . '' 'nomad the river' yin mei dance_theater_workshop , 219 west 19th street . chelsea . march 9 through 12 . dance",has a topic of arts
"in the grand style of performers from germany 's weimar_republic , max raabe likes to party like it 's 1929 . a recent concert by mr . raabe and his palast orchester at the leipzig opera house included a selection of songs from the 1920 's and 30 's , witty banter between numbers and the occasional appearance of eight dancing girls in diaphanous skirts . at various points in the show , members of the band took the stage in traditional bavarian dress and suits that looked tailored for chicago gangsters , and kneeled in their shoes to appear as if they were about four feet_tall . after the show , at a restaurant in the center of leipzig , in what was once east_germany , mr . raabe said simply , ''i love the clich s . '' so , apparently , did the audience , a few thousand mostly middle_aged germans . mr . raabe , who will perform mainly in english with a smaller entourage in zankel hall in manhattan on nov . 30 and in philadelphia a day later , is the most popular cabaret style singer in germany , which might seem a small distinction in a country now better known to music fans for its thriving techno scene . but several of his albums have sold more than 100 , 000 copies , and his two ''super hits'' collections of droll interpretations of pop songs like ''oops ! i did it again'' have introduced his music to a wider audience . mr . raabe draws influence and material from several sources , including german film music and the bigger theater productions of the time . but his over the top show and his stage persona , all dry wit and sardonic distance , evoke weimar berlin and the decadent nightlife that was mythologized in the musical ''cabaret . '' according to the newspaper der tagesspiegel , ''max raabe stands for the good old times as their archetypal ambassador . '' berlin in the 1920 's is a time of enduring fascination all over the world . but in the german imagination it looms even larger , as a cultural golden age just before the darkness of the nazi_era and world_war_ii . ''when people hear him , they think of the 20 's and this multicultural atmosphere , '' heinz bude , a sociology professor at the university of kassel , said of mr . raabe . ''that was the time when germany was on top of the international culture scene . '' he said that for older germans , raised in a country that was collectively examining its role in the war , this idealized past was especially significant . in fact , weimar berlin can be seen as the good old days only compared with what followed . even before hitler rose to power , unemployment was rife and inflation rampant . the stories that provided the basis for the musical ''cabaret , '' written by the english author christopher isherwood and based on his experiences in weimar era berlin , are darker than the show they were made into . ''that was not a good time for germany , '' mr . raabe said . onstage he makes a point of crediting the writers of his older songs , many of whom were jewish . ''i do n't want to bring nostalgia onstage because it implies things were better in those times . but that music does have a special quality . '' to mr . raabe , the music he plays is timeless , a living form , and he tries to evoke the cosmopolitan cool of another era without seeming stuck in it . the old songs are memorable not only for their tunes , he said , but also for the witty wordplay that went with them . ''the humor of the repertory is not dated , '' he said . to judge by the examples he reels off , mr . raabe is something of a walking lyrical encyclopedia . he writes new songs in the same style , with the same skewed humor . ( some of these , like a hit song with a title that translates literally as ''no swine ever calls me , '' lose something in translation , but others work in english as well . ) many of his songs comment slyly on current events , just as some of the material he was influenced by did when it was written . in one of his originals , ''cloning can be worthwhile , '' mr . raabe sings that if a lover leaves him he will ''go out on a date with your duplicate . '' despite such lyrics , mr . raabe , 42 , a slight man with slicked back blond_hair , looks and acts as though he might have just stepped out of 20 's berlin himself . his apartment , a spacious loft in berlin 's mitte district , is filled with old books and couches with pawed feet , stacks of shellac 78 r . p.m . records and a cabinet style antique phonograph on which to play them . a modern stereo sits on a shelf in the corner . as a teenager growing up in westphalia , mr . raabe said , he listened to classical and big_band music when his friends were discovering punk . ''it was like a drug flash for me , to listen to that music , '' he said in an interview at his home . ''i was never a teenager , with those attitudes . i was never really young , and i think i will never really be old . '' when he attended college in berlin , mr . raabe put together the first version of the palast orchester and rehearsed the group with orchestral arrangements he found at a flea_market . songs from the weimar_republic were n't popular , especially with his fellow university students , and few new acts could make a career of performing them . ''we were sure that after we studied , we would give up and work at an opera or something , '' mr . raabe said . ''but we just kept going . '' mr . raabe is not the only artist in germany who performs cabaret material , although he 's one of the few who play large halls . several clubs hold cabaret nights . and a version of the musical ''cabaret'' directed by the american choreographer vincent paterson is playing at the bar jeder vernunft , a theater that also books cabaret acts . ''it 's a viable and very alive art form here , '' mr . paterson said . he added that he went back to mr . isherwood 's stories and made his version of the show a little less overtly glamorous . even the skewed humor that fascinates mr . raabe is a product of tough circumstances . ''those times were so troubled that popular entertainment tried to counteract it , '' said peter jelavich , a professor of history at johns_hopkins_university and the author of ''berlin cabaret . '' ''they were trying , especially in the first half of the 30 's , to write peppy songs to counteract the dismal realities of the day . '' even in these very different times , mr . raabe said , his concerts provide a respite of sorts . ''if you go to the concert , you can lose reality for two and a half hours , '' he said . ''that 's what this music did , even in the 20 's and 30 's . ''",has a topic of arts
"what does a makeover of 5 , 000 years of culture feel like ? ask china , because that 's what 's happening there . ancient cities are coming down new ones are going up . urban markets are spilling over with western style products . to a sizable segment of a youth heavy population , the cultural_revolution is a phantom , the tragedy of tiananmen_square , yesterday 's inexplicable news . such developments may register only casually on western attention . but the reality is that as china is transformed , the rest of the world will be transformed . the effects may be slow to unfold , even for china 's still predominantly agricultural society , but they will be profound . you can bank on that . ''between past and future new photography and video from china , '' a perspective altering show at both the international_center_of_photography and the asia_society , gives a panoramic glimpse of the continuing cultural_revolution after the cultural_revolution . it is the first such glimpse new york has had since asia_society 's 1998 survey , ''inside out new chinese_art , '' for which the new show provides a historical update . the history in question began a few years after mao_zedong 's death , in 1976 , when china expanded its contact with the west . overnight , it seemed , a generation of young artists , many of whom were trained in classical painting and calligraphy but reached maturity during the implacable heyday of socialist realism , gained access to western art , all of it , old and new . they went wild , scrambling through styles , ideas and forms with a kind of raucous , guerrilla energy . what resulted was less a new wave than a series of avant gardist firecrackers going off big_bang , little bang , silence , huge bang and so on . political pop painting in the 1980 's was like a socialist realism in reverse , with coke bottles instead of little red books . installation art had a tremendous impact it was cheap to make , required no special training and embraced all other forms , including performance . photography and video had similar advantages , the former , in particular , being easy to show and conceptually versatile it could imitate painting , adapt to installations or just be itself . most important , photography 's dual capacity for recording and inventing reality made it the ideal medium for an era of experimentation , chaotic variety and whiplash change . variety is instantly and somewhat disorientingly evident at asia_society , where the smaller segment of ''between past and future'' is so tightly installed that intended thematic divisions are hard to see . but one of these sections , ''history and memory , '' picks up more or less where ''inside out'' left off with images that make provocative references to cultural and political monuments . the great_wall , for example , becomes a stage for a nude performance by the androgynous artist ma liuming , captured in photographs and on video . and the totemic tiananmen_square portrait of mao is shot by the gao brothers ( gao qiang and gao zhen ) from directly below , so it looks like a guillotine blade descending . mao appears elsewhere , too , as do hints of the kind of political oppression associated with his name . in three pictures , sheng qi photographs his own left hand holding a snapshot one of himself as a child , one of his mother and one of mao . what 's arresting , though , is the fact that the little finger of the hand is missing . the artist cut it off in a gesture of protest before going into political exile at the time of the tiananmen massacre in 1989 . in a remarkable portrait series by hai bo , images come in pairs . the earlier picture in each pair , often a group shot of family or friends , dates from the cultural_revolution ( 1966 76 ) , while the second , taken recently , records the artist 's attempt to reassemble the original sitters . in some cases , he has been successful the same faces , now aged , are there . in others , empty chairs speak of lives lost and fates unknown . violence , implied in these pictures , becomes theatrically explicit in a second thematic section , ''reimagining the body . '' the nude figure , with its erotic potential , carries a disconcerting charge in the context of chinese classic art , from which it is all but absent . and for that reason , and others , rebellious young chinese artists have made much of it . it is presented with a kind of show bizzy flair in a 1995 shot by rong rong of the charismatic artist zhang huan , seen bound and bleeding in a performance he gave at the now demolished artists' enclave on the outskirts of beijing called the east_village . along with other figures who emerged as stars from that scene , he gave self torture an aggrandizing glamour . by contrast , in so called conceptual photography , the body plays a supporting role to ideas , literally so in huang yan 's landscapes painted directly onto his torso . here he presents himself as a physical vehicle of cultural memory and at the same time alludes to a connection between photography and painting . the body as a malleable social and personal emblem is the subject of ''performing the self , '' the first of the two superbly installed thematic sections at international_center_of_photography , where there 's room for the show to really open up . a funny , needling video by cao fei one of the show 's youngest artist and one of its unusually high number of women is set in a corporate office , though the performers are made up to look like a cross between humans and dogs . lin tianmiao , now in her early 40 's , turns a self_portrait in which she appears with her head shaved like a buddhist nun or an extraterrestrial into a towering photographic apparition anchored to the material world only by strings of yarn . old and new converge yet again in portraiture . the genre was a vital feature of classical painting , just as it is in wang qingsong 's photographic remake of the renowned 10th century scroll ''night revels of han xizai . '' in the new , digitally printed edition , song dynasty court officials are replaced by a beijing art world nobility , which includes the esteemed critic and curator li xianting and the much noticed mr . wang himself , a former painter whose history baiting tableau vivant photographs blend farce , nostalgia and world weariness in proportions that are hard to gauge . all kinds of contradictory emotions are mixed in the show 's final section , ''people and place , '' where the sense of traumatic change in china is most graphic . many pictures are of architecture . wang jinsong punctuates hundreds of black and white snapshots of bland modernistic facades with a few color pictures of the old buildings that survive . zhang dali chips a human profile out of the walls of half demolished structures , as if to give them faces . and in a remarkable video by song dong as outstanding here as he was in ''inside out'' the artist holds in his hands sheets of paper onto which video images of modern shanghai are projected . and every few minutes he abruptly crumples the sheets into a ball . the gesture is jolting every time , as if some terrorist god were obliterating a city as fast as it is built . other architectural images are more idealistic , as in the case of xing danwen 's dreamy filmstrips of beijing and xiong wenyun 's stirring shots of humble roadside houses in tibet that she fitted with cloth hangings the color of the buddhist rainbow . but a sense of vitality comes only in images of people . it 's certainly there in pictures by the hot young artist zheng guogu of slacker punk teenagers , for whom a westernized china is the only china they know , and in yang yong 's steamily noirish fashion shots . bai yilou 's hand stitched collage of photographic portrait negatives suggests the dense , roiling diversity of china 's population , in which everyone is at once unique and anonymous . such diversity becomes at once exhilarating and wrenching in the series titled ''the chinese'' by liu zheng . for several years this tireless artist traveled the country taking pictures of people old and young , poor and rich , living and dead . the complete series has just been published as a book , which i unreservedly recommend . i also recommend the exhibition catalog . it has solid essays by the show 's organizers , christopher phillips , a curator at the international_center_of_photography , and wu hung , consulting curator at the david and alfred smart museum of art , university of chicago , supplemented by artists' statements and interviews that are a revelation . among other things , they spell out the practical reasons for the popularity of photography and video media out of fashion in new york among non western artists . they also demonstrate how refined , after rough and ready beginnings , the approach to these media has become in china within just a few years . video in particular seems poised for a great_leap_forward , and on the evidence of work by xu zhen , song dong , wang jianwei and cao fei , its prospects look bright . finally , the artists in the catalog just sound different from those in the west , whether they are expressing longing for a culture perceived as lost or mingled excitement and exasperation about the one that confronts them in china today . no one ventures statements of political protest china is still a dangerous place for dissidents . but a critical sensibility is implicit in almost every word spoken and in almost every piece of art , just as it has been in chinese_art over thousands of years . indeed , the ties between contemporary and traditional_chinese art and culture , unsuspected only a few years ago , are apparent now . whether the next new generation will sustain and nurture them remains to be seen . but the dynamic they are producing today or at least when this show was selected is both elastic and finely tuned . its spirit is distilled in a photographic triptych titled ''tianyuan space_station , 12 december 2000'' by li tianyuan . in the central panel the artist himself appears , a blurred figure in front of a beijing high rise , staring up at the sky . the left panel is a satellite shot , supposedly of the very spot he is standing on , filmed from 500 miles above the earth . in the right panel is a microscopic closeup of a tiny section of his body , a fingernail . city and self , reality and fantasy , awesomeness and absurdity these are the active , volatile ingredients of chinese_art at the moment , and they give a vital , graspable shape to this important show . ''between past and future new photography and video from china'' remains on view at the international_center_of_photography , 1133 avenue of the americas , at 43rd_street , ( 212 ) 857 0000 , and at the asia_society , 725 park_avenue , at 70th street , ( 212 ) 288 6400 , through sept . 5 . the show then travels to the smart museum and the museum of contemporary_art in chicago ( oct . 2 to jan . 16 ) , to the seattle art museum ( feb . 10 to may 15 ) , to haus der kulturen der welt in berlin ( march to may 2006 ) and to the santa_barbara art_museum in california ( summer 2006 ) . art review",has a topic of arts
"of the many art exhibitions across this country tracking the fallout from the war in iraq , perhaps none is more moving than paul fusco 's display of 46 color photographs at the aldrich contemporary art museum in ridgefield , conn . titled ''bitter fruit , '' the images document funerals in cities and towns across america for some of the almost 3 , 000 united_states soldiers killed in iraq since the war began . the photographs are powerfully emotive . arranged in a single row around the walls of a quiet room , they provide us with a front line view of funeral services , speeches and interment of the soldiers , as well as shots of grieving friends and family milling around outside churches or at cemeteries . this is not some weepy melodrama engineered for a hollywood movie , but a window onto a world of shocking and realistic grief . mr . fusco is no stranger to the casualties and suffering of war . born in 1930 in leominster , mass . , and currently living in new jersey , he served as a photographer in the united_states_army in korea from 1951 to 1953 . he later covered social issues and conflicts at home and around the world , with his photographs appearing in publications including time , the new york times magazine and newsweek . he was also a staff photographer for look magazine . the current series is a moving tribute to the soldiers and their families as well as a quiet protest . while the photographs veer away from direct confrontation with the political policy that sent united_states soldiers to iraq , their display of the casualties of the war cannot help but make us question its causes and consequences . mr . fusco elaborates somewhat on this theme in an artist 's statement for the exhibition , which was organized by magnum photos and has toured nationally . he argues that he wanted the pictures to serve as a visual rebuttal to what he believes is the bush_administration 's deliberate attempt to play down the tragedies of the war . ''the most obvious example of that effort , '' he writes , ''was closing the dover_air_force_base to the press let no one see the rows of flag draped coffins ready to be shipped to grieving families . '' since 2003 , mr . fusco has followed some of those coffins home , navigating an emotional and political minefield with tact and a kind of hands off diplomacy to secure poignant , pertinent pictures . he never gets too close to his subjects , shooting from a respectful distance , often with a very powerful zoom lens . he also avoids showing us scenes of inconsolable grief . though misfortune has befallen these people , he has elected to show them mostly in emotional control . they are portrayed with dignity . one of the most touching images was taken in springfield , vt . , in 2003 , at the funeral of a soldier identified only as sergeant rose . it shows a united_states_army commander in uniform handing a folded flag to a young woman , the widow of the fallen soldier , who is surrounded by her grieving friends and family . she chokes back tears , listening to what the commander is telling her . perhaps his words are of some comfort to her , but you know that she is torn apart inside . in another image , taken in ellsworth , minn . , in 2004 , residents line main_street holding american flags as they wait for a passing motorcade for the funeral of specialist bert hoyer . in chestertown , md . , in 2004 , at the funeral of private bryan nicholas spry , a young family stands in front of a pickup_truck defiantly holding signs in support of the dead soldier and the troops . it poignantly illustrates the strength and faith required by the friends and family of soldiers to remain supportive of a war that killed the person they loved . other images are more complex and ambiguous , showing us groups of unidentified people either huddled together in grief or dissolving away after a funeral . none of this is posed or even remotely staged mr . fusco seems to have snapped pictures where and when he could . for this reason , some of the images are a little out of focus , and the light levels vary considerably . but to me this does not detract from the pictures it only makes them more heartbreakingly real . how newspapers and other news_media cover the war in iraq has been a source of constant , often partisan political argument and complaint . mr . fusco sidesteps that issue , inviting us instead to dwell quietly on the human price of war . i can think of no better advice for the holiday season , when the families of war casualties everywhere feel the loss of loved ones the most . paul fusco , ''bitter fruit , '' aldrich contemporary art museum , 258 main_street , ridgefield , conn . , through feb . 25 . information ( 203 ) 438 4519 or www . aldrichart . org . art review",has a topic of arts
"lead at first glance , the ballet barre appears to be made of wood , but upon closer examination , it turns out to be of cast_iron . this is a no frills dance studio . functional to be sure yet , by american standards , drab , cramped , cold and dimly_lighted . like almost everything else in china , it exudes an aura of hardship , stoically endured . at first glance , the ballet barre appears to be made of wood , but upon closer examination , it turns out to be of cast_iron . this is a no frills dance studio . functional to be sure yet , by american standards , drab , cramped , cold and dimly_lighted . like almost everything else in china , it exudes an aura of hardship , stoically endured . the studio 's one amenity a luxury virtually unheard of in capitalist countries is the abundance of live musicians available as accompanists on a variety of instruments . the studio is one of several similar spaces in the guangdong academy of dance in guangzhou ( formerly called canton ) , the southernmost of china 's major cities . like most southern cities , guangzhou is regarded by its northern neighbors as brash , hedonistic , uncouth and , culturally speaking , a bit of a backwater . to the cultural elite in beijing or shanghai , the guangdong academy is known ( if it 's known at all ) as a training ground for folk dancers . but this unremarkable looking school , with its rough_hewn dance floors , its bare light_bulbs and its frequent power failures is currently the focal_point of an extraordinary experiment , for it 's here that the chinese have begun to nurture a home grown variety of modern_dance . modern_dance in china ? the very idea will strike many people as an oxymoron . even those more knowledgeable about dance in china might conjure up visions of colorfully clad folk dancers , the bold , almost garish stylization of beijing opera , or odd amalgams of bolshoi style ballet , the chinese martial arts and go for broke acrobatic displays . furthermore , modern_dance would seem to celebrate everything that china , both before and after mao , discourages idiosyncratic and deeply personal ways of moving , gestures motivated by private , inner psychological concerns , a willingness to use the body in highly expressive , even sexually candid ways , varying levels of abstraction , sometimes outright formalism . thus , it took a particularly bold individual to initiate this current flirtation with modern_dance . her name is yang mei qi , the principal of the guangdong academy . according to mrs . yang , the idea was born , almost instantaneously , in 1986 during an eye opening and mind expanding visit she made to the american_dance_festival , held each summer in durham , n . c . ''yang mei qi had just come from a limon class , '' recalled charles reinhart , director of the festival , ''and she asked me , 'why do they fall to the ground in the limon technique ? ' when i replied , 'why not ? ' her eyes opened wide and she walked out of the room as if seized by some strange , new idea . and the next day , she came back and said , 'i would like to talk to you about a plan to start a modern_dance department in my school . ' '' from the beginning , both agreed that the goal of the project would not be to produce chinese clones of martha_graham or jose limon or merce_cunningham , but rather to transplant the compositional principles that would enable chinese choreographers and dancers to draw upon their own capacity for individual movement invention . according to mr . reinhart , ''in case there are accusations of cultural imperialism , the dancers can say , 'look , this is not ''swan_lake , '' it 's not ''the moor 's pavane'' ' it 's something unique to chinese bodies and true to their way of moving . by contrast , when you see 'the white haired girl' or 'the red detachment of women' two officially_sanctioned ballets from the era of the cultural_revolution , there is no way that 's not western ballet . i do n't care what they do to the story . '' mrs . yang was determined to recruit from around the country students who possessed not only great technical prowess but also innate curiosity and independence of mind . with financing from the chinese government , the american_dance_festival and the new york based asian cultural council , the students are to be exposed to a steady stream of international master teachers . some students will even be allowed to study at dance studios in new york . and at the end of three years , if all goes well , these dancers will form the core of china 's first modern_dance company . that was the plan , hatched during the summer of '86 , a period in which ' 'modernization'' ( in the western sense ) seemed to have fully supplanted ' 'revolution'' ( in the older maoist sense ) as the animating principle of chinese life . chinese students and intellectuals were openly advocating a democratization of cultural and even political life that would parallel chairman deng_xiaoping 's attempt to modernize the economy . but in december of '86 , tens of thousands of chinese students pressed these demands in street demonstrations , a sight that so horrified the hardline maoist conservatives that a period of retrenchment and in some cases outright repression set in . those who flirted too openly with things western were accused of ''bourgeoise liberalization . '' according to mrs . yang , ''there were many disputes in early '87 about what was and was n't bourgeoise liberalization . '' the man whose approval she most needed , the minister of arts and culture for guangdong_province , was initially supportive but turned hesitant as the political winds began to change . in the spring of '87 , zhao_ziyang , the party leader , made a speech in which he carefully circumscribed the scope of the campaign against bourgeoise liberalization , confining it to matters of political ideology and thereby exempting the arts from its edicts . mrs . yang brought a copy of this speech with her when she next met with the provincial arts minister . she received a tentative go ahead , but it was couched in cautionary terms ''you 're walking a tightrope , '' he told her , ''and if you fall , you drag all of us down with you . '' the atmosphere had relaxed considerably by the end of the 13th party congress the following october , at which time the reformers seemed to have once again gained the upper hand from the conservatives . this enabled the american_dance_festival to send the well known modern dancers sarah stackhouse and ruby shang to the academy for extended residencies . and mrs . yang has invited other choreographers and consultants , such as the los_angeles based asian_american choreographer yen lu wong . despite their highly developed sense of public decorum , the chinese display no compunction about staring ( especially at westerners ) , and recently at the academy a principal object of the students' curiosity was the new york based dancer and choreographer holly fairbank , a daughter of the celebrated american china watcher john k . fairbank . she had been invited for a month to teach a broad array of modern_dance techniques . the exercise that seemed to generate the greatest curiosity ( and the greatest sense of consternation ) is based on contact improvisation , in which two or more performers take turns supporting one another in a free flowing exchange of body weight and balance . just a few years ago , contact improvisation would have been ideologically unacceptable in china , for at least two reasons the fact that it involves so much body contact , and the fact that it 's improvised . china , after all , is a country whose taboos about touching in public preceded the official puritanism of mao by thousands of years . and the chinese communist party , determined until recently to centralize and regulate every aspect of chinese life , has sought to minimize the unpredictable in art as well as in life . understandably , the emphasis at the school thus far has been almost exclusively on the training program for dancers , rather than on the modern_dance company that mrs . yang hopes to see emerge . ''it 's like the story of the new york city ballet , '' says mr . reinhart . ''first , the school . '' that analogy may prove premature . but listening to mrs . yang rhapsodize about the future of modern_dance in china , it 's easy to imagine what it might have been like in the 1930 's to hear lincoln kirstein describe his equally improbable vision of a peculiarly american style of classical_ballet .",has a topic of arts
"lead a photography exhibition now at the neuberger museum in purchase , n.y. , suggests an unusual esthetic parallel in some cases a source for much of america 's pioneering 20th_century photography germany during the weimar_republic . a photography exhibition now at the neuberger museum in purchase , n.y. , suggests an unusual esthetic parallel in some cases a source for much of america 's pioneering 20th_century photography germany during the weimar_republic . in more than 100 photographs taken in germany between 1919 and the early 1930 's , important trends of later american photography are revealed in embryonic form . they include the sharply focused , realist style explored by edward weston , the social documentary approach of photographers like walker evans , and even the world 's first paparazzi style pictures and other photojournalism . ''these german photographers were repulsed by what they 'd seen during the first world_war , and they wanted to create a new world , a new germany , '' said stephen jareckie , the curator of photography at the worcester art museum in worcester , mass . , who organized the present exhibition . ''a lot of their ideas have become part of 20th_century life in america . '' the show contains work by six leading photographers living in germany during the period hugo erfurth , august sander , werner mantz , erich salomon , laszlo moholy nagy and albert renger patzsch . the exhibition opens today and continues through march 29 the neuberger museum is on the campus of the state university of new york . a 19th_century vision while many of the photographs anticipate the styles of the late 20th_century , a good many of them also look in the opposite direction . in the portraits by hugo erfurth , in particular , a distinctly 19th_century vision is revealed . his dramatic , highly posed pictures of the weimar period 's cultural figures look victorian , an effect heightened by the use of oil pigments to touch up many of the prints . yet even in erfurth 's work , glints of the future appear . his portrait of ''mother ey , '' especially , seems contemporary in tone . mother ey was the stout propietor of a coffee shop in dusseldorf , a colorful character and a friend of down on their luck artists . erfurth 's portrait captures her in a natural standing pose no dramatic back lighting here and leaves the print untouched by paint . this tendency to document everyday life , which became a dominant trend in american photography after the depression , is a theme struck by many of the photographers in this show . with obsessive zeal , the weimar photographers set out to document their world , almost to catalogue it , with a minimum of artistic distortion . the photographs by august sander exemplify this urge . as european painters had done in the late 19th_century , he widened his scope of interest beyond kings and burghers to include the common man the potentials of the camera inspired him to make portraits of every type of common man . farmers , barbers , circus performers , businessmen no one was to be excluded from his lens . documenting life in germany the present show contains 10 portraits taken from sander 's lifelong project , ''man in the 20th_century , '' his encyclopedic effort to document life in germany in the 20 's and 30 's . an interest especially in how individual men and women looked during a time of intense social and political change underlay sander 's pictures intellectuals of the period lauded his efforts . ''this collection of photographs , '' wrote thomas_mann in a review of sander 's work , ''as finely delineated as they are unpretentious , is a treasure_trove for the student and lover of physiognomy and provides an excellent opportunity to explore occupational and class structured imprints on humanity . '' in the pictures of albert renger patzsch , a related esthetic found expression . a leader of the so called ''new objectivity'' movement in the 1920 's , renger patszch sought to render the look and feel of the real world , its objects and textures and depths , in a straightforward and reportorial fashion . with his interest in both natural and man made objects , his work , too , has an encyclopedic quality in this show there are pictures of both abstract plant forms and architectural forms . visitors may be struck by the resemblance of some of his work to edward weston 's similar studies of plants , such as flowers and peppers , in which texture and abstract shapes are emphasized . weston began to make this work around 1924 , apparently spontaneously and without exposure to renger patszch or the other weimar photographers . some early photojournalism the photographs of erich salomon , by contrast , are among the world 's first examples of photojournalism sometimes of the tabloid variety . as a photographer for many daily and weekly german newspapers , salomon discovered an appetite among the public for private peeps into the lives of the rich and famous . he also discovered the means by which to achieve such peeps the handheld ermanox camera , which could take photographs in available light and which could be hidden in a pocket until the appropriate moment . in this show , candid photographs of political meetings , an evening at the opera , and marlene dietrich in a hollywood hotel provide examples of this soon to be booming photographic genre . besides the documentary urge , the currents of modernist artistic thought , whose roots lay in the period before the war , also found their way into the photographs of the weimar period . laszlo moholy nagy was heavily influenced by russian constructivist painting , which emphasized a reduction of reality to intrinsic formal designs . he made photographs taken from birds eye and worms eye views , in which new and unexpected geometries were revealed . moholy nagy 's direct influence on american photography and design is better documented than that of the other photographers in this show . in 1934 , he fled germany and eventually settled in chicago , where in 1937 he founded the bauhaus school of design , which disseminated his ideas and which later became part of the illinois institute of technology . in such cases , according to mr . jareckie , the influence of the weimar photographers is obvious and direct in others , the new medium of photography apparently suggested spontaneous innovations to similar minds working in different places . ''moholy nagy came over and got people going , '' mr . jareckie said . ''but then , edward weston and charles sheeler were doing a lot of sharp focus photography , and they did n't know what the germans were doing at all . it was just in the air . ''",has a topic of arts
"four years ago , modern_dance instructors from the american_dance_festival left durham , n.c. , bound for china and the provincial capital of guangzhou , the home of the guangdong dance_academy . their mission to teach modern techniques to chinese students recruited from some of the country 's professional dance troupes , students trained in traditional techniques but virtually unschooled in modern_dance . last summer , the newly evolved guangdong modern_dance company ( in photograph , rehearsing the work "" bamboo and baskets "" ) made its debut , in a performance that was enthusiastically received . now , american audiences will be able to sample the fruits of this joint cultural venture when the 13 member guangdong troupe performs in durham from july 18 to 20 . given the sensitivity of the political situation in china and the dissident nature of modern_dance in general , the flourishing of this art form in such a group oriented society could be considered something of a miracle . the visitors , all in their 20 's , will perform their own choreography , set to music ranging from classical_chinese sounds to rock . "" their choreography is an amalgamation , a fusion of two cultures ancient chinese movements and techniques of martha_graham , jose limon and bella lewitzky , "" says charles l . reinhart , the festival director . "" it will be clear to american audiences that these movements are very much modern in interpretation yet based on chinese_culture . "" summer festival dance",has a topic of arts
"milanese authorities have decided that some publicity is best avoided . last week that city rejected a billboard campaign for the french fashion house marith et fran_ois girbaud depicting a female version of leonardo da vinci 's ''last supper'' after it was deemed potentially offensive to christians . the campaign plays off the popularity of dan brown 's bestseller ''the da vinci code , '' which insinuates that the figure of st . john the evangelist in that work actually embodies mary magdalene . the outlawed billboard portrays john , the only man in the picture , in a provocative half naked pose being embraced by a female apostle , and the municipal advertising ethics committee decided that this ' 'made the imitation more offensive . '' the fashion house has reportedly defended its campaign as a tribute to women . elisabetta povoledo",has a topic of arts
"a year after bertelsmann , the german media_conglomerate , appointed an independent group of scholars to examine its disputed history during the nazi_era , the commission issued a preliminary report yesterday that took issue with corporate lore that the nazis closed the publishing company because of its political opposition . the four member commission 's tentative conclusion was that bertelsmann was closed simply because its product was not considered critically ''important for the war'' effort . the group also found that one of the early family leaders of the company , heinrich mohn , belonged to a circle of ' 'sponsoring members of the ss'' and that the small company rose remarkably to become the dominant publisher of reading material for german soldiers . the commission , a mix of german and american scholars , indicated that little research had been done on what they called the ''ss sponsors circle . '' but it said that the organization was made up of members who took no oath of allegiance to hitler , were not required to serve on active_duty in a unit and were not subject to the ss 's physical and racial standards . the commission said it appeared their primary duty was to contribute money to the ss every month . mr . mohn 's links to the ss came to light in 1998 with critical articles about bertelsmann 's corporate history in the swiss magazine die weltwoche and in the nation in the united_states . after those articles , bertelsmann 's new chief executive , thomas middelhoff , announced that the company would create an independent commission to study its history . bertelsmann is the third largest media_conglomerate in the world with more than 600 far flung companies and nearly 60 , 000 employees in more than 50 countries . the company , based in gutersloh , owns the largest trade publisher in the united_states , random_house , the record company bmg entertainment and gruner_jahr , which publishes magazines like mccall 's and family circle . with the release of the commission 's preliminary_findings at a news conference at the university of munich , mr . middelhoff also issued a brief statement about the commission 's finding about the reason bertelsmann was closed in 1944 . ''we regret that this fact was unknown to us before and that our corporate history has in part been misrepresented as a result , '' he said . previously mr . middelhoff had acknowledged that during the nazi_era ''there were clearly some titles published by bertelsmann which were not consistent with our values . '' heinrich mohn was the fourth generation in his family to lead bertelsmann , but it was his son , reinhard , who took over the company in 1947 and ultimately set the tone for the expansion and contemporary philosophy of bertelsmann , which prides itself on a decentralized system that allows its units to operate relatively independently . the commission , which was led by saul friedlander , a historian from the university of california at los_angeles , also examined bertelsmann 's efforts to publish wehrmacht edition propaganda books for german_troops during world_war_ii . all those books had to be produced under the strict supervision of the propaganda ministry and included thrillers , home and hearth novels and tales of war experiences on the front . bertelsmann 's involvement in this form of publishing had been only sketchily known , the commission said . it noted yesterday that bertelsmann 's earnings increased by a factor of 11 in just a few years , from 284 , 191 marks in 1938 to 3 , 259 , 730 marks in 1941 . the company probably manufactured and delivered more than a quarter of about 75 million copies of wehrmacht edition books , the commission said . ''this leading role on the part of a relatively small and politically less than prominent firm in the war economy 's officially supervised book market appears remarkable , '' it noted in its report . ''no other press so extensively furnished the german soldiers with reading matter . '' the commission will continue through the next year to study questions left unresolved by its early findings . for example , it intends to study more fully the motivations of heinrich mohn , who after the war explained that ''on occasion in earlier years'' he had contributed small sums to the nazi_party ''in order to be left alone . '' the total amount of his donations is unclear , although the commission found evidence that he contributed to the adolf_hitler charity fund , the nazi winter charity and the german red cross . he also gave money to nazi youth organizations like the flyers' group of hitler youth .",has a topic of arts
"lead to the editor to the editor richard bernstein refers at some length to pasqualini 's book , from which he quotes as follows ''over the years , mao 's police have perfected their interrogation_methods to such a fine point that i would defy any man , chinese or not , to hold out against them . '' may i suggest to mr . bernstein that he read the remarkable book by nien cheng entitled ''life and death in shanghai . '' true , she is not a man , but a woman who did defy her interrogators during the six and a half years she spent in prison . priscilla dabezies port_washington , n.y .",has a topic of arts
"to the editor re ''pictures at the hotel armageddon'' by richard b . woodward jan . 11 the paranoia and na_vet of the dienstelle marienthal , designed to provide protection for essential personnel in case of nuclear attack , reminded me of the absurd drills years ago which required students to seek shelter under their desks . the difference being that hiding under a desk did not cost 1 . 4 billion . irving seidenberg chestnut ridge , n.y . hotel armageddon",has a topic of arts
"lead the joffrey_ballet has withdrawn from performances in beijing in mid september . a spokeswoman for the company said the decision had been made on tuesday ''because of the unrest . '' the company was invited in march by china 's ministry of culture to represent the united_states in the 1989 china arts festival , which is to take place throughout the country from sept . the joffrey_ballet has withdrawn from performances in beijing in mid september . a spokeswoman for the company said the decision had been made on tuesday ''because of the unrest . '' the company was invited in march by china 's ministry of culture to represent the united_states in the 1989 china arts festival , which is to take place throughout the country from sept . 15 through oct . 5 . the joffrey was to have opened the festival .",has a topic of arts
"as everybody knows or can at least surmise , rome was not built in a day . but it did rise in just a few months , resplendent in all its plywood , fiberglass and sheet_metal glory . one of the few unfinished civic projects on a recent afternoon was a patch of the piazza near the temple of venus , where the cement had yet to dry . ''watch your step , '' warned anne thomopoulos , an hbo senior executive , but the words came too late . there it was , sullying the classical cityscape and blowing its cover a size 11 footprint from a shoe that belonged most definitively to a later period . ms . thomopoulos laughed and vowed that it would be repaired . a visitor 's clumsy misstep was not about to throw hbo off its latest loopy vision . the cable network that made morticians sexy ( ''six feet under'' ) and that just began deconstructing the western ( ''deadwood'' ) is now reconstructing and revivifying ancient_rome . to do so hbo enlisted the bbc as a partner , and together they have committed around 75 million for 12 one hour episodes of ''rome , '' a drama scheduled to have its debut in 2005 . if the show is successful , a second and even third season could follow . the series has also set up production in modern rome , partly on the theory that proximity breeds historical fidelity , or at least a convincing approximation of it . ''they shot 'sex and the city' in new york , '' ms . thomopoulos said . ''they shoot 'the sopranos' in new jersey . there 's a texture and verisimilitude you get when you shoot in the actual place . '' the enormous crew shooting ''rome'' is six miles or so from the city 's historic center , on the famous cinecitt lot , where federico fellini once worked and , more recently , mel gibson made much of ''the passion of the christ'' and martin scorsese molded ''gangs of new york . '' bits of the scorsese film linger if you wander to the far edge of rome circa 51 b.c. , you stumble abruptly into new york city around 1850 . rome is bigger and much , much brighter than expected . it has a thicket of ionic and corinthian columns in red , yellow , orange and black . joseph bennett , the show 's production designer , said that those hues were every bit as accurate as the time weathered white of the pillars remaining in the forum downtown . ''everything was colored , '' mr . bennett said as he guided a reporter on a tour of his version of rome . ''it was vibrant . '' bruno heller , one of the show 's executive producers and its chief writer , explained over lunch that ancient_rome was really a scruffy , teeming bazaar , not the monochromatic showcase for neatly pressed tunics and regal posturing that generations of screenwriters and directors have emphasized . ''rome of that period was more like bombay or mexico_city , '' mr . heller said . ''it was a dirty , wild , savage place . '' cue hbo . ms . thomopoulos hatched the broad idea for the series in 1997 after watching a dvd of ''i , claudius , '' the 1970 's british television drama about ancient_rome . she said she had an appetite for more , and for something different . several years later , she said , mr . heller showed up in her los_angeles office ''to pitch an idea about white trash america . '' she asked him if he would be willing to rechannel his energies toward white trash rome . ''love ancient_rome , '' she recalled him responding . the concept was to peek at imperial rome from the perspective of the common man 's living room rather than from the caesar 's lair . what emerged was a plot that whirled around two soldiers who return to the city after years away dismembering gauls . one of those soldiers is ' 'very worried that his wife has been unfaithful to him , '' mr . heller said . ''complications ensue , '' said stan wlodkowski , another of the executive producers . those twists and turns are rendered not in latin or aramaic but in relatively colloquial english one way , said the show 's creators , to coax a cast of mostly unknown british actors into naturalistic performances to help bridge the gap between the millennia . ''as soon as actors put costumes on they adopt bizarre personalities , '' said the director michael apted . mr . apted , whose movie credits range from ''coal miner 's daughter'' to the james_bond adventure ''the world is not enough , '' was hired to direct the first three episodes of ''rome . '' ''that 's one of the challenges for us not making it a freak show , '' he said , sitting across the lunch table from mr . heller and mr . wlodowski . dialogue aside , the show 's creators took great pains to be true to the past . they collected a small library 's worth of obscure tomes , including several on the physical gestures of ancient romans . in early march mr . apted rented a bus and with a large group of the actors traveled two hours south to the remains of pompeii , near naples . ''it just gives you a sense of the life the width of a street , the size of a room , '' he said . ''it builds a subconscious picture that 's part and parcel of everything . '' mr . bennett said that as his crew constructed fiberglass sculptures for the roman temples on the set , they visited rome 's many museums , using actual relics as reference for the reproductions . april ferry , the costume designer , educated herself about the era 's fashions , making surprising discoveries . ''who knew that the gauls wore plaid ? '' she said , walking among the armor and frocks in her costume shop . she said she learned from a book on eros in pompeii that prostitutes wore halter tops and tube tops not so different from their descendants' attire . ''they were people just like us , '' she said . well , not quite . her research also showed that roman soldiers sometimes affixed small parts of vanquished rivals' bodies , not excluding genitals , to their battle helmets . ms . ferry 's costumes reproduce this , but when she tried one recent afternoon to find an example , the helmets nearby dangled only fake fingers the faux phalluses were nowhere to be found . there was , though , some confusion in and around ancient_rome that afternoon . filming was scheduled to begin in a few days , and everything was coming together in a hurry . mr . bennett said that he had started contemplating the sets' construction in september but did not break ground , so to speak , until november . just four months later his rome , covering at least five acres , has a vast republican forum of majestic temples fronted by mammoth columns . it has an upscale enclave of capacious villas with what look like smooth stone walls , and a downscale neighborhood with what look like brick tenements . all of the structures were sturdy to the touch no potemkin facades or flimsy cardboard here . ''it has to have a certain amount of longevity , like ancient_rome , '' mr . bennett said . in television time that did not mean centuries or decades , but the course of a respectable run . five years would do . correction april 6 , 2004 , tuesday a picture caption in the arts yesterday with the continuation of an article about hbo 's setting of a mini series in ancient_rome misspelled an actor 's surname . he is james purefoy , not turefoy .",has a topic of arts
"three dancers who are from , or who have been associated with , hong_kong offered solos in a program called "" hong_kong choreographers in concert "" on friday night at the harry dejur playhouse . all the participants seemed familiar with both traditional_chinese dances and international modern_dance styles . but their works resembled private rituals . even when standing still as if lost in thought , wong kwan sun commanded attention in "" vice_versa . "" he proceeded to fall , rise , stumble and fall again . these serious activities were interrupted by a lively jumping dance . but this gave way to a sequence in which he thrashed as if attacked by an imaginary opponent . the piece ended with him as a shadowy figure moving through almost total darkness . despite its intensity , the solo remained thematically obscure . the other pieces were also cryptic . jocelyn chung darted shyly about in what looked like a schoolgirl 's uniform in "" yaumo . "" but when she wrapped herself in red ribbons , she failed to hint whether or not her actions possessed any symbolic significance . li chiao ping filled "" tome "" with enigmas . she dipped poles into containers of liquids and swept them across the floor . she balanced a book on her head as if doing a posture exercise and dropped piles of books on the ground . she spoke about superstitions and about problems of cultural_identity . like the other choreographers , she set her solo to a taped collage , in this case one that combined chinese music with mozart . but the sights and sounds never cohered . the event was part of the asian contemporary_dance festival , a series presented by the abrons arts center of the henry street settlement . dance review",has a topic of arts
"lead if they are not pushed too far , there are astounding parallels between the chinese students demonstrating for democracy in tiananmen_square in recent weeks and the american students demonstrating for an end to the vietnam_war at the democratic_national_convention in chicago in 1968 , before most of those if they are not pushed too far , there are astounding parallels between the chinese students demonstrating for democracy in tiananmen_square in recent weeks and the american students demonstrating for an end to the vietnam_war at the democratic_national_convention in chicago in 1968 , before most of those chinese students were even born . the most obvious is their shared conviction that ''the whole world is watching . '' that august in chicago , 21 years ago , it was the slogan most often repeated . in beijing , one american journalist reported its use , but that may be skeptically attributed to persistence in memory . more important were the outward signs . there were banners in english , surely not for the local population . there were plenty of competent english speakers available for interviews . there were volunteers to help identify who were the hunger strikers , who were the medical students , who were the demonstrators from the far provinces playing to the television cameras . playing to the television cameras was conscious , deliberate and fundamental . the presence of cameras alters the shape of events there need be no more argument about that . but is that necessarily bad ? should television cameras therefore stay away ? does it make things better to keep them away ? the cameras did not create the anger they shaped the protest . removing them would make no difference , except it might intensify the anger , which would have found other ways to express itself , perhaps more destructive ways because they would have to be more secret ways . but it was the physical presence of the cameras that shaped the events , not the journalists who accompanied the cameras . the big thing , in beijing as it had been in chicago , was that the cameras were there . in both cases , moreover , they had not been brought there to show the protest . they came to chicago to cover the democratic_national_convention . they came to beijing to cover the reconciliation of the two communist giants after three decades of hostility , that is , to report the visit of the soviet_union 's mikhail_gorbachev . the demonstrators knew the cameras would be there and planned their demonstrations to be where the cameras already were . there is a serious danger of reading too much future portent into this . such live coverage is possible under only the most specialized conditions . the site must be small enough to fall within the scope of a few cameras , and it must have boundaries , tiananmen_square or michigan avenue . ( in 1968 , the demonstration in chicago 's grant_park the night before the convention opened , vigorously broken up by the police , was out of range of live cameras and was not shown on television , except for some snippets of film on the next morning 's news programs . ) sports provide paradigmatic live_television a baseball or basketball or football game , a horse_race . they , too , must be within encompassable boundaries . the race for the america 's cup is within boundaries that are too vast . as a result , no picture ever tells you at a glance who is winning . it would be the same for live coverage of land or sea battles , the horrible prospect so often deplored by those whose chief interest in television is to deplore it . fighting on land quickly boils down to company or platoon action , while in modern sea battles everything is over the horizon from everything else . nor can equipment be hastily deployed for live coverage of future demonstrations . logistical plans for television coverage of the 1968 convention were complete to the smallest detail at least a year before the event months before mr . gorbachev arrived in china , networks planning to be there had received permission for camera locations and transmission facilities , submitted detailed lists of equipment complete to serial_numbers of camera lenses , and identified by name and passport number every reporter , technician and gofer who was coming . the storming of the winter palace by the bolsheviks in march 1917 could have been covered on live_television only if someone had attended to the planning no later than may day 1916 . both cbs and cnn are properly proud of having had their cameras in tiananmen_square . and it was the presence of those cameras that mattered . what was important to the demonstrators was that they present their case to television , which they were thus able to do . but the chinese authorities were aware of the subtle implications of being seen on television in a way that the authorities of chicago in 1968 were not . the mayor of chicago thought demonstrators were coming to disrupt the convention or start a revolution or both . to frustrate them , he took advantage of a strike of union telephone installers that applied to all television except that in the convention_hall itself . as a result , there could be no live coverage of action in the streets . television , however , was far enough advanced to put live cameras in the streets , record their pictures on videotape and supply the necessary power for both with portable generators . it was those tapes that america saw the suppression of the demonstrators which was called by the subsequent official inquiry ''a police riot , '' the first time that term was ever used . what much of the world saw in 1989 were live pictures of hunger strikers and their supporters in tiananmen_square . it also saw official representatives of the chinese government , embarrassed and clearly aware that they were losing face on live_television , order all transmissions shut down , a process exquisitely covered and painfully dragged out by the american television staffs themselves . the medium , which had been the message , was becoming the masseuse . next there were news reports , presumably from inside the government of china itself , of hard_liners versus moderates , that is , those who wanted to stop all this nonsense by force against those who were sure that in time the students would tire and the viewers get bored . that was as much as the outside world could see when the transmissions were stopped , but the news has plunged on . history is not limited to the eye of the beholder . the physical suppression of the 1968 demonstration by the chicago police certainly disrupted the democratic_party 's convention and may have defeated its candidate in the presidential_election that followed . it was many years , however , between the police being shown clubbing demonstrators on michigan avenue and the end of the war in vietnam . we do not yet know whether the demonstrations in tiananmen_square for more democracy will have parallel results . tv view",has a topic of arts
"given the current crazes for fashion related art and photo based art , the growing interest in one of their intersections , fashion_photography , comes as no surprise . the latest indication is ''zeitgeist becomes form german fashion_photography , 1945 1995 , '' an ambitious if uneven survey organized by f . c . gundlach , a former fashion photographer and writer , at pat hearn and morris healy , neighboring galleries in chelsea . sponsored by the german_government as part of a series titled ''photography in germany from 1850 until today , '' it is one of several exhibitions of german photography in the downtown area right now . as a relatively new esthetic cross over , fashion_photography follows a number of other marginal art forms , like furniture design or ceramics , that have come in from the cold of commerce and function to be taken more seriously as art . it may have the advantage of being a subset of photography , already taken plenty seriously , but its history has only recently begun to be examined with any thoroughness . ''zeitgeist becomes form , '' which includes the work of 35 artists from several generations , is one of the first exhibitions to focus exclusively on german fashion_photography . how german is german fashion_photography ? many of the nearly 160 images here have been published in non german magazines some of the photographers were born elsewhere , while others born in germany now live in paris and new york . still , the exhibition 's answer is clear german enough . one of the show 's salient characteristics is a strong sense of the national zeitgeist of german history and even german art ( expressionism , neue sachlichkeit , neo expressionism ) . it is overly inclusive and thus indiscriminate , especially in its middle section it lacks a high frequency of truly resolved , breathtaking images , and offers plenty of reminders of how pretentious , gimmicky and vacant bad fashion_photography can be . but it also says as much about germany as about fashion or photography , thoroughly living up to its title ( which rather cheekily echoes that of a groundbreaking exhibition of conceptual art , ''live in your head when attitude becomes form , '' held in bern in 1969 ) . along the way the show also offers a reasonable explanation for the current fascination with fashion_photography , which simply , almost dumbly , touches on a fairly long list of overheated art issues the body , clothing , gender , theater , not to mention style , beauty and , of course , sex . the exhibition begins in the late 1940 's , in the early years of germany 's economic_recovery , when christian_dior 's ''new look'' was all the rage and german photographers , like their colleagues in new york and paris , took models out of the studio and into the street , contrasting their hothouse beauty with real life backdrops . some , like willy maywald , who worked for dior and jacques fath in paris , achieved a sharp edged , ethereal elegance similar to richard avedon 's . in germany , however , the backdrops often , possibly deliberately , conjured up the war 's devastation , or the country 's economic_recovery . herbert tobias places a model in a lavish evening dress in front of the ruined arches of an imposing building in berlin . norbert leonard positions his subject , wearing a day suit , in an automobile factory . more ambiguously , hubs floter places a sleek gowned model in the wooden bleachers of a stadium with a flock of blond schoolchildren grouped behind her . years later , in 1979 , helmut newton continues the theme , placing a blond model wearing a black lace camisole in front of the berlin_wall , with the neglected brandenburg_gate looming in the background . a darker cousin of the innocent tourist snapshot , it also summons something of marlene dietrich 's ''blue angel'' and the grim satire of grosz and dix . peter lindbergh evokes his country 's nazi past , and fascism in general , when he places models in uniformlike suits by comme des garcons amid the monumental forms of a bridge that is , as it happens , in france . ( more of his efforts are on view in a solo show at the james danziger gallery in soho . ) a more esthetic backward glance is cast by jurgen teller 's 1991 photographs of the stylist and model anna pawlowski for comme des garcons , especially one in which ms . pawlowski , wearing a cone shaped skirt , clings to a tilting chimney like an escapee from ''dr . caligari 's cabinet . '' in recent years , the style of fashion_photography has become both more international and more individual , a vehicle of personal expression that disregards clothes in favor of the mundane , the narrative or the overall effects of the image . mr . gundlach himself , whose images are remarkable for their seeming casualness and their stark graphic quality , may have contributed to this trend . ( his fashion work from the 1950 's and 60 's is the subject of a show at american fine_arts in soho . ) these tendencies give this exhibition a strong finish , especially in the ' 'slacker'' images of wolfgang tillmans , the sexually charged scenes of ellen unwerth , the isolating portraitlike treatments of ulrike schamoni and rainer leitzgen 's luminous , almost painterly portrayals of issey miyake 's designs in which the garments all but consume their wearers . in the end , this exhibition convinces one above all of fashion_photography 's unusual malleability , its continual oscillation between art and cinema , history and fantasy , reportage and seduction . still , when confronted with ute mahler 's recent photographs especially one in which a black model in an overcoat runs across an old courtyard clutching banged up suitcases in either hand a slight chill is unavoidable . germany 's past is always lurking just beneath the surface , ready to be exploited by the photographer or read into the image by the viewer . another exhibition that attests to the strength of german photography is a display of karl blossfeldt 's elegant turn of the century close ups of plants , ''first forms of art , '' at the friedrich petzel gallery in soho . less direct corroboration is offered by ''someone else with my fingerprints , '' at david zwirner , also in soho . an eclectic exhibition organized by wilhelm schurmann , a german collector and dealer , it offers images by numerous german photographers but also ranges throughout the world , from artists' works to film stills , with an encyclopedic fervor that is in some ways yet another expression of germanness . ''zeitgeist becomes form german fashion_photography , 1945 1995'' remains at the pat hearn and morris healy galleries , 530 west 22d street , chelsea , through feb . 22 . photography review",has a topic of arts
"it 's a little hard to imagine that a photographic show pegged to the 50th_anniversary of the people 's republic of china could give no idea of communist misrule . but the organizers of ''china fifty years inside the people 's republic'' at the asia_society have accomplished that feat . to be sure , the aim is not to offer a documentary but in the words of vishakha n . desai , senior vice_president for cultural programs and director of the asia_society galleries ''a highly personal , engaged , insiders' view of china and the chinese during a time of unprecedented change . '' so this group of images by 33 photographers ranging from those as well known as robert_capa and eve arnold to native born chinese whose work has rarely been seen outside the country is a misleadingly low key representation . it gives no hint of the violence at times engendered by the zeal of ''communist reforms . '' there is in fact a curious discrepancy between the show 's discreet visuals and the candid text for its catalogue by rae yang . ms . yang , 49 , the chairwoman of the east asian studies program at dickinson college in carlisle , pa . , was a red guard in her youth and she freely discusses the excesses of the mao decreed 1960 's cultural_revolution and her own ( small ) role in them . but from this show , you would scarcely know that the cultural_revolution and other depredations occurred , causing the death of millions . in fact , the only photograph of tiananmen_square which achieved international notoriety in 1989 when government soldiers fired on reformist supporters gathered there is a 1981 view by liu heung shing . it shows students studying in its vastness at night to prepare for high_school entrance_exams , which were allowed after years of official education bashing that made learning a dirty word . so aside from the work of antonin kratochvil , a czech photographer whose five exhibited pictures from 1978 , taken in guangdong_province , could be said to mildly reflect the angst and despair of the cultural_revolution 's aftermath ( compare these with eve arnold 's upbeat views on the same subject , taken around the same time ) , the show is squeaky_clean of politically embarrassing material . even operating under ms . desai 's rubric , one would think that in a half century of lensed images there might be a few that more sharply reflected the down side of the chinese government . the show , incidentally , is sponsored by the ford_motor_company , which does extensive business with china . it begins strongly with a historical section , a cluster of black and white images made before the founding of the people 's republic in 1949 ( including a rare close up of the young mao_zedong and zhou_enlai , already plotting revolution in yan'an , taken in 1937 by owen lattimore , a far east scholar who was a target of senator joseph r . mccarthy in the 1950 's . there are poignant photographs of refugees displaced by the civil_war between mao 's forces and those of chiang_kai_shek , and communist victory celebrations and even a shot of a smiling mao presiding at a swimming party with members of the communist youth league in the late 195o 's . but there mao 's visibility all but ends . the show shifts to become an often fascinating essay on the china of later years , but without much edge . grouped by individual photographers and unconcerned with chronological order , it concentrates more on china 's recent years , with many works dating from the 1990 's . they range from a 1998 essay on ''parents'' by a young chinese painter and photographer , wang jinsong , a look at older couples of differing social status whose children have flown the nest , to views of paintinglike landscapes in starkly beautiful black and white , taken from 1984 to 1995 by lois conner , an american photographer . several of the photographic essays here , by reagan louie , mark leong and richard yee , deal with the return of chinese_americans to the haunts of their immediate ancestors . the brazilian born photographer sebastiao salgado is represented by one of the liveliest ''takes'' nearly a dozen black and white views of shanghai , made in 1998 . skyscraper panoramas , street scenes , huge factory interiors , old style markets and the day and night life of its people show a city of vast ambition , future bound at a dizzying rate . the frantic pace and sprawling reach of cities is also forcefully portrayed by macduff everton , an american , in his big photo of a crowd crossing a garish hong_kong street ( 1997 ) and the broad boulevards of shenzhen ( special_economic_zone ) in guangdong_province ( 1995 ) . on the other hand , robert glenn ketchum 's beautiful explorations of the grand canal and affiliated waterways of suzhou ( 1986 95 ) , show a venice like city whose canal network forms one of the great industrial transportation systems of western china , but whose ancient houses , bridges and culture still resist the modernization that creeps in relentlessly . the persistence of tradition is cherished by richard yee , born in guangzhou and living in massachusetts since 1952 . he keeps returning to document old ways , and his 1997 essay on yunnan_province shows the land and people unchanged an infant slung over its young mother 's shoulder , both dressed in richly embroidered central_asian garments a straw basket roped to a man 's back , a gunny sack worn by a walker in the rain , a delicate snowy landscape that could have been painted a thousand years earlier . mark leong , born in california in 1966 , also revisits his family turf in guangdong_province ( 1989 97 ) to record an ancestor worship ritual , his oldest living relative in china , the life of a grungy street and the home of a village chief . more attuned to the present , brian palmer , an american who lives in beijing , has photographed some american style rites ( 1996 97 ) , including the crush at a subway stop and svelte young things at a modeling competition . to prove that religion is still alive in china , xiao ming li , a bejing based magnum photographer , searched out pockets of secret catholicism ( 1993 95 ) a nun preparing rice cakes for mass in shaanxi province a cluster of congregants saying funeral prayers aboard a fishing boat in jiangsu_province , a man carrying a statue of the virgin through an ancient , rubble strewn courtyard in yunnan_province . few countries are as photogenic as china , and the infectious empathy with which most of the photographers view their subjects makes for some compelling images . in short , the show undemonizes china , giving a very human dimension to the struggles of a vast population adapting to a tidal_wave of change . but in leaving out direct references to authoritarian brutality over the half century , it weakens itself , revealing only part of the picture . ''china fifty years inside the people 's republic'' remains at the asia_society 735 park_avenue , at 70th street , ( 212 ) 517 2742 , through jan . 2 . photography review",has a topic of arts
"when two real_estate tycoons make preparations to start rival television shows within weeks of fighting each other in court , it has all the looks of an ego driven catfight . that perception is only reinforced when the tycoons are donald j . trump , new york 's brashest developer , and vincent lo , a hong_kong developer who has made a fortune in shanghai with a flashy formula worthy of mr . trump . but both developers are playing down their rivalry as they prepare to introduce similar sounding reality_shows on chinese television and as they continue litigating a 1 billion dispute over the proceeds from a once close property partnership on manhattan 's west side . indeed , mr . trump has become so solicitous as to suggest that mr . lo should be giving himself a larger role in his show perhaps a role as big as mr . trump plays in his show , ''the apprentice . '' word that a chinese edition of that program was under development first surfaced this week in the south_china_morning_post . ''he should be on the show , '' mr . trump said of mr . lo in a telephone interview friday . ''i think he 'd do very well if he were on the show . '' this summer , mr . lo has been preparing a show called ''wise man takes all , '' in which contestants reportedly will compete to set up their own businesses , with the results judged by a panel of judges , occasionally including mr . lo himself . mr . lo is being cagey about the details , however and he is ducking questions about any rivalry with mr . trump . ''what i can say about this project is that it is designed to foster healthy competition and entrepreneurship among the younger generation in the chinese mainland , and that is why my company , shui on land , has decided to sponsor it , '' mr . lo said in a terse written statement . ''this is in line with our longstanding commitment to the development of china , where we have a proven track record and have built relationships for more than 20 years . "" mr . trump and mark burnett productions , which produces ''the apprentice , '' are in talks with pan shiyi , beijing 's best known developer , to serve as host of the chinese version . zhang xin , mr . pan 's wife and co chief executive , said in a telephone interview on friday evening that her husband was out at a meeting with representatives of mr . burnett , a leading developer of reality_shows and the namesake of the company , to go over the contract . soho china , the couple 's development company , specializes in building luxurious modern apartment towers in central beijing , courting designers , celebrities and the media . that has given their buildings a cachet similar to some of mr . trump 's properties although the personal lives of mr . pan , 41 , and ms . zhang , 39 , have not attracted the same kind of notoriety . indeed , the question is whether mr . pan , a low key , soft_spoken man , understands what a show like ''the apprentice'' will entail . ms . zhang said that the couple can already get ''the apprentice'' in english on their television in beijing , but were so busy that they had never seen an episode . ''i only know it 's a popular tv show , but i never watch tv , '' except the occasional news show , she said . ''he has never even watched the show and in fact today , he said to me , 'who is mark burnett ? ' and i said , 'i do n't know . '''",has a topic of arts
"lead a thousand years ago , china produced a series of technological achievements that , in the words of ''the genius that was china , '' put it ''at the cutting edge of knowledge of the medieval world . '' the nature of those achievements and the reasons for the country 's scientific somnolence after the 13th century make up an illuminating four part series from ''nova . a thousand years ago , china produced a series of technological achievements that , in the words of ''the genius that was china , '' put it ''at the cutting edge of knowledge of the medieval world . '' the nature of those achievements and the reasons for the country 's scientific somnolence after the 13th century make up an illuminating four part series from ''nova . '' the elegantly shaped opening hour , ''rise of the dragon , '' can be seen tonight at 8 on channel 13 . it 's an absorbing story . everybody knows the chinese invented gunpowder , but it may come as news to some viewers that the sung dynasty also brought the world printing , the compass and a remarkable array of astronomical instruments . using lovely paintings and diagrams as well as helpful re enactments , tonight 's program illustrates such accomplishments as the workings of the salt wells in sichuan_province around 250 b.c . and the elaborate system of canals and pumps for flood control and irrigation that gave china ''the most productive system of farming the world had ever seen . '' but running through scholars' accounts of innovations in medicine and the demonstrations of printing techniques that permitted the distribution of a unified body of confucian thought is the question of why the ''celestial empire'' was left so far behind by the emerging nations of europe and the middle_east . that will be explored next week in ''empires in collision , '' but some of the critical elements can be detected here the growing rigidity of china 's managerial class , rooted in tradition and prizing social stability the invasions of the tatars and mongols the awakening energies of european explorers and traders of the middle ages . while italian merchants were making fortunes in the china_trade , china 's own merchants remained at the bottom of a strict social hierarchy . in the 15th_century under the ming_dynasty , the narrator observes , china was still the richest , most advanced nation on earth , but the tide had decisively shifted . in a particularly arresting passage , the camera plays over a model of a complex 30 foot high clock that once stood in the imperial palace . designed by its inventor ''to organize the calendar , promote good government , predict good and bad fortunes and study the resulting gains and losses , '' this splendid machine with its carved figures and its trumpets and drums to sound the hours was the most accurate timepiece of its day . but the narrator explains that the precise measurement of time was irrelevant to the peasantry , the vast majority of the country , and so ''even the memory of the device was lost . '' the final episodes report on japan 's mastery of western methods of production in the 20th_century and china 's start and stop efforts to catch up . the series carries resonance for the united_states , where works like paul kennedy 's ''rise and fall of the great_powers'' have lately stirred intimations of even a superpower 's mortality . as this first hour notes , the ''vast military industrial complex'' of the sung dynasty could not hold back the powerful forces sweeping through their world . the cutting edge of the medieval world the genius that was china , a ''nova'' report , directed by david roberts written by john merson produced by mr . merson for film australia tom levenson , producer for nova paula apsell , executive_producer of nova richard kiley , narrator . at 8 p.m . on channel 13 .",has a topic of arts
"lead as the dance theater in westchester tries to bring to life the fantasy ''sleeping_beauty'' at the tarrytown music_hall on saturday , the ballet_company may also be giving life to another fantasy performing in china . as the dance theater in westchester tries to bring to life the fantasy ''sleeping_beauty'' at the tarrytown music_hall on saturday , the ballet_company may also be giving life to another fantasy performing in china . on that night , the company will be dancing for , among others , 22 guests from the chinese consulate in new york , including wang yulin , the deputy consul general . wang he , director of the consulate 's cultural division , who also plans to attend , said it would be the first time members of the consulate would have been official guests at a westchester arts event . while mr . wang said the delegation would attend the ballet at the personal invitation of the father of one of the members of the dance company , he acknowledged that it was part of his job to watch for ''high quality'' performing_arts groups to invite to china ''or unique american groups , '' he added . having the chinese officials as guests ''adds a tremendous amount of prestige in the county'' for the company , said its artistic director and founder , rose marie menes . the thought that consulate officials might be so impressed by the company to invite it to china remains a ''fantasy , '' she said , but it has added extra excitement to the show . the chinese , who will also be guests at a fund_raising gala for the dance theater after the performance , will see a cast of 21 professional dancers , led by a colombian ballerina who has studied in the soviet_union and israel , supplemented by five of ms . menes 's students and many volunteers . one volunteer is dr . peter wallack , a former dance theater board member who has a nondancing role in ''sleeping_beauty'' and who is responsible for inviting the chinese delegation . dr . wallack a teacher at public_school 111 in the bronx and an inveterate traveler toured and photographed china for three weeks this summer . ''i came back from china with pictures of a lovely people , '' said dr . wallack , whose doctorate is in education . ''i thought i 'd look into sharing the pictures with the chinese'' for them to use for the purpose ''of attracting more americans to the country . '' he contacted the consulate and eventually invited several officials to his mahopac home for dinner . at dinner , he said , jin xianhong , the education consul , said he would like to see dr . wallack 's daughter , samantha who is in the cast dance . ''so we invited them'' to the performance , dr . wallack said . ''i made it clear i 'd introduce them to rose marie so they could talk about rose 's fantasy that they might tour china . mr . wang indicated he 'd be happy to . '' mr . wang was cautious about the prospects of the company being invited to china . but he added , ''we are waiting for companies to come to us . '' mr . wang said the consulate sometimes suggested to officials in china that a group be invited there , but the performers must find a sponsor to cover costs . ''china is not rich enough to invite large companies to perform , '' he said , adding ''i know it is difficult for these groups to find sponsors . '' but it is not impossible . one of the dancers in ''sleeping_beauty , '' jerry premick , said he went to china last christmas with the manhattan ballet . in this performance at the tarrytown music_hall , mr . premick is dancing in what has become since its founding in 1979 a true regional dance company . ms . menes , 43 years old , has recruited 21 professional dancers from the new york city area for the cast of 40 . even the sets are designed and painted by a professional , shelley bartolini , who in a long career has designed sets for broadway shows , operas and major films , the dance theater , based in yorktown heights , is best known for its annual production of ''a colonial nutcracker'' an americanized version of the christmas favorite . ms . menes , who had danced in europe with the first american festival ballet and the ballet russe and was a principal_dancer with the new york city opera , set the tchaikovsky ballet in a colonial home in yorktown at the time of the american revolution . for the ''nutcracker , '' she has always hired professional dancers from new york city who dance with students from her own school , the westchester ballet center here , which she started in 1978 after giving birth to her daughter , sonya . each year , more and more dancers audition , she said . ms . menes said that dancers passed the word about the company . indeed , fabiola ariza , 24 , who landed the lead role , aurora , in ''sleeping_beauty , '' said ''i heard there were auditions through the newspapers and dancers . '' miss ariza , who is from cali , colombia , had recently moved to edison , n.j. , to study with a new york teacher , maggie black , she said . she has danced with the national company of colombia , studied two years at the choreographic school of kiev in the soviet_union , and danced for three years with the bad dor company in israel . ''she had a lovely quality about her , '' ms . menes said of miss ariza . ''she will be a different aurora than you usually see . she has a classical quality and yet is exotic looking . '' larry crabtree , who has danced with the new jersey ballet and the berkshire ballet and who is also new to the company , will dance the role of the prince in the production , which is being supported by a grant from the westchester council for the arts . ms . menes said these performers were examples of how , as the company had grown , ''we 've been able to hire better and better dancers . '' ''if you can present ballet of good quality in westchester , you can reach people who cannot afford to go to lincoln_center , '' she added . although the troupe is presenting a truly international night of dance in the county , ms . menes and her husband , bernard werner , who is president of the dance company 's board , are trying to keep their chinese guests in the back of their mind . ''i want to get to tarrytown , '' mr . werner said jokingly , ''and worry about beijing later . '' the dance theater will perform ''sleeping_beauty'' three times at 9 30 a.m . friday , for students from the county at 8 p.m . saturday and at 2 p.m . sunday . information on tickets , which are 15 , 12 and 10 , is available by calling the westchester ballet center at 245 2940 or the tarrytown music_hall at 631 3390 . tickets for the saturday night gala are 25 a couple .",has a topic of arts
"to the editor frank rich shrewdly compares the abu_ghraib photos not to pornography but to america 's infamous lynching postcards , which were made long before the influence of x rated dvd 's . but the cards could not have been mailed , as he writes , during the heyday of mary pickford and shirley temple the postmaster general forbade their delivery in 1908 . this , of course , did not prevent the postcards being sold . nor does it alter the validity of mr . rich 's charge that christian conservatives who blame porn for the abu_ghraib torture photos are political hypocrites , shifting responsibility from the bush_administration . jerome weeks dallas abu_ghraib",has a topic of arts
"two years ago , joel soler chose to go on a dangerous journey to the middle_east to shoot an irreverent biography of a dictator who was then , in mr . soler 's words , ''a dead story . '' now the subject of ''uncle saddam , '' which is being shown tuesday on cinemax , is probably the world 's most talked about person . as the world debates about war with iraq , mr . soler 's film introduces a strange new perspective on saddam_hussein . did you know that saddam likes to be greeted with a kiss near the armpit ? that he sometimes fishes with grenades ? that he is building the world 's largest mosque near a man made island shaped exactly like his thumbprint ? these are among the personal details mr . soler has gathered in his highly_selective and darkly humorous biography , meant to highlight what he calls the ''camp'' aspects of a dictator 's rule . ''when i went to baghdad , my goal was n't to get saddam himself , '' mr . soler , 34 , said recently over lunch in the east_village . ''i knew he did n't speak to anyone . my goal was his entourage . no one had done those interviews . '' to get them , mr . soler , a freelance television_journalist and french citizen who lives in the united_states ( because of a death_threat , he declines to say where ) , spent six weeks in baghdad and a month in egypt and jordan . he interviewed mr . hussein 's interior_designer , his architects , his cousin and his personal filmmaker , as well as exiled former ministers . mr . soler also made contacts who later smuggled out film of mr . hussein , which he combined with his own images to make this fast_paced , opinionated film . the cult of personality around mr . hussein is mocked by the soundtrack music including ''no regrets'' and ''la vie en rose'' and the tongue_in_cheek narration written by the comedian scott thompson of the ''kids in the hall'' troupe . ''i wanted to bring a deadpan tone , '' said mr . thompson , who was mr . soler 's companion when they collaborated on the film . ''you 're dealing with such a monster , there 's no need to oversell it through words . '' though an invitation to iraqis to stay in the presidential palace as human shields against bombing is described in the narration as ''a giant sleepover party , '' mr . soler does not shy away from the grim realities of mr . hussein 's rule . about half of the film traces the ways he has shut out , imprisoned or killed many members of his own family . from the beginning of the project , mr . soler had to use subterfuge . as a french citizen he enjoyed an advantage , since france has historically had good relations with iraq . ''i pretended i was doing a movie against u.s . sanctions , '' mr . soler said of his application to the iraqi embassy in paris . ''you do n't say , 'i 'm going to do a funny homage to saddam . ' that does n't work too well . '' mr . soler , who once studied sumerian art at the louvre , also said he was interested in iraq 's architecture . ''if i was with saddam 's interior_designer , yes , i asked him about the palaces , but then at a certain point i would just ask , 'what is saddam like ? ' '' mr . soler recalled . once his camera crew arrived , his questions began to unnerve the two government agents who accompanied him everywhere , as well as the interviewees . ''they knew that it 's a death sentence to say the wrong thing about saddam , '' mr . soler said . but he grew increasingly bold . during an interview with one of mr . hussein 's chief designers and architects , hussam khadori , mr . soler locked the government agents out of the room . ''they were furious with me , '' mr . soler said . ''the question was , how far could i push my luck ? '' he found out quickly . the next day , he said , the agents took him to a hospital , ostensibly to show the tragic consequences of the economic_sanctions against iraq . ''they put me in a hospital room , and a nurse came toward me with a needle , '' mr . soler recalled . ''the agent told me , 'we 're going to do a series of blood tests . ' i said , 'what ? ' i jumped up on the exam table and said , 'you call my ambassador right now . ' '' mr . soler was given a choice , he said take the tests ( for which no reason was given ) or leave the country at once . he chose the latter . the drama did n't end once filming was finished . one night , the house he shared with mr . thompson was covered in blood red paint and a small kerosene bomb exploded in his garbage can . a note in the mailbox instructed mr . soler to ''burn this satanic film or you will be dead . '' he also learned that the two iraqi agents assigned to him had been punished for letting him roam . ''do i feel guilty ? '' mr . soler asked . ''not really , since they are agents of that regime . but i did feel guilty when i got a call from the state_department saying that two of saddam 's designers had been murdered . '' mr . khadori was one of them . it 's not known if the killings were connected to ''uncle saddam'' mr . khadori 's murder occurred well before the film was completed . ''joel was very young and more cavalier when he started the project , '' mr . thompson said . ''this made him realize that everything you do has repercussions . '' mr . soler was raised in n mes , france . though both his parents had grown up in algeria when it was a french colony , he knew little of the arab_world until he started traveling in dubai and other middle_eastern cities when he was in his 20 's . ''it spoke to my heart , '' mr . soler said of the middle_east . ''even though i am christian , i have a real passion for islam the islam of muhammad . if it was n't for the islam of today , i would have converted . '' now he is also studying arabic . so far , ''uncle saddam'' is scheduled for broadcast in many countries but not his own . ''i got so much backlash for this film in france , '' mr . soler said . ''i got one letter from a network saying that they did n't want to buy an american propaganda movie . '' he said that his only worry was that the film would add to american misperceptions about the region . ''there is so much anti arab feeling here , and i know my movie is not going to help , '' mr . soler said . ''but i hope that people who see this movie know the difference between saddam and islam , and saddam and arabs . '' uncle saddam cinemax , tuesday , 7 p.m . eastern television radio",has a topic of arts
"the neue nationalgalerie here , ludwig mies van der rohe 's airy minimalist temple to the modern , is housing an exhibition of 212 works from the museum_of_modern_art in new york , which is undergoing renovation before reopening at the end of the year . not far away , on pariser_platz , the german painter max liebermann stood at the window of his atelier 71 years ago watching the nazis goose step through the brandenburg_gate after hitler took power in 1933 . in a sense that catastrophe sparked the transplantation of modern_art to america , extracted from its european roots . that context is what gives this exhibition , which opened feb . 20 and runs until sept . 19 , such extraordinary power . there is little new to say about max beckmann 's haunting triptych ''the departure , '' painted in 1932 33 . yet in a show nearly devoid of german masters , this painting stands out as a statement about the exhibition itself . a few years after it was made , germany 's great painters were forbidden to create art . the gestapo would search their studios and homes , feeling the paintbrushes to see if they were wet . many artists went into exile or died disillusioned . ''for the neue nationalgalerie this is the return of the modern , what berlin could have been had it not been for hitler and later the isolation of east_germany , '' peter klaus schuster , director of the museum , said at the show 's opening . glenn lowry , the director of the museum_of_modern_art , said it was startling to see such familiar works of art in this setting . ''seen in the context of berlin and in this building , '' he said , ''the works take on a new meaning that makes them contemporary in the moment . it 's a dialogue between art and history . '' from its inception the exhibition has been as much about restoring berlin 's place in europe as about making accessible to europeans modern masterpieces by artists like picasso , rousseau , c zanne , chagall , van_gogh , dal , hopper , pollock , rothko and warhol . two summers ago over a glass of wine in a bistro in the sch neberg district of berlin , mr . lowry told peter raue , chairman of friends of the neue nationalgalerie , of his plan to lease a traveling show of the modern 's collection during the renovation . mr . raue was shocked when mr . lowry named cities on the potential tour london , paris , madrid and frankfurt . ''i told him it should only be in berlin , '' mr . raue said . mr . lowry agreed to make berlin the only european site , but only if he could have the entire neue nationalgalerie for his collection . ''let 's put the collection and the building together , '' he said . the exhibition is laid out as a dialogue between american and european modern_art and a chronological tour through more than a century of works . on entering the first room , dedicated to post impressionism , the visitor stands before rousseau 's ''dream . '' in the next room monet 's ''water lilies , '' a triptych from 1920 , dominates a long white wall . then the presentation splits , with american artists on the left and europeans on the right , symbolizing the division and dialogue across the atlantic . the show ends with gerhard richter 's disturbing cycle ''18 . oktober 1977 . '' the smoky , impenetrable images of the dead baader meinhof gang a group of left_wing urban terrorists known as the red_army_faction seen in the context of berlin , where its members met and formed their deadly bond , are a commentary on germany 's continuing inability to understand how middle_class youths could go from protest to violence . on oct . 18 , 1977 , three of four faction leaders jailed in the stammheim high security prison in stuttgart were found dead in their cells . investigators ruled it suicide . the faction had kidnapped hans martin schleyer , a leading german industrial lobbyist , to force the government to free the stammheim inmates . after their deaths the faction killed mr . schleyer . formed out of the anti vietnam_war movement and active into the 1990 's , the faction murdered industrialists and politicians and carried out attacks on american military sites in germany . the richter paintings must also be seen in the context of another exhibition called ''the r.a.f . legend , '' which was canceled after protests by the families of victims . the families , especially the wife of the group 's last victim , detlev karsten rohwedder , who headed the agency charged with privatizing east_german industry after the unification , were disturbed by the show 's goal . the aim was to explore the ideology and motives behind the murders and to ask the question of the faction 's critique of society , what remains valid today ? a public controversy erupted over government financing for the show , and it was indefinitely_postponed . ''the reception of these paintings is different in the united_states , '' mr . lowry said , ''because it deals with traumatic events that happened in germany . '' berlin is celebrating the exhibition of the modern 's collection as the cultural event of the year , likening it to christo 's wrapping of the reichstag . the city is ''momarized , '' proclaim electric pink posters around town . ''new york is in europe , '' announced the newspaper tagesspiegel in a banner_headline above a reproduction of matisse 's ''dance . '' the frankfurter_allgemeine sonntagszeitung introduced the show with ''the americans are coming . airlift for art , '' recalling the berlin airlift when access was shut off to the western enclave . there are also some critics of the star status accorded the new york collection . ''why did the national gallery have to be emptied at once just because the americans wanted it that way , as if there was otherwise only second class art on exhibit ? '' the frankfurter_allgemeine sonntagszeitung asked . the article added that the advertising slogan ''moma is the star'' seemed to be a remorseful acknowledgment that berlin was provincial and america was everything . the desire to repair the trans_atlantic relationship , which was put under strain by the iraq_war , was one of the motivations that led berlin to play host to the exhibition . a deutsche_bank official , citing its ''considerable business'' in the united_states , said this was the reason that the bank donated a million_euros ( 1 . 2 million ) to help finance the show . the total cost of the exhibition , which includes a fee paid to the museum_of_modern_art , travel , insurance and marketing , is 10 . 6 million , according to friends of the neue nationalgalerie . the foundation , which organized the exhibition , declined to comment on the fee paid to the modern . officials of the modern do not comment on fees charged for traveling collections , but museum professionals said berlin paid 2 million for the show .",has a topic of arts
"authorities , of whatever persuasion , have a proprietary interest in images . egyptian rulers sometimes had the faces of their predecessors wiped out and replaced with their own . some religions prohibit any human imagery . during the counter reformation , the roman_catholic_church ordered the nudes in michelangelo 's last judgment painted over where it mattered . in mid 19th_century france , it was illegal to caricature anyone publicly without first obtaining his ( or just conceivably her ) permission . photography , because it makes convincing likenesses of an object and because of its wide potential distribution , has received particularly heavy attention from anyone who has a stake in what is seen . the soviet_union is an obvious example , what with lenin 's call for ''a political and social journalism infused with images'' and the long history of stalin 's victims' being carefully excised from official photographs as a means of erasing the dead from history . by now the western_world is fairly well acquainted with soviet post revolutionary photography , which has been elevated to a new kind of glory by becoming an expensive item for capitalist collectors . much less is generally known about photography in the other countries that were behind the iron_curtain , perhaps because they were less thrilling , less glamorous and less threatening , not having stirred up a major revolution or wreaked such terror themselves . most americans probably have very little idea how east_germans , for instance , saw themselves , or how their culture asked them to . some insight can be gained from ''recollecting a culture photography and the evolution of a socialist esthetic in east_germany , '' a show of more than 120 photographs at the photographic resource center at boston_university through feb . 19 . john p . jacob , executive director of the center , is the curator of this show and editor of a catalogue with the same name , published by the center . the photographs chosen by mr . jacob are from fotografie , the only state sanctioned magazine for professional photographers in the german_democratic_republic after world_war_ii it was published in east_germany from 1947 on . in the end it was hopelessly out of touch . pictures of the berlin_wall being torn down in 1989 , a major event for the east_germans if ever there was one , were not even published in fotografie until a year later , and by then western material was so widely available that the party line magazine was no longer important it folded in 1991 . ''recollecting a culture'' is the first show from the archives of the magazine 's publisher since the two germanies were reunited . it includes a few pictures from czechoslovakia and china as well as some historical work from the 1920 's and 30 's the magazine published some photographs from other socialist countries and occasional images from western_europe . some of the photographs on view are good , some bad , but quality as it is usually conceived was not the point . these particular authorities demanded a view of a society racing toward utopia , full of happy workers and photographers committed to changing the world with their images . the idea went something like this if you picture the perfect society , people will believe they are living in it and strive harder to make it come true . photographers followed directions in order to work , but some circumvented them in whatever small ways they could . until the 1970 's or 80 's the images here are essentially journalistic and hew to expected subjects . right after the war there were pictures of women and children clearing rubble and a slightly sentimental but moving image of a statue stretching out a hand high above a blasted city , ''a stone cries out in accusation , '' 1945 , by richard peter sr . in the 1950 's and into the 60 's , there were heroic images of scientists , doctors , workers and industry itself very much along the lines of soviet photography a quarter of a century earlier . the standard subjects of people watching parades and peasants on market day are supplemented now and then by reminders of the party line a general kisses a farmer , a bemedaled veteran of the communist_party enjoys his encounter with eager young_pioneers and , in a scene in a dresden train_station , all the people in the foreground blur as light streams in on the clearly focused figure of a nurse helping an elderly woman down the stairs . in the later years things loosened up a bit , and a few out of the ordinary and more ''artistic'' photographs were published . in the 1980 's , when disillusion was rampant , there were even some pictures critical of society in the g.d.r. , some manipulated photographs and portraits of young people wearing punk hair and studded leather . some of the photojournalists , like thomas sandberg and sibylle bergemann , have gone on to successful careers in the new germany . photography in east_germany was so strictly regulated by the state that it cannot be considered outside the realm of politics , but it is clear that the field was not monolithic , and if it was ever unified it never remained so for long . mr . jacob specifically says that the situation in the g.d.r . was not so neatly divided as we might choose to think , not simply official versus unofficial or dissident , but more ambiguous and unstable , with cultural resistance taking subtle forms . ( milan kundera 's novels describe another communist regime that could answer to that description . ) mr . jacob also points out that socialism itself wore different faces in different lands by 1973 , the czechoslovaks could photograph industrial and chemical pollution but the germans still could not . cultural restrictions in east_germany underwent minor ups and downs at various times in 1958 , when the central commission for photography was established and began its careful monitoring of the magazine in 1961 , when the wall went up in 1964 , when khrushchev was ousted in 1971 , when the east_german regime changed and during the 1970 's and 80 's , as television took over much of the task of transmitting information , allowing still photography to stray a bit , and the sense that socialism was not going to work began to infiltrate the cultural realm . ( for a more thorough account of the photography and politics of the east_germans , see karl gernot kuehn 's ''caught the art of photography in the german_democratic_republic , '' university of california press . ) the necessity of changing the world through art goes back to marx , and the idea that art could help lift the working classes up to a better life was boldly taken up by the soviet revolution . in germany , the goal was formalized in 1927 , when the german association of worker photographers was founded to teach workers how to take the production of information into their own hands . mr . jacob points out that in the g.d.r. , historians traced the beginning of modern photographic history to worker photography rather than to stylistic changes like modernism . the second and third decades of this century had seen an immense increase in photographic illustration in the print media , and during the 1920 's german publishers in effect invented the photo magazine . it was perfectly clear to the worker photographers that workers were not controlling the imagery that reflected and helped mold daily life they intended to use the camera for overt class struggle to counter the covert , unannounced purposes the mainstream press depended on . the worker association 's program announced that ''the capitalist press uses photographic techniques via a flood of illustrated magazines to politically influence the masses and diminish their intellectual growth . '' industrialists , not surprisingly , saw the worker photographers as enemies , accused them of being industrial spies and advised that photography be prohibited in factories . paradoxically , in 1962 the heirs to the worker photographers in east_germany were forbidden to photograph in factories without proving to the authorities that it was necessary to do so and getting their permission , for fear of industrial espionage . by the time the soviets carved out the g.d.r. , the germans had had superb examples of the way a state can use imagery to sway a populace and consolidate power , not only in the soviet_union but in hitler 's germany as well . the engineering of imagery reached heights in these two countries that had never been attained before . the issue of who controls the media and what their influence is is still very much with us . photographic theorists and multiculturalists have come down hard on the documentary tradition of white , western , middle_class photographers ( and writers , filmmakers , etc . ) producing the public image of poor people , minorities and foreign cultures . america has no central photography authority , but that does not mean that our imagery is free of politics of one sort or another the politics of the dominant classes , the strictures of political_correctness , the tyranny of commerce ( meaning that what is shown is most often what sells , and what sells is often the lowest common denominator ) , the fearsome power of a few corporate giants owning so much of the media . in the socialist paradise that failed , art was supposed to join the battle to create a new classless utopia on its unstable antecedent , capitalism . mr . jacob has done a real service by reprinting some articles from fotografie that give an idea of what was required of photographers . in 1960 ''under the new social conditions , photography , for the first time , completely serves to communicate and propagate the great humanist ideas of peace , of friendship among the peoples , and of human happiness . '' in the same year ''the battle against formalism , as expressed in so called subjective photography and other expressions of the decay of late bourgeois society , is a form of ideological class struggle . '' when the g.d.r . was absorbed by west_germany , photographers from the east raced to embrace formalism , subjectivism , or simply the freedom to choose , even to turn themselves into capitalists if they could . this was not entirely a happy move . in company with large numbers of the bourgeoisie they had been encouraged to despise , the idealists among them mourned the failure of a utopian experiment . it was an experiment that had never succeeded but had partially managed to picture itself as successful , chiefly to convince the subjects of the experiment that their world was new . unhappily , it was n't , and ultimately people could not be convinced of something they knew was not so . photography and other media are powerful instruments , but there is still something out there called reality , no matter what anyone tells you , and in the end it wins out even over representation . art architecture",has a topic of arts
"''when you have eliminated all which is impossible , then whatever remains , however improbable , must be the truth . '' sherlock_holmes when it comes to sudoku , there is no escape . the grids of these puzzles seem to shut down the mental apparatus , enclosing one 's faculties in a tightly constrained universe a 9 by 9 array that must be carefully filled up with the numbers 1 to 9 , following certain rules . that enclosure is hypnotic . publisher 's weekly recently counted 23 sudoku books in print with total sales of 5.7 million copies . newspapers wage circulation wars by running sudoku in their pages . and sudoku web_sites and forums proliferate internationally ( for example , see sudoku . jouwpagina . nl ) . the teams in the first world sudoku championship held in lucca , italy , in march came from 22 countries , including the philippines , india , venezuela , and croatia . the winner was a 31 year old woman , a czech accountant . the independent of london recently reported that a 700 percent increase in the sale of pencils has been attributed to the sudoku craze . last november , british_airways sent a memo to all its cabin crews , forbidding them to work on sudoku puzzles during takeoffs and landings . the international appeal , of course , may have something to do with the fact that no language is needed to solve sudoku puzzles neither , for that matter , is any mathematics . the puzzler is given an 81 square grid , with about 20 squares filled in ( the ''givens'' ) . that large grid is itself divided into nine 3 x 3 grids . the challenge is to fill in the blanks so that each nine cell row , each nine cell column and each nine cell mini grid contains all the numbers from 1 to 9 , with no repetitions or omissions . this is not a novel challenge . magic squares of various kinds were part of many ancient cultures . benjamin_franklin published a paper about magic squares , and he obsessively fiddled with them during the same years he was helping to form a more perfect union . the 18th_century swiss mathematician leonhard euler studied the properties of latin squares in which each row and column would contain a complete list of the elements of a set of numbers or letters . sudoku style puzzles which add the twist of the mini grids within a larger array were titled number place when they began appearing anonymously in 1979 in the periodical dell pencil puzzles and word games . will shortz , the crossword puzzle editor of the new york times , deduced the author 's identity with sudoku style argument anytime the dell publication contained one of these puzzles and never otherwise the list of contributors included howard garns , an architect from indianapolis mr . garns died in 1989 . the american born puzzles made their way to japan in 1984 , where the publisher nikoli ended up calling them sudoku meaning single numbers . and in 1997 , wayne gould , a new zealander who had served as a judge in hong_kong , came across them while vacationing in tokyo . in 2004 he successfully lobbied the times of london to introduce the puzzles to britain , beginning the craze in the west . strangely , in japan , where nikoli has trademark control over the name sudoku , the puzzles are still familiarly known by the english title number place , while in the english speaking work , their japanese pedigree is widely assumed . but what is their lure ? a mathematician i spoke with dismissed the puzzles as mere ''bookkeeping'' keeping track of where things go . and there surely is some of that , since one technique for solving them involves tentatively writing miniature numbers in each little square to figure out the various possibilities . the grid for a difficult puzzle can begin to look like the first draft of a major corporation 's balance_sheet . this is hardly higher mathematics . in fact , numbers are hardly necessary the same puzzle can be posed using nine colors or nine national flags . yet mathematicians have been taking more of an interest in sudoku not necessarily in solving the puzzles , but in understanding more about their character . in a recent essay in the american scientist , brian hayes described the difficulty of determining the difficulty of these puzzles it bears little connection with how many numbers are given at the start . and while numbers are really not that important to sudoku itself , they certainly proliferate in discussions about it . in mathworld , an online mathematical journal ( mathworld . wolfram . com ) , eric w . weisstein cited research showing that 6 , 670 , 903 , 752 , 021 , 072 , 936 , 960 completed grids are possible for sudoku puzzles , though only 5 , 472 , 730 , 538 unique grids remain once equivalent solutions are eliminated . in a september 2005 column by ed pegg jr . on the site of the mathematical association of america ( maa . org news mathgames . html ) also pointed out that the graph theorist gordon royle had collected more than 10 , 000 sudoku puzzles , each with 17 givens . that may be the smallest number of givens that will yield unique solutions ( any fewer givens will allow multiple answers ) , though apparently that hypothesis has not yet been proven . the exhaustive wikipedia article on sudoku goes into even greater detail ( en . wikipedia . org wiki sudoku ) . what many of these studies focus on , though , is how many sudoku possibilities there are . each puzzle , using only the simplest of elements , combined according to the simplest of rules , pulls a single solution out of a mind_boggling number of possibilities . the puzzle is an act of reduction and elimination . often , in solving a puzzle , we work toward an answer , accumulating information . something must be calculated or produced . in a crossword puzzle , the words have to be pulled out of one 's experience . here , though , each square has only nine possibilities and the work mainly involves not finding the possible but eliminating the impossible , filtering away everything that does not fit ruling out the number 4 for a particular square , for example , if a_4 appears in the same row or column or mini grid . sudoku does not open up into the world it reduces the world to its boundaries , forcing everything extraneous to be discarded . there is something more technological about it than mathematical we know what we must produce the problem is in getting rid of everything that does n't fit . this must help account for sudoku 's tremendous appeal it seems to distill complication into elemental clarity , even when that task becomes difficult . on the blog onigame . livejournal . com , the puzzle master wei hwa huang ( who came in third at the world competition in march ) devised a unusual system , using colored loops , for solving sudoku that is more knotty than seems possible given the puzzle itself . but the solution is still something easily understood once complete . and it is always immensely satisfying , because finally , all impossibilities have been eliminated , leaving behind a neat array of 81 numbers , that however improbably reveal the trivial truth . connections , a critic 's perspective on arts and ideas , appears every other monday . connections",has a topic of arts
"when popeye ruled saturday morning television in the united_states and ''yellow polka_dot bikini'' was topping the music charts , the chinese were in the throes of the cultural_revolution , reading little red books , condemning bourgeois capitalists , especially american , and raising their voices in revolutionary song . so it is not surprising that the audience at the beijing exhibition center was perplexed recently when the paul_taylor_dance_company bravely took to the stage with ''funny papers , '' a work drawing on tunes and images from alley oop , popeye the sailor man and , of course , that famous bikini song . the work must have seemed doubly perplexing in a country where public dance performances tend almost exclusively to folk_dance and traditional ballet with a heavy russian influence . yet here were the taylor dancers this month , whipping across the stage in black and white clown suits , miming weight_lifters and dragging each other rhythmically across the floor . but urban china 's aesthetic is changing fast , becoming more adventurous and diverse by the day . it is a credit to the country 's cultural curiosity that the people who have seen the company perform and certainly the dancers who have attended its master classes were far more invigorated than perplexed . ''compared to chinese dance , it 's so free and casual , '' said tan xiaoshi , who works at the national_library and saw a performance with her husband and 12 year old son . ''but it 's fun . i really like it . '' since the paul taylor company 's last visit here in 1996 , interest in modern_dance has grown enormously , although performances are still limited . the number of state sponsored modern_dance companies has risen from one to three since then , and there are a handful of private companies as well . cities like beijing , shanghai and chengdu are now home to vibrant underground art scenes where performance_art thrives , although shows are still monitored and occasionally closed by the authorities . in fact , after the paul taylor company 's first performance in beijing , the beijing youth daily complained that the show was too staid , calling it an ''exhibition of live fossils of modern_dance . '' ''there was nothing avant_garde , nothing alternative in it , '' the reviewer said . on this trip , the paul taylor company spent more than three weeks in china , performing and giving master classes in six cities , including smaller cities like wuhan and qingdao . its shows included ''funny papers'' and the calmer and more picturesque ''dandelion wine . '' gao liting , a dance teacher who called the performance delightful , said , ''i think modern_dance will be popular here , but the audience has n't seen much before all they know is swan_lake so they are slowly expanding their vision . '' . dancers with the taylor company said they had noticed a sea change among chinese dancers since their first visit to china . then they ''were all ballet trained and traditionally trained , and that made it very difficult to get our ideas across , '' said patrick corbin , one of the company 's principal dancers . ''it 's clear that they 've been exposed to much more now . '' indeed , a master class at the beijing modern_dance company was a 90 minute session of controlled chaos , with three members of the american company teaching chinese dancers some of paul taylor 's unique moves . the dancers were taught one movement mimicking a ''high diver as he parts the water'' and another called bleh , in which the body seems to collapse on itself . there were high voltage backward passes and instructions on how to twist the body into a signature taylor pretzel form . ballet dancers with rigid notions of order and form would have had trouble handling these movements . but on this morning at least , the students mostly kept up and clearly had a good time . ''it was not so intense as most classes here , '' said wang chao , a young man in grey sweats . the students were all from a state sponsored modern_dance troupe in xiamen , a southern port . ''i feel very liberated , my body feels very relaxed , '' he said . originally a folk_dance ensemble , the xiamen company reinvented itself as a modern_dance troop in 1999 at the instruction of the local government . ''before , everyone had to be all the same you had to fit into a model , '' said ling yuan , a young woman with a pony tail . ''but modern_dance is more focused on the individual , its freer . '' a friend , yang ling , in a black tank top and bright red clogs , added , ''yes , and it liberates the mind as well . '' willy tsao , the artistic director of the modern_dance companies in beijing and xiamen , said interest among young dancers was tremendous now . he said that dancers from china 's many dance academies were well trained but had few outlets for expression and creativity . ''people always tell them how to dance , what to dance , '' he said . ''in modern_dance they find freedom . '' although the taylor company had planned a_10 day tour this year , it expanded its visit to nearly a month at the request of the government 's china performing_arts agency . and this time the master classes were hot tickets for ballet troupes and general dance students as well as modern dancers . ''in '96 we had to fight to give classes , '' said john tomlinson , the company 's general_manager . ''this time we 're turning people away . some of the students had little or no experience of modern_dance , and it was amazing how much they wanted to try it . '' there was some risk for the taylor company and for the china performing_arts agency in taking the troupe to smaller cities that had never had a modern_dance performance . ''in qingdao , modern_dance is an alien art form , '' mr . tsao said . but this turned out not to be a problem . ''the reception was incredible a full house and incredibly enthusiastic , '' mr . tomlinson said . afterward they were given a banquet .",has a topic of arts
"the ruins of the palace of the republic , once the home of the communist legislature in the former east_berlin , will be torn down by the end of this year , according to a german news_agency . the 1970 's glass and steel structure , which housed not only the east_german parliament but also a concert hall , several restaurants and spaces for leisure , was closed for asbestos removal shortly after the communist government collapsed in 1989 . since august 2004 , when the palace reopened as a cultural complex , offering theater , modern_dance , concerts and art installations , many berliners have been fighting against removal of the historic building . others favor demolition because they want to reconstruct the prussian palace of the hohenzollern , which occupied the same site for 300 years before it was damaged in world_war_ii and was blown up by the communists in 1950 . it remains unclear what will become of this contested piece of ground after the palace of the republic is razed . kirsten grieshaber",has a topic of arts
"i ca n't remember the last time i saw such a crowd in the metropolitan museum 's chinese painting galleries , where views of all but empty landscapes are the norm . i 'm not talking times_square at new year 's eve . but still , it 's a full house . office clerks and society swells rub shoulders with scholars lost in worlds of their own . actors and priests add spice to the mix , along with wild eyed types who seem to be straight from the new york streets . and then there are the real oddballs , folks with halos and banners and snappish pet dragons . how did they ever get by the guards ? they live at the met , that 's how . and they 're earning their keep in a populous exhibition called ''secular and sacred scholars , deities , and immortals in chinese_art . '' drawn entirely from the permanent collection , it 's a show with a big theme , namely , all three of china 's major religions confucianism , taoism and buddhism . little wonder it takes some 90 objects to tell its tale . the story is one of overlappings and intertwinings , from a culture in which one life could be many lives . the great song artist , huang tingjian , whose spectacularly zany calligraphy opens the show , started out as a confucian scholar , then later turned to taoism and chan ( zen ) buddhism . and had you been his urbane 11th century contemporary , you , too , might have subscribed to all three . in your public and domestic life , you would have observed the behavioral protocols set down by confucius in the fifth century_b.c . the bottom line is that if you revere your ruler , defer to your superiors and play ''father knows best'' at home , you will have done your bit to bring peace to the cosmos . however gratifying the idea , in private you may have yearned for harmony less prescriptive and more personal . that 's what taoism offers , with its vision of the eternally embracing energy of the natural world . and if you were anxious to have that eternity take concrete form , you might have added buddhism , with its promise of a bliss filled paradise , to your spiritual repertory . although often seamless in practice , in art these belief systems are often , at least at first glance , distinct . the famous 11th century hand scroll called ''the classic of filial piety , '' illustrated by the painter li gonglin , uses expressively painted narrative scenes to define a patriarchal universe of power relationships father to son , social superior to inferior , husband to wife , emperor to subject . with a little looking , it becomes clear that li approaches these hierarchies with ambivalence even legitimate power , he suggests , can be misused . more important , by giving an eloquent aesthetic face to the mechanics of morality , he caused a revolution . suddenly , in art , people were more than mere puppets playing out roles . instead , they acted from complex , sometime conflicted feelings . the message was that political ethics and personal emotions were interrelated . this sort of felt , introspective response to the world is the essence of that most rarefied of taoist pictorial forms , landscape painting . the show has superb examples , each a cross between a mirror and a mood ring . at the same time , taoist art could be raucously extroverted . that 's certainly one way to describe the 13th century scroll titled ''the demon queller zhong kui giving his sister away in marriage , '' with its parade of plug ugly nature spirits pumping iron and preening . these creatures may have had origins in buddhist art , which arrived in china with a developed pantheon of celestial and hellish beings . these ranged from the ethereal savior deity guanyin , to the burly , glowering kings of hell depicted in five extraordinary , high colored hanging scrolls at the met who processed the damned in the buddhist underworld with the cool dispatch of confucian court judges . although for centuries at a time , the three religions coexisted and even blended , sometimes they did not . there were factional wars and persecutions . lives were lost art was destroyed . ( of more than 100 recorded works by li gonglin , 3 are thought to survive . ) in the 20th_century , of course , the entire picture changed . in the 21st_century , with religious revivalism and market capitalism wrestling for souls around the world , it may change again . meanwhile , art creates its own picture , a reflection of reality , but also an alternative to it . in a 13th century hand scroll titled ''scholars of the liuli hall'' at the met , several gentlemen have gathered for a party . most of them are confucian officials you can tell from their look_alike caps . one is bareheaded he is a buddhist monk . the party is set in a landscaped garden , the taoist emblem of harmony in complexity , an ideal that the show itself , organized by maxwell k . hearn , successfully emulates . though all these men have presumably come together for the same reason , they are all doing different things . the monk is deep in conversation with his ebullient host . a man in vermilion sits alone at a table , reading . two other men examine a scroll and seem to be bickering . a third leans meditatively against a tree . and two men in the group , spaced far apart , look upward , as if their attentions were caught by a sound . what might it be ? chanting in a distant temple ? the murmur of more guests arriving ? midnight cheers for a brand new year ? the met 's chinese galleries are so resonant with so many voices that you can almost hear all three sounds . and they will continue to hang in the air through jan . 8 , when this show ends its run . ''secular and sacred scholars , deities and immortals in chinese_art'' remains at the metropolitan_museum_of_art , fifth avenue at 82nd street , ( 212 ) 879 5500 , through jan . 8 . art review",has a topic of arts
"changing sheets is necessary and changing clothes is fun , but people are much more comfortable if everything else stays the same . so said the sociologists robert s . and helen lynd in their 1929 study of middle america , ''middletown . '' ''it is characteristic of mankind , '' they wrote , ''to make as little adjustment as possible in customary ways in the face of new conditions the process of social_change is epitomized in the fact that the first packard car body delivered to the manufacturer had a whipstock on the dashboard . '' and yet the world keeps undergoing not merely change but major upheavals requiring immense shifts in life styles . this happens everywhere , but perhaps nowhere in this century has it happened more consistently and frequently than in china , where events have repeatedly altered everything as thoroughly as an avalanche . photographers both chinese and western have caught these changes as they happened if you pointed a camera at china for more than a decade , you were bound to capture some shift . such photographs , if carefully chosen and arranged , provide easy , almost palpable access to major historical realignments . photographs are splendid repositories of history , so long as historians explain what they are really about . right now , with hong_kong still fresh in everyone 's mind , it is hard to avoid some sort of visual record of china 's lurch through history . ''marc riboud forty years of photography in china , '' at the international_center_of_photography uptown , puts approximately 100 photographs from four crucial decades on view , including a few pictures taken in hong_kong this may . he chiefly chronicles the radical swing from a patched coat peasant culture that was first liberated and then decimated by mao , to a mad capitalist economy addicted to money and miniskirts . ( the exhibition , which runs through sept . 14 , was supported by kodak professional and ccf , a french bank . ) fifty additional pictures are available in ''marc riboud in china forty years of photography , '' published by abrams . the asia_society has a fine show of some 75 earlier samples of the history of a newsworthy city ''picturing hong_kong photographs 1855 1910 , '' which traces hong_kong from backwater fishing port to british merchandise mart , fiefdom and , some would have said , foreign concubine that show continues through aug . 17 . and late last year random_house published jonathan d . spence and annping chin 's ''chinese century a photographic history of the last hundred years'' with surprises from throughout the century , including a couple by riboud . as spence and chin demonstrate with some little known images , the chinese century was wrenched from imperium to republic to japanese victim , from triangular bound feet to high heels , from rickshaws to motorcars . ( there is a wonderful 1924 picture of a paper model a ford and chauffeur being carried to the cemetery for burning to insure transport for the dead man in the spirit world . ) nothing endures but change in the second half of the century , china swung from communism and mao worship to bloody tiananmen and the invention of leisure time for workers . westerners have heard many times that shanghai has grown rich and adopted western_culture but may be less aware that this is the second time round , the first being in the 1920 's , when jazz and western films held sway . riboud 's 40 year work maintains a traditional , almost classical style , strongly influenced by henri cartier bresson . not images to make you jump up and down , they are solid and sharply observed . this is , perhaps , a heritage of magnum , the agency founded in 1957 by cartier_bresson , david seymour and robert_capa that has been home to many of the finest western photojournalists in the last four decades . riboud photographed china in black and white , the revered documentary approach that magazines almost did away with in the late 70 's and only recently have begun to publish again . his pictures generally strive for clarity , lucidity , order and balanced compositions , with the subject frequently in the center . at times he even looks for beauty , a quality unfortunately thought infra dig by trendsetters today . some contemporary photojournalism rather frantically calls attention to its own cleverness , but riboud 's pictures are old fashioned enough to favor the subject , which gives them the advantage of being calm , informative and uninsistent . the style looks easier and more casual than it is , as anyone who has tried to do what he does for longer than a day will tell you . he catches a few decisive moments but more often decisive details , like the baby crawling up a step and revealing a bare bottom because chinese baby garments are , or were , made with a permanent , and convenient , opening . usually he makes a very specific point , although if ever photographs needed captions to confirm their thrust , these do . the book 's text explains and expands a laughing peasant , in 1995 , stands some distance from a white_house in what looks like a standard genre picture until we learn that the house is the show off domain of the local police chief , built with an enforced contribution from everyone in the town . and a windshield was adorned with a picture of chairman_mao in 1992 , not , according to the text , as a political statement but because in a recent accident the only uninjured person had been a driver with just such a photograph , so mao was now thought to have joined the pantheon of protector gods . riboud managed to enter china at the end of 1956 and was allowed to return often he writes at the i.c.p . that he is ''possibly the only westerner who has photographed china consistently since the 1950 's . '' there were some limits on him as a westerner . he speaks of a ''guardian angel'' ( a guide he sometimes gave the slip to ) and some restrictions he partially circumvented with devices like a wide angle lens . he has scant images of the bad news about the cultural_revolution , which the government was adept at covering up . for re education , famine , persecutions , executions , see ''the chinese century , '' where most of the pictures of that episode that even mao came to regret were taken by chinese photographers . in the light of today 's thinking , western images of china from colonial times betray the prejudices of their time , and someday riboud 's pictures and other recent western photojournalism may seem to do the same , either because the photographers are necessarily limited to their own backgrounds or because they were concentrating on what they knew the rest of us wanted to see . ''picturing hong_kong'' repeatedly points out the different approaches to and uses of portraits of europeans and chinese , the western insistence on the picturesqueness of the ''other , '' and photographers' studied avoidance of certain subjects . over time , people wise up and jettison certain stereotypes , yet new ones are always waiting in the wings for a chance to go on stage . a journalist photographs what he sees , but seeing involves preconceptions , and choices . riboud's personal predilection is for contrast , which perfectly suits his aim . his pictures frequently set old against new , rich against poor a picture of illiterates in a classroom in 1957 next to a photograph of computer workers in 1993 a ragged man with a sack over his shoulder in '93 opposite a young couple with a cell phone and a game boy . riboud also relishes contrast within a single frame , as in an image of a sexy ad for nylon panties the manufacturer 's label is ''three stacked rifles'' next to men steaming bread in the traditional wooden sieves . contrast is a rhetorical device , a shorthand way to make a point without bothering with transitions . it is especially useful in education and propaganda ''compare and contrast'' is a standard test question , ''before and after'' a standard sales pitch for plastic_surgery . china is so immense and various and its history so vertiginous that contrasts are unavoidable , and if the main point that you wish to make is the extent of change over four decades , then surprising juxtapositions are a natural teaching device . in china over that period , the changes amounted to dislocations . westernization accelerated in the 1980 's as the country set a door ajar for western businesses and made exchange agreements with western film and television companies . advertising and foreign styles poured across the great_wall , profoundly altering the urban and even the rural landscape . entertainment is becoming america 's largest export it does an efficient job of making the rest of the world look like us . riboud 's pictures are rife with advertisements , in a nation that until recently did not want to sell its people much besides ideology . riboud 's show opens with a 1965 picture of schoolchildren in guangxi walking to school with enormous straw rain hats on their backs . the photographer writes that it rains heavily in this southern_province , which is ideal for rice crops , and that the hats can be passed down from generation to generation . ''the chinese century'' has a photograph from hankou in 1927 of southern chinese soldiers wearing these same hats on their backs . ''foreigners mistook these for shields , '' the text says , ''contemptuously believing they were evidence of the primitive state of china 's forces . '' change or no change , many things stay the same the rain still rains , the hats still keep it out ( if plastic has not replaced them ) , and foreigners still look at pictures for evidence they may not be able to read . photography view",has a topic of arts
"a soldier 's eye view of combat can be harrowing and true and reveal nothing about who is winning the war , be it the battle of borodino , the invasion of normandy or the assault on falluja . ''a company of soldiers , '' an excellent ''frontline'' documentary on pbs tonight , does not presage peace or quagmire in iraq . instead it casts a light , close up and unwaveringly , on how the occupation looked and felt to a small group of soldiers in a small outpost in southern baghdad at a particularly violent period in november 2004 . and that snapshot , of course , says more about the nature of war than any number of satellite photos and pentagon briefings . with a bumpy night_vision lens , the filmmakers show just how unwieldy urban_warfare is . they show how camaraderie hardens into love under fire and how violence , when it rains down out of nowhere , shocks and terrifies even the best trained troops . it is impossible to conclude from this documentary whether american policy will succeed , though from this close to the ground the hurdles look insurmountably high . instead , a complicated war is broken down into small pieces to show how some individuals rise to occasions that have no nobility of their own . and , less helpfully , the pbs film also reveals how absurd the culture wars back home have become . because soldiers screamed obscenities during an ambush , an increasingly cautious pbs sent out an expurgated version to its stations , overruling ''frontline'' producers and common_sense . pbs often offers two versions of its programs when the topic is sensitive . here , pbs executives took the unusual step of offering only the edited version of the film for direct retransmission . stations that preferred the unedited_version were required to sign a waiver acknowledging that the normal legal protection offered by pbs will not apply if the unedited_version is found to violate federal broadcast standards . ( most stations , including wnet in new york , have chosen to broadcast the unedited_version at 10 p.m. , a time period that is less stringently monitored . ) last november , more than 60 local abc affiliates refused to broadcast ''saving private ryan , '' steven_spielberg 's film about world_war_ii , because of concerns that its graphic language would attract indecency action by the federal communications commission , even though the agency 's commissioners made it pretty clear that such fears were groundless . ( there are always complaints from viewers when mr . spielberg refused to edit images of naked men and women in ''schindler 's list'' for television in 1997 , nbc went along , assuming viewers would not consider nudity the most disturbing sight in a film about the holocaust . the network received angry letters anyway . ) but the fact that pbs could fear that the f.c.c . would equate coarse language used by soldiers in combat with expletives used by rock stars on an awards show is more shocking than any of the obscenities shown in or omitted from the documentary . and there are not that many , anyway . the ''frontline'' crew spent the month of november following company d , of the first battalion , eighth cavalry regiment . the first profanity on the show is a ' 'damn'' uttered by a soldier checkmated during a chess game in the barracks . that relative_calm , however , is disrupted by a sudden surge in violence sparked by the american led assault on falluja . ''every day , every time we roll out , there 's something to worry about , '' a soldier explains while driving his armored_vehicle through city traffic . ''vbed 's , r.p.g . 's , gunfire , r.p.g . 's , '' he adds , referring to vehicle borne explosive_devices and rocket propelled grenades , ''you name it , it 's out there . there 's just so much stuff they throw at us , it 's ridiculous . '' on one patrol , a roadside_bomb explodes under a humvee directly in front of the one carrying the television_crew . the screen goes black , and what can be heard is men swearing and shouting , over and over , ''are you o.k . ? '' in another scene , the men get word that a gunner , specialist travis babbitt , was hit by a sniper during a skirmish and killed . capt . jason whiteley delivers an impromptu tribute , and the pauses between words as he struggles to hold back tears speak as loudly as his actual words . there are some playful moments , and many sad , troubling ones . but mostly , it is a documentary of young soldiers under siege from an invisible enemy . it is an antidote to tales of torture of iraqi inmates at abu_ghraib a respectful and sympathetic portrait of american_troops risking their lives . ''a company of soldiers'' shows more violence and death than ''gunner palace , '' a documentary about soldiers in the 2 3 field_artillery 's headquarters , the gutted former palace of saddam_hussein 's son uday in baghdad , that is to be released in theaters next month ( with an r rating because of language ) . but like ''gunner palace , '' this documentary shows how troops dedicated to a humanitarian agenda building schools and opening markets are forced to put all that aside to fight an insurgency that refuses to be smothered . 'frontline' 'a company of soldiers' pbs , tonight check local listings . directed by tom roberts edward jarvis , producer . michael sullivan , executive_producer of special projects for frontline david fanning , executive_producer for frontline . an october films production for wgbh frontline and bbc . television review",has a topic of arts
"ming and qing in manhattan chinart , one chinese antiques gallery in manhattan that is not giving a fancy cocktail_party during the current round of auctions and shows known as asian art week , does n't need to . everyone shows up anyway . well known to the trade and to museum curators and unknown by nearly everyone else ruby chan 's shop , chinart , is a secret source of ming ( 1368 to 1644 ) and qing ( 1644 to 1912 ) dynasty antiques . you wo n't find any advertisements for chinart 's simple storefront at 273 fifth avenue , at 29th_street . ''i depend on word of mouth , '' ms . chan said . she does n't seem to spend much on decorating either . her crowded , street level shop has rows of 17th and 18th_century huanghuali and jumu altar tables arranged like pews in a church . haphazardly interspersed among them are a pair of 18th_century walnut horseshoe back chairs , a 16th_century huanghuali wine table with its original patina , a 17th_century tapered cabinet made of jumu wood , a 17th_century small huanghuali side table with a burl wood square inset in its top , and a rare 18th_century burgundy lacquered jumu sedan chair with its own footrest . the sedan chair retains its metal loops , through which poles could be threaded to allow bearers to carry their master through the streets . ''what i sell is classical , not country , furniture , '' ms . chan said . old fashioned glass cabinets display a han dynasty bronze tripod food container that once belonged to the chicago collector james alsdorf an 18th_century porcelain vessel for wine that is glazed a striking tea dust green a 19th_century carved ivory hairpin a late 18th_century blanc de chine goddess of mercy and a 17th_century wooden brush_pot . the brush_pot has holes where knots would have been . ''scholars or painters would have used this to meditate upon , '' ms . chan said . ''the holes look like clouds . '' a pair of salmon colored late 18th_century embroidered silk panels hang on the wall . in a chinese home , they would be displayed to celebrate a birthday . they depict the eight immortal taoist gods in animated poses . ''they are so joyful , '' ms . chan said . ''they are for good health and luck . '' robert jacobsen , curator of chinese_art at the minneapolis museum of art , had an appointment with ms . chan on sunday to see her new items . ''i go to look at her museum quality softwood furniture , '' he said . ''she looks for pieces with the same proportions as the earlier , classic hardwoods . in the 18th_century , when the chinese ran out of hard woods like huanghuali , they copied them in elm , walnut , burl and other indigenous softwoods . '' ms . chan 's prices are considered very fair . ''my rent is low compared to uptown , '' she said . ''i buy directly from china . there 's no middleman . '' ms . chan is a second generation dealer . her father left mainland_china to set up shop in hong_kong in 1943 . ''in the 1950 's he began to buy things from westerners who were leaving china , '' she said . ''missionaries and people working for western companies moved south when the communists took over in 1949 . he snapped up a lot of good things . '' in the 1960 's , when she was a girl , ms . chan accompanied her father and mother to beijing on shopping trips . ''the government wanted cash so they invited my father to government warehouses where the pieces were stored , '' she said . ''i helped him look at things and carry them out . '' the chinese government closed the market in the late 1960 's . ''everything stopped , '' she said . ''no one dared to bring things out . '' ms . chan came to america in 1974 , married and set up shop . her brother albert stayed in hong_kong , where he has his own independent operation . ''the chinese still do n't respect this furniture as much as westerners do , '' mr . jacobsen said . ''only a few museums in china are serious about collecting it . '' a texan 's trove sam bernstein , a texan who has specialized in chinese antiquities since 1976 , is celebrating the 10th anniversary of his san_francisco gallery with an exhibition in manhattan today through sunday . ''it 's my coming of age show , '' he said . it has taken him six years to assemble the 33 pieces of ancient chinese_art he is offering for sale at the four seasons hotel , 57 east 57th_street . he has titled the show ''within reach'' because the jade , bone , glass and bronze artifacts are meant to be touched and appreciated by both eye and hand . the pieces range from the neolithic a huan disc , an adz blade in jade and a mottled green stone disc to a tang period bone hairpin and a white qing imperial seal . he has a mythical beast in translucent white glass from the han dynasty ( 206 b.c . to 220 a.d. ) that fits into your hand . mr . bernstein says it is a bixie , a tomb guardian that wards off evil spirits . normally , a bixie is a composite animal , with attributes like wings or hooves or horns . this one looks like a horse , though it has wings . its four legs are tucked under it and its head is raised . the mouth is wide open in what mr . bernstein said was a typical han stance . ''for me , this beast is a metaphor for the entire han period in its power , aliveness and naturalistic carving , '' he said . it is the only known example of a han horse in glass imitating jade that is more than three inches long , mr . bernstein said . he said the glass horse was buried for hundreds of years . portions of it have a cloudy , purplish discoloration . ''the glass has devitrified , '' he said . ''there is an alteration to the surface when it interacts with its environment , whether it 's soil or water . '' discoloration does not disqualify a piece of jade or glass for serious collectors , who expect it , but the lack of original surface might . mr . bernstein said glass was an exotic material during the han . ''it was considered even more exotic than jade because it came from outside china , probably from the middle_east , beginning in the seventh century_b.c . , '' he said . ''there was a great demand for prestige objects by the elite . they were the patek philippe watches of their day . '' in china , glass served the same function as jade , which was associated with perfectibility and immortality . jade ''is always associated with mystery and exclusivity , '' he said . ''objects were made to indicate a person 's status . '' in conjunction with his show , mr . bernstein organized a seminar on collecting chinese_art , from 9 a.m . to noon tomorrow at the hotel . it is geared to collectors , and costs 55 . among those who have reserved places , he said , are collectors from china . ''i acquire chinese jade and early metalwork in the united_states and europe , '' mr . bernstein said . ''but about a third of my business is selling to collectors in taiwan , hong_kong and mainland_china . the chinese have a new interest in collecting their own history . that 's where the great collections are being formed today . ''",has a topic of arts
"the sale two weeks ago of ming and ching chairs and tables at christie 's in new york that totaled 11 . 2 million did more than set records . it signaled the coming of age in the marketplace for chinese furniture , which had long been overlooked by collectors . ''chinese furniture is no longer the orphan of the art world , '' said theow huang tow , head of the department of chinese_art at christie 's . while the market in chinese_art had expanded steadily since the early 1970 's , the strong international interest in this furniture is unprecedented . for the most part , collectors of chinese_art had begun by buying small , readily available items like vases , boxes and paintings before moving on to bulkier , more substantial acquisitions like furniture . as the market grew , bolstered by several scholarly books and exhibitions , big name collectors and museums quietly began competing for the choicest pieces . they paid under 100 , 000 for pieces until 1990 , when prices began to escalate . christie 's sale on sept . 19 was the first auction of a comprehensive collection of chinese furniture in the west and was the highlight of a week of asian art sales in new york . the 107 chairs , tables , cabinets and screens sold at christie 's were from the ming ( 1368 1644 ) and ching ( 1644 1912 ) dynasties , the periods that inspired much that is distinctive and graceful in western furniture cabriole legs , claw and ball feet , tapered silhouettes and back splats on chairs . the collection was assembled in the 1980 's by the fellowship of friends , a philosophical and religious organization based in apollo , calif . it was sold in 1995 to johnny chen , a taiwanese businessman , who sent it to christie 's . the sale attracted buyers from around the world . most were americans , although asians and europeans were broadly represented . ''there 's never been this concentration of high quality material in a chinese furniture collection that also had an aura surrounding it , '' said maxwell k . hearn , a curator of asian art at the metropolitan_museum_of_art , in explaining the heightened interest in the sale . ''asian art has been undervalued , but that 's changing now , as asians become interested in owning their own heritage . '' the bidding was driven by several prominent museums but mostly by private collectors . michael ovitz , president of the walt disney company , bought a pair of tall , angular cabinets carved with figures of lions and dragons for a record 607 , 500 . he bought through nicholas grindley , a london dealer , with whom he sat during the bidding . mr . grindley was the most active buyer that day , spending a total of 1 . 6 million . he also acquired for mr . ovitz five horseshoe back chairs . the metropolitan paid 173 , 000 for a generously proportioned 300 year old painting table . that table , along with a more elaborate one carved with dragons and scrolls that the museum bought that week at sotheby 's for 310 , 500 , will go on view in may , when the museum 's chinese decorative_arts galleries open . the minneapolis institute of art paid 1 . 1 million , a record for chinese furniture , for the rarest object at christie 's , a screen with a marble plaque striated with an image resembling mountains . robert jacobson , the museum 's curatorial chairman , said the screen would be a centerpiece of its new chinese furniture galleries , part of a wing that will open in 1998 . mr . jacobson , who spent a total of 1 . 5 million at christie 's for eight pieces of furniture , also bought a horseshoe back chair for 453 , 500 at sotheby 's . coincidentally , an exhibition of ming and ching furniture , ''beyond the screen chinese furniture of the 16th and 17th centuries , '' is currently on view at boston 's museum_of_fine_arts . several pieces in the show were lent by edward c . johnson 3d , chairman of fidelity_investments , the mutual_fund giant , and a board member of the museum , who was a bidder at christie 's . ''americans have been the prime movers in collecting and showing chinese furniture recently , '' said wu tung , the curator of asiatic art at the museum . in fact , the interest in chinese furniture began in the united_states in 1970 with the publication of robert ellsworth 's ''chinese furniture , '' a book showing major pieces from american collections that is still considered the bible on the subject . mr . ellsworth 's second book , ''chinese furniture the mimi and raymond hung collection , '' which was published last month , documents a collection in hong_kong , one of five formed over the last 20 years in response to the growing interest of westerners . once the value of chinese furniture was raised in the west , renewed interest in such pieces could be seen in asia . mr . ellsworth said that even museums in china now recognized the importance of chinese furniture as art . the palace museum in beijing added furniture to its galleries six years ago , and the shanghai museum is opening a special gallery of furniture on thursday . arts artifacts",has a topic of arts
"in their magnificent honesty , charles jones 's photographs of vegetables put edward weston 's studies of green peppers and cabbages in the shade . around the turn of the 20th_century , about 30 years before weston created his sleek modernist still lifes , jones was taking close ups of commonplace vegetables in a way never done before . he did nothing more elaborate than , say , bunch carrots together or place several sugar beets in a small heap . he would use a neutral backdrop and long exposures to bring out the shine or texture of the vegetables , which were often presented unscrubbed . if wordsworth saw splendor in the grass and glory in the flower , jones found splendor and glory in the vegetable . his carrots , onions , bean runners , beets , brussels sprouts and cabbages have an aliveness and a raw strength not normally associated with such mundane fare . now and then he photographed flowers . at davis langdale , his images of tulips , dahlias , irises , narcissus and zinnias are also spare and frontal . in ''english iris , '' the photographer appears to counter the flowers' studied elegance with a casually off kilter dark backdrop . in ''pompon dahlia tommy keith , '' the flowers' almost metallic leaves lend the work a surreal cast . his ''decorative dahlia , '' with its lush and prickly subject , gives karl blossfeldt a run for his money . blossfeldt , a contemporary , was a german professor known for his photographic close ups of plants as stark architectural forms . compared with the surprising vitality of the vegetable still lifes , though , many of the flower studies here , especially the tulips , seem quite tame . jones 's apples and pears come closer in spirit to the fresh robustness of his onions and carrots . but some special alchemic force seemed to be at work every time jones set the vegetables up and trained his camera on them . how else to explain a pair of onions ( which he identified as ''onion red genoa'' ) making you think of nature 's perfections ? or a bunch of celery ( ''celery wright 's white'' ) , upright against a rather rumpled backdrop , looking thoroughly majestic ? why else would peas in a pod ( ''pea quite content'' ) resemble south seas pearls , or three sugar beets , one on top of another , bring to mind strong , muscled bodies ? and how else could a delicate row of dwarf beans suggest young ballet dancers ? jones took hundreds of pictures of vegetables , apparently never tiring of them or losing sight of their vibrancy . amazingly , his photographs came to light only after sean sexton , an irish historian and photography collector , happened on a trunkful of them , all gold toned gelatin silver prints , at the bermondsey antiques market in london in 1981 . the trunk and its contents had been passed over by dealers and other collectors before mr . sexton saw the lot and bought it for what else ? a song . ( the prints , most of them one of a kind , now sell for four and five figures . ) written in pencil on the backs of almost all the pictures are the precise names of the plants and the initials c . j . or , in a few instances , charles jones . c . j . 's identity remained a mystery until shirley sadler saw some of his pictures on british television . she revealed that jones was her grandfather . he was born in 1866 and worked as a gardener , most notably at ote hall in sussex , and died in 1959 . she recalled that toward the end of his life he used some of his glass plate negatives to form small tents to shield young plants in his garden . none of jones 's negatives seem to have survived . he was unusually reticent and left nothing in writing that would indicate the genesis of his interest in photography or when he took his pictures . robert flynn johnson , the curator of a 1998 exhibition of jones 's work at the m . h . de young memorial museum in san_francisco , gives 1895 to 1910 as the probable dates of jones 's body of work . he arrived at those dates on the strength of the photographic materials that jones used and a photograph of a still life in a family album that has 1904 written on it . sometime during those years jones was a gardener at ote hall . ''plant kingdoms the photographs of charles jones'' ( smithmark publishers ) , which includes reproductions of many more of jones 's transcendent images , accompanied the exhibition at the de young . in it mr . johnson notes that jones 's tenure at ote hall attracted the attention of the gardeners' chronicle . in a 1905 issue , the publication singled out jones 's fruit and vegetable gardens , saying they were the equal of his attractive flower beds and borders . ''mr . jones , '' said the chronicle , ''is quite an enthusiastic fruit grower and his delight in his well trained fruit trees was readily apparent . '' the resourceful gardener , it also noted , produced tomatoes that were as superb as those grown in a greenhouse . the chronicle made no mention of charles jones the photographer . it did n't have to . in his still lifes , jones left behind a rare record of one man 's response to the wonder that is life and to the beauty that he found around him , especially the magnificence of vegetables . ''charles jones ( 1866 1959 ) photographs'' is at davis langdale , 231 east 60th_street , manhattan , ( 212 ) 838 0333 , through may 11 . photography review",has a topic of arts
"when maiolica was the rage it seems that renaissance society was as consumer oriented as our own . this is one of the lessons of ''the marvels of maiolica italian_renaissance ceramics from the corcoran gallery of art collection , '' a small but compelling exhibition at the frances lehman loeb art center at vassar college in poughkeepsie , n.y. , through june 13 . ''renaissance italians , especially those in urban centers , spent a great deal of money furnishing their homes and workplaces , '' jacqueline marie musacchio , an assistant professor of art_history at vassar and the show 's guest curator , writes in the catalog . ''it was a time when growing consumerism led to increased production , acquisition and display of an immense variety of both modest and luxury items . '' production of maiolica , painted , tin glazed earthenware , began in renaissance italy in the 15th_century and continues to this day . ( the frequently seen spelling with a ''j , '' ' 'majolica , '' now refers to pieces made during a revival in the 19th and 20th centuries . ) painted in brilliant colors royal blue , yellow , gold and spring green maiolica comes in a wide variety of shapes and sizes , from ceremonial chargers to inkwells to apothecary jars to immense wine coolers . maiolica was made to appeal to everybody , including the richest aristocrats . when giovanni de' medici was elected pope leo x , for example , he ordered a dish with his new coat of arms in maiolica , not gold or silver . the show has about 30 pieces , or about one third of the maiolica in the william a . clark collection . it will go on a nationwide tour after leaving vassar . clark , a copper mining baron and montana senator , gave some 800 works to the corcoran in 1925 . ( the museum , in washington , is about to close while it constructs a new wing designed by frank_gehry . ) the italians did not invent tin glazed earthenware . the process was mastered in antiquity but forgotten in the west until the 11th century , when islamic ceramists revived it in the near east and spain . ''valencian lusterwares were imported to the italian peninsula via the pre existing trade route through the island of majorca , '' ms . musacchio writes in the catalog . ''indeed , their stopover in majorca may be one reason these ceramics acquired the name maiolica . '' the italians considered maiolica a status symbol . ''maiolica held a significant place in renaissance social life , '' she writes . ''the sophisticated and oftentimes complicated compositions on maiolica were intended to spark conversation , encourage sociability and demonstrate erudition . '' the designs depicted mythological and biblical stories , scenes of motherhood and beautiful women . ( some of these might have been engagement or wedding gifts . ) one early16th century tile from tuscany shows st . martin of tours cutting up his coat to share it with a beggar . a jar from a pompeii workshop has a naked cleopatra contemplating the asp . the drug jar held lemon balm , which was thought to be good for aches and the common_cold . some pieces are votive plaques . a man commissioned one from deruta in 1505 to thank the virgin mary for curing two sick women in his household . on it , the man prays to the virgin as his three children kneel next to a large bed where the two women are shown facing each other . only one late 15th_century tuscan dish seems to illustrate a real event , the 1354 meeting between the poet petrarch and the holy roman emperor charles iv . james mundy , the director of the museum at vassar , traced the source of the emperor 's odd pose to the representation of a well known king on a tarot card of the period . the emperor sits on his throne in a short tunic with bare legs , thrown open . ''such an illustration of a contemporary story is very rare , '' ms . musacchio said . amusing , too . a castle of treasures from may 10 to 12 , axel vervoordt , the belgian collector , designer and antiques_dealer , will literally lower his drawbridge to sell around 1 , 300 of his own antiques at his early 14th century moated castle , kasteel van 's gravenwezel , outside of antwerp , belgium . he will also offer a wildly eclectic group of artworks and antiques at his warehouse gallery , kanaal , in antwerp , at the same time . ''the castle is like a james_bond set , an impregnable fortress , '' said sarah graham , mr . vervoordt 's representative in new york . ''axel 's taste is rather like bill blass 's . his things have a strong classical and architectural look . '' andrew waters , the director of house sales at christie 's in london , organized the sale . ''christie 's asked to do this a long time ago and finally convinced me it could be a success , '' mr . vervoordt said . the sale is motivated by his desire to edit his many , many possessions . ''i buy 200 to 300 pieces a month , '' he said , ''and i have 13 , 700 things in inventory , so i 'm selling 10 percent . it 's a way of advertising our place to a much wider clientele , since christie 's has clients who would not normally come to see us in belgium . '' the paintings , artworks and furniture span 4 , 000 years , from ancient marble bactrian idols from afghanistan to intricate 19th_century wood architectural models from england . there are also faience dishes , lighting_fixtures and a lot of furniture . ( the 523 page catalog can be ordered at www . christies . com . ) ''the sale has something for everyone , '' mr . vervoordt said . ''everything in it is something that we have lived with . after the sale , we will have to refurnish the house . '' he is parting with personal favorites like his large carved egyptian porphyry vase a set of 15 oil on panel portraits of roman emperors by otto van veen ( 1556 1629 ) and a set of immense delft blue and white tile portraits . these depict louis_xv and his wife , maria leszczynska emperor franz i of austria and his wife , maria theresia and william augustus , duke of cumberland , the third son of king george ii of england . these equestrian portraits show the duke and the crowned heads of state at the battle of fontenoy in 1745 . it was reportedly commissioned to commemorate the end of the hundred years war . ''jan aalmis , the most famous painter in rotterdam , did them , '' mr . vervoordt said . ''they are extremely rare , the only set known . they should be seen together in one room . '' the estimate for the set is 118 , 000 to 177 , 000 . lot 110 is a handsome mahogany george ii bookcase with carved eagle heads in its temple pediment . it is 112 inches tall and 81 1 2 inches wide , with two glass paneled doors above cabinets . ''this represents the true classicism of inigo jones and the restrained elegance of mid 18th_century carving and proportion , '' ms . graham said . it is estimated at 295 , 000 to 414 , 000 . mr . vervoordt , who works with his wife , may , and his sons , boris and dick , will continue to receive collectors , dealers and decorators at the castle by appointment after the sale . his inventory can be seen at www . axel vervoordt . com . antiques",has a topic of arts
"at 11 a.m . on a recent morning , the temperature in manhattan was pushing 100 . inside the brick and mirror walled dance studio in soho , a petite blond woman was also putting on the heat . "" run , run , run , push , push , push ! "" she shouted to 10 dancers moving across the floor . the instructor , carol fried of the martha graham dance company , spared no sympathy for the dancers' glistening backs and dripping foreheads . the group , known as the purchase dance corps , was preparing for its debut in china , and ms . fried had only three days to perfect the piece they were rehearsing . back on their home campus at purchase college , the dancers , who ranged from first year students to recent graduates of the school 's dance division , had already spent three weeks learning the basics of the work , "" a diversion of angels . "" but they had studied the dance from a video with the help of their rehearsal director , kazuko hirabayashi , and now both ms . hirabayashi and carol k . walker , dean of the purchase dance division , watched intently as ms . fried turned what had been a sketch into a work of art . this will be the first time that "" a diversion of angels , "" choreographed by martha_graham in 1948 , is danced in china . traveling so far from home will also be a first for many of the students , most of whom have never been to the far east , although the purchase dance corps in previous years has performed in hong_kong , taiwan and amsterdam . catching the light it was a dual honor for the group , who would not only introduce a work by a major american artist to the chinese but would do so as the only american dance troupe invited to take part in the yearly international festival of dance academies in beijing . the dance division had to raise money to send the students to the festival , which runs from july 23 through 31 and includes groups from 12 other countries first fidelity bank and private contributors are the main sponsors of the trip . in addition to the graham work , the group will dance "" a lake , "" choreographed by mark morris , and "" concerto second movement , "" choreographed by kenneth macmillan . those rehearsals lay ahead , but it was time now to focus on the special genius of the legendary graham . ms . walker explained that ms . fried 's job was to develop "" the accuracy and the intention of the movement "" of the work , a lyrical dance about youth and the poignancy of first love . this she did with sharp , clear motions lowering her head to indicate modesty , rotating a shoulder to evoke pride , fluttering her fingers to show nervous excitement . her words were at times minimal "" one moment you should be here . . . and then there , "" she told a dancer and at times metaphorical . "" you have to catch the light ! "" she urged the women as they danced flirtatiously past the men . "" this is not about secrecy ! "" a subtle language ms . fried , co artistic director of the manhattan based graham company , might have been working as a sculptor , or have been manipulating a computer image with her masterful hand . but her medium was the human body and its ancient paraphernalia arms , legs and feet , whose subtlest gestures spoke a special language . sometimes a dancer could not absorb ms . fried 's instructions quickly enough , and the teacher would grow impatient . "" some movements come more naturally than others , "" ms . walker said later , sympathizing with the struggle of one dancer . "" it 's a very personal art form . "" so personal that even in an age of technology , not all choreographers prepare notated scores of their works . many dancers are taught "" hand to mouth , "" ms . walker said , much as ms . fried was doing . despite the heat and the tension in the studio , the young dancers kept their poise even one who was repeatedly corrected and rehearsed for hours without a break . showing temper or unhappiness is anathema for an aspiring professional , said ms . walker , who has worked as a performer , teacher , choreographer and administrator in her 40 years as a dancer . "" you leave the rest of your life outside the door when you walk into a studio , "" she said . "" you have to park it , come in and be fully invested in what goes on at the moment . "" graduates of the purchase college dance division dance worldwide with major companies , including the paul_taylor_dance_company , american_ballet_theater , the mark morris company and the martha graham dance company . terese capucilli , an award winning principal_dancer with the graham company , graduated from purchase in 1978 . four seniors this year were accepted into professional companies including the ballet hispanico and the bill t . jones arnie zane company even before their graduation . choreographers get to know the students by attending dance division performances and coaching students in reconstructions of their own works , ms . walker said . such contacts serve as "" a beautiful bridge from purchase to the profession . "" professional goals drive the students , leading them to spend summers in manhattan where they can take classes and audition for dance parts as well as for scholarships in major dance studios . "" it 's an art form for youth , "" ms . walker said , ticking off the part time jobs , long rehearsal hours , class time and auditions crammed into most dance students' lives . to increase their sophistication , ms . walker said she teaches "" manhattan "" as a freshman seminar , expecting students to learn the location of well known studios and shops that sell dancewear . the goal is to teach the young people , many of whom come from out of state , to "" feel comfortable in new york city , "" she said . dress rehearsals she is optimistic about dancers' prospects as the profession emerges from what she calls a "" pretty desperate "" few years . "" i think the dance world creatively is in a very interesting place , "" ms . walker said . "" the ballet companies are doing modern works , the graham company is doing a piece by twyla_tharp , anything that works is going to be welcome . "" it 's a wonderful time , if you can keep yourself fed . "" two free dress rehearsals of the purchase dance corps' china program will be held , today at 5 30 p.m . and tomorrow at 7 p.m . in the dance theater lab of the dance building on the purchase campus .",has a topic of arts
"for the first time in nearly five years , the ''cbs evening news'' climbed out of third place last week to finish second in the television ratings race , drawing more viewers in a week than ''world_news_tonight'' on abc , according to figures from nielsen media research . while ''nbc_nightly_news with brian_williams'' easily won the week , beating both the cbs and abc broadcasts by more than a million viewers , the second place showing by cbs especially in a sweeps week could foreshadow a trend if replicated on a sustained basis . ''cbs evening news , '' with 7 . 39 million viewers last week , beat abc by about 80 , 000 viewers , although since september abc has led cbs by an average of about a million viewers nbc has in turn led abc by about a million . already , cbs has sought to seize on the tightening race as a means of providing momentum to katie_couric , who will replace bob schieffer as anchor of the ''cbs evening news'' in september . at least as of yesterday afternoon , abc said it could not say who it expected to slide behind its anchor desk in early september to go up against ms . couric and mr . williams . the release of the nielsen figures coincided with another moment of uncertainty for abc_news . when stephen mcpherson , president of abc entertainment , announced the network 's fall prime time schedule yesterday morning , one abc newsmagazine , ''20 20 , '' was on it , but another one , ''prime time , '' was not . mr . mcpherson said that the network had ordered a full season 's worth of episodes for ''prime time , '' but he said he did not yet know when the program would return , or if it would have a regular time slot . but a more pressing priority , as the network addressed its advertisers in new york and prepared for a regular meeting today with its affiliate stations , was to provide reassurance that it would field a competitive evening news broadcast come september . elizabeth vargas , who has mostly led ''world_news_tonight'' alone since her co anchor , bob woodruff , was seriously wounded in iraq in january , is due to give birth to her second child in mid august . abc has not announced how much maternity leave she expects to take , or who might fill in for her . under one scenario being given serious consideration within the executive_suite of abc_news , charles gibson , the longtime anchor of ''good morning america , '' would leave that program permanently to become a full time co anchor of ''world_news_tonight , '' said one person who has been directly apprised of the plan but was not authorized to disclose it . ms . vargas , under that proposal , would rejoin mr . gibson after her leave , and mr . woodruff , whose recovery is slow but progressing , would begin to contribute to the program as his health improves , eventually , perhaps , as a third co anchor . but moving mr . gibson out of ''good morning america'' could hurt that program as it prepares to mount another run at the longtime ratings leader , ''today'' on nbc , which is replacing ms . couric with meredith vieira of ''the view , '' the abc talk show . if mr . gibson were to leave , the person with knowledge of the plan said , it is not clear how long diane_sawyer , one of his two co hosts on ''good morning america , '' would remain on the program . another option moving ms . sawyer to the evening news and leaving mr . gibson behind would also leave the morning show short handed . in an interview yesterday , jon banner , executive_producer of ''world news , '' would not discuss any contingencies other than to say that ''those decisions are being dealt with . '' of yesterday 's ratings report , mr . banner said ''we obviously would like to be doing better . we should be doing better . '' still , cbs has been gaining on abc in a year of extraordinary upheaval , including the death in august of peter_jennings , the anchor of ''world news . '' meanwhile , within the nielsen data are trends that could also give some pause to nbc and cbs . since september , nbc , like abc , has been losing viewers . and while cbs has actually gained nearly 300 , 000 viewers over that period , it has done so with mr . schieffer as anchor , and he will be leaving soon . ''from our perspective , it is just one week , '' said sean mcmanus , who became president of cbs_news in november . ''but it is very satisfying . ''",has a topic of arts
"if painting and writing can be seen as modes of thinking , and they can , then ''brush and ink the chinese_art of writing , '' at the metropolitan museum , is as much a brainstorming session as an art exhibition , crackling with ideas and arguments every step of the way . it is also a sequence of moods , with impassioned voices calling out from the 80 scrolls and inscribed fans spanning several centuries , including the 21st , that line the galleries . poor me , sighs an exiled scholar in a sad letter home . lucky us , sings an exultant empress at the height of her power . other voices , a whole chorus , chime in be joyous . be calm . beware . not all that long ago , a show like this one , made up mostly of handwritten texts in an unfamiliar language , would have been a daunting prospect for most museum visitors . it might even have given non chinese historians and curators trouble . but those days are gone . one of the healthful results of the late 20th_century culture as entertainment craze is that , just by showing up in museums and poking around , we have turned into cosmopolites . this does n't mean that we know everything there is to know about art . but it does mean that no art now seems entirely unknowable , in the sense of terminally strange . so , for example , if you were swept away by jackson pollock 's flung and dripped paintings in the museum_of_modern_art retrospective a few years ago , you are already primed to be similarly thrilled by the wild style calligraphy of the 11th century artist huang tingjian , whose hand scroll ''biographies of lian po and lin xiangru'' is at the met . and once you 've seen it , you might even feel that huang 's cursive masterpiece out pollocks pollock . certainly its 60 foot long flow of looping , swooping characters they twist and shout pump up , slim down leave skid marks behind them blurs distinctions between writing and painting , control and spontaneity , virtuosity and accident . on top of this , it dramatizes , in compelling , nonrepresentational terms , a complicated story of political intrigue and endangered friendship . the closest equivalent in western_culture would probably not be abstract painting , but specific kinds of music the scores for story ballets , say , or programmatic symphonies . in the end , though , it was huang who best described his writing . ''a picture of the mind'' is what he called it . if you choose , you can let that picture remain abstract , unattached to any narrative , a kind of psychic encephalogram . for that matter , you can approach the whole met show as optical joy ride . why not ? the sheer energy of the writing will carry you a long way , and the variety will make the trip diverting . alternatively , you can read the show 's lucid labels , which translate the calligraphy and offer basic historical information . by no means everything is wild and crazy . an exquisite eighth century manuscript called ''spiritual flight sutra'' is a paradigm of centered probity . its characters are uniform in weight , geometrically structured , meticulously aligned . designed for legibility , they also convey the pacific ethos of the taoist scripture they embody . the history of calligraphy itself , however , was not peaceful . trouble started once writing began to be valued as an aesthetic rather than utilitarian medium , and specific styles were tagged with social and political meanings . this dynamic was already in play by the time wang xizhi ( a . d . 303 61 ) was developing his famously expressive and endlessly influential styles . a century earlier , his writing would have been reviled as an assault on cultural orthodoxy . in the centuries after his death , it was revered as the paradigm of calligraphic correctness , closely identified with imperial orthodoxy . what was once radical became classical what was classical was the model to rebel against . huang tingjian was a rebel . he lived in an era of wrenching change . like other members of an intellectual elite , he rejected the moral_authority of a corrupt court , and he was shipped off to exile in remote sichuan . there , as a sign of sustained dissent , he adopted the antiestablishment style seen in the met scroll , in effect making the very act of writing a political act . this story recurs , with changes in names and dates , so often throughout the centuries in china that the met 's calligraphy survey might accurately be subtitled ''a history of politically activist art in china . '' if so , however , two things would have to be clarified . one , that such activism applied to a wide range of conflicting ideologies , conservative as well as progressive . and , two , that politics as expressed in calligraphy was n't a matter of speechifying it was deeply personal , a way of life . you wrote the way you lived . political expression could , it is true , be cartoonishly vivid . it comes as no surprise to learn that the lurching , sliding calligraphy on a set of scrolls by the 17th_century artist fu shan is the work of man who advocated intoxication as political protest . by contrast , only with close and lingering study can you discern debates and doubts being voiced in the sparse landscape paintings and poetic annotations of an artist like ni zan ( 1306 74 ) . a ruminative , possibly depressive man , he lived for many years in self elected banishment from centers of power . and even after he settled down , he could never entirely dispel a sense of isolation and vulnerability . only a surrender to the spirit of nature assuaged such feelings . and he worked his way into nature , you sense , through art . anyone who frequents the met 's chinese galleries will have seen the two ni zan pieces that are in the show little , scratchy landscapes with patchlike blocks of poetry a thousand times before . but they never lose their peculiarly unassertive , almost self effacing power . without raising his voice above a murmur , this artist thinker gives the condition of exile an existential , universalist weight . his profoundly meditated politics is the politics of experience . for viewers with a predominantly romantic view of classical chinese painting and calligraphy , all this talk of politics will be puzzling . for many westerners , political art in china automatically means contemporary_art , art that breaks with tradition . precisely this assumption has defined the boom market for new chinese_art in the past decade and more . but as our familiarity with the multifold phenomenon known as contemporary chinese_culture grows , we are discovering the many ways in which new art in china is addressing , reworking and refreshing existing traditions . the met show , organized by maxwell k . hearn of the asian art department , helps confirm this . although mr . hearn has drawn most of the material from the met 's collection , he has also borrowed a half dozen works by contemporary chinese artists , a significant addition . if the show that results is not the first to place contemporary calligraphy in the big historical picture , it is surely among the few to do so in so forthright a way . the very first thing we see in the installation is a colossal ink scroll by wang dongling , who was born in china in 1945 and gained early fame there for creating big character political posters for the cultural_revolution . his work is still calligraphic in style , still done with brush and ink , but under the influence of western modernism , has become entirely abstract , divorced from any language except the language of painting . his colleagues in the show , gu wenda , qin feng , wang tiande and xu bing all impressive , all chinese born , all with substantial careers in the west come at calligraphy from still other angles , obscuring it , further abstracting it , applying it to non chinese languages , to fictional languages , making it emulate the language of music . in doing so , are they honoring or undermining a tradition ? expanding it or emptying it ? their work raises such questions , provokes conflicting thoughts and has led to passionate debates between traditionalists and nontraditionalists . in all these ways , it remains true to calligraphy 's contentious past and argues for a provocative future . ''brush and ink the chinese_art of writing'' continues through jan . 21 at the metropolitan_museum_of_art , fifth avenue at 82nd street , ( 212 ) 535 7710 . art review",has a topic of arts
"in the final minutes of the movie ''dr . strangelove or how i learned to stop worrying and love the bomb , '' with a nuclear conflagration on the horizon , the only person in the pentagon 's war room who remains upbeat about the prospect of mass annihilation is strangelove himself . doing slide rule calculations in his wheelchair , this proud father of the doomsday machine assures the president and his generals that thousands of americans can ride out armageddon inside the country 's deeper mine shafts . ''of course , '' strangelove , the not so ex nazi , says brightly , ''it would be absolutely vital that our top government and military men be included to foster and impart the required principles of leadership and tradition . '' the men in the room listen raptly to his proposal for a ''ratio of 10 females to each male . '' as survivors , the madman tells them , they should feel no guilt about the tens of millions incinerated above ground but instead enjoy their new subterranean lives in ''a spirit of bold curiosity for the adventure ahead . '' the 25 photographs by andreas magdanz at the janet borden gallery in soho , from saturday through feb . 21 , are like a glimpse of strangelove 's demented vision of a nuclear sanctuary translated into historical truth . one set of plans for a postnuclear war world , it turns out , were almost as fantastic and banal as those in stanley kubrick 's 1964 satire . the dienstelle marienthal ( or marienthal office ) is among the most ambitious but least known monuments to ''thinking the unthinkable'' ever conceived . this vast underground tunnel complex , built from 1960 to 1972 outside bonn , was once so secret that to acknowledge its existence could bring charges of treason in west_germany . designed to house 3 , 000 of that government 's essential personnel in case of nuclear attack , it represented one of the most exclusive fraternities in the world . ( membership in the american version , under the greenbrier resort in west_virginia during president dwight d . eisenhower 's tenure , was even more restricted . it accommodated only 1 , 000 people . after the 535 members of congress and their top aides were assigned spaces , little room was left for anyone else hoping to survive . ) the germans , however , built on a grander scale . the mountain caverns in the ahr valley near marienthal had been hollowed as a railroad tunnel before world_war i . invading french troops dynamited passages , and the place was abandoned until world_war_ii , when the nazi military discovered that the cathedral like spaces , beneath 350 feet of slate , were ideal for assembling v 1 and v 2 rockets beyond the reach of allied bombs . after joining nato in 1955 , west_germany began to plan to use the site in case of a nuclear_war , expanding and upgrading it so that a community could live deep underground , in theory , for at least a month . there are 25 , 000 doors in the bunker complex at marienthal , only 38 of which open to the world outside . among the hundreds of rooms where the sun never shone are 897 offices and conference areas and 936 sleeping cubicles . canteens , showers , medical areas , a printing shop , a hair salon , a television_studio and most touchingly a post_office were provided for the inhabitants , along with two large bays for bicycles , the chief form of transportation around the nearly 12 miles of galleries and tunnels . mr . magdanz , a 40 year old german based in aachen , began the project in 1998 after reading a newspaper item about the structure . his request to photograph it was grudgingly honored by the interior_ministry , which granted him a three day permit . persistence led to a seven month extension . he was the first person authorized to photograph there , although he had access to only the three sectors in the east half of the complex . ( there were five sectors in all , linked but different . ) his photographic tour of the forbidden_city he shot more than 1 , 000 negatives in both black and white and color with a large format camera , and also made a videotape is not comforting . the government code name for the complex was typically euphemistic rosengarten ( or rose garden ) . monotony , regimentation and claustrophobic dread are the outstanding qualities found in the pictures . the oppressive spotlessness of marienthal is matched by a complete lack of privacy . only the west_german president rated his own bathroom and , in an incongruous visual note , also had a suite with chairs and sofas upholstered in hot pink . the weight of the mountain can be felt throughout the photographs . with a precise and clinical eye , mr . magdanz shows the 25 ton doors , the miles of cable and the air ducts that connected the underground denizens , through a series of filters , with the upper atmosphere . the d cor is spare , the furniture uniformly modern . there are no gymnasiums or libraries . fluorescent light and gray airlessness are pervasive . the saddest image may be a pair of chairs and a table in front of a wall in a conference room . on the wall is a map with a label that reads , ''the world , '' a reminder of everything that , had nuclear_war broken out , the people here would be giving up by burrowing into this new , shrunken but uncontaminated world . the redeeming feature of marienthal is that those who could retreat quickly enough would be alive . it was a refuge as well as a feat of german engineering . a defensive structure , it was planned not to kill but to protect a select group from the insanity of atomic_weapons . and unlike other notorious germans who hoped to survive a war from inside bunkers , these political leaders would , presumably , not have started it . the most distinguishing feature of marienthal , apart from the lingering paranoia , is the na_vet behind its creation . in the united_states , architects of cold_war thinking like herman kahn , a brilliant strategist at the rand_corporation ( and a model for strangelove ) , and the defense secretary robert s . mcnamara dared to sketch the outlines of a postnuclear war world . they offered rational responses to various worst_case_scenarios , even though it seems clear that no amount of planning would help in the face of unprecedented national panic . one need only imagine the traffic on the roads after a 50 megaton weapon hit washington or bonn to know that a quorum of government leaders would not likely arrive at these shelters alive . the immaculate order of the empty rooms in marienthal seems to be inversely proportional to the mayhem that would be taking place above ground in the event of a nuclear strike . suppressed grief and emotional denial can be read into the pictures . the german and american evacuation plans take for granted that political leaders would abandon fathers , mothers , spouses and children to their fates . but would such callous behavior really be the case , and at what psychic price ? who would want to rule what was left from hades ? the response from many viewers to these pictures will be nervous laughter . stretched across the cover of mr . magdanz 's self published book on the project is a cartoon of a b_52 , the same type of rogue bomber , piloted by maj . t . j . ( king ) kong of the air_force , that triggered the doomsday machine and the end of the world in ''dr . strangelove . '' the amount of money spent on marienthal more than three billion_marks ( roughly 1 . 4 billion ) is not funny , though . the question of how we are to treat our wildly expensive cold_war relics is only now coming into focus . the united_states_government has decided to reveal its secret hideout and offers paid tours of the greenbrier bunkers . the fees help defray the cost of maintaining an atomic age hotel built for 1 , 000 . the germans have been typically quieter and more conflicted about their past . proposals to convert marienthal and reopen it as a techno disco , a bunker wonderland amusement_park and youth hostel or a mushroom farm went nowhere . a decision was finally reached in 2000 to dismantle the complex , at a an estimated cost of 100 million_euros ( 120 million ) . in the end the tunnels will be flooded , and mr . magdanz 's photographs may soon be the most lasting record of its existence . no doubt there are secret bunker complexes being built or considered here and elsewhere in case of a terrorist dirty bomb . but whether they will offer any more lasting assurance than the dienstelle marienthal is a question worth asking . art architecture richard b . woodward is an arts critic in new york .",has a topic of arts
"the ambitious 2 billion renovation of berlin 's historic museum island hit a stumbling_block last week when an official panel recommended to parliament that the government abandon plans for a new entrance building to the complex . a new building with restaurants , restrooms and a check room was designed by the british architect david chipperfield , below , to lead visitors into the complex , on an island in the spree river in the former communist east side of the city . dropping the project would save the cash_strapped federal_government 170 million . the recommendation was rejected by the federal culture minister , christina weiss , who said the new entrance building was needed to accommodate visitors . ''those who question the arrangement of visitor flows on museum island prevent the museums from entering the 21st_century , '' she said in an interview with the newspaper frankfurter_allgemeine_zeitung . museum island , which was built in the 19th_century and is famous for its pergamon altar from turkey and the ishtar gate from babylon , was badly_damaged during world_war_ii , and restoration began only after the fall of the berlin_wall . parliament is to vote on the fate of the entrance building in the next few months . kirsten grieshaber",has a topic of arts
"lead nothing has been the same in this little town since the beatles started turning young men 's thoughts to electric guitars . nothing has been the same in this little town since the beatles started turning young men 's thoughts to electric guitars . people will tell you with a pride nourished by nostalgia that castelfidardo was once rich and famous and respected . it was , they say , the undisputed accordion capital of the world . now , the men and women who still make accordions with loving hands fear the slow death reserved for anachronisms . driving into town , it is hard to miss the paolo soprani accordion factory , which was the biggest employer around for several generations . its four stories of yellow brick trimmed with scarlet paint are almost as gaudy as some of the instruments it turned out . but since the shutters were drawn and the gates were locked last fall , it has stood like a giant tombstone commemorating a glorious , now departed past . beatles were 'first big blow' ''the beatles , yes it was the beatles who delivered the first blow , '' said lucia soprani , great granddaughter of the founder . ''then the chinese delivered the coup de grace . '' rock and roll severely_restricted the market , but italy 's accordion makers then faced a far greater scourge foreign competitors with low labor costs and big sales volumes . in 1957 , when lawrence welk and ed sullivan reigned over american prime time television , castelfidardo exported about 220 , 000 accordions to the united_states alone . last year fewer than 30 , 000 were exported to all foreign customers . the disastrous decline prompts concern well beyond this hill town . castelfidardo is viewed as a miniature omen by those who worry about italy 's economic competitiveness . arguing whether small is better much of italy 's recent economic success has been built by companies that produce high quality , high priced goods for markets overseas much like the accordion makers . some argue that small is not better if there is an uncoordinated response to foreign challengers . others warn that if tradition is not sufficiently wed to technology , products will end up outmoded and overpriced . castelfidardo , a town of 14 , 000 people , sits in the heart of a region called the marches , where 80 percent of italy 's musical instruments are produced and where such economic issues have a high resonance . relatively little known and little visited , the region is at the center of the adriatic coast . no big city dominates the region instead it is a collection of towns scattered among hills that roll up from the sea to the apennines . industrial and pastoral until recently , the marches was primarily farmland , but from the ramparts of castelfidardo changes become evident . quonset huts and little cement block buildings have sprung up in fields as far as the eye can see . they are factories producing everything from industrial ceramics to toys , but this is the marches , so nothing is packed together enough to really spoil the countryside . it was something of a shock across the region when the paolo soprani factory closed its doors last year . ''soprani was the first and the biggest , '' said giancarlo borsini , who works at another family accordion business here . ''when a company like that goes down , none of us can feel safe . '' lucia soprani had directed the business for 10 years . a tall , strongly built woman , 42 years old , she puts out one cigarette and lights another when asked about the company 's demise . ''it was in october , but i can not tell you the exact date paolo soprani came to an end after 125 years because it is not a day i want to remember . '' clients at the table she was born and has lived her entire life in the big , gaudy building that housed the company 's factory , offices and living quarters of its owners . she speaks of her childhood like a southern belle remembering antebellum grandeur . ''our clients came from around the world , and they would always stay here with us , '' she said with a wistful smile . ''all the great languages were spoken at our dinner table , and the conversation was about music and art and far off places . '' a crisis swept through castelfidardo in the 1960 's when accordions went out of style . many companies turned to electric guitars and organs , but in the last decade this market has been attacked by the japanese . the sopranis stuck to making accordions in time honored ways , but found that east_german , czechoslovak and especially chinese manufacturers were selling instruments at one fifth the price . 'no one cares' accordion making has survived in castelfidardo primarily because of families like the borsinis , who produce professional quality instruments that cost from one to eight million lire ( 800 to 5 , 600 ) at the factory . giancarlo borsini , one of the 12 family members on the staff of 35 at borsini and company , said that even the limited professional market is gradually shrinking , and he complained angrily ''people sign petitions when some species of bird is going extinct , but no one cares that accordion makers are going extinct . if castelfidardo dies , the world will loose a little piece of its culture . '' the borsinis are a bit skeptical about some of the rescue plans being drawn up for their species . at the urging of industrial associations and local authorities , a consortium of accordion makers has been formed , supposedly to collaborate in the production of an inexpensive accordion . ''it is fine to say we should work together , '' mr . borsini said , ''but if we were not jealous and individualistic , we would not be artists . '' there are secrets to protect , like the location of a stream with just the right salinity for treating the leather that goes into the reeds of borsini accordions . ''they tell us we need technology , '' mr . borsini said , ''but to make accordions you need patience , not technology . '' some of the wood that goes into his accordions is aged for five years under special conditions at the factory . making a top of the line accordion can take eight months because some of the pieces are allowed to age further after they are cut and joined . rather than cut corners to meet the competition , mr . borsini now hopes for a renaissance because popular musicians like paul_simon have added accordians to their bands . what rock took away , rock might give back . ''i know accordions will be popular again , '' lucia soprani said . ''history goes in cycles . i am just very sad that paolo soprani will not be there when the day comes . ''",has a topic of arts
"lead one of the clearest effects of the government 's violent suppression of the democracy movement last summer is evident in the reduced number of new films , plays and art exhibitions permitted to appear and in their sharply narrowed subject matter . one of the clearest effects of the government 's violent suppression of the democracy movement last summer is evident in the reduced number of new films , plays and art exhibitions permitted to appear and in their sharply narrowed subject matter . cultural circles are bearing a large share of the repression these days , as the government tries to uproot the liberalization of the last few years and return to the revolutionary monotony of the past . ''i do n't think the repression is as evident as it was before , '' said a western diplomat , who spoke on condition that his name not be used . ''but i think it 's still going on a slow asphyxiation of the culture . '' the culture minister , wang meng , was among the highest officials to be purged , and under his replacement he jingzhi , a hard line ideologue best known for his poems and operas about the communist_revolution the chinese leadership is seizing on popular_culture as a way of re educating the masses . the purpose of art in china today is not to entertain or to probe the psyche , but to teach people to love socialism . china has always regarded culture as an instrument of propaganda , but in recent years some books and movies seemed to undermine the communist_party more than bolster it . now there is a return to the rigid revolutionary mold of earlier years . music little affected ''they know neither the economy nor the political system can go back in time , '' said a chinese painter who insisted on anonymity . ''but with culture , they can turn the clocks back more easily . '' music has not been much affected by the repression , and western classical performances are still presented . a rock singer , cui jian , whose lyrics are implicitly critical of the society , was even allowed to proceed with a concert tour in late january . literature seems to have suffered more . last spring , it was flourishing as never before under chinese communism , with several companies willing to publish works that were critical of the party . while china did not have an underground literary movement on the scale of that in the soviet_union before glasnost , a few small groups had started circulating unofficial literary magazines . even that limited literary freedom has now disappeared . but it is the film_industry that has been most affected by the new restrictions . some films in the 1980 's had portrayed the communist_party in a somewhat unfavorable light and had captured the alienation that was widespread among chinese youth . all that has changed . the state film bureau has announced that china this year will produce only 100 films , 36 fewer than last year . the reason given was that this would allow the industry to concentrate on films that extol ''the virtues of patriotism and heroism'' and revitalize ''the national spirit'' and ' 'morality and virtue . '' 24 films on the revolution the film scripts now under consideration by the film bureau include 24 on revolutionary history , compared to only three last year , a recent article in the new china news_agency said . the number of comedies , thrillers and detective stories has been cut from 92 last year to 66 this year . the title of a planned film about the formation of the communist_party reflects the spirit of the present times . the film will be called ''the creation of the world . '' li ruihuan , a member of the politburo 's standing committee , gave a speech in january that seemed to suggest greater tolerance of western influences in art . but last month , at a national film symposium , mr . li said there were still problems in the industry . ''influenced by bourgeois liberalization , guidelines on film production were confused to some extent and the unhealthy tendency of money worship resulted in the production of dull and low taste films , '' said mr . li , as paraphrased by the new china news_agency . budgets for film entertainment have also been slashed , but actors and professionals in the industry say that the greatest obstacle in producing films this year will be the censors . winning government approval ''we can raise money in hong_kong , and even in china , but the difficulty will be getting our films approved by the government , '' said one actor currently working on a film . the custom in china is to write the script , shoot , edit and produce the entire film , and then present the finished version to the government for approval . film scripts for state financed films seem to be screened first as well , but for movies by independent producers , whose number have been growing in the last couple of years , all the money is spent up front . last august , a film whose chances for approval had been good when it went into production well before the military crackdown in june was denied approval . it was not political , but it portrayed dissatisfactions and lack of purpose among young people . the problem is that people often do not want to see politically_correct films . so unless the government pays for making the film , the most common practice , the producers and individual investors risk losing money . such a film is also unlikely to earn foreign exchange , because a movie hailed by the government is also unlikely to be marketable abroad . the movies now being offered abroad include hagiographies of party leaders and histories , like a 31 part serial about the 18th_century emperor yong zheng . 'they reach everybody' ''films and plays are the most sensitive kinds of entertainment in this country , '' said a young aspiring playwright , who also refused to speak on the record . ''music , ballet and painting are considered more abstract , and painting is only viewed by a small number of people at a time , but movies and plays they reach everybody . '' contemporary painters say they are being denied outlets as well . the chinese_art gallery in beijing was closed in january for renovation and is to remain closed until 1991 , and avant garde art exhibitions are unacceptable these days . one contemporary painter said he had been denied permission twice to find space to exhibit his paintings , and then the third time , after relying on connections , he had been allowed to display his works at an otherwise closed temple . in the past , many of china 's best known modern artists held exhibitions at the homes of foreign friends , but the culture ministry now says thatis illegal . the result is that many artists have no place to display their work . as an example of the kinds of restrictions being imposed by the authorities , another artist said that the culture ministry issued a document late last year that specified how much nudity could be exhibited . only about 10 percent of the art in an exhibition can be devoted to nudity , he said , and almost all of that proportion must be painted from the side . only a tiny fraction of paintings are allowed to depict frontal nudity .",has a topic of arts
"lead no , the shoots of democracy that the world has seen springing up and being crushed in china during the last few astonishing weeks were not planted by television , but the presence of the cameras in tiananmen_square nourished them and may keep them alive despite the army 's guns . whatever the outcome in no , the shoots of democracy that the world has seen springing up and being crushed in china during the last few astonishing weeks were not planted by television , but the presence of the cameras in tiananmen_square nourished them and may keep them alive despite the army 's guns . whatever the outcome in beijing , the picture of a lone figure stopping a line of advancing tanks will remain an affirmation of the individual 's steadfastness before the might of the state . the medium has probably done no greater service in its half century of existence than to bring the struggle for democracy into millions of homes , reminding americans of their own ideals . it is the camera that does the job the correspondents , informative as they sometimes are , play catch up . the wonder is that when crackdown time came in beijing , the authorities did not pull the plug on satellite transmissions . the reasons are still unclear . it is no discredit to the young chinese who paid public homage to the statue of liberty to note that they knew how to win the hearts of american viewers . was it by accident that the tank stopper took his stand near the beijing hotel , home to foreign correspondents ? the students were worldly enough to realize that their cause was made for television . but the power of the tube is tied to weaknesses . in china , as in the soviet_union , the issue is clearly framed a longing for freedom set against dictatorship and television itself thrives on freedom . but it also thrives on strong pictures , and there are instances when a clash between little guys and big guys calls for something more in the way of knowledge than the images alone can provide . the israeli palestinian confrontation is a troubling case in point . here is meat for television 's love of uncomplicated drama boys armed only with stones against an army . just as the pictures of youths in belfast being dispersed by an occupying force compel sympathy for the demonstrators , so the pictures from the west_bank are inherently on the side of the stone throwers , those post biblical davids . it is no surprise that youngsters will act up in response to the presence of cameras or that the israelis will from time to time ban them as incitements or just bad public_relations . but in the image contest , the big guys cannot win . the hand of an israeli soldier blocking the camera lens reminds us of the hands of the south african police doing the same thing . the situations may be different . but the camera 's message is the same the soldiers have something to hide the gesture is an affront to the first amendment . that , however , is about as far as the television eye can see . the drama of the moment is like a hand that obscures complexity . what interests do those daring stone throwers represent ? what principles are at stake beyond the slogans ? would their victory in fact advance the cause of freedom , even their own ? would it bring peace or greater turmoil ? the answers provided by the pictures alone , in gaza as in belfast , are not enough . does anyone remember television 's enthusiastic welcome for the iranian revolution that brought down the shah and ultimately gave the world ayatollah_ruhollah_khomeini ? a hospital scene of a wounded child moves us in a way that makes concern for the future seem a mere distraction . how can an issue like stability in the middle_east seem anything but dry compared to the flesh and blood on the screen ? the camera chooses its favorites not on the basis of politics but on the basis of drama or personality . americans rooted for the filipinos who battled the marcos regime . now some filipinos demonstrate against the aquino government , and it is conceivable that the cameras will catch police or soldiers hosing down or hauling off the demonstrators , not so different perhaps from the treatment they got from the marcos minions . the camera friendly president corazon c . aquino will have to exert all her charm to counter such pictures . americans have reason to know better than most the strengths and weaknesses of television coverage . in vietnam , americans were the heavies , and the networks have deservedly taken some of the credit for getting the united_states out of that painful war . the evening news became a morality play the western giant bombing and burning a land of little people . it was intolerable , and to most americans , its ending came as a relief , a blessing . but unlike morality plays , this one did not end with the villain 's withdrawal . viewers bred on evening melodrama had no difficulty responding to the conflict as presented by television . but television did not help them look ahead to the kind of society that those brave fighters from the north would inflict on the country . for the camera , a protest is a protest . television is like some dumb pet that slobbers up to any guest who throws it a scrap of food . whether demonstrators march against democratic governments in germany and japan or against dictatorships in czechoslovakia and chile , the pictures are much the same the protesters are the protagonists . television needs heroes , and it does not come naturally to viewers watching a single student challenging a line of armor to look beyond the moment , beyond the image . if the networks had been around to film the encounters between right wing university students and the police of the weimar_republic , the young folks might well have engaged many americans' sympathies . so , all hail to television for capturing and encouraging the brave protests in china and the soviet_union . but beware of the medium 's tendency to simplify , to turn complicated matters into colorful pictures and black and white drama .",has a topic of arts
"the passion_play here , depicting the last hours and resurrection of jesus , has been delighting christian believers and incurring increasing controversy over its anti_semitism , however grudgingly modified in recent decades , for nearly 400 years . but this year 's installment , which began on may 21 and ends oct . 8 , has had a curious pendant , which in its own understated way has made a comment on that anti_semitism that has passed largely if not entirely unnoticed in germany . the pendant is an installation by robert wilson , the american artist best known for his original plays and operas and for his highly stylized direction and design for stage works by others , old and new . but mr . wilson started as a painter , and has kept up his work in the visual_arts throughout his career . he has specialized ( apart from his idiosyncratic chair designs ) in installations , tableaus charged with implied theatricality . he even won the golden lion sculpture award for one of those installations at the 1993 venice biennale . mr . wilson 's oberammergau installation is called ''14 stations'' and is located directly behind the passion_play theater . its subject is , of course , entirely suitable and was indeed commissioned by the organizers of the passion_play . it depicts the 14 stations of the cross , the stages through which jesus passed on the way to his crucifixion . the work is entered through a long , warehouselike building , from the center of which , at right angles , extends a walkway . on either side of the walkway are six gray cottages , and at the end is a final sculpture depicting the resurrection . the entrance building has a dark floor and walls and a clinical looking bright ceiling . bright bulbs hang on wires in neat rows , and in the center is a metal cistern , at the bottom of which is a vortex of liquid that looks like blood . the far end offers a wilsonesque vision of the resurrection a cutaway teepee like structure with a grass floor , a thatched interior , a blue bed and , suspended above the bed , an upside down white mannequin . the 12 cottages , 6 on either side of the via crucis , or axis , have small windows on the walkway side , through which only one person at a time can comfortably peer . as you stick your head inside each cottage , you become the sole observer of a tableau a ludwig ii like observer at your own private opera with eerie sound effects adding to the effect of a frozen wagnerian music drama . each tableau depicts an incident in jesus' passage toward death shouldering the cross , falling beneath it , veronica wiping his face , six charitable women , being stripped of his garments . the tableaus are in a style familiar to those who know mr . wilson 's work . each has a chilly mystical power , with disembodied hands , hanging boulders , white mannequins dressed and undressed , suspended furniture , beds . they are moving but also disturbing , nightmares for the faithful . the most striking tableaus are the 12th and 13th , the last before the resurrection . the 12th , entitled ''jesus dies on the cross , '' shows a pack of five raging red wolves , snarling , teeth glistening , ready to lunge . they are set against a painted rendering of craggy alps , of the sort in which oberammergau itself is nestled , part of a recurrent motif of german romanticism that pervades the installation . the 13th , ''jesus is taken down from the cross and laid in mary 's arms , '' has a blue ceiling and walls , with what looks like a heap of hundreds of glass medical sample bottles piled up on the floor . above them soar 11 stuffed birds , depicted with precise realism . in the background is a hanging fabric , rippling lightly , with what looks like a red lipsticked fashion model from an issue of vogue magazine from the 1950 's , with literally bejeweled tears on her face and an enigmatic smile . the model turns out to be madonna , the pop singer . in discussing his ideas for the installation in interviews , mr . wilson has laid emphasis on the shape of a christian cathedral and on quaker imagery , which has long influenced his work . the cottages and much of the furniture look quaker , and especially in the sixth and eighth stations , with threatening female mannequins dressed in quaker costumes , the connection is marked . but that 's not all there is to it . nearly everyone who visits ''14 stations'' is disturbed by it , and some , including one recent visitor , a jewish woman from beverly_hills who is a longtime wilson admirer , say they are terrified , even though they may feel no particular involvement with the passion story itself . there may be a covert reason for this disquietude . whether for a stage production or an installation , mr . wilson draws from piles of pictures and picture books heaped on a work table . while he was preparing his version of ''four saints in three acts'' at the houston grand opera , the table had everything from javanese and african jewelry to quaker houses to spanish renaissance paintings . from the form ''14 stations'' has taken , it appears mr . wilson drew his pictorial inspiration not just from representations of christian cathedrals , quaker villages and craggy alps , but also from photos of nearby dachau , auschwitz and the ultimate nazi killing machine , birkenau , near auschwitz . there is a long transverse brick entry building at birkenau , through which the train tracks ran directly toward the crematories ( now replaced with an anti fascist memorial ) . the tracks ( they 're still there ) ran up the central spine of the camp , flanked by low wooden bunkers that look rather like mr . wilson 's quaker cottages . the resurrection teepee recalls death camp crematories . the medical bottles in the 13th station look like the piles of eyeglasses at auschwitz . hitler 's nickname was wolf . the central walkway here is made of railroad ties . when asked about this connection , mr . wilson allowed that people had suggested the parallel to him as the work took shape , and that he had conceded , ''you could see it that way . '' but mr . wilson has a history of discretion about owning up fully to controversial inspirations for his pieces he would rather they be appreciated on their own terms , not clouded by controversy . his first ever production commissioned and created in europe was for the west_berlin schaubuhne in 1979 and was called ''death , destruction and detroit . '' ( there have since been two more in that series . ) the central image that inspired mr . wilson for that piece was a photo of rudolf hess raking leaves in a walled courtyard of spandau prison in berlin . in other words , a reference back to the nazis was the centerpiece of the entire production , yet mr . wilson never once fessed up to that image in interviews . in this instance , perhaps he can be taken fully at his word that death camp imagery played no role in his initial conception . perhaps . but sometimes those who perceive an artwork find insights in it of which even the artist was unaware , or chose to mask . whether consciously or subconsciously intended , the connection with the holocaust adds a powerful resonance to this already moving and important work . mr . wilson is apparently trying to find a permanent home for ''14 stations , '' most likely in the united_states , once it is dismantled after oct . 8 . if that happened , more people would have a chance to experience its beauty , and its disturbing undercurrents , for themselves . arts abroad",has a topic of arts
"iraq saw a brutal era end , and an uncertain one begin . after threatening to do so for a year , the bush_administration sent troops into iraq to unseat saddam_hussein . from the start , on march 19 , little happened according to plan . airstrikes proved less shocking to iraq than anticipated . but lines of iraqi defenders barely materialized , giving way to skirmishing by irregular iraqi forces , which did little to stall the rapid american advance . with the fall of baghdad in april , the full horror of saddam_hussein 's rule was revealed in dusty lots of mass graves and the anguished search for loved ones lost to iraqi gulags . the city itself quickly descended into power shortages and looting . for many iraqis , the relief over mr . hussein 's removal turned to impatience with the pace of rebuilding efforts and resentment over the presence of american_troops . mr . hussein 's loyalists disappeared from view to wage a resistance that left more americans dead than before president_bush declared major combat operations over on may 1 . the american toll climbed above 300 , with more than 2 , 100 wounded . terror bombings , perhaps aided by outside fighters , heightened the sense of unease by making targets of anyone assisting the new democratic experiment , even those rarely drawn into the conflict before , like the red_cross and the united_nations . the american military responded with a more aggressive mix of bombings and raids , and the bush_administration responded by speeding up plans for a transfer of sovereignty , proposing to hand power to an interim iraqi government by next summer . weapons_of_mass_destruction , the primary reason stated by bush_administration officials for choosing war , proved more elusive than mr . hussein . bearded and disheveled , the strongman who terrorized iraqis for 35 years , was found on dec . 13 cowering in a hole near tikrit .",has a topic of arts
"the dance theater of harlem is to tour china from nov . 15 to 27 , performing in beijing and in the shanghai international arts festival . it will be the first arts group from the united_states to visit china since legislation establishing normal trade relations was signed into law on oct . 10 . arthur mitchell , artistic director of the harlem company , said that the company planned to return for a longer tour in 2002 . the repertory includes two reworked stagings of ballet classics . the company will perform the second act of its creole ''giselle'' and a ''firebird'' set in a tropical forest . mr . mitchell said that given chinese audiences' greater familiarity with narrative ballets , the company would also perform more abstract works like george_balanchine 's ''four temperaments'' and geoffrey holder 's ''dougla . '' the company will also teach master classes and participate in symposiums on stagecraft . the tour is being sponsored by the state_department , the national endowment for the arts , the president 's committee on the arts and humanities and several foundations and corporations .",has a topic of arts
"the united_nations has rejected an iraqi request to present evidence that it is complying with the terms of the agreement that ended the persian_gulf_war , the iraqi delegate to the united_nations said today . the iraqi government had asked the united_nations to hear a government delegation give an account of iraq 's compliance with the security_council resolutions on eliminating its weapons_of_mass_destruction before allowing a united_nations weapons inspection team to carry out a crucial task in its monitoring program , installing a camera at a missile testing site . on monday , the inspection team withdrew to protest iraq 's refusal to allow the installation . the security_council , which in the past warned of "" serious consequences "" if the camera was not installed , is to be briefed on wednesday by the head of the united_nations special commission on iraq , rolf_ekeus , who was traveling to new york from europe today . possible impasse the description of the situation by the iraqi delegate , nizar_hamdoon , made it appear that an impasse had been reached , though in the past iraq has yielded to united_nations demands when faced with threats of reprisals . "" it 's like the chicken and the egg , "" mr . hamdoon said in a telephone interview . "" we agree in principle that the camera can be installed but we have some technical matters to discuss . they say that we ca n't talk about the technical matters until the camera is installed . "" a united_nations official said that the security_council resolution that deals with the elimination of all of iraq 's weapons_of_mass_destruction , including ballistic_missiles , did not allow for any negotiation of terms . "" our position is that iraq agreed to some very precise demands , "" said the official , who asked not to be identified . "" we sent the inspection team to install the camera , and it is not a negotiable issue . "" oil sale pact a senior iraqi official , riyadh al qaysi , the under secretary general of the foreign ministry , is due here on wednesday to reopen talks with the united_nations on a security_council offer that would allow iraq to sell up to 1 . 6 billion worth of oil . the security_council offer carries stipulations that 30 percent of the proceeds of the sales be used to pay reparations to victims of the iraqi_invasion_of_kuwait and that the rest be used for humanitarian purposes . the iraqis have so far refused the offer on the grounds that any restrictions on oil sales are an infringement of iraqi sovereignty . the iraqis were said specifically to object to a requirement that the oil be shipped via pipeline through turkey , which would make it easier to monitor the amounts sold . an official here said that the iraqis were showing signs that they were ready to agree to that that provision .",has a topic of arts
"saddam_hussein was not locked into leg irons . he did n't writhe in a police hold he did n't appear with his hands cuffed . instead , he was handled , on camera , with latex gloves . his tangled hair was inspected , ostensibly for bugs . his mouth was examined , apparently for strep , or cyanide pills . to all this mr . hussein yielded , obediently widening his jaws for the throat exam . or the dna sample . or the cavity search ? whatever it was . a frank looking video of the intimate indignities and almost comically symbolic violations of the former iraqi dictator and american b te noir was released by the pentagon on sunday , the day after it was shot . formally it 's a deft piece of work , with striking moments the underside of mr . hussein 's tongue , radiantly orange in the doctor 's light , is a shot for film students . and if hirsute mr . hussein is the villain of the piece , the hero is the faceless doctor , his head fastidiously shaved , who pesters and jabs . in the major markets , the clip played well . predicting on cnn that it would send the stock_market soaring in kuwait_city , mamoun fandy , a middle_east scholar , called mr . hussein 's lice and strep check ''the picture of the year in the arab_world . '' the american world , too , was overwhelmed by the strange images . paul slavin at abc_news called the scenes ''transcendent , '' and the cable networks played the video of mr . hussein at every chance , offering for occasional counterpoint a shot of mr . hussein post exam , after a shave . so how did the united_states military pull it off ? that is , not how did they make that we got him video ricochet around the world , but how did they get the shot ? who invaded , with camera , not only mr . hussein 's spider hole existence , but also his private lice check ? the answer a combat camera crew that , though trained for battle , wield sony pd 150 's along with its rifles , documenting military operations in high resolution digital_video . the cameras weigh four pounds and cost about 4 , 000 each . ''it 's not betacam of course , '' staff sgt . wesley wooten , a combat cameraman , explained in a telephone interview from baghdad . ''but it 's the next best thing in my opinion . '' sony pd 150 's are the same cameras many photojournalists use , but some combat camera operators , like the one who shot mr . hussein 's medical exam , still manage to give their video a raw , low fi look . perhaps that 's because they are often in the dark about what to shoot until the last minute . ''they 'll say , 'we got a mission you need to be there in half an hour , ' '' sergeant wooten said . giovanni lorente , a spokesman for coalition_forces in baghdad , added that a certain amount of foresight during pre production had contributed to the success of this latest video . ''the units that basically captured saddam_hussein had received information , '' he said . ''within the planning they also plan to send video teams . '' sometimes , for the members of the combat camera crew , the roles of soldier and documentarian come into conflict , sergeant wooten said . ''basically what we 're trained for is that the camera is our first weapon , '' he said , with a laugh suggesting he had his own ideas . ''and then our attack weapon is secondary to the camera . but there comes a point where you have to make a choice . me personally , i try to do both . we 're lucky enough to carry pistols . it gives you some more protection . you can shoot and shoot at the same time . '' like others in baghdad , sergeant wooten could not or would not name the auteur behind the video of mr . hussein . but he admitted that recording the newly captured mr . hussein was a plum assignment , with recognition attached . ''whenever we turn in documentation , our name is attached to it , '' he said . normally , however , the work of the combat camera operators is rarely seen . sometimes , at the height of its relevance , it 's digitally transmitted back to central_command during a raid or battle . but as for the fate of the video , it is up to the pentagon to decide how to distribute or whether to merely archive their images . in the case of mr . hussein 's close up , american officials sought an image that would persuade speakers of every language that they had him . the video does indeed show mr . hussein off to exquisite disadvantage . if the first gulf_war has come to be remembered in the iconic image of a laser guided bomb going deep down into a hole , the video of a uniformed american doctor 's tongue depressor bunker busting mr . hussein 's private places may prove equally memorable . critic's_notebook",has a topic of arts
"should we never have watched at all ? so barbara_bush had instructed us in a ''good morning america'' interview showcased the day before the war began . the president 's mother told diane_sawyer she would watch ''none'' of tv 's war coverage because ''90 percent'' of it would be speculative . mrs . bush continued ''why should we hear about body bags and deaths and how many , what day it 's gonna happen ? . . . it 's not relevant . so why should i waste my beautiful mind on something like that ? '' a beautiful mind is indeed a terrible thing to waste , but not having one , i took mrs . bush 's words as the see no evil musings of a mom spinning for her son . now that the fog of war begins to lift , however , i realize she was prescient . a los_angeles times poll last weekend found that 69 percent of americans turned to the three cable news networks first for war coverage with newspapers , local tv news , regular network news and the internet trailing far behind . but to what end ? if cable has taught us anything during ''war in iraq , '' it is this battalions of anchors and high tech correspondents can cover a war 24 7 and still tell us less about what is going on than the mere 27 predigital news hounds who accompanied the american_troops landing in normandy on d day . speculation , while rampant , has in some ways been the least of the coverage 's ills . by this point we instinctively know that whenever a rent a general walks over to a map , it 's time to take a latrine break . what has most defined this tv war on cable is the networks' insistence on letting their own scorched_earth campaigns for brand supremacy run roughshod over the real action in iraq . the conveying of actual news often seems subsidiary to their mission to out flag wave one another and to make their own personnel , rather than the war 's antagonists , the leading players in the drama . for anchors like brian_williams and wolf_blitzer , kuwait_city is a backdrop that lends a certain amount of gravitas ( though not as much as it would have during the last persian_gulf_war ) , but could n't they anchor just as well from new york city ? it 's not as if they 're vying to interview the locals . while a study by the project for excellence in journalism found that reports from embedded journalists were 94 percent accurate , it also discovered that in only 20 percent of those reports did the correspondents share the screen with anyone else . there 's almost nothing in the war , it seems , that cannot be exploited as a network promo . fox 's anchors trumpeted an idle news briefing remark by gen . richard b . myers that ' 'reporters just have to be fair and balanced , that 's all'' as an official endorsement of the network 's ''fair and balanced'' advertising slogan . at cnn , a noble effort by dr . sanjay gupta , an embedded medical reporter , to rescue an injured 2 year old iraqi boy by performing on the scene brain surgery was milked for live reports . lest anyone not grasp the most important moral of this incident , dr . gupta himself declared that ''it was a heroic attempt to try to save the child 's life'' after the child had died . as for msnbc last in war , last in peace , last in the nielsens with or without ''donahue'' the battles for basra and baghdad were mere bagatelles compared to its take no prisoners battle with fox to emerge as the most patriotic news channel in the land . who was the most ''treasonous'' villain in the war ? according to msnbc , it was fox 's geraldo rivera , who revealed american troop_movements on camera . according to fox , it was msnbc 's peter_arnett , who gave an interview to iraqi tv . as the two networks stoked the flames of this bonfire of the vanities , neither took time out from their proxy war to devote much ( if any ) coverage to an actual american serviceman who might have committed actual treason . that would be sgt . asan akbar of the 101st_airborne , who was arrested ( and subsequently charged with murder ) in the fragging incident that led to the deaths of two soldiers and the wounding of at least 14 others at camp pennsylvania . how fleeting was his infamy . but it 's not only the sergeant akbar story that has vanished from view . whatever happened to afghanistan , al_qaeda , the israelis and the palestinians ? tv viewers are now on more intimate terms with aaron brown and shep smith 's perceptions of the war than we are with the collective thoughts of all those soon to be liberated ''iraqi people'' they keep apotheosizing . iraqis are the better seen than heard dress extras in this drama , alternately pictured as sobbing , snarling or cheering . even saddam_hussein remains a villain from stock , since the specific history of his reign of terror gets far less airtime than the tacky d cor of his palaces and the circular information free debates about whether he 's dead or alive . when victoria clarke at the pentagon says saddam is responsible for ' 'decades and decades and decades of torture and oppression the likes of which i think the world has not ever seen before , '' no one on fox or msnbc is going to gainsay her by bringing up hitler and stalin . to so much as suggest that the world may have seen thugs even more evil than saddam is to engage in moral relativism which , in the prevailing foxspeak of the moment , is itself tantamount to treason . in retrospect we can see that patriotism as a tv news marketing ploy was inevitable after dan rather took flak for interviewing saddam in february . there was nothing either exceptional or un american about mr . rather 's interview it showed us a calculating dictator spewing unalloyed propaganda , none of which earned him the sympathy of any american viewers . but the uproar that ensued , stoked by the white_house , sent the clear message that news not upholding the administration 's message was verboten during wartime ( unless the critique is delivered by paid network military consultants ) . the resulting mood has at times made american television seem to march in lockstep as much as state controlled tv in iraq . the tale of pfc . jessica_lynch is a powerful story of a brave soldier and an equally brave rescue mission . but as packaged on tv , and not just by the cable news networks , it was sometimes corrupted into a propagandistic epic at war with the facts . if journalism is the first draft of history , this mutant strain is at best the first draft of the made for tv movie . private lynch 's father himself had to correct the record after reports of his daughter 's gunshot and stab wounds repeatedly outpaced her doctors' findings as if her genuine , serious injuries were not grave enough to justify the tv weight given to her ordeal . ''somebody in the army is trying to turn her into audie murphy , '' a senior defense_department official told the daily news as the mediathon spiraled out of control . meanwhile , the los_angeles times reported that randy kiehl of comfort , tex . , the father of a soldier who was taken prisoner in the same ambush , had to surf the web to find al_jazeera images that might reveal what would turn out to be the tragic fate of his own son . such images were kept off american television . ''it 's a news judgment where we would of course be mindful of the sensibilities of our viewers , '' a cnn spokeswoman told the wall_street_journal , explaining her network 's decision to minimize the savagery and blood of warfare . all the american networks and much of print journalism have made a similar decision even though some on air correspondents , notably abc 's ted_koppel , have questioned it . of course , no reader or viewer should be inundated with gore . but when movies like ''saving private ryan'' and ''black hawk down'' arrived , they were widely applauded for the innovative realism of their battle scenes . would n't it make sense that media depictions of an actual war at least occasionally adhere to the same standard ? is the decision to sanitize ''war in iraq'' really a matter of ''news judgment'' or is it driven by business ? certainly , horrific images would make it tough , if not impossible , to sell commercials which returned with accelerating frequency to the cable networks after the altruistic first few days of the war . as a result , the prewar joke , that this war would be the ultimate reality show , has come true . its life and death perils are airbrushed whenever possible in the same soothing style as the artificial perils of ''survivor . '' it may not be coincidence that bbc , which is commercial free , refused to turn away when blood splashed on its camera lens late last sunday_night during its first hand report on the friendly fire incident that killed 19 kurds . then again , the unsparing first hand written accounts of battle in the major newspapers dexter filkins of the new york times described literal eye for an eye combat near baghdad last weekend are not replicated by the verbal storytelling of many tv correspondents either . appearing recently on jon_stewart 's ''daily show , '' anthony swofford , the former marine who wrote the best selling ''jarhead'' about his experience in the '91 gulf_war , said that he had shut off his tv this time after three or four days and ' 'stayed with the print . '' for all the tv pictures , he noted , ''the actual experience of combat does n't make it to the other side of the screen . '' he and barbara_bush are not alone in tuning out . by late march , cable news ratings had fallen roughly 20 percent from their early highs . eventually a war presented with minimal battlefield realism , canned jingoism and scant debate is going to pall as television no less than it does as journalism . at this rate , it may be only days before sars sends iraq into the same cable memory hole currently occupied by the rest of the middle_east , assuming a resurgence of child abductions does n't come along to trump them both .",has a topic of arts
"textile gallery at hall knight 21 east 67th street through tomorrow chinese carpets surviving from the so called classical period the early 15th to mid 18th_centuries number in the hundreds rather than in the thousands . time , hard use and the vagaries of politics have taken their toll on these rather fragile luxury items . museum exhibitions of them are rare and gallery shows even less frequent , which makes this one , in town for a short stay at hall knight , a find . michael franses of the textile gallery in london , which is presenting the show , has ingeniously hung nearly 20 pieces dating from the 17th and early 18th_centuries in a narrow townhouse space , so that even the largest gets a full , grand display . a circular carpet with a honeycomb pattern looks as imposing as a mandala a great rectangular dais cover spills down the wall and out across the floor . the original design for many of these carpets involved dark blue and green patterns playing over sumptuous red fields . the red dyes have long since oxidized to tones of camel 's hair beige and wheat yellow , a more subdued effect than intended . but the ornamental compositions of stylized dragons , auspicious bats , geometric interlaces are as vivacious and as exquisitely balanced as ever . the show lets you see all of this close up , giving an immediate sense of the carpets as physical objects , with varied textures and hard to see woven subtleties , including baby blue highlights that lend certain decorative motifs an illusion of 3 d depth . most important , it offers art we are n't likely to encounter again in any similar concentration soon , beautifully mounted , free for the looking and gone by the end of tomorrow . holland_cotter art in review",has a topic of arts
"lead these have been glory days for the cable_news_network . its coverage of the upheaval in tiananmen_square in beijing has won praise from press analysts and attracted thousands more viewers , especially in the six days last week that cnn was able to transmit from its own satellite facilities in beijing . these have been glory days for the cable_news_network . its coverage of the upheaval in tiananmen_square in beijing has won praise from press analysts and attracted thousands more viewers , especially in the six days last week that cnn was able to transmit from its own satellite facilities in beijing . the network , its admirers say , was simply doing what it does best showing a historic event unfolding live . and being a round the clock all news operation , it devoted many more hours to the story 30 of them live that week than could any of the three major networks . ''i think the cable_news_network really came of age , '' said fred friendly , a professor emeritus at the columbia graduate_school_of_journalism and a former cbs executive . ''it performed a great national and even international service . '' kudos for cbs cbs , the only one of the three major networks to send an anchor , dan rather , and to set up its own satellite facility in beijing , also performed ''an enormous service , '' he said . in an age when air time is enormously expensive and networks are cutting back , ''cbs did more than anyone else among the commercial stations , '' he said . ''but they did n't have what cnn has , which is unlimited air time . '' cnn , a network of the turner_broadcasting system , made its debut in june 1980 , and has been turning a profit in recent years . it has grown rapidly , and now has 21 news bureaus , of which a dozen are outside the united_states . it is seen in 83 countries besides the united_states . its ''prime news'' programs at 8 p.m . are normally watched by about 500 , 000 american households , roughly one tenth the size of audiences for each of the three major networks' prime evening newscasts . an order on a legal pad but 860 , 000 american homes watched cnn live last friday night between 8 and 10 15 p.m. , when a tense and curious exchange took place . chinese officials told cnn to stop transmitting and cnn staff members asked for that in writing . a chinese official complied on camera , writing the order on a legal pad . cnn members conferred with their network 's headquarters in atlanta , and the transmission ended . that same night , 12 . 2 million viewers were watching cbs ( and some called in to complain ) as the network broke into the season 's final episode of ''dallas'' with a 21 minute special report that showed chinese officials telling cbs to end its operations in beijing . during the past week , 400 , 000 american households tuned in daily to cnn on average an increase of some 150 , 000 from usual . 'logistical nightmare' the broadcasts from china were ''a logistical nightmare , '' said eason jordan , cnn 's acting international editor , although events such as the 1988 democratic_national_convention required a larger staff . cnn had 40 people in china last week , including the cnn anchor bernard_shaw mike chinoy , the beijing bureau chief , and three other correspondents . ''they were working without sleep , as long as 20 , 24 even 40 hours , '' mr . jordan said . ''even when they were told to get some sleep , they were too excited . '' in the view of ed joyce , a former president of cbs_news , ''bernard_shaw , and particularly mike chinoy , showed that nobody in commercial networks is doing anything better than they are doing . chinoy , i thought , really seemed to have a grasp on the subtleties'' of the situation . abc and nbc 'were not factors' ''what i found fascinating , '' mr . joyce said , ''was that the competition was between cbs_news and cnn . abc and nbc were just not factors'' which he called a ''watershed'' development . abc and nbc were hardly in accord with this assessment . ''we 're not at all ashamed we covered it well , '' said dick wald , the senior vice_president of abc_news . noting that the original reason for the coverage was the chinese soviet summit meeting , he said , ''the second story that captured the attention of the world was n't part of anybody 's planning . '' comparing cnn to a wire story and the networks to newspapers , mr . wald said , ''the wire_service is constant and constantly updating , but the newspaper creates a shape for things and a context . '' joseph angotti , a senior vice_president of nbc_news , said , ''i think its unfortunate that people have a perception that if your anchor is not there , you 're not covering a story adequately . '' on the camera 's presence ''the nature of cnn allows it to do things we simply ca n't do , '' mr . angotti added . describing the coverage by cnn and by all three networks as ''terrific , '' he added that ''we think our pictures have been the best . '' not everyone agrees on the impact of cnn 's presence . reuven frank , a former president of nbc_news , said the main point was that these days , ''the presence of the camera changes the nature of the event . '' students , he said , were very much aware of the coverage , and timed their protest to the summit talks , just as antiwar demonstrators chose the democratic_national_convention to capture the cameras' eyes in chicago in 1968 . and will cnn 's achievement affect the way the commercial networks cover news ? ''what i 'm afraid of , '' said mr . frank , ''is that it may allow the networks to cop out . they could say , 'well , if you want it , it 's there on cnn . ''",has a topic of arts
"friction between the broadcast networks and the cable_news_network escalated yesterday when two network news executives accused cnn of making concessions to the iraqis in exchange for cnn 's special access to news from baghdad in the first three weeks of the war in the persian_gulf . a cnn executive called the charges "" desperate . "" the networks also moved to limit cnn 's use of reports from network correspondents by changing the rules governing the television news pool reports . cnn has repeatedly denied it won special access to news in baghdad through a deal with the iraqi government . since the end of the first week of the war , only cnn has had a correspondent , peter_arnett , broadcasting from the iraqi capital . iraqis use cnn phone but last weekend , cnn admitted it had allowed iraqi officials to use cnn 's satellite telephone , though only for limited purposes . ed turner , the executive vice_president of cnn , said that the iraqis had only used the phone to relay requests for visas for other journalists . he added that early reports of iraqi officials' using the phone for other purposes were unfounded . but joanna bistany , a vice_president of abc_news , said she did not believe the cnn story that the phone was being used only for visa requests . "" it does n't make sense at all , "" ms . bistany said . a news executive with another network , who spoke on the condition of anonymity , questioned why the iraqis would need to use cnn 's telephone rather than a telex . no one who could officially speak for nbc or cbs would comment for the record . 'absolutely nothing improper' mr . turner said he trusted his people in baghdad when they said the iraqis have used the phone for no other purposes . "" we have done absolutely nothing improper , "" he said . "" why would we jeopardize our credibility with something like this ? "" he disparaged the comments by the other networks as the reaction of "" people who are behind on a story . "" he added , "" when you 're desperate , you 'll say desperate things . "" mr . turner also deplored the decision by the other networks to prevent cnn from using the on camera pool reports filed by correspondents from the other networks . "" we think it 's unfortunate that they have limited the world 's opportunity to see their correspondents , "" he said . when an abc correspondent was the pool reporter , his name , face and voice appeared on cnn . the other networks would use the scenes and script from the pool report but would not actually show the correspondent . "" we were keeping cnn on the air with our people , "" ms . bistany said . she said that the president of abc_news , roone arledge , had decided that something should be done about the pool arrangement after he saw several abc correspondents , including james wooten , reporting on cnn before they appeared on abc . "" cbs or nbc does n't put jim wooten on , "" ms . bistany said . last week the networks took a vote on changing the rules of the pool so that only the video and script of a pool reports could be used on another network . the vote was three to one . "" we voted against it . "" mr . turner said . "" mr . wooten 's fans worldwide will be disappointed . "" ms . bistany said cnn had been particularly reluctant to share access and equipment . the other news executive said the cnn story about the iraqis' using the satellite_phone to set up visas for other journalists "" in itself raises questions about why no other north_american journalists were allowed in for so long . "" mr . turner agreed that cnn had interceded on behalf of journalists except those from other news organizations in north_america . "" this is a very competitive story , "" he said . he added that cnn had also used its phone for such purposes as asking the iraqis to help a cbs_news executive in his search for that network 's missing correspondent , bob simon . but he said cnn had done nothing to stop other north_american journalists from obtaining visas . ms . bistany said abc was able to get a correspondent , bill blakemore , and equipment into baghdad last week by convincing the iraqis that "" most of america was n't seeing anything from iraq because it was only going out on cable . "" in an apparently unrelated incident , cnn 's offices in atlanta and washington had to be evacuated yesterday after a bomb threat . the network carried a tape of a pentagon news conference for 45 minutes , then resumed its regular schedule .",has a topic of arts
"on a recent visit to tibet , a monk at a monastery outside lhasa , the capital , asked to borrow my travel guide to practice english . i gave it to him and went into the monastery , returning later to find the monk surrounded by a crowd poring over a scratchy illustration in my book of the dalai_lama , the tibetan spiritual and political leader now exiled in india . i did not know that images of the dalai_lama are banned by the chinese , occupiers of this remote mountain realm . whatever your take on the chinese occupation of tibet ( the chinese make the argument that , historically , tibet has long been part of a greater_china ) , you 'll find little evidence of social or political tension in the color photographs of tibet by the chinese travel photographer ge jialin , now showing at the mansfield freeman center for east asian studies at wesleyan_university . his vision , you might say , is the high gloss , eye_catching national_geographic version of tibetan life . in his defense , mr . ge 's photographs here were mainly taken in the eastern regions of tibet , areas long part of china 's informal sphere of influence . some are even from a tibetan autonomous prefecture in nearby sichuan_province . but even so , mr . ge 's images of smiling girls in spotless folkloric dress happily doing chores or staring admiringly up at elders look more like propaganda from the cultural_revolution than like realistic impressions of daily life in these remote , mountainous and largely poor rural areas . then there is the question , more pointedly , of the appropriateness of a chinese photographer ( mr . ge , born in 1941 , lives in chengdu , the capital of sichuan ) taking images of tibetans in traditional dress at festivals , on feast days or at the popular horse races . there is a whole genre of colorful chinese travel photography devoted to impressions of the country 's so called ' 'minority groups'' ( there are 56 official minority groups nationwide ) , and it is hard to see mr . ge 's photographs as anything other than more of the same breezy , voyeuristic exoticism . portraits are mr . ge 's specialty , and it is these that happily provide the bulk of the photographs installed here , somewhat annoyingly , without wall labels or titles . among the exhibits are some of his more famous photographs , like a close up of the heavily lined , shriveled , prunelike face of an elderly , toothless , pigtailed tibetan woman . she would have been beautiful once , or so i imagine from her strong , high cheekbones , wide eyes and big mouth . another well known image is the photograph of a smiling miller in simple work clothes , his hands and face dusted with barley flour . it is a feel good photograph , the artist capturing the good natured miller ( probably with a telephoto lens ) in the midst , perhaps , of a conversation with friends or squinting in the devilishly harsh mountain sunlight to consider an impending transaction . who knows , but traveling in tibet you really see this kind of person . then there is the photograph of a girl wrapped in a dirty , ragged coat surrounded by cows and yaks . her attire , bare feet , filthy matted hair and rosy red cheeks are all typical of the children you see in hill towns throughout central tibet . some like to chase after tourists and beg for money , food , pens and paper for school . it is hard not to oblige , given how poor and seemingly desperate are their circumstances . social comment , insofar as it can be found here , is in the details . the glint of a fake ( or perhaps real ) cartier watch on the slender wrist of a monk in a picture of three monks discussing scriptures attests to the intrusion of the outside world into this remote mountain realm , as does an image of a girl in traditional folkloric costume on a cellphone . both these pictures are clich s of a sort , but like all clich s , they contain a grain of truth . ''face of tibet photographs by ge jialin'' is at the mansfield freeman center for east asian studies , wesleyan_university , 343 washington terrace , middletown , through may 1 . information ( 860 ) 685 2330 or www . wesleyan . edu east mansfieldf mansfield . html . art review",has a topic of arts
"last august , richard n . perle , the former bush_administration adviser who advocated strongly for the iraq invasion , found himself surrounded by antiwar demonstrators on the mall in front of the washington monument . he did n't want to be there , but for ''the case for war , '' a documentary laying out his arguments , his producers insisted that he confront his most emotional critics , with television cameras rolling , to add journalistic balance . he clearly looks uncomfortable in the film , to be shown on pbs in two weeks . ''it was n't a particularly pleasant experience , '' mr . perle said in an interview . ''what you do n't see is a long period where they are hurling epithets at me . '' for six consecutive nights beginning april 15 pbs will turn over two hours of prime time to ''america at a crossroads , '' a series of 11 programs , including mr . perle 's , meant to engage debate over contentious post_9_11 issues , from the origins of islamic fundamentalism to the perceived tradeoffs the united_states has made between security and liberty . getting past the epithets has n't been easy . the series was conceived in 2004 by the corporation for public broadcasting , the entity that administers federal money for public radio and television , to prove to congress that public television was worthy of its more than 300 million annual subsidy . even now congress is debating the white_house 's request to cut public_broadcasting 's funds by 25 percent . the corporation financed the series with 20 million in federal money , an enormous sum for chronically struggling independent filmmakers . but , perhaps inevitably , such a charged project became caught up in the nation 's culture wars . at a ''crossroads'' briefing in new york in march 2004 filmmakers angrily vented concerns that the series was being politically manipulated . their ire was directed at michael pack , then the corporation 's senior vice_president for television . he had been brought in the year before to diversify the voices on public television , a mandate that included financing more conservative programming to balance a lineup that his superiors perceived as overly liberal . skeptical pbs programmers , who have autonomy over their schedule , had to be persuaded to show the series , even as relations with the corporation deteriorated amid revelations that its chairman , kenneth y . tomlinson , had improperly monitored pbs for the political leanings of some guests . mr . tomlinson was forced out in november 2005 . delays while a new team did its own due diligence pushed the air date back . given all that was happening behind the scenes , the project was ''inevitably going to be seen in a political context , '' said robert macneil , the longtime pbs journalist . mr . macneil was hired to be host of ''crossroads'' and to add editorial expertise , one of many steps public television officials took to save the investment . the corporation 's advisory team of experts was replaced by five new advisers . weta , the washington public television_station that oversees ken burns 's documentaries , was brought in to manage the project . ''i think the genesis of it was distorted , and that was a shame , '' said jacoba atlas , an independent producer who was a top pbs programming executive when ''crossroads'' was developed . ''it did not feel that the genesis of it was organic to the needs of public television , '' she said , but added that ''it has been rescued'' by the weta team and mr . macneil . of the 440 proposals submitted , some of them solicited by corporation officials , 34 were given production money , and 21 finalists received sums , from 350 , 000 to more than 1 million . but even more than the money , the issue of who would be given plum access to the public airwaves caused intense debate . some of the 10 finalists that did n't make the lineup this month will be shown later . the series incorporates numerous voices that might not usually be found on public television , including , in an odd twist , president_bush 's chief domestic policy adviser , karl zinsmeister . he has a producer credit on ''warriors , '' a sympathetic portrait of soldiers , filmed in iraq in 2005 . mr . zinsmeister , an editor at the american_enterprise_institute when the film was commissioned , recused himself from finishing it after his white_house appointment last may , turning the production over to his wife , ann zinsmeister , and the director ed robbins . ''the case for war'' survived the gantlet as well , although the british producer who conceived it , brian lapping , also recused himself after publicity over his friendship with mr . perle . mr . perle said his critics had a straightforward goal ''they simply did n't want public television , which they think they own , to do a program that included me . '' he said the film was necessary because ''one of the administration 's failures has been a failure to communicate why we went there , what the thinking was behind it . '' ''now i think it is very hard to have a constructive dialogue , '' he added . ''it has descended into accusations of misrepresentation . '' in the film he debates forceful opponents of his iraq reasoning , including richard c . holbrooke , former american ambassador to the united_nations , and abdel bari atwan , editor of al quds al arabi , a london based newspaper . critics will argue which side is more persuasive , but mr . perle has the last word . that was too much for john schidlovsky , founding director of the international reporting project at johns_hopkins_university and one of the ''crossroads'' outside advisers . mr . schidlovsky resigned from that post in december after the perle film made the final cut . he did not respond to requests for comment . in an e mail message to the weta team he wrote , ''in a series as comprehensive as this nationwide 12 hour production , i believe it is editorially imbalanced for pbs to present only one viewpoint on this important story . '' leo eaton , the series 's producer , defended the film 's inclusion . ''whatever one thinks of perle and of the philosophies that took us into iraq , '' he said , ''it is a hugely important part of american policy , and i do n't think the neoconservative view has ever been put out on american television . '' meanwhile some muslim leaders are unhappy about ''faith without fear , '' in which a canadian journalist , irshad manji , gets an hour to outline her call for changes in what she sees as overly monolithic muslim societies . as in mr . perle 's film , ms . manji 's views come with a counterpoint her observant muslim mother . according to pbs guidelines the ''crossroads'' producers had no editorial control . ''that does n't mean they ca n't make comments , '' said mr . robbins , the director of ''warriors . '' ''and right from the start there was the competition of who was going to be chosen . '' ms . manji engaged in intense debates with weta and pbs , which cited sensitivity in forbidding her to show some of the danish editorial cartoons that provoked muslim riots last year . ''was that my decision ? '' she said . ''ultimately no . '' but she decided to take a strategic approach ''is the message of this film important enough to get out , and if it is , then am i going to throw myself on the sword of a cartoon ? '' not all the filmmakers were as willing to compromise . martyn burke , who did n't make the initial cut his work is still in progress objected to what he called heavy handed oversight , including improper interference from one adviser , who was later reprimanded by weta . the styles of the films vary . a two hour history , ''jihad the men and ideas behind al_qaeda , '' opens the series . ''operation homecoming'' is an impressionistic view of war through soldiers' writing . ''europe 's 9 11'' uses re creations to look at european struggles with extremism . and ''the muslim americans'' is as straightforward as its title . two newsweek reporters investigate the muslim_brotherhood from egypt , and new york times television profiles indonesia , the world 's largest muslim nation . viewers who watch the entire series are ''going to have a much more nuanced view of islam , '' mr . macneil said . ''i think it 's going to perform a valuable service . '' the new corporation president , patricia harrison , interviewed before she made her case for financing to the house appropriations committee , said ''crossroads'' needed to be seen in the context of public_broadcasting 's wide array of programming . ''we truly are the only place where that viewer or listener gets treated as the citizen they should be , that they are , as opposed to just a consumer all the time , '' she said . mr . pack , who left the corporation in february 2006 , said in an interview that the final series , with its diversity of voices , ''vindicates the process . '' there was , he said , ''a sort of paranoia that these would all be right wing shows , that this was part of some conspiracy . '' nonetheless , given the long , difficult path for ''crossroads , '' there are lingering doubts about whether the corporation for public broadcasting , a lightning_rod for political controversy , is best suited to initiate similar future projects . geneva overholser , a washington based faculty member of the missouri school of journalism , said ''crossroads'' appeared to be worth the effort . pbs , because of its federal financing , must grapple with issues of journalistic balance that are ' 'more complex than that of mainstream media , '' she said . but she cautioned public broadcasters to be wary of the constant cries of political bias ''we 've come to a juncture in this country that if we do n't charge on despite all the criticism , then we 're just not going to have journalism in the public interest . '' television",has a topic of arts
"play was evenly balanced in the two finals at the marlboro world_championships here today . in the bermuda bowl for open teams , the united_states led canada by the trivial margin of 1 imp after 64 deals of a scheduled 160 . the american team consists of nick nickell of raleigh , n.c. , dick freeman of atlanta , jeff meckstroth of tampa , fla . , eric rodwell of naperville , fla . , and bob wolff and bob hamman of dallas . the canadian players are joe silver , eric kokish , mark molson and boris baran of montreal and george mittelman and fred gitelman of toronto . the final of the venice trophy contest for women 's teams was equally close . after 64 deals , the match midpoint , germany led the united_states by 1 imp . the german team consists of sabine zenkel , daniela von arnim , beate nehmert , marianne moegel and karin caesar . the americans are kerri sanborn of stony_point , n.y. , karen mccallum of exeter , n.h. , carol simon of summit , n.j. , rozanne pollack of warren , n.j. , and kitty munson and sue picus , both of manhattan . france won the bronze medals in both events , defeating sweden in one playoff in the bermuda bowl and china in another in the venice cup . a brilliant inference allowed joe silver to bring home a game that failed at all other tables . in a quarterfinal_match against south_africa , he reached four spades after east had opened with a weak two bid in hearts . the heart jack was led and east overtook with the queen . silver let this win for a subtle reason . he was sure that east did not have seven hearts , for he would then have opened three hearts , and he wanted to see what east would return . east was likely to have a singleton somewhere , and if it was in a minor suit he would surely lead it at the second trick . but east continued with the heart king , a passive move , and silver won with the ace . east was now sure to have started with six hearts and some length in the minor suits . the chance of a singleton spade with east was now greatly increased . so silver cashed the spade king and finessed dummy 's ten with a happy result . the game failed in the replay , and canada gained 10 imps .",has a topic of arts
"china limits 'idol' worship television watchdogs in china have run out of patience with extended singing competitions akin to ''american_idol'' after the news_media complained that many of the shows have artificially prolonged their runs to reap profits from text message voting , variety . com reported . hugely popular , the contests have dominated ratings in china and created a new generation of pop stars . but each of the latest series of the most successful shows ''supergirls , '' ''my hero'' and ''dream china'' stretched over more than four months . the state administration of radio , film and television is limiting them to 10 weeks . variety noted that reality_shows posed a problem for authorities concerned about western influence on chinese_culture , and that voting for pop stars was a hot_topic in a country without universal suffrage . france to sign abu_dhabi louvre pact the french culture minister , renaud donnedieu de vabres , is to sign an agreement tomorrow to build a satellite of the louvre on saadiyat island , a tourist development off the coast of abu_dhabi , capital of the united_arab_emirates , agence_france_presse reported . a spokesman for the ministry refused to furnish other details of the project , shown in a rendering above , which has prompted critics to protest in a petition that france was ' 'selling its soul . '' henri loyrette , the president and director of the louvre , has defended the project as a contribution to the spread of french culture and a financial benefit to france . the government has confirmed that it is to receive 800 million to 1 billion to rent the name , art treasures and expertise of the louvre to the satellite , designed by the french architect jean nouvel and scheduled to open in 2012 . under terms of the agreement , france would provide abu_dhabi with four exhibitions a year from major museums , including the louvre , for 10 years . 'wild hogs' tickles ribs ''wild hogs'' ( buena vista ) , the motorcycling male midlife crisis comedy starring tim allen , john travolta , martin lawrence and william h . macy , vroomed its way to the top of the movie chart in its first weekend in release , hauling in 38 million , according to estimates by the box office tracking company screenline . left in its dust , though with a firm if bloody grip on second place , was ''zodiac'' ( paramount ) , about a serial_killer , which finished with 13 . 1 million . last week 's no . 1 attraction , ''ghost rider'' ( sony ) , the flaming fantasy starring nicolas cage , dropped to third place in its third week , on a gross of 11 . 5 million . also in its third week , the pg rated ''bridge to terabithia'' ( buena vista ) , a tale of friendship between two unusually gifted children , attracted 8 . 5 million to take fourth place . the top five was rounded out by the jim carrey vehicle ''the number 23'' ( new line ) with 7 million in its second week . nigerian filmmaker awarded african oscar no shiny limousines or designer gowns were visible in the burning heat , but a red_carpet was laid on saturday night in the main football stadium in ouagadougou , the capital of burkina faso , where fireworks exploded and 20 , 000 people roared as the green robed president , blaise compaor , handed the 41 year old nigerian director newton aduaka , above , the golden stallion , the top award at the 20th panafrican film and television festival of ouagadougou , agence_france_presse reported . the climax of the festival , also known as fespaco , honored mr . aduaka 's ''ezra , '' a film that touched on blood diamonds and child soldiers in telling of the trauma of youngsters kidnapped and drugged to fight in the civil_war in sierra_leone . the event , held every two years , is the biggest film_festival in africa . at rock gala , who 's in and who 's out ? keith richards , jay z and eddie vedder will open the doors to the rock and roll hall of fame for new inductees in ceremonies at the waldorf_astoria in manhattan next monday , but according to billboard , the night 's big question is , when velvet revolver ushers in van halen , who will turn up to represent the band ? in late february , plans for a summer tour by that hard_rock foursome with its original lead vocalist , david lee roth , collapsed . at the induction , billboard reported , velvet revolver is expected to perform live in van halen 's place . meanwhile , mr . richards of the rolling_stones will induct the ronettes the rapper jay z will induct grandmaster flash and the furious five mr . vedder of pearl jam will induct r.e.m. , and the reclusive vocalist zach de la rocha of rage against the machine will induct patti smith . in addition , aretha franklin will perform a tribute to ahmet ertegun , who was chairman of the hall of fame foundation and spoke at the beginning of each annual induction ceremony before his death in december . vh1 classic is to broadcast the ceremonies live . footnotes hundreds of screaming fans turned out at narita international airport outside tokyo yesterday when michael_jackson , 48 , arrived in japan to play host at a party on thursday where admirers will pay 3 , 500 to spend 30 seconds to a minute with him , the associated press reported . he is not obligated to perform . promoters declined to comment on the fee for his appearance . john zorn , the iconoclastic new york composer who won a macarthur foundation award in september , has received another sizable prize the 50 , 000 william schuman award from columbia_university . given periodically to an american composer whose works are deemed to be of lasting significance , the prize was last given to steve reich , in 2000 . kerry butler , who played penny pingleton in ''hairspray , '' will take on the role of the muse kira in ''xanadu , '' the first musical of the 2007 8 broadway season . the show , with a book by douglas carter beane ( ''the little dog laughed'' ) , has postponed its opening to june 26 , from may . all the music comes from the 1980 film ''xanadu , '' which starred olivia newton john as the muse who inspires the creation of an enormous disco roller rink .",has a topic of arts
"for most americans , the persian_gulf_war was a fireworks of images , many courtesy of cnn the spectacular nighttime bombing of baghdad the flaming kuwaiti oil wells the iraqi air_raid_shelter destroyed by an american bomb and the american barracks destroyed by an iraqi missile president saddam_hussein patting the head of a young hostage a battered american prisoner speaking into an iraqi camera the hundreds of thousands of troops massed in the desert the pathetic surrenders of stunned iraqi soldiers the carnage along the "" highway of death "" back to iraq the briefings that made instant television stars of colin l . powell and h . norman_schwarzkopf . these and more are all on show again in "" the gulf_war , "" a four hour recapitulation and critical analysis on the fifth anniversary of a war that began with miscalculations , was fought with mistakes and ended in what is described here as a ragged victory . missing from the famous televised briefings were the disagreements and infighting among policy_makers in washington and commanders in the field . by this account , president george_bush and others of his generation saw president hussein 's aggression as a challenge like that of hitler 's , while officers who had served in vietnam , including general powell , resisted having to fight another unpopular war in a distant country . tonight 's chroniclers note the miscalculations both in washington and baghdad . the pentagon underestimated the iraqi dictator 's ambitions and overestimated his military prowess . as for president hussein , he is reported to have convinced himself that americans would never fight . a former iraqi intelligence officer describes his boss 's erratic behavior and shaky decisions as reality intruded . the players at the time , including secretary of state james a . baker 3d , prime_minister margaret_thatcher of britain , president hosni_mubarak of egypt and foreign_minister tariq_aziz of iraq , have their say . so do american fighters , accompanied by vivid views from cockpit and tank and their commanders relive somewhat testily their own battles over tactics . particular attention is given to the political complexities for the american arab alliance of iraq 's scud_missile attacks on israel washington 's assurances that american patriot_missiles were destroying the scuds are debunked . president_bush , after some public bumbling about the reasons for going to the aid of kuwait , is credited with forging a remarkable coalition in support of the war . the narrator says , "" the man often derided as a political wimp had maneuvered his generals , his country and most of the world to join his stand in the desert . "" general schwarzkopf , however , is a target of repeated criticism , particularly from bernard e . trainor , a former military correspondent of the new york times and one of the retired_generals whom the war brought employment as television analysts . among the american commander 's more far reaching errors , general trainor says , was to allow the beaten iraqis to continue to fly their armed helicopters , enabling them to crush anti hussein resistance in their country . what critics still count as a premature ending of the war is attributed largely to general powell , who comes through in this assessment as the least bloody minded military leader in history . he had no taste for further slaughter of the retreating iraqis , which , not incidentally , might have played badly on american television , so iraq was left with its best troops fairly intact . general powell , frequently on screen tonight , becomes a central figure of this steadily illuminating documentary , typifying the tension between political and military calculations from the halting start to the abrupt end of a big but brief , successful yet unsatisfying war . ( from friday through next tuesday , a e will also mark the anniversary with hourlong programs about president hussein , general powell and general schwarzkopf and two hours on the war itself . ) 'nova' 'terror in the mine fields' pbs , tonight at 8 ( channel 13 in new york ) war is the pbs theme tonight . if this report on the millions of mines still in the ground in cambodia , killing and maiming thousands of civilians each year , is not grim enough , the presence of american_troops in mine strewn bosnia brings the danger closer to home . the first american casualty was from an antitank land mine . here is everything you might want to know or prefer not to know about how mines of various sorts mangle and murder , the difficulties of detecting and defanging them and efforts around the world to ban or limit the cheap and popular little killers . the hour ends with the news that the khmer_rouge which , remarkably , allowed a "" nova "" camera to film a training course in mine laying is still planting mines faster than they can be detected . frontline the gulf_war pbs , tonight and tomorrow ( channel 13 , new york , at 9 ) written and produced by eamon matthews for the bbc and fine_art productions jenny roberts , editor . for frontline ben loeterman , producer phil mcdonald , jean boucicaut , glenn hunsberger , editors david fanning , executive_producer . narrated by will lyman . television review",has a topic of arts
"investigative reports on the war in iraq , racial relations and the safety of workers at a major manufacturer of cast_iron pipes are among the winners of this year 's alfred i . du_pont columbia_university awards for broadcast journalism , considered to be among the most prestigious in media . the 13 awards , 4 of them bestowed on programs broadcast on pbs , were announced yesterday and are to be presented on jan . 21 at columbia . among the winning entries , all of them recipients of silver batons , was ''the tip of the spear , '' a prime time special on abc with ted_koppel of ''nightline'' as anchor and based on his three week experience as a journalist embedded with american_troops in iraq . cbs_news also won a war related award for coverage of the pentagon and of the war itself by david martin , a reporter , and mary walsh , a producer . and national_public_radio was cited for 250 hours of war coverage , including anne garrels 's report about an iraqi teenager who thrust a container of human remains at reporters and john burnett 's investigation of the bombing of civilian targets . the aftermath of the sept . 11 , 2001 , terrorist attacks , which dominated the awards last year , was also the subject of a winning entry this year a two hour documentary on the pbs series ''frontline , '' ''faith and doubt at ground zero , '' which explored the impact of the attacks on people 's spiritual lives . ''frontline'' also won two other batons . one was for a series that examined problems in the american child_welfare system . another was for a documentary , ''a dangerous business , '' about work related injuries , several of them fatal , at foundries owned by mcwane inc . , on which frontline , the new york times and the canadian broadcast company collaborated . an independently produced documentary about race in america , ''two towns of jasper , '' also on pbs , as part of the series ''p . o.v . , '' was the fourth production on the network to win a baton this year . hbo and maysles films were cited for ''lalee 's kin the legacy of cotton , '' a documentary about the relationship between poverty and education . among the television stations cited as this year 's du_pont winners were kbci in boise , idaho khou in houston kmgh in denver wesh in orlando , fla . and wtvf in nashville .",has a topic of arts
"the story begins when the goddess nu gua , repairing the vault of heaven many millenniums ago , left unused one great rock , an an thropomorphized object of feelings and intelligence . the rock , longing to live a life of mundane pleasures on earth , turned itself into a stone . it dwelt for some time in the court of the goddess of disillusionment , where it showed particular kindness to a celestial plant that also wished to experience the pleasures of the earth . eventually , the stone was taken away by a taoist priest , who brought it to the sprawling_compound of the jia family near the city of nanjing . there the stone was born as an effeminate , sensitive youth named bao yu ( meaning precious jade ) , and the celestial plant appeared as black jade , devoted to bao yu 's love . these are the mythical origins of "" a dream of red mansions , "" the novel of manners , love and tragic ends that is widely considered to be the greatest of the classical_chinese works of fiction . few westerners , it must be admitted , have read this vast work a kind of chinese "" remembrance of things past . "" it is long , subtle , poetic and elusive , full of taoist and buddhist signs and symbols difficult even for many contemporary chinese to grasp fully . but over the next 36 weeks , television viewers in the new york area will have a chance to watch a comprehensive dramatization of the novel , made by chinese television . cuny tv , which specializes in unusual foreign fare it recently presented a series of post glasnost soviet made documentaries will begin broadcasting "" a dream of red mansions "" tomorrow , showing each segment several times on mondays , at 10 a.m . and at 2 , 6 and 10 p.m . the mini series , which took five years to produce and has 150 speaking roles , is the first chinese made series to be shown on american television . the story tells of a love triangle involving bao yu , black jade and another of bao yu 's cousins , this one called bao chai , or precious clasp set against the decline of the jia family , a victim of intrigues and scandals . the truth is that the television version of "" a dream of red mansions , "" like the novel , may not be for everybody . it is a long and stately procession of hundreds of incidents and characters , beautifully clothed in period costumes but , like the figures in a russian novel , a bit difficult to tell apart . a program guide , obtainable by telephoning cuny tv at ( 212 ) 719 9128 , might help a viewer follow the story . the subtitles contain many hilarious misspellings , and at times they flash by so quickly that watching the program becomes an exercise in speed reading . yet , certainly by the still developing standards of chinese television , this is an ambitious and lavish production , full of the suggestive richness of the novel and evocative of the elaborate , brocaded style of 18th_century chinese life . in the resplendent early years of the qing_dynasty , china was dominated by members of a scholar official class who rose to power in part by political intrigue but also by virtue of their mastery of the arts of philosophy , poetry and painting . there are scenes of scholars sipping wine on a moon viewing pavilion and writing poems to one another there are evocations of the courts of the all powerful local magistrates there are silks , ink brush paintings , latticed windows , bronze drinking vessels , elaborate banquets and , in the background , the sounds of cicadas and two stringed violins . the author of "" a dream of red mansions "" was one cao xueqin , whose biographical details are only sketchily known . cao was apparently an impoverished member of a once wealthy family from nanjing his first work , an 80 chapter opus entitled "" the story of a stone , "" was published in beijing around 1765 and proved enormously_popular . several decades after cao 's death , 40 more chapters were published in beijing under the title "" hung lou meng "" translated either as "" a dream of red mansions "" or , more commonly , "" dream of the red chamber . "" it has been a matter of intense scholarly debate whether the last 40 chapters were written by cao or are forgeries by later publishers . c . t . hsia , a leading scholar of chinese literature , says that the novel is china 's "" supreme work of psychological realism , "" a far more intimate look into the human mind , its inner turmoil , its desires and its contradictions than any other classical novel . is it a parable of buddhist resignation , an allegory of moral decline , a satire of aristocratic manners ? cao xueqin himself left a small hint of the novel 's ambiguity in an epigram to one of the novel 's 120 chapters pages of fantasy tears of despair an author mocked as mad none lays his meaning bare . tv view",has a topic of arts
"tomorrow night 's two hour visit to what the producers title "" the wild east "" concentrates on the new capitalists who are running amok in communist_china . for this very small but growing group of entrepreneurs and operators someone calls them former red guards in armani suits life seems to be fun and games and moneymaking . the wisecrack going around beijing is that the forbidden_city has been turned into the for business city . mao_zedong , still an icon , must be spinning wherever the spirits of chinese marxists spin . it 's a somewhat unfocused tour , venturing here and there through time and space as if the producer , peter kaufman , were having difficulty filling up his own time and space . the program is most pointed when mr . kaufman 's chinese acquaintances tell of the persecution of the educated class during the cultural_revolution and speculate gloomily on the consequences of the capitalist revolution . attention is drawn to old fashioned but still current government repression , to up to date forms of corruption , to the unemployment that has turned millions into itinerant job hunters and to the industrial pollution that is being permitted to foul the air in the service of development . inhabitants of hong_kong , which is to return chinese rule in 1997 , voice their special worries , and ethnic and religious stirrings , especially among china 's big muslim population , portend other troubles . yet "" the wild east "" diverts as it moves somewhat eccentrically between dire news and cheery travelogue . you can see mongolian women on horseback slam dunking in an exhibition of horse basketball , and hear from russian women of the night who have been imported for the pleasure of the new chinese millionaires . you can also listen in on a discussion among young chinese women about the virtues of sex before marriage . flourishing enterprises restaurants , stock_exchanges , private clubs , religious temples , discos are seen in action . and in a change of pace , there is a time warped pop singer , who learned his craft from crosby hope and astaire rogers movies , crooning "" on a slow boat to china . "" nova can buildings make you sick ? pbs , tomorrow , 8 p.m . ( channel 13 in new york ) does being at work give you a headache ? do n't rush to blame the boss or the annoying person in the next cubicle . tomorrow 's offering from "" nova "" tells how brick and mortar sleuths go about detecting the causes of employee weariness , respiratory ailments , eye trouble and all round malaise in new offices and hospitals . is it the air_conditioning ? the ventilation ? the lighting ? the acoustics ? the fireproofing ? bugs in the ducts ? the program is a gift for people who need one more thing to worry about . season 's greetings from pbs . china the wild east tbs , tomorrow at 8 05 p.m . written and directed by peter kaufman produced by kaufman and xiaozhen jiang philip kaufman , executive_producer and narrator . music by tan dun ruby yang , editor . for turner original productions pat mitchell , executive_producer vivian schiller , supervising producer . television review",has a topic of arts
"soldiers will often say that survival depends on the ability to make quick judgments about countless small things . was that a cat or a sniper i saw in the window ? is that car speeding up because its occupants are being pursued or because they want to kill me ? and that bump in the roadside , is it a divot from the last convoy or a trace of an improvised_explosive_device ? little wonder then that ''over there , '' the first television dramatic series about a war in progress , is coming under fire , from people who served in iraq , for getting the small things wrong . television requires drama . soldiers prefer precision . so when a group of grunts is shown clumped together on a berm making themselves a rich target or an improvised_explosive_device has a little flag on it , they tend to question the series as a whole . through the web and various veterans groups , the new york times contacted more than a dozen soldiers , all of whom had been on active_duty in iraq and have since returned . they had a variety of opinions on the war they served in , but were almost universally negative about the show that attempts to depict it . ( a spokeswoman for the united_states_army declined to comment on the series . ) when steven bochco 's ''over there'' began last month , many military blogs immediately began pumping round after round of ack ack into it , suggesting that it is both opportunistic and clueless . ( the fx series will broadcast the fifth of its 13 episodes tonight . ) ''there are a few bad war movies and tv shows , but this one takes the cake , '' said a recent post to boots on the ground , a blog written by an army soldier currently serving in iraq ( bootsonground . blogspot . com ) . ''if the inaccuracies they made in this new show was to keep the real enemy from watching and knowing our real tactics , then they did a superb job . '' mr . bochco , who was lauded for the authenticity of his cop shows ''hill street blues'' and ''nypd blue'' is a bit mystified by the response . ''anecdotally , we have been getting a good response from soldiers , but some of them tend to get hung up on the specifics of what you are doing , whether that piece of equipment or that particular weapon is wrong , '' mr . bochco said in a telephone interview two weeks ago . ''but by and large , i think they are impressed with the show 's reality , our attempt to convey the truthfulness of the experience and portray their emotional lives as well . '' you could understand why mr . bochco feels a bit fragged . he set out to render visible a war , one that has produced thousands of dead and wounded , that goes conveniently unnoticed by most americans . he has never been to iraq , but hired several consultants who had served , in order to get an authentic look and feel for his series . to the civilian eye , his portrait of men and women fighting for their lives and their country , usually in that order , is a reminder that the rhetoric of politicians exacts a savage consequence from those who must live the reality of warfare . and that the series is appearing while the conflict is still under way reflects the immediacy of this war , which can be seen in almost real time , while etching its remoteness to most people here . ''this is a war that does not immediately affect most of the country , '' said robert timmons , who lives on staten_island and served in the army infantry in iraq in 2003 . ''people here see yellow_ribbons on cars , but they see very little of the reality of the war other than short stories on cnn when american_soldiers die . this series is over the top , but anything that brings attention to a war that is not getting much coverage is helpful . '' but soldiers who fought in iraq , many of whom brought high expectations to the series , said that the devil is in the details . ''we see sand , we see guns and we see people in helmets , '' said benjamin flanders , who served as a military_police sergeant in 2004 and 2005 as a member of the new hampshire national_guard in and around baghdad . ''but i do n't think that it addresses the real issues of being a soldier or what is going on in iraq . '' rowe stayton , a former lawyer who volunteered for duty in the army_national_guard at age 50 , said that the series had affected him even though , as a fire team leader in 2004 , the war he experienced was a close in , urban affair , not a battle fought out in vast expanses of the desert . ''there are parts of it that still bring to mind thoughts and memories of things that i have not been thinking about for months and years , '' he said . an episode about events going awry at a checkpoint was particularly vivid . ''innocent_civilians did get shot . it is in the nature of the war , but we used a tremendous restraint . '' much of what mr . bochco is taking hits over has to do with the generic requirements of television . to create storylines , he uses characters who scan to some people as clich s the gung_ho all american white kid who is maimed , the bitter dope smoking black guy . and necessarily , action must be compressed , which does not reflect the grinding reality of real time soldiering , a mix of weeks of boredom interrupted by occasional moments of terror . in blogs and interviews , soldiers suggested that the army unit mr . bochco depicts saw more action in the first few episodes than they did in their entire tours . ''vets are concerned with getting it right , '' said paul rieckoff , a former army platoon leader and the executive director of operation truth , a veterans' advocacy_group . ''and i think it is sad that no percentage of the proceeds go to any veterans or family charities . some of the money that is being made should go to the people who have died . '' ''over there'' has received its share of favorable reviews . but after a brisk start the series garnered 4.1 million viewers for its first show , making it the most watched cable program on the night it ran it then lost almost half its audience in the second week , dropping to 2.6 million viewers . in the third week , it managed to find a plateau , and then last week , ''over there'' had just a 2 share , suggesting that there is not much momentum building over all . so far , the show has had a 2.4 rating average , which is far from a hit , but it bettered the average performance of the critically acclaimed ''rescue me'' in the same time slot last year . if the show is going to find the kind of attention that will sustain it , the audience will probably be among civilians . ''the reviews from g.i . 's i 've seen are 100 percent negative there is no array , '' said john harriman , a vietnam_veteran and author who created the mudville gazette , an online community of soldiers who support the war and those fighting it ( www . mudvillegazette . com ) . mr . harriman said that soldiers were amazed to see anachronistic vietnam_era helicopters , and pointed out that the squad depicted seems to be just getting to know one another , which does not comport with how units are deployed . mr . bochco said that within the limits of television and his budget , he is proud of what he and his team have accomplished . ''let me put it this way , '' he said . ''if i had even a small amount of the money that the country is spending to fight this war , every detail would be there and it would look amazing . '' mr . bochco , who created a jittery visual lexicon with ''nypd blue , '' has again innovated in ''over there , '' adopting a fuzzy , satellite_phone look , while using the short form jargon of ''sopranos'' cum soldiers to emphasize the high intensity experience . some soldiers , however grudgingly , will admit that he got a few things right . a shot of a soldier on a computer sending a video message to his wife that is panned away from to show her in bed with another man rings true , as does the theme of boots on the ground paralyzed by politics from above . the fact that a convoy that ends badly was out on a beer run sounded familiar to some , as well . sean huze , an actor who volunteered for the marines after the sept . 11 attacks and who served in iraq in 2003 , is dealing with some similar issues in the current run of ''the sand storm , '' a play about his experiences in the war that is being performed through sept . 25 at the metrostage in alexandria , va . ''i think it was certainly a noble effort that mr . bochco made , '' mr . huze said . ''it 's funny , i have spoken to people who were n't 'over there , ' and they had an overwhelmingly positive reaction to the show . having experienced the war as an infantry soldier in the marines , it 's hard not to pick it apart . but if it sparks a conversation , it can probably do a lot more good than the talking heads who are always going on about this war . ''",has a topic of arts
"qing porcelain can be a neglected stepchild in the family of chinese porcelains . qing is the name given to porcelain produced during the manchu dynasty ( 1644 1912 ) . the pieces were made for the imperial court , for domestic use in china and for export to the west . they differ in quantity and artistry . ''the problem is that nonimperial qing porcelains vary in quality , '' said james b . godfrey , director of chinese_art at sotheby 's . ''there are pedestrian pieces and pieces of fine quality . it goes both ways . '' mr . godfrey was discussing the porcelains in sotheby 's auction of chinese_art on wednesday . ''the uninformed might focus on the glories of ming , '' he said , ''but qing imperial porcelains have always been highly sought after and reflect the highest levels of taste and appreciation . '' there are qing porcelains of all three types at sotheby 's , at doyle 's ''asian works of art'' sale on monday , at christie 's ''fine chinese_ceramics , paintings and works of art'' auction on thursday , and at the arts of pacific asia show at the 69th regiment armory ( lexington_avenue at 26th_street ) from thursday through sept . 24 . several pieces are also for sale at the chinese_porcelain company , 475 park_avenue , at 58th_street . china was successfully invaded from the north many times . in the 17th_century it was the manchus who conquered china , ending the long ming_dynasty ( 1368 1644 ) . the last ming emperor , chongzhen , hanged himself from a plum tree north of beijing , unable to deal with his warring generals and the pirates who dominated the southern seas and stole his exports . ( in 1984 in amsterdam there was a sale of 2 , 000 pieces of blue and white porcelain recovered from a sunken junk off the coast of china . the salvage specialist michael hatcher determined that the ship had gone down around 1644 . ) the manchus , nomads descended from the tangus tribes of northern china , were great warriors and traders , able to secure a monopoly in the sale of pearls , fur and ginseng . they surrounded themselves with chinese advisers and once in power adopted chinese_culture . they did not interfere with the chinese_porcelain factories , though they did change the colors used . they introduced a vivid sapphire blue that replaced the purplish blue of the ming period , the bright green seen in famille verte ware and the palette of pinks that appear in famille rose ware . the new colors were a hit in europe , and westerners especially prized works made under the second qing emperor , kangxi , a scholar and artistic patron who has been compared to louis_xiv . kangxi ware was collected by queen mary ii of britain , the sultans of the ottoman_empire and frederick iii , elector of brandenburg and prussia . the chinese_porcelain company is selling a pair of large blue and white kangxi jars depicting foliate panels and ladies in gardens . they were made for export , and cost 50 , 000 . sotheby 's is also selling a pair of blue and white kangxi period jars . the white baluster shaped jars with lids are decorated with petal shaped panels , each showing blue peonies , chrysanthemums and prunus ( cherry ) trees emanating from a rocky landscape . the estimate for the pair is 40 , 000 to 60 , 000 . as the paris dealer michel beurdeley and his colleague guy raindre write in their book , ''qing porcelain'' ( rizzoli , 1987 ) ''the quality of the blue and white ware made at this time attained a_level that fired the enthusiasm , first of all , of chinese connoisseurs and then , a little later , of european collectors . technically , these wares are unequaled the pure white and fine grained body is covered with a faintly blueish tinged glaze that sets off the decoration painted in sapphire blue . '' sotheby 's has a beehive shaped kangxi water pot in a strawberry pink glaze with dark speckles on it . it is lightly incised with dragons . such pots are scholars' wares , in the chinese taste . called peach bloom water pots , they have simple domed bodies rising to narrow rims . the estimate for the one at sotheby 's is 8 , 000 to 10 , 000 . china 's imperial factory continued to thrive under the following qing emperor , yongzheng ( 1723 1735 ) , and his successor , qianlong ( 1735 1795 ) . mr . beurdeley and mr . raindre say that jesuits introduced pink enamels into china in the early 18th_century , and the new pinks and purples were called yangcai ( foreign colors ) . the french referred to them as famille rose . sotheby 's has a pair of 32 inch high yong zheng famille rose baluster jars and covers that come with giltwood and marble stands . each has medallions depicting chinese figures at home and in the garden . the panels are surrounded by dense thickets of foliage , including lotus and peony blossoms in yellow , aqua , lime_green and periwinkle . ''these are the type you see on a staircase landing in a grand late 19th_century house in america , '' mr . godfrey said . the estimate for the two is 120 , 000 to 140 , 000 . sotheby 's is also selling a yellow yongzheng chrysanthemum dish . shallow like a saucer , it has sides molded to resemble a ring of petals , suggesting an open chrysanthemum flower . yellow was reserved for members of the court . the estimate is 10 , 000 to 15 , 000 . westerners will love a pair of qianlong cranes , with white bodies , dark blue and green plumage and small heads crowned by red crests . the crane , native to china , symbolized longevity and was sacred . nonetheless these winning cranes were clearly made for export . the estimate for the pair is 20 , 000 to 30 , 000 . christie 's two sales chinese decorative_arts at christie 's east on monday and fine works of art at its headquarters on thursday include about 60 pieces of qing porcelain consigned by the cleveland museum of art . the museum , which has had the collection since the 1930 's , is selling them to bolster its acquisitions fund . one of the exceptional pieces is a 29 inch tall famille verte vase from the kangxi period . it depicts a daoist scene , a day in the realm of the immortals . the daoist goddess xiwangmu , the queen_mother of the west , and her jade maidens are shown on the isles of the blessed . as two women fan her with peacock feathers , the queen watches a group approaching with a deer pulled cart filled with flowers and a giant peach . in the daoist tradition the queen 's peach trees bore fruit only every 3 , 000 years . anyone who ate a peach was granted immortality . ''the painting is exquisite , the enamels are in very good condition , and the story is wonderfully fantastical , '' said athena zonars , a specialist in chinese_ceramics at christie 's . the estimate is 30 , 000 to 40 , 000 . less expensive qing porcelains can be found on the web , for under 2 , 000 at sothebys . amazon . com , and at the arts of pacific asia show . one dealer at that show , midori gallery of miami , is selling a five piece famille rose qing garniture set from the late 19th_century for 20 , 000 . it has an incense burner , candle stands and flower vases decorated with dragons , phoenixes and bats of happiness . antiques",has a topic of arts
"the heirs of joe tom meador , the united_states_army lieutenant who stole a collection of medieval treasures from quedlinburg in central germany in the final days of world_war_ii , must pay estate tax on the objects they acquired at his death in 1980 , according to a memorandum of the internal_revenue_service just made public . the next step in the case will be for the i.r.s . to determine the value of the gold , silver and jewel encrusted artworks as of 1980 , a sum which art experts have said may exceed 100 million . the i.r.s . could also assess interest and penalties for failure to report and pay an estate tax liability . randal mathis , the lawyer who represents jack meador and jane meador cook , the brother and sister of joe tom meador , said yesterday , "" if the i.r.s . makes such a valuation , we could n't pay it and would have no choice but to challenge it in court . "" the dealings of the meador family are also under study by the federal_bureau_of_investigation , holding out the possibility of criminal_prosecution for possession of stolen property or transporting it across state or international borders . the final agreement between the government of germany and the meador family to permit the return of the treasures to germany is expected to be signed by all parties before the end of january .",has a topic of arts
"chinese furniture made for villagers a century or more ago looks like a simplified version of palace pieces . compared with the elaborately carved and lacquered chairs , tables and cabinets produced in exotic woods for aristocrats , the folk furniture used common woods , had plainer surfaces and thinner finishes . the spareness of these folk objects surprises many visitors to "" friends of the house furniture from china 's towns and villages , "" an exhibition at the peabody essex museum here , through aug . 7 . the show presents 45 pieces of furniture against stark white walls and mesh screens , settings evocative of china 's rural architecture over the last 200 years . in sharp contrast is the larger show of formal furnishings , "" beyond the screen , chinese furniture of the 16th and 17th centuries , "" on view at boston 's museum_of_fine_arts through may 18 , 1997 . there are 130 richly embellished furnishings in court settings and a smaller display of 15 exquisite pieces of miniature ming furniture . warped but otherwise undamaged by the flooding in a tomb that was excavated in the 1960 's , these extraordinary chairs , tables , racks , cabinets and an alcove bed are among the simplest examples of the ming style extant fewer than 50 pieces of dated ming furniture survive . the tomb furniture was lent by the shanghai museum and will remain through sept . 16 . both shows were organized by nancy berliner , an independent curator from cambridge , mass . she was introduced to chinese furniture on her first trip to the mainland in 1982 . she stayed for two years studying art_history at the central academy of art in beijing , and while there , she bought some pieces of folk furniture , which is still ignored by most collectors and scholars in china . she has returned each year since for short visits , while completing her doctoral studies at harvard_university . the woods spell the biggest difference between chinese formal and folk furniture . exotic hardwoods , including rosewood and sandalwood , were reserved for pieces destined for the wealthy . softer woods native to china elm , willow , pine , cypress , camphor and bamboo were used in the folk furniture . both types of furniture were made the same way parts were mitered , dovetailed or doweled together and surfaces were lacquered . nails were used only occasionally to strengthen a repair . metal reinforcements were used to strengthen willow furniture , and hardware was pinned to the surfaces of cabinets and drawers . the strongest appeal of folk furniture is usually its practicality . a chinese folding settee for three would pass for an exotic park bench anywhere in the united_states . a street vendor 's repair bench in henan_province , looks like a boy 's shoeshine box here . and a red lacquer garment rack , embellished with lacy clouds and the heads of smiling beasts , would be right at home in the bedrooms of imaginative americans . chinese mythology adds meaning and fantasy to several folk chairs the dragon carving on the arms and curved back of one chair indicated the elevated status of the owner the spread winged bat boldly incised on the crest rail of another , was supposed to bring good fortune . root furniture takes different forms in formal and folk versions . a five legged stool made of a large root is an exceptional example of the rustic style , one that required very little help to shape it , once the tree was cut off at the base . the formal approach to making root furniture , seen in a pair of stools at the boston museum , used roots joined by wooden pegs to create barrel shaped seats . they look man made . since folk objects in many cultures tend to fussiness , the plain furniture in the salem show seems particularly distinctive . two cube stools with rattan seats , for example , appear as modern today as they must have when they were made in the 18th_century . each is a tour de force of joinery . the stools seem , in fact , surprisingly close in spirit to the ming miniatures shown in boston . ms . berliner explained that in 1589 , when the miniatures were made for the supervisor of a monastery , there were two schools of thought about how ornate court furniture should be . "" there was a reaction against what some called ostentatious and vulgar furnishings , "" she said . "" they even wrote treatises on the subject , urging that people make simple furniture if there was too much decoration , it would appear made for a woman 's room . "" she proposed that the ming miniatures be represented in the boston show because of their extraordinary simplicity . "" some of the fine carvings on the formal furniture are exquisite , "" she said . "" some of the plain things are very moving , and they 're not really plain . someone thought about every line . "" even more significant , she said , is the original meaning of the ming miniatures "" furniture was so important to the society that people wanted to have it in the afterlife . "" arts artifacts",has a topic of arts
"in a country where the arts are expected to support government policy rather than exist primarily as independent forms , china 's still young and rapidly expanding modern_dance has a distinct advantage . it is a wordless means of individual expression , especially open to ambiguity and interpretation . when the beijing modern_dance company , founded in 1995 , makes its new york debut tonight at the joyce_theater , with ''rear light , '' a piece choreographed to music from ''the wall , '' the 1979 rock album by pink_floyd , viewers will certainly spot the general aura of alienation . it may be less easy to agree about specifics . the sight of young people placed ''up against the wall'' and of crime scene body silhouettes painted on the floor as well as dancing that veers between turbulence and regimentation may all evoke the 1989 repression of demonstrators in tiananmen_square . yet there is also an intimate male female duet and a wild disco scene , usually with audience participation onstage . for willy tsao , the company 's hong_kong born artistic director , this disco episode is not just a release but also a critique of mindless youth . ''it shows a wild bunch of kids enjoying themselves , '' mr . tsao said . ''they do n't know what 's going on around them . they hide from the truth . '' any recent visitor to china who has run into the night life in shanghai and beijing or seen the pop art in official museums that portrays maoists and punk rockers side by side will understand that artists who do not want a return to the past may also be unhappy with china 's rediscovery of materialist values . an allegorical transposition of the original tale about an alienated rock star in the 1982 movie version of ''the wall , '' ''rear light'' is at a far remove from a realistic dance about peasants in the fields that was included in the 1991 united_states debut of the guangdong modern_dance company , the seedbed of chinese contemporary_dance . reflecting a society in flux , professional modern_dance has spread beyond guangzhou , beijing and shanghai to attract budding choreographers in universities in other provinces . true to the essence of modern_dance anywhere , it is no longer limited to one kind of movement idiom or aesthetic . interviewed by phone during the company 's current united_states tour , mr . tsao said that li han zhong and ma bo , the husband and wife team who choreographed ''rear light , '' tend toward ' 'very angry pieces . '' but ''rear light , '' he insisted , is one of those works whose meaning changes with its viewer . he agreed that the body silhouettes refer to people who have been killed . ''but these things happen anywhere , '' he said . ''people were killed in yugoslavia and are killed in iraq . '' mr . tsao is aware that not all , especially in the west , will accept this wider view . the point he wishes to make is that it would be right to read ''a yearning for individuality and free_expression'' into such works . ''dancers are not afraid to say that they are not satisfied , '' he added , ''and they say it through the body . '' for ralph samuelson , director of the new york based asian cultural council , which has helped finance training and teaching for chinese modern dancers and choreographers both in the united_states and in china , ''china is very different from what it was . '' yet , he added , there are three subjects that are taboo there in modern_dance sex , attacks on political leaders and violence . mr . tsao said that the line was drawn at nudity and direct criticism of chinese leaders . but like mr . samuelson , he notes that much has changed since the guangdong modern_dance company , china 's first professional modern_dance company , was formed in 1990 . it was a carefully prepared birth , sparked by the 1986 visit of yang mei qi , head of the guangdong dance_academy , to the american_dance_festival at its summer home at duke_university in durham , n.c . the festival , through its international choreographers workshop , played a major role in helping ms . yang organize a three year program ( 1987 90 ) to train dancers and nurture new choreographers . mr . tsao , who advised the guangdong company until 1998 and is now its overall director , said the training struck local cultural officials as too american . looking back on these beginnings , charles reinhart , the american_dance_festival 's director , remains adamant about the project 's goal . ''our whole point was not to come in like the soviet balletmasters did in china and say , this is our 'swan_lake , ' copy it , '' he said . ''the idea was to provide them with modern_dance training and let them run with it to develop their own genius . '' the first generation in the guangdong troupe spawned china 's leading modern_dance choreographers in a remarkably short time . they include shen wei , highly acclaimed on the international festival circuit and based in new york . ''the seeds in modern_dance creativity have grown so fast in china that we have come full circle , '' mr . reinhart said , referring to mr . shen . ''you could say that one of the most talented choreographers in america today is chinese . '' mr . samuelson said that in the 1980 's chinese choreographers did n't want to go home but ''now mostly they do . '' guangdong alumni include wang mei , who heads the modern_dance program at the beijing dance academy , and jin xing , who showed indisputable talent when he choreographed for american_dance_festival students in the 1980 's and early 90 's . in 1995 the beijing cultural bureau asked him to become the beijing modern_dance company 's first artistic director just after he underwent a sex change to become china 's most publicized transsexual . retaining the same name as a woman , ms . jin now choreographs for her own company in shanghai . a major figure in fostering interest in modern_dance is mr . tsao , who is choreographer for his city contemporary_dance company in hong_kong and who is credited by american observers with donating his own money to the guangdong and beijing companies . ''willy saved the companies , '' mr . samuelson said . ''they could n't sustain themselves . '' whether mr . tsao 's taste influences these companies is open to debate . americans can judge for themselves when the kennedy_center presents the guangdong , beijing and hong_kong companies on the same program in october . ''i have apartments in three cities , '' mr . tsao said . there is no question that he has fostered the growth of different choreographers both in the companies and in the annual dance festival he established in beijing in 1999 and moved to guangzhou last year . ''if it is only one type of modern_dance , it will be a failure , '' he said . ''chinese modern dancers are finding a new language . i do n't see that in europe and america . ''in the second year of our festival , students from seven colleges asked to present their choreography . it was amateurish , but it opened a door . in 2003 we had 18 universities participating , with many painting and literature students . a computer science student formed a company , the young crops society , after he choreographed for the festival . his works were very calm and quiet , like a computer . '' mr . tsao sees greater freedom in the fact that arts financing is being cut back on the provincial and municipal levels . the beijing troupe is mainly underwritten by corporations , he said . mr . tsao said the company 's status as an independent group without subsidy left it free of censorship . ''no government official came to see the work we are presenting now in the united_states , '' he said . after mr . tsao succeeded ms . jin as artistic director in beijing in 1999 , he said , ''i had to spend time on radio talk_shows , explaining modern_dance . '' government officials suggested he present works that were ''traditional and chinese . '' ''my response , '' he said , ''is that modern_dance is not a cultural trait . if you have a sense of freedom , chinese modern_dance can come of age . if the perception is that you have only to create something different from the west , that is a limitation . ''",has a topic of arts
"even after a year of conflict , photographs and television footage of the iraq_war are spellbinding . partly this is because of their subject the explosions , mob scenes and daily loss of life and partly it is because as viewers , we know that these photographers and news cameramen are documenting a revolution in progress . their images reveal a country in the midst of radical social , cultural and political change , with all the attendant challenges . but it is also true that imagery of other revolutions has the same mesmerizing effect , as two unrelated exhibitions at wesleyan_university attest . one is a show at the mansfield freeman center for east asian studies of photographs of northern china in the years before the communist takeover in 1949 the other is an installation at the ezra and cecile zilkha gallery by the new york artist ann messner using historical photographs of public protests . organized by ronald lim , elizabeth khoo and adelina halim , ''before the doors closed the u.n . in north china after wwii'' consists of 36 photographs by gay dillon ( 1912 92 ) , an amateur photographer who traveled in northern china from 1946 to 1948 with her husband , harald lund , a united_nations relief administrator . her captivating black and white photographs document a revolution in progress , the country on the verge of radical transformation . the images in the exhibition were prepared from among a cache of almost 600 of ms . dillon 's original negatives , donated to the center in 1993 . although numbered , few of these negatives had captions . to help identify subjects and the locations depicted in the images , the curators drew on ms . dillon 's surviving field notes , their own research and mr . lund 's archives , which are also housed at the center . for the most part , their efforts have been successful . northern china in the late 1940 's was a harsh , remote place . after a decade of japanese occupation , and years of civil_war , there was widespread poverty and famine . this is reflected in ms . dillon 's photographs , which portray subjects ranging from failed crops in parched fields to a chinese boy learning to spin wool at a welfare institution wearing a shirt made from a recycled u.n . food sack . another image shows a bunch of sullen looking protestors , the leader carrying a banner that says , in chinese_characters , ''we are hungry . '' evidence of conflict is everywhere . in one image we see a long column of nationalist troops marching through one of the taiyuan city gates , while concrete bunkers , trenches and fortifications litter the countryside . even temples and pagodas were used as bulwarks , as one picture of a tang_dynasty pagoda outside taiyuan shows behind the pagoda is an intricate system of trenches and military communication tunnels . other images document the u.n . 's fledgling relief efforts in what was still a war zone , and even young american_soldiers , stationed briefly in the area as peacekeepers , playing baseball with local children . but mostly the photographs celebrate the forbearance and humanity of the chinese people . one delightful picture of this kind shows a group of young women training to be midwives , all dressed in identical white coats . ms . dillon also had a tourist 's eye . the exhibition includes numerous images of temples , rickshaw pullers , traditional industries and other exotic sights , like a camel train carrying chunks of coal . although such images tell us more about her own preconceptions of china than about the lives of the people there , they nonetheless provide a fascinating record of a world few westerners could visit during this chaotic period . ms . messner 's installation , ''oracle'' ( 2002 2004 ) , consists of 57 large , blurry black and white photographs reproduced from the archives of mahatma gandhi , martin_luther_king and malcolm x . wrapping around the gallery walls , the photographs depict various subjects a crowd in the street , bleachers , speakers , microphones , a bullhorn , as well as close ups of the three latter day oracles at mass rallies . the blurriness of the images suggests movement , as if the pictures were taken rapidly in a volatile situation . but it also provides ''a visual analog for the way we remember , '' as the exhibition 's curator , nina felshin , explained to me . the first set of images show acts of civil_disobedience in india in the 1940 's , including wonderfully abstracted shots of crowds . they are followed by shots of civil_rights demonstrations in the 1960 's , and black power rallies . together they remind you of the price of conviction , capturing that selflessly passionate spirit of participation that propels people to risk all and take to the streets . ''before the doors closed the u.n . in north china after wwii'' is at the mansfield freeman center for east asian studies , 343 washington terrace , middletown , through today . it reopens on may 20 through may 23 . information ( 860 ) 685 2330 . ann messner 's ''oracle'' is at the ezra and cecile zilkha gallery , 283 washington terrace , middletown , through may 23 . information ( 860 ) 685 2684 . art review",has a topic of arts
"here in the animation capital of the nation , computer artists dressed in cali casual are ensconced in a converted warehouse that could rightly be called the house that slime built nickelodeon studios , a hothouse of toon talent . walk through the lobby , past the basketball court theater , past the gratis cappuccino bar , and soon enough a visitor comes upon an area where the walls are awash in apricot , sunny yellow and fuchsia . lines of tasseled red lanterns hang overhead , the lighting is subdued , and , in a corner office , stands karen chao . she 's the creator of ''ni hao , kai_lan ! , '' an animated series for preschoolers based on her memories of growing up in a bicultural household with two overachieving brothers , a doting immigrant grandfather and a father with one foot in the old world and one in the new . ms . chao and her mother , hai lan ( helen ) , were outnumbered but unbowed , honoring some gender traditions that dated to confucian times while questioning others . ''ni hao'' means ''hi'' in mandarin , and kai_lan is the chinese name ms . chao was given at birth , later anglicized to karen . the series , which will make its debut on nick jr . in august , has been nurtured from what was a wisp of an idea four years ago , in experimental shorts called ''downward doghouse , '' then later into a series with asian influenced characters , settings and situations . conceived here in southern_california but animated and partly designed in taipei and shanghai , the 20 episode project is nickelodeon 's big ticket domestic and international television release for 2007 . what 's remarkable is that this highly personal , highly stylized , faintly feminist project has sprung from an artist whose previous experience in television was limited to watching it . what ms . chao , 29 , has lacked in experience , though , she has made up for in fortitude . ''my dad instilled in me at the age of 7 that as long as you put your whole heart into a project , the outcome will be magnificent , '' ms . chao said . her father , jack , fled the people 's republic of china in 1962 with a single hong_kong_dollar in his pocket . he immigrated to new york in 1970 , taking work as a delivery boy , and eventually moved to texas . he is now a multimillionaire seafood distributor in orange_county , calif . , who is so protective of his daughter that he once ran background_checks on a suitor she brought home to meet the folks . ms . chao , who earned a degree in digital art from the university of california , irvine , in 2000 , did n't quite follow the path her father preferred . ''he set me up for an internship at painewebber , but i doodled on the cold call sheets and taped the phone receiver down , '' she said . ''i was n't a very good worker bee , but dad was ecstatic because i was wearing business outfits with shoulder_pads and big pants . in chinese_culture criticism is love . so my dad must really , really love me , because he has a lot to say . '' in 2001 ms . chao , then working as a graphic artist , took an advanced course in adobe illustrator software . ''the first thing i drew was kai_lan , '' she said , a version of herself at 5 . after ms . chao created a web_site with a handful of other characters , her work was noticed by mary harrington , nickelodeon 's top animation executive from 1992 to 1997 , who had developed ''spongebob squarepants'' and ''rugrats . '' ''i loved her artwork , '' said ms . harrington , now the executive_producer of ms . chao 's show . ''there was no real story there , but there was a sensibility and heart . we connected creatively and decided to take the plunge . i tease her that when we go out on the streets , people think she 's my adopted chinese daughter . '' though ms . chao was signed to a development deal , she said that her parents refused to believe she could support herself in the cartoon business . ''my dad said , 'what are you doing there all day at nickelodeon ? ' '' she recalled . ''to him it was mind_boggling . i was goofing off and drawing pictures all day . '' mr . chao proposed that he and his wife meet ms . harrington over lunch . ms . harrington politely obliged . ''i never had someone ask me to go to lunch with their parents in my business life , but i was honored , '' she said . by the time dessert was served , jack chao had bestowed his daughter 's boss with the chinese nickname ''may me , '' which means ''pretty woman . '' as a child in texas , ms . chao collected bootleg tapes of japanese anime dubbed in chinese . she also was mad for hello kitty , whose graphic style has rubbed off on the ''ni hao'' characters . ''everything i draw is childish , '' ms . chao said . ms . harrington confirmed dryly , ''yes , preschool was the prime of her life . '' kai_lan inhabits a fantastical realm with an impulsive tiger , a koala who longs to be a panda , a pink rhino and a dumpling loving monkey . kai_lan is ''a born leader who makes affirmative connections with people and nature , paying attention to the feelings of others , '' said a consultant for the series , dr . janxin leu , a cultural psychologist at the university of washington in seattle who studies the dynamics of chinese_american families . she is part of an advisory team of educational researchers and social scientists that helped develop curriculum goals for a show that builds on the interactivity of ''blue 's clues'' and the bilingualism of ''dora the explorer . '' aspects of ms . chao 's father and her grandfather , wensang chao , are blended into the character yeye , a frolicsome patriarch who encourages kai_lan to discover why things happen . the kai_lan yeye relationship is at the core of fanciful stories meant to help young viewers understand the link between feelings and actions . ''every episode has kai_lan promoting respect for elders and the importance of family , '' ms . harrington said . in the premiere episode kai_lan and rintoo , the temperamental tiger , provide a lesson in the roots and ramifications of anger . the best friends enter a dragon_boat festival , only to lose in the first race . rintoo , agitated , says ''i do n't want to race anymore . we lost and it 's not fair . '' he then whacks the boat with his tail , and it lands atop a pagoda . he stomps off and the narrative pauses to allow kai_lan to think out loud . ''the series is about cause and effect , how feelings and behaviors are interconnected , and what language we can use to talk about feelings to bring them under control , '' said dr . laura g . brown , another of the show 's consultants . later in the episode , kai_lan teaches viewers to say ''jump'' in mandarin , china 's official language . vocabulary words will be a regular feature , which may be the right idea at the right time , as interest in the study of mandarin increases in the united_states . an estimated 50 , 000 american children are being taught mandarin in public schools , with an additional 50 , 000 studying in private settings . next month the first 2 , 000 high_school students will take the college_board 's new advanced_placement exam in mandarin . the number is small but an indication of big things to come , said tom matts , director of the board 's world languages initiative . ''we expect to see growth in this course unlike any other introduced in the last decade or so . '' by comparison , said marty abbott , director of education at the american council on the teaching of foreign language in washington , 300 million chinese are learning english , including every schoolchild 7 or older . ''all indications are that we are not getting our children prepared for the global economy , '' ms . abbott said . ''but we get a lot of calls from parents of preschoolers and elementary_school students asking how they can help establish language programs in their schools . they 've seen how engaged their children are with dora . there 's a natural curiosity and openness to language at that age . '' since 2000 viacom , nickelodeon 's parent company , has had channels in south_china 's economically booming pearl_river_delta . mtv and nickelodeon are available there , despite china 's strict policies controlling foreign media . ''ni hao'' eventually will be seen in asia , australia , latin_america and europe . ms . chao said she wanted kai_lan ''to be a chinese_american role model , to be independent , to have a voice , to take the initiative and to not always have to follow others . '' ms . harrington , the executive_producer , said she hoped the series would have a special resonance for the estimated 60 , 000 girls in the united_states who have been adopted from chinese orphanages . one such child is jade lianna peters , who voices the title character . abandoned at a shrine in infancy , she was taken to an orphanage and put up for adoption at 8 months old . john and kathleen peters , a childless couple from milwaukee , flew to china holding a photograph of her the size of a postage stamp . ''when they placed her in my arms , she stared at me for about five minutes , and i stared back , '' mrs . peters said . ''then , all of a sudden , she let out this big sigh , as if she were saying , 'if this is what i 'm stuck with , it will at least be interesting . ' '' now 10 , jade lianna , who is being tutored in mandarin , reads lines from a studio in suburban milwaukee , linked by high speed cable to the nickelodeon center in burbank , her sandpapery voice adding nuance and energy to a story about a backyard safari . listening in from california , ms . chao is thrilled by jade lianna 's interpretation of kai_lan 's exuberance and affection for yeye . ''in chinese_culture everything is expressed in terms of the heart , '' ms . chao says . ''when a child is happy , she is said to have an open heart . when sad , her heart has been hurt . my father often speaks of this . he says being part of a family means having one heart . '' ''whenever i go home , that 's when i feel the safest . '' she says . ''that 's the soul of 'ni hao , kai_lan ! ' '' television correction april 22 , 2007 , sunday an article last sunday about the forthcoming nickelodeon television_series ''ni hao , kai_lan ! '' misspelled the surname of the show 's creator . she is karen chau , not chao .",has a topic of arts
"for most americans , the persian_gulf_war was a fireworks of images , many courtesy of cnn the spectacular nighttime bombing of baghdad the flaming kuwaiti oil wells the iraqi air_raid_shelter destroyed by an american bomb and the american barracks destroyed by an iraqi missile president saddam_hussein patting the head of a young hostage a battered american prisoner speaking into an iraqi camera the hundreds of thousands of troops massed in the desert the pathetic surrenders of stunned iraqi soldiers the carnage along the "" highway of death "" back to iraq the briefings that made instant television stars of colin l . powell and h . norman_schwarzkopf . these and more are all on show again in "" the gulf_war , "" a four hour recapitulation and critical analysis on the fifth anniversary of a war that began with miscalculations , was fought with mistakes and ended in what is described here as a ragged victory . missing from the famous televised briefings were the disagreements and infighting among policy_makers in washington and commanders in the field . by this account , president george_bush and others of his generation saw president hussein 's aggression as a challenge like that of hitler 's , while officers who had served in vietnam , including general powell , resisted having to fight another unpopular war in a distant country . tonight 's chroniclers note the miscalculations both in washington and baghdad . the pentagon underestimated the iraqi dictator 's ambitions and overestimated his military prowess . as for president hussein , he is reported to have convinced himself that americans would never fight . a former iraqi intelligence officer describes his boss 's erratic behavior and shaky decisions as reality intruded . the players at the time , including secretary of state james a . baker 3d , prime_minister margaret_thatcher of britain , president hosni_mubarak of egypt and foreign_minister tariq_aziz of iraq , have their say . so do american fighters , accompanied by vivid views from cockpit and tank and their commanders relive somewhat testily their own battles over tactics . particular attention is given to the political complexities for the american arab alliance of iraq 's scud_missile attacks on israel washington 's assurances that american patriot_missiles were destroying the scuds are debunked . president_bush , after some public bumbling about the reasons for going to the aid of kuwait , is credited with forging a remarkable coalition in support of the war . the narrator says , "" the man often derided as a political wimp had maneuvered his generals , his country and most of the world to join his stand in the desert . "" general schwarzkopf , however , is a target of repeated criticism , particularly from bernard e . trainor , a former military correspondent of the new york times and one of the retired_generals whom the war brought employment as television analysts . among the american commander 's more far reaching errors , general trainor says , was to allow the beaten iraqis to continue to fly their armed helicopters , enabling them to crush anti hussein resistance in their country . what critics still count as a premature ending of the war is attributed largely to general powell , who comes through in this assessment as the least bloody minded military leader in history . he had no taste for further slaughter of the retreating iraqis , which , not incidentally , might have played badly on american television , so iraq was left with its best troops fairly intact . general powell , frequently on screen tonight , becomes a central figure of this steadily illuminating documentary , typifying the tension between political and military calculations from the halting start to the abrupt end of a big but brief , successful yet unsatisfying war . ( from friday through next tuesday , a e will also mark the anniversary with hourlong programs about president hussein , general powell and general schwarzkopf and two hours on the war itself . ) 'nova' 'terror in the mine fields' pbs , tonight at 8 ( channel 13 in new york ) war is the pbs theme tonight . if this report on the millions of mines still in the ground in cambodia , killing and maiming thousands of civilians each year , is not grim enough , the presence of american_troops in mine strewn bosnia brings the danger closer to home . the first american casualty was from an antitank land mine . here is everything you might want to know or prefer not to know about how mines of various sorts mangle and murder , the difficulties of detecting and defanging them and efforts around the world to ban or limit the cheap and popular little killers . the hour ends with the news that the khmer_rouge which , remarkably , allowed a "" nova "" camera to film a training course in mine laying is still planting mines faster than they can be detected . frontline the gulf_war pbs , tonight and tomorrow ( channel 13 , new york , at 9 ) written and produced by eamon matthews for the bbc and fine_art productions jenny roberts , editor . for frontline ben loeterman , producer phil mcdonald , jean boucicaut , glenn hunsberger , editors david fanning , executive_producer . narrated by will lyman . television review",has a topic of arts
"lead the bolshoi_ballet is to visit china next year for the soviet troupe 's first performances there in 30 years , the official new china news_agency said thursday . the bolshoi_ballet is to visit china next year for the soviet troupe 's first performances there in 30 years , the official new china news_agency said thursday . it quoted the visiting soviet minister of culture , vasily g . zakharov , as saying the performances would strengthen cultural ties . china and the soviet_union have renewed cultural , trade and technological ties after a 25 year dispute over foreign_policy and ideology .",has a topic of arts
"the last time ted_koppel traveled across the iraqi desert , it was at the start of the united_states led invasion in march , accompanying the tanks of the third infantry division . this week mr . koppel is on the road again with an abc_news crew , retracing his steps from the kuwaiti border to baghdad for ''nightline . '' ten months ago , the only way into battle was alongside united_states troops as a so called embedded reporter . mr . koppel distinguished himself with calm , analytic reporting and a cool demeanor . by choosing the constraint of following the same route , he left himself at the mercy of fate , and little of note happened on monday_night 's program , about the trip from the border to the baghdad airport . once he reached baghdad and could make contact with different military units , mr . koppel found more newsworthy events . for last night 's program he and his crew went along on a raid conducted by the 82nd_airborne_division , which led to the capture of two suspects sought by american_forces , said leroy sievers , a ''nightline'' executive_producer . the next day , mr . sievers said by telephone from baghdad , mr . koppel visited an iraqi youth center that the american military was building as a peace offering to the local population it came under attack by rocket propelled grenades when mr . koppel and his crew were in a nearby building . not everything was as journalistically fruitful . the road trip , the subject of the one hour special ''nightline'' on monday , consisted mostly of insipid interviews with local iraqis and time consuming car trouble . hearing about television journalists' logistical difficulties in a war zone is akin to listening to a friend describe her strange dream of the night before it never is as gratifying for the listener . some of the best moments were flashbacks to march , when mr . koppel was reporting in an oversize helmet and combat fatigues , sounding as calm and composed under fire as a tennis expert commenting on a wimbledon match . as the week progresses , mr . koppel is likely to find other interview subjects and images more worthy of his analytic skills . but even on monday , there was some information to be gleaned from what mr . koppel 's cameras were not allowed to show . in april , when mr . koppel arrived at the baghdad airport , he reported that officers expressed surprise at how little resistance they met . and he had carte_blanche to report on what he saw . this time american military officials would not allow him to film any of the concrete barriers or other security measures set up to guard the airport from attack . mr . koppel asked an officer why everyone on the base seemed so ''uptight . '' the officer corrected him politely , saying that the soldiers were not overly tense , just ''vigilant . '' as the noise of helicopters forced the interview to a close , the officer smiled defensively and yelled that the racket was ''the sound of freedom . '' nightline abc , weeknights at 11 35 eastern and pacific times 10 35 , central time the tv watch",has a topic of arts
"lead tourists and romans today got a glimpse of five well known monuments from ancient_rome , most of them restored for the first time since they were erected in the first centuries after the birth of christ . tourists and romans today got a glimpse of five well known monuments from ancient_rome , most of them restored for the first time since they were erected in the first centuries after the birth of christ . visitors were allowed onto the scaffoldings of the two columns , two arches and a temple that have shrouded the works since 1981 , when the project began . one , the arch of constantine , erected in a.d . 315 near the colosseum , is considered the last notable work of roman architecture , although it actually was built over three arches from fragments of older monuments . the nearly intact 100 foot trajan 's column , one of the roman forum 's most outstanding monuments with its relief carvings , also was unveiled along with the majestic column of marcus aurelius , erected in a.d . 169 176 . to be revealed slowly also newly restored were the arch of septimius severus , a triple arch 69 feet_tall and 75 feet wide , that rises at the northwest corner of the roman forum , and the temple of hadrian , whose remains are incorporated into the facade of the stock_exchange in downtown rome . giangiacomo martines , the architect who supervised the restoration , said the monuments would be revealed slowly during the spring as restorers gradually dismantle the scaffolding . restorers removed layers of dirt and smog , which threatened to damage the marble surface , using sandpaper and water mixed with resins . restoration of a section about three feet square typically took 10 hours , mr . martines said .",has a topic of arts
"this summer the president of the italian state broadcasting system , rai , addressed the national congress of the national alliance , the right wing party led principally by what are known as ''post fascists . '' the official , antonio baldassarre , announced that it was time to ' 'rewrite history'' that is , as it is presented on italian television . ''the old rai represented only one culture and not others , '' he said . ''often , they did n't tell real history , but told fables , offered one sided interpretations . '' this exhortation before a party whose older leaders were youthful fascists had a very clear meaning no more black and white representations of anti fascists and partisan fighters as noble patriots and fascists as evil criminals . history , cynics say , is written by the winners . at the end of world_war_ii , the anti fascists who had been kept out of public life for 20 years got to tell their story and name streets and piazzas after their heroes . but with the return of a center right coalition last year , whose second largest party is the national alliance , many on the right feel that it is their turn now . domenico fisichella , a professor of political_science at the university of rome and a senator representing the national alliance , believes that the political changes have opened up new possibilities . ''the right has given up fascism as a model , '' he said . ''and at the same time , the historiographical debate on the fascist period has grown more serene , more balanced . '' mr . fisichella first proposed forming the national alliance in 1994 out of what had , up to that time , been a neo_fascist party known as the italian social movement . he is one of several scholars who have offered a more mixed judgment of the fascist era . ''it was clearly an authoritarian government but not a totalitarian one , '' he said in a telephone interview . ''fascism committed serious errors that led to the tragedy we all know , '' he added , referring to the alliance with hitler and world_war_ii . ''but it also passed a great deal of social and economic legislation that was quite valid , that was innovative for its time and even copied in part by the new deal in ending the depression . the gospel of left_wing historiography failed to make these distinctions and simply bunched fascism with nazism . '' an end to the demonization of fascism by scholars created an opportunity for italy 's old neo_fascist party to move from the political fringe toward the center . the leadership of the national alliance has seized it and gone out of its way to distance itself from fascism . the party leader , gianfranco fini , has criticized fascism 's racial laws and has traveled to both auschwitz and israel . earlier this year , he publicly retracted a statement he had made 10 years ago calling benito mussolini ''the greatest statesman of the 20th_century . '' moreover , mr . fini proclaimed april 25 the date in 1945 when world_war_ii ended in italy a day for all italians to celebrate the return of liberty and democracy . this was a major concession most of the leaders of the old italian social movement and many in the newer national alliance had been repubblichini , young volunteers in the republic of salo , the government of die_hard fascists who fought alongside mussolini and hitler after the official italian government had switched sides and thrown in its lot with the anglo american allies . the two movements may seem contradictory the post fascists being more critical of fascism and the historians treating it more kindly but they are intimately related . the rehabilitation of the national alliance would probably not have been possible without a gradual softening of the portrayal of fascism both in the scholarly literature and the popular media . if the older leaders of the national alliance were regarded as war_criminals like the nazis , it would have been impossible for them to occupy positions in the government . but now one former repubblichino , mirko tremaglia , is even a minister of the current government . a less unfavorable view of the mussolini era is prevailing , partly because of the political necessity of integrating the former neo fascists into the mainstream . for example , prime_minister silvio_berlusconi , whose forza_italia ( go , italy ) party leads the government , justifies his partnership with the national alliance by saying that the good in fascism must be remembered as well as the bad . a few years ago , francesco rutelli , a center left politician who was then the mayor of rome , proposed naming a street after giuseppe bottai , minister of education under mussolini . the idea was dropped when many protested that bottai had enthusiastically carried out the racial laws that forced jewish professors and students out of the italian public_school system . this trend is a marked change . for much of the postwar period , fascism was portrayed as a criminal regime imposed by mussolini and his squads of black shirts a_20 year ''parenthesis'' in the history of a democratic italy that began with independence in 1861 . this view was challenged during the 1970 's by scholars like mr . fisichella but , most important , by renzo de felice , a historian who devoted more than 30 years to a multivolume biography of mussolini and whose work dominated the italian historiography of fascism until his death a few years ago . ''de felice offered a broader and less moralistic picture of fascism , '' said roberto vivarelli , a professor of history at the university of florence . ''i think he showed that fascism was not extraneous to the history of italy , not a parenthesis . '' de felice insisted that the demonization of fascism failed to explain adequately its rise and hold on one of the principal countries of europe . mussolini , he argued , enjoyed popularity and the ''consensus'' of most of the country up until world_war_ii . de felice stressed the differences between italian fascism and german national socialism . fascism , despite its claim to being a ''totalitarian'' regime , was , he argued , a softer dictatorship that retained much of the liberal bureaucracy , made peace with the roman_catholic_church and did not share hitler 's obsession with racism and the jews . ( mussolini , he observed , adopted racial laws only on the eve of the war , largely to cement his alliance with germany . ) even some historians with impeccable anti fascist credentials feel that the re examination of fascism has led to a more rounded , less doctrinaire history . claudio pavone , a former resistance fighter and historian , for example , annoyed some anti fascists when he portrayed the struggle between partisans and repubblichini at the end of world_war_ii as a civil_war instead of a war of liberation . it was a war that pitted italians against other italians , and tens of thousands of repubblichini , he argued , volunteered out of genuine patriotic fervor , however unpleasant or misguided . yet many others feel that de felice went too far in rehabilitating fascism . in a recent collection of essays debating the merits of de felice 's work , denis mack smith , an oxford historian , denounces de felice for minimizing the uglier side of fascism , like mussolini 's personal responsibility for killing political opponents and leading italy to ruin in world_war_ii . nicola tranfaglia , a professor of history at the university of turin , argues that de felice overstated il duce 's popular support . ''i think it 's wrong to speak of 'consensus' in a dictatorship , '' he said . mussolini enjoyed a measure of popularity , even adulation , mr . tranfaglia said , but never dared put it to the test of free elections . during the 1980 's , cruder and more simplified versions of the de felice thesis began to circulate . contrary to mr . baldassarre 's assertion that rai has told only one side of the story of fascism , the state broadcasting system used de felice as a consultant on many broadcasts and hired a number of his less refined acolytes to make documentaries . some of them offered admiring portraits of fascist leaders that included little historical context . indeed , in response to mr . baldassarre 's remarks about the one sided , left_wing history of the state broadcasting system , james walston , a professor of history at the american_university of rome , pointed out that rai had run films that focused on the courageous efforts of italian army officials to rescue jews during world_war_ii , while glossing over the effects of mussolini 's racial laws and the republic of salo 's collaboration with the nazis in deporting jews . to victoria de grazia , a professor of history at columbia_university , de felice exercised undue_influence in determining the way history was written . ''by declaring that mussolini was not hitler , he closed the door on good , comparative research between germany and italy , '' she said . de felice was in the unusual position of being the first to receive the documents of the italian state as they were declassified . he kept much important material at his home , and controlled access to it carefully . ( since de felice 's death , she added , important new work has been done on the darker sides of fascism , like the killing of political opponents and the massacres during the invasions of ethiopia and yugoslavia . ) but far more publicity has gone to books pushing an increasingly revisionist point of view . in 1996 in his book ''la morte della patria'' ( ''the death of the fatherland'' ) , ernesto galli della loggia , a professor of history at the university of perugia and a prominent conservative political commentator , even blamed those who fought alongside the anglo american allies for the death of national feeling in italy . a strange confirmation of the reversal of the usual opposition between ''good partisans'' and ''evil fascists'' came in 1997 when a rome magistrate opened a war_crimes investigation of the partisans who had blown up a convoy of german soldiers during world_war_ii . the judge , maurizio pacioni , maintained that the partisans were responsible for the death of an 11 year old boy accidentally killed by the partisans' bomb , but shelved the case because of an amnesty for crimes from the fascist period . ( members of the national alliance had encouraged the boy 's family to pursue the case . ) nonetheless , what had always been regarded as a heroic episode had now , in the eyes of some , been criminalized . a romantic version of the republic of salo as noble loyalists to a lost cause and a new critical view of the partisan struggle have already seeped into the popular media , said massimo salvadori , a historian at the university of turin . ''there was one rai broadcast that portrayed the repubblichini as more morally coherent , patriots who refused to change sides even when defeat was imminent , while the partisans were seen to be opportunistic turncoats who were jumping on the winning bandwagon , '' he said . the need to recognize former repubblichini in the government as people of good faith , mr . salvadori says , has distorted the historical discussion ''what matters to me as a historian is not good faith , but the objective consequences of people 's actions . many nazi storm troopers were no doubt also in good faith , believing they were serving their country , but what were the consequences of their actions ? the republic of salo fought alongside hitler , and had they won , it would have meant dictatorship in italy and the rest of europe . the consequence of the partisan struggle was to restore democracy and civil_liberties to italy . so , objectively , i think it 's possible to say one was right and the other wrong . '' curiously , in a period in which so many are bending over backward to be fair to fascism , it is now left to a former neo_fascist , mr . fini , the leader of the national alliance , to state that the anti fascist victory ending world_war_ii was a victory for all italians .",has a topic of arts
"the hosts of ''today'' and ''good morning america'' began yesterday on their feet , standing like evening news anchors alongside maps and images of iraq marking the fourth anniversary of the war by looking back at its disappointments . images of roadside_bombings and sectarian carnage flashed across the screen along with a clip of vice_president dick_cheney in 2003 saying that american_troops would be ''greeted as liberators . '' president_bush delivered a televised rebuttal with a live address to the nation . standing in front of a long shelf of books in the roosevelt room , a stance meant to project wisdom more than power , mr . bush assured viewers that since the january troop increase , there were ' 'some hopeful signs'' on the ground . the war has changed dramatically since the early , heady days of shock and awe . television over the past four years has changed with it , not always for better but not necessarily for worse . most americans , spared tax increases , rationing or a draft , still have no direct sense of the war beyond the television set . when asked in january what sacrifices americans have made , mr . bush replied , ''they sacrifice peace of mind when they see the terrible images of violence on tv every night . '' the networks , which covered the early days of the invasion on tiptoe , worried that their patriotism in the wake of 9 11 would be questioned , have grown more openly skeptical . but news programs are not the only place where viewers are exposed to the conflict in iraq . since the invasion , and most particularly in the aftermath of the abu_ghraib scandal , the war on terror has surfaced as a subplot or subliminal theme , not just on ''24'' or ripped from the headline crime series like ''law order , '' but even on reality_shows and sitcoms . on nbc 's ''30 rock , '' the network executive played by alec baldwin tells co workers that he is dating secretary of state condoleezza_rice . most of the shows echo the public 's disenchantment after abu_ghraib and the military failures in iraq . sometimes the iraq conflict takes over an entire plotline an episode of ''criminal minds , '' a cbs series about serial killers and psychopaths , turned its focus to a muslim terrorist suspect being held at guant_namo without due process . ( he is thrown on the floor of an interrogation room in his underpants , hands and feet bound by chains and his face bruised from beatings . ) other times , references to the war pop up almost gratuitously . on cbs 's ''without a trace , '' an f.b.i . agent described a potentially disastrous pipe leak in the ocean as ''the ecological equivalent of iraq . '' television shows process news events much faster than ever before , but not much more directly than they did at the time of ''hogan 's heroes , '' ''m a s h'' or ''china beach . '' they do not grapple any more straightforwardly with the larger issues of whether the war is right or wrong , or even try to paint the full reality of the war itself . ''the unit , '' a cbs series about the derring do of top secret special_forces , prefers to set its combat scenes elsewhere than iraq , sometimes as close as afghanistan , but more often africa or asia . that could be because steven bochco 's ''over there , '' a 13 episode series about soldiers fighting in iraq , was not a hit . shown on fx , it was the first television drama about the conflict , and hard to watch a series that turned a war into entertainment while it was still being fought . producers and writers prefer a more elliptical approach , siphoning off the most dramatic and troubling elements . on abc 's ''brothers sisters , '' the drug addicted youngest brother is a damaged veteran of the war in afghanistan . even ''grey 's anatomy'' wriggled its way into the war meredith 's half sister , molly , gave birth while her husband was in iraq . but most of all , shows write in references to torture and the abuse of prisoners , perhaps because those acts so sharply undermine the idealization of civil_servants and servicemen on shows like ''csi'' or ''ncis'' on cbs . fox 's ''24'' is a counterterrorism thriller that supports the notion that in the war against extremism , the use of torture is both necessary and effective . it 's the exception . last season ''sleeper cell , '' a series on showtime , dramatized the opposite argument the terrorist leader , farik , sat in a c.i.a . prison , withstanding gruesome psychological and physical torture and taunting his captors about their ambivalence about such methods . ''you americans are so obsessed with yourselves , '' farik says , ''that you care more about analyzing your guilt than achieving victory . that is why we will win , and you will lose . '' ( the c.i.a . outsources him to the less inhibited interrogators in saudi_arabia . ) torture is turned into a joke on ''saturday_night_live'' or ''the daily show with jon_stewart , '' as well as on the much discussed and now defunct fox series ''arrested development . '' at the end of that sitcom 's run in 2006 , two bluth brothers traveled to baghdad to seek their other brother 's release from an iraqi prison . ''it 's u.s . run , '' one says . ''god knows what they are doing to him . '' the topic is anything but funny on dramas . on nbc 's ''heroes'' two los angeles police officers race to interview a suspect unfairly tagged as a muslim extremist . ''he 's got one hour before homeland_security sends him down the rabbit hole as a suspected terrorist , '' an officer says . crime series have long dramatized the tensions between police officers and the f.b.i. , but over the past four years the f.b.i . 's handling or mishandling of the terrorist threat has provided new fodder for conflict . on tnt 's show ''the closer , '' the f.b.i . tries to take over a homicide case from the los angeles police department , arguing that the murder is a matter of ''national_security . '' an iranian suspect tells an agent that he has legal rights . ''really ? '' the agent replies . ''you might want to take a closer look at the patriot act . '' americans do n't watch the news as closely as they should , but the news has a way of closing in on popular_culture . the tv watch",has a topic of arts
to the editor my favorite touch in the design of the west_german president 's living room has to be the mushroom_cloud shaped lamps and table . the interior decorator clearly had a splendid sense of humor . jon feldman brooklyn hotel armageddon,has a topic of arts
"less than a month after thieves made off with more than 100 , 000 in jade objects from the victoria and albert museum in london , the british_museum in london has also fallen victim to theft . fifteen objects from its oriental antiquities gallery were stolen friday , it announced , although the loss was discovered by security staff on saturday . the police said they believed the medieval chinese jewelry , dating from 700 to 1400 , was taken during normal opening hours because no alarms were activated . the easily portable items included hairpins , fingernail guards , earrings , left , and other decorative pieces , taken from a glass cabinet that was forced open . the museum said that the huge gallery was being guarded , but because it is long and segmented by various cases , someone was able to take advantage of an area that was n't being monitored . pam kent",has a topic of arts
"hong kong's 6.3 million people produce more wealth in a year per capita than their british counterparts , yet there is no globe theater here . hong_kong 's streets are clogged with more rolls royces than london 's , yet there is nothing akin to the british_museum . hong_kong , it is said , and it is widely believed , is a single minded place , and its mind is on money . hong_kong , it is widely believed , and it is routinely said , is a cultural wasteland . but tucked away in tiny studios or down red brick arcades or in small mirrored halls , canvases are being daubed with oils , actors struggle with new scripts , and dancers pirouette over worn boards . indeed , art is being born here , in solitude and collaboratively , in defiance , almost , of a social esthetic that prizes money above all else . and it is art , often , that is rooted not in any grand chinese tradition but in hong_kong 's peculiar circumstances and culture . it is art , as well , that at times shudders at the prospect of impending unity with the giant totalitarian neighbor to the north . ''for the true hong_kong artists , '' explains johnson chang , the owner of hanart , a gallery that displays both prominent mainland painters and hong_kong artists , ''it 's always in the back of their mind the awareness of this historical era , of this unknown , is very unsettling . but it is what makes hong_kong hong_kong . the one thing that has changed quite a bit in the last few years is that people are looking at specifically what makes hong_kong hong_kong . '' over the last 150 years , hong_kong has been ruled mostly by plumed , beribboned and brocaded emissaries from london who , over the decades , were buttressed by legions of mostly second_rate british bureaucrats ( filth , as they 've been known failed in london , try hong_kong ) , all in the service of the great british trading houses . nowhere in their thinking was there much room for hong_kong 's local population , whom until recent memory were barred from the clubs , management suites and halls of government . british colonial culture here consisted largely of chinese seascapes by british artists , and portraits , traveling string quartets and the christmas pantomime , which more often than not poked fun at local ways . to the colonialists , and the foreign traders and bankers who followed them , this was hong_kong 's culture . but here , as hong_kong grew from a cluster of villages to one of the world 's foremost economies , the territory 's culture evolved in ways neither completely chinese nor mimetically british in ways that were distinctly hong_kong , suffused by the transient nature of life here and by the influx of millions of refugees fleeing communism , and epitomized by a language that emerged at some distance from that spoken just over the fence in china . now , with china resuming sovereignty of hong_kong in less than five months , many of hong_kong 's leading artists are contemplating a future littered with more unknowns than certainties . questions of artistic freedom , sources of financing , the looming shadow of mainland artistry , whether state sponsored or not , all linger on a horizon that has grown startlingly close . and while some artists continue to work unruffled by the thought of impending chinese suzerainty , others find the prospect threatening , not only because of the censorship and pressures so prevalent on the mainland but especially because the nurturing of an indigenous culture and art scene is so very recent and , in the eyes of some , so very fragile . ''part of the colonial strategy , '' argues oscar ho hing kay , an artist who has moved gracefully from sculpture to drawing in charcoal , ''has been to get people to make money . this has been the whole model of educational philosophy here . look at how insignificant art courses are here . '' ( hong_kong does not possess a full time academy . ) ''and the nice thing about this for colonial rule is that you do n't ask ideological questions . you just make money . art is about asking questions , being rebellious . '' leafing through heavy ivory colored sheets dark with charcoal images of hong_kong , cornered with colophons in a dense tumble of chinese not the chinese of china , but the chinese of hong_kong mr . ho fingers a recent work . under a heavy sky with a hint of central hong kong in the distance , two flattened figures peer from beneath large boulders , a work he titles ''strange rock disease . '' in a choppy , vernacular cantonese that falls on local ears the way brooklynese may sound in los_angeles , a colophon explains ''a bizarre epidemic has broken out in a place near tuen mun . those struck down by it have a rock that grows out of their back . the rock gets bigger and bigger until it crushes the patient to death . it seems like this disease is spreading . the medical authorities are so worried that they 've classified this disease as highly confidential . '' this drawing , part of mr . ho 's series ''tales around town , '' is drawn from the cornucopia of local myths and folk tales that he has gathered in his explorations of hong_kong , or simply in his daily encounters . ''the 'tales around town' are almost like a diary , '' he explains . ''you hear them , and you come home and do them . '' mr . chang of hanart gallery , who has displayed mr . ho 's work , sees in it disturbing images of life and imagination . ''they 're more like paranoia and nightmares about hong_kong , '' he suggests . ''they are like folk ghost stories he actually did n't make them up . there is one in particular that is very dark , this one of the rumor about the stone lion in front of the old bank of china that devours people . '' ''stone lion turns into demon'' is the fifth in the ''tales'' series , a blackened , representation of a stone hewn lion stretching suddenly from its pedestal to snare a passer by . ''one of the pair of stone lions outside the old bank of china building in central has turned into a demon and has been attacking people around midnight . those in the know say that if you pour red paint on the lion 's head it can stop the lion demon . '' despite the apparent blatancy of the symbolism at work in this piece ( since 1949 , the bank of china has been beijing 's most prominent granite presence in this british colony ) , mr . ho emphasizes the oral taletelling of the work that is imbedded in hong_kong life . ''this is hong_kong mythology , '' he says , ''twisted around . '' visions of meaning from a windowless room gaylord chan , a snowdrift of white hair pushed back from his face , squeezed past a table of earnest children raptly brushing ideographs onto large sheets of paper and padded into a windowless room bathed by fluorescent tubes . easels with unfinished canvases crowded together , stacks of stretched canvases tipped against walls hung with framed and frameless paintings . ''this is where i work , '' he said , his hand flitting over the jumble before him . from this brightly lighted cave , hong_kong 's eldest , and perhaps its most important , artist has produced a formidable oeuvre . but it is not his paintings that have paid the bills it is the gaggle of children in the front rooms who come to his school for art and calligraphy , as well as older students . his paintings now are large , boldly defined acrylics on canvas , abstract shapes that suggest urban life and passions . the local critic tsong zung chang wrote that mr . chan 's canvases ''are inspired by the mundane signs and symbols of the city neon lights , billboards , traffic signs . '' ''these images speak to him , '' the review continued . ''they are suggestive of special meanings and hidden messages , secrets unbeknown to the graphic artists who created them . '' they show a world that mr . chan and many of his colleagues see as destined to be transformed . mr . chan contends that artists , and the art scene in hong_kong , will inevitably change under chinese rule . ''the audience will change to some extent , '' he says . ''some artists will respond to that . but those artists who do art for the sake of art , they would n't care less . some will be influenced by what comes from the north , of course . if hong_kong were suddenly taken by italians , you would see change in that direction . '' a return to roots to get ready for change yet other artists , like lucia cheung , stress the chinese roots of their work , roots inherent in the wash of chinese cultural and social forces . although she trained in italy , ms . cheung gradually moved in the last decade or so from a distinctly western style in her paintings to more discernibly chinese overtones . ''i found more and more i cling to chinese work , '' she explains , showing a visitor through a range of her work hung in her vast apartment . ''i found something that is so intimate , something more satisfying . there 's a lot to say through a flower , a petal . you can also write down a poem . in chinese painting it is not the process , but afterward . maybe because i am chinese . '' from a long series of somber ink wash paintings of austere , virtually lifeless landscapes huddled under scowling skies paintings reflecting deep angst over the death of her only son ms . cheung has in the last year or so produced a series of witty paintings of hong_kong on gold flecked handmade paper , pondering in many cases the territory 's return to chinese sovereignty . one , titled ''meeting as usual , '' depicts hong_kong 's skyline and race_track , with stylized tang horses on the track , all suggesting normal life . yet the sky in the scene is the red starred ceiling of beijing 's great_hall of the people , the vast hall where the chinese communist party meets every five years . the advent of chinese rule is but one constraint facing artists in hong_kong , according to ms . cheung . more troubling in some ways , she feels , is an esthetic indifference to hong_kong 's own artists , a feeling that the only thing of value in hong_kong is money and how it is made . ''before , nobody cared about art in hong_kong , '' she explains . ''now it 's changing a bit . but people pay much more attention to imported art . local art is not good enough . '' ''certainly artists in china face more difficulties than we do , '' she says . ''in hong_kong we are so free . there 's no lack of materials . but you do n't have the space , the atmosphere that gives you encouragement . hong_kong is a british colony . we are so free to receive everything . but you must be wise enough to chose what is good for you . to find the balance is difficult . you need to look for your identity . '' on an open stage , a wealth of styles at a gallery and theater space called the fringe , its director , benny chia , insisted that the diversity of artistic impulse and creativity , whether on stage or in galleries , were both important expressions of hong_kong 's identity and a vibrant sign of a blossoming , independent culture . indeed , the fringe , a tiny gallery and a somewhat battered stage in one of the few surviving colonial buildings in the high rent central district , is the one place in hong_kong where artists , whether widely known or not , or playwrights , whether working on first plays or on a string of stage successes , can display their work . but with chinese rule looming , mr . chia wonders what the landscape for artists will look like in six months . ''it must occur to every artist whether there will be the same degree of freedom after 1997 , '' he says . ''we know you can create impressive works of art in the most repressive environment . but as far as i can tell , the government has no wish to close its doors on the rest of the world . '' on the other hand , mr . chia argues , ''there are a number of things hong_kong will benefit from after 1997 . psychologically , you will feel like you belong to a larger space . in vision , hong_kong is a very small place . people will start to look at what you can do with china . '' mr . chang , of hanart , contends that hong_kong artists will continue to face obstacles simply because of the kind of society hong_kong is . ''in hong_kong , artists are really an underground , '' he says . ''nobody buys their work . nobody is interested in their work . nobody takes them seriously . there is no art scene in hong_kong , like you have in new york . the real reason is , hong_kong is an emigre society . most people consider the real native culture china , not here . 'true' chinese_art must be from the mainland . '' a focus on home while looking ahead nonetheless , the growth of hong_kong 's indigenous cultural expression does seem to be well rooted . although a product of british theatrical efforts , the chung ying theater company under its new artistic director and its first chinese director , ko tin lung , has dumped shakespeare in favor of the works of local playwrights like emily cheng , cheung tat ming and , most often , mr . ko 's own prodigious output . a former actor who worked for a time in the united_states , mr . ko returned to hong_kong in 1989 and was named chung ying 's artistic director in 1993 . in an early 20th_century red brick colonial building rimmed with graceful arcades , mr . ko puts his 17 professional actors through their paces for his newest production , ''a chronicle of lights and shadows , '' a play exploring the frenzied history of hong kong 's film_industry . written in the cantonese dialect of hong_kong , the play follows the career of a sometimes working , sometimes out of work assistant_director , and her loves and betrayals as the film_industry alternately soars and swoons . despite his central focus on hong_kong themes , mr . ko admits that hong_kong 's internationalism demands some foreign threads . ''i think we do focus very much on developing new playwrights and new plays , '' he offers . ''however i think we have to keep in contact with the world . i do think theater is a global village . '' a global village perhaps , but one that reaches the stage of chung ying very deliberately in cantonese . ''there 's a controversy about whether we should perform in mandarin after 1997 , '' says mr . ko , referring to the official dialect of china . ''this is an issue . of course you could have two versions of a play . but some people say that if you want to retain your identity , you must perform in cantonese . i do n't think chung ying will have mandarin versions of its plays . '' he laughs and then adds , ''very practically , my actors do n't speak mandarin . '' looking at china with hope and dread although his plays and those he commissions are hardly political , mr . ko feels that chinese rule does pose risks for hong_kong artists . ''i think whether we have problems in '97 or not , we will still do what we are doing . i think it is an artistic choice . if i chose a certain playwright and the play had a sensitive political issue in it , i would support it . i do think we in hong_kong are quite concerned about freedom of expression . '' even closer to the bone , though , is the potential to undermine artistic freedom by withholding government financing . corporate support of the arts is almost unheard of in hong_kong . rather , the arts are heavily subsidized by the government the chung ying company in particular receives about 1 million a year . mr . ko worries that this financing could be vulnerable to political pressure . ''in hong_kong , about 95 percent of local arts activities are either directly or indirectly supported by the government , '' he said . as the cadence of china 's march toward hong_kong grows louder , this territory 's almost newborn , and admittedly fragile , art world wonders about the future , as does the rest of the territory . and while there seems little that any individual artist is doing to prepare for the raising of china 's red flag , there is a general certainty that hong_kong is different from china , and different from everywhere else . ''we really do n't have any contact , emotional or otherwise , with china , with communist_china , '' explains oscar ho , the artist who draws local myths . ''now , this baby_boom generation here is at its prime just as hong_kong goes to china . '' ''we love to see the end of colonialism , '' exudes mr . ho , his boyish , somewhat lopsided grin cleaving his face . ''we rejoice . but at the same time , we dread the return to china . so , you see , with this complexity , things are not black and white . '' waiting for china anxious artists",has a topic of arts
"lead more than 25 artists and groups from new york representing theater , opera , dance and music will perform this month in italy at the carnival of venice . italian artists will take part in the international festival of the arts to be held in new york next year . martin e . segal , the chairman of the new york festival , and italy 's consul general , francesco corrias , announced the exchange at a press conference yesterday . more than 25 artists and groups from new york representing theater , opera , dance and music will perform this month in italy at the carnival of venice . italian artists will take part in the international festival of the arts to be held in new york next year . martin e . segal , the chairman of the new york festival , and italy 's consul general , francesco corrias , announced the exchange at a press conference yesterday . the new york city ballet , bernadette peters and the soprano martina arroyo are among the artists who will perform in venice and palermo during the 12 day festival , which begins feb . 20 .",has a topic of arts
"lead literature is like groceries , says ma feng , the earthy ''old revolutionary'' who is china 's new literary czar in both cases the government should encourage what is nutritious and ban what is poisonous . literature is like groceries , says ma feng , the earthy ''old revolutionary'' who is china 's new literary czar in both cases the government should encourage what is nutritious and ban what is poisonous . these days it is largely up to mr . ma , a lean man of 68 who joined the communist rebellion in 1938 at the age of 16 , to enforce that regulatory vision . it is a formidable task because many authors loathe the regime and develop a writer 's block when they are asked to ' 'serve socialism . '' this leaves mr . ma in an awkward position as the effective head of the chinese writers association . he comes from a different world the countryside of north central china and he made his name writing short stories and film scripts about peasants who brim with decency and enthusiasm for the communist_party . nothing could be further from the urban frustration and alienation that inspire many chinese writers today . ''i do n't like beijing too many people , '' he chuckled the other day while puffing on his beloved zhongnanhai cigarettes in an interview . mr . ma was living in his native shanxi_province , 260 miles southwest of beijing , when the crackdown on democratic impulses came last year and led to his summons to beijing . early this year , mr . ma was formally named vice chairman and party secretary of the chinese writers association , meaning that he would take charge of it . the nominal chairman , the writer ba jin , lives in shanghai and is 86 years old and infirm . he had few responsibilities even before he lost his influence by supporting the student demonstrators seeking democracy . not just a club there is no parallel to the chinese writers association in the west , for it is far more than simply an authors' club . in china , the association is the work unit of the country 's 3 , 500 authors it is the employer , the source of housing and salaries , the organizer of political study sessions and the arbiter of who can travel abroad . chinese publishers pay royalties , but these are less important than the association 's salaries , and in any case it is difficult to be published without the association 's blessing . mr . ma sounds a conciliatory line , asserting that chinese writers can write about whatever they choose , but they must not criticize their country or subvert communism . his catechism is taken from the works of mao_zedong , who argued that art is inseparable from politics and must serve the proletarian revolutionary cause . ''writers should serve socialism and they should serve the people , '' mr . ma said , adding that authors should leave the ivory_tower to understand the land they write about . ''if you write about society , you must study it , '' he said . ''if you write about a factory , you should work in a factory . if you write about the countryside , you should spend time in a village , rather than sitting around the house writing blindly . '' justifying curbs in the last few years , a group of young writers very different from the ''old revolutionaries'' has won prominence and acclaim for their attempts to probe the spirit of post mao china , but mr . ma asserts that they had only a small following . asked about bei dao , a highly respected poet who was one of this circle of younger authors , mr . ma said he found such writers unimpressive . ''they had an impact on some younger arts circles , but if you go to a factory in shanxi_province , no one will have heard of them , '' mr . ma said , adding that ordinary people do not want to read such books . ''they were just a small group of people , '' mr . ma said . ''many good writers are needed by the people , but in the late 1980 's only their writings could be published . now we want to publish books needed by ordinary people in factories and farms . '' talk of revenge many others see it differently and believe that the ''old revolutionaries'' behind the cultural purges leaders like vice_president wang zhen and acting culture minister he jingzhi as well as mr . ma himself now are relishing the opportunity to strike back at those who in recent years looked with contempt at their orthodox marxist view of culture . ''it 's revenge and it 's petty , '' said geremie barme , an australian scholar who recently visited china . one western diplomat said he thought the general attitude toward someone like ma feng was one of contempt . he said that mr . ma had stuck to his ideological line for many years and suddenly been vindicated , and that he was an opportunist turning that to his own advantage . some other diplomats and chinese are not so harsh , portraying mr . ma as a decent man placed in an impossible position . they say he is among the better revolutionary writers but that he has never been an intellectual , in the sense of possessing a doubting or inquiring mind , and that he is out of touch with the main current of writers today . a conciliatory sound mr . ma , well aware of the antagonisms in the field , takes pains to sound a conciliatory line . he even explained the ousting of liu_binyan , a dissident who was vice chairman of the association , not on the basis of mr . liu 's heretical views but on the ground that mr . liu is in the united_states and does not seem likely to return soon . ''in our association , some people took part in the turmoil , '' mr . ma said . ''they wo n't be punished they will be educated . i 'm sure they will change their minds . '' ''we 've received many manuscripts for publication , criticizing various writers , '' mr . ma added . ''but we do n't want to publish them and crush the writers . we want to join forces with them and help them write more things that people want to read . if we criticize them , who will write for us ? what will be left of the writers association ? '' the purge proceeds still , the authorities are going ahead with their purge in cultural circles . the top executives of several publishing houses and journals , including the most prominent , people 's literature , have been replaced . some writers reportedly may not be published , although mr . ma denies the existence of any blacklist , and others have had trouble going abroad . and there has been a yearlong process of investigations , self criticisms and political study sessions to return writers to the straight , narrow and sometimes winding path of marxist orthodoxy . so far this crackdown has had mixed results . in general , there is less experimentation and less writing about the problems of urban , alienated young people and about political discontent . but some works , like harvest , a shanghai literary journal , are still remarkably bold , and recent books are probably more lively and interesting than the leaders might have in mind . ''the new policies have had the effect of making people miserable and angry , and it 's harder to get things done , '' said a western diplomat . ''but at the end of the day similar things end up being written and published . '' a broader effort the selection of mr . ma to head the writers' association appears to be part of a broad effort to evoke the glories of the communist_party in its heyday in china in the 1950 's and early 1960 's . to read people 's daily , watch television or listen to official speeches is to find a resurrection of the themes that emerged in maoist days . lei feng , a model communist and heroic soldier , is again an object of official adoration songs like ''good socialism'' have been re released , and industrial heroes like ''iron man wang'' have been dusted off and hailed in the newspapers . mr . ma fits neatly into this backdrop . after joining the communist_revolution at the age of 16 , he won fame in 1944 with a novel about communist troops , ''heroes of luliang mountains . '' while his father was a scholar who won success in the old imperial examinations , mr . ma 's characters are largely simple , decent peasants who evoke tu the earth and an agrarian charm that goes with it . one of his books , a collection of short stories , has been translated into english . these days , however , mr . ma says he is too busy to write any new stories .",has a topic of arts
"for shen wei , a 33 year old chinese choreographer who is attracting attention at international festivals , dance is essentially about one thing what he calls ''the beauty of human life . '' ''there are some moments like walking in the mountains after the rain when you feel it is so wonderful to be human , '' mr . shen said . all this may sound very chinese , especially from a choreographer who is also a painter more than familiar with his national tradition of landscape painting . when asked about the near nudity in his recent works , mr . shen responded in the same vein ''artistically , the beauty of the human body is important to me . not every piece has to have nudity . but sometimes to put clothes on the body is like covering a flower with a blanket . '' beauty is never one thing for mr . shen and his own life story is anything but ordinary . trained as a child in the fine_art of calligraphy and then a professional chinese opera performer in hunan_province , he became a founding member of china 's first modern_dance troupe , the guangdong modern_dance company . along the way , he read goethe and discussed van_gogh , gauguin and duchamp with his young painter friends . in 1995 he settled in new york , where he has continued to paint in his living room in a building frequented by drug dealers . slight of build but determined in all he does , mr . shen said ''i 'm not afraid of them . i understand them as human beings . '' after undergoing surgery a few years ago to correct a rapid heart beat , he feels that both he and his dances have become serene . as mr . shen repeatedly tells his dancers , beauty can be found in the grotesque or the apparently ugly his favorite painter is francis bacon . last summer , the american_dance_festival in durham , n.c. , presented the premiere of mr . shen 's ''near the terrace , '' which caused a sensation with its striking stream of draped figures often positioned on a stagewide staircase . before choreographing the work , mr . shen showed the dancers a book about the belgian surrealist paul delvaux . ''near the terrace ii , '' a sequel that will have its premiere at the festival next sunday and which will be performed at the kennedy_center for the performing_arts in october , is related to the first piece . but it is more about ''happiness and is more eastern with indonesian music , '' mr . shen said . he told the dancers in his new company , shen wei dance arts ''i see the piece as a lot of flowers and butterflies . everything is in transition . '' grotesquerie , as also seen in ''behind resonance'' in may at the performing_arts center at purchase college in purchase , n.y. , is often found in mr . shen 's concept of beauty . in the pieces he has choreographed since 1996 , when he shifted from a more realistic style and a conventional modern_dance idiom , one often sees near nude bodies in white makeup . these are apt to twist into contorted shapes or look like headless statues . others with large egglike heads might scoot around . in the equivalent of a sculpture garden , a sensual flow of figures on a lakelike surface might be interrupted by clownish interlopers who tumble into angular silhouettes . it is tempting at first glance to think of mr . shen 's choreography as having something in common with the images in the work of martha clarke , japanese butoh dance and robert wilson . yet if it is easy to label his pieces as image theater , surreal and dreamlike , they are in fact distinctive in their startling originality . mr . shen has a quality of haunting strangeness that others do not . ''quality of feelings'' is the central phrase that mr . shen used in an interview in new york . the specific meaning of his pieces may appear hidden , but not so their emotional resonance . ''i do n't want to tell audiences what to see , but i can control a visual image to give them a quality of what to feel , '' mr . shen said . ''everything is about what i feel in real life although i no longer choreograph about real life 's problems . i try to make this quality more intense so the audience can feel it . then later they can make up their mind about the piece . '' unlike most choreographers , mr . shen spends considerable time talking to dancers before creating a piece . he shows them paintings and art books . sometimes he shows films by fellini and the russian director andrei tarkovsky . ''my dancers must understand my artistic vision and what i believe as an artist and a human being , '' he said . ''if they trust what i do and they believe what they are doing is truthful , the quality that comes out is more honest . '' experience formed him , especially the fact that he left his family at 9 , he said . his father wrote scenarios and directed and acted in an opera_company in the xian opera style , an older tradition than the beijing opera . mr . shen was the middle of three brothers , born in xian ying , a town in hunan . ''we lived in the same building behind the theater , '' he recalled . ''as a boy i would watch the actors put on makeup and i would play with the costumes . '' because his grandmother on his mother 's side came from a wealthy family , she was ill treated during the cultural_revolution and lived in the countryside . paradoxically , there was more food there and mr . shen was sent to live with her . at 7 , he appeared onstage in his father 's productions and the three brothers practiced calligraphy every day . ''my life was already set up , '' mr . shen said . ''i was doing dancing and painting . '' in 1978 he was admitted to the opera department of the new hunan arts school in changsha . ''there were no pop stars in china as there are now . to be a hunan opera star was very prestigious . it was a very hard school because they were trying to get back the training lost during the cultural_revolution . '' the regimen was difficult . the children would rise at 5 30 a.m . to practice voice in the mountain air and go through classes , with an afternoon nap , through 9 p.m . in the art classes , mr . shen saw a reproduction of duchamp 's famous cubist painting , ''nude descending a staircase . '' ''i remembered i loved the movement in that picture , '' he said . in 1984 , he became a member of the hunan xian opera_company . today , he said ''i see chinese opera as an avant_garde form . many western people like robert wilson want to do it . '' in 1989 , mr . shen left the company and applied to the beijing fine_arts academy . when he was not admitted , his friends told him it was just as well ''you will lose your personality in this school by copying your teachers for four years . '' yet to raise money to go to beijing , mr . shen choreographed a solo , ''life , '' for himself to part of beethoven 's ninth symphony . he won a competition cash prize . ''i had seen a modern_dance company from canada , '' he said . deciding to become a dancer , he spent three months with an army song and dance ensemble before entering the guangdong dance_academy . yang mei qui , its artistic director , had attended the american_dance_festival . in collaboration with the festival 's directors , charles and stephanie reinhart , she founded the first chinese modern_dance troupe in guangdong . mr . shen was one of the students who graduated into the new company and choreographed many pieces for it . yet he was not allowed out of china when the troupe made its united_states debut in 1991 at the festival . he had taken a trip to the countryside with two taiwanese dancers sent to teach classes by an american teacher . mr . shen learned later that it was taboo at that time to make friends with taiwanese visitors . ''i left the company later because of these problems , '' he said . helen lai , a choreographer in hong_kong , obtained a scholarship for him in new york at the school founded by alwin_nikolais and murray louis . mr . shen arrived in january 1995 . the american_dance_festival invited him to choreograph the next summer , and the composer tan dun introduced him to ms . clarke , who cast him in the operas she directed . living on the edge during his first years , he nonetheless found new york city ''the best place for an artist . '' ''nothing is just one thing here , '' he continued , ''and you see a lot of art . in other countries you may be really good , but you do not know who you are . i see more clearly in this city . unless there are other colors around , you do n't know what color you are . ''i was in stockholm . it 's beautiful but i could n't live there because i would find an answer to what my life is . there would be nowhere to continue . but in new york , you still go on although you do n't know what you will go on to . ''i was affected by what happened to me in life leaving my parents at 9 and being independent . also thinking about death when i was so sick with my heart . now i have found myself as a human and i know what art means in life . it is to be a better person . '' dance",has a topic of arts
"lead networks in china networks in china with their cameras shut down by government decree , television news organizations struggled to keep information flowing from beijing over the weekend , sometimes at the risk of violating orders from chinese officials . ''we 're doing a lot of work over the telephone and keeping our fingers crossed , '' eason jordan , the acting international editor of the cable_news_network , said yesterday in an interview from the cnn headquarters in atlanta . bernard_shaw of cnn is the last american television anchor to remain in beijing . he will stay there , along with five other cnn correspondents , at least until tomorrow , mr . jordan said . dan rather , anchor of ''the cbs evening news'' and the only other news anchor in beijing , returned to new york over the weekend after on air confrontations with chinese officials friday night . three cbs_news correspondents remain in beijing . mr . jordan said that cnn had tried to get videotapes of the demonstrations in and around tiananmen_square , but that doing so was risky . ''technically , it 's illegal , '' he said . ''the government wo n't allow us even to pick up the chinese newscasts , although we can get it from hong_kong . i do n't understand why they do n't want us to have their own coverage . '' tom goodman , a spokesman for cbs_news , said yesterday that a full staff of producers , editors and crew were still in beijing with susan spencer , barry petersen and john sheahan , and that there was still hope that the chinese government would allow television news organizations to resume video coverage . whatever the outcome , sending anchors to beijing last week was a gamble that paid paid off handsomely for cnn and cbs . while the payoff is not likely to be reflected in higher ratings , which are rarely affected by breaking_news , it is already being felt in enhanced prestige in the industry and soaring morale in the news divisions . although abc and nbc correspondents also offered continuing live coverage of government meetings and the protests , cbs and cnn were on the scene with their heaviest heavyweights . by the end of the week , cnn had provided over 30 hours of coverage . on ''48 hours'' on thursday evening , mr . rather reported on the student protests live and in prime time from the square . cbs broke into its regular programming on friday with eight special reports , including four between 9 10 p.m . and 11 49 p.m. , when its last efforts to negotiate with the chinese failed . on the abc_news program ''nightline'' that night , forrest sawyer , the substitute anchor , used film from cbs and cnn in a program about the events in beijing , crediting the competition for its work demonstrating how good that work was as well as a certain gutsiness on the part of abc for using whatever coverage it could get for the program . in a memorandum to the cbs_news staff on friday , david w . burke , president of the division , congratulated ''the glorious people 's army of cbs_news in china . '' on friday morning , cnn , feigning outrage but undoubtedly delighted , accused nbc of swiping about half a minute of its satellite coverage and showing it without attribution . peggy hubble , a spokeswoman for nbc_news , denied the charge , saying that the network has a reciprocal arrangement with cnn , and that the cnn video was used only while nbc cameras were being recharged . ''i think it 's outrageous that they 're doing this over 10 or 20 seconds of footage , '' ms . hubble said . ''there are other ways to handle this than through a media blitz . '' the fierce competition among the networks was also reflected in other ways . at nbc on friday , mary_alice williams , freshly hired by nbc from cnn , was scheduled to substitute for tom_brokaw on the ''nightly news . '' but nbc decided to keep mr . brokaw out front as much as possible on the breaking china story , so ms . williams never appeared . farewell to radner steve martin , one of several comedians who rose to stardom on the wings of ''saturday_night_live'' on nbc , bid a brief but emotional farewell to gilda radner on the program this weekend . miss radner , a member of the original ''saturday_night_live'' company , died saturday morning of ovarian cancer . his voice choked with feeling , mr . martin , who was serving as host of the final show of the season , paid tribute to ''the people you get to work with'' on the program . then , forgoing the standard opening monologue , he showed a scene that he performed with miss radner on the show in 1978 . they locked eyes in a bar and danced to ''dancing in the dark'' in a parody of a hollywood musical romance . when the sequence was over , mr . martin said , ''gilda , we miss you , '' and the show proceeded as scheduled . the hot doctorates this is the season when film and television celebrities are seen as much on college campuses , receiving honorary degrees and expounding on the future , as on the big and small screens . beginning today , ''cbs this morning'' will present a weeklong series on this year 's hot commencement speakers . some are not even television personalities . e . l . doctorow , the novelist lee iacocca , the chairman of the chrysler corporation , and syd thrift , the senior vice_president for baseball operations for the new york yankees , are scheduled for the series .",has a topic of arts
"to the editor frank rich is absolutely correct that the cultural component in the growing disenchantment with the iraqi war is nearly as important as the political one ''as the war turns a new soap_opera , '' april 25 ) . in a media drenched world where news tickers are as ubiquitous as stock tickers , where a faked kidnapping in wisconsin can unleash squadrons of helicopter news ships ( instead of gun ships ) in search of an evildoer , and where the celebrity reality complex contributes a huge percentage to our gross_domestic_product , is it any wonder that attention spans are getting shorter ? the number of americans who think the situation in iraq is going well , which mr . rich reports as having gone from 85 percent to 35 percent in about a year , may or may not be related to the sudden increase in american casualties . perhaps it merely reflects an inverse relationship with the ratings of ''the apprentice . '' how ironic that policies and programs which are geared for 15 second media sound bites and photo ops tend to bore the public when they actually last longer than their designated time frames , unlike reality_shows that are packaged with finite schedules and perfectly scripted endings . steven morris east_hampton , n.y . iraq",has a topic of arts
"''nbc_nightly_news with brian_williams'' led its tuesday evening broadcast with the report , billed as exclusive , that the presiding judge in the trial of saddam_hussein had been assassinated . jim miklaszewski , nbc 's chief pentagon correspondent , reported that ''35 year old raid juhi was apparently gunned down today as he left his home in baghdad . '' but the report , though attributed to united_states officials , was erroneous it was another member of the special tribunal who had been killed along with his son , a tribunal lawyer . nbc learned of the error at 7 05 and corrected it during the 7 p.m . broadcast . in an e mail response to a question about the correction , barbara levin , nbc_news 's spokeswoman , said ''we got the information from multiple high level sources who confirmed the story 's accuracy . it was wrong , and we corrected it immediately beginning with the 7 p.m . feed . '' meanwhile , at fox_news , brit hume , host of ''special report , '' began the show 's 6 45 p.m . panel discussion segment with the same erroneous news . mr . hume cited ''u . s . government sources . '' reached by phone , a fox spokesman confirmed that the report was corrected on the fox_news web_site at 7 45 and at 7 52 during a later broadcast . ''was it a government source ? '' the spokesman , paul schur , said . ''yes . did they get it wrong ? yes . '' asked about nbc 's exclusive claim to the story , he added ''you know how it works . these guys are always working on the same thing . '' joel topcik",has a topic of arts
"to the editor thanks to frank rich , we can all be relieved to learn that pornography , hollywood , mtv and howard_stern , among other elements of ''pop_culture , '' have not contributed to the kind of behavior some american_soldiers displayed at the abu_ghraib_prison ''it was the porn that made them do it , '' may 30 . no , according to mr . rich , a ' 'more exact fit'' for what happened is mel gibson 's depiction of jesus' suffering in ''the passion of the christ . '' mr . rich labels scenes in ''the passion'' as ''popular images of sadomasochism'' while brushing off the corrupting influence of a much more pervasive popular_culture that has desensitized many young americans to the kind of violent , sadistic and immoral behavior we 've seen in the photos from abu_ghraib . in truth , if more of those american_soldiers had seen ''the passion of the christ , '' they might have gotten the real message of the film , which is one of sacrifice , love and forgiveness , and not have behaved the way they did . john l . gregory madison , n.j . abu_ghraib",has a topic of arts
"lead mikhail_baryshnikov , american_ballet_theater 's artistic director , has invited oliver matz , a principal_dancer with the deutsche staatsoper ballet in east_berlin to appear as a guest artist with the company this season . mikhail_baryshnikov , american_ballet_theater 's artistic director , has invited oliver matz , a principal_dancer with the deutsche staatsoper ballet in east_berlin to appear as a guest artist with the company this season . mr . matz 's performances with susan jaffe on the evenings of may 13 and 14 in ''don_quixote'' at the metropolitan_opera_house are to mark the first time a dancer from east_germany has been seen in new york with an american company . mr . matz won a gold_medal at the 1986 international ballet competition in jackson , miss . born in rostock , east_germany , he studied at the state ballet school in east_berlin and joined the deutsche staatsoper ballet in 1980 .",has a topic of arts
"starting his career as a photographer in the early 1950 's , marc riboud was lucky enough to have the founders of the magnum photo agency as friends and advisers . while henri cartier bresson tried to broaden the young frenchman 's education , telling him what to read and what museums to visit , robert_capa encouraged him to learn english and even arranged his first professional assignment . yet despite the help of these role models , mr . riboud said he always felt uncomfortable among photographers . "" they had their own jargon , they knew how to push , they were tough , "" he recalled . "" i was very shy . i had trouble looking people in the face . eventually i thought , i have to go somewhere else . "" so in 1956 , he bought a second hand land rover from george rodger , another magnum founder , and drove from london to calcutta . for almost a year , working and traveling alone , he took photographs throughout india . but he wanted to go still farther east . and finally , on dec . 31 , 1956 , after months of waiting for a visa , he crossed from hong_kong into china and boarded a train for beijing . it was a major coup for him to become one of the first western photographers to enter china since the communist takeover of 1949 . but more relevantly , he was allowed to return at regular intervals over the next four decades and witness china 's transformation from a backward peasant land dominated by mao_zedong to a money driven society that seems ready to forget its ancient culture and customs in the name of profit . now white haired but still full of energy at 72 , mr . riboud is presenting his record of this astonishing metamorphosis at the centre national de la photographie in paris through july 29 . the show , "" marc riboud 40 years of photography in china , "" will go to beijing in the fall and to the international_center_of_photography in new york in the summer of 1997 . a book with 134 black and white photographs from the exhibition is to be published next year by harry n . abrams . mr . riboud insists that he is no expert china watcher . and he notes that he was not in china at many crucial political moments , including the height of the cultural_revolution in the late 1960 's , the deaths of chairman_mao and zhou_enlai in 1976 and the killing of pro_democracy students in tiananmen_square in 1989 . "" i am not an analyst , "" he said in an interview at his paris home . "" i just collect impressions . "" but he was nonetheless a rare western witness to both past and present of china , and his photographs serve as a memory . on his first four month trip , he was able to photograph mao and zhou at a banquet for a visiting polish prime_minister . but authorized to travel the country , he found he was more interested in the day to day lives of ordinary chinese workers , peasants and students . wandering the streets of beijing , which he remembers as still having the atmosphere of a village , he found circus performers , puppeteers and peddlers . a few years later , they were no longer to be seen . visits to factories and universities were more complicated , mr . riboud recalled , because he was invariably accompanied by "" a guardian angel , "" as he nicknamed his official guides . "" i was shown students , but not those who were learning english , "" he said . "" it was tricky . i would try to 'get lost , ' but i could n't make the guide feel i had done it on purpose or else he would lose face and the next day i would have nothing . "" still , in 1957 , after only eight years under communism , china was more relaxed than when he returned for another four month visit in 1965 . "" by then the regime was consolidated , "" he said . "" huge stalinist buildings were going up everywhere . people talked even less to foreigners . street life was disappearing . everyone was being made equal , and they all seemed equally poor . "" one photograph from that visit shows grim faced children undergoing military training with wooden rifles . at the time , though , mr . riboud felt sympathy for the chinese revolution . "" coming from india , i could see a big difference , "" he said . "" there was less misery than in india . one had the impression of a bit more dignity . in the west , we had understood that the soviet_union was a complete failure . but i was tempted to believe that china could be the answer to societies where the rich become richer and the poor become poorer . "" only later did disillusionment set in . "" the big disappointment was the total failure of the great_leap_forward in the early 1960 's , which led to millions of people dying of starvation , "" he said . "" but in 1965 , we did n't know that . i wanted to visit the huang shan mountains in 1965 and was told it was not possible . i later learned that 1.5 million people died of famine in the region . girls were fed less than boys , so girls died first . "" this disaster was followed by the cultural_revolution , when westerners were decidedly unwelcome . mr . riboud was able to return in 1971 , but he was refused a visa to cover mao 's funeral in 1976 . "" they told me , 'we know you 're a friend of china , but our house is in disorder , ' "" he said . after 1983 , when he was finally allowed to travel to huang shan , mr . riboud returned to china often . even then it was only in the late 1980 's that he began to see china change before his eyes . since 1992 , he has traveled there 10 times . "" when i crossed into shenzhen for the first time 40 years ago , it was a fishermen 's village , "" he said . "" today , it has three million people and rivals hong_kong . "" in the exhibition , the magnitude of china 's economic revolution is startlingly evident in photographs that show the old and the new side by side the uniformly drab mao suits and the latest western fashions , streets crowded with bicycles and today 's traffic_jams , traditional_chinese homes and glass covered skyscrapers . but the two faces of china also coexist a street scene in shenzhen photographed in 1993 shows an impoverished man walking past posters of a pinup girl and of a baby . mr . riboud finds the pace of change disturbing . "" it 's a bit like someone who becomes a millionaire in one week , "" he said . "" if it 's not good for an individual , i ca n't believe it 's good for a country . today money is suddenly the only value . no one speaks about politics , no one speaks about tiananmen_square , no one speaks about confucius . it 's as if the mao period were one big dramatic parenthesis , and now the chinese have gone back to being tradesmen . "" what worries him is the threat this poses to traditional_chinese culture . "" the poetry , opera and painting that were part of the chinese identity for a thousand years have gone , "" he said . "" bookstores are closing . all the music comes from hong_kong . they 're selling all their antiquities abroad . everything in the west is being imitated . but their pride is still chinese . they 're all convinced that china will become the most important country in the world . """,has a topic of arts
"television loves a good car chase , and the squealing of wheels is a trope of any police procedural that becomes bogged down in some urban badlands . rarely , however , do you see the car chase put to such good use as in the ''frontline'' season ender , as it drives home a few illuminating points on the otherwise dull topic of outsourcing in the armed services . in ''private warriors , '' ''frontline'' takes a full hour tonight to look at the street level mayhem in baghdad and the life and death stakes for private security firms , which the united_states military employs as protectors and shuttlers in the war zone . the result is appropriately , engagingly upsetting . true to the era of terror , wherever these guardians roam , the enemy does not make himself known until it 's nearly too late . the scariest moments in the program occur when a convoy of tinted window s.u.v . 's ferries ''frontline'' journalists to the green_zone , the government compound in baghdad , and gets stuck in a mundane logjam on a city highway . jumpy guards in sunglasses emerge from the s.u.v . 's and communicate through mini mikes and earpieces . will the rusted out , cream colored sedan prove to be a disabled vehicle amid idling traffic or a starting point for flying shrapnel ? what 's certain enough is the catastrophic regularity of crossfire . the american presence in iraq may be an exacerbating force or a mitigating one , depending on one 's political perspective , but ''frontline'' tries to make it clear to all partisans that there is a huge deployment of expensive , extra military manpower over there . the companies contracted to assist the allied effort include some americans with military training . but this force is mainly made up of workers with a shared interest in making serious money for undertaking serious risk . erinys , the south_african company with 150 million in iraq based security contracts , is not , for instance , motivated by common nationality , as its ranks include guards from south_africa , britain and russia . the force also lacks the military 's typically regimented style of hierarchy and accountability , with a chain of command that seems unclear and ungovernable . martin smith , the ''frontline'' correspondent , probes carefully when asking for some standard of who can kill whom in these forces . the answer is irreffutably confident and purposefully vague . ''we are accountable to the coalition_forces and we 're a very , very professional and disciplined company , '' says an erinys spokesman . then a caught on camera morning meeting of such guards ends with this disturbing call ''as always , be safe , but if necessary , be lethal . have a great day . '' the ''frontline'' reporter strikes that same respectful but grateful tone that we tend to hear from reporters living behind the armor of those they are attempting to examine . occasionally the report takes a wider view , leaving the streets for a helicopter ride over the basic baghdad topography , which is never quite so clear in three minute television news dispatches or detailed maps in print . soon the pbs entourage travels to the town of balad , about 50 miles north of baghdad , and hovers over the drab grounds of camp anaconda , where thousands of soldiers muddle through in barracks that look ship containers . each sleeping unit is barricaded behind ''bremer walls , '' cement slabs meant to stave off the occasional enemy explosive . the camp is also home to tae kwan do lessons , e mail booths and espn blaring from mess hall widescreens . costly efforts to recreate the comforts of home abound ( a kitschy wild west post_office ) as well as the inequities . ( latrines are cleaned by third world wage_earners . ) mr . smith explains that the contract work is a product of the danger . slower enlistment in an all volunteer army has required fill ins for menial tasks , and the contractors responsible for rebuilding need the most fearsome force to keep them safe . but abuses have abounded , including a 1 . 8 billion overrun from one company . mr . smith doggedly seeks answers about expenses at camp anaconda , and finds one valiantly frank base commander who reports that the government pays for 105 , 000 meals a day at 20 a plate . the costs climb high when you see the carved fruit platters and hear about lobsters and cordon bleu served . mr . smith confronts one retired general who now works for a private_sector contractor , and his attitude is again true to a support our troops cheer . ''an american soldier loves milk and ice_cream , '' says the general , paul cerjan , who now works for kbr , the food service provider and halliburton subsidiary . ''and so if that makes him feel better , then why should n't we provide it ? '' frontline private warrior pbs , tonight at 9 check local listings . david fanning , executive_producer marcela gaviria and martin smith , producers martin smith , writer and reporter . produced by wgbh boston co produced by rainmedia inc . television review",has a topic of arts
"throughout the ideological and cultural worlds , chinese are again testing the limits , and mostly getting away with it . bold films , plays and books are appearing , newspapers are virtually becoming readable , china 's foremost rock and roll star is back onstage , and sex and democracy ( in that order ) are again on the agenda . the kind and gentle face of communism , a young woman in a silk blouse who is the anchor for the evening news , has been opening the broadcast in recent weeks with a smile and a greeting that is startling in what it leaves out "" good evening , viewers . "" in one of those signals that the ideological winds have shifted , that the cultural world is opening up , she and the other news anchors have abandoned the previous greeting , "" viewers and comrades , good evening , "" which the hard_liners have insisted upon for three years . "" comrades "" is not just a word in china but a storm signal . whenever it is hoisted , it is a warning that the cultural commissars are on patrol . when it is dropped , people know they can have fun again . "" the government 's lightening up , "" said a chinese journalist who has been in political trouble for most of the last few years . "" we can breathe again . "" the novelty of having interesting or entertaining things to do has a political dimension as well . a few years ago , when the hard_liners were at the apex of their power , most ordinary workers and young people in towns around the country did not feel so much repressed by communism as bored by it . when pressed about the reasons for their alienation , they did not mention the lack of a vote so much as the lack of decent entertainment . the problem with the newspapers and television , in the minds of many people , was not so much that they lied but that they were so excruciatingly dull . soaps and tractors now that is changing . romantic soap_operas appear on television to supplement the documentaries on fine tractor factories . at the cinemas , hong_kong kung_fu films have replaced propaganda movies about gallant communist_party officials dying young . some of the new books and newspaper articles are about politics , including careful calls for more democracy , but the taboo that artists and audiences are breaking with the greatest zeal has to do with nudity and sex . "" nudity "" declared the culture ministry newspaper in a huge chinese character superimposed over a photo of a western woman 's partly uncovered torso . the accompanying article was a sober discussion of the lack of nudity in chinese films , but the photo could scarcely have been more out of place in a newspaper that until recently was a bastion of orthodoxy . "" we 're now trying to reform the newspaper and push it onto the market system , "" said zhang zuomin , an editor . "" of course there may be a few problems here and there . but our direction is the right one . "" theaters in both beijing and shanghai have experimented with partial nudity on stage , but in shanghai a couple simulated love making behind a glass panel and in beijing an actress wore flesh colored underwear . in the southern city of shunde , which has never been renowned for either culture or restraint , a floor show features a young woman disrobing under a strobe light for what purports to be an artistic shower scene . banned but profitable pornography is banned in china and yet is hugely profitable , so publishers have been searching for excuses to peddle lurid material . a company in the central city of wuhan seems to have hit the jackpot with a cheap booklet whose cover is a pastiche of tiny photos of naked buttocks and breasts . "" selected cases of young women molested around the nation , "" the headline reads in bold red characters . a one paragraph preface explains that the publisher 's purpose is to alert women to the dangers of rape and sexual_abuse . the next 75 pages provide examples . "" the cultural environment reflects the fact that the overall political atmosphere is more relaxed now , and the economy is doing well , "" said he xin , a social critic who is identified with the hard_liners and now appears to be trying to refurbish his image . "" sure , the opening may generate some problems , but that 's o.k . the scale of the problems is very small . "" controls over films have been eased , and chinese viewers have finally been able to see the movies of zhang yimou , the chinese director whose productions "" judou "" and "" raise the red lantern "" were banned at home while being nominated for academy_awards in the united_states . moreover , young film makers are learning that they can largely ignore the authorities . when a veteran chinese actor returned recently to beijing from an extended stay abroad , he marveled that young people were putting together rock and roll films without ever getting approval from anyone . "" that never used to be possible , "" he told them in awe . dancing in the aisles cui jian , china 's best known rock musician , was allowed to hold a large concert in beijing at the end of december for the first time in several years . every seat was taken , and the fans cheered and shouted and danced as the police watched stonily from their seats just a couple of years ago , a man who tried to dance at a rock concert was dragged off by the police . the authorities last month allowed chinese to operate private ham radio stations for the first time , and discos and karaoke bars are sprouting throughout the country . newspapers are starting weekend entertainment sections , and the afternoon tabloids in particular are writing about crime , scandals and pop stars . occasionally they even publish news . the communist_party has had to warn the new people 's evening news in shanghai three times in the last few months about its new found enthusiasm for publishing scoops . "" journalism is changing extremely rapidly , "" said a chinese journalist who is reporting about changes in the newspaper industry . "" plenty of publications will lose their subsidies this year , so all of a sudden they 're scrambling for readers . they 'll never be the same . """,has a topic of arts
"lead rudolf_nureyev was quoted today as saying he would like to dance again in the soviet_union after living more than 25 years in the west . rudolf_nureyev was quoted today as saying he would like to dance again in the soviet_union after living more than 25 years in the west . in milan for a performance of the paris_opera_ballet , of which he is director , mr . nureyev was quoted in the milan daily corriere_della_sera as saying he would like to see his mother and show his countrymen ''how we dance the classics in the west . '' ''i ca n't say i am nostalgic in the sense of the russians who cry when they are far from home , '' mr . nureyev said . ''i have been living in the west for a long time , and i have grown up as a man and an artist here . ''",has a topic of arts
"many guests were caught off guard at the recent opening of the chinese_porcelain company 's exhibition of venetian_glass , which continues through june 20 at its gallery at park_avenue and 58th_street . interior_designers like albert hadley were hoping to find the sleek modern vases that venini , barovier and other venetian companies began to produce in the 1930 's . such wares , designed by carlo scarpa , gio ponti and other renowned 20th_century italian architects , are now hotter than the portofino sun . the gallery 's regular park_avenue clients were anticipating more traditional venetian_glass the pale , delicate goblets first produced in the renaissance , the glass of choice for european rulers for 400 years ( partly because it was thought to shatter if poisoned liquid was poured in ) . guests like paul soros and daisy soros , veronica hearst , beth rudin dewoody and judy peabody looked for splendor mosaic glass , millefiori ( glass embodying slices of varicolored rods that give it a flowery pattern ) and chalcedony ( glass made to imitate ancient carved agate ) . instead , the gallery director , khalil rizk , surprised them with an acid green glass compote whose stem was a swirling duo of glass dragons locked in combat , their open jaws revealing bright red tongues , and a scallop edged dish of opalescent blue whose handle was a fanciful sea creature . some of the other 90 pieces had swans , serpents , seahorses , shells and flowers . at first glance , these wares look like ( and may be ) souvenirs our great grandmothers hauled home from venice a century ago . they have charm , but as works of art they are difficult to take seriously ( each costs several thousand dollars ) . mr . rizk defended them . ''i have a soft spot for 19th_century venetian_glass , '' he said . ''it 's slightly kitschy , but i love it . it 's a very little known period , and there 's almost no literature on it . the 1860 's began the last explosion of handmade glass in venice . it 's practically impossible to do these things now because they would take too long and cost too much . contemporary glass does n't have the virtuosity . '' lee mindel , a new york architect who collects 20th_century venetian_glass , understands the appeal . ''venice was always able to articulate the design esthetic of the moment and turn it into glass , '' he said . ''glass is a wonderful idiom for expression , especially in venice , which features water and light . venetian_glass represents water and filters light . that 's what the medium is all about . '' the chinese_porcelain company is selling pieces belonging to marjorie reed gordon , a private new york dealer and collector of venetian_glass . her timing seems good . as usha subramaniam , the head of 20th_century decorative_arts at phillips new york , said ''now that venetian_glass made after 1930 is getting more expensive , collectors are looking at the earlier material , which is just coming into its own . it will take a while for people to see what 's good and what 's rare . at first , it all looks derivative of past styles . '' mrs . gordon 's collection is featured in a new book by sheldon barr , president of gardner barr , a gallery at 213 east 60th_street that specializes in vintage glass from murano , an island off venice and the epicenter of the glassmaking industry . mr . barr 's book , ''venetian_glass confections in glass 1855 1914'' ( harry n . abrams ) , puts this unknown period into historical perspective . it is easy to forget that venice once nearly ceased making glass . napoleon helped bring about the near halt in production , which lasted six decades . in 1798 , the year after venice surrendered , he handed the city over to austria . ''vengeful austria was determined to ruin the venetian_glass industry in favor of her own bohemian glass factories , '' mr . barr writes . austria put huge tariffs on both the import of raw_materials and the export of the glassware . venice , he recounts , ''was forced to import sand from the fontainebleau quarries in france and wood from dalmatia and istria . '' mr . barr adds ''the austrians taxed them all heavily and made continued glass production profitless . ultimately , the proud murano glass industry , once furnisher of fabulous glassware to emperors , popes and kings , was reduced to producing glass beads for austria 's colonial trade . '' only in the 1860 's , after venice became part of italy , was the glass industry fully revived , to provide work for the glassmakers and cash for the kingdom of italy . the mayor of murano and antonio salviati , a venetian lawyer , opened a museum of old venetian_glass and started a design school . the old companies revived the traditional antique style glass . then the craftsmen began to compete . ''the young glassmakers started to experiment almost right away , '' said mr . barr , who is to sign copies of his book at sotheby 's , 1334 york avenue , at 72d street , on monday from 6 to 8 p.m . ''they were trying to outdo their ancestors with new concoctions exotic animals , dolphins , dragons , seahorses , serpents nothing was too difficult , '' he said , adding that they ''indulged their taste for overembellishment . '' the easiest place to find vintage venetian_glass is in a quarterly newsletter , ''vetri italian glass news , '' published in fort_lee , n.j. , and at gardner barr . kenneth lesko , a private dealer in rocky river , ohio , has a booth devoted solely to italian glass at the triple pier show in manhattan . michael d . trapp , an antiques_dealer in west cornwall , conn . , often has venetian wares . in venice , alessandro zoppi sells fine ( and expensive ) examples at his gallery , antichita cesana . venetian_glass was inspired by ancient phoenician and roman glass . the christie 's antiquities sale today includes a lot of roman glass . most spectacular , perhaps , are a large , elegant scallop shell in opaque green glass , circa fourth century a.d . and estimated to sell for 3 , 000 to 4 , 000 , and a five inch roman glass beaker in the shape of a cone , with applied blue dots and carved facets ( estimate 4 , 000 to 5 , 000 ) . at phillips new york , the 20th_century decorative_arts sale on wednesday has venetian_glass from a top 20th_century company , venini , including blue green striped pitchers and tumblers , and a chandelier with clear glass arms ( estimate 8 , 000 to 12 , 000 ) . lot 377 is a 1989 prototype of a glass lamp by frank_gehry , the american architect . it is a sinuous cobra with translucent scales illuminated from within . today , venice is producing a lot of muscular modern glass . a new york architect , adam d . tihany , is one of the few commissioning venetian glassware that is as delicate , colorful and whimsical as its 19th_century predecessors . when he designed the manhattan restaurant remi , he installed his own collection of antique venetian glasses in the bar and commissioned rainbowlike chandeliers from carlo moretti in murano . for his latest restaurant , jean georges , he ordered the candleholders in venice . ''i like to work with the artisans there , '' he said . ''with that kind of quality , why buy anywhere else ? '' antiques",has a topic of arts
"lead two american studios have signed a major television licensing agreement with china 's only national television_network , an arrangement that will beam such shows as ''star_trek'' into chinese households . two american studios have signed a major television licensing agreement with china 's only national television_network , an arrangement that will beam such shows as ''star_trek'' into chinese households . the studios mca and paramount will program about two hours of prime time television for tuesday nights , supplying about 100 hours of programming the first year , an mca vice_president , charles s . paul , said last week . the content of the overall package is still being decided , but in addition to ''star_trek'' it is expected to include such american shows as ''columbo , '' ''marcus welby , m.d . , '' ''family affair'' and the mini series ''the winds of war . '' ''the studios recommended titles , but the chinese network ultimately chooses them , '' said a spokesman for mca , janet yang . the studios will derive revenues from the sale of advertising time to american and foreign companies seeking exposure in the chinese marketplace , a paramount statement said . the studios will split profits with the chinese network .",has a topic of arts
"in november , a performance of a sensationally popular acrobatic version of ''swan_lake'' in shanghai was abruptly_canceled . refunds were issued to more than 3 , 000 ticketholders . and the show 's two lead performers were summoned here to the nation 's capital . ''we flew to beijing and arrived on saturday , '' said wu zhengdan , the female lead . ''we knew we were going to perform for someone special . we just did n't know who it was . '' that sunday evening , ms . wu and her partner , wei baohua , performed at a banquet in the great_hall of the people , one of china 's landmark government buildings , for dignitaries who included president_bush and china 's president , hu_jintao . demonstrating the unconventional blend of classical_ballet and traditional_chinese acrobatics they perfected for the new ''swan_lake , '' the delicate ms . wu , 24 , did a pirouette , aloft on the shoulder and outstretched arm of the muscular mr . wei , 34 , who is also her husband . she also rose up , stunningly , on pointe on mr . wei 's head . there followed a gymnastic pas de deux . such bravura moves have delighted crowds in china over the past year , helping turn this radical reworking of ''swan_lake'' by the guangdong military acrobatic troupe into a box office hit and transforming the couple into stars . now , the acrobatic ''swan_lake'' featuring ms . wu and mr . wei is preparing for a world tour that will include russia , japan , germany and the united_states , where the couple already won high praise last october when they took part in the ''festival of china'' at the kennedy_center in washington . what audiences will see is not your usual ''swan_lake . '' although this 19th_century russian ballet has been a fixture on the chinese stage for decades , the current version contains several decidedly chinese twists . it opens with prince siegfried dreaming of a beautiful girl who has been transformed into a swan by an evil eagle , a vision that propels him into a quest that takes him from europe through africa , the middle_east and south_asia before landing him in beijing a journey that provides the acrobatic troupe with ample_opportunity for displays of local color . there , in the forbidden_city , he meets the young chinese swan woman he will make his bride . this west meets east take on ''swan_lake'' is emblematic of the broad shift under way in china as state sponsored cultural institutions move toward more market oriented offerings . film producers , dancers , musicians even military performing groups that long depended on the government for financial support are now aggressively pursuing commercial opportunities . they are seeking private sponsors and hoping to profit by luring bigger audiences at home or exporting cultural extravaganzas to the rest of the world . filmmakers , often backed by state owned production houses , are now trying to make hollywood blockbusters . even the monks of shaolin temple , famed for their martial_arts skills , have gone commercial , forming their own for profit company to produce kung_fu movies and promote the shaolin brand . the choreographer behind the new ''swan_lake , '' zhao ming , says china 's state run performing_arts system is packed with hidden talent waiting to be discovered . ''there are a lot of people with great technique here , but because they 're in the military troupe , they have less chance to let people know , '' said mr . zhao , who also choreographs the beijing military troupe . both ms . wu and mr . wei are products of a similarly rigid system , the socialist era sports school programs that are still geared toward producing olympic champions . they grew up in liaoning_province , in northeast_china , and first met at the shenyang sports school , one of the region 's premier sports schools , when he was 16 and she 6 . the school typically recruits children as young as 5 to spend the rest of their youth in the boarding_school , training for national and international competition . but ms . wu and mr . wei say they went by choice . mr . wei was introduced to the sport through his father , an accountant at the local acrobatics school . ms . wu responded to an advertisement for a gymnastics program . she was among 3 , 000 youths who tried out for 20 slots , but she did n't make the cut . ''the teacher said i was not very tall , and a little fat not good , '' she said in a backstage interview before a performance here in beijing . but a teacher from the local sports school saw her routine and asked her to join a eurythmics program . and so she became a nearly full time child athlete , usually training 10 hours a day . the teachers were strict , ms . wu recalled , forcing children to run endless laps around the track or to do splits by placing their legs on two separate chairs and holding a perfect position for 30 minutes at a time . at 12 , she joined the provincial sports school and began teaming up with mr . wei to compete in sports acrobatics , which involved human pyramids and synchronized athletic movements . three years later , in 1995 , the pair won the national championship . in that same year , in germany , they were crowned world junior champions . but a year later , ms . wu fell during an event , injuring her neck . for a year , they did n't compete . in 1997 , they placed a disappointing third in the world_championships in britain . ms . wu was discouraged and weary of the training regimen . she considered quitting and entering a university . mr . wei was ready to leave the school and the sports acrobatic team himself , but he was also determined to win the world title . eventually , the two joined the guangdong military acrobatic troupe , in the far southern city of guangzhou . their careers picked up . they won another national championship . in 2001 they were asked to perform for the asia_pacific economic cooperation forum in shanghai before mr . bush and jiang_zemin , china 's president at the time . troupe officials say mr . bush left before the couple 's performance , but mr . jiang was so impressed he later presented mr . bush with two dvd 's of the show , one for the president and another for his father . that year , the couple had begun to add some ballet and dance elements to their acrobatic routine with the help of mr . zhao , the choreographer , who was recruited by the guangdong troupe to help develop routines in preparation for the world title event at the xxvi international circus festival of monte_carlo in 2002 . they took first prize . ''they both have very good technique , '' mr . zhao said , explaining the difference he made in their first collaboration . ''the most difficult thing was to get them to have the feeling of a dance . i told them to be beautiful , to have rhythm and listen to the music . '' by then , the couple 's gradual evolution into dancers was apparent . they were mixing ballet moves with acrobatics , training with mr . zhao and the national ballet of china . and officials at the guangdong military acrobatic troupe were looking for a market opportunity after they struck a deal with shanghai city dance company to create a new show . they came up with the acrobatic ''swan_lake , '' a show featuring dozens of acrobats swinging from ropes , juggling balls and tumbling and hopping across the stage as siegfried seeks his beautiful white swan . whether they are acrobats or ballet stars , no one is sure . but ms . wu and mr . wei , who were married in 2003 , say they 're willing to see where this strange act leads . ''i 'm not sure what it is , '' ms . wu said of their performance , gazing at mr . wei in their dressing room . ''i ca n't leave the acrobatics world , but i 'm not 100 percent in ballet . i guess we 'll just see where it goes . if people like the performance , i 'll continue to do it . ''",has a topic of arts
"in the spring of 1913 , an aspiring young artist and german nationalist named adolf_hitler arrived in munich . for the next 20 years , he made the city his headquarters , the fertile ground where he nurtured nazism . germany in the 1990 's is more willing to confront its nazi past than it has been before , and in the latest reflection of this attitude , the stadtmuseum here has presented an ambitiously introspective exhibition called "" munich capital of the movement . "" through art and artifacts , it describes munich 's contributions to the rise of nazism . exhibitions that trace a city or town 's history through the prewar and war_years have been held in many parts of germany . this one is especially important because munich was at the center of the nazi movement . many people have tried to repress this chapter of their local history for two generations . curators at the stadtmuseum assembled about 2 , 000 items for display , including photographs , posters , documents and other traditional political artifacts , but at several points the exhibition breaks with chronology to portray the support that ordinary people gave the nazis in munich . trying to crush some art part of the exhibition is about hitler 's efforts to crush "" degenerate art "" and exalt traditional styles he preferred . several paintings that hitler especially admired hang on one wall . they include a stern looking nude posed against floral wallpaper by adolf ziegler , whose works are described in the catalogue as "" among the favorite and most widely reproduced items of nazi art . "" on the wall facing these paintings hang several works chosen to show the kind of art the nazis abhorred . among them are a sarcastic portrayal of high society dancers by max beckmann , a moody portrait of a card player by ernst ludwig kirchner and a colorful but imprecise harbor view by lovis corinth . one hall is devoted to hitler 's rise through munich society and includes the guest book of a prominent local family open to the page where hitler signed as a party guest . at another point , visitors can peer into a full scale model of a kitchen in a middle_class munich apartment of the 1930 's . the family has jumped up from breakfast to watch a nazi march on the street below , visible as a giant photo through the kitchen window . this exhibition is not the only indication that germans are ready to explore the nazi period more deeply . last year , after years of delay , a museum and study center finally opened in a villa in the wannsee section of berlin , where the annihilation of european jews was planned . a memorial to german jews is to be built near the brandenburg_gate , although suggestions that the country needs a full scale holocaust museum have met a mixed response . success and failure bavaria has always been germany 's most conservative region , and munich , its capital , was the scene of great political upheaval when hitler lived here . many of hitler 's closest collaborators were from munich or other parts of bavaria , among them rudolf hess , heinrich himmler and hermann goring . in 1933 , the year he took power , hitler officially declared munich the capital of german art , and two years later he went a step further and christened it the capital of the movement . finding artifacts for the exhibition , especially ones that showed the private side of munich 's support for the nazis , was difficult . the museum advertised in local newspapers and received a wave of donations , many from people who were evidently relieved to be rid of a document or other item they had been hiding for years . some items could not be found . for example , the nazis sponsored a 100 piece symphony_orchestra whose members wore uniforms designed from a sketch by hitler . curators searched widely for one of the uniforms , but without success . it was certainly no coincidence that hitler built his first concentration_camp , dachau , on the outskirts of munich . the part of the exhibition devoted to the evil perpetrated there is perhaps its most powerful . it includes thousands of death certificates , each carefully noting relevant details , including cause of death ( "" severe chest hemorrhage due to bullet wound "" ) . artifacts from the death camp at auschwitz are also included to remind visitors of the results of nazism . a chest of confiscated menorahs and silverware has the same purpose . several small anti nazi groups formed in munich in the 1920 's and 30 's and were brutally_suppressed . the exhibition also has a place for these groups , among them the white rose , which was founded by two local students , brother and sister , who were arrested and executed . the role of the ordinary the focus of the exhibition , however , is the reaction of ordinary people to the rise of nazism . "" we in germany have given a lot of attention to the perpetrators and the victims , "" said brigitte schutz , the curator who organized the exhibition . "" i wanted to move beyond that , to show how normal people participated in the system in so many small ways . it became an accepted part of daily life . "" "" another purpose of any exhibition about the third reich at this moment in germany is to open the eyes of young people who go around calling themselves neo_nazis , "" miss schutz said . "" so much is tolerated in modern germany that just about the only way you can still shock people is to use nazi symbols or slogans . most kids do this for the shock value , without having any idea of what nazism really was . you hope that exhibitions like this might teach them something . "" the exhibition will be dismantled after it closes on march 27 , and the artifacts , most of them on loan , will be returned to their owners . a program of films , speeches , discussions and readings will continue through may . the long range wolfgang till , the director of the stadtmuseum , said that he would like to build a permanent collection of nazi items associated with munich , but that donations would be needed . "" for example , hitler used to support himself by coloring pictures of an old courtyard in munich , and when those pictures come onto the market , they go for about 50 , 000 marks , "" mr . till said , or about 35 , 000 . "" i think this museum should have one , but i could n't see going to the city and asking them to allocate money for it . "" smaller nazi artifacts , many of them of uncertain authenticity , are available at many shops and flea markets in germany . legal restrictions on such sales are vague and rarely enforced . a munich auction house recently offered an extraordinary collection of personal items identified with the nazi inner circle . a champagne glass from hitler 's personal service , adorned with a swastika and the initials "" ah , "" went for 600 , a matching silver tumbler brought 1 , 100 , and an autographed edition of "" mein kampf "" went for 20 , 000 . but many of the most remarkable items went unsold . among them were hitler 's initialed silver smoking set , a swastika carpet that once hung on a wall at party headquarters in munich and a toilet kit that belonged to eva braun , hitler 's mistress . "" the theme is so taboo , and research into it is so stigmatized , that people do n't want to be known as having any of the artifacts , "" miss schutz said . "" no museum has a serious collection . many of the pieces we have in this exhibition belong to private collectors . most of them do n't want to be identified . they are a strange group . even after talking with many of them , i still could n't tell you if they are simply collectors or if they have some political sympathy for these ideas . but as long as there are no central or official collections of this material , museums are going to have to deal with these people . """,has a topic of arts
"lead experts describe the hair raising incident at an east_german nuclear_energy plant like this 11 of the 12 cooling pumps of a nuclear_reactor were knocked out by fire and power failure , and workers scrambled to work a last remaining pump . without that pump , the core of the reactor would overheat , begin to melt down and set in motion a near unstoppable process . experts describe the hair raising incident at an east_german nuclear_energy plant like this 11 of the 12 cooling pumps of a nuclear_reactor were knocked out by fire and power failure , and workers scrambled to work a last remaining pump . without that pump , the core of the reactor would overheat , begin to melt down and set in motion a near unstoppable process . the nearby town of greifswald would be in radioactive peril . the pump , which was connected to another power source , got started just in time to prevent disaster . that incident occurred in 1975 , and was revealed only this year , when the east_german office for atomic safety informed its counterpart in bonn . it is now regarded as the most dangerous known near disaster in eastern_europe 's nuclear history . although the problem was caused by a design fault in the soviet made plant , experts say , the soviet_union never warned other countries that were building or operating similar reactors that they too were at risk . but this was apparently not the only nuclear secret that the soviets kept from their comrades in the eastern_bloc . nuclear experts from east_germany , czechoslovakia and hungary have asserted that moscow often withheld information needed for the safe operation of the soviet built plants . distrust of soviet components the eastern_european scientists have startled their western colleagues in recent months with an outpouring of frustration and anger about the soviet supervisors of the plants . they cited squabbles over who ran the plants and over permission to run tests . arguments arose over computer data that moscow refused to release . and they said there were disagreements over the quality of soviet made materials . ''we never trusted the russian components , and we tested each one , '' said jiri becvar , head of nuclear_technology at the ministry of fuel and energy in prague . ''when we corrected them , it caused complications with the russian supervisors . '' in the last two decades , as the soviet_union built 23 nuclear plants across eastern_europe , specialists from the region say , there was virtually no useful exchange of information on incidents or on experiments and operating experiences , something that is considered vital in the west . rather , when they persisted in asking questions , their soviet overseers ''would intimidate you and ask , 'are you a friend of the soviet_union ? ' '' an east_german scientist said . to work at the potentially most dangerous industrial plant in operation , another physicist said , ''being a loyal member of the communist_party was more important than technical competence . '' reactors' poor workmanship although they were speaking of the past , several of the scientists asked to have their names withheld because , they said , their plants still have close dealings with the soviets and depend for information and services on moscow . soviet supervisors continue to work at the plants , and by contract only they can authorize important changes . moscow continues to provide the plants with nuclear_fuel , collects the spent fuel and stores that and other highly radioactive waste back home . the criticism of moscow comes as alarm has grown in the west about the safety of more than half of the soviet designed atomic_energy plants in eastern_europe . they are the first generation of pressurized water reactors , which are based on a principle different from the soviet_union 's ill fated chernobyl plant . but analysts said they were comparable to the chernobyl type plants in poor workmanship and management . a multimillion_dollar safety study of the east_german reactors has been ordered and financed by the west_german government . but officials in bonn have already said east_germany is almost certain to close down all five of its nuclear_reactors four at greifswald and one at rheinsberg . the reactors' safety standards are likely to be unacceptable under west_german nuclear regulations , which will apply after july 1 , when the two germanys unite economically . in contrast to the past , government officials in bonn noted , soviet specialists have cooperated with the west_german experts to prepare the new greifswald study . but until this year , they said , east_germany 's nuclear_reactors had been among the most hermetically closed of the communist world . essential data withheld as greifswald experts , now training in west_germany , tell it , they were sometimes treated as unwelcome snoopers by their soviet supervisors . to operate a reactor safely , one needs computer codes , a specialist said , but moscow regarded those as secret . when the east_germans requested data to calculate certain actions of the system or to judge material fatigue , moscow might give a limited answer or none at all , the experts said . ''a western utility would not accept it if a builder would not provide such essential data , '' said anselm schaefer at the west_german institute for reactor safety in garching , who worked with east_german colleagues on the greifswald study . 'they just lied to us' the director general of the greifswald station , reiner lehmann , told nucleonics weekly that quality was ''always a problem'' and that he ''had to reject defective components and materials'' from the soviet_union . the newsletter reported that when east_germans found the steam generator tubes were corroding , they asked the soviets if they had the same problem . the answer was no , but the east_germans got angry when they found out later that such problems were generic and existed elsewhere . ''they just lied to us , '' an official said . in czechoslovakia , plant operators have also complained about lack of information , shoddy components and secrecy . in prague , officials at the ministry of fuel and energy said they were better off than east_germans and bulgarians because in the last decade , czechoslovak industry began building many of its own reactor components and performing its own tests . similar accounts have come from hungarian and bulgarian specialists who have recently sought closer links with the paris based nuclear energy agency , which is run by the industrialized_nations . eastern and western_european experts agree that since the chernobyl disaster , soviet nuclear experts have become more open . ''it is better , but we still have a long way to go , '' a french official said .",has a topic of arts
"lead it takes a lot to stop barbara_walters in her tracks . but when jiang_zemin , china 's party leader , declares in an interview to be shown on the abc_news program ''20 20'' tonight that the massacre of hundreds of chinese in beijing last june was ' 'much ado about nothing , '' even she is taken aback . it takes a lot to stop barbara_walters in her tracks . but when jiang_zemin , china 's party leader , declares in an interview to be shown on the abc_news program ''20 20'' tonight that the massacre of hundreds of chinese in beijing last june was ' 'much ado about nothing , '' even she is taken aback . ''well , '' she finally says after rolling her eyes , ''we feel it 's a great deal to do about something . '' the television interview , being shown at 10 o'clock tonight on channel 7 , is the first by mr . jiang since he was named general secretary of the chinese communist party last june to replace zhao_ziyang , who was sacked after he sympathized with the pro_democracy_demonstrators . it is also the first interview with any of china 's senior leaders since the massacre in tiananmen_square a year ago . mr . jiang 's sudden appearance in american living rooms is probably no coincidence . beijing is worried about whether president_bush will continue most favored nation trade status for china when it expires june 3 . many members of congress , still angry about the chinese_communists' violent repression of their students last spring and their continued crackdown on all dissent , feel washington should strip china of its preferred trading status , which is worth hundreds of millions of dollars to china for its exports to the united_states . in the interview , which was filmed may 2 in the state guest house in beijing , mr . jiang does make a pitch for president_bush to renew china 's favorable trade status . ''i hope the u.s . government would consider this matter from a long term perspective , '' mr . jiang says blandly . but mr . jiang 's appearance on ''20 20'' is unlikely to sway any votes , because the 64 year old soviet trained engineer displays a stunning cynicism about tiananmen . ''i do n't have any regret about the way in which we dealt with the events which took place last year in beijing , '' mr . jiang tells ms . walters . ''i do n't think any government in the world will permit the occurrence of such an incident as happened in beijing , '' with hundreds of thousands of demonstrators gathered around the headquarters of the government . in fact , mr . jiang , whose full round face , swept back black hair and receeding hairline give him a superficial resemblance to the late mao_zedong , says the army behaved ''with great tolerance and restraint . '' mr . jiang blames the demonstrators , who he says burned ''nearly 10 , 000 armored_personnel_carriers , army trucks and tanks . '' that is a far higher number than the government claimed at the time . ms . walters never asks mr . jiang about one of the major unresolved questions from last june how many chinese were killed when the army began firing on the crowds on the night of june 3 . but when she does question him about how many people were arrested and how many were executed after the crackdown , his response is telling . ''i ca n't give you an exact figure about this because i 'm not clear about it . '' it is the quintessential chinese bureaucrat 's answer , but it also seems to reflect a casualness about the human toll at tiananmen_square . should n't china 's leader know such sensitive figures ? mr . jiang does go on to deny that anyone has been executed for activity ' 'directly related to the student unrest . '' and he has an aide get back to ms . walters to report that only 42 college students are still being held and are ''under investigation'' for their role in the demonstrations . judging by accounts from chinese , that seems a very low figure , and it may include only students in beijing . there were protests throughout china 's big cities . mr . jiang gives little reason to expect any improvement in chinese_american relations soon . he says that fang_lizhi , the prominent dissident and astrophysicist who took refuge in the american embassy last june , will not be allowed to leave china until he admits he was one of the ''behind the scenes plotters of the disturbances'' last spring , a charge few chinese believe . but just as many chinese go through life wearing_masks to hide their real feelings , the program is as interesting for what it does not say as for what it does . at a time of acute political struggle behind the scenes , with china 's leaders jockeying for position when the 86 year old deng_xiaoping dies , mr . jiang insists , ''i have no sense of insecurity . '' since mao 's death in 1976 , there have been three heads of the chinese party , and all have quickly been ousted or lost power . ms . walters , accepting the official version , says mr . jiang was handpicked by mr . deng . but knowledgeable chinese think mr . jiang was at best a compromise choice . still , the interview is a good introduction to the problems facing china watchers . does mr . jiang really expect americans to accept his utter lack of remorse for the tiananmen massacre or to believe that he is fully in charge ? the answer lies hidden behind his ever present smile .",has a topic of arts
"no pope at madonna 's crucifixion madonna invited the pope to her crucifixion . he did n't come , but 70 , 000 of her devotees filled the olympic_stadium just a mile or so from vatican city in rome on sunday_night for another performance in her worldwide confessions tour , reuters reported . wearing a fake crown of thorns , she was raised on a glittery cross during her two and a half hour show , which included a display of photographs of pope_benedict as well as of mussolini . before she invited the pope , the vatican had accused madonna , right , of blasphemy and provocation for even considering the sham crucifixion . for the most part fans shrugged off the conflict by dancing , singing and jumping as she performed songs from her latest album , ''confessions on a dance floor , '' and old hits including ''like a virgin . '' but the cheering diminished when she was raised on the cross . ''the crucifixion was unnecessary and provocative , '' said tonia valerio , a 39 year old roman . ''because this is rome , i wish she 'd cut it out . but it 's madonna , she 's an icon , and that balances out her need to provoke . '' more controversy is expected next month when the tour reaches moscow , where the russian_orthodox_church has advised followers to boycott the show because of the crucifixion scene , the interfax news_agency reported . in edinburgh , lights out on churchill 's havana established history bowed to current correctness at the edinburgh fringe festival yesterday when mel smith , below , an actor portraying winston_churchill , drew back from his threat to light a havana cigar onstage in defiance of a new scottish antismoking law , the bbc reported . the edinburgh city_council had warned it would shut the theater if the law was broken . william burdett coutts , the artistic director of the theater , said he had been told he would lose his fringe license permanently and be fined about 1 , 900 if mr . smith smoked during his performance in ''allegiance , '' about a 1921 visit to london by the irish leader michael collins . but mr . burdett coutts said he thought it was ' 'stupid when smoking is an integral part of a show to enforce this law . '' he added , ''i am all for a smoking_ban in bars , but not to have an actor smoking while he represents a character in history who did smoke is absurd . '' warm reception for osawa at tanglewood seiji ozawa , below , music director laureate of the boston symphony orchestra , received prolonged standing_ovations before and after he conducted the orchestra in front of an audience of 10 , 000 at the koussevitzky music shed at tanglewood on saturday night . mr . ozawa , 70 , now the music director of the vienna state opera , canceled engagements earlier this year when he was hospitalized with a bronchial infection and shingles , which affected his vision , the associated press reported . he led the boston symphony orchestra from 1973 to 2002 , longer than any other conductor in its 125 year history . on saturday , he received an ovation when he walked onstage to conduct mahler 's symphony no . 2 , the ''resurrection , '' and was given a nearly six minute ovation when the 90 minute performance ended . a new stage for symphony hall , boston symphony hall in boston is going to get a new stage for the first time since it opened on oct . 15 , 1900 . after more than two years of planning by james levine , the music director of the boston symphony orchestra , as well as by management , staff and musicians , new planks will be put down this week to replace the floorboards that were taken up last month , the boston_globe reported . the new floor , a 250 , 000 project , will be ready for the opening of the season , on sept . 29 . the old floor was uneven and pockmarked by a century 's worth of stabbings by the end pins of cellos and basses , by rolling pianos and by risers . boards squeaked and some were close to buckling . mark volpe , the managing director of the orchestra , said the decision to replace the floor was attributable to ' 'safety considerations . '' he said ''people ask me , 'why are you replacing the floor now ? ' a better question is 'what took us so long ? ' '' footnote ''the little dog laughed , '' the much praised comedy of manners by douglas carter beane ( ''as bees in honey drown'' ) , is broadway bound . the play , which uses hollywood for target practice , opened in january at the second stage theater . it will reopen on broadway at the cort theater , beginning in previews on oct . 26 , with an official opening scheduled for nov . 13 . julie white as the agent and johnny galecki as the escort will reprise their roles ( above , ms . white and mr . galecki ) tom everett scott will join the cast as the closeted hollywood star .",has a topic of arts
"ever since yang liping won first prize in a national dance competition in 1986 , she has been delighting chinese audiences with her signature dance , ''spirit of the peacock . '' now , ms . yang , one of china 's best known dancers , is the director , choreographer and star of a new show that is drawing sellout crowds all over the country . the show , ''dynamic yunnan , '' which is expected to travel to europe and the united_states later this year , features ms . yang and about 70 other performers from yunnan_province , in southwestern china , staging ritualistic folk dances , beating drums , stomping , singing and floating elegantly across the stage like butterflies . the show is the latest coming out party for ms . yang , who , though not well known outside of china , is known here as a stern but creative and independent force in chinese dance . and even at 47 , she can dance like a spirited youth , contorting her slender frame and whipping her arms , legs and fingers in vivid representations of animals and other aspects of the natural world . ''i just love to dance , '' ms . yang said over dinner after a performance here in kunming , yunnan 's provincial capital . ''my nature is to dance all the time . after i eat , i want to start dancing all over again . '' to prepare the show , ms . yang said she spent more than a year traveling to remote villages in her native yunnan , studying local dances , recording disappearing folk songs and recruiting dozens of young people from ethnic minority groups . yunnan is china 's most ethnically_diverse province . many of the villages she visited were wedged between mountains and seemingly lost to the modern world . there she encountered the folk rhythms of farmers and villagers who seemed to have a natural aptitude for song and dance . ''in these villages , people have songs and dances for every event when they 're happy , at harvest time , when they 're getting married or mourning , '' she said . ''it 's not a choice , it 's a lifestyle . '' ms . yang is also a dancer by nature . she was born about 100 miles northwest of here , in the town of dali , the eldest of four children . her parents and grandparents , members of the bai ethnic minority , were farmers in a nearby village . as was true for everyone in their village , she said , singing and dancing were a part of their lives . ''my grandmother was the best singer in the village , '' ms . yang said , grabbing a bowl of rice at a restaurant near kunming 's performing_arts center . ''i clearly remember , when i was 6 years old , waking up and hearing my grandmother 's voice . my grandfather had died and she sang all day long all the details of their life together . this was our life . my family loved to sing and dance . '' from an early age , ms . yang loved to dance , too . at 11 , after the family had moved to xishuangbanna , a region in southern yunnan , she joined a local dance troupe and fell in love with a popular dance that imitates the movements of the peacock , a totem of the bai people . in her early 20 's , after she moved to beijing to dance with the central nationalities song and dance ensemble , she made the peacock dance her own , recasting parts of it with deft arm and finger movements . in 1986 , that choreography and dance won her first prize in a national competition . ever since , she has been dubbed the peacock princess . experts say ms . yang has not only developed a highly personal style , but has popularized yunnan 's folk dances as well . ''she 's in the first rank of dancers here in china , '' said zhang jianmin , a leading choreographer in beijing who devised the dance sequences in zhang yimou 's film ''house of flying daggers . '' ''she 's a folk dancer , but she 's also come up with a lot of original movements , particularly with her arms and fingers . '' ms . yang said she had little formal training and prefers folk dancing to modern_dance , which she associates with the expression of anguish and pain . ''my dances are just showing the beautiful side of life , '' she said . indeed , her dances are infused with grace , emphasizing the intricacies of expression possible with the hands and arms . abruptly , she will freeze in place . then her body snaps to life . she is by turns robotic , then fluid . her long , slender arms and fingers capped by extremely long fingernails that accentuate her moves are the wings of a bird , the branches of a tree , sparks bursting into a raging fire . ''nature is simply the best teacher , '' she said . ''i watch the motions of the peacock , birds , animals , anything that moves . that 's how i 've taught myself . '' now , after years of performing solo and appearing on television as the nation 's leading lady of dance , ms . yang is returning to her roots , seeking to preserve and promote folk dances with her new show , which she financed almost entirely herself . so many beautiful ethnic dances are being lost or are disappearing with the advance of commerce and modernization , she said . and so she has devoted years to re enacting or evoking the dances she grew up with or discovered during her travels . ''dynamic yunnan'' is filled with songs and dances that celebrate the sun , the moon and the region 's folk legends . ms . yang said part of the show 's popularity stems from its authenticity nearly all the performers are young people from yunnan 's ethnic minorities . and like her , few have had formal training . one young man , she said , was selected after she heard him crying out for his runaway cow . a young girl was chosen after pleading for the opportunity to dance so she could earn the 48 it would cost her family to buy a cow . ms . yang said the girl 's story moved her to tears . ''i picked her even though i thought she was too short , '' ms . yang said , laughing . ''but she works hard . i can always hear her singing in the back . she puts all her energy into it . you see , this show is nothing but real life . '' as for her own life , ms . yang is far more circumspect . though she acknowledges being married but without children , she prefers to talk about dance , and the prospect of performing in europe and the united_states . and when asked whether her dances offer any messages , she snaps ''i do n't think about messages . i just love to dance . it 's my nature . ''",has a topic of arts
"you cannot just glimpse at zhou hai 's photographs the grimy factory workers and miners in them catch your eye and peer into your soul as you are drawn to look into theirs . the weary faces do not show bitterness , but they do seem to say , ''this is the underworld of china 's miracle , and i exist . '' the scenes in these black and white photographs , part of a touring exhibition called ''the unbearable heaviness of industry , '' seem from the industrial_revolution at its worst . but they are very much part of today 's china , where glitzy electronics and the crudest of mechanical industries coexist . ''as our society has developed , so many workers have been marginalized , and fewer and fewer people care about them , '' mr . zhou said last month at the 798 photo gallery , appropriately housed in a renovated factory space in northeast beijing . ''so i felt a need to record this era and these people . '' ''it 's a bit like in the western countries in the 1920 's and 1930 's , '' he said . ''some of the scenes are very similar . our country is now at a similar stage . '' mr . zhou , 33 , who works independently from a base in beijing , happily acknowledges influences from the great_western photojournalists of the 20th_century . his pictures , in their classical composition , atmospherics and subject matter , have been compared to those of sebasti o salgado , whose work mr . zhou admires . ( the industrial pictures will travel in january to the bates college museum of art in lewiston , me . , as part of a documentary photography show . they can also be seen on mr . zhou 's web_site www . zhouhai . com . ) some are candid shots . in one , a worker painting the underbelly of a towering structure dangles precariously in a cloud of smoke , the factory grounds just visible hundreds of feet below . in another , workers whose tiredness is palpable eat lunch from plastic cartons , take a smoke or just rest . a lone man , his shoulder pressing against a mass of giant steel girders as he performs some impossible task , takes on sisyphean stature . many of the most haunting images are posed . black faced coal miners just emerged from hell , their eyes small points of white , might be deer caught in a headlight . a steel worker 's dignity seems to emerge right through the crude mask and goggles he must wear in the fiery , poisonous mill . ''i like posed pictures , with a certain formality , '' mr . zhou said . ''by posing , you let them reflect their own state of being , their humanity . '' the intimacy of the pictures is no accident . mr . zhou said he usually stayed at least two weeks in a location , gradually starting to shoot he uses a 35 millimeter leica as he gets to know the people and place . ''i needed to understand their work and their lives , their inner lives , '' he said . mr . zhou 's newest project should capture china in a broader way . he has been manning a booth in a beijing train_station , where he asks travelers to pose quickly for a shot in front of a plain backdrop . travelers include business people , migrant_workers from the countryside , students and others . ''each type has different clothing , luggage and expressions , '' he said . ''so i think that together , the photos will capture this era . ''",has a topic of arts
"lead prosecutors have been enthroned on special daises in courtrooms up and down italy since time immemorial . beginning oct . 25 , they will be seated in a humbler position , opposite defense counsel and on the same level . the symbolic lowering of the state accuser 's place by a few inches is part of a reform of the italian criminal_justice system that the news_media , lawyers , magistrates and even legislators are calling the perry prosecutors have been enthroned on special daises in courtrooms up and down italy since time immemorial . beginning oct . 25 , they will be seated in a humbler position , opposite defense counsel and on the same level . the symbolic lowering of the state accuser 's place by a few inches is part of a reform of the italian criminal_justice system that the news_media , lawyers , magistrates and even legislators are calling the perry mason trial . if life at times imitates art , in italy the law has taken inspiration from imported american television shows . the old serial featuring perry mason as the indomitable defense lawyer who wins his clients' acquittals and helps discover the real villains became immensely_popular in italy from the moment the state television_network began showing it in prime time in the 1960 's . the show is still being rerun every now and then . what 's more , barely a day passes without rai radiotelevisione italiana or at least one of the many private channels offering american programs , including ''l . a . law'' and ''the people 's court , '' with dramatic courtroom scenes . the oratorical duels and all other dialogue are always dubbed . ways to show respect for many years , it has been commonplace in italian courthouses to hear defendants or witnesses who had never before attended a trial address the presiding judge as ''vostro onore , '' the way the people on their favorite american courtroom program renders ''your honor . '' equally stereotyped is the inevitable rebuke from the bench , ''i am not your honor , and you 're not perry mason ! '' the proper way to show respect to an italian magistrate on the lowest rung of the judicial ladder is to say signor pretore , or mr . praetor , a title that like much else in italian law comes straight from ancient_rome . higher magistrates expect the honorifics of the italian equivalents of mr . justice , mr . counselor , mr . president or even your excellency . magistrates who are women are often addressed as mr . pretor and do not object . yet vostro onore is so ingrained by now that it may become official sooner or later . it would grammatically fit men or women . ''the italians have become familiar with the trial procedures in the perry mason manner through the movies and above all through television , whereas they were almost completely ignorant of our old court system , '' said adolfo beria de argentine , a prominent milan magistrate . the old trial rules were based on a code of penal procedure enacted in 1930 under mussolini . that statute was rooted in french law and , more remotely , in the methods of roman_catholic_church tribunals and ultimately in classical roman criminal_justice . up to now , criminal trials were prepared by an investigating magistrate , who in cooperation with the state prosecutor directed police inquiries , questioned defendants and witnesses , and sifted other evidence all in secret proceedings that might take years . sometimes suspects had been long in detention while the investigators were still searching for evidence . when defendants at last faced their judges in the open courtroom , the bench already had at its disposal voluminous written records of the pretrial investigation . the powers of the prosecutor who in the italian system is part of the judiciary were much broader before and during public hearings than those of the defense counsel . borrowing a phrase watching legal principles in action in the courtroom scenes of many american television programs was a revelation for italian audiences . when perry mason cuts into the insinuating line of questioning by the district_attorney , the hapless hamilton burger , with a sharp ''objection , your honor ! , '' viewers from the alps to sicily know that he will not permit an innocent to be framed . ''obiezione , vostro onore ! '' has since become an italian everyday idiom , often jocular . the phrase will also be acceptable in courtrooms because the reform will introduce cross_examination in trial hearings . the new legislation also borrows plea bargaining from united_states judicial practice to ease the staggering caseload of the italian courts . with all that , trials in italy still remain different from those in countries steeped in the anglo_saxon common_law tradition and from the american television models . as before , most sentences will be handed down by learned judges while only defendants charged with the gravest crimes stand trial by a court of assizes composed of two magistrates and six popular , or nonprofessional , judges who have to reach their verdict jointly . there still will not be any jury trials . all future criminal cases will be prepared by a judge of preliminary inquiry acting as a kind of one person grand_jury . in the last few months , masons and cabinetmakers have been busy in hundreds of italian courtrooms , adapting them to the new status of prosecutors and defense counsel . the professional organizations of magistrates and the bar associations have been holding classes to familiarize their members with the new trial procedures . and there is a seller 's market for bootleg videocassettes of old perry mason episodes .",has a topic of arts
"lead from radio afghanistan to the voice of zaire , more official government radio stations than ever before are broadcasting abroad on shortwave , and many have started downplaying strident propaganda and overt ideology in favor of more candor in their official newscasts . from radio afghanistan to the voice of zaire , more official government radio stations than ever before are broadcasting abroad on shortwave , and many have started downplaying strident propaganda and overt ideology in favor of more candor in their official newscasts . the trend reflects the recent movement toward greater political and cultural openness in the soviet_union and china , which has encouraged other countries to follow suit . it is also a response to the proliferation of other forms of communication in the developing world , which has fostered greater competition for listeners , government and private analysts say . ''the winds of openness are blowing in more ways than one , '' said lawrence e . magne , the editor of passport to world band radio , an annual publication for shortwave users published by international broadcasting services , a private company in penns park , pa . ''there 's been a decline in hard propaganda and a rise in more objective news . '' but with about 100 countries broadcasting abroad , the shortwave spectrum is becoming so congested that countries are building more powerful transmitters and taking other steps to insure that their official voices are heard abroad . the new candor people who monitor international shortwave_radio say the new candor has been evident in several countries , especially in the soviet_union and china . ''both are now surprisingly frank when it comes to dealing with domestic problems , '' said kim elliott , the director for audience research of voice of america , which is operated by the united_states_government . ''they 're doing a much better job of talking about themselves . '' during the recent earthquake in armenia , for example , moscow radio provided extensive news coverage . shortwave monitors say the coverage included not only detailed reports of the estimated damage but also criticism of the government 's response . in general , criticism of official institutions in the soviet_union , the result of mikhail s . gorbachev 's attempt to implement a sweeping reform program , is most apparent in the two official stations charged with external broadcasts , moscow radio and radio peace and progress . the economy , with its lack of consumer goods and lethargic industrial sector , has also been a subject of recent critical newscasts . coverage of nanjing riots beijing radio , which once began broadcasts with quotations from mao_zedong , has similarly moved away from heavily ideological broadcasts . its recent coverage of the riots in nanjing , where chinese students demonstrated against students from africa , suprised western analysts of shortwave programming . ''they hinted that there was racism in china , '' said g . alex batman , who monitors broadcasts for international broadcasting services . ''that would not have happened in the past . '' and vilnius radio , the official voice of lithuania , a baltic republic in the soviet_union , has recently broadcast calls for more political autonomy . apart from the new openness , competition from other foreign stations , cassette players , videocassette_recorders and improved domestic radio and television has forced countries to adjust their programming abroad to ''provide an attractive alternative to domestic media and cater to the international interests of the listener , '' mr . elliott said . in many cases , he said , listeners wanted objective news about a country and would listen to stations they thought were providing it . this , he added , explained in part the vast international audience of the british_broadcasting_corporation . ''one reason it 's so powerful is because it 's credible , '' mr . magne said . ''propaganda does n't sell anymore . people wo n't listen . '' medium for propaganda but ever since the late 1910 's , when bolsheviks used radio to try to foment revolution among vastly dispersed peoples , addressing broadcasts to , as its announcers intoned , ''all , all , all , '' propaganda has been and remains a key reason for broadcasting . because of shortwave_radio 's range , countries have used it to project their messages across geographic and often ideological and religious divides . some countries have not been affected by the trend toward more candid and self critical programming . extremely strident propaganda can still be heard on albania radio and pyongyang radio , the official station of north_korea . and analysts in the west stressed that moscow radio has not abandoned propaganda in its broadcasts its message has simply become more subtle , they say . despite the soviet_union 's decision to end jamming of the united_states radio free europe and radio_liberty , radio warfare is not dead . the soviet_union , for example , is still jamming foreign broadcasts aimed at afghanistan in the pashto and dari languages , said jonathan marks , a dutch shortwave expert at netherlands radio . a crowded spectrum the medium 's primary constraint , however , is the increasingly crowded shortwave spectrum . the number of national broadcasters has risen over the last 20 years to about 100 the number of hours broadcast has risen to about 30 , 000 hours annually , almost double the number in 1960 . this has left too many countries competing for too few frequencies . ''it 's a very crowded spectrum , '' said mr . marks . ''in order to be effective , countries are looking at ways to get their signal closer to their foreign audiences . '' several countries , notably the united_states and britain , have embarked on ambitious programs to expand their broadcasting ability , building more powerful transmitters and establishing far flung radio networks . but budgetary constraints will almost certainly delay the american expansion program . exchange agreements in addition , several countries have recently signed agreements to exchange radio facilities , essentially using one another as relay stations for broadcasting . a country transmits a program by satellite to another country 's station , which then rebroadcasts the program by shortwave . this allows a country to broadcast from a position closer to its target . ''it 's much cheaper than building a relay system overseas and then managing it , '' said mr . marks , who has counted more than 30 of these agreements , the majority of which developed in recent years .",has a topic of arts
"lead a 510 year old transcript of a famous trial that destroyed a jewish_community in northern_italy has found its way to yeshiva_university in washington_heights . a 510 year old transcript of a famous trial that destroyed a jewish_community in northern_italy has found its way to yeshiva_university in washington_heights . the trent manuscript , named for the town where jews were accused of the ritual murder of a christian infant , was bought for 176 , 000 at sotheby 's last december by ludwig and erica jesselson and presented to the university 's museum . mr . jesselson , a director and former executive vice_president of salomon inc . and former chairman of philipp brothers inc . , is chairman of the executive committee of the boards of yeshiva and treasurer of its board of trustees mrs . jesselson is board chairman of the yeshiva university museum , which the couple has endowed . the 614 pages were written in 1478 as a beautifully illustrated german manuscript with stunning gothic calligraphy . the transcript , made for eberhardt the bearded , the first duke of wurttemberg , is the only one in german . two other records , both shorter and in latin , survive , one in the vatican and the other in the national_library in vienna . a familiar charge the case is based on a charge familiar in jewish history jews are accused of killing christians , particularly children and particularly around passover , to use their blood in ritual . such accusations have been made in england ( the first recorded in norwich in 1144 ) , france , syria and russia , where the so called beilis affair in 1911 13 aroused international protest and resulted in a not guilty_verdict by a jury that refused to be bullied by an anti_jewish government . the history of the trent manuscript in the centuries between its writing and its subsequent appearance a half century ago at auction in london is not fully known . although it is believed to have been in a private collection for part of that time , one of the chores ahead for researchers will be to fill the gaps in its background . recently , pearl berger , the benjamin gottesman librarian and dean of libraries at yeshiva_university , showed the volume to a visitor . ''it has been preserved for 510 years , '' she said . ''it is on paper made of rag cloth , which was made without chemicals that make later paper deteriorate , and that is why the oldest books are in the finest condition . the vellum binding was put on in 1615 . '' within that binding is an account of legal proceedings whose fictions were not officially reversed by the vatican until 1965 . the small jewish_community in trent apparently german speaking , as were others involved in the case , according to mrs . berger had settled in the town by the beginning of the 14th century and by 1475 had a synagogue , a house of study and three other houses for a jewish population of about 30 people . shortly before easter in that year and after fiery lenten sermons by a franciscan , bernardino da feltre , against the jews and ritual killings , the body of a christian infant named simon was , it was charged , found near the house of the jewish_community 's leader . as a result , every man , woman and child in the jewish_community was arrested . the document attests to the ''confessions'' of 17 jews after 15 days of torture . one of the jews died in prison , six were burned at the stake and two who had converted to christianity received what was considered the more benevolent penalty of death by strangulation . a papal emissary who came to investigate the charges and contradicted the verdict was driven out of town by the people of trent . a year later , with approval of pope sixtus iv , whose papal court justified the proceedings with a document that is in the introduction to the manuscript , five more jews were executed and four women were converted to christianity . jewish property was confiscated and jews were banished from trent , a banishment lasting through the 18th_century . the infant , simon of trent , was beatified because of the belief that he had been ritually murdered , and this sanctification remained in force until 1965 , when it ( and implicitly the accusation ) was revoked . monograph is sought ''this account gives the testimony of all involved in the trial , including the testimony of women , which was unusual at that time , '' mrs . berger said . ''we would like to have a monograph published about it , and we 've found a scholar who is interested . '' mrs . berger said the scholar is prof . ronnie po chia hsia , of the university of massachusetts at amherst , the author of ''the myth of ritual murder , '' which was recently published . the manuscript is housed in a special box that keeps the materials acid free and prevents the pages from rubbing against anything else . such cases and climate control preserve yeshiva 's collection of 1 , 000 rare documents and 8 , 000 rare books . the trent manuscript is one of the oldest in the collection . sylvia a . herskowitz , director of the museum , said the trent manuscript would go on display with other rare papers early next year .",has a topic of arts
"lead the cable_news_network has reached an agreement with china_central_television to broadcast cnn news in china . the cable_news_network has reached an agreement with china_central_television to broadcast cnn news in china . under the agreement , chinese television will receive the 24 hour cnn channel and use selected reports during its daily newscasts . in return , cnn will be given the right to sell advertising time on chinese television . sidney pike , senior vice_president of turner program services , would not disclose the financial terms of the agreement , but he said revenues were expected to be ''in seven figures . '' the atlanta based turner_broadcasting system owns cnn . mr . pike said that chinese stations were free to broadcast the cnn programming live but would probably not do so because of the time needed for screening and translation . he said negotiations were under way for live , uninterrupted 24 hour broadcasts of cnn to hotels in beijing within a year . other broadcasters notably cbs inc . and the disney channel already send programs to china , but most of those are entertainment . the cnn transmissions will be the first regular news transmissions to the country , mr . pike said . there are 80 million television sets in china , 20 million of them color , and the number of sets is increasing by 10 million a year . the chinese television audience is estimated at 400 million each day .",has a topic of arts
"lead the joffrey_ballet has been invited by the chinese ministry of culture to perform in this year 's china arts festival in beijing . the joffrey is to serve as the official representative of the united_states . the joffrey_ballet has been invited by the chinese ministry of culture to perform in this year 's china arts festival in beijing . the joffrey is to serve as the official representative of the united_states . the festival , from sept . 15 through oct . 5 , is sponsored by the ministry of culture",has a topic of arts
"after years of disputes over security and national pride , germany and the united_states signed an agreement today to build a new american embassy on the prominent empty lot where the old one stood before world_war_ii . the site is next to the city 's symbol , the brandenburg_gate , and the spot where berlin 's holocaust memorial is to be built . when both are completed , the historical center of reunited berlin will look less like the outskirts of a suburb , one reason that the germans pressed so hard for this agreement . the difficulty has been security requirements imposed by congress after the bombings of the american embassies in kenya and tanzania in 1998 . the city objected to a 30 meter security zone , about 33 yards , between the building and the street , arguing that it would break up the historic architecture of berlin and require that an important road be closed . but the countries worked out a compromise endorsed by secretary of state colin l . powell that will move the road and narrow the security zone by five yards , making up for the smaller zone with a stronger building design . berlin agreed to move the road about nine yards washington will pay the cost and officials with the holocaust memorial agreed to cede a small part of its site to allow for the road . ''it is a day that some questioned might never come , but here it is , '' said the american ambassador , daniel r . coats , after signing the agreement with mayor klaus wowereit . mr . wowereit 's predecessor , eberhard diepgen , had been upset by the american demands for special security treatment not sought by other countries that were building embassies in the same area , including britain and france . the russian embassy is also nearby , as well as significant german_government buildings , including parliament .",has a topic of politics
"kurdish and shiite units of the iraqi_army faced off in an armed confrontation this week , resulting in the death of at least one shiite soldier , iraqi officials said saturday . the clash seemed to raise questions about the discipline of the iraqi_army units that the american military is training here , and about the degree to which the sunni , shiite and kurdish soldiers who make up the army have been able to shed their sectarian and ethnic loyalties . the clash took place on friday in balad , a largely shiite city about 40 miles north of baghdad . the area around the city is surrounded by sunni arab villages that are some of the most active supporters of the guerrilla insurgency . details were sketchy , but according to three iraqi officials , the incident occurred around noon friday , when a roadside_bomb struck a mostly kurdish army unit that was patrolling near duluwiya , a sunni arab town near balad . the bomb killed four of the soldiers and wounded two of them . according to the iraqi officials , the kurdish soldiers , who carried their wounded comrades into balad for medical treatment , were confronted by an army unit that was made up of mostly shiite soldiers . a confrontation ensued , and the kurds killed one of the shiites . none of the three iraqi officials who spoke about the incident were willing to have their names published , out of fear for their safety . according to an iraqi brigadier reached by telephone in duluwiya , the kurdish soldiers , carrying their wounded and unable to speak arabic , ran into a checkpoint run by the shiites , who were unable to speak kurdish . the kurds then opened fire , the brigadier said . ''they were shooting at random , '' he said . ''there was no way to communicate . they do n't understand each other . '' the other two officials said the kurds shot the shiite soldier when he tried to rush the hospital in balad where the wounded kurdish soldiers were being treated . the shiite soldier thought his own comrades were inside , one of the officials said . the iraqi officials' accounts agreed on one point the shiite soldiers did not return fire , and the confrontation waned . the iraqi brigadier said that tension between kurds and arabs , who predominate in the area , helped spur the incident . ''there is a big sensitivity to kurds in this place , '' the brigadier said . ''the people in balad are very shia . they do n't like to have kurds in this place . '' ''people are saying what are the kurds doing here ? '' he said . while the overwhelmingly majority of iraq 's kurds live in the northeastern corner of the country , they are represented in the new iraqi_army in numbers far exceeding their proportion in the population . the kurdish militia , known as the pesh_merga , is a battle tested and pro american force whose units are deployed with great frequency in the sunni areas of iraq to help fight the insurgency there . tensions between kurds and shiites are generally rare both are largely allied with the americans in iraq against the sunnis , a minority that ruled iraq for hundreds of years before the american invasion in 2003 . the incident in balad raises questions about the american military 's efforts to train tens of thousands of iraqi soldiers and police . the heart of that effort involves bringing together the soldiers from the country 's main ethnic and sectarian groups sunnis , shiites and kurds into a single fighting force . an integrated iraqi_army is also seen as a vehicle to unite the country .",has a topic of politics
"lead bush_administration officials said today that the situation in east_germany was unstable and unpredictable because the steps taken by the country 's new leaders were inadequate to end the turmoil there . bush_administration officials said today that the situation in east_germany was unstable and unpredictable because the steps taken by the country 's new leaders were inadequate to end the turmoil there . the state_department reacted coolly to measures announced by egon krenz , the east_german leader , that would allow east_germans to travel outside their country for up to 30 days a year . ''it does seem to signify a liberalization when compared to existing travel rules , '' said richard a . boucher , the deputy spokesman at the state_department . ''nonetheless , the changes are still far from full freedom of movement , one of the basic human_rights which we 've always called for and always supported . we 'll just have to see whether this proposed new law will satisfy the wishes of the east_german population . '' american officials said they had no reason to believe that mr . krenz would emerge as an advocate of economic and political change in the mold of mikhail s . gorbachev , the soviet president . ''gorbachev shows native curiosity , '' said herbert s . okun , an expert on eastern_europe who served as the united_states ambassador to east_germany from 1980 to 1983 . ''he likes give and take . krenz is leaden , heavy and plodding . '' a state_department official said ''the outlook for east_germany is quite dim . it will be difficult to stanch the flow of people out of the country . i foresee increasing social_unrest , and there is an existential problem , too . if the leaders make the necessary reforms , they may reform themselves out of existence . they may self destruct . the regime has been illegitimate , and has been perceived as illegitimate , for a long time . '' on friday , mr . krenz announced the dismissal of five senior members of the politburo . but administration officials said they would not praise that move until they saw who the replacements were . john edwin mroz , president of the institute for east west security studies , a research center in new york , said , ''there is a real question whether east_germany can remain a viable state . ''you have a revolution from below , '' mr . mroz said . ''it 's an explosion in east_germany , whereas there was a gradual process of evolutionary change in hungary and poland . the east_german leadership has a salvage operation , and they are following , not leading , the people . '' he said it was ''inconceivable that the soviet_union would allow a total breakdown of law and order in east_germany . '' president_bush 's national_security adviser , brent_scowcroft , and other administration officials said washington stood ready to help west_germany if the flow of east_german emigres became unmanageable . but the united_states does not appear to have concrete plans , and administration officials said they would not provide such assistance unless bonn requested it . 'we have not been approached' ''we would have to be approached by the west_german government with a specific request for assistance , '' mr . boucher said . ''at this point , we have not been approached . we also expect the west germans would first approach the united_nations_high_commissioner_for_refugees , since the high_commissioner has primary responsibility for such international assistance . '' marlin fitzwater , the white_house spokesman , said ''although we see large numbers of people leaving , the rate of entry into west_germany appears manageable at this time . we believe west_germany is doing an excellent job of handling this flow of people . '' on the cbs_news program ''face the nation , '' mr . scowcroft said sunday that the orderly exodus of east_germans could become chaotic if ' 'something unexpected'' happens . the situation is complicated because ''there 's no east_german nation , '' mr . scowcroft said . the east_germans ' 'distinguish themselves only by their political and economic system , '' he said . so ''to the extent they reform'' that system , ''they undercut their reason for existence , '' he said .",has a topic of politics
"new allegations about activities of the former east_german secret_police have deepened a scandal that already casts an unwelcome shadow over german political life . on tuesday , a federal_prosecutor , alexander von stahl , ordered the arrest of five former agents of the stasi , as the secret_police agency was known . he said that in the 1980 's , they conspired with a west_german guerrilla group , the red_army_faction , to attack an american_army base and kill an american general . the news came only days after a secretary to anke fuchs , a senior member of parliament , was arrested with her husband on charges they had spied for the stasi . and here in schwerin , capital of the eastern state of mecklenburg western pomerania , a number of legislators have been charged with ties to the stasi in a dispute that threatens to bring down the state government . reports of underground group although the stasi was officially dissolved after the collapse of east_germany 's communist government last year , tens of thousands of former agents , and an even larger number of paid informants , are living normal lives in both eastern and western germany . prominent anti stasi campaigners complained this week that a secret organization of former agents called red fist is trying to intimidate them . many of the most spectacular charges against the stasi have to do with activities it carried out in past years , such as its reported support for the red_army_faction . according to statements by prosecutors this week , stasi agents trained red_army_faction members to use the anti tank grenades they fired in a failed attempt to kill gen . frederick kroesen , commander of american_forces in europe , in september 1981 . the stasi is now also believed to have trained red_army fighters who bombed the american air base at ramstein around the same time , wounding 17 people . among the five arrested on tuesday in connection with the attacks was gerhard neiber , who was one of the top stasi officers . erich mielke , the former stasi chief , who is already in a berlin jail facing trial on other charges , was also named as a defendant . shocking though such charges are , they concern past actions by an agency that no longer exists . more disturbing to human_rights campaigners are indications that some former stasi agents have adapted to new political conditions and made their way back into positions of power . investigation in eastern state no one knows how successful these former agents have been in reasserting their old authority . some indication may come next month , when a cryptic drama now unfolding here reaches its denouement . in mecklenburg western pomerania , as in other parts of eastern_germany , voters went to the polls late last year to choose a new state legislature . the 66 elected members , in one of their first acts , took a bold step that no other legislature has taken . they voted to ask germany 's chief stasi investigator , hans_joachim gauck , to certify that all of them were free of any taint of collaboration with the stasi . mr . gauck submitted his report to legislative leaders last week . it has been kept secret , but each legislator has been told what it says about him or her . according to press reports , mr . gauck found that at least 10 legislators had worked for or in some way collaborated with the stasi . the implicated legislators were quietly given four weeks to quit their posts . none have yet done so . expulsion is suggested it is not clear what will happen to those who refuse to step down . there have been suggestions that they be denounced in public and then expelled from the legislature . "" the clock is ticking , "" said gottfried timm , a clergyman turned legislator who is a social_democratic_party leader here . "" people are having to confront their own past . and we as a legislature are on trial before the voters . "" "" to me it 's awful that we have former stasi people in our midst . it means that some of us are the same people who were oppressors for 40 years . if that 's true , then we do n't have the moral legitimacy to govern this state . "" social_democratic legislators have decided to demand new state elections if it turns out that more than 10 of their colleagues are implicated as stasi collaborators . not all legislators here are as insistent as mr . timm and his supporters . the president of the legislature , rainer prachtl , said in an interview that he did not see why former stasi agents should be banned from the legislature .",has a topic of politics
"bush_administration officials worked today in washington to put the finishing touches on a security_council resolution for tough weapons inspections in iraq , and major council nations said they were optimistic that the measure would be adopted soon and with broad support . in a radio interview in mexico_city this morning , the country 's foreign_minister , jorge g . casta eda , said that after intensive negotiations this weekend , ''the impression we have is that there already is an agreement , and it is a very good agreement for the world , for the united_nations and for mexico . '' president_bush called president vicente_fox this morning to seek his support , administration officials said . mr . casta eda said he spoke by telephone over the weekend with secretary of state colin l . powell the british foreign_secretary , jack_straw the french foreign_minister , dominique de villepin and the russian foreign_minister , igor s . ivanov . based on those conversations , mr . casta eda said in an interview with radio red , he expected that the new draft would ' 'reflect an important number of changes introduced by france , by russia , by mexico . '' he predicted that the security_council would adopt it with 14 votes in favor and syria abstaining . american and british officials cautioned that mr . casta eda 's comments seemed premature . in washington , administration officials met today to consider suggestions they have received since last week from many council nations , and from hans_blix and mohamed_elbaradei , the chief united_nations weapons inspectors , officials there said . in baghdad , president saddam_hussein softened his tone about the resolution , saying iraq would ''take it into consideration'' as long as it ' 'respects the united_nations_charter and international_law . '' british diplomats said late today that they expected to comment on the new language before the revised draft was distributed to other council nations . britain is co sponsoring the resolution . french diplomats said they would not comment because they had not seen the most recent version , which they were told had not yet been approved by mr . bush . but american and british diplomats said they hoped to present the revised draft by wednesday . ''we are reaching the point of closure , '' prime_minister tony_blair said today . the last issue left to resolve was the hardest one the difference between the united_states and britain , on one side , and france and russia on the other , over when military force against iraq could be authorized . during seven weeks of negotiations , france and russia coined a new term for their objections , saying they did not want ''automaticity'' for the united_states to go to war . they insisted on a second vote in the council to approve military action if iraq failed to comply with the arms inspections . china , the fifth permanent veto bearing member of the council , leaned toward france 's view but stayed in the background . mr . casta eda said the new draft would include a ''carrot'' proposed by mexico , making it clear that iraq could avoid war and further economic_sanctions if it disarmed . ''the carrot is not quite as explicit as we had wanted , '' he said , ''but it includes the notion of what happens if iraq does comply . '' he said mexico agreed that the measure should threaten ' 'serious consequences'' if mr . hussein blocked inspections . mexico was ''leaving behind any impression of frictions with the united_states , '' mr . casta eda said . mexico is one of 10 nonpermanent members in the current council , with no veto_power . but for weeks , mr . fox resisted mr . bush 's lobbying efforts , tipping his support toward france in order to press the united_states to give a little . the russian ambassador here , sergey_lavrov , said today that russia broadly favored tougher inspections . ''we repeatedly said that on substance of a new , strengthened expanded inspections regime , we wo n't see any differences in the council , '' mr . lavrov said . he said russia suggested language changes to describe the inspections ''professionally and in a nonaggressive way . '' threats and responses the u.n .",has a topic of politics
"an early draft of an interim report by the american leading the hunt for banned weapons in iraq says his team has not found any of the unconventional_weapons cited by the bush_administration as a principal reason for going to war , federal officials with knowledge of the findings said today . the long awaited report by david kay , the former united_nations weapons inspector who has been leading the american search for illicit_weapons , will be the first public assessment of progress in that search since president_bush declared an end to major combat on may 1 . mr . kay 's team has spent nearly four months searching suspected sites and interviewing iraqi scientists believed to have knowledge about the country 's nuclear , biological and chemical_weapons programs . the officials , who spoke on condition of anonymity , said that mr . kay and his team had not found illicit_weapons . they said they believed that mr . kay had found evidence of precursors and dual use equipment that could have been used to manufacture chemical and biological_weapons . they also said that mr . kay 's team had interviewed at least one iraqi security officer who said he had worked in such a chemical and biological_weapons program until shortly before the american invasion in march . sections of the interim report by mr . kay are expected to be made public later this month . a spokesman for the central_intelligence_agency , bill harlow , said in a statement today that mr . kay was still receiving information from the field and that his progress report would not ''rule anything in or out . '' the administration 's inability to uncover evidence of banned weapons has prompted increasing criticism from capitol_hill . until now , administration officials had insisted that they did not know what mr . kay 's report might conclude . the effort by the c.i.a . today to emphasize the interim nature of any document seemed intended to minimize political fallout from his findings . the failure to find banned weapons has been cited by democratic presidential_candidates and other critics of the war as evidence that the administration exaggerated the threat posed by iraq to secure public support for toppling the government in baghdad , a course that some of mr . bush 's deputies had long promoted . in a telephone interview , mr . harlow said that mr . kay 's report was still being drafted and that it would be premature to describe any draft as reflecting even interim conclusions . mr . kay reports to george_tenet , the director_of_central_intelligence , and oversees the iraq_survey_group , an organization made up of about 1 , 400 american and british weapons experts , security teams and support personnel . mr . kay returned to the united_states from iraq about a week ago , government officials said , and is working from an office at c.i.a . headquarters in virginia . the details of mr . kay 's findings have been closely held within the administration as part of a strategy that officials said was intended both to prevent unauthorized leaks and to minimize internal disputes about any emerging findings . issues related to the iraqi weapons program have been contentious inside the administration as well as outside , with the state_department 's intelligence branch and some officials at the defense_intelligence_agency taking issue with a report made public in may by the c.i.a . that said mysterious trailers discovered in iraq were used to manufacture biological_weapons . mr . bush , who said at the time that the discovery of the trailers meant that the administration had found illicit_weapons in iraq , has not repeated such statements in recent months . but in a recent television interview , vice_president dick_cheney called the trailers ' 'mobile biological facilities that can be used to produce anthrax or smallpox or whatever else you wanted to use during the course of developing the capacity for an attack . '' in early june , american and british_intelligence analysts with direct access to the evidence disputed claims that the trailers were used for making deadly_germs . they said in interviews with the new york times that the evaluation process had been damaged by a rush to judgment . as recently as monday , mr . bush said he believed that saddam_hussein buried or dispersed his stockpiles of illicit_weapons before the united_states mounted its invasion in march . but mr . bush said it would take mr . kay ''a while'' to uncover the truth about what happened to them . people who have been hunting for weapons in iraq have said that mr . kay has been frustrated over the lack of progress in the search , initially over problems involving coordination with military commanders charged in some cases with detaining the very iraqis whose cooperation mr . kay 's team was seeking . those problems have been largely resolved , the weapons hunters said , but mr . kay has still found it difficult in recent weeks to investigate leads that seemed worth pursuing , in part because the unstable security situation in iraq has made it difficult for his teams to travel to some areas . iraq acknowledged having stockpiles of chemical and biological_weapons after the persian_gulf_war of 1991 but maintained that it destroyed all such weapons after that conflict , a position that iraqi officials in american custody are said to have reiterated in recent interrogations . in a formal national_intelligence_estimate last october , the c.i.a . and the rest of the american intelligence_community concluded that ''baghdad has chemical and biological_weapons'' and that ''if left unchecked , it probably will have a nuclear_weapon during this decade . '' that general view was shared at the time by the united_nations and most foreign governments but support for the position has been eroded by the american failure to discover the weapons in iraq . a united_nations inspection team headed by the swedish diplomat hans_blix said in june that iraq had never accounted for weapons and materials it claimed to have destroyed . but mr . blix said in more recent interviews that he now believes that iraq destroyed its banned weapons long before the united_states mounted its invasion in march . addressing the united_nations on tuesday , mr . bush showed no sign of backing away from the administration 's view that the iraqi claims were not credible . at the white_house on monday , condoleezza_rice , the national_security adviser , said that at the time of the war there had been ''nobody who knew anything about iraq who believed that saddam_hussein had destroyed all of his weapons_of_mass_destruction . '' ''i think we will find that saddam_hussein 's weapons_of_mass_destruction can be accounted for and we 'll know the truth , '' ms . rice said , but she added ''david kay is not going to be done with this for quite some time . '' the struggle for iraq the weapons",has a topic of politics
"the fiasco over the appointment of a new managing director for the international_monetary_fund has caused serious damage to the critical german american relationship and revealed deep personal rifts within the governing coalition of gerhard_schroder , the social_democratic chancellor . with accusations flying between berlin and washington over one aborted german candidacy and another whose fate remains unclear , two things are evident germany 's new political assertiveness makes the united_states uncomfortable , and the german perception of america is increasingly critical . michael steiner , the chief diplomatic adviser to mr . schroder , said ''it has been quite an experience trying to hit this moving target set by the clinton_administration . we have discovered that the superpower sees its global role not only in the military area but also in setting the rules of globalization through the i.m.f . '' he added , ''the superpower in washington grew stronger , but europeans are also gaining consciousness of themselves and cannot share the view that the role of the i.m.f . is simply to transport the philosophy of the superpower . '' his words reflected a strained moment in a german american relationship that has stood at the core of germany 's postwar growth into a european power . ''the fight with america'' was the unambiguous headline in the influential paper die_zeit this week over a lead article that was a chronicle of discord . chief among the disputes , for the moment , is that surrounding the fund . the collapse of the candidacy of caio koch_weser , germany 's deputy finance minister , after it was rejected by the united_states has left a bitter residue marked by charges and countercharges as to who misled whom and who really made the mess . the atmosphere was not improved when the government of social democrats and greens this week proposed a more conservative official , horst kohler , and the clinton_administration scarcely rushed to embrace him . mr . kohler , the german president of the european bank for reconstruction and development , appears likely to gain at least the formal approval of european_union finance ministers on monday . but italy is known to have strong private reservations , and the position of the united_states remains unclear . the affair has proved particularly poisonous because mr . schroder habitually a follower of the all politics is local school with little taste or instinct for international affairs chose to make a personal crusade of the german quest to head the fund in washington . ''this was the chancellor 's step into the foreign_policy arena , '' said a member of the cabinet . ''and now he is angry with the united_states , angry with joschka_fischer and angry with himself . '' the chancellor 's irritation with mr . fischer , the green foreign_minister , has some of its roots in the fact that he remains much more popular than mr . schroder . but it has been immeasurably compounded by mr . fischer 's evident decision , in the words of the cabinet member , ''to disappear into the bushes on the i.m.f . matter . '' the foreign_minister , whose taste for the cameras is normally little short of irrepressible , has been conspicuously quiet , and if his much vaunted closeness to madeleine k . albright , the united states secretary of state , is real , it has proved of no evident usefulness to germany in its quest to lead the fund . there is little love lost between mr . fischer and mr . steiner , the modern day representatives of an old german rivalry between the foreign ministry and the chancellery over the control of foreign_policy . always simmering , this friction has now been revived with a bang . to american officials involved in the debacle , the overall impression has been one of german inexperience , mismanagement , clumsiness and ineptitude . this view , naturally , is not appreciated in berlin . ''the german approach was to say , now we 're grown up , we 're going to show you we 're grown up , and we 're just going to do it , without prior consultation , without lobbying , without involving our embassies nothing , '' said one american who has played a central role in negotiations . certainly , germany feels it is grown up . mr . schroder 's government has been at pains to make clear that it views itself as the initiator of a new phase in german history , one in which the period of postwar tutelage is over , a ''berlin republic'' has been born , and the country is ready to drop all adolescent coyness and call itself ''a great european power . '' as die_zeit put it this week in trying to explain why so many tensions with the united_states exist over the monetary fund , over american plans for a national missile_defense system , over capital_punishment , over the european role in nato and over much else ''past are the times when one was afraid of one 's own courage and rather hid differences under the carpet . '' but while the united_states pays lip service , and perhaps a little more , to the view that germany 's assumption of new responsibilities is healthy , it finds this more abrasive germany unsettling . especially when , as american officials put it , the country manages to mishandle a sensitive diplomatic quest to such an extent . mr . steiner said germany 's quest to lead the international_monetary_fund had been handled as ''professionally as could have been done . '' he added that he had documentary evidence that germany had initially been misled by the united_states . the thrust of this ''evidence'' appeared in today 's issue of the respected frankfurter_allgemeine_zeitung , which published an elaborate , unsourced account of how the united_states had told germany that it would accept any consensus candidate of the european_union , before changing its view at the last moment . germany had therefore played exactly by the rules in putting forward mr . koch_weser and gaining formal backing for him from the european_union , only to be let down in berlin 's view by an unreliable clinton adminstration wielding american power with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer . ''first , the europeans just had to agree , '' mr . steiner said . ''then we had to agree on somebody with the so called necessary strengths . well , nobody can think about reproaching mr . kohler for being weak . nobody can even think about reproaching him for not knowing his job . and mr . clinton himself has now said a german managing director would suit him . '' the president has indeed expressed interest in a german head of the fund . but even quick american approval of mr . kohler and it is far from assured will not rapidly set right the battered german american bond that remains the bedrock of america 's security interests in europe .",has a topic of politics
"at his most recent meeting with secretary of state madeleine k . albright , the german foreign_minister , joschka_fischer , was astonished to be presented with a diagram showing the american view of europe today . ''it showed circles intersecting with other circles that intersected with still more circles in a rather bamboozling way , '' said andreas michelis , a foreign ministry spokesman . ''the american question was where do we turn among all these elements ? '' the circles in question represented national governments , the european_union , the new office of europe 's ''high representative'' for foreign and security affairs and other institutions . as president_clinton starts a three day visit to berlin on thursday , they also provide an apt image of the uncertain flux in the american relationship with germany and its european partners . that an era has passed is clear . this is the first visit by the president to berlin since the government moved here from bonn and so brought down the final curtain on the decades of postwar allied tutelage of germany . less apparent , however , are the focus and equilibrium of a relationship set adrift by the end of the cold_war . at a recent meeting with a handful of correspondents here , chancellor_gerhard_schroder complained that the united_states constantly pressed the ''new germany'' to assume responsibilities commensurate with its size , but whenever germany raised its voice , the old misgivings about german power reared their heads once more . the chancellor was speaking in the aftermath of the debacle over the choice of a new managing director for the international_monetary_fund , an appointment pursued and won by germany with a bludgeoning vigor that shocked officials in washington . but his point was a broader one about the awkward transition in trans_atlantic relations . the clinton_administration , under pressure from congress , wants germany to do more send thousands of troops to kosovo , increase its defense spending , stimulate its big economy through deregulation just as it wants several other european allies to assume broader responsibilities . but when germany and its european partners try to coordinate that defense spending , develop their own military identity within nato through the formation of a 60 , 000 strong rapid reaction corps , and generally sketch a partial emancipation from american strategic dominance , washington gets uneasy . ''the united_states says it wants a clear phone_number for a europe with some real cohesion , '' said jurgen chrobog , the german ambassador to the united_states . ''but when we try to give it one , we have problems . '' a nato diplomat , speaking on condition of anonymity , said the main american concern was that the european_union 's push to develop a military capacity within nato would multiply committees and bureaucracy , increasing confusion but not effectiveness . ''and in the end , if the european_union takes on its own collective defense , you would have to ask what nato is for , '' he added . at the root of the american unease lies the fact that , having completed their economic_union through the introduction of the shared euro currency , germany and its european allies have embarked on a determined push for political and military integration . this european road is fraught and will certainly be long . britain is by no means the only place where resistance to further integration exists . but europeans have already done something that now distinguishes the essence of their nationhood from that of the united_states given up a huge slice of sovereignty by surrendering control of the currency to a transnational european institution . ''any major german interest now requires multilateral action , whether it 's the euro , or security concerns over russia , where we deal through the european_union and nato , '' said karl kaiser , a political_scientist . ''but that is not the case in the united_states , and this can cause tension . '' the most recent instance of such tension has arisen over american plans for a limited missile_defense system that germans see as a doubtful defense against ''rogue_states'' whose real menace is widely questioned . mr . clinton sought to allay these concerns today by saying the technology would be shared with ''other civilized nations'' a reference to allies in europe . but however this debate is handled , it has already illustrated divergent views between the united_states and a europe increasingly ready to speak with one voice on a strategic issue . ''you have an overwhelming superpower on the one hand and an emerging europe learning to articulate its interest on the other , '' said a close aide to mr . schroder . ''that is the delicate post cold_war equation we face . '' the shifting nature of that equation is evident in the fact that some people here have taken to saying that a more accurate name for the new ''berlin republic'' would be the ''brussels republic . '' brussels is the headquarters of the european_union . ''we have learned that the more we press our interests multilaterally through europe , the more we in germany get for ourselves , '' said josef joffe of the respected weekly die_zeit . ''this will not change . '' how far germany will be able to combine this strategy with its traditional role as chief european bridge to washington is the long term question facing a country that still feels deeply beholden to the united_states for its post_war recovery . during his stay , mr . clinton will receive the international charlemagne prize , presented annually to a person who has worked for european unity . the choice of the president suggests the hope that , despite much evidence to the contrary , america and european_nations have an identical interest in the forging of a united states of europe .",has a topic of politics
"two senior bush_administration officials today urged patience with the american occupation in iraq , comparing the attacks against united_states forces there to guerrilla strikes by bands of nazis who fought on after world_war_ii ended . in separate speeches to the veterans_of_foreign_wars convention in san_antonio , defense secretary donald h . rumsfeld and condoleezza_rice , the national_security adviser , used similar language to describe the immediate aftermath of world_war_ii in germany . ''there is an understandable tendency to look back on america 's experience in postwar germany and see only the successes , '' ms . rice said , noting that the allied occupied nation was neither stable nor prosperous between 1945 and 1947 . ''ss officers , called werewolves , engaged in sabotage and attacked both coalition_forces and those locals cooperating with them , much like today 's baathist and fedayeen remnants . '' mr . rumsfeld sought to play down the resistance in iraq , and called the guerrilla fighters ' 'dead enders . '' critics of the administration 's handling of the american occupation portrayed the speeches as a coordinated effort to change the subject and to hide a flawed postwar effort in iraq behind a misreading of history . anthony h . cordesman , a military analyst at the center for strategic and international studies in washington , said much of the german postwar resistance came from hitler youth zealots , not hard core ss officers . ''the problem here is , we 're in a state of denial over the sheer scale of the problem we face in terms of nation_building , '' mr . cordesman said . ''we 're just not willing to admit we 've got to put a lot more resources into the nation_building side , and a lot more effort into the security side . '' mr . rumsfeld acknowledged that there would be setbacks in stabilizing iraq , but voiced an upbeat_assessment later in the day when he spoke to 3 , 000 troops from the san_antonio area at lackland air force base . he told reporters afterward that the pentagon would not hesitate to send more troops if ground commanders in iraq requested them . after the war attacks",has a topic of politics
"the media equation column in business day on monday , about the trial of i . lewis libby jr . , the former chief of staff to vice_president dick_cheney , referred incorrectly to richard l . armitage , the source of columnist robert d . novak 's information on valerie_wilson , whose naming as a c.i.a . operative is at the center of the libby case . from 2001 to 2005 , he was deputy_secretary_of_state , the no . 2 position not merely ''a former aide at the state_department . ''",has a topic of politics
"george_soros , the billionaire philanthropist who has given 18 million to democratic advocacy_groups to defeat president_bush , is preparing to spend millions more because he fears that senator john_kerry might lose . mr . soros announced on tuesday that he was sending himself on a 3million 12 city tour to argue that keeping mr . bush in the white_house would endanger the nation 's security , economy and values and continue ''the vicious_circle of escalating violence in iraq . '' by mid august , mr . soros had given more than 15 million to advocacy_groups like america coming together . at that time , he said in an interview on monday , he fully expected mr . kerry to win the election . but recently , mr . soros saw what he called the outrageous and slanderous swift boat commercials against mr . kerry and how they had damaged his standing in the polls . since then , the hungarian born mr . soros said , he has become so worried that mr . bush will win the election that he increased his giving , to 18 . 2 million , and has scrapped a trip in october to russia to work against the president 's re election . ''america has gone off the rails , '' he lamented in the interview over a lunch of dover sole at his home in suburban new york . ''i 've been accused of messianic fantasies , and i will own up to them . to the extent that i can contribute to improving the world in which we live , i want to do it , and i 'm in a better position than a lot of other people . '' in the last 25 years , mr . soros , 74 , has given hundreds of millions of dollars to philanthropies overseas like helping blacks go to college in south_africa , building a system to filter water in war torn sarajevo and shipping hundreds of photocopying machines to hungary to advance an independent press . he also spent more than 500 million in russia on health and educational programs . mr . soros has now set his sights on the united_states . ''if i could contribute to repudiating the bush policies , i think it would be the greatest good deed i could do for the world , '' he said as he announced his tour at the national_press_club here . such ambitions have given mr . soros the status of whipping boy for republicans . they find that mention of his name helps them raise money . even before mr . soros spoke tuesday , the republican national committee issued a statement saying , ''the only explanation for the daddy warbucks of the democratic_party , george_soros , to step out from behind the curtain 35 days before the election is his obvious concern for his investment in john_kerry . '' mr . soros , whose 7 . 2 billion fortune makes him the 24th richest person in the united_states , has become the biggest donor to the 527 advocacy_groups , a category named for the section of the tax_code that covers them . he pledged 10 million to america coming together for a registration and get out the vote drive , but gave a total of 14 . 5 million . his other contributions to democratic 527 's are 2 . 5 million to moveon . org voter fund 325 , 000 to young voter alliance 325 , 000 to 21st_century democrats 300 , 000 to the real economy group and 250 , 000 to democracy for america . he has also pledged 3 million to the center for american progress , a research group led by john podesta , president bill clinton 's chief of staff . mr . soros has given 1 . 5 million to the center . he said that in this election year he had had minimal contact with mr . kerry , largely because campaign_finance laws bar coordination between candidates and 527 's , and he is such a large donor to the 527 's that such contact would be not be correct . the two men are neighbors in sun valley , idaho . ''we used to have dinners as a foursome , '' mr . soros said , ''and i got to know him quite well . we spent a whole afternoon over christmas in 2001 talking about foreign_policy . '' although he said he did not necessarily share all of mr . kerry 's views , he added , ''i 'm very confident he would make a very good president . '' asked what kind of bang he was getting for his buck in the campaign , mr . soros did not criticize the democrats but said , ''i 'm anxious that reality is being sufficiently distorted by the bush campaign that he may actually be re elected , otherwise i would n't go on this campaign . '' mr . soros stopped short of saying the democrats had run an ineffective campaign , saying he knew nothing of political strategy . despite his contributions , mr . soros said he thought money in politics should be reduced . he gave 18 million last year to overhauling the finance system , but said he saw no contradiction between that and the millions he is giving this year . ''i play by the rules that prevail , '' he said . ''i 've got a bevy of lawyers making sure that i do . at the same time , i 'm in favor of improving the rules . '' the 2004 campaign contributor",has a topic of politics
"after pinning several pounds of medals and hanging multiple sashes and honorary swords from the "" mother of battles "" on his top lieutenants and political cronies on monday_night , president saddam_hussein told a nationwide television audience that iraq was like the woman who chose to be killed rather than submit to rape . iraq 's honor , mr . hussein said , is more important than surrendering to the dictates of the allied coalition , which has forced iraq to submit to one ultimatum after another since iraqi forces were driven from kuwait last winter . the 90 minute program of bravado and political bonding between mr . hussein and the baath_party apparatchiks who continue to stand beside him because there are few other choices for them was part of a forceful new campaign by mr . hussein to pull the country together for a long term survival strategy against a united_nations trade_embargo and political pressure from the united_states and its allies . over the last two months the iraqi leader has swept aside the interim government he put in place last march under a baath_party stalwart , saadun hamadi . and he has dropped the conciliatory_tone with which iraq sought in the first months after the war to re establish economic if not diplomatic ties with its neighbors in the middle_east and with major european trading partners . talk of democratic change has been dropped from official vocabularies . in other words , the old saddam_hussein is back , in the view of many iraqi officials and foreign diplomats here . "" before the war , saddam was deeply convinced that the other side would never start and he was dancing on a high wire , "" an eastern_european diplomat said . "" and now , with his tough new talk , he is repeating the same bluff believing the world will never permit the iraqi people to suffer so much and thinking that with an open border to jordan , he can manage to do many things . "" there are several elements in mr . hussein 's new survival strategy , iraqis and diplomats said in interviews . iraq is trying to accelerate its compliance with the united_nations cease fire resolution to remove the pretext for continued international_trade sanctions . iraq 's decision to admit this week that it was working on nuclear_weapons is evidence of this strategy . iraq still faces months of occupation by united_nations inspection_teams , but mr . hussein is clearly looking forward to the day when this humiliating intrusion ends . further , iraqi officials are working to maintain subsistance nutrition and key subsidies to the country 's 18 million people to prevent food riots or a military insurrection that could threaten his grip on power in baghdad . mr . hussein is printing money , raising salaries of key military and government personnel and lowering gasoline prices . mr . hussein appears to have given up for the moment on reconciling with arab leaders who joined the allied coalition , but he has renewed an active campaign to court arab opposition_parties , intellectuals and other sources of arab nationalist political influence to plead his case that western nations are trampling on arab pride and dignity in iraq . with this strategy , mr . hussein is betting that he can feed his economically devastated nation well into next year , or at least long enough to get out from under united_nations sanctions , which have separated the iraqi leader from iraq 's enormous wealth of crude_oil . this will certainly not bring an end to mr . hussein 's problems , but re establishing iraq 's place in the international oil market will start a powerful dynamo in the economy . the effects of rumors the critical factor for mr . hussein is maintaining domestic tranquillity . the precarious nature of his position became publicly evident this week when rumors flew through the city that united_nations trucks had barricaded the highway from jordan , on which most food shipments enter iraq . the rumor held that president_bush , in response to mr . hussein 's fiery claim of oct . 12 that iraq could withstand a_20 year seige , had decided to test the iraqi leader 's mettle . the rumor set off panic buying in baghdad , sending food prices , already 10 times higher than a year ago , soaring another 30 to 50 percent . the rumor was said to have been started by food traders angry that the goverment was trying to impose tough new currency regulations that threatened to cut into their profit . whether they were to blame or not , the currency restrictions were relaxed somewhat on tuesday . providing food and shelter to combat the growing sense that united_nations relief agencies are doing as much as mr . hussein to provide food and shelter to iraqis , the government has invited a top united_nations official , saddrudin aga_khan , to come to baghdad to begin negotiations on removing united_nations administrative offices from iraq . united_nations food shipments to the country could continue , the official said , but the food would have to be trucked in from jordan or turkey . "" we want to establish an understanding that this presence should not go on forever , "" a foreign ministry official said . for now , the message being conveyed to the iraqi people , and to president_bush and others who are working for mr . hussein 's removal , was summed up on monday_night on iraqi television by izzat_ibrahim , vice chairman of mr . hussein 's revolutionary_command_council "" saddam_hussein is iraq , and iraq is saddam_hussein . """,has a topic of politics
"lead ''americans might reflect on the fact that there is in canada as in other industrialized_countries a well of anti_americanism . it happens that it 's not enough to elect a dog catcher , but this does n't stop people from trying to whip it up . '' prime_minister brian_mulroney of canada . a12 2 . ''americans might reflect on the fact that there is in canada as in other industrialized_countries a well of anti_americanism . it happens that it 's not enough to elect a dog catcher , but this does n't stop people from trying to whip it up . '' prime_minister brian_mulroney of canada . a12 2 .",has a topic of politics
"in the debate over the necessity for the war in iraq , few issues have been more contentious than whether saddam_hussein possessed arsenals of banned weapons , as the bush_administration repeatedly said , or instead was pursuing weapons programs that might one day constitute a threat . on tuesday , with mr . hussein in american custody and polls showing support for the white_house 's iraq policy rebounding , mr . bush suggested that he no longer saw much distinction between the possibilities . ''so what 's the difference ? '' he responded at one point as he was pressed on the topic during an interview by diane_sawyer of abc_news . to critics of the war , there is a big difference . they say that the administration 's statements that iraq had chemical and biological_weapons that it could use on the battlefield or turn over to terrorists added an urgency to the case for immediate military action that would have been lacking if mr . hussein were portrayed as just developing the banned weapons . ''this was a pre_emptive war , and the rationale was that there was an imminent threat , '' said senator bob_graham of florida , a democrat who has said that by elevating iraq to the most dangerous menace facing the united_states , the administration unwisely diverted resources from fighting al_qaeda and other terrorists . the overwhelming vote in congress last year to authorize the use of force against iraq would have been closer ''but for the fact that the president had so explicitly said that there were weapons_of_mass_destruction that posed an imminent threat to citizens of the united_states , '' mr . graham said in an interview on wednesday . as early as last spring , mr . bush suggested that the iraqis might have dispersed their biological and chemical_weapons so widely that they would be extremely difficult to find . and some weapons experts have suggested that mr . hussein may have destroyed banned weapons that he had in the early 1990 's but left in place the capacity to produce more . this week , at a news conference on monday and in the abc interview on tuesday , mr . bush 's answers to questions on the subject continued a gradual shift in the way he has addressed the topic , from the immediacy of the threat to an assertion that no matter what , the world is better off without mr . hussein in power . where once mr . bush and his top officials asserted unambiguously that mr . hussein had the weapons at the ready , their statements now are often far more couched , reflecting the fact that no weapons have been found ''yet , '' as mr . bush was quick to interject during the interview . in the interview , mr . bush said removing mr . hussein from power was justified even without the recovery of any banned weapons . as he has since his own weapons inspector , david kay , issued an interim report in october saying he had uncovered extensive evidence of weapons programs in iraq but no actual weapons , mr . bush said the existence of such programs , by violating united_nations_security_council resolutions , provided ample grounds for the war . ''if he were to acquire weapons , he would be the danger , '' mr . bush continued , referring to mr . hussein . ''that 's what i 'm trying to explain to you . a gathering threat , after 9 11 , is a threat that needed to be dealt with , and it was done after 12 long years of the world saying the man 's a danger . '' pressed to explain the president 's remarks , scott_mcclellan , the white_house spokesman , said mr . bush was not backing away from his assertions about mr . hussein 's possession of banned weapons . ''we continue to believe that he had weapons_of_mass_destruction programs and weapons_of_mass_destruction , '' mr . mcclellan said on wednesday . mr . bush has always been careful to have multiple reasons ready for his major policy proposals , and his administration has deployed them deftly to adapt to changing circumstances . in trying to build public and international support for toppling mr . hussein , the administration cited , with different emphasis at different times , the banned weapons , links between the iraqi leader and terrorist organizations , a desire to liberate the iraqi people and a policy of bringing democracy to the middle_east . when it came to describing the weapons program , mr . bush never hedged before the war . ''if we know saddam_hussein has dangerous weapons today and we do does it make any sense for the world to wait to confront him as he grows even stronger and develops even more dangerous weapons ? '' mr . bush asked during a speech in cincinnati in october 2002 . in the weeks after the fall of baghdad in april , the white_house was equally explicit . ''one of the reasons we went to war was because of their possession of weapons_of_mass_destruction , '' ari_fleischer , then the white_house spokesman , told reporters on may 7 . ''and nothing has changed on that front at all . '' on wednesday mr . mcclellan , when pressed , only restated the president 's belief that weapons would eventually be found . mr . bush , despite being asked repeatedly about the issue in different ways by ms . sawyer , never did say it , except to note mr . hussein 's past use of chemical_weapons . he emphasized mr . hussein 's capture instead . ''and if he does n't have weapons_of_mass_destruction ? '' ms . sawyer asked the president , according to a transcript provided by abc . ''diane , you can keep asking the question , '' mr . bush replied . ''i 'm telling you i made the right decision for america because saddam_hussein used weapons_of_mass_destruction , invaded_kuwait . but the fact that he is not there is , means america 's a more secure country . '' the struggle for iraq white_house memo",has a topic of politics
"the department of defense has identified 575 american service members who have died since the start of the iraq_war . it confirmed the death of the following americans on friday brownfield , andrew d . 24 , cpl . , marines summit , ohio first expeditionary force . esposito , michael j . jr . , 22 , sgt . , army brentwood , n.y. 10th_mountain_division . lagman , anthony s. , 26 , staff sgt . , army , yonkers , n.y. 10th_mountain_division . sutphin , ernest harold , 21 , pfc . , army parkersburg , w . va . 25th_infantry_division . the struggle for iraq correction april 1 , 2004 , thursday a list of american military deaths on march 21 included two names in error . staff sgt . anthony s . lagman and sgt . michael j . esposito died in afghanistan , not in iraq .",has a topic of politics
"lead it was unusual and surprising for the secretary of state to quote word for word and at some length from a cablegram by the united_states ambassador to east_germany , since such messages are customarily treated as secret by the state_department . it was unusual and surprising for the secretary of state to quote word for word and at some length from a cablegram by the united_states ambassador to east_germany , since such messages are customarily treated as secret by the state_department . but the reading of the cablegram in washington last weekend by secretary of state james a . baker 3d was an acknowledgment of the authority of its author , richard c . barkley , one of the state_department 's few remaining specialists on german affairs , expertise that in the heyday of the cold_war was held by scores of foreign service officers . ''yes , everyone is surprised when a cable is quoted , '' he said in a brief interview on monday . ''but i was pleased because i thought i was right . '' as dramatic changes sweep east_germany and raise the prospect of german_reunification and a transformed europe , mr . baker has evidently depended to no small degree on mr . barkley 's perception of events as they unfold on the ground . a western diplomat here said it was a recommendation by mr . barkley 's embassy that persuaded secretary baker to travel to the east to meet prime_minister hans_modrow in potsdam on tuesday . when mr . baker disclosed the contents of mr . barkley 's cablegram last weekend , he did so apparently to counter reports that the country might be turning so chaotic that there was a threat of soviet intervention . the ambassador wrote that ' 'despite the disorder born of change , the east_german government still runs , the people work and the economy produces . '' ''demonstrations continue peacefully amidst rumors of potential violence , '' it continued . ''the pace of this revolution is breathtaking . '' a 'balanced' ambassador the language of the cablegram is the mark of the man , calm and collected , precise and concise . ''balanced'' is how dragan rancic , the east europe correspondent of the yugoslav newspaper politika , described mr . barkley . ''he is the man who makes you rich when you talk with him , '' he said . mr . barkley , who turns 57 on dec . 23 , is the sixth american ambassador to serve here since diplomatic relations with the communist government in east_berlin were opened in 1974 . this is his third tour as a diplomat in germany , in addition to service in west_germany in the army in the mid 1950 's and study at the university of freiburg . he entered the foreign service in 1962 . only 8 full fledged diplomats the american embassy here is rather small , with a staff of 100 in a five story building , but only 8 of them function as full fledged diplomats at a time when east_germany is in the throes of its greatest political crisis since it was founded in 1949 . still , it is probably a larger staff than that of the american embassy that was closed in december 1941 , when hitler declared war on the united_states . that building , situated two blocks west next to the brandenburg_gate , was destroyed by bombs in world_war_ii , and the land was sold to east_germany when diplomatic relations were opened . mr . barkley , a native of chicago , lives with his wife , nina , and their 4 month old child , katharina , in an almost palatial red brick house that probably belonged to an industrialist in the niederschonhausen borough on the northern edge of the city . the barkleys have close contacts not only with past and present east_german political leaders , but also with writers , artists , dancers and musicians . unlike current and past ambassadors to bonn or east_berlin , his german is fluent and finely nuanced . now , with east_germany on the american political map for the first time in a big way , the barkleys have also had to play host to a half dozen or so congressional delegations , with more on the way . ''they have all been good , '' mr . barkley said diplomatically of the ones that have already been here . mr . barkley graduated from michigan_state_university in east lansing in 1954 and later earned a master 's degree in european history at wayne state university in detroit . his foreign service postings have included finland , the dominican_republic and south_africa , in addition to bonn and west_berlin . asked to describe the essence of his job , he replied ''this is really unknown territory for most americans , and we are just finding our way to each other . most americans are amazed and at the same time impressed by the resolve of the east_german people . ''",has a topic of politics
"a chart on thursday with an article about declines in iraq 's public services and power generation , since the american led invasion , referred_imprecisely in some copies to two categories . they were daily crude_oil production ( not daily oil_production ) and daily heating_oil production ( not daily petroleum production ) . in some copies the chart also carried an erroneous label for the category of daily crude_oil production . the amounts shown were in millions of barrels , not billions .",has a topic of politics
"to the editor re ''lincoln 's winning strategy for 2008'' ( column , march 26 ) david_brooks asserts that anyone running for president will have to face a ''war weary nation . '' i beg to differ . although we are at war , the american people , for the most part , have no stake in this war . we are not rationing anything there are no victory gardens there is no big push to sell savings bonds and i have yet to see a patriotic poster asking for the help of anyone . this president has done nothing to share the sacrifices of war with everyday american citizens . we continue to go to work and play as if there is no war . we have been told that we should just continue to live as usual , go where we want and do what we have been doing . tax cuts continue unabated , and the administration is cutting benefits to veterans . the only things i weary of are the perpetual lies and the ' 'do n't worry be happy'' rhetoric coming from this administration . david e . siglin munford , tenn . , march 26 , 2006",has a topic of politics
"the army has dropped all charges against staff sgt . georg andreas pogany , who faced a possible death sentence last year under court martial for cowardice . the charge of cowardice was later reduced to dereliction of duty , which carried a possible sentence of six months' confinement . sgt . first class blake r . waltman , a spokesman for the u.s . army special_operations command at fort_bragg , n.c. , said sergeant pogany ' 'may have medical conditions that require treatment , and as always our primary concern is for the welfare of the soldier . '' sergeant pogany , an interrogator in iraq , said he suffered a panic attack after he saw soldiers dragging the body of an iraqi that had been torn apart by weapons fire . a lawyer for sergeant pogany , rich travis , said that the sergeant had brain_damage from an anti malaria drug and that his reaction in iraq had been exacerbated by the effects of the drug . ariel hart ( nyt )",has a topic of politics
"lead president mikhail s . gorbachev of the soviet_union sowed the wind last october when he signaled that it was time for the old east_german leadership under erich_honecker to go . now , perhaps long before he expected it , he may reap the whirlwind of german_unification . president mikhail s . gorbachev of the soviet_union sowed the wind last october when he signaled that it was time for the old east_german leadership under erich_honecker to go . now , perhaps long before he expected it , he may reap the whirlwind of german_unification . in separate meetings over the last two weeks with the leaders of east and west_germany , mr . gorbachev appears to have accepted the inevitable absorption of east_germany , where 400 , 000 soviet_troops are still stationed , by the more powerful and populous west_germany , where more than 200 , 000 american_troops are posted . but if the general outcome is already preordained , the form and conditions of unification are not . whether a united german state will be neutral and demilitarized , as soviet policy since stalin has insisted , or remain aligned with the west as a member of the north_atlantic_treaty_organization , as the united_states and the west_german government insist , will be decided in a flurry of negotiations leading to an anticipated meeting in the fall of the 35 nation conference on security and cooperation in europe . mr . gorbachev , like president_bush , seems to have realized that he cannot veto that process , but he can shape it . on saturday , chancellor helmut_kohl of west_germany agreed in several hours of talks with mr . gorbachev in the kremlin that while unification was for the germans to decide , it could not take place against ''the legitimate interests of our neighbors , friends and partners in europe and the world . '' exactly what either moscow or the germans mean by that is uncertain . some diplomats think a neutral demilitarized germany is what mr . gorbachev wants . but even if his abandonment of mr . honecker last fall was a clever ploy to bring that about , few here believe he has been in control of the situation since . power over east_german events the west germans have more power over events in east_germany these days than soviet or east_german officials do . once the east_german border was opened in november , east_germans were free to move to west_germany , and 2 , 000 to 3 , 000 a day have been doing so ever since . as the drain continues , local government authority , public services and civic morale in east_germany have been steadily undermined , and west_german politicians and political_parties have moved into the vacuum . mr . kohl acknowledged that in their talks this weekend , he and mr . gorbachev discussed the subject of west_german politicians' interference in the campaign for parliamentary elections in the east on march 18 . ''i pointed out that among them were a number of personalities who are very well known here willy brandt , for instance , and egon bahr and that strengthened their understanding here , '' mr . kohl said at a news conference saturday night . mr . brandt , the former west_german chancellor , and mr . bahr , his former foreign_policy adviser , are highly respected as the architects of west_german reconciliation with moscow and eastern_europe in the 1970 's . both are also members of mr . kohl 's social_democratic opposition . with their help , the new east_german social_democratic_party is expected to emerge as the winner of next month 's elections there , and if it does , mr . kohl could face a stiffer challenge from the west_german social democrats in his own elections in december . but will east_germany still exist as a separate state by then ? at the end of last month , its caretaker communist prime_minister , hans_modrow , got mr . gorbachev to acknowledge that german_unification was , indeed , on the international agenda , dropping opposition expressed after the opening of the berlin_wall on nov . 9 . soviet officials gave cautious backing to the ''modrow plan'' for unity by stages , with both german states gradually dissolving from their respective alliances and becoming demilitarized . but events in germany are rushing ahead so fast that the modrow plan wo n't be discussed when the east_german leader meets mr . kohl in bonn on tuesday , the west_german chancellor said saturday . a new emergency has arisen the possibility of financial collapse in east_germany . so mr . kohl and mr . modrow will discuss a west_german plan for replacement of the largely worthless east_german currency by the west_german mark . the reason , the chancellor implied , was to shore up the failing confidence of the east_german people in their economy and encourage some of them to stay put instead of fleeing to west_germany in search of a better life . ''we are in an unbelievably dynamic process , '' mr . kohl said . ''a process that we are n't accelerating , but that people in the g.d.r . are accelerating , day by day . '' but the dynamic is also complex . pronouncements by west_german officials in bonn about imminent insolvency in east_germany can easily be self fulfilling . and only officials in bonn have the means to stave it off . access to western technology the soviet_union has vital economic interests in germany . western diplomats here speculate that if mr . gorbachev is willing to see east_germany go under , one reason is that a united germany would offer him far greater access to western technology , investment , trade and credit than it now has . east_german foreign trade with the soviet_union , equally divided between imports and exports , is nearly three times as much as west_germany 's , and includes long term contracts for deliveries of machine_tools and other heavy industrial products vital to the soviet economy . mr . kohl said saturday that even if all those factories soon became absorbed into the west_german economic system , ''we can arrive at an agreement satisfactory to the soviet_union . '' he gave the same answer to the question about what would happen to the soviet_troops stationed there now . but both problems will not be easy to resolve . over the coming months , mr . kohl and foreign_minister hans_dietrich_genscher and their east_german counterparts will be holding a continuous round of consultations with the soviet_union , the united_states , britain and france the four occupying_powers who defeated hitler in world_war_ii . and this fall , some kind of framework for german unity seems likely to be discussed at a summit meeting of the conference on security and cooperation in europe . idea of a neutral germany some of mr . genscher 's recent statements imply that standing bodies of the conference could eventually replace the warsaw_pact and the nato alliance , and provide the security guarantees that neither mr . gorbachev nor mr . kohl was willing to spell out in public this weekend . eventually , a united germany would have to negotiate a peace treaty with the 80 countries that had declared hostilities by the end of world_war_ii . and some of them , a western diplomat speculated , would not be comfortable with the soviet idea of a neutral germany , a country of 78 million people demilitarized or armed , like neutral switzerland . perhaps for that reason , mr . gorbachev did not publicly insist on it in his talks with mr . kohl , who said later , ''from german soil should emanate not war , but peace . '' ''german unity has always been an academic question for the soviets , '' an east_german diplomat said the other day . ''i think now they do n't quite know what to do . they 're just trying to keep up with developments , and save what little they can . '' upheaval in the east_german whirlwind",has a topic of politics
"when george w . bush lands in berlin on his first visit to germany as president , he might wonder at his reception in a country that is one of america 's closest allies . mr . bush will be here barely 20 hours , the first stop on a european_tour that takes him to russia , france and italy , but german demonstrators plan three days of protests . many older germans and those born just after world_war_ii remain grateful to the united_states for helping the country rebuild after the nazi_era . political leaders are turning somersaults to show their friendship and solidarity with the united_states , mr . bush and the campaign against terrorism , at least so far . chancellor_gerhard_schr_der has said that ''the president is a good friend of germany and therefore very welcome , '' and president johannes rau , warning demonstrators to behave in the face of an enormous police presence , said he hoped that mr . bush ''will feel how close is the solidarity between our two countries . '' while an anti bush banner hangs from a berlin church reading ''peace for the world , pretzels for bush , '' the famous brandenburg_gate , under renovation , has a new pro american covering , showing the white_house standing behind it . across western_europe , the sharp criticism of the bush_administration 's perceived unilateralism that predated sept . 11 and was then replaced by solidarity and shared mourning has returned , resurgent . after sept . 11 more than 100 , 000 germans demonstrated in support of the united_states at the brandenburg_gate . now , the estimated 50 , 000 who will demonstrate against mr . bush will be kept from that symbol of berlin by intense security around him and the largest police operation here since world_war_ii some 10 , 000 men on duty . today , 20 , 000 people were active in three demonstrations , the smallest of which , with several hundred , being a pro american rally . those who organized and took part in the two others , run by the former communist_party and the greens , said they opposed bush policies , not america or americans . claudia roth , a leader of the greens , called the protests ''an expression of friendship , of critical solidarity with the americans . '' an invasion of iraq , she said , ''would spell the end of the international coalition and polarize the world . '' fran_ois heisbourg , a french analyst at the foundation for strategic research in paris , said ''there is a deep worry about americans running off the multilateral reservation . and the prospect of an invasion of iraq at the end of the year makes people uneasy . they have n't taken it on board yet . they find it so outlandish they do n't see the evidence in front of their faces . '' to the pre sept . 11 bill of indictment , which included the scrapping of the kyoto environmental treaty and the pursuit of national missile_defense , europeans have added the supposed spurning of nato offers of military support , the new american tariffs against european steel , the american treatment of taliban and al_qaeda prisoners at guant_namo and the american contempt for the new international_criminal_court . ''so what happened since last fall ? '' the berliner_zeitung wondered . ''almost nothing . or more precisely , as opposed to the common assumption that 'everything is different now after sept . 11 , ' almost everything has stayed the same , albeit in sharper relief . '' after sept . 11 , the newspaper said , the bush_administration ''used the opportunity to strengthen its selfish superpower position . '' ''never has a president of the united_states been so foreign to us , and never have german citizens been so skeptical about the policies of their most powerful of allies , '' the newspaper concluded . even senior german officials want to be reassured that mr . bush does not intend to make war on iraq in the name of antiterrorism . a senior german official , briefing foreign reporters today , spoke of solidarity with washington , then added , ''we are interested in hearing from president_bush himself what his intentions are concerning iraq . '' the conservative challenger to mr . schr_der in the september elections , edmund_stoiber , has said that neither he nor germans see iraq as a present danger . condoleezza_rice , the american national_security adviser , told german television on monday that german leaders should isolate iraq and educate their public . ''we also expect german support for the story that we are telling about this terrible man who has tried to acquire terrible weapons his entire life , '' ms . rice said of president saddam_hussein . another senior american official expressed impatience at ''european whining , '' saying ''this president expects support from his allies on issues of importance like iraq . if there is useful advice that helps him achieve his goals to defeat terrorism and eliminate weapons_of_mass_destruction getting to terrorists , he wants to listen . '' after russia , mr . bush will go to france , a country in transition , awaiting legislative elections on june 9 . he will visit the re elected president , jacques_chirac , then go to normandy 's d day beaches to deliver a memorial day speech . patrick jarreau , writing in le_monde , said the image washington and its european allies had of each other had deteriorated since last fall . while americans approve of mr . bush , europeans perceive americans as ''arrogant , bellicose and deaf to all criticism , '' he wrote , and believe that washington is being too generous to the israeli prime_minister , ariel_sharon , at the expense of palestinian lives . in washington , he said , ''the accusation of anti_semitism is being used to disqualify european disagreement especially french with the policies of mr . bush . '' america has entered a new period , with a return to ''american messianism , '' mr . jarreau suggested . after sept . 11 , he said , the mr . bush who arrives in europe has changed ''his unilateralism is no longer defensive . he has become a missionary . ''",has a topic of politics
"lead responding to a soviet threat to retain some short range nuclear_missiles banned by a 1987 treaty , the state_department said today that moscow should think ''long and hard'' before taking such an ''outlandish'' step . responding to a soviet threat to retain some short range nuclear_missiles banned by a 1987 treaty , the state_department said today that moscow should think ''long and hard'' before taking such an ''outlandish'' step . the soviet foreign_minister , eduard a . shevardnadze , said saturday that if nato did not abandon its plans to triple the range of its lance short range missiles to more than 250 miles , the kremlin would respond by developing a new short range rocket or by retaining some ss 23 missiles , which have a range of just over 300 miles . mr . shevardnadze made the remarks on a trip to west_germany , which is resisting the plan to upgrade the nato missiles . the treaty on intermediate_range nuclear forces , which was signed in 1987 and went into force last june , called for the elimination of united_states and soviet nuclear_missiles in the intermediate_range from 300 to 3 , 500 miles including the ss 23 's . ''we think shevardnadze 's remarks are an outlandish statement , '' a state_department spokesman , richard a . boucher , said today . statement 's tone of pique some administration officials said they considered the soviet threat little more than a bluff . but the state_department appeared to be trying to exploit it in order to puncture some of the publicity that the soviet leader , mikhail s . gorbachev , has been receiving for his announcement of a unilateral withdrawal of 500 short range nuclear_weapons from eastern_europe . ''one day the soviets announce small unilateral reductions , the next day they are talking about breaking recently concluded treaties , '' mr . boucher said . ''i would hope the soviets would think very long and hard before they actually did something like this . '' the tone of pique in the state_department 's statement appeared to reflect mounting frustration in the administration over criticism that mr . gorbachev upstaged secretary of state james a . baker 3d on his initial visit to moscow last week . that same tone , in fact , was much in evidence this afternoon , when mr . baker spoke to a seminar organized by senator christopher j . dodd , democrat of connecticut , for some constituents and supporters . in his opening remarks , mr . baker said a prudent approach to moscow was justified because mr . gorbachev ''is singing out of our hymn book , '' meaning that his initiatives were a response to the strength of the nato alliance and western economies . exchange on soviet initiatives in the question and answer period , however , a member of the audience , dan berk , who identified himself as a hollywood filmmaker , had this exchange with mr . baker mr . berk america has been a leader throughout this entire century . why are we waiting to see what happens instead of taking the initiative ? mr . baker on some of the issue areas we are . i have just said to you that we are re engaging across the full range of our relations . the russians are coming our way . mr . berk it just seems that we 're singing out of their hymn book . mr . baker , firmly they 're singing out of our hymn book . you are totally wrong . i mean , they are unilaterally reducing . we have been calling on them to do this for years . they are acknowledging the failure of their system . they are saying that their economic and political system has failed . they are having elections . they are trying to open up politically and economically . clearly they are coming in our direction and we ought to welcome that . mr . berk , his voice rising it seems we are n't taking any initiative they are doing it unilaterally . mr . baker , slightly exasperated that 's wonderful , that 's wonderful . that 's what we want them to do . because they have a significant imbalance in their favor of short range nuclear forces , an imbalance in their favor in conventional weapons , so they 've got this little grab bag here that they can take out and throw these things on the table every couple of weeks or months , and that 's wonderful . we ought to say thank you very much and accept it . mr . berk then asserted that the bush_administration was coming up only ''with old proposals'' and asked why it could not come up with something new . ''well , one reason we wo n't do that is because it is the policies we 've pursued the last 40 years that have kept the peace and brought the soviets to the point where they are in fact singing out of our hymn book , '' mr . baker said . ''they are in fact coming forward and trying to emulate us . ''",has a topic of politics
"prime_minister_jean_chretien has replaced canada 's top military officer with ottawa 's current ambassador to washington and named his nephew , a senior career diplomat , to the washington job . the appointments broaden the chretien stamp on the seven week old liberal government and settle a few old scores . mr . chretien has expressed little sympathy for adm . john anderson , who is being shunted from chief of the defense staff in ottawa to a posting in brussels . the admiral was a public supporter of a_4 . 8 billion purchase of military helicopters ordered by the former conservative government , which mr . chretien promptly canceled . admiral anderson 's term has also been plagued by a series of scandals involving canadian peacekeepers in somalia . soldiers facing charges nine canadian soldiers face charges in connection with deaths of two somali civilians last march . one of the canadian commanders is to stand trial for negligent performance of duty . admiral anderson is to become canada 's representative to the north_atlantic_treaty_organization in brussels . his replacement , gen . john de chastelain , 56 , was chief of the defense staff before becoming ambassador to the united_states . with the selection of raymond chretien as ambassador to washington , the canadian leader joked that when a chretien calls the white_house , the americans wo n't be sure whether it 's the prime_minister or the ambassador . although mr . chretien has been in canada 's foreign service for 25 years , opposition leaders charged nepotism . both the new tory leader , jean charest , and the reform_party leader , preston manning , called the appointment the kind of patronage that mr . chretien had railed against during the election campaign . but some neutral political experts were more generous . "" this man is a professional , not some party hack , "" noted arthur kroeger , a retired foreign_service_officer and chairman of the public_policy forum , a research organization based in ottawa . "" it does n't seem unusual to me . this is what you do with a man of his seniority and experience . """,has a topic of politics
"lead chancellor helmut_kohl 's ruling coalition agreed today to endorse soviet american moves to eliminate missiles with a range of over 300 miles from europe . chancellor helmut_kohl 's ruling coalition agreed today to endorse soviet american moves to eliminate missiles with a range of over 300 miles from europe . after weeks of bitter dispute , the coalition decided to accept at least the basic outline of what has become known as the ' 'double zero solution , '' which would eliminate both medium_range and shorter_range_missiles . the move lifted a major potential barrier to progress at the american soviet arms reduction talks in geneva . while mr . kohl 's government and the other north_atlantic allies had long agreed on supporting the removal from europe of all american and soviet missiles with a range of over 600 miles the first ''zero'' they had divided over moscow 's recent proposal to also eliminate shorter_range_missiles , those with a range of 300 to 600 miles the second ''zero . '' to go to parliament a statement by leaders of the coalition after meeting in bonn today was expected to be the basis for the formal government position that mr . kohl is to present to parliament on thursday . while endorsing the double zero idea , the center right coalition insisted that bonn be allowed to keep 72 aging pershing 1a launchers with a range of about 450 miles . the missiles belong to the west_german air_force , but their nuclear_warheads are under american control . the proviso , which had been expected , reflected west_germany 's position that it , like france and britain , should be able to keep its national weapons outside arms agreements between the united_states and the soviet_union . moscow has agreed to keep the french and british nuclear_missiles out of the geneva talks , but has said the american warheads for the german missiles are american weapons . clears way for talks but western diplomats said the issue was not expected to loom large , at least in the immediate future . they said the more important fact was that the german decision cleared the way for serious talks in geneva on the middle range missiles . mr . kohl and hard_liners in his christian democratic_party , as well as the conservative leader of bavaria 's christian_social_union , franz_josef_strauss , had opposed getting rid of the shorter_range_missiles because this would leave west_germany as the only nato member to have ground launched nuclear_weapons nuclear_artillery shells and missiles with a range of less than 300 kilometers deployed on its territory . the bonn government feared that such a situation would invite a nuclear exchange restricted to german territory , and might create a new gap between west_germany and its american and european allies . mr . kohl 's other coalition partner , the liberal free democrats led by the foreign_minister , hans_dietrich_genscher , had argued strongly and pub licly in favor of the double zero plan . mr . kohl also found himself coming increasingly under quiet pressure from washington and other north_atlantic allies , and from the german public , which in opinion_polls and in regional elections showed a strong preference for mr . genscher 's stance . by the time the coalition gathered today , it was generally known in bonn that mr . kohl had recognized his isolation on the issue and had abandoned the position he had so strongly argued before . the other hard_liners , including the defense minister , manfred worner , a christian democrat , evidently concurred , although mr . strauss reportedly left the meeting today grumbling , ''the whole thing means , of course , an uncoupling of the americans from europe . '' the christian democratic floor leader in parliament , alfred dregger , who had been a vociferous champion of the hard line , said in a terse statement that the decision was one the coalition ''could live with . '' decision is greeted the secretary general of the free democrats , helmut haussman , by contrast , said he greeted the decision ''with great satisfaction . '' the west_german resistance to the idea of leaving battlefield weapons behind once other medium_range_missiles were dismantled was reflected in a passage in today 's statement declaring that the government was in favor of the superpowers negotiating a step by step reduction of all soviet and american land based systems with a range of under 600 miles , as well as conventional forces and chemical_weapons . the clause seemed particularly to reflect bonn 's irritation with an idea floated by britain , and apparently favored in washington , that after eliminating shorter and medium_range_missiles from europe , nato should seek a ''firebreak'' at 300 miles . the choice of term itself caused some stir , with the notion of a firestorm being restricted to germany . but the statement did not link this demand to the negotiations on the medium and shorter_range_missiles . a first step toward the broader goal , it said , would be an agreement by the united_states and the soviet_union not to have any missiles in the 300 to 600 mile range . in contrast to the shorter range question , the ruling coalition was reportedly in accord on its demand to keep the 72 pershing 1a launchers , and had been supported on this by washington . even with their nuclear_warheads under american control , the missiles were seen to give west_germany some autonomy in its defense , giving it at least a semblance of parity with france and britain , which have independent nuclear forces . the soviet side has verbally rejected the idea that the the 72 warheads can remain in west_germany . but western diplomats said moscow was obviously aware that the germans would not publicly part with their missiles , and so was not likely to let the issue block negotiations . united_states welcomes move washington , june 1 ( special to the new york times ) administration officials today welcomed the west_german move , saying it would lead to a unified western position and encourage progress in geneva . the prevailing view within the administration is that there is sufficient political will on both sides to resolve the remaining differences . but difficult problems remain . one remaining problem is verification . the two sides have a long way to go in agreeing on monitoring measures . in addition , the united_states is still refining its technical verification provisions , which are to be outlined in a proposed protocol to the treaty . american counterintelligence officials are said to be concerned that far reaching verification provisions will provide the russians with opportunities for gathering intelligence in the united_states . another possible problem may be the soviet position on short range missiles . it is not clear whether the russians will agree to the elimination of shorter_range_missiles in the asian part of the soviet_union as well as europe . the soviet_union has about 140 launchers for its short range missiles . about a third of these are in asia . nato is also expected to stress the importance of new negotiations to reduce conventional_arms . but administration officials generally do not believe that such talks will be productive and progress in this area will not be a prerequisite for a new missile accord .",has a topic of politics
"at a ceremony marking the 10th anniversary of the fall of the berlin_wall , chancellor_gerhard_schroder made very clear today which germans deserve special praise , saying , ''the wall fell from east to west , pushed down by brave and fearless east_germans . '' mr . schroder , addressing parliament in the presence of former president george_bush , seemed at pains to assuage the feelings of bitterness felt by some eastern_germans over the alienation and high unemployment that have accompanied unification . he called their ''civil courage'' a lesson to germany . but the rev . joachim gauck , a leading protester in 1989 who was hurriedly added to today 's ceremony after complaints that former east_germans had been excluded , had a grimmer view . ''after reunification , many of us felt like strangers in our own country , '' he said . ''we dreamed of paradise and woke up in north_rhine_westphalia . '' the chancellor 's reference to ''zivilcourage'' was particularly resonant on a day that also marks the 61st anniversary of the nazi rampage against the jews known as kristallnacht . mr . schroder clearly wanted to suggest that more acts of conscience and courage like those in east_germany a decade ago might have hindered or halted hitler . the word zivilcourage has become a rallying cry of modern german identity , a shorthand for ''never again'' to the destruction and burning of synagogues and jewish stores on nov . 9 , 1938 , and the holocaust , which followed . ''november 9th is a day of joy , but also a day of shame and a time of reflection , '' mr . schroder said . ''it is a day of euphoria but also a day , in 1938 , that led to an abyss of inhumanity . '' this being germany , it was perhaps inevitable that light and dark should so mingle a decade after europe 's division was ended and half a continent was set free . few public expressions of emotion or pride , it seems , ever contrive to be altogether unclouded by hitler 's long shadow . but in general it was celebration that prevailed as the former soviet leader , mikhail s . gorbachev , and former chancellor helmut_kohl joined mr . bush in the refurbished reichstag , home once again to the german_parliament . mr . bush said there had been many difficult moments in his presidency , among them the military campaign against iraq , but ''in many ways no situation was as dicey as the one we all faced on nov . 9 , 1989 . '' on a television in the study next to the oval_office , mr . bush watched a decade ago what he called the ' 'surreal sight'' of east_germans streaming through the breached wall . his joy , he said , was tempered by concern over a backlash like the one that quashed the prague spring democracy movement of 1968 . ''some of our leaders on capitol_hill suggested that i come over here to the berlin_wall and dance on the wall , '' mr . bush said , conjuring up an altogether unlikely image . ''in my view that would have been an open provocation , tantamount to sticking our fingers in the eyes of the soviet_military . '' the former president , made an ''honorary citizen'' of berlin on monday , was clearly at pains to defend his cautious initial statement that he was ' 'very pleased'' by the fall of the berlin_wall . at the time , the path that would lead from the wall 's breach to german_unification 11 months later was by no means charted . indeed , there was no sign that the soviet_union was prepared to accept the unification of germany , particularly in such a way that germany remained within nato . mr . kohl reminded the parliament that it was not just russia that viewed a united germany with suspicion a decade ago . ''mr . bush saw that a free germany , a sovereign germany would have to be a united germany , and that was important because many others were very difficult to convince , '' he said . the skeptics included francois_mitterrand , the former french president , who was fond of the old quip that germany was such a splendid place , it was a good thing there were two of them . margaret_thatcher was equally hesitant . the absence of a british or french leader at today 's berlin ceremony was striking . mr . gorbachev , looking wan after the recent death of his wife , raisa , recalled the intense sparring between himself , mr . bush and mr . kohl over whether germany should remain in nato . he suggested that the contribution of the east bloc , and particularly east_german politicians , to peaceful unification within nato had been unfairly belittled . ''there are some undercurrents in your life that i just do not understand , '' he said . ''it is strange that right now you are sentencing those very people from the east_german leadership who decided to make the world transparent . '' egon krenz , the former east_german leader who ruled for six weeks before the berlin_wall fell , lost an appeal on monday of a six and a half year sentence for his role in the shootings of people who tried to escape over the wall . more than 450 people were killed during the wall 's 28 year existence . mr . gorbachev 's criticism was met by a frosty silence in the reichstag building , but in general the mood was self congratulatory and festive as mr . schroder painted a picture of ''a second chance for germany and europe'' that should lead to a united continent at peace . ''ten years after the fall of the wall , europe must not be divided by a 'prosperity border' between the european_union and its eastern neighbors , '' he said . nor , mr . schroder continued , ''can europe any longer accept the trampling of human_rights , as the kosovo campaign shows . '' the chancellor said germany would work energetically to bring countries like poland into the european_union . in fact , well before the ''civil courage'' of east_germans became manifest , it was the poles and their solidarity union that set europe on the road to ending the cold_war . mr . schroder acknowledged this , thanking poland and other central_european countries for helping germany out of its postwar division . the unification that came on oct . 3 , 1990 , brought initial euphoria , but was followed by what mr . gauck , who is now in charge of analyzing and releasing the six million files of the east_german stasi , or secret_police , for east_germany 's 17 million people , today called ''feelings of helplessness and disappointment'' in the eastern part of the country . unemployment soared in the east , growing to more than double western levels . humiliated and feeling worthless , some ''ossis'' came to see ''wessis'' as arrogant in their wholesale takeover of the country ''wessis , '' in turn , started to resent large transfers of public money eastward . but alongside those resentments , a staggeringly rapid transformation took place , bringing modern telecommunications , new industries , new roads and new possibilities to a once decaying , gloomy eastern landscape . mr . schroder insisted that berlin should remember those achievements and today live ''a moment of joy . '' concerts , light shows , parties and fireworks were among the attractions offered to express that joy in a city still searching through light and shadow to make itself one after a century of almost relentless trauma .",has a topic of politics
"lead new confrontations between american fishermen and canadian patrols on the georges bank , one of the world 's richest fishing grounds , have brought the two nations back to the conference table to try to resolve a longstanding border dispute . new confrontations between american fishermen and canadian patrols on the georges bank , one of the world 's richest fishing grounds , have brought the two nations back to the conference table to try to resolve a longstanding border dispute . last month , the canadian authorities chased an american scalloper across 100 miles of sea for 18 hours , contending the vessel had been fishing in canadian territory . their patrol boat turned back only when the fishing boat , based in new bedford , mass . , reached united_states territorial waters 12 miles off the coast of nantucket . the incident was the latest of at least 10 in the past two years . in october , a . 50 caliber machine_gun was fired across the bow of an american vessel whose skipper refused requests by canadian agents to board . scallops , flounder and cod trouble arose after the two countries extended their offshore boundaries in 1977 to 200 miles . the lines overlapped in an area that included the georges bank , 1 , 200 square_mile of ocean rich in scallops , flounder , haddock and cod , 80 miles off the coast of cape_cod at its closest point . both countries laid claim to the area , which had been fished jointly for generations . in 1984 , the world_court divided the area , giving the united_states five sixths of the georges bank , but allotting to canada what most fishermen consider the more fertile waters . american fishermen said the grounds they lost had been harvested by this country 100 years before the canadians fished there . the two sides met in december but failed to settle the dispute . the latest incidents provided the incentive for another round of negotiations . representatives from the state_department and the canadian department of external_affairs met wednesday in ottawa and established groups to examine how to keep fishermen from crossing territorial lines . the groups are scheduled to meet in september to report their findings , which will be discussed by officials of both governments in october . dispute over equipment ''we agreed that one of the largest problems is communication , between our fishermen and their patrols , as well as from their patrols to our fishermen , '' said edward wolfe , deputy assistant secretary of state for oceans and fisheries , who led the american delegation . mr . wolfe said the groups also would look into teaching both sides about canadian and american navigational equipment . american fishermen contend their equipment sometimes shows that they are in american waters when that of the canadian patrols indicates they are on the other side of the line . canadian government officials say the equipment used by both countries is the same . ''we 've heard those comments and done investigations internally , and frankly we ca n't find anything to justify them , '' said hugh trudeau , director of atlantic operations for the canadian department of oceans and fisheries . ''they seem to be a red_herring to divert attention from the real issue , which is u.s . fishermen fishing on our side of the line . '' fear of stiff fines american fishermen say they run when challenged because they fear the canadian fines , which can be as high as 500 , 000 . if the fishermen are convicted instead in the united_states , they face a_10 , 000 civil penalty under the federal lacey act , which prohibits transportation of fish or animals across international lines . ''we do not condone crossing the line , but i would advise our boats if they cross in error to come back to the u.s . , '' said howard nickerson , executive director of the new bedford offshore mariners association and a fisherman for 25 years . since the world_court ruling , canadian patrol boats have spotted and chased more than 50 american fishing boats ''poaching'' in canadian waters , mr . trudeau said .",has a topic of politics
"the chief arms inspector for iraq , richard_butler , told the security_council today that he was disappointed with iraq 's cooperation with resumed inspections , particularly the refusal to produce any documents that the inspectors requested . the council took no action beyond noting his report and agreeing to continue discussing the issue . the meeting was described by diplomats as not confrontational , with no real challenges to mr . butler , as the iraqis have demanded . he was asked by some council members only to explain why the united_nations special commission , which monitors the weapons program , needed to see the documents . the tension and crisis atmosphere of the last two weeks is gone from the council , and there seems to be a general agreement by critics and supporters of iraq that president saddam_hussein of iraq should have time to demonstrate amply how he intends to proceed before punishment or rewards are rendered . ''this is not a crisis , '' shen guofang of china said . ''this is a problem . '' sergei lavrov of russia also took a low key approach , diplomats said , describing the confrontation over documents as something that should be worked out between mr . butler and iraq . diplomats said , though , that russia had blocked a british drafted statement that would have made clear that iraq 's actions ' 'did not constitute full cooperation'' with the inspectors . in washington officials sought to portray firm resolve in dealing with iraq a day after having signaled a new policy of patience . officials used somewhat tougher language than they did on monday in addressing the refusal on documents that relate to suspected weapons sites . ''i do n't believe iraq should be in the position of declaring unilaterally that documents are irrelevant to the needs and requests of the unscom inspectors , '' defense secretary william s . cohen said at a news session with defense minister rudolf_scharping of germany . ''so we will continue to follow it . but much depends upon the level and degree of cooperation on the part of the iraqis . '' a spokesman for the national_security_council , david c . leavy , said washington was not satisfied with iraq since it agreed 10 days ago to resume unfettered_access . at the united_nations this morning the security_council voted , over iraqi objections , to renew for an additional six months the program under which limited quantities of oil are sold to pay for civilians . the unanimous vote without a debate was taken after several delegations , led by russia , had proposed changes to the plan at the behest of iraq . the changes received no support , diplomats said , because the plan is demonstrating some success at improving conditions in iraq . childhood malnutrition has , for example , leveled off , officials say , and more than 444 million in medicines have been imported in two years . ''these delegations dropped their requests in favor of a very quick consensus , '' the chairman of the council 's iraq sanctions committee , antonio monteiro of portugal , said . ''this is very positive . it shows the awareness of the humanitarian impact of this operation . '' iraq has not said whether it will continue in the program , however . it is left to the iraqis to decide in consultation with the united_nations how the money will be allocated , and the iraqi proposals have to be reviewed in new york before goods are bought . in recent months iraq has expanded its requests from basic goods like food and medicines to items like telephone equipment and computers for schools . under the program iraq has built up or renewed commercial ties with a range of nations . last week foreign_minister mohammed saeed al sahhaf wrote to the council , asking that the current six month phase be extended only an additional two months because iraq was incapable of producing the 5 . 2 billion in oil now allowed to be sold every 180 days . iraqi officials would also like a shorter renewal period , because they are pressing to have sanctions lifted so that oil can be sold freely , making the program irrelevant . they complain that the united_states and britain are holding up approval of imported equipment and chemical supplies that independent experts said iraq needed to upgrade its oil fields and pipelines . the first shipment , barrels of chemical agents to clean crude_oil , did not begin to arrive in iraq until this week . united_nations officials say much of the reason that iraq has been unable to meet the target stems not as much from missing parts and supplies as from the fall in oil prices . the united_nations takes nearly one third off the top of earnings under the program for a compensation fund that benefits victims of iraq 's invasion and occupation of kuwait and for protected kurdish areas of northern iraq . the program also pays the expenses of the united_nations special commission . in the midst of what could be drawn out negotiations on several fronts with iraq officials in baghdad confirmed today that the iraqi representative at the united_nations , nizar_hamdoon , would leave at the end of the year and that his replacement would be his deputy , saeed hasan , an economist educated at the sorbonne . mr . hamdoon , the ambassador to washington in the 1980 's who is widely considered to have been an effective voice for iraq there and in new york since 1992 , said in an interview that he expected to return to a post in the foreign ministry .",has a topic of politics
"the mullah with the automatic pistol in his hand pointed to the dead man in the hospital courtyard and said he was a syrian suicide_bomber who had come to attack saddam city , a poor shiite_muslim neighborhood , hoping to destabilize a newly liberated iraq . ''do n't touch him , do n't touch him , '' shouted the mullah , sadeq al hassnawi , waving away hospital staff members with his pistol . he said he wanted american munitions experts to come and defuse a bomb he believed was concealed in the dead man 's gauze wrapped forearm . outside the hospital gate , men with battle worn kalashnikovs pushed back a gathering crowd to allow a white minivan into the hospital yard . men spilled from the van , pulling out a dazed and beaten man with a cauliflower ear . the mullah identified him as the second syrian attacker , who had briefly escaped after trying to bomb the hospital an hour before . but four hours later , when a squad of united_states_marines arrived to look at the suspected bomb , the body was gone . ''syrians ? '' a more senior mullah said to an american officer , a downcast mr . hassnawi standing by . ''there are no syrians here . '' the incident was typical of recent events in the shadowy world of saddam city , where who is shooting whom , and why , is one of the mysteries clouding this war damaged and dysfunctional city . an 80 block wasteland of low , dust laden buildings and garbage strewn , mostly unpaved streets , saddam city is one of the most dangerous corners of the iraqi capital a week after the americans' arrival . gunfire echoes through its maze of narrow lanes throughout the day , and the shooting picks up as dusk falls , the cherry red glow of tracer bullets arcing through the dimming blue sky . by midnight , the gun_battles are in full swing across the district , the pop of rifles met by the thudding of heavier machine_guns . ''cars with no plates shoot at people in the street , '' said karim al moussawi , a thin cleric with a four inch beard sitting in the low ceilinged office of his small mosque in the heart of the district . ''the nights are theirs . '' most shiites say they are being attacked by sunni muslims angry with the shiites for not having fought harder to stop the american invaders and jealous of the rise in stature that shiites will probably enjoy in a more democratic iraq . others say it is saddam loyalists trying to create instability to make it harder for americans to govern . ''the baathists want to incite sectarian_violence to destabilize iraq , then blame it on the americans , '' said mohssen farag , 55 , a retired army officer on the outskirts of saddam city . he said the remains of the baath_party wanted to make saddam_hussein 's government look better than the occupying americans . ''the problem is that the american bombs have destroyed just the skeleton of the regime , '' he said , ''but the body and the main heads are still all around the place . '' the marines stationed on the edge of saddam city say residents have turned over to them at least six non iraqi fighters , including syrians and jordanians , who were caught in the district . but the marines believe much of the shooting is by nervous shiites warning off suspected or imagined intruders in the dark and lawless section of the capital . more deadly fire might be aimed at longstanding rivals in the poor and crowded residential area or simply come from jumpy guards at makeshift roadblocks . ''we 're letting them sort it out themselves , '' said maj . david holahan , with marines on the edge of the district . one thing is certain , the shooting is not directed at american_troops . as a tank and several armored assault vehicles clanked and roared sunday_night through saddam city 's surreal streets , the gunfire fell silent and the red tracers dwindled to a distant few . residents appeared on street corners and on balconies to cheer the show of force , the marines' first nighttime patrol through the district . a few hours after the americans were back on the nearby grounds of a bombed cigarette factory , though , the gunfire_erupted again , as furiously as before . ''once the sun sets , the district turns into a city of horror , '' said one frightened resident , hisham ado , 25 . mr . hassnawi , the mullah at the hospital , said the fighting is a plot by adherents to wahhabism , a conservative brand of islam in neighboring saudi_arabia , who are paying mercenaries ''to oppress the shia in iraq and create instability in iraq under american control . '' others tell a similar story . ''all this is just a deadly game between the wahhabi and shia clergies , '' said muhammad farag khalaf , 60 , on the outskirts of the district . if true , the strategy is having some effect . many residents of saddam city have joined protests outside the palestine_hotel in downtown baghdad , where most of the international news_media are encamped . ''if i ca n't feel that my children are safe , then i 'll have no choice but to blow myself up along with some american_soldiers , '' shouted khodeir abbes , a 32 year old civil_engineer who lives in saddam city . ''if my children are n't safe , then life is not worth living . '' saddam city is the natural place to foment such instability . built in the northeastern corner of baghdad as revolution city , after the 1958 overthrow of iraq 's king , the once promising district deteriorated into a slum under saddam_hussein , who renamed it after himself . on the approach to the district , signs for saddam city have been written over to read ''sadr_city , '' a reference to the shiite leader muhammad al sadr , who was killed by the government in the late 1990 's . saddam_hussein feared the shiites , who make up a majority of iraq 's population , and checked several uprisings by executing or imprisoning shiite leaders . now that mr . hussein is no longer in power , various shiite groups are competing for positions of influence over the broader shiite community . in najaf , a struggle between mr . sadr 's son and the city 's most senior cleric , ayatollah ali al sestani , has already left one cleric dead . but dozens of people interviewed in the saddam city district insisted that the fighting had nothing to do with any broader shiite power struggle , arguing that anti shiite forces are trying to split the community . ''we are always worried when we see that people are divided , '' said ayatollah hussein sadr , one of the top shiite_clerics , speaking at the kadhimiya shrine , in the kadhimiya neighborhood in baghdad . ''a new government has to care for the concerns of everyone . '' a nation at war on baghdad's streets",has a topic of politics
"lawyers for a 44 year old naturalized american citizen have been pressing a federal district judge to intervene in their client 's case , saying that he had been arrested and held in iraq for more than a year without being charged or given access to a lawyer . but the justice_department , in its first formal response , said on tuesday that the prisoner , shawqi ahmad omar , was not a businessman who was in iraq simply looking for construction contracts , as his lawyers assert . he is , department officials said in a brief , a close associate of abu_musab_al_zarqawi , the leader of al_qaeda_in_iraq , and he may be guilty of war_crimes . in its papers , the officials said that mr . omar had been captured in baghdad harboring an iraqi insurgent and four jordanian foreign_fighters who entered iraq illegally and admitted that they went there to fight american_forces . the officials added that the jordanians said that mr . omar was plotting to kidnap foreigners from baghdad hotels , using his fluency in english gained during his years in the united_states . the government said that when he was arrested , his house contained weapons and materials for making improvised bombs . mr . omar 's lawyers have asked judge ricardo m . urbina to review his case , which they have asserted has resulted in wide scale violations of the rights to which he is entitled as a united_states citizen . they have also asked judge urbina to block any transfer of mr . omar to iraqi government custody , which they said would be a ruse by the united_states to avoid federal court jurisdiction . the justice_department argued that mr . omar was not in military custody , the basis under which his lawyers say a federal_judge has jurisdiction over his case . the officials asserted that he was held by the multi national force , a coalition of 27 nations that is assisting iraq at the request of the united_nations . to support that argument , the justice_department included an affidavit from maj . gen . john d . gardner , who describes himself as the commander of detainee operations for the multinational force . while there are , in fact , other nations represented in the military coalition in iraq , the detention system run by the military in baghdad is widely regarded as an essentially american led system . general gardner has been described regularly in news reports as commander of the american managed detention system in iraq . nonetheless , the case of mr . omar an american citizen arrested in iraq by the military authorities presents a new situation for the courts , which are already grappling with several questions involving the conflict between national_security interests and civil_liberties . courts have had to deal with issues involving american citizens arrested in the united_states and afghanistan and those held at guant_namo_bay , cuba , but mr . omar 's case appears to be the first one before a federal court of an american citizen detained in iraq . jonathan hafetz of the brennan center for justice at new york_university , one of several american lawyers representing mr . omar , said before the government filing that ''neither we nor his family know why he is being held . '' he added , ''we 're asking the court to provide him with the due process rights he is entitled to as an american citizen . '' mr . hafetz said that mr . omar 's wife had been told by american consular officials that her husband was to be transferred to iraqi custody . ''as an interim matter , we 're trying to prevent any middle of the night transfer to circumvent the federal court 's jurisdiction , '' mr . hafetz said . the lawsuit , which was filed against the secretary of the army , is being brought in mrs . omar 's name because her husband is unavailable to sign papers , the lawyers said . the papers filed on mrs . omar 's behalf say that her husband had gone to iraq after the overthrow of saddam_hussein in hope of obtaining contracts on reconstruction work . his lawyers say that mr . omar was born in kuwait to jordanian parents and he served in the minnesota national guard and became a citizen in 1986 . the government said he retained his jordanian citizenship as well .",has a topic of politics
"the palestine and sheraton hotels in central baghdad were hit by a volley of rockets at about 7 15 on friday morning . first indications were that there were no casualties among the large number of americans and other westerners who live in the palestine_hotel , but a cnn report said at least two wounded people had been carried from the sheraton_hotel after the attack . just before the attack on the hotels , two rockets were fired at the oil ministry , nearby . there were no reports of casualties in that attack . the two 20 story hotels , on the east bank of the tigris_river , have long been regarded as potential targets for terrorist attacks . the rockets hit simultaneously from opposite sides of the hotels , suggesting a degree of sophistication in the planning of the attack . the rockets that hit the palestine_hotel , where this reporter was staying , struck on the 15th and 16th floors , where rooms are mostly occupied by reporters and westerners working for companies involved in reconstruction efforts across iraq . at both hotels , there are a large number of american officials protected by uniformed american_troops of the first armored division . american_soldiers were quickly at the scene , clearing rooms and ushering guests down fire stairwells . after friday 's strikes on the two floors of the palestine_hotel hit by the rockets , guests milled about the corridors in their nightclothes , stepping over rubble and into air thick with soot and grime , as a loudspeaker urged then to go down stairwells to the ground . guests in the room close to where the rockets struck including this reporter , whose room was 50 feet away from one of the strikes heard what appeared at first to be a single explosion , suggesting that the weapon used against the hotel might have been a multiple rocket launcher of the type used on oct . 26 against the rashid hotel , base for many senior american military and intelligence officials . one person was killed in that attack . the attack on friday was potentially the most serious strike on a major target involving foreigners in baghdad since the oct . 27 suicide_bombing of the international committee of the red_cross , one of a series of suicide bombings that day across the city that killed more than 25 people . the pattern of several of the most serious attacks in baghdad and elsewhere in iraq in recent months has appeared to have been aimed at driving as many westerners out of the country as possible , isolating the american and british_troops who carried the brunt of fighting in the war to topple saddam_hussein , and making impossible the implementation of plans to spend billions of dollars on reconstruction here . a voice purporting to be that of mr . hussein said in an audiotape released sunday that those mounting the attacks on the americans should also concentrate on ''foreign agents'' who were assisting in the occupation of iraq , and that the defeat of ''the evil ones'' meaning the americans was inevitable . the strike on the palestine_hotel was an eerie echo of an american tank shell that hit the hotel on april 7 , two days before american_forces overran baghdad . the shell fired from a bridge across the tigris to the north of the hotel also struck on the 15th floor , killing two men , a ukrainian and a spaniard , both television cameramen . a pentagon investigation later cleared the tank unit of responsibility , saying the shell had been fired by a tank commander who did not know that the hotel used by almost all the foreign reporters in baghdad . a region inflamed in baghdad",has a topic of politics
"lead president_reagan arrived here today on a cold and rainy day for his third summit meeting with prime_minister brian_mulroney and , as it happened , encountered a chilly reception on the subject of acid_rain . president_reagan arrived here today on a cold and rainy day for his third summit meeting with prime_minister brian_mulroney and , as it happened , encountered a chilly reception on the subject of acid_rain . mr . mulroney insisted that recent proposals by the administration to spend 2 . 5 billion over the next five years on acid_rain research did not go far enough . he said the united_states must agree to mandatory controls on the sulfur_dioxide emissions that contribute to the problem . ''it is a fact of life that our mutual environment is being savaged and we are doing it , '' mr . mulroney said in an interview on cable_news_network . ''of course you have to act . '' the prime_minister forcefully raised the acid_rain issue at his first meeting with the president this afternoon and once more pressed for stricter control on the sources of pollution , according to a canadian government official . acid_rain is the name given to air_pollution , largely sulfur_dioxide and nitrogen oxides , given off by the burning of fossil_fuels and changed chemically while traveling through the atmosphere , falling to earth as acidic rain , snow or dry particles . it has been found to destroy freshwater plants and wildlife and is suspected of damaging crops and threatening human health . both have political problems acid_rain is the paramount topic for the 24 hour meeting between the two leaders , both of whom have severe political problems and may see the encounter as a way to increase their popularity at home . for mr . reagan , who met with mr . mulroney in canada in 1985 and in the united_states last year , this is the first trip outside the country since the iran contra affair surfaced last fall , and it gives him a chance to act the role of a world leader . but a senior administration official told reporters this would be a ' 'summit without drama , '' and without major agreements . the two leaders met late this afternoon for 35 minutes , and marlin fitzwater , the white_house spokesman , described it as an ''intimate session between two old friends . '' ''they are expecting solid progress on several points , '' he added , ''including trade , acid_rain , defense , health and other issues . '' the two leaders committed themselves at the meeting to ''close collaboration'' in research on aids , acquired_immune_deficiency_syndrome , the spokesman said . on acid_rain , the spokesman defended administration efforts on research and insisted , ''this is not a problem we take lightly . '' he said the prime_minister 's critical comments today indicated the ''openesss and honesty'' in the relationship between ottawa and washington . in his radio address on saturday , the president said both countries ''continue to worry about the consequences of acid_rain , '' but that comment understated the canadian viewpoint . more than 4 , 000 demonstrators who gathered on parliament hill here focused on the issue , carrying signs that said , ''stop killing trees'' and ''end acid_rain . '' trade a major issue trade is also a major issue at this summit , with the two countries deeply engaged in negotiations to create a free_trade_zone between them . mr . mulroney is a strong advocate of this goal , saying increased trade would be good for both sides . but critics are worried that a heavy flow of cheap american goods could cost canadians jobs . at the state_dinner tonight , mr . reagan said that ' 'much hard bargaining still lies ahead in the pursuit of a free_trade agreement . '' mr . mulroney has also asserted canadian sovereignty over the northwest passage in the arctic . ''that is ours , '' mr . mulroney said on the nbc_news program ''meet the press . '' ''we own it , lock , stock and iceberg . '' the reagan_administration has rejected these claims , saying international_rules of transit should bar exclusive control over such waterways . the two leaders could not escape the shadow of domestic politics , and mr . mulroney said he sympathized with mr . reagan 's problems over the iran contra affair . he also rejected suggestions that his own plunge in popularity has been caused by his policy of improved relations with the united_states . among those traveling with the president are secretary of state george p . shultz defense secretary caspar w . weinberger lee thomas , administrator of the environmental_protection_agency , and clayton k . yeutter , the united_states trade representative .",has a topic of politics
"the bush_administration praised the soviet legistature 's passage today of a long anticipated free emigration bill , but the white_house said it wanted to read the fine_print before it decided to grant moscow the trade benefits that were conditioned on the bill 's passage . the white_house also said it was considering but had not yet decided how to respond to an appeal from the soviets to join directly in drafting and financing a plan for economic and political reform that mikhail s . gorbachev , the soviet president , wants to discuss with the leaders of the major western industrialized_nations at their mid july summit conference in london . passage of the soviet emigration bill , and the latest economic proposals , coincided with the arrival in washington of gen . mikhail a . moiseyev , the soviet chief of general staff , for negotiations with senior administration officials aimed at resolving the last disputes holding up the conventional_arms reduction agreement for europe . general moiseyev held daylong talks with an american delegation headed by reginald bartholomew , under secretary of state for security affairs . president_bush , after meeting with the german chancellor , helmut_kohl , said "" not much progress "" had been made in the arms talks . but he made it plain that if that hurdle could be cleared , he was eager for a summit meeting with mr . gorbachev . new level of cooperation these various developments , while seemingly unrelated and involving both economic and arms control issues , are in fact part of a series of tradeoffs that the white_house and the kremlin are hoping to make , not only to pave the way for wide_ranging talks between mr . bush and mr . gorbachev , probably in moscow in late june or early july , but also to take soviet american cooperation to a new level . the soviets seem to be turning increasingly to the united_states to help dig them out of their economic depression , and the administration is having to decide how far it wants to go and what recompense it might seek . mr . bush agreed at his summit meeting in washington in 1990 to give the soviet_union most favored nation trading status , which would enable the soviets to export their goods to the united_states at lower tariffs . the status was contingent on the emigration bill . today the state_department spokeswoman , margaret d . tutwiler , adopted a cautiously_optimistic approach about the next step . "" we have not seen the text of the legislation or the implementing resolution as passed , and would prefer to withhold judgment on specifics until we have been able to review it in detail , "" she said . "" the very fact that procedures once subject to the arbitrary application of unpublished regulations are now established in law in our view is a positive development . "" the new law gives most soviet citizens the right to travel abroad but does not state when travel restrictions would be lifted . the supreme soviet approved a separate resolution establishing a target date of jan . 1 , 1993 for the law to take effect . the bill also requests that the cabinet report within two weeks on whether some elements of the law can take effect earlier . "" obviously , we would prefer to see it implemented faster , "" said miss_tutwiler , "" but that does not detract from something that we have been fighting for for two decades , and that is why we also want to have more clarity and understanding concerning the step by step implementation . the other part of this that we understand was passed also , we have not yet seen the detail and fine_print in that . "" on the visit from general moiseyev , white_house spokesman marlin fitzwater said the administration was not looking to cut any deals with the soviets but rather to convince the general to abide by the treaty as written . "" we want compliance with the original treaty , "" he said . the dispute is over four naval infantry regiments , equipped with 1 , 100 tanks , armored_personnel_carriers and artillery_pieces . the soviets have argued that this equipment , which is restricted by the treaty , should be free of limitations . the soviets contend that , because the treaty deals only with ground forces , such forces under naval command should not be limited . this interpretation is not shared by any other signatories , and it reflects the disgruntlement of the soviet_military over political leaders' failure to insist that the treaty limit naval forces , where the west has superiority . washington was expected to agree that the equipment of these naval infantry units could be excluded provided a similar amount of ground equipment from their regular army forces was withdrawn or destroyed instead . a similar compromise formula was used to resolve an almost identical dispute raised by the soviet_military over its coastal defense units , which it also wanted excluded from the treaty . general moiseyev is to meet tomorrow with secretary of state james a . baker 3d in an effort to resolve the dispute , which has strained relations between moscow and washington . on the question of the president gorbachev 's request to attend the economic summit , mr . fitzwater said the president "" will be consulting with "" leaders of the other industrialized_nations , "" but we have not resolved this matter now . "" a senior state_department official said the british , as hosts , would take the lead in deciding the question , and mr . kohl and mr . bush both left the matter open when they met reporters in the white house rose garden this evening after their talks . nor would either leader make any substantive comment about the new soviet economic proposals , which were discussed today in cambridge , mass . but a senior state_department official said that mr . kohl had insisted that any western participation in drafting or financing the program should include a large measure of what he described as "" self_help "" by the soviets and not just grants from the west . mr . bush was also said to be opposed to large new credits at this time .",has a topic of politics
"lead president_reagan said today that he was ''heartened'' by prospects for an arms agreement banning intermediate_range missiles , and announced that the united_states had formally agreed to a key element of a compromise advanced by the soviet_union . president_reagan said today that he was ''heartened'' by prospects for an arms agreement banning intermediate_range missiles , and announced that the united_states had formally agreed to a key element of a compromise advanced by the soviet_union . the announcement today , said marlin fitzwater , the president 's spokesman , indicates ''continued momentum'' toward an arms accord . ''i think it 's fair to say that it provides us with a very optimistic foundation for continued talks and for an agreement , '' he said . the basic concession made by washington is to accept soviet suggestions that all missiles and launchers covered by a treaty would be destroyed . thus , they could not be transferred to third countries or altered in such a way as to escape terms of the treaty . u.s . signaled acceptance the united_states informally signaled acceptance of this compromise approach when it was initially proposed in geneva last month by col . gen . nikolai f . chervov , the soviet arms control expert . the statement today made the administration 's position official . but mr . fitzwater acknowledged that at least one major issue continued to pose obstacles the soviet demand that american warheads on west_germany 's 72 pershing 1a missiles be destroyed . the germans have steadfastly resisted such a move , saying that the elimination of other missiles in europe would leave them vulnerable to invasion by the superior conventional forces of the warsaw_pact . the president and his aides are openly eager for an arms agreement and see it as the best opportunity for mr . reagan to end his presidency on a note of achievement . they hope that a pact could be signed at a summit meeting between mr . reagan and mikhail s . gorbachev , the soviet leader , by the end of the year . that way , there would be sufficient time for ratification before the 1988 political_campaign heated up . ''there is still much to do in geneva , '' mr . reagan said at a scientific meeting here today . ''but i 'm heartened that the climate is now receptive to an historic proposal of this type . the united_states is proud to be in a position to make this proposal . '' moscow offers a compromise as part of the same compromise , the soviet_union has agreed to ban all intermediate_range missiles deployed by the two superpowers anywhere in the world . moscow originally demanded the right for each country to retain 100 missile warheads , but mr . gorbachev said last week that the soviet_union was dropping its demand and would accept a total ban , frequently described as a ''zero zero'' option . as part of the same compromise , moscow also agreed on a worldwide ban on shorter_range_missiles , with a range of 300 to 600 miles . the soviet_union called for a special negotiating session in geneva on wednesday to make an ''important proposal . '' a spokesman for the american team said the united_states hoped the russians would use the session to advance a proposal dealing with strategic or long range missiles . president_reagan noted today that the united_states had already offered its own plan for controlling long range missiles and added ''we hope the soviet_union will do likewise . '' a few weeks ago , administration officials were expressing gloom about soviet attitudes at the geneva talks , saying that prospects for a fall summit meeting were fading . one cause for their apparent pessimism was the refusal of moscow to set a date for a meeting between foreign_minister eduard a . shevardnadze and secretary of state george p . shultz . the administration confirmed a report today in the new york times that mr . shevardnadze had now agreed to such a meeting , probably in mid september , just before the opening of the united_nations_general_assembly . on the issue of the west_german pershing 1a 's , moscow insists that because the nuclear_warheads for the pershings are under american control they should be part of any united_states soviet bargain . mr . fitzwater repeated the american position today when he said ''the german pershing 1a 's are not , and have never been , and will not be a part of these negotiations . '' in the administration 's view , the russians are stressing the pershing issue as a way of ''whipsawing'' the alliance and causing frictions between bonn and washington . 'major point of difference' mr . fitzwater acknowledged that the german weapons remain ''a major point of difference'' in the geneva talks , but administration officials are still not sure whether the soviet_union will allow the issue to block an agreement . max m . kampelman , the chief american negotiator , said at a news conference in geneva that the united_states would not press the germans to give up their weapons . ''this is a decision for the federal_republic to make for itself , '' he said .",has a topic of politics
"because of an editing error , an article on wednesday about a group of service members who have sent an appeal to their congressional representatives calling for withdrawal from iraq referred incorrectly to an air_force member , jeff slocum , who signed the appeal . he is a chief master_sergeant not chief master sergeant of the air force , a title now held by rodney j . mckinley , the highest ranking enlisted member of the air_force .",has a topic of politics
"lead under pressure from some nato allies , the bush_administration appears to be softening its opposition to western_european financial support for the soviet_union and is considering expanding its own technical aid to moscow . under pressure from some nato allies , the bush_administration appears to be softening its opposition to western_european financial support for the soviet_union and is considering expanding its own technical aid to moscow . president_bush and the state_department remain reluctant to give american cash aid directly to the soviet_union in the absence of major economic changes in which the centrally planned economy would be put firmly on a free_market path . but the administration has begun looking for more ways to provide technical economic assistance , particularly in the form of experts to help transform soviet economic institutions . for instance , the administration is considering a proposal to send experts to help the soviets develop and operate a private housing industry . other proposals include technical help on private_banking , a stock_market , management training , accounting programs , various forms of entrepreneurial advice , and support for soviet membership in the international_monetary_fund . the administratioon is also adopting a more tolerant attitude toward west_germany and other european_countries that are prepared to grant or loan moscow some of the 15 billion to 20 billion it is seeking . behind the change in attitude behind the administration 's shift , officials said , are pressures from west_germany to give moscow economic aid in return for its accepting the idea of a united germany joining nato and pressures from other european allies for the west to back its professions of good will for mr . gorbachev 's liberalization program with cash . mounting concern in washington that a collapse of the soviet economy could weaken the fledgling democracies of eastern_europe has also contributed to the administration 's change in attitude , the officials said . last march , when the house majority leader , representative richard a . gephardt , democrat of missouri , suggested that the united_states consider economic aid to the soviet_union , president_bush dismissed both the proposal and mr . gephardt by saying , ''maybe he 'll come on a good idea one of these days . '' three months later , though , the bush_administration is no longer dismissing such proposals out of hand . 'the west can help' the state_department spokeswoman , margaret d . tutwiler , said today , ''we believe the success of perestroika depends fundamentally on soviet choices , but the west can help the soviets through this difficult period . '' the west , she said , shares ''a common interest in the success of political and economic_reform in the soviet_union . '' ''we expect there will be a discussion on this subject'' with the european_community and at the july 9 economic summit meeting in houston , she added . with that in mind , discussions have begun within the administration on whether the western allies can reach understandings that allow west_germany and france to give financial aid or credits to moscow while the united_states and others limit their help to technical assistance . administration officials want to avoid a split within the western alliance on this issue and take the attitude that if the germans are prepared to give cash aid in return for soviet backing for their membership in nato , then why not ? as one official put it . a senior administration official remarked , ''the united_states cannot be in a position of being isolated on this issue'' or it could lose its leadership position in the alliance . differences in attitude there already appear to be subtle differences among senior administration officials on the issue . secretary of state james a . baker and the president have cited the political and economic difficulties of granting aid to moscow , but have clearly gone out of their way not to rule anything out . on the other hand , secretary of defense dick_cheney has emphasized that as long as moscow is spending ''enormous amounts of its national wealth on military hardware'' it would be a mistake for the west to give economic assistance . the germans and french disagree . chancellor helmut_kohl of west_germany asked his 11 colleagues in the european economic community tuesday to consider a 15 billion western aid_package to help mr . gorbachev get through his current political and economic crisis . he was backed by president_francois_mitterrand of france , but strongly opposed by prime_minister margaret_thatcher of britain . the european leaders decided to study soviet needs and make proposals for short term credits and longer_term support for economic restructuring . in the united_states , however , there is less political support for aid at a time when the administration is under pressure to hold down spending . also , until the soviets enact legislation freeing emigration , various american laws prevent the government from providing trade benefits , government guaranteed credits or export_import_bank loans to moscow .",has a topic of politics
"after assuring its allies that it represents continuity , the new government of chancellor_gerhard_schroder is using a bold , often challenging directness that is a radical departure from other postwar german adminstrations . gone are the unquestioning solidarity with a european_union seen as the guarantor of german stability , the reluctance to challenge nato on basic points of doctrine and the deference to the united_states that reflected a historic debt and an enduring sense of vulnerability . in their place mr . schroder has bitterly attacked what he called germany 's unfairly high contributions to a wasteful european_union budget . foreign_minister joschka_fischer has suggested that nato change its nuclear policies . and finance minister oskar_lafontaine has made clear that american style global capitalism is not to his taste . ''strange sounds can be heard from germany these days , '' the munich newspaper suddeutsche_zeitung said on its editorial page this week . ''where is fischer 's humility toward our big american ally ? where are schroder and lafontaine 's consideration and sensitivity toward their european partners ? where , in fact , is the feeling for history ? '' the answer , perhaps , is that germany 's feeling for history has shifted with the arrival in power of a new generation that , as mr . schroder has said , believes that the country should show ''the self confidence of a nation that has come of age . '' in a sense , the government 's directness is a refreshing liberation , a breath of fresh_air for germany 's ponderous political culture . young germans , particularly , felt stifled in the latter years of mr . schroder 's predecessor , helmut_kohl , and many are enthusiastic about the new government 's freewheeling style . but the shock to the united_states , and to european allies gathered today for a summit meeting in vienna , has been palpable . ''what the government fails to realize is that when germany raises questions about nato strategy , people raise questions about germany , '' said one western official . ''they are begging us not to make too much of fischer 's remarks , but the fact is he is not building trust and he is causing irritation . '' mr . schroder 's ''red green'' coalition of social democrats and greens is still finding its feet , and there have been indications of confusion in the coalition 's ranks . the ministers' statements may be scattershot attempts to satisfy important party constituencies as much as coordinated government policy . mr . fischer , for example , is facing a green_party congress this weekend , and his call for nato to renounce the first use of nuclear_weapons is certain to go down well there . ''fischer warmed up a rather shallow green soup just enough to let it bubble through the weekend , '' said one government official , ''but the coalition does not want to push this idea with any lasting conviction . '' but whatever the follow up to mr . fischer 's stand , american officials are concerned that his call for a review of nuclear policy will prove a distraction as nato grapples with other aspects of redefining its post cold_war mission . there is also widespread concern in western capitals that mr . schroder appears unable or unready to assert his authority particularly over his bustling finance minister , mr . lafontaine and so give a single voice to the coalition . but the social_democratic chancellor seems determined to support the various statements from his ministers . his consistent message has been that germany should no longer bear any complexes . ''today , '' mr . schroder said last month , ''we are democrats and europeans , not because we have to be , but because we want to be . '' in a speech this week about germany 's place in europe , though , he seemed to break startling new ground , adopting an almost thatcherite tone as he lambasted the european_union for draining germany 's resources . ''we cannot and do not want to continue a policy that buys the good will of our neighbors with net payments that will become a burden to our country , '' mr . schroder declared . ''we cannot solve europe 's problems with the german checkbook . '' his attack was focused on germany 's net contribution of 13 . 2 billion to the european_union budget , far more than those of other countries , many of which receive large net payments every year in the form of various subsidies . why , mr . schroder asked , should germany pay when rich countries like luxembourg , denmark and belgium receive money from the 100 billion european budget ? the unspoken answer has long been precisely that germany should buy the good will of its neighbors , because it had a historic debt to them and because the european_union provided germans with an environment in which to grow rich again without appearing threatening . several allies , including france , are certain to be troubled by mr . schroder 's words , even as another ally , britain , has been angered by calls from mr . lafontaine for a harmonization of european tax levels to reflect the imminent introduction of a common european currency . after a storm of protest in london , mr . lafontaine retreated a little , calling for the ''coordination'' of taxes rather than their ''harmonization . '' many in britain see the latter term as a faint disguise for the imposition of uncompetitive tax levels by the european_union . but the german finance minister has stuck to calls for ''target zones'' for international curencies and for greater controls in what he has called the ''casino'' of international capitalism . american officials , in general , have not been pleased . mr . schroder has offered measured support to mr . lafontaine , saying he would work during germany 's approaching presidency of the group of seven industrial nations for a ''financial architecture'' that ' 'should prevent entire economies being ruined by financial speculation . '' all this amounts to a marked change , but it was for change , after all , that germans voted 10 weeks ago . in the same article that alluded to the ' 'strange sounds'' from germany , suddeutsche_zeitung applauded the government 's readiness to confront problems long concealed behind ''facades of harmony . '' but those facades , if that is what they were , also constituted central elements in germany 's relations with its allies . nobody today believes that germany is turning its back on america or the european_union . but an adjustment of those relationships appears to be under way , and it may eventually involve far reaching shifts in the european and trans_atlantic order .",has a topic of politics
"secretary of state condoleezza_rice did what was expected , many people in europe said tuesday , after her meetings with chancellor angela_merkel and other german officials . she gave reassurances that the united_states would not tolerate torture and , while not admitting mistakes , promised to correct any that had been made . she accompanied that with an impassioned argument for aggressive intelligence gathering , within the law , as an indispensable means of saving lives endangered by an unusually dangerous and unscrupulous foe . did anybody believe her on this continent , aroused as rarely before by a raft of reports about secret prisons , c.i.a . flights , allegations of torture and of ' 'renditions , '' or transfers , of prisoners to third countries so they can be tortured there ? ''yes , i did , '' karl theodor zu guttenberg , a conservative member of the german_parliament , said in a telephone interview on tuesday . ''the thing i believe is that the united_states does obey international_law , and mrs . merkel said that she believes it too . '' not everybody here is of that view , to say the least . indeed , it would be hard to imagine a more sudden and thorough tarnishing of the bush_administration 's credibility than the one taking place here right now . there have been too many reports in the news_media about renditions including one involving an lebanese born german citizen , khaled el masri , kidnapped in macedonia in december 2003 and imprisoned in afghanistan for several months on the mistaken assumption that he was an associate of the sept . 11 hijackers for blanket disclaimers of torture to be widely believed . ''i think what she means is , 'we do n't use it as an official way to do things , but we do n't look at what is done in other countries , ' '' monika griefahn , a social_democratic member of parliament , said in regard to ms . rice 's comment on torture . ''and that 's the problem for us . '' ms . griefahn also expressed skepticism about ms . rice 's assurance that where mistakes are made presumably in mr . masri 's case the united_states will do everything in its power to rectify them . indeed , bush_administration officials said nothing about rectifying mistakes before reports of mr . masri 's kidnapping . ''i do n't believe they wanted to do anything to rectify the al masri case , '' ms . griefahn said . in britain , members of parliament from both parties reacted with even greater skepticism to ms . rice 's statement , saying it had neither answered their questions nor allayed their concerns about american policy . ''it 's clear that the text of the speech was drafted by lawyers with the intention of misleading an audience , '' andrew tyrie , a conservative member of parliament , said in an interview . mr . tyrie is chairman of a recently formed nonpartisan committee that plans to investigate claims that the british_government has tacitly condoned torture by allowing the united_states to use its airspace to transport terrorist suspects to countries where they are subsequently tortured . parsing through the speech , mr . tyrie pointed out example after example where , he said , ms . rice was using surgically precise language to obfuscate and distract . by asserting , for instance , that the united_states does not send suspects to countries where they ''will be'' tortured , ms . rice is protecting herself , mr . tyrie said , leaving open the possibility that they ' 'may be'' tortured in those countries . others pointed out that the bush_administration 's definition of torture did not include practices like water boarding in which prisoners are strapped to a board and made to believe they are about to be drowned that violate provisions of the international convention against torture . andrew mullin , a labor member of parliament , said he had found ms . rice 's assertions ''wholly incredible . '' he agreed with mr . tyrie that ms . rice 's statement had been ''carefully lawyered , '' adding ''it is a matter of record that people have been kidnapped and have been handed over to people who have tortured them . i think their experience has to be matched against the particular form of language the secretary of state is using . '' to a great extent , the latest trans_atlantic brouhaha reflects a very real division between europe and the united_states , reminiscent of the arguments that took place over the iraq_war two years ago . in the view of the bush_administration and its supporters , the europeans' moral fastidiousness reflects a lack of realism about the nature of the terrorist threat and what needs to be done to defeat it . the view of europeans , by contrast , is that they understand the terrorist threat perfectly well , but that the bush_administration 's flouting of democratic standards and international_law incites more terrorism , not less . ''i resent the fact that my country is foolishly being led into a misguided approach into combating_terrorism by this administration , '' mr . tyrie said . ''european_countries have a far greater experience over many decades dealing with terrorism , and many of us have learned the hard way that dealing in a muscular way can often inflame the very terrorism you 're trying to suppress . '' in mr . zu guttenberg 's view , the reports filling both the german and american news_media these days and fostering a surge of renewed indignation against the bush_administration are based on unproved allegations and rumors that have been transformed into established fact . ''what 's important is that the balance between democratic principles and secret services needs to be maintained , '' mr . zu guttenberg said . ''i take it as a reaching out of the hand when she says mistakes have happened and we have to rectify them . '' to some americans at least , the way the charges about secret prisons and c.i.a . flights have gained currency illustrates the readiness of many europeans always to believe the worst about the united_states . more than one commentator over the last few days has referred to the secret prisons as a gulag archipelago , even though romania and poland , the countries where the prisons are said to be situated , have denied their existence . moreover , their total prison population would be at most a few dozen compared with the hundreds of thousands that were confined in stalin 's real gulag archipelago . the bush_administration 's treatment of imprisoned suspected terrorists , coupled with the problems the united_states continues to encounter in iraq and vice_president dick_cheney 's resistance to congressional curbs on the handling of prisoners , has not made ms . rice 's job of persuasion any easier . ''the europeans lack of realism is a big problem , but i 'm also frustrated with the inability of the united_states to behave like a successful big power , '' said john kornblum , a former american ambassador to germany and now director of the investment_bank lazard fr res in germany . he added that ''the europeans do have this propensity'' to put the worst possible interpretation on american actions , ''but unfortunately , we have given credibility to that sort of behavior . '' to some extent , the comment by ms . rice that seems to have had the most effect in europe was her statement made in washington on monday that many governments have cooperated with the united_states on intelligence gathering . that remark did not so much reassure european commentators that the united_states was abiding by international treaties as it has led them to accuse their own governments of hypocrisy , silently acquiescing in american practices while publicly criticizing them . ''if the european services knew , '' the italian daily la_repubblica said tuesday , referring to the reports of secret prisons and c.i.a . flights in europe , ''how is it possible that the governments and the parliaments , which these services must answer to , were n't informed ?",has a topic of politics
"the department of defense has identified 2 , 927 american service members who have died since the start of the iraq_war . it confirmed the deaths of the following americans yesterday cote , budd m. , 21 , lance_cpl . , marines marana , ariz . marine wing support group 37 , third marine aircraft wing , first marine expeditionary force . dillon , matthew v. , 25 , cpl . , marines aiken , s.c. marine wing support group 37 , third marine aircraft wing , first marine expeditionary force . dunkleberger , brent w. , 29 , sgt . , army new bloomfield , pa . first cavalry division . ford , philip c. , 21 , specialist , army freeport , tex . 25th_infantry_division . gibson , brennan c. , 26 , sgt . , army tualatin , ore . 25th_infantry_division . mcanulty , brian p . 39 , master sgt . , marines vicksburg , miss . first marine division . miller , clinton j. , 23 , lance_cpl . , marines greenfield , iowa marine wing support group 37 , third marine aircraft wing , first marine expeditionary force . murphy , shawn m. , 24 , pfc . , army fort_bragg , n.c. 25th_infantry_division .",has a topic of politics
"iraqi and united_nations officials appear to be making progress in talks on setting up a united_nations police presence to protect kurds in northern iraq , the state_department said today . after the war",has a topic of politics
"powerful explosions from two suicide bombs ripped through the capital 's main police academy on tuesday , killing at least 36 police officers and wounding 72 other people , including an american contractor , according to an interior_ministry official and the american military . the blasts sent police officers fleeing across the compound . officers in bloody , tattered blue uniforms were carried into nearby hospital wards , some of them wailing , their faces streaked with tears . american_soldiers piled out of humvees and helped to seal off the inner courtyard , where the explosions had scattered body parts of trainees . ''they were all like brothers , they were all young , '' said hassan dawood , 32 , a teacher at the academy , who was sobbing while lying on a marble bench in a hallway of al_kindi hospital , his head in the lap of a colleague . ''i just want to ask , 'is this jihad ? is this jihad against iraqis ? ' i want to ask the mujahedeen , 'do you slaughter your brother in the name of jihad ? ' '' the attack was the deadliest in baghdad in months . it underscores the continuing vulnerability of the iraqi forces , even in the capital , as president_bush is under increasing political pressure in the united_states to start bringing home some of the 160 , 000 american_troops here . last week , the president acknowledged some past difficulties in training the iraqi_police and military forces , but cited advances in the effort to shift to them the burden of fighting the war against the insurgents . striking at the very heart of the nascent iraqi_police , inside their main academy in eastern baghdad , the attack showed that the insurgents have infiltrated the deepest levels of the iraqi forces , a danger that has bedeviled the american enterprise from the start . hundreds of police officers and potential recruits have been killed in the war , many in suicide bombings at recruitment centers across the country . the explosions took place as saddam_hussein 's trial continued in the capital . on tuesday , the ousted dictator ferociously lambasted the court to try to reassert his authority and bolster insurgent morale . page a26 . with the trial under way and the dec . 15 elections for a full , four year government approaching , american generals said they expected the violence to increase . jihadist groups have warned iraqis against taking any part in the political process , although a prominent group of sunni clerics , the muslim scholars association , announced tuesday that it would not call for a boycott of the election , as it had last january . al_jazeera , the arab satellite network , broadcast a videotape from a militant group showing what appeared to be a captured american security consultant , the latest victim in a wave of abductions of westerners . the videotape , which bore the logo of the islamic army in iraq , a group led by former baath_party members , showed the hostage , a blond man , sitting in jeans and a dark jacket with his hands tied behind his back . it also showed close ups of an identification_card and the man 's passport , which had the name of ronald alan schulz , 40 , of north_dakota . the captors said they would kill mr . schulz in 72 hours unless all detainees in iraq were released and residents of anbar_province , the heart of the insurgency , were compensated for their losses . the bombers at the police academy , each armed with explosive vests , made their way into the compound despite what some police officers described as meticulous searches at the entrances . they demonstrated an unerring knowledge of the layout of the compound and the procedures inside . after the first bomb detonated at about 12 45 p.m . in the courtyard , right outside a classroom , the second exploded inside a shelter into which many of the officers had fled , witnesses said . ''we had smoked a few cigarettes and were heading into a restaurant when we heard a roaring sound that shook the earth beneath us , '' said omar chasib fahad , 20 , a thin , pale cadet wrapped in a light brown blanket on a hospital bed . ''i and many other cadets ran into a nearby shelter . a few minutes later , another big explosion took place that cracked and destroyed part of the ceiling . '' a police trainer said there were 838 cadets enrolled at the academy . ''at each checkpoint , there is a thorough search , '' the trainer , ali qasim , 26 , said as he stood in a hospital ward in a bloody undershirt . ''every man has to raise up his shirt to show there are no explosive belts , and it 's the same for women . there are women searching women . '' the identity of the wounded american contractor was not released by the military . al_qaeda in mesopotamia , the group led by abu_musab_al_zarqawi , claimed responsibility for the attack in an internet posting , according to the site institute , which tracks jihadist messages . al_qaeda said the bombers had struck after observing the academy several times , and had chosen a moment when it appeared that more than 150 officers and cadets were there . the group said the attack had been aimed at officers recruited from the ranks of the badr_organization , an iranian trained shiite_militia that answers to one of the country 's ruling parties . the islamic army in iraq , the same group that is apparently holding mr . schulz , also posted an internet message taking credit for the attack , saying it had set off a car_bomb at the academy , though no such bomb had been actually detonated . the islamic army 's demand for the release of detainees in exchange for mr . schulz is the same made by another group that is holding four christian aid workers . the surge in abductions has raised fears that jihadists may once again start beheading western captives and releasing videos of the killings , as they did in the fall of 2004 . the marines issued a statement on tuesday correcting an report it had made about the circumstances of a homemade bomb explosion outside falluja that killed 10 marines and injured 11 others on dec . 1 . marine officials said that the explosion took place not during a foot patrol as first reported , but rather in an abandoned flour factory being used as a patrol base . a marine company commander had been visiting the factory to conduct a promotion ceremony for three marines , and it appears that a marine may have stepped on a hidden pressure plate when the ceremony ended , setting off the explosion . explosives experts believe that insurgents had buried four artillery shells in two separate locations , the marines said . those westerners currently held by various groups include bernard planche , a french engineer abducted in baghdad on monday morning susanne osthoff , a german archaeologist taken on nov . 25 and the four christian aid workers an american , a briton and two canadians kidnapped the same weekend . more than 200 foreigners , many of them from arab_nations , have been abducted since the american invasion in spring 2003 . at least 50 have been killed , some in beheadings , and about 20 are still missing . over the summer , insurgents began a campaign to attack and abduct muslim diplomats in order to force the diplomats' home countries to sever ties to the iraqi government . at the white_house , president_bush told reporters on tuesday that the united_states would not pay any ransom . ''what we will do , of course , is use our intelligence gathering to see if we ca n't help locate them , '' the president said . violence erupted in other provinces as well on tuesday . police officials in the oil_city of kirkuk said four important iraqi engineers had been attacked as they drove between kirkuk and tikrit , the hometown of mr . hussein , in the northern sunni_triangle . salma mari , in charge of the planning department in tikrit , and a colleague were killed , while tahsin wali , the head of the municipality 's accounts , was abducted , the police said . the fourth man was seriously injured . a hospital in the town of musayyib , south of baghdad , received nine bodies of government workers on tuesday , a hospital official said . eight of them had been killed a few days ago , and the ninth killed more recently , the official said . all had been shot in the head . musayyib lies in an area rife with insurgents that is known as the triangle of death and was the scene of a suicide car bombing last month that killed dozens . police officials in the town of rutbah , in western iraq , found 11 dead civilians who had apparently been executed , said khalaf abdullah zaidan , a resident of falluja with ties to the police in rutbah . the victims had been killed at least three days earlier , and they were found with their hands and feet tied or handcuffed , he said . the american military said tuesday that a soldier was killed in a roadside_bomb explosion in baghdad on sunday . in the shiite holy_city of najaf , guerrillas fired a rocket_propelled_grenade on tuesday evening at the local office of ayad_allawi , the former prime_minister , who is a candidate in the coming elections . no one was injured . the attack came after a crowd of young men , believed to be loyal to moktada_al_sadr , a rebellious cleric , threw stones and shoes at mr . allawi on sunday when he went inside the revered shrine of ali . he had made the visit without knowing it was the anniversary of the death of mr . sadr 's father , who was killed by saddam_hussein in 1999 . mr . allawi is despised by sadr followers because he and the americans killed hundreds of people in najaf during the suppression of a sadr led uprising in august 2004 . the struggle for iraq explosions",has a topic of politics
"lead sometime this autumn , west_germany will send a new ambassador , jurgen ruhfus , to washington to replace gunther van well , who is retiring . sometime this autumn , west_germany will send a new ambassador , jurgen ruhfus , to washington to replace gunther van well , who is retiring . mr . ruhfus , 57 years old , who holds a law degree , brings a distinction with him he understands and apparently likes journalists . he developed this quality , somewhat unusual among german diplomats , as press spokesman for the foreign_office from 1966 to 1970 . since then mr . ruhfus has served as ambassador to kenya and britain . despite these postings his english has a tinge of an american accent , something he picked up as a graduate student at the university of colorado in the 1950 's . washington talk briefing",has a topic of politics
"when president_kennedy visited west_berlin in 1963 , the more than one million berliners who turned out to greet him were the largest crowd he had ever seen . so large , in fact , that mr . kennedy said that when he left office he was going to leave his successor a sealed letter to be opened only when things got really bad at home . the letter would read , "" go to germany . "" times have changed . what has been striking about mr . clinton 's trip through europe this week , including berlin , is how muted the response has been . from latvia , to poland , to italy , to germany , the crowds have been substantial at times , but never huge , always embracing but hardly ecstatic . the explanation , though , seems to have little to do with mr . clinton . it is much more a statement about this moment . to put it simply the cold_war era , when cheering an american president in berlin was as much an act of defiance against the soviet_union as an expression of affection for the united_states , is over . the euphoria is over and the euphoria of the immediate post cold_war world is also over the days when an american president could whip a crowd into a frenzy by describing that land of milk and honey that lay ahead once europe was free of the communist yoke . today is the post post cold_war era , when the main questions being debated are "" who takes out the garbage ? "" and "" what have you done for me lately ? "" as the cold_war was coming to a close , those who lived under communism in eastern_europe had enormous expectations about what lay ahead , and they were eager to hear from an american leader about what it looked like on the other side of the hill . well , they are now on the other side of the hill . they know what it looks like , and it looks complicated . the view takes in bosnia , free_markets with all of their opportunities and uncertainties unemployment , inflation and a western_europe that is hesitant to open its markets to their products or nato to their armies . maybe that is why a young russian born latvian named paul reacted to president_clinton the way he did in riga last week . paul is a 25 year old married to a latvian woman , but was being denied latvian citizenship because of his russian ancestry . as he listened to mr . clinton extol the virtues of democracy for latvia , paul just shook his head and said , "" i 'm not buying it . "" leaders seem to have shrunk what mr . clinton seems to have discovered on this trip is that in europe he has inherited a moment when most of the heroes of the cold_war have ridden off into the sunset , the credits have rolled and america is neither protecting europe nor liberating it anymore . in the eyes of the public , everyone seems to have shrunk three sizes . when aides told president_clinton that the approval rating of president lech walesa of poland had sunk to 5 percent in polish public opinion_polls , mr . clinton responded , "" five percent ? no one can be that low ! "" much has been made of the fact that because mr . clinton has focused his presidency on domestic policy , he has deprived himself of one of the traditional sources of presidential authority foreign_policy . that is true enough . but what this latest tour underscores is that even if mr . clinton had chosen to concentrate more on foreign_policy , it is questionable whether it would have given him the authority boost it has other presidents . if harry s . truman and dean acheson were "" present at the creation "" of the cold_war world , bill clinton and warren_christopher are "" present at the adaptation "" of the post cold_war world . that is , they do not have the challenge , or the opportunity , of building institutions from scratch like nato or the general agreement on tariffs and trade . they must try to adapt these institutions at a time when the europeans have a much stronger say in what should go into them , when economic resources are scarce and when there is no soviet enemy over the horizon to nudge the european allies into line . if the world is now safe for small wars , it is also safe for greater discord among the allies . an embarrassing moment when mr . clinton offered a proposal at the naples economic summit meeting to begin talking about the issues not dealt with in gatt like financial_services he was spurned by the six other leaders , who thought the idea premature . the president was forced , rather embarrassingly , to take his proposal off the table . throughout this trip mr . clinton cajoled the western europeans to open their economies to more exports from eastern_europe , as america has from mexico . otherwise , he said , capitalism will never take root in poland or ukraine . but the west european_countries have soaring unemployment , and their leaders made clear to mr . clinton that they were reluctant to allow imports that could cost them a single job at home . when president_kennedy went to west_berlin , the dollar was firm and strong . today it fluctuates wildly against the german_mark and japanese_yen . the era of fixed exchange_rates is gone . the cold_war world was characterized by governments dominating their economies , and no government was more dominant than america 's . the post cold_war world is characterized by free_markets . it is the markets that dominate the governments today . it is a time when all governments can do less , not more . theme of civil courage no wonder , then , that the little noticed theme that ran through mr . clinton 's speeches here was a call for a new kind of courage , one that draws its energy from mundane daily acts of individuals a civil courage . "" the challenges our generation faces are different than those our parents faced , "" mr . clinton told the polish parliament . "" they are problems that in many cases lack pressing drama . they require quiet and careful solutions . and if we meet them well , our reward will not be stunning moments of glory , but gradual and real improvements in the lives of our people . "" we must find the will to unite around these opportunities of peace , as previous generations have united against war 's life or death threats and oppression 's fatal grip . to the courage that enables men and women to drop behind enemy lines , face down rumbling tanks or advance freedom 's cause underground , we must add a new civil courage the energy and optimism and patience to move forward through peaceful but hard and rapidly changing times . """,has a topic of politics
"the department of defense has identified 847 american service members who have died since the start of the iraq_war . it confirmed the death of the following americans yesterday lopez , juan , 22 , lance_cpl . , marines whitfield , ga . first marine division . mccaffrey , patrick r . sr . , 34 , specialist , army_national_guard tracy , calif . 579th engineer battalion . tyson , andre d. , 33 , second lt . , army_national_guard riverside , calif . 579th engineer battalion . the reach of war",has a topic of politics
"following are excerpts from saddam_hussein 's arraignment yesterday , as transcribed by federal document clearing house inc . from a translation of the arabic_language proceedings broadcast by cnn . the judge was not identified , for security reasons . longer excerpts are online at www . nytimes . com international . saddam_hussein saddam_hussein , the president of the republic of iraq . saddam_hussein majid , the president of the republic of iraq . judge profession ? former president of the republic of iraq . mr . hussein no , present . current . it 's the will of the people . judge the head of the baath_party that is dissolved , defunct . former commander in chief of the army . residence is iraq . your mother 's name ? mr . hussein sobha . may i have clarification ? judge go ahead , please . mr . hussein you also have to introduce yourself to me . judge mr . saddam , i am the investigative judge of the central court of iraq . mr . hussein so that i have to know , you are an investigative judge of the central court of iraq ? what resolution , what law formed this court ? judge inaudible . mr . hussein oh , the coalition_forces ? so you are an iraqi that you are representing the occupying forces ? judge no , i 'm an iraqi representing iraq . mr . hussein but you are an iraqi that you are representing the occupying forces ? judge i was appointed by a presidential decree under the former regime . mr . hussein so you are reiterating that every iraqi should respect the iraqi law . so the law that was instituted before represents the will of the people , right ? judge yes , god willing . mr . hussein so you should not work under the jurisdiction of the coalition_forces . . . . judge i am a judge . in the former regime , i respect the judges . and i am resuming and continuing my work . you , as any other citizen , you have to answer to any accusation or charge , that 's true . this is an arraignment , a charge . if it can be proven , then you will be convicted . if not , then everything is fine . . . . according to the law , mr . saddam , the investigative judge has to give the defendant the charges that are levied against him . and then reading the rights of all the charges according to the law , article 123 , 124 and 125 . the first step is , these articles , were they not signed by saddam_hussein ? mr . hussein yes , this is the law that was in '73 . so then saddam_hussein was representing the leadership and signed that law . so now you are using the law that saddam signed against saddam . saddam was the people . please , the constitutional mechanism i 'm not a lawyer but i understand i am originally a man of law . is it allowed to call a president elected by the people and charge him according to a law that was enacted under his will and the will of the people ? there is some contradiction . no ? judge the judicial process let me answer this clarification . first , i 'm not deliberating a case against you , i 'm investigating , i 'm investigating , interrogating you . second , the president is a profession , is a position , is a deputy of the society . that 's true . and originally , inherently , he 's a citizen . and every citizen , according to the law and the constitution , if this person violates a law , has to come before the law . and that law you know more than i do . so the crimes , the charges intended killing by using chemical_weapons in halabja . second , intended killing of a great number of iraqis in 1983 . three , intended killing of a number of members of the political_parties without trials . fourth , intended killing of many iraqi religious people . fifth , intended killing of many iraqis in anfal without any evidence against them . you have the right to defend and answer . these are the guarantees . now we come to an important matter . you have heard the court read the crimes that you 're charged or were attributed to the accused , saddam_hussein . and you were told the articles of the law that apply to those cases . and the court has read to you the rights and the guarantees that any accused is entitled to , which include the rights of defense and representation , and also the right not to answer any question asked , and that will never be used as evidence against you , against the accused . and the court also presented to the accused the right to argue the evidence . the accused requested to meet with the defense lawyers , his private defense lawyers to be present with him in the investigative sessions . and in light of that , the minutes were concluded and the investigation is deferred , postponed until the accused is able to contact his representation , his lawyers , and another appointment for the next session will be decided . . . . you have the right to not answer until a lawyer is present . mr . hussein the occupation of kuwait , the charge no . 7 it 's unfortunate that this is coming out of an iraqi . the law is there , law to charge saddam_hussein because kuwaitis said that the iraqi women will come to the street for 10 dinars . and i defended the honor of the iraqis . those animals ! judge do n't use foul language and attack . this is a legal session . mr . hussein yes , i bear responsibilities for everything . judge anything of obscenity or outside of the norms of a legal session is not accepted . mr . hussein then forgive me . . . . the reach of war",has a topic of politics
"the last time president_bush visited this country , his seven hour stopover in the western city of mainz had all the warmth of a legal deposition . he was on frosty terms with then chancellor_gerhard_schr_der and a jittery police force virtually sealed off the city , shutting six highways and halting river traffic on the rhine . this time , the vibe is palpably better . angela_merkel , mr . schr_der 's successor , has gotten along well with mr . bush , and on her last trip to the united_states she invited him to visit this seaside town in northeastern germany , where she began her political career 15 years ago . yet , with mr . bush and the first lady , laura_bush , scheduled to spend thursday with chancellor merkel here before the two heads of state attend a summit meeting in st . petersburg , russia , the town is undergoing a modest version of the security lockdown imposed on mainz . on tuesday , workers were welding shut manholes in the shadow of st . nicholas church . police said they would cordon off only part of the medieval old town , which the bushes will tour , disrupting 4 , 000 residents rather than the tens of thousands put out by the visit in early 2005 . while eastern_germans are no better disposed toward mr . bush than those in the west anti bush demonstrators said several thousand people would rally on the outskirts of stralsund residents seem generally open to the president 's visit , if mostly for reasons of self interest . ''some people may not consider the bushes as friends , but they are our guests , and we must treat them well , '' said rolf peter zimmer , a retired engineer and the president of the city parliament . more to the point , he said the publicity would attract tourists to stralsund , a charming but economically fragile town of 58 , 000 . although it was designated a unesco world heritage site in 2002 , it has not been able to capitalize on its rich history as a trading port in the hanseatic league , an alliance of merchants that controlled trade on the baltic_sea in the late middle ages . people here are also giving the benefit of the doubt to mrs . merkel , a physicist turned politician who has represented this part of the state of mecklenburg west pomerania in parliament since shortly after german_reunification . she keeps close ties to stralsund , visiting every month . some view mr . bush 's trip as proof that she looks out for her constituents . commentators have likened her invitation to the much coveted weekends for world leaders at the president 's ranch in crawford , tex . mrs . merkel is even throwing a barbecue featuring a wild boar shot by a local hunter in a tiny village near here , trinwillershagen . ''i think she is proud of stralsund , '' said birgid wacks , the head of the tourist office . ''she 'll be able explain to bush what it was like during east_german times and how it has changed since . '' in fact , the few cobblestone blocks that mr . bush will see are more evocative of 14th century commerce than 20th_century communism . handsome gabled houses , built by prosperous merchant families , line the streets . the drab concrete housing_projects that blight this town , like most in eastern_germany , are built in outlying areas and are not on mr . bush 's itinerary . still , stralsund carries the burdens of its history . the unemployment rate hovers above 20 percent , prompting young people to flee to western germany for jobs . their exodus , combined with a low birth_rate , has resulted in a dearth of children . stralsund has closed two schools recently . mrs . merkel won her seat as a christian democrat , and her party dominates the municipal government . but mecklenburg west pomerania is governed by a coalition of social democrats and the left party , which includes elements of the old east_german communist_party . ministers from the left party have said they will march in the protests against mr . bush . the protesters unhappy that mrs . merkel has pursued closer ties with the president plan to take aim at both leaders . monty sch del , a local organizer , noted that the german_government had locked arms with the united_states in the nuclear standoff with iran a stance , he implied , that could lay the groundwork for another war . ''we 're saying not only that they should stop waging wars , but that they should stop planning wars , '' mr . sch del said . mr . bush will probably not hear the message . stralsund 's old town is largely surrounded by water , and the police plan to block the few causeways leading into it . that will keep the protesters at a distance . perhaps the hottest issue is the matter of who should pay for the visit . with 12 , 500 police officers deployed , security will cost more than 15 million , and german newspapers have reported that mecklenburg west pomerania , one of germany 's poorest states , is to foot the bill . mr . zimmer said that the matter had not been decided yet and that the left party was exploiting it for political gain . as workers erected stands for pre screened residents to greet mr . bush , nearby shopkeepers said they would close their doors on thursday . but even they sounded more resigned than resentful . ''we can live with being closed for a day , '' said sybille riedel k tz , an antiques_dealer . ''very few people have ever heard of stralsund . if bush makes more people aware of it , then it 's worth it . '' stralsund journal",has a topic of politics
"chancellor angela_merkel of germany arrived in the united_states on thursday for her first official visit , determined to improve the german american relationship . but she will have to thread her way carefully between that goal and the widely held view among germans that the united_states is doing a lot of things wrong in the world . mrs . merkel , who is scheduled to meet with president_bush on friday , is seen as friendlier to the united_states than her predecessor , gerhard_schr_der , whose vehement opposition to american policy in iraq led to the worst crisis in relations in many decades . at the same time , she has expressed her disagreement with the bush_administration on some matters , saying last week , for example , that the detention camp at guant_namo should eventually be shut down . the bush_administration sees her as a strong potential partner who can help to bridge differences between the united_states and europe . ''there is no question that washington is meeting angela_merkel with a positive bias following the conflicts with former chancellor schr_der , '' karsten voigt , the foreign ministry 's coordinator of relations with the united_states , said in an interview with a german radio_station . mrs . merkel , the first german chancellor from the former communist ruled eastern_germany , is known to have been critical of mr . schr_der 's blunt public criticisms of american policy , believing that major differences should be expressed instead through quiet diplomacy . but in an interview this week with the magazine der_spiegel , she expressed her own disagreement with the bush_administration 's effort to curb terrorism , in particular over the prison camp at guant_namo_bay , cuba , which many germans contend exists outside the framework of international_law . ''an institution such as guant_namo in its present form cannot and should not exist in the long term , '' she was quoted as saying . ''ways and means must be found to handle prisoners differently . '' in washington on thursday night , mrs . merkel did not mention guant_namo , but told nearly 200 guests at the german ambassador 's home that she looked forward to a ''lively debate'' on issues like the balance between freedom and security in both germany and the united_states . ''there will be differing opinions in certain areas , '' mrs . merkel said , but they can be addressed in a spirit of friendship and cooperation . her two day visit is part of a series of trips since she took office late last year . they have so far included most important european capitals as well as brussels , the headquarters of nato and the european_union . but clearly the relationship with the united_states is central to german foreign_policy , and relations have been slowly improving even as german public opinion remains unfriendly and suspicious . ''this trip represents the next step in going back to functioning and reliable german american relations , '' eberhard sandschneider , president of the german council_on_foreign_relations , said in a telephone interview wednesday . the trip , in this sense , is a continuation of improved relations noted when president_bush came to germany last year , meeting mr . schr_der in mainz . ''bilaterally we have few problems , '' said mr . voigt of the foreign ministry . ''it 's mostly a matter of how germany and the united_states can work together in order to solve problems on europe 's perimeters , such as in the balkans , or how they think about russia or ukraine , how they view the middle_east , and how to address iran 's ambitions to possess nuclear_weapons and the scandalous statements by the iranian leadership in regard to israel . '' iran , which broke an agreement it made with european negotiators a year ago by resuming nuclear work that the united_states and most of the europeans believe is aimed at building nuclear_weapons , is certainly high on the agenda . germany is also cooperating with the united_states in afghanistan , where it maintains 2 , 400 peacekeepers , and is training iraqi_police officers in the persian_gulf . but mrs . merkel 's comments on guant_namo suggest that the visit will not , as mr . sandschneider put it , ''be all smiling faces . '' germans have been deeply influenced by reports accusing the united_states of misdeeds , from condoning torture in prisons it controls to the kidnapping of a german citizen of arab descent , khaled al masri , in what appears to be a case of mistaken identity . another case bedeviling the relationship concerns a german born turkish citizen , murat kurnaz , who was seized by the pakistani police in pakistan four years ago and has been held in guant_namo almost ever since , despite findings by the german police that there is no evidence that mr . kurnaz has ever supported terrorist groups . there have been german press reports that mrs . merkel intends to bring the matter up with mr . bush . ''for president_bush , friday will be a success , '' the german paper tagesspiegel editorialized over the weekend , adding that ''he only needs positive pictures to show his people that the germans are being good to him again . '' ''but merkel on the other hand has to be careful , '' it continued . ''she has to balance out the pictures of trusting closeness with a touch of critical distance so that she does n't share the same fate'' that prime_minister tony_blair of britain suffered , being harshly_criticized at home for his closeness to president_bush . mr . sandschneider said ''the german_government will try hard to improve the american image in europe , and guant_namo is one of those important topics marring that image , in europe and across the world . it cannot be in the german interest to see the american image suffering , especially in places like the middle_east , where we face threats . ''",has a topic of politics
"lead one of the rituals of the atlantic alliance is the official expression of gratitude to the united_states for holding a protective military arm over western_europe for four decades at the expense of european taxpayers . one of the rituals of the atlantic alliance is the official expression of gratitude to the united_states for holding a protective military arm over western_europe for four decades at the expense of european taxpayers . so it is something new to find west germans pooling their resources and raising about 800 , 000 in corporate money to form a private organization dedicated to raising consciousness about the value of ''european american cooperation as the foundation of our security and well being . '' the group , calling its initiative ''friendship in freedom , '' made a presentation of its plans yesterday to members of congress who are concerned with european affairs . one of the group 's co founders , gunter diehl , the west_german ambassador to the united_states who is a former state secretary in the bonn government , said that while the main target was younger west germans , the first activity would be an advertising campaign in major american and west_german newspapers with such headlines as ''nato 's greatest victory is forty years of peace . '' the house democratic leader , representative tom foley of washington , and senator richard g . lugar , republican of indiana , said they were particularly impressed that theirs was a private initiative . washington talk briefing correction_october 7 , 1988 , friday , late city final edition because of an editing error , a report on tuesday in the briefing column of the washington talk page misidentified gunter diehl . he is the former west_german ambassador to india and to japan , not to the united_states .",has a topic of politics
"president_bush plans to challenge the united_nations today to enforce resolutions it has passed since 1991 requiring iraq to ''unconditionally accept'' the destruction of its chemical and biological_weapons and nuclear research facilities , according to administration officials . he will warn that if the united_nations fails to act , the united_states will step in to force iraqi compliance . putting muscle behind mr . bush 's warning , the pentagon announced that it was preparing to send 600 military staff members from its central_command headquarters in florida which has responsibility for the middle_east to the gulf state of qatar in november . while the move will be characterized as a temporary exercise , it could well become permanent and will put a vanguard of american commanders , the core of a battle staff , on saddam_hussein 's doorstep . page b23 . secretary_general_kofi_annan of the united_nations will strike a markedly different tone from that of mr . bush , arguing in a pointed speech just before the president 's that the united_states must act through the united_nations to confront iraq . mr . annan 's office took the unusual step of releasing his remarks last night to underscore his caution that there is ''no substitute for the unique legitimacy provided by the united_nations . '' page b23 . the fast developing confrontation over iraq hung over a a somber but restorative day of national mourning and commemoration . moving between the three sites of last year 's terrorist attacks , mr . bush consoled survivors in washington , fought back tears at the pennsylvania crash site of united flight 93 , and spent two hours in the pit that was once the foundation of the world trade center , hugging the families of some of the thousands who died . tonight , emotionally drained from the somberness of the day , mr . bush spoke to the nation from ellis_island , saying he had ''no intention of ignoring or appeasing history 's latest gang of fanatics . '' ''in the ruins of two towers , under a flag unfurled at the pentagon , at the funerals of the lost , we have made a sacred promise to ourselves and to the world we will not relent until justice is done , and our nation is secure . what our enemies have begun , we will finish , '' he said . but his united_nations speech this morning is expected to move beyond commemoration to the next phase of his battle against terrorism a phase in which he plans to turn his attention to what he is expected to term a ' 'decade of defiance . '' heeding the call of allies that he must operate through the united_nations , aides familiar with the speech said mr . bush planned to put the onus on mr . hussein and the united_nations itself and to portray the united_states as a reluctant sheriff that will step in only as a last resort . one senior administration official who has been giving advance warning of the message to governments around the world said mr . bush ''wo n't set any deadlines , '' nor will he propose a specific course of action . but just as the president told congress last sept . 20 that he was not willing to wait very long for the taliban to turn over osama_bin_laden , the official said , ''he 's not willing to wait very long for saddam to allow the destruction of his weapons . '' mr . bush has been drafting and re drafting the speech for weeks , searching for a balance between american support for the authority of the united_nations and an american warning that the organization 's legitimacy is at stake . according to officials who have reviewed the drafts or summarized them for foreign leaders , mr . bush will make it clear that he does not plan to allow the united_nations much time to enforce 16 resolutions that have been allowed to lapse . ''the message is pretty simple , '' the senior official said . ''the u.n . is at a crossroads . we have plenty of resolutions about iraq . now we have to choose whether the u.n . exists to pass resolutions or make them stick . '' privately , administration officials are talking about starting up inspections in three to four weeks , after the president of france , jacques_chirac , mentioned a three week timetable in an interview with the new york times . richard l . armitage , the deputy_secretary_of_state , told a conference in washington on tuesday that mr . chirac 's statements had been ''noted'' in the state_department because they indicated that european leaders were coalescing around the thought that mr . hussein 's actions could no longer be tolerated . mr . bush does not plan to talk about restarting inspections his references in the speech focus on inspections mr . hussein has blocked , and on the forced withdrawal of united_nations inspectors three and a half years ago . but he leaves the door open to a final inspection effort as long as it is intended to lead to the immediate dismantlement of all weapons_of_mass_destruction . his message , one aide said , will be that ''the only thing he wo n't abide is inaction . '' secretary of state colin l . powell previewed the speech today in meetings at the united_nations with the foreign ministers of russia , china and britain . he also met joschka_fischer , the foreign_minister of germany , the ally most outspoken in opposing expanding the war to iraq . according to the text of his remarks , mr . annan , using carefully general terms , shares the misgivings of the germans and others about the united_states' acting on its own on iraq . even for a major power , ''choosing to follow or reject the multilateral path must not be a simple matter of political convenience , '' he says . he adds that ''when states decide to use force to deal with broader threats to international peace and security , there is no substitute for the unique legitimacy provided by the united_nations . '' the ''primary criterion for putting an issue on the council 's agenda'' should be ''the existence of a grave threat to world_peace , '' he says . at one point mr . annan presents the issue in personal terms . ''i stand before you today as a multilateralist , '' he says early in his comments , ''by precedent , by principle , by charter and by duty . '' while the white_house has kept tight control over mr . bush 's speech which was written partly by karen_hughes , his former counselor , who was seen traveling with him today the united_nations departed from custom in releasing the advance text . mr . annan 's aides said they feared that his comments would be lost as the focus turned today to mr . bush 's efforts to rally support for a campaign against the iraqi leader . while implicitly cautioning the united_states , mr . annan will also chastise baghdad for defying united_nations resolutions . he will warn that if its violations continue , the security_council will have to act to enforce them . ''the leadership of iraq continues to defy'' mandatory security_council resolutions , mr . annan will say . he urges iraq to comply and appeals to other nations to pressure baghdad to accept the return of the weapons inspectors , calling this ''an indispensable first step towards assuring the world that all iraq 's weapons_of_mass_destruction have been eliminated . '' his aides say he regards the address as one of the most important he will make as secretary general . he will open the session and president_bush will follow 15 minutes later . then 22 other government leaders are scheduled to address the general_assembly on the first day of its annual fall debate . united_nations officials acknowledged that it was unusual for a secretary general to address himself in such clear counterpoint to a speech from an american president here . mr . annan 's aides sent a copy of the text to president_bush today . the secretary general 's comments echo keenly felt frustrations at the united_nations that the bush_administration has gone its own way on global issues ranging from climate_change to the international war_crimes court . but he warns , ''if iraq 's defiance continues , the security_council must face its responsibilities . '' united_nations officials said mr . annan felt confident that his relations with washington were warm enough that president_bush would not object to his speech . the president called mr . annan earlier this week to discuss iraq , officials said . however , mr . annan strongly hopes to avoid american led military action against iraq , which he fears could destabilize the middle_east , united_nations officials said . in london , prime_minister tony_blair bowed to critics in his labor_party and agreed to recall parliament from its summer recess to debate his hard line stance on iraq . parliament is not due back in session till oct . 15 , but mr . blair said today that he would schedule a special one day debate during the week of sept . 23 . he did not , however , accede to his critics' request that there be a binding vote on the issue . mr . blair 's spokesman said downing_street would have made public a long promised dossier on iraqi arms buildup by then . the release of the document has been delayed while the british_government works out how to produce convincing evidence of the threat from iraq without compromising sources . mr . blair has been mr . bush 's staunchest supporter in the campaign against saddam_hussein . however , opinion_surveys in britain show that he faces opposition from majorities of the public at_large , the trade union movement and the labor members of parliament . on tuesday , mr . blair faced down his critics at the trades union congress in blackpool , pledging that no military action would be taken without united_nations consideration and full debate in parliament . but , sticking to his tough line , he said , ''let it be clear there can be no more conditions , no more games , no more prevaricating , no more undermining of the u.n . 's authority . '' and he warned , ''let it be clear that should the will of united_nations be ignored , action will follow . '' vigilance and memory the president",has a topic of politics
"germany 's conservative opposition , trying to regain its lead in the opinion_polls before national elections on sunday , opened a new front today , contending that the government of gerhard_schr_der was undermining national_security and the economy by letting in too many immigrants . mr . schr_der has revived his own supporters and earned a small lead in the polls by running hard to the left . his rival , edmund_stoiber , who has run a bland , centrist campaign , is making a last minute lurch to the right , trying to win back his own voters in a volatile climate . in a television interview this morning , mr . stoiber said he would throw out a government reform passed earlier this year intended to open germany to qualified immigrants with needed skills . ''when there are more than four million jobless , '' mr . stoiber said , ''then it is irresponsible to open up the job market to everyone . '' mr . stoiber 's spokesman on police and immigration matters , g nther beckstein , said today that the government was hurting domestic security and compromising germany 's economic future with its immigration_policy . mr . beckstein cited a greens politician who called the new law a step toward making germany ''a modern , multicultural land of immigration . '' mr . beckstein said , ''that is exactly what we do n't want . '' instead , germany must integrate the 7.3 million foreigners who live here and find work for the more than four million germans who do not have jobs , mr . beckstein said . he called for the deportation of any foreigner sentenced to prison for more than two years and for limits on the residence permits of immigrants on welfare . mr . schr_der called the new conservative strategy a sign of ''helplessness and aggressiveness , '' adding , ''it is a desperate attempt to find a topic with which one can arouse emotions , but i think the public will see through it . '' mr . schr_der has revived his chances to win re election through his handling of germany 's disastrous floods and his sharp message of opposition to a new , american led war in iraq . his campaign to preserve the peace in open and pungent opposition to the bush_administration has won him support , while making mr . stoiber seem wishy washy , unwilling to support the americans but also unwilling to rule out a war in iraq . while many had thought that mr . stoiber would run to the right , he had instead sounded moderate on social issues while hammering hard at the poor state of germany 's economy . but mr . schr_der has argued that unemployment and low growth are a result of global factors beyond his control not his inability to challenge his union supporters and make the labor market more flexible . in early august , polls indicated , mr . stoiber 's conservatives were between five and seven percentage_points ahead of mr . schr_der 's social democrats , who govern in coalition with the greens . now , with the vote on sunday , mr . schr_der has opened a small lead , and has the momentum . he has sought to capitalize on his own popularity and that of his foreign_minister , joschka_fischer , a green , by trying to run as a kind of personality ticket , highly unusual in a parliamentary democracy . mr . fischer , an elfin former radical , is germany 's most popular politician , with an approval rating of more than 80 percent in the polls , and both men are more popular than their own parties . so on sunday evening , mr . schr_der held an unusual joint rally in downtown berlin with mr . fischer , under a giant red and green poster that read , in english ''go on ! '' to another term with what is called his red green coaliton . ''i want this foreign_secretary and no one else , '' mr . schr_der said , pointing to mr . fischer . the foreign_secretary then returned the favor , saying ''i do not want to become chancellor . i want gerhard_schr_der to be the next chancellor . '' but as the immigration question returned to the political agenda , deutsche_bank said germany 's population could fall from 82 million to 65 million in 50 years with the work force shrinking by 27 percent , to 30 million by 2040 unless politicians allow more immigration and provide incentives to women to combine a career with child rearing . about 500 , 000 immigrants a year would be needed to prevent a decline in the working age population , the bank said .",has a topic of politics
"the 507th is based at fort_bliss in el_paso , and specialist_shoshana johnson grew up a short distance from the army base . a 30 year old single mother , specialist johnson knew the military life well . her father , claude johnson , spent 20 years in the army and a sister is an officer in the army . her family realized the risks for any soldier serving in iraq , but specialist johnson 's job , as a cook , would have seemed to keep her away from danger . her mother , eunice , said the entire family was praying for her daughter 's safe return . ''that 's what i 'm living on , '' ms . johnson said . her family told the el paso times that she was always interested in the military and joined the reserve officers' training corps and drill team in high_school . her larger ambition , though , was to become a chef . her family learned about her capture after her father was switching channels on television in search of cartoons for his grandchildren . jim yardley a nation at war the prisoners' families",has a topic of politics
"in its most explicit warning to iraq yet , the soviet_union said today that the use of force to end the persian_gulf crisis could not be ruled out if diplomatic means fail . but the soviet foreign_minister , eduard a . shevardnadze , said force should only be used with the specific authorization of the united_nations_security_council . "" on the question of whether or not the use of force will be ruled out , well , probably this could not be ruled out , "" he said . "" a situation may arise which will call for such a solution . "" mr . shevardnadze 's statement marks an important change in the soviet position , which in recent weeks had seemed to be drifting apart from that of washington . as president_bush stepped up his threats against iraq , the soviets sent an envoy to baghdad to pursue a diplomatic solution and avoided echoing the administration 's increasingly explicit warnings that force would be used if sanctions did not persuade iraq to withdraw from baghdad . baker meets with gorbachev the soviet foreign_minister spoke to reporters during a break in daylong talks with secretary of state james a . baker 3d , who also met president mikhail s . gorbachev for two hours at his country home in a pine forest a half hour 's drive west of moscow . mr . baker and mr . shevardnadze continued their discussions late into the night . while the two men agreed that force must not be ruled out and that any military action should be sanctioned by the security_council , it appears they are still far from agreeing on when force should be used and what limitations if any should be imposed on the nations involved . the baker shevardnadze talks highlight the fundamental problem the united_states faces if it does decide to use force . on the one hand , american officials want the stamp of approval that only the security_council can provide , and virtually all of washington 's allies in the gulf crisis have told mr . baker they would support the use of force only if it is approved by the united_nations . on the other hand , the united_states does not want to be shackled by any restrictions on military operations that the united_nations might impose . since american_forces will be expected to bear the brunt of any combat , washington has the most to lose from any restrictions on its conduct . political methods preferred mr . shevardnadze 's remarks at his joint news conference with mr . baker indicated that the soviets are inclined to give sanctions and other diplomatic pressures as much time as possible to produce an iraqi withdrawal from kuwait before any resort to military action . this also seemed to be the view of turkey , egypt , china and even saudi_arabia , the nations that mr . baker consulted during earlier stops on his eight nation tour of the middle_east and europe . mr . shevardnadze said , "" we prefer political methods for a solution , just as the united_states does . "" if these methods fail and force has to be used , mr . shevardandze said , "" any decision should be taken in the framework of the security_council . "" he continued "" i think the security_council has demonstrated enough success . we should not doubt the ability of the security_council to take wise and mature decisions . "" asked specifically if a deadline should be imposed on baghdad for withdrawal , mr . shevardnadze was noncommittal . "" all resolutions that have been adopted serve as a very stern warning , "" he said . "" and perhaps we could come up with some further decisions or resolutions . "" 'a new situation' in a joint statement issued in helsinki on sept . 9 , mr . gorbachev and mr . bush agreed that if the steps that they had already taken at the united_nations did not force an iraqi withdrawal , "" we are prepared to consider additional ones consistent with the united_nations_charter . "" in an address to the united_nations_general_assembly three weeks later , mr . shevardnadze referred to additional measures in even more pointed fashion . but then , late last month , mr . gorbachev was quoted during a visit to paris as saying that resort to force was "" unacceptable . "" on wednesday night , however , yevgeny m . primakov , a special soviet envoy to the middle_east , told reporters at a kremlin reception that mr . gorbachev 's statement might have been "" misleading "" because if iraq does not withdraw fully from kuwait "" we face a new situation . "" today , when mr . shevardnadze finally referred to the possible use of force explicity , mr . baker could not resist smiling , and his aides jabbed one another in the ribs . mr . shevardnadze 's remarks appeared to be directed toward several audiences . first , he appeared to be signaling president saddam_hussein of iraq that he should not expect the soviet_union to block any use of force and that he should therefore withdraw now . second , he seemed to be telling european and arab_nations not to look for a split between washington and moscow as an excuse to leave the anti iraqi coalition . , third , he seemed to be advising the bush_administration that while moscow is prepared to continue working with washington , and even echo its threat of force , it wants to move slowly and under the united_nations umbrella . in accord on 3 principles at the start of his trip , mr . baker declared that washington believed it already had the legal authority to use force against iraq under article 51 of the united_nations_charter and only needed security_council endorsement for political reasons , not legal ones . after his talks with bahrain , egypt , china , saudi_arabia and the kuwaiti government in exile , however , mr . baker has stressed the need to work through the security_council if possible . in his own statement to reporters , mr . baker said "" we have agreed on three principles that we would prefer a peaceful and political solution to this crisis , but we cannot rule out other options . second , that we have been able to cooperate very effectively and are determined to continue that cooperation , and thirdly that we both agree that we cannot accept a partial solution . "" mr . baker said that he did not expect to reach full agreement with the soviets on the shape of a resolution_authorizing force during his talks today . but the administration has worked out a draft , which mr . baker apparently presented to mr . shevardnadze and will also review with the british and french on friday and saturday . mr . baker and mr . shevardnadze said they were also trying to tie up last minute details of the conventional_arms reduction treaty for europe , which they hope to sign at the meeting in paris of the 34 nation conference on security and cooperation in europe on nov . 19 . they also said they had made some progress on a treaty limiting strategic nuclear_missiles . mideast_tensions",has a topic of politics
"in this increasingly diverse society , mohammed mansur jabarah appeared typical just another teenager from an immigrant family . the son of a kuwaiti stockbroker , he grew up an eager soccer fan in st . catharines , a quiet town outside toronto known for its vineyards and panoramic views of lake_ontario . but after graduating from a catholic high_school in 2000 , mr . jabarah changed course , traveling to pakistan to study islam . there he met osama_bin_laden , who was impressed with his clean canadian passport and english_language skills , according to a canadian security intelligence service report . before too long , mr . jabarah was dispatched to kuala_lumpur in malaysia , where he served as a channel between al_qaeda and southeast_asian terrorists , western intelligence officials say . he aided in the planning of a foiled plot to bomb four western embassies in singapore . arrested last year in the sultanate of oman on the arabian sea , he is now cooperating with the f.b.i . mr . jabarah 's odyssey from canadian suburbia to islamic jihad stunned officials here and raised a disturbing question how many of canada 's 650 , 000 muslim residents have been lured into terrorism ? such concerns prompted the canadian parliament , three months after the sept . 11 attacks in the united_states , to enact a sweeping antiterror bill . security agencies now have enhanced powers to eavesdrop on citizens and confiscate suspect bank accounts . the police were given wider latitude in arresting terror_suspects preventively suspects can now be deported on the basis of evidence that can be withheld from their defense lawyers . in addition , reluctant witnesses can be obliged to give evidence in ongoing terror inquiries . but so far , the powers have been used only sparingly . one suspect has been deported , and four more are fighting deportation . a mere quarter million dollars has been frozen in bank accounts of charities believed to be funnels for terrorist groups . not a single suspect has been preventively detained to avert a terrorist act . the relatively sparse activity contrasts sharply with efforts in the united_states and several european_countries , which have detained or arrested scores of suspects and frozen tens of millions of dollars . that has some canadian and american authorities wondering if canada has a handle on the total picture . the country , after all , would appear to be an attractive target for al_qaeda given its long , porous border with the united_states , large middle_eastern immigrant population and relatively small security apparatus . a recent interview with ward elcock , director of the canadian security intelligence service , shed light on the reasoning behind a less invasive approach to terror prevention . rather than detain or arrest suspects willy_nilly , he said , canadian spies watch them , periodically interview them and share the intelligence they gather with the united_states . mr . elcock estimated that there were currently ''20 or so'' people in canada suspected of belonging to or somehow aiding al_qaeda or qaeda related groups . he said canadian intelligence monitored their telephones , computers , bank records and credit_card activity , while also keeping track of people interacting with them . ''so far as we know , no one here is planning a terrorist action against canada or against the united_states , '' mr . elcock said . but he acknowledged that ''you are always five minutes away from finding the guy who just arrived and is a concern . '' moreover , there could conceivably be more than one . some experts fear that unknown numbers of qaeda_operatives in canada may simply have eluded the authorities . ''you can never really know that for sure , '' deputy prime_minister john_manley acknowledged in an interview . ''you ca n't know what you do n't know . you can only do what is permissible in a democratic society and hope you catch what you need to catch . '' canada has been under pressure from washington to tighten its immigration policies and close loopholes that in the 1990 's allowed thousands of people seeking refugee_status to melt into canadian society . american officials say they are largely satisfied with ottawa 's progress in tightening the screening of new immigrants and bolstering controls at the border . but they still wonder what kind of terrorist threat may be lurking from the north . ''in terms of things you can point to involving terrorism or security threats to the united_states , the file is thin , '' said a senior american official involved in canada policy . ''there are not dozens and dozens of cases . what the magnitude is remains unclear . '' mr . elcock acknowledged that his agency was caught off guard in late 1999 when american customs agents apprehended ahmed ressam , 35 , an algerian born montreal resident , as he tried to cross into washington_state with explosives in the trunk of his car . he later confessed that the explosives were intended for an attack on the los_angeles airport . mr . ressam 's case notwithstanding , the few canadians who have been seized for terrorist activities in the last three years were largely operating abroad . among them were abdul_rahman khadr and omar khadr , two brothers from an egyptian immigrant family , who were arrested while fighting in afghanistan with al_qaeda . like mr . jabarah , the khadr brothers come from a middle_class family . their father , who apparently recruited them , is still at_large . to improve penetration of immigrant communities , canadian intelligence agencies say they are busy training new agents from those groups . the government is taking a number of other security measures , among them tightening bank requirements on the reporting of suspicious money transfers , gathering more information about airline passengers entering canada and deploying more officers overseas to screen potential immigrants . yet vulnerabilities persist , canadian experts say . ''if i were al_qaeda and i needed to develop chemistry , biology or physics based weaponry , a canadian university laboratory is still readily accessible , '' said martin rudner , director of intelligence and security studies at carleton university in ottawa . but the most immediate concern is the thoroughness and accuracy of canadian intelligence on possible qaeda activities . prime_minister_jean_chr_tien , for one , expresses skepticism when he reads the top secret reports periodically stacked on his desk , an aide said , adding that mr . chr tien often complained of having already read most of the information in the newspapers . any intelligence failures could become more important as a result of tighter security in the united_states and europe . ''al_qaeda did not develop a major operational base in canada prior to sept . 11 , '' said wesley k . wark , a university of toronto historian , ''and the reason may be they found it easy enough to do it in the united_states . '' ''but down the road , '' he added , ''the situation may be very different , and therefore canada would become relatively more attractive . '' threats and responses ottawa's tactics",has a topic of politics
lead an article on saturday about ways in which canada 's constitutional_crisis might affect united_states canadian relations misidentified the premier of british columbia . he is william vander zalm . an article on saturday about ways in which canada 's constitutional_crisis might affect united_states canadian relations misidentified the premier of british columbia . he is william vander zalm .,has a topic of politics
"for some angry lawmakers in congress , the best punishment for germany 's refusal to back a war against iraq would be to scale back the number of american_troops stationed here . the pentagon , they were told recently , is weighing the idea . ask the residents of this german town what they think , and they say it cannot happen soon enough . neu isenburg , a well kept community of 36 , 000 , is carved out of the majestic forest south of frankfurt . it lies next to the rhein main air base , which was once a landing site for dirigibles , including the ill starred hindenburg , and is now a major hub for the united_states_air_force . since november 2001 , the night sky over neu isenburg has reverberated with the roar of c 5 galaxy cargo planes and other aircraft ferrying troops and supplies to afghanistan . with a new war in the persian_gulf looming , rhein main is gearing up for another wave of flights . ''to be honest , i would be very happy if they left , '' said kerstin harms , a sleep deprived mother of two young girls . ''when these galaxy planes pass by , the windows vibrate , the whole house shakes . '' horst m ller , a retired pharmaceutical worker who has campaigned against the flights , said some pilots were ''cowboys'' who reved their engines with little regard for the sleeping world below . ''when a galaxy takes off at 3 a.m . , '' he said , ''all of neu isenburg falls out of bed . '' like most people here , mr . m ller and mrs . harms insist that they do not resent the american military presence in germany . for mr . m ller , 69 , the soldiers stir memories of his first chocolate bar , given to him when he was 11 by an arriving g.i. , or his first cigarette , cadged from a soldier and smoked furtively in the woods near his home . but the incessant noise is testing their patience . and the discontent is not confined to this town . people who live near the much larger ramstein air base in southwestern germany also complain about the racket . a united_states_army training ground in the bavarian town of auerbach has drawn the ire of residents who say the sound of exploding artillery shells keeps them awake . ''it 's not just afghanistan , '' said the mayor of neu isenburg , dirk oliver quilling . ''it 's every crisis kuwait , bosnia , kosovo . this is n't a problem with americans . it 's a problem with military flights . '' once viewed as a potent symbol of cold_war vigilance eagles standing against the soviet bear the american_soldiers in germany are now seen by some people here as something approaching a nuisance . at the pentagon , some view them as a relic . the new commander for american_forces in europe , gen . james l . jones , has floated the idea of scaling back the 71 , 000 troops based in germany in favor of lighter , more mobile units that could jump from country to country on short notice . the plans , which are in an early stage , are part of a longstanding effort to rethink the deployment of united_states troops in europe since the end of the cold_war . despite the barbed comments in congress , military officials say the plans did not grow out of the recent rift between berlin and washington . the strained relations , however , are coloring the debate on both sides . antiwar_protesters plan to demonstrate in front of the rhein main base in the coming week , while mr . m ller and other people here said they regretted the anti american position taken by germany 's chancellor , gerhard_schr_der . the commander of the base , col . christine d . prewitt , said some local officials had even apologized to her . ''i tell them i appreciate the support , but i ca n't really do anything with it , '' she said . colonel prewitt is , however , trying to address the complaints about noise . she noted that the air_force had begun using more c_17 planes at rhein main , which are quieter than the c_5 's . she disciplined a pilot who veered off his landing path a year ago and flew low over the town . and she meets regularly with local officials to brief them on the missions being planned . among her frustrations is the stubborn belief among townspeople that the planes are carrying bombs or other weapons . she said the base was not equipped to load or unload munitions . colonel prewitt also said cargo planes bound for afghanistan had to take off in the middle of the night in order to land there in daylight . the need to supply troops in iraq may require further night flights . ''we ca n't ever promise a community that we wo n't fly over them , '' she said . ''the planes have to go somewhere . '' despite these irritants , colonel prewitt said relations between rhein main and its neighbors were decent . she recalls being stationed as a young pilot at the clark air base in the philippines from 1985 to 1988 . that base was eventually closed after anti american protests . ''in the philippines , you got the distinct feeling it was 'yankee go home' time , '' she said . ''you do n't get that feeling here . the circumstances are different , the people are different . '' she said rhein main had been downsized in 1995 , reducing its population from about 8 , 000 to under 2 , 000 . with fewer air_force troops , there are fewer links between the base and the surrounding towns . neu isenburg used to have an auto dealership and a pub that catered to american_troops . both are gone . unlike some german towns , neu isenburg does not depend on the base for economic sustenance . indeed , the air_force plans to close rhein main at the end of 2005 , transferring its last operations to ramstein . the move , however , is contingent on adding a runway and upgrading technology there . given the pentagon 's other obligations these days , residents doubt that it will meet that deadline . rhein main shares runways and taxiways with frankfurt 's mammoth international airport , which is just north of the base . airport officials already have plans to convert the base into a new terminal building . mayor quilling said his town might end up trading the roar of the c_5 's for more car traffic . ''there is a german expression , '' he said as he watched a lufthansa 747 ascend into the azure sky outside his office . ''we look at it with one eye crying and one eye laughing . ''",has a topic of politics
"lead bush_administration officials say they have given the soviet leadership a nine point plan designed to induce moscow to accept the presence of a united germany in the north_atlantic_treaty_organization . bush_administration officials say they have given the soviet leadership a nine point plan designed to induce moscow to accept the presence of a united germany in the north_atlantic_treaty_organization . the program , which brings together many different elements related to the future of nato and german soviet relations , was largely designed by washington and bonn and first presented to the soviet foreign_minister , eduard a . shevardnadze , in moscow in mid may and then reiterated for president mikhail s . gorbachev last week , the officials said . while virtually all elements of the plan have been discussed in public , the administration wanted to package them in one document to be presented to the soviets as part of the american strategy for convincing moscow that the west is seriously trying to address soviet concerns on german membership in nato . west will push on , anyway despite mr . gorbachev 's suggestion that the soviet_union may delay withdrawing its troops from eastern_europe if a united germany joins nato , bush_administration officials say they intend to press ahead with their plans to integrate germany into the western alliance . indeed , secretary of state james a . baker 3d left today for a gathering of european foreign ministers in copenhagen , the first of a series of high level meetings that administration officials see as critical for putting their german strategy into effect . the carrot in that strategy , officials say , is to keep offering moscow this package of nine military and political points designed to make a united germany 's membership in nato so nonthreatening in military terms and so economically beneficial to the soviet_union that it will eventually acquiesce . ''we have presented to the soviets nine points that summarize how we propose to deal with their legitimate interests , '' a senior administration official said . ''the message of these nine points is that we really want to deal with your concerns on germany sensitively . '' onus of the spoiler the stick , officials say , is to use the gathering momentum of german_unification and the broad european support for german membership in nato , to make prohibitive the diplomatic costs for moscow of seeking to block german_unification . these would involve alienating the german nation whose economic support will be badly needed in the coming years and generally playing the role of ' 'spoiler . '' ''we basically said that if you want to engage on these nine points , fine , '' the senior official said . ''otherwise , you are going to be isolating yourself and antagonizing the germans . but if you 're serious about having your concerns addressed , then we are ready to go a long way . '' these are the nine points a united germany will reaffirm its commitment not to develop nuclear , chemical or biological_weapons . after conclusion of a conventional_arms reduction treaty now being negotiated in vienna , the nato allies will be prepared to immediately conclude a follow up manpower accord that would limit the size of a united germany 's armed_forces . nato is prepared to advance the date of negotiations to limit short range nuclear_weapons in europe . nato will radically revamp its military_strategy and structure of forces to make them far less threatening to moscow . germany will renounce claims not only to polish territory , but also to former german territory now in the soviet_union , such as east prussia . no nato forces will be stationed in what is now east_germany . soviet_troops will be allowed to remain in east_germany for a transition period , with expenses paid by the german_government . the 35 nation conference on security and cooperation in europe will be institutionalized and expanded , as moscow has insisted , to make it a pan_european organization in which the soviets can play a leading role as the warsaw_pact disintegrates and nato remains intact . germany will offer moscow a variety of trade , lending and commercial arrangements to help the soviet_union in its transition to a market_economy . described as appreciative ''the nine points are concrete things , and gorbachev clearly appreciated them , '' a state_department official who took part in the summit meeting said . but ''i think what we learned from him at the summit is that he may also need some intangible things . ''gorbachev 's remarks on germany were never very clear , but what he seemed to be saying was that the very political nature of nato causes him problems , '' the official said . ''the nine points are telling him that nato will eventually change , but that 's a pig in a poke for him . he wants to see something now , have something to point to , to prove that nato is no longer the cold_war menace but just a grouping of western states which want constructive relations with the east . he also want to see more specifics on some of the nine points . '' in copenhagen on wednesday , mr . baker is to give an address to the european security conference foreign ministers , laying out some american ideas on the roles that this all european organization might play . from there , mr . baker will continue to turnberry , scotland , for a meeting of nato foreign ministers that will lay the basis for a nato_summit meeting early next month focusing on ways to make nato , as it absorbs a united germany , a less dangerous alliance to moscow . baker to see shevardnadze while in copenhagen , mr . baker will meet with mr . shevardnadze and try to develop with him some of the ideas floated at the summit for quickly transforming nato 's political image in soviet eyes . these include more frequent visits by soviet diplomats and generals to nato , possibly giving nato forces a non american commander , and possibly even drafting an agreement between nato and the warsaw_pact for new principles of relations . on july 1 , the two germanys will put into effect complete monetary , economic and social union , meaning that they will have one currency , one set of labor laws and , effectively , one economy . by autumn , all east and west_german political_parties will be merged and by sometime between december and next april , all german elections will be held . by then , the only thing holding up german_unification will be the completion of the so called ''two plus four'' negotiations , in which the two germanys and the four world_war_ii allies the united_states , the soviet_union , britain and france are supposed to dissolve their rights and responsibilities over germany , making final germany 's borders and concluding a treaty that would be approved at a summit meeting of the european security conference . to be sure , administration officials say , mr . gorbachev can simply refuse to withdraw soviet_troops from east_germany and hold up the whole matter , but for how long and at what price ? ''what are they going to do the day the representative of a united germany walks into nato headquarters in brussels and presents his credentials and it is done ? '' an american official asked . ''what happens when the three western powers say they are going to terminate their rights and responsibilities in germany and the soviets say no ? what do you think that is going to do for soviet german relations ? ''",has a topic of politics
"the state_department said today that iraqi forces were withdrawing from dohuk , a major kurdish city in northern iraq , but that no decision had been made on whether to push the allied safe_haven zone into the city . a state_department spokesman , richard a . boucher , said of the iraqi soldiers "" coalition_forces have observed that they 're pulling out from dohuk , and i presume that they 're doing that in order to avoid any possible interference or encounters with the relief operations . "" but at this point , as far as we consider the safe area for relief operations , we have not extended it southward from that ridge overlooking dohuk , "" mr . boucher added . the state_department spokesman was responding to questions about the deepening involvement of american_forces in taking over territory in northern iraq , especially major kurdish cities , in an effort to build enough confidence among kurdish refugees to coax them down from the mountains along the turkish border . "" we 're not interested in a dismembered or fractionalized iraq , "" mr . boucher said , repeating president_bush 's admonition . he said american_forces were not seeking to take over the civil administration of the kurdish cities that they are occupying in the relief operation . united_states and other allied forces have extended the axis of their safe_haven zone about 30 miles east of zakho , the site of the first major refugee_camp , to sarsenk and amadiya . mr . boucher said the united_states had asked iraqi forces "" to withdraw from 30 kilometers around that line , "" or about 19 miles . asked whether american_troops intended to add dohuk to the zone they are establishing , mr . boucher said , "" that 's something that i do n't think decisions have been made on . "" he did not indicate at what level in washington that decision would be reached . "" we 're not taking over the civil administration in these places , "" he said . "" nor are we trying to set up any sort of enclaves . and we intend to hand over our operation to the united_nations and to withdraw our troops from these areas as soon as possible . "" after the war",has a topic of politics
"when the man iraqis know as chemical ali made a final plea of innocence to the iraqi high tribunal last week , the court 's public galleries were all but empty , and there was not a single iraqi or foreign reporter on hand . ali hassan al majid , saddam_hussein 's cousin , was once the most feared man in iraq after mr . hussein himself . mr . majid earned his grim sobriquet for his role as the overseer of the so called anfal campaign of the late 1980s , in which tens of thousands of iraqi kurds were killed , many of them in poison_gas attacks . yet by the final day of testimony at his nine month trial , mr . majid and five fellow defendants , facing possible death sentences , were figures in what in effect was a sideshow . after mr . hussein was hanged on dec . 30 in a previous case , the anfal case lost its principal defendant , and with him much of the courtroom uproar that fascinated iraqis in the 13 months that mr . hussein spent in the dock . deprived of the example set by mr . hussein , who harangued judges and used the courtroom as a forum for attacking iraq 's american ''occupiers , '' mr . majid and his co defendants became more compliant . they listened more attentively to prosecution evidence , raised legal points and acted more like men on trial for their lives than as defiant legatees of an ousted government . in one crucial respect , however , they remained true to mr . hussein like him , they pleaded innocent of any involvement in atrocities in the anfal offensives , which took their name , at mr . hussein 's direction , from an arabic word meaning ' 'spoils of war . '' in closing pleas , they said they had nothing to do with the chemical attacks , village demolitions , deportations , torture and mass executions of men , women and children that kurdish survivors described in excruciating detail in 59 days of testimony . for mr . majid , in particular , the plea seemed hard to sustain in face of prosecution evidence , which included documents linking him to the repression , and a stunning series of tape_recordings in which mr . hussein and mr . majid were heard discussing plans for the use of chemical_weapons against the kurds . prosecutors said that at least 50 , 000 kurds died in a series of eight anfal offensives in 1987 and 1988 . still , the 61 year old mr . majid , who was assigned by mr . hussein to head the baath_party 's ''northern bureau'' in mosul in 1987 and given plenary powers for the anfal campaign , protested that he knew nothing about the poison_gas attacks . ''i never issued an order for the use of these weapons i never heard of them being used and i have no knowledge of who used them , if in fact they were used , '' he said . whether mr . majid 's plea will carry any weight with the five judge panel seems doubtful . the court , established under the close tutelage of the american justice_department in 2004 , has come under increasing pressure from iraq 's new rulers , led by the shiite and kurdish officials who dominate in the government of prime_minister_nuri_kamal_al_maliki . pressure from mr . maliki 's office led to the replacement of the first chief judge in the anfal trial , after he told mr . hussein in the opening days of the trial last fall that he could not be described as ''a dictator . '' and it was mr . maliki who insisted , in the face of american protests , on carrying out the execution of mr . hussein only five days after an appeals court upheld his death sentence in the so called dujail trial , which centered on the executions of 148 shiite men and boys after an abortive assassination attempt against mr . hussein in 1982 . three other former officials were also hanged for their role in the dujail repression . one , taha_yassin_ramadan , a former vice_president , was sentenced to life_imprisonment by the trial_court , but the appeals chamber , under government pressure , sent the verdict back to the trial_court with a finding that mr . ramadan should be hanged . the trial chamber quickly complied . after the judges adjourned the anfal trial , court officials predicted a date in mid june for sentencing , and predicted that any death sentences would be carried out by midsummer . the other defendants are former gen . sultan hashim ahmed , northern military commander at the time of the anfal attacks sabid abdul_aziz al douri , chief of mr . hussein 's military_intelligence service farhan al jubouri , military_intelligence chief in northern iraq former gen . hussein rashid , the iraqi_army 's deputy operations chief and taher tawfiq al aani , mr . majid 's assistant as secretary of the northern bureau . all are charged with war_crimes , crimes against humanity and genocide . court officials have said that they envision several more trials , including a series of cases that will center on the shiite uprising against mr . hussein after iraqi forces were driven from kuwait in 1991 . shiite leaders say as many as 150 , 000 people were killed during the uprising , many of them lined up at mass graves in the desert and shot . but already , after only two trials , there are questions about how far iraq 's new shiite dominated government can carry the process of holding hussein era officials to account . american financing for the court has been reduced . and with mr . hussein dead , interest in the process among iraqis , and beyond iraq , has dwindled . with tens of thousands of dead since the american invasion , and almost every day punctuated by the mass killings caused by roadside_bombs and suicide attacks , the horrors of the hussein era , in the minds of many iraqis , have receded before the chaos that has ensued . mr . majid and his co defendants have not abandoned courtroom theatrics altogether . several of the defendants , including mr . majid , appeared for the final testimony in the traditional arab garb of dishdasha robe , kaffiyeh headdresses and black rope headbands that have been an emblem of patriotic defiance in the court for former officials who rarely appeared in anything but the military style uniforms of the baath_party while they were still in power . and mr . majid was concerned enough about a possible death sentence that he coupled his protestation of innocence with a fallback argument based in the cruel realpolitik of the hussein era that seemed to acknowledge , if only obliquely , that harsh punishments had been ordered against the kurds . ''thanks be to god , what took place in kurdistan in 1987 and 1988 only happened after the iranians invaded iraq and occupied an area the size of lebanon , so the state had to do what it did , '' he said . the reference was to the eight year war between iraq and iran , ending in 1988 , in which kurdish guerrillas known as pesh_merga allied themselves with iranian forces against iraq . it was this that the man identified by prosecutors as mr . hussein in the tape_recordings of high level meetings in baghdad that were played in the court cited as cause for using chemical_weapons , along with confident assurances to his associates that the weapons would ''kill thousands . '' in their closing pleas , several defendants resorted to what legal experts at the trial described the tactic as a ''nuremberg defense , '' a reference to nazi leaders who pleaded at their trials after world_war_ii that atrocities of which they were accused were carried out under orders . with mr . hussein gone from the court , the anfal defendants argued that any actions they took were not their responsibility , but the result of following orders from baghdad in effect , from mr . hussein and that they would have been summarily executed if they had demurred . mr . hashim , the 57 year old former general , who served as defense minister during the american led invasion in 2003 , adopted a pleading tone as he made his final remarks . ''as a soldier , if i receive an order from my superiors to undertake a specific mission , what option do i have ? '' he said . ''let any fair person tell me that . there are no options one , two or three , only the choice to implement the order , or not to implement it and if i 'd made that choice , it would have been the end of me . '' the reach of war",has a topic of politics
"lead a west_german official today briefed secretary of state james a . baker 3d on measures planned by bonn to prevent the export of equipment that could be used to make chemical_weapons . a west_german official today briefed secretary of state james a . baker 3d on measures planned by bonn to prevent the export of equipment that could be used to make chemical_weapons . the meeting between wolfgang schauble , the west_german minister for special projects , and secretary baker was viewed by state_department officials as an indication of the seriousness of the bonn government about the issue . washington has expressed concern over the role of a west_german company , imhausen chemie , in building a libyan chemical_plant that the united_states says is meant for the production of poison_gas . libya says it is a pharmaceutical plant . mr . baker was described by state_department officials as generally pleased with what the west_german envoy had to say , but they added that it was too early to say whether the measures contemplated by bonn were sufficient . among the measures , west_german officials said today , is legislation making it illegal for any west_german citizen , anywhere in the world , to cooperate knowingly or unknowingly in the construction of a plant making chemical or biological_weapons .",has a topic of politics
"the united_states could be a "" stabilizer "" in helping to normalize relations between an independent quebec and the rest of canada , says a top separatist leader who plans to make this point in washington next week . many fear a painful separation that could result in trade retaliation by english canada . if ontario were to block imports from an independent quebec , for example , "" it would break up what has been built over long years and which america takes for granted , "" said the separatist , lucien bouchard , who heads the quebec separatist opposition in the house of commons . "" if ontario were the first to do that , well , i think , someone would receive a few calls from washington , "" mr . bouchard said in explaining "" some kind of stabilizer role "" for the united_states . to make a declaration of independence for quebec , canada 's main opposition party , the parti_quebecois , would first have to win a provincial election that must be called before oct . 11 by the liberal_party , which has been in power for nine years . early test on sovereignty a majority of quebecers would then have to back separation in a referendum that the parti_quebecois promises to call if it wins . the party 's leader , jacques parizeau , says it will put sovereignty to the test within two to three months of an election victory , meaning independence is possible within a year . the parti_quebecois won a by election this week in a district held by liberals for the last 37 years . but the latest poll by the crop organization gives the liberals under premier daniel johnson 33 percent of declared voter support to 31 percent for the separatist party what happens to trade between english canada and french canada and how 500 billion of canadian federal debt would be apportioned are among the host of complex issues raised by any breakup . quebec 's seven million people represent about a quarter of canada 's 27 million . mr . bouchard said in an interview that he feared an "" irrational "" reaction in english canada that would impede not only trade but also the flow of capital and work against united_states policies that support freer exchanges in north_america . because the level of trade between ontario and quebec is so large , 50 billion annually , disruption would inevitably affect the united_states . hands off u.s . policy referring to washington , mr . bouchard said , "" there is no way that they could not be interested in the conflict or not express their dissatisfaction . "" but the united_states ambassador , james j . blanchard , reasserted washington 's hands off policy . "" as far as any future constitutional change is concerned , that is a matter purely for the canadians to decide , "" he said in an interview . on any stabilizing role for washington in an intra canadian trade_war , the ambassador said firmly , "" that is not a matter that is appropriate for the u.s to comment on . "" mr . bouchard is making his first trip to washington as leader of the official opposition in ottawa . his bloc quebecois won 54 seats in last october 's elections , making it the second strongest national_party after prime_minister_jean_chretien 's liberals . though also from quebec , mr . chretien is an ardent federalist . mr . bouchard , who is 55 and a former canadian ambassador to france , said he was going to washington "" mostly to answer questions "" about the sovereignty movement and insisted that he was not trying extract any american commitments to support quebec independence . address is planned the main event is an address on wednesday to the center for strategic and international studies . mr . bouchard is to meet with senior state_department officials , including peter_tarnoff , under secretary for political affairs , and members of congress , including the co chairmen of the congressional study group on canada , james l . oberstar , democrat of minnesota , and john mchugh , republican of new york . but the canadian opposition_leader does not plan to see people in the white_house . "" i do n't want to embarrass the americans , "" he said . "" i know what it is , diplomacy , government . "" correction february 28 , 1994 , monday because of an editing error , an article yesterday about a quebec separatist leader misidentified canada 's main opposition party . it is the bloc quebecois the parti_quebecois is the main opposition party in quebec .",has a topic of politics
"the political map in iraq was in turmoil once again late last year as members of the governing_council furiously jockeyed for power . iyad_alawi , a leader among them , professed to want nothing to do with it . ''things are so confused , '' he said with a deep frown and slow shake of the head , sitting in his baghdad office . ''it does not honor me to be a part of it . '' and in fact , through the winter and spring , dr . alawi , a medical doctor , kept a relatively low public profile while other members of the council were grandstanding . that reticence may have helped persuade others on the council to choose him on friday to be the interim prime_minister_of_iraq . dr . alawi is an imposing figure , more than six feet_tall with a sonorous voice and an easy air of command . he listens carefully , but can maintain a manner that does not betray even an inkling of what he is thinking . the resulting impression is not of a man holding secrets , but of one without guile , a feature not normally associated with politicians . he has maintained strong relations with the united_states through two administrations to this day , his organization , the iraqi national accord , receives financing from the central_intelligence_agency . but he lived abroad for 30 years and is not well known in iraq . the c.i.a . chose to support him eight years ago while the better known former exile leader , ahmad_chalabi , lost his c.i.a . financing but later received money instead from the state_department and then the department of defense . with different government sponsors , the two men pushed opposite approaches toward iraq , both before and after the war . while mr . chalabi has relentlessly promoted de baathification , a policy pleasing to conservatives in the pentagon , dr . alawi has remained single minded in his determination to use the expertise of former senior baathist members of the military to bring stability to iraq . ''he thought the wholesale rejection of baathists from government was a big mistake , '' patrick theros , his representative in washington , said friday . dr . alawi 's group came to be home to former senior baathist military officers after they fled iraq . ''many of them were sentenced to death before they fled , '' dr . alawi said in an interview in baghdad late last year . ''our idea was to take off the upper crust of the military after the war and replace them with our people . they would redeem themselves by spear heading change in iraq . but that is not what happened . '' iyad_alawi was born in baghdad in 1946 into a wealthy shiite family of prominent business leaders . after the baath_party gained control of iraq , dr . alawi , as a young man , joined the party 's youth branch . he studied medicine in baghdad and then in london . dr . alawi occasionally treated young saddam_hussein for minor ailments . by the mid 1970 's , dr . alawi had resigned from the baath_party and was living in london . he ignored mr . hussein 's entreaties to return to baghdad . as a result , in 1978 , an assassin presumably sent by mr . hussein attacked dr . alawi in his bed with an ax . he was seriously wounded and spent almost a year in a hospital . that attack helped persuade him to begin organizing former baathists in exile , like himself . and after the iraqi_invasion_of_kuwait in 1990 , suddenly mr . alawi and his organization were in great demand . financial support flowed in from britain , jordan , saudi_arabia and , eventually , the c.i.a . that year he founded the iraqi national accord . in 1996 , with american encouragement and financial support , the group tried to mount a coup in iraq , using baathist allies still in the military and government . but agents of the government infiltrated the network . the coup failed , and the plotters were arrested . many were executed . when members of dr . alawi 's group look back on that disaster now , many of them say they felt betrayed by the united_states , which decided not to give the plotters any overt assistance . when the bush_administration began making plans to invade iraq in 2002 , the c.i.a . came to dr . alawi again . his organization 's mission this time was to make contact with senior military commanders in the iraqi_army and urge them not to fight . dr . alawi says he succeeded . ''we negotiated successfully with a significant number of officers , including officers in the sunni_triangle , '' he said . ''during the war , no bullets were fired there in defense of saddam . '' but then he suggested a feeling of betrayal once again . ''this was an indication that these soldiers were not saddam 's cronies and could have been used as an asset for the new iraq , '' he said . ''it was really logical for policymakers in the u.s . to use these people . '' but instead , l . paul_bremer iii , the american administrator in iraq , disbanded the iraqi_army . dr . alawi 's relationship with the united_states seems conflicted . he is unwilling to criticize the bush_administration directly , but he does say , using no pronouns ''after the war , i am not sure there was a strategy . after the war , there was n't a clue to where things should be going . '' now that he has been named interim prime_minister_of_iraq , the united_states and his own people , in search of a strategy , will be looking to him . man in the news",has a topic of politics
"the state_department said today it has denied a visa to markus wolf , who once ran communist east_germany 's foreign spy service , on the ground that he had in the past been involved in terrorist activities . the state_department said it had no plans to waive the law for mr . wolf as it has done for gerry_adams , leader of sinn_fein , the political wing of the i.r.a . mr . wolf , who had been seeking a visa to discuss the manuscript of his memoirs with his american publisher , said he would appeal . in denying the visa , the state_department cited a law that bars aliens "" who have engaged in terrorist activities . "" nancy beck , a spokeswoman , said that as deputy minister of state security , east_germany 's dreaded secret_police , mr . wolf "" was in a decision making position "" for the ministry 's activities , which included "" preparing and planning terrorist activity . "" mr . wolf denied the accusation today . "" i have never had anything to do with terrorists or terrorist activities , "" he said .",has a topic of politics
"lead opposition leaders gathered for the formal opening of parliament vowed today to fight the government 's plan to win speedy parliamentary approval of canada 's free_trade agreement with the united_states . their stand appeared to set up a bruising parliamentary battle over the agreement , which was the focus of last month 's general_election . opposition leaders gathered for the formal opening of parliament vowed today to fight the government 's plan to win speedy parliamentary approval of canada 's free_trade agreement with the united_states . their stand appeared to set up a bruising parliamentary battle over the agreement , which was the focus of last month 's general_election . prime_minister brian_mulroney 's progressive_conservative government , which was returned to power with 169 of the 295 house of commons seats , has indicated that it will seek commons approval for the trade pact before christmas and will insist that no amendments to the pact be made . the pact is to go into effect on jan . 1 . but leaders of the opposition liberal and new democratic parties said today that they would introduce amendments that would bind the government to pledges it made during the election campaign , including the establishment of new programs to retrain and compensate canadian workers who lose their jobs as a result of the trade pact . other opposition demands include a formal undertaking by the government to fight any effort by the united_states to use its enhanced economic leverage under the trade pact to attack canada 's medical system .",has a topic of politics
"with its lordly castle , legendary university and throngs of ice_cream eating tourists , heidelberg is one of germany 's most popular destinations for americans . but the reported plot to bomb a united_states military base shows how vulnerable american institutions in europe are to terrorism . terrorism experts and united_states military officials say the plot in heidelberg had a mix of ingredients that made it extraordinarily difficult to predict and stop . the jailed suspects are osman petneczi and astrid eyzaguirre , a turkish german man and his german american fianc e . they are suspected of having acted alone , making them difficult to spot . they lived unremarkable lives in the nearby village of walldorf , which has a large turkish population . ms . eyzaguirre , whose father was an american military officer , had a job shelving bottles of beer and liquor in the military run shopping_center that serves the 16 , 000 soldiers and their families who are stationed here . her fianc , mr . petneczi , allegedly stole chemicals to make a bomb from the factory where he worked . his potential targets the shopping_mall and campbell barracks , which houses the army 's european headquarters are both next to busy streets with unimpeded_access . ''the germans did not expect attacks on the anniversary of sept . 11 , '' said rolf tophoven , a prominent german terrorism expert who has been briefed by investigators since the arrests on thursday . ''what they did not rule out was an independent operator attacking a soft target . '' ''these cases , '' he added , ''are the hardest to prevent . '' only the day before the german police announced the arrests , the german interior_minister , otto schily , insisted that the government had no concrete evidence that terrorists were planning attacks in germany . employees at the shopping_center said ms . eyzaguirre had told a colleague not to come to work on sept . 11 because something bad was going to happen . the co worker reported the remark to the military_police , who told the f.b.i . in washington , which informed the german police . there are indications , however , that the german authorities already had suspicions about mr . petneczi . a prosecutor in stuttgart told the associated press that a witness reported in july that mr . petneczi was storing chemicals at his apartment . bureaucratic issues apparently delayed his arrest until last week . that is not likely to comfort people here . germans are only too aware that some of the hijackers who carried out the sept . 11 attacks incubated their plan in hamburg . in april , 13 german tourists were among 20 people killed in the bombing of a synagogue in tunisia by qaeda terrorists . in a new survey by the polling firm forsa , 62 percent of germans said they feared a terrorist attack . mr . schily urged his countrymen not ''to lapse into panic . '' the pentagon has not raised the security alert on bases overseas , which stands at force protection condition bravo , the second lowest of four levels . but officials acknowledge that the plot revealed the limits in its security , even after it was bolstered after the attacks last year . ''every time you allow someone to enter an installation , regardless of who it is , there is a risk , '' said col . don gemeinhardt , an air_force officer who oversees security on military bases in europe . ms . eyzaguirre 's background was routinely checked when she was hired , colonel gemeinhardt said . the military , however , does not monitor the private_lives of its civilian employees or contractors , who live off the base . many are not americans . co workers of ms . ayzaguirre , some of whom had known her for five years , said they had never met mr . petneczi . neighbors of the couple said nothing in his habits or manner aroused suspicion . the military can also do little to alter the layout of its bases , most of which were occupied by the united_states at the end of world_war_ii . campbell barracks , for instance , was built in 1937 as a base for a nazi infantry_regiment and taken over by the united_states in may 1945 . its design a phalanx of barracks surrounding a central parade ground offers little protection from a car or truck_bomb . it was attacked before , in 1972 , when the red_army_faction , a leftist group , set off two car_bombs inside the base , killing three soldiers and wounding others . ''in a perfect world , you 'd have facilities in different places with more standoff , '' col . gemeinhardt said , using a term that refers to the distance between a building and the street . ''you 'd prefer not to have roads leading directly into places , so you ca n't build up speed . '' military officials have had to confront those vulnerabilities since the attacks on united_states embassies in east africa in 1998 and the khobar towers , which housed american_troops , in saudi_arabia in 1996 . colonel gemeinhardt said the pentagon had spent a lot of money reinforcing the fences around campbell barracks . three soldiers with automatic weapons stand at the gate . a german police_car is parked there . the base in heidelberg is particularly vulnerable because it is small and situated in a well developed residential area of the city . ''you ca n't just say let 's move a city_block away , '' the colonel said . mr . petnezci 's turkish background also sets this case apart from other terrorism investigations . computer aided profiles put in place here after sept . 11 tend to focus on young arab men . two thirds of germany 's three million muslims are turkish . experts say they are not radicalized , aside from a small minority that includes followers of metin kaplan , a radical religious leader whose group has been banned under post sept . 11 security law . the arrests have shaken walldorf , a tranquil hamlet best known as the birthplace of john jacob astor , the property baron whose family built the waldorf_astoria , the new york hotel named after the town . at salt pepper , a turkish style kebab house , cengiz g lnez said ''i am ashamed of him because he ruined our reputation . if i could get my hands on the guy , i would do a number on him . '' threats and responses heidelberg",has a topic of politics
"lead president mikhail s . gorbachev has sent president_bush a message supporting the changes taking place in east_germany and expressing hope that the situation will remain ''calm and peaceful , '' the white_house spokesman said today . president mikhail s . gorbachev has sent president_bush a message supporting the changes taking place in east_germany and expressing hope that the situation will remain ''calm and peaceful , '' the white_house spokesman said today . marlin fitzwater , mr . bush 's press_secretary , disclosed the message , which was received on friday while the president was here to dedicate a memorial to soldiers killed in the vietnam_war . the cable from mr . gorbachev was described by mr . fitzwater as ''an informal message . '' although its text was not released , the spokesman said the soviet leader spoke of ''the importance of the changes'' in east_germany and ''expressed the hope that the situation will remain calm and peaceful . '' mr . gorbachev also told mr . bush that he supported the actions of the new east_german leadership to open its their country 's borders . u.s . response is promised mr . fitzwater said later that ''the president will respond , and he will repeat many of the things he said , as well as offering encouragement for the continuation of political and economic reforms . '' mr . bush , addressing thousands today at an emotional veterans day ceremony in which he dedicated a new vietnam_war memorial , said that the perforation of the berlin_wall shows ''a great truth shining brighter with each passing day . '' ''the quest for freedom , '' he went on , ''is stronger than steel , more permanent than concrete . '' recalling that his administration had not foreseen the suppression of blossoming dissent in china , president_bush said in an interview published today that he has acted with ''prudence'' toward the developments in eastern_europe because of concern that bolder action could ''contribute toward an unforeseen disorder'' in the soviet_bloc . inside view in the interview , conducted on friday with texas reporters , mr . bush said he was prepared to discuss ''a wide array of economic questions'' with mr . gorbachev . but , in his first detailed response to the rapidly unfolding events of recent days in east_germany and other nations of the warsaw_pact , mr . bush reflected the deep uncertainty within his administration about how much the united_states can become involved . he seemed frustrated both at criticism that he has been reluctant to take the kind of leading role in europe that the united_states has pursued for four decades and at the limitations on american action created by the current upheavals . mr . bush said his advisers believe that mr . gorbachev is irrevocably committed to his reforms . ''they ca n't go back to square one , '' the president said . but he and his aides are still uncertain , and debating among themselves , how the kremlin will respond to the growing rift amomg its neighboring countries . what about prague ? with friday 's change of leadership in bulgaria , mr . bush went on , the administration is eager to assess the possibilities for change in a remaining hard line communist country , czechoslovakia . mr . bush said that prague is now among ''the most egregious offenders of human_rights , those that resist change the most clearly . '' asked if he was concerned that the rapidity of events could lead to instability in europe , he said , ''i think that 's why i keep using the word like prudent . '' still , he said , ''i am convinced , given not just the events of yesterday , but the cumulative set of events that have taken place , that this change is real . '' the president and his advisers have repeatedly insisted that china and eastern_europe cannot be compared in political terms . but mr . bush would not disregard the chinese crackdown on dissent that culminated in hundreds of deaths in beijing in june , and he used that event to explain his seeming anguish over policy toward eastern_europe . 'keep our eyes open' ''i think many of us felt that what happened in china set back the relationship there , '' he said . ''i had n't seen anybody predict that was going to happen . '' ''and so we keep our eyes open , and we keep acting prudently so as not to exacerbate tensions but to encourage that democracy is whole and free . if we continue to do that , we can hopefully not contribute to an unforeseen disorder . '' mr . bush said he would like to return to berlin ''to see it with the wall down , not just with holes in it . '' but he said he did not plan to stop there after his meeting with mr . gorbachev on ships off the coast of malta on dec . 2 and 3 ''unless there were something that developed between now and then that would make the presence of the u.s . president catalytic for peace or for evolution of democracy . '' possible economic help turning to questions about economic aid , the area in which the administration has been especially reluctant to engage the soviet_union , mr . bush said ''i think the time is right , should the soviets want to discuss how to improve their economy , that we do that . i 'm perfectly prepared to talk to mr . gorbachev on a wide array of economic questions , and will be ready to do that . '' he added that he had had two ''interesting seminars'' with his advisers on economic issues to prepare for the meetings with the soviet president . despite some conflicting statements in recent weeks about the soviet american relationship , mr . bush said he and his advisers agree on the substance of policy toward the east bloc . still , they ' 'sit and argue back and forth how quick will this happen ? or , what will be next ? or , what do you think is going to happen to mr . a . or mr . b . '' ''will gorbachev remain committed to perestroika and indeed to glasnost ? '' mr . bush said . ''absolutely . ''",has a topic of politics
"on the gilded marble tablets posted at the gateways of a score of presidential_palaces , it was known as ''the era of saddam_hussein . '' yet in the 26 days of american warfare it took to bring that era down , the hallmark of mr . hussein 's rule was revealed not as one of grandeur , but of gangsterism and thuggery . on the pediments of his palaces , mr . hussein mounted 30 foot bronze busts of himself as saladin , the mesopotamian warrior who conquered jerusalem with his islamic army in the 12th_century . but mr . hussein 's legacy , revealed with merciless clarity in his last , desperate weeks in power and in the looting of those palaces that followed , was not one of historical accomplishment , as he claimed , but a chronicle of terror , greed and delusion writ large . in effect , mr . hussein and his entourage inverted what was said of the dying dignity of a 17th_century english king , that nothing so became him in life as the leaving of it . of mr . hussein , who may yet be alive , perhaps hiding somewhere in baghdad with the last of his loyalists , a truer epitaph would record that nothing characterized the way he ruled iraq , for nearly 24 years , so much as the bullying , mendacious and cowardly way in which he and his associates behaved as their power collapsed . in the end , some of the closest witnesses to those last days were 150 western reporters , photographers and broadcast technicians who were sequestered throughout the war in the palestine and sheraton hotels on the eastern bank of the tigris_river in the heart of baghdad , and taken from there by iraqi officials on closely guided_tours of the city . from the hotels' upper floors , they had a panoramic view across the muddy green river to the government quarter , and the palaces , ministries and security headquarters that symbolized mr . hussein 's grip on power . the reporters had a grandstand seat as american bombs and cruise_missiles pulverized mr . hussein 's heavily_guarded compounds , encompassing whole districts of baghdad , where he and his family enjoyed the gilded privileges of ancient caliphs . in the war 's closing stages , the hotels' balconies gave an unimpeded view as american tanks blasted their way from their first foothold in baghdad , the former saddam international airport , into the republican palace presidential_compound that was the white_house of mr . hussein 's iraq . but what the reporters saw was more than the power of america 's arsenal , and the inability , for all their boasts about america finding the graveyard of its imperial ambition in iraq , of mr . hussein and his cronies to mount more than a delaying action on the road to their downfall . mr . hussein himself remained remains , if still alive the furtive , vainglorious figure he ever was , proclaiming from secret sanctuaries his solidarity with his people in their hour of trial , the certain defeat of the enemy , and his unshakable belief in iraq . but there were no churchillian scenes of mr . hussein visiting the wounded , or clambering atop rubble left by airstrikes . instead , the 65 year old iraqi leader appeared on television , until cruise_missiles knocked it off the air , in videotapes recorded from a small , low ceilinged room , white sheet against the wall , like a leader of an underground group taunting those hunting him down . twice in the last days before american_troops seized baghdad , iraqi television showed him on the streets , surrounded , as ever , by adoring crowds the leader revered by his people , but doing nothing , at least nothing that was visible , to help them . even at the last , mr . hussein 's priority was only himself . in the late afternoon of wednesday , april 9 , marine_corps tanks entered eastern baghdad from the south and took control of the district by the river that encompasses the palestine and sheraton hotels . within three hours , after attempts by iraqi men with sledgehammers and ropes had failed , the marines brought up an m 80 recovery tank with a long boom to assist in hauling down a 30 foot cast_iron statue of mr . hussein in firdos_square , behind the hotels . if any one moment marked the end of mr . hussein 's rule , it was the sight of the statue 's legs cracking , its torso tumbling , and the severed head and body being pelted with garbage and shoes the ultimate arab insult by the hundreds of iraqis who had gathered to celebrate their freedom . to be in the square at that moment was to know , beyond doubt , that iraqis in their millions hated mr . hussein , that the truth about iraq was the diametric opposite of all that he and his acolytes had maintained , and that all else that was said about him in the years that went before was the product of relentless terror . ''good , good , bush ! '' the crowds chanted . ''down , down , saddam ! '' men and women wept , and reached out to shake the hands of the marines , or simply touch their uniforms . ''thank you , mister ! '' they cried , again and again . hours later , the crowds still milled about the fallen idol , spitting and mocking . yet during the whole sequence , it now appears , mr . hussein was barely five miles farther_north in the district of adhamiya , one of the last safe strongholds for him in baghdad , in the neighborhood of al safina beside the abu_hanifa mosque . almost all who live there are , like mr . hussein , sunni muslims , in a country with a 60 percent shiite_muslim majority . adhamiya has been , for 50 years , a bastion of the baath_party , whose coattails mr . hussein rode to power . witnesses' accounts in the days that followed , and a videotape released by abu_dhabi television on friday , showed mr . hussein atop his car before the mosque , slapping supporters' hands , pumping his arm , as always , in the gesture of an emperor acknowledging his subjects' fealty . residents of adhamiya , and old associates of mr . hussein from the 1950 's , said they had heard that he went from the mosque to a simple house , probably the one from which he made his broadcasts earlier in the war against a background of a white sheet , and stayed there , with his closest companions , until sometime early on april 10 . then , just ahead of american airstrikes and advancing american ground troops who stormed the mosque , he slipped away , so one old baath_party member said , without telling many of the men who had guarded and accompanied him throughout the war . several of these , local residents said , died in the american attacks that followed . delusions of dominance apparently convinced that he could use the western news_media to foment protests against the american attacks , and to save himself by forcing president_bush to call a standstill before american_troops overran baghdad , mr . hussein sent his inner coterie out to hold news conferences . these became forums for illusion of an almost comical cast , and , in the language used by many top officials , who spoke of mr . bush as a ' 'mad dog'' and ''garbage'' and ''a stupid , ignorant man , '' for a street corner vulgarity that made for a stark contrast with the officials' frequent invocation of the ''arab and islamic civilization'' they claimed to represent . almost all of these high officials seemed divorced from the reality that was known to the simplest iraqi with access to a shortwave_radio or to neighborhood gossip that iraqi troops were falling back almost everywhere , and that the americans would be at the gates of baghdad in a matter of days . listening to these officials , it was as though they had been immersed so long in a parallel world where truth was routinely walled out that , even now , they could not grasp the facts about to overwhelm them . as members of the revolutionary_command_council and the council of ministers made their way to the microphones , none of them appeared to have the courage , or even the instinct , to say anything that might earn them the opprobrium of mr . hussein , and , perhaps , the cruel punishment commonly , execution meted out to anyone who remotely challenged the iraqi leader . in this , the men of the leadership were ultimately the prisoners of the repressive political system they had helped to create . day after day , a westerner waited in vain for any sense that their vision of iraq and its future extended beyond the personality of mr . hussein and his family , particularly his sons , uday and qusay . the iraqi people , incessantly invoked , appeared in this tableau to have little significance . it was as if mr . hussein 's cult of personality the portraits and the statues , the parades , the hagiographic books and songs , the tapes of the leader being cheered by his people had become , at the end , synonymous with iraq as if a country with a history of civilization dating back nearly 7 , 000 years had been reduced to no more than a cardboard backdrop for mr . hussein . the apotheosis came with the appearance , a few days into the war , of the interior_minister , muhammad diab al ahmed . his job established him as one of the more sinister figures in the regime , responsible for many of its detention_centers and prisons , and thus for many of the outrages now open to investigation . with a worldwide television audience , mr . ahmed might have been expected to favor a style that was at least somewhat benign . instead , he showed up waving a kalashnikov rifle ominously in the direction of the reporters , his finger rarely off the trigger . in his combat vest , he carried four magazines of bullets at his belt , a hunting knife . his message ? that he was ready to fight for iraq , for its independence , for its long history of resisting foreign invaders ? no . ''if you are asking me why i am here with my machine_gun , '' he said , ''it is to show that the iraqi people are committed to fighting to the last , that we are ready to sacrifice ourselves i myself have an 18 year old son , and he , too , stands ready to die , like me , for president saddam_hussein and his family . '' days later , a man who had left the baath_party many years ago , wamidh ladhmi , a professor of political_science at the university of baghdad , said that watching mr . ahmed that day was , for him , the final nail in the political coffin of mr . hussein . ''on that day , we saw what it had all come down to nothing to do with iraq , nothing to do with the people , only the cult of the leader , and of his two miserable sons , '' he said . ''we knew then that the entire system was bankrupt , that there was nothing that in any way could save it . '' much the most frequent of the visitors to the palestine_hotel was the information minister , muhammad said al sahhaf , whose performances were so far removed from reality that reporters flocked to see if he could top his own extravagant inventions with yet more fantastical accounts of iraqi battlefield triumphs . the more dire the situation facing the iraqi forces , the more triumphalist mr . sahhaf became . even when the combat moved into the iraqi capital , and could be seen from the palestine_hotel , the minister , in battle dress and beret , stuck to his rose tinted versions , giving a spectacular new dimension to the spin doctor 's art . to reporters who suggested that his accounts were at odds with known american successes , his answer , in effect , was that they were hallucinating . by the early morning of april 7 , american tanks could be seen parked on the tigris embankment two thirds of a mile away , with american infantrymen firing at fleeing iraqi fighters dressed only in boxer shorts who plunged into the river and swam away upstream . mr . sahhaf hastened to the hotel to renew his assurances that american_troops were everywhere in headlong flight , and that those who had seized the airport on friday , april 4 , had been driven out . the following day , acknowledging that americans were indeed at the airport , he offered a new spin . ''i can say , and i am responsible for what i am saying , that they have started to commit_suicide under the walls of baghdad . '' by the time american tanks were in plain view from where he spoke to reporters , he had resorted to a sort of magician 's art , of now you see it , now you do n't . ''i am here to inform you that you are too far from reality , '' he said . but perhaps the most revealing of his statements had to do with truth , a commodity always in short supply under mr . hussein . at the information ministry , destroyed by american cruise_missiles about halfway through the war , the most mendacious and corrupt officials were often the ones most intent on offering lectures about truth . come the war , and mr . sahhaf was the unquestioned champion . ''lying is forbidden in iraq , '' he said at one news conference . ''president saddam_hussein will tolerate nothing but truthfulness , as he is a man of great honor and integrity . '' mr . sahhaf , like most top government officials , disappeared on the day american_troops closed in on the palestine_hotel . along with his burnished , almost cherubic optimism , there was much about him that was chilling . one theory was that , as an information minister in a totalitarian regime , his job , by definition , was always to construct alternate versions of the truth . in this view , the moment when the whole edifice of power was crumbling presented him with his greatest challenge the opportunity to tell the biggest lies of all . doing this before a television audience of millions , he radiated the satisfaction of a performer who had finally made the big time , a small time vaudevillian who found himself , for a brief season , on a global stage , with an immediate audience of western reporters who captive as any audience as could be were not disposed to challenge him too abruptly on his excursions from the truth . could hussein really vanish ? ordinary iraqis , in the main , never had the difficulty of distinguishing fact from fiction that became a hallmark of their rulers . for all the secrecy of the regime , for all the cruel punishments mr . hussein and his security agencies inflicted , anybody who spent a few weeks or months in iraq in recent years understood that here , as in the former soviet_union , china and other countries subjected to totalitarian repression , the truth about the horrors of the system lay just beneath the surface . getting to know any iraqi enough to establish a basis for trust meant that some of this truth would eventually begin seeping out . from this , many westerners who knew iraq assumed that american_forces , once the war began , would be helped by local uprisings , or at least by mass defections from the iraqi forces , and that this would help bring a speedy american victory . king_abdullah_ii_of_jordan , who came to iraq as a young man with his father , king_hussein , told a group of american reporters a few weeks before the war began that the conflict could be over in seven days . in the end , it took nearly four times that long , and american_troops , at almost every step of their 350 mile drive from kuwait , met resistance from hussein loyalists , and reluctance to assist on the part of shiites who felt betrayed by the lack of american support for their uprising in 1991 . partly , the explanation for the stronger than expected iraqi defenses lay in mr . hussein 's decision to rely on paramilitary formations largely recruited from the families of regime hard_liners . meeting reporters , iraqi political and military leaders made only passing reference to the iraqi_army , and not much to the supposed crack troops , the republican guard . even the defense minister , sultan hashem ahmed , spoke of iraqi defenses being led by the fedayeen_saddam , the militias of the baath_party , tribal units and other volunteers . the iraqi leaders' judgment seemed to be that when the critical moment came , the army and republican guard would surrender or desert . indeed , on april 9 , the day that most of baghdad fell to the americans , the highways into the capital from the south were littered with abandoned republican guard tanks and artillery guns , along with camouflage uniforms and combat_boots hastily abandoned along the roads . but of popular resistance to mr . hussein , until the end , there was virtually no sign . reporters taken out to see american bombing targets found crowds gathered beside blasted telephone exchanges , in neighborhoods where bunker busting bombs had left 60 foot craters , and at two marketplaces where dozens of civilians died . at a marketplace in the western shuala district of baghdad , where officials said 62 people were killed , many of them women and children , there were signs that the weapon might have been an iraqi antiaircraft_missile gone astray , or an american missile lured by placing an iraqi air defense radar nearby . in these places , there was genuine anger against the americans who inflicted casualties , even if at least some of the ire was orchestrated by baath_party officials who organized chants of ''saddam , saddam ! '' moving among the crowds , almost no ordinary iraqis , unless prompted by direct questioning about mr . hussein , had anything to say about him . and among those who did , there was barely a whisper of dissent . fear of retribution remained pervasive . the change came on april 9 , and it was a tidal_wave . that morning , reporters left the palestine_hotel for the eastern suburbs , where marine units had been reported on the move overnight . at the canal expressway , they found themselves staring at the barrel of an m1 a1 abrams_tank . marines dismounting from the tanks and bradley_fighting_vehicles moved quickly into abandoned iraqi bunkers . told there were no iraqi military units anywhere between them and the city center , they relaxed . ''love it ! '' said lt . geoff orazem , a marine company commander . ''yes , love it ! love it ! love it ! '' replied youths streaming past the tank . what followed , with disastrous_consequences for baghdad 's museums and libraries , for some of its hospitals , and for virtually all government ministries , was an orgy of looting . for many iraqis , this blunted , even eradicated , much of the gratitude to the americans . especially among the middle_class , many of whom had found ways to live comfortably under mr . hussein , the mood shifted . ''tell mr . bush that he promised to liberate the iraqi people , but that this is no liberation , '' said raid abdul ridhar muhammad , an archaeologist standing amid the shattered , emptied showcases of the national museum . ''tell him , if we had stayed under the rule of saddam_hussein , it would have been much better . '' but there were few misgivings in the ruins of mr . hussein 's bombed palaces , where those who arrived to plunder , by car , on motorcycles , with handcarts and even with double_decker buses , came from every walk of life . for them , picking out a chair or a sofa from the rubble , or even a cut crystal ashtray , was not so much an act of lawless self enrichment as a gesture of self assertion , a chance to strike back , a moment to stand up after years of subjugation . a woman who said she was a pharmacist paused for a moment outside the sajida palace , named for mr . hussein 's wife , with her husband , an orthopedic_surgeon , and their two daughters . ''i feel no shame , '' she said , gesturing to a few bags filled with tokens from the palace . ''we paid for these things a hundred times over . '' she paused . ''not a hundred times , '' she said . ''a thousand times . '' just then , a middle_aged man passed by , and asked , like so many iraqis in recent days , for assurance that mr . hussein was truly gone . ''hello mister , '' he said in broken_english . ''saddam not come another time ? saddam go , stay away ? tell me , mister , please , saddam gone ? '' secrets and lies a rigorous system for controlling and monitoring western journalists has been in place in iraq for decades , based on a wafer thin facade of civility . as the strains of the war mounted , that facade progressively slipped away , revealing the realities of threat and extortion that iraqis confronted almost every day under mr . hussein . long before the war , many reporters had adjusted to the pressures by seeking the approbation of the information ministry officials who approved visas , assigned minders and controlled special favors . bribes were endemic , with some officials demanding sums in the thousands of dollars for visa approvals and extensions , or obtaining exemptions from the aids tests required for any reporter remaining in baghdad for more than 10 days . a tacit understanding , accepted by many visiting journalists , was that there were aspects of mr . hussein 's iraq that could be mentioned only obliquely . first among these was the personality of mr . hussein himself , and the fact that he was widely despised and feared by iraqis , something that was obvious to any visitor ready to listen to the furtive whispers in which this hatred was commonly expressed . the terror that was the most pervasive aspect of society under mr . hussein was another topic that was largely taboo . every interview conducted by television reporters , and most print journalists , was monitored any iraqi voicing an opinion other than those approved by the state would be vulnerable to arrest , torture and execution . but these were facts rarely mentioned by many reporters . some reporters bought expensive gifts for senior ministry officials , submitted copies of their stories to show they were friendly to iraq , or invited key officials like uday al ta'ee , director general of information , for dinners at the expensive restaurants favored by mr . hussein 's elite . mr . ta'ee , in his early 50 's , previously worked at the iraqi embassy in paris where , french intelligence officials said , he ran a network of iraqi agents in western_europe . eventually , he was expelled from france , a subject that still rankled years later . before the war , this reporter was already on a blacklist iraqi officials maintained for journalists considered hostile to iraq , mainly because of articles about the system of terror that sustained the power of mr . hussein that appeared from baghdad in the closing months of last year . for two months , in january and february , the information ministry blocked my visa requests . eventually , through contacts in amman , jordan , i obtained a foreign ministry visa that allowed me to enter iraq to cover the ''peace_movement , '' as represented by western protesters then gathering in baghdad . the visa came without information ministry approval . on arrival in baghdad , i sought a meeting with mr . ta'ee , the information ministry director . after three days , he met me in his office , and immediately referred to stories printed in the new york times in previous months that chronicled the torture and killing in iraq 's jails . mr . ta'ee 's opening remarks were remarkable . ''you have written a great deal about killing in iraq , and this is good , '' he said . ''this is a shame for iraq . but now america will be killing iraqis . will you write about that ? '' assured that i would , he shook my hand , and said i would be issued the accreditation necessary to work in iraq . but other information ministry officials warned me that this was a ruse , and that i would henceforth be ''under the control'' of the intelligence agencies , not of the information ministry . a senior intelligence agent , who gave his name as sa'ad muthanna , was assigned as my minder . mr . ta'ee distanced himself , calling out , often in the presence of other iraqi officials and western reporters , what was either a black joke or a threat . ''ah , '' he would say , ''the most dangerous man in iraq ! '' personal experience none of this made much practical difference until eight days before the tanks of the third battalion of the first marine expeditionary force drove from southern baghdad to take control of the two hotels . at midnight on april 1 , without warning , a group of men led by mr . muthanna , identifying themselves as intelligence agents , broke into my room at the palestine_hotel . the men , in suits and ties , at least one with a holstered pistol under his jacket , said they had known ''for a long time'' that i was an agent of the central_intelligence_agency , that i was from that moment under arrest , and that a failure to ''cooperate'' would lead to more serious consequences . ''for you , it will be the end , '' mr . muthanna said . ''where we will take you , you will not return . '' the men gathered up all the equipment belonging to me and to tyler hicks , a staff photographer of the new york times , including four laptop computers , a satellite telephone , two cameras and a printer , and then demanded money , taking 6 , 000 from a plastic zip lock bag . then they left , ordering me to remain in my room until ' 'more senior'' intelligence men arrived . from that moment until the arrival of the american tanks , i lived a clandestine existence , using darkened hotel stairwells in place of elevators , sleeping and working in other reporters' rooms . the fact that the men never returned and never broke into other rooms where they must have known i was hiding suggested , in the end , that the break in of april 1 was a shakedown . some missing equipment turned up later in a room at the palestine_hotel that had been abandoned by intelligence agents . the rest , excepting the two cameras , was returned by an iraqi man with links to the mukhabarat , the principal intelligence agency , who led me to his home and handed the equipment over . the money remains missing . to many iraqis who heard of the experience , it was unexceptional , save for the fact that i suffered no physical harm . for years , mr . hussein 's security agents had been breaking into iraqis' homes , arresting people at will , and taking them away to the gulag of torture centers and prisons . some emerged weeks , months , or years later , many of them disfigured , with eyes gouged out , hands and fingers mangled . but tens of thousands never returned , dying under torture , or being summarily executed . the anguish of their families , lining up to wave photographs and shout names at american_troops guarding the now abandoned interrogation centers and prisons , has been among the most distressing scenes since the fall of mr . hussein . for them , there is unlikely to be any of the catharsis that came at the palestine_hotel in the 12 hours before the marines arrived . mr . ta'ee , in the hours before midnight , toured the rooftop positions of western television networks , demanding immediate cash payment , in dollars , of the exorbitant fees imposed by the ministry on all western journalists . offering no receipts , he gathered a hefty sum estimated by some of the networks to be in excess of 200 , 000 then disappeared . one of his underlings , a mr . mohsen , the information ministry 's press center director , known for his lugubrious manner , delayed his getaway until the following morning . his ambitions were set on the property of a group of italian journalists who had driven into southern iraq after the war began without visas . they were arrested , brought to baghdad , and placed under guard in the palestine_hotel , with their vehicles and all their equipment confiscated , along with the vehicles' keys . early on the morning of april 9 , with the marines less than three miles from the hotel , one of the italians spotted mr . mohsen loading booty into one of the confiscated vehicles . thinking quickly , the italian used his penknife to slash the vehicle 's tires . other italian journalists described mr . mohsen fleeing on foot , up the tigris embankment to the north , pursued by the men he hoped to rob . after a few hundred yards , exhausted , he stopped , turned to face his pursuers , and , as if to establish that he was done with mr . hussein and all his works , reached into his pocket for his information ministry identification_card . after ripping it to shreds , he set off again , to what fate nobody knows . baghdad diary death of a regime a nation at war baghdad diary",has a topic of politics
"lead speaking of mr . wright , on april 20 he was in berlin , on his way back from a trip to the soviet_union with a congressional delegation . in a speech celebrating the 750th anniversary of the city , he said ''and i shall tell you how we may know when real peace , real trust and true good will have returned to europe we shall know it when the wall comes down ! speaking of mr . wright , on april 20 he was in berlin , on his way back from a trip to the soviet_union with a congressional delegation . in a speech celebrating the 750th anniversary of the city , he said ''and i shall tell you how we may know when real peace , real trust and true good will have returned to europe we shall know it when the wall comes down ! '' last friday , on the west side of the brandenburg_gate in berlin , president_reagan concluded a speech with these words ''there is one sign the soviets can make that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace . general secretary gorbachev , if you seek peace , if you seek prosperity for the soviet_union and eastern_europe , if you seek liberalization , come here , to this gate . mr . gorbachev , open this gate . mr . gorbachev , tear down this wall . '' aides described mr . wright as ''a little unhappy'' about the oratorical coincidence . but when the democrat was questioned , he said ''i do n't believe the president copied me . i 'm not going to sue him for plagiarism . '' briefing",has a topic of politics
"in the wake of president_bush 's visit to canada this week , prime_minister paul_martin has been left in an embarrassing position over his hesitation to decide whether to join washington 's plans for a continental missile_defense system . the proposed system has emerged as the most disputed foreign_policy issue facing mr . martin , one that could further weaken his government , which has shaky control over the house of commons . he is trying to balance his desire to improve relations with the united_states with his efforts to keep his party united and to strengthen his popularity in preparation for parliamentary elections as soon as next year . before mr . bush arrived in ottawa , mr . martin 's aides assured journalists that missile_defense would not be a highlighted issue on an agenda concentrating on trade , border security and antiterrorism efforts . government officials were happy to douse expectations because missile_defense divides the government 's liberal caucus in the house of commons and is unpopular in public opinion_polls , especially in quebec , where mr . martin hopes to do better in the next parliamentary elections . but when mr . bush on two occasions publicly urged canada to join in building a missile_defense system , the canadian news_media and opposition members of parliament jumped on the issue as a crucial feature of a visit that otherwise accomplished no breakthroughs on trade or other matters . shouting matches in the house of commons and a series of ambiguous government statements have resulted . how canada might take part in a future missile_defense system has not been defined publicly . after a cabinet meeting on thursday , mr . martin reiterated the long held canadian position opposing deployment of any weapons in space . describing his private talks with mr . bush , he said , ''the president says it does not imply the weaponization of space . '' but he added that he would continuing consulting with the administration ''to make sure that there is no weaponization of space . '' mr . martin would not say when his government would decide on its involvement , which has been under consideration in ottawa for at least two years . mr . martin 's statements came a day after the leader of the opposition new democratic_party , jack layton , during a raucous session of the house of commons , contended that following private talks with mr . bush and his senior aides , he had no doubt that a missile_defense system would mean putting weapons in space . ''will the prime_minister say no to the canadian flag on george_bush 's missiles ? '' mr . layton asked .",has a topic of politics
"the federal_bureau_of_investigation has been questioning political demonstrators across the country , and in rare cases even subpoenaing them , in an aggressive effort to forestall what officials say could be violent and disruptive protests at the republican_national_convention in new york . f.b.i . officials are urging agents to canvass their communities for information about planned disruptions aimed at the convention and other coming political events , and they say they have developed a list of people who they think may have information about possible violence . they say the inquiries , which began last month before the democratic_convention in boston , are focused solely on possible crimes , not on dissent , at major political events . but some people contacted by the f.b.i . say they are mystified by the bureau 's interest and felt harassed by questions about their political plans . ''the message i took from it , '' said sarah bardwell , 21 , an intern at a denver antiwar group who was visited by six investigators a few weeks ago , ''was that they were trying to intimidate us into not going to any protests and to let us know that , 'hey , we 're watching you . ''' the unusual initiative comes after the justice_department , in a previously_undisclosed legal_opinion , gave its blessing to controversial tactics used last year by the f.b.i in urging local police departments to report suspicious activity at political and antiwar demonstrations to counterterrorism squads . the f.b.i . bulletins that relayed the request for help detailed tactics used by demonstrators everything from violent resistance to internet fund_raising and recruitment . in an internal complaint , an f.b.i . employee charged that the bulletins improperly blurred the line between lawfully protected speech and illegal activity . but the justice_department 's office of legal policy , in a five page internal analysis obtained by the new york times , disagreed . the office , which also made headlines in june in an opinion since disavowed that authorized the use of torture against terrorism suspects in some circumstances , said any first amendment impact posed by the f.b.i . 's monitoring of the political protests was negligible and constitutional . the opinion said ''given the limited nature of such public monitoring , any possible 'chilling' effect caused by the bulletins would be quite minimal and substantially outweighed by the public interest in maintaining safety and order during large scale demonstrations . '' those same concerns are now central to the vigorous efforts by the f.b.i . to identify possible disruptions by anarchists , violent demonstrators and others at the republican_national_convention , which begins aug . 30 and is expected to draw hundreds of thousands of protesters . in the last few weeks , beginning before the democratic_convention , f.b.i . counterterrorism agents and other federal and local officers have sought to interview dozens of people in at least six states , including past protesters and their friends and family members , about possible violence at the two conventions . in addition , three young men in missouri said they were trailed by federal agents for several days and subpoenaed to testify before a federal grand_jury last month , forcing them to cancel their trip to boston to take part in a protest there that same day . interrogations have generally covered the same three questions , according to some of those questioned and their lawyers were demonstrators planning violence or other disruptions , did they know anyone who was , and did they realize it was a crime to withhold such information . a handful of protesters at the boston convention were arrested but there were no major disruptions . concerns have risen for the republican convention , however , because of antiwar demonstrations directed at president_bush and because of new york city 's global prominence . with the f.b.i . given more authority after the sept . 11 attacks to monitor public events , the tensions over the convention protests , coupled with the justice_department 's own legal analysis of such monitoring , reflect the fine line between protecting national_security in an age of terrorism and discouraging political expression . f.b.i . officials , mindful of the bureau 's abuses in the 1960 's and 1970 's monitoring political dissidents like the rev . dr . martin_luther_king_jr . , say they are confident their agents have not crossed that line in the lead up to the conventions . ''the f.b.i . is n't in the business of chilling anyone 's first amendment rights , '' said joe parris , a bureau spokesman in washington . ''but criminal behavior is n't covered by the first amendment . what we 're concerned about are injuries to convention participants , injuries to citizens , injuries to police and first responders . '' f.b.i . officials would not say how many people had been interviewed in recent weeks , how they were identified or what spurred the bureau 's interest . they said the initiative was part of a broader , nationwide effort to follow any leads pointing to possible violence or illegal disruptions in connection with the political conventions , presidential debates or the november election , which come at a time of heightened concern about a possible terrorist attack . f.b.i . officials in washington have urged field offices around the country in recent weeks to redouble their efforts to interview sources and gather information that might help to detect criminal plots . the only lead to emerge publicly resulted in a warning to authorities before the boston convention that anarchists or other domestic groups might bomb news vans there . it is not clear whether there was an actual plot . the individuals visited in recent weeks ''are people that we identified that could reasonably be expected to have knowledge of such plans and plots if they existed , '' mr . parris said . ''we vetted down a list and went out and knocked on doors and had a laundry list of questions to ask about possible criminal behavior , '' he added . ''no one was dragged from their homes and put under bright_lights . the interviewees were free to talk to us or close the door in our faces . '' but civil_rights advocates argued that the visits amounted to harassment . they said they saw the interrogations as part of a pattern of increasingly aggressive tactics by federal investigators in combating domestic_terrorism . in an episode in february in iowa , federal prosecutors subpoenaed drake university for records on the sponsor of a campus antiwar forum . the demand was dropped after a community outcry . protest leaders and civil_rights advocates who have monitored the recent interrogations said they believed at least 40 or 50 people , and perhaps many more , had been contacted by federal agents about demonstration plans and possible violence surrounding the conventions and other political events . ''this kind of pressure has a real chilling_effect on perfectly legitimate political activity , '' said mark silverstein , legal director for the american_civil_liberties_union of colorado , where two groups of political activists in denver and a third in fort collins were visited by the f.b.i . ''people are going to be afraid to go to a demonstration or even sign a petition if they justifiably believe that will result in your having an f.b.i . file opened on you . '' the issue is a particularly sensitive one in denver , where the police agreed last year to restrictions on local intelligence gathering operations after it was disclosed that the police had kept files on some 3 , 000 people and 200 groups involved in protests . but the inquiries have stirred opposition elsewhere as well . in new york , federal agents recently questioned a man whose neighbor reported he had made threatening comments against the president . he and a lawyer , jeffrey fogel , agreed to talk to the secret_service , denying the accusation and blaming it on a feud with the neighbor . but when agents started to question the man about his political affiliations and whether he planned to attend convention protests , ''that 's when i said no , no , no , we 're not going to answer those kinds of questions , '' said mr . fogel , who is legal director for the center for constitutional rights in new york . in the case of the three young men subpoenaed in missouri , denise lieberman , legal director for the american_civil_liberties_union in st . louis , which is representing them , said they scrapped plans to attend both the boston and the new york conventions after they were questioned about possible violence . the men are all in their early 20 's , ms . lieberman said , but she would not identify them . all three have taken part in past protests over american foreign_policy and in planning meetings for convention demonstrations . she said two of them were arrested before on misdemeanor charges for what she described as minor civil_disobedience at protests . prosecutors have now informed the men that they are targets of a domestic_terrorism investigation , ms . lieberman said , but have not disclosed the basis for their suspicions . ''they wo n't tell me , '' she said . federal officials in st . louis and washington declined to comment on the case . ms . lieberman insisted that the men ' 'did n't have any plans to participate in the violence , but what 's so disturbing about all this is the pre_emptive nature stopping them from participating in a protest before anything even happened . '' the three men ''were really shaken and frightened by all this , '' she said , ''and they got the message loud and clear that if you make plans to go to a protest , you could be subject to arrest or a visit from the f.b.i . '' correction august 17 , 2004 , tuesday a front page article yesterday about efforts by the f.b.i . to interview prospective political demonstrators in advance of the republican_national_convention in new york misidentified the justice_department office that found the bureau 's monitoring of previous protests to be constitutional . it is the office_of_legal_counsel , not of legal policy . a caption with a picture of four denver residents who were questioned in the effort referred incorrectly to two of them in some copies . sarah graves , not christopher riederer , is the housemate of sarah bardwell .",has a topic of politics
"the cold_war may be over , but ''the man without a face'' is still a man without a visa . markus wolf , who directed east_germany 's foreign espionage for 34 years , is trying once again to visit the united_states , this time for a book tour something once unthinkable for a man whose ability to evade scrutiny earned him his sobriquet . but for the second time in two years , the state_department has rejected mr . wolf 's application for a visa . although now a citizen of a unified germany , he was barred on the grounds that as the deputy of east_germany 's ministry of state security , or stasi , he ordered or abetted acts of international_terrorism . in a letter to mr . wolf last month , edward j . wehrli , general_counsel in the american consulate in berlin , noted that mr . wolf , 74 , had been ''involved in determining the policies and objectives'' of the stasi . ''and therefore , '' he wrote , ''you were responsible for actions that resulted from these policies . '' officials at the state_department declined to spell out the acts that led to his barring , but in the past the united_states has objected to his links to the palestine_liberation_organization . last week a court in germany convicted mr . wolf on three counts of kidnapping dating to the 1950 's and 60 's . he received a suspended_sentence . mr . wolf criticized the decision today . insisting he had never orchestrated a terrorist act , he said the united_states had set an impossible standard for him even as it allowed others once denied visas , like yasir_arafat , to come . ''it 's very difficult to prove that you have not done something , '' he said in a telephone interview from milan . the decision to deny a visa came on the eve of this week 's publication in the united_states and 14 other countries of mr . wolf 's memoir , ''man without a face the autobiography of communism 's greatest spymaster . '' the book is being published here by times books , a subsidiary of random_house . the publishers , including random_house 's chairman and chief_executive_officer , alberto vitale , appealed to secretary of state madeleine k . albright in april , but were rebuffed . mr . wolf can apply again , but one official , who spoke on condition of anonymity , said it was unlikely he would prevail . the state_department first denied mr . wolf a visa last year , citing the section of the immigration and nationality act that bars anyone involved in terrorism . ''this is a case by case judgment call , '' a department spokesman , john r . dinger , said . mr . wolf oversaw east_germany 's foreign intelligence from 1953 to 1986 , running a network of agents in the west . his work remained so secretive that counterintelligence agents in the west did not know what he looked like until an agent defected in 1979 with a photograph of him . since the fall of the berlin_wall , he has tried to burnish his image , insisting that he simply undertook the same tasks as his counterparts in the west . in 1993 , he was convicted of treason , but germany 's highest court absolved him . mr . wolf may have missed his best chance to get a visa in 1990 when , as he tells it , the central_intelligence_agency invited him to the united_states . in his memoir , he continues his campaign for credibility , portraying himself as a professional simply carrying out a necessary , even honorable role . ''i seek neither moral justification nor forgiveness , '' he wrote in the introduction , ''but after a great struggle it is time for both sides to take stock . any history worthy of the name cannot be written only by the winners . ''",has a topic of politics
"the three times that abbas mehdi was interrogated by american_soldiers , he claims that he told them the same thing ''i said 'you are creating enemies . you changed love into hate . why do you make people hate you ? ' '' released only two weeks ago from a succession of prisons here , mr . mehdi , a 51 year old merchant with heart trouble , said he had not been treated as badly as the men he saw in photos that have shocked iraq photos of black hoods , naked prisoners and leering american guards but roughly , all the same . it was not surprise that he felt when he saw the pictures on television last week , he said , but anger and disappointment at the united_states . ''i never would have expected this of them , '' said mr . mehdi , who said he was beaten so badly that he had to be hospitalized for three days after his arrest in december , when soldiers found a rocket_propelled_grenade launcher which he said was not his in the garden of his rented house . ''they are civilized people . when the americans came i was so happy . i said 'we will have democracy . we will have freedom . ' '' ''after i was arrested , '' he added , ''the picture changed . '' interviews with several former prisoners here turned up no accounts as horrifying as the military 's own report on the abuse that took place at the hands of united_states soldiers in abu_ghraib , iraq 's most notorious prison under saddam_hussein , and apparently once again now . but the prisoners and human_rights officials said scores of complaints documented a pattern of excessively rough treatment , which they said made the recent reports of much worse treatment less difficult to believe . and the allegations come at a bad time for the yearlong occupation here already accused of heavy handedness in the siege of the rebellious city of falluja when many iraqis are prepared to believe the worst about americans . for example , muhammad al mussawi , a lawyer with the human_rights organization in iraq , said that as the fighting in falluja peaked early last month , women who were prisoners at abu_ghraib smuggled out leaflets claiming that they had been raped . ''as educated people , we did n't believe this , '' mr . mussawi said . ''but after the big shock on tv , we thought , 'this could be true . ' '' he referred to the barrage of coverage of the abuse at abu_ghraib . it was not possible to verify the claims of the iraqis who said in interviews that they had been mistreated by the americans . but such claims are being reported in iraq with much more attention now than in the past , including interviews with two of the men said to be in the photos broadcast monday by the arab_news channel al_jazeera . a man who gave his name and age as abu ahmad , 30 , said he was arrested in november on charges of carrying out attacks against americans . he said he and other prisoners had been beaten regularly at abu_ghraib and had been forced to strip naked and bend over a wall , leading him to believe he would be raped . ''i realized that the reason for this was to break the spirit of the detainees before interrogation , '' he told an iraqi employee of the new york times in najaf , the shiite holy_city south of baghdad where the rebel_cleric moktada_al_sadr is hiding out from the american military . he maintained that he had had nothing to do with mr . sadr 's militia , the mahdi army , until after he was released from prison . ''the americans are an occupation force , not liberators , and we should fight to force them out of iraq , '' he said . human_rights officials say most of the complaints they have heard centered not on treatment in prisons but on the arrests . american_soldiers , they complain , burst into houses with excessive force , breaking furniture and windows , using foul language , placing hoods over suspects' heads and , often , beating them . mr . mehdi said he was arrested on the night of dec . 2 when six soldiers barged into his house , pointing guns at him , his wife and his children . he said they had handcuffed him , kicked him in the abdomen and placed a black hood on his head . in the garden , he said , the soldiers made him kneel down as they retrieved the rocket_propelled_grenade launcher from a clay oven in the yard where he said , it had been planted by his landlord , who wanted to evict him . then , he said , one of the soldiers he said he could not see who because of the hood urinated on him . ''i could smell it , '' he said . after what he said was a rough interrogation at a small military base , he was taken to a military_hospital because of his heart condition and because he was beaten so badly . he said he stayed three days and had been treated every bit as well there as a wounded american officer in the bed next to him . ''i spoke with a nurse , and i told her 'i 'm really confused . at the base , they beat me and tortured me . here they treat me like a human being , ' '' he said . ''she said , 'they are animals . ' '' mowafak sami , 28 , a lawyer who has brought a legal claim against the american military , said he was arrested with his father and two brothers in early march , originally , he said , on suspicion of financing anti american insurgents . during the arrest , he said , one soldier struck him with the barrel of his gun , blackening his eyes and opening a gash on his left brow . in the prison at baghdad_international_airport , he said , he and other prisoners , including his 56 year old father , a former general and construction company owner with several contracts for rebuilding the country 's wrecked infrastructure , were forced to do knee bends until they were exhausted . he said that at other times they were forced to stand on one leg , with both arms in the air , for an hour at a time . his father was released after five days , and he was let out four days later , but his two brothers are still in prison , he said . ''we were very happy when the regime fell , '' he said , referring to the toppling of saddam_hussein last year . ''we were optimistic . ''but this savage process arresting the innocents , house raiding , attacking houses with bombs makes us feel aggressive against the coalition_forces . '' the struggle for iraq abuse",has a topic of politics
"lead a senior reagan_administration official charged today that american allies , particularly west_germany , had ignored hundreds of diplomatic protests leveled by the united_states in recent years over exports of weapons technology to the soviet_union and the third world . a senior reagan_administration official charged today that american allies , particularly west_germany , had ignored hundreds of diplomatic protests leveled by the united_states in recent years over exports of weapons technology to the soviet_union and the third world . the former official , richard n . perle , addressing the senate committee on governmental affairs , said american complaints about the sales of equipment and material needed for ballistic_missiles and chemical , nuclear and biological_weapons had been ignored . mr . perle , who was assistant secretary of defense for international security policy from 1981 to may 1987 , is now a resident scholar at the american_enterprise_institute . bush_administration officials told a separate hearing before a senate armed services subcommittee today that they would push to expand a seven nation agreement to restrict exports of ballistic_missile technology . witnesses said some countries were barring missile exports only to countries with a nuclear_capability , and are continuing to allow shipments to nations with chemical_weapons . 'demarche mallows' government officials elaborated on mr . perle 's remarks in interviews , saying that the united_states had sent more than 100 complaints to west_germany alone in recent years about the sale to pakistan of equipment that could be used to make an atomic_bomb . senator jesse_helms , republican of north_carolina , said at recent hearings that the united_states had made more than 150 protests to bonn on the sale of chemical_weapons or related materials to iran , iraq , syria and libya . the protests are formally known as demarches , but mr . perle said they would more aptly be called ' 'demarche mallows . '' ''you cannot move the allies without the exercise of real leverage , '' said mr . perle in an interview after his testimony . ''you can only get so far with entreaties , prayers and arguments . '' mr . perle said a more effective approach would be such steps as the president barring any foreign concern involved in the illicit trade from acquiring american companies . u.s . laws also at issue at the hearing of the governmental affairs committee , members questioned present and former commerce_department officials about whether the united_states needs to toughen its own laws . paul freedenberg , a commerce_department official in the reagan_administration , said there were gaps in existing laws , particularly relating to the export of technology that could be used to make chemical_weapons . but james lemunyon , deputy assistant secretary of commerce for export administration , said he did not know of any plans to change the export laws relating to chemical_weapons .",has a topic of politics
"the showdown over iraq 's secret arsenal began when united_nations inspectors sought to uncover its biological_weapons program , including germ_warfare tests and suspected caches of anthrax , united_nations and united_states officials said today . the officials traced the confrontation , which has led to growing global tension , to an oct . 27 letter from the chief of the united_nations weapons inspectors , richard_butler , to iraq 's foreign_minister , tariq_aziz . the letter said the united_nations intended to inspect secret sites controlled by president saddam_hussein 's elite personal security force , the special republican guard , and suspected caches of data and materiel from iraq 's biological_warfare projects . a senior united_nations official said the inspectors believed that those searches would help them fully describe the biological_weapons program for the first time , more than six years after the united_nations inspections began . the iraqi leadership never responded to the letter , sections of which were disclosed today by united_nations officials . but it appears to have struck a nerve . two days later iraq announced that it would shoot down american u_2 spy planes supporting the united_nations inspection team , and it vowed to expel the american members of the team from the country , a threat fulfilled on friday . the united_nations , in turn , withdrew all its inspectors in protest . the letter also sought information on missile warheads that the inspections believe were filled with biological and chemical agents , and documentation on iraq 's possession of vx , a chemical nerve_agent all previously subjects of investigation . but the letter signaled the iraqis that the united_nations was specifically focusing on biological_weapons materials , components , tests and data , and on sites controlled by the special republican guard , an elite 26 , 000 member force overseen by president hussein 's son , qusay . the guard is charged with protecting the president 's life , his palaces and his secrets qusay saddam_hussein also controls iraq 's weapons factories . it has offices at iraq 's presidential_palaces and intelligence headquarters , and controls other buildings and large tracts of land in and around baghdad . it has always placed these sites off limits to the united_nations inspectors , citing reasons of national_security . and for the last three years , united_nations officials said , the guard has been spiriting suspected weapons materiel and documents away from the inspectors . so last month the investigators focused hard on investigating the guard itself , along with its campaign of concealment . they intended to conduct their searches between nov . 7 and 11 . iraq has continually lied about almost every important aspect of its biological_weapons program , the inspectors say . until july 1995 iraq totally denied it had such a program . since then , the inspectors say , the iraqi leadership has sought to hide its planning and decision making on biological_warfare , and to disguise ''its concealment of such programs and the preservation of biological_warfare capabilities after 1991 . '' although the investigators say they lack many solid facts about the program , they assert that iraq has vastly understated the size of its anthrax stocks . the israeli daily haaretz reported today that the united_nations weapons inspectors were close to identifying the location of nearly 900 pounds of anthrax last month . anthrax is among the deadlier biological_weapons known . dr . matthew meselon , a professor of molecular and cellular biology at harvard_university , said that two pounds of anthrax , properly dispersed , could kill people over an area of about 250 acres . ''it is very difficult to make a biological_weapon that really works , '' he said . ''but you can cause terror by claiming you 've got it . saddam may think he has no ace in the hole but this ace . '' the iraqis have not revealed what became of 17 tons of raw_materials , imported nine years ago , suitable for production of anthrax bacteria and botulinum_toxin , an american intelligence official said . and the inspectors say they cannot verify iraq 's claim that it destroyed missile warheads filled with biological_agents . the united_nations inspectors also say that iraq has conducted undisclosed field trials of biological_weapons . some of the inspectors suspect that the iraqi tests may even have involved human subjects , united_nations officials said . the officials said they had no hard evidence to confirm that suspicion . but ' 'some people in unscom suspected that they experimented with humans , '' said a senior united_nations official familiar with the commission 's work . another official long involved with the weapons inspections said , ''we were always watching out for the possibility of human experimentation . '' a third united_nations official said , ''those suspicions are there . '' unconfirmed_reports that iraq used human guinea pigs for germ_warfare tests have circulated for years . a former unscom inspector said one source of these reports was the fact that iraq held prisoners before and during the persian_gulf_war at the site of its biggest biological_weapons plant , salman_pak , a few miles down the tigris_river from the outskirts of baghdad . in 1995 the inspectors seized videotapes of iraqi anthrax and botulism tests showing infected monkeys , dogs and other mammals dying in agony . the inspectors underscored the intensity of iraq 's fight to keep its biological_weapons program secret in their most recent report , dated oct . 6 ''there is incomprehension of why iraq is persisting so strongly with both refusing to make the facts known about its biological_weapons program and why it is so insistent on blocking the commission 's own efforts to reach those facts . '' the iraqis keep exceptionally meticulous records of their weapons programs , said raymond a . zilinskas , a biotechnology expert at the university of maryland who served as an unscom inspector in 1994 . ''the question everybody has'' is what the biological_warfare records contain , he said . ''that 's what everybody 's asking . the speculation is that it probably has to be unsavory activities unethical experimentation . '' ''the real mysteries have to do with testing , '' he said . ''these are records they would go to any lengths to hide . the biggest mystery is what they intend to do . what was the intent of each of the warheads that they were going to put on their missiles ? what nation were they prepared to use them against ? and to what purpose ? they are still not telling us . ''",has a topic of politics
"the department of defense has identified 1 , 037 american service members who have died since the start of the iraq_war . it confirmed the deaths of the following americans yesterday adams , brandon e. , 22 , sgt . , army hollidaysburg , pa . 10th_mountain_division . harrington , foster l. , 31 , sgt . , marines ft . worth , tex . fourth marine division . harris , adam j. , 21 , pfc . , army abilene , tex . second infantry division . stahl , nathan e. , 20 , pfc . , army highland , ind . second battalion , 75th_rangers . the reach of war",has a topic of politics
"lead the bush_administration publicly called on east_germany today to undertake political and economic reforms as a way to halt the flood of its citizens to the west . the bush_administration publicly called on east_germany today to undertake political and economic reforms as a way to halt the flood of its citizens to the west . at the same time , a senior bush_administration official warned that if the east_german government does not liberalize its political system , the system might explode from within . in a departure from the administration 's normally reserved approach to eastern_europe , the state_department 's spokesman declared today , ''we believe that in order to remove the conditions which caused so many people to flee to the west , the german_democratic_republic leadership should institute reforms which will lead to a political and economic system responsive to the population . '' political eruption called possible alluding to the east_germans seeking refuge in west_german embassies in czechoslovakia and poland , the spokesman , richard_boucher , added ''the root cause of the situation is that these people do n't want to live in east_germany , and if you are going to have a way of resolving the situation in the long run there are going to have to be political and economic reforms in east_germany that will make it a more livable place . '' that message was echoed on capitol_hill , where the assistant secretary of state for european affairs , raymond g . h . seitz , told the house foreign_affairs subcommittee on europe that he ''could not rule out'' a volcanic political eruption in east_germany if its aging leadership does not move to open its rigid political and economic systems . ''i noticed just this morning that there was a demonstration in leipzig of some 10 , 000 people yesterday , '' mr . seitz said , when asked what might happen if the east_german government , once the anchor of the warsaw_pact , continues to resist change . the seitz and boucher statements , after several months in which the administration has adopted a very muted approach , reflect the degree to which both washington and moscow seem to understand each other 's interests and intentions in eastern_europe . 'we are not out to exploit' ''the soviets understand that we are not out to exploit any signs of trouble or weakness in eastern_europe , so they are comfortable in granting these countries a certain degree of freedom , provided they show sensitivity to the soviet_union 's security concerns , '' a top administration policy maker said . a state_department european expert said , ''the soviets are increasingly looking at the situation like us that reform is required for stability in eastern_europe . as that happens we feel emboldened to encourage the reform process . '' there is ''obvious soviet acquiescence to what is happening with the east_german refugees , '' the official added . ''they are trying to send the east_germans a message that the hemorrhaging of east_germany 's population underscores that the government needs to get on the reform bandwagon . '' democrats propose aid increase as administration officials discussed the east_german situation , house democratic leaders , dismissing president_bush 's 244 million in new assistance for poland and hungary as a woefully ''inadequate'' response to the historic changes underway in eastern_europe , today introduced their own aid program . it would spend 887 . 5 million over three years in food aid , private funds , peace_corps programs , trade credits , insurance loan_guarantees and technical training . about 415 million would be allocated in fiscal 1990 , which began sunday . this house aid_package is expected to be merged with a similar bill introduced by senate democrats and approved last month by the senate foreign relations committee . in addition , house speaker thomas s . foley , democrat of washington , and the senate_majority_leader , george j . mitchell , democrat of maine , invited lech walesa , the leader of solidarity , to address a joint meeting of congress on nov . 15 . mr . walesa , who had already announced plans to visit the united_states , is expected to accept .",has a topic of politics
"lead president_bush said today that he did not share the worries of some european leaders about the possibility of german_reunification , and he predicted major changes in germany 's status in the next decade . president_bush said today that he did not share the worries of some european leaders about the possibility of german_reunification , and he predicted major changes in germany 's status in the next decade . speaking on the morning after at least 150 , 000 people marched through the streets of leipzig pressing for political reform , mr . bush asserted that egon krenz , east_germany 's new leader , ''ca n't turn the clock back , '' because ''the change is too inexorable . '' the president also expressed confidence after a telephone conversation with chancellor helmut_kohl of west_germany on monday that bonn would not develop neutralist tendencies . ''and yet i do n't think we ought to be out pushing the concept of reunification , or setting timetables , or coming from across the atlantic over here making a lot of new pronouncements on this subject , '' mr . bush said in an interview in the oval_office . excerpts , page_a12 . ''it takes time , '' he added . ''it takes a prudent evolution . it takes work between them . and understanding between the french and the germans and the brits and the germans on all this . but the subject is so much more front and center because of the rapid changes that are taking place in east_germany . '' europeans voice fears leaders of european_countries that fought germany in two world wars prime_minister margaret_thatcher of britain and president_francois_mitterrand of france prominent among them have privately expressed concern about german_reunification , and commentators on both sides of the atlantic have voiced their anxieties in public . the soviet_union , which suffered the greatest losses in world_war_ii and which is committed to maintaining two germanys , has criticized those advocating reunification , something it views with great apprehension . but mr . bush , who was in relaxed and spirited form throughout the 30 minute talk , said , ''there 's a lot written on the fear of reunification that i personally do n't share . '' at the end of the interview , after the white_house stenographer and other aides had left , the president motioned to his interviewer and to his chief of staff , john h . sununu , to stay behind , and he turned to the subject of his leadership on foreign_policy . ''these changes we 're seeing in eastern_europe are absolutely extraordinary , but i 'm not going to be stampeded into overreacting to any of this , '' mr . bush said . ''democrats on capitol_hill have been calling me 'timid . ' i have other , better words , like 'cautious , ' 'diplomatic , ' 'prudent . ' we have a good team , well seasoned . we 're unified . '' mr . sununu interjected ''it 's like hooking a_20 pound fish on a two pound test line . react too precipitously , jerk the rod , and the fish will swim away . you have to play him carefully , keep a steady tension on the line . '' the president , apparently reacting to democratic leaders who have accused him of offering only niggardly aid to eastern_europe , commented bitterly that he was tired of ''taking hits'' from ''people who found poland on the globe about three weeks ago . '' on panama , where the united_states declined to intervene militarily to aid an attempted_coup this month against gen . manuel antonio noriega , president_bush rejected suggestions that the failure of the coup would make it harder for general noriega 's opponents in the panamanian defense forces to rise against him again in the near future . ''i think any time you have somebody that is as demonstrably evil as noriega and who is frustrating the will of the people , as he continues to do , there 's bound to be an upheaval , '' he said . ''his response post coup , in my view , has just shaken to the core the professionals in the p.d.f . that does not enhance his standing there or guarantee that they 'll put up with him forever . '' lessons of the coup episode while maintaining that nothing he has learned since would have changed his decision not to involve american_forces , the president conceded that ''i 've learned'' from the coup episode . ''i think maybe we can improve communications so that it 's all across the bureaucracy , '' he explained , adding that there was ''a disconnect'' a misunderstanding over whether the rebels would or would not , should or should not , hand over general noriega to the united_states for prosecution . mr . bush saved his sharpest partisan thrusts for the battle over the budget , which has led to automatic across the board spending cuts required by the gramm_rudman budget balancing law . the principal culprits in all this , the president insisted , were the congressional democrats , and especially their leaders . ''the perception out there is that it 's the fault of the congress , '' he added . ''and you can look to the leadership and ask them why that is the perception of the american people . '' economic situation 'not urgent' although he conceded that some americans felt frustration over ''this strange way of governing'' and blamed everyone in washington , mr . bush said most were not alarmed , because the ''economy keeps moving reasonably well , the percentage of gross_national_product in terms of the deficit is moving generally in the right direction . '' ''if you had a more difficult economic situation , '' the president said , ''then i think you 'd have a more urgent feeling . today it 's not urgent . '' recalling that he had campaigned for a capital_gains_tax cut in 1988 , he accused the democrats of resorting ''to this old gambit this man 's trying to help the rich and hurt the poor'' to prevent approval of a measure that he said the american people had endorsed by electing him , the house of representatives had passed despite its democratic majority and the senate would pass if allowed to by its democratic leadership . ''the votes are there in the senate for it , '' the president said . missed opportunities ? mr . bush was asked later whether he felt that he was missing chances during the first two years of his presidency , which historians consider the most propititious for new initiatives , because of financial strictures . he acknowledged that he felt somewhat ''boxed in'' in such areas as the war against drugs , aid to earthquake and hurricane victims and foreign economic aid , but he offered no suggestion that he would be willing at any point to raise taxes to get more money . ''i do n't want to leave you the wrong impression that if we just had tons more federal money , we could solve everything , '' the president said . ''i do n't think that 's the case . '' asked to explain , once and for all , his choice last year of dan_quayle as his running_mate , mr . bush demurred . but he vehemently defended mr . quayle 's performance as vice_president , said the former senator had ''gone the extra mile to help me'' and disclosed that he still kept in a file some of the newspaper articles mocking his vice_presidency under ronald_reagan . ''you 're talking to a guy that took it for eight years , '' he said .",has a topic of politics
"lead soviet_military personnel in east_germany detained a team of american military officers for seven and a half hours on the eve of president_bush 's meeting with president mikhail s . gorbachev , the pentagon said today . soviet_military personnel in east_germany detained a team of american military officers for seven and a half hours on the eve of president_bush 's meeting with president mikhail s . gorbachev , the pentagon said today . ''there were no u.s . or soviet injuries , '' said a pentagon spokesman , lieut . comdr . ken satterfield . ''u . s . personnel were released later that day . the incident is under investigation . '' commander satterfield , a navy officer , said the american team was part of the united_states military mission in potsdam , established under a 1947 accord that allowed the western allies and the soviets to set up such offices in each other 's occupied zones of germany . the team was observing installations in east_germany . it was not immediately clear how many united_states and soviet personnel were involved in the incident . clamor in europe",has a topic of politics
"a headline yesterday about the possibility that counterfeiting has occurred in iraq misidentified the united_states_government agency responsible for the investigation . it is the new department_of_homeland_security . ( the treasury department oversees the secret_service , which was sent to investigate . )",has a topic of politics
"iraq 's interim foreign_minister , hoshyar_zebari , took the united_nations_security_council to task tuesday for having failed to help free his country from saddam_hussein , and he chided its members for bickering over his country 's future instead of coming to its immediate assistance . ''settling scores with the united_states led coalition should not be at the cost of helping to bring stability to the iraqi people , '' mr . zebari said in language unusually scolding for an occupant of the guest seat at the end of the curving security_council panel . ''squabbling over political differences takes a back seat to the daily struggle for security , jobs , basic freedoms and all the rights the u.n . is chartered to uphold , '' said mr . zebari , a blunt spoken kurd with a history of fighting as a mountain guerrilla against mr . hussein . taking a harsh view of the inability of quarreling members of the security_council to endorse the military action in iraq , mr . zebari , one of the 25 cabinet ministers appointed by the iraqi_governing_council in september , said , ''one year ago the security_council was divided between those who wanted to appease saddam_hussein and those who wanted to hold him accountable . ''the united_nations as an organization failed to help rescue the iraqi people from a murderous tyranny that lasted over 35 years , and today we are unearthing thousands of victims in horrifying testament to that failure . '' he declared , ''the u.n . must not fail the iraqi people again . '' the accusatory tone of mr . zebari 's speech irritated some diplomats but did not adversely_affect the ensuing closed door security_council discussion over the united_nations' role in iraq , according to a european participant . secretary_general_kofi_annan , the first to emerge from the hall , appeared taken aback , however . ''now is not the time to pin blame and point fingers , '' he told reporters . conceding that mr . zebari was ''obviously entitled to his opinion , '' mr . annan said the united_nations had done as much for iraq as it could under the circumstances and was prepared to do more . ''quite honestly , '' he reiterated , ''now is not the time to hurl accusations and counteraccusations . '' ambassador emyr jones parry of britain , which was the united_states' principal ally in iraq , said that there had been tough questioning by colleagues but that he detected ' 'strong support'' from them for the timetable that mr . zebari had laid out moving to an iraqi transitional authority by july , subsequently drawing up a constitution and holding elections in 2005 . the session of the 15 member council had been called to discuss the new plan . mr . annan led off with a speech drawing from his report last week that ruled out a swift return of the united_nations to iraq because of the bombing of its baghdad headquarters in august and continuing attacks on diplomats and relief workers . he also said the united_nations needed ' 'much greater clarity'' over what it would be asked to do in iraq before he could fully recommit the world organization . such statements have angered the bush_administration , which argues that recent resolutions on iraq give the united_nations ample room to broaden its participation immediately . an estimated 2 , 000 iraqi workers for the united_nations are inside the country , and mr . annan last week assigned 40 workers to staff iraq aid offices in nicosia , cyprus , and amman , jordan . mr . zebari took issue with the assignments , saying that iraq could guarantee the united_nations whatever security it needed to return sooner and noting the importance of having the organization back in baghdad . ''your help and expertise cannot be effectively delivered from cyprus or amman , '' he said . he also criticized countries like france that have expressed doubts about the american appointed governing_council . ''as iraqis , '' he said , ''we strongly disagree with those of you that question the legitimacy of the present iraqi authorities . '' mr . zebari proclaimed the governing_council ''the most representative and democratic governing body in the region . '' he said , ''the members of the security_council should be reaching out and encouraging this nascent democracy in a region well known for its authoritarian_rule . '' ambassador jean marc de la sabli re of france , a critic of the war , turned aside mr . zebari 's criticism , saying , ''i do n't want to comment on the past . '' the struggle for iraq united_nations",has a topic of politics
"the department of defense has identified 590 american service members who have died since the start of the iraq_war . it confirmed the death of the following american yesterday shanaberger , wentz jerome henry iii , 33 , staff sgt . , army naples , fla . 21st military_police company .",has a topic of politics
"an article yesterday about president_bush 's visit to germany referred incorrectly to the deputy speaker of the german_parliament , who voiced concerns about united_states foreign_policy and the possibility of an attack on iraq . the official , antje vollmer , is a woman .",has a topic of politics
"an article yesterday about a reuters cameraman who was shot to death by american_soldiers in iraq on sunday misidentified the headquarters city of the committee to protect journalists , a watchdog group that has called for a public_inquiry . it is new york , not london .",has a topic of politics
"pope_john_paul_ii today expressed his strongest opposition yet to a potential war in iraq , describing it as a ' 'defeat for humanity'' and urging world leaders to try to resolve disputes with iraq through diplomatic means . ''no to war ! '' the pope said during his annual address to scores of diplomatic emissaries to the vatican , an exhortation that referred in part to iraq , a country he mentioned twice . ''war is not always inevitable , '' he said . ''it is always a defeat for humanity . '' wondering aloud what to say ''of the threat of a war which could strike the people of iraq , '' he added ''war cannot be decided upon , even when it is a matter of ensuring the common good , except as the very last option , and in accordance with very strict conditions , without ignoring the consequences for the civilian population both during and after the military operations . '' the pope had previously articulated concerns about an american led attack on iraq , most notably on christmas day , when he beseeched people ''to extinguish the ominous smoldering of a conflict which , with the joint efforts of all , can be avoided . '' but in those instances , his message was largely implicit . he did not refer to iraq by name , and his words were not as blunt . today 's remarks came as the united_states continued a buildup of military forces in the middle_east , and they exemplified international leaders' apprehensions and attempts at political and moral suasion . the pope 's comments , delivered in french with the vatican providing a translation into english , also recalled his opposition to the persian_gulf_war in 1991 . his refusal to support that effort strained diplomatic relations between the vatican and the united_states at the time . what the pope said today was not surprising he has consistently decried a range of wars throughout his 24 year long papacy , often without immediate or discernible effect on events . but after the attacks on the united_states on sept . 11 , 2001 , he said nations had a moral and legal right to defend themselves against terrorism . he did not condemn the bombing of afghanistan , although he did say that such military actions must be aimed solely at people with ''criminal culpability'' and not whole groups of innocent_civilians . in speaking out about iraq today , he echoed concerns raised around the world about the wisdom of a potential war with iraq . wilfrid guy licari , the canadian ambassador to the holy see , said the pope 's voice would stand out as an especially resonant one . ''it is putting extra pressure , because he 's one of the only moral voices left in the world with credibility , '' he said . he added that the pope 's comments reflected the vatican 's growing worry about , and preoccupation with , the situation in iraq . in the last month , an increasing number of vatican officials have raised questions about the morality , necessity and consequences of a war in iraq . r . james nicholson , the american ambassador to the holy see , also noted that the pope ' 'speaks with a great deal of credibility and moral_authority , '' adding , ''the united_states listens . '' but he said he did not interpret the pope 's remarks as an indication that the vatican and the united_states stood apart on iraq . ''if you examine carefully what the pope said , he said that war is not always inevitable , and we agree , '' mr . nicholson said , adding that saddam_hussein can prevent an attack on iraq if he complies fully with weapons inspections and eliminates any weapons_of_mass_destruction . the present and future question before the vatican , he said , was whether there was ' 'sufficient provocation'' for the united_states to take military action against iraq . ''the answer to that , '' mr . nicholson acknowledged , ' 'may remain something that we do n't agree on . '' the pope 's comments on iraq were contained in a wide_ranging speech that traversed the globe , reflecting on signs of desperation and hope on various continents , and also touched on social issues . john paul made special note of a series of expulsions from russia of catholic priests , a point of keen discord between the vatican and moscow . he called the expulsions ''a cause of great suffering for me , '' adding , ''the holy see expects from the government authorities concrete decisions which will put an end to this crisis . '' he nodded to a series of recent scientific claims by mentioning human cloning , saying it , along with abortion and euthanasia , ''risk reducing the human person to a mere object . '' threats and responses the vatican",has a topic of politics
"the department of defense has identified 1 , 150 american service members who have died since the start of the iraq_war . it confirmed the deaths of the following americans this week babbit , travis a. , 24 , specialist , army uvalde , tex . first cavalry division . cornell , todd r. , 39 , staff sgt . , army_reserve west bend , wis . , 339th infantry_regiment . james , william c. , 24 , cpl . , marines huntington beach , calif . first marine division . larson , nicholas d. , 19 , lance_cpl . , marines wheaton , ill . first marine division . segura , juan e. , 26 , lance_cpl . , marines homestead , fla . first marine division . slay , russell l. , 28 , staff sgt . , marines humble , tex . second marine division , trotter , john b. , 25 , sgt . , army marble falls , tex . second infantry division . wells , lonny d. , 29 , sgt . , marines vandergrift , pa . second marine division . wood , nathan r. , 19 , lance_cpl . , marines kirkland , wash . first marine division . slay , russell l. , 28 , staff sgt . , marines humble , tex . second marine division . the conflict in iraq correction november 13 , 2004 , saturday a listing of american military deaths yesterday referred incompletely to the unit of staff sgt . todd r . cornell of the army_reserve . it was the first battalion , 339th infantry .",has a topic of politics
"with its 12 , 000 page arms declaration now under intensive american study , iraq turned increasingly confrontational today with statements , one from president saddam_hussein , suggesting that it planned to go toe to toe with the bush_administration in the war of words over weapons . for a brief time last week , before the sunday deadline for its formal arms declaration to be delivered to the united_nations , it seemed as though mr . hussein had chosen accommodation in the face of warnings from president_bush that the united_states is ready , if necessary , to go to war to topple him . at a meeting with political and military leaders on thursday , mr . hussein urged patience in responding to the ''concessions'' that iraq has been forced to make in declaring banned weapons programs and accepting the return of weapons inspectors . the time for ''anger and revolt , '' he said , would come later , ''when the situation calls for it . '' today the weapons inspections continued , with a search of the uranium mine on the syrian border that yielded the ''yellowcake'' uranium dioxide that iraq tried to enrich in the 1980 's and early 1990 's for nuclear_weapons . the iraqi airwaves filled with the kind of angry and bellicose words that mr . hussein cautioned against last week . the foreign ministry issued a statement condemning american maneuvering to gain quick access to the iraqi declaration after it arrived in new york . at a meeting of what amounts to his war cabinet , the iraqi leader abruptly became more like the saddam_hussein who , in the middle of his conciliatory speech last week , expressed dislike for ''the colors falling between black and white , '' meaning the middle ground . the foreign ministry statement focused on the bush_administration 's pressuring of colombia , holder of the rotating united_nations_security_council presidency , to hand over the council 's sole copy of the iraqi declaration to american officials for photocopying and distribution to the four other nations that hold permanent security_council seats . the deal meant that washington and the other major powers received copies almost immediately instead of waiting for the united_nations weapons control agency to purge the iraqi documents of technical information that could theoretically provide rogue_states or terrorists with a blueprint for building biological , chemical or nuclear_weapons . iraq , which itself has been accused of being just such a rogue state , has posed in recent days as a staunch upholder of nonproliferation agreements . yet a top iraqi general implied at a news conference on sunday that iraq had come close to perfecting an atom_bomb immediately before its defeat in the 1991 persian_gulf_war . in its statement today , iraq said that the american action in immediately acquiring a copy of the declaration was ''an act of unprecedented extortion in the history of the united_nations , '' and that it opened the way for washington 's ''possibly forging what it wants to forge'' in the declaration before passing on copies . this , in turn , iraq said , is intended to lay the groundwork for an american attempt to persuade other governments that iraq has lied in saying that it has no banned weapons . at the war cabinet meeting , shown on iraqi television , mr . hussein was with about 15 of his top military leaders , including defense minister lt . gen . sultan hashim ahmed the army and air_force commanders the head of the nuclear commission and the minister of military industrialization , the agency that controlled all of iraq 's secret weapons programs in the past . mr . hussein 's two sons , qusay and uday , were also present . the iraqi news_agency gave only one brief excerpt from mr . hussein 's remarks at the meeting , but that was enough to confirm that the meeting had been called to discuss preparations for a possible war with the united_states . mr . hussein appeared set on girding his commanders for a severe challenge , especially for iraqi forces poorly_equipped , pitifully underpaid and widely demoralized that western experts say have fallen on hard times since their defeat in the gulf_war . ''your heads will remain high with honor , god willing , and your enemy will be defeated , '' the iraqi leader was quoted as having said . an intriguing aspect of the meeting , visible from brief television clips , was the presence of hussein 's sons , who stood out among the career military men and defense officials in their civilian clothing . mr . hussein , too , wore a suit , something he has done more often in recent years since , according to a tale widely recounted in baghdad , he was advised by a visiting diplomat that his fondness for military style uniforms at times of crisis did not help ease concerns about iraqi intentions . the seating for the meeting , in a mirrored room that appeared to be in one of mr . hussein 's many baghdad palaces , showed qusay , 36 , at the right of his father , who sat at the head of a rectangular table . uday , 38 , sat several places away on the other side of the table , separated from him by several military men . while his younger brother wore a conservative business suit , uday sported a dark blue , collarless , nehru style jacket , a turtleneck and a stubbly beard . the seating seemed to confirm what western intelligence experts concluded some years ago that qusay is his father 's heir_apparent , while uday , once seen as a likely successor , fell from favor after gaining a reputation as a volatile , erratic playboy . but the sons' presence attested to their role in the hierarchy that sustains their father . qusay_hussein commands the crack republican guard units of the army uday_hussein is the head of a widely feared paramilitary unit known as the fedayeen_saddam , or saddam 's commandos , who act as shock troops . at the united_nations_headquarters on baghdad 's eastern outskirts , a spokesman said sites inspected today included a vaccine laboratory previously involved in the production of biological toxins for germ_warfare , as well as a site only recently declared by iraq , the saddam center for biotechnology , where animal vaccine production could be diverted to toxin production . a cement plant , a chemical complex and several plants and storehouses in baghdad were also searched . other inspections were conducted at al qa qaa explosives plant south of baghdad , which has been linked with nuclear efforts at the tuwaitha research complex nearby . a team of nuclear inspectors traveled the farthest distance yet covered outside baghdad , nearly 300 miles west , to the iraq syria border , to check the qaim phosphate complex , used in the 1980 's to process ore from uranium mines in the area . threats and responses the inspections",has a topic of politics
"there were only a few spectators in the stands today for the huge military_parade on a hilltop here . it did not matter , though . the real audience was not in this northern city , near the border with the nominally independent kurdish zone , but elsewhere . ''today we are here to show the americans that we will stand strong against all aggression against iraq , '' said abdullah jamin ahmed , 50 , a retiree with a gray mustache and an ak_47 leaning against his left shoulder . this was not the first parade , in recent months , of the jerusalem army , a civilian militia that claims seven million members around iraq , but it appeared to be the largest . perhaps 50 , 000 militia members men , women , the old and big bellied as well as the young and trim marched here to prove that ordinary iraqis are armed and ready to fight if the united_states carries out its threat to attack iraq . whether they actually will fight remains one of the biggest questions facing american war planners . but , at a minimum , the march here showed that , on the eve of a possible war , saddam_hussein 's government has the power to bring out big crowds , and that there is no shortage of weapons in this country , which has made few public displays of war preparations so far . muhammed hassan , 22 , a farmer who had pinned to his chest a sign reading , ''down with america , '' was one of 200 militia members from rabia the entire adult male population of his small village about an hour 's drive from here . like most people at the march and elsewhere in iraq , he showed little anger or fervor , but no fear either . ''it 's a challenge , '' he said of the size of the crowd today . ''i am not afraid . i will fight them . '' the jerusalem army was formed two years ago by the government , largely from the loyal cadre of mr . hussein 's ruling baath_party , to show solidarity with palestinians . its members , some former soldiers , receive military training , which many said had been increased in recent weeks as an american decision nears on whether to attack iraq . today , they showed their strength . unit after armed unit kurds in baggy pants , baath_party officials in smart green jumpsuits , young men with launchers for rocket propelled grenades passed by the reviewing stand not far from the ruins of an ancient assyrian wall . some chanted in arabic ''bush , bush , hear our refrain . we support saddam_hussein . '' tailing along at the end of the parade were dozens of white pickup_trucks mounted with machine_guns , reminiscent of the so called technicals who challenged american_troops in somalia . there also appeared to be a new twist today a unit of a dozen suicide bombers , dressed in white hoods and with explosive belts and what looked like dynamite draped from their bodies . iraqi officials warned recently that they would unleash suicide attacks against americans in the event of an attack , not only in iraq but elsewhere in the middle_east . to underscore the importance of the march , they were greeted with a smile and a stiff arm salute from izzat_ibrahim , vice chairman of the nation 's top ruling body and the second in command after mr . hussein . some of the marchers said they had only been told the night before to appear at the parade today . but preparations for war itself , others said , began stepping up a week ago . samira mahmoud , 45 , a member of the women 's brigade , who marched with her 21 year old daughter , said that her unit was meeting more often to prepare for providing first aid to wounded soldiers . she said she had no fear of an american attack , no matter how overpowering it might be . ''nobody has the right to touch one hair on an iraqi 's head , '' she said . ''we are right . they are wrong . anyone who is right will win . '' nuri dahal , 45 , a veteran of both the persian_gulf_war of 1991 and the earlier war with iran , said that he and his unit had been training every day . he has begun running again , and has dropped about six pounds , a change in fitness and weight that he said all three of his wives had noticed . ''soon , i will be able to run like a 15 year old boy , '' he said . he has 15 sons . ''all of them are ready to fight , '' he said . a student , ahmed kasim , 28 , conceded that the mood at the march today was not especially angry . only one man , in the crowd of tens of thousands , stopped one american reporter to chant angry slogans . but , mr . kasim , said iraqis' true feelings ran deeper as war with america seemed close again . ''we are angry inside , '' mr . kasim said . ''that means our anger is not on our faces . it will show at the time of the battles . '' threats and responses northern iraq",has a topic of politics
"lead foreign_minister eduard a . shevardnadze of the soviet_union apologized today for the wounding of an american serviceman by soviet soldiers in east_germany . but the pentagon said it would insist on a fuller explanation of what it termed an unprovoked attack . foreign_minister eduard a . shevardnadze of the soviet_union apologized today for the wounding of an american serviceman by soviet soldiers in east_germany . but the pentagon said it would insist on a fuller explanation of what it termed an unprovoked attack . robert sims , the pentagon 's chief spokesman , declined to rule out unspecified ''further actions'' in response to the attack in addition to formal protests that were lodged thursday . mr . shevardnadze , appearing at a news conference at the soviet embassy here , acknowledged that soviet_military personnel had opened fire thursday after confronting a vehicle carrying two american servicemen attached to an accredited military liaison office in east_germany . but the soviet official insisted that the russians had fired only warning shots and that both sides were at fault . soviet response dismissed mr . sims dismissed those assertions , saying that the two americans had been fired upon with an automatic weapon from behind , and that they were outside any restricted area and had done nothing to violate the terms of the 1947 agreement that established the military liaison mission system . ''this was an obviously serious incident that had almost tragic results , '' mr . sims said . ''what we have done is protest this as totally unjustifiable . we 've said that we expect a full explanation for the reasons for the incident . '' mr . sims identified the two americans as air_force capt . bennett mccutcheon of scottsdale , ariz . , and air_force master sgt . charles l . barry of tucson , ariz . sergeant barry , a 15 year veteran and who was driving the vehicle , suffered a superficial wound to the left arm from a bullet fragment , the spokesman said . a defense_department announcement on thursday said sergeant barry was treated at a hospital in west_berlin and released . mr . shevardnadze said the two americans were ' 'very close'' to an area he described as being ''prohibited to members of foreign military missions . '' mission 'tried to flee' ''they were taking pictures of soviet_military aircraft and also were engaging in radio and electronic gathering near the soviet_military facility , '' he said . the soviet foreign_minister made no assertion , however , that the united_states servicemen had entered a restricted zone , nor did he try to explain why the americans were partly at fault . ''when soviet soldiers approached , the members of the mission tried to flee , '' mr . shevardnadze said . ''and therefore there was warning fire , small_arms fire . '' the incident thursday was the most serious since march 1985 , when a soviet sentry shot and killed maj . arthur d . nicholson . in that case , the united_states also charged that major nicholson had been in an unrestricted area and had been shot without provocation .",has a topic of politics
"lead the premier of the czech region of this country is to arrive in the united_states on friday in search of what he calls pluralism . the premier of the czech region of this country is to arrive in the united_states on friday in search of what he calls pluralism . the premier , petr pithart , does not mean a multiplicity of political_parties , which czechoslovakia has abundantly achieved since last autumn without foreign help . the premier will travel coast to coast , possibly even to alaska , to enlist american support and investment to counterbalance what he called ''terrible pressure'' from potential west_german investors . mr . pithart is not only the head of the larger of czechoslovakia 's two constituent republics . the 49 year old legal scholar and historian is also one of president vaclav_havel 's most trusted political strategists and , through his leadership in the civic forum mass movement , a close ally in the preparation and carrying out of the revolution that ended communist rule . mr . pithart said he understood the surprising degree of popular pessimism that has followed the peaceful triumph of democracy of last autumn and the landslide election victory that confirmed it last month . 'selling out the country' ''the main problem is that the federal_government and economists as a group are not united on a course of action , '' he said in an interview . ''there are no precedents , only the unsuccessful or at best half successful precedents of the old regime . ''the leadership and the people see a need to go as fast as possible . but when we are in a situation to resolve a problem , to choose a way , a lot of hesitation comes to their minds . and the advice from abroad is sometimes contradictory . we have no complete scenario of the logical steps to reform . '' mr . pithart , whose father was an ambassador of the communist government , and who was reduced in the 21 years between the revolutions of 1968 and 1989 from an academic post to many menial jobs , outlined in imperfect but carefully chosen english the quandaries that mr . havel and his associates must confront in the overriding task of making the stagnant , highly centralized economy advance toward western levels of productivity . the problem is not only economic , the premier said . ''the prevailing mood of czechoslovakia is an understandable fear of selling out the country , '' mr . pithart said . ''it is a curious reaction , arising from our poverty . it is to be understood psychologically , this pride of a people that is poor . role of foreign investors ''we do n't want to become the property of any western country . it 's like an architectural ruin . you either sell it to somebody who can restore it or you let it go on to certain destruction . what do you prefer ? there is no third way . '' reluctantly , mr . pithart said , he has come to the conclusion that in a country that has no sources of capital for the privatization of the obsolete and sluggish economy , foreign investors must be granted greater concessions than many czechoslovaks want to offer . ''at the beginning i shared their attitude , '' he said . ''but we have to be more open . '' does that mean 51 percent foreign holdings in an enterprise ? ''up to 100 percent , '' the premier replied . ''but the necessary precondition is pluralism of countries , '' he said . ''there is terrible pressure from west_germany . that is why we need america . '' 'a bolshevist state still' to achieve that aim , mr . pithart will try to enlist the support of the american czechoslovak community , which has been far less organized in political and economic support of their mother country than polish americans or hungarian americans . ''the czechs who are organized are mostly older people , '' mr . pithart said . those who came to america after the soviet led invasion of 1968 believe that only the surface has changed , he said , ''and we are a bolshevist state still . '' many czechoslovak economists and officials share concern over the fact that the bulk of the investment offers comes from west_germany . czechoslovakia is keeping options open . but mr . pithart said that by the end of the summer , volkswagen , for instance , is likely to own a controlling interest in skoda , the country 's largest carmaker . the premier said there was also indecision about how to introduce badly needed competition into the economy . resisting a purge ''we are doing our best to bring to the country elements of free_trade in a system in which the monopolies of the existing enterprises prevail , '' he said . ''how do you create an atmosphere of competition when most of the factories are monopolistic ? '' he said one way was to create what he called an ''artificial atmosphere of competition'' by opening the market wide to imports . ''this is a very costly way , '' he said , because to make czechoslovakia attractive , customs duties have to be pegged very low . ''a further reason for pessimism is that the old structures on the middle and lower levels are still in position , '' mr . pithart said . the government faces a quandary in how to renew the communist_party dominated economic and administrative structures without a political purge , which the havel leadership has forsworn . from the revolution 's start , civic forum has insisted against much popular opposition that to dismiss masses of people only because of party membership would be unjust . czechoslovakia underwent wholesale purges three times in the life of its older citizens under germany 's virtual annexation in 1939 , in the communist takeover in 1948 and after the 1968 invasion .",has a topic of politics
"lead chancellor helmut_kohl of west_germany had a nostalgic final meeting today with president_reagan and then urged president elect bush to speed negotiations aimed at cutting long range nuclear_weapons . chancellor helmut_kohl of west_germany had a nostalgic final meeting today with president_reagan and then urged president elect bush to speed negotiations aimed at cutting long range nuclear_weapons . mr . kohl , who was in washington for a one day visit , had his farewell meeting with mr . reagan over lunch before he and his foreign_minister , hans_dietrich_genscher , met with mr . bush and senator dan_quayle , the vice_president elect . the meeting was the first of two farewell sessions mr . reagan had scheduled this week with the two west european leaders who have been his staunchest european allies . on wednesday , the president will receive margaret_thatcher , the british_prime_minister , at the white_house . mrs . thatcher arrived tonight at andrews_air_force_base in washington . appearing with mr . reagan on the south lawn of the white_house , mr . kohl referred repeatedly to the president as ' 'dear ron . '' he told the president , ''god bless you in all you do . '' warm praise from germany at a news conference later , mr . kohl said , ''i want to reiterate before the world how grateful we feel for all the sympathy and friendship that he has shown to us as a people and to me personally . '' mr . reagan reaffirmed ''the strong american commitment to berlin'' and to the american alliance with west_germany . rozanne l . ridgway , the assistant secretary of state for european and canadian affairs , told reporters that the meeting had been ''a general review'' of the american german relationship . asked if the two had simply ' 'schmoozed'' with each other , she replied , ''as world leaders do . '' mr . kohl , who met with the soviet leader , mikhail s . gorbachev , when he visited moscow in late october , said at the news conference that he had briefed mr . reagan , mr . bush and mr . quayle on his moscow visit . but he offered no details . mr . kohl said he had told mr . bush that he should ''rapidly pursue'' a treaty reducing strategic nuclear_weapons . shouldering the burden mr . kohl said he talked with mr . bush and mr . reagan about the need for the european allies to shoulder more of the burden for their defense . mr . reagan said he and mr . kohl ' 'reviewed the difficulties each country faces in doing more , but pledged we would each do our fair share . '' asked about that aspect of his discussions , mr . kohl said ''of course , we will have to rely in the future on the americans to help us with their conventional capabilities and nuclear capabilities . but we shall pay attention to the burden being fairly shared . '' the west_german government has been under some pressure from its allies , especially the british_government , to modernize its lance missiles , older , short range missile whose nuclear_warheads are controlled by the united_states . mr . kohl 's government has avoided making a commitment on modernization , which could be a politically troublesome move , and the chancellor avoided answering directly today when asked about the missiles . he said simply that he doubted that a decision would be announced on whether to update the missiles before next april .",has a topic of politics
"ever since angela_merkel emerged on the political scene here , it has been widely assumed that if she ever came to power , german american relations would quickly become closer and warmer than they were under the departing chancellor , gerhard_schr_der . but now that mrs . merkel is on the verge of becoming chancellor in a coalition_government with her rival social democrats , experts doubt that on matters of practical policy , germany 's foreign relations , including relations with the united_states , are really going to change all that much . ''there will be a different tone , '' said claus leggewie , a professor of political_science at giessen university and a specialist on german foreign_policy . ''the form will change , but not the content . '' that was underscored thursday when the social democrats named as the next foreign_minister mr . schr_der 's chief of staff , frank walter steinmeier , a figure whom few expect to engineer major changes . karsten voigt , the coordinator of german american relations in the foreign ministry , recalled in an interview on thursday a trip to washington a few weeks ago . ''i knew that most people were crossing their fingers , hoping that merkel would be elected chancellor , and i knew that in foreign_policy circles , schr_der was not very popular because of his opposition to the iraq_war , '' he said . ''but i said at the time that even if mrs . merkel is elected , the substance of foreign_policy wo n't be that different . '' analysts cite several reasons for this , not least that german american relations have improved considerably since the angry dispute over iraq . even on this contentious and emotional issue , germany has given some support to the american effort by training iraqi_police officers elsewhere in the persian_gulf , and a meeting between mr . schr_der and president_bush in mainz in february struck a conspicuously cordial tone . ''when you look at substance , '' mr . voigt said , ''we have practically no serious bilateral problems . '' but another reason why many experts expect continuity is that mrs . merkel will not govern on her own but inside the coalition , which consists of her christian_democratic_union and its sister party , the christian_social_union , plus mr . schr_der 's social_democratic_party . thus , while mrs . merkel likes the united_states , there is no expectation in germany that she will do what mr . schr_der 's government was unwilling to do send german_troops to iraq , for example , or give automatic assent to american foreign_policy programs , especially if they involve the use or threat of force . a fundamental reason for that is that germany 's identity in foreign_affairs as a medium size power with an aversion to the use of force and a strong preference for multilateralism is widely accepted by a large majority of the german public . in this sense mr . schr_der is , as mr . leggewie puts it , mainstream , and even inside mrs . merkel 's party it is difficult to find influential figures who are willing to depart from that stance . mrs . merkel has criticized mr . schr_der for being too close to both president jacques_chirac of france and president vladimir v . putin of russia , arguing that he has aroused suspicions of german intentions elsewhere in europe , especially in britain and poland . it seems likely that mrs . merkel will put her stamp on foreign_policy by avoiding the impression , often given by mr . schr_der and mr . chirac , that france and germany form an axis in the european_union that , with russian support , aims at constricting american power . still , most specialists contend , relations with france and russia will , by necessity and custom , remain very important . ''any german chancellor has to have close relations with france , '' mr . voigt said . mrs . merkel is also unlikely to annul what some analysts feel was a deeper change in the schr_der years , namely the german determination to shed the constraints left over from world_war_ii and to behave like a normal country , able to pursue its own interests unapologetically . this had some beneficial effects on relations with the united_states , especially when germany sent troops to support the american led military action in kosovo in the late 1990 's and in afghanistan in 2001 , despite ferocious resistance inside mr . schr_der 's own coalition . german_troops are still the second largest foreign contingent after american_forces in afghanistan , and parliament recently approved an increase . germany also has an important military presence in the balkans and smaller contingents in the persian_gulf and sudan , all of which are highly welcomed by washington . at the same time , mr . schr_der stressed what he called ''eye to eye'' relations with the united_states , that is , relations between equal partners , not between a main partner and a secondary one . ''we will deal with the united_states on an equal footing , '' mr . leggewie said . ''we are not willing to follow the united_states at any price , and i think this will be the line of a foreign_policy of the grand coalition . ''",has a topic of politics
"the united_states_army is betting much of its future on the success of an unlikely new warrior an ungainly 19 ton wheeled combat vehicle wrapped in a steel grilled hoop skirt . here at the edge of the iraqi desert , the vehicle 's combat debut is unfolding with the army 's first stryker brigade combat team . this much debated 10 billion experiment aims to field as many as half a dozen 3 , 600 soldier units equipped with these high tech , lightly armored_vehicles that can speed infantry to a fight . unlike an abrams_tank or a bradley_fighting_vehicle , the stryker is a medium weight , eight wheel vehicle that can carry 11 soldiers and weapons at speeds of more than 60 miles an hour . with its giant rubber tires instead of noisy tracks , it is fast and quiet and draws on the brigade 's reconnaissance drones , eavesdropping equipment and the army 's most advanced communications gear to outflank an enemy rather than outslug it . critics of the system , including former house speaker newt_gingrich , say the stryker is a risky gamble that could leave american_soldiers vulnerable to guerrilla attacks . but proponents in the army say it is an alternative to light_infantry and heavy armored forces in the shift from a heavy cold_war arsenal to a more agile , mobile force that can be dispatched quickly to hot_spots around the world . the stryker , supporters contend , also fits the new american blueprint for war use an array of sensors to pinpoint an enemy , share that information through satellite links , and quickly direct precision firepower on that target . ''the strength of our engagements in the future is the ability to gather , see and share information rapidly across the battle space , '' said col . michael rounds , a west_point graduate and a native of greene , n.y. , who commands the brigade , formally known as the third brigade , second infantry division . originally conceived to rush troops to battle in the early days of a conflict and , later , to assume peacekeeping duties , the stryker brigade has been thrown into a counterinsurgency role in iraq for which it was not specifically designed . it is adapting on the fly . ''obviously , this is a big experiment , '' said michael o'hanlon , a military analyst at the brookings institution in washington . ''this is going to be stryker 's real world test . '' the stryker has already weathered a wave of criticism . a report prepared by a defense consultant earlier this year for representative h . james saxton , a new jersey republican on the armed services committee , said the stryker was vulnerable to rocket propelled grenades , an easy target for any hostile forces and too cramped for gear laden soldiers . the stryker has more armor than a humvee and is equipped with a . 50 caliber machine_gun and a grenade_launcher ( an antitank variant has heavier weapons ) , but it was never intended for front line combat . the vehicles , which cost 2 million each , were built to take a hit from a heavy_machine_gun , but confidence in that capability was shaken last summer when some of the ceramic tiles that form the protective skin on the brigade 's 309 strykers were found to be faulty . army officials say they have fixed the problem . like almost every other combat vehicle and helicopter here , the stryker is susceptible to rocket propelled grenades . so general_dynamics , the stryker 's manufacturer , built a protective grille , called slat armor , that is bolted onto the vehicle . it is designed to deflect a grenade 's explosive blast before it reaches the stryker 's ceramic skin , but it has yet to face the ultimate test here . the new armor also adds 5 , 000 pounds to the vehicle , making it too heavy to be flown on an air_force c_130 transport and calling into question whether the brigade can live up to its billing of being deployable anywhere in the world within four days . that capability was not tested when the brigade rolled up from kuwait this month , but stryker soldiers and commanders say the vehicle is well suited for missions like guarding checkpoints , patrolling urban streets and rushing soldiers to raids on suspected insurgent hide_outs . the vehicle is named after two unrelated combat heroes who earned the medal of honor , pfc . stuart s . stryker in world_war_ii and specialist robert f . stryker in vietnam . before leaving for iraq , the brigade received 30 days of training at fort irwin , calif . , and fort_polk , la . , and 10 more days at its home base , fort_lewis , wash . ''they 've put us through every training situation imaginable , '' said sgt . first class max mclaughlin , 39 , a platoon_sergeant from olympia , wash . with the cost of fielding each brigade now at about 1 . 5 billion , the army is not cutting any corners in seeking the unit 's success . it is even spending 9 million on individual gear for the soldiers , like kangaroo leather gloves and custom designed uniforms with built in knee and elbow pads . ''the army has set this unit up to do well , '' said first lt . leonardo flor , 23 , a platoon leader from leavenworth , kan . still , there have been setbacks . shortly after the brigade moved into iraq with its strykers , three soldiers died when two of the vehicles flipped into a rain swollen irrigation ditch . then , two strykers were attacked by roadside_bombs . one vehicle was destroyed by fire and the other lost a tire but kept going . only one soldier was injured , and commanders say the incidents show the vehicle 's survivability . the brigade passed its first combat test on dec . 15 when a patrol thwarted a complex ambush and , with help from other soldiers , waged a 45 minute firefight in samarra , a hotbed of forces loyal to saddam_hussein , the former iraqi leader . soldiers came under fire from mortars , rocket propelled grenades and gunmen on motorcycles , but suffered no casualties or damage to the vehicles . stryker commanders said 11 attackers were killed . since then , the eastern half of this city of 250 , 000 people that the brigade oversees has been largely quiet , commanders say . they think the insurgents have fled or are lying low until the brigade moves on . three truckloads of weapons , including 271 ak_47 's and 412 grenades , as well as 47 detainees , have been seized since dec . 10 . ''we 're cleaning up the town and trying to set the conditions so we can turn it over to the iraqi people , '' said lt . col . rob choppa , of glens_falls , n.y. , the deputy brigade commander . on two missions this week one a night patrol here and another a raid against a suspected recruiting center in a nearby town stryker soldiers showed the system 's versatility . soldiers spend a lot of time inside the vehicles , and many have customized their cramped interiors with coffee pots , stereo systems and even small television sets to watch dvd 's during lulls . on their way to their predawn raid on tuesday , sgt . billy parker , 23 , of clemson , s.c. , and sgt . anthony glover , 31 , of los_angeles , both from company c , fifth battalion , 20th infantry , studied a laminated sheet of useful arabic phrases , including the phrase for ''shut up ! '' some soldiers shrugged off criticism of the stryker 's vulnerabilities but others showed concern . ''i 'd feel better if we 'd gone in after they 'd tested it more , '' said specialist jake herring , 20 , of kirkland , wash . during an early morning patrol on wednesday , strykers from company a disgorged soldiers who fanned out into streets and alleys , the vehicles following at a distance . inside his command vehicle , capt . eric batchelor , the 30 year old company commander from barnesville , ga . , monitored his vehicles' movements on a digital mapping system , ready to reposition them quickly at the first sign of trouble or fresh intelligence . stryker vehicles are blue icons on the screen . opposing forces are marked in red . every soldier on the ground had a radio , and the patrol columns moved silently through deserted streets . suddenly , an insurgent 's . 50 caliber machine_gun barked three times , and stryker radios crackled . by the time a team rushed inside a building , the attacker had fled into the night . the 12 hour patrol detained one person after finding rifles , a submachine gun and bomb making material . ''we 're on the threshold of something new , '' captain batchelor said afterward . ''we 're making history . '' the struggle for iraq the military",has a topic of politics
"lead for months , senior american officials have expressed confidence that president mikhail s . gorbachev would give way , if offered enough inducements , and agree to nato membership for a united germany , thus settling the most intractable issue facing moscow and washington . for months , senior american officials have expressed confidence that president mikhail s . gorbachev would give way , if offered enough inducements , and agree to nato membership for a united germany , thus settling the most intractable issue facing moscow and washington . but that confidence is fading fast . after three days of talks between president_bush and the soviet leader , which produced no real progress on the german question and the shape of post cold_war europe , top united_states policy_makers say they are beginning to believe that mr . gorbachev 's domestic political situation may be too delicate for him to make such a concession at any time soon , and that a protracted period of ambiguity may result . ''it may well be that the only way he can resolve his dilemma is to string the process out , let germany go ahead with political and economic reunification and stall on the military side , '' said an american official who played a significant role in the bush gorbachev summit conference here . ''west_germany would stay in nato and the soviet_troops would stay in east_germany . ''unfortunately , with so many security questions undecided , the situation might prove dangerous . '' fewer cheers at home in domestic political terms , mr . bush emerged from last week 's events with germany in doubt , lithuania unresolved and perhaps a few political problems on the trade agreement . but he will find that easy enough to live with , given his broad popularity . for mr . gorbachev , on the other hand , the acclaim he won in the streets of washington is unlikely to be repeated at home . his public_relations triumph here is not likely to ease his struggle for survival . at their news conference this morning , the two presidents made much of the relationship they have built , and a few white_house officials say they believe that personal chemistry will eventually dissolve the policy stalemate . mr . gorbachev promised not to ''put spokes in the wheels'' and said negotiations on germany would continue . the two pledged to meet on a regular basis . no doubt things have come ''a long , long way from the depths of the cold_war , '' as president_bush commented . but there are limits on personal diplomacy , even in an era of good feelings . between may 1972 and november 1974 four summit meetings took place , and after the fourth one , in siberia , gerald r . ford spoke hopefully of ''the spirit of vladivostok . '' but that proved inadequate to overcome fundamental disagreements the next summit conference did not come until 1979 and the ''constructive spirit'' of which mr . gorbachev spoke may not suffice in the weeks and months ahead . debate could be protracted a protracted debate about the rival visions of the new europe now seems highly likely , with a substantial possibility that progress in the negotiations in vienna on conventional forces will prove impossible to achieve and that the summit meeting of the 35 nation conference on security and cooperation in europe , now scheduled to take place late this year in paris , will be delayed . the united_states is ready to see that rather inchoate organization gain a more formal structure and a larger role . but the soviet_union , which belongs to no other important pan_european organization , wants to make it the centerpiece of the new europe , which is an entirely different matter . ''we are talking about building an all european security system and casting the issue of german_unification , its external aspects , within the context of that larger european security framework , '' vitaly churkin , a senior adviser to the soviet foreign ministry , said in an interview over the weekend . many western_european officials , as well as many here , see that idea as ''a trap that would give the soviets a veto like the one they have in the united_nations , in fact if not in law , '' as a ranking italian official argued recently . a british diplomat said that an organization with 35 members ''would quickly become a talking shop , incapable of making decisions . '' but there is some support , among politicians as well as policy experts , for the soviet idea , or some modified version of it . hans_dietrich_genscher , the west_german foreign_minister , has called for a pan_european ''conflict_resolution center , '' and president_francois_mitterrand of france supports a loose european confederation . u.s . role in europe leaders of the newly democratic east european_countries see the conference on security and cooperation as their only chance for a link to western_europe , so they too support the idea that something new , beyond nato and the moribund warsaw_pact , must be created to handle european security . in the current issue of world policy journal , malcolm chalmers of stanford_university argues for the creation of a european security organization , based on the conference on security and cooperation , with only a residual , transitional role for nato and the warsaw_pact . only such an organization , he says , would reassure the soviet_union , buttress german sovereignty and guarantee a united_states role in europe . nearly everything about the debate remains murky . one of the things the united_states has promised the soviet_union , to combat moscow 's fear that a unified germany would be joining an alliance hostile to soviet interests , is that nato will be transformed into a more political organization . revivifying nato giving it some reason for being other than defense against a threat from the east that is rapidly vanishing is a crucial matter for the united_states , mr . bush believes , because nato gives washington its sole institutional voice in europe . but every time in the past that nato has tried to agree on something other than the common defense against the soviet_union and the warsaw_pact , things have gone wrong whether the question was the suez invasion in the 1950 's or the overflight of united_states planes on the way to libya in the 1980 's . the perils of a deadlock the danger lurking down the road , in the american view , is not the application of a new soviet noose to berlin , or even a rancorous soviet decision to break off negotiations on the german question . the positive tenor of the conversations here seems to make those two eventualities unlikely , at least for as long as mr . gorbachev or another reformer remains in power . but a prolonged deadlock would carry its own sorts of perils . ''if moscow should refuse to leave germany , '' says michael mandelbaum of the council_on_foreign_relations , ''and its refusal became a major point of conflict with the west , this would , in effect , re create the political conflict on which the great east west rivalry of the postwar period was based . '' for moscow , the stakes are immense . in the century since 1890 , russia and germany , the two largest and strongest european_countries , have been almost constantly at odds . now the soviet_union , already economically weakened , faces the prospect of losing its military power in central_europe , with no compensating increase in political power , at the very moment when germany , already economically powerful , stands on the verge of reunification and greatly augmented political influence . ''it 's going to require tremendous finesse on our part to manage this kind of unsettled situation , '' said robert d . hormats , a former official of the state_department and the national_security_council . ''the analogy to germany , post world_war i , is very close . we ca n't afford to isolate them , leave them to brood about losing the cold_war , let their economy collapse . if we do , as a last resort , they 'll play on neutralist emotions in germany , which are already too widespread for comfort . '' summit talks end with warmth but fail to resolve key issues",has a topic of politics
"lead a senior soviet arms negotiator said today that moscow would consider a compromise to resolve differences over west_germany 's short range pershing 1a missiles . a senior soviet arms negotiator said today that moscow would consider a compromise to resolve differences over west_germany 's short range pershing 1a missiles . the soviet_union has called the missiles the main barrier to an agreement with the united_states to ban american and soviet medium_range and shorter range nuclear_armed rockets . until now , moscow has demanded that the american warheads for the west_german missiles be destroyed . last week , senior soviet officials said moscow would not retreat from that demand . invitation to the u.s . but today , a soviet arms negotiator , aleksei a . obukhov , appeared to invite the united_states to suggest a compromise in remarks on the nbc_news program ''meet the press . '' he indicated that the west_german pershing 1a 's and the american warheads could remain and that in return moscow could be provided with assurances that the aging missiles , once declared obsolete , would not be replaced with new american missiles . asked whether moscow would consider such a compromise , mr . obukhov noted that the united_states had not made such an offer . but he said moscow would consider it if an offer were made . ''we will listen to what ambassador kampelman is going to propose , '' he said , referring to max m . kampelman , the chief american arms negotiator , who also appeared on the program . ''we will study , and we will give our answer . '' contrasting remarks the remarks by mr . obukhov today were in sharp contrast with recent statments by senior soviet officials . although there had been reports out of geneva , where the arms talks are being held , that the soviet_union might be willing to consider a compromise , aleksandr a . bessmertnykh , the deputy foreign_minister , and col . gen . nikolai f . chervov , the head of the arms control directorate of the soviet general staff , sharply criticized the idea of a compromise in an interview last week in the washington_post . mr . kampelman declined to say if the united_states and west_germany would ultimately support such a compromise , but he described it as a possible option . ''i do n't even want to state what is possible and what is not , other than to say it 's obviously an option that we 've already been discussing'' with the soviet_union , he said . ''an option means that we 've been trying to examine it , what its implications are . '' a reagan_administration official said that mr . kampelman 's mention of discussions between american and soviet officials was a reference to a conversation on june 17 in geneva between general chervov and maynard w . glitman , the chief american negotiator on medium_range_missiles . general chervov reportedly asked questions that suggested that moscow might ultimately allow the 72 west_german pershing 1a missiles and the american warheads to remain . but officials stressed that general chervov did not propose , even informally , a compromise along these lines . global compromise ''chervov asked a lot of questions about modernization , '' one american official said . ''whether we would agree not to modernize the p1a 's . whether we would agree not to add to the 72 missiles or make similar arrangements with other countries . '' in his exchange with mr . glitman , general chervov also suggested a compromise plan for a global ban on american and soviet medium_range and shorter_range_missiles . that suggestion was later publically embraced by mikhail s . gorbachev , the soviet leader , and by president_reagan . on the question of the west_german missiles , american officials said that the reagan_administration had not decided whether it would support a compromise proposal . some senior american officials still believe that a compromise is not necessary and that the russians will back down . other officials also say a compromise is possible , but oppose formally including it in a new treaty . they say it may take the form of a statement by the west_german government that the missiles will not be replaced . drawing line on allies american officials oppose any treaty provision on the west_german missiles because it could set a precedent of including the weapons of western allies in future arms treaties . britain and france oppose that idea . ''we will not , in a bilateral_relationship between the united_states and the soviet_union , have a provision in that agreement which affects our allies , '' mr . kampelman said in his television appearance . the west_german government has formally rejected the soviet demand for the elimination of the american warheads , but there are fissures in the center right bonn coalition over whether to support a compromise . american officials stressed that the united_states would not apply pressure on west_germany , where some conservative officials are still bitter over american support for a ban on american and soviet shorter_range_missiles . some western_european leaders fear a ban on missiles could leave them vulnerable to superior soviet conventional forces . correction august 6 , 1987 , thursday , late city final edition",has a topic of politics
"the american embassy in berlin said it would tighten security measures at diplomatic and consular facilities in germany because of a ''heightened security threat . '' it also urged americans in germany to be more vigilant about their safety . an embassy spokesman , robert a . wood , declined to give specifics , but said american officials were responding to recent warnings by german authorities that the country faced ''an increased threat from terrorism . '' mark_landler",has a topic of politics
"lead as turmoil swept through west_german politics and the north_atlantic alliance , one man seemed to stand serenely and triumphantly content . for hans_dietrich_genscher , this was a moment to savor . as turmoil swept through west_german politics and the north_atlantic alliance , one man seemed to stand serenely and triumphantly content . for hans_dietrich_genscher , this was a moment to savor . after 15 years at the helm of west_germany 's foreign_policy , scarred from battles with coalition partners and from the stings of crossed allies , he had pushed through a weakened government his personal formula for future dealings with the east . though labeled a compromise by chancellor helmut_kohl 's coalition as a way to save face , there was little question that the call for opening early talks with moscow on short range missiles instead of replacing them was the foreign_minister 's . the proposal was the product of his ardent conviction that a new era has dawned in east west relations , one that requires a new thinking also in the west . presented new policy if there was grumbling in washington and london about violated understandings and threatened unity , nobody accused mr . genscher of inconsistency . according to der_spiegel , when he presented the new policy in washington , secretary of state james a . baker 3d had said ''we are disappointed at the government stance not at you , herr genscher . you have always said that . '' with the dust still high , mr . genscher a minister legendary in bonn for being in constant motion , despite a youthful bout with tuberculosis and reported heart problems was already hard at work to preclude any backsliding by the government and to press his position on othe nato members . he reminded his bonn coalition partners in a newspaper interview that they had agreed to the policy ''word for word , '' and today he was in paris drumming up support . a potent lever for the 62 year old foreign_minister , the victory was both political and personal . as a dominant figure in the small but well connected free_democratic_party , he had parlayed a bloc of seats rarely reaching 10 percent of parliament into a potent lever . his prize was the foreign ministry , first under helmut_schmidt 's social democrats , and then , after a dramatic change of allegiance in 1982 , with mr . kohl 's christian democrats . his tenure , his experience and his energy fashioned the ministry into a potent instrument of his policy , while his keen sense for public moods enabled him to maintain a popularity that his coalition partners had to respect . for years , mr . genscher has ranked among the most popular politicians in west_germany . even as mr . kohl has slid to new lows , mr . genscher maintained his customary approval rating of about 75 percent . gorbachev to scholz it was the rise of mikhail s . gorbachev , with the attendant spirit of detente , that brought mr . genscher 's policies to new levels of influence . his weight in coalition councils was further enhanced last fall by the death of franz_josef_strauss , the formidable bavarian conservative who resisted mr . genscher in coalition disputes . then two weeks ago , when mr . kohl felt compelled to dismiss his unpopular and conservative defense minister , rupert scholz , mr . genscher emerged virtually dominant . still , mr . genscher 's seizure of the initiative came as something of a surprise . the foreign_minister had sat out most of the preceding turmoil in the government recuperating from a urinary tract infection . but he returned leaner and tougher and in time to push his cherished arms control policy past the weakened chancellor . by some accounts , his continuing allegiance was the price . a personal victory the fact that the shift was to some extent a result of mr . kohl 's political problems did not diminish the fact that it was also a personal victory , and a popular expression of a national sentiment long in gathering . public opinions had long tracked a strong enthusiasm among west germans for the new kremlin under mr . gorbachev and a matching enthusiasm for maintaining the momentum of arms control . mr . genscher had caught the mood early , arguing in february 1987 that ''it would be a mistake of historical proportions if the west passed up an opportunity to achieve a turning point in the 40 year confrontation between east and west . '' in a major address to parliament just after mr . kohl outlined the new policy last thursday , mr . genscher ranged broadly and sometimes emotionally over his vision of a europe . it was a vision of a new , benevolent germany assuming its mission to heal the rift that an earlier , demonic germany had inflicted on the continent . ''the turn of the tide in european international_politics is irreversible and unmistakable , '' he declared . ''nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come . '' 'part of our fatherland' then , his voice dropping , mr . genscher touched the heart of his vision . the debate on ' 'modernization , '' he said , was really ''about short range nuclear_weapons systems that can reach the other part of our fatherland . '' the responsibility assumed with his oath of office , he said , ' 'does not stop at the border cutting through germany . '' he added , ''the responsibility for the nation established by that oath does not exclude my native region , the town where i was born , nor the people in the german_democratic_republic . '' mr . genscher was born in 1927 near halle , in what is now east_germany , and he still goes back regularly . that link is often cited among mr . genscher 's friends as a formative influence , feeding the urgency with which he has pursued detente and arms control . but mr . genscher 's consistently high ratings and the appreciative applause that frequently rippled through parliament indicated that his vision was one with broad resonance . impatience over arms one reason was that west germans were becoming increasingly impatient with the extraordinary concentration of foreign armies and arsenals on their soil . after 40 years of democracy , the sense of constrained sovereignty was becoming increasingly resented , and a newly benign east raised hopes that the burdens could at last be lifted . there was also another , more subtle strain that the foreign_minister seemed to touch through his repeated invocation of a german mission to soothe the east west tensions , to heal europe 's divide , to insure that war never sprang again from german soil . mr . genscher himself had been swept up as a youth by the third reich . like 10 million other children he had joined the hitler youth and at 17 he was drafted , and soon taken prisoner . after the war he saw his hometown transferred by americans to the russians , had fled west and had taken part in the dramatic reconstruction . on a reunited europe for men of mr . genscher 's generation , old enough to know the shame and suffering of the third reich and young enough to have shaped the prosperous new federal_republic , that sense of special mission had become part of a national identity , often supplanting war damaged feelings of patriotism and national pride . implicit in it was the notion that only in a reunited europe could the germans reunite . but those sentiments often made him the object of disdain and suspicion among some in the west , making genscherism a synonym in more hawkish circles for kowtowing to the east . ''his sense of vocation in the east is often suspected as cover for seeking economic advantage , and he gives a sense that he 's working several agendas at once , '' a western diplomat in bonn who admits to an admiration for mr . genscher . ''he is a man you feel is never quite showing you all his cards . he does n't quite fit the model of what some allies think germans are or how germans should behave . '' mr . genscher 's sense of a special mission sometimes came across as righteousness , and his yearning for detente was attacked sometimes as a lack of resolve . he seemed to represent the fear , most strongly felt in paris , that west_germany was always secretly yearning for neutrality . but mr . genscher denied any ambivalence in german loyalties . ''we germans , this we say to all our friends , are not trying to follow our own separate road into the future , '' he told parliament . ''by opting for democracy , the western alliance and the european_community , we have irrevocably committed ourselves . ''on the other hand we germans also have neighbors who do not belong to this community of western democracies but who suffered terribly during the second world_war . he added , ''it is neither presumption nor arrogance on our part but rather a deep awareness of our historical task when we germans feel we have a special responsibility for confidence building between east and west , and act accordingly . ''",has a topic of politics
"senior officials in the bush_administration have said all week that the decision to confront moktada_al_sadr and his fighters in najaf , and to use military force if necessary , will be made by prime_minister ayad_allawi and his government and by them alone . ''it 's a problem that the iraqi government is working to solve , '' scott_mcclellan , the white_house spokesman , said thursday . ''they are the ones that are in charge of resolving this situation in najaf . '' according to the bush_administration , 3 , 500 iraqi_army forces are trained to conduct an operation like removing the rebels from the shrine in najaf where they have been holed up , and the iraqis would carry out the major part of any operation . but because any military action by iraqi_security_forces would be backed by american air power and possibly by more direct military involvement , few specialists take the claims of sole iraqi discretion at face value . officials close to the situation say it is inconceivable that the administration will simply let iraqi forces act in najaf without a discussion and assent in washington . ''the iraqis are totally calling the ball , '' said a senior administration official involved in the discussions on iraq . but he added , ''in the event of a significant difference over policy , i suspect the issue would be referred to senior levels in washington . '' from there it would be decided who would go to dr . allawi ''and express our concerns , '' he said , adding that such a sequence of events ''has not yet occurred'' with regard to najaf or any other areas . the official 's comments reflected an extremely delicate moment for the united_states almost eight weeks after it turned sovereignty over to iraq . the united_states left 140 , 000 american_troops to provide most of the nation 's security while iraqis are encouraged to come forward to be the face of their government , even though they lack the capacity to provide security for their people . in the administration , meanwhile , the iraq policy and operations group holds daily video conferences to discuss developments . the group includes top officials at the state and defense departments , the white_house and the american embassy in baghdad . some american officials say administration policy_makers are haunted by missteps in iraq when the united_states was in charge under the occupation administrator , l . paul_bremer iii . earlier sieges of rebels in falluja , and military actions in najaf and elsewhere , were accompanied by threats to use force to arrest and disarm rebels . in falluja , the threats were rescinded and in najaf , military actions were pressed without the arrest of mr . sadr out of concern about the possibility of igniting violent iraqi protests . ''the situation has been bungled and agonized over from the beginning , '' said larry_diamond , a senior fellow at the hoover_institution at stanford_university who advised mr . bremer in baghdad . ''bremer wanted to put sadr out of business , but the military was wary about the cost and the difficulties , '' he added . ''it was a pathetic succession of debating , wavering , wondering , hesitating , planning and then backing off over many months . '' a senior administration official , recalling the earlier false starts in confronting mr . sadr , said that it was decided that iraqi forces needed to lead such a military action , and that they were not ready . second , he said , the iraqi government itself was not viewed by iraqis as legitimate enough to make such a decision . now , officials said , a new consensus in the bush_administration holds that dr . allawi has the legitimacy to order a military action against mr . sadr and that dr . allawi can draw on the hostility of najaf residents over mr . sadr 's use of the imam_ali shrine , one of the most sacred mosques in the islamic world , as a military base and arms depot . an official said the administration was still anxious about what might go wrong in any military action against mr . sadr and his forces , in the shrine or elsewhere in najaf . ''there 's still a lot of doubt about how these iraqis are going to perform in protecting themselves and avoiding casualties to noncombatants , '' an american official said . but he said there was also a feeling that not backing dr . allawi would undercut him and wreck his legitimacy and that of america . the feeling that now is the time to act appears to be shared by american allies in iraq . ''if allawi has accepted the necessity to use force , we have to have confidence in his judgment , '' prime_minister marek belka of poland said in an interview this month after meeting with president_bush . mr . belka , who for much of the last year was director of economic policy in iraq for the occupation , added that the sadr rebellion represented ''a fight for who will be the leader of the shia community . '' ''i do n't think polish military commanders will be unhappy to see the sadrists attacked by the united_states military , '' he added , referring to polish forces in iraq , many of whom are also stationed in the najaf area . but he said that given the risks , polish commanders were also probably happy not to be part of any operation attacking the shrine . administration officials say that now is the time to deal with mr . sadr , by force if necessary . ''allawi thinks it 's absolutely crucial for himself , and for the credibility of his government , to confront moktada strongly and decisively , if possible with iraqi forces in the foreground , '' a senior official said . another official said the current situation ''indicates that the iraq government under mr . allawi is determined to stamp out thugs and renegades who would use force against it . '' what happens in najaf , he said , will ' 'send an important signal'' and presage possible actions or threats of force in other places . ''we 'll see if the ones who are acting up in basra follow suit , '' the official said . ''we 'll see if force has to be used against them . '' if force is considered , most authorities expect the decision to be carefully monitored in washington even as policy_makers step aside and contend that everything is up to the iraqis . the reach of war showdown",has a topic of politics
"lead after meeting with chancellor helmut_kohl of west_germany , president_bush said friday night that ''we 're making progress'' in easing soviet fears about a united germany in the north_atlantic_treaty_organization . mr . bush said he and mr . kohl agreed that moscow has ''understandable interests'' in the military future of after meeting with chancellor helmut_kohl of west_germany , president_bush said friday night that ''we 're making progress'' in easing soviet fears about a united germany in the north_atlantic_treaty_organization . mr . bush said he and mr . kohl agreed that moscow has ''understandable interests'' in the military future of europe . mr . bush and mr . kohl met for more than two hours over dinner at the white_house to discuss german_unification and soviet objections to a new germany 's belonging to the nato alliance . the meeting , their third in three weeks , came after mr . bush 's summit meeting with president mikhail s . gorbachev of the soviet_union , who expressed opposition to nato membership for a united germany . mr . bush said western leaders , at a nato_summit meeting in london early next month , would explore ways to allay soviet fears . mr . kohl said germans ''also are going to bear in mind soviet security , '' adding , ''it 's going to be important that nato and the warsaw_pact meet in a good atmosphere . '' mr . gorbachev has proposed that the new germany be a member of both the warsaw_pact as well as nato , or a member of neither . he also has suggested limits on the size of the german_army , an idea opposed by both mr . kohl and mr . bush . ''any singling out and neutralization always means isolation , '' mr . kohl said . ''out of the isolation of germany which we had in the '20s , a lot of bad things came about . we want a unified germany as part of nato . '' evolution in europe",has a topic of politics
"lead a leading member of chancellor helmut_kohl 's party proposed today that west_german planes be outfitted with american nuclear tipped missiles to demonstrate the solidarity of the nato alliance after the new missile treaty . a leading member of chancellor helmut_kohl 's party proposed today that west_german planes be outfitted with american nuclear tipped missiles to demonstrate the solidarity of the nato alliance after the new missile treaty . alfred dregger , chairman of the parliamentary group of mr . kohl 's christian democratic_party , advocated the idea to reporters after a meeting with president_reagan and defense secretary frank c . carlucci . mr . dregger emphasized that the american nuclear_weapons would remain under american control . he said equipping german tornado planes with american missiles was just one of a number of steps that the north_atlantic_treaty_organization should take to compensate for the new accord banning medium_range and shorter_range_missiles based on land . other steps , he said , include deploying medium_range cruise_missiles on other types of aircraft and at sea , which would be allowed under the treaty . an administration official said the proposal to put missiles on west_german planes was among several ideas under discussion by alliance military experts . the aircraft can also carry conventional bombs . some favor , some criticism mr . dregger said that his proposals had received a generally favorable reception in the reagan_administration , but that some proposals on short range systems had encountered criticism . in particular , mr . dregger questioned plans for deploying new nuclear_artillery shells in europe , arguing that such weapons would be ' 'self deterring'' because nato nations would not want to use very short range battlefield arms that could devastate the west 's own territory . the united_states , in contrast , has stressed the need to deploy new nuclear_artillery shells in europe . in a speech thursday night at johns_hopkins_university , mr . dregger said the alliance should ''consider whether the nuclear_artillery is necessary and expedient . '' he added , ''if our allies say these weapons are needed in order to protect their forces , then i must point out that protection of the civilian population is just as important at least to us as the protection of our own and allied forces . '' in another proposal that runs counter to american thinking , mr . dregger said the alliance should move to negotiate reductions in the number of very short range nuclear_missiles . the united_states and britain have resisted entering early negotiations on this systems , arguing that efforts to negotiate a strategic arms treaty and a ban on chemical_weapons should come first .",has a topic of politics
"lead west_germany and its principal nato partners are heading for a confrontation over the alliance 's commitment to replace an aging short range missile system , western diplomats and german politicians say . west_germany and its principal nato partners are heading for a confrontation over the alliance 's commitment to replace an aging short range missile system , western diplomats and german politicians say . while the united_states and britain want to move ahead and replace the 88 lance missiles that are mainly deployed in west_germany , chancellor helmut_kohl 's center right coalition is trying to postpone a decision . the missile has a range of 60 miles , but nato commanders would like to replace it with one with a range of about 150 miles . short range missiles are those with ranges under 300 miles . the lance is the first conspicuous weapon modernization issue to confront the alliance since 1983 , when it deployed medium_range pershing 2 and ground launched cruise_missiles in the face of emotional street protests in western_europe . the vacillating reaction of the kohl government on the lance has suggested to some nato officials that the 1983 episode has left german politicians with no stomach for new deployments . strauss assails u.s . in the last year , an embittered and faintly anti american mood has gripped several influential politicians in the chancellor 's normally pro american christian democratic_party . led by alfred dregger , the party 's parliamentary floor leader , they argue that fickle and abruptly shifting american arms control positions have exposed them to domestic humiliations and confused the german public . at a defense seminar in munich over the weekend , franz_josef_strauss , the conservative premier of bavaria , lectured an audience that included defense secretary frank c . carlucci on what mr . strauss said was the waywardness of american policies . the premier declared flatly that a majority of the west_german parliament would oppose lance modernization . at the munich conference , mr . kohl , mr . dregger and other germans surprised and alarmed non german participants by repeatedly voicing fears that the abolition of the superpowers' medium_range weapons and the lance modernization could mean that west_germany was being ' 'singularized'' as the battlefield for a nuclear_war . 'psychosis on the right' in west_germany , this fear has been sharpened by a recent study for the pentagon called ''discriminate deterrence , '' which seemed to revive the idea of endowing the north_atlantic_treaty_organization with a capacity for fighting a limited nuclear_war . mr . carlucci cautioned that the commission that prepared the report was ''purely advisory'' and that its conclusions did not signal ''a basic change in u.s . policy toward nato , particularly the linkage with our strategic deterrent . '' the cumulative effect of the turmoil on the west_german right , aggravated by poor showings in state elections , has been to move the christian democrats toward positions espoused on the left by the opposition social democrats , who are saluting the emergence of a ''new consensus'' on foreign_policy . an experienced american diplomat observed that ''we 've got the same sort of psychosis on the german right that we had on the german left five years ago when they were panicked about nuclear_war . '' a senior british colleague who attended the munich gathering said the germans were encouraging ' 'self singularization , '' wildly exaggerating nuclear risks shared by all members of the alliance . in this roiled climate , mr . kohl and his lieutenants evidently fear that a public discussion about lance modernization could revive the dormant protest movement that spearheaded the battle against american medium_range_missiles in 1983 . congress imposes restrictions mr . carlucci made clear at munich that the reagan_administration would regard any backsliding on the lance decision , which was adopted by nato defense ministers in 1983 , as eroding the american commitment to western_europe 's security . but decisiveness is called for not just in bonn but in washington , where congress has imposed restrictions on the development of a successor system to the lance . the absence of a clear american decision on what kind of missile should replace the lance has encouraged mr . kohl to stall , since neither he nor any of his fellow christian democrats wish to go out on a political limb for a weapons system that does not yet exist . they already have bitter memories of publicly insisting last year that 72 west_german controlled pershing 1a missiles would not be sacrificed only to abandon them under what they portray as blunt pressure from secretary of state george p . shultz . paradoxically , it is the west_german foot_dragging that has suddenly made the lance a central issue on the nato agenda and a test of alliance resolve in the wake of the soviet american accord that would banish medium and shorter_range_missiles , those with ranges between about 300 and 3 , 400 miles . mr . kohl will almost certainly be asked about his government 's wavering stand when he meets with president_reagan in washington next week .",has a topic of politics
"lead the united_states and the soviet_union have significantly narrowed their differences over the place of a united germany in europe but have apparently failed to make much progress on major arms control issues , the two sides indicated today . the united_states and the soviet_union have significantly narrowed their differences over the place of a united germany in europe but have apparently failed to make much progress on major arms control issues , the two sides indicated today . after three days of talks , secretary of state james a . baker 3d said the soviet foreign_minister , eduard a . shevardnadze , had signaled that moscow was prepared for the first time to drop its demand that a unified germany be neutral . mr . shevardnadze , however , rejected the western insistence that a unified germany belong to the north_atlantic_treaty_organization , a concept also endorsed by many warsaw_pact nations . he said moscow was open to any number of proposed pan_european security structures , and even to the idea that a united germany would belong to both nato and the warsaw_pact . summit meeting may 30 but given the tension between the united_states and the soviet_union over lithuania and their failure to overcome the remaining obstacles to treaties reducing long range nuclear_weapons and conventional forces in europe , this week 's meeting to prepare for a summit meeting in washington starting on may 30 seemed to mark a slowing of the momentum of american soviet relations after a year of steady progress . speaking of the arms control negotiations , mr . shevardnadze , who also met with president_bush today , said at a concluding news conference ''i will not hide from you the fact that here in washington we have encountered certain difficulties . this is a time of hard choices , hard choices that one has to make in the concluding stages of the talks . '' excerpts from the baker and shevardnadze comments , page 6. another meeting in moscow mr . baker and mr . shevardnadze scheduled another meeting in the soviet_union for may 16 to may 19 in hopes of making enough progress in arms control negotiations so presidents bush and mikhail s . gorbachev could announce agreements in principle in washington two weeks later . with only seven weeks to go before the summit meeting , however , several officials said that even agreements in principle would be extremely difficult , although not impossible . on the issue of germany , mr . shevardnadze said he was not persuaded by mr . baker 's argument that once east_germany is united with west_germany , perhaps by early next year , the united germany should keep bonn 's seat in nato rather than be neutral between the soviet_union and the western alliance . the soviet foreign_minister , referring to the american position , said ''we have pointed out that such an approach was one sided , and we have spoken in favor of a qualitatively new security system in europe to be achieved through a consistent transformation of the existing military political alliances and , subsequently , establishment of non bloc collective structures . in such a system the future germany , as well as other states , would take a place of its own . '' american officials said they were encouraged by the fact that the soviets seemed to be backing away from the german neutrality idea , and while they were not yet prepared to accept the notion of a unified germany in nato which is the preferred solution not only for all nato members but most warsaw_pact nations as well they were clearly moving in the right direction . ''i think it 's fair to say that there was a recognition that perhaps neutrality is not the best route to go , '' mr . baker said of the new soviet position . ''they were quite clear , however , in their view that a unified germany as a part of nato presented a problem to them . we were equally firm in our view that a unified germany must remain a member of nato , and that that would indeed provide stability , which is , after all , one of the major results that we all seek from the unification of germany . '' alternative european security frameworks will be at the heart of the negotiations about german_unification that are expected to begin at the end of april with the foreign ministers of the two germanys as well as those of the four victorious wartime allies the united_states , soviet_union , britain and france . ''i think it is possible that we will be able to find a mutually_acceptable way , '' mr . shevardnadze said , ''a way that will make sure that a united germany is a factor for stability in europe and that it never threatens anyone . i think that such a solution can be found . '' the pall cast by tensions over lithuania 's claim of independence last month may have affected some of the arms control negotiations , perhaps because the kremlin could not focus on some issues or because it felt that it has conceded enough to washington at this time of domestic vulnerability . when mr . baker and mr . shevardnadze last met in moscow on feb . 7 9 , they made major strides toward concluding a strategic_arms_reduction_treaty . but some thorny issues remained , like the range of air launched cruise_missiles to be included and the range and type of sea launched cruise_missiles that would be covered . the two sides failed to overcome those differences here . a senior administration official argued that some issues that had been considered resolved appeared to have been partly reopened by the soviet side , like the nature of assurances that the united_states is prepared to give on the size of its sea launched cruise_missile program . washington opposes formally codifiying such assurances in the treaty and american officials thought that the russians had agreed to this in moscow , an administration official said . u.s . floats missile proposal an administration official also said that the united_states had ''floated'' a proposal to ban mobile land based missiles that carry multiple_warheads but that this was not accepted by the russians at this time . mr . baker refused to discuss any details of the two sides' discussions on this subject , indicating that the discussions would continue . senator sam_nunn , the georgia democrat who heads the armed services committee , had been urging the administration to propose such a ban because he and others believe that it would difficult to verify limits on mirv 's , as such missiles are called , and because congress cannot afford to finance both of the mobile mirv systems the administration is seeking . progress was made on some very minor issues , like the duration of a start pact , which is to be 15 years , with the possibilty of a five year extension . regarding the conventional_arms talks , the two sides also failed to resolve their longstanding dispute over aircraft , the major issue holding up a conventional_arms accord . mr . shevardnadze suggested that one reason arms control talks were now so difficult was that not only the united_states is required to submit the treaties to the legislature for ratification , but also moscow . speaking of the negotiations , he said , ''let me say that it is increasingly being affected by the need to guarantee ratification of the future treaty in our parliament . '' earlier today , mr . shevardnadze interrupted his talks with mr . baker white_house for a two hour meeting with mr . bush at the white_house , during which he delivered a letter from mr . gorbachev . the bush_administration is clearly feeling somewhat vulnerable politically about going ahead with the summit meeting at a time when the kremlin seems to be ignoring repeated warnings not to suppress the baltic independence movements . bush refers to lithuania mr . bush and mr . baker repeatedly emphasized in their public remarks today that the administration was not turning a blind eye to the situation in the baltics , and that any violent soviet crackdown there could put the entire american soviet relationship at risk . they declined to elaborate , though , on what that might mean . the president said he ''urged the soviet_union to begin a good faith dialogue'' with the lithuanians to avoid any use of force ''because we have an awful lot at stake in the u.s . soviet relationship . '' pointing to that relationship , mr . bush said ''it gets into arms control , it gets into human_rights , the exodus of soviet jews , it gets into regional questions . this is a major relationship that affects the lives of people all over the world . i want to keep that going . so we 're not dictating , or attempting to could n't do that anyway but we are saying we want it to be peaceful . '' upheaval in the east",has a topic of politics
"president_clinton arrived in germany for a three day visit today and faced immediate criticism of his administration 's plans to build a limited missile_defense system . in a 90 minute meeting with mr . clinton in the official chancellery , chancellor_gerhard_schroder added his voice to the chorus of european allies criticizing the administration 's plan , telling mr . clinton that it could touch off a new arms_race . standing beside mr . clinton following their meeting , mr . schroder told reporters that the american president presented his views on his administration 's position ''in a very frank way . '' mr . schroder added , ''i then went on and stated my concerns , concerns that we have to be very careful that any project does not re trigger the process of a renewed arms_race . '' in an interview that will appear in friday 's berliner_zeitung , mr . schroder was even more forceful , saying , ''neither economically nor politically can we afford a new round of the arms_race . no one can dispute the americans' right to develop what they believe is right for national defense . on the other hand , we are partners in a common alliance . '' other german officials have warned that the missile_defense would weaken military ties between the united_states and its european allies . and they have accused the united_states of overstating the threat . in his own remarks to reporters , mr . clinton did not respond to mr . schroder 's assertions . but in briefing reporters later , the national_security adviser , samuel r . berger , acknowledged the criticism . ''he expressed his concern that we proceed with due consideration for the impact on others , including europe , '' mr . berger said in summing up mr . schroder 's remarks . a number of european leaders are concerned that a missile_defense system could upset existing disarmament accords , particularly the 1972 antiballistic_missile treaty with russia , which must be amended to allow for the missile_defense plan . neither mr . clinton nor any of his aides have made the point at least not publicly that the administration 's plan is far less ambitious than one proposed by george w . bush , the presumptive republican nominee for president , who is ready to abandon the abm treaty as a relic of the past . but mr . berger stressed that the discord was ''not at all sharp , '' adding , ''it was a very intelligent discussion of a very complicated issue . '' for his part , mr . clinton laid out the american conviction that it must find ways to counter dangerous emerging nuclear threats like north_korea . ''i 'm concerned about how we proceed with europe and their sense of comfort level with this , '' mr . berger paraphrased mr . clinton as telling mr . schroder . ''but ultimately , i 've got to make a decision in terms of national_security . '' mr . schroder 's criticism slightly tarnished the opening of mr . clinton 's visit to berlin , the first by an american president since the city became the capital of a united germany following the end of the cold_war . on friday mr . clinton travels to aachen , the ancient capital of charlemagne , to receive the charlemagne prize , awarded annually to a person who has worked toward european unity and prosperity . on another area of contention between the united_states and germany , mr . clinton expressed concern over germany 's handling of child custody cases involving american parents . according to the state_department , germany favors german parents in custody cases and prevents american parents from gaining access to children living in germany . two prominent cases involve lady catherine meyer , the wife of sir christopher meyer , the british ambassador in washington , and joseph cooke , a new yorker . lady catherine 's two sons from a previous marriage were abducted by their german father she has been allowed to see them for a total of 24 hours in the past six years . mr . cooke has been fighting to regain custody of his two children , who were handed over to foster parents in germany seven years ago after his wife , a german , fled there with them and declared she was mentally ill . mr . schroder announced today that germany would set up a working group of experts with the united_states to investigate custody disputes involving american parents , but warned he could not interfere directly in the court system . mr . clinton has recently come under pressure from an organized lobby of american parents who complain that germany has violated conventions guaranteeing the return of kidnapped children . last week , the house of representatives endorsed the effort in a resolution , voting 416 to 0 .",has a topic of politics
lead foreign_minister hans_dietrich_genscher of west_germany urged president_reagan today to press for the elimination of chemical_weapons and for reductions of battlefield nuclear_weapons in europe . administration officials said that cuts in battlefield nuclear_weapons with ranges under 300 miles was a low arms control priority and that there would be little progress on the chemical arms issue until the united_states can verify the destruction of the weapons . foreign_minister hans_dietrich_genscher of west_germany urged president_reagan today to press for the elimination of chemical_weapons and for reductions of battlefield nuclear_weapons in europe . administration officials said that cuts in battlefield nuclear_weapons with ranges under 300 miles was a low arms control priority and that there would be little progress on the chemical arms issue until the united_states can verify the destruction of the weapons . mr . genscher is visiting washington as a representative of the european_community .,has a topic of politics
"lead the state_department today criticized a soviet demand that american warheads for west_german missiles be destroyed as part of missile accord in europe . the state_department today criticized a soviet demand that american warheads for west_german missiles be destroyed as part of missile accord in europe . the soviet demand was made in a formal statement monday at the geneva arms talks . the russians also presented a draft treaty on medium_range arms at that time . but today charles e . redman , the state_department spokesman , criticized the demand . ''the soviets had never previously raised the question , '' he said . ''for them to raise this issue now suggests a lack of serious intent . '' on monday some officials said that they had expected the issue to be raised and that the elimination of the warheads should be considered . the united_states has taken the position that the nuclear_weapons of its allies should not be covered by a soviet american treaty . but while the british and french have their own nuclear_warheads , the warheads for the west_german missiles are under the control of the united_states . mr . redman and other officials had a mixed reaction today to verification proposals in the soviet treaty draft . ''the soviets have noted that they will be seeking seeking a verification agreement in some of the basic areas which we require , '' mr . redman said . but he added that ''the devil is in the details'' and that an extended , technicial discussion was still required . for example , an american specialist said there were potential problems with the language in the soviet draft saying that inspection would be carried out at ' 'declared'' sites . under the draft , reductions of medium_range_missiles will be carried out over five years and each side would ultimately keep 100 warheads outside europe . the draft treaty reportedly says that inspections should be carried out ''where necessary . '' government experts said that this language would have to be clarified . they said the language suggested that each side might have to make a case for carrying out specific inspections . the united_states has proposed that each side carry out a limited number of inspections without having to justify them in advance . the americans said the soviet draft was more demanding in one respect . the russians suggest on site inspection for missile test sites and training ranges , while the united_states has not proposed this . the americans have proposed that each side have the right to make a limited number of visits to ''undeclared'' sites that could be used to produce or keep medium_range_missiles . the soviet draft contains no such provision . the americans said the two sides also disagreed about how the reductions were to be carried out . the russians reportedly talk about two stages , with a 50 percent reduction in the first stage . this would leave them with a temporary advantage in europe until all medium_range_missiles are eliminated since the russians have about three times as many medium_range missile warheads as the united_states . the united_states has been considering a three stage process , with each side being left with the same number of warheads after the first stage . this would require the russians to make almost all the reductions at first . aleksei a . obukhov , the soviet negotiator , today complained that under the american draft , the soviet_union alone would be making reductions ''over a considerable period of time . '' administration officials said the question of how to schedule the reductions was not a major issue and would eventually be worked out .",has a topic of politics
"a front page picture caption yesterday about the departure of the carrier nimitz for the middle_east misstated the number of crew members . it is about 5 , 000 , not 8 , 000 .",has a topic of politics
"lead as secretary of state james a . baker 3d prepared for his trip last last month to vienna , where foreign ministers gathered to begin a new round of conventional_arms talks , state_department officials were considering ways to turn the tables on the russians . as secretary of state james a . baker 3d prepared for his trip last last month to vienna , where foreign ministers gathered to begin a new round of conventional_arms talks , state_department officials were considering ways to turn the tables on the russians . the americans came up with a plan they hoped would counter the ability of the soviet leader , mikhail s . gorbachev , to win west european public opinion through arms control initiatives . mr . baker would announce a significant speedup in the removal of american chemical_weapons from west_germany , the administration 's first unilateral move on arms control . but a funny thing happened on the way to vienna . the proposal , first considered as part of the administration 's review of policy toward moscow , then developed as a separate initiative , ran into objections from the pentagon . in the end , a watered down proposal called for withdrawing american chemical_weapons from west_germany by about 1990 , two years earlier than scheduled under an american west_german understanding . public_relations points the state_department officials said it would allow the united_states to score public_relations points by inviting the soviets to witness the destruction of the weapons and challenging them to remove theirs from continental_europe , including soviet territory . moscow insists it does not have chemical_weapons in eastern_europe . the officials said speeding the weapons' withdrawal could also bolster chancellor helmut_kohl 's position in west_german elections in 1990 . but officials in the pentagon felt the initiative suffered practical problems . the administration would have to prepare a new environmental_impact_statement , they said , to take account of the chemical_weapons transported ahead of schedule to johnson island in the pacific , where the united_states is developing an installation to destroy poison_gas . additional storage sites would have to be built quickly , and their safety would have to be assessed . further , the united_states would have to speed efforts to develop airtight containers to transport the weapons safely . a senior pentagon official observed ''it 's one of those ideas that looks great at first . but when you try to make it happen , you run into a host of very practical concerns . '' but where the defense_department sees practical concerns , some state_department officials see pentagon handwringing . ''any time you try to do anything , there are lots of people who think of the problems . there is no can do attitude , '' a state_department official complained . ''we 're paralyzed . '' significantly , state_department and pentagon officials even differ on how to interpret mr . baker 's remarks in vienna . ''i am happy to announce that as one of his first acts , president_bush has directed our new administration to explore ways to accelerate the removal of our existing chemical_weapons from germany , '' mr . baker said . ''the early removal of these weapons will require available safe storage and the development of practical plans to destroy them . '' a state_department official said that should be read as a commitment to accelerate the removal of the weapons and to explore how to do it . but a pentagon official argued that the commitment promised was to explore the more basic question of whether a speed up was feasible . withdrawing might be possible by late 1991 , he said . while the administration is still actively pursuing the idea of an early withdrawal of chemical_weapons , the pentagon continues to insist that the practical problems remain , and it looks like it is not going to be easy for president_bush to steal the spotlight from the soviets .",has a topic of politics
"the department of defense has identified 1 , 509 american service members who have died since the start of the iraq_war . it confirmed the death of the following american on thursday koch , matthew a. , 23 , specialist , army west henrietta , n.y. 70th engineer battalion , first armored division .",has a topic of politics
"lead secretary of state george p . shultz said today that a strong nuclear_arsenal was crucial for western security after intermediate_range nuclear_missiles in europe are destroyed . secretary of state george p . shultz said today that a strong nuclear_arsenal was crucial for western security after intermediate_range nuclear_missiles in europe are destroyed . speaking at a news conference after meetings with west_german leaders , mr . shultz seemed to be sending a strong message to those in west_germany who now urge the elimination of battlefield range nuclear_weapons . ''we all recognize that the nuclear_deterrent has kept the peace in europe for the past 40 years , '' he said . ''and so as far as anyone can see ahead , we 're going to have to continue to rely on nuclear deterrents . '' mr . shultz called predictions by conservative critics that the u.s . soviet treaty eliminating medium_range_missiles will lead to denuclearization ''nonsense . '' he added , ''people who say you 've eliminated one therefore we 're in danger of eliminating everything , i do n't quite get it . '' warsaw_pact a concern united_states soviet agreement on the elimination of medium_range_missiles has been met by increasingly public opposition to the shorter missiles in west_germany , where battlefield weapons would likely be used . many germans are also deeply concerned about the potential threat from the warsaw_pact because of its advantage in conventional_arms and from the soviet_union 's arsenal of short range nuclear_weapons . last week , chancellor helmut_kohl called the problem of short range missiles not covered by the treaty ''of special significance for our people in light of the drastic numerical superiority of the soviet arsenal . '' but west_german leaders did not raise the politically sensitive issue of short range weapons in their meetings with mr . shultz , according to a senior state_department official . and mr . shultz said that ''there was hardly much chance'' to discuss the problem . '' regional and rights issues the meetings focused instead on regional and human_rights issues discussed at the summit conference , trade and the united_states economy and priorities within nato , the senior state_department official said . although the short range missile issue remains a thorny political problem within germany , there is no attempt by bonn to break the unity of the alliance on how to proceed with further arms reductions , the official said . ''there are differences of views and i 'm not going to tell you there is n't concern , '' the official said , adding that in germany , ''yes , there is a public discussion of this issue , and no , it 's not an issue in the alliance . ''",has a topic of politics
"nobody tends the stalls at the main market under the big painted signs . nothing moves on the streets . no one answers when american_soldiers pound on the flimsy metal gates of the houses . no objections are raised when the soldiers peer into kitchen pantries or , their heads cocked with suspicion , pull the dust cover off a television_set that is being stored in the corner of a living room . out of the hundreds of homes here and in a neighboring town , mulla fayyad , most were empty when the soldiers descended at dusk and began an overnight search , house by house , for insurgents and their weaponry . families were at home in only a small number of houses , perhaps a few dozen . it is not as though no one lives here . fresh onions and tomatoes sat on a counter , some of them cut up and ready to eat . children 's sandals lay where they were kicked off on a porch or at the bottom of a stairway . small iraqi banknotes tumbled to the floor when a cupboard was pulled open . but nobody was home . while terrorism suspects and militia fighters have routinely slipped away from their pursuers ever since last year 's invasion , the sudden emptying of whole towns before unannounced raids appears to be a new phenomenon . ''something happened , and they knew we were coming , '' said staff sgt . norm witka of the 1st brigade , 23rd infantry_regiment , whose unit was one of those that poured into the towns and searched nearly every room of every house . the mystery of the disappearing populace has repeated itself during sweeps by soldiers and marines in northern babil province , a patch of land about 30 miles south of baghdad . it is an area that is not only hostile to the american occupation but thought to contain important supply lines for insurgents elsewhere in the country . the 24th_marine_expeditionary_unit , which is leading the operation in babil , has indicated that weapons dumps and people suspected of being insurgents have been rounded up . but most of the finds have been modest , as illustrated by the haul in yusufiya and mulla fayyad three ak_47 's , a 9 millimeter_pistol and some flak_jackets . in one house , said capt . rob robinson , who described the finds , soldiers discovered paramilitary literature and some photos of one of the residents with saddam_hussein . ''it did n't look threatening , but it generally seemed out of place , '' captain robinson said of the stash . theories about why the people are fleeing are varied , and little is known of where they go , or for how long . captain robinson said he believed insurgents hoped that americans would attack the town and then be ridiculed by the local citizens . but there was no attack only the searches . when asked where all the people had gone , one of the few residents shrugged and made a sweeping gesture toward the countryside . ''felah , '' he said , using the word for farmer . in the moonless darkness not even the streetlights were glowing the towns were defined by the sounds that ricocheted through the warm night air . the barking of dogs , the hollow thunk of soldiers kicking in doors , shotgun blasts to rip open padlocks , the tinkling of broken glass falling onto a concrete floor . the soldiers were generally as respectful as possible to the people who remained , and there appeared to be no unnecessary damage inside the houses after the searches . but as the night wore on and nothing of value turned up , some of the young americans in uniform seemed to grow bored . they fired several times at one lock but failed to open it . a few moments later , a soldier stepped forward , made a tremendous swing with a crowbar and fell on his behind . the group roared with laughter . the jollity continued as the group smashed the lock on a gate 50 feet away on the same street and a frightened rooster crowed and sprinted about inside . ''that 's the iraqi_air_force , '' a soldier joked , to more laughter . another soldier said , ''this is n't even a mission anymore , '' saying he and his colleagues were ''just doing whatever we want . '' as the soldiers tromped farther down the street , a lone iraqi boy leaned out of the shadows in one doorway and silently took it all in . on this street , at least one resident had remained . the reach of war on patrol",has a topic of politics
"after a_20 month investigation , the panel that has led the chief congressional inquiry into the illnesses of persian_gulf_war veterans will ask that the defense_department and the department_of_veterans_affairs be stripped of their authority over the issue . in its final report , the house committee on government reform and oversight said the congressional investigation showed that ''a variety of toxic agents in the gulf_war , '' including iraqi chemical_weapons and pesticides , were probably responsible for the health problems reported by thousands of veterans . the report , which is expected to be made public next week , says the pentagon and the department_of_veterans_affairs have so mishandled the investigation of the veterans' health problems that congress should create or designate an agency independent of them to coordinate research into the ailments' cause . the report acknowledged that the mystery over the illnesses reported by veterans would probably linger for years . a defense_department spokesman said the pentagon would withhold comment on the house report until it received a copy . ''sadly , when it comes to diagnosis , treatment and research for gulf_war veterans , we find the federal_government too often has a tin ear , a cold heart and a closed mind , '' said representative_christopher_shays , the connecticut republican who is chairman of the subcommittee that prepared the report . a copy of the report , which is expected to have bipartisan support and to be approved by the committee in a vote next week , was obtained by the new york times from an official who has been critical of government response . the report will be released ahead of a separate study by a white_house panel of experts that will be nearly as harsh in its criticism of the defense_department . in a draft of that study , the white_house panel , called the presidential advisory committee on gulf_war veterans' illnesses , said that the pentagon had ''an institutional culture and pervasive inclination'' to ignore or dismiss evidence suggesting that american_soldiers may have been exposed to iraqi chemical_weapons . ''lack of due diligence means only certain facts come to light , '' it said . congressional officials say they hope that the release of such blistering criticism from two sources capitol_hill and the presidential committee will force president_clinton to remove the pentagon and the department_of_veterans_affairs from any further oversight of the investigation of the illnesses reported by gulf_war veterans . if the white_house does not act , they say , members of congress will offer legislation to accomplish the same goal , possibly through a bill that would turn over responsibility for the investigations to the national_institutes_of_health or some other federal agency . the house report said that the agency given responsibility for the inquiries should direct federal money to studies involving the treatment of the neurological problems that are commonly reported by gulf_war veterans and that may be the result of chemical_exposures . in the introduction to the report , representative shays , chairman of the government reform subcommittee on human_resources , said that the investigations by the pentagon and the department_of_veterans_affairs were ''irreparably flawed'' and had been ''plagued by arrogant incuriosity and a pervasive myopia that sees a lack of evidence as proof . '' ''we reluctantly conclude that responsibility for gulf_war illnesses , especially the research agenda , must be placed in a more responsive agency , independent of the department of defense and veterans_affairs , '' he said . ''we find current approaches to research , diagnosis and treatment unlikely to yield answers to veterans' life or death questions . '' though some scientists believe that iraqi chemical_weapons and other poisons released on the battlefield are responsible for many of the health problems , which typically include chronic digestive problems and memory loss , other researchers believe that combat stress is more likely to be the cause . after more than five years of denials , the defense_department acknowledged last year for the first time the possibility that large numbers of american_troops were exposed to chemical_weapons during or after the war . the pentagon has since estimated that as many as 100 , 000 american_troops , or one out of seven american_soldiers who served in the war , were exposed to low doses of the nerve_gas sarin released in the demolition of an iraqi ammunition depot in march 1991 , shortly after the war . the department says there is no evidence to show that the exposures led to illnesses among the thousands of veterans who have since complained of health problems , but it has agreed to provide millions of dollars in new research on the issue . last month , defense secretary william s . cohen said that the pentagon should not be stripped of its authority in the investigation of the illnesses of gulf_war veterans . while acknowledging that the pentagon had done an inadequate job for several years in studying the ailments , mr . cohen said that the military had mounted a far more aggressive inquiry over the last year . ''i believe that the pentagon is fully capable of conducting an investigation , '' he said . the house report does not identify what agency should take over the investigation except to say that it must be ' 'more responsive'' and ''independent from the departments of defense and veterans_affairs . '' ''having demonstrated unwillingness and inability to overcome institutional biases and constraints , the departments of defense and veterans_affairs should no longer control the persian_gulf_war illness research agency , '' the report said . the report does not single out any one poison as the cause of the health problems . instead it offers a list ''chemical and biological_warfare agents , organophosphates found in pesticides and insect repellents , leaded diesel_fuel , depleted uranium , oil well fire smoke , leaded vehicle exhaust , contaminated drinking_water , shower water and clothing , parasites , and pyridostigmine_bromide and other drugs to protect against chemical_warfare agents . '' pyridostigmine_bromide pills were widely distributed to american_soldiers during the war to protect them against the effects of soman , a nerve_gas that iraq had stockpiled in huge quantities . but recent research suggests that the drug can cause serious health problems if taken when the body is experiencing stress .",has a topic of politics
"the farther south the marines push through this rebellious city , the more often they notice that the men shooting at them are wearing tan uniforms with a smart looking camouflage pattern that is the color of chocolate chips . those are the uniforms of the iraqi national_guard . on friday , after several hours of nonstop gun_battles around a mosque in southern falluja had killed about 100 insurgents , the marines said that those tan uniforms had cost one of their own his life the day before . it happened in what they first called an ambush , but now believe was a case of mistaken identity , combined with quick reflexes by insurgents who are using their wits to deadly effect as they approach their last stand . the insurgents are also believed to have killed marines in the first battalion , eighth marines , with the help of a network of tunnels gouged beneath falluja for this fight . and they have apparently found a way to zero in with their mortars on strobes that the marines use to mark their position as a protection against friendly fire strobes that they thought were invisible to their foe . ''you can tell that the quality of the fighters has improved as we 've moved south through the city , '' said lt . steven berch . ''they shoot better , they move better , they cover themselves better . '' that progression , too , seems to have been part of a plan by the rebels . how well it has worked is open to debate , but the 50 man platoon that lost the marine on thursday had nine other casualties as well a stunning rate of 20 percent in a single day all a result of the rebels' skill . this tale begins with the iraqi soldiers who sat in a circle , cross_legged , within the great mosque on friday , wearing those same tan uniforms . the only difference was that these iraqis had been ordered to mark themselves as friendlies with swatches of red_tape on their right arms and white tape on their left legs . on this day , the soldiers were not doing much of anything except eating mre 's , the american military 's ''meals ready to eat . '' in fact , they have done little if any fighting at all , but as a gesture to muslim sensitivities are generally the first to enter each mosque as it is taken . when approached and asked about themselves , the soldiers reflexively lapse into robotic platitudes . ''i joined the iraqi_army to clean the terrorists out of our country , '' said a man who identified himself only as muhammad , a sunni arab from mosul . ''i am proud to be doing this . '' the soldiers have revealed more of themselves during their limited periods of activity . during the gun battle around the mosque , an iraqi in civilian clothes who had been seriously wounded in the face appeared on the street waving a white_flag . ''do n't shoot , do n't shoot ! '' he pleaded in arabic . ''i have a family with me . there are women in the car . '' there were no obvious signs of an ambush , but two of the iraqi soldiers said , ''just shoot him . '' but for whatever reason , the americans held off , and the man produced his wife , mother and two children , all struck by gunfire . his daughter had been shot in the back and his mother in the head . trying their best to avoid stepping on another set of muslim taboos , marines attempted to remove the bullet from the man 's daughter while she was standing up , with her clothes on . her fate is unknown , but the man 's mother died later . these seemingly loyal iraqi soldiers had no direct involvement in the thursday incident first classified as an ambush . but visual memory being what it is , when members of the first platoon , b company , first battalion , eighth regiment of the first marine expeditionary force , turned onto a street on thursday , they saw the chocolate_chip camouflage pattern and hesitated . there was no red_tape on the right arm or white tape on the left leg . it did not matter . before that registered with the marines , the insurgents opened fire , killing one and wounding two . the rebels fled . inside the mosque , staff sgt . eric brown of the first platoon looked toward the iraqis who were eating the mre 's . ''they should just take these guys out of here , '' sergeant brown said , ''because they 're causing my men to hesitate . '' he added , ''that hesitation cost my marine his life . '' it is not clear whether the bootlegged uniforms have been stolen or bought on the black_market , or whether they are actually on the backs of the iraqis who have been trained and put into the uniforms by americans as a replacement for saddam_hussein 's disbanded security forces . after an aborted invasion of this city in april , a uniformed group called the falluja brigade was formed but quickly disbanded . ''you ca n't see the tape at night , '' conceded col . craig tucker , commander of a huge combat team made up of several battalions , including the first battalion . colonel tucker also conceded that the iraqi fighters were not in the same league as the marines . but he said , ''it 's important to the people of falluja that iraqi soldiers are here . '' the marines here say that insurgents also turn up in the uniforms of the old iraqi_army . whether the uniforms are some ploy or just a way to stay warm , though , it is clear that this is not the only way they are getting inside the americans' heads . seven of the first platoon 's casualties thursday came when marines entered a house and there were two big explosions . some of the wounded said that grenades had been tossed at them , and when marines later discovered a tunnel system under the house , they surmised that the insurgents had entered that way and attacked . ''we were briefed that there was a tunnel system under the city , '' said sgt . sam williams , who saw the tunnels before the entire structure was destroyed . as for the insurgents apparently using the american military 's strobes the ones that protect against friendly fire to guide their nighttime mortar attacks , the marines solved that problem by removing them from the buildings they occupied . and for a few minutes on thursday night , as capt . read omohundro and about a dozen other members of b company sat in the dark on a rooftop , things were quiet . there was only slight concern when captain omohundro heard on the radio that a group of about 15 insurgents had been identified somewhere close to his position , and that an airstrike had been called in to destroy them . then something clicked in his mind , and he rushed to the radio and called off the airstrike . the captain had been mistaken for an insurgent . the conflict in iraq fighting",has a topic of politics
"german officials heatedly protested remarks made by representative_tom_lantos , a democrat of california who is chairman of the house_foreign_affairs_committee , in which he described former chancellor_gerhard_schr_der as a ''political prostitute'' for taking a job with a russian state gas company . the government spokesman , ulrich wilhelm , said the comment , made in a speech at the dedication ceremony for a victims of communism memorial in washington on tuesday , was ''unseemly . '' the foreign_minister , frank walter steinmeier , said it had breached the bounds of decorum and was a ' 'discredit'' to mr . lantos . mr . schr_der has been criticized within germany for his new job , overseeing a pipeline project . mark_landler",has a topic of politics
"the new supreme commander for american_forces in europe , gen . james l . jones , is considering a plan to scale back the presence of american_troops in germany in favor of lighter , more mobile units that could jump from country to country on a moment 's notice , according to congressional officials who were briefed on the proposal . the plan , which appears to be in the early phases of development and has not been formally presented to secretary of defense donald h . rumsfeld , grows out of general jones 's experience as commandant of the marine_corps , where he championed the idea of having bare boned ''lily pad'' bases scattered around the world , rather than having american_forces tied down to a few sprawling bases . but the idea is sure to be contentious for two reasons . first , germany 's relations with the united_states have been deeply strained by the opposition of chancellor_gerhard_schr_der to the use of military force to disarm iraq . any talk of pulling american_forces out of germany , no matter how preliminary , is sure to heighten the impression that the two countries are pulling further apart . second , general jones 's idea would impose a major cultural change on the army , effectively asking it to behave more like the marine_corps . any such proposal would be sure to engender resentment within the army , which is already feeling embattled by pentagon planners who think it is too hidebound . members of congress and their aides who were briefed about the concept last friday before a nato meeting , said general jones had only presented the plan as something he was thinking about , and did not suggest that mr . rumsfeld was pressing for its adoption . ''my impression was that this was not yet a plan , but some preliminary thinking that , when completed , he would present for further consideration , '' said one senate aide . but there is little doubt among the members of congress that mr . rumsfeld is playing a significant role in pushing the proposal forward . the secretary has been an advocate of making american_forces lighter and more mobile . some of his closest advisers have argued that american bases overseas will become more and more vulnerable , and should be replaced by forces that can move quickly across long distances from more secure redoubts . furthermore , general jones was mr . rumsfeld 's selection for supreme commander of american_forces in europe , and it is likely mr . rumsfeld would have encouraged the general to develop his ideas . while general jones 's proposal might appear to grow out of recent german american tensions , pentagon planners have been searching for ways to restructure american_forces in europe , and particularly germany , since the cold_war ended . threats and responses military",has a topic of politics
"a report in the world briefing column on wednesday about a reward offered by the german police for information on the shooting of an american soldier misstated the amount . it is about 5 , 400 , not 4 , 600 .",has a topic of politics
"lawyers for the victims of a 1986 anti american bomb attack on the la belle disco in berlin requested life sentences for four people charged with the bombing . earlier this month the prosecution also demanded life sentences for the four , a palestinian , yasir shraydi , a libyan , musbah eter , and ali and verena chanaa , both german nationals . prosecutors said mr . shraydi , who worked for the libyan embassy in east_berlin , had organized the attack on behalf of the libyan secret services . the bombing killed two american servicemen and a turkish woman and injured more than 200 people , many of them american_soldiers . victor_homola ( nyt )",has a topic of politics
"lead lothar de maiziere , east_germany 's first freely elected head of government and probably its last , conferred today with president_bush on german_unification and related issues . lothar de maiziere , east_germany 's first freely elected head of government and probably its last , conferred today with president_bush on german_unification and related issues . east and west_germany are preparing to establish monetary_union in three weeks and while political_union will take longer there is no question that prime_minister de maiziere 's part of germany will ultimately be absorbed by the federal_republic . he was elected in march on a platform of bringing about german_unification as swiftly as feasible . president_bush appeared to wish to enlist mr . de maiziere in a campaign to create full membership in the north_atlantic_treaty_organization for a united germany , a plan endorsed by chancellor helmut_kohl of west_germany but opposed by the soviet_union . after a half hour formal meeting , mr . bush continued his discussion with mr . de maiziere over lunch . the white_house made a point of emphasizing that it was the first meeting between an american president and an east_german head of government . bush calls union essential marlin fitzwater , the white_house spokesman , said afterward that ''president_bush reiterated our firm position that a united germany , acting as a full member of nato , is essential to european security and stability . '' mr . de maiziere 's response was not immediately made clear , but in an address this evening at georgetown_university , the east_german prime_minister took a different tack , saying german_unification must ''take into due consideration the security interests of our east european neighbors , primarily those of the u.s.s.r. , poland and czechoslovakia . '' he also said german unity ' 'must stimulate progress of the c.s.c.e . process'' a reference to the 35 country conference on security and cooperation in europe , which began life in helsinki in 1975 . mr . de maiziere suggested that a strengthened conference in the form of a ' 'security and peace union'' could initially function as a complement to nato and the warsaw_pact and then ultimately supplant them . this suggestion is closer to soviet policy as articulated by president mikhail s . gorbachev in washington at the beginning of this month than it is to the thinking of president_bush and chancellor kohl . the east_german leader met briefly on capitol_hill with representative lee h . hamilton , democrat of indiana , and other members of the house_foreign_affairs_committee and subsequently with a group of american businessmen . this evening he presented the united_states holocaust memorial council with the keystone of an arch of the oranienburgerstrasse synagogue in berlin . the synagogue , one of the largest in the world when it was built in 1866 , was damaged by nazi storm troopers during the kristallnacht pogrom of nov . 9 , 1938 . evolution in europe",has a topic of politics
"mounting concern in the united_states over the export of military technology without adequate controls is threatening an ambitious new program to train fighter pilots from several nato countries in the vast skies over western_canada . united_states regulators are refusing to issue an export license for 24 high powered american made training planes until they get iron clad guarantees from the canadian government that the aircraft , and the technology that went into its development , will not fall into the hands of unfriendly nations . regulators are worried because the planes are being purchased not by the canadian government , but by a private company in canada that in 1997 was awarded a 2 . 8 billion contract to run the nato training program . at the time , no one expected problems . since then , though , the unauthorized transfer of classified military technology to china and examples of restricted military hardware finding its way to third countries from canada have heightened concerns about this program . congress could try to hold up the 82 million sale to canada until it gets assurances that the planes will not be resold to countries that otherwise would not be allowed to have them . weapons smugglers have used canada to circumvent american export restrictions so often that the clinton_administration recently imposed tough new controls on sales of weapons and military technology to canada . the sale to bombardier of montreal of 24 t 6a 1 raytheon aircraft turboprop trainers , the basic training plane for the united_states_navy and air_force , would be the first transfer of american military technology to the private_sector , united_states officials said . in a drive to balance its budget , the canadian government gave the contract to bombardier , and also leased it a base moose jaw in saskatchewan thereby saving the base from what would have been an unpopular closure . officials in washington are concerned that selling planes to bombardier could set a precedent that powerful foreign corporations would cite in other purchases . ''we sell airplanes to governments , not to private companies , '' said a senior american official opposed to the sale . ''if the contract goes bust , where do the assets go ? '' delivery of the planes is scheduled to begin in october but the united_states' demands could force delays . ''we have advised our customer the ministry of national defense that there may be a schedule impact , '' said zev rosenzweig , vice_president for aviation training in the defense division of bombardier aerospace . ''but this situation is so different from what happened with china that i have faith that even congresspeople will appreciate the difference . '' but james p . richardson , manager of the nato flying training in canada program for canada 's department of national defense , said maintenance and operating schedules for the sophisticated trainers were not ready because the state_department had not allowed raytheon to provide the necessary specifications to canada . ''as raytheon got to the point of providing that information , things slowed down in a hurry , '' mr . richardson said . raytheon officials are uneasy . james gregory , a raytheon spokesman , said that if the sale was not approved expeditiously , the multimillion_dollar order ''could go to an international competitor . '' senator sam_brownback , republican of kansas , where raytheon aircraft is located , has written to the state_department to object to the way regulators have jeopardized the sale . senator brownback 's staff refused to discuss his objections . originally , canada had planned to buy the trainers from the embraer company of brazil , but switched to raytheon when embraer could not guarantee delivery in time . washington officials say they are not unduly suspicious of canada or bombardier , a diversified corporation best known for manufacturing snowmobiles but now a major aerospace producer . but they are concerned about canada 's ability to control the re export of american military technology . for decades , canada enjoyed special exemption from most military export controls , reflecting its decision after world_war_ii to forgo developing its own defense industry and instead supply components to american weapons contractors from whom it has made most purchases . but in april , severe restrictions were put on canada after what senior american officials involved in defense trade described as recent incidents in which canada was intended to be a conduit for supplying helicopters , missile parts and other military items to countries forbidden to buy them . under the new rules , military exports to canada will become much more cumbersome . what is at risk , said daniel verreault , vice_president of the aerospace industries association of canada , is 5 billion a year in military goods and services that has developed out of the special relationship between the two countries . bombardier officials say that they need to recruit pilots from several nato and non nato countries to recoup their costs over the projected 20 year life of its 2 . 8 billion contract for pilot training programs . so far , denmark has signed a 250 million contract to train six of its pilots every year for the next 20 years in canada . negotiations are close to being complete with britain , company officials said . bombardier also is talking to italy , and to one non nato country . mr . rosenzweig of bombardier said that additional aircraft would have to be purchased as the other nations signed up their pilots , but he said that the bonds sold to purchase the raytheon planes are backed completely by the tuition for training canadian pilots , and therefore there is ''zero chance of default . '' . the initial purchase of 24 aircraft is being undertaken by a paper company called milit air inc . , which was set up by bombardier and will then lease the planes for 20 years to bombardier aerospace . bombardier is also spending 400 million to purchase 18 british_aerospace mark 115 hawks , modified to simulate the flight of f 18 fighter jets . mr . rosenzweig said the first student pilots were supposed to begin training next february , starting on the t 6a trainer , then on the hawk . the unusual private_sector arrangement is raising concerns in canada , as well .",has a topic of politics
"lead defense_secretary_dick_cheney said today that political change in eastern_europe may eventually allow nato to scale back its plans for defending europe . defense_secretary_dick_cheney said today that political change in eastern_europe may eventually allow nato to scale back its plans for defending europe . in keeping with his recent statements , mr . cheney welcomed east_germany 's decision to open its border with the west while cautioning against making any immediate cuts in nato forces . but mr . cheney also suggested in an interview that continued moves toward democracy in eastern_europe may eventually lead the north_atlantic_treaty_organization to revise its military plans . for example , it may make less use of active units and more use of reserves . 'bolder set of assumptions' nato members are already studying what sort of military structure they might have after a new agreement cutting conventional forces in europe is concluded . continued political change in eastern_europe , mr . cheney said , will enable western military planners to ''factor in a bolder set of assumptions . '' one planning contingency , he said , is an eastern_europe that ''is dominated by noncommunist , democratically_elected regimes that are still part of the warsaw_pact . '' ''if you can assume such a europe , you may have more warning time and lean more heavily on reserves , '' mr . cheney said . ''you may be able to able to make different assumptions about the extent to which those governments might join with the soviet_government'' in a hypothetical conflict . 'seeds of instability' at the same that mr . cheney noted the longer_term possibility for altering nato 's military posture , he cautioned against any immediate cutbacks . ''rapid change also contains within the potential seeds of instability , '' mr . cheney said . ''you have got to assume that there are elements that are not enthusiatic about tearing down the wall , '' he said , referring to some east_german politicians . clamor in the east the balance of power",has a topic of politics
"lead president_reagan sought today to undercut europe 's perception of mikhail s . gorbachev as a leader of peace , bluntly challenging the soviet leader to tear down the berlin_wall . president_reagan sought today to undercut europe 's perception of mikhail s . gorbachev as a leader of peace , bluntly challenging the soviet leader to tear down the berlin_wall . speaking 100 yards from the wall that was thrown up in 1961 to thwart an exodus to the west , mr . reagan made the wall a metaphor for ideological and economic differences separating east and west . ''there is one sign the soviets can make that would be unmistakable , that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace , '' the president said . ''secretary general gorbachev , if you seek peace if you seek prosperity for the soviet_union and eastern_europe if you seek liberalization come here , to this gate . ''mr . gorbachev , open this gate . ''mr . gorbachev , tear down this wall . '' mr . reagan made the remarks with the brandenburg_gate in east_berlin in the background . an east_berlin security post was in view . the berlin police estimated that 20 , 000 people had turned out to hear the president , but some observers thought the crowd was smaller than that . the soviet press agency tass said that mr . reagan , by calling for destruction of the wall , had given an ''openly provocative , war mongering speech'' reminiscent of the cold_war . reagan peers into east_berlin before the speech , mr . reagan peered across the wall from a balcony of the old reichstag building into east_berlin , where a patrol boat and a gray brick sentry post were visible . later , when asked how he felt , he said , ''i think it 's an ugly scar . '' asked how he regarded a perception among some people in europe that mr . gorbachev was more committed to peace , mr . reagan said , ''they just have to learn , do n't they ? '' administration officials had portrayed the speech as a major policy statement . but the main new initiative was a call to the soviet_union to assist in helping berlin become an aviation hub of central_europe by agreeing to make commercial air service more convenient . some reagan advisers wanted an address with less polemics but lost to those who favored use of the opportunity to raise east west differences and questions about mr . gorbachev 's commitment to ending the nuclear arms race and his internal liberalization policies . ''in europe , only one nation and those it controls refuse to join the community of freedom , '' mr . reagan said . ''yet , in this age of redoubled economic_growth of information and innovation , the soviet_union faces a choice . it must make fundamental changes or it will become obsolete . '' shield of bulletproof glass speaking with two panes of bulletproof glass shielding him from east_berlin , mr . reagan stressed a theme of freedom and peaceful reunification of berlin . that was a point made by president_kennedy in his ''ich bin ein berliner'' speech two years after the wall was built . ''standing before the brandenburg_gate , every man is a german , separated from his fellow men , '' mr . reagan said . ''every man is a berliner , forced to look upon a scar . '' using this speech to portray moscow as the villain in the arms_race , mr . reagan said 10 years ago it had challenged the western alliance with a ''grave new threat'' by deploying ss 20 nuclear_missiles that could strike west european capitals . but , mr . reagan said , the alliance remained strong and had deployed pershing 2 and cruise_missiles , so the prospects for eliminating such nuclear_weapons is ''within the reach of possibility . '' ''while we pursue these arms reductions , i pledge to you that we will maintain the capacity to deter soviet aggression at any level at which it might occur , '' he said . mr . reagan , whose speech was broadcast to west european_countries , said it was unclear whether mr . gorbachev 's campaign of liberalization represented ''profound changes'' or ''token changes . '' the wall has been an attractive symbol to american_presidents , including mr . kennedy and jimmy_carter . taking note of that pattern , mr . reagan said , ''we come to berlin , we american_presidents , because it is our duty to speak in this place of freedom . '' the trip , in which mr . reagan also took part in a ceremony celebrating berlin 's 750th anniversary , provided the president with a lift at the end of the economic summit meeting in venice of the seven major industrialized_democracies . at the end of a second event in berlin , at tempelhof airport , miniature parachutes rained down as symbols of the 1948 49 airlift that kept the city alive during a soviet land blockade . greeted by kohl chancellor helmut_kohl of west_germany greeted the president and then flew aboard air_force one to bonn to receive him there . speaking before the president , mr . kohl said that the countries of the soviet_bloc 's warsaw_pact ' 'must abandon their conventional superiority and their aggressive military_doctrine . '' suggesting berlin as a start for cooperation between east and west , mr . reagan urged international meetings , summer exchanges of youngsters from west_berlin and east_berlin , culture exchanges and sports events , including olympic_games jointly in the two countries . several times , mr . reagan addressed addressed the germans in their language . in one case , mr . reagan made a special appeal to east berliners by saying , ''es gibt nur ein berlin , '' or ''there is only one berlin . '' he began his remarks by quoting from a popular old song ''i come here today because wherever i go , whatever i do 'ich hab' noch einen koffer in berlin , ' or 'i still have a suitcase in berlin . ' ''",has a topic of politics
"gen . george w . casey_jr . , the top commander in iraq , is reviewing a proposal to add hundreds of american military advisers to work directly with iraqi units , whose disappointing performance could jeopardize the long term american exit_strategy from iraq , senior military officials said monday . americans are training iraqi_police officers and national_guard troops to replace them in securing the country , but the results over all have been troubling , with growing desertion rates in the most violent provinces , gaps in leadership , and poor battlefield performance , american military officers and troops say . the advisers would bolster the iraqi will to fight , help train officers who would lead the troops , curb desertion and provide iraqi forces with the confidence that american units would back them up in some cases fighting alongside them if needed , military and pentagon officials said . several hundred american_troops are already embedded with iraqi units , following a long tradition in american military actions . but the proposal would greatly expand this presence . the details of the proposal are still being discussed among american and iraqi officials , and more troops would probably not be embedded until after the jan . 30 elections , in which iraqi forces will play a crucial part . embedding more americans with iraqis would mean diverting perhaps several hundred additional american_troops away from combat operations , military officials said . there are 150 , 000 american_forces in iraq . although diverting soldiers might be risky at a time when commanders say they need troops to press offensives against insurgents , the plan addresses a widely acknowledged need . american commanders have praised the skills of some iraqi forces , particularly new commando_units that have seen combat throughout the country . but the americans have criticized other iraqi forces for their slovenly appearance and lack of commitment , raising questions about how soldiers and marines will respond tojoining such units . there has been widespread concern in the bush_administration about the poor performance of iraqi troops . president_bush himself discussed the issue in a news conference on dec . 20 . ''they 've got some generals in place and they 've got foot soldiers in place , but the whole command structure necessary to have a viable military is not in place , '' he said . ''and so they 're going to spend a lot of time and effort on achieving that objective . '' if approved , the plan would expand and standardize steps already taken by some american units , including the army 's first cavalry division and some marine_corps units , to enhance the training that the iraqi_army , national_guard and police_forces receive after boot_camp . ''the development of iraqi_security_forces is , in my view , necessarily the main effort , '' brig . gen . carter_ham , commander of american_forces in northern iraq , said in an e mail message from his headquarters in mosul on monday . ''building capable and loyal iraqi forces is what will eventually lead to the defeat of the insurgency and to a sufficiently stable environment so that u.s . and other forces can begin to reduce our presence . '' general ham , noting the earlier efforts by some units , said , ''it 's time to apply it on a larger scale . '' ''it seems to me that this is something we want to start doing in the immediate post election period , '' he said . the proposal that general casey and his top aides are weighing has received support in principle from pentagon officials at a time when defense secretary donald h . rumsfeld has been urging commanders in iraq to accelerate the creation of iraqi_security_forces and to improve their quality , a senior pentagon official said monday . general casey , at a pentagon news conference on dec . 16 , said an exhaustive internal review of the military 's campaign plan for iraq concluded that training the local police and building a better border_patrol were two of three essential areas that were well behind schedule . the other area was establishing effective iraqi intelligence services . proponents of embedding programs readily acknowledge that they will lose the american_troops for active combat operations , but they insist that the iraqis' training and confidence has improved . ''it 's cost us , '' brig . gen . jeffery hammond , an assistant commander of the first cavalry division in baghdad , told reporters last week of the division 's 540 soldiers who are now assigned to iraqi national_guard units in the city . but , he added , ''it pays dividends . '' some influential lawmakers , however , including senator john w . warner , a virginia republican who heads the armed services committee and who recently visited troops in iraq , have expressed pessimism that iraqis will be able to develop independent security forces potent enough to thwart the insurgency . ''the raw_material is lacking in the willpower and commitment after they receive this training to really shoulder the heavy responsibilities , '' he said on the nbc_news program ''meet the press'' on dec . 19 . on paper , there are reasons for worry and for hope , military officials say . there are plans to produce a total of 179 , 600 police and border_patrol officers . of about 116 , 000 officers on duty now , only 73 , 000 are fully trained and equipped , according to pentagon statistics on dec . 27 . about half of a projected 100 , 000 iraqi_army , national_guard and commando troops are now operating . there are now 10 man adviser and support teams with each of 27 regular iraqi_army and intervention force battalions ( nine of which are still in training ) , their nine brigade headquarters ( three still in training ) and their three division headquarters , senior military officials in iraq said . in addition , adviser teams from army special_forces and other american units are with most of the iraqi national_guard forces . expanding on those adviser teams , the proposal before general casey would probably provide 10 man teams with 45 existing and 20 emerging national_guard battalions . in addition , the department_of_homeland_security is providing small teams to help train new iraqi border_police officers , a military official in iraq said . some details of the new plan were first reported by cnn on dec . 26 . some of the most ambitious plans are to bolster the abilities of the iraqi_police . the new iraqi government has fielded about a dozen police commando_units or other specialized units , whose performance american officers have largely praised . the commandos include former iraqi special_forces troops and have performed well , combining commando skills and weaponry with police powers to make arrests , a senior allied official in baghdad said monday . the approach would also provide assistance and mentoring to the 3 , 500 basic police graduates that academies in iraq and jordan are churning out every month . after the insurgent_attacks on police stations in mosul in november , in which most of the city 's police officers abandoned their posts , american officials , working closely with the iraqi government , have toughened the training to resemble more paramilitary operations and have enforced policies to cut down on iraqis' skipping out on leave . in mosul , american_forces have been assigned to all police stations . on saturday , iraqi_security_forces and their american advisers fought off a rocket_propelled_grenade attack on a police station in the southeast part of the city . a military spokesman , lt . col . paul_hastings , said it was the 12th time since nov . 10 that insurgents had tried to take over a police station , none of which have fallen to rebels in that period .",has a topic of politics
"as a response to iraq 's concerted challenge to united_states planes , president_clinton has expanded the powers of military flight crews to fight back when threatened in the no flight zones over northern and southern iraq , the president 's national_security adviser acknowledged today . pentagon officials confirmed that one of the american missiles launched on monday missed its target by at least 18 miles and struck a residential area near basra , in southern iraq . eleven civilians were killed in american attacks that day , the iraqi government said . the national_security adviser , samuel r . berger , said of the new powers , ''our pilots understand , and our air_force understands , that if there are violations of the no_fly_zone , that our response be not simply against the particular source of the violation or source of the threat . '' he added , ''our response , as appropriate , will be against any of the air defense systems that we think makes us vulnerable . '' mr . berger disclosed the change in policy at a breakfast for reporters covering the military , saying it happened within the past month . since the four day air campaign against iraq last month , american planes have encountered nearly daily provocations from surface_to_air_missiles , ground fire and radar installations while patrolling the zones over southern and northern iraq , the pentagon says . the zones were set up to protect iraqi kurds and shiite_muslims from attacks by president saddam_hussein 's government . but until today the pentagon had not admitted that it had increased the authorization to respond beyond earlier rules . ''we 're responding in a different way , and it 's not tit for tat , '' said a defense_department official , who spoke on condition of anonymity . ''now if you challenge us , you threaten us , we 'll respond in the way we think best reduces the threat to our pilots . '' the bombing in basra on monday highlighted the risks of the new policy , which pentagon officials said was aimed at protecting pilots patrolling the no flight zones . to that end , the pilots may now attack a variety of installations within iraq 's air defense system even if those sites were not the immediate source of action against american planes . in acknowledging the errant missile today , kenneth h . bacon , the spokesman for defense secretary william s . cohen , said , ''we regret any civilian casualties , '' although he said american officials had ''no independent confirmation'' that the missile had killed any iraqis . today , american planes attacked five sites in the northern no flight zone after hostile action by iraqi forces , the defense_department said . lieut . col . steve campbell said iraqi antiaircraft_artillery systems near mosul had targeted the american planes with radar , indicating a possible intention to shoot them down . in response two f_15e fighter jets dropped precision_guided_bombs . earlier in the day , american planes fired on three other sites in northern iraq . the new bombing policy builds on what mr . berger described as the increasing diplomatic isolation and resulting frustration of president hussein . on sunday the iraqi foreign_minister , mohammed said al sahaf , walked out of an arab_league meeting in cairo when the assembled diplomats urged mr . hussein to comply with united_nations resolutions . mr . hussein 's growing antipathy toward his neighbors as well as his attacks on american planes , mr . berger said , ' 'reflects a man who is off balance . '' the new american policy reflects the new situation after the evacuation from iraq of experts from the united_nations special commission , which had made fitful progress toward finding and destroying weapons_of_mass_destruction . now with little hope of resuming the commission 's mission , the united_states has fallen back on a policy of containing iraq , to keep it from using its weapons against its neighbors . after giving up on persuading mr . hussein to live up to united_nations demands for disarmament , the united_states is again calling for the overthrow of the iraqi leader . ''while publicly saying this is a regime that should go , we 're reverting to a containment policy , '' said william quandt , professor of government and foreign_affairs at the university of virginia . ''but containment 's not terribly sexy . we lived with it with the soviet_union for 50 years and it worked . but it takes patience . '' and mr . hussein 's actions and language consistently provoke the ire and impatience of the united_states , to the dismay of its allies . only britain gave the united_states full support in its air attacks on iraq last month . at the united_nations , canada and france have submitted alternative proposals for dealing with iraq . in baghdad today , mr . hussein pressed his case against the united_states and said in a message about the civilians who were reported to have died in basra ''your blood will not have been spilled in vain . your blood will give flower to the tree of freedom , resistance and victory . ''",has a topic of politics
"for the six months that specialist brian h . penisten of the army was gone , he tried to convince his fianc e that he was relatively protected , repairing military vehicles on a tightly secured air base in iraq , far enough away from the bullets and bombs . then he told her he was coming home . he had managed to get a rest and relaxation break , so , at least for two weeks , she really could be certain he was safe . it would also be enough time for the simple marriage ceremony they planned to hold in their colorado apartment this past friday . the justice of the peace had agreed to come by , the champagne was chilling , the carpet was cleaned . five hours before specialist penisten , 28 , boarded a chinook helicopter to begin making his way back to pueblo , his fianc e , johnna m . loia , recalled last week , he called to let her know he was on his way , and to remind her how close they were to their future . ''i love you , mrs . penisten , '' he said as he hung up . when a missile struck the chinook last sunday , 16 military personnel , specialist penisten among them , were killed and more than 20 others were wounded , making it the deadliest single incident for american_forces since president_bush declared that major combat in iraq was over on may 1 . for some families of those killed , the graveness of the loss was deepened by a knowledge that their soldier had been on the way home . ''after he called , i was actually counting down with my friend just how long it would be until he got to the front door , '' said ms . loia , 25 . ''i was so excited . i even started looking again at tv at all the crazy things that were happening in iraq because i knew that he would n't have to deal with all that . i knew he was out . he was so close to being out . '' for others , though , the circumstances brought a small edge of comfort to the gloom their soldiers had not been stranded on some terrifying military mission they would have had cheery thoughts , these relatives reasoned , for most of the final hours . sgt . keelan l . moss , 23 , had called his wife at fort_sill , okla . , in the middle of the night , the night before the helicopter took off , his mother , velma deawayne , said . he could not sleep , he said . he was too excited to get home , too ready for the next day to come . his family , which had gathered from houston and elsewhere , planned to hold thanksgiving dinner , weeks before the rest of the nation , as soon as he arrived . ''it almost makes it harder , just to know that he was almost here , but at least i know that he was happy , '' ms . deawayne said on friday . ''he was coming home to his family , so i know that 's how he was feeling that day , so excited , so happy . i 'm o.k . with that . and he is home , i guess . '' being chosen to go home , to get away from the violence , if just for a short visit , is highly coveted among the american_soldiers in iraq . since the military began offering furloughs in september , as a ' 'sanity check'' for weary soldiers , most everyone wants one . and priority , the soldiers say , has gone to those considered most in need with some major event in life happening back at home , a baby 's due date or a wedding . so most of the men and women boarding the chinook that day were considered the fortunate ones , and they knew it . staff sgt . paul anthony velazquez , 29 , was going home to fort_sill , to his new baby , born in june . he had a photograph , his mother said , but he had never gotten to see or touch the child the third in the growing family he was supporting . his mother , mary elizabeth , said sergeant velazquez signed up for the army right after high_school graduation in san_diego more than a decade ago , and stayed in , even as new terror threats mounted for the united_states . ''he did n't feel he 'd be able to find a job in this economy if he got out , '' she said . pfc . anthony d . d'agostino was going home to waterbury , conn . , to celebrate his 21st birthday , which would have come the thursday after the helicopter went down . some of his buddies had an outing planned for him , said harry owens , whose daughter , amanda , had been engaged to marry private d'agostino . not all the soldiers were going home for giddy reunions . sgt . ernest g . bucklew , 33 , needed to get back to enon valley , pa . , for the funeral of his mother , mary_ellen , who had died unexpectedly . now the family would conduct two funerals . and for many of the rest , like staff sgt . joe n . wilson , 30 , of crystal springs , miss . , there was no single , defining event to attend . no wedding , no funeral . just the prospect of two full weeks away from the desert and the dangers , and surrounded by doting family members . ''everybody was looking for him to come home , '' said thomas wilson , sergeant wilson 's uncle . likewise , specialist darius t . jennings , 22 , was to return to cordova , s.c . instead , his tiny community was mourning their third military loss in iraq . three graduates of orangeburg wilkinson high_school , a school of 1 , 800 , have perished there since late august . a few families did not know their soldiers had furloughs . the soldiers had planned to surprise them . so when news organizations began broadcasting reports of a helicopter crash , they had no reason , yet , to believe their own would be anywhere near . and when the news finally came , the surprise was crushing . pfc . karina s . lau , 20 , had told only her siblings that she was on her way home to livingston , calif . she wanted to see her parents' thrilled faces . ''she thought it would be a big surprise for us , '' her mother , ruth , said sadly on friday . ''never , never did she mention this . we were thinking that she was in a safe place over there . '' her daughter had joined the military nearly two years earlier , but her love , her mother said , was of singing and playing the clarinet . she was a perfectionist . she fought for higher grades in high_school . ''she wanted to be famous , to act and sing on broadway some day , '' ruth lau , her mother , said . in newark , sgt . joel perez 's wife , milagros , knew nothing of her husband 's furlough plans either , family members said . sergeant perez , 25 , told his parents that he was coming , but said he did not want to get his wife 's hopes up just in case the furlough was canceled at the last moment . instead , he hoped to surprise his wife and toddler daughter , jaileen , in honor of the couple 's third wedding anniversary , his mother , luisa mangual , said . that would have been last monday . sergeant perez enlisted in 1998 , and told his mother he loved the army . she was more reluctant than he was , and even more nervous when he told her about what he was seeing in iraq . the attacks were constant , he told her . even the children had weapons . but he also said he would be home soon . sergeant perez had grown up in newark and puerto_rico , where another soldier killed in the helicopter incident was from . that soldier was specialist frances m . vega , 20 , whose home was at fort buchanan in puerto_rico , army officials said . for others on the helicopter , the plans had been sudden and unexpected . they were granted rest and relaxation at the last moment , and now , their families could not help but look back and wonder why their soldier had to be so lucky , and so terribly unlucky , as to somehow get on that flight . in a twisted up way , being back on the ground in iraq suddenly looked safe . ''they had turned him down for it , but apparently when they increased the number , he got in , '' erma pennanen said of her son , sgt . ross a . pennanen , 36 , of lawton , okla . ''he should n't have been on that helicopter , '' she said . ''he was n't due for r and r . what was he doing on the helicopter instead of in a tank ? '' sgt . steven d . conover , 21 , of wilmington , ohio , had also been turned down for leave at first , his stepfather , michael earley said . but then he called back , mr . earley said , and reported that he would be coming after all . he wanted to fish with his older brother , he told them , and hunt with his grandfather . mr . earley said he asked his stepson why he could not simply drive to the airport in baghdad , not far from where he was . ''he said it was far too dangerous , that 's why they were taking helicopters , '' mr . earley recalled . staff sgt . daniel aaron bader , 28 , of colorado_springs had told his wife , tiffany , about the possibility of a break a month ago . then he called suddenly just over a week ago and said he was coming home , but had no exact date . ''obviously , my husband got on the wrong plane , '' tiffany bader said . they have a young daughter and had planned to talk during the furlough about whether to have a second one , mrs . bader said . not everyone on the helicopter was headed home . for two pilots and the crew , this was their daily work in iraq . first lt . brian d . slavenas , 30 , of genoa , ill . , and chief_warrant_officer bruce a . smith , 41 , of west liberty , iowa , were piloting the helicopter . both men died , as did sgt . paul f . fisher , 39 , of marion , iowa , who was a flight_engineer on the aircraft that day , and survived until thursday in a hospital . mr . smith had spent his time in iraq transporting troops , prisoners , food , equipment , and at one point , even , a huge cache of money that was found , his wife , oliva , said on friday . he loved to fly . and he was a stickler at it , she said . he was precise and picky . for years , when the couple would go for a drive or to run errands , he would make her quiz him on a set index cards he kept in the car of the emergency procedures on the chinook . that morning in the cockpit , as every time he got into a cockpit , ms . smith said , her husband would have been ''all business . '' even though the crowd he was carrying was cheery , knowing they were on their way home , she said , he would have been serious and focused as usual . he was known , loved and also gently teased , for that trait . ''this was a man who ironed his t shirts , '' ms . smith said . the struggle for iraq casualties",has a topic of politics
"perhaps the most striking part of the iraqi political elite 's reaction on thursday to the changes in american politics is that there did not appear to be one . there were no soul searching speeches . no hand_wringing . no rallying calls for unity . parliament debated issues related to the country 's electoral_commission , and then went home early . the cabinet discussed floods in kurdistan , mosque reconstruction , cellphone frequencies and a small japanese loan . but there was scant mention of the shift in the american political landscape that the war here was central in bringing about . ''things were predictable , '' said ali al adeeb , a prominent shiite lawmaker who was just finishing lunch in the dining_area of the parliament building . two tables away , noor al din al hayali , a lawmaker from the largest sunni arab bloc , responded without emotion , ''when they announce changes , we 'll discuss them . '' the silence on the political front was matched in the iraqi news_media . among the major newspapers , only a kurdish one , ittihad , had a banner_headline announcing the resignation of the american secretary of defense . iraqi leaders had more pressing issues to handle . nine bombs exploded across the capital during the day , killing 18 iraqis and wounding 86 . a volley of deadly mortar attacks continued for a third day . bodies continued to surface 26 across the capital on thursday . part of the challenge faced by the americans here is the need to corral the increasingly fractious political class . it has been held together in the unsteady arrangement called a national_unity_government , but it appears to be splitting at the seams . ''it 's a government of sectarian disunity , '' adnan_pachachi , an iraqi statesman and lawmaker , said by telephone from london . ''there is distrust and dispute between ministers . the extremists on both sides are taking over . '' in parliament a hulking building with tinted_windows in the green_zone , the walled area where the iraqi government meets the mood was business as usual , which is to say glum . political leaders , hopelessly divided between shiites and sunnis , were sunk into their sectarian suspicions on thursday in the dining_area of the building . many could barely contain their derision for the other side as they chatted with colleagues and ate late lunches of sandwiches and french_fries . the shiites , for their part , were angry that the sunnis were insisting on a bigger role in government . the sunnis chose to boycott politics in the early months of the occupation , they said , a decision that cost them their say in the early efforts to form a new iraqi government . the anger was not helped by the 10 lethal mortar attacks across baghdad since sunday that have killed 15 people and wounded 87 . mortars shot by militants of both sects are an ever more popular way to carry out sectarian_killings here . in an off the cuff estimate of iraqi civilian casualties , iraq 's health minister , ali al shimari , said on an official visit to vienna that 150 , 000 iraqis had been killed in violence since the american invasion , according to the associated press . he did not say whether the figure included the deaths of iraqi_army soldiers and police officers . the figure assumes a monthly death toll of 3 , 300 , about the national toll given by the united_nations for july . in the parliament dining_area , sectarian anger was present at lunch . ''their existence in the political process was a mistake , '' mr . adeeb , the shiite lawmaker , said of the sunnis , sitting at a glass table , pushing back from an unfinished sandwich . ''some people in towafak , '' the largest sunni arab bloc , ''are extensions of the insurgency . they have militias in their guards . '' ''they do n't believe in democracy because it does n't serve their intents . they believe in taking power through coups . '' several tables away , mr . hayali , a towafak member , struck a similar note about the shiites . he said they controlled too much of the government , and that they would not allow the sunnis enough of a say over how things were run . the iraqi_security_forces are too heavily shiite and are full of people who want to kill sunnis , he said , his cellphone silently flashing . ''we believe that maliki seized all the power , '' he said , referring to prime_minister_nuri_kamal_al_maliki . ''our ministers in the government do not have broad authority . we have been waiting for seven months for him to achieve the balance we agreed upon . '' a committee that was supposed to have ironed out differences was never formed , he said . long promised action to remove militia members from security forces has also never materialized . his party is considering withdrawing altogether from the government , he said , although a threat to that effect on thursday from a hotheaded fellow member , abdel nasir al_janabi , did not reflect the position of the entire party , lawmakers said . there may be no way to resolve the differences . the shiites , a majority in iraq , have power for the first time , and are growing tired of having to share it with the sunnis , who long controlled the country and whose participation was forced upon them by the americans in the first place . ''all over the world , the winning bloc has the right to form its own government , but this did n't happen in iraq , '' said falah hassan shanshal , a member of the bloc controlled by moktada_al_sadr , a powerful shiite_cleric . ''the politicians were informed that the national government would have to be bigger than the political blocs . we were told that this was the only way to secure iraq . '' mr . shanshal hinted that there might be a cabinet shuffle , but said that even if there were , mr . maliki would have to consult the sunnis , who would retain control over the ministries they now lead . iraqis who did express an interest in the american political changes on thursday said they were a bittersweet vindication . many noted in satisfaction that there had finally been a decisive , public accounting on the american war_effort that many have seen as flawed from the very beginning . ''we did n't understand your president 's politics here , '' said sheik adel ibrahim subihawi , a shiite tribal leader from northeastern baghdad . ''all the good that you did in liberating iraq has been undone . '' egyptian opposes hanging hussein cairo , nov . 9 ( ap ) president hosni_mubarak of egypt on thursday warned against hanging saddam_hussein , saying it could make iraq explode into more violence . mr . mubarak , who is influential in the region and an american ally , appeared to speak for many in the region who are uneasy about seeing a former arab president tried and sentenced no matter how much they disliked mr . hussein 's government . ''carrying out this verdict will explode violence like waterfalls in iraq , '' mr . mubarak was quoted as saying by state run egyptian newspapers . the struggle for iraq",has a topic of politics
"lead in its first detailed comment on a soviet proposal that a unified germany belong to nato and the warsaw_pact , the bush_administration rejected the idea today as a guise for making a united germany neutral . in its first detailed comment on a soviet proposal that a unified germany belong to nato and the warsaw_pact , the bush_administration rejected the idea today as a guise for making a united germany neutral . during his talks in washington last week , foreign_minister eduard a . shevardnadze of the soviet_union signaled more clearly than ever that moscow was prepared to drop its insistence that a united germany be neutral . as an alternative , mr . shevardnadze and other soviet officials began to suggest in public statements here and in moscow that a united germany become a member of both alliances for a five to seven year transitional period that would lead to the formation of some new , undefined pan_european security structure . no hesitation for u.s . although the soviets have not formally submitted such a proposal to the administration , the white_house did not hesitate today to dismiss what they have heard of the idea . the administration also put forth ideas of its own on how to meet the soviet security concerns without accepting the plan . nevertheless , administration officials understand that if they want moscow to accept a united germany in nato , they are going to have to provide president mikhail s . gorbachev with some sort of political cover so that he can move from his present position to one acceptable to the west . more palatable to moscow they see that being done through a package of ideas that would disguise and make more palatable a united germany in nato . among the alternatives being discussed would be that nato become a more political , less military alliance and that the 35 nation conference on security and cooperation in europe , of which the soviets are members , would take on some functions , like serving as a clearinghouse for troop_movements and for other confidence building measures . other ideas are that the soviets be allowed to station troops in east_germany for a transitional period , that the united germany give the soviets specific security guarantees regarding what weapons it will maintain and where its army might be deployed and , finally , that nato agree not to extend its forces into east_germany . this ''new soviet suggestion that germany should be a member of both nato and the warsaw_pact is another formula for neutrality , '' said the white_house spokesman , marlin fitzwater , in dismissing the soviet plan . ''we are opposed to neutrality . '' rightly or wrongly , administration officials are quietly confident that the soviets will eventually recognize that with all nato members , virtually all warsaw_pact members and the west germans favoring a united germany 's becoming a member of nato , the kremlin will sooner or later have to fall in line . the underlying attitude in the administration toward moscow on that issue was described by one official as ''we won , you lost . your allies are asking you leave , ours are asking us to stay , so we are not equals . '' the idea of a united germany being a member of both alliances is dead in the water as far as the administration is concerned , since a germany that is in both alliances is a germany that in effect is in neither . on peace guarantees mr . fitzwater said the idea of a neutral germany floating between east and west was one that ''the germans themselves and their neighbors believe is undesirable . '' ''we believe that the preservation of nato 's multinational defense structures and the full participation of germany within the alliance is the best guarantee for longterm peace and stability in europe and for continued progress in arms control and in east west relations . ''all western nations and some of the eastern_bloc nations have also told us that they believe a unified germany should be a part of nato , and that it would be a stabilizing factor for germany and for the region . '' the soviets , said one state_department official , have been privately telling the administration for months that a united , powerful germany adrift in the middle of europe is not a good idea . they have also signaled privately that they would like to see some continued united_states presence in europe as a stabilizing force . called a bargaining position ''well , if you add those two things together , most political mathematicians would say they add up to a united germany anchored in nato , '' said the official . ''the soviets do n't like that math , though , so are looking around for some new math , something that adds up differently . '' administration officials say they realize that they are rejecting the public version of the latest soviet proposal on germany , which they view simply as a bargaining position and little else . the private soviet position may be more interesting . one official commented that if the soviets were insisting that a united germany be a member of both alliances as a transition to some nebulous 35 nation pan_european security structure , then they will never be interested in the idea . ''it might as well be the league of nations , '' the official said . ''but if this proposal is a way of making a transition to a united germany ending up in nato , then it may have some merit . '' a meeting of allies soviet and american diplomacy will take on a serious , concrete form in the first week of may , when foreign ministers from the two germanys , along with the four wartime allies the united_states , soviet_union , britain and france are expected to gather in bonn for the first ''two plus four'' negotiations about germany 's future status in europe . state_department officials said the white_house had decided to extend the tour of ambassador jack f . matlock jr . as ambassador to moscow . administration officials said the recent talks that president_bush held with the west_german foreign_minister , hans_dietrich_genscher , prime_minister brian_mulroney of canada , and those scheduled with prime_minister margaret_thatcher of britain and president_francois_mitterrand of france are primarily focused on forging a united western position before the opening of the talks . in another area of united_states soviet relations , president_bush today assured leaders of baltic american groups that he was firmly committed to the march toward independence in lithuania and other baltic_republics . but he rejected their pleas to extend diplomatic recognition to the self declared lithuanian government . ''our policy , we believe , is the correct one and it does not involve recognition , '' mr . fitzwater said at a briefing after the oval_office meeting . in an hourlong meeting with 14 representatives of the american communities of lithuania , estonia and latvia , the president indicated that the fate of the three states annexed by the soviet_union in 1940 is high on the administration 's agenda . one administration official said , ''we would look askance at any efforts on the part of the soviets to use force or intimidation in this process . '' upheaval in the east",has a topic of politics
"lead it is midday in this bavarian village , and otto huber is speaking with an intensity that makes his eyes squint . he tugs and twirls the shaggy black hair and beard surrounding his broad face . a few hours earlier , he had delivered the lines opening the morning segment of the daylong oberammergau passion play . it is midday in this bavarian village , and otto huber is speaking with an intensity that makes his eyes squint . he tugs and twirls the shaggy black hair and beard surrounding his broad face . a few hours earlier , he had delivered the lines opening the morning segment of the daylong oberammergau passion play . now he is expounding warmly on the problems of revising this world famous drama , for which he is deputy director as well as a leading actor . obergammergau is in fact the site of two dramas , not one . there is the passion_play itself , produced almost every 10 years since 1633 when village elders voted to retell the story of christ 's death and resurrection if god spared the remaining population from a plague . then there is the other drama , the efforts by villagers like mr . huber , prodded by christian theologians , church officials and jewish critics , to revise the passion_play , a presentation that many christians , in oberammergau and beyond , have regarded as semisacred . as the 43 year old mr . huber talks over his scarcely touched lunch , and continues his reflections over coffee after the afternoon segment of the play , that second drama becomes as compelling as anything seen on the village 's sweeping open air stage . the chief target for revision has been , of course , the play 's anti semitic themes and stereotypes . these were inherited from medieval prototypes , reinforced by 19th_century dramatic convention and commended by none other than adolf_hitler , who viewed the 300th anniversary performance with satisfaction in 1934 . one would think that anything carrying hitler 's endorsement would be immediately disinfected if not discarded until , that is , one recalls the pride and piety of an alpine village whose play predates the third reich by nearly three centuries . oberammergau is not an isolated backwater . when the town 's music teacher , rochus dedler , rewrote music for the play in 1811 , he did not produce folk melodies , but an oratorio leaning heavily on haydn and mozart . at the same time , oberammergau is enough of an enclosed society to bristle at the plentiful criticism , which since the holocaust has run the gamut from campaigns to boycott the pageant to patient proposals of detailed changes by christian scholars and jewish representatives . even the slightest change in text or costume needs approval from an oberammergau committee that includes the entire town council plus local clergy and specially elected delegates . the panel also chooses , using longstanding criteria , which oberammergau natives will play all the major roles . it takes only a passing familiarity with small town politics to imagine the problems . mr . huber said he and christian stuckl , the innovating director of the play , had only a one vote majority among the town council members , and shifting support among the special representatives . still , for the first time the production this year casts a married woman in the role of the blessed mother , opens major roles to protestants and enlists youths in important parts even though it meant relaxing the standard that major actors be devout churchgoing roman_catholics . the humanity of jesus is underlined in his genuine agony on the mount of olives . each of these changes is still the subject of debate and grumbling in the village of 5 , 000 inhabitants . from outside , people have warned that god would punish bavaria or unleash a third world_war because of the village 's unfaithfulness . in fact the village seems to take faithfulness very seriously . but some villagers , like mr . huber , recognize that they have to be faithful to more than a text written in 1850 . they also have to be faithful to the gospel , to which many of the passion_play 's details are imaginative additions , and to the gospels' message of love and redemption . does n't it even become ' 'dangerous , '' mr . huber wonders aloud , to present a passion_play that isolates jesus 's trial and execution from the deeds and teachings of his prior life ? what can be made of a medieval theory of redemption in which ''an angry god must be appeased'' by the bloody sacrifice of his son ? mr . huber 's eye tightened further as he mentions the modern theologians and early church fathers he has studied and the ways in which each generation inevitably reshaped the passion_play not only to make it meaningful to their lives but also to reflect passing ideologies . as mr . huber talks , oberammergau becomes a microcosm of the christian_churches as a whole . the struggle to be faithful , they are always discovering , is not at all a simple one . regarding the treatment of jews and judaism , that struggle is not yet resolved . dozens of changes in the text , the costumes and the staging have been made to excise anti semitic stereotypes and to remove the impression that jesus 's death was the responsibility of the jewish people . the role of pontius pilate is underlined . so is the jewishness of jesus and his disciples . but the ugly bones of the old plot show through . although scripture is rich in explanations , historical and theological , of why jesus was put to death , here the conniving defenders of jewish law overshadow everything else . mr . huber and his fellow revisers have done about all they can with the present text . theologically , its melding of the four gospel accounts into a single ''factual'' narrative contradicts what is now recognized about the distinct perspectives of the gospel writers . dramatically , the result is unwieldy , mixing the stylized and the naturalistic , interrupting the action to encompass a detail of scripture or sometimes of pious legend . there is an historical exhibit in oberammergau this year showing the evolution of passion plays . theoretically , the exhibit is for the benefit of the visitors , but mr . huber hopes it will also have an impact on the town residents . it may remind them that oberammergau 's play has passed through at least four quite different scripts over the centuries as well as dozens of minute changes . not only could the vestiges of anti_jewish sentiment be removed but the best religious and dramatic instincts of villagers like mr . huber could also be served if oberammergau 's officials authorized an entirely new script to start the new century .",has a topic of politics
"lead the soviet_union today welcomed the offer by chancellor helmut_kohl of west_germany to dismantle 72 medium_range nuclear_missiles in west_germany if moscow and washington agree to scrap all medium and shorter range rockets . the soviet_union today welcomed the offer by chancellor helmut_kohl of west_germany to dismantle 72 medium_range nuclear_missiles in west_germany if moscow and washington agree to scrap all medium and shorter range rockets . a spokesman for the soviet foreign ministry said the possibility of concluding a new superpower arms agreement was now ' 'realistic . '' ''of course , after the statement of helmut_kohl , the situation has changed for the better , '' the spokesman , gennadi i . gerasimov , said at a news conference here . 'no problems' on verification mr . kohl announced wednesday that once the superpowers reach an agreement to scrap all their medium and shorter_range_missiles and carry it out , west_germany would dismantle the 72 pershing 1a missiles that soviet leaders had identified as the last major stumbling_block to such a pact . in bonn , chancellor kohl 's proposal was generally viewed as something of a political coup . news analysis , page a7 . mr . gerasimov also praised the latest american proposal on verifying such a treaty , saying the soviet_union now sees ''no problems'' in assuring that both sides comply . he noted that minor differences remained to be worked out , but said , ''taking into account that the united_states has changed its position on the verification , we think that all these problems can be solved by the diplomats who are engaged in the negotiations in geneva . '' reagan speech is condemned but even as he expressed optimism that an arms agreement was at hand , mr . gerasimov condemned president_reagan 's speech wednesday on u.s . soviet relations as ''a heavy , cold rain'' at ''a delicate juncture . '' mr . reagan 's remarks at a speakers' forum in los_angeles included an upbeat_assessment of the arms talks , but he also challenged the soviet_union to publish its military_budget and open a domestic debate on its weapons policies , and criticized the soviet involvement in afghanistan and other regional conflicts . the soviet spokesman chafed at what he called mr . reagan 's ' 'didactic tone'' and accused mr . reagan of ''a primitive approach'' to international_relations . ''it has almost become a rule that before every important soviet american meeting , the american side starts to play up the hostility , '' mr . gerasimov said . ''it happened like this last year and the year before . now , unfortunately , the president himself has started to do it . '' chatting with reporters after his briefing , mr . gerasimov said , ''we did n't like the speech . it smelled of cold_war . '' mr . reagan 's gibes at the soviet_union were given more press and television coverage today than mr . kohl 's offer , suggesting that the soviet_union is being careful to avoid raising expectations before an arms deal is completed . three small hurdles ahead aside from the sharp response to mr . reagan 's remarks , the tone of mr . gerasimov 's remarks today was one of muted but unmistakable hopefulness . when asked about specific obstacles remaining to an agreement and a summit meeting , the soviet spokesman cited three , all apparently readily soluble he said the united_states must make clear that not just the west_german pershing 1a missiles but their 72 american controlled warheads will be destroyed . that is probably a formality since mr . kohl 's offer appears to make the warheads useless . the two sides must resolve remaining differences over how each side can verify that the the treaty is being obeyed . mr . gerasimov said the new verification proposal presented by the united_states in geneva on tuesday , reducing the number of intrusive on site inspections each side could demand , was a positive step . ''we see no problems in this respect , '' he said . negotiators must work out final details of a timetable for destroying the missiles . the american side contends that the soviet_union , which has more missiles , should begin the destruction process first and continue until equal numbers remain on each side . the soviet_union wants both sides to being demolishing missiles simultaneously . mr . gerasimov indicated this could be resolved without great difficulty by negotiators in geneva . 'a delicate juncture' ''soviet american relations are at a delicate juncture now , '' the soviet spokesman said . ''both countries recognize and welcome the realistic possibilities to conclude an agreement on the elimination of medium_range_missiles and of shorter_range_missiles . '' just a week ago mr . gerasimov and another senior soviet arms official , viktor p . karpov , were warning that the lack of progress in geneva might lead to cancellation of a scheduled mid september meeting between foreign_minister eduard a . shevardnadze and secretary of state george p . shultz in washington . but today mr . gerasimov said the meeting would definitely take place . moscow welcomes offer on missiles",has a topic of politics
"with remarks ranging from the frosty to the outraged , german officials today brushed aside united_states_government criticism of germany 's attitude toward the scientology movement . the officials said they would not be deterred from inquiries to see whether the organization should be placed under surveillance or outlawed . in its annual human_rights report on thursday , the state_department gave more prominence than before to assertions from the church of scientology , based in los_angeles , that the 30 , 000 members it says it has in germany are subject to harassment , sometimes with official approval . the scientology movement has stirred controversy among germans in recent weeks by renewing its comparisons between its treatment at the hands of the bonn government and the persecution of jews in nazi_germany . some hollywood personalities signed a full page newspaper advertisement this month criticizing the german attitude . the most vehement response to the state_department report came today from the predominantly roman_catholic southern state of bavaria , which bars scientologists from jobs in public service and wants the organization banned . ''we will not be intimidated by a massive smear_campaign , '' bavaria 's justice minister , hermann leeb , said , referring to the state_department report and an avalanche of advertisements , internet articles and news releases issued by the scientology movement in recent days . even in bonn , the government spokesman , peter haussmann , said at a news conference today that the german authorities saw no reason to be diverted from what he termed their ' 'duty to publicize scientology 's practices and protect citizens from them . '' the interior_ministry confirmed today that state officials were studying the possibility of placing the scientology movement under surveillance to establish whether it was engaged in unconstitutional activities . the legislation has been used in the past to ban extreme political groups on the right and left and organizations regarded as having terrorist aims , like the kurdish workers party . unlike the united_states , germany does not accord scientology the tax breaks and other rights of recognized religions . german critics of the scientology movement label it an exploitative sect harboring conspiratorial designs , saying it brainwashes followers and brings them to emotional and financial ruin . but in their firm rejection of scientology , german adversaries also reflect what mr . haussmann , the government spokesman , today called ' 'differing_views rooted in the history and constitutional traditions'' of germany and the united_states . the goal of the movement , according to its literature , is ''to bring an individual to an understanding of himself and his life as a spiritual being . '' although it likens the present german_government to the nazi_regime , german officials argue that it is precisely because of their history that they are sensitive to the perils of totalitarian movements growing from modest beginnings . last year young members of chancellor helmut_kohl 's governing christian democratic_party boycotted a tom_cruise movie , and a concert by the jazz pianist chick corea was canceled , because the two men are scientologists . on wednesday , bernd protzner , the general secretary of the christian_social_union the bavarian sister party of the christian democrats accused the scientology movement of ' 'slanderous rhetoric . '' heber jentzsch , president of the church of scientology , in turn , accused the bavarian party of ''teutonic arrogance and insensitivity . ''",has a topic of politics
"lead ten days ago , a handful of the highest ranking officials of the bush_administration gathered in george_bush 's kennebunkport home on a rocky promontory overlooking the maine coast . mr . bush told the group he wanted to take ''a bold step'' to deal with mikhail s . gorbachev 's initiatives . ten days ago , a handful of the highest ranking officials of the bush_administration gathered in george_bush 's kennebunkport home on a rocky promontory overlooking the maine coast . mr . bush told the group he wanted to take ''a bold step'' to deal with mikhail s . gorbachev 's initiatives . administration officials , in relating the events that led up to today 's announcement of mr . bush 's new arms control proposals , said that mr . bush told the group he was irritated at both his own agencies and at the europeans . he was irked that the defense and state_department bureaucracies had said that cuts in american_troops and planes in europe were unthinkable . and he was irritated at the europeans for complaining to senior american officials that united_states foreign_policy seemed improvised and foundering . he was also unhappy with the west germans for seeking immediate talks with the russians on reducing short range nuclear_weapons . and he was irritated at domestic critics of his foreign_policy speeches . annoyance with gorbachev above all , his closest aides said , mr . bush was annoyed with mr . gorbachev for privately sending to him what he believed were mixed_signals while preparing to make public a major proposal on reducing troops , tanks and artillery in europe . by the time most of the senior officials left , mr . bush had made his basic decision to cut 30 , 000 american_troops in europe , accept the soviet position that aircraft in europe should be included in a conventional_arms treaty in europe and fix a date within the year to accomplish the reductions by 1992 or 1993 . the initiative gave mr . bush , who is by nature very cautious , something that had eluded him for the four months of his presidency a foreign_policy initiative that rivaled those of mr . gorbachev . by all accounts , mr . bush decided to forge a major arms control initiative around may 10 , when mr . gorbachev , in moscow , indicated privately to the visiting secretary of state , james a . baker 3d , that the soviet_union was moving toward the framework of the western position for cutting conventional_arms . 'seriousness of intent' the north_atlantic_treaty_organization had begun conventional_arms talks in vienna on march 9 , proposing that an agreement be limited to tanks , artillery and armored_personnel_carriers . the soviet_union wanted to broaden negotiations to include aircraft and troops . now the soviets seemed to be moving toward the allies' position . ''gorbachev discussed with the secretary a general soviet response to our march 9 proposal , '' a senior administration official said . ''it was lacking in several respects as far as we were concerned , but nevertheless did show an overall thrust in the direction of the nato proposal , and did indicate a seriousness of intent . '' mr . bush quickly ordered defense_secretary_dick_cheney and the joint_chiefs_of_staff to shape an arms control initiative in response the secret one made by mr . gorbachev . but mr . bush 's enthusiasm was dampened by public comments by mr . gorbachev and his foreign_secretary , eduard a . shevardnadze , in the weeks that followed . the comments led administration officials to suggest that mr . gorbachev was grandstanding . private vs . public at the same time that mr . gorbachev was privately informing washington that moscow was moving toward the west on the conventional_arms issue , the soviet leader announced he would withdraw 500 nuclear_warheads from eastern_europe , a move described by mr . cheney as ''a pittance'' and a ''p . r . ploy'' that only deepened divisions in the nato alliance . mr . shevardnadze then threatened to retain ss 23 nuclear_missiles banned under the 1987 treaty on intermediate_range missiles ( although he later retracted the threat ) . it was then disclosed that mr . gorbachev had told mr . bush in a letter that he had stopped sending arms to nicaragua . this also annoyed mr . bush , because he saw it as another empty gesture in light of what washington views as cuba 's major shipments of soviet made arms to nicaragua . ''it was frustrating because gorbachev was getting a lot of credit but producing nothing , '' a senior administration official said . despite this , mr . bush and his senior aides , including brent_scowcroft , the national_security adviser , and secretary of state baker felt that the private gorbachev proposals on conventional_arms demanded attention . crowe heavily involved adm . william j . crowe , chairman of the joint_chiefs_of_staff , was heavily involved in drafting the american plan . several administration aides said that the decisions on the plan were kept to a handful of ranking officials , and out of the hands of arms control and defense specialists in the pentagon and state_department who have argued that reductions in manpower sought by moscow would be extremely difficult to verify . reductions in land based combat aircraft have also been opposed in the past by some influential officials in the government , partly in response to french opposition . a senior administration official said that the soviet proposal to include planes and helicopters posed a problem because they are regarded as ''principally a defensive part of our posture . '' he said the proposal to reduce troops was problematic because of the difficulties of verification . ''but the president decided it was important enough to try to exploit this opportunity , '' the official said , and that resulted in the proposal today . 'we 'll deal with both' another senior aide said ''the president felt we had a very serious negotiating position from them . we ought to come forward with a position that meets their concerns . '' ''he wanted something clean , easy to understand , '' said a white_house aide . ''he wanted to do something bold . why not focus on u.s . and soviet_troops ? it 's easy to implement and , besides , it responds to congressional pressure on the need for more burden_sharing by europe . '' coincidentally , the kennebunkport meeting took place on may 19 , the day before the visit of the french president , francois_mitterrand . mr . baker and mr . scowcroft stayed on for the mitterrand visit and discussed an element of the proposal designed to ease the dispute between the united_states and west_germany over short range nuclear_missiles . the united_states has resisted bonn 's call for talks soon on the missiles , arguing that they might result in the elimination of the weapons and leave western_europe vulnerable . 'accelerate the timetable' mr . mitterrand had suggested days earlier that nato await the progress of negotiations on conventional_arms before reaching an agreement on short range nuclear_missiles . the president told the french leader that he was working on a similar proposal . in his proposal today , mr . bush urged both sides to ''accelerate the timetable'' for reaching an overall agreement on conventional_arms reductions . the soviet_union had set a target date of 1997 . ''i believe that it should be possible to reach such agreement in six months or maybe a year , and to accomplish the reductions by 1992 or 1993 , '' said mr . bush . it was unclear if mr . bush told mr . mitterrand about the aircraft proposal , or if the french were offically informed later in the week by lawrence s . eagleburger , the deputy_secretary_of_state , who was sent abroad late last week to brief allies on the bush plan . last tuesday , the soviets officially placed their conventional_arms plan on the table at the talks in vienna . that night , mr . bush scrapped a foreign_policy speech he planned to deliver at a commencement ceremony the next day at the coast guard academy in new london , conn . speechwriters worked on drafts through the night , and mr . bush reviewed the speech at 6 30 the next morning . he was still working on the speech while flying to new london . ''the soviets are now being forthcoming , '' mr . bush told the coast_guard graduates . ''we hope to achieve the reductions that we seek . ''",has a topic of politics
"from the neck down , otto schily is very much the bourgeois gentleman pocket watch , tailored suit , elegant cufflinks , somber tie . but look up at the mop of hair and mischievous eyes of mr . schily , the german interior_minister , and some of the contradictions of the man and his country begin to come into focus . the official who represents law and order in this most ordered of nations , he is an iconoclast a defender of the revolutionary red_army_faction during the 1960 's , celebrated lawyer in the 1970 's , founder of the environmentalist green_party in the 1980 's , tough social democrat in the 1990 's and bon vivant with a love for tuscany throughout . germany is changing . in place of the monolithic figure of helmut_kohl , with his taste for sausages and his unswerving dedication to europe and the trans_atlantic alliance , a new class of germans have come to power . they are more checkered in their pasts , more nuanced in their allegiances more inclined , like mr . schily , to love olive_oil than wurst . germany is no longer a prisoner of the cold_war . it is ever less a prisoner of its past . it is learning , fitfully , to relax and is now full of people like mr . schily , who have walked a long german road to emancipation . to allies , including the united_states , this change is disorienting . it involves a departure from the scene of the predictable german solid , solemn , unsurprising . but to mr . schily and his colleagues it is a sign of democratic maturity . at the age of 66 , the interior_minister is the doyen of the new ''red green'' government of chancellor_gerhard_schroder . he is also , in his long journey from protest to power , a typical figure . like the chancellor , a former marxist , and like foreign_minister joschka_fischer , a revolutionary agitator in the 1960 's , mr . schily once flirted with the far left . he defended members of the baader meinhof gang in court . ''i am not of the 1960 's generation , '' mr . schily said . ''i had a steady job as a lawyer and family by then but i was drawn in . and i think that even if 1968 was a failure in the end , it contributed decisively to the birth of civil_society in germany . '' and what , then , was the germany that predated this civil_society ? ''for a long time after the war , '' he said , ''we had the old german system of being subject to authority . germany in the 1960 's was a repressive society . it took a long time even to talk of certain things , and perhaps it is only recently that we have achieved a true democratic opening and overcome our fear of change . '' as interior_minister , mr . schily will oversee one of the decisive changes proposed by mr . schroder 's government the scrapping of old immigration laws based principally on german stock or bloodlines and the introduction of legislation to enable many of the 7.4 million foreigners to become citizens . that number now includes many children born to immigrants in germany . this shift , with its implicit acknowledgment of the country 's multiethnic makeup , seems likely , over time , to alter germany 's self_image . for mr . schily , it is a step ''of historic dimensions . '' but he says this with a relaxed smile , one that says change is in the nature of democracy a normal thing , part of the ebb and flow of politics . he is among the many germans who have followed their country from allied tutelage to independent statehood , to the first stirrings of unrest , to willy brandt 's memorable call in 1972 for ''risking more democracy , '' to prosperity , unification and , at last , the freedom that lies in the conviction that the country has earned the right to chart its own course . but that freedom , for the interior_minister , clearly comes with a keen sense of responsibility . mr . schily is no starry eyed reformer . listen to him on the subject of admitting new immigrants ''we have reached the limits , the point where we have to say we cannot bear any more . the majority of germans agree with me zero immigration for now . the burden has become too great . i would not even dare publish the costs that stem from immigration . the greens say we should take 200 , 000 more immigrants a year . but i say to them , show me the village , the town , the region that would take them . there are no such places . '' in other words , as germany sets about offering citizenship to foreigners already inside the country who amount to about 9 percent of the population and constitute by far the largest number of foreigners in a european state it is not about to open its doors to others . germany , for mr . schily , must be tolerant but not permissive . the interior_minister has long walked such fine lines , formed by the tension between impulse and rigor . born into a distinguished family his father was a prominent industrialist and another forebear , victor schily , a close friend of karl_marx he spent his adolescence during the war in bavaria . the family opposed hitler , and mr . schily recalled the nazis storming into the family home in 1941 and ripping up books . after the war he moved to west_berlin , studied law and set up practice in a conservative law_firm . here , in the rarefied atmosphere of a city that became a magnet to artists and intellectuals , he found that the idealistic view of the united_states he had formed during the war was progressively eroded by vietnam and by american support for what he called ''the shah 's police_state in iran . '' on june 2 , 1967 , he went to a demonstration in berlin against the violation of human rights in iran . a student , benno ohnesorg , was shot dead by the police . shocked and outraged , mr . schily , then 34 , decided to represent the student 's family . ''at that time , '' he said , ''an egg on the boot of a policeman was officially called a breach of the peace . i felt very critical of the whole political situation , and compelled to make a stand . '' notoriety came from the ohnesorg case . as the red_army_faction extended its insurrectionary operations , mr . schily emerged as a natural choice to defend the likes of andreas baader and gudrun ensslin . he did so with energy and determination , but unlike other defense lawyers including klaus croissant and hans christian strobele he was never charged with involvement in the terrorist movement and never arrested . ''i could have refused , '' mr . schily said , ''but i still believe that people like ensslin deserved a defense . that was an antiliberal time and the atmosphere was very tense . we were under enormous psychological pressure , and i still say that these court proceedings had no value from the point of view of the rule of law . how can you work in court and be made to feel accused yourself ? '' peter glotz , the dean of erfurt university , who has long known the interior_minister , said ''mr . schily accepted the cases through a basic conviction that everyone deserves a lawyer . he was always a radical liberal , never a supporter of terrorist methods or aims . he also enjoyed being in the public eye , as he does now . but principle drove him . '' so , apparently , did ambition . a latecomer to politics , mr . schily worked with petra kelly as a founding member of the greens in the late 1970 's and was one of the party 's three spokesman when it first entered the legislature in 1983 . he had been moved to help forge the party by an interest in ecology and a desire to open up germany 's relatively closed political system , rather than by strong support for the pacifism espoused by the greens . ''we opened up a closed shop , '' he said , ''and that in itself was a critical catharsis for germany . '' but the sharply dressed lawyer , dealing in the real world with a strong streak of pragmatism , was always something of an anomaly among the tree hugging greens . mr . schily became impatient with the party 's egalitarianism ''promis'' ( or prominent people ) were always suspect and with the refusal of the party 's ''fundis'' ( or fundamentalists ) to confront the realities of the fight for political power . he finally abandoned the greens in 1989 and joined the social democrats . today , his relations with the greens are uneasy , strained by his hard_nosed statements on further immigration . ''how can you be liberal to foreigners who are here , and so hard to those who want to come ? '' said cem ozdemir , a green legislator of turkish descent . ''mr . schily 's policy is going to create the impression of a double_standard , and i fear that prejudice will be reinforced . '' but the interior_minister seems unlikely to change his stance to placate the social democrats' junior coalition partners . like mr . schroder , he knows that even in a changed germany , the middle ground remains important . to have struggled so long with the left is to know the power of german conservatism . ''it is not a question of being immigration friendly , or immigration hostile , '' mr . schily said , his eyes glinting . ''it is merely a question of reality . ''",has a topic of politics
"three days after an american military strike against baghdad , a united_states warplane fired a missile at an iraqi antiaircraft_artillery site today as iraq continued to interfere with american patrols and defy united_nations sanctions , administration officials said . president_clinton sought to play down the significance of the incident , which came after the american aircraft was targeted by iraqi radar as it patrolled the no flight zone declared by the united_nations over southern iraq . mr . clinton declined to blame president saddam_hussein directly for the assassination plot against former president george_bush , saying only that evidence pointed to iraqi government responsibility "" at the highest levels . "" and in response to a reporter 's question , mr . clinton defended his decision to attack only an iraqi intelligence installation in the american retaliation on saturday . 'the appropriate target' he said he believed the tomahawk missile attack on one of four iraqi intelligence headquarters had singled out "" the appropriate target . "" "" i think everyone knows what our military is capable of doing , "" mr . clinton said at a joint news conference with president carlos saul menem of argentina . "" what we needed to show them was that we were fully possessed of the will to do it under these circumstances . "" the state_department nevertheless said today that it was "" inconceivable "" that an operation like the assassination plot could have been planned and executed without mr . hussein 's knowledge and approval . nevertheless , administration officials acknowledged that there was no direct evidence of such involvement . even apart from the new clash in southern iraq , there were signs that baghdad would pose continuing problems . it continued its refusal to permit a united_nations team to install monitoring devices at a missile test site , as authorized under united_nations sanctions . tanks and planes repaired at the same time , a report by the staff of a congressional subcommittee concluded that after an extensive effort iraq had regained 80 percent of the conventional military manufacturing capacity it had before the persian_gulf_war . the study found that european companies had secretly provided iraq with equipment that enabled the rebound , and said baghdad had already repaired and returned to service most of the 2 , 500 battle tanks and 250 fixed_wing_aircraft that survived the war . the report said iraq had "" pumped all available resources into rebuilding its military plants "" without heed to the united_nations sanctions . it predicted that the iraq was "" likely to re emerge as the dominant military power in the region in very short order . "" the study 's conclusion meant that iraq had rebuilt factories capable of assembling modern tanks and producing artillery shells and other weapons , but it was not clear whether it had obtained the material necessary to build them . these conclusions were based on information gathered by the united_nations as well as interviews with european government officials , but not on any information gathered by united_states intelligence agencies . mr . clinton 's national_security adviser , anthony_lake , acknowledged that the administration had ordered new security measures , which he would not describe , since launching the attack on saturday . he called the precautions routine , but an increased security presence was evident at the white_house today . madeleine k . albright , the united_states representative at the united_nations , separately warned iraqi diplomats in new york that any attempt by baghdad to retaliate for the american attack would be met with "" a clear , quick and overwhelming response , "" an administration official said . the official said the broad written warning advised iraq against any action that would threaten american interests around the world or united_nations personnel or involved further repression against the iraqi people . the missile attack today by a united_states_air_force f4 g wild weasel on an iraqi air defense installation near the city of basra in southeastern iraq was the first such strike in more than two months . but it was only the latest move in a high stakes cat and mouse game between the american patrols and ground based iraqi defenders that has lasted for months . rules permit retaliation asked this afternoon about the incident , which occurred at 10 15 a.m . eastern daylight time and involved two air_force jets , mr . clinton said he "" would n't read too much into it . "" he noted that american pilots patrolling the flight exclusion_zone were permitted under united_states rules of engagement to retaliate when threatened . administration officials nevertheless acknowledged that united_states warplanes flying over the region had elected not to respond when targeted by iraqi radar several times earlier this month . they said the fact that the latest encounter turned violent might reflect heightened tensions among american pilots and iraqi ground crews alike . the no flight zone over southern iraq , like another in the north , was imposed by the united_nations to prevent iraqi forces from using aircraft in military operations against iraqi civilians . its terms prohibit iraq from interfering with the patrols . but baghdad has flouted those rules , just as it has periodically refused to allow united_nations inspectors to search some of its installations . no change of course in the latest standoff , iraq has refused since june 4 to allow a united_nations team to install cameras capable of monitoring activity at two missile test site . mr . clinton said last friday that he regarded the matter as "" quite serious , "" but administration officials said today that there had been no sign of an iraqi change of course since the missile strike on saturday . despite similar intransigence in the past , until recently iraq has ultimately allowed the united_nations inspectors to search its nuclear_installations and others associated with weapons_of_mass_destruction , and to destroy the equipment necessary to produce them . but the new congressional report , prepared for the house foreign_affairs subcommittee on international security , called attention to iraq 's success in rebuilding its conventional weapons plants , which have been given less international scrutiny . the document , made public at a hearing today , said iraq had relied on companies in jordan , france and germany to circumvent a united_nations embargo and buy spare_parts for its weapons industries . it said the installations that have been rebuilt could allow iraq to assemble t_72 tanks and experiment with ballistic_missiles . robert l . gallucci , the assistant secretary of state for political military affairs , said at the hearing that iraq also remained intent on rebuilding its nuclear_weapons capacity . but mr . gallucci said he had not seen the staff report and could not comment on it in detail .",has a topic of politics
"lead underlying the tension between the united_states and west_germany over the future of nato 's short range nuclear_missiles is a subtle but crucial difference between bonn and washington in assessing the opportunities presented by mikhail s . gorbachev , the soviet leader . underlying the tension between the united_states and west_germany over the future of nato 's short range nuclear_missiles is a subtle but crucial difference between bonn and washington in assessing the opportunities presented by mikhail s . gorbachev , the soviet leader . administration officials say they agree with the west germans that mr . gorbachev 's bold approach to arms control represents an opportunity for creating a ''new world'' in east west relations . ''the problem , '' said a state_department official , ''is that some german politicians seem to think that this new world has already arrived . ''we say it is a new world emotionally and perceptually , because of what gorbachev has been announcing , but it 's not a new world on the ground yet , '' the official said . ''the reality on the ground is that the soviet_bloc still has a preponderance of conventional weapons in europe . '' because the bush_administration , particularly the pentagon , believes that the radical changes initiated by mr . gorbachev still may be reversible , it insists that the north_atlantic_treaty_organization not consider negotiating away its remaining nuclear_missiles . a glass half full , or half empty ? chancellor helmut_kohl 's government argues that the gorbachev changes are most likely irreversible , and that the west should make sure of that by not excluding any weapons from negotiations . in particular , mr . kohl noted in a speech today in bonn , nato should n't exclude talks on short range nuclear_missiles that are based entirely on german soil and would kill mostly germans . the west germans , the state_department official said , want to believe that ''gorbachev 's glass is half full , and we say the glass is still half empty . '' the difference in assessments between bonn and washington is more than just an honest analytical dispute . each capital has powerful military , political and economic incentives to see things its way . west_germany has much to gain from a peaceful change in the 40 year old status_quo in europe , while washington is more ambivalent . ''let 's be frank , '' said stephen s . szabo , a professor of european affairs at the national war college here , ''we and the british and french like the status_quo in europe . it has kept the peace for 40 years , it has managed the german problem , and produced a great deal of prosperity for us . we have not exactly suffered from the division of europe . the soviets got east europe . we got west europe . the soviets got poland , we got germany . '' u.s . fears loss of dominance ''if the bipolar world fragments , some argue , so does our dominant position in europe , '' mr . szabo said . ''if we diminish our military and political role in europe , it means we will have less leverage on the european_community right at a time when it is moving toward economic_integration in 1992 and we are going to need all the leverage we can muster . '' west_germany by contrast has little to fear from a new europe , and every reason to want to make it irreversible . in banking and trading terms , west_germany is ideally poised to take advantage of any lessening of the soviet domination of eastern_europe . at home , a change in the status_quo promises a reduction in west_germany 's military burden , as well as enhancement of bonn 's independence . mr . gorbachev is problematic from washington 's perspective , and inviting from a west_german perspective , precisely because he is prepared to say yes to a series of questions that the west has been posing to moscow for years all the while expecting a flat no . the reason the administration rejects the idea of even negotiating on short range nuclear_missiles even though bonn says its does n't favor total elimination of these weapons is that it fears that mr . gorbachev will offer to go to zero and that nato will be overwhelmed by public opinion to follow suit . as defense_secretary_dick_cheney said in a speech monday , ''if we lack the will today to oppose this option , could we really muster it during any negotiation on short range forces ? ''",has a topic of politics
"anbar_province , long the lawless heartland of the tenacious sunni arab resistance , is undergoing a surprising transformation . violence is ebbing in many areas , shops and schools are reopening , police_forces are growing and the insurgency appears to be in retreat . ''many people are challenging the insurgents , '' said the governor of anbar , maamoon s . rahid , though he quickly added , ''we know we have n't eliminated the threat 100 percent . '' many sunni tribal_leaders , once openly hostile to the american presence , have formed a united front with american and iraqi government forces against al_qaeda in mesopotamia . with the tribal_leaders' encouragement , thousands of local residents have joined the police force . about 10 , 000 police officers are now in anbar , up from several thousand a year ago . during the same period , the police force here in ramadi , the provincial capital , has grown from fewer than 200 to about 4 , 500 , american military officials say . at the same time , american and iraqi forces have been conducting sweeps of insurgent_strongholds , particularly in and around ramadi , leaving behind a network of police stations and military garrisons , a strategy that is also being used in baghdad , iraq 's capital , as part of its new security plan . yet for all the indications of a heartening turnaround in anbar , the situation , as it appeared during more than a week spent with american_troops in ramadi and falluja in early april , is at best uneasy and fragile . municipal services remain a wreck local_governments , while reviving , are still barely functioning and years of fighting have damaged much of ramadi . the insurgency in anbar a mix of islamic militants , former baathists and recalcitrant tribesmen still thrives among the province 's overwhelmingly sunni population , killing american and iraqi_security_forces and civilians alike . this was underscored by three suicide car_bomb attacks in ramadi on monday and tuesday , in which at least 15 people were killed and 47 were wounded , american officials said . eight american service members five marines and three soldiers were killed in two attacks on thursday and friday in anbar , the american military said . furthermore , some american officials readily acknowledge that they have entered an uncertain marriage of convenience with the tribes , some of whom were themselves involved in the insurgency , to one extent or another . american officials are also negotiating with elements of the 1920 revolution brigades , a leading insurgent group in anbar , to join their fight against al_qaeda . these sudden changes have raised questions about the ultimate loyalties of the united_states' new allies . ''one day they 're laying i.e.d . 's , the next they 're police collecting a pay check , '' said lt . thomas r . mackesy , an adviser to an iraqi_army unit in juwayba , east of ramadi , referring to improvised_explosive_devices . and it remains unclear whether any of the gains in anbar will transfer to other troubled areas of iraq like baghdad , diyala_province , mosul and kirkuk , where violence rages and the ethnic and sectarian landscape is far more complicated . still , the progress has inspired an optimism in the american command that , among some officials , borders on giddiness . it comes after years of fruitless efforts to drive a wedge between moderate resistance fighters and those , like al_qaeda in mesopotamia , who seem beyond compromise . ''there are some people who would say we 've won the war out here , '' said col . john . a . koenig , a planning officer for the marines who oversees governing and economic_development issues in anbar . ''i 'm cautiously_optimistic as we 're going forward . '' a new calm for most of the past few years , the government center in downtown ramadi , the seat of the provincial government , was under near continual siege by insurgents , who reduced it to little more than a bullet ridden bunker of broken concrete , sandbags and trapped marines . entering meant sprinting from an armored_vehicle to the front door of the building to evade snipers' bullets . now , however , the compound and nearby buildings are being renovated to create offices for the provincial administration , council and governor . hotels are being built next door for the waves of visitors the government expects once it is back in business . on the roof of the main building , capt . jason arthaud , commander of company b , first battalion , sixth marines , said the building had taken no sniper fire since november . ''just hours of peace and quiet , '' he deadpanned . ''and boredom . '' violence has fallen swiftly throughout ramadi and its sprawling rural environs , residents and american and iraqi officials said . last summer , the american military recorded as many as 25 violent acts a day in the ramadi region , ranging from shootings and kidnappings to roadside_bombs and suicide attacks . in the past several weeks , the average has dropped to four acts of violence a day , american military officials said . on a recent morning , american and iraqi troops , accompanied by several police officers , went on a foot patrol through a market in the malaab neighborhood of ramadi . only a couple of months ago , american and iraqi forces would enter the area only in armored_vehicles . people stopped and stared . the sight of police and military forces in the area , particularly on foot , was still novel . the new calm is eerie and unsettling , particularly for anyone who knew the city even several months ago . ''the complete change from night to day gives me pause , '' said capt . brice cooper , 26 , executive officer of company b , first battalion , 26th infantry_regiment , first infantry division , which has been stationed in the city and its outskirts since last summer . ''a month and a half ago we were getting shot up . now we 're doing civil_affairs work . '' a moderate front the turnabout began last september , when a federation of tribes in the ramadi area came together as the anbar salvation council to oppose the fundamentalist militants of al_qaeda in mesopotamia . among the council 's founders were members of the abu ali jassem tribe , based in a rural area of northern ramadi . the tribe 's leader , sheik tahir sabbar badawie , said in a recent interview that members of his tribe had fought in the insurgency that kept the americans pinned down on their bases in anbar for most of the last four years . ''if your country was occupied by iraq , would you fight ? '' he asked . ''enough said . '' but while the anti american sheiks in anbar and al_qaeda both opposed the americans , their goals were different . the sheiks were part of a relatively moderate front that sought to drive the americans out of iraq some were also fighting to restore sunni arab power . but al_qaeda wanted to go even further and impose a fundamentalist islamic_state in anbar , a plan that many of the sheiks did not share . al_qaeda 's fighters began to use killing , intimidation and financial coercion to divide the tribes and win support for their agenda . they killed about 210 people in the abu ali jassem tribe alone and kidnapped others , demanding ransoms as high as 65 , 000 per person , sheik badawie said . for all the sheiks' hostility toward the americans , they realized that they had a bigger enemy , or at least one that needed to be fought first , as a matter of survival . the council sought financial and military support from the iraqi and american governments . in return the sheiks volunteered hundreds of tribesmen for duty as police officers and agreed to allow the construction of joint american iraqi_police and military outposts throughout their tribal territories . a similar dynamic is playing out elsewhere in anbar , a desert region the size of new york state that stretches west of baghdad to the syrian and jordanian borders . tribal cooperation with the american and iraqi commands has led to expanded police_forces in the cities of husayba , hit , rutba , baghdadi and falluja , officials say . with the help of the anbar sheiks , the military equation immediately became simpler for the americans in ramadi . the number of enemies they faced suddenly diminished , american and iraqi officials said . they were able to move more freely through large areas . with the addition of the tribal recruits , the americans had enough troops to build and operate garrisons in areas they cleared , many of which had never seen any government security presence before . and the americans were now fighting alongside people with a deep knowledge of the local population and terrain , and with a sense of duty , vengeance and righteousness . ''we know this area , we know the best way to talk to the people and get information from them , '' said capt . hussein abd nusaif , a police commander in a neighborhood in western ramadi , who carries a kalashnikov with an al capone style ' 'snail drum'' magazine . ''we are not afraid of al_qaeda . we will fight them anywhere and anytime . '' beginning last summer and continuing through march , the american led joint forces pressed into the city , block by block , and swept the farmlands on its outskirts . in many places the troops met fierce_resistance . scores of american and iraqi security troops were killed or wounded . the ramadi region is essentially a police_state now , with some 6 , 000 american_troops , 4 , 000 iraqi soldiers and 4 , 500 iraqi_police officers , including an auxiliary police force of about 2 , 000 , all local tribesmen , known as the provincial security force . the security forces are garrisoned in more than 65 police stations , military bases and joint american iraqi combat outposts , up from no more than 10 a year ago . the population of the city is officially about 400 , 000 , though the current number appears to be much lower . to help control the flow of traffic and forestall attacks , the american military has installed an elaborate system of barricades and checkpoints . in some of the enclaves created by this system , which american commanders frequently call ''gated communities , '' no vehicles except bicycles and pushcarts are allowed for fear of car_bombs . american commanders see the progress in anbar as a bellwether for the rest of country . ''one of the things i worry about in baghdad is we wo n't have the time to do the same kind of thing , '' lt . gen . raymond t . odierno , commander of day to day war operations in iraq , said in an interview here . yet the fact that anbar is almost entirely sunni and not riven by the same sectarian feuds as other violent places , like baghdad and diyala_province , has helped to establish order . elsewhere , security forces are largely shiite and are perceived by many sunnis as part of the problem . in anbar , however , the new police force reflects the homogeneous face of the province and appears to enjoy the support of the people . a growing police force military commanders say they cannot completely account for the whereabouts of the insurgency . they say they believe that many guerrillas have been killed , while others have gone underground , laid down their arms or migrated to other parts of anbar , particularly the corridor between ramadi and falluja , the town of karma north of falluja and the sprawling rural zones around falluja , including zaidon and amariyat al falluja on the banks of the euphrates_river . american_forces come under attack in these areas every day . still other guerrillas , the commanders acknowledge , have joined the police force , sneaking through a vetting procedure that is set up to catch only known suspects . many insurgents ''are fighting for a different side now , '' said brig . gen . mark gurganus , commander of ground forces in anbar . ''i think that 's where the majority have gone . '' but american commanders say they are not particularly worried about infiltrators among the new recruits . many of the former insurgents now in the police , they say , were probably low level operatives who were mainly in it for the money and did relatively menial tasks , like planting roadside_bombs . the speed of the buildup has led to other problems . hiring has outpaced the building of police academies , meaning that many new officers have been deployed with little or no training . without enough uniforms , many new officers patrol in civilian clothes , some with their heads wrapped in scarves or covered in balaclavas to conceal their identities . they look no different than the insurgents shown in mujahedeen videos . commanders seem to regard these issues as a necessary cost of quickly building a police force in a political environment that is , in the words of colonel koenig , ' 'sort of like looking through smoke . '' the police force , they say , has been the most critical component of the new security plan in anbar . yet , oversight of the police_forces by american_forces and the central iraqi government is weak , leaving open the possibility that some local leaders are using newly armed tribal members as their personal death_squads to settle old scores . several american officers who work with the iraqi_police said a lot of police work was conducted out of their view , particularly at night . ''it 's like the mafia , '' one american soldier in juwayba said . general odierno said , ''we have to watch them very closely to make sure we 're not forming militias . '' but there is a new sense of commitment by the police , american and iraqi officials say , in part because they are patrolling their own neighborhoods . many were motivated to join after they or their communities were attacked by al_qaeda , and their successes have made them an even greater target of insurgent car_bombs and suicide attacks . abd muhammad khalaf , 28 , a policeman in the jazeera district on ramadi 's northern edge , is typical . he joined the police after al_qaeda in mesopotamia killed two of his brothers , he said . ''i will die when god wills it , '' he said . ''but before i die , i will support my friends and kill some terrorists . '' the tasks ahead some tribal_leaders now working with the americans say they harbor deep resentment toward the shiite led administration of prime_minister_nuri_kamal_al_maliki , accusing it of pursuing a sectarian agenda . yet they also say they are invested in the democratic process now . after boycotting the national elections in 2005 , many are now planning to participate in the next round of provincial elections , which have yet to be scheduled , as a way to build on the political and military gains they have made in recent months . ''since i was a little boy , i have seen nothing but warfare against the kurds , iranians , kuwait , the americans , '' sheik badawie said . ''we are tired of war . we are going to fight through the ballot_box . '' already , tribal_leaders are participating in local councils that have been formed recently throughout the ramadi area under the guidance of the american military . iraqi and american officials say the sheiks' embrace of representative government reflects the new realities of power in anbar . ''out here it 's been , 'who can defend his people ? ' '' said brig . gen . john r . allen , deputy commanding general of coalition_forces in anbar . ''after the war it 's , 'who was able to reconstruct ? ' '' indeed , american and iraqi officials say that to hold on to the security gains and the public 's support , they must provide services to residents in areas they have tamed . but successful development , they argue , will depend on closing the divide between the shiite dominated government in baghdad , which has long ignored the province , and the local leadership in anbar , which has long tried to remain independent from the capital . if that fails , they say , the iraqi and american governments may have helped to organize and arm a potent enemy .",has a topic of politics
"an unusually frank speech by a senior american diplomat about right wing extremism in germany has stirred a tempest here . the diplomat , douglas h . jones , who heads the american diplomatic_mission in berlin , told an audience last week that many foreigners believe that germany "" lacks the will to confront its extremism problem pragmatically . "" "" it is not reassuring , for example , that more progress is not being made toward guaranteed civil_rights for foreigners in germany , "" he said . mr . jones said at the beginning of his speech that his views "" do not necessarily reflect any policy of the united_states_government . "" soon after he delivered it , the united_states embassy in bonn issued a statement saying "" it was inappropriate for him to make remarks so at variance with u.s . policy while working as an american official . "" a german_government spokesman said later that the charge d'affaires at the united_states embassy in bonn , donald kursch , "" wrote to the chancellery on friday , after the speech became known , to deeply regret the incident . "" mr . jones , a 21 year member of the foreign service who has served in his present post for five years , had previously announced that he would retire this year . he delivered his speech to a human_rights group in oranienburg , near berlin . nearly all the points contained in the speech had already been made repeatedly by journalists and other commentators . what attracted attention was not the speech 's content , but the identity of its author . suggestion of racism at one point , mr . jones noted that chancellor helmut_kohl was among many german politicians who often say germany "" is not an immigration country . "" "" if i were a skinhead , i would take a certain amount of comfort in hearing that germany was not a country of immigration , "" mr . jones said . "" that would signal to me that the nearly seven million foreigners who live here legally do not belong here , and that i am justified in wanting them out . and to be honest with you , this sentiment is by no means limited to skinheads . "" mr . jones also criticized german citizenship laws , which place paramount importance on german ancestry rather than on place of birth or residence . "" how can those minorities remain anything but conspicuous , underprivileged targets of anger and frustration if they have no chance to become assimilated on an equal basis with germans if they so choose , or to have their own cultural distinctiveness protected from attack if they do not ? "" he asked . "" if germany is not a racist society , why is its nationality law , which was written in 1913 , predicated upon race ? public attitudes toward minority communities in germany are ambivalent at best . "" mr . jones also criticized a recent proposal made by wolfgang schauble , the parliamentary leader of mr . kohl 's christian_democratic_union , that the german_army be used to maintain civil order in the country . "" i can think of nothing that would bring to mind worse associations or that would give more of an impression of a state in crisis than this blurring of the distinction between internal and external security , "" he said . attacks drop slightly bonn , april 18 ( special to the new york times ) right wing acts of violence in germany dropped slightly last year compared with 1992 , according to a report by the german_government . but there were still 1 , 609 stabbings , beatings , arson attacks and the like against foreigners that took the lives of 7 people in 1993 . a total of 727 were wounded , compared with 585 the year before . the federal office for the protection of the constitution , which issued the report last week , also said that in the first three months of this year , right wing violence continued to decline , with a total of 349 incidents , including the bombing of a synagogue in lubeck last month and five attempted murders , but no deaths . right wing violence peaked in 1992 , as did a wave of foreign asylum_seekers . the german constitution was changed last summer to impose qualifications for the first time on the right to claim political_asylum . the report put the total membership of right wing and extremist groups at 42 , 450 , about the same as last year , and said more vigorous prosecution and heavier sentences in cases of violence had lessened the appeal of the groups . the report also made clear that prosperous western german states , not the formerly communist eastern areas now afflicted by unemployment , had the highest per capita incidence of racial violence in 1993 .",has a topic of politics
"a group of prominent americans and germans has announced plans to build an american_academy here , part of a web of new projects intended to assure that this city 's ties to the united_states do not weaken over the years ahead . the academy , which is to open in 1996 , would be a center for scholars from the united_states , germany and central_europe . henry a . kissinger , the former secretary of state , and richard von_weizsacker , the former president of germany , are the honorary chairmen . "" by sparking an american rediscovery of berlin 's treasures , the academy can tap a rich , centuries old tradition of cultural and scholarly interaction between americans and central europeans that was cracked by world_war_ii and the cold_war , "" organizers of the project said in a statement . the withdrawal last week of the last united_states troops here has unsettled many berliners , some of whom do not realize that the americans are not bringing their troops home from all of germany . to show that the united_states intends to remain active here , american officials have begun projects that are envisioned as the basis of a new and stronger economic , political , cultural and strategic relationship . "" we have got a massive effort under way to demonstrate to berlin , to germany and the world that we are not pulling out in any real sense , "" richard c . holbrooke , the outgoing united states ambassador to germany , said in an interview . "" all that is leaving berlin are a couple of hundred soldiers who are no longer needed . "" there 's a real strength and a real emotion in the feeling that germans , and especially berliners , have toward the united_states . logically , these ties will gradually attenuate and become more distant . memories of the airlift and 'ich bin ein berliner' will fade like gettysburg and the battle of the bulge . what we are doing now is building a series of institutions that will guarantee that this relationship does n't fade along with the memories . "" recently , an exhibition documenting the united_states role in berlin opened at an american cultural center in downtown berlin , and a new allied museum was dedicated in a building that was once the american military 's movie_theater . senior government and business leaders from both countries held a two day conference last week that was billed as the one of highest level meetings of german and american business and political leaders ever . a smaller scale meeting in leipzig next weekend is intended to allow american , german and central_european business executives to discuss prospects for cooperation . among other programs that are about to begin here are several aimed at eastern_germany , where during the communist era many people were given only a partial view of the american role in germany . a center is being planned in dresden to train eastern german schoolteachers in methods of teaching english . over the coming months , as germans observe the 50th_anniversary of various events leading up to and following the end of world_war_ii , the united_states will sponsor discussions in eastern_germany intended to present fuller historical background than was available to most people there during the decades of communist rule . "" the american role at the end of world_war_ii was never explained in east_germany , "" said dan hamilton , an american scholar who is working as an adviser to the united_states diplomats here . "" or it was explained in a way that just was n't true . """,has a topic of politics
"lead for lothar de maiziere , the idea that he is about to be the first east_german leader to visit the united_states is not really that extraordinary . for lothar de maiziere , the idea that he is about to be the first east_german leader to visit the united_states is not really that extraordinary . ''everywhere i travel it 's for the first time , '' said the former orchestra musician who emerged as much to his own surprise as anyone else 's as the first democratically_elected prime_minister of east_germany . ''after all , i 'm a citizen of the german_democratic_republic and always have been . '' the statement played both on the fact that east_germany 's former communist leaders were not widely welcomed in the west and that for ordinary citizens , western travel used to be a rare privilege . mr . de maiziere is to make his first trip to the united_states on saturday , after a visit to moscow to talk with president mikhail s . gorbachev . the east_german leader will see president_bush in washington on monday , and before that he will be a guest at a banquet given by the world jewish congress in new york . the paradox of the breakthrough a paradox that accompanies most of what mr . de maiziere does is that his many firsts are likely to be lasts . if german_unification proceeds at the pace set so far , he may also prove to be the last east_german leader to pay an official visit . enjoying contradictions a refined man who came to law and then to politics after an ailment forced him to abandon his career as a professional violist , mr . de maiziere , who is 50 years old , seems to enjoy the many contradictions that the role has thrust on him . ''if someone had told me a year ago that i would be sitting here with you in this role , i would have called him an idiot , '' he said in an interview in the prime_minister 's office of the council of ministers building . a year ago , in fact a half year ago , this was the realm of willi stoph , one of the old guard communists who ran east_germany with an iron hand under erich_honecker . in the lobby , the old communist emblem was still there only a week ago . the pace of change has been mr . de maiziere 's greatest challenge . his own rise is a case in point he came to office largely because the old christian democratic_party in east_germany , tainted by its long association with the communists , had no one else with any credibility last fall to make its leader . then , chancellor helmut_kohl of west_germany decided to throw his formidable political weight behind the christian democrats in the east_german elections in march . but to the surprise of many in east and west , mr . de maiziere has shown an unexpected degree of independence and political skill . he has succeeded in resisting mr . kohl 's pressure for moving up all german elections to december without creating a split . ''in my party and my government , we have always said that unification will have to come as soon as possible , but also as well as possible , '' he said . ''now we have taken a big step forward with the treaty on economic , currency and social union , and we have to make as many laws as some parliaments write in a whole term . and people have to learn how to follow these laws . '' ''the day has only 24 hours in the g.d.r. , and i can assure you we cannot tackle the problems of unification any more quickly , '' he added . seeking u.s . investment in talking of his trip to the united_states , mr . de maiziere is distinctly a lobbyist for his country . ''we hope that we can meet with representatives of american industry during the visit , '' he said . ''you know that our country faces great economic problems and that now , with the state treaty we signed with west_germany , we are creating a legal order that allows favorable investments for those who are interested . '' the economic problems that mr . de maiziere referred to are a matter of dispute . the economic unity scheduled for july 1 is expected to sound the death knell for many antiquated east_german industries , leaving hundreds of thousands of workers without jobs . some politicians have warned of major social_unrest once the difficulties of union set in next fall . mr . de maiziere sought to play down the threat , but also to blame the former communist government for any troubles . ''i think that with the measures we have decided on now there will not be a 'hot autumn , ' but at most a warm one , '' he said . ''we do not want to underestimate the difficulties we are facing , but we do not want to dramatize them either . ''we have to make clear that problems , when they come about , are the aftershocks of socialism , and not the first shocks of the new market_economy . we will not stand trial for thing we have not done . '' the main issue that mr . de maiziere is likely to confront in his foreign talks is the debate of the future germany 's place in european security arrangements . the issue was left essentially unresolved in talks between mr . gorbachev and mr . bush last week . caution on nato issue mr . de maiziere seemed to take extra care in discussing the problem so as not to be seen as criticizing the soviet_union , which still has 350 , 000 troops stationed in east_germany . ''the soviet_union makes it clear again and again that in the process of german_unification , their legitimate security interests have to be maintained and that this would not be the case if a unified germany became a member of a structurally unchanged nato , '' he said . moscow has rejected western demands that a united germany belong to nato , and has proposed instead the creation of a pan_european security system , possibly in the framework of the conference on security and cooperation in europe , in which all european and north_american nations take part . in the interim , some soviet_troops are expected to remain in germany . mr . de maiziere indicated that he did not expect the soviet_union to delay reunification if talks between the wartime allies and the german states found an acceptable formula . ''we think also that we can recognize after talks with the soviet side that the soviet_union aims for an all european collective_security system in the frame of the c.s.c.e. , and that transitional solutions are no longer the main problem , if you make it clear that this is in a time framework , '' the prime_minister said . ''there must not be a solution so that those who say gorbachev lost world_war_ii would not be proven right , '' he added .",has a topic of politics
"defense secretary donald h . rumsfeld declared today that the iraqi government was starting to crumble as he laid out eight broad objectives by which the bush_administration would define victory . saddam_hussein and his loyalists are ' 'starting to lose control of their country , '' mr . rumsfeld said . ''the confusion of iraqi officials is growing . their ability to see what is happening on the battlefield , to communicate with their forces and to control their country is slipping away . '' mr . rumsfeld listed eight sweeping goals that the bush_administration sought to achieve in the war . senior white_house aides said president_bush would monitor developments in the war from camp_david , the presidential retreat , where he was to be joined by senior members of his war council . although mr . rumsfeld did not mention the first persian_gulf_war in 1991 , to drive iraqi forces from kuwait , he was no doubt cognizant that the first president_bush was criticized for achieving battlefield success but not a decisive political victory over mr . hussein . ''our goal is to defend the american people , and to eliminate iraq 's weapons_of_mass_destruction , and to liberate the iraqi people , '' mr . rumsfeld said during a pentagon news briefing and defining the overall goal of the war . the first of the eight specific aims , mr . rumsfeld said , is to ''end the regime of saddam_hussein by striking with force on a scope and scale that makes clear to iraqis that he and his regime are finished . '' second , iraq 's arsenal of biological and chemical_weapons , and any program to develop nuclear_weapons , are also targets , as the american military has been ordered ''to identify , isolate and eventually eliminate iraq 's weapons_of_mass_destruction , their delivery systems , production capabilities , and distribution networks , '' mr . rumsfeld said . troops will then ' 'search for , capture , drive out terrorists who have found safe harbor in iraq , '' he added . next , he said , the allied forces will ''collect such intelligence as we can find related to terrorist networks in iraq and beyond . '' the fifth goal , mr . rumsfeld said , is to ''collect such intelligence as we can find related to the global network of illicit_weapons of mass destruction activity . '' the united_states also seeks ''to end sanctions and to immediately deliver humanitarian relief , food and medicine to the displaced and to the many needy iraqi citizens , '' mr . rumsfeld said . military forces also will ' 'secure iraq 's oil fields and resources , which belong to the iraqi people , and which they will need to develop their country after decades of neglect by the iraqi regime , '' mr . rumsfeld said . lastly , mr . rumsfeld said , the war_effort is ''to help the iraqi people create the conditions for a rapid transition to a representative self government that is not a threat to its neighbors and is committed to ensuring the territorial_integrity of that country . '' this morning , mr . bush gave a classified briefing on the military campaign to five congressional leaders he had summoned to the oval_office . ''we 're making progress , '' mr . bush told reporters at the start of the meeting . ''we will stay on task until we 've achieved our objective , which is to rid iraq of weapons_of_mass_destruction . '' the leaders at the meeting were the house speaker , j . dennis_hastert , republican of illinois bill frist of tennessee , the senate_majority_leader tom_daschle of south_dakota , the senate minority_leader representative tom_delay of texas , the house majority leader and representative_nancy_pelosi of california , the house minority_leader . mr . bush thanked the leaders for resolutions passed by both houses of congress supporting american_troops and commending the president as commander_in_chief . ''not only do we support those brave souls who are sacrificing on our behalf , but we want to thank their parents and their families for their dedication as well , '' mr . bush said . earlier , mr . bush met with mr . rumsfeld about the unfolding military campaign and attended a national_security_council meeting in the white_house_situation_room . after taping his weekly radio address , to be broadcast saturday morning , mr . bush took off early this afternoon from the white_house south lawn in a helicopter bound for camp_david . mr . bush also won formal support from the house of representatives today when , after hours of wrangling , the house voted 392 to 11 to adopt a resolution supporting the president 's ''firm leadership and decisive_action in the conduct of military operations in iraq . '' all the no votes came from democrats , while another 21 democrats and one republican voted ''present . '' the senate adopted its resolution unanimously on thursday afternoon . as more iraqi troops began to surrender today , some senior american military officers expressed wariness that secret talks with elite iraqi units like the republican guard and special republican guard would lead to significant surrenders . ''i 'd be cautious , '' said one senior officer . ''i would n't raise expectations . '' a nation at war the pentagon",has a topic of politics
"lead following are excerpts from president_reagan 's speech today at the berlin_wall , as recorded by the associated press following are excerpts from president_reagan 's speech today at the berlin_wall , as recorded by the associated press behind me stands a wall that encircles the free sectors of this city , part of a vast system of barriers that divides the entire continent of europe . from the baltic south , those barriers cut across germany in a gash of barbed_wire , concrete , dog runs and guard towers . farther south , there may be no visible , no obvious , wall . but there remain armed_guards and checkpoints all the same still a restriction on the right to travel , still an instrument to impose upon ordinary men and women the will of a totalitarian state . yet it is here in berlin where the wall emerges most clearly here , cutting across your city , where the newsphoto and the television screen have imprinted this brutal division of a continent upon the mind of the world . standing before the brandenburg_gate , every man is a german , separated from his fellow men . every man is a berliner , forced to look upon a scar . president von_weizsacker has said the german question is open as long as the brandenburg_gate is closed . today i say as long as this gate is closed , as long as this scar of a wall is permitted to stand , it is not the german question alone that remains open , but the question of freedom for all mankind . yet i do not come here to lament . for i find in berlin a message of hope even , in the shadow of this wall , a message of triumph . from devastation from utter ruin you berliners have in freedom rebuilt a city that once again ranks as one of the greatest on earth . the soviets may have had other plans . but , my friends , there were a few things the soviets did n't count on berliner herz . berliner humor . ja , und berliner schnauze . in the 1950 's , khrushchev predicted , ''we will bury you . '' but in the west today , we see a free world that has achieved a_level of prosperity and well being unprecedented in all human history . in the communist world , we see failure . technological backwardness . declining standards of health . even want of the most basic kind too little food . even today , the soviet_union still cannot feed itself . after these four decades , then , there stands before the entire world one great and inescapable conclusion . freedom leads to prosperity . freedom replaces the ancient hatreds among the nations with comity and peace . freedom is the victor . now the soviets themselves may in a limited way be coming to understand the importance of freedom . we hear much from moscow about a new policy of reform and openness . some political_prisoners have been released . certain foreign news broadcasts are no longer being jammed . some economic enterprises have been permitted to operate with greater freedom from state control . are these the beginnings of profound changes in the soviet_state ? or are they token gestures , intended to raise false hopes in the west or to strengthen the soviet system without changing it ? we welcome change and openness . for we believe freedom and security go together that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world_peace . there is one sign the soviets can make that would be unmistakable , that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace . general secretary gorbachev , if you seek peace if you seek prosperity for the soviet_union and eastern_europe if you seek liberalization , come here , to this gate . mr . gorbachev , open this gate . mr . gorbachev , tear down this wall . i understand the fear of war and the pain of division that afflict this continent and i pledge to you my country 's efforts to help overcome these burdens . to be sure , we in the west must resist soviet expansion . so we must maintain defenses of unassailable strength . yet we seek peace . so we must strive to reduce arms on both sides . beginning 10 years ago , the soviets challenged the western alliance with a grave new threat hundreds of new and more deadly ss 20 nuclear_missiles , capable of striking every capital in europe . the western alliance responded by committing itself to a counterdeployment unless the soviets agreed to negotiate a better solution namely , the elimination of such weapons on both sides . for many months , the soviets refused to bargain in earnestness . as the alliance in turn prepared to go forward with its counterdeployment , there were difficult days days of protests like those during my 1982 visit to this city and the soviets later walked away from the table . but through it all , the alliance held firm . and i invite those who protested then i invite those who protest today to mark this fact because we remained strong , the soviets came back to the table . because we remained strong , today we have within reach the possibility , not merely of limiting the growth of arms , but of eliminating , for the first time , an entire class of nuclear_weapons from the face of the earth . in europe , only one nation and those it controls refuse to join the community of freedom . yet in this age of redoubled economic_growth , of information and innovation , the soviet_union faces a choice . it must make fundamental changes . or it will become obsolete . today , thus , represents a moment of hope . we in the west stand ready to cooperate with the east to promote true openness to break down the barriers that separate people , to create a safer , freer world . and surely there is no better place than berlin , the meeting place of east and west , to make a start . as i looked out a moment ago from the reichstag , that embodiment of german unity , i noticed words crudely spray_painted upon the wall perhaps by a young berliner . ''this wall will fall . beliefs become reality . '' yes , across europe , this wall will fall . for it cannot withstand faith . it cannot withstand truth . the wall cannot withstand freedom .",has a topic of politics
"lead the joyous revolution of freedom sweeping eastern_europe is confronting western_europe with some of its gravest decisions in 40 years . the joyous revolution of freedom sweeping eastern_europe is confronting western_europe with some of its gravest decisions in 40 years . among the most daunting challenges is how to maintain the movement toward european unity if , as most western_european leaders expect , the west germans become distracted from that old goal by the newly aroused prospects of achieving german_unification a vision spelled out by chancellor helmut_kohl in bonn on tuesday . another concern questions where the united_states and the soviet_union will fit in the suddenly shifting european landscape . many western europeans think the natural course of events will bind them more closely to the new soviet_union , which after all shares the same continent , and pry them loose from their security and economic ties to the united_states . the worry over germany the biggest worry of all , to many europeans , is west_germany itself , increasingly inclined to take charge of its destiny in ways that would have been unthinkable a decade or even a year ago . mr . kohl , for example , outlined his ideas for german_unification tuesday without any prior consultation with his allies , though the united_states , britain and france share with the soviet_union a treaty responsibility for ''germany as a whole'' that dates back to 1945 . conversations with politicians , business leaders , students , writers and ordinary people from wales to west_berlin in recent weeks leave a clear impression of unease , a sense that without wise actions the_dream come true in eastern_europe could easily turn into unpleasant realities . what is also becoming apparent is that rapid changes can bring long submerged cultural , historical and political differences of the 12 members of the european_community to the surface . indeed , this risk has appeared just as those nations are poised to eliminate the remaining trade_barriers among their 320 million people by the end of 1992 . the unease is compounded by a feeling that western leaders have not been saying what they really think about the central problem of a united germany . for four decades , when reunification appeared impossible , all of them implicitly accepted it by saying that a truly free , united europe , east and west , was the ultimate goal . now that the reintegration of europe and the germanys no longer looks so distant , said klaus bolling , a former head of west_germany 's mission to east_berlin , ''we 're seeing a tremendous outbreak of hypocrisy . '' ''it seems a little bit insulting to germany to say that it needs to be anchored into europe , '' prime_minister margaret_thatcher of britain said on bbc_television monday_night , clearly hoping to anchor the west germans even more firmly with such expressed sentiments . ''i am not afraid of reunification , '' president_francois_mitterrand of france said in bonn earlier this month . ''if the germans want to be a single nation in a single state , this must be founded on the will of the german nation , and nobody can oppose it . '' but officials in paris now explain that what the president intended by the statement was to calm the fears of many french people over unification , and to encourage the germans not to be distracted from the unfinished work of building the european_community . mr . kohl tried to reassure other european leaders in paris on nov . 18 , that west_germany saw ''no alternative'' but to work for german unity within the existing european context . gorbachev and reunification ''we agreed not to raise the question of the existing borders , '' mrs . thatcher acknowledged , but diplomats in bonn , paris and london all agree that the reason german_reunification was left off the agenda was the fear that forcing the issue could bring down president mikhail s . gorbachev , on whom they think all the fragile changes in the soviet_union and eastern_europe continue to depend . all the western_european leaders agreed over dinner in paris on nov . 18 that mr . gorbachev was at a critical juncture and that they should do nothing to undermine his position . officially , reunification will not be on the agenda when president_bush sees mr . gorbachev off malta this weekend , but hardly anyone in europe thinks it can stay off forever . ''to talk about the breakup of nato does no one any good at all , '' mrs . thatcher said tuesday night . but questions are even beginning to surface at the popular level all over western_europe about whether there will be any need for an american dominated military alliance against possible soviet attack , when or if that threat no longer exists . the shape of europe the people sense a turning point ordinary people , as well as their political leaders , sense that a historical turning point is being reached . ''we thought we had everything perfect in the common_market , '' said janet semper , who lives in westminster abbey with her husband , colin , a resident canon there . ''we were letting in one country at a time spain , portugal , greece , and then in comes this wonderful rabble through the berlin_wall and now we have to rethink the whole thing . '' ''the instant the berlin_wall comes down , france is no longer the center of europe it 's on the periphery , '' said francois barbey , a 48 year old real_estate salesman in paris . ''people say we 've won . we 've come to the end of one world , but we have n't found the key to the next . '' john le carre , whose master spy george smiley got his soviet counterpart , karla , to defect across the berlin_wall in his 1980 novel , ''smiley 's people , '' put it this way in a recent essay ''smiley had won , as the west has won now . but the sweets of victory elude us as they eluded smiley , partly because he had forgotten what he was fighting for , partly because he feared that his masters preferred the comforts of permanent aggression to the hardship of new choices and alignments . '' ''we really invent the enemies we need , '' the novelist , whose real name is david cornwell , explained later . ''we could be making the discovery that russia , once the military threat is removed , is a huge , untidy third world problem that will demand time , effort and money lots of money to fix . it could be a terrible headache . '' to many people , the german question already is . ''i do n't know what will become of this land , '' mr . bolling said in his home in west_berlin . ''there 'll be bound to be a cooling off vis a vis america as the prospect of a united germany comes into view . already the people of west_berlin are complaining about how the three allied military commanders have just bought 10 new mercedes cars with their money , and they 're asking how much longer they have to go on paying for such things . '' already lufthansa , the west_german airline , is demanding that britain , france and the united_states relinquish their monopoly on flying between west_germany and west_berlin . ''the division into eastern and western_europe was a construction of the cold_war , '' heinz ruhnau , lufthansa 's chairman , told die_welt the day before the wall came down . ''east and west have to recognize that their status positions ca n't be maintained any longer after 40 years . '' ''we all want a relationship with the united_states , '' said sergio romano , a former diplomat who was italy 's ambassador to moscow until earlier this year . ''but i imagine we would all prefer that it not be so hierarchical as it has been . '' nato diplomats in brussels say that the organization , like the warsaw_pact , will have to convert itself into an instrument for managing change and monitoring complex negotiated arms control agreements over the next few years , but in london , paris and bonn , diplomats complain that such thinking is only in its embryonic stage , and not well coordinated . the forming of a union contradictions in the community if events in eastern_europe are only beginning to spark a rethinking of nato 's role , they have uncovered contradictions about the european_community that have existed since the treaty of rome established it in 1957 . in those early days , president charles de gaulle of france insisted that europe not be a federation but a collection of sovereign , cooperating nation states . de gaulle called it ''l'europe des patries , '' and used it as an excuse for keeping out britain in the early 1960 's , because he feared the british would turn the european_community into an anglo_saxon united states of europe . now all the european leaders but one the british_prime_minister have agreed that the changes in the east require urgently forging ahead to more federalism in the community . ''for the european_community to remain the center of gravity that it is , we must accelerate , '' said jacques_delors , its executive president , two weeks ago . mrs . thatcher wants to complete the 1992 program , but is wary of surrendering more british sovereignty to the community 's executive commission in brussels , which she says is not fully accountable to any democratic parliament . as eastern_european countries evolve toward political and economic democracy , her close advisers believe , the community should stay loose and flexible . ''this is n't the time to become more exclusive , '' one of them explained . ''i do not believe in a federation of europe , a united states of europe , '' mrs . thatcher said again on television monday . ''i believe it will work far better if we cooperate together as 12 sovereign states . '' french officials expect that mrs . thatcher will be alone in opposing a call at the next european_community summit in strasbourg , france , dec . 8 9 , for a conference that would consider changes in the treaty of rome to permit full monetary_union , though they say they are not sure the germans will not have developed second thoughts as well . but if changes in the east continue , the european_community will no longer be limited to the 12 , and one of the main subjects on the agenda in strasbourg will be how to respond to the clamor in eastern_europe to get in on the prosperity . the 12 agreed in principle in paris earlier this month to provide economic aid to all eastern_european countries , but only if they make clear progress toward economic and political democracy . separately or together , le_monde calculated the other day , the europeans and the other industrial democracies have given or pledged more than 6 billion in aid or loans to eastern_europe , mainly hungary and poland , this year . west_german and french officials believe that bonn is prepared to offer even more than that to east_germany . ''it would n't be hard to make a success out of east_germany , '' one french diplomat observed . ''it could be more prosperous than portugal in five years . '' the larger question behind this is whether poland and hungary , and now possibly east_germany and czechoslovakia , should be allowed or encouraged to join the european_community , with associate membership as a first step . ''the e.c . already has various bilateral 'association agreements' with other countries more can be struck in eastern_europe as reform takes hold , '' the economist newspaper wrote last week , a suggestion that was endorsed by mrs . thatcher . a former president of france , valery giscard_d'estaing , has suggested that the community tailor these association agreements country by country , and tie them to price reform , privatization and currency convertibility in each one . some european leaders speak of a marshall_plan for eastern_europe , with a leading role for the west le_monde said that marshall aid from the united_states from 1947 to 1948 totaled 13 billion , worth 171 billion today . ''a marshall_plan now is impossible , '' prof . alfred grosser , a french expert on germany , said . ''you have hardly anyone in the soviet_union , and not many in eastern_europe , who know how to manage a market_economy . '' in addition , all eastern currencies have been pegged at wildly artificial rates against western ones for years , and to get them down to realistic exchange values will be painful . in west_germany , the mark , now one of the world 's strongest currencies , was introduced in june 1948 at a rate of one for every 10 old german reichsmarks , causing tremendous resentment and pain until people regained confidence in their money and the economy started functioning again . representatives of 24 industrial democracies , including the european_community , the united_states , japan and south_korea , will meet in brussels on dec . 13 for more discussions about how to help . ''the socialist models are collapsing , '' said francois perigot , head of the french employers' federation in paris . ''if all they get from our system is black markets , petty corruption , unemployment and social indifference , they could turn away from our model . europe should n't give them a bad example . '' the soviet threat some confusion amid power shifts but essentially europe is confused . no journalist , politician , professor or economic expert saw that change would come so suddenly to so many countries all over the east . what has happened has left many of them in breathless bewilderment . all ordinary people can see for sure is that a soviet threat that made them dependent on the united_states has receded , and that for better or for worse the europe they have known for 40 years will rapidly change into something else . ''everyone everywhere is talking about it , of course , '' said raymond kingsley taylor , chapter clerk of hereford cathedral . ''there 's relief , sheer stunned surprise , and apprehension . '' ''europe will become more and more aggressively competitive against japan , and distance itself from the americans , '' said jacques seguela , a french advertising executive and author in paris . ''the soviet_union will be part of this new europe . '' he will open an advertising_agency in moscow jan . 1 and two in hungary and poland . anke van_der valk , a 38 year old social worker in delft , the netherlands , agreed . ''those eastern lands belong to europe , '' she said . ''i think they should join the common_market . '' but , she added , ''i 'm a bit afraid of a united germany . better for the two germanys to remain separate , and let both of them be members of the european_community . '' ''all the french public opinion_polls show that between 60 and 70 percent of the french people say german_reunification would n't bother them , '' said professor grosser , france 's leading expert on germany . but in the quai d'orsay , some diplomats speak of the shelling of rheims cathedral in the franco prussian war of 1870 as if it were yesterday . ''national pride caused all the problems we 're seeing today , '' said markus doll , a 22 year old student in hamburg . ''the people who used to say 'we are germans' now say 'we are europeans . ' for me it 's no better . they should say 'we are people , just like everybody else . ' '' clamor in the east",has a topic of politics
"an iraqi american businessman who profited from the united_nations oil for food aid program with iraq pleaded_guilty tuesday to four criminal counts . the case , against samir a . vincent , included charges that he had enlisted influential former american government officials , who were not identified , to discuss ways to help saddam_hussein avoid international economic_sanctions . the plea will result in the first conviction in the multipronged investigation of the oil for food program . attorney_general john_ashcroft said mr . vincent was cooperating with the inquiry . mr . vincent , a naturalized citizen who has long been involved in iraqi american affairs , pleaded_guilty to secretly working on behalf of the iraqi government to lobby american and united_nations officials about the sanctions program . in exchange , he received millions of dollars after being given the rights to sell millions of barrels of iraqi oil , according to the charges . the criminal information , as the list of charges is known , said mr . vincent had ''lobbied former officials of the united_states_government who maintained close contacts to high ranking members of both the clinton and bush administrations in an effort to convince the u.s . government to support of a repeal of sanctions against iraq . '' the document also said mr . vincent arranged a meeting in manhattan in september 2000 between a high ranking representative of the iraqi government and a former american government official to discuss strategy to persuade policy_makers to support the repeal of united_nations sanctions . in november 2001 , the charge said , mr . vincent delivered a message from officials of the iraqi_intelligence_service and the government of iraq to a former american official on the issue of whether baghdad would allow arms inspectors to return in exchange for the dropping of sanctions . it does not say if that was the same official involved in the september 2000 meeting . neither the criminal information nor a statement on tuesday by mr . ashcroft identified the former american officials who were said to have been involved . bryan sierra , a justice_department spokesman , declined to identify the former officials , but noted that the investigation was continuing . mr . vincent was charged with , among other things , acting as an unregistered agent of the iraqi government . that charge raises the possibility that the former official or officials could be in similar jeopardy if they were involved in taking up the iraqi government 's case . mr . vincent , who could face up to 28 years in prison , entered his plea on tuesday in federal district court in manhattan before judge denny chin . in addition to the federal criminal inquiry , a three member investigative commission has been appointed by secretary_general_kofi_annan of the united_nations . it is led by paul a . volcker , the former federal_reserve chairman . the volcker group , which may now have access to mr . vincent , is expected to issue an interim report in the next few weeks . the oil for food program was started in 1996 to help ease the effects on civilians of sanctions imposed after iraq invaded_kuwait in 1990 . under the program , iraq was permitted to sell its oil under the condition that the proceeds be put into a special account the government could use to buy relief supplies . the program is now widely regarded as having provided a means by which mr . hussein was able to skim millions of dollars . ''the hussein regime corrupted the oil for food program , '' mr . ashcroft said , ' 'depriving the iraqi people of food and medicine and undermining the sanctions . '' he described mr . vincent as one of mr . hussein 's accomplices in exploiting the program . the charging document asserts that , as a reward , mr . vincent was enabled to act as the broker for nine million_barrels of oil . david kelley , the united_states_attorney in manhattan , estimated that mr . vincent accumulated between 3 million and 5 million in profits . mr . vincent traveled to baghdad in the early 1990 's and drafted agreements with iraqi officials that provided for payments to him of millions of dollars for his role in helping persuade the united_nations to put the oil for food program into effect . it is unclear whether that money was in addition to the fees from the oil sales . mr . vincent 's name appeared on a list compiled by the c.i.a . and disclosed in october that identified people who had secretly benefited from the oil for food program . he operated a company called phoenix international l.l.c . in suburban virginia . he worked for years to improve united_states iraqi relations , including helping organize a tour of the united_states in 1999 by iraqi clerics who pressed for an end to sanctions during their meetings with american religious leaders , including the evangelist billy_graham .",has a topic of politics
"lead last february , chancellor helmut_kohl of west_germany slipped in and out of washington with scarcely anyone in the american press taking notice that he was here meeting with president_reagan and other united_states officials . a week from today mr . kohl is due to spend 11 hours 50 minutes in the capital , but this time west last february , chancellor helmut_kohl of west_germany slipped in and out of washington with scarcely anyone in the american press taking notice that he was here meeting with president_reagan and other united_states officials . a week from today mr . kohl is due to spend 11 hours 50 minutes in the capital , but this time west_german officials are hoping he will draw more attention . in addition to meeting mr . reagan for lunch at the white_house , the west_german leader is expected to call on the newly elected american president , becoming the first foreign official accorded that distinction . high on the list of topics the federal chancellor is expected to discuss will be his meeting in moscow last month with mikhail s . gorbachev . he will be accompanied by foreign_minister hans_dietrich_genscher and defense minister rupert scholz . mr . kohl is scheduled to hold an afternoon news conference and , in the evening , to be awarded an honorary doctorate in a ceremony at georgetown_university .",has a topic of politics
"three years after the collapse of communism , the warm welcome and private investment that most eastern europeans expected from the european_community countries have fallen far short of their expectations . fears that german companies would virtually take over the economy of central_europe have so far not been confirmed . the foreign capital that has come in from germany , the united_states and elsewhere is billions of dollars less than the estimated need to restructure economies driven by communism for 40 years , and efforts to take advantage of eastern_europe 's cheap labor and sell goods to western markets have produced a protectionist backlash . some people here are beginning to think that well off western europeans are not willing to sacrifice to make it possible for poles , czechs , hungarians and others to join their cozy and comfortable club . "" the process of rapprochement has to be a two way street , "" said ivan busniak , a czech foreign ministry official . "" it is not only we who have to change the western europeans have to change , too . "" steelworkers' discontent this winter , steelworkers in germany , france and britain have staged protests demanding protection for jobs many see as endangered by competition from the east . despite affirmations that the european_community welcomed eastern_europe 's transition to a market_economy , the western trade group has recently strengthened its tariff barriers against cheap food products , textiles , and coal and steel from eastern_europe . yet as dr . andreas gummich , an analyst for deutsche_bank research in frankfurt , pointed out , these are the very areas where eastern europeans want to try to exploit their best trading advantage low labor costs . "" agriculture , textiles , and coal and steel make up 75 percent of the exports for the czech_republic , slovakia , poland and hungary the very same areas in which the european_community is most highly protective , "" dr . gummich said . on april 22 , european_community negotiators agreed to set quotas for czech and slovak steel imports this year that are only a little more than half 1992 levels . punitive_tariffs would be imposed on any excess , community officials said . wide repercussions also followed a ban that the european_community imposed april 8 on meat and dairy_products from eastern_europe , ostensibly because of fears of contamination from hoof and mouth disease . "" this embargo is protectionism and does not reflect the political promises of the west , "" the czech trade and industry minister , vladimir dlouhy , said . czech authorities protested that the last case of the disease in their country was in 1974 , and retaliated with a ban of their own on imports of meat and milk products from the european_community . hungary and poland reacted similarly . which way to look the lesson , the leader of the former communist_party later wrote to prime_minister vaclav klaus , was that the czech_republic 's best friends were not in the west but in the former soviet_union , and that policies should be changed to reflect this reality . poland and hungary all have association agreements with the european_community to prepare the way for eventual membership after the turn of the century . the czech_republic and slovakia have been negotiating new accords following the breakup of the czechoslovakia at the end of 1992 . "" i do n't think we should even be trying to join the european_community now , "" said pavel dvorak , a former czech tourist guide who has built a small business from the proceeds of a set of slot_machines he bought after communism fell . "" the only advantage we have is our low labor costs , and we 'd lose that advantage if we joined too soon . "" fears of german economic domination of the region also abound . germany is now central_europe 's largest trading partner , with a volume of about 10 billion with poland and the former czechoslovakia and about 5 billion with hungary last year . but when it comes to investment , the biggest worry here now is not that there will be too much german investment , but too little foreign investment altogether . little foreign investment total direct foreign investment in the czech_republic since the fall of communism has amounted to only 1 . 6 billion . in hungary it is 4 . 8 billion , and in poland 1 billion , according to the german central_bank . only in the czech_republic do the germans have the largest investment , and even here , the united_states invested more in 1992 than germany did . one reason is that german investors have concentrated on the former east_germany , pouring in 107 billion since 1990 . but with privatization of most czech heavy_industry still not yet accomplished , foreign investment could become more significant in the next few years . a privatization process that has distributed formerly publicly owned companies to individual czech investors , who paid nominal amounts for the right to buy shares , will distribute the first stock certificates next month . some worry that the germans will yet become the dominant economic factor in central_europe . "" the germans are working systematically , step by step , to increase their influence here , "" said mr . dvorak , who is an official of the union of czech entrepreneurs . "" we need somebody strong to help us avoid complete dependency . where are the americans ? where are the japanese ? "" the czech_republic 's president , vaclav_havel , made light of such remarks . "" on the one hand , "" he said in an interview with munich 's sud deutsche zeitung , "" you hear a lot of talk about the 'german danger , ' and about how we could be economically occupied by germany . on the other hand , a lot of businesses have a german sign right underneath the czech one . "" mr . dvorak handed out a business_card that was printed in german . vw buys into a plant the biggest single foreign investor in the czech_republic is volkswagen , which bought a 31 percent interest in the giant skoda automobile plant in mlada boleslav , 40 miles northeast of prague , and has so far invested 163 million in it . volkswagen will put in another 313 million next year , and by 1997 it will have built an entire new factory with a total investment of more than 3 billion , according to dr . milan smutny , a spokesman at the factory . "" it is n't the germans' fault that they 're making so many investments here , "" dr . smutny said . "" it 's the fault of other countries for not coming . "" last year , philip_morris restored some balance to the foreign investment equation , buying the former czech state monopoly on tobacco_products for 398 million . but compared to the 9 billion that foreign companies have earmarked for investment in the oil producing former soviet_republic of kazakhstan , the 7 . 4 billion for the three most economically advanced eastern_european countries seems like small potatoes to the people who live here . "" the germans want to use us as a gateway to the vast soviet market , "" said vladimir jindra , an adviser to the president of the czech central_bank . seeking cheap labor german entrepreneurs and financial analysts say what they really want is something much simpler cheap labor . the average worker at the skoda automobile works , for example , costs volkswagen 220 a month , compared to more than 4 , 000 at the company 's german headquarters in wolfsburg . overall labor costs in czechoslovakia are a tenth of what they are in germany in hungary the ratio is one to six , and in poland one to eight , according to german central_bank research . by 1995 , volkswagen expects to double the productivity of its 17 , 100 czech workers and make 450 , 000 cars , hoping to sell about two thirds of them in eastern markets and a quarter of them in western_europe . but if european_community protectionist trends continue , some economists say , the strategy will fail . "" the germans ought to be pressing for more openness by the e.c . to products from these areas where they want to transfer their production costs , "" said richard portes , director of the center for economic policy research in london . instead , the germans have so far gone along with greater protectionism . "" i think we 'll be ready to join before the e.c . is willing to accept us , "" mr . klaus , the czech prime_minister , said .",has a topic of politics
"lead the united_states is hoping that moscow will quickly drop its opposition to the membership of a united germany in nato if the western allies agree this week on a plan aimed at making the alliance less threatening to the soviet_union , a senior administration official said today . the united_states is hoping that moscow will quickly drop its opposition to the membership of a united germany in nato if the western allies agree this week on a plan aimed at making the alliance less threatening to the soviet_union , a senior administration official said today . another official , traveling on secretary of state james a . baker 3d 's plane for a foreign ministers' meeting here before the nato_summit meeting opening in london on thursday , added that the allies are considering some dramatic , visible way to convey the meeting 's final communique to moscow . one gesture under consideration is sending a foreign_minister , or more than one , from the north_atlantic_treaty_organization to personally deliver the final statement to the soviet foreign_minister , eduard a . shevardnadze . considering that the soviet leadership is now in the midst of its 28th communist_party congress , in which president mikhail s . gorbachev is being assailed by hard_liners for having ''lost'' eastern_europe , officials believe that the way the nato communique is actually conveyed to moscow could significantly enhance its message that the western alliance no longer poses a threat . the ' 'medium , '' said one official , will be ''part of the message . '' rewriting strategy nato officials will be considering proposals that would begin to reshape the alliance 's defense strategy and make it appear to be more of a collective_security organization providing stability in europe than a bulwark against an aggressive soviet_union . but the american officials conceded that there are still significant differences among the allies on which proposals to adopt . among the proposals is that nato modify its nuclear policy , declaring nuclear_weapons to be arms of ''last resort . '' also proposed are plans for nato to thin out its forces along the frontier with eastern_europe , to eventually withdraw all its nuclear tipped artillery shells from europe , and to institutionalize the 35 nation conference on security and cooperation in europe so that moscow could feel it is part of an all european organization after the warsaw_pact disappears . ''the soviets have indicated that this nato meeting and declaration is very important to them , '' mr . baker said . ''it is going to be issued during the period of their party congress . they are going to want to see that the west means it when it says nato is going to adapt and enhance its political component . they are going to want to see that the west means it when it says that we are , in fact , a defensive alliance , with nonagggressive and peaceful intentions . '' mr . baker added that the soviet_union also wants to be assured that the west is serious when it says that moscow will be included in the alliances that will shape europe 's new order . signal and response ''taken together , '' he said , ''what we are hoping is that nato will be sending a very strong signal of this process of change . '' but in a signal to the kremlin , mr . baker pointedly added , ''our ability , of course , to follow through on this is going to depend in part on soviet follow through . '' asked exactly what response was expected , a senior administration official said ''what we would like to see happen in the aftermath of this , if we get the kind of declaration we would like and let me say this is by no means assured then hopefully we would see a different soviet response at the paris two plus four meeting , different from the sort of pro_forma politburo response we saw in berlin'' on june 22 . more specifically , the official said , nato will expect from moscow ''a serious response'' at the paris meeting on july 17 ''that will permit the external aspects of german_unification to be resolved in a manner that will permit its unification as a member of the nato alliance . '' soviets were rebuffed at the june 22 ''two plus four'' session in berlin , which brought together east and west_germany and the four wartime allies the united_states , the soviet_union , britain and france mr . shevardnadze offered a soviet proposal for the future of germany that the west germans and three other allies found unacceptable . he called for a united germany linked to both nato and the warsaw_pact and for the four wartime allies to maintain a troop presence on german soil for up to five years after german_unification is completed . at the time , the western allies dismissed the soviet proposal as meant for domestic consumption before the party congress . but american officials said that unless the soviets begin to show more flexibility on the german question after the congress and the nato meeting , and very quickly , it will be impossible to maintain the schedule of german_unification already anticipated through the end of the year . ingredients of german recipe this includes agreement by the two plus four group to formally relinquish the allies' rights and responsibilities over germany by october , which is supposed to be followed by a meeting of the european security conference in november to ratify this accord . this , in turn , is to be followed by the germans' assuming full sovereignty over their territory and then going ahead with all german elections in december . many european analysts believe that this schedule is looking increasingly unrealistic considering the political uncertainty in moscow , and that deadlock on the german question is more likely in the coming months than a breakthrough .",has a topic of politics
"in a lengthy phone conversation on tuesday , the former iraqi electricity minister who escaped from a baghdad jail on sunday ridiculed american and iraqi officials and said he fled because he did not trust the police and had received a tip that he would be assassinated within days . the official , aiham alsammarae , who telephoned this reporter , said , without offering proof , that he was already outside iraq after finagling his way aboard a flight at the baghdad_international_airport . incredulous iraqi security and justice officials disputed parts of his account , saying that a figure as recognizable as mr . alsammarae could not possibly have slipped onto a flight when he was the subject of a manhunt . mr . alsammarae , who holds dual american and iraqi citizenship , scoffed at those assertions and said they were made by officials who spent too much time inside the protected green_zone in central baghdad and did not understand how the country really worked . ''those suckers who are sitting in the green_zone , they cannot go out and see the people they are governing ? '' asked mr . alsammarae , whose unmistakable speech patterns in english reflect his iraqi and american backgrounds . ''this is a joke . ''so why i cannot take the airport ? it 's not because i am a smart cookie . any iraqi can do it , even if they have 10 , 000 court orders against him . this is iraq . '' one fact iraqi officials could not dispute mr . alsammarae , who had been jailed four months ago on corruption charges stemming from deals made when he was the electricity minister from august 2003 to may 2005 , was still free . if correct , mr . alsammarae 's tale of escape would mean that he not only worked his way free of the iraqi_police guarding the jail but also eluded the thousands of western and iraqi_security_forces stationed in the dense maze of checkpoints and blast_walls in the green_zone , which is the fortified heart of the american occupation and the iraqi government . when asked how he could have pulled off such an escape , mr . alsammarae , who moved to chicago in 1976 but returned to iraq just after the invasion , laughed uproariously for 20 seconds . then , recycling a famous line from an exchange about al capone in ''the untouchables , '' mr . alsammarae said with undisguised glee ''the chicago way . '' mr . alsammarae was the most senior iraqi official of the post saddam_hussein era to be arrested and jailed . his career over the past three years has had a meteoric trajectory , from his meeting with president_bush at the white_house in september 2003 to his arrest in august . although an appeals court overturned his only conviction last week , he faced additional charges and it was unclear whether he could be freed on bail under iraqi law . his escape is a serious embarrassment for the interior_ministry and the american led forces that are guarding the green_zone and struggling to shape the iraqi_police into an effective security force . iraqi officials expressed consternation when informed that mr . alsammarae had telephoned a reporter while on the lam . ''i have no information , '' said brigadier abdul_karim khalif , a spokesman for the interior_ministry . ''he escaped from us . '' mr . khalif did say that the police chief and his assistant at the station where mr . alsammarae had been held were under arrest and that they were being questioned on the escape . ''we are not just embarrassed by that , but we are very angry with our employees and this thing should not happen again , '' mr . khalif said . mr . khalif said that a jailbreak was a crime under iraqi law and that mr . alsammarae would be pursued on those grounds as well . ''now , he is a fugitive from justice , '' said rathi al rathi , head of the iraqi commission on public integrity , whose investigation led to mr . alsammarae 's prosecution . ''he will be on the run , and he will be pursued by interpol for the rest of his life . '' but mr . rathi said he did not believe mr . alsammarae had left iraq yet because the borders had been sealed . when informed of that assertion in an e mail message , mr . alsammarae could scarcely contain his disdain of mr . rathi , whose investigations mr . alsammarae believes are politically_motivated . ''ask him if he wants me to stop and pick him up tomorrow and show him the way out ! ! ! '' mr . alsammarae wrote in response . in a measure of just how murky the matter has become , mr . rathi himself has recently been accused of corruption in the finances of his own office . he has in turn dismissed those charges as political . mr . alsammarae shed little direct light on the two leading theories of how he escaped either with the help of a mysterious western private security firm that appeared at the station on sunday , or with the complicity of the iraqi_police . ''i do n't like to harm these people who helped me , '' he said . despite the charges against him , mr . alsammarae said he did not believe that the american authorities would arrest him in chicago . ''i hope they are smarter than that , '' he said . the struggle for iraq",has a topic of politics
"an article on friday about a white_house inquiry into possible misconduct by stuart w . bowen jr . , a federal official whose investigations of fraud and waste in iraq reconstruction work have embarrassed the bush_administration , misstated the name of the office that is conducting the inquiry . it is the president 's council on integrity and efficiency , not the president 's council on integrity and excellence .",has a topic of politics
"as nato defines the new strategy it will unveil on its 50th_anniversary next year , germany 's new government of social democrats and greens has irked the united_states by tentatively suggesting that nato should renounce the possible first use of nuclear_weapons . the german position is no surprise because it was part of the coalition agreement reached last month by the government . in a clear concession to the environmentalist greens , the accord said the coalition would press for ''the renunciation of the first use of atomic_weapons . '' but it was unclear to american officials at the time whether gerhard_schroder , the social democrat who is the new chancellor , had accepted the phrase as an empty concession to the greens or would in fact move to question one of the central tenets of nato doctrine . the united_states is firmly opposed to any change in the doctrine allowing first use of nuclear_weapons , arguing that it proved an effective deterrent during the cold_war and remains one today against new threats like chemical_weapons . officials close to the alliance said mr . schroder raised the issue in a meeting with the nato secretary general , javier_solana , in berlin two weeks ago , asking what response germany 's allies would give if the new government pursued the renunciation of the first strike option . joschka_fischer , the foreign_minister and a member of the green_party , returned to the question in an interview in this week 's issue of the magazine der_spiegel . asked about the first use of nuclear_weapons , he said that he had raised the matter with mr . solana and that ''we will have to discuss these matters because we see things differently . '' stefan steinlein , a spokesman for mr . fischer , said today that the foreign_minister favored a discussion on the role of nuclear_weapons , but that germany would under no circumstances isolate itself in nato . with the united_states , britain and france firmly opposed to any shift on the use of nuclear_weapons and with unanimity required for any change , germany 's new position will not alter nato doctrine . but members are concerned that if germany presses the issue , a divisive debate could be ignited that touches on the heart of the trans_atlantic bond . ''we have 200 nuclear_weapons systems in germany , britain , italy , the netherlands and belgium , '' a nato diplomat said . ''they are a powerful deterrent , and their credibility would be undone without the first strike option . '' if germany formally suggests a review of the first strike doctrine at nato , something it has not yet done , it would probably gain some support from denmark , canada and greece . the united_states is keen to avoid such a discussion on basic doctrine when much work remains to be done on other aspects of the ''new strategic concept'' that is due to be announced at a 50th_anniversary nato_summit meeting in washington in april . the meeting will try to lay out nato 's new roles in peacekeeping , countering the spread of weapons and defense against chemical_weapons , among other issues . rudolf_scharping , the german defense minister and a social democrat , met with secretary of state madeleine k . albright in washington today and was to meet defense secretary william s . cohen on tuesday . he is certain to be forcefully reminded of mr . schroder 's pledge to president_clinton that his government would maintain ''continuity'' in foreign and security policy . whether or not germany swiftly drops the first use issue , its emergence reflects tensions between the social democrats and greens and the hastiness with which the government program was put together . karsten d . voigt , a social_democratic_party security expert , said that in talks before the formation of the government , his party 's position was that pursuing a renunciation of a first strike should not be in the program . ''but in the general haste , we caved into the greens , and now it is an unfortunate piece of baggage that has become part of the government 's commitments , '' he said . nato officials said they hoped that some of the german concerns would be assuaged by opening discussions on faster and steeper moves toward nuclear_disarmament . u.s . rebuffs suggestion by the new york times washington , nov . 23 the clinton_administration today rebuffed a suggestion by the german_government to revise nato 's strategic doctrine by pledging never to be the first to use nuclear_weapons . defense secretary cohen said today the alliance 's policy on using nuclear_weapons an extension of united_states policy was ' 'sound doctrine'' that had been reaffirmed after the cold_war .",has a topic of politics
"lead because of an editing error , a report on tuesday in the briefing column of the washington talk page misidentified gunter diehl . he is the former west_german ambassador to india and to japan , not to the united_states . because of an editing error , a report on tuesday in the briefing column of the washington talk page misidentified gunter diehl . he is the former west_german ambassador to india and to japan , not to the united_states .",has a topic of politics
"two german regional elections today showed that chancellor_gerhard_schr_der 's popularity remains strong but also suggested that the opposition christian democrats have recovered from the slush fund scandal that engulfed the party last year . exit_polls showed mr . schr_der 's social democrats taking 44 . 3 percent of the vote in the western state of rhineland palatinate the christian democrats won 36 . 7 percent . but in the southwestern state of baden w rttemberg , the christian democrats reinforced their long domination , taking an estimated 45 . 6 percent of the vote and rebuffing the vigorous challenge of a young social_democratic lawyer named ute vogt . the christian democrats have controlled the state government in stuttgart for 49 years . voters showed little inclination to switch to the social democrats , who won 33 . 5 percent of the vote , exit_polls indicated . the voting for the state legislatures suggested that while mr . schr_der 's hold on power is solid , he will face a real fight in national elections next year . the german economy , europe 's largest , is showing signs of slowing , and sharp falls in german stocks have dented the appeal of the market reforms that mr . schr_der has generally favored . moreover , the euro is to replace the german_mark next year , a switch that may prove traumatic for a people viscerally attached to what was long europe 's strongest currency . today 's results provided encouragement to angela_merkel , the leader of the christian democrats , who have been disoriented by former chancellor helmut_kohl 's role in the secret channeling of funds to the party . ''i am very satisfied , and i believe that our party can now go further , '' she said . the christian democrat vote increased to 45 . 6 percent , from 41 . 3 percent in 1996 in baden w rttemberg , and it fell slightly , to 36 . 7 percent from 38 . 7 percent , in rhineland palatinate . the social democrats increased their vote share by a significant margin in both states . the christian democrats will be particularly encouraged by the travails of the greens , mr . schr_der 's coalition partner . the greens' share appeared to fall significantly to 7.8 percent , from 12 . 1 percent in the 1996 election , in baden w rttemberg , and to 5.3 percent , from 6.9 percent , in rhineland palatinate . it appeared clear that this setback amounted to censure from voters for remarks by the green environment minister , j rgen trittin , who compared a prominent christian democrat , laurenz meyer , to a ' 'skinhead'' for declaring that he was proud to be a german . a vigorous debate on the legitimacy of german patriotism has ensued , with most germans appearing sharply critical of mr . trittin . the minister justified his remark by noting that extreme right parties in germany often use the badge , ''i am proud to be a german . '' mr . trittin has been under considerable pressure to quit since making the remark and has been openly reprimanded by mr . schr_der . further switches in the government will not be welcomed by the chancellor , who has had to make several changes in recent months , including the agriculture and transport ministers . in baden w rttemberg , the rightist republican_party 's vote appeared to drop sharply , from 9.1 percent to 4 percent . mr . schr_der 's government has been waging an energetic campaign against the far right after an increase in anti immigrant incidents last year . the results make it likely that the governing coalitions in both states will continue in office . the social democrats govern with the liberal free democrats in rhineland palatinate the christian democrats govern with the free democrats in baden w rttemberg .",has a topic of politics
"guerrillas and american_troops battled for hours here on friday in an intense firefight after a demonstration in support of saddam_hussein turned violent . in baghdad , rumors of terrorist attacks this weekend roiled the city . the daylong battle in abu_ghraib , a western suburb of baghdad that has been a center of hostility to the american led occupation , and the anxiety in the capital , underscored the deteriorating security situation here at the end of a week that began when four simultaneous car_bombs killed 34 people and wounded more than 200 . in addition , an american soldier was killed on friday in an attack west of baghdad . at least 33 united_states troops have died from hostile fire in october , compared with 16 in september , and the pace has increased in recent days . the soldier , from the 82nd_airborne_division , was killed by a roadside_bomb at 8 30 a.m . near khaldiya , about 45 miles west of baghdad , the military reported . four other soldiers were wounded . the death brought to 118 the number of american_troops killed in action since president_bush declared major combat operations over on may 1 . since the iraq_war began march 19 , 350 american_troops have died in combat or of other causes , and 2 , 160 more have been wounded , according to maj . linda haseloff , a military spokeswoman in tampa , fla . this weekend could see a surge in terrorist or guerrilla attacks , according to a spokeswoman here for the american military , who spoke on the condition of anonymity . ''there is a possibility of increased attacks , '' she said . ''nov . 1 and 2 are reportedly days of national resistance in iraq . we have been briefed that there is a possibility that there might be increased attacks at least on nov . 1 . '' administration officials in washington said fliers circulating in baghdad and basra urged a three day general_strike against the occupation . the flier , written in arabic and marked ''baath_party regional headquarters'' at the top , carries the following instructions , according to an american official ''carry out a general and comprehensive demonstration all over the nation for three days from the first daylight of nov . 1 , 2003 , and in all walks of life , that is , official and semiofficial bureaus and unions , and other means of transportation , and small and large business places , the kiosk and walking salespeople in the street , to prove to our enemy that we are a united people . '' schools , hotels and several neighborhoods have received specific threats , according to military sources and local residents , and there are persistent rumors that hundreds of islamic militants have infiltrated the capital . around baghdad , iraqi_police officers set up checkpoints at major intersections to look for weapons . private security companies , hired by the big hotels where foreign journalists and contractors are staying , dispatched teams of bomb_sniffing dogs to examine cars parked nearby . further increasing tensions , some prominent sunni_muslim clerics leading friday_prayers at local mosques railed against the american occupation and the iraqi political leaders who have been working with it . banners calling for jihad , or holy_war , against american_troops , have been put up around many important sunni mosques in the capital since the beginning of ramadan , the muslim holy month , on monday . the country 's sunni minority enjoyed privileges during the government of mr . hussein , and many worry about losing them if political power is allotted democratically . in abu_ghraib , about 10 miles west of baghdad , helicopters flew overhead and american_soldiers moved m1_abrams tanks into the area to counter iraqi guerrillas . the hollow thump of mortar rounds from guerrillas sounded near the center of town , a market where american_soldiers are attacked regularly . some american_troops fired from combat vehicles while others on foot took up fighting positions in the area , soldiers said . iraqis said there were civilian casualties , and a photographer for the new york times saw some wounded people , but the number of casualties could not be confirmed . a military spokesman in baghdad declined to comment . local residents and american_soldiers offered widely varying accounts of the genesis of the firefight . residents said the violence grew out of an effort in the morning by american_soldiers and iraqi_police officers to clear vegetable sellers from the street . soldiers threw a stun grenade into the crowd , injuring some iraqis , they said . after friday_prayers , a pro hussein demonstration of at least 1 , 000 people gathered , intensifying the confrontation , the residents said . ''people started calling , 'by blood and soul we sacrifice for you , saddam_hussein , ' '' said one witness , hamad ali . then the iraqi_police fired on the demonstrators , and a firefight broke out , mr . ali said . but american_soldiers said the violence flared when someone threw a grenade at troops patrolling the market , slightly wounding two soldiers . then the police station was hit by mortar shells , they said . on sunday_night , a mortar attack on the station killed at least one person and wounded two others . in northern iraq , american_troops sealed off awja , the village where mr . hussein was born , and began issuing identity cards to the villagers . u.n . panel to study security lapses by the new york times united_nations , oct . 31 secretary_general_kofi_annan said friday that he would appoint a panel to determine the responsibility for any security lapses and mismanagement at the united_nations mission in baghdad before the aug . 19 attack , which killed 22 people . in an open_letter to staff members , he also said he had ordered a revamping of the united_nations' security management system . mr . annan was responding to a report issued last week by investigators that said united_nations security practices and policies were ' 'dysfunctional'' and had left the baghdad mission vulnerable . ''i will spare no effort in acting on the conclusions of the panel 's report , '' he wrote . the struggle for iraq security",has a topic of politics
"several weeks after two major reports detailed the abuse of detainees at abu_ghraib_prison , the pentagon is reviewing whether to reopen an inquiry into the case of four iraqis who said they were abused in january at an american base in iraq . the case of the iraqi men , employees of western news organizations , was dismissed by the pentagon months before the abuse at abu_ghraib was first reported . the case , which involves reports of practices similar to those carried out at abu_ghraib , could provide evidence that maltreatment of prisoners occurred elsewhere in iraq . the iraqis , who were arrested jan . 2 after trying to report on the downing of an american helicopter near falluja , said they were physically abused while being held for about three days at forward operating base volturno . they said american_soldiers hit them , deprived them of sleep and made them assume painful positions . they said they were threatened with sexual_assault and photographed while being forced to simulate sex acts . lawrence_di_rita , a defense_department spokesman , said that civilian and military lawyers at the pentagon were reviewing the case to determine whether more review in washington was necessary . until now , the pentagon has deferred to the commanders in the field and their investigations . mr . di_rita said it was likely to be a matter of days before the lawyers decided what , if anything , to do next . he said the decision to begin the current evaluation , mainly by lawyers on the military 's joint staff , was not influenced by the release in august of two reports that offered new details into detainee_abuse , one by three army generals and another by a panel led by former defense secretary james r . schlesinger . those reports criticized the leadership of lt . gen . ricardo s . sanchez , then the american commander in iraq . until now , his own review of the case was the highest level scrutiny it received . some defense officials have privately suggested the pentagon should reopen the case in light of that criticism . three of the iraqis work for reuters and the fourth for nbc_news . reuters and nbc officials expressed frustration at what they described as the pentagon 's incomplete inquiry case and nonresponsiveness . the three reuters workers , who were initially ashamed to speak about the abuse , were interviewed separately here in baghdad , while the nbc cameraman was interviewed by phone from falluja . ''the fact is that these allegations came before the abu_ghraib allegations they are not copycats in any way and deserve to be investigated seriously and objectively , '' said david a . schlesinger , global managing editor for reuters . ''but the pentagon appeared eager to quickly put the investigation to a close . '' bill wheatley , vice_president of news at nbc_news , said that after the abu_ghraib scandal came to light , he sent a letter to general sanchez asking that the inquiry be reopened but never received an answer . ''we do not feel to our satisfaction that the matter has been investigated thoroughly , '' he said . general sanchez declined to comment . maj . amy hannah , a spokeswoman for the 82nd_airborne_division , which was accused in the incident , also declined to comment on the case beyond the executive summary of the unit 's investigation . according to the four iraqis , the incident began in falluja after friday_prayer on jan . 2 . word had spread that an american helicopter had been shot down west of the city . the four headed separately toward the site , where american_soldiers were recovering the body of the captain and evacuating the co pilot . three of the iraqis began filming from a distance . according to the 82nd_airborne_division 's executive summary of its investigation , the soldiers received fire from the area where the iraqis were clustered and returned fire . eventually , the soldiers chased the four iraqis and took custody of them , taking them to the volturno base . the iraqis , who were initially accused of being insurgents posing as reporters , denied having anything to do with the firing . e mail exchanges between the baghdad bureau chief for reuters , andrew marshall , and officials at the 82nd_airborne show that the military was notified immediately that the men worked for reuters . the military detained the men for about 60 hours , the summary said . during their captivity , the iraqis said they were often hooded and repeatedly struck , elbowed and slapped . but they said the more serious abuse occurred in individual interrogations , and then when they were in a small cell together . each said the interrogations were conducted by two american_soldiers they said they did not know whether they belonged to intelligence or military_police units . an arabic interpreter was present , they said . salem ureibi , 54 , a reuters cameraman , said one of the soldiers repeatedly jabbed a pen up his nostrils and forced him to kneel with his hands in the air . the soldier , he said , threatened to make him sit on a stool with a nail sticking out that was attached to a wire . during his interrogation , ahmad mohammad hussein , 26 , another reuters cameraman , said an american punched him whenever he said , ''i swear to god . '' he said he was forced to chew and lick a slipper and suck his fingers . his cousin and driver , sattar jabar , 26 , said he was forced to chew on a slipper and insert his fingers into his anus . ''then he forced me to put two of the fingers into my nostrils , put the slipper into my mouth and raise my left hand , '' he said . ''he said i just looked like an elephant . '' all four said that they were forced to do push_ups , and that while doing so were told to pretend that they were having sexual_intercourse by moving their buttocks . many of the soldiers brought cameras and took photographs , they said . on jan . 8 , four days after their release , the three reuters workers were interviewed separately by mr . marshall , the bureau chief . a 22 page transcript , which contains most of the details they gave in recent interviews with the new york times , was given to the military . on jan . 9 , reuters sent an official letter of complaint to general sanchez , after which the 82nd_airborne opened an investigation . on jan . 29 , reuters received a three page copy of the inquiry 's unclassified executive summary . it said none of the soldiers involved in the detention of the four ''admit or report knowledge of any physical_abuse or torture . '' ''the detainees were purposefully and carefully put under stress , to include sleep_deprivation , in order to facilitate interrogation they were not tortured . '' pointing out that ahmad hussein and mr . jabar are cousins , it said ''the cousins' statements are not credible and may have been purposefully exaggerated as part of an anti coalition information campaign . '' reuters complained that the inquiry was inadequate , saying that investigators had not independently interviewed the iraqis and had relied only on the testimony of soldiers . through august , the news_agency sent several letters to the pentagon demanding that the investigation be reopened . but pentagon officials wrote back that the case was closed . in a short letter to reuters dated march 5 , general sanchez wrote that he was ''confident'' that the investigation had been ''thorough and objective . '' he added that investigators had concluded that the ' 'soldiers involved acted within the applicable rules of engagement , policies and procedures . '' soldier in scandal gives birth pfc . lynndie r . england , who is scheduled for court martial in january in the abuse of abu_ghraib prisoners in iraq , gave birth to her baby onmonday , her lawyer said . private england , who is stationed at fort_bragg , has said the father is cpl . charles graner_jr . , who also is charged in the case . she faces 19 charges including maltreatment and assault of prisoners and sexual_misconduct . her lawyers say she was under the sway of officers senior to her . the reach of war the detainees",has a topic of politics
"lead president_bush , in his most emphatic statement of support for german unity to date , said today that he and chancellor helmut_kohl of west_germany agreed that once germany was unified , it should remain in nato and the rights of the world_war_ii victors should be ended . president_bush , in his most emphatic statement of support for german unity to date , said today that he and chancellor helmut_kohl of west_germany agreed that once germany was unified , it should remain in nato and the rights of the world_war_ii victors should be ended . the soviet_union has not only opposed a unified germany 's membership in the north_atlantic_treaty_organization , but has also said that after unification , the four major victors in world_war_ii britain , france , the soviet_union and the united_states should retain some residual rights to control the political course of the enlarged germany . after three and half hours of talks at the white_house , which included a working lunch , mr . bush and mr . kohl read statements to the press in which they stated once again that a united , sovereign germany would be a full participating member of the north_atlantic_treaty_organization . timing issue not addressed but they did not address a key question when the two germanys should be unified . mr . kohl has recently said there could be elections in both east and west_germany in early december for a united government . mr . bush said , ''we both want a united germany which enjoys full sovereignty a united germany which is a full member of the nato alliance , including participation in its integrated military structures a united germany which is , as the federal_republic has been for over 40 years , a model of freedom , tolerance and friendly relations with its neighbors . '' speaking in german , mr . kohl pledged that ''a united germany will remain a member of the north_atlantic alliance . '' he added that such membership was necessary because the alliance constituted an ''indispensable trans_atlantic security link between the european and north_american democracies . '' the two leaders also agreed that the soviet_union and the the other wartime victors should lose all the legal rights they have retained in germany since the end of the war as soon as there is unification . referring to the unification negotiations under way among the two germanys and the four victors , mr . bush said ''chancellor kohl and i agreed that these talks should terminate all four power rights and responsibilities at the time of german_unification . a united germany should have full control over all its territory without any new discriminatory constraints on german sovereignty . '' both stands that a unified germany should remain in nato and recover full sovereignty run counter to the position the soviet_union has adopted so far in the ''two plus four'' talks on unification . soviets want neutralization soviet leaders have repeatedly called for the neutralization of a greater germany through its exclusion from all alliances , as well as for limits on the size of its armed_forces . the soviets have also suggested that the world_war_ii victors retain some kind of residual veto_power over germany 's right to join alliances and international organizations after unification . explaining the american and german position on reunification , which is shared by the western alliance , a senior administration official said there was ''no agreement yet'' between the two sides on these central issues . ''the soviet position might be described as unity now but sovereignty later , '' he said , adding , ''for us germany must n't be singled out as a special country . '' kohl is understanding at a news conference , chancellor kohl appeared relaxed at the continuing deadlock between moscow and the west over the details of unification , saying he understood ''the psychological elements'' that concerned the soviet leadership . ''in the last 150 years they 've seen two conquerors come from the west and reach moscow 's doors , '' he said , referring to napoleon and hitler . but he stressed that the two plus four talks were a negotiation , saying that in negotiations ''you do n't put all your cards on the table at the beginning . '' the two leaders also sought to calm soviet anxieties . they called for new disarmament talks to cut german forces further , and said they would lock a greater germany into a new web of treaties that mr . kohl described as a ''a european security architecture in which german unity yields greater security and stability for all europeans . '' the two leaders said alliance leaders will start examining ways of building up nato 's political side at their london summit meeting , scheduled to start july 5 .",has a topic of politics
"worried about a political deadlock in iraq and a spike in mayhem from an emboldened insurgency , the bush_administration has pressed iraqi leaders in recent days to end their stalemate over forming a new government , with secretary of state condoleezza_rice and vice_president dick_cheney personally exhorting top kurdish and shiite politicians to come together . the white_house pressure , reported by iraqi officials in baghdad and an american official in washington on sunday , was a change in the administration 's hands off approach to iraqi politics . the change was disclosed as insurgents unleashed a devastating technique , with twin double bombings at a police academy in tikrit and an ice cream parlor in a shiite neighborhood of baghdad that killed 21 and wounded scores more . in both attacks , a second bomb detonated within minutes after the first , killing and wounding policemen and bystanders who had rushed to care for victims of the initial blasts . the explosions hit two of the favored targets of sunni arab insurgents police recruits , whose training is critical to improving security in iraq and providing the united_states an exit_strategy and shiites , who make up a majority in iraq but nearly three months after national elections have yet to form a new government a failure that american officials fear is giving strength and confidence to the insurgents . washington 's approach to the political negotiations had emphasized that the iraqis needed to form their own government without interference . but american and iraqi officials have increasingly blamed the delay for a rise in violence in recent weeks that has killed more than a hundred iraqis and threatens to destroy what remains of the political and security momentum that followed the successful jan . 30 elections . ms . rice on friday telephoned iraq 's new president , jalal_talabani , a kurd , to urge him to complete the government ''as soon as they could'' and ''to get a status of where things were , '' a senior state_department official in washington said sunday . the official stressed that ms . rice did not tell mr . talabani how to form a government , just that the process needed to be concluded . also , adil_abdul_mahdi , a leading shiite politician selected as one of the new iraqi vice_presidents , met with ms . rice and vice_president cheney at the white_house , the official said , where he was also told that the white_house wanted to see a government formed right away . ''it has taken awhile , and this is also a reflection of the fact that the iraqis themselves are pushing for a quicker government , '' the senior official said . ms . rice told both mr . talabani and mr . mahdi that more than enough time had passed , and a government needed to be formed now , the official said . ''we know it is not an easy thing to do , and this is the first time for them . '' the impact of the white_house pressure was unclear . on sunday , shiite leaders once again predicted they were on the verge of announcing their new government , perhaps as soon as monday . similar predictions have been proved wrong several times in recent weeks . but the shiites added a new twist on sunday , declaring they would no longer hold out for a deal with ayad_allawi , the outgoing prime_minister . dr . allawi , a secular shiite who is not liked by the main shiite political_alliance , had demanded several key posts for his party , including either defense or interior_minister , oil or finance minister , and deputy prime_minister . in an interview sunday , ali al adeeb a shiite member of the national_assembly and a leader in dawa , the party of the newly appointed prime_minister , ibrahim_al_jaafari said , ''allawi is out of the cabinet . we do n't need any delay because of this issue . '' many shiites believe dr . allawi is too sympathetic to sunnis , while many kurdish officials fear dr . jaafari is too islamist . late sunday , another shiite alliance adviser cautioned that while the ''current discussions'' do not include dr . allawi , it was unfair to say he has been ruled out of the cabinet ''because there is no government yet . '' he predicted that the shiites would not be able to announce a cabinet on monday . a senior allawi aide , rasim al awadi , said sunday afternoon that ''we 've heard nothing yet from'' the shiites about dr . allawi 's demands for cabinet posts . the shiite alliance controls a narrow majority of the 275 seats in the national_assembly , while the kurds have 75 seats and dr . allawi 's party 40 seats . on top of the squabble between the shiites and dr . allawi , some kurdish political leaders and others have been trying to slow the political process to force dr . jaafari out of his new post . under the interim_constitution , the prime_minister would relinquish the post if he fails to form a new government one month after his appointment . that clock runs out may 7 . many american officials say the political slowdown in baghdad is hurting the ability of iraqi_security_forces to repel and pursue insurgents . some regional government leaders are appointing police and security officials without consulting with the interior_ministry , as required by law . elsewhere , american officials say , the political vacuum has led to apathetic law enforcement and public_administration . ''they need to get going on variety of fronts , '' an american official in baghdad said friday . ''none of the iraqis we talk to think that the security situation in the past month has improved . a number of them think the security situation has grown more difficult . '' the violent streak that extended into sunday began with the dual car_bomb strike at the police academy in tikrit , saddam_hussein 's hometown and a heartland for sunni baathists 100 miles north of baghdad . a car_bomb exploded inside the grounds of the academy , followed less than half an hour later by another bomb , an official at the interior_ministry said . at least six iraqis were killed and 30 wounded . sunday_night a similar and deadlier strike hit the al riadhy ice cream parlor in the capital 's shula district , a working_class neighborhood in northwest baghdad where many poor shiites from places south like kut and diwaniyah migrated in the 1980 's seeking work . the first bomber struck about 8 50 p.m. , and the second blast rang out five minutes later , an interior_ministry official said . at least 15 people were killed and 50 wounded . the american military also reported two deaths at the hand of insurgents on saturday , a sailor assigned to the second marine division was killed by a homemade bomb while conducting operations in falluja . the marines released no other details . in eastern baghdad , a soldier from task_force baghdad was killed just after dawn on sunday when his patrol was hit by a homemade bomb . military officials also said they captured four more iraqis suspected of involvement in the downing of a civilian helicopter last week that killed six american security contractors and five others . the four iraqis join six iraqi suspects who were seized early saturday morning after iraqi tipsters led soldiers to the suspects' truck and homes , according to military officials . also , pakistani officials said malik mohammed javed , a pakistani embassy official kidnapped two weeks ago in iraq , was freed on sunday . ''he has reached the pakistan embassy in baghdad , '' the pakistani information minister , sheik rashid ahmed , told the associated press . ''he is safe , '' mr . ahmed said , but he refused to provided any other information and declined to say whether ransom was paid . the conflict in iraq politics correction april 26 , 2005 , tuesday a front page article yesterday about bush_administration pressure on iraqi political leaders to reach a compromise on a government included an erroneous identification provided inadvertently by a state_department official for an iraqi who had been telephoned by secretary of state condoleezza_rice . he was massoud_barzani , leader of a main kurdish political_party , not jalal_talabani , an iraqi kurd who is the new president .",has a topic of politics
"lead president_bush reassured prime_minister margaret_thatcher today that the close ties between the united_states and britain would continue despite mr . bush 's view that west_germany is now the key to the future of the east west relationship in europe . president_bush reassured prime_minister margaret_thatcher today that the close ties between the united_states and britain would continue despite mr . bush 's view that west_germany is now the key to the future of the east west relationship in europe . on the last full day of his european trip , mr . bush also had lunch with queen_elizabeth_ii , but it was his extensive talks with mrs . thatcher that dominated his day talks in which the president went out of his way to tell mrs . thatcher that she was his ''partner in leadership'' and a british figure comparable to winston_churchill . after two hours of talks at 10 downing_street , a reporter asked mrs . thatcher and mr . bush ''is britain america 's most important ally in europe ? '' mrs . thatcher stiffened and replied ''i think you might put it more tactfully . '' 'among foremost of friends' as mr . bush laughed , mrs . thatcher added ''america has allies throughout europe and throughout the free world . i would like to think that we pride ourselves on being among the foremost of united_states' friends , and we will always be . '' mrs . thatcher said it was ''quite wrong that because you have one friend you should exclude the possibility of other friendships as well . '' she added , ''we both have many friends in europe . '' ''very good answer , '' mr . bush said with a grin . moments earlier , mr . bush said on the steps of 10 downing_street , ''i want to assert here that the special relationship that has existed between the united_kingdom and the united_states is continuing , and will continue . '' bonn seen as major player he indicated that mrs . thatcher had been candid . ''it 's only with friends that you can take off the gloves and talk from the heart , '' he said . within recent months , american officials say , mr . bush and his aides have generally concluded that bonn is the major player in europe . and central to east west negotiations . this was especially evident at the nato meeting in brussels this week when mr . bush pressed mrs . thatcher to concede to west_german demands for early talks with the soviet_union on short range nuclear_missiles which she has strongly opposed in the past . bush discusss soviet changes washington , june 1 ( special to the new york times ) president_bush said today that in the future superpower relations may be determined more by political openness and economics than by military deterrence . in an interview from london with the washington_post , the president said ''the soviet_union might well be in the state of radical change . '' if so , ''then the policy will be substantially different , because we wo n't be dealing with as much emphasis on military deterrence . we will be dealing much more with openness and reformed economics . and i think that is possible . '' ''as this change asserts itself , and as they genuinely change , '' he added , ''our doctrine need no longer be containing a militarily aggressive soviet_union . it means a united europe . it means much more freedom and democracy . as those things happen , the role of nato shifts , our own role shifts , from the main emphasis on deterrence to an emphasis on the economic side of things . '' in china , mr . bush said , the outcome of the movement for greater democracy remains unclear .",has a topic of politics
"the departing prime_minister , jean_chr_tien , defended keeping canadian troops out of iraq , pushing for gay_marriage and liberalizing drug laws in an interview this week that made clear his lasting differences with the bush_administration . ''i do n't think a kid of 17 years old who has a joint should have a criminal_record , '' he said flatly on monday in the broad ranging interview in his elegant official_residence as he prepared to retire after 10 years in office . while careful not to gloat about his decision not to send canadian troops to iraq , mr . chr tien , who is 69 , was not apologetic either . ''of course he was not happy , '' he said , recalling president_bush 's obvious displeasure . ''i did not expect him to send me flowers . '' democracy would ''take time to penetrate in the spirit of the people'' in iraq , he said . in the meantime , he advised giving a larger role to the united_nations , similar to that in afghanistan , where canada has 2 , 000 troops . mr . chr tien insisted that ' 'relations are not bad at all'' with the united_states , and he still keeps a photograph of himself and president_bush in the foyer of his residence on the ottawa river . but his positions left him clearly at odds with washington on issues defining the core values of the two nations , ranging from iraq and his support for the kyoto climate treaty , to his proposed bills to expand marriage rights and decriminalize small amounts of marijuana . such stances may well mark mr . chr tien in history as a social activist and a leader who helped define the canadian character as separate from that of its powerful southern neighbor , a place that even he seemed surprised to inhabit . ''if you told me i would do that , i would not have believed you , '' he said of his decision on gay_marriage , which he arrived at after two provincial courts ruled that the federal definition of marriage as union between a man and a woman was discriminatory . ''i 'm a practicing roman_catholic . '' at the same time , mr . chr tien seemed comfortable with canada 's social liberalism . his government has authorized the opening of a supervised heroin injection clinic in vancouver and the distribution of methadone and heroin in montreal , toronto and vancouver to hard core drug users beginning in january in an effort at curbing overdoses , crime and the spread of aids . ''i 'm happy we are experimenting , '' he said . ''i 'd like to find out if there is not a better way than to fill the jails with people involved with drugs . it 's not solving the problem . '' in his time in office , mr . chr tien brought a near bankrupt federal_government back to solvency , doubled the size of the national_park system , reformed campaign financing and championed increased international aid to africa . when he kept the army out of iraq , he broke historical precedent by becoming the first canadian leader to refuse to send troops to a war being fought by this country 's two closest traditional allies , the united_states and britain . the decision has been popular , even with mr . chr tien 's successor and political nemesis , former finance minister paul_martin , who takes over leadership of the liberal_party on friday . but it is mr . chr tien 's decisions on social issues that may define his tenure , and canada 's future . mr . martin said he , too , would support the marijuana reform with amendments to raise monetary penalties , and agree to follow court rulings to legalize same_sex_marriage that have made canada only the third country behind the netherlands and belgium to do so . as the eighth of nine surviving children in a working_class qu b cois rural family , jean_chr_tien grew up with facial paralysis , a form of dyslexia and partial deafness . so determined was he to get his way , he once pretended to have appendicitis just to get out of a boarding_school he loathed , taking his mock pain all the way to the operating table . from a youth of brawling , mr . chr tien graduated from law_school and then began a 40 year career in the house of commons at the age of 29 barely speaking a word of english . his english is still halting ( he is not eloquent in french either ) , but his folksiness has given him a reservoir of popularity through a series of scandals and a nearly disastrous defeat in 1995 when quebec almost voted to separate from canada . ''a few votes the other way and he may have gone down in history as one of the worst prime_ministers , '' said lawrence martin , his biographer . mr . martin concluded that while mr . chr tien never had a commanding vision for canada , ''he was a triumph of instincts . '' mr . chr tien long governed in the shadow of the two modern liberal giants , lester pearson and pierre trudeau , and only 18 months ago his government appeared to be sputtering badly . several senior aides were forced to resign in scandal . mr . martin 's plotting to take over the liberal_party led to a nasty break between the two , and a near open rebellion in the liberal parliamentary ranks . ever the stubborn street fighter , mr . chr tien counterattacked with bold moves that left his opponents dazzled , including successfully pushing for ratification of the kyoto climate control accord and increasing outlays on social programs . he says he will now go back to work as a lawyer , and just maybe learn to cook a few more dishes than spaghetti . he will certainly play a lot of golf as well , although he says he avoids playing with millionaires who talk about their wives' 15 , 000 dresses . ''that bores me , '' he said with a giggle . mr . chr tien winced when reminded that a canadian bishop suggested he was risking the fires of hell by deciding not to appeal an ontario court decision extending marriage rights to gays and lesbians . ''god and i will decide that , '' he said with a guffaw . then quickly correcting himself to appear a tad more modest , he added , ''we 'll discuss and he will decide . ''",has a topic of politics
"nearly 90 iraqis were killed or found dead here on tuesday and wednesday , an interior_ministry official said , making for a particularly grim day even amid the intense sectarian_violence . at least 60 bodies were found throughout baghdad between 6 a.m . tuesday and 6 a.m . wednesday , the ministry official said . forty victims were unknown 20 were identified . nearly all were shot in the head , had clear signs of torture , or were blindfolded , bound or gagged , and most were discovered in neighborhoods of western baghdad with heavy sunni arab populations , he said . the other deaths reported by the ministry were in bombings and other attacks on wednesday . american military officials , who have been more aggressive in challenging body counts if they consider them inaccurate , disputed the number found , saying the actual number was roughly half what the ministry had reported . according to the baghdad morgue , whose statistics often prove to be higher than figures reported by news services or the interior_ministry , the bodies of 1 , 535 victims of violent deaths , an average of 50 a day , were received in august . in july , the average was 60 a day . a recent study of civilian deaths by the united_nations found that by june , iraqis across the country were being killed at a rate of more than 100 a day . as the iraqi_police gathered up the bodies , several car_bombs rocked baghdad , killing or wounding dozens more . among the attacks was a bomb that detonated shortly after 9 a.m . in southern baghdad , killing 15 people , including 7 iraqi_police officers , and wounding 25 police officers and civilians , an american military spokeswoman said . the interior_ministry also said a bomb planted in an unattended car near a police station in eastern baghdad exploded about 11 30 a.m. , killing eight policemen and wounding 19 civilians . the united_states military also said two american_soldiers had been killed . one died monday from wounds sustained in fighting in anbar_province , the largely insurgent controlled region west of baghdad . another was killed tuesday south of baghdad when his vehicle was hit by a roadside_bomb . in the capital 's heavily_fortified green_zone , a prosecutor in the genocide trial of saddam_hussein demanded wednesday that the judge be removed for showing bias toward the former dictator and for letting him harangue witnesses . mr . hussein is on trial for his role in the so called anfal military campaign in 1988 against kurdish villages in northeastern iraq . he and his co defendants are accused of genocide in the killing at least 50 , 000 kurds , including many in chemical_weapon strikes . he was tried earlier this year in the killing of 148 men and boys in 1982 in a shiite village , dujail , but that verdict is not expected for another month or two . during the court session on tuesday , mr . hussein called the kurdish witnesses who had described atrocities at the hands of mr . hussein 's military ''agents of iran and zionism . '' and he warned witnesses that he would ''crush your heads , '' according to an account by the associated press . as the trial resumed wednesday morning , a prosecutor , munqith al faroon , accused the judge of letting ''the defendants to go too far , with unacceptable expressions and words , '' according to a pool report filed by a reporter for the daily_telegraph of london . mr . faroon said the judge had allowed defendants to ''treat the chamber as a political forum . '' the judge , abdullah al amiri , who was a judge during mr . hussein 's rule , responded coolly , not raising his voice . ''the judge coordinates and makes peace among the people in his presence , '' he said . the court heard a powerful and graphic account from omer othman mohammed , who said he was a member of the kurdish pesh_merga militia who was caught in a chemical_weapon strike by iraqi jets in april 1988 that left him badly burned from his chest to his legs . ''it was so fast , we were shocked , '' mr . mohammed testified , according to the daily_telegraph 's pool report . ''the rockets did not explode , but they just broke . one hit close to me . when it broke , the chemical inside , it covered me . it was a liquid , not a gas . i was shocked . i was in pain . ''there was severe pain as if there was a high pressure on me or as if i was touching an electric current , or as if boiling water was being poured on my body . there are feelings you cannot describe to the people around you , even your loved ones . '' mr . mohammed said he got up after the attack and saw that pieces of the rockets had sliced through some of his comrades . ''i saw people without their heads , i saw legs and arms , '' he said . ''i saw parts of the body of my beloved friends . i called to a friend of mine and he came to me . i asked him for a mirror and asked him to bring me a first aid kit . i looked at my eyes and they were terribly red . i was suffering from terrible pain . ''",has a topic of politics
"a front page article on wednesday about the testimony by judith_miller , a former reporter for the new york times , in the trial of i . lewis libby jr . referred incorrectly to an unrelated investigation by the libby prosecutor in a case involving ms . miller 's reporting on islamic charities . the prosecutor is trying to find out who ms . miller 's sources are , including by obtaining her telephone records . ms . miller is not herself under investigation in that case . the article also misstated the prosecutor 's surname at one point . he is patrick j . fitzgerald , not fitzpatrick .",has a topic of politics
"lead as the police imposed a security cordon in preparation for president_reagan 's visit here , 24 , 000 leftists marched through the streets today to protest american policies . as the police imposed a security cordon in preparation for president_reagan 's visit here , 24 , 000 leftists marched through the streets today to protest american policies . mr . reagan is scheduled to stop over in west_berlin for several hours friday on his way back from the venice summit meeting to take part in berlin 's 750th anniversary celebrations . the highlight of the president 's visit is to be a speech from a high platform before the brandenburg_gate , the monumental arch that stands between east and west_berlin . mr . reagan is expected to call on mikhail s . gorbachev , the soviet leader , to live up to his own calls for ''glasnost'' and tear down the berlin_wall . mr . reagan is also scheduled to visit the old reichstag building and look over the wall from a balcony , and then to serve as the host at a birthday party for berlin replete with cake and balloons at the airport at tempelhof in the american sector . protest turns violent on the eve of mr . reagan 's arrival , a protest march through the city center turned violent when bands of demonstrators took to burning cars and smashing store windows . by most accounts , however , the violence was prompted less by mr . reagan than by frustrations and tensions within west_berlin 's teeming counterculture . mr . reagan 's last visit to west_berlin five years ago touched off fierce demonstrations , and to preclude a repetition officials mounted what they described as the biggest security operation in the city 's history . some 10 , 000 policemen , including reinforcements brought in from west_germany , were mobilized . this evening 's march was called by some 120 groups ranging from the green_party through the violence prone gangs known as the anonymous . the demonstrators_marched down the glittering kurfurstendamm between solid rows of policemen in full riot gear . 24 , 000 reported to march the police said some 24 , 000 marchers took part , including 2 , 000 anonymous wearing black ski_masks . most marchers , their spirits dampened by drizzle , carried placards with relatively tame and standard slogans . but as the march neared its end , the anonymous began flinging bottles and firecrackers and smashing store windows , and then broke into bands that clashed sporadically with the police and set fire to some cars . the police retaliated with clubs and tear_gas . yet it appeared that the violence was the work of a radical and embittered fringe . in fact , the days preceding the demonstration were marked by a debate in the left_wing press about whether to protest mr . reagan 's visit at all , especially since the president was now negotiating with the soviet_union to lift medium_range_missiles from europe . the debate was prompted by an article in west_berlin 's left_wing tageszeitung , which said ''nobody knows why one should demonstrate against ronald_reagan . '' ''he is a lame_duck in the last half of his administration , irangate is on his back and his pension in california is in front . after all , it was he who showed the war fearing germans that he is better able to deal with gorbachev 's new thinking than our elected chancellor . '' ''but we in berlin love traditions , and when ronald_reagan comes , you demonstrate . here in berlin we have a pavlovian reflex . ''",has a topic of politics
"a leader of a high level panel studying american policy toward iraq said tuesday that prime_minister_nuri_kamal_al_maliki must take immediate action to improve security , end sectarian_killings , reduce corruption and deliver basic services if he wants to retain united_states support . the independent panel , led by former representative lee h . hamilton of indiana and former secretary of state james a . baker_iii , said it would make detailed recommendations to president_bush and congress after the midterm_elections . the group , formed at the request of congress and with the approval of the bush_administration , visited iraq for four days this month . members said they had met with more than three dozen iraqi officials , including mr . maliki . the group has also met with mr . bush , vice_president dick_cheney , secretary of state condoleezza_rice and defense secretary donald h . rumsfeld . panel members expect to meet soon with an iranian official , whom they did not identify , with the saudi ambassador to the united_states and with the foreign_minister of syria . if mr . bush is looking for an opportunity to revise american policy in iraq , the panel , known as the iraq_study_group , could be a catalyst . at a news conference here , mr . baker said he wanted the 10 member , bipartisan panel to forge a consensus because ''our report will not be particularly meaningful if it has dissenting_views . '' mr . hamilton , a former chairman of the house committee on foreign affairs , summarized findings from the panel 's first six months of work this way ''iraqis want a safer baghdad and safer communities . they want an end to sectarian_killings . they want electricity , water and a government that fights corruption . no one can expect miracles , but the people of iraq have the right to expect immediate action . they want to see progress on security , progress on national reconciliation and progress on the delivery of basic services . and so do we . '' moreover , mr . hamilton said ''the government of iraq must act . the government of iraq needs to show its own citizens soon , and the citizens of the united_states , that it is deserving of continued support . the next three months are critical . before the end of this year , this government needs to show progress in securing baghdad , pursuing national reconciliation and delivering basic services . '' mr . baker said he agreed with this assessment . a longtime political adviser to the bush_family , mr . baker could play a pivotal role in helping the white_house weigh policy changes , including a possible exit_strategy . on tuesday , mr . baker reaffirmed his view that the administration had ' 'seriously misjudged the difficulty of winning the peace'' in iraq . but he said that the panel would focus on the future and that it had not spent any time ''wringing our hands over what mistakes might or might not have been created in the past . '' in his 1995 memoir , mr . baker said he opposed ousting saddam_hussein in the persian_gulf_war in 1991 because he feared that such action might lead to an iraqi civil_war , to ''criticism from many of our allies'' and to an eventual loss of american support for an occupation . ''marching on baghdad was ridiculous from a practical standpoint , '' mr . baker wrote . in the memoir he also recalled arguing that ''even if saddam were captured and his regime toppled , american_forces would still be confronted with the specter of a military_occupation of indefinite duration to pacify the country and sustain a new government . '' only one member of the panel , former senator charles s . robb of virginia , ventured outside the heavily_fortified green_zone when the group went to iraq this month . mr . robb visited anbar_province , where the insurgents have been particularly active and the security situation has become dire .",has a topic of politics
"lead west_german politicians said today that the governing coalition was torn by a bitter struggle over its stand on short range nuclear_weapons . chancellor helmut_kohl emerged so politically isolated , they said , that a compromise with washington at the nato_summit meeting was no longer considered feasible . west_german politicians said today that the governing coalition was torn by a bitter struggle over its stand on short range nuclear_weapons . chancellor helmut_kohl emerged so politically isolated , they said , that a compromise with washington at the nato_summit meeting was no longer considered feasible . the officials broadly substantiated reports in two major west_german newspapers that tempers raged so high that the notion of breaking up the coalition was broached . one paper , suddeutsche_zeitung , said it took foreign_minister hans_dietrich_genscher , head of the free democrats two days to convince a wavering mr . kohl , who leads the christian democrats , that it was better ''to let the summit end in open dissension than for the germans to crawl on their knees . '' the officials , who have been close to the debate , said that as a result the west germans no longer expected the north_atlantic_treaty_organization to produce the ''comprehensive concept'' for the alliance that was to have been the centerpiece of the 40th_anniversary gathering in brussels . instead , the germans said they hoped that president_bush would produce sufficiently dramatic initiatives on nonnuclear subjects , like reductions in troops and conventional_arms , to overshadow the differences on short range nuclear_weapons and enable the allies to rally round in a demonstration of unity . papering over differences in general , bonn seemed to take pains to paper over the differences with washington before president_bush 's first visit to bonn next week . a government statement described mr . bush as ''knowledgeable on and a friend of the federal republic of germany , '' and said his relationship with mr . kohl was ''close and confidential , a result of many years of friendship . '' the last minute dispute within mr . kohl 's coalition rose over an american proposal handed to defense minister gerhard_stoltenberg of the christian democrats in washington last week . in it , washington agreed for the first time to the principle of talks on short range weapons , but put off any reduction until a conventional_arms agreement was signed and carried out . washington also demanded that bonn forswear total elimination of the weapons . on arms reductions the proposal was made as a response to bonn 's demand last month , in defiance of washington , that nato enter into early talks with moscow on reducing short range weapons . washington had opposed talks , and in fact intended to upgrade the missiles . the dispute escalated into a test of wills between washington and a newly assertive bonn . but as the summit meeting approached , mr . kohl reportedly grew anxious about the dispute , especially after it grew from an argument about details to a test of nato . according to similar reports in suddeutsche_zeitung and another newspaper , stuttgarter , mr . genscher made it clear that he would not remain in the coalition if the american proposals , which he considered a ' 'mockery , '' were accepted . mr . kohl cannot effectively rule in germany without the coalition help of the free democrats . mr . genscher and his party categorically denied any such threats , but politicians said the foreign_minister left no doubt of his determination . bonn 's assertive stand on short range missiles was seen as a triumph for him , and he made clear he would not let it slide . thoroughly boxed in in the end , the officials said , mr . kohl was thoroughly boxed in . on one side was mr . genscher 's implicit threat to topple the coalition , on the other were staunch supporters of the policy within mr . kohl 's own party , led by alfred dregger , the christian democratic whip in parliament . on another was president richard von_weizsacker , who in a major speech on thursday effectively aligned himself with mr . genscher 's foreign_policy and boldly declared that west_germany would not be anyone 's ''plaything . '' finally there were public opinion_polls , the last of which found that 89 . 1 percent of those questioned opposed new american short range weapons . the triumph was tangible as members of mr . genscher 's free_democratic_party prepared for a party meeting in cologne on saturday . among other things , the party is prepared to declare itself in favor of the eventual elimination of all short range nuclear_weapons and nuclear_artillery shells from europe . opposed by washington this position , known as the ''third zero , '' has been strongly opposed by washington and london , who express fear that it would generate pressure for the denuclearization of europe and thus give added weight to the soviet_union 's large land army . part of washington 's last proposal to bonn , in fact , included a formal rejection of the ''third zero . '' the draft of the free democratic statement , by contrast , declares that if the ' 'security situation'' in europe permits meaning if conventional_arms are sufficiently reduced to eliminate the risk of a soviet_invasion ''the eventual full elimination of all land based short range weapons and nuclear_artillery munitions should not be excluded . '' the statement , which is certain of passage , further calls for ' 'drastic reductions'' of the strategic arms of the united_states and the soviet_union , and the reduction of conventional forces by both sides down to half the current level in nato . the latter proposal goes considerably beyond the current nato position . the liberal free democrats have always taken positions somewhat to the left of the christian democratic government , but mr . genscher 's increasingly dominant role in bonn gave the statement greater weight . in a passage apparently aimed directly at mr . kohl and reflecting last week 's dispute , the free democrats declare that the government position on short range weapons , as it was agreed to last month , ''will not be placed into question by anyone in the coalition . ''",has a topic of politics
"information supplied by an iraqi scientist that iraq destroyed chemical_weapons and biological_warfare equipment before the war has shifted the focus from finding such weapons to locating key people who worked on the programs , experts and military officers said . the effort to find the building blocks of a program for unconventional_weapons and ' 'dual use'' equipment with military and peaceful applications has also taken on new urgency , experts said . ''the paradigm has shifted , '' said a member of the mobile exploitation team alpha , an american military team hunting for unconventional_weapons in iraq . ''we 've had a conceptual jump in how we think about , and what we look for in iraq 's program . we must look at the infrastructure , not just for the weapons . '' the team member spoke to this reporter , who was accompanying the group . based on what the iraqi scientist had said about weapons being destroyed or stocks being hidden , military experts said they now believed they might not find large caches of illicit chemicals or biological_agents , at least not in iraq . they said this would increase their reliance on documents and testimony from individual iraqis to help them piece together the scope , organization , and goals of the programs that the united_states has said saddam_hussein created and concealed from the world . american officials said they had surveyed more than half of the 150 sites that american intelligence organizations once considered the most likely places to hide unconventional arms and that they had found no stockpiles of chemical or germ agents . members of the search team have now joined other allied military forces in scouring baghdad for scientists and military officers who worked in such programs , experts said . they are also re examining lists of ' 'dual use'' equipment found at previously examined sites . a second change in the operation involves how the teams are conducting searches . in theory , the 75th_exploitation task_force , a mixture of military units from several pentagon agencies and led by the commander of the 75th field_artillery brigade from fort_sill , okla . , was supposed to deploy teams from task_force headquarters . but col . richard r . mcphee , the commander , cannot move the force close to baghdad because of concerns about protecting its sensitive equipment . so he has permitted the teams to push forward on their own to get to what the military terms ''time sensitive targets . '' two of the four mobile teams originally assigned to search for unconventional_weapons have since been reassigned to investigate war_crimes or sites unrelated to weapons . that leaves only two teams to investigate suspected weapons sites and tips . however , the number of other units involved in the weapons search has been expanded from four to seven , officials said . on sunday_night , weapons experts from the alpha team met with ahmad_chalabi , an iraqi opposition_leader who has returned to iraq with pentagon backing after 45 years in exile , to explore the possibility of exchanging information . military planners and weapons experts say their experience with the iraqi informant has underscored the need to respond quickly . ''the truth is not perishable , '' said maj . gen . david h . petraeus , the commander of the 101st_airborne_division , which is now supporting the team 's weapons hunt . ''but timeliness is important . '' as troops from the division moved through a small town in southern iraq nearly two weeks ago , the iraqi scientist slipped a note in arabic to an ambulance driver in a military convoy . the driver passed the note to his unit 's chemical officer , but its significance was almost overlooked . written under a pseudonym , the note said its author had proof that information was kept from international weapons inspectors . beside stating that iraqi officials had destroyed chemical_weapons and equipment just before the war , and that they had tested biological_agents on animals , the note asked for a meeting with a ''qualified'' scientist . it also asked for appropriate security provisions and for immunity from prosecution for the iraqi informant . although the unit sent an officer and a translator to contact the iraqi , the note and a report on the meeting never made it to the group charged with vetting such tips . the members of the alpha mobile exploitation team did not learn of the existence of the informant until six days later , and said they feared he might have fled , having heard nothing from the americans . aftereffects the search",has a topic of politics
"militiamen loyal to the rebel_shiite_cleric_moktada_al_sadr seized a police station in the center of najaf on thursday , set prisoners free and allowed looters to plunder the building , witnesses and iraqi security officials said . it was the worst infraction of a cease fire negotiated less than a week earlier between mr . sadr 's militiamen and an alliance of american trained iraqi_security_forces and american occupation troops deployed outside najaf . a hospital official said at least five people were killed and 29 were wounded in the violence thursday . the gunmen withdrew from the police station after several hours , but they returned throughout the day as the looting went on . at night , militiamen set fire to eight new police cars , witnesses reported . the dead included one policeman , three insurgents and one civilian , said hussein hadi , an administrative assistant at the hakim hospital . he said the wounded included a policeman and two children . each side accused the other of shooting first and breaking the cease fire , which was announced on june 4 by adnan zurfi , the governor of najaf . it was unclear whether the gunmen were acting on the orders of senior commanders in mr . sadr 's militia , known as the mahdi army , or had acted independently . american military officials have said they are unsure if mr . sadr controls all his fighters , many of whom are youths from the poor neighborhood of sadr_city in northeastern baghdad . a american soldier died of wounds sustained during an attack in eastern baghdad on wednesday , the united_states military said in a statement released friday . four other soldiers were wounded in the attack , the statement said . the cease fire was the second one negotiated in the last several weeks american_soldiers and the mahdi army kept fighting after the first agreement was announced may 27 . by thursday night , soldiers with the first armored division , which is assigned to the region , had not intervened in najaf , which is regarded as holy_city to iraqi shiites . ''we do n't want the americans to interfere in the confrontations , '' mr . zurfi said . ''we will deal with the situation , and if we need help , we will ask the americans to participate . '' later , the governor gave the mahdi army 24 hours to back down . but the destruction of the police station showed that the iraqi_security_forces had failed to protect it against the militiamen , raising the question of whether such iraqi forces are ready to take responsibility for securing the country and battling insurgents following the transfer of sovereignty on june 30 . elsewhere on thursday , the arab satellite network al_arabiya broadcast a videotape showing masked men with assault_rifles guarding four turkish hostages . the gunmen identified themselves as members of a group called the jihad squads , and demanded that turkish companies stop doing business in iraq . a senior american_army officer was quoted by reuters as saying the military had detained four arab men with fake journalist credentials trying to enter the fortified american headquarters in baghdad . the men were apparently posing as a television_crew and were trying to drive a van into the compound . they were stopped when a sensor machine alerted guards to traces of explosive material on them , reuters quoted the officer as saying . mr . sadr has remained a major problem for the american led occupation forces . he is wanted in connection with the killing of an american backed cleric last april , but the americans have hesitated in arresting or killing him for fear of angering his shiite_muslim followers . ''we have called upon him and others to abide by the rule of law and to respect peaceful means , '' iyad_allawi , the prime_minister of the new iraqi_interim_government and a shiite , said at a news conference on thursday . ''any continuity of using force will be dealt with by the iraqi government in a very serious and strong way . '' qais al khazali , a spokesman for mr . sadr , said the najaf incident thursday started when the police tried to raid a building housing an islamic organization that was guarded by members of the mahdi army . in the nearby city of karbala , where american_forces fought the mahdi army for nearly three weeks last month , police officers seized a pickup_truck carrying heavy weapons at a checkpoint north of the city , a police spokesman said . support for mr . sadr still runs high in parts of the capital . posters of him were seen thursday covering many walls in the neighborhood of kadhimiya . the reach of war shiite_militias",has a topic of politics
the united_states broke ground for a new embassy next to the brandenburg_gate in berlin . construction is expected to be completed by november 2007 . victor_homola ( nyt ),has a topic of politics
"lead after all the grief over first bringing american medium_range_missiles into europe and then over removing them germans greeted the disarmament treaty today with a mix of relief and anxiety over what comes next . after all the grief over first bringing american medium_range_missiles into europe and then over removing them germans greeted the disarmament treaty today with a mix of relief and anxiety over what comes next . one immediate concern in chancellor helmut_kohl 's government was that the united_states_senate would fail to approve the treaty , a move that would be certain to generate strong anger and frustration throughout west_germany . ''non ratification would be disastrous , '' horst teltschik , mr . kohl 's top foreign_affairs adviser , said in an interview . ''everyone would say there 's no chance left for agreement at all . there would be serious political and psychological repercussions everybody would say there 's no chance at all now for any arms control . '' mr . teltschik also expressed concern over the possibility that the americans might unilaterlly reduce their military forces in europe , a move he said would be seen as confirmation of conservative arguments that the elimination of all medium_range_missiles augured a weakening of the defense bonds between the united_states and western_europe . enthusiasm for disarmament for the present , however , trepidation over the future did not seem widespread . among the people munching sizzling reibekuchen and knackwurst or picking christmas_tree decorations at the traditional christmas bazaar at cathedral square here , the pageantry and pacts being reported from washington seemed to blend with the season 's glitter , hot mulled wine and talk of peace on earth . after years of tensions , violent demonstrations , dire scenarios and bitter disputes , the sight of president_reagan and the soviet leader , mikhail s . gorbachev , signing a treaty to eliminate a whole class of weapons , which was shown live on all west_german television stations , seemed to promise a stretch of security and calm . ''the important thing is to keep on going with disarmament , '' said hans buschlon , an engineer shopping with his wife . ''the russians do have more conventional_arms , but i do n't believe they have any interest in attacking us . i think chernobyl has taught them a lesson . '' the sentiment reflected the overwhelming enthusiasm public opinion_polls have shown among west germans for disarmament , a feeling partly grounded in the insecurity that comes from standing on the front line of the east west confrontation and partly from a longing for detente born of the division of the german nation . dissension from the right mr . kohl , who was initially reluctant to endorse the pact , now hailed its ''historic significance'' and claimed a share of the credit . the free_democratic_party of foreign_minister hans_dietrich_genscher and the opposition social democrats , which had both advocated such an agreement from the outset , likewise enthusiastically welcomed the pact . but strong dissenting voices were heard from the right wing , both from conservative members of mr . kohl 's christian_democratic_union and from the christian social union in bavaria , the leader of which , franz_josef_strauss , has been among the most vocal opponents of the ' 'double zero'' agreement . ''if this process is the beginning of a political change , namely a turn in the politics of the soviet_union , then this could be the beginning of a new world situation , '' mr . strauss said in a television debate . ''but at this point nobody knows what gorbachev really wants , and even if he wants what we hope he wants , then no one knows if he can have his way . '' the resistance of the conservatives has focused on several issues . one is the idea that without medium_range nuclear_weapons stationed in europe , the united_states might be less prone to automatically respond to a soviet attack on western_europe with nuclear_weapons , thus weakening trans_atlantic defense links . weapons aimed at germany another object of conservative criticism is the linking of medium_range weapons with a range of 600 to 3 , 000 miles with shorter range weapons with a range of 300 to 600 miles in the treaty . to the germans , this meant that remaining battlefield weapons would almost all be aimed at german soil , east or west . that fact was captured in a popular saying , ''the shorter the range the deader the germans , '' and fed the sense that the other allies were prepared to let germans take the brunt of a soviet attack , a notion strengthened by british talk of the need to leave behind a ''firebreak'' of short range weapons after the others are gone . the third reservation , one that with the signing of the treaty comes to the forefront , was that the elimination of medium_range weapons left the soviet_union with a 3 to 1 superiority in conventional_arms , and the west without a lever to bring it down . mr . strauss and other critics had argued that the united_states should have opted for a phased reduction of missiles , to go parallel with a reduction of conventional_arms . 'terribly disturbed' by treaty the feeling was shared by jurgen todenhofer , who resigned a month ago as spokesman for the christian democrats' disarmament committee . ''i am personally terribly disturbed by this treaty , '' he said . ''nuclear_weapons were brought in in the first place in the 1950 's to act as a shield against a conventional war of swords , as a deterrent . now we are laying down the shield without having blunted the sword . ''nato hopes that the warsaw_pact will voluntarily reduce its conventional superiority . but what will we do in two years if gorbachev stops smiling ? '' these concerns were reflected in strong urgings from mr . kohl and his government for the superpowers not to slacken the pace of disarmament , and to continue quickly to agreements on intercontinental missiles , chemical_weapons , conventional_arms and short range missiles .",has a topic of politics
"lead canada 's minister for external_affairs today accused the special_prosecutor in the michael deaver case , whitney north seymour jr . , of making unfounded and ''irresponsible'' allegations against the canadian government . canada 's minister for external_affairs today accused the special_prosecutor in the michael deaver case , whitney north seymour jr . , of making unfounded and ''irresponsible'' allegations against the canadian government . in a written statement made public here , the minister , joe_clark , said mr . seymour violated an agreement with canada when he issued subpoenas for the canadian ambassador to the united_states and his wife , ordering them to testify at mr . deaver 's trial . ''mr . seymour 's argument is irresponsible , '' said mr . clark , canada 's chief official on foreign_policy . ''if anyone has grounds for complaint , it is clearly the government of canada . '' mr . clark 's statements were canada 's harshest criticism of mr . seymour to date . in court papers earlier this week , mr . seymour accused the canadian government of ' 'duplicitous behavior'' intended to block the prosecution of mr . deaver on perjury charges related to canada . state dept . takes canada 's side but the canadian position is that as a diplomat , mr . gotlieb is immune from subpoenas by american courts , and that the canadian government 's agreement last june to provide written answers to some questions in the deaver investigation did not constitute a waiver of this immunity . here in washington , the state_department said mr . seymour 's attempt to subpoena the ambassador , allan e . gotlieb , and his wife , sondra , had caused ''friction'' between the two countries and ''calls into question the ability of the united_states to carry out its international obligations . '' at a hearing in federal district court here , the department sided with canada in protesting the subpoenas . mr . deaver is accused of lying about his ties to canadian american issues and about his lobbying business . the hearing offered the odd spectacle of one branch of the united_states_government differing in court with a special_prosecutor , whitney north seymour jr . , who is acting on behalf of another branch . the judge in the case delayed a decision on the subpoenas . protests in canada and u.s . mr . seymour 's decision to issue the subpoenas drew complaints today in ottawa and throughout the american legal community . specialists in diplomatic law said mr . seymour , who was appointed by a court and acts independently of the reagan_administration , apparently had no right to compel testimony from the gotliebs . the specialists said the case raised important questions about whether an independent prosecutor should handle cases that can jeopardize international_relations . mr . deaver is charged with lying to congress and to a federal grand_jury about his involvement with canadian american issues while he served in the white_house and about his activities as a washington lobbyist after leaving the federal_government . in ottawa , the opposition liberal_party said it would press prime_minister brian_mulroney for more answers on the conservative government 's 1985 decision to hire mr . deaver for lobbying and public_relations work . a concession by seymour a liberal_party lawmaker , john nunziata , said the facts ' 'seem to suggest that the canadian government aided and abetted mr . deaver in breach of american law . '' at the hearing , mr . seymour conceded that ''it 's unseemly for us to be chasing a canadian ambassador around , wrestling with security people to attain service . '' at the court hearing today , michael g . kozak , a deputy legal adviser to the state_department , told federal district judge thomas penfield jackson that ambassador gotlieb was protected by diplomatic_immunity from honoring a subpoena . the united_states had an obligation ''to respect the immunity of diplomatic agents from u.s . process in all its forms , '' he said . ''not only has this caused friction in our relations with canada it calls into question the ability of the united_states to carry out its international obligations . '' he urged a quick resolution of the dispute . deaver trial is delayed judge jackson delayed a decision on the subpoenas and announced that he had put off the start of the trial , previously set for june 8 , because of a pending defense motion . in court papers , mr . seymour argued that mr . gotlieb waived diplomatic_immunity after the canadian government agreed last june to provide written answers to some questions posed by prosecutors . ''the canadian government cannot waive the ambassador 's diplomatic_immunity to satisfy domestic opposition in parliament at home , and then pull back its waiver to prevent lawful use of proferred testimony , '' mr . seymour said . but the government said the agreement was not a clear waiver of immunity and canada was being punished for its earlier willingness to assist mr . seymour in his investigation . ''seymour himself recognized right from the start that any cooperation from the embassy would have to take place within the constraints of our diplomatic status , '' said john fieldhouse , an embassy spokesman . ''he was constantly reminded of the fact it now strikes us that he is criticizing us for doing the very thing that he asked us to do . '' mr . seymour said in his court papers that the ambassador was an ''essential'' witness who could verify details of one of the five perjury counts in the indictment against mr . deaver . the constitution gives defendants in criminal cases the right to confront their accusers through cross_examination . experts side with canada specialists in international_law interviewed today sided with the canadians and the state_department . oscar schachter , professor of emeritus of international_law at columbia_university , did not criticize mr . seymour directly but said the prosecutor 's actions were ''quite astounding . '' he said it appeared that canada had not offered an explicit waiver of diplomatic_immunity and that the ambassador could not be forced into the witness stand . ''it seems to me that this is a fairly straightforward proposition , '' he said . he said that the canadian statement last summer offering written statements to mr . seymour was ''probably very carefully drafted , and if it had been intended to be a waiver , it would have said so . '' a reagan_administration lawyer with knowledge of the case said the justice_department and state_department were ''perplexed'' by mr . seymour 's ''unwillingness , or perhaps his inability , to understand international_law . '' outside of court , mr . seymour had no comment today on the case . gidon a . gottlieb , a professor of international_law and diplomacy at the university of chicago , said mr . seymour 's actions were ''incredible it strikes me as obvious that the people who issued the subpoena must have known that it was simply a device to embarrass the canadian government . '' mr . seymour , he said , was demonstrating a ''cavalier attitude toward international_relations'' and had threatened to ''bring the whole office of the special_prosecutor into disrepute . '' professor gottlieb said it was clear that ambassador gotlieb could not be compelled to testify . ''there 's absolutely no question , '' he said . ''it 's beyond any reasonable_doubt . ''",has a topic of politics
"the united_states and germany went ahead and announced an extensive aid program for russia without obtaining specific pledges from the seven countries involved in much of the 11 billion direct aid part of the package , american and european officials said today . many of the countries jostled today to take credit for the aid . but apart from the united_states , none could say how much each was donating , and one accounting suggested that about 4 billion was in the form of only a vague promise to provide the aid "" if it is needed . "" the 24 billion figure used by president_bush and chancellor helmut_kohl of germany on wednesday sprang from a hurried exercise in political and financial expediency . it is not clear how much mr . bush 's involvement was driven by gov . bill clinton 's plans to speak on the same subject on wednesday , although mr . bush juggled his schedule to make the announcement in the morning , minutes before the democratic presidential_candidate spoke in new york . gain but no pain what is clear is that the aim was to allow mr . bush and leaders of the other countries to claim some gain and show that the industrial giants were seizing the moment to spur democracy in russia without asking their taxpayers to spend any more cash in tough political and economic_times at home . despite those political calculations , the proposal became ensnared in american politics today . house democratic leaders indicated that they might link approval for any new money for russia to white_house support for a permanent extension of unemployment_benefits and mr . bush 's republican rival , patrick j . buchanan , broke an informal political cease fire to denounce the aid_package . but three former presidents , jimmy_carter , gerald_ford and richard_nixon , lent mr . bush their backing in a letter to the house speaker , thomas s . foley , that urged passage of the 12 billion increase that mr . bush is seeking in the american contribution to the international_monetary_fund as part of the aid program . according to figures issued by the united_states_government , many of them contradictory , and interviews with american and european officials , here is where the 24 billion figure came from the group of seven nations agreed among themselves to create a 6 billion fund to maintain the value of the ruble while it is being turned into a convertible currency . the international_monetary_fund , meanwhile , settled on an estimate that russia would need 18 billion in aid this year . deferring loan payments so the industrial nations needed to produce 24 billion in aid . they agreed that the i.m.f . and other lending institutions would lend russia 4 . 5 billion . those countries that lent money to the soviet_union before jan . 1 , 1991 , which does not include the united_states , would defer 2 . 5 billion in payments . that is where the clarity ends . what was left was 11 billion , which none of the countries could politically or economically produce as new outlays of cash . so the treasury department added up all existing aid programs from the group of seven and projections of further likely assistance , and came up with 11 billion . american and european officials stressed that these were real programs that help the soviet economy , but they could not produce anything like a complete accounting of where it was coming from . even american government agencies could not agree among themselves about their contribution , mostly in credits for russia to buy american products . the treasury department said it was 2 billion the state_department said it was 2 . 6 billion . hedging a commitment germany appears to be listing 3 billion in export credits , canada some part of 1 . 5 billion in export credits announced last year and japan an unspecified part of 2 . 5 billion in credits announced last year . britain 's share is about 700 million . contributions from italy and france were unknown . two european diplomats said that actual totals amounted to 7 billion and that the group of seven had agreed in principle to provide the 4 billion more later , if it is needed and the group is hopeful that it will not be . although at least one of the countries involved , japan , seemed irked at the way the aid_package was unveiled in bonn and in washington on wednesday , virtually everyone got something . mr . bush was able to make a grand gesture of executive authority at an important time in his presidency , when he is struggling to seize control of the 1992 election campaign and to demonstrate that he is still the senior partner in the western coalition . an opportunity for bush in return , he ended months of hesitancy over aid to russia and promised to ask congress for a major increase in the american donation to the i.m.f. , for which britain and germany had long been clamoring . prime_minister john_major of britain , who had been representing russia before the i.m.f. , announced today that he had "" taken the lead "" in putting together the aid program . mr . kohl was able to present the package as an example of germany 's leadership by using his time zone advantage to make the announcement before mr . bush . and the german_government , which has given far more cash to the former soviet_union than any other country , did not have to give any more . neither did the other countries . but mr . bush did ask congress to increase the i.m.f . contribution .",has a topic of politics
"chancellor helmut_kohl of germany , the strongman of europe for most of george_bush 's presidency , went to washington today for a meeting with president_clinton on friday . but the country he leads now looks far less economically formidable and politically self confident than it did after reunification two and a half years ago . for months , germany 's political system has been all but paralyzed by indecision about how to meet the problems of the swelling ranks of refugees from eastern_europe , the spiraling costs of absorbing the ruined communist economy of eastern_germany , and the growing expectations of its international partners . for years , germany has been calling on other countries to contribute to russia and other former soviet republics as much as bonn has provided nearly 50 billion since 1989 to keep the forces of democracy and free_markets from coming to grief there . now that president_clinton is proposing a new program of aid to bolster president boris n . yeltsin , mr . kohl is expected to say germany is broke and has done enough already . germany faulted on balkans germany also showed on the eve of mr . kohl 's departure that it was hardly in a position to lead europe out of the morass in the balkans . mr . kohl 's coalition was so divided on what to do about one important issue relating to the war in the balkans that it decided , in effect , to sue itself and buck the decision to a federal constitutional court . the issue was whether the clauses against war making in the german constitution of 1949 would require bonn to pull its crew members off nato air surveillance missions of military flights over bosnia if , as expected , the security_council authorizes force to keep serbian aircraft from flying . the christian democratic alliance of mr . kohl said the constitutional ban on "" acts tending to and undertaken with the intent to disturb the peaceful relations between nations "" did not apply to peacekeeping missions under the aegis of the united_nations . but the free democrats said the constitution needed to be amended , which can happen only with the consent of the social_democratic opposition , before german_troops could be put into potential combat situations beyond the country 's borders . because no country really wants to take the first step into involvement in the balkan war , and lately because of the political turmoil in russia , the security_council has repeatedly put off a vote on enforcing the flight ban . could n't agree on policy until wednesday night , the government kept putting off a decision because it could not agree on a policy . german participation is key to the surveillance . the 18 four engined american e 3a planes in the operation are based primarily at geilenkirchen , near the netherlands , and germans make up about 30 percent of the 1 , 500 military personnel involved , nato officers say . foreign_minister klaus kinkel and the free democrats have made clear that for them , the problem is not german_troops' staying on the planes but the necessity of changing the constitution to let them . so late wednesday night , the free democrats and the christian democrats agreed that if the united_nations passes the resolution , mr . kohl 's party would order troops to stay on the surveillance planes and mr . kinkel 's party would then apply for a temporary injunction and a quick court ruling . the opposition social_democratic leader , hans ulrich klose , today sarcastically called this "" a really classy way to govern . "" his party has challenged german participation in the naval blockade of serbia , and it is not willing to go along with a constitutional change to permit broader participation in peacekeeping missions .",has a topic of politics
"lead the bush_administration is reviewing american policy toward east_germany , seeking a balance of encouraging democratization there without also fostering a pell_mell movement toward reunification of germany that would threaten both moscow and america 's nato allies . the bush_administration is reviewing american policy toward east_germany , seeking a balance of encouraging democratization there without also fostering a pell_mell movement toward reunification of germany that would threaten both moscow and america 's nato allies . the replacement of erich_honecker as head of the communist_party and growing internal pressures for change in east_germany have strengthened the perception among administration officials that the way they respond to developments between east and west_germany could become their next major foreign_policy challenge . it is not one that everyone welcomes . ''with poland and hungary we can encourage reform and self expression without feeling it is in any way inconsistent with american interests , '' a senior policy maker said . ''but when you support the same things for east_germany you are knowingly accelerating a process which would make the ultimate reunification of germany more possible . the more similar east_germany is to west_germany the more easy it will be for the two to fuse . the more different they are , the more difficult it will be . which do we really want ? '' for several decades the united_states had a very simple policy toward east_germany the berlin_wall should be removed and east and west_germany should be peacefully reunited . but washington assumed this was unattainable and preferred it that way . ''the situation we have had with the germanys for 45 years has been unnatural but stable , '' said herbert s . okun , a former united_states ambassador to east_germany . ''now that we are moving toward a situation that is more natural the question is how do we preserve the stability . '' three dimensional policy a range of senior officials said the administration is evolving a policy on east_germany that has three basic dimensions . on one level , the administration has decided that it both can and should continue to encourage gradual change in east_germany . it should do this , officials say , because only an east_german government based on more free_market and democratic foundations can prevent a popular explosion . such an explosion , these officials fear , would almost certainly provoke a domestic crackdown or soviet intervention . administration officials believe they can afford to encourage change in east_germany because they consider the prospects for reunification remote at this time . the administration is operating on the unstated assumption that the soviet_union will not allow a merger of east_germany into west_germany , given the fact that it serves as the strategic anchor of the warsaw_pact . conditions on reunification but administration officials say they would be foolish simply to assume that german_reunification is impossible , which brings up the second dimension of east_germany policy for the first time , secretary of state james a . baker 3d has begun to talk publicly about the conditions under which washington would be ready to see german_reunification . mr . baker uses the word german ' 'reconciliation'' instead of ' 'reunification , '' partly to avoid european anxieties and to convey the message that such a merger must be voluntary and take place on western terms . a secondary motive in washington 's support for integration of the european_community in 1992 , a senior administration official said , ''is to insure that west_germany has a strong anchor in laws , commerce and values in the west so that if and when it is drawn east it does so on the basis of being fully integrated into the western economic and political_union . '' this underscores the third dimension of american policy work closely with bonn . west_germany is the only nato member with the economic and political resources , and the penetration of east_german society , to promote the kind of evolutionary change in east_germany that would prevent a political collapse , or a popular explosion .",has a topic of politics
"lead secretary of state george p . shultz and eduard a . shevardnadze , the soviet foreign_minister , have agreed to hold talks in september on arms control , officials said today . secretary of state george p . shultz and eduard a . shevardnadze , the soviet foreign_minister , have agreed to hold talks in september on arms control , officials said today . administration officials said the two sides were discussing plans for a meeting in washington just before the united_nations_general_assembly convenes in mid september . ''that is the period we are looking at , '' said one official . but he cautioned that a final date had not been set . the planning put the two sides on a firm schedule toward a possible arms agreement and summit meeting between president_reagan and mikhail s . gorbachev later this year , though important differences over west_germany 's short range missiles are still a barrier to a treaty . shultz meets soviet envoy the meeting between the foreign ministers was the main subject of discussion today when mr . shultz met with the soviet ambassador , yuri v . dubinin . the united_states had proposed the meeting for july . the soviet_union did not agree and mr . dubinin informed mr . shultz that the soviet_union thought the meeting should take place in september . administration officials said that the united_states would soon formally endorse mikhail s . gorbachev 's acceptance of a worldwide ban on american and soviet medium_range and shorter_range_missiles . they said that the united_states would probably reply formally to the gorbachev stand announced last week at the geneva arms talks on tuesday . the american and soviet foreign ministers have traditionally met during the united_nations_general_assembly . one exception was 1983 , when andrei a . gromyko , now president , canceled his visit after the governors of new york and new jersey closed civilian airports to him because of the soviet downing of a south_korean airliner . some observers said that the agreement on the shultz shevardnadze meeting was a sign that a foundation was being laid for further progress toward an arms treaty and summit meeting after the surprise announcement by mr . gorbachev last week . 'return to business as usual' ''it is a return to business as usual , '' by the soviet_union , said dimitri k . simes , senior associate at the carnegie endowment for international peace . mr . simes said that soviet negotiatiors had stalled in the weeks proceeding mr . gorbachev 's announcement , partly because they wanted to assess the effect of the iran contra hearings on mr . reagan 's presidency . now , he said , moscow has apparently concluded that mr . reagan ''has survived the worst in the iran contra hearing and that the time is running out to get an agreement . '' some administration experts have speculated that the soviet_union would not agree to a meeting before september because , they said , moscow wanted to see if its public campaign against the west_german pershing 1a missile would lead to a softening in the american or west_german positions . the main obstacle to a treaty at this point is the soviet demand that the american warheads for west_germany 's pershing 1a missiles be destroyed . but the two sides still have potentially important differences over verification and other issues , such as the timetable for reductions . on verification , the reagan_administration has told moscow that the need for monitoring measures would be reduced if the soviet_union agreed to a worldwide ban . but now that the russians have agreed to such a ban , the administration is still trying to work out exactly how its monitoring measures should be modified .",has a topic of politics
"because of an editing error , a front page article yesterday about secretary of state condoleezza_rice 's trip to europe incorrectly paraphrased remarks by angela_merkel , the german chancellor , at a news conference with ms . rice . referring to the 2003 abduction and five month detention of a german , khaled al masri , by the united_states on suspicion of terrorism , mrs . merkel said that the united_states had admitted error in the case , not that ms . rice had admitted error .",has a topic of politics
"four suicide_bomb attacks struck iraqi_police and an iraqi_army base in a 16 hour wave of insurgent violence in the northern city of mosul on saturday and sunday , killing 38 people and wounding scores more . one american commander said the violence continued a trend in the past few weeks of insurgent_attacks intensely focused on iraqi_security_forces . the attacks came as defense secretary donald h . rumsfeld echoed remarks by his advisers in recent months suggesting that the insurgency could last as long as a dozen years and that iraq would become more violent before elections later this year . the rate of insurgent_attacks remains steady , but the typical attack has grown more lethal , mr . rumsfeld said on ''fox_news_sunday . '' ''they 're killing a lot more iraqis , '' he said . bush_administration officials have been at odds with military leaders over the strength and resiliency of the insurgency . gen . john p . abizaid , the top commander in the middle_east , said last week that the insurgency was undiminished , seemingly countering a remark days before by vice_president dick_cheney , who asserted it was in its ''last throes . '' with polls showing that support for the war is dropping , president_bush is expected to use a prime time speech on tuesday at fort_bragg in fayetteville , n.c. , to press his case for a large continued military presence in iraq and explain why the administration 's strategy will eventually work . the success of iraqi forces is the linchpin of the united_states' exit_strategy from iraq , as many battle commanders contend that the country will slip into a civil_war if the united_states withdraws large numbers of troops before iraqi forces are ready to take over . ''there 's only one way for the insurgents to win that 's to drive us out before the iraqis are ready to assume the battle space , '' general abizaid said sunday on the cnn program ''late edition . '' ''if that 's what happens , they could win . but it 's very , very clear to me that we 're going to stay the course . '' mosul , the third largest city in iraq and the hub of the north , had a security collapse in november when almost all of the police officers and most iraqi troops stationed around the city abandoned their posts some helped ransack their own bases . the crisis forced the american military to pull troops from the fight in falluja to reinforce soldiers here . american units have given a boost to efforts to train and equip iraqi_police officers and troops here , and american commanders hope iraqi forces will be able to provide much of the security for elections . those hopes have been bolstered by the capture in recent days of top terrorist leaders in mosul , including muhammad shakara , the head of abu_musab_al_zarqawi 's network in northern iraq . but the attacks over the weekend on a traffic checkpoint , a police headquarters , a hospital security gate and the principal iraqi_army base in the north , al kasik demonstrated how susceptible the iraqi forces remain to suicide strikes . ''the trend the past month has been targeting the iraqi_security_forces , '' said maj . mike lawrence , executive officer of the unit that oversees most of western mosul , the first battalion of the 24th_infantry . on sunday , the zarqawi network claimed responsibility in an internet posting for the two deadliest attacks in mosul . so far , major lawrence said in an interview , iraqi forces are not running away . in november , he said , they bolted after what in most cases was only the threat of violence . the attacks in mosul over the weekend began saturday night when a suicide car_bomb exploded at a police checkpoint about 8 p.m. , killing five officers and wounding two more . the bombing was followed sunday by a 6 a.m . strike on the bab al tob police station in central mosul . a truck holding what the military estimated was 1 , 000 pounds of explosives hidden beneath fruit and melons parked next to the police station . the bomb ripped apart the station and killed 10 policemen , military officials said . two civilians were also killed , and eight policemen wounded . an iraqi policeman at the scene told a reporter that as the truck drove toward the station , a policeman ''opened the barbed wires for him , thinking that he was trying to cross the street to unload his cargo in the nearby wholesale market , '' adding , ''the suicide_bomber was able to get close to the gate of the police station and blow himself up . '' shortly after that attack , a suicide_bomber struck al kasik , a major army base west of mosul , killing 16 iraqi civilians and wounding seven others , the military said . around noon , a man wearing a hidden explosive vest laced with ball_bearings approached guards at al jamouri hospital in central mosul , acting as if he needed medical attention . the guards took him inside , where he detonated his vest . the blast killed five iraqi_police officers , the military said . at least 10 more people were killed in other violence across iraq , including six police commandos gunned down in western baghdad and a high ranking police official assassinated in southern baghdad , according to an interior_ministry official . one american soldier was killed in baghdad on sunday by a homemade bomb , the military said . and in kirkuk , insurgents wired an explosive belt onto a dog and detonated the device when the dog wandered into an iraqi_police patrol , wounding one policeman . in washington , mr . rumsfeld and general abizaid said the american led operation in iraq was making progress , but acknowledged that the insurgency had become increasingly deadly and could last for years . ''insurgencies tend to go on five , six , eight , 10 , 12 years , '' mr . rumsfeld said on ''fox_news_sunday . '' ''coalition_forces , foreign forces are not going to repress that insurgency . we 're going to create an environment that the iraqi people and the iraqi_security_forces can win against that insurgency . '' mr . rumsfeld also acknowledged that american and iraqi officials had met with people who presented themselves as insurgents , but on the nbc_news program ''meet the press'' he said of the iraqis , ''they 're not going to try to bring in the people with blood on their hands , for sure , but they certainly are reaching out continuously , and we help to facilitate those from time to time . '' between them , mr . rumsfeld and general abizaid appeared on all five major sunday network news programs . gen . george w . casey_jr . , the top american commander in iraq , plans to speak on several morning network news programs on monday . the administration 's exit_strategy from iraq hinges on training enough iraqi military and police_forces to take over for american and allied troops . but some senior american officers have said it could be two years before enough iraqis are trained sufficiently and the insurgency is weakened to the point where iraqis can handle things on their own . ''it 's clear to me that by the middle of the early part of spring next year to the summer of next year , you 'll see iraqi_security_forces move into the lead in the counterinsurgency fight , '' general abizaid said sunday on the cbs_news program ''face the nation . '' ''that does n't mean that i 'm saying we 'll come home by then . we 'll have to judge how they 're doing , how the political process is , how the situation is abroad . ''",has a topic of politics
"lead president_bush arrived here tonight on the eve of a summit gathering of the north_atlantic_treaty_organization with the alliance deeply divided over bonn 's insistence on reducing the threat of short range nuclear_missiles to german territory . president_bush arrived here tonight on the eve of a summit gathering of the north_atlantic_treaty_organization with the alliance deeply divided over bonn 's insistence on reducing the threat of short range nuclear_missiles to german territory . but mr . bush will seek a dramatic shift in the summit agenda on monday when he makes a new proposal for reductions in american and soviet conventional troop_strength in europe that is aimed at ' 'swamping the missile discussion , '' in the words of an american official . for purposes of ending the dispute over short range missiles , the key part of the new proposal is its call for the conclusion of an ''accelerated'' accord , within a year , at the vienna conventional_arms talks . bonn has demanded ''rapid'' negotiations on short range missiles , but washington has said that these should be discussed only after an accord on conventional_arms , and has indicated that a reduction of conventional forces is several years distant . by advancing the timetable for conventional_arms talks , a radical recasting of the nato position on conventional_arms reductions , mr . bush evidently hopes to placate bonn . 'denuclearization' feared in a second point of contention , the west germans have refused to rule out the possibility that short range nuclear_missiles could be eliminated altogether . this stance raises fears in washington , london and paris of the ' 'denuclearization'' of nat0 's central front . the threat of nuclear retaliation in the event of a conventional attack by the warsaw_pact is the centerpiece of nato 's defensive strategy . a summit get together that was meant to celebrate nat0 's 40th_anniversary on an upbeat note and allow mr . bush to shine on his first presidential visit to europe has so far been overshadowed by the angry missile dispute , which has crimped the alliance 's efforts to recapture the diplomatic initiative from president mikhail s . gorbachev of the soviet_union . by imposing a new topic of discussion on the alliance gathering , the bush_administration evidently hopes to take the attention off the thorny missile controversy and , by focusing on conventional_arms reductions , to remind the allies , and particularly the west germans , that american_troops cannot be taken for granted in europe . the united_states is also asking nato to reiterate its backing for the development of a successor to the lance short range missile , which is expected to become obsolete in the mid 1990 's . but bonn has dismissively characterized washington 's financing and development of a new missile , which is intended to be stationed principally in west_germany , as a ''national'' decision by the united_states . genscher 's big role traditionally , nato_summit meetings are carefully choreographed , with only limited haggling required by technical experts over documents that have been broadly accepted beforehand . but the gulf between bonn and washington on the missile issue is so wide that mr . bush , chancellor helmut_kohl of west_germany , prime_minister margaret_thatcher of britain and the leaders of nat0 's 13 other members will have to thrash it out themselves on monday , diplomats say . ''i think we 're now in a situation where the leaders themselves will have to have an exchange , '' a nato delegate said . ''i honestly do n't know if a compromise is possible . it will depend on what mood herr genscher comes to the summit in . '' a fluid situation is complicated by differences between chancellor kohl and his influential foreign_minister and coalition partner , hans_dietrich_genscher . mr . kohl is seen as willing to accept language that would rule out the elimination of all short range missiles while mr . genscher is not . in the last few days , the missile question has strained bonn 's center right coalition almost to the snapping point , and the foreign_minister has been reported to have threatened to resign if he does not get his way . education minister jurgen mollemann , a genscher ally , reiterated the threat on saturday . delayed arrival by delaying their arrival in brussels until monday morning , mr . kohl and mr . genscher have ruled out any face to face negotiations for a compromise before the summit meeting formally opens at 9 30 a.m . at nat0 's sprawling headquarters . mr . kohl met in the hague on saturday with ruud lubbers , the dutch prime_minister , who has broadly backed washington in the dispute . west_germany found support among a number of continental countries in its demand for talks on the short range missiles , but there is much less enthusiasm for eliminating the missiles altogether . failure to reach a compromise on the missile issue here will make a mockery of a major document on nat0 's military_strategy that was supposed to be issued monday after two years of laborious drafting , diplomats said . the so called comprehensive concept document was demanded by mr . genscher at a nato foreign ministers' meeting in june 1987 to provide ''political cover'' for bonn to be able to endorse a 1985 alliance decision to replace the 88 lance short range launchers , which are mostly based in west_germany . bonn has already obtained a tacit nato agreement to put off the lance replacement decision until after elections in west_germany in 1990 . firm stand by thatcher the key sections on short range missiles in the comprehensive concept document remain blank , and nato diplomats predicted that , for differing reasons , the germans , americans and british might veto issuing the text in the absence of an agreement on the overall dispute . mrs . thatcher has taken an even firmer line than the united_states , arguing that there can be no short range talks until nato has unequivocally committed itself to deploy a successor to lance . on tuesday , the second day of the meeting , the leaders are to unveil a political declaration that is meant to convey the alliance 's vision of east west relations in light of mr . gorbachev 's innovative policies in the soviet_union and the surge of political change in several eastern_european countries . the drafting of this document has kindled little controversy and , in the words of an american official , provides ''quite a solid agenda for the future of east west relations . '' but the official expressed concern that the political document , which is meant to match mr . gorbachev 's ambitious east west initiatives , may get overlooked in the squabbling over the missiles .",has a topic of politics
"order took a slightly firmer hold on baghdad today as american_soldiers and a few iraqi_police officers patrolled the capital 's devastated streets together for the first time , but looting , shooting and burning continued almost a week after saddam_hussein 's government fell . a few more shops reopened , though many had little to sell , and more cars plowed through intersections where the stoplights were still dead . there were fewer looters , but also much less to loot . in this moment between chaos and calm , emotions here are occupying equally unsettled ground . there is growing joy in the realization that mr . hussein is really gone but anger that american_troops have not stepped in strongly enough to prevent further destruction in the city . ''the situation of iraqis is as if one eye is crying and one eye is laughing , '' said sayid hashem al shamaa , a shiite leader at the kadhimiya shrine here in baghdad . two american_soldiers were reported killed today and two others were injured in what was described as a grenade accident at a checkpoint in southern baghdad . but none were reported killed by snipers or in combat . with the threat diminished by a few notches , united_states soldiers seemed more relaxed , chatting more with ordinary iraqis . one humvee along a highway was crowded with iraqis talking calmly with the soldiers , a scene that would have been unlikely several days ago . but the general situation remained tense . in saddam city , a shiite neighborhood now renamed sadr_city in honor of a slain shiite_cleric , some radicals called for the founding of an islamic_state as gun_battles erupted again today between rival groups , some of them , residents say , from other arab_nations . checkpoints manned by gunmen under the control of shiite religious leaders were still in place along the main roads there , taking the role of regular police officers . to help consolidate the calm , 20 iraqi policemen set out on the first joint patrol with american_marines in eastern baghdad this afternoon . several looters were reported arrested during the patrol . in the last two days , in response to impassioned pleas for more order , american_marines have also begun patrolling on their own to stop looters . there were reports tonight that an american soldier shot dead a looter in eastern baghdad today , though the accounts could not be confirmed . despite the efforts to restore calm , sporadic gunfire resounded from the banks of the tigris_river into the night . electricity was still cut off , and many iraqis said that prevented them from reopening shops and schools . this afternoon , an interior_ministry building where identity cards were issued was set alight , and at dusk three thick black plumes of smoke hung over the nearby tigris . looters also made their way into the central_bank , carting off hoards of cash . the entire national store of children 's vaccines against polio , german measles and a number of other childhood diseases was destroyed by thieves who ripped out crucial refrigeration systems . lath akram , the storekeeper for the vaccines in a section of the iraqi health ministry , said ''there is no vaccine at all . nothing , nothing , no equipment . seventy percent of the children will die if they do not receive the vaccines . '' ambivalence toward the presence of americans seems to have lessened little in the week since they arrived here . the feelings were evident on a bridge over the tigris when a squad car of four uniformed iraqi_police officers , one of the first such patrols , worked to disperse looters ripping apart a metal guardrail . a crowd gathered and demanded to know if they were working for the americans . ''no , no , '' said one of the officers , abbas adel , 26 . ''we 're working for the iraqi people . '' the crowd did not believe him . ''well , yes , we are working under the control of the americans , but only until things settle down , '' mr . adel said . ''but we are still a real iraqi_police force . '' in all , there seem to be more problems and dangers than the american_soldiers here can handle and they are largely receiving the blame for it . in the sliekh district in northern baghdad , a row of houses exploded in a blast that sent up a huge plume of smoke , injuring what an ambulance driver said was 40 people . the craters were rimmed with iraqi shells , and it turned out that many of the surrounding houses in this purely residential neighborhood had been used to store tons of ammunition for the iraqi_army . a nearby kindergarten and high_school were also piled high with ammunition . some residents said the explosion had been caused by children playing in the ammunition others said it was the work of forces still loyal to mr . hussein . either way , they said in anger and frustration , american_soldiers had the responsibility to end the danger quickly . ''since the americans are the only people who have control in this country , it is their job to search all the empty houses and schools to make sure they are safe , '' said hazwan rawin , 45 , who lives near the houses in which the explosions took place . the united_states military tried to put an iraqi_police force on the street today , an effort that culminated with the joint patrols by american_soldiers and iraqi policemen this afternoon . the effort got off to a shaky start this morning when about 3 , 000 former policemen gathered for a little over 100 jobs . the men , who only a few weeks ago were enforcers for the hussein government , began jumping up and down on a portrait of mr . hussein , declaring their formerly unquestioned leader ''nothing'' and ''a dog . '' chaos ensued . finally , marine officers ordered the new american anointed police chief , gen . zuhair abdel razak al nami , to start over with a list of approved policemen . the twist of events was not lost on the americans to restore order , they were relying on the forces of very the government they had come to overthrow . ''we 're going to have to use some of these people , it 's a reality , '' said maj . mark stainbrook , a marine officer overseeing the operation . a nation at war the streets",has a topic of politics
"lead in 1977 , president_jimmy_carter sat down with helmut_schmidt and asked the west_german chancellor how they could work together to bring down the berlin_wall . in 1977 , president_jimmy_carter sat down with helmut_schmidt and asked the west_german chancellor how they could work together to bring down the berlin_wall . ''then , i realized how little my counterpart understood of the situation in a divided europe and the power of the soviet_union and its interests , '' mr . schmidt says of mr . carter in his memoirs . the memoirs , ''menschen und machte , '' or ''people and powers , '' are now on top of the best seller lists in west_germany , and foreign editions are in preparation . the former chancellor said that when the president asked him about joint american west_german action to get rid of the wall , ''amazed , i asked him back 'how , in which way ? ' '' he said mr . carter 's reply was , ''i thought you had perhaps a recipe for it . '' ''naturally , neither i nor anyone else in the west had a recipe , '' mr . schmidt says . he says the question showed mr . carter 's ''naivete . '' messages seeking comment and left with the answering service at the carter presidential center in atlanta were unanswered . mr . carter 's home telephone_number in plains , ga . , is unlisted . also in the schmidt book are candid views of other leading politicians . of leonid i . brezhnev , mr . schmidt writes that he ''was a russian with all the qualities that we usually attribute to russians strength , the ability to hold a drink , hospitality , sentimentality , warmth , generosity . '' but at the same time , he could be ' 'mistrustful toward strangers whose position was unclear , '' the book says , and showed , ''even brutality , when necessary . '' of gerald_ford , mr . schmidt writes ''under his presidency , the united_states became , from bonn 's point of view , a more predictable and reliable partner and leader of the atlantic alliance . gerald_ford never surprised me with one sided decisions taken without consultation . '' of president_reagan , mr . schmidt writes ''reagan has an astounding ability to talk to his countrymen exactly how they talk among each other . with reagan , americans had the instinctive feeling that 'he is one of us we can trust him . ' '' the former chancellor , who will be 69 on dec . 23 , is now co publisher of the weekly_newspaper die_zeit of hamburg . he also lectures at universities and meets regularly with a committee of elder statesmen to discuss world politics .",has a topic of politics
"secretary of state colin l . powell said friday that he had had assurances from the intelligence_community that one of the principal charges he made in a speech to the united_nations last year that iraq had mobile weapons laboratories had been multisourced and was solid at the time . mr . powell urged a presidential commission examining intelligence problems in iraq to look into what he said was a failure by the central_intelligence_agency . speaking to reporters on a flight home from europe , mr . powell said he had sought to highlight the laboratory charge in his presentation to the united_nations in february 2003 because it was especially ' 'dramatic . '' but he said he included it only after studying four sources that were used to compile the intelligence . ''i looked at the four elements that they gave me for that one , and they stood behind them , '' he said of his intelligence briefers . ''now it appears not to be the case that it was that solid . '' the remarks were mr . powell 's broadest acknowledgment yet that his united_nations presentation , which the bush_administration saw as a formal and comprehensive case for the iraq_war , was based at least in part on erroneous information . ''at the time i was preparing the presentation , it was presented to me as being solid , '' the secretary said . mr . powell has been dogged by questions about his united_nations presentation which included satellite photos and transcripts of radio intercepts since the end of the american led invasion last year . the skepticism toward his case increased this year after david a . kay , the chief american weapons inspector , said he did not believe that further searching would turn up any unconventional_weapons in iraq . the inspectors in iraq concluded that the mobile units had not been used for making weapons and might have had some benign purpose . mr . powell urged the presidential commission to ' 'see whether the intelligence agency had a basis for the confidence that they placed in the intelligence at the time . '' the commission , which is headed by laurence h . silberman , a federal_judge , and former senator charles s . robb of virginia , will not present its findings until next spring . ''if the sources fall apart , we need to find out how we got ourselves into that position , '' mr . powell said , ''and i 've had discussions with the c.i.a . about that . ''",has a topic of politics
"the opening of the 1 , 000th mcdonald 's restaurant in germany this month was supposed to be a festive occasion , a moment to toast german american friendship . instead , it illustrated the growing strains in this pivotal relationship . eberhard diepgen , the mayor of berlin , rose to speak and , spotting john kornblum , the american ambassador , decided to taunt him over stalled american plans to build a new embassy on the central pariser_platz , next to the brandenburg_gate . ''ah , i see the american ambassador is here , '' said mr . diepgen . ''perhaps he should just go ahead and build a mcdonald 's restaurant on the pariser_platz instead of a united_states embassy . '' mr . kornblum was outraged . for several weeks now , he has been hearing of comments by mr . diepgen to the effect that the united_states is treating germany like a ''banana republic'' in talks over the new embassy , whose construction has been delayed by a dispute over how large a buffer_zone it requires for security . the dispute has had its soap_opera elements , but it is now clear that its backdrop is serious . a decade after the end of the cold_war , germany is becoming extremely sensitive about the scale of the american presence here and about any suggestion of domineering american attitudes . ''there is some anger over the american desire to organize the pariser_platz , a sense that this is still a reflex of the former occupying_powers in berlin , '' said peter strieder , chairman of the social democrats in the reborn german capital . ''and our position is no , now we are sovereign . '' in fact , the united_states , whose diplomatic staff is now scattered in various buildings including the former mission to east_germany , has been trying to show restraint over the embassy argument , despite a vigorous feeling that a city protected for decades by american_troops should find a way to give american diplomats a secure new home . ''we 've been wanting to keep this low key , but we keep getting these diatribes in the press about arrogant americans trying to close down berlin 's front room , '' mr . kornblum said . ''all we did was defend this place for 40 years . '' obliged to function without its planned embassy , the united_states has also faced a string of complaints over the 59 , 000 american_troops left in this country ( down from close to 190 , 000 at the end of the cold_war ) , over an important communications complex near munich , and over spies . the common theme has been a new german sensitivity to the huge american presence in germany , which grew out of the country 's postwar position at the center of the cold_war . perhaps no other european country has been so profoundly shaped by american power and culture , as those 1 , 000 mcdonald 's restaurants suggest . michael steiner , the chief diplomatic adviser to chancellor_gerhard_schroder , denied that a germany now freed of its postwar tutelage had begun to push back against the weight of the american presence , although he acknowledged that the embassy issue was delicate . ''this can only be solved with tact on both sides , and i think the united_states is aware that its interests are best served when it uses its superpower status in the right proportions , '' he said . construction of the new 150 million embassy was supposed to start this fall , but those plans have been scrapped . american officials blame mr . diepgen for showing scant flexibility in trying to adapt to new security requirements that emerged after the bombing of the american embassies in kenya and tanzania last year . the united_states has formally requested a buffer_zone of 30 meters , or about 33 yards the city government has responded by saying it cannot grant more than 22 meters about 24 yards without altering the alignment of streets with the nearby brandenburg_gate and reichstag and so changing an important urban perspective . the german view that washington wants to turn part of the tiergarten into a buffer_zone , organize the traffic flow in the brandenburg_gate area and generally make a mess of the heart of berlin has been amply aired through leaks to the berlin press . a visit by berlin city planners to washington in september did nothing to clear the air . behind all the angry words , it seems clear the real issue is political . american officials say that there is room for some compromise on the buffer_zone , but mr . diepgen , a christian democrat , evidently senses that standing up to the power that ran a large part of berlin for many postwar years now plays well with his constituency . other recent signs of german restiveness include complaints about american_soldiers in germany over such issues as their tax status and plans to drop supply contracts with german companies in favor of american concerns , american officials said . regular german demands that a major united_states radar and communications complex at bad ailbling , near munich , should be shut down or curtailed now that the cold_war is over have also caused strains . in addition , the united_states was irked by the leaking to the german press of an affair that the two countries had agreed to handle discreetly the withdrawal earlier this year of three c.i.a . agents in munich who were running a safe_house for russian defectors . ''the leak comes back to the same recurrent issue a german desire to assert the country 's sovereignty after the nazi cataclysm and the years as cold_war battleground , '' said one american official . the new embassy , on land where the berlin_wall once stood and where the united_states had its mission before world_war_ii , was supposed to be an important symbol of german_unification , of the western victory in the cold_war , and of america 's central place in the fashioning of the postwar german republic . the absence of an american embassy , in an area where the other powers that ran berlin britain , france and russia all have their missions , obviously carries an altogether different message . ''we are aware that this is the historic place of the american embassy , and we want to see it on the pariser_platz , '' said michael andreas butz , a spokesman for mr . diepgen . ''but we simply cannot allow the united_states to help itself to a slice of the tiergarten . ''",has a topic of politics
"the department of defense has identified 785 american service members who have died since the start of the iraq_war . it confirmed the death of the following american yesterday campbell , michael c. , 34 , specialist , army marshfield , mo . first infantry division . the struggle for iraq",has a topic of politics
"bureaucratic red_tape in moscow and western capitals , together with quarrels over the repayment of 70 billion in foreign debt incurred by the soviet_union , has seriously slowed aid to russia , international financial officials say . the delays mean that russia will not receive this year all the 24 billion promised in april by president_bush and chancellor helmut_kohl , although most of the money should arrive by the end of march . the delays are important because russian factories and consumers need western currency to buy the imports needed to revive industrial production . western officials worry that continued economic decline could lead to unfavorable political changes . nervous borrowers some loans have not even been offered to russia because of squabbles about the terms and overdue past debts , while some loans to pay for imports have been made available but are not being tapped as the plunging value of the ruble makes russian enterprises leery of buying costly goods even with government financing . "" the money is not getting in there , that is very , very true , and we need to get those credits in there , "" said eugene k . lawson , the vice chairman of the export_import_bank of the united_states . viktor f . kronyov , an adviser to president boris n . yeltsin who handles foreign assistance issues , complained in moscow last week , "" all credit lines have been cut off because we have not been able to pay for the old ones . there are no credits now . "" mr . kronyov may have been exaggerating . the united_states agriculture department , for example , has just announced that it will guarantee loans for russia 's purchase of another 1 . 15 billion worth of american grain . what adds up to 24 billion the 24 billion pledge included 11 billion of bilateral aid . the international_monetary_fund has calculated that bilateral aid to russia totaled nearly 6 billion in the first half of this year , suggesting that the 11 billion target would be reached . the rest of the 24 billion is to come from the postponement of interest payments by russia , new loans from multilateral institutions and a special fund to defend the value of the ruble . but the specific makeup of the 24 billion has always been murky . "" we received one contradictory document after another about what was in and what was not , and then the dates slipped , "" said jeffrey_sachs , a harvard professor and economic adviser to the russian government . long list of deferrals a variety of problems explain russian officials' complaints that aid is behind schedule and less than they had expected . central to the problems is russia 's inability to raise foreign currency to pay its 61 percent share of the soviet debt deputy prime_minister aleksandr n . shokhin of russia said on wednesday that spain had frozen a 1 . 5 billion line of credit because russia was 200 million behind on its debts . a british official has said the european_community will postpone the release of a 460 million food loan because the community has not received a 13 million interest payment . the european bank for reconstruction and development , which was to lend up to 1 billion this year , has only recently agreed to lend 17 million because of difficulty in finding reliable borrowers . the i.m.f . granted russia a 1 billion credit nearly two months ago , but no money has been used because the interest rate , 7.5 percent , is too high , mr . shokhin said on wednesday . the world_bank approved a 600 million loan on aug . 6 , to pay for critical imports to help the energy , transportation and farm industries , but legal and technical disputes have prevented the signing of the loan , he added . a 6 billion ruble stabilization_fund included in the 24 billion plan was postponed last summer until 1993 because of slow progress in bringing inflation and government spending under control . another 3 billion loan from the i.m.f . included in the 24 billion plan is on hold until the end of the year for the same reason . united_states_government backing for 2 . 2 billion worth of oil and gas deals in russia has been held up by a dispute between the united_states and the world_bank over whether the repayment plans would erode the world_bank 's claim to receive precedence on any payments by russia . crowded cast of donors with 22 countries and multilateral institutions now operating at least 230 different programs to help russia , nobody knows the amount of financial assistance actually affected or the average length of the delays . but as financial officials met here last week for the annual meeting of the i.m.f . and the world_bank , a consensus began to form that transfers of money increasingly lag behind promises . most of the money was promised before the fall of president mikhail s . gorbachev , when the soviet_union was still a feared superpower rival very little has been promised to president yeltsin . the united_states , with its food loan_guarantees and other programs , is the only country still making large commitments , said mr . kronyov , the adviser to mr . yeltsin . to be sure , russia is casting around for ways to raise some money , but some are alarming western officials . foreign_minister andrei v . kozyrev said on thursday that a plan to sell three submarines to iran for up to 750 million would not only improve the stability in the persian_gulf but also help raise money . it is unclear whether the deal will be completed . russia 's slowness in taking advantage of new loans has prompted a range of explanations . to some extent , mr . lawson said , the russian reluctance may reflect a commendable caution . but the worst fear of western officials is that loans may not be tapped because the money may not be needed . russia 's industrial production shrank 27 percent in the year ended aug . 31 , suggesting that factories once in need of spare_parts and other imports may no longer be operating .",has a topic of politics
"chancellor helmut_kohl of germany welcomed the president of the united_states as ' 'dear bill'' in potsdam today . and for good reason facing the direst political fight of his career with elections just four months away , mr . kohl is receiving an extraordinary political assist from mr . clinton his ally of more than five years , former pupil in world affairs and frequent eating buddy . mr . clinton is very popular here , and mr . kohl , whose own popularity is on the wane after 16 years in power , is eager to link himself to the american . today , the two even looked and dressed like brothers grinning , burly , silver haired , ruddy faced brothers in dark suits , white shirts and yellow ties . or perhaps more accurately , the much broader mr . kohl looked like mr . clinton seen in a fun house mirror . in a two day visit to germany , mr . clinton is popping up everywhere with mr . kohl . today they worked a rope line and addressed reporters in potsdam , then gave back to back speeches here . on thursday , in a blur of campaign style events , they plan to celebrate the 50th_anniversary of the berlin airlift visit an auto plant and gab with auto workers , and tour an 11th century castle . white_house officials acknowledged that the president is keeping such a busy schedule in part to help his friend , who was greeted in potsdam today by a protester holding a sign that read , ''danke , helmut , es reicht'' ( thanks helmut , that 's enough ) . in his speech , mr . clinton offered what he called ''a personal observation , '' crediting mr . kohl with helping create ''this magic moment in history'' for germany and europe . ''though many german citizens may be uncertain of the outcome and may not yet feel the benefits of your farsighted , courageous course , '' mr . clinton said , ''you are clearly on the right side of history . '' this evening , mr . clinton met with gerhard s . schroder , leader of the main opposition party . mr . kohl is the only european leader who was on the scene when mr . clinton took office , one administration official noted , and ''clinton learned by watching kohl . '' the two became friends , bonding during epic noshing at a series of marathon meals . during mr . clinton 's 1996 campaign , they had a running joke over what mr . clinton 's margin of victory would be . ''clinton was right , '' the official said . ''kohl kept predicting that it would be a landslide . ''",has a topic of politics
"the director of the political office in diyala_province for the powerful anti american shiite_militia leader moktada_al_sadr was shot and killed by troops during a raid on sunday , a sadr political spokesman said monday . a statement by the united_states military did not identify the official who was killed . it said iraqi troops had killed a leader of ''rogue'' and criminal elements of mr . sadr 's mahdi army in diyala who had directed attacks on american_forces as well as ''kidnappings , assassinations and other violence targeting iraqi civilians and iraqi_police . '' but a spokesman in baghdad for mr . sadr 's political movement , salah al agaili , identified the official as ali khazim al hamdani . the spokesman said that mr . khazim had been the chief of mr . sadr 's political office in diyala and that he had not turned rogue or otherwise distanced himself from the sadr movement . the spokesman also termed the death a ''provocation . '' some american officials familiar with diyala , a volatile province north of baghdad , have said that mr . khazim provided intelligence to the american military , beginning last summer . in one instance , they said , mr . khazim supplied information that led to the capture of shiite_militiamen who had killed three american_soldiers with a powerful roadside_bomb near baquba last fall . one american official said that at one point last year mr . khazim sought to reduce the mahdi militia 's emphasis on attacking american and iraqi forces , but that the effort had helped put mr . khazim in conflict with other more militant factions associated with the mahdi army , including forces allied with abu dera , the feared shiite death_squad commander . in an interview last year , mr . khazim explained that mahdi militiamen were pouring into diyala to protect shiites being terrorized by sunni insurgents . ''if my brothers are killed , we have to react to that , '' he said . sunni insurgents have overrun much of diyala_province and killed or driven out thousands of shiites . they often attack the province 's shiite dominated security forces , whose commanders , american officials have said , include officers with close ties to shiite_militias and death_squads .",has a topic of politics
"lead two senior west_german cabinet officials are traveling to washington on monday to reopen touchy nato issues in what diplomats see as the latest move by chancellor helmut_kohl in his quickening struggle for political survival . two senior west_german cabinet officials are traveling to washington on monday to reopen touchy nato issues in what diplomats see as the latest move by chancellor helmut_kohl in his quickening struggle for political survival . a growing number of politicians , commentators and diplomats believe mr . kohl may not survive in office if his christian democrats again do badly in regional and european elections on june 18 . more immediately worrisome , they say , is the speed with which he is jettisoning anything he believes may be unpopular with german voters . north_atlantic allies have watched with particular alarm as mr . kohl , the west_german politician for whom they have long felt the most affinity , has moved to decidedly more dovish positions on military policy . response to gorbachev mr . kohl 's initiatives on defense policy are partly a response to proposals on arms control made in recent months by mikhail s . gorbachev , the soviet leader . the differences have become sufficient for a hastily_arranged trip to washington on monday by mr . kohl 's new defense minister , gerhard_stoltenberg , and foreign_minister hans_dietrich_genscher . mr . kohl arranged the trip in a personal telephone call to president_bush last friday . the contacts were initiated after an all night meeting of the bonn coalition partners on military policy . though no formal announcement was made , diplomats and published reports indicated that the coalition agreed not only to postpone a commitment to upgrade nato short range nuclear_missiles , but also to seek ' 'speedy'' east west negotiations on short range nuclear_weapons including , for the first time , nuclear_artillery . it was the latter decision that caused the greatest consternation . only a few days earlier , nato defense ministers meeting in brussels thought they had avoided a confrontation on missile ' 'modernization'' by agreeing not to press bonn for a decision on deploying new short range weapons . but both the american and the british defense chiefs had made it clear that they opposed any negotiations with moscow on short range nuclear_weapons , at least until progress is made at negotiations in vienna on conventional_arms . more broadly , washington and london have resisted a process they fear could create pressure to eliminate all nuclear_weapons from europe , and with them a major western deterrent . mr . genscher has long urged immediate negotiations on short range weapons , a stance with strong popular appeal in west_germany and one the russians have encouraged . but until now , mr . kohl had adhered to the line of his major allies . in washington , mr . genscher and mr . stoltenberg were expected to argue that the call for ' 'speedy'' rather than immediate talks was a compromise . but diplomats said washington was likely to reject the argument . ''this is a real crisis , and it 's all because kohl is losing his nerve , '' a nato diplomat said . ''he 's in total panic . '' local elections cited the crisis began when local elections in west_berlin and hesse state brought out a marked dissatisfaction with mr . kohl 's government and a strong showing by the far right and the far left . mr . kohl 's response has been to move in the direction of least resistance . in general , that has meant leftward on foreign_policy and rightward on domestic policy . subsequent polls confirmed that the chancellor was in deep trouble , and all his efforts to reverse the decline including a major shake up of his government last week have failed to turn the tide . the cabinet shuffle , which included new heads in the critical ministries of defense , finance and interior , may have served only to deepen his problems by touching off another of the incessant disputes among the coalition partners mr . kohl 's christian democrats , mr . genscher 's free democrats and the conservative christian_social_union of bavaria . though mr . kohl has often had his back to the wall before and has come back fighting , the sense is unanimous in bonn that this is his most serious crisis since he came to power at the head of a conservative center liberal coalition in 1982 . why the electorate has so abruptly turned against the chancellor at a time of peace and prosperity remains one of bonn 's bigger mysteries . 'power is oozing away' ''usually , governments get punished for bad economic performance , '' said josef joffe , the foreign editor of the suddeutsche newspaper . ''by that standard , what 's happening is crazy . germans have tons of leisure time , a strong mark , exports are up , there 's peace , prosperity , no crime . ''what seems to happen in german politics is a sudden feeling that power is oozing away from him , '' he said , adding , in a reference to three former chancellors , ''it happened with erhard in 1966 , with brandt , with schmidt . '' some members of his own party have begun openly moving away from mr . kohl , shaping an opposition around lothar spath , the premier of baden wurttemberg state , and heiner geissler , the general secretary of the party and a leader of its liberal wing . the accepted wisdom in bonn now is that if mr . kohl makes a bad showing in june , his party will be tempted to jettison him in hopes of winning national elections in december 1990 . and if he is still in charge then , he could well lose to a ''red green'' coalition of social democrats and greens . allies are fearful the notion of a ' 'red green'' government remains anathema to most nato allies at least in washington , london and paris who fear that the leftists would place insurmountable obstacles to continuation of current alliance strategies . in addition to his shifts on arms control policies , mr . kohl has scrapped unpopular plans to extend mandatory military service from 15 to 18 months as of june and has asked the allies to sharply reduce low level training flights in german airspace . the extension had been ordered to offset a decline in the number of draft age men , and mr . kohl had often pointed to it as proof of his commitment to a strong defense . in abandoning the extension , the chancellor said ''new figures'' made it no longer necessary . mr . kohl 's policy shifts have hardly been limited to foreign_affairs . he was scheduled to announce a full package of new policies this thursday , and advance announcements and leaks made clear they would be extensive . mr . kohl 's new finance minister , theodor waigel , was expected to scrap or sharply reduce an unpopular tax on interest income . the government was moving toward abandoning construction of a nuclear_fuel reprocessing plant at wackersdorf in bavaria that had been fiercely opposed by environmentalists . mr . kohl is also expected to announced some curbs on the social benefits available to foreigners and immigrants . some commentators argued , however , that mr . kohl 's readiness to abandon policies he had once held sacrosanct was only serving to further erode his support by intensifying what could be his major problem the image of wavering , weak and chronically quarrelsome leadership .",has a topic of politics
"acknowledging that a united germany is now the powerhouse of europe , president_clinton urged the germans today to become america 's main partners in integrating the former communist nations of eastern_europe with the economic and military institutions of the west . mr . clinton 's message was that the german american military alliance must be replaced with a less lopsided partnership focused on economics and the unification of europe . as mr . clinton noted , "" trade , as much as troops , will increasingly define the ties that bind nations in the 21st_century . "" american officials make clear that they consider the other european_countries , like britain and france , either too economically weak or too inward looking to play a leadership role in europe these days . the "" special relationship "" is increasingly with germany . the german chancellor , helmut_kohl , said after his talks with president_clinton that his nation , now that it is reunified , was ready to assume the more assertive posture washington is seeking . dollar not discussed "" the excuse that we had for the past 40 years was that as a divided country we were unable to take certain decisions , "" mr . kohl said . "" that is something that is no longer valid . one cannot be a reunified country with 80 million people with the kind of economic strength that we have , with the kind of prestige we claim for ourselves , if we do not fully assume our responsibilities and fulfill our obligations . "" mr . clinton and mr . kohl said they did not discuss the state of the american dollar , which fell one full percent today against the german_mark a huge amount for one day closing in frankfurt at 1 . 5495 marks . mr . clinton , the first american president to visit a united germany , is touring bonn and berlin at a critical hinge of history . on tuesday the president is to preside over the deactivation of the last american military unit in berlin , where there has been an american troop presence for 50 years . by coincidence , on the same day the german high_court is expected to rule , probably in the affirmative , on the constitutionality of german troop participation in military operations , including peacekeeping missions , beyond the country 's borders . and again by coincidence , germany is finally coming out of the recession created by the economic demands of absorbing the former east_germany . integrating the east all have combined to make the long anticipated debate about germany 's proper leadership role in europe an immediate reality , and president_clinton timed his trip here to put america firmly on the side of an assertive german leadership posture . after talks on this theme between president_clinton and chancellor kohl at the german leader 's office in bonn , mr . clinton said at a news conference "" we know from our experience how half of europe was integrated through nato and other institutions that built stability after world_war_ii . at the heart of our discussion today was what we have to do to integrate europe 's other half , the new independent nations poland , the baltic countries , russia , ukraine , hungary , the czech_republic , slovak republic and others . "" while all the attention in the past year seems to have focused on when poland , the czech_republic , hungary , russia and other former warsaw_pact nations will be absorbed into the nato military structure , the really more pressing question is when they are going to be integrated into the western_european economic structures , which have been shutting them out even more than nato . "" the chancellor and i , "" mr . clinton continued , "" will do everything we can to integrate the newly independent countries of europe into shared security with their neighbors , helping them to reform their economies , attract new investment , claim their place at the table with free and friendly nations of like mind . to imagine any of these things working out over the long run , the german american partnership will have to be maintained and strengthened . "" asked to comment on the pending german court decision about sending troops abroad , mr . clinton said , "" i think anything that can be done to enable germany to fulfill the leadership responsibilities that it is plainly capable of fulfilling is a positive thing . "" a vision is shared mr . clinton 's trip here was meant to affirm the partnership with bonn and to give a subtle boost to mr . kohl , whom the americans are quietly backing in the german elections set for oct . 16 . mr . kohl , who has been chancellor since 1982 , has become mr . clinton 's closest friend among foreign leaders . they share a common vision of europe , a love of eating and a basically optimistic view of the world . so as not to be accused of interfering in german politics , mr . clinton also met in bonn with rudolf_scharping , the social_democratic_party leader and mr . kohl 's chief opponent . late today , mr . clinton flew from bonn to berlin , with a brief stopover at ramstein air_force base to visit with american_troops .",has a topic of politics
"an internet statement posted in the name of his islamic militant group said tuesday that america 's most wanted man in iraq , abu_musab_al_zarqawi , had been injured ''for the sake of god , '' a term commonly used by militants in iraq to refer to wounds sustained at the hands of american or iraqi troops . the statement gave no details of the injury or how it was inflicted , but it appealed to all muslims to pray for the ' 'speedy recovery'' of mr . zarqawi , who has claimed responsibility for scores of suicide bombings , ambushes , drive by assassinations and hostage killings , and attracted an american bounty of 25 million . last week , a statement issued in his name on the same web_site justified the killing of iraqi civilians in the course of insurgent_attacks , saying it was ''necessary if you must kill them to get at the enemy . '' the web posting , whose authenticity could not be confirmed , came as a series of insurgent_attacks killed nine american_troops across iraq on monday and tuesday , bringing the three day total of dead american servicemen to 14 . the attacks on tuesday included a suicide car bombing on an expressway in southern baghdad that killed three soldiers and reduced their humvee to a tangle of charred scrap . the attacks continued a wave of insurgent violence that has killed 58 american_troops and about 600 iraqi civilians since the beginning of may . the claim that mr . zarqawi was injured followed a series of unconfirmed_reports that the jordanian born militant , named by osama_bin_laden as al_qaeda 's chief representative in iraq , sought hospital treatment in the past month in at least two cities in the desert of western iraq . on monday last week , iraqi and american_forces mounted a nighttime cordon around the karkh hospital in central baghdad after a tip that mr . zarqawi had gone there for treatment , but they found no trace of him . for weeks , american commanders in iraq have said they believed they were closing in on mr . zarqawi , and they have cited the arrest of more than 20 of his ''trusted lieutenants , '' including leaders of his terrorist cells , propaganda chiefs , bomb makers , drivers and others . but an american general in iraq who was reached by telephone on tuesday took a cautious view of the report that the militant leader had been injured , saying that while the american command did not discount the report , ''we are n't banking on it , either . '' ''it could be a ruse to throw us off his trail , '' the officer said . at the pentagon , civilian and military officials said they had no evidence to either prove or disprove the report on mr . zarqawi . some who studied the web posting said they believed it to be authentic . one of the first reports of the posting came from a washington based monitoring organization , the site institute , which scrutinizes internet postings by islamic terrorist groups and offers subscribers english translations of the arabic texts . its director , rita katz , said in a telephone interview that the statement claiming mr . zarqawi had been injured appeared first on an internet message board that has been used regularly for pronouncements by mr . zarqawi 's group , al_qaeda in mesopotamia . ''i believe this is a very authentic message , '' ms . katz said . ''i really believe this came from al_qaeda_in_iraq . '' in a summary accompanying its translation , the site institute described the statement as ''a seeming elegy . '' the statement , signed by abu maysara al iraqi , the zarqawi organization 's spokesman , described the militant leader 's islamic zeal as a ''priceless thing'' for the insurgents , and added ''even the prophet was injured . let everybody know that the injury of our leader is an honor and causes us to surround our enemy tighter and is an encouragement for us to increase the intensity of attacks upon them . '' mr . zarqawi , who is in his mid 30 's , was first reported to be in iraq during the last years of saddam_hussein 's rule , when western intelligence reports said he had fled jordan for refuge with an a qaeda linked islamic group , ansar ul islam , that operated in the mountains of iraqi_kurdistan , along the iranian border . after the american led invasion two years ago , he became the leader , or sheik , of the islamic militants , many of them from other arab countries , who joined hard line remnants of mr . hussein 's government in mounting the insurgency . the american command , and mr . zarqawi 's own web_site pronouncements , have depicted him as a pimpernel figure , moving undetected between the main centers of violence , in baghdad , falluja , ramadi , mosul and elsewhere . but since the american led offensive that recaptured falluja in november , which killed scores of islamic militants and scattered others , american commanders have made the destruction of his network a priority , mounting operations they say have resulted in scores of his followers in addition to 20 of his top lieutenants being captured or killed . mr . zarqawi has had several narrow escapes . earlier this month , american officers confirmed that he had come close to being captured during an american raid along the euphrates_river north of ramadi on feb . 20 . the commanders said a pickup carrying mr . zarqawi made an abrupt u_turn near an american checkpoint between the cities of hit and haditha , 100 miles east of the syrian border , setting off a chase . the officers said mr . zarqawi leapt from the pickup and hid beneath an overpass , leaving his driver and another man to be captured , along with mr . zarqawi 's laptop computer and more than 100 , 000 in cash . disclosure of the incident came as a 1 , 000 man marine battle group mounted a weeklong offensive farther west along the euphrates , seeking to disrupt or destroy parts of the zarqawi network . on may 13 , an iraqi general was quoted in a report by the bbc 's monitoring service as saying that mr . zarqawi had suffered critical head injuries during an american bombing raid on the border town of qaim . the iraqi officer was quoted as saying that mr . zarqawi had been treated for his injuries at a ramadi hospital , but had left before iraqi forces arrived . other reports appearing in iraqi newspapers , also unconfirmed , have said mr . zarqawi was in a hospital in haditha and went undetected when it was searched by american_troops in early may . a report in the sunday_times of london quoted an unidentified doctor in ramadi as having said that ''well dressed'' aides of mr . zarqawi 's took him to a hospital there on may 11 , four days after the marine offensive began , and that he was ''bleeding heavily'' from unspecified wounds . the paper quoted the doctor as saying that he tried unsuccessfully to persuade mr . zarqawi to remain for treatment , only to be offered and to have refused ''a wad of u.s . dollars to secure his silence . '' the latest deaths among american_troops included four soldiers from the 155th brigade combat team who were killed monday after a homemade bomb exploded near their convoy during what the american command described as ''combat operations'' in haswa , south of baghdad . also on monday , a marine at a base in ramadi was killed by what the military said was indirect fire , which normally means a rocket or mortar . on tuesday , three soldiers were killed in central baghdad when their humvee was struck by a suicide car_bomb the latest in a wave of similar attacks across baghdad in recent weeks . the explosion occurred as an army convoy neared an american base in the rashid area of south baghdad , an area of frequent insurgent_attacks . half an hour later , a crewman in a bradley armored_vehicle that was serving as an observation_post elsewhere in baghdad was killed in a drive_by_shooting , according to a command statement . there was more violence against iraqi civilians on tuesday , including a car_bomb explosion near a school in baghdad , killing at least two and wounding eight , the police said , though unconfirmed_reports later in the day put the death toll at six . reports from the scene suggested that none of the victims were students . the reach of war the insurgency",has a topic of politics
"after a protracted dispute that soured german american relations , the central_intelligence_agency has handed over the first of a large cache of east_german files listing intelligence agents and their code names , the german_government said today . the files , which will fill critical gaps in germany 's knowledge of the activities of the old east_german intelligence service , known as the stasi , were spirited out of berlin in 1989 and are widely believed to have been acquired by the c.i.a . in moscow . germany has long demanded the return of the files , saying they belong in berlin and should never have been taken to washington . but until an accord was reached late last year , the c.i.a . had insisted the files were too sensitive to be returned . ''the united_states handed over the first cd_rom containing the files on friday , '' a government spokeswoman said today . ''the government expects to receive further files in the near future . '' german officials , speaking on condition of anonymity , said they expected to receive the rest of the files over the next two years .",has a topic of politics
"when the pentagon 's top brass denounced critics of the war strategy on tuesday at a news conference , victoria clarke , the pentagon spokeswoman , was just as stunned as the reporters in the room and the wider television audience . beforehand , ms . clarke had briefed defense secretary donald h . rumsfeld and gen . richard b . myers , the nation 's highest ranking military officer , about what topics might come up . but their remarks were not part of the script , and only complicated her goal to make sure there is a measured message from the pentagon . ''she thought it was a little over the top , '' said one pentagon official . ms . clarke , who was sitting just off camera , said later she had no comment on the briefing . only days ago , things seemed much more in control for ms . clarke . she was savoring positive reviews from the news_media for being the chief advocate of placing journalists with troops on the battlefield , and from the military brass for eliciting flattering coverage of the troops . but suddenly , ms . clarke , who is known as torie , finds herself with an immense public_relations challenge that is partly of her own making . now that the news_media has better access to the troops , she is being peppered almost hourly with queries from the battlefield about topics as varied as checkpoints , rations , rescues and killings of civilians . more troubling , she faces a growing chorus , including several retired_generals , questioning whether the war plan of mr . rumsfeld and his lieutenants was ill advised and whether the administration fueled unrealistic expectations that iraqis would welcome american_troops with open arms . episodes like the news briefing on tuesday are part of the most difficult trial yet for ms . clarke , 43 , who has devoted her career in politics and public_relations to working with clients in tricky situations . as a campaign aide , she defended the first president_bush as his popularity evaporated in the polls . she later represented the cable industry when it infuriated consumers with rising rates and poor service . by most accounts , ms . clarke has been pivotal in easing some tensions between the military and the media two famously cantankerous institutions . and she defends the pentagon 's decision to station reporters with the troops . colleagues said she had a crucial role in selling the idea to her superiors . ''we think it 's the right thing to do , '' said ms . clarke , pointing out that nearly 600 american and foreign reporters were traveling , eating and sleeping with the troops on the battlefield . ''so far , so good . there has never been as much access to leadership in the building military and civilian . i really want the american people to see how incredible these young men and women are . '' but her policy might haunt her , particularly as strains emerge and the war appears more complex than first envisioned and sold to the american public . retired_generals offer instant critiques on cable news networks troops stalled on the battlefield complain to interviewers and a handful of reporters have divulged too much specific information from the front . it falls to ms . clarke to confront that dissonance and project harmony . ''torie has the very difficult job of squaring the circle between the reality of war and the media 's expectations and preconceptions of what war is , '' said michael murphy , a republican strategist . ''it 's very tough real_estate . '' ms . clarke , who as an assistant secretary of defense is the pentagon 's highest ranking civilian woman , had little preparation for the world she inhabits . in her debut briefing for reporters in 2001 , she admitted she knew little about the military and might stumble over details . ''i am not going to be able to stand up here and disassemble the tail rotor of a helicopter for you , '' she said . she vowed to leave the logistics to the experts and focus on her 6 year old son 's admonition to ''not mess up . '' as a tamer of moods , ms . clarke brings a stern schoolteacher 's gaze to the task , as well as a withering wit and a daring sense of fashion . her pink and purple ensembles are so splashy against the pentagon olive drab that one columnist this week called her ''a hothouse flower growing in a bed of moss . '' a former tomboy and athlete , ms . clarke uses full advantage of her height she is six feet_tall to hold her ground . ''you 've got to have the stature to stand there next to rumsfeld and not look like you 're a 13 year old boy or girl , '' said dan schnur , a republican public_relations consultant . ''she has the presence to pull that off . '' in recent briefings , she has unsettled reporters with graphic photographs of iraqis who had been tortured or harmed by chemical_weapons she has baited mr . hussein by feeding speculation that he might be dead she has teased mr . rumsfeld for his hard guy manner and poked fun at access demanding reporters , who , she said , would be satisfied only if they were ''on the receiving end'' of airstrikes . within the pentagon , ms . clarke fancies herself as a surrogate for plain_spoken , ordinary americans , contending with a dangerous world and learning as they go . in a building where employees use acronyms to show off , she asks for memorandums to be rewritten ''in english . '' she has been known to let her young children ages 7 , 6 and 4 prowl the pentagon 's heavily_guarded halls . she has made inroads with reporters . ''i give torie credit for opening up this process , '' said mark thompson , the defense_department correspondent for time magazine . ''this is a radical change . '' there is , of course , a strategic element to placing journalists with troops . providing instant information can effectively undercut propaganda efforts by a less technologically sophisticated enemy . the first one on the scene shapes the news . ms . clarke denies trying to sculpt a positive image of the war . ''i do n't buy into that theory , '' she said . ''war is war , and it 's bad and it 's ugly and people get hurt and people die . i do n't think you can manage it in any way . i think the best thing you can do is demonstrate as much of the truth as possible . '' still , there are bonuses . reporters are less likely to criticize the troops that cocoon them . and units that fretted that they did not get appropriate credit in persian_gulf_war now say they feel their battlefield victories will be chronicled . despite her claims to openness , ms . clarke is aware of the need to keep secrets . when she chooses to withhold , she can be maddeningly tight_lipped , reporters say . she professes to like journalists and says she does not mind life in the glare of television lights . she is one of a circle of powerful republican women , who have brought media savvy to the administration , including mary_matalin , karen p . hughes and charlotte beers . the so called gang of four remain friends , though their ranks in government are diminishing as they have sought to return to private life . ms . clarke , meanwhile , soldiers on , working 14 hour days . she catches up with her husband , j . brian graham , an executive at fannie_mae , and her children at night or in brief phone chats . she dismisses a question about her grinding schedule , and gestures to a television screen showing troops sleeping in mudholes . ''i get to go home at night , '' she said . in sewickley , pa . , a suburb northwest of pittsburgh , ms . clarke grew up in a family of five daughters . her father is a doctor , still practicing in his 80 's her mother taught her girls they could become whatever they wanted . ms . clarke 's older sisters are a journalist at abc an actress who has appeared in episodes of ''law and order'' and ''sex in the city'' and businesswomen in executive_search and real_estate firms . in college , first at north_carolina_state , then at george_washington here , she was an indifferent student . lorraine voles , a former aide to vice_president al_gore and a close friend , was a journalism major with ms . clarke . she recalls taking notes for her friend and frantically phoning her to alert her to exams . ms . clarke much preferred riding horses in the virginia countryside and working in the graphics department of the washington star during college . ''she 's wicked smart , '' ms . voles said . ''but academics were n't her strong suit . '' when the star closed in the early 1980 's , ms . clarke drifted into politics . she took a job as an assistant white_house photographer , working for vice_president george_bush . her next job was working for john_mccain , then a junior congressman . mr . mccain , who is now an influential republican senator from arizona , remembers ms . clarke as a competent professional who also knew how to have fun . ''she was n't a lounge lizard , or anything like that , '' he said . ''she just enjoyed a night out dinner with friends , things like that . it was all very healthy . '' after work , she drank cocktails , went to parties , danced to motown and enjoyed the singles scene in washington . she helped usher mr . mccain through the keating five savings and loan scandal and the criticism he faced by voting against the deployment of marines to lebanon in 1983 . in 1992 , ms . clarke became press_secretary for the re election campaign of president_bush . she got off a few zingers before losing . referring to challenger bill clinton , she quipped , ''i do n't think americans can trust people who spend more time blow drying their hair in the morning than i do . '' the following year , she joined the national cable_television association , the trade lobby for an industry whose public image was dismal . as strategic counsel there , ms . clarke found herself persuading cable executives that for their own good , they needed to be more responsive or face being regulated out of business . after a few years in public_relations and advertising , ms . clarke took on the pentagon job . the work , she said , is the most important of her life . ''i 've worked in lots of places and at the end of the day you could look at your colleagues and say . 'well , you know , it ai n't life and death , ' '' she said . ''around here it is . '' a nation at war the pentagon spokeswoman correction april 4 , 2003 , friday an article yesterday about the pentagon spokeswoman victoria clarke misattributed a comment about how she uses her six foot height to hold her ground in a tough job . it was a republican strategist , rich galen not dan schnur , a public_relations consultant who said ''you 've got to have the stature to stand there next to rumsfeld and not look like you 're a 13 year old boy or girl . she has the presence to pull that off . ''",has a topic of politics
"to the editor senator joseph r . biden_jr . is right to press the administration to clarify its objectives after attacking iraq ( ''senate panel to ask bush aides to give details on his iraq policy , '' news article , july 10 ) . no invasion can be just a military enterprise . unless it achieves something useful on a political level , any american lives lost will have been entirely wasted . achieving something useful politically in iraq means replacing saddam_hussein 's government with one that is not only decent and just , but also competent and stable , and that manages to command the support of the majority of the iraqi people . the alternative is for the united_states to stay in iraq for a lot longer than the five years mr . biden refers to . attention is currently focused on the military aspects of this operation , but that 's the easy part . mark sedgwick cairo , july 10 , 2002 the writer is an assistant professor of history , american university in cairo .",has a topic of politics
"two newsday journalists who had been working in baghdad since late february are presumed missing after last contacting their editors on monday afternoon , the newspaper said yesterday . the journalists , matthew mcallester , 33 , a reporter , and moises saman , 29 , a photographer , were last seen at their hotel , the palestine , on monday evening , several journalists from other news organizations said . iraqi officials were seen detaining and threatening to expel several journalists at the hotel that evening , apparently over concerns about their visas , but newsday has not confirmed whether mr . mcallester and mr . saman were part of that group , said anthony marro , the newspaper 's editor . ''we do n't know where they are , '' mr . marro said . ''we do n't know who they 're with . '' the committee to protect journalists , an advocacy organization , said yesterday that at least one other journalist based in baghdad , molly bingham , a freelance photographer , was also missing and might have been expelled . mr . marro said that editors at newsday , in melville , n.y. , spoke with mr . mcallester and mr . saman last week about the wisdom of their remaining in baghdad . dozens of journalists have left the city , either by choice or after being ordered out by their employers . ''they were adamant , '' mr . marro said of his two man team . ''they felt very strongly about staying . '' the journalists' visas were to have expired last monday , mr . marro said . but mr . mcallester sent his editors an e mail message last weekend saying that he and mr . saman had received press credentials that would permit them to stay . ''they said they were legitimate and fine for the long run , '' mr . marro said . ''they were very happy about that . '' both journalists have traveled extensively for the paper . mr . mcallester is newsday 's united_nations bureau chief . mr . saman most recently covered the war in afghanistan . military ejects correspondent boston , march 27 ( ap ) a reporter for the christian science monitor has been ordered out of iraq after the pentagon said he revealed the position of a marine unit in a television interview . philip smucker , a freelance reporter for the monitor and the daily_telegraph of london , reported the unit 's position wednesday in an interview on cnn , the pentagon said . the monitor said mr . smucker had not revealed information that was not already available . a nation at war journalists",has a topic of politics
"when a majority of the world 's nations decided two years ago to establish a permanent court to try those charged with the most serious war_crimes , political opposition emerged in both the united_states and canada . president_clinton and prime_minister_jean_chretien were early supporters of the permanent tribunal , now taking formal shape as the international_criminal_court . but both faced problems in their respective legislatures , where members had to approve the countries' participation . in early july , canada ratified the treaty creating the court , and announced that it was the first nation to have brought its national laws in line with the new tribunal . the united_states , on the other hand , is fighting a last ditch battle to prevent americans from falling under the court 's jurisdiction . clinton_administration officials say america will not join the court in the foreseeable future because the senate foreign relations committee especially its chairman , senator jesse_helms , republican of north_carolina has warned that its members will never approve the treaty . but the canadian and american situations are different . most important , mr . chretien has a majority in the canadian parliament , while president_clinton must deal with a congress controlled by republicans . although canada is active in peacekeeping around the world , the united_states , as the world 's most powerful nation , would be a bigger target for frivolous or politically_motivated lawsuits . in a recent interview here , canada 's foreign_minister , lloyd axworthy , said that the canadian government , unlike the united_states , decided nevertheless to take no chances with public opinion . it opened a national debate about the court and began a campaign of ''public_diplomacy'' to build support . ''it was a good debate , '' he said . ''one party raised a number of objections to it , about national sovereignty and individual rights , but it got approved overwhelmingly . '' ''our view , '' he said of the government 's position , ''was that if you have a functioning national court system , then the international court is simply a court of last resort . '' mr . axworthy said that government leaders made acceptance of the court designed to bring trials on charges of genocide , war_crimes or crimes against humanity a top political priority . ''we sponsored a national forum across the country , '' he said . ''plus we have a major web_site on the issue . most important and i underline this is that we enlisted the support of a number of key parliamentarians to do our work internationally . '' these members of the canadian parliament not only support the court in their districts but also go to international meetings to build up wide backing in organizations like the inter parliamentary union or nato . canadian diplomats also promote the court , he said . canada also recently appointed a member of parliament who is considered an expert on the international court , erwin cotler of montreal , as a special envoy for this issue . ''he 's there to do the speeches , do the schmoozing , '' mr . axworthy said . ''he 's a very popular spokesperson . '' for canada , the campaign is over domestically , and officials can turn to the vexing questions of how to build more support in the united_states for a court that could be functioning within a year or two . ''it is no longer something that 's going away in fact it 's probably something that 's coming quicker than most people would anticipate , '' mr . axworthy said . ''it 's now taking form , shape and movement , plus some energy . that in itself should be a message . ''our strategy is to keep the u.s . engaged , '' said mr . axworthy , who meets regularly with a dozen of his counterparts from around the world to discuss issues of ''human security , '' an area where the court ranks high , he said . ''let 's continue to work and massage and accommodate , '' he said of washington 's fears . ''but there has to be flexibility on the u.s . side . they have to adjust their sights now too and recognize that they are not going to get an exemption from this court . that 's pretty clear . they 've been told that . '' mr . axworthy said that canada and others would like to see a shift in american thinking , but he added that they are aware that the american public is not high on this issue . ''it is so important , so crucial that the debate here shift its focus from how you thwart it , frustrate it or stop it to how do we make sure that your interests are looked after and that you can support probably what will be the most significant new institution of this century . ''",has a topic of politics
"lead the canadian government said tonight that its ambassador to washington had been subpoenaed to testify at the perjury trial of michael k . deaver , the former white_house aide , but would refuse to appear . the canadian government said tonight that its ambassador to washington had been subpoenaed to testify at the perjury trial of michael k . deaver , the former white_house aide , but would refuse to appear . in a statement , the government said its decision was based on ''longstanding and important principles which govern the conduct of relations between two sovereign states . '' allan e . gotlieb , the canadian ambassador to the united_states , has extensive knowledge of the 105 , 000 lobbying contract provided to mr . deaver by the canadian government . state_department backs canada a canadian official who asked not to be identified said the state_department was supporting canada in its assertion that ambassador gotlieb could not be compelled to testify at the deaver trial . it was unclear how important mr . gotlieb 's testimony would be , although officials said he had already provided valuable information to prosecutors . mr . deaver has been accused of lying under oath to congress and a federal grand_jury about his lobbying activities , including his dealings with canada on the issue of acid_rain . one legal source said whitney north seymour jr . , the special_prosecutor in the case , intended to take the ambassador to court to force him to testify at the trial , which is scheduled to begin next month . mr . seymour , the source said , has argued that mr . gotlieb must testify to verify allegations against mr . deaver . the constitution provides criminal defendants with the right to confront prosecution witnesses through cross_examination . in a statement issued by the canadian embassy , canada said mr . seymour was ''asking the government to break normal diplomatic practice . '' waiver called 'unprecedented' under diplomatic accords , the statement said , ''foreign diplomatic personnel are not obliged to testify in judicial proceedings and will not do so without an expressed waiver from the sending country . '' the statement said that ' 'such a waiver would be unprecedented for canada in a matter such as the deaver trial , just as it would be unprecedented for the united_states to grant a waiver in similar circumstances . '' under a 1985 contract , mr . deaver was reportedly paid 105 , 000 by the canadian government to lobby for efforts to control acid_rain and on trade . last year , while the grand_jury investigation continued , mr . deaver announced that to spare further embarrassment to canada , he would not renew the contract . canada has denied that future job opportunities were discussed with mr . deaver while he worked for president_reagan as the deputy white_house_chief_of_staff , but the fact that the lobbying contract was signed within days of his departure from the white_house has raised suspicions . the fourth count of the five count indictment against mr . deaver deals with canada and the acid_rain issue . according to the indictment , mr . deaver committed perjury when he told a grand_jury last june that he could not recall participating in white_house meetings on the acid_rain issue until march 6 , 1985 . selection of special envoy prosecutors said he had been present at six meetings before then at which acid_rain was discussed . the indictment charges that mr . deaver also lied when he told the grand_jury that he had not participated in the selection of drew lewis , the former secretary of transportation , as the presidential envoy on the acid_rain issue in 1985 . in fact , the indictment said , mr . deaver ''actively supported the idea of appointing a special envoy from the moment the idea was first proposed on dec . 17 , 1984 , '' and ''actively supported the president 's selection of drew lewis . '' the indictment also accused mr . deaver of lying about a lunch with mr . gotlieb in early 1985 to discuss relations between the two governments . a canadian official who asked not to be identified said abraham d . sofaer , the state_department 's legal adviser , had written to mr . seymour ''within the last 24 hours'' and said he ''totally supported the canadian legal view on this issue . ''",has a topic of politics
"lead following are excerpts from a news conference today by president_bush and chancellor helmut_kohl of west_germany , provided by federal news service , a transcription company , and the white_house . questions and answers in german were translated by an interpreter . president 's statement following are excerpts from a news conference today by president_bush and chancellor helmut_kohl of west_germany , provided by federal news service , a transcription company , and the white_house . questions and answers in german were translated by an interpreter . president 's statement bush . . . . the chancellor and i had an opportunity to talk at length about recent political developments in europe and about east west relations . and i am pleased to say that we share similar views on the most fundamental issues . we both welcome the prospect of further movement toward german_unification , beginning with the steps toward economic_and_monetary_union that are proposed for the period immediately following the elections in the g.d.r . on march 18th . if events are moving faster than we expected , it just means that our common goal for all these years of german unity will be realized even sooner than had been hoped . we share a common belief that a unified germany should remain a full member of the north_atlantic_treaty_organization , including participation in its military structure . now we agreed that u.s . military forces should remain stationed in a united germany and elsewhere in europe , as a continuing guarantor of stability . the chancellor and i are also in agreement that in a united , in a unified state , the former territory of the g.d.r . should have a special military status that would take into account the legitimate security interests of all interested countries , including those of the soviet_union . at the same time , the chancellor and i agree that we must continue to press hard for arms control efforts which would sharply reduce military forces in europe from the atlantic to the urals . we want to work together to have a c.f.e . agreement ready for signature this year at a summit meeting of all 35 c.s.c.e . member states . the summit could also endorse our proposal for c.s.c.e . guidelines on free elections to help show the way and protect the emerging democratic institutions of eastern_europe . . . . mr . chancellor , it was a pleasure to have you with us and now for your statement , sir . chancellor 's statement kohl . . . . in the spirit of this friendship , the two of us , mr . president , in the course of these hours in camp_david , we have discussed a vast list of political issues . in the center of our conversations was the future of the trans_atlantic relations and , embedded therein , the path of the germans toward national unity . against the background of historic changes on the european continent , we have reconfirmed our common beliefs . first , the alliance of the free democracies in europe and north_america , and included therein the german american partnership , are of fundamental importance for peace and security . this is true now this will be true in future . second , the security link between north_america and europe is and continues to be , and in the future , for us germans that is to say , also for a united germany of vital importance . that is why we need the presence of our american friends in europe , in germany , and that includes the presence of american_forces . also , for a united germany in the future , maintaining the friendship with the united_states_of_america and the expansion of relations with them will be an important task . we are happy about the ever closer economic cooperation and economic exchange , exchange in the fields of science and culture , and about the ever more meaningful meetings between people , in particular of the young generation . we are convinced that trans_atlantic relations must systematically be expanded in all fields . it is the common security in the alliance which is part of this , of the ever closer contacts between the european_community , including political cooperation , and the united_states . and this includes also our joint efforts to make our way toward a european peace order within the framework of the c.s.c.e . seeing the major changes in central_europe , east europe , southeast europe , the european_community continues to be an indispensable anchor of european civility . that is why we , the federal republic of germany , in particular myself , do not only want to expand european_integration but we want to accelerate this process wherever possible . beyond the big internal_market which is to be achieved on the 31st of december 1992 , beyond the economic_and_monetary_union , our primordial aim continues to be political_union in europe . that was the objective of the treaties of rome and nothing has changed in that area . it is our joint interest that the reform policy in central , east and southeast europe and , in particular , the policy led by secretary general gorbachev and the soviet_union will be successful . . . . on the path toward german unity , ladies and gentlemen , what we need in particular now is reason and good judgment . we germans walk along this path with a particular responsibility in the center of europe . and we 're doing so , if you like , along two tracks which are of equal importance . on the one hand , we are leading intensive talks with the g.d.r. , and at present we will , in particular , have to concentrate on the customs union and the economic community . on the other hand , we do have to consider that the link with our trans_atlantic partners , that european unity and comprehensive cooperation between east and west are being linked up with the development . we do respect the legitimate security interests of all states and we respect people 's feelings , especially the feelings of our neighbors . and i am saying this particularly addressing our polish neighbors . the border question will be settled definitely by a freely elected , all german_government , and a freely elected all german_parliament . but let me repeat here what i have recently said in paris already it was in january of this year nobody has any intention of linking the question of national unity with changes of existing borders . . . . questions and answers bush . helmut , if it 's agreeable to you , might i suggest to the press that we alternate the questions between us ? is that agreeable with you , sir ? q . you have declared , chancellor , that you do not want a change of borders . does this mean that you consider the polish border as final ? . . . kohl . my answer is very clear . . . . according to the legal situation in our country , it is a freely elected parliament , the sovereign of the people , which has to decide this question . and this is laid down also in the treaties of 1970 and has been mentioned in the conversations which took place in those years again and again . beyond this point , i 've again and again declared during the past months that and i do want to repeat nobody wants to link the question of national unity with changes in existing borders , and nobody is permitted to doubt my attitude there . q . do you consider it excluded that before german unity a treaty be concluded with the poles , about the polish border ? do you consider this excluded ? kohl . if i interpret the wish of the polish government correctly , and i think i do , then the polish government does have a very national wish that the competent sovereign , the legally competent sovereign , take that decision . in poland , there are certain circles who wish that , before such a decision to be adopted by an all german_parliament , decisions be taken in the two german states . in the federal german , west_german parliament , we have already pronounced ourselves and confirmed our line about the non changing of borders . bush . might i just add the u.s . permission , u.s . position , with your permission , mr . chancellor . the u.s . respects the provisions of the helsinki final act regarding the inviolability of current borders in europe . and the u.s . formally recognizes the current german polish border . i just wanted to get that in . q . do you think there is some difference between what you have just said and what the chancellor said ? there seems to be some lack , a bit of equivocation on his part . do you think there is any difference in the u.s . view and what the chancellor is saying today ? bush . i think we 're in alignment . i did not , i would not interpret what he said as equivocating at all . and i have just given you the u.s . position . . . . two plus four talks q . can you explain for us at this stage precisely how the two plus four works ? what the sequencing is , whether they are consecutive and ( inaudible ) . there 's been so much confusion about that . who 's got what rights ? bush . no , that , those details have not been fully worked out in terms of timings of meetings and things of this nature . they have not been worked out . this formula was approved by the foreign ministers in ottawa , and we simply have not tried to sit here in camp_david and fine tune the procedures for the two plus four . . . . kohl . . . . i 'm very happy with the decision adopted in ottawa , two plus four . it is only natural that the two states in germany , in particular after the 18th of march elections in the g.d.r. , will be discussing the subject in a particular way . this is a subject which concerns the germans in particular . . . . q . mr . president , ( inaudible ) how do the poles come into this so that , are they just one of the 35 at the end of it ? bush . well , there was , i know of poland 's feeling to want to make two plus four into two plus five . is that what you 're asking about ? the two plus four has been agreed upon . clearly , no agreement would ever be reached that affects the polish borders without polish involvements , but there is no change , we do n't sit up here and try to change an agreement that was taken by several countries at ottawa . but there will be a lot of consultative mechanisms . kohl . yes . bush . ( inaudible ) to deal with the interests , not just of poland but of our allies and everyone else . and the chancellor is very good about that , and i hope we 've been good about it , and it is essential that we stay on the same wavelength with our allies and friends . kohl . let me underpin what the president just said . i do realize that there is a particular interest on the part of the poles . and i 'm certain that in the course of this process , we will find ways and means of adopting solutions satisfactory to everybody . i think everyone of us has a feeling that there is a particular situation there , but i do n't consider it useful that the two of us , while nobody else from among our partners is here , try and decide about things and make declarations today . german_reunification q . ( inaudible ) europe , from poland to britain , and our own former director of intelligence , mr . helms , has called the german_unification march a runaway freight_train . given the history that , the role that germany played in the two wars in this century , should n't there be some assurances before this marriage takes place on borders and security ? bush . i think all those matters will be discussed in the various consultative mechanisms that we brought up . but i prefer to look at germany 's 45 years of contribution to democracy and to the security of the west , and that 's what we are focusing on . i have stated the u.s . position , which is not to be afraid of german_reunification , but to understand when peoples brother on one side , brother on another want to get together as one country , as they were before this artificial division that was , that was , resulted as , out of world_war_ii . so , we 've already crossed that bridge . we welcome reunification . but it 's not for the united_states to set a timetable . it 's not for us to say how fast . it is for us to guarantee as best we can in consultation with our allies that whatever evolves will be stable , and that peace will be the result . so , i , i 've already given you the view in my statement about the u.s . toward unification . and we are not in a process of trying to speed it up or slow it down . it 's a matter for the german people , matter for the discussions that , that will be taking place in multilateral fora . kohl . just a second , let me say something about this , because this is a very central question , i am grateful that was put . the question of german unity is a question of self , right of self_determination , and all peoples of this earth have the right of self_determination . it 's part of the charge of the united_nations , it corresponds to the principles of c.s.c.e. , it corresponds to the major democratic traditions of our world . . . . the second point is that the people in the two parts of germany do want to unify want to overcome the articles of division . the people in the g.d.r. , in a peaceful revolution , i think the most peaceful revolution of history , have made it clear that they want it by shouting ''we are the people . we are one people . '' now if i have a particular feeling , seeing and hearing this , and i believe that we do have a responsibility to be conscious of the fact that we are situated , geographically speaking , in the center of europe . we have a certain history . we must understand that there are certain fears on the part of our neighbors , and i 'm talking about serious fears and not only the pretended fears because there are people who pretend they have fears , but what they mean is that they fear the economic power of a federal_republic plus the g.d.r .. the president very rightly said last year that the federal_republic was 40 years of age . in the course of 40 years , it was a loyal and reliable partner in human_rights and the defense of freedom . . . . but i do take all the other data into consideration . and i 've also made it clear . . . that i am among those who want to pursue political_union of europe . the federal_government is a government which is ready to delegate further competences to the european_parliament . in other words , we want this united germany to be ever more embedded in an integration process with its neighbors . so nobody needs to be afraid . . . . military resurgence q . mr . president , i 'd like to know perhaps the core question do you trust that germany will never become an aggressive , resurgent military power ? and if i might ask mr . kohl , mr . kohl , do you foresake such a posture ? bush . i have stated that the u.s . position is that we welcome unification . and clearly , that would not be the position if we held the fears that your question alluded to . i do think that one way to help with stability , not in relation to this question , but european peace and stability is to have a strong nato and to have u.s . troops , if wanted , stationed in europe . . . . q . . . . to chancellor kohl , how durable can we see the commitment to nato and the continued presence of u.s . troops on german soil given the broad support in the federal_republic right now for a neutral unified germany , given the probable outcome of the east_german elections and given some of the political pressures that you may come under later this year with elections in december ? kohl . it 's my affair , these elections in the federal republic of germany in december , and i 'm looking forward to them very calmly . a moment ago i gave you the example , had i been standing here in the autumn , in the fall of 1982 or in january 1982 , most of your colleagues would have doubted that the germans would deploy . we did deploy american missiles , and that is why i really do n't think we need to be told what reliability means . neutralism would be a very false solution for us . i ca n't see that there would ever be any majority in the federal_republic or in a united germany for a neutralized germany . i think we have learned lessons and we do not want to repeat the errors of history . but one mistake in the times of the weimar_republic , of course , was that germany was isolated in europe . one must make germany a part of the whole . . . . instability as enemy q . mr . president , if i could follow up on a question you were actually asked a week or two ago about who , about who the enemy is these days , it seems that less and less it is the soviets . so , would one purpose of having , keeping nato intact and keeping u.s . troops within nato in germany be to as some analysts have said to keep the germans down ? bush . no . the enemy is unpredictability , the enemy is instability , and it is for that reason that we , there are agreed security provisions , and that 's the answer to it . . . . kohl . i would like to join up with this term , instability . i think this is one of the major tasks of all those responsible in east and west , and it 's particularly true for us in germany . we must do everything possible in order to avoid destabilization in europe , in particular in eastern_europe . i will do whatever i can to respond to that aim . as a matter of fact , i do not only agree with the president on this , but also with general secretary gorbachev . . . . q . mr . president , do you think that at the end of a two plus four process there will be a peace treaty , and that a peace treaty will then no longer be necessary ? kohl . i can give a very simple answer to the first part of your question yes . bush . and we agree with that . and eventually the four powers that were set up right at the end of the war , that 'll have to be resolved . whether it requires a formal treaty or something of that nature , i 'm not sure . but there will be a resolution , so there will not be a continued need for this four power arrangement , looking over the shoulders of a democratic unified germany . . . . security guarantees q . mr . chancellor , the desire on both of your parts to have a unified germany remain in nato , you also said that there should be some kind of special arrangements to guarantee , provide certain guarantees , security guarantees for eastern_europe and the soviet_union . does that preclude any participation at all with a unified germany vis a vis the warsaw_pact ? and would it be conceiveable that there could actually be soviet_troops in a unified germany ? kohl . one thing is clear a united germany cannot belong to two different pact systems . the other point is a question of sovereignty . we will have transition situations , and that is the subject about which one has to negotiate . at present , there are 380 , 000 soldiers of the soviet_army . seeing the reductions one has agreed upon , half of that number will be remaining there for the time being . many things will have to be looked into , and i cannot and will not give any final position here . . . . q . mr . president , can you envisage a situation where u.s . troops are still deployed in germany while the soviet_union has withdrawn all its troops from german soil ? bush . yes , i can . and the reason i can envisage such a situation is that , if that 's what the germans want , that 's what ought to happen . . . . upheaval in the east",has a topic of politics
"lead whether dining in bonn or boating down the rhine , president_bush and chancellor helmut_kohl were a pair of chummy and very happy politicians . they had every reason to be each , in his own way , had just helped pull the other out of political quagmire . whether dining in bonn or boating down the rhine , president_bush and chancellor helmut_kohl were a pair of chummy and very happy politicians . they had every reason to be each , in his own way , had just helped pull the other out of political quagmire . with the dangers evidently behind them , the two leaders spared no words singing each other 's praises . mr . kohl , jollier than at any time since his domestic political fortunes began to slide half a year ago , called mr . bush ''a true friend of our country , a personal friend who has always stood ready to help me in difficult times . '' mr . bush was equally euphoric , declaring ''i do n't believe german american relations have ever been better . '' the love fest on the rhine stood in sharp contrast to the recriminations of recent months , over topics like the air disaster at the american base at ramstein , which touched the west germans' sense of incomplete sovereignty , the libyan poison_gas plant affair and , most recently , the war of nerves over short range nuclear_weapons . thus much of the lightness along the rhine as foreign_minister hans_dietrich_genscher called for more beer was simply relief at the last minute compromise that had halted an increasingly painful squabble and salvaged the brussels summit . of all the nato leaders there , mr . bush and mr . kohl probably had the most to lose and the most to gain . mr . bush had come to europe hoping to prove he could steady the flapping reins of the western alliance . the german rebellion for that he needed first of all the germans , who had been most urgent in their demands for a response to the changes taking place in moscow , and who had finally rebelled in frustration against the inflexibility of the ''anglo saxons . '' on his side , mr . kohl had found himself out on a terribly frail limb . with his popularity failing at home , he had been maneuvered by his detente minded foreign_minister into open defiance of nato policy . mr . kohl was isolated both within the alliance and at home , where mr . genscher was threatening to bring down the government if the chancellor wavered . a success at brussels was made all the more pressing for both mr . kohl and mr . bush because of an approaching visit to bonn by president mikhail s . gorbachev , scheduled to start for june 12 . for mr . kohl , the enormous political value of the visit would have been severely undermined if it followed on a failed nato_summit . for mr . bush , a dismal visit to bonn on the eve of a triumphant visit by mr . gorbachev would have only intensified the image problem he had come to europe to solve . a riddle to his aides so it was little surprise that mr . kohl and mr . bush seemed so ebullient . what was less immediately obvious was why mr . genscher also seemed so satisfied . it was not that he had any less reason to be happy with the last minute compromise , which he had played a critical role in shaping . it was just that the longtime master of german foreign_affairs remains something of a riddle even to his aides , and is chary of revealing his real feelings . at a convention of his liberal free_democratic_party on the eve of the summit , mr . genscher made an impassioned defense of his call for early talks on short range missiles . these were the very positions that had brought the alliance into disarray , and the timing of the call seemed to portend a stalemate . at the end , the nato compromise managed to split the difference with some diplomatic legerdemain . it agreed to call for negotiations on the weapons , but only for their ''partial'' reduction satisfying bonn 's desire for talks and washington 's fear of a ''third zero , '' as the total elimination of land based nuclear_weapons in europe is referred to . delay in deployment the compromise also said that any talk of deploying new short range weapons would not begin until 1992 , when it would be raised ''in the light of overall security developments . '' this allowed mr . genscher to claim , as he did , that the weapons could still be effectively eliminated if conditions in 1992 proved no need for a replacement for aging lance missiles . mr . genscher had won time . but his antagonists could argue as prime_minister margaret_thatcher promptly did that negotiations would hardly begin anytime soon , and that the ''third zero'' had been effectively rejected . there was evidence , however , that mr . genscher 's real satisfaction ran considerably deeper than a satisfactory compromise , which after 15 years as foreign_minister was hardly likely to be a novel sensation for him . possibly most important for mr . genscher was that he had brought washington and the alliance considerably closer to his view of the opportunities offered by mr . gorbachev . a line from genscher the opening line of the nato communique declared something that mr . genscher had long been shouting ''our meeting takes place at a time when developments in east west relations suggest that real progress may be possible , particularly in the field of arms control . '' the new american proposal , with its emphasis on urgent negotiations and deep cuts , likewise reflected a strong new streak of what has become known as ''genscherism . '' as the foreign_minister said in a television interview , ''i am very happy that our idea of a joint political strategy in dealing with states of the warsaw_pact has found such wide support , and that now everywhere in the world and in the entire western alliance , the opinion has grown that it 's worth it to take gorbachev seriously and to take him at his word . '' so as mr . bush flew off into the setting sun , it seemed that for now at least , everyone was reasonably happy . for how long was another story . the broader differences if washington and bonn had once again found a way around a disagreement , the broader differences that make these two the most troublesome and interdependent members of the alliance remained intact for another day . ''after the united_states , west_germany is by far the most important member of nato , and so both are fated to be forever raising questions about the distribution of risks and burdens , '' said a longtime nato diplomat . ''compared to the load the americans and germans carry , the rest of the europeans basically get a free ride . '' that remark probably explained the relief felt by mr . bush and his hosts as much as any specific issue resolved or postponed . for the moment , at least , the two allies had managed to balance their differing and sometines conflicting needs . ''i think we were all winners in brussels , '' said mr . kohl , ''and that 's a rare experience for a politician . '' bush's hour taking control , he placates germans and impresses british",has a topic of politics
"sabotage attacks have cut the power flowing through more than 100 of the lines that form the backbone of iraq 's electrical_grid since the american led invasion last year , and nearly 1 , 200 of the huge towers supporting the lines have been toppled , according to an internal iraqi government report obtained by the new york times . while most of the damage occurred last year and has since been repaired , the report shows that in the first months of 2004 , far more attacks occurred than were publicly reported by the iraqi government or occupation forces . the report details 68 incidents , ranging from shelling towers to shooting apart lines , in the first three months of this year alone . the report does not contain statistics since march . the information is generally compiled only at the end of each quarter , said an iraqi government official who provided the report . but american and iraqi officials knowledgeable about the electrical_grid here said that the pace of the attacks had increased in recent months . ''if they 've knocked down 1 , 200 towers , it seems to me that they 've knocked down every line at least once , '' said hoff stauffer , a senior consultant and an authority on electrical grids at cambridge_energy_research_associates , a massachusetts firm . mr . stauffer said that the numbers suggested that maintaining iraq 's grid could be ''fairly hopeless , '' and that so called distributed generation in which each hospital or housing complex has a separate generator might be a better option until security improves . the sabotage numbers , the first gauge of the scale of efforts by guerrilla fighters to bring the country to a standstill by striking at infrastructure , emerged on the day that iraq 's new prime_minister , iyad_allawi , gave an assessment of the impact of the attacks . in a country where demand for electricity far outstrips supply , leading to regular , rotating blackouts and unpredictable power failures , sabotage to the electrical infrastructure has caused ''a nationwide loss of power of more than four hours per day , '' dr . allawi said . around baghdad , informal surveys suggest that residents have electricity 6 to 12 hours a day , with 8 hours being typical . ''terrorists have increasingly targeted our country 's infrastructure , '' dr . allawi said . ''these saboteurs are not freedom fighters , they are terrorists and foreign_fighters opposed to our very survival as a free state . anyone involved in these attacks is nothing more than a traitor to the cause of iraq 's freedom and the freedom of its people . '' transmission_lines are not the only part of the electrical system that has been damaged . on thursday , new details emerged about the shutdown of a large power plant in baiji the day before . it occurred when burning oil from a sabotaged oil line flowed into the tigris_river and threatened an intake for cooling water at the plant , iraqi government officials said . other plants were forced to make up for the shortfall on an emergency basis . ''they told me , 'keep your unit running , even if you have to catch it with your hands , ' '' said bashir khalaf omir , director of the doura power plant in baghdad . but the transmission_lines are the arteries of the system , carrying electricity to users around the country , and the iraqi government report reveals that sabotage to the lines has occurred virtually everywhere in mosul , kirkuk and baiji in the north , in basra and nasiriya in the south , in haditha in the west and in baghdad itself . ''there are lots of attacks happening , '' said raad al haris , the deputy minister for electricity , adding that the number had increased in recent months . ''they saw that there is progress with the electricity and they want to stop everything , '' mr . haris said of the fighters . rick kelley , a spokesman for washington group international , a contractor that restored a major transmission line from the baiji power plant to baghdad , confirmed that the line had been attacked at least twice , most recently on june 2 . mr . kelley said that the company had been asked by the occupation authorities to prepare a plan for a ''quick reaction'' team that would identify instances of sabotage and immediately repair the damage . some engineers said that because long stretches of the grid were being repaired and extended in work financed by the united_states , iraqi oil revenues and other sources , more and more alternate routes are available for electricity to flow to consumers when part of the system is damaged . those engineers also pointed out that as repaired sections of line were charged with electricity , damaging them can be much more hazardous to saboteurs . ''the system is getting more robust , '' said maj . david e . bitner of the united_states_army_corps_of_engineers who is operations officer for a 1 . 36 billion project called restore iraqi electricity . ''it 's getting more stable , so the effects are mitigated to some extent by that fact . '' the reach of war infrastructure",has a topic of politics
"lead president_bush hailed east_germany 's opening of its borders today as a ''good development , '' but privately his administration is growing concerned that the postwar european order is coming apart before any new stable structure has been established . president_bush hailed east_germany 's opening of its borders today as a ''good development , '' but privately his administration is growing concerned that the postwar european order is coming apart before any new stable structure has been established . speaking at an impromptu news conference at the white_house after being briefed on the day 's developments , mr . bush said , ''of course i welcome the decision by the east_german leadership to open the borders to those wishing to emigrate or travel . '' ''if it 's implemented fully , '' he said , ''it certainly conforms with the helsinki accords , which the g.d.r . signed . and if the g.d.r . goes forward now this wall , built in '61 , will have very little relevance . it clearly is a good development in terms of human_rights . '' political system is key the upbeat tone of the president 's remarks was in contrast to the deeper concerns in the administration over the uncertainty of what may happen next in east_germany , in relations between the two germanys and in europe as a whole . the entire structure of the postwar european order , which maintained stability for the last 40 years , has been based on a divided germany . the key questions now , administration officials said , is what kind of political system develops in east_germany and whether the country will remain independent or somehow merge eventually with west_germany . east_germans who leave for the west will determine their own future , but those who stay may well determine the future of europe by the type of state they and their leaders form . in his public remarks the president seemed to mask any concerns about the rapidity of change in europe , but those concerns nevertheless came through in his careful answers . when asked whether he saw a danger of events in central_europe spinning out of control , mr . bush said ''well , i would n't want to say this kind of development makes things move too quickly at all . i 'm not going to hypothecate that it may . but we are handling it in a way not to give anybody a hard time . we 're saluting those who can move forward with democracy . we are encouraging the concept of a europe whole and free . and so we just welcome it . '' 'i 'm very pleased' when reporters observed that the president in his initial answers seemed less than elated by the day 's events , he responded in a more enthusiastic manner . ''i 'm elated , '' he said . ''i 'm just not an emotional kind of guy . oh , i 'm very pleased , and i 've been very pleased with a lot of other developments . ''i think the united_states' part of this , which is not related to this development today particularly , is being handled in a proper fashion , and we 'll have some that 'll suggest more flamboyant courses of action for this country . we 're handling this properly with the allies , staying in close touch trying to enhance reform , both political and economic . the fact that i 'm not bubbling over , maybe it 's maybe it 's getting along toward evening because i feel very good about it . '' on capitol_hill , the senate_majority_leader , george j . mitchell , democrat of maine , struck a more unequivocally enthusiastic note , saying , ''this is an historic event . '' ''it can be made even more so , '' he added , ''if the east_german government now acts to tear the wall down . i urge them to do so . only then will we know that their proposal of today has lasting substance and meaning . '' remarks are recalled the chairman of the senate foreign relations committee , claiborne_pell , democrat of rhode_island , also declared ''east_germany should now tear down the berlin_wall'' and ''emulate poland and hungary by announcing democratic elections so that the east_german people can build a secure future without having to leave their homes . '' in his own way , the president also seemed to encourage east_germans to stay at home and work for reform in their own country instead of flooding to west_germany . ''you may remember that before i went to poland i was asked by a polish journalist , if i were a young pole what would my advice be , '' the president recalled . ''and what i said is i think you ought to stay there and participate in this dramatic change in your country . you ought to feel the surge of freedom , feel the move toward democracy , and be a part of it . ''and these are germans , and germans love their country , and at some point i think a lot of germans who have felt pent in and unable to move are going to say , 'look , we can move but would n't it be better to participate in the reforms that are taking place in our own country ? ' so i think it 's too early to predict that because of this opening that means everybody is going to take off . '' at the pentagon , defense_secretary_dick_cheney said in a statement that the odds of using military forces from east_germany against the west appeared to be ' 'significantly lower now than at any time in the postwar period . '' 'a revolutionary situation' as events in east_germany take unexpected new turns each day , bush_administration officials say they are discovering that while they have a great deal at stake in the final outcome they are virtually powerless to influence it . as a result , american policy today consists largely of hoping for stable change , urging all sides to exercise restraint and quietly praying that if there is to be a reassociation of east and west_germany there will be enough time to work out arrangments satisfactory to all the parties in europe . ''i admit that when all is said and done it is a policy largely of stated desires and rhetoric , '' said a senior bush_administration policy maker . ''but what would you have us do ? what we are dealing with in eastern_europe , and to a lesser extent in the soviet_union , is a revolutionary situation . revolutionary situations have a dynamic of their own . '' under such conditions , the official added , ''we can watch , applaud , hope and work together as closely as possible with the west germans . '' ''they know how best to deal with their own countrymen , '' he said . ''they can influence events inside east_germany , to the extent that anyone can , through their aid programs and their political_parties , but even the west germans have little influence . '' as events unfold in east_germany , administration officials feel powerless not only to direct those events in any way but also to discuss any alternative security system for europe if the postwar order based on a divided germany becomes obsolete . 'fulfillment of our dreams' ''the reason we seem to be so helpless is because what east_germans are demanding is the fulfillment of our dreams , the exercise of our values , and that is something that is inconceivable for us to oppose , '' said michael mandelbaum , an expert on east west relations at the council_on_foreign_relations . ''yet we are dealing with a country , germany , which if it becomes united and independent transforms the entire strategic landscape in europe . the germanys we had fit into an order which despite its injustices and maybe even because of them gave us peace for 40 years . we do n't know if a new arrangement for germany can fit into a stable order . '' summing up the administration 's quandary , herbert s . okun , a former united_states ambassador to east_berlin , remarked ''we want the east_germans to be free and we want their freedom to come about smoothly and gradually . but as lenin said , the path to revolution is not smooth or broad , and neither is the path to freedom . it is bumpy and full of turns . ''that simply underscores the fact that we urgently need to replace the present structure that has kept europe stable with an alternative . we want the east europeans to be free . the russians are ready to let it happen slowly , provided their security is not damaged . but we need an understanding soon . ''",has a topic of politics
"lead president_reagan , citing west_german chancellor helmut_kohl 's decision today to dismantle 72 pershing 1a missiles in west_germany , predicted that ''we can wrap up an agreement on intermediate_range nuclear_missiles quickly . '' president_reagan , citing west_german chancellor helmut_kohl 's decision today to dismantle 72 pershing 1a missiles in west_germany , predicted that ''we can wrap up an agreement on intermediate_range nuclear_missiles quickly . '' ''we are near an historic agreement , '' he said . but even as mr . reagan and other senior officials expressed cautious optimism that an arms control agreement with the soviet_union was near , the president challenged the soviet leadership to publish its military_budget , publicize the size and nature of its armed_forces and ''open for debate in your supreme soviet the big issues of military policy and weapons . '' military glasnost is urged ''i say to the soviet leadership , it is time to show some glasnost in your military affairs , '' mr . reagan said , addressing the town hall of california , a speakers' forum here . his talk was transmitted by satellite for simultaneous broadcast to the soviet american meeting in chautauqua , n.y . excerpts , page_a8 . mr . reagan 's speech contained other barbs he accused soviet_forces of ''indiscriminate bombing and civilian massacre'' in afghanistan , for example but by and large his language was more restrained than it has been in the past . officials said the tone reflected the president 's desire to avoid irritating the soviet leadership excessively while arms control negotiations move toward a final stage , and to mollify american conservatives who are angry with him for what they perceive may be his abandonment of the nicaraguan rebels . reacting to mr . kohl 's announcement today , the white_house issued a low key statement saying it supported the decision . a senior administration official traveling with the president added that the united_states exerted ''absolutely no pressure'' on west_germany . 'the way has been smoothed' the senior official also said the west_german announcement , along with the american decision on tuesday to accept fewer on site inspections of nuclear_weapons sites , means ''the way has been smoothed considerably'' for an agreement . nonetheless , the official and the president warned that , in mr . reagan 's words , ''there are still issues to be worked out . '' only a small portion of mr . reagan 's talk was devoted to arms control , and it was clear from the rest of his remarks that an arms control agreement would not be enough to insure warm relations with the soviet_union during the 17 months that remain in the president 's term . mr . reagan called on mikhail s . gorbachev , the soviet leader , to demonstrate that he was serious about improved relations and offered what he called ''guideposts and pointers'' toward that end . repeats earlier challenges in addition to urging ''a departure from the habits of secrecy that have long applied to soviet_military affairs , '' mr . reagan urged the soviet_union to tear down the berlin_wall , to pull its troops from afghanistan and to end its aid to nicaragua . mr . reagan also said the united_states would no longer be satisfied with the policy of containing communism and allowing the soviet_union to maintain its own ' 'spheres of influence . '' ''we have not forsaken deterrence or containment , '' he said , ''but working with our allies we 've sought something even beyond those doctrines . '' and at another point he said the united_states could not ''be content anymore with accepted spheres of influence , a world only half free . '' instead he called for full democracy in eastern_europe . all those suggestions have been made before . though mr . reagan 's language was more restrained , his larger message was little changed from a major address on u.s . soviet relations to the british parliament in 1982 . the senior official traveling with the president said ''i do n't think we 're asking for things that ca n't be done or things that are unreasonable . we 're saying , 'o . k. , if you 're going to make some changes , if you are truly interested in a new relationship with the west , let 's not just hear propaganda . here are some tangible steps that you can take . ' '' glancing reference to nicaragua it is not ''an act of belligerence , '' mr . reagan said today , ''to proclaim publicly the crucial moral distinctions between democracy and totalitarianism . '' he made only glancing references to the subject of nicaragua , a sore point for the white_house today as it tries to balance its support for the contras with its endorsement of peace negotiations . mr . reagan said ''soviet_bloc arms shipments'' to central_america ''have been speeding up during the past year increasing by more than 100 percent . '' that suggests , he said , that the ''soviet_union has stepped up its efforts to impose a failed system on others . '' the president is scheduled to meet with the contra leadership here on thursday afternoon as a further demonstration of support for the rebels .",has a topic of politics
"the department of defense has identified 886 american service members who have died since the start of the iraq_war . it confirmed the death of the following americans yesterday barcus , collier e. , 21 , pfc . , army mchenry , ill . first infantry division . colvill , robert e . jr . , 31 , sgt . , army anderson , ind . first infantry division . davies , shawn m. , 22 , specialist , army aliquippa , pa . first cavalry division . emanuel , william r . iv , 19 , specialist , army stockton , calif . first infantry division . fischer , jeremy j. , 26 , sgt . , army_national_guard lincoln , neb . 267th ordnance company . garmback , joseph m . jr . , 24 , specialist , army cleveland first infantry division . holmes , terry , 22 , cpl . , marines hollywood , fla . first marine division . nachampassak , krisna 27 , sgt . , marines burke , va . first marine division . peters , dustin w. , 25 , staff sgt . , air_force el_dorado , kan . 314th logistics readiness squadron . reed , christopher j. , 20 , pfc . , marines craigmont , idaho first marine division . sampler , . sonny g. , 23 , specialist , army oklahoma_city first infantry division . schmunk , jeremiah w. , 21 , specialist , army_national_guard first battalion , 161st infantry , first cavalry . spink , trevor , staff sgt . , marines 36 , of farmington , mo . first marine division . tarango griess , linda ann , 33 , sgt . first class , army_national_guard sutton , neb . 267th ordnance company . the reach of war",has a topic of politics
"canadian voters face a crucial national referendum on monday to determine whether to confer special status on the country 's french speaking minority in quebec and thwart a new separatist campaign . voters across canada are being asked to say "" yes "" or "" no "" to a complex unity package , reached by political leaders two months ago in charlottetown , prince_edward_island , that would amend canada 's constitution in order to meet , among other things , some of quebec 's longstanding demands for greater autonomy . while quebec would get special status because of its unique culture and a legal system based on the napoleonic code rather than on english common law , the amendment would make other significant changes , providing for a popularly_elected senate , giving the western provinces more clout in ottawa , and guaranteeing aboriginal peoples' right to govern themselves . prime_minister brian_mulroney , a quebecer , has tried twice in two terms to address the anxieties of a province that is a french speaking island in a sea of english speakers . he was asked on television recently why quebecers needed the recognition as a "" distinct "" society when , for example , the cajuns in louisiana never had such protection . "" they were n't granted any distinctiveness , and the acadians were wiped out , "" mr . mulroney replied . without constitutional protection , quebecers "" inevitably become cajuns , "" he said . "" they do n't want to become dancers in louisiana with banjos . "" although the united_states is officially neutral , washington has quietly sounded warnings on separatism . despite warnings from the "" yes "" forces of increased regional tensions , more intolerance and financial troubles if the agreement is rejected , polls have shown the "" no "" side leading throughout the campaign , possibly reflecting discontent with the prime_minister as much anything else . factions rip into patchwork accord although the gap has recently narrowed in quebec , a gallup_poll released on tuesday found the accord seriously threatened everywhere except in the atlantic provinces . the poll said 50 percent of canadians are against the unity package , up 9 percentage_points since an oct . 7 poll . "" yes "" must win in all 10 provinces for the amendment to be ratified , according to the prime_minister . the groundswell of opposition caught political leaders by surprise . the accord is the handiwork not just of the ruling progressive conservative party but also of the liberal and new democratic opposition . federal , provincial , territorial and aboriginal representatives took part in negotiations . the complexities of the agreement make it hard to explain to voters , let alone promote . both sides said it is difficult to build up much voter enthusiasm for legalistic compromises , a fact that the "" no "" side has exploited . the "" no "" forces have also profited from regional rivalries , the failure of the agreement to meet the expectations of some interest groups and a general malaise over high unemployment and a sluggish economy . but the "" yes "" side has yet to throw in the towel . the prime_minister is still predicting a victory based on the large number of undecided voters . quebec 's premier , robert_bourassa , a backer of the accord , justified his dogged optimism with a hoary allusion to baseball , which has suddenly become a symbol of national unity as a canadian team plays the world_series for the first time . mr . bourassa quoted yogi_berra 's favorite aphorism "" it ai n't over till it 's over , "" adding , "" we 're still not at the end of the ninth_inning . "" he and most other french canadians are rooting for the toronto_blue_jays , even though it puts them on the side of the american_league rivals of the montreal_expos . much of the "" yes "" side 's 5 million advertising budget has been spent on world_series commercials . but which team is the home team ? to demonstrate the bipartisan political support for the amendment , the prime_minister , whose political tailoring is pinstripe conservative , is appearing on referendum platforms with political foes like bob rae , who heads ontario 's socialist leaning new democratic provincial government . "" the prime_minister and i do n't agree on a whole lot of things a lot of the time , "" mr . rae said as the two told students at guelph this week why they should vote "" yes "" on monday . their answer the compromises would allow the country to better deal with its core economic problems , advance socially and protect minorities . fighting separatism in 'border raids' the united_states has not taken a position , but president_bush has repeatedly stated that he favors a united canada , and washington has quietly discouraged separatism . the international trade commission issued a report in august saying that an independent quebec would not be able to count on an automatic extension of free_trade with the united_states . while tolerable in the context of a canada wide agreement , heavy subsidies that the quebec government has used for years to finance economic_development might not be acceptable if quebec were to become independent , the commission said . the province is one of the world 's largest debtors . its foreign private debt is 25 billion , compared with about 30 billion in the former soviet_union . american investors own about 15 billion of quebec 's debt , mostly in bonds held by state_pension funds . prime_minister mulroney denies that a "" no "" vote on monday would be "" a personal defeat for anyone . "" according to an angus reid poll taken last week , however , 73 percent of canadians think he should resign or call new elections if the amendment is defeated . gutting power or sharing it ? although the "" yes "" side has repeatedly stated that this is not a mulroney agreement , his unpopularity has transcended the unity debate , and political analysts say many are likely to use their ballot to extract revenge for complaints against his government . "" this is the crescendo of all that he has done , and if there 's a loud clanger , i think he has to wear it , "" said rafe mair , a vancouver radio talk show host who has galvanized much of the opposition on the west_coast . mr . mulroney says he will go about the business of governing the country , whatever the outcome . his mandate is up within a year anyway , and many expect him to call elections in the spring . the agreement tries to realign the roles of the federal and provincial governments , an area in which the gulf between supporters and opponents is wide . opponents like pierre e . trudeau , the former prime_minister and a quebecer , fear the gutting of federal powers . advocates say there has been no big power shift . the accord gives provinces primary jurisdiction over forestry , mining , tourism , municipal and urban affairs , housing , recreation , culture and manpower training , under arrangements to be negotiated . in culture , quebec would have exclusive jurisdiction over activities within its borders . a statement of national identity , known as the canada clause , declares that canada is a parliamentary democracy , that aboriginal governments constitute one of three orders of government along with federal and provincial , that quebec is a distinct_society and that canadians respect minority groups , ethnic and sexual equality and individual and collective human_rights . the amendment would create a popularly_elected senate with real powers to replace an appointed upper chamber , modeled after britain 's house of lords . under the amendment , each province would get six senators , who would be elected , except in quebec , where the provincial government would appoint them . the two territories would get one senator each , for a total of 62 . a majority_vote in the new senate would veto natural_resource legislation . a majority of french speaking senators could block bills dealing with the french_language and culture . on most other bills sent to the senate by the house of commons , the senate could force a joint sitting . the house of commons would be expanded to 337 seats , and quebec 's representation in it would never fall below 25 percent . quebec would get three seats on the nine member supreme_court , a right the province has had since the court was established in 1876 , to accommodate the country 's two legal systems . the amendment would give each province a veto over any change to these features of federal institutions . detractors share little but distrust opponents are essentially a grass roots movement with little political or corporate backing and not much in common beyond a general distrust of politicians and a dislike of mr . mulroney . the prevalent orneriness was summed up by an anonymous young caller to a toronto talk show who , responding to the question how he would vote , said simply "" if the government says 'yes , ' i say 'no . ' "" to judy rebick , president of the national action committee on the status of women , "" what 's happening now is an expression of how out of touch the elites of this country are with the people . "" one of her main complaints is that the agreement does not protect sexual equality , a point on which other feminists disagree . the most influential opponent is mr . trudeau , who , unlike most in the province , believes in a strong central canadian government . he has spoken out against what he calls the charlottetown "" mess . "" he accuses quebec of "" blackmailing "" the country with demands for increased autonomy against the threat of secession . he also charges that the accord could override or modify the charter of rights and freedoms , canada 's bill of rights , which he integrated into the constitution in 1982 , and that this could undermine individual freedoms , a point contested by the "" yes "" camp . another major opponent is preston manning , leader of the populist reform_party , who wants to give nothing away to quebec . mr . manning , a sort of ross_perot type figure , also opposes self government for aboriginal peoples , contending , among other things , that this would drain the federal treasury . in quebec , the "" no "" camp is led by jacques parizeau , head of the separatist parti_quebecois . the paradox has not been lost on anyone in canada that the two arch enemies of a sovereign quebec , mr . trudeau and mr . manning , are on the same side as mr . parizeau in this bizarre contest . eight more years , many obstacles the parti_quebecois 's last effort to pull quebec out of canada failed . in 1980 it asked provincial voters to say "" yes "" or "" no "" to sovereignty . nearly 60 percent said "" no . "" but quebec voters showed their unpredictability the following year when they re elected the parti_quebecois to govern quebec . mr . parizeau says that with a "" no "" vote he will accelerate efforts to leave the federation . "" we perhaps at some point have to say to ourselves , for canadians and for quebecers , there 's perhaps not much of a future in this . "" initially , the "" yes "" side , led by the prime_minister , warned of catastrophic economic and political fallout if the charlottetown agreement failed . for a while , financial markets took these declarations to heart , and there was a run on the canadian_dollar , accompanied by sharp falls in the stock_market . the bank of canada was forced to boost interest rates dramatically , making economic conditions tougher for everyone . but now the "" yes "" side has toned down its warnings , and economic markets , already anticipating a "" no "" victory , are calmer . mr . bourassa 's term does not expire for two years , but a "" no "" victory may force him to call elections sooner . in order to achieve his separatist goals , mr . parizeau would not only have to win those elections , he would have to call for another sovereignty referendum in the province and win that , too . constitutional affairs minister joe_clark predicted that a "" no "" vote would result in sovereignty for quebec by the year 2000 . mr . parizeau , a bit cocky after the latest polls , calls the clark schedule "" a little slow , "" adding "" i do n't have the taste to wait eight years . "" the canadian vote the electorate there are 18 million registered voters in canada of a population of 27 million . expectations are that more than 80 percent of eligible voters will got to the polls , a turnout higher than the 75 percent in last two federal elections . the issue voters are being asked to say "" yes "" or "" no "" to the following question "" do you agree that the constitution of canada should be renewed on the basis of the agreement reached on aug . 28 , 1992 ? "" for ratification , all ten provinces must approve the referendum . in 1980 a provincial referendum on the question of sovereignty for quebec was defeated by 60 percent of the voters the agreement the agreement was signed on aug . 28 in charlottetown , prince edwards island . it would give greater autonomy to quebec and other provinces create a new popularly_elected senate as canada 's upper chamber in parliament establishe a process of self government for native peoples adopt a "" canada clause "" that defines the nation as committed it to democratic values , sexual and ethnic equality and respect for human_rights . realign the canadian supreme_court to insure its adherence to both the english common law and the napolenoic code .",has a topic of politics
"munther al fadhal believes that there is no place for religion in a new constitution for iraq . he favors the establishment of relations between iraq and israel . he even thinks iraq should outlaw the death_penalty . such an agenda might not seem surprising in washington or in sweden , dr . fadhal 's temporary home . but in iraq , even after saddam_hussein , and in much of the arab_world , it is very radical indeed , challenging deeply felt views about islam , israel and arab autonomy . and yet , this very weekend , aboard an american military plane , dr . fadhal is beginning a trip home to iraq to try to put his ideas in place . as the designated senior adviser to the iraqi justice ministry , he will be one of the leaders of a 150 strong team of exiles plucked by the pentagon from posts in america and europe to help shape the new iraq . a look at the team , assembled in a mere two months by deputy defense secretary paul d . wolfowitz , shows how boldly the united_states is trying to import secular , democratic notions to an iraq whose political future remains the subject of profound division and flux . it also underscores some of the considerable risks involved . ''maybe in five or six years they 'll understand that this guy is a good guy , '' dr . fadhal said the other day over lunch near the pentagon , referring to himself . more immediately , though , he said he expected that iraqis who stayed behind through mr . hussein 's rule would view him with hostility , not just as an import but ''as an agent or a spy . '' as a precaution , he said , he has arranged for six kurdish bodyguards to meet him in baghdad , to supplement his american military guards . pentagon officials have described the team of advisers , which works from united_states financed offices in virginia and is called the iraqi reconstruction and redevelopment council , as primarily administrators whose job will be to smooth a transition to an iraqi led authority by resuscitating moribund ministries and restarting basic services . ''it 's an enormously valuable asset to have people who share our values , understand what we 're about as a country , and are in most cases citizens of this country , but who also speak the language , share the culture and know their way around iraq , '' mr . wolfowitz said in a telephone interview . he said the iraqi advisers would not play political roles . ''they are going to give us technical advice , '' he said . but some iraqi exile leaders say the creation of the team was too narrow and overly influenced by the views of mr . wolfowitz and fellow conservatives , who have espoused a vision of bold change in iraq . ''this is insulting , '' said imam husham al husainy , an iraqi shiite leader who runs the karbalaa islamic education center in detroit , which is aligned with the supreme council on islamic_revolution in iraq , a group that is based in iran and has kept at arm 's length from the american government building effort . ''we do n't follow others , '' imam husainy said in dismissing as ''yes men'' the members of the pentagon assembled team . ''where is the democracy if you 're just dictating our ideas ? that 's not democracy . '' certainly most of the advisers espouse liberal , secular ideals that are at odds even with those of many other iraqi exiles as well as powerful forces inside iraq . the leader of the group is emad dhia , a 51 year old engineer and pharmaceutical executive on leave from pfizer in ann_arbor , mich . among the other important advisers are dr . fadhal , a legal scholar and author of a draft iraqi constitution , and khidhir hamza , a nuclear scientist who , with help from the central_intelligence_agency in the 1990 's , became one of iraq 's most prominent defectors . the seeds for the exiles' team were planted at a reception that mr . wolfowitz attended in washington last fall , pentagon officials and the exiles say . there , joanne dickow , an iraqi american from michigan who was an administration appointee at the energy department , discussed iraqi american and arab_american views about the war with mr . wolfowitz . he asked if it would be useful to reach out to iraqi americans . after a flurry of meetings in the detroit area between iraqi exiles and defense_department officials , the plans for the group were devised at a february meeting at the pentagon and cemented after a rally in dearborn , mich . , on feb . 23 at which mr . wolfowitz was the leading attraction . the team was assembled over the next two months , in a round the world burst of telephone negotiations and voice_mail messages left by mr . dhia . by the middle of this coming week , at least two dozen exiles will be installed in key temporary posts advising jay_garner , the retired lieutenant_general who has been the country 's day to day administrator , and l . paul_bremer , the retired state_department official who is expected to be appointed iraq 's senior american overseer . some american officials openly hope that some of the iraqis will stay on even longer to serve under the transitional government that iraqi political leaders themselves are trying to assemble , under american and british supervision , with a target date now set for late this month or early june . the roots of the exiles' team led back to the iraqi forum for democracy , which mr . dhia co founded in 1998 . composed mostly of secular professionals from across the spectrum of iraq 's shiite , sunni , kurdish and christian populations , the group 's declared mission has been ''to promote democracy and democratic values for iraq by peaceful means . '' some iraqi american critics said they were troubled by the speed of the process . ''many of us are really upset that we did n't know about this , '' said raz rasool , who fled iraq in 1998 and is a member of the advocacy_group women for a free iraq . ''they started this two months ago , and we read about it just this week . '' in the interview , mr . wolfowitz took issue with the idea that the selection process had been improper . ''what we 're saying is they share our values , so we should n't be dealing with them ? '' he said . dr . wolfowitz announced plans to form the exile team at the feb . 23 rally . still , the pentagon has been guarded in answering inquiries about the team , although officials say their motivation is to provide security . during their time in the washington area , mr . dhia , who returned to baghdad late last month , and other team members have lived and worked in apartments and offices paid for by the united_states_government , and received salaries and pocket money paid by american taxpayers . before heading to baghdad , each team member has been required by the pentagon to undergo several days of training at american military bases , to learn how to protect themselves against possible attack . in baghdad , dr . fadhal said , the team will live and work in compounds guarded by american_soldiers . but technically , they are working for saic , a defense_contractor , and their heavily_guarded offices outside washington have been equipped with telephone numbers and e mail addresses that betray no hint of a pentagon link . most members of the team have post graduate degrees , according to pentagon officials and the exiles themselves . a substantial number are naturalized citizens of the united_states or european_countries . while some are well known , many others are not . among the latter group , mohammad ali zainy , an american citizen designated as senior iraqi adviser to the ministry of oil , held only a mid ranking position in that ministry before he fled iraq in 1982 . now 64 , he worked in colorado as an oil company executive and energy consultant before joining the center for global energy studies in london , where he has been analyst for several years . dr . hamza , also 64 , on the other hand , is a nuclear_physicist who became well known in the west after he fled iraq in 1994 , first to libya and then to the united_states . his six months of experience in 1987 as director of iraq 's efforts to develop nuclear_weapons made him valuable to the c.i.a. , which , after rebuffing his initial attempts , ultimately helped dr . hamza and his family resettle in the washington area . david_albright , a former united_nations weapons inspector who is president of the institute for science and international security , an advocate of the inspections , worked closely with dr . hamza in the late 1990 's , but describes him as becoming sharply critical of the process . he said dr . hamza believed that the inspections threatened to undermine his overarching goal of ousting mr . hussein . ''if the inspections work , then the regime_change ca n't happen , ' '' mr . albright says dr . hamza told him . dr . fadhal , 52 , who left iraq after the 1991 persian_gulf_war , was a law professor in baghdad who had drawn attention to himself by criticizing iraq 's occupation of kuwait . he fled first to jordan and then to sweden , where he and his family now live . along with others who are now part of the pentagon team , he was among 32 iraqi exiles who helped to prepare a state_department report last year on the future of iraq . in that role , he prepared a draft of an iraqi constitution , a task that he said he hoped to complete on behalf of a future iraqi transitional government , among other tasks . ''i will take care of the ministry of justice in iraq , and abolish all of saddam 's legal system , '' he said , ''to create the new legal system toward democracy that will accept human_rights , that will fight corruption in iraq , and create new laws to build democracy . '' a shiite_muslim whose family is from the holy_city of najaf , dr . fadhal now describes himself as a secularist who believes that islam should play no role in iraq 's constitution . that would set a future iraq apart even from pro western arab countries like egypt , where the constitution describes islam as the principal source of the country 's laws . in that regard , dr . fadhal 's views are more secular than those of most iraqi opposition groups , and go beyond even the most recent stance taken by the bush_administration . the white_house said last month that it would not allow iraq to become a theocratic state like iran , but could endorse what it called an ''islamic democracy'' for the country . ultimately , dr . fadhal said , he would prefer for family reasons to work abroad for a new iraqi government perhaps as its ambassador to sweden or to a united nations organization in geneva . he would not rule out serving as a future minister of justice , but said he recognized that he and other exiles would face high hurdles . ''i have a dream , '' he said , ''to build in iraq a civil_society , a democracy , like switzerland or sweden . but now there is chaos and risk from islamic fanatic groups , and from the baath_party and from the arab terrorists who supported the hussein government . ''the iraqi people have been brainwashed , '' he said , ''and it is our responsibility to build a new brain . '' aftereffects the advisers correction may 7 , 2003 , wednesday a front page article on sunday about a pentagon project to enlist exiles to help reshape iraq referred_imprecisely in some editions to official reticence . the pentagon has been guarded in replying to inquiries about the project , citing security . but deputy defense secretary paul d . wolfowitz made it public on feb . 23 ''under close wraps'' did not signify complete silence . in some editions the article also misstated the scope of a conversation last fall between mr . wolfowitz and joanne dickow , an iraqi american at the energy department . she spoke with him about the views of arab_americans and agreed to help him meet iraqi americans she did not encourage him to reach out to them as part of a campaign to rally sentiment against iraq 's rulers .",has a topic of politics
"the iraqi authorities said sunday that they had found the bodies of 46 people who had been killed . in addition , two suicide bombers blew themselves up near a town courthouse just north of baghdad , killing five other people and narrowly missing a regional governor . in a series of grisly discoveries on sunday that are becoming increasingly common here , the interior_ministry said , the authorities found the corpses , some of soldiers and some apparently of civilians , in baghdad and three other cities . some were found in a garbage_dump and some at a poultry farm , among other locations . the authorities did not identify the dead or provide details about who might be behind the killings . the day was also punctuated by three assassinations , including one of a shiite_cleric . the killings came as secretary of state condoleezza_rice made a surprise visit to iraq , and one day after the american military said it had completed a major offensive against insurgents in the desert in western iraq near the border with syria . the newly formed iraqi government on sunday made its first substantive public remarks about the recent surge in violence , which has killed more than 400 iraqis since late april . laith_kubba , the spokesman for prime_minister ibrahim_al_jaafari , said that the government would crack down on the insurgents and that proposals to carry out that mission were forthcoming . ''iraq has suffered from the spread of criminal networks throughout the country , '' mr . kubba said . ''these criminals are trying to demonstrate and prove that the government is incapable of protecting the people . '' ''these groups are professional groups , '' he said . ''they do not hesitate to kill hundreds of iraqis with no remorse . '' among the bodies found sunday were 13 that had been partly buried in a garbage_dump near a shiite_slum here . their hands were bound , and some appeared to have been blindfolded , a witness said . they appeared to have been killed recently , officials said . later in the day , the defense ministry said 10 iraqi soldiers had been found with their throats cut , near ramadi , an insurgent_stronghold north of baghdad . eleven bodies of men thought to be poultry workers who had been shot dead were found south of baghdad near the town of iskandariya , in an area prone to insurgent attack . on sunday_night , an interior_ministry official reported yet another discovery in shaab , a town north of baghdad , the police found 12 bodies in two areas . the victims were wearing only underwear , with their hands tied behind their backs , and they had been shot in the head execution style , the official said . in an organized series of shootings , a senior industry ministry official and his driver were shot dead while driving to work in the southwestern part of baghdad . a few hours later , one of the grand_ayatollah_ali_al_sistani 's aides in baghdad , sheik qasim al ghirawi , and his son were shot dead , also while riding in a car . in a third shooting , an official in the education ministry and his son were killed south of baghdad . the double suicide_attack took place in baquba , a town just north of baghdad that is an insurgent_stronghold . a car bomber blew himself up near a courthouse , narrowly missing the governor of diyala_province . in an increasingly common tactic , another bomber attacked soon after at a nearby spot , killing 5 other people and wounding 24 , an interior_ministry official said . three men whom the iraqi authorities have described as palestinians and one iraqi were shown confessing on an iraqi television_program saturday night to having engineered a suicide_bombing attack in a busy baghdad market on thursday . the group appeared on a daily program that features interviews with men captured in security raids , called ''terror in the hands of justice . '' maj . gen . muhammad hussein , the iraqi_army commando unit leader who said he had taken them into custody , said in an interview that those described as palestinians were seized after a shiite_militia , the badr brigade , captured the iraqi . the men were in their 30 's and 40 's , he said , and were captured in their apartments and in a car repair shop , where one of them is accused of having prepared the explosive laden car . general hussein said that the men had fake syrian and iraqi passports and that they had been identified as palestinians by their speech and the baghdad area where they lived . but on sunday , a sunni religious group , the muslim scholars association , said the men were innocent and ''had never borne arms , '' agence france press reported . sunni arabs , embittered over what they say has been unfair treatment by the shiite led government , often express resentment of policing by iraq 's new predominantly_shiite force . general hussein , a shiite , contended in the interview that religion was not a factor in making security arrests . a militant islamic group , ansar_al_sunna , on sunday released a video on a web_site that appeared to show insurgents attacking a convoy and shooting four people dead . it was not clear who the victims were in the violent scene , in which the gunmen continued to shoot bodies of men who appeared to be already dead . another web_site that tracks videos issued by insurgents suggested that there might be a connection with the kidnapping last week of a japanese man , akihiko saito , near an american base west of baghdad . the governor of the western province of anbar , raja nawaf farhan al mahalawi , who had been kidnapped early last week as the american military carried out an offensive in western iraq , was freed sunday , the associated press reported . the report said that the kidnappers had told his family that they were holding him until american_forces ceased their military action in the area . the american military said it had detained 21 suspected insurgents in and around the northern city of mosul on sunday .",has a topic of politics
"even as the united_states remains deeply engaged in iraq , defense secretary donald h . rumsfeld and the armed services are considering sweeping changes to decades old pentagon practices and ingrained military culture to prepare faster for any future war . the official ''lessons learned'' from the war are still being compiled . but the end of major combat operations in iraq is already providing an opportunity to question how the military 's forces are configured in what numbers and where and to seek new ways of building additional combat power rapidly if needed to defend american interests . as four aircraft_carriers return from the war with iraq , the navy is analyzing ways to compress the lengthy maintenance cycles for its 12 carrier battle groups . proposals under consideration would allow the navy to routinely press more warships into service , even doubling if needed the three carrier battle groups normally on patrol , a schedule that has driven navy personnel and budget planning for decades . the air_force , which has already withdrawn more than 100 aircraft from the gulf area , is regrouping its 10 sets of air combat forces and talking to the navy about sharing reconnaissance missions . officers in the army , whose tanks dashed hundreds of miles to baghdad through the punishing iraqi desert , have spent recent days analyzing how to reorganize their decade old system of prepositioning large arsenals of armored_vehicles in warehouses and aboard ships throughout the region . and the marines are starting to pull back forces from iraq to their ships so they can be ready to steam to another crisis on short notice . this work is not built around any particular adversary or threat , but is intended to give the president a fresh set of military capabilities he may need to defend american interests . even so , the analysis responds to the fast changing global terrorist threat , and to nuclear tensions growing on the korean_peninsula . the process has given rise to a new pentagon buzz phrase . previously , this period was known as a time of ' 'reconstituting the force'' but that resonates of returning to a prewar status_quo . today , the task is ' 'setting the force , '' and the goal is to use the return from iraq to freshly configure the military . mr . rumsfeld is touring the persian gulf_region this week , and a significant part of his time will be spent discussing the military presence there . but the debate has implications for base structure across the united_states and the world , in particular in germany and south_korea , as well as for long standing personnel , training , readiness and budget policies . mr . rumsfeld made transforming the military the goal of his tenure , and the war served as a battlefield laboratory . the first test for the military was deploying forces toward iraq with speed and flexibility , compared with the slow buildup to the 1991 persian_gulf_war . the second was carrying out the war plan with flexibility to defeat changing iraqi tactics , as well as engaging iraqi forces with speed , precision and deadliness . now , in the months ahead , the military will be judged by a third test , how efficiently it withdraws its forces , refills its bins of weaponry and prepares for future missions . inspiring the review is the new military_strategy adopted by mr . rumsfeld 's pentagon in 2001 . this strategy requires the military to defend the united_states against external attacks deter aggression in four critical regions of the world northeast asia , east_asia , the middle_east southwest asia and europe assure decisive victory in a major war against one adversary while almost simultaneously swiftly defeating the efforts of another and , all the while , conduct limited contingency operations . for its part , the navy is preparing a ''fleet response concept'' that envisions a carrier force that can mobilize on short notice and in greater numbers to hot_spots , and is experimenting with leaving ships at sea longer than the traditional six months by rotating in fresh crews to operate them . most importantly , the navy is considering whether it should be more flexible in the schedules for its battle groups , which have gone to sea on timetables so regular that potential adversaries know months in advance when they will sail . adm . vern clark , the chief_of_naval_operations , sent an unusual message this month to every commander . the navy declined to release a copy of the unclassified message , but several officers who received the communication quoted its contents . ''make no mistake . our post operation_iraqi_freedom navy will be different , '' the admiral wrote . ''we are posturing for the long haul . for all the forces heading home , our mission now is to re cock this force . i ask you to challenge every assumption . '' the air_force has brought more than 100 aircraft home . another 50 warplanes that were stationed at incirlik air base in turkey , enforcing the no flight zone over northern iraq for the past decade , left earlier , their mission ended by the war . the first priority is to allow returning pilots , crews and other personnel to spend time with their families . then the units need to unpack their gear , tend to their jets and other equipment and resume regular training programs , a priority for each service . several years ago , the air_force divided its aircraft into 10 sets , called air expeditionary forces , intended to deploy in pairs for 90 days . four air expeditionary forces were sent to the fight in iraq , as well as parts of four others . a senior air_force official predicted the service would get four of the units back into regular schedules by early summer , but it could take a year before the entire rotation is back on track . in addition , the official said , the air_force was looking at how its rc 135 reconnaissance planes could find greater efficiencies by working closely with the navy 's ep 3 aircraft . both planes collect electronic transmissions like radar signals or cellphone conversations . the army has a great challenge as it moves to set its force . though it remains unknown how many thousands of americans will remain in iraq for the stabilization mission , and for how long , it is certain that most will be army troops . even so , with the rapid victory over saddam_hussein 's government , the pentagon canceled orders that would have sent the first cavalry division , based at fort_hood , tex . , to iraq . those troops and armor are now poised at home for any future mission , a role that one senior officer called ''our strategic hedge . '' one senior army officer discussed how the service would fulfill its post_war mission in iraq even as officers analyze issues like whether to restock warehouses in the gulf with the same number of armored_vehicles as they would have a decade ago , after the first gulf_war , and how quickly spent artillery shells can be replaced with a new generation of precision ordnance . ''we will fight our battles even as we transform , '' this officer said . aftereffects military_strategy",has a topic of politics
"president_clinton warned iraq today that its continuing refusal to allow united_nations inspectors to monitor missile test sites could have "" quite serious "" consequences , and he said the matter must be resolved soon . the blunt statement reflected increasing american impatience with the renewed iraqi intransigence . despite a similarly strong warning from the united_nations_security_council , iraq has given no sign that it will back down from its refusal to permit the inspections . the standoff , which began in early june , has become the most serious between iraq and the united_nations since one around the time mr . clinton took office . that dispute involved baghdad 's refusal to allow united_nations inspectors to use their own aircraft on flights to and from iraq and culminated in american led air_strikes against iraqi targets . no retaliation planned white_house officials said today that the united_states was not contemplating any immediate resort to military force . but they said mr . clinton was determined to make clear that the united_states would not tolerate further iraqi interference with the united_nations inspections authorized under the sanctions imposed after iraq 's defeat in the persian_gulf_war . the president 's remarks , issued during an early morning appearance on the the south lawn of the white_house , introduced mr . clinton in a role made familiar by president george_bush , voicing threats intended to persuade iraq to back down . but some american officials said today that they believed that heightened operations by iraq 's military may reflect its willingness to risk western retaliation again for the perceived benefits of standing up to the united_states and the united_nations . the security_council adopted a resolution last friday warning of "" serious consequences "" if baghdad refused to accept the installation of united_nations cameras at the missile test sites . but iraq has continued to insist that it has cooperated with the united_nations resolutions and is trying to persuade the security_council to lift the sanctions . a newspaper controlled by the son of president saddam_hussein said this week that baghdad 's destiny was "" to go all the way , and act decisively to break the embargo . "" asked by a reporter this morning how he viewed the standoff , mr . clinton immediately responded that it was "" quite serious . "" he added , "" i would expect that the matter will have to be resolved one way or the other in the fairly near future . "" mr . clinton spoke at an impromptu news conference after a ceremony at which , as expected , he announced the appointment of kristine m . gebbie , the former washington_state health commissioner , as the country 's first aids policy coordinator . white_house officials said that harold varmus , a nobel_prize winning molecular biologist from the university of california , remained the leading candidate to take over the national_institutes_of_health , but mr . clinton made no announcement on the nomination . a monitoring dispute the latest dispute between the united_states and iraq has to do with a united_nations effort to monitor two iraqi test sites south of baghdad to make sure that iraq does not produce missiles with a range of more than 150 kilometers , the maximum permitted under the terms that ended the war . the united_nations has said that baghdad has also refused to allow its specialists to destroy equipment that could be used to produce chemical_weapons . a team led by a russian inspector , nikita smidovich , arrived in baghdad on june 4 to install sensitive american made cameras at the two sites , but it has not yet been permitted to do so . in recent days , american officials have said that iraq appears to have taken steps to put its air defense on a heightened state of alert as if to guard against an attack . although saying baghdad appeared most concerned about a strike from iran , the officials have said the moves could reflect concern about a western air raid . in episodes that began on june 3 , united_states warplanes have detected new efforts by iraqi antiaircraft units to track their flights over southern iraq , the american officials said . the united_states pilots subjected to that scrutiny have not perceived themselves to be endangered by it and have chosen not to respond with military force , as the current american rules of engagement allow them to do . but the episodes appeared to reflect heightened monitoring near the iranian border . on june 3 and 4 , they said , american warplanes on three occasions spotted tracer fire from antiaircraft_batteries in eastern iraq , and one of the aircraft reported that it might have been illuminated by a ground based radar . a similar episode occurred on june 16 , when two navy flight crews also reported signs of being monitored by iraqi radar in eastern iraq , the officials said . the final two episodes , which occurred on june 20 , involved more radar contacts detected by two air_force planes . all were described by the american officials as violations of united_nations rules prohibiting interference with the patrols .",has a topic of politics
"lead ''it 's unseemly for us to be chasing a canadian ambassador around , wrestling with security people to attain service . '' whitney north seymour jr . , the special_prosecutor , on subpoenas in the investigation of michael k . deaver . a12 1 . ''it 's unseemly for us to be chasing a canadian ambassador around , wrestling with security people to attain service . '' whitney north seymour jr . , the special_prosecutor , on subpoenas in the investigation of michael k . deaver . a12 1 .",has a topic of politics
"old soldiers , it turns out , do n't just fade away not when a war is being carried live on cnn , msnbc , fox_news and the broadcast networks . instead , a whole constellation of retired one , two , three and four star generals including many who led the recent wars in afghanistan , kosovo and the persian_gulf can be seen night and day across the television firmament , navigation aids for viewers lost in a narrative that can be foggier than war itself . the generals bring a new , deep perspective to the coverage of the war . many of them led the same units that are fighting in iraq or commanded , trained or shared barracks and beers with the current commanders . at their best , they can introduce a laconic , pithy sang froid that smooths out the sometimes frantic reporting of television journalists at the front , who tend to see the war through the narrow lens of immediacy . ''if things have n't gone exactly according to script , they 've gone according to plan , '' lt . gen . greg newbold , formerly of the marines , said on abc_news last friday . he should know until late last year he was helping to draw up those plans as the director of operations for the joint_chiefs_of_staff . but the generals' performances raise some questions , including how much they really know and whether they are disclosing more than they should . some receive occasional briefings from the pentagon , but like most reporters , they stay current by checking with their friends in the military and studying all the public information they can gather . on the other hand , their evident sympathies with the current commanders , not to mention their respect for the military and immersion in its doctrines , sometimes seem to immunize them to the self imposed skepticism of the news organizations that now employ them . rarely , unless pressed , do the generals bluntly criticize the conduct of the war , a detailed review of their recent remarks discloses . instead , they tend gravely to point out the timeless risks of combat . in the early hours of this morning , though , after the sharpest fighting to that point of the war far resulted in scores killed , wounded or captured , gen . wesley k . clark , an army retiree who was the top nato commander during the kosovo war , questioned whether the central_command had committed enough soldiers . ''i would have preferred more forces there , '' general clark said , noting that three divisions expected to join the war had not yet arrived . ''our boots on the ground strength is low , '' he continued . ''the command believes they can do the job , and i do n't know the details , but i trust their judgment . but if you ask me , as an old soldier , i like to have an insurance policy . '' more typical was a description by gen . wayne a . downing , a former army leader of the special_operations command and a gulf_war commander in 1991 , of gen . tommy r . franks , the iraq_war 's overall regional commander . ''tommy started off as an enlisted helicopter door gunner in vietnam , '' general downing said , rattling off the story of his old comrade 's career as if by rote . ''he 's not going to go down there and mess with his people . not only is tommy comfortable and well liked by his superiors , which a lot of people are , but tommy has n't made his money by looking up . he 's made his money by looking down . '' when it comes to explaining the nuts and bolts of an operation , the technical details of weapons , the decisions facing american and british commanders , the generals often perform reasonably well . even more interesting , if more speculative , are their musings on what the iraqi high command might be thinking . ''let 's give the iraqis some credit , '' said gen . michael c . short , retired from the air_force , in a discussion on msnbc about the iraqis' habit of blasting the skies of baghdad with antiaircraft_guns . ''some of them are solid military professionals . they will know where their command and control targets are . they will have looked around 360 degrees and say , 'where will the cruise_missile have to go to get to this target ? we 'll put guns in that area . ' '' lt . gen . bernard e . trainor , retired from the marines , who after leaving the joint staff became a military analyst for the new york times and now appears on msnbc , pondered the iraqi command 's mindset as american_forces neared baghdad today . ''if he moves , we kill him if he stays put , we kill him , '' general trainor said . ''and regardless of what they 're told to do over the network , whatever is left of the command and control , unless it comes down to using chemical_weapons , then the rest of it is just ancillary . if this is going to be the communication of red telephone , if you will , to tell people to launch chemical_weapons and we 're reaching that point in the operation if they 're going to use their stuff , they 'd better start thinking about it , because pretty soon we 're in downtown baghdad . '' general clark , leaning over a big table in cnn 's studio and using a long stick to move figurines around a map of the theater , is careful to note that the movements he describes or predicts are only approximations of the actual situation . ''the other military analysts and i continue to hear feedback that people are still concerned that somehow we 're giving away plans , '' he said the other night . ''and you know , i just want to reassure everybody that we 're very sensitive to that , that none of us have seen those plans . and we would n't ask our military colleagues about them . we 're hypersensitive to the safety of the soldiers . ''and so , we 're very careful about what we say , '' he added . ''there 's a whole lot going on in this battlefield that we 're not reporting , not talking about , not speculating on . '' general clark , whose meetings with democratic activists have fueled speculation that he wants to run for president , may be the smoothest and most urbane of the former generals to have turned , as churchill might have put it , from war war to jaw jaw . if general clark were ever to run for office , his prolonged exposure on television during the war could only boost his name recognition , and it may be that his political instincts mellow the tone that a more pugnacious commentator might provide . for other generals , the fame that comes with the studio lights may not match the fortune . even the less prominent ones , who are not under long term contract , can make 500 per appearance . to a man , they emphasize the gravity of what the military is up to in iraq . ''it 's not entertainment , '' general clark said . a nation at war military commentators",has a topic of politics
"in an extraordinarily intense and personal cross_country exchange , president_clinton and senator bob_dole challenged each other 's values and personal integrity today , focusing on the issue of late term abortion in a daylong series of increasingly vituperative attacks . that exchange began when mr . dole , the presumptive republican presidential_nominee , went to a philadelphia convention of editors of roman_catholic publications this morning and asserted that mr . clinton 's veto of a bill that would have barred a kind of late term abortion procedure "" pushed the limits of decency too far . "" excerpts , page_a14 . barely had mr . dole spoken when mr . clinton , who until now had left the attacks on his rival to aides , delivered a severe response that starkly reflected the candidates' disagreements on abortion , one of the nation 's most divisive social issues . speaking in milwaukee at a joint news conference with chancellor helmut_kohl of germany , mr . clinton characterized mr . dole 's approach to the bill , which would have forbidden so called partial birth abortions , as being one of "" there was too much political support behind this , i did not want to be bothered by the facts , it 's o.k . with me whatever if they rip your body to shreds and you could never have another baby , even though the baby you were carrying could n't live . "" the president added sharply , "" now i fail to see why his moral position is superior to the one i took . "" in his philadelphia appearance , at the annual convention of the catholic press association , mr . dole offered a new campaign proposal a credit that taxpayers would be able to claim for donations to groups that assist the poor . but it was overshadowed by the latest exchange of what the campaigns like to call "" rapid response , "" in which mr . dole , having returned to washington , got in the last shot before this evening 's television news programs by inviting photographers to his private balcony on the west side of the capitol . there , the senator said of mr . clinton "" he is on the fringe , subscribing to abortion on demand , and now he 's upset about it . i think what he should do is just admit he made a mistake and urge the congress to override his veto , ask us to override his veto . that 's what he should do . "" though today 's exchange centered on mr . clinton 's veto of the abortion legislation , each of the candidates engaged in a broader underlying assault on the other 's character . those attacks startling for being so sudden and so furious , and for coming so early in the presidential race coincided with intense pressure to which both men have been subjected as they wrestle with politically troublesome issues within their parties abortion for mr . dole , same sex marriages for mr . clinton . it was mr . dole who set the bar for the day when he told his audience in philadelphia that he viewed the presidential_election as "" a referendum on the basic values of the country . "" mr . dole said he worried that the country was in a "" moral drift . "" "" as a society , "" he said , "" we ca n't shake the feeling that our culture is in trouble and our values are under assault . "" he suggested that mr . clinton was largely to blame . "" we have an administration that reflects the most troubling features of our culture , "" mr . dole said , "" an administration that seems to believe in everything and nothing . "" it is , he continued , "" an administration guided by nothing more profound or permanent than the latest polling data , an administration constantly exhorting itself and lecturing the public but itself fundamentally adrift , without direction or moral vision . "" he offered as evidence mr . clinton 's veto of the abortion bill . the relatively rare abortion procedure that the legislation would have banned is performed only after 20 weeks of gestation . in the procedure , the fetus is partly extracted from the woman , feet first , and the brain is then suctioned out , allowing the rest of the fetus to pass through the birth canal . before the bill 's passage earlier this year , mr . dole won the addition of an amendment that would have allowed the procedure if needed to save the life of a woman endangered by her pregnancy . but mr . clinton said he could not sign the measure in the absence of a second exception , allowing the procedure to safeguard the woman 's health . the legislation 's advocates said this second exception would in effect permit the procedure on demand , and it was not included in the bill that congress sent to the president . as a result , mr . clinton last month cast his veto , a decision later condemned by the roman_catholic_church . in his talk to the catholic editors today , mr . dole , reading carefully but quickly from a video prompter , said "" let me speak to this issue as simply as i can . i am opposed to abortion on demand . i am pro_life . but i understand that reasonable and decent people can disagree on certain points . "" but this was an easy call . here was an issue where all americans can come together . with his veto , president_clinton pushed the limits of decency too far . "" mr . dole 's remarks reflected in part a rising frustration within his campaign over the speed with which mr . clinton has moved to co opt the senator 's issues . last weekend , for example , mr . clinton endorsed a welfare plan that mr . dole was about to embrace . and on wednesday the clinton white_house , aware that mr . dole was to speak to catholic editors today , put out word that the president would sign a bill refusing federal recognition of same sex marriages if the legislation reached his desk . the clinton organization today displayed another trait that has come to annoy the dole camp a quick response to the senator 's remarks . mr . clinton 's political aides had begun paging reporters on their beepers to offer a reply to mr . dole 's speech even before the senator left the philadelphia hotel where he had delivered it . in milwaukee , mr . clinton , who has come under criticism from even members of his own party for the abortion veto , defended his decision . he noted that at the gathering where he vetoed the bill , he introduced five women who had undergone the procedure and who might have been left physically disabled had they been forced to proceed with birth . "" what would senator dole say to those five women who stood up there with me ? "" he asked . "" i am always a little skeptical when politicians piously proclaim their morality , "" the president continued . "" he has to answer to those five women . "" in the tumult of the day , the discussion of the first element of an emerging dole tax plan was almost lost . the senator said he would support a tax_credit of up to 500 for a single filer , and up to 1 , 000 a couple , for donations to religious or other charitable organizations that help the poor . mr . dole borrowed the idea from senator daniel r . coats of indiana . currently , taxpayers may take only a deduction from income for charitable_contributions , and even that benefit is available only to taxpayers who itemize their deductions tax_credits , in contrast , are subtracted directly from the tax owed and may be claimed by any taxpayer , whether itemizing or taking the standard deduction . mr . dole 's aides said his proposal would cost between 17 billion and 20 billion a year . they said they were not ready to discuss how he would pay for it . politics the challenger",has a topic of politics
"lead the united_states is backing a proposal by the west_german foreign_minister that a reunified germany be part of nato but that no nato troops be based on the territory of east_germany , a senior administration official said today . the united_states is backing a proposal by the west_german foreign_minister that a reunified germany be part of nato but that no nato troops be based on the territory of east_germany , a senior administration official said today . the official , speaking to reporters after a meeting at shannon airport in ireland between secretary of state james a . baker 3d and foreign_minister roland_dumas of france , said a majority of nato members appeared to favor such a unification formula . the official said mr . baker would raise the issue with president mikail s . gorbachev when he goes to moscow on wednesday . after his brief layover in ireland , but before his trip to moscow , mr . baker stopped in prague for talks with president vaclav_havel . the genscher proposal the remarks by the administration official , who is in a position to speak authoritatively on behalf of the state_department , amounted to the first indication that the bush_administration was ready to back the unification proposal , which was presented to mr . baker last friday by the west_german foreign_minister , hans_dietrich_genscher . mr . genscher , who is the chief of the free_democratic_party in west_germany and who often floats ideas on foreign_policy , has been discussing his unification idea with european officials . the plan has not been endorsed by east_germany , which officially seeks a neutral and unified germany sometime in the future . it has not been endorsed by the west_german chancellor , helmut_kohl , who heads the christian_democratic_union in the coalition_government , or by the government itself . but it has gained widespread support in bonn , and government officials there say it is likely to become policy . american officials added that they were not wedded to the proposal , meaning that if it proves impossible to put into effect , or if a better idea comes along , they will also consider those . 'a pretty good one' ''genscher has come up with one proposal , and we think that proposal , in terms of not having nato forces move further east , is a pretty good one , '' the senior official said . ''it maintains a nato structure that will try to achieve not only the new missions we 've talked about but the political purposes of the alliance . so we think that is a very positive contribution . this is the sort of thing that will have to be discussed among the various parties nato , the germanys , the soviets . '' asked what kind of support the proposal had in the north_atlantic_treaty_organization , the official said , ''i think many of the other countries in nato think that this serves the elements that we set and will help maintain stability . '' up to last week , bush_administration officials studiously avoided lending support to a detailed or concrete plan for german unity . four conditions instead , whenever the president or the secretary of state were asked for their preference on the unification question , they answered that they supported the basic principle , provided that it took place with four conditions . those conditions were these unification must come about through the free voting and self_determination of east and west germans . as mr . baker said in his speech in berlin on dec . 12 , ''we should not at this time endorse or exclude any particular vision of unity . '' unification should occur in the context of germany 's continued commitment to nato . for the sake of european stability , unification must happen step by step . there should be no enlargement of germany 's postwar borders , except through peaceful negotiations . administration officials said they were forced to move from those general principles to a more detailed blueprint two weeks ago , when the troubled east_german government announced that it was moving up elections from may to march 18 . 'takeover' or 'merger' given the fact that the vast majority of east_german parties running in the campaign urge unification , the voting is expected to be followed by the establishment of a new east_german government that will immediately take steps toward merging the countries . as the administration official put it , washington recognizes that after the elections , ''you can expect a very quick process dealing with the economic , political and legal aspects of unification between the two german states . '' the question for the administration became more immediate on whose terms would unification take place ? in wall_street terms , would it be a ''takeover'' of east_germany by west_germany , or a ' 'merger'' between relative equals ? the east_german prime_minister , hans_modrow , weighed in last week with his own proposal , in which a ''united fatherland'' would cease to be a member of nato or the warsaw_pact and would set up its government in berlin . brakes on modrow plan it was in an effort stop the modrow proposal in its tracks , before it gained any momentum with the german public , that mr . genscher , encouraged by the administration , came up with his own concrete proposal in a speech on jan . 31 . the hope in bonn and in washington is that by the time the vote takes place in east_germany , the west will have a formula for keeping a unified germany in nato and resisting calls for its neutrality . the genscher formula postulates that a united germany remain in nato but that nato promise that its troops in west_germany would not be extended into east_german territory once the nations were merged . the hope is that such an arrangement would make german_unification less threatening to the kremlin . mr . genscher has also proposed that the soviets be allowed to continue maintaining some troops in east_germany , ideally in much reduced numbers , and that those troops could even engate in joint exercises , exchanges and other confidence building measures with nato troops so that germany would be , as he puts it , a venue for east west reconciliation , not confrontation . avoiding a public stand to date the bush_administration , unlike mr . genscher , has declined to take a position on soviet_troops . officials traveling with mr . baker said , ''we do n't want to rule them in or out . '' they do not want to rule them in so as not to appear to be sanctioning the presence of the soviet_army in east_germany , the officials explained , and they do not want to declare that they must leave by a certain date because to do so would probably undermine hope of soviet cooperation . the soviets have about 390 , 000 troops in east_germany . the soviet position on the german question appears to be in flux . as to a meeting last week in moscow between mr . modrow and mr . gorbachev , the soviet president for the first time gave a cautious endorsement for a discussion of reunification . but a day later , foreign_minister eduard a . shevardnadze seemed to back away from that idea , saying that given germany 's nazi past , unification was a concept that might be best put before an international referendum . thousands rally in prague prague , feb . 6 ( ap ) thousands of people filled prague 's old town square today and demanded that 75 , 000 soviet_troops in czechoslovakia withdraw unconditionally by may 31 . the crowd , estimated at 8 , 000 by a western reporter and at 30 , 000 by the official press agency , applauded a speaker who demanded that vasil bilak and other former leading communists be put on trial . mr . bilak and the others are deemed responsible for inviting troops into czechoslovakia in 1968 to crush the liberalization movement known as the prague spring . the new coalition_government , headed by president havel , has demanded the withdrawal of the soviet_forces by the end of 1990 .",has a topic of politics
"lead president_bush and president mikhail s . gorbachev of the soviet_union opened their second summit conference today , and both leaders indicated that differences between the soviet_union and the west on the difficult question of germany 's military status had narrowed slightly . president_bush and president mikhail s . gorbachev of the soviet_union opened their second summit conference today , and both leaders indicated that differences between the soviet_union and the west on the difficult question of germany 's military status had narrowed slightly . but an atmosphere of considerable confusion prevailed late tonight , as administration officials scurried to dampen expectations . at almost the exact moment when mr . gorbachev was remarking in his toast at a white_house dinner that this meeting might produce ''the biggest results of all the soviet american meetings , '' white_house and state_department officials , who spoke on condition that they not be identified , were conveying a far more pessimistic picture on the german issue . 'ideas and suggestions' speaking at an impromptu news conference earlier in the evening on the white_house driveway , after completing his second round of conversations with mr . bush , the soviet leader said the two sides had put forth ''certain ideas and suggestions'' for breaking the impasse on the issue . the two presidents , he said , had asked their foreign ministers to give the matter further study . mr . bush , speaking a few minutes later in the white house rose garden , said that he was pleased by mr . gorbachev 's suggestion that the gulf between them ''had been narrowed somewhat . '' in a brief discussion with reporters , mr . bush added , ''i took some heart from that . i was encouraged by that . '' he said that the talks had been ' 'very frank no rancor there . '' reassurance for west_germany later , a white_house official appeared at the press center at george_washington_university to dilute what he described as excessively optimistic accounts offered earlier by other officials . he did not explicitly contradict the two presidents' comments , but he said that ''the word 'progress' is wrong'' and added , ''the bottom line is that both presidents restated their well known positions'' on germany . the official said president_bush would call chancellor helmut_kohl of west_germany on friday to tell him that the united_states had not altered its position , amid reports that bonn had protested to the white_house when news of the comments by mr . bush and mr . gorbachev reached officials there . ''it is not here that the german question will be settled , '' mr . gorbachev had commented , reflecting the difficulty of reconciling his opposition to nato membership for a unified germany and the insistence of the united_states , west_germany and other western countries that such membership be permitted . mr . gorbachev 's spokesman , arkady a . maslennikov , pronounced the first sessions ''a good begining'' and predicted that mr . gorbachev and mr . bush would hold two more summit conferences this year to sign long awaited treaties covering reductions in strategic arms and in conventional forces in europe . the white_house said a number of agreements would be signed after two more meetings between the leaders on friday , including a chemical_weapons accord and probably an outline of the main points of the strategic arms treaty . negotiations on the start agreement were continuing late tonight , with discussions centering on whether and how the soviet_union would be allowed to modernize its huge ss 18 missiles , which have no united_states counterpart . good odds for trade accord on a third key question , a planned trade agreement , approval of which has been held up by the soviet failure to pass a more flexible emigration law and by moscow 's embargo against lithuania , senior american officials said there was a good chance that the agreement would be signed . but a waiver required to put it into effect would not be sent to congress until the administration was satisfied on the emigration issue and on the situation in lithuania and the other two baltic_republics , latvia and estonia . that formula would give mr . gorbachev a trophy to take home without exposing president_bush to allegations that he sold out soviet jews or lithuania . the conference between mr . bush and mr . gorbachev opened in a swirl of military pageantry on the sun drenched south lawn of the white_house , with howitzers , bands , a fife and drum corps in colonial dress , and an enormous contingent of photographers . from session to lunch the day included a session only for the two leaders this morning and a session including their aides this afternoon , a luncheon at the soviet embassy for prominent americans including several movie stars , a visit to the library of congress and the children 's museum by mr . gorbachev 's wife , raisa , and a torrent of words from him at the luncheon , at dinner , in the white_house driveway , on the lawn , and in the streets . this evening , at the height of the rush_hour , he stopped his black zil limousine on pennsylvania_avenue between the white_house and the soviet embassy and briefly worked both sides of the street , shaking hands enthusiastically and saying he felt right at home . in contrast to his dark mood on wednesday in canada , and despite the phalanx of problems facing him back home , mr . gorbachev smiled and deflected hard questions with soft words . former secretary of state henry a . kissinger , a guest at the luncheon , remarked on mr . gorbachev 's apparent serenity . in his arrival statement , mr . gorbachev said , ''the walls which for years separated the peoples are collapsing . the trenches of the cold_war are disappearing the fog of prejudice , mistrust and animosity is vanishing . '' mr bush , in his statement , said , ''we 've seen a world of change this past year , and now on the horizon we see what just one short year ago seemed a distant dream a continent truly divided east and west has begun to heal with the dawn of self_determination and democracy . '' mr . bush was ''upbeat and animated'' during the bargaining sessions , said his spokesman , marlin fitzwater . in his welcoming speech this morning , mr . bush pointedly mentioned the german problem and the need for soviet reconciliation with lithuania , while also saluting mr . gorbachev 's achievements . in his toast for the white_house dinner tonight , he praised his guest for ''creating within the soviet_union a commitment to change . '' while it was not clear what new ideas mr . bush and mr . gorbachev had put forward on the question of future german_military allegiance and the related question of troop_reductions in europe , including soviet withdrawals from former satellite countries in eastern_europe , officials on both sides said major difficulties remained , and mr . bush said he had not changed his basic position on the issue . one strong possibility , experts said , was some means of suggesting in the conventional forces treaty now under negotiation , which is known as c.f.e . 1 , that another agreement , variously known as c.f.e . 1a or c.f.e . 2 , would deal with limits on german troop_strength as part of broader limits . that is a tricky matter because of germans' antipathy toward anything singling out their country for special , punitive treatment . future force structures administration officials said that in the meetings , mr . gorbachev outlined the soviet position on future force structures in europe , proposing that the 35 nation conference on security and cooperation in europe be ''beefed up'' to give it a direct security role . he implied that he would prefer such an arrangement to the continued central role of nato . he also said that the soviet_union would like to see a transition period in which its troops remained in the eastern part of germany for an unspecified time after unification is completed . the soviet_union has been offering these proposals for some time , because moscow has a leading role in the european security conference and wants to defuse the atlantic alliance . mr . bush again opposed both of these suggestions , administration officials said . he reiterated to mr . gorbachev today that the united_states opposes any limitations on the sovereignty of germany and does not foresee any significant military role for the european security conference , they said . in a letter to european governments , the soviet_union renewed its proposal for the creation of a ''greater european council'' that would consist of the 35 nations in the current organization and would meet annually , an official said . changes in nato suggested another idea involves changes in the character of the north_atlantic_treaty_organization . vadim v . zagladin , mr . gorbachev 's chief adviser on europe , said in moscow this week that soviet public opinion opposed membership in the alliance for a unified germany . but he added that if changes took place in the structure of nato , ''then there will be a completely different situation . '' on the ''macneil lehrer newshour'' on pbs on tuesday night , andrei kortunov , head of the department on united_states foreign_policy of the institute of united_states and canada in the soviet_union , suggested that ''the best possible solution'' was to have germany as a whole in the political institution of the atlantic alliance , but the military institutions of the alliance somehow limited to the present west_german territory . it was mr . gorbachev , american officials said , who suggested turning the german issue over to the foreign ministers , to remove it as a potential irritant to the rest of the summit conference . secretary of state james a . baker 3d and foreign_minister eduard a . shevardnadze are expected to discuss the matter at some length at meetings here over the next 48 hours . on strategic arms , charges by conservatives that mr . baker had given the soviets too much leeway on testing and modernizing its remaining ss 18 's , whose numbers are to be cut in half from 308 to 154 , have made those missiles the main sticking point in trying to draw up an agreement on the main points of the strategic arms treaty . negotiations for the treaty have been under way for several years . paul a . nitze , the longtime arms negotiator who retired at the end of the reagan_administration , criticized what has been accomplished so far . he described the papers being readied for signature on friday as a ''not sufficient forward moving set of agreements , given the opportunities that we 've had to make progress in the last two years . ''",has a topic of politics
"there are perils to being unattached in the stodgy world of diplomacy . sometimes it has seemed that all secretary of state condoleezza_rice needs to do is show up in public with a man , and people start talking . the single , sophisticated american secretary of state once drew notice for wearing black stiletto knee high boots with an above the knee black skirt while reviewing american_troops in germany , so she is bound to attract gossip . that is particularly true on the dry , acronym ridden diplomatic circuit of nato meetings , apec forums and asean conclaves , where much imagination has focused on possible romantic links between ms . rice and her counterparts . until now , ms . rice 's rumored matches have been , shall we say , unlikely ever to appear on the cover of gq magazine . in july , italy 's normally staid corriere_della_sera raised its eyebrows over a joint appearance in rome between italy 's similarly staid foreign_minister , massimo d'alema , and ms . rice . in april , a headline in the boston_globe promised a tale of ''jack and condi a love story , '' after ms . rice gave the pullout bed aboard her plane to the former british foreign_minister , jack_straw , during a surprise trip to baghdad from blackpool , england , where she was visiting mr . straw 's hometown . but it took a two hour flight to halifax , nova_scotia , this week , followed by a 90 minute motorcade north up highway 102 to pictou county , for ms . rice to find herself linked to someone with similar star appeal peter mackay of canada , the single , sophisticated foreign_minister , routinely named canada 's sexiest m.p . by the hill times in ottawa , and the closest thing to eye candy on the diplomatic circuit . tall , athletic , young , blond and recently dumped by his girlfriend , a fellow member of parliament , belinda stronach , who parted with him when she switched parties , mr . mackay does not look like your usual foreign_minister . he has a tan and the build of someone who spends his time on the rugby field , not holed up reading g 8 communiqu s . sure , at 40 years old , he is younger than ms . rice , who is 51 , but that did not stop gossips from engaging in baseless speculating . even the protesters who routinely show up wherever ms . rice goes got in on the act . ''pete , condi , make love not war , '' read one sign , carried by a grinning demonstrator who had roused himself to take a position early tuesday morning in front of the museum of industry here , where the two spoke to local leaders and the press . o.k. , there needs to be a disclaimer right here . foreign ministers rarely have a lot of alone time together . there is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that ms . rice and mr . mackay are linked by anything more than their shared status as singletons . the state_department has been quick to dump cold water over mackay rice innuendoes . ''no , there were no candles , '' sean_mccormack , the state_department spokesman , said in exasperation when reporters asked for further details about a working dinner on monday when the two sat side by side at the pictou lodge resort . mr . mccormack pointed out that the dinner was not even intimate 14 aides and six security guards were present . ''it was a well lighted dinner , with electricity based lighting , '' mr . mccormack said . but reporters tend to get bored pretty fast there is only so much ink anyone can devote to softwood lumber trade spats and overfishing in the north_atlantic . and a bored reporter is a gossipy reporter , as demonstrated by the chatter last year after defense secretary donald h . rumsfeld took a dinner cruise up a norwegian fjord and sipped wine with his counterpart , the norwegian defense minister , kristin krohn devold . ( she gave him a sweater he gave her a designer bag . ) if you believe the blogs , mr . mackay has been sweet on ms . rice since their first meeting in washington last year . ''peter mckay has a crush '' said a headline on the web_site nowpublic , atop a giant photo of ms . rice , ''on condoleezza_rice . '' the subhead continued ''well , they are both single after all . '' ms . rice and mr . mackay even made the ''hot and not'' list in a column in the toronto newspaper the globe and mail on saturday . ''hot peter mackay and condoleezza_rice , '' the column , ottawa notebook , read . the two do keep offering up tantalizing tidbits and comments to take out of context and misconstrue . for instance , after the rome meeting in july , ms . rice gave mr . mckay a ride aboard her plane to kuala_lumpur , malaysia , for a conference with southeast_asian countries . o.k. , the european_union 's foreign_policy chief , javier_solana , got a lift , too , but he looks like , well , a diplomat . on tuesday morning , ms . rice and mr . mackay strolled up to their side by side daises to talk to the folks here . ''i am just delighted to have condoleezza_rice , the secretary of state , here in my hometown , '' gushed a beaming mr . mackay , wearing a pearl gray suit , pink and blue striped tie . he switched to bad french , even to some american ears , and said something about longfellow 's poem ''evangeline . '' he mentioned nova_scotia 's rich black history , citing the ''black loyalist community , canada 's oldest community of african heritage . '' then , he said , ''something else i 've learned about secretary rice is she loves the cool atlantic breezes here in nova_scotia , and she left the window open last night . '' the audience tittered . at the end of his speech , he took off his glasses , turned to ms . rice and said , ''please come back again . '' ms . rice , clad in a yellow jacket , black pencil skirt and black heels , also offered plenty of fodder . she repeatedly called mr . mackay ''peter'' ( he called her ''secretary rice'' or ''miss rice'' ) , confirmed the sleeping with the window open bit , and told the assembled local leaders that mr . mackay had introduced her to his family , including his father and stepmother , the night before . family is important , she said , with a sly smile , because ''they remind you of the things you did when you were 5 years old . '' beside her , mr . mackay grinned and blushed . correction september 16 , 2006 , saturday an article on wednesday about secretary of state condoleezza_rice and the gossip that surrounds her incorrectly conflated the names of two british cities into one . ms . rice visited blackburn and liverpool on a visit to england in april she did not visit blackpool .",has a topic of politics
"lead following are excerpts from an interview today with president_bush in the oval_office on the crisis in panama q . from here , looking from washington , what do you think the chances are of another rising in panama ? a . i think any time you have somebody that is demonstrably evil as noriega and who is frustrating the will of the people , as he continues to do , there 's bound to be upheaval . following are excerpts from an interview today with president_bush in the oval_office on the crisis in panama q . from here , looking from washington , what do you think the chances are of another rising in panama ? a . i think any time you have somebody that is demonstrably evil as noriega and who is frustrating the will of the people , as he continues to do , there 's bound to be upheaval . there is bound to be . q . you do n't think , in other words , that what happened , the failed coup , or failed attempted_coup , has reduced the chance of upheaval ? a . no . . . . i think , if anything , it has signaled the discontent with noriega more , particularly in the military because of the way some of the people have been handled . . . . i think they 'll be prudent and very cautious because of the reaction . but what i 'm saying is , the response , his response post coup , in my view , has just shaken to the core the professionals in the p.d.f . that does not enhance his standing there or guarantee that they 'll put up with him forever . on german unity q . let me give you two things that are being discussed within your administration , among the europeans , among professors . can you see , presuming that you 're here for eight years , any beginning of american troop_withdrawal from europe , or troop reduction ? a . we 've already seen that in our proposal . . . . so my answer would be definitely yes . q . can you see any changes in the status of germany ? a . yes . . . . i do n't share the concern that some european_countries have about a reunified germany because i think germany 's commitment to and recognition of the importance of the alliance is unshakable . and i do n't see germany , in order to get reunification , going off onto what some are concerned about , and that is a neutralist path that puts them at odds , or potentially at odds , with their nato partners . . . . and yet , i do n't think we ought to be out pushing the concept of reunification , or setting timetables , or coming from across the atlantic over here making a lot of new pronouncements on this subject . it takes time . it takes a prudent evolution . it takes work between them . . . and understanding between the french and the germans and the brits and the germans on all of this . but the subject is so much more front and center because of the . . . rapid changes that are taking place in east_germany . . . . and who knows how mr . krenz is going to turn out to be ? is he going to be just a perpetuation of the honecker view , or is he going to be something different ? i do n't think he can resist total change . q . what 's our early appraisal of that ? a . it 's too early . i ca n't get a fix on it . . . . i think you 're going to see some accommodation at change . . . . he ca n't turn the clock back . . . . the change is too inexorable . on the capital gains fight q . turning for a moment to domestic issues . . . . we 're obviously in a bad way in the sense that whether you 're a republican or a democrat , whether you 're at this end of pennsylvania_avenue or the other . . . the country and the rest of the world are left to draw the conclusion that we 've got some difficulties making our process work . a . no question . we sent a budget up there months ago and they 're still floundering around up there on it and not acting on it . . . . when you have a president who feels strongly on some issues , indeed , thinks he was elected to deliver on them capital gains was one and then you have leaders in the congress who are frustrating their own majorities in the two houses , you 've got a conflict there . . . . i 'll give you an example . i know that there 's some less than full enthusiasm on the part of your editors for capital gains . but this was one of the issues . it was debated , and very clearly bush is for it his opponent is against it . the congress in the house , in spite of a lot of frustration , voted for it . the votes are there in the senate for it . the leadership , thinking they 're onto this old gambit , that man 's trying to help the rich and hurt the poor , are frustrating the will of their own majority . so why does the country look at this strange way of governing and say there 's some confusion ? because there is . on the limits of office q . . . . you 're coming toward the end of your first year . . . . do you feel boxed in on initiatives ? a . yes , sometimes i do . anti drug i wish there was some more money for that , although we have stepped up considerably the amount of money . q . do you wish there were more money for eastern_europe ? a . i wish i could just click off well , not yet on eastern_europe . i mean , i think we 're on the right track in working with our allies . the right track in encouraging reform and , indeed , helping reform . q . where do you feel frustrated ? besides drugs . a . oh , i 'd love to be able to just not even worry about the relief for f.e.m.a . and the hurricane and the earthquake both . i mean , it would be nice to just say we 're going to do this . . . . i 'd love to see a program that would help i think we could in terms of helping developing_countries , for example . our hands are tied . and , again , i 'm not for throwing money at a problem in the cameroons or in colombia , but i 'd like to if we had more funds available , they could be i think could be usefully used . . . . q . how about the cities ? do you worry about that ? i mean about housing and about policing , that kind of thing . a . i worry some on that , yes , i do . but again , we get but i do n't want to leave you the wrong impression that i think we need , if we just had tons more federal money , we could solve everything . i do n't think that 's the case . . . .",has a topic of politics
"the security_council unanimously_approved a resolution today overhauling its economic_sanctions against iraq , with the goal of dampening their impact on civilians while keeping pressure on saddam_hussein . the new measure , passed 15 to 0 , will allow far more consumer goods from bicycles to sewing_machines to enter iraq , even as it continues to block items that could be used for military purposes , like high speed computers . it represents the most radical redrawing of the sanctions since 1996 , when baghdad was allowed to trade oil for food . though the resolution appears to ease the sanctions imposed after iraq invaded_kuwait in 1990 , it was seen as a significant victory for the united_states and its allies on the council . the resolution was intended to blunt any drive to end the sanctions altogether and to deflate criticism that the measures are hurting ordinary iraqis more than their leader . it also seemed part of the diplomatic groundwork the bush_administration is seeking to lay as it presses its case that mr . hussein should be removed from power , perhaps by force . ''the focused controls on military relevant goods and simplified procedures for civilian goods eliminates excuses for inaction or evasion of u.n . sanctions on iraq , '' the white_house spokesman , ari_fleischer , said today . the new sanctions system takes effect in july , and would have to be renewed in six months . the sanctions are to stay in place until united_nations weapons inspectors can verify that iraq has met the obligations it agreed to after its defeat in the persian_gulf_war to dismantle programs to develop weapons_of_mass_destruction . in its war against terrorism , the bush_administration has cited iraq 's chemical , nuclear and biological_weapons programs as a prime threat . iraqi officials , perhaps looking to stave off american action , have in recent months discussed with secretary_general_kofi_annan the possibility of reopening the country to inspections . the last inspectors left iraq in december 1998 , on the eve of four nights of american and british airstrikes after repeated standoffs with iraqi officials . washington 's european allies on the council applauded the resolution , saying it puts the onus on the iraqi government to spend its oil revenues wisely and to meet its obligations . ''it removes saddam 's spurious excuses for the suffering he inflicts on the iraqi people and puts more pressure on the regime , '' the british foreign_secretary , jack_straw , said in a statement . acknowledging the mounting threats against iraq , its ally and neighbor syria , which currently holds a rotating seat on the council , had pushed for language in the resolution to recognize iraq 's right to defend itself . the syrian proposals were rejected earlier this week . but the syrian delegate to the united_nations , mikhail wehbe , insisted today that it was ''high time'' to lift the sanctions against iraq . he also used the occasion to criticize the council for failing to compel israeli cooperation with a united_nations inquiry into israel 's attack on the jenin refugee_camp last month . in the end , though , mr . wehbe said his country would assent to the resolution to maintain unity on the security_council and help it ' 'retrieve its credibility , '' particularly in the arab_world . iraq 's representative , mohammed_aldouri , had little to say about the potential impact of the resolution , except that it offered his country little to celebrate . the new system , he said , would erect expensive bureaucratic hurdles to the import of necessary goods . ''i can tell you , my country , we are always unhappy to see these kinds of resolutions coming out of the security_council , '' he said . ''it will be very costly for iraq . '' he declined to say whether the resolution would prompt baghdad to suspend the export of oil , as it did last month in protest against israeli military action in the west_bank . at the moment , all exports to iraq , except food and some medicines , are scrutinized by a sanctions committee of the security_council . any member can block such imports , and the united_states has used the system to keep more than 5 billion worth of goods from reaching baghdad . under the new system , the sanctions committee will ponder the fate of only those items that figure on a lengthy list of goods that may be used for military purposes . high speed computers are part of that list anything with chips as fast as a pentium iv , for instance , but not one with a pentium iii . certain kinds of communication equipment fall under the 300 page list of ' 'dual use'' goods as well , but consumer goods like domestic appliances and farm equipment do not . united_nations officials will be responsible for culling items that fall within the list . those that do will be forwarded to the sanctions committee , which will have 30 days to decide whether they can be allowed into iraq . the resolution was the product of a compromise between the united_states and russia , iraq 's staunchest ally on the council . the russian ambassador , sergey_lavrov , today praised the resolution as an important tool to restore iraq 's infrastructure , but said his country would continue to push for more . ''it is only through the lifting of the sanctions that iraq can rebuild its economy , '' he said .",has a topic of politics
"lead despite dissatisfaction in washington and london over bonn 's dovish new stance on disarmament , foreign_minister hans_dietrich_genscher insisted today that his talks in washington had been ' 'very amicable'' and that the americans had recognized west_germany 's ' 'special right'' to speak its mind . despite dissatisfaction in washington and london over bonn 's dovish new stance on disarmament , foreign_minister hans_dietrich_genscher insisted today that his talks in washington had been ' 'very amicable'' and that the americans had recognized west_germany 's ' 'special right'' to speak its mind . speaking at a news conference with defense minister gerhard_stoltenberg after the two returned from washington , mr . genscher also said he would next take bonn 's new disarmament stance to its european partners , where he said the german position had ' 'very wide support . '' the contrast between reports that bush administration officials had been furious with bonn 's shift and mr . genscher 's benign portrayal of the meetings seemed to suggest that the foreign_minister was not entirely displeased with the opposition . bonn 's sudden request for ' 'speedy'' talks with moscow on short range nuclear_weapons , despite the objections of washington and london , had been widely viewed among diplomats and commentators as a political maneuver by chancellor helmut_kohl to shore up his crumbling political support and by mr . genscher to use the turmoil to advance his dovish agenda . an enhanced image some diplomats said they suspected that mr . genscher went to washington fully aware that his position would be rejected , but that he also knew this would enhance his domestic image as a proud german standing up to the english speaking nuclear powers . mr . genscher repeatedly stressed that washington acknowledged west_germany 's ''tremendously important position in this dialogue'' and its ' 'special right to speak out on these questions because of the number of short range rockets stationed on its soil . '' he refused to discuss what he called the government 's new military stance , saying he could not do so until mr . kohl formally presents it in a package of new policies this thursday . the position paper , which was hammered out by the coalition partners on thursday , has been published and extensively discussed in the german press . what brought the allies to loggerheads was bonn 's call for negotiations with moscow on short range nuclear_arms . washington and london , and less openly france , have opposed negotiations on these weapons out of fear that this would foment pressures for total denuclearization in europe , which would enhance moscow 's predominance in conventional_arms . baker reported 'livid' diplomatic sources reported that secretary of state james a . baker 3d was ''livid'' with the envoys , especially with mr . genscher . mr . stoltenberg is a close ally of mr . kohl and evidently went along to show that the position also had the chancellor 's backing . the diplomats said the americans felt bonn had violated an understanding reached last week in brussels , when the americans agreed not to press for a west_german decision on modernizing short range weapons on the assumption that bonn would not push for talks on them with the russians . british officials said prime_minister margaret_thatcher intends to make her opposition equally clear when she meets with mr . kohl this sunday . despite the insistence in bonn that the new german position was unanimously supported within the ruling coalition , there were indications that mr . kohl was seeking to back away from a confrontation . the chancellor announced he would telephone mr . bush on wednesday and insisted that the new position was ''not anti american . '' mr . kohl also said that west_germany had a right to ''give its opinion , '' while the chief expert on defense in his christian_democratic_union , volker ruhe , said the position paper was simply a ' 'starting position which certainly can be negotiated . '' the opposition social democrats welcomed the new move . hans jochen vogel , the socialists' chairman , declared that ''on the question of missiles , there is now a new national consensus of the government and the opposition . ''",has a topic of politics
"when president_clinton nominated richard c . holbrooke to be ambassador to germany last summer on the same day he named former vice_president walter f . mondale ambassador to japan , some german officials who knew that mr . holbrooke was an asia expert wondered whether they had won second prize . they wonder no longer . mr . holbrooke , 52 , has been an instant success in this crucial american diplomatic post . "" i have never seen such an excellent relationship with an ambassador develop in such a short time as with richard holbrooke , "" said joachim bitterlich , foreign_policy adviser to chancellor helmut_kohl , who will be in washington this weekend . mr . holbrooke will be in washington this week to help the white_house and the state_department prepare for the visit . what mr . bitterlich and other germans say they like best is the new ambassador 's informal and frank style . "" we can talk openly with each other about the way we see things we do n't have to play diplomatic games with him , "" mr . bitterlich said . 'the unvarnished truth' "" tell me what 's wrong with the relationship , "" the new ambassador would tell him and other german officials at dinner parties , not even pretending to make small talk . "" tell me what you 'd like to see fixed . "" dr . beate lindemann , an officer of an organization called the atlantic bridge , which cultivates german american cultural and political ties , said "" at this point in our history , we needed somebody we could talk the unvarnished truth with . dick holbrooke was exactly the right man at the right time . "" on a table in the parlor of the big official american residence on the rhine is a picture of mr . holbrooke 's grandfather , a jewish businessman in hamburg , wearing the prussian spiked helmet and the iron cross he won as a german soldier in world_war i . "" i show it to german visitors as a symbol of what they lost , "" the ambassador said . his grandfather left germany with mr . holbrooke 's mother in 1933 . today his mother , trudi moos kearl , lives in new york city . mr . holbrooke was a foreign_service_officer until 1972 in vietnam , washington , paris and morocco . and he was assistant secretary of state for east asian and pacific affairs from 1977 to 1981 before he came here , he was a managing director of the lehman_brothers investment_bank in new york . the ambassadorial residence in bonn has ample evidence of his interests in other parts of the world . it is filled with thai , cambodian and vietnamese antique sculptures . bonn , a small university town that will cease to be the seat of government at the end of the century , is a place with few of the distractions and none of the glamour of paris or london . for a divorced man like mr . holbrooke , there was not a lot else to do after he got here last september but talk politics , cultivate contacts , and help shape american policy toward such an important european ally . getting close to movers and shakers is something mr . holbrooke does very well , and his barely rudimentary german was no handicap . he brought in an old friend and mentor , fritz stern , seth low professor of history at columbia_university , as an adviser to help him through his first few months , and was soon entertaining mr . kohl at home . mr . stern returned to columbia on jan . 15 but is continuing to work as a consultant to the embassy . after his frank talks with german officials , one thing mr . holbrooke thought needed to be fixed was the impression some germans and other europeans had that the clinton_administration did not think relations with europe were as important as they were in the cold_war . "" europe has lost none repeat none of its importance to the united_states , "" he said in a speech in potsdam soon after presenting his credentials in october . mr . clinton made that clear himself during his trip to europe this month . but he will not make his first official visit to germany until july . mr . holbrooke pointed out to old friends in washington like mr . clinton 's national_security adviser , anthony_lake , and his chief adviser on russia , deputy_secretary_of_state designate strobe_talbott , that an earlier idea of having the president come here in june , right after attending the 50th_anniversary of the allied landings in normandy , would not be such a good idea . since world_war_ii , the bedrock of the american relationship with germany has been security , with more than 250 , 000 american_troops here at the end of the cold_war . now , mr . holbrooke believes , his task is to make sure that the relationship remains strong on a new basis of commercial and cultural ties . "" the overarching goal , "" he said in an interview one recent weekend , "" is to use 1994 to create the foundations for a bilateral_relationship which is no longer so dependent on the american military presence . "" to do that , in frankfurt , ambassador holbrooke persuaded the united_states_information_agency and the commerce_department to open a business information center on jan . 18 . partners , yes , and rivals too mr . holbrooke said he would also like to reopen the closed american consulate in dusseldorf , an important german business center , as a commercial office under a commerce_department officer . not all his subordinates appreciated his insistence on forcing the far flung bureaucracies to cooperate more closely . nor , mr . holbrooke concedes , are german american relations without frictions . the united_states remains irritated by the extensive trade and political ties between germany and iran despite what washington sees as iranian support for international_terrorism . "" in asia , we have common human_rights and political views , but we are destined to be political and economic rivals , "" he said . "" we accept this . "" it also seems clear that this old asia hand has no regrets about having taken on a new challenge in europe . "" germany is the key player in moving the cold_war alliance into a new post cold_war phase , "" he said , "" and clinton and kohl are at the heart of it . """,has a topic of politics
"the war in iraq is just a week old , but it is clear that saddam_hussein has learned a lot since his forces were routed in the persian_gulf_war in 1991 . like other leaders facing larger , technologically superior forces , he has found ways to improvise and to take advantage of the fact that the fighting is taking place on his home ground . he is waging a campaign of harassment and delay . it is not likely to change the outcome of the war , but it will prolong the fighting , make it more costly for his adversaries and profoundly affect the way it is seen in other arab countries and around the world . already , the iraqis have forced coalition_forces to delay their main force attack on baghdad until basra , which they had hoped to bypass , can be subdued and until the road north can be made considerably more secure . ''we underestimated the capacity of his paramilitary_forces , '' said a senior uniformed officer at the pentagon . ''they have turned up where we did not expect them to , and they have fought with more resourcefulness than we expected them to demonstrate . '' another pentagon official conceded ''it 's clear that saddam went to school on desert_storm . it is clear saddam went to school on kosovo . he has learned how america attacks . '' the north_vietnamese , the palestine_liberation_organization , the irish_republican_army in northern_ireland and the serbs in kosovo have all shown how an outmanned , outgunned force can fight back . mr . hussein has obviously concluded that he cannot win a soviet style land battle against an adversary that controls the air , so this time his tanks are not arrayed on the desert , waiting to be plastered by allied missiles , although he appears to be willing to use armored divisions south of baghdad . nor can he be confident that a centralized command will work . it , too , would be vulnerable to allied air attack . so the iraqi leader is leading a kind of guerrilla defense , conducted by the fedayeen irregulars , who number perhaps 60 , 000 , plus hard core members of mr . hussein 's baath_party and other paramilitary_forces . american intelligence officials say command has been devolved to provincial level . the desert does not afford the kind of cover that the jungles , caves and mountains of vietnam did , although periodic sandstorms can enable the iraqis to mount ambushes . but the streets and alleys of iraqi cities are ideal places for urban guerrillas who can blend into the crowds to operate , just as those of belfast and tel_aviv have done . not only are the guerrillas hard to root out , but doing so also works against the american desire to be seen as agents of liberation , not agents of conquest . who is a fedayeen fighter and who is a civilian ? marines tell stories of iraqis changing in and out of uniform . a civilian bus turns out to be a troop_transport . guerrillas cluster near schools and hospitals . in several cases , troops carrying white flags have opened fire . iraqis do not play by the rules of west_point and sandhurst . if the frustrated allies call in artillery and air_strikes on urban_areas , civilian casualties are almost inevitable . if they do not , stability is difficult to establish and maintain , which makes it hard to bring in the urgent relief supplies on which they count to create an image of beneficence . british armored units are confronted with that conundrum near basra at the moment . a decision has apparently been made to fight for the city , but the tactics and the timing are not yet clear . in any event , the british and the american_marines fighting with them are surely going to become involved in some kind of street by street , if not house by house , urban_warfare . the questions posed are difficult if not impossible to answer . how many iraqi civilians can be killed ( with the attendant effect on world and to some degree american opinion ) to save the life of one american soldier ? even the news of the first american casualties caused domestic concern about the cost and length of the war to rise , according to polls taken in the last several days . ''they want to draw us in , bleed us , wear us down , '' said a veteran of democratic administrations . ''that puts pressure on the white_house in the most damaging ways . '' united_states officials had thought the shiite_muslims of southern iraq would prove reluctant to shelter the fedayeen . so far , that judgment has proved incorrect , although the extent to which fear and coercion have led the local population to cooperate with mr . hussein 's hard line followers remains unclear . as mao famously said , the populace constitutes the water in which the guerrillas can swim like lethal fish . in city after city , they are swimming . even in a strictly military sense , as contrasted to a political military sense , the coalition_forces need to subdue the cities and towns along the road to baghdad . they are operating at the end of unusually long supply lines , stretching in many cases all the way back to kuwait . these could easily be cut by fedayeen and other irregulars operating out of the shadows . marines protecting a fuel convoy racing north toward the allied forces deployed south of baghdad reported taking fire throughout the journey , but the convoy made it anyway . it will happen again . a nation at war news analysis",has a topic of politics
"lead secretary of state james a . baker 3d said today that he was confident that differences with west_germany over the upgrading of a battlefield missile would be resolved by the time nato leaders meet in may . secretary of state james a . baker 3d said today that he was confident that differences with west_germany over the upgrading of a battlefield missile would be resolved by the time nato leaders meet in may . talking to reporters on his air_force jet as he flew home after a quick visit to all members of the north_atlantic_treaty_organization , mr . baker said , ''i really disagree with this idea that there is somehow a major rift'' between the united_states and west_germany . ''do i think we can get there by the may summit ? '' he asked rhetorically . ''yes , indeed , i do . '' the united_states is pressing ahead with plans for the new version of the lance missile , which can be fitted with nuclear_warheads , but bonn has said it wants to hold off a formal decision until after 1990 , when elections are to be held in west_germany . mr . baker said , ''we do need to balance the needs of the europeans and their political concerns against the needs that we have to assure the congress that if they fund this program it will go forward . '' he said he had ' 'very good meetings'' with both chancellor helmut_kohl and foreign_minister hans_dietrich_genscher . feelings on stock sale on another matter , mr . baker was asked for his feelings about being made to sell chemical_bank stock in his blind_trust to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest , even though he had formally removed himself from any decision making related to his financial holdings both as secretary of the treasury and as secretary of state . mr . baker replied ''what was my reaction ? my reaction was that my grandfather is probably turning over in his grave . '' mr . baker 's grandfather , james a . baker , founded a texas bank that was ultimately sold in several stages to chemical banking corporation , a bank_holding_company . asked whether in retrospect he thought he should have gone out of his way to call the attention of the senate committees that confirmed him both as secretary of the treasury and secretary of state to his substantial holdings in bank stocks , mr . baker said ''i have always sought and relied upon the advice of career ethics attorneys at the department of treasury and the office of government ethics . i did so in this case . contrary to suggestions in some news reports that i have not made disclosures in 1985 , i made disclosures to the senate_finance_committee and foreign_affairs committee . i relied on the advice of career ethics attorneys , advice that was specifically sought and relied upon . '' question on scowcroft 's role reporters aboard the plane were also told that news reports suggesting that mr . baker was losing power to the president 's national_security adviser , brent_scowcroft , were ''ludicrous . '' they were told that the idea for mr . scowcroft to preside over the interagency discussions at the cabinet level was mr . baker 's . having spent four and a half years as white_house_chief_of_staff at the start of the reagan_administration , mr . baker was said to feel it was important for someone to coordinate interagency foreign_policy discussions without the president having to head the meeting . mr . baker 's predecessor , george p . shultz , did not share this view and would not attend any formal high level interagency foreign_policy discussion in the white_house that was not presided over by the president . mr . shultz would insist that the meeting be described as informal and take place in the office of the security adviser . ''what happened under the prior regime was that they would have those meetings , but they had to hold them in the national_security adviser 's office , '' reporters were told today . ''that is just too much form . it is not substance . '' the reporters were told that mr . baker ''has a 35 year relationship and friendship'' with president_bush and has been an acquaintance of mr . scowcroft since they both took part in president_ford 's 1976 election campaign .",has a topic of politics
"lead the west_german parliament today formally endorsed the government 's decision to support soviet and american efforts to eliminate medium_range land based missiles from europe , though chancellor helmut_kohl came under fire from both left and right . the west_german parliament today formally endorsed the government 's decision to support soviet and american efforts to eliminate medium_range land based missiles from europe , though chancellor helmut_kohl came under fire from both left and right . the vote in the parliament was 232 to 189 in favor of the proposal , fashioned earlier in the week by mr . kohl 's center right coalition after weeks of bitter internal wrangling . the government agreed to support soviet american negotiations in geneva to eliminate all shorter and intermediate_range missiles from europe in a plan that has been dubbed the ' 'double zero'' option . at the same time , mr . kohl declared that bonn would insist on keeping its 72 aging pershing 1a missiles out of the soviet american talks . the missiles , with a range of 450 miles , are owned by the west_german air_force , but their nuclear_warheads are controlled by the united_states . a face saving move while eliminating medium_range_missiles , or those with a range of more than 600 miles , was never in dispute in bonn , the more recent soviet proposal to dismantle also the shorter range weapons , or those with a range of 300 to 600 miles , was strongly opposed by mr . kohl and other conservative members of his government . they argued that this would leave operative only battlefield nuclear_weapons with a range restricted , in effect , to west_german soil . the government 's insistence on maintaining its pershing 1a 's was widely seen as something of a face saving device by mr . kohl to screen his turnaround on the more substantive issue of the ' 'double zero . '' a motion by the opposition social_democratic_party against keeping the pershings was defeated 239 to 163 . willy brandt , the party 's chairman and a former chancellor , argued that bonn should back the superpowers' plan ''without ifs or buts . '' mr . brandt also charged that the government 's long dispute over its position had damaged its prestige . little enthusiasm for plan on the right , the sense that bonn had been pressed into acceptance of the ' 'double zero'' was expressed by an editorial in the conservative frankfurter_allgemeine_zeitung ''if government policy speeches are supposed to reflect the facts , the chancellor could have kept it short today he only needed to say that he had been raped , which happens a lot in politics . and to be quite clear in this case , the victim should have explained that it happened with his consent . '' in his speech , mr . kohl spoke with little enthusiasm about the ' 'double zero'' plan . the proposal , he said , contained a ' 'very serious disadvantage for us germans'' that the soviet_union had a ''crushing superiority'' in tactical nuclear weapons and ''clear superiority'' in conventional forces . that was why his government had been unable to accept the ' 'double zero'' proposal unconditionally , mr . kohl said . the united_states and other allies in the north_atlantic_treaty_organization have supported bonn on the issue of keeping the pershing 1a 's out of the geneva talks . the soviet side , however , has insisted on counting the warheads as american weapons and , thus , subject to the proposed cuts . reagan hails bonn 's decision venice , june 4 ( special to the new york times ) president_reagan today praised west_german support for a united_states soviet proposal to eliminate a class of nuclear_missiles from europe , and american officials described the action as a ' 'major step forward . '' ''the decision sets the stage for establishing a common nato position at the coming foreign ministers meeting in reykjavik , '' mr . reagan said in a statement , referring to talks in iceland that secretary of state george p . shultz is to attend . white_house officials said that the west_german decision removed the remaining hitch to a unified position among the allies on an arms control treaty , and that the american bargaining position could now be made final in discussions involving nato countries' foreign and defense ministers . ''it 's a major step forward , although the president has yet to discuss it here , '' said the white_house spokesman , marlin fitzwater .",has a topic of politics
"lead the messages in dispute were secretly exchanged 17 years ago between henry a . kissinger , president_nixon 's national_security adviser , and kenneth rush , the united_states ambassador to west_germany . the messages in dispute were secretly exchanged 17 years ago between henry a . kissinger , president_nixon 's national_security adviser , and kenneth rush , the united_states ambassador to west_germany . they concerned talks that mr . rush held in 1971 with the soviet ambassadors in east_berlin and bonn about a nascent four power agreement on easing tensions in berlin . on white_house instructions , mr . rush sent the messages through a secretive ''back channel'' to keep the state_department in the dark about the highly sensitive , ultimately successful berlin talks , at which he was the chief american negotiator . eleven years later , when mr . rush retired as ambassador , he dutifully deposited the 59 documents , mostly his messages to mr . kissinger , at the state_department . then , two years ago , he began a quest to have the documents declassified for possible publication . after all , he noted , the material was known not only to the russians , but ''the full substance'' of the talks had been disclosed by mr . kissinger in his book ''white_house years . '' but the national_security_council and state_department refused to release the documents to mr . rush . so yesterday , mr . rush , who once taught law to richard_nixon at duke_university , resorted to his first profession and filed suit in the federal court in washington to have the cables declassified and given to him . washington talk briefing",has a topic of politics
"an article on dec . 16 about sean penn 's visit to iraq misstated the timing of an earlier trip by a hollywood actor to a land in hostile confrontation with the united_states jane_fonda 's visit to north_vietnam in 1972 . it was in july , not at christmas .",has a topic of politics
"the united_states was reported today to have decided to step up its criticism of germany for its restrictions on the church of scientology . the report , which appeared in the monday issue of the washington_post , said the state_department 's heightened criticism would appear wednesday in its annual survey of human_rights conditions around the world . it is to criticize germany for what the post said an administration official called ''a campaign of harassment and intimidation'' against the church . senior american officials directly involved in the vetting and approval of the human_rights reports said tonight that they were unaware of any major ''ratcheting up of the criticism of germany about the treatment of the scientologists , '' as one of them put it . the section of the report dealing with germany has not been the topic of a senior level or interagency meeting , which is common with controversial reports , especially since this one would run counter to the united_states' close relationship with an important ally . an official who said he had not seen the draft report itself added that it had not ''been worked at the senior level . '' . nicholas_burns , the state_department spokesman , said tonight that the united_states had criticized germany since 1992 over its treatment of scientology as a cult , rather than a religion , and that those criticisms have been reflected in the human_rights reports each year . but the criticisms ''have not been overly harsh , '' he said . the state_department has also reacted critically to charges from hollywood personalities , including some scientologists , that german discrimination in civil_service employment and other areas against scientologists are comparable to actions taken against jews in the early years of the nazi_regime . pointing out that the dachau concentration camp was opened in the first year of the hitler regime , mr . burns has called the scientologists 's comparison ''outrageous'' and ''ahistorical , '' and did so again tonight . he said the germans had done much to teach their population and their children about the evils of nazism . mr . burns said he has been attacked in a flurry of letters from scientologists for his remarks , and has responded by telling scientologists that the united_states_government would seek to defend their rights , but not their arguments and fallacious historical comparisons . united_states officials have complained that german actions that encouraged boycotts of scientologists had infringed on the rights of such american members of the church as the actor tom_cruise and the jazz pianist chick corea . the official cited in the post 's account was reported to have said the united_states was stressing the importance of religious_freedom and was urging germany through diplomatic channels ''not to prosecute prople for wrong thinking'' but had been rebuffed . a german diplomat was reported in the post as having said in response to the impending criticism ''we wo n't change our policy , no matter what you say . you are a big country . you can afford to have militias and cults . we ca n't . '' the diplomat added that germany had a great sensitivity to the dangers of ''extremism'' because of its nazi past and was therefore obliged to limit the activities of groups perceived as threats to national well being . scientology , which was founded by the science_fiction writer l . ron hubbard and finds its philosophy in his texts , has long been regarded as a cult by more mainstream religions . mr . hubbard envisioned a world without insanity , criminals or war , while the church 's opponents charged that it simply sought to enrich itself with the assets gained from gullible adherents .",has a topic of politics
"lead this week 's summit conference between president_bush and president mikhail s . gorbachev of the soviet_union , the first such meeting of the post cold_war era , promises to be different from any other . this week 's summit conference between president_bush and president mikhail s . gorbachev of the soviet_union , the first such meeting of the post cold_war era , promises to be different from any other . different , first of all , because the shape of the new europe , not arms control agreements or ideological argument , will be its principal focus . that difference flows from others for the first time , a soviet leader approaches the bargaining table from a position of real weakness at home , with some western analysts doubting his ability to last another year and others , more confident of his survival , doubtful about his long term ability to lead . for the first time as well , the two superpowers find their status in doubt . though arms control details and discussions have dominated the preliminary negotiations for this second encounter between mr . bush and mr . gorbachev , this is misleading . broad agreement will no doubt be reached to reduce strategic arms , though by less than the 50 per cent originally sought , and on chemical_weapons , two items from the old east west agenda . the new realities but the success of the meeting will better be measured by the degree to which the leaders come to grips with the new power realities forced on them by a year of constant change . both sides appear to understand this as they ponder the consequences of a moribund warsaw_pact , a north_atlantic_treaty_organization that has lost its main mission , a united germany and a disintegrating soviet_bloc . making sense , and stability , of it all is a challenge worthy of metternich . ''the fundamental issues at the summit are not going to be arms control , '' brent_scowcroft , the national_security adviser , said today on the abc_news program ''this week . '' ''the fundamental issues are remaking a political map of germany and also secondarily what 's going on in the soviet_union . '' on the nbc_news program ''meet the press , '' aleksandr n . yakovlev , a major adviser to mr . gorbachev , emphasized the same issues and added , ''we should expect this meeting will be much more significant than the previous ones . '' staving off armageddon arms control , as a leading european diplomat put it the other day , matters most when there is no chance of basic political change . ''you nibble away at the edges , hoping to reduce the possibilities that the underlying hostilities will lead to armageddon . '' but now there is basic political change aplenty , notably in the troubled soviet_union and in germany , which seems to be re emerging as europe 's largest , richest and most powerful land , undoing the balance of power that once existed between nato and the warsaw_pact . indeed , political and economic imperatives may accomplish what arms control has not and perhaps will not . the 380 , 000 soviet_troops now in east_germany are highly unlikely to stay there very long they may be bargained out , but if they are not , at least some of them will probably have to leave because the soviet_union cannot maintain them or does not think the effort worthwhile . the process might already have begun , except that the kremlin has no housing or jobs to give returning soldiers . as they approach this week 's discussions , mr . gorbachev and mr . bush still control the bulk of the world 's nuclear_weapons more than 95 per cent , by most calculations . but in their different ways , they have lost control over other matters . the soviet leader will leave a capital gripped by panic buying , with political power dubious and fragmented , with a sullen almost rebellious populace , with part of an old bloc gone and other parts yearning to leave . except in the military sphere , the soviet_union has lost its place at the head of the list of nations . no such crises confront mr . bush , but he is struggling to redefine and to hold together the nato alliance that has provided the united_states its principal entree into europe since world_war_ii , at a time when europe seems to stand on the verge of its greatest postwar strength and cohesion . other longstanding american alliances , facing greatly lessened threats from the communist world , are losing their muscle tone . mr . bush must deal with economic challenges to american leadership from japan and from a reinvigorated europe , anchored by a germany moving rapidly toward unification . an unprecedented weakness these fresh realities will shape the negotiating positions here . mr . gorbachev , who has achieved so much despite a position of weakness , is now trying to avoid allowing a unified germany to become a full nato member . from the soviet viewpoint , that would in effect undo the results of world_war_ii , because moscow saw the partition of germany as one of the chief benefits of its hard won victory . mr . bush , arguing from a much stronger position , must try to persuade the soviets to accept german membership in nato , the chosen american vehicle for ''the new architecture of europe , '' because only nato , not the european_community or the nascent conference on security and cooperation in europe , would allow the united_states a significant role in european decision making . the president is not without weapons in this endeavor . his west_german allies have already offered a wide range of economic inducements to the soviets , largely involving the direct payment of marks . if some compromise on lithuania and the other baltic_states , a ticklish subject that mr . bush has promised to raise at the meeting , can be reached in coming weeks , the united_states would be in a position to offer trade concessions , such as most favored nation status , and other economic assistance . the president 's blueprint in an interview last week with the bbc , mr . bush set his own agenda for this week . he said he was looking for answers to such questions as these ''how does post german_unification europe look ? who will be calling the shots ? what is the role of the united_states in terms of stability ? '' what he meant , of course , was not that mr . gorbachev could supply the answers at this meeting , but that mr . gorbachev 's attitudes would be a major factor in the direction that american policy ultimately takes . much may turn on the answer to a pair of decisions . mr . gorbachev said this week that he would never let nato , with germany a member , play the leading role in building a new european security order , as mr . bush wants it to . the president will therefore have to decide how deeply committed his counterpart is to that view , and , if he concludes that mr . gorbachev will not budge , he will have to decide how far the west , which holds most of the cards , should push the soviets on the status of germany at the risk of generating lasting resentment in moscow that might undermine the europe everyone is working so hard to construct . toward the summit",has a topic of politics
"an article yesterday about the use of new prosthetic technology at walter_reed_army_medical_center in washington to help men and women wounded in iraq misstated the number of american service members wounded since the start of the war . as of yesterday , it was 3 , 018 , with another 2 , 120 who returned to duty within 72 hours of being wounded . ( the figure of 675 represented those recuperating at walter_reed . )",has a topic of politics
"in an empty office in a bombed out station , the lieutenant_colonel in the local police force was explaining the miseries his officers face . two weeks ago , a car_bomb blew up the police station , killing at least 13 people . one police_officer lost a leg and could lose the other he does not know how he will pay for his care . ''we do n't have weapons , '' said muhammad hashem rahma , the lieutenant_colonel at this station here in the khudra neighborhood in western baghdad . ''we do n't have flak_jackets . we do n't have good cars . and we are face to face with death , because everybody thinks we are supporting the americans . '' he said he himself had received a death_threat three days after the bombing . then a rocket_propelled_grenade exploded 200 yards away and colonel rahma ran to investigate , ending the interview . the police are the core of the american plan to restore civil_society in iraq , but they are staggering , and not only at this station and the two others hit by devastating bombs on oct . 27 . the americans , who are promising to increase the number of officers , are leaning on the police and other iraqi_security_forces to help them root out the guerrillas plaguing the 150 , 000 international troops in iraq . but while the demands on the police have grown , their resources have not kept pace . easy targets accustomed to dealing with common criminals , the police now face terrorists who see them as easy targets . officers have no bulletproof_vests their pay arrives late and even though the occupying authorities have raised their salaries , officers say they still cannot make ends meet . they chafe under new american rules of evidence , and with only about 40 , 000 officers , many of whom are corrupt holdovers from the saddam_hussein era , the force is badly understaffed for a nation of 25 million people . ''i need new police , '' said gen . ahmed ibrahim , national commander of the force . ''not police from the baath_party , '' he added , referring to the party of mr . hussein 's government . ''many police right now are from the baath_party . '' but no new officers are currently in training , general ibrahim said . defense secretary donald h . rumsfeld has promised to increase the number of iraqis serving in the nation 's security forces to more than 200 , 000 within a year . he said last week that 118 , 000 iraqis were now serving in the security forces , though iraqi officials say the number is lower . besides the police , the forces include tens of thousands of poorly trained security guards who watch hospitals and other buildings , as well as 700 soldiers in the new iraqi_army and other minor forces . the united_states led occupying authority is working to ease the pressures the police face , said charles heatly , a spokesman for the authority . ''the coalition and the interior_ministry are fully committed to improve training and support for the police as soon as possible , '' mr . heatly said . for example , 50 , 000 flak_jackets have been ordered and are scheduled to begin arriving this month . many officers are doing heroic work under difficult circumstances , he said , but a modern police force cannot be created overnight . ''they need more training , equipment , management , and direction , and this will take time , '' he said . colonel rahma and other officers say they are willing to work , even at great risk . but in khudra , a neighborhood of 120 , 000 people , the burdens seem overwhelming . since the car_bomb , the police here have stopped patrolling . most officers spend their days sitting outside the station , on a street still strewn with twisted cars and shattered glass . the american military_police who worked with the iraqi officers at the station before the bombing have disappeared , moving on to stations that are still functioning . at 9 a.m . on monday , oct . 27 , the first day of ramadan , which is the holiest month of the muslim calendar , razzaq rashid abbas , a 31 year police veteran , was standing at his usual post outside the front door of the khudra station . a toyota land cruiser raced by , then tried to break through concrete barriers into a parking_lot behind the station . the barriers blocked the land cruiser , and the driver jumped out . ''when he opened his door , i say , 'god bless us , maybe he will make an explosion , ''' mr . abbas said from his bed at baghdad 's main teaching_hospital . ''there was a huge fireball . '' the blast left a crater seven feet deep outside the station , destroying virtually any evidence that the vehicle carrying it had ever existed . mr . abbas passed out . hospital bills pile up when he came to , he found that the explosion had severed his left leg and torn out his intestines . doctors at nearby yarmuk hospital stabilized him and transferred him to the teaching_hospital . for the last 10 days , surgeons have been trying to save his right leg , which was shattered in the blast . mr . abbas and his family are nervously adding up the bills that come each day to his bedside . each night in the hospital costs 5 , 000 iraqi dinars ( 2 . 50 ) . food is 1 , 000 dinars ( 50 cents ) a day . ampules of pethidine , a painkiller , are a crushing 25 , 000 dinars ( 12 . 50 ) each . saad abd zaid , mr . abbas 's uncle , estimates that the hospitalization will cost at least 625 , 000 dinars , or about 300 . that is far more money than mr . abbas or his family have . ''i must borrow some money , '' mr . abbas said . ''and later , i do n't know how i 'm going to pay it back . '' mr . zaid said the family might be forced to sell its house . ''even if we have to sell our clothes , what can we do ? '' he asked . but the united_states has told the iraqi ministry of health that it will pay the bills for any police_officer wounded in the line of duty , said lt . col . john f . garrity , who commands the american military_police for western baghdad , including the khudra station . colonel garrity said he was troubled that neither mr . abbas nor the officers in the khudra station knew about that pledge . even general ibrahim , the head of all the iraqi_police forces , did not know of the american promise . wounded officers like mr . abbas must pay for their own care , general ibrahim said . ''we wish that we have enough of a budget to deal with the wounded police , '' he said . ''but we ca n't , because we do n't have enough money . '' on saturday night , mr . heatly said the occupying authority and the interior_ministry ' 'strongly believed'' that any police_officer wounded in the line of duty should be compensated . despite his wounds , mr . abbas said he was proud to be a police_officer , if a relatively lowly one after 31 years in the force , he held the rank of sub lieutenant . but , he said , ''i like my job , and i was honest with my job . '' now , mr . abbas hopes only to survive and return to his family . ''i will go back home and just stay home with my children , '' he said . ''it 's god 's choice . it 's his choice for everybody . '' three days after the blast , colonel rahma found a letter taped to his house . its print was uneven but its message was clear . ''from all honest people in this dear country to the weak agents who have sold their consciences to the americans and jews , we warn you for the last time , '' it said . ''look at yourselves and what you are doing . you are fighting god , his prophet , and his followers . the time has come to liquidate you . '' the note ended by politely asking anyone who saw it on the ground to hang it back up . it was signed , ''saddam 's fedayeen . '' domestic guard duty this was not colonel rahma 's first warning . on oct . 16 , a bomb was placed outside his home , a spacious house he shares with his wife , 4 children , 4 brothers and 22 other family members . since then , his brothers have shared guard duty outside the house , which is just a few hundred yards from the police station . he has pulled his children from school because he fears they will be kidnapped . but he has kept working , even this week , when he was supposed to be off , recovering from the headaches and ringing ears that have beset him since the blast . ''i have a vacation , but i could n't leave the station , '' he said in his house , a few days after the recent rocket_propelled_grenade attack , which narrowly_missed a passing american_patrol and smashed into a wall near a school . colonel rahma has been a police_officer for 18 years . he is a shiite_muslim , a rarity among senior iraqi officers , who are mostly sunnis , like mr . hussein . he is the operational commander of the khudra station , which has 92 officers . to be fully effective , the station needs three times that number , he said . at the moment , though , he is simply hoping to repair the station and find enough police cars for patrols . all but two of khudra 's vehicles were destroyed in the blast . morale has been further damaged by the fact that officers' salaries for october are already 10 days late , colonel rahma said , adding ''it will create a dullness , an upset among the officers 'why do i have to work ? ' '' in addition , colonel rahma and others complain that they do not have enough officers or forensic equipment to conduct investigations properly . under mr . hussein 's government , they covered those gaps with interrogation tactics not allowed in the united_states . now the americans have told them they must respect the rights of the accused . in theory , the american way makes sense , colonel rahma said . but in reality , the iraqi_police do not have the resources to solve crimes without tough interrogations , he said . as a result , officers feel caught between increasingly brazen criminals and american_forces that neither protect them nor allow them to protect themselves , the colonel said . before the attack , the american military_police did not respond to his repeated requests for concrete barriers for the station , he said . so colonel rahma bought and installed a set of flowerpot barriers himself , a decision that may have saved the station from complete destruction . even now , the americans have not provided enough barriers to block the road properly , he said . ''the military_police , they are trying , but they are very slow , '' he said . the united_states has only a few months to restore security , he warned , or it faces the prospect of an open revolt . but colonel rahma said he would not quit , declaring , ''it 's very important that we secure the situation despite all these problems , to let the children go to school , to have a normal life back . '' the struggle for iraq security",has a topic of politics
"a team of experts searching for evidence of biological and chemical_weapons in iraq has concluded that a trailer found near mosul in northern iraq in april is a mobile biological_weapons laboratory , the three team members said today . describing their four day examination of the lab for the first time and on the condition of anonymity , the members of the chemical biological intelligence support team charlie , or team charlie , said they had based their conclusion on a thorough examination of the gray green trailer , with the help of british experts and a few american_soldiers . the members acknowledged that some experts were still uncertain whether the trailer was intended to produce biological_agents . but they said they were persuaded that it was a mobile lab for biological production . the team leader said that the lab contained equipment that could be used to make vaccines , drugs and other peaceful pathogens , as well as deadly_germs for weapons , and that iraq had therefore been obliged to disclose possession of such equipment to international inspectors before the war . ''the failure to disclose such equipment is a clear violation of united_nations sanctions and an indication of ill intent , '' said the team leader , a_20 year veteran of special_operations forces and explosive_ordnance work and a nuclear_weapons expert . he contended that this could be construed as the kind of ' 'smoking_gun'' that his team was charged with finding to substantiate the bush_administration 's allegations that iraq was making biological and chemical_weapons . other american experts say they believe that teams hunting for biological and chemical_weapons may now have located parts of three mobile labs , military and civilian officials said today . those experts said that in addition to the mosul trailer and another one found recently in northern iraq , a smaller trailer was discovered last week by american_forces near baghdad . they said the smaller trailer , like the one near mosul , had been taken to baghdad_international_airport for further examination . the experts also said they believed that based on intelligence information , there might be as many as eight mobile labs in iraq , adding that the locations of the other five have not yet been determined . some members of another team of weapons experts and intelligence officials arrived in baghdad today to survey the labs at the airport and gather additional information about their operation and purpose . pentagon officials sent the team to check the initial test results , and if they find they are accurate , to help assemble an ironclad technical case that would counter alternative , peaceful explanations for the trailers . some scientists say the trailers could have been used for peaceful purposes , like biopesticide production , but none of them have seen the labs or talked to the experts who reject such contentions . all three team charlie members said they were certain that future tests would confirm that the trailer was evidence of a weapons program . the team also said they had found a substance in the lab 's fermenting machine , which they declined to identify . officials in washington , reached by telephone , said they believed that the team had found growth media that might have been used to culture germs . more lab tests on the samples are being conducted in the united_states and britain , which assisted team charlie in its examination , officials said . the team also found that the lab had been cleaned with a ''caustic agent'' ammonia or bleach . ''we never expected to find positive samples'' of pathogens , the team 's biological specialist said . ''but to prove that the lab could make biological_agents , you do n't need to find such agents . '' the members of the team work for the defense_intelligence_agency as part the 75th_exploitation task_force , which has been responsible for the search for unconventional_weapons . team members said their investigation showed that the lab was partly assembled under the noses of international inspectors . a new inspection agency , known as the united_nations monitoring and verification commission , returned to iraq late last year after its predecessor agency was forced to leave the country in 1998 . the agency conducted inspections in iraq with many restrictions until just before the war . the team 's chemical expert , a 34 year old former marine , said the team had found identification plates on equipment inside the trailer that ''had dates from 2000 to 2002 . '' while most of the equipment in the lab was iraqi in origin , some of it was from ''foreign sources , '' the team leader said , describing it as ''generic equipment that could have been easily ordered from several different places . '' the team declined to identify the countries that had supplied such equipment . the members said another indication that the lab was part of a biological_weapons program was an information plate found on a major piece of equipment from the al nasser company , an iraqi concern that had helped design and equip a major biological_weapons plant destroyed after the persian_gulf_war in 1991 . the biological specialist said the equipment he took apart would support the production of peaceful germs , as well as those for weapons . but he said the presence of equipment to contain the emission of gasses from the trailer known informally as scrubbers indicated that the two to four people who may have operated the lab , including a driver , did not want traces of what they were making to be detectable . ''you do n't need that kind of system if you 're making a vaccine , '' he said . ''you do n't make baby formula on the road in a mobile van . '' the team did not find any protective clothing or biocontainment system to safeguard the scientists or technicians who worked inside the trailer from exposure to deadly_germs . but the team leader said he was not surprised by the absence of such equipment , which is standard in western labs . ''we 've already seen what a low regard for human life this regime had , '' the leader said . he said the team had tried to eliminate other possible explanations for the lab . first , they discounted the possibility that the lab was intended to be a decoy . they also dismissed the possibility that it was a nuclear_reactor on wheels , or that it held any other nuclear related equipment . also discounted was the theory that the lab was intended to produce missile fuel , propellant or explosives . the equipment was not appropriate for those functions , they said . finally , they considered the possibility that the lab was intended for chemical production . ''there are still some experts who think that , '' the team leader said . ''and while we have n't totally ruled it out , the lack of glass , stainless_steel , teflon and other material that can withstand the corrosive effects of chemicals suggests that the purpose was bio . '' the team said the only major piece of equipment that was made of stainless_steel was the lab 's fermenter . they said that much of the craftsmanship in the lab was crude , but that the equipment a fermenter , a system to bring in fresh_water to and eliminate contaminated water from the trailer , and a water cooling system based on what appeared to be a jerry built air_conditioning unit was capable of making considerable amounts of pathogens in a relatively short time . ''it was a rube_goldberg system , but it clearly would have worked , '' the team leader said . ''and they continued making improvements to it . '' the lab was mobile , the team concluded , despite the fact that zthere were no shock absorbers between the tires' rubber and the lab floor . the team said the configuration of the trailer and the equipment inside it was similar in many respects to the lab described in detail by secretary of state colin l . powell in his speech to the united_nations in february . aftereffects the hunt for evidence",has a topic of politics
"a senior government official warned today that iraq would halt the destruction of its short range missiles if the united_states tried to circumvent the united_nations_security_council to attack his country . the official , gen . amir_al_saadi , president saddam_hussein 's top liaison to the united_nations weapons inspectors , also said he believed that iraq and the inspectors were narrowing the gaps in a number of outstanding questions about missing stocks of chemical and biological_weapons that iraq said it had destroyed more than a decade ago . for example , recent excavations at the aziziyeh firing range southwest of baghdad , he said , showed remnants of nearly 157 r 400 bombs that had contained anthrax that iraq destroyed in the summer of 1991 . because eight shells were still intact , he said at a news conference , weapons inspectors could test them for the biological_agent . the general said another six al_samoud 2 short range missiles had been crushed under bulldozers today , bringing to 10 the number destroyed since saturday , the united_nations' deadline to begin the process . he said the reason the government had not released any pictures of the destroyed missiles was that the decision to demolish them was a painful one for all iraqis . but the step was deemed worthwhile considering the stakes , he said . ''my task and my only task is to remove all excuses for waging war , '' the general said , adding that ''if war takes place , it is not because iraq has not done all it can regarding disarmament . '' destroying many missiles by next friday , when hans_blix , one of the united_nation 's chief weapons inspectors , is due to report to the security_council , would bolster the arguments of those countries seeking to give the inspectors more time . general saadi said his country could destroy about six missiles a day , depending on the difficulties of unloading the fuel and otherwise dismantling them for destruction . iraq is thought to have 100 of the missiles and components for about 20 more . but the general said iraq could reverse its decision to destroy the weapons , saying that if the united_states ''is not going the legal way , then why should we continue ? '' mr . blix ordered the weapons destroyed because they exceeded the 93 mile limit set for iraqi missiles by the persian_gulf_war cease fire terms in 1991 . iraq has disputed the united_nations' analysis , and has said it is unwarranted for the united_nations inspectors to single out for destruction a missile unrelated to weapons_of_mass_destruction . the schedule for the destruction of the missiles was left up to the iraqis to give them a chance to prove how serious they are about disarmament , a senior united_nations official said . iraqi officials have said that the fact that they are destroying missiles when a war might be weeks away was a clear sign of their cooperation . ''these weapons are quite useful , but they are not decisive , '' general saadi said . he said recently completed rockets were the easiest to demolish because they were near the destruction site and had not yet been filled with fuel , which is toxic and takes about three hours to drain . he said iraq and the weapons inspectors had two teams working on the missile destruction , so the number destroyed might vary from day to day . a second casting chamber , used to mold propellant for different missiles , was also destroyed today . iraq and the weapons inspectors also opened a series of discussions on how to quantify the chemical and biological_weapons that iraq insists it secretly destroyed in 1991 , often by pouring them into the ground . iraq says new scientific techniques should prove how much was destroyed . demetrius perricos , mr . blix 's deputy , told reporters on saturday that weapons inspectors were skeptical but willing to hear the iraqi proposal . general saadi said 550 mustard_gas shells that the previous round of inspections , which ended in 1998 , had deemed missing were all in one truck that was burned during uprisings after the gulf_war . he said that they were were included in the numbers destroyed by weapons inspectors previously but that they were not properly tallied . as for the 157 newly excavated r 400 bombs containing anthrax , united_nations inspectors took samples from three intact bombs today , according to hiro ueki , the spokesman for the weapons inspectors . earlier , inspectors had abandoned work at the site because of the danger from unexploded ordnance . general saadi said the anthrax not loaded into bombs had been dumped at a site called al_hakim that remains undisturbed . similarly , he said that a ton and a half of vx_nerve agent was dumped at al muthana and that it could be confirmed through soil analysis . the united_states has accused iraq of hiding its weapons_of_mass_destruction and has argued that the country 's statements to the contrary are merely attempts to buy time . general saadi noted a recent american television_program that detailed how nuclear tipped bombs could crash into underground bunkers where such weapons are believed to be hidden . because modern bombs have to be programmed with geographic coordinates , he suggested it would be far less costly for the united_states to give the weapons inspectors the coordinates rather than start a war . threats and responses inspections",has a topic of politics
"lead a group of 19 soviet missile specialists and officials arrived today to verify compliance with the superpowers' treaty to scrap their land based intermediate_range nuclear_missiles . a group of 19 soviet missile specialists and officials arrived today to verify compliance with the superpowers' treaty to scrap their land based intermediate_range nuclear_missiles . another group of soviet specialists arrived in the united_states last week , while american inspectors went to the soviet_union . the soviets who arrived in frankfurt will carry out inspections of six missile sites in west_germany . vladimir a . akimenkov , head of one team , said ''our team has arrived today to conduct inspection outlined by the i.n.f . treaty .",has a topic of politics
"lead the warsaw_pact has proposed negotiations that could lead to the elimination of the battlefield nuclear_missiles deployed in central_europe and along the border between the germanys . the warsaw_pact has proposed negotiations that could lead to the elimination of the battlefield nuclear_missiles deployed in central_europe and along the border between the germanys . the suggestion came in a letter that erich_honecker , the east_german leader , wrote to chancellor helmut_kohl of west_germany on dec . 16 . its contents were disclosed by the east_german press agency , adn , on monday and given front page coverage today in neues deutschland , the communist_party daily . however , the united_states quickly rejected the warsaw_pact proposal . charles e . redman , the state_department spokesman , said in washington , ''as a matter of policy , the united_states opposes any nuclear_weapon free zone in the nato treaty area . '' he said the suggestion was a ''new version'' of a longstanding warsaw_pact proposal to establish a nuclear free zone in europe . in his letter , mr . honecker , according to the text released by adn , said that the warsaw_pact would refrain from modernizing its short range nuclear systems , which have a range of 300 miles or less , if the north_atlantic_treaty_organization agreed not to update its arsenal of such weapons . the missiles are sometimes referred to as battlefield or tactical systems . ''if you were prepared to forgo modernization in this area , '' mr . honecker wrote , according to the press agency , ' 'steps could be taken on the basis of equality and equal security to remove imbalances through disarmament leading to further zero solutions . '' intermediate forces accord under an agreement signed by president_reagan and mikhail s . gorbachev in washington last month , the united_states and the soviet_union embraced so called ''zero solutions'' for their medium and shorter_range_missiles , which have a range of 300 to 3 , 400 miles . the pact will also lead to the destruction of 72 pershing 1a missiles operated by the west_german air_force and their warheads , which are under american control . the warsaw_pact countries have traditionally proposed a ban on all nuclear_weapons in europe , a suggestion rejected by the western allies because of perceived soviet_bloc advantages in conventional forces . but the latest proposal is the first specific one dealing with battlefield nuclear_missiles with ranges of less than 300 miles since last month 's accord . there has been considerable concern within nato that mr . gorbachev might eventually propose the abolition of the tactical systems as well , a proposition that could generate a split between west_germany and its principal european allies . threat to german soil conservatives within chancellor kohl 's christian democratic_party , as well as foreign_minister hans_dietrich_genscher of the free democrats , have been pressing for sharp reductions in the battlefield systems , contending that they uniquely threaten german soil . but britain and france , supported by the reagan_administration , have strongly opposed moving on the short range issue before strategic , conventional and chemical_weapons are addressed . in both paris and london , officials cite the danger of setting off a chain of events that could lead to the ' 'denuclearization'' of europe , making a conventional war more imaginable . in washington , mr . redman said that creating a nuclear free zone would undercut nato 's military_strategy to defend europe . nato has refused to rule out using nuclear_weapons first in response to a soviet conventional attack . playing the german card after the washington accord , some western diplomats had predicted that mr . gorbachev might declare a pause in his blitz of disarmament proposals , in part to avoid stirring opposition to the treaty in the united_states_senate , which will begin consideration of it later this month . by having mr . honecker launch the idea of a ''third zero solution , '' moscow appears to be aiming at the sensitive west_german public without formally putting the proposal on the table . alfred dregger , the christian democrats' parliamentary floor leader , today welcomed mr . honecker 's letter , saying that it supported the party 's position that the tactical systems should be considered in the context of the ' 'disarmament process . '' a spokesman for mr . kohl said that the government was studying the letter . the soviet_union and its allies have overwhelming superiority over nato in the category of short range missiles , with some 1 , 400 weapons confronting 88 lance missiles , which are due to be modernized under a decision by the western alliance in 1983 . there have been rumblings of opposition to the lance modernization decison within the christian democratic_party , and mr . kohl 's preference has been to defer talking about it . russians to visit nevada test site las_vegas , nev . ( ap ) soviet scientists will visit the nevada test site from jan . 26 to 29 as part of a process to work out verification methods on nuclear_testing . american scientists will visit a site at semipalatinsk , in soviet central asia , from monday to thursday . united_states officials have said that the openness of that visit will determine how much the soviet scientists will be allowed to see in nevada . the exchanges are intended to familiarize american and soviet scientists with each other 's secret testing grounds and serve as a prelude to visits later this year during tests . details of the visits , announced in november , were made public monday . they would allow each side to try out equipment they believe could be used to verify the size of future tests and adherence to a test ban . talks in geneva produced partial test ban treaties in 1974 and 1976 , but neither treaty was ratified by the senate , in part because of concerns over verification . each side agreed to adhere to the terms of the treaties . twenty soviet scientists will spend three nights at mercury , a town 65 miles northwest of las_vegas that serves as the hub for testing activity at the 1 , 350 square_mile desert site . they will see a vertical shaft that is being drilled for a weapons test as well as a smaller , adjacent shaft for seismic monitoring equipment . but they will not visit tunnels where tests are conducted .",has a topic of politics
"president_bush moved today to use a vote in congress giving him overwhelming support to attack iraq as leverage to push for a tough new united_nations resolution forcing saddam_hussein to disarm . only hours after the senate voted at 1 15 a.m. , 77 to 23 , to give the president sweeping authority for action against iraq , administration officials asserted that the bipartisan endorsement would force the hand of the security_council because the united_states now had all the legal authority for war that it needed . the house voted thursday , 296 to 133 , in support of the president . text of resolution , page_a12 . ''right now we have accomplished what we had to do to take the action we need to take , and we do n't need the security_council , '' a senior administration official said . ''so if the security_council wants to stay relevant , then it has to give us similar authority . '' mr . bush , in a statement issued by the white_house at 1 28 this morning , reflected the administration 's strategy to leverage its success in the tougher arena of the security_council , where the five veto bearing members are divided over how to force iraq to disarm . washington and britain want a single resolution with authority for a military attack on iraq , but france favors a two stage approach that would postpone authorization of force to a second measure . ''with tonight 's vote in the united_states_senate , america speaks with one voice , '' mr . bush said . ''the congress has spoken clearly to the international_community and the united_nations_security_council . '' representatives of council nations acknowledged privately that the votes put obvious new pressure on them to bend to the will of the bush_administration and back a single resolution . but publicly , diplomats insisted that their deliberations would not be subject to the internal politics of the united_states . ''i do n't think it impacts it much , '' said sir_jeremy_greenstock , the british ambassador to the united_nations . ''i think that 's domestic business . '' ambassador ole peter kolby of norway , one of the 10 rotating members of the 15 nation security_council , agreed , but said the congressional vote would accelerate talks . the united_states still has not formally introduced its draft resolution in the council , though one has circulated among diplomats . congressional leaders said their vote and days of debate reflected a sentiment that military action was not a first but a last option . ''we have to be very careful about the employment of military personnel and weaponry , '' said senator tom_daschle of south_dakota , the democratic majority leader , who supported the resolution . ''while that may be necessary , we 're not there yet . '' the senate vote came hours after the house endorsed an identical resolution . only one republican , lincoln_chafee of rhode_island , opposed the president in the senate . twenty one democrats and one independent voted against the resolution . but even some who supported it said the president should not interpret it as giving him carte_blanche . ''i continue to have concerns that there are those in the administration who would seek to use this authorization for a unilateral , pre_emptive attack against iraq , '' said senator dianne_feinstein , democrat of california , who had earlier expressed reservations about the iraq policy but ended up voting for it . ''i believe this would be a terrible mistake . '' unlike the house , where a majority of democrats opposed the president , more senate democrats backed the president than fought the resolution . senator carl_levin , democrat of michigan , unsuccessfully offered an approach that would have required mr . bush to return to congress for a second approval if he was unable to build an international coalition for a move against iraq . ''hopefully , the u.n . will act like we would all like them to , '' said mr . levin , who voted against he resolution . leaving the chamber as the vote concluded , senator trent_lott of mississippi , the republican minority_leader , expressed satisfaction with the show of support for the president . republicans were solidly in the president 's camp , with some noting that they acted to put pressure on the united_nations . ''only if saddam understands that we are prepared to use military force will a peaceful means of disarming him have any chance to succeed , '' said senator susan_collins , republican of maine . as the votes were tallied , senator robert c . byrd , democrat of west_virginia , gave an animated thumbs down to record his vote . ''damn serious business , '' said mr . levin as he left the capitol . ''it is a vote we will all have to live with . '' administration officials continued to press today for a single resolution mandating tough terms for united_nations weapons inspectors , as well as clear authorization for military action if mr . hussein is in defiance . but diplomats continued to search for a compromise that would encompass france 's demands for two resolutions . one approach , administration officials said , would be to threaten iraq with ''consequences'' but not with language that would be interpreted as calling for an automatic military response . if mr . hussein defied the united_nations , as administration officials expect , france could draft a second resolution_authorizing military force . american officials said today that they would support the second resolution if there was time before using force against iraq , but that they would view the first resolution as sufficient to launch an attack . secretary of state colin l . powell , in an interview tonight with national_public_radio , said he still supported a single resolution . ''it does n't give iraq an opportunity to look at what 's happening in the security_council and say , 'well , you know , i can still frustrate them because it will force them to take another vote on this issue , ' '' secretary powell said . threats and responses the overview",has a topic of politics
"lead president_bush today hailed the soviet_union 's decision to accept a united germany as a member of nato , describing it as an act of statesmanship . he said the move resulted , at least in part , from measures adopted by the alliance at its meeting in london 10 days ago . president_bush today hailed the soviet_union 's decision to accept a united germany as a member of nato , describing it as an act of statesmanship . he said the move resulted , at least in part , from measures adopted by the alliance at its meeting in london 10 days ago . ''we think this solution is in the best interests of all the countries of europe , including the soviet_union , '' he said in a written statement . but officials of the bush_administration and others in washington were keenly_aware of the symbolism in the fact that the agreement was worked out by chancellor helmut_kohl and president mikhail s . gorbachev at a meeting in the caucusus , albeit along lines that the united_states had strongly endorsed , with mr . bush more than 5 , 000 miles away . not only were mr . bush , secretary of state james a . baker 3d and other american policy_makers remote from the scene of the action mr . baker , at least , was taken completely by surprise , learning of today 's developments from news accounts when his plane stopped for refueling at shannon airport in ireland . for weeks , he and his staff had said they expected no break in the german impasse until the fall . a more felicitous forum a senior figure in the administration , who spoke on condition of anonymity , conceded that ''it would have been much nicer if the deal gorbachev and kohl seem to have struck could have been announced when all the major powers were represented , but that does n't change the fact that we got what we wanted a unified germany in nato . '' representative lee h . hamilton of indiana , a major democratic spokesman on foreign_affairs , said ''this makes it clearer than ever that the germans are leading western policy toward the soviet_union . i 'm not saying that it 's george_bush 's fault , and i 'm not saying that we have become a non power . ''but this is an example of the new multi polar world that 's going to make us learn a new meaning for the word 'consult . ' these days it does n't mean us going to europe and telling them what to do . the constraints are largely economic . we have n't solved our fiscal problems , we need to borrow money , and you ca n't say to your creditors , 'this is what you 're going to do . ' '' with the decline of the warsaw_pact and the approach of reunification , germany appears poised to become an even greater economic power than it already is , and japan , a world economic power , is starting to flex its political muscles , too . quayle is upbeat at a luncheon with reporters and editors of the new york times , vice_president dan_quayle emphasized the positive , asserting that president_bush had been ''way out front'' on the german question and declaring that ' 'relations are at an all time high between germany and the united_states . '' while few diplomats or analysts would question either assertion , the new closeness of the two nations has given mr . kohl a more or less free hand to set the timetable and some of the terms for german_unification , and granted him a much larger role among world leaders . ''the transformation is quite phenomenal , '' said a republican senator who asked not to be quoted by name . ''kohl used to come here as a kind of supplicant , but now he comes into a room up here and senior people defer to him . he 's polite and good humored , of course , but he dominates conversations . '' german_unification was to have taken place on the terms worked out in the ''two plus four'' negotiations , involving the two germanys plus the allied powers of world_war_ii the united_states , the soviet_union , britain and france . that arrangement was to have constituted moscow 's veto , or washington 's , if the pace seemed too fast or the conditions too onerous . but mr . gorbachev said today that four power rights would lapse when germany was reunited , and many diplomats here said the two plus four talks had been rendered all but moot . ''not even a fig_leaf is left'' to conceal the idea that west_germany has essentially negotiated its own terms , a west european ambassador here said . zbigniew_brzezinski , who served as national_security adviser under president_carter , said that while ''this is clearly the final act of soviet accommodation to the new realities , '' mr . gorbachev ' 'may be giving ground so that he can partly recoup later'' by insisting that all foreign troops , not just soviet ones , leave the soil of germany . ''my instinct is that precisely that question will arise , certainly before 1995 , '' mr . brzezinski said . there is now broad support in washington for the idea that the united_states must push hard for the rapid integration of europe in economic , political , military and other spheres to make germany 's triumphs europe 's triumphs and avoid any backlash against german economic power . under prime_minister margaret_thatcher , britain has resisted an accelerated timetable for european_integration , with foreign_secretary douglas_hurd restating british reservations about a single_currency and a central_european bank only last weekend . that could mean a further loosening of the old special relationship between london and washington in the coming months . ''this is an alliance victory , '' the west european ambassador said . ''it is a bush victory . the united_states must not lose its nerve now , with these signs of german strength , and pause to reconsider things . it must play the game to the end , not back off , and not give anyone any reason to suspect that this is a german soviet deal of which the united_states secretly disapproves . ''",has a topic of politics
"the department of defense has identified 3 , 449 american service members who have died since the start of the iraq_war . it confirmed the deaths of the following americans yesterday bailey , william l . iii , 29 , pvt . , army_national_guard bellevue , neb . 755th chemical reconnaissance decontamination company . blodgett , clinton c. , 19 , specialist , army pekin , ind . first infantry division . caguioa , mark r . c. , 21 , specialist , army stockton , calif . first cavalry division . dunn , clayton g . ii , 22 , sgt . , army moreno valley , calif . , 82nd_airborne_division . jaurigue , michael j. , 20 , specialist , army texas city , tex . 82nd_airborne_division . lindsey , david p. , 20 , lance_cpl . , marines spartanburg , s.c. , second marine expeditionary force . millard , gregory n. , 22 , specialist , army san_diego 82nd_airborne_division . rosa , alexander jr . , 22 , specialist , army orlando , fla . 89th_military_police_brigade . smallwood , erich s. , 23 , specialist , army_national_guard trumann , ark . 875th engineer battalion . trussel , francis m . jr . , 21 , specialist , army lincoln , ill . first cavalry division . villareal , emmanuel , 21 , lance_cpl . , marines eagle pass , tex . first marine expeditionary force . walsh , nicholas r. , 27 , sgt . , marines millstadt , ill . first marine expeditionary force .",has a topic of politics
"gen . george w . casey_jr . , the top commander in iraq , said friday that the additional troops being sent to iraq under president_bush 's new plan to stabilize the country could begin to be withdrawn by late summer if security conditions improve . ''i believe the projections are late summer , '' general casey said , adding , ''i think it 's probably going to be the summer late summer before you get to the point where people in baghdad feel safe in their neighborhoods . '' the american buildup , which is expected to reach slightly more than 20 , 000 troops , is just beginning , and all the units may not be in place for several months , but general casey said there could be signs of improvement in baghdad in 60 to 90 days . he also said that the iraqi prime_minister , nuri_kamal_al_maliki , appeared to be carrying through on his side of the plan , which requires the iraqi government to commit more troops and not to interfere with military operations aimed at cracking down on the shiite_militias that have been blamed for much of the sectarian_violence in baghdad . ''so far , so good , '' general casey said . ''we are seeing them come through on those commitments . '' the three iraqi brigades that mr . maliki promised have not yet arrived in baghdad . but general casey said that american and iraqi units have arrested a number of insurgent and death_squad members , including five or six death_squad leaders in the last three or four weeks . secretary of defense robert m . gates , who is making his second trip to iraq in less than a month , came to southern iraq on friday for talks with british commanders and general casey . britain has about 7 , 000 troops in southern iraq , and officials in london told mr . gates earlier this week that they were making plans to withdraw most of them sometime this year . ''as we see the need for less troops , the surplus will go home , '' said maj . chris ormond king , a british military spokesman in basra , where mr . gates held the talks with british commanders . major ormond king said that britain maintains three bases inside basra , iraq 's second largest city , but that plans were moving forward to turn over the city to full iraqi control , a step that he added was ''probably achievable'' by this spring . he said that british commanders had no plans to disarm shiite_militia groups , including the mahdi army and the badr_organization , that have been vying for power in the city , as long as they do not attack british_forces . a critical part of the new american strategy for stabilizing iraq is to persuade mr . maliki to disarm shiite_militias as well as sunni insurgents . in the past , mr . maliki has been reluctant to crack down on the mahdi army , whose leader , moktada_al_sadr , has been a pivotal member of his political coalition . mr . gates said this week that britain was making troop_reductions at the same time washington was building up forces in iraq because conditions in southern iraq are different than those in baghdad and other parts of iraq , where the united_states has most of its troops . mr . gates had lunch in basra with general casey and maj . gen . jonathan shaw , the recently arrived british commander . later , mr . gates and general casey traveled to this air base in southern iraq to meet with australian and romanian commanders and to receive briefings on reconstruction efforts in the south . since taking office , mr . gates has pushed to ensure that the new american strategy to send additional troops also includes a renewed focus on reconstruction efforts . the struggle for iraq",has a topic of politics
"lead prime_minister hans_modrow today presented for the first time an east_german program for the reunification of germany , which he said should be neutral . prime_minister hans_modrow today presented for the first time an east_german program for the reunification of germany , which he said should be neutral . the plan , which the prime_minister put forward as his personal concept , followed his meeting in moscow on tuesday with president mikhail s . gorbachev , during which the soviet leader for the first time appeared to give his cautious blessing to discussion of reunification . mr . modrow 's concept foresaw the process of reunification as advancing in slow stages , during which both german nations would cease to be members of military pacts and become neutral . kohl rejects terms chancellor helmut_kohl of west_germany quickly rejected mr . modrow 's proposal for a neutral german state , saying a reunited germany could not afford to be isolated in the center of europe . the plan also runs counter to washington 's stand , which specifies that in exercising their right of self_determination , germans remain firmly tied to the west through membership in the north_atlantic_treaty_organization . secretary of state james a . baker 3d presented that view when he visited here in december . chancellor kohl emphasized west_germany 's continuing links to the west in presenting a_10 point reunification proposal last year . discussion after elections in dismissing mr . modrow 's vision and agenda , mr . kohl declared at a news conference in bonn today that he would discuss reunification only with the east_german government that is to be selected in march elections and that military neutrality was inappropriate . ''such a proposal contradicts the logic of the pan_european process of unification , '' he said , adding that a single germany at the core of the continent could not afford to be isolated . on wednesday , west_germany 's foreign_minister , hans_dietrich_genscher , had similarly insisted that a reunited germany should remain a nato member . but he suggested that the alliance 's military structure would be limited to only that territory that constitutes the present west_germany . mr . genscher is scheduled to fly to washington on friday for talks with secretary of state baker . mr . modrow 's vision implicitly rejected such ideas . in announcing his concept at a news conference , he said ''in logic and sense , the process of german_reunification is closely linked with the construction of the all european house and european confederation . in this all european house there must be no place for a policy of force . '' alluding to the image of a common european house that had first been projected last year by mr . gorbachev , mr . modrow said ''it must be founded on the idea that already in the stage of confederation , both german states will step by step detach themselves from their obligations of alliance toward third countries and attain a state of military neutrality . the border between the german_democratic_republic and the german federal_republic will then have ceased to be the dividing line of the two military groupings , with all the consequences that derive from this . '' mr . modrow specified four stages leading to reunification and stressed that he was offering his concept for discussion without any timetable . in the first stage , a treaty of cooperation and good neighborliness would be concluded , with provisions for the melding of the economies , currencies , transport , and judicial systems of both germanys . the second phase of the plan would be the establishment of a confederation with common institutions , such as a joint parliamentary committee and joint executive organs in specified areas . the last two stages the next step in the modrow concept would be the transfer of some sovereign rights of the two republics to institutions of the confederation . mr . modrow described the final stage as ''formation of a unified german state in the form of a german federation or german union through elections in both parts of the confederation , the convening of a unified parliament , which will decide on a unified constitution and unified government with its seat in berlin . '' mr . modrow presented his proposal under the motto ''for germany , united fatherland . '' that is a line from the national_anthem . until the overthrow of the old regime last october , this line was the reason why the anthem could only be played or hummed rather than sung . under the former leaders , walter ulbricht and erich_honecker , it was the official line that the division into two states had become permanent and reunification was ruled out . the prime_minister set several conditions that he said would have to be fulfilled on the way to unity . they specified that both states must maintain their respective obligations to other countries or blocs without any interference by either in the affairs of the other . this was a clear reference to the ever increasing political activities of west_german parties in the present struggle in east_germany leading up to this country 's first free elections march 18 . the other putative parties in east_germany have not yet formally stated their views on reunification . another condition set by the prime_minister was ' 'maintenance of the interests and rights'' of the four major victor powers of world_war_ii , which have residual rights in both germanys . they are the united_states , britain , france and the soviet_union . ''the four powers should declare their intention to settle finally all questions arising from world_war_ii and the postwar period after the formation of a unified german state , including the presence of foreign troops on german soil and membership in military alliances , '' mr . modrow declared . he said military neutrality of both nations as federation approached was another condition . replying to questions , he said that although his concept was in keeping with mr . gorbachev 's ideas expressed during his moscow visit and had been discussed with the soviet leader , he had not put it to him for approval . public pressure growing a western diplomat said it was likely that the prime_minister had told mr . gorbachev that growing public pressure in east_germany for reunification made necessary a statement that put his government on record as favoring it , but only on the conditions that would preclude nato 's gaining a vital military asset . the soviet_union bases more than 350 , 000 troops in east_germany . even under partial soviet withdrawals , which began last year , nato specialists are reported to foresee that that figure will not significantly decrease by the end of this year . mr . modrow stressed that unity should be achieved only under conditions that would still all possible fears among germany 's neighbors . ''germany shall again become a united fatherland for all citizens of the german nation , '' he said . ''so that never again danger for the lives and property of its neighbors shall emanate from it , a sense of responsibility , prudence and comprehension for what is feasible and what is bearable for europe are required . '' upheaval in the east",has a topic of politics
"lead paul h . nitze , the reagan_administration 's top arms control adviser , said today that president_bush was making a serious mistake in refusing to open talks with the soviet_union on short range nuclear_missiles in europe . paul h . nitze , the reagan_administration 's top arms control adviser , said today that president_bush was making a serious mistake in refusing to open talks with the soviet_union on short range nuclear_missiles in europe . in an interview a day after he left office , mr . nitze made it clear that he strongly disagreed with the bush_administration on an issue that has become a matter of sharp dispute within the western alliance . he said he warned secretary of state james a . baker 3d this year that the two pronged american approach of insisting on the development of a new generation of short range nuclear_weapons while opposing talks on the weapons , as advocated by bonn , could not be sustained within nato and would create a crisis in west_germany . in the west 's interest moreover , the veteran negotiator said he believed that negotiations on reducing short range nuclear_weapons those with ranges of less than 300 miles would be in the military interest of the west because they would provide an opportunity to eliminate a large soviet advantage . mr . nitze said the administration approach was ''politically impossible for much of europe . '' ''i cannot think of a german who would agree to that , '' he said . ''many of the allies think it is a crazy proposition . '' west_german proponents of talks on short range missiles say there is no reason to refuse such talks , on weapons primarily based on or aimed at german territory , when the alliance was willing to negotiate the elimination of medium and shorter_range_missiles . a top arms control adviser to president_reagan and secretary of stategeorge p . shultz , the 82 year old mr . nitze was often used as an emissary to north_atlantic_treaty_organization nations on critical arms issues during the reagan_administration . mr . nitze has served in a variety of national_security posts , including navy secretary and deputy_secretary_of_defense . in the early part of the reagan_administration , mr . nitze was the chief negotiator of the treaty to ban intermediate_range nuclear forces in europe . turns down a bush offer he ended his government service after turning down an offer from the bush_administration to serve as ambassador_at_large emeritus , saying that the position would have left him without any clearly delineated responsibilities . in an interview today and a discussion on monday evening in his library at his homuse in washington , mr . nitze said he has recently been studying ways to end acid_rain . mr . nitze said the bush_administration was positioning itself to the right of the reagan_administration in its policy toward moscow to demonstrate that it ''is not really a follow on to the reagan_administration . '' he said it was missing opportunities to improve american soviet relations . he said many of the appointments made by the bush_administration had links to former secretary of state henry a . kissinger , who was critical of the arms control approach taken by mr . shultz . mr . nitze said the administration had let its strategic review carry on so long that it risked losing momentum toward new arms agreements . in a response to questions , he offered a highly critical assessment of mr . baker 's management style , which he said sought to restrict important deliberations with a small group of advisers , excluding many career state_department officials . critical of baker appointments he said mr . baker had failed to name some experienced foreign service officiers , like rozanne l . ridgway , the assistant secretary of state for european and canadian affairs , to influential positions . ''personnel wise , it was a black mark on one 's record to have worked closely with the reagan_administration , '' mr . nitze said . regarding short range missiles , mr . nitze said he had counseled the reagan and bush administrations to open talks on those weapons . he said the administration officials ' 'should go to the germans and say we are not against negotiating reductions on these weapons'' while securing assurances from bonn that such talks would not result in the total elimination of the weapons . mr . nitze said the west should try to negotiate equal ceilings at a low level of about 200 to 300 warheads on each side , a limit that would require huge reductions on the soviet side . nato has 88 lance missile launchers in europe . each launcher is capable of firing numerous nuclear_armed or conventionally armed missiles . the exact number is classified . according to nato , the soviet_bloc has about 1 , 480 short range missile launchers that can be used to fire nuclear tipped as well as chemically armed and conventionally armed missiles . nato has not publicly said how many nuclear tipped short range missiles it believes soviet_bloc nations have and estimates vary . one estimate , mr . nitze said , is that the soviet_bloc has about 3 , 000 nuclear tipped short range missiles . mr . nitze said the united_states should also try to negotiate with moscow for the withdrawal of nuclear_artillery pieces . such an agreement would have clear military benefit for the west , he argued . not only would it eliminate soviet advantages in these categories of weapons , but it would enable washington to gather support for deploying a limited number of new , enhanced successors to the aging lance . unless the united_states adopts such an approach he said , ''the political situation in germany will further deteriorate , '' making it difficult for the germans to form a coalition_government that nato could work with . other arms control matters on other arms control matters , mr . nitze said the united_states should try to negotiate a ban with moscow on all nuclear_weapons at sea except for submarine launched ballistic_missiles . he said it was a mistake for the american_navy to phase out three short range nuclear_missiles for ocean combat without trying to secure soviet concession in return . mr . nitze said washington should try to negotiate a ban on the deployment of anti satellite weapons . the pentagon is advocating the development of several new types of such weapons . he also said the administration should consider ways to improve the american position in the strategic arms talks . mr . nitze said the united_states should consider proposing a further limit , possibly a ceiling on warheads carried by multiple_warhead_missiles . looking back on his days in mr . baker 's state_department , he said the secretary 's approach of relegating key decisions to a tight circle of aides was an ''impossible'' way to run the agency . ''it means that you ca n't deal with many issues , '' he said .",has a topic of politics
"lead the bush_administration today rebuffed a sudden request from west_germany to open negotiations soon with the soviet_union on reducing battlefield nuclear_weapons in europe . the bush_administration today rebuffed a sudden request from west_germany to open negotiations soon with the soviet_union on reducing battlefield nuclear_weapons in europe . in strongly worded remarks during a midday speech , secretary of defense dick_cheney described the idea of such negotiations as a ' 'dangerous trap'' that would strip the north_atlantic_treaty_organization of its nuclear_deterrent . two west_german cabinet members , foreign_minister hans_dietrich_genscher and defense minister gerhard_stoltenberg , flew in from bonn this morning to present their proposal to secretary of state james a . baker 3d , mr . cheney and brent_scowcroft , the national_security adviser , during a four hour meeting at the state_department . the west germans left tonight . as expected , the administration turned down their request to open talks with moscow on reducing short range nuclear_missiles and artillery guns that fire nuclear tipped shells . officials said they viewed the appeal as a political initiative by the beleaguered government of chancellor helmut_kohl to win more popular support by playing to west_germany 's anti nuclear sentiments . mr . kohl 's governing coalition has been shaken by defeats in local and state elections . ''what we have here is grandstanding by a panic stricken government , '' an american official declared . ''the kohl government needed something that would give it the image of being in control on a major issue . '' the united_states has long insisted that nato 's short range nuclear_weapons , which are almost all based on west_german soil , not be considered a subject for east west negotiations until the soviet_bloc 's great superiority in conventional weapons has been eliminated . secretary cheney left the session with the germans to deliver a previously scheduled address to a conference on nato at the national_defense_university , and then returned to the state_department to rejoin the talks . he used the break to denounce the idea of negotiations with the kremlin on short range missiles . ''we must not fall into this dangerous trap , '' he said . ''one of the kremlin 's primary goals remains the denuclearization of europe . given this goal , and the perilous circumstances that could follow in its train if it 's achieved , the alliance must maintain the will to resist the call . '' the timing is unsettling the adminstration was not ready to accept the west_german proposal , and was somewhat unhappy at the suddenness with which it was delivered . but it also wanted to avoid an irreparable rift with the kohl government , which it does not want to see fall and be replaced by an anti nuclear coalition of social democrats and greens . secretary of state baker issued a statement after today 's discussions that attempted to play down the differences between the two countries . neither mr . baker nor his west_german visitors would meet with american reporters for questions . the west_german officials issued no statement . ''we had useful and friendly discussions'' on the subject of short range nuclear_missiles in europe , mr . baker 's statement said . ''they explained their positions . we explained ours . as a result , we understand their position better and they understand ours better . we will continue our discussions in an effort to reach an agreement within the alliance . '' remarks by baker aide earlier in the day , margaret d . tutwiler , the state_department spokeswoman , said , ''secretary baker has said that we think it would be a mistake to engage in arms control negotiations on s.n.f . , '' or short range nuclear forces ) . administration officials said they and other nato allies will have further discussions with bonn on this issue in the coming weeks , in the hope of finding a way to resolve their differences , or fashion some cosmetic compromise , in time for a nato_summit meeting in brussels in late may . state_department officials said , however , that it appears increasingly likely that the 16 member alliance will not be able to reach an understanding on the future of its short range missiles . ''frankly , unless the germans back down , my guess is that the issue will be put aside by nato , while everyone lets the atmosphere cool down , '' a state_department official said . ''this is no way to do business . ''",has a topic of politics
"the department of defense has identified 1 , 224 american service members who have died since the start of the iraq_war . it confirmed the death of the following american yesterday cohen , michael r. , 23 , cpl . , marines jacobus , pa . third marine division .",has a topic of politics
"born 24 years ago in what was then communist east_berlin , oliver blasing was standing on a street crossing just east of the brandenburg_gate on tuesday , cheering president_clinton . mr . blasing had taken a day off from his studies at western berlin 's technical university , and braved a beating summer sun to listen to a speech by mr . clinton on his first visit to berlin . and yet somehow , mr . blasing said afterward , it was all so familiar . he said that seven years earlier , in june 1987 , he had stood on the very same spot waiting for another american president to speak . mr . blasing , then a young east_german army recruit , had defied the orders of the communist leadership and , together with about 300 other east_germans , gathered on the eastern side of the gate to hear president_reagan , the nemesis of the communist world , while he addressed berliners from a podium that had been set up on the western side of the gate , facing east . mr . blasing recalled how frustrated communist police officials set up huge loudspeakers , blaring march tunes , to drown out the voice of mr . reagan as he appealed to the soviet leader , mikhail s . gorbachev "" mr . gorbachev , open this gate ! mr . gorbachev , tear down this wall ! "" mr . blasing glanced toward mr . clinton 's platform , and the opened gate behind it , that was once barred by the berlin_wall . "" never in my life , "" he said , "" did i think it would happen . "" now , he said , he had returned "" to see another american president live . "" "" i like him , "" he said of mr . clinton . "" let 's hope he can just continue what his predecessors started . "" many berliners who sized up mr . clinton as he spent a hectic 24 hours in their city on tuesday came away liking him the natural manners , the youthful freshness . "" somehow he 's friendlier than reagan , "" said klaus diekmann , a 43 year old tax official who turned out for the brandenburg_gate event . "" more youthful , less threatening . "" eastern berliners especially , accustomed for decades to the gerontocracy of communist rule , appeared particularly struck , at times even unsettled , by mr . clinton 's boyishness . at the same time , many berliners expressed a sense that the world mr . clinton governed in had grown more complicated , lacking the old simple delineations like the berlin_wall . "" he 's very sympathetic , very natural , "" said annamarie mothsche , a schoolteacher in her 40 's from eastern berlin . "" you know , we are used to a very different idea of politicians . very stiff , and dignified . "" "" but somehow , "" she continued , "" you think to yourself , can he ever achieve what he wants ? "" uwe zimmermann , a 39 year old insurance salesman , said approvingly that mr . clinton "" sort of reminds you of kennedy , "" and that he admired the president 's exhortation to german youth for civil courage , against racism and religious hatred . but mr . zimmermann added critically that mr . clinton had been "" very vague . "" "" i think a lot of people thought he 'd be more specific , "" mr . zimmermann went on . peter schneider , a well known berlin writer , said "" for berliners , it 's always fun to have an american president here . and surely they enjoyed it . "" "" but of course the historic role is different , "" said mr . schneider , the author of a best selling book about the wall . "" the wall is torn down , unification is taking place . "" throughout berlin , remarkable symbols of reunification abound , and nowhere are they more evident than around the brandenburg_gate . the subway stop on pariser_platz , in front of the gate , is open again , and several stops up the line is potsdamer platz , where bulldozers are shaping what will soon be , arguably , europe 's biggest construction site , to revive what used to be the bustling crossroads of the city in its old imperial days , but was long cut in half by the wall . but there are also the signs of malaise . a wave of violence against foreigners has not stopped . a deep economic divide splits east and west , driving many eastern berliners to vote again in recent elections for the old communists . the booing and hissing that met chancellor helmut_kohl as he introduced mr . clinton testifed to the political discord . thus , many berliners met with skepticism the urgings of the president for a broader role for reunited germany on the world stage . the political_scientist arnulf baring of berlin 's free_university cautioned that the germans are too caught up in the ragged struggle to unify the nation politically , economically and psychologically to heed mr . clinton 's call . "" clinton is urging the germans to take the peoples of east and central_europe under their wing , "" mr . baring said . "" but this does not fit the present frame of mind . """,has a topic of politics
"lead the soviet_union proposed unexpectedly today that an international endorsement of german unity include provisions for a staged withdrawal of all foreign troops from a united germany and strict limits on its military . the soviet_union proposed unexpectedly today that an international endorsement of german unity include provisions for a staged withdrawal of all foreign troops from a united germany and strict limits on its military . the proposals , introduced by foreign_minister eduard a . shevardnadze at today 's second ministerial session of the ''two plus four'' talks on german unity , were promptly rejected by the other participants the united_states , britain , france and the two germanys as an unwarranted restriction on the sovereignty of a future germany . at a concluding news conference , secretary of state james a . baker 3d said the soviet plan would ' 'restrict german sovereignty and would do so for some years . '' mr . baker also rejected a related soviet proposal that all foreign troops be withdrawn from berlin within six months of the city 's unification , noting that this would leave the city ringed with the 300 , 000 soviet_troops that are expected to remain for some time in the eastern part of a united germany . no significant progress apart from mr . shevardnadze 's surprise proposals , the six ministers apparently failed to make significant progress in their effort to negotiate an end to the allied rights over germany left over from world_war_ii . the session ended with what mr . baker described as a tentative agreement ''on the interim outline of the elements of a final settlement . '' the ministers also agreed to have experts prepare a list of remaining ''areas of concern'' and to propose appropriate forums for their resolution . much of the session was reportedly dominated by debate over mr . shevardnadze 's proposals . members of the western delegations speculated that the soviets had undertaken the initiative in part for domestic consumption , noting that a congress of the russian_republic 's communist_party was in progress , and that today was the 49th anniversary of nazi_germany 's invasion of the soviet_union . participants at the talks noted that mr . shevardnadze also stressed in his comments that the soviet_union was eager to reach agreement in time for an all european conference , scheduled for november , so it can endorse the outcome of the two plus four talks . the summit meeting of the conference on security and cooperation in europe could clear the way for all german elections in december , the date bonn is increasingly working toward . the west_german foreign_minister , hans_dietrich_genscher , said at the news conference that he had informed his colleagues ''about the wish of the germans to vote in a united voting area in december . '' disavows obstructionism mr . shevardnadze took pains at the news conference to stress that moscow was not seeking to block progress toward unity . ''i want to emphasize something very important , that we expect to have a final agreement that will resolve all aspects all of german unity by the end of this year , '' he said . despite such assurances and the suspicion that mr . shevardnadze was at least partly playing to a domestic audience , the soviet position underscored the difficulties remaining in reconciling moscow with the loss of its most important military and economic ally , east_germany . much of the real negotiating in the two plus four process has taken place between mr . shevardnadze and mr . genscher , who have held 10 meetings in recent months . beyond mr . shevardnadze 's specific proposals lay differences in the basic approach to the two plus four talks . foremost is moscow 's continuing insistence that the wartime allies set a transitional period after german unity during which they would retain some of their rights . the soviets have also sought to include substantive security issues , like the size of the future german_army , the alliance to which it would belong , or the withdrawal of allied forces , into a two plus four final settlement . the soviet concern apparently is that without these conditions , moscow would lose any leverage over a united germany . other forums favored the western allies have countered that all such security issues may be debated in the two plus four forum , but that they must be resolved only in other international negotiations , such as the vienna talks on conventional arm reductions , where germany would not be singled out for continuing special treatment . the allies have also argued that a united germany 's choice of alliance must ultimately be made by the germans , and that the task of the two plus four talks is only to end all vestigial allied rights and responsibilities over either germany or berlin . in his package proposal , mr . shevardnadze said the final document should include measures to limit the size of the future german_army and to shape it in such a way that it would be ''incapable of offensive operations . '' he also proposed that germany would remain bound for five years by all international treaties signed by west and east_germany , including those involving the warsaw_pact and nato . the proposal echoed earlier soviet demands to keep germany in both alliances , an idea rejected by the west . to renounce all rights the western outline of a draft settlement , as presented by mr . baker at the news conference , took an entirely different approach . it called on the four powers to renounce all their ' 'remaining rights and responsibilities , '' including those over berlin , and to codify the achievement of ''full and complete sovereignty'' by a united germany . mr . baker also vented unusually direct irritation with moscow . ''we are trying for our part to meet moscow 's appropriate security concerns , '' he said . ''but i have to say it is incumbent on the soviets to understand the concerns of the german states and of others in europe and in the united_states as well . ''",has a topic of politics
"a lawyer in toronto representing a former terror suspect once held by the united_states in guant_namo_bay , cuba , said he would withdraw from all terror related cases after finding a death_threat on his telephone answering_machine . the lawyer , rocco galati , received the message after he held a news conference this week where his client , abdurahman khadr , admitted he had trained at a ''qaeda related camp'' in afghanistan . mr . galati helped secure mr . khadr 's return to canada after he was released in afghanistan last fall . an emotional mr . galati played the coarse message for reporters and said the voice was familiar . he said he believed the source to be an american or canadian intelligence agency . colin_campbell ( nyt )",has a topic of politics
"an article on april 18 about experts who doubt that iraq has unconventional_weapons misstated the connection of a former united_nations inspector , who is among the skeptics , to the book ''war on iraq what team bush does n't want you to know . '' and a correction in this space on april 19 misspelled the former inspector 's surname . he was scott_ritter , not ridder he was a contributor to the book , which is by william rivers pitt .",has a topic of politics
"germany 's newly elected government today backed away from a threat to press nato to renounce a central tenet of its strategy and to pledge never to be the first to use nuclear_weapons . after meeting at the pentagon with defense secretary william s . cohen , the german defense minister , rudolf_scharping , said ''there is no intention in my government to question any core element of nato strategy , including the fact that nuclear forces play a fundamental political role . '' american officials said they were alarmed when the new german foreign_minister , joschka_fischer , a member of the environmentalist green_party , suggested in a magazine interview published this week that germany would press nato to renounce the possible first use of nuclear_arms . mr . cohen publicly rebuffed the german proposal . welcoming mr . scharping 's remarks today , mr . cohen said nato 's nuclear policy should remain unchanged . ''based on my conversations with minister scharping , '' mr . cohen said , ''i think that we have a meeting of the minds that the strategic concept is critical for nato 's security , that the strategic concept as far as the nuclear component should not be altered . '' the united_states is firmly opposed to any change in the doctrine allowing nato to make first use of nuclear_weapons in a war , arguing that it proved an effective deterrent during the cold_war and remains one today against small , nonnuclear nations that might develop chemical or biological_weapons . ''we believe it continues to serve a vital security purpose for the nato organization and should not be changed , '' mr . cohen said , standing next to mr . scharping at the news conference at the defense_department . the public debate within germany in recent days over nuclear_strategy suggests new rifts in the government coalition between the social democrats and the greens . in a coalition accord reached last month , the two parties agreed that nato should renounce the possible first use of nuclear_weapons , a clear concession to the greens . but it had been unclear to american officials whether gerhard_schroder , the social democrat who is the new chancellor , had accepted the declaration as an empty concession to the greens or would in fact move to question one of the central tenets of nato doctrine . mr . scharping , a social democrat on his first visit to washington as defense minister , said the new german_government had no intention of creating a rift with nato by acting unilaterally on the issue . ''nato is the most successful alliance we have ever seen in history so the main goal of our government in germany is to strengthen nato and its cohesion and to make nato able to face the challenges for the next century , '' he said . still , he said that his government ''is following the vision of a nuclear_weapons free world'' and that ''the necessity to use them may be extremely remote as it is written down in the actual nato strategy . ''",has a topic of politics
"on the fourth day of her nightmare , marianna winchester welcomed dozens more friends and acquaintances on monday who spoke of her son , ronald , 25 , a first lieutenant with the united states marine corps , in the past tense . life has seemed surreal for mrs . winchester since two marines and a priest came to her home on friday to tell her that her son , her older child , was killed a day earlier when a roadside_bomb exploded as his unit traveled on foot outside baghdad . three other marines were also killed in the explosion . ''no , my son is not dead , '' she remembered saying when they told her about the explosion . ''my son is dead ? '' on monday , wearing a shirt that said , ''may god bless our country and everyone who defends her , '' she sat in a living room lined with dozens of photos of her son , ronald dominick winchester , who was only eight days into his second tour of duty in iraq when he was killed . in one photo , as a young boy , he protectively hugged his younger sister , kristine . a woman came in with a blond toddler who scampered up the hallway stairs , toward ron 's bedroom , which the family had once jokingly called the shrine . ( what should she do with all his military memorabilia , she had asked ronnie . put it in the shrine , she said he said , and save it for when i can tell my children about iraq . ) family and close friends came in the side door at the kitchen , where kristine , 23 , removed plastic wrap from deli trays . she had slept in a t_shirt that said , ''marines rule because , '' followed by a litany of reasons in small print . mrs . winchester 's husband was out at a church , making arrangements for a memorial service . lieutenant winchester was an offensive lineman in his football career at chaminade high school in mineola and at the united_states_naval_academy at annapolis , which he graduated from in 2001 . it was so typical of ronnie so much a leader , so much an offensive lineman that he would be expected to be out in front of his unit when the mine detonated , his family and friends said . ''did he suffer ? '' mrs . winchester asked on monday . ''everyone tells me no . they gave him morphine . i wondered what part of him was injured . i imagine it was his legs , because when you 're stepping on a mine , naturally . '' her voice broke off . then , in the den , mrs . winchester showed a visitor a drawing that was a favorite of her son 's . it showed a firefighter amid the rubble of the world trade center , handing an american flag to a marine , who says ''i 'll take it from here . '' she said her son was a hero , and that he died for ''all of us . '' ''never once did he say something negative about the war , bush or anyone else , '' she added . she held printed copies of her last e mail messages from her son , dated last tuesday . she had read them over and over in the past two days . she said that reading between the lines , she knew that he knew something was different about this tour . she had felt as much during his last few weeks at home , when he sat around the house , just relaxing , not doing too much . she would ask ''are you bored ? '' and her son would reply '''no , i just want to chill . ''' in the messages , lieutenant winchester wrote of the ominous and the mundane . it was hot , and his body was adjusting slowly . ''the arabs are getting better , '' he wrote . ''i pray i do n't lose any limbs or come home at all . we shoot at everything and anything that digs . how is papa and poochie ? i am writing you on my aol account so do n't cancel it . send small packages . do n't need anything yet . will need head and shoulders shampoo , small bottles of it . also gatorade mix , fruit punch . tell kris to send pictures . '' he signed it , ''love , ron . '' lieutenant winchester 's maternal grandfather , dominick gatta , 81 , known as papa , who enlisted in the marines and served in the pacific during world_war_ii , stood in the den and sobbed . ''may god strike me dead , i never said , 'ronnie , you 've got to be a marine , ''' mr . gatta said , breaking into sobs again . he led a visitor to his home next door , which was decorated with photos of colonels , generals , saints and lieutenant winchester . the blanket the marines issued mr . gatta when he joined in 1940 covered his bed , and in a den , photos of him as a star boxer in the marines covered a wall . mrs . winchester said she told her father to be strong she could bury only one at a time . outside annapolis , some 200 miles south , shari marra , whom mrs . winchester called her son 's second mother , also grieved . ms . marra , who works in the athletic department at the naval_academy , was lieutenant winchester 's sponsor . for four years , she had fed and occasionally sheltered him and had done his laundry , as part of a program for out of town students . ''why are we over there ? what are we doing ? '' she said , weeping over the phone . she described how annapolis 's football community was reeling from the loss . she had sent lieutenant winchester an instant message the day before his death , and she had admonished him to be careful . ''i see these boys come and go and i know this is what they want to do , what they would do , '' she said . ''but it 's the biggest loss . i do n't know how any of us are going to get over it . ''",has a topic of politics
"lead the reunification of germany is inevitable , deputy_secretary_of_state lawrence s . eagleburger said in an interview published today . the reunification of germany is inevitable , deputy_secretary_of_state lawrence s . eagleburger said in an interview published today . ''for me it goes without question that germany will be reunited , '' mr . eagleburger , the state_department 's second ranking official , told the magazine der_spiegel . ''this process is now inevitable , but i just cannot tell you how long it will take . '' mr . eagleburger , who is deputy to secretary of state james a . baker 3d , is an associate and longtime colleague of former secretary of state , henry a . kissinger . he said in the interview that the united_states did not share the concern of some europeans about the prospect of a powerful unified germany re emerging in the center of europe . ''the united_states is the country in which worries about a reunification of germany are at their smallest , '' he said . mr . eagleburger said that washington welcomed the changes in eastern_europe as something it had long been seeking , but that it was too soon to judge whether the cold_war was over . asked if he thought the changes were irreversible , he replied ''every change of this type can be reversed if you have enough tanks and bayonets and are prepared to use them . '' but he added that he saw no one in eastern_europe who was prepared to use force to this extent to prevent change . clamor in the east",has a topic of politics
"the department of defense has identified 754 american service members who have died since the start of the iraq_war . it confirmed the deaths of the following americans yesterday buryj , jesse r. , 21 , pfc . , army canton , ohio 66th military_police company . kenny , christopher j. , 32 , first lt . , army miami first infantry division . marcus , lyndon a . jr . , 21 , pfc . , army long_beach , calif . first infantry division . sprayberry , marvin r . iii , 24 , sgt . , army tehachapi , calif . first infantry division . wahl , gregory l. , 30 , sgt . , army salisbury , n.c. first infantry division . the struggle for iraq",has a topic of politics
"for the united_states forces in iraq , all roads now lead to tikrit , a once bleak farming town that saddam_hussein imprinted with his opulent style of mosques and palaces . it may be the last place that his loyalists could mount a fierce battle against allied forces , a concern among american officials . ''it 's the last strongpoint of iraqi defense , '' said chief_warrant_officer joe goellner of v corps intelligence . ''it 's the last big symbol of the regime . '' the ancestral home of mr . hussein , the power base of his baath_party , a place even more symbolic of his government than baghdad , tikrit is the last significant city not yet in the hands of allied troops . military officers at the army headquarters here said that at least 4 , 000 iraqi paramilitary troops and baath_party militiamen were holed up in tikrit , and that the united_states_marines were massing in force . air bombardments , as well as special_forces activity , had already begun . a substantial force of marines officers declined to say how many are set to move into the tikrit area within days to root out iraqi forces in the city , which is on the west_bank of the tigris 100 miles northwest of baghdad , and has a population of about 100 , 000 . as an example of the seriousness with which the military command views tikrit , the air_force was set to attack iraqi positions in tikrit with the largest conventional bomb in the american arsenal , the 21 , 000 pound moab , officially known as the massive ordnance air blast . the satellite guided bomb , sometimes dropped from a c_130 cargo plane , bursts six feet above the ground and destroys almost everything within its target range . unofficially , officers and enlisted people refer to the weapon as the mother of all bombs , an allusion to mr . hussein 's description of the first gulf_war as the mother of all battles . military officials said this morning that an order to use the bombs had not been given yet , partly out of concern about civilian casualties . officers said that the iraqi troops , described as hard core loyalists of mr . hussein , are well armed with artillery as well as mechanized units . many of the troops are in bunkers in the city . over the years , a high percentage of senior military officers , including generals and members of the republican guard as well as mr . hussein 's personal security force , came from the tikrit area . maj . gen . stanley a . mcchrystal , a pentagon spokesman , said on thursday that allied forces had to be ''prepared for a big fight . '' as to the iraqi troops , general mcchrystal said , ''we are trying to see whether it 's a combination of special republican guard elements , maybe some remnants of other forces , maybe some baathists , saddam fedayeen . '' the latter is a special iraqi paramilitary force . tikrit turned into an improbably glittering city with ornate mosques and palaces and villas for mr . hussein and his trusted aides after mr . hussein 's baath_party took over iraq in 1968 . it is overwhelmingly sunni_muslim and was viewed by iraqis as mr . hussein 's second home after baghdad . tikrit has extraordinary psychological importance to the government . it is the closest city to the tiny village of uja , where mr . hussein was born . its capture by the allied forces would signal , in some ways , the end of the reign of mr . hussein . the city itself has wide streets and several airports . its hospitals , schools and roads are among the best in the country . the iraqi military had air bases and barracks there . if any city was loyal to mr . hussein , it was tikrit . senior government officials , who have villas in tikrit , may also be hiding there , officers believe . tikrit and the surrounding desert were not only home to the government elite . the area also served as a centerpiece for mr . hussein 's domestic security services and command and control installations . the government has already lost baghdad , basra , mosul and kirkuk to allied forces . although the iraqi force is expected to put up a powerful fight , american officers say that it also might simply disperse . tikrit and the surrounding towns , including samarra , contain many members of mr . hussein 's extended family and tribe , who formed much of the iraqi government elite under his rule . before mr . hussein , tikrit 's fame rested on the fact that it was the birthplace of the great muslim conqueror saladin , who seized jerusalem from the crusaders in the 12th_century . statues and pictures of mr . hussein are plentiful in tikrit , and it is also known for its huge shrine to mr . hussein 's late mother , subha tulfah al musallat , known as the mother of militants . a nation at war iraqi stronghold",has a topic of politics
"lead leaders of the two germanys said today that the summit meeting had improved conditions for the unification of their countries and praised washington 's readiness to expand trade with the soviets . leaders of the two germanys said today that the summit meeting had improved conditions for the unification of their countries and praised washington 's readiness to expand trade with the soviets . chancellor helmut_kohl of west_germany said the meeting between president_bush and president mikhail s . gorbachev of the soviet_union ''has further improved the international conditions for the unity process between the germanys . '' his foreign_minister , hans_dietrich_genscher , and prime_minister lothar de maiziere of east_germany said they saw the summit conference as improving conditions for german unity and disarmament . ''the resolution of the uttermost aspects of german unity requires new and far reaching progress in the c.s.c.e . process , in disarmament , and in the overall cooperation between west and east , especially in the area of economics , '' mr . kohl said in a statement . 'a great success' the c.s.c.e. , the 35 nation conference on security and cooperation in europe , deals with military security , economic cooperation and human_rights . mr . kohl said that progress in reducing strategic nuclear_weapons , the beginning of a worldwide ban on chemical_weapons and the ending of nuclear_testing were equally important . in addition , the chancellor said united_states readiness to expand trade with the soviets was of ''psychological importance to promote the reform politics of president gorbachev . '' in an interview with west_german government television , mr . genscher called the summit talks ''a great success with its positive aspects that will also have positive results on the developments in europe . '' he added , ''and that means also for the europeans and the unification of germany , because relations of the two superpowers with each other have fundamentally improved . '' 'the deciding message' mr . de maiziere , also interviewed by west_german television , said the summit meeting showed that the superpowers were rethinking their approach to security . ''the deciding message that i think i heard is that in the area of stabilizing security they are having new and very different ideas , '' mr . de maiziere said of mr . bush and mr . gorbachev . ''they are trying not to define the security theme militarily not end it with rocket counting but with considerations of economic ties , with cultural ties , '' mr . de maiziere said . summit in washington",has a topic of politics
"a hearing before a united_states congressional committee this week that bluntly assessed what a breakup of canada would mean for the united_states attracted little attention in washington . but it reverberated loudly here , leaving many canadians either flattered by the attention or resentful of outside interference . the hearing on wednesday before the house subcommittee on the western_hemisphere focused on the security and economic implications of a secession by quebec . ''here it had n't really sunk in yet that the country almost broke apart and may still do so , '' said mel watkins , a professor of canadian studies at the university of toronto . having the unraveling of canada laid out in a washington hearing room , professor watkins said , made canadians pay attention in a way they never would have if the same arguments had been made in ottawa . the hearing , broadcast in canada and covered extensively by local newspapers , made many canadians sqirm , especially in quebec , as witnesses described the chaos that could follow if quebec voted to pull out of canada , which almost happened last october , to washington 's surprise . and some thought the united_states should mind its own business . ''an exercise that is off the charts on the paranoia index , '' is how a cbc commentator described the hearing . ''when big brother takes an interest , it can go both ways , '' said alan w . sullivan , president of the canadian institute of international affairs , an independent organization in toronto . ''the united_states is such an important player in the canadian psyche that it grates on canadian nerves when the united_states does pay attention to us , as well as when it does n't pay attention to us . '' the united_states has considered quebec a strictly domestic issue for canada , its most important trading partner . but the congressman who organized the hearing , tom campbell , a republican from california , argued that the united_states was not paying enough attention to what was going on north of the border . he said the north_american_free_trade_agreement raised direct issues for the united_states , like whether an independent quebec would automatically be allowed to join nafta . a view presented several times at the hearing was that admission for sovereign quebec would not be automatic , and that by stating so clearly , washington would help the people of the province understand the consequences of secession . one witness , charles f . doran , had already raised tempers in canada with an article published this month in foreign_affairs magazine speculating on the future of canada . mr . doran , a distinguished professor of international_relations at johns_hopkins_university , argued that if quebec seceded , canada would unravel . the poor eastern provinces of canada would be physically cut off from the rest of the country , he wrote , and the wealthier western provinces would have little incentive to remain in a union that subsidizes the poor provinces , or gives too much power and control to ontario , the most populous of the 10 provinces . professor doran speculated that alberta , a sparsely_populated prairie province , might even try to apply for statehood with the united_states . that prompted this headline in the financial_post , a toronto daily ''give us your poor , your tired , your huddled masses and alberta . '' many canadian newspapers welcomed the hearings because of the perception that washington could analyze the quebec issue without the histrionics it raises in canada . but there was also some embarrassment over the airing of canada 's internal problems in washington . neither the united states state department nor the canadian government sent any representatives to testify . in fact , no canadians testified at all the four witnesses were all americans . ''in a way it was a classic canadian american story , filled with a lot of absurdities , '' professor watkins said . ''there it was , a hearing about canada , with no canadians testifying . and though it was supposed to be for the benefit of the united_states , the hearing room was filled with only canadian journalists . ''",has a topic of politics
"iraqi and american_troops arrested the second highest official in the iraqi health ministry on thursday , charging that he funneled millions of dollars to rogue shiite militants who kidnapped and killed iraqi civilians . the united_states military said in a statement that the official was suspected of using his position to run a rogue unit of the mahdi army , the shiite_militia that claims loyalty to the cleric_moktada_al_sadr . the statement accused the official of flooding the health ministry 's payroll with militants , embezzling american money meant to pay for iraq 's overworked medical system and using health ministry ''facilities and services for sectarian kidnapping and murder . '' the military 's statement did not identify the official , but several iraqi government officials said he was deputy health minister hakim al zamili , a shiite with longstanding ties to the sadr organization . an interior_ministry official said the authorities in recent weeks had come to believe that mr . zamili was using government ambulances to ferry weapons and militants across sadr_city , hiding them from american raids . mr . zamili 's detainment was the latest of several high profile arrests or killings of commanders from the mahdi army in recent weeks . he was the fifth iraqi deputy or cabinet level official to be arrested and charged with corruption since 2003 , according to iraq 's commission on public integrity , and the first known example of a senior iraqi official charged with directly contributing to the country 's convulsive sectarian_violence . he was arrested as new iraqi_army and police checkpoints appeared all over baghdad as part of the new security plan for the city . though it was unclear whether mr . zamili 's arrest was part of the new plan , it underscored the challenge that american_troops faced as they tried to secure the capital while relying on an iraqi government with questionable loyalties . the health ministry is one of six ministries controlled by officials affiliated with mr . sadr . and even as iraqi hospital officials complain of medicine and equipment shortages , the ministry has often been the site of dramatic kidnappings and killings . in november , mr . zamili 's predecessor , ammar al saffar , a shiite , was kidnapped by at least 24 gunmen wearing the uniforms of interior_ministry policemen . though he was abducted in a sunni neighborhood , there were questions at the time about whether he had been removed by shiite rivals . neither american nor iraqi officials connected mr . zamili to mr . saffar 's kidnapping , but the american statement said the arrested official was implicated in the deaths of several health ministry officials , including a director general in diyala_province . though the statement from the american military said iraqi forces had made the arrest , witnesses said american humvees flooded the ministry building about 9 a.m. , firing warning shots into the air and breaking windows before seizing mr . zamili , several guards and important paperwork in his office . shiite officials said mr . zamili 's arrest was an affront to iraqi sovereignty . the health minister , ali al shammari , called the arrest an abduction and demanded proof to support the charges against his deputy . bahar al araji , one of 30 members of the sadr bloc in parliament , said american_troops should have sought permission to search the ministry from the prime_minister or an iraqi court . ''this is not an attack on the sadr organization , '' he said . ''it 's an attack on the iraqi government . '' his comments suggested that the sadr organization planned to stand by its stated policy of refusing to outwardly fight american and iraqi troops as the security plan moves through baghdad . in recent weeks , sadr officials have repeatedly sought to show that the mahdi army is only a defensive organization that aims to protect shiite residents from sunni attacks . the american military also said in a statement that an airstrike in anbar_province on two suspected safe houses for foreign_fighters killed 13 insurgents . but witnesses said the airstrike flattened four houses , killing at least 35 people , including women and children . there was no immediate way to confirm either claim . witnesses said the site of the airstrike , a mostly sunni arab area northeast of amiriya , near falluja , had been the site of vicious battles between fighters with al_qaeda in mesopotamia and local tribes . one tribal leader said the clashes started because al_qaeda wanted tribal_leaders to join its fight , and they refused . violence also continued to rage near the capital , with news_agencies reporting that gunmen killed 14 men from the same sunni family just north of baghdad . the united_states military announced that four marines were killed wednesday in separate episodes in anbar_province . seven other people were killed the same day when a marine transport helicopter crashed in an insurgent heavy region northwest of baghdad . and in what appeared to be a rare case of cross sectarian solidarity , the police in diyala_province said a family of 25 shiites moving from a sunni area after receiving death threats was saved from death on thursday when their sunni neighbors repelled an insurgent ambush . iraqi_security_forces were called in to help , and continued the battle , killing six gunmen . the reach of war",has a topic of politics
"when maj . gen . david h . petraeus flew to baghdad on june 14 , 2003 , he had a blunt message for the american led occupation authority . as the commander of the 101st_airborne_division , general petraeus had been working tirelessly to win the support of iraqis in mosul and the neighboring provinces in northern iraq . but the authority 's decree to abolish the iraqi_army and to forgo paying 350 , 000 soldiers had jolted much of iraq . riots had broken out in cities . just the day before , 16 of general petraeus 's soldiers had been wounded trying to put down a violent demonstration . arriving at the huge abu_ghraib north palace for a ceremony , general petraeus spied walter b . slocombe , an adviser to l . paul_bremer iii , who headed the authority . sidling up to him , general petraeus said that the decision to leave the soldiers without a livelihood had put american lives at risk . more than a year later , mr . bremer 's disbanding of the iraqi_army still casts a shadow over the occupation of iraq . the american military had been counting on using iraqi soldiers to help rebuild the country and impose order along its borders . instead , as a violent insurgency convulsed the nation , united_states forces found themselves deprived of a way to put an iraqi face on the occupation . while mr . bremer soon reversed himself on paying salaries to the ex soldiers , his decision to formally dissolve the iraqi military and methodically build a new one , battalion by battalion , still ranks as one of the most contentious issues of the post_war . mr . slocombe argues that the move was necessary to establish an iraqi military that was not tainted by corruption and was acceptable to ethnic groups that had long been repressed by saddam_hussein 's military . he also says that it was the only possible course because so many iraqi soldiers had fled their posts and drifted back into the population and military bases had been picked clean by looters . but senior american generals were privately urging a much different approach , according to interviews with military and civilian officials . top commanders were meeting secretly with former iraqi officers to discuss the best way to rebuild the force and recall iraqi soldiers back to duty when mr . bremer arrived in baghdad with his plan . ''it was absolutely the wrong decision , '' said col . paul hughes of the army , who served as an aide to jay_garner , a retired three star general and the first civilian administrator of iraq . ''we changed from being a liberator to an occupier with that single decision , '' he said . ''by abolishing the army , we destroyed in the iraqi mind the last symbol of sovereignty they could recognize and as a result created a significant part of the resistance . '' drafting the plan when the bush_administration first began to plan for post_war iraq in early 2003 , disbanding the iraqi military was not part of the strategy . douglas j . feith , the under secretary of defense , outlined a policy for retaining and retraining the existing iraqi military in a march 2003 meeting of the national_security_council that president_bush attended . the idea , which was developed with general garner , was to take existing units , remove high level baathists and supporters of saddam_hussein , and put the soldiers to work . the iraqi military , pentagon officials reasoned , would have its own transport and could help with the reconstruction , functioning as a kind of modern day civilian conservation corps . units that proved themselves capable and politically reliable could help the american military maintain order . at the white_house meeting , mr . feith made another argument for using the existing army . iraq was racked by unemployment and taking 350 , 000 armed men , cutting off their income and , in effect , throwing them out on the street could be disastrous . american commanders also backed that approach . in a march 2003 meeting with a team of visiting pentagon officials , general john p . abizaid , then gen . tommy_franks 's deputy , expressed concerns that the americans would arouse resentment if they enforced security in iraq largely by themselves . he favored a quick turnover of power to an interim iraqi authority and the use of iraqi forces to complement and eventually replace the americans . ''we must in all things be modest , '' general abizaid said , according to notes taken by a pentagon official . ''we are an antibody in their culture . '' there was a military imperative as well . the american commanders knew they might have sufficient forces to oust mr . hussein , but it would be difficult to control a large nation with 25 million people and porous_borders with syria , iran , saudi_arabia , turkey and kuwait . the v corps , which oversaw united_states_army forces in iraq , wanted iraqi_army units to patrol the borders to block terrorists , jihadists and iranian sponsored groups from sneaking into the country and to prevent loyalists and possible caches of unconventional_weapons from getting out , a former v corps officer said . the bush_administration did not just discuss keeping the old army . general garner 's team found contractors to retrain it . mpri , a consulting company based in alexandria , va . , and run by carl vuono , a retired general and former army chief of staff , received an initial contract for 625 , 000 . the company sent a nine member team to kuwait to begin creating a program to involve former iraqi soldiers in reconstruction . ronco , a washington consulting company , developed a proposal to screen iraqi soldiers so they could join a new fighting force or be retrained for other duties . the company drew up a detailed plan for three screening centers in northern , central and southern iraq . civilian and military planners had been actively encouraging iraqi_army units to surrender en_masse or to flee and not fight for mr . hussein . there were indications the iraqis would do just that . faced with advancing american and british_troops and a furious barrage from the air , most of the enemy soldiers fled in the first days of the war instead of surrendering . still , the american generals decided it was vital to use the iraqi forces , who many officers figured had done what they had been asked . the new iraqi military on april 17 , little more than a week after american_troops first entered baghdad , general abizaid joined in a satellite video conference with senior officials , including paul d . wolfowitz , the deputy defense secretary . general abizaid noted that no iraqi units were still in place but urged that the united_states form a three division interim iraqi military using units that had ' 'self demobilized'' as well as members of opposition groups , who would be invited to appear at processing centers . in iraq , the american generals were trying to field a new iraqi military . on may 9 , lt . gen . david mckiernan and other senior officers met with faris naima , a former iraqi officer , in a meeting coordinated by a c.i.a . official in baghdad . mr . naima had the professional bearing of a soldier and spoke fluent_english . he had been the commander of al bakr military college , a training ground for iraq 's top officers . suspect politically , but still valued by mr . hussein 's government , he was appointed as the iraqi ambassador to the philippines and then austria . according to a report by kuna , the kuwaiti news_agency , mr . hussein 's son qusay ordered him and his wife to return to baghdad after their tour in vienna , but mr . naima refused . wearing a frayed business suit at the meeting with the american generals , mr . naima pulled out a folded piece of paper from his jacket that outlined his plan for how to proceed . because looting had broken out in baghdad and crime was rampant , he said a show of power was needed . the most important thing , he said , was security . he also said the americans had to act fast to get the iraqi noncommissioned_officers and the police back to work , according to an officer who was present . mr . naima urged the americans to establish three iraqi military divisions , which would be deployed in northern , central and southern iraq . an army company would be stationed in each major town to back up the police . mr . naima said there were plenty of potential military leaders who were not committed baathists . the idea , he said , would be to start at the top , create a new iraqi ministry of defense , and then work down . all the officers would be required to denounce the baath_party . when the americans wondered where they would find the officers , mr . naima had an answer . i can bring them to you , he told the generals . he also offered some political advice . the americans should announce a departure plan so iraqis did not view them as occupiers . and they had to pay the military , the police and the bureaucrats . iraq was a nation of civil_servants , he said , and they needed their salaries to survive . the americans were impressed . they thought they could work from the top down as well from the bottom up to summon iraqi soldiers to duty , screen them and quickly install a new force . while the american generals and the c.i.a . were working on reviving the army , general garner 's occupation authority was making parallel efforts . soon after arriving in baghdad , one of his top planners , colonel hughes of the army , heard from an officer in the 101st_airborne_division , whose troops were patrolling baghdad . some former iraqi officers had told the americans they wanted to receive their salaries . after securing approval from senior officers , colonel hughes met with the group at the officers' club of the iraqi republican guard . the men , calling themselves the independent military gathering , said they wanted to cooperate with the americans . though many wanted to work outside the military , they were willing to supply names of potential recruits , including lower ranking noncommissioned officials . before the war , they had had removed computers containing military personnel records from the iraqi defense ministry . eventually , they gave the americans a list of some 50 , 000 to 70 , 000 names , including the military_police . in washington , though , mr . bremer was developing a dramatically different approach . a boyish looking former diplomat , mr . bremer was to replace general garner in may . he would become known in baghdad for his take charge personality and his trademark desert boots worn with brooks_brothers suits . he believed that many of the problems with violence and crime that the united_states faced in iraq stemmed from iraqi fears that mr . hussein and his baathist supporters might outlast the american occupiers and claw their way back to power . he wanted to take bold action to demonstrate that the baathists were through , once and for all . in a memo to the pentagon , mr . bremer , noted his desire that ' 'my arrival in iraq be marked by clear , public and decisive steps to reassure iraqis that we are determined to eradicate saddamism . '' while his main purpose was to promote the de baathification of iraq , plans to abolish mr . hussein 's army soon became part of the initiative . mr . slocombe , who was under secretary of defense in the clinton_administration , recommended that the iraqi military and the ministry of defense be formally eliminated . as he saw it , the iraqi_army had gone awol . there were no longer intact divisions , and many military vehicles and bases had been looted . moreover , mr . slocombe thought the force was corrupt and dominated by sunni officers . he did not believe it was feasible to recall the existing army and felt there was no choice but to build a new one from scratch . after he arrived in iraq , mr . slocombe met with mr . naima , former iraqi officers and general mckiernan . mr . slocombe thanked the iraqi officers but made it clear that he did not view them as the nucleus of a new iraqi command , a participant said . it was a blow not only to the iraqis but to the american military officers who thought they were identifying senior officers to help remake the army . mr . feith , the senior deputy to defense secretary donald h . rumsfeld , said in an interview that mr . bremer 's thinking represented a necessary shift . mr . feith said that using the iraqi_army had seemed sensible because the value of putting an intact army to use outweighed the disadvantages of using a potentially corrupt force . ''it made sense at first to say we are going to use them , '' mr . feith said . ''when we saw that the army did not remain in units , that the people disappeared , that looters had stripped all of the infrastructure , all of the various pros that weighed in favor of using the army had been negated by events . and we were left with the cons , a bad , corrupt , cruel and undemocratic army . '' after arriving in iraq , mr . bremer formally issued order no . 2 , the dissolution of entities , which abolished the army . the order , dated may 23 , noted that the occupation authority planned to create in the near future the new iraqi corps as the first step in forming a national self_defense capability for a free iraq . but the schedule for building that force was methodical and no one who had served in the iraqi military at the rank of colonel and above was to be recruited without thorough vetting . there were provisions for making a termination payment to officers who were mustered out , but salaries would no longer be paid . there was no mention of a program to retrain the troops for other tasks . the administration 's role the role of top bush_administration officials in approving the plan is unclear . mr . slocombe said the decision was the subject of extensive consultations with senior defense_department officials in washington . a draft of mr . bremer 's decree abolishing the army , he said , was sent to mr . rumsfeld before it was issued . lawrence_di_rita , mr . rumsfeld 's spokesman , said in an e mail message that the issue was not taken up by cabinet level officials and was ' 'definitely not one that the secretary of defense decided . '' general peter_pace of the marines , the vice chairman of the joint_chiefs_of_staff , said the joint chiefs were not consulted about the decision . condoleezza_rice , mr . bush 's national_security adviser , indicated that the idea did not originate in the national_security_council but acknowledged that the white_house did not object . ''i do n't think that anybody thought it was wildly out of context with what we were trying to achieve and the whole structure had been set up so that some of those decisions could be made in the field or through the pentagon chain , '' she said in an interview . in the field , however , the plan was more contentious than many in washington realized . much of the debate did not concern the abolition of the army but the subsequent plan overseen by mr . slocombe to establish a new army from the ground up . under his schedule , which mr . slocombe said was worked out with military planners , it would take a year to field the first division of infantry about 12 , 000 iraqi troops and two years to train and equip a three division force . to avoid the taint of baathism , no one from the rank of colonel and above could join without vetting . the military did not like that approach . the commanders did not care whether the army was formally disbanded as long as a new one was quickly assembled to take its place . but general abizaid wanted iraqi soldiers available in several months , not several years , planners at his command said . when col . john agoglia , the liaison between the occupation authority and general franks of the central_command , learned of the plan , he quickly called the military headquarters in qatar . ''there was a debate , which was not whether to formally disband the old army and not primarily about whether to recall old units , '' mr . slocombe said in an interview . ''it was whether to put the process to train , equip and mold an iraqi_army under the command of select former iraqi generals . '' mr . slocombe said that his approach was no slower than that advocated by american commanders , because the extensive looting of the bases would have hindered retraining . he argued that his plan would produce a more reliable ally , not a sunni led force that would not be accepted by the shiites and other ethnic_group . a former planner from general franks 's command strongly disagreed . ''we wanted to rapidly call the soldiers back , get them on our side and then sort out who could and could not be trusted , '' said the planner , who did not want to be identified because he did want to be publicly caught up in the controversy . ''it would have been a lot faster than building one battalion at a time . and we wanted to send a psychological message that they were going to be part of the new iraq , to prevent them from turning against us . '' general garner , who was winding up his service in iraq at that time , was also opposed . he said he had not been given advance notice of the plan . ''what was happening was that hundreds of iraqi soldiers were just beginning to come back , '' mr . garner said . ''we could have brought back and paired them up in former units . instead , we just shut the door on them . '' general franks and his commanders were in an awkward position , trying to influence a decision that already had been made . in late may , rear admiral james a . robb , the central_command 's chief planning officer , told mr . slocombe that general abizaid believed that former senior iraqi officers should not be disqualified and that the training should be accelerated . general franks followed up in a video conference on june 2 with mr . bremer . ''i think the velocity of doing it can be characterized as a miscalculation , '' general franks said about the plan in an interview . he also urged mr . bremer to pay the demobilized soldiers , who had few job prospects in a nation with soaring unemployment rates . general petraeus reinforced that message when he ran into mr . slocombe at the military ceremony in baghdhad two weeks later . in a compromise , mr . slocombe agreed that senior iraqi officers could serve on an advisory board , but without the prospect of command , the idea soon withered . soon after mr . bremer issued his order abolishing the army , the occupation authority made a discovery . he had initially decided to bar officers from the rank of colonel and above unless they could prove they were not high ranking baathists . but an examination of personnel records showed that important baathists did not appear in large numbers until the rank of major_general . even then , only 50 per cent of those officers were affected . that was the point mr . naima had made with general mckiernan . there was another problem with the plans for the iraqi_army . the acronym for the new iraqi corps turned out to be a profanity in arabic , so the name had to be changed . stretching the military as the insurgency took root in the volatile sunni_triangle and in other iraqi cities , the united_states military was finding itself increasingly stretched thin . at the same time general abizaid was pressing mr . bremer and mr . slocombe to speed up the training of the military , he also urged that a militia be established to help fill the security gap . but members of the new iraqi civil_defense corps lived at home and were not a national force . mr . slocombe and maj . general paul d . eaton , who was brought in to oversee the training of the army , drafted a new plan to accelerate it , taking advantage of an agreement to train iraqi officers in jordan . when fighting erupted in falluja earlier this year , however , the newly trained iraqi_security_forces did not acquit themselves well . an iraqi_army unit showed little stomach for battle . when ordered to join american_marines in combat , the soldiers refused to board a helicopter to take them to the town , saying they would not bear arms against fellow iraqis . in june , almost a year after he voiced his concerns about the initial decision not to pay the army , general petraeus was appointed to a new post training the new iraqi_army . in recognition of iraq 's new sovereignty , a veteran iraqi general is serving as the army chief of staff , and some senior officers have been recruited . general petraeus has trained one brigade of a new intervention force to fight insurgents and another brigade of regular army troops . he intends to have a division of each by january but he and his military and civilian bosses have a larger goal in mind . by having an iraqi_army that can defeat the insurgency and secure the peace , they know , the americans eventually can go home . ''i know where this ends , '' general petraeus said when he took on his new post . ''it ends with the iraqis in charge of their country . '' 'catastrophic success' michael r . gordon , the chief military correspondent of the times , covered the war in iraq and its aftermath . he reported from the allied land forces command and from several united_states_army divisions . since then , he has been reporting on the conflict for a book to be published in 2005 by pantheon books , a unit of the knopf publishing group . articles in this series on american preparations for the war and its aftermath draw on dozens of interviews with current and former military officers and occupation officials , as well as officials at the pentagon and the white_house . they also draw on government documents . christopher mann , jeremiah cushman , mike alpern and thomas hommel served as researchers for this report . video of michael r . gordon , additional photographs and previous articles in the series are online nytimes . com international . the conflict in iraq winning the peace",has a topic of politics
"to the editor re ''malarial treatment for chinese aids patients prompts inquiry in u.s . '' ( march 4 ) aids patients who voluntarily submit as a last resort to dr . henry j . heimlich 's malaria treatments are at the least making a contribution to our knowledge and may , in the process , have their lives prolonged . innovative thinkers like dr . heimlich make tremendous contributions toward solving problems medical , social , technological . not all of these ideas will prove successful , but ask the people who are alive because of the heimlich maneuver whether it 's worth trying to find new ways . phyllis bogen cresskill , n.j .",has a topic of science
"in the latest indication that a warming climate has significantly affected the northernmost regions of the earth , scientists reported today that the extent of ice in the arctic sea declined about 2 percent from 1978 to 1987 . three separate studies in the last year have found that the part of the northern hemisphere covered by snow has been shrinking , that sea_ice near greenland has become substantially thinner and that alaskan snow melted two weeks earlier in the 1980 's than in the 1940 's . a fourth study found that a warmer climate has profoundly disrupted ecosystems in northwestern ontario , threatening lake trout fisheries , cutting the flow of water into lakes and making them more fertile but less able to flush out pollutants . now the latest study , appearing in today 's issue of the british journal nature , shows that sea_ice in the arctic receded slightly toward the north_pole in the 1980 's . the finding is based on an analysis of measurements made every other day from october 1978 to august 1987 by a sensing instrument aboard a satellite . no ice change in antarctic the analysis was performed by dr . per gloersen of the national_aeronautics_and_space_administration 's goddard space flight center at greenbelt , md . , and by dr . william j . campbell of the united states geological survey ice and climate project at the university of puget sound in tacoma , wash . in contrast to the arctic , the study found no significant changes in the extent of antarctic sea_ice . the authors of the study said they did not know the reason for this difference . but there is more ocean in the southern hemisphere , other scientists say , and the ocean absorbs heat and tends to delay warming . dr . gloersen and dr . mitchell note in their report that computerized simulations of the atmosphere 's workings show that the southern hemisphere warms more slowly than the northern hemisphere when atmospheric concentrations of carbon_dioxide are doubled . carbon_dioxide , which traps heat in the atmosphere , causing the earth to warm , is increasing because of the burning of fossil_fuels like coal and oil . many scientists believe that growing amounts of the gas in the atmosphere will cause the global climate to warm significantly , perhaps even catastrophically , over the next few decades . the last decade , on the whole , was the world 's warmest since people began keeping temperature records in the latter part of the 19th_century . but scientists disagree on whether this recent warming was caused by the increase in heat trapping gases or is a result of the climate system 's natural variability . "" the smoking_gun has not been identified yet , "" dr . john e . walsh , an atmospheric scientist at the university of illinois at urbana champaign , said in an interview . nevertheless , he noted in a commentary in nature , computer simulations suggest that the warming would be noticed sooner in the arctic than elsewhere in the northern hemisphere . dr . gloersen said in an interview that the observed decrease in arctic sea_ice could be an indicator of long term climatic change and consequently "" bears close scrutiny "" for the next 10 to 20 years . in looking at all the recent studies involving warming and the northern latitudes , dr . walsh said , "" you begin to think that something 's really going on , but if you look closer , there 's usually a caveat that goes with each one . "" for example , he said , the gloersen campbell study shows that although the area of sea_ice receded toward the poles , the area of open water within the ice area has also decreased . retreating ice fills holes "" the position of the ice edge has gone north , "" he said , "" but north of that ice edge , some of what used to be open water is filled in with ice . so you ca n't say we 've lost 2 percent of the ice on the basis of their results . we 've lost some , but a little less than 2 percent . "" dr . gloersen 's explanation is that as the ice retreats , its distribution becomes more compact . there is a further puzzle . computer simulations show that with global_warming , arctic areas should warm more than temperate areas , dr . walsh said , adding , "" but the arctic has not warmed any more than the rest of the northern hemisphere . "" despite all the qualifications , dr . walsh said , "" there 's certainly some evidence accumulating "" of an arctic impact of a warming_trend . if what is happening in the arctic is a sign of a global_warming trend , scientists say , that trend could be interrupted by the eruption last month of the mount pinatubo volcano in the philippines . climatologists expect that sulfur_dioxide spewed into the stratosphere by the eruption will react with water to produce a long lasting global haze . the haze is expected to reflect and scatter some sunlight for perhaps three or four years , cooling the earth and largely counteracting any further warming in that period .",has a topic of science
"the space_shuttle_endeavour linked today with the international_space_station to drop off three new tenants and to bring home their colleagues , who have spent six months in orbit . the chase around earth ended at 4 59 p.m . eastern time , when the metallic petals of the shuttle 's docking port gently nudged those of the station . at that moment , the two craft were over the south pacific , off the coast of australia . ''you guys look pretty good out there , '' peggy whitson , a space_station scientist , said as the shuttle came into view . mission control said , ''we want to welcome expedition 6 to their new home , '' referring to the arriving station crew . the members capt . kenneth d . bowersox , of the navy donald r . pettit , a doctor of chemical_engineering and a russian cosmonaut , nikolai m . budarin are scheduled to remain on the station until mid march . ninety minutes after the docking , the hatches between the two craft swung open . the three station crew members greeted the seven colleagues from the shuttle with cheers , embraces and pats on the back . ''welcome to station , '' valery g . korzun , the departing space_station commander , said to the shuttle crew members as they floated in . ''very nice docking beautiful . '' dr . pettit 's short hair immediately caught the attention of dr . whitson . ''hey , you got a haircut , dude , '' dr . whitson said . besides swapping station crews , the shuttle is carrying another 14 ton girder designed to extend the station 's framework . four segments have been launched and seven more are to follow . together , they will constitute a 356 foot truss holding giant solar_panels and radiators . on tuesday , the endeavour crew will use the shuttle 's robotic arm to pick up the aluminum girder from the shuttle cargo bay and hand it to the station 's arm . then the astronauts will hook it permanently to the station 's truss . once that is completed , two shuttle astronauts will leave the station to perform the first of three spacewalks to connect refrigerant and electrical lines between the new girder and the station . the shuttle is expected back to earth on dec . 4 .",has a topic of science
"it 's not the thousands of deaths that trouble her most , or the loss of her home , or the paralyzing fear of the ground swaying again . it 's the screams . the veterinarian around the corner was pinned in his house after it collapsed in the earthquake , but he shouted that he was all right . and so shizuko hirajima shouted back and told him he would be o.k. , and she worked frantically to rescue other neighbors who seemed to be in greater need . when the fire erupted , there was not enough time to go back and dig the vet out of his home , so they stood at the edge of the blistering heat and listened as he burned to death . "" we could hear him call out , "" she said , shivering . "" 'help me ! ' he shouted . 'help me ! ' but we could n't do a thing . we just had to stand there . "" the inferno has since been extinguished , and the temblor 's survivors are adapting to their new lives as homeless beggars . in mrs . hirajima 's case , she is dealing with the screams that haunt her by going deaf she has lost much of her hearing since the quake struck on tuesday . the veterinarian 's shouts no longer echo in her head , but she cannot hear much else , either . the reaction of mrs . hirajima , a graying woman of 61 years who wrings her hands endlessly , is unusual . but it reflects the drive of most of the millions of people in the earthquake zone to adjust to what has happened and get on with their new lives . it is this resilience that is most striking more than four days after western japan was struck by the great earthquake , which left more than 4 , 900 people dead and 202 missing and feared dead in the rubble . it also caused tens of billions of dollars in damage , making it one of the most expensive natural_disasters in history . a daylong hike through the disaster zone leaves one with a taste of amazement at the scale of destruction , pain at the quiet suffering of families that are smaller than they were a week ago , and above all of respect for the determination of newly made paupers to press on with their lives . mrs . hirajima , for instance , has done more than just become deaf . she and her neighbors extricated themselves from their damaged houses and , still in their pajamas , rushed around pulling other people from the debris . then they fought fires . and now the hirajimas and half a dozen other families have taken over a tiny public garden and set up camp . they have pitched tents and sleep in them in turns , because there are not enough to go around . they have also dug a latrine , curtained off with cloth fished from the rubble , and built a campfire and organized a rotation for cooking duties . they spend free time at their former homes , searching for anything that can still be of use . mrs . hirajima still cannot sleep at night , for fear of new earthquakes , and she has to fight back the memories of the veterinarian , and of the beautician who lived down another street . the beautician , a 60 year old woman , was entombed when the house collapsed on her , but she could still shout out that she was unhurt . for hours , mrs . hirajima reassured the beautician , telling her it was going to be o.k. , as the neighbors tried to dig her out . but it was impossible without equipment to move the slabs of concrete , and the beautician 's voice began to fade . they last heard her voice 24 hours after the earthquake , and a couple of days later , when the heavy machinery finally arrived , her body was recovered . "" when i look at the rubble of her house , i 'm scared , "" mrs . hirajima said . "" i figure that her spirit will come out from the debris . her spirit must be angry at the way she died . because she cried out , 'help me ! ' but we did n't help . "" reactions some laugh away their pains everywhere in the disaster zone , faces are lined with new creases that testify to ways they are bearing the unbearable . in the hard hit neighborhoods , everyone knows someone who has been killed , and many feel perhaps the most wrenching pain of all the shock of parents who survive their children . one man , kitai lin , reportedly held his only son in his arms for 56 hours as they were trapped inside a six story building that had collapsed . mr . lin cradled the boy , 6 year old tatsuya , as they lay in the darkness , pinned underneath a refrigerator and a bed , waiting for rescuers to reach them . "" my child is in my arms , "" mr . lin is said to have shouted just before being rescued . "" we 're all right . "" but after surviving for two and a half days in the rubble without food or water , the boy died shortly after rescuers pried them free . mr . lin is one of many in western japan for whom a_20 second temblor means more anguish than a lifetime can assuage . the paradox is that in a zone of so much sadness , good cheer is also extraordinarily abundant . there sometimes seem to be more happy people in kobe than sad ones . norio horinouchi , a lean 66 year old in eastern kobe , speaks lightly of how the earthquake knocked down his house , killing six people on the floor below him . "" i had been on the second floor , and then i realized i was on the first floor , "" he recalled . "" when i felt the house shake , i thought that was the last moment of my life . "" asked why he seemed so cheerful , mr . horinouchi grinned . "" when my sons came to look for me , they were in tears to find that their father was fine , "" he said , glowing with pleasure . "" they were so happy ! i knew that i loved my sons , and that they loved me . "" kazuko ando , a 53 year old matron whose husband is in the hospital with a back injury , joked about the difficulties of life in a refugee shelter , now that her home has collapsed . asked how she can joke , she shrugged . "" we can laugh and smile , "" she said . "" after all , we know that lots of folks in this area really are suffering with worse problems . some people down that street lost their youngest child . over there , a young couple was killed . but my family members , we 're all safe . "" the eeriest time to be in kobe is at night , when the back alleys are dark and silent and the only sound is endless sirens in the distance . the alleys are strewn with bricks and beams , and here and there a building leans so far over that it is difficult to squeeze by it . on the sides are the hulking shadows of abandoned , damaged houses and the open spaces where homes collapsed into piles of debris some of which still contain bodies , or even perhaps a person still alive but now at the limits of endurance . at the end of one such alley , just before it ended abruptly where a home lay toppled onto its side , a dozen former residents of the former houses were sitting around a campfire , cooking dinner and laughing heartily . when a visitor showed up , they beamed and offered a chair and began cracking jokes . "" we 're in pain , of course , but to cheer ourselves up we get together and laugh from the bottom of our hearts , "" explained kunimasa nakata , a 43 year old engineer and the group 's chief comic . "" at any moment , we 're scared . but at least this way , if there 's another earthquake and i 'm killed , i wo n't die alone . "" looting reports of looters are mostly rumor mr . nakata and other quake victims said the disaster had in some ways brought out the best in people , inspiring a degree of altruism and cooperation not always present in the hurly burly of mundane jobs . almost everyone interviewed also said that alongside the cooperation , looting had become a serious problem , and many expressed shock and embarrassment that such crimes could happen in japan . yet when people were pressed , the reports of looting almost always seemed to be little more than rumors . a policeman in central kobe , for instance , said gravely that looting was a significant problem that had led to increased police patrols . but he acknowledged that he did not actually know of any cases of theft . one woman said she had found signs that someone had entered her damaged home when she was away , although she did not actually find anything missing . and one man said that two bicycles had been taken from in front of his house during the first hectic hours after the earthquake , although one explanation is that they may have been seized to rescue someone . there was one clear case of looting . on thursday , several young men heaved a rock through a window of a mini market and grabbed some food and ran . "" i do n't know how much was taken , because everything was still on the floor from the earthquake , and we did n't have time to count the missing merchandise , "" a store clerk said . asked if he was surprised that japanese should engage in such los_angeles style practices as post earthquake looting , the store clerk was momentarily dumbfounded . "" no , you misunderstood , "" he said firmly . "" these looters were n't japanese . they were foreigners . we saw them . three young foreign guys . "" koreans helping all , without bias the looters were not koreans . but in fact the largest foreign population in kobe by far is that of ethnic koreans , who have lived in japan for generations . such koreans often face discrimination in japan , and there have long been tensions between them and their japanese neighbors . after the last great earthquake in japan , the one that devastated tokyo and killed more than 140 , 000 people in 1923 , rumors spread that ethnic koreans were lighting fires and poisoning the few remaining water sources even that they had contrived to cause the earthquake itself . japanese mobs hunted down and beat to death any koreans they could find . estimates of those killed range up to 6 , 000 . the aftermath of the quake of 1995 suggests that relations have improved , for no tensions have been reported between japanese and koreans in kobe . "" people rescued anybody who cried out for help , "" said kang chu ok , a 38 year old korean housewife in one of the worst hit parts of kobe . "" nobody paid attention to whether the victim was korean or japanese . people helped me just as if i were japanese . "" mrs . kang , who spoke in the alley in front of her new home , now tilting precariously and devoid of its front wall , said firefighters had given the same priority to fires in korean homes as to fires in japanese homes . officials with the two korean associations one linked to south_korea , the other to north_korea also said they had not heard of any discrimination against their members . casualties busy hospitals , busy morgues the second busiest person in kobe these days may be yosuke matsumura , deputy director of the kobe western city hospital , in one of the worst hit areas . mr . matsumura was at home when the earthquake struck , but he immediately hiked the 10 miles to the hospital no other transportation was available and began treating the wave of patients with burns and other injuries . mr . matsumura has not been home since , and he has scarcely slept . the hospital 's first crisis was that it had no emergency generator , and the lights went out and two patients on respirators died in the confusion . one was a cancer patient , the other had pneumonia . a woman was also in advanced labor , with the crown of the baby 's head already visible . the doctors decided that the woman could not give birth by herself , but they dared not perform a caesarean section with no lights or electricity . despite her state , they put her in an ambulance and took her over rubble strewn streets to another hospital where the caesarean was performed successfully . as 1 , 600 patients swarmed the hospital , the atmosphere was virtual chaos . "" it was difficult beyond imagination , "" mr . matsumura recalled . "" on the first floor , patients were told to stanch their bleeding themselves , and to find a place on their own to lie down , because there was no space . and 65 people were brought in already dead , to be revived by us , but we had to focus on the living . "" while none of the hospital 's doctors were killed , some had lost their homes or had family members missing , and that did not help their concentration . two of the 260 nurses are still missing , and many staff members are having problems getting to work because of traffic_jams and impassable roads . it is getting better , however . the hospital now has electricity , and while it does not have running water , two portable_toilets have been installed outside the front door . the stream of patients has slowed as well . if mr . matsumura is the second busiest person in kobe , perhaps the busiest is akihiko hagisawa , an undertaker . "" for three days after the earthquake i did n't sleep a wink , and then i got five hours' sleep , and then i have n't slept since , "" mr . hagisawa said as he drove a body to a temporary resting place in a school auditorium . the problem is not just that the area around kobe has an extra 5 , 000 bodies to dispose of . the undertakers themselves lost employees in the earthquake , and the local government was so overwhelmed at first that it could not issue the death certificates necessary before bodies can be picked up . then the problem became where to find the extra coffins and how to find enough hearses or even station wagons to carry them to the crematoriums . in any case , with the gas supply cut off , the crematoriums could no longer dispose of bodies , and so they piled up in spare rooms of the schools that are used everywhere as refugee shelters . the new homeless find themselves sleeping in one room of a school , while loved ones are laid out along with dozens of other bodies in another room . the winter air is cool , but even so the bodies are beginning to smell , and relatives are outraged . "" when i go to a school to take away a body , people surround me and ask for help in cremating other bodies as well , "" mr . hagisawa said . "" we want to cremate them , but there 's a long line to cremate . "" it will take a month to dispose of all of the bodies left from the earthquake , mr . hagisawa estimated . in the meantime , the problem may get worse . "" with so many people still missing , "" mr . hagisawa said grimly , "" i think the backlog of corpses is only going to get longer . "" quake in japan the scene",has a topic of science
"with the future of russia 's manned_space program resting in his nervous hands , the commander of the orbiting space_station mir docked today with a cargo_ship delivering urgently needed food and supplies . it was the third time this week the progress spacecraft had tried to join with mir . if it had failed there might not have been enough fuel left on board to try again . "" everything depends on one man , "" said sergei chernov , a flight control director for the russian space agency , before the docking was completed . "" if we ca n't deliver the food and water they need the prospects will be very bad . "" that man , lieut . col . yuri malenchenko , executed the complicated remote controlled maneuver without a hitch , russian space officials announced this evening . saving the day if the docking had failed , colonel malenchenko and his two colleagues , talgat musabayev and valery polykov , would have had to evacuate the mir on a soyuz craft within days . the mir cannot remain in space for more than a few months without personnel aboard , so russia would have had to send replacements immediately , at great expense . some experts said today it might not have been possible . but the young man who practiced the docking procedure throughout the night on thursday saved the day . "" he did a great job , "" said nikolai kryuchov of ground control . "" it was just like he was sitting in an armchair playing a computer game . "" well , not exactly . colonel malenchenko could only see what he was doing through a video display terminal , and then only a mirror image of what was happening . it was as if he were sitting in the cargo_ship rather than in the mir . the pressure on the 32 year old mission commander , a former fighter_pilot making his first space flight , was intense . the two previous attempts were both automated this one was carried out manually . as the ships edged to within 100 yards of each other , all sound and video links between ground control and the space_station were inexplicably severed , leading harried technicians to expect the worst . but the fear turned out to be unfounded . with no backup ship immediately available and only 10 days' worth of food and water left on mir , russia risked losing the space_station if the mission had to be canceled . joint missions planned with germany next month and the united_states next year would have had to be scrapped . more important , the russian space_program , struggling for funds like most state ventures , would have been seriously endangered . the progress space craft carried nearly two tons of fuel , water , food and technical equipment for the german astronaut ulf merbold , who is supposed to be launched toward the station on oct . 4 . criticism in japan tokyo , sept . 2 ( reuters ) japan 's embarrassing failure to put a satellite into orbit drew criticism today from the technology minister , who suggested that the national space agency had wasted money . the official , makiko tanaka , director general of the science and technology agency , said , "" they make big efforts to get their budget granted , but do n't try so hard to use this effectively . "" the science agency confirmed that she had made the remarks at a cabinet meeting about the national space development agency . knuckles are rarely rapped publicly in japan , where appearance is very important . the uninsured 415 million satellite was allowed to drift away as space junk on wednesday after engine failure stopped it from reaching the proper orbit . other government ministers said miss tanaka had complained to the cabinet that mission controllers had not explained how serious the situation was even when it had become almost impossible to put the satellite into the correct orbit .",has a topic of science
"lead in this season when much of the world is sharing armenia 's agony , italians have been distracted by the reverberations from an earthquake of their own . in this season when much of the world is sharing armenia 's agony , italians have been distracted by the reverberations from an earthquake of their own . theirs is a sordid tale , pocked with allegations of mismanagement , incompetence and greed , and laced with a liberal dose of political ill will . some people here say they are outraged . many more seem amused or simply resigned . no matter how they may personally react , italians in general have recently withstood a bombardment of diatribes about earthquake related corruption . they are a scandal hardened lot , though . certainly , they have not been deterred from what for most are more pressing matters christmas shopping and other holiday preparations , which have been conducted with a vengeance on the via dei condotti and other major shopping streets . the earthquake at issue occurred in november 1980 , rocking mountain hamlets in a region southeast of naples called irpinia . while this quake was no match for the one that has devastated armenia , it was bad enough . more than 2 , 700 people died , and dozens of villages were devastated . accounting is slipshod irpinia desperately needed government help , and since 1980 it has received it by the barrelful . money has poured in for reconstruction and long delayed economic_development . the problem is that accounting procedures have been slipshod , and no one is able to say exactly how much was spent . publicly quoted figures have gone up and down like roman candles , ranging from 7 billion to 52 billion . the latest government estimate is 33 billion , give or take a couple of billion , but that is subject to further change . worse yet , no one knows where all the money went . if even a fraction of the allegations are accurate , earthquake victims were minor shareholders in this public largesse . thousands of others apparently prospered , including contractors , engineers , local politicians , their friends and even members of the camorra , the neapolitan mafia . in imitation of the modern american habit of naming scandals by tacking on the suffix ''gate , '' the italian press and the political opposition began to talk about ''irpiniagate . '' many of their charges took dead aim at prime_minister ciriaco de mita , who has been running the government for only the last eight months but who seemed a reasonable target nonetheless to many italians because ( 1 ) he is there , and ( 2 ) he and his family come from the 1980 disaster area and own a tiny part of a local bank , the banco popolare dell'irpinia . opposition presses case over the last eight years , banco popolare 's deposits have grown 15 times in value . no one has demonstrated that this was the result of untoward behavior rather than a sudden influx of public funds into the depressed region . yet the implications were fairly obvious , and the opposition , hoping to weaken the government , pressed the notion that the prime_minister had benefited from irpinia 's misery . the uproar was enough to force the resignation of a close de mita aide , and there are now plans for full throated inquests , study groups , commissions and the like . but the prime_minister slugged back . he said he was the victim of a political plot , and announced to parliament that his government did not consider itself ''in the dock . '' things took an especially nasty turn after an exchange between mr . de mita and a milan newspaper editor . the editor , indro montanelli , accused the politician of practicing bossism in ' 'mafiosi'' style . the politician responded that journalists were ''bought'' and forced to write articles they did not believe . name calling aside , there was no denying that a good deal of public money went astray , mr . de mita finally acknowledged , and he proposed that in the future special commissions be created to oversee disaster relief and to make sure that funds reach their intended destinations . and that is where matters rest . no immediate threat italy 's equivalents of spin control artists , who are about as reliable here as anywhere else , hold that mr . de mita has been roughed up politically but not enough to threaten his government immediately . accepting that conventional_wisdom , many italians have given the government scant_attention and gone about their seasonal business of buying until it hurts . the narrow streets that emanate from the piazza di spagna are awash in shoppers who look every bit as sleek as the bejeweled and leathered storefronts they pass . fur coats abound . some italians are not impressed by this . it has been an unusually cold season , they say in explanation . but others detect an important change , a willingness , they say , to indulge flaunt it if you 've got it impulses that used to be suppressed . rome was less glitzy a few years ago , they say , partly because that was the style , partly because of widespread fears of kidnappings . these days , rome is conspicuously quiet . there has not been a notable terrorist action in some time . aversion to boat rocking italians quickly look around for wood to knock as they mention this fact because they find it hard to believe that they have acquired sudden immunity from horror . moreover , the numbing presence of begging gypsies and of homeless and crippled people on rome streets attests to trouble 's persistence . still , there is a general sense of well being and an aversion to boat rocking . even italy 's notorious public strikes are on hold . transport workers , who tend to walk off their jobs almost as regularly as they take coffee breaks , announced a holiday truce that is supposed to last into the new year . this mood of tolerance extended to wrongdoing of the vilest nature . in a manifestation of seasonal silliness , a group of magistrates , professors , clergymen and criminologists convened in venice last weekend to hold a mock trial of cain in the murder of his brother abel . their verdict the world 's first killer , according to the book of genesis , was not really guilty . he was simply an impulsive young man acting in a burst of understandable human emotion . given attitudes like that , few here were shocked when prime_minister de mita suggested that irpiniagate , while deplorable , was also inevitable . in italy , he said with an air of resignation , there are always ''attempted crimes and profiteering jackals'' after natural_disasters .",has a topic of science
"to the editor some of the scientists mentioned in ''for billions of birds'' said that the rate and scale of development in canada 's boreal forest was unprecedented and something many people were unaware of . i think next to the article and photographs of pristine sections of the forest should have been comparison pictures depicting the ravaged areas fragmented by mining , logging and gas exploration , often at the hands of american companies . vivian demuth new york",has a topic of science
"it was cloudy and cool outside the north portico of the white_house this morning as steve doocy , the jovial fox_news_channel weatherman , asked al roker , the ebullient nbc weatherman , just why it was that the president of the united_states had invited them over . ''because we promised to bring krispy kremes ! '' mr . roker chortled . then he sobered up and told the fox viewers watching the live broadcast that mr . clinton wanted to talk about changes in the global climate . ''al , let me ask you this , '' mr . doocy said . ''about the global_warming thing we 're against it , right ? '' ''we do n't like global_warming , '' mr . roker agreed . but he added that , looking at the bright side , he owned some land in pennsylvania , ''and within a few years , i may have beachfront property ! '' on the theory that you do , in fact , need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows , mr . clinton invited more than 100 national and local television forecasters to the white_house today for a chat with him and vice_president al_gore and for briefings on climate_change from government experts . the administration hopes that the forecasters will influence public opinion on climate_change more than the journalists on the evening news clinton aides complain that they pay scant_attention to the issue . ''you , just in the way you comment on the events that you cover , may have a real effect on the american people , '' mr . clinton said this afternoon to the assembled broadcasters , who were overwhelmingly white , male and shorter than they appear on television . playing host to the nation 's television weather forecasters was the most innovative step in a white_house campaign to rally public support for new binding global targets for restricting greenhouse_gases . a broad coalition of industry and labor groups is spending some 13 million on advertising opposing such targets , which may be adopted at an international conference in december in kyoto , japan . ''i do n't ask for you to advocate or do anything outside of whatever your own convictions are , '' mr . clinton said this afternoon , as the skies cleared and the east_room brightened . ''but i do think it 's very important , since you have more influence than anybody does on how the american people think about this , that at least you know what you believe and how you think we should proceed . '' as the 5 o'clock broadcasts rolled around , dozens of weathermen milled about in the mellowing sunlight on the north lawn of the white_house , straightening their hair , consulting notes , muttering lines . while others waited their turns , about six stood bathed in white lights before cameras , speaking to the folks back home or standing , faces blank and microphones at the ready , as they listened for their cues in the distant chatter among the anchors . as they talked about the chill in buffalo or the pleasant weather here , the forecasters also described the concerns of the president . ''he wants all of us to think about what is happening to our climate , '' said chuck gaidica jr . of wdiv in detroit . some were careful to distance themselves from the white_house 's arguments . global_warming is ''a theory that is widely accepted , but it 's still under debate in the scientific community , '' cecily tynan told viewers of wpvi in philadelphia . ''judging by the p.r . event that was orchestrated here , it 's certainly become a very hot_topic in the clinton_administration . '' but other forecasters confessed to their viewers that they were thrilled to be there . ''to be honest with you , i 'm just like a little kid , '' said bob kovachick of wnyt in albany . after the camera stopped rolling , mr . kovachick , like many of the other meteorologists , said that he intended to return to the subject of global_warming in broadcasts later tonight and on thursday . bryan norcross , of wbry in miami , told his viewers about the detailed presentations from mr . clinton and mr . gore . ''everyone in the room came away impressed that they know what they 're talking about , that this is n't just a political event , even though the vice_president is going to run for president , '' he said . several weathermen said in interviews that they had already been sold on the dangers of climate_change before their visit to the white_house . craig allen , the cbs morning weatherman , said he felt ''absolutely honored'' to be invited to the day 's session . ''he feels very strongly about it , '' he said of the president , ''and he just wants us to get the message out . and i 'm happy to do it because i lean in that direction . '' calling the day a success , michael d . mccurry , the white_house_press_secretary , said that the weathermen ''appreciated being treated as something other than airheads . '' gail macdonald , president of the global climate coalition , which is made up of business and trade groups opposed to binding targets for reducing emissions , said she did not object to the white_house 's tactics . ''we think that any kind of any increased public discourse is good , '' she said . ''we think the journalists involved will look critically at the data and be professional . '' indeed , some forecasters said they were frustrated that mr . clinton and mr . gore had not spelled out any remedies . mr . clinton , who is planning to hold a conference on climate_change at georgetown_university on monday , is not expected to reveal his proposed emissions targets for another two or three weeks . ''we really have n't heard what it is they expect us to give up or change in our habits , '' mr . gaidica said . ''i mean questions as simple as can we use the barbecue today or can we use the waverunner anymore . '' beyond such skepticism , some weathermen took advantage of their appearance at the white_house to attach a few barbs to their famously chipper chatter . ''we got here real early this morning , '' mr . doocy deadpanned on fox . ''it was just me , the crew , and the special prosecutors . '' correction_october 10 , 1997 , friday an article on oct . 2 about a visit by television forecasters to the white_house misidentified the television_station in miami where bryan norcross presents the weather . it is wfor , not wbry .",has a topic of science
"when zhuo ling was declared second runner up at the miss universe contest in puerto_rico in may , the tears and the tiaras masked a secret because chinese officials do not approve of such beauty pageants , her ''miss china'' title had been bestowed in an underground competition , held despite official threats and bans . in fact , the miss china contest nearly did not happen , after officials in the southern city of enping raided the auditorium . ms . zhuo the first contestant had just come on stage in a bathing_suit when they rushed the dais , shooed out contestants and informed organizers that they had broken the law because cultural events require permits . determined nonetheless to have a queen , the judges and contestants sneaked back in at night to restage the event , awarding ms . zhuo the crown . but while most miss universe contestants got a royal send off to puerto_rico , ms . zhuo left quietly from the shanghai airport , escorted to the ticket counter by her father . ''i was lugging two huge suitcases , '' she said . ''i felt very alone . '' with her big eyes and earnest delivery , ms . zhuo , a_20 year old dance student turned model , hardly seems a subversive force . she says she wants to serve her country , and when the judges in puerto_rico asked about her role models , she quickly cited her father . but her strange odyssey displays communist officialdom 's deep ambivalence about the vibrant consumer culture that has evolved in china 's cities today a frankenstein 's monster that was unleashed by the communist_party 's own market reforms , but that quickly moved beyond its understanding and control . ''this is 2002 , we 've joined the w.t.o. , we 've been selected to hold the 2008 olympics , '' said shi sizhi , a private beijing businessman who organized the miss china contest , with approval from the miss universe organization in new york . ''all i 'm trying to do is to bring miss universe to china . what 's to be afraid of here ? '' at a first pass , ms . zhuo 's travails are indeed perplexing , given that more young chinese girls aspire to be models than model workers these days . but there have been no actual beauty contests in china since the communist takeover in 1949 , and that apparently makes some officials nervous when it comes to approving such an event . some argue that modeling involves skill , while beauty is more superficial a bourgeois concern even though the miss universe contest involved speeches and other performances . a more important issue might have been control over the nation 's image . chinese officials apparently could not fathom yielding power over the choice of such a representative to a private group . mr . shi spent four years appealing , unsuccessfully , to the ministry of culture and other government offices for approval to hold a miss china contest here . ''no one was willing to take the responsibility , '' he said . this year he thought he had a wink and a nod when culture officials , while refusing to issue the legally required approval , offered the pesky promoter an olive_branch ''we wo n't criticize you , but keep it quiet and do n't make it a big deal , '' they said . to comply , he scheduled the miss china pageant in the obscure city of enping in guangdong_province , without much publicity . to prepare for puerto_rico , mr . shi 's business , the beijing golden international investment and consulting company , hired a designer to make ms . zhuo 's wardrobe . it bought her plane ticket as well . ''generally when you 're picked as your country 's representative there are some special events and you 're given some tutoring , '' said ms . zhuo in a telephone interview from her home in shanghai . ''i did n't have a chance to help my country . and i did n't have a former miss china at my side . it made me pretty sad . '' she and mr . shi fretted that chinese authorities might prevent her from going . but when she picked up her visa at the united_states embassy marked ''miss china , going to miss universe contest , '' they relaxed . so it was something of a miracle when ms . zhuo came from underground in china to take third place on stage in puerto_rico , trailing only miss russia and miss panama . but with her surprise win beamed to television sets all over the world , it became increasingly hard to keep her existence under wraps . ms . zhuo 's modeling agency in shanghai quickly capitalized on the win , arranging activities in san_francisco and honolulu . ''i have plans for her to go into movies and tv , '' said her agent , song meiyin . when ms . zhuo arrived back in shanghai last month , a host of reporters met her at the airport , although the state controlled news organizations have said little about her as yet . mr . shi said official attitudes had run hot and cold toward ms . zhuo 's amazing victory . the city government of shanghai , which earlier this year had threatened to cancel a local miss china preliminary contest , recently sent her as its representative on a business delegation to france . in puerto_rico , ms . zhuo was surprised to find government delegations from beijing and from china 's eastern shandong_province both vying to be the host of a future pageant . mr . shi hopes that ms . zhuo 's victory will change official attitudes and help bring a miss universe finals to china by 2004 . ms . zhuo herself has remained ever gracious , mostly keeping above the fray . ''if you 're the first at anything there are always some difficulties , '' she said , exercising the poise and diplomacy that wins pageants . ''i hope my win will help chinese change their minds about this and see that it 's an opportunity for our country to be on the world stage . '' beijing journal",has a topic of science
"charges are mounting here that bad policies and official neglect have worsened this summer 's disastrous flooding in china , and the government has made the unusual admission that its land use mistakes are partly to blame and announced sweeping policy changes . officials have clearly been shocked by the vast scale of damage in southern and northeastern china , where severe flooding persists . this year 's rains have been torrential , but not as great as in some years when the extent of flooding and the damages were less . in the last few weeks , the official press has carried increasingly sharp articles and editorials on the harmful_effects of clear cutting timber along the upper reaches of the yangtze_river , for example , and the human invasion of vital wetlands along the river 's course . in private , some experts are making more pointed charges that , despite repeated warnings , the upkeep of important dikes along china 's flood prone rivers has been badly neglected . at a government news conference today , zhao qizheng , chief of the state council information office , said the government had decided to shut down logging activities in the upper catchments of the yangtze_river . the deforestation has led to more rapid runoff of rain waters and increased silting of river and lake beds . he said all cleared areas would be replanted in a long term strategy of ecological restoration . he also said that large areas of lakes and wetlands in the yangtze flood plain , which have been drained to make farmland , would be restored to their natural condition . these areas formerly absorbed huge volumes of water during flood periods . now , instead of easing the problem , these lands claimed from the water are being desperately protected by soldiers stacking sandbags to make crude dikes . they are exhorted by the official slogan ''fight to the death . '' ''we have asked a lot of nature , and now we are returning what we have acquired , '' mr . zhao said . how effectively these new policies can be carried out remains a big question , because the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of poor people will be affected , including loggers upstream and farmers in the middle and lower reaches of the river . while critics of the government are saying they welcome the new attention to ecology , they make more specific charges of official lapses . many water experts are also calling for fundamental changes in the approach to flood control , reflecting a debate over strategy that has continued in china for thousands of years . lu qinkan , a retired government hydrologist and flood prevention expert , said that in 1980 an important report by the ministry of water resources laid out plans for reinforcing and raising the main dikes along the yangtze . but by 1987 , only 48 million of the 1 . 2 billion that was called for had been spent on the project . ''eighteen years have passed , '' mr . lu said in an interview , ''but the main dikes are in a state of disrepair , leading to breaches this year . '' the neglect of downstream dikes , mr . lu and other critics say , reflects a bias toward building dams and reservoirs to battle floods despite their inherently limited capacity . though the topic is too politically sensitive for the official news_media to explore , this year 's floods have revived private debate about the giant three gorges dam under construction along the upper reaches of the yangtze . on television and in newspaper interviews , officials involved in the project have tried to capitalize on the crisis , contending that the dam will greatly reduce if not eliminate flooding like this year 's . mr . lu , who was involved in feasibility studies for the three gorges dam but who refused to sign the recommendation to proceed , said its effect could only be small . in 1954 , he said , in the last great flood comparable to this year 's , water flowing into the dam site totaled about 300 billion cubic_meters . but the flood retention capacity of the dam is only 22 billion cubic_meters , he said . and another 359 billion cubic_meters of water flowed into the river below the dam site . along with improving dikes , critics of the dam centered approach to flood control say , more must be done to protect natural waterways that can soak up water and to set aside basins downstream where overflows can be diverted . but china 's intense population pressures and poverty make this ever more difficult . hubei_province on the middle reaches of the yangtze , where this year 's damage is worst was once known as the province of 1 , 000 lakes , many of them linked to the yangtze system , said zhou kuiyi , vice director of the government 's research center on flood disasters . but because of draining projects and siltation , many of the lakes have simply disappeared , he said . the huge dongting lake in hubei is the most important single lake for retaining excess waters along the yangtze . according to a new report by the state environmental_protection_agency , the lake borders , again because of drainage for farms and the inflow of silt , have shrunk drastically . its capacity has fallen from 29 . 3 billion cubic_meters in 1949 to 17 . 8 billion cubic_meters today . decades ago , a large basin near the yangtze in hubei was designated as the major emergency water diversion area when floods grew too high , dikes there would be intentionally breached , relieving pressures elsewhere . the waters were so diverted in the great floods of 1954 , when 170 , 000 people lived there and had to be evacuated . but today , 550 , 000 people live in that diversion zone , said mr . zhou of the disaster research center . this makes it nearly impossible to open the floodgates . instead , the government has poured hundreds of thousands of troops onto dikes throughout the region , and they are working around the clock to fend off breaches . at today 's news conference , officials said it had not been possible to finish updating the number of flood related deaths . mr . zhao , the information chief , said a total would be announced by the end of the week . the last figure , on aug . 6 , was 2 , 100 deaths . yang yongliang , a senior communist_party official from hubei_province , said at the news conference that , through the valiant efforts of 2.3 million flood fighters , ''we have identified and removed 4 , 492 dangerous situations , '' where dikes were threatened . gen . ma shukuan , of the general political department of the central_military_commission , said that the soldiers , in their greatest concentration since 1949 , ''have displayed a revolutionary spirit of fearing no hardship nor death . '' film clips of soldiers in chest high water fortifying the dikes appear nightly on the news . the people 's liberation army is clearly using the flood battle to build morale and to improve its public image , battered by military involvement in smuggling and by its role in smashing the tiananmen_square student demonstrations in 1989 .",has a topic of science
"american engineering experts said yesterday that they were surprised by the extent of the collapse of roadways and other structures in the earthquake near kobe , japan . but they said it was too early to tell if some of the damage was related to the fact that the japanese take a slightly different approach to earthquake engineering than do americans . sections of several major expressways collapsed , as did many modern buildings . some roads and overpasses buckled . and as can be expected in an old , densely_populated city , many wooden buildings with heavy tile roofs collapsed . "" i am extremely surprised by the damage , "" said andre reinhorn , a professor of structural engineering in the national center for earthquake engineering research at the state university of new york at buffalo . "" a building or bridge or other structure is not a single object , "" he said . "" it is a complex piece of engineering with core components . "" those include columns that connect decks and side portions that help hold the structure together . japanese and american engineers connect those elements in slightly different ways , dr . reinhorn said . and the details can be critical . in general , he said , japanese engineers use more steel . their beams and columns are stiffer . they tie components together in novel ways , using different kinds of bolting methods , arranging steel rods inside concrete differently and putting different amounts of reinforcement around side columns . the japanese are also fanatical about quality_control , dr . reinhorn said . this approach provides strength over flexibility , he said the structures are designed to stand firm rather than yield in an earthquake . american structural engineers , dr . reinhorn said , use less steel and more concrete , so the buildings are not as strong . but they are tied together in ways that make them more flexible , he said . "" each structural element is designed to deform after it is damaged without completely breaking , "" he said . the two countries' building codes are equivalent in terms of protecting structures in moderate and large earthquakes , dr . reinhorn said , and "" one is not better than the other . "" the goal of both is to let structures sustain damage , but not so much as to cause them to collapse . if it turns out that newer structures were deformed by the kobe quake but did not collapse , dr . reinhorn said , then japanese engineering efforts will be shown to have succeeded . but if they failed , he said , structural engineers on both sides of the pacific will have to reconsider everything they have learned . dr . michael constantinou , a professor of civil_engineering at the buffalo campus , said the japanese approach to earthquake engineering could account for some failures . "" if you design a building to be strong , you may get a false sense , from weaker quakes , that the structure is safe , "" he said . "" by designing for strength , the structures may be less able to deform elastically . "" quake in japan",has a topic of science
"when henry wong talked to ambassador walter f . mondale yesterday , his only remaining hope was that a search team of american embassy officials in japan would find the body of his daughter , apparently the only american killed by tuesday 's earthquake . mr . wong said he had told mr . mondale that he wanted the body of his daughter , voni lynn wong , retrieved and sent home before it was cremated with many of the thousands of japanese who were killed . "" our daughter was beautiful , "" mr . wong said in an interview yesterday . "" but she is glorious now . "" her death , he said , simply means that "" she is just leaving a little ahead of us . "" ambassador mondale had phoned mr . wong at his home in van nuys , calif . , to express his sorrow at the death of his 24 year old daughter , who was crushed to death in her bed in ashiya , about 10 miles east of kobe , when the earthquake struck at dawn tuesday . mr . wong said he had asked mr . mondale to "" do everything you can to recover the body of my daughter and her possessions . "" he quoted mr . mondale as saying , "" we 'll do everything we can . "" toward that end , a team of embassy officials from tokyo were in kobe yesterday , searching through the hospitals , schools and buddhist temples where most of the victims were taken for american casualties . in the chaos of the stricken city , with nearly 900 people still missing , there was no way to know yesterday how many other americans might have perished under the char and rubble of demolished buildings or have been seriously injured . the state_department said there were about 12 , 000 americans in the kobe and osaka areas . of that number , it said , anywhere from 1 , 200 to 2 , 000 lived in or near kobe , an industrial and commercial city of 1.4 million inhabitants . nyda budig , a state_department spokeswoman , listed ms . wong 's death as the only officially confirmed american fatality . her death was reported to her family by friends who knew her in japan . ms . wong was an honors graduate of the university of california at los_angeles . her father is a retired engineer at litton guidance systems in woodland hills , calif . all her grandparents were born in canton , china . henry wong , the victim 's brother , said "" my sister originally wanted to teach in china . but she found she could make more money in japan , so that 's where she went . "" he said the institute where she taught had suffered from financial problems recently , and she had applied to a government_agency for nearly 6 , 000 in back wages . he said that she had returned to kobe after a visit to china two weeks ago and that jack serra , a friend who accompanied her on that trip , had volunteered to bring her body back to los_angeles . the last word her family received from her was a postcard from china . quake in japan victim correction january 20 , 1995 , friday an article yesterday about victims of the earthquake in japan referred to the death of one foreigner incorrectly in some copies and misstated his citizenship . the police in kobe , japan , say that the dead man , nana demasio , was found hanged and that they are treating the case as a suicide , not as a quake death . mr . demasio 's family said in new york yesterday that although he had applied for american citizenship , he was still a ghanaian citizen .",has a topic of science
"the fate of the beagle 2 mars lander remained unknown on friday after a powerful radio telescope failed overnight to detect its tiny signal while additional sensors were readied to join the search in coming days , mission officials said . british scientists said they were prepared for an extended hunt for the lander as britain 's largest tabloid , the sun , reflected the national anxiety over the missing spacecraft with the headline ''beagle phone home ! '' ''i 'm not feeling too down yet , '' said dr . colin t . pillinger , the british scientist who headed the low budget team that built the 73 pound beagle 2 , named for h.m.s . beagle , which took charles darwin on his scientific voyages from 1831 to '36 . ''but we are not in any way giving up yet , '' he said at a news conference . scientists had hoped that the lovell telescope at jodrell bank in western england would detect beagle 2 's call sign between 10 p.m . thursday and 12 30 a.m . friday , london time . ''jodrell bank listened for beagle 2 , '' but ' 'did not detect a transmission , '' mission officials said in a statement . the disc shaped lander , barely two feet across and less that a foot thick , was scheduled to transmit its hailing signal again friday evening for about 80 minutes , dr . pillinger said , adding ''you have to liken this to the early days of mobile_phones . we 've got one mobile_phone , one mobile_phone mast and one satellite , and we have to match these things up , and it 's not that easy . '' in all , 13 more attempts will be made in the future to contact the lander . dr . pillinger said a telescope from stanford_university would join the search . dutch astronomers reported that they tried thursday but failed to detect the beagle 2 signal . over the next month there will be other opportunities an american space probe , now in orbit around the planet , or the the beagle 2 's mother ship to make contact with the lander . the beagle 2 's designers said the craft could have strayed off course , could have deployed its antenna in the wrong direction or could be behind a rock , all of which might be overcome if communications were established . but a number of nonrecoverable failures were just as likely , scientists said , like parachute failure or a flaw in the air bag system designed to cushion beagle 2 's impact on the surface of mars .",has a topic of science
"the space shuttle atlantis took off tonight for a rendezvous with the mir_space_station after the nasa administrator decided that dr . david a . wolf could replace another american astronaut for an extended stay aboard the russian craft . dr . wolf , a 41 year old physician , and six other astronauts blasted off in atlantis at 10 34 p.m . eastern time on a_10 day mission to dock with mir . after a planned linkup on saturday , dr . wolf is supposed to change places with c . michael_foale and begin a four month stay aboard the russian station . the space agency 's administrator , daniel s . goldin , acknowledged the risks of manned_space flight but said nasa consultants had just completed three safety reviews in which they concluded that americans were not being subjected to ''unnecessary peril'' on mir . mr . goldin , at a news conference in washington , insisted that recent problems aboard_mir had made staying there no more risky now than in the past . mr . goldin said he was deeply touched by concerns from the public and some members of congress about the safety of americans aboard_mir since a series of incidents began in february . they have included a small but fierce fire caused by an oxygen generating unit a collision with a cargo craft that ruptured one of the station 's main modules and damaged solar_power panels repeated failures of the main controlling computers on mir , and numerous problems with its life_support system . but mr . goldin said nasa still had something to gain from working with the russians aboard_mir . ''we know the decision to continue our joint participation aboard_mir should not be based on emotions or politics , '' he said . ''it should not be based on fear . our decision should be based , and is based , on scientific and technical assessment of the mission 's safety and the agency 's ability to gain additional experience and knowledge that cannot be gained elsewhere . '' at a hearing of the house science committee last week , representative f . james_sensenbrenner_jr . , the wisconsin republican who heads the committee , and other members called on nasa to stop sending americans to mir for long term visits because of safety concerns and questions about the continuing value of doing research there . mr . sensenbrenner challenged mr . goldin to make the decision on dr . wolf 's mission himself and told him that he would have to provide justification to congress in deciding to continue the program . mr . sensenbrenner said today that he questioned whether the newest safety reviews were thorough enough to satisfy all questions , and said he intended to asked mr . goldin to defend his judgments before the committee . ''it is my fervent hope that the safety evaluations submitted to the nasa administrator are not a nasa whitewash of the many significant safety risks aboard_mir , '' the congressman said . ''we have learned from the challenger accident that ignoring safety warnings can lead to tragedy and a setback of space_exploration for years . '' at stake in the decision to have a sixth american since june 1995 spend months on mir is cooperation with russia in building the proposed 40 billion international_space_station , which also includes european , japanese and canadian partners . the national_aeronautics_and_space_administration has paid russia about 470 million to station americans aboard_mir to gain experience in working on and maintaining a space_station , and has said it considers continued russian participation in the new station essential . valery v . ryumin , the director of the mir shuttle program for russia , acknowledged at a news conference here that mir was still having problems , among them a central computer that has failed four times in four weeks . but mr . ryumin said russian and american engineers had devised ways for atlantis to dock with mir should there be another computer failure that resulted in the station 's drifting in space . dr . wolf , who has flown on one space mission , said repeatedly before the flight that he did not consider staying aboard_mir an extraordinarily dangerous mission . mr . goldin said he spoke with dr . wolf before making his decision to make sure he had no reservations . mr . goldin also said he made sure that the atlantis crew members were told of his decision on wednesday night , so they would not have to go to sleep wondering about the next day 's mission . nasa also released a statement by dr . foale , an astrophysicist who has been aboard_mir since may , in which he said that even with the many problems , the experience had been invaluable and that dr . wolf should be allowed to replace him . the mission plan calls for atlantis to dock with mir on saturday and to spend more than five days transferring supplies and conducting joint operations . atlantis is carrying hundreds of pounds of food , scientific equipment , replacement parts for russian equipment , including a new central computer , and hundreds of gallons of much needed water . while the two vehicles are connected , an american and russian astronaut aboard atlantis are to conduct the first spacewalk to mir from a shuttle . the american , scott e . parazynski , and vladimir g . titov , a veteran russian astronaut making his first flight aboard a shuttle , are to retrieve experiments left outside mir and test construction techniques for the proposed space_station . also aboard atlantis is comdr . wendy b . lawrence of the navy , a shuttle veteran who was originally scheduled as dr . foale 's replacement on mir . but commander lawrence lost the assignment to dr . wolf this summer when nasa required that all long stay mir visitors be trained to do space walks . because her relatively small size prohibited her from using the large russian space_suit , commander lawrence was ruled ineligible for the mir stay . atlantis is commanded by comdr . james d . wetherbee of the navy , a veteran of three previous flights , and is piloted by maj . michael j . bloomfield of air_force , who is making his first flight . rounding out the crew is brig . gen . jean loup chretien of the french air force , who has made two previous flights into space aboard russian spacecraft .",has a topic of science
"lead a strong earthquake with a preliminary reading of 5.6 on the richter_scale occurred in the pacific_ocean off central japan today , the hong kong observatory reported . the observatory said the quake hit at 12 56 p.m . and its epicenter was about 340 miles south of tokyo in an area where several small islands are located . a strong earthquake with a preliminary reading of 5.6 on the richter_scale occurred in the pacific_ocean off central japan today , the hong kong observatory reported . the observatory said the quake hit at 12 56 p.m . and its epicenter was about 340 miles south of tokyo in an area where several small islands are located . the observatory had no additional information on the quake . there were no reports of damage or casualties .",has a topic of science
"the first couple of earthquakes were , understandably , upsetting . ''i was in a sandwich shop buying lunch and a lady started screaming , 'it 's the end of the world as we know it ! ' '' marie corcoran , a complaints analyst at the cooperative insurance society , recalled . ''all the food was sliding toward us . '' that was more than three weeks ago , when the people of manchester were earthquake naifs , unused to threats from below . by now , after an unusual period in which the normally stable city has been treated to more than 70 mostly minuscule earthquakes , contributing to what geologists are calling a harmless ' 'swarm , '' the mood has shifted . fear is no longer a factor . ''because they 're so small , they 're almost cute , as far as environmental catastrophes go , '' said raphael conn , a filmmaker . ''we 've turned them into our pet earthquakes liverpool has n't got them . '' it helps , of course , that the earthquakes are truly tiny , with a magnitude of 2.1 to 3 . 9 , mere taps on the shoulder compared with the recent ones in italy and elsewhere . nearly 30 have been felt by the people here and have manifested themselves in ways that tend toward the teacup rattling and the tile propelling the rest have been detected by machines , but not by people . it also helps that geologists have reassured initially jittery residents that no , there is no need to worry about the big one . indeed , except for people falling down and slightly hurting themselves , there have been no reports of serious injuries . ''on the basis of what we know , nothing is preparing to happen , '' said ernest h . rutter , professor of structural geology at the university of manchester , who reacted to the first earthquake by peering outside to see if any large trucks were passing by . professor rutter said there was no accounting for swarms , which come and go as they please . ''you could have these sorts of earthquakes anywhere at any time , '' he said . a whole swath of mainland britain , it seems , lies right over a geological section that is prone to what , in geology circles , are known as seismic incidents , and little earthquakes can happen at a rate of about 200 a year . the biggest recent quake , centered under birmingham , 70 miles away , measured 4.8 and was the strongest felt in britain in 10 years . what makes the manchester earthquakes so unusual is their sheer persistence and the fact that they are taking place in the middle of a busy city , not in the middle of nowhere , which is usually the case in britain . julian bukits , an assistant scientific officer at the british geological survey in edinburgh , traveled to manchester recently to check out the earthquakes . six took place while he was there , but he was outside at the time and did not feel them . ''it was just bad_timing , '' he said . ''they felt them in the building . '' the earthquakes have taken some getting used to . thousands of people have contacted the geological_survey with accounts of where they were , and what they were doing , during the worst ones . the next door building lost a gargoyle , '' went one e mail . another said , ''all the pigeons flew away , '' while still another writer reported , ''i felt shocks up my spine , and i was thrown out of my chair . '' one of the epicenters was in the neighborhood of beswick , home to the school of the resurrection , which was on midterm break when the first quakes hit . barbara holt , a teacher , heard the news on the radio as she drove to school to do some administrative work . ''i thought , epicenter ? this is a bit silly , '' she said . but when ms . holt got inside , the building started to vibrate as if someone had given the roof a vigorous shake . she happened to be standing on a chair , reaching for something , at the time . ''i thought , 'perhaps i will get off the chair , ' '' she said . down the road , the quake was felt by michael howarth , 10 , and by his hamster , age unknown . ''the hamster was in bed and it woke up and began to run about , '' michael said . ''i said to my mum , 'what was that ? ' and she said , 'i do n't know . ' '' things were scarier in the center of town , where more than 3 , 000 people work at the 25 story cooperative insurance society building . during one of the earliest quakes , there was a big rumble , followed by silence and then uneasy chattering in the cafeteria . the next one came right afterward . this time , the only sound was of people stampeding toward the exits . ''we just legged it , '' said gemma brocklehurst , 22 . but by now panic has turned to sangfroid . sarah dursley , 24 , was giving a customer insurance advice over the telephone when a later tremor struck . ms . dursley inadvertently gasped , only to have the customer shout ''are you in that big building ? get out ! get out ! save yourself ! '' ''but i just laughed , '' ms . dursley said . ''they really do n't bother me anymore . ''",has a topic of science
"two astronauts became electricians today as they left the shuttle endeavour and meticulously assembled dozens of electrical_cables , connecting the first two sections of the international_space_station . after the astronauts completed the electrical connections , controllers signaled the russian unit to turn on its power , and the american united module came alive at 10 49 p.m . eastern time . the two , col . jerry l . ross of the air_force and dr . james h . newman , a physicist , stretched their scheduled six and a half hour space walk to seven hours and 21 minutes . they completed the electrical work ahead of schedule and used the time for some extra jobs , including installing hand rails and other attachment points on the side of the station for use by future astronauts . a little before 5 p.m . colonel ross and dr . newman floated up the sides of the two station modules stacked above the shuttle . the two experienced space walkers ventured into the shuttle 's cargo bay for tools and then hooked themselves up to safety tethers before moving up the space_station modules docked to endeavour . while dr . newman maneuvered up the sides of the modules using footrests and handholds , colonel ross moved about the seven story structure attached to the end of the shuttle 's 50 foot robot arm , which was controlled from inside by lieut . col . nancy j . currie , a former army helicopter pilot . the work began by joining eight connectors and installing a permanent safety wire up the side of the three story unity on which they and future astronaut builders can slide their tether straps . dr . newman unclamped each of the connectors , which are attached to cables 20 to 30 feet in length , and handed them to colonel ross . when the connection were completed , colonel ross attached a protective cover to each joint . after only four and a half hours at work , the astronauts had completed their primary mission connecting 40 cables that will carry power and data through the space outpost as it grows over the five years expected for construction . at 10 30 p.m. , russian ground stations sent commands to zarya to turn on power converters to send electricity through the new wiring . nineteen minutes later , the endeavour crew noted that data coming from unity indicated that it had been activated . the space walk , the first of three planned for the mission , comes after sunday 's successful mating of the russian made zarya logistics module with the american made unity connecting module . after endeavour , with unity mounted in its cargo bay , rendezvoused with zarya 240 miles above the earth , colonel currie used the robot arm to grab the 40 , 000 pound cylinder and pull it to the american module . sixteen nations , led by the united_states and russia , are working together to build the space_station , which is expected to cost between 40 billion and 60 billion . the venture will require connecting more than 100 major components , hauled into space on 45 shuttle and rocket flights and assembled during 162 planned space walks , or eva 's , short for extra vehicular activity . ''the first eva is by far the most critical one , '' colonel ross , a veteran of four previous space walks , said in a pre flight interview . on a second space walk , set for wednesday , the same astronauts are to install additional handrails and footrests on the outside of the modules . they will also remove the connectors that helped hold unity in the shuttle bay during launching . and they are to install two communications antennas and connect more cables . on thursday , members of endeavour 's crew of six will venture into the station for the first time , slowly working their way through numerous hatches , making sure the pressure and air in each unit are acceptable before moving on . station officials say they should find the insides like the unfinished interior of a new home . one of the last jobs of this mission will be to transfer supplies and tools from endeavour that will be left behind for future crews . the first crew to use the units will go up in january 2000 .",has a topic of science
"the space shuttle atlantis blasted into orbit today with a crew of five americans and two russians on a historic mission to dock with the russian mir_space_station , a linkup meant to inaugurate a new era of east west cooperation . the docking is set for early thursday and will kick off five days of joint research by 10 astronauts in a sprawling orbital complex made up of the 112 foot long mir and the 122 foot long shuttle . a winged american spaceship has never before docked with a russian craft . the delicate feat and ones like it are seen as warm_ups for building an east west space outpost where the onetime rivals can work together as orbital partners . two decades ago russians and american astronauts shook hands in orbit during a brief thaw in the cold_war , but the meeting was of little consequence for politics or space development . in contrast , the new phase of cooperation in theory could last decades . "" you ca n't make this unbelievable transition from pointing weapons at one another to working together without bumps in the road , "" daniel s . goldin , head of the national_aeronautics_and_space_administration , said in an interview just after the launching . "" but the relationship is rock solid . this proves that if you put your mind to something and search for common interests , you can build bridges . "" after thunderstorms forced postponements of the launching on friday and saturday , atlantis roared aloft on time today at 3 32 p.m. , streaking past scattered clouds . the requirement of a precise path for the orbital rendezvous left a_10 minute span for launching . a principal aim of the mission is to swap russian crews at the outpost and to pick up dr . norman e . thagard , an american physician astronaut who flew up to mir in march in a russian rocket and has so far spent 105 days on board , easily breaking the previous american space endurance record of 84 days . his mission , originally to be 90 days long , was extended because of russian and american launching delays . "" i miss my family , "" dr . thagard said in a space to ground news conference this month . "" i 've got three sons and a wife and two cats , and i like them all and i miss them . "" the linkup thursday is to be the first of seven dockings between the shuttle and mir in the next two years , which are preparatory to the construction from 1997 to 2002 of the big_east west station . filled with crews of international astronauts , it is expected to be a center of space research for at least a decade . the flight of atlantis is the 100th human mission in the american space_program , which began in may 1961 with the 15 minute , up and down flight of alan b . shepard . it is also the 69th flight by the nation 's winged reusable spaceships , which first went aloft in 1981 . an orbital practice session for the docking was held in february when the shuttle discovery closed to within 37 feet of mir just short of actual contact but close enough for astronauts and ground managers to gain valuable experience in the difficult job of trying to mate two 100 ton craft speeding around the earth at more than 17 , 000 miles an hour . thursday 's docking is scheduled about 9 05 a.m . and is considered tricky . care is needed to make sure that no damage to mir is done by inadvertent collisions . the rigors of the job and the high political stakes of the mission prompted nasa to pick highly seasoned astronauts , led by capt . robert l . ( hoot ) gibson of the navy , 48 , a veteran of four previous space flights and the head of the astronaut office at the johnson_space_center in houston until he was selected to head the mission . "" it is almost unheard of to have a crew that includes all veteran astronauts , "" captain gibson said before the liftoff . usually nasa takes at least one rookie on each shuttle mission to make sure the pool of experienced astronauts is constantly expanding . the pilot for this flight is lieut . col . charles j . precourt , 39 , of the air_force , who , with only one previous shuttle mission , is the least experienced crew member . specialists include dr . ellen s . baker , 42 , a physician and veteran of two flights gregory j . harbaugh , 39 , a former space agency manger who has flown twice , and dr . bonnie dunbar , 46 , a biomedical engineer and veteran of three shuttle missions . also on board atlantis are anatoly y . solovyev , 47 , who has orbited the earth on three russian flights , and nikolai m . budarin , 42 , a space rookie . the two men will occupy the mir station after the current crew leaves , with mr . solovyev as commander and mr . budarin as flight_engineer . the current mir crew includes vladimir n . dezhurov , 32 , its commander gennady m . strekalov , 54 , and dr . thagard , 51 . the three will board atlantis at the end of the linkup for a return flight to earth . the atlantis mission is to last 10 days , with the shuttle scheduled to land at the kennedy_space_center in florida early on july 7 .",has a topic of science
"the space shuttle discovery blasted through hazy , hot florida skies today on the last american mission to the mir_space_station , a flight eagerly anticipated by the astronaut andrew thomas , who has spent more than four months on the russian outpost and is ready to come home . the shuttle , carrying a crew of five americans and a russian , lifted off at 6 06 p.m . at the beginning of a narrow launching window and rose on a thunderous plumb of tan smoke to start its two day sprint to mir . doubts about the flight 's getting off on time arose this weekend when mir suffered a computer malfunction and began a slow drift , which would have prohibited rendezvous and docking by the american shuttle . but american and russian space officials said today that mir 's crew had replaced the computer and managed to stabilize the craft . controllers predicted that the station would be ready to receive guests when the discovery arrived . dr . thomas , a mechanical engineer who has been aboard_mir since jan . 25 , is the last of seven americans who lived and worked on mir in the last three years as training for the planned international_space_station . dr . thomas , who has closely followed preparations for the discovery 's flight and has expressed his readiness to head home , selected items today for his first meal upon return to the kennedy_space_center . ''i think lasagna would be in order , '' dr . thomas said . ''lasagna and possibly some oreo ice_cream , too . '' the discovery is commanded by col . charles j . precourt of the air_force , who is making his third trip to mir , and is piloted by a space rookie , comdr . dominic l . gorie of the navy . the other americans in the crew are comdr . wendy b . lawrence of the navy , who is on her third shuttle flight and second trip to mir dr . franklin r . chang diaz , a veteran of six shuttle flights , and dr . janet lynn kavandi , a chemist making her first flight . rounding out the crew is the russian astronaut valery v . ryumin , a veteran of three flights who has not been in space since 1980 . the 59 year old administrator has been in charge of the russian end of the shuttle mir program and got the russian space agency to select him for the last flight of the program , one in which he is supposed to make a detailed inspection of mir 's interior . the discovery 's 24th trip into space was the first flight for a new lightweight fuel tank designed to increase the cargo capacity of space shuttles assembling the new international_space_station . the newest version of the giant rust colored fuel tank is 7 , 500 pounds lighter than its 65 , 500 pound predecessor . the new tank , which carries 537 , 000 gallons of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen to feed the shuttle 's three main engines , is made of a new aluminum lithium alloy that engineers said makes it just as sturdy as the old tanks , which were made entirely of aluminum . shuttle managers said the tank , plus other weight saving measures , meant that shuttles assembling the space_station over the next five years would be able to carry more than 15 , 000 pounds of additional payload into space than earlier orbiters could . the new station will fly in an orbit similar to mir 's , which is angled higher in relationship to the equator than most american flights . shuttles need more energy to reach these higher inclination orbits , and this has meant carrying less payload . the final docking mission to mir will be the first linkup with the russian station for the discovery . the two craft are to join up on thursday 240 miles above earth and to stay linked for four days . shortly after opening the hatches between the spacecraft , dr . thomas will bring his belongings aboard the discovery and join the american crew . while the spacecraft are docked , the crews will transfer about 2 , 600 pounds of russian supplies and equipment to mir , including storage batteries , food , clothing , experimental equipment and personal items . in addition , more than 1 , 400 pounds of fresh_water made by the discovery 's electricity producing fuel_cells will be transferred to the station . coming back on the shuttle will be more than a ton of cargo taken off mir .",has a topic of science
"to the editor re ''just average , and therein lay his greatness'' ( nov . 16 ) the analysis of eclipse 's bones was so long overdue that its conclusions were skewed by today 's standards . if we compare an 18th_century man 's physique with a modern man 's , he would seem below average in height , weight and therefore strength . judging any 240 year old beast by today 's standards does it no justice . the only part of eclipse judged by the standards of his time was his heart , which was deemed ''large . '' when scientifically comparing bones that have hundreds of years of differences between them , we must remember that most measurements are distorted by unfair comparisons . david hermann state college , pa .",has a topic of science
"japan , indicating that it was ready to go into space alone , today outlined an ambitious space_exploration program , including helping to put a huge telescope on the moon . the 10 year government program includes regular unmanned probes of the moon and the planets and development of new space vehicles . the program coincides with wide publicity for a japanese astronaut , koichi wakata , who flew last week on the united_states space_shuttle endeavor . the report says a japanese mission to the moon should serve as the first step toward expanded manned_space activity .",has a topic of science
"the task of digging out the dead from the crushed buildings of this town on remote sakhalin_island after sunday 's earthquake goes on around the clock , broken only rarely now by the discovery of survivors . six survivors were found today by rescue workers , including a healthy three month old baby . but workers using dogs and periscopes also pulled out another 30 corpses . the russian minister for emergency situations , sergei k . shoigu , said "" we will continue to look for survivors for the next five days , but then the water runs out , "" and most of those still alive will have died of thirst , if not from their wounds or the freezing nighttime temperatures . standing atop rubble that had once been home to more than 200 people , anatoly lakinov , 43 , sifted through what had been the house of his brother in law , viktor . "" they are working as fast as they can , i know , "" he said of emergency workers chipping at a slab of cement nearby . "" but it is not fast enough for us , it cannot be , "" he said , choking back tears . "" after so many days , i have to say that we have almost given up hope . "" official data released by the russian ministry of emergency situations indicate that of neftegorsk 's population of 3 , 200 , only 875 people were not injured . so far , 1 , 021 people have been extracted from the rubble 401 of them bruised but alive , and 620 dead . the balance of the tragedy is measured by the more than 1 , 100 who are missing . authorities fear the death toll will approach 2 , 000 . for the survivors , of course , there is the guilt of living . a young man , 19 , and his sister , 13 , took the family dog for a walk at 1 a.m. , just before the quake , and saw their building collapse behind them , killing their parents . another group of five men , drunk on vodka , said they survived because others in the apartment complained about their chain_smoking . they walked outside to have another cigarette when the quake hit . the russian_president , boris n . yeltsin , injected an odd note into the tragedy on wednesday when discussing offers of earthquake aid from japan , which is close to sakhalin and the disputed kurile islands that russia seized at the end of world_war_ii . russia had to be careful about such offers from tokyo , mr . yeltsin said , because they might carry a political price regarding the kuriles . today in tokyo , the japanese government reacted with astonishment . "" we cannot understand how the president could have made such remarks about the sincere , cooperative efforts of a neighboring country , "" said a government spokesman , kozo igarashi . but the time for aid is short as more than 600 emergency workers continue to bring bodies to the makeshift morgue in back of the collapsed town schoolhouse , where the corpses are laid out on blankets and hundreds of pine coffins lined with red velvet are piled nearby . by nightfall , the morgue was filled with fresh corpses , many twisted into odd positions , adding to the difficulties of the undertakers . "" it is bad enough if it is someone you know , and we know most of the people we are processing , "" said a bruised young man who identified himself only as dima . "" but then there is the smell , and beyond that , the problem of rigor mortis . i have had to force 10 people i knew into coffins since noon . i think i 'm going mad . "" in downtown neftegorsk , only 3 of 19 soviet style , prefabricated , five story apartment blocks are at all inhabitable , the authorities said . "" we 've been instructed not to make any statement about reconstruction , "" one official said . "" but it should be evident to anyone with a brain that there is no town here anymore . if the government is to rebuild for the third of the population still alive , it might as well be in a different , better place . "" fears that other towns may share the same fate as neftegorsk is spreading throughout this sparsely_populated but oil and fish rich region . in the main town , okha , many people spent tonight around bonfires in the streets instead of indoors , fearing another quake . "" we can no longer trust the security of our own homes , "" said a mother , huddled with her two children in the doorway of her building .",has a topic of science
"negotiators from more than 150 countries moved closer today to an agreement requiring reductions in the emission of heat trapping greenhouse_gases by industrial countries , but a firm deal continued to elude them . with a deadline looming later today , the discussions focused on a proposal put forth by raul estrada oyuela of argentina , the chairman of the talks , that would cut average emissions of carbon_dioxide and other greenhouse_gases during the period 2005 through 2010 by 5 percent below the level of emissions in 1990 . in meeting the overall target , different countries and groups of countries would be assigned different targets according to their economic profiles . thus , while the united_states would cut its emissions by 5 percent and japan by 4.5 percent , for instance , emissions of the european_union would be reduced 8 percent . but all would fall within a narrow band ranging from that 8 percent reduction to increases of 5 percent permitted in australia and norway . ''the trend is a very positive one , '' mr . estrada said after the talks recessed at 2 30 a.m . at issue are emissions of six greenhouse_gases . the most important is carbon_dioxide , which is produced by the burning of fossil_fuels like coal and oil . the others are methane , nitrous_oxide , hydrofluorocarbons , perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexachloride , but various proposals on reductions would leave decisions on some gases for another conference . all trap heat in the atmosphere , and some scientific advisers at the talks say the gases will raise the average global temperature by 2 to 6 degrees_fahrenheit by 2100 if emissions are not reduced . by comparison , the world has warmed by 5 to 9 degrees since the depths of the last ice age , and these scientists say the predicted warming would cause widespread climatic and environmental disruption . on the sticky question of how developing_countries can be brought more closely into the effort to control emissions , the proposal suggested setting up a special fund to serve as a conduit for the transfer of money and technology from rich countries to poor ones , so that the latter can adopt appropriate technologies . the united_states ''welcomes'' this concept , said stuart eizenstat , the chief american negotiator , who called it ''exactly the kind of bridge both worlds should hope for . '' mr . estrada 's proposal also provides for developing_countries to submit to binding controls on emissions at any time , at their option some countries , including chile , have expressed interest in this . the developing_countries have been insisting that they will not accept any further commitments under the 1992 rio treaty on climate_change , beyond general ones already binding them to take measures to cut emissions , until the rich countries submit to binding reductions . but dr . mark mwandosya , chairman of the developing_country caucus in the talks , said on tuesday that ''we will not be a stumbling_block'' to mr . estrada 's efforts to forge a deal . the united_states signaled that it was moving in the direction of mr . estrada 's plan on at least one key element , that of the emissions reduction target . mr . eizenstat said the united_states had proposed going below 1990 levels . earlier reports from the european camp that the proposal involved a cut of 2 percent were ''understated , '' he said . mr . eisenstat said the revised american target was contingent on the acceptance of a package that includes the ''trading'' of emissions among countries and regions , and the estrada proposal includes this feature . in emissions trading , a country or industrial company would be able to meet its target by cutting emissions itself , by buying reductions from a country or company that achieved excess cuts , or by both approaches . proponents of the approach argue that it provides an incentive for companies and countries that find it easier and cheaper to cut emissions to reduce them below the target and then sell the excess reductions , at a profit , to companies or countries that find it harder or more costly to reduce emissions on their own . the americans say this results in cheaper and more effective reductions , but the europeans worry that countries might be able to buy their way out of their obligations . the americans proposed on tuesday that the united_states join with a group of countries including but not limited to japan , russia , australia , new zealand and canada in an emissions trading group . this would potentially make it easier for the united_states to achieve its commitments because russia 's economic troubles have reduced its emissions drastically . the european_union has long insisted that its 15 countries be allowed to band together to achieve a common target . the estrada plan would allow countries to meet part of their obligation by counting natural features , mainly forests , that absorb carbon_dioxide . the americans favor this , but the europeas are skeptical .",has a topic of science
"the builder of a rocket that had to be destroyed after it careened out of control over the atlantic_ocean focused its investigation today on engine failure . a multimillion_dollar japanese broadcasting satellite was aboard the rocket . the television_network in tokyo that was counting on quick use of the spacecraft said the loss might result in a service disruption for its four million customers . the atlas centaur rocket was blown up by remote_control six minutes after it lifted off thursday night from cape canaveral air force station , sending a hail of debris into the ocean about 240 miles away . the explosion was too far away to be seen or heard from shore . the rocket and satellite were valued at more than 100 million . the spacecraft was insured . cause of failure the builder of the rocket , the general_dynamics_corporation , said the problem occurred just after the centaur upper stage separated from the atlas booster as planned . a preliminary review indicated that one of the two engines on the upper stage had failed to ignite , the company said . the 30 foot centaur , with the satellite still attached , immediately lost speed and began tumbling toward earth . the air_force sent commands that destroyed the rocket to keep it from falling on land . the company that makes centaur engines , the pratt_whitney division of the united_technologies_corporation , said today that it would not speculate on the cause of the accident "" until the results from the investigation are known . "" the pratt_whitney engine , which weighs 305 pounds and stands more than five feet high , is the world 's first liquid hydrogen fueled space engine . it was designed in the late 1950 's and has been used since 1963 to power the centaur upper stage , which guides spacecraft to their proper orbit . record of successes before the accident on thursday , 178 of the engines had fired in space , all successfully , the company said . the last atlas centaur failure , in 1984 , was caused by a fuel tank leak that had nothing to do with the engine . three years later , lightning destroyed an atlas centaur rocket shortly after liftoff . the last atlas centaur launching , which was the first commercial version of the rocket , successfully put a nasa scientific satellite in orbit in july . the japan broadcasting corporation ordered the satellite to replace one that was destroyed in the explosion of a european ariane rocket in february 1990 . it was to have been a backup for one put in orbit last august that recently developed solar panel trouble . japan 's national nhk television_network had asked the satellite 's owner , the astro space division of the general electric corporation , to get the spacecraft up and running as quickly as possible . g.e . astro planned to pass ownership of the satellite to the broadcasting company once it was in orbit 22 , 300 miles above borneo . officials at g.e . astro talked to executives of japan broadcasting on friday , and further telephone conferences were planned . "" it certainly was a service nhk was counting on , "" said lawrence greenwood , vice_president and general_manager of g.e . astro . the accident was a major setback for general_dynamics , a newcomer in the commercial launching business . the industry was formed after president_ronald_reagan ordered all commercial cargo off space shuttles after the 1986 challenger accident . general_dynamics' atlas program lost 300 million last year .",has a topic of science
"in a celestial chase around the earth , the space shuttle atlantis dashed across the skies today , pursuing the russian mir_space_station for a rendezvous and linkup . atlantis , with a crew of six , blasted into chilly , pre dawn skies today on flaming rockets that remained visible from the launching site for almost eight minutes . looking like a bright star , the shuttle finally disappeared into the darkness after it was more than 300 miles away from the kennedy_space_center and about 70 miles high . atlantis , which is to catch up with mir and dock with it late tuesday , lifted off about 23 seconds after 4 27 a.m . after an almost perfect countdown . the launching director , jim harrington , joked that the shuttle was ''a little slow , '' missing its liftoff target by 42 milliseconds by the official clock . this is nasa 's first shuttle flight of the year and the fifth of nine planned missions with mir , including two more planned for later this year . the program , part of preparations for the international_space_station , involves putting american astronauts on mir to gain long duration space experience and helping to keep the 11 year old russian outpost in operation . one crew member aboard atlantis is dr . jerry l . linenger , a physician scheduled to stay four and a half months aboard_mir . he is to replace john e . blaha , who arrived at the station sept . 19 and is the third nasa astronaut to serve as a researcher on mir . dr . linenger , 41 , who has a year old son and whose wife , kathryn , is pregnant , hopes to be home in late may , a month before the baby is due . the astronaut , who has flown on one other mission , has made an unusual request of nasa and his family . he has asked that he not be given any bad news while he is away , adding there is nothing he could do about it while orbiting 240 miles above the earth . while aboard_mir , dr . linenger is to perform scores of experiments and make a six hour spacewalk , the first from the russian station by an american astronaut . for that reason , he was the first american to receive extensive practice at russia 's star city training complex in using a russian space_suit . mr . blaha , a 54 year old retired air_force colonel , said last week that he was eager to get home . though the avid football fan wants to be back for the super_bowl , on jan . 26 , mr . blaha told a news conference that he is most eager to see his wife of 30 years , brenda . ''i had no idea , i must say , how i would feel about the separation from her , '' he said . in addition to ferrying astronauts to and from mir , atlantis is carrying a pressurized spacehab module that is filled with food , scientific equipment and other supplies for the russian craft . the shuttle is to deliver 3 , 600 pounds of supplies to mir and , in the five days the two craft are docked , transfer 1 , 400 pounds of fresh_water to the russian vehicle . atlantis is to bring back to the kennedy_space_center about a ton of scientific samples , equipment and other material from mir . on a_10 day mission , atlantis is scheduled to return jan . 22 . to reach mir , atlantis must complete a 66 hour chase around the world . through a series of maneuvers and rocket firings that are to raise the shuttle 's orbit and close the gap between the craft , they should dock tuesday at about 10 50 p.m . atlantis is being commanded by capt . michael a . baker and piloted by comdr . brent jeff , both navy officers . the americans will be greeted by the russian astronauts valery korzun and aleksandr kalery , who have been aboard_mir since aug . 19 . the russians are scheduled to be replaced by a new crew in early february when a soyuz_spacecraft arrives carrying two russian astronauts and one german astronaut . while in space , the crew of atlantis , all veterans of previous flights , will conduct a series of experiments , including a european_space_agency study of the effects of low space gravity on plants , bacteria and insects . crew members also will test new methods for calculating the precise position of spacecraft in relation to one another in orbit . other members of atlantis 's crew are three mission specialists , marsha s . ivins , an engineer , and dr . peter j . k . wisoff and dr . john m . grunsfeld , both physicists . atlantis 's flight is the first of eight shuttle missions planned for 1997 . the last mission of the year , in december , is scheduled to be the first to begin assembling the united_states led international_space_station . the russians are to launch the first module of the station , scheduled to be completed in 2002 , in november . the third part of the station , a russian service_module , was to be launched in the spring of 1998 , but the unit is behind schedule because of russian financial problems . nasa officials say they are working with the russians in hopes of finding a solution that will keep station construction on schedule .",has a topic of science
"europe 's first attempt to land an unmanned probe on mars entered its final phase on friday when a disc shaped landing_craft named beagle ii separated from the mars express spaceship and began a series of maneuvers to orbit the red planet before bouncing onto the surface early on christmas day . the 73 pound martian explorer was conceived by dr . colin t . pillinger of the open university in milton_keynes , england . funds for the 60 million project were drawn from a variety of agencies and sources that dr . pillinger and his colleagues have yet to fully disclose . but they were so determined to advance the exploration for life on mars that they succeeded in winning support from the european_space_agency to add the beagle ii lander to the mars express orbital exploration mission . dr . pillinger expressed great satisfaction on friday , telling the bbc that when he conceived the martian landing mission in 1997 , he wanted to take advantage of the planet 's remarkably close alignment with earth this year . ''this is definitely a case of seize the moment , '' he said . but the modest spaceship a dowdy affair that resembles a doorknob has struck a chord of national pride for britons , many of whom are expected to tune in christmas morning to monitor the fate of the plucky little craft . beagle ii carries just 5 percent of the weight of the viking lander that america sent to mars in 1976 . the mars express and beagle ii lifted off from earth on june 2 from the baikanor , kazakhstan , spaceport on a russian soyuz fregat launcher . ''it was a relief , absolutely , '' zeina mounzer , a senior mars express engineer said at the mission_control_center in darmstadt , germany , after the separation , according to the associated press . ''we have all been waiting for this moment for a long time , and when our screens lit up , we were ecstatic . '' the beagle ii is named for the ship that took charles darwin around the world , but british tabloids have already engaged in some space_age wordplay on the 1969 american moon_landing , announcing with pride , ''the beagle has landed . '' if all goes well , the tiny ship will enter the martian atmosphere , slowing considerably in its final descent with the aid of a parachute , then land on a desolate plain near the martian equator with the help of three inflatable air bags that will cushion its first bounce . if it survives the descent and landing , the beagle ii is designed to pop open , raise its solar_panels and , eventually , use robotic arms and a collection of sniffers , spectrometers and digging devices to search for signs of carbon , water or bacteria on and beneath the surface of mars . while the beagle ii carries out six months worth of work on the surface , the mars express will deploy a radar from orbit to penetrate the surface in search of water and other formations that will add to an understanding of whether the planet has supported life . the beagle ii will be joined by two american probes in january .",has a topic of science
"the space shuttle atlantis was fueled and ready to return to the russian space_station mir , but cloudy skies threatened the launching today . because of the weather , nasa had just seven minutes to launch atlantis today , beginning at 7 56 a.m . the atlantis last traveled to mir four months ago . although good weather had initially been forecast , low clouds were expected at the launching site , with high winds at the emergency_landing strips in spain and morocco . atlantis contains a russian built docking port that the five astronauts will attach to the mir station to help with future shuttle dockings . the shuttle mir hookups will allow the two space programs to iron out docking and communication problems before they start hauling up pieces of the international_space_station . a liftoff today would mean that atlantis would arrive at mir on tuesday .",has a topic of science
"in what may have been history 's most audacious sale of a used vehicle , sotheby 's yesterday auctioned off a research vehicle the russians left on the surface of the moon in 1970 . the price was 68 , 500 . "" we made sure we did n't promise to deliver it , "" said david n . redden , the senior vice_president of the auction house who organized the sale over a three year period . sotheby 's sold 227 items from the soviet space program from moon rocks ( 442 , 500 for three ) to space capsules ( 1 . 7 million for the better one ) to the first eating utensils used in space ( 6 , 900 ) to instructions for the finder of the space dogs belka and strelka on their return to earth ( 10 , 350 ) . the total spent was 6 . 8 million , in line with pre sale estimates of 5 million to 7 million . eleven items were left unsold . the lunakhode 1 lunar surface rover , now in the moon 's sea of rains , came with a legal title to the buyer from the russian space manufacturer . the motive of the anonymous buyer is unknown . "" it 's hard for many people to understand , "" mr . reddin said . "" to buy it , one has to assume that at some point , man will be reaching the moon on a regular basis . "" the atmosphere among the standing room only crowd was one of excitement . but a sense of history was also inescapable as several former cosmonauts watched the proceedings behind a darkened window in sotheby 's boardroom . business suits predominated , rather than the furs and black ties of an auction of , say , impressionist art . cosmonaut praises sale "" i think this is a very reasonable action , "" said cosmonaut aleksei leonov , the first man to walk in space and a rapt spectator . "" it permits an exchange of cultural values for humanity . "" it also permits newly private enterprises that continue to run major parts of the soviet_union 's space_program to make much needed money . these included makers of spacesuits and capsules . other sellers included cosmonauts and their families . buyers ranged from art dealers to hobbyists to museums . the sale 's two space capsules were bought by an unidentified american who was said to have indicated a desire to return them to russia eventually to exhibit them in museums . sotheby 's officials said they did not know whether any russians had bid . gagarin items sell well the 1 . 7 million the american paid for one capsule was the highest price in the sale but less than the 3 million to 5 million sotheby 's estimated before the sale . a second capsule sold for 552 , 500 , compared with an estimate of 600 , 000 to 800 , 000 . some smaller artifacts did much better than expected , however . a congratulatory telegram from nikita s . khrushchev to yuri i . gagarin , the first man in space , was expected to bring 2 , 000 to 3 , 000 , but instead elicited a winning bid of 60 , 000 . a medal awarded mr . gagarin for the flight fetched 55 , 000 , compared with an estimate of 1 , 000 to 1 , 500 . manuscripts , diaries and documents generally did better than expectations . for example , the handwritten speech composed by mr . gagarin , just two days before the cosmonaut blasted off , brought 123 , 500 , compared with an estimate of 20 , 000 . a copy of the soviet submission to the international aeronautics federation certifying that mr . gagarin was the first spaceman brought 354 , 000 , compared with an estimate of 20 , 000 to 30 , 000 . identities of many buyers remained shrouded , including those who bought the moon rocks and the research vehicle on the surface of the moon . other buyers radiated pleasure and seemed eager to talk , with most saying they never expected to have the chance to bid for such merchandise . "" it 's very important everything here is important for history , "" said carlos bergandtinos , a new york art collector who bought the flight clothes that yuri atyukhin , a cosmonaut , wore on the first successful mission to a soviet space_station in 1974 . he also said he hoped to interest a designer in creating a line of men 's apparel based on the deep blue outfit . "" for that year , it was very good design , "" he said .",has a topic of science
"in a nation that was widely regarded as well prepared for earthquakes , something clearly went wrong last week in the city of kobe . and now , some people are saying the temblor also exposed what is wrong with the leadership of japan . newspapers editorialists and other critics are complaining strongly about the response by the administration of prime_minister tomiichi_murayama , who did not hear about the earthquake until he watched the morning news on television . in a possible sign of weakening confidence in the government , the nikkei stock_market_index dropped more than 1 , 000 points today , a decline of 5.6 percent , after smaller declines in the days immediately after the quake . and newspapers are publishing a growing number of accusations that poor preparation , indecision and bureaucratic rivalry may have added to the death toll . "" this earthquake symbolizes the systemic weak point in our postwar system , "" said takeshi sasaki , a professor of political_science at tokyo_university . "" there is no systemic flexibility . this kind of rigidity in our system is proved by this enormous tragedy . "" "" when something disrupts our system , "" he added , "" the system becomes unworkable . "" fault lines run underneath the soil of most parts of the japanese islands , so earthquakes have been a part of this country 's psyche for generations . as a result , japan has developed sophisticated equipment for measuring and detecting earthquakes , as well as systems in earthquake resistant buildings that automatically shut off gas at the first tremor . the problem is that while money went into earthquake related technology , it does not seem to have gone into crisis_management organizing rescue and relief operations in the aftermath of an earthquake . of course no city could be expected to insulate itself against an earthquake of this scale , and after all , 99 . 9 percent of the population in the earthquake zone survived . nonetheless , critics say , even after the quake the kobe region and the national government seemed to be at a loss as to how to handle the crisis . "" early warning of the earthquake was practically impossible , "" said seizaburo sato , professor of political_science at keio_university . "" but once the earthquake started , the government could have done a much better job . "" "" murayama said he was inexperienced , that it was natural to make mistakes , "" he added . "" that 's an excuse that no japanese_prime_minister should use . it 's like if japan is invaded , the japanese_prime_minister cannot just say 'i 'm inexperienced , and this is my first experience with this . ' "" government officials acknowledge that there were problems in the response to the quake . "" we realized the large scale of the damage almost at the same time as they were reported on the television , and we were surprised , "" said masayuki kitamoto , deputy director at the national land agency 's disaster prevention bureau . "" probably local officials were confused , and communication lines were shut down instantly . at least we should have flown a helicopter much earlier to grasp the whole picture earlier . "" some critics say mr . murayama did not grasp the gravity of the quake soon enough , and the mainichi daily news quoted the chief_cabinet_secretary and other cabinet members as saying they were poorly informed of its scale . then , because of a quirky bureaucratic procedure , the order to send a full fledged contingent of the self_defense forces , japan 's military , was not issued until nine hours after the quake . moreover , traffic_jams delayed the arrival of many soldiers for five more hours into kobe and its stricken neighbor , nishinomiya . firefighters were available to tackle flames that had erupted throughout kobe and nishinomiya , but water was not , and so buildings and houses burned down . trucks equipped with food and water were sent late and were delayed even longer because of the traffic_jams . the tardy response seems to have resulted partly from the bureaucratic system and the consensus style of management for which japan is noted . communication lines among bureaucracies and ministries broke down , and many officials seemed reluctant to act decisively , scholars and critics say . in addition , emergency measures were difficult to initiate because of the devastating nature of the quake . for starters , electricity in the government building went out , generators to power satellite transmissions were damaged and a number of officials were unable to get to work . the result was that emergency plans could not be carried out . one reason for the heavy losses was that while japan has stringent codes to protect buildings from quake damage , many homes predated the regulations . many residents interviewed in kobe and nishinomiya seemed completely surprised by the earthquake and said they thought that their area was in no danger of quakes . many middle_aged citizens interviewed in recent days said they had never taken any precautions or made any preparations for an earthquake . "" i never went through any drills , "" said kazuko miyamoto , a 60 year old woman who stood in line waiting for water in kobe one recent evening . "" i naively believed that this is a safe place . i was too optimistic . "" kobe is often considered one of the nicest places in japan to live , and some people even move to kobe to evade the risk of earthquakes in other areas , like tokyo , or yokohama , a suburb of the capital . kobe had no record of a serious earthquake . "" i grew up in yokohama and believed that an earthquake could ruin our lives , "" said mitsui oku , 57 , who moved to kobe 13 years ago . after the move , she said "" i completely forgot about earthquakes . i thought that we were so lucky to be living in a disaster free area . "" the schools , however , are the one remaining pillar of earthquake discipline . students go through practice drills in classrooms , jumping under desks , dashing to the safety of the playground outside , sometimes running through tunnels of smoke with handkerchiefs over their faces . but while these drills may have at one time served to educate the japanese about earthquakes , most of the preparation is focused in the tokyo area , and most japanese seem to pay scant_attention . "" we used to do drills in school , "" miki demoto , a 25 year old resident of kobe , said in a phone interview . "" but i never took them seriously . "" on jan . 17 , the day of the quake , a japan american workshop on reducing the hazards of earthquakes in urban_areas was being held in kobe , as a way of drawing the attention of local officials to the risks . "" kobe was chosen for the reason that we were trying to bring attention to this area , "" said susan k . tubbesing , executive director of the earthquake engineering research institute , based in oakland , calif . "" there are lots of places in the united_states that have similar seismic risk potential , like seattle and the new madrid area in the southern midwest kentucky , tennessee , missouri , and arkansas . "" quake in japan the leadership",has a topic of science
"tonight , a thin beam of light will flash down from outer_space to illuminate dark parts of north_america , europe and asia if a russian space test succeeds and if clouds do n't get in the way . astronomers are protesting the experiment , saying such developments threaten to produce new kinds of light pollution that could blind telescopes exploring the night sky . in the test , astronauts aboard the russian space_station mir are to bounce sunlight off an 82 foot mirror and direct the rays toward the ground , producing beams up to 10 times brighter than the full moon . the test is sponsored by a team of russian companies known as the space regatta consortium , which foresees swarms of space mirrors as wide as 650 feet and orbiting up to 3 , 000 miles high . the mirrors would be used mainly to light cities . the team also envisions spaceships with no fuel other than sails of the same reflective material that would catch sunlight to send the craft hurtling toward the stars . the test is being conducted as the russian manned_space program faces severe financial difficulties . in the past few years nasa has repeatedly bailed moscow out . last month the russian government approved a plan to extend the life of the mir station if private investors could be found , and the mirror consortium is eagerly trying to win financial backers as well . if no money is found , moscow plans to bring the mir down this summer and focus resources on building a new international_space_station with 16 nations , led by the united_states and russia . the mirror test is known as znamya , russian for banner . it is to begin thursday at 5 04 a.m. , eastern time , when a supply ship undocks from mir carrying the mirror . while orbiting more than 200 miles up , its thin metal and plastic parts are to unfurl like the petals of a flower to reflect sunlight and produce a beam of light on the ground a few miles wide . at least eight cities are to be illuminated . at 8 12 a.m. , the beam is to fall on karaganda , kazakhstan at 12 56 p.m. , on frankfurt at 6 56 p.m. , on quebec and at 8 32 p.m . on devil 's lake , n.d . all times are eastern standard . the mir astronauts will try to keep the beam trained on ground targets for one or two minutes at a time . a ground map of the beam 's path and an article on the znamya project can be found at the sky telescope web_site ( www . skypub . com ) . the february issue of sky telescope has an article on the venture . during the program 's debut in 1993 , russian scientists sent a narrow beam of reflected sunlight flashing across the darkened side of the earth . that beam , however , was dimmer than planned because of difficulties in assembling the mirror . such experiments have been criticized by many astronomers , including those at harvard smithsonian center for astrophysics . the project 's architects make no apologies , however . in an open_letter to astronomers on the consortium 's web_site ( src . space . ru ) , they say that such ''extremist experiments'' will someday give scientists ''unique tools for real exploration of the farthest corners of the universe . ''",has a topic of science
"five bare chested men sat around a knee high table in a back alley , sipping beer and picking at cold noodles , their hairless skin gleaming with sweat in the afternoon heat . they talked about what this town is famous for the tremendous earthquake that struck in 1976 and about whether another earthquake is coming this year . "" the weather has been strange this week , "" said chen gang , 31 , a chubby factory worker in blue nylon shorts . "" see how black the sky got the other day ? that must be a sign . "" his neighbor , a thin man with a graying crewcut , scowled at the suggestion "" that was a rain cloud , you stupid melon ! "" then he turned to reassure a visitor with a smile "" everything is fine in tangshan . the government has helped us a lot , and life is good . "" this summer , the talk of many towns in northern china is about earthquakes . unusually hot weather and heavy floods are signs that some kind of tectonic activity is imminent , some people are saying . the mere suggestion that an earthquake might hit is scaring others , who see it as tantamount to inviting trouble . to ordinary chinese , who traditionally accepted a view that harmony between heaven and earth was delicately balanced by the emperor , a natural_disaster could be taken as a harbinger of political or social upheaval . over the centuries , according to chinese teachings , an earthquake came as a dynasty changed or an emperor fell . although communist leaders have campaigned for decades against superstitious and traditional beliefs , common faith in the politics of earthquakes only grew after 1976 . on july 28 of that year , an earthquake shook tangshan so fiercely that falling buildings killed 242 , 000 people , by the official count , making it one of the deadliest on record anywhere . just six weeks later came the death of mao_zedong , the founder of communist_china , at the age of 82 . prime_minister zhou_enlai had died in january that year , and gen . zhu de , the leader of the red_army , died in early july . to suggest to an ordinary citizen that the deaths of mao and two other prominent leaders bore no relation to such a horrific earthquake , well , that is still a tough argument to make . this year china 's paramount_leader , deng_xiaoping , is said to be increasingly frail as he approaches his 92d birthday next month , and he has not appeared in public for more than two years . the possibility that mr . deng might soon depart this world together with an earthquake , an even 20 years after his predecessor did , seems too neat a cosmological parallel to ignore . "" of course i 'm afraid it will happen again , "" said yang guangying , 58 , who lost two sons in the 1976 earthquake and regularly visits a memorial in the center of town . "" this year is very dangerous . everyone knows that . "" like several other residents of tangshan , a coal_mining city of 1.4 million 100 miles east of beijing , mrs . yang seems to accept whatever fate awaits her . "" the earth has its ways that i do n't understand , "" she said . "" we 're hardy people , and sometimes we think we can live through anything . but we 're just people . "" in tangshan , where virtually every building looks new , mrs . yang has heard rumors that another earthquake will strike on july 28 at 3 42 a.m. , precisely the moment the big one occurred 20 years ago . she is not sure whether to believe it , but she said some people in tangshan and the surrounding towns are already sleeping outdoors in case an earthquake occurs at night before then . chinese seismologists are having a hard time fighting such rumors . "" chinese people always think that big events are linked , "" said chen huizhong , director of the national center for seismic data and information in beijing . "" we are trying to teach people that earthquakes happen for geological reasons , and that it is impossible to predict the day an earthquake will happen . it is very hard work . "" mr . chen said that many seismologists believe the area around beijing and tangshan has entered a_10 year "" active period , "" when there is a higher danger of earthquake , but that others challenge the notion that an active period can be identified with any accuracy . yet in what seems to be an effort to calm residents , the tangshan authorities actually issued a report this month saying a new study by the local seismology bureau asserted that no earthquake would occur in tangshan for at least 300 years . in beijing , however , a newspaper carried detailed instructions for what to do in case of an earthquake for example , stay away from windows and leave a building to avoid collapses caused by aftershocks . "" this year is the 20th_anniversary of the tangshan earthquake , "" the beijing youth daily said . "" publicizing how to take refuge during an earthquake is necessary . "" at the tangshan memorial to "" resisting the earthquake , "" as it is officially called , a woman paused to offer her view . "" we went from five mouths to three , "" said jin meiling , 55 and silver haired , whose husband and son were crushed to death . "" everything was in ruins . we had no food or water for days . the soldiers eventually came with water and popsicles , but it was a long time before we ate more than one meal a day . "" i 've heard the talk this year . i think people are just talking about earthquakes because it 's the 20th_anniversary . """,has a topic of science
"a 27 year old chemist today became the first briton in space when she and two soviet astronauts blasted off here aboard a spacecraft on an eight day mission . helen sharman , accompanied by anatoly artsebarsky and sergei krikalyov , lifted off in a soyuz tm 12 craft from the baikonur space center in soviet central asia . soviet television showed the slim brown and white rocket rising smoothly from the launching_pad and disappearing into the clouds after a few seconds . a brief shot of britain 's first astronaut as the seconds to blast off ticked away showed her looking calm but pensive . miss_sharman , nicknamed "" the woman from mars "" after the mars candy company where she worked before winning a contest to join the space flight , spent two years training in the star city space center near moscow . she is the first woman on a soviet space mission since svetlana savistskaya , a soviet citizen , went up in 1984 . valentina tereshkova , the soviet astronaut who was the first woman in space in 1963 , was at the baikonur center to watch the launching . former prime_minister nikolai i . ryzhkov , one of the leading candidates in next month 's russian_republic elections , was also there . soyuz tm 12 is to rendezvous in space with the orbiting mir station manned by two other soviet astronauts , musa manarov and viktor afanasyev . mr . krikalyov and mr . artsebarsky are to stay aboard_mir , the centerpiece of the soviet space program . it has been manned for all but a few months since it was put into orbit in february 1986 .",has a topic of science
"perhaps the best indication of kobe 's progress in recovering from the earthquake in january is that shizuko hirajima can hear again . when the earthquake struck , mrs . hirajima did not have time to rescue a neighbor who was trapped in the rubble . a fire swept through , and from the edge of the blaze she listened to his screams as he burned to death . haunted by her failure to rescue him , she coped by going deaf the screams went away , but so did all other sounds . "" recently my hearing got better , and now it 's almost back to normal , "" mrs . hirajima said . "" there 's no point in dwelling on the past . i 've got to keep struggling ahead . "" all of kobe is struggling ahead these days and making remarkable progress in recovering from an earthquake that killed 5 , 500 people and left 300 , 000 homeless . electricity , water and gas have been restored everywhere , most shops have reopened , and trains again link kobe with the rest of japan . mrs . hirajima has fixed up her home and moved back into it , giving up the tent in which she lived at first . but the roof had caved in , and in the process of repairs her two story house became a one story home . for all the bustle of recovery in kobe , it is now clear that it may take a decade for this beautiful port city to recover fully from the quake . buildings still lean over the street at dangerous angles , forcing pedestrians to hurry by as they peer nervously upward , and 27 , 000 people are still living in schools and other refugee centers . "" there 's no place for us to go , "" said kazuko nakashima , a housewife without a house . she lives with eight other members of her extended family in a classroom of a school one of the few buildings in her neighborhood to survive the quake . the government has erected 25 , 000 prefabricated huts so far , and they fill parks , tennis courts and even parking_lots throughout kobe . but even so , the refugees complain that the only available huts are in remote areas that make it difficult to commute to jobs . the schools are trying to evict refugees by the end of july , so that they can hold normal classes again . but some of the refugees say they cannot leave because there is nowhere to go . so mrs . nakashima and her relatives pass the time in their classroom , comforting young ones who still cry whenever the ground rumbles , even if it is just a passing truck . the biggest lifesaver , they say , was the arrival of two american teenagers , mormon missionaries from utah , who help prepare meals and play with the children . in addition to those in refugee shelters , hundreds of homeless people are living in tents in parks and other open areas . takeshi nakane , for example , borrowed a metal frame and bought some plastic to build a tent on a strip of grass beside a pile of rubble that is all that is left of his home . mr . nakane , like many of the hardest hit people , is a burakumin , traditionally the outcasts in japan . kobe has a particular concentration of burakumin , and their neighborhood was one of the hardest hit . the burakumin , a caste somewhat similar to the untouchables of india , were poor to start with , and many lived in shoddy homes that collapsed and then burned when fire engines were unable to get through the tiny alleys in the burakumin neighborhood . many worked in shoe factories and other small businesses that burned after the quake , so that in one stroke they lost jobs , homes and family members . mr . nakane is luckier than some , for he still has his job and his family , but he has no idea where he will get the money to rebuild his home . even a prefabricated home would cost more than 200 , 000 construction costs are enormous in japan and the bank said it could lend him only 40 , 000 . "" i 've worked so hard all my life , "" said mr . nakane , who is 60 . "" and now i 've got to start all over again . "" construction equipment from all over japan has been brought to kobe , and dump_trucks carrying away rubble are a ubiquitous sight . but the demolition work will not be completed until late this year , and the reconstruction phase has not even begun yet , except for small private homes . "" we have to design new buildings and get permits from the government , "" said hideki uchide , an executive of obayashi corporation , a major construction company that has 20 , 000 laborers working on its demolition jobs in kobe . "" the construction will begin next year on major buildings . "" still , reconstruction of private homes has already begun in some areas , and the government has worked frantically to rebuild roads , bridges , rail lines and the port . the port of kobe , gateway to 11 percent of japanese trade , is struggling to repair its damaged wharves , and it can now handle about 60 percent of its capacity before the quake . city planners say that kobe is even improving itself in important ways . congested neighborhoods that were destroyed in the quake are being rebuilt , for example , with parks and wider streets . one big advantage of kobe , even before the quake , is that it is an unusually pretty city . unlike tokyo and osaka , kobe does not look as if it were designed solely to increase sales of cement . it has greenery , charming tree lined streets and pleasant hillsides overlooking pretty bays . "" we want to make kobe the leading port of asia , "" said akira hanaki , who heads a group of city officials studying how to restore the city after the earthquake . "" we want to make kobe better than it was before . """,has a topic of science
"the death toll from the huge earthquake that devastated this city passed 4 , 100 today , and 275 , 000 homeless people huddled on floors and in stairwells of public buildings and other shelters , their initial shock giving way to discontent and even despair . the homeless included more than one tenth of this city 's population of 1.5 million and many others in surrounding areas . in kobe , they gathered mostly at city hall and 471 other public buildings and schools that have been converted into shelters . with water , food and gas in short supply , city officials were worried about food panics or epidemics , though so far such problems have not occurred . kobe 's government said today that it would build 2 , 000 temporary homes , but it appeared likely that that might not be enough . as of mid afternoon , 4 , 124 people were confirmed dead and 729 were missing , according to the national_police_agency , making the earthquake that struck tuesday morning the deadliest in japan since the one that destroyed tokyo in 1923 . more than 21 , 600 people were injured and more than 30 , 000 buildings damaged or destroyed by the temblor , which japan 's meteorological agency measured at 7.2 on the richter_scale . prime_minister tomiichi_murayama toured the area on thursday and said the government would consider a special supplement to the national budget to finance the response to what he called a disaster "" beyond anyone 's imagination . "" but his appearance just added fuel to a growing feeling of discontent here over what is seen to be the government 's slowness to mobilize . and despite the prime_minister 's reassurances , many people are coming to the grim realization that their lives and the city 's commerce will not return to anything even near normal for months , if not years . though the national and local_governments now seem to be moving more aggressively to alleviate shortages of food and water , some victims and analysts complain that the authorities were initially too lethargic in responding to the catastrophe . "" they say they will build new houses , but they ca n't build all the houses for 200 , 000 people all at once , "" said seiichi kusudo , 61 , whose home was first knocked down then burned in the earthquake . "" it 's going to take many years . "" since the earthquake occurred , mr . kusudo has been sitting on the floor of a city ward office covered by blankets . hundreds of other people are crammed side by side , leaving only a narrow path for walking . there is no heat in the building and no running water , so the toilets are filthy and smelly . there was no electricity for two days either , making it pitch black at night . "" we eat only once a day , "" mr . kusudo said . "" we only wait for the relief goods to come . "" like many of the shell shocked kobe residents , mr . kusudo said he had no idea how he would buy a new home . the death toll surpassed the 3 , 769 killed in an earthquake of magnitude 7.1 that occurred in june 1948 in fukui prefecture , central japan . the great tokyo earthquake of 1923 , which measured 7.9 on the richter_scale , killed more than 140 , 000 , mainly by fires . soldiers , the police and firefighters continued to comb the wreckage of buildings looking for survivors . a dozen specially_trained dogs arrived on thursday from switzerland to help in the search . while the odds of finding survivors are growing slimmer , rescuers on thursday recorded a handful of near miracles . on thursday afternoon , rescuers noticed a futon poking up from the rubble of an apartment building in nishinomiya , near kobe . when they turned it over , they found 9 year old shinsuke yamada . one 80 year old woman in that city was able to walk away after being rescued from the wreckage thursday , her eyeglasses still intact , according to the kyodo_news service . but the death toll mounted far more quickly . at murano technical high_school , one of the places in kobe designated for collecting bodies , 532 had arrived as of thursday evening . three rooms reserved for the bodies filled to capacity , so tents were set up outside for them . bodies wrapped in blankets lay on the ground as family members huddled around them sobbing . funeral parlors are overloaded , so kobe is considering holding mass funerals . "" i think some people feel that the people who died in the same disaster should be buried together because they shared a destiny , "" said dr . kaneatsu miyamoto , the director general of kobe 's public_health bureau . the united_states embassy in tokyo said a second american woman had been killed in the quake , but it withheld her name . the first american reported killed was voni lynn wong , 24 , a teacher from los_angeles . there was some progress toward bringing the city back to normal . electric power was restored to many parts of kobe on thursday , so fewer than one third of the city 's people remained without power , officials said . kobe 's subway has resumed some operation , and cars bumped along the damaged asphalt . bullet_train service is to be restored to osaka , near kobe , on friday . but gas and water service are still out for about two thirds of the population , a city official said , and almost all shops in the damaged areas remained closed on thursday . bullet_train service west of osaka through kobe is likely to take three months to restore , railway officials said . long lines of people formed in front of water trucks and the few convenience_stores that were open . the city of kobe , worried about a "" food panic , "" has been urging stores to stay open late , seiichi sakurai , a spokesman for the city said . so far , the people have endured the long lines in an orderly fashion , much as they do their daily commute on crowded trains . another concern is health problems either from contaminated water , or from the flu , which was already prevalent here and which could spread quickly through the shelters , dr . miyamoto said . doctors and nurses are being brought in from other cities , he said . hospitals are strained . hyogo hospital in kobe was already full with flu patients when the earthquake occurred and had to send quake victims elsewhere , said itaru horimatsu , the general_manager of the office . nhk , the public_broadcasting corporation , reported that at the central hospital in nishinomiya , patients were sleeping on the floor . prime_minister murayama , on his trip here , viewed a hospital in which the fifth floor had collapsed , forcing the patients to be evacuated . he also went to an elementary_school being used as a shelter , urging the temporary residents to keep their chins up and saying the government would help . but inside the hospital that the prime_minister visited , hisano tanaka was not convinced that the government would help . "" we have n't received anything from them at all , "" said mrs . tanaka , who has been living in the lobby of the hospital with her frail mother since her apartment was badly_damaged . "" his policies are so ambiguous . "" the criticism is mounting because the government did not decide until wednesday , a day after the disaster , to send the self_defense forces , japan 's military , to help in the rescue . "" quake toll at 3 , 083 response finally on , "" a front page headline in the asahi evening news said thursday . it also appears that the government relied on crowded roads to send supplies , although recently helicopters have been used . many people here say they have come to rely on friends and family more than on the government . mrs . tanaka , who complained that she had not washed her face in three days , said her son had brought her water , traveling five hours on motorcycle through traffic clogged roads . even the friendly neighborhood gangsters are helping out . the yamaguchi gumi , japan 's largest organized_crime syndicate , was offering free food and water from its headquarters in one of kobe 's badly_damaged wards . about 200 people gathered outside as word spread on thursday , according to the kyodo_news service . it is a peculiarity in japan that the offices of organized_crime syndicates function openly in many parts of many cities , often with the tolerance of the police . the syndicates carry out extortion , gambling and prostitution rackets but also are seen in many areas as protectors of order in the neighborhood . the big factories making steel , rubber and auto_parts remained closed today . at kobe_steel , one of the largest private employers in the area , the blast furnace is shut down , partly because of light damage and mainly because of lack of power and water . it will take at least one month to resume operations , said hideaki ochi , general administration manager . the industrial impact is spreading beyond the area affected directly by the earthquake . for instance , mazda , the automaker , said it would close a production line in hiroshima for about a week because it cannot get needed parts from a supplier in the kobe area . but in a country oriented toward business and imbued with a spirit of customer service , even a huge earthquake could not keep some people down . junizo morimoto was poking around on thursday through the rubble of the building that had housed his home and dry_cleaning shop on a street where virtually all the homes and small shops were destroyed . his elder sister , sleeping on the first floor , had died when a wall fell on her . mr . morimoto was not looking for family momentos or valuables , however , but for the shirts and other clothing belonging to his customers . "" it is my responsibility to return them , "" he said . "" i 'm going to clean them and return them . "" to guard the clothing from theft even though there has been virtually no looting in kobe mr . morimoto and his family slept on the street in front of their collapsed former home in near freezing_temperatures . the japanese character showed in other ways as well . even as they stayed in uncomfortable public shelters without food or water , some people said they would not move in with relatives because that would be imposing . "" japanese houses are really just big enough for the family alone , "" said mr . kusudo , at the ward office . "" we feel more relaxed in the shelter than in our children 's home . "" quake in japan the overview",has a topic of science
"''looks like nasa , '' alan alda said as he walked in , but it was not mission control , only a television control room on west 42d street . mr . alda was there to interview andrew s . k . thomas , the american astronaut aboard the mir_space_station , for the public broadcasting service . the interview was carried live on the internet , a first for pbs . ordinary television viewers will have to wait until it is broadcast on ''scientific american frontiers'' next year . the notion of presiding over a first prompted a moment of nostalgia mr . alda said his father , robert alda , had appeared in a groundbreaking closed_circuit broadcast in the early days of television . ''i bet the atmosphere was the same in this room , '' mr . alda said . ''we should have champagne or something . '' public lives",has a topic of science
"after years of delay and cost_overruns on the proposed international_space_station , the clinton_administration came into office four years ago vowing to put the project on a strict schedule and keep it there , no matter what . eager to help the russians after the cold_war , the administration brokered a deal in 1993 to have them join the international station team . and it set a firm date november 1997 to get the effort off the ground and start assembling the station in space . today , though , the national_aeronautics_and_space_administration admitted that the longest running melodrama in the history of the space_age is going to get a bit longer . at a house subcommittee hearing here , nasa officials told visibly angry congressmen that after 13 years of work and 17 billion in spending , the launching of the station 's first hardware would be delayed to ''no later than'' october 1998 , significantly more than the previously anticipated delay of five or six months . the well known problem is russia 's trouble in financing its share of the sprawling outpost , which is to be the size of a football field and cost at least 50 billion . the russian contribution is vital for life_support as well as stability and propulsion , keeping the orbital complex from tumbling out of control or falling back to earth . but the cash poor russians have now fallen nearly a year behind schedule in building the key module . ''the american people have been misled'' by russia and nasa at least eight times about plans to address the financial woes , said representative f . james_sensenbrenner_jr . , the wisconsin republican who is chairman of the house science committee . ''we can tolerate no more , '' mr . sensenbrenner said at a hearing of the subcommittee on space . but there was more . nasa announced that the agency planned to take 200 million from the current space_shuttle budget , and at least 100 million from next year 's budget , to pay for emergency work in russia and the united_states to address the troubles . wilbur c . trafton , nasa 's associate administrator for space flight , testified that the shuttle cuts would have no effect on the safety of the nation 's fleet of shuttles a statement that several congressmen at the hearing appeared to view skeptically . ''this planned transfer , '' mr . sensenbrenner said , ''threatens to allow russia 's problems to compromise the safety of our shuttle program . '' on tuesday , the space_shuttle_columbia was forced to cut its mission short by 12 days after one of its three power units failed . and many experts have worried that large cuts in the shuttle budget are increasing the odds of a fiery disaster . washington should immediately remove moscow as a full partner from the station project and give up relying on the russians for critical station parts , mr . sensenbrenner said , or else the project ''will be further delayed and will cost even more . '' mr . trafton of nasa said that the space agency planned to give moscow until may to see if it could speed up work on its tardy component , known as the service_module . if that failed , he said , nasa would switch to an emergency substitute known as the interim control module , which is being made by the naval research laboratory . even if that switch occurred , mr . trafton said , the russian service_module might still come into orbital play as late as 1999 . ''we want this to work , '' he said . ''and the russians want this to work . '' the nasa administrator , daniel s . goldin , said ''we knew from the outset that building an international_space_station was going to be tremendously challenging . but we are well on our way to the realization of this world class facility . '' the unasked question at the hearing was whether the postponement would have a deeper impact on the project . ''with the delay , you 've basically opened up another year of opportunity for something to come unglued , '' said john e . pike , head of space policy at the federation of american scientists , a private group in washington . mr . pike noted that it is hard to pull the plug on astronauts in orbit and much easier to abolish outposts still in the planning stages . at the very least , mr . pike added , ''you 've got more and more people on the hill talking about kicking out the russians . '' still , analysts suggest the project 's vast momentum it has many powerful allies in congress and for more than a decade had been an important source of funds for aerospace contractors means it can probably ride the most violent of political storms . the push for a big space_station began in 1984 during the reagan_administration . as revised , the plan now calls for the orbiting_outpost to be built in stages by 15 nations , replacing cold_war hostilities with a new kind of global teamwork . but russia fumbled when it came to fabricating the service_module , a 43 foot long , 23 ton cylinder that is the station 's third element . being built by krunichev , a russian company , it was to be launched by a russian proton rocket in april 1998 to provide the early station 's basic living quarters and propulsion . rather than sending up the first two elements , which are more or less ready to go , and letting them sit_in orbit awaiting a third element that might never show up , nasa decided to postpone the whole endeavor until the picture is clarified .",has a topic of science
"when japan was chosen as the site of this year 's conference on climate_change , it relished the chance to play host to a landmark meeting to help save the planet from global_warming . the meeting , to be held in the ancient capital of kyoto dec . 1 to 10 , was supposed to demonstrate japanese leadership and to show that japan is ready to achieve its dream of a permanent seat on the united_nations_security_council . but these days , some officials worry that the meeting will turn out to be not a triumph but a fiasco . ''i 'm very worried about it , '' said kazuo aichi , a former cabinet minister who is now a pro environment member of parliament . ''this will be a test not only of the environment but also of japanese diplomacy . '' the problem is that the kyoto conference was intended to be a historic convention that would commit countries to cuts in emissions of heat trapping greenhouse_gases like carbon_dioxide , which mainstream scientists believe are linked to global_warming . but now that the time for sacrifice is approaching , some countries are losing their enthusiasm . there is even some possibility that japan will preside over a conference that simply falls apart . ''there is that possibility , but we would like to make utmost efforts to avoid the chance that we have no agreement at all , '' said a senior japanese government official involved in preparations for the meeting . prime_minister ryutaro_hashimoto is caught in a double crossfire on this issue . one is the international battle over whether to require sharp cuts in emissions and if so , to whom to apply them . any agreement that mandates sharp restrictions or places them only on industrialized_countries may be torpedoed by washington , while one that places a significant burden on poor countries may not get their backing . the other crossfire is taking place among japanese bureaucrats , who , as usual , are telling the country 's leaders what positions to adopt . the environmental agency is insisting on steep cuts in emissions , while the ministry of international_trade and industry says that is preposterous . mr . hashimoto seems to be leaning toward a compromise that would require industrialized_countries to cut their carbon_dioxide_emissions by the year 2010 to 5 percent below their 1990 level . that is much weaker than the european proposal for a 15 percent cut below the 1990 level but it may still be tougher than the united_states is willing to accept . president_clinton is convening a major conference on the issue monday and is expected to decide on the american position later this month . some japanese are demanding that their government do more to influence the united_states now . ''the kyoto conference will not succeed if japan simply watches america 's reaction and follows it , '' the asahi_shimbun , probably japan 's most influential newspaper , declared in an editorial . ''the government should change its thinking so that it can set a higher target and lead america . '' still , mr . hashimoto knows that the final treaty needs america 's backing to be effective . the united_states produces 22 percent of the world 's carbon_dioxide_emissions , far more than any other country . ''without the united_states , we cannot make it , '' the senior official warned . ''the u.s . is vital to this negotiation , and we have to find a solution that is acceptable to it as well . '' the japanese plan that is emerging would adhere to some american suggestions that would effectively ease the burden of the cuts . for example , the treaty would allow trade in emission rights and permit developed countries to get credit for reductions that they help bring about in developing nations . the prime_minister has yet to decide who will be the chairman of the conference , largely because of skirmishing within the bureaucracy . in the meantime , the dispute has left a vacuum in japanese preparations . japan saw this forum as ideal for displaying its leadership . japan 's ''peace constitution'' rules out military leadership but tokyo has had a long time interest in the environment . now , though , as the kyoto meeting looms as a far greater challenge than was expected , it raises the risk that it will harm japan 's chance to win a seat on the security_council . the asahi_shimbun quoted an unnamed cabinet minister as reflecting , ''it was from the beginning a mistake for us to take on the host nation 's role . ''",has a topic of science
"a secret encoded circuit_board containing sensitive technology was missing from the wreckage of an american satellite aboard a chinese rocket that exploded in 1996 , and american officials said today that they suspected that the chinese authorities took it . the disclosure of the missing circuit_board , which tells an orbiting satellite which way to point to receive and transmit signals to and from earth , was made today at an unusual joint hearing of two house committees , national_security and international_relations . if china did steal the circuit_board , it would be a violation of a technology agreement that beijing and washington last amended in 1993 to prevent the transfer of militarily sensitive american technology . in raising that possibility , the disclosure today opened a new front in congress 's inquiry into whether sensitive space technology was transferred to china by american aerospace corporations using chinese rockets to launch their satellites . representative curt weldon , republican of pennsylvania , said the missing circuit_board would be a main focus of a special select committee the house created last week to investigate the wide_ranging accusations involving china . the control box containing the circuit_board was recovered at the crash site , he said , but the board was gone . ''we better call the chinese on this issue , '' mr . weldon said . ''that is a very serious concern . '' on feb . 15 , 1996 , united_states military monitors at a command post in southern china watched the chinese rocket streak toward space carrying a 200 million american communications_satellite made by loral space and communications and hughes_electronics , but 22 seconds after liftoff , the long_march rocket exploded , showering debris and burning fuel on a nearby chinese village , where by american accounts as many as 200 civilians were killed . for five hours , united_states officials said , chinese officials barred them from the crash site , purportedly for their own safety . when the americans finally reached the area and opened the battered but intact control box of the satellite , a secret encoded circuit_board was missing . now congressional investigators are asking whether there could be any explanation for the loss of the board , other than that the chinese took it . at today 's hearing , mr . weldon quoted a statement he said was given to him by the national_security_agency that warned ''if the encryption board were reversed engineered , the knowledge gained could be used to strengthen adversaries' knowledge'' of the devices the united_states uses to safeguard its communications systems . a senior defense_department official said tonight that he was not aware that the government had demanded that the chinese account for the missing encoded card . ''we 're not 100 percent sure they filched this encryption card , '' the official said . ''it may have just fallen out , but we have to assume they do have it . '' at the hearing , lawmakers also disclosed that the justice_department has begun an investigation of a second failed china missile launching that involved an american satellite . this second inquiry is centered on the possibility that an american aerospace corporation shared sensitive information with the chinese without government supervision . today 's revelation also adds a new dynamic to a justice_department inquiry into the matter . federal investigators are trying to determine whether hughes and loral divulged sensitive technology to chinese rocket scientists during an analysis of the february failed 1996 launching . the state_department oversees exports of the encoded boards as militarily sensitive technology . but when the same components are embedded in a satellite , the whole unit falls under the export controls of the commerce_department . a government auditor told a senate inquiry this month that the commerce_department rules were looser than the state_department rules . government officials insist that united_states satellites launched on chinese rockets are protected with armed american guards around the clock . but the commerce rules provide little protection against sensitive technology being released in accidents like the february 1996 explosion . william a . reinsch , an under secretary of commerce for export administration , told a house hearing last thursday that ''there would not have been any effect on national_security'' if chinese engineers illegally obtained the encoded device . but the defense_department said in a statement it provided to mr . weldon that the impact of the ''loss of the chips'' on national_security would be minimal , rather than nonexistent . in addition , mr . weldon said , the national_security_agency , the government 's code makers and code breakers , said that it had changed the encoded algorithms in satellite circuit_boards after the failed 1996 launching . ''if there was only 'minimal impact' to national_security , why did the n.s.a . change the algorithms ? '' mr . weldon asked today 's witnesses from the state , defense and commerce departments , who included mr . reinsch . the administration officials said they were not prepared to answer that question . today 's hearing also provided new details into the justice_department 's investigation of the role of american satellite makers in helping china 's troubled rocket program . one year before the 1996 accident , a chinese rocket containing a hughes satellite failed , and hughes did a study of that failure . the commerce_department permitted hughes to provide the study to the chinese after the company assured the department that its review was done independently of the chinese and the department determined that the review complied with the license , according to testimony by mr . reinsch . mr . reinsch said the justice_department had recently requested all its documents on the 1995 accident . bert brandenburg , a justice_department spokesman , said the department 's review of the 1995 study was part of their investigation into the 1996 study by loral and hughes , a subsidiary of the general_motors_corporation . marcy j . k . tiffany , general_counsel for hughes , said that hughes employees had held meetings with the chinese to obtain data for the 1995 study and that the commerce_department had reviewed the scope of those meetings to insure they would be in compliance with the license . mr . reinsch told the panel that the hughes study would not help china 's missile program because it only involved the integration of the hughes satellite with the chinese rocket . but representative benjamin a . gilman , republican of upstate new york , chairman of the house international_relations committee , asked why the commerce_department did not seek advice from other agencies before allowing hughes to share the report with china . ''you quietly authorized a united_states company to share information regarding a chinese launch failure in 1995 without sharing that decision with any other agency , '' he said . mr . reinsch replied , ''this was a judgment we made on our own . '' representative tillie fowler , republican of florida , asked why a pentagon agency did not seek additional expertise on another technology sale to china that congressional and industry officials said involved hughes . ms . fowler asked pentagon officials why they approved the 1996 sale of encrypted ground station terminals to a chinese military company , the china electronics systems engineering corporation . the terminals , called vsats , are the heart of a closed telecommunication network in which the users , typically businesses , transmit data via satellite . the communications can be coded through separate equipment . ms . fowler asked why officials from the defense_intelligence_agency , who are supposed to be consulted on such technology transfers , were apparently not consulted . david tarbell , the head of the defense technology security administration , the pentagon agency responsible for reviewing technology transfers , said he would reply later to the inquiry . mr . tarbell did not return a reporter 's phone call . ms . tiffany , the hughes lawyer , said , ''we comply with all american laws and restrictions in our overseas sales , and those laws do not prohibit the sale of vsats to the chinese military . ''",has a topic of science
"a replacement crew for the international_space_station blasted off aboard a soyuz_spacecraft from the baikonur cosmodrome in russia early_today . the capsule will dock to the orbiting complex on saturday . an american astronaut , leroy chiao , the mission commander , and a russian cosmonaut , salizhan sharipov , the flight_engineer , will relieve gennady padalka and mike finckea , a nasa science officer . they have been on the station since april , busy with repair work . a balky oxygen generator has taken weeks to fix , and spare_parts carried by the soyuz may help to restore the vital system . station supplies are low because of the shuttle grounding and the limited weight transported by russian cargo_ships . the new station crew will need to dip into the 45 day emergency food rations even if , as russia assured , the next progress cargo_ship arrives in late december .",has a topic of science
"disembarking from an inflatable boat at james bay , a party of eco tourists hiked one recent morning into a primeval cathedral of the world 's largest temperate rain_forest . wreaths of mist lifted from moss draped cedar trees , revealing stream banks strewn with salmon carcasses , their copper colored skins freshly punctured by black bears . sailing low overhead , bald eagles patrolled , beating the humid air with their wings . once , the stillness of a forest glade echoed with the distant howling of a wolf pack . the only discordant note was a string of construction flags marking roads and a log dump for the day next spring when james bay is to be logged , when its ancient western red cedars are to be converted to window sills and decks for american houses . after cutting 70 percent of the old growth forest from vancouver_island forest that has never been logged canadian logging companies are now moving into what environmentalists call ''the brazil of the north'' a vast , barely disturbed sea of trees , one quarter of the world 's remaining temperate rain_forest . over the next 25 years , 50 of the coastal forest 's largest valleys are to be logged . now , a collision of powerful forces is taking shape on this remote coast , an archipelago where 4 , 500 people live , largely in indian villages , sprinkled over a land area larger than massachusetts and new hampshire combined . on one side is the logging industry of canada , the world 's largest exporter of timber , pulp and newsprint . half of the nation 's timber cut , or harvest , comes from british_columbia . here , canada 's largest trees grow in forests where 15 feet of rain can fall in a year . but after suffering the nation 's worst economic performance last year , british_columbia has slashed logging royalties to jump start the cut . although king timber still rules canada 's far west , logging companies now face a trio of new players determined to defend what many call the great bear rain_forest tour operators , indian tribes and a cross_border alliance of environmentalists . with three tourists visiting british_columbia for each of its four million residents , tourism now employs more people albeit at lower wages than the forest products industry . with half a million tourists , largely americans , taking cruises every summer up the inland passage from vancouver to anchorage , logging companies have been forced to leave ''beauty fringes , '' or waterfront skirts of trees that create illusions of deep forest . ''this is one of the last great intact ecosystems of the world , and more and more people want to see it , '' said eric boyum , the captain of ocean light i , as he piloted his 67 foot cutter from james bay , where sea otters slipped off rocks , to open waters where porpoises arced playfully . ''our bookings are up 20 percent over last year . '' opposition to wholesale logging also is emerging from many of british_columbia 's 47 indian tribes , which have long seemed to be spectators to economic_development . by one survey , 90 percent of logging company workers are flown in from the southern part of the province . in bella bella , the rundown waterfront capital of the heilstuk nation , only 20 local men have been hired for logging jobs . here , as elsewhere , natives have little legal access to trees they consider their own . ''it is hard for our people to see so many of our resources sailing by , when our treaty has not been settled , while there are so many unemployed , '' phil hogan , a tribal treaty negotiator , said of barges that pass , stacked with logs . peace treaties were never signed with american indian tribes west of the continental divide because the tribes were never considered conquered . on thursday parliament started debate on approval of a treaty with the nisga'a tribe , the first land rights treaty reached with a british_columbia tribe in this century . in a move strengthening indian forest claims , the supreme_court ruled two years ago that in areas where no treaties had been signed , tribes retained proprietary interest in the land and resources . impatient with the slow pace of treaty negotiations , one interior tribe , the westbank nation , started logging sept . 7 on government land without provincial consent . half a dozen other tribes have since started logging government land , and several called for ''an international consumer boycott of companies who are destroying forest resources with destructive logging of aboriginal title lands . '' but for logging companies on the coast , the most threatening boycott campaign is being waged by environmentalists who have made successful appeals to companies in the united_states , the largest consumer of canadian forest products . traditionally , canadian environmentalists tried to slow rain_forest destruction by focusing on government officials . in 1993 , in the largest demonstration of civil_disobedience in modern canadian history , 856 people were arrested for blocking a logging road on vancouver_island . but in a province where forest products account for 1 in 17 jobs , politicians have long been swayed by the industry , either by powerful companies or by powerful unions . glen clark , the provincial premier who resigned in august , once called environmentalists ''enemies of british_columbia . '' his successor , dan miller , a former millworker from the north coast , used the term ''soviet style'' to describe government lumber policies and called for privatizing provincial lands . environmentalists have long suspected that the public was more sympathetic to their cause than the politicians . last fall a poll of provincial residents found that 70 percent opposed clear cutting on the central coast and that 74 percent said they would pay more for paper or wood if they knew that the trees had been harvested in a ' 'sustainable'' way without lasting harm to the forest . in a poll of americans this year by yankelovich partners pollsters , 62 . 5 percent of respondents said companies should not use or sell products made from old growth wood , 58 . 5 percent said they supported legislation to end old growth logging , and 43 . 5 percent said they would be less likely to do business with a company using old growth wood . ''the government is irrelevant it is the marketplace , '' said merran smith , a forest campaigner for the sierra_club of british_columbia . ''we give home_depot 25 , 000 postcards . home_depot responds . '' in a major victory for the boycott campaign , home_depot , the vast home_improvement retailer , announced on aug . 26 that it would phase out sales of wood from endangered forests by 2002 . with 856 stores worldwide , the atlanta based chain says it is the largest wood retailer in the world , selling about 10 percent of the world 's marketed supply . the chain 's turnaround came after environmentalists , led by the sierra_club and greenpeace , deluged the company with postcards , sent a great bear rain_forest exhibit bus to a shareholder meeting and erected a home_depot protest billboard over a clear cut patch near vancouver . ''the government did n't listen , so we realized that the only way to turn the situation around was to go directly to consumers , '' said tamara stark , a forest campaigner for greenpeace in vancouver . after making inroads in europe , greenpeace has won pledges in the last year to phase out use of old growth wood from 20 japanese companies and from 27 united_states based fortune_500 companies . in a new phase this fall , the sierra_club is campaigning for city ordinances in new york and los_angeles that would phase out purchases of wood from old growth forests that is not harvested in a sustainable way . ''government purchasing accounts for 20 percent of wood consumption in the u.s . , '' said susan holmes , the new york city based director of the club 's buy good wood campaign . ''in riverside park , they are creating a bikeway walkway that is using hemlock from the coast of british_columbia . '' a . gifford_miller , a democratic city councilman in new york and sponsor of the ' 'selective purchasing'' legislation , said by telephone ''if home_depot can do it , we can , too . new yorkers would be horrified to learn that the park benches they sit on , the boardwalks they walk on , are constructed at the expense of beautiful old growth forest that can never be replaced . '' the message is rattling vancouver 's largest lumber companies . over the last decade , the provincial tree harvest has dropped by one quarter , depressed by asia 's economic contraction and by growing consumer resistance . ''it used to be , you harvest a tree , you cut it into lumber , and you put it on a boat the customer was pretty abstract , '' said tom stephens , president of macmillan_bloedel , long a leading timber company here . but , he added , ''if customer attitudes change , we have to change too . '' last year , macmillan_bloedel broke ranks with other companies in the province and promised to phase out clear cutting by 2002 . this year , about half the company 's harvest is by ''variable retention , '' a new sustainable system that relies on thinning or cutting small patches . to minimize the destruction caused by logging roads , the company increasingly uses helicopters to pull high value trees from the forest . mr . stephens has consulted extensively with environmentalists . ''the company that is not sensitive to those issues simply will not be in business very long , '' he said . the weyerhaeuser company , which is considering a proposal to buy mcmillan bloedel , has said it will honor the promise to phase out clear cutting . macmillan_bloedel and two other major companies want to defuse the boycott by winning certification from the forest stewardship council , a mexico based group founded six years ago by environmental and social groups . but the council is not expected to develop harvesting standards for the rain_forest here until the end of next year . with profits low in the timber industry here , most companies refuse to abandon clear cutting . bill dumont , the chief forester for western forest products , which wants to log james bay next year , said , ''we have tried to come to an agreement with the greens , but we are not going to put ourselves out of business . '' on sept . 15 , in the provincial interior , dozens of angry loggers burned a protesters' camp , smashed video equipment , and beat up several environmentalists . most of the loggers worked for international forest products , which has cut its timber harvest and its payroll by one quarter in the 1990 's . understanding came from ted plosz , a logger here who said he is counting on working next year at james bay . ''most of us were working only three or four months last year , '' he added . on the coast , green groups want companies to adopt less destructive logging practices , methods that usually cost more money . they want to place 41 watersheds permanently off limits to logging . officials of british_columbia , which owns 95 percent of the province 's land , note that about 300 parks have been added here in the 1990 's , preserving 15 , 400 square miles . ''there are a lot of valley bottoms that will not be logged , '' david zirnhelt , the provincial minister of forests , said in an interview . noting that the allowable cut from the midcoast forest has been reduced by one third , he added , ''two thirds of the old growth that is on the landscape today will be there 200 years from now . '' but canadian environmentalists demand more forest protection , dismissing many of the new parks here as protection for ''rocks and ice . '' protecting trees costs money , however . in early september , the provincial government agreed to pay macmillan_bloedel 70 million for the loss of cutting rights on 162 square miles of land set aside for parks on vancouver_island . the government had resisted paying cash because it faces a 600 million budget_deficit this year . but defenders of the forest say there is economic value to standing trees , and the wildlife they support . on a recent afternoon , the queen of the north , a province run ferry , steamed up the inland passage , gliding by forest cloaked fjords and waterfalls . passing princess royal island , the ship seemed to list to port as tourists with binoculars clogged upper and lower decks . there , in the shade of an old growth cedar , stood a rare white kermode , or ' 'spirit bear , '' crunching on a freshly caught salmon , its cream colored jowls streaked red with blood .",has a topic of science
"to the editor although the snooping on albert_einstein by the federal_bureau_of_investigation is inexcusable , critics are engaging in that habit of america bashers , selective memory ( ''new details emerge from the einstein files , '' may 7 ) . the f.b.i . compiled a thick dossier on einstein . stalinist russia most likely would have killed him , through a disappearance into the gulag or a car accident . the f.b.i . and others may have wrongfully wrecked the careers or imprisoned thousands stalin murdered millions and enslaved even more . the manifold sins and failings of the united_states and attempts to cure them must not obscure the infinitely more brutal tyrannies of our chief enemies over the last 60 years nazi_germany , imperial army japan , stalinist russia , maoist china , north_korea , saddam_hussein 's iraq . if they were to run things , the people of the world would be much worse off . richard h . levenson new york",has a topic of science
"in a neighborhood where hearses and teetering buildings underscore the devastation of last week 's great earthquake , the army has set up special tents that for many residents are the main landmark in the restoration of vital services . the tents contain public baths , and the thrill they have aroused illustrates the way kobe and neighboring cities are beginning the slog back to normality . japanese are among the most scrubbed people on earth , and their army may be the only one that travels with communal baths . estimates of the damage caused by the quake are rising steadily and now often exceed 100 billion . the transport ministry said the cost of repairing railroads alone would be about 40 billion , but whatever the amount the work is proceeding . stores are reopening , some schools are summoning students to class and every day more families are getting back telephone lines and electrical connections . demolition experts are tearing down wobbling buildings , and rail service is steadily being extended closer to kobe . more than 5 , 000 people died in the earthquake , and some japanese are probably scarred forever by the jolt of finding the bodies of spouses or children . yet in more tangible ways , kobe is making a remarkably quick recovery . factories and offices are partly back to work , and everyone has shelter , food , water and access to a nearby portable toilet equipped with spare rolls of toilet_paper and sometimes a mirror on the door . the 310 , 000 people left homeless by the quake welcome all the ways in which life is getting better , but it was the return of public baths that really got kobe excited . in a nation where cleanliness is almost a fetish and drug stores sell disposable underwear , the earthquake victims had been stoical about the loss of houses and jobs but could not help grumbling about the lack of bathing facilities in the shelters in which they have been encamped . "" i 'm so excited i can have a real bath now , "" said toshiko hakenaka , a 66 year old woman who stumbled across the army established baths this afternoon . "" i 've been cleaning myself with wet tissues , but now i can have a real bath . i 'm going to dash home and get my friends and get some clean underwear , and then i 'll be back . "" mrs . hakenaka said it would be her first bath since the earthquake on jan . 17 . but some people have traveled in the last few days to osaka despite a round trip of up to eight hours to indulge in the public baths there . now , with baths in the area , some said they planned to bathe twice a day . so the bathers soaped and scrubbed themselves in the army tent separate sections for men and women , the modern way rather than the mixed bathing that used to be common and then simmered in a communal vat of steaming water for as long as they could endure it . a couple of other public baths also have reopened in kobe , to huge lines . in the shelters , the prime gossip is about the baths and about special discounts that baths in osaka offer to quake victims . bulldozers and backhoes from all over japan have been rushed to kobe , and they are visible on almost every street . the first step is to cart off the rubble , but other workers nearby are already busy on the next step assembling 11 , 000 tiny prefabricated homes on parking_lots and other bits of spare ground so that some of the homeless can move out of school gymnasiums . electricity and phone service has been restored almost everywhere in kobe , but running water will not return for another month to many areas . gas supplies are also cut off for the next few weeks . although schools are beginning to reopen in the kobe area , particularly in neighborhoods that were not badly_damaged , more than 290 remain closed . an informal survey suggests that in the hard hit areas very few schools are open . many are still packed with hundreds of refugees , and the city will have to figure out what to do with them before it can resume classes . "" i like it these days , because i do n't have to study , "" said kaori nakamura , 11 , who lost her home and is now camping outside a shelter in a tent . "" i play around with my friends , and sometimes i go out and collect firewood . "" most children interviewed seemed to feel the same way . they did not exactly voice approval of the earthquake , but so long as they had not lost friends they seemed willing to put up with endless days of games and camping out . "" i like living in a shelter here , "" said kukori morimoto , 7 , as she played with a donated lego set in a camp for hundreds of people in a school gym . "" i can make friends here , and i can get on television . and now i can get in a newspaper . "" kukori 's mother has other ideas , however , and is about to send the girl to another city . families all over japan have volunteered to put up the children of quake victims , so kukori has grumpily agreed to live with one such family and go to school there . "" we did n't want her to get behind in her studies , "" the mother , kazuko morimoto , said as kukori grimaced . shops and supermarkets are reopening throughout the earthquake zone , and most are able to restock with trucks from osaka . there have been some reports of price_gouging , but most shops are charging the same prices as before the quake . yoshiharu yamone 's bakery , for example , is again fragrant with the aroma of sandwiches , danish pastries and loaves of bread . the bakery was undamaged by the earthquake . but mr . yamone 's mother in law died a day later , apparently of shock , and two of the bakery 's employees lost their homes and are no longer able to work . the lack of running water has complicated the baking process . despite such difficulties , mr . yamone said the bakery was gradually returning to normal . he said he also intends to reopen a neighboring toy shop that he owns when he finds people to replace the sales employees , who have left the area to stay with relatives . asked if he had raised prices to whatever the market would bear , mr . yamone paused in momentary shock , and rushed to say that such a tactic would be unthinkable and would only offend his customers . "" my customers have been so good to me , "" mr . yamone said , "" that i feel badly about charging any money at all . """,has a topic of science
"the devastating earthquake on russia 's remote sakhalin_island , eight time zones and 4 , 500 miles from moscow , is beginning to have political consequences . nearly three days after the quake destroyed most of the little oil town of neftegorsk early sunday morning , president boris n . yeltsin went on national television for a short address declaring wednesday a national day of mourning for the victims , who could number up to 2 , 000 . at times nearly in tears , he promised aid and compensation . the prime_minister , viktor s . chernomyrdin , after awkward comments on monday evening televised from a beach resort in the southern russian town of sochi , announced today that he was interrupting his vacation to return to moscow to oversee a commission investigating the disaster . mr . chernomyrdin , who has announced that he will head a centrist political bloc into parliamentary elections in december , had begun his vacation on saturday . while the first instinct of an american politician would be to run to the scene and get on television directing rescue efforts , a western diplomat suggested , "" here they have n't really yet learned the rules of the game . "" the sheer remoteness and bleakness of neftegorsk may have been a factor . when a huge earthquake hit armenia in 1988 , president mikhail s . gorbachev immediately broke off an important visit to the united_states to tour the devastation and promise aid , much of it never delivered . this time , in a russia more aware of its financial limits , that is still waging a war in chechnya and is lagging on promises to rebuild its war smashed capital , grozny , there are no promises to rebuild neftegorsk . instead , the government has promised to relocate survivors to the more hospitable southern part of the island . mr . yeltsin promised today up to 10 , 000 to every family that suffered in the earthquake , saying "" everyone knows our financial difficulties and the tight budget . but we will help people in need regardless . "" but given the extent of the damage in neftegorsk , it may be difficult to find relatives to compensate . officials there say it is already difficult to find living relatives to identify the dead . "" nature is blind , "" said a visibly moved mr . yeltsin . "" there is no way to reconcile yourself to tragedies like these . but they bring people closer together , make them feel like a single family . "" he said that "" all russia "" is with those who are grieving . mr . chernomyrdin 's commission will meet on wednesday to hear a report from deputy prime_minister oleg n . soskovets , who has just visited the scene , where many hundreds of people are trapped in freezing nighttime temperatures under collapsed buildings of typically shoddy soviet construction . the communist past can be blamed for poor construction , at least . but officials also blamed the closing of many seismological stations , intended to try to predict earthquakes , because of budget cuts . the real problems now are lack of sufficient heavy cranes , emergency hospital services and poor communications and infrastructure . despite the remoteness of the town and its proximity to japan and south_korea , mr . soskovets rejected offers of aid from both countries , saying that russia needed no help from outsiders . television footage of emergency workers and ordinary citizens trying to pull survivors from the rubble with bare hands suggests that mr . soskovets may have spoken too soon . but in today 's russia , seeking help from abroad is just not done , western diplomats and russian officials said . "" the first instinct is rigid pride and political nationalism , "" a western diplomat said today . "" and there may be some hurt after japan rejected russian offers of help in kobe , "" where more than 5 , 000 people died in a january earthquake . a russian official said that while expert help was being rejected , relief aid would be accepted in any case . "" but it is nearly too late now , "" he said . sergei khetagurov , a deputy minister for emergency situations , said similarly "" rescue work can help save victims only in the first two or three days . after that , there is no one left to save . "" in wednesday 's issue of izvestia , albert plutnik , columnist for the newspaper , criticized the politicians' delay . "" once events of such tragic content and scale take place , reaction should follow without delay , "" he wrote . "" a country in pain has every reason to expect the president is feeling the same . i emphasize , at that very moment . not one hour later . not a day later . "" and certainly , he said , not more than three days later . "" one should have political sense , "" mr . plutnik continued . "" the more so that elections are coming . the more so that the prime_minister is the leader of a pre election bloc . "" he concluded , "" our country is beginning , though belatedly , to learn the most basic norms of civilized attitudes toward its compatriots if not to their lives , then to their deaths . "" mr . yeltsin ordered russian flags to fly at half staff on wednesday and asked that television and radio stations drop the light entertainment programs that fill the airwaves . as for the president , he is scheduled to make a quick helicopter flight to istra and dedovsk districts north of moscow to talk of agricultural reforms and visit a ceramic plant . in novo sinkovo , in the old russian tradition , they 've already repaved the streets for his visit .",has a topic of science
"lead chinese officials today disclosed for the first time that an earthquake in southern yunnan_province in 1970 killed about 10 , 000 people . chinese officials today disclosed for the first time that an earthquake in southern yunnan_province in 1970 killed about 10 , 000 people . the officials also said an earthquake in the same province on nov . 6 killed 730 people and not 938 , the figure given earlier . speaking at a news conference about this month 's earthquake , chen zhangli of the state seismology bureau said a quake measuring 7.7 on the richter_scale hit the same part of yunnan in 1970 and killed about 10 , 000 people . his comments were echoed by zhang dejiang , deputy minister of civil_affairs . but neither official provided any further details on the 1970 quake , nor did they say why information about it was not disclosed earlier . no official report in 1970 the officials appeared to be referring to an earthquake in yunnan on jan . 5 , 1970 . at the time , reuters reported from hong_kong that the royal hong kong observatory had recorded the quake and described it as severe , and the news_agency cited an unconfirmed report that it might have leveled part of kunming , the provincial capital . the chinese government and the official press made no mention of the quake . china 's policy in the first decades of communist rule was not to disclose natural_disasters and accidents unless foreigners were involved . only in the last few years has the government reported disasters like earthquakes and plane crashes , often belatedly . the death toll in the quake this month , which left 300 , 000 people homeless , was difficult to calculate because it occurred in a mountainous area of the province , mr . zhang said . the figure of 938 was never officially issued to the press , but was given to united_nations relief agencies and was widely reported abroad . rescue teams have now surveyed the entire area of the nov . 6 quake , mr . zhang said , and the new death toll of 730 will remain unchanged . about 4 , 015 people were injured , he added . officials have said the toll would have been higher , except that the quake 's epicenter was not near a large town and many people were outdoors at the time . apparently most of the inhabitants of one village near the epicenter were watching an outdoor movie , while residents of another village were attending an outdoor meeting .",has a topic of science
"in its 4.5 billion years of existence , the earth has withstood both deep cold that nearly turned the entire planet into a ball of ice and blazing heat that opened the arctic to alligators and other warm_weather creatures . compared with that , and even with far less extreme climatic swings in the 10 , 000 years since the end of the last ice age , today 's climate for all its sometimes sharp variations is remarkably stable . now , for the first time , humans are altering the atmosphere in ways that mainstream scientists believe are threatening to shatter that relative_calm and set off a new round of climatic disruptions and extremes . starting today , representatives of some 150 countries will meet in kyoto , japan , to take what they hope will be the first step in a decades long effort to cope with the prospect of global climate change . rarely , if ever , has humanity made an attempt like this one to exercise deliberate , collective foresight on a risk whose full impact is unclear and will not be felt for decades . and rarely has any question on the global bargaining table been so difficult . the negotiators' task is to agree on measures that would begin to reduce emissions of waste industrial gases that trap heat in the atmosphere . chief among these ''greenhouse'' gases is carbon_dioxide , which is spewed into the air every day around the globe by the burning of coal , oil and natural_gas in power_plants , factories and motor_vehicles . the world runs on these fuels , and any action to control their use would reverberate in every corner of the global economy . this attempt to manipulate the world 's energy system has set off a complex clash of economic and political interests . among other things , it pits rich countries against poor ones , rich countries against one another and the nations and industries that produce fossil_fuels ( as well as some industries that use them heavily ) against much of the rest of the world . even as the great majority of players say they accept the need for common action , each is making its own calculation of cost and benefit , advantage and disadvantage . the panel of scientists from around the world who advise the negotiators under united_nations auspices has said that if no action is taken , the average surface temperature of the globe will rise by two to six degrees_fahrenheit by the end of the next century , and more after that . that might not sound like much , and it is a far cry from the deepest cold and hottest heat of the remote past . but it is not trivial the difference between the average temperature now and that at the depths of the last ice age , some 20 , 000 years ago , is only five to nine degrees . it would be more warming , coming more rapidly , than the planet has experienced in the last 10 , 000 years , the period in which human civilization arose . it could profoundly affect the earth 's climate . the seas would rise , according to the panel of scientists , inundating many coastal areas and swamping small island nations . the world as a whole would become rainier , with most of the increase coming in the big downpours that cause floods . at the same time , drought prone areas would get more droughts . climatic zones would shift away from the poles , the scientists predict . since the warming would be unusually rapid , many natural ecosystems might be unable to adjust , and whole forest types could disappear . growing seasons are already lengthening in northern latitudes , and temperate zone agriculture might benefit in the long run . but in dry areas , like much of africa , warming could bring agricultural and economic ruin . tropical diseases like malaria and dengue fever could spread . and while temperate zone winters would be milder , summer heat waves would be more intense and deadly . the list goes on . such forecasts , of course , are rife with uncertainty . but many scientists believe that much of the impact is unavoidable . the implication is that preventive action to head off the risk , however uncertain , should have been taken years ago . but who knew ? it has been only two decades since 20th_century scientists , with their computer models , first began to make numerical forecasts of climate_change , only one decade since the issue first burst into the public consciousness and only five years since the nations of the world gathered at rio de janeiro and signed a treaty aimed at preventing dangerous climatic change . for much of the last two decades , scientists have cited a doubling of atmospheric carbon_dioxide concentrations to 560 parts per million from 280 parts per million before the industrial_revolution began in the late 18th_century as a threshold of concern . if that threshold should be reached , they say , the air at the earth 's surface would warm by anywhere from a relatively moderate three degrees to eight degrees , a_level at which the impact of some of the predicted climatic changes could assume catastrophic proportions . now many are saying that it may not be possible to prevent a doubling late in the next century . the world 's economic and political systems cannot turn on a dime , they say , and they argue that the real task now is to prevent concentrations from growing beyond a doubling , to possibly even tripling or quadrupling . those concentrations , they say , would bring certain climatic catastrophe . in the meantime , the world may have to learn to adapt . not everyone is so pessimistic . environmentalists' goal is to stabilize carbon_dioxide concentrations at about one and a half times the preindustrial level , then to begin to gradually reduce them . although that might still cause some disruption , they believe , it would head off the most damaging effects . there remain contrarians who say the problem has been overblown and may not exist . given the uncertainty that permeates climate science , even many experts who are not skeptics argue for modest action until the extent of the problem is clearer . as has been the case all along under the 1992 rio treaty that governs the kyoto talks , the industrialized_countries are expected to take the lead in setting specific targets for reducing emissions . the rationale , based largely on considerations of equity , is that they got rich by burning fossil_fuels and are responsible for most of the problem . but developing_countries are also to undertake specific commitments at some point because their emissions will probably surpass those of the rich nations in two decades or so . when that will happen , and how , will be a big issue in kyoto , possibly a deal breaker . if the talks collapsed , the process would not be over because discussions would certainly resume at some point . but proponents of action argue that valuable time would be lost . at rio five years ago , the rich nations adopted the voluntary goal of stabilizing emissions at 1990 levels by 2000 . but many nations , including the united_states , will miss that target . proposals now on the table for the meeting in japan call for legally_binding reductions . they range from reducing the rich countries' emissions to 1990 levels by around 2010 ( proposed by the united_states ) to cutting them to 35 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 ( proposed by the developing_countries ) . none of the proposals would reduce emissions enough to keep overall atmospheric concentrations from rising . but , given the political reality , those proposals probably define the range of what can be achieved just now . some environmentalists believe that it is possible to emerge from the talks with cuts sufficient to preserve the option of eventually stabilizing concentrations at one and a half times preindustrial levels . they also say it is possible in kyoto to send a signal to industry that business as usual must change . some experts who argue caution , on economic grounds , believe likewise . but other interested parties , including oil producing countries and many american manufacturers , argue that any action now risks unacceptable short term economic damage . environmentalists counter that by insisting that in the long run , cutting fossil_fuels would make the economy more efficient . at most , kyoto will be a beginning , not an ending . global_warming",has a topic of science
"kyoto , traditionally the home of emperors , was rocked by the earthquake and suffered some cultural casualties , but no human ones . the capital of japan from the 8th to the 12th centuries , kyoto is a tourist favorite , and its gardens , shrines and temples have a relaxed and traditional flavor . it lies about 40 miles northeast of kobe . while most buildings survived intact , cracks developed in the golden pavilion , which was built in the 14th century . the cracks apparently do not threaten the structure . this was not the first time the building had been damaged . in 1950 , the pavilion burned to the ground after a fire set by a religious zealot and was rebuilt . cracks were also reported in the pagoda of the daigoji temple , built in the 10th century and reputed to be the oldest structure in kyoto . three statues in koryuji temple , founded in 622 , were toppled one lost its right arm . six statues of the goddess of mercy in sanjusangendo hall also fell over . there were no reports of deaths or injuries in kyoto .",has a topic of science
"the navigation system of the mir faltered today , creating a new problem for russian space officials and astronauts as they prepared for a tricky mission to repair the stricken space_station . the navigation problem developed on wednesday night when the space_station 's gyrodynes mysteriously failed . the gyroscope like devices are used to stabilize the mir and keep its electricity producing solar arrays pointed at the sun . russian and american space officials emphasized that the crew was in no danger and was still able to stabilize the space_station by firing the mir 's thrusters . relying on the thrusters is generally not desirable , because it draws on the space_station 's limited supply of fuel . in contrast to the thrusters , the gyrodynes run on electricity produced by the mir 's solar arrays . russian officials insisted they could fix the problem in a day or two and had more than enough fuel on hand . still , the navigation problem was a disquieting sign that the 11 year old space_station , which was originally intended to stay in space for five years , is a trouble plagued craft . the mir 's most recent troubles began on june 25 when the space_station collided with an unmanned cargo craft while practicing a docking maneuver . the collision damaged one of the mir 's seven modules , the spektr research module , forcing the crew to seal it off . in so doing , they disconnected cables from the spektr 's solar arrays that provide much of the space_station 's power . to restore the lost power , the three man crew consisting of two russian astronauts , vasily_tsibliyev and aleksandr lazutkin , and an american astrophysicist , dr . michael_foale is preparing to conduct an internal space walk . the intention is to re enter the spektr module and reconnect the cables without letting the air out of the mir . the space walk , which officials of the national_aeronautics_and_space_administration said could last five hours , will use a special plate that will be transported to the mir on a progress rocket to be launched on saturday . the actual repairs are scheduled for july 11 . because at least one of the russian astronauts must maneuver through a narrow passage and the equipment is new , considerable training is involved . the commander of the mir , mr . tsibliyev , a veteran russian_air_force pilot , told mission control that he was awaiting guidance on how to perform the mission . ''we like recommendations from you as soon as possible about how we can work in such cramped conditions in spacesuits , '' he said . ''we have loads of cable around here , and lots of piping . '' a practice session is scheduled for next wednesday . july 10 is planned as a rest day . if the astronauts are not ready by july 11 , the repairs will be put off to july 14 , nasa said . meanwhile , much of the crew 's energy is being expended maintaining the ship . the problem with gyrodynes has not been the only glitch . an oxygen generation unit overheated on monday and was turned off . it has since been repaired . to supplement the oxygen supply , the astronauts are burning special oxygen producing ''candles . '' this is a solid chemical canister that releases oxygen when heated . problems with a defective candle caused a fire aboard the mir earlier this year . the indignities of space travel have also been compounded by the accident . to save energy , the crew is not operating the special distiller that turns their urine into drinkable water . instead , they are storing their urine until more power is available . russian space officials believe the problem with the gyrodynes stems from the unit that sends commands from the system 's computer to the devices . vladimir solovyov , a flight controller , told russian television this evening that after the russian ground control discovered the gyrodynes were shutting down , it shut down the rest . ''several of 12 power gyrodynes failed , '' mr . solovyov said . ''they began stopping , one after another . we noticed it through telemetry . and since we do not like processes we do not control , we stopped the rest of them . '' mr . solovyov expressed confidence that the problem would be overcome , but emphasized that the crew had much to do to train for the repair mission and maintain the mir . ''the crew works hard , which does not make doctors very happy , '' he said .",has a topic of science
"a new crew will be sent to the international_space_station next month , even though there are concerns about maintaining adequate oxygen and other supplies on the orbiting laboratory , nasa officials said friday . the space_station program manager , william h . gerstenmaier , said two astronauts would be launched to the station on a russian soyuz_spacecraft on oct . 11 for an expected six month tour of duty . dr . leroy chiao , an american astronaut , is to take command of the station , sharing duties with a russian flight_engineer , salizhan s . sharipov . they are to relieve the current commander , col . gennadi i . padalka of the russian_air_force , and the science officer , lt . col . edward mike fincke of the united_states_air_force , who have been aboard since april . ''in general , things are in fairly good shape aboard the station , '' mr . gerstenmaier said in a telephone news conference . he noted that some supplies were dwindling and that continued operation with a crew depended on deliveries by russian progress cargo vessels scheduled to arrive in late december and late february . the station has operated with crews reduced to two from three since the american shuttle fleet was grounded after the columbia_disaster in february 2003 . one concern is oxygen , primarily supplied by a russian made elektron oxygen generator that uses electrolysis to break down water into oxygen for breathing and hydrogen , which is dumped into space . the balky elektron , which has occasionally broken down since the station began operations in 2000 , stopped this week , though it was repaired early this month . mr . gerstenmaier said the station had at least a 160 day supply of oxygen from other sources if the elektron could not return . that includes a 42 day supply from oxygen producing candles , seven days' worth in tanks aboard a docked progress freighter and about 115 days' supply in tanks outside the american made quest airlock . even without restoring operation of the russian oxygen generator , he said , the new crew could complete its entire six month tour with the reserves and supplies carried up on the two expected progress flights . managers reviewing the crew exchange determined that current and expected air and food supplies were adequate to maintain the replacement astronauts , mr . gerstenmaier said . ''they 're not at any undue risk , '' he said . ''there 's plenty of capability . '' he added that if the progress resupply mission did not arrive on dec . 25 and the oxygen generator was not repaired by then , officials would have to consider bringing back the crew and leaving the station unstaffed . the outpost has been without a crew for short periods during spacewalks , he said , and could be maintained for months until crews returned aboard russian spacecraft or the space_shuttle . mr . gerstenmaier said there was a good chance that the crew could repair the oxygen generator . the problem appears to be a clogged hydrogen vent tube , and the astronauts are working to clear it , he said . two elektrons are aboard the station , including spare_parts , and the spacecraft carrying the new crew will be carrying some replacement parts .",has a topic of science
"the next american astronaut in line for a tour aboard the troubled russian space_station mir has been pulled from the mission because she is too small for the russian space walk suits , nasa announced today . the astronaut , comdr . wendy b . lawrence of the navy , had been scheduled to begin a four month stay on the mir in september , but will be replaced by her backup , dr . david a . wolf , because he will be able to act as a backup crew member for planned space walks to repair the damaged station , the agency said . commander lawrence , who has been training for the mir mission for more than a year , is 5 foot 3 , too short to wear the orlan suit used by russian astronauts for space walks . dr . wolf is 5 foot 10 . neither american astronaut had undergone space walk training , and the flight of the shuttle atlantis , tentatively scheduled for sept . 18 , could be delayed for about 10 days to let dr . wolf complete the extra instruction at the gagarin cosmonaut training center outside moscow . officials of the national_aeronautics_and_space_administration and the russian space agency have been discussing options for space walks to repair the mir since a progress cargo craft rammed the station 's spektr research module on june 25 . ''it was jointly agreed by both sides that it would be mutually_beneficial to have all three crew members on the mir qualified for space walks in the event additional assistance is needed from the u.s . astronaut on the station , '' nasa said . today , before announcement of the crew shift , commander lawrence told reporters at russia 's space training center at star city that she had a ''big desire'' to go to the mir and replace her fellow astronaut , michael_foale , who has been aboard the station for three months . but she noted that no final decision had been made on leaving another american aboard the aging mir . frank culbertson , nasa 's shuttle mir program manager , who is traveling in russia , informed commander lawrence of the decision as she was completing her mission training in star city . because of her experience with the mir systems , the agency said , commander lawrence , a veteran of a previous space_shuttle mission , will fly to the mir in september to deliver dr . wolf . dr . wolf , a physician as well as an electrical_engineer , flew on a shuttle mission in 1993 . the mir commander , vasily_tsibliyev , who was controlling the cargo_ship at the time of the collision , said today in star city that the damage would have been far greater if not for his careful steering . ''i was attempting to brake it and cause the craft to go by , '' the associated press quoted him as saying . ''if i had not been doing that , i 'm sure that it would 've hit the station directly . and if it had done so , we would 've either died or been just metal floating in space . '' there has been speculation that either pilot error or an overloaded craft that would not respond properly caused the accident . ''you can always find somebody to blame but the important part is that we have a setup here that was not worked out completely or not perfected , '' the cosmonaut said .",has a topic of science
"lead mikhail s . gorbachev accused the western allies tonight of introducing ''additional conditions and demands'' to block an agreement between the united_states and the soviet_union to remove their medium_range_missiles from europe . mikhail s . gorbachev accused the western allies tonight of introducing ''additional conditions and demands'' to block an agreement between the united_states and the soviet_union to remove their medium_range_missiles from europe . speaking at a kremlin banquet for prime_minister margaret_thatcher of britain , the soviet leader also rejected as ''unrealistic'' mrs . thatcher 's assertion that soviet progress on human_rights should be used as a standard for measuring moscow 's trustworthiness on arms control . the attack on the western_european countries underscored moscow 's irritation with washington 's allies for their determination to make an agreement on shorter range nuclear_missiles in europe a part of any accord reached on the medium_range_missiles . dividing strategy by soviet in the past the soviet_union has sought to split western_european nations from the united_states by trying to appear more conciliatory to the allies . but tonight , the kremlin found itself being just as tough with the european allies . in her remarks at the two hour banquet at the kremlin 's hall of facets , mrs . thatcher proposed that the united_states give the soviet_union ''a timetable'' of planned tests for the strategic_defense_initiative system to relieve soviet anxiety about american plans for a missile shield in space . british officials indicated that the reagan_administration knew mrs . thatcher would make the proposal , which they said had been discussed by american and british officials . talks are called blunt the leaders' remarks , delivered in their toasts at the banquet , came after seven hours of private talks that took up most of the second full day of mrs . thatcher 's five day visit . both sides described the talks as blunt and sometimes argumentative , but never openly hostile . this bluntness carried over into the speeches , as mrs . thatcher and mr . gorbachev described in unyielding language their core disagreements on economics , nuclear deterrence and human_rights . despite mrs . thatcher 's reputation for lecturing her counterparts , mr . gorbachev appeared sharper in defining their differences . for example , he condemned the insistence of nato 's european members that any american soviet agreement on medium_range_missiles also place limits on the soviet superiority in short range missiles , conventional forces and chemical_weapons . mrs . thatcher has demanded , in meetings with western leaders and in her remarks tonight , that any accord redress the large soviet advantage in short range missiles . those missiles pose a particular threat to west_germany , france and parts of britain . 'new conditions' assailed ''what we see is a whole new package of additional conditions and demands being set before the soviet_union concerning the problem of medium_range_missiles , '' mr . gorbachev said . he said raising these issues showed ''the nato countries gradually slipping away from their own 'zero option' position . '' he was referring to the plan put forward by nato in 1981 to ban all united_states and soviet medium_range_missiles from europe . as the latest round of arms control talks ended last week in geneva , the united_states said the russians had backed out on an earlier agreement to include shorter_range_missiles in the medium_range treaty . the soviet side wants to deal first with the medium_range_missiles , and take up the shorter range issue as soon as a medium_range treaty is concluded . the two sides are now stalled on this issue . rights arms link dismissed tonight , mr . gorbachev also seemed to dismiss mrs . thatcher 's new theme linking arms control and human_rights . ''we also hear statements to the effect that the west would take on trust soviet arms reduction proposals provided the soviet_union changes its political system and accepts western society as a model to copy , '' he said . ''but this is just not serious . it would simply be unrealistic to expect us ever to forgo our ideals . '' after the dinner , british officials said mrs . thatcher would have lunch tuesday with andrei d . sakharov , the soviet physicist and dissident who recently returned to moscow after seven years of internal exile . thus , the events today continued the principle that the two sides appear to have worked out for the thatcher visit . she and her host are stating their positions firmly , but without personal rancor , while she is given an unusual degree of publicity and access to the russian people . wide exposure given that was evident sunday in her handshaking tour of historic sites and a suburban moscow housing complex and supermarket . it continued today with an extended television newscast of almost 30 minutes on the activities of mr . gorbachev and his guest . the arrangement serves the political purposes of both sides . mrs . thatcher is enhancing her reputation for statesmanship as the british general_election approaches , while mr . gorbachev promotes his campaign for openness and reorganization . tonight , mrs . thatcher was firm on such points as seeking limits on short range missiles and on britain 's need for an independent nuclear_deterrent because ''nuclear_weapons have deterred not only nuclear_war but conventional war in europe . '' but she was more conciliatory in suggesting a way to ease soviet apprehension about the american plan known as ''star_wars . '' 1972 abm treaty raised she spoke of an exchange of testing schedules for anti missile systems as a confidence building step that could be coupled with agreement by both sides to abide by the antiballistic_missile treaty of 1972 for a time .",has a topic of science
"lead a series of earthquakes rattled northern china late wednesday and early_today , killing at least 18 people and flattening about 8 , 000 houses in a largely rural area , the authorities said . a series of earthquakes rattled northern china late wednesday and early_today , killing at least 18 people and flattening about 8 , 000 houses in a largely rural area , the authorities said . officials of the state seismological bureau said the quakes were not related to the tremor in northern_california on tuesday . the bureau said that five tremors , registering up to 6.0 on the richter_scale , shook an area along the shanxi hebei provincial border and that at least 28 people had been injured . the first quake , measuring 5 . 7 , was felt in beijing , about 135 miles to the east , but there were no reports of injuries or damage in the capital . the california quake",has a topic of science
"vice_president al_gore arrived here today hoping to ''generate some momentum'' in talks on what to do about global_warming , and immediately said he had told the american delegation ''to show increased negotiating flexibility . '' even as mr . gore signaled that the united_states might make some compromises , however , he indicated that it remained committed to its original position on reducing rich countries' emissions of heat trapping greenhouse_gases . ''we came to kyoto to find new ways to bridge our differences , '' mr . gore told a high level gathering of ministers from more than 150 countries as they opened the decisive three day session of the kyoto talks . but in so doing , he said , ''we must not waver in our resolve . '' the united_states , he continued , ' 'remains firmly committed to a strong , binding target that will reduce our own emissions by nearly 30 percent from what they would otherwise be a commitment as strong , or stronger , than any we have heard here from any country . '' the administration has said previously that it would achieve the 30 percent reduction by cutting its emissions of greenhouse_gases back to 1990 levels between 2008 and 2112 . that is the target it proposes for all industrialized_countries . environmentalists and european delegates say that target is too low , while representatives of the fossil_fuel industry say it is too aggressive . the vice_president extended an olive_branch to the developing_countries , who have resisted the united_states' entreaties to commit themselves to some sort of new emissions control action . ''we understand that your first priority is to lift your citizens from the poverty so many endure and build strong economies that will assure a better future , '' he said . ''this is your right it will not be denied . '' but he reiterated the american desire that developing_countries and rich ones participate in joint efforts to reduce emissions in the poorer nations . senator chuck_hagel , republican of nebraska , said that mr . gore had a ''prime opportunity'' to ' 'make a strong case for why all the nations of the world must be included in any agreement , '' but that ''instead of asking for binding commitments from developing nations , he offered grand rhetoric on global understandings . '' what form new american flexibility might take , should it develop , was unclear . mr . gore linked it to the adoption of a broad framework encompassing both market mechanisms to reduce emissions and the ' 'meaningful participation of key developing_countries . '' senator john h . chafee , republican of rhode_island , said the call for flexibility did not necessarily mean that the united_states would change its position on targets and timetables for emissions reduction , and that there were other areas of possible compromise . one , said senator joseph i . lieberman , democrat of connecticut , might be the number of greenhouse_gases included in an agreement . senator lieberman called the speech ''an important statement that could break the ice jam and result in a major agreement . '' some environmentalists also portrayed the speech as a breakthrough . ''at the eleventh hour , the vice_president 's statement has given us some cause for hope , '' said john_adams , executive director of the natural resources defense council . fred krupp , executive director of the environmental defense fund , said the speech ''provided the key to unlocking the global gridlock which has paralyzed the negotiation process . '' other environmentalists were not so positive . greenpeace expressed ''extreme disappointment at the speech 's failure to commit the u.s . to reducing its greenhouse_gas_emissions . '' representatives of the fossil_fuel and energy intensive industries like the auto_makers were cool to the speech . william f . o'keefe , chairman of the global climate coalition , an industry group , said the reference to flexibility ' 'suggests that the delegation is willing to go beyond the president 's policy . i think that only means greater trouble for the economy . '' as the vice_president spoke , perhaps 48 hours remained in which to forge an agreement . while differences had narrowed on some major issues , none were settled . two big areas of concern are under discussion . one is the extent to which industrialized_countries should reduce emissions of greenhouse_gases , and on what schedule . the other is the question of the near term role of developing_countries in helping solve the problem . with the endgame under way , many participants in the talks believed , a settlement was within reach on the question of the rich countries' commitments . the european_union has proposed cutting emissions of the three principal greenhouse_gases carbon_dioxide , methane and nitrous_oxide 15 percent below 1990 levels by 2010 . japan has proposed cuts ranging from 2.5 percent to 5 percent below 1990 levels for the same three gases . the united_states favors cutting average emissions for the period 2008 through 2112 back to 1990 levels , but it would include three other greenhouse_gases hydrofluorocarbons , perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexachloride . all six gases trap heat in the atmosphere , although carbon_dioxide is by far the most important . the combined effect of the gases , many scientists say , will raise the average global temperature by 2 to 6 degrees_fahrenheit by 2100 if emissions are not reduced . this , say the scientists , would cause the oceans to rise , rains to become heavier , floods , droughts and heat waves to become worse , ecological and agricultural zones to shift northward and growing seasons to become longer in northern climes like those of canada and russia . the european_union also proposes that its member countries be allowed to meet a unionwide cut of 15 percent by requiring some member countries to make deeper cuts while allowing the emissions of others to grow .",has a topic of science
"as if the rumbling earth had not created enough misery here , the skies opened up today and poured down more of it , with heavy rains in kobe threatening to touch off landslides and topple earthquake weakened buildings . the rain complicated the search for nearly 200 people still listed as missing after the deadliest earthquake in japan in more than 70 years . the death toll approached 5 , 000 tonight and seems likely to exceed that number later this week . rescue teams said the downpour had soaked through the rubble of collapsed homes and other buildings , mixing the debris with a torrent of thick mud . scores of families had to be evacuated from their homes in the mountains behind kobe because of the threat of landslides . a 78 year old woman and a 66 year old man were pulled to safety here today after spending almost 128 hours buried beneath their toppled homes , but the police said it appeared that they might be the last of the missing to be found alive . "" for me , the rain is just one more bit of suffering , "" said sumihisa suji , 64 , a kobe businessman who spent the morning in high rubber boots , trudging to the home of friends to make sure that they were safe . with what remained of the day , he said , he planned to make inquiries about a way to hurry the cremation of his 68 year old sister , who was killed when her house collapsed in kobe , trapping her beneath heavy furniture . her body is now stored in a coffin in the home of her eldest_son . "" i am told by the authorities that they cannot do the cremation until the very end of the month , "" said mr . suji , whose voice took on the tone of stoicism so common now among the survivors . "" in japan , we must cremate the bodies , "" he explained . "" it is our tradition . but so many people are dead that we must all wait . there are too many bodies to burn right now . "" despite the cultural necessity , few cremations can be carried out now , as a result of structural_damage to the city 's funeral homes and the desperate shortage here of the natural_gas that is needed . the bodies threaten to become a serious public_health problem in this city of 1.5 million people , since there is also not enough dry ice to preserve them until the cremations can be performed . city officials have begun to talk of the need for mass burials for the hundreds of bodies stored in school gymnasiums , classrooms and other makeshift morgues . the rain came down in torrents at times today , but mostly it was a chilly , gray drizzle that captured the mood of many in kobe who , while grateful to have survived the quake , have grown weary of the daily routine of simply surviving . "" in the first day and second day and third day after the earthquake , you felt lucky to be alive , "" said manabu takai , 30 . "" now , the depression of it all is setting in . we are all very tired . "" mr . takai , whose small family owned gallery specialized in ancient japanese ceramics , estimated that he lost about 30 , 000 in quake damage to his shop . almost all of the hundreds of delicate antique plates and pots on show in the gallery , including several that dated from the edo period of the 17th_century , toppled over from their display cases during the quake , shattering . and that is not the worst of it , since he is not certain that the gallery itself can be salvaged . like most businesses here , the gallery had no earthquake insurance , which was prohibitively_expensive . "" all of my family survived , so of course we are lucky , "" mr . takai said . "" but i do not know how we can start over again . "" as the rain began to fall this morning , thousands of blue plastic sheets were hurriedly spread across hundreds of acres of the shattered skyline , the only hope that the owners had of preventing the rain from soaking through what remained of their homes and offices . for many of the thousands of homeless in kobe , plastic sheets donated by the government were all that they had to protect them from the cold and wet . ishii kenichi , 44 , a printer , pointed up at the blue plastic sheet that was all that stood between him and a drenching in the rain . "" this is our roof , "" he said , shaking his head and smiling at what had become of his neighborhood in nagata , an area of kobe devastated first by the earthquake and then the fires that followed . "" this is our house . "" mr . kenichi and several of his neighbors are living beneath a plastic sheet stretched between trees in a tiny public park , the boundary of their new home marked by maroon velvet chairs salvaged from a restaurant . some of mr . kenichi 's neighbors sleep in their cars . others risk returning at night to sleep in their crumpled homes . "" we would go to the shelter , but it is already full of people , "" said yoshi tsuda , 78 , who was here in the open air with her husband , kichinomii , 82 , a retired carpenter . "" we are all right . we have good conversation , and we have enough to eat and drink . "" she nodded to three cans of beef stew that were bubbling over a small hibachi set on the pavement . kobe was the target today of a welcome invasion , as thousands of people from other parts of japan found their way into this city by car , ferry or foot , using their sunday to bring food and other supplies for family members and friends who had been caught in the earthquake . "" i have tried to call my friend many times , but it is impossible to get through on the telephone , "" said tsutomu ioku , 63 , a retired school teacher from osaka who came by ferry today to search for nobuko miyoshi , 23 , a member of his hiking club . "" i have known her for one or two years , and i am very worried about her . "" he first went searching for her in shelters set up in public schools near her apartment . he carried a maroon vinyl knapsack in which he had put cans of condensed milk and paper towels that he hoped to give to miss miyoshi , a secretary , and her family . wherever he went , he posted handwritten signs with his name , telephone_number and the message "" please contact me , if possible . "" after an hour of searching , mr . ioku found the apartment building . its walls were cracked , with large chunks of the pale stucco wall blocking the walkway leading to miss miyoshi 's sixth floor apartment . he walked over the rubble and knocked on the door . miss miyoshi answered . "" oh , ioku san , "" she yelled . "" i am so happy . how did you get here ? it has been so terrible for us . thank you , thank you for coming . "" walking into the apartment , its floor still covered with shards of glass , mr . ioku told miss miyoshi how he had tried to telephone her . "" i was worried , because i did n't know what had become of you and your family , "" he said , beginning to unpack his gifts from the knapsack . "" i feel so lucky to find you and to see you are safe . many people are not as lucky as i am today . """,has a topic of science
"pope_john_paul_ii knelt before the bare stone tomb of st . francis today and prayed for the areas of central italy devastated by earthquakes three months ago . later , the pope urged crowds of several thousand people who cheered him to bear the hardship caused by the earthquakes ''in a franciscan spirit'' and to rebuild quickly , ' 'so that damaged homes , churches and other monuments may return to their earlier charm . '' frames of steel pipe , like a giant erector set , cradled the damaged walls of the transept of the huge basilica and stretched up the facade to provide access to restorers securing its partly collapsed vaults . the catastrophe left 11 dead and more than 13 , 000 homeless . this magical umbrian hill town , birthplace of st . francis , italy 's patron_saint , and a crucible of the renaissance , was the last of three communities the pope visited today in two regions hit by earthquakes in september and october , the worst in italy since 1980 . early_today the pope flew by helicopter from rome to the tiny hillside village of annifo , where many residents still live in campers and steel containers fitted out as dwellings . at a ceremony , the pope struck the central note of his message , asking , ''how could one not see in the destroyed homes , churches , streets and piazzas the emblems of wounded intimacy , of human ties violated , of historic continuity interrupted , of a sense of security lost ? '' but , he added , the earthquakes ''have not wiped from your hearts the greatest treasure the patrimony of your christian and human values . '' in the devastated village of cesi , about five miles from annifo , it was a moving moment when john paul entered the gray corrugated container that has been home for three months to celestino and maria albani . television microphones caught the conversation as the pope , who is 77 , asked the couple 's ages . mrs . albani , looking stunned and nodding toward her husband , said that she was 76 and he 81 . their marriage of 56 years ''is a beautiful marriage , '' she said , adding , ''there have never been words . '' the pope blessed them and said , ''may you live to be 100 . '' john paul , despite the heavy christmas and new year 's schedule just behind him , appeared rested . he wore a white coat over his robes in bright sunshine . after addressing the throng in assisi , he visited the adjacent monastery of st . francis and dined with the italian prime_minister , romano_prodi . giorgio croci , the engineer overseeing the reconstruction of the st . francis basilica 's vaults , with saints painted by 14th century masters like giotto and cimabue , said restorers were now securing the damaged vaults spanning the nave below the outer roof by plugging cracks with special compounds and anchoring the masonry vaults to the roof with steel cables . the task , he said , ' 'requires great attention . '' once the securing is complete , perhaps as early as the end of this month , restoration of the collapsed vaulting will begin . an earthquake on sept . 26 caused the collapse of two 360 square_foot sections of the ceiling , with frescoes attributed to giotto or his school and saints by cimabue . repairs will require the building of scaffolding in the 228 foot nave , below the vaults , and mr . croci said the goal was to be finished with restoration by the end of 1999 . in the year 2000 , millions of pilgrims will celebrate the beginning of christianity 's third millennium in rome and other pilgrimage sites like assisi . in many communities of umbria and the marches , the two regions hardest hit by the earthquakes , most houses are still standing . but in tiny villages like annifo and cesi , where the old stone houses are maintained by an aged population who have stayed on after their children have left to seek work elsewhere , the damage was heavy . reconstruction and rehabilitation have been given high priority by mr . prodi 's government , in an effort to avoid the recriminations that arose after a major earthquake devastated areas of southern_italy near naples in 1980 . then , reconstruction took years , or never happened , and the extent of the money earmarked for reconstruction that disappeared into the pockets of unscrupulous politicians came to light only with the corruption investigations in italy in the early 1990 's . though the work of reconstruction is only beginning , franco barberi , the civil_defense official responsible for rebuilding , was applauded when he arrived at annifo to greet pope john paul .",has a topic of science
"another meteorite from mars has been found to contain evidence for possible life on that planet , british scientists reported yesterday . american geologists , who in august first announced finding possibly life related chemical and mineral compounds in an older mars rock , said the new research was ' 'very exciting and independent confirmation'' of their own startling and controversial results . the british discovery was certain to encourage intensive testing of meteorites from mars and increase scientific interest in new spacecraft missions to the planet , the first of which is scheduled for launching next wednesday . the fact that the latest evidence comes from a much younger meteorite , scientists said , indicated that some kind of life could have existed on mars more recently than had been thought likely . spacecraft observations of the planet 's landscape strongly suggest that mars was once a warmer and wetter planet and could have supported at least some forms of microbial life . the british examined a meteorite , designated 79001 , that crystallized 175 million years ago and was ejected from mars , presumably by an asteroid impact , only 600 , 000 years ago . the previous evidence came from a potato size rock that crystallized about 3.6 billion years ago and was blown away from mars 16 million years ago . both were found on the ice of antarctica . ''this is great , '' said dr . michael meyer , a biologist who specializes in extraterrestrial studies at the national_aeronautics_and_space_administration in washington . ''it means we have more than one sample with hints of life . and it means mars could have been inhabited for quite a long period and could even have some life today . '' the new findings , reported in london at a meeting of the royal society , were the result of research by dr . ian wright and dr . colin pillinger of the open university in milton_keynes , england , and dr . monica grady of the open university and the natural_history museum in london . their laboratory is considered by scientists to be one of the best in the world for studying carbon in extraterrestrial materials . the british scientists could not be reached for interviews after the meeting , but a description of their findings was included in the meeting announcement . their analysis revealed the presence of organic compounds in the meteorite that could be associated with life . one line of evidence suggested carbon compositions that are usually formed from microbially produced methane . dr . everett k . gibson jr . , a geologist at the johnson_space_center in houston , was familiar with the research and provided details in a telephone interview . he is a co leader , with dr . david s . mckay of the johnson center , of the team of nasa and university scientists that made the first discovery of what they said were hydrocarbon compounds , minerals and possibly microfossils associated with primitive microbial life on mars . ''we 're pleased that the british results support our data , '' dr . gibson said , noting that they were based on a different type of analysis in a different laboratory . after the american report was published in august in the journal science , dr . gibson and his colleagues drew a skeptical response . as dr . gibson described it , the british group heated samples of the meteorite to several levels of high temperature , at each step examining gases emanating from the rock . any earth contaminants near the surface would presumably have escaped at the lower temperatures . in this way , the scientists identified carbon compounds in the samples with a composition that , dr . gibson said , ' 'may be similar to that produced by microbial activity . '' the signature for this was the discovered ratio of carbon isotopes , atoms of the same element that have different numbers of neutrons in their nuclei . at least 12 meteoritic fragments , collected by geologists in antarctica in the 1980 's , have been determined to come from mars . the meteorite studied by the british , 79001 , is considered the ''rosetta stone'' of the lot , because it was the analysis of trapped gases within the rock that linked the objects to mars . the gases were almost identical in composition to atmospheric samples gathered by the viking spacecraft in 1976 . definitive conclusions about the possibility of martian life may have to wait until spacecraft bring carefully selected samples back from the planet , possibly in a decade or so . nasa is planning 10 flights of orbiting spacecraft and robotic landers to explore mars , beginning with the launching next week of mars global surveyor , a low cost unmanned craft to study the planet 's climate and geology from orbit . another craft , designed to land on mars , is to be launched on dec . 2 , aiming for an arrival at the planet next july 4 .",has a topic of science
"continuing a recent trend in which the world 's richest religion prize has gone to scientists , john d . barrow , a british cosmologist whose work has explored the relationship between life and the laws of physics , was named the winner yesterday of the 2006 templeton prize for progress or research in spiritual matters . dr . barrow will receive the 1 . 4 million prize during a ceremony at buckingham_palace on may 3 . the prize was created in 1972 by the philanthropist sir john marks templeton , who specified that its monetary value always exceed that of the nobel_prize . five of the last six winners have been scientists . asked about this , dr . barrow said , ''maybe they ask the most interesting questions . '' dr . barrow , 53 , a mathematical sciences professor at the university of cambridge , is best known for his work on the anthropic principle , which has been the subject of debate in physics circles in recent years . life as we know it would be impossible , he and others have pointed out , if certain constants of nature numbers denoting the relative strengths of fundamental forces and masses of elementary particles had values much different from the ones they have , leading to the appearance that the universe was ''well tuned for life , '' as dr . barrow put it . in a news release , the prize organizers said of dr . barrow 's work ''it has also given theologians and philosophers inescapable questions to consider when examining the very essence of belief , the nature of the universe , and humanity 's place in it . '' dr . barrow is the co author of ''the anthropic cosmological principle , '' a primer on the subject , as well as 16 other books , more than 400 scientific papers , and a prizewinning play , ''infinities . '' asked about his religious beliefs , dr . barrow said he and his family were members of the united reformed church in cambridge , which teaches ''a traditional deistic picture of the universe , '' he said . noting that charles darwin is buried in westminster abbey , dr . barrow said that in contrast with the so called culture wars in america , science and religion had long coexisted peaceably in england . ''the concept of a lawful universe with order that can be understood and relied upon emerged largely out of religious beliefs about the nature of god , '' he said .",has a topic of science
"colds and flu_viruses , the medical aftershocks of last month 's devastating earthquake , are rippling through the refugee camps where 270 , 000 people live huddled together in classrooms and tents here in western japan , and some of the fragile elderly are dying of the flu . but this week when an american relief organization offered to fly as many as one million doses of flu_vaccine to kobe within 48 hours , free of charge , the government politely declined . the health and welfare ministry explained that japanese made vaccines would be sufficient , even though by its own calculation it would not have enough vaccine ready for nearly two more weeks . the rejection of foreign flu_vaccine is not a surprise . elements in the japanese bureaucracy were also unenthusiastic , at least initially , to offers of foreign doctors to treat the injured , foreign dogs to sniff out those buried alive , foreign medicines to heal the sick , and foreign undertakers to prepare the dead . a mountain of tylenol still sits in a locked warehouse because officials expressed concern that it may not be appropriate for japanese bodies . normally it is western business executives who gripe about bureaucratic stonewalling as they try to penetrate the japanese market . but in the aftermath of the earthquake that was centered here , the biggest losers and complainers have been the japanese people themselves . "" when the japanese government refuses aid , it 's not following its heart it 's just acting out a diplomatic game , "" said kazuko tatsu , a 61 year old woman living among several families in a classroom of a school surrounded by the rubble of less solid buildings . mrs . tatsu 's eyes danced angrily as she referred to japanese press reports about the agriculture ministry 's attempt to enforce a quarantine against four french dogs that had been rushed to kobe to search for people entombed alive in the debris . the dogs did not in the end have to go through the quarantine , but their arrival was delayed until four days after the jan . 17 earthquake , and by then it was too late for them to do much good the nine victims that the dogs sniffed out through the rubble were all dead . "" the government officials should be able to switch their minds more quickly in an emergency like this , "" said mrs . tatsu , who added that she would like a flu shot as soon as the vaccine is available . "" we do n't really care what 's happening among the top officials , but we 're very grateful for the help . "" medicine tylenol sits in a warehouse japan proved to be formidable market to crack even when the aim was not to sell medical supplies to japan but to give them to the sick . that much is apparent inside the locked doors of c warehouse on rokko island , just offshore from kobe . in a corner on the cement floor are 14 forklift pallets of tylenol . an american relief organization , americares , rushed the tylenol to kobe as part of a planeload of medical supplies sent immediately after the earthquake . with 26 , 000 people injured in the quake , the tylenol seemed an appropriate contribution . but tylenol is not licensed for sale in japan an arduous process and japanese officials set it aside . health officials complained that the dosage might be inappropriate for japanese bodies , according to andrew hannah , executive vice_president of americares . ( similar arguments have been used before a cabinet minister once declared that japan need not admit american beef because the meat would not be compatible with japanese intestines . ) it is true that doses vary . a capsule of extra strength tylenol contains 500 milligrams of acetaminophen , the active ingredient . japanese products similar to tylenol contain only 300 milligrams of acetaminophen . the problem with the government 's concern about earthquake victims overdosing on a capsule of tylenol is that some of the japanese pain relievers like noshin , a well known product advise taking two capsules at a time , or 600 milligrams of acetaminophen . health and welfare ministry officials deny that they are keeping out foreign goods , and say that in this emergency situation they are willing to allow the entry of medicines that have not been approved in japan . mr . hannah of americares said he was informed by the authorities on thursday that the tylenol which he had been ready to ship to the philippines since it could not be used in kobe would now be distributed among the earthquake victims . yet , even if the authorities say they have shifted their stance , the 14 pallets of tylenol remain stacked in c warehouse on rokko island . a spot check at several clinics for earthquake refugees turned up no sign of tylenol , and none of the doctors had heard of it . decisions the system falters in emergencies the japanese authorities were cool to foreign offers of assistance in part because they did not realize how bad the damage was . prime_minister tomiichi_murayama learned about the disaster only when he happened to turn on the television . once the government had made a decision to accept a particular offer of assistance , it was usually efficient and helpful , say officials with americares and other relief organizations . the problem lay with reaching a decision in the first place , partly because the japanese authorities operate by a process of consultation and consensus building called nemawashi . "" the japanese bureaucracy is very good when there 's time for nemawashi , "" a senior japanese official said . "" but it 's weakness is that it works poorly in an emergency , when decisions are needed fast . we already knew that this problem existed , but it became much more obvious after the earthquake . "" the foreign ministry emphasized the logistical difficulties of responding immediately to the offers . terusuke terada , the foreign ministry spokesman , noted that the central government had to check with the local authorities and then arrange transportation to the disaster area as well as interpreters and accommodation . "" our method took a bit too much time , "" mr . terada acknowledged , adding that japan is in fact very grateful for all the offers of foreign assistance . the government , to be sure , was lethargic in the earthquake 's aftermath about using domestic resources as well as foreign ones . its slowness in calling in army troops to dig people out was blamed by one japanese magazine for one third of the 5 , 243 deaths in the quake , and another magazine accused the government of a "" massacre . "" "" this red_tape was known by the japanese people , but now people have come to see it more clearly , "" said yuriko koike , an opposition legislator from the kobe area . "" it 's not just the bureaucrats , but also the regulations . they do n't want to make any exceptions , even in emergencies , because that would threaten their raison d'etre . "" red_tape bureaucrats and gift horses foreign donors were often taken aback by the penchant of these bureaucrats for peering into the mouths of gift horses . the japanese subsidiary of motorola rushed 150 cellular_telephones to kobe after the earthquake , when regular telephone service was disrupted . motorola offered to lend the telephones free of charge and pay for all the calls , but the kobe city authorities replied that the phones could not be given out unless they had kobe city stickers on each of them . "" i was like , 'say what ? ' "" recalled robert m . orr jr . , a motorola executive who had helped to lug the telephones to kobe , partly by foot and bicycle . mr . orr said he and a colleague ended up preparing and affixing the stamps themselves . foreign doctors who flew to kobe also encountered difficulties . health officials initially suggested that they could treat the victims only after becoming licensed in japan . the foreign ministry intervened , and the foreign physicians were allowed to care for the sick . despite enormous difficulties in handling the bodies of those killed in the earthquake particularly because no refrigeration or dry ice was available the authorities also declined offers of assistance from american and british teams of undertakers , according to jeffrey e . mullenhour , who headed a team of japanese based embalmers who were allowed to work in the disaster area . mr . mullenhour says his team was allowed in only because they were already working in japan , but he adds that the authorities appeared to grow more flexible and cooperative as time went on . "" i feel that , god forbid , if this situation were to happen again , they would be more receptive in the future , "" he said . vaccine more is refused despite rationing in the case of the flu_vaccine , the authorities refused the assistance from americares in the united_states on the basis that they already had enough vaccine . yoshinobu hirayama , an official in the health and welfare ministry , said that the authorities already have 20 , 000 doses enough for 10 , 000 people , since two shots are needed and that 30 , 000 more doses would be prepared next week . by the middle of the month , mr . hirayama said , there will be enough flu_vaccine for 200 , 000 people . for now , however , flu_shots are being tighly rationed . they are being offered at only a handful of sites , for limited hours , and only to those 65 and over . several doctors interviewed in refugee centers said that while the vaccinations would have only limited effectiveness against the several varieties of flu making the rounds , it would still be best to give the shots quickly to as many people as possible . doctors said some elderly people had already died of the flu and related_illnesses . a survey by kyodo_news service reported 24 deaths by illness among the elderly refugees in nine days in just a part of the disaster zone . "" resistance seems lower than usual , because of poor nutrition and because of the cold , "" said dr . hideyuki nushida , a volunteer at one of the refugee clinics in kobe . "" if we had enough vaccine , it would be good to vaccinate everyone . but for the younger ones , it 's not a big problem if they catch the flu . "" some of the obstacles to foreign assistance come not from the government but from local doctors . like people everywhere , they are most comfortable with products they already use . dr . masanori matsumoto , for instance , said after being told of the issue that he would not use tylenol even if it were on hand in the refugee clinic where he works . "" i would use the medicines that i 'm familiar with , "" he said . "" i think the health and welfare ministry is right to keep out foreign medicines with different dosages . "" yet even if the authorities and doctors sometimes are cool to offers of foreign assistance , the people in the shelters themselves could scarcely be more enthusiastic . "" i do n't know where you 're from , "" kiyotsune yamamoto , a 60 year old steel worker whose home collapsed in the earthquake , told a visitor to his refugee center . "" but i want to thank you . we 're so grateful for the foreign help . """,has a topic of science
"camping is one thing , but akemi honda has been living in a tent for more than nine months , and the view out front is not of a majestic mountain vista but a muddy playground surrounded by buildings . mrs . honda and her family were among the 300 , 000 refugees who lost their homes in the great earthquake that shattered the port city of kobe in january , killing 6 , 055 people . in most respects , kobe has made a stunning recovery , and it is possible in some areas to look around without seeing any signs of the quake . yet while the refugee centers have closed and the port has reopened , mrs . honda and hundreds of others are still stuck in lean_to tents . "" the government is n't helping us any more , and the volunteer workers have all gone home , "" said mrs . honda , 50 , sitting in the "" kitchen "" area of her lean_to . rain pattered on the awning overhead and dripped through in places , while her 29 year old son lay snoozing on the floor . mrs . honda said her apartment building is scheduled to be refurbished and made habitable by the end of the year , so she hopes to go home soon . another family that lives with a pet dog in the same school , in a room that they commandeered and that no one has dared evict them from , has also found a new home , so the refugee population in the school will drop to just three families . compared with the initial devastation after the earthquake , the progress seems almost miraculous . rail and subway service has been restored , the harbor is steadily regaining its capacity , and most of the rubble has been carted away . to be sure , a leaning house occasionally topples over onto a road or a teetering shop collapses onto a sidewalk . but kobe residents blithely walk around the obstruction . the earthquake is estimated to have caused 10 billion in damage , and it will be almost a decade before kobe is entirely rebuilt . but officials assert that the city will then be better than ever , partly because planners have taken advantage of the catastrophe to widen roads a bit and add tiny green spaces . one tent resident , a middle_aged woman who would identify herself only as mrs . arimoto , offered a less enthusiastic assessment . she is still living with her family "" tell them to go away , "" her husband kept saying grumpily in a tiny blue tent in a schoolyard , and the living conditions seem to have taken a toll . "" everything is a nuisance , "" mrs . arimoto said grimly , but she added that she had no plans to leave . the authorities have offered her a temporary home , but it is an hour away . "" we ca n't live there , "" she insisted . "" how could we get to work ? "" the government has built more than 25 , 000 temporary huts for homeless families , but hundreds of people remain in tents or school buildings because they complain that the temporary homes are inadequate . although free , they are tiny an entire house is smaller than an average american living room and many are in remote areas . the city put some huts in public parks and on tennis courts , but now the only spots left are in remote areas an hour or more away from central kobe . public transportation often costs 15 for a round trip , and so families like the arimotos stay in tents in the hope that the authorities will offer something better . some spaces are opening up , in a morbid way , because death rates are high in the temporary homes . many of the occupants are elderly people who remain disoriented from the quake , and the local newspapers are full of reports of such people dying or even committing_suicide . one of the lucky ones is takeshi nakane , 60 , a trading company employee who has lived in a tent on a strip of grass since the earthquake . he scraped together enough cash to put a down payment on a 165 , 000 prefabricated house that is going up on the site of his former home . "" we want to move in as soon as possible , probably in december , "" mr . nakane said , beaming . "" it 's already getting very cold at night here in the tent . """,has a topic of science
"with parachutes braking its swift fall to earth , the shenzhou_5 spacecraft made a safe , early morning landing on the grasslands of inner mongolia on thursday , official news organizations reported , completing an apparently successful mission that established china as only the third nation to send a person into space . state television reported that the touchdown occurred at 6 23 a . m , about 21 hours after the spaceship blasted off on wednesday from the gobi desert carrying the nation 's first ''taikonaut , '' yang liwei , a lieutenant_colonel in the chinese military . within minutes , grainy images of search teams inspecting the shenzhou_5 re entry capsule were televised to the nation . the launching and the landing were not televised live . the re entry capsule separated from the propulsion module at 5 35 a.m . and began descending toward earth , according to the official new china news_agency . state television said the capsule entered china 's airspace at roughly 6 a.m . and continued its descent to the ground . colonel yang , who is expected to become china 's newest hero , took a short , congratulatory telephone call from the chinese prime_minister , wen_jiabao . the 38 year old astronaut was reported to be in ''good spirits'' and was first shown in brief television footage emerging from the capsule in his space_suit and then waving to cameras . the safe landing meant china could take its place as one of the world 's space faring nations at a time when the united_states shuttle program remains grounded following the columbia_disaster and the russian program is suffering from budget restraints . nations like india and japan , while offering congratulations to china , are now racing to match its achievement of manned_space flight . ''it 's significant that we now have a third nation to send a man into space , '' said roger launius , the former chief historian for the national_aeronautics_and_space_administration . but mr . launius noted that the mission was making few waves in the united_states and russia , where sending astronauts into near orbit of the earth is commonplace . ''in the overall scheme of things , this is not a technologically mesmerizing event , '' mr . launius said . ''a lot of people are saying , 'been there , done that . ' '' in china , though , the shenzhou_5 , or divine vessel , has carried great political and symbolic significance for a nation eager to be regarded as a technologically_advanced and modern . the mission also carried enormous political risks , since a failure would have been seen as devastating failure of the country 's new political leadership . instead , top leaders hope to bask in some of the mission 's reflected glory . throughout the day on wednesday , the government run television_network , cctv , provided exhaustive coverage of the orbiting spacecraft , a marked contrast to the scant information provided before the launching . by the end of the day , the formerly obscure colonel yang was all over television and the internet . the chinese president , hu_jintao , was shown delivering a farewell speech to the astronaut not long before he boarded the space capsule . mr . hu was also shown wearing dark sunglasses and looking skyward at the launching site as the spacecraft lifted into the sky . oddly inconspicuous on wednesday was jiang_zemin , mr . hu 's predecessor , whose decision in 1992 put china on the path toward sending a man into space . mr . jiang remains the head of the chinese military , which ultimately oversees the project , and there had been speculation that he and mr . hu might jockey for credit for the shenzhou 's success . within an hour of the capsule 's safe landing , however , chinese media were reporting that mr . jiang had made a congratulatory call to mission control . colonel yang seems unlikely to get much sleep in the coming days . the rough outlines of his life have already become known in households throughout china . he was born in 1965 in liaoning_province in northeast_china . he is a former fighter_pilot in the chinese air force , who logged 1 , 350 hours of flight before becoming an astronaut in 1998 . in an interview taped with cctv days before the launching when he was still one of three finalists for the mission , colonel yang was comfortable and largely unscripted , talking about training exercises with high gravitational forces that forced tears to roll from astronauts' eyes . he said he was not frightened of space travel and told a story of landing a fighter jet after one of his engines failed . he said he liked to play ping_pong and basketball , but also described a life greatly constrained by astronaut training . he said he eats all of his meals at the space_program 's canteen and that he had never been able to take his son to kindergarten . he said he had never met his son 's teachers and knows them only by name . he also was humble . asked if he would claim individual honor from the shenzhou_5 , he demurred , saying ''it is a matter of collective honor'' for all 14 astronauts who trained for the mission . china in space the return",has a topic of science
"in what colleagues hailed as a historic_landmark , 120 physicists from 23 research institutions in japan and the united_states announced today that they had found the existence of mass in a notoriously elusive subatomic particle called the neutrino . the neutrino , a particle that carries no electric charge , is so light that it was assumed for many years to have no mass at all . after today 's announcement , cosmologists will have to confront the possibility that a significant part of the mass of the universe might be in the form of neutrinos . the discovery will also compel scientists to revise a highly successful theory of the composition of matter , the standard model . word of the discovery had drawn some 300 physicists here to discuss neutrino research . among other things , the finding of neutrino mass might affect theories about the formation and evolution of galaxies and the ultimate fate of the universe . if neutrinos have sufficient mass , their presence throughout the universe would increase the overall mass of the universe , possibly slowing its present expansion . others said the newly detected but as yet unmeasured mass of the neutrino must be too small to cause cosmological effects . but whatever the case , there was general agreement here that the discovery will have far reaching consequences for the investigation of the nature of matter . speaking for the collaboration of scientists who discovered the existence of neutrino mass using a huge underground detector called super_kamiokande , dr . takaaki kajita of the institute for cosmic ray research of tokyo_university said that all explanations for the data collected by the detector except the existence of neutrino mass had been essentially ruled out . after dr . kajita 's remarks , the powerful evidence he presented elicted prolonged applause from an audience of physicists from dozens of countries who packed the conference hall here . dr . yoji totsuka , leader of the coalition and director of the kamioka neutrino observatory where the underground detector is situated , 30 miles north of here in the japan alps , acknowledged that his group 's announcement was ' 'very strong , '' but said , ''we have investigated all other possible causes of the effects we have measured and only neutrino mass remains . '' dr . john n . bahcall , a leading neutrino expert and astrophysical theorist at the institute for advanced study in princeton , n.j. , said in an interview that there had been many claims in recent years of the discovery of neutrino mass by other groups . ''but this one is by far the most convincing , '' he said . ''besides the strong evidence they have found , this team has a magnificent track record of discoveries . '' but because the elusive particles cannot be seen , the evidence that they have mass is indirect . transformation is evidence of mass neutrinos come in three types or ''flavors . '' the data gathered by the super_kamiokande team during the two years the detector has operated indicate that at least one of these three ''flavors'' can ''oscillate'' into one of the other flavors as it travels along at nearly the speed of light . according to the theories of quantum mechanics , any particle capable of transforming itself in this way must have mass . study of the neutrino particle has been glacially slow since its existence was hypothesized in 1930 by the austrian physicist wolfgang pauli as a way to explain the mysterious loss of energy in certain nuclear reactions . the particle was finally discovered in 1956 by two physicists at the los_alamos_national_laboratory , dr . frederick reines ( who was awarded a nobel_prize for the discovery ) and the late dr . clyde cowan . but understanding of the particle since then has been acquired painfully slowly , because neutrinos have no electric charge and rarely interact with any kind of matter . a neutrino so rarely collides with an atom of ordinary matter that a typical neutrino can easily penetrate a one light year thickness of lead some six trillion miles without hindrance . as the writer john updike put it in a poem he wrote in 1960 neutrinos , they are very small . they have no charge and have no mass and do not interact at all . the earth is just a silly ball to them , through which they simply pass like dust maids down a drafty hall . but once in a great while , a neutrino does hit an atom and the resulting blast of nuclear debris supplies clues about the neutrino itself . the debris generally includes many particles that can race through water , mineral oil or even ice , sending out shock_waves of blue light . this light , called cherenkov radiation , can be detected by sensitive light sensors and measured . during the past few decades , scientists have learned that matter is made up of three distinct flavors or types . this means that there are three flavors of neutrinos the electron neutrino associated with the electron , the muon neutrinos , associated with the muon particle , which is a kind of fat electron , and the tau neutrino , associated with the tau particle , an even fatter relative of the electron . the role of the muon and tau particles and their associated neutrinos in the universe has mystified physicists . ''who ordered that ? '' the columbia_university physicist isidor rabi is said to have remarked when the muon was found . the super_kamiokande detector was built two years ago as a joint japanese_american experiment . it is essentially a water tank the size of a large cathedral installed in a deep zinc mine one mile inside a mountain 30 miles north of here . when neutrinos slice through the tank , one of them occasionally makes its presence known by colliding with an atom , which sends blue light through the water to an array of detectors . the enormous volume of water in the detector increased the likelihood of neutrino impacts to the point at which the discovery of neutrino mass became possible . the super_kamiokande collaboration is studying several neutrino phenomena simultaneously , but the one that led to today 's announcement was based on ''atmospheric'' neutrinos created when highly energetic cosmic ray particles from deep space slam into the earth 's upper atmosphere . finding a reason for a puzzling shortage physicists knew that different flavors of neutrinos constantly arrive from the upper atmosphere and they have calculated that the ratio between muon neutrinos and other flavors must have a certain value . but over the years detectors found only about half the muon neutrino predicted by theory . the apparent shortage of muon neutrinos was explained by the recent observations that led to today 's announcements . the physicists found that when neutrinos come from the sky directly over the super_kamiokande detector a relatively short distance the proportion of muon neutrinos among them was higher than among the neutrinos coming up from beneath the detector after having passed through the earth . the scientists reasoned that by traveling through the entire earth these neutrinos had had time to oscillate , probably many times , between muon neutrinos and some other type , especially the tau neutrino , and this accounts for the deficit seen in muon neutrinos . ( the tau neutrino has not yet been directly detected but it must exist to make observations consistent . ) a related problem has to do with neutrinos produced by the fusion process in the sun . this process , which merges the nuclei of hydrogen atoms to form helium nuclei and energy , produces neutrinos . astro physicists believe they understand the mechanism in complete detail . the trouble is that all the best detectors ever built find far fewer neutrinos than should be present according to understanding of the fusion reaction . scientists believe the anomaly can be explained by the oscillation of detectable solar neutrinos into types that cannot be detected by existing instruments . but no one has proved this explanation . worldwide efforts to unlock secrets members of the kamiokande collaboration have not limited their investigations to huge underground detectors . the leader of the collaboration 's university of hawaii group , for example , dr . john g . learned , has also worked on an underwater detection system in the pacific_ocean off the hawaiian coast ( which ran out of money before completion ) and a project at the south pole where a neutrino detector had been buried under thousands of feet of ice . another approach to penetrating the neutrino secrets involves the use of particle accelerators capable of producing intense beams of neutrinos . in two experiments currently being prepared , one in japan and the other at fermi national accelerator laboratory in illinois , beams of neutrinos will be directed through the earth toward detectors several hundred miles away . the goal will be to observe changes the neutrinos undergo in transit , both in numbers and types . physicists expect the experiment to confirm the existence of neutrino oscillations like those seen in the super_kamiokande detector . although the neutrinos are now known to have some mass , most physicists agree that the mass must be very small . the super_kamiokande experiments suggest that the difference between the masses of muon neutrinos and other types of neutrinos is only about 0 . 07 electron volts ( a measure of particle mass ) . this does not yield a value of the masses themselves , only of the difference between those of muon neutrinos and other types . although the mass of the neutrino of any flavor must be small , dr . totsuka said , it may be several electron volts , and if so , the overall gravitational effect on the universe would perhaps be significant . it has been estimated that at any given moment , every teaspoon worth of volume of space throughout the universe contains an average of 300 neutrinos , so their aggregate number is staggering . ( the electron volt is used by scientists as a unit of particle mass . one electron volt is the energy , or mass equivalent , that an electron acquires by passing through an electric potential of one volt . by this standard a neutrino is believed to have a mass only about five hundred thousandth as much as that of an electron , which itself is a light particle . ) in the last 68 years , a legion of distinguished physicists has devoted inquiries and careers to the puzzling neutrino , which was given its name by the great italian_american scientist enrico fermi . fermi quickly came to believe in the particle 's existence , even though it was not proved in his lifetime , and named it ''neutrino , '' which means ''little neutral one'' in italian . representatives of dozens of neutrino experiments meet once every two years to exchange ideas at conferences like the one under way here . present are representatives of teams that have installed neutrino detectors on the bottom of lake_baikal in siberia , under the aegean sea off the greek coast , inside the gran sasso tunnel under the alps , under the ice covering the south pole , and in many other places . lively debate has characterized discussions here . for example , dr . bahcall , who had high praise for the super_kamiokande experiment , challenged assertions by the detector team that neutrinos might have sufficient mass to slow the expansion of the universe . but there was agreement that progress in understanding neutrinos has accelerated tremendously in the last few years . another great detector built deep within a mine is nearing_completion at sudbury , ontario . when scientists have finished filling it with heavy water , water that includes a heavy isotope of hydrogen as part of its molecule , the sudbury detector will be uniquely capable of distinguishing between electron neutrinos one of the three types and the other two flavors . this ability is expected to cap the investigation of neutrino oscillations for which super_kamiokande has now furnished the ' 'smoking_gun . ''",has a topic of science
"he lives alone in a 30 , 000 square_foot hilltop house that may be the biggest in town , with a whole room devoted to the collection of gas powered model airplanes he built himself . he loves sailing and opera and fast cars , which his friends and family say he drives slowly . he made a fortune in the earthbound field of pension_fund management but never gave up on his youthful dream of reaching for the stars . now , barring further complications , dennis a . tito , a 60 year old , 5 foot 5 , 140 pound millionaire a couple hundred times over , will become the world 's first extraterrestrial tourist , blasting off as soon as sunday in an extra seat on a russian soyuz_spacecraft for a six day mission aboard the international_space_station . the estimated price_tag 20 million to the cash_strapped russian space_program , plus a signed promise that he will pay for anything he breaks or damages during the flight and that his heirs will not sue the space_station 's partners if something worse happens . mr . tito may be living a dream come true , but he is no mere walter mitty . the son of a printer and seamstress from forest_hills , queens , he began his career as an aerospace engineer at nasa 's jet_propulsion_laboratory in pasadena , calif . , designing trajectories for the mariner spacecraft missions to mars and venus before switching paths some 30 years ago and applying computer concepts to investment_strategy . his investment consulting company , wilshire associates , now provides advice for the management of about 1 trillion in assets , directly manages 10 billion and is best known for its wilshire 5000 stock_index . ''i 've known dennis for 30 years , and he 's never grown up , '' said his friend and fellow republican , mayor richard j . riordan of los_angeles . ''he just is always looking for exciting things to do . i 'm envious . if you 've got the money he 's got , why not do something like this ? he 's just going to have a ball . everybody 's going to be talking about this for years to come . '' mr . tito , whose plan was long opposed by officials of the national_aeronautics_and_space_administration and by other countries who are partners in the space_station and were worried about his qualifications , spent more than seven months in russia training for the flight . he is in vigorous health . he was quarantined in preparation for liftoff from the baikonur cosmodrome in kazakhstan and unavailable to be interviewed this week . but , speaking to the new york times last year , he said simply , ''we have one life to live on this earth , and my commitment is to fulfill all of my dreams which are healthy and legitimate . '' about 25 family members , partners and friends , including his former wife and business partner , suzanne , have flown to russia to bid mr . tito bon voyage as he goes through the takeoff rituals of the russian space_program , including a ceremonial urination on the tires of the van that will take him and his fellow cosmonauts to the launching_pad . in a telephone interview from their hotel in moscow , where it was the middle of the night , mr . tito 's two sons , mike , 26 , and brad , 23 , reflected gleefully , and soberly , on their father 's dream . ''the way i see it , the guy grew up in queens and he was n't well off , he went to school and worked for nasa , did some pioneering work there and went off to make a lot of money , '' said brad tito , who lives in arizona and runs a business building energy efficient , environmentally_sensitive homes . ''basically , he 's at the point in his life where he 's thinking about what 's really important , and in the end , when we all ask ourselves that , it ends up being life experience . to look back on the earth as one whole living organism , and see that there 's no political boundaries , to kind of see life from a bigger perspective , it 's got to be an incredibly profound experience . '' mike tito , who worked with his father at wilshire but recently left to start his own investment advice web_site , investmenttoolkit . com , joined mr . tito in russia last year for a zero gravity training flight , and a simulation of the g forces of rocket launching , which he described as ' 'much more extreme than any roller_coaster you could imagine . '' but he said he had ''absolutely no concerns'' about his father 's safety . the tito brothers ( their sister lives in new zealand and is also on hand for the launching but did not want to be interviewed or named ) say their father was not a particularly hard driving parent . ''i think there 's a sort of impression that someone like this would be very tough on their kids , but he 's the most he 's a free thinker , '' mike tito said . ''he 's no montgomery burns , '' brad tito added , referring to the shriveled tycoon who owns the nuclear_plant on ''the simpsons . '' both say mr . tito taught them to ''think outside the box , '' a phrase others echo unbidden . ''he 's a really intriguing guy , very , very curious , '' said connie rice , a civil_rights lawyer who preceded mr . tito as president of the city 's water and power commission , which oversees the municipal utility . mr . riordan appointed mr . tito to the board several years ago , but he resigned in reported frustration with the bureaucracy , though not before striking up a friendship with ms . rice . ''we were standing in the hallway at city hall just after he 'd been appointed , and i do n't think either of us realized who the other was , '' ms . rice recalled today . ''but he figured out i was a civil_rights lawyer , and all of a sudden he just had these voracious questions . he said , 'i 've got a daughter , and i 've never understood the sex discrimination stuff . ' i did n't expect him to be even politely interested , and he was fascinated . '' later , after a discussion about racial stereotypes and how managers choose people who remind them of themselves , ms . rice , who is black , said mr . tito came to her one day and said '' 'i 've been thinking about this , and i looked around and i said , by god , everybody around me in my company was a short italian guy ! ' and i said , 'dennis , dennis , that 's all right . these could be the most qualified people . ' '' mr . tito has said he first dreamed of space when he saw an early satellite blinking overhead , but believed he stood no chance to join the pioneer generation of astronauts , who were veteran fighter pilots , so he set the_dream aside . a decade ago , he first sounded out the russians about hitching a ride , but the attempted_coup against mikhail s . gorbachev dashed his hopes . eventually , he booked a spot on russia 's aging mir_space_station . when the russians decided to scuttle mir , he assumed his dream was blocked again , only to find the russians willing to let him use a seat that is often left vacant to visit their part of the international_space_station instead . just this week , the station 's other partners dropped their objections . mr . tito 's persistence does not surprise those who have tangled with him in the past . ''the one thing i 've always known about him is whatever he sets his mind to , he gets very , very focused on it , '' said wayne h . wagner , a co founder of wilshire , who split with mr . tito after 12 years in a breakup that he acknowledged was not amicable . ''basically , nothing stands in his way once he makes up his mind . he usually finds a way . a lot of it has to do with getting other people to notice him . who knows where it comes from ? but it 's very strong . '' mr . tito 's 20 year marriage did not survive the construction of his dream home on a hilltop in the pacific palisades section of the city a decade ago . the english style stone manor house , with french interiors and plaster moldings made by the same company that renovated the capitol in sacramento , has 360 degree views of the city and the pacific_ocean , a running track and an eight car garage . but friends say mrs . tito lived there only a few months and never felt comfortable , and the couple later amicably divorced . ''it 's among the top five houses in town , '' said fred c . sands , the veteran real_estate agent to the stars who is a friend of mr . tito and was married in the house a couple of years ago . ''it 's like a very luxurious four seasons hotel . dennis was having a party a year or so ago , and i would plant myself in the entry and just observe people coming in and watch the look on their faces as they 'd try not to go catatonic . they 'd all keep trying to compose themselves , but they could n't . '' friends say mr . tito gives generously to philanthropic causes and often lends out his house for events , including some for the los angeles opera , on whose board he serves . ( his tastes are traditional puccini , mozart , verdi , wagner and he is taking a selection of opera cd 's into space . ) he has talked about using his wealth to finance a space museum or invest in the first generation of suborbital aircraft that might someday rocket halfway around the world in minutes . ''at first i thought this was kind of like a waste of 20 million , '' brad tito said from moscow , quickly amending himself to add ''not a waste . i support him . he 's my father . but you sure can do a lot with 20 million , in a charitable capacity , to change the lives of millions of people , you know . maybe this will , too . ''",has a topic of science
to the editor the account of midwifery in england described care the writer received after the birth of her child and illustrates important gaps in american obstetrics ( ''so lucky to give birth in england'' ) . the public_health system in england treats birth as the beginning of a family with both health_care and health education needs . the medical system in the united_states treats birth as an isolated medical event . we discharge families from care when the ''patients'' no longer require hospitalization . this is shortsighted . it has multiple consequences that harm families . the importance of breast_feeding in preventing childhood illness and the detection of postpartum depression are two examples . midwifery care and postpartum home visits would save thousands of dollars in health_care costs . we commend the royal college of midwives for its services . an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure . tekoa king washington the writer edits the journal of midwifery women 's health .,has a topic of science
"after two months of sporadic eruptions and frequent , earth shaking tremors in an island chain south of tokyo , officials today ordered the complete evacuation of miyake island , which has been at the center of the seismic_activity . the evacuation , ordered almost simultaneously by the mayor of miyake , and by the governor of tokyo prefecture , comes after almost half of the island 's 3 , 850 inhabitants had quietly left the island to escape what has become near constant volcanic activity . ''this decision was made because the earthquakes and eruptions have become so frequent that they represent a risk to human lives , '' said keita takashima , a spokesman for the tokyo government . the evacuation marks the second time in recent months that volcanic activity has forced large scale relocations in japan . earlier this year , 13 , 000 people were evacuated from villages in northern japan near mount usu , after a major eruption of a volcano that had been dormant there for 22 years . since it lies only 120 miles south of the capital , tokyo , the eruptions of mount oyama on miyake have revived fears here of a huge disaster in the case of a major earthquake . several powerful tremors have been felt in the capital itself , with one of them reportedly caused by movements in the earth 's crust deep below the city . experts say that the frequent tremors and eruptions on miyake , and throughout the surrounding ise island chain , have made this summer one of the most seismically active seasons on record . scientists say that the seismic_activity in the ise chain is caused by shifts in huge underground pools of magma , but there is disagreement among them over its relevance to tokyo 's tectonic stability . these fears are reinforced by the still vivid memories of the devastation of kobe , a major port city southwest of tokyo that was struck by a violent earthquake in 1995 . friday was also the anniversary of the great tokyo earthquake of 1923 , which killed an estimated 150 , 000 people and left most of the city burned to the ground . partly as a result of the kobe quake , the tokyo government has organized its largest annual emergency preparations drill on sunday , which is traditionally held at the beginning of september , to commemorate the huge quake that destroyed this city . for the first time , the prefectural government has called out more than 7 , 000 members of the self_defense forces , including members of its air , sea and maritime branches , for highly visible drills that include military style rescue maneuvers involving helicopters , light tanks , troop_transport vehicles and landing_craft . the drills have fueled a major polemic here in a japan , which remains officially pacifist and without an army , about the role of the self_defense forces . antimilitarists here say they suspect that an unstated goal of the high profile exercise is to raise the profile of the armed_forces gradually , improving the prospects for conservative proposals to revise the constitution to allow japan to form an army for the first time since world_war_ii . the debate over the exercises has also involved complaints that it is aimed at intimidating foreign asians who reside in japan after menacing comments five months ago by tokyo 's governor , shintaro_ishihara . ''many third country nationals and foreigners who have entered japan illegally have perpetrated heinous crimes , '' mr . ishihara said in april . ''in the event of a major earthquake , riots may break out , and there is a limit to the police 's ability to cope with such a situation alone . i want you , the self_defense forces , to carry out your mission , not only to deal with natural_disasters , but also to maintain law and order . '' in fact , historians were quick to reply , thousands of koreans were lynched and their property stolen or destroyed by rioting japanese who had been whipped up by xenophobic local leaders during in the great tokyo earthquake . since those remarks , mr . ishihara has been forced to apologize to japan 's foreign asians , and ever since , has played down the law and order element to the earthquake drill . ''there were over 6 , 000 people killed by the kobe earthquake , and we were all ashamed by the poor response to the emergency , '' said atsuyuki sassa , a security expert who has advised mr . ishihara . ''the self_defense force is a national asset , and we must use it in emergency situations . '' correction september 5 , 2000 , tuesday an article on sunday about the evacuation of the japanese island of miyake during volcanic eruptions referred incorrectly in some copies to the year a big earthquake struck kobe , japan . it was 1995 , not 1985 .",has a topic of science
"hot gas seeped through joints in both rocket boosters during the launching of the space_shuttle_columbia two weeks ago but did not damage the o rings or endanger the shuttle or its crew , nasa said today . nonetheless , the problem could delay the space shuttle atlantis 's flight to the russian space_station mir and keep dr . shannon lucid , a physicist and nasa astronaut , in orbit aboard the mir longer than planned . dr . lucid , who is scheduled to return to earth in august aboard the atlantis , could end up spending an extra month there if the shuttle 's solid fuel rocket boosters have to be replaced . the space agency discovered the problem this week after retrieving the columbia 's two boosters from the atlantic_ocean . sometime during the two minutes that the boosters burned , rocket gas leaked into some of the j joints , which connect sections of the booster_rocket that contain fuel , said the shuttle manager , tommy holloway . but the gas never got past o rings that had been put there as a thermal barrier , he said . it was different o rings that failed on the space shuttle challenger in 1986 , causing an explosion that killed all seven crew members .",has a topic of science
"the space shuttle discovery set the dark florida sky ablaze just after midnight today as it began a historic mission in which a winged american spaceship is to rendezvous with a russian space_station for the first time . carrying the first woman to pilot a nasa shuttle , the second russian astronaut to fly on one and four other crew members , discovery blasted off on time at 12 22 a.m . through the five minute window available each day for a shuttle trying to meet the russian mir_space_station orbiting about 200 miles above the earth . disovery 's eight day flight is the first of eight missions the national_aeronautics_and_space_administration hopes to carry out this year and the 67th of the shuttle program . the rare nighttime blastoff was delayed a day by the failure of a navigational unit , which had to be replaced . on monday , in a complex orbital ballet , the 122 foot long discovery is to come within about 30 feet of the 108 foot russian outpost in a dress_rehearsal for the first shuttle station docking , scheduled for june . repeatedly during the next two years , the winged spaceships and mir are to dock , with crews being transferred to the space lab . the working sessions there will be warmups for the construction of an international_space_station to be inhabited by americans , russians , japanese , europeans and canadians . the east west project is the space agency 's principal new endeavor at the turn of this century . its construction is to begin in late 1997 . today , the launching window was tight because discovery had to go into a special orbit to rendezvous with the nine year old mir . if the five minute opportunity had been missed , it would have been 24 hours before another launching could have been attempted . a small but important part of the mission is to get under way today as the astronauts launch a group of tiny metal objects into space . observers on the ground using radar and telescopes will try to track the objects in an effort to get a better understanding of the extent of space debris . thousands of dead spacecraft and abandoned metal parts , as well as an unknown number of smaller ones , perhaps ranging to the millions , are orbiting the earth . the junk threatens working spacecraft . the six metal targets are to help establish the smallest things that can be observed from the ground , and thus increase the reliability of space debris estimates . throughout the eight day mission , scientific_experiments will be performed in the shuttle 's payload bay in a commercial laboratory module , spacehab , which is making its third flight . among the 20 odd experiments is an agricultural one sponsored by the university of wisconsin , in which wheat seedlings will be grown . someday , nasa hopes to use plants routinely to help purify air and water and to be a source of food for astronauts . on tuesday , a day after the brief mir rendezvous , the discovery astronauts are to deploy a recoverable 2 , 600 pound satellite , spartan . on thursday , the seventh flight day , the astronauts are to retrieve the spartan satellite , and two of them are to don spacesuits for an excursion into space planned to last nearly five hours . the two , dr . bernard a . harris jr . , a physician , and dr . c . michael_foale , an astrophysicist , will test newly modified spacesuits meant to keep astronauts warmer . they will practice handling large objects as preparation for the eventual assembly of the big international_space_station . next friday , the astronauts are to hold a news conference from space and get ready for their fiery re entry into the earth 's atmosphere . discovery 's commander is comdr . james d . wetherbee of the navy , who is making his third shuttle flight . the pilot is lieut . col . eileen m . collins of the air_force , who was born in elmira , n.y. , and is making her first space trip and is the first woman to be a nasa pilot . the flight , colonel collins said on arrival sunday at the kennedy_space_center , "" is really a dream come true for me . "" also on board are dr . janice voss , an aerospace engineer and col . vladimir georgievich titov of the russian_air_force , who spent more than a year in space on three russian missions . he is the second russian to fly on one of america 's shuttles . the first was sergei krikalev , who flew a year ago . discovery is to land feb . 11 at the kennedy_space_center in florida .",has a topic of science
"russian and american astronauts clambered out of the star crossed mir this morning and began a complex and potentially hazardous space walk to help restore the space_station . clad in a russian made spacesuit , the american astronaut michael_foale was the first to venture through the hatch . he was followed by anatoly solovyev , the mir commander . the purpose of today 's operation was to find the hole punched in the mir during a collision june 25 with an unmanned space cargo craft and undertake other repairs . the team 's space walk was scheduled to last six hours enough time for the mir to circle the earth four times and for temperatures in space to soar to hundreds of degrees ( when the mir is in sunlight ) and to plunge to minus 150 degrees ( when the mir passes into darkness ) . the space walk is to be quite elaborate . to move around the mir , mr . foale will use a special crane to hoist mr . solovyev toward the damaged section of the spektr module so he can search for a tear or puncture . frank culbertson , a senior nasa official , described the mission as being of ' 'moderate risk . '' ''we do n't know yet , of course , what the holes look like and what repair procedures might be in the future , '' he added . ''but this is the first step in trying to gain that understanding . '' if the hole , or holes , can be located , it would be repaired on a future mission , perhaps using equipment taken t to the mir by the american space_shuttle . mr . foale has had extensive training for the space walk , including practice in using russian space suits . nasa officials said he had about 148 hours of ground based training and another 44 hours of training in orbit . still , every space walk is something of a venture into the unknown . when american astronauts conduct space walks , they generally do so within the open bay of the space_shuttle . and jerry linenger , the only other american astronaut to carry out a space walk in open space outside the mir , has described his experience as unnerving , if fascinating . ''the whole time it felt like i was falling from the edge of a cliff , '' he observed . ''it was a remarkable feeling , and you had to keep yourself under control and keep talking to yourself and saying , 'it 's o.k . to be falling . ' '' beyond the psychological stress , the main hazards include mechanical problems , the risk that an astronaut 's tether to the mir might somehow come loose , sending him drifting out into space , or the possibility that one could snag his suit on a ragged portion of the mir . russian and nasa officials , however , say the dangers are manageable and the mission valuable training for the new international_space_station that is being built . greg harbaugh , a nasa specialist on space walks , said that mr . foale 's space walk would help the americans learn about the russian space_suit , safety practices and the disorienting experience of conducting a space walk outside the shuttle bay . to be sure , the crew of the mir has already had more experience than they would have liked in making emergency repairs in space . since the june 25 collision between the mir and an unmanned cargo craft , life aboard the mir has been a continual battle against breakdowns . the crew has already reconnected electrical_cables that were disconnected after the collision . they have repaired oxygen generation systems and struggled successfully to stabilize the spacecraft after the mir 's computerized navigation system was inadvertently disabled . but there is still plenty left to do . not all of the lost power has been restored because the crew has not been able to direct the solar arrays at the sun . they were to try to turn at least one of the four solar arrays on the module today . the team would also like to install a valve on the exterior so a new system for removing carbon_dioxide can be connected . then there is the problem of finding and fixing a hole , a task that has never been accomplished in space . the mir crew began final preparations for today 's mission by listening to a concert in the grand hall of moscow 's tchaikovsky conservatory , part of the elaborate celebrations of moscow 's 850th anniversary . the music was transmitted to the space_station by ground control . they were instructed to go sleep by 7 10 p.m . on friday and wake up three hours later . as a precaution , the flight_engineer , pavel vinogradov , was to go to the soyuz rocket docked along the mir , as mr . foale and mr . solovyev passed through the hatch of the kvant 2 module . mr . foale , who brought a camera and tools , attached a tether to a handrail on kvant 2 so that he does not float away into space . after handing mr . solovyev his tools , he was to make his way over to the crane and use it to lift mr . solovyev to the cone shaped area of the spektr . there are two areas that the astronauts planned to check for damage . one is near an external radiator . the other is near the base of a solar array . the astronauts were to use special tools to look for rips in the thermal insulation and cameras and video recorders to document the damage . they originally planned to attach handrails on the outside of the mir to make today 's mission and future operations easier . but russian officials said that this part of the mission was being canceled to limit the spacewalk to six hours . the crew will also try to retrieve a radiation monitor attached to the mir as part of a scientific experiment by mr . linenger during a space walk in april . every step was to be monitored by the mission_control_center here . the astronauts got a taste of how unforgiving their colleagues and the russian media can be this week when the chief russian coordinator of the mir program put the responsibility for the june 25 collision squarely on the previous russian crew . the crew 's allies in the russian space_program rushed to their defense and on friday the crew vasily_tsibliyev and alexander lazutkin were rewarded with plots of land , medals and free mobile telephones . still , the pain of the controversy lingered . the june 25 accident , mr . tsibliyev insisted at his award ceremony ''came unexpectedly and was not the responsibility of any one man . '' correction september 8 , 1997 , monday an article on saturday about a spacewalk from the mir_space_station misidentified a russian astronaut . he is anatoly solovyov , not vladimir solovyov , no relation , who is a russian space official .",has a topic of science
"the chinese spacecraft shenzhou_5 blasted off from the gobi desert on wednesday carrying a single astronaut . the launching left government leaders jubilant yet also anxiously awaiting his safe return so china can stake its claim as one of the world 's elite space faring nations . the launching took place about 9 a.m. , according to the state run television_network , cctv . at about 9 30 , the network showed a videotape of the rocket soaring to the heavens . the shenzhou_5 , or divine vessel , is expected to orbit earth 14 times before returning after a voyage of roughly 21 hours . if successful , the mission would make china the third nation to send a man into space , coming more than four decades after the soviet_union and the united_states accomplished the feat at the height of the cold_war . the mission also carries broad political significance for the chinese government , which hopes to win good will and inspire nationalism in its citizens , many of whom regard the communist_party as an increasingly irrelevant political dinosaur . top officials also want to display china 's growing technological savvy and stake a claim to being a world power considered equal to the united_states . until recent days , the mission has been cloaked in secrecy , down to the most basic information , including how many astronauts would be on board . but on wednesday morning the lone astronaut proved to be lt . col . yang liwei , 38 , who was chosen from a pool of 14 . ''i will not disappoint the motherland , '' sina . com , the country 's leading web_site , quoted him as saying . ''i will complete each movement with total concentration . and i will gain honor for the people 's liberation army and for the chinese nation . '' a former pilot , colonel yang became an astronaut after passing an aptitude test in 1993 . soon after he rose aloft this morning , colonel yang was asked by a doctor at the control center about his condition , the new china news_agency reported , and replied , ''i feel good and my conditions are normal . '' assuming he can safely return the spacecraft to its landing spot in inner mongolia , mr . yang would become an instant national hero , putting a human face on a mission that has emphasized the collective technical prowess of the space_program , rather than individuals . ''the successful launching of the shenzhou_5 manned spacecraft is a glory for our great motherland , '' president hu_jintao said in comments issued by the new china news_agency , ''and it signifies that our country has scored an initial victory in this first effort at manned_space flight . it also signifies the chinese people have made another historically significant step forward in their progress toward conquering the summit of world science and technology . '' such promises do not deter skeptics , who note that the chinese military is responsible for the space_program and worry that the shenzhou_5 is a part of a program to develop military applications in space . other analysts say china is developing military oriented space technology but say the shenzhou_5 has little , if any , military application . the mission is expected to conduct some scientific_experiments and is carrying seeds for agricultural tests . the mission would mark the greatest achievement of a space_program whose development has been interrupted by the convulsions of contemporary chinese history . first with the great_leap_forward of the late 1950 's , then later with the cultural_revolution in the 1970 's , china 's domestic turmoil slowed , and at some points stopped , the space_program . in the early 1970 's , china had started a secret program to send a man into space , even selecting a training group of astronauts before the project was canceled . but in 1992 , jiang_zemin , then the president , who remains the leader of the chinese military , which oversees the space_program , signaled china 's renewed ambitions in space with a new program to send a man into orbit . since then , china has launched four unmanned spacecraft , beginning with the shenzhou 1 in november 1999 . the final test run for this week 's launching was the shenzhou 4 last december , which chinese officials say spent seven days in space before returning . in all , putting a man into space took more than a decade . ''china has had a very careful , slow paced buildup to this launch , '' said john m . logsdon , director of the space policy institute at george_washington_university . ''this is the result of a deliberate decision made a decade ago . it 's a very comprehensive program . '' it also has big ambitions . compared with the united_states , where nasa has an annual budget of roughly 15 billion , the chinese space budget of 2 billion is small , though it compares favorably with countries like india and russia . still , the chinese plan to begin exploring the moon , to launch a hubble like space telescope and , possibly , to construct a rival space_station to the existing international_space_station . ''the second phase of our program involves more advanced technologies such as space rendezvous and docking , and will also include the establishment of an outer_space laboratory system , '' said gu yidong , a high ranking space official , in an interview this week with the new china news_agency . mr . gu said china ultimately intended to explore and exploit space , particularly for energy resources , suggesting futuristic possibilities like using space as ''an ideal industrial base . '' the chinese assert that they were actually first to try to send a man into space . a 16th_century ming_dynasty artisan , wan hu , held kites in each hand and strapped himself to a chair equipped with rockets , according to some historical accounts carried in the state news_media . his servants reportedly lit the gunpowder fueled rocket as mr . wan tried to launch himself into the sky . he failed , dying in the explosion .",has a topic of science
"when a bridge and an elevated_highway collapsed during the big san_francisco_earthquake of 1989 , minoru hirano , a japanese highway designer , reassured his countrymen that japanese bridges were stronger than those in america . "" i did n't think it would happen to japan , "" mr . hirano , director of project planning for the japan highway public corporation , recalled today . "" i thought our design code would be enough . "" but as a major elevated_highway toppled to its side and thousands of buildings crumpled in a huge earthquake near kobe this morning , mr . hirano and others in japan realized , to their horror , that it could happen here . "" we can never be prepared enough . that 's my comment now , "" he said . the earthquake , which measured 7.2 on the richter_scale , shook more than foundations . it has undermined japan 's confidence in its anti quake technology and raised the level of fear in a nation that thought it had reached an accommodation with an ever present threat . "" before this , i felt that if it happened in tokyo , it would be okay , "" said atsuko sekine , a young office worker shopping in tokyo 's ginza area . "" but now , i 'm very worried . "" most prediction efforts are aimed at forecasting a quake southwest of tokyo , not in western japan . "" we do not have any earthquakes there , "" said shin aoyama , a spokesman for the science and technology agency . "" it 's really an astonishing event . "" the last big earthquake in western japan was in 1946 . measuring 8.0 on the richter_scale , it killed more than 1 , 300 people . lack of preparation in kobe , a port city , may have contributed to the scope of the devastation . many questions remain unanswered . japanese buildings and homes have systems that automatically shut off the gas in the event of an earthquake . it is still unclear whether these systems were in use near kobe and , if so , why there were dozens of fires , many of which had still not been extinguished by nightfall . some of the houses and office buildings that collapsed might have been built before the earthquake code was revised in the 1970s . mr . hirano of the government affiliated highway corporation said that , in general , the panels of the roadbed on elevated highways in japan are connected to each other more firmly together than they are in the united_states . the roadbed is also connected more strongly to the pillars . with one highway that collapsed today , he said , the roadbed stayed intact and connected to the pillars . but the entire structure toppled over as one piece , collapsing at the base of its pillars , perhaps because the ground supporting the pillars gave way . the other highway that collapsed was the oldest in japan , opened in 1965 , he said . mr . hirano said he thought highways in western japan were not upgraded to the latest standards because the threat of earthquakes there was perceived to be low . after last year 's los_angeles quake , hisanobu ichimasu , director of the design and research division in tokyo 's metropolitan expressway public corporation , said japan 's and california 's standards for elevated roadways were now very similar , although at one time japan had a more stringent code . for instance , he said , until a big quake in the san fernando valley in 1971 , california required fewer horizontal steel hoops in pillars than japan did . the hoops are designed to prevent the vertical steel reinforcing bars from buckling outward . but now , he said , the standards are similar . masakazu ozaki , a professor of architectural engineering at chiba university , said that "" mostly japanese buildings are stronger than u.s . buildings , "" but that it depends on the type of building . still , he and others said a revision of japan 's codes will now be inevitable . professor ozaki said it is politically difficult in japan to criticize the building codes because people do not typically challenge the government here . perhaps no place on earth , including california , lives under as constant a threat of earthquakes as japan . today 's quake was the third since october that measured over 7.0 on the richter_scale . but most earthquakes in recent years , including the two other big ones since october , have done little damage and resulted in few casualties . even in a july 1993 earthquake that measured 7.8 on the richter_scale and killed more than 200 people , almost all the deaths and damage resulted from huge tsunami waves rather than from the earth 's shaking itself . the result , some people here say , is that japan became overconfident and somewhat complacent . japan 's newspapers and television stations provided extensive coverage of the san_francisco_earthquake , which measured 7.1 on the richter_scale , and of the los_angeles temblor , of 6.7 magnitude , which occurred exactly a year ago . while the media questioned whether the same damage could occur in japan , experts were frequently quoted saying how japanese building and highway codes here were more stringent than california 's . to some extent , japan 's ability to withstand earthquakes is probably better than in the united_states , experts say . but some of japan 's good track record can also be attributed to luck . most of the big earthquakes have occurred in the pacific_ocean or near lightly populated_areas . the epicenter of today 's earthquake was very near kobe and at a relatively shallow depth of 20 kilometers , or 12 . 4 miles . that makes it the first big temblor to occur in a major city since the great tokyo earthquake of 1923 , in which more than 140 , 000 people died . earth quakes are a major concern for the japanese . children are trained to prepare for earthquakes from an early age some elementary schools require pupils to sit on fireproof seat cushions that can be worn as a hat to shield the head from falling debris . in the 1970 's , the tokyo fire department gave away free to each home a plastic water bucket that would hold enough water for a week 's worth of drinking or for dousing fires after a quake . every sept . 1 , the anniversary of the great tokyo earthquake , millions of people in the tokyo area take part in earthquake drills . children practice running through tunnels of smoke with handkerchiefs over their faces and military personnel practice rescues from helicopters . japan is also spending about 106 million a year to study the mechanism of earthquakes in an effort to eventually be able to predict them . the government is using signals from satellites and distant stars to measure minute shifts in the earth 's crust . it is drilling wells more than a mile deep in which to put equipment to measure earth movements , and it is monitoring faults under the ocean . one project , to see if the behavior of catfish can provide a warning of earthquakes , has drawn some international ridicule . "" the government is always saying that japanese buildings are completely safe , "" said mr . ozaki , who is the japanese chairman of a united_states japan committee looking at how to improve building design to withstand earthquakes . no matter how the codes are improved , he said , no building will ever by completely free from risk from a big enough earthquake . in that sense , some japanese are resigned to living with a permanent threat of quakes . "" i have a feeling there 's nothing we can do about it , "" said yukio suzuki , an office worker in tokyo . "" just make sure to turn off the gas . you do n't want to worry too much or you become neurotic . "" for kayoko onishi , 77 , today 's earthquake revived memories of the 1923 tokyo quake , which she experienced as a little girl and which killed her father . "" we had to sleep outside in our big garden , under a table , "" she said today . "" we could n't go back inside the house . "" now , she said , she is scared again , but there is little she can do . "" this is my country and i ca n't escape anywhere else , "" she said . quake in japan the engineering",has a topic of science
"the shuttle atlantis and the russian space_station mir began five days of joint operations today as the american astronaut john e . blaha got ready to return home after four months on the russian craft . atlantis and mir are linked , forming a 265 ton space complex , after a nearly flawless rendezvous and docking on tuesday night . atlantis locked onto mir 's docking_module at 10 54 p.m. , eastern standard time , 240 miles above central russia . the shuttle commander , michael a . baker , a navy captain , maneuvered his ship into place as mr . blaha , a retired air_force colonel , peered through a mir porthole and gave a thumbs up sign . mr . blaha said he had seen atlantis approaching as a shining star until the sun suddenly rose and the ship came into full view . ''it was a beautiful sight , '' he said enthusiastically . ''contact and capture , '' captain baker radioed as metal docking rings aboard each spacecraft joined . electric motors then drew the craft together , completing the docking process and creating an airtight seal . the opening of the hatches between the two vehicles was delayed slightly while atlantis astronauts hunted spare batteries for a hand held microphone that would enable the crews to speak to the ground , said bob castle , mission operations director at the johnson_space_center here . ''we waited on the hatch to set everything right , '' he said . when the hatches between atlantis and mir swung open at 12 57 a.m . today , wild cheering erupted among both crews , and there were exchanges of hugs and handshakes . then all nine astronauts six from atlantis and three from mir went into mir 's core module for welcoming ceremonies that resembled an impromptu party among old friends . valery korzun and aleksandr kaleri , the russian crewmen who have been with mr . blaha during his four month stay aboard_mir , welcomed their visitors with a traditional russian offering of bread and salt . and the atlantis crew presented bags of fresh_fruit and other gifts to their hosts . mr . blaha 's tour on mir ended officially at 4 46 a.m . today , when he and his replacement , dr . jerry l . linenger , a physician scheduled for a stay of four and a half months , exchanged gear . before going to sleep , both crews got busy shuttling between the two craft some of the three tons of supplies they will exchange during their five days of joint operations . atlantis was carrying 3 , 600 pounds of food , equipment and other supplies for mir , and is also to leave 1 , 400 pounds of fresh_water that it will have produced on board before departing with a ton of material from mir . russian space officials have said that because of their financial problems , they have come to rely on american shuttle visits to ferry supplies and equipment to mir . the visits are part of a program to give united_states astronauts experience with long stays in space before the building of the international_space_station , scheduled for completion in 2002 . mr . blaha , who said he had enjoyed his stay on mir but was eager to get home , was enthusiastic about international cooperation in space and how routine it had become , with the fifth visit of an american shuttle to mir . ''this is kind of neat , '' he said . ''shuttles coming up here and docking and bringing stuff and people , and then shuttles leaving and taking stuff back down . we are truly in the space_station business . '' while aboard_mir , dr . linenger is to conduct numerous experiments and make a six hour spacewalk , the first from the russian station by an american astronaut . during most of his stay , he will be accompanied by a new crew of russian astronauts mr . korzun and mr . kaleri , who have been aboard_mir since last aug . 19 , are to depart shortly . atlantis , carrying mr . blaha , is to depart mir on sunday and return to the kennedy_space_center in florida next wednesday .",has a topic of science
"lead president_bush called today for more research into the scientific and economic ramifications of global_warming linked to pollution , but several european officials attending a conference here argued for more concrete and prompt action as well . president_bush called today for more research into the scientific and economic ramifications of global_warming linked to pollution , but several european officials attending a conference here argued for more concrete and prompt action as well . the differences over how quickly to proceed highlighted the opening session of a two day conference called by the white_house to discuss research into the scientific and economic uncertainties surrounding the issue of the warming of the earth . in his speech , mr . bush urged environmental ministers and other delegates from 18 nations to consider the economic consequences while drawing up policies to deal with the problem . the delegates , mr . bush said , should ' 'sort out the science on this complex issue'' as well as explore ''the links between our environmental well being and our economic welfare . '' 'an excuse' for inaction but west_germany 's minister for the environment , klaus topfer , said in a statement today , ''worldwide action against the climatic threat is urgently required , even if the complicated scientific interrelationships of climatic change have not all been fully understood . '' he added , ''gaps in knowledge must not be used as an excuse for worldwide inaction . '' the disagreement comes at a potentially embarrassing time for the administration as several nations , including the united_states , focus on pollution and environmental issues in advance of earth day next sunday . in the last year , there has been considerable debate within the bush_administration over how quickly to respond to potential global_warming . william k . reilly , the administrator of the environmental_protection_agency , at first urged a specific commitment to reduce carbon_dioxide , which is produced by the burning of fossil_fuels and is thought to contribute to global_warming . but the white_house_chief_of_staff , john h . sununu , and other officials opposed such a move . at this point the entire administration , including mr . reilly , appears to have closed ranks behind mr . sununu 's more cautious approach . many scientists now predict that climate shifts will occur in the next century as the gases in the atmosphere retain radiation from the sun that would otherwise be reflected back into space . but in his speech to the conference , mr . bush made it plain that more research was necessary and that actions to deal with the situation should be weighed against economic consequences . ''environmental policies that ignore the economic factor , the human factor , are bound to fail , '' mr . bush declared . several officials of major european_nations attending the white_house conference on science and economics research related to global change , said it was time for action to reduce the pollution , mainly from carbon_dioxide , that is expected to cause the earth to warm in the next century . west_germany , the netherlands and france , disclosed their own plans for unilateral_action to reduce their emissions of carbon_dioxide . bert bolin , the swede who is chairman of the intergovernmental panel on climate change , said in an interview , ''this conference avoided bringing up certain issues such as how do you get an effective decision making process without too much delay . '' he said that while there was a need for research , ''it must be in parallel with action . '' in his remarks , mr . bush said the conference was intended to help speed the efforts of the intergovernmental panel on climate change , a panel of experts organized by the united_nations environmental program and the world meteorological organization . the panel has been given the task of assessing the state of science with regard to global_warming and to recommend possible international responses . other administration officials who addressed the plenary sessions held today , sounded similar themes . they included treasury_secretary nicholas f . brady michael j . boskin , chairman of the council_of_economic_advisers d . allan bromley , assistant to the president for science and technology michael r . deland , chairman of the council on environmental quality , and mr . reilly , the e.p.a . administrator . several noted that the united_states had committed 1 billion to research into global_warming and that mr . bush had agreed to act as host to a meeting to plan a framework treaty for international cooperation to deal with the problem . dr . topfer of west_germany said he had prepared a proposal for his government 's cabinet that would reduce his country 's emissions of carbon dioxid , by at least 25 percent by the year 2005 . he said the cabinet would take up the issue before its summer recess . per villinga , who is in charge of global_warming issues in the netherlands environmental ministry , said his country was planning to reduce its carbon_dioxide_emissions by 5 percent by the end of the decade . mr . villinga told reporters on monday that his country believed this conference should discuss policy as well as research and said that the economic problems may be exaggerated . brice lalond , the french environmental minister , said his country had set a goal of reducing per capita emissions of carbon_dioxide , now 2.3 tons a year per person , to 1.7 tons . he did not say when france hoped to achieve that goal .",has a topic of science
"as they stepped among the fallen beams and crumbling plaster that are everywhere , the cold and weary residents of this city tried to collect the broken pieces of their homes and their lives today , and many sought shelter in schools , cars , municipal buildings and hospitals . they stood in line very patiently to buy food , to get water , to make telephone calls to friends and relatives . classes in schools were suspended , but teachers still paid house calls to check on their students . public transportation was virtually halted , but doctors and nurses still showed up for work . and food was scarce , but neighbors still shared their reserves . the police said that as of 3 p.m . today ( 1 a.m . eastern time ) , 3 , 156 people were confirmed dead and 16 , 202 had suffered a range of injuries stemming largely from falling debris . another 829 people remained unaccounted for , and many were believed to be trapped in the debris throughout the city . the earthquake , which measured 7.2 on the richter_scale , is the worst to strike urban_areas of japan in more than 70 years , and aftershocks continued through this morning . few people had stored up food reserves in preparation for an earthquake , and many residents interviewed said they could not remember very accurately the earthquake drill procedures . as a result , in just 20 seconds the quake transformed kobe , with its posh shopping streets and western style architecture , into a city of dignified beggars . few people went to work . instead , many set out to forage for food , stepping delicately over blocks of fallen concrete , around corners with sinking , tilting buildings and under highways that had collapsed . a major goal for many residents in this wealthy port area was to find drinking_water . one desperate japanese man scooped water out of a street puddle into a plastic soda bottle , while others ladled water from a nearby swimming_pool . when that ran out , they stood in lines where supplies were distributed by army troops . at about 6 a.m. , a hundred people formed a line single file down a hilly road , clutching their water bottles or huddling around large coolers , buckets , kitchen bowls and any other big containers they could find . "" we had a water_supply yesterday , and then i got some water from a friend , but now we need to wait in line for water , "" said kazuko miyamoto , 60 , as she held two water bottles at the front of a line of 100 people . "" i 'm anxious about the aftershocks . we have food to last maybe a week , but we ca n't continue to live like this forever . "" in a city that has thrived for more than a century on trade and commerce , it was hard for residents to understand why food , water and other necessities were not reaching them right away . many stores had crumbled in those that had survived , rows of shelves were bare . "" we bought some noodles , "" said mrs . miyamoto 's husband , isamu . "" but the four clerks who tended the store were slow . "" moreover , without electricity , all the tallying of prices had to be done with pen and paper . the authorities are allowing only supply trucks to use the two main roads from osaka to kobe . in the evening , caravans of food trucks drove through the heart of the city . repairmen dotted the main streets , spreading fresh asphalt on gaping roads , and fire trucks circled the city . supplies of necessities were slow to arrive , many residents said , but they were reluctant to openly criticize the government . "" i hope the local authorities will provide us with services soon , "" said chizuko ue , whose 44th birthday is on friday . but even if she had the spirit to celebrate , she would have to forsake her cracked house , with its displaced walls , caved in floors and menacing tilt , and use the flimsy plastic tent she and her neighbors constructed outside to shield her family against the chilly winds . her house , on a slope near a small stream , began to crumble after the quake , so she and her husband and three children moved into their car for the night . "" what if i walk into the house and it shakes again ? "" said mrs . ue , who shivered in her red coat and scarf . "" i do n't know what to think . my head is just a blank slate . i 'm still in a panic . "" mrs . ue lost a friend in the quake and the mother of one of her children 's friends was crushed to death . indeed , many people are still thankful just to be alive . tatsumi tahara , a 61 year old mason , is still grinning over his wife 's good fortune . when the quake struck she happened to be in the bathroom when a heavy dresser fell squarely over her empty futon . it does not seem to matter now that they have moved into the local school with just a few blankets . more than 200 , 000 people , a sharp increase from tuesday , streamed into schools , hospitals and government buildings to escape the winter temperatures that have hovered around the freezing mark during the day . about 500 , 000 homes still had no electricity , according to the official nhk radio_station . more than 70 , 000 people were evacuated from a central area where a tank of liquid petroleum had begun to leak . at the kobe west city hospital , tomiko harada and her husband squatted in the first floor waiting room , renting futons and blankets from the hospital . mrs . harada 's husband suffered a slight injury during the quake , but the main reason they are staying in the hospital is to escape their messy home . "" our house is in ruins , "" mrs . harada said as she leaned over her sleepy husband . by her side were two shopping bags filled with clothes , pretzels , cakes and other necessities . "" they gave us candies and a bottle of milk today . "" actually , the administrators are trying to edge them out of the hospital for the sake of safety . during the quake , the sixth floor of the seven story hospital wing that houses the patients simply collapsed , enveloping 51 patients and nurses in rubble . all but one of those people were rescued safely . "" the situation is beyond anything i ever imagined , "" said yosuke matsumura , the 57 year old deputy chairman of the hospital . "" we 're not able to do major operations because we do n't have enough supplies and our supply of electricity is scant . "" the hospital , in the heart of the damaged region , is running on its emergency electricity source and a skeleton staff of 48 doctors and 260 nurses . persuading the staff to work at the hospital , rather than on their homes , has been an effort , but many staff members have reported to work and the clinic was still functioning . "" on tuesday , after the quake , many staff members called up to say that their houses were buried in rubble and that they could n't come to work , "" mr . matsumura said . "" today , almost all of them showed up . "" mr . matsumura himself walked two hours on foot the morning of the quake to get to work and has not left the hospital since . nor has he had time to sleep since overseeing the treatment of 600 patients who came in tuesday with injuries . most injuries were related to being crushed by falling beams and other furniture , and the number dropped today to about 200 . whenever possible , the injured are treated and then sent on their way . about 300 soldiers from the army 's seventh regiment , based in the kyoto region to the west , arrived today to help remove bodies . they pulled 12 or 13 bodies from the ruble , one soldier said , before finding a 93 year old woman still alive . she was one of two injured people the army crew had rescued from rubble and brought to the damaged hospital for treatment . quake in japan the overview",has a topic of science
"every 10 minutes , like clockwork , another drama filled with anguish and pathos and the sweetness of a lovers' reunion is played out in this shattered japanese city , because every 10 minutes another train pulls into the station . until last week nishinomiya was just one stop among many on the route of dozens of trains that connected the western port city of kobe to most of the rest of japan . but after kobe and its rail lines were ravaged in a huge earthquake that left more than 4 , 900 people dead , nishinomiya became the last stop on the line . this is as close as trains can get to kobe before they must turn around and head back to the east , a fact that has left the streets of nishinomiya resembling a refugee_camp , the critical transit point where the haggard people who have left kobe can make contact again with the outside world . those leaving kobe were joined here by hundreds of japanese who arrived by train today from other parts of the country to bring relief supplies to family members and other victims still trapped in the devastated city . "" we agreed to meet here after i learned that yuji was o.k . , "" said tomoko ashida , an osaka woman , tears of relief rushing down her windblown cheeks , her tiny hand clasped tightly to that of her fiance , yuji watanabe . "" after the earthquake , i thought at first that he might be dead . "" mr . watanabe , a 25 year old salesman who has lived in kobe all his life , joined the 11 mile trek to nishinomiya station this morning , bringing with him only a bicycle on which he had tied a dresser drawer that held the few pieces of clothing that he was able to salvage from his family home . all that remained of the house , he said , was little more than glowing embers after it was ravaged by one of the fires that swept across kobe after the earthquake . "" the earthquake was like a dream , like a bad dream in which the city had been bombed , "" he said . "" i just want to go now with tomoko back to her house in osaka and try to forget this dream . "" kenji saito , a 50 year old office worker from kyoto , was clapping his hands together for warmth as he waited outside the station , guarding the suitcases stuffed with food and clothing that he had brought on the train today for his 71 year old mother , who is now living in a shelter in kobe but who refuses to leave her native city . "" her home in kobe tilted and then it collapsed , so she ca n't live in there anymore , "" he said . "" i am doing what all these people are doing . the train from kyoto was crowded with people who were bringing help for their families . "" that the train_station here still operates does not meant that most of nishinomiya does . this city of 80 , 000 people was also devastated in the earthquake , the worst in japan in more than 70 years . on virtually every block and along every narrow alley of the city , there are collapsed houses with paper bags and boxes set outside on the pavement , filled with whatever could be saved from inside . nishinomiya has lost most of the wooden houses that were its last examples of traditional japanese architecture . the collapsed houses now resemble chocolate trimmed white wedding cakes pushed over to one side . "" soon we will look like every other city in japan , with gray concrete as far as the eye can see , "" said an old woman who inspected the damage this afternoon to a wooden shinto shrine in the city center . "" nature is destroying old japan . "" in much of the city , electricity and running water have been knocked out . occasional ominous whiffs of gas still drift out from abandoned homes . gaping cracks run down the middle of several large streets . an almost constant stream of people from kobe struggle past the shuttered shops and offices of nishinomiya , making their way to the station , where trains leave for osaka , japan 's second largest city , about 16 miles to the east . some arrive on bicycles , others have come on foot . with few exceptions , all must come under their own power because all but emergency vehicles have been barred from kobe 's rubble strewn streets . other people come to nishinomiya to buy food and other necessities and then to head back to kobe . "" look at my shelves this one is empty , this one is empty , this one is empty , "" said hideaki masada , the owner of a drug store that is one of the few that remained opened . "" i have already run out of many things that people want to buy . baby food , soup packages , antiseptic , sanitary napkins . i would call my wholesaler and ask him to bring more , but there is no way to call because the phones do not work . "" outside the train_station , mr . watanabe , the young salesman who came here to meet his fiancee , began to unpack his belongings from the wooden drawer that he had tied to his bicycle . "" it took me almost three and a half hours to get here from kobe , peddling hard all the way , "" he said . "" the road from here to kobe is all bent , "" he explained , making a wave like motion with his hands to show how the road had stretched and buckled in the earthquake . "" there are people , bikes , motorbikes everywhere a big traffic jam of people . "" as mr . watanabe and his 25 year old fiancee talked outside the station , a small crowd gathered round to listen , pleased to hear a story from the earthquake that offered a happy ending . "" my family all survived the earthquake , so i feel lucky , "" mr . watanabe said . "" we were all asleep when the earthquake hit , and we knew that we were all still alive because we shouted out to one another , 'mother , are you there ? ' 'father , are you there ? ' "" his parents and his 23 year old brother are still in kobe , living in a school gymnasium that has been converted into a shelter . after the earthquake , he could not call his fiancee in osaka because the phone system had been destroyed . "" after i helped my family out of the house and then helped my neighbors , i ran all over the city , looking for a way to call tomoko because i knew she would be worried . but there were no phones for the first day , no way to call . "" back in osaka , miss ashida sat for hours in front of the television , watching the horrifying scenes from kobe and waiting for the phone to ring with news , good or bad . "" i could n't drink or eat , i could not sleep , "" she said . on wednesday , the day after the earthquake , mr . watanabe heard a rumor that a special telephone bank had been set up for people in kobe to call loved ones outside the city , and he rushed to find it . but there were phone lines available only to tokyo , so mr . watanabe called the tokyo offices of his company and asked an employee there to call miss ashida in osaka and tell her that he was safe . "" the phone rang , and i picked it up so fast , "" miss ashida said , shuddering at the recollection . "" when i heard it was the company that was calling , i was sure that meant that yuji was dead . he was n't calling , so he must be dead . i could n't breathe . "" when she realized that the news was in fact good , she said , "" it was the happiest moment that i have ever felt in my life . "" on thursday , the lines to osaka were restored , and mr . watanabe spoke to his fiancee directly . "" i said , 'it 's me i 'm fine , ' and there was no sound at the other end of the line , "" he said . miss ashida said that she could not speak after finally hearing his voice . "" i could n't talk because there were only tears , "" she said , as the tears came again . their marriage is still scheduled for april , although the wooden shrine in kobe where the ceremony was supposed to take place had crumbled in the earthquake . "" i saw it before coming here , and it was flattened , "" said mr . watanabe . "" maybe we will have to delay the formal ceremony , "" miss ashida said . "" but now all i know is that i want to get married as soon as possible . after this , i know how strongly i feel about yuji . "" quake in japan the exodus",has a topic of science
"the remnants of an unmanned russian space probe that failed to break out of earth 's orbit re entered the atmosphere above the southern pacific_ocean west of south_america tonight and apparently crashed into the sea , american officials said . the failure , which apparently occurred when a booster_rocket did not ignite , dealt a devastating blow to russia 's shrunken and badly underfinanced space_program . white_house aides traveling with president_clinton here on his way to a state_visit in australia orginally feared that debris from the mars bound probe would land someplace in east central australia . the probe carried a small amount of radioactive plutonium in energy packs powering two vehicles intended to land on mars . but officials said the plutonium , about 200 grams of pellets the size of pencil erasers held in heatproof metal containers the size of 35 millimeter film canisters , posed no threat if it fell away from populated_areas . the battery packs were among the few parts of the seven ton probe expected to survive re entry . tonight , the russian network ntv soberly called the failure a ''black day'' for russian space research and reported that technicians at ground control wept when they learned about the loss . ''it 's a horrible blow , '' said aleksei a . leonov , who in 1965 was the first soviet astronaut to walk in space . ''so much money was spent in vain , when we have such a terrible lack of funding for science . '' a statement from the united states space command in colorado_springs , colo . , said that the probe was believed to have re entered the atmosphere in ''a broad ocean area west of chile'' shortly after 8 30 p.m . eastern time and that if any debris survived , it might have fallen into the ocean several hundred miles away . a senior white_house official here said it appeared that the debris had broken through the atmosphere about 1 , 500 miles west of peru . the probe failed to leave earth_orbit early this morning when booster_rockets intended to push it beyond the orbit misfired . satellites from the united states space command monitored its progress . but just after 8 p.m . eastern time , robert bell , the national_security_council 's senior director for defense policy , told cable_news_network in washington that ''we have some very good , late breaking_news'' that whatever debris remained after the probe pierced the atmosphere appeared likely to land harmlessly in the pacific_ocean . russian space officials confirmed the american report tonight of the spacecraft 's fall toward earth , but would add no details . earlier today , officials of the space communication center in yevpatoriya , ukraine , said they had lost contact with the mars 96 spacecraft this morning a few hours after it lifted off from the baikonur space center in kazakstan . john e . pike , head of space policy at the federation of american scientists , a private group in washington , said the amount of plutonium involved in mars 96 was not a cause for alarm . ''on a scale of 1 to 10 , '' he said , ''this is a 1 . '' he said the dangers paled next to an incident in 1978 , when the radioactive remains of a russian satellite fell into northern_canada and forced the canadian authorities to spend millions of dollars to clean it up . the failed russian mission came 10 days after the american launching of the mars global surveyor . the russians' 64 million rocket launched spacecraft was set to reach mars next september and was carrying equipment from the united_states , the european_space_agency and more than a dozen countries . the equipment included four landing vehicles two intended for a ' 'soft'' landing on the planet 's surface and two meant to penetrate deeper into the ground . the american spacecraft launched on nov . 7 was designed only to orbit mars . russia 's latest mars project was begun eight years ago , when the nation was still the soviet_union and a superpower . several hundred million dollars were spent in the effort to explore mars . mars 96 , a combination orbiting and landing mission that was delayed by financing problems for more than two years , was an effort to keep pace with the united_states . the dire_straits of russian scientific research were shockingly highlighted last month when the head of one of the nation 's top nuclear research centers shot himself . vladimir nechai left a note saying he committed_suicide to protest unpaid wages and underfinanced programs at the top secret chelyabinsk 70 nuclear complex in the urals . ''what is notable is not that it failed , but that the launch happened at all , '' mr . pike said . ''six months ago , mars 96 was all but given up for dead . those people in the russian program did heroic work to get to launch , period . '' on dec . 2 , nasa is scheduled to launch another probe mars pathfinder on a voyage aimed at landing instruments and a small roving vehicle on the planet in july . nasa officials said the failure of the russian mission , on which american scientists had worked alongside russians , would not directly affect the next american effort . in the 1960 's , the soviet_union financed ambitious mars exploration projects and met with several successes , though the united_states was the first to send back pictures of the planet 's surface . like their american counterparts , soviet scientists met with several major setbacks in the 1980 's . the landings of two viking spacecraft on the planet in 1976 were the last american successes at mars . the one effort after the viking flights , mars observer , ended in august 1993 when ground_controllers lost contact with the craft three days before it was to go into orbit around mars . at about the same time , two russian flights failed just as they were beginning their exploration of the planet and its two small moons .",has a topic of science
"in a vivid demonstration of the problems afflicting this country 's once proud space_program , russia has been without photo reconnaissance satellites for nearly two months , russian and western scientists say . it is the first time since the early 1960 's that the russian military has been without the satellite pictures modern armies deem essential for detecting threats and conducting combat for more than a brief period . russia 's last operable photo satellite burned up on re entry to the atmosphere on sept . 28 , and since then , russian and western experts say , the russian military has lacked up to date imagery of such potential flashpoints as afghanistan and the russia china border . ''this is the consequence of continued underfinancing of the space_program , particularly in the military sector , '' said maxim tarasenko , a space analyst at moscow 's institute for physics and technology . russia 's military and intelligence services are not completely without surveillance , the experts said , since other types of satellites that could detect ballistic_missile attacks and track electronic emissions from military warships are still working . ''in the heyday of the cold_war , it would have been unthinkable for them to go for an extended period without a recon bird up , '' said lieut . gen . james r . clapper jr . , former head of the defense_intelligence_agency . ''it shows how much the russians have turned inwards . '' a senior american official who requested_anonymity said the nearly two months without satellite pictures also ' 'shows the incredible depths to which the soviet_military has fallen . '' this official said russian military officers may feel less need for satellite photos than their american counterparts , in part because the threats russia faces are regional rather than global . ''they really do n't care when brazil puts its navy out to sea , '' he said . ''we do . '' russia , the united_states and france are the only countries with significant capabilities for photographing the earth from outer_space . china 's program for satellite reconnaissance is in its infancy . although it never lost all of its photo satellites , the american reconnaissance program was stretched thin by the 32 month grounding that followed the 1986 explosion of the space shuttle challenger . during the cold_war , the pentagon nervously watched as the kremlin extended its reach into space . the soviet_union deployed spy_satellites to eavesdrop on communications and to intercept electronic emissions from the armada that accompanies american aircraft_carriers . it launched satellites that provide advance warning of ballistic_missile attacks and transmit messages to military units . it also managed an ambitious program of photo reconnaissance satellites . between 1962 and 1994 , moscow launched more than 800 photo reconnaissance satellites into orbit , making up for their lack of durability with quantity . over time , the soviet satellites became more sophisticated and longer lived . with the end of the cold_war and the collapse of the soviet_union , the number of russian photo satellites orbiting the earth sharply declined . in 1993 and 1994 , the russians launched only seven photo reconnaissance satellites , according to nicholas l . johnson , an expert on orbital debris at the national_aeronautics_and_space_administration . russia generally had two or more photo reconnaissance satellites in space during that time , but this year moscow ran into problems . on june 11 , kosmos 2331 , one of two russian photo reconnaissance satellites in space , reached the end of its operational life and fell out of orbit . nine days later , the russians tried to launch a replacement satellite into orbit . but the mission failed within seconds when the rocket crashed a few miles from the launch site . that left the russians with a single photo satellite , kosmos 2320 . it fell out of orbit on sept . 28 , and the russians have yet to launch a replacement . public concern arose here only last week when the newspaper izvestia reported that the russian military was been left without a single photo reconnaissance satellite . along with this week 's dramatic failure of russia 's 300 million mars mission , the photo reconnaissance gap is embarrassing for a nation that sent the first man into space . the setbacks in russia 's space programs have experienced other embarrassing signs of financial strain . because of budget cutbacks , moscow had to turn to the americans for help in tracking the errant mars spacecraft . russia has also postponed bringing astronauts from its mir_space_station back to earth because of delays in building the necessary rockets . to raise badly needed cash , the russians allowed pepsi_cola to use the mir_space_station as a prop in the company 's campaign to advertise its new blue soda cans .",has a topic of science
"an american spacecraft , the robotic roving vehicle called spirit , landed on mars late saturday night and radioed home that it is apparently safe and ready for three months' searching for signs of water in the planet 's early history . the first signals of success were intermittent and inconclusive as spirit appeared to be bouncing and rolling over the surface . the suspense finally ended when flight controllers reported the reception of a ' 'strong signal'' from the rover 's small antenna . chris jones , director of planetary flight projects at the jet_propulsion_laboratory , announced that deep space antennas in australia and california had ''a solid lock'' on radio signals direct from the 400 pound lander . early indications , mr . jones said , were that the craft was resting upright after bouncing for more than a mile after touchdown . officials said this should make it easier for spirit to shed its protective petals , raise a camera laden mast and start taking pictures of its surroundings . the landing , at about 11 25 p.m . eastern time , brought joy and relief at the jet_propulsion_laboratory , in the foothills of the san gabriel mountains . missions to mars fail more often than they succeed , and the last american landing effort , in 1999 , was an embarrassing failure . only this christmas_eve , the british built beagle 2 tried to land and has not been heard from since apparently a failure . for days , officials of the mission had gone out of their way to prepare the public , and perhaps themselves , not to be too optimistic . even if the landing was successful , they said , a radio signal of the craft 's status might not be received immediately . the silence need not be alarming , they cautioned , unless it continued through sunday . but data received during spirit 's entry into martian atmosphere and descent to the surface indicated that the craft performed normally and was on target . the craft plunged into the upper atmosphere at a speed of 12 , 000 miles an hour . it was six minutes to touchdown 437 miles downrange at the 100 mile wide gusev crater , near the martian equator . the landing was a nail biter . spirit turned its heat shield toward the angle of attack , a parachute opened , the heat shield was jettisoned , retrorockets fired and then it was on mars . the craft 's aim had to be precise and in six crucial minutes of descent , the sequence of critical steps had to be taken on time . the flight was being controlled entirely by commands from spacecraft computers , with no time for human intervention . the absence of a clear message heightened the anxiety that had been rising for days among flight controllers , scientists and officials of the national_aeronautics_and_space_administration . they had said there was a strong chance that the craft would not be able to signal its status until sometime on sunday . much depended on being able to relay the signal through two spacecraft in an orbit of mars , or to get a direct call through before mars rotated out of communications range with earth . concerns for the mission are one reason nasa sent two spacecraft to deliver rovers to the martian surface to take advantage of the planet 's current closeness to earth . an identical rover , named opportunity , is on its way to a scheduled landing at another site in three weeks . the 800 million mission of the two spacecraft was designed to look for evidence in the rocks and sediments of liquid water on the surface in the martian past . ample signs of dry riverbeds and other erosion there have encouraged the search . where there is or has been liquid water , astrobiologists think , there could have been life . explaining the rationale for current explorations of the planet , dr . edward j . weiler , nasa 's associate administrator for space science , said ''mars is the closest place to look for life elsewhere , and the best place to look . water is a key to life , and we know mars has water , and that it was abundant there in the past . '' but geologists on the project emphasized that the landers spirit and opportunity were not equipped to search for living or fossil organisms on mars . launched last june from cape_canaveral , fla . , spirit carries nine cameras , two spectrometers for analyzing rocks and soil and a robotic arm for digging and scraping the surface . on landing the rover is to photograph its environs in color as the first step in planning travels over the site . it should be capable of daily traverses of as much as 300 feet . gusev crater is thought to be an ancient basin that once held a lake . examining the rocks and sediments are expected to answer some questions about the warmer , wetter past of mars , as geologists have hypothesized . the rover was not expected to roll into action for another nine days of testing and planning where it should begin looking for telltale_signs of water in the martian past .",has a topic of science
"the fate of britain 's first unmanned mission to mars was in doubt thursday as the appointed hour for the beagle ii martian lander to signal from the planet surface passed with a disappointing silence from space . the tiny lander , a saucer only 25 inches across , was due to open up like a pocket watch on the martian surface and issue nine notes composed by the british band blur to a passing american mars odyssey spacecraft for relay back to earth . despite the initial radio silence , the science team directing the mars landing project in partnership with the european_space_agency and its orbital mars express mission was preparing for a second attempt to contact the beagle ii lander from britain 's jodrell bank observatory . ''i 'm afraid it 's a bit disappointing , but it 's not the end of the world , '' dr . colin t . pillinger , the chief scientist who conceived the beagle ii mission , told a news conference in london . ''please do n't go away from here believing we 've lost the spacecraft . '' while the fate of beagle ii was unknown , european space officials at mission control in darmstadt , germany , rejoiced that its mother ship , the mars express , had successfully entered mars orbit . ''we now have an operational mars mission , '' said jean_jacques dordain , director general of the agency . mars express will use a powerful radar to scan the subterranean features of the martian surface for signs of life supporting water resources . two american mars landers are due to touch down on the planet in january as the search for signs of life intensifies . the 140 pound beagle ii lander , about the size of an open umbrella , was designed and built on a shoestring budget by a team of mars enthusiasts from britain 's major universities working without formal organization or national financing . their initiative and pluck have captivated a large following . britain 's media mainstream and tabloid have covered the mars mission as if it were a galactic soccer match . scientists remained hopeful that the lander had survived impact on the surface and would be available to complete its mission six months' worth of digging and sniffing martian rocks and soil for signs of life and the bio chemical environment that could have supported it . the lander detached from the mars express on dec . 19 . it was scheduled to make its fiery descent to the planet surface at 2 54 a.m . london time , where a parachute and three air bags were to be deployed to brake its speed for impact to 40 miles per hour . the beagle ii was expected to bounce 100 feet in a landing scenario that created serious challenges for scientists trying to preserve its instrumentation during impact . the threat from an improperly deployed parachute or air bag , or an air bag puncture on jagged martian rocks were among the most serious worries during beagle ii 's development . ''this is not the end of the story this was the first opportunity , '' said david southwood , director of science for the european_space_agency . ''we 're sure beagle is down on the surface , and we just need to hear from it , '' he added . the lander is equipped with a five watt transmitter , which is enough for broadcasting to the mars express . the orbiter fired retro rockets early thursday and successfully entered mars orbit , scientists said . but it will be more challenging to search for beagle ii 's tiny signal even with powerful receivers on earth , as mission scientists hope to do now .",has a topic of science
"japan said last week that it was reviewing how it wants to explore space and added , somewhat vaguely , that it might for the first time consider putting a man up there . no matter how vague , the mere mention of a manned flight touched upon something profound going on here after a century and a half of singlemindedly catching up and competing with the west , japan is asking itself what kind of country it wants to be . does japan , in short , want to compete with the world 's great_powers ? the review resulted from recent failures of japan 's space_program , but perhaps japan was also reacting viscerally to actions taken by the two nations that have most shaped its history . the united_states has said it will send astronauts to the moon and to mars , reiterating its intention of staying no . 1 . and china launched a man into space three months ago , becoming only the third nation to do so , after the former soviet_union and the united_states , and announcing its resolve to become a global power . how to deal with the rise or re emergence of china as a great_power will very likely be the biggest foreign_policy issue facing japan over the next generation . for east_asia , it is often pointed out , has never had both a strong china and a strong japan at the same time . china , long the center of asia , fell under foreign domination in the last century and a half . japan , long content in its relative isolation or as a tributary nation to china , went out into the world , competing against the west and dominating asia . but china never lost its sense of being a great_power and appears comfortable now in reassuming its traditional role in asia . what of japan then ? let americans land on mars or even venus . having lost militarily and economically to the americans , the japanese have no problem accepting that . but even as japanese have become less focused on competition and more on their quality of life , there is deep fear and ambivalence about becoming second class to the rising power next door . it is , after all , a country that the japanese had colonized a mere half a century ago . kiichi_miyazawa , a former prime_minister , pointed out in an interview that japan thought of itself as a great_power only once in its history , in the decades leading up to world_war_ii , when japan ruled swaths of asia and eventually attacked pearl harbor . ''japan wanted to compete , and did it fully , '' mr . miyazawa said . ''only we failed and gave up . '' not completely , of course , in the 1980 's , during the height of the so called bubble economy and talk of ''japan as no . 1 , '' some businessmen and politicians spoke of teaching lessons to the world . but that talk died down long ago , as japan 's economy ground through a decade long recession in the 90 's . many americans reared in a nation whose identity is inseparable from its no . 1 status find it hard to grasp why there is not greater unhappiness in japan , which fell from such heights and has yet to pull itself decisively out of the slump . but japan has now grown into a mature society that is trying to forge forward with its own standards . hidehiko sekizawa , executive director of the hakuhodo institute of life and living , conducts a comprehensive survey on attitudes toward life every two years . his findings show that people are focusing on enjoying life and are happy despite the long slump . there is strong nostalgia nowadays for the edo period , the feudal era preceding the last century and a half of rapid change . while the edo period had many social problems , people are now remembering it as a time of stability and great cultural vitality . ''people want to return to an era where life was perceived to be more enjoyable , '' mr . sekizawa said . the feeling is noticeably strong among the young . if the icon of the 1980 's was the ' 'salaryman'' who sacrificed his private life for his company , today 's icon is the ''freeter'' the young japanese who take odd jobs to make just enough money to enjoy their personal interests or choose their way of life . the stress of competing inside japan , let alone as part of a country competing against a visibly , and to some , frighteningly , hungry china , is furthest from their minds . indeed , ' 'soothing'' is a key word nowadays . this year 's popular car color is a soothing beige . a popular boyfriend is the soothing type , one who will relieve a woman 's anxieties . even japan 's decision to send ground troops to iraq seems rooted not in an aggressive foreign_policy but in a move to dispel worries over a nuclear north_korea and a rising china by cementing ties with the united_states . ''japan has the economic and technological power to put a man into space if it tried , but it does n't do so , '' said he zhi , 26 , a chinese graduate student at kyushu university in japan . ''japan gives no . 1 priority to economic advancement , not political advancement . '' against this backdrop , the prestige game of manned_space flights ''is not worthwhile for japan as a nation , '' mr . miyazawa said . putting a man into space would require a big increase in japan 's current 1 . 7 billion space_program . but even engineers at the japan aerospace exploration agency are looking inward . ''i 'd like an increase in our budget , '' said hiroshi sasaki , 40 , an engineer . ''but many companies have gone bankrupt around me . it would be difficult to request a doubling or tripling of our budget when there are people being laid off around us . '' the council reviewing japan 's space_program is expected to present a new plan this summer . the decision should yield a clear indication of what japan wants to be and what asia might become in the decades ahead . the annual new year 's eve ''red and white song contest'' television show provided a clue , though . smap , perhaps japan 's most famous pop group , closed the show with last year 's best selling song , ''only one flower in the world . '' the song was popular among antiwar demonstrators , but more than anything else it struck a chord here by asking , ''why do we want to be no . 1 when each of us is different ? '' small flowers , big flowers , none of them are alike so it 's o.k . not to be no . 1 every one of them is the only one . letter from asia",has a topic of science
"when a bridge and an elevated_highway collapsed during the big san_francisco_earthquake of 1989 , minoru hirano , a japanese highway designer , reassured his countrymen that japanese bridges were stronger than those in america . "" i did n't think it would happen to japan , "" mr . hirano , director of project planning for the japan highway public corporation , recalled today . "" i thought our design code would be enough . "" but as a major elevated_highway toppled to its side and thousands of buildings crumpled in a huge earthquake near kobe this morning , mr . hirano and others in japan realized , to their horror , that it could happen here . "" we can never be prepared enough . that 's my comment now , "" he said . the earthquake , which measured 7.2 on the richter_scale , shook more than foundations . it has undermined japan 's confidence in its anti quake technology and raised the level of fear in a nation that thought it had reached an accommodation with an ever present threat . "" before this , i felt that if it happened in tokyo , it would be okay , "" said atsuko sekine , a young office worker shopping in tokyo 's ginza area . "" but now , i 'm very worried . "" most prediction efforts are aimed at forecasting a quake southwest of tokyo , not in western japan . "" we do not have any earthquakes there , "" said shin aoyama , a spokesman for the science and technology agency . "" it 's really an astonishing event . "" the last big earthquake in western japan was in 1946 . measuring 8.0 on the richter_scale , it killed more than 1 , 300 people . lack of preparation in kobe , a port city , may have contributed to the scope of the devastation . many questions remain unanswered . japanese buildings and homes have systems that automatically shut off the gas in the event of an earthquake . it is still unclear whether these systems were in use near kobe and , if so , why there were dozens of fires , many of which had still not been extinguished by nightfall . some of the houses and office buildings that collapsed might have been built before the earthquake code was revised in the 1970s . mr . hirano of the government affiliated highway corporation said that , in general , the panels of the roadbed on elevated highways in japan are connected to each other more firmly together than they are in the united_states . the roadbed is also connected more strongly to the pillars . with one highway that collapsed today , he said , the roadbed stayed intact and connected to the pillars . but the entire structure toppled over as one piece , collapsing at the base of its pillars , perhaps because the ground supporting the pillars gave way . the other highway that collapsed was the oldest in japan , opened in 1965 , he said . mr . hirano said he thought highways in western japan were not upgraded to the latest standards because the threat of earthquakes there was perceived to be low . after last year 's los_angeles quake , hisanobu ichimasu , director of the design and research division in tokyo 's metropolitan expressway public corporation , said japan 's and california 's standards for elevated roadways were now very similar , although at one time japan had a more stringent code . for instance , he said , until a big quake in the san fernando valley in 1971 , california required fewer horizontal steel hoops in pillars than japan did . the hoops are designed to prevent the vertical steel reinforcing bars from buckling outward . but now , he said , the standards are similar . masakazu ozaki , a professor of architectural engineering at chiba university , said that "" mostly japanese buildings are stronger than u.s . buildings , "" but that it depends on the type of building . still , he and others said a revision of japan 's codes will now be inevitable . professor ozaki said it is politically difficult in japan to criticize the building codes because people do not typically challenge the government here . perhaps no place on earth , including california , lives under as constant a threat of earthquakes as japan . today 's quake was the third since october that measured over 7.0 on the richter_scale . but most earthquakes in recent years , including the two other big ones since october , have done little damage and resulted in few casualties . even in a july 1993 earthquake that measured 7.8 on the richter_scale and killed more than 200 people , almost all the deaths and damage resulted from huge tsunami waves rather than from the earth 's shaking itself . the result , some people here say , is that japan became overconfident and somewhat complacent . japan 's newspapers and television stations provided extensive coverage of the san_francisco_earthquake , which measured 7.1 on the richter_scale , and of the los_angeles temblor , of 6.7 magnitude , which occurred exactly a year ago . while the media questioned whether the same damage could occur in japan , experts were frequently quoted saying how japanese building and highway codes here were more stringent than california 's . to some extent , japan 's ability to withstand earthquakes is probably better than in the united_states , experts say . but some of japan 's good track record can also be attributed to luck . most of the big earthquakes have occurred in the pacific_ocean or near lightly populated_areas . the epicenter of today 's earthquake was very near kobe and at a relatively shallow depth of 20 kilometers , or 12 . 4 miles . that makes it the first big temblor to occur in a major city since the great tokyo earthquake of 1923 , in which more than 140 , 000 people died . earth quakes are a major concern for the japanese . children are trained to prepare for earthquakes from an early age some elementary schools require pupils to sit on fireproof seat cushions that can be worn as a hat to shield the head from falling debris . in the 1970 's , the tokyo fire department gave away free to each home a plastic water bucket that would hold enough water for a week 's worth of drinking or for dousing fires after a quake . every sept . 1 , the anniversary of the great tokyo earthquake , millions of people in the tokyo area take part in earthquake drills . children practice running through tunnels of smoke with handkerchiefs over their faces and military personnel practice rescues from helicopters . japan is also spending about 106 million a year to study the mechanism of earthquakes in an effort to eventually be able to predict them . the government is using signals from satellites and distant stars to measure minute shifts in the earth 's crust . it is drilling wells more than a mile deep in which to put equipment to measure earth movements , and it is monitoring faults under the ocean . one project , to see if the behavior of catfish can provide a warning of earthquakes , has drawn some international ridicule . "" the government is always saying that japanese buildings are completely safe , "" said mr . ozaki , who is the japanese chairman of a united_states japan committee looking at how to improve building design to withstand earthquakes . no matter how the codes are improved , he said , no building will ever by completely free from risk from a big enough earthquake . in that sense , some japanese are resigned to living with a permanent threat of quakes . "" i have a feeling there 's nothing we can do about it , "" said yukio suzuki , an office worker in tokyo . "" just make sure to turn off the gas . you do n't want to worry too much or you become neurotic . "" for kayoko onishi , 77 , today 's earthquake revived memories of the 1923 tokyo quake , which she experienced as a little girl and which killed her father . "" we had to sleep outside in our big garden , under a table , "" she said today . "" we could n't go back inside the house . "" now , she said , she is scared again , but there is little she can do . "" this is my country and i ca n't escape anywhere else , "" she said . quake in japan the engineering",has a topic of science
"a 41 square_mile shelf of floating ice that jutted into the arctic ocean for 3 , 000 years from canada 's northernmost shore broke away abruptly in the summer of 2005 , apparently freed by sharply warming temperatures and jostling wind and waves , scientists said yesterday . the ayles ice shelf , as the ancient 100 foot thick slab was called , drifted out of a fjord along the north coast of ellesmere island when the jumbled sheath of floating sea_ice that tended to press against the coast there even in summers was replaced by open waters because of the warming , the scientists said . the change was first noticed by laurie weir of the canadian ice service as she examined satellite images taken of ellesmere and surrounding ice on and after aug . 13 , 2005 . in less than an hour , around midday that day , a broad crack opened and the ice shelf was on its way out to sea . the shelf is one of the few remnants of a broad expanse of floating shelves of ice that once protruded along much of the ellesmere coast , somewhat like the brim on a hat . such shelves are far thicker and older than the milling cloak of sea_ice that drifts atop the arctic ocean . the sea_ice consists of floes ranging from 3 to 9 feet thick or so that are built up over just a few years . the arctic sea_ice has experienced sharp summertime retreats for several decades , adding to evidence of significant warming near the north_pole . ( neither melting ice shelves nor sea_ice contribute to rising sea levels because they sit_in the sea already , like ice cubes in a drink . ) ninety percent of the 3 , 900 square miles of ice shelves that existed in 1906 when the arctic explorer robert peary first surveyed the region are gone , said luke copland , the director of the university of ottawa 's laboratory for cryospheric research . in a paper summarizing the event but not yet published , dr . copland and other researchers said that the transformation of the ayles ice from a shorebound shelf to a drifting ice island appeared to be a result of unusual arctic warmth in 2005 on top of a longer_term warming_trend . he said that it was premature to attribute the breakaway to human caused climate_change , although he said that it was a clear sign the warming in the region was producing significant and abrupt changes , and more were likely in coming years . ''the quick pace of these changes right now is what stands out , '' he said . the age of the ayles ice shelf was estimated by using chemical means to date driftwood found behind it , said derek mueller , one of those who helped write the paper , from the university of alaska in fairbanks .",has a topic of science
"the space_shuttle_endeavour and its crew glided to a safe landing in darkness at the kennedy_space_center today , bringing back a japanese science satellite that had been in orbit for nearly one year . the shuttle commander , col . brian duffy of the air_force , piloted endeavour to touch down on a floodlit runway at 2 42 a.m . it was only the eighth time in 74 missions that a nasa shuttle landed in the dark . the nighttime landing was dictated by the course the shuttle had to follow in chasing down the japanese satellite . the endeavour logged 3.7 million miles in the busy nine day flight , in which crew members fetched the satellite and walked in space . besides the japanese satellite , the shuttle transported a nasa probe into space , which the six astronauts released and retrieved two days later . about 50 people from the japanese space_program gathered at the landing strip to welcome back endeavour and the crew , especially the japanese astronaut , koichi wakata . mr . wakata said he was looking forward to celebrating "" in the near future with all the crew members over japanese sake . "" capturing the japanese satellite , which held a variety of experiments , was the top priority for endeavour . the japanese space_program paid nasa about 65 million for pickup and delivery . the satellite is missing its two fold down solar_panels . they had to be cut loose by ground_controllers last week after they failed to latch into place . crew members took two space walks , on monday and wednesday . two civilians , dr . leroy chiao and dr . daniel barry , and capt . winston scott of the navy spent a total of 13 hours in space testing heated spacesuits and tools and techniques suitable for building a space_station . the equipment performed well , they said . the construction of an international_space_station is supposed to begin in 1997 and take five years . nasa plans to practice space walks on three more shuttle missions the next one will be this spring . the shuttle columbia is due to fly next , in late february , on a mission to deploy an italian tethered satellite . in 1992 , the satellite was extended on a string only 850 feet far short of the goal of 12 1 2 miles because a protruding bolt interfered with the maneuver on a flight of atlantis .",has a topic of science
"lead a series of major earthquakes rocked northern china wednesday night and today , killing at least 29 people and injuring hundreds in largely rural areas west of beijing , the authorities reported today . a series of major earthquakes rocked northern china wednesday night and today , killing at least 29 people and injuring hundreds in largely rural areas west of beijing , the authorities reported today . officials estimated that 5 , 000 to 8 , 000 homes were destroyed , and it was clear that the death toll might climb further . because of a combination of poor communications and roads and a reluctance to spread bad news , information about natural_disasters is seldom rapidly available in china . the quakes began at 10 57 p.m . wednesday ( 10 57 a.m . eastern time ) , with a temblor measuring 5.7 on the richter_scale . at least four more measuring 5.0 or above were reported during the night , including the strongest quake , which came at 1 01 a.m . today and measured about 6 on the richter_scale . that quake could be felt in beijing , where it swayed tall buildings but caused no reported damage . yungang cave area affected the epicenter of the quakes was said to be around the border of hebei and shanxi provinces , in north central china . at least some of deaths occurred near the city of datong , which has a population of one million and is known for its yungang caves , containing enormous carved buddhas dating from the fifth century a.d . it is not known if the caves were affected . the latest aftershock occurred at 6 29 p.m . today , registering 5.1 on the richter_scale but causing no known damage . hundreds of lesser aftershocks were also recorded . officials did not link the quakes in china with the temblor in california on tuesday , and there was no apparent connection . a spokesman for the chinese foreign ministry today offered condolences to the families of victims in the california quake . the official new china news_agency reported tonight that 29 people had been killed and 34 injured in the quakes . the government sponsored china news service , which has more independence and is often more accurate , said several hundred people had been injured . the associated press reported that at least 150 people were injured . the government has offered scarcely any information about the earthquakes , and the latest dispatch from the new china news_agency contained just three terse paragraphs . the people 's daily carried a small item about the quakes , but no news on casualties , at the bottom of the front page today , and tonight 's television news did not mention the quakes . in part , the reticence is simply the consequence of lack of clear information and the difficulty of finding out what is happening in remote areas of rural china . but like many other countries , china has been traditionally reluctant to give out much information about natural_disasters . 240 , 000 killed in 1976 the biggest quake in recent chinese history came in the summer of 1976 , as chairman_mao was dying and the ''gang of four'' was consolidating its power . that quake , which was focused on the northern city of tangshan , killed 240 , 000 people . at the time of the tangshan quake , almost nothing was known of the casualties . over the next few months and years , word gradually filtered out about the extent of the tragedy , and now the government acknowledges the damage by way of saying how rapidly the city has been rebuilt . an earthquake last nov . 6 in yunnan_province of southwestern china killed about 730 people , the authorities disclosed 12 days later . in giving a final assessment of the nov . 6 earthquake , seismology officials also disclosed that a 1970 quake in the same area had killed 10 , 000 people . there had been no previous report of casualties from the 1970 quake , although it had been noted by foreign seismologists . the california quake china",has a topic of science
"no buildings have collapsed , yet . no one has been hurt . but the case of the architect caught cheating on earthquake building codes has transfixed japan . night after night , television news programs feature video clips of tearful condominium owners moving out of their new apartments , while construction company owners , inspectors and the architect involved in the deficient buildings blame one another for the failings . so far , seven hotels have been forced to close , including a 260 room tower that opened in august near the tokyo_stock_exchange . ''it 's not entirely my fault , '' hidetsugu aneha , the architect , told reporters last week . to cut construction costs and win more commissions , authorities say , mr . aneha designed 21 buildings over the last decade that would not withstand a moderate earthquake . working in almost half of japan 's 47 prefectures , mr . aneha had a hand in nearly 200 structures , largely apartment buildings , but also hotels and temples . in one 11 story condominium complex studied this week by the newspaper asahi_shimbun , columns and steel reinforcing bars were found to be too thin and too far apart , and different earthquake force figures were used for the same floor . the report for this tokyo building , the newspaper said , was ''filled with inconsistencies that any expert could easily have picked up . '' the scandal , which many fear could spread even further , strikes at a core insecurity for many japanese . located atop four tectonic plates , japan is exceptionally prone to earthquakes . a decade ago , a severe temblor flattened sections of the port of kobe , killing about 6 , 000 people . after that , the country tightened its already strict building codes , leading many japanese to believe that they live in the world 's most earthquake safe nation . ''with the kobe earthquake , we saw high rises pancaking , the highway keeling over , we learned builders had used wood instead of steel reinforcing bars , '' said jeffrey kingston , director of asian studies at temple_university japan . ''we live in a earthquake hot zone , and so it is imperative that the government strictly enforce building standards . '' it now appears that corners were cut as the construction industry struggled to reduce costs as it coped with a deflationary economy and a stagnant population . ''i felt pressure from the industry 's overall trend to seek speed and low cost , '' mr . aneha told reporters , according to kyodo_news . ''i did n't feel i was doing anything wrong , and i was too busy to sense any feeling like that . '' the architect defended his buildings . but under questioning by reporters , he conceded that in a medium_sized earthquake , ''they might crumble . '' one construction company is planning to file for bankruptcy next week , as a result of the scandal . others are reeling under the pressure of financing the costs of demolishing or repairing defective high rise condominiums . government officials now are focusing on the private companies that were contracted to review architectural plans . under a system established in 1999 , architectural firms won the right to choose the companies that inspect their building plans . government officials now say that inspection companies that gave quick , cursory checks won the most business . ''everybody involved , developers , original architects , construction companies , knows about the cheating because it is a system , '' takayoshi igarashi , an urban policy professor at hosei university , said in an interview . ''since 1999 , about two million buildings have been built with inspection by private_sector inspectors , and it probably was not just aneha who cheated . '' but some see the investigation as a sign of progress . ''the fact that this story came out before anybody died , before any building collapsed , while buildings were under construction , to me that is an encouraging sign , '' said mr . kingston , whose recent book , ''japan 's quiet transformation , '' talks about growing government transparency and accountability in japan .",has a topic of science
"to the editor a single quote says it all on werner heisenberg 's desire and effort to build an atomic_bomb for the third reich and hitler ( ''of physics , friendship and the atomic_bomb , '' march 21 ) . ''it would have been so beautiful if we had won , '' heisenberg said at an international conference in zurich in 1944 . this at a time when the war was already lost for germany while the frenzied pace of murdering european jewry continued . germany may have had the engineering knowledge and capacity to build the bomb , but because of the forced exodus of jewish and anti nazi scientists , the country no longer had the critical_mass of theoretical physicists and chemists to achieve the goal . instead , the major contributors of american effort included displaced scientists like enrico fermi , niels bohr , edward teller , lisa meitner and albert_einstein , many either jewish or with jewish spouses . while germany had sufficient technology to develop rockets of immense power that wrought indiscriminate carnage in england and sufficient engineering and chemical knowledge to murder efficiently six million jews , it was not scientifically capable of developing an atomic_bomb despite access to the needed raw_material . unfortunately the play ''copenhagen'' by michael frayn , though well constructed and intended , does not properly describe werner heisenberg for what i believe he was , a proud nazi , eager to contribute to the success of the third reich . nelson marans silver_spring , md .",has a topic of science
"in a corner of the tiled tunnel leading from a subway stop to the kyoto international conference hall , the kindergarten children of kyoto left a message for delegates to the climate conference here this week . their message was an assemblage of miniature trees and flowers accompanied by a small sign . ''the kyoto people are praying for the success of this conference , '' the sign said . ''the future of all people , especially the children , depends largely on the outcome of this conference . '' but even if it is ultimately ratified , the agreement to cut emissions of heat trapping greenhouse_gases that emerged today from 10 days of high stakes politicking will not secure those children , or their children , from the climatic disruptions that mainstream scientists say lie_ahead . participating countries could obey its emission limits to the letter , and atmospheric levels of the gases , produced chiefly by the burning of fossil_fuels like coal and oil , would continue to rise . the kyoto_protocol does make a start , however . it would establish at least the foundation of an institutional framework and accompanying mechanisms for dealing with the problem in coming decades . and it signals business and industry that the issue is here to stay , that the ways in which energy is produced and used must change , and that these issues should be taken into consideration in planning and investing for the long term . the burning of coal , oil and natural_gas , the energy mainstays of the modern economy , produces waste carbon_dioxide that remains in the atmosphere , trapping heat . if nothing is done to limit emission of these gases , scientists advising the delegates here say , the earth 's average surface temperature will rise by 2 to 6 degrees_fahrenheit by 2100 if the world pursues business as usual . ( by comparison , the world is now only 5 to 9 degrees warmer than in the depths of the last ice age . ) the scientists say this much warming would bring rising seas , more severe droughts , rainstorms , heat waves and floods , together with broad shifts in climatic and agricultural zones that would benefit some regions but seriously harm others . the kyoto_protocol legally binds industrialized_countries to cut their greenhouse emissions , collectively , by an annual average of about 5 percent below 1990 levels for the period 2008 through 2012 a 30 percent reduction below what they would otherwise be . some are to cut more than that , some less , and a few will be allowed to let their emissions grow because of special circumstances . among the industrialized big three , the united_states must reduce its emissions 7 percent below 1990 levels , the 15 nation european_union 8 percent and japan 6 percent . but even if the countries adopt and adhere to these standards , an uncertain prospect , they will only be slowing the accumulation of heat trapping gases in the atmosphere . as a result , many experts believe that it may already be too late to avoid serious climatic disruption , that the task ahead is one of keeping it from becoming truly catastrophic . although there are dissenters , many scientists now predict that unless far more drastic action is taken , atmospheric levels of carbon_dioxide , the major contributor to climate_change , will double sometime late in the next century from the pre industrial levels of the late 18th_century . atmospheric levels of cardon dioxide are now about 360 parts per million , and many experts say it will be difficult , if not impossible , to stabilize them at 550 parts per million , close to a doubling of pre industrial concentrations . though it is difficult to predict exactly what climate changes would result from such a doubling , there is wide agreement that they would be highly disruptive . predictably , the fossil_fuel industry warned that the kyoto cuts would bring economic pain , while some environmentalists said they did not go far enough . other environmentalists and many business interests hailed the protocol as a solid agreement that would make the economy more efficient and boost growth in the long term . only time will tell who is right . what seems clearer is that ordinary americans will notice little immediate impact on their everyday lives . if it is able to win senate approval of the agreement , the clinton_administration intends to phase in domestic measures to meet the kyoto target over time , starting with the provision of financial incentives , tax cuts and cooperative government industry efforts to accelerate the use of energy efficient technologies . after a decade or so of experience , according to the clinton plan , the united_states would inaugurate the centerpiece of its emissions cutting strategy and a principle hard won here emissions trading . under this arrangement , a cap would be set on permissible carbon_dioxide_emissions . companies that reduce their emissions more than required could sell the excess emissions , at a profit , to those that exceed the cap . the administration argues that use of this mechanism for reducing industrial emissions of sulfur_dioxide has shown that it achieves more emissions cuts at lower cost . but emissions trading emerged as one of the most contentious items here , almost torpedoing the talks . after a bitter 11th_hour debate , the developing nations agreed to an international trading mechanism for developed countries . but they fear that trading would allow rich countries to buy their way out of reduction obligations , so it remains to be seen whether they will agree to the regulations necessary to make it work . the issue will be debated in the next round of climate talks , scheduled to begin in buenos_aires in november . another innovative mechanism approved here is an international fund through which rich countries could invest in specific emissions saving projects in developing_countries . the two countries involved would share in the resulting emissions credits . apart from that , the kyoto agreement did little about the future involvement of developing_countries . while everyone recognizes that their growing greenhouse emissions will ultimately require them to submit to binding limits , the poorer countries have refused to accept them until the richer countries show the way with action . the question remains a subject for future negotiations . because the new protocol does so little about developing_countries , it is unclear whether the administration will sign it , and there are very grave doubts that the senate would approve it . but president_clinton has said he will proceed with his domestic plans for emissions reduction in the meantime . beyond that , the kyoto_protocol is about the long term , and the united_states could join it at any time in the years immediately ahead if conditions are right . the 10 days of sleepless negotiations may well have established a adjustable instrument that in coming decades can respond to emerging new knowledge about both the science and economics of the problem if the governments of the world buy into it seriously . should they do so , the descendants of those kyoto kindergartners and others like them throughout the world may have cause to be grateful . the climate accord the outlook",has a topic of science
"to the editor re the essay ''on high tech reproduction , italy will practice abstinence'' ( march 2 ) i am pleased that italy is grappling with the moral and scientific aspects of assisted reproduction and has thus far banned just about every form of it . it is nice to see a country that is paving the way to protecting human life in its earliest form . we need to set similar boundaries . as american politicians debate cloning and other forms of reproductive technology , i sincerely hope that they will show the same respect for human life that italy has so far demonstrated . lauren bennett farmington hills , mich .",has a topic of science
"a scientific team says it has solved the mystery of what exploded 84 years ago over siberia with a force of 1 , 000 hiroshima sized nuclear_weapons , flattening hundreds of square miles of forest it was a stony asteroid 100 or so feet in diameter , they say . for decades experts have debated the cause of the explosion over tunguska on june 30 , 1908 . evidence has always been sparse . the object exploded about five miles in the air , and no part of it has been found . the shock_wave and intense radiant energy flattened trees over an area more than half the size of new york city , and the pressure wave was recorded around the globe . what might have been the cause most often proposed has been a comet plunging into the atmosphere at supersonic speeds . the icy core of a comet was considered so fragile that it would explode high in the atmosphere , leaving no fragments solid enough to dig a crater . in 1978 l . kresak , a czechoslovak scientist , also noted that the explosion coincided with the annual meteor shower that occurs as the earth passes through the debris of comet encke . the denser celestial objects known as asteroids were also proposed but often dismissed , because an asteroid big enough to produce the blast was envisioned as at least partly surviving and hitting the ground . now scientists from the national_aeronautics_and_space_administration and the university of wisconsin , writing in today 's issue of the journal nature , have given the asteroid thesis new weight and rigor . in a mathematical simulation of the tunguska explosion , the researchers show that cometary nuclei and carbonaceous asteroids explode far too high to account for the blast , and that iron rich asteroids tend to explode low and leave craters . the only logical source , they say , is a stony asteroid , the most common type . "" this event represents a typical fate for stony asteroids , "" wrote dr . christopher f . chyba of the goddard space flight center in greenbelt , md . , dr . paul j . thomas of the university of wisconsin at eau clair and dr . kevin j . zahnle of ames research center in california . in the analysis , the team calculated the effects of aerodynamics on the mass that exploded , showing that these forces could easily smash it into fragments that experienced a sharp rise in atmospheric drag and heating . boom ! thus , the scientists concluded , a 100 foot stony asteroid must have exploded at a height of about five miles in a "" catastrophic fragmentation . "" a smaller stony asteroid would have exploded much higher , the team said , and a larger one would have hit the earth . astronomers believe there are more than a million asteroids with diameters greater than 100 feet whose orbits take them across the path of the earth , and that tunguska type collisions occur every 300 years or so . dr . henry j . melosh of the lunar and planetary laboratory of the university of arizona , commenting in nature , said the asteroid team had "" wrapped up "" the most believable explanation . among the remaining mysteries , dr . melosh wrote , is why the night skies of in western_europe were strangely bright after the blast . the new findings , he noted , have revived a suggestion that the bright nights were due to sunlight reflected from water ice clouds created when the tunguska fireball drove large quantities of wet air into the normally dry upper atmosphere .",has a topic of science
"russia is proposing changing the planned international_space_station by incorporating all or part of the russians' existing mir orbiting_outpost into the design . the move is causing concern among other nations that are partners in the project , including the united_states , which oppose any change that might add to the program 's costs or delay its completion . officials of the national_aeronautics_and_space_administration say that they do not know exactly what changes in the international station the russians want . they are to get details in the coming week , when a delegation of russian space agency and industry officials arrives in houston to outline the proposal . the delegation , headed by boris ostroumov , deputy general director of the russian agency , is to meet on friday at nasa 's johnson_space_center in houston with officials of the space_station program . engineers at johnson have been informally assessing the feasibility of a number of options that would incorporate mir components into the international station , known as alpha , said people within and outside of nasa who are familiar with the situation . yuri koptev , head of the russian space agency , raised the issue of using mir as part of alpha last month when wilbur trafton , nasa 's space_station director , and other american officials were in russia during a joint mission involving an american shuttle 's docking with mir . mr . trafton told mr . koptev then that the united_states would not consider redesigning the space_station . this week ray castillo , a nasa spokesman , reiterated the agency 's position that the station would not be redesigned . but he said nasa would evaluate proposals that might cut project costs or speed completion of the station . "" if a proposal increases cost , delays the schedule or compromises safety , we will not agree to it , "" mr . castillo said . russia is building alpha 's propulsion module the unit that will steer and stabilize the entire station and several other crucial components the united_states , the european_space_agency , canada and japan are contributing science laboratories , living quarters , solar_power units and other segments . some of the international partners , who were wary when russia joined the effort as a full partner in 1993 and are under pressure to hold down their costs in the undertaking , are concerned that changes proposed by the russians could jeopardize the project , experts said . experts on moscow 's space_program said russia , which continues to face severe economic problems , wanted to incorporate mir into the alpha project because using some existing equipment would cut its costs . one option being discussed , they said , is substituting two of mir 's newest scientific modules , called spektr and priroda , for new research components that russia is supposed to build for alpha . mir , which is almost 10 years old , is believed by many to be nearing the end of its useful life . but spektr , which is equipped for biomedical and atmospheric research , is only a year old . and priroda , designed to study the earth 's resources and the oceans , will not be attached to mir until next year . the first components of alpha , which are in advanced stages of construction , are scheduled to be launched into space in late 1997 . the entire outpost , which will serve as a permanent orbital base for six astronauts , is to be completed by 2002 . any changes that disrupt this timetable or result in higher costs may put the 35 billion project into deep trouble politically and endanger its completion , space experts said . nasa 's administrator , daniel s . goldin , and other officials have maintained for almost two years that the design of alpha is final . it is a scaled down version of a larger proposed station , freedom , that went through several costly redesigns over a decade , resulting in an expense of billions of dollars with little to show for it . given assurances that the project now can be brought in on time and without cost_overruns , congress has supported it as a cornerstone of international cooperation and a source of jobs for the aerospace industry . a space expert on the staff of a house committee that oversees nasa , who spoke on the condition that he not be otherwise identified , said lawmakers were waiting to see what russia proposed . "" we 're going to be looking at this very hard , "" he said . "" if they propose something that compromises the cost or schedule , or undermines u.s . leadership of the project , it 's going to meet a lot of resistance on capitol_hill . """,has a topic of science
"no matter how high the office towers and condominiums get in this fast growing city , those who live here still cling to the laid back way of life that draws so many to canada 's west_coast , where spandex and a yoga roll are as common a sight as a suit and briefcase . nothing symbolizes this dichotomy more than stanley_park , a 1 , 000 acre forested oasis next to downtown_vancouver that juts into the burrard_inlet . its trails and pathways are an escape for the growing legions who may live in a high rise building and conduct an otherwise urban life but who disappear by the thousands into the park 's hiking trails or jog the six mile path along the water . that tranquillity was shattered , though , by two recent brutal winter storms that have all but decimated huge swaths of the park , knocking down some 10 , 000 trees and forcing much of it to be closed as crews struggle to clear the debris . the park has been a part of vancouver since the first city_council was established in the late 1880s . the council 's first action after taking power was to create the park , preserving the lands that had until then been a marine base for the royal_navy . ''this park has a very special place in vancouver 's heart , '' said the city 's mayor , sam sullivan , who choked up while discussing the damage . ''it is part sacred cathedral , part just an icon of the city . '' the park is a hybrid of sorts , mixing urban features like the paved seawall path , a petting zoo and areas of manicured lawns ripe for picnics with wild pleasures like the hiking trails that weave through the park 's interior where vestiges of city life seem farther away than just beyond the next grove of trees . several pairs of bald eagles live in the park , as do coyotes . its wilder sections have always been an important outlet for vancouver 's many nature loving residents , but they have become even more crucial with the city 's growth . downtown_vancouver has seen waves of high rise development , first 50 years ago , and again in the 1990s , leading to a densely built core . the city is facing further urbanization as mr . sullivan , who was elected in 2005 , champions a development strategy called ''ecodensity'' that is meant to cap urban sprawl by encouraging sustainable but dense development within the city . ''if we want to convince people to live in higher densities we have to provide them with the amenities that will make that type of living attractive , '' mr . sullivan said . ''and stanley_park is one of the reasons for that . '' during a recent tour of the damage , the steady rain did not diminish the mist filled view from the highest point of stanley_park . some 200 feet below , birds of dazzling variety swooped out over the inlet several spectacular peaks loomed in the distance . but the view , however breathtaking , is in reality some of the most clear evidence of the storms' destructiveness . six weeks ago , the view did not exist . it was obscured by hundreds of towering red cedars , douglas firs and hemlocks , now felled and lying at obtuse angles on the forest floor . ''it looks like a bomb went off , '' said brian quinn , a foreman at the park . on one hill overlooking the park 's northwestern flank , the number of trees still standing could be counted on one hand . park staff members estimate 85 to 90 percent of the trees in this area of the park were knocked down during the storms , though many of those left standing are unstable and will be taken down during the cleanup . ''there will be almost nothing left here by the time the cleanup is done , '' said mr . quinn , who then pointed at one of the few remaining trees , long dead , where a bald eagle was landing with a fresh branch to add to its nest . ''we 're all rebuilding from the storms . '' the worst of the storms came dec . 15 . nearly 80 mile an hour winds blew inland during the middle of the night and struck the park like a stone skipping over water , leaving concentrated pockets of destruction . about 250 , 000 people in southwestern british_columbia lost power , and lions gate , the main bridge between the vancouver 's two heavily_populated shores , was closed . the access road to the bridge on the southern side runs through the park , and it was blocked by fallen trees . park workers could barely comprehend the devastation . the only way to travel was by foot , with a chainsaw to clear a spot for each step . the extent of the damage was not known until someone managed to survey the area by helicopter . ''i felt sick , '' said jim lowden , director of the park , in describing his reaction to the aerial images . another storm , on jan . 9 , felled trees that had been weakened in december . even now , nearly a month after the last of the storms , much of the park is still closed off . barricades block hiking trails , and about half the seawall path , used by an estimated two million people each year , remains closed . the closed off section of the seawall is littered with trees that fell about 40 feet from the cliffs above . ocean swells added to the damage , picking up entire sections of asphalt and depositing them intact farther down the path . efforts to put the park back together will focus first on rebuilding the seawall and then on slowly restabilizing the soil and clearing the fallen trees to make way for new saplings . the federal , provincial and city governments have pledged the equivalent of 5 . 1 million for the work , and the local community has already raised the equivalent of 2 . 6 million with a telethon fund_raiser . mr . lowden , the park director , predicted that the restoration would take nearly two years , but it is likely to take 40 more years for the forest to regain its density and many more before the trees reach the height of their predecessors . ''people of my age will never again see the park as it was , '' said mr . lowden , who is in his early 60s . but amid thousands of downed trees , vancouver 's hardiest continue to use the park as though nothing happened . groups still congregate at the dozens of monuments , statues and lookout points and joggers run through on the few paths left open . ''this park is my saving grace , '' said emily mcpherson , 32 , who moved to vancouver six years ago and runs regularly in the park . ''the way i look at it , the trees will grow back eventually , and in the meantime we 'll keep on enjoying it . '' vancouver journal",has a topic of science
"one island of calm in this smashed , overwhelmingly sad city today was the warmly lit branch of the bank of japan , the central_bank . even though it was a sunday and most of the city remained paralyzed , bank officials in three piece suits were busy , planting the first seeds of economic regeneration with those brave enough to think of the future . "" basically , we came through almost untouched , "" said shigeru uebayashi , the assistant branch manager , as he nodded toward the businessmen lining up to withdraw cash inside the squat vault of a building . "" i know our outward appearance is rather unimpressive , but this is a strong structure . "" his comments aptly summed up the economic prospects that kobe and japan face after last tuesday 's earthquake left nearly 5 , 000 dead and this genial city of 1.5 million devastated . kobe 's outward appearance is grim indeed . rain today threatened to touch off landslides and to topple already weakened buildings , complicating the search for those still missing in the rubble and the lives of the nearly 300 , 000 people now without homes . page_a8 . the port here japan 's second largest , surpassed only by yokohama will not operate properly for months . the central commercial district near the bank of japan is a jumble of buildings at twisted angles , hundreds of which will have to be replaced . takeshi tsuji , head of the city 's economic_development bureau , said he believed that the estimated cost of rebuilding 100 billion was too low . but few experts doubt that even with the serious disruptions to trade and life , japan 's economy will be able to absorb the blow and still generate substantial growth in the year ahead . many agree that the burst of construction and new investment the government is expected to stimulate could provide a modest economic fillip , adding a few tenths of a percent to the growth rate of the second largest economy in the world . indeed , the unusual weekend activity at the bank of japan branch the first time many people here had access to cash was a prelude to the reopening sometime next week of routine financial transactions between banks , the lifeblood of real commercial activity . nevertheless , the tragedy offers some stark challenges that could well make the bitter kobe earthquake of 1995 a sorry economic turning point for this prosperous region . local officials , who have focused for the last few days on little more than survival , have just started to address the larger economic issues , and they admit to being anxious about what lies ahead . the amount of destruction is shocking , and many here wonder where the money will come from to replace the miles of buckled streets , overturned highways and twisted rail lines . just disposing of the rubble is expected to cost nearly 1 million . the government has promised aid , but ultimately local residents and businesses themselves are going to have to borrow huge_sums of money to finance their city 's economic rebirth . numerous residents huddled today among the filthy blankets and half eaten box lunches in city shelters were asked how they planned to rebuild their homes . all said they had little if any insurance , modest savings and few ideas . the regional economy faces even tougher questions because of the damage to this port , which until last tuesday received 8.4 percent of japan 's imports and shipped 12 percent of its exports . in recent years , many port operations were expanded onto huge landfill islands , parts of which sank five feet and more in the quake . some of those facilities may not be reconstructed , or they will have to be moved at considerable expense . tourism , another important industry , is also unlikely to be revived soon , but it is unclear what could replace it as an employer . nearly all of the factories that once made kobe an enduring center for manufacturing shoes from synthetic materials were burned to the ground last week , and city officials worry that production will now be moved to low wage countries like china . some also worry that the risk of more tremors here will cause some small businesses and consumers to move elsewhere , leaving the city 's commercial districts adrift . "" i know many other shopkeepers who are already saying it 's not worth it to stay here , and they are talking about going to osaka , "" takao tachibana commented as he surveyed the twisted remains of his clothing store in the once smart sannomiya neighborhood . "" there 's no infrastructure , and it could take years to rebuild . who can wait for that ? "" adding to the problem is the fact that tens of thousands of kobe 's residents have already begun looking elsewhere to fill their everyday needs , as a third of shopping streets here , with the clusters of small shops that the japanese still favor , were destroyed or badly_damaged . a long recession , which was just letting up when the quake hit , had taken a heavy toll on the region 's commercial_banks , and rumors had already stirred that several local institutions were in trouble . the damage from the quake could worsen those problems , securities analysts said , and force the government to undertake several expensive financial rescue operations that could impede the flow of loans to the region . a more fundamental concern grips those who have pushed hard in recent years to force the intrusive government bureaucrats in tokyo to ease their tight grip on the region 's economy that the massive rebuilding campaign will reverse the trend toward deregulation . much of the aid for kobe is likely to be funneled through government owned lending institutions . as it is , they finance everything from small businesses to highways and heavy industries , and account for a disproportionate 20 percent of total lending in japan far more than in most other industrialized_countries . "" what i 'm worried about is that the bureaucrats will surely use this calamity as an excuse to delay reform , "" said toshihiro kiribuchi , a senior executive of the omron corporation , an electronics company . "" that 's the way they think . "" the battle over deregulation is an issue with great political significance . each of japan 's last three prime_ministers insisted that he would reverse a century of government intrusion in the economy . officials here will now be watching not just the amount of government assistance , which most agree is essential to prime kobe 's economic pump but how that money is provided , and how much control it gives tokyo over the shape of future investment . still , it is easy to see why these concerns , grave as they are , remain abstract for many officials here . for the time being , kobe is a city consumed with life and death . correction january 29 , 1995 , sunday an article last monday about rebuilding kobe , japan , misstated the cost of removing rubble created by the earthquake . it is expected to cost nearly 1 billion , not nearly 1 million .",has a topic of science
"the space shuttle discovery and its seven astronauts are to roar into orbit on saturday afternoon on what nasa managers called ''a rather pedestrian mission'' that nevertheless has a great deal riding on it . liftoff is scheduled for 3 49 , when earth 's rotation will put the launching_pad at the kennedy_space_center here in the orbital plane of the international_space_station , the shuttle 's destination . for now , the national_aeronautics_and_space_administration 's biggest concern is the weather , with a 60 percent probability of thunderstorms that would force a postponement of at least a day . the 12 day mission is mainly dedicated mainly to carrying food , water , spare_parts , oxygen and other supplies to the international_space_station , along with a new crew member , thomas reiter of germany , who will be the first astronaut from the european_space_agency to serve on the orbiting laboratory for a long term . but far more important to the future of the space_program is the issue of flaws that doomed two previous missions , those of the challenger in 1986 and the columbia in 2003 . this is only the second flight since the loss of the columbia and its crew of seven , caused by a 1 . 67 pound piece of foam that fell from the shuttle 's giant external fuel tank during ascent and punched a lethal hole in its left_wing . nasa spent two years redesigning the tank and developed potential repair methods . but shortly after the discovery 's liftoff in its return to flight mission a year ago , several smaller but still hazardous pieces of foam fell from the tank . andrew s . w . thomas , an astronaut aboard that flight , recalled in an interview on friday that as it circled the earth , ''there were people saying , 'we 're the last shuttle flight . ' '' for that reason , saturday 's launching will be closely_monitored by batteries of cameras both at the space center and at other locations along the flight path . there is also an escape plan if damage is detected during the flight . the shuttle would dock at the orbiting space_station and the astronauts would move into it for weeks or months until a rescue mission by a second shuttle could be launched . a combined crew of nine would have to live under relatively cramped conditions in 1 , 800 square_feet of habitable space . ( the average new american home is more than 2 , 400 square_feet . ) michael t . suffredini , the manager for the international_space_station , said that under this ' 'safe_haven'' plan , the space_station was well stocked with the food , water and oxygen that the combined crew would need , with ''quite a bit of margin . '' but nasa would then be faced with the unhappy prospect of flying another shuttle with the same design flaws that caused the damage on the discovery flight . for all of the concerns about falling foam , however , many officials and astronauts say the biggest worries are the oldest ones , most prominently the shuttle 's main engines and solid rocket boosters during the crucial , bone rattling eight and a half minutes of flight before the main engines cut off . ''flying the shuttle is not without risk for many reasons way beyond foam , '' nasa 's administrator , michael d . griffin , said friday at a preflight news conference , ''and in fact , i worry that we spend so much time worrying about foam that we wo n't worry about other things that could get us . '' the three main engines burn more than 500 , 000 gallons of liquid hydrogen and oxygen that is pumped in from the external tank . and while they can at least be turned off if something goes wrong , the two solid rocket boosters flanking the huge fuel tank burn until their propellant is used up . the initial ascent is ''a controlled explosion , '' said mike mullane , a former astronaut , and ''the most terrifying part of the flight . '' by comparison , foam damage is a problem that affects re entry . ''if i was aboard that rocket , '' he added , ''i would n't be thinking at all about re entry . '' a storm on saturday afternoon , in the 10 minute time window when the launching_pad is in alignment with the space_station , would force a postponement because of the potential for other kinds of damage . at the enormous speeds of launching , raindrops become bullets that can damage the shuttle 's skin . nasa will not launch if there is rain on the launching_pad or in the flight path , if lightning has been detected within 11 . 5 miles of the pad , or if winds are more than about 34 miles per hour . high anvil shaped thunderclouds that are likely to produce lightning must be at least 20 miles away . if weather or a last minute technical problem causes the space agency to put off the flight on saturday , a second attempt will take place on sunday . if the weather proves uncooperative on sunday and right now the weather for sunday looks much like the weather for saturday , with the same 60 percent chance of a scrub then nasa will probably stand down until tuesday . if problems persist , or if a new issue emerges that requires more study and repair , the current launching window will last until july 19 , with the next opportunities coming between aug . 28 and sept . 14 . in nasa 's preflight review this month , some leading engineers argued against launching the current mission until areas of the fuel tank that still shed small amounts of foam could be redesigned . but mr . griffin , the head of the space agency , overruled the engineers , saying he did not agree with their assertion that a foam incident was ''probable'' over the life of the program and that the result would be ''catastrophic . '' he also said that the risk was to the vehicle and not the crew , who could wait aboard the space_station for rescue if the shuttle was damaged during ascent , and that he wanted to leave time to complete the 17 missions planned before president_bush 's deadline for ending the shuttle program in 2010 . on friday , mr . griffin defended that decision , contrasting the open discussion with the process that led up to the columbia_disaster , in which managers were found to have squelched dissent . this month 's preflight review was a healthy exchange of ideas and decision making about difficult issues , he said , adding , ''what you 're seeing is a good process . '' ''i think sometimes people mistake the desire to hear all of the opinions with the ability to agree with all of the opinions , '' he said . ''agreement is not offered . what is offered is a willingness and a desire to hear , and an obligation to speak . '' after the columbia_disaster , nasa was widely accused of letting scheduling pressures override safety concerns . but mr . griffin said schedules could not be ignored . ''this may be politically incorrect , '' he said , ''but there are no activities that humans undertake that do n't have a schedule associated with them . it matters if you finish a job this year or in the next decade . '' trying to work in 17 flights before 2010 , he said , was ''a schedule we can meet , but we need to get on with things . '' and he added ''i do not think i absolutely do not think and do not accept that we are being unduly influenced by schedule pressure . but we pay attention to schedule because time is money , and that matters . ''",has a topic of science
"the earthquake that struck japan early this morning caused major damage to one of japan 's most distinctive big cities and the country 's second largest port . thus the disaster could have a major impact on japan 's economy , at least in the short term . kobe , with a population of 1 . 47 million people and an area of 208 square miles , is a thriving port city , the sixth busiest in the world . it has been a lifeline to the outside world for more than a thousand years . the city , once known as hyogo , was an important outlet for japan 's trade with china and other asian nations since the nara period , in the 8th century , and still plays a major role in the nation 's economic life . it is now the capital of hyogo prefecture and serves a region of more than 18 million people . the city faces osaka_bay , on the pacific_ocean , and is the principal port to the city of osaka and the surrounding region , known as kansai . this is a region with an economic output that would make it one of the largest economies in asia if it were a separate country . kobe is second as a japanese port today only to yokohama , near tokyo . among the industrial products for which it has long been known are textiles , steel , construction materials and a traditional product , sake . kobe prospered in the 15th and 16th centuries , when it was a principal outlet for japan 's then growing trade with china . when japan was forced open in the middle of the 19th_century by american warships , kobe was one of the first ports that foreigners were permitted to use . the opening only added to the cosmopolitan atmosphere of kobe , which has long been distinguished by its unusually large foreign population for a japanese city . in recent years , kobe has been the center of a huge project to build a series of man made islands in osaka_bay . and those developments may have made this city even more vulnerable to the sort of devastating earthquake that struck today . starting in 1968 , kobe began to develop what is known as port island , a huge area of landfill on which the city built thousands of apartments , with about 17 , 000 residents , as well as port facilities and other industrial structures . it is not yet clear how those structures fared , but landfill tends to be particularly vulnerable to major tremors . in addition , the largest airport in the area is the newly opened kansai_international_airport . this 14 billion complex is located on another huge man made island in the middle of osaka_bay , not far from kobe . quake in japan the focus",has a topic of science
"after the strongest earthquake in six years shook buildings and jolted residents awake in the early morning , the police in tokyo reported today that only about 30 people had been injured and that the metropolitan_area had suffered only minor damage . tokyo residents seemed more concerned today with digging out from another blast of nature , a storm that dumped nearly 7 inches of snow friday night and saturday , clogging roads , disrupting trains and air_traffic and cutting off electricity briefly to 140 , 000 homes . the japan central meteorological agency said the earthquake , which struck at 4 04 a.m . today , measured 5.7 on the richter_scale and 5 on a scale of 1 to 7 that is used in japan to measure damage caused by quakes . the agency said the quake 's epicenter was deep under tokyo_bay . throughout the city , residents were awakened when their homes shook , causing pictures , books and other objects to fly off shelves and table tops . statistics showed that it was the worst quake in six years , but many residents said it was one of the worst they had experienced in the last 30 years . many precautions taken tokyo and indeed all areas of japan are susceptible to earthquakes , and building codes require materials and construction techniques to minimize damage . residents and schoolchildren also go through periodic drills , mindful of the earthquake disaster of 1923 , in which 100 , 000 people died , mostly in fires . many homes and buildings are equipped these days with automatic devices that shut off the gas during an earthquake to avoid fires . the fire department reported today that these devices had done their job throughout the city , and it was flooded with requests for how to turn the gas back on . the fire department also did a telephone survey and found that nearly a quarter of tokyo residents sped to their front doors and opened them to provide a possible escape route , which is a routine precaution . the railway authorities shut down service after the earthquake to inspect for damage , but all trains were operating by late morning . that was more than could be said of the city 's roads , which remained buried in snow . only the main thoroughfares and neighborhood streets were clear today . the snowfall affected all of central japan , where as much as 20 inches of snow fell in the northern and mountain areas . the major expressways in and out of the capital were sealed off for a time on saturday but cleared by today .",has a topic of science
"an american company that provides space services to nasa has reached an agreement for a russian company to build and place on the international_space_station a new segment totally devoted to commercial projects . the american concern , spacehab inc . , is to announce on friday that it will provide some of the financing for rsc energia , a russian space hardware company , to build a pressurized module that is to be attached to the russian part of the international station to serve business customers . the module , named enterprise , will be used for industry sponsored experiments and manufacturing , and serve as a base for providing commercial broadcasting and internet_services from space , spacehab officials said . the company estimated that developing and testing the module and its commercial communications system would cost 100 million . david a . rossi , spacehab 's president , said the company would provide 50 million in cash and would ensure that its russian partners had what was needed to complete their obligations , perhaps in the form of loan_guarantees . under the agreement , mr . rossi said , the module will be jointly owned by spacehab and energia , with the possibility that russia 's national space agency will also become a part owner . the 60 billion space_station , being built in segments 250 miles above earth , is to be a giant laboratory weighing almost a million pounds when it is finished in 2004 . the project , led by the united_states , is a concerted effort of 16 countries the others are russia , japan , canada , brazil and 11 nations of the european_space_agency . the united_states and other partners in the station have said they eventually want some of it , or all , to be commercialized so as to help produce a return on the investment . the newly announced segment , spacehab officials said , will be the first major step in that direction . ''this will be the first commercial module on the space_station , and it will open a new era in space commerce , '' said dr . shelley a . harrison , chairman of spacehab , a publicly traded company based here in washington that owns and leases out pressurized modules flown on the space_shuttle . ''this gives us our own destination on the space_station , '' dr . harrison said . ''with it , we can build facilities based on customer requirements and supply space based services available nowhere else . '' marcia smith , a space policy analyst with the congressional_research_service , agreed that ''spacehab is taking the first bold step toward space_station commercialization , which many people have talked about but no one has done before . '' ms . smith called the initiative ''a daring gamble'' to make space commercialization practical . she said the effort faced many hurdles , among them the question whether the cash short russians can come up with their share of the money needed to build , test and launch the module . she also noted that adding this new module to the space_station would require using some of the power , crew time and other resources of the outpost . those resources are limited , and use of them will mean a need to reach agreements with the station 's other partners , who have yet to see details of the proposal . john d . schumacher , the national_aeronautics_and_space_administration 's associate director for international_relations , called the spacehab project ''an exciting development'' that still had to be worked out in detail to see how the module would fit on the space_station . ''we 've always encouraged commercial interests on the station , '' mr . schumacher said , ''and want to see how they will meet the requirements to be included . '' mr . schumacher said the space_station 's partners had signed agreements on how additions could be made to it where new mass can be added , for instance , and how much electrical power is available . he noted that the russians were already committed to providing two experimental modules for the station , and said the commercial module might fulfill the requirement for one of them if the russian space agency was involved . ''at this point , '' he said , ''we know very little about the spacehab energia proposal , and look forward to seeing the details . '' dr . harrison , of spacehab , said the proposed module would be similar to others on the station . it would be a pressurized cylinder 36 feet long and 12 feet in diameter weighing between 15 , 000 and 20 , 000 pounds , and would have attachment points on its exterior for instruments or experiments . the module would not have solar_power panels , spacehab officials said , because it would be located at the bottom of the station , blocked from direct sunlight . but the company is considering the addition of some kind of fuel_cells devices that produce electricity through chemical reactions at some point after launching to provide power beyond that drawn from the station 's grid . spacehab officials said that in addition to renting out commercial research space , they hoped to make money by using their module for space science education projects involving schools around the world some of these have been initiated on space_shuttle flights . the company also hopes to use the communications equipment for advertiser supported television and internet broadcasts from space . the space_station currently consists of two segments , one american and one russian , launched late last year . while a dozen major components wait to be linked together in space , construction has been halted for a year because of russia 's inability to complete a crucial third segment on time and delays in the united_states' space shuttle program that were caused by electrical_wiring problems . flights to the station are set to resume early next year .",has a topic of science
"in a nation brimming with advanced technology but sorely_lacking in business acumen , one of the old soviet_union 's most impressive legacies , its space_program , is shaping up to be one of the new russia 's rare economic success stories . unquestioned in their technological prowess , russia 's rocket and satellite makers and other space oriented enterprises have also displayed a surprisingly deft capitalist touch in forging ties with western partners and finding new markets for their products around the world . during the last several years they have won orders valued at more than 1 billion from western companies and governments , including contracts for launching rockets for iridium , the global telephone system being set up by motorola satellite propulsion systems in a joint_venture with the loral corporation , and research and development programs for the national_aeronautics_and_space_administration , as well as for european space agencies and aerospace companies . "" the market is the future and we have to learn to work in it , "" said aleksandr i . medvedchikov , the russian space agency 's deputy director general for international cooperation . "" there are many things we do n't know how to do yet , but we 're learning fast . "" the leader in the russian space industry 's transformation is the khrunichev state research and production space center in moscow . while still owned by the government , khrunichev is managed much like a private business . once best known as the maker of the ss 18 and ss 19 intercontinental ballistic_missiles which the united_states considered particularly dangerous because of their accuracy and explosive power khrunichev took the audacious step in the late 1980 's of turning away military orders and focusing on busi nesses with long term commercial prospects , particularly in space . it was merged recently with the salyut design bureau , the developer of many of russia 's spacecraft , and is now the country 's leading supplier of space hardware , having built , among other things , the mir_space_station . in addition , it has developed close ties to american companies , including the lockheed corporation and iridium . as a result , its managers said they were confident about the future of the enterprise . "" we will continue to grow , "" said aleksandr v . lebedev , the deputy director general . the commercialization of russia 's space industry is an encouraging development in the nation 's chaotic economic metamorphosis , and the revenues it generates should help maintain the nation 's technology base . what is happening among russian enterprises mirrors similar trends in the industry in the united_states and other countries , where the emphasis is shifting away from supplying government space programs , which are being reduced in scale because of budget pressures . instead , the focus is increasingly on opportunities for private enterprise in areas like telecommunications , navigation , weather forecasting , earth imaging and producing materials in low gravity . the russian industry 's transformation has also sharply increased competition in the rapidly growing worldwide market for rocket launchings , satellites and other space oriented products and services . russian officials said that by taking advantage of not just their technical expertise but also their ability to charge less in some cases than their western rivals , they expected their share of the space business to grow in coming years , making russia a pivotal competitor in an industry where rivalries among the united_states , europe and asia are already intense . fearful that russia might undercut the prices charged for rocket launchings by companies like the mcdonnell_douglas corporation and the martin_marietta corporation , the united_states has imposed quotas and price restrictions on launchings by russian rockets of satellites containing american technology . but the end of the cold_war has accelerated cooperation between russia and the united_states and other western countries in their national space programs , paving the way for technology exchanges and closer personal ties . at the same time , the opening up of russia 's economy and the network of laboratories , design and production centers that make up the country 's space industry has drawn widespread interest from western aerospace and technology companies looking to do business . "" they have so many different enterprises involved , so many different capabilities , so many different ways of getting into space , that there 's a lot to select from , "" said bob berry , the president of space systems loral , a division of loral , the aerospace and electronics company based in new york . "" if we find ways to utilize their people and expertise , it 's going to provide a good basis for business and international_trade . "" in the last several years there has been a steady flow of deals . khrunichev , the maker of russia 's workhorse proton rocket , has sold launchings to inmarsat , the 67 nation telecommunications satellite consortium , and to iridium , which plans to launch 21 small satellites on three proton rockets starting next year . khrunichev has also spent 40 million for a 5 percent stake in iridium , one of the first investments by a russian enterprise in a western company . through a joint_venture it developed with lockheed in the united_states , khrunichev , along with energia , another rocket builder , has also contracted for launchings to the societe europeene des satellites , a european satellite_television company , and to loral . loral , having separately discovered a small russian enterprise producing innovative lightweight , low cost thrusters used by satellites to maneuver in orbit , has also created a joint_venture to bring the technology to the west , possibly even for use in satellites made for the pentagon . rimsat , a provider of telecommunications satellite services based in fort_wayne , ind . , has not only contracted for launchings from russia , but is buying seven russian made satellites as well . even nasa is buying the business opportunities for the russian space industry are not limited to the private_sector . as part of a program of increased cooperation between the american and russian space programs , nasa plans to spend 400 million to buy products and services from russia in the next four years . the bulk of the financing will go to flights by american astronauts on the mir_space_station , but nasa officials said some of the money would also be used to develop and acquire technologies from russian enterprises in areas like solar_power systems . ultimately , the united_states , russia and europe plan to cooperate in the building of a staffed space_station , and russian enterprises are expected to play a pivotal role in its design and manufacturing . "" together we can do much more than separately , "" said mr . medvedchikov of the russian space agency . khrunichev 's prospects rest largely on the proton rocket , which was developed in the 1960 's . its relatively simple design has made it the world 's most reliable launch vehicle . in 218 launchings , the proton has achieved a success rate of about 96 percent , above the rates of mcdonnell_douglas 's delta , martin_marietta 's atlas and titan , and the european ariane . almost half the price but it is the proton 's potential price advantage over western launchers that has excited the biggest reaction . khrunichev 's first big commercial contract with the west was the deal it signed last year to launch a telecommunications satellite for inmarsat for 35 . 5 million , compared with 60 million or more charged by american and european competitors . under pressure from the american launching industry , the united_states subsequently imposed stiff restrictions on russian launchings . only eight russian launchings of american satellites to geostationary orbits 22 , 300 miles above the equator would be permitted through 1999 . ( the lockheed khrunichev joint_venture has already sold options for nine launchings , although not all of them are likely to become firm orders . ) in addition , if russia charged less than 7.5 percent below the western launching price , the deal would be referred to the united_states_government for review , a provision that would effectively keep the price of a proton launching close to current market rates . khrunichev and lockheed said they expected the demand for launchings to outstrip the supply , even including the capacity offered by the proton and rockets being built by other countries , including china and japan . in the end , they said , they expect demand pressures to result in the loosening or elimination of the quotas . "" if we 're right that the market is going to grow , there will be natural ways for the quota to be revisited , "" said mel brashears , a vice_president of lockheed . moreover , the quota is limited in its effect because it does not cover satellites sent into low earth orbit , about 600 miles up . low earth orbit satellites are shaping up as the biggest growth market in coming years as ventures like iridium get started . lower costs whether it is dealing with geostationary or low earth orbit launchings , khrunichev 's costs are clearly lower than those of western competitors , though mr . lebedev argued that the costs of materials in russia were rising rapidly and that any cost differential was disappearing rapidly . in the meantime , khrunichev appears quite happy to charge the market price for its launchings and avoid a price_war and the risk that the united_states would impose further quotas or price restrictions . while most enterprises that once made up the soviet_military industrial complex are reeling financially , mr . lebedev insisted that khrunichev was sound . the enterprise has undoubtedly been helped by unspecified financial guarantees or backing provided through the venture with lockheed , as well as by a_10 million loan last month from the european bank for reconstruction and development . the loan is to help finance work on the proton that will launch the inmarsat telecommunications satellite . so sanguine is mr . lebedev that he said khrunichev was considering making another investment in an american company , which he declined to identify .",has a topic of science
"as rescue workers and survivors dug through the rubble of coastal communities devastated by japan 's strongest earthquake in 25 years , japanese authorities said today that 97 people died and upwards of 167 may be missing , many of them victims of towering waves and raging fires . the worst damage , and more than half of the confirmed deaths , occurred on okushiri , a small island of fishermen and vacationers in the sea of japan off the southwestern coast of hokkaido , japan 's northernmost territory . television images of the island 's low lying village showed scenes of utter devastation , with houses and buddhist temples splintered in the mud , boats thrown far inland , and roofs of some homes floating out to sea . estimates of the number of injured vary_widely , from 73 to 190 . since the earthquake and immediate tsunami wave on monday_night , many residents have been picking through the rubble looking for the bodies of relatives under the smoldering ruins . police authorities said they believe some of the victims were swept into the ocean by tsunami waves that were 10 to 30 feet high . although tsunami waves are often referred to as tidal_waves , they are set off by earthquakes rather than the pull of lunar gravity . the yoyoso hotel , located below a hillside , was demolished in a landslide . elsewhere on the island , which has a population of fewer than 5 , 000 , waves and fires destroyed hundreds of homes . "" we ca n't see any trace of houses here , "" a television news reporter said as his camera panned the desolation in aonae district , on the southern tip of okushiri . the quake , which occurred monday_night at 10 17 p.m . local time , registered 7.8 on the richter_scale . its epicenter was 50 miles west of hokkaido , 30 miles beneath the sea of japan . it was followed minutes afterward by tsunamis , huge waves that flung boats onto the shore and washed houses out to sea . fires , thought to be caused by gas explosions , raged unchecked through southern okushiri . early tuesday evening , television news reports from the scene showed smoke still rising from the smoldering remains of wooden homes . prime_minister kiichi_miyazawa flew to hakodate , a city in southwestern hokkaido , on tuesday night and headed for the damaged areas . he flew to okushiri by helicopter this morning and promised that the government would make efforts to reopen the harbor quickly so that material for rebuilding houses could be brought in . okushiri 's mayor , yukio koshimori , told the prime_minister that he was also anxious to have water , electricity and telephone service restored as quickly as possible . in this coastal town of 12 , 000 people , about 100 relatives of okushiri residents sat fornlornly at the ferry terminal , waiting for the emergency_service that would take them to the island . a hand drawn sign on the window of the terminal building described five bodies that had recently been recovered from the sea and asked people to help identify them . "" woman , late 20 's , wearing pajamas , "" said one description , while another said , "" woman , 50 's , with permanent and round face . "" "" my wife 's parents are missing , "" said one man who had been sitting on a blue tarpaulin outside the terminal for four hours . "" judging from the scenes on tv , their house is no longer standing , "" said the man , who refused to give his name . "" i just want to go and see with my own eyes . "" normal ferry_service to okushiri is not operating . about 20 cars were swept into the harbor by the tsunamis , and they now block the ferry 's access to the dock , forcing tugboats to navigate around the autos to take passengers to the ferry before they can begin the almost 40 mile ride to okushiri . the armed_forces flew in more than 300 troops to conduct rescue operations and to distribute emergency food , water and medical supplies . homeless people on okushiri took refuge in a school and community center . one television shot showed refugees sitting near corpses in a gymnasium , burning incense in a buddhist ceremony of mourning for the dead . badly injured people were taken by helicopter to hospitals in hakodate or sapporo , hokkaido 's largest city . japan 's meteorological agency issued a warning for tsunamis about five minutes after the quake , but it was too late for residents of okushiri and coastal towns on hokkaido . experts and eyewitnesses estimated the height of the tsunamis at anywhere between 10 and 30 feet . people ran for higher ground as fast as they could . the waves capsized or damaged hundreds of boats on the sea of japan coast , ranging as far south as central japan . there were also reports of boats being damaged or destroyed in south_korea and in russia 's far east . russia 's interfax news_agency reported that three people were missing at the port of rudnaya pristan , about 150 miles northeast of vladivostok , according to the kyodo_news service . outside of okushiri , most damage and casualties occurred in towns on the southwestern coast of hokkaido . there , craters suddenly opened in some roads and swallowed cars and trucks . at least 17 roads were damaged , according to the police agency . thousands of people were without electricity . japan sits atop a seismically active zone . this particular quake took place where the pacific plate of the earth 's crust is sliding under the eurasian plate . ten years ago , 104 people were killed when an earthquake that measured 7.7 on the richter_scale , followed by tsunami waves , occurred in the sea of japan south of monday 's quake .",has a topic of science
"cage like carbon molecules recovered in canada may have been created before the birth of the solar system , eventually finding their way into a huge meteorite that hit the earth 1 . 85 billion years ago . somehow , a team of scientists surmises , these complex molecules survived not only the hostile conditions of interstellar space but also a searing ride to earth . this hypothesis was reported yesterday in the journal science by dr . jeffrey l . bada of the scripps institution of oceanography in san_diego and his colleagues at the university of rochester and the ames research center at the national_aeronautics_and_space_administration . the cage like molecules of carbon atoms , which are called fullerenes and resemble soccer balls , have been intensely studied since they were discovered in 1985 . they ordinarily break apart at temperatures of about 1 , 832 degrees_fahrenheit , far cooler than the white hot meteorite that dr . bada believes carried some of them to earth 1 . 85 billion years ago . that fiery impact melted the earth 's crust along a 36 mile gash now known as the sudbury impact structure . the gash , in ontario , is the world 's richest source of nickel . if the fullerene molecules found at the sudbury site are indeed extraterrestrial in origin , dr . bada said in an telephone interview on wednesday , scientists may have to revise their assumptions about the impact of large meteorites . the new assumptions would allow for the possibility that the huge projectiles , like the small meteorites that pepper the earth every day , could carry complex carbon molecules to the earth . the hypothesis of dr . bada and his colleagues is based on the discovery that some of the fullerene molecules recovered from the sudbury site , which consist either of 60 or 70 carbon atoms , encapsulate helium atoms within their cages . the helium atoms are too large to leak through the spaces between carbon atoms in the spherical molecules and are permanently trapped . dr . bada and his colleagues , dr . luann becker of nasa and dr . robert poreda of the university of rochester , broke up the sudbury fullerene cages by heating them , thereby releasing the trapped helium . an analysis showed that the helium came in two forms , or isotopes ordinary helium 4 , with nuclei consisting of two protons and two neutrons , and the much rarer helium 3 , with nuclei of two protons and only one neutron . to their surprise , dr . bada 's group found that the ratio of helium 3 to helium 4 in the sudbury fullerenes was characteristic of the helium detected in interstellar space , not of the helium recovered from the earth 's crust or detected in the solar wind , the blast of nuclear particles continuously ejected by the sun . the inference , dr . bada said , is that the helium is primeval , and that the fullerene molecules that brought it to canada formed billions of years ago , eventually to be swept up by the infant solar system as it condensed from gas and dust . complex carbon molecules , including some that play roles in life , have been found in relatively small rocky meteorites . the surfaces of small meteorites are heated to incandescence by their passage through the atmosphere , but friction quickly slows them down . if they survive the trip to the ground , the carbon molecules in their interiors often remain intact . by contrast , large meteorites , those with diameters more than a few hundred feet , are scarcely slowed by atmospheric friction . when they hit the ground , their immense kinetic energy is instantly converted into intense heat , sufficient , it had been thought , to destroy all molecules . "" we do n't really understand how this happened , "" dr . bada said . "" the angle of the bolide impact and the possible fragmentation of the bolide before it hit may have protected the fullerenes . "" among those skeptical of the group 's theory is dr . thomas j . ahrens of the california_institute_of_technology , an authority on meteors and their impacts . "" dr . bada has made a wonderful discovery , "" dr . ahrens said , "" and it 's possible that fragments of the bolide containing fullerenes chipped off and escaped the intense heat of the main impact . but an alternative explanation , which i prefer , is that the fullerene molecules could have formed from the carbon vaporized by the impact , trapping helium that had been delivered to earth by ordinary carbonaceous chondrites . """,has a topic of science
"the space_shuttle_columbia roared aloft today on a difficult mission to tow miles of electrical cable through the hostile environment of outer_space , its seven astronauts intent on advancing a futuristic way of studying earth 's atmosphere and of powering and propelling spacecraft . late saturday , four americans , two italians and one swiss astronaut on board the columbia are to unreel a cable out to maximum length of 12 . 5 miles , making it the longest man made object ever put in orbit . a similar test in 1992 failed after a safety bolt accidentally limited the unreeling of the cable to little more than 800 feet . this mission is the second of eight scheduled this year for the nation 's fleet of reuseable spaceships . and it is the 75th flight of the shuttle program , which began in 1981 . the mission is to last 14 days . the oldest and heaviest of the nation 's shuttles , the columbia blasted off on schedule at 3 18 p.m . today under hazy florida skies , cheered by thousands of tourists happy to escape winter 's chill up north . the centerpiece of the mission is to come late on saturday when the national_aeronautics_and_space_administration and its partner in the venture , the italian space agency , again try the high wire act . working 15 years to advance the technique , the two countries have spent nearly 450 million , not including the cost of a pair of shuttle launchings , which are valued at more than 500 million each . at the heart of the operation is the thin cable , which consists of a braid of copper wire , nylon and teflon and looks in all innocence like a white shoelace . when towed through earth 's magnetic field , it is expected to produce up to 5 , 000 volts of electricity in exactly the same way that electrical generators do on earth when their wires are rotated through stationary magnetic_fields . during the flawed try in 1992 , deployment of the cable generated a mere 40 volts . speeding around earth at nearly five miles a second , working at a height of 184 miles , the astronauts are to unreel the long wire and , at its end , a scientific satellite that weighs more than half a ton . the 122 foot long shuttle and the five foot satellite , always connected by the thin wire , are to fly a duet round and round the globe before the satellite is reeled back into the shuttle 's 60 foot cargo bay . this test will be the first large scale demonstration of tethered space flight , an intriguing concept contemplated by space experts for more than two decades . nasa officials say the experiment is probably the most complex tried by shuttle astronauts . the long wire is expected to bob , roll and swing back and forth in planned experiments . if dangers arise , the astronauts are to cut the cable and satellite loose . working from the shuttle 's cockpit , they can activate guillotine type cutters in the payload bay . and if that fails , they will make an emergency space walk to sever the wire with giant clippers . "" our utmost priority , "" the columbia 's commander , lieut . col . andrew m . allen of the marine_corps , said in an interview before today 's launching , is to keep the situation safe . success promises to inaugurate a new class of space_age technologies . future tethered systems could be used to power spacecraft or recharge their batteries , to build space stations and to drop capsules of experimental material from a station for return to earth . tethers could also lower scientific instruments from a shuttle for gathering environmental data from hard to study atmospheric zones . tethers would also be used as antennas to transmit extremely low frequency signals able to penetrate land and sea , providing communications not possible with traditional radio transmitters . in addition to colonel allen , the columbia is carrying as its pilot lieut . col . scott j . horowitz of the air_force . mission specialists are dr . jeffrey a . hoffman and dr . franklin r . chang diaz of nasa , as well as maurizio cheli , an italian , and claude nicollier , a swiss , both from the european_space_agency . the payload specialist is dr . umberto guidoni , an italian astronaut . if all goes as planned , the columbia is to land on march 7 at the kennedy_space_center in florida .",has a topic of science
"an earthquake under the sea followed by 17 foot tidal_waves levelled several stretches of japan 's northern coast late monday_night , leaving 36 people known dead and several villages a jumble of shattered homes and overturned cars . police officials said they had confirmed 36 deaths , as the toll rose this morning and relief workers searched the rubble of devastated villages . officially , there were an additional 25 people missing , but television and news service reports said that more than 100 people were misssing and presumed dead , some of them in remote areas where normal communications had been cut . the earthquake , which hit at 10 17 p.m. , was centered about 50 miles off the southwest coast of japan 's northernmost island of hokkaido , deep under the sea of japan . it measured 7.8 on the richter_scale , the worst earthquake to hit japan in 15 years . the jolt could not be felt in tokyo , more than 500 miles to the south , but it affected hundreds of miles of northern coast . the tsunami , or tidal_waves , caused by the tremblors were reportedly as high as 17 feet in places and swept ashore on okushiri , an island of 4 , 600 residents 11 miles off the coast of hokkaido . stretches of the coast of hokkaido and the northern tip of honshu , the main island in the japanese archipelago , were also hit by the waves . the tidal_waves were also reported to have spread to the east , where they hit the coast of south_korea about 400 miles away , destroying fishing boats . there were no reports of injuries or deaths in korea . reduced to ruins news shows this morning showed several villages reduced to ruins . homes were smoldering piles of ash or splinters . large fishing boats had been washed ashore and lay astride what was left of houses , cars and roads . a lighthouse had been knocked from its foundations . fires burned brightly , many of them started by broken gas lines , officials said . some 28 , 000 homes on hokkaido lost power , and landslides cut off a number of roads , police officials said . okushiri was reported to have suffered the worst , with 18 dead and another 82 missing and feared dead . fires and tidal_waves reportedly destroyed more than 300 homes . a hotel there collapsed and burned , with five confirmed dead and at least 20 missing . this morning the island was still without electricity or running water , and its small airport was closed because of damage . another earthquake measuring 7.8 on the richter_scale hit hokkaido on january 18 , but it left only two dead . monday_night 's quake caused the worst damage since an earthquake that also hit hokkaido on may 16 , 1978 , which measured 7.9 .",has a topic of science
"an auction next month of the more prized technological remains of the soviet_union will include once secret notebooks and diaries of space officials that historians say should provide insights into early soviet successes and failures on the new space frontier . in another reverberation of the soviet_union 's collapse and the end of the cold_war , the documents are among dozens of artifacts being offered for sale by former russian officials , engineers and astronauts and also by financially pressed government agencies . the sale is being held on dec . 11 at sotheby 's , the international auction house , in manhattan . david n . redden , a senior vice_president of sotheby 's , said that a draft of instructions to the astronaut yuri gagarin for the first flight by a man in space in 1961 should be worth up to 10 , 000 . the diaries of dr . vasily p . mishin , once head of the soviet space program , may bring 30 , 000 . and the soyuz tm 10 capsule , one of several spacecraft for sale , is being priced at 3 million to 5 million . failures and frustrations although collectors may be drawn to things like the slide rule of sergei p . korolev , the first head of soviet space_exploration , or assorted spacesuits , historians who have had to assess the program mostly from second hand information say the materials should be the source of more insightful and authoritative scholarship . james e . oberg , a space engineer in houston and author of "" red_star in orbit , "" said the 31 volume mishin diaries , started a year after the first sputnik flight in 1957 and kept through 1974 , include many fresh details about soviet plans and failures as well as his frustrations with bureaucratic foot_dragging and interagency rivalries . "" any attempt at telling the history of the space_race without the material in these notebooks will be second_rate , "" mr . oberg said . "" these may be the key contemporary account of the space_race . "" the mishin diaries , he said , remove any lingering doubts anyone might have that in the 1960 's the russians placed a high priority of efforts to beat the united_states to the moon , a program they abandoned only after the apollo 11 lunar landing in 1969 . a pressurized suit designed for use by russians on the surface of the moon is among the materials for sale . after years of denials by silence and misinformation , soviet officials finally disclosed in 1989 that they had been racing americans to the moon and even showed visiting american engineers a spacecraft that had been ready to go to the moon in 1968 . repeated failures of a booster_rocket delayed the program and eventually caused its cancellation . spacecraft designer 's vision a preliminary study of the diaries , mr . oberg said , showed that american space experts and intelligence sources had apparently developed a reasonably accurate overview of the soviet space program when it was still shrouded in secrecy . but he said the mishin diaries were somewhat surprising in their disclosures of "" how bitter and destructive were the rivalries between industrial groups within the space_program "" and how this "" ultimately was the crippling factor "" that caused inefficiencies and failures . historians are also expected to find interesting material in two notebooks by konstantin feoktistov , an engineer who designed the early soviet spacecraft and became an astronaut . his entries in the notebooks for 1958 and 1959 provide contemporary documentation of the organization of the soviet space program in the months after the first sputnik launching , something previously unavailable to researchers . in an essay titled "" a long range program to master outer_space , "" mr . feoktistov outlined plans for exploring near earth_orbit , then the moon , venus and mars and made drawings of the first craft for human flight and its proposed landing technique . in nearly every respect , these plans and drawings in 1958 were carried out over the next decade . from first man in space the feoktistov notebooks also include an excerpt from the post flight report by mr . gagarin , which is signed by the astronaut . he described how well a person could see the surface of earth from orbit , the blackness of the sky in space and how earth "" has a very characteristic , very beautiful blue halo , which is well seen when you observe the horizon . "" of weightlessness , the first man to fly in space wrote "" initially it was an unusual sensation . but i soon got accustomed to weightlessness and continued to execute my program . it is my subjective opinion that the effect of weightlessness does not affect the body 's ability to work or perform physiological functions . "" scholars expressed the hope that the notebooks and diaries , in particular , would be acquired by an institution where they would be available for research . mr . redden said , "" there 's a tremendous amount of institutional interest , but my experience is that private collectors of such materials are usually incredibly good about sharing them with scholars . """,has a topic of science
"on a hazy morning in baghdad , more attention went to the latest suicide car bombing , in a town called baquba , than to the transit of a distant planet across the face of the sun . the transit began at 9 19 a.m. , about an hour and a quarter after the bombing . two visitors were turned away by security guards near the entrance to the astronomical dome in zawra park in the upscale monsur district . the doors to the dome appeared to be chained and locked . in another part of town , across the tigris_river from saddam_hussein 's former palace the area now called the green_zone and occupied by the united_states and its allies helicopters patroled the river as a guard on a platform aimlessly pounded an empty water bottle on the top of a concrete blast wall in the gathering heat . a group of journalists and photographers and another guard stood on top of a low building and took turns watching the transit through two pairs of cardboard glasses marked ''transit of venus june 8 , 2004'' that had improbably appeared . as the sun rose higher and became more intense , staring at the tiny shadow of venus for any length of time became gradually less attractive . around noon , one guard , an ak_47 slung over his right shoulder , saw the planet through the glasses and smiled , revealing damaged teeth . a binocular scan of the surrounding area turned up no other residents who were watching the transit , and few who were outside at all . james glanz",has a topic of science
"senator trent_lott , the majority leader , said today that senate investigators had concluded that china improved its military missile program when it received sensitive american space technology after the clinton_administration loosened export controls . in a scathing floor speech , mr . lott , a mississippi republican , also said ''new information'' had surfaced on china 's effort to influence the 1996 american elections . but he said he could not discuss the disclosures because they were classified . ''national_security concerns are regularly downplayed and even ignored , '' mr . lott said . his comments mark the first attempt by a congressional leader to characterize the disparate findings of 10 house and senate committees on the far reaching inquiry into whether china illegally obtained american technology that helped beijing 's ballistic_missile program . with the speech , mr . lott was hoping to create a sense of momentum and focus that the overall investigation has been lacking . senate democrats immediately accused mr . lott of jumping to false conclusions and politicizing the investigation . ''the statement by the majority leader endangers national_security , '' said senator bob_kerrey of nebraska , the ranking democrat on the intelligence committee , ''because it threatens our committee 's capacity to produce a bipartisan set of recommendations . '' republican senators have expressed frustration that the inquiries of four senate committees , which have held 13 hearings since may , have gained little traction . at a meeting last thursday of several republican senators who advise mr . lott on china , several urged him to tie together the most important findings , and go on the attack . ''we needed to bring the interim conclusions to the senate floor , '' said senator tim hutchinson , an arkansas republican on the china task_force . a senior republican aide added , ''clearly , there was a feeling we had to turn up the pressure . '' mr . lott and other republicans said the administration was stonewalling their requests for documents , an accusation that mr . kerrey and white_house officials denied . in his floor speech , mr . lott dropped no bombshells and offered no new evidence to support his assertions . he restated some of the principal accusations made in the senate hearings to date and called them ''five major interim judgments . '' first , mr . lott said the administration 's controls over the export of american satellites for launching on chinese rockets was ''wholly inadequate . '' he cited the testimony of the general_accounting_office , the auditing arm of congress , that the shifting of licensing authority over commercial satellites to the commerce_department from the state_department in 1996 loosened restrictions . mr . lott also noted that the justice_department was investigating two instances where sensitive technology may have been improperly diverted to the chinese . one case involves information loral space and communications and hughes_electronics shared with chinese engineers after a failed launching of a loral satellite in february 1996 . the second instance involves information hughes shared with chinese officials after the failed launching of a hughes satellite in 1995 . a senior commerce_department official acknowledged last week that the department had erred by failing to refer the hughes damage report to the state_department for review before the company gave the results to the chinese . mr . lott also said china 's military benefited from the information shared by loral and hughes . that was the conclusion of three federal agencies that reviewed the information the companies gave to chinese rocket scientists . ''the jury is still out on how much satellite exports enhance china 's ballistic_missile programs , '' he said . mr . lott said the administration had ignored intelligence findings that china shipped m 11 missiles to pakistan in 1992 and had refused to impose strict sanctions on china that would also hurt american satellite makers . administration officials have said the evidence was not solid enough . finally , mr . lott said new information had emerged about china 's effort to influence the 1996 elections . senator richard c . shelby , the alabama republican who heads the intelligence committee , said the same thing after a closed meeting last week with louis j . freeh , the director of the federal_bureau_of_investigation . neither senator gave any details . but mr . lott renewed his call today for an independent_counsel to investigate the matter . on wednesday , the head of the pentagon agency responsible for safeguarding american technology exports will testify before the intelligence committee . and the senate governmental affairs committee this week invited c . michael armstrong and michael t . smith , the former and current chief executives of hughes , to testify at a hearing scheduled for july 29 . senators said they are willing to subpoena the executives if they do not testify voluntarily . on the other side of capitol_hill , the house select committee investigating the china accusations has hired a . r . cinquegrana , a deputy inspector general of the central_intelligence_agency , as its chief investigator .",has a topic of science
"a powerful earthquake shook northern japan early this morning , causing power failures , setting fire to an oil_refinery and derailing a train . at least 164 people were injured , most of them by falling objects in their homes , according to the nhk news network . no deaths were reported . japan 's national meteorological agency warned residents away from coastal areas , for fear that aftershocks would bring ocean waves , known as tsunamis . there were no immediate reports of widespread damage . the quake , with a magnitude of 8 . 0 , struck at 4 50 a.m . in the pacific_ocean about 50 miles off the southeastern coast of hokkaido , japan 's northern island , about 600 miles north of tokyo , according to the agency . aftershocks , including a powerful one at 6 07 a.m. , followed . nhk showed images of shelves shaking furiously inside an office , a fresh crack running up an asphalt road and a fire burning at a refinery in southern hokkaido . train service was suspended on hokkaido after an express train derailed , injuring one of the 39 passengers , according to kyodo_news . in a fishing town called samani , two small fishing boats capsized off the coast in another town , erimo , whose 2 , 200 residents were told to evacuate at 5 a.m. , waves swept empty cars into the sea . in kushiro , a southeastern city hit by high waves , 24 , 300 houses were left without power , according to kyodo . hiroaki tanaka , a fire official in kushiro , on hokkaido 's east_coast , said in an interview with reuters that 47 people were being treated at hospitals in the city . ''the situation seems to be settling down , '' he said . ''aftershocks seem to be lessening . injuries could rise though , if people head to hospitals in their own cars . we felt it shake for a very long time . '' television pictures showed a fire and smoke billowing near an oil storage depot of the idemitsu kosan company at a refinery in tomakomai , a coastal city in southern hokkaido . the company said it had closed the plant for safety reasons . other pictures showed cracks in buildings and fallen tiles , and items spilled from supermarket shelves . japan , which sits atop four tectonic plates , is one of the world 's most seismically active countries , and tremors are regularly felt here . last saturday afternoon , a quake measuring 5.5 on the richter_scale , originating in the pacific off tokyo , jolted the capital . hokkaido , with a population of about five million , is sparsely inhabited compared to the rest of the country . japan 's last major earthquake occurred in kobe in 1995 . that tremor , which measured 7 . 2 , killed more than 6 , 000 people . correction_october 18 , 2003 , saturday a map on sept . 26 with an article about an earthquake in northern japan mislabeled the ownership of the kurile islands . although russian administered , they have been regarded internationally as disputed territory since they were occupied at the end of world_war_ii .",has a topic of science
"bottles of shampoo and liquid soap lay jumbled on the shelves and strewn across the floor at masaru shiraishi 's drug store here , leaving almost no room for customers to walk . the place looked like it had been hit by an earthquake , which , of course , it had . but on a street in which many of the homes and small shops lay in ruins and those still standing were boarded up , mr . shiraishi 's drug store became the first establishment to reopen for business . and the disorder did not discourage customers , who picked their way past the fallen bottles to buy cough medicine , toilet_paper , disposable diapers and the other necessities of routine life that have been neglected during these non routine times . while the overwhelming majority of businesses here remain closed , a drive through this port city showed food and drug stores and gasoline stations slowly opening for business . a survey by the ministry of international_trade and industry found more than 200 gasoline stations out of 630 in the region open today , up from about 60 on thursday . the death toll from the earthquake continued to rise . by 9 45 a.m . saturday ( 7 45 p.m . friday , new york time ) the number of fatalities had reached 4 , 609 with 630 people were still missing , according to the national_police_agency . the police said that 23 , 764 had been injured , but many of those injuries were fairly minor . food and water shortages that had plagued the area in the first three days after the quake were partly alleviated as more supplies arrived , and officials said they hoped that electricity would soon be available to almost all of the region . while there are still sporadic fires , the big problem of uncontrolled blazes has ended . but water and gas service are still cut off for most people and the authorities were still concerned about sanitary conditions in hospitals and public shelters and about the possible spread of influenza . adding to the concern , weather forecasts called for rain late saturday or sunday , which would worsen the plight of the people who are still sleeping outside or in their cars and possibly lead to mudslides . the scope of damage here is so vast that it is likely to take months for all the buckled and caved in streets to be repaired and for the rubble from more than 46 , 000 collapsed or damaged buildings to be removed . some train lines and elevated highways that had collapsed will take years to rebuild . the kobe authorities said the number of people in this city alone taking refuge in schools and other public buildings that have been converted into shelters had jumped to nearly 204 , 000 , up more than 30 , 000 from thursday . the sharp increase could partly reflect the fact that the counting has become more accurate , officials said . but it could also mean that people who had been living in their damaged homes or in their cars had come to the shelters in search of food or because they felt safer from the many aftershocks . prime_minister tomiichi_murayama conceded in the opening session of parliament today that the government 's response to the disaster had been slow . "" it was my first experience and it took place early in the morning , so there was some confusion , "" mr . murayama told the parliament , promising that disaster relief policies would be reviewed and revised . the prime_minister and other government officials have said a special supplement to the national budget will be needed to pay for the earthquake response , but they have so far not mentioned specific figures . the government is also going to provide low interest loans to help in the reconstruction . thousands of soldiers and firefighters continued to search the rubble of collapsed buildings looking for survivors . rescuers managed to find at least seven people alive on friday , many of them elderly women . and a pregnant woman who had been pulled out of the rubble on tuesday gave birth to a healthy girl today . one of the happy endings belonged to chieko inohara , 75 , who was freed this morning after lying more than 75 hours in the wreckage of her two story home , surviving on four rice crackers she happened to have near her bed . mrs . inohara had been using a thin electric blanket , which went off when the power was cut , leaving her exposed to temperatures that reached freezing . "" it 's unbelievable , "" hideaki inohara , one of her sons , said tonight as he and other relatives gathered at the hospital with mrs . inohara . "" it 's really a miracle . "" mrs . inohara 's three children had tried since tuesday to find her in shelters and to enlist the police to search her ruined home . "" yesterday , we even went to the morgue at city hall , but we could n't find her , "" mr . inohara said . mrs . inohara suffered only minor cuts and chest_pains and was dehydrated , but otherwise seemed all right , her relatives said . she was able to talk but relatives said she was too tired to be interviewed . mrs . inohara was taken to nomura hospital , where she was placed on a futon on the floor of a big room , along with about 30 other mainly elderly patients . "" we have no more beds , "" a nurse explained , apologetically . indeed , conditions at hospitals around the city continued to be deplorable , especially because of the lack of running water . at kobe seaside hospital downtown , the lack of water has prevented any operations from being performed . "" i do n't think the hospital is working yet , "" said dr . shigeru makino , the director . "" all we are doing is supplying food twice a day . "" walls in the hospital were cracked and lab equipment was broken by the earthquake and only a third of the staff has showed up for work . after the earthquake occurred , dr . makino said , the hallways and lobby of the hospital were overflowing with patients . the hospital could serve each patient only one rice ball a day , which the hospital staff cooked itself outside on an open fire . now , he said , lunch boxes and fresh drinking_water are being supplied by the city . patients who needed minor treatment were helped and released . those needing more treatment were transferred to other hospitals . in nishinomiya , a badly_damaged city near kobe , residents came to city hall to get information on how to begin rebuilding their lives . one counter offered information on 1 , 000 units of temporary housing the city is expected to construct by next month . another counter offered counseling about funerals , something many survivors have not gotten around to arranging for their dead relatives yet . for those reopening earthquake damaged businesses , motives varied . mr . shiraishi , who insisted that his drug store had actually looked worse before he tidied it up , said he felt an obligation to provide people with things like powdered milk for babies . on a sidewalk in kobe , junji kawamori , 23 , was hawking rice crackers , cookies , canned drinks and other snacks from cardboard_boxes . the items were salvaged from his family 's store , which was about 100 feet away , collapsed and lying in the middle of the road . asked why the family had set up shop on a street corner , mr . kawamori replied , "" we need the money . "" quake in japan the overview",has a topic of science
"filling in for nasa 's grounded space_shuttle , a russian soyuz rocket roared off a kazakhstan launching_pad into orbit today carrying a russian and an american on a crucial mission to sustain the international_space_station . the two crewmen , yuri i . malenchenko and edward t . lu , will replace a crew of two americans and one russian who were forced to extend their time in space after the columbia_disaster left nasa 's shuttle fleet unable to send replacements . a successful launching today was seen as absolutely vital to the space_station 's future , because the russian space_program provides the only means of sending humans into orbit until the american shuttles are certified to fly again and flights resume , perhaps early next year . ''the station ca n't work without the crew , '' mikhail l . pronin , the chief engineer at the russian space agency 's ground control center here , said in an interview . ''and without the crew , there is no program . '' mr . malenchenko , the 41 year old flight commander , and mr . lu , 39 , are flying a mission significantly altered by the columbia_disaster . their main task will be to keep the space_station up and running until another crew arrives in october , most likely on another soyuz rocket . they also will supervise experiments , including one monitoring the growth of crystals in weightless conditions and a second exploring the loss of bone density that plagues humans in weightless conditions . a number of planned experiments were shelved because the columbia_disaster led the two space agencies to reduce the crew for today 's launching from three to two , and to fill the extra space with food and other supplies for the station . nasa 's space shuttles , with a 25 ton payload , normally keep the space_station fully supplied . today 's soyuz launching carried only 2.5 tons of supplies in addition to the crew , and pilotless russian progress space freighters also can carry only 2.5 tons of cargo . russia has said it can launch as many as five missions this year , two of them manned , butmuch of the equipment for those missions remains on productions lines now . mr . lu said he planned to pin a badge to his space_suit to honor the crew of the columbia . ''one of the things that we have been talking about , thinking about before the flight , is that they never really completed their mission , '' mr . lu said . ''we are doing what i think they would have wanted and what their families wished them to do to continue the process of flying into space . '' investigators suspect that a piece of insulating foam that broke off the shuttle 's external fuel tank and struck the left_wing seconds after liftoff created a breach that later allowed hot gases to destroy part of the shuttle 's superstructure . the mission is unusual in that the crewmen leaving the station the americans , capt . kenneth d . bowersox of the navy and donald r . pettit , and the russian flight_engineer nikolai m . budarin are to return to earth in a soyuz_capsule , landing on may 4 in kazakhstan not far from the site of today 's launching . space_station crews normally return to earth in shuttles , and the soyuz capsules , which are regularly docked to the station , are reserved for use in case of emergencies . mr . pronin , the chief engineer at the russian space agency 's mission_control_center , said that the three man crew now at the station was still receiving extra training in space to prepare for a return in the soyuz_capsule . mr . lu and mr . malenchenko , one of russia 's most experienced astronauts , were initially trained to navigate the nasa shuttle to dock with the space_station but received new instructions after the columbia_disaster in linking the soyuz_capsule to the station .",has a topic of science
"the russian plan for an arduous space walk to repair the mir_space_station is technically sound and would not pose excessive risks to the american member of the crew if he is given the assignment , a team of nasa specialists has concluded . ''technically , i do not see any show stoppers , '' said leroy chiao , an american astronaut dispatched here to assess the mir repair mission . ''based on our assessment the risks are manageable . '' nasa , which has come under fire on capital hill for its involvement with the trouble plagued mir , has publicly taken a cautious stance toward the russian proposal to include the american astronaut , michael_foale , in the space walk . but the team of nasa specialists that reviewed the russian repair procedures and contingency_plans endorsed the mission . mr . chiao also talked with mr . foale , who indicated he was prepared to carry out the repairs . ''the team here has given the recommendation back to houston that it can be performed safely , '' mr . chiao said in an interview at the russian mission_control_center here near moscow . in addition to mr . chiao , the team includes richard fullerton and jerry miller , two nasa specialists on space walks , as well as philip engelauf , a flight director . on thursday , nasa will formally announce whether it will allow the british born mr . foale , an astrophysicist , to undergo training for the complex repair mission . if the training proceeds , as expected , a decision on whether mr . foale will carry out the actual repairs would not be made until next week . the main goal of the repair is to restore power to the mir , which was damaged in a june 25 collision with a progress cargo craft . this entails entering the holed spektr module , which has been sealed off , reattaching electrical_cables from the solar arrays there to a specially_designed hatch and resealing the module . but the technical aspects of the mission have often been overshadowed by a broader debate over the safety of the 11 year old mir and the future of american russian space cooperation . though there is no immediate danger to the crew , the russians are eager to carry out the repairs and restore the mir as a fully functioning space_station . some american space officials , such as mr . chiao , believe the united_states can still learn much from stationing astronauts on the mir , particularly since nasa is involved in developing an international_space_station for the next century . but critics say the mir is becoming too dangerous for american astronauts . in terms of personalities , the repair mission has already become something of a space drama . vasily_tsibliyev , the russian commander of the mir and a veteran astronaut , was pulled off the mission after russian physicians concluded he has become disabled by stress and an irregular heartbeat . that left the repairs to the remaining two members of the crew , aleksandr lazutkin and mr . foale . mr . lazutkin would have the lead role in the repair and would be the only crew member to enter the spektr module . trained at the moscow aviation institute as an engineer , he is also a gymnast and a parachutist . but he has never conducted a space walk and was never in space until february , when he came aboard the mir . mr . foale would have an important secondary role and would stay in the node adjacent to the spektr module . a veteran of three space flights , he conducted a space walk during a 1995 american shuttle mission . as a backup for jerry linenger , the previous american astronaut on the mir , mr . foale trained for an external space walk in a russian space_suit . according to the russian plan , both men would don russian space suits . they would then enter the node adjacent to the damaged spektr module and seal the node off from the rest of the mir_space_station . mr . foale would operate the controls that would let the air out of the node to create a vacuum . he would also assist mr . lazutkin by , for example , handing him tools . it is mr . lazutkin who would have the most difficult part of the mission . after the astronauts removed the hatch to spektr , mr . lazutkin would look inside using a flashlight . then he would enter spektr feet first , taking care to avoid any objects that might rip his space_suit . space officials are also concerned that the collision may have damaged some of the contents of the spektr module , which was used for laboratory experiments . there is the danger , for example , that floating debris or spilled chemicals could drift into the mir , endangering the astronauts . so mr . lazutkin would use a towel to capture floating liquid or broken glass . once inside he would attach the cables to a special hatch , which would let the power pass through without letting the air out . after mr . lazutkin left spektr the hatch would be reattached . the node would then be repressurized by opening a passage to the core module of the mir . oxygen bottles would also be used to restore the atmosphere . an additional set of cables would be attached , so that the power could pass from the hatch to the rest of the mir . if the mission is successful , power will restored to the mir and the air inside the space_station will not leak out . but if the hatch cannot be sealed properly and there is a large leak , the crew will have to evacuate using the soyuz_spacecraft docked alongside . mr . tsibliyev will stay in the soyuz while the five hour space walk is being conducted . nasa officials said the training would be carried out in several stages . first the team would practice the procedure without space suits . on monday , they would carry out a full scale dress_rehearsal , wearing space suits . this practice is to be carried out in the node and in the pressured krystall module , which will simulate spektr , mr . chiao said . while nasa officials in houston insisted the agency has not yet decided on on mr . foale 's role , russian officials sought to convince the space agency to allow him to participate . vladimir solovoyov , the mission control chief , said that mr . foale did not see any special problems in the mission and ''is sure it would be a success . ''",has a topic of science
"to the editor it is a sad day when italy chooses to ban all forms of assisted reproduction despite great advances by its scientists ( ''italy will practice abstinence'' ) . as a high_school student , i am excited about the future and the discoveries that await us , say , 30 years from now . but if countries continue to place limits on scientists and their research , how can we move ahead ? rachel ciccone farmington hills , mich .",has a topic of science
"at first the americans were welcome . they were admired . robust and energetic , they looked like partners in a better , richer future . but they did not know their place . they did not respect limits . conquest by conquest , they revealed themselves as too ambitious , too domineering , imposing their will on less truculent populations . now many italians in this northern tuscan town have had enough . they would like to say ''arrivederci'' to the big , red , rapacious louisiana crawfish . lake massaciuccoli can be seen as the murky , reedy theater for a clash of zoological cultures the brawny americans versus the aggrieved europeans . the drama is an example of nature out of whack that also plays , at least loosely , like an allegory of recent world events . italian biologists and wildlife experts say that louisiana crawfish , brought here more than a decade ago as a culinary experiment , multiplied like mad , ascended the food_chain , altered the ecosystem and devoured indigenous flora and fauna , including their european crawfish cousins . ''i 've never seen anything like it , '' said sergio paglialunga , the director of massaciuccoli park , which encompasses the lake in which the louisiana crawfish established its beachhead . ''they eat the vegetation , '' mr . paglialunga said as he rode today in a motorboat that plied the lake 's dark , cloudy surface , an opaque cover for the danger that lay beneath . ''they eat everything . '' marcello carrara , a park guard who steered the boat , chimed in , ''they even eat the weakest among them . '' ''they are very aggressive , '' he added . ''it 's proof that they are n't from around here . '' so park managers and regional biologists are redoubling their efforts to get rid of them . they said that one of the few species of lake fish that could turn the clawed predators into crawling prey was the pike , armies of which are being deployed to the field or , rather , pool of battle . the first troops arrived four years ago , and the reinforcements are still coming . while biologists pressed about 6 , 000 pike into service from 1999 to the end of 2002 , they said they would dump 10 , 000 to 15 , 000 pike into the lake this year . ''we have changed the rules , '' said paolo ercolini , a biologist who is closely monitoring the situation . somebody else changed the rules in the first place , and that was the problem . mr . ercolini and others familiar with the history say it happened around 1990 , when a local entrepreneur decided to farm louisiana crawfish in this broad , marshy lake , once one of puccini 's favorite haunts . ( a lakefront cafe here is named butterfly , after one of his best loved operas , ''madame butterfly , '' another tale of an american whose foreign trip takes a fatal toll . ) similar experiments with louisiana crawfish had been conducted in spain and other european_countries , which were drawn to the species because it was hardier and meatier than its continental counterparts . there was commercial promise in the enterprise , and no one around lake massaciuccoli raised much of a warning or fuss . sure enough , a modest market for the crawfish developed . but as the years went by , there were unintended effects . accounts differ about how the crawfish spread . maybe the local entrepreneur abandoned his crawfish farm , which had been limited to a small area . maybe flooding lifted the crawfish over their confines . maybe the crawfish staged a jailbreak . in any case , certain types of fish and frogs in the lake suddenly became scarce or worse . ''we put the puzzle together , '' said mr . paglialunga , who went on to cite a clue that no detective could miss . ''fishermen found fish half eaten in the net , with crawfish hanging onto them . '' the louisiana crawfish were not only more gluttonous and brutish than their delicate european cousins . they also had an expansionist streak . biologists and park managers said the louisiana crawfish would walk from one source of water to another , colonizing areas far beyond massaciuccoli . ''now you find them in all of tuscany , '' mr . paglialunga said . he said he could not be sure they had managed that feat entirely on their own spindly legs . ''there are some legends of how they spread so quickly to other parts , like someone near florence bought them for dinner , did n't like the taste and tossed the rest in the river , '' he said . the crawfish inspired academic papers . they got a reputation . ''their march , strangely a forward march , is determined and relentless , like advancing marines , '' reads an article , titled ''killer crawfish , '' on one of several italian web_sites with musings about the strange invaders . ''you find them everywhere , '' the article says . ''in the middle of the street , in the city , on the house 's doorstep . '' they can also be found in the nets of lake massaciuccoli fishermen , who now catch them deliberately because there is still a market for them and no longer enough indigenous crawfish to sell . as several fishermen hauled in about 100 louisiana crawfish early this evening and mr . ercolini and francesca gherardi , another biologist , watched , the group 's chatter was not entirely anti american . it betrayed a grudging respect . ''they are beautiful animals , '' ms . gherardi said as she carefully held a crimson specimen aloft . it thrashed its tail furiously . ''they are competitors , '' mr . ercolini said , noting that the pike had their work cut out for them . ''it will be a battle . '' ''they are tyrannical , '' said francesco gilarducci , a fisherman , but he quickly added that they were also tasty . at a recent party , he said , he and several friends ''ate tons of them . '' ''they are exquisite with spaghetti , '' he said . massaciuccoli journal",has a topic of science
"lead what many regard as europe 's most effective scientific collaboration , the european organization for nuclear research , known by the french acroynym cern , survived a critical test last week when britain conditionally agreed to continue its membership . what many regard as europe 's most effective scientific collaboration , the european organization for nuclear research , known by the french acroynym cern , survived a critical test last week when britain conditionally agreed to continue its membership . the organization , which was formed after world_war_ii and is based near geneva , is made up of 14 european_countries . britain provides 16 percent of its budget . the british said they would remain in the organization if changes recommended by a special cern commission , headed by the french physicist anatole abragam , were adopted . staff changes recommended according to cern officials , the commission noted the ' 'resounding success'' of research efforts at cern , but found the enterprise ' 'doomed to inefficiency'' if it was not revitalized . it recommended that the organization streamline operations of the center , let go 300 of its staff of 3 , 500 people over the next five years , and replace some of them with younger people . the estimated budget saving would be from 3 to 5 percent . the officials said , however , that the committee proposed that the staff be changed through a process of attrition rather than outright dismissal . the budget of cern is about 600 million . each member nation is also expected to provide for financial support of its own reseachers . in meetings thursday and friday , the cern council , made up of representatives from all member states , considered the recommendations of the abragam commission . in other action , the cern council , representing all the members states , nominated dr . carlo rubbia to be the director general , commencing a year from january . in 1984 dr . rubbia shared a nobel_prize with dr . simon van der meer of the netherlands for the discovery of three subatomic particles , the positive and negatively charged w particles and their electrically neutral cousin , the z particle . the long sought particles unite two of the fundamental forces of nature , the electromagnetic and the so called weak force , which accounts for some forms of radiation . dr . rubbia , an italian , is on the faculty of harvard_university . the current director general is herwig schopper , a west_german . the cern council also named josef rembser of west_germany as its president , to take office next month . dr . rembser is general director of basic_research and coordinator of international cooperation at the ministry of research and technology in bonn . he will continue his role there whereas dr . rubbia will actively administer cern . report critical of funding pressure for a british withdrawal from cern stemmed from a 1985 report by a committee headed by sir john c . kendrew , who shared a nobel_prize in 1962 for his discovery of the molecular structure of the proteins myoglobin and hemoglobin . that report said that cern was receiving an inordinate amount of money from britain 's science and engineering research council , which also allocates funds for other forms of basic_research in britain . the kendrew committee said that britain should withdraw from cern unless its contribution was reduced by 25 percent for the 1991 92 budget . there is an informal agreement under which the members of cern , including britain , should continue full support of the organization until completion of its new particle accelerator , the lep , or large electron positron storage ring . ( positrons are the antimatter cousins of electrons . ) the storage ring , l9 miles in diameter , is expected to be completed early in l989 .",has a topic of science
"when emiko sato was growing up on okushiri , island residents wanting to travel to the mainland had to endure a three hour ride on the cramped deck of a cargo_ship . tonight , more than 30 years later , mrs . sato is in a familiar position , crouched on the crowded deck of a ship laden with cargo , leaning against a carton containing a portable toilet and wrapped in a sheet to protect her from the chill air . "" it reminds me of the vietnamese boat people , "" she said . but rather than escaping , mrs . sato is returning to her childhood home or what is left it . on monday_night okushiri , a small island in northern japan , bore the brunt of the strongest earthquake to hit the country in 25 years . so far , 102 people have been reported killed and 163 are missing after the quake and seismic sea waves , or tsunamis . the death toll now seems likely to surpass the 104 killed in a big quake 10 years ago , making this japan 's most lethal earthquake in 30 years . 77 deaths on island at least 77 of the deaths occurred on okushiri , where a tsunami now estimated to have been as high as 30 feet , and then fires , destroyed hundreds of homes and caused the collapse of a hillside on a hotel and an adjacent restaurant . the owner of that restaurant was mrs . sato 's youngest sister , akiko morikawa , who died in the landslide along with two of her three children . mrs . sato 's other sister , etsuko kambu , clung to some grass for dear life and barely escaped being dragged out to sea by the receding wave . "" when i read that in the newspaper , i cried and cried , "" said mrs . sato , who now lives in nagoya . most of the 240 people crammed on this ship , who have come from all corners of japan , seem to have a relative who died on the island , or is missing , or has been left homeless . many of the people on board grew up on the island , known as a fishing and vacation spot , and were shocked to see scenes on television of their childhood neighborhoods lying in ruins . the boat ride would be like a high_school reunion were it not for the sadness . but there is no clasping of hands of long lost friends , no embracing , no crying on one another 's shoulders . this is japan , where outward displays of emotion are frowned upon . airport remains closed for all the fear and hardships endured by those on the island , there was great anxiety for those outside as well . few phone connections to the island have been working since the earthquake struck . it measured 7.8 on the richter_scale and occurred 30 miles beneath the sea of japan , west of the northernmost main island , hokkaido . the small airport on okushiri remains closed because of cracks on the runway . the regular ferry_service also is not operating , in part because automobiles swept offshore by the tidal_wave now litter the harbor at esashi , the ferry embarkation point on hokkaido . that is why people waited all day for this patrol boat , operated by japan 's coast_guard , to take them home . some people still have no knowledge of the fate of their loved ones . the local branch of nhk , japan 's public_broadcasting corporation , allowed people to call in this evening to seek information about their relatives . "" i 'm worried about you , "" one woman from near kyoto cried over the phone , in search of a sister who lives on okushiri . "" if you are listening to this , please call me . "" others already knew the bad news . one woman said she had heard from her father that her mother "" seems to have been taken away by the waves . "" some stories , however , have somewhat happier endings . michihiko inagaki , who works for a printing company in tokyo , said his parents' house and the convenience_store they ran were demolished by the waves . but both his parents were safe , having evacuated their home as soon as they felt the quake . an all day wait "" my father was taking a bath and he ran out in his underwear and bare feet , "" mr . inagaki said . they escaped with nothing but their lives . "" i heard people who tried to search their houses to bring valuables with them were late in escaping and were drowned , "" he said . mr . inagaki said that a smaller tidal_wave had hit okushiri 10 years ago and that his parents and some others remembered it . "" without that experience 10 years ago , the death toll would have been higher , "" he said . to board this ship many people waited all day in esashi , the ferry terminal . they wiled away the time sitting quietly or watching a crane fish cars from the water and pile them on the pier . on the ferry terminal window a handwritten sign described five bodies that had recently been retrieved from the water and asked for help identifying them . "" woman , late 20 's , wearing pajamas , "" one description said . the ship was supposed to depart at 2 p.m. , then maybe 3 or 4 p.m . it waited outside the harbor , reachable only by tugboat . first the cargo had to be loaded portable_toilets , bottled_water , soup and potato_chips . then , the names of the waiting people were called one by one and they boarded tugboats to be brought to the ship . the lights of home the trip to okushiri , a distance of less than 40 miles , did not finally get under way until 8 p.m . the vessel arrived off the island before 11 p.m . and then it was time to transfer to a tugboat again . the mood of many people brightened as they saw the lights of their island coming into view . but the tugboat heaved up and down on rough seas , making a transfer impossible . so the captain of the patrol ship decided to anchor and wait until the waves died down . passengers were not expected to actually reach the island until dawn . for many of them , the long ordeal is just beginning .",has a topic of science
"a derelict chinese spy_satellite weighing more than two tons is getting ready to plunge back to earth , which could create a hazard for people on the ground or an intelligence bonanza for any foreign country that can recover its film and cameras . federal experts and industry reports say the satellite may re enter the atmosphere by march or april . most satellites burn up quickly during re entry . but this one is said to be heavily shielded and designed to survive the fiery plunge . most likely , the satellite will hit the sea in a harmless splash and sink out of sight . even so , world governments are gearing up for a possible impact on land , which if it occurs in a heavily_populated area might kill people , embarrass china and prompt an international incident . the spy_satellite about the size of a small car is believed to have no nuclear_power source on board , so the danger arises only from its speed and weight , which could have the effect of a small bomb exploding . the craft 's impending plunge is reported in the current issue of aviation week space technology , an industry magazine . it says the satellite , of a type known as fsw 1 , was launched in october 1993 from a space complex in the gobi desert . after finishing its surveillance mission and after its fiery return , the craft is meant to deploy a parachute for a soft_landing on the ground and pickup by the chinese_army . but the satellite malfunctioned 10 days after launching , the magazine reports , and is losing altitude . aviation week space technology says space analysts expect the errant satellite to simply plunge back as an inert lump . but they also say there is a slight chance that the spacecraft 's recovery system might still function , leading to the possibility of a bizarre situation in which the secret spy craft would come sailing down with its parachute open onto a place like central_park . the satellite , now about 100 miles high , has an orbit inclined 56 . 5 degrees to the equator , meaning that it could fall onto any part of the earth between 56 . 5 degrees north latitude and 56 . 5 degrees south a swath that includes all of the continental united_states . maj . don planalp of the air_force , a spokesman for the united states space command in colorado_springs , colo . , said in an interview that 11 sensors were tracking the satellite closely and that its re entry date was estimated as april 1 , 1996 . aviation week space technology said american and european analysts predicted that the impact could come in february or march . repeated calls to officials at the chinese embassy in washington produced no comment . in the past , chinese officials have spoken of the fsw 1 series of satellites as intended strictly for natural_resources monitoring . but western experts widely regard them as spy_satellites .",has a topic of science
"lead a crater at least 28 miles wide and 1.7 miles deep , formed by the impact of a comet or asteroid 50 million years ago , has been discovered on the sea floor 125 miles southeast of nova_scotia , according to canadian geologists . the discovery may help resolve a dispute over what killed the dinosaurs . a crater at least 28 miles wide and 1.7 miles deep , formed by the impact of a comet or asteroid 50 million years ago , has been discovered on the sea floor 125 miles southeast of nova_scotia , according to canadian geologists . the discovery may help resolve a dispute over what killed the dinosaurs . while larger craters formed by impact have been found on land , this is the first time such a scar has been discovered beneath the oceans that cover 70 percent of the earth 's surface , the geologists said . the object that crashed through hundreds of feet of water into the sea floor was probably one to two miles in diameter , the geologists said in a report in today 's issue of the scientific_journal nature . the object exploded upon impact , filling the crater with debris that in some areas is more than 1 , 800 feet deep . the dinosaur controversy the sea floor rebounded to form a central mountain in the center of the crater a mile high and seven miles wide . the undersea mountain and crater are now buried beneath a deep accumulation of marine sediment , but seismic mapping with shock_waves has shown the crater rim to be eroded , possibly by a violent back flow of sea water after the impact . the discovery may bear on the controversy regarding the disappearance of the dinosaurs . one theory postulates that the impact of an extraterrestrial object at the end of the cretaceous period 65 million years ago may have scattered debris into the atmosphere , changing the climate and causing the extinction of dinosaurs and numerous other life forms . since no scar produced on land at that time has been found , it has been assumed the impact was oceanic . until now , the authors said , there has been little evidence on which to assess the effects of such an impact . now , they said , sediment laid down immediately after the event on the surrounding sea floor should provide ''a unique opportunity to investigate the effect of major extraterrestrial body impact on the marine ecosystems . '' the crater is situated on the outer continental shelf , in 370 feet of water , rather than in an ocean basin with typical depths of two or three miles . study of the crater would not illuminate the effects of a deep water impact . iridium seen as clue the authors of the report are lubomir f . jansa of the geological survey of canada and georgia pe piper of st . mary 's university in halifax , nova_scotia . much of their evidence was derived from the union oil company 's report on its montagnais i 94 exploratory well , drilled into the crest of the central mountain in 1974 . that mountain and the circular depression around it were discovered , under the sea floor sediments , during seismic searches for buried oil deposits on the continental shelf . the origin of the structure has now been deduced from diverse evidence , the two geologists reported . seismic , or shock_wave , probing of material within the crater , showing it to be strikingly uniform , combined with sampling from the well itself , indicates that the crater is filled with fragmented , thoroughly mixed , highly diverse minerals identified as ''fallback'' material . many fragments have been altered by a violent shock . two layers of rock deep in the crater , 233 and 115 feet thick respectively , were melted by heat from the impact . the debris is unusually rich in iridium , a metallic element found in high concentrations in meteorites . a thin layer of iridium exists in the sediment laid down at the end of the cretaceous period evidence , scientists say , that an extraterrestrial object crashed into earth and scattered debris around the world . the montagnais well penetrated three layers 2 , 142 feet of marine sediment , 1 , 811 feet of broken rock including the two melted layers , and more than 1 , 300 feet of underlying basement rock . the underlying rock contains hairline cracks and other signs of being altered by a mild shock . from analysis of the extent of radioactive decay in the melt layers two laboratories have estimated that they were melted either 50 or 56 million years ago .",has a topic of science
"an earthquake struck northern iraq , killing 20 people and injuring an undisclosed number of others , the official iraqi news_agency reported tonight . the quake destroyed 100 houses in two villages in the erbil area , said the report , which was monitored in london . it did not say when the quake struck .",has a topic of science
"for three nights now , the residents of this tiny hillside hamlet have lain awake in their cars and pup tents , huddled together against the autumn chill , waiting to hear the earth beneath them move again . for the older generation , many in their 80 's and 90 's who make up half of acciano 's population of 60 the low rumbling sounds and the fear that follows bring back memories of the distant bombs of world_war_ii . for marcello chiocca , 29 , the aftershocks from the earthquakes that sent tens of thousands fleeing from their homes in central italy last friday are almost supernatural . ''i think of it as a long worm , writhing down the valley , '' said the 29 year old metal worker , who is camping out here with his wife 's family . ''it felt as though the ground was dancing below us . '' the continuing tremors are fewer now , but the fear remains here and in dozens of other villages and towns where people are living in tents , cars and campers many grouped in makeshift emergency centers set up by authorities for the ''terremotati , '' the italian word for those who have been ''earthquaked . '' in many communities in umbria , one of two regions hit by friday 's back to back earthquakes , the worst in italy since 1980 , most houses are still standing . while some have gaping cracks down the walls , or partly collapsed tiled roofs , others were surprisingly untouched , at least on the outside . after inspecting a sample of 3 , 500 houses in the region , experts found 41 percent to be uninhabitable except in the town of nocera umbra and its surrounding villages , of which acciano is one . there the rate was 72 percent . authorities are still warning people to stay away from their homes , probably for another week , until a door to door inspection can be completed . in the meantime , entire towns and villages have become ghost_towns , with shuttered shops and empty houses . to date , the italian government has made available a total of 12 , 364 beds , either in campers , tents , even trains set aside to receive the homeless . the number of people who have spent the last three days sleeping away from their houses is still a matter of guesswork , given the uncounted numbers who have preferred to stay close to home in their cars , but today convoys of new campers were making the trek to the quake stricken region . it took time for the italian civil protection authorities to reach places like acciano , tiny farming communities where the old stone houses are maintained by an aging population who have stayed on after their children have left to find work elsewhere . the first allotment of state issued blue tents now a familiar sight outside the region 's bigger towns arrived here only this morning . ''at first they thought of the bigger towns , and they forgot about us , '' said mr . chiocca . ''here over half the population is made up of old people . these senior citizens , you ca n't take them away . '' mr . chiocca 's father in law , giovanni armillei , said , ''we do n't want to abandon our houses , because we are country people . if we abandon everything , what will we do ? our lives are our fields , our chickens , our horses , our pigs . '' there is also bitterness about the initial reaction to the friday earthquakes , when the press and the government focused on the damage done to the 13th century basilica of st . francis in assisi , where chunks of precious frescoes came crashing to the ground , killing four people . ''everyone here is catholic , we are all religious , '' mr . chiocca said . ''but i think that we should think of people first , and then the churches . '' the medieval center of nocera umbra itself , a maze of narrow winding cobblestone streets leading up the shank of a hill , is utterly deserted except for the odd cat , blocked off by red ribbons stretched across rubble strewn intersections . a sign posted on the town hall , next to an open door that gives way to an interior stairwell cluttered with large chunks of plaster , advises citizens to go next door . a green dais , set up by a church for a now forgotten holiday , is still there , now covered with dust and rubble . the only person injured in nocera umbra during friday 's midday earthquakes which mercifully came in two jolts with enough of a pause between them to send most people running out of their houses was angela armillei , mr . chiocca 's wife . ''there were 25 people in the supermarket where i work and i was the only one hurt , '' she said , sitting by the road with a bandaged foot . ''i felt the ground shake and as we were running for the doors , the cans were popping off the shelves . i tripped , and that 's how i hurt myself . '' in most cases , residents did n't need much convincing to leave their houses after the second earthquake , which registered 5.6 on the richter_scale , nine hours a first quake struck at 2 33 a.m . friday . in the hamlet of petracchia giovannotti , where the side of the tallest building slid to the ground , all 60 residents moved down the hill to a campground friday afternoon . after rising up in protest , they were finally provided with government issued campers over the weekend . with two families packed into campers built for one , people wonder when the emergency relief will move to its next phase , in particular the provision of prefabricated housing that will get them through the winter . but there is bureaucratic confusion , not unfamiliar in italy . a 43 year old man who refused to be identified said the italian military_police ''want to do things one way , the civilian police another , the civil protections authorities another , and it is all so time consuming . '' as the tremors die away , inhabitants of hillside towns worry about nature 's next threat , winters like the one last year which covered acciano in four feet of snow . so far , the skies have stayed clear over the region , but the nights are already cold . ''the real danger is winter , '' said maruizio salari , the mayor of foligno , a nearby town hard hit by the quakes . a survey of damaged monuments is continuing throughout the region , home of some of italy 's richest artistic treasures , with one report listing serious damage to 11 of 19 churches . art experts were still sifting through the rubble at the st . francis basilica in assisi , where the funerals for the two franciscan friars killed by the collapsing ceiling were held today , with several thousand people attending . the damage in acciano was not as bad as in sorifa , across the valley , where several houses were reduced to rubble . there next to the church of st . michael the archangel , where cracks run up the side walls into a now precarious belfry , rina armillei stood today over piles of sweaters and dish cloths , chests without drawers and a jumble of pots and pans , rescued from the house inhabited by her husband 's family for generations . ''our house is completely destroyed , '' she said , wringing her hands as tears came to her eyes . ''you ca n't imagine what the inside looks like . it breaks your heart . i wo n't ever sleep here again . i 'm too scared . ''",has a topic of science
"so much for the mea culpas . the two accident prone astronauts who just ended six disastrous months on the space_station mir used their first public appearance today to denounce everyone from president boris n . yeltsin to individual members of the press who has dwelled so publicly on the mission 's many failures . in a news conference that was a tour de force of recrimination , the astronauts , vasily_tsibliyev and aleksandr lazutkin , lashed out at those who spread ''rumors , gossip , and lies'' and said the worst of the spacecraft 's problems were to be found on earth . ''it has always been a tradition here in russia to look for a scapegoat , '' said mr . tsibliyev , the visibly troubled commander whose words today promise to open a new phase in the summer 's only genuine galactic soap_opera . ''of course it is always easier to put all the blame on the crew . but in this case that 's not fair . '' the criticism of the crew whose time in space was marked by the worst collision in the station 's 11 year history , several major systems failures and the accidental disconnection of a cable essential to guide the 120 ton spacecraft reached a climax this week when mr . yeltsin said the problems on board were not technical but due to ''human_error . '' senior officials of the russian space agency have voiced similar sentiments and the russian press , often tame when dealing with the nation 's most revered institutions , has been merciless . ''how and why fortune declared war on this crew is unclear , '' an article in komsomolskaya pravda noted on friday . ''but even confirmed materialists have started shouting , 'something spooky 's going on here . ' '' mr . tsibliyev , speaking here today north of moscow at what was once the secret training site of all russian astronauts , singled out that ironic and belittling story as particularly offensive to him . he said more than once that he was lucky to be on earth although at times he looked as if he would be grateful to leave it again at the next available opportunity . and he stressed that , according to the rules , ''we should have abandoned the station three separate times but we never thought about jumping ship . not once . '' the three incidents he referred to were a fire in february caused by an oxygen producing candle of the type they are now using on the station , the loss of pressure after the collision in june and the accident last month when one of the astronauts , usually presumed to be mr . tsibliyev , disconnected the power cable . that last event caused vladimir solovyov , the mission director , to bark out what will surely become one of space travel 's most infamous phrases , ''this is a kindergarten . '' asked today who was responsible for that last error , mr . lazutkin , responded quickly , ''if i tell you will you leave ? '' realizing the answer might be yes , he circled back , saying that the two would have to speak to doctors and psychologists and that a commission would decide who , if anyone , caused the errors . the astronauts acknowledged that their shift in space was troubled from start to finish . their initial approach to the station in the soyuz space capsule was marred by a docking failure that forced the commander to recover manually . and their re entry was flawed too , by brake engines , designed to cushion hard landings , that never fired properly . in the six months between those events the mission seemed to look more each day like the voyage of the damned . mr . tsibliyev , 43 , wearing a red , white and blue track suit with the word ''rossiya'' written on the back , was patient but firm in his statements here today . he felt it necessary to remind people of a glaring truth the mir is an 11 year old , jury rigged flying tool kit that was originally supposed to last five years . it has suffered through 1 , 500 malfunctions during its time in space and even minor problems there can become scary very quickly . ''on earth if you ca n't get rid of your waste it 's a simple problem of plumbing , '' he said , referring to one of the less public but more annoying of the crew 's recent inconveniences . ''for us we have to worry how we are going to survive . '' but most people who have become preoccupied with the station 's problems are mostly interested in questions of blame . and for them mr . tsibliyev had a direct response . ''it all comes from earth , '' he said , referring to the problems on the station . ''from our economy , our affairs , our poor lives . even the equipment needed to live aboard the station that we requested to be sent and we 're not talking about coffee , tea and milk for us it just does n't exist on earth . simply , the factories do n't work , or have insufficient supplies , or the prices they want are too high for us to afford . it can be crazy . '' mr . tsibliyev , in the space_station , was manually docking the supply ship on june 25 when the station 's worst accident occurred . flight engineers at mission control have already said that they could find no fault with any of the computer equipment needed for that procedure . but mr . tsibliyev disagreed , saying that one of the central monitors he needed to guide the ship safely into port was not functioning properly . ''the truth is , '' he continued , ''that many things we need on the station just are n't there . it 's not because it 's a bad station . day in and day out we are doing everything we can . it is hard to understand the attempts that were made to accuse us . people said i complained about my health . it was n't a complaint it was a real problem . you ca n't give orders to your heart . '' shortly after the accident between mir and the supply ship , mission doctors discovered that he was suffering from stress induced heart problems . this coming week , the new crew on mir will undertake a highly risky but essential repair walk to reconnect the power in the module that was punctured in the accident . most experts believe that if they fail , the space_station will be doomed , and so will the reputations of those who were on it when the accident occurred . but the astronauts do have some strong defenders within the space agency and in society at_large . ''we will not let a crew that acted highly professionally and courageously be blamed for technical mistakes during the investigation of the incidents that took place in space , '' the russian_air_force chief of staff , pyotr deinekin , said at a news conference on friday . he said a special commission that will ''investigate what unfortunately happened will dot all the i 's . '' ''however , it is no more permissible on the ground than in space to make impromptu decisions to test insane ideas born on the spot during a space mission , '' he said , referring to what seems to be the improvisational and frequently changing repair plans . ''one should deal with the managers who controlled the processes in space , not with a cosmonaut who duly performed his duties . '' although the two crew members looked pale both they and their doctors today said they were fine . ''this was my second trip to the mir and i judge it a success because i am alive and healthy , '' mr . tsibliyev said , adding ruefully ''perhaps many people wanted us to return as corpses . thank god we did not . ''",has a topic of science
"''i do n't want to think about it , to tell you the truth , '' shigenori miyashita said resolutely on a recent day , casting a glance over his shoulder at mount_fuji , whose symmetrical slopes , capped with a picture perfect dusting of white snow , have made it one of the world 's best known peaks . mr . miyashita , manager of the fuji view hotel , had just been confronted with statistics showing that the number of low frequency earthquakes , a major indicator of an impending volcanic eruption , had risen sharply near his hotel . it is easy to forget that mount_fuji is an active volcano . tranquil , serene and just a bit mysterious , it seems impervious to the angrier forces of nature . ''i look at it , and when it 's cloudy i think tomorrow we 'll have rain , '' said ayako chihara , who lives in this tiny city sitting on the mountain 's skirt . ''and when it 's nice i just look at it and think it 's beautiful . '' besides , she said , ''ever since i was little , i 've been told that if mount_fuji erupted , the lava and other stuff would flow toward shizuoka'' the prefecture on the other side of the mountain . but that complacency is misplaced . ''nowadays , volcanoes are either active or dead , and mount fuji is n't dead , '' said tsutomu takekawa , the mayor of fujiyoshida . ''but most adults in the area who are of a certain age and older think of mount_fuji as dormant . '' in september , though , there were 35 low frequency earthquakes under the foothills at the northeastern slope of the mountain , instead of the usual one or two a month , the japan meteorological agency reported . there were 133 earthquakes , which signal movements in magma deep beneath the earth 's surface , in october and 222 in november . december had only 143 , but these numbers are far higher than any the agency has recorded in a single month in the 20 years it has collected such information . four or five a month would raise eyebrows , an agency spokesman said . the increase has grabbed the attention of earthquake and volcano experts and made central and local government officials uneasy . ''what makes this period different is the number of earthquakes , by far the greatest number we 've ever seen , '' said setsuya nakada , a professor at the volcano research institute of tokyo_university . ''it 's difficult to say what it means , though , because there is no consensus in the academic world about this matter . '' indeed . mount_fuji 's temperature has not risen , nor has the mountain swelled , two other strong indicators of impending volcanic activity . nor is there any evidence that magma is rising through the mountain or that there are abnormal shifts in the earth 's crust , said motoo ukawa , an earthquake specialist at the volcanic activity laboratory of the government 's earthquake research center . ''nonetheless , we need to pay special attention to the activity at the mountain , particularly given the history of its activity , '' he said . dr . ukawa said records showed that mount_fuji 's last violent eruption was in 1707 , and volcanologists put its eruption cycle at 300 to 500 years . ''there 's been roughly a 300 year quiet period since the last eruption , which may be long enough to have built up enough energy for the next eruption , '' he said . ''but we do n't know if the next eruption is close or a hundred years away . '' seismic and volcanic activity in japan have increased greatly in the last year . mount usu in hokkaido erupted in march , and mount oyama , on miyake island south of tokyo , burst in july . both eruptions followed significant increases in low frequency earthquakes . in december the meteorological agency convened a conference of earthquake and volcano specialists to discuss the situation . the governor of yamanashi prefecture , on the northeastern side of the mountain , is expected to announce its first evacuation drill . the prefecture also has promised to make a hazard map for the area . after the eruption of mount mihara on oshima , a volcanic island southeast of tokyo , in 1986 , the government ordered up hazard maps for the regions surrounding japan 's 12 largest volcanoes in the early 1990 's . but a central government official in what is now called the cabinet_office said local officials had resisted one for mount_fuji , the largest volcano in japan . more than 110 , 000 people live at the foot of the volcano on the yamanashi side , and 16 million tourists a year visit the area , the bulk in july and august , when it is open for climbing . because the winds tend to blow from the west , an eruption here would have an impact on airports , trains , cellular_phones , electricity generators , water and food supplies in short , the stuff of everyday life in tokyo and other crowded areas . ''this is not just a problem of the area at the foot of the mountain , '' governor ken amano of yamanashi prefecture said pointedly . japan 's regional governments are effectively bankrupt , and mr . amano would no doubt like some help in disaster planning from the government in tokyo . mr . amano denied that the reason no map had been drawn for mount_fuji was that officials feared that it would harm tourism . ''as mount_fuji is a very big live volcano and it has never erupted in the same crater twice , it is very difficult to predict a hazardous area , '' he said . but he was clearly nervous discussing the subject . prefecture officials wanted to cancel an interview , and when it went forward mr . amano refused to deviate from a prepared script . mayor takekawa was far more candid , and other regional officials say the area 's powerful tourism_industry has long lobbied against a hazard map . mr . miyashita , from the hotel , said , ''this area is a resort area , and the main attraction is mount fuji and the five lakes , so if there are widespread stories about the possibility of mount_fuji erupting , tourists will be frightened away and that will be very bad for business . '' nonetheless , mr . amano said his government realized how valuable mount usu 's map had been in evacuating residents . ''a map should be completed as soon as possible , '' mr . takekawa said . ''i do n't think it should take four or five years . '' masayuki tanabe , 26 , is the fourth generation of his family to serve as a priest at the fuji sengen shrine at the foot of mount_fuji , where residents prayed to the god of the mountain the last time it erupted . he has little use for hazard maps , measurements and calibrations . ''i 'm not sure about these low frequency earthquakes , '' he said , ''because i do n't feel them . but as someone with a religious occupation , i 'm wondering whether it is n't a sign that the world is getting crazier . '' he said he had heard of mountains of garbage heaped at its summit , left by the people who climb in droves in the summer . ''i 'm thinking maybe the gods are getting angry over the arrogance of humanity , '' he said . the shrine is heavily dependent on tourists , but mr . tanabe does not have the same concerns about discussing a potential earthquake as the bus operators and hotel managers . ''sure , pilgrimages from some places might decrease , '' he said . ''but local people would probably come more often and pray more . ''",has a topic of science
"it might seem a curious question to ask what do a derelict potato processing_plant and an empty highway have in common ? the answer , equally curious , is that they both form part of a web of fraud that turned one of italy 's saddest catastrophes into a vast pork_barrel . since an earthquake struck the irpinia region , inland from naples , in november 1980 , killing more than 2 , 700 people and leaving 265 , 000 homeless , the authorities in rome have sent roughly 35 billion to rebuild villages like sant'angelo and to restart industry . still waiting but some people still live in the "" temporary "" prefabricated matchboxes they were assigned after the quake . scores of new factories lie still , built by entrepreneurs who took the grants but who never actually got around to managing the plants . government money has been spent on the gentrification of villages barely touched by the quake . roads were built that went nowhere an eight mile stretch of smooth and deserted highway below this village cuts through a bucolic valley , curves in a graceful concrete parabola and ends abruptly at a stout tree . "" this is italian politics , "" said antonio compitillano , a 70 year old retired blacksmith who has lived in a prefabricated home in this village for 12 years , awaiting new housing . his wife , candida chiusano , elaborated on the role of the country 's politicians "" they give themselves money and then eat it themselves . "" as italy 's broader bribery and corruption scandal moves southward into naples and beyond , the projects born in corruption prickling the landscape seems one more indictment of the politicians , who carved up power and patronage across the land . the kickback capital long known as a city where kickbacks were the norm , naples is increasingly being drawn into the nationwide scandal that started in milan last year and has uncovered a system in which politicians took bribes worth millions of dollars in return for public works contracts . but even before that investigation known as mani pulite , or clean hands began a process that has led to hundreds of arrests , a parliamentary commission had begun to unravel the misdeeds associated with the earthquake relief . and the trail they uncovered has led them to the same centers of power in rome . michele de mita , brother of a high ranking christian democrat and former prime_minister , ciriaco de mita , has been arrested , and ciriaco de mita has been forced to resign as head of a panel considering political reform . as the investigation bites into naples , moreover , magistrates have ordered a look at the activities of legislators from all the political_parties in the city . while the scandal in the north focused initially on the socialists , it has found its christian democratic mirror in the south . no ties to the quake in this region , said achille cutrera , a socialist senator who helped lead a two year investigation into the diversion of earthquake funds , one quarter of the government funds were spent on items "" that had nothing to do with the earthquake . "" moreover , he said in an interview in rome , the christian democratic authorities provided aid to 680 village administrations in this area even though only 300 villages had been seriously damaged . "" it was to win votes , "" he said . although this region is technically dirt poor , the landscape is freckled with stylish and architecturally incongruous villas paid for with money that farmers were able to reap from local administrations . the less fortunate , or less wily , like mr . compitillano , remain in prefabricated houses , though . aid for monkey business at the time some of the aid was dispensed , ciriaco de mita was prime_minister . now , outside his hometown , nusco , an industrial complex new but hardly humming with activity has sprung up . senator cutrera said 5 billion of government funds was spent on new industries . but of 400 set up , 150 failed or never started . they include the potato processing_plant and a plant to produce jeeps . their shells now stand in a line in the yard without wheels or engines . under the reconstruction system , mr . cutrera said , companies were paid 60 percent of their projected investment to start a new industry and the rest when the plant started working . that , he said , invited false invoices . "" if you invented a receipt , you invented money , "" he said . investigators said michele de mita issued false invoices to inflate the cost of the potato processing_plant . he has denied wrongdoing , but after four years the government had paid out some 7 million and the plant had yet to process a single potato . the roads to nowhere the same system , investigators said , worked for building highways like the one that ends so abruptly here . "" there was no bidding for the contracts , and no checks on the projects , "" said barbara fiammeri , a reporter who covered the issue for the financial daily il sole 24 ore . "" once the money ran out , the road stopped . "" investigators also discovered cases where the architects of projects and the administrators who approved them were the same people . moreover , investigators said , while supposedly respectable northern italian companies moved into the region , they hired local contractors linked to the organized_crime syndicate , the camorra . that has raised the possibility that settling the scores as the scandal unfolds in this region will not be quite so genteel as it has been in the north . "" this is not milan , "" said antonio bassolino , a former communist legislator from naples . "" blood will flow . """,has a topic of science
"a huge underground chamber that made historic observations of ghostly particles called neutrinos that stream through the cosmos was crippled over the weekend when thousands of light detectors imploded in a chain reaction . the accident at kamioka neutrino observatory , a large particle physics laboratory outside of tokyo , is a major setback to research on the neutrino , one of nature 's most elusive components . it brought to a halt an experiment that has been considered a candidate for a nobel_prize . ''people at the site heard a sound , '' said hirotaka sugawara , director of kek accelerator laboratory . ''it happened inside the water and surely must have had something to do with the pressure , but i will not comment further . '' he said the accident happened as the water tanks were being refilled after having been drained for maintenance . he called the accident ''a huge tragedy'' and said it would take at least a year to repair the damage . in confirming the accident , officials at tokyo_university gave few clues as to its origin , saying only that thousands of light detectors had been destroyed in the water filled chamber , known as super_kamiokande . the neutrino detection apparatus relied upon roughly 20 inch tubes called photomultipliers that lined a tank filled with very pure water , over 1 , 000 yards underground , to gather evidence of the particles , which have no charge and are so light that physicists thought for decades that they had no mass at all . but in 1998 , experiments at super k established that at least one of the three types , or ''flavors , '' in which neutrinos come must have at least some mass . this was big news for the universe because according to the standard calculations that describe the big_bang that started the universe , neutrinos are the most populous elementary particles in the universe and their cumulative mass could have an effect on cosmic geography and the formation of galaxies . the super_kamiokande detector consists of 12 . 5 million gallons of water in a tank about the size of a cathedral a mile underground in the kamioka zinc mine 180 miles northwest of tokyo . it was completed in 1996 at a cost of 100 million by a consortium of american and japanese researchers . the tank is lined with 11 , 242 photomultiplier tubes spaced about a yard apart , which detect a bluish streak of light left in the water when a high speed particle passes through . a researcher familiar with the experiment said compared the accident to corn popping or a string of firecrackers going off . about 7 , 000 of the detector 's 11 , 000 tubes imploded , he said , each of which costs about 3 , 000 . he estimated the total loss at 20 to 30 million . ''thank goodness we got our nobel already cooking , '' he said .",has a topic of science
"scientists from 150 governments began a four day meeting here today to try to agree on what latest evidence of global_warming should be used as the basis to set global environmental policies . the intergovernmental panel on climate change , an organization of hundreds of scientists that the united_nations created in 1988 to assess warming , has drafted a thick report that doubles the top end of the temperature increase predicted over the next century , by 11 degrees . the meeting here is the first of several to fine tune a summary of that report to be used by governments in negotiating a climate treaty . the report updates the organization 's latest assessment of global_warming , in 1995 , and suggests an acceleration of the trends that have caused alarm among environmentalists . the draft finds that the warming in the 20th_century was likely to have been the greatest of any century in the last 1 , 000 years for the northern hemisphere and that the 1990 's was the warmest decade of the last millennium . rising temperatures have also lengthened the ''freeze free'' season in many mid and high latitude regions , the draft says , and they have cut snow cover since the 1960 's by 10 percent . the rate at which the sea_level rose in the last century was 10 times faster than the average rate over the last 3 , 000 years . the findings add urgency to treaty negotiations aimed at carrying out the reductions in greenhouse_gases stipulated by the 1997 kyoto_protocol , a treaty signed by more than 100 countries , but not ratified by any industrialized_nations . the latest round of talks ended without an agreement in november in the netherlands , and today dissension rippled through the conference hall . greenpeace argues that scientific evidence is being ignored by industrialized_nations reluctant to enact costly policies to cut emissions of carbon_dioxide and other greenhouse_gases . chinese representatives complained that the forum ignored the views of scientists who discount evidence of global_warming as part of normal climatic fluctuations or cast doubt on the effects of carbon_dioxide . ''the organization is supposed to report objectively , but it now tends to fix the conclusion first and then find evidence to support that conclusion , '' said lu xuedu , a delegate from the chinese ministry of science and technology . among beijing 's objections to the 1 , 000 page summary report , from which china 's contribution was left out , mr . lu said , is the finding that the increase in greenhouse_gases and associated warming stemmed primarily from human activities , a contention that bears directly on the coal dependent power generation that drives china 's economic_development . china , nonetheless , is working to reduce its carbon_dioxide_emissions by adding power_plants fueled by natural_gas , water or nuclear_energy , said gao feng , deputy director general of the treaty and law department of the foreign ministry . mr . gao said china had cut its coal production , to 992 million_tons in 1999 from 1.4 billion in 1996 . china continues to show relatively low gas emissions per capita . north_america and western_europe are the largest contributors , with the united_states being the largest of all . a far greater number of proposed challenges to the summary report came from the american_petroleum_institute and oil companies like exxonmobil , as well as from delegates from the organization_of_petroleum_exporting_countries .",has a topic of science
"lead at 11 58 thursday morning , tokyo did not crumble and burn . but nine million people here pretended that it did . at 11 58 thursday morning , tokyo did not crumble and burn . but nine million people here pretended that it did . it was at that same moment 65 years ago that the great kanto earthquake took tokyo unawares and reduced it to rubble in seconds , setting off firestorms that killed 100 , 000 people . so on thursday , more out of obligation than genuine fear , it seemed , schoolchildren ran through tunnels of smoke with handkerchiefs over their faces and grandmothers shot fire extinguishers at collapsing plywood buildings . subways slowed . to the south , where the earth has been rumbling ominously in recent months , the air_force pushed boxes of medical supplies out of planes and staged rescue attempts from helicopters . still , the drills felt more like a county fair than like a war zone , with neighborhood ladies pouring tea for survivors of the smoke tunnel . and to many here , that is the problem . a dwindling number of people here remember the 1923 earthquake well among them emperor_hirohito , who , still three years from the throne , surveyed the damage on his horse . but almost everyone else , even those who witnessed the firebombings of world_war_ii , say they cannot really imagine high tech , high finance tokyo leveled again . disaster planners , perhaps fearful of touching off a scare , are remarkably vague when asked specific questions about the kind of damage they foresee . and seismologists and disaster engineers , who are drawn to tokyo like rock collectors to the grand canyon , cannot agree on whether the next one will be better or worse than the last . they only know it will be different . ''next time , '' tsuneo katayama said , ' 'more of the buildings will stay up . that 's definite . '' he is a professor at tokyo_university 's institute of industrial science , who says his specialty is ''urban seismic disaster mitigation . '' there is other good news , he says most people in tokyo no longer cook with open fires at lunchtime , and far less of the city is built of wood . but the optimism ends there . anyone who gets too strident about the ability of technology to overcome nature is likely to be reminded , as several were at an earthquake conference here about two weeks ago , that japan 's postwar progress may also make tokyo 's next big earthquake far more destructive . while much of tokyo_bay was made up of wooden piers 65 years ago , today it is a seascape of gas tanks and chemical containers . ''there is far more to burn , and some people say that 30 percent of metropolitan tokyo could be burned down , '' mr . katayama said . ''so the situation may not be much improved . '' the thought of superheated , chemical fed fires is particularly unsettling in tokyo 's honjo neighborhood , not far from the bay , where tens of thousands of people collected on the vacant ground of a military clothing depot 65 years ago thursday . a cyclone like firestorm passed over them , with the oxygen sucked out of its core , and 40 , 000 died of suffocation . population increases 3 fold sheer size may also be working against the city . around the time of the last great quake about 2.5 million people lived in central tokyo today the figure is three times that . there were also only 40 fire engines , and virtually no cars during the last earthquake , impeding rescue efforts . today there are hundreds of fire vehicles , scrubbed clean each morning by fire brigades that have the discipline of marines . but in a real earthquake , it is questionable whether the fire engines would get past the station driveway . tokyo lives in perpetual gridlock in the best of times , a city fire official said , and with debris added to that ''we probably could n't move . '' then there is the question that has preoccupied scores of ministry of trade and industry officials in this business minded city even if japan survived the next earthquake , would its economy ? the issue is one that few here want to talk about in public it seems callous , they say , to discuss saving assets instead of lives . nonetheless , scores of tokyo 's blue suited bureaucrats toil over the problem every day . when the 1923 earthquake struck , japan was still so separated from the rest of the world that it was 12 hours before anyone heard the first radio report of the disaster . next time the world will know instantly the money will stop flowing . some huge percentage of the world 's funds flow through tokyo every day no one seems to be able to measure how much . what would it mean if all that halted with no warning ? would money markets and stock_exchanges grind to a halt , or would new york and london be able to pick up the slack ? ''in truth , we have absolutely no idea , '' one ministry official admitted . adieu to microchips many of the same doubts surround japan 's electronics industry , which supplies critical components to virtually every computer , automobile , defense system and piece of sophisticated machinery in existence . by historical accident the two regions of the world that supply chips to world markets , japan and silicon_valley in california , both sit on top of faults . that fact alone has already inspired the plots of a james_bond movie and scores of corporate disaster plans . but experts here say it is nearly impossible to determine whether world shortages would last for months or for years . so tokyo is back to guessing . all summer the izu peninsula , a vacation area to the south of tokyo , has shaken with tens or hundreds of tremors in a day . after one good jolt hit tokyo a few weeks ago , a solemn faced member of parliament went on television to offer assurance that a government committee was ' 'monitoring the situation . '' he did not specify what the committee planned to do . meanwhile , the rest of japan , in its own precise way , is leaving nothing to chance . at one of the drills thursday morning , everyone who stepped up to a simulated bedroom window , flung it open and yelled ''earthquake ! put out flames ! '' was given a printout showing the decibel level of the warning . next year , presumably , they can check for improvement .",has a topic of science
"six months ago , in a sleepless , adrenaline fueled rush of last minute dealing in kyoto , japan , delegates from around the world agreed for the first time to make specific , legally_binding reductions in industrialized_countries' emissions of heat trapping gases believed to affect earth 's climate . now , in something of a morning after , what have we done state of mind , negotiators grappling with the details of putting the first cuts into effect are finding the task as difficult as that of hammering out the original accord . as they made their first formal efforts to flesh out the kyoto accord in talks here over the last two weeks , it became clear that the agreement remains largely a work in progress . thanks to the same clash of interests that nearly scuttled the negotiations in kyoto , the work may not be finished for quite some time . before the kyoto meeting took place , said michael zammit cutajar of malta , who heads the united_nations climate secretariat , the initial agreement was seen as a kind of summit to be reached . but ''when we got to kyoto , we saw it was n't a peak at all but a plateau . '' with a new mountain ahead , he added , ''we are not anywhere near the top . '' as the next phase of the struggle got under way , developing_countries renewed their insistence against submitting to specific , mandatory emissions caps until wealthier nations achieve reductions . that left open the question of whether the poorer nations can be drawn more fully into the reduction program anytime soon . if not , american politicians say , the kyoto_protocol , as the agreement is called , cannot be approved by the united_states_senate . the talks here set the stage for the next high level conference of the more than 150 countries that signed the 1992 treaty under which the kyoto_protocol was negotiated . the conference is scheduled for buenos_aires in november . its main objective will be to make as much progress on the details of the protocol as possible . the kyoto_protocol requires industrialized_countries to reduce emissions of carbon_dioxide and five other heat trapping atmospheric gases by an annual average of about 5 percent below 1990 levels for the period 2008 through 2012 . some countries are to cut their emissions by more than that , some less . the united_states' reduction target is 7 percent . carbon_dioxide is produced by the burning of fossil_fuels like coal and oil . the kyoto targets are widely viewed as a first step , since overall concentrations of greenhouse_gases in the atmosphere will continue to rise if deeper cuts are not eventually made . without any reductions at all , scientific advisers to the delegates here say , the earth 's average surface temperature will rise by 2 to 6 degrees_fahrenheit , with a best estimate of 3.5 degrees , by 2100 . a warming of this magnitude , the scientists say , would cause the sea_level to rise and inundate many coastal areas . it would also worsen droughts and rainstorms , cause more heat waves and floods , increase precipitation generally and shift climatic and agricultural zones . for the countries here , the immediate challenge is to enable the first steps included in the kyoto accord to be taken . that involves agreeing on how new mechanisms for cutting emissions will work in practice . one , which negotiators have named the clean development mechanism , is a system for channeling and certifying rich countries' investment in emissions reducing projects in poor countries power_plants that emit less carbon_dioxide , for instance . the two nations involved would share the credit for emissions reductions achieved , and part of the proceeds would help the developing_countries adapt to climatic change . another mechanism is called emissions trading . in this system , much favored by the united_states , a country or private company could achieve its reductions target partly by buying reductions from a country or company with excess cuts . proponents say this arrangement would work globally , and at lowest cost . these two mechanisms are the operational heart of the protocol , and both came under criticism in the talks just concluded . developing_countries balked , resisting pressure to move rapidly until questions about the mechanisms are answered . what is required now is ''to learn and understand , '' said vijai sharma , the chief delegate from india , who said that much had been unclear in the chaos of kyoto . answering the questions and then formulating rules for operating the mechanisms ''is going to take long , '' he said . one reason for the developing_countries' caution is that they are likely , eventually , to come under the same rules as the rich nations . and many delegates from the poorer countries say privately that while the clean development mechanism holds apparent benefits for them , it is unclear what the costs might be . on emissions trading , a split developed between the european_union and much of the rest of the industrialized world , including the united_states , over the critical issue of how much of a given country 's reduction it should be allowed to achieve by purchasing emissions rights from another country . the europeans insisted that some cap be placed on the proportion of a country 's reduction that can be achieved through trading . the united_states and other countries insist just as strongly that trading should be unrestricted . otherwise , they say , the market mechanism will not function properly and the cost of reductions will rise . the americans say it is simply not yet known how much emissions can be reduced by domestic action .",has a topic of science
"lead the next space_shuttle mission will carry aloft an 11 ton spy_satellite meant to peer down on iraqi troops and military gear involved in the persian_gulf crisis , an industry journal reported yesterday . the next space_shuttle mission will carry aloft an 11 ton spy_satellite meant to peer down on iraqi troops and military gear involved in the persian_gulf crisis , an industry journal reported yesterday . the united_states already has a small fleet of spy_satellites that can monitor iraqi troop_movements night and day , see through camouflage and hear the most sensitive battlefield communications . a new satellite would bolster those abilities . the secret military mission of the shuttle atlantis , now scheduled for nov . 10 from cape_canaveral , fla . , will loft an imaging satellite that will ''focus on the persian gulf_region to provide both strategic and tactical reconnaissance information for desert shield air and ground commanders , '' aviation week space technology reported in its oct . 22 issue . ''desert shield'' is the military 's name for the mission to defend saudi_arabia from possible attack by iraqi troops who invaded_kuwait on aug . 2 . aviation_week reported that the spy_satellite is code named air_force project 658 , weighs 22 , 000 pounds when fully fueled and carries cameras that radio pictures back to earth rather than sending back exposed film . the satellite , it said , would be deployed from the shuttle atlantis and boosted into an orbit 460 miles high . the journal also reported that the shuttle would be launched from cape_canaveral with an inclination to the earth 's equator of 28 . 5 degrees , which would be unusual for a mission to deploy a photographic spy_satellite . typically , these satellites go into higher inclination orbits so they can peer at a larger part of the earth 's surface , including much of the soviet_union . able to spot license_plates john e . pike , director of space policy for the federation of american scientists , a private group based in washington , said the shuttle mission would almost certainly launch a spy_satellite but that it might be one for monitoring electronic communications rather than taking pictures from space . the american government has about five picture taking craft that orbit hundreds of miles above the earth and beam photographic images back to the ground , all of them presumably spending some time peering down on the crisis zone . the most powerful of these satellites is said to be able to spot license_plates on cars and trucks . in addition , the government has a pair of listening satellites that eavesdrop on communications . reconnaissance experts , including former government intelligence officials , say the spy_satellites could give the united_states a decisive advantage if the current standoff in the middle_east turns violent , revealing the positions of troops , tanks , gun emplacements and other military hardware . spy_satellites have already played key roles in the crisis . president_bush 's decision to deploy american_troops to saudi_arabia was reportedly sealed by intelligence reports of menacing buildups of iraqi military units and signs the iraqis were loading chemical_weapons on aircraft . and the saudis decided to permit the stationing of american_troops on their land after such intelligence data were shared with them . only the united_states , the soviet_union and china now possess spy_satellites , although several nations are trying to acquire them . mideast_tensions",has a topic of science
"the crewmen who have manned the international_space_station for five months said today that they would miss it but were eager to head home now that their replacements had arrived . the crew of two americans capt . kenneth d . bowersox of the navy , the station commander , and dr . donald r . pettit , science officer and a russian flight_engineer , nikolai m . budarin , is to return to earth this weekend after an extended stay caused by the columbia accident . originally scheduled to be picked up in march by an american shuttle , before the fleet was grounded , the crew will go home in the russian soyuz_spacecraft that was their emergency lifeboat . they will leave the station on saturday after handing over the keys to a two man replacement crew that arrived on monday in another soyuz , a russian astronaut , yuri i . malenchenko , and his american counterpart , dr . edward t . lu . ''i 'm going to miss the station a lot , '' captain bowersox said in an orbital news conference featuring both crews . ''i kind of feel like i am being kicked out of my apartment for not paying the rent . '' ''but when i get back to earth , the best part is going to be , to be able to hug my wife and hug my kids , '' he added . dr . pettit will be reunited with 2 year old twin boys who were not talking in sentences when he left . ''i have never been with them when they have been talking , '' he said , adding that he also was ''looking forward to some good home cooking . '' mr . budarin , who celebrated his 50th birthday today , thanked his family and others for presents delivered by the replacement crew . ''this is a big number for me , five zero , and good to share with family and friends , '' he said . captain bowersox and dr . pettit said they were looking forward to being the first nasa astronauts to land in a soyuz space capsule , which is to parachute down into an open field in kazakhstan in central_asia . ''i 'm actually sort of excited about it , '' captain bowersox said . ''it will be a very interesting life experience . '' mr . malenchenko said landing in a soyuz was very different from coming home in a space_shuttle . the soyuz landing involves greater pulls of gravity on the body , jarring rocket firings , swinging under a parachute and hitting the ground after the last minute firing of braking rockets . ''it 's a pretty big difference , '' mr . malenchenko said , ''landing by shuttle is a pretty comfortable landing , like commercial airplane . ''",has a topic of science
"having endured arctic storms , dangerous fissures in the ice pack , polar bear intrusions and a year of crushing pressure while frozen into a drifting floe , the canadian icebreaker des groseilliers reached prudhoe_bay , alaska , over the weekend . aboard the vessel was a rich cargo of data expected to reveal subtle mechanisms that drive changes in the world 's climate . the ship 's arrival on saturday marked the end of a yearlong round of experiments paid for mostly by the national_science_foundation , with support from the office of naval research and the japanese government . the 19 . 5 million project , called sheba , for surface heat budget of the arctic ocean , was a detailed measurement of heat flow among the water , ice and air of the arctic , and the results are expected to improve the mathematical modeling of global climate change . sheba , administered by the university of washington , was the largest and most complex project ever supported in the arctic by the national_science_foundation . in a telephone call from the ship , dr . richard e . moritz of the university of washington , director of the project , said the atmospheric , oceanic and geophysical scientists who spent part of the year aboard the floating laboratory would spend several months compacting and analyzing the data collected by thousands of sensors on and around the ship . the investigators will meet in tucson , ariz . , at the end of january to begin consolidating their findings , dr . moritz said . some preliminary results include indications that the entire year was markedly warmer than past years . the ocean was open much farther_north than normal , and the ice began breaking up sooner than normal in the spring . moreover , the salinity of ocean surface water was low , indicating that the water was mixed with an unusually large proportion of fresh_water from melting ice . dr . moritz said the warming_trend may have been mainly the result of the recent el nino climate event in the pacific_ocean , but could also reflect a global_warming trend . dr . donald perovich , sheba 's chief scientist on loan from the army 's cold regions research and engineering laboratory , in hanover , n.h. , said the research year had been eventful . ''we had a real scare during the winter when our headquarters floe started to break up , '' he said . ''one of our ice camps near the ship broke away and drifted a half mile from the ship in less than an hour . '' from the point at which the ship was intentionally embedded in ice 320 miles north of deadhorse , alaska , a coastal village 200 miles southeast of point barrow , the icebreaker drifted about 1 , 800 miles before her powerful engines were started and the vessel headed for land . ''toward the end of the summer , '' dr . perovich said , ''the ice had melted so much that thin patches barely covered the water . '' ''scientists were constantly falling through into the nearly freezing water 11 , 000 feet deep so everyone took to wearing flotation devices while working , '' dr . perovich said . ''sometimes we had polar bear visits , '' he added . ''once , a mama bear was instructing her cub how to floss its teeth with a cable strung out to one of our sensors , and we had to chase them away with a tractor . ''but it was a wonderful project . ''",has a topic of science
"as a giant soyuz rocket thundered toward the badly_damaged mir_space_station , carrying a crew to undertake crucial repairs , the three astronauts aboard_mir struggled tonight with the latest in its seemingly_endless string of calamities . earlier today , russian space officials disclosed that both oxygen generators aboard the aging spacecraft have failed and that the crew has been forced to create oxygen by lighting special chemical ''candles . '' officials at mission control stressed that the crew was in no danger and that the chemical procedure could supply oxygen to last as long as two months . but the announcement of the latest mishap , as the repair vessel entered orbit toward the station after its launching today , dealt yet another blow to the pride of the russian space_program . ''yes , of course i am worried , '' said viktor blagov , the usually unflappable deputy flight director at mission control outside moscow , said of the failure of the second generator , which occurred on friday but was not made public until today . ''but this has happened many times before . they will be able to breathe and we will solve this problem once again . they have all been through worse . '' that assertion would be hard to dispute . mir has been so plagued by problems this year that russian priests have publicly discussed their concern that the station and its crew might be cursed . ''you have to give them credit for fixing these things , '' said a senior american space official in moscow who spoke on condition of anonymity . ''but it does sort of make you wonder which accident will be the one to knock it out of the box . '' it is a concern echoed in washington this year , as increasing numbers of officials there worry aloud about the united_states' collaboration in a program that seems unable to pass a week without a serious mishap . even before an unmanned cargo_ship crashed into the station in june , disabling one of its central sections , mir and its crew had been challenged this year more than at any time in its 11 years in orbit . the crew has been through a fire in february ( caused when one of the oxygen canisters they now must rely on burst into flames ) that filled the station with smoke and fumes . the oxygen generators broke once more in march , forcing the crew to return to the chemical canisters . in april , coolant seeped into the primary air purification system , causing it to fail . on june 25 , the supply ship smashed into the side of the spektr module , draining all air pressure and forcing the crew to seal the section from the rest of the 100 ton craft . that accident caused about half of the station 's power to fail . by july , the mission commander , vasily_tsibliyev , displayed heart irregularities and effects of psychological stress severe enough for mission control to relieve him from work to repair the station . soon after , the crew accidentally disconnected a cable that helped power the craft . ''there have been many problems up there , '' said kathleen maliga , the nasa spokeswoman at mission control here . ''but there will be problems on the international_space_station , too . this training will be invaluable for us in the future . '' many space experts agree with her . russian technology may be lagging mir is routinely compared to a giant tinker toy floating in space and its problems likened to the dilapidated old jalopies so commonly seen on russian roads . but so far , solutions have always been found . that may explain why nobody bothered to announce the failure of the main oxygen system until today . it has happened often in the past and it has always been fixed before a crisis developed . there are three principal ways of providing oxygen to the space_station . when supply ships come up , as the frequently do , they bring bottled oxygen that is then released into the station . that lets the crew breathe freely without having to rely on the generators , which they can then shut down . the elektron generators are the main source of oxygen . there are two units , one on the module known as kvant 1 and the other , which serves as a backup , on another module , kvant 2 . the kvant 2 generator has been out of commission since the accident in june . it is new and in perfect shape but the accident forced the crew to cut off power to the entire module , including the oxygen generator . that left the other generator . it was shut down on purpose about a week ago because there was enough natural air from the last supply ship to make its use unnecessary . when the crew tried to fire it up again on friday they found it would not work . they do not know why . ''this is a very subtle system and it often happens that it wo n't switch at the first go , '' said mr . blagov . ''air bubbles could get into it for example and they would need to be blown out . '' if the crew cannot soon figure out a way to ignite the tank , they may have to try and bring new power to the one that has been shut down since the accident . ''that would mean rigging some version of an extension cord or something , '' a nasa official said today . ''they are still trying to figure out how that would work . '' without the elektron units , the ship must rely on the supplemental ''candles , '' which are actually canisters filled with lithium perchlorate , a chemical that creates oxygen when burned . about 70 of those canisters are aboard , enough to last two months , said the space agency . but the next two months will be critical for the future of russian space_exploration , and officials here said today that they could not rely_solely on chemical oxygen . that is because the new crew bound for the space_station faces a huge array of problems that will require them to take as many as six space walks in the coming months . the main purpose of the mission for the commander , anatoly solovyov , and his flight_engineer , capt . pavel vinogradov , will be to repair the spektr module , which was home to many scientific_experiments and served as living quarters for an american astronaut on the station before the accident on june 25 . on aug . 20 , captain vinogradov , who has never before flown in space , will put on a cumbersome suit and swing open the hatch on the deserted module for the first time in two months . he will then reattach cables to solar_panels that will help power the station . the technical work is not particularly difficult but it requires great dexterity in close quarters . both men have practiced the work underwater in bulky scuba gear . nobody can be certain what will happen when the module is opened . michael_foale , the american astronaut who was living in the module at the time of the accident , said he was hopeful but not certain that all his sharp gear was securely stowed . but there is no way of knowing whether the frozen conditions have caused something to explode . if so , and if the space_suit of one of the men is punctured while he works , he will almost surely die . still , that repair will only be the first of several such forays . on sept . 3 the two men are scheduled to take a space walk to examine the puncture that caused spektr to lose pressure . then , at another date , they will have to try to fix it . before leaving for mir today , captain vinogradov seemed undisturbed by the hurdles he faces . ''we are like babies in space , we 've just started to work there , '' he told reporters . ''we are only learning to work though we 've been there for 40 years already . but these are only our first steps . ''",has a topic of science
"vice_president al_gore and prime_minister viktor s . chernomyrdin of russia signed a series of agreements today providing for a major oil exploration project by american companies and calling for cooperation on the development of a joint space_station . the accords had been an importantfocus in three days of talks between american officials and the prime_minister . the meetings , including a session today between mr . chernomyrdin and president_clinton , helped set the stage for mr . clinton 's meeting with president boris n . yeltsin early next month in italy . under the terms of the 10 billion energy deal , russia gave permission for a consortium of american companies led by the marathon oil company to develop oil and gas reserves in the sakhalin islands off the pacific coast . the plans for cooperative efforts in space set as a goal the construction of a space_station that could have russian and american astronauts working side by side . the deals were worked out under the framework of a united_states russian commission that was established last year to explore opportunites for joint projects . among other agreements reached was russia 's pledge to stop making weapons_grade plutonium at its nuclear generating stations , although it remained unclear what assistance the united_states might provide to help russia convert to different power sources . mr . gore , who is co chairman of the commission with mr . chernomyrdin , described the projects as part of an effort to help the russians "" really get down to the nitty_gritty of what they need to do to make this transition to a free democratic country . "" in recent months the vice_president has courted mr . chernomyrdin , a former communist_party apparatchik seen by administration officials as a force for stability . the prime_minister 's meeting with mr . clinton opened a series of high level talks that will continue on july 10 in naples , where mr . yeltsin will join the president and other leaders of the group of seven industrial countries , and will resume at a formal united_states russian summit meeting in washington this fall .",has a topic of science
"a communications_satellite that will beam the first uncensored television programs into western russia and siberia began orbiting the earth today after being sent into space atop an unmanned delta 2 rocket . the boeing_company launched the 150 million project , after three days of technical delays , for hughes space and communications company of los_angeles , which built the satellite and a ground station for media most , a private company in moscow . the 12 story rocket was supposed to lift off on thursday , but it was delayed while workers replaced a fuel level sensor , resolved data relay problems with the satellite and removed a safety railing mistakenly left in place around the rocket 's main engine . the rocket was finally airborne at 6 54 p.m . eastern time today . some 74 minutes later , the rocket released the barrel shaped , 26 foot tall satellite into orbit 801 miles above the earth . the spacecraft will remain there for six days before a motor lifts it to its working spot about 23 , 000 miles above kenya . named after the media most subsidiary responsible for its operation , the satellite , bonum 1 , is the first russian satellite to be manufactured and launched in the united_states . it also is the first privately_owned russian satellite and the first not subject to military or government control . early next year , after its operating systems are inspected , the satellite will begin broadcasting 50 channels of news , movies , sports and children 's shows into homes equipped with receiving dishes . none of the foreign or domestic programs will be reviewed by censors for the state . the system has 200 , 000 potential subscribers in western russia and among russian speakers in israel , according to the associated press .",has a topic of science
"narumi nakagawa has plenty of problems , like a house that collapsed in last week 's earthquake , but as she sits on a futon in a refugee shelter , she is fretting about another painful quandary . friends have brought her so many apples and rice balls and other gifts that she can never get through them all . that creates the risk of an aftershock of horrible embarrassment what if a friend returned and found a gift moldering in a corner ? "" it 's tough , "" said mrs . nakagawa , who was surrounded by piles of food , water bottles , tissues and other gifts . "" i just try to hide these things , or i give them away . but everybody here in the shelter already has these things . "" a surplus of tissues and rice balls does not make up for the loss of a home and job . but it may help just a little bit , and many of the 300 , 000 homeless people have been moved by the outpouring of gifts from friends who trudge for miles to deliver the goods in person . while quake victims had little or no food and water for the first day or two after the earthquake , now the shelters are piled high with just about everything imaginable . the relief supplies include apples ( american as well as japanese ) , instant noodles , pickles , bread rolls and rice balls , to be washed down with hot_chocolate , tea or bottled_water . the shelters have also set up tables of donated clothing , with separate stacks for men , women and children . the rumor in the shelters is that homeless people from osaka are coming to kobe to pose as quake victims and claim the bounty . the homeless do not seem particularly grateful to the government for its relief efforts indeed , some complain about how lethargic officials were right after the quake . but the generosity of individuals , friends and strangers alike , is on everybody 's lips . "" everyone is bringing things to me , "" yoshiharu yamane , a shop owner whose home and stores survived undamaged , said in a tone of wonder . "" they 're bringing instant noodles , water , toilet_paper , fruits , vegetables , lots of things more than i can eat . "" one friend even brought me a truckful of gifts , "" mr . yamane added . "" it was a good thing it arrived at night , because if it had been daylight , i would have been really embarrassed . "" the gift bearers reached their peak over the weekend , when they became too much of a good thing the road between osaka and kobe became so clogged that even emergency vehicles , sirens wailing , could move at only a snail 's pace . at its worst , the one way journey from osaka to kobe , normally a 30 minute trip , took more than eight hours . so people hiked . they took the train as far as it went and then hiked for several hours an endless stream of hundreds of thousands of pedestrians lugging bags and backpacks . "" yesterday , my relatives came from hiroshima , "" said kishiko koyama , a 40 year old woman whose home is now a few square yards on the floor of a school gymnasium . "" they all wanted to bring so much , but it took them 14 hours to get here . so they got very tired along the way , and they gave things away bit by bit to other people , to lighten the load . so when they finally arrived , they did n't have anything left . but i still felt great seeing them come from so far . "" the postal system started free delivery of boxes of relief supplies , and so private citizens from all over japan began shipping clothes , food , even dog food . volunteers in kobe sort the packages and try to figure out what to do with it . gift giving is a ritual in japan , with the giver offering "" a silly little thing "" and the recipient hesitating to accept such a magnificent present . but traditionally in japan , philanthropy was directed more at one 's own clan or village than at anonymous disaster victims in general . this time it was different there was an outpouring of donations of goods and cash from people all over japan . and volunteers are now all over kobe , dishing out hot meals , washing laundry , examining patients . the japanese hearse drivers association even found scores of volunteers in kobe to cart off the bodies to other cities to be cremated . yukari kashima , a 22 year old from osaka , traveled to kobe with a church group and spends the day serving steaming miso soup and other food to earthquake victims . "" some people say they have n't had hot food in a week , so this makes me feel great , "" miss kashima said , beaming as she chopped up ingredients for the soup . some foreigners are among the volunteers , and some say the earthquake has shown them a new side of japan not the cool and reserved society that they sometimes ran up against , but rather a warm and caring oversized village , in which everyone rushes to help everyone else . hazel kaye lehmann , a norwegian zimbabwean teaching in kobe , said the earthquake had brought the people of kobe together in a way she had not seen before . ms . lehmann is volunteering at a shelter and has also started a foster_care service for pets left homeless in the quake .",has a topic of science
"when nasa said on monday that mir 's two main oxygen generating systems had broken down it seemed as if the russian space_station had suffered another humiliating setback . but the glitch was not so much in space as on the ground . and the problem was not with the russians , but with the americans . as nasa officials acknowledged today , the american space agency 's alarming report about the oxygen generating systems was out of date at the time it was issued . the two systems had indeed had problems , but the three crew members soon got them running again , regaining access to a fresh supply of air . ''it was based on information we got earlier in the day and accurate at the time , '' said rob navias , a nasa spokesman . ''by the time it was processed and released the russians had actually proceeded with the activation of the systems . '' technical problems are hardly new for the 11 year old mir . but for years many of them have gone largely unnoticed because news reports were preoccupied with russia 's terrestrial crisis . after mir 's collision with a cargo spacecraft on june 25 , all that changed . for the first time in years , mir 's operations have been put under a microscope . mir 's problems were a riveting space drama and a vivid test of russia 's ability to maintain its role as a space power . further , an american astronaut was aboard , fueling interest on the part of american news organizations . since nasa provided timely and useful information on the mir it soon emerged as a principal source of information . russian officials , in contrast , have not always been as forthright in disclosing the mir 's problems . that , plus the competitive interest of the news_media in ''breaking'' stories on the mir has created the potential for scoops and misinterpretations . cultural attitudes have also come into play . while russians have the world 's only space_station and are proud of their ability to repair it , many westerners associate russia with poor quality_control . the furor over the oxygen producing systems on the mir contained all these elements . the latest chapter opened on monday when nasa officials reported that the primary and backup oxygen systems had broken down , leaving the three man crew with several days' worth of oxygen . today american and russian officials said there had been technical problems with mir 's oxygen generation systems . but the crew succeeded in reactivating the systems before going to bed on monday evening . specifically , the crew reactivated the elektron system , which nasa said today ''has been running a little warmer than desired . '' the crew also successfully replaced a part in a unit that burns oxygen generating ''candles'' and ignited three of them . the candles are chemical compounds that release oxygen as a byproduct of combustion . the crew 's success in reactivating the oxygen systems , however , was not immediately known to the americans because the nasa team had left the russian mission_control_center near moscow before the last communication of the day with the mir crew . ''the ops team had left for the day because they felt there was no threat to the crew , '' mr . navias said in a telephone interview . ''if they felt there was a threat to the crew that would not have happened . '' back in houston , the out of date information about the oxygen system was processed by the nasa bureaucracy and issued in nasa 's daily ' 'status report'' on the mir . a nasa spokesman later described the situation as serious , though not critical . nasa 's statement prompted angry denials by russian space officials , who insisted on monday_night that the oxygen generating systems were operating . but a duty official at the russian mission_control_center declined to provide his name , or discuss any details and slammed down the phone . nasa , for its part , also had difficulty trying to get detailed , up to date information , a nasa spokesman said . today a nasa spokesman said the agency had learned belatedly that the oxygen generation systems on the mir ''were not out very long . '' nasa took several steps today to qualify its ' 'status reports'' on the mir . unlike previous reports , the ' 'status report'' today noted that its information was current as of ' 'midafternoon moscow time . '' also , the agency included a new caveat . for further information on the mir 's status , nasa advised , reporters should contact the russian mission_control_center . ''the mir_space_station belongs to the russians , not to the united_states , '' said mr . navias . ''we just have a passenger on board . there will be times when the media cannot rely on us for the most up to date information . ''",has a topic of science
"faced with growing criticism of its satellite exports to china , the clinton_administration is rethinking whether to allow one of the biggest sales to date , a 650 million deal president_clinton quietly approved two years ago . government officials said the pentagon and state_department were raising new questions about whether a chinese controlled company with close ties to china 's military should be allowed to buy the satellites , which contain some of the united_states' most sophisticated communications equipment . the satellites are the cornerstone of a commercial mobile_phone network planned for china and 21 other asian nations . american officials said their design included a powerful antenna that could eavesdrop on mobile_phone calls in china or other countries in the region . it could also be used by the chinese military to transmit messages through hand held phones to remote parts of china . antennas of these dimensions are a mainstay of the united_states' and russia 's eavesdropping satellites and have not previously been exported to china , though a sale to the united_arab_emirates is pending . they also can be used to extend the range of mobile_phones . mr . clinton leaves next week for china , and the administration had hoped to use the trip to showcase a variety of business deals and agreements , including cooperation on civilian satellite and rocket projects . meanwhile , the house continued investigating the export of space technology today . page_a6 . administration officials said concerns about the pending satellite sale had been deepened by american intelligence reports about shen rongjun , the chinese_army general who oversees his country 's military satellite programs . the reports quote the general as saying he planned to emphasize the role of satellites in gathering information . in an unusual arrangement , hughes space and communications hired general shen 's son , a dual citizen of canada and china , to work on the project as a manager . the company said it was aware of his familial ties it is not clear whether the clinton_administration knew . father and son were both directly involved in the project , and american officials said the intelligence reports said the general was pressing his son to move it forward . the new york times reported last week that the chinese military was sending many of its coded messages through american made commercial satellites sold to asian companies . china 's military satellite network collapsed in 1996 , when its first satellites wore out and the replacements failed to work as planned . president_clinton approved the hughes project on june 23 , 1996 , after advisers assured him the communications_satellite technology was readily available from european suppliers and would not contribute to chinese military capabilities . china already has a burgeoning cellular_telephone system , which relies on ground based transmitters . there are almost 1.5 million cellular_phones in beijing and shanghai , but the system is less developed in the country 's more remote areas , industry officials say . donald o'neal , a spokesman for hughes , said the satellites were ''inherently dual use , '' meaning that they have both civilian and military potential . ''the satellite is not designed for military application , '' mr . o'neal said . ''but i do n't know how you can prevent it . '' the federal_government could still stop the deal . mr . o'neal said hughes , which is part of hughes_electronics , a subsidiary of the general_motors_corporation , was waiting for the commerce_department to review its application to sell the satellite to the asian consortium , a.p.m.t . or asia_pacific mobile telecommunications . liu tsun kie , a spokesman for the consortium , said in a telephone interview from singapore that the satellite network would be marketed to civilians by regional telecommunications operators . it would be up to chinese government regulators , mr . liu said , to decide if china 's military could use the satellites . mr . liu predicted that the clinton_administration would eventually approve the deal . ''in view of the improving sino american relationship , as well as the close rapport established between the u.s . satellite industry and major industry leaders in china and the asia_pacific , '' he said , ''we are confident that a.p.m.t . will obtain all the necessary approval and export license to insure no delay in satellite launch . '' mr . liu said the project would attract more than 200 , 000 mobile_phone customers in china within its first two years . the two crucial steps in a satellite sale making a satellite sale to china involves two crucial steps that occur simultaneously . aerospace manufacturers must persuade the president to sign a waiver of the sanctions imposed on beijing after the tiananmen_square killings in 1989 . each project requires a separate waiver . at the same time , companies apply to federal_government agencies for permission to export specific technologies used in the satellites . satellite exports to the chinese military are banned , but sales to chinese companies are generally allowed , unless they would advance military development in areas like intelligence gathering and nuclear_weapons . mr . clinton granted the waiver for the hughes project two years ago and the company obtained the necessary export licenses . since then , however , hughes has changed the design to enhance the satellite 's capabilities , requiring it to return to the government for a new license . that decision is now before a government panel headed by the commerce_department and including officials from the pentagon , state_department , the arms control and disarmament agency and the department of energy . each department casts a single vote , with the decision made by majority_rule . a dissenting agency can appeal to the president , but that has never happened . a commerce_department spokesman declined to discuss the case , saying it involved confidential business information . privately , commerce_department officials are arguing that the deal should go forward because the design approved in 1996 is substantially the same as the current configuration , administration and congressional officials said . but some pentagon and state_department officials believe the license should face more scrutiny in light of the new information about general shen and the capabilities of the satellite . administration officials also said that the increased scrutiny by congress of the chinese military and american satellites has prompted officials to pay closer attention to exports to china . several congressional committees are investigating whether the policies on technology exports hurt the national_security . technical questions determine fate of deal the issue turns on highly technical questions . an administration official who disagrees with the commerce_department 's analysis said the hughes design is substantially different from what was approved two years ago . ''the antenna sent up the flags , '' the official said . ''it is more powerful than what we have licensed before . '' the antenna allows the satellite to receive incoming signals . but a sophisticated antenna , like the one currently under review , can become a listening device that is very effective against ground based interception efforts , government reports show . before 1996 , the pentagon could easily have stopped the license , because satellites were treated as military items and subject to state_department authority . that year president_clinton shifted jurisdiction to the commerce_department , easing the controls and lessening the influence of the pentagon , a senior government auditor told congress earlier this month . a.p.m.t . was organized in the early 1990 's . most of its stock was held by five chinese state owned entities china satellite launch and tracking control , a unit of costind , the scientific and research arm of the chinese military , the china aerospace corporation , part of the defense industrial complex , china resource holdings , a trading company that owns a bank in hong_kong with the riady family of indonesia , and subsidiaries of chinese electronics and telecommunications ministries . a small stake was held by a singapore company . in february 1996 , the consortium authorized hughes to proceed with the design and construction of a sweeping mobile satellite telecommunication network that would span 22 countries in asia and the pacific , from pakistan to indonesia . china 's own space_program both rockets and satellites was then under severe strain . a chinese rocket exploded shortly after liftoff in february . two months later , engineers from hughes and loral space and communications were brought in by insurers and china aerospace to help figure out what went wrong . the conversations that ensued between the companies and chinese technicians are now the subject of a criminal investigation , which is seeking to determine whether american export laws were violated . both companies deny wrongdoing . while china was trying to repair its rocket program , its satellites began to fail . the first domestically produced satellites , launched by the chinese military in the early 1990 's , were wearing out , and the first replacement , built in cooperation with the german company daimler_benz , had failed to achieve proper orbit after its 1994 launch . in early 1996 , all this led china 's most senior military official , gen . liu huaqing , to discuss his concern with general shen , who until a recent reorganization was a senior costind official and oversees china 's satellite and rocket launching programs , american officials said . general shen and general liu have publicly promoted satellite technology as crucial to the future development of china 's military capabilities . general shen has privately assured his colleagues about his ability to fix china 's satellite problems and improve the military 's surveillance and intelligence gathering capabilities , american officials said . at about the same time , there were concerns within hughes and a.p.m.t . over the how long it was taking president_clinton to make a decision about the deal , mr . o'neal and american officials said . commercial satellite exports to china have been banned since the killings in tiananmen_square in 1989 , but the president can waive the prohibition , which presidents george_bush and clinton have done 20 times . 'expedited handling' of waiver was sought hughes officials wanted ''an expedited handling'' of the waiver in order to meet a contractual deadline , mr . o'neal said . and recently released white_house documents show that the company hoped to have the president sign off on the deal before hughes' chairman left china on june 19 , 1996 . the staff memorandum that the president relied on to approve the deal made no mention of the loral hughes help for china 's rocket program . three weeks before the memorandum to the president , the state_department had alleged , in a letter to hughes , that there had been a violation of the arms export control law during the rocket accident review . the president granted the waiver on june 23 . soon after the presidential action , hughes received a license to export a satellite . later that summer , hughes applied for another export license that would allow shen jun , the son of general shen , to work on projects subject to united_states export controls , including the a.p.m.t . project , mr . o'neal said . ''we applied for and received an export license that allowed him to participate as a translator in the a.p.m.t . preliminary design review , '' mr . o'neal said . mr . shen was hired in 1994 by hughes for his computer expertise , though the company was also aware of his family_ties before he joined the company , mr . o'neal said . general shen has been involved in the a.p.m.t . project as the overseer of the chinese launch and tracking company and his son has given hughes marketing advice about china and technical advice about mobile_telephone networks , mr . liu and a hughes executive said . mr . o'neal said he had no comment on the shen family discussions because ''anything he said to his dad is personal . '' despite all the flurry of activity in mid 1996 between hughes and a.p.m.t. , the deal bogged down amid internal squabbles . but by this year the pace had picked up again and last month the consortium reorganized itself and signed another deal with hughes for an upgraded satellite . the new satellite will have greater power to transmit and receive signals . its payload includes a large scale antenna reflector and a digital on board processor , mr . liu and mr . o'neal said . the antenna and processor enable the consortium 's network to pinpoint low power hand held phones and simultaneously handle 16 , 000 phone conversations . mr . liu said that the regional affiliates ''will be able to intercept calls if required by local authorities'' but the consortium will not be able to intercept . as a result of the recent reorganization , the consortium is now two thirds owned by its chinese affiliate , china a.p.m.t. , said mr . liu , the consortium 's deputy president . china a.p.m.t. , in turn , is owned by the same five chinese entities , including the costind unit , and it will be the local a.p.m.t . franchise in china . the president of a.p.m.t . and china a.p.m.t . is li baoming and a.p.m.t . 's chief engineer is feng ruming . mr . liu said both men have senior posts with the china satellite launch and tracking control corporation , the unit of costind overseen by general shen . american intelligence reports say mr . feng and mr . li are top military officers , according to administration officials . mr . o'neal said that hughes was ''not aware'' of a.p.m.t . 's military ties and while ''there could be'' some , it was up to the federal_government to vet those connections . that is precisely what is now happening .",has a topic of science
"lead a strong earthquake hit the capital and much of northern japan today , killing one person and injuring another , shaking buildings and briefly halting some train and airline service , officials said . a strong earthquake hit the capital and much of northern japan today , killing one person and injuring another , shaking buildings and briefly halting some train and airline service , officials said . the quake , registering 5.6 on the richter_scale , hit at 9 27 p.m . a spokesman for the meteorological agency said . the agency placed the epicenter 60 miles north of tokyo . a local fire department official said that a 78 year old man died at a hospital in matsudo , east of tokyo after a heart_attack , the japan broadcasting corp . and kyodo_news service said .",has a topic of science
"a 400 million experiment in generating electricity in space failed because debris punctured insulation in a_12 mile long cord and caused a short_circuit , an investigating board said today . the debris may have been slivers of metal left in the manufacturing process or dirt on the mechanism that fed the cord into space , the board said . but it ruled out melting of the wire due to an electrical overload or a collision with space junk . the experiment , developed jointly by the national_aeronautics_and_space_administration and the italian space agency , was carried out by the crew of space_shuttle_columbia in february . the tether , with a half ton satellite at the end , had been played out to nearly its full length when it broke . only the charred , frayed end of the braided copper , nylon and teflon like line was left in the deployment mechanism . until the accident , the system had worked better than expected , generating up to 3 , 500 volts of electricity as the metal ball and the cord swept through earth 's magnetic field . kenneth j . szalai , chairman of the failure board and director of nasa 's dryden flight research center , said , examination of the remnants of the cable showed "" a significant amount of foreign contamination . "" "" two of the four copper wires were burned through , "" he said . "" most of the covering was burned away . "" nicks extended halfway through the fine wires , he said . mr . szalai said some of the flaws were found in tests made in a vaccuum on the short length of tether that remained in the shuttle . he conceded that no one thought of conducting the tests before the flight . "" the vulnerability was not appreciated , "" he said . "" the threat to the insulation was not appreciated . "" but , he said , "" nothing in our work says people should stop working on an electronic tether . "" such a device would be enormously useful on a space_station in orbit for years . the board 's report said that although the damaged area of the insulation was destroyed by burning , it found sufficient evidence "" to establish foreign object penetration , or damage "" to the layer of the teflon like insulating material , in manufacturing or handling . the cord broke off inside a tower that was being used like a fishing rod to release the satellite into space . the tether experiment was being tried for a second time . four years ago , the cord jammed at 840 feet and the combination generated a feeble 40 volts . despite the latest failure , carlo bonifazi , the italian space agency representative on the board , said , the test showed that it was feasible to generate electricity . mr . szalai said tests showed debris , both metallic and nonmetallic , within the insulation layer and foreign material near the failed end . the contamination , was found only in the examination process . the deployment mechanism , too , had metallic debris large enough to puncture the insulation . there even were small metallic shavings at the back of small screw holes in the boom assembly . "" manufacturing and inspection records show that the tether fabrication task was very difficult , "" the report said . "" numerous problems were encountered in the extrusion and braiding processes of this very long tether . the fabrication of the tether was carried out in a normal manufacturing shop environment . """,has a topic of science
"as nasa officials testified that it was safe to send more americans to live on the troubled mir_space_station , members of the house science committee said today that further stays aboard the russian craft posed unacceptable risks . ''there has been sufficient evidence put before this hearing to raise doubts about the safety of continued american long term presence on the mir , '' said representative f . james_sensenbrenner_jr . , republican of wisconsin , the committee chairman . ''what will it take for russia to decide that mir has passed its prime or the united_states to determine that it 's not safe ? '' he said . ''does someone have to get killed ? '' frank culbertson , manager of the mir shuttle program for the national_aeronautics_and_space_administration , told the committee that agency officials were aware of drawbacks in dealing with mir , but still felt there was value in completing the last two of seven planned long term stays on the station by american astronauts . acknowledging that mir has suffered several major mishaps this year , including a fire , a collision with an unmanned supply ship and repeated problems with its computers and life_support systems , mr . culbertson said american astronauts could still conduct useful research and gain experience in operating a space_station . nasa safety managers have given preliminary approval to sending an american astronaut , david wolf , to mir next thursday aboard the shuttle atlantis to replace michael_foale , who has been aboard the russian station since may . a final decision will be made next tuesday , he said . mr . culbertson said many of mir 's reported problems had been exaggerated , such as the station 's tumbling out of control when its main computer has crashed . approaching a large model of mir in the hearing room , mr . culbertson , a former astronaut , demonstrated the slow movement of the station without computer guidance , saying that at its highest rotation rate it took mir six minutes to complete a rotation . ''if the computer fails , mir does not spin like a top , '' he said . mr . culbertson said the astronauts being sent to mir were his friends , adding , ''i take the safety of my friends very seriously . '' roberta l . gross , nasa 's inspector general , said , however , that she was still concerned about mir 's safety , based on an assessment she made at mr . sensenbrenner 's request that was completed last month . she said too much of the safety analysis of the project was concentrated at the johnson_space_center in houston and career employees there might be reluctant to give frank assessments to their bosses . mr . sensenbrenner , joined by the committee 's ranking democrat , george e . brown jr . of california , called for the nasa administrator , daniel goldin , to decide whether to send astronauts to mir and to accept responsibility if anything went wrong .",has a topic of science
"lead a team of canadian astronomers say they have found strong evidence of the existence of planets outside the solar system signs that celestial bodies 300 to 3 , 000 times as massive as earth are orbiting up to seven stars . a team of canadian astronomers say they have found strong evidence of the existence of planets outside the solar system signs that celestial bodies 300 to 3 , 000 times as massive as earth are orbiting up to seven stars . bruce campbell , a research associate at dominion astrophysical observatory in victoria , british_columbia , said that the objects appear to be ''giant gaseous bodies , not unlike jupiter . '' the objects must be studied further before they could be labeled planets , but their masses lie much closer to those of planets than of stars , mr . campbell said . the scientist spoke in an interview yesterday before presenting the work at a meeting of the american astronomical society and canadian astronomical society in vancouver , british_columbia . scientists have long tried to find planets outside the solar system , but previous claims that planets had been detected did not withstand scientific scrutiny . mr . campbell said he believes his evidence is stronger because of a new method that allowed detection of smaller celestial bodies , and because 7 of 16 stars studied showed evidence of such bodies . other astronomers said the data appeared promising . the new evidence is based on six years of observing 16 stars with masses equivalent to that of the sun . mr . campbell and his associates , gordon walker and stephenson yang of the university_of_british_columbia in vancouver , measured tiny variations in the speed at which the stars were moving , postulating that the variations would betray the gravitational tugs of bodies orbiting the stars . mr . campbell said they found clear evidence of bodies orbiting two stars . the bodies appeared to have masses falling within a range from that of jupiter to 10 times that mass , he said . if the objects are not planets , mr . campbell said , they could be stars or ''brown dwarfs , '' less massive than stars but more massive than planets . but the newly found objects compare more closely in mass to the planet jupiter than to those two alternatives , mr . campbell said . the question of whether the new objects are planets may depend more on semantics than new observations , said robert harrington , an astronomer at the naval observatory in washington . ''i probably wo n't call it a planet until i can get out and walk around on the surface of it , '' he said . but jupiter and saturn , composed largely of gases , would not qualify as planets under that definition , he noted .",has a topic of science
"this winter a 50 foot_wide strip of roger middleditch 's sugar beet field fell into the north_sea , his rich east anglian lands reduced by a large fraction of their acreage . the adjacent potato field , once 23 acres , is now less than 3 too small to plant at all , he said . each spring mr . middleditch , a tenant farmer on the vast benacre estate here , meets with its managers to recalculate his rent , depending on how much land has been eaten up by encroaching water . as he stood in a muddy field by the roaring sea recently , he tried to estimate how close he dared to plant this season . ''we 've lost so much these last few years , '' he said . ''you plant , and by harvest it 's fallen into the water . '' coastal erosion has been a fact of life here for a century , because the land under east anglia is slowly sinking . but the erosion has never been as quick and cataclysmic as it has been in recent years , an effect of climate_change and global_warming , many scientists say . to make matters worse for coastal farmers , the government has stopped maintaining large parts of the network of seawalls that once protected the area . under a new policy that scientists have labeled ' 'managed retreat , '' governments around the globe are concluding that it is not worth taxpayer money to fight every inevitable effect of climate_change . land loss at benacre ''has accelerated dramatically , '' said mark venmore roland , the estate 's manager . ''at first it was like a chap losing his hair bit by bit , so you 'd get used to it . '' but in the past few years , he said , ''it 's been really frightening . '' a report this year from the intergovernmental panel on climate change estimates that rising seas will force 60 million people away from their coastal homes and jobs by the year 2080 . another study , the stern report , released last december by the british_government , projected hundreds of millions of ''environmental refugees'' by 2050 . that category includes people whose land is ruined by floods and those whose pastures are parched by drought . most are expected to be poor people in developing_countries , like fishermen in asia or shepherds in africa . mr . middleditch , a grizzled , balding man in wellington boots , and mr . venmore roland , with his upper_class accent , plush yellow corduroy trousers and walking stick , are certainly not typical of this group . but their plight shows that even here in europe , livelihoods are being affected , particularly in rural areas . walkers and birders who frequent these famous broads , or salt marshes , will find that the hiking path through benacre that once gently declined from a low grassy plateau toward the beach , now ends in a precipitous drop of 16 feet to the water the rest fell into the sea in february . the 6 , 000 acre benacre estate is losing swaths of land 30 feet wide along its entire two miles of coastline each year . inland trees that were once sold for timber are dying or no longer commercially valuable , because the proximity to the salty sea air has left them stunted . farmers like mr . middleditch are losing fields and trying to adjust crops to an unpredictable climate . mr . middleditch is now planting hemp . in cornwall , in southwestern england , warmer and wetter weather has led farmers to experiment with growing jalape o peppers . as climate_change has accelerated erosion on the east_coast of britain , many scientists and politicians have decided that it no longer makes sense to defend the land . under the policy of managed retreat , farms , nature preserves and villages are surrendered to the sea . ''this land is very sensitive to climate_change because it is very low lying and does n't tolerate high temperatures like we 've had the last few summers , '' said david viner , a climate expert at the university of east anglia . ''the government will only protect land it thinks of as economically important , and on an economic level you can say that makes sense , but of course that 's not the whole picture . '' a landmark scientific report by the intergovernmental panel on climate change , released in february , predicted that warming caused by human activities could produce rises in sea_level of 7 to 23 inches , accompanied by much stormier weather , by the end of the century . in indonesia , the environment minister predicted that 2 , 000 of the country 's islands could be swallowed by the seas in 30 years and said that little can be done to defend them . in wealthier regions , vast engineering projects can often prevent the sea 's encroachment , mr . viner said , but the cost is often so high that it becomes politically unacceptable . here in the broads , there are conflicts about who deserves to be spared the effects of climate_change , and what should be sacrificed to the advancing water . local council meetings have pitted conservation groups against farmers landowners against environmentalists national politicians against villagers . then there is the question of who , if anyone , should compensate people for the land and income lost . farmers and landowner groups are calling for government payments and for a voice in deciding what must be saved . they would also like permission to build their own private sea defenses . last year , peter boggis , a farmer whose land abuts benacre , paid a contractor to add dirt to the bottom of the sea cliff that abuts his land . he was ordered to stop , after conservation groups said he was tampering with a site of scientific interest . farther up the coast , four or five homes from the village of happisburgh fall into the sea each year , as the cliff beneath them crumbles . while they appeal for help , the north norfolk district council and coastal concern action limited have started to shore up happisburgh 's cliff with rocks , financed in part by an internet campaign , ''buy a rock for happisburgh . '' ''the u.k . wo n't let london flood , '' mr . viner said , ''but the national government 's not going to worry about an odd village or farm . '' beccles journal",has a topic of science
"after darkness fell on the schoolyard , a dozen survivors warmed their fingers over a bonfire fed by pieces of collapsed houses . pitched tents competed for space with stockpiles of blankets , tangerine crates and unwieldy stacks of debris . "" it reminds me of the time after the war , "" said masakazu koga , 55 , throwing a kitchen cabinet door on the fire . "" everything is a wreck , and i do n't see how we 're going to rebuild it all . but the earthquake also drew us together . i 've seen generosity in people that i thought had disappeared from japan . "" mr . koga , a tailor , wears a white gauze patch on his forehead , where a sewing_machine landed when his home fell to pieces on tuesday . he is one of more than 2 , 200 newly homeless people who went to a temporary shelter in the motoyama daisan elementary_school in the last five days to look for a spare futon , and some empathy . many moved on after a night or two , and on friday night nearly 1 , 000 remained . hundreds of makeshift shelters have emerged in kobe , virtually wherever a public building still stands . beyond a hot meal and a roof , the shelters also offer the psychological analgesic of a place to share pain , about which japanese are ordinarily private and stoic . in classroom no . 2 1 at this shelter , a pale yellow carpet is barely visible in between the crowded rows of futons and blankets . with school desks pushed to one side and broken windows patched by cardboard , the unheated room provided a place for 20 people to sleep on friday night . before going to bed , they traded stories and exchanged sympathetic murmurs . "" i lived on the second floor , but now my second floor is a first floor , "" said sachiko hyuga . "" i go back every day to see what i can recover , but it 's dangerous . i 'm afraid an aftershock will topple the rest of it . "" kyoko sano , 5 , played among the piles of blankets with her brother ryo , 9 . although the sano family is now living out of four shopping bags , kyoko 's mother , kazuko , said she worried most about the psychological scars her children might bear . several of their young friends were killed , and mrs . sano is not sure how to tell her children . maybe when school resumes , probably in a few weeks , teachers will explain why some students are not there , she said . uncertainty seems to hover over everyone here . while people are quick to tell their stories , many pause thoughtfully when asked how long they expect to remain at the shelter . a week , mrs . sano said . a month , her husband guessed . on a street of houses that were mostly destroyed or upended in a part of kobe that was particularly hard hit , the school is one of the few structures still intact . it is the only one on the block with electricity , coming from a generator donated by a local businessman . there is no heat or running water , and a makeshift latrine is outside , where the temperature dropped close to freezing today . but there is plenty of food . it was scarce for two days after the earthquake , and some shelter inhabitants fought to get more than one small serving of noodles . by thursday the school began receiving donations from neighbors and from volunteers who are now streaming into kobe with backpacks carrying rice , fresh vegetables and fruit , even beer . the school 's principal , shinji nomura , runs the shelter almost single handedly , around the clock . but each makeshift dormitory has a leader who attends four short meetings a day with mr . nomura to share information , and dozens of other refugees have come forward to help . "" on the second day , a liquor_store owner brought a huge bag of rice and then burned it , "" said miyako morimoto , 60 , as she prepared miso soup in a steaming caldron out in the schoolyard . "" so i decided i better step in . "" although she arrived as just another refugee , she now cooks for perhaps 100 each day , making soup specially for older people who prefer softened rice . at midnight she was still outside , chopping leeks . a dozen other sleepless souls huddled nearby at a bonfire late into the night , trying to find humor in the earthquake and the desperate situations it caused . "" i 'm a heavy sleeper , and when i woke up , half my furniture was on top of me , "" said a young woman wearing a bomber jacket . "" luckily i do n't have much furniture , so i was able to wiggle out from under it . "" yet desperation never seems far away . shortly before 2 a.m. , a heavyset woman wandered up to the fire , coatless and shoeless in the cold . she mumbled something about fires how they were dangerous and had killed people in kobe . as the others around the bonfire fell silent , the woman sang a campfire song and eventually began to sob . "" do you think i 'm mad ? "" she finally asked a woman seated next to her . the second woman led her away in the darkness . the others remained silent until they were gone . then the woman in the bomber jacket remarked that she felt lucky that no one close to her had died . inside mr . nomura , the school 's principal turned crisis manager , said matter of factly that more than 40 bodies had been stored in the school before cremation . eleven bodies still lay in classroom no . 1 1 . only six were in coffins , though , the rest covered by blankets and each topped with a pair of apples and sweet rolls . an elderly man slept overnight beside one coffin , perhaps a relative 's . himself sleepless at 4 a.m. , mr . nomura finally got around to picking up the pebbles from an aquarium that gave way all over the school 's entrance hall during the earthquake . "" the fish all died too , "" he said . he was interrupted by the arrival of three young men looking for a place to sleep , and showed them to a classroom with some space . "" i 'm not in a position to turn anyone away , though i wonder how long we 'll go on like this , "" mr . nomura said . "" as long as people need a place to stay , i think we 'll be here . "" quake in japan the shelters",has a topic of science
"despite the best efforts of the druids who performed sun dances barefoot among magic stones for the past several days , rain clouds , so often the spoiler of england 's summer , eclipsed the eclipse here today . at 11 minutes past 11 , the hundreds of thousands of people who journeyed here to the duchy of cornwall , breathlessly waiting in the gray morning to see the last total eclipse of the sun in this millennium , saw little more than dark rain clouds under a sky that got , well , darker . and the residents of cornwall , one of the poorest english counties , where much of the land is owned by prince_charles , were left with nothing to do but grumble over their pasties about an event that was supposed to benefit the local economy and instead left vacancy signs hanging from hotels and campsites . scare stories about traffic_congestion , lack of food and water and health concerns kept paying customers away . the cosmic event instead attracted a throng of new age travelers , pagans , druids and solar worshipers who offered little in the way of money and were left groping for meaning . ''it feels freaky , '' lucie mortimer , a coca cola company representative , said during the brief darkness . ''it 's like god left to go to the toilet for two minutes . '' most people here staring into the sky directly in the path of the 70 mile wide track of totality , the complete blotting out of the sun by the moon , had to face the fact that the weather forecasters were actually right . in typical british understatement , michael heys , who had driven 800 miles from the north of scotland with his wife and three boys , said , ''this is a little disappointing . '' his wife , sue , added ''i heard about the eclipse as a child and always wanted to go . but missing it is o.k . '' this being the 1990 's and another shot being unlikely because the next total eclipse in britain will not come until 2090 teresa feton , 18 , a student from lancastershire , was prepared . she had hedged her bets by setting her video recorder at home to tape the event on television . ''it 's our british weather , but it did n't put me off coming here , '' she said , huddling in her tent in the rain . many were still struck by the view they did have . ''it 's like one minute someone pulled the curtain down . '' said brian bennett , a high_school science teacher from warwickshire . ''it 's totally bizarre . '' soon after the moon interposed itself between the sun and earth here for a little over two minutes , the shadow of the eclipse whisked over the english channel at 1 , 800 miles an hour , beginning its journey across europe , the middle_east and asia . in paris , several hundred people popped open champagne bottles in front of the fashion_designer paco rabanne 's store to celebrate the city 's survival . mr . rabanne had predicted that the russian space_station mir would smash into paris during the eclipse . europeans , who had been hearing about the eclipse for weeks through a relentless series of newspaper articles , radio and television reports and plenty of commercial spinoffs , put special viewing glasses on cats and dogs . in kosovo , nato peacekeepers watched from their armored_personnel_carriers . and the pope , the prime minister of israel and the president of iran paused to be photographed watching the eclipse . but even the celestial majesty of the moment could not help undo the losses local businesses suffered from the lack of visitors to the cornish countryside . ''there is no question the media and the local authorities scared people off , '' said claude bennetts , who invested 150 , 000 , or 242 , 000 , in two campsites designed to accommodate 10 , 000 campers . fewer than 500 showed up . ''you could n't have created a worse problem if you actually tried . it 's happening all over cornwall . it 's not just me . '' eighteen months ago the county hired gage williams , a retired senior army officer , to oversee the logistics of the event , which mr . williams predicted would bring 1.2 million people to cornwall . now the local business community , in search of a scapegoat , is pointing at him . ''he has a lot to answer for , '' said john wells , a local mayor . ''he was a cannon ball that was n't programmed right . '' mr . williams , who could not be reached today for comment , told the cornish guardian , ''had we not highlighted the implications of unprecedented numbers coming to the county for the eclipse , we would not have galvanized those responsible into insuring that there will be sufficient food , nor would we have implemented the major improvements to the road network , which have now been put in place and from which we will all benefit in the future . '' traffic surveillance cameras , 250 extra police officers on motorcycles and coast guards on horseback patrolling the cliffs and beaches were part of the vast investment to monitor the hordes of visitors expected to come by road and water . supermarkets stocked up with extra food and supplies and extended their hours to accommodate . but just as the turnout failed to justify or repay all the advance work , no amount of planning could guarantee good weather . still , as a representative of the faithful , edward prynn , the selfappointed arch druid of cornwall , was surrendering no ground to the weather or the weather forecasters ''i had a vision last night that it was n't going to be a blue sky , but it was going to be a beautiful , silver majestic atmosphere . ''",has a topic of science
"when she gets back home and back in shape , dr . shannon w . lucid , a 53 year old biochemist who has been in space longer than any other american and longer than any woman of any nation , plans to ride her bike , visit a bookstore and go rollerblading with her daughter . for the past half year she has been dealing with the exigencies of sponge baths , space shampoo and dehydrated food in weightlessness 240 miles up , orbiting earth at 17 , 000 miles an hour . she has shown little but mirth at being in orbit much longer than expected , working on an array of scientific projects and helping build cooperation in east west space ventures . but it is no secret that she is longing to get back to her family and a few creature_comforts after living in a russian space outpost seven weeks longer than planned , her return delayed by a hurricane and shuttle problems . ( ''i miss things like potato_chips and junk food , '' she said in one of her broadcasts home . ) yesterday , her terrestrial hopes came close to fulfillment as the shuttle atlantis docked with the mir station to pick her up and drop off her replacement , john e . blaha . ( page a25 . ) dr . lucid appears fit , relaxed and close to her normal weight of 150 pounds . nasa officials have paid special attention to her weight because of the experience of her only other american predecessor on the mir_space_station , dr . norman thagard . dr . thagard , a 52 year old physician , was thin at the start of his four month mission and came back to earth more than 17 pounds lighter , causing some officials at the national_aeronautics_and_space_administration to fear for his health . it took him several months to recover his weight . in orbit , dr . lucid has been nourished by not only a customized menu of meals ( as well as a limited supply of junk food ) but also by daily contact with her family via electronic mail . occasionally , she also talks to them in televised sessions . ''that has made all the difference , '' she said in another news conference , discussing family communications . ''that 's just super . i have n't lost contact with them . i know what 's going on in their lives . '' and they know what has been needed in hers . her two daughters sent a bag of books on a russian supply ship . and for earthly use , they are keeping a scrapbook and a daily log of family events to help her enjoy the ones she missed . dr . lucid had planned to be home for the 21st birthday of her son , michael , on aug . 22 and for her daughter kawai 's 28th birthday today . ''but i told them we 'd make it up to them when i do get home , '' dr . lucid said . one thing the children have not missed much is her cooking . her other daughter , shandara , 26 , was once asked about the best meal made by her unculinary mother . she replied , ''domino 's . '' her son , who studies wildlife biology at texas tech university in lubbock , said in a telephone interview yesterday ''she says she wants to eat junk food and drink diet cokes and be cross at us . she said it 's a lot of work to stay in a good mood all the time . '' despite dr . lucid 's apparent good health and high spirits , nasa officials are eager to get her back on the ground and to begin a battery of medical tests to see how she held up under the unexpectedly long stay in weightlessness . nasa anticipates months of readjustment and lethargy and perhaps significant loss of calcium from her bones . mission controllers in houston traditionally wake up shuttle astronauts in the morning with music . this week , they played for the atlantis crew a recording of fontella bass 's 1965 hit ''rescue me , '' saying it was a message from dr . lucid . shannon wells was born on jan . 14 , 1943 , in shanghai , china , to american missionaries , joseph o . and myrtle wells , and grew up mainly in bethany , okla . during adolescence she became fascinated by stories of pioneers in the american west and studied hard to do some pioneering of her own . she graduated from bethany high_school in 1960 and received a chemistry degree from the university of oklahoma in 1963 . in 1967 , she married michael f . lucid , an oil company manager . she received a medical degree from the university of oklahoma in 1970 and a ph . d . in biochemistry from there in 1973 . an avid pilot , she was among the first six women selected by nasa in 1978 for astronaut training . she flew shuttle missions in 1985 , 1989 , 1991 and 1993 . now the most experienced member of either sex in the astronaut corps , she holds a number of orbital records . on march 22 she blasted off on an american shuttle for the mir station , two days later joining two russian astronauts , yuri onufrienko , 35 , and yuri usachev , 38 , the flight_engineer . she is the first american woman to fly aboard the russian outpost . she has pooh poohed questions about male chauvinism , saying she is a full member of the russian crew . but as a women she lives in a separate module of the 100 foot long outpost with its own lavatory . ''i do have all the privacy i need , '' she said , adding that she has missed hot showers . in july , when atlantis was grounded for six weeks to replace its booster_rockets , dr . lucid said she was untroubled by the delay but did talk of longing for things like m m 's . ''it goes without saying that i miss my family , '' she told reporters . ''there are a lot of little things i 've missed when i feel like it , going to the bookstore . '' three days later , on july 15 she broke dr . thagard 's american space endurance record of 115 days , 9 hours , 43 minutes . in august , she said , the news that nasa researchers had found what they believe to be evidence of ancient martian life ''filled up a whole conversation for us at supper time . '' the three talk in russian , but dr . lucid 's limited command of the language sometimes makes for balky conversations . her return home was delayed a second time on sept . 4 when hurricane fran caused officials to put off the shuttle 's launching . on sept . 7 , dr . lucid broke the women 's space endurance record set in 1995 by the russian astronaut elena kondakova . on monday , as the shuttle atlantis at belatedly roared into space to retrieve her , she told her family in a video link up ''it 's time to come home . '' with spirit , she added ''you can be assured i am not going to be on the wrong side of the hatch when they close it . '' woman in the news shannon wells lucid correction september 26 , 1996 , thursday a woman in the news article last thursday about dr . shannon w . lucid , the astronaut who has been in space longer than any other american , referred incorrectly to one of her advanced degrees . she has a ph . d . in biochemistry , not a medical degree .",has a topic of science
"the supreme_court ruled today that the claims of native peoples to vast areas of canadian territory and the natural_resources they contain are far broader than current law recognizes even without written treaties , complicating concessions for mines , timber and other resources throughout the country . in practical terms , legal experts say , the court decision will have no immediate impact on urban_areas in the western province of british_columbia , where native claims based on oral traditions for 22 , 000 square miles had been contested in a lawsuit that had dragged on for 10 years . but mining and timber concessions in the province could be voided if they have not been approved by the native people with claims to the land . and the ruling could force large compensation payments to be made to native groups for the rights to the resources on the land . whether the ruling will lead to a reinterpretation of the treaty terms in other parts of canada where treaties were signed many years ago is less clear . but the ruling was seen as a landmark in the way it deepens the legal standing of native peoples and their claims to the land , whether written or not . ''what it does is send a clear message to all of canada , '' said phil fontaine , national chief of the assembly of first nations , a national organization representing many native peoples . ''neither the government of canada nor any province can unilaterally engage in development without taking into account the first nations because these activities affect the fundamental rights of our people . '' one of the most important aspects of the judges' opinion is the way it clears up a longstanding dispute over traditional claims , a debate that some native people said at times bordered on being racist because it devalued the oral histories and traditions on which their culture is based . the supreme_court specifically rejected a lower court ruling in which native claims to land in british_columbia were denied . in the course of those proceedings , native people came to court to perform traditional ceremonies , chanting and dancing in ancient ways to relate the histories that had been passed down for untold generations about how they came to be on the land . the lower court flatly rejected the oral evidence . but in today 's unanimous decision , the justices made it clear that the lower court had erred . ''in practical terms , this requires the courts to come to terms with the oral histories of aboriginal societies , which , for many aboriginal nations , are the only record of their past , '' wrote chief_justice antonio lamer . in canada , the term aboriginal is used to describe native indian and inuit people , as well as those of mixed_race . in recognizing aboriginal titles to land , the court said native people not only have the right to occupy traditional lands , but are also entitled to use the land in ways not limited to traditional activities like hunting and fishing . the only exception was uses not compatible with the native people 's ''attachment to the land , '' such as strip mining . for the gitxsan and wet 'suwet'en people in british_columbia who are likely to be most directly affected ( the names are pronounced git sen and wet soh wetten ) , the decision today was a sweet reward after after pursuing their land claim in court for 10 years . ''we were given a diamond for christmas instead of a lump of coal , '' herb george , a spokesman for the gitxsan people , told reporters in ottawa . the supreme_court 's decision left open the possibility of a new trial in the lower courts , but there does not seem to be much appetite on either side for renewing the legal battle . the court itself preferred that negotiation , not litigation , be the path taken to resolve the long outstanding issues . ''let us face it , we are all here to stay , '' chief_justice lamer wrote in his decision . the federal_government , which has been involved in negotiation , saw the ruling as an affirmation of its approach . ''we have always felt that section 35 in the constitution protects aboriginal rights , '' said jane stewart , minister of the department of indian_affairs and northern development . ''it 's up to us to find practical ways to protect those rights . '' for the last few years , the provincial government has negotiated with 43 native groups who represent approximately 70 percent of the native people in the province , said john cashore , the british_columbia minister of aboriginal affairs . although native claims cover most of the province , mr . cashore said the government will cede no more than 5 percent of the province 's territory . he expected to resume negotiations with the groups involved in the suit . ''i do n't expect a new trial would be worth the cost , '' mr . cashore said . businesses reacted_cautiously . ''all the implications are n't immediately evident , '' said peter wypkema , director of government relations for the council of forest industries , a trade_association that represents about 130 forestry companies in british_columbia . ''we expected something a little more definitive . '' outside of british_columbia and parts of the yukon and the northwest_territories , where treaties also were not signed , experts believe today 's ruling could lead to a reinterpretation of existing treaties . ''the court 's decision opens the door for a new understanding of ancestral territory , '' said patrick macklem , an expert on native affairs and associate professor of law at the university of toronto . that might include the view that at least in some cases , treaties did not extinguish native rights , but merely surrendered them to the government .",has a topic of science
"new geological evidence in italy suggests that impacts of extraterrestrial objects , like asteroids or comets , could have been the cause of a mass extinction of life like the one in which the dinosaurs died out . that extinction is also widely attributed to an impact . scientists report in today 's issue of the journal science the discovery of shattered quartz crystals embedded in shale dating back some 200 to 213 million years , at the end of the triassic geological period . the shocked quartz , as they call it , is considered one of the most distinctive clues left by impacts of large meteorites or comets in the vicinity . the scientists said the patterns of shocked quartz and their relation to other geological and fossil evidence in the northern apennines in tuscany indicate that three closely spaced impacts seemed to occur at the end of the triassic period . this was also the time of one of the five most devastating times of extinctions in earth 's last half a billion years . in their report the scientists , led by dr . david m . bice , a geologist at carleton college in northfield , minn . , concluded , "" the occurrence of what we interpret to be shocked quartz in several shale beds leads us to suggest that multiple impacts occurred in the latest triassic , one of which coincided with a locally , and perhaps globally , significant extinction . "" dr . cathryn r . newton , a paleontologist at syracuse_university and a co author of the report , said in a telephone interview yesterday that this was the "" most tantalizing evidence "" so far linking extraterrestrial impacts with another mass extinction . geologists generally believe that such impacts played a role in the widespread extinction of life , including the dinosaurs , at the end of the cretaceous period 65 million years ago . a relationship between impacts and extinction was hypothesized more than a decade ago by dr . walter alvarez , a geologist at the university of california at berkeley and a former teacher of dr . bice . dr . alvarez also found his first clues in italy . his hypothesis gained acceptance when geologists began finding glassy particles and shocked quartz crystals in 65 million year old sediments throughout the world . although they concede that the impacts probably occurred , many paleontologists doubt that they were the main cause of the dinosaur extinctions . they contend that the impacts were only one of many complex forces driving disruptive global climatic change . recent exploration has identified possible sites where these particular impacts might have occurred , probably on the yucatan peninsula of mexico and surrounding water . dr . bice 's group said there was no clear evidence of where the impact occurred that was related to the shocked quartz found in italy . his research was conducted in the il fiume gorge near the village of corfino in northern tuscany . faint traces of the only extensive impact crater known from that period have been discovered in quebec and dated about 214 million years ago . dr . bice said the next step would be "" to see if we can verify our results in other sediments "" from the same period .",has a topic of science
"all through a long , hot summer , the fires have come , crackling through italy 's byways , marching like bright armies , scorching the earth and making money for some out of the devastation of others . by some government estimates , the summer 's tally could reach a record one million acres of burned woodlands , four times the figure 10 years ago . no sooner has one blaze been extinguished than another has come from the islands of sardinia and sicily to the mainland , 10 , 000 major fires have been reported devouring forest and farmland in the last two months alone , three times as many as in the same period last year . true , the weather has been furnace like and the grass tinder dry , vulnerable to every spark or discarded cigarette butt . but , said vito riggio , a senior government official , the police believe that more than half the fires were set by arsonists , some locked in vendettas , some pursuing frauds that turn burned woodland and olive groves into profit . the worst have consumed large tracts of sardinia and liguria , the northern province that forms part of the italian riviera , prompting speculation that after a spate of bombings in florence , milan and rome this year , a new "" ecological terrorism "" has supplanted the "" cultural terrorism "" behind the bombing of churches and art galleries . 'criminal plot' charged "" the flames that are devouring italy are the result of a destructive , criminal plot , "" said emanuele sanna , a sardinian official charged with defending the environment . this being italy , it comes as no surprise that in the cafes even in the newspapers some people say that the mafia is behind it all . the authorites have not produced evidence to support that theory , but seem in no doubt that , just as there is no smoke without fire , there is no fire without malign intent . "" there is no single cause , but the conclusion remains that a vast network of illegality is directed against the most defenseless part of our territory the forests , the countryside , "" mr . riggio said after meeting in rome on monday with prime_minister carlo_azeglio_ciampi to discuss the fires . in this lakeside resort , 35 miles north of rome , the fires , at one time , threatened homes on the hillside above the village , and helicopters flew in to scoop huge buckets of lake water and dump it on the blaze . south of rome , near terracina , last month , firefighting planes flew hours of sorties as great tracts of sardinia blazed . some attributed the fires here to conspiracies intended to circumvent italian laws forbidding the building of houses on agricultural land . once the land 's agricultural capacity has gone , however , houses may be built . after the fires , bulldozers "" this year seems worse , "" a longtime foreign resident said , "" but it is not new . one day you see the fires on agricultural land the next day the bulldozers move in to start housing developments . "" elsewhere , people have detected other motives . in sicily , for instance , on the flanks of mount etna , the island 's great and still active volcano , there is a "" vicious_circle "" of arson leading to reafforestation , leading to more arson to extend reafforestation contracts , pantaleone sergi , a reporter , said . "" the fires produce jobs and force the authorities to spend extra money and that money becomes a sea of gold for somebody , "" the sicilian journalist said . mario deaglio , an economist and political expert at the university of turin , wrote recently that just as mobsters in the city burn down stores whose "" rebellious "" owners refuse to pay protection money , outside the city "" the burning of land near a campsite or holiday resort punishes the rebellious tourism manager . "" sometimes , though , the motives seem more personal . in sardinia , tommaso cadau , a 41 year old jobless islander , was arrested this month and charged with arson . according to the police , he set a fire because he had been turned down for a job as a firefighter . a train 's trail of fire others , the police said , set fires so that they will find work as a firefighters putting out the same blaze as they started . some , like the brothers michele and aniello fucito , are accused of setting a fire to settle a long running family land feud on the sorrento peninsula near naples , only to consume vast tracts of land in the hills above their smallholding . one arrested arsonist was identified by the police as massimo fuoco , a name that could be translated literally as "" maximum fire . "" among the more bizarre if less conspiratorial episodes was the fire that started in the umbrian hills on sunday when people chartered a train to protest the closing of small branch lines by the state railways . to make a day of it , they hired five turn of the century railroad_cars , hauled by an equally antique , coal burning steam engine . but the sparks from the smokestack set fire to land in the hills near spoleto , according to newspaper accounts . curiosity turns to panic unaware of what was happening in their wake , the train riders rolled on toward lake trasimeno , waving genially to bathers on the lake shore , whose curiosity at the steam train 's passing turned to panic when sparks set fire to the grasslands fringing the beach . what made the blaze most unusual , though , was that the people who chartered the train were all members of the environment league , a lobby group that had earlier blamed "" the degradation and abandonment of the italian countryside "" for the summer fires . the long term results of the fires seem unclear . some italian farmers routinely burn the stubble in their fields as a prelude to the planting season , and elsewhere , some argue , bushland grows back . "" fortunately , "" wrote mr . deaglio from turin university , "" in spite of the rhetoric , the catastrophes are almost never irreversible . "" not everyone agrees , since ecologists argue that the fires destroy far more of the forest environment than grows back , so that italy 's woodlands are rapidly shrinking . the series of blazes , thus , has induced some soul searching . "" we are the only country in europe that treats fires as an emergency , "" mr . riggio said after his meeting on monday with prime_minister ciampi , who himself had made the incendiary summer one of the first items on his agenda after he returned to work from vacation . 'silly season' suspected mr . deaglio , by contrast , put it down in part to what reporters call the silly season , the months when real news is so scarce that stories of lesser moment take the headlines . "" as a consequence , the smoke from these fires does not thin but becomes one more mystery to add to those we have to live with in this country , "" he said . instead of pondering fanciful theories about the fires , he said , "" we should speak about them as palpable demonstrations either of the state 's lack of control over italian soil or of the inadequacy of public morality . """,has a topic of science
"in another serious setback for japan 's budding space_program , the government announced today that it would delay the initial launching of its next generation rocket by one year because of a recent accident . the rocket , known as the h ii , is the first to be built solely by japan , without reliance on foreign technology . as such it is a source of national pride and will be the first rocket powerful enough to let japan launch communications and weather satellites for other nations and private companies . but much to the embarrassment of this usually technically proficient nation , development of the rocket has been dogged by a series of accidents and delays , including an explosion in august that killed an engineer . the new delay of the first launching , from early 1993 to early 1994 , puts the program fully two years behind its original schedule and could hurt japan 's chances of competing in the commercial launching business against american companies and europe 's arianespace . "" this is a very big problem for us , "" said hiroshi imamura , a managing director of rocket systems corporation , a two year old venture owned by 75 japanese companies that was formed to offer launching services using the h ii . already , mr . imamura said , potential customers have been reluctant to sign up to use the h ii until it has shown it works . the latest setback occured during an engine test on june 18 at japan 's space center on tanegashima island . within seconds after ignition , liquid hydrogen fuel leaked , setting off a fire and explosion that severed some parts of the engine and melted others . the national space development agency of japan said today that it had determined that the leak started with a crack in a weld that joined a chamber in the liquid hydrogen fuel pump to an elbow shaped pipe leading to the fuel injector . it appeared the weld had been subjected to greater temperature fluctuations than expected , officials said . moreover , subsequent inspections revealed other tiny cracks in other welds within that engine and in other test engines , necessitating a complete review and redesign of part of the engine . "" if it was only in this particular engine , the problem would have been minor , "" dr . tomifumi godai , executive director of launch vehicle development and operation at the space agency , said at a news conference today . "" but we consider this a more comprehensive problem . that is why we decided we need a design change . "" dr . godai said it was not surprising that there have been problems building that type of engine , which uses liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen under high pressures . "" nobody in the world develops liquid engines easily , "" he said . "" it 's better not to have any trouble , but i think we are making steady progress . "" an american aerospace executive stationed here agreed . "" they 've tackled a very challenging engine , "" he said . "" when they get it completed , it will be as advanced as anything we have in the u.s . or france . "" still , for all its expertise in cars and computer chips , japan is not playing to its strength in the space business . for one thing , rocketry involves building a few very expensive items , rather than millions of inexpensive items , a task at which japan excels . moreover , japan is a latecomer to space , in part because of restrictions imposed by the american occupying forces after world_war_ii on developing military technology . japan did not launch its first satellite until 1970 , a year after the united_states had already landed on the moon . in previous rocket generations , japan has licensed technology from the united_states , but with restrictions that prevented it from offering commercial launching services . frustrated with that situation and eager to build its own industry , japan has been trying to become more self sufficient .",has a topic of science
"lead a japanese television_network said today that it had signed a contract with the soviet_union to send a reporter to the mir_space_station , the first journalist to report from space . a japanese television_network said today that it had signed a contract with the soviet_union to send a reporter to the mir_space_station , the first journalist to report from space . as part of the the unusual deal , the tokyo broadcasting system will reportedly pay about 12 million to the soviets to launch the reporter on a soyuz rocket sometime in 1991 . it is unclear whether the launching will take place before the first japanese astronaut travels aboard the united_states space_shuttle , in a flight scheduled for july 1991 . the network 's agreement with the soviet_union was signed monday in moscow , and it took the japanese government by surprise . until now , japan has taken part only in the american and european space programs , and its relations with moscow have been plagued by a territorial_dispute that has kept relations frosty . ''this is happening completely outside our own space_program , '' eijiro hirohama , an official of japan 's national space development agency said . ''we did not expect it . '' selling advertising the network was wasting no time lining up sponsors for its venture . ''what we are planning is six days in space , 10 minutes a day of a live broadcast , and 20 minutes of radio broadcast , '' toshio nakanishi , a spokesman for the network , said today . ''from now , we are already beginning to sell advertising . '' four years ago , the united_states announced a plan to send a journalist into space aboard the shuttle , and had begun to accept applications . but the program was canceled after the challenger accident on jan . 28 , 1986 . if successful , the japanese soviet mission will mark a major coup for both the soviets and tbs , one of the networks locked in a battle for japanese viewership . for more than a year , the soviets have been offering commercial launching services to companies in the west , mainly offering to boost satellites into space on its proton rockets . but so far business has been slow , in part because the united_states will not allow the soviet_union to launch sensitive american technology , including satellites . but the presence of a japanese reporter will help ratify the safety and reliability of the soviet space program , space experts here say . the network , engaged in a ratings war with the japan broadcasting corporation , or nhk , the giant quasi_governmental network that dominates japanese television , and with other privately_owned networks , also hopes to gain publicity and status . tbs officials say that they are hoping to time the launching to come on the network 's 40th_anniversary in may 1991 . tbs is japan 's second largest privately_owned network , after fuji television .",has a topic of science
"to the editor i too gave birth to my first child in britain and found it a wonderful experience ( ''so lucky to give birth in england'' ) . the visits from the home midwife and health visitor provided this first time mother with welcome support and reassurance , particularly as i was 3 , 000 miles away from my own mother . not mentioned were the baby and child clinics , which were the center for routine checkups and immunizations . if a scheduled appointment was missed , the health visitor would make a home visit to make sure all was well and to ensure that appointments for checkups and immunizations were kept . in britain , the midwives tend to view childbirth as a natural experience and not as a high tech medical_procedure . having had the privilege of a midwife assisted delivery there and an obstetrician assisted delivery here , i fully understand why american women are turning increasingly to midwives . holly h . cheeseman niantic , conn .",has a topic of science
"pieces of a meteorite that fell over a frozen lake in canada last january appear to be the oldest and most pristine extraterrestrial material yet found , geologists say , and may carry telling clues about the early solar system and the origin of life on earth . the first analysis of the exotic fragments , described in today 's issue of the journal science , showed that they came from an especially rare type or perhaps a new class of carbonaceous chondrites , the kind of meteorites that represent solar chemistry virtually unchanged over the last 4.5 billion years , since the birth of the solar system . scientists called it the most important meteorite discovery in the last 30 years . geochemists said the dark fragments , well preserved at subfreezing temperatures , were rich in carbon and nitrogen and included a scattering of tiny diamonds . these are grains of interstellar matter , debris from exploded stars that was implanted into asteroids at the time the sun and its planets were formed . scientists said the new object might be richer in interstellar grains than any meteorite yet studied . in a commentary accompanying the journal report , dr . jeffrey n . grossman , a geochemist at the united states geological survey in reston , va . , wrote , ''this provides a unique opportunity to expand our knowledge of the nature and origin of organic matter that may have accreted on early earth and played a role in the origin of life . '' an international team of scientists studied about two pounds of the best preserved pieces of the meteorite , which were recovered from the ice covering tagish lake in northern british_columbia , near the yukon border . dr . peter g . brown , a geochemist at the university of western ontario , in london , canada , was the principal author of the team 's report . to minimize contamination , the choice samples are kept frozen and otherwise protected at the johnson_space_center in houston . ''this is the only meteorite , as far as we know , that has ever been recovered in a completely frozen state , '' dr . brown said in a telephone interview . ''these are the most pristine meteorite samples on the planet right now . '' dr . gerald j . wasserburg , a geochemist at the california_institute_of_technology in pasadena , who has specialized in analyzing meteorites and lunar rocks , said that if the discovery had been properly interpreted , ''that would be fantastic , and i would almost mortgage my house to study a piece of it . '' the circumstances of the tagish lake meteorite 's fall to earth favored scientists . when it entered the atmosphere on jan . 18 , the object was probably more than 20 feet wide and weighed 220 tons . the friction of the atmospheric plunge shattered the meteorite and produced a spectacular fireball arcing across the northern sky . more than 70 eyewitnesses reported seeing the spectacle , and american military satellites closely tracked the trajectory . armed with these observations , scientists calculated the meteorite 's origins and entry velocity . they said it was probably a chunk off one of the many asteroids that orbit in a belt between mars and jupiter . it could have spent millions of years wandering through the solar system before being captured by earth 's gravity . of the nearly 1 , 000 meteorites recovered from witnessed falls over the last two centuries , dr . grossman said , only five have been of the rare class known as ci chondrites . such meteorites are extremely fragile , compared with the more common stony meteorites . the chondrites usually burn up before reaching the surface , or turn to mud or dirt when they come into contact with water . but this one scattered pieces in the winter , mostly over a frozen lake , and the cold preserved them from disintegration or contamination . and the black pieces were easy to spot on the tagish lake ice . it so happened that jim brook , a bush pilot and outfitter for hunting and fishing parties , lived in a cabin near the lake . on jan . 25 , he went out on the frozen lake and picked up several dozen pieces , altogether about two pounds of meteorite material . he had heard about the proper handling of such pieces and diligently deposited them in plastic bags and kept them in his freezer until they could be turned over to scientists . all but one of the fragments has remained frozen since they were collected , dr . brown 's team reported . this was critical , scientists said , because it prevented the escape of the meteorite 's many volatile chemical compounds , which can evaporate quickly at room temperatures . dr . brown said that some other fragments , after they had gone through cycles of thawing and re freezing , had crumbled or turned to mud . in their report , the scientists wrote , ''we tentatively conclude that tagish lake is a new type of carbonaceous chondrite . '' but they did not rule out the possibility , they said , that its unusual chemical characteristics reflected a pristine state of previously classified chondrites that had never before seen by scientists . dr . grossman said the tagish lake object ''will be the most important recovered fall'' since meteorites retrieved in 1969 in allende , mexico , and murchison , australia . those events , dr . grossman said , ''touched off a revolution in our understanding of meteorites and what they tell us about the early solar system . ''",has a topic of science
"as smoke pots simulating fires spewed yellow fumes from the buildings , military trucks rumbled today into shirahige nishi , a dilapidated quarter of tokyo , rushing in olive uniformed reinforcements for civilian rescue squads overwhelmed by the wounded . just when the action seemed to reach its peak , as clattering helicopters danced green against the blue skies above , this show 's director swooped in . following an elaborate schedule with clockwork precision , he visited neighborhood after neighborhood to view staged earthquake devastation . the choreographer of all of this action was shintaro_ishihara , the very pleased looking governor of tokyo prefecture who has long been known as a populist conservative showman . it was clearly a moment of glory for this politician , who had turned a boring annual earthquake readiness drill , traditionally held in early september in recognition of the great tokyo earthquake on sept . 1 , 1923 , into one of the largest military exercises most japanese have seen since the end of world_war_ii . the prime_minister had to content himself with a low profile visit to a basement command room of japan 's armed_forces to monitor the progress of the drill before rushing off to greet the visiting russian_president . but mr . ishihara , who flitted from one neighborhood to another all day aboard a red rescue helicopter , was fulfilling a nationalist 's dream returning the military to the national stage , and getting hugged by female admirers at every step . beyond the rope lines of eager supporters who waved to the governor all along his passage today , the appearance of more than 7 , 000 uniformed soldiers in the streets of central tokyo has also revived discussions of a militarist past that is fast fading from living memory . political activism may be feeble in japan , but pacifism here still runs deep . many japanese who questioned the need for a military drill on this scale said that they saw the exercise , tokyo big rescue , as being as much a public_relations operation for the military as a disaster preparedness drill . japanese politics have been inching rightward in recent years , these critics say , and one of the cherished goals of many in the governing liberal democratic_party is a revision of the constitution to allow japan to field a full fledged army for the first time since its defeat in 1945 . ''there are two purposes behind this exercise , '' said atsuo nakamura , an opposition member of parliament . ''ishihara wants to change the constitution , and turn japan into a big military country again . the other purpose is that japan is in very bad economic condition , and politicians like this are trying to blame people of other nationalities for our troubles . ''that is a very classic way of dealing with problems , just like hitler did . the japanese people are very nationalistic , and he wants to awaken this feeling to become more popular . '' the earthquake drill 's link to questions of constitutional reform , nationalism and xenophobia is the doing of mr . ishihara , who has made a career of right wing causes , from planting japanese flags on tiny islands disputed between japan and china to worshiping at shrines associated with war_criminals . in april , mr . ishihara set a divisive tone for the exercise while addressing members of the army . ''third country nationals and foreigners who have entered japan illegally have perpetrated heinous crimes , '' he said . ''in the event of a major earthquake , riots could break out , and there is a limit to the police 's ability to cope with such a situation alone . i want you to carry out your mission , not only to deal with natural_disasters , but also to maintain law and order . '' mr . ishihara has since apologized to tokyo 's foreign residents for his remarks , after having been reminded that as many as 7 , 000 koreans were killed by mobs of japanese troops and civilians during the turmoil of the 1923 earthquake after rumors spread that they were committing sabotage or had even caused the natural_disaster . his aides have since tried to focus the debate on the need to use the rarely activated army to assist in disaster relief . but his office continues to make xenophobic statements . ''generally speaking the koreans have made a good adjustment to this country , but we still have many illegal chinese who are penetrating this country illegally and are carrying out terrible crimes , '' atsuyuki sassa , a security adviser to mr . ishihara , said yesterday . ''there are iranians , and others . we have many new problems as a result of this . and what mr . ishihara was saying is that we must maintain peace and order in the case of a disaster . '' and yesterday , mr . ishihara himself dismissed critics of the drill as ''left_wing idiots . '' several associations of foreign residents in japan have responded warily to the drill , seeing it as the latest sign of mounting hostility toward other asians in japan . ''the right wing in japan has always been very hostile to koreans and chinese , '' said so chungo on , director of chosensoren , an association of residents of korean descent . ''these kinds of people feel that the past history of the military in japan is glorious . all we can do is hope that this drill is not aimed at us . more than 55 years has passed since the war ended , and the old ways of thinking should have changed by now as we enter the century of internationalization . the governor himself should be a leader . '' in shirahige nishi , an area of grassy plots and collapsing hovels chosen for the drills , kudo chisato , a lifelong resident , peered out from her shingled home , one of the few sturdy buildings remaining in the area . she declared the drills great entertainment as the first helicopters began appearing and firemen began extinguishing imaginary blazes with their hoses . but asked if such a show of force was needed to rein in lawless foreigners , she scoffed . ''i 'm not worried at all , '' she said , before referring to the 1923 quake , with its mob killings . ''what happened before was 80 years ago . the japanese are gentle now , and it is unlikely that foreigners would pose a threat either . ''",has a topic of science
"the chinese government publicly confirmed tuesday that it had conducted a successful test of a new antisatellite weapon but said it had no intention of participating in a ' 'space_race . '' the confirmation was made at a regular foreign ministry news briefing , 12 days after china used a medium range ballistic missile to destroy one of its own weather satellites 535 miles above earth . several countries , including the united_states , japan , britain and australia , pressed beijing to explain the test , apparently the first successful destruction of a satellite in orbit in more than 20 years . until now , chinese officials declined to confirm or deny that it had occurred , despite news reports last week that quoted bush_administration officials describing the exercise in detail . liu jianchao , the foreign ministry spokesman , issued the first official comment . ''this test was not directed at any country and does not constitute a threat to any country , '' he said . ''what needs to be stressed is that china has always advocated the peaceful use of space , opposes the weaponization of space and an arms_race in space . china has never participated and will never participate in any arms_race in outer_space . '' mr . liu did not say why the chinese_army had conducted the test . he also did not directly address concerns that the use of a missile to shatter a satellite in a low orbit might be perceived as inconsistent with china 's repeated calls to ban the use of weapons in space . beijing 's prolonged silence about the test , which american intelligence officials said took place on jan . 11 , raised speculation about its intentions and the circumstances surrounding the test . senior bush_administration officials raised the possibility that the silence might have reflected the autonomy and isolation of the chinese military . they said they could not be sure that president hu_jintao , who oversees the military as well as the communist_party , had personally authorized or overseen the test . on tuesday , mr . liu denied that officials had taken too much time before speaking publicly . ''china has nothing to hide , '' he said . ''after various parties expressed concerns , we explained this test in outer_space to them . '' japanese and american officials said china had not volunteered any information until they had made formal diplomatic inquiries , and then it had taken at least four days to get a reply . the first confirmation apparently came when christopher r . hill , an assistant secretary of state , visited his counterparts in beijing over the weekend to discuss efforts to revive six nation negotiations on north_korea 's nuclear_weapons program . sean_mccormack , the state_department spokesman , said monday that mr . hill had been assured that the test ''was not meant as a threat against anybody'' and that chinese officials had acknowledged that it had taken place . independent experts on the chinese military say china has sought a workable antisatellite weapon since the 1980s . one reason is that the united_states military depends heavily on satellites for missile_guidance , navigation and communications , and any widespread damage to that network could hamper military action overseas . china has long feared that the united_states might intervene in any military conflict with taiwan , and has invested heavily in new arms that experts say are intended to give it the power to attack taiwan while keeping american_forces at bay . but others say china 's intentions in conducting this test may have been more diplomatic in nature , intended to put pressure on the united_states to negotiate a treaty to ban weapons in space . russia and china have pressed for an international_treaty that would limit the use of space for military purposes . the bush_administration has declined to take part in such talks . over the summer , president_bush authorized a new space policy that seeks to preserve ''freedom of action'' in space , and he said the united_states reserved the right to use force against countries seeking to disrupt american satellites . xu guangyu , a former chinese_army officer and an official at the government run china arms control and disarmament association , said the antisatellite test amounted to an attempt to redefine the ''rules of the game'' and press the united_states into negotiations . ''what china is saying is , 'let 's sit down and talk , ' '' mr . xu said . ''there is a trend toward weaponization of space that no one , especially china , wants to see . ''",has a topic of science
"an astronaut aboard the mir_space_station mistakenly disconnected a critical cable today , disabling the guidance system that enables mir to gather solar_energy and causing yet another crisis for the trouble plagued craft . despite the accident , nasa announced today that it had granted permission for the american member of the crew , michael_foale , to train for a lengthy space walk to restore power from mir 's spektr module , which was damaged on june 25 in a collision with an unmanned cargo craft . after discovering the blunder today , ground_controllers at the mission_control_center outside moscow scrambled to conserve power on mir . ''shut it down ! shut it down ! '' yelled a controller as he urged the crew to turn off lights and climate control systems . using flashlights to find their way , the crew stumbled around in a clammy , darkened space_station . they were even forced to turn off the oxygen generating unit . nasa officials said several days' worth of oxygen is stored in tanks on the progress resupply vehicle is attached to mir . with this accident , the two russians and one american astronaut were back in almost the same situation as after the collision that damaged spektr . having shut down their communications , they were forced to shift to the soyuz space craft docked alongside to talk to ground control . those communications were not always pleasant . as the tension grew , russian ground_controllers lost patience with the fatigued crew . ''this is a kindergarten , '' vladimir solovyov , the mission director , muttered testily after an exchange with the crew . but the russian officials would not say which astronaut had made the mistake . for all of the problems , however , russian and american space officials stressed that the mishap was not life threatening . there were no plans to evacuate mir . indeed , russian and american officials still described the repair mission as one that is technically manageable and that can be performed safely . russian officials had hoped that the repairs could begin on july 24 or july 25 . now , however , they expect them to be delayed by several days at least . nasa will not make a formal decision on whether mr . foale will proceed with his space walk until he and aleksandr lazutkin , the russian flight_engineer on mir , carry out a full scale rehearsal in their space suits in a pressurized section of the space_station . frank culbertson , the former commander of the american space_shuttle , who oversees the american and russian cooperation on mir , emphasized today that mr . foale would have ample_opportunity to train on the space_station before undertaking the repair mission . the mission , he said , would pose ' 'minimal risk . '' still , the practice of flying american astronauts to mir on the space_shuttle and stationing them there has become a delicate political issue for the administration , which is eager to cooperate with the russians but is also under fire by some lawmakers who consider mir too dangerous . ''as far as we know right now , they have gotten control of things and there seems to be no immediate crisis , '' president_clinton said today in washington , referring to mir . mr . clinton said , however , that the united_states had not yet decided whether to send astronauts to mir on future missions . ''it 's too soon for me to draw a conclusion , '' he said . mr . foale is due to be replaced by another american astronaut , wendy b . lawrence , in september . the first step in preparing for the repair mission is to recharge the solar batteries so they restart mir 's guidance , oxygen generation and other systems . that will take several days . the crew is firing the jets of the soyuz space craft docked alongside the space_station to reorient mir and direct its solar arrays at the sun . they are also manually turning those arrays . mr . solovyov said mir would be fully reoriented by friday morning , moscow time . if all goes well , he said , the solar batteries would be sufficiently recharged to reactivate the space_station 's gyrodines by saturday . those gyroscope like devices would enable mir to maintain its orientation without drawing on the fuel in soyuz . because soyuz is used to return the russian cosmonauts to earth and also serves as an emergency escape craft for the entire crew , the amount of fuel left in its tanks is key . mr . culbertson said he had been informed by the russians that there is more than enough fuel . soyuz has roughly 1 , 100 pounds of fuel . some 440 pounds are needed to return to earth . that leaves 660 pounds for maneuvering mir . each of the occasional maneuvers , mr . culbertson said , expends about 30 to 45 pounds of fuel , meaning fuel is not an immediate problem . the repair mission will also be delayed because the crew has been instructed to take several days off and get more rest . that is an implicit recognition that fatigue is believed to have played a role in the mistake today . the russian crew members were reported to have had a sleepless night . ''this was purely human_error , '' mr . solovyov said . the problem began when one of the astronauts yanked a cable in mir 's kristall module overnight while they were checking all the cables in preparation for the repair mission . the accident disabled a computer that controls the position of mir , and the space_station started to drift , mr . culbertson said . a backup system did not take over soon enough . with the solar arrays no longer pointed at the sun , the solar batteries were not recharged . as power drained out of them , light , temperature control and oxygen generation system were all shut down to save energy . data transmissions to ground control were cut off . the crew moved to soyuz and used its systems to communicate with ground control . ''i should stress it is an especially unpleasant situation . '' mr . solovyov said . ''it very much recalls the situation we were in after the crash . '' nasa officials said the current problem shows the value in undertaking the longer_term repairs . the repair mission is aimed at restoring power that was lost when the spektr module was holed in a collision . before spektr was sealed off , electrical_cables from the solar arrays in the module were disconnected , reducing the overall power to the space_station by about half . the goal is to reopen spektr , reconnect the cables and then seal the module up again , while keeping the air in mir . the russians want the crew to attempt the repairs now using a special hermetic plate transported to mir . if the repairs do not work , a new crew that is taking off for mir on aug . 5 can bring new equipment and try again . in effect , that gives the russians a backup plan , mr . culbertson said . but another reason for doing the repairs now is to improve the viability of mir , both as a scientific laboratory and as an environment for the astronauts . if mir had the extra power from the spektr module , mr . culbertson said , it might have had enough power on hand to avoid the current crisis . ''we may not have been in the same position of having to power down the gyrodines and go through the whole process once again of power up , '' he said .",has a topic of science
"a large ice shelf that has jutted into the arctic ocean from northernmost canada for at least 3 , 000 years has broken up over the last two years , providing fresh evidence that the region is warming past thresholds that can produce abrupt changes , scientists said yesterday . the scientists , from laval university in quebec and the university of alaska , fairbanks , described the changes in a paper published in the geophysical research letters . the disintegration of the ancient ice shelf the largest in the arctic appears to have been caused both by a century long warming_trend and , more recently , by an accelerated rise in temperatures , the researchers said . they said it was not yet possible to say whether the melting was related to rising atmospheric concentrations of heat trapping greenhouse_gases from human activities . but they added that the breakup was just one of many signs of enormous climate shifts in the arctic that merited careful monitoring . ''it is part of a long term process , we believe , '' said dr . warwick f . vincent , a biologist specializing in arctic ecology at laval university and an author of the new study . ''but the most recent changes are substantial and correlate with this recent increase in warming that we 've seen from the 1960 's to the present . it 's an example where a critical threshold has been passed . '' the other authors were derek r . mueller of laval and dr . martin o . jeffries from the university of alaska . the 150 square_mile region of floating ice , called the ward hunt ice shelf , had formed a cap across the mouth of the 20 mile long disraeli fjord on ellesmere island , in nunavut . that caused a rare condition in which a 140 foot thick layer of fresh_water accumulated atop the denser seawater in the 1 , 200 foot deep fjord , forming an isolated floating freshwater lake . the trapped fresh_water harbored a unique ecosystem of rare plankton and other life that has collapsed now that its basin has broken up and the fresh_water has flowed into the arctic ocean , dr . vincent said . the ice of the ward hunt shelf is up to 100 feet thick , making it far larger than the 10 foot slabs of floating sea_ice that form a milling cap on the arctic ocean . the pieces could persist for many years as they start to drift in arctic waters , the authors said . for the moment , they exist as free floating jigsaw pieces , in part held near the coast by ward hunt island . the island is a popular jumping off spot for expeditions over the sea_ice to the north_pole . it was the last large remnant of a much more extensive shelf that once fringed all of ellesmere island , dr . vincent said . over all , he continued , that fringe has shrunk by more than 90 percent over the last century . ellesmere 's projecting ice shelves broke off at a rapid rate through most of the last century , but the erosion essentially stopped in 1982 . the breakup of the last section , around the disraeli fjord and ward hunt island , began in 2000 , the researchers said , when big new cracks were detected in satellite images .",has a topic of science
"araya and keiko tadashi wiped away tears as the bulldozer plowed through the debris that had been their home for 30 years . each time the bulldozer picked up a chunk of rubble and carried it away , the tadashis would approach the remaining pile , looking for anything they might salvage . "" i would at least like to find a change of clothes , "" mr . tadashi said . "" i 'm borrowing the clothes i 'm wearing now . "" the tadashis had rushed from their home in their pajamas as soon as they felt the huge earthquake on monday_night . barely a minute after they had clambered up a small hill , their house , indeed their entire neighborhood , was demolished by a ferocious tsunami . now , like hundreds of others on this usually serene island off the coast of northern japan , the tadashis are beginning to think about how to rebuild their homes , and their lives . "" i have to start from zero , "" said mr . tadashi , who was once a fisherman but now works for a construction company . "" i do n't know when i can rebuild my home . if i were young i could do it , but i 'm 50 . life will be tough . "" worst quake since 1960 by tonight , 122 deaths had been reported and 85 people were still missing . the earthquake , which measured 7.8 on the richter_scale , was the most deadly to hit japan since 1960 , when an earthquake off chile spawned a tsunami that killed 142 people in japan . officials on okushiri say at least 88 deaths occurred on this 55 square_mile island , which has a population of 4 , 700 . the island lies west of hokkaido , japan 's northernmost main island , and south of the epicenter of the quake , which was beneath the sea of japan . the television images hardly prepare one for seeing the destruction up close . visitors are immediately greeted by the remnants of a huge landslide , directly in front of the ferry terminal , which buried a two story hotel with more than 30 people inside . a 100 yard wide swath of the hillside appears to have fallen . big crows pick eagerly through the tangled heaps of smashed furniture and crushed cars in search of food . the aonae district in the south , where the tadashis lived , looks like a bomb flattened it . for a stretch of nearly a mile near the shore , several hundred houses have been completely demolished . only two concrete buildings are standing . the red tile roof of a buddhist_temple lies near the shore . the rest of the temple was destroyed and the roof was carried several hundred yards by the waves . hundreds of homes burned by fires caused by gas explosions still smell of smoke . ten years ago , aonae was hit by a smaller wave from another earthquake . after that , a sea wall about 15 feet high was built . but monday 's tsunami appears to have been twice as high . as if to mock the sea wall , monday 's waves carried a huge barge with a crane on top of it over the wall and deposited it inside . today , about six large excavators and bulldozers sifted through the debris , searching for bodies . "" more than 40 people are still missing in this district , "" said maj . shinji takagi of the army . standing atop the sea wall , soldiers hauled in the body of a man , clad only in a green bathing_suit , from the ocean as television cameras recorded the event . in all , 18 bodies were found today . okushiri officials say that some corpses will be sent to the mainland for cremation because the island cannot handle so many . inching toward recovery with victims not yet found and most funerals yet to be held , people here say it is still too early to contemplate the future . "" the island is still overcome by panic , "" toru gambaru , the town 's manager of general affairs , said at town hall . "" honestly speaking , we are still in a thick mist about where to go and what to do . "" still , there are at least the preliminary signs of rebuilding . koji toyoshima , an official of a fishermen 's cooperative , arrived today from hokkaido to re establish business . the cooperative 's office in aonae had been destroyed and three employees killed . major roads have already been repaired . electricity has been restored to the center of town . while most stores remain closed , a few groceries have opened . water service , however , is still not available in most places , so bottled_water is being distributed . today , ferry_service to hokkaido resumed , limited to only one run . the government plans to build temporary houses for the homeless , hundreds of whom are staying in school gymnasiums and other shelters . news reports said victims' relatives might receive up to 45 , 000 from the government as condolence money . some people have insurance , but it is unclear how much that will help them . the island 's main businesses , fishing and tourism , will suffer major blows . and many people are thinking their future might be better elsewhere . "" i hear some people are going to leave this island , but i 'm not , "" said kazuhiro fukase , of aonae , who lost not only his home but all the equipment for his marine engine repair business . mr . fukase said he could not imagine living anywhere else . but when he thought about rebuilding , he had one recommendation "" i guess in the future , this town will move to a little bit higher ground . """,has a topic of science
"the most powerful earthquake in five years struck western japan today , injuring more than 100 people , damaging many buildings and disrupting electricity and train service to the region . the epicenter of the quake , with a magnitude of 7 . 3 , was in western tottori prefecture , 360 miles west of here . in sakaiminato , the closest city to the epicenter , at least six houses were destroyed in the 10 second quake at 1 30 p.m . ''i 've never experienced such a strong quake in my life , '' a woman in a nearby town , yonago , told the ntv television_network . ''i run a beauty_parlor , and i grabbed a customer and held onto her . and we both crouched to the floor . '' live_television coverage from the nhk network showed workers in its newsroom in matsue clutching their desks as the quake threw things to the floor . a hanging lamp was swinging violently as people appeared to run for cover . japan is in one of the most seismically active areas in the world , where several tectonic plates are coming together , causing frequent earthquakes and tremors . public safety experts took comfort that there were no reports of casualties or catastrophic damage to major office buildings . some commentators attributed the lack of casualties to the quake 's being centered on relatively sparsely inhabited countryside . at least 10 landslides were reported in mountains around the quake zone . the quake did cause at least one tunnel to collapse and cut off road and rail access to many areas . two nuclear_power_plants in the region were reportedly unaffected . they had been shut for maintenance . many people reacted nervously to the news after a summer of unusually intense seismic_activity , including earthquakes and volcanic eruptions . reflecting the nervousness , japanese stock markets swiftly declined . the most recent devastating quake in japan was in kobe , the port city southwest of tokyo , where a 7.1 magnitude earthquake in 1995 killed 6 , 425 people and destroyed 250 , 000 houses .",has a topic of science
"the icebreaker garinko ii cast off one recent morning with an apology . the loudspeaker told the four tourists aboard the ship , large enough for 195 passengers , what they had already deduced . regrettably , the drift_ice that drew them here , which usually descends on japan 's northern face this time of the year , was nowhere in sight a result , experts say , of warming waters in the sea of okhotsk . inside the control room , the captain , shigeru yamai , was making a beeline for a thin patch of ice in a corner of the harbor . it was hardly drift_ice . still , as the icebreaker 's two powerful drills tore through the pitifully thin ice , perhaps the muted sound did give the tourists , in the captain 's words , ''just a feel'' of the real thing . ''it would n't do if all they saw on this trip was the sea 's blue water , '' he said , steering the garinko ii toward just that . ''it 's an abnormal year , '' said the captain , who has navigated through the drift_ice for 21 years . ''we 've gotten so little ice . '' indeed , there was so little this winter of the majestic , often latticeshaped ice that normally drifts down the sea of okhotsk onto the northern coast of hokkaido that the tourist association here is already talking of the post drift_ice era . in its thinness , in its short duration and in every other measure , this winter 's drift_ice was considered the poorest in almost two decades . next year , of course , the ice may be thicker and longer lasting . but some experts say global_warming is changing the temperature of the sea of okhotsk and shrinking the size of the drift_ice the same way it is melting greenland 's glaciers . masaaki aota , director of the okhotsk sea_ice museum of hokkaido here , said records from the nearby city of abashiri showed that the average temperature had risen 1.5 degrees_fahrenheit over the last century and that the amount of drift_ice had shrunk by 40 percent . ''it 's clear that the force of the drift_ice has become weaker and the average air temperature has become higher , '' mr . aota said . he said he believed that the most likely cause was global_warming , though he added that there was no conclusive evidence . ''i do n't think this is a problem particular to this place , '' he said . the sea of okhotsk is the southernmost body of water where drift_ice can be seen in the northern hemisphere , a phenomenon tied to its twolayer water system . in early december the seawater in the northern sea of okhotsk reaches the freezing point as siberian winds chill the air . at the same time , the amur river in russia flows into the sea , glossing the surface with fresh_water , which freezes more easily than saltwater . temperatures have long been cold enough to freeze the sea 's southernmost edge , along the hokkaido coast , for the first three months of each year . archaeologists believe that in ancient times the ice allowed asians from the mainland known as the okhotsk people and related to the inuit in north_america to migrate to hokkaido . here in mombetsu , a traditional fishing town with a smattering of stores catering to russians engaging in the crab trade , the drift_ice has usually appeared in mid january and stayed strong until mid march , often lingering until may . the drift_ice made the sea impassable to all ships but icebreakers for an average of 40 days . this year , the sea remained locked for only 10 days . takatoshi hatakeyama , 71 , a retired fisherman , remembered that when he was a boy the drift_ice invaded the coast every winter . children played atop the mounds of ice that piled up on the shore . ''we 'd put a board on the ice and walk on it , '' mr . hatakeyama said . ''when spring came we 'd see hairy crabs showing their red shells on the sand here and there . we 'd fill them into the bamboo baskets we carried on our backs . i 'd collect them and go home before going to school . '' he remembers being stuck in the drift_ice when he worked on a fishing trawler as an adult . ''we 'd be caught in the drift_ice , but it was all right , '' he said . ''if there was a storm and we 'd go into the drift_ice it 'd be quiet , in the evening or in the daytime . we 'd hear the sound of the drift_ice . it has different kinds of cries , like 'giri giri . ' we call it the cry of the drift_ice . when the air comes in , it cries 'gu gu gu . ' it changes according to the situation . '' for fishermen especially before it was widely known that the drift_ice acted as a lid and contributed to the growth of algae and plankton underneath , to the benefit of fish the drift_ice was considered an enemy . it landlocked fishermen in the winter and forced them to find other jobs during those months . or it forced large trawlers to break through the ice and seek open waters away from the sea of okhotsk . ''the sea would be entirely frozen , '' said kazuo nawata , 69 , another retired fisherman . ''you could n't move forward , but you 'd have to move forward . so you 'd go back , then strike forward , go back , then forward . '' it is only in the last 25 years that drift_ice became a tourist_attraction , said masayoshi hatanaka , president of the mombetsu city tourist association . mr . hatanaka is now emphasizing the importance of finding another tourist_attraction in mombetsu 's post drift_ice era . tourists were drawn to the severe beauty of the frozen sea , and scientists like mr . aota wrote essays on the poetry of the drift_ice . ''when the drift_ice is pressing against the shore , '' mr . aota said , ''it cries like a cow . when it gets severely cold it goes 'biri . ' it 's a metallic sound . if you combine them , you could make a symphony . '' the drift_ice drew tourists like mitsuhiro nakamura , 35 , one of the four aboard the garinko ii the other morning . mr . nakamura came every year from tokyo to see the ice on his birthday . ''i 'll probably come again next year , '' mr . nakamura told captain yamai inside the control room . as he prepared to dock the garinko ii , the captain said , ''if you come again next year and see me , please say hello . i might not be here , though . '' mombetsu journal",has a topic of science
"japanese insurance_companies have learned to protect themselves against massive losses from earthquakes and will bear very little of the burden of rebuilding the area devastated by the earthquake near kobe . instead , japanese homeowners and companies have been left to bear the brunt of property damages from the earthquake themselves , or to rely on help from the government . even so , analysts expect that the latest earthquake will result in higher premiums for individuals and businesses around the world . "" the californian who was looking to buy a home and was already finding it hard to get coverage is likely to find it even harder as a result of the japanese earthquake , "" said sean mooney , chief economist for the insurance information institute . after last year 's earthquake in northridge , calif . , where insured losses are now estimated at more than 10 billion and still rising , most insurers in the state stopped accepting new customers and have applied with state regulators to double the price of earthquake insurance . allstate , the second largest insurer in the state , yesterday raised its own estimated loss to 1 . 5 billion . american insurers , with a few exceptions like the american international group , do not have enough business in japan to face significant losses from the earthquake there . but they do rely on other companies , called reinsurance companies , to sell policies that cover very large losses from catastrophes like earthquakes . such disasters have become much more frequent in the past several years , and each new event pushes reinsurers to raise their prices or cut back on the amount of coverage they sell . insurance_companies that deal directly with individuals or businesses must then either pass on those changes to their customers or accept greater risk of loss . although japanese are avid buyers of insurance , spending far more per person on life_insurance than americans , they have been forced by their geological circumstances to accept the risk of earthquakes . harold talbot , a managing director in charge of japanese business at guy carpenter company , a reinsurance broker , noted that the frequency of earthquakes in many highly developed parts of japan means that there is not enough insurance capacity in the world to fully insure japanese households and industry . guy carpenter is a subsidiary of the marsh mclennan companies , the world 's largest insurance_broker . to limit their risk of loss from earthquakes , takeshi sanuki , manager of the new york office of taisei fire marine , noted that companies follow "" very tough underwriting standards , "" meaning that they simply decline to sell insurance for buildings they think are especially vulnerable to earthquakes . another defense is to charge very high prices . although the japanese government is the major backer for an insurance_industry pool to share losses of up to 18 billion in homeowners insurance , earthquake insurance is not widespread in japan . in 1990 , the latest year for which data was available , fewer than 8 percent of japanese homes had earthquake insurance . because there is no government safety net for earthquake insurance policies for businesses , japanese insurers carefully limit the amount they will sell . in the risky tokyo area , earthquake policies are limited to only 15 percent of the amount of fire insurance . in the district that includes kobe , earthquake coverage is limited to 30 percent of fire insurance . quake in japan paying for it",has a topic of science
"lead last month , a nato military exercise came to an abrupt end when the west_german and turkish participants objected to an american proposal for the hypothetical use of battlefield nuclear_weapons against an enemy on german and turkish territory . last month , a nato military exercise came to an abrupt end when the west_german and turkish participants objected to an american proposal for the hypothetical use of battlefield nuclear_weapons against an enemy on german and turkish territory . this interruption in a routine annual exercise the first ever for such a reason was reported last week by jane 's , the military information service and confirmed by a pentagon official . it is emblematic of the restiveness within the north_atlantic_treaty_organization over its nuclear based strategy . for 40 years nato strategy has been to deter warsaw_pact armies from attacking the west by fielding a smaller but modern military force backed up by the threat to use nuclear_weapons if its conventional forces cannot stop a soviet onslaught . so west_germany 's campaign to defer deploying a new missile to replace the lance , nato 's battlefield nuclear missile , and to negotiate a reduction of short range nuclear_arms with the soviet_union , has raised questions about the value of these weapons . deterrent or cause ? because of their proximity to the front and the likelihood of pressure from field commanders to ''use them or lose them'' early in a war , many nato experts believe the alliance 's short range nuclear systems , which can deliver 4 , 600 warheads , are destabilizing and could lead to nuclear_war . alliance officials have long recognized this anomaly , but with the arcane logic that the alliance attaches to nuclear_weapons , they reason that the weapons exist to prevent war and not to fight one . successive nato commanders have said that at present strengths , soviet conventional superiority will force them to request authority to use nuclear_weapons very early in any conflict . gen . john galvin , supreme allied commander in europe , said that ''we must rely on our short range nuclear forces . '' his predecessor , gen . bernard rogers , calculated that it would be just a matter of days after coming under attack that nuclear_weapons would be needed to prevent the collapse of nato defenses . complex control of warheads but even in the unlikely event that the alliance 's civilian leaders agreed that tactical nuclear weapons should be used in the equally unlikely event that such a war broke out the request and authorization process to use nuclear_weapons must go through seven military and political levels before a warhead would be released . under the best of circumstances this would take about 24 hours . in the chaos of the early days of a war , it is doubtful that the process could be completed in time to keep up with events on the battlefield . gen . donn starry , in testimony on capitol_hill before he retired from the army , said , ''the delays that are attendant upon asking for and receiving nuclear_weapons release always create a situation in which , if you wait until they get into your territory to ask for the use of nuclear_weapons , it is always too late . '' the soviet_union has forsworn first use of nuclear_weapons , but its military writings make it clear that nato 's battlefield nuclear_arsenal is at the top of its list of targets . there are less than 100 american controlled nuclear storage sites in europe and the soviet commanders know their locations . according to american intelligence officers , the soviet_forces plan to attack them from the air and with special_operations forces in the event of war . and soviet_military journals imply that if there are signs that the alliance is preparing to use the weapons , the other side would pre_empt such action with its own nuclear_weapons . a short lived advantage but even if nato forces fire first to halt a soviet attack , it would provide only a short lived military advantage if soviet_forces responded by using nuclear_missiles from their own formidable inventory of battlefield weapons . this in turn could lead to nuclear escalation , which neither side wants . nonetheless , since the 1987 soviet american agreement to destroy intermediate_range land based nuclear_weapons like the soviet ss 20 and the american pershing 2 missiles , nuclear_weapons with ranges under 300 miles constitute the mainstay of nato 's deterrent strategy as long as the alliance sees itself outgunned by soviet conventional forces in europe . general galvin has written , ''the pivotal role in deterrence has been , and remains , the nuclear_weapon . '' the battlefield weapons range in size from less than a kiloton to 100 kilotons by comparison , the bomb dropped on hiroshima produced a_10 kiloton explosion . nato 's principal ground nuclear_weapons system is the lance missile , which has a 70 mile range . there are 88 lance launchers in europe , each with an estimated 20 missiles . 1960 's technology the lance is a product of 1960 's technology and is not accurate against small targets like bridges or command centers . it is also slow to load and reload and , because its range is limited , it must be fired dangerously close to the front lines . nato members acknowledge the need to replace the lance , and the proposed new missile would have a range four times greater , greater accuracy and a higher explosive yield . but west_germany 's leaders want to defer that action for domestic political reasons . the soviet counterparts to the lance are the ss 1 , ss 21 and frog , all of which can carry nuclear or non nuclear_warheads to the 300 mile limit imposed by the 1987 agreement . the warsaw_pact has 1 , 400 of these launchers , with almost 500 in central_europe , along with an undisclosed number of warheads . in addition to the lance , nato and the warsaw_pact each have more than 2 , 000 artillery_pieces capable of firing nuclear_warheads . the most potent nuclear_weapons delivery systems on both sides are attack bombers , which can carry either conventional or nuclear_weapons well beyond the range of ground systems . aircraft have not yet been included in any of the arms reduction talks , and presumably they are also excluded from the west_german proposal to negotiate on short range systems . also excluded are the british and french nuclear_arsenals , which are controlled separately from nato 's stocks .",has a topic of science
"a public dispute has flared between two republican house committee_chairmen over an inquiry one of them began last month into the integrity of an influential study of global temperature trends . the study , published in 1998 and 1999 , meshed data from modern thermometers and evidence of past warmth or cold , like variations in tree rings . the result was a curve showing little variation for nearly 1 , 000 years and then a sharp upward hook in recent decades . the inquiry was initiated by representative joe l . barton of texas , who heads the house committee on energy and commerce , after two canadians with no expertise in climate_change published academic papers and opinion articles challenging the study 's methods . letters requesting detailed responses to the criticisms as well as raw data , documents and financial information were sent last month by the committee to the scientists who generated the graph michael e . mann , the climatologist who led the research and has just become the director of the earth system science center at pennsylvania_state_university raymond s . bradley , a climatologist at the university of massachusetts and malcolm k . hughes , a tree ring expert at the university of arizona . the inquiry has since been criticized by scientists and democratic lawmakers . now the critics have been joined by representative sherwood boehlert of new york , the chairman of the house science committee , who late last week sent a letter to mr . barton calling the investigation ' 'misguided and illegitimate . '' copies of the letter were provided to several reporters . mr . boehlert noted that other recent analyses have supported the main conclusion of the study that the climate 's warming since the late 20th_century appears to be significantly outside the bounds of natural variability . but mr . barton 's inquiry focuses on the critique by the canadians , steven mcintyre , an amateur statistician and mining consultant , and ross mckitrick , an economist at the university of guelph . in his letter to mr . barton , mr . boehlert said the effort ''raises the specter of politicians opening investigations against any scientist who reaches a conclusion that makes the political elite uncomfortable . '' in a statement sent by e mail to several reporters , larry neal , a spokesman for the energy and commerce committee , responded to mr . boehlert 's letter . ''requests for information are a common exercise of the energy and commerce committee 's responsibility to gather knowledge on matters within its jurisdiction , '' the statement said . ''when global_warming studies were criticized and results seemed hard to replicate by other researchers , asking why seemed like a modest but necessary step . it still does . ''",has a topic of science
"a chinese spy_satellite falling from space disappeared harmlessly over the south atlantic late monday_night . air_force trackers here said they were not sure whether the two ton capsule survived re entry into earth 's atmosphere when its 17 , 000 mile per hour free_fall ended .",has a topic of science
"it was once very different . pope_john_paul_ii , who traversed the globe with a frequency and zest unlike any of his predecessors , would pack in three or four major events on each day of a foreign trip . his smiles would be constant , and his speeches would go on and on , ambitious in their scope and unwavering in their delivery . but this week , during the pope 's first visit to north_america in more than three years , he spent more time in seclusion than in public view , and his rare , painstakingly choreographed appearances which averaged only one a day showed why . movement was an effort . words were sometimes a struggle . what americans observed more immediately than ever before was a pope so physically diminished that the church officials watching him grew excited over the smallest glimmers of vigor an assisted walk down the stairs of his plane , a few syllables enunciated with more volume than others , a fleeting grin on several occasions when applause washed over him . ''you have the idea , '' said the pope 's spokesman , joaqu n navarro_valls , ''that what you see there is a soul leading a body , a soul pulling a body . '' it has now reached a point where that image inspiring to some observers , discomfiting to others largely defines john_paul_ii 's papacy and overshadows other aspects . he slowly lifts his right hand to his brow , and the people watching him worry is it a gesture of pain ? or is he merely trying to prop up his head and keep his face upright ? he ends a speech with a spontaneous sentence that does not make clear sense , as he did on thursday night , and the people listening to him wonder is he simply falling prey to the kind of flub that bedevils many an orator , or is it something more ? for some catholics , the overarching question is whether the 82 year old pope remains fit enough to handle the challenges that confront him , including the rash of reports of child sexual abuse by priests that have come to light and outraged worshipers in a number of countries . ''i admire his courage and his determination , but i think it might be better for all concerned if he stepped down , '' said the rev . andrew greeley , a prominent catholic sociologist and writer in the united_states . ''you ca n't be as vigorous as a pope needs to be right now when you 're hung up with arthritis and parkinson 's disease and the remnants of an assassination attempt , '' father greeley said . the child sexual abuse problem has received especially intense scrutiny in the united_states , plunging the american church into what some prominent catholics say is one of its greatest crises ever . but the pope , just a few dozen miles from the united_states border for the last five days , is scheduled to fly over the country on monday on his way to guatemala and then mexico for canonization ceremonies . the united_states was never part of his plans for this trip , which centered on the roman_catholic_church 's world youth day , a weeklong religious jubilee that was held in toronto this year . vatican officials and experts said the united_states was not included on the pope 's itinerary for many reasons , including a lingering belief at the holy see that the dimensions of the sexual_abuse problem have been exaggerated . but they said the pope 's health was also a consideration , shaping and limiting much of what he does or does not do these days . that was certainly true here in toronto , where he spent most of his first four days at a church retreat on an island north of the city . activities on his schedule that might once have been open to reporters , like a meeting today with prime minjean chr tien of canada , were not . his one public appearance was at a prayer vigil tonight with hundreds of thousands of adoring catholics , to whom he described the sept . 11 destruction of the world trade center as ''an image that is a sort of icon of a world in which hostility and hatred seem to prevail . '' back in rome , too , the routines have changed . according to some vatican officials , he often receives the foreign bishops who visit him in groups of five , instead of seeing them one on one as he did in the past . and he often forgoes his previous practice of reading a speech to them , instead distributing written copies . he dictates things he once wrote . he tweaks his schedule to reduce its hardships . in the days leading up to this trip , as he rested at his country retreat , he made an unusual decision to hold his weekly public audience there , avoiding the commute by helicopter back to rome . but people who have spent time with the pope say that for all his physical difficulties , he remains mentally acute . dr . navarro_valls said the pope remained as firmly in command of church business as ever . ''my feeling is , up to this point , he 's following all the different topics , planning goals , looking to the future , '' he said in an interview on friday . he dismissed as insignificant the curious moment at the end of the pope 's remarks on thursday , when the pope erroneously declared that the last world youth day had been in cracow , poland . dr . navarro_valls described this as a flubbed attempt at a figurative statement of solidarity with polish catholics . but he conceded that he had not spoken with the pope about it . later on friday , when he briefed reporters about a private luncheon that john paul had held with 14 young catholics , he went out of his way to say the pope had recited for the children the locations of all of the world youth days since the event began in the mid 1980 's . the pope 's health and speculation about it were perhaps the most prominent leitmotifs of his visit here , the text or subtext of so much of what went on . teenagers cited a belief that he might not live too much longer as an extra incentive to travel here . journalists analyzed his every gesture for signs of physical flagging or resurgence . church officials took pains to describe his private activities in ways that portrayed him as mentally and emotionally vibrant . they could not deny the pope 's hunched posture , often blank expression or labored words , so they framed these in a positive light , as brush_strokes in a compelling portrait of perseverance . ''i could n't help but admire him as he made a real effort to look at us , to look up and lift his head , '' cardinal aloysius ambrozic , the archbishop of toronto , said after the pope 's arrival here on tuesday . cardinal oscar rodr_guez maradiaga of honduras , who is often mentioned as a possible successor to john paul , said on friday that the pope ''is showing how you can fulfill a mission , to the very end , with courage and with love . '' several months ago , cardinal rodr_guez publicly broached a taboo subject and hypothesized that the pope ''would have the courage'' to resign if his health got worse . asked about that on friday , the cardinal said ''we better not speak about that . they gave me so much trouble around the world . '' his remarks underscored the difficulty of assessing the pope 's condition people at the highest levels of the church will not talk about it in much detail . the pope 's own scattered comments suggest that he sees any suffering he endures as jesus_christ 's will , and that any decision about ceasing his work belongs to christ .",has a topic of science
"lead a new particle accelerator , causing electrons and positrons to collide at energies higher than those of any other such accelerator , is restoring japan 's prewar position near the front rank of experimental physics . a new particle accelerator , causing electrons and positrons to collide at energies higher than those of any other such accelerator , is restoring japan 's prewar position near the front rank of experimental physics . scientists at kek , japan 's national laboratory for high energy physics , are using the new machine , the tristan , in an effort to create elemental particles of matter . a more powerful electron positron collider ( the positron is the positively charged twin of the electron , whose electric charge is negative ) at stanford_university in palo_alto , calif . , has run into serious difficulties but may begin producing results next summer . until then , tristan , a descendant of the atom smasher , is breaking new ground . the device is a part of japan 's increasing emphasis on basic_research its operators hope it will continue to be productive long after more powerful machines come on line . searching for top quark probably the most hoped for achievement would be creation of the elusive top quark , one of the hypothetical basic particles from which other subatomic particles are believed to be formed . to date five quarks , including those assumed to be building blocks of the protons and neutrons in all atomic nuclei , have been observed . they occur in three families , the least massive being the two quark types of which protons and neutrons are made . in addition to another two in the intermediate mass range , one member of the most massive pair , the bottom quark , has been observed , but not the other , the top quark . the more massive quarks combine to form short lived particles normally observed only when produced in high energy collisions . if all efforts to produce the top quark fail , it will mean that there may be something very wrong with current theories for the nature of matter , according to dr . satoshi ozaki , director of the tristan project here . not in everyday world particles like the heavier quarks do not occur in the everyday world . they can only be created , and very briefly , in the fireball produced by very high energy collisions of subatomic particles . the most energetic collisions are those between such massive particles as protons and their mirror image twins , antiprotons . these are produced in the tevatron of the fermi national accelerator laboratory in batavia , ill . their collisions generate an enormously complex spray of atomic fragments , making it difficult to tell whether a top quark lies hidden in the debris . electron positron collisions , like those in tristan , avoid this problem by using particles that , so far as is known , have no internal structure and no mass . they are dimensionless points . because they are of opposite charge , radio waves that accelerate electrons in one direction push positrons in the opposite one . the machine here can therefore simultaneously boost both kinds of particles in opposite directions in the two mile ring in which they are accelerated . the counter rotating electrons and positrons collide head on in four experiment areas uniformly spaced around the ring . because the design differs from that at stanford , tristan has avoided the difficulties that have beset the california project . warped tennis racket shape the stanford machine is shaped like a warped tennis racket , its elongated handle being a straight two mile accelerator . after acceleration in the handle the electrons and positrons circle the head of the racket in opposite directions , colliding on the far side . this part of the machine was built to follow local contours , generating slopes as great as 10 degrees in the assumption that the onverging beams could be guided magnetically up and down the slopes and made to collide head on . because the beams are far smaller than a human hair ( less than five millionths of a meter wide ) this has proved far more difficult than expected , according to dr , burton richter , director of the project , who was here recently for a conference . the two tristan beams are fatter ( 20 to 50 microns high and 150 microns wide ) and ride the same magnetic ''pipe'' instead of two converging ones . tristan is now boosting the beams to 26 billion electron volts , or giga electron volts ( gev ) . this fall the energy should increase to 28 gev and by next summer added superconducting magnets are expected to raise the energy to between 30 and 33 gev . the stanford machine is designed to produce 47 gev . at cern , the european research center near geneva , the large electron positron ( lep ) collider , due for completion in 1989 , should at first produce 50 gev in each beam , raising that to 100 gev by 1992 . with tristan and other machines the japanese are seeking to reestablish themselves in the forefront of physics . although they have received only limited recognition in the west , japanese physicists were once among the most prominent in the world . earlier research recalled japanese scientists note that in 1902 hantaro nagaoka proposed that the atom consists of a massive nucleus surrounded by orbiting electrons . this was a decade before ernest rutherford and niels bohr made a similar proposal and were able to explain , in terms of quantum mechanics , why the electrons did not fall into the nucleus . hideki yukawa won a nobel_prize for his work in the 1930 's predicting a new class of subatomic particles , the mesons . shin ichiro tomonago was similarly honored for his role during the 1940 's in devising the theory of quantum electrodynamics . but after world_war_ii , the allies dumped japan 's atom smashing accelerators into tokyo and osaka bays lest they be used for nuclear_weapons research . the original , bold plan for tristan was to include three accelerators in its circular tunnel . in addition to the electron positron collider there were to be two accelerators using superconducting magnets . budgetary considerations intrude one was to collide protons with antiprotons . the other would hit protons with electrons . the last two schemes were dropped for budgetary reasons , particularly after it was learned that more powerful machines of this sort were to be built at fermilab and in west_germany . as it is , tristan has cost about 700 million . dr . ozaki , formerly a group leader at brookhaven national laboratory on long_island , said in an interview there were ''naive reasons'' to suspect that the top quark may have a mass about three times that of the bottom quark , whose mass expressed in terms of its energy equivalent is nine gev . ''with tristan , '' he said , ''we are looking at the mass range of 25 to 33 gev . '' about 400 collisions have been analyzed and none so far have shown clear evidence of the top quark . tests with the proton antiproton machine at cern have also failed to find it in that mass range , he added . some theorists believe it may be more massive than 100 gev , which could only be produced when lep reaches full power . the advantage of colliding beam machines is that the energies of both beams contribute to the fireball created by a collision . furthermore , if a particle of matter , such as an electron or proton , collides with one of antimatter , such as a positron or antiproton , the particles are themselves converted into energy . correction_october 18 , 1987 , sunday , late city final edition",has a topic of science
"enduring near freezing_temperatures , thousands of residents of northern japan camped outdoors sunday_night , unnerved by a day of aftershocks from the nation 's deadliest earthquake in nearly a decade , a violent jolt that killed 23 people , injured 2 , 100 and left seven missing . the weekend 's earthquakes came as japan was cleaning up from last week 's typhoon , the most lethal storm in two decades , which killed 80 people . on sunday , military helicopters flew over a landscape of crumpled highways and collapsed houses , ferrying survivors from mountain villages cut off by saturday night 's earthquake , which had a magnitude of 6.8 . in one section of ojiya , the epicenter , helicopter pilots were drawn to an ''sos'' message drawn on a road , where quake survivors had been cut off by landslides . ''our lifeline has been cut , '' toshiro hosoya , 57 , a high_school teacher in ojiya , later told reuters . ''there is no toilet , gas or electricity and it was cold last night . i 'm not terrified . but the aftershocks keep coming , so i have a strange feeling of unease . '' monday morning at dawn a tremor registering a magnitude of 5.6 shook northern japan , knocking down a house in niigata and sending vibrations all the way to tokyo . yoshitaka murata , japan 's disaster management minister , flew over the mountainous section of niigata prefecture , about 125 miles north of tokyo , and told reporters , ''i saw tremendous landslides in the mountains from a helicopter . '' largely confined to niigata , the quake caused 52 landslides , damaged or cut roads in 211 places , and damaged or destroyed 1 , 206 commercial or public buildings and at least 2 , 583 homes , according to japan 's national_police_agency . on the ground in ojiya , land under a rail line had caved in , forming a crater like hole and leaving train tracks dangling in the air . television footage showed overturned cars scattered around a 33 foot crater carved from a shattered highway . the city , a textile center of 40 , 000 , had the region 's highest death toll , losing nine residents , including three children who died when their house collapsed . in addition , more than 120 residents needed medical treatment for injuries . the quake , the first of a rolling series of seven during a two hour period saturday evening , cut power to about one million people and caused the government to remove about 67 , 000 to shelters . piped gas , a major source of fires after past earthquakes , was cut to more than 50 , 000 households in niigata prefecture . with authorities warning that another major earthquake could happen within the next week , many people spurned shelters , sleeping in their cars or camping on mattresses in open areas , relying on blankets , bonfires or portable oil heaters . the shocks derailed most of a shinkansen bullet_train , the first derailing of a high_speed_train since the bullet_train system was inaugurated in 1964 . there were no injuries among the 150 passengers , even though the train was traveling 125 miles an hour at the time of the quake . because the train was close to the epicenter , an automatic early warning system did not work , masaki ogata , managing director of jr east , the rail line , told reporters . because of landslides , damaged concrete structures and undulating track , authorities have closed an 80 mile section of the line from tokyo to niigata . to reduce niigata 's isolation , japan 's two major airlines , japan_airlines and all nippon airways , on sunday started temporary service from tokyo to the city , which is on the sea of japan . parts of three expressways were closed because of crumbled overpasses , a collapsed highway tunnel and cave ins on many secondary roads . further hampering communications , the quake damaged 80 cellphone towers . ''there were four to five jolts so strong we could n't keep standing without grabbing something like a desk , '' toshio kasuga , an official in takayanagi , told kyodo_news . ''i saw some landslides on a hillside on my way to the office . '' one young man from mitsuke told nhk television , ''i ran outside , and when i looked at buildings , they were shaking like pudding . '' on sunday , prime_minister_junichiro_koizumi said the quake ' 'must be beyond our imagination in terms of fear and damage . '' he said he would take extra budgetary measures in response to the quakes . japan is one of the world 's most seismically active areas . memories are still vivid of the kobe earthquake , which killed 6 , 433 people and injured 43 , 700 in january 1995 . that quake had a magnitude of 7.3 .",has a topic of science
"in the end , bill clinton and al_gore could not walk away . they faced unpleasant political options as talks in kyoto , japan , wound done , and as more than 150 nations neared agreement on a treaty to cut the emissions that lead to global_warming . under the agreement that emerged , which the administration plans to sign , the united_states will have to take more drastic steps than the white_house had hoped to cut greenhouse emissions . heavy_industry , from cars to coal to steel to electricity , has already joined with organized_labor to fight the proposal . but walking away from the treaty as mr . gore said he was willing to do last week would have enraged the environmentalists who are key constituents for him and mr . clinton . it would have isolated the united_states which just refused to sign a treaty banning land_mines as the leading emitter of greenhouse gasses and the only industrial nation unwilling to address the problem jointly . and it would have been contrary , their aides said , to a belief shared by the president and vice_president that global_warming presents grave dangers . but now the administration has a larger fight on its hands , a fight that will help define not only budget negotiations next year but the 1998 congressional elections and even the next presidential race . even before the treaty was worked out , democratic allies of the administration were warning the white_house not to seek approval in the senate . ''what we have here is not ratifiable in the senate in my judgment , '' senator john_kerry , democrat of massachusetts , said in a telephone news conference from kyoto . before the kyoto meeting began , the senate voted 95 to 0 to pass a resolution that the united_states would not agree to a treaty that did not provide a role in cutting emissions for developing nations . that became a negotiating goal for the administration . in kyoto , senator chuck_hagel , republican of nebraska , said flatly , ''there is no way , if the president signs this , that the vote in the united_states_senate will even be close . we will kill this bill . '' the treaty emerging in kyoto tonight ( thursday morning , kyoto time ) includes a new program sought by the administration to funnel capital and environmentally friendly technology to developing nations . but white_house aides said that , while they considered the provision a victory , it was not strong enough to win ratification . the white_house is also planning to propose tax incentives to encourage cuts in greenhouse gas emission as part of its budget proposal next year , but that , too , will be subject to congessional approval . two officials said that , judging by the early criticism , the public would get a positive impression of the administration 's actions . ''we figured that we would probably be criticized by both industry and environmental groups , '' one of them said , ''which has the effect of saying , 'well , they must have ended up in a place that 's pretty sensible . ' '' indeed , in kyoto , one industry coalition went as far as to issue a statement denouncing the agreement hours before the deal was final . and the world wildlife fund attacked the plan , saying that the outcome was ''a flawed agreement that will allow major polluters to continue emitting greenhouse gasses through loopholes . '' but fred krupp , executive director of the environmental defense fund , said ''there 's still much more work to be done to assure that the protocol 's targets are met'' but ''vice_president gore should be commended for coming to japan and opening the doors to an agreement . '' in recent polls the public has expressed solid support for action on global_warming . two weeks ago , in a poll taken by the new york times , 65 percent said that the united_states should take steps now to cut its own emissions ' 'regardless of what other countries do . '' only 17 percent agreed that cutting emissions ''will cost too much money and hurt the u.s . economy . '' four years ago , mr . clinton promised to reduce united_states emissions to their 1990 levels by the year 2000 . but such emissions are now more than 10 percent above 1990 levels and rising . mr . clinton rarely mentioned the issue until early this summer , when , in anticipation of the kyoto meeting , he began warning of the dangers of global_warming . but , even as he began addressing the subject again , mr . clinton has repeatedly said that the united_states can meet what amount to rigorous emissions targets with little or no economic pain . ''i am convinced that we can demonstrate to the american people that we can substantially reduce our greenhouse_gas_emissions and fulfill our global environmental responsibilities as well as our responsibilities to our own people without giving up economic_growth , '' mr . clinton said in an interview with the new york times last thursday . ''but it will require a very disciplined , organized , coordinated effort to do it . ''",has a topic of science
"japan 's troubled space_program suffered another major setback friday when the engine that is supposed to power its next generation of rockets exploded during a test , killing an engineer and raising more questions about the future of the country 's space efforts . japanese officials said the 23 year old engineer , arihiro kanaya , was the first person to die in japan 's 22 year old unmanned space_program . but it was the latest of a string of accidents involving the engine , the first to be built by japan without the help of the united_states . a series of previous explosions and fires has already delayed the launching of the new rocket system , called the h ii , by at least a year . currently , the first launch is scheduled for early 1993 . japan has expected the h ii to become its most important launching vehicle for propelling into orbit space communications satellites , scientific_experiments , and a even small unmanned space_shuttle . the miniature shuttle , which is now being designed , would ferry parts to the american developed space_station and then return to earth automatically . a source of pride the h ii has also been a source of considerable nationalistic pride . many in japanese industry want to wean the country from its dependence on the united_states for access to space , especially for heavy payloads . but for all of its high tech prowess in automobiles and electronics , japan has little experience building engines , either for jet aircraft or for rockets . while the united_states , china and the soviet_union all developed their rocket technology by building intercontinental ballistic_missiles , japan 's ban against offensive weapons , imposed at the end of world_war_ii , has meant that it has virtually no military rocket technology . it has been dependent almost entirely on technology licensed from american makers , including technology for its current , far less capable fleet of h 1 rockets . the h i , however , does not have the lift ability to satisfy japan 's new ambitions in space , including the launching of large communications and broadcast satellites . so japan 's national space development agency commisioned some of the country 's biggest industrial powers to design and build the h ii , in hopes that it would compete with europe 's arianespace and private launching services offered by the chinese , the soviets and the americans . at the core of the rocket is the le 7 , designed to have roughly the power of one of the main engines on the american space_shuttle . but from the beginning , japan 's program has been plagued with troubles . no one could make the complex turbopump on the liquid fuel engine work properly twice it blew up in static tests at the japanese space agency 's launching site on tanegashima island . when those problems were solved , a series of new ones cropped up , prompting embarrassing and costly delays . meanwhile , two critical television broadcasting satellites were destroyed in ill fated launchings aboard american and french rockets . mitsubishi under pressure under pressure to to fix the program quickly , mitsubishi heavy industries , japan 's largest aircraft and arms maker , has been running extensive tests on the engine . one of them began about 1 a.m . on friday at mitsubishi 's installation near nagoya , the center of japan 's aerospace industry . according to press accounts and a statement released by the space agency , the explosion occurred during a test of how well components of the engine can withstand high pressure . key elements of the engine were placed in a specially reinforced testing room . but before the engine was subjected to stresses equivalent to the kind it would face under launching conditions , it exploded . the force was so great that it blew out an 8 inch thick door to the testing chamber . the door landed on mr . kanaya , who died instantly . a pipe in the engine was found to have an elliptical crack a foot long and three feet across . officials of the space agency could not be reached today , the first day of a buddhist holiday that closes most japanese businesses for a week .",has a topic of science
"lead britain , which produced such stellar astronomers as edmund halley , arthur eddington and james jeans , is in danger of losing the next generation of stargazers to government penny pinching , according to the astronomer royal . britain , which produced such stellar astronomers as edmund halley , arthur eddington and james jeans , is in danger of losing the next generation of stargazers to government penny pinching , according to the astronomer royal . ''there is an almost complete lack of money for new positions , '' said the astronomer , sir francis graham smith , a professor at manchester university 's jodrell bank radiotelescope . ''we are advertising a lectureship in jodrell bank now , '' he said . ''the kind of fellow we want has probably gone to america , so we have to get him back . and all we can offer him to come here is 9 , 500 to 11 , 000 a year'' the equivalent of 16 , 150 to 18 , 700 . the brain_drain in astronomy , like the exodus in other british academic fields , has accelerated under prime_minister margaret_thatcher 's government philosophy of weaning the universities from dependence on state aid and encouraging them to turn to private industry , donations and student fees . king charles ii appointed the first astronomer royal , john flamsteed , in 1675 , and also gave money for a practical purpose ''the perfecting of the art of navigation . '' until this century , the incumbent also ran the royal observatory in greenwich , where children of all ages go to plant one foot in the eastern hemisphere and one in the western one across the greenwich meridian , 0 degrees longitude . astronomy has since turned to theoretical questions like the basic structure of the universe , and the present holder of the now entirely honorific post said that state support for it had shrunk by 2 percent a year in real terms for the last 10 years . science and engineering research council grants for astronomy and planetary science last year were 92 million . british astronomers are turning to colleagues abroad for help in research projects that do n't require expensive new equipment . ''just look at the plans for 1992 , when european universities will be working on a common standard and academic degrees will be interchangeable . we 've been doing things that way in astronomy for years , and not only with our common_market colleagues , with eastern europeans as well , '' sir francis said . ''in europe , in radio astronomy we can join telescopes together , with a couple of thousand kilometers of separation , and get better observations than we could with only our own merlin network in britain , '' he said . merlin , based in jodrell bank , will soon be capable of continuous simultaneous observations from points about 100 miles apart when an 8 . 5 million radiotelescope is completed , he said . with many teaching and research positions unfilled for want of money , british astronomers have flocked overseas , since their field does not produce the immediate results that british business commissions look for . ''britain has populated the world with radio astronomers , '' said sir francis , who is eminent in that field himself . ''i 'm just thinking of the jodrell people . john davis , for instance , is building a stellar interferometer in australia right now . ''in other fields , roger blandford , recently elected a fellow of the royal society , is just the kind of chap we 'd love to get back here . he 's at california_institute_of_technology . roger angell is in tucson , developing techniques for casting the big mirrors for 8 meter telescopes , possibly much wider ones , an adventurous new field . he 's an expat , '' he lamented . so , he thought , there was little point in expecting to lure somebody . ''all we can do is appoint a freshly_minted ph . d. , who 'll be 25 , '' he said . sir francis was director of the royal observatory himself from 1976 to 1981 , and during his tenure established a british telescope in la palma in the canary islands . that site , another one 14 , 000 feet above the sea at mauna kea in hawaii , and a third at a jointly run observatory in siding spring , australia , are britain 's windows to the stars . ''we have some ideas for a gravitational wave detector , but not much money , '' sir francis said . ''and development of ionospheric radar looks as if it will be very difficult to fund . but i 've learned a long time ago never to give up . we 'll find our way somehow but i do n't yet see how . ''",has a topic of science
"with president_clinton having accepted the dominant view among scientists that global_warming is a serious matter , the increasingly urgent debate over what to do about it has largely shifted to the question of how restricting emissions of heat trapping greenhouse_gases like carbon_dioxide may affect the nation 's economy . and there , perplexity reigns . the future severity of climate_change is uncertain enough , and its future physical impact on particular countries and regions is more so . the uncertainty multiplies yet again when people try to calculate the costs and benefits of taking action to reduce greenhouse emissions . ''there 's a lot more uncertainty about the economics than about the climate , '' said dale w . jorgenson , an economist at harvard_university who specializes in environmental questions . carbon_dioxide is produced by the burning of fossil_fuels like coal , oil and natural_gas , which are the energy foundation of the modern economy . some players in the debate , notably industries that produce fossil_fuels or use lots of them , argue that serious economic damage would result if use of the fuels were significantly cut . others , like environmentalists and advocates of alternatives to fossil_fuel energy , say the economy as a whole would gain because it would use energy more efficiently . in between is a range of estimates , typically based on uncertain assumptions about how various aspects of the economy would respond to cuts in the use of fossil_fuel and how strategies for cutting emissions would actually work . all of this will be under the spotlight in washington today at a daylong conference on climate_change sponsored by the white_house . mr . clinton , who plans to take part in the meeting , supports legally_binding international action to cut emissions , but not at the price of harming the united_states economy . he is under intensifying pressure to come up with a specific proposal for reducing emissions . the united_states proposal is generally seen as critical to efforts by the nations of the world to negotiate cuts at a meeting in kyoto , japan , in december . it is widely expected that mr . clinton 's proposal will be announced later this month , either just before or at a pre kyoto negotiating session that begins on oct . 20 in bonn . but as the moment of truth approaches , even some leading members of the clinton_administration have all but thrown up their hands over the difficulty of obtaining clear answers to some crucial economic questions . janet l . yellen , the chairwoman of the president 's council_of_economic_advisers , told congress in july that it was futile to try to develop a set of economic models that can ''give us a definitive answer as to the economic impacts of a given climate_change policy . '' computerized models are the main analytical tool economists use . ''if anybody tells you that he or she has the definitive answer as to the costs and benefits of particular climate_change policies , '' dr . yellen said , ''i would suggest that you raise your collective eyebrows . '' can anything useful be said that might aid the search for a solution creating the least economic strain ? there is general agreement that reductions of emissions would come at some cost to the economy and that the size of the cost depends largely on the size of the cuts and how rapidly they are carried out . energy costs would very likely rise , at least for a time , and some industry sectors , it is generally agreed , could be hit hard if they were not able to adapt quickly enough . chief among these is perhaps the coal industry coal burning emits the most carbon_dioxide per unit of energy , and the nation 's utilities depend heavily on it . but many economists also say there are a number of ways to cut the costs substantially , through policy measures . one is by imposing a tax on fuels in proportion to their carbon content . the revenues from the tax would be used to reduce other federal taxes , thus pumping money back into the economy . many economists see a carbon tax as the most economically efficient way to reduce emissions . but any sort of energy tax is likely to face deadly opposition in the republican_congress . so attention is focusing on another possible cost reducing mechanism emissions trading . in this arrangement , the government sets an overall cap on emissions and issues permits to companies to emit carbon_dioxide within that limit . companies that find it more difficult and expensive to limit emissions could buy permits from those that find it easier and cheaper . the price of the permits is set in an open market . proponents of this plan , now in use for industrial sulfur_dioxide emissions , say it cuts overall costs significantly . but many economists argue that unless the permits are initially auctioned by the government and the proceeds used to reduce other taxes , much of the cost cutting benefit to the economy would be lost . the united_states also favors extending the cap and permit idea to the international arena . richer countries , which emit lots of carbon and would find cuts relatively expensive , could pay poorer ones , partly in technological assistance , to reduce some of theirs . proponents of this idea say that since it would be cheaper to make cuts in developing_countries , the cost both to the united_states and the global economy would be lower . a third way to reduce costs , some economists say , is to allow some flexibility in the timing of reductions . they argue , for instance , that forcing industries to replace their physical plants with more energy efficient ones before their natural economic life is over would be very expensive . a fourth cost cutting idea , cited by environmentalists and advocates of alternative energy sources like solar and wind energy , is for government to aggressively promote the adoption of more fuel efficient technologies . these are myriad , and range from small things like devices making it unnecessary for television sets to use power when they are off , to large things like automobiles that deliver 60 or 70 miles a gallon to ways of burning coal more efficiently . a recent study by five of the government 's national laboratories concluded that vigorous promotion of such technologies could reduce carbon emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2010 while saving enough energy to at least offset the cost of putting the technologies in place . it was the latest in a long line of studies that have come to similar conclusions some have found , in fact , that the energy savings from new technologies would increase gross_domestic_product , which is the total of all goods and services produced , by 1 or 2 percent a year over the long run . other economists , principally those who model the economy 's overall operations , dispute this optimistic assessment , while acknowledging that some gains are possible through new technology . ''virtually all analysts believe that there 's some low hanging fruit out there , '' said richard richels , an economist at the electric power research institute , a research organization in palo_alto , calif . , that is supported by the power industry . the disagreement , mr . richels said , is over how much technological fruit can be easily picked . a recent study by robert repetto and duncan austin of the world resources institute , an independent research group in washington , found that such ''bottom up'' assessments as the five laboratory study , which try to add up the expected impact on the economy from a wealth of new technologies , probably overstate the potential energy savings . but the world resources institute also found that some conventional ''top down'' models , which analyze the economy 's overall performance , tend to overstate the costs . typically , the top down models say reducing emissions to 1990 levels by 2010 would trim gross_domestic_product by 1 or 2 percent , with some predicting much greater losses . mr . repetto and mr . austin examined 162 estimates from 16 models and found that 80 percent of their differences could be explained by what they assumed about economic uncertainties . for example , the prediction turns out more optimistically if one assumes that the economy responds relatively easily to changes in policy , that noncarbon fuels are readily available and easily adopted and that damages from air_pollution and climate_change are averted as a result . opposite assumptions produce more pessimism . predictions that a carbon tax or a cap and trade policy would seriously harm the economy are unrealistic , the two researchers wrote , because ''they stem from worst case modeling assumptions . '' assessing the damages of climate_change , and therefore the benefits of averting it , is perhaps the chanciest task of all , and relatively few economists have tried it . one who has , william d . nordhaus of yale_university , says his best guess is that benefits to the overall market_economy of the united_states may just about balance costs over the next century . but that guess , mr . nordhaus said , comes ''with big uncertainties . '' the most important uncertainties , said mr . jorgenson of harvard , have to do with how much economic_growth will take place in future decades even in the absence of any climate problem . unlike some industry leaders , who argue that the uncertainties warrant doing nothing about emissions , mr . jorgenson says they are an argument for taking preventive action in the interest of future generations . but he also says he believes that the cost of reducing emissions to 1990 levels by 2010 would be too high and advocates a more modest policy . but if the policy is too modest , say many involved in the pre kyoto international talks , it risks losing credibility with developing_countries , which have refused to undertake binding reductions until the richer nations show that they are serious . what 's more , the administration and the senate , whose ratification would be required on any kyoto agreement , have refused any deal that does not in some way include the poorer countries . then there are the europeans , who have proposed cutting emissions 15 percent below 1990 levels and are increasingly at odds with the united_states over the issue . however things turn out , flesh and blood political realities are likely to overshadow uncertain science and economics in the diplomatic endgame at kyoto . warming world this article is one of a series that have appeared since aug . 12 on the science , politics and economics of climate_change with the approach of an international meeting in kyoto , japan , in december to discuss limits on greenhouse_gases .",has a topic of science
"a powerful earthquake struck northern japan today , injuring at least 78 people , starting fires and damaging buildings throughout the region . the earthquake , reported to have a magnitude of 7 . 0 , caused no fatalities , but frightened many , and disrupted services in a broad swath of northern japan . the tohoku electric power company said an 825 , 000 kilowatt nuclear_reactor , its onagawa no . 3 unit , which is situated near the epicenter in northern japan , automatically shut down . of those hurt , 49 were injured in landslides . the temblor , which was the strongest earthquake to hit japan in two years , was powerful enough to be strongly felt 280 miles away , in tokyo , where tall buildings were shaken for several minutes , street lamps swayed and elevators in some buildings ceased operating when the seismic_activity began , at 6 24 p.m . the prime minister of norway , kjell magne bondevik , who was on a state_visit to japan , was evacuated from his tokyo hotel room . ''first i ran out in the corridor without my shoes , but then i decided it was best to put them on , '' mr . bondevik told norwegian television . in northern japan , about 35 , 000 homes temporarily lost power , but electricity was quickly restored for most customers . rail service throughout the region was also temporarily suspended , and amid the panic , telephone networks were briefly overwhelmed . experts said the earthquake 's power was muted by the location of its epicenter , which was not only 20 miles offshore miyagi prefecture , on the northeastern pacific coast , but 40 miles beneath the earth 's surface . the depth of the seismic_activity also eliminated the risk of tsunamis , or huge sea waves . ''we assume that the earthquake occurred due to the sliding down of the pacific plate , '' noritake nishibe , head of the meteorological agency 's earthquake monitoring section , told reporters . japan is one of the most seismically active countries in the world , and scientists attribute much of the activity to movements of two tectonic places the pacific plate and the philippines plate which are vast pieces of the earth 's crust . japan 's last major earthquake was in kobe in 1995 . that tremor , which measured 7 . 2 , killed more than 6 , 000 people .",has a topic of science
"collaborating russian and american nuclear physicists believe they have created a new ultra heavy element that may open the door to a host of new elements once considered impossible . if confirmed , the achievement would be the realization of efforts over a half century to reach a major goal of nuclear physics to create an element far heavier than any in nature that would survive for long enough to permit scientific study . russian physicists announced the news over the last few weeks through e mail to international physics laboratories , and the journal science published a brief account of the work on jan . 22 . the work to create the element , which has not been named , was conducted at the joint institute for nuclear research at dubna , russia , under the leadership of dr . yuri oganessian , a nuclear_physicist . the american participants in the experiment , from lawrence livermore national laboratory in california , said in interviews yesterday that they would have preferred to withhold the news until they had completed some calculations but that the evidence for the creation of the element was very strong . it appears , they said , that during a four month bombardment from a big russian cyclotron of a rare or form of plutonium by atoms of a rare form of calcium , a single atom of the new element was created . the nucleus of a calcium projectile atom fused with the nucleus of a target plutonium atom to form an element containing 114 protons and about 184 neutrons in its nucleus . the resulting atom of element 114 survived for about 30 seconds , they said , a long period compared with the decay rates of most other heavy man made elements . the pattern of radiation and nuclear fragments from the decaying atom matched the pattern predicted by theory for the decay of element 114 , the scientists said . the creation of element 114 , if confirmed , would place science at the edge of the long sought ''island of stability , '' theoretically a range of fairly stable ultraheavy artificial elements that physicists say may offer scientists a new palette of chemical elements unknown in nature . the achievement , if confirmed by laboratories in russia , the united_states and germany , where similar research has been done , would be a landmark in the course of nuclear discoveries that began in world_war_ii with the creation of plutonium , the element used to destroy nagasaki , japan . of the 92 elements in the basic periodic table from hydrogen , the lightest , with only one proton in its nucleus , to uranium , the heaviest , with 92 protons , all but two elements , technetium and promethium , are found in nature . tiny amounts of plutonium have also been found in nature . but with that exception , all elements with proton numbers greater than the 92 of uranium must be made in laboratories , and with element 114 , 21 artificial elements have been made . ( element 113 is missing from the sequence . ) many of the elements created since plutonium have found important uses in medicine , chemistry and even smoke_detectors , which use the radioactive man made element americium . the possibility of creating a stable superheavy element was first predicted in the 1940 's by theorists who hypothesized a shell structure of protons and neutrons in large atomic nuclei , analogous to the shells of electrons orbiting atomic nuclei . they believed that nuclei with filled proton and neutron shells would be less likely to disintegrate radioactively than nuclei with partly filled shells . but despite intense efforts by scientists in the united_states , russia and europe in the intervening half century , the goal of making a superheavy element within the island of stability was not achieved . a major problem was that when two atomic nuclei collide , they often combine energies to such high levels that the new composite nucleus instantly shakes itself apart . the 18 member dubna team , assisted by five american physicists , created the putative atom of element 114 , using a large cyclotron to hurl projectile atoms of calcium 48 at targets of plutonium 244 . both of these radioactive isotopes were provided for the experiment by lawrence_livermore laboratory . the scientists have not announced their results in any formal publication , but the russian contingent unveiled its data in e mail with foreign nuclear physicists , including albert ghiorso a leading nuclear experimentalist at lawrence berkeley national laboratory in california . mr . ghiorso is a longtime associate of dr . glenn t . seaborg , the nobel laureate who created plutonium . mr . ghiorso is credited as a co creator of 12 artificial elements beyond uranium . ''i ca n't tell you how much i wish we at the lawrence berkeley laboratory had been the ones to get element 114 , '' he said . ''it 's one of the greatest achievements in physics . but i 'm overjoyed that someone has done it . '' the 88 inch berkeley cyclotron will be used to try to repeat the dubna experiment , he said . dr . ronald lougheed and dr . john n . wild , two members of the livermore team , said they would continue to work on the russian cyclotron to confirm the discovery but meanwhile were preparing a formal paper reporting the results . bill richardson , who as secretary of energy who is in charge of livermore and other national physics laboratories hailed the work . ''if confirmed , the synthesis of element 114 will create an important new opportunity to study the physics of extremely heavy elements , '' he said .",has a topic of science
lead a chart on thursday explaining how the magnitude of earthquakes is measured and an article yesterday about a japanese fund for victims of the california earthquake gave incorrect dates for the great kanto earthquake in central japan . it occurred in 1923 . a chart on thursday explaining how the magnitude of earthquakes is measured and an article yesterday about a japanese fund for victims of the california earthquake gave incorrect dates for the great kanto earthquake in central japan . it occurred in 1923 .,has a topic of science
"this crumpled city struggled to get back to work today , as supply laden helicopters crisscrossed the gray skies to avoid horrific traffic_jams , businessmen pedaled to work on bikes and the city began its first garbage pickup since last week 's huge earthquake . water is now running to 41 percent of households , and electricity has been restored to nearly every home that remains habitable . but in one of kobe 's largest districts it will take far longer for life to return to normal , if ever . nagata ward , a gritty industrial center just west of downtown , suffered among the worst damage and worst fires , which means that kobe 's largest minority_group , koreans , absorbed a disproportionate share of the disaster . there are about 700 , 000 ethnic koreans in japan , with many living in the region around kobe and osaka . about half of kobe 's 20 , 000 korean residents lived in nagata , now a pitiful neighborhood in which at least 90 koreans died when vast sections were first leveled and then burned . the overall death toll rose today to 5 , 060 . what accentuated the blow is the fact that the industry the koreans dominated and which employed a majority of breadwinners in nagata shoe production was nearly destroyed . the suffering of the koreans in kobe was just one indication of how the earthquake is likely to leave this port city permanently scarred . although all of the talk here now is of rebuilding , several koreans admitted that the shoe industry is not likely to be built to its pre quake level , and may wither to a fraction of its previous size . the scale of the disaster in nagata ward fell hard on another minority , a group known as the burakumin . the burakumin were japan 's official outcasts for more than a century , given jobs that were considered unclean , like butchering and leather work . the hereditary designation was officially abolished a century ago , but the burakumin , who are ethnic japanese , are still subject to ruthless discrimination and generally live in tight_knit communities . many of kobe 's burakumin were clustered in nagata ward , and many relied on the small shoe workshops for jobs . "" there were probably a thousand shoe workshops in this area before , "" said dazoburo higashi , a factory owner , who chatted on a cracked and broken back street corner in nagata late this afternoon . "" probably 10 survived . "" choi young sung , an official of the korean residents union here , explained that the industry had begun with a few workshops making rubber soled shoes after world_war_ii . over time the workshops , and the subcontractors they relied on , multiplied in nagata . these factories , which often employ just a dozen or so people , expanded by focusing on higher quality shoes made of synthetic materials . nagata was producing 80 percent of the "" chemical shoes , "" as they are known , made in japan before the quake . but even before the quake struck last tuesday , the industry was facing difficulties . countries with low wages , like china , were slowly taking over mass_production of shoes . and the soaring value of the yen against the dollar made it all but impossible to export the synthetic shoes produced here they were too expensive . "" even before this happened , a lot of us were thinking about what we would do in the future , because of how badly the strong yen was hurting us , "" said mr . higashi , whose own small operation focused on women 's pumps and army boots . takeshi tsuji , the head of kobe 's economic_development bureau , said there was talk that the synthetic shoe factory owners might use the quake as an opportunity to change products or businesses . "" some owners had insurance , but it wo n't be much , "" said mr . choi . "" this was an earthquake , and that is usually not covered . that industry is almost completely wiped out . "" mr . higashi fought off the cold as the sun set by tossing pieces of broken houses into a metal drum where a fire roared . he laughed amiably with a few friends , but they all agreed that it was unclear what would drive nagata ward 's reconstruction . "" people are talking about all kinds of things , "" mr . higashi said . "" some have said they will move their workshops to osaka , because there is a better infrastructure there . "" the problem is it may take one or two years to rebuild , and cost 500 , 000 for each workshop , "" he added . "" who can wait that long ? that 's why we do n't know what we will do . "" quake in japan in kobe",has a topic of science
"the space_shuttle_endeavour today began an orbital chase of a large japanese satellite that it is to capture and bring back to earth as the highlight of an ambitious nine day mission . the endeavour and its crew of six astronauts began the hunt before dawn when the shuttle lifted off from kennedy_space_center at 4 41 a.m . the launching was delayed for 20 minutes while technicians sorted out ground communication problems . it was 10 years ago this month , on jan . 28 , 1986 , in 36 degree cold , that the space shuttle challenger exploded after liftoff , killing all seven crew members . it was later determined that seals on the booster_rockets had been affected by the cold . the temperature today , 44 degrees , was the coldest since that launching . the endeavour is to close in on the japanese satellite , a_7 , 000 pound , reusable experiment platform called the space flyer unit , on saturday . a japanese astronaut on board the shuttle , koichi wakata , is to use the endeavour 's 50 foot robot arm to snare the satellite and secure it in the shuttle 's cargo bay . the satellite , launched last march aboard a japanese space agency h 2 rocket , was designed to be retrieved by an american shuttle . japan will pay the national_aeronautics_and_space_administration about 50 million for recovering the satellite , which contains 11 scientific payloads , including crystal growth furnaces and an infrared telescope . also on board , in an experiment to see how weightlessness affects spawning , are two red bellied newts , now dead , and their fertilized eggs . the endeavour was launched during one of the coldest spells of weather to hit florida since 1989 . since last weekend , ground crews had used several heating systems to keep the orbiter and its rockets warm . launchings in cold_weather concern nasa officials because low temperatures were a factor in the challenger explosion . investigators found that the cold stiffened o ring seals in the booster_rockets , allowing hot gases to escape and ignite the large external fuel tank . as a result , nasa adopted new weather rules for launchings and added heaters to protect shuttle components . during the current mission , the endeavour 's crew is also to release and retrieve a nasa satellite that will orbit more than 100 miles from the shuttle for two days while doing experiments on atmospheric contamination of spacecraft and using the global positioning system to control orbital craft . that system , which uses satellite information sent to special receivers to pinpoint locations on earth , has never been used to determine the position and velocity of craft in orbit . the other highlights of the mission are two 6 1 2 hour space walks to be conducted by three astronauts to test spacesuit components and practice construction techniques . the flight is the third in a series of six missions through 1997 to which nasa has added spacewalks so that more astronauts have experience working outside their spacecraft before construction begins on the international_space_station . astronauts from the united_states , russia and other nations will have to carry out 650 hours of space walk work to complete the space_station . construction is scheduled to begin late next year and to take five years . also scheduled for the mission are three dozen medical , biotechnology and engineering experiments . the endeavour is scheduled to land at the kennedy_space_center on jan . 20 .",has a topic of science
"the space_shuttle_endeavour 's astronauts captured a four ton japanese science satellite today but only after trouble with the satellite 's two solar_panels prompted ground_controllers to jettison them . commander brian duffy gingerly steered endeavour toward the satellite , and a japanese astronaut , koichi wakata , performed the delicate task of grabbing his nation 's spacecraft with the shuttle 's 50 foot robot arm . the retrieval , 90 minutes late because of the solar panel trouble , came as the two spacecraft flew nearly 300 miles above the earth . earlier , as the astronauts chased their quarry , controllers in japan beamed up remote commands telling the 32 foot long solar panel arrays to fold like an accordion . the arrays retracted , but they failed to latch into place . mission managers in japan and houston worked for an hour to solve the problem while the battery power needed to keep the satellite and its science instruments running was drained . after several failures to latch the panels , the japanese officials decided to jettison the arrays . it was an option they had considered before the flight to insure the satellite 's safe return to the earth . the satellite and shuttle flew in formation a little more than 200 feet apart when one of the problem panels separated and drifted slowly away into the blackness of space . about 10 minutes later , the second panel was released . the reusable science probe , launched from japan in march , is carrying a variety of experiments conducted in the past 10 months . one experiment contains fertilized newt eggs and two dead japanese red bellied newts . a heater was turned off after the adult newts spawned in orbit , causing the creatures to freeze to death . once they are brought back to earth , the eggs will be studied as a possible protein source for humans on long space flights . scientists are also interested to see how the eggs developed in the absence of gravity . among the satellite instruments are an infrared telescope , furnaces for manufacturing ultrapure semiconductor crystals and a sensor used to monitor atomic particles . on sunday , the shuttle is to release an american science satellite for two days of free flying research involving four experiments . on monday and wednesday , three of the six astronauts are to practice working outside the spacecraft . the shuttle is scheduled to land at the kennedy_space_center in florida on saturday .",has a topic of science
"as japanese and american scientists basked in the glow of their monumental discovery of neutrino mass , announced here on friday , a financial cloud that could hamper future research hung over the 120 member team today . through the team 's leader , dr . yoji totsuka , the scientists appealed for the japanese government 's reconsideration of major cuts in financing for the kamioka neutrino observatory , where the discovery of neutrino mass was made . many of the 300 physicists attending an international neutrino meeting here predicted privately that the discovery could eventually be rewarded with one or more nobel_prizes . but the government has been unsympathetic , dr . totsuka said in an interview . faced with severe budget problems , he said , the government has reduced the kamioka group 's spending by 15 percent and threatens another 15 percent cut next year . ''this may mean shutting down the detector for up to six months , which would have devastating effects on our research , '' dr . totsuka said . the experiment announced on friday demonstrated that neutrinos , created by the impact of cosmic rays on the earth 's upper atmosphere , ''oscillate , '' or change from one type to another as they reach the ground and pass through the earth . with this discovery , the observatory demonstrated beyond reasonable_doubt that neutrinos have mass . that will require revision of the generally accepted theory of the structure of matter , which is made of quarks , leptons and force carrying particles . depending on how large the still unmeasured mass of neutrinos may be , they could prove to be a significant proportion of the mass of the universe , perhaps accounting for some of the ' 'dark matter'' that has not been seen directly but exerts large gravitational effects . an american member of the kamioka research collaboration , dr . james stone of boston_university , said its big underground neutrino detector , super_kamiokande , was investigating a range of major physics problems other than the search for neutrino oscillations on earth . one project explores the possibility that protons building blocks of matter may decay . super_kamiokande , essentially a water tank the size of a_10 story building deep under western japan 's mountains near here , is also looking for an explanation of the deficit in neutrinos detected from the sun , a problem not solved by friday 's announcement . the detector also continuously looks for bursts of neutrinos coming from supernova explosions and peculiar explosions called ''gamma_ray bursters , '' which may be the most violent events in the universe . in 1987 , the nearest supernova in 400 years exploded in a nearby galaxy , and at almost the same moment that the supernova appeared as a dot of light visible from the southern hemisphere , a neutrino detector in ohio and the kamioka observatory in japan picked up a strong neutrino pulse . the achievement marked the debut of neutrino astronomy . dr . james w . cronin of the university of chicago , one of the nobel_laureates at the neutrino conference here , called the cuts in financing for the kamioka observatory alarming and said he would join in an appeal to the japanese government . another nobel prize winner here , dr . sheldon l . glashow of harvard_university , said support for physics research was endangered in many countries . ''sweden is threatening to withdraw from cern for financial reasons , '' he said , ''and that could have a ripple effect reducing the financial commitment of other european_nations to the coalition . '' cern , the acronym for europe 's high energy physics consortium , is building what will be the world 's most powerful accelerator , the large hadron collider , in a circular tunnel near geneva . congress canceled an even larger accelerator that had been under construction in texas , but , with american scientists still hoping to work at the cutting edge of particle research , the united_states has become a partner in building the european collider . major reductions in support of cern by european_nations could delay the new accelerator and other large programs , including those designed to explore the question of neutrino oscillations and mass . one such experiment would direct an intense beam of neutrinos from one of the cern accelerators near geneva through the ground about 450 miles to a neutrino detector inside a vehicular tunnel under the gran sasso mountain in northern_italy . the idea is to see whether any neutrinos change type during their long trip through the earth 's crust . ''sometimes the accidents of politics and economics help science , '' said dr . barry c . barish of the california_institute_of_technology , who uses a detector in the gran sasso tunnel . ''the tunnel was built because local politicians persuaded the government to appropriate a large sum for infrastructure , and there was a problem finding something to spend it on . the tunnel proved to be a boon for physicists who needed the mountain above it to shield their experiments from unwanted cosmic rays . '' american members of the super_kamiokande team said they planned to send a letter to the japanese government pleading for steady support of the observatory . ''american scientists greatly benefited from the japanese government 's generosity , '' dr . stone said . ''japan paid for most of the 100 million construction cost of super_kamiokande , and the united_states put up less than 10 percent , and yet american physicists make up half the research force . we hope the japanese government will allow uninterrupted operation of this great scientific instrument . ''",has a topic of science
"camping is one thing , but akemi honda has been living in a tent for more than nine months , and the view out front is not of a majestic mountain vista but a muddy playground surrounded by buildings . mrs . honda and her family were among the 300 , 000 refugees who lost their homes in the great earthquake that shattered the port city of kobe in january , killing 6 , 055 people . in most respects , kobe has made a stunning recovery , and it is possible in some areas to look around without seeing any signs of the quake . yet while the refugee centers have closed and the port has reopened , mrs . honda and hundreds of others are still stuck in lean_to tents . "" the government is n't helping us any more , and the volunteer workers have all gone home , "" said mrs . honda , 50 , sitting in the "" kitchen "" area of her lean_to . rain pattered on the awning overhead and dripped through in places , while her 29 year old son lay snoozing on the floor . mrs . honda said her apartment building is scheduled to be refurbished and made habitable by the end of the year , so she hopes to go home soon . another family that lives with a pet dog in the same school , in a room that they commandeered and that no one has dared evict them from , has also found a new home , so the refugee population in the school will drop to just three families . compared with the initial devastation after the earthquake , the progress seems almost miraculous . rail and subway service has been restored , the harbor is steadily regaining its capacity , and most of the rubble has been carted away . to be sure , a leaning house occasionally topples over onto a road or a teetering shop collapses onto a sidewalk . but kobe residents blithely walk around the obstruction . the earthquake is estimated to have caused 10 billion in damage , and it will be almost a decade before kobe is entirely rebuilt . but officials assert that the city will then be better than ever , partly because planners have taken advantage of the catastrophe to widen roads a bit and add tiny green spaces . one tent resident , a middle_aged woman who would identify herself only as mrs . arimoto , offered a less enthusiastic assessment . she is still living with her family "" tell them to go away , "" her husband kept saying grumpily in a tiny blue tent in a schoolyard , and the living conditions seem to have taken a toll . "" everything is a nuisance , "" mrs . arimoto said grimly , but she added that she had no plans to leave . the authorities have offered her a temporary home , but it is an hour away . "" we ca n't live there , "" she insisted . "" how could we get to work ? "" the government has built more than 25 , 000 temporary huts for homeless families , but hundreds of people remain in tents or school buildings because they complain that the temporary homes are inadequate . although free , they are tiny an entire house is smaller than an average american living room and many are in remote areas . the city put some huts in public parks and on tennis courts , but now the only spots left are in remote areas an hour or more away from central kobe . public transportation often costs 15 for a round trip , and so families like the arimotos stay in tents in the hope that the authorities will offer something better . some spaces are opening up , in a morbid way , because death rates are high in the temporary homes . many of the occupants are elderly people who remain disoriented from the quake , and the local newspapers are full of reports of such people dying or even committing_suicide . one of the lucky ones is takeshi nakane , 60 , a trading company employee who has lived in a tent on a strip of grass since the earthquake . he scraped together enough cash to put a down payment on a 165 , 000 prefabricated house that is going up on the site of his former home . "" we want to move in as soon as possible , probably in december , "" mr . nakane said , beaming . "" it 's already getting very cold at night here in the tent . """,has a topic of science
"already harshly_criticized for confusion in its earthquake relief effort in kobe , the government is now suffering the embarrassment of reports that japan 's largest organized_crime group is running a big operation to provide food and supplies to quake victims . for the fourth straight day , the yamaguchi gumi , a feared group of gangsters based in kobe , handed out food , water and diapers today to people in its devastated neighborhood . in japan , organized_crime groups operate largely in the open , and the operation , which is said to be more efficient than the government 's , has been a source of pride for the gangsters . toshio masaki , who described himself as the secretary to the crime family 's oyabun , or top boss , said in a telephone interview that the group was handing out 8 , 000 meals a day from a parking_lot next to its headquarters . the food includes bread , powdered milk , mineral_water and fresh eggs . he said the group was using motor scooters , boats and even a helicopter to move precious goods into and around the city , which has been nearly paralyzed by the quake damage and dangerously clogged roadways . in the difficult years after world_war_ii , the yakuza , as gangsters are known here , developed a reputation as street toughs with hearts , men who plied illegal trades but lent a hand to weaker neighbors . the police admit that they , too , relied on the yakuza to check random street violence and to control left_wing groups . in recent years the group has been engaged in increasingly violent activities , including killing bankers to whom it was indebted and engaging in deadly turf wars with rival groups . the police have said that extortion and fraudulent stock trading and real_estate deals have brought the group billions of dollars and vastly increased its power . for two years , the police have pushed a high profile campaign to break the group 's influence . that is why some have charged that the yamaguchi gumi , which the police say has 22 , 000 members , has used the relief operation as a self serving effort to burnish its reputation . mr . masaki rejected the charge . "" the yakuza have a sense of chivalry , of public spiritedness , "" he insisted . "" we are available , and we have the ability to do this . i 'm satisfied that we are doing a good service . "" newspapers have been filled with complaints about disorganization in government relief efforts . the prime_minister acknowledged on friday that the government 's response to the quake had been tardy . several commentators have pointed out that even though kobe is a major port , the authorities have apparently made little use of boats to avoid the clogged roadways . some ambassadors here have also complained privately that their governments' offers of assistance were ignored for days before the japanese responded . mr . masaki also criticized the government , saying that officials had been too concerned about protecting their reputations to help the quake victims . "" even a government employee who came by today for some milk for his year old son was surprised by how many supplies we had in our parking_lot , "" he said . mr . masaki said the yamaguchi gumi 's operation , which involves handouts of food to all comers twice a day , at 11 a.m . and 5 p.m. , would be expanded to a second site . "" we 'll keep this up until the government can handle it , "" he added . quake in japan gangsters",has a topic of science
"president_bush and president boris n . yeltsin made new arms control proposals this week that envision slashing american and russian long range nuclear_arms by well over half and could eliminate the class of missiles considered the biggest threat to peace . but mr . bush 's proposal , outlined in the state of the union address on tuesday , asks mr . yeltsin to take a step that no soviet leader ever entertained give up his advantage in one area of nuclear_arms competition , land based missiles , in return for an important concession but not parallel cuts in the area of american advantage , submarine based missiles . mr . bush 's plan would reduce the american strategic nuclear_arsenal to between 4 , 500 and 5 , 000 warheads , about 60 percent of the current level and far less than envisioned in last year 's strategic_arms_reduction_treaty . multiple_warhead_missiles it would eliminate missiles with more than one warhead that are fired from land , the most dangerous kind of nuclear_weapon and the mainstay of the soviet nuclear_force . in exchange , the united_states would sharply reduce its stock of weapons launched from submarines , which are the ones the russians worry about the most , but washington would retain an edge . in response , mr . yeltsin said today that he would propose cutting long range nuclear_warheads to between 2 , 000 and 2 , 500 . that did not appear to include cruise_missiles and bombs dropped from airplanes , but would still mean a total significantly lower than what mr . bush suggested . page_a8 . administration officials said prospects were good for some sort of an agreement , which mr . bush and mr . yeltsin will begin discussing at camp_david on saturday . mr . bush on tuesday described mr . yeltsin 's early response as "" very positive . "" offer called 'lopsided' but soviet officials visiting the united_states in advance of mr . yeltsin 's arrival for a united_nations_security_council meeting on friday are reported to have said in conversations here that mr . yeltsin found the offer "" lopsided "" and told mr . bush so in a letter received by the white_house on monday . mr . yeltsin had been advised in advance of mr . bush 's proposal . mr . yeltsin also made clear in a speech today that his government will continue to oppose washington 's "" star_wars "" anti missile program unless the united_states agrees to share the technology , something the bush_administration has refused to consider . both sides have indicated in recent days that they recognize that the dynamics of arms control have been transformed . just last week , mr . yeltsin announced that russian nuclear_missiles would no longer be aimed at american targets , and the pentagon has long conceded there is no apparent military threat from what used to be the soviet_union . indeed , administration officials said these sorts of developments led mr . bush to propose the concessions that soviet leaders always refused , with some confidence that his ideas would be at least considered . 'out to sea' "" this is what we 've been trying to do since the beginning of strategic arms negotiations in 1969 'push the soviets out to sea , ' where we have our missiles , "" said dunbar lockwood , a senior analyst with the arms_control_association , a private research group . he added , "" it has always been our premise that it 's more stabilizing to have the bulk of missiles in subs , because they are invisible under the sea and therefore more useful for retaliation and not an attractive target for someone considering a first strike . "" as dramatic as the newly proposed cuts may seem , arms control is not the only item on the agenda for saturday 's meeting , nor perhaps even the most pressing . the white_house views the meeting as a chance for mr . bush to impress on mr . yeltsin the need to continue political and economic_liberalization without russia imposing its will on other former republics . 'big brother fashion' "" we believe there is a need for all the former soviet republics to move forward along these lines , mutually and not in big brother fashion , "" an administration official said . "" the russians have shown a tendency to confuse their national interests with those of the peoples surrounding them . "" mr . bush also planned to give what one official called his "" imprimatur "" to mr . yeltsin 's economic policies , which washington hopes will give the russian leader a political boost at home , in much the same way that mr . bush once sought to shore up president mikhail s . gorbachev . equally important , officials said , mr . bush hopes to establish with mr . yeltsin the kind of personal rapport and working relationship that he had with mr . gorbachev . "" it 's the first time he 's met with yeltsin that bush has n't had to worry about the problem of dual power and conflicting loyalties , "" a senior official said . another official said , "" the only alternative to yeltsin that we can see is dictatorship and so we want to , a , make sure that he 's politically entrenched and , b , make sure as we did with gorbachev that he follows the path of democracy and reform . "" 1991 arms treaty last july , the united_states and the soviet_union signed the strategic_arms_reduction_treaty , which calls for reducing the american arsenal of about 11 , 600 nuclear_warheads aboard ballistic_missiles , jet like cruise_missiles and bombs dropped by airplanes to about 8 , 600 before the end of the century . the soviet arsenal would be cut from about 10 , 900 warheads to about 6 , 900 . nuclear_arms treaties deal with warheads , which are the actual nuclear bombs , rather than the missiles that carry them , because modern missiles can carry more than 10 warheads apiece . these missiles are considered dangerous or "" destabilizing "" because they are tempting targets for the other country 's military planners . on sept . 27 , in announcing unilateral cuts in short range nuclear_weapons that are used on the battlefield , mr . bush offered to negotiate an elimination of multiple_warhead_missiles with the soviet_union . cutting soviet arsenal on tuesday , mr . bush proposed that russia , ukraine and kazakhstan eradicate all of their huge , multiple_warhead_missiles based on land . this would have the additional benefit to the united_states of removing all intercontinental missiles from ukrainian and kazakh soil . the united_states has in the past proposed eliminating multiple_warhead_missiles fired from land and the kremlin has always refused , because the united_states was not willing to consider cuts in its submarine launched missiles . this time , mr . bush offered to do just that if the other three countries accepted his proposal . he said he would eliminate about one third of the warheads aboard american trident submarines , reducing the force from 3 , 456 warheads to about 2 , 300 . he went a step further by saying he would also destroy america 's newest and most powerful land based weapon , the 10 warhead mx missile , and lower the number of warheads aboard the minuteman 3 missile to one from three . if these ideas are adopted , the united_states would be left with about 2 , 800 warheads on its long range missiles . the rest of the arsenal is composed of bombs dropped by aircraft and cruise_missiles , similar to conventionally armed versions used against iraq last year . it is not clear how many of each kind of missile mr . bush intends to keep .",has a topic of science
"an earthquake shook eastern sicily early_today , killing 18 people , officials said . the disaster took the biggest toll in carlentini , a town of 10 , 000 people between catania and syracuse , where members of four families were killed when their homes crumbled on top of them as they slept . the quake struck at about 1 30 a.m . and was followed by dozens of aftershocks during the day . the united_states earthquake information center in golden , colo . measured the quake at 5.1 on the richter_scale . on the scale , a gauge of energy released as measured by ground motion , a quake of magnitude 5 can cause considerable damage . 13 bodies in carlentini the bodies of 13 people were pulled from the rubble in carlentini . they included an elderly couple a woman , her two daughters and two grandchildren a 32 year old bar owner , and a couple and their 18 month old daughter . five others died of heart attacks after the quake , including one person in the town of francofonte and another in militello , the authorities said . a rescue worker in carlentini told the news_agency ansa that he had found the bodies of sebastiano musumeci , his wife , francesca , and their 18 month old daughter , veronica . "" they 're all hugging in a big bed , "" the unidentified worker said . "" maybe they were in such a deep sleep that they did n't even understand what happened . let 's hope it was like that . "" the couple 's 5 year old son , rosario , survived . damage put at 400 million about 200 people were injured , the italian news_agency agi said . the quake caused at least 400 million in damage , according to the prefect 's office in syracuse . up to 2 , 500 people were left homeless , the civil protection ministry said . in carlentini , about 20 miles north of syracuse , officials said they would set up a huge tent on the village sports field to shelter some of the 1 , 300 homeless people . two neighborhoods were badly_damaged . the quake 's epicenter was in the gulf of noto about 30 miles southeast of syracuse , the national institute of geophysics said . sicily has been struck several times by major earthquakes . in 1968 , nearly 400 people died in a quake . in 1908 , a quake leveled the city of messina , killing 83 , 000 people .",has a topic of science
"the white_house , beginning the arduous task of selling an accord to reduce emissions of climate altering gases , said today that it would not submit the proposed treaty for senate ratification until developing_countries agree to participate in the global environmental effort . but developing_countries at the global climate change conference that just ended in kyoto , japan , said they would not act until they see the rich countries succeed in cutting their own emissions . and many members of the senate are already saying it has no chance of passage . the accord is dependent on senate approval . at the insistence of china and other developing_countries , the kyoto conference imposed no requirements on newly industrialized_countries and created only limited mechanisms for their inclusion in global efforts to curb so called greenhouse_gases . the developing_countries delayed a compromise that would have allowed the united_states and other major polluters to buy or trade emission credits from countries whose emissions are within acceptable levels , and therefore avoid making significant cuts in emissions in a compressed time period . with senators denouncing the accord as not tough enough on developing_countries , the stage was set for a yearlong political fight with the clinton_administration , which has embraced the outlines of the deal . the developing_countries' objections provide mr . clinton with additional time to muster his arguments in favor of the treaty and an opportunity to portray himself as a defender of the united_states' interests . for the next year an election year he is in the risk free position of being able to make a strong pro environmental political pitch while not having to face a damaging vote in the senate . president_clinton defended the agreement as ''environmentally strong and economically sound , '' even as administration officials were admitting that its flaws made it unacceptable to the senate . mr . clinton is likely to either win credit for tackling a difficult problem or pay a huge political cost for misjudging the public 's appetite for sacrifice , even if doled out in small portions over many years . the outcome of the debate and the political impact on mr . clinton and vice_president gore are yet to be seen . but it is certain that congress and the american people will be subjected to millions of dollars worth of lobbying and advertising in the next months by powerful coalitions that support and oppose the proposed treaty . already , both sides are making sweeping claims about the dangers of global_warming and the high cost of proposed solutions . among the president 's most difficult jobs will be to help the public decipher those assertions and bring pressure on congress to take action on a matter over which there is still wide disagreement . ''the game is afoot , '' a senior white_house aide said today . in an appearance at a coast_guard station in miami , the president acknowledged that he faced the difficult political and diplomatic job of persuading the american people and leaders of developing_countries that the threat of global_warming is real and requires immediate action . ''there 's still a lot of challenges ahead , '' mr . clinton said . even if the countries that agreed to the targets set in kyoto begin taking steps to reduce so called greenhouse_gases that mainstream scientists believe are warming the earth 's atmosphere , concentrations of these emissions will continue to rise for many years . mr . clinton and others say that a potential catastrophe in the next century will be averted only by concerted global action beginning now to cut emissions . officials in washington said the administration would not put the treaty before the senate before 1999 at the earliest , after a meeting in buenos_aires late next year aimed at persuading developing_countries to accept the kyoto agreement 's limitations on emissions of greenhouse_gases . that timetable would also postpone some of the ratification debate beyond the 1998 congressional midterm_elections . president_clinton has until march 1999 to decide whether to sign the proposed agreement . ''as we have said from the very beginning , we will not submit this for ratification until there 's meaningful participation by key developing nations , '' vice_president gore said at a washington news conference today . administration officials did not define ' 'meaningful participation , '' saying that it was a matter for months of bilateral and multilateral discussions . mr . gore added that the administration had ruled out tax increases to meet the obligations of the treaty . and he said that the administration would soon propose a 5 billion package of tax incentives and research grants to move the country onto a more energy efficient path . one senior white_house official , who insisted on anonymity , said it was possible that the treaty would not be ready for submission to the senate during the remainder of mr . clinton 's term in office . despite the administration 's go slow approach , domestic opponents of the accord continued to rail against its terms , saying that it meant colder homes , a shrinking economy and higher gasoline prices . the house speaker , newt_gingrich , said the united_states ' 'surrendered'' to pressure in kyoto and called the proposed treaty ''an outrage . '' he said the accord would cripple the american economy . ''early reports from those in attendance indicate that on 10 critical issues such as cuts in emissions , future developing_country commitments and new u.s . commitments , we sacrificed the future well being of the country based on environmental correctness and inconclusive science , '' mr . gingrich said . ''it is profoundly wrong that approximately 134 countries were allowed to vote on a treaty by which they will not be bound . '' ''mr . president , '' the speaker asked , ''is this putting america 's interests first ? '' senator james m . inhofe , republican of oil rich oklahoma , called the kyoto accord ''a political , economic and national_security fiasco'' that will never be ratified by the senate in any form . mr . inhofe , in a news release , said that the failure to secure binding commitments from developing_countries meant that the agreement fell far short of the standard set in a 95 to 0 senate vote earlier this year . among its flaws , he said , was the lack of an exemption for military vehicles and operations . ''they went to kyoto determined to get a treaty for its own sake , regardless of the content , '' mr . inhofe said . ''what they have come back with is scientifically dubious , economically disastrous and militarily stupid . yet i do n't doubt their determination to try to make it all politically saleable . '' indeed , that is the challenge facing the president and the vice_president as the debate over global_warming moves into a new phase that will likely keep the issue before the public well into the 2000 presidential campaign . mr . clinton insisted that the united_states can make a start toward reducing its emissions without disrupting the economy or reducing the country 's standard of living . ''i see already the papers are full of people saying , 'the sky is falling , the sky is falling , it 's a terrible thing , ' '' mr . clinton said . ''every time we 've tried to improve the american environment in the last 25 or 30 years , somebody has predicted that it would wreck the economy . and the air is cleaner , the water is cleaner , the food supply is safer , there are fewer toxic_waste dumps . and the last time i checked , we had the lowest unemployment rate in 24 years . ''so do n't believe the skeptics'' mr . clinton said . ''give us a chance to make the case . '' congressional committees are preparing now for hearings next year on the kyoto accord and the broader question of the severity of the peril of global_warming and how to address it . senator richard_lugar , republican of indiana , the chairman of the senate agriculture committee , said united_states negotiators failed in kyoto to achieve any of their major objectives and came home with a document that makes unacceptable demands on the domestic economy for questionable benefits . mr . lugar compared the climate negotiations with mr . clinton 's defeat on ''fast track'' trade negotiating authority , which the house last month rejected because a majority of democrats did not believe the president 's promises to insure environmental and labor protections in future trade agreements . ''the president needs to spend some time explaining to the american people the validity of his arguments on global_warming , '' mr . lugar said . ''he did n't make the case on fast track and he has n't even begun to make the case on climate_change . and now he has to explain how the u.s . negotiators botched it in kyoto . '' mr . gore , whose presidential ambitions will hinge in part on how the public perceives his role in the global_warming debate , appeared mindful of the political risks of the coming months and made an effort to move the issue out of the partisan arena . in a white_house news conference , the vice_president said ''in the coming days and months , it will be critical that we avoid looking at this effort through a narrow political lens . too much is at stake . we must focus instead on the longer_term future of our planet and our economy , and on the health and well being of our families and communities . ''this is not a democratic or a republican problem , nor is it a problem for any one nation alone , '' mr . gore continued . ''it is a problem for the entire world . the stakes are simply too high , environmentally , economically and morally , for us to allow the special interests to get in the way of the common interests of all mankind . '' the climate accord the overview",has a topic of science
"in a declaration of independence from the united_states space_program , japan today launched its first large rocket built solely with its own technology . the h 2 rocket , with "" nippon "" painted on its side , blasted off at 7 20 a.m . from tanegashima , an island in southern japan . the powerful but complex first stage engine , which was dogged during its development by explosions , fires and faulty welds , appeared to perform flawlessly , although complete data for evaluation are not yet available . japan , which did not launch its first satellite until a year after the united_states landed on the moon , now boasts one of the world 's most modern and powerful launching vehicles , albeit one of the most expensive . 'world class level' "" after 10 years of development , we see the launch has been safely completed , "" takashi matsui , vice_president of the national space development agency of japan , said at a news conference at the agency 's headquarters here . "" at last , we have reached world class level . "" the 164 foot rocket is the first one made by japan that can lift large communications and earth observing satellites into orbit , and will be used to hoist an unmanned space_shuttle that might be completed by early in the next century . moreover , freed from restrictions that came from relying on the united_states for rocket technology , japan will be able to compete in the commercial satellite launching business . it will also be able to orbit its own military reconnaisance satellites , an idea it has begun considering again recently so that it does not have to rely_solely on the united_states for information on crises like the threat from north_korea 's nuclear program . with so much riding on the h 2 , japan could ill afford a failure today . an accident would have damaged the credibility of tokyo 's budding space_program for a long time . news coverage limited still , for all the nail biting by japan 's space authorities , the public hardly seemed excited . the morning news showed live coverage of the liftoff for only a few minutes , paying far more attention to a broiling political controversy over proposed tax changes . after a two day delay in the launching caused by bad_weather and another one day postponement because of a minor technical problem , this morning 's liftoff was delayed for 20 minutes because a fishing boat was under the rocket 's flight path . while this was treated with some humor , the fishermen of tanegashima are actually a big headache for the space_program . because launchings interfere with fishing , the space agency will effectively be limited to only two h 2 launchings a year . that is one of the factors that are raising the costs of the rocket and will make it extremely difficult for japan to compete in the commercial satellite launching business . within half an hour of liftoff , the h 2 released its cargo of two test spacecraft . landing in the pacific one of them , known as the orbital re entry experiment , or orex , is designed to test ceramic tiles and other items that will be used to prevent japan 's space_shuttle from burning up as it re enters the atmosphere . the orex , which resembles a small flying saucer , circled the earth once and then successfully splashed down into the pacific_ocean , surviving the heat of re entry . agency officials said they still must analyze how well the ceramic tiles performed . the other craft is a test satellite that will operate only for about 100 hours , basically to confirm that the h 2 is capable of putting a satellite into orbit . the vehicle evaluation payload , as it is called , entered into an elliptical "" transfer "" orbit that is used to move satellites from low earth orbit into geosynchronous orbit , 22 , 300 miles above the earth . a satellite in such an orbit remains in the same position relative to the earth . development of the h 2 , which cost about 2 . 4 billion , represents the culmination of years of effort by japan 's space agency to wean itself from reliance on the american technology used in previous generations of rockets . "" if we have no vehicle , it is like a navy without ships , "" said shigebumi saito , former high_commissioner of japan 's space activities commission . for the first stage of the rocket , japan decided to develop a staged combustion cycle engine using liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen as fuel . the technology , also used in the engines that launch the american space_shuttle , provides great lifting power but is extremely complex . the h 2 can deliver a_4 , 400 pound satellite into geosynchronous orbit , 22 , 300 miles above the equator , or a 22 , 000 pound payload into low earth orbit , about 155 miles from the surface .",has a topic of science
"hiroshi izuni 's grocery_store is still a mess , with puddles of congealed honey on the floor where jars shattered after the devastating earthquake last month , and his appearance is as frenetic and chaotic as his shop 's . "" i 've got to open , i 've got to , "" mr . izuni mumbled , casting a vicious glance at a competitor 's grocery_store across the narrow street . "" look at him he 's already open . i 'm behind ! "" all of kobe is busy rebuilding after the jan . 17 earthquake , which killed 5 , 250 people and left 270 , 000 living in refugee shelters , but nowhere is the pace quite so hectic as in chinatown . its shops and food stands were among the first to reopen , and so now japanese come from all over the city to buy cheap open air dim sum and fried rice . throngs of japanese stroll up and down the main_street of chinatown , which was not heavily damaged in the earthquake , giving the area the atmosphere of a carnival as they nibble on oranges from the fruit stands and line up for hot pork buns on sale on the street . traditional_chinese_medicine is popular in japan , and so japanese suffering from the ubiquitous local cold and flu_viruses are stocking up on chinese pharmaceuticals made from toad skin great for sore throats . "" this will be the center of kobe now , "" said tadakazu shimazu , a 49 year old japanese fruit distributor who operates on the edge of chinatown . mr . shimazu 's ancestors started the business on that spot more than a century ago , and chinatown grew up around it in the early and middle part of this century . with more than 10 , 000 people , kobe 's chinatown is now the second biggest in japan , after yokohama 's . if the quake was a test of relations between japanese and chinese , then kobe passed with flying colors , for by all accounts people from both groups cooperated in cleaning up and reopening chinatown . this is not the way things used to be . after the last big japanese earthquake , in tokyo in 1923 , rumors spread that koreans and other foreigners were poisoning the few remaining sources of water . angry mobs of japanese then swept through the city , battering to death 700 ethnic chinese along with a greater number of ethnic koreans . there still are some tensions between japanese and the ethnic koreans and ethnic chinese in japan . many japanese are genial in conversation about other asians in general , but less tolerant if you ask if their son in law is korean . some 200 , 000 ethnic chinese live in japan , or roughly one third the number of ethnic koreans . while in china many chinese are passionately anti japanese , there is far less animus among the chinese population in japan . partly that is because most of the chinese here came from taiwan rather than the mainland . taiwan is perhaps the one place that was occupied by japan that still harbors a measure of good feelings about those years . in chinatown , japanese and chinese live and work side by side , and relations seem very cordial . "" we 're all the same , "" said hiroko isozaki , a 53 year old japanese fishmonger who supplies chinese restaurants . asked whether intermarriage was common , she stiffened . "" well , marriage is different , "" she said . "" there 's not so much of that . "" mrs . isozaki 's chinese neighbors echoed her sentiments . "" relations with the japanese here are pretty good , "" said wong yui sang , a 45 year old store manager who normally sells blankets and clothing but now is also doing a booming business peddling bowls of dumplings outside the shop door . "" after all , these days we 're all earthquake victims together . "" mr . wong spoke in fluent but accented mandarin that underscores the neighborhood 's confused identity . his parents came from fujian_province , along china 's southeastern coast , but he carries a hong_kong passport . and he is most comfortable speaking japanese . most people in chinatown speak japanese these days , although the dialects of taiwanese , cantonese and mandarin are also used . some of the chinese , like mr . izuni , the grocer racing to open his shop , have even acquired japanese names and passports , for convenience and also to try to assimilate . "" our kids go to chinese school , but their chinese is pretty bad even worse than ours , "" said shi liantang , a manager of gun ai cantonese restaurant in chinatown , speaking in rusty mandarin . "" all they want to do is speak japanese . "" the chinese living in kobe were not particularly hard hit by the quake in contrast to ethnic koreans , who suffered more than any other group . only about 50 chinese were killed , and most of chinatown is made up of modern brick buildings that suffered little damage . as a result , chinatown and many of its businesses were able to reopen quickly . restaurants were unable to open their kitchens , because they have no gas or water , but they set up grills on the street . the fragrance of pork buns wafted throughout the area and drew crowds . "" in all of kobe , "" said mr . shi , the restaurant manager , "" this is now the no . 1 hot spot . """,has a topic of science
"frustrated by russia 's repeated delays in launching a crucial component of the international_space_station , nasa said today that it was preparing to use an american substitute to get the project moving again . daniel s . goldin , the nasa administrator , said the united_states would complete and launch a new control module for the station that could replace the long delayed russian service_module . if the russian module , which is to include living quarters and is almost two years behind schedule , is not launched by july or early august , he said , the united_states will send up its component in december and move ahead with building the station . mr . goldin said the united_states and the other 14 nations participating in the 60 billion project wanted russia to be a partner but could not stand for further delays , which are jeopardizing the program . ''to say we are frustrated and disappointed is an understatement , '' mr . goldin said today in some of his strongest criticism to date . ''the russians have got to understand what the focus is here . '' mr . goldin said he was particularly troubled by the russians' recent decision to funnel more scarce resources back into the 14 year old mir_space_station , which was abandoned in august and was to have been mothballed . but there has been fervor to continue using mir by russian nationalists , who see it as the last vestige of a once great independent space_program . ''their primary issue is to meet their commitments to the international_space_station , '' mr . goldin said . ''the russians have to decide if they want to work with other countries . '' his comments raise the stakes for a meeting this month in moscow , when officials of the national_aeronautics_and_space_administration are to meet with their russian counterparts to review the program , discuss rocket problems that have delayed the service_module , and set a date for putting the component into orbit . ''we want to see if they have a fire in the belly about getting the service_module up , '' mr . goldin said . mr . goldin also said he had called for an emergency meeting of all space_station partners for the end of the month or early march to look at the launching schedules and decide how the program should proceed . russian space officials said recently that they expected to launch the service_module , which is to connect with two sections already in space , by july or august . to guard against further delays and restart building of the orbiting station , mr . goldin said , he has ordered completion of a so called interim control module that would be launched on a space_shuttle in december . the new module will become part of the station , but serve a slightly different role , even if the russians attach their module on time , he said . the first two components of the station , one each supplied by russia and the united_states , have been in orbit since late 1998 awaiting the next russian component . the service_module , which was to have followed in five months , is to provide living quarters , laboratory space and flight control for the station during its early construction phase . dr . john logsdon , director of the space policy institute at george_washington_university , said nasa 's decision to use the interim control module showed that the united_states had lost patience with russian space_station delays and the diversion of resources to mir . ''this puts a stake in the ground prior to the russian meeting and says there is a certain limit beyond which we ca n't wait , '' dr . logsdon said . ''it got to where nasa had no real choice but to do this . '' congressional critics of russian involvement in the space_station program also saw the decision as a step forward . representative dave weldon , a florida republican who recently called for nasa to use the interim module , said the decision would finally allow the program to proceed without the russians . ''it is high time that nasa finally woke up and decided that the russians were not going to come through on the service_module , '' he said . the interim control module , a contingency nasa proposed in 1997 , was developed by the naval research laboratory using components it designed to maneuver spy_satellites for the pentagon . the module , which mr . goldin said would cost more than 200 million to build , test and launch , provides control and maneuvering power for the station , but no research or living space . not having the service_module on the station would delay its permanent staffing by astronauts , mr . goldin said , but crews could work there during space_shuttle visits . if the russian unit is launched in time , mr . goldin said , the american module will still be sent to the station , but in 2001 . having both units would make the station ' 'more robust , '' he said . critics of russia 's involvement said that having the extra propulsion unit aboard would make the orbital outpost less dependent on refueling flights from russia . to launch the service_module on time , the russians must fix problems that have cropped up in its proton rockets , one of which is to launch the critical module . two proton rockets were destroyed last year in launching mishaps , and the russians say they need to fly several of the rockets to test solutions to the problems before trying to launch the service_module . mr . goldin said it was up to russia to fix the rockets in a timely manner , but space_station partners would be monitoring these efforts to judge their effect on the program . the united_states cannot tell russia how to operate its rockets or the mir_space_station , mr . goldin emphasized . but the other countries involved in the space_station program have a right to be concerned with russian space operations that ' 'sap their strength'' and reduce resources for the international project , he said . ''we want the russians in the program , '' mr . goldin said , however , ''in no way is the operation of mir to interfere with their commitments to the international_space_station . we are at the moment of truth . ''",has a topic of science
"a severe earthquake rocked a remote area along china 's far western border on monday morning , and chinese officials said it killed at least 261 people and destroyed thousands of homes and other buildings . seismology officials said the quake had a magnitude of 6.8 and struck an area around the city of jiashi , not far from the old silk road city of kashgar and china 's mountainous border with kyrgyzstan and tajikistan . it hit just after 10 a.m . on monday , as workers headed to offices and students started classes . authorities said in telephone interviews from the area that the people 's liberation army had mobilized troops to help dig through rubble to uncover the dead and injured . by this morning the reported death toll had risen to 261 , with estimates of the number of people who suffered injuries running at about 4 , 000 , said zhang yong of the xinjiang seismological bureau . ''not a single house in our area escaped damage , '' said li juan , an official in the heavily affected township of qiongkuer chake . ms . li toured the stricken area after her four story government headquarters buckled during the quake . ''the dead bodies are lined up all along the streets , '' ms . li said . ''it 's a horrible sight . '' residents reached by phone said that in accordance with local custom in the mainly muslim area , relatives scurried to cover bodies in white cloth and arrange immediate burials . many people who lost homes covered themselves in blankets against the sub freezing_temperatures . the epicenter was about 25 miles east of the city of jiashi , in bachu county . jiashi is about 35 miles east of kashgar , which felt the tremor but did not suffer significant casualties or damage . the official new china news_agency reported that nearly 9 , 000 buildings , including 900 classrooms and at least one large elementary_school , were flattened around bachu . one official blamed poor construction standards for the widespread damage . ''the quality of the buildings in that area is quite bad , '' said song lijun , also of the xinjiang seismological bureau . ''because schools were among the destroyed buildings , we fear that children are among the dead . '' mr . song said he was uncertain how far the rescue effort had progressed or whether the death toll would rise substantially . communications among small towns and villages in the area are considered poor , and officials suggested that it could be days before they knew the extent of the devastation . in beijing , officials initially played down the severity of the quake . before meeting secretary of state colin l . powell , president jiang_zemin of china told reporters he did not consider the quake a major disaster . it seemed likely that mr . jiang 's comments were based on early reports of light casualties . but as fresh reports came in on monday , the quake appeared to be one of china 's most severe in recent years . chinese officials are especially sensitive to the potential of tremors to wreak horrific damage since a huge earthquake in tangshan in 1976 killed an estimated 240 , 000 , one of the worst natural_disasters . official news_agencies reported on monday evening that the central government had dispatched a rescue team to the area and that wen_jiabao , the man expected to become prime_minister at the meeting this spring of the chinese parliament , had taken charge of relief work . the area affected in the quake lies about 1 , 750 miles west of beijing in the xinjiang region . the muslim uighur minority is the predominant ethnic_group in the region , which is one of china 's poorest . though a volatile fault lies under xinjiang , causing frequent tremors , casualties are generally light . relatively small numbers of people live outside the handful of big urban_areas in the expansive territory , which consists largely of deserts and highlands . chinese news reports suggested that this was xinjiang 's worst quake in decades . in 1997 , a spate of 11 earthquakes struck xinjiang . one of them , on jan . 21 of that year , struck only 12 miles from jiashi , where the tremor occurred , and killed 12 people . one of the largest in recent years came in march 1996 . twenty four people were reported killed when a quake measuring 6.9 hit an area about 75 miles north of jiashi . the united states geological survey in golden , colo . , reported that the quake measured 6 . 3 , less severe than the chinese measurement . it was unclear what accounted for the discrepancy .",has a topic of science
"a patient crew of astronauts is ready to blast off to the international_space_station to begin what could be more than 15 years when humans will continually occupy the orbiting_outpost . the three man crew of astronauts from russia and the united_states is scheduled to lift off aboard a russian soyuz rocket from the baikonur cosmodrome in kazakhstan at 2 53 a.m. , eastern time , on tuesday . if all goes well , this expedition one crew will dock with the new space_station early thursday to begin a four month shakedown mission to make the spacecraft habitable . one astronaut , capt . william m . shepherd , 47 , of the united_states_navy , is to open the space_station 's hatches at around 6 a.m . thursday and enter the craft as its first commander . the other crewmen are yuri p . gidzenko , 35 , a lieutenant_colonel in the russian_air_force , and sergei k . krikalev , 38 , a veteran russian astronaut who has flown on russian and american spacecraft . colonel gidzenko is to command the soyuz craft on its two day trip to the space_station and to control the rendezvous and docking of the two vehicles , while mr . krikalev serves as flight_engineer . aboard the station , the three men will begin tasks to turn the pressurized aluminum structure into a home . the international_space_station , a 60 billion project being constructed by 16 nations led by the united_states and russia , currently is a 143 foot long structure of linked modules weighing 162 , 000 pounds . over five years , it is to grow to a mass of one million pounds , cover an area larger than a football field and include at least four major scientific modules . the crew has trained for this moment for almost five years . the flight was delayed for years because of spacecraft and rocket problems , most notably a more than two year wait for the russians , who did not have the money they needed to complete the command and living module , zvezda , which was finally launched in july . ''i 'm really glad that we 've gotten to the day where our training is behind us , '' captain shepherd said earlier this month at a news conference . ''it 's been a very long road . '' one advantage of working so closely together for so long , the crewmen said , is that they know one another and their jobs so well that they can react to situations without communicating . even though captain shepherd speaks fluent russian and his partners are well versed in english , the men said they communicate in a combination of the languages . ''we say jokingly that we communicate in 'runglish , ' '' mr . krikalev said , ' 'so that when we are short of words in one language we can use the other . '' the first resident crew of the station is not only highly trained , it also has a great deal of experience in space . captain shepherd , who was deputy manager for the space_station program from 1993 to 1996 , has spent 440 hours in space on three shuttle flights . colonel gidzenko spent 180 days in space as commander of a mission to the russian mir_space_station . mr . krikalev has spent 15 months in space on two extended missions to mir and two space_shuttle flights and is a veteran of seven spacewalks . jeff hanley , the lead flight director for the mission at the johnson_space_center , said the main job of the expedition one crew was to establish precedents for living on the station and dealing with two control centers , one in houston and the other outside moscow . crew workdays are set up generally to begin around 1 a.m. , eastern time , when a buzzer will awaken the astronauts , he said . after two hours for personal activities , eating breakfast and reading e mails and other communication from earth , the crew will begin daily tasks and prescribed exercise routines to counteract the effects of weightlessness . after a midday lunch break , they work until midafternoon , when they have a daily planning meeting with ground_controllers about the next day 's activities . after dinner and some free time , they will go to sleep at around 4 30 p.m . on its first day aboard the station , the crew is to set up food heaters , activate a water processor , turn on the special suction toilet , charge power tools and test communications links . later , they will install computers and set up networks , start the oxygen generator and carbon dioxide removal system and turn on equipment throughout the station . this crew will perform only limited scientific research , since most of its time will be spent in setting up the station and stowing gear and supplies left on previous visits by russian progress cargo craft and american space shuttles . during its tour , the crew will also play host to three shuttle missions bringing up new station components and at least one unmanned progress flight . currently , the station consists of the russian made zarya cargo module , the first section of the space_station , which was launched in november 1998 the united_states' unity connecting node , attached the following month the zvezda control and living unit , attached in july and a truss structure , gyroscope assembly and docking port , added this month by the shuttle discovery . the space_station is to grow substantially during the first crew 's stay , and part of its job will be helping with the construction . in december , the shuttle endeavour will deliver a giant united_states solar_power array and in january , the atlantis will bring up the main american scientific module , destiny . at the end of february , discovery is to return with racks of scientific equipment for the american laboratory and the expedition two replacement crew , which will be commanded by a russian . the expedition one crew will return to earth aboard discovery , leaving behind the soyuz craft that brought it to the station as a ''lifeboat'' for future crews in case an emergency forces an evacuation .",has a topic of science
"for years , scientists have been trying to figure out why the atmospheric concentration of methane , a heat trapping gas , stopped increasing in the early 1990 's after tripling during the preceding 200 years . some scientists and environmental groups said the change could be a sign of success in efforts to stem emissions of methane , a gas that contributes to global_warming . they included stanching pipeline leaks and capturing methane from landfills . now a new study by an international research team supports the suspicions of some experts that the leveling off was probably temporary and caused by a downturn in emissions from industry and most likely related to the collapse of the soviet_union and its economy . after 1999 , emissions from industry and other human activities began rising again , particularly in china , according to the study , which will be published today in the journal nature . but that increase in methane from manmade sources appears to have been masked by a reduction in methane from sources in nature . tropical droughts reduced methane released by bacteria in muddy wetlands , the study said . inez y . fung , an atmospheric scientist at the university of california , berkeley , said the study was a convincing portrait of shifts in human and natural contributions to the methane mix in the atmosphere . methane is considered the second most important heat trapping gas emitted by human activities , after carbon_dioxide . methane exists in the atmosphere as a trace of less than two parts per million , but has more than 20 times the heat holding capacity of carbon_dioxide . ''if methane 's growth rate resumes its historic pace , its future contribution to global_warming could be significant , '' said edward j . dlugokencky , a scientist at a national oceanic and atmospheric administration laboratory in boulder , colo . , and an author of the study . the researchers used a combination of measurements of regional variations in methane levels and computer simulations to determine that changes in specific sources were the most likely cause of the overall shift in concentrations .",has a topic of science
"launching of the next section of the international_space_station , a russian made module with laboratory and crew space , will be delayed until at least september because of technical problems with the component , nasa officials said today . the often delayed service_module , a crucial component of the space_station , was to have been transported into space in july , to be joined to the initial two sections already in orbit . but its launching will be pushed back at least two months . the russian effort has been repeatedly delayed by money troubles , but officials of the national_aeronautics_and_space_administration attributed this delay to the need for further ground testing and to problems with computer software for the unit . ''it 's a development program and they are having some technical problems that have to be worked out , '' nasa 's deputy associate administrator for space development , gretchen w . mcclain , said in an interview . ''i do n't think we will see it before september . '' no new launching date for the russian module has been set , and official announcement of the delay will await review meetings to be held over the next two months between nasa , the russian space agency and other partners in the project . sixteen nations , led by the united_states and russia , are involved in building the space_station , which is expected to take five years to complete at a cost of 40 billion to 60 billion . the project requires connecting more than 100 major components , carried into space on 45 space_shuttle and rocket flights and assembled in 162 planned space walks . construction of the space_station is more than a year and a half behind schedule , primarily because cash_strapped russia has not had enough money to finish the critical service_module . last fall , nasa agreed to provide russia with 60 million in exchange for future services aboard the station to help in completing the service_module , which will provide living quarters and research space in the early stages of the space_station 's occupation . ms . mcclain said the russian space agency distributed the added money by the end of last year , paying off subcontractors and getting work on the module going again . ''the problems they are having now are technical , not financial , '' she said . but ms . mcclain added that the russian government must still come up with money for its space_program 's budget this year , including continuing work on the space_station . the first two segments of the station were launched last fall and joined 240 miles above earth on dec . 6 by a crew aboard the space_shuttle_endeavour . the station now consists of a russian made power and maneuvering module and an american made node to be used to connect future segments . another shuttle flight to the station , carrying equipment and supplies to outfit the existing modules , is tentatively scheduled for may . the delay will mean more problems for nasa 's shuttle launching schedule , which has been disrupted by delays in the space_station and other programs . the scheduled launching of the chandra x ray observatory aboard the space_shuttle_columbia in april was pushed into may last week because of problems with that spacecraft . moreover , a supply flight by the shuttle atlantis to the space_station in august , which was to follow the attachment of the service_module , will have to be delayed until the russian service_module is launched . space agency officials said they had been assured by their russian counterparts of their commitment to the space_station . even though the russian government last week approved a plan to extend the life of its mir_space_station if private investment could be found , russian officials said their priority was the international program . the russians had previously agreed to bring the mir down this summer and concentrate its resources on the international project . ms . mcclain said nasa was following the mir developments closely to be sure there would be no effect on the international station if private investment could be found to keep the russian station in space . james oberg of houston , a former nasa engineer who is an expert on the russian space_program , said the newest delay with the service_module was not unexpected and would probably not be the last . the russians still face huge financial problems that will prevent them from keeping their commitments as a major partner in the international_space_station program , mr . oberg said today , and nasa 's leadership refuses to acknowledge the depth of the problems . ''after every delay , we are assured by our people in nasa that we are on top of the problem , '' mr . oberg said . ''and that 's never been the case . ''",has a topic of science
"in the latest setback for the japanese space_program , the space agency said today that it would abandon its troubled h 2 rocket project , the cornerstone of the program , after a series of costly failures . the decision will delay the launchings of almost all japanese satellites for about a year and follows the failed launching last month of the no . 8 h 2 rocket , which plunged into the pacific shortly after takeoff because of engine trouble . in developing the rocket , japan sought to free itself from the restrictions that came with relying on the united_states for rocket technology and to compete in the commercial satellite launching market . but the national space development agency said it would immediately halt production of the no . 7 h 2 rocket , which is 90 percent complete at a cost of 160 million . the no . 7 rocket , which despite its designation was the last in the h 2 series , had been scheduled for launching with a communications_satellite next year . the agency said it would focus on the next generation of rocket , h 2a , which the agency said would benefit from past mistakes . the agency has invested 4 . 14 billion in the h 2 program , which began in 1986 , including 2 . 7 billion for development and 180 million for each launching . an aerospace analyst , fujio nakano , said the decision to shift focus to the h 2a was a good idea . ''with the past h 2 launches , '' mr . nakano said , ''we have already accumulated much valuable information that can be used in designing the new rocket model . considering that this is an investment toward the next generation rocket technology , 16 billion_yen is a small loss . '' that total equals 160 million . the credibility of the space effort was severely_damaged on nov . 15 , when the no . 8 h 2 rocket , carrying a government satellite , plunged into the ocean after the first stage engine stopped firing . that was the second h 2 rocket failure in two years . the lost rocket and satellite were valued at 340 million . the agency has not determined the cause of the failure . ''while we are still investigating the accident , we decided , considering the cost involved , that we should cancel the no . 7 h 2 and apply the savings and what we learn from the investigation to insuring a successful launching of the h 2a , '' said a spokesman for the agency , yasukuki fukumuro . mr . fukumuro said the agency would save 30 million by devoting its efforts solely to developing the h 2a , which he said has a more advanced engine and more power than its predecessor . the agency had planned the initial h 2a launching for early next year . but its debut will be delayed for a year to conduct additional ground tests , the agency said . the postponement , along with the cancellation of the no . 7 h 2 , will push back the launching of almost every satellite for at least a year . the agency said it planned to launch the first and second h 2a rockets , which are scheduled to carry a european_space_agency communications_satellite and japanese_military satellite , in the summer and winter of 2001 . mr . fukumuro said if the initial h 2a launchings were successful , the agency hoped to transfer the technology to the private_sector to fulfill the long term goal of launching commercial satellites . to be competitive , the japanese plan to offer customers steep discounts on launchings and build a reputation for reliability . the highly competitive launching industry is dominated by three major players , boeing 's delta rockets and lockheed_martin 's atlas rockets , both from the united_states , and ariane rockets made by arianespace , the european consortium . russia and china have small parts of the market .",has a topic of science
"a pentagon review has concluded that two sensitive encoded circuit_boards that disappeared after a failed launching of an american communications_satellite in china two years ago were probably destroyed in the fiery crash . last month several defense_department officials said they suspected that chinese officials had stolen the devices from the wreckage of a 200 million loral space and communications_satellite that was obliterated when the chinese rocket carrying it exploded shortly after launching . but a review by the national_security_agency , the military 's super secret code makers and code breakers , found no evidence of wrongdoing by the chinese authorities . ''it is highly unlikely that the devices survived the crash because of the crash impact and high temperatures produced by burning rocket propellents , '' said the review , which noted that the devices were housed close to the rocket 's fuel tank . in the off chance that the chinese recovered the circuit_boards , each of which contained scores of individual computer chips , they would not have learned much , the review concluded . ''it is highly unlikely that these items could have been recovered in sufficient detail'' to enable the chinese to reproduce them , it said . moreover , clinton_administration and industry officials said the chinese would have had no way to know which of the chips were encoded because they all look_alike . loral employees could tell them apart by comparing company records with code numbers on the circuit_boards . none of the recovered chips were encoded , the officials said . the administration ordered the review after house republicans , notably representative curt weldon of pennsylvania , expressed fears at a hearing last month that the loss of the encoded circuit_boards might have harmed national_security . the encoded technology tells an orbiting satellite which way to point to receive and transmit signals . the case of the missing circuit_boards became part of congress 's multipronged inquiry into whether sensitive american satellite technology was given to china that might ultimately enhance beijing 's military . after the house hearing last month , the white_house released a statement from the national_security_agency that said the loss of the devices would have ' 'minimal'' impact on american security because the technology was 20 years old . even before the accident , the government had scheduled a routine upgrading of algorithms , the set of instructions that guide american satellite encoding equipment , the statement said . thus , encoded devices for one satellite could not gain access to or control other satellites . mr . weldon , who is a member of a house select committee looking into accusations involving china , today expressed skepticism over the administration 's explanation . ''the whole thing is very suspicious , '' he said . ''why did n't they have these answers a month ago ? '' the pentagon provided a copy of the one page review today after franklin miller , a senior pentagon official , testified before a senate governmental affairs subcommittee on the export of sensitive technology to china . mr . miller had expected questions on the missing circuit_boards , but none were asked . when asked about the issue after the hearing , mr . miller said , ''the government 's position is that the devices almost certainly did not survive . '' american officials had said that only one circuit_board was missing , but the report today made it clear that two encoded circuit_boards were involved . mr . miller said the administration never asked china for an accounting of the missing technology because an american team of industry and military observers concluded the day after the accident that the devices were probably lost in the crash . on feb . 15 , 1996 , at the launching of the loral satellite in southern china , the chinese rocket exploded 22 seconds after liftoff , showering debris and burning fuel on a nearby village . by american accounts , as many as 200 civilians were killed . for five hours , american officials said , the chinese authorities barred american monitors at the launching center from visiting the crash site , purportedly for their own safety . according to an industry official , an american inspection team , made up of representatives from the pentagon , loral and intelsat , the communications consortium that had planned to use the satellite , finally was able to comb the crash site for pieces of the satellite . the team recovered pieces that made up about one third of the satellite , but many parts were mangled or melted beyond recognition , the industry official said . the loral satellite contained about 100 circuit_boards that resembled trays . about 1 , 000 computer chips were built into the circuit_boards , but the industry official said only two chips each on a separate circuit_board were actually encoded . the american team found parts of 12 trays , and three of them were battered but mostly intact . loral sent these parts back to its laboratory in palo_alto , calif . , for analysis . the american inspection team concluded the chinese had not taken anything because they were too busy dealing with the emergency , and had made no apparent effort to pick up any of the circuit_boards . ''if they were trying to search the field for something , they 'd have collected every recognizable piece and sent it to a lab , '' an industry official said . the china investigation pushed ahead elsewhere on capitol_hill today . george j . tenet , the director_of_central_intelligence , and louis j . freeh , the director of the federal_bureau_of_investigation , testified before at a closed hearing of the senate_intelligence_committee .",has a topic of science
"lead when flaviano melo , the young governor of acre , holds up his favorite map , it shows a new highway stretching west from the amazon rain_forest , across the peruvian andes and down to the pacific coast . there it joins a giant arrow pointing to japan . when flaviano melo , the young governor of acre , holds up his favorite map , it shows a new highway stretching west from the amazon rain_forest , across the peruvian andes and down to the pacific coast . there it joins a giant arrow pointing to japan . when environmentalists look at the same map , they see a road that will accelerate deforestation of the rain_forest by providing a new and shorter supply route for the world 's largest consumer of tropical hardwood . the 500 mile highway , which would link existing road systems in western brazil and neighboring peru , is still only a plan . but mr . melo has already begun negotiating financing for the 300 million project with the japanese government . an invitation to tokyo if built , the new route would open up huge tracts of mostly undisturbed rain_forest now reachable only through the vast grid of rivers that drain this western corner of the amazon . ''that road fits us like a glove , '' said mr . melo , explaining that the people of this isolated and poor state are currently unable to market forest products like wood , resin , rubber and nuts . ''if japan wants wood , we have it , and we can also think of selling our products to the rest of the world . '' demand for hardwoods japan 's new interest in the western amazon , which prompted it to invite governor melo to tokyo in late 1987 , reflects its enormous demand for tropical hardwoods used mainly in construction . as supplies are rapidly dwindling in the forests of southeast_asia , timber tradesmen said , japan and other importers have begun looking more carefully at brazil 's extraordinary untapped forestry reserves . later this month in brasilia , japan is financing a seminar for traders and foresters to discuss the future development of the tropical timber industry in latin_america . the region currently supplies only 5 percent of the world 's trade in tropical timber , most of it from brazil . tokyo 's interest in the highway has rapidly become the latest topic in a growing international debate about the impact that migration , development and deforestation are having on the amazon basin . protests from environmentalists as news of the project has leaked out , it has triggered protests from environmental groups in the united_states , europe and japan , who clamor for the protection of south_america 's great equatorial rain_forest because it anchors fragile soil , holds at least half of the earth 's animal and plant species and plays a vital role in world climate . alarm over the road project is heightened by a new and belated awareness of the devastation that has followed construction of other highways into the amazon basin , above all the br 364 , which sweeps northwest from cuiaba . more than a million migrants have moved up this road through mato grosso and rondonia in the last decade , and settlers and loggers have razed the jungle along its 880 mile route . here in rio branco , the far western city at the end of the road , the debate over the forest has gained added drama because it was near here that two months ago a well known leader of rubber tappers , francisco mendes , was murdered , apparently by cattle ranchers who felt threatened by his campaign to keep the forest intact . now , once again , the controversy over the new highway is pitting the pressures of migration and development against the interests of conservation , showing the dilemmas that brazilian federal and state authorities face as they seek to design a long term policy for the amazon . placed a tax on logs governor melo of acre is not an enemy of the forest . when he first moved into office two years ago , he stopped what he now calls the ''indiscriminate and uncontrolled'' cutting of valuable trees by putting a 100 percent tax on logs . most of these were destined for the united_states . infuriated lumber barons here threatened to kidnap the governor before a local court revoked the legality of the decree . ''in acre we are forest people and we have an interest in protecting it , '' said mr . melo , speaking in his office in a stately white mansion , a memento of the time when this small river port was at the heart of brazil 's rubber boom a century ago . today , rubber tapping and nut collecting remain the state 's main economic activity and acre depends on the federal_government for 85 percent of its income . but acre needs roads , mr . melo insisted , noting that its forest products now travel 2 , 800 miles of meandering rivers to reach the mouth of the amazon and the atlantic_coast . fuel , staples and other products not transported by air arrive here along the same staggering route . a road to peru is an old dream of this region , mr . melo continued . even if acre is connected to brazil 's road system , lima will still be only 1 , 000 miles away compared with the 2 , 500 miles to sao paulo and santos , its atlantic port . mud track in jungle the controversial route to the west now exists as a mud track through the jungle . it crosses a dozen rivers and is passable only a few weeks a year , leaving more than half the state 's 400 , 000 people isolated . rubber tappers , nut collectors and fishermen along the way complain that middlemen pay a pittance for their products because of transportation difficulties . the japanese plan for the exit to the pacific means paving a 500 mile stretch from rio branco to pucallpa in peru at a cost of 300 million . the close to 500 mile stretch across the andes from pucallpa to lima , although in poor condition , already exists . acre 's neighbors , the states of rondonia and mato grosso , have also started pressing for the project . both have timber to sell from their remaining stretches of rain_forest and mato grosso , after clearing jungle , has become one of the brazil 's main producers of meat , soybeans and other grains . with an outlet to the pacific , mato grosso 's governor has said the state can cut costs and compete with american grain exports to japan . on a recent trip south of rio branco , the one paved road toward xapuri and then to bolivia , offered a view now so familiar in the amazon on both sides , huge tracts of rain_forest had been felled and burned . its only occupants were charred trees and wandering cattle herds . safeguarding the forest inevitably , environmentalists fear that similar destruction will happen along a peru road , above all one conceived to export timber . ''in many ways this may be brazil 's last opportunity to show they can do things right in the amazon by putting in the proper protection beforehand , '' said thomas lovejoy of the smithsonian institution who has just visited rio branco . ''if not , it could be a final turning point . if 40 percent of the amazon is deforested , the rest may unravel , '' he said . researchers estimate that between 15 and 20 percent of the amazon 's primary forest has been cleared in the last two decades . an official of the international tropical timber association , which has its headquarters in japan , said that greater demand for amazon timber was almost inevitable . ''even if world consumption remains stable , indonesia and malaysia should run out of commercial species in the next two decades , '' the official said . mr . melo insists that he will declare forest reserves along the road to prevent penetration and , if given the funds , he will safeguard indian and rubber tappers' land . wood will be extracted , he added , only through careful forest management . studies due in march studies of the road 's economic viability and environmental impact are due in march , but mr . melo believes a contract with the japanese government 's overseas economic_development corporation and the construction may still be some time off . ''we had rather build the road now , because in my administration we will put in protection , '' mr . melo said . ''we do n't care who pays for the road but the japanese are the only ones that have shown interest . '' the world_bank and the inter american development bank , which have been severely criticized for their financing of portions of the road into the western amazon that brought huge forest devastation further to the south , have not discussed the road to peru .",has a topic of science
"the governor of tokyo has set off a swell of criticism in diplomatic circles and foreign communities here by saying that immigrants in japan , mainly people of korean and chinese descent , were quite likely to riot after a major earthquake . the governor , shintaro_ishihara , called on the military to be prepared to maintain order in such an uprising . much to the shock and dismay of many japanese and foreigners , mr . ishihara referred to immigrants as sangokujin , a derogatory term used here after the country had been defeated in world_war_ii , to tell korean and chinese residents to leave . ''atrocious crimes have been committed again and again by sangokujin and other foreigners , '' mr . ishihara said over the weekend at a ceremony of the ground self_defense force , the japanese equivalent of an army . ''we can expect them to riot in the event of a disastrous earthquake . '' ''sangokujin'' literally means people from third countries , and it was used , not as an insult , by the allied forces that occupied japan to refer to people who were not japanese or from the occupying forces . but the japanese gave the word a xenophobic twist , and it is rarely used today , except as a sharp insult . ''police have their limits , '' mr . ishihara said . ''i hope you will not only fight against disasters , but also maintain public security on such occasions . i hope you will show the japanese people and the tokyo people what the military is for in a state . '' the comments were particularly painful to many koreans who live here because they revived memories of the racial violence that flared after an earthquake struck tokyo and yokohama in 1923 , killing 97 , 000 people . korean residents were blamed for setting fires and looting , and several thousand ethnic koreans in those cities were massacred by japanese . ''these remarks bring the nightmare home to us of the groundless , hostile rumor of the 1923 earthquake by which many innocent comrades were victimized just because they were foreigners , '' the korean resident union in japan , which represents 600 , 000 south koreans , said in a statement . ''the comment is also something that has the potential to ruin friendships between many japanese and many foreign residents in japan who had hoped to create a society in which they can coexist . '' the political minister for the south_korean embassy in tokyo , chu kyu ho , said although mr . ishihara 's remarks were not too likely to sour the current good relations between the countries , he had damaged japan 's reputation internationally . ''i hope that the japanese people will disavow his remarks , because they are so inappropriate and so ridiculous , '' mr . chu said . ''but what really worries me is that many japanese do n't know their own history and may not even understand what 's behind this sort of remark . '' many korean residents are descendants of koreans who were forcibly brought here to work in japan 's colonization of the korean_peninsula in the early part of the 1900 's . choe kwan ik , deputy director of international affairs for the general association of korean residents in japan , which represents displaced north koreans in japan , said until japan apologized for its atrocities and made reparations , its officials would continue to make comments like mr . ishihara 's . south_korean and chinese have long expressed concern that mr . ishihara , who was elected last april , would use his position as leader of japan 's most populous region as a stage to promote his nationalist views . a spokesman for mr . ishihara said he was traveling today and would have no comment . the outspoken governor , who is best known for his book , ''the japan that can say no , '' has in the past called for japan to develop nuclear_weapons and dismissed the rape of nanking in 1937 , when japanese troops killed tens of thousands of chinese , as a lie . sociologists and political analysts noted that mr . ishihara commented as an undercurrent of intolerance for foreigners in japanese society is growing and when the country is suffering from a sharp decline in its economy and population , forcing it to rely increasingly on immigrants to get by .",has a topic of science
"to the editor re ''for billions of birds , an endangered haven'' ( sept . 23 ) every year , thousands of tons of toilet_paper are made from virgin forests in the canadian boreal and from outstanding forests in the southeastern united states . despite the availability of ecologically superior alternatives , certain popular brand name companies still use natural forests or timber plantations . anyone concerned about the forests should buy toilet_paper made from 100 percent recycled fibers or from agricultural residues . allen hershkowitz new york",has a topic of science
"thrust by the columbia shuttle disaster into a new role as sole supplier of the international_space_station , russia said today that its lucrative space tourism program had been suspended until the station 's future was assured and seats in its soyuz space capsules were again available . the decision deprives the badly underfinanced russian aviation and space agency , or rosaviakosmos , of a sideline that had added as much as 20 million per tourist to a program whose entire budget totals only 266 million . but ' 'state interests must come first , then commercial interests , '' the agency 's deputy spokesman , vyacheslav mikhailichenko , said . mr . mikhailichenko told the reuters news_agency that space tourism was not a priority when the fate of the 95 billion space_station was at stake . with the united_states' remaining three shuttles grounded , at least temporarily , while investigators attempt to determine the cause of saturday 's accident , russia 's soyuz space capsules and progress cargo freighters have become the only means of ferrying crews and supplies to the orbiting laboratory . today , maj . gen . michael c . kostelnik , the deputy associate administrator at nasa for the space_station and space_shuttle , said the next craft to dock with the space_station would be a soyuz_capsule due to launch in april . no decision has been made , he said , as to when the three people on the space_station who were due to come home on an american shuttle in march will leave . previous soyuz missions could accommodate tourists because the american shuttles delivered the primary crews to the space_station , leaving the russians to send up supplies and scientific equipment and to periodically replace russian built soyuz capsules left there as escape vehicles . the three passenger soyuz capsules are especially critical because they must remain docked to the space_station in six month rotations , serving as escape vehicles in case of a major emergency . each capsule is certified to fly for only six months and cannot be reused . because the space_station is normally occupied by a crew of three , there are no additional seats on the capsules for other visitors . nor can casual visitors be ferried to the space_station for a few weeks at a time , as was customary with the handful of tourists who have flown in the soyuz capsules . ''there can be no short term missions'' to the space_station , ''which means that we will most likely be unable to proceed with the space tourism program , '' yuri koptev , the head of rosaviakosmos , told the interfax news_agency today . american space officials had frowned at first on the notion of sending tourists to the space_station , contending that they would pose safety hazards and interfere with serious scientific work . but the americans warmed to the idea after a south_african millionaire and a california financier made separate , highly_publicized trips to the station in soyuz capsules . nasa became an enthusiastic backer of the notion after the pop singer lance bass of 'nsync announced last spring that he would fly a russian spaceship to the station . but mr . bass 's plans fell through last fall amid arguments over financing . more recently , russian space officials were negotiating with a company that planned a television game show whose grand prize would be a trip into space . those talks have been placed under review , mr . mikhailichenko said . the two private companies that have brokered flights for space tourists , mir corp , which is based in the netherlands , and u.s . space ventures , were quoted by reuters as saying that they hoped the program would be revived once the space_station 's future was no longer in doubt . loss of the shuttle soyuz",has a topic of science
"a baffling slow air leak on the international_space_station continued to defy detection on friday , leading the two astronauts aboard the station to take extra measures to find the source , nasa said . even though the crew is not in danger , officials said , engineers in houston and moscow agreed to start closing hatches , in effect separating the russian and american sections of the complex . the astronauts' scientific work , curtailed after the shuttle disaster last year led to a reduction in the crew , to two members from three , will come to a nearly complete halt . starting on wednesday , the crew will stay in the russian quarters , which are not nearly as comfortable as the usual living and working area . the two astronauts , dr . c . michael_foale , the american station commander , and aleksandr y . kaleri , the russian flight_engineer , will have access to the soyuz_capsule that carried them into orbit in october , still available as a lifeboat . on monday , if no leak has been found over the weekend , the station will be repressurized with onboard equipment . the current pressure is 14 pounds a square inch , down from the normal 14 . 7 pounds , since dec . 22 . the danger level for humans is 10 . 2 pounds , though equipment can start failing when the pressure drops much below 14 pounds . the manager of the station , mike suffredini , said , ''keep in mind this is very , very small and there is a half year 's supply of air at the current decay rate . '' on tuesday , nasa officials said a preliminary analysis indicated that the problem might be the russian made air scrubber , which absorbs carbon_dioxide from the crew cabins and periodically vents it through valves . the crew reported , however , that the scrubber had no leak . a spokesman for nasa in houston , james hartsfield , called the new measures ''an impact to supplies onboard the station , but actually a pretty minimal impact because it is such a small rate . '' the investigation will be conducted over the weekend , and the hatches should be reopened on monday , nasa said . the 100 billion station is a joint_venture of canada , the european_union , japan , russia and the united_states . america in space space_station",has a topic of science
"tamio arima sat in the chilly hall of an elementary_school and seemed overwhelmed , not by the debris of the buildings that had crumbled around him , but by the size of his losses . "" all i can see in my future is darkness , "" said mr . arima , a 47 year old businessman . "" i 've lost everything , and i must support my wife and daughter . i ca n't imagine what i 'm going to do . i do n't even have my own place to sleep in now . "" when the catastrophic earthquake struck tuesday morning , mr . arima rushed outside in his underclothes and comforted a tenant from the neighboring building , which he owned . a moment later he realized that his brother , who lived in the building , had been buried under mounds of debris after the second floor sank suddenly into the first floor . "" he probably did n't even have time to cry out , "" said mr . arima , as he sat in a crowded shelter near the heart of kobe with those he had left his wife , his daughter and two dogs . the body of mr . arima 's brother , 56 year old hideo , was nearby , in a classroom now called the "" room of peaceful spirits . "" the room , marked by a paper sign on the frosted glass door window , contains 23 coffins . in the vast gymnasium of tsuto elementary_school , where mr . arima and about 550 others sought refuge on tuesday evening , the young and the old left their shoes at the entryway and huddled together on futon mats . they said that while they had prepared for such a nightmare , they had never quite believed it would actually occur . "" i 've been here 45 years and this is the first time i 've ever seen something as terrible as this , "" said tsuneo suga , head of the local assembly , as he waited for more bodies to be brought in , the wooden coffins transforming a couple of dank classrooms into a morgue . the victims dealt with their pain in different ways . hisao kawasomeru brought his brandy bottle to the shelter , "" to warm up inside , "" he said , as he huddled in a blanket . some seemed to want to talk about their experiences , while others needed solitude . "" get out of here , "" the relative of one of the dead said gruffly as he stood watch outside the room of peaceful spirits . "" go away ! "" throughout kobe and the vicinity , roads have cracked in half , and traffic moves like one long centipede , inching up the small peaks and down the tiny valleys created by the shifts in the cement . officials halted delivery of natural_gas a major source of heat in this nearly freezing city , to limit fires . the smell of gas filled the air in pockets around the city but already large areas are in flames . the pillars of smoke fill the sky and can be seen from as far away as the neighboring city of osaka , japan 's third largest city , 20 miles away . while osaka was spared the raging fires and collapsed buildings of kobe , it too was shaken by the quake . "" i woke up and peered into my kitchen , and my dishes were scattered all over the floor , "" said masumitsu suzaki , a 54 year old osaka resident . "" there was no place to stand . "" while osaka still hummed with commerce , it also buzzed with words of horror and sadness over the calamity next door . a one mile segment of the four lane hanshin expressway , a main artery between osaka and kobe , collapsed , leaving a long stretch of cement slab keeled over on its edge . a dozen or so of its supporting pillars had been yanked out of the street below and lay prone like gigantic uprooted trees . the entire roadway looked like a toy set that a child had knocked over in a tantrum . along many narrow streets on the way to kobe , store fronts had caved in , houses had toppled over onto the sidewalks , and telephone poles had been knocked down . glass windows from store displays had shattered , adding glass fragments to broken roads . the display windows of a nissan automobile showroom had shattered , exposing half a dozen shiny cars , and signs written in square japanese characters ended up as broken blocks on the ground . there was no sign of any looting . the side of one eight story building had peeled off , so that it resembled an open doll house . the itami railroad station had buckled under the weight of two trains that had been parked on the second floor of the station when the quake occurred . all the stores underneath crumbled and several people died , according to a policeman . with the three main arteries leading into kobe shut down from collapse or debris , it was possible to reach kobe only on small side roads . these are now clogged with passenger cars filled with distraught relatives , all clamoring to get into kobe to check on their families . in kobe itself , the shock is universal . "" my whole building was swinging , and i felt like i was on the rough seas , like i was on a moving ship , "" said yuichi nishikawa , a 35 year old computer software_engineer who lives on the 21st floor of a 40 story building in the eastern part of kobe . "" the g g g eeking sounds of the quake terrified me , and i saw cracks in the walls . "" mr . nishikawa spent the entire day finding relatives he reached everyone except his wife 's parents and trying to pry open the sunken door of his parents' home . aside from their house , all but two homes on the block had collapsed . one american , david white , a businessman from cincinnati , was caught during the quake on the 15th floor of the kobe sheraton_hotel . he was in kobe to discuss business with proctor gamble , which has an office next door . "" i bounced up and down and out of the bed , "" he said . "" i was terrified . "" he and a couple of dozen guests from the hotel tried to leave kobe but failed to find taxis or buses to ferry them out of the area . train and bus service was halted in the area . masayoshi ogawa , 54 , took his first day off in 27 years , from his work as a manager at a steel company on the island of kyushu in western japan , to travel to the kobe area to help out his mother and relatives . mr . ogawa hardly expected that his journey would take him 14 hours , including a four hour wait for a cab at the osaka airport , and a hazardous drive down cracked roads and over quake split bridges . mr . ogawa had been able to reach some of his relatives and he knew that his mother was fine , but he worried about his aunt . local telephone lines were jammed , and electrical blackouts in the kobe area rendered many phones useless . a thin man who shivered in a light cotton jacket , mr . ogawa reached his relatives by telephone . in one case his cousin in germany was able to dial into kobe more successfully than he was , dialing within japan . when he reached kobe , he learned that his aunt 's two story wooden house had completely collapsed , taking with it her supply of coffee beans , which she sells out of a portion of her apartment she had converted into a store . but she had survived , relatives assured him . "" until i see with my own eyes how she 's doing , "" he said , "" i 'll be worried . "" how to help quake victims by the associated press the american_red_cross , p.o . box 37243 , washington , d.c. , 20013 . ( 800 ) 842 2200 . american jewish world service , 15 west 26th st . , 9th floor , new york , n.y . 10010 . ( 212 ) 683 1161 . americares , 161 cherry st . , new canaan , conn . 06840 . ( 800 ) 486 4357 . disaster relief fund of b'nai_b'rith , 1640 rhode_island ave . n.w. , washington , d.c. , 20036 . ( 202 ) 857 6582 . lutheran world relief , 390 park ave . south , new york , n.y. , 10016 . ( 800 ) 597 5972 . the presiding bishop 's fund for world relief episcopal_church , 815 second ave . , new york , n.y . 10017 . ( 212 ) 922 5144 . salvation_army , 615 slaters lane , alexandria , va . , 22313 . ( 703 ) 684 5500 . union of orthodox_jewish congregations of america . checks may be made out to "" orthodox union , "" 333 seventh ave . , new york , n.y. , 10001 ( 212 ) 563 4000 . world relief , p.o . box wrc , wheaton ill . , 60189 . ( 800 ) 535 5433 . quake in japan the scene",has a topic of science
"with concern over india and indonesia lurking in the background , the leaders of eight major countries turned their attention today to other issues , agreeing to cooperate more in battling international crime and pledging to do more to help the world 's poorest countries . meeting in the quiet of a country estate 20 miles outside this industrial city , president_clinton and the leaders of britain , france , germany , italy , canada , japan and russia put aside the crises of the day to focus on longer_term issues of common concern , including how to create more jobs and stop global_warming . it is the sixth such gathering attended by president_clinton , and for the white_house it offered a welcome opportunity to get away from the relentless grind of legal and political problems in washington . after meeting one on one with president boris n . yeltsin of russia on sunday morning , mr . clinton will spend sunday_night as the guest of prime_minister tony_blair of britain at his country home , chequers . mr . clinton and mr . blair will go to london on monday to discuss the relationship between the united_states and the european_union . before flying home to washington , mr . clinton will stop in geneva late monday to address the world_trade_organization , where he is expected to call for further efforts to knock down trade_barriers . as the leaders met today in the 17th_century manor at weston park in the village of weston under lizard , thousands of protesters encircled the convention_center in central birmingham that is the summit meeting 's headquarters , demanding more action by rich nations to relieve the poorest countries of their debts . the issue has long been a vexing one for the industrial countries , leaving them trapped between pressure to help poverty stricken counterparts and the risk that debt forgiveness would undermine the economic discipline they have urged developing nations to adopt . many african_countries in particular amassed huge debts to the international_monetary_fund , the world_bank and other governments and private lenders , and now find themselves unable to spend as much on health , education and economic_development as they would like because of their huge repayment burden . through a program agreed to by the seven largest industrial democracies , the i.m.f . and the world_bank have made seven countries eligible for a 5 . 7 billion package of debt_relief uganda , bolivia , guyana , burkina faso , ivory_coast and mozambique . but many poverty fighting organizations have argued that the program is being carried out too slowly and that too many countries are being excluded . a study by the relief group oxfam international said that in africa , where only half of children go to school , governments spend four times as much on debt repayment as on health and education . in ethiopia , oxfam said , more than 100 , 000 children die each year from preventable diseases but the government spends four times as much on debt as on health_care . in response to today 's protest here , mr . blair , as the summit meeting 's host , issued a statement reaffirming the commitment of the leaders to ' 'speedy and determined implementation'' of the program . he made no commitment to speed up or expand the program , but american officials said the leaders had agreed to support a broad effort to insure that all african children had the opportunity to go to school and that infant_mortality rates be reduced . on issues closer to home , the leaders discussed what policies can help create more jobs a topic of particular interest and sensitivity in france and germany , which are plagued by double_digit unemployment . american officials said mr . clinton pointed to welfare to work programs and the earned_income_tax_credit , which provides incentives to low income working people , as initiatives that have helped in the united_states . the leaders discussed efforts to curb global_warming , a subject on which the united_states has come under considerable criticism from european_countries for its refusal to make ironclad commitments to reduce emissions of heat trapping gases . and they spent considerable time discussing arrangements for international cooperation in fighting cross_border crimes like money_laundering , computer fraud and arms smuggling . in a communique , the leaders endorsed efforts to negotiate a united_nations agreement to provide law enforcement officials with more tools to fight international organized_crime . they called for talks with the business community on an international legal framework for obtaining computer data as evidence in criminal cases , while preserving privacy protections .",has a topic of science
"to the editor the cases column ''so lucky to give birth in england'' ( dec . 4 ) about the writer 's good fortune in giving birth in england points to numerous flaws in our health_care system . it also points to a serious lack of connectedness in viewing what we have here to meet the needs of most americans . in england , midwives not only provide aftercare but also handle a majority of normal births from beginning to end . these services are part of the national health_care system . the puzzling thing to me about the writer 's later experiences is that she did not seek the services of midwives for the subsequent births . manhattan is blessed with having the exemplar of birthing centers in the united_states , the maternity center of new york . one hears similar stories about the total caring environment of this center and others from people who have chosen to have their maternity care provided by midwives . and with the leadership of ruth lubic , the former director of the center , family centered birthing centers have developed in new york , washington , and other cities throughout the country to serve low income families . dr . claire m . fagin new york the writer was the dean of the university of pennsylvania school of nursing .",has a topic of science
"lead a strong earthquake rocked the tokyo region this morning , killing 2 people , injuring 10 and causing buildings to sway violently for several minutes , authorities said . a strong earthquake rocked the tokyo region this morning , killing 2 people , injuring 10 and causing buildings to sway violently for several minutes , authorities said . the quake measured a preliminary 6.6 on the richter_scale , the central meteorological agency said . the national earthquake information center in boulder , colo . , said the u.s . geological_survey gauged it at 6.1 . a quake registering 6 can cause severe damage , while a quake of 7 can cause widespread , heavy damage . telephone service was disrupted in some parts of tokyo and train service was halted briefly , but the national_police_agency said there were no immediate reports of widespread damage . the quake was strongest in chiba prefecture , just east of tokyo . a chiba police spokesman , susumu mochihara , said a 32 year old woman , mami awano , was killed when a statue fell on her . he said a stone wall also collapsed , killing another unidentified woman and seriously wounding a companion . a spokesman for the tokyo fire department , kimiya ishida , said at least nine people were hurt in central tokyo , most of them hit by falling objects . he said most of the injuries were minor . a resident of the city of kimitsu in chiba prefecture reported that an apartment building had collapsed , but there was no immediate confirmation or information about possible injuries .",has a topic of science
"china said tuesday that wealthier countries must take the lead in curbing greenhouse_gas_emissions and refused to say whether it would agree to any mandatory emissions limits that might hamper its booming economy . jiang yu , a spokeswoman for the foreign ministry , said china was willing to contribute to an international effort to combat global_warming but placed the primary responsibility on richer , developed nations that have been polluting for much longer . ''it must be pointed out that climate_change has been caused by the long term historic emissions of developed countries and their high per capita emissions , '' she said , adding that developed countries have responsibilities for global_warming ''that cannot be shirked . '' ms . jiang 's comments , combined with another briefing on tuesday by the country 's leading climate expert , represented china 's first official response to a landmark report issued last week by a united_nations panel of scientists that declared global_warming is ''unequivocal'' and warned that immediate action must be taken to prevent harmful consequences . china is the world 's second largest emitter of the greenhouse_gases contributing to climate_change , trailing only the united_states . last november , the international energy agency in paris predicted that china would pass the united_states in emissions of carbon_dioxide in 2009 . china had been expected to surpass the united_states as late as 2020 , but its soaring consumption of coal has rapidly increased the country 's emissions . china derives nearly 70 percent of its energy from coal_fired_power_plants , many of them equipped with substandard pollution controls . chinese officials have long noted that china 's per capita emissions remain well below the averages in wealthier countries , including the united_states . officials also argue that china remains a developing_country without the financial resources or technological prowess to make a rapid shift to cleaner , more expensive energy technology . china has not disputed the scientific rationale behind global_warming or denied the potential harm it could cause . later this year , china is expected to release broad policy goals on how it can reduce emissions and respond to global_warming . in december , it issued a report warning that climate_change posed a serious threat to the country 's agricultural output and economy . ''the chinese government is taking climate_change extremely seriously , '' qin dahe , chief of the china meteorological administration , told reporters at the briefing . ''president hu_jintao has said that climate_change is not just an environmental issue but also a development issue , ultimately a development issue . '' indeed , even if chinese leaders acknowledge the problem , they remain resistant to any sweeping measures that could threaten the country 's development . some efforts are already meeting with uneven results . mr . qin , who served as a co chairman of the united_nations panel that issued the global_warming report last week , noted that china had set an ambitious five year goal of improving energy efficiency by 20 percent . but last year , the country failed to meet the initial target in that schedule . china 's standing as both a huge developing_country and as one of the world 's fastest growing economies has given it prominence in the global_warming debate . along with india , china is exempt from the requirements of the kyoto_protocol , the agreement that calls on industrial nations to reduce emissions by 2012 . ( the united_states signed the agreement , but has not ratified it . ) asked if china would agree to mandatory , specific targets to reduce emissions , mr . qin did not answer directly . ''as a developing_country that 's growing rapidly and has a big population , to thoroughly transform the energy structure and use clean energy would need a lot of money , '' mr . qin said , according to reuters . ms . jiang , the foreign ministry spokeswoman , said china recently ordered a shutdown of dirtier coal_fired_power_plants that emitted 5.4 million_tons of sulfur_dioxide a year . meanwhile , china has been experiencing record warm temperatures this winter that scientists attribute at least partly to global_warming . temperatures in beijing have soared into the 50s in february , a month when the historical average is just below freezing . brazil 's leader speaks out rio de janeiro , feb . 6 ( reuters ) the president of brazil , luiz in cio lula da silva , said tuesday that wealthy countries were responsible for global_warming and that they should stop telling brazil what to do with the amazon rain_forest . ''the wealthy countries are very smart , approving protocols , holding big speeches on the need to avoid deforestation , but they already deforested everything , '' mr . da_silva said during the announcement of a public works project in rio de janeiro . mr . da_silva , a former factory worker , said wealthy countries should switch to nonfossil fuels , such as ethanol or biodiesel , an area where brazil is a pioneer . brazil is the world 's largest producer of ethanol , which they derive from sugar_cane .",has a topic of science
"for the past two years , china 's military has relied on american made satellites sold for civilian purposes to transmit messages to its far flung army garrisons , according to highly_classified intelligence reports . the reports are the most powerful evidence to date that the american government knew that china 's army was taking advantage of the bush and clinton administrations' decisions to encourage sales of american high technology to asian companies . the united_states has barred american companies from selling military equipment to the chinese military since the 1989 killings in tiananmen_square . the intelligence reports , which were described by administration officials , were recounted last year in a document compiled by pentagon intelligence officials and sent to hundreds of senior policy_makers at the white_house , state_department and other agencies . several congressional committees are examining whether the administration 's policy toward technology exports damaged american national_security by strengthening china . senator richard c . shelby , the alabama republican who is chairman of the senate_intelligence_committee , said last week that he planned to investigate use of american made satellites by china 's military . the house recently voted to ban future satellite exports to china , and the senate is scheduled to take up similar legislation soon . china turned to the american made satellites , which are owned by hong_kong companies with ties to the chinese government , when its own communications network collapsed and replacements built with help from the german conglomerate daimler_benz were not working . administration officials said it was impossible to prevent china 's army from using american made satellites sold abroad , and that their long term goal was to prevent china 's military from obtaining the technology needed to make the equipment on its own . in addition , they said , the arrangement had a side benefit it gave american intelligence agencies a better chance of intercepting china 's military_communications . clinton_administration officials said that if the united_states had barred american manufacturers from selling satellites in asia , the chinese would have eventually gained access to satellites produced in europe or elsewhere that have fewer limits on trade with beijing . ''the argument that we can block use of civilian satellite technology by the chinese military is simply unrealistic , given the widespread availability of other satellite options around the world . '' james p . rubin , the state_department spokesman , said in an interview . disclosure of the intelligence findings and the administration 's explanation of the information inject a new element into the broadening congressional investigation of the administration 's policy on satellite and technology sales involving china . the clinton_administration has publicly justified its satellite sales to chinese linked companies on grounds that they were being used solely for civilian purposes . this argument was the underpinning of mr . clinton 's decision in march 1996 to shift responsibility for satellite sales from the state_department to the commerce_department , which is charged with encouraging exports . administration officials said the intelligence reports were part of a document called the military_intelligence digest , which was distributed a few months before president_clinton approved the latest sale of a commercial satellite to a civilian chinese government ministry in february . the document said china 's army was making extensive use of the american made satellites to transmit its coded messages , administration officials said . the digest incorporates a host of reports about military developments around the world , and it is difficult to assess who read any individual item and how closely , given the numerous intelligence memorandums that policy_makers receive each week . critics of the administration say the export of american satellites to companies with ties to the chinese military has enhanced china 's military prowess , shoring up a crucial weakness in the army 's operations . the clinton_administration is weighing whether to allow another asian company with ties to the chinese military to buy a similar communications_satellite . american officials said china 's military has long made some use of commercial satellites , including those launched by the consortium of countries known as intelsat , of which the united_states and china are members . but officials said the army 's use of american made satellites sharply increased in the past two years , just as american aerospace manufacturers were placing much greater emphasis on their satellite sales to asia and just as the clinton_administration was easing export rules . the chinese have made no secret of the improvements wrought by increased access to the satellites . in an article last september , the daily newspaper published by china 's army said that officers once had ''cried themselves hoarse'' or run to distant post_offices to send urgent messages over the military 's antiquated communication system . ''those phenomena are now history , '' the article said , noting that satellite_communications had been used for such high profile operations as last year 's handover of hong_kong , the former british colony . last february , mr . clinton approved the sale of a commercial satellite made by loral space and communications to a chinese government ministry . the memorandum to mr . clinton outlining pros and cons of the deal made no mention of the recent intelligence about the chinese military 's growing reliance on similar american satellites . it did tell mr . clinton that the administration could deflect possible criticism of the sale by pointing out that it ''will not contribute to chinese military capabilities . '' a white_house national_security official , who declined to be identified , said this was meant to refer to the technology needed to launch the satellite , not the use of the satellite . congressional committees are closely scrutinizing that sale , which was approved by mr . clinton in the face of objections from justice_department prosecutors , who were investigating the company for possible violations of export law . loral 's chairman , bernard l . schwartz , was the largest individual donor to the democratic_party last year , and has given over 1 million in recent years . this week , the president defended his decision in that case as ''pretty routine . '' all modern armies transmit their messages through satellites , which are more reliable and provide broader coverage than radios or land lines . china launched its first generation of communication satellites , the dfh 2 series , in the 1980 's . the last of those satellites stopped working a few years ago . a second generation satellite , the dfh 3 , was launched in 1994 , but failed to achieve proper orbit and was not usable . china 's military turned to american made commercial satellites , which had been sold in the early 1990 's to hong_kong companies with ties to the chinese government and military . some of these exports were approved by president george_bush , others by president_clinton . according to american officials , the main hong_kong company used by the chinese military for its communication is apt , a public_company . its shareholders include a unit of costind , the scientific and research arm of the chinese_army . the satellite was built by hughes space and communications , which is part of hughes_electronics , a subsidiary of the general_motors_corporation , and the license for the sale was approved by the clinton_administration in 1995 . most of the technicians involved in operating the satellite came from chinese government agencies , including costind . in 1996 , the costind unit leased two receivers aboard the satellite , called apstar 1a , according to the prospectus apt issued in late 1996 when it sold stock on the hong_kong_stock_exchange . the prospectus said costind was using the satellite to broadcast news and entertainment programs to macau . but administration officials said that the chinese military was using it for other purposes and was relaying coded communications to command and control its forces . brian lo , apt 's secretary , said in a telephone interview from hong_kong that his company was a ''commercial entity'' that leased satellite time to ''broadcasters and telecommunications networks . '' asked whether this could include the chinese_army , mr . lo replied that the army ''has business enterprises . '' he declined to answer whether this did include coded , military_communications , saying the question was ''too prejudiced . '' donald o'neal , a spokesman for hughes , said that his company could not control the use of its satellites and that it relied on the american government to vet customers for any ties to the chinese_army . the successful launching of apstar 1a on a chinese rocket in july 1996 eased fears among chinese officials about the country 's rocket program , according to reports in the official press . the next year , china again tried to solve its satellite difficulties with its own equipment . on may 12 , 1997 , a chinese rocket launched another dfh 3 telecommunications satellite into orbit . it was built by china aerospace corporation and daimler_benz and contained some american parts . but according to roland klein , a daimler_benz spokesman , the satellite never worked . clinton_administration officials insist it is impractical for the government to require companies buying american communications satellites to certify that they will be used solely for civilian purposes . but some exporters already do just that . last month , a chinese rocket put a lockheed_martin_corporation satellite into orbit for a chinese telecommunications company . ''we got a certificate of end use from the chinese government saying the satellite would be used for commercial purposes only , '' said jim fetig , a spokesman for lockheed_martin .",has a topic of science
"to the editor as mayor of venice i cannot but be pleased by the prominence you give to coverage of the city in william j . broad 's article ''that sinking feeling , again'' ( aug . 29 ) . what is a little less pleasing is the final message readers might gather from the piece venice is on the point of disappearing forever . this has become a rather tired leitmotif since thomas_mann published his ''death in venice . '' unfortunately , each time it is trotted out , it tends to encourage people to hurry and visit the place before it goes for good . it is more than probable that the scare stimulates even more day tripper ''raids'' on venice , and thus may actually serve to make its own grim prophecies self fulfilling except that , in the end , venice will not be submerged beneath the waves of the sea but beneath floods of visitors . perhaps most worrying is the rather questionable arguments put forward by the archaeologist albert j . ammermann and the geologist charles e . mcclennen , who are studying the origins of venice . their predictions that the city will sink within 100 years and flood repeatedly involves a forecast of an increase in the sea_level because of global_warming , a complex subject that dr . ammermann has not studied . the questionable conclusion goes against the results of the most recent studies carried out by experts in the field . fortunately , i see no reason for doubting that venice has a long life ahead of it . we are already working to guarantee that life . paolo costa venice",has a topic of science
"japanese scientists yesterday cut by half their estimate of the depth of the quake that shook the kobe region , helping explain why the temblor was so violent and deadly . they also discovered long ruptures at the surface produced when rock formations deep in the earth suddenly broke apart along a fault line , a clue buttressing the idea that the quake was quite shallow . the preliminary estimate on tuesday was that the quake 's focus lay at a depth of 20 kilometers , or 12 . 4 miles . but the japanese scientists , working with an array of data from instruments that measure various kinds of shock_waves , yesterday revised their estimate to 10 kilometers , or 6.2 miles . "" that 's significant , "" said dr . waverly j . person , director of national earthquake information center , in golden , colo . "" when you get shallow earthquakes , it 's very intense . "" the surface effects of shallow quakes are more violent than deep ones because their energy is coupled more directly to such surface structures as roads and buildings . earthquakes can occur throughout the earth 's crust and upper mantle , and have been measured down to depths of many hundreds of miles . the northridge earthquake that hit los_angeles a year ago was fairly shallow at 18 kilometers , or about 11 miles . but scientists never found any surface cracks . by contrast , the kobe quake produced large ruptures at the surface , according to reports from the geological_survey of japan and university scientists at the disaster scene . the fault that broke is known as nojima and runs along the northwestern coast of awaji shima , the island that was the epicenter of the quake . the island is located in japan 's inland sea near kobe and osaka . dr . takashi nakata of hiroshima university and his colleagues are reported to have found sideways displacements at the surface along the nojima fault of 1.2 meters , or nearly 4 feet . at another area the displacement is said to be 1.5 meters , or nearly 5 feet . by comparison , the great san_francisco_earthquake of 1906 caused a surface displacement in spots of about 9 feet . that quake had a magnitude of 8 . 3 , while the kobe one is estimated at 7.2 by japanese scientists and 6.8 by american researchers . dr . nakata of hiroshima university traced the rupture of the nojima fault almost continuously at the surface of awaji island for at least 9 kilometers , or 5.6 miles , according to a report from the geological_survey of japan . the rupture might be longer still , since the surveying work had yet to be completed . such ruptures , american scientists say , help explain why the kobe quake was so devastating . "" they tell us that it was shallow , very shallow , "" said dr . person of national earthquake information center , which is an arm of the united states geological survey . "" when you have a shallow earthquake , the shaking is very intense . "" quake in japan the geology",has a topic of science
"calling it the fulfillment of a lifelong dream , a wealthy american money manager has signed on to become the first tourist in space on a trip to the russian station mir . the money manager , dennis tito , a 59 year old california multimillionaire , said today that a trip into space would satisfy a childhood fantasy and would be worth the price , estimated to be about 20 million . ''for me , it 's a life 's dream , '' mr . tito said in a telephone conference call from moscow , where he was undergoing medical and psychological tests to determine whether he could withstand space travel . ''i had this dream over 40 years ago and at that time , i did n't have a penny to my name , '' he said . money is no longer a constraint , he said . ''we have one life to live on this earth , and my commitment is to fulfill all of my dreams which are healthy and legitimate , '' mr . tito said . ''i am optimistic that i do have the right stuff to make this flight . '' mr . tito , who has degrees in aerospace engineering and had worked for the national_aeronautics_and_space_administration before becoming an investment analyst , said he wanted to spend part of the flight conducting special photography of earth using a system he was developing . mr . tito founded wilshire associates in santa_monica , calif . , in the 1970 's to apply computer concepts to investment_strategy , and the company now manages about 10 billion in assets and is best known for its wilshire 5000 stock_index . if all goes well , mr . tito could be visiting mir on a_10 day trip during the first half of next year , said officials of mircorp , an amsterdam company that is raising money to operate the aging russian station . earlier this year , mircorp secured the rights to market the 130 ton space_station that the cash_starved russian government had stopped supporting . on friday , two russian astronauts returned after a 73 day , mircorp financed mission to mir . the astronauts with the help of two cargo flights , also paid for by mircorp repaired air leaks , replaced deteriorating batteries and revitalized the station 's life_support systems . ''the renovated mir has now been declared ready for commercial flights , '' said dr . chirinjeev kathuria , a mircorp director and telecommunications entrepreneur who is an investor . mircorp has raised about 100 million to support mir , including more than 40 million in cash . rsc energia , the russian company that built and operates mir , has agreed to provide 60 million in goods and service , dr . kathuria said . rsc owns 60 percent of mircorp the remaining 40 percent is owned by american investors . mircorp officials declined to say how much mr . tito would pay but acknowledged that it was close to 20 million . dr . kathuria said the company was talking to at least six others who had expressed interest in the trip . mircorp 's president , jeffrey manber , speaking from moscow , said his company 's citizen explorers program was proceeding cautiously in picking participants who could withstand the rigors of space . ''this is not a game , '' mr . manber said . ''we are cutting no corners here . it is a serious business which requires serious training . '' mircorp officials said a public stock offering was expected early next year . several potential ventures , including television programming , advertising and promotion from space , and internet activities , also are being discussed , officials said . plans include opening mir to manufacturing and possibly using the station as a base for assembling and launching satellites . mr . manber said the company would soon establish a schedule of flights , including a timetable for mr . tito 's trip . to keep mir operating , he said , the company would need to send at least one unmanned supply flight in the fall .",has a topic of science
""" it 's barbaric what they 're doing , "" norleen lillico , a shopkeeper , said , arguing against the decision by british_columbia 's government to allow logging in the formerly protected rain_forest on the craggy west_coast of vancouver_island . "" the wild places on earth are rare enough and threatened and must be protected , "" she said with serene firmness behind the counter of her natural foods shop , organic matters , on tofino 's main commercial street , a few hundred feet from duffin cove . ms . lillico , 30 , was one of the peaceful protesters arrested last summer for carrying their opposition to the point of refusing to step out of the way of mammoth logging trucks headed into the pristine interior north and west of here . in one of the largest mass arrests in canadian history , nearly 800 were detained , charged with defying a court injunction obtained by macmillan_bloedel ltd . , the region 's biggest logging company . the injunction banned demonstrators from its logging sites . ancient trees and eagles these sites are in a domain of ancient cedar , hemlock , balsam and spruce including at least one red cedar dating from before the collapse of the roman empire of thickets of salmonberry , huckleberry and salal , of black bears , black tailed deer , waterfowl and bald eagles . thirty miles down the coast from tofino is the town of ucluelet , at the southern end of the pacific_rim national_park , where dave olson , 38 , works at one of the logging stations . he trims logs after the huge trees are felled and hauled from the interior , brands and sorts them just before they are rolled into the water , to be towed to the sawmills at port alberni . the logs are made into boards and shingles or mashed into pulp for newspapers and telephone books . nearly half the wood goes to the united_states , a flow that has been increased in recent years by successful lawsuits by environmental groups against american loggers . mr . olson complains that environmentalists are seeking to destroy his livelihood . "" they want me to pull out , "" he said . "" i have a wife and three children . i need my job . "" he has been with macmillan_bloedel for 18 years . the logger pointed a thick , callused forefinger across the waters of ucluelet inlet at a stretch of land that was clear cut years ago , where newly planted spruce and cedars , looking more like whiskers on a youth 's chin , have many decades to go before they can be harvested . "" it 's ironic , "" mr . olson said . "" my first job with the company was planting trees . but trees like those take maybe 80 to 100 years to grow . "" tofino ( population 1 , 100 ) and ucluelet ( population 2 , 000 ) are two sides of the conflict that has been tearing at this island since april 13 , when premier michael harcourt allowed logging on two thirds of a tract the size of rhode_island along clayoquot ( pronounced klak wit ) sound . tofino , a town of art galleries and many artists , capitalizes on sports fishing , whale watching , wilderness trekking and other forms of tourism . "" wilderness is one of our main attractions , "" said julie draper , 35 , a graphic artist and a director of friends of clayoquot sound , the leading anti logging group . "" clear cut hillsides are hardly the best way to draw tourism . "" ucluelet has no art galleries . more roughly hewn , it is the home of fishermen and loggers and the headquarters of macmillan_bloedel 's kennedy lake division , which employs 3 , 000 people , including 1 , 000 loggers . the division manager , don dowling , 50 , who holds a master 's degree in forestry from yale , insisted that the government decision was a "" balanced and fair one and has community support . "" people speaking out against it , he added , "" are victims of a great deal of misinformation . "" premier harcourt , of the socialist leaning new democratic_party , linked the decision to substantially tighter restrictions on the way logging companies operate , including controls on the amount of forest land that can be cut per year , requirements for "" view corridors "" to keep some trees standing at the edges of denuded swaths and guidelines for protecting salmon streams . 'for sustainable logging' dennis st . jacques , a former logger who owns smiley 's restaurant and bowling_alley on peninsula road in ucluelet , said "" this is a good decision . it 's for sustainable logging so that everyone can carry on his own life style . why should one life style supersede another ? "" morley johnsen , 35 , a "" faller "" who makes the first wedge shaped cut into a tree that determines the direction in which it falls , added , "" we object to people forcing their life style on us . "" the move to log one of the last major stands of ancient rain_forest in north_america has already had major political repercussions . the decision by the new democrats , traditionally sensitive to environmental concerns , dismayed many supporters and helped cause a rout of the party in the province in national elections in october . new democrats went from 19 to 2 seats in british_columbia and lost all six seats they had held on vancouver_island . "" if the decision is fully implemented , "" the sierra_club of western_canada said in a brochure urging members to protest , "" 74 out of every 100 old growth trees in clayoquot sound will have disappeared . """,has a topic of science
"a series of powerful earthquakes jolted northern japan in quick succession saturday evening , killing at least 16 people and injuring more than 900 , according to a preliminary tally by kyodo_news . television images from niigata prefecture showed groups of residents huddling under blankets as they prepared to spend the night in the safety of open squares . nearby , fires burned in blacked out neighborhoods , glass littered sidewalks from shattered shop windows and cars eased slowly over one highway section buckled by one of the seven quakes . the most powerful registered 6.8 in magnitude , one of the strongest in recent decades , according to japan meteorological agency . the vertical and horizontal shocks caused houses to collapse and derailed a shinkansen bullet_train for the first time . about 42 , 000 residents were evacuated throughout the prefecture . the strong temblors were also felt in tokyo , where prime_minister_junichiro_koizumi was giving a speech to open the tokyo international film festival . the prime_minister did not skip a beat and there was no panic . of the more than 16 people killed , four were children , including three who died when their house collapsed in ojiya , close to the epicenter . two men died when concrete walls collapsed on them . a total of 120 people were injured in ojiya , 84 in tokamachi , about 300 in nagaoka , about 50 in kashiwazaki and more than 160 in other towns and villages as of early sunday morning , according to a kyodo_news tally based on police , government and hospital reports . blackouts affected about one million people . piped gas , a source of major fires after past earthquakes , was cut to more than 40 , 000 households in niigata prefecture . parts of three expressways were closed , and many side roads suffered cave ins . although a bullet_train partially derailed in niigata , there were no injuries among the 150 passengers . it was the first time the train had been derailed since services began in 1964 , according to the transport ministry . through the chilly night , emergency workers searched through collapsed houses , searching for at least four people believed to have been in their homes at dinner time . the first quake hit at 5 56 p.m. , with its focus 12 miles below ground in the chuetsu region in niigata prefecture . during the next two hours , residents were affected by six more quakes . japan is one of the world 's most seismically active areas , recording about 20 percent of the world 's earthquakes of magnitude six or greater . memories are still vivid of the kobe earthquake , which killed more than 6 , 400 people in 1995 . that quake measured 7.2 . the earthquakes came as japan has been cleaning up from last week 's typhoon , the deadliest in two decades , which killed 80 people .",has a topic of science
"lead along via stadera , in a neighborhood they call purgatory , hoodlums of the camorra , the neapolitan version of the mafia , sprayed gunfire this month at a group of laborers building apartments for people left homeless after the earthquake six years ago . those gunshots shook some of the brighter assumptions about this gracefully decaying mediterranean city . along via stadera , in a neighborhood they call purgatory , hoodlums of the camorra , the neapolitan version of the mafia , sprayed gunfire this month at a group of laborers building apartments for people left homeless after the earthquake six years ago . those gunshots shook some of the brighter assumptions about this gracefully decaying mediterranean city . progress has never had much of an audience in naples , a society that seems to wrap itself in contrasts of violence and tolerance , splendor and confusion , overlaid with a fundamental joy in life . but naples has recently begun shaking off the indolence . for guido d'angelo , the 54 year old chief executive of mededil , the government owned construction company , the metaphor of all this is the city 's immense reconstruction of 28 , 000 homes , together with schools and public utilities , after the earthquake , and the building of a 260 acre business and residential center to relieve congestion in the historic center . all of this is making naples easily europe 's largest construction site . "" there has been an awakening , a flowering in the wake of the earthquake , "" said mr . d'angelo , a veteran of the city 's struggle against decline . "" there were two elements first , the need to act quickly and to develop flexible administrative channels , and secondly , the flow of money , given the liquidity of the national economy . "" a cultural revival too there is also an enthusiastic cultural revival . maurizio barracco , a calabrian aristocrat , and his wife , mirella , a neapolitan , have poured their energies into an unusual foundation , naples 99 . they have had extraordinary success over the last four years in winning corporate support for restoring the city 's artistic riches . scaffolding covers monuments like the arch of alphonse of aragon on the massive anjou castle , and ideas are about for a new university and reconstruction of large parts of the city 's center and industrial periphery . further stimulation should come from plans the government in rome is drawing up to invest 14 . 7 billion over three years in rebuilding the country 's decaying roads , railways and communication links . more than one third the amount is earmarked for southern_italy . the shots in via stadera were like a throwback to earlier ways . they also raised questions of whether fresh money will not merely provide fertile terrain for the organized_crime that has always been the city 's bane . for some , too , the prospect of immense public works evokes earlier unsuccessful efforts by previous governments in rome to close the economic gap between north and south . symbols of those failed efforts abound here . across the bay stands the huge nationalized italsider steel works , which earlier planners hoped would bring jobs and prosperity . but the collapse of the steel market and cheap foreign competition forced italsider to eliminate more than 6 , 500 of the 8 , 000 jobs it had in 1977 . at the same time , the decay of the city 's natural beauty in its hills and waters and of its artistic treasures led to a decline in tourism . in contrast to a widening flow of visitors to florence and rome , tourism in naples dropped by more than 6 percent from 1979 to 1984 . economic decline was aggravated by political turmoil . naples went through six mayors in two years , and since november a rome imposed commissioner has been running the city until elections in may . not waiting for stability but business leaders like mr . d'angelo contend naples cannot wait for political stability . in the fall , a group of companies some privately_owned , like fiat , others from the nationalized industries held a convention called "" the kingdom of the possible . "" the meeting was set up to talk about ideas for the development of naples to the year 2000 , in the conviction that perhaps private initiative might succeed where public effort failed , notably in spurring development and uprooting the camorra . this vision sees large consortia of private and publicly owned companies developing specific proposals for urban_renewal . not unexpectedly , strong dissent comes from the communist opposition , which argues that private industry is appropriating prerogatives of governments that have failed as engines of change . "" business is evolving into a political force here , a party of interests , "" said isaia sales , the chief communist_party theoretician in naples . according to mr . sales , big public works projects will do little to relieve chronic joblessness , generating only demand for basic manual labor . moreover , he cites the via stadera shooting to argue that the camorra , following the example of the sicilian mafia , has set itself up in legitimate businesses and is prepared to muscle in on lucrative bidding . paolo mancuso , a naples magistrate who specializes in camorra related crimes , said the camorra 's tentacles already encircled the lucrative market for building materials . mr . mancuso , 39 years old , said the attack in via stadera was probably designed by camorra backed contractors against laborers who had been striking because they were owed several months pay . still , for mr . mancuso , the fact that the camorra resorted to open violence has an encouraging side . "" in a sense , it was a good sign , "" the magistrate said . "" they never previously felt the need for open violence , as long as intimidation succeeded . this tells us that a minimum of resistance exists , that there is a capacity to resist . """,has a topic of science
"to the editor i 'm sure the scientists in ''canadian scientists glower as u.s . scientists play in frozen north'' ( oct . 31 ) were less than thrilled to see what they do described as play . to conduct research ''in the field'' is hard work , and though i 've never worked there , i 'm sure in the arctic it is all the more arduous . in my experience , the norm is up to 18 hour days , every day . add to this the fact that you are away from home and your normal support mechanisms for weeks or months at a time , and field time , regardless of locale , becomes a test of endurance tempered by love of learning , not the vacation implied . dr . christopher ohm clement columbia , s.c .",has a topic of science
"the earthquake that ripped through western japan today has paralyzed one of the nation 's commercial hubs , leaving rubble and smoke and panic . it caused colossal damage to japan 's roads , railways and communications and knocked out of commission a port that accounts for 12 percent of the nation 's exports . the quake was the worst in an urban_area of japan in 70 years , ever since the great tokyo earthquake of 1923 , and it struck in a crucial economic zone that includes the business center of osaka , japan 's third largest city , as well as kobe , the sixth largest . for all the sophistication of japanese telecommunications , for all the earthquake preparedness that is drilled into people since they are school children , both kobe and osaka were unreachable by telephone from tokyo throughout today . despite the devastation , experts said today that the in some ways the earthquake could give a boost to an economy struggling to recover from a long recession . it is not the kind of a boost that any country would hope for , but economists and other experts said that the capital spending to rebuild the port city of kobe may give a stimulus to japan 's economy , the world 's largest after america 's . kobe , a major industrial center , was today isolated from the rest of the country , with roads and rail and ferry_service all disrupted . even the tokyo office of kobe municipal government said it had been unable to communicate with people there . the steel mills of kobe were closed today , and so was the osaka stock_exchange . many factories in kobe were also closed , either to assess the physical damage or to wait until roads improved so that employees could come to work again . japanese television quoted the construction minister , koken nosaka , as saying that it would take two or three years to rebuild kobe . officials in the economic_planning agency , a government_agency attached to the prime_minister 's office , said they were preparing a report on the economic consequences of the earthquake , but that it was too soon to know what they would be . one of the most serious consequences appears to be that shipping in and out of kobe will be impossible until repairs have been made on the docks and on loading facilities . "" the port in kobe has been badly_damaged , and we do n't know when it will be ready again , "" said yukiko isomura , of mitsui osk , a shipping company . miss isomura said that mitsui had rerouted two ships to pusan , south_korea , because other ports in japan were full or inappropriate for the cargoes . several companies based in the osaka area said , however , that they could find other routes to transport exports and imports , and that their facilities had not been seriously damaged . matsushita , which makes electronic products under the panasonic and other brand names , said it had a five year old factory in kobe that turns out personal_computers and other products . the factory was not seriously damaged but was closed for the day because electricity had been cut off . the head office of matsushita , in osaka , had some broken windows but no major damage . at sanyo electric company , the electronics conglomerate , which is also headquartered in osaka , the only damage was to a factory on owajishima , the island at the epicenter of the quake . even that factory , which makes rechargable batteries and other products , was being brought back on line . "" so far it 's been fairly minor , "" said david lee , a sanyo spokesman . while the overall tokyo stock_market fell slightly today , the stocks of construction companies rose in anticipation of the profits to be made from rebuilding kobe . companies that make glass or cement , or that are involved in road building , also saw gains . the other immediate beneficiaries of the disaster were the "" konbini , "" as convenience_stores are known here , for those in the earthquake region immediately sold out of all their food . "" the damage was huge , and it 'll have a major impact on the japanese economy , "" said masaru_takagi , chief economist of fuji research institute in tokyo . "" but it wo n't affect the recovery phase . japan 's economy will continue to recover . "" robert alan feldman , a managing director in the tokyo office of salomon_brothers , the investment_bank , said that in some ways the reconstruction of northridge following the earthquake there a year ago had helped the southern californian economy , and he suggested the same would happen in japan . "" there definitely is going to be a stimulus , "" he said . "" ironically , this will probably help the economic_recovery , although that does n't mean that the country is better off . "" mr . feldman and others , while emphasizing that it is much too early to tell with any precision , said that the total repair bill could end up in the range of 10 billion to 20 billion . robert j . geller , an american earthquake expert who teaches at tokyo_university , said that many of the estimated 9 , 700 buildings that collapsed in the earthquake were older ones that in any case should have been replaced . "" obviously you 'd like to rebuild in less catastrophic ways , and there 'll be a loss because these facilities are out of commission , "" professor geller said . but he noted that tremendous damage could spur growth instead of retard it . in the united_states , representatives of japanese companies with manufacturing operations in the osaka kobe area spent much of tuesday trying to get through to the home_office . those who did said that physical damage to plants was negligible , and that most employees survived unscathed . "" we understand there has been no facility damage , "" said nancy levene , a spokeswoman for the sharp electronic corporation , the american subsidiary of the sharp corporation , which is based in osaka . she added that only 20 percent of the company 's employees were able to get to work at sharp 's headquarters , where machines like copiers , calculators and faxes are manufactured . at the matsushita electric corporation of america , which manufactures panasonic , techniques and quasar electronic equipment , jim reilly , a company spokesman , said the company 's factories "" did not suffer major damage . "" toshiba , which employs about 2 , 000 workers in two plants , one a joint_venture with the international_business_machines corporation , said in the united_states that no damage was reported at either plant . the plants are located in himeji , a town outside osaka . quake in japan the cost correction january 19 , 1995 , thursday an article yesterday surveying the economic disruption caused by the earthquake in japan misspelled a brand name of matsushita , an electronics company that reported little disruption . the brand is technics , not techniques .",has a topic of science
"when a powerful earthquake ravaged the vaulted ceiling of the basilica of st . francis of assisi two years ago , the damage to priceless 13th and 14th century frescos was so devastating that it overshadowed the loss of 11 lives and many thousands of homes . on sunday , the basilica , one of the most revered shrines of the roman_catholic_church , will be fully reopened to the public . the extraordinary restoration of the early renaissance masterpiece was so speedy and efficient that it has been dubbed ''the miracle of assisi . '' but another expected miracle a free_market experiment in disaster relief that was supposed to find new shelter for thousands of victims within two years has not materialized . in the rolling_hills surrounding assisi , medieval towns and mountain villages are still dotted with makeshift camp sites , bleak rows of corrugated metal huts that italians call ''containers , '' which were hastily erected to shelter many of the 40 , 000 people in umbria and the marches left homeless by the 1997 earthquake . more than 10 , 000 people are still living in containers , looking ahead to their third christmas in crowded , 375 square_foot metal boxes . some of them complain that the fate of the basilica monopolized international attention and government concern . ''when you show the world the reconstructed basilica , people will assume that the earthquake emergency is over , '' said dante amici , the head of the falling star campground in colfiorito , a mountain village 24 miles from assisi that was the epicenter of the quake . one fifth of the village 's 500 inhabitants are living in containers . ''but in reality the emergency is still here , we are it . '' the earthquake , on sept . 26 , 1997 , was by no means the most devastating in recent history . the 1980 earthquake in irpinia , near naples , left 2 , 500 dead and 300 , 000 homeless . that disaster remains etched in the national psyche as an act of god made worse by human greed much of the 27 billion in state funds sent for reconstruction was siphoned off by corrupt officials and local organized_crime . even today , some irpinia victims are still living in containers . that and other bad experiences prompted the italian government to do two things . it proposed a law to mandate private earthquake insurance , a deeply controversial innovation in a country where the state is expected to provide in a catastrophe . and immediately after the assisi quake , the government passed a measure to allot state funds directly to victims , to allow them to hire their own contractors to rebuild their homes bypassing the local authorities , lessening the opportunities for corruption and , in theory , bulldozing through bureaucracy and speeding up the reconstruction process . ''the model presupposes the fashionable view that the less government the better , '' said vincenzo riommi , deputy_mayor of foligno , a regional center that was also badly hit by the quake . ''people could chose their own builders and take responsibility for themselves instead of waiting for the state to do everything . but what we did n't foresee in this free_market system is that supply and demand would end up so imbalanced . '' overnight , there were several thousand people in need of new homes . the regional council of umbria drew a list of 570 companies that could execute the plans . but most of the contracts ended up going to fewer than than 100 companies . ''we relied on private initiative , the desire of individual homeowners to build as soon as possible , '' said bruno bracalente , president of the umbria regional government . ''but people had different reactions . they hired contractors and architects the way they choose family doctors , somebody they knew and trusted . '' that backlog was compounded by bureaucratic delays in inspecting sites , approving blueprints and granting building permits . ''italy is the land of paper , '' complained giuliano ricci , head of the colfiorito reconstruction committee . ''every time you try to present your building proposal , they ask you for your social_security_number 50 times . '' nor has fraud been totally eliminated from the process . the police in foligno announced this week that they had uncovered a scam by a phony construction company that bilked both suppliers and homeowners for more than 1 million . in september 1998 , mr . bracalente confidently predicted that 4 , 500 dislocated families would be back in their own homes within 12 months . now he concedes that it could take several more years . in contrast , the repair of the basilica of st . francis proved a model of speed and almost superhuman cooperation . friars , government bureaucrats , art restorers , construction crews and hundreds of volunteers worked around the clock to bolster the structure against future quakes and to reconstruct the vault of the nave , famous for its brilliantly colored frescos by giotto and cimabue . the images of only two saints , st . rufino and st . vittorino , traditionally attributed to giotto , were reconstituted by piecing together more than 3 , 000 tiny fragments like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle . and even many of the people left homeless by the same disaster say the basilica deserved priority . ''it 's st . francis , and it is also the main draw for tourism around here they had to fix it first , '' said giovanni polveri , 21 , who has spent the last two years in a container in foligno with his parents and sister . he said his contractor had so many other commissions that his reconstruction permits had not yet been processed . ''there is nothing we can do , but we are very sick of living in this place , '' he said . the state has spent 39 million on the basilica and the sacred convent attached to it , but that expense is small compared with the 5 billion it has earmarked over the same time to reconstruct ruined homes , churches and historic buildings . by italian standards , however , the pace is exemplary . it took three years for the first reconstruction sites to go up after an earthquake in friuli in 1976 , and 12 years to rehouse its 80 , 000 victims , a vast public works project that is considered a model compared with irpinia . ''certainly having these many families still in containers is a problem , '' mr . bracalente said . ''but in reality , things are moving very fast in umbria alone , we now have 4 , 500 open construction sites . many should be finished by spring . '' yet many small communities are less sanguine . they are using some state funds to throw up apartment buildings to offer better housing to residents stuck in containers . once their own homes are finally reconstructed , those new buildings will be turned into public_housing . after the quake , the homeless were given the option of receiving government assistance to rent temporary housing , about 140 per person a month with a ceiling of 330 per family . or they could move into containers , supplied for free , with discounted utility charges . in larger towns like foligno , most people chose the rental money . many who chose containers were immigrant workers who viewed the boxes as an improvement over the crowded tenements they lived in before the quake . in rural areas , however , there were very few apartments available to rent , and almost all chose containers that allowed them to stay near their farms , herds of cattle and jobs . after two years , most campgrounds have their own makeshift playgrounds , satellite dishes , metal chapels and cafes , and look eerily settled like lunar colonies plunked down on pastures and potato fields . many of the inhabitants are elderly villagers , passively waiting to be told what to do . but there are also young couples who felt they had no better choice . ''i could n't keep my job and commute from an apartment , '' said marcello massimiani , 31 , who works as a butcher in colfiorito . while they wait for an apartment , he and his wife , monica , and their 7 month old twins live in a container they fixed up with lace curtains , a television and microwave , squeezing two cribs next to their bed . ''for the first two months , we lived in a tent , so this seemed luxurious , '' mrs . massimiani said with a smile . ''that wore off once the twins came . '' she said she had adjusted to the cramped living quarters and solitary walks across muddy campgrounds with her double stroller . ''we have to live with it , and so we got used to it , this is our reality , but we do n't have any idea when it will end , '' she said , adding with a grimace , ''i dread the day the twins start to walk . ''",has a topic of science
"lead a major earthquake registering 7.1 on the richter_scale struck off honshu island early_today , japanese officials said . three coastal villages were ordered evacuated for fear of tidal_waves . a major earthquake registering 7.1 on the richter_scale struck off honshu island early_today , japanese officials said . three coastal villages were ordered evacuated for fear of tidal_waves . there were no immediate reports of casualties or damage from the quake , which struck at 3 26 a.m . it was centered about 60 miles off the coast and at a depth of 20 miles , the central meteorological agency in tokyo said . after the quake , officials closed the major expressway through the affected region for inspection and overnight trains were stopped to check the condition of the rails . the agency warned of a tsunami , or seismic tidal_wave , hitting coastal towns on northeastern honshu and the northernmost main island of hokkaido . the agency said sea levels two hours after the quake had risen nearly three feet in the region . officials ordered the evacuation of the villages of taro , sanriku and ozutsu , about 300 miles northeast of tokyo on honshu 's eastern coast . the agency said the quake had a magnitude of 7.1 on the richter_scale , the same as the oct . 17 earthquake that devastated the san_francisco_bay_area .",has a topic of science
"when an earthquake toppled entire neighborhoods here in january , the most striking and impressive thing for many americans was the almost complete lack of looting . these days , the looting has arrived on a huge scale , but in a very orderly and japanese way . there are no hoodlums smashing windows , but criminal_gangs known as yakuza are muscling their way into the demolition and construction business knocking down damaged buildings , putting up new ones and hauling their profits to the banks . the reconstruction of kobe may cost well over 120 billion , making the earthquake the most expensive natural_disaster in human history . japanese police and journalists who follow the yakuza full time estimate that the gangs pocket at least 2 or 3 percent of all construction spending in japan , and in this case its percentage could be higher . the biggest yakuza gang , the yamaguchi gumi , has its national headquarters in kobe , where it is already active in the construction industry , and it knows the turf well . experts say that the yakuza could therefore earn billions of dollars from the rebuilding work . thus one of the biggest beneficiaries of the kobe earthquake , which killed 5 , 500 people and put the country 's busiest port out of commission , could end up being yoshinori watanabe , the godfather of the yakuza . mr . watanabe , 54 , is said to be positioning his gang to rake in a hefty share of the construction spending . mr . watanabe 's own home and headquarters , a closely guarded fortress occupying a full city_block in a posh residential neighborhood , apparently was unaffected by the earthquake . one of his office buildings in another part of kobe was burned to the ground , but by and large he emerged unscathed but not particularly talkative . "" there is no one here who can talk to you , "" said a bodyguard whose shaved head gleamed in the afternoon sun as he shooed away a reporter who dropped by the headquarters . the bodyguard , who emerged from behind a steel door guarded with video cameras and floodlights , wore a blue suit with a white shirt , and he bowed not quite low enough to be polite as he explained that no one would be back that afternoon . or that evening . or the next day . or , perhaps , ever . then , as the bodyguard asked , then advised , and finally ordered the visitor to leave , a mercedes with tinted_windows hurtled down the street , and another bodyguard opened a steel garage door to admit it . as the mercedes entered , a private parking_lot with about a dozen luxury cars could be seen inside the compound . at the other end of kobe , in the leaning homes and rubble of nagata ward , one of the poorest areas of the city , the director of a demolition company watched proudly as one of his shovel cars tore apart a collapsed house to prepare the site for a new home . the man said his company owned six shovel cars and many dump_trucks , and he seemed to know a bit about the yakuza . "" there are lots around , because they control plenty of demolition and construction companies , "" he said , adding , "" of course , i 'm not one of them . "" his hand , though , suggested otherwise a fingertip had been sliced off . that usually means that someone is a yakuza , because gangsters show their remorse when they have done something wrong by cutting off a finger at the last joint . the man said that demolition work is not so profitable in itself , because the city of kobe set limits on how much can be charged for a truckload of rubble . "" but unless you do these jobs , you ca n't get the construction jobs coming up next , building roads or working as subcontractors on building projects , "" he explained . that is what the police worry about most these days . "" they 'll do demolition jobs until around the end of the year , and they 'll make some money , but not a huge amount , "" said akifumi hyakumoto , a police superintendent in kobe . "" but when they start building highways , ports and buildings , so much more money will be involved . we think the yakuza will go after the big money then . "" the police say they have their hands tied , however , because much of the yakuza construction work is legal . to be sure , the yakuza may cut corners like threatening rival companies so that they do not offer lower bids but the construction business is both lucrative for the yakuza and much less risky than smuggling guns or narcotics . the yamaguchi gumi has about 23 , 000 members around japan , controlling the sex trade , gambling , protection rackets and narcotics . they insist that they adhere to a high moral code of protecting the weak , and for that reason they tend to kill only rival gang members and do not normally attack ordinary citizens . japan traditionally tolerated the yakuza 's existence as an organization , while imprisoning members who became too bold or violent . this may have been in part because the authorities figured that criminals will always be around , so one might as well leave them in organizations that control them . in the last few years , however , the police have used new laws to mount an offensive against the yakuza . in addition , the gangs were hurt by the economic slowdown that has pinched japan for several years . in a concession to the financial difficulties of some of his aides , mr . watanabe last year reportedly reduced the honorarium that he expects from each of a select group of lieutenants to about 8 , 000 a month from 10 , 000 . in all , mr . watanabe gets about 1 million a month in such gifts from his aides , the police say . the police say that the earthquake came at a perfect time for mr . watanabe . he has been trying for years to reorient the yamaguchi gumi toward business areas that are not blatantly illegal , and the yakuza have a longtime presence in the construction and demolition industry . in addition to running their own companies , the gangsters are said to disrupt construction sites of other companies unless they receive substantial "" greetings fees . "" the gangs also sometimes supply day laborers for construction sites , in exchange for a fee . as part of the yamaguchi gumi 's effort to improve its public image , mr . watanabe ordered his aides in january to hand out free food and water to those made homeless by the earthquake . the police believe that the yakuza bullied businesses into giving them the food free or at a discount . "" right after the earthquake , the yakuza came here and set up a stand to serve noodles for free , and i was kind of impressed , "" said one woman who was made homeless in the quake . "" but then afterward , they asked for a written testimonial saying how great they were , so they could take it to city hall and get more construction business . "" now , according to that woman and several of her neighbors , the yakuza are quietly going around and buying up land at fire sale prices . with many families now short of money , some property in nagata ward is selling for just one third of its price before the earthquake . for those who do n't want to sell , yakuza loan_sharks are offering cash but the security is the land that people own . neighbors said that one mobster is offering loans from his spectacular three floor colonial style home , evidently well built , for it is surrounded by the rubble of more fragile homes that collapsed . "" it 's too frightening to take money from them , "" said one middle_aged woman who lived nearby , as she spoke in a hushed voice on her doorstep . "" there was a doctor living over there who guaranteed his brother 's loan from the yakuza , "" she said . "" then the interest mounted very quickly , and they could n't pay back the debt . so the doctor lost his clinic . "" the yakuza found other ways to get money as well . seventeen members were arrested for applying for emergency relief funds for which they were ineligible . one gangster received funds eight times before being arrested . "" the earthquake ripped apart society , "" said one japanese journalist . "" it created cracks so deep that you can see things that are normally hidden , like the way the yakuza operate . """,has a topic of science
"problems with russia 's space_program have delayed its main contribution to the proposed international_space_station , endangering the entire project , some experts say . the russian module is a centerpiece of the orbiting_outpost , which involves 15 nations and is expected to cost at least 50 billion and be the size of a football field . the station is meant to symbolize , and help foster , a new era of east west accord and is an important part of the clinton_administration 's russia policy . it is also nasa 's biggest and most politically complex project . but the cash poor russians have now fallen nearly a year behind schedule in building a module that is vital to the station 's success . so in an emergency move , the national_aeronautics_and_space_administration decided early this month to build a stopgap module in the united_states that will enable the station plans to go forward , even though the date for astronauts to move into the station would be pushed back . nasa is racing to contain the political damage while redoing the station plan . ''the danger of its unraveling is great , '' f . james_sensenbrenner_jr . , a wisconsin republican who recently became chairman of the house science committee , said in an interview . the plan calls for the orbiting_outpost to be built in stages by 15 nations , replacing cold_war hostilities with a new kind of global teamwork . that work is to begin late this year . the first two modules , financed by the united_states , are to be sent aloft in november and december . in the original plan , a module financed by russia was to have been flown into space in april 1998 , followed by numerous other components until the end of construction in 2002 . the delayed russian module is meant to provide life_support for astronauts as well as stability and propulsion for the orbital complex , keeping it from tumbling out of control or falling back to earth . incensed at the delay , mr . sensenbrenner said that if russia was still withholding the payments for its space_program at the end of february , the station team should ask the russians to leave as full partners , letting them serve only as subcontractors paid to do specific jobs . ''if russia continues to fail to fulfill its obligations , '' he said , ''it will shake the political and financial underpinnings of the station . '' the issue is high on the agenda of vice_president al_gore and the russian prime_minister , viktor s . chernomyrdin , who are to meet early next month in washington . mr . sensenbrenner said he planned to hold hearings on the station 's fate right after that meeting . while nasa officials concede that there has been considerable turmoil , they insist that the basic east west partnership is sound , if frayed , and that the project is nowhere near collapse . the sprawling outpost can be built on budget and on time and can include russia , they say . nasa itself can ride out violent political storms because the agency , as an important source of funds for aerospace contractors , has many powerful allies in congress . ''from the day we started with the russians , it has been the perils of pauline , '' daniel s . goldin , the nasa administrator , said in an interview , noting that previous problems had been solved and saying that would be the case again . ''i feel we 're going to build it with them , '' he said . ''i feel it in my bones . '' despite that , nasa is preparing for the worst . it is studying a second makeshift component , or a modification of the first one , that would give the station long term stability , even if the russian module never shows up . in a bold step , the first stopgap piece for nasa is to be made out of military spy gear , which would apparently be the first such diversion to a civilian program . that means that orbital equipment built to help americans spy on russia will now aid the russians as they struggle to get their technological house in order . the station 's current troubles are part of a pattern of new stresses between the united_states and russia , including friction over issues like nato 's expansion and nuclear_disarmament . to some degree , the project 's fate is a hostage to wider political currents . even so , american shuttles and the russian mir_space_station have succeeded in linking up flawlessly in a series of warm up missions in the past two years . the fourth american astronaut to stay on the mir is now aboard the russian outpost for a four month visit . the recent problems might delay the first permanent habitation of the international_space_station by a half year or so , pushing back that milestone from may 1998 to december 1998 and perhaps to early 1999 , when the russian module might make it into space . that 43 foot long , 23 ton cylinder , or something like it , is essential if astronauts are to live and work in orbit . john e . pike , head of space policy at the federation of american scientists , a private group in washington , said the prospect of russia 's dropping out of the program was ''a distinct_possibility in terms of the general drift of russian american relations . '' but he predicted that the station project would survive a russian departure because thousands of jobs , contracts and political deals depended on it around the world . ''it 's going to be the biggest construction program since the pyramids , '' mr . pike said . the push for a big western space_station began more than a decade ago during the cold_war as the reagan_administration sought to outdo russia 's feats in orbit , envisioning an outpost that was bigger and better . by 1990 , the american station was seen as a staggering 508 feet long nearly the size of the capitol in washington . it was expected to cost up to 120 billion over 30 years . after the cold_war , and after bill clinton was elected president in 1992 , the white_house ordered nasa to work with the russians to design a smaller and cheaper outpost . mr . goldin brokered a deal among congressional leaders and international partners to have russia join the team , helping to transform the decade old dream ( on which american taxpayers had already spent 8 billion ) into a top clinton initiative . now the partnership includes belgium , canada , denmark , france , germany , italy , japan , the netherlands , norway , russia , spain , sweden , switzerland , the united_kingdom and the united_states . russia and america are the dominant players . it will take more than 40 launchings from asia and america to get all the station pieces into orbit . by 2002 , the international_space_station which will weigh 470 tons and be 290 feet long and 356 feet wide is to house up to seven astronauts at a time . the station will be used to study the heavens and earth and things like human physiology in orbit , all while moving through space at more than 17 , 000 miles an hour . one goal of the clinton_administration is to engage russia in constructive space work in return for its ending such practices as the export of advanced rocket gear to developing_countries . the original pact with russia sweetened a 400 million contract for space hardware and launching services . the united_states saw that money as strengthening russia 's shaky space_program as the russians moved toward a market_economy . this priming of the pump is now resulting in the production of the first station component , a 21 ton , 41 foot long core module known as the functional cargo block . on schedule to be launched in november atop a russian proton rocket , it is primarily for storage and experiments and has no ability to provide astronauts with life_support . the second module is known as node 1 , a 18 foot long cylinder built by the boeing_company that will serve as a connecting link to the future american side of the station . an american space_shuttle is to take it aloft in december . it is the third element , known as the service_module , that is in trouble . being built by krunichev , a russian company , it was to have been launched by a russian proton rocket in april 1998 to provide the station 's basic living quarters and propulsion . but it is so far behind schedule that little more than its outer shell is complete , said wilbur c . trafton , nasa 's associate administrator for space flight , who was in russia last week for talks . in an interview from moscow , mr . trafton said nasa had decided in early january , after much debate , to switch to an interim control module , which has rocket engines for station propulsion and will be made by the naval research laboratory from a rocket booster system meant to deploy spy_satellites . the new control system will cost less than 100 million , mr . trafton said . but it will also require a space_shuttle flight into orbit , which will cost 500 million or so . he said the new unit might be ready to go by the spring or fall of 1998 . the switch to the navy design is reported in the jan . 20 issue of aviation week space technology , an industry journal . since the interim control module , as currently envisioned , could position and stabilize the new station for only a year or so , until its fuel ran out , nasa is also studying other options , including a more costly supplementary vehicle it calls the propulsion module , which would be fully refuelable . under current plans , neither module could provide life_support services for astronauts . in theory , an international_space_station with a propulsion module , and with added life_support gear , could be refueled by a modified space_shuttle and be free of any dependence on russian gear . ''we ca n't bet on the service_module , '' mr . trafton said . but he added , as did mr . goldin , the nasa administrator , that he still believed that the russians would eventually succeed in getting the delayed component into orbit . yuri n . koptev , the director of the russian space agency , said last week in moscow that he hoped the russian government would soon allocate funds for the station work . ''if the appropriations are delayed again , '' mr . koptev told the itar_tass news_agency , ''foreign partners might raise the question of excluding russia from the project . ''",has a topic of science
"an international crew of astronauts aboard the space shuttle atlantis took off today on a planned nine day mission for a critical visit to the aging russian space_station mir . lifting off in the dark before dawn , the shuttle climbed to an orbit 184 miles above earth , where it began maneuvering toward a rendezvous with the mir on friday night over russia . that will be none too soon for the three mir astronauts , including an american physician . the years are catching up with the mir , which has circled the world more than 64 , 000 times since its launching in 1986 . a fire broke out on board in february , and the main oxygen generator shut down in march . the cooling equipment is leaking , and the system for removing carbon_dioxide from the cabin air has been a constant headache . so the atlantis is going to the rescue , taking more than 7 , 000 pounds of water , food , a new oxygen generator the size of a home water heater and other supplies . several repair kits containing hoses , clamps and other plumbing equipment will also be delivered . transferring the provisions will probably take five days . valery ryumin , a former russian astronaut who is now an executive of the energia company , a major contractor for the mir project , acknowledged on tuesday that this and previous supply missions by the american shuttles were keeping the space_station in operation . ''every single flight is almost critical , '' mr . ryumin told reporters at the kennedy_space_center here . but mr . ryumin and american space officials insisted that the space_station , almost the size of a boxcar , remained safe enough for continued occupation . a soyuz_spacecraft is always docked to the mir as an emergency escape vehicle . the atlantis was launched on schedule at 4 08 a.m. , after what space officials called the most trouble free countdown in recent memory . flight controllers reported that all systems were functioning normally and that the shuttle was on course to meet the mir . almost an hour later , the faint light of the mir could be seen passing high over the shuttle launching_pad like a slow shooting star . the russian astronauts said they could see cape_canaveral through binoculars . the mir had been 1 , 200 miles west of australia , more than 12 , 000 miles from here , at the time of the shuttle launching . as befits a mission by one country on the way to the space_station of another , the seven member crew of atlantis has a diverse international flavor . it includes a french astronaut , a british born astrophysicist , a russian woman , a scientist whose parents were born in china and another astronaut born in peru . ''i think we could probably walk into a restaurant anywhere in the world and order , '' said dr . edward tsang lu , an american physicist whose parents came from china . the shuttle crew is headed by col . charles j . precourt , the commander , and lieut . col . eileen m . collins , the pilot . both are air_force officers , and colonel collins 's initial flight in 1995 , which also had a rendezvous with the mir , made her the first female shuttle pilot . the other crew members , besides dr . lu , are maj . carlos i . noriega of the marines , an american astronaut who was born in lima , peru jean_francois clervoy , a french astronaut who is representing the european_space_agency elena v . kondrakova , a russian astronaut who is married to mr . ryumin , and dr . c . michael_foale , an astrophysicist who was born in england and is a naturalized american citizen . for dr . foale , the flight will be a one way trip , for the time being . he is to remain on the mir for four months , replacing another american , dr . jerry l . linenger , who has been living there since mid january , through the trying times of leaks , fires and other malfunctions . dr . linenger is to return home . when russian flight controllers informed dr . linenger that the shuttle had been launched and was on the way , he was reported to have said , ''that 's great . '' how much emotion he put into his response was not reported . the two russians aboard the mir , vasily_tsibliyev and aleksandr lazutkin , are to remain at their posts until august , when they will be relieved by three additional astronauts who are to arrive on a russian soyuz craft . russians and astronauts from other nations have been living and working almost continuously in the space_station for 11 years . the launching today was the fourth of the year for a shuttle . and this is the sixth of nine planned shuttle missions to the mir . the missions are part of the preparations to assemble and operate an international_space_station , now scheduled to begin in june 1998 . officials expect the atlantis to end its flight with a landing here on may 24 .",has a topic of science
"lead american negotiators have been telling soviet officials in geneva that washington 's new , broader_interpretation of the 1972 abm treaty is justified , officials said today . american negotiators have been telling soviet officials in geneva that washington 's new , broader_interpretation of the 1972 abm treaty is justified , officials said today . they added that the geneva negotiators had also sought to protect the right to adopt that interpretation formally . the american position on the antiballistic_missile treaty , which holds that extensive testing of new ''star_wars'' systems is allowed , has emerged as a major obstacle to an agreement in the three part negotiations in geneva on limiting nuclear and space weapons , officials said . the soviet_union takes a more restrictive view of what is allowed by the treaty . mikhail s . gorbachev , the soviet leader , said on monday that the united_states had asked the soviet_union to agree to the broader_interpretation . he said in a speech that the americans had ''already suggested in geneva that such an interpretation be legitimized . '' reaction of gorbachev remark today , charles e . redman , the state_department spokesman , said ''on several occasions in geneva , the soviets have solicited our view on abm treaty restrictions and we have responded by explaining the broad interpretation and why we believe it is fully justified . '' other officials , elaborating on these remarks , said the two sides had differed over interpretation at several key meetings . the issue came up in november in vienna during a discussion of the results of the summit meeting in iceland . in vienna , aleksandr a . bessmertnykh , a soviet deputy foreign_minister , asked the american side to say exactly what it meant by its offer in iceland to abide by the abm treaty for 10 years . in response , paul h . nitze , an arms control adviser to secretary of state george p . shultz , explained the broad interpretation would allow extensive development and testing of space based and other advanced technology systems . viktor p . karpov , one of the soviet negotiators of the abm treaty , challenged mr . nitze 's presentation in vienna , officials say . ex official recalls stance the administration 's position has also been contradicted by former american officials . senator carl_levin , democrat of michigan , today released the text of a letter of june 13 from gen . bruce palmer , who was acting army chief of staff in 1972 and is now retired . in the letter , general palmer said that the joint_chiefs_of_staff took the view at the time that the treaty did not allow the development and testing of space based and other mobile systems . the general added that ''american and soviet officials also shared such an understanding . '' senator levin said he had asked that the joint_chiefs_of_staff make the relevant records available to the senate , which is assessing the administration 's position on the treaty . the records have not yet been provided . defense secretary caspar w . weinberger told the senate armed services committee today that the pentagon was preparing a list of tests that he said would not be allowed by the traditional , more restrictive interpretation of the abm treaty . reagan ruling is expected mr . weinberger said the list would be sent to president_reagan in the next few weeks . mr . weinberger also said he expected mr . reagan to decide in the next few months whether to go ahead with these tests under the broader_interpretation . mr . weinberger has previously argued that the administration should formally adopt the broader_interpretation . senator sam_nunn , democrat of georgia , and other experts have questioned whether the administration needs to formally adopt this interpretation to carry out its ''star_wars'' program over the next few years . critics say that the pentagon may be arguing for a broader_interpretation with the aim of blocking a possible arms agreement in geneva that would set limits on the program . the administration has said that it will consult with congress and the allies before formally adopting the new interpretation . british official in washington the british defense minister , george younger , who is now here for talks on military issues , said today that britain had worked out agreements with the united_states to carry out ''star_wars'' research on the assumption that the traditional , more restrictive interpretation of the abm treaty would be observed . he said there should be consultation before there was any change in the united_states position . in the continuing dispute over violations of previous arms agreements , the administration sent a report to congress today , rejecting soviet charges that the united_states was violating arms control provisions . the report also denied that the united_states was violating the abm treaty by building two new large radars in greenland and britain . the treaty says that new early warning radars must be on the periphery of each side 's national territory and oriented outward . the administration contends that the radars are allowed because they are modernizations of existing radars that were ''grandfathered'' by the treaty . but some former american negotiators of the treaty dispute this argument and say the new radars in greenland and britain are not allowed .",has a topic of science
"the earthquake that hit japan yesterday was both unusual and ordinary , geologists said . it was unusual in that the devastated area in southwestern japan has been seismologically quiet of late . if a big earthquake was going to strike anywhere , the geologists said , they expected it in the northeast part of the archipelago , which has been shaken by a series of big temblors in the last two years . the quake near kobe was ordinary in that it was part of the age old process in which oceanic plates grind past one another near japan to produce earthquakes , volcanoes and the huge waves known as tsunamis . japan 's geophysical fate is tied to the movement of these plates just off its shores they riddle the region with dangerous faults and form enormous , deep cracks on the ocean floor that are millions of years old . scientists say the tensions slowly building near such zones every so often will produce quakes near heavily_populated areas . japan , they say , is simply fated to suffer such disasters periodically . "" more than anything , it 's a matter of bad luck whether you get an earthquake "" in a particular region of japan , said dr . stuart k . koyanagi , a geophysicist at the national earthquake information center in golden , colo . "" it 's just a question of what part of the earth is going to hit its cycle for releasing all that pent up energy . "" the kobe quake was not particularly large by world or historical standards , dr . koyanagi added . the japanese meteorological agency estimated its magnitude at 7.2 on the richter_scale , while the united states geological survey , which operates the earthquake information center , put the magnitude at 6.8 . around the globe , dr . koyanagi said , quakes in the 6 to 6.9 range occur about 150 times a year , or roughly one every two days on average . twelve to 24 quakes in the 7 to 7.9 range occur each year , while there is only about one a year in the 8 to 8.9 range . the richter_scale is a logarithmic measure of ground motion , so a one point increase on the scale represents a tenfold increase in the magnitude of violent shaking . though moderate by global standards , the quake that hit japan was devastating because it occurred near a large urban center and was relatively shallow , dr . koyanagi said . its epicenter was estimated to be about 12 miles deep . similarly , shallowness was a factor in the destructiveness of the loma prieta quake , which hit the san_francisco area in october 1989 and was estimated at 7.1 on the richter_scale . forty one people were killed in their cars when an elevated_highway collapsed , and the quake was estimated to have caused 6 billion in property damage . "" if you have a high 6 earthquake in any populated area , it 's hard to avoid major damage , "" said dr . koyanagi . "" people talk about the big one in california being an 8 , but think of what happens if a_7 occurs in the middle of two or three million people . there 's still a lot of work to do in terms of making structures more resistant to earthquakes . "" the kobe earthquake has so far produced no sharp aftershocks , geologists say . it also made no tsunamis , or giant waves . the reason , scientists say , is that its epicenter was under awaji shima island and surrounded by shallow water . tsunamis are produced when a major fault under the deep ocean floor gives way , stirring powerful waves that radiate out from the epicenter until they reach a shoreline , where their height sometimes soars and they can do tremendous damage . dr . koyanagi said the most surprising thing about the kobe quake was its location . geologists would have predicted devastation farther up the coast or out to sea , where a number of large quakes have occurred recently . on jan . 7 , a quake registering 6.9 on the richter_scale shook northern and eastern japan , injuring more than 30 people . on dec . 28 , a 7.5 earthquake rocked the northern honshu mainland and parts of hokkaido , killing 2 people and injuring more than 270 . and on july 12 , a 7.8 quake struck okushiri island off southwestern hokkaido , producing big tsunamis , killing more than 200 people and injuring 300 . japanese geologists have warned that seismic_activity has been rising in the northern area of honshu and southeastern parts of hokkaido , and have issued alerts for the central regions of japan around tokyo , which lies about 275 miles northeast of the epicenter near kobe . but for the kobe region , dr . koyanagi said , "" this is the first occurrence of quake of this size in quite a while . "" quake in japan the geology",has a topic of science
"two space walking astronauts hung the orbital equivalent of flypaper on the russian space_station mir today to collect cosmic grit . "" it does n't get any better , "" said one astronaut , dr . linda godwin , a physicist aboard the space shuttle atlantis . the shuttle and the mir are docked in orbit more than 250 miles above earth . dr . godwin and the other astronaut , lieut . col . m . richard clifford of the army , spent most of their six hours in space clamping the panels to the mir 's docking_tunnel to snare debris . the national_aeronautics_and_space_administration wants to see how much and what kind of debris is whizzing past the mir in order to protect the future international_space_station . astronauts will retrieve the debris catchers in 1997 and return them for analysis . dr . godwin and colonel clifford were dwarfed by the atlantis mir complex , at 522 , 847 pounds the largest spacecraft ever assembled , as they clambered up the orange docking_tunnel to install the four experimental panels , each two feet square and six inches deep . they hold 1 , 000 samples of paint , fibers and metallic and optical coatings being considered for the exterior of the international_space_station , as well as a translucent material to trap microscopic debris . they also have gold , aluminum and zinc plates to record slightly bigger micrometeorite hits . installing the panels was laborious . the astronauts almost banged the panels together at one point , and their long tethers kept getting in the way . nasa insisted that dr . godwin and colonel clifford wear jet packs in case their lifelines broke . because the shuttle is docked , it could not dash after a wayward astronaut . while installing the panels , dr . godwin and colonel clifford tested new tethers and work platforms . the pair did not venture beyond the mir 's 15 foot docking_tunnel . the russians , afraid of damage to solar_panels and other delicate station parts , had warned them not to go farther . american astronauts had not previously ventured into space outside a space_station since 1974 , when they did so with skylab . american and russian astronauts will have to work hundreds of hours in space a year to build and maintain the international_space_station , starting in just a few years . "" this was the first opportunity that we could work in an environment that 's very similar to what we 'll be dealing with , "" said scott bleisath of nasa , who coordinated the space walk from mission control here . three other astronauts are in the shuttle and two russian astronauts and a nasa astronaut , dr . shannon lucid , a physicist , are in the mir . the space walk was the last big event before the scheduled undocking on thursday . dr . lucid will remain on the mir when the shuttle pulls away , conducting science experiments on the station for the next five months . her stay will be the start of an american presence in space for at least the next two years . the shuttle is scheduled to land at cape_canaveral , fla . , on sunday , although the space agency is considering bringing it back a day early because of a leak in the steering system and a forecast of poor weather .",has a topic of science
"the crew that will head to the international_space_station next week should be able to conduct a substantial amount of research despite being reduced by a third , nasa officials said today . the russian astronaut , yuri i . malenchenko , and his american partner , edward t . lu , are to take up residence on the station at the end of april and replace a three man crew that has been aboard since october . the 16 nations that are building the 60 billion orbital outpost , led by the united_states and russia , decided last month to maintain the station with crews of two until the space_shuttle fleet is flying again and construction resumes . shuttles have been grounded since the columbia broke up in re entry on feb . 1 , killing its seven member crew . to stretch dwindling supplies on the station , which had primarily been supplied with water and other essentials by shuttles , the station partners decided to reduce the crews . russia also agreed to send additional unmanned progress cargo spacecraft to the station to help maintain it during the hiatus in american flights . the replacement astronauts , the expedition 7 crew , are to spend six months aboard the station . they are scheduled to blast off for the station on april 25 from the baikonur cosmodrome in kazakhstan aboard a russian soyuz tma spacecraft . soyuz_spacecraft , which serve as the station 's emergency lifeboats , must be replaced every six months . plans call for the current residents , the expedition 6 crew of two americans , capt . kenneth d . bowersox of the navy and donald r . pettit , and one russian , nikolai m . budarin , to return early next month on the current soyuz rescue craft . this crew was originally planned to come home on a shuttle flight in february . a major concern with the new crew arrangement was that two astronauts would be so busy operating and maintaining the station that little time would be left for conducting experiments and other research . at a briefing at the johnson_space_center in houston , nasa scientists and officials said today that they had adjusted the schedules enough to allow about 20 hours a week for research . ''we can look forward to continued science on the international_space_station , '' said neal pellis , program scientist for the project . planners found time for additional science by eliminating a scheduled spacewalk , which takes considerable preparation time , and using time for construction if shuttles were adding parts to the station . some research originally planned for a three member expedition seven crew will not be conducted because needed equipment cannot be delivered without shuttle flights , said merri sanchez , a manager for the crew 's activities . but , ms . sanchez said , an experimental agenda has been planned that uses other equipment and having crew members performing different research than first planned , including experiments sponsored by russia and other partners . the work will focus on human life sciences , as well as physics , chemistry and applied science like materials processing , officials said . the crew also should find time for educational programs and to continue informal activities like the ''saturday morning science'' demonstrations popularized by dr . pettit , a chemical_engineer , ms . sanchez said . dr . pellis said that the returning crew would bring back important scientific samples for processing , but that the limited space on the soyuz might require leaving behind samples that might perish or lose value over time .",has a topic of science
"an american space_shuttle docked with a russian space_station for the first time today , doing it so flawlessly that space officials hope it will aid the joint ambitions of the russian and american space programs . ten astronauts greeted one another with hugs , handshakes and kisses on the cheek , chattering away in russian and english while speeding around the earth at nearly five miles a second in the biggest craft ever assembled in space . it was the first coupling of american and russian spacecraft in two decades . "" let them leave their cameras behind , for heaven 's sake , "" a bemused russian astronaut aboard_mir said as his outpost filled with shuttle astronauts eager to record the event for posterity . the linkup some 245 miles above central_asia came after a tense orbital chase in which the space shuttle atlantis slowly approached the mir_space_station . finally , after hours of preparations , the two docking mechanisms touched in a metallic kiss . a gentle kick from the shuttle 's engines at the last instant pushed the docking mechanisms tightly together , as planned . "" we have capture , "" capt . robert l . gibson of the navy , atlantis 's commander , radioed ground_controllers after joining the 112 foot long mir and 122 foot long shuttle , making the hazardous operation look easy . the two spacecraft at one time were major tools in the waging of the cold_war and their linkup today was hailed as symbolizing a new partnership between former adversaries . the docking was a picture perfect start to what american and russian space officials see as decades of cooperative work in space , including the building of an international outpost bigger than a football field and perhaps one day voyaging to other planets . in theory , such teamwork will advance space_exploration more than either side could do alone . "" this is a tremendous success , "" wil trafton , head of the international_space_station project at the national_aeronautics_and_space_administration , told reporters here after the linkup . "" it should quiet a lot of the critics and skeptics , "" some of whom have called the joint_venture a waste of money that is prone to failure . two decades ago , the relatively puny apollo and soyuz capsules linked up briefly during a thaw in the cold_war , a space spectacular involving five astronauts that was of little importance for politics or space development . today the two spacecraft that merged were more than seven times as massive and could hardly have looked more different the shuttle , which carried seven astronauts , is sleek the station , with three astronauts , is gangly . mir is a cluster of modules , solar_power panels and heat radiators , its core launched nine years ago . since then it has serve as an orbiting factory , an astronomical observatory and observation_post to study the earth 's environment and to spy with . the clinton_administration hammered out agreements to merge the hearts of the american and russian manned_space programs , with linkups of mir and the shuttles to serve as stepping stones to building the big station , which is to involve 15 nations . today 's linkup is the first of seven planned between the shuttles and mir . after chasing mir for two days , the atlantis astronauts were awakened today by ground_controllers at 1 32 a.m. , central daylight time , with the song "" from a distance , "" sung by nanci griffith . houston also sent birthday greetings to the shuttle 's pilot , lieut . col . charles j . precourt of the air_force , who turned 40 today . shortly before 3 a.m. , the shuttle 's main maneuvering engines fired for 45 seconds , nudging the 100 ton shuttle to a position some nine miles behind and below mir . at 4 30 a.m. , a final firing sent the winged spaceship on a dead aim for the russian outpost . "" we can see mir 's running lights , "" captain gibson told houston at 5 08 a.m . just after 6 a.m. , atlantis reached a holding position 270 feet below the big russian outpost , which hung large and bright in the sunlight , its solar_panels spread through space like wings . the mir astronauts then began broadcasting russian folk songs to atlantis . gazing out a mir window , dr . norman e . thagard , an american physician astronaut aboard the russian station , radioed that seeing atlantis up close was "" quite an inspiring sight . "" dr . thagard flew up to mir in a russian rocket in march , the first american to do so . today was dr . thagard 's 107th day in space , far beyond the previous american endurance record of 84 days . "" houston , we 've started our approach , "" captain gibson radioed at 7 23 a.m . as small steering jets fired . the shuttle began its final journey moving at about five inches a second , slowing as it neared the mir to about one inch per second , a pace meant to bar an inadvertent collision . ground_controllers a half world apart in houston and kaliningrad , russia , outside moscow , then gave the final go ahead for docking . as 10 orbiting astronauts anxiously watched their respective spacecraft through windows and television cameras , the two vehicles touched ever so gingerly at 8 a.m. , right on schedule . "" houston , "" captain gibson radioed to ground_controllers , "" we have capture . "" applause broke out in houston and kaliningrad . in space between the two spacecraft , a dozen hooks and latches turned the tenuous attachment into a tight grip , making a seal firm enough to prevent air leakage . in close up television pictures taken by atlantis , mir looked alien , its running lights blinking , its body covered with silvery appendages and antennas . inside , the three mir astronauts floated in weightlessness in their blue uniforms as they were congratulated by daniel s . goldin and yuri n . koptev , the heads , respectively , of the national_aeronautics_and_space_administration and the russian space agency . "" it 's a wonderful dream come true , "" mr . goldin told the astronauts . "" i 'm so proud of all of you . "" gregory j . harbaugh , one of the seven astronauts aboard atlantis , reported at 8 42 a.m . that there were no indications of air leakage through the docking mechanism linking the two craft . the mir astronauts concurred . "" o . k. , here goes , "" captain gibson said at 10 a.m . as he turned the crank to open the atlantis hatch . it floated away , revealing the mir astronauts at the other end of the docking_tunnel . "" you guys are upside down ! "" dr . thagard cried from inside mir , the astronauts by chance finding their orientation topsy turvy . mir 's commander , vladimir n . dezhurov , floated forward to shake hands with captain gibson while the two spacecraft orbited over the pacific , just off australia . the russian then motioned the atlantis crew to come forward . a tangle of cameras , astronauts and electrical cords then floated through linking tunnels and modules into the mir station 's central core , the atlantis astronauts in red shirts , the mir astronauts in blue suits . the assembled astronauts grinned and cavorted as they photographed one another , and laughed as one astronaut went tumbling head over heels , frolicking in the weightlessness . "" i must say i 've got mixed emotions , "" dr . thagard told ground_controllers when asked if he was ready for the return . "" on the one hand you want to come home . and on the other hand you think , 'well , i 'd like to do this for just a little while longer . ' "" the assembly area for the 10 astronauts in the mir core had no flags and the welcoming_ceremony had little pomp . "" this docking , "" said mr . dezhurov , is a "" politically important step to strengthening the friendship between the peoples of the united_states and russia . "" captain gibson , who like all the american astronauts took russian lessons , replied in halting russian "" together we will build a future based on cooperation , mutual trust and friendship . today that is our true , important mission . "" a smiling dr . bonnie dunbar , an atlantis astronaut who trained in russia as dr . thagard 's backup , then placed an atlantis mir crew patch on one of the space_station 's switch boxes , after which all the astronauts were asked to sign it . the astronauts then had a series of safety briefings on emergency escape procedures and mechanisms , should trouble arise . later at a news conference here at the johnson_space_center , nasa officials heaped praise on the astronauts , saying the docking had occurred with astonishing precision . "" we could not be in a better position today , "" said tommy holloway , head of nasa 's shuttle mir program . space_program an on line history articles and front pages from the times tracing the history of the space_program , along with video , sound clips and photos from nasa , are available on line from times , the times 's service on america online . software and information ( 800 ) 548 5201 .",has a topic of science
"lead an earthquake shook a broad swath of england and wales today , emptying buildings and sending hundreds of frightened people into the streets . there were no immediate reports of injuries or serious damage . the quake , which geologists said registered 5.2 on the richter_scale , was believed to have been centered west of nottingham in central england . an earthquake shook a broad swath of england and wales today , emptying buildings and sending hundreds of frightened people into the streets . there were no immediate reports of injuries or serious damage . the quake , which geologists said registered 5.2 on the richter_scale , was believed to have been centered west of nottingham in central england . it was felt from the outskirts of london to south wales , and north through birmingham , coventry and manchester to the scottish border , police stations around the country reported .",has a topic of science
"to get a sense of where president_clinton ended up after a year long white_house struggle to shape his global_warming plan , consider who quit after it was announced . it was timothy e . wirth , the undersecretary of state for global environmental affairs , one of the greenest of the president 's advisers and nominally the top official directly in charge of negotiations toward a new climate treaty . mr . wirth advocated an aggressive plan for significant cutbacks in the nation 's emissions of greenhouse gases one that could have had significant costs for the economy . bit by bit , that plan was scaled back as mr . clinton listened , and listened again , to the warnings of senior economic advisers like deputy treasury_secretary lawrence h . summers and the chairwoman of the council_of_economic_advisers , janet l . yellen . mr . wirth 's decision to leave his post after the kyoto talks to head a foundation created by the billionaire ted_turner to support the united_nations followed a long , meandering and occasionally intense debate inside the white_house that reflected many of the conflicts that bedevil climate_change policy . the conflicts went beyond the traditional clash of green eyeshades and green armbands , to encompass opposing views on technology 's potential and on ways of making predictions about unpredictable systems . the debate also pitted the old bill clinton , whose instinct would have been to side with mr . wirth 's call for sweeping government action , against a new bill clinton , chastened by his health_care failure and acutely_aware of the domestic impact of foreign_policy . and it was shadowed by two futures for mr . clinton , by a desire to shape his legacy , and for vice_president al_gore , by the need to balance his strong environmental views against the coalition building that leads up to a presidential run . five years ago , president george_bush joined other leaders of developed nations in pledging at the rio environmental summit to reduce emissions of greenhouse_gases to 1990 levels by the year 2000 . two years ago , when it was already clear that the u.s . and some other countries would miss that voluntary target , mr . clinton agreed to join an effort to come up with a binding treaty for reductions at kyoto . in the struggle that followed , president_clinton 's economic advisers stopped him from promising deep , quick cuts in emissions of greenhouse_gases , but they argue that they did not win this debate they say they merely acted as a counterweight to mr . wirth , katie mcginty , the white_house environmental adviser , and environmental groups . the president , his economic team notes , did not agree to delay cutbacks in emissions for as long as the economists had initially suggested . ''the spin is that we won , '' one senior economic adviser to mr . clinton said recently . ''the reality was a little more muddled . we agreed there needed to be goals , even aggressive goals . but there also needed to be escape hatches , in case the economic effects turned out to be a lot more damaging than we thought . '' mr . clinton pledged that the united_states would cut emissions to 1990 levels in the next 10 to 15 years . the turnabout in emissions will be encouraged at first with tax incentives and research subsidies for conservation and clean energy production . in later years , a cap will be placed on greenhouse emissions , coupled with a system to give credits for emissions reductions that companies can save and sell . it is a system in which the government will set a mandatory goal but leave the mechanism to the market instead of turning to a government fiat . if the administration 's approach delivers the promised reductions , emissions between 2008 and 2012 will be about a third lower than current trends would predict . but nobody knows how much that will cost . ''there is no credible , widely accepted economic analysis that currently exists in the united_states , or in most other countries , that can answer very basic cost and benefit questions , '' said eileen b . claussen , a former senior aide to mr . wirth who had played an instrumental role in the talks but left the administration a few months ago . it was n't for lack of trying . the administration struggled for two years to come up with a credible analysis of the economic effects of moving away from fossil_fuels , but the uncertainties over things like what the united_states economy will look like a decade from now , what technological_advances in emissions controls will be made and how willing consumers and manufacturers will be to respond to economic incentives proved overwhelming . ms . yellen essentially declared the effort to come up with reliable numbers a failure last summer . that opened the door to something of a policy making free for all that lasted well into the fall and has left many members of congress wary , ms . claussen said . there was never any serious debate inside the administration about the science of the issue the white_house has decided that the climate problem is real and serious . after all , the leading environmentalist of them all is mr . gore , and he long ago won over president_clinton on the need to do something about the threat of climate_change . but as one of mr . clinton 's top aides noted during the debate ''al has discovered it 's a lot easier to write a book about the subject than to grapple with the economic costs . but he 's getting the hang of it . '' in the end , mr . gore was highly receptive to the economic arguments , especially when the chorus of warnings included american business groups , whose support he will need when running for president . the real debate within the administration pitted the pure economists against the technologists , the people who deal with the gross_domestic_product against those who specialize in british thermal units . the economists were deeply worried that any policy intended to drive down the use of fossil_fuels especially a policy like the one the administration favors , to put a cap on emissions of carbon_dioxide and to let a market in emission permits dictate the price of fossil_fuels would , in effect , amount to a system of energy rationing and energy taxes . in their rear view mirrors , these advisers saw the economic disruptions of the oil shocks of the 1970 's . but the technologists argued that the new policy would stimulate the appearance and rapid adoption of exciting new technologies that would make it possible to conserve energy and to produce more of it without fossil_fuels . in their rear view mirrors , they saw the efficiency gains and higher productivity that resulted from putting the nation on an energy diet in the 1970 's and the 1980 's . both groups have economic models that prove their arguments . but no model is particularly well suited to predict what will happen to energy prices under the clinton_administration 's plan . that is because the plan calls for using inherently unpredictable free_markets , rather than rigid regulations , to control emissions of carbon_dioxide and other greenhouse_gases . the administration wants to put a fixed overall cap on the total emissions of greenhouse_gases by industries . then it would issue individual companies permits that would allow them to release a certain amount of the gases . limiting the supply of something increasingly in demand generally has the effect of driving up its price . but the administration hopes that the permits , which would be traded on a free_market , will limit the price pressures on energy and encourage innovation instead . for instance , a company that found a cheap way to control carbon_dioxide_emissions could sell its extra permits to a company with high control costs . both companies would benefit economically from the transaction , and the market in permits would stimulate the invention and adoption of the cheapest possible control technologies . the administration hopes to extend the permit system worldwide , allowing poorer countries with low emissions to raise money by selling part of their right to emit greenhouse_gases to developed countries that have plenty of cash but have bumped into their pollution limits . selling this at kyoto , where developing nations are demanding deeper , faster cuts , is shaping up as a daunting_task . but mr . clinton has tried to build his second term on proposals to marry government goals and market mechanisms , and has always prided himself on his deal making abilities . this time , it may be the deal of the next century . global_warming",has a topic of science
"lead a strong but brief earthquake rocked central tokyo today , sending skyscrapers swaying and snarling rail transportation at the beginning of o bon , an annual holiday . though the earthquake measured 5.3 on the richter_scale , enough to do moderate damage , no injuries or damage beyond broken glass were reported . a strong but brief earthquake rocked central tokyo today , sending skyscrapers swaying and snarling rail transportation at the beginning of o bon , an annual holiday . though the earthquake measured 5.3 on the richter_scale , enough to do moderate damage , no injuries or damage beyond broken glass were reported .",has a topic of science
"once every few weeks this city is shaken by a tremor so powerful that it becomes topic a of conversation in the gleaming high rises that tower above tokyo and aboard the packed subways that course underground . and then , just as swiftly , conversations shift back to japan 's economic performance , the latest political_scandal or , these days , japan 's baseball championship_series . such serenity is in large part attributable to government assurances that every practical earthquake safety precaution has already been taken in tokyo , and to japanese familiarity with geological disaster on a huge scale . no one seems to blink at minimum and oddly precise estimates of 6 , 717 people killed and more than 300 , 000 structures destroyed , mostly by fire , if the big one hits . ''all of tokyo 's large buildings are able to withstand a magnitude 7.2 earthquake , '' said kenji suzuki , the city 's chief of disaster prevention planning , whose offices in the 48 story twin tower tokyo government headquarters contain a disaster response command center that resembles a high tech war room . ''since scientists tell us that we are unlikely to experience anything bigger than this in the foreseeable future , we are satisfied . '' but after a summer of unusually intense seismic_activity across japan and , earlier this month , the strongest tremor since the devastating 1995 earthquake in kobe , seismologists , building experts and the news_media are pondering whether this city of 12 million people is now considered safe or , indeed , ever can be . the kobe earthquake had a force of 7.2 on the richter_scale , now seldom used . it struck directly under the city , and killed about 6 , 000 people . at the tokyo fire department , which would be the lead rescue agency in an earthquake , officials are , like mr . suzuki , focused on a quake of the magnitude of that of kobe . ''a bigger earthquake will probably not happen for another 100 or 200 years , '' said seiichi ohsawa , a fire department quake preparedness specialist . ''on the other hand , a quake like kobe 's can be expected to recur fairly often . '' but many experts say that tokyo and its immediate surroundings , atop one of the world 's most complex and menacing patchworks of seismic faults , could suffer a far more powerful earthquake at any time . in 1923 , an earthquake known as the great kanto earthquake hit the tokyo area , leaving an estimated 140 , 000 people dead . it measured 7.9 on the old richter_scale . by all accounts , building materials and techniques , as well as safety and rescue procedures , have improved immensely in the last 70 years . but the location of what experts view as the most dangerous faults in the tokyo region offshore in the tokai region , a semirural zone to the southwest means that many of them warn that tokyo may be preparing for the wrong disaster , and should ponder instead how to combat a 27 foot tsunami , or giant wave , that would reach the tokyo waterfront within three to four minutes , before any safety precautions could be taken . one danger that appears to have been given little consideration in official disaster estimates is ' 'soil liquefaction , '' whereby intense vibrations release underground water , instantly turning what had once appeared to be solid land into oozing , perilous mud . tokyo is in particular danger because much of this city is low lying tokyo_bay landfill and other ' 'reclaimed'' land . a 1987 computer model made by the institute of civil engineers , which is cited in the book ''sixty seconds that will change the world the coming tokyo earthquake , '' suggested that 98 square miles , or about 12 percent of the city 's land , will liquefy in the event of a major earthquake . megumi mizoue , a leading earthquake expert at the national meteorological agency , scoffed at official casualty estimates from a big quake , noting first that ''what is happening in the tokai area is awful and gives us reason for great worry'' and second that tokyo has many shopping centers and subways deep underground . ''it is said that the shock is reduced by a third or more underground , '' he said . ''but power and air come from the surface , and we can anticipate lots of casualties simply from panic . '' at the obayashi corporation , one of tokyo 's biggest building companies , officials said they were concerned that the city 's building safety standards , steadily more stringent since kobe , were still not up to snuff . as they spoke , workers outside their shimmering headquarters in the shinagawa district were completing work on the foundation of a companion tower in a pit that reached bedrock , deep underground , to reduce the danger of soil liquefaction . other methods for insuring the stability of tall buildings , they said , included the placement of huge tanks holding 150 tons or more of water on the roof . the swaying of the water , architects said , counters the swaying of the building in an earthquake . architects have also begun to use latticework girders , some with hydraulic shock absorbers , as a brace , or ecoskeleton , for tall buildings . even in the case of a kobe style quake beneath tokyo , the devastation experts say they expect seems difficult to square with official damage and casualty estimates . mr . ohsawa of the fire department , for instance , conceded that ''we would be overwhelmed . '' ''we could n't possibly handle all of the fires , '' he said . relief officials rely on public awareness and preparedness to keep the toll , and subsequent chaos , to a minimum . approximately one million people take part in earthquake drills in tokyo every year . ''in kobe they did n't expect an earthquake , but in tokyo everyone expects one , '' mr . ohsawa said . ''we hope that participation in drills will make a difference . '' but in kamata , a tokyo neighborhood of low buildings and narrow streets that according to the municipal government falls into the highest earthquake risk category , few pedestrians or shopkeepers interviewed recently were aware of any particular danger in the area . few , too , had ever taken part in earthquake drills or given much thought about what to do in an emergency . ''hey ! not here ! '' shrieked noriko sanpei , 21 , a student who was leaving a multistoried college building with several friends . ''we 've never been told anything by the city or by anyone . if we had to evacuate , i would n't know where to go . ''",has a topic of science
"kobe began trying to restore normalcywith a few stores open and food and water supplies improving . but rain was predicted , causing concern for residents who are still sleeping outdoors . page 4 .",has a topic of science
"american space experts say they believe that vasily_tsibliyev , the commander of the mir_space_station , has been badly_shaken by a series of space failures in recent months and is intent on avoiding a risky repair mission . if so , they say , he joins a little known roster of astronauts who have rebelled against mission control when faced with heightened risks or tensions in exploring space . the earliest known instance of defiance centered on apollo 7 , in october 1968 . the goal of the 11 day flight , quite lengthy by the standards of the day , was to test the apollo command and service_module in earth_orbit as a preparation for landing men on the moon . the three man crew was extraordinarily tense before and during the mission since it was the first manned american space flight after an apollo capsule burned on the ground during a florida test , killing three astronauts . the apollo 7 crew members felt that the future of the beleaguered space_program rested on their shoulders . to confound matters , all three got bad colds in orbit . no astronaut had ever had one before , and it made the commander of apollo 7 , walter m . schirra jr . , extremely testy . he refused to do scheduled tests and carped mightily . he basically would not obey ground control , james e . oberg , a houston based engineer and space historian , said in an interview . the next rebellion occurred during the third manned mission to skylab , a giant space_station pioneered by the united_states in 1972 after the successful lunar landings . the 84 day mission , from november 1973 to february 1974 , set an endurance record and became tense as astronauts fell increasingly behind schedule doing ambitious tests . near the breaking point , the commander , gerald p . carr , told ground_controllers that he and his crew were taking a day off , which they then proceeded to do with the radio switched off . ''we looked out the window , took showers , and did that sort of thing , '' mr . carr recalled in an interview . after that , he negotiated a new schedule with ground_controllers in which no work would be done after 8 p.m . ''we said , 'we want time off to mess around and do anything we want , ' '' he added . ''they acquiesced . '' the last known rebellion occurred in june 1995 aboard the mir station when two russian astronauts , vladimir n . dezhurov and gennadi m . strekalov , were to conduct their sixth space walk in two months to inspect the outpost 's solar_energy arrays . tired and edgy , they balked , and ground_controllers reluctantly canceled the work . mr . oberg , the space historian , who is an expert on the russian space_program , said of , the pair ''they were fined , in effect , for mutiny . they had to go to court to get their flight bonuses . '' like some other american experts , mr . oberg believes that mr . tsibliyev , the commander of the mir_space_station , has real heart irregularities but , more importantly , has been shaken by failures to the point that he is losing confidence in his ability work safely and productively . on feb . 23 , a major fire broke out aboard_mir that shot out two foot flames , choked passageways with smoke and spit hunks of molten metal that blocked one of two escape routes . and worse was to come . on june 25 , a supply ship crashed into mir , knocking out half its power and rupturing its hull . the astronauts were forced to seal off the 43 foot spektr module , which held science experiments and sleeping quarters for an american , michael_foale . mr . oberg said of mr . tsibliyev ''his mental_health has been of concern since before the collision . the fire knocked him down and he never got up after that . '' mr . oberg suggested that the implicit message in the current situation was that the mir commander thinks that the mission to repair the orbiting_outpost should be taken on by a fresh crew that has trained on earth for the job . ''he may not see the urgency of it , and neither do i , '' mr . oberg said of the repair mission . ''the station is running on low power and does n't have a need for a whole lot more . they could wait for the repairs until the next crew gets there . ''",has a topic of science
"lead researchers have unearthed the oldest rocks ever discovered , chunks of granite in remote northern_canada that are nearly four billion years old , the national_science_foundation announced today . researchers have unearthed the oldest rocks ever discovered , chunks of granite in remote northern_canada that are nearly four billion years old , the national_science_foundation announced today . the researchers , led by dr . samuel bowring of washington_university in st . louis , pushed back the date of the oldest known rocks more than 100 million years , into a time in the history of the planet about which almost nothing is known with certainty . ''until now , there just has been no record of the earth between the time it was formed 4.5 billion years ago , and 3.8 billion years ago , '' dr . bowring said . he said this find pushes back the date of the earliest rocks to 3 . 96 billion years ago , and preliminary evidence suggests that nearby rocks in the area may be as old as 4.1 billion years . when crust was formed the finding helps pinpoint the time when the earth 's crust formed , sketching in the details between the time the earth was entirely hot , liquid rock and the formation of a crust on its surface . dr . bowring and his group , working with researchers from the geological survey of canada , had been sampling and mapping the geology of the rolling , treeless arctic tundra about 250 miles north of yellowknife , in the northwest_territories , when they gathered samples in 1984 . two rocks , one about five pounds and the other about 50 pounds , sat unanalyzed for years in dr . bowring 's laboratory until this spring . then , after preliminary analysis suggested great age , 53 small crystals from the two rocks were shipped to the australian national university for dating by a special technique that can determine how much uranium has decayed to lead in tiny samples of rock . very few samples of old earth 's crust have been found despite extensive searches , and so the importance of these rocks and other samples still to come from the area has grown . formed out of gases the earth was formed about 4.5 billion years ago , congealing from a spinning , gaseous mass along with the other inner planets in the solar system . the earth was at first entirely molten rock , but gradually the heavier elements , like iron and nickel , settled into a dense inner core . around the core was the mantle , made of lighter materials called basalt . today 's report offers information about when the mantle began to develop a crust . scientists liken the process to the formation of a crust on top of boiling pea soup . the least dense material , like granite , surfaced and formed clumps that were like the island chains of today 's earth . as they moved about on the surface of the boiling molten rock , more and more of these surface clumps collided , eventually building up into the thicker continental plates , dr . bowring said . the earth 's crust is now thickest under the continental plates and thinnest under the ocean , where new crust is still welling up at oceanic ridges from the underlying hot mantle . the question that may eventually be resolved by samples like those announced today is whether a crust formed very slowly over the first two billion years of the planet 's history and little has remained from the early times , or whether crust was formed early , but later destroyed by widewpread meteoric bombardment of the earth . ''we did n't go out expecting to find rocks this old in fact i had predicted that the samples we got would be young , '' said dr . bowring . ''there is nothing about these rocks that looks any different or that says old rocks . but now the potential for new discoveries in this area is large . '' he said he had recently hauled back more than 4 , 000 pounds of rocks from the arctic wilderness for analysis .",has a topic of science
"to prowl the wealthy neighborhoods here in the beverly_hills of japan , where 5 million ranch style homes peek from behind stone walls , is to see that it was not just luck that determined who lived and who died in the devastating earthquake last week . money also played a role . while nature was democratic , in that the tremblor rattled rich neighborhoods as well as poor ones , its consequences were not . frequently , it was the poorer people 's homes that collapsed and buried them in rubble . some wealthy people were among the 5 , 063 dead counted so far , of course , but disproportionately it was the poor and elderly who lost their homes , jobs and lives . this week , many poor families are arranging funerals and many rich ones are arranging vacations . the earthquake zone includes some of the wealthiest parts of japan , and this city is famous as a playground of the rich . nestled on the edge of the port city of kobe , ashiya was the setting for the novel "" the makioka sisters , "" junichiro tanizaki 's portrayal of the life of a rich family in the 1930 's . if the makioka sisters were around today , they probably would have come through the earthquake all right , just as the honda family did . dr . minoru honda and his wife , yoriko , live in a spectacular two story wooden house with a huge garden and duck pond . by and large , the damage to the house is manageable a shattered beam that they have already found someone to fix , a broken sauna , a toppled bookshelf and an overturned aquarium that left seven tropical fish gasping in a puddle on the hardwood floor . dr . honda , an amiable surgeon who rushed to a hospital after the quake and worked for two days without sleeping to treat the injured , further remedied things today by going out and buying a motorcycle to get around the terrible traffic_jams . "" those things are useless now , "" he said , pointing to his porsche carrera and mercedes_benz cars . mrs . honda served coffee in her dining_room , offering it in german cups and saucers to replace the french ones that had shattered , and noted that some wealthy people had died in the quake . she told of a friend , a businessman who had been killed in his home along with his 25 year old son , when their roof caved in on them . "" but after the quake , it 's different for rich people , "" she added . "" the rich have relatives with extra rooms , so they have somewhere to go if they need to . and if they 've got money , they can buy anything they need . "" at the time of the earthquake , we had lots of food in the refrigerator , and lots of toilet_paper , so we were n't in such a bad way , "" mrs . honda added . "" in our houses , we have extra things , so we 're o.k. "" wealthy families like the hondas seem full of compassion for their less fortunate neighbors in the shelters , and there seems to be relatively little resentment among the homeless that so many rich people came through unscathed . the chasm between rich and poor in japan is narrower than in many societies , and 80 percent of japanese identify themselves as members of the middle_class . yet income gaps exist , and they are reflected in the homes people live in . while buildings of all kinds collapsed , by far the greatest number were old traditional japanese wooden houses with heavy tile roofs . everywhere in the quake zone , it is common to see a pile of rafters that is all that remains of a traditional wooden house , while a modern concrete building stands intact next door . high rises were scarcely affected , while two story wooden homes many of which have now compressed into one story houses were perhaps at greatest risk . poor people , and especially , the elderly , were most likely to live in these old wooden houses . the wealthy were more likely to have built newer homes and to spend more money on better quality construction . the affluent also tended to have larger rooms and often slept on beds poorer people slept on futons on the floor of tiny rooms , so that a falling wardrobe was almost sure to hit them . there has been no study comparing incomes with mortality_rates in the earthquake , but the yomiuri shimbun , a japanese daily , did examine the ages of the victims . it found that more than half were over the age of 60 , presumably because they were in more fragile health and also because they often lived in old wooden homes . in shelters for victims of the quake , the homeless often speak in working_class japanese and seem overwhelmingly less educated and less affluent than the population at_large . while wealthy people were sometimes forced to stay in shelters for the first night or two , they have since fled to osaka or other cities to stay in hotels or with friends and relatives . "" the rich have good houses , but we 're ordinary people , "" explained setsuko kawahigashi , a 54 year old snack shop owner living in a shelter in ashiya . "" lots of the rich folks had second houses , so they moved into those . and some of the rich have already bought new apartments . i heard of somebody who bought a new apartment on the day after the earthquake . they 've already moved in , and they 've got running water there and everything . "" mrs . kawahigashi said she has some savings and a pension , but not enough money to rebuild her home a 50 year old wooden house or her small shop , which was also badly_damaged . she is also unsure what furniture she can recover from her house , which collapsed around her and buried her for two and a half hours . although she finally burrowed through a wall and escaped , mrs . kawahigashi is worried about her maltese terrier , who is now trapped inside the house . every day mrs . kawahigash goes to the wreck of her house and throws food inside for her dog , but it has been two days since she heard it bark or make any other sound . a few minutes' drive by mercedes_benz from mrs . kawahigashi 's collapsed house , tomiko kubo is straightening up the mess in her hilltop mansion . a friendly 77 year old woman wearing a mink coat against the chill , she has made some headway . "" we lost some very nice porcelain , beautiful antiques , "" mrs . kubo said . "" but everybody 's fine , and that 's the important thing . it 's very different for those down there what a tragedy . "" her 23 year old grandson , gohsuke kubo , explained the difference . "" this house is built on rock , while down there the houses are old cheap wooden buildings constructed right after world_war_ii . "" still , the entire neighborhood is putting up with the inconvenience of no running water or gas supply , so most residents in the multimillion_dollar homes have fled to osaka or other places . "" among our close friends , none were killed or injured , "" mr . kubo said . "" but nobody lives around here now . it 's like a ghost_town . """,has a topic of science
"to the editor re ''venice turns to future'' venetians and all those who love our city should be worried about the huge dam project described in the article . we should remember that engineering works , like the channels dredged to bring oil_tankers into venice 's lagoon , have contributed to flooding in the city . as board members of the venice chapter of italia nostra , a private conservation group that has fought to protect the city and its lagoon for decades , we believe that the companies behind the dam project should have consulted with us or other major environmental groups . instead , proponents of the project have pushed ahead like a steamroller over the concerns of citizens and experts . the project failed its 1998 environmental impact assessment . venice and its lagoon need better plans . alvise benedetti anthony zamparutti venice",has a topic of science
"the lockheed_martin_corporation has agreed to pay 13 million to the government to settle a case involving the sale of satellite technology to china in 1994 , company and clinton_administration officials said today . the company was charged with violating arms export laws . the settlement , which officials said is likely to be announced on wednesday by the state_department , is the largest civil penalty ever assessed under the arms export control act , the primary law regulating sales of american technology . a criminal investigation is still under way over whether the loral space and communication corporation also violated export controls in a separate incident . the lockheed_martin settlement may put pressure on loral to settle that case . but it also allows the clinton_administration which has been charged with laxness in keeping sensitive technology out of chinese hands to argue in the midst of a presidential_election year that it is enforcing export control laws . in a statement tonight , lockheed_martin 's spokesman , james fetig , confirmed that the company , the world 's largest military manufacturer , had decided to settle the case , in which the state_department had charged the company with 30 violations of arms export laws . he said that under the agreement , lockheed_martin neither admits nor denies the allegations . the financial settlement came close to the maximum penalty of 15 million . but under the terms of the accord , officials said , the company is spared a far more costly fate a suspension of its rights to export satellite technology . in its statement , lockheed_martin said , ''the corporation appreciates the opportunity to enter into a settlement agreement with the department of state that resolves the charges . ''we are committed to full compliance with all export control measures and believe this agreement will allow us to assure the state_department that we will meet all of our export control obligations . '' at issue in the case was a series of interchanges between lockheed_martin rocket experts and the chinese about kick motors , which are small rocket motors that are used to lift a satellite into its final orbit . at the time of the exchanges , chinese made kick motors had suffered a number of failures . martin_marietta aerospace , which was later acquired by lockheed , provided help to asiasat , a satellite company based in hong_kong with heavy financial ties to the chinese government . asiasat was a client of martin_marietta . the technical transfers caused considerable concern within the state and defense departments . the same kick motor technology that helps china in launching commercial communications satellites , officials said , could help its military launch spy_satellites . in april , the state_department spokesman at the time , james p . rubin , said ''any assistance to chinese technical capability in space launch has the potential to be applied to missile development . '' moreover , the state_department charged that martin_marietta had failed to clear its technical_analysis of the rocket problems with washington before passing it on to the chinese , and had made no effort later to retrieve it . the company said at the time that it had violated no laws . at the time , the clinton_administration was encouraging more commercial interchanges between american and chinese satellite companies . but the rules on those transfers have since been tightened by congress , in reaction to disclosures that in 1996 , two years after the martin_marietta incident , loral had helped chinese rocket makers solve a different set of technical problems . those transfers , officials say , raised more security concerns than martin_marietta 's help to asiasat . under the civil agreement , lockheed_martin will be allowed to use 5 million of its fine to install computer systems that would give the american government access to all of its foreign space and missile deals . the access is to include data that might require licenses for export .",has a topic of science
"a meeting of more than 130 nations aimed at helping to prevent catastrophic changes in the world 's climate seems unlikely to produce substantial progress toward limiting carbon_dioxide_emissions , which scientists say are the main cause of global_warming . the conference , which opened here on tuesday , has the modest goal of starting up a negotiating process to set limits on emissions . but the nations taking part have broken into feuding blocs , unable to agree even on procedural issues . angela_merkel , the german environment minister and chairman of the conference , tried today in behind the scenes negotiations to smooth over differences before senior government leaders begin arriving on wednesday for the final days of the conference . but her pleas for new limits on emissions have met with strong resistance . "" i am saddened that many countries do not want to go as far as the european_union in reducing greenhouse_gases , "" mrs . merkel told a television interviewer friday night . in a speech opening the 11 day conference , which is sponsored by the united_nations , mrs . merkel urged delegates to take new steps to curb carbon_dioxide_emissions . "" if we do n't take action , we must expect grave and irreversible consequences , "" mrs . merkel said . "" a rise in sea levels , a shift in climate and vegetation zones and a deterioration in food production and the world nutrition situation are only a few examples . "" "" if we wait until observable climate changes have begun , we will be stuck with them for decades , "" she warned . "" if we are serious about long term change , we will not be able to avoid radical changes in our patterns of consumption and production and in our lifestyle . "" at the earth summit conference in rio de janeiro in 1992 , industrialized_countries agreed to reduce carbon_dioxide_emissions to 1990 levels by 2000 . not only are some industrialized_countries unwilling to accept further targets , but there is growing evidence that they will not be able to reach those adopted in rio . the european_union supports germany 's position in favor of setting new targets for reducing climate altering emissions . its strongest allies are small island nations , whose leaders say that rising sea levels threaten their countries with physical extinction . a representative of the island states , maumoon abdul gayoom , president of the maldive islands , an indian_ocean nation whose highest point is 10 feet above sea_level , made an impassioned plea to the conference delegates . "" each tick of the clock could be time lost in saving some 30 small island nations from drowning in a sea of rising tides , "" mr . gayoom said . "" the meager resources of the small , island , developing states , whose narrow based economies are pressed to alleviate hunger , poverty and illiteracy , cannot be set aside for rectifying the mistakes of powerful and affluent nations . "" an unusual coalition has emerged to oppose curbs on carbon_dioxide_emissions . the main members are oil producing states led by saudi_arabia and kuwait , which fear lost revenue if oil consumption is cut russia and china , which fear that their drive for rapid industrialization will be slowed , and five developed nations the united_states , canada , australia , new zealand and japan . oil producing nations insist that all decisions at the conference be made by consensus , giving them an effective veto . european_countries want decisions to be made by a two thirds or three quarters majority .",has a topic of science
"russian space officials said today that it would take two weeks to transport vital repair equipment to the stricken mir_space_station . the station was seriously damaged on wednesday when an unmanned progress cargo vessel slammed into it , curtailing mir 's power supply and forcing the two russians and an american on board to seal off one of its seven compartments , the spektr module . yuri koptev , chief of the russian space agency , said that another unmanned progress cargo craft would be launched in 11 days with special equipment for repairs . it takes about two days for the progress to reach the space_station . ''the astronauts will have to make a space walk to complete the repairs to the spektr module , '' mr . koptev said . ''for that , special equipment should be delivered . '' in a conversation with nasa officials in houston today , michael_foale , the american astronaut aboard_mir , said he and his two crewmates were feeling fine and adapting to the cramped , dark conditions on the station . mr . foale 's personal belongings and most of his scientific equipment and experiments are in the sealed off spektr module . asked what gear he would like to have included in the supply ship scheduled to visit mir , mr . foale requested a medical kit to replace one left in the damaged module , a shaver , a toothbrush , three tubes of toothpaste and a pair of shoes . frank culbertson , nasa 's director of the mir space_shuttle cooperative program , said at a news conference in houston that united_states experts were helping assess the damage to mir and would help with repairs if the russians requested it . it is unlikely that nasa would move up the next scheduled visit of an american space_shuttle to the russian station , now planned for late september , he said . mr . culbertson said that before sending an astronaut , wendy lawrence , up to mir on that flight to replace mr . foale , nasa had to determine that the stay would be safe and that there would be worthwhile research for her to do in light of the loss of perhaps half of the united_states equipment aboard_mir . as russian and nasa officials met here to discuss possible repairs , russian officials repeated that they had no plans to evacuate the mir , a procedure that might result in the loss of the space_station . the mir generally needs to be manned to stay in the proper orbital pattern over an extended period , said an american official . he said the russians had a multibillion_dollar investment in the mir and would try to preserve it as long as there was no danger to the crew . but the russians were not minimizing the seriousness of the accident and said they were prepared to order an evacuation if air pressure fell precipitously . so far , the air pressure in the undamaged part of the craft is satisfactory , russian officials said . a major problem is the loss of much of the vessel 's power . the power problem developed after the progress cargo vehicle destroyed a solar array and damaged cables to other solar arrays while the crew of the mir was practicing a docking maneuver . nasa officials said on wednesday that half of the power had been lost but russian officials said today that electrical power had been cut 25 percent to 30 percent . because of the reduced power , the crew has canceled scientific_experiments and because of the power problems , television pictures were not transmitted from the craft .",has a topic of science
"a conference that is supposed to cap more than two years of negotiations on what to do about global_warming opened here today amid widespread concern that too many hard issues remained to allow the completion of an effective agreement before the talks end in nine days . ''this negotiation has n't matured it 's like new wine , and i do n't know if we can ferment it in time , '' said melinda kimble , a senior state_department official who is leading the united_states delegation until the higher level ministerial phase of the talks begins next monday . today , however , ms . kimble hinted at some flexibility in the american position on setting targets for reduction of gases that trap heat in the atmosphere . after more than two years of bargaining , delegates from more than 150 countries are meeting for their final session in the high tech kyoto international conference hall , set among lovely hills , gardens and ponds in this ancient capital and repository of traditional japanese culture . surrounded by thousands of lobbyists and journalists from around the world , the negotiators are trying to agree not just on the amount by which emissions of greenhouse_gases like carbon_dioxide should be cut over the next 10 to 20 years , and on what schedule , but also on how to share the burden , what gases to include and how to structure the immensely complex task . the job has turned out to be more complicated and difficult than was envisioned in march 1995 , when parties to the 1992 rio treaty on climate_change decided that stronger action was needed , say many who are involved . in 1995 , it was seen simply as a matter of deciding on a reduction target and a timetable for the industrialized_countries . now it has broadened to include the highly contentious role of developing nations , as well as a number of elaborate mechanisms by which the reductions might be carried out . as a result , many experts say , there is a distinct_possibility that the talks will not be concluded here , at least not fully , and will have to be extended much as were negotiations on setting up the world_trade_organization a task that took more than a decade . but not everyone is pessimistic , and ms . kimble today sent a signal that prompted michael zammit cutajar , the maltese executive secretary of the united_nations climate secretariat , to declare that ''the negotiation is on its way . '' ms . kimble said at the opening session of the conference of parties to the 1992 rio climate treaty , under which the talks are being held , that the united_states would no longer insist on a flat_rate , one size fits all reduction target for all countries . instead , she said , the americans were ''prepared to consider the possibility of limited , carefully bounded differentiation'' of targets among industrialized_countries . different targets for different countries , tailored to their economic and social profiles , have emerged as a possible way to get around the impasse among rich countries over what targets and timetables for reductions they should adopt . the european_union , japan and russia have all proposed variations on the theme of differentiation , but the united_states had until today declined to join in what could ultimately be the key to an agreement on one of the talks' two central issues . on the other central issue how soon developing_countries should be bound by specific reductions targets and timetables ms . kimble said they need not take the same form as those of rich nations . rather , she suggested , the poorer countries might voluntarily , or as a result of future negotiations , adopt emission growth targets . the clinton_administration has said it will sign no agreement that does not include all countries , and ms . kimble 's statement was the clearest indication so far of what sort of participation by developing_countries might be acceptable to the united_states . but the developing_countries have insisted all along , and reiterated today , that consideration of specific commitments for themselves is out of the question until the richer nations demonstrate that they are actually reducing emissions . the rationale is that since the rich countries got wealthy by burning the coal and oil that emit carbon_dioxide and are the biggest emitters of the gas , they should lead the way . the united_states insists that the developing_countries should take on additional commitments , beyond a very general injunction to take steps to reduce emissions required by the 1992 treaty , because their emissions will outstrip those of the rich countries early in the next century . scientists advising the negotiators say that if emissions are not reduced , the average global surface temperature will rise by 2 to 6 degrees_fahrenheit over the next century . this , say the scientists , would cause sea levels to rise , many coastal zones and small island countries to be inundated , climatic zones to shift , rainstorms to become heavier , floods and droughts to become worse , heat waves to become more lethal and some natural ecosystems to disappear . any agreement in kyoto on reductions would be considered a first step , since none of the proposals now on the table for industrialized_countries' emission reductions would stop overall greenhouse_gas concentrations from continuing to accumulate in the atmosphere they would merely reduce the rate a bit . one of the most stringent reduction proposals on the table , advanced by the european_union , would limit overall emissions of carbon_dioxide , methane and nitrous_oxide to 7.5 percent below 1990 levels by 2005 and 15 percent by 2010 . the united_states has proposed that levels be stabilized at 1990 levels in the period 2008 through 2112 . the administration says that would trim emissions by 30 percent from what they would be in the absence of any action . the american proposal diverges from all others under consideration in that it applies to a larger ''basket'' of six greenhouse_gases that also includes hydrofluorocarbons , perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexachloride . the administration argues that this is an environmentally friendlier course , but a harder one that would not allow the europeans to achieve their proposed goals . ''i do not see a major difference between the u.s . and the e.u . , '' said hiroshi ohki of japan , who today was elected president of the conference of parties to the 1992 treaty that are meeting here . he said he believed that the industrialized_countries could come to an accommodation . in addition to the developing_country issue , a number of time consuming and intricate technical problems must also be dealt with . among these are the question of how to structure an emission trading system that the united_states says would cut the cost of reduction which greenhouse_gases to include in a reduction regime the degree to which forests ( which absorb carbon_dioxide ) should be considered in giving credit for reductions , and how differentiated targets could be devised and applied . if time runs out , say some representatives of environmental groups , extending the talks would be better than producing a flawed agreement that pleases no one and that might not be ratified by key countries like the united_states just for the sake of having an accord . mr . zammit cutajar remained optimistic . ''we have a lot of time , '' he said , ''10 whole days and nights . ''",has a topic of science
"to the editor an axiom of our military planners is that we must be prepared for the worst ( ''global_warming'' ) . if this is appropriate in military matters , how much more so for matters of the viability of earth . the worst case is unfortunately very plausible in the judgment of many scientists but remedies are also available given the moral and political will . the failure of our national government to provide needed leadership on this front strikes me as almost astonishingly shortsighted . peter kurz glen rock , n.j .",has a topic of science
"the justice_department is investigating whether the central_intelligence_agency may have obstructed justice by giving an american aerospace concern information about a congressional inquiry involving that company , government officials said today . the justice_department investigation involves the hughes_electronics corporation , the officials said . the company has been under congressional scrutiny regarding the transfer of sensitive american rocket technology to china . ''we are cooperating fully with the justice_department , '' a c.i.a . spokesman , bill harlow , said tonight . he declined further comment . as many as eight high ranking c.i.a . officials , including its general_counsel , robert mcnamara , have agreed to testify next week before a federal grand_jury in washington about information that the spy agency supplied earlier this year to hughes , officials familiar with the justice_department operation said . a threshold question for justice_department investigators is whether the c.i.a. , in giving some information to hughes about the inquiry of the senate_select_committee_on_intelligence into technology transfers , might have enabled the company to anticipate the next moves of the panel 's investigators , thereby thwarting the committee . details of the justice_department 's investigation into hughes , , a division of the general_motors_corporation , were first reported in saturday 's editions of the washington_post . one c.i.a . official , speaking on condition that he not be identified , said some agency officials had themselves called attention to the possible improper transfer of data . therefore , that c.i.a . official contended , the agency 's culpability may be less than suggested by the words ''obstruction of justice , '' and may amount to little more than carelessness or a mix up in communications . the latest investigation , however it turns out , casts yet another spotlight on the murky terrain where high tech commerce and national_security issues intersect . hughes , which has supplied the c.i.a . with satellites and ultra sensitive communications equipment for decades , has been under increasing scrutiny in recent months . like other aerospace companies hughes launches commercial satellites atop chinese rockets because they are much less expensive than many western launchers . but some intelligence experts have been concerned in recent years that hughes has been too aggressive in selling high tech equipment in china , which for decades was an adversary of the united_states and which has major differences with the united_states on human_rights issues . the senate_intelligence_committee asked the justice_department to begin an investigation after committee staff members became uneasy about the nature of information the c.i.a . shared with hughes , said those officials who confirmed the outline of the justice inquiry . congressional investigators have been looking into hughes in part because it and another aerospace company shared extensive data with chinese engineers after two failed rocket launchings in 1996 . the congressional investigators were sensitive to possible national_security implications involved in the accident post mortems . when separate suspicions later arose that chinese interests may have tried to use campaign donations to meddle in the 1996 united_states elections , dealings with chinese business interests became ever more sensitive . while not playing down the significance of the justice_department inquiry , one government official cautioned tonight against premature conclusions . ''it may look worse than it is , '' the official said . another official characterized the relaying of information by the c.i.a . to hughes as unsurprising , if unfortunate , in view of the extensive routine business contacts between the spy agency and a major contractor .",has a topic of science
"they can travel as fast as jet planes . they can carry off entire houses . they can inundate coastal communities with violent flooding . some english speakers call them tidal_waves , but they have nothing to do with tides much of the world recognizes them by their japanese name , tsunami . huge tsunamis inundated northern japan monday_night , minutes after a powerful earthquake struck the sea of japan west of the northern island of hokkaido . a tsunami contributed heavily to damage along the coast and to the virtual demolition of the aonae district on okushiri , a small island known for fishing and resorts . people were swept away by huge waves and drowned . cars were flushed into the sea . ships were thrown onto land where they crashed into buildings . and hundreds of houses were destroyed in a torrent of water . one of the most striking television images of the quake was that of what looked to be an entire house floating out to sea , its roof protruding above the water . many things contributed to the damage in the quake , which measured 7.8 on the richter_scale . there was the shaking , the landslides that ruined roads and buried a hotel , and fires , probably caused by the explosion of ruptured gas lines . but perhaps the most spectacular phenomenon was the tsunami . waves outran warning while japan , perhaps the world 's most earthquake prone country , has learned how to build structures to withstand earthquakes , it apparently has not yet been able to fully cope with tsunamis . "" even wooden houses in japan are built strong enough to withstand the shaking of an earthquake , "" said nobuo shuto , a professor of tsunami engineering at tohoku university in sendai . japan has a warning system for tsunamis , but on monday_night the waves reached okushiri at about the same time as the warning , five minutes after the earthquake . "" under this kind of situation , maybe there is little you can do , "" professor shuto said . "" the only way to save human lives is to evacuate immediately , even without a warning . "" waves up to 35 feet high professor shuto estimated that the wave that struck okushiri ranged from 10 to 16 feet high , but said he had not completed his calculations . a researcher for the meterologicval agency estimated , based on a survey of the site , that the waves were as high as 35 feet . tsunamis are gigantic versions of the ripples produced by a pebble tossed into a still pond . but with tsunamis , the water is displaced not by a pebble , but by an earthquake , volcanic eruption or other violent undersea movement . a huge mass of water can be displaced . the tsunami 's speed depends on the depth of the water above the displaced sea bed . in the case of the tsunami on monday , where the water was about 6 , 000 feet deep , the wave travels at 300 miles per hour . as the wave approaches the land and the ocean becomes shallower , the water in the back of the wave catches up to the water in the front , and the wave height mounts . report seeing 10 waves depending on the structure of the coastline , a tsunami might strike one time and recede , or reverberate , hitting the shoreline many times . professor shuto said some witnesses on okushiri reported seeing as many as 10 waves . the professor said that while japan is most known for tsunamis , they occur elsewhere , and can strike with deadly_force thousands of miles from their source . a huge tsunami occurred off the aleutian islands of alaska on april 1 , 1946 , and traveled to hawaii . hawaiians thought warnings of a sea disturbance were an april fool 's joke and ignored them , he said , and 159 people were killed . japan began constructing defenses against tsunamis after it was hit by what professor shuto said was the strongest tidal_wave in its recorded history , with waves up to 40 feet high . the tsunami , which struck in 1960 , started off the coast of chile and took 23 hours to cross the pacific before slamming into japan 's coast .",has a topic of science
"to the editor re ''deep under the sea , boiling founts of life itself'' ( sept . 9 ) the existence of iron eating organisms that thrive amid high temperature and extreme pressures has implications far beyond terrestrial evolution . if organisms can exist in environments with temperatures and pressures that are viewed as being ''inhumane'' here on earth , surely life is possible under the same ''inhospitable'' conditions elsewhere in the universe . bob cruz new york",has a topic of science
"canadians live in a big country graced with an abundance of unspoiled places . and many of them want to keep it that way . that is why tempers have flared over a far reaching attempt by the province of ontario to control what happens in a territory of publicly owned woodlands the size of sweden . the plan will determine how much land should be preserved as parks and how much would be open to logging , mining and other commercial uses . the draft plan so far is a balancing_act that increases park lands while providing more diverse opportunities for industry . but neither side is satisfied . part of the problem lies in the fact that for many people in toronto and other urban_areas , the sparsely_populated region above the great_lakes represents both the cherished canadian ideal of a wilderness frontier and a favored vacation area . in conversation and weather forecasts it is called ''cottage country'' because so many city dwellers own second homes there . ''it 's pretty humble cottage country , '' said nancy jack , an environmental lawyer at the ontario ministry of natural_resources who lives in toronto but who owns a small house on a lake about two and a half hours north of the city . she opposes the broad opening of land to commercial interests , especially near her getaway . ''the area was badly logged 100 years ago and now has recovered somewhat to poor quality forest , '' she said . ''but we love it . '' on the other side of the dispute are the logging and mining industries that see any attempt to restrict commercial activity as a threat to jobs and a way of life favored by many of the 800 , 000 full time residents of the area , which covers roughly half the province . ''southern_ontario is very heavily developed everything 's been paved over for suburbia and shopping_malls , '' said c . david comba , director of issues management for the prospectors and developers association of canada , which represents mining interests in ontario . ''southerners have essentially ruined their own environment and now they think they can assuage their conscience by creating parks and telling people in the north that they have to accept a lower standard of living . '' about 83 percent of the land in the province is publicly owned , and environmentalists had hoped that the current planning process would have increased the amount of protected land substantially . the conservative government , led by premier mike harris , does plan to increase the percentage of public land set aside for parks and conservation in the lands for life area to about 9.5 percent of the total , up from 7.9 percent . but creating jobs is an even higher priority and the government wants to substantially enhance mining and logging opportunities while also protecting tourism , hunting and fishing interests . logging and mining are two of the most important industries in ontario , directly employing more than 80 , 000 people , according to industry figures . tim gray , head of the wildlands league , an environmental group , said that under the proposed plan , ontario will end up ceding nearly all control over the land to private logging and mining companies . ''what this government is proposing is the most fundamental change in land use and public management of the land since confederation , '' mr . grey said , referring to the formation of canada as a separate country in 1867 . but john snobelen , minister of natural_resources , called such charges ''nonsense . '' he said the recommendations now being considered contain no provision that ''would give that kind of control , '' but simply continue the renewable licenses now widely used for such contracts . the ontario government has spent more than a year discussing the development plan . it has received more than 14 , 000 public comments from people , including elizabeth r . tanner , the reeve , or mayor , of burleigh anstruther chandos township , in cottage country near peterborough . the rural municipality forwarded a recommendation to the province to designate the area a conservation zone , where logging and mining would be prohibited . but according to the draft proposal , the township is considered an enhanced management area , which allows seasonal residents , snowmobiles and hunting , along with logging and mining . ''what it actually means , '' a dissatisfied mrs . tanner said , ''is status_quo . '' mr . snobelen said he plans to issue a report by the end of january giving the final draft of the northern lands plan . no legislation is needed for the plan to be adopted .",has a topic of science
"the american astronaut michael_foale said today that most of his stay aboard the troubled russian space_station mir was worthwhile and enjoyable , but that for a brief moment he feared for his life when a runaway cargo vessel struck the orbiting_outpost . dr . foale , in his first news conference since returning to earth three weeks ago , said at the johnson_space_center in houston that the only time he feared for his life was ''for about one second'' on june 25 when a progress cargo vessel conducting a docking test slammed into one of mir 's main modules . moments before the collision , he said , he had been ordered into the soyuz rescue craft attached to the station . just before reaching the soyuz , while dr . foale was in a connecting node between sections of the station , the progress struck the spektr science module with a loud thump , rupturing the section and causing it to lose its air . after he and the two russian astronauts aboard , vasily_tsibliyev , the commander , and sasha luzhutkin , the engineer , sealed off the ruptured section and eventually restored power to the station , he said , ''things were not so bad for us'' and there were no fears of life threatening situations . dr . foale said mr . tsibliyev , who was in charge of the docking , took the accident particularly hard , fearing that the russian authorities would blame him for the crash , which some did . the british born dr . foale said both he and mr . luzhutkin spend a lot of time reassuring the commander that he did not bear all of the responsibility , no matter what was being said on earth . the low point for mr . tsibilyev , he said , was when he was barred from doing a space walk into the ruptured compartment to reconnect power cables because of a heart irregularity . ''he felt that was a blow to him in terms of his leadership , '' dr . foale said . ''he felt that he had to be the one out there connecting up the cables . '' the american and russian astronauts developed a warm relationship during the mir stay , dr . foale said , which helped them weather the many problems . although work aboard_mir can be exhausting at times , he said , it was better to be busy than to have too much time on your hands and to start thinking about who and what you are missing on earth . ''some of the hardest days were weekends when we had little to do , '' he said . ''you start thinking about your family and things at home . '' dr . foale said he particularly missed his 5 year old daughter , jenna , and his son , ian , 3 , who was learning how to talk while his father was in space . the astronauts were surprised and bemused at the interest the world paid to the troubles aboard_mir , he said . ''we would laugh , '' dr . foale said . ''we would discuss what the effects of this collision was having on the earth and we would puzzle over why it is so interesting to them . to be honest , much worse things were going on on the earth . '' the crew joked about its situation and , when hearing the mission compared to apollo 13 , the nearly disastrous mission to the moon about which a popular movie was made , speculated over which stars would play them in a mir film . dr . foale said his crewmates at one point gave him a short , military style haircut and decided he looked like the actor arnold_schwarzenegger , their choice to play him .",has a topic of science
"kaori matsuoka stared at the small vase of flowers and the rice cakes at her side as she huddled with her two boys where her house once stood , now an expanse of gray and red rubble . she remembered telling her 13 year old son to put on two pairs of socks to guard against broken glass when he crept out of his crushed bed after the earthquake , and she remembered hearing her husband rush after her older son as he screamed for help . from downstairs her mother , sleeping with her father , cried out that she was all right , and mrs . matsuoka 's husband pulled her from the debris . but she never heard a word from her father . in ruined homes , public shelters , grocery_stores and cracked streets , the residents of this shattered city were all trying to come to grips with their losses . some clung to their families , some volunteered their services , while others simply wanted to tell the world about their pain . "" he was asleep and everything had fallen on top of him , "" mrs . matsuoka recalled on thursday , her voice trembling , her cold fingers pulling at her cuffs . "" i tried to get my father out , but a fire erupted nearby and everyone told me to get away or else it would be too late . "" if her parents had lived alone in the house in the neighborhood called higashi nada ku , they would both have died in the earthquake , mrs . matsuoka said , and she pointed to her neighbor 's house , now a_level pile of debris . "" the 72 year old woman who lived alone there is somewhere in all that . "" then she motioned to the ground by the flower vase , sobbing "" my father is still here , too . i think i can see some bones , but i just ca n't make them all out . "" she had come back each day since the quake to check on her father , but the smoldering coals from the fire that burned down five houses on this street made it impossible for her to get any closer than the sidewalk until thursday . "" we have nothing left , "" she cried . "" we have to do everything we can to start a new life again , but i have to deal with one problem at a time . and now what i have in mind is to bury my father 's body and only after that can i figure out what we should do next . "" the residents of kobe are only beginning to grope their way through the corridors of shock . even those whose own families had survived intact were touched by someone else 's sorrow . toshiko asa , 56 , who with her husband rented a second floor apartment from her friendly landlord below , enlisted help from her relatives to forage for her possessions , all lost in a deep and messy hole . but she knew she was far luckier than her landlord , whose name is nakagawa . "" i do n't even know what to say to him , "" she said softly , choking back her tears . "" he lost his wife and son . "" "" i remember yelling , 'help ! ' "" she said . "" i was calling for mr . nakagawa to help us . i did n't realize that his wife had died . their 12 year old son had bruises on him , and the mother was lying on top of him , as though she had been trying to protect him . they died instantly . we tried to massage them back to life , but it was too late . "" the troops who came here as rescuers are still searching the debris for survivors , but it is corpses that they are finding . "" i 've evacuated three people today all dead , "" said a 24 year old soldier . "" it 's the first time i 've ever had to do this kind of work . it 's my duty . but i wish they 'd all been alive instead . "" the soldier was one of a team of 12 , dressed in khaki outfits and helmets . they climbed under beams and over split dressers and fallen walls , and jumped over gaps in the floor . they sawed beams , shoveled debris and occasionally consulted with one another on extraction techniques . their task at the moment was to help sachiko morimoto and her two brothers . mrs . morimoto , a thin 18 year old covered with blankets to guard against the cold , leaned against a fragment of chair , waiting for a word from the soldiers , who were searching for her mother , almost certainly dead in the jumble of broken plaster walls , pillars , splintered wood and torn belongings that used to be a home . her brothers , who lived in the house and had also been trapped for the first few hours , had been looking for their mother since the earthquake struck tuesday . the soldiers arrived today to help . "" i was crying at the beginning , "" mrs . morimoto said , putting her hand on a tuft of blanket that covered her year old boy . "" but now all i want is to see my mother , to find her . i think that as long as my mother is breathing , she 'll be all right . "" the soldiers emerged empty handed , however , without saying anything to the family . mrs . morimoto and her brothers hardly glanced at the soldiers , assuming they were taking a break from their exhausting work . before the soldiers arrived , the neighbors had all helped in the search , setting up a "" digging team "" who used their hands or whatever tools they could find . "" the army ca n't get to everyone , "" said ishioka tomotaka , 53 , a businessman . "" so we have a civilian crew . "" mr . tomotaka 's entire house was bounced into the road , about 10 feet away , crushed and unsalvage able . he and his wife had moved to the local school , now a shelter for a few thousand people . blankets and food were finally reaching many of the shelters today and people waited calmly in the freezing cold for a couple of hours to get wool blankets . at the fukuike elementary_school , more than 500 people lined up in the yard on thursday evening to get one blanket per family . while the distribution of supplies was orderly , the atmosphere in the shelters was part macabre , part pandemonium . children scurried back and forth outside classrooms where the bodies of the dead lay on desks under futons . "" we have 19 of them here , "" said koichiro taka , a volunteer manager at the school , referring to the corpses . "" we ca n't let the people in this area leave the bodies in the demolished houses , so they are brought here . there were more , but we just could n't keep them all . "" most classrooms in the school were occupied by the nearly 2 , 000 refugees , who had brought whatever valuables they could rescue from rubble . mr . taka insisted that there had been no theft except for one case when a man drank another 's sake . because the buildings are potentially hazardous in the aftershocks , many grocery_stores are selling their wares from tables out in front . at seer cooperative , a large discount grocery chain , purchases are rationed . managers said there had been no looting . mitsuyoshi sugi , the manager , looked out over the long line of people and shook his head . "" we 're japanese , we live on an island and we are disciplined and taught differently , "" he said . one thing everyone could identify with was fear of another quake . aftershocks , which continued early this morning , frightened many , and radio reports about the possibility of another quake fanned anxieties and deterred many people from sleeping in homes that may still be safe . "" these aftershocks are terrifying now , "" said kinue nabeno , 62 , as the floors of the shelter where she was staying shook . "" i have n't gone through an experience like this since the second world_war . "" quake in japan one neighborhood",has a topic of science
"lead because of an editing error , an article last sunday about physics experiments in japan misstated the nature of electrons and positrons , elementary particles of matter . although apparently without internal structure , both have mass . because of an editing error , an article last sunday about physics experiments in japan misstated the nature of electrons and positrons , elementary particles of matter . although apparently without internal structure , both have mass .",has a topic of science
"lead japan , a world leader in earthquake preparedness , sent its first emergency supplies to soviet armenia today , days after most other countries mobilized quake relief efforts . japan , a world leader in earthquake preparedness , sent its first emergency supplies to soviet armenia today , days after most other countries mobilized quake relief efforts . japanese officials attributed the delay to japan 's constitutional constraints on using military aircraft outside its boundaries . while other countries flew supplies to armenia on military planes beginning saturday , relief officials here said , japan had to wait until commercial flights became available . in the past , japan has been criticized for its slowness to respond to disasters outside its borders , despite its national wealth , well known efficiency and existing elaborate disaster preparedness plans within its earthquake prone borders . ''in 1985 , after the mexican earthquake and the flood in colombia , japan contributed only cash and was severely criticized by the rest of the world , '' said eiryo sumita , head of an emergency rescue team within the official japan international cooperation agency , which was set up last year in response to such criticism . today the japanese cabinet approved a total of 10 million in aid to soviet armenia , including 8 million in grants , 800 , 000 in relief supplies and 490 , 000 in medicine , tents and blankets . the first shipment left this morning on an aeroflot flight to moscow , and japan expects the last shipment to be flown out on thursday . a four member delegation left for armenia on sunday to assess what additional aid might be necessary .",has a topic of science
"president_clinton , concerned that the global climate change conference now under way in kyoto , japan , will adopt more stringent pollution targets than the united_states is willing to accept , announced today that he was sending vice_president al_gore to the meeting to argue the american position forcefully . the choice of mr . gore as the senior united_states representative at the conference came after months of intense debate within the administration and was made public after the 10 day meeting had already begun . mr . gore will spend only one day in kyoto , next monday , during which he will present the american policy in a speech and meet briefly with members of other delegations before returning to washington . as recently as last week , administration officials had said that mr . gore would not attend the kyoto meeting because other governments would be represented by lower level officials . but as the momentum for a sweeping declaration from kyoto for reducing climate warming emissions as grown in recent days , white_house officials decided that mr . gore needed to attend to prevent the united_states position from being shouted down . the president said at a white_house picture taking session today that the american policy was ''aggressive and achievable , '' setting realistic targets for reducing gases that trap heat in the atmosphere . he warned delegates from more than 150 nations now meeting in kyoto against ''promising to do something that neither we nor others can do . '' mr . clinton was alluding to a european position that calls for cuts in production of so called greenhouse_gases far beyond anything that american businesses or the clinton_administration believe can be achieved in the next 10 to 20 years . mr . gore said he and the president ''are perfectly prepared to walk away from an agreement that we do n't think will work . '' he added , ''so it should be crystal clear to all the parties there that we 're going to present the u.s . position forcefully and clearly . '' mr . gore has much at stake in the global_warming debate , having been one of the first american politicians to raise an alarm about the problem . mr . gore was a central figure in the administration debate and only reluctantly accepted the compromise position that is far more modest than the prescriptions he offered while in the senate and in his book , ''earth in the balance . '' mr . gore will not lead the united_states delegation to the climate talks , nor will he negotiate with other nations on what commitments the conference will make . those jobs remain with stuart e . eizenstat , the under secretary of state . this fall , the clinton_administration pledged that the united_states would cut emissions to 1990 levels in the next 10 to 15 years . this would be achieved with tax incentives , subsidies for clean energy production and conservation , and by trading pollution permits among industries . mr . gore said that the american proposal would bring a 30 percent reduction in greenhouse_gases in the united_states by the year 2010 . he called that a ''huge change'' that can be achieved without significant economic pain . and he said , ''whether there is an agreement in kyoto or not , the united_states is prepared under president_clinton 's leadership to unilaterally take the steps that we believe should be taken in order to deal with this problem . ''",has a topic of science
"when helen sharman of sheffield roared into space atop a soviet rocketship last saturday , the observer of london bannered the moment the next day with a front page headline that read , "" women from mars is first briton in space . "" the reference to mars , however , had nothing to do with miss_sharman 's new life in outer_space . rather , the observer , like other british papers , has been playing in recent months on miss_sharman 's former employment at the mars candy bar factory outside london . miss_sharman , a 27 year old chemist , was working there in 1989 when she answered an advertisement that read , "" astronauts wanted no experience necessary . "" she got the job by beating out 13 , 000 other people who also wanted a seat on the first british soviet space mission , which was organized by the soviet_government and a private consortium hoping to lure commerical sponsors . miss_sharman , who rode into space alongside two soviet astronauts , is to return to earth on sunday , after an eight day mission in which her schedule called for performing several scientific_experiments , as well as fulfilling a sponsor 's request by placing what is described as the first floral delivery order from outer_space . no celebrity orbit considering that she is the first from her nation to carry the british flag , and a portait of the queen , into outer_space , miss_sharman has not been propelled into the highest orbits of british celebrity . while sir rodric braithwaite , the british ambassador in moscow , joined miss_sharman 's parents , john and lyndis sharman , in watching the launching from the soviet space center in baikonur , in central_asia , the story made the front pages of only half the newspapers published in london , and television coverage has been spotty . either space travel is no big deal anymore , or it is tough to get excited about becoming the 22d nation to have one of its own in orbit . in the 30 years since yuri a . gagarin of the soviet_union and then alan b . shepherd jr . of the united_states became the first humans in space , astronauts from poland , mexico , saudi_arabia and even afghanistan , among others , have been there before britain , riding atop american or soviet rockets . if a scientist whose specialty involved the chemical properties of chocolate might seem an odd choice for an astronaut , friends and former teachers in sheffield , an industrial town in northern_england , say they are not surprised that miss_sharman was picked for the space mission . in an interview , ken cook , the headmaster at the meadowhead comprehensive school and one of miss_sharman 's instructors when she was a student there from 1974 to 1981 , described her as a "" very determined , very bright young woman , "" with interests in both music and science . something of a trailbreaker at the time , he said , she was the only woman enrolled in the school 's top mathematics , physics and chemistry classes . "" back then , the expectations for girls were different , and i think it took some courage and determination for her to prevail , as she did , in the sciences , "" mr . cook said . "" she was determined to succeed in areas that were not traditional . "" that sense of resolution coupled with a fine sense of tact served her well on thursday , when anatoly artsebarsky , the soviet flight commander , said at a news conference beamed back to earth that he would rather fly with men , because space flight is "" not a woman 's work . "" miss_sharman simply replied "" we are getting on very well . there have been no arguments so far . "" in interviews before the launching , miss_sharman sought to play down any apprehension over the mission . when british reporters asked if she was frightened , she replied sternly "" i 'm not going into infinity . i 'm going into lower earth_orbit . "" to prepare for the flight , she has had to undergo 14 months of rigorous training in the soviet_union , including intensive russian_language instruction that , among other things , enabled her to converse by radio on monday with president mikhail s . gorbachev . mr . cook said miss_sharman 's spaceflight had made her far and away the most famous graduate of the sheffield school , eclipsing the fame of one of her own classmates , fraser digby , a soccer player . family interest in science friends say she inherited her interest in science from her parents . mr . sharman was trained as a physicist , although he is now the assistant principal at sheffield college , a vocational_school . mrs . sharman is a nurse . "" i think she clearly took her lead from her dad , "" said ron eyley , an instructor at the college and a longtime friend of the family . "" but she had an interest in a lot of things lanugages , athletics , whatever . she even used to drive her own motorcycle . "" after graduating from university with a degree in chemistry , she was hired as a research scientist and confectionary specialist at the candy factory , which is operated by the american company mars inc . despite widespread public admiration for miss_sharman , the space mission has been the object of some criticism in recent weeks , amid disclosures that a lack of commerical sponsors for the trip has forced the main soviet backer , the narodny bank , to cut costs by eliminating some of the scientific_experiments that miss_sharman intended to carry out . "" i know there are people who now say it 's not like a briton going into space for her country , but rather a case where she is just a passenger on board a russian spacecraft , "" mr . eyley said . "" well , that 's wrong . what she is doing is something that ought not to go unmarked in either sheffield or britain . we are all very proud of her . "" correction may 31 , 1991 , friday a chart on saturday listing women who have flown on space missions , with an article about the first briton in space , omitted an american astronaut . she is ellen baker , who flew on the space_shuttle in october 1989 .",has a topic of science
"lead japan has decided not to finance construction of a 500 mile highway through the amazon rain forests in brazil , a senior republican senator said today . japan has decided not to finance construction of a 500 mile highway through the amazon rain forests in brazil , a senior republican senator said today . senator robert kasten of wisconsin said he had received assurances from japan 's ambassador to the united_states , nobuo matsunaga , that japan would not finance the 300 million highway project , known as br 364 . many environmentalists oppose the project because they fear it will hurt the rain_forest . ''the ambassador assured me the japanese are not considering any proposal to fund this highway , '' mr . kasten said in a statement thursday . he is the senior republican on the foreign operations subcommittee , which has jurisdiction over american funds to multilateral development banks . the planned road , which would link existing road systems in western brazil and neighboring peru , would open up large tracts of rain_forest that are largely undisturbed . brazilian officials have been trying to negotiate japanese financing .",has a topic of science
"surrounded by the debris of his home and business , kanji ioka spent the weekend in the same way as many other victims of last month 's earthquake in western japan poking through the rubble of the past and spinning dreams about the future . mr . ioka is 64 , but his plans have nothing to do with retirement . instead , he intends to rebuild his woodworking business "" it 'll be even bigger and better than before "" and so he gingerly pried apart the remains of his partly collapsed home and business to extricate lathes , saws , chisels and other tools . nearly three weeks after the earthquake ripped through the kobe region , the area is frenetic with the hum of demolition and reconstruction . residents like mr . ioka are energetically trying to reassemble the jigsaw puzzles of their lives , even if quite a few pieces seem unlikely ever to turn up , and the pace of the recovery is dizzying . it seems as if every bulldozer in japan is at work in kobe , knocking down leaning and collapsed buildings and carting the rubble out of town or onto a baseball field in the center of the city . many stores and schools are reopening , railroad workers are repairing tracks and gradually relinking kobe with the rest of japan , and construction teams are assembling prefabricated houses on parking_lots and other spare bits of land . in ancient japan , most homes were rickety shacks that were easily destroyed in typhoons or earthquakes but were repaired and rebuilt just as easily and almost as quickly . this time it is a bit more complicated kobe is full of office towers and apartment blocks that would give a fright to the leaning tower of pisa . but the dangerous buildings are now roped off , and demolition crews are at work all over the city . the death toll in the jan . 17 earthquake stands at 5 , 250 , with 26 , 800 injured . some 270 , 000 people are living in refugee shelters because their homes collapsed or are unsafe . estimates of the total repair bill range on both sides of the 100 billion mark , with a leading business group , the federation of economic organizations , saying the damage could exceed 130 billion . such numbers suggest that the earthquake was one of the most costly natural_disasters in history . in addition , japan 's infrastructure remains a mess , with bullet_train service disrupted at least until may and the country 's biggest container_port kobe , gateway to 11 percent of japanese trade out of commission for perhaps months to come . kobe was the sixth busiest port in the world , but it may take a year to repair the damage completely , and by then kobe may have lost some business permanently to ports in south_korea or hong_kong . to be sure , many economists believe that the extra spending will enliven the japanese economy helping growth rates even if valuable assets were destroyed . but the forthcoming economic stimulus did not help two young men who carted seven boxes of men 's underwear to kobe today and tried to sell the underpants to passers by . "" we 're thinking of giving up and going back to osaka , "" complained one of the men as they huddled shivering against a wall behind their merchandise while temperatures hovered a little bit above freezing . "" they 're giving away free underwear in the refugee shelters , so some folks do n't want to pay money for it . "" they said they had sold only 50 pairs of the 2 , 500 they had brought , and their refusal to give their names seemed to have less to do with concern about being seen as opportunists than with embarrassment at their lack of financial acumen . the funeral products sector might seem a sure bet to thrive after such a calamity , but hirokuni hamada , the head of the largest funerary goods company in the kobe area , said glumly that it was not so . his shops suffered 3 million in damage , he said , and his most expensive buddhist altar on sale a 280 , 000 showpiece lined with gold_leaf fell entirely apart in the earthquake . "" no one buys these altars now , "" mr . hamada said , waving his hand to other wooden altars , which range up to the size of a chest of drawers and are intended to contain the dead person 's name and an urn of ashes . "" survivors have no money , and their minds are full of problems of daily life . they ca n't think about buying good altars . "" but most factories and shops are reopening or preparing to do so . kawasaki steel corporation , a major steel mill in the kobe area , resumed operations on saturday at many of its sites . public services are also being restored . electricity has returned virtually everywhere , and many homes again have running water . mail carriers face special challenges , since entire blocks have been burned to the ground , but residents post notices over the rubble with their forwarding addresses . the letter carriers jot down the instructions and go to the refugee shelters to try to find the addressees' new homes . "" there was a notice saying that this fellow is living here , "" said shigetaka fujimoto , a mailman carrying a sheaf of letters for a man whose old address no longer exists . mr . fujimoto parked his motorcycle beside the refugee center and searched for the right classroom so that he could deliver the mail in person . aside from memories of those who died , the biggest concern for many survivors is the nagging uncertainty about what comes next . "" my daughter 's school is a shelter , so it has n't opened and i do n't see how it can open , "" said toshiko taira , 32 , whose house survived the earthquake intact . she had taken her daughter , itsuki , 8 , to a playground , and the girl seemed perfectly content with the extended vacation . "" i like it , "" she said . "" i spend my time playing . "" yoshiko yamamoto , 54 , camping out in a schoolroom turned refugee_camp , acknowledged that she was afraid of the future and of another earthquake . but the only thing to do , she said , is to press on with life . "" we want to be optimistic , "" she said . "" we 'll start our lives over from now , even though that means we 'll have to work very hard . lots of my friends died , so i 'm going to have to live for them too . """,has a topic of science
"an article in science times yesterday about china 's particle physics program misstated the title of the chinese leader deng_xiaoping , who presided at a groundbreaking ceremony in 1982 for a particle accelerator in beijing . he was called the paramount_leader from 1978 until his death in 1997 he was never president . the article also misstated an affiliation for chen ning yang , a nobel laureate in physics who was born in china and has spent most of his career in the united_states . he is a longtime professor of physics at stony_brook_university he was not at brookhaven national laboratory in the 1970s .",has a topic of science
"lead an earthquake shook the tokyo area today , rattling buildings and interrupting train lines , but there were no immediate reports of injuries or damage . meteorological agency officials said the quake measured 5.3 on the richter_scale . an earthquake shook the tokyo area today , rattling buildings and interrupting train lines , but there were no immediate reports of injuries or damage . meteorological agency officials said the quake measured 5.3 on the richter_scale .",has a topic of science
"the economy we need to take the shackles off of american business . our foreign competitors , germany and japan , the two economic superpowers , have an intelligent , supportive relationship between business and government . we need that . then once we put that in place , then the next step is to industry by industry , company by company , to develop long term plans , not 30 minute plans , not quarter to quarter plans , long term plans . last step . target the industries of the future . have an alliance between government and business to make sure that the industries of the future that will pay our people the highest standard of living are in this country . why must we do this ? well , we must do it for our people , but forget that if you want to . we have to do it to get the taxes to pay our bills , to make our country work . pretty basic stuff . taxes raising taxes is like taking dope , for politicians . you 've got to stop raising taxes . you 've got to bring discipline . so unless there 's some kind of incredible emergency that i ca n't envision , absolutely not . it has be a last ditch decision because the more money you give these boys to spend , the more they 'll spend . so you 've got to make money a critical resource , not a resource that allows everybody just to throw it everywhere at a whim . . . . if we do n't raise taxes we have to cut spending . now , we will go carefully across the board . we throw more money away than you can print almost right now . and we will go through it piece by piece . now , you may not need me but you need a businessperson . you need a person who can go in , look at the waste , communicate that back to the american people . we 've got to build a consensus . now , if you ca n't stand a little pain and you ca n't stand a little sacrifice and you ca n't stand a trip across the desert with limited water , we 're never going to straighten this country out . so if you just want lawrence welk music , i 'm not your man . we 're going to go through department by department . we 're going to get rid of the waste . all sacrifice will start at the top . we 're going to cut out all this foolishness , money that 's spent in the congress and executive branch , and set the example . then we 'll work our way down to where the big money is , and there is a huge amount of waste in the way the system works now . balanced_budget you do n't need an amendment . see , an amendment is an excuse not to do anything . what you need to do is let 's have a law , a real gramm_rudman law . then let 's have another one that says congress cannot raise taxes . see , the gramm_rudman law , a real one , with no loopholes in it and no leaps , you 'd have to balance the budget . but now let 's do some real stuff now . get rid of the foreign lobbyists . get rid of the pac money . then eliminate pass a law to stop deficit_spending . pass another law to balance the budget . and if you want to raise , forget balancing the budget , but if you want to raise taxes you have to come to the people and get their clearance because you have n't been responsible . gun_control i will go night and day to get the guns out of the hands of violent people . just registering guns wo n't do that . . . . t he only thing that i can see that 'll really clear everybody 's head is have penalties for using weapons guns , knives , you name it , for violence , that are so severe that even if you 're drunk , high and halfway crazy , you 'll probably not take your gun into a_7 eleven store if you 're going to try to hold it up and shoot half the people there , and you sure would n't get into drive by shootings . we 've got to cut that out . we 've got to make the streets safe for the honest , decent people in this country . we 'll do it . wo n't be pretty but we 'll do it . debates . . . w e 're not talking about debates where newscasters ask you a question . we 're talking about the old college debate where you stand out there all alone without 13 handlers and jocks sitting down there signing you , telling you when to talk and when not to talk . the point is we 're talking about real debates on real issues . i do n't think you could ever get the president to show up . be interesting to see . but i would not have any interest at all in one of these , you know , blow dried guys sitting there asking all three of us questions in a pompous way . now , let 's just get in the ring , get it on . saddam_hussein what happened here ? for 10 years we created saddam_hussein with your taxpayer money . but let 's go back to 1982 . when the israelis went over and blew up his original nuclear_capability vice_president george_bush publicly deplored that they did it . . . . now , come on up to just before desert_storm . may of that year , our president , who was sending delegations over to burp and diaper and pamper saddam_hussein and tell him how nice he was now , that 's all public record now , we 're july 25 just before the build up started in august . we gave written instructions to our ambassador to go tell saddam_hussein that we would not become engaged in his border dispute with kuwait and in plain texas talk , we were saying , 'you can take the northern part of the country . ' now , only in america would you make a mistake like that . now , then he took the whole thing . and then the white_house says , 'i ca n't believe he ate the whole thing . ' then we got our manhood was questioned and off we go into the wild blue yonder with the lives of our servicemen at risk because of 10 years of stupid mistakes and billions of dollars of taxpayer money that you and i will still have to pay because they were federal guarantees to these various banks . abortion when the dust clears , it 's a woman 's choice . each human life is precious . we should not create a human life unless we want to create it . it is absolutely irresponsible for thinking , reasoning human beings to thoughtlessly create a human life they do n't want . health care we 've got to completely restructure the system . . . . step one , you 've got to go through a logical process to put together a new plan , bring it to the people , get a consensus , do pilot programs , optimize those pilot programs , know your costs , know your benefits , build a consensus that this is the answer . then do it . but when you mass produce it , leave something this is now , listen to me , congress . when you mass product it , leave tremendous freedom to optimize , optimize , optimize . we freeze everything in law and that is an absolute sure way to make sure you do n't get your maximum bang for your buck , and that 's what the american people deserve . the 1992 campaign",has a topic of health
"at a news conference billed as the outlining of the communist_party 's definitive economic program , the economist in charge of formulating it instead spoke spookily this week about attempts by the yeltsin campaign to tamper with the russian gene pool . "" it 's an attempt to modify the genetic code of ethnic_russians who represent the core of the citizens of russia , rather than what seems to look like persuasion , "" the economist , tatyana i . karyagina , said . she was apparently alluding to the mass_media she said were working on behalf of president boris n . yeltsin . she went on to discuss the ways in which the subconscious of voters was being "" violated "" though their genetic codes , potentially leading to "" schizophrenia of society . "" mrs . karyagina did not reveal much about the party 's specific proposals to redress the economic crisis in russia . but her rambling , at times bizarre , news conference on tuesday spoke volumes about the party 's internal confusion over how and whether to present an economic program before the presidential_election next month . her presentation was also emblematic of the confusion and disarray that now afflict the communist campaign . the communist team led by gennadi a . zyuganov , which a few weeks ago was fiercely attacking the policies of president yeltsin , is now on the defensive . it is fending off questions about its economic program , as well as reports of internal dissension within the communist_party , and leaks of contentious remarks made privately at a party meeting last weekend that have been reported in many of the country 's leading newspapers . today mr . zyuganov did not deny a report that a party member stood up at the closed meeting and asked him to rid the russian government of "" non russians and non christians . "" he said members are entitled to their own views , and instead complained that the party meeting must have been secretly recorded . "" is it that bugs are being planted , depriving us of a possibility to calmly carry out our discussions ? "" he asked . he likened the situation to watergate , saying , "" when elections were held in the united_states and the opponents of the democratic_party installed bugs in their headquarters , it cost president_nixon his job . "" as polls show mr . yeltsin gaining against his communist opponent , the zyuganov campaign has begun loudly proclaiming that the yeltsin campaign is planning to rig the election results . "" i think the results of the election will in simple terms be falsified , "" viktor ilyukin , a communist leader and chairman of the security committee in parliament , said today . "" i think the president will not be elected , he will be named . "" anxiety over its current standing has caused the zyuganov campaign to rethink its strategy . stepping back from earlier promises that the campaign would soon disclose a definitive economic program , communist_party leaders said today that the campaign was still working out a broad "" conceptual "" outline , which may be issued in the next few days . mr . zyuganov and his advisers have been hammered in recent weeks in press articles criticizing the communist economic program on the basis of parliamentary draft laws and press leaks . party leaders have therefore apparently concluded that any effort to produce a concrete plan for reversing economic_reform and restoring state control of the economy would only benefit mr . yeltsin .",has a topic of health
"russia 's top aids expert warned today that serious underfinancing of aids and h.i.v . prevention and treatment programs may lead to disaster . current financing covers just 450 people , although there are already 2 , 000 aids patients in russia and will be 200 , 000 in several years , vadim pokrovsky , head of the federal aids center , told the interfax news_agency . officially , there are 200 , 000 patients in russia infected with h.i.v. , the virus that causes aids . he said the russian government had allocated only 190 , 000 to aids research , compared with 500 million by the united_states .",has a topic of health
"president boris n . yeltsin came out of a seven hour , multiple bypass heart operation in a hospital here on tuesday with his doctors declaring the operation a success . they said they were optimistic about the 65 year old russian leader 's chances of resuming a full workload . at a news conference in the hospital an hour after the operation , the doctors said the surgery went without a hitch . mr . yeltsin 's heart was stopped for 68 minutes during one phase of the operation . mr . yeltsin signed a decree this morning reassuming his presidential powers , the kremlin said . sergei yastrzhembsky , his press spokesman , said the president signed the document at 6 a.m . ( 10 p.m . tuesday , eastern time ) , 23 hours after he had delegated the powers to prime_minister viktor s . chernomyrdin on tuesday morning , minutes before undergoing anesthesia .. in the operation , surgeons sewed five grafts to restore blood flow to coronary_arteries . they had become constricted by the fatty deposits of atherosclerosis that had built up over a period of years and deprived the organ of vital nourishment , leading to two heart attacks . even if all goes well for mr . yeltsin , it may yet be months before he can run the country again . and when he does return to the kremlin , many find it hard to imagine that he will be the same forceful leader who has for five years driven russia away from communism and toward a market_economy . ( news analysis , page_a12 . ) on tuesday , mr . yeltsin was reported in stable condition in an intensive_care_unit , where he remained connected to an artificial respirator used during the operation . he opened his eyes early tuesday evening but had not fully awakened from the anesthesia . patients usually awaken from 6 to 18 hours after such surgery . mr . yastrzhembsky said today that the president felt better than his doctors had expected . ''he surprises doctors with his good state , '' the press_secretary said . ''he feels quite well for this stage . '' mr . yeltsin still faces certain potential risks like bleeding , infection and kidney_failure as he enters a critical phase the next several days . other possible complications after such surgery include neurological damage , like a stroke , or memory loss that may not become apparent until later . but dr . michael e . debakey , the american heart surgery pioneer who consulted in mr . yeltsin 's case and observed the operation , called it ''a complete success . '' ''president yeltsin will be able to return to his office and carry out his duties in normal fashion , '' said dr . debakey , 88 , of the baylor college of medicine in houston . dr . renat s . akchurin , 50 , the surgeon who headed the team , said mr . yeltsin 's heart muscle was now getting enough blood to function normally . the doctor 's face and voice reflected exhaustion from performing the operation . with the advent of managed_care in the united_states , many patients now leave the hospital four or five days after undergoing bypass operations . but hospital stays in russia are generally much longer . and experience suggests that a few months will pass before mr . yeltsin feels fully recovered from the surgery . nevertheless , the favorable comments from the surgeons are likely to ease tension about mr . yeltsin 's health just as dr . debakey 's comments did at a news conference here six weeks ago after he examined mr . yeltsin . at that time , dr . debakey said that mr . yeltsin had a condition known as a ' 'stunned myocardium'' and that it would take 6 to 10 weeks for mr . yeltsin 's heart to improve function and for several other medical problems to clear up before he could undergo the bypass_operation with minimum risk . ever since mr . yeltsin announced on sept . 5 that he needed heart surgery , the kremlin had been combating rumors that he could never serve out his term , which ends in 2000 . that created an enormous power struggle in the kremlin . a number of doctors not connected with mr . yeltsin 's case criticized dr . debakey for delaying the surgery . but dr . debakey said their criticisms were unfounded . mr . yeltsin 's aides contributed to the problem by saying he had liver and kidney_failure . but tests showed that he did not have those conditions , dr . debakey said in september . dr . debakey said in an interview on tuesday that ''everything went beautifully . '' the apparent success of mr . yeltsin 's operation ''vindicated my position a little over a month ago when there was doom and gloom all over the place , '' dr . debakey said . as further evidence , dr . debakey said that a measure of heart function known as the ejection fraction rose to 40 percent just before the surgery from 20 percent in september . the ejection fraction is the amount of blood the heart expels with each beat usually about 65 percent of the blood in the heart 's main chamber . a dietary regimen imposed in september lowered mr . yeltsin 's cholesterol level from 350 then to 187 on monday , dr . debakey said . a cholesterol level less than 200 is considered desirable . controlling cholesterol now may prevent recurrences in the grafts that were placed on tuesday . and the true test of the success of a bypass_operation is how many years the grafts stay open . there was heavy security at the cardiology research center , where the operation was done . the center is named for dr . yevgeny i . chazov , who pioneered in the modern clot dissolving techniques used to stop heart attacks in progress . such therapy was used to stop a heart_attack in mr . yeltsin last summer . dr . akchurin carried out the operation like a standard bypass , except for the security and visiting experts , including two german surgeons who were observing , dr . axel haverich and dr . thorsten wahlers , both of hanover medical_school . also at the hospital were mr . yeltsin 's wife , naina , and daughter tatyana dyachenko , mr . chernomyrdin and anatoly b . chubais , the kremlin chief of staff . after slicing the skin over mr . yeltsin 's upper chest , dr . akchurin 's team split his breastbone , or sternum , with a saw . then they used a metal retractor to lift the rib cage while dr . akchurin removed an internal mammary artery from mr . yeltsin 's chest . meanwhile , other surgeons removed a vein known as the saphenous from his leg . as they continued , the surgeons fashioned the arteries and veins to construct five grafts to revamp the blood supply to mr . yeltsin 's heart completely , dr . debakey said . dr . debakey said the surgeons sewed an internal mammary artery to the left anterior descending artery on mr . yeltsin 's heart . they also made four grafts from the leg vein . two were used to bypass blockages in the obtuse artery , the third for the right coronary_artery and the fourth for the diagonal artery . until the circulation was repaired , the left side arteries on mr . yeltsin 's heart were nourishing that side and much of the right side . stopping a heart for 68 minutes during a bypass_operation is ''not unusually long'' for such a procedure , dr . debakey said . blood is pumped through a heart lung machine during that period . dr . o . wayne isom , chief of heart surgery at new york hospital cornell medical center in new york city , who is not connected to mr . yeltsin 's case , agreed . it usually takes surgeons from 7 to 15 minutes to sew each graft and the variation depends on anatomical factors , dr . isom said in a telephone interview from new york on tuesday . dr . akchurin 's technique differs from that of most american surgeons , who wear jeweler type loupes while performing bypass operations . before dr . akchurin became a heart surgeon he repaired severed digits and limbs by using microsurgical techniques and by looking through an operating microscope suspended from overhead . dr . akchurin has continued using such a microscope in sewing grafts in heart vessels . during the operation , dr . akchurin said he ''tried to forget that this is the president and imagine this is a normal ordinary patient that we are operating on . '' when dr . akchurin 's team had finished sewing the grafts and was ready to get mr . yeltsin 's heart to beat again , it ''came back right away , '' dr . debakey said . ''that 's always a very good sign that heart function is good , and i think he is going to really get a good result and be able to go back to his normal duties , '' dr . debakey said in the interview . in addition to his recent intestinal bleeding , mr . yeltsin bled from a stomach ulcer several years ago , dr . debakey said . because of the past problems of bleeding , dr . akchurin 's team asked dr . debakey to bring experts in hematology and transfusion medicine from houston to consult in mr . yeltsin 's case . so before dr . akchurin sewed up mr . yeltsin 's breastbone and skin , he took extra time to observe the areas where he had placed stitches to make sure there was no bleeding from them . there was none . ''the risk of bleeding now is very remote , '' dr . debakey said . ''the odds are in mr . yeltsin 's favor now . ''",has a topic of health
"the supreme_court on thursday struck down a quebec law banning private medical_insurance in a decision that represents an acute blow to the publicly financed national health_care system . the high_court stopped short of striking down the constitutionality of the country 's vaunted health_care system nationwide , but specialists across the legal spectrum said they expected the decision to lead to sweeping changes in the canadian health_care system . ''the language of the ruling will encourage more and more lawsuits and those suits have a greater likelihood of success in light of this judgment , '' said lorne sossin , acting dean of the university of toronto law_school . patrick monahan , dean of the osgoode hall law school of york_university in toronto and a well known critic of the national health_care system , was even more emphatic about the import of the decision . ''they are going to have to change the fundamental design of the system , '' he said . ''they will have to build in an element of timely care or otherwise allow the development of a private medical system . '' the canadian health_care system provides free doctor 's services that are paid for by taxes . the system has generally been strongly supported by the public , and is broadly identified with the canadian national character . canada is the only industrialized county that outlaws privately financed purchases of core medical services . but in recent years patients have been forced to wait longer for diagnostic_tests and elective_surgery , while the wealthy and well connected either sought care in the united_states or used influence to jump medical lines . the court ruled that the waiting_lists had become so long that they violated patients' ''life and personal security , inviolability and freedom'' under the quebec charter of human rights and freedoms , which covers about one quarter of canada 's population . ''the evidence in this case shows that delays in the public_health care system are widespread , and that , in some serious cases , patients die as a result of waiting_lists for public_health care , '' the supreme_court ruled . ''in sum , the prohibition on obtaining private health_insurance is not constitutional where the public system fails to deliver reasonable services . '' the case was brought to the supreme_court by jacques chaoulli , a montreal family doctor who argued his own case through the courts , and george zeliotis , a chemical salesman who was forced to wait a year for a hip_replacement while he was prohibited from paying privately for surgery . dr . chaoulli and mr . zeliotis lost in two quebec provincial courts before the supreme_court decided to take their appeal . in a news conference , dr . chaoulli declared a victory and predicted that the decision would eventually apply to all canada . ''how could you imagine that quebecers may live , '' he asked , ''and the english canadian has to die ? '' there was no immediate impact on the national system outside quebec , since the justices split by a vote of 3 t0 3 on the question of whether the quebec ban on private medical_insurance violated the canadian charter of rights and freedoms , canada 's bill of rights , as the two plaintiffs contended . however , specialists predicted that the decision would have widespread importance . margaret somerville , professor of law and medicine at mcgill_university , said the ruling ''is extremely important'' in large part because ''the provinces that want to run some form of a complementary private system would probably be able to do so now . '' alberta provincial officials have long suggested that they wanted to develop a private health_care system , while private diagnostic and special surgery clinics have been cropping up in quebec , british_columbia and ontario in recent years . the federal_government has threatened to hold back financial aid to provinces that pressed ahead with private health_care , but ms . somerville said ottawa would be less likely to do so now . dr . chaoulli , who was born in france , has long called for canada to adopt a two tier , public private health_care system similar to those in france , germany and switzerland . supporters of the current system , however , have argued that a two tier system will draw doctors away from the public system , which already has a shortage of doctors , and only lengthen waiting_lists . dr . chaoulli has long been viewed as a gadfly in political and medical circles . he went on a hunger_strike in the streets of montreal in 1997 after he was forced to abandon a private emergency house call service . prime_minister paul_martin responded to the decision by saying that his government was making progress in shortening waiting times for medical services . ''what today 's decision does do , however , is accentuate just how important it is to act immediately , how urgent this situation is , '' he acknowledged . but he rejected the notion that the ruling would bring about fundamental change . ''we are not going to have a two tier health_care system in this country , '' mr . martin told reporters . ''nobody wants that . what we want to do is to strengthen the public_health care system . ''",has a topic of health
"in the bad old days of soviet totalitarianism , the worker 's paradise did deliver on at least one promise of equality for all . anyone who wanted it could get an affordable face lift . those days are over . ten years ago , at state run clinics , actresses and cleaning ladies alike could get face lifts , eye lifts and nose jobs for less than 100 . now , such operations cost 10 times as much , and the russian clientele for cosmetic_surgery is mainly made up of the new rich wives , girlfriends and sometimes gangsters turned businessmen who fashion their own witness_protection programs by radically altering their looks . some of the top surgeons who toiled in soviet plastic_surgery assembly lines for factory worker wages are building thriving private practices . a few of the best are finding that clients from italy , germany , britain and even the united_states are showing up at their doors , requesting liposuction , eye lifts and breast implants , which are increasingly costly and controversial in the west . to clients from the west , such operations are inexpensive , and they are unencumbered by consent forms or ethical questions . "" surgeons in the west work in a very rigid frame , "" said igor a . volf , one of russia 's best known and prolific plastic surgeons . "" they are afraid of being sued by their patients they fear complications , they fear leaving bruises . "" he added proudly , "" i do the big , bold operations western doctors are afraid to do . "" a growing number of european customers are not afraid to trust him . "" he is a genius , a god , "" said a wealthy 65 year old finnish patient , who went to dr . volf recently to have her face , eyes and neck done and who spoke on condition of anonymity . "" i look 30 years younger . "" "" i have traveled all over the world , and i can afford to have this done anywhere but dr . volf is the best , "" said the finnish patient , who owns a beauty_salon in helsinki . "" russian women should put his face in an icon and pray to him . "" some russian women can afford the best cosmetic_surgery in the west , but they prefer the east . fashion conscious raisa gorbachev , for example , had a face lift performed not long ago by vladimir a . vissarionov , a highly respected plastic surgeon who is based in yekaterinburg , but who also works out of the prestigious kremlin hospital in moscow . "" i am very happy about the positive evaluation , "" dr . vissarionov said with a laugh when told that the wife of the last soviet leader looked years younger . "" but this is a personal matter that should not be discussed . "" the finnish patient said a friend in amsterdam told her about dr . volf . her total expenses , including three procedures , medication , a_12 day stay in the clinic , food and transportation from helsinki , was about 2 , 500 . "" it 's embarrassingly cheap , "" she said with a giggle . "" in the u.s . just the face lift alone would have cost me 12 , 000 . "" the patient said she awoke from the surgery to discover that dr . volf had treated her to a surprise he had reshaped her ear lobes . "" i had such ugly lobes before , but i never even thought of having them done , "" she said . "" he noticed and just decided to do it . "" she said that dr . volf 's brand of impulsive creativity was what distinguished russian surgeons from those in the west . "" american doctors would never take the risk of not asking , and they would always charge extra . "" medical_malpractice suits are extremely rare in russia . most doctors do not bother with liability_insurance . and though letters to the editor pages of newspapers are filled with horror stories , mostly from women recounting botched jobs or dire complications , dissatisfied patients have little recourse . mr . volf , who has done more than 16 , 000 face lifts in the past 20 years , charges about 500 a procedure . most of it goes to the clinic where he works , a former state institution that is now owned by a private company that has done little to update the bleak soviet_era furnishings . no diplomas clutter the walls of dr . volf 's office , which is shabby , with nylon flowered curtains in the window and linoleum floors . though showing signs of wear , his operating room has up to date equipment . he said he can buy all the plasma and medical supplies he needs , including silicone breast implants , from europe . but the walls are peeling , nurses use vinegar as a disinfectant and disposable rubber gloves are carefully washed and reused . "" the bathrooms were horrible , "" the finnish client confided . "" but i would put up with far worse to be this beautiful . "" dr . volf , 47 , a cheerful , stocky man with a black beard and a warm , engaging manner , draws clients from all over europe , as word of his expertise travels . during the interview , a tall elegant woman from verona , italy , wearing dark glasses and a silk scarf over her head , awaited a consultation in the bleak outer office . "" i had four ladies from verona last month , "" dr . volf said with a laugh . "" and none of them was a juliet . "" not all of his clients are women . "" i 've had so called businessmen who came to me because they want to become legitimate , "" he said . "" they do n't want their former jailmates to recognize them . "" dr . volf , who is studying to pass an italian equivalency exam , has a lucrative offer to work in a private clinic in sardinia . he also plans to open his own small , private clinic in moscow next year . "" i do about 200 face lifts a year , and about as many breast augmentations , "" he said with a grin . "" all women want to be beautiful . i work like a horse . """,has a topic of health
"under one of the most permissive laws anywhere , seriously ill canadians with prescriptions can grow , buy and smoke marijuana to alleviate pain . but many doctors show little enthusiasm for the measure , saying marijuana has no proven medicinal value . anthony_depalma ( nyt )",has a topic of health
"prisoners almost always swear they are not guilty . in russian pretrial detention_centers , many inmates insist that they no longer care about proving their innocence . ''at first , all i wanted was a fair trial , '' pyotr kuznetsov , 51 , said in a dank and stinking cell of matrosskaya tishina , one of moscow 's largest and most infamous detention_centers . he said he had been arrested , and brutally beaten , for stealing less than 5 and had already spent 10 months behind bars awaiting trial . his lice ridden 18th_century cell , built for 30 , currently warehouses more than 100 men . the inmates share beds , sleeping in three shifts . ''all i want now is to get out of here , even to a labor_camp , '' mr . kuznetsov said . ''i 've been in prison before , and it is not as bad as this . '' the russian penitentiary system competes with that in the united_states as one of the largest in the world each has a population of more than a million inmates . and the russian system is arguably one of the worst . prisons are underfinanced , overcrowded and alarmingly unsanitary . human_rights abuses abound . tuberculosis is spreading wildly . the government has no reliable data , but estimates suggest that tuberculosis rates in prisons are anywhere from 20 to 60 times as high as in the rest of the population , which has a tb death rate 24 times that of the united_states . as many as 50 percent of russian prisoners are believed to be infected . but perhaps the most terrifying aspect of the russian penal system is pretrial detention . close to 300 , 000 people awaiting trial are now in jail . there , a death sentence stalks people who have not yet been convicted of a crime . unprotected from the tb epidemic and other infectious_diseases , many detainees end up spending two , three and even four years awaiting their day in court in cells as packed as a rush_hour subway car . ''during my six years in soviet prisons , i lived through many horrors , '' said valery abramkin , a former soviet dissident who is now a prison reform advocate . ''i saw people suspended on iron hooks under their ribs . i saw german shepherds eat living human flesh . '' those tortures , he said , were at least of short duration . today , people endure inhuman conditions for years . ''it is certain that conditions in normal jails were not this bad even under stalin . '' there is no money in the russian budget to build new prisons or even repair old ones , so efforts to creep closer to western standards rarely go beyond the paper they are printed on . a law was passed last year increasing the amount of space to which a prisoner is entitled from 27 square_feet to 43 square_feet . in the united_states , by comparison , prisoners are supposed to be allotted 80 square_feet . but the reality of places like matrosskaya tishina is that prisoners fight over less than a square_foot . the russian legal system is so tortuous that people can find themselves detained for months or years even on minor charges . prosecutors are legally required to complete a criminal investigation within two years , but there is no time limit for judges , who can keep a suspect waiting for trial indefinitely . the average stay in detention is 10 months . in the united_states , where every state has a speedy trial law new york requires felony cases other than murder to be prosecuted within six months , misdemeanors within 90 days the average detention is 74 days . most defendants get to trial within 45 days . and 65 percent of americans accused of felonies are released on bail . in soviet_times , bail was dismissed as a capitalist folly . today , bail is legal , but it remains a novelty , granted to less than 2 percent of the country 's accused usually to mobsters who have ready cash and connections to a compliant judge . russian courts operate on the european inquisitorial model rather than the american adversarial system , putting an additional strain on overloaded judges and narrowing the defendants' chances . ''under our system , it is much harder to acquit than find a person guilty , '' sergei pashin , a judge in a moscow appeals court , explained . ''less than 1 percent of all cases end in an acquittal , and that is because before a judge can acquit , he must do a huge amount of work that is not done by the police requesting information , soliciting expert testimony , etc . '' the fact that time served before trial is subtracted from convicted prisoners' sentences can hardly be viewed as justice , judge pashin said . ''the predetention centers are a far worse punishment than any prison , '' he said . prisons and labor_camps in russia are grim , but they are not nearly as overcrowded . the judge added that often in the cases that come before him , confessions are beaten out of suspects and even out of people rounded up as witnesses . in a report on torture in russia issued last year , amnesty international said that ''torture and ill treatment occur at all stages of detention and imprisonment , '' but noted that it was most often reported in pretrial detention . ''its main purpose appears to be to intimidate detainees and obtain confessions , '' the report said . confessions , more than evidence , are a major part of criminal investigations in russia . inside matrosskaya tishina , where 5 , 000 prisoners are held in a prison built for 2 , 000 , lies a dickensian world of filth , squalor and disease . inside fetid , windowless cells , prisoners are covered in lice . rats dart out of walls . prisoners stretch out tin bowls through a tiny opening in the door to receive bread and a gloppy gruel of kasha , or buckwheat , that is served for breakfast , lunch and dinner . the exercise yards are cement rooms in the attic , where prisoners can see the sky by squinting through a webbed roof of barbed_wire . and directly outside the prison walls teems another closed circle of misery . parents and wives , who line up for hours and even days just to deliver a packet of food or medicine to their locked up relatives . alla shangina , a mother whose son dima , 21 , spent more than three years in matrosskaya tishina , was keeping the list of people lining up to deliver parcels . mrs . shangina said her son was finally convicted three months earlier . ''he is still here because dima has tb , '' she said , adding that he was being treated in the prison hospital . he will probably be transferred to one of russia 's 80 special prison camp used exclusively to house prisoners who are known tb carriers . ''he and three other boys stole a car , '' she said bitterly . ''it was quite a joy ride they got three years in here . '' the only information for visitors comes by word of mouth , or from stacks of prisoners' rights pamphlets sold for 1 . 50 by old women on the sidewalk . these pamphlets , published by a prisoners' rights group , are obsolete printed before a 1996 revision of the criminal_code and were supposed to be handed out free . matrosskaya tishina has its own tuberculosis hospital , where 700 infected detainees are being treated in a 220 bed ward . vasily i . podpruzhnikov , moscow 's chief of corrections , said 70 detainees died in the first nine months of 1996 more than half of them from tb . ''we put them in the hospital , and when they get better they go back to the cells , and within three months they get sick again , '' he said . ''what can you expect with this humidity and overcrowding ? '' he said his budget was cut by a third last year , and he expects more cuts this year . guards make less than 100 a month , and prisons are seriously understaffed . escapes are not uncommon . ''only the lazy do n't escape from here , '' he said with a weary smile . yuri skuratov , russia 's chief prosecutor , toured the country 's main detention_centers last spring and described himself as appalled by what he had seen . he warned that unless ''urgent measures'' were taken , there could be a ' 'social explosion . '' there was a rash of prison riots in 1992 , which were harshly put down . since then , conditions have steadily worsened , but there have been few major disturbances . ''inmates understand perfectly well that the prison authorities are not responsible for their conditions , '' yuri aleksandrov , a prisoners' rights activist for the nonprofit agency novy dom , said . ''the whole criminal_justice system is to blame . it 's a mentality that dates back to stalin . '' russia , which won admission to the council of europe last year on the condition that it reform its criminal_justice system , agreed to abolish the death_penalty . this year , the government also pledged to transfer jurisdiction over prisons from the interior_ministry to the justice ministry . the intent is to increase the independence of the judiciary and give the prison authorities some autonomy from law enforcement agencies , but few in russia expect the change to alter prison conditions . ''it may make a difference , but not for the zek , '' said mr . podpruzhnikov , using the russian slang for prisoner . ''for the zek , nothing is going to change anytime soon . ''",has a topic of health
"i have a confession to make . i am a drug company executive who believes we should legalize the reimportation of prescription_drugs . i know that i have a different opinion from that of my employer on this matter , but to me , importation of drugs is about much more than money it is about saving american lives . according to a study by the kaiser family foundation issued in 2000 , 15 percent of uninsured children went without prescription medication in the previous year because of cost , 28 percent of uninsured adults went without prescription medication because of cost , and 87 percent of uninsured people with serious health problems reported trouble obtaining needed medication . we have 67 million americans without insurance for drugs , according to the foundation . they pay cash full price and ca n't always afford life saving drugs . american drug prices are about 70 percent higher than in canada and almost twice as high as in europe . drugs wo n't help save millions of lives if people ca n't afford to take them . i know that some people do not agree with me . among them is president_bush . senator john_kerry noted in the second presidential debate that mr . bush in 2000 had said that importation of drugs approved in the united_states ' 'makes sense , '' but that mr . bush had blocked legislation allowing it . mr . bush countered ''when a drug comes in from canada , i want to make sure it cures you and does n't kill you , '' and added , ''what my worry is , is that , you know , it looks like it 's from canada , and it might be from a third world . '' what mr . bush did n't say is that regulated importation of drugs would take away that risk , a risk americans now face every day when they go surfing on the internet for cheaper drugs . in fairness , mr . bush did say that he hoped to revisit the issue soon . what i know about importation of drugs is based upon my experience in marketing pharmaceuticals in the united_states and europe for two decades . importation or parallel trade of drugs has been done safely within europe for over 20 years . a few years back i was responsible for a region in northern_europe . we had lots of drugs coming into my area through parallel traders . i countered by lowering some of my own prices and in the process doubled sales in my region in just two years . in europe , importers supply only authorized wholesalers or registered pharmacies they do not sell to the public . so the chain remains closed . authorized drugs are purchased from authorized wholesalers in one european_union country and sold to authorized distributors in another union country . this is the kind of system we should put in place in the united_states . until that happens , to ensure safety , a good intermediate step is for states and cities to step in and provide access to lower priced drugs . boston and springfield , mass . , have already established import programs for low cost , canadian drugs , while states like minnesota and wisconsin have established web_sites linking residents to canadian pharmacies approved by state health officials . make no mistake about it , they are the real heroes in this battle . every day americans die because they ca n't afford life saving drugs . every day americans die because congress wants to protect the profits of giant drug corporations , half of the top 10 of which are french , british and swiss conglomerates . i have another confession to make . americans are dying without the appropriate drugs because my industry and congress are more concerned about protecting astronomical profits for conglomerates than they are about protecting the health of americans . op_ed contributor peter rost , a doctor , is a marketing executive for pfizer .",has a topic of health
"negligence by russian commanders enabled chechen suicide bombers to carry out the devastating attacks on sunday that killed more than 30 soldiers , the chief of russia 's intelligence service said today . nikolai patrushev , director of the federal_security_service , said that his agency had alerted the russian military that attacks were being planned but that some had failed to take proper precautions . ''there was a mistake on the part of commanders in the field , '' he said . ''we have to act in a coordinated fashion to prevent such things from happening in the future . '' five trucks loaded with munitions exploded in chechnya on sunday_night , catching the russian military by surprise and shocking the nation . today , russian officials put the final toll at 33 dead , 84 wounded and 3 missing . trying to restore control over towns and settlements in the secessionist region , russian officials today issued a ' 'shoot on sight'' order for any vehicle breaching a 9 p.m . to 7 a.m . curfew . new checkpoints have been set up , and many chechens were reportedly staying home . about 30 people have been detained , but it is not clear if the russian authorities have found any of those who organized the bombings . a series of devastating explosions in apartment buildings in other parts of russia in september helped build public support for the war . russian officials said the chechen rebels were to blame , but there is no conclusive_proof of their role . in the bombings on sunday , most of the casualties occurred in argun , a town east of grozny , where a truck_bomb slammed into a dormitory occupied by a militia unit . despite alerts of possible attacks , there was no concrete barrier or other obstacle to stop the truck , which may have been operated by two suicide bombers , from approaching the building . providing new details of that attack , russia television reported tonight that 22 policemen had been killed and 48 wounded . many of the dead and wounded were buried under the debris . after the bomb exploded , chechen snipers began shooting at the building , and a gunfight raged for an hour and a half . while russian officials said negligence was a factor , they said the poor security was the fault of local commanders , not gen . ivan babichev , the military commandant of chechnya . the destruction in argun ' 'resulted from the failure to comply with an order by general babichev that additional security measures were to be taken , '' said sergei yastrzhembsky , the senior russian government spokesman on the war . president vladimir v . putin has kept a low profile in recent days and has had little to say about the bombing attacks , which have challenged the kremlin 's claims to control the breakaway region . the rebels , for their part , were more vocal . they promised more attacks , warning civilians to move away from russian bases and command_posts . shamil basayev , the chechen guerrilla leader , demanded that the russian authorities hand over a russian officer accused of the rape and murder of a chechen woman , according to a chechen spokesman , movladi udogov . otherwise , mr . basayev vowed , there will be more bombing attacks .",has a topic of health
"concerned that infectious_diseases like hepatitis and aids can be spread by tissue transplants , the food and drug administration will seek expanded authority to regulate bone , skin , cornea and other human tissue used for more than 400 , 000 transplants a year . federal health officials and spokesmen for the growing tissue transplant industry say the transplants , which also include blood_vessels , tendons , ligaments , cartilage and heart valves , are generally safe and have rarely been the cause of infectious_disease . but the health officials and some members of congress contend that new rules are needed to insure that the transplants are effective and to prevent the recurrence of cases like one in which 61 organs and tissue grafts taken from a virginia man infected with h.i.v. , the virus that causes aids , were given to more than 40 people around the country . seven people were infected with the virus , and three have died . self policed industry although most tissue used in transplants is obtained in the united_states , the officials are also increasingly concerned about supplies from foreign sources , including the former soviet_union , that might not meet the existing voluntary standards . tissue that is improperly collected , processed or shipped , experts said , is more likely to fail in a recipient 's body , causing further medical problems . while the collection , testing , distribution and use of large organs like hearts , kidneys and livers are closely regulated , the industry supplying most other transplant tissue is basically self policed and follows voluntary guidelines for safety and quality . according to federal and industry figures , each year about 10 , 000 donors supply more than 400 , 000 tissue grafts for transplants . this compares with about 16 , 000 transplants of whole organs from 4 , 500 donors . representative ron_wyden , an oregon democrat concerned with health issues , said he would introduce legislation shortly to give the f.d.a . expanded authority to regulate tissues and charge the industry fees to cover some of the costs . handling problems mr . wyden said the increasing use of nonorgan transplant material not only raised safety issues but also questions about how the tissue was handled . there have been reports of grafts that have failed because of handling problems , he said , noting that processing and storage can significantly alter the characteristics of tissue . "" the lack of available information and minimum standards for tissue transplants appears to be a gaping hole in an otherwise effective safety net of public_health oversight of medical products , "" mr . wyden said . working with lawmakers , the f.d.a . is helping draft legislation that would define tissue banks and require them to be registered and certified , and to follow standard practices in obtaining , processing , packaging and distributing tissues . in addition , tissue companies would be required to follow standard procedures in screening and testing donors , and to keep detailed records on the transplant tissue and donors . the rules would make mandatory most of the practices now set forth in the industry 's voluntary guidelines . these guidelines are largely based on recommendations by the federal centers_for_disease_control and prevention , which is also about to publish more stringent guidelines . much of the concern about tissue transplants was prompted by the case of the virginia man , which came to light two years ago . the donor , who was killed in a shooting in 1985 , proved to be infected with h.i.v. , even though two aids tests on his blood , before removal of his organs and tissues , failed to detect antibodies to the virus . calls for better screening medical experts noted that the aids screening tests used today are much better than the crude ones of that time , but some h.i.v . infections can still elude detection if they are too new to have caused the immune system to produce detectable amounts of antibodies . in the virginia case , the experts said , a reputable tissue bank followed all the established procedures and still distributed infected material . in addition , health officials could not track down several of the grafts because of inadequate records . as a result of this incident , the disease centers held a meeting at its atlanta headquarters in december 1991 to revise its 1988 voluntary guidelines on organ and tissue transplants . a draft of the proposed changes was published for comment last spring and the final recommendations should be published this fall , said dr . martha f . rogers , chief of epidemiology in the agency 's h.i.v . branch . among its recommendations , the disease centers' new guidelines will call for extensive tissue donor screening for h.i.v . through interviews and laboratory tests , assigning permanent identification numbers to donors and grafts to assist in tracking , mandatory long term record keeping , and , for the first time , the routine testing of some graft recipients after their transplants . "" transmission of infectious_diseases through tissue transplantation has been quite rare and , thus , is not a major threat to the public_health , "" said dr . david a . kessler , the commissioner of food and drugs . "" nevertheless , we do have some concerns about certain aspects of the tissue banking industry . "" unevenly regulated dr . kessler said tissue recovery and transplantation practices were unevenly regulated , causing concerns about safety as well as quality and efficacy of transplant material . in the early 1980 's , the agency considered regulating all human tissue materials as medical products , but could not find the resources to do it , he said . consequently , the agency regulates blood , blood derivatives and other biological products through its center for biologics , while heart valves , nerve tissue and corneal tissue for eye surgery are under its center for devices and radiological health . undertaking human tissue regulation case by case has left some tissue and industry practices without oversight , dr . kessler said . senator paul_simon , who last year introduced a bill to set national standards for regulating transplant tissue , is expected to introduce a simplified version of the measure this fall . "" there is no uniform method to assure appropriate donor screening for tissue and to track the tissue once it is donated , "" the illinois democrat said . "" there are no national standards for the tissue themselves and no oversight of tissue banks . i think it is clear that we need to do something . "" industry supports regulation the industry has supported the idea of greater regulation and says it is willing to bear some of the costs through licensing fees . experts estimate that there are more than 400 organizations in the united_states that bank or process one or more human tissues , including 100 eye banks , 100 semen banks , 125 bone banks and others that deal with other human transplant materials . industry groups , like the american association of tissue banks , and major organizations that gather , bank and process the tissues have been working with federal agencies like the f.d.a. , as well as members of congress , to produce regulations . "" we want to make sure everyone is playing by the same rules and that those who are doing the right things are n't placed at a disadvantage , "" said bill anderson , president of lifenet transplant services of virginia_beach , va . , one of the nation 's largest tissue suppliers . "" and if we do have problems in the future , and something bad happens because of a transplant , we want to have a better mechanism in place to deal with it than we have now . "" jeanne mowe , executive director of the tissue bank association , said the industry was small , with annual revenues of 80 million to 100 million , and probably could not afford regulation that is totally based on fees . "" there may have to be some federal start up money for a couple of years to get things going , "" she said . no one knows how much comprehensive regulation would cost , but some estimates have put it at up to 5 million a year , some industry spokesmen said . "" i do n't know how good that figure is , but that would be a lot for an industry our size and could present a hardship for some smaller banks if everyone had to pay the same fees , "" ms . mowe said .",has a topic of health
"canada 's publicly financed health_insurance system has already emerged as the dominant issue of the imminent national election campaign as the major political_parties jostle at the starting gate . with the population aging , waiting lines for care growing and doctors and nurses becoming sparse , especially in rural areas , opinion_polls indicate that satisfaction with medical services has declined in the last decade . but a majority of canadians still view their universal coverage system with patriotic pride seeing it as a national resource that distinguishes canada from the united_states , where tens of millions go uninsured . ''there 's no other issue of such vital and visceral significance to canadians , '' said prime_minister paul_martin , who has been in office since jean_chr_tien stepped down in december and is looking for his own mandate , while touring the country this month . he has promised to ''provide a fix'' that will last for a generation . mr . martin has said he will seek a strong election mandate for the liberal_party to give him momentum to fix the financially ailing health_care system during a meeting with provincial premiers this summer . he is expected to call the election next week for late june . after 11 years in power , the governing liberals have slipped badly in the polls because of political scandals . although they are still likely to retain control of the house of commons , they could lose dozens of seats in quebec and ontario , where they are squeezed between parties of the left and right . under trying circumstances , they have picked up the banner of health_care as their battle cry . mr . martin is challenged on the right by stephen_harper , a social_conservative from alberta who leads a newly united conservative_party . his slim chances to take power have improved because of the scandal over the up to 75 million in contracts awarded to advertising companies that have contributed to the liberal_party for doing little or no work on a program to counter separatism in quebec in the 1990 's . under the canadian health_care system , all citizens and residents are covered by government financed insurance that pays most medical expenses , excluding dentistry and routine eye care . many of the 10 provinces , which administer the system , also provide various drug benefits . mr . harper contends that the provinces should be given leeway to experiment with private_sector delivery of vital health services like cat scans , m.r.i . 's and elective_surgery . that , he says , would save money and shorten waiting times for services that often delay care for nonemergency conditions for months , and even years . ''it does not matter who delivers health_care it matters who can receive it , '' mr . harper said in a recent speech . on the left , jack layton , a former city councilman in toronto and the leader of the revitalized new democratic_party , released a plan this week that would reverse recent modest privatization of diagnostic services and substantially increase federal aid to the provincial governments that manage the health_care system . financial shortfalls causing rationing of medical services have deepened in recent years , with the median waiting period for a referral from a family doctor to a specialist rising to nearly 18 weeks in 2003 , according to a recent report by the fraser institute , a conservative research group . the report also noted that patients routinely wait almost three months for an m.r.i . exam . reports of people using influence to jump waiting lines for government paid treatment are common around the country . breast_cancer survivors recently initiated a class_action_suit on behalf of more than 10 , 000 breast_cancer patients seeking 30 million in damages from 12 quebec hospitals for requiring patients to wait more than eight weeks for radiation therapy since october 1997 . viewing a business opportunity , one native canadian group is planning to build a commercial diagnostic imaging clinic on reserve land in saskatchewan outside the control of the federal or provincial governments . several alberta native groups are considering whether to follow suit in a development that could further spur debate on introducing more private enterprise into the health_care system . the political jockeying over how to fix the system has been fierce , although newspaper columnists and authorities on health_care have criticized all three party leaders for not proposing concrete solutions for a system that has grown so expensive it is forcing many provinces to trim their budgets for education and other vital services . calling health_care the ''third rail'' of canadian politics , jeffrey simpson , a columnist for the globe and mail , recently wrote ''a party can speak about health_care , but it dare not propose anything very far from the status_quo . so it will be during the forthcoming election campaign . '' mr . martin , a former finance minister who trimmed federal health_care financing in the 1990 's , is considered a member of the conservative wing of the liberal_party . he has suggested that he will compel the provinces to change health_care programs in return for fresh federal financing , but he has not stated what changes he will require . when health minister pierre pettigrew speculated last month that the government could accept more private delivery of health_care , mr . martin was livid and forced him to recant his remarks the next day . then mr . martin was embarrassed when newspapers revealed that his personal physician had founded a chain of private commercial clinics and that he had been treated at a private clinic himself . the liberals are preparing an aggressive political advertising campaign that will accuse mr . harper of secretly planning to open the way for more private enterprise in the health_care system . one draft of an advertisement says , according to a report in the globe and mail , ''if stephen_harper becomes p.m. , you 'll have two health_care options be rich or do n't get sick . '' mr . harper , in turn , has been trying to appear to be as close to a man of the people as possible . in an emotional speech in toronto this week , he defended universal government paid health_care coverage and described how his grandfather suffered great economic hardship years ago caring for his sick father . he also promised to expand federal drug benefits without explaining how he would pay for a program that would cost hundreds of millions of dollars a year .",has a topic of health
"the food and drug administration should revoke the military 's ability to give soldiers experimental drugs without their consent because of mistakes made during the persian_gulf_war , consumer and veterans' groups said today . dr . sidney wolfe of the consumer advocacy_group public_citizen said the defense_department did not tell the agency that an experimental drug given to soldiers in the gulf_war might have hurt their chances of surviving a nerve_gas attack . the military also violated an agreement with the f.d.a . that the soldiers would be told the drug pyridostigmine_bromide was experimental and would be monitored for side effects , dr . wolfe contended in a petition filed with the agency . thousands of gulf_war veterans say they have suffered mysterious illnesses since the conflict . recent independent animal studies have suggested that pyridostigmine_bromide and insect repellents could have caused a toxic reaction that is a symptomof gulf_war_syndrome . in 1991 , the f.d.a . waived the federal requirement that subjects be fully informed about an experimental drug before consenting to take itwhen the pentagon said it did not have time to gain the consent of 600 , 000 troops headed for the gulf_war . the agency is now considering whether to make that waiver permanent so soldiers can be given experimental drugs quickly during any military crisis . in a statement , the pentagon said today that it would continue to use the earlier waiver if an emergency arose before the agency settled the issue . but it defended its use of pyridostimigmine bromide . it denied improperly collecting data for the f.d.a. "" pyridostigmine_bromide is not approved as a pretreatment against nerve_gas , but the f.d.a . agreed to let soldiers take it based on army animal studies showing it protected against certain types of gas . had soldiers been gassed , they would have taken f.d.a . approved antidotes as well . but iraq stockpiled another nerve_agent , sarin , during the gulf_war , and another army animal study , which dr . wolfe sent the f.d.a . today , concluded that pretreatment with pyridostigmine_bromide actually decreased the effectiveness of the two nerve_gas antidotes for sarin . the army submitted the sarin study for publication in a journal on feb . 11 , 1991 , just weeks after the gulf_war started .",has a topic of health
"a panel of expert scientists reported yesterday that after studying what were regarded as the leading suspected causes , it could not say what had brought on the array of symptoms called gulf_war_syndrome in thousands of veterans of the war against iraq . the panel , which pored over studies of poison_gas , uranium , drugs and vaccines , concluded that there was not enough reliable data to say whether exposure to any of those agents had caused the illnesses . the lack of data extended not only to the effects of the chemicals in question but also to the level of exposure that might have afflicted veterans of the persian_gulf_war . the committee , of 18 members , was brought together by the institute of medicine , a body of the national academy of sciences . its conclusions were announced yesterday at a washington news conference , where dr . kenneth i . shine , the institute 's president , summed up the frustration of the panel 's members and others seeking definitive findings . ''we would love to come up with remarkable new conclusions , '' dr . shine said , ''but after careful analysis , if the data is n't there , we ca n't draw any conclusions from it . '' the committee recommended more scientific research but also urged that the military improve its monitoring of what happens to soldiers and their environment in any future war . richard weidman and william frasure , officials of vietnam veterans of america , who have tracked the debate over gulf_war_syndrome for several years , said that given the scant data , they sympathized with the committee . what is needed , they said , is a thorough study of not only the existing scientific literature but also classified records on troop_deployments and veterans' medical records , carried out not by military officials but by independent scientists . the symptoms of gulf_war_syndrome vary , but veterans have complained chiefly of fatigue , skin rash , headache , muscle and joint_pain , and memory loss . the committee 's search for a cause followed studies by both the defense_department and the department_of_veterans_affairs . those earlier studies both found that there was a group of gulf_war veterans suffering from a variety of symptoms , but could find no cause . after congress mandated further study , the institute of medicine was asked by the v.a . to convene an expert impartial panel to look at 33 agents and try to determine whether any might be the cause . the committee began work early last year on what were considered the four most likely suspects among those 33 and , after a review of thousands of published , peer reviewed scientific studies , addressed the four yesterday at the news conference and in a written report . ( under the congressional mandate , the committee must now spend years looking at the 29 others . ) the committee left open the question of whether two of those four agents , the nerve_gas sarin and vaccinations against germ_warfare , might be the cause . ''there is inadequate insufficient evidence , '' the panel wrote , ''to determine whether an association does or does not exist between exposure to sarin at low doses'' and any subsequent ''long term adverse health effects . '' with regard to vaccinations against anthrax and botulinum , the committee 's wording was identical . the committee felt there was at least some evidence that the two other agents , depleted uranium and the chemical pyridostigmine_bromide , were unlikely to be the cause , although again there was not enough evidence to be sure . the committee 's chairman , dr . harold s . sox jr . , said he felt that its review did not ' 'move the needle'' toward any new conclusions on sarin or the vaccines . as for the depleted uranium and pyridostigmine_bromide , dr . sox said , ''we did move the needle'' in that it now seems less likely that either was a cause of the syndrome . but he emphasized that the study had been unable to rule them out . these four agents were studied first for a variety of reasons . sarin was suspected because it is a potent nerve toxin used in chemical_weapons , some of which were destroyed during the gulf_war , thus exposing soldiers to small doses . vaccines became suspect because soldiers received two of them one against anthrax and one against botulinum_toxin before serving in the gulf . pyridostigmine_bromide is a drug used to treat myasthenia gravis , but it can also blunt the effects of nerve_gas , and so some soldiers were given preventive doses of it in the war . so called depleted uranium , a low radiation form of uranium , came under suspicion because it is used as a layer in the armor of tanks to increase protection , and is also used in some ammunition rounds . soldiers were exposed to it during the cleanup of damaged tanks and in munitions from ''friendly fire . '' overriding all the committee 's conclusions was the constant refrain expressed at the news conference by its members that there was very little evidence of the kind needed to make conclusions on two points whether low doses of any of the agents might cause long term illness , and just how much exposure to the agents any veteran got .",has a topic of health
"after a reprieve , the smallpox virus seems headed for destruction after all . in a decision that seems to spell the end for the last remaining stocks of smallpox virus , a_10 member committee of the world_health_organization recommended unanimously yesterday that the virus be destroyed on june 30 , 1995 . the committee 's recommendation now goes to the executive committee of the w.h.o. , a united_nations agency based in geneva , and will be put to the full membership at its annual meeting next may . but dr . frank fenner , chairman of the smallpox committee , said he expect the recommendation to be accepted , particularly because it was unanimous . dr . fenner , an expert in smallpox from the john curtin school of medical research of the australian national university in canberra , spoke in a telephone interview . listening to opponents the virus , once slated for destruction on dec . 31 , 1993 , had received a one year stay of execution to allow w.h.o . to consider a groundswell of opposition , primarily from scientists in the united_states . but yesterday 's vote was unanimous , as had been previous votes , although two members favored delaying the execution for five years . those favoring destruction of the virus say the risk that samples could escape from the laboratory or fall into terrorists' hands outweighs the potential scientific value of keeping the virus for future research . existing stocks are stored in freezers at the centers_for_disease_control and prevention in atlanta and at the research institute for viral preparation in moscow . tantalizing clues the smallpox committee had recommended in 1990 that genetic blue prints of different strains of the smallpox virus be made before the original 1993 destruction date . but while the virus 's molecular structure was being mapped , scientists began identifying surprising links between genes in the virus and natural immune substances , including some involved in cancer . dr . bernard fields of harvard_university and other scientists argued that the virus should be kept for clues to possible benefit to humans . dr . fenner said the committee recognized the scientific excitement created by such findings and the pleas for keeping the virus , or at least postponing its execution . but he added , "" there will always be more to be done and one could keep on deferring the decision forever , and we felt that it should be made now . "" furthermore , he said , the necessary studies could be made with other viruses . the committee recommended that the harmless genetic fragments used for research be kept , but put certain restrictions on their study to reduce the risk that scientists might try to recreate the smallpox virus . one restriction precludes sending more than 20 percent of the fragments to any one laboratory . and no studies may be carried out in a laboratory where other pox viruses are kept . death by pressure cooker the smallpox virus is to be killed by putting it in an autoclave , an airtight chamber that sterilizes material , at a temperature of 248 degrees_fahrenheit for 45 minutes . the autoclave will then be shut off , and the process will be repeated . the dead virus will then be incinerated . w.h.o . will help monitor the destruction . dr . fenner said that in reaching the recommendation , "" we recognized that there are now many more countries said to be engaged in biological_warfare research than 10 years ago , and we acknowledged the impossibility of knowing what might be going on in secret labs in the world . "" he said that the smallpox virus would be a poor biological_warfare agent but that it could be very effective in creating panic . smallpox was declared eradicated in 1980 , making it the only natural disease that has been deliberately wiped out , arguably public_health 's greatest triumph . the eradication program also called for eventual elimination of the virus .",has a topic of health
"a guest appearance by gov . mario m . cuomo , who has refused to oppose abortion rights , at a fund_raiser for a hospital has set off a dispute . the area 's roman_catholic priests are being discouraged from attending the 125 a plate dinner on friday for st . joseph 's hospital because of the governor 's stand , bishop anthony tonnos said . "" i would not like the clergy at the fund_raiser lest their presence be misinterpreted as supporting cuomo , "" the bishop said . today , an aide to mr . cuomo , thomas conroy , said the governor would go ahead with the speech .",has a topic of health
"an american drug manufacturer that has been sued by more than 300 h.i.v . infected_hemophiliacs or their survivors continued marketing its blood_clotting product for two years after being told in 1985 that the heating process with which the product was treated would not kill the aids virus , which later tainted some of it , according to documents issued yesterday by a canadian commission of inquiry . the tainted product , factorate , was made from blood plasma by the armour pharmaceutical company of collegeville , pa . , a subsidiary of the french chemical giant rhone poulenc . an armour spokeswoman , beth leahy , said yesterday that the company would have a comment but that she did not know when . the documents concerning the treating and marketing of factorate were made public in toronto at a hearing of a government appointed commission that is looking into how tainted_blood infected thousands of canadians with the aids virus , h.i.v. , and hepatitis c during the 1980 's . six of those canadians were hemophiliacs in vancouver , british_columbia five of them children who were given factorate and then , in 1987 , contracted aids . they sued armour in the court of common pleas in philadelphia , not far from the company 's hometown , and in response the manufacturer submitted papers to the court that were among the documents disclosed by the canadian commission yesterday . one of these papers was a 1985 report to the company by dr . alfred prince , a scientist with the new york blood center whom armour had commissioned to study its heat treating process . at the time , armour was heat treating vials of factorate at 60 degrees celsius , or 140 degrees_fahrenheit , for 30 hours less time than applied by any of its american competitors that used a similar process . in his report , dr . prince told armour that he had found "" little or no inactivation "" of h.i.v . after heating factorate at 60 degrees celsius for even 48 hours , and only limited effect on the virus after 72 hours . but the company , the documents show , forbade dr . prince to publish his findings , pointing to a confidentiality provision in his armour contract . and it was not until after two more years , in november 1987 , that armour withdrew factorate from the canadian market . a month after that , the product was withdrawn from the united_states market as well . armour officials have declined to testify before the canadian commission , and no one from the company attended the hearing yesterday . but in earlier statements the company had denied that the product was "" unreasonably dangerous and defective , "" and said any fault lay with canadian regulators who approved the product and with the canadian red cross , which distributed it . in a recent filing with the securities_and_exchange_commission , armour reported that it was a defendant in a total of 321 lawsuits brought by h.i.v . infected_hemophiliacs or their survivors in the united_states , parts of canada and elsewhere . on monday , the united_states_supreme_court denied an appeal by hemophiliacs seeking to have their cases against the company and other blood product manufacturers combined into a class_action . as for the six vancouver hemophiliacs whose lawsuit was at the heart of the papers made public yesterday , one has since died and three are very ill . their suit was settled in 1993 .",has a topic of health
"an independent scientific panel has found that preserving the last known samples of deadly smallpox virus in russia and the united_states may provide important scientific and medical opportunities that would be lost if the virus is destroyed this year , as planned . the report issued today by a committee of the institute of medicine , a branch of the national academy of sciences , is quite likely to influence significantly president_clinton 's thinking about the politically and scientifically contentious issue . in january , mr . clinton said he would rely heavily on guidance provided by the institute report in formulating his administration 's position on retaining or destroying the virus . he said he would rely on the recommendations to insure that the united_states would have ''whatever it takes to buy us a response'' to a potential smallpox outbreak . the 100 page report did not express an opinion on destroying the stocks , because the panel was asked to examine only the potential value that such stocks provide . the main finding that retaining the virus could lead to ''new and important discoveries with real potential for improving human health , '' including antiviral drugs to protect against a future smallpox outbreak , is most likely to strengthen the hand of those in the administration who want the united_states to join russia in opposing the destruction . ''there 's no doubt the report will have a major impact , '' said a senior white_house official who has closely followed the debate . ''science is science , and the science that has now spoken will dramatically affect the decision making process here . '' prominent american scientists like donald a . henderson , a former deputy white_house science adviser and dean emeritus of the johns_hopkins school of public_health , helped lead the campaign to eradicate and destroy all smallpox stocks soon after the world_health_organization in geneva , a united_nations agency , certified in 1980 that smallpox had been eradicated . in 1996 , the w.h.o . recommended that the remaining stocks be destroyed , a decision that the united_states supported then . at the time , the health agency decided , again with the agreement of washington , to recommend that destruction be deferred until june 30 , 1999 , so that , among other factors , the scientific consequences of destruction could be more fully evaluated . representatives of the 190 member group are to meet in may in geneva to review the issue , and many poorer nations that suffered the worst smallpox epidemics are expected to press hard to destroy the virus as scheduled . officially , the sole collections of live virus are kept by the federal centers_for_disease_control in atlanta and the state research center of virology and biotechnology , known as vector , a leading russian research institute in siberia . many american experts agree that rogue_states or terrorist groups may have already secured samples . in an interview late last year , the vector director , lev s . sandakhchiev , denied that russia had given samples to nations like north_korea . he also spoke passionately against destroying the virus , arguing , as he has in scientific papers , that infectious_diseases like smallpox cannot ever be considered completely eradicated . the report today found that the most ''compelling'' reason for long term retention of the stocks was ''their essential role in the identification and development of antiviral agents for use in anticipation of a large outbreak of smallpox . '' supplies of the vaccine ''have dwindled and may be deteriorating , '' the report warned . the vaccine is a live virus that ''cannot be used safely with immunocompromised individuals'' like those infected with h.i.v . or people who have had organ transplants . ''much scientific information , '' the report said , ''particularly concerning the human immune system , could be learned through experimentation'' with the virus . smallpox , the report notes , ''was eradicated before the development of many modern techniques of microbiology . ''",has a topic of health
"in a long awaited report , a government commission recommended today a major increase in federal financing for canada 's national health_care program to shore up its finances and prevent the development of a parallel system of private medical services . publicly financed health_care for all has been a cherished hallmark of canadian society since the 1960 's , but ever longer waiting_lists for elective_surgery and for m.r.i . scans and other diagnostic services in recent years have provoked concerns that the system cannot be sustained . several provinces have begun introducing private clinics , stimulating a debate in parliament over whether to reinforce the existing system or totally revamp it . ''the grave risk we will face is pressure for access to private , parallel services one set of services for the well off , another for those who are not , '' said roy j . romanow , who headed the commission . ''canadians do not want this . '' mr . romanow said the federal_government would need to increase its annual spending by 4 billion , about a 25 percent increase , over three years to stabilize the finances of the national health_care system and to expand coverage and services , especially in rural areas and among native canadians . the federal and provincial governments share the costs of the system , but in recent years the provinces have borne an increasing amount of the burden . many hospitals report a growing demand for hip_replacements and nonemergency operations because of an aging population , but fewer operations being performed because of a shortage of staff members and beds . mr . romanow , a former saskatchewan premier known for his liberalism , recommended that the health_care system increase benefits to help care for the mentally ill at home , provide rehabilitation after surgery and pay for expensive drugs for people with chronic_illnesses . he also called for the modifying of patent regulations to lower the price of drugs and the establishment of electronic health record cards for every canadian that would enable hospitals and doctors to gain quick access to patients' medical histories and to track costs . ''the new money that i propose investing in health_care is to stabilize the system over the short term , and to buy enduring change over the long term , '' mr . romanow said . ''i cannot say often enough that the status_quo is not an option . '' prime_minister_jean_chr_tien 's government will now consider the recommendations and may integrate at least some proposals in its new budget , scheduled to be released in february . the report was criticized by opposition politicians , who argued that the health_care system needed more fundamental change than mr . romanow had offered . ''this is entirely the wrong direction , '' said stephen_harper , leader of the canadian alliance_party , who characterized the recommendations as ''pie in the sky . '' even before the report was issued , the finance minister , john_manley , warned that the government 's ability to increase health_care financing rapidly was limited ' 'so we do n't find ourselves slipping back into deficit . '' after years of deficits , the federal budget is now in the black . but there are rising demands from city and provincial governments to increase financing for roads , housing and education .",has a topic of health
"a provincial commission investigating the sars outbreak in 2003 reported tuesday that poor hospital infection_control procedures led to the epidemic in the toronto area that killed 44 people . ''systemic problems ran through every hospital and every government_agency , '' doug hunt , chief counsel for the commission , said at a news conference at which the findings were released . the outbreak surfaced in february 2003 , when a woman from the toronto area contracted the virus on a trip to hong_kong and returned home , dying soon after . her son went to a hospital with an unidentified condition that was later diagnosed as sars . while waiting for 16 hours in a crowded emergency room , the man transmitted the virus to two other patients , and it continued to spread , the commission 's report says . of the 375 sars cases eventually identified in ontario province , health_care workers accounted for 45 percent . two nurses and a doctor died from their infections . the ailment that came to be known as severe_acute_respiratory_syndrome , or sars , was reported first in asia in early 2003 , though the first case may have been the previous november . by july , 774 deaths of 8 , 000 infections worldwide were attributed to it , according to the world_health_organization . outside asia , toronto was the world 's most affected city , crippling tourism and leading the world_health_organization at one point to advise travelers to stay away . on may 17 , 2003 , three months after the first case in ontario , the authorities declared the crisis over . as a result , the report released tuesday found , surveillance and prevention measures were relaxed , and an outbreak brewing at another hospital was not detected until it was too late . on may 23 , health officials announced a second , larger outbreak . ''as soon as precautions were relaxed in early may , the disease surged back and spread , again undetected , to patients , staff , visitors and their families , '' wrote justice archie campbell , the report 's author , who did not attend the news conference because of illness . among the commission 's recommendations are dozens of changes to hospital practices and health surveillance , and new legislation . the report also said the province 's labor department should play a more prominent role in protecting workers from disease outbreaks . two earlier reports focused on problems in the public_health system and in emergency response laws . the pressure to have the w.h.o . travel_advisory lifted and to declare an end to the emergency allowed the second outbreak to take root , according to dr . richard schabas , who was chief of staff during the sars crisis at york central hospital . ''after the advisories were lifted there was a huge pressure on toronto not to have any more cases , '' dr . schabas said . ''as a result , there was no surveillance program to alert authorities of what was actually happening . ''",has a topic of health
"former president bill clinton said monday that while heads of state could help break down the stigma of aids around the world , many more leaders were needed to change people 's thinking . mr . clinton , speaking here at the first full day of the 16th international conference on aids , said that ''the leaders do n't necessarily have to be the reigning head of government if you have a critical_mass'' and ''the government does not undermine you with counterproductive policies . '' he spoke before 6 , 000 people who jammed a hall where he and the computer entrepreneur bill gates answered questions for more than an hour from a moderator , charlayne hunter gault , and the audience . hundreds more among the 24 , 000 conference participants sat in overflow rooms or could not get into the hall . they had all skipped scientific presentations to listen to what was dubbed the double bill , a session that dominated the day 's events . mr . clinton and mr . gates , who each have charitable foundations that support the fight against aids , have become the newest popular faces of the campaign as they have traveled the globe , often together , to learn more . both men praised the bush_administration 's program , pepfar , the president 's emergency plan for aids relief , a five year , 15 billion program that serves 16 countries , 13 of them in africa . one part of the program aims to help provide pregnant_women with the pills to have healthy babies . mr . clinton said , ''pepfar , on balance , has done a terrific amount of good . '' mr . gates said , ''on the treatment front , pepfar is a great success , and we need to get that story out . '' ''it 's incredible in its impact , '' mr . gates said . ''lives are being saved , and this thing is being run very well . '' mr . clinton disagreed with a participant from ecuador who criticized him for doing very little against aids when he was president , saying , ''i did a good job'' but met opposition from congress . ''i did make a lot of mistakes when i was president , but that was not one of them , '' he said , drawing laughter . the conference 's theme , ''time to deliver , '' is intended to galvanize the world to apply the prevention and treatment methods that are known to work and to develop the new tools needed to eventually stop aids . moreover , the organizers say , so many lives and so much money are now at stake that everyone involved in fighting the pandemic must be held accountable . ''this is a story that will have a happy ending , '' mr . gates said . but both he and mr . clinton said the road to that goal would be rocky until scientists developed a vaccine or cure . for example , mr . gates said , a simple drug therapy can help most infected mothers avoid passing the aids virus to newborns . but , in part because of stigma , poor countries are unable to provide that treatment for an overwhelming majority of pregnant_women . mr . gates told conference participants that grassroots support was needed to maintain and increase united_states donations . but he said that ''on the prevention front , things are far more complicated , '' in part because ''education does not change behavior as much as we 'd like . '' efforts to develop a microbicide gels or creams that could be inserted vaginally or rectally to block h.i.v . infection have been disappointing . for example , a large trial in 2000 showed that one microbicide was unsafe when it was expected to show effectiveness . but mr . gates expressed hope that the investments that the bill and melinda gates foundation had made in microbicide research would produce at least one effective medicine in the next few years and be ''a turning point in the epidemic . '' as for stigma , mr . clinton cited china 's experience in reversing its position on aids . ''initially , the chinese were in denial about aids , and then they decided they would n't be , and they turned on a dime , '' he said . government ministers in china shook hands with an aids activist for the first time , the premier had aids activists in his office , and then the president of china visited people on their deathbeds in hospitals . both mr . clinton and mr . gates cautioned that antiretroviral_drugs to fight h.i.v . could not just be dropped into poor countries if there were no workers trained to deliver them and monitor therapy . the ability to train such workers varies by country , they said . mr . clinton said he found it difficult to imagine how the world would come together unless something serious was done about aids .",has a topic of health
"federal health officials have halted shipments of some blood products from canada after a food and drug administration inspector found substandard procedures and sloppy record keeping at a red_cross blood center in toronto . the agency 's order said the "" inspection raised concerns regarding the operations of all canadian red cross establishments . "" no canadian blood is transfused in the united_states , officials said . the blood products , which are sent to a plant in north_carolina for processing and are returned to canada for use there , have not entered the blood supply here , agency spokesmen said last night . the agency has stepped up its vigilance to insure that blood intended for canadian use was not co mingled with blood collected or distributed in the united_states , dr . jay s . epstein , an f.d.a . official , said in an interview . the north_carolina plant also processes american blood for american use . since both products carry american inspection labels , the potential for co mingling theoretically exists , but dr . epstein said the agency 's inspection system had shown no evidence that such co mingling had occurred . if this had occurred , it would have raised a potential safety problem in this country , he said . 'health issue for canada' the distribution of the blood products in canada , dr . epstein said , "" is a public_health issue for canada . "" the f.d.a . inspection , which was described as routine , took place in july , and the investigation is continuing . a final report has not been issued . the inspector 's initial report , a copy of which was obtained through a request under the freedom of information act , cited 19 violations and flaws in procedure and record keeping . some violations reflect differences between american and canadian regulations of the blood system . the inspection reviewed procedures but did not conduct any tests on blood donations . the food and drug administration routinely inspects blood collecting and processing centers in european_countries that export red blood cells to this country for use here , primarily in the new york city area , said larry bachorik , an agency spokesman . the agency 's report comes amid public hearings by a canadian national inquiry , headed by justice horace krever , into a tainted_blood scandal dating from the early 1980 's that left more than 1 , 000 canadian hemophiliacs and others who received blood transfusions and blood products infected with h.i . v , the virus that causes aids . agency spokesmen said their inspection was independent of the krever inquiry . varieties of plasma the agency 's order concerns plasma , the fluid portion of the blood . plasma is obtained in two ways . one is a process called plasmapheresis , in which the red cells are returned to the body after the plasma has been collected over several hours . this produces what is called source plasma . the other is separating the plasma and red blood cells and not returning the red cells to the body , producing what is called recovered plasma . a short term agreement between the two countries allows only recovered plasma to be shipped to the united_states for processing , but the inspector found evidence that the canadians had also sent some source plasma to the united_states without a license . plasma is broken down into various components through a fractionation technique that canadian plants are not able to do . the f.d.a . said it was still allowing shipments of some recovered plasma for processing in north_carolina . the inspector 's report of the toronto red_cross center raised "" quality_assurance issues that we believe deserve attention , "" mr . bachorik said . among these are the following inadequate tracing of donors who were possible sources of h.i.v . infections in people who had transfusions . lack of records to show that computer software properly verified tests for transmissible diseases . screening procedures did not include examination for needle marks indicating that the donor might be a drug user . blood donated by individuals for their own use was not so labeled . the f.d.a . said it would allow canadians receiving care at united_states hospitals to bring their own blood on a case by case basis . a crucial point will be to label such blood so unused blood would not be used in the united_states without additional testing . the canadian red cross said in a statement today that it was in compliance with canadian statues . the group has recently begun a project to build a fractionation plant in nova_scotia .",has a topic of health
"the trial of a russian army officer charged with killing a young chechen woman took an unexpected turn today when a military judge ordered a new psychiatric evaluation of the defendant , extending a case that has been closely_watched as a measure of russia 's willingness to prosecute military abuses in chechnya . the judge 's decision effectively overturned a previous psychiatric test , in may , which concluded that the officer , col . yuri d . budanov , was suffering from shell shock and shrapnel_wounds when he killed elza kungayeva , who was 18 , in tangi on the night of march 26 , 2000 . the judge 's decision , which came on the day when he had been expected to announce his verdict , was the second unusual twist in the trial in two days . on monday , the ministry of defense announced that it had dismissed the military prosecutor in the case , col . sergei nazarov , ''on account of his ill health . '' colonel nazarov had argued that colonel budanov should be prosecuted only for lesser crimes because he was mentally disturbed at the time of the killing . he was replaced by another prosecutor , col . vladimir milovanov , who agreed today with the judge 's decision to order new psychiatric tests . the new prosecutor also filed a petition to revise the charges against colonel budanov , the interfax news_agency reported , raising the possibility that he could yet face conviction on far graver charges . if convicted of murder , he faces 20 years in jail . colonel nazarov , the former prosecutor , had recommended that the officer be charged only with abuse of office , a relatively minor crime that would allow him to avoid prison under an amnesty program for soldiers who receive military honors . those arguments had infuriated ms . kungayeva 's family and lawyer . colonel nazarov 's handling of the case even provoked a rebuke from russia 's top prosecutor , vladimir ustinov , who suggested last month that the prosecution had not been aggressive enough . colonel budanov , a decorated tank commander , is the highest ranking officer accused of committing a crime against a chechen civilian . he admitted that he kidnapped ms . kungayeva from her father 's house and later strangled her in his quarters , but argued that he did so in a rage , believing she was a sniper . the trial , in rostov on don , has become polarizing in russia , with many russians expressing sympathy for colonel budanov while many chechens say his crime was only one of thousands of abuses in chechnya that have gone unpunished . ''we 're happy about this , '' said imran a . ezhiyev , a representative of the society of russian chechen friendship , a rights organization that has been closely involved in the case . ''this is what we were striving for . unfortunately , in these two years , the court has done everything for the sake of the accused . ''",has a topic of health
"canada 's 27 year old universal health_insurance system , in which most medical bills are paid by government tax money and hospital budgets and doctor 's fees are regulated , faces exploding costs . one response has been to get individuals and employers to pick up more of the bill . canadians are proud of a system that generally provides good medical care to all its citizens at a lower cost than in the united_states averaging 1 , 915 american dollars per person in 1991 , the latest year for which figures are available , compared with 2 , 868 in the united_states . but spending in recent years has grown nearly as fast as in the united_states , and is outstripping the ability of the public_sector to pay . despite new efforts to control costs , from cutbacks in covered services to caps on doctors' fees and hospital budgets , "" revenues in the public_sector are not increasing fast enough , "" said bill tholl , director of health_policy at the canadian medical association . aggravating the financial distress has been canada 's most painful recession since the great depression , which has compressed tax receipts and cut federal transfer payments to the 10 provinces and 2 territories , which actually run the health system for canada 's 27 million people . the federal_government used to pay half of the health system costs . now it is down to 30 percent . as a result , the provinces have been forced into ever larger deficits to finance health_care , which consumes about a third of their total spending . no one wants to dismantle the most popular canadian social program . but there is talk of changing some of the ground rules . fees are debated for example , fees have been widely discussed , even though they would contravene the canada health act of 1984 , which reaffirmed the fundamental principles of universal access to comprehensive care , unimpeded by financial barriers . while opinion_surveys show that more than half of canadians would support patient fees as the best way to control health costs , opponents have successfully resisted , arguing that the practice would polarize rich and poor and require cumbersome administrative machinery . reducing covered services , another approach to shifting the burden to users , has made greater headway . the ontario health_insurance plan , as mr . holmes found , has reduced fees to commercial laboratories and allows them to bill patients directly . ontario , which insures 10 million people or nearly 40 percent of canada 's population , has cut costs in these other ways it stopped payment for certain services in connection with employment , insurance , pensions , legal proceedings , recreation and education . for example , if a worker needs a physical to get a job , he must pay for it . it ended coverage of electrolysis , used for the removal of unwanted hair , sometimes the result of a hormonal disorder , and reviewing coverage of 40 other items including psychoanalysis , vasectomies , newborn circumcision , in vitro fertilization and chiropractic , podiatric and osteopathic services . it increased patient payments for drug prescriptions covered by the ontario drug benefit plan , which chiefly serves people over 65 . beyond the unavoidable price of new medical technology , the explosion in canadian health costs has been encouraged , many analysts say , by an oversupply of doctors and the fee_for_service system that rewards them for seeing more patients and doing more procedures . in 1964 there was one doctor for every 800 people in canada today there is one for every 450 . growth has been almost comparable in the united_states , where in 1965 the ratio was one for every 720 persons compared with one for 411 now . after weighing the higher costs in the united_states , including malpractice insurance premiums , which are 10 times stiffer , incomes of canadian doctors are close to american levels . doctor 's fee schedules are negotiated between each provincial government and its medical association . after treating a patient , the doctor bills the provincial health authority according to the fee schedule . for example , if a doctor in this province makes a house call between 5 p.m . and midnight or on weekends he may bill for 71 . in quebec , a simple consultation by a general_practitioner costs the quebec insurance plan 13 . 18 , and 50 . 80 for a complete examination . also keeping costs up is the tendency for hospital stays to be long , at least longer than in the united_states . how others do it canada",has a topic of health
"the bath institution is a long way from alcatraz . it is a medium security federal_prison , and its inmates are allowed to keep the keys to their cells . many have their own kitchens , and they move freely from the gym to the cabinet making shop . drug addicts can clean their needles with bleach , and condoms are readily available . now the institution has opened a tattoo parlor , and mark hewitt , a_37 year old inmate in jail for breaking into factories , could n't be happier . ''you 're excluded from society , so the way to fit in here is to get a tattoo , to blend in and be one of the crew , to be safer , '' said mr . hewitt , who for years had been clandestinely puncturing prisoner biceps with sewing needles , guitar strings and homemade ink sometimes made from burnt polystyrene . while he says he has always been careful , such practices have contributed to an epidemic of hepatitis c and h.i.v . in prisons in canada and around the world . now mr . hewitt has been trained by the government to take his art form out of the dark and seamy corners of the jail and into a sterile looking cinder_block room that looks almost like a dental clinic . mr . hewitt 's parlor is part of a pilot project by the correctional services of canada that began in august and now includes five federal prisons across canada . a sixth , in a woman 's prison , is scheduled to open this month . more than 120 inmates have already taken part , paying about 5 per two hour session . officials here and in the united_states say they believe that the pilot project is the first of its kind in the world , another step in a trend of harm reduction techniques spreading to one degree or another in prisons in many countries . the pilot program , expected to continue through at least 2007 , is expected to cost the government roughly 100 , 000 per prison . tattooing has traditionally been banned in prisons because tattoos are often used to identify inmates with gangs and hate groups . but inmates have managed to get around the bans 45 percent of canadian inmates acquire a tattoo while in prison , according to government statistics . that rate has held steady over the last decade despite the widespread knowledge that diseases are spread through reused tattoo needles and ink . ''you do n't want your prisons acting as a pool of infection for the general population , '' said joanne barton , a senior health officer working on the program . ''the prevalence of h.i.v . is 7 to 10 times higher in federal penitentiaries than in the general canadian population , and for hepatitis c the prevalence is 30 times higher . '' ms . barton stressed that tattoos connected with hate groups and gangs were prohibited , along with tattoos on the face , neck and genitals . while she acknowledged that illicit tattooing would continue , she said at least now prisons in the pilot project were distributing information on safer techniques . but the union of canadian correctional officers strongly opposes the pilot as a potential danger to its members . ''this program is doomed for failure , '' said sylvain martel , the union 's national president . ''needles will be used against corrections officers . '' mr . martel also said ''we already have evidence'' that inmates are stealing needles , ink and other paraphernalia from the parlors to be used in illicit tattooing . prison supervisors say that they have no knowledge of that , adding that there is a careful inventory before and after tattooing sessions . whether legal or not , tattooing is not going to disappear from prisons . tattoos serve many functions , aside from gang identification . inmates typically make their bodies a collage of their life , complete with pictures or representations of loved ones and important events like funerals they cannot attend . to understand the importance of tattoos here , one only has to look at tracy rivet 's body . on his right arm is a tattoo displaying a decaying skull with hair flowing out of its mouth . on his chest there is a christian cross that commemorates his deceased father . and on his left arm there is a wizard and a skull that cover up another tattoo of the name of his former wife . now he is getting his entire back tattooed with a giant eagle , a symbol of freedom . like many convicts with tattoos , mr . rivet has hepatitis c , a debilitating chronic infectious_disease that costs the canadian government more than 20 , 000 a year per inmate to treat . ''i always let doctors , nurses and females know about my disease , '' said mr . rivet , who is serving a five year sentence for first degree manslaughter , after killing two people while driving drunk . ''but only about 50 percent of the inmates are careful , '' he added , referring to sharing tattoo needles and reusing homemade ink . the canadian experiment is being watched closely by other prison systems looking for ways to control infections . it may work best in prisons like bath , where inmates say gangs do not have a significant presence . other canadian prisons where tattoo programs are being tested , in quebec and the prairie provinces , have larger gang problems . the corrections department in the spanish province of catalonia has reviewed the guidelines used in the canadian program as it prepares to open its own pilot program . one corrections department in australia has also considered starting a pilot , and the idea could eventually migrate south of the border . ''if there was a way to demonstrate that the benefits outweigh the risks , '' said joey weedon , director of governmental affairs of the american correctional association , ''it 's certainly a model that correctional administrators in the united_states would look at and possibly attempt to copy . '' bath journal",has a topic of health
"the tracks of an epidemic are often wider and deeper than they may first appear , stretching far beyond the lives of sick patients and those who care for them . severe_acute_respiratory_syndrome has reached 30 countries infecting more than 7 , 700 people and killing more than 600 , the world_health_organization reports . its economic consequences have already been profound . in china , for instance , the economy had been expanding at a rate of 9.9 percent but is now shrinking at an annual rate of 2 percent , and investment bankers attribute the turnabout to sars . though death and economic losses from sars have been well chronicled , less has been revealed about its impact on the day to day lives and fortunes of ordinary people , who are feeling its effects . following are the voices of some of those people . the cabby driven to credit_card to pay the essentials as tourists disappear when arriving rail passengers leave toronto 's downtown union station , they are confronted by the sight of a long line of taxis and their drivers desperate for fares . it is one of the telling signs that the economic stress of sars lingers even as the disease fades . one of the drivers is harjab singh uppal , an indian immigrant who counts himself among the first victims of the collapse of the tourism_industry since the sars outbreak began here in mid march . on one recent day , mr . uppal started work at 7 30 a.m . and by 2 p.m . had made just 20 on four or five short trips . he said he would be lucky to make 70 that day , less than half his earnings on a normal day . a 59 year old father of two , mr . uppal is stoic about his misfortune . so far he has been forced to make only small changes in his life for example , no more dinners at restaurants on friday nights , ''unless my wife insists , '' he joked . but looming is the prospect of more serious changes , like missed car payments and no money to pay the mortgage , if tourists do not return soon . ''it 's getting very hard on me , '' mr . uppal said . ''for paying this month 's mortgage , i might have to go to my visa card . '' the sars outbreak has had a checkered impact on life in toronto . few people ever wore masks or changed their daily habits . but the impact was evident among those who depend on the 2 . 5 billion tourist_industry , which employs 95 , 000 people . restaurants and hotels have been almost empty because of the decline in tourists , especially after the world_health_organization put out an advisory last month warning travelers to delay unnecessary visits to toronto . the advisory was in effect for six days . mr . uppal is not optimistic that much will change in the coming summer season . local campaigns to promote the city have worked to bring locals out from their homes and into restaurants and sports venues , but they have not brought back the tourists , he said . back the tourists , he said . he estimates that there are 75 percent fewer tourists . as an independent cab_driver who owns his own car , mr . uppal is legally prohibited from driving longer hours to try and recoup some lost wages . things have never been worse , he said , adding that after 25 years on the job , he now regrets his decision to drive cabs . ''eventually , the visa will get filled up , '' he said . ''if it keeps on going the way it 's going for another two or three months , then maybe i will end up bankrupt . '' colin_campbell the sars epidemic",has a topic of health
"a group of doctors in the province of new brunswick is rattling the national health system with a first 900 number medical service , permitting canadians to dial a doc for 2 . 95 a minute for a consultation on what ails them . taking a leaf from the success of phone lines for psychics and purveyors of sex talk , 10 family doctors in the fredericton area , in southwestern new brunswick , have just set up their doctor direct line . the caller pays the fee on his or her phone bill . the phone company takes a cut and sends the balance to the doctor . under the canada health act , doctors bill the government for most services to the public . as a result , money rarely changes hands between patients and doctors . but telephone conversations are not covered , leaving doctors free to charge for such services . most do not . but some medical entrepreneurs in canada do offer recorded telephone messages for a fee on a variety of medical subjects . although doctor direct is operating within the law , the federal health minister , diane marleau , says she is concerned about its "" potential to cause pain to very vulnerable people "" who have a right to free information under the national system . "" obviously we monitor what is happening , "" she told reporters in ottawa . "" we 'd have to take some specific actions at some point in the future if it became a serious threat to the medicare system in canada . we do n't foresee that at this time . "" some fear it could widen the gap between those with and without money for medical services . the federal reaction was much harsher than that of the local authorities . the health minister of new brunswick , dr . russell king , said he saw no problem with the service , since it did not affect publicly financed care . "" the state cannot and should not be responsible for everything that people do , "" dr . king said . dr . tony wade , vice_president of the new brunswick medical society and a family doctor in bathurst , said he was "" not 100 percent sure "" such a service was really wanted , but he would not try to block it . raisa deber , a health economist at the university of toronto , said that since canadians were not used to paying for medical services , "" this is n't likely to take off , but there could be a niche market for it . "" doctor direct is not intended for medical emergencies , said dr . brian mackinnon , a fredericton doctor who co founded the service . and the doctors do not issue prescriptions or refer patients to specialists . "" it 's an informational thing , "" he said . "" three or four of us had the original idea . we had no idea we 'd get the kind of reaction we 've got . we 're very excited about it . "" since the service started late last month , it has drawn about 30 calls a day . most take up less than five minutes , but for longer calls a maximum charge of 37 applies . as an illustration of the kinds of calls they are getting , dr . mackinnon cited one from a woman on the east_coast of newfoundland , two hours away from any hospital emergency room , who wanted to know what to do about her daughter 's diarrhea . "" i was able to take a pretty good history over the phone give her advice on what to do for the next 24 hours , "" he said . "" it saved the horrendous drive . "" canadian humorists are starting to have fun with the concept . "" cough into the phone , please , "" wrote andrew younghusband , a columnist for the st . john 's , newfoundland , evening telegram , in one spoof of the idea . "" say ahhh . """,has a topic of health
"after months of speculation and rumors about the health of boris n . yeltsin , dr . michael e . debakey , the american pioneering heart surgeon , and russian doctors gave the first detailed account of his medical condition and prospects for heart surgery . dr . debakey , who was asked to consult on mr . yeltsin 's case while attending a scientific meeting that ended here today , said , ''contrary to what has been reported , he looked a lot better than the pictures suggested , and in fact his general condition is not bad at all . '' after studying mr . yeltsin 's charts and examining the patient , dr . debakey said that despite speculation , mr . yeltsin 's liver , kidneys and lungs were normal . he and the russian doctors said mr . yeltsin does have serious blockage in the arteries that feed the heart . but instead of operating immediately to restore a more normal blood flow by grafting new veins into the heart in a bypass procedure , the doctors have decided to keep the russian_president in the hospital for six to eight more weeks . one reason for delaying the operation is a hope that mr . yeltsin 's heart , apparently damaged by a heart_attack or a temporary restriction of oxygen this summer , will further stabilize . another is the need to determine the cause of recent internal_bleeding , a problem that could jeopardize his chances of surviving surgery . the bleeding , of undetermined origin , caused severe anemia , for which mr . yeltsin has received two blood transfusions in recent days . at least some of mr . yeltsin 's bleeding , which is painless , has come from the intestines , perhaps from a stress ulcer or from aspirin that mr . yeltsin was taking to help prevent formation of blood_clots that could trigger a new heart_attack , dr . debakey said . the anemia could have worsened the chest_pains , or angina , that mr . yeltsin has suffered as a result of his heart condition , doctors said . mr . yeltsin has four completely or partly blocked coronary_arteries and will need three or four grafts to bypass the blocked areas , dr . debakey said . tests show that mr . yeltsin 's heart function , which was severely_restricted by a condition known as a stunned myocardium , has improved significantly over the last month , dr . debakey said . the diagnosis of stunned myocardium means that portions of the heart muscle are not contracting properly due to a lack of blood these portions may recover in time without permanent damage . dr . debakey said that when he examined him today , mr . yeltsin was mentally alert and even joked , saying his doctors made him feel like a caged animal . but after listening to the medical facts and being told he had to extend his hospital stay , mr . yeltsin turned serious . ''he took everything manfully and calmly , '' said dr . renat s . akchurin , the surgeon who is to perform the bypass_operation . dr . akchurin trained under dr . debakey at baylor college of medicine in houston . one reason for keeping mr . yeltsin in the hospital is to control his activity . although doctors told mr . yeltsin to rest , he went hunting recently and was said to have shot 100 ducks , dr . debakey said . during the stay , mr . yeltsin will undergo a program of cardiac rehabilitation that includes lowering the cholesterol in his diet , exercise and physical_therapy to improve muscle tone . keeping mr . yeltsin waiting for weeks in the central clinical hospital here carries its own risks the blocked arteries could trigger another attack of ischemia or a heart_attack . but operating without knowing the source of the bleeding could cause fatal complications if bleeding occurred during or soon after surgery . mr . yeltsin has not suffered a stroke , dr . debakey said , contradicting a report this week in the financial_times . a former spokesman said recently that mr . yeltsin had many medical problems . rumors have long circulated that mr . yeltsin 's heavy consumption of alcohol had seriously damaged his liver and that his kidneys were failing . dr . debakey said he was ''quite impressed with the medical team , '' led by dr . andrei i . vorobyov , that is caring for mr . yeltsin . ''they are right on the ball and the tests and the facilities that they are using are the most advanced and they really know what they are doing . '' mr . yeltsin has undergone a coronary angiogram , a special x_ray test in which a chemical is injected to outline the flow of blood through the arteries nourishing the heart . it showed that mr . yeltsin has complete blockage of the right coronary_artery and severe narrowing of three other arteries the left anterior descending , the circumflex and the marginal . however , mr . yeltsin has so far escaped blockage of the left main coronary_artery , an important one in terms of the risk of sudden death . that artery ''is o.k . , '' dr . debakey said . another reason for a favorable outlook is that mr . yeltsin 's coronary_arteries are clear beyond the blockage , dr . debakey said . an assessment of the damage to the entire length of the coronary_arteries can be a critical determinant of success of a bypass_operation . dr . akchurin has said mr . yeltsin will undergo another angiogram and other heart tests before the bypass_operation . dr . debakey said there was general agreement among the doctors here in recommending postponement of the operation . dr . peter f . pasternack , a cardiologist at new york_university , said in a telephone interview that the explanation for the delay made sense . dr . pasternack said he ''would not advise elective heart surgery if there is a possibility of intestinal bleeding because it can lead to a medical disaster . '' because mr . yeltsin 's doctors will continually monitor his condition , the bypass_operation could be performed sooner if his heart condition worsens . the most puzzling aspect of mr . yeltsin 's case is the source of the bleeding that caused the recent severe anemia . a standard test showed evidence of blood in mr . yeltsin 's stool at the time he was more severely anemic . now that he no longer takes aspirin , the stool test is negative , indicating that the intestinal bleeding has stopped . but without knowing the cause , doctors fear the bleeding could recur . dr . debakey said he recommended that doctors use flexible tubes to examine mr . yeltsin 's stomach and intestines to seek possible causes of bleeding . mr . yeltsin is due to receive additional transfusions one or two units every couple of days until the tests show normal blood counts . the aim is to give the blood slowly so as not to aggravate his heart condition , which remains his most serious problem . on this score , dr . debakey gave encouraging news . mr . yeltsin has stopped taking aspirin and once the source of bleeding is determined he will start taking an anticoagulant drug , coumadin , dr . debakey said . mr . yeltsin is also taking a beta blocker and a calcium channel blocker drugs for his heart condition . mr . yeltsin has no symptoms from his heart_disease at present , dr . debakey said . initial examination showed mr . yeltsin 's heart was not enlarged , dr . debakey said . then when he examined mr . yeltsin while the president was lying flat in bed , he did not have shortness of breath , indicating he did not have congestive heart failure , when the heart cannot pump enough blood . individuals with heart_failure often have to sit up to ease their breathing . when he listened with his stethoscope to mr . yeltsin 's chest , dr . debakey said , there was no evidence of the crinkly sound known as rales , which can indicate congestive heart failure . mr . yeltsin 's electrocardiogram shows he has a normal regular heart rhythm the electrocardiogram does not show a pattern , known as q waves , that can signal destruction of heart muscle . this suggests that if mr . yeltsin has had actual heart attacks , as opposed to less severe restrictions in oxygen to the heart , they may have been mild ones . dr . pasternack , the n.y.u . cardiologist , said , ''absence of q waves at this time implies there is no big scar in the heart and indicates a better prognosis . '' the measurement that doctors consider most critical in judging a patient 's chances of surviving heart surgery is known as the ejection fraction . it represents the amount of blood that the heart pumps from the main chamber , or left ventricle . normally the fraction is about 50 to 60 percent . comparison of a recent ultrasound test known as an echocardiogram with two earlier ones showed definite improvement in the ability of mr . yeltsin 's heart to contract . a month ago mr . yeltsin 's ejection fraction was 20 percent , which alarmed his doctors . now it is about 30 to 35 percent , dr . debakey said . ''the fact that he is coming back from a stunned myocardium is a very good sign , '' he said . ''we hope that the ejection fraction might get to about 40 percent in a few weeks , and if so it will lower the risk'' of death . dr . debakey said he had invited members of dr . akchurin 's team to visit him in houston soon to learn techniques to give support to a failing ventricle , just in case mr . yeltsin develops such a complication during the bypass_operation . dr . debakey said he was ' 'very optimistic that mr . yeltsin 's operation will go well and that his heart can come back to reasonably normal if not fully normal function . ''",has a topic of health
"just 60 miles north of the sparkling , world class medical institute where president boris n . yeltsin plans to have his heart surgery , in a shabby city hospital with peeling brown paint and 20 year old heart monitors , mariya chirkova nearly died last week for lack of a heart surgeon . the elderly woman needed someone to clear her clogged arteries , but there were no local surgeons to be had . the result , her doctors say , was a heart_attack that could have been prevented . ''we could have sent her to a special hospital in moscow , but patients there wait two or three years for surgery , '' said dr . yevgeny p . mukhin , a senior medical official at the hospital . he continues to care for the frail woman , who lay huddled under orange and white blankets , seeking warmth in the chill of an unheated hospital room . ''she would be dead by then , '' he said . ''most of our patients would be dead by then . '' on wednesday , russia 's heart surgeons will convene in moscow to decide when mr . yeltsin should have a bypass_operation there , if indeed he is healthy enough to have one at all . but almost lost in the focus on the president 's surgery is the fact that in this country where early deaths from heart_disease are far more common than in the west most ordinary people suffer and die without ever gaining access to the specialized cardiac care that is now routine in many western countries . in dubna municipal hospital last week , there were no heart surgeons , no medications to help clear clogged arteries , no potent antibiotics and only 15 catheters left in the medicine cabinets . doctors here say that in the 24 bed cardiology ward in this river town of 67 , 000 , virtually every patient who needs heart surgery dies without getting it . it is the same throughout russia , reflecting years of inadequate funds and , often , substandard training . some cardiologists estimate that 98 percent of patients who need heart bypass operations in russia must live and die without them . instead , they are treated in poorly funded public hospitals like this one , with ill prepared doctors , outdated equipment and little hope of ever receiving the bypass or other cardiac procedures that can relieve crippling chest pain and improve the odds of survival . in the united_states , about 300 , 000 heart bypass operations are performed each year . in russia , where heart surgeons conservatively estimate that 150 , 000 people need such surgeries annually , only 3 , 000 are performed . and those operations are conducted only in the country 's biggest cities , forcing most people to rely on the expertise of their local doctors and their often substandard diagnostic equipment . dr . aleksandr k . velkin , the city hospital 's lanky , curly haired cardiologist , laughed as he lumbered down a dark corridor that smelled of not so savory hospital food and industrial strength disinfectant . ''the difference between our facilities and yeltsin 's facilities , '' he said , ''is like the difference between earth and sky . we try to reach the sky , but we can never quite make it . '' this is such an unquestioned truth here that doctors never bothered to tell mrs . chirkova that surgery might prevent a severe heart_attack . in fact , they tell none of their patients about the special surgeries that might save their lives . instead , they comfort them with soothing words , pat their trembling hands and send them home hopeful , clutching plastic packets of white and pink pills that will not do enough . ''it would be too cruel to tell them when this surgery is so out of reach , '' said dr . mukhin , the senior medical official . ''so we keep it inside . it is the burden we bear on our souls . '' nestled alongside the surging volga_river , the hospital is surrounded by shabby wooden houses and modest brick apartment buildings in a provincial town where goats frisk through the weeds and wrinkled women sell green apples along the twisting two lane road to moscow . this city , built in the 1950 's as a nuclear research center and home to russia 's elite physicists , turned its back on the communist_party , voting for mr . yeltsin during the presidential elections . but dubna 's city hospital , which was poorly funded even during soviet_times , has faced increasing financial strains since the collapse of the communist_state . in dubna , as in most cities , federal funding for health_care has dropped by more than 40 percent since 1991 , federal and local health officials say . and the outlook for future financing is bleak . the ministry of health requested 4 . 3 billion to support its network of 10 , 280 hospitals and 6 , 107 clinics in the coming year . it received 890 million . ''the situation is so grave that about twenty percent of the local hospitals are on the brink of closing because they do n't have enough supplies , '' said dr . yuri m . komarov , director of the research public_health institute , which collects and analyzes federal health statistics . ''there 's a lack of money for even the most basic supplies food , bedsheets and medicine . '' this means that local doctors , who decide which patients go to the big cities for free heart surgery , often lack the diagnostic equipment to make that determination . the result , cardiologists say is that many patients die because their physicians fail to recognize the severity of their condition . landing on the operating table in moscow , then , requires at least one of two things luck in stumbling across a good local doctor with up to date equipment , or coming up with as much as 20 , 000 in cash to convince a big city heart surgeon to do the job without a referral . technically , it is illegal to pay doctors for treatment here , federal health officials say . but doctors and patients say this is often the only way to jump to the top of long waiting_lists . eduard a . arutyunov , 56 , got a heart bypass_operation three weeks ago only because his brother , a businessman in greece , was willing to pay for it . worried that mr . arutyunov had been misdiagnosed by a local doctor , the brother arranged for surgery in moscow . ''there was n't a word about operations at home , '' said mr . arutyunov , a retired steelworker from a town in southern russia . ''they gave me ten injections and sent me home , telling me not to walk , not to lift heavy weights , not to smoke . ''but when i got to moscow , they discovered i had three clogged arteries and needed surgery immediately , '' he said . ''they said i had come just in time . '' but most ordinary russians , who earn only about 100 a month , find it impossible to raise such money . they must wait for referrals that often come too late . ''those who actually get to moscow , their state is horrible , their diseases have gone too far , '' said galina levina , a heart surgeon for 32 years at the russian academy of sciences' surgery center in moscow . ''sometimes we perform operations that should n't be performed . this is why the death rate is higher here than in the west . but the ones who get here are lucky . just a tiny fraction of those who need proper treatment receive it . '' some of the lucky ones end up at moscow 's city hospital number 15 , a grim , hulking 16 story building with a half dozen flyers posted near the grimy glass doors . ''for sale ! medicines for artery diseases ! '' reads one handwritten notice . ''cheaper than drugstores . '' the hospital , which performs 200 bypass operations a year , does not have enough medication on hand . patients receive a shopping list of antibiotics and painkillers that cost up to 500 . ''i 'm forced to do that , '' said mikhail alshibaya , the resident heart surgeon . ''we just do n't have enough . '' dr . alshibaya is a gum chewing , blue jean clad , balding man with spectacles revealing his blue eyes and a wry sense of humor . his patients call him ''the man with golden hands . '' he is one of russia 's leading heart surgeons , but earns 200 a month and presides over a department short on staff and supplies . some of his recovering patients take their own temperatures , noting the results on notebook paper taped to the wall beside their cots . and his nurses sometimes run out of the scissors used for cutting stitches . ''i sew coronary_arteries with a needle holder i bought from the united_states four years ago , '' dr . alshibaya said . ''it was three years old when i got it . now , it does n't always hold the needle steady . '' that frightens him . ''one careless movement , '' he said , ''and you end up with tragedy . '' dubna 's sickest heart patients would be fortunate to end up at a care center like this one in moscow , but most will never get there . so doctors in places like dubna increasingly emphasize prevention , urging patients to quit smoking , to stop drinking , to exercise regularly . as for those with serious coronary trouble , the doctors treat them with medication , ease their pain and then , as quickly as possible , erase their names and faces from memory . in their patients' hopeless quest for surgery , the doctors see what may be their own medical future . ''we are cardiologists , but our chances of getting surgery are as slim as theirs , '' said dr . mukhin , who has given up butter and tries to exercise often . ''it 's horrifying . ''",has a topic of health
"the diapers , baby bottles and formula are all packed , along with the small stuffed toy bear . "" you name it , i 'm taking it , "" said deborah nestora , 44 , who is to head to russia late saturday afternoon with her husband , nicholas , 46 , to complete the adoption of a_7 month old girl , lara . the nestoras are among the thousands of american couples who have chosen to adopt children from orphanages in russia and eastern_europe in the last few years . but with studies showing that more than half the children adopted from abroad have undiagnosed medical conditions , the nestoras are doing something distinct , taking extra steps to make sure things go smoothly . hoping to reduce the chances of being misled or misinformed , the couple turned to dr . andrew r . adesman , a child_development expert who is one of a growing number of doctors who perform international adoption counseling . dr . adesman , chief of developmental and behavioral pediatrics at schneider children 's hospital , a division of long_island jewish hospital in new hyde_park , has counseled dozens of families about the health of the children they plan to adopt . with the help of lara 's adoption agency , americans for international aid and adoption of birmingham , mich . , dr . adesman obtained video tapes of lara made at the orphanage hospital in smolensk where she was born . he sent questionnaires to doctors there . and using fax , e mail and telephone , he engaged in an international dialogue that gave the nestoras reasonable assurance that lara was healthy . lara was born on dec . 18 , nearly two months premature , in the orphanage hospital , a five hour train ride northeast of moscow , said mr . nestora , who is the director of operations for british_telecom in north_america . reports from the hospital indicated that lara was smaller than most infants , so there was immediate concern about her health . since lara has been cared for in the hospital in smolensk since birth , dr . adesman said there was a fairly complete record of her size and weight at birth and assessments of her growth . he attributed her small size to her prematurity and said that records since birth indicated a positive growth pattern . the final phase of the adoption is expected to take two weeks . but not until the documents are signed and the nestoras are on a flight back to america will they believe their long held dream has become reality . "" we 've been on an emotional roller_coaster ride for more than two years , "" mrs . nestora said in an interview in the couple 's home . "" we were all set to adopt an 8 month russian girl just a few months ago , but at the last moment , she was given to a russian family . so this time , it 's as if we ca n't let ourselves believe it 's going to really happen . "" dr . adesman said research has shown that very young children can be quite resilient and that those with early problems can catch up physically and developmentally . but he said that adoptive parents can be misled by their emotions and overlook the pitfalls of international adoption . with professional help , dr . adesman said , parents can more accurately assess a child 's potential for developmental problems . "" in some cases , this kind of help may enable parents to better assess their own suitability as parents to meet the medical , developmental and emotional needs of a particular child , "" he said in a recent interview . in other cases , he said , consultation may provide prospective parents with the reassurance that the child 's medical_history and current development do not suggest any major problems . more than 6 , 000 internationally adopted children enter the united_states each year , according to data from the united_states immigration and naturalization service . in 1994 , countries in asia , europe and latin_america provided more than 98 percent of internationally adopted children , with korea , russia , china , paraguay , guatemala and india the leading sources . while countries like korea and india and those in latin_america have developed competent pre adoption evaluation programs , dr . adesman said that eastern_europe and china have been far less successful in distinguishing between normal and abnormal development . dr . adesman said that people considering adoption in eastern_europe and china should be aware that a child whose developmental delay is attributed to the unstimulating environment of a orphanage may have defects that are broader and more difficult to remedy than reported . he works with the parents and the adoption agency to obtain accurate health records and assessments of a child 's development , something he considers critical in an overall evaluation . it is also helpful to obtain , if possible , information on the biological parents and the circumstances surrounding labor , he said . mrs . nestora said she planned to keep a diary of their smolensk trip . "" i understand lara has several brothers and sisters , and i hope the people at the hospital can tell us something about them and her mother and who her father was , "" she said . "" someday , i 'd like to tell lara about them , and the first day we saw her and held her . """,has a topic of health
"when a terminally ill woman ended her life by an illegal , doctor_assisted_suicide in 1994 , svend robinson was at her side , risking up to 14 years in prison . a socialist member of parliament elected five times from his vancouver constituency of burnaby kingsway , mr . robinson had served nine days in a work camp that same year while on another of his crusades . a judge found him guilty of criminal contempt for blocking a logging road around vancouver_island 's clayoquot sound . demonstrating then against the clearcutting of rain_forest timber , he was sentenced to 14 days , but released early for good behavior . he heckled president_reagan on nicaragua policy and "" star_wars "" while the president was speaking to parliament in 1987 . "" of course , i 'd do it again , "" mr . robinson said in a recent interview . "" i think it was important reagan understood that some canadians differed fundamentally with him on certain issues . "" mr . robinson , 44 , the first member of parliament to openly declare his homosexuality and the first to take a same sex date to the governor_general 's ball that opens the parliamentary session , is often called canada 's protester in chief . "" i try to draw attention to injustice , "" he said . he is now pressing ahead on his most agonizing struggle . he has reintroduced a bill to decriminalize doctors' efforts to assist suicides of the incurably ill . his legislative action coincides with charges recently brought against a toronto doctor specializing in aids . dr . maurice genereux is accused of helping a patient kill himself , the first doctor ever formally charged with this offense in canada though not medically trained himself , mr . robinson is fast achieving a visibility here similar to that of dr . jack_kevorkian , the retired american pathologist , who has admitted to attending the suicides of at least 30 people and who has recently been acquitted of violating michigan statutes . because of the penalties risked in canada , one of those seeking dr . kevorkian 's assistance was a canadian from windsor , austin bastable , 53 , a victim of multiple_sclerosis , who crossed into michigan in early may to achieve his goal . after a canadian supreme_court decision , the issue appears to have gone as far as it can judicially , which mr . robinson says is why he has taken his legislative initiative . the high_court in 1993 ruled 5 to 4 against decriminalizing assisted_suicides . the woman who brought this case , sue rodriguez , 43 , of victoria , suffered from amyotrophic_lateral_sclerosis , or lou_gehrig 's disease . she took her own life anyway with the illegal aid of a doctor who provided her with lethal drugs . mr . robinson , who had become friendly with ms . rodriguez during her legal battle , was at her side at her death . "" she was an extraordinarily courageous woman who put a human face on this struggle , "" he said . mr . robinson refused to tell the police the name of the doctor who assisted ms . rodriguez . the british_columbia justice ministry appointed a special_prosecutor , but after a yearlong investigation he declined to bring charges against the politician . to convict mr . robinson of assisting in the suicide , the prosecutor , robert johnston , said it would have been necessary to prove he helped administer the drug , and such proof did not exist . the supreme_court decision and the rodriguez suicide gave the matter such high prominence in canada that prime_minister_jean_chretien promised a free vote in the house of commons , meaning that members are ruled by conscience , not party_discipline . mr . robinson fears that mr . chretien will not meet his promise . "" he 's spooked by the religious right , "" he said , "" the same neanderthals who voted against the amendment to the human rights act . "" that legislation , passed in may , banned discrimination against homosexuals . "" chretien has never been comfortable taking on these social issues , "" mr . robinson said , "" but i intend to continue to raise this one and push it as far as i can . "" opinion_polls consistently show that up to three quarters of the population accept medically assisted_suicides . "" the public is light_years ahead of the politicians , "" said mr . robinson , who has been a member of parliament for 17 years . analysts say mr . robinson 's campaigns for euthanasia , environmental concerns and indigenous and gay_rights play an important role linking social movement politics to the canadian political process . "" he 's not so much a model of the process as a safety_valve , "" said richard johnston , professor of political_science at the university_of_british_columbia . mr . robinson , who was born in minnesota , calls himself "" an academic brat . "" his father , wayne , taught literature and linguistics at simon fraser university in vancouver . his mother , a danish born painter named edith jensen , was active in the vietnam peace_movement and took young svend with her while raising money for the indigenous people and canvassing for men like tommy douglas , a baptist minister who founded the socialist new democratic_party , which mr . robinson represents in the house of commons . the party was hammered in the 1993 national elections from 43 to a mere 9 of the 295 house seats . last fall mr . robinson almost won the party leadership , but at the last minute big union members rallied to a nova scotian , alexa mcdonough . "" my leadership would have represented quite a profound shift in this party , "" mr . robinson said . "" the old boys just did n't want to lose control . "" among the disappointed was james laxer , professor of political_science at atkinson college of york_university , who himself ran second for the party leadership in 1971 against david lewis . "" robinson has done more to breathe life into the ailing body of canadian social democracy than any other person , "" professor laxer said . "" he has created excitement and has attracted god forbid young people . """,has a topic of health
"when dr . hasan baiyev was summoned to his hospital in the chechen town of alkhan kala on feb . 1 , he quickly learned that it was not for an ordinary case . as russian troops tried to take the capital , grozny , chechen rebels began on jan . 31 to fight their way out . now hundreds of bloodied militants were waiting for treatment in dr . baiyev 's village southwest of grozny . they included shamil basayev , the most notorious of the chechen warlords , who was wounded as he led his fighters through a russian minefield . after administering a local anesthetic , dr . baiyev , a surgeon , amputated mr . basayev 's right leg . and soon after that , the rebels whisked their leader to safety in the caucasian mountains . dr . baiyev 's life has not been the same since . he said that he was simply carrying out the hippocratic oath and that he had treated russian soldiers as well as chechen fighters . but the operation made him a contentious figure in russia . and he soon decided that this would not be a bad time to spend some time learning about medical care in the united_states . ''nobody likes to recall that i was saving elderly civilians by the thousands , '' he said in a telephone interview from washington , d.c . ''the only thing they remember is that i was the surgeon who operated on basayev . '' many of alkhan kala 's residents had believed that they could ride out the war in the separatist southern russian region , especially since the rebels had not made the small town a center of their resistance . but chechnya is also a place where people can get into trouble by trying to avoid taking sides . dr . baiyev says he is one of them . he grew up in alkhan kala and was trained in dentistry and facial surgery in the siberian city of krasnoyarsk . he worked in a hospital in grozny but returned to his hometown in october to restore an abandoned hospital . he had a small medical team , including 20 nurses , but was the only surgeon in the town of 20 , 000 , including several thousand refugees . dr . baiyev had been harassed by both sides during the earlier war in chechnya . and this time , as russian troops advanced toward the chechen lowlands , he initially decided to flee . ''my parents and relatives kept urging me to leave , '' he said . ''but the night before i was supposed to go , i walked through the village and saw that many people were staying . they thought they could live through it . '' so dr . baiyev took his wife , three children , 86 year old father and 75 year old mother to safety in the neighboring ingushetia region and then returned to his hospital . ''i told the hospital staff nobody would pay us and that everything they were doing was strictly voluntary , '' he said . ''my plan was to stay despite the bombs and the shelling , to stay until the last minute . '' it did not take long for the war to come to alkhan kala . in mid october , the russians moved to encircle grozny and to trap mr . basayev and his fighters . alkhan kala was caught in the middle . after 17 civilians were wounded by a russian mortar attack , much of the hospital staff left . but dr . baiyev stayed on . there were also tense moments when a band of wahabis arrived in the village . this group of militants , under the command of arbi barayev , profess a strict version of islam but have been widely accused of kidnapping people for ransom . they accused dr . baiyev of treating russian soldiers , fired their weapons at the ceiling of the hospital and threatened to shoot him . dr . baiyev 's greatest test came when the thousands of militants tried to escape from the besieged chechen capital . he learned about it at 6 a.m . on feb . 1 , when he was summoned to his hospital to treat more than 300 wounded fighters . ''they arrived in the morning , '' he recalled . ''it was news to us . nobody expected it . '' for the next two days , dr . baiyev ran a one man emergency room , operating without an anesthesiologist . ''i was alone and conducted more than 100 operations during the first 24 hours , including 67 amputations and 7 skull surgeries , '' he said . ''it was very difficult . we were basically out of medicine . '' mr . basayev was the second patient . it was something of a reunion . dr . baiyev had grown up in alkhan kala with mr . basayev , whom he recalls as a quiet child who liked to play chess and later moved to the chechen mountain town of vedeno . ''he was very modest and never stood out among the school children , '' dr . baiyev said . ''he followed our national traditions and was very respectful toward elders . '' the young mr . basayev seems to bear scant resemblance to the bearded commander who led a daring raid on budyonnovsk , a town in southern russia , in 1995 during the first war in chechnya , and then spearheaded a rebel invasion of dagestan , another neighbor of chechnya , last august , proclaiming that he would establish an islamic_state in the region . that attack sparked the current war in chechnya . mr . basayev 's roots in the town added a new twist to the story of his escape from grozny . the russians say they lured the rebels into a trap . a russian intelligence agent , they say , promised the militants safe passage out of grozny in return for a bribe and then directed them toward a minefield that was bracketed by russian machine_guns . but dr . baiyev said he believed that mr . basayev decided to try to escape toward alkhan kala because he knew the terrain there like the back of his hand . either way , the rebel leader paid a heavy price . as a phalanx of fighters blocked access to the operating room , mr . basayev was brought in on a stretcher . his right foot had been torn apart by a mine . his fingers were frostbitten because he had been lying in the snow . he was also blind from the concussion effects of the explosion , a condition the doctor thinks was probably temporary . but mr . basayev was still conscious . the doctor decided to amputate part of his right leg to minimize the risk of gangrene and used a local anesthetic . ''i asked if it hurt , '' dr . baiyev recalled , ''he said , 'do your business . ' '' mr . basayev was taken away by his men . russian officials here say their intelligence reports indicate that mr . basayev is now suffering from gangrene and is being carried around on a stretcher by russian prisoners and kidnap victims . the russians also say his role as a rebel commander has diminished as a result of his condition . but there is no way to confirm those reports . for dr . baiyev , the situation in alkhan kala soon went from bad to worse . the russians were hot on the rebels' trail , and the town was in the way . his hospital was bombed , forcing him to move his operating theater into his home . on feb . 2 , russian soldiers entered the town . the rebel wounded who remained there , dr . baiyev recalled , were taken away by a pro moscow chechen militia unit under the command of bislan gantamirov , the former grozny mayor . soon , the russians came looking for the doctor , complaining to him that he had helped the rebels . later , with the help of the villagers , dr . baiyev made his way to ingushetia and later to moscow , where he lived in fear of detention . he finally decided to go to the united_states . looking back on his experiences , dr . baiyev says he was threatened by both sides for doing his duty as a doctor . he plans to return to chechnya , but for now is enjoying his study and relaxation in the united_states . ''as a citizen of chechnya , my tragedy has been to watch my people suffer , '' he said . ''a hospital should be isolated from combat operations . we were at the center of it . ''",has a topic of health
"lead with 11 , 000 participants from 87 countries , the world 's largest meeting on the aids epidemic opened here today with some optimism despite predictions that the 1990 's will be even worse than the 1980 's and that a vaccine is nowhere in sight . with 11 , 000 participants from 87 countries , the world 's largest meeting on the aids epidemic opened here today with some optimism despite predictions that the 1990 's will be even worse than the 1980 's and that a vaccine is nowhere in sight . the optimism reflected growing scientific evidence that early treatment can delay some complications of the disease and delay the progression from infection to disease in many people . it also reflected the views of several leading scientists who expect that new drugs will be developed to combat the aids virus . at present , azt is the only drug licensed for such purposes in the united_states . the opening of the conference this evening was delayed for more than an hour by a protest in the meeting hall . the associated press reported that the 200 demonstrators presented a statement urging better access to drugs to fight aids and laws prohibiting discrimination . new drugs improve outlook a co discoverer of the virus , dr . luc montagnier from the pasteur_institute in paris , said newer drugs , prescribed alone or in combination with azt , might further improve the outlook for people infected with the virus . although scientists said they had made rapid progress in understanding much about the virus and many are working toward developing a vaccine against the disease , dr . montagnier said the prospects of rapid progress seemed dim . other participants said the number of aids cases was rising and , despite steps to educate people about the epidemic , the virus was spreading throughout the world . epidemic 'out of control' at one of several meetings held today in conjunction with the main conference , dr . william r . hendee , an official of the american_medical_association , said , ''the epidemic of hiv infection is out of control in the united_states and in the world . '' hiv is the scientific name for the aids virus . dr . jonathan mann , the head of the world_health_organization 's aids program , said that worldwide , ''the decade of the 90 's will be worse than the 80 's , and that is not a pleasant message . '' the virus had a headstart when it spread silently for a decade before aids was discovered in 1981 . ''we 're making steady progress , but so is the virus , '' dr . mann said . dr . mann said the epidemic of aids virus infection was expanding both geographically and numerically . in some areas , like thailand , the virus was increasing dramatically . dr . mann said the incidence of hiv infection among drug users in bangkok was now more than 40 percent compared to 1 percent in late 1987 and 20 percent a year ago . in some areas , the incidence of hiv infection in female prostitutes reached 1 in a hundred , as against 1 in 1 , 000 several years ago , dr . mann said , and aids virus infection had been found in 70 of the country 's 73 provinces . surveys in southeastern india documented infections in 3 percent to 7 percent of prostitutes in calcutta and bombay , dr . mann said . in the ivory_coast , surveys showed a rise from 1 percent to 4 percent in the number of people infected with the virus in the last two years , and a similar pattern was occurring elsewhere in west_africa . in brazil , dr . mann said , the proportion of aids cases linked to intravenous drug use increased from 3 percent to 13 percent in one year , reflecting a new urban epidemic of cocaine use . dr . mann said counseling had become an integral part of the global strategy to control aids , but it required enormous investments of time and manpower . dr . mann also said studies were needed to document the benefits of counseling . the recent advances in treatment have expanded the demands on health_care institutions at the same time that the disease is increasing . there are five million people in the world who are believed to be infected with the virus , though they may not yet suffer any symptoms . that figure would include up to 1.5 million people in the united_states within two years , dr . mann said . according to predictions made by epidemiologists at the centers_for_disease_control in atlanta , there will be 80 , 000 new cases of aids in 1992 and 170 , 000 patients will be under treatment for clinical symptoms . the cumulative total will be 450 , 000 by the end of 1993 and one million by 1998 . a growing concern is the adequacy of health systems throughout the world to educate individuals on how to prevent infection with hiv and to care for the millions who are expected to become sick with aids in the next few years . as blood tests detect more who are infected , those people will need additional blood tests periodically to measure the progression of the infection to the disease . there will also be a need for counseling throughout the process . focusing attention on such health_care concerns , dr . hendee asked several question that he said society had a pressing need to answer , although he offered no answers who will provide the intensive health_care and counseling for the increasing number of aids patients ? who will do the testing to detect the hiv infected individuals as well as the additional tests needed to monitor their progress ? who will educate the tens of millions of adolescents who are about to become sexually_active and vulnerable to infection ? who will care for the care givers , many of whom are vulnerable to battle fatigue ? who will be the new recruits to be added to the small group now caring for aids patients ? dr . hendee said many hospitals are finding it difficult to hire enough workers to care for aids patients . a crucial unanswered question , he said , is who will pay for the care of the millions of people infected with the aids virus .",has a topic of health
"canada , traditionally north_america 's liberal bastion in the abortion war , is suddenly gripped by a polarizing debate that has gone beyond ideology to an array of violent attacks and threats . in the space of one week , a right wing politician with strong anti abortion views was elected leader of canada 's main opposition party , a vancouver gynecologist who performs abortions was stabbed in the back and a death_threat was telephoned to the leader of national trials of an abortion drug . a man claiming to represent the ''baby liberation army'' called a newspaper to claim the stabbing and to warn other abortion doctors to ''watch their backs . '' only days earlier , dr . ellen wiebe , the physician who leads the clinical_trials of the french morning after pill ru 486 , was seen on national television , discussing tests of the drug that started recently on women in vancouver and three other cities . today , she has retreated behind a police guard , refusing all interviews . her earlier television appearances prompted one anti abortion group to strong verbal criticism of ru 486 . police say her public statements may also have spurred an anti abortion activist to attack dr . garson romalis as he entered his vancouver clinic . the assailant , described as a clean shaven white man in his 20 's , escaped . dr . romalis , whose gynecological procedures include late term abortions for women whose fetuses show signs of severe birth_defects , was attacked once before , by a sniper outside his house in 1994 . after that shooting , two other canadian doctors who perform_abortions were shot and wounded . the suspect in all three cases , an american anti abortion activist named james charles kopp , is on the f.b.i . 's ten most wanted list for the 1998 killing of a buffalo , n.y. , doctor , barnett slepian . two violent attacks on the same doctor is ''unprecedented , '' said vicki sapporta , executive director of the national abortion federation , which includes 350 abortion clinics in north_america . dr . romalis is in stable condition and under police guard in a vancouver hospital . in ''nuremburg files , '' an american anti abortion web_site that lists north_american doctors who perform_abortions , the name of dr . romalis and several other doctors appear in gray , a code for ''wounded . '' dr . henry morgentaler , a gynecologist whose insistence on performing abortions led canada 's supreme_court to legalize abortion fully in 1988 , said last week that this violence has had a chilling_effect on doctors . in canada , abortion is not available in prince_edward_island and access has been reduced in five provinces . recently , he said , two doctors in guelph , ontario , a university city , stopped performing abortions . last year , about 115 , 000 abortions were performed in canada . one conservative commentator , ted byfield , wrote last month that canada 's liberal government , instead of promoting the immigration of 200 , 000 people a year , should rejuvenate canada 's aging population by encouraging women to bring unwanted pregnancies to term and to place the babies up for adoption . last week , anti abortion forces won a political boost when the canadian alliance , the nation 's largest opposition party , chose as its leader stockwell day , a former evangelical youth pastor . mr . day , who most recently was alberta 's provincial treasurer , has played down the abortion issue lately , suggesting it could be decided in an unusual national referendum . some abortion rights activists charge that mr . day 's rise has given a green_light to the violent fringe of canada 's anti abortion movement . after the stabbing of dr . romalis , mr . day condemned the use of violence , saying ''i 've been very clear , very clear on this . how would you like me to spell it out ? denounce , condemn , outrageous , untenable . '' critics were unmoved . ''we have stockwell day , an evangelical minister , a very religious right person , signing up members from the anti choice movement in canada and spouting anti choice , anti abortion rhetoric , '' marilyn wilson , president of the canadian abortion rights action league , said from her office in ottawa . '' also , he has to take some responsibility for people taking action who share his beliefs . '' mr . day 's campaign manager , jason kenney , a member of parliament for the alliance , called the accusations ' 'really outrageous . '' correction july 19 , 2000 , wednesday because of an editing error , an article in the television section on sunday about the tnt movie ''nuremberg'' misstated the title held by robert jackson before his appointment to prosecute the war_crimes trial . he was an associate justice of the supreme_court , not chief_justice .",has a topic of health
"jeffrey lucey was 18 when he signed up for the marine reserves in december 1999 . his parents , kevin and joyce lucey of belchertown , mass . , were not happy . they had hoped their son would go to college . jeffrey himself was ambivalent . ''the recruiter was a very smooth talker and very , very persistent , '' ms . lucey told me in a call from orlando , fla . , where she was on vacation with her husband and their two grown daughters last week . the conversation was difficult . ms . lucey would talk for a while , and then her husband would get on the phone . ''we see him everywhere , '' ms . lucey said . ''every little dark_haired boy you see , it looks like jeff . if we see a parent reprimanding a child , it 's like you want to go up and say , 'oh , do n't do that , because you do n't know how long you 're going to have him . ' '' the war in iraq began four years ago today . fans at sporting_events around the u.s . greeted the war and its early ' 'shock and awe'' bombing campaign with chants of ''u . s.a. ! u.s.a . ! '' jeffrey lucey , who turned 22 the day before the war began , had a different perspective . he had no illusions about the glory or glamour of warfare . his unit had been activated and he was part of the first wave of troops to head into the combat zone . a diary entry noted the explosion of a scud_missile near his unit ''the noise was just short of blowing out your eardrums . everyone 's heart truly skipped a beat . nerves are on edge . '' by the time he came home , jeffrey lucey was a mess . he had gruesome stories to tell . they could not all be verified , but there was no doubt that this once healthy young man had been shattered by his experiences . he had nightmares . he drank furiously . he withdrew from his friends . he wrecked his parents' car . he began to hallucinate . in a moment of deep despair on the christmas_eve after his return from iraq , jeffrey hurled his dogtags at his sister debra and cried out , ''do n't you know your brother 's a murderer ? '' jeffrey exhibited all the signs of deep depression and post_traumatic_stress_disorder . wars do that to people . they rip apart the mind and the soul in the same way that bullets and bombs mutilate the body . the war in iraq is inflicting a much greater emotional toll on u.s . troops than most americans realize . the luceys tried desperately to get help for jeffrey , but neither the military nor the veterans_administration is equipped to cope with the war 's mounting emotional and psychological casualties . on the evening of june 22 , 2004 , kevin lucey came home and called out to jeffrey . there was no answer . he noticed that the door leading to the basement was open and that the light in the basement was on . he did not see the two notes that jeffrey had left on the first floor for his parents ''it 's 4 35 p.m . and i am near completing my death . '' ''dad , please do n't look . mom , just call the police love , jeff . '' the first thing mr . lucey saw as he walked down to the basement was that jeff had set up an arrangement of photos . there was a picture of his platoon , and photos of his sisters , debra and kelly , his parents , the family dog and himself . ''then i could see , through the corner of my eye , jeff , '' said mr . lucey . ''and he was , i thought , standing there . then i noticed the hose around his neck . '' the luceys hope that in talking about their family 's tragedy they will bring more attention to the awful struggle faced by so many troops suffering from post_traumatic_stress_disorder and other emotional illnesses . ''we hear of so many suicides , '' said mr . lucey . ms . lucey added , ''we thought that if we told other people about jeffrey they might see their loved ones mirrored in him , and maybe they would be more aggressive , or do something different than we did . we did n't feel we had the knowledge we needed and we lost our child . '' the luceys are more than just concerned and grief stricken . they 're angry . they 've joined an antiwar organization , military families speak out , and they want the war in iraq brought to an end . ''that 's the only way to prevent further jeffreys from happening , '' ms . lucey said . mr . lucey made no effort to hide his bitterness over the government 's failure to address many of the critical needs of troops returning from iraq and afghanistan . his voice quivered as he said , ''when we hear anybody in the administration get up and say that they support the troops , it sickens us . '' op_ed columnist",has a topic of health
"stephen zimmerman prospered in the toy business during turbulent times , mainly by going against the flow . during the 70 's and 80 's , toy development and manufacturing operations increasingly shifted to asia , and one american company after another went out of business . meanwhile , mr . zimmerman thrived as an importer specializing in what the industry calls ''exiting inventories'' in other words , liquidations . he did well enough to retire 11 years ago at age 50 . two years later he made the move from plainview to east_hampton . ''i like the sun , i like to read outside , i like to walk my dog on the beach , '' he said . ''life was good . '' last year , however , he put his retirement on hold and returned to the import business . this time it is n't tonka toys and antiquated atari games he is bringing into the country , but prescription_drugs from canada . it 's an enterprise that could get him prosecuted under federal law for ''aiding and abetting a felony , '' according to the federal food and drug administration . mr . zimmerman , 61 , said his new business was prompted by outrage over the ballooning cost of the medications needed by his mother , sara , who is 90 and living in the regency adult home in glen_cove . ''i do n't like to be ripped off , '' he said . ''i do n't like to see others getting ripped off . that 's why i got into this . i do n't need the money . '' mr . zimmerman launched his new business a year after managing to halve his mother 's 500 monthly medication bills by ordering the same drugs from a web_site operated by a canadian pharmacy . he dusted off his old incorporated business , toyz marketing , and made a deal with the canadian drug store that had been sending medicines to his mother . he said he had signed up about three dozen customers so far . according to the f.d .. a. , however , he could be in violation of the food , drug and cosmetics act of 1938 that prohibits the importation of prescription_drugs into the united state . in march william k . hubbard , associate commissioner of the agency , said that anyone involved in importing drugs faced potential ''civil and criminal liability . '' mr . zimmerman said the issue should be the price of drugs in the united_states . and not country of origin , as he felt the drugs from canada were safe . ''i immediately thought that if i was saving money on this , other people could be saving money too , '' he said . working from an office in his home , mr . zimmerman is now doing business with scales drug stores , a retail pharmacy in manitoba , a third generation canadian chain now owned by brent scales . the internet helped bring the men together and now mr . zimmerman is helping mr . scales reach customers who most likely would never have made it to his web_site . ''we target people aged 55 and up , and a lot of them do n't have anything to do with the internet , '' mr . scales said . ''stephen called me up and suggested a business relationship , and how we might go about it . it made sense . '' he said that he does about 7 , 000 a month in business with mr . zimmerman , on credit_cards . according to mr . zimmerman , the drugs that mr . scales ships directly to his customers are a combination of brand name drugs and generic medications , and are identical to the drugs sold in the united_states . the drugs are manufactured in the united_states or canada , he said , and in no other countries . ''i would n't use drugs from mexico , '' he said . because canadian law caps drug prices and prohibits price bargaining , the pharmacist could not legally offer mr . zimmerman a bulk price . instead he offered an unlimited bulk rate for shipping and guaranteed 24 hour shipments . the terms allowed mr . zimmerman to carve out a_10 percent markup and still compete on price , and to offer advantageous shipment terms . ''dealing with the canadian pharmacies directly , a customer here is looking at two or three week delivery times'' over the internet , he said . ''when you need medication , you ca n't always wait that long . '' mr . zimmerman said he believed that he was not breaking any laws , either u.s . or canadian , in operating his business . he said that the retail price differential allows him to help his customers buy drugs that , in some cases , they could n't afford . ''it should n't just be people who live in canada , or near canada , who can afford medicines , '' he said . he said that in compliance with canadian law , he requires his customers to list all medicines they are taking , to guard against bad reactions . the forms are kept on file with mr . scales , he said . mr . zimmerman said he markets his business through local doctors and several nursing homes . the nursing homes , he said , send his brochure to residents' families who then contact him directly . among the first nursing homes to cooperate was the regency . ''stephen brought this situation to my attention , '' said beth dressler , the executive director . ''it is a wonderful opportunity for residents who do not have health_insurance to save money . '' of the 100 residents of the regency , about 20 have signed on , she said . that response included most of the residents who do not have insurance plans , she said . mr . zimmerman said several other customers signed on after seeing flyers that he left in the offices of his own cardiologist and internist , in southampton . customers provide credit_card and billing information , then mail in or fax mr . zimmerman their drug orders . the orders are delivered directly to their address . ) with drug costs rising about 17 percent a year , a growing number of americans , especially older residents , have been crossing the border into canada and mexico , and responding to solicitations from web_sites , advertising and direct_mail campaigns , promoting lower drug prices . by some accounts , the value of drugs imported just from canada approaches or exceeds 1 billion a year . while f.d.a . officials have said that businessmen like mr . zimmerman could face criminal and civil liability , tom mcginnis , the director of pharmacy affairs for the agency , said in an interview tuesday that the agency would probably not initiate prosecution . ''each state has a pharmacy board , and those boards have primary jurisdiction over the practice of pharmacy in their state , '' he said . ''we would be working with those boards'' in identifying and prosecuting importers , he said . mr . mcginnis said he expected those boards would be more aggressive in going after drug import businesses . ''i expect more state boards to take action , '' he said . in march , the bush_administration said it would take legal action against health plans and insurance_companies involved in importing drugs from canada . the administration echoed concerns voiced by the f.d.a . about safety issues , as well as fears that the imports could conceal terrorist activity . chuck newman , 69 , a retired computer systems manager in noyac , said that a nurse handed him mr . zimmerman 's flyer at the end of a visit to his doctor 's office t last year . he has been buying blood_pressure pills through mr . zimmerman for seven months now , he said , paying 110 for a three month supply . previously , he had been paying 285 for the same quantity of pills . ''you hear stories that this drug company or that is raising concerns about drug safety , and so on , '' mr . newman said . ''but come on , give me a break . whether it comes from canada or california , it 's the same thing . '' l.i . work correction may 25 , 2003 , sunday the l.i . work column on may 11 , about an east_end man who manages a pharmaceuticals import business , carried an erroneous byline . the writer was warren strugatch , not warren strength .",has a topic of health
"mikhail i . yermakov , a retired engineer , has never before taken to the streets to protest not when the soviet_union collapsed , the wars in chechnya began , the ruble plummeted in 1998 or president vladimir v . putin last year ended his right to choose his governor . on saturday , however , he joined hundreds of others in the central square of this gritty industrial city on the edge of moscow in the latest of a weeklong wave of protests across russia against a new law abolishing a wide range of social benefits for the country 's 32 million pensioners , veterans and people with disabilities . demonstrations were held in at least three other cities in the moscow region , in the capital of tatarstan and , for the fourth straight day , in samara in central russia . in st . petersburg , several thousand demonstrators blocked the city 's main boulevard , with some calling for mr . putin 's resignation . taken together , the protests are the largest and most passionate since mr . putin came to power in 2000 . they appear to have tapped into latent discontent with mr . putin 's government and the party that dominates parliament , united_russia . ''it is spontaneous , and this is the most dangerous thing for the authorities , '' said mr . yermakov , 67 , as speakers denounced the government from a step beneath a hulking bust of lenin . ''it is a tsunami , and united_russia does not understand that it is going to hit them . '' the law , which took effect on jan . 1 , replaced benefits like free public transportation and subsidies for housing , prescriptions , telephones and other basic services with monthly cash payments starting at a little more than 7 . in a sign of bureaucratic inefficiency , some of those eligible have yet to receive any payments . mr . putin and united_russia 's leaders have defended the law as an important reform ending a vestige of the old soviet communist system , but they clearly failed to anticipate the depth of opposition from those who relied most on the subsidies millions of russians living on pensions of less than 100 a month . the protesters have denounced the payments as insufficient to cover the cost of the benefits and as miserly for a country that recently reported a budget surplus of nearly 25 billion . as the protests unfolded in city after city across russia , the patriarch of the russian_orthodox_church , aleksei ii , who typically allies himself with what is known here as ''the party of power , '' questioned the law and the government 's handling of it . ''what counts is that this policy should be fair and effective , '' he said in a statement on thursday . ''it should be met with understanding by the people . the latest events show that these principles are not observed in full . '' aleksei p . kondaurov , a communist member of the lower_house of parliament , said the law and the protests underscored the shortcomings of the political system that had evolved under mr . putin , one dominated by united_russia , which has refused to debate with opposition_parties , let alone compromise with them . ''it was clear that it was not carefully calculated , '' mr . kondaurov said of the new law in an interview . mr . kondaurov predicted the protests would grow and spread to other pressing social issues , which he said mr . putin 's government and united_russia were ignoring . at a minimum , the protests have raised doubts about mr . putin 's other proposed reforms , including those in banking , housing and electricity , which were supposed to be the centerpieces of his second term . ''it 's not going to be like ukraine , '' mr . kondaurov said , drawing a parallel , as some have here , to the far larger demonstrations that overturned the election there for president in november . ''but it is clear to me that a political and economic crisis is taking shape in russia . '' after first brushing off the protests , united_russia 's leaders have begun scrambling to respond . they have accused the communists and other parties of inflaming tensions and have tried to deflect blame to regional governments , which they say are responsible for implementing the benefit changes . some local_governments , most prominently the moscow city administration , have vowed to reinstate the benefits stripped at the federal level , but few other regions are wealthy enough to afford to do so . on friday , the chairman of parliament 's social and labor committee , andrei n . isayev , said that next week , lawmakers would consider raising pensions by 15 percent in february , rather than 5 percent in april , as now planned . others in united_russia have also tried to distance themselves from mr . putin 's new government , which has been in place for only 10 months . the deputy speaker of parliament , lyubov k . sliska , said friday that she did not rule out the dismissal of prime_minister mikhail y . fradkov and his cabinet . but the protests have continued to grow . they began quietly , with a rally organized by the communist_party in solnechnogorsk , near moscow , on jan . 9 , the 100th_anniversary of the 1905 uprising . a day later , here in khimki , several hundred people briefly blocked the main highway to st . petersburg in what several of those involved called a spontaneous uprising . after a scuffle with the police , 12 elderly protesters were arrested , but initial threats to prosecute them were quickly dropped . since then the protests have erupted in at least a dozen other cities , drawing thousands . in tula , 110 miles south of moscow , aging protesters clashed with bus conductors who refused to allow them to board city transport without paying , prompting the city to post police officers on the buses . in novosibirsk , in siberia , a dozen pensioners mailed their cash payments for transit the equivalent of a little more than 3 to boris v . gryzlov , the leader of united_russia and parliamentary speaker , according to the regnum news_agency . the protesters here in khimki 's central square on saturday represented those who have fared the worst in russia 's post_soviet transition . mr . yermakov 's monthly pension equals roughly 85 a month . as a resident of the moscow region , a separate administration from that of the city government , he qualified for a supplement of 7 to replace the subsidies lost under the new law . the bus fare for three trips to the small tract of land he is allowed for planting a vegetable garden , four miles away , will take nearly half that amount . vladilena t . berova , whose given name is an homage to vladimir lenin , served at the end of world_war_ii as a corporal in soviet_intelligence and went on to work as a psychotherapist for five decades in moscow . now 78 and widowed , she survives on 2 , 000 rubles a month , about 71 . ''the fascists took my youth , '' she said , referring to the war . ''and now these people are taking away my old age . '' the protests have included something still rare in today 's russia personal criticism of mr . putin , who has remained popular by projecting an image of stability , one carefully protected by officials and state television . ''instead of listening to us , he is listening to an organ , '' mr . yermakov said , referring bitingly to mr . putin 's participation in the unveiling of a newly restored organ in st . petersburg on friday with germany 's president , horst k hler . the benefits law has already been credited , at least in part , with a slip in mr . putin 's ratings , as well as a general decline in the public 's mood . a poll by the levada center , released on saturday , said that only 39 percent of russians considered mr . putin the most trusted politician . that is still higher than anyone else , but a drop from 58 percent a year ago . sergei y . glazyev , a member of parliament who challenged mr . putin during the election for president last year , said in an interview that ''the people 's struggle for social rights'' should be decided in a national referendum , rather than imposed by the kremlin and its governing party . voters , he said , had been fooled . ''a majority of those who voted for putin , '' he said , ''had a quiet different expectation of what they would get . ''",has a topic of health
"russia 's top government aids expert offered a harrowing assessment of the disease 's spread today , saying that at least a half million russians now carry the h.i.v . virus and that the true number could range as high as 1.5 million , or more than 1 percent of the overall population , which is about 147 million . more ominous still , he said , foreign experts now say the total number of people infected could surpass seven million 1 in every 25 russians in as few as five years . the report , by vadim v . pokrovsky of the russian center for aids prevention and treatment , buttressed earlier warnings by global aids experts that the number of h.i.v . infections in russia is in danger of rising out of control , with severe consequences for the country 's demographics and labor force . already , he said , the official totals of h.i.v . infections in some major russian cities surpass 1 percent of the population , with unreported cases boosting the figures far higher . ''five to seven years from now , we will have the number of people dying of aids equal to that dying in different transport accidents , '' mr . pokrovsky said at a news conference here . ''this is to say that it will become an ordinary phenomenon . '' mr . pokrovsky added ''the problems related to h.i.v . infection are like a snowball , and the longer we look at how it rolls down the slope , the larger it will be when it stops if we do not come out altogether to stop this avalanche . '' russia first began recording h.i.v . infections only in the mid 1990 's , some 15 years after the epidemic surfaced in the united_states . yet the high estimate of h.i.v . infections among russians here 1.5 million already is nearly twice the 850 , 000 americans believed by the centers_for_disease_control to carry the h.i.v . virus . the united_states' population is almost twice that of russia . secretary of state colin l . powell raised public concerns about the spread of aids here during a visit to moscow on may 15 , and united_nations experts have repeatedly warned that russia faces a potential catastrophe if h.i.v . begins to spread beyond the group that is most often infected , intravenous_drug_users , to the general population . the nation 's health ministry said last november that reports of new infections had fallen by nearly half during 2002 , thanks largely to a drop in heroin supplies caused by the war in afghanistan . but mr . pokrovsky delivered an opposite message today . while reports of new infections among drug users have begun to tail off , he said , that is only because the disease has begun to saturate the population of addicts who share needles . ''but the rate of sexual transmission of h.i.v . is growing , '' he said . ''while in 2001 we knew exactly that 4 percent got the infection through sexual_intercourse , in 2002 almost 12 percent got infected sexually . '' one result is that a third of new h.i.v . cases were recorded last year among women , up from a quarter in 2001 . another is that the number of babies born to h.i.v . positive women at least doubled between 2001 and 2002 . an unchecked spread of the aids virus poses unusually severe threats to russia because of the country 's skewed demographics . the country 's population is inexorably falling experts say it could fall to 80 to 120 million by 2050 and russia is expected to face a labor shortage in future decades in part due to already high mortality_rates among working age men . because h.i.v . infections are predominantly striking young russian men most cases are recorded among males between ages 15 and 30 the drop in the work force should accelerate as these cases mature into aids and death rates start to rise in the next 10 years . in some major provinces , including samara in southwestern russia and irkutsk in siberia , up to 8 percent of people aged 15 to 25 already carry the h.i.v . virus , mr . pokrovsky said today . that could further crimp russia 's birthrate , which already has fallen to historic_lows , as people in those age groups develop aids . the russian government has allotted roughly 38 million in 2003 to combat h.i.v . and aids , and the world_bank has agreed to lend the government an additional 150 million for anti aids programs .",has a topic of health
"if dr . bill frist , the senate_majority_leader , knows what 's good for the body politic , he will allow a quick floor vote on the drug reimportation bill he has been bottling up for the benefit of president_bush and the pharmaceutical_industry . a large majority up to 75 members , by some estimates would easily pass the bill and delight the organized older voters who have been clamoring for lower priced canadian drugs . american consumers are increasingly aware that their average drug prices are 67 percent higher than what canadians pay for comparable prescriptions . bipartisan senate pressure is growing on dr . frist , along with threats of the sort of floor rebellion that saw the republican house rise up last year to pass a drug reimportation plan over mr . bush 's opposition . mr . bush continues to express concern about potential safety risks from imported drugs while insisting that the new medicare subsidy for prescription_drugs will eventually ease the pocketbook pain of dissatisfied retirees . dr . frist also continues to express concern about the need to weigh the benefits of lower prices against possible safety risks . but this concern is addressed in the pending bipartisan bill , which mandates that the bargain drugs would come from licensed canadian pharmacists and wholesalers registered with the federal food and drug administration . the real issue appears to be to avoid forcing mr . bush to choose between signing the bill and angering the drug industry , which donates mightily to g.o.p . campaigns , or vetoing it and infuriating older voters . this page has supported the medicare drug plan , but with the imperative that the administration work harder to restrain costs , however much the pharmaceutical lobby complains . the reimportation bill is a promising cost saver .",has a topic of health
"prime_minister paul_martin gained a major victory for his flagging government early thursday by reaching an agreement with provincial and territorial leaders that would substantially increase federal spending for canada 's ailing 60 billion national health_care system . after three days of contentious negotiations , the officials agreed to send 14 billion in federal money over six years to the 13 provinces and territories that administer health_care , with guarantees of additional 6 percent annual increases through 2015 . still , the agreement will fall far short of fulfilling mr . martin 's upbeat pledges in the recent election campaign to ''fix the system for a generation , '' since the increases in spending will barely keep up with rising costs . it will also cut into the government 's capacity to manage growing urban problems like homelessness , and to fulfill promises to improve education and rebuild the armed_forces , especially if the currently robust economy slows . but mr . martin was beaming during his announcement just after midnight , describing the agreement as a new day for the health_care system , which for many canadians is a source of pride , an institution that defines the national character . ''it will improve access to health_care professionals so canadians can see a doctor when they need to and where they need to , '' said mr . martin , who is struggling to build some momentum after barely winning a parliamentary plurality for his liberal_party in the june election . much of the meeting in ottawa between mr . martin and the provincial and territorial premiers was televised , and it highlighted stark shortcomings in the health_care system , including the growing shortage of doctors and nurses , the lengthening of waits for cancer care and surgery , and the mounting cost of drugs for an aging population . but few original proposals were offered by either federal or provincial officials amid arguments over federal spending levels , which were cut in the mid 1990 's when ottawa took stringent measures to reduce its budget_deficits . mr . martin made improving health_care the centerpiece of his election campaign , although he avoided discussions of a fundamental restructuring of the national_insurance system under which the government pays for basic patient health costs . he promised to increase federal health_care spending , deal with growing waiting times for basic services and significantly expand federal aid for home_care and prescription_drugs . the agreement reached thursday should go a long way toward fulfilling those pledges , but critics say that it is only a stopgap solution and that leaders are likely to have to return to the bargaining table in a few years to pump even more money into the system . ''what it does is put the patient the health_care system on life_support , but it does not put it on the road to full recovery , '' said senator michael j.l . kirby , an influential liberal who led a commission that studied health_care two years ago . he said he regretted that the officials did not consider restructuring how health_care was delivered , even if this entailed allowing private clinics to provide services to those willing and able to pay . ''the way health_care is structured is unsustainable , '' senator kirby concluded , adding that the country should also consider a national health_care insurance premium . mr . martin pressed the premiers to agree to national targets on waiting times , but the benchmarks reached were vague , especially for quebec , the second largest province . the long term financial well being of the health_care system is threatened by the aging population and the rising costs of technology and drugs . health_care expenditures have grown from 7 percent of national economic output in 1975 to 10 percent today , forcing increasingly indebted provincial governments to cut financing for education , housing and other social programs that also affect life_expectancy . the cost of the public_health system is growing at a rate of 7 percent a year , while all government revenues are only growing by 5 percent . to make up for the shortfall , privatization of medical services is creeping into the system in several provinces . the nation 's first private emergency clinic is opening in quebec next month . faced with yearlong waiting_lists for elective_surgery , the alberta government is considering allowing the establishment of private joint replacement clinics . ''events are overtaking the politicians , even if they refuse to acknowledge it , '' the conservative national_post argued in an editorial on thursday . correction september 18 , 2004 , saturday a picture caption yesterday with an article about the canadian government 's agreement to increase spending for the national health_care system misspelled the name of an official involved and misstated his title . the official , shown with prime_minister paul_martin , was dalton mcguinty , not mcginty he is the premier of ontario . ( ottawa , the national capital , is in that province . )",has a topic of health
"ontario health officials said today that they were concerned over a new cluster of suspected sars cases , perhaps as many as 15 , in a hospital an hour 's drive east of toronto . officials said 15 people who had received dialysis at the lakeridge health center in whitby had contracted pneumonia . although there is no obvious connection to any previous patient with severe_acute_respiratory_syndrome , james young , the province 's commissioner of public security , said , ''we have to assume in these days they are sars and take precautions . '' dr . donald low , chief of microbiology at mount_sinai_hospital in toronto , told the canadian press news_agency that he was concerned about the large number in the new cluster . ''it does n't bode well for the number of cases that we 'll expect to see'' in the coming days , he said . ''this number of people suggests that one person has infected three or four , and those three or four have infected another three or four . '' officials said it would take a few days before results showed definitively if the 15 dialysis patients had sars . they have been put into isolation , and family members and other people they have been in contact with have been put in quarantine at home . the authorities are scrambling to find the epidemiological link to the possible new cluster , to contain a broader possible outbreak . concerns that severe_acute_respiratory_syndrome may be spreading here again emerged over the weekend when more than 20 mothers and their newborn babies were put in quarantine after they came in contact with a toronto medical student only two days after his 10 day quarantine had ended . since the disease first appeared here three months ago , 33 people have died and more than 200 have been infected . it has taken a heavy economic toll on the city , particularly after the world_health_organization issued a warning to travelers in april . that warning lasted only a week , and until three weeks ago health officials thought the disease had been brought under control . but then a second outbreak occurred , and the brushfires continue . the new report of another possible outbreak comes as toronto officials are struggling to save the summer tourism season , hoping to arrange a rolling_stones concert to draw a large crowd and publicity . hotels and restaurants are complaining that the disease has hurt business and led to thousands of layoffs . efforts to encourage tourism have not been helped by demonstrations by local nurses accusing hospitals of not being thorough enough in their efforts to control the disease . the toronto_star today published a leaked ontario health ministry memo sent to hospitals in the area saying they were not fully complying with government directives on reporting suspected and probable cases of sars to the health authorities . ''failure to comply with these requirements may put individuals in our community at risk of being infected with the sars virus , '' the memo said . while canada struggled with its new outbreak , along with taiwan , which is also facing new cases , there was good news in beijing , the city hardest hit by sars . the associated press reported today that thousands had come out to visit the national_library , which reopened today after having been closed in april . the a.p . said readers were checked for fever and urged to wear_masks before being allowed to use the sterilized books .",has a topic of health
"if the struggle over health_care is a struggle for the soul of the president and his party , representative jim cooper is yanking in one direction and representative_jim_mcdermott is pulling in the other . mr . cooper of tennessee , young tribune of the new democrats , urges president_clinton to go slow , to turn away from the lure of big_government even if it means forsaking the goal of universal coverage . mr . mcdermott , an amiable liberal from seattle , who was practicing psychiatry while mr . cooper was still prepping at groton , urges the president to stay committed to the goal of universal coverage not someday but now and to recognize that a straightforward government insurance program like canada 's is the best way . hot in washington mr . cooper is very hot in the capital . mr . mcdermott and his cause the less than grandly titled single_payer movement have been regarded by many as a charming anachronism , the earth shoes of health_policy . "" right now , if you read the newspapers , you 'd think it was cooper vs . the president , "" mr . mcdermott grumbles . in a meeting at the white_house on wednesday night , mr . mcdermott and some allies served notice that they were still very much in the game . it is , in fact , easy to underestimate the single_payer influence in the house and wrong . mr . mcdermott has 90 democratic co sponsors for his health_care bill in the house mr . cooper has a total of 57 in both parties . supporters of a canadian style health system are scattered across the ways and means committee , the education and labor committee , the energy and commerce committee , all places where they can make their influence felt as the legislative process begins . they are the democratic base for health_care overhaul , a sturdy counterweight to efforts to push mr . clinton to the right . at the very least , they expect mr . clinton to live up to his promise of guaranteeing coverage to all . "" it 'll be the single_payer people in the subcommittees who will keep universal coverage from being phased in over 45 years , "" said one democratic strategist on capitol_hill , a clinton backer who spoke on condition of anonymity . in fact , after mr . mcdermott 's meeting with the president and his top health advisers this week , the congressman declared , "" i think the president understands that he cannot pass any version of health reform without our votes , and that he is not going to get our votes by simply making more compromises with those who do not share his basic goal of universal health_insurance coverage for all americans . "" at best , they hope that the sheer complexity of the clinton plan with its quasi_governmental insurance purchasing pools and its mix of market and regulatory forces will drive new supporters into their ranks . mr . mcdermott said "" i think that ultimately the president will sign a bill that will be quite a bit different from what he produced . "" but will it be more like mr . cooper 's , or more like yours ? "" more like us , "" mr . mcdermott asserts . many who disagree there are many who disagree , but on a quiet morning in his office on capitol_hill , the 57 year old congressman seems engaged in something other than political bluffing . he is padding about his office , searching for an account of the practice of bloodletting in revolutionary america and the role it played in the death of george_washington he wants to use it in an article he is writing about health_care restructuring for the journal of the american_medical_association . it is all a matter of faulty and unexamined beliefs , mr . mcdermott explains , with the congenial manner of a shrink turned pol a belief that bloodletting worked , a belief that government does not . "" we have this belief in this country that government ca n't do anything right , "" he says . "" we 've had 12 years of people selling that idea from the white_house . "" that , in turn , leads to a conviction that a single_payer system is "" politically not doable , "" mr . mcdermott argues , a determination that the clinton_administration made early on . "" they simply said , what will the american people buy ? and they said , they wo n't buy a government program . so they designed their program around public polls , not about what was the best public_policy . and i 'm willing to argue about that . "" a polite response more in sorrow than in anger , the congressman says , "" the president has so much power to shape public opinion , and he 's so good at it . i think he could have sold single_payer . i really , honestly do . "" the administration responds politely . "" clearly they 're a crucial bloc of very committed legislators who have been fighting for health_care for a very long time , "" said george_stephanopoulos , the presidential adviser . "" we 're not taking them for granted , we want to work with them , we consider them allies . "" there have been many versions of single_payer systems proposed over the years the main characteristic is that the government essentially replaces the health_insurance companies , doing away with private insurance premiums , raising taxes and using them to pay for medical care . in mr . mcdermott 's plan , the federal_government would define the standard benefit package which would include such extensive benefits as long term nursing home_care and people would pay for it through a payroll deduction . employers would pay 8.4 percent of payroll , small employers 4 percent and employees would pay 2.1 percent of wages or salary . mr . mcdermott argues that most people would end up saving money under this plan , because it would replace what is currently paid to insurance_companies including huge administrative costs . hearing the objections mr . mcdermott says he has heard all the objections to a single_payer system fear of government , fear of vast new taxes , fear of rationing . the rationing issue , he says , is particularly powerful , and , he asserts , particularly unjustified . "" people do n't look at what 's going on in this system right now , in terms of rationing , "" mr . mcdermott says . "" if you have a hernia operation , you do n't get to stay in the hospital overnight . they hand you a bottle of pills and send you home after your surgery . women have a baby they get sent home the same day they have the baby . "" that 's rationing done by insurance_companies , right now in this country , it 's happening all the time . "" mr . mcdermott has the physician 's full measure of disdain for insurance_companies . this , in fact , gives much of the power to his arguments he straddles the divide between those who write health_policy and those who live it . he was a psychiatrist for two decades in a variety of settings from a private practice to the seattle king_county jail to the foreign service in zaire , where he worked with american personnel in sub_saharan_africa . before coming to congress in 1988 , he served 15 years in the washington state legislature , where he worked on legislation to provide low cost insurance to low income and unemployed people . he was appointed to the ways and means subcommittee on health in 1992 . the single_payer movement is often faulted for its political naivete , and there is some grumbling in the house that mr . mcdermott could be more aggressive and more strategic in pressing his case . he is , in fact , less artful in political positioning than mr . cooper . an excess of politics but mr . mcdermott argues that the administration suffers from an excess of politics . the recent report by robert reischauer , director of the congressional_budget_office , actually did the administration a favor when it ruled that the clinton plan was , in fundamental ways , a government program financed by government receipts , mr . mcdermott said . "" he forced them out in the open , "" mr . mcdermott said . "" he said , 'come on , this thing costs money . why do n't you just admit it , and put it up on the table , and do n't try to confuse people about how you 're going to get this for free . i mean , that 's just baloney , and every american knows it . "" in the middle of all this maneuvering , mr . mcdermott said he and other single_payer advocates cling to the president 's promise of universal coverage as a fundamental right . everybody in the health_care debate has anecdotes , and as mr . mcdermott sums up he was leaving the hospital one night when he was called back to consult in the intensive_care_unit , where a 45 year old man who had just had a heart_attack was demanding to leave the hospital . "" so i went and talked to him , and he said , 'look , if i stay here at 1 , 000 a day , if i live , i 'm going to be broke , because i do n't have insurance . and if i die , my family 's going to be broke . so why the hell not get out of here ? ' "" mr . mcdermott added with a small smile , "" he was totally sane . he knew where he was , what was happening to him . he was not the least bit out of touch . """,has a topic of health
"during a routine self examination last may , shirley magee found a lump on her breast . within weeks she had it and some lymph nodes removed . so far so good , until it came to the follow up therapy . mrs . magee , a 55 year old public_school secretary , researched her condition on the internet , and read that optimally , radiation treatment should begin two weeks after surgery . but the local provincial government clearinghouse that manages the waiting time for radiation therapy told her she had to wait until the end of september nearly three months after her surgery to begin treatment . ''i was supposed to feel lucky i got in so quickly , '' said mrs . magee , still viscerally annoyed though she has since successfully completed her radiation regime . ''it 's a horrible feeling that something in your body is ticking that you have no control over . if i were a politician 's wife i would n't have had to wait . '' long heralded for giving all canadians free health_insurance and paying for almost all medical expenses , the health_care system founded in the 1960 's has long been the third rail of canadian politics not to be touched by private hands , nor altered by parliament . but growing complaints about long lines for diagnosis and surgery , as well as widespread ''line jumping'' by the affluent and connected , are eroding public confidence in canada 's national health_care system and producing a leading issue for next year 's national elections . a recent government study indicated that 4.3 million canadian adults or 18 percent of those who saw a doctor in 2001 reported they had difficulty seeing a doctor or getting a test or surgery done in a timely fashion . three million canadians are unable to find a family physician , according to several private studies , producing a situation all the more serious since it is the family doctor who refers patients to specialists and medical testing . ''the sky is n't falling but things are not rosy , '' said dr . dana w . hanson , president of the canadian medical association . ''nevertheless if things are not fixed , the sky may fall . '' canada spends 66 billion a year on health_care only the united_states , germany and switzerland spend more as a proportion of total economic output but budget cutbacks since the early 1990 's have impeded efforts to keep health_care up to date . a recent report by the senate 's standing committee on social affairs , science and technology indicates that well over 30 percent of the country 's medical imaging devices are obsolete . overworked technology is one reason for the long lines others include a shortage of nurses and inefficient management of hospital and other health_care facilities , according to several studies . waiting times have also increased because an aging population has put more demands on the system , while the current generation of doctors is working fewer hours than the last . waiting can occur at every step of treatment . a study by the conservative fraser institute concluded that patients across canada experienced average waiting times of 16 . 5 weeks between receiving a referral from a general_practitioner and undergoing treatment in 2001 2002 , a rate 77 percent longer than in 1993 . the recent senate report noted that waiting times for m.r.i. , c.t . and ultrasound scans grew by 40 percent since 1994 . ''waiting_lists are the hornets' nests that are jeopardizing the system , '' said dr . tirone e . david , professor of surgery at the university of toronto . he noted that ontario residents needed to wait an average of two months to see a cardiologist unless it was an emergency , queues for angiograms took four to six weeks , and waiting times between initial examination and micro valve repairs could take as long as six months . ''it was n't that way 15 years ago , '' dr . david added . ''it does not alter the ultimate outcome , but there 's an anguish and uncertainty when a person feels their life is in a holding pattern for up to a year . '' defenders of the canadian system note that only patients waiting months for nonemergency care , like treatments for cataracts and hernias , skew the waiting time statistics . and they argue that with a life_expectancy of 79 years , canadians still enjoy one of the longest life expectancies in the world , slightly higher than the united_states where 41 million people have no health_insurance . still , recent polls show that while canadians want to keep their national system , they are worried about its future effectiveness . ''i do n't think there 's a lot of patience among the public for a lot more study , '' said deputy prime_minister john_manley in a recent interview , noting that his own driver needed to wait a year for hip_replacement surgery . ''there 's not a lot of time to deal with it . '' in response to the growing concerns , prime_minister_jean_chr_tien and the senate conducted studies of the system that concluded in recent months that shortages of doctors , nurses and diagnostic equipment had caused at least some deterioration of care over the last 10 years . seeking a legacy in his final year in office , mr . chr tien agreed last week to spend over 9 billion more over the next three years on programs to improve diagnostic equipment , primary_care , drug coverage and home_care . but the provincial and territorial premiers say that is n't nearly enough to alleviate shortages of services , particularly in rural areas . the system 's shortfalls have opened the way for tentative but growing moves toward privately managed medical services and user fees in return for quicker service . a hospital in montreal has begun charging fees for some surgical procedures and renting operating rooms to patients for several hundred dollars an hour . a vancouver hospital has begun selling full body c.t . scans for 660 . in an effort to reduce waiting_lists , the provinces of alberta , nova_scotia and ontario have established about 30 private m.r.i . and c.t . clinics , some of which offer nonemergency services to be paid for by private insurance . ''with the system cracking at the edges and waiting_lists growing , people will eventually say 'all right , let me pay , ' '' said dr . tom mcgowan , president of canadian radiation oncology services , canada 's first for profit cancer radiation treatment center , which has treated nearly 2 , 000 patients since it opened in toronto two years ago . ( patients still pay nothing at the radiation clinic dr . mcgowan is paid by the province and receives bonuses if he surpasses productivity targets . ) the ontario provincial government allowed dr . mcgowan to open his night clinic after it was forced to send 1 , 650 cancer patients to the united_states for radiation treatments during a 25 month period in 2000 and 2001 because of waiting_lists that were up to 16 weeks long . dr . mcgowan said the emergency , which cost the province 20 million in travel costs , was not rooted in a shortage of equipment nor staff but inefficient public management . whatever the reasons , his patients are quick to tell horror stories about their waits for diagnostic_tests and treatment . ''your worst fear is it is going to grow while you are waiting , '' said pat mcmeekin , a 53 year old hospital clerical worker , recalling the two months she had to wait between a mammogram and the first of two biopsies confirming she had breast_cancer last summer . ''when you have something , you want to take care of it and be done with it . ''",has a topic of health
"when united_nations weapons inspectors raced up to the gates of a scruffy industrial plant on the southern outskirts of baghdad today they were met , amid the listless palm trees and acres of bare earth , by a large , green painted sign at the gate with a deceptively innocuous legend . ''general establishment for animal development , '' the sign read , in english and arabic , and underneath ''animal health development . foot_and_mouth_disease vaccine production laboratory . '' but the plant at al_dawrah has as sinister a history as any on the weapons inspectors' list of about 1 , 000 sites across iraq sites the inspectors plan to search painstakingly . al_dawrah 's story took a sharp turn in 1995 , when mr . hussein 's son in law , gen . hussein kamel , then in charge of all of iraq 's nuclear , biological and chemical_weapons programs , defected to neighboring jordan with millions of dollars of government money . among the secrets he took with him was confirmation of a huge biological_weapons program that iraq had insistently denied , with al_dawrah as one of the principal production plants . general kamel was later lured back to baghdad , where within days , he and several members of his family , taking refuge in his sister 's luxurious villa , were killed in a furious shootout . but al_dawrah became a focal_point of the earlier round of united_nations weapons inspections . those inspections were terminated in december 1998 , over iraq 's persistent noncompliance . by that time , however , the united_nations specialized teams had determined that al_dawrah had produced , among other things , at least 1 , 425 gallons of botulinum_toxin . when the new round of inspections began on wednesday , al_dawrah was high on the list for an early morning , unannounced , arrive at high speed search . one reason was that the iraqis never accounted for all the botulinum , which kills by paralysis and suffocation . another was that a british_government document issued this summer named al_dawrah as a site where there was a suspicion of renewed activity . by the time the inspectors left the plant today , after four hours , they had concluded that the plant was no longer operational not for the production of toxins , and not for animal vaccines either . reporters who were allowed to wander through the plant after the inspectors left found the place largely in ruins . apparently , it had been abandoned by the iraqis after 1996 , when the weapons inspectors took heavy cutting equipment to the fermenters , containers and pressurized tubing and valves used in the toxin production . the darkened rooms of the compound 's main building were little more than a garbage site , with mangled lengths of steel , document files strewn about to collect dust and piles of pressure valves and severed pipes . the inspectors , bearing clipboards , tape_recorders , cameras and flashlights , spent much of their time scouring outbuildings , taking swab samples from air filtration systems and , in the case of one inspector , clambering to the top of a_20 foot tank , then nodding to his colleagues as if to confirm that he had found what he expected . equipment judged not to have been used in the toxin production , they found , had been left untouched . al_dawrah 's director , montasser omar abdel_aziz , had been summoned to the plant by aides after the inspectors began their search shortly before 9 a.m . later , he told reporters , somewhat testily , that the inspectors had found exactly what iraq had predicted when it said , repeatedly in recent months , that it had abandoned all its banned weapons programs . ''you can enter inside , all there are destroyed , '' he said , speaking in english . ''nobody can do nothing inside . now , nothing . just a store . '' the weapons inspectors agreed with the iraqi official , but only up to a point . as they had on wednesday , when they began their inspections by visiting a missile engine factory , an adjacent graphite plant and a motor production complex , the leaders of the inspection_teams acknowledged that the iraqis had placed no impediments in the way of their work . it is a point much emphasized by iraqi officials , who have encouraged foreign reporters to follow the inspection_teams and roam freely about the plants afterward . ''we had no problem with access , '' said demetrius perricos , the 67 year old greek chemical_engineer who is leading the field inspection_teams deployed by the united_nations monitoring , verification and inspection commission . that agency is responsible for inspections of sites with potential involvement in banned biological , chemical and missile programs . ''we conducted all the activities we had to do , so as far as we are concerned this is a good start . '' mr . perricos dispatched 14 inspectors to al_dawrah today and met with reporters later at a united_nations briefing . a similar view was offered by jacques baute , the french nuclear_physicist who leads the field inspection_teams for the international_atomic_energy_agency . nine of the nuclear agency 's teams today inspected the industrial complex at al nasr , 30 miles north of baghdad , where sophisticated machine_tool equipment was identified during united_nations inspections from 1991 to 1998 as having been involved in producing rotors for centrifuges designed for enriching_uranium , and engine parts for missiles . ''we had no difficulty with access , '' mr . baute said . ''we went into every technically significant building . '' al nasr was heavily bombed by american and british aircraft after inspections were terminated in 1998 , but has since been partly rebuilt . it was identified by american officials in october as one of the weapons sites the iraqis were putting back into commission , but mr . baute said the new building shown in american intelligence photographs appeared to be inactive , at least during today 's inspections . ''as far as we observed today , it seemed to be very empty , '' he said . both men gave the iraqis credit for keeping an accurate inventory of equipment ''tagged'' by the previous inspectors . when one fermenter at al_dawrah was missing , plant officials said it had been moved to a veterinary plant north of baghdad . when the inspectors went on to the other plant in search of the missing equipment , they found it . mr . baute said his men had a similar experience at al nasr , identifying every tagged piece of equipment at the plant , other than some the iraqis had acknowledged moving in earlier declarations to the united_nations . but neither mr . perricos nor mr . baute was ready to comment , based on the initial inspections , on the issue behind the months of american threats that led to the united_nations_security_council 's action earlier this month in approving the tough new weapons inspection mandate whether iraq still has banned weapons programs , or has abandoned them , as senior iraqi officials have insisted . a key test of iraq 's intentions will come on dec . 8 , when the baghdad government must make a full , formal declaration of all its banned weapons programs , if any , and of civilian work in related fields . the inspectors said their work was not a matter of reaching conclusions from visits to individual sites , but of building a ' 'mosaic'' by visiting groups of related sites , then re visiting some of them . mr . perricos described this process as ''trying to make an assessment of what happened in the dark years'' after 1998 , when the inspections ceased . mr . baute said the work could take ''weeks or months'' longer , possibly , though he did not say so , than the bush_administration might be prepared to wait as it weighs its options for war . threats and responses hunt for weapons",has a topic of health
"the russian_orthodox_church adopted a social doctrine today that condemns genetic_engineering , homosexuality , euthanasia and abortion , approves of the concept of private_property and reconfirms the church 's close relationship with the military . the doctrine was approved by the approximately 150 hierarchs of the russian church , who are sitting as the council of bishops . on monday , the council elevated the last czar , nicholas ii , and his family to sainthood , a move that had been sought by conservatives within the church . the doctrine is the first of its kind for the church , which is still establishing its place in russian society after 70 years of atheist soviet rule . the council , the church 's second highest body , has been meeting since sunday in the cathedral of christ the savior , rebuilt recently after stalin ordered the earlier building blown up in 1931 . bishops at today 's gathering said that theirs is the only such doctrine they know about from an orthodox_church . eastern orthodox churches are less likely than the roman_catholic_church to set out the church 's position on social issues in such a way . in another document issued today , the russian church defined its relationship to other religions . it condemned attempts to win over orthodox believers by other religions , including roman catholicism . the russian church has expressed anger in the past at what it considers the vatican 's expansion in its canonical territory . but the document also defended the russian_orthodox_church 's involvement in the ecumenical movement , which has been reviled by right wing forces in the church . metropolitan kirill of smolensk , leader of the church 's external relations department , was in charge of developing the social doctrine . in comments today after the release of the doctrine , he said that the orthodox churches showed solidarity during the nato bombing of yugoslavia , which he condemned . but he also called for continued dialogue with western churches , especially the roman_catholic_church . the text of the social doctrine does not explicitly condemn the former soviet rule , but it calls for a clear separation of church and state and says that christians must avoid accepting government authority as absolute and must recognize its purely earthly bounds . it warns the state against interfering in the life of the church in its teachings , its liturgical life and its spiritual practices . while there are strong forces within the church preaching views on property similar to those of communists , the doctrine recognizes all forms of property and says that private_property is a gift from god to be used wisely for the common good . in some cases however , market relations are described negatively . doctors are urged to take patients' well being into consideration without worrying about material rewards , although providing adequate pay for medical workers is described as a priority . the doctrine defines war as an evil , but does not mention the russian operation in chechnya . and it is approving about the church 's increasingly close cooperation with the military , describing it as a means of returning servicemen to the time honored orthodox traditions of serving the homeland .",has a topic of health
"health authorities said today that the number of people they considered infected by a second outbreak of sars in toronto had tripled in the last 24 hours , although some officials expressed optimism that the new cluster of cases had reached its peak . the new increase , to 33 probable cases and 29 suspected cases , raises the possibility that the world_health_organization could reinstate a travel_advisory that was put in effect for a week last month warning travelers to put off unnecessary visits to the city . on wednesday , officials said there were 11 probable and 23 suspected new cases of severe_acute_respiratory_syndrome after the disease was detected by health_care workers in a cluster of sick patients last thursday . still , w.h.o . officials said they were not contemplating a new advisory at this point , and officials here continued to express optimism . the increase in the cases was expected and comes as a result of new patients showing symptoms after the incubation_period that followed recent exposure . it is also because of a redefinition by local officials of what constitutes a proven case of sars , a disease for which medical scientists have still not developed a test . ''we had success the last time and we 'll have it again , '' dr . james young , the ontario commissioner of public safety , said at a news conference . ''we 're not seeing large numbers of cases . with the measures we have taken , i am hopeful we will be going in the right direction . '' officials said the total number of cases could rise to 70 but no higher , assuming that the disease remained localized to five hospitals and did not spread into the general population . fears that the disease could still extend into the general public something that did not occur during the first outbreak in march and april increased on wednesday when public_health authorities quarantined up to 2 , 000 students , teachers and staff members at a large parochial_school just north of toronto . the quarantine was deemed necessary after an 11th grader , the son of an infected health_care worker , had attended classes for two days while experiencing symptoms last week . so far no other students at the school have become ill , but new cases of the disease continue to pop up because of the failure of health_care workers to quarantine an elderly postoperative patient at north york general_hospital who was mistakenly thought to have had pneumonia in late april . doctors concluded that the patient had sars only when other patients and health_care professionals came down with the disease . the disease spread to another four hospitals through patient transfers before the authorities concluded that they had another sars outbreak on their hands . officials believe the original case in the new wave of sars is actually linked to the original outbreak . they say the patient somehow caught the disease from an infected health_care worker , infected medical equipment or perhaps even through the north york general_hospital 's ventilation system . a total of 29 deaths have occurred in the two outbreaks , the first of which was declared in control less than three weeks ago by local and international authorities . about 10 , 000 people were put in quarantine during the first outbreak , and now about 7 , 000 more are in quarantine . nearly 300 people have come down with the disease in and around toronto , making it the most seriously infected locale outside of asia . the toronto authorities announced today that they would now follow w.h.o . guidelines for diagnosing the disease based on x_ray evidence . they had used that definition until mid april , when they switched to the more specific and higher standards set by the canadian government , which say sars is listed as probable only when a patient experiences symptoms of severe progressive pneumonia . several critics have charged that the ontario medical authorities switched criteria last month , before the w.h.o . released its travel warning , in an attempt to play down the disease . ''it looked to me at the time that we were putting the economic welfare of toronto first and fighting sars second , '' said michael bliss , a medical historian at the university of toronto . dr . colin d'cunha , the ontario commissioner of public_health , said the change in definitions was a matter of simplifying diagnosis in keeping with international standards . ''i am not hiding anything under the table , '' he said in an interview . experts also differed on whether the disease was now under control . dr . donald low , chief microbiologist at mount_sinai_hospital in toronto and an important local strategist in containing the disease , predicted today that the second wave of sars had peaked . ''the wave that we have experienced , that wave is behind us , '' he told a news conference . ''my sense is the worst is over . '' but dr . john m . last , a professor emeritus of epidemiology at the university of ottawa , said the new outbreak was a troubling reminder that ''the quarantine measures are totally ineffective and the probability is the infection will spread further . '' ''it 's becoming increasingly clear that the virus can survive for a long period in patients without symptoms or people who have symptoms not typical of sars and then it resurfaces , '' he said . the centers_for_disease_control and prevention said that 41 states and puerto_rico had reported a total of 363 sars cases as of may 28 . of these , 297 are suspected cases and 66 probable cases .",has a topic of health
"mikhail b . sagalovich , chief of nephrology at russia 's best children 's hospital , uses his car to drive his friends and their luggage to and from moscow 's airports . a practical man , he once joined the communist_party to get ahead now he drives an informal taxi to keep his family in shoes . "" i need just four days to make what i make as a doctor in one month , "" he said . olga a . yevdokimova , a 25 year old nurse , said simply "" there 's a lack of medicines , disposable syringes , cotton , bandages . we do n't have anything to treat the children with . "" valery i . guz , a 40 year old thoracic surgeon , earns 1 , 500 rubles a month , just above the official poverty_line . "" the cleaner in the metro station gets 2 , 500 rubles , "" he said . "" why ? it 's the communist system . a kitchen maid can rule the country , and a cleaner can be a senator . "" a protest may widen communism may be dead , he suggested , but its disparities and inefficiencies remain . and in an inflationary economy , with a new government trying to cut spending , medical care is being starved of money ( the usual situation here ) , while socialism 's creaking manufacturing and distribution system has broken down , causing severe shortages of medical supplies and pharmaceuticals as basic as aspirin . so russia 's medical workers have begun a sort of rolling strike , cutting off non emergency treatment in many hospitals and clinics . if their demands for better wages and conditions are not met by the middle of this month , they threaten to cut off all health_care , even for emergencies . yet many are reluctant to stop treating emergency patients , and many large institutions have refused to join the strike . health_care had never been one of the soviet_union 's great successes . still , before the union 's command_economy collapsed , the basics were available . but many health workers say that now , in a transitional period between free and paid medicine , the situation is disastrous , and that something must be done . no prescriptions or forms mikhail kuzmenko , the chairman of the russian union of medical workers and head of the strike committee , says as many as half of moscow 's hospitals and clinics and 10 , 000 medical professionals have stopped prescribing ordinary medications and are not issuing sick_leave certificates to patients . the committee says that as many as 2 million health workers of all kinds in 65 regions of russia are striking , out of a total of about 3.8 million . but a spokeswoman for the russian ministry of health said that of the 694 , 000 doctors and 1.8 million nurses in russia , "" much less than half are on strike . "" tatyana a . goretskaya , chief of thoracic surgery at the russian children 's hospital , said "" of course , we cannot abandon patients , it goes against our whole spirit and our oath as doctors . we have just demands , but we cannot go on strike . "" dr . goretskaya comes from a family of medical workers , including a famous pediatrician . though doctors were always relatively badly treated in the soviet_union , she said , "" i wanted to be of help to other people . "" even shoes cost too much "" we came here to work when there were only bare walls , "" she said , echoing the old spirit of socialism that seems to have died long before the union itself . "" we worked together with the construction workers to put it together . i do not judge those on strike , but i cannot refuse to help sick children . "" still , she said , after nearly 30 years of work , "" i still cannot afford a car . "" she paused , then said , "" i wo n't tell you how much i earn , but for what i get a month , i cannot buy a pair of shoes . "" in the first quarter of this year , russian government spending on health_care was 24 billion_rubles , less than half what the deputy health minister , aleksei moskvichev , says is required . he hopes that figure will rise 69 percent in the second quarter , but with inflation running so high and the whole economy in transition , doctors are skeptical . they talk about a transition to private medicine , or obtaining shares in state owned hospitals . but for now , except for a very few private health clinics that cater mostly to foreigners , there has been little fundamental change in the financial structure of health_care . 'everything is a mess' alla barinova , a bus driver in her 50 's , shrugged as she turned away from a closed clinic . her problem was not urgent , she said , and anyway , "" the doctors have a point , as long as they take care of the really needy . "" "" everything is a mess , "" she said , the common complaint for which there is no easy cure . according to a poll in moscow_news last week , 53 percent of russians supported the demands of the health workers , while only 25 percent were firmly opposed . the russian children 's hospital , which has 1 , 000 beds and sophisticated equipment , was completed in 1985 . it was adopted by raisa m . gorbachev , wife of the former soviet president , who helped secure thousands of dollars worth of western aid . and as an all russian hospital and formerly an all union one about 70 percent of its financing comes from the state . but it is already crumbling , and the glory days of mrs . gorbachev 's patronage are gone . "" raisa maksimova gave us all these disposable syringes , "" dr . sagalovich , the chief of nephrology , said . "" but now that 's all finished , and we have to help ourselves . "" too much western aid is like a drug , he said , and encourages dependency . "" me , i feel humiliated by the aid , even when we need it , "" he said . "" many russians feel as i do . he agreed with the thoracic surgeons that the hospital 's main needs were disposable gloves , syringes and transfusion kits , antibiotics and analgesics , and sterile fluids that are injected during surgery and other procedures . many of the problems , health workers say , started with the breakdown of comecon , the socialist trading bloc most of russia 's needles , sutures and disposable gloves and syringes came from east_germany , hungary , poland and czechoslovakia . now , foreign trade requires hard_currency , which is scarce . similarly , much of the aspirin and analgesics came from republics like ukraine , now sovereign , and old patterns of distribution have broken down . there have also been serious environmental protests at some drug factories . bandages and gauze came from central_asia these republics , too , are now sovereign , and are reducing environmentally harmful cotton production . the burden of inflation at pharmacy no . 9 in moscow , the main concern is for vitamins , aspirin , pain killers and nitroglycerine , a common heart medicine here . there is only a two day supply of vitamins , even at a price 11 times higher than a year ago . supplies of aspirin are irregular , and sell for 24 kopecks for 10 pills , a substantial sum , given the relatively low wages . a year ago , the price was 6 kopecks , but natalya v . nesterenko , the deputy administrator , said the real issue was the uncertainty of supply . the only pain killer available today was morphine . there are supplies of cotton , bandages and gauze , but only , mrs . nesterenko said , because of the steep price . fifty grams of cotton , for instance , now costs 16 . 47 rubles , compared with 9 kopecks a year ago . gauze costs 15 . 45 rubles , up from 20 kopecks . problems in the soviet health_care system were widespread . after big improvements from the base of a peasant society in the 1930 's and 40 's , medicine began to decline , a trend reflected in increased rates of infant_mortality , for instance . western scholars believe infant_mortality is as high as 33 per 1 , 000 live births , compared with an official rate of 23 and , according to the economist magazine , a rate of 9 per 1 , 000 in britain . still , most citizens could get decent basic care and scarce drugs from the system , even if only by using political influence , friendship or petty bribes . but medical practitioners were never well respected or well paid . the strike is intended to force a change in this attitude , said dr . guz , the thoracic surgeon , who supports the strike . "" we still live by the principle that we get the leftovers from the budget , "" he said . "" if there were no foreign help , it would be really hard for us . "" but yuliya a . tusikova , a_20 year old nurse , has perhaps the clearest view , unadorned by ideology or sanctimony the strike demands , she said , are dreams . "" the government is only good at making promises , "" she said . "" the coal miners went on strike and were listened to . but we cannot go on strike and bang on the table we cannot abandon the children . and the government knows it , and counts on our good will . """,has a topic of health
"the world_health_organization removed toronto today from its list of cities and provinces where severe_acute_respiratory_syndrome is spreading and putting the general population at risk . the decision by the organization came three weeks after it issued an advisory that warned travelers to postpone any unnecessary travel to toronto because of the disease , better known as sars . the advisory was reversed only six days later . canadian politicians and medical authorities praised the w.h.o . decision as proof that the city and country had successfully combated the disease by systematically quarantining suspected sars patients and health_care workers who came into contact with them . the decision was announced in the house of commons by prime_minister_jean_chr_tien . twenty four people died of sars over the last three months in toronto . there have been 260 probable and suspected cases of sars in and around the city , but the number of active cases has dwindled rapidly in recent days . only 10 patients thought to have sars are left in area hospitals . the w.h.o . made its decision after three full incubation periods or 30 days passed without a single case emerging in the general population . the last new case to arise in a hospital arose three weeks ago . the disease did not affect normal daily life for most torontonians , who were almost defiant about not wearing_masks like those in other cities where people had been infected by the virus . but it has severely hurt chinese malls and restaurants that employ thousands of asian immigrants , and slashed occupancy rates at many hotels and business at many restaurants that cater to tourists . air_canada reported this week that it lost more than 3 . 5 million a day in april , at the height of the epidemic in toronto , and the airline has been forced to ground 40 aircraft because of its falling ticket sales . the tourist_industry , toronto 's second largest after finance , is expecting a slow summer season because of a number of convention cancellations in recent weeks . but officials said today that they hoped that the new w.h.o . decision would serve as a catalyst to get the city back on its feet . ''we are now like philadelphia or boston or oslo , '' said tony clement , the ontario health minister , who characterized the w.h.o . decision as ''an absolute vindication of our public_health officials , our nurses , doctors , other emergency workers , everyone who fought long and hard . '' the epidemic began in toronto with the infection of a single elderly chinese immigrant woman who brought back the disease from a trip to hong_kong , where she was visiting her family . when she died almost three months ago , doctors did not know why . but in the following days most of her family became ill , and they spread the disease to other patients and medical professionals at the scarborough grace hospital . virtually every case that followed in toronto stemmed from the woman . toronto may well serve as a model for other cities facing a similar health crisis . medical officials traced every sick person , and people who came into their presence while they exhibited symptoms , quarantining more than 7 , 000 people for 10 days at home . three schools and two hospitals were closed . several other hospitals in the metropolitan_area curtailed nonemergency operations and procedures for more than a month to minimize the public 's exposure to hospitals . the strategy worked , limiting the infection mostly to hospitals , but it may take months for waiting_lists to come back to normal . there were several scares that the disease would leak into the general population . a nurse with sars symptoms rode a commuter_train twice during rush_hour , forcing public_health officials to scurry to find those who sat near her . a doctor with sars went to a funeral before he realized he had the disease , potentially putting dozens of people at risk . most seriously , hundreds of members of a mostly filipino church prayer group that had come in close contact with people infected with the disease were not put in quarantine until after the incubation_period had passed . but fortunately , perhaps in a case of extreme luck , the disease did not spread beyond the closely knit group . the sars epidemic canada",has a topic of health
"lead armour pharmaceutical is recalling 208 lots of a blood_clotting agent distributed for hemophilia patients because of the possibility it could contain the aids virus , the food and drug administration said today . armour pharmaceutical is recalling 208 lots of a blood_clotting agent distributed for hemophilia patients because of the possibility it could contain the aids virus , the food and drug administration said today . the announcement said the company , based in bluebell , pa . , estimated that 2 , 000 to 5 , 000 doses of the clotting agent , h . t . factorate , were on the market in the united_states . the recall is being undertaken as a precaution after six patients in canada who were taking doses from three separate lots , processed using the same heat purifying method , had tested positive for the aids virus . it is not known whether h . t . factorate caused the canadian patients to test positive , but the canadian government withdrew the three lots . commissioner frank young of the drug agency said that although all six positive aids tests had occurred in patients taking the factor from lots distributed only in canada , united_states lots processed similarly were being withdrawn ''as an extra precaution . '' the company no longer uses the heat treatment used to process the recalled lots , and not all of its h . t . factorate is being withdrawn . acquired_immune_deficiency_syndrome is passed by body fluids , including blood products .",has a topic of health
"around the besieged provincial legislature building here , the din of banging pots died away , candles flickered in the evening breeze and protesters began singing their hymn ''oh medicare . '' ''long live our plan , keep it free from greed , '' hundreds of voices sang into the spring night . referring to the health_care plan for all canadians , they sang , ''oh medicare , we stand on guard for thee . '' as north americans wrestle with mounting health bills for aging populations , many people in this free_market oriented province are backing a health_care model that has fallen out of fashion of late a government administered national health plan . since canada put most of its health_care under government control in the late 1960 's , many canadians have lauded the program as evidence that they enjoy a more beneficent society than the united_states , where about 45 million people do not have health_insurance . asserting their system 's superiority , canadians note that life_expectancy here is higher than in the united_states , 75 . 8 years for canadian men , and 81 . 4 years for women , according to government statistics for people born in 1997 , the latest year available . life_expectancy in the united_states that year was 73 . 6 for men and 79 . 4 for women , federal statistics show . but in recent years , the image of canada 's universal health system has been tarnished by negative developments waiting_lists stretching for months for cancer treatment and heart surgery , canadians pulling strings to get faster and better treatment in a state rationed system , and thousands of doctors and nurses emigrating to the united_states for better salaries and working conditions . in a recent survey by the angus reid polling organization , 8 in 10 respondents out of 1 , 500 canadians interviewed said the nation 's health_care system was in ''crisis . '' with other opinion_polls indicating that canadians view health_care as the nation 's top issue , ralph_klein , the popular premier of alberta , unveiled a bill in march that americans might consider cautious . after a preamble outlawing ''private hospitals , '' the bill goes on to allow overnight stays in ' 'surgical clinics . '' ''it is touching the so called third rail it is opening up the debate on health_care , '' mr . klein , a conservative , said on tuesday as he wearily prepared for an eighth night of protesters outside the legislature , chanting ''kill the bill . '' under the bill , expected to be passed on may 11 , the government would reimburse private clinics for performing the same surgeries performed in government hospitals . at a rally tuesday night , attended by about 500 people , there were two common themes that canada 's socialized medical system had faltered because conservative governments had starved it of cash , and that private ' 'surgical clinics'' would open the door for the ''americanization'' of canadian health_care . ''the politicians create the problem with delays and waiting_lists , then they come up with the answer ''we are going to privatize it , '' andrew dorosh , a 64 year old retired social worker , said as banners waved reading , ''people , not profits'' and ''our health is n't for sale . '' mr . klein 's efforts to chip away at the government health monopoly have won national attention , in part because alberta , a province with a pro business government , has set much of canada 's financial policy agenda in recent years , slashing taxes and erasing budget_deficits . few people question that canada , like much of the western_world , faces a looming health_care crisis . about half of all hospital days now go to people over 65 , a group expected to double in 30 years . but the surprise here has been the dogged loyalty of albertans to their public_health system . in a recent poll for the calgary herald , a conservative newspaper , 52 percent of albertans opposed the health bill . only 40 percent supported it . ''this is the first time i have seen a sustained protest against a piece of legislation in 20 years in this province , '' nancy macbeth , provincial leader of the opposition liberal_party , said in an interview . referring to this conservative province of ranchers , oil workers and high tech engineers , sometimes called the texas of canada , she added ''albertans do n't tend to protest . it is not our nature . '' as part of an effort to balance budgets , canada cut the number of its hospital beds by 28 percent over the last decade , to 125 , 863 in 1999 . in alberta , beds were cut by one third , to 12 , 502 last year . at the same time , on the theory that more doctors generate more medical spending , canada restricted the number of medical_school students in the 1990 's by 20 percent . faced with higher workloads , 4 , 000 canadian doctors and 6 , 000 nurses moved to the united_states over the last decade . now , with tax revenue up because of canada 's economic_recovery , ottawa plans to inject an additional 3 billion a year into provincial health_care . in canada , the public_sector accounts for about 70 percent of 60 billion in annual health_care spending , slightly down from 75 percent when the program began three decades ago . private spending largely goes for dental_care , optional eye care and drugs . but talk of allowing more private participation in health_care immediately sets off alarms . after barbara amiel , a columnist for maclean 's , the leading national news weekly , wrote an essay titled ''why we need private medicine , '' she was immediately barraged with 130 e mail messages and letters , almost all hostile . at the rally tuesday , a sign bobbed above the crowd ''this is not the u.s.a . ''",has a topic of health
"lead the two women strolled through the garden and chatted , mostly about the sun and their youth , both of which seemed sadly elusive on this chilly summer day . the two women strolled through the garden and chatted , mostly about the sun and their youth , both of which seemed sadly elusive on this chilly summer day . ''when i was younger , they called me little dove , '' tuba abramzon said . ''i was prettier then . '' ''you are still very beautiful , '' said valentina yarovaya . ''see how your eyes shine . '' arms joined , the women continued walking around psychiatric_hospital no . 1 in moscow , where mrs . abramzon is a patient and mrs . yarovaya a volunteer from the evangelical_christian baptist church here . a few months ago , their friendship would have been impossible . the soviet authorities prohibited all forms of religious charity on the ground that philanthropy was unnecessary when the state provided all people 's needs . but in an effort to improve the level of care in hospitals and to deal with social problems they once ignored , the soviet authorities appear to have lifted the restriction on charitable work by religious organizations . over the last couple of years , charity funds and groups , largely aided by official organizations , have grown around the country . in 1986 the first charity fund was established to aid the victims of chernobyl , and last year , a group of young people in moscow formed miloserdiye , russian for charity , to help the elderly . but religious groups were kept firmly outside of this area . volunteers at hospitals but in the last several months , a few moscow churches have begun sending parishioners to volunteer in local hospitals , encouraged by government officials to lend their time and support . church leaders and government officials say no law was changed , but they signaled that such religious charity was now acceptable . but the improvement in relations between the state and the church , and a growing awareness of medical and social needs here , led doctors and clergymen to combine their efforts . ''medical care requires kindness and compassion , '' said vladimir n . kozyrev , chief doctor at the psychiatric_hospital , where mrs . yarovaya and about 50 other members of the baptist church have donated their time for the last four months . ''but our personnel are so busy , they do n't always have the opportunity to respond this way . they do heroic work , but what these volunteers do is in a way , even greater , because they are working without pay , from their hearts . '' no government approval is needed for such religious volunteer programs , according to an official at the council on religion at the council of ministries . the official , yuri p . smirnov , said that such efforts should be commended and that new laws on religion under consideration most likely will expand the role of charity in soviet society . mr . smirnov and hospital officials said they were unafraid of this comingling of state and religion even though they knew that patients might draw the volunteers , some of whom are clergymen , into discussions about religion or prayer . 'it 's very personal' ''i do n't think religion is something you can agitate for , '' said olga a . doronina , head of the gerontology department at the psychiatric_hospital . ''it 's very personal whether you believe in god or not . '' so far , only a handful of moscow hospitals are helped by church volunteers , but the staff and patients at hospitals visited by these unpaid devotees say their presence has changed the atmosphere there , easing the load of overburdened personnel and improving the spirits and care of the sick . soviet hospitals have long been criticized for being crowded , poorly_equipped and often unsanitary . reports in the press and soviet citizens themselves tell of corrupt doctors and nurses demanding gifts and under the table payments to treat hospital patients . dr . anatoly n . solovyev , chief doctor at hospital no . 6 in moscow , said that years ago he tried to alleviate the difficulties at his own hospital by bringing in volunteers from the young_pioneers and the communist youth league , komsomol . but he found the youngsters to be unsympathetic and unhelpful . an idea is renewed this year , after observing the return of several churches from the state to the church , and after seeing mikhail s . gorbachev , the soviet leader , meet with patriarch pimen , spiritual head of the russian_orthodox_church , dr . solovyev renewed his idea of volunteers , this time using believers . for the last two months , when their schedules permit , parishioners from yelokhovsky church in moscow help out in the neurological department , feeding patients , cleaning floors , changing sheets . ''we basically live in a very self centered society , '' dr . solovyev said . ''charity is not an easily understood concept to people here , who are just trying to get through each day . and those young kids were brought up as a part of that selfish society . but believers are different . i knew if they came , it would be sincere . and it is really very beautiful to see them work . '' in the women 's gerontology ward at the psychiatric_hospital , where the baptist volunteers work , valentina tolchinkina , herself no longer young , struggled one recent morning to help a frail , unresponsive woman remove her nightgown . patiently , she stroked the woman 's hair , lifted her arms and tried to untangle them from the clothing . 'like family to patients' ''in a clean robe , you will feel so fresh , '' she hummed , her singsong tone calming and gentle . ''these women come and they are like family to the patients , '' said nadezhda n . urban , a nurse at the hospital . ''at first , i was nervous about them being here . now , i am grateful . '' vasily y . logvinenko , chairman of the all union council of evangelical_christian baptists , said his church had long struggled with the problem of not being able to organize charitable work . sensing that the climate was right , mr . logvinenko asked the council on religion this year for permission to start a church run volunteer program . the council suggested psychiatric_hospital no . 1 , but apart from that , has not been involved in the relationship between the church and the hospital . 'a more democratic position' ''even though the law has not changed , the state has taken a more democratic position , '' mr . logvinenko said . ''this is important not only for the unfortunate , who need our help , but for our own believers , who can now carry out christ 's most important teachings , to do good to our fellow men . '' lyutsiya pavlova said she was lonely and lost , nursing the grief of having buried her husband and mother in the last year , and looking for a way to let it go . when a minister from the baptist church , where she is a member , called recently and asked if she wanted to volunteer at the psychiatric_hospital , she said , she looked at the stars and whispered , ''thank you , lord , for finding my place . '' every tuesday morning , she travels 90 minutes to the hospital , and works there until late in the afternoon , doing whatever the staff or patients ask of her . sometimes , the patients want to talk about god or ask the volunteers to pray to the saints for them . ''everyone believes in something or someone , '' said dr . solovyev , the head of hospital no . 6 . ''maybe what these volunteers and this new attitude toward charity will show people is that it is all right to believe in the goodness of man . ''",has a topic of health
"the world_health_organization restored toronto today to its list of places where severe_acute_respiratory_syndrome is spreading , after the announcement of a fresh outbreak of the disease here . the w.h.o . decision came less than two weeks after toronto was removed from its list , and just as canada 's largest city was beginning to recover from a serious blow to its economy . however , the w.h.o . stopped short of issuing a travel_advisory . the ontario health authorities announced over the weekend that there were at least eight new probable cases of the disease . two of those eight patients have died and several others are in critical condition . ''this was not expected , '' said dr . paul gully , a senior official at health canada , a federal agency for health education , at a news conference today . he said the risk of the disease 's spreading to the general population was ' 'minimal . '' the w.h.o . decision was announced by federal health authorities in ottawa , who said they were confident that a new travel_advisory was not pending . the united_states centers_for_disease_control issued a new travel alert for toronto late last week , delaying a planned television advertising campaign aimed at upstate new york , urging tourists to come back to toronto . the c.d.c . alert did not warn travelers to stay away , but said there was a health concern . a total of 27 people here have died of the disease , known as sars , since it first appeared here three months ago , making toronto the only city outside asia to be struck so severely . there were no new sars cases reported today , and all of the cases in the latest outbreak have been linked to one section of a ward at north york general_hospital , said dr . barbara yaffe , toronto 's associate medical officer of health . ''we certainly need to do more investigations still , but this is a very good sign , '' she said . ''we have no evidence that sars has spread to the general community . '' officials say the new cluster of patients , which could number 30 or more , has been contained in four city hospitals . more than 2 , 000 people who visited those hospitals at different times in may have been urged to quarantine themselves at home . the outbreak is believed to have begun with a 96 year old patient at north york general_hospital who died of what was thought to be pneumonia on may 1 after surgery for a fractured pelvis . after several people who treated him and at least one other patient exhibited sars like symptoms , the authorities concluded that he had died of sars . ''as some of the stricter precautions were relaxed and as some of our staff stopped using masks , very clearly some of them got exposed unknowingly , '' said dr . colin d'cunha , ontario 's commissioner for public_health . at a separate news conference , dr . donald low , chief of microbiology at mount_sinai_hospital here , offered another explanation , speculating that an undetected sars case may have entered the hospital ward as far back as late march , leading to the current outbreak . the disease spread to other hospitals by patient transfers . but the question remains how the elderly patient contracted a disease that was thought to be under control at the time . north york general_hospital was treating sars patients while the unidentified infected man was at the hospital , but on a ward several floors away . health officials are investigating the possibility that the man came in contact with a piece of equipment that had been contaminated by a sars patient . perhaps , officials said , the patient came in contact with a health worker who unknowingly had contracted sars but did not show symptoms . dr . gully said experts have concluded that the 96 year old patient at root to the new outbreak acquired the disease from the original cluster of cases thought to have been under control . he discounted the possibility that his illness was related to a separate importation of the disease by some recent traveler to asia .",has a topic of health
"at the international center for medicinal leeches here , gennadi nikonov has a true evangelical fire about bloodsucking and is determined to restore to the leech its good medieval name . mr . nikonov , the center 's director , has big plans for his eye cream made of extract of leech , which he is sure will do well in the united_states when it goes on sale there soon . and he sees a great future for leeches and some big money along the way as he sends the creatures to pharmacies and doctors all over russia , to be placed on the tailbone of someone who suffers from migraines , for example , or on the legs of people hobbled by phlebitis . mr . nikonov acknowledges it is a hard sell . ''it 's a perfectly normal reaction for a person to think 'leech , yuk , ' '' said mr . nikonov , a pharmacological biologist . but he insisted he was on the verge of tapping into a worldwide trend . ''there 's a general feeling around the world to get away from the synthetics of medicine and back to nature , '' he said . ''and we have yet to uncover the many mysteries the leech holds . '' meanwhile , mr . nikonov has to settle for a rather limited audience for the virtues of the 1.5 million leeches bred annually in the warm confines of the center . there are the local villagers and the cognoscenti from moscow , 10 miles away , who come here to buy jelly jars filled with leeches in a room decorated with pictures of the squirmy creatures latched on to human skin . and there are the men from a nearby slaughterhouse who came on a recent friday afternoon to prepare for the monday feeding . they took six aluminum milk cans containing cows' blood to a room filled with high metal shelves stacked with big jars of murky water . women in aprons and white head_scarves opened the steaming cans . one with a dowel stirred the blood , for the surface had congealed into a spongy foam , and accidentally sloshed some onto the floor in bright starbursts . ''we feed our leeches cows' blood because cows are cleaner than pigs , '' a biologist , yelena titova , told a group of visiting doctors as thousands of leeches swam about in the jars . ''pigs eat all sorts of things , just like we do . that 's why leeches usually do n't live long after feeding on a person , because there is so much junk in our blood . '' but if mr . nikonov has his way , the leeches bred here are doomed to find their way to human beings . the center , built in 1937 , was in a shambles when mr . nikonov arrived 14 years ago eager to test ideas that had emerged in his laboratory work with leeches . most other leech farms built under the soviets have gone out of business . of the 400 or so kinds of leeches , only one , hirudo medicinalis , can be used for therapeutic purposes . cherished by the pharaohs , leeches were historically used for lowering blood_pressure not to mention removing the evil eye . but mr . nikonov and his biologists contend that the saliva of leeches has 60 kinds of proteins with medical uses like improving the immune system and reducing inflammation . russian medical_schools do not teach about leeches , but patients and doctors are trickling back to them . some are skeptical that modern_medicine has all the answers . for others , drugs are too expensive . medicinal leeches bred commercially cost only 30 cents each , and for most treatments only two or three leeches a week are needed . ( in the united_states , where leeches are sometimes used these days to aid blood flow after reconstructive_surgery , the companies that market them say , one costs 6 to 9 . ) the dozen doctors at the center one morning scribbled copious notes from mrs . titova 's account of leeches a sort of everything you ever wanted to know about bloodsucking worms but were afraid to ask tour . leeches , for example , have five senses , as humans do , and are hermaphrodites , though they mate to reproduce . because leeches are so sensitive , only women handle them at the plant . ''leeches need care and affection , and only women , mothers , can give that , '' mrs . titova said . ''men either do all the grunt work or they run things . '' the ties between employee and leech are strong . when she feels tense , mrs . titova said , she relaxes by gazing on the swimming leeches . one worker recently fell ill with stomach pains , but was apparently cured when her colleagues put a few leeches on her belly . ''i do n't know why people think badly of leeches it does n't make sense , '' said olga petukhova , 80 , who has worked at the plant for 30 years . she uses giant tweezers to sort older , bigger leeches from younger ones swimming in a metal pan . ''i 've used leeches myself , put them everywhere , '' she said . she pulled down her lower lip . ''i even put one on my gums , right here , '' she said , ''to ease a toothache . '' adult leeches feed on average about once every three months , and hungry leeches should never be stored with fed leeches , or the consequences for the latter could be grave . a leech has three jaws that come together into something like the mercedes_benz logo . each jaw has 90 teeth , and they work like tiny saws to open the skin so that the leech can issue an anticoagulating secretion and draw blood . the average leech consumes about three to five milliliters of blood . some of the physicians visiting the leech farm had already used leeches to treat patients and themselves . ''i put a couple behind my ears for hypertension , '' said one rosy cheeked woman . ''they 're great . they dangle just like earrings . '' doctors generally destroy leeches after a single application , and most of the center 's revenue comes from their sale . but the plant also has agreements with companies in ukraine and france to make face creams from leeches . mr . nikonov would not discuss revenue , but he said 150 units of their flagship cream , antonia , were sold when introduced in 1995 last year , 500 , 000 jars of the cream were snapped up . the companies also plan to introduce toothpastes with leech extracts . their cosmetics are already sold in europe , and the center said it recently signed a contract with a small dallas importer called odysseus russian to sell up to two million units of the various creams in the united_states starting in may . the company does draw a line when it comes to some uses of leeches . several years ago , a few people who regularly bought leeches at the plant were putting them on the menu of the peking restaurant in downtown moscow . ''they did n't tell us why they were buying them , but from acquaintances we found out that the leeches were being cooked up as a kind of blood sausage , '' mr . nikonov said . ''once we heard , we stopped selling to these people . i felt bad for the leeches . they were created for more noble purposes , after all , than to be scarfed up at a restaurant . ''",has a topic of health
"in his frenetic pursuit of re election , boris n . yeltsin plans 16 campaign trips this month . in april the 65 year old russian_president 's punishing schedule sent him from moscow to norway and then across the asian continent to china . in between , he presided over a hectic summit meeting held for the leaders of the world 's richest nations . "" i do not have any time to remember my illnesses , "" mr . yeltsin wrote this week in response to a series of personal questions submitted by voters . "" i work from 5 in the morning until late each night . "" but with little more than a month before the russian people must almost certainly choose between mr . yeltsin and a return to communist rule , the president 's often precarious health and the drastic choices that would remain should he die or become seriously ill for the third time in a year has become for many voters a central issue . whatever else a vote for mr . yeltsin means , it will be a vote for a man with a long history of health problems , including two heart "" ailments "" last year that kept him hospitalized and often totally inaccessible for weeks . it will mean a vote for a man who has already lived seven years beyond the current average life_expectancy for a russian man . and it will mean a vote for a man whose past problems with alcohol have been so obvious to the average russian that mr . yeltsin felt the need this week to comment on them . "" to say that i abuse alcohol would be untrue , "" he wrote in a response to a question from a voter . "" to say that i do not drink would not be convincing . people would doubt it and say 'what kind of russian man are you if you cannot drink ? ' "" doctors here and in the united_states insist that there is no real way to assess with certainty the severity of mr . yeltsin 's heart problems or predict what they will mean in the future . but most of those interviewed agreed that , based on what is known about mr . yeltsin and based on general information about the health of men his age in russia , the picture is unlikely to be bright . "" i cannot speak directly about the president 's health , "" said dr . mikhail alshibai , one of russia 's foremost heart surgeons , who has never treated mr . yeltsin . "" but in our country men that age with heart problems are dying at rates that it is almost impossible to believe . it is one of our worst social problems . "" mr . yeltsin has had many illnesses and his physical condition vacillates wildly . he has a long history of sudden and prolonged absences from public view . he has acknowledged occasional spells of depression . he was , by many accounts , including those of close aides , so drunk on a 1994 stop at shannon airport in ireland that he was unable to leave the plane to meet the irish prime_minister , albert_reynolds . mr . yeltsin 's principal opponent , gennadi a . zyuganov , the 51 year old communist leader , wastes no opportunity to speak about mr . yeltsin 's drinking . "" a bus driver cannot go to work without a medical examination , "" mr . zyuganov says in his standard stump_speech , referring to the tests for alcohol that are supposed to be administered to all public transportation workers before they take the wheel . "" but now , a person can rule the entire country in any condition . "" polls show that while mr . yeltsin 's drinking may not bother many people , his age and his recent health problems do . yet to the degree that the future of russian reform relies on the victory of mr . yeltsin and most political analysts increasingly agree it relies heavily on such an outcome there is a lot riding on the president 's continued good health . russia has no vice_president . if mr . yeltsin were to die or become incapacitated before the june election , his prime_minister , viktor s . chernomyrdin , would temporarily take over the government . but neither he nor any other political ally could run for president in mr . yeltsin 's place because the law does not permit it . even for a russian leader , mr . yeltsin has been particularly vague about the nature of his heart ailment and about the treatment he received during his many weeks of convalescence last year . the kremlin did not respond to written requests seeking information about mr . yeltsin 's health and permission to speak with his doctors . nobody who knows will say whether mr . yeltsin had two heart attacks last year or whether his ailments were less severe . and although mr . yeltsin is clearly running as energetically as mr . zyuganov , who has no such history of serious illness , even his strongest supporters entertain constant worries about his health . "" i think he looks extremely vigorous , "" said igor b . malashenko , the president of russia 's independent_television_network , who has become a senior media adviser to the president 's campaign . "" but nobody really wants to think about what would happen if president yeltsin were to become unable to do his job . it is a problem in our system that we need to work out . "" last july 11 mr . yeltsin was admitted to the central clinical hospital in moscow with chest_pains that officials attributed to ischemia of the heart . he was admitted again in october . but ischemia is really a symptom of an illness , not the illness itself . ischemia means that oxygen rich blood is not getting where it needs to go , in this case to the heart . it can be minor millions of people suffer from some level of ischemia because of blocked arteries and many do not know it or it can be bad enough to cause a major heart_attack . it depends how serious the blockages are again something easy to discover but something nobody has reported about mr . yeltsin . because the kremlin said there was angina , or pain , associated with the ischemia , most doctors interviewed agree that the chances of the episodes having been minor are not good , particularly the second one , which hospitalized him from late october to mid december . "" heart ischemia can indicate very serious problems , particularly if it is repeated , "" said valery shumakov , director of the research center of surgery in moscow , who has performed more heart transplants than any other russian surgeon . like all those interviewed , dr . shumakov stressed that he had no personal knowledge of mr . yeltsin 's case , and therefore could not know what shape his heart is in . "" everyone is different , "" he said . "" it depends on the state of the blood_vessels . obviously though , your age , your weight , your level of physical activity and the amount of stress you have in your life all contribute to any diagnosis and any prognosis . "" mr . yeltsin appears overweight . he is far less physically active than he used to be , and few people could have a more stressful life . "" i will tell you this , "" said dr . norman d . anderson , who runs what is often regarded as the most successful american executive fitness program , at johns hopkins hospital in baltimore . "" i never worry about my executives as long as they are in charge . but the greatest stress is when events control their lives and they are not in charge . "" mr . yeltsin seems to know what the doctor is talking about . "" my family reproaches me for taking everything to my heart , "" he said in his written comments this week , the first time he has commented so fully about his health in more than a year . "" this is not noticeable at first , but when concerns accumulate , the load makes itself felt . large emotional and physical stresses brought me to the hospital last year but the doctors put me right . "" mr . yeltsin also noted that all his grandfathers and great grandfathers lived until they were 90 or older . genetics , experts agree , play a significant role in life_expectancy and in the development of heart_disease . nor does he smoke . still , if looked at solely on a statistical basis , mr . yeltsin 's prognosis would not be comforting . russia has by far the highest death rate from cardiovascular illness in the world , according to the american heart association . the total death rate is also the highest of countries that keep records . in 1994 , the last year for which full statistics are available , the death rate from cardiovascular illness was 1 , 318 for every 100 , 000 russian men between the ages of 35 and 74 . the total death rate in that age group was 2 , 940 men per 100 , 000 . that is nearly 10 times the heart_disease death rate of japan , which is the lowest in the world . but it is also about three times the rate for the united_states , where heart_disease kills 460 of people for every 100 , 000 men of that age range . one of the largest unanswered questions about mr . yeltsin 's health is what medication he takes , if any . "" we have offered more than once to help in any way we could , "" said a senior american diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity . "" the russians have always said no thanks . he looks better these days , of course . but we cannot even say for certain what the problem is . obviously there is a problem , however , and of course it worries us a lot . "" rumors swirl constantly about mr . yeltsin . if he stumbles , people wonder if it 's from alcohol or from drugs . the russian leader was in a very rough emergency helicopter landing in 1990 and may still take painkillers , but again there is no way to be certain . "" i have been in accidents with nearly every kind of vehicle , "" mr . yeltsin noted . "" planes , helicopters , cars , a train and once , when i was a child , a horse . "" so far he has managed to shake them all off . "" seeing yeltsin very often now i could say that he is now in really good shape , "" said anatoly b . chubais , who is working for mr . yeltsin 's re election although he was recently dismissed by the president from the post in which he led russia 's industrial privatization effort . "" it could be seen on television that his activity is very energetic in the same way he looked in 1991 92 , "" mr . chubais said . "" so in this situation we need to hope for the best and investigate the worst scenario after it happens . as the russian proverb says , let 's cope with the problems when they come . """,has a topic of health
"canadian abortion rights advocates called on the canadian government today to bolster and broaden a task_force investigating a string of sniper attacks carried out over the last four years against doctors performing abortions . speaking at a news conference in toronto , the advocates lamented the slow progress of the investigation and said they believe that whoever carried out the attacks in canada was also responsible for killing dr . barnett a . slepian near buffalo on friday . ''they 've gotten absolutely nowhere in four years , '' said carolyn egan , a spokeswoman for the ontario coalition for abortion clinics . ''we 're hoping that because of this murder they will finally devote the necessary resources . '' ms . egan said in an interview that the slaying of dr . slepian could have been prevented if canadian officials had acted faster . she criticized the government for not establishing the investigative task_force until december 1997 more than three years after the first attack occurred . ''we feel this was an unnecessary killing , '' she said . but canadian government and law enforcement officials defended the task_force . the associated press reported that canada 's minister of justice , anne mclellan , said today that she wanted the task_force expanded . ''i instructed my department to do whatever they can , including additional resources , to work with officials in the united_states to put a stop to this kind of horrendous violence , '' she said . the task_force is considering four attacks against doctors performing abortions . all were wounded by sniper bullets fired through the windows of their homes . the canadian doctors lived near vancouver , british_columbia winnipeg , manitoba , and hamilton , ontario . the american doctor , who has not been identified by law enforcement officials in the united_states , lived in rochester . on friday , a sniper killed dr . slepian as he stood in the kitchen of his home in amherst , a suburb of buffalo . inspector dave bowen of the hamilton wentworth regional police , a manager of the task_force , said today that investigators believed that the four attacks were linked . he said it had not been determined whether the killing of dr . slepian was part of the series . but the advocates said the amherst attack was part of a ''criminal conspiracy'' against doctors who perform_abortions .",has a topic of health
"women from around the world who gathered here this week to develop a global plan to eradicate breast_cancer focused heavily on suspected environmental links to the disease , even though such connections have not been proved . organizers of the first world conference on breast_cancer estimated that one million women would die of breast_cancer worldwide this year , and the incidence of the disease has been rising rapidly . but instead of focusing on usual medical approaches to fighting breast_cancer , which in recent years have emphasized genetics and life style , they chose to attack industrial chemicals and other toxins . several speakers at the hearings expressed concern that researchers might be playing down environmental factors because of pressure from business . the conference was sponsored by local groups and the women 's environment and development organization , headed by bella s . abzug , the former new york congresswoman , who is a cancer survivor . delegates from developing nations like guyana , ghana and india told of breast_cancer rates' rising in close relation to the degree of modernization in their countries . ''it is frightening to know that our countries are being inundated with the same toxic_substances that caused problems in the developed countries all in the name of progress , '' said dr . iris zavala martinez of puerto_rico . the lack of medical resources and education , as well as the social stigma of breast_cancer , were blamed in part for climbing cancer rates in developing_countries . for example , delegates said , some indian women believe that cancer can be caused by sins committed in previous lives , while in ghana , cancer is surrounded by so many myths that women stay away from the few available clinics . many speakers said there already was sufficient evidence to warrant banning certain chemicals or prohibiting the united_states , canada and other industrial nations from exporting them to poorer countries . several speakers mentioned the suspected link between cancer and electromagnetic fields , saying that a study published recently in the new england journal of medicine indicating there was no evidence of links between power lines and leukemia in children did not mean that there was no link to other cancers . ms . abzug said that the global plan being drafted would reflect the concerns and demands of the hundreds of women who attended the five day conference , which ended thursday . ''what we 're trying to do it influence changes in policy , '' she said . conference organizers hope to present the plan to the united_nations before the end of the year . then nations that adopt it will be monitored to insure compliance , ms . abzug said . the most controversial suggestion was to insist that the link between the environment and breast_cancer need not be proved conclusively before governments act to ban potentially harmful substances . ''we have enough evidence from environmental studies to act now , '' said dr . sandra steingraber , an ecologist at northeastern_university . but dr . annie sasco of france , acting chief of the cancer control program for the world_health_organization , urged caution in placing blame . ''there is evidence , '' she said , ''but what is enough evidence depends on the point of view . ''",has a topic of health
"an american surgeon consulting in the treatment of president boris n . yeltsin said today that the russian leader 's doctors are delighted with the speed of his initial recovery from multiple bypass heart surgery on tuesday . but as mr . yeltsin formally resumed the official powers he had handed over to prime_minister viktor s . chernomyrdin for the period of surgery , the american heart specialist , dr . michael e . debakey , said he had personally warned the president of the danger of trying to resume a heavy workload too soon . ''he is recovering beautifully , '' said dr . debakey , the american heart surgery pioneer who is consulting with mr . yeltsin 's team , headed by dr . renat s . akchurin . ''if you scripted it you could n't do better . every sign you use to measure recovery is normal . '' mr . yeltsin , 65 , had no evidence of neurological complications from the operation and ''was absolutely alert i did n't expect him to be that alert , and he was even joking a bit , '' dr . debakey said after joining russian doctors in examining the president at a cardiology hospital today . at 6 a.m . local time , moments after doctors disconnected him from an artificial respirator and he began breathing normally on his own , mr . yeltsin signed a decree resuming all the powers of his office . but when mr . yeltsin expressed a desire to be sent to a hospital where he had stayed preparing for the operation , maintaining a light workload , dr . debakey said he advised the president to follow doctors' orders to rest and not to jeopardize what is expected to be a full recovery . ''i chastised him , '' dr . debakey said , adding that he told mr . yeltsin '' 'you know , you promised me you would be a good patient and you have to be patient because this is a very critical period for you . i know you want to get out , but this is not the time to do it . ' and he smiled and said all right , and thanked me . '' dr . debakey said he ''told mr . yeltsin that he should not consider getting back into full duties for at least six weeks . '' mr . yeltsin will be allowed gradually to increase the amount of paperwork and other mental activities ''as long as he does not get fatigued , '' dr . debakey said . ''he has lost strength and he needs to get it back with rest . '' visitors will be limited at most to an hour in the morning and another hour later in the day . mr . yeltsin is expected to walk a little on thursday , although he will be sore from incisions in his chest and leg from the operation . mr . yeltsin ''will be able to walk a mile in about two weeks and after a month five miles if he wants , '' according to dr . debakey . in mr . yeltsin 's operation , dr . akchurin 's team sewed five grafts to arteries that nourish his heart , creating new channels to allow blood to flow around blockages . in examining mr . yeltsin 's heart during the operation , doctors found ''no evidence of scarring anywhere'' from old heart attacks , dr . debakey said . ''it was beautiful muscle , '' he said , and ''it will be able to revert to normal function'' with the new grafts . when a standard test known as the ejection fraction is performed next , dr . debakey said it should be a near normal 60 , up from 40 shortly before surgery and a low of 20 last summer when doctors injected a drug to stop a heart_attack in progress . experience indicates that mr . yeltsin can look forward to ''10 years of pretty good survival , '' dr . debakey said .",has a topic of health
"two suicide car bombers tore into a central checkpoint for baghdad 's airport on sunday , setting off blasts that killed at least 14 people and wounded 16 , the military and the police said . it was the first bomb attack in nearly a year aimed at the airport , the capital 's main gateway . the attack also was the worst in a string of violent assaults that left at least 32 people dead , including 2 american_soldiers and 2 british_soldiers , and more than 60 wounded , making sunday iraq 's deadliest day in weeks . the first airport checkpoint bomber struck at 10 50 a.m . in a dirt parking_lot roughly the size of a football field , where throngs of iraqis and foreigners waited for rides to the airport and to the largest american military base in baghdad , camp_victory . shortly after , the second bomber detonated his device near another cluster of vehicles , scattering human remains into the dust . one airport taxi_driver said he found the head of a colleague in the wreckage . the bombings were a brazen strike at one of the capital 's most heavily_guarded areas . foreigners , members of the military and hundreds of iraqi workers and travelers move through the area daily , waiting in cars between two roads and giant slabs of cement . the ease with which the two bombers drove into the parking area , just east of a statue and a larger , more secure lot , demonstrated how far iraqis still have to go to improve security . the checkpoint was closed for several hours , blocking the one route into the airport , which remains the only reliable point of entry to iraq for foreigners , who no longer travel to the country by road from jordan or kuwait , because that has become too dangerous . the checkpoint has been attacked before , most recently by a car_bomb last june . the violence evoked memories of the intense bloodshed last spring , when car_bombs in baghdad regularly killed dozens . in the second deadliest attack on sunday , a roadside_bomb , aimed at an iraqi_police patrol in beirut square , a busy area in northeast baghdad , blew up civilians instead , killing five and wounding eight , a police official said . in all there were eight bombings in and around baghdad , the official said . five bodies were found in southern baghdad , all with gunshot_wounds to the head . in another set of attacks , sunni arab insurgents struck at five small shiite_shrines in the village of wjihiya , northeast of baghdad and close to baquba , a mixed city that has been tormented by sectarian_violence . a group of between 20 and 30 gunmen slipped into the area of the shrines around 3 30 a.m. , said a member of the regional council for diyala_province , who lives in wjihiya , and detonated explosives inside each one . the official , who spoke by telephone and declined to give his name for fear he would be killed , said the bombings had neither hurt anyone nor set off protests there . the strikes raised fears of retaliation by shiite_militias , which have been blamed for kidnappings and secret killings of sunni arabs . a february bombing of a shrine in samarra , an important symbol for iraqi shiites , touched off days of sectarian_killings and attacks . the violence comes as american officials press iraqi political leaders to finish forming a new government . officials hope that a strong central government will be able to pacify iraq 's increasingly violent ethnic and sectarian groups , but disagreements over crucial ministries have caused delays . under iraqi law , the leaders face a may 22 deadline to form the government . even iraq 's new leaders at times appear to have irreconcilable positions . iraq 's sunni arab vice_president , tarik al hashimy , said in an interview on al_jazeera television on sunday_night that he approved of iraqi nationalist guerrillas holding talks with american officials , but that they should ''not stop the fight . '' he said , ''the stopping of fighting should be part of the final deal . '' the texture of the killing has shifted in recent months . spectacular suicide bombings like those on sunday had fallen sharply , according to american military statistics . but secret killings and kidnappings by sunni and shiite_militias have soared , and in some neighborhoods , like dora in southern baghdad , militias openly fight one another on the streets . ''when i get to work , i do n't feel so sure that i 'll return home , '' said anmar abed khalaf , a 24 year old shiite from dora , whose family plans to move to egypt . the airport taxi_driver , who was returning to the airport after dropping off a passenger when the explosion occurred , cited colleagues who were there as saying that the first blast , delivered in a mercedes , tore into cars that belonged to the electricity ministry . the second blast , he said , came from a toyota . the area was recently redesigned and two american tanks and blast_walls , which used to line the road nearby , are gone . ''there were pieces of human flesh everywhere , '' said the driver , who identified himself by his iraqi nickname , abu mazen , out of fear of being harmed . in other attacks , four guards for iraq 's foreign_minister were killed and five were wounded on a road north of baghdad while on their way from the kurdish city of erbil , police officials in kirkuk said . homemade_bombs in and around baghdad killed five iraqis . the two british_soldiers were killed in gorma , a town near basra in southern iraq , when their convoy hit a roadside_bomb early sunday morning , the military command said . in recent weeks in basra , the british military faced a helicopter crash last weekend , possibly shot down by a rocket , and protests that have turned violent . two american_soldiers were killed by a roadside_bomb in eastern baghdad at 8 p.m . yesterday , the military said in a statement .",has a topic of health
"the sars outbreak in toronto apparently caused men there to start washing their hands after using the bathroom , according to a new survey conducted for the american society of microbiology . apart from toronto , however , the figures collected by observers in airport bathrooms did not paint a very sanitary picture . in five american cities , only 70 percent of men and 80 percent of women washed their hands . the lowest percentage among men was found in chicago ( 38 percent ) among women , it was in san_francisco ( 41 percent ) . the survey was released at the society 's conference in chicago last week . dr . judy a . daly , a microbiologist at the university of utah , who is the association 's secretary , said that in toronto after the sars outbreak the washing group soared to 96 percent in both men and women . public_health officials in toronto emphasized hand washing as a way to curb the virus , which is mainly passed through physical contact . many people erroneously believe that viruses are spread only by airborne particles , dr . daly said . as a result , only 31 percent of people said they routinely washed their hands after coughing or sneezing , ''when the hands by design are loaded with bacteria , '' she said . alcohol wipes or solutions or ' 'soap and water and 15 seconds of friction'' can remove over 90 percent of microbes on the hands , dr . daly said . vital_signs hygiene",has a topic of health
"on oct . 17 , as fears of possible shortages of the antibiotic cipro grew , tommy g . thompson , the secretary of health_and_human_services , made a statement that may have added to the confusion about which drugs can be used to treat and prevent anthrax . testifying at a congressional hearing , mr . thompson said ''let me also announce that the f.d.a . is officially approving the use of two additional generic antibiotics for the treatment of anthrax , doxycycline and penicillin . because these drugs are available in generic form and produced by several manufacturers , they will be relatively inexpensive and readily available . '' but those drugs were already approved to treat all forms of anthrax and had been for half a century . they have been ''the standard of care and clinically used for decades , '' said dr . sandra kweder of the food and drug administration . what really happened on the day of mr . thompson 's statement , the f.d.a . said , is that the agency said it would be asking the makers of doxycycline and penicillin to apply for permission to change the drugs' labeling to make it clear that they can be used to prevent and treat inhaled anthrax . that deadly form of the disease occurs when people breathe anthrax spores into their lungs . dr . kweder explained that the earlier labels on penicillin and doxycycline had said they could be used to treat ''anthrax , '' leaving some confusion among doctors about whether the two drugs could be used to prevent inhaled anthrax in people exposed to the spores . ''the labeling has never been clear , '' dr . kweder said . but , she said , there is more experience by far with the older drugs than with cipro in preventing and treating anthrax . there is the same evidence and more that they work , she added . like cipro , penicillin and doxcycline kill anthrax bacteria in the laboratory , and they protected monkeys against inhaled anthrax . unlike cipro , they were used in previous anthrax outbreaks , including one in the soviet_union in 1979 , in which 79 people at once were infected from an accidental release of anthrax spores at a germ_warfare laboratory . last year , the f.d.a . asked bayer ag , the german company that makes cipro , to apply to have the drug approved to prevent and treat inhaled anthrax . trying to prepare for bioterrorism , the f.d.a . wanted a drug on the market to fight anthrax that might be resistant to the older drugs . as a result , cipro became the only drug on the market with labeling that mentioned inhaled anthrax . but so far , the anthrax bacteria isolated from people who were recently infected have been killed by penicillin and doxycycline . a nation challenged the treatments",has a topic of health
"according to press reports , military doctors and nurses who examined prisoners at abu_ghraib treated swollen genitals , prescribed painkillers , stitched wounds , and recorded evidence of the abuses going on around them . under international_law as well as the standards of common decency these medical professionals had a duty to tell those in power what they saw . instead , too often , they returned the victims of torture to the custody of their victimizers . rather than putting a stop to torture , they tacitly abetted it , by patching up victims and staying silent . the duty of doctors in such circumstances is clear . they must provide needed treatment , then do all they can to keep perpetrators from committing further abuse . this includes keeping detailed records of injuries and their likely causes , performing clinical tests to gather forensic evidence and reporting abuses to those with the will and power to act . during the 1980 's and 1990 's , american human_rights investigators traveled to many countries with oppressive governments , assembling evidence of medical complicity in torture . a pattern emerged in rogue regimes that claimed pride in their civility doctors both contained and abetted torture by treating its victims , returning them to perpetrators and then remaining silent . i was one of these investigators . i vividly remember the uruguayan military_intelligence chief who spoke to me with contempt about argentine ''barbarians'' who made tens of thousands disappear . by contrast , he boasted , in uruguay the army kept doctors nearby to keep things from getting out of hand . fewer than 200 uruguayans died in detention while the army ruled . now the american military is essentially ruling iraq and it is urgent that we find out what our military doctors , nurses and medics know . they are likely to have kept records . already , a medical assessment unearthed by investigators has given the lie to the pentagon 's claim that the former chief of iraq 's air_force chief lost consciousness and died after saying he did n't feel well the medical report said his death ensued from ''asphyxia due to smothering and chest compression . '' congress and others investigating abuse of detainees in iraq , guant_namo_bay and elsewhere should quickly obtain all relevant medical records . they should ask independent experts to review these records and to question military medical personnel about what they saw and heard . independent doctors should also examine people who say they were abused , using state of the art protocols for documentation of torture and other ill treatment . these protocols make it possible to find patterns of abuse . had military doctors come forward immediately with such evidence , brutal practices that have shamed us all could have been stopped at the outset . and had the perpetrators feared exposure through medical findings , they might have been dissuaded from their lawless course . when guards and interrogators become torturers , doctors are first responders . international_law demands that they act as such . in iraq , it appears , a ' 'do n't ask , do n't tell'' ethic stood in the way . by staying silent for months , until an inquest began , doctors and nurses abandoned their patients . but these doctors and nurses probably saw enough to offer smoking_gun evidence of what went awry at abu_ghraib and elsewhere . it is time for us to ask and them to tell . op_ed contributor m . gregg bloche teaches law and health_policy at georgetown and johns_hopkins universities .",has a topic of health
"an advisory committee to the world_health_organization for the first time has recommended that russian and american scientists be allowed to manipulate a gene in the smallpox virus to speed the development of drugs that could treat the disease , the agency said yesterday . but the recommendation is just the first step in what officials said could be a lengthy process to approve the experimentation . smallpox was a scourge until it was eradicated in 1980 by the w.h.o. , a united_nations agency based in geneva . since then , stocks of the variola virus that causes the disease have been kept frozen in w.h.o . approved laboratories in russia and the united_states . the bush_administration and some health officials have expressed fear that terrorists might have obtained smallpox virus from russia , or that scientists in some countries might have kept the virus without telling the united_nations agency . although a vaccine can prevent smallpox , no known drugs can cure the disease after it has developed . the proposed laboratory experiments would involve inserting a so called marker gene into the smallpox virus that glows green under fluorescent light . the technique is a standard way to screen for potential antiviral drugs , and the manipulation would not change the virulence of the virus , said officials at the w.h.o . the agency 's initial intent was to destroy the remaining stocks of smallpox virus after it had stopped person to person transmission of the disease . but its member states delayed destroying the virus , demanding additional research to find effective drugs , develop safer vaccines and improve diagnostic_tests . such research must be conducted in the laboratories at the highest biosecurity level . the idea of conducting any genetic research on the virus has been a subject of debate . last week the w.h.o . 's 20 member international advisory committee voted_unanimously to allow insertion of the gene , known as g.f.p . for green fluorescent marker protein , into variola virus at the two laboratories in russia and the united_states , said dr . daniel lavanchy , a smallpox expert for the health organization . the american laboratory is at the centers_for_disease_control in atlanta . national_public_radio reported yesterday that w.h.o . had approved the research . officials at the agency said the committee 's recommendation must still go through a lengthy review process . it would need to obtain approval from the agency 's director general , dr . jong wook lee from an executive board that meets in january and from a meeting of the agency 's member countries , scheduled for may 2005 . in addition , the matter could be referred to other committees at any step along the way , officials said . last year , a w.h.o . advisory committee reportedly expressed significant reservations about experiments that would take single genes from the smallpox virus and insert them into other viruses , because it might accidentally create an even more potent version of smallpox that could be used in bioterrorism . but dr . lavanchy said the experiments the advisory committee rejected last year were ''fundamentally different'' than those recommended last week , and that the insertion of the marker gene in the experiments now being proposed would not alter the ability of variola virus to cause disease . the experiments do not involve inserting a gene or deleting one to observe what happens to the variola virus , dr . lavanchy said in a telephone interview . in the proposed screening test , the fluorescent marker inserted in the virus glows green only if the virus is not susceptible to a drug the glow disappears if a drug destroys the altered virus . so far , only one drug cidofovir has been identified as a candidate for treating smallpox . the proposed experiments aim to identify a number of additional candidate drugs , a process that may take ''a few years , '' dr . lavanchy said . using the gene marker technique would also reduce the risk of a laboratory worker accidentally becoming infected with smallpox , according to w.h.o . the recommendation did not address how many candidate drugs must be identified or how long the experiments should continue .",has a topic of health
"the administration announced today that russia had agreed to allow the sale of virtually all drugs made in the united_states and approved by the food and drug administration . the agreement , which takes effect immediately , was described by the f.d.a . as the first in which any nation has formally agreed to rely so heavily on another nation to insure that drugs sold are safe and effective . any prescription or nonprescription drug made in the united_states and approved by the f.d.a . will be assured of approval within 90 days in russia . pharmaceutical companies are simply required to give the health ministry documentation of the approval . ready to apply and ship dr . mary k . pendergast , the deputy f.d.a . commissioner who led the negotiations with the russians over the last year , said that important medicines like antibiotics , insulin and drugs to combat high_blood_pressure were in extremely short supply in russia and that american companies were ready to apply soon to ship those drugs . the agreement is also expected to be a boon for american drug companies that have faced obstacles entering the russian market , particularly if russia can stabilize its economy . russia buys 300 million to 400 million in foreign drugs annually in a poorly supplied and chaotic marketplace , the f.d.a . said , and american drugs account for 7 million of that total . countries like france and italy each have total drug markets of about 12 billion annually , the industry says . the united_states market is 58 billion annually . 'a big market' richard r . saul , assistant vice_president for europe at the pharmaceutical manufacturers association here , said the market in russia had been very unstable and frustrating for years . "" it is very hard going , "" mr . saul added . "" but potentially it could be large . companies view this as a very long term investment , and the prize in the end is a share of a big market . "" under the previous system in russia , companies had to submit data in russian on all chemical , animal and human tests , duplicate the human experiments inside russia and submit the entire package to the ministry of health and medical industry . the process was expensive and took years , and the outcomes were unpredictable . of thousands of drugs approved by the food and drug administration , 40 have been approved for sale in russia . but beginning today , ms . pendergast said , the health ministry has agreed to approve american made and f.d.a . approved drugs within 90 days of the submission of a basic description of the drug and its action , a copy of the official approval letter and the latest federal inspection reports from the manufacturer . unresolved liability questions the f.d.a . is trying to devise a way to inform the russians by computer about safety problems that arise involving drugs it has approved . ms . pendergast said that russia had little civil , property or contract_law and that questions about liability had not been resolved . vice_president al_gore said the agreement was a breakthrough in "" our efforts to open new doors and forge new partnerships that recognize how the world has changed . "" dr . donna e . shalala , the secretary of health_and_human_services , said in an interview "" the public_health dimension of this cannot be stressed enough . we have enormous respect for the russian scientists and we hope to help them help the russian people . "" american drug companies were elated because the agreement gives them a potential advantage in russia and because it is a strong shot in the competition for world markets . gerald mossinghoff , president of the pharmaceutical manufacturers association , which represents large drug companies in washington , said that this was the first time that one nation had accepted the regulatory approval of another , but that european_nations would soon be doing so among themselves . the rules would be established in the european_union under which a drug approved by one nation would be assumed to be approved by other members , unless there were special circumstances . consistency in testing the f.d.a . has set up an international conference on "" harmonization , "" trying to assure that studies of animals and humans by drug companies can be used to have drugs approved in more than one country . now , for example , one country may require a two year study of a drug 's effects in beagles and a rodent study with 2 , 000 animals , while another country requires a seven year dog study and work with 500 rodents . the united_states and japan are also working to establish common requirements . "" the ultimate goal , "" mr . mossinghoff said , "" is that we would accept each other 's drug approvals . but russia is right there today , and that is a big step . "" the accord with russia was executed by an eight page memorandum of understanding signed by the food and drug commissioner , dr . david kessler , in washington on jan . 28 and signed by the russian health minister , eduard a . nechayev , on tuesday . the agreement covers all drugs and biological products , but not homeopathic medicines or medical_devices . it states that for drugs and biological products , "" the russian_federation participants will accept f.d.a . 's decisions and regulations on premarket approval , licensing , monographs and related matters , as well as f.d.a . 's product quality standards and enforcement of manufacturing controls and other requirements . "" influence in other countries if a company provides the documentation to russia , "" the russian_federation participants will not require , as a condition of importation , the conduct of any additional clinical or analytical review or testing . "" f.d.a . approval carries great weight for health ministries around the world . many nations , especially in the third world , use the approvals as informal guides about the safety and effectiveness of drugs . the food and drug administration has approved 2 , 500 prescription_drugs , of which 200 account for 80 to 90 percent of total sales , said jeff warren of the manufacturers' group . also covered by the agreement are thousands of over the counter products like cold remedies and hemorrhoidal compounds . about 13 billion of thosedrugs are sold in this country each year . the provision that the drugs and products be manufactured in the united_states restricts the agreement to the plants that the f.d.a . regularly inspects . possible additional accord the agreement also states that the f.d.a . and the russian ministry will sign a memorandum in six months to cover medical_devices and some food additives . many devices are virtually unregulated in the united_states , making an agreement on acceptance more difficult to reach , as the agency cannot vouch for their safety and effectiveness . the obstacles for american drug companies to selling drugs in russia over the years have been large . in the soviet_union the government tightly limited access , and most drugs were manufactured by eastern_bloc countries and a few favored sources , including india and japan . in the post_soviet era some countries that have been selling to the region for years have been able to obtain drug approvals from the russians more easily than others . the new agreement will shift that balance and may give american products a significant advantage . but more important obstacles to sales are the chaotic state of the economy , the lack of money and the problems in distributing and selling products in russia . "" it will be at least 10 years , if things go well , before all this will be sorted out , "" said mr . saul , of the manufacturers' group . "" but it is a great chance . """,has a topic of health
"when boris n . yeltsin 's doctors meet on wednesday to decide if and when the president should have a heart bypass_operation , one of russia 's most renowned heart surgeons will not be there . the surgeon , dr . leo bokeria , the head of bakulev institute , said that neither he nor any of his aides had been invited to take part in the consultations even though his center does more bypass operations than any other in russia . with life and death decisions pending on mr . yeltsin , the russian medical establishment 's handling of the case is beginning to come under question . the issue is not the technical skill of the surgeon who has been selected to operate on mr . yeltsin , dr . renat s . akchurin of the cardiological center in moscow . rather , it concerns his center 's experience in performing complicated bypass operations and its rivalry with other russian institutes . quoting an anonymous specialist , izvestia recently raised the question of why dr . bokeria was not involved . and mikhail alshibaya , a top bypass surgeon who studied under dr . bokeria , said he was surprised that his mentor has not at least been included in the consultations . dr . akchurin has also inadvertently encouraged the doubters by giving a startling series of interviews in which he appeared to be anything but the picture of self confidence . the 50 year old surgeon warned that mr . yeltsin , 65 , might be too ill to survive an operation , adding that if an operation took place it might be delayed for as long as two months . communist politicians quickly seized on those remarks to demand that mr . yeltsin resign . there is no question that the cardiological center where dr . akchurin operates has all the trappings of an elite institution . the center is the successor to the fourth directorate , where leaders of the former soviet_union received medical treatment . its up to date equipment and marble walls are a tribute to the political clout of its director , dr . yevgeny i . chazov , who served as a soviet health minister and doctor to the soviet leaders leonid i . brezhnev and mikhail s . gorbachev . but skeptics say the center embodies a paradox precisely because it has been reserved for the powerful and the privileged , it has performed far fewer bypass operations than dr . bokeria 's bakulev institute . last year , the cardiological center performed about 150 bypass operations , according to dr . akchurin . in contrast , the bakulev institute performed 600 bypass operations . dr . akchurin said he had personally performed about 100 operations last year . but dr . bokeria operates four times a week . located in a stately moscow building , the 40 year old bakulev does one third of russia 's heart operations and 50 percent of those done in moscow , dr . bokeria said . doctors say such experience is a critical factor in the success of an operation . numbers , of course , do not tell the whole story . but dr . bokeria 's bakulev institute also performs complex heart operations to repair genetic defects . and it was dr . bokeria who organized the symposium that has drawn dr . michael e . debakey , the american surgeon who is to consult on mr . yeltsin 's case , to moscow , where he arrived today . this is not to say that dr . akchurin is not well regarded . dr . akchurin began as a microsurgeon , using a microscope to repair and reattach limbs . he was recruited as a heart surgeon by dr . chazov and later trained with dr . debakey for six months . in addition to his involvement with the cardiological center , dr . akchurin may have been chosen to operate on mr . yeltsin because he conducted a successful bypass_operation eight years ago on prime_minister viktor s . chernomyrdin . but doctors say his was simpler than the bypass planned for mr . yeltsin , whose heart has reportedly been damaged by previous heart attacks and who also reportedly suffers from kidney and liver ailments . taking a diplomatic approach , dr . bokeria declined to comment on the number of operations dr . akchurin does each year . but he noted that studies showed a correlation between experience and the success of an operation . and he added that he was taken aback at recent comments by dr . akchurin on russian television that he had not examined mr . yeltsin for several weeks . ''when he said that he did not see the patient for two or three weeks , i was surprised , '' dr . bokeria said . ''he is talking about an old story . ''",has a topic of health
"lead after years of struggle between the tobacco_industry and the anti smoking lobby , canada has adopted some of the world 's toughest anti smoking laws , including a ban on all forms of advertising and a requirement that every cigarette pack contain a detailed leaflet warning of the fatal diseases that have been linked to smoking . after years of struggle between the tobacco_industry and the anti smoking lobby , canada has adopted some of the world 's toughest anti smoking laws , including a ban on all forms of advertising and a requirement that every cigarette pack contain a detailed leaflet warning of the fatal diseases that have been linked to smoking . the final step in legislating the restrictions came tuesday night , when the canadian senate passed two laws that go well beyond the restrictions in force in the united_states , where only television and radio advertising of tobacco_products is banned . in canada , the new laws will ban not only broadcast advertising , which the tobacco_industry voluntarily agreed to end 16 years ago , but newspapers and magazines ads and , after 1993 , all billboard and other outdoor advertising . the new laws , to be put into effect in stages after jan . 1 , 1989 , will also restrict smoking to specially designated rooms in all federally regulated workplaces in canada . that provision will affect more than 900 , 000 people in government , banks , transportation companies and state owned enterprises . in addition , the legislation will give statutory effect to an existing ban on smoking aboard all domestic air flights of under two hours , and require companies that run federally regulated ships , trains and buses to allow smoking only in special areas separated from the main seating . the canadian laws will also ban the use of tobacco brand names in connection with cultural and sporting_events , which have become a major promotional vehicle for the tobacco_industry . in the future , tobacco companies wanting to sponsor such organizations as the canadian opera company or events like the canadian open golf_tournament , which have been among the beneficiaries of tobacco sponsorship , will be limited to using the companies' names without mention or other promotion of their cigarette brands . also banned will be point of sale advertising , such as placards at supermarkets and corner stores , and promotional techniques that have been increasingly favored by the tobacco_industry since broadcast advertising was banned . the techniques that will be unlawful include the sale or give away of cigarette lighters and t shirts bearing cigarette brand names or depictions of cigarette packs , and so called facsimile advertising of a kind common in france , which circumvents a ban on direct advertising by publishing depictions of objects associated with smoking , such as a cigarette lighter . contraventions of the ban on advertising will carry one of the heaviest penalties ever set by canadian legislation , a maximum fine of 300 , 000 in canadian money . this is equivalent to about 245 , 000 . one major loophole in the new restrictions is that they will not affect american magazines and periodicals that are sold in canada , which carry extensive cigarette advertising . these publications are estimated to account for more than 60 percent of all the reading of such publications that canadians do . but any united_states publication that prints its canadian issues in canada , such as time magazine , will be subject to the new laws . a canadian lobbyist who worked for 15 years to have the laws passed said today that he had been inundated by telephone calls from doctors' groups and others in the united_states who hoped that the canadian law would speed the adoption of similar legislation by congress . the lobbyist , c . garfield mahood , executive director of the nonsmokers' rights association , said the millions of americans who visit canada each year were bound to be struck by the tight restraints . leaflets inside the packs will warn of a dozen or more fatal diseases that have been linked to smoking . the requirement to insert the leaflets in cigarette packs , with wording that is now being drafted by canada 's health ministry , appeared to be the first of its kind anywhere . 20 countries ban ads according to a list provided by the world_health_organization , about 20 other countries already have bans on tobacco_advertising , some of them partial . they include algeria , finland , italy , norway , jordan , portugal , singapore , as czechoslovakia , east_germany , hungary , poland and rumania . by the w.h.o . count , 43 nations including the united_states require cigarette packs to carry health warnings . the new canadian laws will make the warnings here among the most explicit .",has a topic of health
"sue rodriguez , who fought unsuccessfully all the way to the supreme court of canada for the right of the terminally ill to end their own lives , died saturday in what the police are calling a doctor_assisted_suicide . assisted_suicides are illegal in canada , as they are in the united_states . mrs . rodriguez 's death at her home in victoria , british_columbia , has revived the debate over whether such activity should be criminal in canada . her lawyer , chris considine , released a statement from his client in which mrs . rodriguez again pleaded with the federal_government to legalize assisted_suicides for people suffering painful terminal illnesses . "" i hope that my efforts will not have been in vain , "" she said . mrs . rodriguez , 43 , was an employee in a real_estate office in victoria in 1991 when she learned that she had amyotrophic_lateral_sclerosis , also known as lou_gehrig 's disease , an incurable and fatal nerve condition that slowly shuts down the body 's muscular functions . she went to court in british_columbia and finally to the supreme_court , arguing that the ban on assisted_suicide denied her constititonal right to life , liberty and security of the person . her death came four and a half months after the supreme_court , in a 5 to 4 ruling , upheld lower court decisions that the criminal_code sanctions did not abridge her rights . the majority said the state 's interest in protecting life 's sanctity took precedence over the right to a dignified death . television cameras , which followed mrs . rodriguez 's court struggle while graphically showing her physical deterioration , made her into a national_symbol for the cause of euthanasia . the issue is not going away , said marilynne seguin , executive director of dying with dignity , a group lobbying for euthanasia for more than a decade . a gallup_poll last year placed the canadian public 's approval of assisted deaths at 77 percent . the federal justice minister , allan rock , said he favored a free vote in parliament . last year members voted_overwhelmingly against a motion that would have required parliament to consider euthanasia legislation , but mrs . rodriguez 's high profile struggle , and now her death , may have altered the political landscape . still , it is unlikely that parliament will deal with the issue soon . mr . rock said the matter needed further study , and solicitor_general herb gray said economic issues were the government 's priority . parallels with united_states the right to die movement here has parallels with the one in the united_states , where dr . jack_kevorkian , who has helped 20 people commit_suicide , is campaigning for a state constitutional_amendment to legalize doctor_assisted_suicide in michigan . washington and california rejected laws permitting assisted_suicide in state referendums . at the scene of mrs . rodriguez 's apparent suicide was a member of parliament , svend robinson , a new democrat from vancouver who , the police said , is under investigation , along with an unidentified doctor . the premier of british columbia , mike harcourt , said sunday that prosecutors would rely on new provincial euthanasia guidelines in deciding whether anyone should be charged . according to the guidelines , it is illegal "" to advise , encourage or assist another person to perform an act that intentionally brings about his or her death . "" but the guidelines also give authorities discretion over the laying of charges in individual cases . mr . robinson told a news conference on monday that he had held mrs . rodriguez in his arms on saturday and "" she peacefully lapsed into unconsciousness and stopped breathing approximately two hours later . "" he said she had died "" with incredible courage and dignity . "" he declined to identify the doctor and did not go into detail on the procedure used to bring about her death . he did say he had no reason to believe he had committed any crime .",has a topic of health
"canadians may earn substantially less than americans , but most of them still rate their quality of life higher , and their government administered health_service has long topped the list of reasons . that health_service is now in trouble . how to fix it without ''americanizing'' it is the problem . ''for canadians , our publicly funded health care system is a key distinguishing characteristic of our country , '' a canadian senate committee report said in september . ''in fact , it has achieved iconic status . it is perceived to reflect canadian values and these are seen to stand in sharp contrast to the values of our american neighbors . '' canada 's health system , which took shape province by province over several years beginning in the 1960 's , leaves no one without essentially free access to most doctors and hospitals . canadians , saying they feel a strong sense of community with fellow citizens , take pride in avoiding the american pitfall of having millions of people uninsured against medical bills . here , the federal and provincial governments share in paying the bills about 63 billion annually from tax revenues and other income . but as costs for everything from new drugs or high tech equipment to hospital construction have risen , the system has shown the strains , as have other government financed health_care services in britain , germany and scandinavia . there are many suggestions about how to improve the canadian system without abandoning it for the american model of free enterprise medicine , which a majority of canadians tell pollsters they do not want , since it would create two classes of care for the rich and for the rest . some advocate co payments or user fees for doctor and hospital visits . canadians already pay for most drugs , dentistry and some eye care . the provincial premiers called again last month for more federal_government spending some say a measure of privatization is inevitable . some canadians are already sent at taxpayer expense to american doctors and hospitals , or they go on their own . recently , a blizzard of surveys by health experts , medical associations , consumer groups , provincial commissions and the news_media have cataloged problems from overworked , underequipped hospitals to vast regions without any doctors at all . the statistics translate into numerous personal stories of pain and sometimes tragedy . mostly , they are stories of emergency room triage and long waits for treatment , a lot of it not state of the art . dan lichtman , the chief executive of a private ontario company , inter medico , which supplies diagnostic equipment , said he had seen many substandard hospitals , but the reality hit him hardest when his mother , terminally ill with a lung disease and having difficulty breathing , was shunted into a room without air_conditioning in august , when temperatures hit 100 degrees . ''the discomfort of her last few hours was more aggravated , '' he said . ''it was , for me , a true reflection of some of the issues in health_care . she did n't have to die in that environment . '' there was also a widely reported armed standoff in a toronto teaching_hospital , where a frantic father pulled a gun on emergency room attendants to get treatment for his acutely ill baby . the father was shot and killed by police officers . in vancouver , a canadian senator , edward m . lawson , said he suffered chest_pains early in august and was told he would have to wait until mid september for an angiogram . he checked himself into a seattle hospital and had the procedure done within two weeks . the canadian medical association journal said in august that 37 percent of patients with certain cancers waited too long for surgery from 29 days after referral for colorectal cancer to 64 days for urological cancers . the journal also reported that long waits for coronary_bypass operations reduced patients' ability to resume normal life and work in the long term . under pressure from all sides , prime_minister_jean_chr_tien established a royal commission ( canada still being nominally under the british crown ) in may to turn the taxpayer_financed health system inside out , expose its shortcomings and recommend what to do about them . he put in charge of this sweeping operation an ebullient politician from saskatchewan , the province that more or less invented the canadian health_care system three decades ago . roy romanow , the commissioner of the new commission on the future of health care in canada and a member of the left of center new democratic_party , said in an interview here that his first active foray into political protest was as a student in the 1960 's , when saskatchewan was in crisis because of a doctors' strike against public health_insurance . he later became provincial attorney_general and was premier of saskatchewan from 1991 until last year . as premier , he said , he confronted huge deficits in public spending and found that he also had to cut back some health benefits , like free prescription_drugs . at the university of toronto , raisa b . deber , a professor in the department of health_policy , management and evaluation , said that canada 's system was not a true national_health_service like britain 's but rather a collection of provincial health systems operating under the guidelines of the 1984 canada health act . ''people who get care get really good care , '' dr . deber said . ''the level of satisfaction is very high . '' but when there are problems and care is not there when it is needed , she added , ''complaints go to newspapers'' and politics can enter the mix . provinces with conservative governments can shortchange the system to make money available for other needs . consumers have few alternatives since there are essentially no private doctors and no private medical_insurance providing care outside the system , unlike in britain , and no private hospitals . mr . romanow is about to begin soliciting the views of citizens , and in a very canadian way town meetings , an interactive web_site , 800 numbers for public comments . mr . romanow said that while political ideologies were inevitably involved in the debate , he thought that the central question was not which sector , private or public , provided the services but which controlled policy and administration . ''the key issue is whether or not that private_sector plus the public_sector fall under the rubric of publicly administered , and if they do , then the guiding ethic or value is public interest or public good , '' mr . romanow said . a private delivery system is perceived to be guided by ' 'maximization of shareholders' values and maximization of profit , '' he said . ''here 's where the huge chasm is . '' still , canadians cannot help keeping one eye on the other side of the border as they rethink health_care . ''in canada , we have 31 million people , '' mr . romanow said . ''my guess is that about 90 percent are located within 100 to 150 miles of the american border , and that raises a number of problems and a number of opportunities . '' canadians , he said , ''are being influenced by what they see and hear on american television , which is usually high tech medical breakthroughs and high public expectations . ''",has a topic of health
"anthrax vaccine report halts stock trading nasdaq suspended trading monday on shares of american biogenetic sciences ( nasdaq maba ) of copiague , hours after the company issued a news release saying it had licensed several vaccines , including one for anthrax , from the russian ministry of health . evan ard , a spokesman for the company , said it was cooperating with nasdaq officials in clarifying the information in the news release . alfred j . roach , the company 's chairman and chief executive , said the company had signed an agreement over the weekend with russian health officials that would make vaccines developed in russia for anthrax and other diseases available for clinical testing in the united_states . mr . ard said the company would act as a licensing agent for the vaccines , rather than trying to bring them to market itself . under terms of the agreement , american biogenetic sciences can immediately make the vaccines available for clinical testing . the process could take years before the federal_government would approve their use on humans in the united_states , although they are being used on humans in russia , mr . ard said . mr . roach said he had negotiated a_10 year agreement with russian health officials that covers human vaccines for anthrax , smallpox , botulism and other diseases . a second agreement with the russian agricultural academy gives the company rights to livestock vaccines , including one for animal anthrax . the two agreements govern vaccine distribution in north and south_america , the european_community and the pacific_rim . american biogenetic researches and develops diagnostic_tests for cardiopulmonary conditions and infectious_diseases , and treatments for neurological disorders , including epilepsy , migraine , mania , and alzheimer 's disease . telephonics contract the telephonics corporation of farmingdale said on tuesday that it had received a 13 . 5 million contract from the united_states_air_force for its identification friend or foe receiver transmitter technology . telephonics , a subsidiary of the griffon corporation ( nyse gff ) of jericho , provides integrated information and communication systems for military and commercial users . compiled by warren strugatch e mail libiz nytimes . com",has a topic of health
"pierre desmarais , one of the estimated 1 , 000 canadians who have contracted the aids virus through tainted_blood and blood products , still considers himself lucky . despite being infected from an operation in 1984 and his discovery of it in 1988 , mr . desmarais , has married , and now he and his wife , france , are planning to have children through artificial_insemination with an anonymous donor . he is now program coordinator for the quebec chapter of the canadian hemophilia society , monitoring the legal rights of those who are infected with the virus and organizing support activities , like family weekends , for about 250 other quebecers who have also become infected with the virus through tainted_blood products . "" i try to rest as much as possible , but up to now i lead a normal life , except for regular checkups , and i hope to live a long time , "" said mr . desmarais , 31 , who has a blood disorder but who is not a hemophiliac . infected before screening of the other infected people , about half of whom live in ontario and the rest in the other provinces and territories , all received tainted_blood products before mandatory screening and other procedures were put into place in the fall of 1985 . before 1985 , 47 percent of all hemophiliacs in canada were infected with h.i.v . through the supply of coagulation products . but over the last five years not one such case has been reported because screening procedures have sharply increased the safety of canada 's blood supply . still , a small risk exists , estimated by the red_cross at one in 50 , 000 , for those requiring a blood_transfusion . this reflects the possibility of infection by donors shortly before giving blood but not yet having developed antibodies to the virus that a test would detect . a formal inquiry was opened in february under justice horace krever of the ontario appeals court and is expected to continue proceedings for at least the next year . payments on condition as for those who were infected , they have been getting financial compensation . in 1989 , the federal_government agreed to give each of them 22 , 500 a year for four years . after those funds ran out in april 1993 , the provinces and territories began providing payment on march 15 , giving each person 22 , 500 a year for life in addition to a lump_sum of 16 , 500 . the payments are conditioned , however , on forgoing lawsuits against the federal and provincial governments , hospitals , the red_cross , four pharmaceutical companies that manufacture blood products and 19 insurance_companies . canada 's federal_government has the public_health responsibility for regulating blood , which is considered a drug under federal legislation . negligence in exercising that responsibility gives rise to potential liability . provincial governments are liable as well because of their responsibility under public_health legislation to contain the spread of infectious_diseases . in addition , the provincial governments finance the red_cross , which was the operator of the blood system and distributed the tainted_blood . of the 1 , 000 or so people who became infected , 65 have rejected the offer for compensation and will sue . "" the choice depended on their capacity to take the risk , "" said kenneth arenson , a toronto lawyer who represents a number of the 65 . victim wins suit those who have decided to sue may have been influenced by the judgment that mr . arenson won on march 14 for rochelle pittman , a mother of four , who is to collect more than 375 , 000 for the tainted_blood transfusion that led to the death of her husband , ken , in 1990 and her own contraction of the aids virus from him . mr . pittman received the blood in a transfusion during cardiac surgery at toronto general hospital in 1984 , the year before canada started screening its blood supply . he died of aids in 1990 , at the age of 59 , without ever knowing he had the virus . mrs . pittman , now 55 , sued the red_cross , which accepted the tainted_blood , the toronto hospital and her husband 's doctor , stanley bain , seeking damages of more than 1 . 5 million . dr . bain was told by hospital officials a year before mr . pittman 's death that his patient had the aids virus . but fearing that this information would send mr . pittman into a depression , the doctor said he did not tell his patient about it . the doctor also testified that he had mistakenly believed that mr . pittman was not having sex with his wife . five months after her husband died , mr . pittman , who had worked as a jewelry saleswoman in toronto , was told that she had h.i.v. , the virus that causes aids . of the 375 , 000 liability , judge susan lang of the ontario court of justice , general division said 40 percent should be paid by dr . bain and 30 percent each by the red_cross and toronto hospital , as toronto general is now known . mrs . pittman said at a news conference here in march that while she was "" happy "" with the judgment , "" no amount of money can ever compensate me and my family for the loss of a husband and father . "" she added "" nor will it change the fact i will likely experience a similar fate . """,has a topic of health
"the smallest surviving premature babies eventually attain levels of education , employment and independence that are almost indistinguishable from those of normal weight babies , according to the latest findings from a continuing canadian study that began 28 years ago . by most measures , researchers found no substantial differences between people born at exceptionally low weights and those born at normal weights . the rates including high_school graduation , pursuit of postsecondary education , aspects of employment , independent living , marriage and parenthood , did not differ significantly between groups . the findings held even when those with disabilities 27 percent of those with low_birth_weight and 2 percent of those at normal birth_weight were included . contrary to the scientists' expectations , a majority of those born unusually small successfully moved from adolescence to adulthood . ''children who appear disabled at 2 or 3 are not necessarily doomed to a lifetime of disability , '' said dr . saroj saigal , who was the senior author of the study . ''these young adults were able to achieve much more than we expected . '' researchers have been following 166 babies born from 1977 to 1982 who weighed 1.1 to 2.2 pounds at birth along with a matched group of 145 babies of normal weight . they have now examined those subjects as young adults in face to face interviews by trained interviewers who did not know which subjects had been low_birth_weight babies . parents responded for participants who were severely impaired and unable to respond themselves . the results were published feb . 8 in the journal of the american_medical_association . the proportion of high_school graduates was similar in both groups , although those with extremely low birth_weights were less likely to complete the advanced high_school course required for university entrance in canada . a significantly lower percentage of subjects with low birth_weights were enrolled in college or had graduated , though the difference evened out with other forms of postsecondary education . more subjects with low birth_weights were unemployed because of chronic illness or sustained disability . among those employed , there were no differences between the groups in part time or full time employment , and figures for permanent employment were comparable with canadian population norms . dr . john m . lorenz , a professor of clinical pediatrics at columbia university medical center who was not involved in the study , said he found the results impressive . ''they 've followed the great majority of survivors over time into a period of life where you can get some idea about how they are going to function as adults , '' he said . the researchers did find significant sex differences , with women doing better in all respects than men . ''males are more vulnerable , '' said dr . saigal , a professor of pediatrics at mcmaster university in hamilton , ontario . ''survival rates are lower . they have a higher proportion of neurological difficulties , and they do n't do as well in school . this is consistent with every other study . '' the authors acknowledge that it may not be possible to generalize their results to other populations . the low_birth_weight group was 94 percent white , with 82 percent from two parent families . moreover , all the babies received care at hospitals with specialized neonatal intensive care units under canada 's universal_health_care system . ''i do n't want to say that because our children have done well , the results are going to be the same everywhere , '' dr . saigal said . ''the results would be comparable with similar socioeconomic conditions and similar resources available . '' dr . saigal also said the degree of disability varied_widely among participants with low birth_weights . ''i do n't want it to appear that all these children do well , '' she said . ''looking at new reports of children born in the 1990 's , '' dr . saigal said , ''the earlier outcome is pessimistic . but most children can , to a large extent , overcome the biological risks . this attests to the resilience of human beings . ''",has a topic of health
"as the cafes and clubs began to course with night life one recent evening , andrei v . bykovsky and yuliya b . sokolova cruised around in a white van , patrolling the newest front of russia 's aids epidemic . they stopped first near the mother of russia statue , then along moskovski prospect , then beneath the cosmonauts memorial . they easily found what they were looking for young women , many in their teens , most racked by drugs or desperation , selling themselves on the street for a trifle less than 7 . mr . bykovsky and ms . sokolova passed out condoms from a green backpack and tried to coax the women to visit their basement clinic , which offers exams and advice to slow the spread of h.i.v. , the virus that causes aids . in kaliningrad , as in all of russia , the virus has spread almost entirely through the use of intravenous drugs . but the next step in the disease 's march across russia , which has one of the fastest growing aids epidemics in the world , is starting to be documented here a sharp increase in h.i.v . infections through sex . ''the figures began to grow in the last year , '' said yelena y . kozhenkova , a doctor who rides along in the van on its nightly missions . ''but we could see it coming even earlier . '' what makes kaliningrad 's experience significant is what it forebodes for russia as a whole . this region of more than 900 , 000 people , isolated from the russian mainland and plagued by the social and economic ills that came with the soviet_union 's collapse , was the first hit hard by an explosion of cases among drug addicts and has been a harbinger of the disease 's spread ever since . in 2001 , the percentage of new h.i.v . infections in kaliningrad attributed to sexual_contact jumped to nearly 30 percent of the total , compared with only 4 percent when the epidemic struck here with a vengeance in 1996 , regional officials said . prostitution appears to have been the primary source of these infections , but officials now fear that the trend signals the spread of h.i.v . beyond the shadowy world of drugs and criminality . tatyana n . nikitina , the director of the kaliningrad region 's government aids center , attributed the increasing numbers to men contracting the virus from prostitutes and then spreading it to their wives and girlfriends . ''the disease has reached beyond the circle of the consumers of sexual services , '' she said . in all of russia , sexually_transmitted h.i.v . infections accounted for a little more than 5 percent of new cases last year . but if previous patterns hold , officials warn , the number will rise , as it has here . ''the processes under way in russia now could be observed in the kaliningrad region five years ago , '' said vadim v . pokrovsky , the country 's leading aids expert . aids came belatedly to russia , a fact attributed to the soviet_union 's nearly closed society . the first case was reported in 1987 , but infections did not reach epidemic proportions until the mid 1990 's , with an explosion of intravenous drug use . in the last year alone , the total number of registered h.i.v . infections more than doubled to 177 , 354 , from 87 , 177 in 2000 . with screening still fairly limited , officials estimate that the total number of russians actually infected may have already reached one million . dr . pokrovsky has begun to warn , with some alarm , that aids could spread in russia the way it has in africa , infecting broad swaths of the population . for now , drugs remain the leading cause of h.i.v . infections , particularly in russia 's notoriously overcrowded , drug infested prisons . some estimates suggest that the country has more than a million hardened drug users , most of them young men , but increasingly young women , as well . they are also among the most sexually_active age group , in which rates of other sexually_transmitted_diseases , like syphilis , are also high . ''given the high odds of transmission through needle_sharing , the fact that young people are also sexually_active , and the high levels of sexually transmitted infections in the wider population , a huge epidemic may be imminent , '' a report by the united_nations program on h.i.v . and aids , or unaids , warned in december . in kaliningrad , the spike in infections through sex has overshadowed some of the progress the region has made in slowing the disease 's spread . the number of new cases each year has dropped from a high of 1 , 109 in 1997 to 491 last year and only 215 in the first six months of this year , according to the region 's aids center . to date , there have been 3 , 763 cases of h.i.v . infection . although its rate of infections per capita is higher than in western_europe , kaliningrad no longer has the highest rates in russia , having been surpassed by the regions of irkutsk and khanty mansi , in siberia . officials here have attributed the slowing of the growth to greater awareness of the risks , stricter policing of drugs and to one of the unintended_consequences of the united_states campaign in afghanistan a drop in drug exports that has driven up prices for heroin . officials also cite the increased use of clean disposable syringes , which are distributed by the basement clinic , run by a psychologist named aleksandr a . dreizin , that sends out the van teams each night . with the number of cases involving sexual_contact increasing , the clinic 's mission has evolved from an exclusive focus on addicts , although drugs and prostitution are inseparably intertwined . dr . dreizin has hired a gynecologist to offer women free exams . with money from the world_health_organization and private donors , the center also distributes condoms and pamphlets on safe_sex . an estimated 3 , 000 women work as prostitutes in kaliningrad . dr . dreizin noted that new clusters of prostitution have appeared on kaliningrad 's borders with poland and lithuania , where they serve long lines of motorists waiting to cross . a french organization has donated a bus to help the clinic reach those women more easily . of the prostitutes who are reached , dr . kozhenkova said , many remain wary even of health authorities . ''it 's a complex of guilt and shame , '' she said . ''they are afraid even of a gynecological clinic . ''",has a topic of health
"a suicide car bomber rammed into a line of vehicles waiting to have their gas tanks filled at a fuel station outside samarra on saturday , killing at least three people and wounding at least nine others , an interior_ministry official said . the attack took place in the heart of sunni arab territory north of baghdad , on the road between samarra and tikrit . it was the latest in a series of deadly suicide bombings aimed at inflicting maximum casualties on iraqi civilians . another car_bomb exploded in western baghdad on saturday , wounding four civilians , the official said . the attack took place as a convoy of american humvees escorting two cars rolled down the street . attackers sprayed gunfire at a group of men putting up election posters in al amin , a neighborhood of baghdad . one man was killed and three wounded . the victims were working for the united iraqi alliance , the religious shiite coalition that consists of the ruling parties in the current government . in the past week , campaign posters for the elections on dec . 15 have appeared along all the main streets of baghdad . the american military said a marine died from a roadside_bomb explosion on friday in the western town of hit . at least 2 , 107 american_troops have died in the war . the military also said it had killed a close associate of abu_musab_al_zarqawi , the jordanian militant who leads al_qaeda in mesopotamia . the associate , bilal mahmud awad shebah , who goes by the nom de guerre abu ubaydah , was killed in an oct . 14 raid on a safe_house north of ramadi , the capital of anbar_province , the american command said . mr . shebah was a confidant and personal aide to mr . zarqawi , the military said . mr . zarqawi 's group released a 13 minute internet video showing details of the planning for the triple suicide car_bomb attack on the palestine and sheraton hotels in baghdad last month . the bombers spoke arabic with saudi accents . an insurgent explicitly says off screen that they plan to kill ''foreign journalists and security contractors'' by having one car blow a hole in the concrete blast_walls and two drive through to explode by the hotels . one of those two vehicles exploded prematurely outside the compound , and the other , a cement mixer , detonated after getting stuck on a security barrier . at least six iraqis were killed in the attack .",has a topic of health
"it was a small thing , a ruptured blood_vessel on the end of her nose . wendee harper 's family doctor told her he would arrange to have her see a specialist , assuring her that canada 's universal_health_care system would cover even the smallest detail . but no specialist would see her , because they have stopped taking new patients as part of a growing protest against government regulations . ms . harper , 44 , was anything but reassured . ''what if this was something quite painful , '' she said . ''and then you start thinking there must be hundreds of people out there dealing with this . if it were my kids , i 'd be really angry . '' nothing holds a more sacred place in the shrine of canadian values than the country 's health_care system , and nothing incites more raw emotion among canadians than having to come to grips with its limitations . never have those limitations been more evident . the federal_government has slashed its contributions to the system as part of its effort to reduce the federal deficit . those cuts have forced cash_strapped provinces , which pay the remainder of medical costs , to reduce nursing staff , consolidate hospitals and limit some services , all of which has increased already long waiting times for nonemergency operations . add to that a graying population , and increasingly frustrated doctors who feel that in order to call attention to their problems they must take drastic steps like refusing to see patients , and the result is a crisis that in one way or another touches every one of canada 's 30 million people . the canadian approach stresses universal coverage over all else . it is often held up as a model for the united_states , where 40 million people have no health_insurance . canadians feel it reflects their values of generosity and compassion , and gives them at least one clear claim to being better than the united_states . but the cost of maintaining that system , using little else besides federal and provincial funds , has sometimes forced canadians to scale back and accept far less than the best . ''we used to work in the best system in the world but now it 's become just a pathetic shell of what it once was , '' said dr . ted rumble , an orthopedic_surgeon in toronto who is cooperating in the doctors' protest by refusing to see new patients unless there is an emergency . ''the public does n't want a high quality medical system , '' he said , ''it wants a free system . '' right now , ms . harper and the other people of ontario are struggling to deal with a months long job action by many of the 22 , 000 family doctors and specialists in the province . they first battled the government over pay . every time a doctor submitted a bill for seeing a patient , the province used to hold back 10 percent to cover administrative costs . the doctors forced them to reduce that to 2.9 percent . once that was settled , doctors and officials tangled over a plan to help underserved rural areas up north by limiting doctors' ability to set up practice in toronto and other cities . specialists stopped accepting new patients in october , sending many patients to seek help in hospital emergency_rooms . a number of pregnant_women from the windsor area who could not get to see an obstetrician have been sent by the province to the detroit medical center for prenatal_care , and will have to cross the international border when their babies are due . ( on friday specialists said after some conciliatory gestures by the government that they might resume seeing new patients within a week , but would hold one day strikes in various communities to continue their protest . ) it is not just in ontario that the myth of canada 's universal_health_care is being challenged . the federal_government used to pay for about half the cost of running the system but now covers only 32 percent , shifting more of the burden to the provinces . to control costs , provinces have been forced to scale back hospitals and make other cuts . over all , canada spends about 10 percent of its gross_domestic_product on health_care , compared with about 14 percent in the united_states . across the country , long waiting_lists have grown even longer , and now a canadian who has already been examined by a family doctor must wait just over 10 weeks on average before seeing a specialist . the median wait to have magnetic_resonance_imaging is over eight weeks . life threatening cases are taken care of immediately , of course , but someone needing a nonemergency coronary_bypass operation may have to wait four months . looking ahead , the prognosis is not good . canada 's population is aging , which means that fewer people will be working and paying taxes to support the system even as demands on the system increase because older people need more care . health officials insist that the current system can be improved . they want to replace unneeded hospitals with more efficient clinics , and use laser surgeries and other procedures with quicker healing times to reduce costs . they also propose ways of limiting unnecessary visits . despite the long waiting_lists , refused service and occasional horror stories about filthy hospitals and equipment shortages , canadians have rejected any attempt to introduce changes that would make their system more like that in the united_states , where those who can afford it sometimes can choose to pay more for quicker or better service . a recently completed survey found that many canadians opposed a multilayered system where some pay and some do not because they fear that it would cause the entire system to shift in favor of those who could afford more . the survey , commissioned by the government organized national forum on health , found that people are split about whether doctors should have to tell patients that the treatment they are receiving may not be the best available . some said they would want to know so they could choose whether to go to the united_states for treatment . but others said they would have more peace of mind not knowing . dr . bernard gonik of detroit finds that attitude difficult to accept . he is head of obstetrics at grace hospital , a part of the detroit medical center where several canadian women are being given prenatal_care because ontario specialists refused to see them . he said the canadian system is good for screening or generalized care , but someone who needs special care or access to sophisticated technology or the latest medical advances is out of luck . ''in order to serve the masses they have been forced to place limits on technology , '' dr . gonik said . ''that 's not something i 'd be comfortable with . '' nor are all canadian doctors . ''there was a time when i felt that any patient going to hospital would get consistently good care in canada , but now i feel you have only a 70 or 80 percent chance of getting it , '' said dr . steven levinson , a toronto general_practitioner , who supports the system but worries about how it has been managed . dr . levinson said his eyes were opened when he had bypass_surgery three years ago and found he was getting the wrong medication . when he needed an electrocardiogram , he was forced to wait because one of the only two machines in the hospital was broken . ''and when i was in intensive care my feet stuck to the floor it was so dirty , '' he said . there are some 55 , 000 doctors in canada , but over the last four years , 2 , 500 have left the country , many for the united_states , according to a study by dr . robert j . r . mckendry of ottawa general_hospital . the number that left last year 700 is more than double the number that left 10 years ago . canadian patients also sometimes cross the border to get the care they feel they cannot get in canada or cannot receive in time . some of those people turn to douglas w . hitchlock for help . mr . hitchlock , a canadian , is a medical broker who recently started a company called the free_trade medical network to buy on a large scale , and at a discount , the rights to operations and medical procedures at hospitals in the united_states with excess_capacity . those rights are then being offered for sale to canadian insurance_companies that write policies for travelers . mr . hitchlock is now getting ready to deal directly with some of the 170 , 000 canadians on waiting_lists for medical procedures who do not want to wait any longer . ''we are very fortunate as canadians to have the u.s. , where the competitive marketplace lets us cherry pick what we require without having to make the necessary investment in equipment , '' mr . hitchlock said . ''what 's wrong with that ? ''",has a topic of health
"the cracks are still small in canada 's vaunted public health_insurance system , but several of its largest provinces are beginning to open the way for private health_care eventually to take root around the country . last week quebec proposed to lift a ban on private health_insurance for several elective surgical procedures , and announced that it would pay for such surgeries at private clinics when waiting times at public facilities were unreasonable . the proposal , by premier jean charest , who called for ''a new era for health_care in quebec , '' came in response to a supreme_court decision last june that struck down a provincial law that banned private medical_insurance and ordered the province to initiate a reform program within a year . the supreme_court decision ruled that long waits for various medical procedures in the province had violated patients' ''life and personal security , inviolability and freedom , '' and that prohibition of private health_insurance was unconstitutional when the public_health system did not deliver ' 'reasonable services . '' the decision applied directly only to quebec , but it has generated movement for private clinics and private insurance in several provinces where governments hope to forestall similar court decisions . coincidentally , last week premier gordon campbell of british_columbia asked in his throne speech , the equivalent of a state of the province address , ''does it really matter to patients where or how they obtain their surgical treatment if it is paid for with public funds ? '' it was a question that was almost unthinkable for a major politician to ask before last year 's supreme_court decision . public_health care insurance , where citizens go to their doctor or to the hospital for basic services paid for by taxpayers , has long been considered politically sacrosanct in canada , and even central to the national identity . mr . campbell presented his vision for a new provincial health_care system that would resemble those of most of western_europe , where the government pays for essential treatment delivered in both public and private clinics and hospitals . alberta 's premier , ralph_klein , recently expressed a similar goal , and his government is promising legislation to permit doctors to work simultaneously in private and public institutions and allow the building of private hospitals . quebec , canada 's second most populous province , after ontario , has not decided to go that far . forced by the court to meet a one year deadline for a plan to change the system , mr . charest proposed limited but important changes . he proposed that private insurance cover knee and hip_replacements and cataract surgery . publicly run hospitals would be allowed to subcontract to private clinics for such procedures when the hospitals were unable to deliver the services within six months . the plan is to be introduced in the provincial legislature for passage before the summer . ''we 're putting the private_sector to work for the public , '' mr . charest told reporters . ''we 're taking a measured step in this direction . '' mr . charest and the province 's health minister , philippe couillard , called for an open debate , and they did not rule out more privatization in the future . quebec already has about 50 private health clinics , far more than any other province , but doctors would remain forbidden to serve in both the private and public systems under the charest plan . antonia maioni , a mcgill_university political_scientist who specializes in health_care , said mr . charest had to be careful about pushing too hard for privatization because he knew unions and other liberals would resist sweeping changes . ''they are trying to stay politically afloat , '' ms . maioni said , noting mr . charest 's low standing in opinion_polls only a year or two before the next provincial elections . ''the winds of change are blowing , but they are not knocking everything over . '' prime_minister stephen_harper , a conservative elected last month , did not propose a sweeping overhaul of the system in the recent national campaign . but he did favor guaranteed waiting times for services . as a free_market conservative , he is thought to favor the supreme_court decision and will probably try to use it to encourage changes . the departing liberal government opposed fundamental changes . but the new health minister , tony clement , is a proponent of experimentation and innovations to reduce waiting , modernize equipment and increase the supply of doctors .",has a topic of health
"new findings reported at an international aids conference this week promise to transform aids from a usually fatal_disease into a chronic one that is treatable , many experts say . with news rapidly spreading about the landmark studies , which showed that new drug combinations can drive the aids virus to undetectable levels in blood , many people infected with the aids virus are questioning their treatment and asking practical questions for which their doctors are likely to have few immediate answers . experts at the meeting often disagreed with one another about how to manage particular patients . all that is certain is that an earthquake has rearranged the landscape of aids therapy , presumably for the better , although even that is not yet certain . the experts' enthusiasm is restrained by many caveats , like the short duration of the trials , the small number of patients in them , the practical difficulty of the drug regimen and the enormous cost of the drugs and the accompanying tests . still , initial signs indicate that unless the virus acquires resistance to the new drug combinations , infection with the aids virus may be on the verge of becoming a manageable disease , but one that will be far harder to manage than , say , diabetes . an immediate question is whether patients should start on the combination drug therapy as soon as they are infected with h.i.v. , the aids virus , or wait until the onset of aids , which may not occur for many years . "" we heard no clinical data telling us the best time to start "" treatment , said dr . kevin decock , an aids expert from london . he added that there was also little guidance on the drug combinations to use . until a general agreement is reached about which therapies and drug combinations are best , many experts said , doctors will probably tailor therapies to each patient 's needs . it is likely that those decisions will be based in part on promotions by drug companies , some of which helped pay for the meeting . dr . scott m . hammer of the deaconess hospital in boston told participants that the decision on changing therapy should depend on the patient 's response to anti viral drug therapy and the results of tests used to monitor h.i.v . infection . experts here acknowledged the importance of the new tests to measure the amount of h.i.v . in the blood , called the viral load , as a crucial guide in monitoring therapy . though still controversial , the tests have become as important as the older standard , the blood_test to measure the number of cd 4 immune cells , which are particularly vulnerable to h.i.v . it might not be advisable to switch to a new combination therapy if viral load tests and cd 4 counts show that a patient is doing well . the promise of the new anti viral drug combinations underscores the importance of h.i.v . tests . health officials estimate that 650 , 000 to 900 , 000 people in the united_states are infected by h.i.v. , but it is not known how many have been tested . health officials are also concerned that if patients on combination therapies fail to follow the difficult drug treatment schedules , the emergence of resistant_strains of virus may be encouraged , as has happened with drug resistant tuberculosis strains . if individuals develop drug_resistant strains of h.i.v . and transmit them to others , the aids problem could worsen in coming years , said david barr of the gay men 's health crisis . the era of treating h.i.v . with only one drug appears to have ended . recommendations prepared by a panel of experts long before the meeting and published in the july 10 issue of the journal of the american_medical_association call for starting treatment with at least two anti h . i.v . drugs . the recommendations cover principles , not specific therapies , and are expected to be updated soon . but the guidelines were harshly_criticized by one speaker at the meeting , dr . joep lange of the university of amsterdam , who said they were not scientific . most combinations include three drugs , but the number ranges from two to four . the combinations also use different drugs . the ones that dominated attention here included two older drugs , azt and 3tc , in combination with either ritonavir or indinavir , which are members of a new class of drugs called protease inhibitors . drugs in that class affect a particular h.i.v . enzyme . another combination that drew wide attention was azt , ddi and nevirapine , which is not a protease inhibitor . studies showed that combinations were effective for both early and late stage h.i.v . infection . by the time a person develops aids , the immune system is severely_damaged . the new combinations do not fully restore the immune system . the potential for preventing damage to the immune system is an important factor in the debates over when to begin combination therapy . the combination therapies are expensive up to 20 , 000 a year in the united_states . and the drugs are difficult to take . some regimens involve taking up to 20 pills a day on a rigid time schedule .",has a topic of health
"seven months before election day , the struggle over expanding medicare to cover prescription_drugs for the elderly is escalating , with both parties maneuvering furiously on an issue that matters , deeply , to a critical group of voters . as the debate over the republican budget resolution began today in the senate , for example , democrats were pushing for an amendment that would require the creation of a medicare drug benefit before any tax_cut could take effect . president_clinton declared that the amendment was ''good policy , the will of the american people and addresses a longstanding unmet need . '' republicans asserted that , as a spokesman for the senate_majority_leader , trent_lott , put it , ''republicans are committed to providing this benefit , '' and would reserve the money to do so . in poll after poll , expanding medicare to cover prescription_drug benefits for the nation 's elderly a third of whom lack any drug coverage at all ranks near the top of the voters' agenda . border wars over prescription_drugs are erupting to the north . democratic candidates for congress have been traveling to canada to underscore its lower drug prices a coalition led by the pharmaceutical_industry is countering with a major advertising campaign on the failures of the canadian health_care system . ''they wait longer for new cures , '' an announcer warns , in television advertisements that began running last week across the northern united states a clear reaction to the public 's concern over drug prices . in short , the political pressure for legislation this year is great , a variety of analysts and politicians say . but so is the level of partisan mistrust on the issue , as well as the philosophical disagreement over how to deal with it . as a result , many politicians say the odds are still against a benefit being enacted this year , but as one administration official put it , ''it 's such a hot issue , and in an election year on a hot issue things can change . '' congressional democrats , president_clinton and vice_president al_gore have been campaigning for prescription_drug benefits for more than a year now , and the rhetoric is expected to escalate , with a series of speeches and events planned for this month 's congressional recess . ''it may be the single most potent issue we have back home , '' declares representative martin frost of texas , who heads the house democratic caucus . ''people really do care about this and the republicans are clearly not going to do anything of consequence . '' for their part , leaders in the republican controlled house are scrambling to produce a prescription_drug plan of their own , having already set aside 40 billion over five years in their recently passed budget resolution for medicare ' 'reform'' and a drug benefit . the senate_finance_committee , whose republican chairman , william v . roth jr . of delaware , is in a tough race for re election , is in the early stages of writing a bill to tackle the issue . and the campaign of gov . george w . bush promises to address prescription_drugs when mr . bush gives a series of health_care speeches this spring . in their more partisan moments , democrats assert the republicans are simply looking to neutralize the prescription_drug issue , not solve the problem republicans counter that some democrats want a political weapon , not a law . representative j . c . watts jr . of oklahoma , who heads the house republican conference , declared of his democratic colleagues , ''i 'm afraid this is another one of those issues where they do n't want good policy , they want politics , '' adding that he nevertheless remained optimistic that a law would pass . the politics are , in fact , compelling to both parties . in the last presidential_election , americans over 65 years old voted at twice the rate of 18 to 24 year olds . they are heavily represented in the big states that are expected to be battlegrounds this fall , including pennsylvania , illinois and florida . their concerns are important to their middle_aged children , many of whom not only worry about their parents but are close enough to their own retirement to take the issue personally , pollsters say . and neither party can take the retiree vote for granted . long considered a dependable part of the democratic coalition , the over 60 vote was carried by the republicans in the last three congressional elections by a margin of 10 percentage_points in 1998 , according to exit_polls . ( democrats have done better in recent presidential elections , carrying the votes of older americans in the last two elections . ) when a net pickup of just six seats could give the democrats control of the house , some strategists say they cannot afford to lose the elderly vote again certainly not by the margin they lost it in 1998 , when it may well have kept them from regaining control of the house , said mark gersh , a democratic analyst . the economic and health_policy implications of the issue are also powerful , at a time when both the costs and the use of pharmaceuticals keep climbing . prescription_drugs have become a prime tool in treating many of the ailments of aging , from high_blood_pressure to osteoporosis the elderly account for 13 percent of the population but more than a third of the nation 's drug expenditures . yet medicare , developed 35 years ago for a profoundly different era of medicine , generally fails to cover outpatient prescription_drug costs . while two thirds of the elderly have some form of drug coverage through employer sponsored plans , health maintenance organizations , or other means , such coverage ''varies_widely across plans , is often limited , and is expected to decline in the future , '' as the henry j . kaiser family foundation , a health research group , recently put it . lawmakers say they routinely hear of elderly constituents straining and often failing to meet their drug bills , as well as the other normal costs of living . the pressure to enact a prescription_drug benefit was also increased by last week 's rosy report on the financial health of the medicare hospital trust fund one of the major arguments against new benefits has been that medicare could barely cover the existing ones . ''i think the report yesterday adds a great deal of momentum for a prescription_drug benefit within medicare , '' said representative benjamin l . cardin , a maryland democrat on the ways and means committee . for all these reasons , the prescription_drug issue is no longer simply a sideshow to the debate over restructuring and modernizing medicare , which it appeared to be 18 months ago . in fact , some lawmakers worry that it will be far easier and politically appealing to enact a new drug benefit than to restructure medicare , and thus the effort to make medicare more efficient and financially solvent before the baby_boomers retire will be left to languish . ''if you do prescription_drugs and do n't do reform , you 'll never get reform , '' said senator john b . breaux , the louisiana democrat who headed a bipartisan commission on medicare that ended in a deadlock last year . ''it 's the classic dessert before the meal analysis . '' the administration 's plan links drug benefits with a broader restructuring of the program , and republican officials have long been committed to ' 'modernizing'' medicare , although those elements could be pared down in the legislative process . despite the forces pushing legislators to act this year , there are huge hurdles . the task of creating a prescription_drug benefit touches on some of the most profound disagreements in health_policy should the benefit be universally available and subsidized , as other core benefits are under medicare , or essentially directed to low income people , as some republicans have suggested ? how much of a role should the federal_government play in designing , delivering and regulating the benefit and how much of a role should the private insurance_industry play ? ''i think there will be legislative action this year , '' said mr . cardin . ''whether it will be enacted into law is unlikely . '' privately , some democratic strategists say that with the house so close within their grasp , it does not make sense to settle this year for a bare_bones benefit . the political calculus , though , is complicated mr . clinton , looking toward his legacy , has one set of interests when it comes to the decision to compromise . mr . gore and house democrats , looking toward the potential of a new administration , may have different views . ''this is not the year when democrats ought to be accepting half a loaf on any important policy prescription , '' said one democratic strategist on capitol_hill . another big variable is the pharmaceutical_industry , which has been warning for months now that any new prescription_drug program that relies on government to hold down prices will have dire_consequences for research . now , in the face of all this momentum in congress to act , the industry not only has to decide what the best deal is , but when to try to strike it , which means assessing the odds of a democratic house and a democratic administration next year . industry spokesmen assert that democrats have been trying to ' 'demonize'' them for political gain . in their campaign to highlight the burden of prescription_drug costs on the nation 's elderly , some house democrats have begun issuing studies suggesting that pets get a better deal than retirees on the cost of some medications . such efforts clearly touch a nerve . alan f . holmer , president and chief_executive_officer of pharmaceutical research and manufacturers of america , said , ''the sponsors of this so called study know that it costs far more to develop a drug for a person than for a dog . '' in short , the political wars over prescription_drugs rage on , with an avid audience . ''this is an extremely important reference point to older voters , and remember , it 's a big change in the debate , '' said geoffrey garin , a democratic pollster . ''for the better part of the last decade , we 've been talking about how to cut back on benefits to seniors in terms of medicare and social_security . this is the first debate in a while about how we extend new benefits to older americans . and seniors are very receptive to that . '' the 2000 campaign the issues",has a topic of health
""" it 's great news , "" josee paradis said , rocking her 6 week old son , brock , in her arms in her sparsely furnished basement apartment in an industrial suburb of montreal . ms . paradis , a 19 year old former secretarial student , was praising a decision by quebec 's provincial government to raise the subsidy for breast_feeding from 15 to about 37 . 50 a month under a new program to encourage low income women to nurse their infants . for ms . paradis and brock 's father , rick flood , 23 , who pay 450 a month in rent , the 37 . 50 subsidy was a big factor in the decision to breast feed brock . it represents nearly 5 percent of their monthly expenditures . "" it will be very handy for us , that 's for sure , "" said mr . flood , who is unemployed but hopes to get a job as a window washer . ms . paradis added , "" they say it 's better for the baby . "" there is no doubt that the government of quebec thinks breast_feeding is better . "" mother 's milk is the food best adapted to the newborn 's nutritional needs , "" said violette trepanier , minister of income security , who introduced the new benefits on march 1 . in a sharp departure from the traditional role of government , quebec pays mothers to nurse their infants . ms . trepanier says it does so to further both public_health and budgetary goals . since breast fed babies tend to be healthier babies , she says , encouraging nursing could ultimately save the publicly financed health_care system millions of dollars a year . quebec has paid supplements to nursing mothers and subsidized the cost of some infant formula for the last quarter century . what is new and highly appreciated by nursing mothers on low incomes is the policy shift in favor of breast_milk . when the cash incentive for breast_feeding rose to 37 . 50 a month , the subsidy for formula was reduced . for the 7 , 000 women in quebec on public assistance who have infants up to six months old , the ministry had previously paid 100 percent of the cost of soy based formula . that product will no longer be subsidized , except for children with lactose intolerance , but the province covers about 70 percent of the cost of milk based formula concentrate by issuing a voucher similar to a food_stamp . the program will still cost the provincial government 3 . 8 million a year , since the reduction in subsidies for formula will finance the higher nursing allowances . to prevent abuses , the ministry requires that a new mother present an affidavit from her doctor to the local office of the income security ministry that confirms that she is nursing . the effort is being watched in other canadian provinces and in the united_states , which also have assistance programs for low income mothers and try to encourage breast_feeding , though they stop short of the incentives offered by quebec . statistics show that a far smaller proportion of women with low incomes breast feed their infants than women with higher incomes , both in canada and the united_states . the quebec government estimates that 60 percent of the province 's mothers nurse their infants in the first six months of life , compared with 9 percent of mothers on public assistance . the latter estimate is based on the proportion of women who take the breast_feeding allowance . in the united_states , an estimated three quarters of middle and upper income women nurse their infants , compared with less than one quarter of the women in the agriculture department 's special supplemental food program for women , infants and children . the program provides federal grants to states to help low income families meet their nutritional needs . dr . ruth a . lawrence , director of the breast_feeding and human lactation center at the university of rochester , praised the quebec program . she said she and other advocates in the united_states have been urging the agriculture department that "" they , too , need to reward mothers for doing this special thing for their infants . "" under strong congressional pressure , the agriculture department has recently provided extra food vouchers to nursing mothers in the supplemental nutrition program and allowed them to stay on the program longer one year instead of six months . there is no longer any dissent , even from the formula makers , that breast_milk is superior to any other infant food . the companies are careful to describe formula as a supplement or an alternative to breast_milk , and all emphasize that they encourage mothers to take the advice of health professionals . "" infant formula is appropriate for mothers who for whatever reasons choose not to breast feed , "" said marianne king wilson , nestle canada 's director of corporate affairs . marie alta dorce , 31 , who moved to canada in 1986 from haiti and now lives in northern montreal , is breast feeding her 10 week old son , andy . a single mother , she has studied to be a secretary , but is out of work . she is thankful for the extra money , though she says that it barely covers the cost of the nutritious food she needs expensive milk and eggs , yogurt , oranges to sustain her during her nursing period . but with a nod to her sleeping son , she remarked , "" if the baby is in good form , the mother will be in good form . """,has a topic of health
"the pentagon said today that the nerve_gas sarin and other chemical_weapons had definitely been stored at an iraqi ammunition depot that was destroyed by american_troops in march 1991 , an event that may have exposed thousands of soldiers to a cloud of the deadly chemicals . bernard d . rostker , the defense_department official who oversees the department 's investigation of gulf_war illnesses , said united_nations inspectors who visited the site after the war had ' 'drilled into a rocket and sarin spurted out of that rocket . '' ''so sarin was present , and they did find a cache of mustard_gas , '' mr . rostker said at a pentagon news conference , in the most graphic description yet of the evidence gathered by the united_nations . ''the bunker had contained chemical_munitions . we destroyed the bunker . '' pentagon officials also revealed today that the now missing entries in a chemical_warfare log from the persian_gulf_war had been recorded not only on paper , but also on computer disks . on wednesday pentagon officials revealed that logs for an eight day period were missing . the gap has alarmed veterans groups , which say the defense_department may be hiding evidence of other incidents in which troops were exposed to iraqi chemical or biological_weapons . ''the main problem we 've had , as i understand it , is that there are gaps on computer disks that are supposed to hold some of these logs , and we do n't know why those gaps exist , '' said kenneth_bacon , the pentagon 's chief spokesman . ''but i want to refocus on the main point we are not withholding information that people might have been exposed to chemicals . ''",has a topic of health
"the pentagon will soon conduct the most intensive , standardized medical exams yet on hundreds of veterans of the persian_gulf_war who are suffering from unexplained illnesses , the military 's senior health official said today . the official , dr . stephen c . joseph , the assistant secretary of defense for health_affairs , said in an interview that doctors at american military medical centers around the world would give afflicted veterans 20 to 30 medical tests to try to diagnose their ailments . he said the tests could start in the next few weeks . dr . joseph , who was new york city 's health commissioner from 1986 to 1990 , said doctors would initially test about 150 gulf_war veterans still in the military who have symptoms that have proved baffling . several hundred reservists who have complained of symptoms will also be examined . 20 , 000 cases since the war ended in february 1991 , more than 20 , 000 veterans have complained to the veterans_affairs department of symptoms including fatigue , rashes , muscle and joint pains , headaches , memory loss , shortness of breath and respiratory problems . the department is conducting its own examinations of gulf veterans who have left the armed_forces . a panel of the national_institutes_of_health recently concluded that the ailments were real but could identify no single cause or syndrome . a senate committee 's conclusions made public last week suggested that some of the illnesses might have been caused by drugs given the troops to protect them against chemical and biological_warfare . the pentagon 's new tests are intended to be the most comprehensive so far . medical experts hope the results will yield clues to the causes of the illnesses . "" we 've set ourselves a time line of 120 days to get a significant number of exams finished , and then we ought to have a better idea of where we are , "" dr . joseph said in a telephone interview . joint effort by departments dr . joseph said that many veterans had been examined before but that the new standardized_tests , which the pentagon is devising with the veterans_affairs department , would give the service member a more detailed medical assessment and the defense_department a broader body of medical histories . maj . gen . ronald r . blanck , commander of walter_reed_army_medical_center here , and other pentagon officials are working out details of the tests the veterans will be given , dr . joseph said . "" this is a very important step forward , "" said representative lane evans , an illinois democrat who heads the house veterans_affairs subcommittee on oversight and investigations and who has accused the clinton_administration of failing to address the problems aggressively enough . in addition to the new medical exams , the defense , veterans_affairs and health_and_human_services departments are involved in more than 20 projects to study the health of gulf_war veterans .",has a topic of health
"when iraq 's most notorious terrorist , abu_musab_al_zarqawi , declared a ''full scale war'' on iraq 's shiites on sept . 14 , he appeared to be speaking for all or most jihadis . but mr . zarqawi 's war on shiites is deeply unpopular in some quarters of his own movement . in fact , growing splits among jihadis are beginning to undermine the theological and legal justifications for suicide_bombing . and as that emerging schism takes its toll on the jihadi movement , it could well present an opportunity for western governments to combat jihadism itself . the simple fact is that many jihadis believe the war in iraq is not going well . too many muslims are being killed . images of that slaughter , conveyed by satellite_television and the internet throughout the muslim_world , are eroding global support for the jihadi cause . there are strong indications from jihadi web_sites and online journals , confirmed by conversations i have had while doing research among salafis , or scriptural literalists , that the suicide attacks are turning many muslims against the jihadis altogether . the movement 's leadership is sensitive to muslim public opinion . mr . zarqawi 's mentor , abu mohammed al maqdisi , has denounced the campaign against shiites as un islamic . other prominent radical islamists have advanced similar criticisms . and in a letter made public last week , al_qaeda 's second in command , ayman_al_zawahiri , cautioned mr . zarqawi against particularly gruesome executions and attacks on iraqi civilians for fear of their negative impact on the global jihadi cause . to be sure , the alternatives these critics recommend are no less violent . rather , many of the movement 's dissidents suggest that jihadis diminish their efforts in iraq and revert to spectacular attacks in the west , like those that took place on sept . 11 . these , such thinkers maintain , are singularly popular among muslims and the only effective means of doing long term damage to the west . still , western governments should encourage the debate among jihadis because , if the promise of absolute salvation through suicide attacks is thrown into question by some within the jihadi movement , potential recruits may come to doubt the wisdom of engaging in such tactics . the prevailing jihadi theoretical argument consists in saying that there is religious sanction for the killing of muslim civilians , and that neither the innocent victims nor the bombers are doomed to suffer in hell . jihadi claims about the certainty of salvation are the most important tools in their recruitment efforts . but they are also so fractious and unstable as to comprise the movement 's achilles' heel . in order to sustain these claims , theorists quote examples from the prophet_muhammad 's time that permit the targeting of muslim civilians in war . they then draw tendentious analogies between these cases and today 's political situation . for example , jihadis falsely claim that iraqi civilians are being held as human shields by the occupying forces . furthermore , in iraq , the jihadis bank on the fact that their attacks primarily kill shiites . the fighters presume that their sunni brethren , who consider shiites to be heretics , will either approve or turn a blind eye . this policy is clearly failing , except among the radical salafis in saudi_arabia whose hatred for shiites exceeds even that for the united_states . not only are some jihadis queasy about targeting shiites , but particularly following the london bombings , some jihadis have questioned the targeting of civilians more generally . one major jihadi ideologue , abu baseer al tartusi , has issued a fatwa arguing that all suicide_bombing that targets muslims , or innocent non muslims , is unlawful . abu baseer , a syrian who lives in britain , no doubt fears that in britain 's changing legal climate , he might be extradited to his homeland , where he would face certain imprisonment and torture . some jihadis have excoriated him on internet message boards for placing self preservation above religious conviction . but the important point is that real chinks are widening in the jihadi ideological armor , whether by the real consequences of suicide attacks or because the religious justifications that have underpinned them are becoming untenable . arguments can be built on abu baseer 's position that suicide attacks inevitably involve the killing of innocent_civilians , including muslims living in the west , and that these are difficult to justify in islamic_law . rather than expelling him from his asylum in britain , concerned authorities ought to allow abu baseer to remain in britain and make his case , which amounts to one of the first principled arguments by a jihadi thinker against suicide bombings since 9 11 . any would be suicide_bomber will have to weigh these arguments . the west needs to understand that reasoned debates take place within jihadi circles and that such reasoning can change minds . indeed , al_qaeda 's most recent statements , like that of mr . zawahiri , betray an anxiety about these splits within the movement and seek to reassert the legitimacy of suicide attacks both in iraq and in the west . the west should refrain from interfering in this evolving debate . western governments should not shut down jihadi web_sites or expel the movement 's dissenters , many of whom reside in the west or write from prisons in the middle_east . rather , they should allow this process to take its course . by employing extreme tactics , the jihadis have laid_bare the contradictions within their own movement . their internal debates about suicide tactics are a sign of weakness and of the fraying of the consensus al_qaeda so carefully built over the last decade . op_ed contributor bernard haykel , an associate professor of islamic studies at new york_university and a 2005 carnegie scholar , is the author of ''revival and reform in islam . ''",has a topic of health
"there is nothing out of the ordinary on the snowy country road that leads into valcourt with its cedar log fences , silos and bales of hay . that is , until out of nowhere emerges a faded blue sign depicting a flying saucer welcoming visitors to ''u . f.o . land . '' the sign does n't mention it , but ''u . f.o . land'' is also home to the prophet ra l , half brother to jesus and the only man alive today who is the product of an encounter between a human mother and a space alien . at least that 's what ra lians believe . sound strange ? maybe , but in recent months journalists from around the world have come to this once quiet corner of quebec from as far away as australia , korea , japan and saudi_arabia to talk to the 56 year old prophet , a former race car driver and journalist , born in france with the name claude vorilhon . ra l leads a new movement that claims 60 , 000 adherents worldwide and teaches that man was created by cloning techniques mastered by otherworldly aliens many years ago . ra l says man today is nearly as advanced as those aliens , and ready to perfect the human race with cloning . ''if you can clone a human being , there is no god , and no soul , '' explained ra l , who folds his perfectly manicured hands like an altar boy and speaks with a soft comforting voice that belies a vision most humans would find horrifying . ''that 's our belief , '' he said . ''right now there is controversy over cloning , but it 's a very small thing compared to what 's coming . soon we will be creating scientifically from scratch a completely synthetic human being . '' to back up his words , ra lians founded clonaid , a private cloning company that appears to have a stronger public_relations operation than most fortune_500 companies . ra l meets visitors in a plain modern white room decorated with potted plants and plastic furniture covered with lace . he sits beside a bottle of vichy water and the two books he wrote ''yes to human cloning eternal life thanks to science'' and ''the message given by extra terrestrials at last ! science replaces religion'' placed upright for the cameras . ra l wears a white gown , a white turtleneck , white socks and white shoes , a uniform that looks a bit like a space_suit with padded shoulders . a medallion engraved with a revolving star is draped around his neck , and his balding head is crowned by a tiny pony tail . to talk to ra l , a journalist must agree to four demands one , to submit a list of questions for approval . two , to promise to address ra l as ''your holiness . '' three , to agree never to ask the question why he should be called ''your holiness . '' and four , to agree not to ask the same question twice . journalists readily agree to the conditions because ra l is in the middle of an international controversy . one of his top disciples , dr . brigitte boisselier , the chief executive of clonaid , claims to have cloned five human babies since dec . 26 . the names and whereabouts of the babies have not been disclosed , prompting suspicions that fraud is behind the test tubes . ''if someone dares to say it 's not true and i would never say that its still a win win situation for us , '' ra l acknowledged . ''all the world knows about the ra lian movement now and i am thankful to her for that . some media experts say we got between 600 million and 700 million worth of coverage and i did nothing . '' ra l 's other major project is to build an ''embassy'' in jerusalem where space aliens can visit and consult with human world leaders an idea that the israeli government so far has resisted . ra l also espouses nonviolence , avoidance of drugs and hard alcohol , and exuberant love . ''some people call us a sect or a cult , which is very disrespectful , '' ra l said , likening the hostility his movement faces to the prejudice against genetically modified foods . a visit to u.f.o . land is not like a visit to the vatican , but there is a museum contained in a building with stained_glass_windows depicting a nude woman with a strand of dna draped over her shoulder and the egyptian sphinx . inside the museum , there is a giant replica of the spaceship that ra l says he viewed in encounters with aliens in december 1973 and october 1975 . ''i was happy to go into a u.f.o . , '' said ra l . then , displaying his old zest for race cars , he added , ''but i expected to see a dashboard and a control panel . i was disappointed . '' what did the aliens look like ? ''a little more like japanese than european people , but they are not green , '' he said . ''their suits are green , yes , but not their skin . '' valcourt journal",has a topic of health
"it took only one semester for dr . jacques chaoulli to flunk out of a montreal law_school a few years ago after he incessantly challenged professors in the classroom and in exams with his novel legal interpretations . but dr . chaoulli , a family physician , never lost his taste for legal argument , or his distaste for canada 's publicly financed health_care system . he has taken what was once regarded as a nuisance case , challenging the constitutionality of the system all the way to the supreme_court serving as his own lawyer , rolling his cardboard_boxes stuffed with files into the chamber and paying for his efforts with a half million dollars out of his own pocket and that of his tolerant japanese father in law . it has been a year since the canadian supreme_court heard the case , a rare delay that is raising eyebrows in legal circles . scholars studying dr . chaoulli 's challenge say the court is either badly divided or waiting for the appropriate political moment to release a bombshell . they speculate that the justices may agree outright with dr . chaoulli ( pronounced cha ooh li ) , or are working out instructions to the government to find a way to fix what many agree is an ailing health_care network where doctors are in short supply and patients wait months for diagnostic_tests and elective surgeries like cornea transplants and knee replacements . ''if i win , everything will be turned upside down , '' dr . chaoulli said with a smile , sipping a cup of tea in the living room of his modest stone house in montreal . ''one constitutional expert told a friend of mine , 'chaoulli , is he a crazy man or a genius ? we will know after the judgment of the supreme_court . ''' a diminutive man who has trouble keeping his wire rim glasses on straight , dr . chaoulli , 53 , hardly looks like the ''freedom fighter'' that canada 's conservative news_media have called him . but if he wins his case he will tear up the third rail of the nation 's politics and raze what many canadians consider to be the bedrock of their national identity . he argues that regulations that create long waiting times for surgery contradict the constitutional guarantees for individuals of ''life , liberty and the security of the person , '' and that the prohibition against private medical_insurance and care is for sick patients an ''infringement of the protection against cruel and unusual treatment . '' he believes that canada is disallowing the basic contract rights of doctors and patients , and that the country would serve the sick much better if it had a parallel private health_care system , as in france and many other industrialized_countries . ''his argument is credible , '' said patrick monahan , dean of the osgoode hall law school of york_university in toronto . ''the issue of waiting times does raise constitutional issues . '' dr . chaoulli is a man of passions . he taught himself to paint well enough to make copies of masterworks of fragonard , botticelli and renoir that decorate his house . he has written a couple of books on health_care , but sales have been awful . he tried his hand at provincial politics , and put in that stint at the university of montreal law_school , after he had decided to challenge the constitutionality of the health_care system . he describes the legal case as an obsession for which he has sacrificed time with his wife and daughter to comb the stacks of law libraries in search of legal precedents . ''on a very small scale , i feel like gandhi , '' he said . ''you block me , i 'll challenge you . '' born in france , dr . chaoulli ran away as a teenager from a troubled home in which , he says , his father was abusive to his mother . as a result , he said , ''i grew up with a strong sense of my individual freedom . '' he washed dishes and cleaned toilets to support himself while he attended medical_school in paris on a scholarship and then made his way to quebec when he found it hard to get a job in france . he began practicing medicine in canada in 1986 , serving in a remote rural hospital , clinic and nursing home for two years . when he arrived in montreal a few years later , he saw a need for a doctor to make emergency house calls . ''many patients remained at home , untreated , '' he recalled . in 1991 he started an emergency house call service , eventually outfitting a white chevy van as a makeshift ambulance with a red roof light , siren and portable x_ray machine and a police permit to operate the vehicle . his practice grew and he hired six other doctors to help him . but when he opted out of the public system and began charging his patients fees in 1996 , the quebec medical union and regional health board accused him of violating the provincial health act . the local government applied a 30 percent penalty on income from the service , and his six doctors quit . soon afterward , he set up a tent in downtown montreal and went on a hunger_strike for a month to call attention to his belief that his and his patients' rights were being infringed upon . ''i was desperate , i was deeply humiliated , i did n't know how to fight back using peaceful , legal means , '' he recalled , wincing . with penalties mounting , dr . chaoulli was forced to abandon his emergency house call business in 1997 , and he said he was made to feel impotent as ' 'my patients begged me not to give up on them . '' so he went to court , taking up the case of georges zeliotis , a chemical salesman with recurring hip problems who was forced to wait a year for a hip_replacement while prohibited from paying privately for surgery . mr . zeliotis could have gone to the united_states , but since he was also forbidden by canadian law from purchasing private insurance he would have been forced to pay out of his pocket , which was beyond his financial means , dr . chaoulli said . dr . chaoulli and mr . zeliotis lost in two quebec provincial courts , but the supreme_court decided to hear their appeal . various medical experts , government representatives and union leaders argued in court that privatization of insurance and services would bring an exodus of medical talent from public to private practices , and make waiting times even longer . dr . chaoulli made a philosophical pitch in his oral_arguments , saying that canadian prohibitions against allowing patients to privately contract for medical services were a basic violation of their rights . ''people are dying on waiting_lists , '' dr . chaoulli said in an interview , adding that his goal was to improve the public_health care system , not to destroy it . christopher p . manfredi , chairman of the mcgill_university political_science department , was in court , and said dr . chaoulli 's style was a bit amateurish . ''he ran out of time and the justices scolded him , '' he recalled . ''it was n't a great litigation performance . '' still , several of the justices asked probing questions of the government 's lawyers and seemed skeptical about their arguments against giving people a choice between private and public services . ''people once saw chaoulli as a crackpot and discounted what he was trying to do , '' said antonia maioni , an expert on health_care at mcgill . ''well , now , from lone ranger he 's become a cause c l bre . '' the saturday profile",has a topic of health
"prime_minister paul_martin on wednesday pledged a 50 million contribution to the irish rock star bono 's global anti aids efforts , doubling canada 's contribution to his fund , founded to fight aids , tuberculosis and malaria , particularly in africa . the pledge came after a promise of 75 million in aid by ottawa to international aids treatment programs earlier in the week . since taking office in december , mr . martin has made aids an important issue in his efforts to promote canada 's role in the world . mr . martin 's appearance on wednesday with bono in ottawa provided an opportunity for photographs as mr . martin prepared to call national elections within the next few days . liberal leaders have indicated that june 28 will probably be selected as the next election day . but bono tried to keep politics at arm 's length . ''i 'm not here to elect paul_martin or the liberal_party , '' he declared . correction may 17 , 2004 , monday a brief article on thursday about the canadian government 's pledge of 50 million to help fight aids referred incorrectly to the relationship of the irish rock star bono to the fund receiving the pledge . he works closely with the group , the global_fund to fight aids , tuberculosis and malaria he did not found it .",has a topic of health
"why is pepsico in the health_care business in moscow ? not far from the kremlin is an american outpatient clinic run by u.s . global_health , the offspring of a joint_venture among pepsi world trading , presbyterian health services and the fund for large enterprises in russia . "" there are several strong reasons why we got involved in health_care in russia , "" said james d . gerwin , senior trader at the world trade company , a pepsico subsidiary in somers . "" why ? because we are always looking at unusual projects that will guarantee us a flow of foreign exchange in tough territories , but more importantly because we recognized a need for a quality health_care facility in moscow . "" mr . gerwin , who was instrumental in setting up the moscow clinic and served as its first general_manager , said that because pepsico has been in russia for years , it knows firsthand what americans in russia face when they need health_care . "" we have been doing business in russia for many years , and we are one american company that is very familiar to the russians , "" mr . gerwin said . "" as for the clinic , which is a private clinic , it came into being after two russians , one a medical doctor and the other a businessman , approached us with an idea for a joint_venture to build a 50 million american style hospital in moscow . "" the original proposal was scaled down to a much smaller project , an outpatient clinic , and then we started looking for a medical partner . we began talks with several top hospitals in the northeast , and as luck would have it , one of the finest hospitals in the world , columbia presbyterian in new york city , was the most enthusiastic and agreed to become a partner and supply the medical services to the clinic in moscow . "" the membership and administrative management portion of the venture is known as u.s . global_health . the medical clinic , called columbia presbyterian moscow clinic , opened last september in renovated quarters on the fourth floor of the eight story medincentre polyclinic . mr . gerwin said the polyclinic has been providing medical care to the diplomatic and business communities and the foreign press corps for 50 years . in a telephone interview from moscow , sherrie dulworth , director of sales and marketing for u.s . global_health , said "" columbia presbyterian 's reputation has been the strong selling point . it sets us apart from the other clinics that have sprung up here that cater to americans and other expatriates . we have three board certified physicians on staff . they are specialists in family medicine , primary_care , internal_medicine and pediatrics . "" current membership in u.s . global_health is 2 , 000 , ms . dulworth said . only members have access to the clinic . annual memberships cost 475 , 950 for families and 90 for business travelers . a 30 day tourist membership is 39 . "" corporations are billed on a sliding scale based on the size of the group , "" ms . dulworth said . "" citibank , with over 100 employees in moscow , is our largest corporate member to date . nonprofit organizations are given a 50 percent discount . "" the clinic also provides dental_care . "" our members are now able to receive discounts at u.s . dental_care , which is a new dental clinic staffed by americans two blocks away , "" she said . "" we have recently added the services of an american trained , board certified psychiatrist and a psychologist to care for our patients . "" u.s . global bills american health_insurance plans directly . ms . dulworth , who lives in an american style apartment with a kitchen and a bathroom , said she finds moscow fascinating . "" all of us working here are having a very interesting time of it , "" she said . dr . ronald f . swanger , a pediatrician , is the medical director of the clinic and general_manager of u.s . global_health . in a telephone interview from moscow , dr . swanger , who arrived on may 1 , said "" moscow is like the wild west , what with thousands of americans , europeans and asians , entrepreneurs and corporate employees doing business here . the demand for medical services has gone up steadily every month since i 've been here . in the week beginning june 19 , we broke the record in the number of people we saw . "" with the influx of foreign families to moscow comes an increase in the number of children as patients , dr . swanger said . "" we anticipated there would be more children as families settled here . last week for instance , two children whose father is attached to the netherlands embassy came in . other youngsters we saw last week were from south_africa and japan . during the same week we had quite a few well heeled russians who wanted to see firsthand what western_medicine is like . "" the average russian , he said , uses the state health_care system . american physicians and their colleagues in russia exchange medical knowledge through the clinic 's affiliation with the polyclinic , dr . swanger said . "" global members have access to the most advanced diagnostic equipment and laboratories . these are supplemented by the resources and the expertise of columbia presbyterian through instant telecommunications . "" dr . swanger said that global , which required a multi million dollar initial investment , would be profitable within six months . that point would have been reached sooner had not global been involved in a lawsuit filed by hospital corporation international , which is based in stamford . hospital corporation , which owns and operates american medical outpatient centers all over the world , including american medical center in moscow , got a temporary injunction last july in craven county ( n . c. ) superior court , where pepsico is incorporated , prohibiting global from signing up any medical center clients . for eight months global was unable to talk to 170 large companies , mr . gerwin said . the lawsuit was dismissed without going to trial in february . the ruling is being appealed , said dennis sokol , president of hospital corporation international , in a telephone interview from kiev , ukraine , where he was opening an american medical center outpatient clinic . "" we have had a clinic in moscow since 1989 , "" mr . sokol said . "" it 's not competition we are afraid of . competition is healthy , and the market can support all of the foreign clinics in moscow . what we objected to were the pepsi tactics . i believe they are a giant company who did n't want to bother building their own operation from scratch as we , a small company , did . instead , they tried to take our plan and raid our membership lists . "" mr . gerwin denied the accusations . but the pepsico tactics were not those usually associated with the world of medicine , said dr . myles druckman , director of american medical center , who was in kiev with mr . sokol . "" when your objective is to improve the quality of health_care , you do n't employ the same tactics you use to sell more soft_drinks , "" dr . druckman said . "" trust and ethical behavior are the foundations of any medical enterprise . "" mr . sokol and dr . druckman say that competition will benefit everyone . "" we can live with global , "" dr . druckman said . "" we have a very different style of practice . what we are interested in is improving the quality of health_care , not only for americans and expatriates , but for the russians as well . we have many russian patients , and we work with russian doctors in our clinic . some of them are being trained through our affiliation with baylor and yale_university medical_schools . "" "" we have 300 corporate clients , and we see about 35 , 000 patients a year , "" mr . sokol said . "" but the market has changed . five years ago , for instance , young single people in their 20 's in very good health were practically the only foreigners here . but in the last three or four years , children , older people are coming in the wake of commerce , creating a huge demand for western_medicine . there is plenty of room for all of us . """,has a topic of health
"international health officials and scientific experts say that strains of tuberculosis resistant to various drugs are spreading faster than anticipated overseas and that a new treatment strategy is needed to prevent what has already become an epidemic from spinning out of control . for five years , the world_health_organization has recommended that patients with ordinary tuberculosis take up to four drugs , every day , for six to eight months , and that doctors and health workers watch them take their medicine and directly monitor them to insure that they are cured . the strategy has become widely known as dots , or directly observed therapy short course . but in a new report , doctors from the harvard_medical_school and the open_society_institute , a foundation financed by george_soros , say more intensive treatment is needed in the former soviet_union and other areas where rates of resistant_strains are relatively high . in the intensive regimen , patients are required to take many additional expensive drugs over a longer period of time . strains that are resistant to multidrug programs afflict on average 2 percent of victims , and nowhere more than 30 percent . the recommendation is being supported by the world_health_organization , whose director general , gro harlem bruntland , is scheduled to be present today , when the 408 page report is made public in new york . but some health experts fear that the new approach could worsen the problem . in the new strategy , called dots plus , doctors watch patients take up to seven drugs daily , for 18 to 24 months , at far greater cost per cure . ''this is a landmark shift by the who , the most exciting step forward in the global effort to control tb in 25 years , '' said michael d . iseman , director of tb services at the national jewish medical and research center in denver , a leading expert in tuberculosis treatment and research and a member of the advisory board of the group that wrote the report . the report , ''the global impact of drug resistant tuberculosis , '' has a foreword that offers an unusual endorsement from who 's leading specialists for the new treatment . ''in our zeal to implement dots everywhere , '' said dr . mario c . raviglione , the who coordinator for bacterial and viral diseases , who signed the preface , ''there was no clear policy in the program to take care of multidrug_resistant tb . now we realize that something more must be done . '' dr . raviglione said he did not know how much more the strategy would cost , because his group was just starting to study the problem . but he conceded that the expanded strategy would almost certainly cost hundreds of millions of dollars , ''perhaps 1 billion more'' than the current treatment , which is already underfinanced , many doctors complain . in interviews , several experts said the who recommendations were highly likely to intensify an already emotional debate on expanding the recommended treatment for some patients at a time when two million people a year die worldwide for lack of adequate care . at a meeting last month in madrid , opponents of the expanded strategy argued that emphasizing the treatment would shift desperately needed resources away from patients with tuberculosis that was not drug resistant . ''the who declared tb a global emergency in 1993 , '' dr . thomas r . frieden , a who medical officer for tb in southeast_asia , said in a telephone interview from new delhi . ''but six years later , fewer than 20 percent of patients get even basic treatment . '' dr . frieden said efforts to combat multiple resistant_tb should focus on its cause , inadequate treatment of ordinary tuberculosis . tuberculosis is known to acquire resistance to drugs that are given to patients inefficiently . if the wrong drugs or doses are given for too short a time or if the patients stop taking them , the bacteria that survive may become drug resistant . dr . frieden and other experts fear that if new more effective drugs are also given badly , the multiresistant strains will eventually become unresponsive to those drugs too , making a bad situation worse . the director of the program in infectious_disease and social_change at the harvard_medical_school , paul e . farmer , primary writer of the report , agreed that poor treatment had led to many cases of multiple resistant_tb . but he said inadequate treatment was no longer the sole cause of such strains . new data , he added , suggest that in some areas drug_resistant strains are spreading on their own person to person , even in countries with good control programs . he said multiresistant tuberculosis now threatened not just poorer countries , but also europe and , eventually , the united_states . the study finds that multiresistant tb has been reported in 100 countries and that its rates are rising faster in some countries than officials had anticipated . in the ivanovo oblast in russia , a poor province with a vast prison population and shoddy public_health , the who reported in 1997 that 4 percent of tb patients had multidrug_resistant strains . according to the new report , such cases now total 8.9 percent of the tb cases . ''figures like these show that multidrug_resistant tb in some places is now out of control , and it shows we were doing something wrong , that more than dots is needed in such areas , '' said dr . raviglione . but dr . frieden , who was the tb control director in new york from 1992 to 1996 , pointed out that two thirds of the people with multiresistant tb had developed it because the ivanovo program did not insure that patients took their medications . ''if medicines are n't being taken , '' he said , ''it does n't matter if you 're being given two or four or seven drugs . and if resistance to reserve drugs emerges , our last line of defense against tb will be lost . '' dr . farmer agreed that the failure to take drugs remained a major problem in russia and elsewhere . but , he added , the ivanovo study also shows that ''the drugs patients received were inadequate , '' which is primarily why just 5 percent of the multidrug_resistant cases were cured . dr . raviglione said adopting a dots plus strategy would not mean who would abandon its current dots strategy . in fact , both experts stressed the need to insure that doctors everywhere made sure that patients took their drugs . rather , the experts said , the report stresses the need for supplemental drugs and therapy where multiresistant strains already exist . dr . farmer said his team began to question the currently recommended therapy about five years ago , after a colleague who was a relief worker had died in a hospital in massachusetts after having contracted drug_resistant tb in peru , which has an excellent dots program . ''that made us think that the one size fits all treatment approach was not universally effective , '' dr . farmer explained . ideally , the scientists agreed , there would be no competition among resources for treating nondrug resistant and drug_resistant tb . but in view of the widespread indifferent response to the threat , said dr . lee b . reichman , executive director of the national tuberculosis center in newark , n.j. , some doctors feared that there would be a contest . ''dots plus is a sexy new strategy with harvard behind it , and like any sexy new strategy there is some fear of it , '' said dr . reichman , who contributed to the report . ''but i 'm on the who 's tb working group , and we 've made it clear that wo n't happen . '' the study shows that multidrug_resistant tb emerged in peru , despite the excellent control program . in peru , dr . farmer and his colleagues were able to cure 85 percent of supposedly incurable multidrug_resistant patients by giving them up to seven drugs over 24 months . the treatment cost from 280 to 4 , 900 , higher than the cost of the currently recommended therapy , but far less than what such treatment would cost in the united_states . dr . reichman estimated that it cost his center in newark an average of 4 , 800 a patient and six months to cure normal tb without hospitalization , as opposed to 200 , 000 and up to two years of treatment , including lengthy hospitalization , to cure patients with multidrug_resistant strains . in new york city in the early 1990 's , an outbreak of multidrug_resistant tuberculosis cost up to 1 billion in extra health costs , dr . reichman said . because new york and other major cities have bolstered surveillance , treatment and control , rates of multidrug_resistant cases have recently been declining in the united_states . last year , according to the federal centers_for_disease_control and prevention , just 1.1 percent of american tb cases were multidrug_resistant . ''the situation overseas has grown far more dangerous , '' said alex goldfarb , a microbiologist at the public_health research institute , a private health group in new york and a co author of the report . ''because there are ever more drug_resistant tb cases in hot zones , ''each case is a walking time bomb . '' in one of its many ominous predictions , the study warns that even if the recommended dots treatment strategy is put in place , 171 million additional cases and 60 million deaths can be expected between 1998 and 2030 . the worst case situation predicts 249 million additional cases and 90 million deaths , even with the currently recommended treatment .",has a topic of health
"an american doctor and her daughter were being treated in a moscow hospital on tuesday after showing signs of thallium poisoning . thallium is a highly toxic element with a history of use in pesticides and in murder . both women , who emigrated from the soviet_union in the 1980s but recently returned to russia for a vacation , were severely sickened but their lives are not in danger , medical officials here said . ''they have positive dynamics , and their condition is improving , '' said dr . viktor m . kaznacheyev , the chief physician at the sklifosovsky clinic here , said in a telephone interview . the women have been treated at the clinic since falling ill on feb . 24 . dr . kaznacheyev said the victims , dr . marina kovalevsky , 49 , and her daughter , yana , 26 , of studio city , calif . , were under the supervision of poison specialists . ''they were in a serious condition when they were delivered here , '' he added . citing privacy concerns , he declined to discuss further details beyond saying that their symptoms were consistent with thallium poisoning . dr . kovalevsky is an internal_medicine specialist in private practice in west_hollywood , calif . , and has had admitting privileges at the cedars sinai medical center since 1999 , a spokeswoman for the hospital said . she was educated in the 1970s in kemerovo , an industrial and coal_mining region in southern siberia . she returned to russia on feb . 14 for a vacation and was due back at her office to see patients on feb . 26 , dr . arkady stern , a colleague covering for her at her practice on santa monica boulevard , said by telephone . the circumstances of the poisonings are unclear , but it appears that dr . kovalevsky and her daughter ingested the poison while in moscow . ''she left los_angeles in perfectly good health , '' dr . stern said . the mystery of the poisonings , after the fatal poisoning in london last year of alexander v . litvinenko , a former k.g.b . officer and outspoken critic of the kremlin , attracted immediate attention and speculation in the russian news_media . mr . litvinenko 's initial diagnosis was thallium poisoning , but his doctors later determined that he had ingested radioactive polonium . before dying , he publicly accused president vladimir v . putin of having had a hand in the poisoning . the killing remains unsolved . thallium , an element with no taste or odor , has been used as an ingredient in insecticides and rat poison , and as well by criminals and intelligence services , including those of the soviet_union and of iraq under saddam_hussein . published reports have said that the central_intelligence_agency chose thallium as a poison to be sprinkled in fidel_castro 's shoes a plot that was never carried out . when ingested , thallium is a slow acting poison that can cause excruciating abdominal pain , breathing difficulties , damage to the nervous system and extensive hair_loss . dr . stern said the two women had been administered prussian blue , an antidote commonly used to counteract thallium 's effect , and had undergone dialysis to help rid their systems of lingering toxins . he said that the women had been cleared to travel from moscow and that they hoped to return to the united_states by the end of the week and receive further treatment there . there is no indication that either woman would have been of interest to russian intelligence services , and no clear criminal motive for the poisoning . ''my personal opinion , '' dr . stern said , ''is that it could be some mistake . i cannot imagine that anyone in their right mind would want to hurt this person . she is very loved and very respected by her patients , her colleagues and her friends . '' the authorities in moscow said they were trying to determine whom the women had seen since they arrived . the police are retracing the routes of the women in moscow to try to detect traces of thallium in any places they visited , according to the official interfax news_agency . correction march 8 , 2007 , thursday because of an editing error , an article yesterday about an american doctor and her daughter who were severely sickened by poisoning while vacationing in moscow referred incorrectly to interfax , the news_agency that reported the development . it is privately_owned , not an ''official'' enterprise controlled by the government .",has a topic of health
"the army_corps_of_engineers said friday that it had canceled the work remaining on a 70 million project to refurbish 20 hospitals in iraq , deepening a dispute with one of the largest american contractors operating here and seriously threatening an ambitious united_states led effort to improve iraqi health_care . brig . gen . william h . mccoy jr . , commander of the corps division that administers the projects , said the cancellation would affect mainly work on eight hospitals that he said the contractor , parsons , had not completed on time , adding that iraqi companies would be used to finish those jobs . he said parsons had finished most or all of the work on 12 of the hospitals . the move follows by less than two weeks a federal audit of work by parsons on a 243 million program to build health_care clinics around iraq that found that just 20 of the original 150 clinics would be completed without new financing . together , the programs constitute the most important american effort to improve iraq 's dilapidated health_care system , and are widely regarded as crucial to showing ordinary iraqis that the invasion has improved their lives . general mccoy had disputed many of the findings in the audit , which laid much of the blame for poor workmanship and cost_overruns on the clinics to lax oversight by the corps . on friday , the general said in an interview that while he did not think all the problems with the hospitals were the fault of the contractor , parsons , he had no choice but to act . ''i 'm not trying to deflect blame here i 'm responsible for construction in iraq , '' he said . ''but this contractor was not performing , and we took aggressive action . '' the abrupt cancellation of the hospital project appeared to stun company officials , who said the corps had done nothing after receiving repeated warnings that money was running low and that serious missteps by corps managers had undermined certain projects . the audit on the clinics , which was carried out by the special_inspector_general_for_iraq_reconstruction , found that the corps had made similar mistakes in that case . the parsons officials cited one case in april when , they said , frustrated doctors wanted to move into a new residence hall that parsons had completed next to a maternity hospital in najaf , but could not open it until corps inspectors approved the work . when inspectors did not arrive , the doctors finally stormed the building , breaking locks and overrunning guards , the officials said , showing pictures of what they said was the incident . among the other challenges that the company faced , it said , was a strangely structured agreement with the corps that paid construction costs from one contract and administrative costs things like living quarters , security and the salaries of parsons managers in iraq from a separate contract . for the full range of the parsons work on clinics , hospitals and a few related things like iraqi ministry buildings , the costs on the administrative contract alone have risen above 100 million , the company said . with the delays in completing the hospitals , the corps says , those costs have risen too far . for its part , the company says that it was clear about what the job would cost , but that the corps did not provide the necessary support to finish the work . ''there have been many reasons for delay , '' said earnest robbins , a senior vice_president at parsons , citing a proliferation of government contracting entities in iraq , rapid turnover in the corps staff and difficulties in dealing with iraqi ministry officials . but among the main problems , mr . robbins said , was that ''we were never funded to provide the level of management , of oversight , that we told the government it would take to complete those projects . '' the residence hall was not the only work scheduled at the najaf maternity hospital , which is one of the eight that will not be completed under the parsons contract . two other maternity hospitals in the south , in nasiriya and hilla , also will not be finished , along with three hospitals in baghdad , one north of the capital and one in ramadi . among them , those hospitals contain 2 , 125 beds , the company said . although parsons and the corps disagree on how much of the work has already been completed in those hospitals , both say that all of them are at least 60 percent finished . the construction work has been carried out with iraqi subcontractors , several of which parsons said had been difficult to manage . but the corps said it planned to take the extraordinary step of finishing the job by hiring many of the same subcontractors that parsons had been working with already in effect , cutting out the middleman . ''in all cases , from our point of view , these contractors have the capacity to do the job , '' general mccoy said . many of the projects in the hospitals involve interior renovations and some new construction . but the original contract for all 20 hospitals also called for 57 elevators , 19 water purifiers and 19 incinerators for burning medical waste . most of the equipment installation has been completed , the company said . to date , there has been no comprehensive audit of the hospital program , as there has been of the clinics . but last year an iraqi reporter and producer , ali fadhil , visited one of the original 20 hospitals in diwaniya , in the south , as the refurbishment was nearing_completion and shot film of the site . some of it was used in ''iraq 's missing billions , '' a british documentary , and shows things like an open manhole leaking sewage in the garden of the hospital and sewage backed up in the hospital kitchen . mr . fadhil said in an interview that he could smell raw_sewage in the changing room for one operating room . mr . fadhil said he saw shoddy work in other parts of the hospital , including new light fittings that had melted and pipes that had not been connected . inside another operating room , floor tiles had not been properly glued down and ants were crawling around . parsons officials conceded difficulties with the project , which was later completed , but said the problems stemmed mainly from delays by corps inspectors and interference by the iraqi ministry of health , which constantly demanded new work . during the delays , iraqis began using the hospital and clogged the sewage system by using it to dispose of solid trash , like bags of used syringes , that it was not meant to carry , the officials said . ''the sewage system was not designed as a garbage_dump , '' a parsons official said . mr . fadhil said that the iraqi subcontractor working with parsons made similar claims , but that it appeared that most of the problems had been caused by the use of poor quality materials . ''i had a hope that the american presence , that they would do something good for us , '' he said . ''the opposite happened . '' this week parsons officials produced photographs of waiting rooms and other areas that seemed to be clear of damage . as word of the cancellation of the hospital contract began making its way around baghdad 's fortified green_zone , stuart w . bowen jr . , who heads the office of the special inspector general , said that the parsons work had caught his attention . ''the more i look and hear about different issues , the more i 'm interested in taking a wider look at their activities , '' he said .",has a topic of health
"some veterans of the persian_gulf_war who have complained of chronic_illnesses have signs of brain_damage caused by exposure to toxic_chemicals , the authors of a scientific study partly financed by the pentagon reported today . magnetic scans of sick veterans found lower than normal levels of a certain chemical , indicating damage in the parts of the brain that control reflexes , movement , memory and emotion , the study 's authors said . more than 100 , 000 american service members sent to the persian_gulf in 1990 and 1991 have since reported experiencing a raft of maladies , including fatigue , muscle pain , memory loss and sleep disorders , which have collectively come to be known as gulf_war_syndrome . the researchers stopped short of identifying the exact cause of the brain_damage , saying that more medical research was needed . but coupled with a survey last month sponsored by the pentagon , the findings showed that scientists were narrowing in on chemical exposure from pesticides , low levels of nerve_gas or an experimental drug given to troops as the cause of the illnesses . the study was conducted by researchers at the university of texas southwestern medical center in dallas and presented today at the annual convention of the radiological society of north america in chicago . a pentagon spokesman , rear_adm . craig r . quigley , declined to discuss the findings in detail , saying they were preliminary and had not yet been subjected to peer_review in an academic journal , which the authors said they expected soon . ''there are many steps to go here , '' admiral quigley said . ''we need to take a look at it . '' the study 's principal author , james l . fleckenstein , a professor of radiology , said in an interview that the study was the first to show brain_damage in sick veterans . dr . fleckenstein and his colleagues examined 22 veterans complaining of illnesses . using magnetic resonance spectroscopy , which measures chemical levels in the brain , they compared the results with those from 18 healthy veterans . the experiment was repeated in a sample of six more veterans . the brain scans found that sick veterans had 10 percent to 25 percent lower levels of a chemical called the chemical n acetyl aspartate , signaling a loss of neurons in the brain stem and basal ganglia . dr . fleckenstein said that veterans with more severe symptoms showed the lowest levels of the chemical . nearly three years ago , researchers from the same university reported that exposure to a combination of chemicals might have been responsible for veterans' illnesses . the university 's lead investigator , robert w . haley , said the most recent findings validated the earlier work . last month , the rand_corporation , a research organization financed by the department of defense , released a survey that concluded that pyridostigmine_bromide , an experimental drug meant to protect against an attack with nerve_gas might be responsible for the illnesses .",has a topic of health
"after weeks of inaction , russian officials today acknowledged the seriousness of the cholera epidemic spreading across the southern regions of the country , and have announced a campaign to combat it . more than 1 , 000 cases have been reported in dagestan , and after long debate public_health officials enacted a quarantine there this week , although they acknowledged that it would do little good . there have been reports in the russian press that the clean health certificates that people need to leave the region are for sale to anyone for 20 . in neighboring chechnya , where four people have died from the disease , a profoundly unstable political situation has made all attempts at sanitary control impossible . health officials here , concerned as much about the publicity and panic surrounding the outbreak as about the possible spread of contagion , which they insist remains small in large cities like moscow , met on thursday and issued a resolution entitled , "" urgent measures for the prevention of cholera in the moscow region . "" moscow health inspectors said they would begin raising the level of chlorine in the drinking_water . it is nearly impossible to buy vegetables at the kiosks and food stalls because health inspectors have been closing them down . "" borders these days are transparent , "" said dr . emiliya s . kovalenko , chief sanitary epidemiologic officer for the moscow region . "" we ca n't stop a person in a car or on foot from entering or leaving russia . "" she acknowledged the problems with issuing passes to healthy people , saying that in the end it is not an effective way to control an epidemic . since many healthy people carry the cholera bacteria , it is almost impossible to impose useful quarantines . the most effective ways to control such illnesses , however , have been largely ignored in russia . cholera , a severe form of bacterial dysentery , flourishes in regions where water is dirty and sanitation is poor . to some degree , those conditions exist in russia_today , and the infectious_diseases often associated with poverty , overcrowded conditions and poor sanitation diphtheria , tuberculosis , cholera , typhoid have risen alarmingly in russia over the last two years . the number of diphtheria cases registered in st . petersburg alone jumped from 12 to 845 between 1990 and 1992 . last year the number had more than doubled again . medical officials here fear that substandard waste water treatment and poor quality drinking_water will contribute to the spread of cholera in places like moscow , where enormous numbers of immigrants from other parts of the former soviet_union arrive every week . water pipes are old and often tainted with harmful bacteria , and money for public education to fight easily cured or prevented diseases does not exist . 'start paying attention' "" we better start paying attention to this problem , "" said anatoly s . tyazhlov , chief of the moscow regional administration . "" this is no joke . seventeen people have already died . "" "" it would be great if we could make sure that not one person , not one tomato , slipped out of there , "" he said , referring to the dagestan region . "" but that is unrealistic and impossible . "" he said there would be strict monitoring of railways and airports and urged people to refrain from buying fruit and vegetables unless they knew where they came from , an impossible task in cities like moscow . some human_rights advocates have said they fear that the government will use this crisis to try to expel some of the many undocumented refugees in the capital . the russian press has attacked the government for doing nothing about the epidemic , particularly after it was revealed that at least three people in moscow have died from the disease in the last month . "" now that cholera is here , rigid measures to quarantine it and prevent the spread must be taken , "" the newspaper izvestia said in a commentary . "" it is strange to see how long the procedural process for agreeing on a quarantine had been going on . but when there is a fire in your house , first you rush to put it out , and only afterward do you assess the damages . """,has a topic of health
"tucked carefully into a pine forest , bathed in the sparkling siberian air and filled with enough amenities to make a country club look spartan , the pediatric tuberculosis center here seems to sit on the cutting edge of russian medicine . in a nation whose government has concluded that half of the hospitals are too dilapidated to function , the center is in the midst of a robust development program . it has a dozen buildings , a school for patients and a staff of 134 . what the 500 bed hospital does not have , in this country where president boris n . yeltsin has called health_care ''our no . 1 national_security crisis , '' are patients . last year there were never more than 20 children here at a time . this month there are 13 . that is because the tomsk hospital system is a citadel of waste . there are 88 hospitals in this city of 500 , 000 , more than in boston . twelve of them treat tb patients alone . there is a major clinical center with 21 departments and four surgical branches , and a university medical center duplicates almost exactly what is offered in the municipal center . the hospitals have enormous heating costs , fleets of cars , large , poorly trained staffs and patient services that overlap . ''if it was just one hospital burning money , then we could live with that , '' said tatyana grishina , a tuberculosis expert at the russian academy of medical sciences who has been to tomsk to study the system here . ''but it is not one hospital . and it is not just tuberculosis . it is the whole story of russian medicine . ''people talk about reform all the time in russia . but nobody wants it . reform is one of the dirtiest words in the country . '' health officials here , and throughout russia , still dole out scarce money based almost solely on the number of beds in each hospital , without regard to whether they are needed or how they are used . as a result , the pediatric center will receive nearly 1 million in regional funds this year . with that money it will subject its 13 children to a needlessly expensive , anachronistic treatment regimen that the world_health_organization has long considered worse than useless . there may be no better way to understand the immense obstacles that reforms face in the russian provinces where they are needed most than to look at how a place like tomsk deals with health_care . compared with other cities in russia it is neither backward nor unique . one of siberia 's oldest cities , filled with stately wooden houses that have withstood a century of snow , tomsk used to live on an allowance dispensed from moscow . all that has changed . industry has atrophied . the nearly free transportation system , essential in such a remote place , has virtually disappeared . without it , half of the region has lost its access to decent medical treatment . the money from moscow may be gone , but the network designed by the soviet_government grand , cumbersome , repetitive and blind to the perverse and often baffling economics of medicine lives on . ''this is more than a medical system , '' said sergei banin , tomsk 's no . 2 health official . ''it is a social system . we are feeding the poor . we are providing thousands of jobs . we want an evolution here , not a revolution . '' but there has been nothing gradual about the decline in the health of the russian people . tomsk , like the rest of russia , reels under a remarkable surge in infectious and parasitic diseases , and constant growth in cases of deadly heart_disease , alcohol poisoning and cancer . last year more people in russia died from tuberculosis , which is entirely curable , than got the disease in the united_states . the government now predicts that the russian population will shrink by at least one million people each year for at least a decade . that has happened only a few times in history and until now always in countries engulfed by war , plague or famine . many people say national officials simply need to spend more on their citizens' health . money would help , of course . last year russia spent only about 75 a person on health care the united_states spent nearly 4 , 000 . but increasingly , experts cite another statistic that may be more telling russia has 130 hospital beds for every 10 , 000 people , a figure matched in no major country on earth . the united_states has fewer than 40 beds per 10 , 000 people . ''you could not invent a more ridiculous health_care system than the one we now have , '' said igor linok , the chief administrator of the tomsk regional health_insurance fund . dr . linok is a physician and an economist . it is his job to try to find a rational way to spread money across the tomsk region , which has one million people in an area about the size of england . ''everyone always says there is not enough money , '' he said . ''we are poor , of course . but i do n't even agree that there is not enough money . look at the waste in this place . '' most countries no longer have tb hospitals . tomsk has 12 . with a rate of 80 cases per 100 , 000 residents here , the incidence has more than doubled in a decade . but hospitals do not help . the world_health_organization has long argued that tuberculosis can be treated better and less expensively with drugs at home . merlin , the british relief agency , has created a pilot program to supply drugs and the expertise to use them properly . it has had some success , but there has been a fight every step of the way . ''there are cultural expectations here that are almost impossible to overcome , '' said gini gleissberg , the merlin coordinator in tomsk . ''patients expect this long period of hospitalization . lots of times a few months in a hospital beats being at home without work or money . '' three quarters of the 4 million spent on tuberculosis treatment and testing here is wasted , merlin says . health department officials do not disagree . in 1996 a total of 532 children were discharged from various tb hospitals in tomsk after average stays of a little more than three months . tuberculosis had been diagnosed in only 23 . the rest were there because their parents had the disease , or because they were suspected of being infected . the new york public_health research institute , with money from the financier and philanthropist george_soros , has offered to help tomsk shift its health priorities . the soros plan , as it is called here , is simple . ''let 's spend money on what works , '' dr . alex goldfarb , who has been the plan 's chief salesman , said in a recent interview . ''and let 's help people make that transition to a new way of life . but if there is no switch , there should be no funds . to get the money , people here need to get rid of those hospital beds . '' that kind of talk drives many leaders in russian medicine already sick of being told how to do their jobs by outsiders to open revolt . ''i thought humanitarian_aid came without strings attached , '' said aleksei primyak , who runs the largest national tuberculosis center in moscow and is seen as the official voice of the conservative medical establishment . ''who are these people to tell us how to treat our citizens ? '' but the desperate competition for money has turned the medical system into a major political issue . and the problems are by no means limited to tb . ''the hospital system , '' said governor viktor kress , a reformer who is nonetheless wary of moving too fast , ''is one of the greatest lobbies left in the land . '' that is clear in tomsk . the city has two large heart centers that can serve 1 , 000 patients each . they have similar equipment . the one operated by the national government has better staff , but it is open to patients only five days a week . ''do n't have a heart_attack on the weekend , '' said vladimir mashukov , the chief doctor at the tomsk institute of cardiology , the national center . he says his budget ''has been irregular and chaotic . '' ''we are hostages to the past , '' he said . there are also four cancer centers here . and tomsk , a university town with a branch of the russian academy of medical sciences , is considered progressive by most outsiders . the children 's sanitarium is exhibit a in any attempt to explain why health_care in the provinces seems stuck in another era . ''for the money we are spending on that place we could move all those children and their families to israel and let them live by the dead sea , '' said dr . linok , the health economist . the center is the perfect symbol for the failings of hospitals from one end of the country to the other . there are too many people on staff , but no alternative jobs for them . there are not enough patients , because patients or in this case , their parents do not want to report their illnesses for fear they will be locked in a sanitarium for months . the hospital duplicates services offered less than two miles away at the city 's central tb clinic . of course , that is not the way they see it at the sanitarium . ''i am not a diplomat , '' said anatoly m . shatokhin , the affable chief doctor at the pediatric center . ''i am a doctor . and i have to tell you that your system may work best for you , but ours works best for us . children need to be nurtured . they need a setting in which to recover . '' that means in a hospital , he says . keeping people in a hospital for routine tuberculosis treatment , still normal here , is rare in the west . the cost of such treatment , an average here of 1 , 134 per cure , is more than five times the cost of using drugs on outpatients , according to the w.h.o . ''if you look at the numbers , the logic is obvious , '' said olga sharaburova , the chief tuberculosis doctor for the region . ''but logic has never been used here yet . so you can understand why people wonder about it know . ''",has a topic of health
"in a case that is likely to set new legal precedents for canada , a 24 year old quebec woman who is paralyzed by a rare neurological disease has asked a judge to approve the disconnection of a respirator that has kept her alive in a hospital room since june 1989 . her doctor has testified that she is likely to die "" within minutes "" of the machine being switched off . the woman , whose family has asked that she be identified only as nancy b. , was the focus of an emotional hearing at the hotel dieu hospital in quebec_city on thursday . a judge convened the session to hear the woman , in the presence of her parents , doctors and lawyers , make her own plea for an end to her life . the woman had previously said she would like to die after christmas so her family would not grieve during the holiday . "" i am fed up with living on a respirator this is no longer a life , "" the woman told the judge , jacques dufour , according to transcripts given to reporters and translated from french . under questioning by her lawyer , the woman added "" i do not want to live . the only thing i have is television and looking at the walls . it 's enough . it 's been 2 1 2 years that i 've been on this thing and i think i 've done my best . "" the judge responded by telling the woman , "" if you change your mind , the court would be very happy , but i understand you . "" he is expected to give his decision in the case in early january . as in the united_states , issues involved in euthanasia and assisted dying have been receiving growing attention in canada , where federal law prohibits euthanasia , suicide and assisting suicide . the matter is under debate in the house of commons in ottawa , where a committee is reviewing proposals that would allow patients and doctors to abandon life sustaining treatments or initiate other measures , like the use of pain killing drugs that might shorten a patient 's life . the proposals have been strongly resisted by euthanasia opponents and appear unlikely to be adopted in their current form . meanwhile , physicians and experts in medical_ethics are looking to the courts to set new guidelines . the quebec case has stirred particular interest , partly because the woman has been able to speak for herself . in previous canadian cases , pleas to end life generally came from family members speaking for patients who were comatose or judged to be brain_dead . doctors have told the quebec court that the woman has a neurological disease known as guillain barre syndrome . while the disease is frequently curable , the doctors have said , it has advanced in the woman 's case to the point where she has sustained irreversible neurological damage that has left her paralyzed and unable to breathe without a respirator . the court has been told that the woman has twice attempted suicide by hunger strikes . but doctors have said the woman could live for years with her breathing mechanically assisted . in her request to be taken off the machine , the woman , who is unmarried , has been supported by her parents . the physician in the case , dr . daniele marceau , has told the court that she had tried to persuade her patient to change her mind , but would comply with the court 's decision . the quebec government has officially remained neutral , but its lawyers have suggested that the court could approve the young woman 's plea by invoking provisions in quebec 's code of civil law that entitle patients to refuse medical treatment . specialists in medical_ethics have backed the right of the woman to have the respirator switched off . "" i think there 's a dividing line between killing somebody and allowing them to die , "" said dr . margaret somerville , director of the center for medicine , ethics and law at mcgill_university in montreal . "" it 's a thin line , but it 's an enormously important line . "" dr . somerville , whose writings on euthanasia have had a wide influence in canada , said she had received many calls during the current case from people fearful of "" dehumanizing deaths . "" "" it 's orwellian , to think of paralyzed people hooked up to all that modern machinery , with no right to say , 'i do n't want to go through this anymore , ' "" dr . somerville said .",has a topic of health
"dr . louis g . lange , a cardiologist and the chief executive of a small biotechnology company , has a new drug that , if approved , will be the first new treatment for angina in a quarter century . like many drug companies , dr . lange 's , cv therapeutics of palo_alto , calif . , tested its new product overseas , where studies go faster because it is easy to find patients who are eager to participate . but the company 's testing is nearing its end , and dr . lange is faced with an ethical quandary is his company obliged to make the drug available to the patients in poor countries like russia who took part in the studies ? as companies increasingly test new drugs in other countries , they are struggling to decide what , if anything , they owe the patients who served as test subjects . some companies have chosen not to sell their drugs in the countries where they were tested others have marketed their drugs there , but few patients in those countries can afford them . ''this is something that the biotech industry , as it develops more and more drugs , will have to come to grips with , '' said carl b . feldbaum , president of the biotechnology industry organization . ''it 's not that we are lacking compassion , but the economics are tough . '' the issue is especially difficult when it comes to drugs , like dr . lange 's , that do not save lives but can vastly improve the quality of life . nobody knows for sure how many patients in other countries have had to forgo drugs that improved their lives when clinical_trials ended , and companies do not give out patients' names , to protect their privacy . but the issue is very much on the minds of company researchers and executives . ethicists say that they , too , are troubled but that their field has reached no consensus on what companies should do . ''do we have an obligation to everyone in the trial or to everyone in the community , the province , the nation , the region of the world ? '' asked dr . ruth faden , the director of the phoebe r . berman bioethics institute at johns_hopkins_university . ''we have n't really figured this out . '' yet , dr . faden said , ' 'many physician investigators feel uncomfortable with the idea of using patients in studies and then not being able to continue to help them when the trial ends . '' ''we seem to hit a wall of moral unease , '' she said . ''in the end , i 'm not sure exactly where we ought to end up . '' companies must make business decisions about where to market their drugs , figuring out whether they can earn enough money to justify applying for approval , setting up business offices and hiring a sales force . if they decide not to market a drug in a given country , they are unlikely to provide it to patients there free of charge . to provide a drug for what medical professionals call compassionate use , companies must set up a distribution system , train doctors to administer the drugs , monitor patients for adverse_effects and track the results . whether to undertake a compassionate use program for drugs that improve the quality of life but do not prolong it ranolazine , the drug cv therapeutics has developed , is one example poses ''a delicate question , '' said tony plohoros , a spokesman for merck , a company that has systems to distribute lifesaving drugs in poor countries where there is a need . the issue is especially difficult for small companies , like dr . lange 's , that as yet have no products on the market . dr . lange says he is torn . cv therapeutics , he noted , is a business , not a charity . it cannot afford to set up a marketing system in countries where few can buy the drug , or a distribution system to give its drugs away . ''we 're not merck , '' he said . ''but we are concerned . '' there is no question that the patients who participated in the company 's studies are needy . chronic angina has made their lives miserable . terrifying , crushing chest_pains can come on without warning and often persist despite bypass_surgery , angioplasty and medications . ranolazine can make a difference . it changes the heart 's metabolism , allowing it to operate more efficiently . the company 's studies found that it can cut the frequency of angina attacks nearly in half . the food and drug administration has told cv therapeutics that the drug is ''approvable , '' if it can provide a bit more data . on jan . 21 , the journal of the american_medical_association published the company 's study along with a laudatory editorial , reporting that ranolazine helped patients whose angina was crippling despite standard therapies . for now , most patients in russia and the other countries can receive ranolazine as part of large safety studies that follow the trials on the drug 's effectiveness . but those studies will end , and dr . lange says he does not relish taking the drug away from people being helped by it . in the united_states , patients who participate in clinical_trials often continue to receive the drug being tested until it is approved . after that , they can buy it or , if they cannot afford it , apply to special programs that most companies offer to help people who could not otherwise get drugs they need . but with the exception of aids drugs , which companies provide free or at low cost to patients in poor countries , there is no industry consensus about what to do internationally , especially when drugs are not lifesaving . and even when companies market their drugs in poor countries , they tend not to set up a system to give the drugs away to study subjects after a clinical_trial ends . the issue has grown more pressing as more companies conduct international studies to get enough patients . in recent years , they have increasingly turned to countries in eastern and central_europe . cv therapeutics , for example , tested its drug in two large studies involving 1 , 014 patients , including about 365 from north_america and western_europe and close to 600 from russia and eastern_europe . dr . eugene braunwald of harvard_medical_school , who is chairman of a not for profit academic group that runs clinical_trials in cardiology , said fewer and fewer american patients participated . ''we are enrolling on average half as many patients in the u.s . now as compared to five years ago , ''dr . braunwald said . one reason , he said , is that doctors do not want to take the time to enroll patients and to comply with the detailed testing and reporting a study requires . business in eastern and central_europe is expanding rapidly , with american companies that conduct clinical_trials opening offices there and local entrepreneurs setting up their own businesses . covance , a large american company that conducts trials for drug companies under contract , opened offices in russia and poland a few years ago and in hungary last year . ''the standards of medicine are high'' in those countries , said dr . alan wood , covance 's general_manager for global clinical development services , and it is easy to recruit patients . richard leach , the american business manager of russian clinical_trials , a six person company in st . petersburg , russia , explained the appeal of doing studies there . the doctors are well trained but earn as little as a few hundred dollars a month , mr . leach said , and they are eager for the money they can get as clinical_trial investigators . doctors even want to be study monitors , traveling to medical offices to be sure protocols are followed . that job , done mostly by nurses in the united_states , pays much more than russian doctors earn for treating patients . another incentive is the medical equipment supplied by drug companies . cv therapeutics , for example , gave its russian doctors treadmills for exercise testing , and sent technicians to their offices to teach them how to do the test . ''that was a perk for them , '' dr . lange said . patients in other countries are also more eager to take part in clinical_trials . in the united_states , companies have to advertise heavily to find patients . in russia , mr . leach said , word of mouth usually suffices . because the government does not pay for prescription_drugs and few people can afford to buy them , the patients see clinical_trials as their best chance for medications . ''eastern_european and russian people tend to be very compliant , '' mr . leach said . ''because they are getting medical treatment they could n't afford and getting western_medicine , they will follow the trial and they will do whatever is asked . if they have to keep a diary , they do it . if they have to make office visits , they do it . '' companies like covance and russian clinical_trials say it is not their business to ask what happens when the studies end . ''what our clients choose to do is not our affair , '' dr . wood of covance said . ethicists acknowledge that companies are businesses and accountable to investors . drug companies , said dr . lawrence o . gostin , the director of the center for law and the public 's health at georgetown and johns_hopkins universities , should not be seen as ''the deep pocket that helps everyone . '' but on the other hand , dr . gostin said , there is something troubling about ''parachute research , '' in which a company drops into a country , conducts its research and then leaves . ''it raises the question of what ethical obligation , if any , there might be to give back and make sure there is access to the drug after the trials are over , '' dr . gostin said . the participants in a study take a risk to help a company determine if its drug is safe and effective , he said , and ''it seems to me that there is an ethical obligation to give back . '' as for dr . lange , he said that the patients enrolled in his company 's trials in eastern and central_europe might eventually have to give up their ranolazine . but he comforts himself , he said , by remembering that for now , they are still getting the drug as part of the company 's safety studies . ''i have n't had to bite the bullet yet , '' he said .",has a topic of health
"federal agriculture officials banned poultry imports from mainland british_columbia on monday after canadian officials reported finding a duck at a poultry farm that was infected with the flu . ''we 're working with canada right now to obtain more information to determine whether or not the ban can be scaled down in size or eliminated or if it needs to remain in place , '' said jim rogers , a department of agriculture spokesman . canadian authorities have said that the virus that afflicted the duck was a mild north_american strain and not the virulent strain that has killed wild and commercial bird flocks all over asia , as well as more than 60 people . indeed , the duck was not even sick , dr . brian evans , chief veterinarian officer for the canadian food inspection agency , said at a news conference . taiwan , hong_kong and japan have enacted similar bans , dr . evans said . ''we do recognize that we 're dealing with an extremely hypersensitive environment , '' dr . evans said . ''we feel that the request from the u.s . is not totally unreasonable . '' flu_viruses commonly infect birds the world over , and the action by the united_states did bring some criticism . dr . michael osterholm , director of the center for infectious_disease research and policy at the university of minnesota , said , ''i personally do n't understand the science behind the government 's decision . '' the strain of flu identified in the canadian duck is common in north_america , dr . osterholm said . since it has little to do with the virulent asian strain causing such concern worldwide and does not seem to be deadly among birds , finding a bird afflicted with such a virus should not cause alarm , dr . osterholm said . besides , if the asian flu virus does appear in north_america , he said , migratory birds will almost certainly be the source . ''and there 's no stopping the movement of migratory birds between canada and the u.s . , '' dr . osterholm said . ''why do we care about this ? '' he said . ''i just do n't understand . '' mr . rogers said the united_states banned animal and plant trade routinely as a result of reports regarding diseases or pests . mr . rogers could not recall , however , the last time the united_states stopped poultry imports from a canadian province . there is little poultry imported from british_columbia , mr . rogers said , since the united_states produces nearly all of the poultry consumed in this country . mr . rogers said that vancouver_island , which is part of british_columbia , was not affected by the ban . the united_states has long banned poultry imports from the asian nations where the avian virus has been found .",has a topic of health
"the young russian psychoanalyst was confused . his patient , an alluring , intelligent but deeply unhappy young woman , seemed affronted when he interpreted her flood of sexual reminiscences as her fantasy of their future relationship . ''i think maybe i gave an interpretation too early , but i could n't help it , '' he explained sheepishly to a group of fledgling russian psychoanalysts around a conference table in moscow . ''she got angry and was unwilling to admit that there is any sexual component to our work . '' ten years ago , a seminar about stock freudian concepts like resistance and transference was unthinkable in russia . freud 's writings were banned as bourgeois ideology and read only furtively in samizdat , or bootleg , form . the few self taught psychoanalysts who saw patients did so in fear and secrecy . banned by the soviet authorities for three generations , all kinds of western methods of psychotherapy are flourishing in russia_today , competing with the more dubious methods of folk medicine , witchcraft and psychic healing . of all the different methods and schools from gestalt to group therapy that have taken root since communism collapsed , freudian psychoanalysis is by far the most challenging and the most controversial . for the rediscovery of freud and psychoanalytic therapy puts russia squarely on a collision course with trends in the west . in a kind of cultural role reversal , russian therapists are shaking free of 70 years of drug based soviet psychiatry to explore the id and the ego just as many of their western counterparts spurred by advances in biochemistry and the rise of managed_care are turning away from such long term talk therapies in favor of drugs like prozac . the widespread hopes that russia 's freudians have for the future of psychoanalysis in some ways mirror the great expectations of their american and european counterparts 30 years ago . ''for 70 years the russian people were robbed of self knowledge , '' said sergei g . agrachev , 44 , president of the new moscow psychoanalytic society . ''psychoanalysis is one weapon with which we can restore some order to our society . '' in july , president boris n . yeltsin signed a decree officially recognizing psychoanalysis as a legitimate psychiatric treatment . psychoanalysis is now part of the curriculum for psychology students . it is even taught at the military university of the ministry of defense of the russian_federation , formerly known as the lenin military political academy . the new health minister , tatyana b . dmitriyeva , is a psychiatrist specializing in personality disorders who until recently was director of the serbsky institute , notorious in the 1970 's as a psychiatric_hospital where dissidents were incarcerated . in an interview , mrs . dmitriyeva was skeptical about some colleagues' embrace of psychoanalysis , referring to it as a fad that had already faded in the west . despite her misgivings , she arranged for two former colleagues at the serbsky institute to study psychoanalysis in france . ''since in our country it was prohibited , there is a natural fascination with psychoanalysis , especially among the young , '' she explained with a shrug . ''the country has to go through it before it develops an immunity and this method finds its proper place . '' with a wintry smile , she added , ''and not a prominent one . '' so far , no russian psychoanalyst has completed the rigorous training required by the london based international psychoanalytical association . russian psychoanalysts like mr . agrachev are mostly self taught and are not certified by western institutes . while some are medical doctors , most are psychologists . at least eight russian would be analysts are in the united_states undergoing the formal training that will allow them someday to train and supervise their colleagues back home . mikhail romashkevich , the head of one leading freudian society , called the russian psychoanalytic association , is undergoing what he calls ' 'shuttle analysis'' in his quest for certification . since no russian is recognized abroad as a training analyst , he commutes to prague once a month to undergo analysis . he and many others who are practicing psycho analysts in russia submit their cases to supervisors in the west by fax and e mail . mr . agrachev , who was trained as an electrical_engineer , was one of the first russians to go underground to undergo analysis , which he began in secrecy in 1977 and kept up for nine years with a self taught mentor . he now sees 20 patients , 2 of whom are in deep analysis , which entails four sessions a week while lying on a couch . the average cost of psychoanalysis in russia is about 20 an hour . mr . agrachev 's fees , set according to his patients' ability to pay , range from 8 an hour to 65 . the deprivations of russian life make it difficult for analysts here to live up to the exacting standards of western psychoanalysis . by day , mr . agrachev 's office in his small apartment is a pleasant , rather impersonal den . but at night , in violation of psychoanalytic taboo , it reverts to his bedroom , the couch turning into a fold out bed . the burgeoning of freudian thought in russia is something of a boon to the western psychoanalytic movement . presiding at the seminar in moscow , earle baughman , a visiting american training analyst from the baltimore washington institute for psychoanalysis , was listening , through an interpreter , to the young russian therapist discussing his reluctant patient . ''she 's a hysteric , all right , '' he said with a chuckle . ''she broadcasts sexuality all over the place , but when the man says , 'o . k. , let 's talk about sex , ' she says no . '' smiling knowingly , he compared the russian patient to one of freud 's most famous case studies ''this is a lot like dora . '' to westerners , the russian freudian movement is sometimes reminiscent of psychoanalysis in its heyday . ''psychoanalysis here does n't have the revolutionary spirit it once had , '' said gary goldsmith , a boston based member of the american psychoanalytic association who travels to supervise russian psychoanalytic trainees in moscow and st . petersburg . ''part of the fun in russia is recapturing that spirit there and being in at the beginning of a revival of analysis . ''but there is a feeling in russia that the soviet regime turned them into a neurotic society . i 've noticed there is an idealization in russia still , a feeling that psychoanalysis is a panacea . our job is to help them avoid the mistakes we 've made over the past 60 years . '' psychoanalysis had a rich history among the russian intelligentsia before and immediately after the revolution of 1917 . the first translation of freud 's writings was into russian . in vienna , some of freud 's earliest disciples and even some patients , including the ''wolf man , '' were russian . the bolsheviks at first embraced psychoanalysis as an antidote to bourgeois thinking . theirs was the first government to recognize psychoanalysis officially as a science and awarded its practitioners state funds . in 1926 the soviet_government allowed the creation of the first psychoanalytic kindergarten for neurotic children , in moscow . stalin 's son was reportedly a pupil . ''the russian psychoanalysts were seeking a way to make marx and freud compatible , '' said martin miller , a historian at duke_university who is writing a book about the psychoanalytic movement in russia . ''they wanted to create a collective psychology . '' mr . miller noted that freud , who wrote with some asperity about the communist_state in works like ''civilization and its discontents , '' was keenly interested in the russian psychoanalytic movement after the revolution and corresponded with some of the leading soviet psychoanalysts . in 1930 , stalin put an abrupt end to the experiment with psychoanalysis , and freud was banned from bookstores and library shelves . until the mid 1980 's , university scholars studied freud not in the original , but through the filter of marxist critique . though there were some marxist oriented psychoanalytic centers around the soviet_union the largest congress of psychoanalysts took place in tbilisi , georgia , in 1959 mostly , the movement died or went underground . when western psychoanalysts began visiting russia in 1991 , they discovered a freudian school steeped in the literature of the 1920 's and 1930 's and untainted by freud 's successors and critics . ''we had n't read adler or horney or fromm , '' mr . agrachev said . ''we were like the mammoths that are discovered intact and frozen in the permafrost . '' that has changed . therapists are no longer treating patients in doorways and alleys along the arbat pedestrian mall . there are jungians and followers of lacan in russia . even freudian circles are suffering the kind of rifts and rivalries that characterize western psychoanalysis . there is a thriving psychoanalytic institute in st . petersburg and at least three in moscow , two of which are called the ''russian psychoanalytic association . '' dr . aron i . belkin , founder of one of those two rival schools , is famous in russia for having published a newspaper article extolling psychoanalysis in 1988 , when freud was still officially taboo . trained as an endocrinologist , he has spawned his own method , combining conventional psychoanalysis with what he described as psycho neural endocrinology . though he has three patients currently in analysis , dr . belkin said he was most interested in using psychoanalysis to explore the russian soul . he is writing a monograph examining khrushchev 's unconscious motivation in taking crimea from russia and giving it to ukraine in 1954 . dr . belkin said he frowned on the new generation 's desire to emulate western models . ''we cannot copy the west , '' he said . ''we are different . we need to develop a purely russian psychoanalysis to understand ourselves . ''",has a topic of health
"lead if the uninhibited sexual mores of young eskimos lead to an aids epidemic in canada 's far north , it will not be because nader barsoum did n't try to prevent it . if the uninhibited sexual mores of young eskimos lead to an aids epidemic in canada 's far north , it will not be because nader barsoum did n't try to prevent it . mr . barsoum , 35 years old , runs the only privately_owned drugstore in this community of 3 , 000 people about 100 miles south of the arctic circle . last month , he placed an advertisement in the nunatsiaq news , a weekly_newspaper circulated throughout canada 's eastern arctic region . ''aids is a killer ! '' the advertisement proclaimed in english and inuktituk , the lingua franca among the territory 's 25 , 000 eskimos . ''if you cannot afford to buy a condom , your druggist nader barsoum will be pleased to offer it to you at no charge . '' handing out condoms in a few weeks , mr . barsoum , a native of egypt who came to canada in 1976 , has handed out about 500 worth of free condoms to the eskimos , or inuit , who constitute more than 90 percent of the population of iqaluit , formerly known as frobisher bay . eskimos account for almost half of the 51 , 000 inhabitants of the vast spaces of the northwest_territories . so far , only one person in the territory has been diagnosed with aids . but territorial medical authorities say as many as several hundred others have been infected with the virus that causes it , leading to fears that the disease could spread as rapidly as other venereal diseases in the area . mr . barsoum 's advertisement was more than a means of attracting attention to his drugstore , where he does a brisk trade in everything from bicycle locks to dictionaries , as well as pharmaceuticals . mr . barsoum , who knows virtually everybody in town , and learns more than most about their problems , has concluded that the eskimos in the canadian north are heading for a devastating epidemic of aids . the druggist bases his forecast on the large number of young people with venereal disease . according to government figures , 1 in 10 of the sexually_active population in the territory contracts a sexually_transmitted disease each year , with the figure as high as one in four in some communities . these rates are many times higher than those for canada as a whole . the territorial government in yellowknife is taking its own preparations . the territorial assembly recently held a debate on aids , and health officials are preparing a 300 , 000 educational campaign in the hope of encouraging the use of condoms and curbing the high incidence of casual sex . it promises to be an uphill battle . to begin with , there is a communications problem in a territory that has at least 10 other eskimo dialects in addition to inuktiuk . only one confirmed case of aids dr . david kinloch , the federal_government 's chief_medical_officer for the territory , told the assembly that there is only one confirmed case of aids to date . but experts presume there must be many more virus carriers who have not been tested , and assembly members , frustrated with delay in putting the government program into effect , suggested that the figure seriously underestimated the problem . many young eskimos agree . ''we are going to be dropping like flies in five or six years , '' said pitseolak feifer , a_20 year old taxi_driver in iqaluit . mr . feifer 's job , particularly when the bars in town close at 9 30 p.m. , keeps him in touch with the goings on among young people , and what he sees suggests that they are not very concerned about getting aids . charles kalluk , a health worker , said that explaining aids to young people was a major problem . even in inuktituk , there is no agreed translation for the disease , and one synonym , a single word , runs to 29 letters . another , aniaakatitinatujut , means ''the sickness forever . '' in preparing the government campaign , dr . kinlock has instructed his staff to be blunter than the materials used elsewhere on the continent . ''the biggest problem with the southern style campaign is that it 's too low key , '' he told the assembly . ''it 's not sufficiently explicit . ''",has a topic of health
"thirteen months ago , a young man from this city 's rough and tumble north side appeared at the government railroad workers' hospital complaining of a head wound suffered in a family fight . a blood work up soon showed that it was the least of his problems he was also infected with h.i.v. , the virus that causes aids . that was unusual . in the entire irkutsk region , a siberian expanse big enough to accommodate france and england in one gulp , health officials had recorded fewer than 200 h.i.v . infections since record keeping began in 1991 . but when a second north side man checked into another hospital for an operation a few days later , only to test positive for h.i.v. , the officials decided to investigate . what they found is still resounding through irkutsk , a run down river town of 650 , 000 just north of mongolia . the two men , it turned out , both attended vocational_school 44 , a training institute for river transport workers . further tests uncovered six more h.i.v . cases among their classmates . all eight shared another deadly trait they were addicted to heroin , which first appeared in the city 's drug subculture only six or seven months earlier . today a region that hardly heard of aids a year ago has recorded 5 , 000 new cases of h.i.v . infection and registered more than 8 , 500 drug addicts . those are the official statistics the true figures could be as much as 10 times as great , officials say . perhaps nowhere else in russia have h.i.v . infections grown so explosively . heroin has proven the deadly catalyst in this epidemic . it has fueled a sharp rise in drug use and encouraged the needle_sharing that helps to spread aids . ''it 's a fire there , '' arkadiusz majszyk , the united_nations aids representative in russia , said this week . ''and nobody is paying attention . '' if it is a fire , then the rest of russia is surely smoldering . the number of h.i.v . infected russians is small so far 33 , 000 by official estimates , perhaps 300 , 000 by international ones but the potential for growth is huge . the united_nations , which joined russian officials on friday to announce a new effort to halt the epidemic , says the virus 's spread is accelerating and could move beyond drug users without preventive measures . already 40 per cent of russian prostitutes , who often use drugs , are h.i.v . positive . the growing prevalence of venereal diseases like gonorrhea make sexual transmission of the virus even easier . and with the poverty and general breakdowns of law and mores that followed the soviet_union 's collapse , prostitution and drug use are thriving . ''the second wave of infection , which will come very soon , is heterosexual transmission , '' mr . majszyk said in an earlier interview . ''it will go for the next two or three years , because the main measures which should be taken are connected with prevention . and to work , prevention needs time . '' time is in short supply in irkutsk . heroin and h.i.v . have already penetrated virtually every corner of this vast region , a farrago of pristine forest and permafrost , dying company towns and smoky industrial cities . heroin has surfaced in bodaibo , a mountain ringed gold_mining outpost reachable only by small plane , and in ust kut , a northern river port whose shipping business has all but dried up . there is h.i.v . in mama , a moribund mica mining village some 400 miles north of here , and in bratsk , a good sized manufacturing center far down the north flowing angara river . the irkutsk region is home to about two million people . simple math says the rate of h.i.v . infection is somewhere between 1 in 40 and 1 in 400 . ''but you really have to measure it against the number of youth , '' because drug use and h.i.v . are largely confined to the young , said yelena a . lyustritskaya , who heads a government commission on drug abuse . ''and in the irkutsk region there are 300 , 000 people between the ages of 14 and 28 . so it turns out that every third or fourth young man at age 18 or 20 takes drugs . '' no one knows the infection rate among those users . but dr . maksim medvedev , who screens addicts for a private rehabilitation program called siberia without drugs , says roughly 3 of every 10 people he examines have the aids virus . at the government 's principal rehabilitation center , 40 of the 62 inpatients are infected with h.i.v . talk to some of the current and reformed addicts at that center , a tidy , but rundown and cheerless place , and those numbers do not seem so outlandish . ''we used to be the department for glue sniffers , '' one of the center 's doctors said . ''there is only one sniffer here now . there are no alcoholics . they are all drug addicts . '' a buzz cut 16 year old who moved from opium to heroin said he believed that he had gotten h.i.v . by sharing his needle late last year . one 17 year old with h.i.v . and hepatitis , who began using opium at 15 and switched to heroin about six months ago , offered a common theory to explain the epidemic outsiders salted the heroin with the ground up bones of african aids victims . ''the countries that supply us do n't have anything , only fruits , '' he said . ''siberia 's rich , and they want everybody here to die . '' natalya kozhevnikova , a 27 year old from a small diamond mining town , said many addicts there began using drugs at ages 12 or 13 . ''there is nothing to do no movie_theaters , no discos , nothing , '' she said . lelia starodumova , 23 , was a swimming champion and model before she started opium four years ago . now she and her husband are heroin addicts , and she carries h.i.v . ''ninety nine percent of drug addicts have h.i.v . , '' she said blandly . ''the only ones who are n't sick are the ones who have n't had their blood tested . '' in a bleak two room apartment across town , opposite the ramshackle factory that produces russia 's top fighter jet , the su 30 , andrei kurnosov , a 30 year old addict , said he had been on drugs for nine years . when he began , he said , he was among the top five in his law class , aiming for a chance to study in the united_states . now he practices petty thievery and rolls small time drug sellers for the 150 rubles about 5 he needs daily to finance his habit . mr . kurnosov says he has avoided h.i.v . through blind luck . he has shared needles with other addicts , the last time three months ago , although he knows the dangers full well . ''you do n't care when you need a dose , '' he said . ''the fear of remaining sober and in pain overwhelms any fear of sickness . '' heroin 's death grip on its victims offers some explanation of why h.i.v . has raced through irkutsk 's addict population . opium , whose less insistent craving grants a user some time to find a clean syringe , once was the drug of choice . but unlike heroin , which needs only water to be injected , opium must be carefully cooked and mixed . so when heroin suddenly appeared some 18 months ago , addicts switched en_masse . it first came in liquid form in bottles or already loaded syringes and groups of users foolishly filled their syringes from the same bottle , raising the odds that one infected addict would contaminate many others . today heroin comes as a powder wrapped in paper ''checks , '' russian slang for the cash_register tapes that they resemble . fifty ruble and 100 ruble checks are sold almost brazenly , from newsstands and bread kiosks and by loitering dealers , in any number of open air drug markets around town . addicts say many police officers have been bought off , and they may be right in one muddy north side market named treity posylok , or third settlement , a militia jeep cruised past knots of dealers and addicts twice in 10 minutes one afternoon this week . the police , meanwhile , say the heroin trade is ballooning despite their best efforts to stop it . the drug comes by truck from afghanistan and tajikistan , far to the west of irkutsk , and is distributed throughout siberia from the southern russian city of novosibirsk . irkutsk 's militia seized about 400 pounds of drugs last year , well ahead of previous years but a pittance in comparison with the total traffic . smugglers vacuum pack heroin or hide it in shipments of rotting onions to deter drug sniffing_dogs . more and more , the trade has shifted from individual free lancers to organized_crime . ''it 's difficult to control the flow , '' the deputy chief of the eastern_siberia militia , pyotr kobalchok , said this week . ''we 've even arrested members of the tajikistan special services who were escorting the smugglers . it 's that well organized . '' beneath such frustration over irkutsk 's plight runs a subtle but pointed undercurrent this region never had such problems when the soviet_union existed . addiction and aids are among the consequences of freedom and capitalism that westerners neglected to mention when communist rule ended a decade ago . law enforcement officials unanimously blame the drug problem on the opening of soviet borders and the loosening of government control over ordinary people . ''back then , there were no charter flights , '' said nikolai pushkar , chief of the eastern_siberia transport militia , which battles drug smuggling . ''everything was state owned , and it was n't possible to negotiate with the state . in the past only the president could have his own plane . now anyone with money can have a plane . ''no matter how much we criticize the soviet system , there was a certain ideology . we were educated in an absolutely different way . of course , there were abuses when the state interfered with family life . but there were standards then . '' irkutsk has declared its own war on both of its epidemics , hiring new narcotics police , printing educational brochures and changing the school curriculum to promote what officials call ''the healthy way of life . '' but beyond telling people to just say no to drugs , officials have done little to prevent the spread of h.i.v . among addicts and have no immediate plans to do so . proven aids preventive measures , like providing drug addicts with sterile needles or bottles of virus killing bleach , remain on the drawing board in part , some critics say , because politicians believe that they amount to an endorsement of drug use . ''we had contact with different people last year , including people from foreign countries where such programs are implemented , '' dimitri piven , the irkutsk region 's deputy head of health_care , said in an interview this week . ''since there are different schemes , we are choosing an optimal one for ourselves . '' mr . piven said officials would try to put new preventive measures into effect among addicts before year 's end . the addict mr . kurnosov , his gaunt , rheumy face a contrast to hands swollen grotesquely by repeated injections , said that would be too late for many addicts . for many others , it already is . ''the generation of the 70 's is dying , '' he said . ''the generation of the 80 's is already dead not all , not 100 percent . but 50 percent are killing themselves before a natural death . ''",has a topic of health
"little black river indian reserve , manitoba as community health representative on this reservation of 447 ojibwa indians , jackie mcpherson helps deliver babies , bandages cuts , splints fractures and drives emergency cases in her 1988 chrysler lebaron to the hospital in pine falls 28 miles away . the 2 , 000 acre reservation is in a remote area of pines and birches at the junction of the o'hanly and black rivers , 110 miles north of winnipeg . for the last 15 years mrs . mcpherson , a 57 year old grandmother , has lived and labored at black river , one of the few health workers drawn from the indigenous population in manitoba 's 61 indian communities . her experiences shed light on indian health conditions , an issue of concern because of still sharply lower life_expectancy rates , when compared with the general population . latest figures of canada 's health and welfare department show that in 1986 the expectation for indian males at birth was 9.2 years below the 73 year average for all males , and 8.0 years below the 79 year average for females . the figures did show improvement , however , over the prior compilation in 1981 , when males were 10 . 6 years below the average and females 10 . 1 years . mrs . mcpherson says her biggest health problem is diabetes , for which she blames changes in eating habits as aboriginal people became "" hooked on junk foods , "" instead of the wild fowl , venison , berries and fish that used to sustain them . in a few brief years since highway 304 past the reservation was built and replaced travel by water or in winter over ice to pine falls , incidence of diabetes has increased dramatically . the records show that 20 percent of both males and females over the age of 35 here have diabetes , a rate 10 times higher than the general population 's . other manibota indian communities are also afflicted . cynthia abbott hommel , regional nutritionist for the federal health and welfare department in winnipeg , said 6 , including black river , have rates of 20 to 30 percent , 24 between 10 and 19 percent and 16 between 1 and 9 percent . data is unavailable for other reservations . nutritionists say genetic factors contribute to the high occurrence of diabetes among all indigenous people . the problem is compounded , mrs . mcpherson said , by the high consumption of junk food carbohydrates , which increase blood_sugar levels . in ottawa , dr . gillian lynch , director general of indian and northern health services for the medical services branch of the health and welfare department , described diabetes as being "" of almost epidemic proportions "" for some of the reservations . the federal authorities are working with the canadian diabetes association and indigenous groups combat the disease , the ottawa official said . thanks at least in part to mrs . mcpherson 's efforts , aids has not broken out here and is not a problem in most indian reservations . even though sex has always been a taboo subject in indian communities , mrs . mcpherson every friday goes around with a paper bag labeled "" goodies "" and offers condoms to both men and women in the reservation . sometimes known as the "" condom grannie , "" she has traveled throughout canada , from vancouver in british_columbia to sioux lookout , ontario , speaking to young indians about safe_sex .",has a topic of health
"with the publication of a decree by president boris n . yeltsin in the official press , possibly on wednesday , all advertisements for tobacco and alcohol products will be banned in russia . public_health specialists have expressed delight in what they say is a long overdue attempt to address the alarming surge in illness and death rates here . "" we have been saying for years that as long as the most popular man in russia is the marlboro man , we ca n't even begin to do much about the wretched health of the nation , "" said dr . galina m . perfilyeva , an outspoken public_health expert here , who has a radio show on which she implores people to stop smoking , drink less and eat healthy food . "" this is finally an acknowledgment that something immediate needs to be done . "" under the decree , television , radio , newspapers and magazines will be forced to stop carrying such advertisements , and if they do not comply they will have to turn over any revenue to the health ministry for public education programs . the ban also includes advertisements for ubiquitous medical services from faith healers and unlicensed doctors . previous bans have never really worked , and this one may not either . the city of moscow officially banned alcohol and tobacco advertisements from bus stops , kiosks and billboards two years ago , but almost no one paid any attention . it is not known whether that ban will now be enforced . but with death rates unmatched by any country in the industrialized world and cancer and heart_disease rates that rise astronomically each year , public_health officials have been heartened by the unexpected decree from a man who in the past has said that if something is legal it should be legal to advertise it . the business community foreign and local is as angered by the new decree as the medical community is pleased . hurt badly at home by mounting health concerns and increasingly restrictive anti smoking laws , american companies have vigorously embraced russia , where almost 70 percent of adults smoke . virtually all american_tobacco companies are competing for a part of the market here , and most have invested in the dozens of cigarette plants scattered across this country and the other former soviet republics . russia has become so influenced by advertising and prestige that more than a third of all vodka consumed here is now imported . "" the biggest loser is the consumer , because this is censorship , "" said bruce a . macdonald , general director of advertising at bbdo world marketing in moscow . "" we do n't allow tobacco and alcohol advertising on television in america either . but it was a process . the president did not decide by himself on a weekend to do it . "" it has been a process here , too , although one that has been sometimes difficult to comprehend . there are almost no laws in russia about the content of ads , and when they do exist they are hard to enforce . the growth of the advertising industry , which now takes in more than 1 billion a year , has been dramatic in the last three years as western and russian companies try to penetrate the world 's largest new open market . it is worth noting that mr . yeltsin has issued many decrees in the past and not all of them are followed . this may be different . ostankino , the government television_station , said on monday that it would immediately stop showing any ads because they caused too much "" social disruption . "" today , officials there said the self imposed ban would be temporary . but the social disruption from alcohol_abuse and nicotine addiction here is difficult to overstate . russia has what some experts think is the highest rate of alcohol consumption in the world . in the moscow region alone 14 percent of deaths last year were related to alcohol , while more than 14 , 000 crimes and more than two thirds of all killings were committed by people obviously drunk when arrested . as a market for cigarettes , only the united_states , china and the combined countries of the european_union are larger and with russians smoking more than 150 billion cigarettes a year , none are growing as fast . it has been hard to convince people here that advertisements for cigarettes or alcohol can make much difference in the nation 's health , even though in the west public_health leaders often say that nothing has been as important in changing habits and reducing disease rates . when the first cigarette ad was shown here in 1992 on ostankino , the station 's advertising manager said , "" in the conditions we live under , smoking does not look like such a big deal . "" that is the approach that many television stations have taken . they will be sorely affected by the ban , because russia_today is not a country where advertising revenue is easy to find . advertising is estimated to account for up to 20 percent of employment at most television stations here , and as much as half of all ad money comes from cigarettes or alcohol . advertising officials say the ban could cost russia 500 million to 1 billion in western investment in the next five years . but mikhail seryegin , director of television advertising at premier , one of the leading russian agencies , said today that clever companies could always find a way around bans . he said he viewed the decree as temporary .",has a topic of health
"after spending the night in a hospital in ottawa for what doctors said was a small bleeding ulcer , secretary of state warren_christopher flew back to washington today and checked into a hospital for tests and observation . christine d . shelly , a state_department spokeswoman , said mr . christopher was "" progressing well "" and planned to set off about march 7 on a weeklong trip to five middle_eastern countries . but state_department officials said mr . christopher would postpone what they had described as a major speech on tuesday about why the united_states should shun isolationism . flying to washington aboard air_force 1 , mr . christopher said he would spend a day or two at georgetown_university hospital "" just to make sure that there 's no restarting "" of the bleeding . "" it was really a minor incident , and it 's all behind me , "" he added . on thursday night , while accompanying president_clinton on a state_visit to canada , mr . christopher went to the emergency room of ottawa civil hospital feeling slightly ill . there dr . paul denault , a gastroenterologist , examined him and said he had "" a very , very small ulcer , "" previously undetected , "" which was oozing a little bit of blood . "" the doctors in ottawa said that after medication , the bleeding promptly stopped . "" his general condition was fit as a fiddle , "" said chris carruthers , vice_president for medical affairs at the ottawa hospital .",has a topic of health
"grozny 's hospital no . 4 , one of only three hospitals still open in this city eviscerated by war , is barely functioning , with most of its buildings in ruins . only a few rooms are open , with four to six beds each , most of them full . an old woman lies awkwardly , her skin swollen and black , while her relatives hover around as in any hospital anywhere , hoping for the best . "" we do what we can , "" said dr . magomed surumov , the chief doctor at the hospital , shrugging . "" people want to try to work it 's good for them . "" the parts of this hospital that escaped the shelling were badly looted and mined . at the height of the war for grozny , the capital of secessionist chechnya , russian soldiers fired automatic weapons at the hospital , chechen doctors said . still , hospital no . 4 remained open . now , with aid from western relief agencies and the russian government , the staff sees 60 outpatients a day . only two other civilian hospitals function in grozny the other 10 hospitals and nearly all the clinics have been destroyed . in a city with many corpses , little clean_water and no working sanitation , electricity or heat , "" the very biggest problem is infectious_diseases , "" dr . surumov said . hospital no . 4 is in poor condition to cope . the problems are so acute , dr . surumov said , "" it 's like having to begin again . "" the hospital has only about 20 doctors , compared with 100 before the war , and 35 nurses , compared with 150 earlier . "" many doctors and nurses left grozny , "" dr . surumov said flatly . "" many could be dead in their apartments . frankly we do n't know whether they are alive or not . "" he is particularly worried about cholera , a water borne bacterial disease that is most likely to spread in warm_weather and grozny is warming with the arrival of spring and diphtheria , which is prevalent throughout russia due to poor vaccination practices . "" there will be cholera here absolutely , "" dr . surumov said . about 140 , 000 people now live in grozny , from a prewar population of 400 , 000 . most are ethnic_russians , mostly elderly and female , who have nowhere to go . many chechens moved out to live with relatives in the villages , though some are beginning to return , to try to sift through the rubble and reconstruct their lives . many people are sick with infections , malnutrition and the psychological consequences of the war , and say they do not know where to go for help there is no city transport to bring them in any case . a ragged , anguished woman begged a visitor she met in the dusty ruined street for spare eyeglasses . "" i 've lost mine , "" she said , waving her hands in the air . "" i ca n't see to find my documents . "" one western aid agency wrote in a medical evaluation "" the overall situation is perfect for the outbreak of communicable_diseases . overcrowding , lack of shelter , lack of heat , absence of water and a very scanty food distribution all contribute to this high risk of disease . it is vital that emergency vaccination , water and sanitation , as well as food distribution , be addressed immediately . "" with the help of the russian ministry for emergency services , the international committee of the red_cross and a british relief agency called merlin , hospital no . 4 has received fresh_water , some drugs and an electrical generator . the french and belgian branches of doctors without borders are helping the other two hospitals . preventing epidemics will require much more , the agencies say , including mobile clinics . cholera can be averted with clean_water and good hygiene . at minimum , people need about half a gallon of water a day for drinking and a total of 1.3 gallons to enable them to wash . about 53 , 000 gallons are being trucked in , but at least 150 , 000 gallons a day are needed . many people , especially the old and infirm , drink polluted water . there are many cases of hepatitis , upper respiratory infection and acute intestinal diseases like dysentery . diphtheria , polio , hepatitis a , measles and tetanus will also spread unless a mass vaccination campaign starts quickly , said dr . michael schubert , a surgeon working for merlin . dr . schubert also worries about the number of elderly left in grozny who have chronic diseases like diabetes , heart insufficiency and hypertension . "" they are easy to treat , but with so few drugs here the chronic situation gets acute , "" he said . then there are many cases of extreme emotional shock . an old russian man , wandering aimlessly through the cratered , trash filled streets , looked puzzled . "" there must have been an earthquake here , "" he said . "" it 's all destroyed . "" dr . schubert , 31 , a german who has also worked in rwanda , said "" i 've never seen so many desperate people . i 've seen post_traumatic_stress syndrome before , but not in such quantities . "" he is upset by the paucity of western aid agencies here . "" we 're very surprised by how few westerners are here , and i do n't understand why , "" he said . "" i do n't know if it 's a political decision , or if the number of people suffering is not considered high enough , "" he said sarcastically . with a translator , he visited an old russian woman with some medicine for her husband 's heart and bad back . her building , on lenin prospekt , was shattered by shellfire her kitchen wall is full of huge holes and all the windows are missing . "" the needs are absolutely enormous , "" said marianne coradazzi , a red_cross official for the north caucasus . "" almost any kind of medicine is required . "" the red_cross has 70 workers who truck in 33 , 000 gallons of fresh_water a day from a well they dug in the mountains 34 miles away "" the closest source of fresh_water , "" ms . coradazzi said . the red_cross also tries to help the 250 , 000 or more chechens displaced by the fighting and visits prisoners on both sides to try to reduce violations of human_rights , especially the beating of chechen detainees by russian troops , the red_cross says . it has established a tracing agency a sort of post_office so that those who survived can try to contact relatives . it is handling 2 , 000 messages a week . the russian military has been reasonably helpful , ms . coradazzi said , but the russians are limiting red_cross access to southern chechnya , where the fighting is now most intense and more refugees are being created . brigitte vasset , director of operations for doctors without borders , says the russians have stopped all their convoys to southern chechnya . "" it is deplorable to deny humanitarian_assistance to innocent victims of war , "" she said . the local russian installed government also wants to improve hygiene , and plans to open portable baths , collect remaining corpses and rebury those put into too shallow ground . officials may also try to get rid of the dogs that sometimes feed off the dead . "" in kigali , they shot all the dogs , "" dr . schubert said , referring to the capital of rwanda . "" they are vectors for all kinds of diseases . """,has a topic of health
"thirty health_care workers have been placed in quarantine after a nurse administrator at a major toronto hospital came down with symptoms that could possibly mean she is suffering from sars , the respiratory_disease that has spurred fears and throttled the city 's economy in recent months . it has been more than three weeks since a new case of sars , or severe_acute_respiratory_syndrome , has been reported here , and officials say it is highly unlikely that the nurse has anything more than a bad respiratory tract infection . but as a precaution , 30 workers at mount_sinai_hospital were placed in quarantine at home last week , wearing_masks around family members , after the nurse administrator suffered a fever and cough . ''we did n't want to take any chances , '' said dr . donald low , chief microbiologist at mount_sinai . ''if we were wrong , the consequences for the city would just be so huge . '' the possible new case was reported only this week , without fanfare , and the 10 day quarantine for the health_care workers ends late saturday night . officials of the world_health_organization have complained that canada has been slow in reporting cases , a charge local health authorities dismiss . health officials treated the possible new case as a blip in a rapidly improving picture . the number of active probable cases in the toronto area stands at 24 , which is 15 fewer than a week ago . there has not been a death since april 30 . the death toll in toronto is 23 , with no other fatality reported in canada . three patients remain in critical or deteriorating condition here . almost all of the 7 , 000 people who have been placed in quarantine are back at their jobs . hospitals are slowly returning to normal after several were forced to postpone elective_surgery to minimize the public 's exposure to hospitals where sars infected dozens of health_care workers . almost every case in toronto has been linked to a single elderly chinese immigrant who returned home with the disease two months ago after visiting her family in hong_kong . after two sars cases in the united_states and the philippines were linked to travel to toronto , the w.h.o . issued a travel_advisory on april 23 urging travelers to postpone any unnecessary trips to toronto . as for the ailing mount_sinai nurse administrator , who has not been identified , she is recovering at home and three members of her family are also in quarantine . she was in contact with sars patients on april 22 but was wearing protective_gear at the time . officials said she developed a slight cough on april 30 , and stayed home the following three workdays . on may 5 , she went to the mount_sinai emergency room complaining that she had a fever . she was kept in the hospital for several days before she was released . ''she continues to do well , '' dr . low said . correction may 13 , 2003 , tuesday because of an editing error , an article on saturday about a new sars quarantine of health_care workers in toronto referred incompletely to travel advisories for toronto . the world_health_organization issued an advisory on april 23 urging travelers to avoid unnecessary trips there , but lifted it six days later .",has a topic of health
"when lena , 20 , arrived at a seedy hotel here after a call from the amazonka escort service dispatcher , she felt fortunate . the client took one look at her waist length , platinum blond_hair and chose her over the two other prostitutes the dispatcher had sent over for his inspection . but her luck soured when a vice detective knocked on the hotel room door , ordered her to get dressed , and put her into an unmarked police van . the nice young client turned out to be an undercover police_officer . at the station , however , it was the detectives who felt unlucky . the three prostitutes , their driver , and pimp were processed , fined the maximum penalty of 14 , and were back on the street in less time that it took the undercover police_officer to register at the hotel . upon their release , as the women greeted each other with jaunty , knowing smiles , lieut . andrei demikhov let his frustration spill over . ''the laws do n't work , '' he said . ''if women want to work as prostitutes , there is nothing we can do to stop it . '' that sense of futility is one reason the saratov police force , the local governor , and many other local officials are behind a drive to legalize prostitution here . in this industrial town on the volga , an ailing economy and wages that rarely top 40 a month have driven hundreds of local women teachers , nurses , single mothers and even schoolgirls to work as prostitutes . and that has fomented organized_crime and a staggering rise in venereal disease , aids and tuberculosis in saratov . syphilis rates alone are four times higher here than they were three years ago . all these disturbing trends are cited as reasons to legalize prostitution . plenty of officials in other russian cities with similar problems , notably st . petersburg and kaliningrad , are also debating legalization . but dmitri ayatskov is the first regional governor in russia to take the plunge and sponsor legislation to open government brothels . if he has his way , licensed prostitutes would work freely in a designated area provided they are of age , pass regular health inspections , register their clients , and pay taxes . the local legislature is set to vote on a law legalizing prostitution in the coming months . even if the local legislature passes a bill , saratov is unlikely to become another amsterdam overnight . for one thing , such a bill would clash with russian federal law and would almost certainly be challenged on constitutional grounds . ''we have to do something , '' lieutenant demikhov said . his men , he said , recently arrested a_12 year old girl selling herself on the street who told the police she was trying to raise enough money to buy a barbie doll . ''we cannot go on like this , '' he said . before the revolution , the czarist government allowed public brothels to operate , but they were strictly controlled . even people who support legalization for health reasons express doubts that government brothels could work in today 's more lawless society . ''in russia , the state is absolutely unable to protect prostitutes , '' said igor kohn , an expert on russian sexuality . ''if it happens , they will have to pay both the state and their criminal 'protectors . ' '' the police say that there are more than 80 escort services operating in saratov , a city of one million . in january , the governor and the local legislature banned escort services from advertising in local newspapers , yet the trade continued unabated , as escort services distributed business cards and leaflets . the russian_orthodox_church and the communist_party are strongly against legalization . so are many local residents . but the people who deal with the grimmer consequences of illegal prostitution in saratov every day say they are desperate for some kind of change in the law . ''if it was legal , we could at least examine the women regularly and treat them , '' said olga v . pron , deputy director of the regional skin and venereal diseases clinic in saratov . dr . pron said she sees 15 to 20 new patients a day , and that could be a fraction of those infected . ''if the governor can really push this through and legalize prostitution , '' she said , ''we will build him a monument . '' there is less enthusiasm among prostitutes themselves . women like lena said they are not sure legalization would make their lives any easier . mostly , they seemed worried that aspects of legalization , especially keeping a registry of clients , would inhibit business . at the station , lena was scared and dejected over her first arrest for prostitution , but she gave no indication that she wanted to turn back . ''if i could work as a nurse and be paid decently , then believe me , i would n't work as a prostitute , '' she said grimly . she and her co worker , larisa , 24 , who was arrested in the car as she and another prostitute were leaving the hotel , are both nurses . until they changed careers , they were earning 30 a month at a local hospital . as prostitutes , they have not exactly become rich , however . prostitution is a growth industry in every way except profits . escort services charge 25 an hour . the prostitute keeps about 10 , and the rest is divided between the driver , the pimp , the escort service owner and whomever the service pays for protection . on a really good night , which is rare , larisa said she can clear 80 more than teachers or factory workers here make in a month . theirs is not a glamorous life . even the women who work for escort services a step up from the streetwalkers who risk theft and brutality every time they duck into an alley or climb into a client 's car described in chilling detail the threat of disease , gang rape and beatings . but when asked if she thought legalization would provide her with police protection , irina , 27 , who works for amazonka , looked puzzled . ''but we already have our own police protection , our krisha , '' she said , using the russian word for ''roof , '' a term used to describe either racketeers or corrupt police officers who provide protection from prosecution at a price . corruption is as potent in saratov as the rest of russia . and not even the most ardent reformers believe corruption will dry up if prostitution is legalized . ''we have to be realistic , '' said aleksandr lando , chairman of the regional human_rights commission . ''the most we can expect is to get some measure of control over the spread of aids and venereal disease , and , maybe , collect some tax money . '' mr . lando , who takes the view that women have the right to engage in prostitution if they choose , said he realized that it was unlikely that saratov could legalize the trade on its own any time soon . ''we want to send a wake up call to the central authorities , and make them understand that there is a problem throughout all of russia and that we have to change our laws to deal with it , '' he said . ''it wo n't happen tomorrow , but the time has come to admit that the problem exists . ''",has a topic of health
"one of the most devastating social consequences of russia 's mismanaged passage to a market_economy over the last decade has been the virtual collapse of its health_care system . soviet_era conditions were poor , with long waits , brusque bureaucracy and uneven standards of care . but today 's problems are more fundamental . public hospitals and clinics lack the most basic medicines and equipment and are nearly overwhelmed by an increasingly sick population . a series of articles in the times over the past month has shown the harsh consequences for ordinary russians . despite successful reform efforts in a few localities and the heroic efforts of dedicated doctors to improvise their way around the shortages , the overall statistics are grim . male life_expectancy has declined to just 59 . 9 years , compared with 74 . 1 years in the united_states . russia 's death rate now surpasses its birth_rate . once tamed infectious_diseases , including tuberculosis , diphtheria and polio , are again spreading at worrisome rates . on top of this , many russians have responded to economic hardships with self destructive forays into alcoholism and violence . the resulting erosion of the able bodied work force threatens russia 's hopes for economic revival , and perhaps for political stability as well . neighboring countries are threatened by the alarming spread of communicable_diseases like drug resistant tuberculosis and aids . revitalizing health_care must now become one of russia 's most urgent priorities . substantial resources will have to be directed into treatment and prevention programs , more than russia 's national or local_governments can currently afford . outside help will be needed as well , from western governments , international aid institutions like the world_bank and private sources like american medical_schools . russia 's wealthy oligarchs should also consider funding philanthropies dedicated to health_care improvements . international assistance programs must be carefully designed to prevent fraud and diversion . foreign dollars ought to be channeled into national childhood immunization programs , providing needed vaccines , training and public education . help is also needed in raising medical salaries , which are abysmally low . even with attention and resources , the revival of public_health care institutions will take years . meanwhile , private hospitals and clinics need to be nurtured and made more accessible to poor and rural russians . the times series reported on a remarkably successful partnership between the cities of la crosse , wis . , and the russian city of dubna , 100 miles north of moscow , that modernized maternity care , pediatric treatment and home_care of the elderly . the key element in these changes was not money , but a series of exchange visits between the two communities that introduced dubna 's political leaders and medical professionals to more up to date methods and techniques . the partnership succeeded in large part because dubna 's leadership did not succumb to the passivity that paralyzes efforts to revitalize russia 's heath care system elsewhere . in today 's interconnected world of migration , investment and trade , no country 's health_care problems stand alone . america and other western nations should recognize that they serve their own interests as well as their humane responsibilities by helping moscow provide for its people a_level of health_care worthy of a modern european nation .",has a topic of health
"raybek tovzayev is a chechen warlord who fights on the side of mother russia against the rebels of his homeland whom he calls bandits . he was born in a red brick house perched on a mountaintop where three ancestral villages of his clan look out over the vedeno gorge , a narrow slash of valley cut since prehistory by the retreating snow melt from the high caucasus further south . from here the horizon is a panorama of low , forested mountains and ridgelines that resemble the ozarks in missouri or the cumberlands in tennessee . their profile is softened by a summer haze under a magnificent rotunda of sky where the gift of a breeze is blowing fibrous clouds around as if to vary the mix of light and shadow . it is a recent sunday , and mr . tovzayev has just returned from a memorial service for one of his bodyguards who was killed on june 28 during the seventh attempt by chechen rebel leaders to assassinate mr . tovzayev because , as he says , he is the only thing standing between order and chaos in vedeno . the rebels , especially shamil basayev , the most famous of their leaders , who also comes from vedeno , ''are doing everything they can to get back here and to get rid of me . '' mr . tovzayev is therefore a key link in the russian strategy to pacify chechnya after two cycles of war in the last decade . he stands here musclebound with his kalashnikov automatic_rifle asleep on his shoulder like a latter day hadji murad , the character from tolstoy 's story of the chechen warrior who went over to the russian side , with tragic consequences , in the war against imam shamil in the 19th_century . the vedeno gorge and the argun gorge are the main strategic pathways between the plains of chechnya and the mountains that lead to the borders with dagestan like chechnya a region of russia and georgia . to control the gorges is to control the supply lines and infiltration corridors that sustain the rebellion . ''i am not exactly a petty figure here , '' mr . tovzayev said with pride . nor is he outfitted like one . he wears a solid gold chain under his camouflage jersey and a matching flak_jacket and pants , which are tucked into combat_boots . a gold watch on his wrist accents the gold chain as well as the gold trim on his tasseled muslim prayer cap . a motorola walkie_talkie is hitched to his belt . for an outer layer , there are enough ammo clips and grenades hanging from his torso to have saved john dillinger . mr . tovzayev never intended to become a fighter on either side of this war . but on aug . 18 , 1995 , a band of rebels led by allauddin khamzatov came to this hamlet and told the residents that they were setting up camp . ''my father told them to leave , because not a single person in this village has fought against the federals . '' but instead of heeding the old man , ''they killed him'' in front of his family . when word reached mr . tovzayev he was in europe , trying to make money in trade he immediately returned home to carry out the chechen tradition of blood revenge . ''it did not take me three months , '' he said . he and the band of fighters he raised from his clan set out to find mr . khamzatov , and they found him in the town of mairtup in october . they hid there and waited_patiently , studying his habits . then , on oct . 17 , they laid an ambush on a road and blew apart the car that mr . khamzatov was riding in with his senior aides . ''there were three cars in convoy , about 15 men , but we only hit the one where he was , '' mr . tovzayev said . ''all of those who killed my father were in that car . thus , i revenged . '' nothing has been the same for him since . ''this is how this kind of life started fighting bandits , '' he said . ''in march 1996 , when i entered grozny , i was encircled by about 60 of them and barely escaped , '' he recounted . ''then in june 1996 , i was arrested by basayev 's people and put in basayev 's prison at dargov . '' as chaos , violence , kidnapping and crime spread across chechnya after the first chechen war and the withdrawal of russian troops , mr . tovzayev could see that nothing would soon return to normal in this land . after half a year in prison , ''on the night of feb . 19 , 1997 , i managed to escape to dagestan , '' he said , walking through freezing and snow laden high passes for days until he reached safety . then he slipped back into vedeno , where he built his militia force of more than 130 fighters and waited for russia to act . ''in the second war , '' he said with pride , ''we organized a volunteer opposition unit for the liberation of vedeno , and in february 2000 we were in front of the russian troops and we liberated vedeno . '' the russian army is trying to keep mr . tovzayev alive . he has survived five mine explosions , and during an ambush on july 20 , 2000 , he was seriously wounded and underwent_surgery at russia 's interior_ministry hospital in moscow . recently , col . gen . gennadi n . troshev , commander of russian forces in the northern caucasus , gave mr . tovzayev a jeep with bulletproof windows and doors . he was riding in it on june 28 at 5 30 in the afternoon down the single road he must travel between home and office in vedeno , where he is chief of the administration . gunfire_erupted from the forest on both sides of the road . ''there were more than 30 of them , '' he said . the car behind him took a direct hit from a grenade_launcher . ''two of my guards died , as well as the deputy head of the militia , '' he said . ''two more guards were wounded , but we managed to repel the attack after about 20 minutes , and we picked up our wounded and escaped . '' it will probably not be the last attack . mr . tovzayev 's jeep is not armored against a mine blast . general troshev has decorated him with the ''order of courage'' medal for his perseverance . and he is working with the local residents to persuade them to stop aiding the rebels . ''not all rebels are bandits , '' he said . ''there are some decent people among them , but they are afraid to come out of the forests . '' eventually they will , he believes . and every morning his men sweep the road for mines here in ambush alley so he can stay alive to see that day . upper vedeno journal",has a topic of health
"with generous welfare and other public allowances , an envied national health program and gleaming subways and other services , canada has always been considered more socially responsive than the united_states more like a north_american sweden . but over the last 10 years , canada has undergone huge spending increases , the steepest rise in taxes of any industrial country and long stagnation of middle_class incomes . now the central and provincial governments are racing to balance budgets , reduce debt and cut taxes , at the expense of services that have long been taken for granted . under the national health system , for example , provinces are closing and merging hospitals and scaling back universal coverage , which pays for visits to doctors and hospitals . the prime_minister , jean_chretien , has has set a goal of cutting annual health spending from 10 percent to 8.5 percent of the gross_domestic_product , or by 10 billion ( 7 . 3 billion united_states ) . budget cuts are expected to include areas like welfare , pensions , family allowances , child_care , hostel services for the homeless , legal_aid and help for the disabled . "" the public has more or less accepted the rationale for these cuts , "" said donna dasko , vice_president of the environics research group . "" they have come to see now that governments ca n't do everything . "" until the 1990 's , canadians enjoyed long stretches of economic_growth . yet people have since failed to enjoy improvements in their standard of living and are increasingly questioning the results of billions of dollars of social spending . "" the average canadian has not seen the benefits of the various social programs and hears of abuse , all sorts of horror stories about people ripping off the systen , "" said fred lazar , an economics professor at york_university here . "" so he says , 'i 'd rather keep more money than be taxed to finance a program that shows no visible signs of success . ' "" these attitudes about taxes and big_government were used by coalitions of business and rural interests to win elections in ontario , manitoba , alberta and new brunswick . leaders in all but new brunswick are conservative . premier frank mckenna of that province , a liberal , has just won a third term after balancing the books and paying down some of the accumulated debt . mike harris , elected premier of ontario in june , wants to cut taxes by 30 percent over the next three years and has already been trimming programs that serve the poor , including 1.2 million on welfare . "" we were on this train long before gingrich , "" said graham white , a political_scientist at the university of toronto . "" it reflects the same kind of sentiments broadly around in north_america and further afield , emphasizing reduction in the welfare_state and government intervention , tapping the same kind of resentments and fears . "" the reform_party has been preaching smaller government and tax cuts for years , and in the 1993 federal elections it mushroomed from a small populist alliance into the third largest party in the lower_house of parliament , after the governing liberal_party and the opposition bloc quebecois . all the cutbacks , with promises of more to come , have not been greeted without criticism . "" we have left the postmodern age and entered the post human age , "" clayton ruby , a toronto lawyer , said , expressing an sentiment that is shared by many who are opposed to the retrenchment in social spending . "" the bonds of common humanity , our obligation to each other , are no longer reflected by government . "" despite such arguments , there have yet to be any large protests . in a sign of the popular support for spending cuts , the toronto_star , canada 's biggest newspaper , opened its phone lines one weekend in late july to gauge reaction to the policies put forth by mr . harris as premier of ontario . of the 4 , 000 people who called , supporters outnumbered opponents by a ratio 3 to 1 , the newspaper said , adding , "" many of the harris supporters sounded jubilant . """,has a topic of health
"president_clinton 's decision to retain samples of smallpox virus in the united_states is likely to lead to more scientific cooperation and biological research with russia at a time of badly strained relations , administration officials said yesterday . as expected , the white_house announced yesterday that mr . clinton , acting largely on the advice of independent scientific advisers , had decided to delay the planned destruction of the samples of the deadly virus this june because he fears the disease , which is apparently eradicated , might revive naturally or be spread by a terrorist attack . the white_house stressed that the decision was motivated solely by national_security and scientific considerations , and on the president 's conclusion that retaining the virus was ''the best way to reduce the loss of life in the event of an outbreak , '' said david leavy , spokesman for the national_security_council . he added that the administration hopes that the reversal of its previous support for destruction would open up possibilities for joint research with russia , the only other nation known to have smallpox stocks and a fervent opponent of their destruction . ''we certainly hope to have a cooperative relationship with the russians on this issue , and we have been working together to strengthen security at their facilities and on many other projects of mutual benefit , '' mr . leavy said . specifically , he added , the administration is ''looking forward to working with the russians and others at the world health assembly to build an international consensus on how best to handle this issue . '' the world health assembly , the governing body of the world_health_organization , is to meet in may to consider destroying the remaining samples . the last known outbreak of the disease occurred in somalia in 1977 . smallpox was declared eradicated in 1980 , and in 1996 the assembly recommended the destruction this june of the remaining stocks , which are held under tight security at the centers_for_disease_control and prevention in atlanta and at the russian state research center of virology and biotechnology in siberia . david l . heymann , executive director of the communicable_diseases division of w.h.o. , said the agency would have no official comment until the issue is presented to the assembly . but he added , ''we 're happy to know at least where the united_states stands . '' while most of the assembly 's 191 members appear to favor destruction of the virus , sentiment for retention has been building . at a meeting in january , only five of the nine committee members favored immediate destruction . two supported keeping the stocks indefinitely two favored keeping the stocks for five years and then reviewing the issue . alan p . zelicoff , a senior scientist at the sandia national laboratory center for national_security and arms control , who strongly advocates retaining the stocks , attributed the waning of support for destruction to what he called ''the growing threat of bio terrorism and the enormous advances in microbiology in the past five years . '' dr . zelicoff said that today 's announcement ''opens up tremendous joint research possibilities with the russians , who are way ahead of us in smallpox research . '' he spoke wednesday night to lev sandakhchiev , the director of the institute where russia 's stocks are stored , and reported that the russians are ''excited and encouraged'' by the decision . dr . sandakhchiev has pressed for retaining the stocks . he has also proposed that his lab , a leading center of antiviral work and once the heart of the soviet germ_warfare program , be transformed into an international research center to counter biological terrorism . in an interview in january in moscow , he said all he lacked was money . white_house officials said they had not yet decided how much new research the administration would finance , or what kinds . the white_house has secured 120 million in the current budget to fight biological terrorism research at the centers_for_disease_control , the first such allocation . and the administration is seeking 30 million in the coming year 's budget for new vaccines against such potentially dangerous agents as smallpox and anthrax , which it suspects may have found their way into the arsenals of several rogue_states . brian mahy , the director of viral and ricketts like diseases at the national center for infectious_diseases in atlanta , said the president 's decision would enable his scientists to do more work on virus stocks . at present , dr . mahy said , only six scientists in the pox virus section and the centers_for_disease_control do research on smallpox . their annual budget , he added , is just under 500 , 000 , or about 1 percent of the 40 million spent annually on research . but donald a . henderson , a former white_house science adviser who led the campaign to destroy the virus , said he doubted that much new research would be done . ''i 'll wager over the next five years you 'll see no work whatsoever , '' he said , ''except in the russian laboratory , where smallpox was weaponized . you can draw your own conclusions about that . ''",has a topic of health
"in the intensive_care_unit at hospital no . 1 , there are 12 beds for the near dead . one morning 10 unfortunates lay there , mostly unconscious and virtually naked beneath tobacco colored sheets . the first had ignored an earache that grew into a raging bacterial infection of the brain . the second , third and fourth shattered their bodies in auto accidents . the fifth , sixth and seventh bloodied their brains in mostly drunken falls . the eighth had his skull fractured in a beating . the ninth had been run down by a car . the 10th is yuri ivanov . he was felled by a_20 pound cat , a fat black persian he had been playing with . ''i was walking backward and stumbled on the stairs and fell , '' the 46 year old businessman said through his oxygen mask . ''that night i went to sleep . when i woke up at 6 the next day , my body was all swollen my neck , my shoulders , my hands , my belly everything . '' still more harrowing , his skin crackled like bubble wrap whenever he pressed it . so he drove 50 miles to a doctor who instantly sent him by ambulance to the emergency room here . the diagnosis two broken ribs and a punctured lung . the escaping air had inflated mr . ivanov like a beach toy . almost anywhere , a trip to the hospital is an unsettling experience . but mr . ivanov had cause to be nervous in russia these days it can be a life threatening one . russian hospitals almost all of russian health_care , in fact are in a perilous state . drugs are in short supply if available , they are often too costly for the average citizen to afford . by one 1999 estimate , at least 20 , 000 cancer patients die annually because they cannot afford medicine . by another , some 200 , 000 diabetics are unable to get insulin , even though the government guarantees a free supply , because local and regional governments cannot afford to buy it . with life_expectancy falling , there is rising concern here and in the west that russia is struggling to preserve the well being of its people . should it fail and health_care is one determinant of success american and other experts say russia faces a grim future , and could even require an international rescue effort . doctors and nurses are astonishingly underpaid , as much as a third below the national average . the best leave for better jobs . those who stay battle a lack of money , medicine and equipment . the problem is not just that russia 's health_care system is ancient ( one in 10 hospitals was built before 1914 ) or ill equipped ( one in five hospitals have no running water ) . nor is it that it is huge and inefficient ( 12 , 000 hospitals and 20 , 000 clinics ) . that was true when soviet leaders ruled . the new problem is that there is no health_care system , not like there was before . ''in the soviet_union , we used to have a good system of health_care , '' said rafael g . oganov , director of the government 's national center for preventive_medicine . ''the quality was n't good , of course , but the system was accessible to everyone and free . when the soviet_union collapsed , they began reforms . these reforms have mostly destroyed what existed before , and nothing has replaced it . '' but not for lack of trying . since 1990 , russia has decentralized its soviet health bureaucracy , then tried to recentralize it thrown the door open to private health insurers , then moved to close it guaranteed free medicine to those who needed it , then limited free medicine to the neediest . eight different health ministers have tried to run the system during the last 10 years . ''in typical bolshevik fashion , they decided that this major reform had to be introduced overnight , with no training and no funds to support it , '' said christopher davis , an oxford_university economist who has studied russian health_care . russia 's near depression in the early 1990 's , which decimated tax revenues , delivered the coup de grace . ''if you have inadequate funding , '' mr . davis said , ''you try to put it in the most crucial areas pay the wages of doctors and nurses , get the most vital drugs . you ca n't spend a lot of money on supporting reforms . '' in theory , doctors have more technology and training than ever , and yet they yearn for the days when basic drugs were always in stock and when equipment , however outmoded , at least worked . patients detest bribing doctors and buying medicines , yet cherish the freedom to choose better , if costlier , treatments . the system seems destined to linger in this economic purgatory unless russia 's leaders give it more money and attention . soviet health spending ran between 3 and 3.5 percent of the gross_domestic_product for decades , barely a third of the rate in europe generally . russia now spends perhaps 5 percent of a gross_domestic_product vastly shrunken from soviet days . in 1995 , that amounted to 148 a person , 25 times less than was spent on the average american . ''funding for health_care was always poor in the last 10 years , it 's really gone to hell in a hand basket , '' said james smith , executive director of the american international health alliance , which has worked on russian medical care for a decade . ''there 's not much infrastructure in the united_states or anywhere else that can sustain that for very long . it 's cumulative , and it shows . '' indeed it does inside the trauma ward at n . i . pirogov municipal hospital no . 1 , a rambling 1 , 500 bed institution on the edge of downtown moscow . today it is a russian version of new york 's bellevue moscow 's biggest public_hospital , taking all 35 , 000 comers a year , some rich but most poor . last year 's budget was about 4 . 1 million , somewhat more than it sounds , as it was spent largely on cheaper russian products and salaries . differences in american and russian health_care make comparisons risky . still , catholic medical services in brooklyn , a complex of four hospitals with a similar number of beds 1 , 584 spent 565 million last year to treat 38 , 000 patients . a newcomer could be forgiven for failing to realize that hospital no . 1 is a very well regarded research and teaching_hospital , head and shoulders above most public hospitals outside the capital and st . petersburg . ''the people who work here are fanatics , '' an x_ray technician said . ''either that , or they 're fools . '' tuesday on his third day here , mr . ivanov looks into a mirror for the first time since he punctured his lung playing with his cat . he is appalled . ''nightmare ! '' he says . ''to have a face like this , you have to eat a hundred cheeseburgers a day . '' he is sitting in bed , a blanket folded beneath his legs to relieve the discomfort of his thin mattress . a tube juts out of his chest . on a bedside table are a carton of yogurt , a half eaten cup of berries and an open pack of sovereign cigarettes . mr . ivanov is smoking , his oxygen mask dangling at his side . ''the doctor says i could have three a day , '' he says . dr . aleksandr i . turchev confirms that . ''he can have more if he wants , '' he says . ''better for him to stop when he 's well . '' smoking in hospitals is a tradition from soviet_times . virtually all patients smoke . so do the doctors . a hand scrawled sign in the intensive care lounge declares , ''no smoking . '' it appears to be a joke . dr . turchev began working here in 1971 , just before opec 's influence swelled and left the oil rich soviet_union flush with funds . from 1970 to 1990 , real spending on health leaped 140 percent . but hyperinflation in 1992 , and economic collapse in 1998 , reduced spending drastically , though experts remain uncertain by how much . dr . turchev , now 54 , finds himself longing for the old days . ''sure , in the past we did n't have big possibilities we had less equipment , and lower standards , '' he said . ''but if something happened in intensive care when someone was on duty a light was out , or one of the systems broke down it was an emergency . you could call the main headquarters of the party , and immediately they would fix everything . '' and now ? ''two weeks ago , the central vacuum system in the unit was down , '' he said , referring to electric pumps and hoses that suction fluid from unconscious patients . ''it took 10 days to fix it . '' meanwhile , doctors used an old manual pump . the paradox of hospital no . 1 is on full display here in the ill lit , institutional green i.c.u . each bed has a modern vital_signs monitor and a ventilator for patients who cannot breathe . in the lab , a sophisticated blood gas analyzer produces near instant readings on blood oxygen and carbon_dioxide , otherwise impossible to obtain . but the blood gas analyzer often breaks down . the vital_signs monitors cannot be fully used because attachments to measure blood_pressure in the heart and vessels are too costly . as for the ventilators hand me downs , like the rest , from a closed german hospital they are ''just worn out , '' dr . turchev says . some equipment cannot be fixed because its western manufacturers closed long ago or stopped making parts . angela zabrodnaya , the trauma department 's wilfully cheerful head nurse , is a case in point part of her job is scouring hospital no . 1 's warehouse for that most basic of supplies , the disposable syringe . ''in the soviet_union , everything was simpler , '' she said . ''there was enough for everybody enough to use , enough to steal . but now , we have n't received a single disposable syringe all year . '' doctors seldom use latex gloves despite the risk of infection the supply is largely reserved for surgery . intensive care nurses do not change patients' intravenous catheters without evidence of an infection . american medical custom is to change catheters every three days , infection or not . the giveaway to the unit 's state of affairs , however , is its urine collection system . from each unconscious or helpless patient , a tube runs over the edge of the bed and empties into a liter sized plastic soft_drink bottle hung on a bed rail . an orderly periodically empties the bottles into a bucket . sanitation obsessed western hospitals would be aghast . but jury rigged solutions are the norm here , for good reason . ''we have n't had any new equipment in five years , '' dr . turchev says . wednesday if there is a yin to dr . turchev 's dark yang , it is dr . yelena letvena , a 30 something former professional skier with a parched wit and a burgeoning addiction to l m 's . dr . letvena needed four tries to surmount political and bureaucratic barriers to studying soviet medicine . she was told surgery was not a woman 's work , and she had the last laugh she is now chief of the trauma unit at hospital no . 1 . today , dr . letvena stops by intensive care to see mr . ivanov , who is stubbing out another sovereign . his double chin has shrunk to a chin and a half . she nods approvingly . ''he smokes he drinks he 's o.k . , '' she says . ''if it continues , i 'll bring him up tomorrow . '' ''up'' is the trauma unit 's fifth floor recovery ward , a sunlit park_avenue compared with the bowery of intensive care . there are 65 beds and , today , only 57 patients an infrequent occurrence . a week ago , there were 72 . truth told , 57 is too many . ''there are a lot of patients in russian hospitals who could be treated as outpatients , '' dr . letvena says . ''nobody would ever think of keeping them in hospitals in other places . '' why ? ''nobody 's keeping an eye on it , '' she says . that is an understatement . on one floor , a demented , homeless elderly woman has been a patient for six years . one reason russian health_care is in desperate shape is that the average patient 's stay approaches 17 days , compared with 5 in the united_states . children may commit elderly parents to hospitals because they cannot support them . ordinary people even check in for long stays stays that include free meals , laundry , a bed and lots of companionship . paradise it is not . patients bunk four or six to a room , some so debilitated that they can barely draw sheets over themselves . the ward has but one orderly and , usually , three nurses . soviet planners churned out too many doctors but far too few nurses , an imbalance that has only worsened since 1991 . someone has to bear the added cost . and in part , it is the genuinely ill patients who pay more than in soviet_times or endure more spartan conditions to subsidize roommates . consider room 501 , where lies 41 year old aleksandr lebanov , who fell 30 feet from a moscow parking_garage ''i was drinking wine , '' he says , not a bit sheepishly shattered a thigh and both heels , and has lain in bed four months now . too shorthanded to provide full time care , the ward allows mr . lebanov 's wife , galina , in outside visiting hours . she takes a week off each month from her job in kostroma , the couple 's home 200 miles east of moscow , to care for her husband . she does n't complain . ''if such a thing had happened in kostroma , i do n't believe they would have saved his legs , '' she said . ''it 's not that the doctors there are bad . it 's that their finances are worse . '' by week 's end , mr . lebanov would depart for kostroma , carried prone in his brother 's little lada , a passenger seat removed to accommodate his cast . his recovery will be a long one , thanks to a smoldering infection that settled in shortly after the fall . ''more powerful antibiotics had to be used , '' dr . letvena said , ''but we did n't have them , and there was no way to get them . in the usual situation , we tell the relatives , and they buy them . but this family did not have the ability . '' in room 518 is 30 year old aleksei belov , who ran his motorcycle full speed into an illegally turning car . his broken pelvis is held together with a brace that spans his abdomen like a suspension bridge . it is 2 , 000 worth of second hand steel , bequeathed from patient to patient . on a doctor 's advice , his mother , valentina belova , also scoured local stores for a 130 knee brace and 47 of pain killing injections . ms . belova spent 30 years as a paramedic , most of it in the soviet system , when drugs and equipment were free . one might expect russia 's pay as you go medicine to dismay her . but she says things look different from the patient 's side . ''before , it was different because there were n't many instruments , not many devices or drugs , '' she says . ''now we have much more , but money is the problem . but i like the chance to be able to go into a drug store and buy whenever my son needs . '' which is why , on an ingenious doctor 's advice , she also bought him a 2 . 30 looney tunes beach ball covered with bright_yellow tweety birds . bedridden westerners puff into special breathing devices to exercise their lungs and ward off pneumonia . mr . belov inflates his beach ball , to much the same effect . thursday it is moving day for mr . ivanov , who has shed his chest tube and seems to be melting away . but he looks more shaken than happy the bed next to his is empty . dr . turchev says its occupant , grigory , a 41 year old man with a brain infection , died as doctors were trying to suction fluid from his trachea . ''we did manage to start his heart again , but again it stopped , '' he says . ''and he died . '' grigory had lingered for weeks . dr . maksim strakhov , the young neurologist , suspected that his infection had ripened into a brain abscess , almost certainly beyond help . it was hard , however , to be absolutely sure . many i.c.u . patients arrive with signs of brain_injuries or head trauma that , in a western hospital , would send them immediately to the cat scanner to check for serious brain_injuries . but there is no scanner in this hospital . instead , dr . strakhov decides who needs emergency neurosurgery with his well honed instincts , a reflex hammer and a vintage ultrasound machine . ''it was the last word in technology when i tested it , 24 years ago , '' dr . turchev cracks . it is not just that cat technology is too expensive . the major fault lies in the bizarre municipal health_care planning that allocated a cat scanner to another hospital 40 minutes away , and not to this one , with its constant stream of head injuries . and so hospital no . 1 patients who are stable enough to be driven across town get cat scans . desperately ill patients do not . oleg v . rutkovsky , the chief doctor and a former russian health minister , insists that patients here do exceedingly well . ''we have a 3 percent mortality_rate , '' he said , ' 'despite the fact that the trauma unit takes some very severe cases . '' the 1998 rate for american hospitals was 2.6 percent . ''despite great differences in technology and drugs and insurance systems between your country and ours , patients in russia do get better , '' dr . letvena agreed . ''despite a lack of medicine , nurses and doctors manage to do many things and reach the same results that american doctors do . '' most patients , like mr . ivanov , have uneventful , if uncomfortable stays . but for some of the other 3 percent , the system breaks under the strain . consider svetlana , a dark_haired , nondescript young woman in her 20 's . she was found early thursday in a moscow park . a drug user , if not yet an addict , she is covered with bruises , and her abdomen is swollen with blood . after three and one half hours of surgery on a perforated liver and a ruptured intestine , she lies in intensive care , unconscious and naked except for a brown bedsheet . ''she 's bomzhika , '' oleg klochkov , the night doctor , said , using the word for homeless woman . ''somebody met her in the park and beat her her friends , maybe . her father came and left . he said he was n't surprised , because this was her way of life . '' later , dr . letvena says svetlana lost at least half her blood more than two liters in the beating and the surgery . the real problem is her blood_type b negative , found in barely 1.5 percent of europeans . svetlana could tolerate a transfusion of the slightly more common o negative , were any available . but moscow 's central blood_bank has managed so far to deliver only one unit of either type . she needs four to five . there are 30 other blood banks in moscow that might have b negative blood on hand . but no single inventory unites them . nor is there any quick way to canvass them . ''the amount she received , it was n't enough for her , '' dr . letvena says that night as she sits in her office , taking a smoking break midway through a 36 hour shift . ''and frankly , i 'm not sure how it will end . '' friday outside the i.c.u. , a group of men in white coats are hunched over a table . ''scalpel , '' one barks , and another slaps the flat end of a scalpel into his palm . he lowers the blade onto its intended target and flicks his wrist once , twice , then three times . after enough of this , the screw comes loose , and the surgeon , a_20 ish student from a medical tech school , lifts the cover off a broken soviet_era vacuum pump . there lies the diseased organ a worn out washer . dr . turchev cuts a new one from a piece of hose the students embark on a transplant . that pump was saved . two days later , the same determined band was operating on the spent circuitry of another . it is unclear how much a collapsing health_care system contributed to russia 's soaring death rate during the 1990 's . demographers and experts like mr . oganov , the preventive_medicine expert , say not much those dying young in russia alcoholics , victims of heart attacks , homicides needed help long before they reached an emergency room . others like mr . davis , the oxford economist , dispute that . and in fact , scattered data suggests that some indicators of health_care , like the percentage of cancer patients who die within a year of diagnosis , have worsened since the soviet demise . ''if you cut health_care funding , '' he said , ''and then introduce all these reforms that are n't implemented , i 'd say the impact could be substantial . '' in the intensive_care_unit this morning , svetlana 's bed is empty . ''she died at 3 a.m . , '' dr . turchev says . ''at 3 30 , they brought some blood for her . '' he minces no words as to the cause of death . ''very simple because of inadequate treatment , '' he says . ''because if a patient loses more than two liters of blood , at least you have to put one liter back in , not just one unit . '' ''unfortunately , '' he adds , ''this is a normal practice . '' the blood that arrived too late a single unit probably would have been too little to save svetlana 's life . a decade ago , dr . turchev says , such a tragedy would probably not have happened at all . in room 502 of the trauma unit , mr . ivanov 's wife , tatiana , arrives at his bedside with a plastic grocery bag full stuffed with pain killers and other emollients bifidobakterine , 3 . 10 bificolum siccum , 1 . 25 ketanov , 5 . 75 ctadol , 8 . 35 tsefakina , 10 . 90 , and more . ''when i 'm free from here , '' mr . ivanov says , ''i 'll go to the church and light a candle . because god saved me . '' freedom 's toll the first article in this series examined the reasons for the precipitous_decline in life_expectancy in russia since the collapse of the soviet_union nearly a decade ago . later articles will examine the rise in infectious_diseases , the health of women and the prospects for improving the health of the russian people . articles in this series and related coverage are available at the new york times on the web www . nytimes . com",has a topic of health
"one thing you have to say about george w . bush he 's got a great sense of humor . at a recent fund_raiser , according to the associated press , he described eliminating weapons_of_mass_destruction from iraq and ensuring the solvency of medicare as some of his administration 's accomplishments . then came the punch_line ''i came to this office to solve problems and not pass them on to future presidents and future generations . '' he must have had them rolling in the aisles . in the early months of the bush_administration , one often heard that ''the grown_ups are back in charge . '' but if being a grown up means planning for the future in fact , if it means anything beyond marital fidelity then this is the least grown up administration in american history . it governs like there 's no tomorrow . nothing in our national experience prepared us for the spectacle of a government launching a war , increasing farm subsidies and establishing an expensive new medicare entitlement and not only failing to come up with a plan to pay for all this spending in the face of budget_deficits , but cutting taxes at the same time . recent good economic news does n't change the verdict . these are n't temporary measures aimed at getting the economy back on its feet they 're permanent drains on the budget . serious estimates show a long term budget gap , even with a recovery , of at least 25 percent of federal spending . that is , the federal_government including medicare , which mr . bush has given new responsibilities without new resources is nowhere near solvent . then there 's international_trade policy . here 's how the steel story looks from europe the administration imposed an illegal tariff for domestic political reasons , then changed its mind when threatened with retaliatory tariffs focused on likely swing states . so the u.s . has squandered its credibility it is now seen as a nation that honors promises only when it 's politically convenient . what really makes me wonder whether this republic can be saved , however , is the downward_spiral in governance , the hijacking of public_policy by private interests . the new medicare bill is a huge subsidy for drug and insurance_companies , coupled with a small benefit for retirees . in comparison , the energy bill which stalled last month , but will come back has a sort of purity it barely even pretends to be anything other than corporate welfare . did you hear about the subsidy that will help shreveport get its first hooters restaurant ? and it 's not just legislation hardly a day goes by without an administrative decision that just happens to confer huge benefits on favored corporations , at the public 's expense . for example , last month the internal_revenue_service dropped its efforts to crack down on the synfuel tax break a famously abused measure that was supposed to encourage the production of alternative fuels , but has ended up giving companies billions in tax_credits for spraying coal with a bit of diesel oil . the i.r.s . denies charges by bill henck , one of its own lawyers , that it buckled under political pressure . coincidentally , according to the wall_street_journal , mr . henck has suddenly found himself among the tiny minority of taxpayers facing an i.r.s . audit . awhile back , george akerlof , the nobel laureate in economics , described what 's happening to public_policy as ''a form of looting . '' some scoffed at the time , but now even publications like the economist , which has consistently made excuses for the administration , are sounding the alarm . to be fair , the looting is a partly bipartisan affair . more than a few democrats threw their support behind the medicare bill , the energy bill or both . but the bush_administration and the republican leadership in congress are leading the looting party . what are they thinking ? the prevailing theory among grown up republicans yes , they still exist seems to be that mr . bush is simply doing whatever it takes to win the next election . after that , he 'll put the political operatives in their place , bring in the policy experts and finally get down to the business of running the country . but i think they 're in denial . everything we know suggests that mr . bush 's people have given as little thought to running america after the election as they gave to running iraq after the fall of baghdad . and they will have no idea what to do when things fall apart . op_ed columnist e mail krugman nytimes . com",has a topic of health
"eager to slow runaway medical expenses , the nation 's health insurers are competing to offer services that press doctors for discounts and , to the distress of some physicians and patients , freely second guess medical decisions . but a look at this rapidly spreading approach , known as managed_care , makes clear that saving money costs money . and critics say the cost of saving money is too high . many health economists consider managed_care the nation 's most realistic chance for containing medical expenses and insuring high quality care . so do a great many employers , which buy much of the health_insurance and ultimately pay many of the bills . 'best answer' challenged the health insurance_industry , which once paid medical bills almost unquestioningly , hopes the more aggressive role in which it is recasting itself through operations like that of prudential insurance here will help stave off calls for a government run insurance system like canada 's . such a system could put the industry out of business or reduce its role . "" managed_care is the best answer we know of today both in restraining cost increases and improving the quality of service and of clinical care , "" said samuel h . havens , a senior vice_president at prudential , the nation 's largest commercial health insurer . but critics contend that a hodgepodge of competing insurers can never be fully efficient at controlling costs . they also say that managed_care adds a new administrative layer to the already complex health_insurance system , creating many jobs that did not exist a decade ago and costing billions of dollars a year more than it should . "" reducing our administrative costs to the levels of canada would save enough money not only to cover all the uninsured but to improve coverage of everyone else by reducing or eliminating out of pocket payments , "" said dr . steffie woolhandler , an assistant professor at the harvard_medical_school . she co wrote a report on administrative costs in the two countries that appeared in the may 2 issue of the new england journal of medicine . fears of big brother to hear some american doctors tell it , big brother is alive and well and working in the insurance business . they contend that the managed_care system not only interferes with their medical judgments , sometimes with disastrous_consequences , but that it also limits their patients' freedom to choose their doctors . a typical day at prudential 's managed_care operation offered a glimpse of such an approach . in one case at the spacious new buildings housing the company 's northern new jersey division , a medical director concluded that a proposed breast reduction was not medically necessary and that the patient would have to pay the whole bill . in another case , a prudential nurse telephoned a doctor to suggest that he perform a gynecological operation at a surgery center in prudential 's medical network rather than the hospital proposed for it , where a smaller portion of the bill would be covered . staff members were out signing up a pediatric neurologist and an orthopedic_surgeon for prudential 's network doctors must agree in writing to offer discounts on their regular prices and cooperate with prudential 's reviewers . meanwhile , marketing people were looking for more companies willing to enroll their employees in the network . millions are affected managed_care already embraces tens of millions of americans . and with congress considering how to rescue a health_care system in crisis , managed_care operations would play a central role in many prominent proposals for change , which involve extending and supplementing private insurance . the heart of this strategy is organizing networks of doctors , hospitals , laboratories , pharmacies and other medical providers . the idea is to contain costs by not only securing a better price typically from 10 to 30 percent off the regular charge of a doctor or hospital but also deterring treatment the insurer deems inappropriate . in some managed_care programs , patients are covered only if they are treated by doctors and hospitals in the network . others allow a patient to go outside the network but then pay a lower share of the bill . this is strong medicine for doctors and patients accustomed to unquestioned independence . doctors' resistance weakening but doctors' resistance is weakening as more networks are organized and more employers sign up their workers . some of the networks are classic health maintenance organizations , which receive a prearranged monthly fee for each employee enrolled and either employ doctors or contract with them for full time service . others , known as independent practice associations , preferred provider organizations and network models , sign up doctors who also accept patients from other sources . along with prudential , insurance giants , including metropolitan life_insurance , cigna , aetna life and casualty and travelers , as well as some smaller commercial carriers , are introducing networks of various kinds and advertising them in a big way . so are some nonprofit blue cross and blue shield plans . insurers are not the only ones getting into the act . humana inc . , the big health_care company , has organized networks in 24 states and is expanding to other areas . u.s . healthcare inc . , a publicly traded company , is building a network in the northeast . many other networks some set up by doctors or hospitals , some by large corporations have also been organized . formidable competition all of these groups face formidable competition from long established health maintenance organizations . the largest , kaiser permanente , has more than five million members on the west_coast and is expanding eastward . many insurance experts argue that such competition will be good for americans . "" competition between relatively large , competent , efficiency minded systems like kaiser and prudential leads to innovations and improvements you do n't get when the government takes over , "" said alain c . enthoven , a professor of management at the stanford business school . a number of employers large and small report that programs like prudential 's have already cut the growth in their medical costs somewhat typically from increases of 20 percent a year to increases of 10 or 15 percent , or less for huge employers like the southwestern bell corporation and the marriott_corporation . administration costs but the savings do not come cheaply . managed_care networks typically raise administrative costs by an amount equal to about 5 percent of the employer 's medical bill . and it is far from certain that in the long run the private insurers' competing armies will hold down costs enough to satisfy clients . indeed , some critics prefer a system like canada 's , where provincial governments pay medical bills for everyone , using federal and provincial tax dollars . these critics say canada 's system is simpler and less expensive to run and can exert more leverage over what doctors and hospitals are paid . dr . woolhandler of harvard cited a general_accounting_office report issued in june that concluded that a shift to a canadian style system would save up to 67 billion on insurance overhead and hospital and physician administrative costs . canada 's cost advantage all told , she estimates , administration amounts to about 24 percent of total health_care spending in the united_states or more than 175 billion this year versus about 11 percent in canada , based on data for 1987 . while aspects of managed_care , like scrutiny of medical decisions , might still exist in a national_insurance system , the existence of many private insurers creates inefficiencies that could be eliminated by a single national program , dr . woolhandler asserted . for one thing , each united_states insurer must set up its own claims processing center in a region , and each must devote a lot of time to determining who is eligible for what coverage . competing insurers also spend a lot on marketing . managed_care pursued by so many different insurers means extra paperwork for doctors and hospitals as well . concerns of the a.m.a . "" managed_care can be a help or a hassle , but most of the time it 's a hassle , "" said dr . james s . todd , executive vice_president at the american_medical_association . surveys of employees using the managed_care networks have shown that the vast majority are satisfied , although some complain because they want a doctor who is not in the network or because they must keep changing physicians as doctors join and leave the network . in a few instances , medical reviewers' interference like recommending that a patient leave the hospital before the doctor thinks he is ready has had tragic results . managed_care bureaucracy to look at the prudential health_care system is to see a program that must spend more to save more . nationwide , prudential 's network covers about a million people ( including some employees of the new york times ) . the managed_care and claims processing operation based in parsippany , which handles the 110 , 000 people prudential covers in northern new jersey , alone employs about 200 people , many of whom would not be needed in a national health system . and this group does not include the support staff at the company , the middlemen between the insurer and the employer , or the extra people hired by doctors , hospitals and employers to handle their paperwork . even ignoring the administrative costs of managed_care , the american system has trouble holding down costs because no insurer by itself has the power to bargain down prices significantly , said henry j . aaron , director of the economic studies program at the brookings institution . in the system mr . aaron proposes , the government alone would negotiate physician fees and hospital budgets . prediction by insurers private insurers concede that their system of competing managed_care networks may not hold down prices the way the government could , and can entail higher administrative costs . but mr . havens of prudential predicted that as managed_care programs become more trusted and sophisticated , they will begin to save more , benefiting patients through reviews of their cases . also , employers will increasingly tell their insurers to pay nothing on bills incurred outside the network , he predicted , which will lower administrative costs , though it may leave many patients less happy . and they will tell the insurers more and more to limit the network to the physicians who agree to provide treatment for a fixed monthly amount , as opposed to a fee for each procedure completed . that would lower costs and further reduce paperwork . what is more , as competition among insurers forces some out of the market , the survivors will have more customers and therefore more leverage in negotiating with doctors and hospitals .",has a topic of health
"when the senate next debates whether to debate the iraq_war , members would do well to visit walter_reed_army_medical_center , just five miles to the north . there they can run a stark reality check on how the country is failing the war 's wounded despite all those capitol orations about unstinting support of our fighting troops . as fine as the surgery wards have been through a five year torrent of battle casualties , walter_reed has seen the shameful growth of a parallel village of almost 700 traumatized and maimed outpatients . far too many of these souls wait lost and wasted , abandoned by the post 's and the army 's shambling bureaucracy . this outpatient world has become a holding ground for desperation and dysfunction , according to a washington_post investigative report . some drift away unnoticed , awol , while others huddle in their rooms , depressed and forgotten . the scenes uncovered by the post range from slumlord conditions in one residential building to drug abuse and suicide among desperate patients caught in a catch_22 , where psychologically damaged veterans are put in charge of fellow sufferers . a staff_sergeant who had his eye and skull shattered in iraq stumbled about after his release from a surgical recovery room . he was handed a map and ordered to find his way across the sprawling post to the outpatient unit . after he found his room he sat for weeks like some accidental tourist , with no doctor appointments and no official concern . ''should n't they contact me ? '' he wondered . the army is promising to rush repairs and extra personnel . but the shameful neglect at walter_reed is more proof of how america 's leaders despite all the rhetoric about unlimited support for the troops are failing the nation 's warriors in this disastrous war . editorial",has a topic of health
"for years , scientists have argued over the true identity of the endangered_species known as the red wolf . the few remaining individual wolves have been called a distinct species , a mere variation of the much more widespread gray wolf species and even a hybrid between gray wolves and coyotes . in the latest twist in the red wolf 's continuing identity crisis , scientists using dna evidence have reported identifying a population of wolves in canada , far from the red wolf 's presumed distribution in the southern united states , that they say is so similar to red wolves that the two should be considered the same species . in fact , the authors say , their work suggests that the eastern timber wolves they studied in canada and the red wolf are both simply remnants of what was once an eastern north_american wolf that ranged from the gulf coast up into canada . if true , the study suggests that if and when wolves are reintroduced into the northeastern united states , red wolves , not gray wolves , should be the species . in addition , the work improves the outlook for the red wolf as researchers can potentially look to canada for fresh blood for a captive breeding program that began with just 14 wolves . in another surprise , the researchers reported evidence that both the eastern timber wolf and the red wolf are actually more closely related to coyotes than to gray wolves . publishing in the current canadian journal of zoology , the team of canadian and american scientists drew their conclusions from a study of dna sequences of red wolves , eastern timber wolves , coyotes and gray wolves . the reason the different types of wolves and coyotes continue to be so difficult to cleanly delineate and identify , said dr . bradley white , an author on the study who is a geneticist at mcmaster university in hamilton , ontario , is that there has been so much interbreeding between these entities in their recent evolutionary past . so tangled are the histories of these animals , all part of the genus known as canis , he said , that the entire genetic mess has been referred to as ''canis soup . '' dr . robert wayne , an evolutionary biologist at university of california at los_angeles , called the new theory of the origin of the red wolf interesting but said the conclusions were premature . dr . wayne 's own work has suggested that the red wolf is a hybrid between gray wolves and coyotes . ''i 'm not satisfied with any of the explanations yet , '' he said , ''including my own . ''",has a topic of health
"an army colonel who admitted strangling an 18 year old chechen woman two years ago suffered from shell shock and shrapnel_wounds to the head and was insane at the time of the crime , military psychiatrists concluded . the ruling , disclosed by prosecutors , probably means that col . yuri budanov will be freed from custody and given court ordered medical treatment , officials said . colonel budanov has said he suspected that the woman , whom he seized from her father 's home , was a sniper and that he has no memory of the killing . michael wines ( nyt )",has a topic of health
"athletic and stylishly dressed , geela patterson , adviser to the new territorial government on women 's issues , was the kind of woman inuit youth admired . then one bright day last june , a time when the arctic sun never seems to set , ms . patterson , a suicide_prevention counselor , took her own life . her suicide gave a rare jolt to people here in the territorial capital , which has the highest suicide rate in nunavut , which in turn has the highest suicide rate in canada . ''it is alarming how people accept suicide , '' said errol fletcher , a friend of ms . patterson 's who helps run the region 's toll free help line . ''the sad thing is that suicide is seen as an acceptable alternative when the pressures get too hard . '' for hundreds of years , the inuit , or eskimo , lived off the land in one of the world 's harshest environments . in that tough struggle for survival , apparently the only suicides were the elderly or the infirm who saw themselves as burdens when the nomadic band had to move on . but in the last half century , the free ranging inuit shifted in status from lords of the arctic to wards of the welfare_state . abandoning their traditional , never give up view of life , the inuit now commit_suicide at seven times the national average . since 1997 , an average of 26 people have killed themselves every year in nunavut , a territory with 28 , 000 people sprinkled over an area almost three times the size of texas . across north_america 's far north , suicide cuts into once hardy peoples who already have been undermined by alcohol , unemployment and a deep sense of powerlessness . suicides actually increased here after the inuit won their own territorial government , on april 1 , 1999 . east of here , in greenland , 21 years of home_rule government have also coincided with increased suicide rates , usually by hanging , called locally ''our lord 's lasso . '' ''we lose 50 to 60 people a year , '' said jorgen waever johansen , minister of social_welfare in greenland , which has a population of 55 , 000 . ''no matter how well off your economy is , if you have a high suicide rate , it is a sign of something deeply wrong . '' in the western arctic , canada 's northwest_territories have the nation 's second highest suicide rate . in 1999 , it was about 1 per 3 , 000 people , double the rate of 1998 . to the south of here , the innu are so plagued by suicides and self destructive behavior that half the deaths recorded in the community of 20 , 000 people have been of those under age 30 . for the rest of canada , the comparable rate is 5 percent . in one town last spring , four young people committed_suicide in four weeks . while youth suicides were unthinkable in traditional societies , most of nunavut 's suicides in recent years have been healthy young men , ages 15 to 29 . for generations , boys were brought up to be hunters . but with the destruction of fur markets after anti fur campaigns in europe and the united_states , unemployment rates in northern villages have risen above 50 percent . in this territory , the largest employer is the government . while nunavut has canada 's highest birth_rate , boys approach the end of high_school and see no future . ''the schools are all filled with women , '' caroline anawak , a mental_health specialist , said of post high_school training here . ''we used to think we had to focus on the women , but now the men are a mess . '' simona arnatsiaq , leader of a baffin island women 's organization , agreed , saying ''when you reduce the usefulness of men in society , it is bound to have psychological effects . '' tim atherton talked to hundreds of native youths , some depressed and suicidal , when he was an anglican minister in iqaluit and in the northwest_territories in the early 1990 's . ''young people would tell me , 'we are seeing all this stuff on tv , we watch the hockey games , we read the magazines yet it is all out of reach for us , ' '' he said in yellowknife , where he is now a photographer . ''they graduate from high_school and there is nothing to do at the end of it . life had become so fearful and hopeless that death actually seemed more welcoming . '' in nunavut , suicide has become so prevalent that it is hard to find a family that has not lost a loved one that way . susan aglukark , an inuit singer who has gained pop star status in southern canada , sings of the pain caused by suicide in ballads in english and in her native inuktitut . ''we are investing more money for suicide_prevention , '' paul okalik , nunavut 's premier , said in an interview . mr . okalik , whose brother committed_suicide , added ''it is very difficult to tackle . it could be related to a family problem , a dependency problem , a problem with the law . '' ms . anawak , the government mental_health specialist , has embarked on a school and prison campaign of inuit pride to raise self_esteem battered by the television barrage from southern canadian society . ''they watch tv and they think that every white person is rich and well paid , '' said ms . anawak , a white woman who married into a prominent inuit family here . ''the white kids in class have all the answers , have all the computers . ''these people were the toughest people in the toughest part of the world . now , they feel like birds in a cage , always invisible , always ignored , always feeling silly , always feeling stupid . '' with volunteers at the help line center here fielding calls nightly from depressed residents around the territory , many people hope that if people talk about the problem , suicides will diminish . but there are no easy solutions . ''i myself , when younger and miserable , have heard the siren call of suicide as a release from suffering , as has my husband , and others that i know and love , '' rachel attituq qitsualik , an inuit columnist , wrote in the june 30 issue of nunatsiaq news , a weekly_newspaper here . ''my brother gave in to it . '' ''for those of you who consider suicide a release , please pause , '' begged ms . qitsualik . around dinnertime on june 30 , ms . patterson 's family found her body .",has a topic of health
"lead the canadian government announced plans today for sweeping new restrictions on smoking , including a ban on tobacco_advertising by jan . 1 , 1989 . the canadian government announced plans today for sweeping new restrictions on smoking , including a ban on tobacco_advertising by jan . 1 , 1989 . the proposals , which require parliamentary approval , would ban smoking in federally regulated workplaces by oct . 1 and impose heavy fines and six months in jail for major violations . restrictions on newspaper advertising for tobacco_products are to take effect jan . 1 , 1988 , while billboards , magazine ads and event sponsorships are to be outlawed by jan . 1 , 1989 . tobacco_advertising on television and radio is already banned here , as it is in the united_states .",has a topic of health
"it was the same kind of tiered stage used for award ceremonies at the olympics . gold , silver and bronze medals were standard here too . even the triumphal music was similar . but when athletes like thabelang gumbi of south_africa or liu yanpeng of china stepped forward on shaky knees to receive medals for skating in the 111 meter_dash at the sixth special_olympics world winter_games that ended here on saturday , the national anthems of their countries were not sung nor were their nation 's flags unfurled . organizers of the games say that is because at the special_olympics , the handicapped athletes and 2 , 000 others like them from 75 countries are expected to represent more than their homelands . ''we do n't count medals , we do n't use flags , '' said timothy p . shriver , president and chief executive of the special_olympics . he said the games are an attempt to show the world that what counts is not being better , or stronger , but recognizing the best in people no matter where they came from , what they look like , or how their minds work . when the special_olympics was started 29 years ago by mr . shriver 's mother , eunice kennedy shriver , it was not much of an international event . canada was the only country besides the united_states to take part in the first games , held on a blustery day at soldiers field in chicago . now , nearly three decades later , this year 's winter_games were billed as the largest international sporting_event of 1997 . through the years the basic goal has remained the same to help the athletes see themselves in a new light . it is hard to say just how much taking part in the special_olympics may change the lives of the athletes when they return home . but while they are here , they have the chance to visit a dentist or have their eyes checked . some get to be television sports commentators , or newspaper reporters . and as they listen to the announcer read off their names and call them to receive their medals , their faces indicate that life has grown sweeter , at least for a while . mr . gumbi , 18 , who lives just outside johannesburg , could not express what he felt as he raced haltingly around the slick ice at veteran 's arena . but in the stands , the volunteers who traveled with the team 's 16 members were on their feet shouting ''thabelang , thabelang . '' ''it just proves that something could be done for these children , '' said doreen selekane , one of the volunteers . she has been fighting for the rights of the mentally_handicapped in south_africa since 1982 , and against apartheid all her life . at one time , she said , someone like mr . gumbi , whether black or white , would have been locked up at home and never let out . another volunteer , angela braun , said the rink where her handicapped daughter lorna trains in johannesburg has now been desegregated , and the ''whites only'' signs have been removed . but much still has to change in south_africa , both concerning race and prejudice toward the mentally_retarded , she said . people still fear lorna because they do not understand her . and economic inequality remains . ''none of the black athletes' parents could afford to come over here because of the financial conditions of the country , '' mrs . braun said , ''and that 's sad . '' as another heat of the 111 meters ( the distance was one lap around a hockey rink ) was almost ready to be run the other day , a burly man from inner mongolia named daxidorji , the head of the chinese delegation , leaned over from the stands and urged mr . liu , 18 , who only started skating a year ago , to do his best . mr . liu skated hard , but when he crossed out of bounds on one of the turns , he was disqualified . he received a medal anyway , as all athletes here do . mr . daxidorji could not explain why all 14 athletes on the chinese national team this year are from inner mongolia , nor how handicapped children get the special care they need when they return home . but he said that while mr . liu and the other athletes in the orange and gold ski suits of china were competing in this year 's world games , ''they feel terribly happy to enjoy the sports with everyone , black and white , boys and girls , young and old . '' that much , at least , was clear .",has a topic of health
"a canadian who committed_suicide in detroit with the help of dr . jack_kevorkian said in a videotaped message released here today by right to die advocates that , had his fate been left to the canadian government , his suffering would have lasted "" much longer , perhaps indefinitely . "" austin bastable , 53 , of windsor , ontario , died on monday after spending the last two years of his life fruitlessly campaigning for the right to a doctor_assisted_suicide in his own country . mr . bastable , a tool and die maker , suffered from multiple_sclerosis that left him with control of only his head and left hand . he failed in a suicide attempt on his own in 1994 , when he took an overdose of drugs and alcohol . his wife , nina , found him in a coma , called 911 , and he was revived . john hofsess , executive director of the right to die society of canada , said , "" austin wanted a doctor to be present during his dying process , and preferably a doctor who would be willing to publicly admit what he had done . "" mr . hofsess recently spent nine days with mr . bastable at his home in windsor , helping him review suicide options . under canadian law , anyone who assists in a suicide is subject to imprisonment as long as 14 years . dr . kevorkian , who was among five doctors present , gave mr . bastable a face mask and a cylinder of carbon_monoxide . mr . bastable ended his life with his wife at his side , mr . hofsess said . the suicide took place in the home of janet good , 72 , founder of the michigan chapter of the national hemlock society , an american right to die organization . she , too , suffers from a terminal illness pancreatic cancer and her doctors say she has less than a year to live . dr . kevorkian , a 67 year old retired pathologist , has admitted to attending the suicides of 27 people in the united_states since 1990 . mr . bastable is the first from canada . dr . kevorkian has been acquitted three times of violating a now expired michigan statute against assisting a suicide . a fourth trial is under way , based on a michigan supreme court ruling that assisting a suicide is a "" common_law felony , "" even if no specific statute exists against it . that case is expected to go to the jury on friday . those following the trial said acquittal appeared likely until today 's news , which clouds the outlook . mr . hofsess , whose five year old organization is seeking a change in the canadian law , played mr . bastable 's videotape for reporters , in which he praised dr . kevorkian as "" a most courageous and often misunderstood physician in the united_states . "" speaking calmly , mr . bastable described his condition as "" like being imprisoned in your own body kind of like being sentenced to life_imprisonment with no chance of parole for a crime you did n't commit . "" he called his death "" a blow for freedom , not just for myself , but for all rational canadians who may at some time in the future wish to decide for themselves how they may die , adding , "" goodbye and god bless you all . "" recent public opinion_polls by the gallup organization and the angus reid group suggest that 75 percent of canadians support doctor_assisted_suicide . but neither the nation 's parliament or supreme_court is willing to change the law at this point . in 1993 , the court ruled , 5 to 4 , that the state 's interest in protecting the sanctity of life took precedence over the right to a dignified death . the governing liberal_party has backtracked from earlier promises to bring the issue up for a free vote in the house of commons one in which members vote their conscience instead of being bound by party_discipline . to press for legal changes , mr . bastable a well known campaigner who was the subject of a two part documentary on the canadian_broadcasting_corporation earlier this year tried to see prime_minister_jean_chretien when mr . chretien was in windsor on april 27 , but was rebuffed . "" when the prime_minister would n't see him , "" mr . hofsess recalled , "" he said 'that was the last straw . ' "" mr . bastable wanted mr . chretien to consider legislative proposals known as the kluge amendments , after dr . eike henner kluge , a former director of ethics and legal affairs for the canadian medical association , which set up stringent safeguards for euthanasia . under the proposals , an applicant for an assisted death would , for example , have to submit full medical records , plus a psychiatric report certifying mental competency , to a superior court . michael macri , mr . bastable 's son in law , said mr . bastable wanted to die in canada , but could not find doctors willing to help . "" we 're proud of him , "" mr . macri said . "" he did what he wanted to do , and we think he will make a change . he made people stand up and listen to him . """,has a topic of health
"this winter fred holmes took his two children , monica , 15 , and david , 13 , both of whom had colds , to a medical laboratory to have their throats swabbed . a few weeks later he received two bills , each for 19 . 80 . never before under canada 's 27 year old universal health_insurance system did mr . holmes have to reach into his own pockets to pay for such a common medical service . but bills like that are the wave of the future . like the united_states , canada , with a radically different system in which the government uses tax money to pay most medical bills and regulates hospital budgets and doctors' fees , faces exploding medical costs . one response has been to get individuals and employers to pick up more of the tab like laboratory fees for some common procedures . spending growing fast canadians are proud of a system that generally provides good medical care to all its citizens at a lower cost than in the united_states averaging 1 , 915 american dollars per person in 1991 , the latest year for which figures are available , compared with 2 , 868 in the united_states . but spending in recent years has grown nearly as fast as in the united_states , and is outstripping the ability of the public_sector to pay . despite new efforts to control costs , from cutbacks in covered services to caps on doctors' fees and hospital budgets , "" revenues in the public_sector are not increasing fast enough , "" said bill tholl , director of health_policy at the canadian medical association . aggravating the financial distress has been canada 's most painful recession since the great depression , which has compressed tax receipts and cut federal transfer payments to the 10 provinces and 2 territories , which actually run the health system for 27 million canadians . a major reassessment the federal_government used to pay half of the health system costs . now it is down to 30 percent . as a result , the provinces have been forced into ever larger deficits to finance health_care , which consumes about a third of their total spending . these deficits mean more money owed to domestic and foreign lenders , who buy provincial bonds . as the clinton_administration prepares to overhaul the american health_care system to include 37 million americans now uninsured and to stem rising costs , the canadian system which gives everyone , rich or poor , equal access to doctors and hospitals is going through a major reassessment of its own . no one wants to dismantle the most popular canadian social program . but there is talk of changing some of the ground rules . fees are debated for example , fees have been widely discussed , even though they would contravene the canada health act of 1984 , which reaffirmed the fundamental principles of universal access to comprehensive care , unimpeded by financial barriers . one of the provincial premiers , frank mckenna , a liberal_party member from new brunswick , has suggested that wealthier canadians would be willing to pay fees to insure that the poorest canadians continue to get free health_care . "" i do n't believe there 's another nation in the world that has such an open ended system of health_care where they simply give the dollars out , no matter what the amount , to health_care providers and recipients , without asking for some modest deductible in return for those who can afford to pay it , "" he said last year . quebec 's ministry of health has already proposed a user fee of 5 each time a patient uses an emergency room , but has not yet adopted it . still , it does require a 2 service charge per prescription for those over 65 who normally get prescriptions free . a ceiling limits the fees to 100 a year . while opinion_surveys show that more than half of canadians would support patient fees as the best way to control health costs , opponents have successfully resisted , arguing that the practice would polarize rich and poor and require cumbersome administrative machinery . reducing covered services , another approach to shifting the burden to users , has made greater headway . the ontario health_insurance plan , as mr . holmes found , has reduced fees to commercial laboratories and allows them to bill patients directly . how costs are cut ontario , which insures 10 million people or nearly 40 percent of canada 's population , has cut costs in these other ways stopping payment for certain services in connection with employment , insurance , pensions , legal proceedings , recreation and education . for example , if a doctor writes a letter in support of a disability claim , the claimant pays for that service . or if a worker needs a physical to get a job , he must pay for the examination . ending coverage of electrolysis , used for the removal of unwanted hair , sometimes the result of a hormonal disorder , and reviewing coverage of 40 other items including psychoanalysis , vasectomies , newborn circumcision , in vitro fertilization and chiropractic , podiatric and osteopathic services . increasing patient payments for drug prescriptions covered by the ontario drug benefit plan , which chiefly serves people over 65 . "" at one time government could afford to be comprehensive , covering all medical services , "" said dr . david peachey , director of professional affairs for the ontario medical association . "" now we need to re examine what the government will pay for . "" a cap on spending pat rich , managing editor of the medical post , which follows health politics for the country 's 40 , 000 doctors , said the provinces were determined to keep health spending from rising above the current one third of their total expenditures . mainly by curbing hospital budgets and doctors' fees , ontario has capped spending on health_care at 16 . 9 billion this fiscal year , ending march 31 , up only 2 percent over last year , against average increases of 11 . 2 percent in the 1980 's . hospitals are held to an overall 1 percent increase . colin goodfellow , vice_president of the hospital council of metropolitan toronto , said hospitals had been "" surprised "" by the required austerity , but added , "" nobody jumped up and down and screamed . "" he said there was a recognition that "" we can sustain quality service with this level of funding . "" still , the hiving off of benefits signals a narrower scope for the basic medical care promised under canada 's insurance system . analysts see growing use of private insurance to cover what is being taken off the provincial plans . blue cross organizations in each of the provinces , for example , are now offering plans for individuals that incorporate the delisted services , according to mr . holmes , a health benefits analyst at the toronto consulting concern of william m . mercer ltd . . the priorities new procedures reduce the delays for years , government limits on medical spending have led to waiting_lists for certain costly nonemergency procedures . in some provinces patients have had to wait as long as 18 months for hip_replacement surgery , 12 months for cataract surgery , 3 to 6 months for elective coronary_bypass surgery . in british_columbia the situation became so acute a few years back that the government arranged to send 200 patients to seattle to reduce the backlog . yet many doctors and health economists here insist the waiting has not been as serious as critics say . in the united_states , they note , rationing also exists , but it is rationing by price , keeping many from getting basic health_care . canadian analysts say that despite the financial constraints , practitioners have worked out new standards for assessing patient priority that have eased the problems . for example , cardiovascular surgeons in ontario now have a registry for all potential heart patients . a result has been a reallocation of caseloads based on need and surgeon availability . the registry , combined with a recent 10 percent expansion in open heart surgery capacity , has largely eliminated delays in the province , practitioners reported . new heart surgery capacity has also come on stream in british_columbia . the problem zone "" the first thing to keep in mind , "" said c . david naylor , chief of the institute for clinical evaluative sciences , "" is that anyone needing urgent service gets it . the problem arises in the zone between where it is an urgent need and where it is safe and convenient to wait . "" according to a 1991 survey by statistics_canada , 95 percent of all canadians reported receiving the care they needed within 24 hours . dr . naylor , whose institute is an academic research center that studies the ontario health system , insisted that "" some kind of queuing system is necessary if you want to run a service efficiently . "" "" the alternative , "" he said , "" is excess_capacity , which is not a very efficient way to run a service . "" world class research is conducted in canada , but canadian hospitals and institutes cannot always afford the high technology products developed in the united_states . for example , not many canadian hospitals have 1 million to buy a nuclear magnetic resonance imaging machine , and there are long waits for the available machines . but generally , once a procedure proves worthwhile , it is adopted in canada . hospitals in canada are private , voluntary , nonprofit corporations run by professional administrators and reporting to community trustees . yet they are also state dependent contractors that must answer in part to the provincial health ministry . hospitals as entrepreneurs peter ellis , chief_executive_officer of the sunnybrook health science center , one of the biggest hospitals in toronto , said "" in the last three years we have received funding way below our actual increase in costs . so we 've had to become increasingly aggressive . "" he was referring in part to energetic entrepreneurship , the bolstering of revenues by pushing ancillary businesses , from car parking , the cafeteria and the variety store to an on site conference center . but hospitals are also being pushed into greater efficiency and less wasteful care . sunnybrook gets 70 percent of its funds from the government , against 77 percent five years ago , but thanks to its entrepreneurship , combined with contributions of private foundations and new management techniques it has shown surpluses the last two years . the physicians with more doctors , more services beyond the unavoidable price of new medical technology , the explosion in canadian health costs has been encouraged , many analysts say , by an oversupply of doctors and the fee_for_service system that rewards them for seeing more patients and doing more procedures . in 1964 there was one doctor for every 800 people in canada today there is one for every 450 . growth has been almost comparable in the united_states , where in 1965 the ratio was one for every 720 persons compared with one for 411 now . the world_health_organization recommends one for every 600 . in canada there is evidence that the doctors create their own demand , without necessarily improving the quality of care the population receives . at the encouragement of the ontario ministry of health , the university of toronto has just announced a 30 percent reduction in enrollment at its medical_school , the country 's largest . medical_schools in other provinces have also announced cutbacks . ontario 's deputy health minister , michael decter , says that each new doctor who goes into practice costs the province 500 , 000 a year . "" if you continue to have too many physicians , it limits the resources you have for other areas of health_care , "" he added . doctors are paid according to a fee schedule negotiated like a labor agreement between each provincial government and the provincial medical association . the latest increase is 1 . 75 percent , which is less than the rate of inflation . incomes at u.s . levels ontario doctors went on strike for 25 days in 1986 over a demand to be allowed to make supplementary charges . they lost the strike and had to back down . now the doctors sit with the government on a joint management committee that tries to reach consensus . if the two sides cannot agree on fees , the doctors have now agreed to a process of mediation and independent binding_arbitration . after weighing the higher costs in the united_states , including malpractice insurance premiums , which are 10 times stiffer , incomes of canadian doctors are close to american levels . the specialists generally do better in the united_states than canada . after treating a patient , the doctor bills the provincial health authority according to the fee schedule . for example , if a doctor in this province makes a house call from 5 p.m . to midnight and on weekends he may bill for 71 . in quebec , a simple consultation by a general_practitioner costs the quebec insurance plan 13 . 80 50 . 80 for a complete examination . the vast majority of doctors an estimated 80 percent work under the fee_for_service system , as opposed to salaries . but critics say this system creates incentives for doctors to provide more services than may be needed . some fee schedules implicitly recognize this by building in their own disincentives . for instance , the ontario doctor whose house calls constitute more than 20 percent of his billings will collect only 41 . 50 for that weekend call , instead of 71 . fees drop for doctors earning more than 400 , 000 , a situation affecting 870 , or 5 percent , of the province 's physicians . a shift to clinics also keeping costs up is the tendency for hospital stays to be long , at least longer than in the united_states . for example , maternity cases average three and a half to four days , compared with two days in many hospitals in the united_states . but canadian hospital managers say they face the same pressures as american counterparts to reduce lengths of stays . in its own efforts to cut costs , british_columbia is moving dramatically to shift services away from hospitals to outpatient_clinics , public_health programs and home_care . but the program means closing hospitals , which is not popular either with doctors or the general public . despite its current convulsions , canada 's health system remains very popular . polls regularly show it is supported by 85 to 90 percent of the population . but with rising expectations on the part of the patient , ever more costly technologies and an aging population , more strains and more change are unavoidable . echoing a general sentiment , robert evans , a health economist at the university_of_british_columbia , said , "" the message must be that business as usual is not sustainable in the new economic environment . """,has a topic of health
"what james edward brighton knows for sure is that sometime after midnight on oct . 12 he awoke in a montreal parking_lot , naked , dazed and without a clue to who he was or how he got there . he was brought to montreal general hospital and after hypnosis and injections of a ''truth serum'' he told doctors that he thought he was from morristown , n.j. , he thought his name was james edward brighton , he thought he was about 28 years old and he thought he was gay . but without identification papers , he is afraid to cross the border into the united_states to find out more about his background . the montreal police have contacted the f.b.i . and interpol , but to no avail . the police in morristown were also asked to help . det . sgt . mark slockbower said the young man 's description of the green in morristown 's center was accurate enough to lend his account credibility . but all leads have turned up empty . ''at this time we 've exhausted all our possibilities in terms of trying to put him together with somewhere specific , '' detective slockbower said in a telephone interview . ''this is a small city , but lots of people come through here . '' detective slockbower said that the police had checked everything from the records of homeless shelters to high_school yearbooks looking for clues , and came up empty handed . for mr . brighton , the past two months have been a nightmare . ''it 's been frustrating and lonely , '' he said from the montreal home of greg blachford , a worker at the gay line crisis center who took in mr . brighton after he was discharged from the hospital . ''i can be around other people who are talking about their experiences in life and then i realize that even though i think i 'm 28 , i ca n't remember what sort of experiences i 've had . '' dr . richard montoro , a psychiatrist at montreal general who examined and treated mr . brighton , said he was convinced that the young man was not trying to deliberately hide his past . the police have found no evidence of a criminal_record . when mr . brighton was examined by doctors he had no head bruises or other evidence of physical injuries that could have caused the loss of memory . his blood showed no evidence of alcohol or drugs . dr . montoro thinks that mr . brighton has a rare condition known as dissociative amnesia , which was probably caused by some psychological trauma . ''it appears he was assaulted by two thieves in his home a few weeks before he came to montreal , '' dr . montoro said . that is the kind of traumatic event that could have triggered the amnesia , but dr . montoro said that uncovering it has not helped mr . brighton retrieve more than just scrambled parts of his memory . some facts , like his birth date , came firmly into his mind , mr . brighton said . during one of the sessions with doctors , he turned his head when someone called out the name james . a slight british accent supports his thought that he came to the united_states from england when he was a teen_ager . but it is through the use of sodium amytal , a ''truth serum , '' that mr . brighton made the link to morristown . ''the doctor asked if i could think of any city in particular and i mentioned morristown and without looking at a map i said it was directly off highway 287 , '' mr . brighton said . the description is accurate . mr . brighton said that because he does not have any identification , he is afraid to try crossing the border into the united_states to visit morristown personally . ''i met with two officers from immigration canada and they said that because i do n't have papers , american immigration would not allow me in , '' he said . ''then i checked with u.s . immigration one time and they told me not to try crossing if i do n't have identification . ''",has a topic of health
"the death of an exchange student from connecticut , whose body was found in moscow last week outside his university dormitory , remained a mystery yesterday , with the russian police calling it a suicide and a coroner 's report using the word murder . the body of anthony riccio , 21 , of glastonbury , conn . , was found on the ground tuesday evening outside the russian state humanities university . mr . riccio , a junior at brown_university majoring in russian studies , had arrived in moscow on sept . 10 for a one year exchange program sponsored by middlebury college in vermont . at first , the russian police said mr . riccio was found with a broken rope around his neck and the rest of the rope attached to the balcony of his room on the 16th floor . later , they said there had been no rope . but on friday , according to the associated press , they again reported that there had been a rope . "" i 'm convinced this was a suicide , "" said vyacheslav filippov , chief of the 136th precinct in moscow . "" he had good relations with other students . there was no reason why anyone should want to kill him . "" chief filippov said no suicide_note had been found . yesterday , a spokesman for the united_states embassy , michael mcclellan , said that a report by the moscow coroner 's office had classified the death as a murder . a statement from the embassy said that "" on the summary autopsy report the coroner underlined the word 'murder' to describe the death . "" in connecticut , mr . riccio 's father , john , said the possibility of suicide "" just seems incongruous to us it does n't fit a pattern for us . "" he said he and his wife , lenore , had last spoken to their son on monday . "" his only disappointing remark was during orientation , they were speaking too much english , "" the father said . "" there are a lot of open questions , "" he added . zachary grinspan , 20 , a junior at yale_university who called himself anthony riccio 's best friend , said that going to russia had been a longtime dream of anthony 's . he described his friend as self confident and "" a total extrovert . "" the statement from the united_states embassy said that the moscow prosecutor 's office had 10 days to decide whether to conduct a criminal investigation .",has a topic of health
"in the days since british_columbia became the first canadian province to file a lawsuit to recover medical costs from tobacco companies , penny priddy , the province 's health minister , has been traveling across canada looking for allies . taking her cue from the united_states , where the joint legal action by several states has led to a 206 billion tentative settlement with the tobacco_industry , ms . priddy has talked to other provincial health officials about joining the suit , which was filed nov . 12 . but so far she has received little more than encouraging words . ms . priddy said that part of the reason for the reluctance of the other provinces to take on the powerful canadian tobacco_industry and the american parent companies of the cigarette producers may be the objections of local tobacco growers . tobacco is not an important crop in british_columbia . another reason appears to be an aspect of canadian law that makes it possible for the tobacco companies to recover legal costs if the province 's suit fails . in canada , the tobacco companies are fighting back . minutes after the province filed its suit , the cigarette manufacturers filed their own suit . they are challenging the constitutionality of the british_columbia law , which reverses the normal legal_precedent that would require the province to prove its allegations . instead , the law forces the companies to prove that cigarettes are not addictive or harmful . the province 's lawsuit is ''a kind of political ploy on the part of an unpopular government to demonize an unpopular industry , '' said robert parker , president of the canadian tobacco manufacturers' association , which is also named in the british_columbia suit . ''it amounts to state sponsored extortion because they believe the industry will pay anything it takes'' to be allowed to stay in business . british_columbia has some of the toughest anti smoking laws in canada . a new provincial law requires tobacco companies to disclose the ingredients in their cigarettes . and the tobacco_industry as a whole will have to pay almost 14 million a year for a license to do business in british_columbia . prices would be controlled so the companies cannot pass along the additional costs to consumers . in addition to the tough laws , the province decided to sue the tobacco companies for the costs of treating smokers who become ill . ms . priddy estimates that it cost the province about 345 million a year to treat tobacco related_illnesses . ms . priddy , a former nurse , did not challenge the tobacco companies' assertion that the lawsuit is an attempt by the province to raise money . ''the lawsuit is only part of a broader strategy in british_columbia to protect kids against tobacco , to recover health_care costs and to recover some dollars to allow us to do really good prevention and cessation activities , '' ms . priddy said in an interview in toronto , which she visited to find support for the british_columbia suit .",has a topic of health
"it was a trial to remember on prince_edward_island , canada . a young woman was murdered , her estranged boyfriend was accused of the crime , and the main evidence against him came from the dna of a cat . forensic scientists say the case is the first in which animal dna has been introduced in court . it came about only because a determined police_officer searched until he found a researcher specialized enough to perform the needed analysis . ''without the cat , the case falls flat , '' the defense lawyer , john l . macdougall , told the jury . but after hearing testimony about how dna was obtained from the hair of the family cat , the jury found the accused , douglas beamish , guilty of second degree murder . the case , decided on aug . 1 , is reported in today 's issue of the journal nature . it began on oct . 3 , 1994 , when shirley a . duguay , a 32 year old mother of five , vanished from her home in sunnyside , a city of 16 , 000 that is the second largest city on prince_edward_island . her car was found a few days later , splattered with her blood . several months later , ms . duguay 's body was found in a shallow_grave . earlier , a military team about six miles from her house had stumbled upon a plastic bag containing a man 's leather_jacket . ms . duguay 's blood was on the jacket , and several white hairs were in the jacket 's lining . here , the police thought , might be a clue to the murderer 's identity . but when the police had the hairs analyzed , they turned out to be from a cat . a police inspector , roger savoie , decided he would simply order a dna analysis of the cat hairs , and attempt to provide convincing evidence that the murderer was the owner of the cat . mr . beamish , the father of three of ms . duguay 's children , owned a white cat named snowball . but when he called dna testing labs , mr . savoie recalled in an interview , ''they had no idea what i was talking about . '' no one , it seemed , had ever got dna forensic evidence from a domestic animal and no one was willing to try . mr . savoie persisted , calling experts in the united_states and canada , and eventually he came across dr . stephen j . o'brien , chief of the laboratory of genomic diversity at the national_cancer_institute in frederick , md . , an expert on cats and their genes . dr . o'brien , who had never done a forensic dna analysis , was intrigued and sought advice from a former student , dr . lisa forman , who worked for cellmark , a rockville , md . , company that specializes in forensic dna analysis . dr . o'brien began by attempting to extract dna from the hairs that had been found on the jacket lining . of the eight hairs found in the jacket , only one had usable dna , in its root . then he went on to analyze snowball 's blood . ''it looked like a perfect match , '' dr . o'brien said , but he wondered whether he really had proof . after all , what if all the cats on the island were so inbred that their dna was essentially identical ? so he called mr . savoie and asked him to round up 20 cats from the neighborhood and send their blood to his lab in frederick . ''we were relieved to find abundant genetic diversity , '' dr . o'brien said . after his conviction , mr . beamish was sentenced to 18 years in a maximum security prison , without parole . he is appealing his sentence , his lawyer said . as for snowball , he remains with mr . beamish 's parents , mr . macdougall said . ''he 's still the family cat . '' correction april 26 , 1997 , saturday an article on thursday about the use of dna from a cat to gain a conviction in the murder of a prince_edward_island woman , shirley a . duguay , misidentified her hometown . it was summerside , not sunnyside .",has a topic of health
"as the government puts the finishing touches on regulations that will make canada one of the first countries to license marijuana growers , deepening public tolerance for the drug is clearing the path to legal reforms that could make canada much more permissive of marijuana than the united_states . health canada officials say that by the end of july , marijuana growers will be able to apply for licenses to produce small amounts of marijuana for people with terminal illnesses or chronic diseases to ease their pain . over the last few years , more than 250 canadians have received government permission to smoke marijuana for medical purposes , and many more will qualify for the exemptions when the new regulations take effect , but until then they must either grow the marijuana or buy it illegally . health officials say that although there is no scientific proof that marijuana has medicinal properties , testimony from people who have used it to overcome the nausea associated with chemotherapy or to help with their glaucoma and other diseases has been so convincing that the government has decided to make it legal under certain circumstances . what they had not counted on , however , is that by debating and then authorizing this specialized use of marijuana , they would be seen by many canadians as legitimizing the use of the drug . a recent survey showed that 47 percent of canadians agreed that marijuana should be legalized , a sharp increase over the number five years ago . ''a new mood seems to be sweeping the country , '' said reginald w . bibby , a professor at the university of lethbridge who has studied canadian attitudes toward marijuana for a generation . for 20 years starting in 1975 , the percentage of canadians who favored legalizing marijuana ranged from 24 to 31 . but since 1995 , professor bibby said , acceptance has broadened substantially . ''unquestionably , there is a link between government actions and the changes in public attitudes , '' he said . ''the moral entrepreneurs in the country are working very hard to portray the harmful_effects of marijuana but most people are starting to see it as only something that can be positive . '' an estimated 1.5 million canadians smoke marijuana recreationally , according to the canadian medical association . dann m . michols , an assistant deputy minister at health canada , said that in drawing up the new regulations , health officials had not taken into account the impact such actions could have on the social use of marijuana . ''i do n't think that it was explicitly calculated , '' mr . michols said . health officials are under great pressure to have the new regulations ready to take effect by the end of july . an ontario court of appeals last year gave the government until july 31 to revamp regulations for the medical use of marijuana or have the entire section of the federal controlled_substance act be voided , which would have made any use of marijuana legal in canada . until recently , approaches toward the medical use of marijuana were similar in both the united_states and canada . but in may the united_states_supreme_court upheld a federal law banning the distribution of marijuana for medical purposes , overriding laws in several states that legalized medical_marijuana . the debate over marijuana in canada has moved to parliament . a committee from all five political_parties is preparing to undertake a comprehensive study of canada 's drug policy and consider a range of reforms , including the legalization of marijuana . health minister allan rock and justice minister anne mclellan have both said they favor a thorough rethinking of canada 's drug laws , although they have not indicated support for any particular changes . joe_clark , the former prime_minister , who is a member of the current parliament and the leader of the progressive conservative party , recently called for lessening penalties for using marijuana . ''i do n't want to have a young person carry forever the burden of a conviction for a criminal offense , '' mr . clark said . the leaders of two other minority parties , the new democrats and the separatist bloc qu b cois , also support the idea of decriminalizing marijuana smoking so that an offense would be treated like a traffic ticket , perhaps involving a fine but leaving no criminal_record . the canadian police association told a senate committee on may 28 that it opposed decriminalization because easing the punishment could lead to increased use of hard drugs . prime_minister_jean_chr_tien has also withheld support for decriminalization . ''the health minister has proposed permitting marijuana use for medical ends , '' mr . chr tien said recently . ''should we go into decriminalization and so on ? it 's not part of the agenda at this time . ''",has a topic of health
"the "" myocardial_ischemia "" that sent president boris n . yeltsin to the hospital yesterday for the second time in three months is a common , serious heart condition that affects millions of people around the world . myocardial_ischemia describes a lack of oxygen rich blood to meet the heart 's needs to pump blood . such ischemia usually produces the chest_pains of angina , although aides to mr . yeltsin , who is 64 , did not use the word angina . ischemia ( pronounced iss kee mee ya ) can occur anywhere in the body . it is described by its anatomical location , and examples include abdominal ischemia or the transient ischemic attack that can signal a stroke . aides said mr . yeltsin 's ischemia was caused by heart_disease . but the information that russian officials released yesterday about mr . yeltsin 's diagnosis and condition was skimpy , as it was in the four weeks this summer when the president was treated for myocardial_ischemia . until his doctors provide "" a final diagnosis , "" expected today , doctors in the united_states said the details were too sketchy to assess the seriousness of his condition and the treatment options . among such options are drugs to relieve pain or to reduce the risk of blood_clots , coronary_bypass surgery , and more minimally invasive procedures like angioplasty , a procedure in which a balloon tipped tube is threaded through an artery in the groin or arm to remove the blockage . a puzzle in the information provided so far was a statement from mr . yeltsin 's closest aide , viktor v . ilyushin , who said , "" an operation is out of the question . "" the statement left unsaid whether the reason is that mr . yeltsin 's heart condition is not amenable to surgical treatment , that he has another medical condition that precludes major surgery , or that political considerations are at work . myocardial_ischemia is generally serious because it usually indicates blockage in one or more of the coronary_arteries that nourish the heart . the blockage is generally due to a buildup of fat deposits from a process known as atherosclerosis . atherosclerosis is believed to be the underlying cause of heart attacks , and it can lead to abnormal heart rhythms and sudden death . russian officials did not say mr . yeltsin had suffered a heart_attack , or a myocardial infarct . sometimes doctors must wait a day or two to monitor electrocardiograms and blood tests to determine whether a patient has had a heart_attack . mr . yeltsin is at risk for a heart_attack because he is overweight , eats a rich diet and gets little exercise . in april , a spokesman said he had high_blood_pressure , which , if untreated , can also increase the risk of a heart_attack . before treating myocardial_ischemia , patients in american hospitals often undergo an x_ray procedure known as a coronary angiogram , or arteriogram , in which a radio opaque chemical is injected into a blood_vessel in the groin or arm and flows to the heart to outline the contour of the coronary_arteries . if the damage is limited to a certain area , a patient might undergo an angioplasty , which can relieve angina pain . but the blockage returns in about one third of patients . myocardial_ischemia can change in severity . when it does , it is called unstable angina , and may require a change in therapy . among the many possible explanations for mr . yeltsin 's latest attack of ischemia is a failed angioplasty , if he had one last summer during the previous attack . myocardial_ischemia can also result from spasms of a coronary_artery that is unaffected by atherosclerosis . but spasm is a much less common cause of ischemia than atherosclerosis . among the many other causes are congenital defects . in his autobiography , "" against the grain , "" mr . yeltsin said that as a youth he had collapsed with a heart_rate of 150 when he exerted himself while suffering from tonsillitis . doctors prescribed at least four months of bed rest . he said he had rejected the advice , made a rope from sheets and escaped from the hospital . his doctor later told him his heart was in excellent shape .",has a topic of health
"lead a federal indictment unsealed today accuses 49 people of participating in a drug ring that smuggled millions of counterfeit quaaludes into the united_states from canada over a five year period . a federal indictment unsealed today accuses 49 people of participating in a drug ring that smuggled millions of counterfeit quaaludes into the united_states from canada over a five year period . the authorities said the ring was responsible for distributing 13 . 5 million counterfeit tablets of the hypnotic drug , 70 percent of the illegal trade , throughout the united_states from 1981 to 1986 . the drug sold as quaaludes , the brand name for methaqualone , was actually diazepam , a tranquilizer about six times stronger than valium , the authorities said . each tablet was sold on the street for 6 or 7 , they said . about 70 pounds of cocaine was smuggled into canada as part of the operation , the authorities said . ''since this group was eliminated , there has been the virtual elimination of counterfeit mathaqualone in the united_states , '' said robert j . lehner , the assistant_united_states_attorney who heads the government 's anti drug effort here . quaaludes banned in u.s . the indictment charges the defendants with producing diazepam in laboratories in the province of quebec and transporting the drug in powder form to fort_lauderdale and miami and forming it into tablets to be sold as quaaludes . because of widespread abuse , quaaludes and all methaqualone have been illegal to make or sell in the united_states since 1984 . the announcement of the indictment , handed up by a fort_lauderdale grand_jury in december , was delayed until today to allow for the arrest of some of those named . charged in the indicment were 21 canadians , 25 americans and 3 colombians .",has a topic of health
"valery yermokov 's heart stopped beating as soon as he finished the quart of homemade vodka . a drug addict who could not possibly afford heroin , he had also injected a coarser opiate into his veins . by the time they wheeled him into the semashko emergency hospital in this central russian city , mr . yermokov was all but dead he was breathing once a minute and his skin was cold . the doctors took a look at him and simply shook their heads . but after a few minutes and a last hope shot of adrenaline mr . yermokov opened his wide green eyes and clawed his way back to life . "" this time he made it , "" said valentina m . lyukovikova , 55 , the chief doctor on duty in the hospital poison unit that night . "" next time he wo n't . you can only save people from themselves for a little while . and in russia that 's not very long . "" it would be tempting to conclude that dr . lyukovikova is a cold woman she is quite the opposite . yet working as a doctor in russia_today could turn hippocrates 's heart to stone . the death rates have never been higher in peacetime . curable infectious_diseases like diphtheria and measles have reached epidemic levels unseen since the fall of the czars , and rates of tuberculosis , cancer and heart_disease are higher than in any other industrialized country . it is hard to describe the health of the russian people today without resorting to lists of despair only one child in five is born healthy , according to official statistics , which many experts say understate the problem . since 1992 the average life_expectancy for men has fallen from 62 years to 59 and is still falling as it is for women , though more slowly . the death rate has risen by 20 percent , an increase with no modern precedent . in st . petersburg , the country 's most majestic and sophisticated city , life_expectancy is even lower than the national average . "" we do n't have the medicine , equipment , training or money to deal with any of this , "" said dr . lyukovikova , leaning in the dusty , poorly lit corridor of this hospital against a cot that 10 minutes earlier had contained the body of a 32 year old woman who had just died of alcohol poisoning . the case was like many others in tula , a city with more than 600 , 000 residents , which in most ways is a perfect demographic slice of today 's russia . "" it was never paradise . it was never what they said it should be . but i keep telling myself it ca n't get any worse . and i am always wrong . "" almost half of the 1990 medical_school graduating_class doctors who are practicing throughout russia_today could not even read an electrocardiogram on the day they got their diplomas , according to the russian academy of sciences . on average , in part because many are women and in part because the medical profession has never had much prestige here , doctors earn less money each month than drivers or baby_sitters about 145 . the united_states devotes more than 12 percent of its federal budget to health . in britain the figure is 6 percent . russia has budgeted slightly less than 1 percent this year , about the same as the poorest african nations . last summer , the russian health ministry said that half of the country 's 21 , 000 hospitals had no hot water , a quarter had no sewage systems , and several thousand had no water at all . "" so you have to ask yourself , what is a hospital and what is a doctor , "" said murray feschbach , a demographer at georgetown_university who has monitored the health of the russian population for decades . "" can you just hang a sign on any building in russia and call it a hospital ? is being treated by a doctor any different than not being treated at all ? the statistics are all so depressing it becomes impossible to even mention where this will all end up . "" diagnosis a system crippled by inefficiencies the despair is unavoidable . here in tula , about 100 miles south of moscow , a special deputy health commissioner does nothing but monitor and attempt to counteract the insidious effects of radiation from the chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986 . most of the region is still polluted by the fallout . there is a waiting list to get into a decrepit tuberculosis sanitarium that has neither heat nor hot water . even the finest hospitals rely on rusty hot plates and ancient pots to sterilize instruments in the operating room . although drugs are available , they cost far more than the city , the doctors or almost any patient could afford . in tula , as in russia as a whole , a third of the population is older than 60 . the birth_rate has never been lower . and , as in most russian cities , the hospital system is like the factory system cumbersome , inefficient and tooled for a world that no longer exists . there are far too many doctors ( 5 , 000 ) and hospital beds ( 25 , 000 ) and far too few nurses ( 8 , 500 ) in tula to serve the population effectively . "" the russian health_care system is essentially set up backwards , "" said dr . thomas l . hall , an expert in hospital management and economics from the university of california at san_francisco , who has been advising the government here for the world_health_organization . "" they have thousands of gigantic institutions that serve very few people . money is scarce but it gets wasted on doctors who do n't know what they are doing . people spend too much time in the hospital . there is almost no health prevention , and no economic_planning . "" in the united_states today the average hospital stay is five days . in russia , which has far fewer resources for health_care , it is 23 days . the number of hospital beds per 1 , 000 people , considered one of the truest measures of cost efficiency , is twice as high here as in the united_states . and while there is one doctor for every 450 americans , there is one for every 275 russians . reasonable attempts to teach proper sanitary habits would save thousands of people from serious illness every year , health specialists say . but such programs are extremely rare . russians smoke obsessively . but most doctors here do not even bother to try to keep their patients from smoking . they simply recommend that their patients buy american cigarettes , which are more expensive but lower in tar and nicotine than anything made in russia . dr . hall said that personnel costs should account for about 70 percent of medical spending the rest should go for supplies and equipment . russia puts 95 percent of its resources into salaries , but usually for doctors who are so poorly trained that they are unable to diagnose the simplest ailments . there seems to be no quick way out of the crisis unless the country changes its priorities . russia has no money for health , but under the present system more money would almost certainly be poorly spent . doctors point to a fledgling movement to change the system as the only hope and say they are thrilled that president boris n . yeltsin has just decided to ban liquor and tobacco ads and to require anyone who continues to accept these ads to turn any revenues from them over to public_health officials . "" it sounds trite , but a nation 's health is the main indicator of the social_welfare of any country , "" said dr . yelena i . chernienko , the director of tula 's public_health system . "" we have goods in the shops now and the ability to buy new computers . you can take vacations in europe and buy color_televisions . but who are those things for , i wonder , if we have a life_expectancy of 55 in this country ? we are dying at a rate that is almost impossible to describe . to me that is the most important fact about the possibilities of the new russia . "" prevention top culprits diet and poor hygiene despite the complexity of the health problems russians face , the sources of some of the avoidable illness are easy to trace , and with experience as their guide , it is not surprising that many russians fear and hate doctors and the health_care system . anyone who undergoes any surgical procedure in russia has an even chance of catching an infection in the hospital . in public opinion_polls , most russians list health as a major issue , second only to crime . many big city operating rooms resemble the clinics of rural 19th_century america in significant ways . there is no attempt at infection_control visitors are not even asked to wash their hands . there are no scrub nurses , truly sterile instruments are rare , blood is washed off the hospital floor with a garden hose . the heavy lights in many operating rooms were discarded in the west 30 years ago . prevention is the cheapest and most effective way to treat any illness , but the concept has not gained much currency . few people think about fat or cholesterol . alcohol consumption , already among the highest in the world , is rising rapidly . epidemiologists and environmental_health specialists say improper treatment of two generations of industrial , conventional and radioactive waste has also begun to take a punishing toll on the population . there are few effective health regulations , and nobody really pays attention to those that do exist . health specialists say that some of russia 's health problems could be prevented with relative ease and with little money . an inexpensive vaccine that has long been available could wipe out the country 's diphtheria epidemic , for example . in the united_states , with its population of 255 million , one case of diphtheria was recorded last year by the centers_for_disease_control and prevention . preliminary estimates for russia 's 148 million residents suggest there were nearly 50 , 000 cases , a rate of 31 per 100 , 000 people . in 1993 , russia had 15 , 000 cases of diphtheria . it is not yet clear why rates of infectious_disease have soared so uncontrollably in the last two years . poland , by comparison , recorded only a few cases of diphtheria last year fewer than one resident in a million had the disease . "" our biggest shame is also an opportunity for us , "" said dr . galina m . perfilyeva , dean of russia 's first graduate nursing academy , the i . m . sechenov medical_school in moscow . "" we can make dramatic gains in health with even a little effort . we can use trained nurses better , teach people about vitamins , diet and exercise . this alone would save tens of thousands of lives each year . "" but she acknowledged that "" our mentality in russia is not to protect or prevent . "" "" it has n't been that long that people could even consider the idea of living a life to a natural end , "" she said . "" but if we do n't change soon it will be too late . people will forever believe that faith healers , fake doctors and medicine men are more likely to help them than trained professionals . that feeling makes it impossible to accomplish anything . "" a cure building 'a future worth living for' but health experts say russia could improve conditions . public_health officials no longer live in an enforced communist darkness here . they know what is known in the rest of the world that bad diets , alcohol and tobacco cause more deaths each year than all other causes . the officials are frightened by the rising rates of infectious_diseases , by the health problems of pregnant_women and babies , and by the stunning unwillingness of the society to devote more money to health_care . "" most of what we see here is inexcusable it just should n't happen , "" said evgeny p . ivanov , chief of emergency_medical_services in tula . "" every day people die of alcohol poisoning every day . industrial accidents , too much smoking these are what kill . there is no attempt at moderation . we are trying to change that but it wo n't happen overnight . "" dr . ivanov and many other young physicians are spending their free time these days canvassing neighborhoods and talking to people about the simplest medical facts that washing hands and cleaning bathrooms matter , that alcohol is a poison and homemade alcohol often a deadly drug , that people actually feel better when they eat less . the same attempt at education has begun in moscow , which even has a few billboards dwarfed in number by cigarette and liquor advertisements promoting exercise and healthy food . private think tanks like the public_health research institute in moscow are springing up to make computer models of hospital systems that make sense . confronted with proof that the right way is also the least expensive way , senior officials in the ministry of health are finally taking notice . "" twenty percent of our problems are medical and 80 percent are economic , "" said dr . valery e . tchernayavsky , of the public_health institute , which is financed by the ministry of health and the world_health_organization . "" we have shown people they can succeed cheaply . we are about to go on television with no smoking ads . we are going to talk about sexual behavior and infectious_diseases . one minute at the right moment can do more than a million dollars . "" "" i admit we have a lot of work to do , "" he said , standing next to a computer model of russia 's most basic health needs for the next 30 years , which he worked up on a laptop computer . "" but we are going to do it . these are some bad times people have little confidence in the future . but things can change dramatically for the better as well as for the worse . we are going to convince russians there is a future worth living for and then we are going to show them how to live . """,has a topic of health
"when gerrye and richard zuckerman dreamed of a child , they never envisioned that it would take five months of paperwork , a 5 , 000 mile plane trip to moscow and a train ride 460 miles southeast to a small town on the volga_river to find one . nor did they anticipate that a child born to another couple could bring such joy . all the zuckermans knew was that they wanted a baby . and three years of infertility treatment had not produced one . recently , mrs . zuckerman opened a photo album in the bright , white kitchen of her yorktown home and turned to the last page . it was an album mrs . zuckerman , 46 , and her husband , richard , 52 , prepared as required by an orphanage in saratov , russia . "" we leave this page blank , "" mrs . zuckerman wrote on the last page , "" hoping to fill it with the picture of a child that we will love forever . "" at that moment matthew , who is 2 , dashed in , laughing and chasing the family poodle . he looked up at his mother with flushed cheeks and radiant brown eyes , a beautiful , blond haired , exuberant little boy . "" i look at him , "" mrs . zuckerman said , "" and i ca n't believe it . i see him do these wonderful things , and i wonder what his biological mother would think . i wonder if she 'd be happy to see him and how happy he is today . "" matthew was born with a bilateral cleft palate , a vertical split that extended from his upper lip to the base of his nose . the split continued backward , from behind his gum to the cavity of his nose . he was a russian couple 's first child . matthew had no roof to his mouth and could not breast feed or drink from a bottle . he was immediately fed from a cup and spent the first seven months of his life in a hospital before being sent to an orphanage . if he had not been adopted , he would have been institutionalized . food often came up through his nose . he was malnourished and hungry . because of economic difficulties , russian doctors do n't always have the equipment and installations to perform the operation needed to correct his birth deformity . by offering matthew to someone who could better care for him , his birth parents became saints in the zuckermans' eyes . the zuckermans are typical of many american couples who adopt children today in that they are older and arrive at the adoption procedure wounded by infertility . they let go of their dream of a biological child and ask , simply , for a child , anyone 's child to love . "" people come to me so bruised , so emotionally hurt , "" said lilyan chrappa , executive director of the child and family adoption resource and consultation center in new paltz , which counsels prospective parents . "" they have been holding on to disappointment for so long that when i say , yes they can have a child , they break down . "" ms . chrappa , the mother of two adopted children , performed a home study for the zuckermans . a home study is required for every adoption . a licensed social worker questions the couple in their house . her office works with world child inc . , an international adoption agency based in silver_spring , md . mrs . zuckerman got the idea of adopting from russia after reading a newspaper article about a couple who did it . the zuckermans decided against adopting in the united_states because they were afraid that a young american mother might reject them because of their age or later want her child back . although mrs . zuckerman knows two couples whose first domestic adoptions failed , both couples later succeeded . "" adoption is not easy , "" mrs . zuckerman said . "" infertility is not easy . but it 's not an insurmountable problem either . if you hang in there , it works . "" when mrs . zuckerman flew to moscow to pick up 20 month old matthew in september 1994 , she did not know how to change a diaper . she did not know how to communicate with matthew or console him as he tearfully left the orphanage with her and her husband , two strangers . two weeks after matthew arrived in the united_states , a plastic surgeon , dr . court cutting , performed the first of two operations at new york_university medical center . dr . cutting rebuilt matthew 's face , reconstructing his sunken nose , and repaired his gum and lip . he removed baby teeth that were growing in matthew 's nose . mr . and mrs . zuckerman stood in the medical center during the first operation , "" and the pain and the fright was very real , "" mrs . zuckerman said . "" i wondered how i could love this little guy so much . "" that moment , she finally felt like his mother . mr . zuckerman is a father of two grown children from a previous marriage . "" i feel no difference between matthew and my two other children , "" he said . "" i do n't think of matthew other than as my son . "" mrs . zuckerman said she wonders why she did n't quit her infertility treatments sooner . though doctors offer much hope , the fact is that infertility treatment fails for three out of four couples . mrs . zuckerman said that if she had known then what she knows now , she would never have gone through all the infertility procedures . "" people really need to know that there 's some help elsewhere , "" mrs . zuckerman said . the zuckermans found help through the adoptive parents committee , a support and information group offering monthly meetings and a newsletter titled adoptalk . the yearly adoption conference of the committee will be held on nov . 19 and will feature about 100 adoption workshops at the c . w . post campus of long_island_university in brookville , l.i . adoption , ms . chrappa said , is "" a process that absolutely , bottom line , works . "" the zuckermans want to adopt another russian child , although russian adoptions are currently closed to foreigners , pending a new law . "" everybody 's put on earth to do something , "" mrs . zuckerman said as she watched matthew giggle and play . "" maybe i 've been put on earth to be an ordinary person . not to do anything great , but to do something small that involves great love . "" for more information on adoption , the adoptive parents committee 's hudson region chapter can be reached at 997 7859 .",has a topic of health
"on a recent tuesday morning when women 's health_service no . 15 in central moscow held its regular abortion clinic , the waiting room was empty . of the half dozen cots in the recovery room , only one was filled . masha , a 23 year old mother with sad blue eyes , was the only woman in that day for a ' 'mini , '' or early abortion , which in russia , as once in the soviet_union , is widely available . ten years ago , the waiting room would have been crowded with pregnant_women . but as the birth_rate in russia has plunged , so has the number of abortions from a high of 4.6 million in 1988 to 2.5 million in 1997 . after decades of waiting , russian women finally can explore other means of birth_control . in soviet_times , abortion was the main means of birth_control the rule of thumb was almost two abortions for every live birth . that fact , then hidden from public view , was one of the most shameful aspects of a medical system that routinely neglected its female patients , from birth to death . not only did soviet women die more often in childbirth and undergo more abortions than western women , but they were not even provided with the most elementary sanitary products , let alone easy access to the pill or other reliable contraceptives . with communism 's collapse , birth_control , once a subject that was considered vaguely indecent , became a matter of public discussion . articles appeared in newspapers , gynecologists appeared on television talk_shows but most important , contraceptives , all imported from the west , appeared in pharmacies . in 1993 , the russian health ministry began a family_planning program , opening more than 200 clinics around the country , retraining doctors , midwives and nurses , and providing an eager public with information and advice on sex , pregnancy and birth . the government 's efforts have been amplified by an active network put in place by the russian family planning association and by western pharmaceutical companies . these firms' entry into the untapped russian market has been accompanied by pamphlets , seminars , billboards and heavily discounted special offerings on contraceptives made available through women 's health centers . the results have been noteworthy , particularly against the backdrop of an otherwise crippled health system . abortions , maternal and infant_mortality have all fallen . in 1993 , for every 100 , 000 births in russia , 70 women died during pregnancy or childbirth , while for each 1 , 000 children under one year of age , 19 died in both categories , the rates were roughly three times those in western_european countries . in 1998 , according to preliminary figures , the maternal mortality rate had fallen to 50 per 100 , 000 births and the infant_mortality_rate to 16 . 6 per 1 , 000 infants . both infant and maternal mortality rates are still much higher than those of western_europe . abortions , available without restriction through 12 weeks , and for medical and social reasons up to 22 weeks , still occur at a higher rate than anywhere in europe except romania . attitudes are proving difficult to change . ''abortion in this country had become a normal state of affairs , and there were many women who had five or six without any hesitation , '' said the rev . maksim obukhov , a russian_orthodox priest whose parish has become an anti abortion movement 's headquarters . ''you have to remember that people were raised in an atheist state , where children were taught in biology that an embryo was like a fish . abortion is a tradition , handed down by mothers , even grandmothers . to examine attitudes toward abortion is to examine the vestiges of communism . '' considering that abortion accounts for roughly one third of maternal deaths , the decision by millions of russian women to turn to other means of birth_control has itself saved numerous lives . the number of maternal deaths caused by abortion has dropped dramatically from 349 in 1989 to 154 in 1997 . but some doctors also attribute the improved numbers to the fact that there are fewer mothers and fewer babies . russia 's birth_rate has dropped , from 13 . 4 per 1 , 000 population in 1990 to 8.6 per 1 , 000 in 1997 . ''the fact is that there are far fewer pregnant woman , which means that they are getting much more attention , '' said maya y . yerokhina , chief doctor at women 's health_service no . 15 . at the research center for obstetrics , gynecology and perinatology , dr . vladimir n . serov , the deputy director and chief medical specialist , takes cautious pride in the improved maternity statistics , which , he noted wryly , are the only health indicators in russia to show a positive trend recently . but he worries that russia 's current parlous state threatens even these modest gains . for russian nationalists and their communist allies , the drop in russia 's birth_rate taken with the surge in the death rate is seen as a plot to smother russia in its cradle . for these people , family_planning has become the enemy , despite improved maternal health and reduced abortions . the nationalist argument , backed by the russian_orthodox_church , did win one battle last year , when the russian_parliament voted to block federal funds for family_planning . other money , including some from regional budgets , has been made available to carry on the program , but subsidies for free or discounted contraceptives are drying up . after the financial_crisis last summer , family_planning advocates are watching closely to see if russian couples stop using contraceptives because they cannot afford them . foreign pharmaceutical companies are also concerned , and in some cases have held down prices . ''for instance , we have pills that used to cost 1 . 40 that are now priced at the ruble equivalent of 70 cents , so women who have grown used to our products can continue to use them , '' said aleksandr shlychkov , a gynecology specialist at the german pharmaceutical company schering . a recent study in the central russian region of ivanovo , where the national family_planning_association has an active chapter , indicates that the economic crisis which hit in august when the ruble 's downward plunge began has already taken its toll . sales of birth_control pills , which had crept upward from january to july , began to tumble in august . even before the crisis , doctors and pharmacists discovered a strong resistance to the pill , which many russian women were convinced causes cancer . it is not uncommon for doctors to hear women say that they think abortions are safer than pills and that safest of all are the old folk formulas concocted by their peasant grandmothers . even so , use of birth_control pills here shot up in the 1990 's , as younger women became sexually_active and began using them . in 1990 , only 1.7 percent of russian women in their fertile years took the pill in 1997 , the percentage was 6.8 percent , a surge that family_planning experts call rare , and dramatic . but even with the best of contraceptives , women still get pregnant , which is why masha showed up recently for her second abortion . in a wan voice , she explained her family 's quandary . her first child , a 5 year old boy , suffers from a rare tissue cancer that drains her husband 's salary as a physician 's assistant , and her energy as a mother . at this point , she said softly , a second child was simply out of the question . ''maybe if the financial situation was different , if our child was healthy , but . . '' her voice trailed off as she brushed a lock of hair from her tired face . correction april 1 , 1999 , thursday picture captions on monday about the declining rate of abortion in russia misstated the location of the abortion clinic shown . it is st . petersburg , not moscow .",has a topic of health
"the young man sitting before the psychiatrist stared darkly at the wall and bit his lip to keep from crying . he had answered a dozen questions about his sexual habits and absorbed in silence a lecture about how aids would change his life . ''aleksei , everything now is up to you , '' the psychiatrist , oleg petroshuk , told him gently . ''if you take care of yourself you can live a long time . i know how hard this is , but you have to believe me nothing ends here . '' as if in answer , aleksei stripped to the waist . he has three tattoos , but the one that draws the eye covers his left shoulder . it is a skull engulfed in huge batwings . above the wings two english words have been burned into his skin ''no future . '' few words could apply more fully to aleksei , who is 23 , or to this odd and lonely city , which has suddenly become the center of what many experts say is the world 's fastest moving epidemic of aids infection . kindled by a surge in the use of an easily contaminated liquid form of heroin , the epidemic has been fueled , as anywhere , by poverty and unemployment . but that is not why h.i.v. , the virus that causes aids , is now tearing ''like a forest fire through russia , '' in the words of this country 's chief aids official , mikhail narkevich . while the soviet_union stood , official prudishness combined with totalitarianism to keep borders closed and sexual freedom to a minimum . the aids virus , on the other hand , thrives on drug abuse and the open road . and since the fall of communism , both have been particularly plentiful here , in the vague borderland between europe and russia . kaliningrad is unique , but it is not alone . a special_economic_zone that was supposed to become russia 's hong_kong , it has floundered economically . but its status helped ignite the interlocking epidemics of drug addiction and aids that are now rolling across russia . an isolated outpost lost between poland and lithuania , kaliningrad is one of europe 's essential crossroads . the city called konigsberg before germany lost it to the soviet_army in world_war_ii does n't quite look like russia , and it does n't quite feel like europe . it is a giant warehouse . everything here is cheaper than it is elsewhere in russia . beer and vodka are a third of what they cost in moscow . it is the best place to get smuggled cars and discount narcotics . there are 5 , 000 prostitutes on the streets in kaliningrad , and more in clubs and casinos . the syphilis rate a sign of sexual activity and a harbinger of aids is 3 times the average for russia , and almost 100 times the rate in germany . after more than 15 years of an epidemic that has infected tens of millions of people across the world , there are few places on earth where the h.i.v . infection rate has risen more rapidly . ''all the conditions are there for a disaster , '' said aleksandr gromyko , the world_health_organization 's regional adviser on h.i.v . and aids for europe and russia . ''and nobody is remotely ready for it . the virus has spread so fast in kaliningrad that even the few people who are trying to do something are lost . ''i am afraid we can no longer pretend that russia will somehow avoid the full force of the aids epidemic . what you see in kaliningrad today is only the beginning for russia . '' russia 's pathway for an epidemic kaliningrad has now become the central pathway to russia not just for cars or beer , but for disease as well . a year ago just 28 people here were known to have been infected with the aids virus . as of oct . 15 there were at least 1 , 850 , a far higher proportion in this city of 400 , 000 than anyplace else in europe . from kaliningrad , the truck routes and the epidemic head south through belarus and ukraine and north to st . petersburg . it usually takes years for a person infected with h.i.v . to show clear signs of illness . but it only take minutes , and a quick contaminated dose of narcotics , to become infected at the park near the baltika stadium . ''the thing that surprised me most about kaliningrad , '' said leo kenny , a senior consultant for unicef , ''is that among dozens of drug users and prostitutes we have interviewed , not one had ever even seen a person who was sick . it has all happened that fast . '' he and officials here said that in a small sample of 200 prostitutes who agreed to be tested , 85 percent were infected with h.i.v . a year ago the figure was less than 5 percent . unicef , the united_nations children 's fund , is considering starting a major program here , in part because so many of those affected are in their teens . today , kaliningrad is filled with an odd mixture of fear and complacency . posters suddenly appeared throughout the city this week ''danger aids , '' they read , going on to warn residents that a disease ''worse than plague'' is upon them . like a repetition of the 80 's in the u.s . ''in the last week alone , 30 new cases of this deadly illness have appeared among people between the ages of 18 and 30 , '' the notice states . it then points out that every daughter on the way to a disco is under threat , as is every boy who might choose this as the day to stick a needle into his arm . the poster suggests that if things do not change soon , the only money in the city 's slim health budget will have to be spent on aids . ''think about your children , parents and loved ones , '' it ends . ''do n't die of ignorance . '' but ignorance or perhaps more accurately , denial is the affliction that threatens kaliningrad today more than any other . some people here would call it an ignorance that should never have come to pass . ''today is 1981 in new york or san_francisco , '' said dr . oleg mormot , referring to the dark years when the aids epidemic first took hold in the united_states . dr . mormot is director of kaliningrad 's only aids center , a small nest of offices tucked behind the aging edifice of the city 's ancient infectious_disease hospital . the hospital itself has six h.i.v . patients all it can handle right now . but because methadone use is illegal in russia , the doctors there let them leave their beds and buy narcotics on the street once a day . each time they leave the hospital , they take the virus back onto the street . ''we are repeating the history in those cities as if they never happened anywhere before , '' dr . mormot said . ''as if russia can learn nothing from the west . you cannot convince a young drug addict or prostitute here that they are in danger , because most of them have never seen aids . they have no jobs , and a shot of heroin costs less than 5 . that 's the reality of it . nothing else matters . '' you cannot talk about aids in kaliningrad unless you talk about drug addiction . dirty_needles have always been the most efficient way to spread the aids virus . the way drugs are prepared in kaliningrad has increased the efficiency to a grim science . hymka , a liquid opiate that the addicts often mix with their blood to help it settle , is the drug of choice here . a glassful usually three doses goes for less than 20 . in 1995 the number of people who tested positive for h.i.v . here would not have filled a small classroom . less than 1 percent of them were drug abusers . last year , 20 percent of those infected got that way by using dirty_needles . this year , as in much of russia , the shift has been fundamental . ''the official figures are that 75 percent get infected with h.i.v . through dirty_needles , '' said aleksandr a . dreizin , the chief physician at the regional narcology hospital . ''the real_number is more like 96 percent . the only people here who get aids any other way are prostitutes who have sex with infected drug addicts and children who are born to them . '' dr . dreizin says that there are about 10 , 000 addicts in the city and that many of them by now are probably infected with h.i.v . homosexual intercourse so far has played only a minor role in the spread of h.i.v . here . the reasons for drug use in kaliningrad are not novel . unemployment among the young is close to 50 percent , said irina vershinina , deputy chairman of the city_council . there are few opportunities to advance and few avenues of escape . throughout the day young men with stringy hair and dark jackets exchange what cash they have for their fix in front of the polytechnic institute or one of the local theaters . late at night the prostitutes add their commerce to the mix . there are no needle_exchange_programs . money for prevention and treatment scarce although the local governor , not a political radical by any means , has called for a closer look at legal prostitution and an end to russia 's long prohibition of methadone treatment of drug addicts , neither is likely . there will be just 5 million in the aids budget for the coming four years , and that money includes the construction of a hospital . the idea of spending public_health money on a methadone program for drug users is politically impossible in russia at a time when there is not even money for the most basic programs of childhood vaccinations . ''hey , i know all about aids , '' said yevgeny , 21 , a computer student at the technical institute who spoke on condition that his full name not be used . ''i do n't use drugs much . but when i do , i do n't buy the gypsy drugs . '' most people here attribute the habit of mixing blood with the opiates to gypsies although there seems to be no truth to the idea . ''i buy it clean , '' yevgeny said , ''and i buy clean_needles . so i 'll be o.k . i do n't do it that much , anyway . '' oddly enough , the official who appears to recognize most clearly what kaliningrad is up against , and is the most eager to do something about it , is valery a . zaborovsky , a colonel in the russian interior_ministry who overseas the region 's prison system . the head of the regional health department , larisa melchenko , refused in an interview to discuss any aspect of the aids epidemic or divulge the regional health budget . ''do you give out such information in the west ? '' she asked , seemingly unaware that such information is given out readily in moscow . but colonel zaborovsky answered every question put to him and granted a reporter and photographer total access to a special prison ward for people infected with the aids virus . ''what are we going to get from lying and hiding here ? '' the colonel asked . unlike most of his colleagues across russia , he believes in making prostitution legal , opening methadone clinics and maybe even closing the aids ward at special prison 216 . that is the locked quarters where 117 h.i.v . infected men , all drug abusers , are kept in isolation from other prisoners . their gray barracks looks like any other but comes at the end of a long row of prison housing not far from the city . the first four dorms have wooden picket fences in front of them and prisoners strolling aimlessly in the yards . the last dorm is hidden behind a locked concrete gate . ''we put these men in prison because it is against the law to use drugs , '' colonel zaborovsky said . ''i am not going to tell you that it helps them or us to have them there , but i must obey the law . '' he said the isolation ward was a protection for the inmates those who are infected and those who are not . rape is at least as common in the russian prison system as it is in the united_states . the ward itself is depressing , but no more so than its neighbors . hot water is rare , medical treatment more so . most of the men are in their early 20 's . they want aid , hospital rooms and fancy new drugs that next to no one in russia can afford . ''i have a deadly disease , '' said one young inmate with burning blue eyes who insisted on being identified only by his prison number , 738437 . ''i 'm going to die here because i made a few mistakes . is that fair ? should n't i get a better break than that ? '' about an hour earlier , colonel zaborovsky made the same point . ''what we have now is a huge problem we are facing with a system that does n't work and is n't fair , '' he said . ''if we lock up every person who gets infected from drugs here , we surely are going to need a lot of prisons . they cost money too , you know . ''",has a topic of health
"''as you ramble on through life , brother , '' goes advice on coffee shop walls , ''whatever be your goal keep your eye upon the doughnut and not upon the hole . '' that wisdom is at the heart of the compromise that may be struck in a congressional conference on a low premium prescription_drug benefit for people over 65 . in the first bite of the doughnut , a senior would pay only one fourth of his drug costs up to about 2 , 000 . then comes the hole the next 2 , 000 or so of costs is n't covered at all . but then the doughnut gets delicious the senior pays only 5 percent of all costs above that . only the poor would get a free ride , but nobody would be wiped out by the cost of catastrophic illness . other issues are yet to be resolved conservatives ( uncharacteristically ) want high income seniors to pay higher premiums , and liberals ( typically ) do n't want private insurers competing with the government , offering the elderly a choice . what bothers me in this healthy dickering is the move to encourage americans including governors and mayors who should know better to buy u.s . drugs at half price or less in canada and overseas where there are government controls on prices . the price of most new prescription_drugs is high in the u.s . mainly because it includes the producers' huge investment in scientific research . in canada , the government strips out the cost of such research and imposes a low price ceiling . shortsightedly , our pharmaceutical companies have meekly or greedily gone along with this foreign rip off , picking up extra sales on a research investment already made . but this foolish acceptance of foreign price_controls means that the u.s . consumer is subsidizing the foreign consumer . not being dopes , pursuing their economic interest , american bargain_hunters are now buying these drugs where they are sold cheaply outside the u.s . to counter this trend , our federal officials have been warning that imported drugs may be counterfeit or conflict with other drugs . that may scare some buyers , but most will take their chances . in reality , what with an open border and the internet , sales will go to the cheapest seller . more americans will join canadians in buying drugs that do not support the cost of research into new drugs . thus has phanny pharma outsmarted itself . by willingly cutting its prices to sell into price controlled economies , not only has it invited american buyers to go where the bargains are , but it has also invited u.s . politicians to call for foreign prices on products bought by u.s . state and local_governments . and there go billions in private capital and earnings needed for costly research into new cures and treatments . how do we stop our subsidy to foreigners that cannibalizes our home market ? no new federal laws are needed to deal with this economic inequity our drug marketers should just apply the irrevocable law of supply and demand . the tough minded approach raise overseas sales prices to include the cost of research ( which should lower prices here somewhat ) . if the canadian government says no , let canadians who want our products buy direct from the u.s . via internet or mail at the price that pays for research , as americans do . if canada forbids that , let its legislators answer to citizens who want prescriptions filled . the tenderhearted approach our drug companies can accurately estimate the current canadian only prescription demand in canada or elsewhere . they should restrict supply of those products at low prices to that level . when american purchasers compete with canadians for that limited supply , price_controls will come under pressure . canada can then impose rationing , always unpopular in peacetime or tolerate black markets or lift its controls until u.s . bargain_hunters see no purpose in competing with canadian buyers . history continually teaches us that free_markets work best . government price_controls discourage production and competition , create shortages and breed corruption . that 's the lesson we 're trying to teach iraqis why ca n't the pharmaceutical houses as well as house and senate conferees working to combine a costly new drug benefit with reform of medicare grasp that lesson at home ? in this , the doughnut is research driven innovation the hole is controls . as you ramble on through life , brother . . . op_ed columnist e mail safire nytimes . com",has a topic of health
"after three months , only a handful of spectators gather daily in the large pink colored courtroom , and the caged defendant is usually led out after a few minutes . but even the monotonous drone of the legal routine oozes unspeakable horror . on trial in courtroom no . 5 of the rostov oblast court is andrei chikatilo , a nondescript 56 year old clerk who is accused of slaughtering , mutilating and cannibalizing at least 53 young men and women over a dozen years . it has been billed the "" trial of the century "" in this southern port city on the don river , but more for the awesome magnitude of the crimes than for the drama of the proceedings . legally there is little suspense mr . chikatilo has confessed to all but six of the known killings and has added three , and he has been declared fit to stand trial . but russian legal procedures require the court to review every case , which fill 222 tall red volumes locked in large lockers in the cramped office of the presiding judge , leonid akubzhanov . at the current pace , the trial should end in august , and the sentence , almost certainly death , could be pronounced by mid september . how the day goes on this hot summer day the drill is much as it is every day . at 10 a.m. , mr . chikatilo is driven in from a k.g.b . holding cell in an olive drab van . at 10 30 a.m . he is led up an internal staircase by five internal ministry guards armed with sidearms and staves , and he is locked into an iron cage on the judge 's left . tall , slouched , with large glasses , unkempt hair and mustache , he looks like any of the countless other underpaid , middle_aged clerks plodding the streets . his shirt is decorated with faded emblems of the 1980 moscow olympic_games , his pants are rumpled , he wears no socks . mr . chikatilo , who is of ukrainian origin , was once a teacher , but was dismissed for making advances to a female student . his last job was as an apparatchik in a factory . he remains handcuffed and sways back and forth on his bench , yawning repeatedly . the guards array themselves around his cage , two facing him and three the public benches . on the opening day of the trial in april , distraught and screaming relatives hurled themselves at the cordon of police officers and soldiers around the cage , while from behind his bars mr . chikatilo brandished a color newspaper with the picture of a nude woman , shouting that it was this that brought him down . medics stood by to carry out people who fainted in the packed courtroom as the terribly detailed charges were read out . after a few weeks the relatives went back to work , and for a while the trial assumed something resembling a routine . but about a month ago , according to judge akudzhanov , mr . chikatilo began acting up . some bizarre demands at first be would curse the judge and the clerk , refusing to be quiet . then he began to make bizarre demands , insisting that he was pregnant and that his breasts were filling with milk , or that the ukrainian nationalist organization rukh had found him a new lawyer . one day he stripped_naked and waved his shirt over his head , shouting , "" under this banner i battled the assyrian mafia ! "" psychiatrists from serbsky institute in moscow were flown down , but they reiterated their initial finding that he was capable of standing trial . around the courtroom , some suspected mr . chikatilo was simulating he had little to lose now , since the death_penalty was a virtual certainty . but the man who led the 12 year hunt for the killer , viktor v . burakov , the chief of the section for serious sexual crimes in the rostov criminal investigation bureau , had a more frightening suspicion . "" i believe he is really sick , "" he said . "" he seems to be in the same extreme condition , extreme agitation , in which he would commit his crimes . he needs release . if released now , i 'm sure he would commit a crime . "" in any case , a new routine has taken hold . as soon as the judge calls the court to order , mr . chikatilo begins muttering complaints . where is the ukrainian lawyer ? where are his witnesses ? repeatedly , almost routinely , the judge orders him to sit and be quiet , and after exactly five minutes mr . chikatilo is once again ejected from the courtroom and led to the basement holding cell . the roll of victims flanked by the two "" people 's assessors "" who will join him in passing judgment , judge akubzhanov then opens the next huge red volume on his desk . one by one he names the victims and enters a few details into the record . dima ptashnikov , makarov , petrov , zobata , sasha chepil , pokhmestova , sasha gudko , igor ilarionov , diakon . . . the names roll out , each a young person who at a fateful moment chose to follow a nondescript stranger out of some decrepit terminal . most were drifters , lured by the prospect of a fast ruble , a free meal , a ride somewhere . a few were decent youths , persuaded that the lanky man needed some favor , or that he could give them a lift where they were going . the only relative who never misses a session is vladimir kulibatsky , a slight , 35 year old laborer whose 17 year old sister , lyudmila alekseyeva , fell in mr . chikatilo 's clutches on aug . 7 , 1984 , after trying to visit her brother . mr . kulibatsky sits quietly , a disturbed man for whom his sister was the closest friend he had . whoever they were , wherever they chose to follow mr . chikatilo , the end was terribly similar . in some isolated , wooded spot , he would suddenly pounce with with a madman 's violent strength , savaging his victims with his knife , his hands and his teeth until his terrible needs were satisfied . his crimes remembered in his testimony , mr . chikatilo described himself as a "" poisoned wolf . "" he asserted that he never planned to kill , but that he would be seized with shaking and shivering and would lose control . haunting details emerge as the judge reads on . from mr . chikatilo 's testimony "" the boy bit the finger of my right hand . i remember him well . "" mr . chikatilo remembered his crimes well . he detailed three more killings , though the police have been unable to find enough corroboration to confirm them . more important for mr . burakov , the detective for whom the hunt for the serial_killer became an obsession , was a killing mr . chikatilo denied . she was a young woman for whose rape and murder another man was tried and executed . when the killings continued , the suspicion spread that an innocent man had been shot , but now , mr . burakov said , that seems less likely . the killings began in 1978 , when mr . chikatilo was 42 , and they reached their most terrible proportions in 1984 . eight bodies were found in august 1984 alone . most of the killings were in rostov , but chikatilo also killed in leningrad , moscow and five other cities from ukraine to uzbekistan . the manhunt swelled into one of the biggest in soviet history 55 officers and experts worked full time on the case , and mr . burakov filled a filing cabinet with 25 , 000 names of potential suspects . judge is 'wrung out' mr . chikatilo was actually picked up by the police in 1984 , but despite considerable evidence against him , a botch up in blood typing forced the police to set him free . he was arrested finally on nov . 20 , 1990 , after he was spotted in the vicinity of a killing . the day 's session winds up , and judge akubzhanov is back in his tiny office , munching on a sandwich from his briefcase and staring into the distance . "" you see , i 'm wrung out , and this was an easy day , "" he said . "" there 's never been such a case in russian jurisprudence . i 'm 41 , i 've been a judge 15 years and i get all the worst crimes . but the worst i 've had to date is a man who killed four girls . """,has a topic of health
"president_bush and president vladimir_putin of russia will have much to discuss when they sit down in st . petersburg today iraq , terrorism , nuclear_arsenals , nato expansion . it is vital , however , that they also address russia 's mounting health crisis . as mr . putin has pointed out in two of his four state of the union messages , russia faces shocking demographic trends . for every 10 babies born , 17 russians die . the government predicts that the population will decrease 30 percent to 40 percent by 2050 . and even these dismal figures may be too optimistic , as they are based on western_european models of public_health and not the russian reality of widespread substance_abuse and tuberculosis and pending aids epidemics . although russia 's h.i.v . problem , for example , does n't now compare to a country like botswana with its 20 percent infection rate , we are seeing some cities with 5 percent of adult men infected , meaning cases in women will soon rise and the country may well follow the african pattern . how bad are things ? take a look at a few statistics and projections from the russian government , international health groups and russian experts population . today 145 million . 2050 estimate 101 million . fertility . today 1 . 25 children per woman . 2050 estimate 1.6 to 1 . 75 per woman . ( 2 . 15 children per woman are needed to maintain a population . ) h.i.v . cases . today the official russian figure is 240 , 000 the united_nations aids organization estimates 750 , 000 to 1.2 million . 2020 estimate 5.3 million to 14 . 5 million . aids deaths . total to date 593 . 2010 estimate 72 , 000 to 120 , 000 each year . 2020 estimate 252 , 000 to 648 , 000 each year . deaths by alcohol poisoning . 1991 16 , 100 . 2001 41 , 100 . tuberculosis cases . today the official russian estimate is 135 , 000 the world_health_organization estimates 196 , 000 . tuberculosis deaths in 2001 . russia 29 , 000 . united_states 781 . heart_disease ( deaths per 100 , 000 people in 2001 ) . russia 893 . united_states 352 . current life_expectancy . russian men average 58 . 2 years , women 72 years . american men average 74 years , women 79 years . odds that a man will live to age 60 . russia 55 percent . united_states 88 percent . president_bush 's 15 billion aids package for africa and the caribbean is welcome , but americans should recognize that the difficulties russia faces may be almost as great . and the russian deterioration may come with greater consequences . epidemics invite chaos , and that 's the last thing we want in a struggling democracy with huge arsenals of nuclear , chemical and biological_weapons . how can we help ? russia needs money and outside experts to analyze its problems , educate officials and train health workers . england , japan and the scandinavian countries have been assisting as well , and could do more . by 2020 , the russian aids program will need 28 . 5 billion for medications alone . of course , this aid could be made contingent on russia being more accurate and forthcoming with its health statistics china 's sars cover up was a warning of how important transparency on diseases is in our interconnected world . the bush_administration is certainly aware of russia 's condition secretary of state colin_powell repeatedly brought up russia 's skyrocketing aids rates with officials in moscow earlier this month . at today 's summit meeting , mr . bush can start turning that concern into a commitment . murray feshbach , a senior scholar at the woodrow wilson international center for scholars , is author of ''russia 's health and demographic crises . ''",has a topic of health
"he tells them of the abuse he endured in a residential school and in foster_homes in alberta , how at age 13 he was raped by a man in an edmonton motel , of the rage that drove him to alcohol , drugs and petty crime as a member of an edmonton street_gang and finally of his fight against aids . ken ward , 37 , an enoch cree from northern_alberta , was the first indian in canada to declare publicly that he had tested positive for the human_immunodeficiency_virus , which causes aids . the diagnosis was made on dec . 29 , 1989 , and he went public three months later . "" i went into shock , "" he said . "" i was scared . i was ashamed . i cried for hours . and then i felt a need to talk , to warn others , to initiate others to come forward and somehow deal with this black cloud over our people . "" canada 's native leaders have begun warning that aids is reaching epidemic proportions in their communities , and people like mr . ward are returning home to try to spread the message . to dr . jay wortman , an aids consultant for canada 's health ministry , the disease has reached a_level in the native community that is comparable to "" the crisis situation experienced by the homosexual population a few years ago . "" last january , the statistics showed only 93 cases among the one million natives out of more than 9 , 000 cases in an overall population of 27 . 4 million . but health officials believe that many other cases among natives are undiagnosed or unreported . "" natives are reluctant to talk about sex and sexuality , "" said david des jardins , executive director of the feather of hope aboriginal aids prevention society of edmonton and calgary . "" it brings up old wounds since many were abused sexually as children , "" a problem experts say stems in part from living in close quarters under difficult conditions . another problem is the low self_esteem many indians suffer when forced to live hand to mouth in bigger towns and cities . this leads many to get caught up in drugs and alcohol , said james dempsey , director of the school of native studies of the university of alberta in edmonton and a member of the blood tribe of the blackfoot confederacy . "" they are between two worlds and ca n't handle it , "" said mr . des jardins , a social worker in edmonton for 15 years who is part cree . a strong disapproval of homosexuality in the native community makes it difficult for many to come forward , whether or not they contracted the disease from a homosexual relationship . in a poll last year on 11 ontario reservations , 80 percent of respondents said they considered sex between two men wrong . the poll also disclosed a disquieting level of unsafe sexual practices and ignorance about the disease . "" at first when i was diagnosed i told everyone i had to go away because i had cancer , "" mr . ward said . "" i knew if i said i had cancer , it would be o.k. "" he said he had contracted the virus from intravenous drug use . mr . ward , who was sent to a group residence because his family was too poor to support its 12 children , said he turned to gang life after abuse there . on a cold , snowy evening visit to the whitecap reservation about 30 miles south of saskatoon , home to about 150 members of the dakota sioux tribe , he told his audience about his experience after he checked himself into an aids hospice in edmonton . "" it was a house with an awful lot of very skinny people , as if they were all on a diet , "" he said . "" i saw a man on a bed listening to music with some of those funny wires in his ears . he seemed very happy . he was bouncing on the bed going 'la dee da , la dee da . ' his name was randall and he was from new york . "" three weeks later i was having my breakfast when i saw them bring randall out on a stretcher in a body bag . that 's where they put them when they die . i got very scared . i ran away from there . i was sick again . i said to myself welcome to the world of aids . "" mr . ward said he had given up drugs and alcohol and returned to his cree roots . he stopped taking azt , a drug that delays the onset of aids , and has not yet had symptoms of full blown aids . he uses traditional medicines , takes part in purifying sweat lodge ceremonies and healing circles , wears a necklace of sweet grass and seeks strength from the cree elders and customs . as he finished speaking at the recent meeting , four young men rose and set up a drum . they beat out a tribal chant as an offer of thanks . one of the young men , thomas bear , 14 , who goes to nutana high_school in saskatoon , said he found the two hour talk "" very good , "" and added , "" we 're warned a lot about aids and do n't fool around . "" mr . ward fingered the necklace of bear claws that he wears above the sweet grass . he appeared on the verge of tears as he prepared to go to his car outside in the snow . "" i try to do the best i can , "" he said . "" i try to show there is hope . """,has a topic of health
"parliament voted to allow the export of inexpensive copies of some patented drugs to poor countries facing health crises . the law allows generic_drug makers in canada to override some patents and produce versions of 56 brand name drugs for use in places like africa , where many aids sufferers cannot afford them . the majority of the drugs included in the new law are used to treat h.i.v . and aids , malaria and tuberculosis . colin_campbell ( nyt )",has a topic of health
"prime_minister viktor s . chernomyrdin flew today to the black_sea resort of sochi to meet with president boris n . yeltsin for what the official russian news_agency itar_tass described as "" important and difficult "" talks . the meeting , shown tonight on the evening news , came after a weekend of rumors that had raised questions not only about mr . yeltsin 's physical and political health , but also about his whereabouts . the president flew to sochi for a two week working vacation on march 14 . aleksandr n . yakovlev , chief of russian broadcasting , told an italian newspaper last friday that mr . yeltsin had returned to moscow . today , mr . yakovlev said he had been mistaken . "" he intended to come , but did n't , "" mr . yakovlev said through a spokesman . a report about a supposed conspiracy against mr . yeltsin , published in a russian newspaper on friday , gave an added twist to the rumors . analyzed in detail on the influential sunday television news program itogi , the report was dismissed as a fake by several of the supposed conspirators , including mayor yuri m . luzhkov of moscow . acting procurator general aleksei ilyushenko , whose job is roughly equivalent to that of the attorney_general in the united_states , began an investigation today into the document at the request of one of the figures named in it , deputy vice prime_minister oleg n . soskovets . the report asserted that a group of leading political figures had been plotting to declare mr . yeltsin physically unfit to rule , and to begin procedures to transfer power to mr . chernomyrdin . although the report was been widely dismissed , political analysts here were interpreting its publication as an attempt to sow mistrust in the top echelons of power , and to create a tension in the capital at a time when the russian leader once again was absent . describing this incident as "" an ordinary political provocation , "" the daily newspaper izvestia , which is generally strongly pro yeltsin , tonight criticized the president 's increasingly secretive and defensive style of leadership . discussion of reasons banned "" nervous commotion begins when the president is either absent or is not politically active , "" the newspaper said . "" it is not a secret that the president especially in recent months found himself in the 'shadows' more often that the situation in the country demands . any discussion about the reasons for this have been a banned topic in the mass_media , and such discussions were declared non patriotic . "" even the official news_agency itar_tass tonight underscored the poor timing of mr . yeltsin 's vacation , with a daunting list of untended business as reported by the press "" the opposition has stepped up political activity , the international_monetary_fund announced it was wary about extending a promised loan to russia , new customs tariffs were upsetting both suppliers and consumers alike , strikes continue , the elections in the regions ran amok "" and finally , "" yeltsin 's health was allegedly worsening to a degree making another 'palace coup' possible . """,has a topic of health
"the russian mr . right is 30 , sexually_active but monogamous . he is healthy and does not smoke or drink . and he has two children . this is the ideal for anonymous sperm donors set by russia 's largest private infertility clinic . such a man is hard to find . there are plenty of russian men who have fathered two children . but the dearth of men who neither smoke nor drink nor sleep around is not only something russian women have complained about for generations , it is now the lament of russian infertility specialists . "" we do n't get volunteers , "" said dr . valery m . zdanovsky , director of the center , eko , which opened five years ago . "" we pay all our donors , and we never have enough . "" the clinic , which pays donors about 15 , screens them for venereal disease and aids . smoking and drinking are mostly taken for granted . patients' husbands and clinic employees are often pressed into service . clinics like eko are facing a rising tide of infertile women . most are married , but in the last few years , there have been more and more single , older women who want a baby and prefer an anonymous donor . they are ready to pay for treatments ranging from artificial_insemination to in vitro fertilization , techniques that until recently were little known in russia and socially taboo . there are only 12 such fertility clinics in a country of 150 million , and demand is growing almost as fast as the russian birth_rate is declining . taboos are fading , but not as quickly . dr . zdanovsky said that his clinic treated more than 2 , 500 patients a year and that its success rate was close to 25 percent , the same as in europe and the united_states . but he added that he could not be sure of the figures , because so many of the clinic 's patients , particularly those from the provinces , receive the treatments , go home and , desperate to keep their mission a secret , never call in again . but some women are becoming more open about their quest . "" i want a baby more than anything in the world , "" said antonina sokhach , 37 , a social scientist from chita , siberia , who was at the clinic for her fourth attempt at in vitro fertilization . she grew tearful talking about it . "" all my money and strength are going to this , "" she said . she said her husband , an aeroflot pilot , left her after she became pregnant during her last treatment and miscarried after eight weeks . she seemed sanguine about joining the huge ranks of russian single mothers , saying with a shrug , "" men are much weaker than women . "" if she becomes pregnant , she said , she plans to move from siberia to her native ukraine , where her mother and sister will help her raise the child . "" i do n't want to know who the donor is , but i 'm not worried , "" mrs . sokhach said with a smile . "" the male genes alone do not determine the character of a child . "" mrs . sokhach said she was not sure what had made her infertile , but blamed the winters . "" i lived in western_siberia for 10 years , "" she said . "" i think the cold prevented me from getting pregnant . "" one of her doctors , aleksandr s . dogobetsky , said it was more likely that she suffered from pelvic inflammation , a result of two abortions . dr . zdanovsky said one of the major causes of infertility in russia was scarring caused by abortion , which is still one of the most common methods of birth_control here . some women have had as many as nine . in 1992 in moscow , official statistics estimated that there were 300 abortions for every 100 live births . there are no reliable statistics on infertility in russia , but the birth_rate , 1.4 million babies in 1993 , is down a whopping 44 percent from 1983 . for several generations , economic circumstances have forced russian women to have small families , often only one child . now women in their late 30 's and 40 's are looking to new technologies for their last hope of a second child . "" my daughter is 22 , and i was 18 when she was born , "" said a 40 year old woman who quit working two years ago to be a housewife to her newly successful husband , a banker . "" i want a second chance . "" treatment in russia is not as expensive as in the west eko charges about 600 for artificial_insemination , and in vitro is about 4 , 000 but it is too costly for the average russian . eko 's waiting room was filled mostly with well groomed professionals , but dr . zdanovksy said the clinic offered free treatment to widows , mothers of sons killed in combat and women who lost a child under the age of 16 . almost all the medical equipment is made in the west . but the clinic has retained a russian sense of privacy . there is one examining room with four beds with stirrups . sperm donors make their contribution in an unlocked closet sized room with fading nude pinups for company . there are other things that might appear jarring in the west . dr . zdanovsky explained that when husbands are discovered to have a deficiency , they are invited to bring their brothers and cousins to provide sperm for artificial_insemination of their in law . "" if the husband wishes , we do it without telling the wife that it is not her husband 's sperm , "" he said . "" we do n't deceive her , really , because genetically , it is just like his sperm . "" but he said he would never give a patient artificial_insemination without informing the husband . "" that , "" he said gravely , "" would be lying . """,has a topic of health
"the "" myocardial_ischemia "" that sent president boris n . yeltsin to the hospital yesterday for the second time in three months is a common , serious heart condition that affects millions of people around the world . myocardial_ischemia describes a lack of oxygen rich blood to meet the heart 's needs to pump blood . such ischemia usually produces the chest_pains of angina , although aides to mr . yeltsin , who is 64 , did not use the word angina . ischemia ( pronounced iss kee mee ya ) can occur anywhere in the body . it is described by its anatomical location , and examples include abdominal ischemia or the transient ischemic attack that can signal a stroke . aides said mr . yeltsin 's ischemia was caused by heart_disease . but the information that russian officials released yesterday about mr . yeltsin 's diagnosis and condition was skimpy , as it was in the four weeks this summer when the president was treated for myocardial_ischemia . until his doctors provide "" a final diagnosis , "" expected today , doctors in the united_states said the details were too sketchy to assess the seriousness of his condition and the treatment options . among such options are drugs to relieve pain or to reduce the risk of blood_clots , coronary_bypass surgery , and more minimally invasive procedures like angioplasty , a procedure in which a balloon tipped tube is threaded through an artery in the groin or arm to remove the blockage . a puzzle in the information provided so far was a statement from mr . yeltsin 's closest aide , viktor v . ilyushin , who said , "" an operation is out of the question . "" the statement left unsaid whether the reason is that mr . yeltsin 's heart condition is not amenable to surgical treatment , that he has another medical condition that precludes major surgery , or that political considerations are at work . myocardial_ischemia is generally serious because it usually indicates blockage in one or more of the coronary_arteries that nourish the heart . the blockage is generally due to a buildup of fat deposits from a process known as atherosclerosis . atherosclerosis is believed to be the underlying cause of heart attacks , and it can lead to abnormal heart rhythms and sudden death . russian officials did not say mr . yeltsin had suffered a heart_attack , or a myocardial infarct . sometimes doctors must wait a day or two to monitor electrocardiograms and blood tests to determine whether a patient has had a heart_attack . mr . yeltsin is at risk for a heart_attack because he is overweight , eats a rich diet and gets little exercise . in april , a spokesman said he had high_blood_pressure , which , if untreated , can also increase the risk of a heart_attack . before treating myocardial_ischemia , patients in american hospitals often undergo an x_ray procedure known as a coronary angiogram , or arteriogram , in which a radio opaque chemical is injected into a blood_vessel in the groin or arm and flows to the heart to outline the contour of the coronary_arteries . if the damage is limited to a certain area , a patient might undergo an angioplasty , which can relieve angina pain . but the blockage returns in about one third of patients . myocardial_ischemia can change in severity . when it does , it is called unstable angina , and may require a change in therapy . among the many possible explanations for mr . yeltsin 's latest attack of ischemia is a failed angioplasty , if he had one last summer during the previous attack . myocardial_ischemia can also result from spasms of a coronary_artery that is unaffected by atherosclerosis . but spasm is a much less common cause of ischemia than atherosclerosis . among the many other causes are congenital defects . in his autobiography , "" against the grain , "" mr . yeltsin said that as a youth he had collapsed with a heart_rate of 150 when he exerted himself while suffering from tonsillitis . doctors prescribed at least four months of bed rest . he said he had rejected the advice , made a rope from sheets and escaped from the hospital . his doctor later told him his heart was in excellent shape .",has a topic of health
"patients at a second nursing home in the vancouver area do not appear to have a sars like illness that affected another nearby nursing home , a canadian health official said yesterday . on wednesday a british_columbia health official said they were investigating whether the two outbreaks were linked , but yesterday a regional health official discounted it . ''there is no relationship that we can see'' between any illness in the two homes , said dr . roland guasparini , chief medical health officer of the fraser health authority near vancouver . about 9 of about 100 residents of the second nursing home contracted a mild upper respiratory infection producing runny noses , coughs and no fever . health officials have not disclosed the home 's name . at the other home , kinsmen place lodge in the vancouver suburb of surrey , 143 residents and health workers have developed a mild respiratory_illness since july 1 . some have developed pneumonia . that outbreak is subsiding , dr . guasparini said .",has a topic of health
"lead a top soviet health official today described in detail the extraordinary story of how the aids virus spread through one hospital 's pediatric unit and then leaped to a hospital in another city . a top soviet health official today described in detail the extraordinary story of how the aids virus spread through one hospital 's pediatric unit and then leaped to a hospital in another city . at least 51 people were infected in the first city and 22 in the second , the health official , dr . vladimir pokrovsky , told a scientific meeting here . the virus spread among the children when nurses used the same syringe to give injections to several patients in a break of standard technique in both hospitals , said dr . pokrovsky , who is president of the russian academy of medical sciences . dr . jonathan mann , who heads the world_health_organization 's global aids program , said the russian outbreaks were ''of great importance because they were the last place in the world where one would expect an outbreak'' in children . without giving specific figures , dr . pokrovsky said that money to control aids in the soviet_union was being cut while the number of infections , although small , has been tripling each year for the last three years . he said the armenian earthquake , the chernobyl nuclear disaster and other emergencies forced the cut in the aids budget . slides left behind illustrating the low priority given aids , dr . pokrovsy said that other members of the soviet scientific delegation headed for two aids conferences here had been bumped from a flight to make room for a dance troupe and were stranded in moscow . he said he was delayed on his way to the meeting today sponsored by the american_medical_association and the canadian medical association . he will also attend the fifth international meeting on aids that begins here sunday . dr . pokrovsky , speaking through a translator , said that he could not show slides of data illustrating how the aids virus had spread in the two cities because they were left in moscow . he said that 400 laboratories in his country have performed more than 30 million tests for the aids virus detecting 258 infected soviet citizens and an additional 464 infected foreigners living in the soviet_union . most of the infected foreigners have been deported to their native country , dr . pokrovsky said . he said that health workers are trying to trace the spread of each infection . he said that a russian homosexual who became infected in africa was the first soviet case . his case was detected in march 1986 . he spread the virus to six other men through sex . they spread the virus to 11 other homosexuals and , through a blood_transfusion , to one other person , the doctor said . dr . pokrovsky said that tests were offered soviet citizens on an anonymous basis by a network of 200 doctors' offices throughout the country , including 3 in moscow . some tests mandated dr . pokrovsky said the soviet_government has required testing for criminal prisoners , female prostitutes and patients suspected of having aids . also , tests are required of foreigners coming from africa and other areas where infection is common if they stay three months or longer in the soviet_union as well as of soviet citizens who travel abroad for three months or longer . people who knowingly spread the virus through blood transfusions face prison terms of up to eight years , he said . dr . pokrovsky said that children were an unusually large percentage of infections in the soviet_union because of the hospital outbreaks in elista , between the black and caspian seas , and volgograd , a city to the north . dr . mann said his world_health_organization unit had confirmed most of the details of a thorough soviet epidemiological investigation of the spread of the infection . soviet and who officials now believe the pediatric epidemics can be traced to a soviet man who was infected in guinea in 1981 and who infected his wife on his return in 1982 . she in turn infected their baby who was born several years later . that infant became sick and was treated in a hospital in elista . months of inquiry however dr . pokrovsky said that it took months for a scientific team headed by his son to trace the pattern of spread . the epidemic came to light a few months ago when several infants were found to be infected in the elista hospital . the investigators were puzzled when they found that none of the parents of these children or any other family members were infected . tests on 16 , 500 other people in the area were negative . one woman who donated blood was found to be infected and an epidemiologist discovered that the woman 's son had died after treatment in the same hospital in elista . they found that her husband , the dead baby 's father , also was infected . in studying the epidemic , the scientists found about eight mothers who they said had become infected through their children . breast_feeding is common in the area through age 2 . some infants believed to have been infected in the hospital bled from sores in their mouth and are believed to have infected their mothers through cracks in their nipples while breast_feeding . new outbreak discovered epidemiologists recently discovered that a new outbreak had occurred in volgograd after one of the sick infants in elista had been transferred to a hospital there , dr . pokrovsky said . the children range in age from several months to 9 years . ''history repeated itself , '' he said , indicating that once again nurses used the same syringe to give injections to several sick children . in the soviet_union , as elsewhere , standard medical care is to use a single sterile needle and syringe for each injection to each patient . but because of industrial problems , there has been a shortage of syringes in the soviet_union , he said . soviet health officials have since told medical workers not to use the same syringe or needle on more than one patient , dr . pokrovsky said . but he said he had ''every fear that health workers will discover more infected children . ''",has a topic of health
"thousands of canadians who contracted the aids virus and hepatitis c from contaminated_blood in one of the worst public_health disasters in canadian history should be compensated without having to file lawsuits , according to a federal inquiry released today . after several years of study , the report by justice horace krever blames the system for the tainted_blood and blood products administered in the early 1980 's . while it singles out no one , the report sharply criticizes federal health officials for delays in using methods to screen donated blood sooner . more than 1 , 000 people in canada were infected with h.i.v. , the virus that causes aids , through the blood supply and unknowingly infected others . by the early 1990 's , several hundred of the people who developed aids had died . tens of thousands were infected with hepatitis c , which can develop into a form that sometimes proves fatal . ultimately , more than 3 , 000 canadians are expected to die as a result of the tainted_blood . the canadian red cross society , which played a central role in the nation 's blood supply for half a century , was also criticized . the red_cross has been forced out of the field as a result of the tainted_blood scandal . responsibility has now shifted to the provinces . mr . krever , an ontario court of appeals judge , made 50 recommendations to overhaul canada 's blood system , including establishing independent auditors and paying compensation . any action , however , would require government approval . under an arrangement reached in 1993 , some hemophiliacs who contracted aids during this period have already been awarded compensation of 23 , 000 a year , on the condition they waived their right to sue all agencies and corporations involved . victims who developed hepatitis c were not compensated at that time . in the report , mr . krever recommends that people who find out they were infected before the blood supply was properly regulated should also receive compensation without having to prove fault . he does not exclude people with hepatitis c . durhane wong rieger , who is with the canadian hemophilia society , said the call for compensation is ''long overdue . '' ''what the report shows is that many of the people who died , did n't need to die , '' she said . in his report , mr . krever says that many of the ''problems stemmed from the way public_health authorities dragged their feet in implementing new safeguards . for example , a safer blood concentrate used by hemophiliacs to control bleeding was not made available in canada until 1985 , a year after it had been developed . there were delays in screening blood donors and in setting up procedures for notifying blood recipients , '' he wrote . ''the red_cross should not have required conclusive evidence before taking strong action to reduce the risk of aids , '' mr . krever wrote . canada 's minister of health , allan rock , said today that the federal_government accepts its share of responsibility for the faults in the blood system . he said he would have to meet with provincial leaders before acting on recommendations in the report , and he issued an apology . ''we ca n't undo the damage , '' he said . ''but we can express our profound sadness and deep regret for the harm done to so many canadians and their families . '' while the release of the report was welcomed , many victims , including mark bulbrook of hamilton , director of the ontario aids network , said they would push for a criminal investigation .",has a topic of health
"a young man who attracted international attention with his strange tale of waking up in a montreal parking_lot in october without any memory finally found his identity on wednesday when police showed up to arrest him . early wednesday morning , the montreal police charged him with public mischief and obstruction of justice for deliberately misleading investigators about his identity . after psychiatric treatment and hypnosis last fall , the man told doctors he thought his name was james edward brighton and he believed he was from new jersey . but police say he is actually matthew honeycutt , 28 , from tennessee , where he is being investigated for fraud . ''we believe we have proof that he knew who he was , '' said sgt . christine debon , a detective with the montreal police . ''but we ca n't say what it is because it 's before the courts . '' michel lussier , a montreal lawyer representing mr . honeycutt , said he doubted the young man had lied . ''i 'm convinced that my client has amnesia , '' mr . lussier said .",has a topic of health
"doctors in ontario have reached a tentative agreement with the provincial government that would end a monthlong protest that interrupted medical care in canada 's largest province . the deal will allow doctors to keep more of the fees they charge patients , reducing the share taken by the provincial government to cover administrative costs . it will also allow doctors to set up practice in large cities , where the government had been trying to restrict doctors' ability to work in order to force more of them into underserved northern areas . but those doctors will receive only 70 percent of the full fee in their first year . doctors are to vote on the deal early next year . world news briefs",has a topic of health
"president boris n . yeltsin of russia made another characteristically abrupt retreat from public life today , this time stirring a sense of mystery and diplomatic risk on the eve of the middle_east conference here of leading nations whose economic aid he has been courting . mr . yeltsin has canceled all meetings for two days and left moscow to focus on domestic problems and a coming foreign mission , according to the office of the russian_president , who has previously disappeared on sudden restorative retreats that caused world anxiety about the stability of this troubled nation and its leader . aside from any perceived slight to the conference officials , his unexpected departure to an undisclosed location heightened the focus on mr . yeltsin 's executive style and resiliency as he prepared to depart later this week for another trip to the united_states . he will be intent on reassuring the world , at the united_nations and in a white_house visit , that russia deserves moral and economic support as it tries to lead the republics of the fallen soviet_union in a new commonwealth_of_independent_states . mr . yeltsin 's chief aides have said they prefer to sacrifice parts of his busy agenda occasionally to see him better prepared for important missions . but the tactic invariably proves unsettling in this crisis bedeviled land and in the world 's stock markets . mr . yeltsin , who received mixed personal reviews in two previous visits to the united_states , will resume his kremlin schedule on wednesday and meet with secretary of states james a . baker 3d , the president 's office said . "" circumstances arose which required his departure from moscow , "" his spokesman , pavel voshchanov , said , again denying speculation that mr . yeltsin might be seriously ill from heart_disease or alcohol_abuse . "" these rumors are absolutely foolish and are being circulated by those who do not want yeltsin to be russian_president . "" his agenda has lately been heavy with the pressures of trying to create a free_market_economy from the ashes of communism . the first step , switching to free floating consumer prices after 74 years of drastically suppressed prices through state subsidies , has incurred the public wrath and loss of personal popularity that mr . yeltsin predicted when he ordered the change on jan . 2 as an unavoidable necessity . his other major headache has been in trying to encourage enough economic and military cooperation among republics in the new commonwealth to win some early credit and aid from overseas . nationalist minded ukraine has been confronting mr . yeltsin with complaints about the severity and suddenness of his free_market plans and with demands for a substantial part of former soviet_army and navy units for building a separate military force . in again secluding himself , mr . yeltsin left his domestic constituency once more speculating on the personality and staying power of their broad shouldered , mercurial leader , who proved strong enough to stand up to old communist_party enemies in august and deliver mikhail s . gorbachev from a kremlin coup . the last thing needed by mr . yeltsin is another bout of personality scrutiny and increased doubts about his fitness by the world at_large . although his initial visit to washington was marred by press charges of buffoonery and bibulousness , mr . yeltsin 's second visit after his heroic role in the failed coup reflected more favor and respect . one concern that has been omnipresent but rarely mentioned in his public scheduling has been personal security . the russian_president , who admits to concern about vengeful party hard_liners , is sometimes protected by portable shields in public . among his canceled appointments today was a meeting with foreign_minister michio_watanabe of japan , whose economic aid mr . yeltsin has been seeking . the interfax news_agency said russian foreign ministry officials were insisting that his decision to miss the meeting and head out of the city was mainly because of other pressing issues and not frustration at japan 's linking of foreign aid to regaining four kurile islands that were seized by the soviets at the end of world_war_ii . a day 's rest ordered in testing the social trauma of his price liberalizations , mr . yeltsin undertook an ambitious tour of the russian provinces this month and was then ordered to take a day 's rest by his doctors , with his office insisting that he suffered fatigue but no serious ailment . in a previous sudden disappearance , his aides said that although mr . yeltsin needed treatment for a "" minor "" heart disorder , he was in good physical condition . the russian_president , who is 60 years old , had previously suffered a back ailment that caused him to withdraw for a while from public life . that established something of a now familiar habit of encouraging a sense of mystery that he might then dispel upon returning with a flourish to deal with a pressing issue . in some of his most recent tours on state and commonwealth business , members of the soviet press entourage have said mr . yeltsin seemed to be heavily imbibing alcohol at times . his aides have repeatedly rejected such talk . mr . yeltsin himself , strapping and ebullient , has been the best defense against such rumors as he often puts in long public days wrangling with parliament and traveling the republic . "" he is in good health , "" insisted his spokesman , mr . voshchanov . "" he 's in more than good health . he is in excellent sports condition , "" the official added , referring to mr . yeltsin 's playing tennis and volleyball as often as time permits . absence is criticized mr . yeltsin had not been expected to play an active role in the two day middle_east peace conference opening here on tuesday , a meeting conducted at the foreign ministers' level . but some of those arriving for the conference remarked on a certain crudity of timing in the russian leader 's announcement that he must suddenly leave moscow . they noted as well his missed opportunity to extend a personal early welcome of some sort in the interests of the glaring economic needs of russia and the other commonwealth members that have been lobbying for extensive foreign aid from many of the nations represented here . after mr . gorbachev resigned as the soviet president , russian officials insisted that mr . yeltsin would offer the same sort of support and enthusiasm for the conference as did mr . gorbachev , its chief proponent . it has been obvious , though , that mr . yeltsin has neither the global wanderlust of mr . gorbachev nor a cornucopia of diplomatic concessions to offer in return for foreign aid , since considerable ground had already been yielded in disarmament agreements with washington . still , apart from the focus on mr . yeltsin 's decision to stay out of the kremlin for the next two days , the arriving american delegation was according considerable credit to the russian_president and the leaders of the three other former soviet nuclear republics belarus , ukraine and kazakhstan for carrying out the disarmament treaties .",has a topic of health
"the kremlin announced today that boris n . yeltsin had recovered from his cold . the russian_president 's spokesman , vyacheslav kostikov , said the condition that forced mr . yeltsin to cancel his schedule early this week was brought on by air_conditioning . mr . yeltsin had retreated to his luxurious , un air_conditioned dacha west of moscow last friday to recuperate , and most of his countrymen were not in the least bit surprised . air_conditioning kills . in russia , everyone knows that . "" air_conditioning ca n't make you sick , "" anya rodionova , a receptionist at the sleek , well chilled offices of belcom , an american telecommunications company , said . "" unless of course it hits you on your back . "" miss rodionova said she never sits with her back to an air_conditioner in her office . neither does tatyana orlovskaya , a russian lawyer at the american firm , steptoe johnson , which like many other western firms , still clings to the foreign notion that air_conditioning is desirable . on hot days , she keeps her window open and her desk facing the unit . "" cold air on the spine can cause radiculitis , "" she said , referring to an inflammation of the spinal nerves . "" i know people who can no longer bend over . "" air_conditioning is still a rare , and mostly unnecessary comfort in a capital where the average temperature in august is around 70 degrees . ten years ago , the best way to determine where the minister 's office was from the outside of a government building was to seek out the air_conditioning unit sticking out the window . now , along with satellite dishes , microwave ovens and dishwashers , air_conditioners are creeping into ordinary russian office buildings and homes . but many view the phenomenon with alarm . for centuries , russians have feared drafts as a key cause of colds and influenza . to many , air_conditioning is merely a high tech , stealth equivalent of a bone chilling draft . "" i think it is a wide spread notion here that air_conditioning causes colds , "" igor sidorenko said carefully . "" and its true , they can . "" mr . sidorenko is the deputy director of sherwood limited , a moscow air_conditioner store that a year ago began importing models from israel . he quickly added that the secret to avoiding illness was in finding the "" comfort zone . "" his brochures carry graphs of the "" comfort zone "" that recommend a median temperature of about 75 degrees and 50 percent humidity . temperatures below 68 are "" reckless . "" he said mr . yeltsin had himself to blame . then he corrected himself . "" his advisers should have read the directions more carefully . "" interestingly , most russians interviewed did not express skepticism or concern about mr . yeltsin 's sudden illness . earlier this spring , the news that a bad flu kept mr . yeltsin out of sight for several weeks prompted rumors and a round of unsubstantiated reports of an attempted_coup . this summer , there was no such ado . possibly , that was because to most russians , claiming a cold to skip work and go to the dacha is an entirely plausible move . air_conditioning has a way of widening the cultural gap between east and west . westerners are often baffled by remedies that remain common in russia , such as pepper vodka , mustard plasters and cupping . there are some homeopathic remedies involving garlic that to americans verge on the sociopathic . russians also swear by swaddling infants in blankets and placing them on balconies in subzero weather to temper their constitutions to the cold . in russia , the average price of a window unit is 650 . tanya sidorova , 23 , a saleswoman at ag klimateknika , said most clients were rich businessmen and bankers . and miss sidorova , an air_conditioning expert who majored in refrigeration studies at the moscow academy of applied biotechnology , formerly the meat and dairy institute , said she did n't believe an air_conditioner had made the president sick . "" it is impossible , "" she said firmly . "" unless he came indoors directly from a workout . """,has a topic of health
"a quebec judge today approved a request by a 25 year old woman that her doctor be authorized to switch off the respirator that has kept her alive for the last two and a half years , setting what legal experts described as a precedent for such cases in canada . jacques dufour , a judge of quebec 's superior court , issued the ruling five weeks after the woman put her request directly to a court hearing that convened in her hospital room in quebec_city . while switching off the respirators of comatose and brain dead patients with their families' consent has been medical practice in many parts of canada for years , the quebec case is said to be the first in which the case for the ending of a life has been taken to a court by the patient . the judge ordered that the switching off of the respirator be delayed for 30 days to allow time for an appeal of his ruling , and for the young woman to be asked to reiterate her formal request for the action . the quebec authorities have said they will not oppose the woman 's request , and the lawyer for the woman , after informing her of the ruling , said she had reacted "" with a smile , then tears , "" but had seemed resolved to proceed with the ending of her life . the woman , whose family has requested that she be identified only as nancy b. , is suffering from what her doctors have said is an irreversible paralysis caused by a neurological disorder . her doctor , daniele marceau , while supporting the woman 's right to die , had refused to switch off the respirator without court approval because of concern that assisting in the death of a person who is not terminally ill could expose her to prosecution under canadian criminal_law . the judge said he did not believe that criminal_law provisions against assisting in suicides could be invoked in the case , because what was involved was a matter of allowing "" the illness to take its natural course . "" he said that forcing the woman to remain alive against her will would be "" an intrusion "" on her rights , among them the right given to patients to refuse medical treatment under quebec 's code of civil law .",has a topic of health
"morning rounds at the tampa veterans hospital , and a phalanx of specialists stands at joshua cooley 's door . inert in his bed , the 29 year old marine reservist is a survivor of an iraq car bombing and a fearsome scramble of wounds profound brain injury , arm and facial fractures , third degree burns , tenacious infections of the central nervous system . each doctor , six in all on a recent day , is here to monitor some aspect of his care . as they cluster at the threshold , one gently closes the door not to shield their patient from bad news , but to avoid overstimulating the nervous system of a man whose frontal lobe has been ripped by shrapnel . not that the news right now is good corporal cooley is spiking a fever , presumably because of his newest problem , blood_clots in his left leg . the doctors sort through a calculus of competing interests . should they prescribe a blood thinner to dissolve the dangerous clots , even though that could cause more bleeding in the brain ? or should they just wait ? at this point , the doctors decide , the clots pose the greater risk . thousands of miles from the battlefield , intricate medical choices have become routine here , at one of four special rehabilitation centers the government created last year to treat the war 's most catastrophically wounded troops . ''these soldiers were kept alive , '' said dr . steven g . scott , the tampa center 's director . ''now it 's up to us to try and give them some meaningful life . '' with their concentrated batteries of specialists and therapists , these centers are developing a new model of advanced care , a response to the distinctive medical conundrum of the iraq_war . with better battlefield care and protective_gear , the military is saving more of the wounded , yet the insurgents' heavy reliance on car_bombs and buried explosives means the survivors are more damaged and damaged in more different ways than ever before . to describe the maimed survivors of this ugly new war , a graceless new word , polytrauma , has entered the medical lexicon . each soldier arriving at tampa 's polytrauma rehabilitation center , inside the giant veterans hospital , brings a whole world of injury . the typical patient , dr . scott said , has head injuries , vision and hearing loss , nerve damage , multiple bone fractures , unhealed body wounds , infections and emotional or behavioral problems . some have severed limbs or spinal cords . ''two years ago we started seeing injured soldiers coming back of a different nature , '' recalled dr . scott , who is also the hospital 's chief of physical medicine and rehabilitation . then last spring , with a congressional mandate , the department_of_veterans_affairs created the four new centers , formalizing changes that a few top veterans hospitals were already starting to make . after weeks or months of intensive care in military hospitals , more than 215 soldiers and a few more each week still a tiny fraction of the roughly 16 , 000 soldiers who have been wounded in iraq have been sent here or to the other centers , inside v.a . hospitals in california , minnesota and virginia . the surge in complex casualties , doctors found , required major reorganizing , enabling them to focus extraordinary medical and therapeutic expertise on each patient and to offer counseling , housing and other aid to their often shellshocked wives , children and parents . ''in the outside world you might have two or three consultants seeing a patient , '' said dr . andrew koon , a specialist in internal_medicine who was checking laboratory results on a portable computer during bedside rounds . ''here it 's not unusual to have 10 specialists on board . '' the multiple wounds have required medical balancing acts and unusual cooperation across departments . one quadriplegic patient was so weakened by recurring infections that doctors had to wait a year before removing shrapnel from his neck . in other cases , the risk of new infection has delayed treatment of the spasms that some paralyzed patients suffer , which can require an implanted pump to inject medicine into the spinal column . of some 90 soldiers with extreme injuries who were treated in tampa over the last year only one has died , of a rare form of meningitis . the drama here is more excruciatingly drawn out over months and months of painstaking physical and psychological therapy , the patients and their families start learning the boundaries of their future lives . quiet struggles the medical challenges are often persistent and daunting , but the real focus of the new centers is rehabilitation . even as doctors battle drug resistant bacteria blown into wounds with iraqi dirt , patients start relearning to talk and focus their thoughts , to walk and run or maneuver a wheelchair . some go home in almost normal shape for others , simply swallowing is a milestone . to spend several recent days here is to witness a panorama of quiet struggles . a young man with brain and nerve damage slowly fits big round pegs into big round holes . another beams after jogging a full minute for the first time since his injury , but cannot voice his mix of pride and impatience because shrapnel destroyed the language center in his brain . a quadriplegic is lifted by a giant sling from his bed to a high tech wheelchair , which he has learned to drive with a mouthpiece . progress on these wards can be measured in agonizing increments . corporal cooley , a 6 foot 6 inch former deputy_sheriff , arrived in tampa on sept . 29 after more than two months at the bethesda naval hospital outside washington . his doctors and relatives were encouraged when , after another couple of months , he wriggled his fingers and feet , and answered yes no questions with blinks . ''they got him to make noises the other day , '' offered his wife , christina . ''he 's doing really well . '' at ' 'rehab rounds'' one recent day , assorted therapists took up corporal cooley 's case , reporting on small steps forward and compromises along the way . the speech therapist said he was responding to questions with blinks about 30 percent of the time when she was alone with him , but less if distracted . she described her gingerly efforts to train him to swallow , using thin pudding , apple sauce and ice chips . the respiratory therapist said his tracheotomy had to be changed to a larger , cuffed device that would allow them to expand his lower right lung . the speech therapist groaned , ''that will make it harder to swallow . '' they agreed that the lung had to take priority , but the speech therapist added , ''let 's get rid of that cuffed trach as soon as possible . '' brain_injuries the signature wounds inflicted by the blast waves and flying shrapnel of explosives are pervasive , and they tend to dictate the arc of care . ''it 's really the brain injury that directs how we approach other impairments , '' dr . barbara sigford , v.a . 's national director of physical medicine and rehabilitation and chief of the minneapolis polytrauma center , said in a telephone interview . ''many types of rehab rely on intact thinking , learning and memory skills . '' using advanced prosthetic limbs , for example , requires control of specific muscles patients without that capacity must use simpler models . blind people are normally taught to navigate using their memory of the environment if memory is spotty , they must find other ways . in the recreational therapy room in tampa on a recent day , several men are being led through a round of uno , a card_game that involves matching numbers and colors . some play well . some fumble trying to pick up cards . one rocks in frustration at his inability to summon the word ''blue . '' sgt . antwain vaughn , 31 , an army combat_engineer who took a roadside blast in the face on aug . 31 , arrives late and in a wheelchair . a padded helmet covers a large indentation where his shattered skull will receive a metal plate . sergeant vaughn came to tampa after two months on a ventilator and feeding_tube . in addition to brain_damage , facial fractures , pulmonary problems , blood_clots and infections , he lost an eye and has trouble with complex tasks , something the card_game could help . here he has learned to swallow and eat and in daily therapy , when he is feeling up to it , he is working to reclaim a life . but this time , he will not join the game . ''my head 's hurting a lot , '' he quietly tells the group . head injuries have also left some soldiers in a peculiar psychological box . before iraq , most head injuries at the tampa hospital involved car accidents , said dr . rodney d . vanderploeg , the chief of neuropsychology . though it may seem counterintuitive , soldiers with penetrating brain_injuries , in which a fragment crashed through their skulls , are far more likely to remember the attack and its bloody aftermath , perhaps including the deaths of friends , he said . these memories often cause great psychological stress . but psychotherapy becomes especially difficult if injury has impaired a patient 's insight and understanding . making progress in the hallways , the banter tends to be upbeat , as perhaps it needs to be for patients and staff . a patient shows off his stair climbing wheelchair . others compare the merits of prosthetic leg models . nearly every patient vows , not always realistically , that he will get back on his feet and more . ''the way i see it , if i get able to walk a little bit , then eventually i 'm going to walk a lot , '' said specialist charles mays , 31 , who was left with multiple fractures and partial paralysis of his legs after being blasted out of his humvee by a vertically buried rocket south of baghdad . sometimes the hallways bring success stories like specialist nicholas boutin , who was slowly walking on his own to speech therapy in a hockey helmet , apparently not at all self conscious about the red pit where an artificial eye will be implanted or about the large dent where a piece of skull will be replaced . specialist boutin , 21 , had arrived in tampa just five weeks before , mute and hardly able to swallow , his right arm and leg almost useless . during a midnight patrol in a village near samarra , an insurgent dropped a grenade into his bradley_fighting_vehicle . fragments sprayed into his face and the left side of his brain , leaving him with broca 's aphasia able to comprehend but not to speak . he weathered fungal infections , facial pain where nerves were damaged and the destruction of his pituitary gland and a maxillary sinus , the kind of internal wound that can torment a person for life . but now , after hard hours each day in therapy , he can jog briefly and write messages with his right hand . as speech therapists coax the right side of his brain to take over lost functions from the left , he has begun to make one word responses and spontaneously utter a few words at a time . soon he will head home to georgia for continued therapy . ''yes , '' he uttered instantly when asked if he felt he was progressing . determination gleamed from his remaining eye . behind closed doors , though , bravado sometimes gives way to depression , explosive anger , survivors' guilt . some patients sit quietly with glum faces or obsess endlessly about their buddies and time in iraq . as much as the nurses are often buoyed by their patients' progress , they say the relentless intensity of the work can sometimes bring them to tears . they spend as much time interacting with stressed out relatives as with the patients . ''relatives take out their frustrations on the nurses , '' said laureen g . doloresco , assistant nursing chief . ''it 's also hard on the nurses because of the youth of the patients . many of them have sons the same age . '' support systems at the bedsides of many of these young men are their equally young wives , whose lives have also been wrenched onto unexpected paths . before he was sent to iraq last jan . 1 , corporal cooley and his wife were partners on the vice narcotics squad of a sheriff 's department in central_florida . they married just before his deployment . soon after the car bombing on july 5 , she and her husband 's parents were summoned to the american military_hospital in landstuhl , germany , and warned to expect the worst . after the car_bomb detonated , near the town of hit , corporal cooley had been pulled from his burning amtrack , an armored_vehicle , unconscious and with a gaping hole in his head . the medics had at first refused to load him onto the evacuation helicopter , christina cooley later learned . they changed their minds when they heard a moan . ms . cooley recalled telling doctors that they were showing her the wrong patient , that this bloated figure was not her husband . she was convinced only after she saw his tattoos . she also saw , though , that he was breathing on his own . days later , he was flown to the bethesda naval hospital , and for two months , his wife and the in laws she still barely knew shared a hotel room and spent their days around corporal cooley 's bed in intensive care . here in tampa , despite continued medical setbacks like the blood_clots , attention was turning to his potential for physical and mental recovery . so far , he had been put in a chair for a few hours a day and strapped into a ''tilt board'' at a 45 degree angle for 10 minutes at a time , to forestall the drops in blood_pressure that occur when long prone patients raise up . his wife finds hope where she can . corporal cooley often stares vacantly , she said , and ''you do n't know if he 's there . '' but one day when she asked him , ''who 's my hero ? '' he pointed a finger toward himself . their home county , outside tampa , has raised money that she plans to use on an accessible house . ''i hope he 'll walk through the door of that house , '' she said . ''if not , i 'll take him as a vegetable . i 'll take care of him the rest of my life . i love that man to death . '' overhearing her , dr . scott , the center 's director , marshaled his characteristic optimism . ''he can already move both legs , '' he said . ''it 's possible he can be rehabbed to walk . how far he 'll go we just do n't know . '' the polytrauma centers themselves remain works in progress , sharing lessons with one another and with the major military hospitals by videophone , and pushing scientific inquiry into the myriad , often invisible effects of explosive blasts . the department_of_veterans_affairs says it has not calculated the cost of establishing the centers , bolstering their staffs and treating patients so long and intensively . the tampa hospital 's director , forest farley jr . , said that here alone , it was ' 'several millions of dollars . '' though the average stay in polytrauma centers is 40 days , many patients remain for months and some for more than a year . in the end , a few must go to nursing homes , but most go home , where they receive continued care at less specialized veterans hospitals , with oversight from the centers . some require round the clock home aides and therapists and costly equipment , paid for by the government on top of monthly disability payments . even so , wives or parents often must give up their jobs . for the worst off , the ongoing annual costs largely hidden costs of this war can easily be several hundred thousand dollars or more . ''we expect to follow these patients for the rest of their lives , '' dr . scott said . ''but i have a great deal of concern about our country 's long term commitment to these individuals . will the resources be there over time ? '' the wounded",has a topic of health
"ecstasy , the popular drug often associated with the club scene , may harm the memories of people who use it regularly , researchers are reporting . the report , in the current issue of neurology , was based on a study of 15 ecstasy users , ages 17 to 31 , over a yearlong period . the study subjects reported taking the drug an average of 2.4 times a month . dr . konstantine zakzanis of the university of toronto , one of the authors , said in a statement that for more occasional users , there was no evidence yet to suggest permanent memory impairment . ecstasy has been the subject of much controversy . the illegal drug has been linked to some deaths , but it has amassed a broad following , including some mental_health experts who believe it may have value for treating patients . because the drug affects the hippocampus , a part of the brain associated with learning and new memories , the authors of the article wanted to explore whether ecstasy harmed those functions . they administered a variety of tests , including some in which participants were read short passages and then were asked to recall them right away or after a brief delay . they concluded that continued use of the drug did appear to be linked with different types of memory decline . over the course of the year , for example , the ecstasy users' ability to recall the passages after a delay declined by about half . still , the authors noted the pitfalls of such a study , which relied on the drug users to accurately report how much ecstasy they were using . and as with any street drug , there was no way to know exactly what the study participants were taking . vital_signs consequences",has a topic of health
"it has come to resemble a bazaar , this pleading and wheedling and haggling for the release of a hostage . each day , it seems , a new group of graying senior statesmen , publicity seeking politicians and desperate women and children arrive in baghdad hoping to find some way , any way , to barter with president saddam_hussein over freedom for countrymen or loved ones held hostage by iraq . while they clearly feel the visits convey a certain legitimacy to iraqi policies in the persian_gulf crisis and provide mr . hussein with an important , highly_publicized forum to explain his point of view , even iraqis seems to be tiring of it all . it is not so much the family visits that are the annoyance indeed , mr . hussein has invited all families of hostages to come to baghdad for christmas but the seemingly_endless pilgrimage of celebrities and near celebrities who want the role of peacemaker and hostage negotiator . 'it has gone too far' "" we do n't invite most of these people , "" an iraqi official said . "" and when they come they all want to meet saddam , and they all want to meet the foreign_minister , and they want the best hotel rooms and the best food . frankly , i think that it has gone too far . "" the stream of envoys has included several former heads of state , among them former leaders of britain , west_germany and japan the current president of austria , kurt waldheim several members of the british and canadian parliaments , and jean marie le pen , the leader of the far right french national front , who has praised mr . hussein while urging the french government to withdraw from the multinational military force in the gulf . surely the strangest hostage release campaign of recent days has been the "" good will tour "" of muhammad_ali , the former heavyweight boxing champion . mr . ali , who became a hero in the muslim_world after he converted to islam in the 1960 's and changed his name from cassius clay , suffers from the impaired muscular control of parkinson 's syndrome , and he has attended meeting after meeting in baghdad despite his frequent inability to speak clearly . u.s . is critical the bush_administration has criticized visits to iraq by these unofficial envoys , saying that americans and other westerners traveling here are being used for iraqi propaganda and could risk being taken hostage themselves . "" i basically believe these people are playing into the propaganda game that iraq is holding here , "" said joseph c . wilson 4th , the deputy_chief_of_mission at the united_states embassy and the highest ranking american diplomat remaining in baghdad . "" these people traveling to iraq are making a serious mistake . "" but the visits seem to work , at least if the visitors' only goal is to get hostages released . that was clear again today , when mr . hussein announced that he would free three americans whose families had come to baghdad . "" he 's a very nice man , very sincere , "" mary trundy of brockton , mass . , said of the iraqi leader after meeting him today in baghdad and learning that her brother , john stevenson , would be released shortly . "" i got all teary during the meeting , and president hussein had to ask one of his aides to get me some kleenex . "" vala fouroohi of bellevue , wash . , said he was not concerned that his efforts to free his father , fred f . harrington , might be used as propaganda by the iraqis . "" if this is propaganda , fine , "" he said after attending the same meeting with president hussein . "" but at least i have my father back . "" both mr . stevenson , a computer specialist , and mr . harrington , a seattle businessman , were captured in kuwait after it was invaded by iraq on aug . 2 . when it became clear that an international military alliance might be created to try to force iraq out of kuwait , mr . hussein announced that thousands of westerners and japanese in iraq and occupied kuwait would be detained as "" foreign guests , "" the term used by the iraqi government to describe the hostages . first mission three weeks after the kuwait invasion , mr . waldheim arrived in baghdad and quickly won agreement for the release of more than 70 austrians . his success appeared to inspire several other statesmen , who have since descended upon the iraqi capital to meet with mr . hussein . former prime_minister yasuhiro_nakasone of japan won the release of 74 japanese citizens . a former west_german chancellor , willy brandt , took home nearly 120 of his countrymen . "" this is the sort of spectacle that saddam wanted , "" said a european diplomat who has watched the procession with dismay . "" he wanted to be seen on television and on the front pages shaking hands and smiling with these men . "" western diplomats say that so many retired foreign leaders wished to enter baghdad earlier this month to discuss hostages that a former prime_minister of new zealand , david lange , was forced to wait in new delhi for a visa until iraqi government officials had enough time to see him . "" it 's basically a situation of do n't call us , we 'll call you , "" said lloyd axworthy , a member of the canadian parliament who is in baghdad with two colleagues trying to secure the freedom of about 45 canadians held by iraq . mr . axworthy bristled at the suggestion that he was a pawn in iraq 's propaganda efforts . "" we 're here to say we 're deeply concerned about finding a peaceful resolution to this crisis , and that it 's difficult to have a peaceful resolution while there are hostages , "" the lawmaker said . "" we 're not offering iraq anything . we do n't have the authority to make deals . "" signs of trading but in just the last few days , there have been the first signs that members of the international alliance against iraq may indeed give in and begin trading for hostages , in at least some fashion . on saturday , for example , nearly 25 tons of donated medical supplies arrived in baghdad from italy , which has about 270 hostages trapped in iraq and kuwait . on sunday , iraqi officials praised italy 's generosity and suggested that dozens of italian hostages would soon be freed . baghdad radio confirmed that the release of "" a large number "" of italians was imminent . that same day , newspapers in tokyo reported that the japanese government was considering what was described as a "" similar donation "" of medical supplies . more than 150 japanese citizens are still being held hostage in iraq . mideast_tensions",has a topic of health
"down by the st . lawrence river , in the parish hall behind the somber stone church of st . peter the apostle , herve bertrand and other french_canadian catholics gathered recently to condemn the church that has so thoroughly shaped most aspects of life in the province of quebec . ''i do n't have any problem with their god , '' mr . bertrand said . ''but i 've got big problems with the people who made the decision that did this to me . '' mr . bertrand is now a 56 year old plumber from a montreal suburb with a wife and three grown children . he is one of about 3 , 000 french canadians known as the ''duplessis orphans'' because they were institutionalized in the 1940 's and 50 's when maurice duplessis was the iron willed premier of quebec . about 300 of the orphans have formed a committee and are demanding an apology and restitution from the catholic_church and the quebec government for the way they were treated , and some say physically and sexually_abused , when they were unjustifiably placed in mental institutions as children . mr . bertrand says employees at the institution where he was kept for eight years sexually_assaulted him more than 30 times , the last in an elevator while he was in a straitjacket . most of the ''duplessis orphans'' were not orphans at all . like mr . bertrand , they had been born out of wedlock at a time when conservative catholic sentiments made it wise to keep such transgressions secret . many illegitimate children were raised in orphanages run by roman_catholic nuns . the duplessis government worked hand in hand with the catholic_church . when federal money became available for health_care , but not education , the government encouraged the religious order to transform their orphanages into mental institutions . ''quite simply , it was more profitable for the quebec government and the church to warehouse psychiatric patients than to take care of normal children , so they struck a dirty deal , '' said rodrigue vienneau , whose wife , clarina duguay , had been declared mentally incompetent and kept in a church run institution after her mother became sick and her father , a woodsman , was unable to care for his five children . ''when i was 11 they falsified my medical records and classified me as mentally deficient , '' mrs . duguay said . like many women in quebec , she kept her maiden name after she married . ''all around me there were real mental patients . they gave me plenty of pills , and i was sexually_abused by the sisters who , at bath time , used to wash my breasts and then told me i could wash my back myself . '' jean gaudreau , a psychologist at the university of montreal who visited one of the orphanages in 1961 , said there is little doubt that children were unnecessarily institutionalized during that time . tests conducted then showed , he said , that mental deficiencies were often caused by lack of stimulation , not mental_illness . while unable to prove any specific charges of abuse , a government ombudsman in 1997 documented the existence of as many as 3 , 000 duplessis orphans . without determining who was at fault , the ombudsman recommended that they be compensated . on thursday , lucien bouchard , the premier of quebec , offered the orphans an apology , along with compensation worth the equivalent of about 2 million ( united_states ) . but the committee rejected the offer , which comes to about 670 for each orphan , and insisted on a full public_inquiry . as they fight for recognition and justice , the orphans are reminding other quebecers of the enormous changes that have taken place in the province since the 1940 's and 50 's . ''what quebec has undergone is a major cultural trauma , '' said j . robert choquette , a professor of canadian religious history at the university of ottawa . the changes set off by pope john xxiii in the early 1960 's touched catholics around the world , but few places felt it as deeply as quebec . ''the church 's dominance in quebec was sweeping , '' professor choquette said . a map of quebec reflects that . from the names of rivers , to the names of many towns and villages , quebec and the catholic_church were inseparable . at its apogee in the 1940 's , the church ran all schools , hospitals and social institutions , like the orphanages , with the direct consent of the government . mr . duplessis 's death in 1959 coincided with an awakening of social awareness that ushered in enormous changes for religion and society and set off a conflict between tradition and modernism . ''what the conflict produced is the classic definition of throwing out the baby with the bath water , '' professor choquette said . today , the small churches and grand cathedrals that once overflowed with the faithful on sundays are sparsely attended . quebec 's birth_rate has dropped from one of the world 's highest to one of the lowest , in part because the use of contraceptives is now widely accepted and abortion is legal . the province has gone from having one of the lowest rates of divorce prohibited by the catholic_church to one of the highest . it has one of the lowest rates of marriage in canada , and 53 percent of its children are born out of wedlock . even so , the church 's presence is virtually inescapable , so much so that when the orphans denounced the church , they did so in rented space at a parish community center . a few weeks ago , some of the orphans , wearing straitjackets of the type they say were used on them as children , demonstrated in front of the montreal offices of the head of the church in quebec , jean_claude cardinal turcotte . they demanded an apology , a public_inquiry and compensation . cardinal turcotte refused to meet the orphans , but he did say he did not believe that the nuns who ran the institutions , often under very difficult conditions , had systematically abused their patients . ''when they watch television and hear protesters claim they beat children , that is upsetting , '' he told a local reporter . instead of issuing an apology , he challenged the ''orphans'' to prove they were abused . which is what mr . bertrand thought he was doing when he showed reporters medical records detailing injuries he said he suffered in the sexual assaults . and that is why mrs . duguay produced her childhood medical records , which said that she was mentally deficient , even though she had no previous or subsequent history of mental_illness . mrs . dugay and her husband say that , while they live surrounded by the catholic_church and its trappings , they do not attend services regularly anymore . ''my family was very religious , '' mr . vienneau said . ''there are two nuns on my mother 's side and i was an altar boy for four years . '' but the church that once brought him peace now only raises his ire . ''we would only go back to practicing and go back to what we learned as young children , '' he said , ''the day that the church will apologize for what they 've done . ''",has a topic of health
"as ontario health officials braced for a wider outbreak of the mysterious respiratory_illness around toronto in the coming days , criticism is beginning to mount that political and health_care officials have made some critical miscalculations in their attempts to avert a broader epidemic . for two weeks , the tone of health_care officials and the local news_media had been increasingly upbeat , stressing that the disease , severe_acute_respiratory_syndrome , or sars , was largely contained to a fixed number of people linked to a single chain of exposures beginning at one hospital . but reports have recently emerged that officials were slow to isolate a new cluster of patients in a roman_catholic prayer group and that several of the stricken patients were inexplicably turned away at several hospitals while they potentially infected many others . the new outbreak was not identified , and action was not taken to quarantine the group of 500 , for more than a week after the initial exposure leaving time for the disease potentially to have spread into the general population . there is already evidence it may have spread to a condominium outside toronto and as far as montreal . the second guessing is already taking hold in ontario , and it is beginning to jeopardize business confidence and become a rancorous political issue in the provincial legislature . ''where 's rudy_giuliani when he 's needed ? '' the globe and mail asked today in an editorial on sars . ''toronto could use that kind of leadership now . '' the editorial said that mayor mel lastman must take action or ' 'should resign and let others lead . '' ''toronto cannot now afford a vacuum at the top , '' it stated . as the city most seriously stricken with the epidemic outside of asia , toronto has emerged as a test_case of whether mass quarantines can be effective in containing the virus . thirteen people have died from the disease here , and 251 of canada 's 306 probable or suspected cases have been reported within the greater toronto metropolitan_area . with little margin for error and the numbers of infected rising every day , every misstep or new outbreak causes more fear and fiercer criticism . another editorial , in the toronto_star , argued that national and provincial leaders had not taken the disease seriously enough , and suggested that the government consider imposing jail terms on sars patients who violate quarantines . ''prime_minister_jean_chr_tien and premier ernie eves should be at the forefront of this issue , '' the editorial in the star on thursday contended , ''but they have been virtually silent on it , except for token appearances at chinese restaurants . '' mr . eves is the premier of ontario . the new outbreak and criticism have put ontario health officials on the defensive . ''we 're in a steep , steep learning_curve , '' said dr . donald low , microbiologist at mount_sinai_hospital . ''if we make mistakes we 'll correct them . we 're not out of the woods yet . this is a different animal than i 've ever seen before . '' health officials say they are considering tougher measures , including the use of electronic bracelets to keep track of people in quarantine who are considered at risk to leave their homes . with expected heavy church attendance at easter , this weekend is considered a crucial hurdle . medical and religious leaders are urging anyone with the slightest fever , body aches or other symptoms to stay home . several major toronto businesses have begun asking employees to work at home and either postpone meetings or use teleconferencing as a substitute . anglican and roman_catholic churches have decided to change some traditional practices during services this weekend . there will be no calls for congregants to embrace one another and there will be no kissing of the cross or sharing of communal glasses of wine . more than 7 , 000 people have been put into quarantine at home for 10 days over the last month around toronto . compliance has been almost total , with health officials having to take legal measures , like issuing court orders , to force 15 people to stay at home . about 650 remain in quarantine today . the biggest new potential outbreak among the bukas loob sa diyos covenant community , a primarily philippine roman_catholic prayer group was disclosed on monday , changing the mood of the city . as officials reported an outbreak of 29 cases , they had difficulty explaining why it took them until april 12 , a week after members of the group became ill , to instruct the entire group to go into quarantine in their homes . the new cluster originated when one member of the group contracted the virus at scarborough grace hospital , where the entire ontario outbreak began , and he passed it on to 17 members of his family . he died , as did his wife neither of them have been publicly identified . other family members spread the disease through the church group at a prayer meeting and at the man 's funeral . particularly difficult to explain is how medical officials dealt with the couple 's two exposed sons , one of whom was put in quarantine for 10 days and one of whom was not put in quarantine at all . the son who was quarantined showed symptoms after the 10 day isolation , and was turned away at as many as three different hospitals . apparently he did not show strong symptoms , forcing authorities now to consider anyone with flulike_symptoms to be a possible case . it will not be known until sometime next week how far the disease spread beyond the church group , whose 500 members have now been quarantined over the last week . fears grew when health_care workers disclosed thursday that a member of the group shared a vehicle with several people going to a business conference outside montreal . since the man came down with symptoms a day later , more than 400 people who attended the conference were forced to go into quarantine in quebec , a province that has yet to have a sars case . faced with questions from the local news_media over whether officials made a blatant error , dr . james young , ontario 's commissioner of public safety , responded , ''we 've got a new illness with very little understood about it , a lot of trouble diagnosing it and a lot of confusion over who has to do what . '' in another significant development , three new cases were reported in a 19 story condominium in the suburb of scarborough that may or may not be related to previous cases . ontario health officials have conceded that their quarantine efforts have not been entirely effective and that they have made mistakes . ''there 's always room for improvement , '' said dr . colin d'cunha , ontario 's chief_medical_officer . he said that what was required now was the maintenance of a 100 percent ring around all suspected and possible cases . ''i 'm not na_ve , '' he added , ''to think were totally safe . ''",has a topic of health
"after a decade of gorging on french food , fast cars and giant profits , russia 's rich are slowing down to smell the flowers and the oxygen . streams of it , pumped through bottles of water perfumed with fruits and herbs , are the main menu item at shizlong , a restaurant in central moscow . clusters of fashionable young people breathe it in through slim tubes stuck slightly up their noses . ten minutes of breathing deeply reduces the need for sleep , according to the bar 's bubbly manager . while an oxygen smoothed path to less sleep can translate into nights of clubbing , it seems that moscow 's super rich are now more interested in their health . russia 's wealthy are reverting to simpler , skinnier lifestyles , in part , a reaction to the excesses of the 1990 's , with its meaty feasts and casino frolics . now , 10 years into russia 's embrace of capitalism , the wild boar featured on the menus at czar 's hunt , once the most popular restaurant among moscow 's elite , has given way to a new predilection for sushi bars , green_tea and aerobics . ''people know it 's time to rest , eat healthy food and look beautiful , '' said aleksandr sokolov , the general director of shizlong , or chaise longue . ''to be tan without bags under your eyes . '' the health kick has another catalyst style . ''in moscow , fashion means everything , '' said mr . sokolov , dressed in a suit and seated at a glass table equipped with an oxygen machine . ''people like to be surrounded with others who look just like them . we are a fashionable place . '' shizlong 's most popular dish is plain oatmeal . other dishes include a plate of yellow fruit , steamed salmon and curiously caloric lamb . upstairs , diners can luxuriate in seven tanning rooms , or enjoy a facial in a salon . mr . sokolov , who revels in the exclusivity of his establishment , says the average diner earns at least 120 , 000 a year , about 275 times the city average , though the food and the beauty services are relatively inexpensive by moscow standards 20 for a haircut , for example . on a recent night , the small parking_lot was jammed with bmw 's , a ferrari and a bentley . the diners , who 10 years ago frequented raucous clubs , ''now speak coldly to beginner fashion models , talk business with each other and take pleasure in low calorie food , '' wrote the authoritative entertainment guide , afisha , in a recent review of shizlong , which , written half in cyrillic and half in latin letters , is the russian approximation for a reclining chair . the fad has brought some curious healers to the fore , like anatoly v . volkov , a doctor who has a booming business advising wealthy muscovites on weight control . dr . volkov , who himself is a heavy smoker and consumes a steady diet of meat and potatoes , administers blood tests to his patients and uses the information to customize their diets . but many argue that the desire to get fit runs deeper than fad diets . fitness clubs , rare five years ago , now number 125 in moscow . planet fitness , a russian chain that opened in 1998 , now has 15 clubs , two open around the clock . almost all cater to the wealthy . one chain of fitness clubs , world class , set up shop in an elite dacha community , where membership costs a whopping 4 , 000 a year . ''there 's been a shift in mentality and lifestyle , '' said alyona shishkina , marketing director for planet fitness . ''before it was all about style . now people are really working out taking responsibility for themselves , and not leaving that to grandfather lenin . '' the discipline took some getting used to . early clients were outraged to learn that smoking was prohibited in the health_club , ms . shishkina recalled . even worse , the club 's small juice and salad bars offered not a single alcoholic beverage . ''now it 's 'give me a low calorie salad or tell me what i can eat in restaurants so i can stay in shape , ' '' ms . shishkina said . ''people did n't think like that before . '' the trend got a push from russia 's trendsetter in chief , vladimir v . putin , who this year commanded russians to get in shape , after a disappointing showing in the olympics . while moscow 's rich work off a decade of decadence , the rest of russia is still barely earning a living . life_expectancy fell dramatically over the 1990 's , in part because of rampant alcoholism . it is only now beginning to stabilize . back at shizlong , an unusual pair of guests are taking hits of oxygen for about 2 each . two students , economics majors at moscow_state_university , giggling , confess that the visit is their first . they paid with money saved from after school jobs selling mobile_phone contracts . ''breathing it for 10 or 15 minutes will revive you , '' mr . sokolov said . ''and you need less sleep and can dance more . '' he added that for some customers , shizlong was a stopover for guests between a late night meal and moscow dance clubs . the students , ages 19 and 20 , aspire to be part of moscow 's wealthy class . for now , however , dressed in sweaters and rugby shirts , they stand out in the bar 's glitz . mr . sokolov , however , did not seem to mind . ''we have those who come in ferraris , and those who come by subway , '' he said , shrugging . ''i do n't care about transport , just as long as they pay the bill . '' moscow journal",has a topic of health
"back from his european_tour , president_bush this week faces what could be a bruising political battle against his old nemesis john_mccain and a united democratic front as the senate begins to debate a patients' bill of rights . so far , the president is on the wrong side of this fight , both on the merits and as a political matter . he ought to reconsider his opposition to empowering people to seek meaningful redress from their health_care plans when they are wrongly denied medical coverage . a patients' bill of rights is long overdue . millions of americans have little or no recourse to contest wrongful denials of medical coverage , or to seek damages arising from such denials . it is far more difficult under current law to sue managed_care organizations than it is to sue doctors . but with health plans and insurance_companies making more and more medical care decisions , it is important that they be held as accountable as doctors are held for their actions . individuals should be able to challenge them before an independent arbitrator or in court . there has been broad congressional support for a patients' bill of rights since the end of president_clinton 's first term . a genuinely bipartisan bill passed in the house last session by a comfortable 275 to 151 vote , but the senate passed a feeble version and the effort died in conference . now , under democratic leadership , the senate will try again . the patient protection act introduced by senator john_mccain and two democrats , senators edward kennedy and john_edwards , is expected to be debated on the floor this week . it is similar to a bill that passed the house last session . indeed , despite the white_house 's best efforts to get him to back an alternative , representative charlie norwood , the georgia republican who wrote the house bill , is supporting the mccain edwards kennedy effort . this bill of rights would grant everyone covered by private health plans the right to emergency care as well as access to specialists like pediatricians , obstetricians and gynecologists , without requiring a referral . patients who feel they have been wrongly denied care under their plan could refer the matter to an independent panel of experts . they could then sue their health plan in state court for medical issues , or in federal court for contractual disputes . federal suits would have a 5 million cap on punitive_damages . the bill is supported by the american_medical_association and nearly all consumer groups pressing for reform . the white_house , for its part , says the bill would open the floodgates to a wave of frivolous_lawsuits , a claim not supported by the evidence in those states that have adopted similar legislation , including texas under governor bush . the white_house is threatening to veto the legislation and is encouraging house members to rush a conservative alternative through that chamber , even though last session 68 republicans voted with mr . norwood and the democrats . the white_house backed alternative in the senate , sponsored by bill frist , republican of tennessee , and john breaux , democrat from louisiana , does give patients many of the same rights , like access to specialty care . but on liability issues it seems more concerned with protecting the health_care industry , a major republican campaign contributor , than with protecting patients . it would allow patients to sue only in federal court , even when challenging medical decisions , and would ban punitive_damages and cap verdicts for pain and suffering at 500 , 000 . federal courts are already overwhelmed and are generally regarded as more hospitable to defendants than state courts are . federalizing medical_malpractice litigation is a bad idea . this debate over patients' rights will be an early test of the white_house 's ability to work constructively with the new democratic majority in the senate , not to mention with senator mccain . mr . bush , who pledged on the campaign trail to push for an expansion of patients' rights , would be wise to drop his veto threats . he should engage senators mccain , kennedy and edwards in serious talks with a view toward backing a meaningful reform .",has a topic of health
"lead like many cities , vancouver is increasingly concerned about the spread of the aids virus among drug users and , through them , into the population at_large . but unlike most cities including new york , vancouver has chosen as a main strategy issuing free clean_needles to drug addicts . like many cities , vancouver is increasingly concerned about the spread of the aids virus among drug users and , through them , into the population at_large . but unlike most cities including new york , vancouver has chosen as a main strategy issuing free clean_needles to drug addicts . the program , which just marked its first anniversary , drew strong praise in a recent article in the canadian journal of public_health . ''the key point , '' said john turvey , the prime moving force behind this city 's program , ''is to emphasize needle_exchanges as a policy to save lives , not as a means to decrease drug use . '' needle_exchanges were first developed in europe six years ago . in the united_states such programs , under way in a few cities including seattle and tacoma , wash . , portland , ore . and boulder , colo . , have aroused political controversy and are often criticized as possibly fostering drug use . in new york , mayor david n . dinkins fulfilled a campaign promise and killed a limited needle exchange program there . american programs have also run afoul of laws prohibiting possession of hypodermic_needles . needle possession is not illegal here , although a provincial law requires sales only through pharmacists . vancouver 's program is financed through a 130 , 000 annual grant from the city 's health department , but is run by mr . turvey 's private downtown east side youth activities society , a_10 year old nonprofit group started to work with troubled street youths . mr . turvey found that this arms length relationship with government authorities combined with his group 's long grass roots ties locally were crucial in engendering trust among area addicts . ''we come on very non intrusive and non judgmental , '' mr . turvey said in an interview as dozens of addicts strolled through the door to exchange needles . ''but we 're slipping in education at every possible opportunity . '' the project began 15 months ago after mr . turvey explained to other community groups the need for a program to exchange dirty_needles for clean ones . shared needles are a primary source of spreading the aids virus , which is also passed during sexual_intercourse . in december 1988 , mr . turvey said , a donor offered to buy several hundred new needles . with no fanfare , mr . turvey began handing them out on the street . ''i 'm an advocate of individual anarchism , '' he said with a smile . ''i just go out and do it responsibly , of course but i just do it . and then i find support gathering around . '' when the local press learned of his doings , mr . turvey emphasized the health aspect . ''i do n't want people to die , '' he told reporters . almost immediately , other donors offered help . when the idea reached city officials , it already had many backers . ''it was easier for them to vote approval of something already under way , '' he said . the group expected about 200 addicts to trade in their needles . but the number has now climbed to 3 , 000 , with 80 to 90 percent of them turning in old needles . enrollment can be done at the youth group 's storefront office on main_street , at sidewalk tables set up elsewhere or in a van , which cruises city streets . and enrollment is simple . ''just give me three initials and a date of birth , '' ingrid hanson asked a newcomer the other morning . ''w . g . c . , '' he said , ''21 april 1952 . '' ms . hanson asked to see his forearm to confirm needle marks of an existing addiction . ''you can have two new needles now , '' she said , ''and up to 14 every week , if you bring in 14 used ones . '' with the needles , she handed him a fistful of printed material on health , disease and nutrition . she also offered a bottle of bleach to clean_needles and told him about the three evenings a week that a doctor gives free consultations and about the free aids tests . ''when they start here , '' mr . turvey said , ''probably none of them have any intention of quitting drugs . but we 're seeing many of them over time get hooked on health and go into treatment . '' the major problem has been the inadequate number of local beds for residential drug treatment and long waiting_lists for detoxification centers .",has a topic of health
"toronto is not known as a city of romance or beauty like montreal , quebec_city or vancouver , but it has its share of alluring views of powerful skyscrapers , moody lake_ontario and the deep leafy furrows of the don valley that divide the city 's ethnic neighborhoods . there is no better place to take in all those sights than the windy top of the prince edward viaduct , which as the brooklyn_bridge united new york , gained the historic distinction of turning toronto into a single city when it was built in 1918 . the structure became a literary landmark as well in 1987 when michael ondaatje described the construction of the double_decker bridge in exquisite poetic detail in his novel ''in the skin of a lion , '' marking it as the epitome of this city 's latent but limitless possibilities in the collective imagination of torontonians . but the steel arched bridge , spanning the don river and don valley parkway with a_12 story drop , also has a dark side , one mr . ondaatje suggested in his novel by describing how a gust of wind blew a nun off the bridge before she was scooped up in midair by a construction_worker suspended on a rope . reality has been less kind . more than 400 people have jumped from the bridge to their deaths , including 100 over the last decade , lending the viaduct the morbid nickname of ' 'suicide magnet . '' only the golden gate bridge has been the site of more suicides in north_america , according to mental_health advocates here . next month , however , it seems the suicidal jumps will stop . workers are putting the final touches to a series of barriers across the bridge consisting of 10 , 000 stainless_steel rods and bow string masts designed so no one can get through them . the structure , which is costing the city 4 million , is intended to create what the architect calls a ''luminous veil'' across the bridge . ''i 've been given a great opportunity to deal with life and death , '' said dereck revington , the university of waterloo architect who designed the new structure . he said his work was inspired by nicholas temelcoff , the ondaatje character who caught the falling nun . ''a barrier needs the same kind of elegance and grace as temelcoff , '' he added . but many here have opposed revamping one of toronto 's aesthetic treasures and obstructing one of the city 's most spectacular views , and the project has fueled a debate about how far local government should strive to prevent people from ending their lives . toronto is a cold , even unfriendly place compared with many other canadian communities , but it has a lower suicide rate than the country as a whole . the suicide rate here , and in the rest of canada , has declined since the early 1980 's . so why spend the extra money on this problem at a time when the needs for more public_housing and health_care services have become increasingly pressing ? ''critics say that it costs too much , '' noted a toronto_star article on jan . 28 acknowledging a slew of letters to the editor excoriating the project . ''they say it wo n't save lives . they say the 'unfortunates' inclined toward self destruction will just go elsewhere . they say it 's ugly . they say it 's an uncomfortable reminder of unpleasant things . '' it took five years of lobbying for michael mccamus and al birney , two local mental_health advocates with relatives who suffer from schizophrenia , to persuade a reluctant city_council to set aside the money for restructuring the viaduct . the two men argued that if new york and paris could add protective structures to the empire_state_building and the eiffel_tower to avert suicides , toronto could do the same . their campaign picked up sympathy in 1997 , when a 35 year old man named martin kruze jumped off the bridge to his death shortly after a man convicted of abusing him as a child received a two year prison term , a sentence widely viewed as too lenient . the case drew national attention because the convicted abuser was part of a ring operated by employees of maple_leaf_gardens , formerly the arena of the toronto_maple_leafs ice_hockey team . mr . mccamus and mr . birney reinforced their campaign with several academic studies showing that similar fences reduced incidents of bridge suicides in other cities . one such study of the duke_ellington bridge in washington , d.c. , showed that the building of a barrier there in 1986 did not cause a corresponding increase in suicides at the nearby taft bridge , suggesting that certain sites have a special draw for potential suicide jumpers . given a barrier , those considering suicide are forced to pause , giving them an opportunity to rethink their predicament and seek help . ''if you thwart jumpers from an immediately accessible site , '' said alan l . berman , executive director of the washington based american association of suicidology , ''you will save some lives . '' toronto journal",has a topic of health
"as president boris n . yeltsin prepares to go before a joint meeting of parliament on thursday to ask the country "" to believe in him again , "" as one newspaper put it , there are muted but growing concerns about his health . alarm_bells went off last month when the central_intelligence_agency alleged that mr . yeltsin has a worsening problem with alcohol . they rang louder last weekend when video footage of mr . yeltsin at a meeting in almaty , the kazakh capital , showed him walking unevenly , grabbing an aide for support he also had difficulty speaking . officially the government has rebuffed all requests for comment . there are few more sensitive_topics for an administration trying to find a plausible solution in chechnya and to convince donors that economic and political stability will soon return . the state of health of the leader , whether czar , general secretary or president , has always been something of a taboo in russia . it is no different with mr . yeltsin . senior diplomats say that mr . yeltsin seems ill and that he has periods of depression and heavy drinking when he becomes incommunicado . but no one pretends to know the true state of his health . mr . yeltsin recently turned 64 , and he has had a difficult few years as he has tried to guide russia away from a bankrupt totalitarian past . mr . yeltsin appearance these days is a kind of testament to the struggle his face appears swollen and puffy , his hands thick with edema , his gait ponderous . when he smiles , rarely now in public , his eyes seem to disappear . one western intelligence agency said of mr . yeltsin two years ago "" that he drinks no more than an average russian man of his age and experience , "" which was understood to be a delicate way of saying he drinks a lot . last summer , diplomats who saw him in berlin as he blew kisses to the crowd , conducted a german orchestra and sang happily said that he was drunk , but that his mood was infectious and was well received . in may 1992 at a meeting in tashkent , uzbekistan , mr . yeltsin was similarly boisterous , red faced and amusing , and later rejected assertions by opposition politicians that he had been drunk . last fall he left the irish prime_minister waiting at shannon airport and remained on his airplane . aides said he was ill mr . yeltsin said he had overslept . but in almaty on friday , mr . yeltsin appeared much weaker and less boisterous . many russian journalists who were there think mr . yeltsin simply celebrated too much during a birthday party on the plane . diplomats are not so sure , though they say he displays great_powers of recuperation and they expect him to be in good form on thursday . mr . yeltsin has a bad back and is said by diplomats to take medication for the pain , which may cause him difficulties if combined with alcohol . he is said to take cortisone , which could help explain the puffiness . he has heart problems , and some doctors , though cautioning that they do not know his history , say he seems to suffer from arteriosclerosis . there are also rumors about liver or kidney problems , and there was another set of rumors that while mr . yeltsin was hospitalized for two weeks in december , as the invasion of chechnya began , he had had another operation as well as a nose job . but rumors are general in a political hierarchy that more and more resembles a court . should mr . yeltsin die in office , prime_minister viktor s . chernomyrdin would become acting president and must call new elections within three months . most russian newspapers have not touched the issue . one television commentator in almaty made a lightly veiled reference to mr . yeltsin 's drinking a lot of kumys , the kazakh delicacy of fermented mare 's milk . the sevodnya newspaper carefully ran excerpts from an agence_france_presse dispatch . otto latsis , a senior columnist for izvestia and a member of mr . yeltsin 's advisory_council , said the press 's "" reserve "" is clear . "" this is the president , "" mr . latsis said , "" and if he has some serious health problems , he should quit . but to come up with such a demand , one needs confirmed information . "" mr . latsis and others have called for rules to oblige a president to have an annual checkup and to have the results published . but no one expects that to happen in the new russia , any more than in the old . talks with yeltsin opposed washington , feb . 15 ( special to the new york times ) a bipartisan group of legislators urged president_clinton in a letter today to turn down an invitation to meet president boris n . yeltsin in may unless the war in chechnya has been resolved . the letter , organized by representative tim roemer , democrat of indiana , said "" russia 's involvement in chechnya illustrated an alarming disregard for abiding by the principles of cooperation "" that mr . yeltsin agreed to when he visited washington last september .",has a topic of health
"lead high in the cascade mountains , where the road rises and falls steeply between rushing alpine streams , tourists have been lining up to cheer on a young man propelling himself westward in a wheelchair . high in the cascade mountains , where the road rises and falls steeply between rushing alpine streams , tourists have been lining up to cheer on a young man propelling himself westward in a wheelchair . no other event in canada in the last 10 months has attracted the attention drawn by rick hansen , a 29 year old british columbian who set out two years ago to push himself around the world . on his arrival in this town on the western side of the cascades , mr . hansen , a paraplegic since he was 15 years old , when a truck in which he hitchhiking back from a fishing expedition rolled over on a gravel road , was only 100 miles short of his finish line in vancouver , where he began his 25 , 000 mile odyssey . 8 million collected along the way , he has collected nearly 8 million for spinal_cord research , wheelchair sport and rehabilitation , most of it since returning to canada last fall . but his main achievement , apart from the physical endurance involved in pushing himself through 34 countries on four continents , may have been the interest he has stirred in the plight of the disabled . from small communities in the atlantic provinces and the prairies to cities like toronto , large crowds have turned out to watch mr . hansen 's ''man in motion'' caravan . hockey stadiums have filled for his rallies , and his progress much of it in the canadian winter , on an itinerary that crisscrossed the rocky_mountains three times has been marked by newspaper editorials and roadside greetings from police chiefs , mayors and provincial premiers . in dryden , ontario , a judge ordered four men convicted of drunken_driving to choose between jail and a 115 contribution to mr . hansen 's fund . the men chose the contributions . children are contributors elsewhere , the most frequent contributors have been schoolchildren , running forward with coins and notes as mr . hansen , preceded by royal_canadian_mounted_police cruisers for the entire 6 , 000 mile journey across canada , rolled by . it is not a new phenomenon in canada , where two one legged runners collected more than 28 million in the course of running across the country in the last five years . one of those , terry fox , was widely mourned when he was forced by illness to drop his 1982 attempt in northern ontario , and later died . the wheelchair athlete endured shoulder injuries , more than 100 flat tires , and four robberies , as well as extensive redesign of his five wheelchairs , specially made for the marathon events in which he was a three time world champion before setting out around the world but not ideal for the 50 to 70 mile days that became his routine . romance along the way other vagaries included a flood in new zealand , carbon monoxide poisoning in greece and blizzards in canada . public support has also been attracted by mr . hansen 's understated attitude . among other things , he kept secret for a long while about an aspect of the tour that has gained widespread interest in canadian newspapers , his engagement last year to amanda reid , 27 year old physiotherapist with the tour . ''this tour is not about rick hansen , '' the athlete said , chewing orange sections and sipping spring water after a 43 mile , mostly uphill section through the cascades . ''it 's about changing attitudes toward disabled people , gaining acceptance for them as part of the mainstream of life . ''and perhaps more than that , it 's about chasing dreams . i 'd like to get across the message that winning in life is not something that always comes first , that failure can simply be a matter of being afraid to try . ''",has a topic of health
"as troubles continue to rain down on russia 's new government , president boris n . yeltsin , himself now facing the latest in a series of impeachment votes , tried today to reassure jittery investors that the country would not shift off its ''balanced , finely tuned course . '' the week began with a sharp drop on russia 's financial markets , where prices fell 12 percent monday . on tuesday , the market steadied after the central_bank spent more than 500 million to protect the ruble and raised refinancing rates to 50 percent from 30 , an increase that will bite into russia 's already overextended budget . meanwhile , in a sign of ripening popular discontent , a sit_in by striking miners in the kuzbas region , which has held up traffic on the trans_siberian railroad over the last six days , is spreading across the country , as teachers , doctors , students and miners from the far north to southern russia protested unpaid salaries and miserly stipends . a state of emergency has been declared in the kemerovo region , where the kuzbas mines are situated , to deal with the rail backup . according to one report , a total of 300 cargo trains and 120 passenger trains had been idled by the strikers , causing delays of up to 35 hours on the crucial trans_siberian line , the world 's longest . deputy prime_minister boris nemtsov told a meeting today that the bill for miners' unpaid salaries backed up over six months equaled almost 600 million . ''people 's anger and lack of trust in the federal authorities are so deep that this may lead to a mighty explosion that will reach moscow , '' aman tuleyev , the communist governor of the kemerovo region told reporters on tuesday . to add to the kremlin 's list of political worries , the opposition dominated parliament yesterday voted to delay a vote on the approval of start_ii a slap at mr . yeltsin who had publicly called for ratification of the arms control treaty this summer and today , members of the federation council , or upper_house , approved a communist drafted bill that would ban the buying and selling of agricultural land . the latest impeachment vote against mr . yeltsin , pushed by the communists , is probably doomed . but it took the opposition little time today to gather 177 signatures to move ahead with hearings on a_12 page indictment , which accuses the president of treason and orchestrating the country 's economic collapse . ''we have warned time and again that his policy would lead to disaster , '' gennadi zyuganov , leader of the russian communist party , said . the sharp challenge to the kremlin 's policies in moscow and outside comes at a moment when the race to succeed mr . yeltsin when and if he retires at the end of his current term in 2000 has unofficially begun . with the election last sunday of his old foe , aleksandr i . lebed , as governor of a siberian region , political commentators and contributors have focused on the lack of a strong and plausible candidate other than the president himself who could carry on mr . yeltsin 's brand of economic_reform . but for now , prime_minister sergei kiriyenko , the 35 year old former banker who was pushed onto the national stage by mr . yeltsin a month and a half ago , is the one who has to steer the russian economy through the crises that have erupted in the last few weeks .",has a topic of health
"a senate committee report has concluded that canada 's national health system needs a major overhaul that could involve more than 3 billion in new funding . the report by the standing committee of social affairs , science and technology said the single_payer health system was in dire need of advanced medical equipment across the country . clifford krauss ( nyt )",has a topic of health
"in an apparent first , russian scientists have genetically_engineered a new form of anthrax that may be able to defeat the vaccine that american_troops will soon get to protect them against such biological_agents , american scientists said yesterday in interviews . since the advent of genetic_engineering in the late 1970 's and early 1980 's , biological_warfare experts have worried about the technique 's possible use in making deadlier germs that could turn warfare into a more pernicious art . but until now , no one has admitted taking the step of engineering a new pathogen that could be a potential military weapon . col . gerald parker , commander of the army medical research institute of infectious_diseases in fort detrick , md . , said in an interview that experts ''need to evaluate it'' to learn whether the advance is theoretical or practical , and whether it could sidestep the american anthrax vaccine . ''it 's one thing to do this in the lab , '' he said . ''but it 's a whole different thing to produce it in large quantities to be used as a weapon . that would be very difficult . '' officials at the institute said the defense_department was working through diplomatic and other channels to get the russians to share the new organism with american experts . ''this is the first indication we 're aware of in which genes are being put into a fully virulent strain , '' said col . arthur friedlander , chief of the bacteriology division at the institute . the russian scientists , based in obolensk , near moscow , work at the state research center for applied_microbiology . they published their research on the anthrax organism in the december issue of vaccine , a british scientific_journal . the new germ reportedly contains two non anthrax genes that may alter the way in which it causes disease . anthrax normally afflicts animals like cattle and sheep , but it can cause severe illness and death in humans who inhale large doses , making the anthrax bacillus a weapon of potentially horrifying dimensions . but it is very hard technically to develop biological arms that kill on a large scale , and do so without also hurting the aggressor . american experts say a benign explanation for the research is that the russians are trying to improve their own anthrax vaccine , which uses live germs . but the experts add that the strides can aid offense as well as defense , as is the case with most advances in the science of germ protection . ''they genetically_engineered a strain that 's resistant to their own vaccine , and one has to question why that was done , '' said colonel friedlander . ''that 's the disturbing feature here . '' russia is a signatory to the 1972 biological_weapons convention , banning the development , production and stockpiling of biological and toxin weapons . but in 1992 , president boris n . yeltsin admitted that a deadly accident at sverdlovsk in 1979 , in which anthrax spores were released into the air , had been caused by ''our military developments . '' for years , scientists have debated how significant the opening of the gene warfare door would be , with some saying it foreshadows a new age of terror and others playing it down . the skeptics say raw nature has already produced so many germs that haunt humans in horrifying ways that warriors have no reason to create new ones . ''gene wars'' ( beech tree books , morrow , 1988 ) , by charles piller and dr . keith r . yamamoto , a molecular biologist , argued the opposite , saying the field threatened to usher in a new kind of martial insanity . the report of a genetic enhancement to anthrax comes on the heels of scientific evidence published this month that russian germ_warfare experts in the 1970 's created a blend of at least four natural strains of anthrax bacilli , as if the mix was devised to overwhelm a vaccine . the lead russian researcher in the vaccine report , dr . a . p . pomerantsev , shared preliminary information about his team 's work last fall when he was in the united_states collaborating with american scientists on a different project . ''the evidence that they presented suggested that it could be resistant to our vaccine , '' colonel friedlander said . ''we need to get hold of this strain to test it against our vaccine . we need to understand how this new organism causes disease , and we need to test it in animals other than hamsters that the russians used . '' yesterday a pentagon spokesman declined to comment on the vaccine report , but it seems likely that , if possible , the new organism will be studied intensely to see if it can defeat the american vaccine . that vaccine was given to about 150 , 000 troops during the persian_gulf_war in 1991 . this summer , the defense_department plans to begin a campaign of administering it that eventually is to reach all 2.4 million american military personnel .",has a topic of health
"in the worst days of the war , some iraqi doctors here and around the country say they performed surgery by the light of kerosene lanterns . they boiled dressings from one patient to use on another . they collected water from the streets and backed up sewers for straining and boiling . and at times they buried their patients in the garden when the morgues overflowed . western trained iraqi physicians and surgeons , who a year ago diagnosed ailments with multimillion_dollar cat scan systems , the latest x_ray machines and lab facilities , have reverted to basic medical tools the stethoscope , the thermometer , the probing hand and their gut instincts . the combination of allied bombing , postwar rebellion and the trade_embargo against iraq has left many parts of the country 's medical establishment in ruins and its western trained doctors beleaguered by the overload of casualties , destruction and disease . improvisation and anger many physicians said in interviews that they were coping by improvisation . some doctors , who asked not to be identified , severely criticized the iraqi government of president saddam_hussein for what one characterized as his "" criminality "" in inviting the devastation of the country . dr . walid al rawi , showing a reporter and a visiting american physician around the grounds of the bomb damaged basra teaching_hospital , where he is administrator , hissed and shooed away a pack of snarling dogs . "" since the war , they have become more aggressive because they ate human bodies , "" he said . across town , the tahrir hospital in basra 's old port district lost most of its windows when a bomb struck near its outpatient clinic . ten miles away in zubair , allied bombs struck the city 's only hospital , medical officials here said , making it unusable . a doctor 's account at basra general_hospital , dr . rajha thamer , who was recently named director general of the city 's health authority , said that during the war he was serving in nasiriya , where he witnessed the aftermath of a bridge bombing on feb . 4 . "" i was in my office "" at 3 p.m. , he said , just as thousands of civilians were walking home , many of them trekking across the bomb cratered euphrates_river bridge because it would no longer support vehicles , when the bomb struck . "" by the time i got there , there were hundreds of people in the river , "" dr . thamer said . "" by the end of the day , more than 180 casualties were brought into the hospital and we recorded 100 deaths . "" at basra teaching_hospital , dr . rawi , 42 years old , considered himself somewhat lucky that after the outbreak of war in january he was able to supply electricity and clean_water to his 435 bed institution after allied bombers knocked out the national electric power grid serving the rest of this city . but a week after the allied bombing in and around basra began , dr . rawi discovered that war has a way of intruding . cleaning the dirty water on jan . 17 , after the opening blackout of the war , the diesel motors of four big generators installed just for such an emergency kicked in to provide current and heat to the operating rooms , intensive_care_unit and wards . for drinking_water , the hospital 's engineers took a pump down to the shatt al arab waterway , which flows in front of the hospital , and began pumping river water contaminated by sewage from upstream into a holding tank . after consulting his bacteriologist , dr . rawi ordered a liter of laundry bleach poured into every 15 , 000 liters of river water in the tank . the chlorine laden bleach went to work on the bacteria from the river . it seemed to do the job , he said . in baghdad at the yarmuk teaching_hospital , the chief of the surgery department , dr . mohsen al_ani , recalled the night of feb . 13 , when 52 burn cases came in after f_117 stealth planes bombed the amiriya air_raid_shelter , where hundreds of civilians had taken refuge during a night of attacks . "" we had to use the open method of burn treatment , "" the doctor said , because of the shortage of bandages and dressings , "" and this calls for the patient to lie completely naked without cover . "" "" there was no electricity or water on the wards , "" he said , "" and we lost a lot of burn cases because there was no heating and they died of the cold and shock . "" nearby , at the 400 bed saddam pediatric hospital , dr . qasm ismail , the director , said that on the first night of the allied bombing campaign , his 400 bed installation was nearly full when the electricity failed and the explosions sent panic through the wards . "" mothers grabbed their children out of incubators , took intravenous tubes out of their arms , "" he said . "" others were removed from oxygen tents , and they ran to the basement , where there was no heat . i lost more than 40 prematures in the first 12 hours of the bombing . "" in karbala , scene of a rebellion by shiite_muslims , the husseini hospital itself became a target , and its upper floors today are riddled with holes from tank artillery rounds fired into the building . makeshift burial ground the hospital 's young surgical chief , who refused to be identified by name , said that at the height of the rebellion , "" all of the people we operated on died . "" "" there was no postoperative care , "" he said . "" we were seven doctors , three times in the operating theater per day . at one time , we had 65 bodies in the garden and still today we have 15 cadavers buried there . "" far to the north , in erbil , a kurdish center , dr . khurshid dizaye , 56 , is in charge of ward no . 3 at the pediatric hospital . "" this hospital was running on kerosene lanterns during the war , "" he said . "" can you imagine doing a caesarean section in this situation ? "" the doctor , who in 1975 joined a kurdish rebellion against baghdad only to see it fail , has devoted the years since to his pediatric practice among the kurds of the erbil area . "" you ca n't imagine how much we have suffered from this war , "" he said , "" and although i speak english , i am not able to express all of my feelings about it . """,has a topic of health
"responding to an increasing number of requests , doctors have been removing and storing the sperm of men who have just died . the practice , feasible for two decades , is still rare . but it is becoming more common , according to a new study . most of the requests for dead men 's sperm are from family members , and medical experts are starting to debate when and whether the procedure should be permitted . the study , by dr . arthur caplan , the director of the center for bioethics at the university of pennsylvania , and his colleagues , was a survey of 273 infertility centers in the united_states and canada . the survey asked whether they had removed sperm from dead men from 1980 to 1995 . the survey found that sperm had been removed from 25 men at 14 centers in 11 states . forty of the centers in the united_states reported a total of 83 requests , half of them in 1994 and 1995 and for men whose age ranged from the teens to 60 . the canadian centers did not report any requests . the 273 centers said they knew of no children who had been conceived with sperm that was posthumously retrieved , said the survey , which is published in the june issue of the journal of urology . as often happens in the new world of reproductive technology , doctors who are asked to take sperm from dead men find themselves floundering in an area where the rules are uncertain . in the end , the decision to honor or decline a wife 's or family member 's plea for the sperm can hinge on the doctor 's personal feelings about the situation . some almost never refuse to do the procedure . others say they do it only if the man was married and had wanted children . others decline all requests . retrieving sperm from a dead man is easy , said dr . mark sauer , the chief of the division of reproductive endocrinology at columbia_university . doctors usually make a small incision in the vas deferens , where sperm is stored , and extract the sperm containing fluid . they tend to use a new method , called intercytoplasmic sperm injection , to create pregnancies , said dr . cappy rothman , a male fertility specialist at century city hospital in los_angeles . it involves injecting single sperm directly into an egg . in that way , they can best conserve the precious sperm cells , dr . rothman explained . but ''the real issue , '' dr . sauer said , ''is much more problematic . '' it is , he said , to resolve ''the ethics of taking sperm without the consent of the donor . '' and there , he added , ''you 'll never get consensus . '' dr . sauer said his only experience with the practice was when he was called , several years ago , by a colleague who wanted his advice on whether to take the sperm from a nevada man who had just hanged himself . dr . sauer said he had told her to go ahead . after all , he reasoned , the wife had wanted to have a child with her husband she was of sound mind , and ''there is n't anything that would preclude you . '' but , he said , it is easy to get into thorny territory . he said that before he would agree to take sperm from a new york man who had just died , he would consult his hospital 's lawyer . dr . rothman was the first to report on the practice . in a paper published in 1980 , he described how he retrieved sperm in 1978 from a 32 year old man who had been hit by a truck and was brain dead . shortly_afterward , dr . rothman got a call from a boston lawyer whose 15 year old brother had been shot in the head and was in a hospital that was a three hour drive from los_angeles . the boy was the family 's only male heir . no one at the hospital would remove his sperm they said they thought it would be unethical . and so , the sister asked , would dr . rothman do it ? by the time dr . rothman drove to the hospital , the boy had died . he removed the sperm and drove with it back to his hospital in los_angeles . the family followed him . when dr . rothman arrived at his laboratory , he looked under a microscope at the sperm and saw that it was moving . ''the mother smiled , '' dr . rothman said . ''there were tears in her eyes . she leaned over , gave me a kiss on the cheek , and tipped me 20 . '' but , he added , ''to my knowledge , she never used the sperm . '' since then , dr . rothman said he had done about seven more sperm retrievals from dead men , including one who had been in the los_angeles morgue for 38 hours . he said that the man 's wife had used the sperm to have four of her eggs fertilized but that no embryos survived . she intends to try again , dr . rothman said . lori andrews , a professor of reproductive law at the chicago kent college of law , said she had been consulted several times by doctors who wanted to take sperm from dead men and wondered whether it was legal or ethical . the first case involved a man who had died in a car accident and who had wanted to have children . his wife wanted his sperm . but then , professor andrews said , ''the cases started getting more and more remote from the interests of the person . '' she cited two examples a teen_age boy whose parents wanted his sperm to impregnate a surrogate_mother , and a woman whose husband had repeatedly said he did not want to have children with her . ''she claimed he changed his mind the week before the accident , '' professor andrews said . since the law is unclear , she said , it could be argued that a man has the right to his gametes and that no one can take his sperm without his written permission . on the other hand , she added , there is the organ_donation law , which gives next of kin the right to donate a dead person 's body parts and decide on the recipient . so with two competing legal precedents , professor andrews said , ''that 's why the hospitals have been calling me . '' some , like dr . sauer , are glad that reproductive medicine is not heavily regulated . ''it makes you more than a technician , '' he said . others , like dr . caplan , the bioethicist , would like to see a more deliberate national policy . ''right now , '' dr . caplan said , ''it 's up to individual doctors . it 's fair to say , 'is that enough ? ' '' professor andrews agreed , saying ''we have not been good at drawing lines in this field . i think that it 's a show me the money industry . if you can pay , you can get the service . '' and for policies that can fundamentally change human relationships , she said , that is not good enough .",has a topic of health
"the death toll in a fire at a drug treatment hospital early saturday rose to 45 , all of them women , and russian officials said that they died because they were trapped by locked exits and locked window grilles as toxic smoke suffocated them . officials said they suspected arson and were investigating further . but they said the magnitude of the death toll appeared to result from gross safety violations and the evident failure of the hospital 's staff to make an effort to rescue its patients . ''i have to say that no rescue operations were carried out by the personnel , '' aleksandr p . chupriyan , the deputy minister of emergencies services , said in remarks broadcast on ekho_moskvy . ''the fact is that when they discovered the fire , they themselves jumped out from the first floor . '' the fire was not large , beginning in a second floor kitchen that had undergone repairs the previous day , but the flames generated thick , toxic smoke that filled that wing of the moscow drug treatment hospital no . 17 , one of the country 's largest centers for treating addicts . of those killed , 43 were patients , sleeping on the women 's ward on the second floor . the two others were hospital workers . most of the patients were younger than 35 , a hospital psychologist , olga rudakov , told ntv , a national station . all should have been able to walk out , she said , had they not been trapped . at least 150 patients and workers escaped , though at least 12 were hurt . many windows in the wing had been smashed , but the metal bars blocking them remained in place . the only exit not engulfed in smoke was behind a locked gate , the chief of the emergencies ministry 's fire inspection department , maj . gen . yuri p . nenashev , said . it was not clear whether hospital workers had keys to the window grilles or whether they tried to unlock them . russia has strict building and fire codes but also a culture of bribery and corruption that allows violations to pass unpunished and unfixed . mr . nenashev said fire inspectors had found safety violations in february and march and recommended closing the hospital until they were corrected . a court refused , however , and issued only a warning . the fire 's toll was the worst in years in moscow . a fire at people 's friendship university here in 2003 killed 44 people , mostly foreign students . in that case , too , locked emergency exits trapped those inside . the victims on saturday were among the most vulnerable people in russia , recovering addicts who engender little public sympathy . the hospital is in a depressed part of southern moscow , an area of crumbling soviet_era apartment blocs . one elderly woman outside the hospital who refused to give her name said that her granddaughter was among the patients who survived the fire . still , she offered her no sympathy for her granddaughter . ''let death take her , '' she said .",has a topic of health
"no one in russia understands the power of political imagery better than president boris_yeltsin , who consolidated his leadership when he helped stop the august 1991 coup by standing on a tank and urging his countrymen to resist the attempted takeover . that makes his stumbling appearance last friday at a meeting in kazakhstan with the leaders of 12 former soviet republics all the more shocking and puzzling . at a moment when his presidency has been badly_shaken by the brutal russian attack on chechnya , mr . yeltsin wobbled across the sidewalk in the kazakh capital of almaty , desperately gripping aides for support . his face was puffy and sallow . before canceling a later news conference , he attempted to answer questions at a photo session and was barely able to speak . these scenes were filmed by associated press television , but not broadcast on the main russian television news . after years of dodging questions about his health and his drinking , mr . yeltsin owes his country and the world a candid accounting . the performance in almaty moves the issue beyond the discreet conversation of diplomats , because mr . yeltsin 's ability to govern russia is now in question . russia , which has been moving into a more democratic and open era , seems eerily similar to the pre gorbachev soviet_union when the faltering health of three consecutive communist_party leaders leonid brezhnew , yuri andropov and konstantin chernenko was considered a state secret . mr . yeltsin has complained of a bad back , and may be on medication to ease the pain . he reported a "" physical breakdown "" in 1987 when he was hospitalized after a confrontation with mikhail_gorbachev that led to his dismissal from the politburo . supporters say mr . yeltsin has a low tolerance for alcohol and can disable himself for days with an evening of heavy drinking . the last sign of trouble came in the fall when mr . yeltsin snubbed irish leaders waiting to greet him during a refueling stop in ireland . aides said he had overslept . whatever the problem , or combination of problems , mr . yeltsin cannot expect to retain authority when he seems incapacitated and offers no explanation . moscow 's political culture , beginning long before the bolsheviks , has not been kind to wounded leaders , and even in this more democratic day the piranhas will strike swiftly . hiding the truth about mr . yeltsin 's health will only increase the chances for plotting and instability . for the united_states , the international_monetary_fund and others considering expanded financial assistance for russia , mr . yeltsin 's behavior can only encourage doubts about the condition of a developing democracy where something as critical as the health of the president is cloaked by his staff . if mr . yeltsin remains committed to untangling russia from its authoritarian past , he and his doctors must quickly come clean .",has a topic of health
"boris n . yeltsin 's heart function has improved significantly since his bypass_surgery last month and his recuperation continues smoothly , according to an american consultant in the russian_president 's case . ''he is doing just beautifully , '' the consultant , dr . michael e . debakey , of baylor college of medicine in houston , said in a telephone interview wednesday night , hours after talking with mr . yeltsin 's surgeon , dr . renat s . akchurin , in moscow . mr . yeltsin , 65 , is increasingly active and plans to spend some time at his home near the black_sea before returning to the kremlin later this month , dr . debakey said . mr . yeltsin moved to his dacha near moscow about a week ago . dr . akchurin , who performed a quintuple heart bypass on mr . yeltsin on nov . 5 , had called to brief dr . debakey , who consulted in the case twice in moscow in september to confirm that mr . yeltsin could undergo a bypass , and again at the time of the surgery . dr . debakey said tests had shown significant improvement in mr . yeltsin 's heart function . the test measures the proportion of blood ejected from the main chamber of the heart in each beat , and is known as the ejection fraction . a normal fraction is about 66 percent . but it was a low of 20 percent last summer after mr . yeltsin suffered a heart_attack that his doctors stopped in progress by injecting a clot dissolving drug . the fraction improved to 30 to 35 percent in september and rose to about 40 percent before the operation . it is now 50 percent , dr . debakey said . he said that although the fraction was not fully normal , ''for him to come all that way is absolutely remarkable , particularly in that short period of time , and it clearly confirms the diagnosis of a stunned heart . '' doctors also call such a condition a hibernating heart , a condition in which portions of the heart muscle are temporarily unable to work because they lack sufficient nourishment , but can become functional when a supply of oxygenated blood is restored . ''he has got the kind of response that i hoped and predicted he would get , '' dr . debakey said . he added that he expected mr . yeltsin ''will be able to lead a virtually normal life . ''",has a topic of health
"charlotte m . cohan , her bones weakened by disease , curled up in a chair at the rotary laughlin center with a cup of tea and some carrot cake . "" i always thought a nursing home was the worst place you could go to , the end of the line , "" she said as tchaikovsky 's "" romeo and juliet "" played on the stereo . "" this place is a godsend . i have a hundred friends here . "" for her shared room and "" more food than you can eat "" at this downtown toronto home for the aged , mrs . cohan , who is 82 years old , pays the equivalent of 700 a month , financing it through her government retirement pension . she also gets 87 a month in "" comfort money "" for personal expenses , like magazines and visits to the hairdresser . thanks to universal health_insurance , benefits to the impoverished elderly in canada are considerably more generous than those offered by the united_states . in part they reflect a greater trust in the role of government in canada , and a willingness to pay higher taxes for social_services . fees from nursing home patients , for example , generally represent about one third of the actual cost in either private or government homes . the balance is paid by provincial governments and community_service agencies . but canada 's different approach to health_care for the elderly applies at higher income levels as well . americans must use their own money for nursing homes or other long_term_care until they deplete their assets then they can qualify for medicaid , the federal state health program , a process that often leads to anguish and humiliation . no such restrictions exist in canada , where there are some means tests for government aid but families are not required to sell off their assets . those who are better off may be required to pay more , but rich and poor live under the same roof , eat the same meals , go to the same social functions . canada 's growing fiscal problems arise in part from its health system . but for long_term_care it has a system that everyone can afford and that offers more for the money than many patients get in the united_states . the system for the elderly parallels canada 's universal_health_care , which has also won praise for being simpler and more efficient because the government pays all health bills . the clinton_administration has said it wants to include long_term_care in the health reform proposals it is developing , but it may have to defer any major program because of the costs . fastest growing age group "" we do n't have quite the same idea that the only way you 're entitled to government help is as a total last resort , "" said raisa deber , health economist at the university of toronto . "" we have a different set of priorities . "" a result , said sharon sholzberg gray , executive director of the canadian long_term_care association in ottawa , is that "" affording long_term_care has never been an issue for individual canadians . "" the elderly are canada 's fastest growing age group . some 3 million canadians are over 65 , or one citizen in 10 . in 30 years , the ratio will be 1 in 5 . american figures are roughly comparable one american in 8 is over 65 in 30 years , the ratio will be 1 in 6 . the charge for standard nursing home accommodation , depending on the province or territory , is 625 to 700 a month . the fee is set at about 78 a month under the income received by the poorest pensioners in order to leave the all important "" comfort money . "" the cost is lower jessie current , 90 , pays about 1 , 650 a month at rotary laughlin . she is canadian born . her late husband was an american in the pulp and paper business and they lived in southern ohio . "" this is nothing like the bills i 'd have if i had to go to a nursing home in the states , "" she said . in the united_states the average cost of a nursing home is 2 , 500 a month . using numbers from the provinces and from statistics_canada , the canadian long_term_care association has calculated the cost to the taxpayer of all community and institution based care programs for the elderly at 3 . 9 billion a year . this is slightly over 10 percent of the 32 . 4 billion that ottawa and the provinces spend on health . in the united_states public funds , mainly medicaid , pay for more than half of all nursing home costs . the health_care financing administration reports medicaid expenditures for long_term_care at 38 . 6 billion last year . an estimated 15 billion to 20 billion of public funds also went into long_term_care in federal and state social service grants . a fear of poverty most american and canadian health economists agree that the quality of institutions that serve mainly medicaid patients though they vary_widely is generally below that of the publicly supported canadian institutions . medicaid pays nursing home fees that range from 1 , 200 a month to nearly 4 , 000 a month , depending on the state , usually well below what the better homes charge private patients . so great is the fear in the united_states of being forced into poverty by the cost of long_term_care that more than 2.4 million americans have bought costly insurance to cover the cost . in canada , there is no such thing . no country has a perfect system , but canada 's , while continuing a process of creative tinkering , has caught the attention of specialists in the united_states . "" we have looked at canadian long_term_care programs and found them very interesting , "" said robyn stone , who headed the long_term_care work group for president_clinton . some spending cuts the president is expected to give special emphasis in his proposals to expanding home and community based programs , as canadian provinces are now doing . keeping people in their own homes longer can improve the quality of life and save money . ontario , home to one of three canadians , has just announced plans to spend 505 million over the next five years , mostly to expand and streamline home_care services for the elderly , like meal programs , home maintenance , transportation and nurses' visits . the province 's health minister , ruth grier , said in an interview that overall health spending is being drastically curtailed except in the home and community based sector , where the aim is to "" help the elderly keep their independence as long as possible . "" olive donaldson , a member of the nonprofit victorian order of nurses , visits 12 patients a day , most of them elderly , in north toronto . a "" foot soldier , "" as she calls herself , "" who is in the trenches every day , "" she provides home dialysis , intravenous medication , even "" bowel routines "" if necessary . for her there is no question about the value of home_care . "" i feel it 's cheaper in the long run , "" she said . "" it takes longer to get well in a hospital . at home you 're more relaxed . it 's more supportive , and you 're in charge . "" ontario government agencies provided some form of home medical care to 307 , 000 people last year , roughly 3 percent of the population of the province , but more than one third of those over 65 . the number is expected to grow to 340 , 000 in the current year . a higher priority many states in the united_states already have well developed home_care programs for the elderly , financed in part by medicaid . the main differences are the higher priority given this approach in canada and the degree of integration here between home and institutional care . dr . duncan robertson , head of geriatric medicine units at both the sunnybrook health science center in toronto and the university of toronto , points to an "" artificial dichotomy "" in the united_states . "" in making choices , families must do a great deal more work and suffer more anxiety because the system is so complicated and disjointed , whereas in canada , you literally have one or two contacts with placement specialists who can then access a full range of services , "" he said . basically , the canadians run care for the aged as a social program , which means that the real risk of financial disaster for those facing long_term_care needs is incurred not by individuals but by society . tests national character in their book "" a will and a way what the united_states can learn from canada about caring for the elderly , "" rosalie a . kane and robert l . kane , health economists at the university of minnesota , call long_term_care a test of national character . canadians , they wrote , "" seem to show that persons and organizations of good will can grapple with long_term_care and produce a program that both the country and individual users can afford . "" mrs . kane added in an interview "" at the very minimum , the canadian experience illustrates the art of the possible at a time when pessimism prevails in the united_states regarding genuine , far reaching long_term_care reform . """,has a topic of health
"two years ago , the united_states_government promised to build more than 140 badly needed health clinics in iraq , bringing basic care to underserved areas outside the big cities . that could have done a lot of good , saving innocent iraqi lives and building good will for the united_states in places where it has grown dangerously scarce . a generous cost plus contract was awarded to parsons inc . , an american construction firm , to do the work , supervised by the army_corps_of_engineers . now , with roughly 200 million already spent and financing from washington set to run out in less than nine months , it appears extremely unlikely that most of those clinics will ever be built . as the washington_post reported earlier this month , the army_corps_of_engineers predicts that no more than 20 clinics will actually be completed out of 142 . america 's good intentions should not be allowed to expire with so pathetically little achieved . the country 's three years in iraq have been a cavalcade of squandered opportunities and unanticipated outcomes . many of those are now , sadly , beyond retrieval . the health clinics are not . there appears to be plenty of blame to go around for the health clinics fiasco . high on the list comes the bush_administration 's stubborn refusal to factor the deteriorating military situation into reconstruction planning . by the time this contract was awarded , in the spring of 2004 , it should have been clear that special security measures would be needed in many areas . beyond that , there appear to be some serious questions about the performance by parsons and the quality of supervision by the army_corps_of_engineers . the office of the special_inspector_general_for_iraq_reconstruction is looking into many of these issues and is expected to issue a report later this month . sorting out the specific responsibilities is important for avoiding similar contracting debacles in the future . just as important is delivering on the original promise of health clinics . a new plan should be drawn up , taking a more realistic account of security conditions , and new financing needs to be found . new , and tighter , contracts need to be written and enforced . recent decades have been cruel to the children of iraq , a country that was a regional leader in health_care 30 years ago . then came saddam_hussein 's diversion of iraq 's wealth into weapons , wars and palaces , 12 years of crushing international_sanctions and finally , the invasion , occupation and insurgency . more children have probably died from lack of clean_water and sanitation , malnutrition , and lack of health_care than from the missile , bomb and rocket attacks of invading armies and insurgent militias . that terrible history cannot be undone . but iraqi children and their parents can still be helped to overcome some of the enduring health consequences . let it not be said that thousands more iraqis died needlessly because america walked away from its promise of health clinics with less than 15 percent of the job done . editorial",has a topic of health
"in a potentially crucial turn for russia 's most contentious criminal trial , two forensic psychiatrists testified today that a russian army colonel , yuri budanov , was insane when he strangled an 18 year old chechen woman nearly three years ago . the judgment of insanity the second such opinion in months appeared to pave the way for col . budanov 's acquittal in a court proceeding that has become a yardstick for russia 's ability or willingness to control rights abuses by its military . colonel budanov 's lawyer immediately said he would ask the judge to dismiss the charges and order psychiatric treatment for his client , possibly as soon as friday , when the trial is scheduled to resume . some rights activists said the testimony raised old doubts about the impartiality of the trial , which has long been dogged by charges that evidence of colonel budanov 's guilt had been altered or suppressed . colonel budanov , a onetime commander in the army 's 160th regiment , has admitted that he seized the woman , elza kungayeva , from her home in chechnya in march 2000 , and that he later cut off her clothes with a knife and strangled her in the tent that served as his quarters . he had been drinking heavily . his lawyers argue that he murdered ms . kungayeva in a fit of passion because he believed she was a sniper who had murdered several of his troops . ms . kungayeva 's relatives say he raped her , a contention backed by an autopsy report which was later recalled and changed , and that her murder was premeditated . the kremlin initially expressed outrage over the crime , and even dispatched a representative of ms . kungayeva 's funeral . but many in the russian military have closed ranks behind colonel budanov , and opinion_polls have suggested that most ordinary russians believe he should be set free . court appointed psychiatrists said this summer that colonel budanov was insane at the time of the murder , an opinion some outside experts question because several aspects of the killing , such as the colonel 's subsequent order to subordinates to hide her body in a woods , indicate that he knew he had committed a crime . the federal health ministry ordered colonel budanov re examined this autumn at the serbsky psychiatric institute , a highly unusual move that suggested to some that the russian government was concerned about the objectivity of the trial . the reaffirmation today by the serbsky institute , infamous for its routine insanity rulings against soviet dissidents during the cold_war , failed to satisfy critics . ''it looks like everything keeps slowly moving toward his acquittal , '' aleksandr sokolov , a physician and board member of the russian rights group memorial , said . ''i 'd like to be wrong . but i think this case has a bad perspective . ''",has a topic of health
"the cardiology center where president boris n . yeltsin of russia is likely to have heart surgery later this month has high success rates that are comparable to those in many american hospitals , leading american heart surgeons said yesterday . in announcing that he would undergo heart surgery , mr . yeltsin , 65 , did not specify where it would take place , but the most likely place is the cardiology center in moscow . one surgeon , dr . michael e . debakey of baylor medical center in houston , said he has often visited the cardiology center and that its head surgeon , dr . renat s . akchurin , had trained with him in houston for two years . dr . wayne isom , head of cardiovascular surgery at new york hospital cornell medical center in new york city , said he had operated with dr . akchurin at the moscow center and agreed with dr . debakey 's view . dr . debakey said that ''dr . akchurin is very capable'' and that his team ''has pretty good statistics , almost comparable to ours , about a 95 percent general success rate . '' dr . akchurin performed a bypass_operation on prime_minister viktor s . chernomyrdin about four years ago at the center , dr . debakey said . mr . chernomyrdin would replace mr . yeltsin as president if he died or became incapacitated . dr . debakey said he did not know the moscow hospital 's statistics for long term follow up from heart surgery but said the death rate of about 5 percent was comparable to that of many american hospitals . although it is lower in some hospitals , such statistics vary according to each surgeon 's experience with a particular type of operation and with each patient 's condition . mr . yeltsin did not specify his diagnosis or the type of procedure he will undergo , making it difficult to comment about his prognosis , the american doctors said . but they said a coronary_bypass operation is statistically the most likely possibility . after such surgery , patients face complications like serious infections and bleeding . the moscow center is headed by dr . yevgeny i . chazov , who cared for former president mikhail s . gorbachev and is a former soviet health minister . ''i do n't know of any other place in russia other than chazov 's where they would do the operation , '' dr . debakey said . dr . james e . muller , the head of cardiology at the university of kentucky in lexington , who has worked at the moscow center , said many patients leave american hospitals about five days after heart surgery and recuperate further under supervision at home . ''but most patients do not feel like themselves for six months , '' dr . muller said . as health minister , dr . chazov was able to get the funds to build the cardiology center , which has ''good equipment , a good set up'' and has done some good work in developing heart drugs , dr . debakey said . he and dr . isom said they had not been consulted about mr . yeltsin 's case . they and spokesmen for the american college of cardiology in bethesda , md . , the american heart association in dallas and several medical_schools and hospitals said they did not know of any american doctor who had been consulted in mr . yeltsin 's case . the white_house has offered any possible assistance to mr . yeltsin but the russians have not yet taken up the offer . mr . yeltsin did not say what tests he had undergone . it is standard practice to do a special x_ray procedure called an angiogram and an echocardiogram among other tests before heart surgery . kremlin officials have said that mr . yeltsin has had chest_pains from angina , which results from lack of oxygen rich blood reaching the heart . angina most often is due to a buildup of fatty substances that block one or more coronary_arteries . among the procedures mr . yeltsin might undergo are an angioplasty to open a blocked coronary_artery , or a bypass_operation in which an artery or vein is taken from the chest or leg and fashioned to rechannel blood flow around blocked arteries . other possibilities include surgery to repair or remove a damaged heart valve , if that is his problem , or a heart_transplant if he has a condition known as cardiomyopathy . mr . yeltsin 's procedure is being performed electively later this month . such delays are common , often due to work schedules . they also can be due to need for treatment of congestive heart failure , which can be a complication of many heart conditions , or unrelated conditions such as liver_disease . mr . yeltsin 's full medical_history is not known . he is reported to be a heavy drinker and the status of his liver is unknown . excessive alcohol intake can also damage the heart , often causing damage to the heart muscle , a condition known as cardiomyopathy .",has a topic of health
"the federalist liberal_party has jumped to a lead in the polls and appears poised to wrest the quebec provincial government from the separatist parti qu b cois in the election on monday . such a victory could portend a sea change in canadian politics . after a closely fought race , the shift appears to reflect an emerging consensus on reducing local taxes , tackling long lines for publicly financed health_care and , most importantly , ending the parti qu b cois dream of separating from canada . thirty percent of the voters in a poll published on saturday by l ger marketing , a montreal based firm , said they could still change their minds , suggesting that the parti qu b cois retains a slim possibility of making a last minute comeback and retaining control of the provincial assembly it has held since 1994 . but several polls have shown the liberals surging rapidly over the last week , with jean charest , an ardent federalist and centrist , positioned to become premier . the l ger poll showed the liberals with 45 percent of the vote , the parti qu b cois with 38 percent and the center right action d mocratique du qu_bec with 16 percent . as the liberal vote is concentrated around montreal , the resulting breakdown in the 125 member assembly would likely be much closer . the l ger poll was conducted among 306 quebec residents on april 10 and had a margin of error of plus or minus six percentage_points . a liberal quebec government would come as a relief for the local business community and english speaking quebecers who fear the instability that occurred during the 1980 and 1995 referendum campaigns on separation . but a liberal victory would also give the federal liberal government more leeway on issues from reforming health_care to supporting the united_states in iraq . quebec 's premier , bernard landry , soft pedaled the separatist issue during most of the campaign , refusing to promise another referendum while proposing tax breaks and four day workweeks for young families with children . his strategy appeared to be working until the campaign 's sole televised debate two weeks ago . mr . charest put mr . landry on the defensive with an unsubstantiated charge that earlier in the day the former separatist premier , jacques parizeau , repeated a controversial remark he made after the referendum in 1995 , blaming ' 'money and ethnic votes'' for the defeat . the remark had been viewed by some as anti immigrant and even anti_semitic . struggling to respond , mr . landry forced mr . parizeau to stop campaigning for the parti qu b cois ticket . that angered much of the party 's activist core and appeared to paralyze the campaign for days . with his campaign in disarray , mr . landry , in the last few days , returned to the old separatist theme to shore up his base . he promised to hold a referendum if there was the slightest chance of winning . ''we want to make a country , '' he said at a rally on wednesday night . whatever the election result , one analyst said the campaign signaled a new political era . ''this is the first election in 40 years in which sovereignty is not the central theme , '' said christian dufour , a montreal lawyer and author . ''but it will come back , sooner or later . the qu b cois question is still there , it 's just dormant . '' federal politicians are likely to take notice of any shift to the right in quebec politics as they prepare for national elections next year . with 7.2 million inhabitants , quebec represents nearly one quarter of the national population .",has a topic of health
"nearly seven decades ago alfred j . roach , a cocky boxer from harlem , bounced into stillman 's gym in manhattan , certain that the older , thick waisted , slow moving fighter throwing jabs into the air in the opposite corner would offer little opposition to his own welterweight ambitions . mr . roach , billed as battlin' al , took quite a shellacking that day . years later , recalling the drubbing in his memoirs , ''fire in my belly'' ( wolfhound press , dublin , 1998 ) , he recalled that his opponent became a welterweight champ a few years later . the thrashing he delivered ended mr . roach 's brief career in the ring but did not take the fight out of the streetwise future entrepreneur . ''in places like harlem you were in a fight every day , '' wrote mr . roach , now 86 . ''you had to fight back . i could n't run . like my dad , my legs were too short . so i had to learn to fight . '' today , having had a remarkably diverse career he has been , among other things , a fireman , waterfront cargo checker , securities salesman , brewery company executive , and electronics manufacturer he is fighting again , this time on behalf of american biogenetic sciences , the copiague company he founded nearly 20 years ago . the company needs a strong defender these days . although it had been honored as one of long_island 's fastest rising high tech companies in terms of 2000 revenues by deloitte_touche , it lost 1 million in the third quarter last year . ( the division that had produced most of the prior year 's revenues had been sold in june . ) but the global scientific network mr . roach had created as a pipeline for biotech innovations was still intact , and he continued to fly around the world , meeting with the scientists and researchers under contract to american biogenetic in countries like china , russia and israel . last november , as public concern about anthrax and bioterrorism seemed to peak , mr . roach returned from a trip to russia , and on nov . 26 , the company announced a_10 year agreement with russia 's ministry of health and its agricultural academy that would allow american biogenetic to sell the rights to dozens of vaccines that mr . roach said had been in use in russia and elsewhere for years . the list , which stretched to eight closely typed pages , included vaccines for anthrax , smallpox and botulism , as well as for measles and certain strains of herpes . it also listed many vaccines intended for veterinary use . almost immediately , nasdaq officials halted trading of the company 's stock , which jumped from 38 cents a share to 73 cents a share on nov . 26 , and asked the company to provide more information about the russian deal . a company spokesman said it was cooperating with the inquiry . it was a decided stumble for mr . roach , who had previously gained an international reputation as a sure footed global negotiator . last week , mr . roach acknowledged that at the time of the november announcement , the contracts with the russians had been negotiated but not yet been signed . in fact , the last of the contracts was not signed until dec . 27 , he said . on jan . 8 , the company voluntarily delisted its common_stock on the nasdaq exchange so that it could begin trading the next day in the over the counter market . a company spokesman said there was no timetable for relisting on nasdaq , where stock in many of the country 's leading high tech companies is traded . wayne lee , a nasdaq spokesman , said that it was the exchange 's policy not to comment on issues dealing with specific companies . losing access to nasdaq investors represents a serious setback for what had been , and might be again , one of long_island 's most promising companies . in the last 10 years , american biogenetic had raised over 75 million in stock sales . although mr . roach himself is not a scientist in fact he did not finish high_school he built american biogenetic largely by creating a global scientific network , then harvesting the discoveries of researchers scattered around the globe . mr . roach says that the company does not intend to bring the vaccines to market itself , a process that could take 10 years and many millions of dollars . rather , it intends to sell licenses to other companies to develop the vaccines . raymond s . firko , a lawyer who specializes in international vaccine development and regulation , said that licensing or importing a vaccine from russia or one of the former soviet states was highly unusual . ''i 've never heard of a russian vaccine coming here , '' said mr . firko , a partner in mintz levin cohn ferris gorvsky popeo , a manhattan law_firm . ''japan and europe , yes . but russia is not in harmony with our regulatory system . you would need a long process for licensing the vaccine through the food and drug administration . you would have to do clinical_trials . there would be questions about quality_control . '' mr . roach said he was convinced the russian vaccines were both safe and needed in this country , and he added that the world_health_organization had used the russian smallpox_vaccine widely in the 1970 's . it is not the first time mr . roach has gone to bat on behalf of russia , whose scientists play a major role in his research network . he has publicly advocated integrating russia and other states of the former soviet_union into the world_economy and believes that russian scientific accomplishments can be shared among people around the world . until last year , when he accepted a plaque from deloitte_touche naming american biogenetic as the fastest growing long_island high tech company for 2000 , mr . roach was perhaps better known in international scientific circles than he was in local business circles . some of that changed when the white haired octogenarian delivered a videotaped message to a room filled with men and women young enough to be his grandchildren . by some accounts , the speech left the audience hopelessly charmed . ''it was a stunning speech , '' said peter goldsmith , the chairman of the long_island software and technology network . mr . goldsmith recalled waiting 30 minutes to congratulate mr . roach because the line of well wishers was so long . ''he 's 86 , but he acts like he 's 40 , '' mr . goldsmith said . ''there were all these young people in the room , and here he is walking slowly , with his big mop of white hair . i tell you , people loved him . '' adam weisman , the deloitte partner in jericho who organized the fast 50 recognition program , said that american biogenetic 's recent fortunes illustrate the fast rate of change in the high tech world . ''to be strong in technology you have to be able to weather the bad times as well as the good times , '' he said . ''the test of a successful company is over time . '' mr . roach said ''i would like to be remembered as the man who got the vaccines here and prevented the disaster that could take place . i do n't believe that the danger of bioterrorism is over . '' l.i . work correction february 10 , 2002 , sunday the l.i . work column last sunday , about a company that has contracted to sell the rights to russian made vaccines , misspelled the surname of a lawyer who cautioned about the regulatory obstacles to the use of such vaccines in the united_states . he is raymond s . fersko , not firko .",has a topic of health
"the art of the state of the union address is to rouse the faithful , deflect critics and identify a problem for which your administration is not to blame , but which you will selflessly combat . president vladimir_putin 's contribution to the genre on wednesday was a fine example . he regaled his rubber_stamp lawmakers with a swipe at ''comrade wolf'' in washington , ever prepared to eat but never to listen . he pledged to make the russian military strong enough to resist unspecified pressures from without . on iran , the message was a bold ''nyet , '' both to the spread of nuclear_weapons and to the use of force to keep them from spreading . but the issue mr . putin chose to highlight ? the vanishing russian . the problem is very real . even joseph stalin banned abortions in 1936 because he worried about the russian birth_rate ( though evidently not enough to stop killing russians or sending them to labor_camps ) . under leonid brezhnev , the state offered all kinds of incentives to have children , including cash bonuses and bigger apartments . the policy proved a windfall for central_asian muslims , who , then as now , raised large families anyway , but it did little to stem the decline of the slavic population . after the soviet_union collapsed , some hoped that freedom would encourage russians to multiply , but the dislocation and insecurity of the era have had the opposite effect . so the russian population continues to dwindle , at the rate of 700 , 000 a year . mr . putin proposes to address the problem with a wide range of subsidies and financial incentives , along with improved health_care , a crackdown on illicit alcohol , improved road safety and the like . these are all useful goals , but they 've been tried before , to no avail . perhaps another approach would be to see whether the population could be increased through improved democratic institutions . if corruption and greed among the elite were curbed somewhat , and if mr . putin started worrying less about throwing russia 's weight around and more about allowing a greater part of the population to share in the country 's governance , riches , debates and dreams , maybe the drinking and poverty would give way to larger families . there 's no guarantee , of course , but unlike the measures mr . putin outlined , this approach has never been fully explored . editorial",has a topic of health
"president boris n . yeltsin has signed a new aids law that imposes mandatory testing on almost all foreigners living here . the law , which was made public today , requires foreigners who plan to spend more than three months in russia to provide documentation that they are not infected with h.i.v. , the virus that causes aids , when they apply for a visa . diplomats will be exempt , but the law does not specify whether foreigners already living in russia will have to be tested before renewing their visas . russians who work in certain professions , as yet unspecified , will also undergo mandatory testing . aids is still relatively rare in russia , but in a country with an antiquated and collapsing health_care system , the disease is desperately feared . the new law , which was drafted by a parliament that is dominated by nationalists , is viewed by many russian aids experts and civil_rights groups as a sign of growing xenophobia and intolerance . many civil_rights and gay_rights groups lobbied strenuously against the new law , maintaining that it is discriminatory . the new law is a watered down version of an earlier draft that mr . yeltsin vetoed . it required aids testing for all foreign visitors , including tourists . the russian tourist_industry , fearing the loss of millions of dollars in revenue , helped lobby against that provision . the earlier draft also required foreigners already living in russia to be tested when renewing their visas , and stipulated that the testing be done in russia a proposal that was vehemently_opposed by western embassies . but the new version has also been criticized . russia 's equivalent of an aids czar , vadim pokrovsky , head of the center for combating aids , condemned the law . "" this will not help check the spread of aids , as many russian citizens travel abroad , "" he said . "" but it will prompt criticism from the world community . "" the russian law 's requirements for foreigners are more stringent than those of most european_countries , but they are not dramatically stricter than those of the united_states . foreigners who seek permanent_residency in the united_states are required to take a medical exam . if they are found to be h.i.v . positive , they are excluded unless they are granted a waiver . according to immigration officials , foreigners who seek a temporary visa are not asked if they are h.i.v . positive . however , when vistors declare that they are h.i.v . positive they can be denied a visa unless they are granted a waiver . unlike many european_countries , the united_states reserves the right to deport aliens who provide false information about whether they are h.i.v . positive . so did the soviet_union , under a law signed in 1990 by mikhail_gorbachev , which remains on the books until the new law goes into effect . under the new law , foreigners who are found to be h.i.v . positive will also face deportation . "" europe has the most progressive laws , "" said kevin j . gardner , an american working in russia who is the head of a russian aids organization , aesop , which lobbied heavily against the new law . "" this law will really hurt russia 's efforts to integrate with western institutions . "" the law requires h.i.v . tests for russian citizens working in "" certain professions , "" but does not specify which ones . aleksei a . demidov , a legal expert in the presidential administration , said that the categories of workers facing compulsory testing would not be published until the law goes into effect on aug . 1 , but would most probably include health_care workers , military and law enforcement employees and prisoners . he said the law would not single out people in high risk groups , like homosexuals and drug addicts , for mandatory testing . russian health officials say that about 800 people have been diagnosed with aids , but private aids organizations estimate that the actual number is ten times higher . and while russia 's rate of infection is negligible compared with that of the united_states , where the centers_for_disease_control and prevention estimates that between one million and 1.5 million people are h.i.v . positive , russian health authorities are worried that their impoverished health_care system cannot handle any wider spread of the desease . bela a . denisenko , chairman of the committee for health protection in the lower_house of parliament , which drafted the aids bill , denied that the bill is discriminatory . "" it is an exaggeration to say that this law will fan xenophobia , "" she said . "" i believe that it is a civilized way of dealing with this problem . if we had a european standard of health_care in this country , or if we had better access to equipment and medicine , then a law like this would be unnecessary . "" some supporters of the law say aids is a foreign disease imported by sexual marauders . during a parliamentary debate last june , ms . denisenko said sexual_contact with a foreigner "" is 100 times more dangerous than with a russian . "" some foreigners living in russia say they are alarmed by the new legislation . "" i know what the results of a test would be , "" said russell l . wycoff , an american real_estate consultant in moscow who is h.i.v . positive . "" i 'm waiting for them to tell me if i have to leave the country . "" he said the law was most frightening for what it does not specify . "" it does n't say which groups are targeted , "" he noted . "" how will they choose ? will they do it like fascist regimes , by marking people ? nobody knows how nationalistic this country is going to get . """,has a topic of health
"dr . michael e . debakey , the american heart surgery pioneer , arrived here today for a meeting with boris n . yeltsin 's doctors on monday to clear the russian_president for a heart bypass_operation . but russian officials , maintaining a wall of secrecy , whisked dr . debakey away before he could speak to reporters waiting at moscow 's sheremetevo airport . in interviews from his office at baylor college of medicine in houston last week , dr . debakey said that if tests confirmed that mr . yeltsin was fit for the operation , it could be performed as early as wednesday . however , in sharp contrast to dr . debakey 's specificity , a kremlin spokesman was deliberately vague today about the timing of the operation , saying it could happen anytime in the next several weeks . the kremlin 's vagueness seemed to be in keeping with the wishes of mr . yeltsin 's daughter , tatyana dyachenko . dr . debakey said that she had asked that no news releases or interviews be permitted until after the operation . a health worker involved in mr . yeltsin 's care said today that the president looks healthy , is in good spirits and often cracks jokes with his doctors , and that preparations have been made for the operation this week . mr . yeltsin 's wife , naina , said in a television interview on saturday ''of course he is worried , but he is outwardly calm . he has a good contact with his doctors . '' dr . debakey said last week that he advised his russian colleagues not to clamp down on information about the impending operation because such a policy could easily lead to false rumors . in the past , rumors that mr . yeltsin was incapacitated by a stroke or even was dead have affected international stock markets . the hush hush atmosphere in moscow today contrasted to dr . debakey 's arrival six weeks ago when he spoke to reporters before he examined mr . yeltsin . dr . debakey was the first independent international consultant in mr . yeltsin 's case . at a news conference following his examination , dr . debakey greatly eased world concern over mr . yeltsin 's health , by saying he expected that the 65 year old leader would be ready for a multi vessel coronary_bypass operation in 6 to 10 weeks if unassociated medical problems cleared up . mr . yeltsin 's medical problems included a severe anemia , bleeding from the intestine and an underactive thyroid . all these problems have cleared up with medical treatment , although direct examination of mr . yeltsin 's stomach and colon through fiberoptic tubes did not identify a precise source of the bleeding , dr . debakey said . the doctors also wanted to give mr . yeltsin a few more weeks for his heart function to improve after it had declined after a heart_attack that was stopped in progress last summer . indeed , mr . yeltsin 's heart function has improved according to a standard ultrasound test , dr . debakey said . dr . debakey said he would not take part in mr . yeltsin 's operation .",has a topic of health
"a woman walked up to the gate of a new army and police recruitment center in tal_afar , a northern city , on wednesday and blew herself up , killing 8 people in addition to herself and wounding 57 , hospital and security officials said . the bomber , who the associated press reported was dressed in men 's clothing , struck at 10 45 a.m . outside the gate of a building that houses the new recruitment center and an american military office that processes compensation forms for iraqis , the officials said . she detonated her belt of explosives , spraying metal balls into a crowd that had gathered , awaiting a security check , they said . al_qaeda in mesopotamia , the terrorist group led by the jordanian militant , abu_musab_al_zarqawi , claimed responsibility for the attack in a posting on a web_site . the posting said the attack had been aimed at the recruitment center , which opened just five days earlier . the attack occurred as the military finished several weeks of sweeps in tal_afar , whose successes had been frequently trumpeted by iraqi officials . the suicide_bombing was the deadliest of several strikes on wednesday , which left at least 19 people dead throughout iraq . in washington , president_bush predicted more violence in iraq before the national vote on oct . 15 on a constitution , but he said the terrorists would not succeed . ''they ca n't stand elections , '' mr . bush said in the white house rose garden , where he was flanked by his top military command . ''the thought of people voting is an anathema to them . '' tal_afar , which is close to the syrian border , has long been a problem spot for the military , which says it is a gateway into the country for foreign_fighters . suicide bombers in iraq are rarely women , though there has been at least one other . during the american invasion in 2003 , a woman driving an explosive packed vehicle blew herself up near an american checkpoint in anbar_province in western iraq . in tal_afar , the bomber , in a familiar pattern , struck at the most vulnerable iraqis . saleh al qadu , the head doctor at tal_afar 's main hospital , said soldiers brought nine bodies in plastic bags to the hospital . one bag held the bomber 's head , he said . the american military said that the blast had killed 5 people and wounded 30 , and that the targets had been civilians outside its military claims office . dr . qadu said the building housed the recruitment center and the claims department . in other attacks , an explosion on wednesday in najaf in the south tore through the house of a guard for the rebellious cleric_moktada_al_sadr , killing one of the guard 's brothers and another relative , and wounding eight others . a police official said the blast occurred in the house , but sahib al amiri , an aide to mr . sadr , said a grenade had been thrown at the house from a passing car . violence against american_forces surged , with the military announcing that four soldiers had been killed in three days in attacks in falluja , west of baghdad , and safwan , near the kuwait border . in baquba , north of baghdad , a car_bomb exploded at a military checkpoint at 3 45 p.m. , killing a civilian and wounding 13 , including 8 police officers , an interior_ministry official said . scattered violence left four people dead in baghdad . at 8 a.m . a roadside_bomb that apparently was meant for a police commando unit killed a civilian . gunmen began shooting at american_forces near the ghazilia bridge in western baghdad , killing an iraqi police_officer . in sadr_city , the shiite_slum in eastern baghdad , another police_officer was killed .",has a topic of health
"with scientists almost certain they have found the virus that causes the respiratory infection known as sars , a breakneck effort has begun to develop a vaccine and drugs to prevent and treat the disease . scientists at the united_states_army 's biodefense laboratory in fort detrick , md . , in cooperation with other federal agencies , are screening up to 2 , 000 approved and experimental drugs , including some cleared for use against other viral diseases , in hopes of finding medicines that will inhibit the growth of the virus in laboratory cultures . if scientists can find a drug that has proved safe for humans , or at least one that has gone through animal toxicity testing , it would accelerate development of a drug to treat sars , which stands for severe_acute_respiratory_syndrome . developing a drug from scratch would take years , experts said . the genetic sequencing of the virus , which was completed over the weekend by canadian scientists and yesterday by americans , is also expected to provide many clues about how the armor of the virus can be pierced . scientists at the national institute of allergy and infectious diseases , meanwhile , are growing the virus in cultures with the aim of killing it to use in a first attempt at a vaccine . killed viruses have long been used for vaccines because they prepare the body 's immune system to be ready in case of an infection by the live virus . ''the quick and easiest one is the killed vaccine , '' said dr . anthony s . fauci , the director of the institute . he said that while developing and testing a vaccine would take several more years , scientists should have an idea in about a year whether a vaccine might be feasible . but scientists warn that many obstacles loom . the type of virus thought to cause sars , a coronavirus , has never received serious attention from drug makers . ''i do n't know anything that works for coronavirus right now , '' said dr . susan r . weiss , a professor of microbiology at the university of pennsylvania . that is because the two human coronaviruses known until now cause only the common_cold , and they are not even the main cause of that . ''people never got to corona because it 's a minor player in causing colds , '' said mark a . mckinlay , vice_president for research and development at viropharma of exton , pa . , which worked on a cold treatment aimed at a different virus . coronaviruses , named for their crown like shape , cause serious diseases in many animals , and vaccines have been developed for some animal coronaviruses , but not without great difficulty . ''all of them do n't work very well , '' said dr . niels pedersen , professor of veterinary medicine at the university of california at davis . the animal vaccines often do not provide strong immunity , and the virus can mutate so that some vaccines will not affect it , he said . some vaccines developed for cat coronavirus actually made the disease worse , he said . nevertheless , dr . pedersen said , sars might provoke stronger immunity in humans because it appears to invade the body more deeply than some of the animal viruses do , leading to a more powerful immune response . that would raise the prospects for a sars vaccine . one bright spot of the research so far is that the sars virus grows well in cultures of cells derived from monkey kidneys . that makes studying the virus easier . having an animal that becomes infected by the virus would also be useful for testing drugs and vaccines , so federal researchers are trying to determine whether they can infect animals like mice or monkeys . some experts say that is not likely because coronaviruses tend to infect only one species . the rat coronavirus does not even infect mice , said dr . kathryn v . holmes of the university of colorado , an authority on the viruses . moreover , the freshly deciphered genetic sequence of the sars virus shows that it is not very similar to other known coronaviruses . as for treatments , doctors in hong_kong , a center of the outbreak , reported last week in the the lancet that the combination of steroids and the antiviral drug ribavirin appeared to help . but the army biodefense lab found in its tests that ribavirin did not inhibit the replication of the sars virus grown in the laboratory . and a spate of new deaths over the weekend in hong_kong has dimmed enthusiasm for the treatment even there . alpha interferon , a drug used to treat hepatitis c , will be a ''prime candidate'' for clinical_trials for a sars treatment , dr . fauci said . in the mid 1980 's , dr . ronald turner , then of the university of utah and now at the university of virginia , found that alpha interferon , sprayed into the noses of volunteers , reduced symptoms when the volunteers were then exposed to a coronavirus that causes the common_cold . the interferon caused nasal irritation severe enough to make it unacceptable as a treatment for colds . but the side effects might be acceptable for a more serious disease like sars , dr . turner said . however , it is ''pretty iffy'' that the approach would work against sars , he said . the government is also looking at other immune therapies , like extracting antibodies to the sars virus from the blood of people who have recovered from the disease . scientists will also look for drugs that block crucial enzymes the virus uses for replication , like proteases . this approach has been successful in treating diseases like aids . the drugs used to treat those diseases are not expected to work on sars because the enzymes are different , but the approach might be used . in laboratory tests , cystatin c , a protease inhibitor found in human blood , blocks replication of the coronaviruses that cause colds , said dr . arlene collins , associate professor of microbiology at the state university of new york at buffalo . but it is unclear if it would inhibit the sars virus , she said . nor has cystatin c ever been tested for safety and efficacy as a drug . avi biopharma of portland , ore . , said its technology for turning off particular viral genes has been used to treat animals with other viral infections . advanced viral research of yonkers , said a drug it was testing for use against aids and other diseases should be tried for sars . a respiratory_illness treatments",has a topic of health
"on nov . 20 , 1990 , in rostov on don , chief inspector issa kostoev of the russian attorney_general 's office arrested andrei romanovich chikatilo . inspector kostoev was convinced that mr . chikatilo , a 54 year old industrial engineer , grandfather and zealous communist , was the serial_killer who had murdered and cannibalized women and children for 12 years throughout the soviet_union . the following adaptation describes the crucial eighth day of interrogation . on oct . 15 , 1992 , mr . chikatilo was sentenced to death for committing 52 murders . he is appealing the verdict on grounds of insanity . chikatilo was startled , just as kostoev had intended . it was n't his lawyer he found in the room but a photographer who was still fussing with his equipment as chikatilo entered . "" today , "" said kostoev in a businesslike tone , "" we are going to take some pictures of you . "" with a movement of his head , kostoev indicated two sealed bags in one corner of the room . "" those bags contain your clothes which we confiscated when we searched your apartment . i 'll tell you which ones to wear and how to stand . "" the message was clear . kostoev was assuming direct physical command over chikatilo . if he told chikatilo to remove his clothes , chikatilo would have to remove them . another message was being transmitted to chikatilo , that photographs were taken for one reason only to show witnesses for purposes of identification . that , in turn , meant that kostoev had lost all hope in chikatilo 's cooperation and would therefore prepare an indictment for murder . "" allright , please stand up , andrei romanovich , and remove your overalls . "" kostoev watched chikatilo take off his black labor_camp overalls . through his obedience , chikatilo had been made to feel the power of the state and kostoev 's personality , and the full weight of the case against him . chikatilo was naked now except for his shorts and prison slippers . "" these first , andrei romanovich , "" said kostoev , handing him the first set of clothes . chikatilo stepped resentfully into the brown pants . good , thought kostoev , let him be unhappy . i 'll be unhappy with him , he 'll be unhappy with me . chikatilo pulled on a gray shirt and began buttoning it . "" and the cap , "" kostoev ordered . "" face the camera , "" he said , watching to make sure chikatilo complied before nodding to the photographer . "" now put on this hat , "" said kostoev , wanting to move quickly . the flash continually going off in chikatilo 's face would shock his nerves . "" now this one . "" another flash lit the bare room . "" now with these pants and this shirt . "" chikatilo was more aware of the photographer as he undressed a second time . kostoev was making him stand naked in front of a stranger . kostoev smiled when he saw chikatilo grimace to distort his features and make his face harder to identify . "" this cap . "" "" this hat . "" even as he barked orders , kostoev still managed to occupy the moral high ground of the injured party . he had shown chikatilo his trust , had confided in him that he could not believe him sane , no sane man could ever have done what he 'd done . he had offered chikatilo the chance of help , treatment , a humane offer that had been suicidally spurned . kostoev could see that chikatilo was weakening . but kostoev also knew this was a man fighting for his life and in a position stronger than he knew . kostoev had scant circumstantial_evidence merely placing chikatilo in the vicinity of several murders and just two more days to obtain a confession before the suspect could walk away . "" sit down , "" said kostoev , "" i want this one of you sitting . "" the walls of the room were reverberating with flashes . "" all right , we 're done . you can put your overalls back on . "" chikatilo would have to undress one more time . the photographer packed up his equipment . "" thank you , "" said kostoev to the photographer . "" and , do n't forget , i want them developed immediately . "" you wo n't need your lawyer today , andrei romanovich , because i have no intention of questioning you , "" said kostoev . it was , as much as anything , a farewell . "" still , there is one thing i would like to say , andrei romanovich . i do n't understand why you choose not to cooperate . from speaking with you i know that you are an intelligent man . "" as i 've told you , you 're not the first murderer i 've ever sat with in a room like this . and you wo n't be the last . i sit with people like you and try to help put them back in touch with life and people . but you had even more to gain than that . you had a choice between treatment and execution . and if you were cured , do you think they 'd keep you in the hospital or put you in prison ? no . you 'd be a free man . are you really so twisted that you would prefer death to that ? "" kostoev spoke evenly but there was doom in his voice , the doom of iron doors slamming in brick walls , the blast of a pistol behind the ear . chikatilo disappeared into silence . but this time it was not only a retreat from the unbearable pressures of the bare interrogation room . chikatilo was going to make his decision now . if he waited until tomorrow , the ninth day , it might be too late . chikatilo emerged from his silence , though still without saying a word . in the formal tone of voice used to conclude proceedings , kostoev asked "" do you have any complaints or requests , andrei romanovich ? "" chikatilo hesitated for a moment , then burst into sobs , his soul streaming toward the freedom only truth can give . "" i would like to write out my statement , "" said chikatilo , his tone so emotionally exhausted that even speech was an effort . "" is it going to be the same thing again , without any details ? "" asked kostoev . "" no , "" said chikatilo , "" i understand everything now . "" chikatilo covered four sheets of paper . after signing his name in the bottom right hand corner , chikatilo handed them to kostoev . "" after my arrest , i have been questioned several times and asked to speak about my criminal activities . my inconsistent behavior should not be judged as any attempt to evade responsibility for what i have wrought . some people may think that , after my arrest , i have not been cognizant of the danger and gravity of what i have done . i want to be believed when i say that is not so at all . my case is by nature exceptional . "" it is not the fear of taking responsibility that forced me to act that way but the intensity , the pressure on my nerves and psyche . i do n't know why but everyone considered me an idiot . i always thought people underestimated me , but those who do n't agree always treat me strangely , without logic or justice . i tortured myself writing complaints . i took all that tension inside me . and that made for nightmares and insomnia . "" the charges brought against me fill me with horror . i can not bear being conscious of all that and expressing it . i think my heart would burst . i 've wanted to be cured for a long time , but i did n't seek help . . . . everything irritated me , all those conversations about the weather , is it good , is it bad . i carried all that fury inside myself and found no way to vent it . if possible , i would like my psyche to be treated , if it is abnormal . than i could help the investigation establish the truth and i could bear the punishment i deserve . i am ready to testify about the crimes i have committed but i do request that you not torment me with details and specifics . my mind could not bear it . after treatment i will attempt to reconstruct everything from memory . "" kostoev looked up at chikatilo to gauge his sincerity . chikatilo meant it . chikatilo was broken . richard lourie is author , most recently , of "" hunting the devil , "" from which this article is adapted .",has a topic of health
"the cambie surgery center , canada 's most prominent private hospital , may be considered a rogue enterprise . accepting money from patients for operations they would otherwise receive free of charge in a public_hospital is technically prohibited in this country , even in cases where patients would wait months or even years before receiving treatment . but no one is about to arrest dr . brian day , who is president and medical director of the center , or any of the 120 doctors who work there . public hospitals are sending him growing numbers of patients they are too busy to treat , and his center is advertising that patients do not have to wait to replace their aching knees . the country 's publicly financed health_insurance system frequently described as the third rail of its political system and a core value of its national identity is gradually breaking down . private clinics are opening around the country by an estimated one a week , and private insurance_companies are about to find a gold mine . dr . day , for instance , is planning to open more private hospitals , first in toronto and ottawa , then in montreal , calgary and edmonton . ontario provincial officials are already threatening stiff fines . dr . day says he is eager to see them in court . ''we 've taken the position that the law is illegal , '' dr . day , 59 , says . ''this is a country in which dogs can get a hip_replacement in under a week and in which humans can wait two to three years . '' dr . day may be a rebel ( he keeps a photograph of himself with fidel_castro behind his desk ) , but he appears to be on top of a new wave in canada 's health_care future . he is poised to become the president of the canadian medical association next year , and his profitable vancouver hospital is serving as a model for medical entrepreneurs in several provinces . canada remains the only industrialized country that outlaws privately financed purchases of core medical services . prime_minister stephen_harper and other politicians remain reluctant to openly propose sweeping changes even though costs for the national and provincial governments are exploding and some cancer patients are waiting months for diagnostic_tests and treatment . but a supreme_court ruling last june it found that a quebec provincial ban on private health_insurance was unconstitutional when patients were suffering and even dying on waiting_lists appears to have become a turning point for the entire country . ''the prohibition on obtaining private health_insurance is not constitutional where the public system fails to deliver reasonable services , '' the court ruled . in response , the quebec premier , jean charest , proposed this month to allow private hospitals to subcontract hip , knee and cataract surgery to private clinics when patients are unable to be treated quickly enough under the public system . the premiers of british_columbia and alberta have suggested they will go much further to encourage private health services and insurance in legislation they plan to propose in the next few months . private doctors across the country are not waiting for changes in the law , figuring provincial governments will not try to stop them only to face more test cases in the supreme_court . one vancouver based company started a large for profit family medical clinic specializing in screening and preventive_medicine here last november . it is planning to set up three similar clinics in toronto , ottawa and london , ontario next summer and nine more in several other cities by the end of 2007 . private diagnostic clinics offering mri procedures are opening around the country . canadian leaders continue to reject the largely market driven american system , with its powerful private insurance_companies and 40 million people left uninsured , as they look to european mixed public private health_insurance and delivery systems . ''why are we so afraid to look at mixed health_care delivery models when other states in europe and around the world have used them to produce better results for patients at a lower cost to taxpayers ? '' the premier of british columbia , gordon campbell , asked in a speech two weeks ago . while proponents of private clinics say they will shorten waiting_lists and quicken service at public institutions , critics warn that they will drain the public system of doctors and nurses . canada has a national doctor shortage already , with 1.4 million people in the province of ontario alone without the services of a family doctor . ''if anesthetists go to work in a private clinic , '' manitoba 's health minister , tim sale , argued recently , ''the work that they were doing in the public_sector is spread among fewer and fewer people . '' but most canadians agree that current wait times are not acceptable . the median wait time between a referral by a family doctor and an appointment with a specialist has increased to 8.3 weeks last year from 3.7 weeks in 1993 , according to a recent study by the fraser institute , a conservative research group . meanwhile the median wait between an appointment with a specialist and treatment has increased to 9.4 weeks from 5.6 weeks over the same period . average wait times between referral by a family doctor and treatment range from 5.5 weeks for oncology to 40 weeks for orthopedic surgery , according to the study . last december , provincial health ministers unveiled new targets for cutting wait times , including four weeks for radiation therapy for cancer patients beginning when doctors consider them ready for treatment and 26 weeks for hip_replacements . but few experts think that will stop the trend toward privatization . dr . day 's hospital here opened in 1996 with 30 doctors and three operating rooms , treating mostly police officers , members of the military and worker 's compensation clients , who are still allowed to seek treatment outside the public insurance system . it took several years to turn a profit . today the center is twice its original size and has yearly revenue of more than 8 million , mostly from perfectly legal procedures . over the last 18 months , the hospital has been under contract by overburdened local hospitals to perform knee , spine and gynecological operations on more than 1 , 000 patients .",has a topic of health
"for most people , a red_cross is the symbol of the international relief agency that provides help to those in need . but for derek marchand and thousands of other canadians who received tainted_blood from the red_cross of canada in the 1980 's , the cross has become a symbol of disillusionment , a painful reminder of how badly their faith in the compassion of canada has been shaken . ''i look at that and i know that they have helped a lot of people , '' mr . marchand said , pointing to the red_cross on one of the many letters in his medical file , ''and i look at what 's happening to me now and i say the math is wrong here . why is this happening to me ? '' for a country that often defines itself by the quality of its health_care system , the last few months have been disquieting . late last year an independent commission reported that canada 's blood system had failed to protect sick canadians who received blood in the 1980 's . the commission concluded that the government had not adequately supervised the red_cross . the agency has been stripped of responsibility for the blood system , and compensation was offered to about 1 , 000 people with aids . but some 42 , 000 canadians , including mr . marchand , had contracted hepatitis c , which attacks the liver and can be fatal . worried about setting too wide a precedent for compensation , federal and provincial authorities jointly set up a compensation fund worth about 750 million . but the fund was for the benefit only of those who had contracted the disease between 1986 and 1990 , when a screening test was used in the united_states , but ignored in canada . the compensation package has become a huge moral and political issue that has dominated newspapers and television newscasts across canada for weeks . it has set off a showdown between prime_minister_jean_chretien and the provinces , and for a brief moment last month it looked as if it could bring down the liberal_party government through a vote of no confidence . mr . marchand was infected with hepatitis c from one or more of the 38 transfusions he received as doctors scrambled to save his life after a devastating accident that occurred on a bright sunday afternoon when he was 16 . he had just received his glider pilot 's license and was walking on the side of the road with his girlfriend , wendy , when a car doing 50 miles per hour plowed into them . the date was sept . 15 , 1985 , three and a half months before the earliest date in the government 's compensation package . ''at first i could n't believe i was infected , '' said mr . marchand , 29 . ''now i ca n't believe i was rejected for compensation . '' he has mostly recovered from the accident but he continues to struggle against the hepatitis c , which causes intense and prolonged fatigue , as well as a steady deterioration of his liver . he sleeps about 14 hours a day , and lacks the energy to do much more than cook dinner for his parents , with whom he lives in this village about 45 miles north of toronto . mr . marchand is the lead plaintiff in a class_action_suit that includes some 20 , 000 tainted_blood victims with hepatitis c who were excluded from the original compensation offer . he does not work , he does not own a car , he has never married and he cannot go gliding anymore . the combination of the car accident , which damaged his brain , and the hepatitis c , which limits his strength , canceled most of the dreams he once held for his future . the lawsuit , he said in an interview at his home , is one way to feel he can accomplish something with his life . ''canada is a beautiful country and i appreciate what i have here , '' he said , ''but at the same time i see a system of politics that is corrupting everything and hurting the people . '' holding the government responsible for its mistakes has become his mission . ''i have made peace with the driver who hurt me in the accident , and i have made peace with my god , '' he said . ''but i need to make peace with my government , the government that rejected me . '' compensation for blood victims has taken on such importance that mr . chretien was forced to advance the schedule of his groundbreaking trip to cuba last week in order to return to ottawa for a crucial vote on compensation in parliament . but even a liberal victory in that vote was not enough to end the furor . late last week some of the provinces reversed positions and called on the federal_government to compensate all victims , regardless of when they contracted the disease , but were unwilling to pay for the additional coverage . the sparring between governments infuriated people across canada , who demanded that officials ' 'do the right thing , '' and compensate everyone . the victims heard the outcry . ''this is canada and the spirit of the country is supposed to be compassion , '' mr . marchand said . this week the government 's position changed yet again , this time because of dramatic reversals by ontario and quebec , canada 's largest provinces . they announced that they would bear their share of the cost of compensating all hepatitis c victims regardless of what the other governments do . the action by ontario and quebec is expected to force federal officials to reconsider their position . despite all he has been through , mr . marchand said he does not hold a grudge . he recently met the driver of the car that hit him and forgave him for what happened . even so , while the latest reversal has made him hopeful , he does not feel he can yet drop his lawsuit or forgive the red_cross and canada for what happened to him . ''i 'm not a vindictive person at all , '' he said , ''i just want to see that the right thing gets done . ''",has a topic of health
"fueled by a convergence of surging drug abuse and increased sexual activity , russia stands on the precipice of an aids epidemic every bit as explosive as the one that swept through europe and the united_states 15 years ago . the nation 's leading aids experts , fully aware after the fall of communism that an open society would bring a rising risk of all sexually_transmitted_diseases , have long forecast that the number of reported aids cases would climb . although the raw numbers are minuscule here compared with those in africa or even the united_states , officials routinely state that reported infections represent no more than 10 percent of the true figures . but even they tell a harrowing story of the rapid , exponential advance of the epidemic in a country whose health_care budget has far more in common with those of the third world than with the united_states , where expensive new drugs have brought hope to many . ''this epidemic started slowly in russia , '' said aleksandr goliusov , the health ministry 's chief aids specialist . ''but now it has caught on fire . before we could talk about controlling it or limiting the damage . now the catastrophe is real . '' last year , 1 , 500 new h.i.v . cases were reported in russia , more than the official figure for the first nine years of the epidemic combined . for the first quarter of this year , according to preliminary data from the health ministry , the numbers have already outstripped those for 1996 . taking into consideration the many cases that are never reported , federal health officials now say that by the end of 1997 there could be 100 , 000 people infected with h.i.v. , the virus that causes aids , in russia . and by 2000 , they believe the figure will be 800 , 000 . there are many reasons for the huge surge of h.i.v . infection in russia , and most of them are related . the vast majority of new infections are among russia 's 600 , 000 intravenous_drug_abusers who are most efficient at spreading the virus and least susceptible to counseling or education efforts of any kind . poor border control in the chaotic aftermath of the fall of the soviet_union has permitted the smuggling and abuse of narcotics to soar over the last five years . and a new era of complete freedom has caused sexually_transmitted_diseases like syphilis , herpes and gonorrhea to spread more rapidly here than anywhere else in the world . the prevalence of sexually_transmitted_diseases has always been an excellent barometer for the incidence of aids in part because those diseases can increase the possibility of h.i.v . infections , and in part because they provide a good way to measure the sexual activity of a population . in 1996 , according to government statistics , 10 million people in russia had some sexually_transmitted disease . russia had 217 cases of syphilis per 100 , 000 people , a rate that is more than 50 times those in the united_states or europe . seven years ago the figure for russia was only 6 cases per 100 , 000 . ''how can there possibly be an enormous epidemic of diseases like syphilis and almost no spread of aids ? '' said dr . irina g . savchenko , an epidemiologist at the russian aids center in moscow . ''there ca n't be . either there are too many cases of syphilis or there are too few of aids . and , believe me , we are not overreporting syphilis . '' the impact of the epidemic has been heightened by the almost complete lack of educational or preventive measures available . when aids was first reported here in 1987 , the earliest victims were gay men and the illness was treated by soviet authorities as the evil effect of a bourgeois , western style life . by the early 1990 's , when political instability became the central fact of russian life , even tentative efforts to teach aids awareness came to a halt . in 1991 , just at the moment when russia 's sexual freedoms became most obvious and pronounced , the institute of preventive_medicine stopped translating aids information booklets from foreign languages . money for even the most basic treatment became difficult to find . the situation has only become worse since then , because russia is a country that has almost no money to spend on health_care . according to the world_health_organization , a united_nations agency , a country should devote at least 5 percent of its gross_domestic_product to basic health_care . russia spends 2.2 percent . health ministry figures suggest that it will cost at least 5 billion a year to treat russia 's aids patients in the year 2000 . today the entire federal health budget for the country is only twice that . ''do you think it 's a coincidence that the death rate in russia exceeds the birth_rate by 70 percent ? '' said nikolai gerasimenky , chairman of the health_care committee in the parliament . ''we do not invest in the health of our citizens . i think we should have learned from the experience of others that prevention costs less than treatment and that if we do n't spend money on aids education people are going to die . '' but that money is not going to be available soon . in 1995 the health ministry received less than half the money budgeted for its aids program , according to dr . goliusov . last year , it received no money at all for education or prevention efforts . there is no drug or vaccine development effort here . this year the budget for aids prevention and treatment programs is 8 million . but so far , the health ministry has not received a penny . the epidemic here has hit cities like moscow with one quarter of all cases and other transit centers . kaliningrad , the tiny russian outpost on the baltic_sea through which many narcotics are smuggled , also has a high rate of infection as do port and airport cities like st . petersburg , novorossisk and nizhny novgorod . in the last four months , nearly as many cases 325 have been registered in krasnoyarsk as were registered in moscow in the first five years of the epidemic . russia is not the only formerly communist country to be deeply affected by the aids epidemic . while rates of h.i.v . infection are not nearly as high in eastern_europe as they are in russia , they are far higher than those of western_europe . and in the former soviet republics of belarus and ukraine , where drug addiction has also surged in the last five years , the rates of infection in some cities may be even higher than those in russia . liquid opiates have created a large part of the problem . thanks to an enormous flow of poppies from afghanistan to the west , opium is now often available as an inexpensive liquid . smugglers often sample it and then stick used needles into large jars containing up to a gallon of the drug a result is that the entire stock which will be used by scores of others becomes infected . ignorance about aids and reluctance to take precautions are still more the rule than the exception in russia . the number of prostitutes working in moscow has grown markedly in just the last year . they often line the streets at night , waiting for drivers to stop and make them an offer . asked if they used condoms recently , three young women who had taken up their posts on the ring road one of the city 's main thoroughfares laughed . ''this is my job , '' said one of them as she shrugged . ''and those guys in the cars are my bosses . look at all the other girls out here . now do you think i can tell my bosses to wear a condom ? ''",has a topic of health
"russia 's supreme_court today threw out the verdict in the nation 's most contentious criminal trial , ruling that a military court ignored procedure when it absolved a prominent army colonel of responsibility in the strangling of an 18 year old chechen woman in march 2000 . the ruling means that col . yuri budanov , who had been declared temporarily insane at the time of the killing , will stand trial again before a new judge . it was a stunning victory for the family of the slain woman , elza kungayeva , and for critics who have charged that colonel budanov 's trial was tainted by pressure from the military . ''at some stage on earth , a dictatorship of the law comes , '' abdullah khamzayev , the attorney for ms . kungayeva 's family , said jubilantly outside the courtroom . ''the law , equal for all white , black , bald , curly , irrespective of anything . '' mr . khamzayev was referring to a well known pledge by president vladimir v . putin , shortly after he took office three years ago , that the only dictatorship in the new russia would be a dictatorship of the law . in a telephone interview , he predicted that colonel budanov , who has been confined while receiving psychiatric treatment , would be found guilty in a new trial . colonel budanov , a decorated army commander in chechnya , had admitted strangling ms . kungayeva after abducting her from her home in chechnya three years ago . but he claims that he killed her in a fit of rage because she had been identified as a sniper for chechen guerrillas . her body , clad only in underwear , was found in a grave where soldiers had carried it on his orders . a specialist 's conclusion that she had been raped was later removed from a forensic autopsy report . colonel budanov was examined several times by teams of psychiatrists before the court accepted a diagnosis last december that he had been insane at the time of the murder . in its ruling today , a military collegium of the supreme_court stated that the judge in the case had ignored evidence that colonel budanov had suffered no mental problems in the six months before the murder . the court also stated that the judge had ignored the lack of any evidence that ms . kungayeva was a sniper , as the colonel had alleged . in an interview this evening , mr . khamzayev said that he had been repeatedly barred by the military judge from presenting witnesses he said were crucial to the case , including several who would have challenged colonel budanov 's account of the murder . mr . khamzayev , once a top official in the chief prosecutor 's office of the former soviet_union , had argued that mr . budanov had spotted and photographed ms . kungayeva well before her abduction , and that he had seized her for sexual purposes . ''today 's decision said that the court violated the equality of the sides , '' he said . ''it infringed on the victim 's rights . '' ms . kungayeva 's father , isa kungayev , told the russian television ntv tonight that the ruling was an unexpected victory for the rule of law . ''when i was coming here yesterday , my younger daughter said , 'father , where are you going ? there 's no justice there , ' '' he said . ''when i go back , i will tell my daughter , 'here is justice taking the upper hand , at last . ' i am very happy . ''",has a topic of health
"about a third of the soldiers and marines returning from iraq will visit mental_health clinics at least once in the first year after they come home , even though the military refers fewer than one in 20 for psychological consultation , researchers are reporting today . the study , the first to track recent veterans' use of mental_health services , tells a mixed story about combat stress . most of the veterans who sought help did not receive diagnoses of mental_illnesses like post_traumatic_stress , and many consulted clinics just once , the study found . the results suggest that the stigma attached to seeking help is weaker than previously thought , experts said . moreover , they added , many veterans appear to seek mental_health services for the same reasons that civilians do marital problems , difficulties sleeping or at work and difficulties readjusting . yet the study , which appears today in the journal of the american_medical_association , calls into question the military 's effort to estimate the mental_health costs of iraq and whether it can predict its effects on government services . clinics of the veterans_affairs department have treated an estimated 50 , 000 iraq veterans for mental_health concerns . no one knows how many are still to come , and predictions vary_widely . studies showing high rates of mental_illness in vietnam veterans were conducted long after that war . and the number of people using veterans_affairs mental_health services has increased by 60 percent since 1995 , experts estimate , mostly as a result of vietnam veterans seeking help for post_traumatic_stress . the post deployment screening was in part intended to identify and treat such problems before they arose and strained capacity further . the new study found that of those veterans who visited clinics after returning from iraq , only a small fraction had been referred by military screeners and that most appeared to screeners not to have significant emotional problems . dr . michael kussman , principal deputy under secretary for health at the veterans_affairs department , said the high use of mental services in the study was not a surprise . ''a large proportion of people coming back are dealing with normal reactions to abnormal conditions , '' dr . kussman said in an interview . he added that just a small fraction of the post_traumatic_stress cases were new veterans , and that the agency had ''the infrastructure and is poised and ready to continue to treat new veterans . '' other researchers said the study raised more questions than it answered . ''the approach used to screen for signs of mental trouble is a very sensible one , but i think one question we have to ask now is why is it failing to identify those who seek help , '' said richard j . mcnally , a professor of psychology at harvard who was not involved with the study . ''one possibility is that soldiers about to return home may be disinclined to acknowledge symptoms right away but become concerned about them later on . '' in the study , dr . charles hoge led a team of researchers at the walter reed army institute of research in silver_spring , md . , who analyzed the records of 303 , 905 army soldiers and marines who returned from foreign postings from may 2003 to april 2004 . about two thirds of them had been in iraq the others had been in afghanistan or other stations like bosnia . all had completed postdeployment questionnaires that asked about symptoms of depression , thoughts of suicide or violence against others , hypervigilance and nightmares , among other problems . the records included the use of health_care services for about a year after the return home . the researchers found that 19 percent or those returning from iraq showed signs of emotional difficulties , compared with 11 percent from afghanistan and 8 percent from other deployments . more than a third of the iraq veterans visited mental_health clinics at least one time back home , the highest rate compared with the others . ''we do know that many mental_health concerns tend to emerge two to three months after people get back and that screening at that time should provide us another opportunity'' to identify those at risk , said dr . hoge . dr . kussman , a retired military man , agreed . when a tour is ending , he said , ''you do n't want to answer questions , '' adding , ''all you want to do is go home . ''",has a topic of health
"in a footnote to an unusual chapter of the cold_war , canada has agreed to compensate victims of psychiatric experiments carried out mainly in the 1950 's and financed in part by the central_intelligence_agency . the experiments began after some prisoners returned from the korean_war brainwashed , and western intelligence agencies began studies and experiments on the nature and possibility of mind control . an institute at mcgill_university in montreal , headed by dr . d . ewen cameron , a psychiatrist who died in 1977 , was one of the centers where such experiments were carried out . now , the canadian government says the 80 or so patients who underwent the so called "" psychic driving "" treatment in montreal , intended to wipe the brain clear of all trauma , can receive almost 80 , 000 each . the decision , which was announced on tuesday , represents an about face for the government of prime_minister brian_mulroney . seven years ago , when the matter came up after a number of suits were filed by victims , ottawa refused to pay compensation . u.s . already made payments "" i believe that this financial assistance responds in a way that expresses the fairness and compassion canadians expect from their government , "" justice minister kim campbell said in announcing the decision . one reason for the change was that the united_states has already settled with some of the canadian victims . another , lawyers said , was that many of the suits filed early in the 1980 's were still open and promised evidence that could embarrass a government gearing up for elections . the patients at the allan memorial institute at mcgill were put into a drugged sleep for weeks or months , subjected to electroshock therapy until they were "" de patterned , "" knowing neither who or where they were , and forced to listen repeatedly to recorded messages broadcast from speakers on the wall or under their pillows . linda macdonald , 55 years old , an employment counselor now in vancouver , is one of those who sued for compensation . "" i walked through those doors with a husband on one arm and a guitar on the other and was a healthy person and coherent , "" she said . diagnosed as an acute schizophrenic she had gone to dr . cameron for treatment she spent 86 days in the "" sleep room "" and was subjected to 109 shock treatments and megadoses of barbiturates and other drugs . reduced to a blank slate when she got out of the experiment , she could not read or write , had to be toilet trained and could not remember her husband , her five children or any part of the first 26 years of her life . reached in los_angeles , where she is discussing a film on her life , she said the compensation "" is minimal and wo n't go very far , but that was n't my purpose in my suit against the government . "" "" it was to make sure that canadians understood that such a thing happened in their country and to get the government to take responsibility so that it wo n't happen again , "" she said . david orlikow , a retired member of parliament , whose now deceased wife , velma , was another subject , said she emerged from the treatment "" really a disabled person , not physically but emotionally . "" "" there were days when she would do nothing and then be subject to unexplainable rages , "" mr . orlikow recalled . "" she was a very intelligent person , but her ability to read was destroyed . "" mr . orlikow initiated litigation in the united_states against the c.i.a. , recruiting the civil_liberties lawyer joseph l . rauh to take his wife 's case . in october , 1988 , the justice_department announced an out of court settlement with velma orlikow and eight other victims , a total of 750 , 000 . ms . macdonald was not among the nine . the c.i.a . had cut off financing of the program at the time of her treatment . john hedley , a c.i.a . spokesman , commented "" it 's a sad episode that happened more than 30 years ago , and the case is closed . "" noting the 1988 settlement , he said the agency had "" nothing to add concerning the decision in canada . "" american author 's testimony john marks , a former state_department official whose 1979 book , "" the search for the manchurian candidate , "" called attention to the experiments , said that a c.i.a . front called the society for the investigation of human ecology , funneled more than 60 , 000 to dr . cameron for the studies . ottawa gave him more than 200 , 000 . despite the decision to pay compensation , the canadian government has not acknowledged legal responsibility for the experiments . justice minister campbell said the money was being awarded purely "" on compassionate and humanitarian grounds . "" at the time of the experiments , dr . cameron was trying to find a cure for schizophrenia and other mental_illnesses . in the early 1950 's , he theorized that people with neurotic thoughts or behavior could be changed by listening to repeated taped messages . he called the technique "" psychic driving "" and published an account in the american journal of psychiatry . the c.i.a . was attracted to his comparison of psychic driving with techniques of coerced interrogation and brainwashing . patients went to see dr . cameron voluntarily and did n't realize until much later that they were being used in experiments . correction november 20 , 1992 , friday because of an editing error , an article yesterday about an agreement by canada to compensate victims of psychiatric experiments misstated the year of the death of dr . d . ewen cameron , a psychiatrist at mcgill_university in montreal . he died in 1967 , not 1977 .",has a topic of health
"the human_rights group memorial said it had unearthed a mass_grave near st . petersburg that may contain thousands of victims of stalin 's terror in 1937 and 1938 . the grave near a military firing range in the forest outside toksovo , about 20 miles north of st . petersburg was discovered last month . forensic experts have discovered 50 separate pits containing bones , including skulls showing evidence of execution . a site with some 8 , 000 remains was discovered north of st . petersburg in 1996 but a memorial spokeswoman told the interfax news_agency that the new site could hold as many as 30 , 000 remains . steven_lee myers ( nyt )",has a topic of health
"drs . siva sriharan and srinivas chakravarthi may never get rich staying in this small auto producing city little more than a stone 's throw from downtown detroit , but they can eat all the hamburgers , ribs and potato skins they want for the rest of their lives at casey 's bar and grill . for the next year , they can also get their hair cut free at the touch of class beauty_salon , and lease a pontiac grand am without charge from a dealer in nearby essex . patients have pledged free house repairs and landscaping for their properties , and nurses have teased them with offers of free massages . all the two doctors have to do is continue practicing medicine in windsor . residents started proffering gifts when rumors leaked out of h tel dieu grace hospital a few weeks ago that the two neurosurgeons of the four serving the city were toying with moving their practice to the united_states . ''it 's not about the money , '' said dr . sriharan , a 38 year old immigrant from sri_lanka . ''we ca n't do our job properly with operating room time so extremely limited here . '' forced to compete for operating room time with other surgeons , he said that he and his colleague could complete only one or two operations on some days , meaning that patients whose cases were not emergencies could go months or even years before completing necessary treatment . ''scarce resources are simply not being spent properly , '' dr . sriharan concluded , citing a shortage of nurses and anesthesiologists in the hospital where the single microscope available is old and breaking down . the two surgeons are sharply critical of canada 's health_care system , which is driven by government financed insurance for all but increasingly rations service because of various technological and personnel shortages . both doctors said they were fed up with a two tier medical system in which those with connections go to the head of the line for surgery . ''it 's the system that is pushing us out , '' said dr . chakravarthi , a 53 year old indian immigrant . many other canadian doctors feel the lure of the united_states these days , particularly if they live close to the border . the supply of family doctors has increased at a rate lower than population_growth in recent years , a problem that is complicated by an aging population and doctors seeking shorter hours . waiting time for elective_surgery is growing across the country , and becoming a hot political issue . meanwhile , there are signs that a brain_drain of medical talent , particularly specialists to the united_states , is becoming a serious problem . there was a net migration of 49 neurosurgeons from canada from 1996 to 2002 , according to the canadian institute for health information , a large loss given that there are only 241 neurosurgeons in the country . ''physicians across canada are in an advanced stage of burnout due to work conditions , '' said dr . sunil v . patel , president of the canadian medical association , who attributed much of the problem to technological shortages and the powerlessness doctors feel when patients complain about long waits for treatment . ''that burnout causes them to retire early or pull away from certain kinds of work or simply leave . '' john o'kane , 46 , the owner of casey 's bar and grill , is leading the local crusade to keep the two neurosurgeons in windsor . his offer of free food is rooted in personal experience he is convinced that superior surgery performed on him last year by dr . sriharan to remove a broken piece of a spinal disk rubbing against a sciatic nerve is the reason he can again play ice_hockey and tennis . so far the doctors have not come by for any free food , nor have they responded to any of the other offers that have followed . ''for all i know they are vegetarians , '' mr . o'kane said with a laugh . ( in fact , dr . chakravarthi is . ) the grass roots surge of offers and almost daily letters to the editor published in the local newspaper urging the surgeons to stay put has not gone unnoticed by local politicians . windsor 's mayor , mike d . hurst , has speeded up a physician recruitment and retention initiative to combat local shortages of medical manpower . ''the popular response is an indication , '' he said , ''that there is pure fear in our community of not having qualified , professional medical expertise available when it 's needed . '' as for the two surgeons , they say that while they are touched and embarrassed , they do not see how they can continue to work at the hospital under the present conditions . but are they tempted by all the offers ? ''well , '' dr . sriharan smiled in a mock sigh . ''i hear those girls at the beauty_salon do very good highlights . '' windsor journal",has a topic of health
"premier robert_bourassa , who has governed quebec for almost three decades and has struggled against cancer for the last three years , announced today that he would retire after the liberal_party leadership convention in january . his decision means the loss of a strong voice in favor of keeping quebec within the canadian federation and alters the political balance in the province , which continues to show strong support for independence . critical provincial elections , which could set a separatist course , must be held before the fall of 1994 . mr . bourassa , 60 , a technocrat turned political boss , has fought hard for the federalist cause , which is being challenged now both by bloc quebecois sovereigntists on the federal level and by the parti_quebecois opposition on the provincial level . but his decision is unlikely to have much effect on the federal_election campaign , in which the bloc quebecois is seeking the 75 quebec seats in the house of commons . canadians elect a new parliament on oct . 25 . a poll published in the montreal newspaper la_presse gave the bloc 40 percent of decided voters , against 34 percent for the tories and 22 percent for liberals . the parti_quebecois leader , jacques parizeau , has said that should he be elected premier he will prepare the province , canada 's largest in area , for a referendum within a year on whether to split from the federation . separatists are stronger though 59 . 5 percent of quebecers opposed independence when a similar referendum went before voters in 1980 , many political analysts see separatist forces stronger today , after the rejection of two recent efforts the accords of meech_lake and charlottetown to satisfy quebec 's demands for greater autonomy within the federation . mr . bourassa worked hard for both agreements , noting today at his news conference in quebec_city , "" i tried to get canadian federalism to evolve . "" he restated his position that it would be nonsense to fragment canada . yet mr . bourassa 's departure could further weaken his liberal_party , which has been torn by internal strife over challenges by a disgruntled nationalist wing . for a time he had been able to create a coalition of federalists and the nationalists , who were seeking more autonomy without breaking from canada . "" his departure creates an instability , "" said quebec 's revenue minister raymond savoie . "" there is no doubt about that . he believed in the federal process and searched for ways to renew it . "" party in a shambles alain gagnon , director of quebec studies at montreal 's mcgill_university , said a third force might now emerge around jean allaire , who had sought to steer liberals away from federalism and was expelled from the party by mr . bourassa . "" the liberal_party is now in a shambles , "" mr . gagnon asserted . mr . bourassa , a scholarship student in quebec who became a rhodes_scholar , was quebec 's youngest premier when he was first elected in 1970 at the age of 36 . he was re elected in 1973 , but his liberals were humbled and defeated in 1976 by rene levesque , whose parti_quebecois first came to power . but he bounced back , regaining the liberal_party leadership in 1983 and winning the premiership again in 1985 . he was re elected in 1989 . in the spring of 1990 , doctors found skin cancer and he underwent treatment that july . in september of that year , exploratory surgery suggested the cancer had gone no further . but last december doctors told him he had a cancerous tumor on his chest wall . he had the tumor removed in january and then underwent experimental treatment to control the cancer . at the time he told quebecers he had no plans to abandon public life . but his wife , andree , has been urging him to change his mind so that he could spend more time with his family , which includes two grandchildren . mr . bourassa told reporters today that family considerations were the most important factor behind the decision .",has a topic of health
"lead needle and syringe exchange programs for intravenous_drug_users in three cities have reduced needle_sharing and the risk of transmitting the aids virus without an increase in drug use , new studies show . needle and syringe exchange programs for intravenous_drug_users in three cities have reduced needle_sharing and the risk of transmitting the aids virus without an increase in drug use , new studies show . but researchers who described the studies at an international meeting on aids here today said the studies were not extensive enough to document whether the programs slowed the spread of the virus . and the researchers said the programs were only one way of combating the spread of the aids virus . the exchange programs , in which used needles and syringes were exchanged for clean ones , were in tacoma , wash . , amsterdam and london . intravenous_drug_users account for a growing proportion of aids cases in the united_states and in europe . increasing numbers of intravenous_drug_users in thailand and in south_america are also becoming infected with the the virus that causes aids , the human_immunodeficiency_virus or hiv . health officials say intravenous_drug_users have become the main conduit for the aids virus to heterosexuals . infected drug addicts can spread it to their sexual partners . intravenous_drug_users statistics from the federal centers_for_disease_control in atlanta show that intravenous_drug_users now account for 25 percent of the 95 , 000 cases reported in the united_states . of this total , 17 percent are heterosexual intravenous_drug_abusers and 8 percent are homosexual men who are also intravenous_drug_users . dr . christina hartgers said that a program in amsterdam , in which drug users exchanged more than 700 , 000 needles last year , reaches about 40 percent of the estimated 2 , 800 addicts in the city . in a study of 145 of those exchanging needles , she said her team found that the program was ''especially attractive to regular injectors and does not lead to an increase in intravenous drug use'' among them or an increase in needle_sharing . however , because infrequent users are more likely to share needles , dr . hartgers said , additional efforts to educate this group are needed . in reporting on a study evaluating the busiest needle exchange program in london , dr . graham j . hart said there were an average of 257 participants who made about 762 visits each month . the program dispensed 8 , 950 needles and syringes 6 , 918 , or 77 percent , were exchanged . dr . hart 's team from middlesex hospital found that the percentage of addicts who borrowed equipment fell to 9 from 15 and that of addicts who lend equipment dropped to 7 from 13 . on entry , 7 of 121 addicts , or 6 percent , were hiv infected and they reported sharing equipment with twice as many intravenous_drug_users as those who were not hiv infected . gain in tacoma project dr . don des jarlais of the new york state division of substance_abuse services , one of the researchers on the tacoma project , reported that all measures showed change towards ' 'safer'' injections and a substantial reduction in behavior with a risk of aids infection . in tacoma , dr . des jarlais said , sharing_needles , syringes and other equipment used in injecting drugs with a sexual partner or close friend declined from a mean of 64 times each month to 44 . sharing with casual friends declined from 48 times each month to 32 each month and renting used equipment dropped from 29 to 18 times each month and borrowing equipment declined from 31 to 24 times each month . dr . stephen c . joseph , the new york city health commissioner , said that his department had enrolled 150 drug addicts in an experimental needle exchange program . of the 150 , 51 percent were infected with the aids virus and 16 percent also had syphilis , a bacterial infection that can be spread through blood . but he did not describe other results of the pilot program . dr . joseph said the city health department would soon open additional sites . ''needle_exchange_programs are one useful way , but not the only way'' to combat the aids epidemic , he said .",has a topic of health
"confronted with a new spate of rumors about president boris n . yeltsin 's health , his chief of staff went on television tonight to rebuke the political opposition , saying it was fomenting tensions during mr . yeltsin 's working holiday on the black_sea . "" the opposition 's leaders try to push society to a breakdown , spreading rumors stating that the president 's health has allegedly worsened or that a coup is being prepared , "" sergei filatov , mr . yeltsin 's chief of staff , said in an interview on the main nightly news program . it was the second time in less than a month that mr . filatov had appeared on television to fend off queries about the president 's condition . the last time was in february , after mr . yeltsin postponed a scheduled speech to the parliament because of what was described as a severe cold that laid him low for more than a week . withdrawn from public view except for back pain linked to an old accident , there has never been official medical confirmation that mr . yeltsin suffers from any ailment . but in the last two years , he has periodically withdrawn from public view , fueling rumors about heavy drinking and other medical problems . speculation about mr . yeltsin 's health peaked again this week after he left the capital for what had been billed as a two week holiday in sochi , a resort on the black_sea coast . in the last two days , three different russian news program mentioned the rumors , only to discount them with reports that the president had spent his time at the seaside working , meeting earlier in the week with prime_minister viktor s . chernomyrdin , and on friday taking a helicopter tour of the krasnodar region , where sochi is situated . but a new mystery about mr . yeltsin 's activities surfaced today when the italian newspaper la_stampa , quoting aleksandr n . yakovlev , chief of russian broadcasting , reported that mr . yeltsin had left sochi on friday and gone to his country_house outside of moscow . according to guilietto chiesa , la_stampa 's moscow correspondent , mr . yakovlev said in an interview on friday evening that the president was in good health , and had a schedule of meetings planned in the kremlin for monday . time of political crisis since then , there have been no other reports about mr . yeltsin 's return to moscow , making the comments by mr . yakovlev , a former adviser president mikhail s . gorbachev and a respected senior political figure , all the more puzzling . the questions surrounding the president 's condition have underscored his recent political passivity , at a time when a number of critical political and economic issues have come to a head . before he left moscow on monday , mr . yeltsin called for a new truce with his political opposition but that appeal was rebuffed when leaders of several factions , including communists and some russian nationalists , this week patched together a new coalition to oppose his policies .",has a topic of health
"ross_perot , whose position on raising taxes has shifted in recent years , said yesterday that , as president , he would "" absolutely not "" raise taxes , except in the case of "" an incredible emergency . "" mr . perot went on to pledge not to raise taxes in any event without some unspecified form of advance "" clearance "" from the american people . at the same time that he promised to hold the line on taxes , mr . perot also said during a two hour television appearance that while he opposed the balanced_budget_amendment defeated yesterday in the house of representatives , he would favor laws that outlaw deficit_spending and require a balanced_budget . mr . perot said it would be possible both to cut taxes and reduce the deficit a goal that eluded president_ronald_reagan by forming a national "" consensus "" about targeting waste and cutting spending . "" then we 'll work our way down to where the big money is , "" he said , "" and there is a huge amount of waste in the way the system works now . "" excerpts , page_a14 . with his broad_brush proposals on taxes and a wide range of economic and social issues on the nbc program "" today , "" mr . perot provided the most far reaching plan to date for how he would govern as president . but he offered no clues on what his ideas would cost , how much they might save or how he would secure congressional approval of them . those proposals , ranging from continued support for legal abortion to the prevention of foreclosure on the farm mortgages of persian_gulf veterans , amounted to a prescription for radical changes in how the government operates . the undeclared presidential_candidate followed his usual practice of omitting details about budget and tax proposals and how he would shape legislation . instead , he offered the kind of sweeping overview normally associated with party platforms . a mix of proposals but taken together , the outline sketched by the texas businessman showed that he was proposing a mix of democratic and republican proposals that would inject the federal_government into the center of managing the economy and the practices of american business . on social_policy , mr . perot would depart strikingly from current republican policy on abortion , which he said must be "" a woman 's choice . "" on guns , mr . perot , who has yet to support any gun_control legislation , repeated his assertion that he wanted to "" get the guns out of the hands of violent people . "" but he offered no proposals to achieve that goal . on the economic side , mr . perot called for something akin to the democratic proposal for an industrial_policy that would provide freer credit and tax breaks for small businesses and involve the government in long range planning with major corporations . mr . perot saved his sharpest partisan shots for president_bush and the republicans . he said he would outlaw lobbying for foreign governments by former government officials , contending that the bush campaign was rife with such lobbyists . he also accused mr . bush of encouraging the growth of iraqi military power and then hiding the details of american relations with saddam_hussein under a false cloak of national_security . the attacks on mr . bush drew a sharp retort from the bush campaign , whose spokeswoman zeroed in on mr . perot 's lack of detail and his changing tax position . torie clarke , press_secretary for the bush campaign , said of mr . perot "" the guy is full of ambiguities and hypocricies and delusionary tactics . he 's trying to make people believe things are happening that are just not true . the stuff about farmers being pulled off their farms because of the war and losing their farms when they got back , that 's just not true . they 're apocryphal anecdotes . a couple of years ago , he was saying tax increases are the only way to go . now you ca n't tell where he is . "" ms . clarke asserted that there were "" no specifics "" in what mr . perot has to say . "" it 's very hard to react to ross_perot because you ca n't figure out where he is on anything , "" she said . "" let 's have ross_perot deliver a budget like the president 's , of comparable size , with comparable specifics and then we 'll talk . let 's see if he has any clue how to run this country and address the tough issues . "" in 1987 , mr . perot wrote in an op_ed article for the washington_post "" we must cut spending and raise taxes to pay our bills . we all know it . "" yesterday , he said he would only support a tax increase during wartime . "" you 've got to stop raising taxes , "" he said . "" you 've got to bring discipline . so , unless there 's some kind of incredible emergency that i ca n't envision , absolutely not . "" 'get rid of the pac money' he said he would "" get rid of "" political_action_committees . he and his employees have supported the committees with large contributions as far back as the nixon_administration . he linked such reforms to controlling spending . "" get rid of the foreign lobbyists , "" he said . "" get rid of the pac money . pass a law to stop deficit_spending . pass another law to balance the budget . he added , "" if you want to raise taxes , you have to come to the people and get their clearance because you have n't been responsible . "" it was unclear if mr . perot , in speaking of "" clearance "" was talking about a referendum or some kind of testing of public opinion involving his idea of televized "" town hall "" meetings to shape national policy . aides to gov . bill clinton , who appeared tuesday on "" today , "" said the democrat was working this morning and did not see mr . perot . but these staff members said the dallas businessman 's lack of specificity showed the weakness of his candidacy . "" he 's ronald_reagan without the substance , "" said paul begala , a senior strategist for mr . clinton . "" there 's just no there there . "" mr . perot has made many of these same policy recommendations in other forums . but in sitting down for two hours and answering questions from viewers and from the co host of "" today , "" katherine couric , mr . perot gave what may have been his largest audience ever its most detailed look at his economic plans . on social_security at the same time , the texas billionaire , who at times appeared uncharacteristically nervous , verbally dodged and weaved when it came to issues in which his views seemed less well formed or areas he deemed less important . for instance , when a viewer from vero beach , fla . , asked whether his plan to save 20 billion in social_security payments meant cutting off benefits for retirees earning more than 60 , 000 , mr . perot spent several minutes rambling about the generosity of americans , the people who fought in world_war_ii and korea and the preoccupation of people with their grandchildren . he even recited a few lyrics from "" tomorrow , "" a song from the musical "" annie . "" "" are you satisfied with that answer ? "" ms . couric asked the caller after mr . perot finished . "" well , he did n't really answer the question , "" the caller replied , forcing mr . perot to say that he might ask elderly people making over 60 , 000 to give up their benefits voluntarily .",has a topic of health
"a glossy , brightly_colored , sexually_explicit comic_book brought out with federal funding by montreal general hospital is stirring sharp reactions both inside and outside the city . its aim is to promote safe_sex among thousands of "" wildcat "" teen dropouts , or "" chats sauvage , "" of the inner city . "" in the aids era , we 're forced to find ways to reach these street kids with what they will understand and relate to , "" said deborah bonney , of the hospital 's department of community health . "" remember , these kids are in revolt against authority , and they do n't read a lot . "" the 28 page tete a queue ( head of the tail a street reference to the male sex organ ) is a teaching aid for social workers who contact the teenagers in arcades , in convenience_stores and on street corners . geared primarily to heterosexuals , it was produced by a team largely drawn from croc , the quebec humor magazine , with a 41 , 000 grant from the department of health and welfare in ottawa . the book is written in "" joual , "" or montreal street french . the book is forthright about depicting sexual activity , all of it with the protection of condoms . "" like that , "" one boy says to his girlfriend , "" we can make love to the max . "" the characters are also shown saying "" non "" to needles and drugs . the controlled experiment involving selective distribution of 10 , 000 copies has taken on larger dimensions as a result of reports in the local media . the mass circulation la_presse published explicit excerpts to accompany a news story about the project . "" the reaction was one of surprise , not about what we did but that there was such a magazine put out by a hospital , "" said the managing editor , marcel desjardins . "" in the last five years , our city has become quite open about aids , "" he explained , "" and since we cater directly to all these people and the purpose is laudable , we decided it would be a public service . "" some of the sharpest criticism came from jean v . dufresne , columnist for the competing mass circulation paper , le journal de montreal , who complained that it depicted quebec 's young people as "" the lewdest , most unkempt , most animal like , most foul mouthed adolescents of the planet . "" defenders argued that the most effective vehicle for the safe_sex message is a visual one rooted in the culture of the street adolescent . "" sexuality is very culture bound , "" said dr . catherine a . hankins , an epidemiologist on the mcgill_university medical faculty who is active in aids studies , "" and one of the postitive things about the aids epidemic is that we basically have to explore the cultural aspects of the target audience if we are going to succeed in fighting the disease . "" although canada has a lower incidence of aids than the united_states , mainly a reflection of less intravenous drug use , the problem is becoming increasingly severe in cities . montreal has counted 1 , 335 cases since surveillance began in 1979 . this is one quarter of the 5 , 349 cases in all of canada , but well below the 34 , 090 cumulative total in new york . the montreal experiment is being followed elsewhere in north_america , where many organizations use visual material to explain safe_sex . "" i 'm delighted to hear this kind of project is being given the support and credibility of the canadian government , "" said franklin d . carson , acting director of the department of education of the gay men 's health crisis of new york city , an aids education organization . "" that 's the kind of national leadership in aids prevention that is desperately needed in this country . "" in the united_states , public funding for such materials remains controversial , but , although there is generally a greater reserve about sexual issues in canada than the united_states , the federal_government here runs into few problems funding explicit campaigns . academics point to the different social and political dynamics of the two countries . in the united_states , powerful right wing religious forces opposed to explicit talk of sexuality have more influence on the health agenda than in canada .",has a topic of health
"when the chest_pains first gripped him that february day in 1998 , anatoly iverianov was driving a tractor through one of the birch and pine forests that carpet russia 's border with finland , dragging fresh cut logs to a wood lot . ''i had a glass of vodka , '' he said . ''i thought that would help . '' it did n't . mr . iverianov was having a heart_attack . within six months he suffered another . two years later , he is disabled , impoverished , embittered and sick so sick he has been in the local hospital three times since august . standing in his crumbling hillside apartment , in a brezhnev era block overlooking the paper factory , mr . iverianov added up the negatives his disability pension is a pittance he is bored and useless at home hospitalization gives him no respite from illness . ''i 've been drinking and smoking a lot , '' he said defiantly . ''and i 'm not alone . '' quite the opposite two years after two heart attacks , 45 year old anatoly iverianov is a russian everyman . in a country whose most overworked word is ''krizis'' crisis here is a genuine one russian life_expectancy has fallen in 6 of the last 10 years . it fell every month last year alone , to an average of 65 . 9 years for both men and women about 10 years less than in the united_states , and on a par with levels in guatemala . moreover , government statistics through last august point to a further drop in 2000 . it is a sore thumb symptom of a precipitous_decline in russia 's public_health , a spiral not seen in a developed nation since the great depression , if then . life_expectancy is not just a medical issue but a barometer of a society 's health . in a sense it is a lagging indicator of poverty , of stress , of cohesion and stability and of a government 's ability or willingness to take care of its own . since 1990 , according to the most recent figures , the death rate has risen almost one third , to the highest of any major nation , and the birth_rate has dropped almost 40 percent , making it among the very lowest . mortality from circulatory diseases has jumped by a fifth from suicides , a third from alcohol related causes , almost 60 percent from infectious and parasitic diseases , nearly 100 percent . not all the toll was registered in deaths . the rate of newly disabled people rose by half . when russia 's death rate surpassed its plunging birth_rate in the mid 90 's , demographers called it the russian cross and suggested that it had profound implications . by a united_nations estimate , russia 's population of 145 . 6 million could shrink to 121 million by 2050 . in a report early this year , the central_intelligence_agency forecast that by 2002 , 1 in 70 russians will carry h.i.v. , the virus that causes aids almost twice the united_states rate . tuberculosis , once nearly under control , is epidemic , and the c.i.a . says shortages of money and medicine ''are creating the context for a large increase in infectious_diseases . '' infections are only one factor in russia 's premature deaths . the leading killers are cardiovascular_disease and violence , and the victims are not the elderly so much as young and middle_aged men . they are the working backbone that in theory should be available to help rebuild this nation . but the average citizen downs a world record 4.4 gallons of alcohol a year . reflecting that , accidents and violence have passed cancer as the leading cause of death after heart_disease , something unthinkable for a modern nation . russian leaders sound increasingly apocalyptic . president vladimir v . putin has warned of an emerging ' 'senile nation , '' too old and feeble to compete globally . and the intelligence agencies in the united_states believe that the deteriorating public_health picture in russia , and in the hospitals and clinics struggling to deal with it , could lead to political upheaval at worst and relief emergencies at best . such gloom is not unrelieved . after plunging in the early 1990 's , life spans rose steadily from 1995 to 1998 before sliding again . drinking has declined from mid 1990 's highs . and in cities , there is growing and crucial awareness that good health is no longer the state 's problem , but an individual duty . nor is the problem irreversible . soviet health improved greatly , if briefly , after mikhail s . gorbachev cracked down on alcohol_abuse in the late 1980 's . russia 's current health minister , a cardiologist , favors reshaping medicine to emphasize prevention as well as treatment and appears to have kremlin backing . one senior clinton_administration official who is a russia expert says dire scenarios of a shrunken nation fragmented into feuding fiefs or at war with a growing islamic minority are overstated . but his forecast is little better an ever poorer , more miserable land , running down slowly like a clock long unwound . thomas graham , a scholar at the carnegie endowment for international peace in washington , says the decade 's trends are markers not just of bad health but social crisis . ''in a word , '' he said , ''it means that we have a russia that 's in decline . the long term tasks facing russia now are quite daunting . and russia , at this point , just does n't have the resources to deal with that . '' poverty has hastened the decline . russia 's elaborate system of state run health_care is even more desperately underfinanced now than in soviet_times . hospitals are critically short of money , drugs and even syringes . the soviet concept of free and universal medical care , however desultory in the past , now exists in name only . paying for care , on or under the table , is the norm . but money is only one problem . the greater problem , far more difficult to gauge , is the collapse of the soviet framework , which essentially propped up society the guaranteed pay envelope , the free housing and child_care , the cheap vodka , the numbing relief of having no responsibility for the future because the state carried it all , the sense of being part of a great empire . especially outside the big cities , that crumpled framework has left behind a wreck of despair , deep insecurity , poverty and even shame . and the ravages of the russian loss are evident in the self destructive quality of the mortality data wholly preventable accidents , heart attacks , homicides and suicides whose rates , always high by western standards , abruptly vaulted off the charts with the arrival of freedom . ''there was a psychological shock , '' said vladimir m . shkolnikov , a russian demographer at the max planck institute in rostock , germany , and a leading expert on his country 's mortality crisis . ''it 's the pace of reform . it 's labor force turnover , the magnitude of change in the labor market . it 's life style and alcohol , because alcohol consumption is a very important force in the large jump in mortality . '' vodka , cigarettes and death robust health has never been this land 's defining trait . soviet medical care was rationed by party rank and loyalty . as befit a system that saw people as cogs , the masses got enough to get them to farm or factory and little more . the communist solution to high infant_mortality was to subsidize births . vodka and cigarettes , red_meat and butter were state promoted balms for a cruel life . and when such policies began reaping a harvest of rising death and illness in the 1970 's and 1980 's , the kremlin 's response was to stamp the damning statistics secret . it is clear now that russian life_expectancy peaked at 68 . 8 years in 1965 and , but for a brief aberration in the 1980 's , had fallen about nine months by the time the soviet_union collapsed in 1991 . the soviet_government bears much blame for that . western nations spent one in eight dollars on health in the 1980 's . the soviet_union spent barely 1 in 30 dollars of a far smaller income and walled itself off from breakthrough drugs and devices that western investments reaped . not that anatoly iverianov sees it this way . asked when his life took its turn for the worse , he did not hesitate . ''the moment the union ended , '' he said . from mr . iverianov 's four story stucco apartment block in the center of pitkyaranta , the capital of a verdant , lake flecked swatch of northeast russia , it is barely an hour to the finnish border . but that is the wrong yardstick . the true distance from pitkyaranta to finland is measured in years , not hours . in pitkyaranta , a newborn boy can expect to live just past age 57 1 2 , about as long as a boy in yemen or nepal . an hour north , a finnish boy can expect to live nearly 15 years beyond that , almost as long as an american . a pitkyaranta girl can look forward to living 72 years as long as a girl in peru . a finnish girl should make it past 79 , roughly as long as an american . ''you wo n't find any other land border in the world where there 's such a sharp difference , '' said pekka puska , a doctor and expert on russia at finland 's national public_health institute . much of pitkyaranta 's district could be mistaken for finland lakeside dachas besieged by snow covered potato vines hillside boulders discarded by retreating glaciers . but it is a surface likeness . pitkyaranta and the missouri size province that surrounds it , karelia , are among the unhealthiest places to live in western russia . the russian cross is on full display here twice as many people died in pitkyaranta last year as were born , almost precisely the reverse of the situation 20 years ago . to see why , talk to galina pritchiyev , 55 , dark_haired , stout and stoic , who lives in ryaimyalya , a bankrupt collective_farm village of unpainted cabins and untethered cattle about 25 miles south of pitkyaranta . mrs . pritchiyev has hypertension . so does her husband , a retired tractor driver who had a heart_attack in 1992 , at 53 . so do half the men and women in pitkyaranta district , which includes her village . that makes sense . high_blood_pressure is caused by a fatty diet , obesity , excess alcohol and lack of exercise , all in abundance here . the pritchiyevs get pensions totaling about 50 a month enough for milk , butter , bread and oil from the market , and little else . a few calves provide beef a garden produces potatoes and tomatoes . exercise for its own sake is unheard of , and with jobs scarce , she said , few even benefit from farm labor . the young people have all left nobody will work for the 500 rubles ( about 18 ) that a dairymaid or other unskilled worker makes in a month . ''so a lot of people have started to drink , '' mrs . pritchiyev said . ''they drink samogon , spirits , whatever , '' she explained , using a word for a poisonous smelling home brewed vodka . ''they drink from boredom . there 's no work . and there is very little hope . '' the pitkyaranta hospital physician who works with alcoholics , dr . mikhail lipovetsky , echoes that . ''the samogon made here causes very serious damage to the liver and heart , '' he said , but added that drinking it was ''one of the few ways families without any money can entertain themselves . '' the consequences are evident at the local morgue . compared with numbers from 1990 , the rolls of last year 's dead make telling reading . in 1990 , 277 people died in pitkyaranta district . last year , 422 died . in 1990 , cardiovascular_disease claimed 147 lives . last year it claimed 220 . in 1990 there were 38 alcohol related deaths , from homicides and suicides to accidents and poisonings . last year there were 90 overwhelmingly among men under 60 . not least , 7 of pitkyaranta district 's 26 , 800 souls died last year of acute alcohol poisoning one more than the previous year 's total fatal alcohol poisonings in illinois , population 12 . 1 million . ''there 's no simple answer as to why male life_expectancy is so short in russia , '' said dr . mikhail uhanov , 56 , the hospital 's chief physician . ''but you could probably say drinking is in first place . in every courtyard , you can buy a bottle of vodka made of who knows what , even here in this little town . ''sometimes people realize how harmful it is to their health . and they do n't value their health enough to care . '' officially , vodka is not a problem for pitkyaranta district . the number of registered alcoholics those who seek treatment from dr . lipovetsky totals 164 . privately , however , officials say the number is closer to 4 , 000 . in the 1980 's , doctors seldom saw more than two or three cases of alcoholic psychosis a year . this summer , during pitkyaranta 's two week long white nights festival , there were 14 . vladimir was one of them . during white nights , he passed out drunk on the floor of the town 's huge lakeside paper mill and woke up in the hospital . he has been back three times since then , each time to dry out from two week binges on 80 cent liter bottles of samogon . ''i would n't say it 's that hard to quit , '' he said recently , with the rheumy eyed conviction of a man who has quit many times . what is more interesting , however , is why a 45 year old man with a wife and two children binges at all . one answer is that his life crumbled along with the communist experiment . in 1990 , vladimir had been at the paper mill 20 years and was making 300 rubles a month , then about 180 . his wife held a high ranking job at the local food depot . in soviet society most essentials were free , so their life was comfortable . the soviet_union vanished in 1991 . so did the old rules vladimir 's wife argued with her bosses and soon found herself jobless , an impossibility in soviet_times , when the unemployed either accepted new work or were exiled . ''she was n't able to find anything for a year , '' vladimir said , ''and then she tried to start a private store . that worked for two years or so , and then that went bankrupt . '' it was about then , in 1995 , that alcoholic psychosis first sent vladimir to the hospital . things got worse . money problems shuttered the paper mill , and for perhaps a year there was no pay . the mill reopened , but in 1998 , russia 's economy crashed and vladimir 's salary , 1 , 000 inflated rubles , was suddenly worth 35 . his wife found work that year as a sales clerk . vladimir , by then a hospital regular , was moved off the papermaking line and handed a broom . one child is away at school now . the rest of the family lives in a two room apartment in a brick and wood tenement , on a diet of macaroni , potatoes and cucumbers , the occasional herring and ''only a little bit of meat . '' ''they do n't pay me anything like pay , '' he said . ''it 's like kopecks . and the prices in the stores my pay would go into a kilo of sausage . '' would that it did . a typical binge can eat up a third of vladimir 's monthly wages . it is an old story , said dr . uhanov , the chief physician . ''there are many men who lost their jobs , or if they kept their jobs , they were not paid as much . their alcohol consumption increased despite the fact that they did n't have enough money . it 's typical of russia . '' ask vladimir why he drinks , and the answer comes slowly . ''i ca n't explain it straightaway , '' he said . ''i have a home . but i have nothing to do . '' ask dr . lipovetsky , and he answers readily ''social reasons . that , and a lack of belief in the future . a lot of people drink from a loss of belief . ''it 's the same way across most of russia . you do n't need a lot of statistics to show that . it 's obvious . '' neighbors , decades apart two hours north of pitkyaranta , in the pristine finnish town of joensuu , vesa tuominen has a markedly different idea of how to spend his time . the thermometer has yet to hit 45 , and a cold drizzle soaks the bike paths that weave through town . mr . tuominen , oblivious to the rain , is stretching after a brisk 25 minute jog . he is not finished . shortly , he will strip from his sweats to a swimsuit for a dip in one of joensuu 's frigid lakes , indulging in a predilection he shares with about 900 others in the local ice bears club . of course , not all of them are like mr . tuominen , a retired schoolteacher , 65 . some are considerably older . ''we have some swimmers who are 80 , '' he said . joensuu , population 51 , 000 , is the capital of north karelia , the finnish district directly opposite pitkyaranta . it seems everything pitkyaranta is not . crowds of cyclists ignore rain and even plow through snow a lit cigarette draws stares the usual drink is beer , not vodka . the average man in joensuu can expect to outlive his pitkyaranta neighbor by 15 years . yet three decades ago , the life span difference was measured not in years but months . joensuu was then the center of an impoverished region dependent on timber for survival . in both towns , people drank heavily , ate poorly and smoked ceaselessly . and both towns recorded the highest rates of cardiovascular_disease on earth . in the 1950 's a finnish researcher noticed that lumberjacks in north karelia suffered frequent heart attacks despite jobs that kept them exceptionally fit . a 1970 study found that exercise was not the only key factor in cardiovascular health . diet and smoking made it onto the radar screens . finland 's response was the north karelia project , a five year effort to cut heart deaths by changing people 's habits . it was a scorched_earth campaign against cigarettes and butter , a combination of modern_medicine and state of the art propaganda . local legislators passed one of the world 's first bans on smoking in public places . to accentuate the positive , no smoking areas were renamed smoke free zones . shopkeepers and trade groups joined to spread the message , then novel , that heart_disease was preventable . dairy farmers were converted to growing the sweet berries that flourish in finland 's 20 hour summer days , simultaneously reducing artery clogging milk fat and adding heart friendly vitamin c to diets . the results were so remarkable that the program was adopted nationally . the latest survey , in 1997 , showed north karelians had cut death from heart_failure among working age residents by some 70 percent in just 25 years , and slashed lung_cancer deaths by 70 percent . from 1974 to last year , life_expectancy in joensuu rose almost eight years for men and almost six for women . and little north karelia now has nearly 300 berry farms , compared with only a few 30 years ago . the program is now so ingrained that it is a point of local pride , its director , vesa korpelainen , said during a recent chat in his downtown joensuu office . and that is part of its secret . ''we 've done this work boots in the mud , '' he said . ''we 've gone all around north karelia . people come to us when we have an activity in a grocery_store or some other place and say , 'i 'm also participating in the north karelia project . ' '' until this region fell under final soviet control after world_war_ii , pitkyaranta was largely finnish . its name is finnish . while most finns fled north when the red_army moved in , finnish blood still flows here . it is tempting to believe that what worked in north karelia will work in pitkyaranta . and in 1992 , finnish researchers came to pitkyaranta with precisely that in mind . dr . uhanov is the point man for finnish research here , the leader of perhaps 20 hard core volunteers trying to re create joensuu 's success . they have plastered the walls of the hospital , the open air market and other public places with posters , and begged for television time so they could condemn butter and praise fruit . they have held health fairs , delivered lectures and staged quit smoking contests , awarding finland vacations to the lucky few who can stay off tobacco for a month . and they have scored modest successes . the last detailed survey , in 1997 , showed that smoking fell about 10 percent among younger men . it also leaped almost 50 percent among young women , a rise nevertheless lower than in russia at_large . residents used less butter and more cooking oils largely because times are harder , and margarine and oil are cheaper than butter . more were eating fruit daily , though still barely 10 percent , and women were eating more fresh vegetables . ''the men say salads are not a man 's food , '' said dr . svetlana pokusayeva , a leader of the pitkyaranta effort . ''but nevertheless , there are changes . it 's a combination of economic factors and our propaganda . '' the most important change , says tiina laatikainen , a researcher on the pitkyaranta project at the finnish public_health institute , is that residents' knowledge about their health has increased remarkably . that said , eight years of evangelizing have not reaped a quick conversion as in joensuu . that speaks to the depth and tenacity of russia 's health problems , dr . laatikainen said and to its economic ones , too . ''the most difficult things have been the social and economic pressures , '' she said . ''people are not willing to change their life styles when they have to struggle to survive a normal life . '' many links in a chain of misery no one could expect pitkyaranta to match joensuu 's early success . the finns had merely to raise life_expectancy . the russians must stop it from plummeting . ''the big message is that there is n't a single cause , '' martin mckee , a leading scholar on russian public_health at the london school of hygiene and tropical medicine , said in a recent interview . ''it 's a chain of causation , with alcohol and stress playing major roles . we need to understand , why do people drink ? and why are the consequences so grave ? and a decade , 15 years after it all started , we 're still floundering around , with far too little information . '' in many nations , the response to such shocks would be addiction treatment and psychiatric help . russia has few such cushions to offer . psychiatry is still emerging from the soviet dark ages , when a diagnosis of mental_illness was a political weapon . that remains true in parts of russia , according to an october report by moscow helsinki group , the human_rights watchdog . mental hospitals , even more grossly underfinanced than the rest of the health system , are often true warehouses st . petersburg psychiatric_hospital no . 3 , for example , is 130 years old and houses 2 , 000 patients , twice its capacity . alcoholics anonymous , long banned from the soviet_union , established programs in some russian cities in the 1990 's , and its 12 step treatment method is emulated by some churches and charities . but only a tiny fraction of alcoholics get intensive treatment . the majority are left , with their families , to fend for themselves . the director general of the world_health_organization , gro harlem brundtland , said in an interview that there was no reason for pessimism about russia 's situation , despite alarming rises in disease and an admittedly inefficient medical system . she said that political leaders understood the scope of their nation 's crisis and the urgent need to address it , and that a mending economy would provide money for health programs and improve living conditions . and she said there were quick_fixes to some problems ending 24 hour vodka sales and curbing cigarette advertising , for example . of course , alcoholism and disease are not confined to russia . poor health habits place american life spans squarely in the middle range of developed nations . for all its leading_edge technology , the american health_care system is no model of efficiency for russians to emulate . but building a modern health system takes years and billions of dollars that russia does not have . and as for weaning the country from ingrained habits , when president gorbachev imposed a series of restrictions on alcohol , he was nearly toppled from power . any such undertaking would pose a formidable challenge for leaders today . mending russia 's shattered health will take all that and something more difficult surgery on millions of dark russian souls like that of anatoly iverianov , the 45 year old heart patient and former woodsman . mr . iverianov is a caricature of what ails the country . he treats chest pain with vodka . he smokes not much , he contends , though ''just sitting around , i can smoke a whole pack , especially after a good drink . '' his diet is ''whatever you got no delicacies , of course , '' which translates into bread , potatoes and the occasional chicken . household life is hard . mr . iverianov receives a 35 a month disability pension . his wife gets about 18 a month for cleaning a local school . that must feed and clothe the two of them and two sons , 23 and 7 . it is not enough . ''i 've got three specialties from school , and already i ca n't get a job in any of them , '' said viktor , the elder son , already an angry , arm waving clone of his father . ''in the last two years we 've moved three times to smaller places to save money . '' this is what independence gave the iverianovs the ability to sell their home in order to survive . but with two rooms and a kitchen for the four of them , they have little left now to sell . to more than a few experts , russia 's problem is not just whether a rising economy will lift the boat . it is whether a society that has demolished a thousand year compact a loaf of bread and a bed in exchange for the loss of all individuality now regards its masses as people , not expendable parts in some vast machine . in that respect , the experts say , a decade of falling life spans , so far unaddressed , is not encouraging . ''in a sense , russia has a life_expectancy which we 've managed to earn , '' said sergei ermakov , a principal demographer at the research public_health institute in moscow . ''russia has never spared resources . there has always been lots of wood , lots of water , lots of iron_ore , lots of land and lots of people . and the attitude taken by the russian leadership toward the people was n't any different . '' mr . iverianov would not argue with that . ''in general , this is n't working , '' he said . ''basically , the country itself has fallen apart and into bankruptcy . and now i 'm waiting for them to turn the lights off here . '' mr . iverianov 's story does not have a happy ending . just before 3 p.m . on nov . 21 , he was brought once more to central clinical hospital by ambulance , this time displaying a weak pulse and almost no blood_pressure . doctors suspected a heart_attack . three hours later he died . an autopsy concluded that he had been killed by fluid in the lungs and heart_failure due to chronic alcoholism . mr . iverianov would have turned 46 this month . freedom 's toll later articles in this series will examine health_care in russia as a barometer of how the society is faring nearly a decade after the collapse of the soviet_union . these will include a look at life in a moscow hospital , the rise in infectious_diseases , the health of women and the prospects for improving the health of the russian people . articles in this series and related coverage are available at the new york times on the web www . nytimes . com",has a topic of health
"president boris n . yeltsin underwent a long awaited multiple bypass heart operation early_today at a cardiology institute here , the kremlin announced . mr . yeltsin signed over his presidential powers to prime_minister viktor s . chernomyrdin before being anesthetized for the operation , which began shortly after 7 a.m . ( 11 p.m . monday , eastern time ) . it was expected to take several hours . the operation was aimed at restoring blood flow to coronary_arteries that nourish the 65 year old russian leader 's heart and that had become constricted by the fatty deposits of atherosclerosis that had built up over a period of years . after removing arteries from yeltsin 's chest and veins from his legs , a team of surgeons headed by dr . renat s . akchurin is expected to use them to make three or four grafts , thus creating new channels to shunt blood around the blocked areas . during the operation , mr . yeltsin 's heart was stopped , and blood was pumped by a machine . mr . yeltsin 's doctors met on monday afternoon with dr . michael e . debakey , the american heart surgery pioneer , and declared his condition optimal for the operation . dr . debakey and other experts have said this type of surgery has about a 95 percent chance of success . although kremlin officials were vague in recent days about the timing of the surgery , it came almost as predicted six weeks after dr . debakey joined mr . yeltsin 's russian doctors at a news conference here . at the time he said it would take at least that long for mr . yeltsin to be treated for a number of medical problems . they included severe anemia , bleeding from the intestine and an underactive thyroid gland . the doctors also wanted to give mr . yeltsin 's heart more time to recover from a heart_attack that was stopped in progress by injections of a clot dissolving drug during the russian election campaign in july . at the time , however , kremlin officials said mr . yeltsin was suffering from nothing more than a cold . but in september , mr . yeltsin broke a kremlin tradition about the secrecy of the health of russian leaders by telling the public that he had a heart problem . three weeks ago , dr . akchurin and members of his team visited dr . debakey 's team at baylor college medical_school in houston for about a week to observe the latest surgical and medical techniques . the american arrived here on sunday , but was whisked away without being able to talk to reporters . government officials said no foreign doctors would be in the operating room . dr . debakey said last week that mr . yeltsin 's anemia had been corrected with blood transfusions and that the intestinal bleeding had stopped . he also said mr . yeltsin 's heart function had indeed improved further over recent weeks . the fact that the surgery came on election day in the united_states raised questions as to whether it was timed to draw publicity away from the operation .",has a topic of health
"prime_minister_jean_chr_tien and the nation 's 10 provincial premiers negotiated an agreement to increase federal aid to local health_care programs by 8 billion over three years in an attempt to cut waiting times for diagnostic care and operations , improve home_care , broaden access to drugs and modernize hospital equipment . the premiers of the three arctic regions refused to sign the agreement , saying it shortchanged rural native settlements . clifford krauss ( nyt )",has a topic of health
"the people of toronto filled their churches over the easter weekend in an expression of faith over fear despite the spread of a mysterious respiratory_disease . but it was not quite like any other easter , with communion customs abridged to help avert a full blown epidemic . as worshipers arrived at their churches , they received pamphlets explaining that because of the outbreak of severe_acute_respiratory_syndrome , or sars , they would not be able to kiss the cross , share cups of wine or use a in a confession booth . instead of a handshake as a ' 'salutation of peace , '' churchgoers were asked to offer a simple bow . ''the faithful are to receive the body of christ in the hand , not on the tongue , '' said the pamphlets , referring to the communal bread or wafers . the easter adjustments were another sign that life might be beginning to change in canada 's largest city , the population center most affected by sars outside asia . a 99 year old man died in toronto of the disease on saturday , the 14th fatality here . another 248 people have come down with the illness in the toronto area over the last month , out of a total of 304 probable and suspected cases throughout canada . there was more bad news over the weekend , as sunnybrook hospital , one of the city 's two principal trauma centers , was forced to close its sars and critical care units when four staff members showed symptoms of the disease . the communion rules were worked out by ontario health and church officials last week , as fears grew that an epidemic that had been isolated to a few hospital wards might now spread to the general public . the officials also requested that anyone suffering from even a single symptom of sars , including a fever or body aches , should stay home over the holiday weekend . more than 7 , 000 people in the metropolitan_area have been put in 10 day quarantines over the last month . the threat that contact during religious services could extend the disease was underscored by the spread among a mostly philippine immigrant roman_catholic prayer group , the bukas loob sa diyos covenant community . the congregation includes 29 people sick with sars , with several in critical condition . another 500 have been forced to go into quarantine at home . at the saturday night mass at st . michael 's , the oldest roman_catholic_church in the city , not a single person was seen wearing a mask among more than 500 worshipers . people expressed a mixture of fatalism and faith to explain their fortitude in coming to pray despite the possible risk of contact with a sick person . ''everyone is taking a chance , '' said nancy matus , a 43 year old philippine immigrant and pharmaceutical worker . ''it 's a matter of faith . if it hits you , it hits you . '' michael harrison , a 33 year old high_school chaplain , said ''there is a little loss of intimacy without the offer of the handshake as an offer of peace . but the nod is understood as , 'i would if i could , and we 'll wait for things to get back to normal . ' ''i am confident the disease is being contained , '' he added . ''but it is good to be prudent . '' while chinese restaurants and hotels report drastic slowdowns in business , and a few local businesses here are instituting more teleconferencing to replace face to face meetings , most people here are carrying out their lives with few alterations . at easter sunday services at the church of st . michael and all angels , an anglican church , the rev . jeffrey brown prayed for toronto 's health and ''the containment of this disease'' during his sermon . he drank from the cup of wine for everyone . members of the congregation nodded and smiled as he explained the new communion rules . but some could not resist giving a handshake to their neighbors anyway . ''there are going to be other diseases , '' said priscilla browne , a nursing home worker . ''i just keep my faith and do what i have to do . '' the sars epidemic precautions",has a topic of health
"president boris n . yeltsin , whose visibly declining health has long provoked speculation here , was rushed to the hospital today with what his press service described as "" acute "" heart pains . within hours the kremlin began issuing statements saying that the 64 year old president was "" fully in control , "" that he would continue with his work while in the hospital , and that his pains had subsided . doctors said mr . yeltsin had had an attack of ischemia , which means that the heart is not getting all the oxygenated blood it needs . caused by an accumulation of plaque blocking a coronary_artery , it can be a relatively minor affliction or it can be the first step in a severe heart_attack . a large number of americans suffer from coronary blockage but may not have symptoms , and a smaller number experience pain from ischemia resulting from the blockage . "" judging by the first data from boris_yeltsin 's examination , nothing serious has happened to him , "" said the presidential spokesman , sergei k . medvedev , who did not make the data public . "" he continues to fulfill his constitutional duties . "" in a statement released in moscow tonight , mr . medvedev said "" the patient is active . he gets up from his bed . there have been no recurrences of pain in recent hours . "" the feverishness with which the presidential press service put out the word that mr . yeltsin suffered no serious damage was highly unusual . normally and this has been particularly true with mr . yeltsin 's health problems over the years the public is told little about the illnesses of russian leaders . many politicians including prime_minister viktor s . chernomyrdin , who would carry out mr . yeltsin 's duties if the need arose , and ivan p . rybkin , the speaker of parliament emphasized the minor nature of mr . yeltsin 's ailment today . and there was no reason to doubt them . the president signed official documents during the day , according to his press spokesman , and he has no plans to cancel a scheduled trip to the russian far north and to norway next week . but at 64 , there can be few more obvious candidates for a heart_attack than mr . yeltsin . he has already lived five years longer than the average russian man , he has high_blood_pressure and is overweight , and his job is among the most stressful in the world . although he tries to play tennis as often as possible , he rarely plays for long , and his face shows the wear of the years during which he has led the country . mr . yeltsin has been seen stumbling frequently in the last year , and many published reports refer to his heavy drinking . unlike many russians , however , he does not smoke . "" he has all the classic signs that would point to heart_disease , "" said dr . george goy , an american doctor based here at the clinic recently opened by columbia_presbyterian_medical_center . "" it 's going to slow him down . and if he does n't slow down , he could be in for trouble . "" mr . yeltsin 's health problems are inevitably linked to his political leadership of the nation . he is by far the most important politician in russia , but he has never been less popular . the bitter war for chechnya has largely been attributed to him , a recent no confidence vote in parliament was essentially seen as a message to the president , and he now rarely appears in public or on television . when the war began in december , mr . yeltsin was hospitalized for an undisclosed problem with his nose . he appeared in public only once during the first few weeks after he sent 40 , 000 troops into the secessionist republic . any serious physical setback for mr . yeltsin now would have a significant impact on russian politics and the reform program . mr . chernomyrdin a solemn ex soviet industrialist has become far more popular than his boss , in part because he has been seen as the biggest force behind negotiations for peace in chechnya .",has a topic of health
"alan rock , canada 's federal health minister , toured the country 's first legal marijuana farm , inside an old manitoba copper mine . under a new law that took effect , this week , canadians suffering from life threatening or chronic_illnesses are allowed to use marijuana for medical purposes , even though some doctors doubt its usefulness as a pain reliever . the government has given prairie plant systems of saskatoon a 3 . 8 million contract to grow marijuana for patients who cannot grow it themselves . anthony_depalma ( nyt )",has a topic of health
"esther pacione needs a family doctor . at age 56 she is afflicted with severe ataxia , a neurological condition that causes her acute pain , choking and loss of consciousness . the walls of her home are scuffed from the times she fell and hit her head . her regular doctor suffered a stroke a year ago , and all the local doctors she has contacted say they cannot take new patients , so now ms . pacione goes to a walk in clinic whenever she has an emergency . at the clinic , she waits hours and sees a different doctor and no one there is familiar with her medical_history and what drugs she has been taking . ms . pacione , a retired bookkeeper , said she would like to be at the table when prime_minister paul_martin meets with the provincial premiers on monday for a three day televised meeting to find ways to alleviate the lengthening waits for basic care in canada . ''if you are not bleeding all over the place , you are put on the back burner , '' ms . pacione said , ''unless of course you have money or know somebody . '' the publicly financed health_insurance system remains a prideful jewel for most canadians , who see it as an expression of communal caring for the less fortunate and a striking contrast to an american health_care system that leaves 45 million people uninsured . but polls indicate that public confidence in the system is eroding , although politicians remain reticent to urge increasing privatization of services . during the recent closely fought election campaign , mr . martin promised to fix canada 's health_care system ''for a generation , '' focusing on trimming waiting times for diagnostic_tests , cancer treatment and elective_surgery like hip_replacements . he is eager to use this televised gathering , billed as a health_care summit meeting , to reverse the current view among many canadians that his government is vacillating and may well fall next year . but medical professionals and local officials say a major reason it may not be easy to address the problem of slow access to treatment is because doctors who do preliminary diagnostic work , refer patients to specialists and monitor the care of chronically ill people are less and less available especially in small towns and rural areas . a 2002 report from the canadian senate said that the actual number of family doctors had decreased only slightly in recent years but that the demands of an aging population were growing . meanwhile , several recent studies have shown that family doctors are working shorter hours . young doctors are more likely to seek the most lucrative work in cities or go to the united_states rather than start more modest practices in small towns because of growing debts when they leave medical_school . that has set off an increasing competition among small towns to attract doctors . ms . pacione 's predicament is surprisingly common even in this upper_middle_class community on the north_shore of lake_ontario that seems to have everything going for it immaculate lawns , a yacht marina , a downtown graced by vintage victorian architecture and quaint parks and fruit markets . despite all its attractions , whitby has trouble attracting enough doctors to take care of its residents . the town has only 63 family doctors to care for its 110 , 000 people ( medical officials and local officials say at least 16 more are needed ) , and many residents drive 45 minutes or more to toronto for basic medical care . whitby is one of 136 communities with a total of a million people in ontario , canada 's most populous province , that are not adequately served by family doctors , according to the ontario medical association . that is up from 100 communities in 2000 . whitby officials estimate that 22 , 000 people here have no doctor at all , forcing them to go to emergency_rooms at overcrowded local hospitals to wait in line for up to four hours simply to refill a prescription , get a doctor 's note for an employer or care for their flu symptoms . ''it 's like winning the lottery to get in and see the doctor , '' mayor marcel brunelle said . ''this is a very wealthy country . what happened to bring the situation to this point ? '' the government statistical agency estimates that more than 3.6 million canadians , representing nearly 15 percent of the population , do not have a family doctor . that remains better than in the united_states , where an estimated 20 percent do not have a regular doctor . but there are signs that the doctor shortage in canada is worsening . the canadian medical association estimates that the country requires 2 , 500 medical graduates annually but is producing only 2 , 200 a year . mayor brunelle formed a task_force in june to recruit young doctors by introducing them to real_estate agents and giving them advice on how to start new practices , and the town government is considering building a municipal clinic . the town of peterborough is offering large monetary incentives and a grab bag of perks , including memberships at the y.m.c.a . and cable_television . other municipalities offer moving expenses and the inside track on real_estate next to golf_courses . but experts say those efforts may not be enough . ''if the current trends continue we can anticipate a crisis , '' warned joseph d'cruz , a university of toronto business school professor who specializes in health_care . ''people will actually find it impossible to get general medical services in their towns . '' the doctor shortage is hurting the economies of small towns seeking to attract businesses . but it is also taxing the energies of the doctors who do live in those towns , as well as the resources of local hospitals and patients often complain that their treatment is rushed . administrators at the nearby lakeridge health oshawa , an acute_care hospital , estimated that more than 30 percent of the patients who went to the emergency ward would go to a family doctor instead if they could do so quickly . it is a burden on the hospital 's staff , space and financial resources . one patient who went to the emergency ward recently , crystal bentley , 22 , complained of cysts behind her ears . she said she would prefer to see her family doctor but would have to wait in his office for hours . she said she went to the hospital because the emergency room was faster . ''seeing a doctor and not having to pay is phenomenal , '' she said , ''but here i am taking up emergency time from doctors . i really do wish i could see my family doctor instead of coming here and talking to a total stranger . ''",has a topic of health
"gen . h . norman_schwarzkopf , commander of american_forces in the 1991 persian_gulf_war , said today that he did not believe that iraqi chemical_weapons had anything to do with the mysterious health problems reported by thousands of veterans of the war . nor , general schwarzkopf said , did he recall any confirmed reports during the war that american_troops had been exposed to iraqi chemical or biological_weapons . ''we had lots of alarms , but i personally know of no incident in which there was any chemical uncovered , '' he said in his first detailed interview on the subject since the pentagon 's announcement this year that thousands of troops might have been exposed to nerve_gas after the destruction of iraqi ammunition depot shortly after the war . ''and this was my no . 1 intelligence priority , '' he said . ''there was no chemical exposure at all that i know of . it 's very important to me that the true information get out so that people do n't think that there is some giant conspiracy . '' in a telephone interview from colorado , where he is on vacation , general schwarzkopf , who is retired , said that he did not know why several pages were missing from a military log that should have recorded reports of chemical or biological detections during the war . pentagon officials said on wednesday that they had been unable to track down the missing entries from computer disks that had once contained the chemical_warfare logs , despite an exhaustive search . there are several gaps in the otherwise meticulously kept logs , including an eight day period in march 1991 in which american combat engineers blew up the kamisiyah ammunition depot , which was later determined to have contained chemical_weapons . the pentagon has announced that it will notify more than 20 , 000 veterans of the war that they may have been exposed to sarin , a nerve_gas , and other chemical agents as a result of the explosions . ''i have absolutely no idea why there are missing parts from it , '' general schwarzkopf said of the logs . ''all this shows is that whoever at centcom was gathering all the logs probably did n't take very good care of them when they came back from the gulf . '' centcom is the united_states_central_command , which oversaw the troops . while the logs were maintained at his wartime headquarters in riyadh , the saudi capital , general schwarzkopf said he never saw them , nor was information from the logs routinely brought to his attention . ''it sticks in my craw when people say these logs were prepared for me , '' he said . ''it 's a routine staff log that is kept at that level . i never saw it . ''i 'm not making apologies for anybody . i more than anybody else wish to hell we could find the logs . '' he said he suspected that portions of the logs might have been misfiled or lost as soldiers used the logs to prepare so called after action reports . ''to my mind , this is the type of log that would not be kept always , because the information from that would have been incorporated into some higher log , '' he said . he said he agreed with the findings of several expert panels that were unable to find any clear link between iraqi chemical_weapons and the illnesses reported by thousands of veterans . ''given all the knowledge that i personally have , i am quite convinced that this does n't have anything to do with it , '' he said of chemical_weapons . ''i think there 's a huge amount of misinformation , '' he continued . ''this gulf_war_syndrome thing is truly unfortunate , and i 've met some of the vets who have this . these are my guys , and i feel terrible about it . ''the problem is that nobody knows what 's causing it , and every major medical examination that has taken place to date four of them , being totally independent has said there 's no evidence that it 's related to chemical_weapons . '' government studies have shown that while veterans of the war were not hospitalized and did not die at unusual rates in the first two and a half years after the war , they do report other serious health problems , including digestive ailments and chronic_fatigue , at far higher rates than troops who did not serve in the gulf . general schwarzkopf said that when he first heard that the veterans were falling ill , he feared it was a reaction to immunizations given to troops during the war to protect them from a possible iraqi biological attack using botulism . the vaccine had not been formally licensed by the food and drug administration , and there was debate about its safety . ''subsequently , '' he said , ''i 've been told by the experts'' that the vaccine was not responsible for gulf veterans' health problems . ''i just hate to see the troops suffer , '' he said . ''that 's the most hurtful thing thing to me . and secondly , it does hurt me that anybody would think that for any reason in the world that i would go ahead and deliberately allow my troops to be exposed to something like that and then cover it up . it 's crazy . '' he said he was particularly angry about reports suggesting that he and his deputy commanders had hidden in an air tight bunker in riyadh during the war while american_soldiers on the battlefield were facing attack from iraqi chemical_weapons . he said that the ventilation system in his headquarters drew air from the street and that ''people kind of giggled'' about how little protection there was from the possibility of a chemical attack . ''i had gas_masks and protective overgarments , too , '' he said . ''we were just as susceptible as anybody else . '' general schwarzkopf 's account was similar to that of gen . colin l . powell , the former chairman of the joint_chiefs_of_staff , who said in an interview this week that while chemical detection alarms had sounded repeatedly during the war , american commanders in the gulf were unable to confirm them and concluded that they were false_alarms . general schwarzkopf said he recalled a specific chemical detection report received early in the war from czech troops in a chemical detection unit deployed in northern saudi_arabia alongside american_soldiers . he said that after learning of the czech report , he ordered a deputy commander ''to get our very best detection_equipment out there and check this thing out thoroughly . '' ''we sent the fox vehicles in , because they are the very best thing we had to check that out , '' he said , referring to chemical detection vehicles . ''they swept the whole area and said , false_alarm . '' general schwarzkopf said he had no recollection of the decision to blow up the kamisiyah depot , nor of any reports at the time that the depot might have contained nerve_gas . ''who ordered kamisiyah to be blown ? '' he asked . ''beats the hell out of me is the correct answer . '' he said that after the united_states and its allies had driven iraqi forces out of kuwait and occupied parts of southern iraq , american_forces were ordered to destroy iraqi ammunition storage sites . ''what we did n't want to do is leave all of these captured materiel that we 've found tanks , artillery_pieces and the sort intact so that the iraqis grab it and use it five years from now , '' he said . ''the order went out , therefore , to destroy all abandoned military equipment . '' he added , ''there 's no doubt in my mind that whichever commander ordered the blowing up of kamisiyah did so in following the instructions that he had received . ''",has a topic of health
"lead fears that large numbers of people infected with the aids virus might suffer mental deterioration long before they develop the disease have been eased by new studies , researchers said here today . fears that large numbers of people infected with the aids virus might suffer mental deterioration long before they develop the disease have been eased by new studies , researchers said here today . a consensus has developed among experts that neurological and psychological complications from the virus rarely occur in the years before aids cripples the immune system , producing weight_loss , fever and other symptoms , the researchers said at the first international meeting on the virus 's effects on the brain . fears about such complications were set off by earlier estimates that they affected up to 70 percent of people infected with the virus . that led the military to bar such people from certain jobs . the earlier reports , including some in medical journals , also created deep concern about the risks of errors by infected people who hold jobs involving public safety , including commercial pilots and bus drivers . low risk of complications the picture emerging from the new studies about the neurological and psychological complications of infection with the aids , or human immunodeficiency , virus is far from complete . but experts have reached a consensus on the low risk of complications in the years before symptoms of the disease develop . during this interval the infected person appears healthy . ''dementia is distinctly unusual in asymptomatic hiv infected people , '' dr . justin mcarthur , a neurologist at johns hopkins hospital in baltimore , told the meeting , of which he was a co chairman . ''it affects less than 1 percent of hiv carriers . '' in the late stages of aids , however , neurological cations are common , participants said at the meeting , which was sponsored by the world_health_organization in geneva , a united_nations agency , and the national_institutes_of_health in bethesda , md . world_health_organization officials have spoken out strongly against screening workers for hiv infection . after experts met in geneva last year to evaluate preliminary versions of the information now being reported at public meetings , w.h.o . said tests to detect mental impairment among hiv infected people were not justified . data called 'pretty firm' in a telephone interview , dr . anthony s . fauci , who heads the national institute of allergy and infectious diseases , called the newest data ''pretty firm and very important . '' dr . fauci recalled that three years ago some experts who cited the alarmingly high estimates of aids dementia contended that ''if scientists ever succeeded in suppressing the secondary infections that kill most patients , all you would be left with are demented people , '' but he added that ''those predictions are as wet as we said they would turn out to be . '' crucial data have come from the multicenter aids cohort study in which researchers financed by the national_institutes_of_health are keeping track of nearly 5 , 000 gay and bisexual men in baltimore , chicago , los_angeles and pittsburgh . the researchers tested 247 hiv infected men who had not shown any signs of illness and , for purposes of scientific comparisons , 170 other men who were not infected with the aids virus . members of the study group took several psychological tests every six months for 30 months . cognitive skills compared dr . mcarthur said the research team , of which he was a member , could detect no statistically significant difference in cognitive skills between the two groups . researchers from the centers_for_disease_control in atlanta conducted a separate study among homosexual men in san_francisco with that city 's health department . dr . robert s . janssen of the disease control centers said the researchers administered up to 20 psychological tests to members of the groups . the researchers found no increase in neurological and psychological abnormalities in a group of apparently healthy hiv infected homosexuals compared with those who were not hiv infected , dr . janssen said . however , of 26 people who had developed symptoms from a form of hiv infection known as aids related complex , 11 , or 42 percent , had cognitive , psychological or neurological symptoms . this figure compared to 30 , or 19 percent , of 157 men who were not hiv infected . air_force study cited in an air_force study of people with aids , dr . douglas marshall reported that tests showed that of 76 people in the study , only seven , or about 9 percent , had evidence of mental impairment . dr . marshall , who is chief neurologist at wilford hall medical center at lackland air force base in texas , said the figure ''calmed my fears'' because he had been ''highly concerned'' about the 40 to 70 percent figures cited in some earlier studies . because the military screens all active_duty personnel , dr . marshall said , the 9 percent figure from the air_force probably more accurately reflects the overall incidence of mental complications in aids patients . participants at the meeting cited several reasons for the differences in the figures between the newer and earlier studies . a key one , they said , was that some of the highest figures came from medical centers to which aids dementia patients had been referred for care . another reason is that doctors have learned to more accurately diagnose aids dementia by excluding other conditions that can mimic it .",has a topic of health
"the veterans_affairs and defense departments declared for the first time last week that service in the persian_gulf_war a decade ago has been linked to a subsequent illness , namely amyotrophic_lateral_sclerosis , or a.l.s. , a fatal neurological illness better known as lou_gehrig 's disease . the v.a . announced that gulf_war veterans suffering from the malady could receive disability compensation and survivor benefits based on the presumption that their illness was service related . that was a humane decision that will ease the burdens on the 20 or so gulf_war veterans still suffering from this devastating illness and the survivors of some 20 others who have already died . but whether the v.a . study finding a link between gulf_war service and a.l.s . will be accepted as valid by peer reviewers at the scientific_journal to which it has been submitted is yet to be determined . all previous attempts to link gulf_war service with specific diseases have produced negative or inconclusive results . the federal action was prompted by preliminary evidence from a mammoth epidemiological study in which investigators tried to identify all cases of a.l.s . that had occurred in some 700 , 000 gulf_war veterans and in some 1.8 million other veterans who served elsewhere at the same time . they found that those who served in the gulf_war were nearly twice as likely as other service members to have developed the disease . the highest rates were found in the air_force , and next highest in the army . personnel serving in the navy and marine_corps seemed at no greater risk of a.l.s . in the gulf than elsewhere . the chief question that will need to be addressed by peer reviewers is whether the study was able to ferret out cases of a.l.s . with equal success in both groups , namely those who served in the gulf and those who did not . with all the uproar in recent years about illnesses found among gulf_war veterans , it seems likely that the researchers identified everybody with a.l.s . in that group . the issue will be whether the study , through advertising and contacting patients' groups and doctors , was able to find virtually all the cases in the other group as well . if they missed some , the difference between the two groups might disappear , and service in the gulf would not be associated with risk of the disease . as the study progresses , researchers and patient advocacy groups hope it might provide clues to help unravel the causes of this rare and mysterious illness . one intriguing finding that air_force personnel had higher rates than other servicemembers would mesh with an earlier study suggesting that civilian pilots may have a higher than normal risk of motor neuron diseases . researchers have already begun trying to identify what factors might explain the a.l.s . cases found among gulf veterans . their initial quick scan came up with nothing obvious . but if peer_review validates the finding that gulf veterans were at particular risk , the search will intensify .",has a topic of health
"the defense_department is planning to administer experimental drugs , which experts say include a botulism vaccine , to troops in the persian_gulf . the vaccine , which may protect against a deadly bacterial toxin that could be used by iraq , has been previously tried only by laboratory workers who handle the toxin . this experience provides too little data for the food and drug administration to declare the vaccine effective . experts say the vaccine seems reasonably safe but definitive data on this point too are lacking . on dec . 21 , the department of defense obtained a special waiver needed to require troops to take experimental drugs and vaccines , in case of combat or "" threat of combat . "" although troops must accept standard medical treatments , until now they have not had to accept experimental ones without signing an informed_consent statement . "" as far as i know , there has never been another situation in this nation where people waived their right to give informed_consent , "" to receiving experimental treatments , said dr . arthur caplan , director of the center for biomedical ethics at the university of minnesota . a request to the f.d.a . in a letter to the f.d.a . asking permission for the waiver , dr . enrique mendez , assistant secretary for defense , health_affairs , said that the department wanted to give troops "" a vaccine long recognized by the centers_for_disease_control as the primary preventive treatment for a particular disease , "" but for which there was too little data to support a license . this vaccine , experts say , is against botulism toxin . the toxin that causes botulism is produced by bacteria that stay dormant in spores in soil . the spores grow into toxin secreting bacteria in airless conditions , like cans of food that receive insufficient heat treatment . the toxin can paralyze even in minute amounts because it adheres to the ends of nerves , preventing communication . defense_department officials referred calls to susan hanson , a pentagon spokeswoman , who said that the department "" very carefully stayed away "" from stating which experimental drugs or vaccines it wanted to administer to troops , but that "" there are some clues in the letter to the f.d.a. "" an f.d.a . spokesman , jeffrey nesbit , said he could not discuss any requests by the defense_department to administer experimental drugs or vaccines to troops , but he confirmed that another vaccine widely expected to be given to troops , a vaccine against anthrax , was already licensed by the f.d.a . so it could not be the one mentioned in the letter . few have received vaccine but dr . michael grodin , who is the associate director of the law , medicine , and ethics program at boston_university , said he learned of the pentagon 's plans in a telephone call to dr . edward d . martin , deputy assistant secretary of defense for health_affairs . dr . martin , he said , did not request that dr . grodin keep their conversation secret . reciting from his conversation with dr . martin , dr . grodin explained that the botulism vaccine is experimental because too few people have received it to know if it works . but although the vaccine 's efficacy is uncertain , dr . grodin said , "" it is fairly safe from what they know . "" dr . martin told dr . grodin that the other experimental drugs that the troops might receive were pyridostigmine , an antidote to nerve_gas , and diazepam , sold under brand names like valium , which can combat seizures associated with nerve_gas attacks . both these drugs are already approved , dr . martin said , but not for these uses . confrontation in the gulf",has a topic of health
"the abc_news anchor , bob woodruff , and a cameraman , doug vogt , who were badly wounded in a roadside_bomb explosion in iraq , are responding slowly to treatment , officials at an american military_hospital in germany where they are being treated said monday . ''doctors have had good early signs of reaction , signs of slow improvement , '' said a hospital spokeswoman , marie shaw . mr . woodruff 's brother , david , who visited him on monday , said his condition had improved since he and mr . vogt were flown from a military field_hospital in iraq to the landstuhl regional medical center here . ''he 's been getting great care since he 's been here , and he 's been improving , and we 're hopeful , '' david woodruff said outside the hospital . he declined to give details . abc_news said the two men might be transferred to a hospital in the united_states for further treatment , as soon as tuesday . officials here said they had not yet found a suitable hospital for the transfer . mr . woodruff faces , at minimum , an arduous convalescence . a person close to the family said he had suffered multiple broken ribs , a broken shoulder and a skull fracture . bomb fragments pierced his neck and back , though apparently not his brain . doctor have kept him unconscious , this person said , and the extent of his head wounds was not clear . mr . woodruff underwent three hours of surgery on monday to remove shrapnel , another person close to the family said . both people spoke anonymously because they did not want to speak publicly for the family . mr . woodruff , 44 , and mr . vogt , 46 , arrived at 8 30 a.m . monday on a military transport plane carrying 31 wounded soldiers about a normal daily influx for this hospital . doctors spent the first few hours conducting tests to determine how they had weathered the seven hour flight . ''they were treated by our trauma and critical care team , and are undergoing evaluation and re testing , '' the hospital 's commander , col . w . bryan gamble , said in an interview . he said their lives had probably been saved by the body_armor they wore . the men were wounded when the bomb exploded while they were standing in the open hatch of an iraqi military vehicle . mr . woodruff said a few words after he was hit , said tom_brokaw , the former nbc_news anchor , who spoke to mr . woodruff 's wife , lee , and later reported on that conversation on the ''today'' show . ''these improvised devices can give very significant injuries to many parts of the body the extremities , the face , the torso , '' colonel gamble said , adding that both men were ''heavily sedated . '' lee woodruff also arrived at the hospital on monday , as did vivian vogt , mr . vogt 's wife . abc_news sent a senior executive , robert murphy . ''as we have known , doug is in somewhat better condition than bob , '' david westin , the president of abc_news , said in a statement . ''but the doctors are pleased with how they came through the transfer . '' ''we have a long way to go , '' he said . ''but it appears that we may have also come some distance from yesterday . '' the explosion occurred as mr . woodruff and mr . vogt were riding in the iraqi vehicle near taji , a tense area northwest of baghdad . they had been part of a news team accompanying units of the fourth infantry division and had initially traveled in a united_states_army armored_humvee . before the attack , they switched to the more lightly armored iraqi vehicle , the network reported . colleagues at abc_news said mr . woodruff and mr . vogt were careful and had not taken any undue risks . they were wearing body_armor , helmets and ballistic glasses . doctors here noted that the equipment , while protecting their bodies , would not have shielded their necks or faces . fragments from roadside_bombs tend to blow upward , which makes helmets less effective , said col . ronald place , a surgeon and deputy commander of the hospital . colonel place said the condition of mr . woodruff 's brain would be a crucial issue for his recovery prospects . mr . brokaw said doctors had told mrs . woodruff that the swelling in her husband 's brain had subsided . ''in bob 's case , that had been a big concern , '' mr . brokaw said on ''today . '' ''yesterday they had to operate and remove part of the skull cap to relieve some of the swelling . '' doctors at the landstuhl hospital learned of the explosion on television , and on the assumption that mr . woodruff and mr . vogt would be flown here , began following their treatment on a web based tracking system , as the men were flown from the scene in taji to a field_hospital in balad . the system , colonel place said , allows landstuhl to do a sort of electronic triage , preparing doctors and equipment . the struggle for iraq wounded journalists",has a topic of health
"drug_resistant strains of the aids virus have risen to a worrisome 14 percent among newly infected people , according to a study of nine cities in the united_states and canada . any increase in drug resistance is a concern to infected people because of the limited number of drugs to combat h.i.v. , the aids virus , and to uninfected people who might be acquiring resistant_strains . the study , which was reported here today at the eighth annual retrovirus meeting , found increased resistance among a group of 394 people who , because they experienced flulike_symptoms , had their condition diagnosed and treated within three months of infection with h.i.v . resistance to one or more drugs was found in 14 percent of the participants from 1999 through last may compared with 3.5 percent from 1995 through 1998 , said dr . susan j . little of the university of california at san_diego and lead author of the study . resistance to two or more of the three classes of anti h . i.v . drugs rose to 5.8 percent in the 1999 2000 period compared with 0.4 percent from 1995 1998 , dr . little said at the meeting , a major conference attended by 3 , 500 scientists specializing in h.i.v . and related viruses . the abrupt rise suggests that resistant h.i.v . is being transmitted knowingly or unknowingly in significant numbers to newly infected people , said dr . little and dr . douglas d . richman , a co author of the study . available drugs have failed for many infected people , and a concern is that they might also fail among those newly infected with resistant h.i.v . doctors distinguish newly infected people from newly diagnosed cases because the latter includes people who , though just learning of the diagnosis , were infected years earlier . many people develop a flulike illness , acute retroviral syndrome , within weeks to months after becoming infected with h.i.v. , and though they seek medical care for the syndrome , doctors often do not suspect that it is attributable to h.i.v . and do not perform an aids test . so , it is not known how often the syndrome occurs among h.i.v . infected people . estimates vary from 50 percent to less than 10 percent , with most experts favoring the lower range . the aim of anti h . i.v . therapy is to suppress the virus to levels beyond the limits of detection of blood tests . in the study , people newly infected with resistant virus who started any kind of anti h . i.v . therapy were less likely to suppress levels of the virus to undetectable levels compared to those with nonresistant strains . also , suppression took longer among those with drug resistant h.i.v . compared with those with nonresistant virus . infected people and their doctors did not know whether the h.i.v . was resistant or susceptible before beginning therapy , and the findings were not affected by which combination of drugs had been prescribed . dr . little recommended that all people newly infected with h.i.v . receive standard resistance tests . the aim would be to help monitor the prevalence of resistant virus and changes in its geographic distribution for public_health purposes and guide therapy for infected people . participants in the study were from birmingham , ala . dallas denver los_angeles montreal new york san_diego seattle and vancouver , british_columbia . because her study was limited to newly infected patients , dr . little cautioned that she could not generalize it to other newly diagnosed cases in which the patient may have been infected for years . new federal guidelines issued this week recommend delaying drug therapy for as long as possible because of the toxicities of the drug combinations . dr . little recommended that newly infected people be tested for resistance even if they do not expect to start drug therapy for a few years , because the virus mutates as it replicates in the body . the virus the body first encounters seems to be the most important one for treatment , and ''there is only a brief window to get a snapshot of information that may never again be available'' for a patient , she said .",has a topic of health
"the government proposed on tuesday to allow women to obtain the so called morning after birth_control_pill without a prescription at any pharmacy in canada . the proposal needs to go through a review by health canada , the chief medical regulatory_agency , but it is expected to meet final approval in the next few months . the move comes only weeks after the acting director of the food and drug administration in the united_states declined to allow the morning after pill to be sold without a prescription . the latest divergence in american and canadian social_policy the two governments have also gone in different directions on drug enforcement and same sex marriages is likely to result in many american women crossing the border to obtain the pills . ''women facing an emergency need timely access to this type of therapy , '' health minister pierre pettigrew said in a statement . ''making the drug available in pharmacies without a prescription will help women to prevent unwanted pregnancies . '' women in quebec , saskatchewan and british_columbia can already buy the pill without a prescription simply by consulting a pharmacist . the proposed amendment to the canadian food and drug regulations would expand that availability across the country . it would be left to the provinces to decide at which age women could obtain the drug . mr . pettigrew said he was satisfied that women would still ' 'receive professional health advice'' before using the pills because they would be required to consult a pharmacist . he said the drug would be available ''behind the counter'' rather than ''over the counter . '' the morning after pill contains a strong dose of the contraceptive levonorgestrel , which impedes ovulation . if taken within 72 hours of having sex , the pill can prevent a fertilized egg from being implanted . mr . pettigrew 's announcement came only days before prime_minister paul_martin was expected to call a national election for late next month . women 's groups and birth_control advocacy agencies applauded the announcement , but the conservative opposition criticized it . rob merrifield , a conservative member of the house of commons who specializes in health_affairs , said the new policy could endanger public_health . ''this drug is 50 times as potent as a birth_control_pill , and we 're treating it like an aspirin , '' he said . he added that the announcement was totally politically_motivated and intended to make the conservative opposition look extremist . ''they laid it out there knowing it 's a volatile issue , and they wanted someone to fall into a trap and to say something controversial , '' he said .",has a topic of health
"one day in 1986 , a car from saddam_hussein 's health ministry pulled up in front of young hussein fadhil abbas 's farmhouse in hib hib , about 40 miles northeast of the capital . mr . abbas , 17 at the time and suffering from hemophilia , a hereditary bleeding disorder , answered the door . ''they need you in baghdad , '' the government man told him , although mr . abbas had just been to the city a week earlier for his monthly injection of clotting agents to reduce bleeding in his gums , nose and knees . mr . abbas , a thin man with watery eyes and an uncertain gait , said he spent the next six months imprisoned in a run down sanitarium normally used for tuberculosis patients , where bars covered the windows and guards watched the exits . more hemophiliacs arrived each day , equally perplexed . eventually , mr . abbas said , a health ministry doctor arrived with an explanation . the clotting agents they received , he said , had infected them with h.i.v. , the virus that causes aids . officials here say that at least 115 iraqis contracted the virus from clotting agents imported from france and austria . ''i had never heard of this disease before , '' mr . abbas , now 37 , recalled in an interview here . ''this doctor then threatened us . he said , 'do n't make any trouble , or you 'll never see your families again . ' '' the hemophiliacs stormed the sanitarium 's front gate and easily escaped , because guards feared touching them . ''we decided that if we get killed , so be it , '' mr . abbas said . their persecution , though , was just beginning . twenty years later , mr . abbas is part of a rapidly shrinking group of h.i.v . infected survivors seeking justice in the new iraq , using a novel legal tool here the civil_lawsuit . in one of the first cases of its kind since the american invasion in 2003 , the 35 or so infected_hemophiliacs still alive , the families of the others , who have died , and the iraqi red_crescent society have sued the health ministry and the two corporations that acquired or succeeded the companies that the plaintiffs say sold tainted_blood products to iraq institut m rieux of france and immuno ag of austria . the suit accuses the two companies of selling products that they suspected were contaminated , and accuses the ministry of negligence in giving them to patients here . institut m rieux eventually became part of what is now sanofi aventis , based in paris immuno ag was acquired by baxter international , of deerfield , ill . , in 1996 . a hearing in the case , which was filed in august 2005 , is scheduled for tuesday . representatives of the two corporations declined to answer specific questions about the alleged sale of tainted_blood products in iraq and other countries in the 1980 's . a sanofi aventis spokesman said the company would not discuss the matter because it was under litigation . deborah spak , a spokeswoman for baxter , said it had not discussed a settlement with any iraqis , but added that those who have evidence of infection from immuno blood products should contact baxter ag , a german subsidiary that is responsible for those claims . in 1996 , baxter and three other companies , including a french company that acquired institut m rieux , agreed to pay 660 million to more than 6 , 000 hemophiliacs in the united_states to settle claims that they contracted h.i.v . from tainted_blood products . dr . said i . hakki , the director of the iraqi red crescent society , said that 189 hemophiliacs , from 6 months to 18 years old , contracted h.i.v . from blood products that m rieux and immuno sold to iraq from 1982 to 1986 . the virus , undetected , later spread to at least another 50 iraqis , he said , through sexual_intercourse , childbirth or breast_feeding . dr . hakki said the companies have ignored efforts by the society 's lawyers and the french ambassador here , bernard bajolet , to arrange a settlement or to provide antiretroviral medicines to the surviving hemophiliacs . ''those people who suffered , and suffered immensely for no good reason , should be compensated , '' dr . hakki , a urologist and a naturalized american citizen , said in an interview in the society 's offices in downtown baghdad . ''these companies have a selfish disdain for these people . they decided they 're not going to do anything . '' nazar mahdi , a lawyer for the health ministry , said the iraqi government was working toward a financial settlement with the plaintiffs . the health and justice ministries , the office of prime_minister_nuri_kamal_al_maliki and the iraqi embassy in paris were seeking a meeting with sanofi aventis , he said , to ' 'demand that they compensate for all the damage done to our victims . '' otherwise , mr . mahdi said in an interview , ''the government delegation will take all the legal measures necessary to get compensation . '' last november , dr . hakki said , sanofi aventis executives in paris offered to pay 5 , 000 to 25 , 000 to each infected iraqi or their families , depending on the level of medical documentation each could show proving that m rieux blood products were to blame . the iraqis rejected the offer . dr . hakki said he is trying to arrange a second meeting with the company in paris in september or october . most of the contaminated_blood came from m rieux , he said . ''we are willing to settle this , '' said dr . hakki , a former health adviser to saddam_hussein who fled to britain in the early 1980 's and later settled in florida . ''but we want to settle it honorably . '' life as an h.i.v . positive iraqi was anything but honorable under mr . hussein 's rule , several infected_hemophiliacs said in interviews . instead of helping some of its most vulnerable citizens , the government turned on them and their families with vengeance . the interior_ministry , the headquarters for mr . hussein 's repressive secret_police , forced the hemophiliacs to sign a pledge vowing not to work , marry , attend school , use public swimming_pools or barbershops , visit a doctor 's office or tell anyone about their condition , several iraqis said in recent interviews . violating the pledge , they said , was punishable by death . homes of families with an infected member had warnings painted on them , several people said , telling neighbors to stay away because the house was contaminated with h.i.v . uninfected siblings , too , were not allowed to marry . dr . hanan mehdi abdul_karim said her 8 year old brother , who she said had contracted h.i.v . from tainted_blood from m rieux , was abruptly removed from his grade school classroom by government agents in 1984 . ''he was gone for two months , '' said dr . karim , 35 , a physician at a children 's hospital outside baghdad , a career she pursued , she said , because of her brother 's ordeal . in protest , her family stood at the gate of mr . hussein 's presidential palace for 10 hours , she said , until they were told to leave or they would be shot . ''we signed a decree saying that if we talk about it , we will be executed , '' she said bitterly in an interview . ten years later , her brother died of complications from aids . ''i consider the company a murderer , because they killed my brother , '' she went on , her faced tightly framed by a bright green hijab . ''this company has no remorse . they completely abandoned these children . '' khalid ali jabr , 51 , a clerk in a baghdad government office , watched five of his seven hemophilic sons die from aids after injecting tainted_blood products that mr . jabr said came from m rieux . first walid died in 1986 , at age 9 , he said . then haider , age 7 , died in 1989 , followed by ali , 11 bashar , 8 and , in 1996 , muhammad , who was 16 . ''i blame the french government and the french company , '' he said , holding photographs of his dead sons . ''they sent this blood to our country and killed our sons . '' many people , including mr . jabr and mr . abbas , the farmer from hib hib who was jailed in a sanitarium , said they did not trust the current iraqi government to press their case with company executives . mr . abbas and other infected_hemophiliacs now receive about 35 a month in government assistance , but no h.i.v . medicine , they said . mr . abbas , who takes stairs gingerly because of bleeding in his knees , admits that he did not expect to live 20 years with untreated h.i.v . after he escaped the hospital , the government put him and other infected_hemophiliacs in a windowless bus used for prisoners that drove overnight to another sanitarium in samawa , a desert outpost near the saudi_arabian border . they lived there for five years , until the outbreak of the 1991 persian_gulf_war . they were then moved to a third sanitarium , in ramadi , a desert city west of baghdad . in the confusion of the american led offensive , the police in ramadi let the hemophiliacs wander off . mr . abbas returned to his family farm in hib hib and tried to work again . ''no one would talk to me , '' he said , because it was known that he had h.i.v . ''i stopped going to the farm . '' asked if he were bitter , mr . abbas shrugged . ''i ask for mercy from god , '' he said . ''this was my destiny , so what can i do ? everyone must die . '' the reach of war justice",has a topic of health
"american and iraqi military forces in iraq are capturing larger numbers of saudis , syrians and other foreign_fighters , in a new indication that combatants from outside iraq are playing a more prominent role in the increasingly violent insurgency , according to figures provided by the army general in charge of detainee operations there . senior military officials say the foreigners , while small in number , play a disproportionately important role in the resistance , particularly in carrying out suicide bombings , which have sharply increased in the last two months . the increase in the number of imprisoned foreign_fighters to 391 from 340 in the last six weeks alone underscores the shifting profile of insurgents taken into custody recently . about 85 percent of the 3 , 500 new detainees in american operated prisons in iraq since january have been deemed to pose a ''high risk'' or ''extremely high risk'' to american personnel , about twice the percentage from late last year , according to the officer , maj . gen . william h . brandenburg . ''they 're a little more violent and a little more committed , '' he said in a telephone interview this week from baghdad . general brandenburg said that the number of three member military interrogation teams had increased to 26 from 10 in november , and that much had been learned about the insurgency , including the origins of foreign_fighters and their routes into iraq . the leading countries of origin are saudi_arabia , syria , egypt , jordan and sudan , he said . the numbers do not include any foreign insurgents captured by the marines and iraqi forces in two new offensives that began friday and saturday in western iraq . many of the new prisoners are considered so dangerous that two review boards , each staffed by six iraqi and three allied officials , are now ordering a release in 40 percent of their cases , down from 60 percent last year , general brandenburg said . the panels review about 120 cases a day , three days a week . the average sentence given detainees convicted by the newly formed iraqi central_criminal_court has increased to 125 months from 31 months in that period , he said after conviction , detainees are moved into the iraqi prison system . the influx of detainees has swelled the population at major american run prisons to 114 percent of their ideal capacity , general brandenburg said , in some cases forcing the addition of more tents and increasing the number of detainees in each to 25 people from 20 . for a longer range solution , the military is expanding three major prisons and planning to open a new one in northern iraq . the 50 million expansion will enable the united_states to hold a total of about 14 , 000 detainees . as of this week , the military is holding 10 , 135 in three prisons , about 2 , 000 more than in january . in addition , 1 , 695 detainees are being held at the division or brigade level around the country . american officials estimate that the hardcore insurgency is made up of 12 , 000 to 20 , 000 iraqi and non iraqi fighters . at abu_ghraib , where crowding contributed to the worst of the prisoner_abuses that occurred in late 2003 , there are 3 , 563 detainees the renovations will make room for 4 , 200 . at the largest center , camp_bucca in the south , there are 6 , 451 people its capacity will grow to about 7 , 200 . camp_cropper , at the baghdad airport , now holds 121 so called high value detainees , including saddam_hussein and his top aides space there will accommodate 2 , 000 . a 1980 's russian barracks in northern iraq , fort suse , will be turned into a prison that can hold up to 2 , 000 detainees . the growing numbers and security risks posed by the detainees have prompted a series of changes in their handling . three more companies of army military_police , or more than 300 soldiers , have been brought in to bolster the 3 , 400 member guard force . at camp_bucca , officials are redesigning much of the detention center to confine prisoners in outdoor compounds of about 150 people , instead of 600 or more . ''smaller numbers of detainees are easier to maintain control over and less likely to get a large group rioting , '' general brandenburg said . the ''high risk'' detainees , who are rated on a five point system that includes their military training , their connections to terrorist cells and their offense , are segregated from lower level detainees . the foreign_fighters , also considered high risk , are held in separate facilities at abu_ghraib and camp_bucca , partly for their own safety general brandenburg said iraqis were sometimes hostile to them . officials at the european command , which oversees military operations in most of africa , say that one of every four foreign_fighters captured in iraq comes from africa . forensic investigations have disclosed that up to 20 percent of the suicide car bombers in iraq are algerian , an officer with responsibilities in europe and africa told the associated press this week . the new york times confirmed the information . senator joseph r . biden_jr . of delaware , the ranking democrat on the foreign relations committee , said last week after a trip to iraq that senior american military and intelligence officials told him privately ''about their belief that there had been a considerable increase in the number of jihadists coming across the border , more sophisticated and more capable than a month ago , five months ago , a year ago . '' ''the mix is changing , '' mr . biden said . '' the mix has many more islamicists , coming across the border , particularly the syrian border . '' he said officials told him that ''a disproportionate number'' of jihadists came from saudi_arabia . prison guards receive regular training and retraining on riot control , handling large crowds of detainees at all hours , and detecting signs of attempted prison escapes or riots . in march , soldiers at camp_bucca discovered a tunnel 12 to 16 feet underground that ran 600 feet beneath the floorboards of a detainee tent to outside the camp . ''the hard core , they 're going to use every day of their existence to try to get out , '' said senior master sgt . mark myers of the air_force , who was a supervising guard for four months at camp_bucca this year . just before midnight on june 5 , in the midst of a heavy sandstorm , an escape alarm sounded at abu_ghraib . as american guards rushed to find the escaping prisoner , detainees in several compounds began throwing rocks at the portable light generators the guards were carrying to reduce the already limited visibility . the detainees also threw rocks at the guards . four guards were injured , and six detainees suffered twisted ankles or abrasions from concertina_wire or flying rocks . during the melee , several other detainees tried to flee , but failed . the detainee whose escape set off the alarm was found several hours later , hiding in a trash bin inside the compound , military officials said . the struggle for iraq insurgent forces",has a topic of health
"they are no longer as hard to tell apart as when they were children , dressed in different colors and forced to wear name tags so tourists at quintland could identify them . cecile dionne 's face is now a bit fuller than her sisters' annette 's is somewhat sharper and yvonne 's more drawn . but all three surviving dionne quintuplets once among the most well known and photographed children in the world share the same sad eyes , pinched by memories they wish they did not have . the three women , now 63 and living together in a modest house in this montreal suburb on the equivalent of 525 ( united_states ) a month in pensions , have emerged from decades of seclusion and spent the last few months digging through their pasts in painfully public ways . they are asking the current government of the province of ontario , where they were born on may 28 , 1934 , to poor french catholic parents they never really knew , to give them a full accounting of their early years , when they were a bigger tourist_attraction than niagara_falls . they want to know what happened to around 1 million that disappeared from a trust fund set up for them when they were taken from their parents' farm home in corbeil , ontario , and made wards of the state . they want a public_inquiry into the millions of dollars their fame brought to ontario during the great depression when three million tourists visited the rural compound where the world 's first surviving quintuplets were put on display three times a day . in short , yvonne said , ''we want to find the real truth . '' while the ontario government has so far rejected any legal responsibility for the plight of the three sisters , it has accepted a moral obligation to help . last week premier mike harris offered them , but not the survivors of a dead sister , a take it or leave it offer of 1 , 400 a month , apiece , for life , if they agreed to drop all claims to future compensation . ''there are lots of people who would like money and lots of investments that have gone wrong , '' mr . harris said . ''we decided instead of playing hardball to give a compassionate , caring response . '' the three extremely shy women went before the cameras they so dislike to denounce the offer as little more than an attempt to silence them . ''we want justice , '' cecile told reporters at a news conference last week , ''not charity . '' the three hollywood movies made about the lives of the dionnes had much happier endings . they were five of the world 's first global celebrities , used to market everything from toothpaste to war bonds . ironically , the provincial government took them from their parents when they were a few months old to prevent their exploitation . their desperate father , oliva , had signed a contract with some american promoters to display the babies at the world 's fair then being held in chicago . the father canceled the contract a day after he signed it , but it was already too late . the sisters can only guess how different their lives might have been had the government not stepped in . they cannot even be sure they would have lived at all . their farmhouse was 12 miles from the nearest hospital , and no quintuplets had ever survived without intense medical care . ''there are still questions i am wondering about , '' cecile said after a long , uneasy pause . ''if we had stayed with them , could we have been able to survive ? '' the government built the quintland compound across the road from the family homestead . there the five button nosed girls led what was widely seen as a privileged life , as miraculous in the somber days of the depression as was their very survival . they had round the clock nursing care , they played on miniature pianos and they even had their own playground and tiny swimming_pool . but it was not the paradise shown on newsreels . ''when we were displayed there was a playground , '' cecile said in halting english . although the playground was surrounded by special glass that allowed the tourists to see in without being clearly seen , the girls saw their shadows and always knew they were being watched . ''we were hearing the noise , '' cecile said . ''we knew they were there . '' the quintuplets were allowed to leave the compound only a handful of times . their parents were allowed to visit , but to the girls they were simply two more visitors who had to wear surgical_masks to keep from spreading germs . ''we did n't know each other , '' cecile said . eventually the parents won back the girls . they were almost 10 years old by then , and a large house was built with the proceeds of their promotions and endorsements . eventually one of the rooms became a classroom for the sisters and 10 carefully selected classmates . for the first time , they realized that other people did not live the way they did . ''i remember being very surprised to see girls like us who seemed to be very happy with their families , '' cecile said . ''it was not like that for us . '' about 1 . 8 million was put into a special trust fund for the quintuplets' future . by the time they turned 21 , less than half remained . it was divided among four of the girls the fifth , emilie , had entered a convent but died at 20 after an epileptic seizure . the other sister , marie , died in 1970 from a blood_clot in the brain . the girls had been raised to believe they would be taken care of by the trust fund . when forced to handle money , they were totally unprepared . cecile said they had trouble distinguishing a nickel from a quarter . ''we tried our best , '' yvonne said . and they agree that they made mistakes . cecile says she married the first man who took her for a cup of coffee . she had five children in five years and then left him . annette and marie also married and raised families , and their marriages also failed . by the time they turned 60 , they were under such emotional and financial stress that they wrote a book with a professional author . revelations of sexual_abuse by their father briefly increased sales . but the advance of about 37 , 000 did not last long . last year , cecile 's son bertrand forced the government to open records from the 1930 's and 40 's that revealed many instances of how money that was supposed to have been put aside for the quintuplets went instead to quintland , where it was used to pay for things like toilet_paper for tourist bathrooms . after all these years , they are living together again . in 1992 , cecile , who had studied nursing , could no longer afford her montreal apartment and so moved in with annette , who owns the house in st . bruno . yvonne , who like annette , had become a librarian , underwent_surgery in 1993 and afterward went to live with her sisters . annette 's son pays the mortgage , and the three women pool their 525 in pensions to barely cover their bills . more than anything , they feel betrayed . last year , when bobbi mccaughey gave birth to the world 's first surviving septuplets in iowa , the sisters sent them an open_letter that was published in time magazine . ''we hope your children receive more respect than we did , '' they wrote . ''multiple births should not be confused with entertainment , nor should they be an opportunity to sell products . '' annette , who like all her sisters suffers from epilepsy , is feeling poorly these days . she came out of her sickroom just long enough to say that what is most painful about reopening the past is realizing how thoroughly she and her sisters had been deprived of their private_lives . ''it is hard to see that everything you have is exposed all over the world , '' she said . cecile believes that by refusing to recognize their individual identities , the government had ' 'stolen our souls . '' yvonne , sitting quietly on the end of a worn out sofa , timidly added , ''and they are still doing it . ''",has a topic of health
"the shell that shattered the lives of the yedelov family was anonymous . it could have been fired by the russian military or it might have come from the chechen rebels . but to salman a . yandarev , the chief of traumatology at hospital no . 9 in grozny , chechnya 's ruined capital , it did not matter . it was another random act of war that he had to deal with among all the other carnage that had recently passed through his emergency room . three months ago , just after midnight , two families living in house no . 56a in the 12th region of the oktyabrsky district of grozny had just put their children to bed when a single artillery shell whistled through the night and struck the chestnut tree outside . the exploding fragments tore through the tin roof and white stucco walls . in one room , 9 year old petimat yedelov was spared because her head had slipped off her pillow , which was shredded by shrapnel . in the adjoining bed , her younger sister , tamila , 8 , was not so lucky . one piece of shrapnel passed through her shoulder and another crushed her hip , severing an artery that erupted like a fountain . the girls screamed and their father , akhmed , came running . he told his wife to stanch tamila 's bleeding . he checked on the twins , 2 year old asimat and isnaur , and 3 year old khamzat . they were unhurt . then he raced barefoot next door to get help from his brother and his wife . ''i began calling for my brother , '' mr . yedelov said , ''and i heard his wife , malika , calling out , 'your brother seems not to be able to talk , and my leg has been severed . ' i crawled through the window and began shaking my brother and i realized that he was dead . '' the russian army continues to take casualties in its battle against chechen rebels , who lay mines and snipe at them daily . but dozens of civilians are killed and maimed each week too , and their suffering occupies medical workers like dr . yandarev day and night . he was thinking of young tamila and malika , her aunt , when he said ''we spend all our lives at this hospital and we see all the troubles that lay as a burden on our patients , so it gives us a heartache . i keep saying that tomorrow or the day after it will get better . i returned here in april of 2000 and i keep waiting , but a year passed , and now another year has passed , and there has been no change . '' since the end of major hostilities in the spring of 2000 , many chechens like dr . yandarev who had successful lives outside the rebellious republic returned . he left a practice and a clinic in st . petersburg , where his daughter is also a surgeon . ''i am a surgeon and not worse , perhaps even better , than many in moscow , '' he said . a sense of honor to his own people and to russia , he said has impelled him back to chechnya during each spasm of war over the last decade . he supports neither the rebel leaders nor the tactics of the russian military . men with honor could have settled this conflict , he said , describing the proud history of his own family , and its fealty to both chechen and russian identities . ''first of all , i am a chechen , '' he said . ''but among my distant ancestors were three generals of the czar . they were patriots of this country . my clan considered emigrating to france in the 1930 's , but they stayed , though many of them died in the purges of 1937 , '' the stalinist purges that killed so many millions of soviet citizens and forced the chechens and other peoples into exile in other remote soviet regions . now , to serve his twin loyalties , he performs surgery in substandard conditions in the only emergency hospital left standing in grozny . ''we have fewer traumas now caused by explosives , '' he said , sipping tea and smoking a cigarette in his office . ''but we have more bullet_wounds . maybe they have run out of mines , or the people are choosing their path more carefully . ''and there are more cases where it is not clear who is shooting and why , and that happens most often at night , '' as in the case of the yedelov family , he said . dr . yandarev himself feels fear when he goes home at night . ''you have this kind of alarming sensation inside you , '' he said . ''in broad daylight , you can face death more peacefully , but at night , you are all alone . you never know who will burst into your house , and you keep thinking when will dawn come ? '' all chechens who return or remain here pay some kind of price . fifteen miles east of grozny , in the town of argun , mayor movsar temirbayev lives in a large house that looks like a fortress the windows are bricked up , a concrete pillbox with a machine gunner inside stands in front of the gate and the street approaches are blocked with concrete barriers . during 2001 , 12 of his relatives were killed in ambushes or assassinations . he carries a picture of each one in his breast pocket . the rebels have killed dozens of mayors and religious leaders who , like him , supported russian rule in chechnya and opposed the rebellion . when mr . temirbayev drove out recently in a small convoy to the power plant that the pro russian chechen administration would like to get started up again , rebels opened fire , sending him back to his high security compound . last august , a truck loaded with 800 pounds of explosives was driven into his gate just after midnight . the driver jumped out of the cab but could not run far enough before the bomb apparently meant to kill mr . temirbayev , his wife and three children was detonated . the explosion blew down walls and damaged 84 houses in town . miraculously , mr . temirbayev and his family survived with bruises . ''of course it is dangerous , '' said mr . temirbayev , who is 62 . ''every person has only one life , but if we all left the ship , it could be called a betrayal . '' of the rebels , he added , ''i know what they are capable of and i do n't want to leave everything we have managed to achieve at the disposal of these guys . '' smiling at this last statement , mr . temirbayev reconsidered his bravado for a moment and shrugged . ''i do n't know , though , '' he said , ' 'maybe i will flee tomorrow . ''",has a topic of health
"dozens of hospitals and nursing homes in quebec are struggling to contain an epidemic of viral gastroenteritis . the illness is suspected to be a new strain of the norwalk virus and causes fever , vomiting and diarrhea . montreal has been hit the hardest , with 29 health_care institutions having reported outbreaks . at least eight players and one coach for the montreal_canadiens hockey team have also contracted the illness . officials said they expected the number of cases to increase . christopher mason",has a topic of health
"in a bid to rein in rising health_care costs , ontario 's new conservative government wants the authority to control almost every aspect of doctors' working lives from where they set up a practice to the finer details of the care they prescribe . most doctors in the province have reacted with anger , calling the plan an unprecedented intrusion by government into the workings of the medical system . the legislation that is expected to be enacted into law in the provincial assembly before the end of this month would go so far as to make doctors financially liable for treatments the government may decide later are not medically necessary . it could allow the government to retrieve hundreds of dollars , for instance , if an obstetrician ordered too many ultrasounds , or tens of thousands if a heart surgeon performed a bypass later deemed unnecessary . the current system is "" unmanaged , unplanned and inefficient , "" the ontario minister of health , jim wilson , said in november , citing an increase in the use of physician services that has outpaced population_growth for more than 20 years . "" there is a serious lack of appropriate incentives to influence utilization and encourage appropriate care . "" but such close management of the profession is seen as intolerable by most of the 23 , 000 doctors in canada 's most populous province . "" micromanagement by government bureaucrats , without some kind of parameters that physicians regard as appropriate , is dangerous , "" said dr . ian warrack , president of the ontario medical association . "" how can bureaucrats decide what is medically necessary ? "" dr . charles s . shaver , who practices internal_medicine in ottawa , characterized relations between the provincial government and the medical sector as the most strained since 1986 , when ontario doctors struck for 25 days in an unsuccessful attempt to make supplementary charges . doctors play down the possibility of another strike , predicting instead that many more doctors will opt to leave the province . "" i 'm 51 , "" dr . shaver said , "" and people like myself will probably stay and be frustrated in our practice . but many of our younger doctors are going to leave . i think we may lose a whole generation . "" departure rates are already rising . the canadian medical association reports that 777 doctors left the country in 1994 , compared with 478 in 1990 . in ontario , home of 40 percent of the doctors , 345 left in 1994 compared with 209 in 1990 . about two thirds went to the united_states . canada 's health system uses tax money to pay most medical bills . canadians choose any doctor they want . the doctor bills the provincial government , which acts as paymaster . during the recent american debate over national health_care , many held up the canadian system as a desirable model . even though doctors' and hospitals' fees are regulated , costs of the canadian system have exploded in recent years . at around 10 percent of gross_domestic_product , they are higher than in any other country with a publicly financed health plan . canada 's prime_minister , jean_chretien , has said his target is something approaching the european level of 8.5 percent . in the united_states , the costs now are upward of 14 percent . to curb medical spending , by far the largest component of overall public expenditures , canada 's 10 provinces and 2 territories have been closing hospitals , laying off medical workers and reducing services doctors can bill for , like electrolysis for the removal of unwanted hair or certain types of psychotherapy . but what ontario 's tory government wants to legislate under premier mike harris goes well beyond proposals anywhere else in the country and could have broad implications for the canadian system . "" they are basically moving to a u.s . managed_care model , "" said peter coyte , professor of health administration at the university of toronto . doctors in american health maintenance organizations and other managed_care groups generally draw a fixed salary , as opposed to the fee_for_service under the canadian system , and provide care on the basis of guidelines set by third party payers , like the medicare or blue cross and blue shield . the rigid protocols of american managed_care , intended to check the rise in costs , clash with an underlying principle of the canadian system that the doctor alone should decide what is appropriate for a patient . physicians do not like managed_care , professor coyte said , because "" fiscal_restraint interferes with the autonomy of the individual provider . "" with doctors' billings to the ontario health_insurance plan rising 13 percent a year over the last decade to 3 billion in american dollars , the ontario government is demanding a much closer look over doctors' shoulders . bill 26 , as the legislation is known part of an omnibus bill introduced in november to save 4 . 5 billion in american dollars over three years allows ministry of health investigators to go into confidential medical records to check billing practices and the cost efficiency of treatment . but doctors warn that this could easily lead to abuse , as for instance if such information were used to smear a candidate in a political_campaign . also , they ask whether people with sexually_transmitted_diseases or alcohol or drug problems might forgo treatment out of fear of disclosure . to induce doctors to serve in rural and northern areas , bill 26 would also withhold government registration and therefore money from new medical graduates who want to practice in areas considered overserviced . doctors say this would only speed the exodus . the ontario medical association has opened an advertising campaign warning the public of a bleak future under bill 26 . anonymous doctors wonder who will deliver babies and suggest that patient waiting_lists will lengthen . "" bill 26 could do us all more harm than good , "" a voice intones in a radio spot . some issues raised by doctors , like protection of privacy , will be addressed in amendments , said paul kilbertus , a spokesman for the health ministry . but he stressed that there will be no backsliding on the bill 's broad principles . "" some very basic management is finally being incorporated into the way we are spending our money , "" he said .",has a topic of health
"a defector from the former soviet biological_weapons program said in an interview today that moscow 's cold_war plans for world war iii included preparing ''hundreds of tons'' of anthrax bacteria and scores of tons of smallpox and plague viruses . the defector , dr . kanatjan alibekov , now known as ken alibek , was second in command of a branch of the soviet program and defected in 1992 . he said today that the bacteria and viruses could have been mounted on intercontinental ballistic missile warheads on several days' notice in the early 1980 's . dr . alibek , a 47 year old native of kazakhstan , said the russian military was still running a biological_weapons program in 1991 , a year after mikhail s . gorbachev ordered it halted . dr . alibek , who said he has decided to speak publicly for the first time to fight the spread of biological_weapons and to seek absolution for making them , was placed in contact with the new york times by producers of the abc_news program ''primetime live , '' which interviewed him last month and will broadcast the interview on wednesday night . dr . alibek , who works as a private consultant , has written a highly_classified study of the soviet biological_weapons program for the united_states_government . he now is offering a unique public description of a weapons program that was for decades one of moscow 's deepest secrets . considered by united_states intelligence officials to be credible about the subjects he knows firsthand the size and structure of the soviet biological_weapons program from 1975 to 1991 dr . alibek is thought to be less reliable on political and military issues he knew secondhand . he said he believes a vestige of moscow 's cold_war biological_weapons program is continuing in russia under the guise of defensive research . the offensive weapons program was officially canceled by president gorbachev in 1990 , officially canceled again by president boris n . yeltsin in 1992 , and remains officially defunct in today 's russia . nevertheless , dr . alibek said , ''they continue to do research to develop new biological_agents they conduct research and explain it as being for defensive purposes . '' this question of whether russia persists in the research and development of biological_weapons is hotly_debated in the united states intelligence community . no one has a hard and fast answer . many analysts think some elements of the old soviet program are continuing , but are far from certain that they include the development of offensive weapons . no official response to dr . alibek 's interview was available today either from moscow or from the russian embassy in washington . ''we can say russia continues research in this area to maintain its military biological potential , '' dr . alibek said . ''they keep safe their personnel , their scientific_knowledge . and they still have production capability . '' the united_states biological_weapons program was canceled by president richard m . nixon nearly 30 years ago . the united_states continues to do research on programs to defend itself against biological attack , as russia says it does . but dr . alibek said the soviets never believed that the american biological_weapons program had ended . through the 1970 's and the 1980 's , they pursued their own program in a secret arms_race against a perceived threat . dr . alibek , a medical doctor who held the rank of colonel in the soviet_military , left the former soviet_union in 1992 , traveling by commercial airliner from almaty , then the capital of kazakhstan , to new york city not as dramatic an escape as made by some cold_war defectors , but still a risky proposition . he chose not to discuss its details , saying friends back home would suffer . after dr . alibek arrived in the united_states , he was debriefed for the central_intelligence_agency by bill patrick , who helped run the united_states biological_weapons program from 1948 to 1969 . ''once he decided to defect , he made a dedicated effort to tell all of the details the processes , the agents , the strategy , the concept of use to the united_states to help us understand the largest and oldest biological_warfare program in the world , '' mr . patrick said . ''it scared the hell out of me when i first talked to this fellow , '' he said . mr . patrick said he learned in his talks with dr . alibek that the soviet program ''paralleled ours very closely'' in terms of military technology , though ''it took them many , many years to get past us with respect to biological_agents , delivery systems and munitions . '' by 1989 , he and dr . alibek said in separate interviews , the soviet program dwarfed the united_states effort . ''if we produced a pound of anything they produced a hundred to five hundred , '' mr . patrick said . but in late 1989 , dr . alibek said , there came ''a time of severe pressure from the united_states and great_britain to stop the soviet_union offensive programs . '' there also came the seeds of doubt that led to his defection . ''for a long period of time , i was proud of doing this work until the late 1980 's , until i came to moscow as first deputy chief of program , '' he said . ''then came the pressure to stop the work . '' ''we strongly believed the united_states had an offensive program , '' and that the soviet_union had to match it , he said . ''i asked two high ranking military_intelligence officers if information was available about these united_states offensive weapons . they asked me 'what do you need ? ' i answered 'the name , location , organization , structure , amount of personnel , what agents they possess . ' '' ''i was told 'we do n't have this information , ' '' he said . ''this was when i had my first doubts . '' dr . alibek 's account of the 1979 incident in which a cloud of anthrax was released into the atmosphere from a soviet weapons plant at sverdlovsk is dramatic . but it was challenged today by american experts who have studied the disaster , including dr . matthew meselson of harvard_university and milton leitenberg of the center for international and security studies at the university of maryland . dr . alibek said that ''practically everybody who was in the footprint of that cloud has died , '' and that the death toll was in the hundreds . dr . meselson and mr . leitenberg said that there were tens of thousands of people in ''the footprint , '' or the path , of the toxic cloud there have been 62 confirmed deaths . dr . alibek also said president yeltsin , then the local communist_party boss in sverdlovsk , was personally and morally responsible for covering up the incident . ''yeltsin is responsible for everything that was done to contain that information , '' he said . he added that he believed that russian military leaders have used that fact to blackmail mr . yeltsin into continuing a secret biological_weapons program . this theory , if true , could explain the persistence of a soviet_era program to build better biological_weapons . but the former soviet_intelligence service , the k.g.b. , not mr . yeltsin , is generally thought to have played the leading role in hushing up the sverdlovsk incident , according to several intelligence analysts . for dr . alibek , the biological arms_race that once consumed his life is now a race to stop the spread of such weapons to terrorist groups and rogue_states . ''we have an invisible competition between governments and these organizations , '' he said . ''who is faster ? who is better prepared ? '' the answer , he said , may lie in the decisions of his former soviet colleagues to work for peace or for the highest bidder . ''they are everywhere today , '' he said . ''most are in russia . but some are overseas , abroad . and we have lost control of them . ''",has a topic of health
"in june 1994 , steve and polly taber , moved by stories about bleak conditions in russian orphanages , decided to adopt alina , an 18 month old from st . petersburg . alina warmed to her american parents , and six months later , mrs . taber returned to russia for a son , alex , who was almost 4 . for a few days , they felt like a fairy_tale family . but their illusions faded rapidly when alex failed to adjust . he refused to eat so much as a bowl of soup . he folded himself into a ball and rocked as though he were autistic . he was hyperactive , confrontational and aggressive toward his younger sister . he kicked her and pushed her , "" said mrs . taber , a piano teacher in wheaton , ill . "" he tried to stab her with scissors and me with a knife . he screamed at steve that he hated him and wished he were dead . he told us he 'd burn the house down , he 'd kill us . all this from a_4 year old . "" two years later , the tabers have despaired of ever having a functional family . they describe life with alex as a nightmare of psychological counseling and constant care that has strained their finances , their marriage and the mental_health of their daughter . "" you begin to wonder if you 're just a bad parent or you 're failing him , "" said mrs . taber , 31 . "" we thought it was just us , that somehow alex 's problems were our fault . "" the tabers are part of a wave of americans who have adopted about 9 , 000 children from orphanages in eastern_europe and russia since the collapse of communism in 1990 , when the news organizations began to report on the deplorable conditions in these institutions , particularly in romania . most of these adoptions have gone well , and the children have recovered admirably even after years of deprivation or abuse , say the adoption agencies as well as the parents . but , like the tabers , a growing number of the parents say their children have serious problems that do not naturally evaporate under the love and care of doting families . there are no firm statistics on how many such families exist , but doctors and therapists specializing in treating adoptees say their caseloads are increasing . agencies say requests for replacement families to take the children have been rising , and several parent support groups have formed , one with 900 families . the dozens of agencies that handle foreign adoptions say their ability to thoroughly document a child 's history varies_widely , as does their understanding of adjustment problems after adoption . a few families , saying they were misled or misinformed , are suing agencies for negligence . child_development specialists say they could have predicted such a fallout , citing the many studies that link an impoverished early environment with later social and emotional problems . whether they were not given complete information or overestimated their ability to cope , many couples went ahead with foreign adoptions . some of the adoptive families have accommodated the children 's special needs , which can involve years of therapy and special_education . but for others , like the tabers , a solution could involve a family breakup . the tabers say that they are ill equipped to raise alex and that they have all but decided to find another home for him . mr . taber said he took some responsibility for not having russian documents translated that would have told him alex was physically abused as a toddler , information he said his agency did not provide . "" i feel sort of stupid , "" said mr . taber , 36 , explaining that as an environmental lawyer , he had neglected to take the advice he often gives his clients "" check evidence , look at dates . the answer was sitting in front of us for over a year , and we never bothered to look at it . "" in the last two years , tressler lutheran services in york , pa . , known for placing children with special needs , said the agency had taken calls from parents desperate to find new homes for 23 adopted soviet_bloc children , far more than typical . "" it is sad and disturbing because it means adoption agencies are still not telling people what they need to know , "" said barbara holtan , director of adoption services for tressler . the adoption agencies generally say they tell prospective families that institutionalized children are likely to have suffered some trauma . but often the conversation ends there . only later do some parents come face to face with that reality . a child could be hyperactive or aggressive , refuse to make eye_contact and have temper tantrums , speech and language problems , attention deficits , extreme sensitivities to touch or an inability to form emotional bonds . "" we had to teach her how to laugh , how to cry , "" said barbara canale , of jamesville , n.y. , talking of her daughter , andrea , now 3 . andrea was adopted from romania in 1993 . mrs . canale said she was totally unresponsive at first . only after intensive behavioral therapy has she begun to act like a child her age , mrs . canale said . dr . victor groze , an associate dean at the mandel school of applied social_sciences at case western reserve university , who has studied 399 families with romanian adoptees , estimated that a fifth of the children are what he calls "" resilient rascals , "" who are thriving three fifths are what he calls "" wounded wonders , "" who have made vast strides but continue to lag behind their peers , and another fifth are "" challenge children , "" who are almost unmanageable . there is no foolproof formula to predict a child 's resilience , dr . groze said , although factors like length of time spent in an institution , seem to correlate with later impairments . gay ketterer had spent a year with her russian daughter , marina , before she realized that marina 's tendency to open doors directly into her face , or fall while running up a hill , was more than clumsiness . mrs . ketterer has noticed other unusual behavior marina , now 5 , will walk off with a stranger as willingly as she will her own mother . martha prokop of fairfax , va . , said she was told by the adoption agency , welcome house social_services in perkasie , pa . , that her son remus , from romania , was healthy and happy . but the day after the adoption , mrs . prokop said , she was told that remus , 6 , carried a rare and lethal type of hepatitis and that she must protect her older adopted daughter . "" we 're not sorry that we adopted , "" said mrs . prokop , who is suing her agency for negligence . "" we 're angry that we were not given the proper information to make an informed decision . "" welcome house , of the pearl s . buck foundation , would not comment on mrs . prokop 's adoption . the director of social_services , kelly harris , said that prospective families sign a form acknowledging the risks of adopting , but that some parents may not truly absorb the information . "" sometimes people 's anxieties and desire to get something that they worked so hard for kind of cloud things , "" ms . harris said . at family resource center , the chicago adoption agency that helped the tabers adopt alex , families are told that 18 months may elapse before an adopted child catches up to his peers . after the adoption , the agency leaves the parents on their own and assures them that "" what cures a child is love and understanding and affection , "" said richard pearlman , the executive director . that kind of advice is precisely the opposite of what parents say they need . after discovering a dozen families who had impaired children like her own , thais tepper formed the parent network for the post institutionalized child of meadow lands , pa . in three years , its membership has ballooned to 900 families . "" my agency said i was the only person to have problems or complaints about my children , that they had placed 200 and it was just me , "" said mrs . tepper , who adopted an 18 month old boy from romania . "" what we found out was that there were a lot of 'me 's , ' and a lot of 'me 's' from the same agency . "" ruth hladyk said she also felt deceived by her agency , through which she adopted mark and cole , twin boys from russia . mrs . hladyk , of parsippany , n.j. , said she was told that the boys , who had been removed from their alcoholic mother , were healthy except for some relatively minor developmental delays . "" mark acts out , is aggressive , is very verbal , "" she said . "" cole is extremely withdrawn , makes no attempt to socialize . "" since the adoption , mrs . hladyk has lost her husband to cancer and spent 100 , 000 on adoption fees and therapists . her days are long and exhausting , as she cares for her elderly parents while monitoring the boys' whereabouts . mark has tried to smother , drown and strangle cole on several occasions , she said . for mrs . hladyk , 43 , the last two years have been a bitter emotional journey of anger , depression and resignation , leading to a regrettable end a search for a new family for the boys . "" we wanted those children , "" she said , "" but this was a heartache from the beginning . "" correction july 4 , 1996 , thursday a front page article on june 23 about adjustment problems of eastern_european and russian children adopted by americans referred_imprecisely to the role of the family resource center in the adoption of a young boy , alex , by steve and polly taber in wheaton , ill . the center , an agency in chicago , did an addendum to a home study for alex 's adoption by the tabers . it did not place alex with the tabers for adoption , and it did not provide them information about him . another agency placed alex with the tabers for adoption .",has a topic of health
"canada 's main virology laboratory has found the virus for severe_acute_respiratory_syndrome in only 40 percent of probable and suspect cases , a surprisingly low rate that puzzles the laboratory 's scientific director and other health officials . also , for unknown reasons , the portion of recent cases testing positive for the virus is declining , and a number of people who are not suspected of having the disease are testing positive , the director , dr . frank plummer , said . dr . plummer described his team 's findings as ''weird . '' he said they had the potential to weaken the link in canada between the disease , known as sars , and a previously unknown member of the coronavirus family that the world_health_organization said last week was the cause of sars . dr . plummer stressed in an interview that he was not challenging the w.h.o . 's conclusion . he said he was ' 'reserving judgment'' because it was too early in the course of the investigation of the new disease , first detected only five weeks ago , to be certain about many findings without further study and independent confirmation by other laboratories . yesterday , the w.h.o . said that it continued to believe that the new coronavirus is the cause of sars and that it is following the developments at the national microbiology laboratory in winnipeg , manitoba , where dr . plummer is scientific director . it is one of 13 laboratories in an international network that the w.h.o. , a united_nations specialized agency , created to investigate sars . but dr . plummer 's data ''is troubling and we do n't understand it , said dr . klaus_st_hr , who is scientific director of the world_health_organization 's sars investigation . ''everyone is puzzled by the finding , and we are eager to better understand what is happening , '' dr . st hr said . ''but we need more information from dr . plummer to understand his conclusions . '' dr . plummer is an experienced virologist who made important findings while working on the aids virus in kenya . he said the coronavirus ''clearly is a new virus that is circulating now , but whether it is the entire explanation for sars i am just not sure yet . '' there could be a number of explanations for the low positive test rate , dr . plummer , dr . st hr and other experts said . they include the possibility the coronavirus is not the cause of the disease or is not its sole cause that specimens tested were collected at the wrong stage of the disease or were taken from the wrong part of the body or that there were flaws in the laboratory testing . another factor could be the necessarily imprecise way health officials define a suspect or probable case of the disease . still another , and less likely , is that mutant strains of the virus have developed and are escaping detection or causing milder cases . dr . plummer 's team in winnipeg has tested about 3 , 000 specimens from 95 probable and 90 suspect cases in canada and asia . his team identified the sars virus in about 40 percent of the probable cases and 35 percent of the suspect cases . he said he was surprised to find the virus in about 20 percent of an additional 250 people who were not suspected of having sars but who were tested because they had come to canada from affected areas in asia or who had mild symptoms not thought to be sars . although the 250 were not randomly chosen as scientific controls , dr . plummer said he was still surprised at the number who tested positive . the link between the test findings and groups was definite , ''but it is not as clear cut as i would like to see it , '' dr . plummer said . if the coronavirus ''is the whole and only explanation , which is certainly possible , '' he said , ''there are a lot of weird things about it . '' one puzzle is why the percent testing positive now has dropped to 30 percent when it was 70 percent initially . because all the probable and suspect cases in the toronto area are linked in a chain of transmission , ''they ought to have the same thing , '' dr . plummer said . ''every day , we just scratch our heads'' over the declining frequency , he said . ''we do n't think it is our testing or epidemiology , but it could be those things though we do n't have any reason to believe that . '' another puzzle , dr . plummer said , is why he and other scientists in the w.h.o . network are finding very small amounts of sars virus in respiratory secretions in the first few days of illness but larger amounts later in the illness . ''there is not much virus there for a disease that appears to be transmitted by respiratory'' droplets , and ''i do not know what that means , '' dr . plummer said . about 10 percent of sars patients experience diarrhea . members of the w.h.o . network in hong_kong have found that a form of the virus can persist in feces up to 30 days after illness , though scientists do not know whether it is infectious to other people . the findings , dr . plummer said , raised the question whether the sars virus might infect the intestinal tract and cause lung problems secondarily , possibly through an immune reaction . another reason for his caution in accepting the coronavirus as the cause of sars is the fact that the dutch scientists who provided the crucial final evidence for the link in experiments on monkeys did not use other monkeys as scientific controls . scientists in the united_states and canada are expected to conduct further tests with such controls to confirm the dutch findings the results are not expected for several weeks . dr . plummer said he had inoculated small animals like rabbits , guinea pigs and mice with the sars virus and found them ''completely happy'' with no evidence of illness . he said that his reservations about the coronavirus 's role in sars could vanish if results of continuing and further tests in coming days pointed in that direction . ''but that has not been our experience so far , '' he said . ''it is less and less convincing as we go along . '' the sars epidemic the scientists",has a topic of health
"canadian scientists report today in a study that women who were exposed to organic solvents like phenol , xylene and acetone during pregnancy had a greatly increased chance of having a baby with a birth defect . but leading experts on birth_defects said the study had serious methodological problems . they said they feared that the paper , published today in the journal of the american_medical_association , would needlessly frighten pregnant_women . the research , by dr . sohail khattak , a pediatrician and a clinical pharmacologist , dr . gideon koren , a clinical pharmacologist , and their colleagues at the hospital for sick children in toronto , involved women who had contacted the hospital 's program , motherisk , for pregnant_women who are worried that they have been exposed to something that might harm their fetuses . the investigators focused on organic solvents that caused birth_defects in animals when they were administered in high doses . they compared 125 women who said they were exposed to such chemicals , usually at work , with 125 women who said they were exposed to other chemicals or drugs that had not been known to cause birth_defects . as a rough gauge of the exposure , the investigators asked the women if their eyes had watered or if they had had a headache or trouble breathing . thirteen of the babies born to mothers who said they had been exposed to organic solvents had major birth_defects , including congenital deafness , club foot and spina bifida almost all of the women whose babies had these more serious birth_defects had reported symptoms of exposure . just one woman in the control group had a baby with a major birth defect . dr . khattak said that the findings offered strong evidence that these chemicals cause birth_defects . because his group knew the women 's professions , how long they had worked with chemicals , and what precautions they had taken , he said , the researchers had ''a unique advantage'' in assessing exposures . but other scientists were unconvinced . ''they 've added to the suspicion that there might be an association , '' said dr . david erickson , the chief of the birth_defects and genetic disease branch at the centers_for_disease_control and prevention in atlanta . but , dr . erickson said , ''i do n't think this nails it down in any firm way . '' to do so , he said , would require a much larger and more expensive study involving meticulous measurements of chemicals and notation of the time that women are exposed . in animal studies of chemicals that cause birth_defects , timing and dose are critical , and scientists believe the same is true for humans . asking women to recall the time of their exposure and then asking if they had had a headache when they thought they were exposed is not sufficient , said dr . lewis holmes , chief of the unit that studies genetics and birth_defects at massachusetts_general_hospital in boston . dr . holmes and dr . allen mitchell , who directs the slone epidemiology unit at the boston university school of public health , noted that the women in the study were not randomly_selected . half who said they had been exposed to organic solvents had had previous miscarriages compared to a fifth of the women in the control group which could mean that it was the genetic makeup of the parents , and not the workplace , that caused the high rate of birth_defects , dr . holmes and dr . mitchell said . the control group of women had far fewer birth_defects than usual , dr . erickson said , one baby rather than the expected four to six , which made the comparison even more dramatic . dr . khattak said not every chemical that causes birth_defects causes only one specific kind of defect and that the women were exposed to a wide variety of chemicals , which could account for the diverse group of birth_defects in their babies . he added that the extraordinarily high numbers of birth_defects in the group that was exposed to the chemicals could not be dismissed . but dr . mitchell said , ''think of all the women of childbearing age who will be scared to death . ''",has a topic of health
"a doctor who operates canada 's largest private hospital in violation of canadian law was elected tuesday to become president of the canadian medical association . the move gives an influential platform to a prominent advocate of increasing privatization of canada 's troubled taxpayer_financed medical system . the new president elect , dr . brian day , has openly run his private hospital in vancouver even though it accepts money from patients for procedures that are available through the public system , which is illegal . dr . day , who will assume the presidency in august next year , advocates a hybrid health_care system similar to those in many european_countries . opponents argue that a fee charging private component would divert resources from public_health and lead to a lack of access to medical treatment for many lower income citizens . but opposition to private health_care has diminished in canada , in part because waiting times have more than doubled for certain procedures during the last 13 years , according to the fraser institute , a conservative research group . debate has been especially heated since a ruling by the supreme_court in june 2005 gave residents of quebec the right to pursue private treatment if the province could not provide services in a reasonable time . since then , quebec 's premier and the leaders of british_columbia and alberta have expressed a willingness to consider solutions that include privately paid medical services , in part because of the court decision but also because of the rising cost of providing free health_care . on average , provinces spend nearly 45 percent of their budgets on health_care . in the meantime , private health clinics are opening at an average rate of one a week in canada . ''the canadian health system is at a point in history right now where it 's going to be reformed in the wake of the supreme_court decision , '' dr . day said tuesday in a telephone interview . ''the concept that the status_quo is something that we should maintain is wearing thin , with frustrated doctors and frustrated patients . '' since its formation in the 1960 's , canada 's publicly financed health_insurance system has been at the core of the national identity . but in recent years , with waiting times growing and costs skyrocketing , the merits of a larger private component to the health_care system has not been the taboo topic it once was . experts say there is no better example of that evolution than the election of dr . day to head the organization that represents canada 's 62 , 000 doctors . ''there has been a change in what is feasible and what is permissible in public debates , '' said antonia maioni , a mcgill_university political_scientist who specializes in health_care . ''five years ago someone like brian day would never have been elected president of the canadian medical association . five or 10 years ago there was much more of a consensus about the sustainability of the public system . ''",has a topic of health
"in an important advance , researchers in canada are reporting that transplants of insulin producing cells have freed eight patients with a severe form of diabetes from insulin injections . two to 14 months after being transplanted in a simple procedure resembling a transfusion at the university of alberta in edmonton , the cells are still working in all eight patients , half of whom were treated almost a year ago . the patients , who had type 1 diabetes , in which the body produces little or no insulin , no longer have any symptoms of the disease . although they no longer need insulin to control their blood_sugar , they now must take other drugs to prevent rejection of the transplants . so far , the researchers report that the only side effect from the drugs has been mild mouth sores , which healed . the transplanted cells , isolated from the pancreas , were harvested from deceased organ donors . the goal of the treatment is to provide an easier and safer alternative to transplanting the entire pancreas , a major operation that is not commonly done . ''this is something people have wanted for a long time , '' said dr . judith fradkin , acting director of the division of diabetes , endocrinology and metabolic diseases at the national_institutes_of_health in bethesda , md . noting that the procedure worked in eight out of eight patients , dr . fradkin said , ''if , when it 's done in a larger number of patients , you get anything like that success rate , it 's a quantum leap . '' dr . bernard hering , director of the islet transplant program at the university of minnesota , said , ''this shows that cell transplants can reverse diabetes . here is something that can really work and can transform a patient 's life . '' the juvenile_diabetes foundation , a nonprofit group that supports research , called the work ''a very significant step forward in curing type 1 diabetes . '' type 1 is sometimes referred to as juvenile_diabetes . the diabetes foundation and the health institutes will help pay for a study to test the new procedure within a few months at eight transplant centers in north_america and europe . each center will treat four patients . the american sites have not yet been named . researchers have been trying cell transplants for diabetes for more than 20 years , but most failed , or worked only briefly . the success in eight consecutive patients in edmonton has been attributed to several factors , like the use of a new combination of drugs to prevent rejection , and the transplantation of many more pancreas cells than in the past . the pancreas cells are transplanted into the patient 's liver , where they lodge in tiny blood_vessels and begin doing their normal work of monitoring and regulating blood glucose levels by secreting insulin and another hormone , glucagon . ''they can now control glucose within a very tight range , as in a normal individual , '' said dr . ray rajotte , director of the pancreatic cell research group at edmonton . to perform the transplant , doctors insert a catheter into the patient 's abdomen and snake it into the portal vein , which carries blood into the liver . the patient needs only a local anesthetic to numb the skin . about a teaspoonful of cells are injected through the catheter , and they spray out and disperse through the liver . the entire procedure can take as little as 20 minutes . patients undergo it twice , with a few weeks between transplants , to get enough of the insulin secreting cells . dr . a . m . james shapiro , part of the 44 member canadian research team , presented the research last week at medical meetings in chicago and washington . it will be published in the new england journal of medicine , and an editor , dr . robert utiger , said the study would be posted within about two weeks on the journal 's web_site , before it appeared in print . the journal 's editors reserve this ''early release'' policy for papers with especially important implications for patients . the patients in the canadian study were 29 to 53 years old . all had severe type 1 diabetes that was poorly controlled by insulin shots . about a million americans have the disease , which usually develops early in life . most need several insulin shots a day . an additional 15 million are thought to have type 2 diabetes , in which the body may make insulin , but cannot use it properly . type 2 tends to come on later in life , and patients may or may not need insulin shots . together , the two forms of diabetes cause nearly 200 , 000 deaths a year in america , and even with treatment they are a leading cause of blindness , kidney_failure and amputations . dr . fradkin said that if the canadian findings were confirmed by other studies , cell transplants would be used first for type 1 patients . but eventually , she said , they might also be given to some type 2 patients . for now , dr . shapiro recommends the procedure only for severe type 1 cases . if the results are confirmed , it will create an unprecedented demand for donor organs , dr . fradkin said . the procedure devised in edmonton required two donor pancreases for every patient treated in order to provide enough of the insulin producing cells . it costs 100 , 000 . other research groups , like those at the university of minnesota and the university of miami , are experimenting with techniques they hope will allow them to use one pancreas per patient . still other scientists are trying to find ways to grow pancreatic cells in culture . there is great interest in cell transplants because many doctors feel that transplanting the entire pancreas is too big an operation to be an acceptable treatment for diabetes , even though the disease has devastating complications and the surgical success rate matches that of other organ transplants . ''it 's a tender issue , '' said dr . paul robertson , scientific director of the pacific northwest research institute . ''there generally has not been as much acceptance as there has been of heart , liver and kidney transplants . physicians who do n't do it say diabetes is not a life threatening disease . '' that attitude angers some doctors and many patients , but , nonetheless , pancreas transplants are not often performed . dr . robertson estimated that doctors did 1 , 200 transplants a year worldwide , with perhaps half of them in the u.s . the vast majority are done only in people who also need kidney transplants because of renal failure brought on by diabetes . in those cases , many doctors feel the pancreas operation can be justified because the kidney_failure demonstrates that the diabetes is out of control , and because the patient will already be on immune suppressing drugs to prevent rejection of the kidney . ''but patients say , 'do i have to get kidney_failure before i can get a pancreas ? ' '' dr . robertson said . the earliest work on cell transplants was published in 1972 , by dr . paul lacey , of washington_university in st . louis , who showed in rats that the procedure could cure diabetes . dr . lacey transplanted the pancreatic tissue known as islets of langerhans , which makes up only 3 percent of the pancreas but contains all the insulin producing cells , called beta cells . ''everybody thought , this is how we 'll cure diabetes , '' dr . robertson said . but when researchers tried the procedure in people , it usually failed . occasionally , the islets would function for a few weeks , sometimes longer . doctors could not explain it . but during the 1990 's , they began to suspect that standard anti rejection drugs like steroids and cyclosporine might be damaging the islets , because the islets sat in the liver , where those drugs become most highly concentrated . ''there were plenty of hints in the medical literature'' that the drugs needed to be changed , dr . robertson said . ''but edmonton gets the credit . they went ahead and did it . '' instead of steroids and cyclosporine , the edmonton team used a combination of three other antirejection drugs , tacrolimus , sirolimus and daclimuzab . but dr . rajotte said the drugs alone could not account for the group 's success . he said it helped that the patients did not have kidney_failure and therefore were in an earlier stage of the disease than were those in other studies . in addition , he said , the new work was based on 30 years of research on how to isolate healthy insulin making cells from the rest of the pancreas .",has a topic of health
"the mass_suicide of followers of the heaven 's gate cult left many other believers spiritually adrift across the united_states and canada , say two former cult members who talk frequently to followers . although san_diego law enforcement authorities said this week that they had ''no indication'' that there were any believers beyond the 39 who committed_suicide in rancho_santa_fe , calif . , the two former members said they had maintained regular contact with followers around the country . sharon k . walsh , the first recruit of cult founders marshall herff applewhite and bonnie lu nettles , said her mother , her stepfather and a niece are among the followers who still prepare for the golden day when a u.f.o . will land on earth to take them to heaven . on monday , california authorities confirmed that mrs . walsh 's half sister , judith ann rowland , was among those who committed_suicide . ''there are probably as many as 50 followers left , '' estimated mrs . walsh , a no nonsense 53 year old stockbroker who spent the summer of 1974 proselytizing with the cult 's founders . another former cult member , aaron greenberg of eugene , ore . , estimated today that surviving heaven 's gate believers numbered in the hundreds . ''i personally know about 60 to 80 , but i feel there are hundreds , '' said mr . greenberg , who keeps up with followers through a loose telephone_network . ''there are about 1 , 000 people who passed through this thing . '' mr . greenberg said that on monday he talked by telephone with one man in canada , who is part of a group of 40 believers , and with another man in new york , who is part of a group of 60 . both men , mr . greenberg said , told him that the cult followers , who meet periodically , were converging this week on a secret site in the southwest . ''this is not a good thing , '' warned mr . greenberg , who left the group in 1976 after six months . referring to the cultists' farewell videotape , widely aired on television in recent days , mr . greenberg added ''remember what they say in the videotapes 'come join us , the time is now , the window is small . ' '' mrs . walsh thinks that her mother and stepfather , both 78 years old , ''wanted to go , but were probably turned down because herff wanted 39 . '' she speculated that for mr . applewhite , a former seminarian who had studied numerology , the number 39 may have had special significance because 3 plus 9 equals 12 the number of christ 's disciples . mrs . walsh recalled the training undertaken by her mother and stepfather , whom she would identify only as a midwest farm couple whose first names are lorraine and floyd . ''they had drills where they had to be ready to go in 12 minutes , '' she said . ''they actually would run out of the house into a field . they thought they would be beamed up . '' in this affluent southern suburb of denver , mrs . walsh sat in her living room monday_night with her husband , jim , and reviewed 16 months of letters she received from mr . applewhite and ms . nettles from february 1973 to may 1974 , the month she left her first husband and two young daughters to join the pair 's proselytizing work . the cult leaders , believing they had a divine mission to illuminate humanity , sometimes signed their letters ''two lampstands'' or ''two candlesticks . '' the letters to mrs . walsh , whom the founders called the ''first disciple , '' provide rare insight into the early thinking and way of life of the wandering pair , who later preached under the names bo and peep , guinea and pig , and do and ti . closing their astrological bookstore in houston on jan . 2 , 1974 , the two embarked on an 18 month road trip that crisscrossed the united_states and canada , from south to north and east to west . ''i provided their main means of support , '' recalled mrs . walsh , who faults herself for introducing the pair to her mother . a housewife at the time , she mailed them family heirlooms a 1790 bible and a turn of the century postcard collection so they could sell the items to get gas money . in addition , members of mrs . walsh 's hatha yoga group sent money to ms . nettles , a longtime houston psychic , in return for personalized astrological charts . the letters from ms . nettles and mr . applewhite describe camping in state_parks , bathing in frigid streams , washing clothes in coin operated laundries and receiving mail at general delivery windows of big city post_offices . the pair moved quickly , leaving no traces . ''please be discreet as to our whereabouts , '' implored one of the dozens of letters . when mrs . walsh later joined them on the road , she discovered why mr . applewhite had stolen a rental car in st . louis in december 1973 , and the pair routinely ran out on motel bills . ''they said at first they slept in camps or roadside parks in their car , until one day our father revealed to them a part of the scripture in which jesus said the 'lord will be as a thief in the night , ' '' mrs . walsh wrote in a manuscript she is preparing about her three months with the pair . ''they checked into a motel giving a fictitious name . they took all meals at the motel charging it to their bill , and then left very early on the morning of their departure , without paying . '' the use of mrs . walsh 's gasoline credit_card was their undoing . after she left her first husband with a family car , he filed a complaint that led to mr . applewhite 's arrest in aug . 28 , 1974 . ''according to my gas tickets , they 'd be on the west_coast , and then three days later , they 'd be on the east_coast , '' her first husband , james morgan , told the houston_chronicle in 1975 . ''they may try to tell people they get around some other way . but i 've got proof they 're not doing any of this astro traveling . '' mrs . walsh broke with the pair , briefly reconciled with her husband , and he dropped the charges . but mr . applewhite spent four months in jail in st . louis for stealing the rental car . on the road , the missionary pair failed to make recruits . in their letters , they complained that their modern day prophecies were falling on deaf_ears . ''he would be branded a fanatic and nut too if he came today like he did then , '' ms . nettles wrote of jesus on aug . 27 , 1973 . ''whenever anyone calls you a witch or implies insanity , feel thankful you will get to a state where you will feel in the world , but not part of it . '' ''by social , psychiatric , medical religious standards we and you have long since lost our sanity , '' mr . applewhite wrote on the same day . ''if you think that '2 religious fanatics' '2 candlesticks' find any religious or worldly pleasure in their mission just put yourself in our shoes and imagine what we 're up against . '' although the letters make no mention of u.f.o . 's , the pair seemed to be traveling intellectually in that direction . ''we are becoming increasingly awkward in this world 's structure and giggle a lot at ourselves as two folks from outerspace would as they realize they ca n't fit the patterns of social practice , '' reads a november 1973 letter , signed ''much love , herff . '' ''when we converse in our minds ( while thinking ) we are really listening to the conversations between the alien spirits , '' reads a letter from the pair , dated_feb . 27 , 1974 . in that letter , the pair already refer to their bodies as ' 'vehicles'' or ''houses'' that must eventually be shed to reach a higher level , a christian concept that mr . applewhite apparently distorted last week when he led his followers into suicide . these themes recur in an unpublished manuscript that mr . applewhite and ms . nettles wrote in january 1973 , with the title ''i ca n't believe that but you must . '' ''deaths , marriage , sweethearts , and even newborn babes are elements which keep us from climbing out of the physical , '' wrote the pair , who later pressed followers to turn their backs on friends , family and fortune . in a passage that foreshadowed events 25 years later , they wrote ''man has experienced in space travel the process necessary to leave the earth magnet and arrive at a space which seems to be nirvana , the absence of a gravity force . ''",has a topic of health
"canada ratcheted up the pressure today to persuade the world_health_organization to reverse its advisory to travelers to avoid toronto because of the outbreak of the highly contagious respiratory_disease known as sars . ''we all believe that the world_health_organization came to the wrong conclusion , '' said prime_minister_jean_chr_tien in a nationally_televised news conference today after returning from a week 's vacation in the dominican_republic . in a gesture intended to express confidence that toronto was safe , mr . chr tien said he was scheduling a cabinet meeting in toronto on tuesday , and would spend monday_night at a hotel here . ''i will sleep very , very , very well , '' he said . mr . chr tien made his remarks after calling the w.h.o . leader , gro harlem brundtland , to protest the wednesday decision , which is causing severe economic aftershocks here in canada 's financial center . canadian officials said the prime_minister 's conversation with ms . brundtland was private , but they noted that the two developed a good working relationship when ms . brundtland was prime minister of norway in the early and mid 1990 's . there was no indication that ms . brundtland made any commitments one way or another . ''i do n't think there will be a reversal , '' said dick thompson , spokesman for the communicable disease section of the w.h.o . but he added , ''we re evaluate travel information every day and in that sense we will be looking at it again regularly . '' the toronto death toll from sars rose to 19 today , with 3 more deaths over the last day . there have been 257 probable and suspected cases in the area , a number that has actually gone down in recent days . canadian health officials , who are suddenly expressing optimism about controlling sars , note that there has not been a new case reported outside the hospital system in more than a week . the disease , they say , has not broken out into the general community , and it is unlikely for a pedestrian to become sick with sars . but w.h.o . officials , who spoke on condition of anonymity , said they continued to believe that travel to toronto posed a threat to world health , particularly for developing_countries whose health_care systems could not manage an outbreak of sars introduced by someone who had traveled to an infected city . the officials said the health organization was coming under enormous political pressure from a country with traditionally warm ties to the united_nations . they suggested a possible reversal could be based on politics and not science . the prime_minister 's call to ms . brundtland came after two days of telephone calls from cabinet officials and from the ontario premier , ernie eves , who argued that the w.h.o . decision was based on faulty information that did not reflect an improving situation . mr . eves said today that canadian officials would present their case on tuesday and ''there will be a decision to make whether to lift the travel ban on toronto or not . '' the w.h.o . decision was based on determinations that several probable sars cases in the philippines , australia and the united_states were linked to people who had traveled to canada . canadian officials question whether many of the reported cases were actually sars . even if some were , they say , they do not reflect the current improvement . the united_states centers_for_disease_control and prevention did not agree with the w.h.o . 's decision , and has not added toronto to its list of sars affected areas travelers should avoid . canada 's frustration with a united nations organization and its gratefulness for united_states support come only a few weeks after ottawa angered the bush_administration by not supporting the war in iraq because it was not sanctioned by the security_council . ''the canadian predisposition toward multilateral institutions and antipathy to u.s . unilateralism has been briefly put on its head , '' said robert a . pastor , vice_president for international affairs at american_university and a senior official in the carter white_house , who was attending a conference in toronto today . the travel_advisory has galvanized canadians as few international issues have in years . ''i do n't think they realize what the impact will be here , '' said natalie jurcic , 20 , one of the owners of a clothing shop under the royal york hotel , whose business is off 30 percent because of worries over sars . ''basically , the summer will be a write off . '' few people in toronto wear_masks to protect themselves from sars , and there has been only a modest impact on daily life outside of hospitals and businesses linked to tourism , restaurants or chinese malls . fans who came to the toronto_blue_jays game tonight said they were puzzled by reports that major_league_baseball has advised players to use their own pens when signing_autographs . ''that 's ridiculous , '' said sandy munro , 52 , a financial_planner . ''they 're making a mountain out of a molehill . people with sars do n't go to the ballgame . '' the sars epidemic toronto",has a topic of health
"in the wake of george_bush 's near disastrous 53 to 37 percent win over patrick buchanan in new hampshire and an embarrassing 61 to 39 percent win over nobody at all in south_dakota , campaign commentators all say he must quickly recast his campaign . one other thing needs reshaping first his presidency . the voters of new hampshire and south_dakota , like a lot of americans , suffer deep anxieties . they worry about jobs , health , education and the erosion of america 's skills and competitiveness . they sense a loss of will and direction and they expect more from their president than banalities ( "" message i care "" ) and a cameo appearance by arnold_schwarzenegger . they are impatient with a man who has flipped on taxes and flopped on the environment . ronald_reagan denies having said that mr . bush "" does n't seem to stand for anything , "" but in substance it 's not an alien thought . voters find it hard to tell poll_takers just what mr . bush intends to accomplish in a second term . in truth , many americans do n't care all that much about grand visions . they do care whether the man in charge offers answers to real challenges . here are three ways in which mr . bush might address that yearning for direction . none would bend his basic instincts out of shape each would play to his strengths as a negotiator . seize the peace_dividend . the administration proposes to cut 50 billion in military spending over the next five years . representative_les_aspin , a democrat , would cut twice that . the pentagon has not yet demonstrated why mr . bush could not move just as fast and seize the issue . he could also lay out now an intelligent plan for using the money to enhance savings , investment and long term economic_growth . there are obvious candidates , starting with kids and concrete . such a proposal would help the economy grow , unlike the phony tax fixes he has so far proposed . and it would go a long way toward giving his presidency the definition it now lacks . save the russians . why worry about foreigners when america 's in trouble ? because everyone , americans included , stands to lose if the old soviet_union explodes . if it does , spending for military contingencies would eat up some of the peace_dividend . and a huge potential market for american goods would dissipate . congress has been conspicuously sluggish on helping the republics survive another winter . here again is an issue begging for presidential leadership . come clean on health_care . mr . bush 's health_care plan includes several creative proposals to cover poor families and make the system more efficient . what 's missing is an honest way to control costs . it 's no mystery limit the tax deductibility of employer paid insurance premiums . mr . bush likes the idea but does n't want to push it until after the election . a little candid courage now would make half a plan nearly whole . with an affirmative program , the president would be better positioned to treat patrick buchanan for what he is a godsend . mr . buchanan 's neo isolationist foreign_policy provides an excellent foil for the robust internationalism that comes naturally to mr . bush . and mr . buchanan 's baiting of minorities provides the opportunity for mr . bush to champion decent values . all this may not be enough . but it 's more than the disconnected bits and pieces that president_bush is trying , with diminishing success , to pass off as serious policy . many americans will agree to stay the course , but first they have to know what it is .",has a topic of health
"the first effort to reverse an inherited disease permanently by altering the genetic makeup of a patient 's cells so far shows all the signs of a real , if modest , triumph . in results to be published on friday in the journal nature genetics , researchers said they had partly corrected a devastating cholesterol disorder called familial hypercholesterolemia by supplying the patient , a 30 year old woman from quebec , with copies of an essential gene she lacks . the new paper is the first to report any therapeutic benefits of human gene_therapy , a radical approach to treating disease that has been rich in publicity but , until now , quite thin on hard data . now , scientists and others have their first opportunity to scrutinize the real merits of gene_therapy and decide what its benefits and limitations may be . announcing the results of their first patient 's outcome almost two years after the woman received gene_therapy , dr . james m . wilson and mariann grossman of the university of pennsylvania medical center and their colleagues said at a news conference that they had cut the woman 's harmful cholesterol levels by almost 20 percent and raised her concentration of so called good cholesterol significantly . recent scans of her arteries showed no evidence of progressive clogging , a problem that had caused the woman to suffer a heart_attack at the age of 16 and require coronary_bypass surgery at 26 . familial hypercholesterolemia , an extremely rare condition , causes such severe buildup of cholesterol throughout the body that many people with the disorder die of heart attacks in childhood or adolescence . the researchers emphasized , however , that the woman 's cholesterol levels remained quite high more than twice the normal range and that they had no idea whether their intervention would end up prolonging her life . "" we 've achieved a partial correction of a metabolic defect , "" dr . wilson said in an interview . "" this shows that the principle of gene_therapy is sound , and that it can work . we have high hopes for this patient , but what will happen to her in the long run , there is no way of predicting now . "" the gene_therapy procedure is a physically grinding ordeal , requiring major surgery . in it , the researchers remove about 15 percent of the liver , separate and grow the cells in plastic dishes and supply the cells with copies of the gene they need , using a harmless virus as a delivery shuttle . the crucial gene dictates the production of the so called low density lipoprotein receptor , the body 's sponge for harmful cholesterol . a billion of those manipulated cells are then re infused into the patient through the portal vein that feeds the liver , where at least some of them resettle into their home base and begin producing the needed cholesterol receptor . dr . wilson has estimated that about 3 to 5 percent of the woman 's liver cells are now behaving as vigorous liver cells do , generating the receptors and pulling cholesterol from the bloodstream . appearing at the news conference , the woman , who has asked that her name and picture not be used , appeared to be as healthy and as shy as a teen_ager . her blond_hair swept back and her prim white blouse buttoned up to the collar , she said she had felt "" very well "" since the operation in 1992 . speaking through an interpreter in her native french , she said "" i feel very well physically and morally . i feel i can do more physical activity , like skiing , dancing and other social activities . "" 2 brothers died two of her brothers died of heart attacks in their early 20 's as a result of familial hypercholesterolemia , but she sounded an optimistic note "" i 'm certainly going to live until 90 years of age . "" the woman , a seamstress and part time bank teller , is also benefiting from cholesterol lowering drugs , which had no effect on her before the gene_therapy intervention . the researchers have also been pleased to see that the therapy has raised her levels of high density lipoprotein , or good , cholesterol , for reasons that remain mysterious . this could further cut down on her risk of future heart attacks . hearing of the new results , other researchers were at once heartened and cautious . "" these are early days , and it 's exciting that it works , "" said dr . dusty miller , a gene_therapy expert at the fred hutchinson cancer research center in seattle . "" the problem is , of course , that the liver technique is very cumbersome and difficult to do . "" dr . john kane , director of the lipid clinic at the university of california at san_francisco , said , "" this is far from a complete correction , but the fact that they have stable engraftment of the cells over all these months is encouraging . "" he added "" this is a landmark experiment . it 's the kitty_hawk of gene_therapy . "" 4 others in experiment the severe form of familial hypercholesterolemia is exceedingly rare , afflicting about one in a million people in the united_states , although about one in 500 have a milder form of the disorder . since the quebec woman , four other hypercholesterolemia sufferers have undergone the liver redesign experiment , the youngest of them a_7 year old girl from philadelphia . dr . wilson said a similar gene_therapy protocol might soon prove useful for treating other metabolic disorders , like phenylketonuria and a hereditary inability to break down ammonia in the body . "" individually these disorders are relatively rare , but collectively they 're relatively common , "" he said . he and others also hope to find less invasive ways of delivering new genes to liver tissue , perhaps packaging them into carrier bubbles of fat , or into cold viruses that can directly infect liver cells . many other gene modifying experiments are at various stages of clinical_trials , among them treatments for severe combined immune deficiency disorder , cystic fibrosis and a number of types of cancer . dr . wilson had the great good fortune , dr . miller said , to be the first to reach the publication finish line .",has a topic of health
"russia 's former president , boris n . yeltsin , was reported to be improving today after a lengthy bout with flu and pneumonia even as the kremlin fended off rumors that mr . yeltsin was near death . the interfax news_agency quoted an unidentified medical official in the office of presidential affairs tonight as saying that mr . yeltsin could be released from the hospital in the next few days . the medical update appeared after the kremlin said it was responding to reports circulating in moscow that mr . yeltsin had taken a turn for the worse , or had lapsed into a coma in recent days . ''we are trying to find the source of these rumors , but i can assure you that they are completely contrary to reality , '' a kremlin spokesman said tonight . ''he is safe and sound . ''",has a topic of health
"after suffering a public_relations nightmare that made ontario appear unresponsive to the plight of the three surviving dionne quintuplets , the government announced a settlement for them today worth 2 . 8 million . it also offered to open an inquiry into the nine and a half years the sisters were wards of the state . at a news conference here this afternoon , the lawyer representing the frail 63 year old women said they had accepted the offer . the lawyer said they were in the montreal area , where they live and met today for the first time with ontario 's premier , mike harris , who formally apologized for the way the provincial government had acted . today 's announcement was a dramatic reversal from last week , when provincial authorities insisted the government had no legal responsibility for what happened in the 1930 's and 1940 's when the dionnes , the world 's first surviving quintuplets , were taken from their family and displayed before millions of tourists . mr . harris , saying he was acting out of compassion , then made a take it or leave it offer of 4 , 200 a month to the three women . the sisters publicly rejected the offer . public opinion turned sharply against the government . ''this is clearly a case where our government and probably i in particular allowed process and legal technicalities to get in the way of people and compassion , '' said charles harnick , ontario 's attorney_general . ''the premier made it very clear that this was not our finest hour . '' the surviving quintuplets cecile , annette and yvonne said in interviews that more than any financial settlement , they wanted the ontario government to hold an inquiry into the years when the province controlled every aspect of their lives . mr . harnick said that a retired ontario justice , gregory evans , would be available to conduct a factual review of what happened to a trust fund that had been set up for the girls , as well as to the millions of dollars in tourist revenues the province earned from the quintuplets . through their lawyer , clayton ruby , the surviving quintuplets today called the government 's newest offer ''just and fair . '' ''this will finally provide us with peace of mind , '' the dionnes said in the statement read by mr . ruby at a news conference , ''the peace that comes from being satisfied that justice is finally being carried out . '' the sisters , and the family of their deceased sister_marie , will be allowed to divide the 2 . 8 million lump_sum check any way they wish .",has a topic of health
"a scientific survey underwritten by the pentagon has concluded that an experimental drug given to american_troops during the persian_gulf_war to protect against a nerve_gas may be responsible for the chronic_illnesses afflicting tens of thousands of veterans . the report , to be released at a news conference on tuesday , is the first commissioned by the pentagon to identify a possible cause for the illnesses , which have collectively come to be known as gulf_war_syndrome . it sharply contradicts two earlier government studies by a presidential commission and by the institute of medicine that ruled out the drug as a cause . the drug , pyridostigmine_bromide , or p.b. , was distributed to 250 , 000 to 300 , 000 of the nearly 700 , 000 american_troops sent to the persian_gulf in 1990 and 1991 as a ''pretreatment'' for potential iraqi attacks with the nerve_agent soman . while the drug has been used since 1955 to treat a rare neurological disorder , its use as an antidote to soman is still regarded as experimental . more than 100 , 000 veterans have reported experiencing symptoms associated with gulf_war_syndrome , including chronic_fatigue , muscle pain , memory loss and sleep disorders . but because of the pentagon 's acknowledged shoddy record keeping in the war , it may be impossible to know how many of those took the drug and in what quantities . after years in which the pentagon has systematically discounted possible explanations for the ailments , including stress , exposure to oil well fires and depleted uranium used in american bombs , the report is something of a breakthrough . wary of the reaction of veterans' groups and their supporters in congress , pentagon officials today played down the findings of the survey , which was conducted over two years by the rand_corporation , a nonprofit research organization financed by the defense_department . ''this is not a eureka , '' said dr . sue bailey , a physician who is the assistant secretary of defense for health_affairs . dr . bailey and other officials said they accepted the report 's findings but added that more studies were needed before a direct scientific link could be established . they also said the pentagon would continue to keep the drug in its arsenal of vaccinations and antidotes for troops who might face attacks with chemical and biological_weapons , even though the survey 's conclusions also raise questions about its effectiveness against soman . the report , which runs 385 pages and was written by dr . beatrice alexandra golomb , is based on the findings of scores of medical studies on pyridostigmine_bromide . dr . golomb is a professor at the university of california at san_diego and a physician at the veterans_affairs medical center in san_diego . her report cites studies that have linked the drug to side effects similar to those experienced by some veterans . one study , by hebrew university in israel , linked the drug to neurological disorders in mice . another , by the university of texas and duke_university , concluded that when mixed with other chemicals it could cause nerve damage . dr . golomb 's report goes on to suggest that the drug 's short term effects can become chronic because it causes abnormal levels of the nerve signaling chemical acetylcholine . the chemical is involved in many important functions , including sleep , muscular activity , memory and pain , which have all been cited as problems for ill veterans . the report said research showed that individual reaction to the drug depended on different factors , including stress , physiology and exposure to other agents , including pesticides and even nicotine and caffeine . that would explain why only some veterans have reported illnesses . ''one cannot rule out the possibility that long term effects of p.b . might occur and might participate in the production of neuropsychological and other deficits reported by some'' veterans , dr . golomb concludes . scientists and veterans' advocates have long pointed to pyridostigmine_bromide , as well as other experimental drugs given to troops in the gulf , as one of the possible culprits in the still unexplained illnesses attributed to gulf_war_syndrome . separate reports by the house and senate identified it as such and called for further research into the drug 's effects . dr . bernard d . rostker , the under secretary of the army who is the pentagon 's senior official overseeing gulf_war illnesses , said the pentagon had strongly supported several studies on pyridostigmine_bromide , including rand 's , because of those concerns . he said the pentagon was already spending 20 million on additional research into the possible links considered in rand 's report . ''that does not mean we have made a direct relationship between the two , '' he said , referring to the drug and the syndrome . ''it means we do n't have enough information . '' the initial reaction on capitol_hill was harsh . representative_christopher_shays , a connecticut republican who is one of the most outspoken critics of the pentagon 's handling of the issue , accused the pentagon of moving slowly to study the drug and of ' 'restating the obvious need for aggressive research . '' ''the sad news is how little has been learned in eight years about organophosphate poisoning and the delayed neuropathies that appear to play a role in the illnesses suffered by gulf_war veterans , '' mr . shays said . under a special waiver from the food and drug administration , the pentagon distributed thousands of packets of pyridostigmine_bromide to the troops as they deployed to saudi_arabia in 1990 following iraq 's invasion of kuwait . troops were ordered to take three flat white tablets each day as long as they were in the region , although it appears they did so erratically . pyridostigmine_bromide is the only known treatment for soman , a deadly gas developed by the soviet_union . although iraq is known to have made weapons with other nerve agents , including sarin , no evidence has surfaced to suggest iraq ever made weapons with soman . dr . golomb also reported that some studies on animals suggested that the drug might not be very effective against soman at the doses given and may in fact increase susceptibility to other chemical_weapons . the drug has not been given to troops since the gulf_war , but dr . rostker said the findings would not change the pentagon 's policy to use it whenever commanders determine that an enemy might have soman . ''its continued use is warranted given the fact that an exposure to soman would result in almost immediate death , '' dr . rostker said .",has a topic of health
"the burning issue for russians these days is not nato expansion or president boris n . yeltsin 's health . it is mr . yeltsin 's plan to end housing and utility subsidies . in a politically risky move that has galvanized much of russia , mr . yeltsin is pressing to phase out the enormous subsidies by 2003 . the logic is clear . six years after the soviet_union collapsed , russia has emerged with an economy that is part free_market and part socialist . prices for food and clothing have soared , often exceeding those in the west . but most russians still pay a pittance for shelter , leaving cash_strapped local_governments to pick up most of the tab . housing subsidies , geared to apartment size , benefit the emerging middle_class more than the poor . at the same time , they eat up scarce funds that could used to pay back wages , retrain displaced workers or improve the nation 's dismal health_care . utility subsidies have spawned an almost palpable disdain for energy_conservation . russia is still a land where tenants compensate for overheated radiators by throwing open the windows , leave water taps running and think nothing of leaving on the lights when they leave the room . water and gas meters for apartments are rare , though electricity meters are common . ''in russia we consume five times more heating_oil or natural_gas to heat a square meter of housing than they do in northern_europe , '' fretted boris nemtsov , the youthful first deputy prime_minister , who has played a lead role in promoting the plan . the plan would phase out the subsidies by 2003 except for those to the poor and lower middle_income tenants , about 25 percent of current recipients . it also calls for taking maintenance services away from the government and allowing private companies to bid for them . but this is an issue that turns as much on politics and psychology as on economics . populist politicians have already had a field day attacking the plan . regional leaders who privately back it have often been loath to endorse it publicly . accustomed to cheap rents and battered by high prices in other sectors of the economy , many russians view the projected fourfold increase in housing and utility costs more as a sign of government indifference to them than as an act of reform . like many of her neighbors in moscow , tanya yesin has nothing but contempt for the economic reformers who say russian families are not paying their fair share . the three room apartment she shares with her husband and two daughters in a working_class area of south moscow is definitely on the cozy side . but it is bright , well heated , close to transportation and cheap . three room apartments in her building run about 140 , 000 rubles a month ( about 24 ) . and as a military officer , her husband receives a 50 percent discount . mrs . yesin is a cook in a kindergarten . including utilities , the family spends only 6 percent of its income on shelter . but she has little patience for mr . yeltsin 's plan . ''it is absolutely absurd , '' she said as she offered a cup of steaming tea and black currant jam to a visitor . ''they have to raise our wages and salaries if they want us to pay more . '' a soviet legacy standardized housing the stolid tracts of housing that dominate moscow 's skyline provide a grim reminder of russia 's long tradition of government subsidized_housing . faced with chronic housing shortages and an increasingly urbanized population , the soviet_union erected buildings with its trademark disregard for individuality and taste . there is no dispute that housing was cheap . the average soviet citizen paid a mere 8 to 10 percent of his income for housing and ''communal services'' like utilities and garbage removal . by and large , people got what they paid for . apartments were cramped . soviet officials measured comfort by the square meter and privacy was often a luxury . several generations of families were often compelled to live together as they worked their way up long waiting_lists for apartments to become available . unhappy couples put off divorce rather than join the vain quest for new living quarters . entrance ways , courtyards and other public spaces were dirty , dark and neglected , reflecting the ethic what belongs to everybody belongs to nobody . housing maintenance required an outsized bureaucracy . the soviet ruling elites as usual , received the largest and most comfortable quarters . when mikhail s . gorbachev become the soviet leader in 1985 , stanislav shatalin , the pro reform economist , described housing as the least efficient sector of the economy . the collapse of the soviet_union in 1991 transformed much of russian life . but the system of government supported housing has lumbered on largely intact . some 40 percent of the apartments throughout russia are still owned by municipal governments or by former soviet enterprises that provide housing for their workers . the tenants who rent them pay a fraction of the actual rent . they cling to the apartments even after they have moved out of them to get married or retire in their countryside dacha , passing them on to their children like rare heirlooms or subletting them to wealthier russians or foreign businessmen at enormous mark ups . russians who privatized their apartments captured about 25 percent of the housing . in general , they paid a token fee for processing the paperwork , providing the state with little profit for general maintenance or major repairs on its own apartments . another 10 percent of the apartments are cooperatives , in which each tenant is responsible for his or her own unit and ownership of the common space is shared . the final 25 percent of housing is a result of private construction and largely consists of wooden houses in the countryside . in general , russians pay about 6 percent of their income for housing and utilities , according to the urban_institute , an american public_policy group , which is advising the russian government on housing reform . americans , in contrast , pay an average of 17 percent . the subsidy money is not paid directly to the tenants . instead it is paid to municipal or private landlords and utility companies . the overall figures are staggering . russia spends more than 3 percent of its gross_domestic_product on housing and utility subsidies , far more than it spends on its bedraggled military . there are indirect costs , as well . to help keep bills low for tenants , utility companies have charged russian industry substantially higher rates . that has depressed economic_growth at a time when the government is trying to turn the economy around . the subsidies also raise the basic issue of fairness . by and large , income is not taken into account , although in moscow the very poor receive additional subsidies and the few muscovites who have more than one apartment are expected to pay the full cost . a bonanza for some for others , a struggle in her apartment in the moscow suburb of mitino , a sprawling stretch of almost indistinguishable high rises that bracket the road to sheremetyevo airport , alla mikoliouk is the first to acknowledge that her utility payments are absurdly low . she and her husband , the director of a private pension_fund , enjoy a comfortable middle_class life style . an entire wing of their apartment building was purchased by her husband 's company five years ago . many apartments were sold to company employees at the discounted price of 10 , 000 to 15 , 000 and have since gone up several times in value . her husband was one of the lucky , original buyers . their three room apartment is well appointed . the study is filled with expensive exercise equipment . they have a computer , fax and a telephone answering_machine . the electrical_appliances are almost too numerous to count three televisions , a satellite_dish , video tape player , washing_machine , dishwasher , refrigerator , stove , microwave and a bread maker . the monthly charges , however , are minimal . the electricity for lighting the apartment and operating the appliances is a mere 25 , 000 rubles a month ( about 4 . 30 ) . hot water , heat , garbage removal and general maintenance cost another 100 , 000 rubles a month ( about 17 . 20 ) . mrs . mikoliouk says her husband does not discuss his salary or investments . but she receives about 1 , 000 a month from renting out her former apartment and working as a language teacher . each month she takes a small book to a government owned bank to make the payments . ''i ca n't understand why we pay so little for electricity , '' she said . ''for us , it is simply nothing . but for pensioners or teachers earning 500 , 000 it 's a lot . '' housing and utility payments are more of a worry for hadezhda inshev . she and her husband , leonid , a driver , never had an apartment of their own to privatize or the savings to buy one when the prices were cheap . after getting married 13 years ago , she moved in with her husband , who had a room in a communal apartment near the moscow river . when the elderly woman in the room next door died , the new couple expanded into that room , as well . they petitioned the moscow authorities for a place of their own after the first daughter was born . but the two rooms they lived in provided one square meter too much to win a place on the waiting list . now , they and their two daughters make do . their cramped corner of the communal apartment even accommodates the piano the girls use for their music lessons . the bathroom and kitchen down the hall are shared with three other tenants . mrs . inshev pays a minuscule 8 , 544 rubles ( about 1 . 50 ) in rent . but heat , gas , electricity , the hook up for her sony television to the building 's antenna and garbage removal fees drives the cost up to about 200 , 000 rubles ( about 35 ) . that is only 7 per cent of the family 's monthly income . but mrs . inshev says she needs the rest for food and clothing , the fees for her children 's music lessons and the extra tuition she pays to send them to a government school , which teaches french . when her husband 's wages are delayed or things are tight , she knits clothes in the evening . ''i guess it must be this way , '' she said fatalistically about the government 's plan to end subsidies . ''but it would really affect our lives . we would have to look for a cheaper place . '' subsidies squeeze municipal budgets but it is economics , more than fairness , that has forced the issue of housing to the top of the political agenda . low cost housing has brought a measure of social stability by cushioning the shock of delayed wages , rising prices and the widening gap between rich and poor . but it has also become an enormous drag_on the economy . ''a major part of local budgets is going to housing subsidies , '' said yegor t . gaidar , the former prime_minister and economic reformer who is advising the yeltsin government . ''the result is the crisis in education and health_care . '' about a fifth of moscow 's budget , for example , is spent on housing and utility subsidies . some municipalities devote a third of their budget or even more to such subsidies . there are hidden costs as well . because of subsidized rents , some tenants live in larger apartments than they need and might otherwise afford . this has contributed to a housing crunch and encouraged unnecessary construction . economists warn that the burden on local_governments may soon increase . in their struggle to make a profit , former soviet enterprises are divesting themselves of apartments and other social_services and transferring them to local_governments . mr . gaidar said that many municipal governments understand that they cannot afford the subsidies , but do not want to take the political heat for reducing them . the yeltsin government can also use the threat of withholding payments to local_governments to enforce its will , mr . gaidar says . currently , 80 out of russia 's 89 regions receive more funds from the federal_government than they provide in taxes . in moscow , the pugnacious mayor and presidential aspirant , yuri luzhkov , has assailed mr . nemtsov as a dreamy reformer detached from the day to day worries of the working_poor . he insists that moscow is taking a far more gradual approach , and will not phase out the subsidies until 2006 , three years later than under the kremlin plan . but facing economic reality , mr . luzhkov 's city government has quietly moved to raise rents and utility payments . city planning documents indicate that mayor luzhkov is planning to recover virtually all costs by the year 2003 just as mr . nemtsov proposed . mr . luzhkov 's objection ''is simply a case of populist politics , '' said raymond struyk , an urban_institute expert who advises the moscow government . ''when you look at his concrete plans , there is no material difference with the federal program . ''",has a topic of health
"a chilling discovery about the possible nature of a soviet biological_warfare agent has fueled a debate among government scientists as to whether the current anthrax vaccine will adequately protect american_troops . the discovery is that the anthrax spores released in a 1979 accident at a soviet_military site in sverdlovsk probably contained a blend of at least four different strains of anthrax bacilli , as if it had been devised to overwhelm a vaccine . sverdlovsk now yekaterinburg lies in the urals 900 miles east of moscow . the pentagon announced on dec . 15 last year that 2.4 million military personnel would be vaccinated against anthrax , the first attempt to protect the entire military against a chemical or biological_weapon . the anthrax bacillus is horrifying enough as a battlefield weapon , but the new finding brings into the open what biological_warfare experts have known for many years that disease agents can be enhanced so as to render vaccines and antibiotics less effective . the finding comes from an analysis of tissues taken from victims who died in the sverdlovsk outbreak . the tissues were saved by two russian pathologists at the sverdlovsk hospital , and never came to the attention of soviet authorities . later the two russians sent samples of the tissues to american scientists interested in the outbreak . recently scientists at the los_alamos_national_laboratory reanalyzed the tissues with a highly sensitive modern technique . los_alamos has a large biological research program in addition to its better known nuclear_weapons program . with the technique , dr . paul j . jackson identified at least four different strains of anthrax in the tissues of the victims . his findings are reported today in the proceedings of the national academy of sciences . the los_alamos finding raises the question of why the soviet scientists would go to the trouble of developing an anthrax weapon with many strains instead of just one . since they would almost certainly have acquired the american vaccine , some experts believe that the multistrain blend was intended to overcome the its defenses . another , more innocent , possibility is that the multiple strains came from the vaccines with which many inhabitants of sverdlovsk were inoculated after the accident . the soviets use a vaccine composed of two live but nontoxic strains of the bacillus . the los_alamos scientists concede that this is a possibility but believe that the airborne spores of anthrax released in the accident were the more likely source of the multiple strains . most of the tissues were taken from victims who died before the vaccinations began , and they contain a genetic element known as a plasmid that the vaccine strains lack . the news release issued by los_alamos in conjunction with dr . jackson 's report states that ''a mixture of strains used as a weapon might overcome vaccines against anthrax or therapeutic agents used to combat the resulting disease . '' col . arthur m . friedlander , one of the army 's leading experts on anthrax , strongly disagreed with this statement , calling it ''entirely speculative and incorrect . '' the american vaccine which will be given to all military personnel is not a live vaccine like the soviet one but is based on a single protein component of the anthrax bacillus . this component is the same in all strains of anthrax , colonel friedlander said , meaning that the american vaccine should protect people against one or many strains with roughly equal effectiveness . colonel friedlander is chief of the bacteriology division of the army medical research institute of infectious_diseases at fort detrick , md . later today , the los_alamos press office revised its statement so as to avoid criticism of the army 's vaccine , while repeating the original principle . according to the revised statement , ''while mixtures of strain of anthrax might overcome or confuse defensive strategies , there is no experimental data or evidence to suggest that such a mixture is resistant to the a.v.a . licensed anthrax vaccine used by the u.s . military . '' although inspectors from the united_nations special commission have recovered anthrax spores from iraq , it could not be learned whether they contained one or many strains of the bacillus . dr . frank j . gaffney jr . , director of the center for security policy in washington , said he had no specific knowledge of soviet iraqi cooperation on biological_warfare but that ''the closeness of the two regimes makes me think at a minimum that iraq was getting soviet support . '' the publication of the los_alamos findings in an academic journal seems intended to put firm though not embarrassing public pressure on the russian authorities to explain exactly what was happening at the sverdlovsk biological_warfare site . the biological_warfare convention , which both the former soviet_union and the united_states signed , forbids the manufacture and stockpiling of biological_weapons but does not prohibit research . in 1992 , russian_president boris n . yeltsin said of the sverdlovsk accident , ''the k.g.b . admitted that our military developments were the cause , '' but he did not elaborate on how the accident occurred . ''what the world still needs to hear is what was the work that was going on there , '' said dr . matthew s . meselson , an expert on biological_weapons at harvard_university . ''there are people there who know what happened and they should speak up . '' even before the discovery of multiple strains , experts had begun to discuss the adequacy of the current american vaccine after the pentagon 's announcement in december that all military personnel would be vaccinated . ''i think it is a pretty good vaccine given that it is a 1960 's standard and pretty crude technology , '' said dr . phillip russell , former commander of the united_states_army medical research and development command . ''can we make a better one ? sure as hell we can , '' he said . with modern methods it would be possible to purify the protein component on which the vaccine is based , giving it more protection and fewer side effects . some experts within the government say there is evidence that the protein component does vary from one anthrax strain to another , though they do not know if the variation is big enough to make a difference to the vaccine . the los_alamos scientists say they are continuing their analysis to see if the anthrax strains in the sverdlovsk victims had been rendered resistant to antibiotics , which can save patients if given soon enough . they declined to say whether genes for resistance had been found .",has a topic of health
"prime_minister paul_martin announced sunday that an election would be held june 28 to choose a new parliament and give him a mandate to shore up the financially ailing health_care system . there was no need for mr . martin to call an election for another year , but by leading the liberal_party to victory he hopes to differentiate himself from the scandal_ridden administration of his predecessor , jean_chr_tien , a fellow liberal whom he served as finance minister . the liberal_party has held a virtual monopoly on political power for the last 11 years , but its fortunes have declined because of financial scandals and a nasty internal struggle that forced mr . chr tien to step down in december in favor of mr . martin . mr . martin has failed to heal his party 's deep wounds , while two rival conservative parties have succeeded in recent months to unite and choose stephen_harper , an alberta social_conservative , as their leader . mr . martin has projected an unfocused image of himself as a sometimes conservative , sometimes liberal , leader who believes simultaneously in lower taxes , balanced_budgets and more federal support for health_care , the cities and the military . for his part , mr . harper , who has in the past argued for a far closer military and economic alignment with the united_states and has opposed same_sex_marriage , has been shifting his positions to the political center to attract broader support . the liberals are pinning their hopes on projects in parts of the country that will be hotly_contested in the election . these include a major cleanup of a toxic_waste site in nova_scotia , a marine biotechnology research center in quebec , improvements to the toronto waterfront with parks and other recreational_facilities , and special assistance to british_columbia communities that have suffered from high american tariffs on softwood lumber . the liberals are preparing a sharply negative advertising campaign to define mr . harper as a right wing extremist who would have sent canadian troops to iraq last year and undercut the publicly financed national health_care system with tax cuts . ''the election is about the kind of canada we want , '' mr . martin said after he formally asked governor_general adrienne clarkson in ottawa for royal assent to dissolve parliament so an election could be held . ''you cannot have a health_care system like canada 's , you cannot have social programs like canada 's , with taxation levels like those of the united_states , '' he said . the conservative_party 's prospects of taking power remain slim , but they have improved in recent weeks because of broad disgust over disclosures that in the late 1990 's the liberals gave advertising firms aligned with the party about 75 million for little or no work as part of a program to counter separatists in quebec . ''i believe the time for accountability has arrived , '' mr . harper told reporters on sunday . ''billions have been wasted and hundreds of millions have disappeared . the liberals have no program they can defend . '' he added that his government would be ' 'moderate and mainstream . '' a national ipsos reid poll published saturday in the globe and mail showed the liberals leading with 35 percent of the vote followed by the conservatives with 26 percent and the social_democratic new democratic_party with 18 percent . the poll had a margin of sampling_error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage_points . perhaps most worrying for the liberals is the showing of the separatist bloc qu b cois , which the ipsos reid poll shows as having 50 percent support in quebec , canada 's second largest province . with a lead of 22 percentage_points over the liberals in quebec , the bloc appears poised to deny the liberals dozens of seats in the house of commons . ''the liberals could lose the election if harper was to exploit martin 's indecision and ineffectiveness , '' said desmond morton , a mcgill_university historian , ''and simultaneously managed to look less terrifying to a lot of average canadians . '' many political_scientists and newspaper columnists say the election may produce a minority liberal government that will be forced to depend on the new democratic_party for support in the house of commons to pass legislation . the new democratic_party is led by jack layton , a former toronto city councilman who is a critic of free_trade and opposes closer military relations with the united_states .",has a topic of health
"smoking bans are infiltrating even the haziest corners of tobacco loving cultures . when ireland moved to ban cigarettes from pubs last year , the world watched in wonder . the netherlands , facing its own ban in 2005 , has experienced a hullabaloo over the issue . the shivering sidewalk smoker has become a predictable part of the manhattan winter streetscape . but all that may pale compared with the icy canadian arctic . smoking has been an integral part of life here since european whalers introduced tobacco while docking in the region 's fjords in the late 19th_century . it is so common among the native inuit who dominate the local population that grandfathers are known to light up with their grandchildren during breaks from hunting . even wayne govereau , the top nunavut territory official responsible for the antismoking campaign , is a smoker of 23 years . his father was a smoker , too , until he died of cancer . ''i feel guilty about it , '' mr . govereau said in an interview in his offices filled with antismoking posters and pamphlets explaining the health hazards of the habit . ''but i am dedicated to stopping on may 31 , world no smoking day . '' but if public_health officials like mr . govereau have their way , smoking in the frozen north will someday be as socially objectionable as it is in the most of the rest of canada . in recent years , toronto , ottawa , calgary and other cities have enacted sweeping bylaws restricting tobacco use , and nunavut is following suit . soon after the territorial government was formed in 1999 , it began flooding the airwaves with television advertisements warning parents against smoking around their children and urging them to quit altogether . iqaluit , the territorial capital , with 6 , 000 residents , enacted a bylaw two years ago prohibiting smoking in restaurants , groceries and most other public places . the territory has also made selling cigarettes to anyone under 19 illegal . on may 1 , the workers' compensation board for nunavut and neighboring northwest_territories prohibited smoking in any enclosed business or work site , including office buildings and bars . ever since , smokers have been required to step outside to smoke in a region where temperatures can drop farther than 40 below zero in winter . any worker who disobeys the ban will be fined the equivalent of 375 , and businesses double that for anyone smoking on their premises . it has only been a week , and the temperatures are around 30 degrees warm in these parts and no problem for an arctic smoker to go outdoors . so far the new smoking_ban appears to be working in iqaluit , with even bar hoppers obediently leaving their drinks and friends to light up even when it means waiting in line a second or third time to re enter their saloon of choice . compliance in the more remote settlements on the icy tundra appears more spotty . ''it 's for the good of everyone else , especially the younger generation , '' said layli noble , 30 , an inuit woman who is a city finance officer , as she smoked outside her office on a recent morning with a colleague . the other night , veronica kakee , a_37 year old inuit housewife who has smoked since she was 9 , complained about having to wait in line for a half hour to get back into the storehouse bar and grill after a smoking break . but even she conceded that ' 'smoking is dangerous'' and that she is thinking about quitting . the antismoking measures amount to an extraordinary , if necessary , experiment in social_engineering for a people so addicted to tobacco . according to various reports more than half of the inuit population , also called eskimos , age 12 and over smoke . one 2002 study found that 80 percent of adolescents , 14 through 16 , smoke an average of nine cigarettes a day , and many of them reported that they began smoking before they were 10 . cancer rates are spiking in this territory of 27 , 000 people to double the national rate for men and quadruple the rate for women . one recent government study noted that 484 of 1 , 000 babies under the age of 6 months old suffer from lower respiratory tract infections the highest rate for any region in the world . mr . govereau said the territory was forced to spend more than 50 million a year to transport patients for care for various diseases and conditions , many at least indirectly related to smoking , to edmonton , ottawa , winnipeg and yellowknife because hospitals here lacked the resources to offer advanced treatments . he said that if the government did not reduce those costs , they could bankrupt the health_care system . local social scientists and health experts say they are optimistic that smoking rates can be reduced , although it will probably take a generation or two to reach the much lower rates of southern canada . already , they note , most smokers including inuit living in remote areas are smoking outside their homes in response to all the antismoking advertising . ''i see an ongoing trend where we 're becoming a part of the mainstream of canadian society , '' said keith ludlow , campus director of the nunavut arctic college in iqaluit . ''with the influence of television , the role model is no longer the cowboy on the horse smoking . it 's not going to take very long for the next generation to say smoking is not good for us and our babies . '' but what will happen when temperatures drop next winter is still anyone 's guess , regulators concede . ''when it turns cold , i 'm not sure what the bars and patrons will do , '' said derek dinham , vice_president of nunavut regional operations of the workers' compensation board . ''but it is a hardy bunch here . '' iqaluit journal",has a topic of health
"i am a pediatrician in a large teaching_hospital in toronto , and i miss my patients . in a city that has reported about 200 cases of severe_acute_respiratory_syndrome , or sars , and 19 sars related deaths over the last month , you 'd think i 'd be busier than ever . but in an effort to minimize exposure to the disease , many doctors have been kept from doing their jobs , reducing hospitals to caring only for the most severely ill . my work day is very different from the way it was a month ago . every morning before entering the hospital i have to check in with a group of screeners gowned , gloved and masked hospital employees released from their real jobs for this more urgent task . i assure them that i am feeling well , have n't been to hong_kong , vietnam , china or the hospitals in toronto where outbreaks have been reported . if i have a headache or other symptoms , the screeners check my temperature . i regularly rub an alcohol wash on my hands , and when i 'm in a patient care area i wear a mask , as does everyone else . it 's hard only seeing masks rather than faces . for the first couple of weeks , all meetings were canceled . the new verb around the hospital is sarsed , as in ''oh that meeting is n't happening . it got sarsed . '' based on guidelines disseminated by the canadian government , my hospital 's infectious_diseases department has limited the kinds of patients we can treat . at first we could see only those we thought might die or suffer serious damage without immediate treatment . two weeks into the outbreak , we were permitted to see urgent but less dire cases . hospital administrators say that soon we will be able to see a small number of routine patients . i 'm not saying that these precautions are unwarranted . my hospital has not had an outbreak of sars , even though we have admitted a few patients with the disease ( all of whom have survived ) . i 'm glad we 're doing our bit to protect ourselves , our patients and their families . the hard thing for me is that our outpatient practice has essentially come to a halt . this has kept me from seeing my patients , most of whom are teenagers with chronic diseases like lupus . i usually see them when they come for their appointments with their specialists . but most of those appointments have been canceled because they are considered not vital enough . working under these conditions has made me realize that my patients define who i am as a doctor . i do n't think of myself as someone who spends hours in meetings , writes papers , does research or sits at my computer dealing with administrative issues , even though these activities take up quite a bit of my time . i see myself as someone who helps young people struggling with chronic_illnesses . without this , who am i ? someone with a job , rather than a passion . i can do this for a few weeks , enjoying the feeling of catching up on paperwork and going home at five o'clock . soon , though , i will reach the end of my rope . i 'm sure many of my colleagues who are n't treating sars patients feel similarly . the mission of the hospital to provide excellent patient care , to teach , to do research has been limited . our medical , nursing , psychology and social work students were sent home about four weeks ago and we do n't expect them back for a while . research studies have been put on hold because subjects ca n't come here . elective_surgery has been canceled . long awaited appointments have been postponed . we are in a state of suspended animation . it wo n't end until the sars outbreak is brought under control , which i hope wo n't be long . i miss my patients . i worry about them . i hope they can come back soon . op_ed contributor miriam kaufman , a pediatrician at the hosptial for sick children , is author of ''overcoming teen depression a guide for parents . ''",has a topic of health
"dressed in her orchid pink bathrobe and blue velour slippers , edouardine boucher perched on her bed at notre_dame hospital here on friday and recounted the story of her night electric doors constantly opening and closing by her feet , cold drafts blowing across her head each time an ambulance arrived in the subzero weather , and a drug addict who started shouting at 2 30 a.m. , ''untie me , untie me . '' but as nurses hurried by on friday morning , no one thought it remarkable that ms . boucher , a 58 year old grandmother awaiting open heart surgery , had spent a rough night on a gurney in an emergency room hallway . after all , other hallways of this 3 year old hospital were lined with 66 other patients lying quietly on temporary beds . to explain overflowing hospitals here and across the nation , canadian health officials are blaming the annual winter flu epidemic . but , at the mention of flu , daniel brochu , the veteran head nurse here , gave a smirk and ran his pen down the patient list today ''heart problem , infection problem , hypertension , dialysis , brain_tumor , two cerebral hemorrhages . '' on thursday , he said , crowding was so bad that he was able to admit one patient only after the ambulance crew agreed to leave its stretcher . when canada 's state run health system was in its first bloom , in the 1970 's , americans regularly trooped up here on inspection tours , attracted by canada 's promise of universal ''free'' health_care . today , however , few canadians would recommend their system as a model for export . improving health_care should be the federal_government 's top priority , said 93 percent of 3 , 000 canadians interviewed last month by ekos research associates . in another poll last month , conducted by pollara , 74 percent of respondents supported the idea of user fees , which have been outlawed since 1984 . ''there is not a day when the newspapers do not talk of the health crisis , '' said pierre gauthier , president of the federation of specialist doctors of quebec . ''it has become the no . 1 problem for quebecois and for canadians . '' in toronto , canada 's largest city , overcrowding prompted emergency_rooms in 23 of the city 's 25 hospitals to turn away ambulances one day last week . two weeks ago , in what one newspaper later called an ''ominous foreshadowing , '' police officers shot to death a distraught father who had taken a doctor hostage in a toronto emergency room in an attempt to speed treatment for his sick baby . further west , in winnipeg , ''hallway medicine'' has become so routine that hallway stretcher locations have permanent numbers . patients recuperate more slowly in the drafty , noisy hallways , doctors report . on the pacific coast , ambulances filled with ill patients have repeatedly stacked up this winter in the parking_lot of vancouver general hospital . maureen whyte , a hospital vice_president , estimates that 20 percent of heart_attack patients who should have treatment within 15 minutes now wait an hour or more . the shortage is a case of supply not keeping up with demand . during the 1990 's , after government deficits ballooned , partly because of rising health costs , the government in ottawa cut revenue sharing payments to provinces by half , by some accounts . today , the federal budget is balanced , but 7 hospitals in montreal have been closed , and 44 hospitals in ontario have been closed or merged . ottawa also largely closed the door to the immigration of foreign doctors and cut the number of spaces in canadian medical_schools by 20 percent . today , canada has one medical_school slot for every 20 , 000 people , compared with one for 13 , 000 in the united_states and britain . with a buyout program , quebec induced 3 , 600 nurses and 1 , 200 doctors to take early retirement . and across the nation , 6 , 000 nurses and at least 1 , 000 doctors have moved to the united_states in recent years . at the same time , demands on canada 's health system grow every year . within 30 years , the population over 65 is expected to double , to 25 percent . unable to meet the demand , hospitals now have operation waiting_lists stretching for months or longer five years in the case of ms . boucher . as a result , canada has moved informally to a two tier , public private system . although private practice is limited to dentists and veterinarians , 90 percent of canadians live within 100 miles of the united_states , and many people are crossing the border for private care . last summer , as waiting_lists for chemotherapy treatments for breast and prostate_cancer stretched to four months , montreal doctors started to send patients 45 minutes down the highway to champlain valley physicians' hospital in plattsburgh , n.y . there , scores have undergone radiation treatment , some being treated by bilingual doctors who left montreal . business has been so good that the plattsburgh hospital , which was on the verge of closing its cancer unit , has invested half a million dollars in new equipment . and on the quebec side , the program has allowed health authorities to boast that they have cut the list of cancer patients who have to wait two months or more , to 368 today from 516 last summer . in toronto , waiting_lists have become so long at the princess margaret hospital , the nation 's largest and most prestigious cancer hospital , that hospital lawyers drew up a waiver last week for patients to sign , showing that they fully understood the danger of delaying radiation treatment . with the chemotherapy waiting list in british_columbia at 670 people , hospitals in washington have started marketing their services to canadians in vancouver , a 45 minute drive . a two tier system is also being used for other kinds of operations . ''i would like to buy mother a plastic hip for christmas , so she does n't have to limp through the year 2000 in excruciating pain , '' margaret wente , a newspaper columnist for the globe and mail in toronto , wrote last month . ''i could just drive her to cleveland , which is fast becoming the de facto hip_replacement capital of southern_ontario . '' allan rock , canada 's health minister , disapproves of such attitudes . in an essay in the same newspaper , he wrote sarcastically ''forget about equal access . let people buy their way to the front of the line . '' in defense of canada 's state health system , he wrote , ''its social equity reflects our canadian values . '' mr . rock , who hopes to become prime_minister one day , said that health delivery could be improved through better , computerized planning . he attacked a proposal in alberta to allow private hospitals , warning readers , ''the precedent may be set for american for profit health_care providers looking to set up shop in canada . '' but the idea that there may be room in canada 's future for private medicine is gaining ground . ''we have no significant crises in care for our teeth or our animals , largely because dentists and veterinarians operate in the private_sector , '' michael bliss , a medical historian , wrote on wednesday in the national_post , a conservative newspaper . ''so we have the absurdity in canada that you can get faster care for your gum disease than your cancer , and probably more attentive care for your dog than your grandmother . '' in ontario , canada 's wealthiest province , the waiting list for magnetic_resonance_imaging tests is so long that one man recently reserved a session for himself at a private animal hospital that had a machine . he registered under the name fido . to ms . boucher , who jealously guarded her 15 square_feet of corridor space today , such cocktail circuit anecdotes were not amusing . glumly eating her cold breakfast toast , she said , ''it scares us to get sick . ''",has a topic of health
"the baghdad morgue recorded more than 1 , 500 violent deaths in august , a morgue official said thursday , a notable reduction from july 's toll but hardly the sharp drop that american military and iraqi government officials had been predicting . the morgue official said 1 , 535 bodies were received in august , about the same number as in june and a 17 percent reduction from july . the morgue reported receiving 1 , 855 bodies in july , the highest number of civilian deaths for any month since the american led invasion in 2003 . the official , who provided the information on the condition that he not be named because he was not authorized to speak for attribution , spoke on the day when the american military formally began handing over control of iraq 's armed_forces to the iraqi government . the process , which american officials have hailed as a major step toward independence , will take months longer to complete , american officials said . the august total of violent deaths , if accurate , contradicts the sense among many baghdad residents and claims by american officials , after a lull early in august , that death rates had ebbed . a surge in attacks toward the end of august also casts doubt on the effectiveness of a four week old american military operation that added 4 , 000 american_soldiers to secure several of the city 's most dangerous neighborhoods . in baghdad on thursday , the police reported finding a 24 bodies in various neighborhoods of the city , an interior_ministry spokesman said , and a series of bombing attacks killed at least 16 iraqis . the american military reported the deaths of three service members . on thursday , maj . gen . william b . caldwell_iv , the military 's top spokesman here , wrote on a military web_site www . mnf iraq . com that since aug . 7 , killings in baghdad had declined by 52 percent compared with the average daily rate in july . but the military 's figures do not include dozens , perhaps hundreds , of the civilians who died violently in august . the military 's figures count only killings of individuals ''targeted as a result of sectarian related violence , '' said lt . col . barry johnson , a spokesman for the american military . killings from other violent acts , like car bombings and mortar attacks , were not counted , he said . the morgue 's monthly body_count in baghdad has become a main indicator of the success of both the iraqi government 's national reconciliation plan and the american military 's effort to secure baghdad . colonel johnson said he could not comment on the morgue 's august figures or whether they contradicted the military 's view that killings had precipitously dropped . on wednesday , general caldwell told reporters that ''the cycle of retaliatory violence has been slowed in the target areas as we have specifically focused our efforts here within the baghdad area . '' on aug . 31 , iraq 's national_security adviser , mowaffak_al_rubaie , said sectarian_violence and other killings had dropped by 45 percent during the previous six weeks . ''there 's definitely a much better sense of security among the general public , '' the associated press quoted him as saying then . prime_minister_nuri_kamal_al_maliki 's office said thursday that it had imposed a one month ban on the al_arabiya television_network as punishment for biased reporting . a government spokesman , yaseen majeed , said the station , based in the united_arab_emirates , had made several erroneous reports about sectarian_killings and bombings . the station also knowingly allowed a former government official who was fired for impersonating an army general to masquerade as a high ranking interior_ministry official during an interview in which he said ''that he had witnessed over 50 bodies in the streets , '' mr . majeed said . ''we warned them in july , in an official letter , not to incite violence and sectarian unrest , '' mr . majeed said . ''we asked them to abide by the standards of professionalism . '' al_arabiya 's assignment editor in baghdad , nageeb bin al shareef , said thursday that his office had not been officially notified of the government ban , and that the network was continuing its broadcasts from the fortified green_zone here . mr . maliki 's office also said that 27 people who had been convicted of rape or murder were executed in baghdad on thursday . in the bombings in baghdad on thursday , a roadside_bomb that exploded about 7 30 a.m . near the mosque in the cairo neighborhood killed three people and wounded 16 others , the interior_ministry official said . about 9 30 a.m. , a suicide car bomber detonated a bomb near police vehicles whose tanks were being filled at a gas station in the karrada district , killing 10 people some of them police officers and wounding 17 , the official said . at 10 45 a.m. , two more people were killed and 23 wounded when a second suicide car bomber exploded a bomb in the bab al sharji district , a mile north of the gas station , near the interior_ministry 's headquarters . at 3 30 p.m. , a third suicide car bomber blew up his vehicle in the kadisiya neighborhood near a police convoy , wounding seven police commandos , the interior_ministry official said . at 7 15 p.m. , a roadside_bomb killed a woman and wounded 13 others in the amil district . on wednesday , ahmad al_mashhadani , nephew of mahmoud al_mashhadani , the speaker of parliament , was abducted while driving his car in northwest baghdad , the interior_ministry official said . also on wednesday , a roadside_bomb killed two people at the funeral of a shiite_militia leader . the american military announced the deaths of two soldiers and a marine on thursday . in anbar_province , a marine assigned to the first marine logistics group died thursday from wounds from hostile fire on wednesday , the military said , and a soldier with the first brigade , first armored division , died wednesday , also from hostile fire . in hawija , north of baghdad , a soldier with the third brigade combat team , 25th_infantry_division , was killed by gunfire on wednesday , the military said .",has a topic of health
"lead canadian scientists announced a program today for testing people at risk of developing huntington 's disease , the devastating and fatal brain condition that usually goes undiagnosed until symptoms show up in adulthood . canadian scientists announced a program today for testing people at risk of developing huntington 's disease , the devastating and fatal brain condition that usually goes undiagnosed until symptoms show up in adulthood . dr . michael hayden of university_of_british_columbia , who heads the new program , said that only a handful of medical centers in the world offered such tests and that no other country offered them nationwide , which will facilitate the testing of several family members the program requires . dr . hayden predicted that the program , which will also involve research , would produce information on the social and psychological effects of the disease and may provide clues to the genetic defect or defects that cause it . canadians 18 years of age or older will be eligible for the testing if a blood relative has the disease or has died of it . 125 , 000 americans at risk huntington 's disease is a disorder that causes gradual destruction of mental capacities and control of the body and ends in death , usually 10 years or more after the symptoms appear . scientists here estimate that roughly 3 , 000 people in canada suffer from the disease and as many as 20 , 000 may be at risk of developing it . in the united_states there are about 25 , 000 patients and 125 , 000 at risk . children of the disease 's victims have a 50 50 chance of developing it themselves , and , since the first symptoms usually do not appear until middle age , the risk hangs over their heads into adulthood . genetic tests developed in recent years reliably predict the likelihood of developing the disease . the tests analyze samples of blood from the person to be tested and from close relatives for small pieces of dna that serve as markers for the proximity of the defective gene responsible for the disease . tests required of relatives the tests are useful only in families in which the disease is already known to exist and , even then , only when blood samples are available from the person being tested and from close relatives . in the united_states , testing for the disease is done only at four centers , massachusetts_general_hospital , university of minnesota , columbia_university and johns_hopkins_university . the canadian program was announced at the 16th international congress of genetics , which is being held here this week . dr . hayden said the program will include research on the disease as well as service in testing . the gene that causes the disease has not yet been discovered . the available tests could be 99 percent accurate in predicting the risk of developing the disease , but such accuracy depends on the amount of useful genetic information available from family members , he said . years of uncertainty about 14 canadian medical centers from coast to coast will participate in the program , which has both government and private funding and is expected to cost from 800 , 000 to 1 , 200 , 000 in the next three years , he said . a 24 year old woman tested under a pilot program begun 16 months ago at the university_of_british_columbia said the relief in ending years of uncertainty was immense . her mother suffers from the disease , but testing showed the daughter had a 99 percent chance of escaping it .",has a topic of health
"prompted by fears of a new outbreak of one the world 's deadliest scourges , a world_health_organization panel in geneva decided today to postpone eradicating the world 's known remaining stocks of the smallpox virus until at least 2002 . virtually all member nations said they remained committed to the elimination of the smallpox stocks as soon as possible . but the recommendation to the world health assembly , the organization 's governing body , reflected widespread agreement that more time is needed to study smallpox before it is irrevocably destroyed . the panel 's recommendations are to be officially adopted next week , a step that officials of the organization said was usually a formality . in today 's debate , representatives of 25 nations spoke , many of them reluctantly affirming the need for a stay of execution for the virus . it would be the third that the virus has received since the 191 member organization decided in 1980 to destroy the known stocks . today 's resolution also calls for the creation of an international committee of experts to advise on the need for further research and to devise an eradication timetable . the decision reflects a major shift in scientific thinking about smallpox since 1996 , when the assembly decided that the virus should be destroyed at the end of june 1999 . it also highlighted an unusual consensus between the united_states and russia , the countries with the two remaining declared repositories of the deadly stocks . washington and moscow have publicly opposed eradication of the virus until more research has been done . though smallpox was officially declared eradicated as a disease in 1980 , most officials now acknowledge that there are probably clandestine stocks of smallpox virus throughout the world , and that retaining the virus could speed the development of new drugs to fight a possible outbreak , whether due to terrorism or other factors . health_and_human_services secretary donna shalala , who led the american delegation at the assembly , said the threat of biological terrorism , which was ''obscure'' only a few years ago , had emerged as among ''the thorniest problems of the post cold_war era . '' ms . shalala said the growing threat required international health officials to ''change and adapt our response'' and to coordinate efforts to ''prepare for an incident that we hope will never happen . '' a turning point in official american thinking about the virus 's fate came in march , when an independent scientific committee concluded that research on the deadly virus could provide important scientific and medical opportunities that would be lost if it was destroyed . while that committee was not asked whether the virus should be kept or destroyed , its conclusions influenced president_clinton 's decision to fight for at least temporary retention . western and foreign officials said fear of a possible epidemic in a now largely unvaccinated world and recent public revelations of a senior soviet defector had helped produce the new consensus against immediate eradication . the defector said the soviet_union had secretly filled warheads of some of its intercontinental ballistic_missiles with smallpox virus , violating a treaty it signed in 1972 . in an interview this week in washington , lev s . sandakhchiev , the director of russia 's state research center of virology and biotechnology , where smallpox strains are stored , would not comment on former soviet germ_warfare programs . but he said he was certain that north_korea , among other countries , was secretly keeping smallpox stocks . destroying the virus would complicate efforts to develop new drugs to counter an outbreak , he said . dr . sandakhchiev said an outbreak of monkey pox , a virus closely related to smallpox , last year in congo had prompted moscow to redouble its efforts to defer eradication . the implications of that outbreak of more than 300 cases of a disease that traditionally does not spread quickly among humans has been debated by scientists in and outside russia . the outbreak , he argued , showed that a new form of smallpox might be evolving . donald a . henderson , a former deputy science adviser to the white_house who led the campaign to destroy the virus , disagreed that the outbreak in congo suggested that smallpox was making a comeback in a milder form . many of the cases in congo , he said , turned out to be chickenpox , not monkey pox . he and other advocates of immediate destruction of the smallpox virus vowed today to ''continue fighting . '' they argue that little research has been done since the disease was declared eradicated . they discount the notion that governments will spend precious research dollars on studies of a disease that no longer exists .",has a topic of health
"barely three weeks after doctors declared him fully recovered from pneumonia and exhaustion , president boris n . yeltsin was found to have an acute bleeding stomach ulcer and was sent to a moscow hospital today . the ulcer was mr . yeltsin 's third serious illness in three months , and it follows a year in which health problems sent him to the hospital twice and kept him away from his kremlin office for months . his spokesman , dimitri yakushkin , declined to estimate how long the president would remain in treatment . experts said mr . yeltsin would probably be bedridden for at least a week and possibly several weeks . surgery is possible if the ulcer cannot be otherwise healed . the latest ailment appeared to make barely a ripple among moscow politicians and government officials , who have become accustomed to running the country without its top leader in regular command . during his illnesses last fall , mr . yeltsin handed control of most day to day issues to prime_minister yevgeny m . primakov . the president has not transferred any powers to mr . primakov or issued any other special orders related to his latest hospitalization , mr . yakushkin said . he added that mr . yeltsin was in stable condition and even cheerful , though disappointed by his quick return to the sickbed . the communist legislator who heads the national_security committee in russia 's lower_house of parliament , viktor ilyukhin , said in a radio interview that mr . yeltsin was clearly a seriously ill man . he said the new hospitalization would strengthen demands for mr . yeltsin 's resignation and a new election , though there now seems to be no political consensus for such a move . mr . yeltsin has not even hinted at giving up his key powers , such as control of the russian nuclear_arsenal and the ability to hire subordinates and reorganize the government . indeed , he issued a directive a few weeks ago placing the justice ministry under his direct control and reorganizing his office to extend his influence on military issues . mr . primakov told the itar_tass news service today that mr . yeltsin 's illness had created ''no extraordinary situation . '' despite his recent return to work , questions about mr . yeltsin 's health popped up once again last week , when the president canceled a series of kremlin meetings without explanation and remained at one of his country homes . mr . yakushkin dismissed such speculation on thursday , suggesting that mr . yeltsin was simply continuing the traditional russian new year 's holiday , which begins jan . 1 and can stretch more than two weeks . mr . yeltsin , he said then , was energetic and in normal health . today mr . yakushkin said that he had seen the president on saturday , when he held meetings late into the evening at his country home , and that mr . yeltsin felt fine at the time . the president first began to feel ill this morning and was found to have an ulcer after a gastroenterological examination , mr . yakushkin said . mr . yeltsin 's recent illnesses have forced him to cancel or cut back a series of foreign visits , including a meeting in vienna with the head of the european_community and a state_visit to uzbekistan . this time , mr . yeltsin could be forced to cancel a trip to paris on jan . 28 for talks with president jacques_chirac . the day before that trip , he was to meet in moscow with secretary of state madeleine k . albright . whether that meeting will occur as scheduled is unclear .",has a topic of health
"the threat of bioterrorism has apparently convinced the bush_administration that it should retain the nation 's stock of smallpox virus one of only two official repositories for smallpox samples in the world . the administration argued that the samples may be needed to help develop new drug treatments and vaccines against the disease . the decision , disclosed by senior officials to the times 's judith_miller , is a sensible response to the small but frightening risk that a rogue nation or terrorist group might obtain the virus and unleash it . smallpox was eradicated as a disease more than two decades ago , and all remaining stocks of the virus were supposed to be transferred to two official repositories designated by the world_health_organization , one in russia and one in the united_states . debate then ensued over whether even these stocks should be destroyed to lessen the chance of smallpox escaping again and to set a moral example that even possession of smallpox samples violated global norms . the stumbling_block has been intelligence reports that north_korea and iraq may have retained clandestine stocks for military use . some scientists who believe that the remaining samples should be destroyed point out that new vaccines and antiviral drugs can be developed without them , by testing against related viruses . but the smallpox samples would clearly have some value for these purposes . indeed , the prestigious institute of medicine concluded that the most compelling reason for retention would be to develop antiviral drugs or novel vaccines . the institute 's expert panel made no judgment on whether the stocks should be retained or destroyed . but at a time when bioterrorism has become disturbingly real , it seems wise to err on the side of retention .",has a topic of health
"people 65 years and older who took modest daily amounts of a broad array of vitamins , minerals and other supplements had markedly fewer infections and stronger immune defenses than those who did not receive them , a new canadian study says . the study , involving 96 healthy men and women who lived on their own , examined the role of 18 vitamins , minerals and other supplements that were suspected of influencing the immune system . dr . ranjit kumar chandra , the author , said the new study lasted a year and is the largest and longest study of supplements that are believed to affect the immune system . the study is being reported in tomorrow 's issue of the lancet , a medical journal published in london . all participants were evaluated when the study began , and , in most of them , blood levels of the nutrients were in the normal range . so dr . chandra said the improved health was not simply a matter of making sure the participants had adequate nutrition . he said it was not clear which nutrients contributed to the improved health . caution raised on results dr . richard duma , executive director of the national foundation for infectious_diseases in bethesda , md . , said that before a definitive conclusion could be reached about the new findings , they need to be confirmed in a larger and longer study . for scientific purposes , such a new study should incorporate the switching of the vitamins and minerals among the two groups without the knowledge of the participants or scientists , he said . a number of factors , like the existence of chronic ailments , could influence the immune system or a predisposition to infections in this age group , he said . thus the benefits might not have resulted from the vitamin and mineral supplements . dr . chandra is a pediatrician and immunologist at the memorial university of newfoundland . he said in a telephone interview yesterday that he is interested in the relationships between essential vitamins , minerals and other micro nutrients and the immune functions among older people . such dietary factors are known to play a role in the rate of cell growth and division , and the amount and rate of the production of protein . such nutrients are also involved in metabolism . for example , a number of enzymes in the immune system work best in the presence of zinc , iron , and vitamin b 6 . infections found reduced in the study , half the participants took the supplements and half took a dummy pill . infection related illness occurred an average of 23 days during the year among those who took the supplements among those who did not , the average was 48 days . dr . chandra said the sharp reduction was a result of a general reduction in infection rather than a selective reduction affecting only individuals with prolonged illness . the group receiving the supplements needed fewer prescriptions for antibiotics than the control group . the participants were followed to account for seasonal infections for one year . all were immunized against influenza . for his study , dr . chandra developed two types of look_alike capsules that were made by a local pharmacy specifically for the rigorously controlled study . dr . chandra said he and memorial university of newfoundland have applied for a patent on the combination and that he would stand to profit if it is marketed . he said he did not know if canadian health officials would have to approve it . one capsule in the study contained only calcium and magnesium as a placebo , or dummy pill . the other capsule contained the 18 vitamins , minerals and other supplements . they included vitamin a , beta carotene , thiamin , riboflavin , niacin , vitamin b 6 , folate , vitamin b 12 , vitamin c , vitamin d , vitamin e , calcium , copper , iodine , iron , magnesium , selenium and zinc . the amounts were about the same as the daily allowances recommended by canadian and american health officials . but the amount of vitamin a was about half the recommended daily dose , and those of beta carotene and vitamin e were three to four times higher than the recommended daily allowances , dr . chandra said . the volunteers in st . john 's , newfoundland , were in the upper middle and high socioeconomic classes , and their diets were standard for canadians of the same age group . none had any known chronic or serious illness . none took any drugs that were known to interfere with immune function . neither the volunteers nor dr . chandra 's team knew which capsule the participants were taking . a member of dr . chandra 's research team interviewed each participant every two weeks and checked with their doctors to determine whether they had experienced an infection . at the start of the study , blood tests showed that of the participants , 29 of them , or 30 percent , had a deficiency of one or more of the 18 vitamins and minerals , dr . chandra said . immune system improved at the end of the study , the scientists found a statistically significant improvement in a standard panel of immune tests , like those measuring the number of natural killer cells , cd 4 cells , production of interleukin 2 , and antibody response to influenza vaccine . dr . chandra said his work had also shown that the supplements can restore immune function in six months , and in some instances in three months . but there was no such change among the group that took the dummy capsules . the study was not designed to test the theory among people under 65 . earlier studies have hinted that some supplements would improve certain aspects of the immune system . but such studies examined only individual vitamins and minerals or a small number of participants for a few months at most . dr . chandra also said that such studies generally lacked a systematic evaluation of illness among the participants .",has a topic of health
"when gerrye and richard zuckerman dreamed of a child , they never envisioned that it would take five months of paperwork , a 5 , 000 mile plane trip to moscow and a train ride 460 miles southeast to a small town on the volga_river to find one . nor did they anticipate that a child born to another couple could bring such joy . all the zuckermans knew was that they wanted a baby . and three years of infertility treatment had not produced one . recently , mrs . zuckerman opened a photo album in the bright , white kitchen of her yorktown home and turned to the last page . it was an album mrs . zuckerman , 46 , and her husband , richard , 52 , prepared as required by an orphanage in saratov , russia . "" we leave this page blank , "" mrs . zuckerman wrote on the last page , "" hoping to fill it with the picture of a child that we will love forever . "" at that moment matthew , who is 2 , dashed in , laughing and chasing the family poodle . he looked up at his mother with flushed cheeks and radiant brown eyes , a beautiful , blond haired , exuberant little boy . "" i look at him , "" mrs . zuckerman said , "" and i ca n't believe it . i see him do these wonderful things , and i wonder what his biological mother would think . i wonder if she 'd be happy to see him and how happy he is today . "" matthew was born with a bilateral cleft palate , a vertical split that extended from his upper lip to the base of his nose . the split continued backward , from behind his gum to the cavity of his nose . he was a russian couple 's first child . matthew had no roof to his mouth and could not breast feed or drink from a bottle . he was immediately fed from a cup and spent the first seven months of his life in a hospital before being sent to an orphanage . if he had not been adopted , he would have been institutionalized . food often came up through his nose . he was malnourished and hungry . because of economic difficulties , russian doctors do n't always have the equipment and installations to perform the operation needed to correct his birth deformity . by offering matthew to someone who could better care for him , his birth parents became saints in the zuckermans' eyes . the zuckermans are typical of many american couples who adopt children today in that they are older and arrive at the adoption procedure wounded by infertility . they let go of their dream of a biological child and ask , simply , for a child , anyone 's child to love . "" people come to me so bruised , so emotionally hurt , "" said lilyan chrappa , executive director of the child and family adoption resource and consultation center in new paltz , which counsels prospective parents . "" they have been holding on to disappointment for so long that when i say , yes they can have a child , they break down . "" ms . chrappa , the mother of two adopted children , performed a home study for the zuckermans . a home study is required for every adoption . a licensed social worker questions the couple in their house . her office works with world child inc . , an international adoption agency based in silver_spring , md . mrs . zuckerman got the idea of adopting from russia after reading a newspaper article about a couple who did it . the zuckermans decided against adopting in the united_states because they were afraid that a young american mother might reject them because of their age or later want her child back . although mrs . zuckerman knows two couples whose first domestic adoptions failed , both couples later succeeded . "" adoption is not easy , "" mrs . zuckerman said . "" infertility is not easy . but it 's not an insurmountable problem either . if you hang in there , it works . "" when mrs . zuckerman flew to moscow to pick up 20 month old matthew in september 1994 , she did not know how to change a diaper . she did not know how to communicate with matthew or console him as he tearfully left the orphanage with her and her husband , two strangers . two weeks after matthew arrived in the united_states , a plastic surgeon , dr . court cutting , performed the first of two operations at new york_university medical center . dr . cutting rebuilt matthew 's face , reconstructing his sunken nose , and repaired his gum and lip . he removed baby teeth that were growing in matthew 's nose . mr . and mrs . zuckerman stood in the medical center during the first operation , "" and the pain and the fright was very real , "" mrs . zuckerman said . "" i wondered how i could love this little guy so much . "" that moment , she finally felt like his mother . mr . zuckerman is a father of two grown children from a previous marriage . "" i feel no difference between matthew and my two other children , "" he said . "" i do n't think of matthew other than as my son . "" mrs . zuckerman said she wonders why she did n't quit her infertility treatments sooner . though doctors offer much hope , the fact is that infertility treatment fails for three out of four couples . mrs . zuckerman said that if she had known then what she knows now , she would never have gone through all the infertility procedures . "" people really need to know that there 's some help elsewhere , "" mrs . zuckerman said . the zuckermans found help through the adoptive parents committee , a support and information group offering monthly meetings and a newsletter titled adoptalk . the yearly adoption conference of the committee will be held on nov . 19 and will feature about 100 adoption workshops at the c . w . post campus of long_island_university in brookville , l.i . adoption , ms . chrappa said , is "" a process that absolutely , bottom line , works . "" the zuckermans want to adopt another russian child , although russian adoptions are currently closed to foreigners , pending a new law . "" everybody 's put on earth to do something , "" mrs . zuckerman said as she watched matthew giggle and play . "" maybe i 've been put on earth to be an ordinary person . not to do anything great , but to do something small that involves great love . "" for more information on adoption , the adoptive parents committee 's hudson region chapter can be reached at 997 7859 .",has a topic of health
"at least 75 iraqis were killed and scores injured tuesday as insurgents carried out their deadliest offensive in weeks . most of the victims died in five powerful bombings in baghdad , which threatened to heighten tensions as iraqis struggled to recover from the worst sectarian bloodletting of the war . though politicians and clerics have been calling for calm , and a weekend curfew cooled off the fury in the streets , people across the capital remained anxious over the possibility of new sectarian_violence . militiamen and private guards stood watch at mosques , and the american ambassador declared that last week 's killings had pushed iraq ''to the brink of civil_war . '' the cabinet said tuesday afternoon that 379 people had died and 458 had been injured in the violence since the bombing last wednesday of a sacred shiite shrine in samarra and in the anti sunni reprisal killings that followed . after meeting with the country 's most powerful cleric , the iraqi national_security adviser warned that leaders would take ''a few months'' to form a new government , and that negotiations would proceed along a ''rough road with a lot of political mines in our way . '' american and iraqi officials fear that bitter , prolonged negotiations will undermine faith in the politicians , reinforce sectarian divisions and strengthen the insurgency . the bush_administration is gambling that the political process will help stabilize iraq and provide an exit for some of the 130 , 000 american_troops here by drawing in recalcitrant sunni arabs , who are leading the insurgency . in washington , president_bush declined to say whether the violence of the past week would affect the administration 's hopes of reducing the american troop presence . american officials have been saying they would like to get the number of troops down to 100 , 000 or so by year 's end . ''the people of iraq and their leaders must make a choice , '' mr . bush said to reporters . ''the choice is chaos or unity . '' on tuesday , blast after blast rocked the capital . after one car_bomb exploded at noon in a shiite district of downtown baghdad , firefighters and witnesses struggled to pry two blackened bodies from a charred sedan . the wailing crowd lifted the bodies out , shouted , ''god is great ! '' and marched down the street bearing the bodies aloft . nuns from a nearby convent rushed toward the flaming wrecks clutching buckets of water . an interior_ministry official said at least six people had been killed and 18 wounded in that bombing . around the same time , a suicide_bomber detonated his explosives at a gasoline station in a shiite neighborhood in southern baghdad , killing at least 23 people and wounding 51 . the deadliest attack took place in the evening , when a car_bomb exploded by a marketplace in the northern hurriya neighborhood , killing at least 25 and wounding at least 43 . an explosion there in the morning devastated a sunni mosque , continuing the string of attacks on houses of worship . no one was inside . in tikrit , a bomb damaged the mosque where saddam_hussein 's father is buried . after the first attack , the iraqi_islamic_party , a conservative sunni political group , denounced the shiite led government , saying it was in ''collusion with the criminals who have gone too far in destroying god 's houses and igniting riots . '' the tough language threatened to undo some of the recent gestures of reconciliation among the leaders of the country 's political groups . the sectarian clashes last week subsided only after sunni , shiite and kurdish leaders appeared together in televised meetings and prayer services . ''i think the country came to the brink of civil_war , '' the american ambassador , zalmay_khalilzad , said monday on cnn . ''but iraqis decided that they did n't want to go down that path and came together . '' that was the most explicit acknowledgment by an administration official of the degree to which sectarian_strife had destabilized iraq . it also contradicted declarations from american generals last week that iraq was nowhere near a civil_war . on tuesday , the cabinet released statistics on people killed , saying officials wanted to correct figures that had appeared in an article in the washington_post , which reported that 1 , 300 people had died in five days . the article cited officials at the baghdad morgue . but the top two directors of the morgue said tuesday morning that they had received only 246 bodies in the capital , where most of the killing had taken place . of those , only about 70 have been claimed , they said . the iraqi national_security adviser , mowaffak_al_rubaie , said tuesday that security forces had arrested 10 people in connection with the bombing of the golden domed askariya shrine in samarra last wednesday . four were shrine guards , and six were ''terrorists , '' he said . mr . rubaie , a conservative shiite , made his comments in the southern city of najaf after meeting there with grand_ayatollah_ali_al_sistani , iraq 's most powerful shiite_cleric . ''i expect we will go down a rough road with a lot of political mines in our way to forming a new government , '' mr . rubaie said , ''and i think the formation will take a few months , so i ask our people to be patient . '' the british military said tuesday that two soldiers had been killed when their patrol was ambushed in the southern city of amara , and the american military said a soldier had been killed monday by small_arms fire west of baghdad . at least 2 , 296 members of the american military have died in the war . in baghdad , 9 people were killed and 17 wounded by one car_bomb , the associated press reported . a roadside_bomb aimed at a defense ministry adviser killed five soldiers and wounded seven others . in khalis , gunmen killed four policemen , reuters reported . northeast of the capital , in baquba , an imam , a policeman and an interpreter for the americans were killed in separate incidents . south of the city , the police found nine bullet_riddled bodies along a stretch of road . the struggle for iraq violence",has a topic of health
"president boris n . yeltsin , who underwent quintuple bypass_surgery in november , was hospitalized this evening after his doctors detected early signs of pneumonia , the kremlin announced . when mr . yeltsin , 65 , returned to work two weeks ago , his doctors ordered him to take it easy for the first few months . his press office announced on monday that he was bedridden with a cold and would cancel all his appointments , but his spokesmen discounted the severity of his illness . it was not clear tonight how seriously ill mr . yeltsin is with pneumonia . but the latest setback to his health casts a pall over one of the calmest political seasons of the last few years a tranquillity that was partly due to mr . yeltsin 's return to work after a prolonged absence . even if it is brief , his hospitalization could undermine public confidence in his health and the stability of his government . the kremlin , which concealed mr . yeltsin 's heart ailment for months after he fell ill during the presidential campaign last year , had regained a measure of credibility with its relatively open handling of the bypass_surgery . but there were signs that the kremlin is once again uncertain how to deal with the president 's latest illness . today , shortly before the diagnosis of pneumonia was made public , the surgeon who performed the bypass , dr . renat akchurin , told tass that mr . yeltsin was suffering from a cold and that it was unlikely to cause complications . ''while it is better to avoid any illness during the first two or three months after such an operation , '' dr . akchurin said , ''it is hardly likely that the president 's cold could cause complications with his heart . '' dr . akchurin could not be reached tonight to explain the possible effects of pneumonia on mr . yeltsin 's heart condition . the kremlin did not explain what caused the pneumonia . there had been speculation that mr . yeltsin had contracted the flu , which is reaching epidemic proportions across russia . mr . yeltsin 's finance minister , aleksandr y . livshits , was hospitalized today with severe influenza . dr . andrei i . vorobyov , chief of the hematology institute in moscow , and the head of mr . yeltsin 's council of doctors , said tonight , ''it 's a typical flu pneumonia . '' ''he has flu 100 percent , '' dr . vorobyov said . ''there is an epidemic in moscow . and besides , some members of his family got the flu . '' dr . vorobyov added , ''i am not worried about the consequences , i am worried about his condition . '' a russian heart surgeon who did not operate on mr . yeltsin , dr . giya kvitivadze , a leading physician at the bakulev institute of cardiac surgery , said tonight ''pneumonia is not pleasant at such an age , but i do n't think it is a serious case . pneumonia does n't necessarily put any additional strain on the heart . '' noting that mr . yeltsin would probably be treated with antibiotics and inhalation therapy , dr . kvitivadze added , ''as far as i know , mr . yeltsin improved greatly after the operation , but it is possible his immune system has not recovered fully and this is why he caught cold so easily . '' mr . yeltsin , who had been nursing his cold at his government residence , was taken tonight to the central clinical hospital in moscow , where he recovered after his bypass_operation . prime_minister viktor s . chernomyrdin , who was to go on vacation on thursday , is expected to delay it while mr . yeltsin is in the hospital .",has a topic of health
"the allure of importing cheap prescription_drugs from canada and other advanced nations is proving irresistible , despite federal laws against it and stern warnings from the food and drug administration that imported drugs may not be safe . individual consumers have been buying drugs from abroad for some time now . the new wrinkle is that state and local officials have become interested . illinois has asked regulators for permission to import drugs from canada , california has been exploring the possibilities , and the city of springfield , mass . , has already started importing drugs from canada for its workers and retirees , in open defiance of the f.d.a . it is a sign of how untenable the drug industry 's outrageously lopsided pricing strategies have become . imported drugs can be a great bargain because pharmaceutical manufacturers exact their highest prices from american consumers and sell the same products for much less in foreign markets , where prices are driven down by price_controls or hard bargaining by governments . under a law passed in 1987 , it is generally illegal for anyone other than the manufacturer to import such drugs into the united_states . that law was passed to protect americans from counterfeit or unsafe drugs at a time when prices were not an issue . but now prices are a huge issue , providing good reason to search for ways to ensure that the imports are safe . the f.d.a . says it cannot guarantee the safety of imported drugs because counterfeiters might slip bogus products into the supply lines or shippers might fail to handle and store medicines properly . indeed , a sting_operation by the drug agency caught springfield 's canadian supplier shipping insulin at room temperature instead of keeping it chilled . but the mayor has been buying canadian insulin for his son 's diabetes and intends to continue . it is not generally recognized that we already import a huge volume of drugs from abroad . while the drug industry has been railing against the dangers of foreign imports , it has increasingly transferred its own production to foreign factories to save on labor costs . the drugs are made in plants inspected by the f.d.a. , with processes approved by the f.d.a . if the government can do this for the drug companies , surely some combination of federal and state regulatory agencies can devise a system to make drug imports safe . the agencies might , for example , allow only a limited number of foreign pharmacies or wholesalers to supply the drugs , inspect and monitor those suppliers closely , and require strict paper controls to follow the progress of all shipments . the bigger question is whether allowing drug imports would really work as intended . some drug companies have already announced that they will cut back on their shipments to canada if the canadians send too many drugs back here . in that event , canadians would be the losers , no longer able to get the drugs that were shipped instead to americans . nobody really knows what will happen if congress passes legislation to encourage drug imports . our own guess is that it could provide a useful nudge to the industry to revise its global pricing policies to spread the burden more fairly .",has a topic of health
"russia 's diphtheria epidemic is worsening , with more than 4 , 000 cases already reported this year , the same number as for all of 1992 , and more than 100 deaths . this fallout from the collapse of the soviet_union and its increasingly creaky system of health_care prompted russia last week to announce a mass immunization program over the next two years . by contrast , in the mid 1970 's , there were fewer than 200 cases a year of diphtheria in the entire soviet_union . in the united_states last year , there were four cases . diphtheria is transmitted , like the flu , by airborne bacteria and causes inflammation of the heart and nervous system . untreated , it can cause rapid death . those most at risk are young children who have not been immunized and adults who have let their inoculations lapse . some 70 percent of those who have died in the current epidemic are adults , according to the russian state committee for epidemiological control . russians are traditionally wary of vaccinations , and stories are common of bad or dirty_needles and contaminated vaccines , making many hesitant about being immunized . according to the world_health_organization , only 47 percent of russian children less than a year old were immunized for diphtheria in 1991 . russia 's deputy chief epidemiologist , anatoly a . monisov , said last week that of all the varying reports of typhoid , cholera and tuberculosis surfacing in russia lately , "" diphtheria is the most alarming . "" he said that only two million of moscow 's 7.5 million adults had been vaccinated and only 15 percent of adults throughout russia . while westerners are considered safe due to childhood immunizations and tetanus diphtheria booster shots every 10 years , thomson holidays , one of britain 's largest travel companies , has suspended its tours to moscow and st . petersburg from the end of august . thomson said its clients found it difficult to get inoculations quickly . but concern among europeans has risen sharply with the death on wednesday of a 62 year old belgian woman , anne petit , who is believed to have contracted diphtheria here . the belgian embassy announced the death on friday . the result has been a rush on the two main private health clinics that serve foreigners here . the american medical center says that companies have been calling to seek mass inoculations of their staffs and the center expects to vaccinate 5 , 000 people a day over the weekend , subject to supplies . the european medical center says it is also being swamped with calls . there have been reports of small increases in other infectious_diseases normally associated with poorer , less developed countries . the russian state committee for epidemiological control says there have been 22 cases of cholera registered in russia in the first six months of the year , with one death . in 1992 , there were five cases reported in 1991 , two cases . this year , there have been reports of cholera along the volga_river in nizhny novgorod , krasnodar and the caucasus . but all cases are believed to have been brought by travelers returning from infected areas of india , the middle_east and asia . dr . monisov , the committee 's deputy chief epidemiologist , said that two of five cases in moscow a vagrant and a fisherman appear to have caught the disease in russia , but not in moscow . other rare diseases have been emerging in russia as the continuing economic crisis affects personal hygiene as well as government spending on health_care . dr . monisov said that cases of tuberculosis were up 26 percent this year and that typhoid fever , which hit the southern city of vogodonsk this month , has been confirmed in 139 people . there has also been an outbreak of anthrax in altai , in central russia . dr . monisov said the mass immunization program aimed to insure that 90 percent of russia 's children and 75 percent of adults were vaccinated by 1995 . he said russia advised visitors to make sure they were inoculated against diphtheria . "" it 's not a great imposition , "" he said .",has a topic of health
"the 16th international aids conference opens in toronto on sunday and will vastly differ from the first meeting , in atlanta in 1985 , four years after aids was discovered . what began as a relatively small forum for 2 , 200 scientists to share their embryonic knowledge has evolved into a huge arena for many groups , including patients infected with h.i.v. , their advocates , social workers , economists , lawyers and policy_makers to share the now huge body of knowledge . i have attended all but two of the conferences since 1985 , and i have watched the meetings change , reflecting one of history 's worst pandemics . in some cases , they have helped shape the response to the epidemic , influencing attitudes , politics , policy and treatment . they have also have played a major role in lowering the price of antiretroviral_drugs in poor countries . in the last six years , the conference has been held in south_africa and thailand . this was done in part to give scientists in modern laboratories and hospitals their first view of the challenges in delivering antiretroviral therapy in developing_countries , where a vast majority of the world 's h.i.v . infected people live . these two conferences also helped doctors in developing_countries get up to speed on aids and encouraged scientists to conduct research on aids problems peculiar to their geographic area . many aids experts point to the last decade as the beginning of efforts to narrow the gap between rich and poor countries in providing fairer distribution of treatment and care for h.i.v . infected people . but the efforts started earlier . in 1988 at the stockholm conference , i heard discussions about ways that people in poor countries might be given access to the same care and drugs as patients in rich ones . the mainstay of therapy then was azt , which cost about 8 , 000 a year . additional drugs were needed to treat the many and often fatal opportunistic infections that developed when the number of a patient 's cd 4 immune cells fell too low . besides the scientists , patients and advocates , heads of state and royalty have also attended some of the conferences . king carl xvi gustaf of sweden attended the conference in stockholm . former presidents , including bill clinton and nelson_mandela of south_africa , have attended . both have said they wished they had done more to prevent aids when they were in office . the toronto conference will be the third held in canada . prime_minister brian_mulroney opened the 1989 meeting in montreal , but his successor , jean_chr_tien , did not appear at the vancouver meeting in 1996 . the current prime_minister , stephen_harper , has not accepted an invitation to appear in toronto , disappointing the organizers . but as dr . helene d . gayle , the president of the international aids society , an independent professional group that is chief organizer of the meeting , said , ''aids conferences can sometimes be hard on politicians . '' in barcelona in 2002 , demonstrators drowned out a talk by tommy g . thompson , the secretary of health_and_human_services in president_bush 's first term . in san_francisco in 1990 , protesters prevented dr . louis sullivan , the secretary of health_and_human_services under the first president_bush , from delivering a closing speech . the conferences have also had their more startling moments . in a speech at the durban conference in 2000 , president thabo mbeki of south_africa refused to acknowledge h.i.v . as the cause of aids . minutes later , he walked out of a televised forum as nkosi johnson , 11 , spoke of being born with h.i.v . he wished , he said , that the government would ' 'start giving azt to pregnant h.i.v . mothers to help stop the virus being passed on to their babies . '' in a k.g.b . disinformation campaign in 1986 , a soviet official told the conference in paris that h.i.v . had been genetically_engineered and that it had escaped from a government laboratory in the united_states . in 1996 in vancouver , the audience cheered after a grandmother told the conference ''how did i get infected ? the answer is very simple it just does n't matter . '' the sessions at the first conference , in 1985 , filled only a few rooms in a convention_center in atlanta . there was a growing understanding that the aids virus , which had yet to be named h.i.v. , had been spreading silently for at least a decade before the disease was first detected in 1981 . at the time , there were no effective antiretroviral_drugs . some doctors were shunning aids patients . hospital workers left meal trays at patients' doors . many people feared that they might become infected from casual contact despite epidemiologic evidence to the contrary . the cases in the united_states , then fewer than 10 , 000 , were mostly among gay men , intravenous_drug_users and hemophiliacs . but the totals were doubling every six months . in one presentation , dr . peter piot , a researcher who is now the executive director of the united_nations aids program , reported a cluster of heterosexual cases in africa . but few knew how wildly the disease was spreading there . a new h.i.v . test was about to be approved to protect the blood supply , but there was intense debate over its use in testing people . activists proclaimed ''no test is best'' because of the stigma linked to the disease and the lack of effective therapy . now the federal_government wants all americans to be tested . dr . kevin m . de cock , who now directs the world_health_organization 's h.i.v . aids program , recalled the audience 's silence at that first conference as pathologists described brain_damage from the virus . ''the realization was sinking in that you were going to see dementia and terrible neurological disease , '' dr . de cock said , and ''everything we were learning about aids in those days was , this is worse than we thought . '' two years later , on the eve of the 1987 conference in washington , president_ronald_reagan gave his first speech on aids . at that conference , demonstrators protesting the slow drug approval process claimed that they were being denied potentially lifesaving treatments as scientists conducted lengthy clinical_trials . dr . jonathan mann , then the leader of world_health_organization 's aids program , said the global epidemic had entered a stage in which prejudice about race , religion , social class and nationality was spreading as fast as the virus . at the conference 's end , the mood was restrained , but there was real optimism that the widespread problems were not so awesome as to be beyond control . by 1988 , when the meeting was held in stockholm , there were more discouraging findings for h.i.v . patients a vast proportion would develop full spectrum aids within a decade of being infected , countering earlier suppositions that a relatively small percent would be struck down by its debilitating complications . the montreal conference in 1989 made me sad and angry when president kenneth d . kaunda of zambia delivered an apology for his indifference to the epidemic , saying he had lost a son to aids in 1986 . a year earlier , denying my request to interview mr . kaunda about aids in the zambian capital , lusaka , his press_secretary scolded me for going to africa to report on an american disease . the president had more important things to do , the aide said . at the meeting , mr . kaunda pleaded with governments to support scientists to find a cure for aids , saying failure would turn the epidemic into ''a soft nuclear_bomb on human life . '' but in the years of mr . kaunda 's silence , hundreds of thousands of africans had become infected . organizers moved the 1992 conference to amsterdam from boston to protest the new united_states' policy of denying visas to h.i.v . infected people . since 1990 , no conference has been held in the united_states . in amsterdam , researchers presented a study showing that young american doctors were more reluctant to care for aids patients than comparable groups of doctors in canada and france . the berlin conference in 1993 was my dreariest . the epidemic was worsening , and the outlook for major scientific advances seemed bleak . a european study , presented at the meeting , showed that azt alone did little good over the long term . for years , scientists said they had learned more about the aids virus than about any other microbe . but skeptics were numerous because therapeutic advances were few . then , in 1996 , reports at the vancouver conference showed that a combination of new antiretroviral_drugs , called protease inhibitors , and older ones could successfully treat aids , extending the lives of many people . some patients got up from their deathbeds to live more normal lives in what seemed like lazarus . if coca_cola could deliver its product in africa , an aids expert said in vancouver , then the world could deliver aids drugs to poor countries . the drug cocktails , which cost about 20 , 000 a year , reduced the amount of h.i.v . detectable in the blood and increased the number of t cells , a crucial component of the immune system . the startling turnarounds in patients confirmed , in their own way , the causal role of h.i.v . in aids and refuted claims to the contrary . exuberant leaders talked about curing aids by ridding the body of h.i.v . later , experiments showed that a cure remained beyond reach because the virus found hiding places in the body to escape the drugs . that year , as the treatments began to emerge , the united_nations created its aids program . in the years since , its director , dr . piot , has stressed that the political will of top world leaders is necessary to turn the epidemic around . at the geneva conference in 1998 , the first country by country estimates of h.i.v . infections and aids deaths underscored the devastating impact of the epidemic in the developing world . and enthusiasm about promising reports of effective treatments was dampened by the recognition of unexpected complications . in the case of the drug cocktails , it was lipodystrophy , a side effect of protease inhibitors that causes fat to disappear from some areas of the body and redistribute in other areas , changing the body 's shape in peculiar ways . the durban meeting , in 2000 , was the first international aids conference held in a country with such widespread poverty . speakers directly attributed the magnitude of the epidemic to the failure to advocate protective measure and to provide effective treatments to vast populations in africa and elsewhere . a session was scheduled to announce what organizers thought would be favorable research findings that a spermicide , nonoxynol 9 , could be an effective microbicide against h.i.v . a microbicide , any substance that kills germs , can be formulated as a cream , gel , film or suppository . but the plenary session became a surprising disappointment the product had failed . in barcelona in 2002 , dr . bernhard schwartlander , a w.h.o . epidemiologist , provided the outline of what has become the agency 's efforts to treat millions of people . though the plan has failed to meet its target , health officials say it has fundamentally changed attitudes about what can be done in poor countries . the last conference , in 2004 , was held in bangkok to focus attention on aids in asia . yet the thai government had to cancel a summit meeting of 10 invited heads of state at the conference because only president yoweri museveni of uganda accepted . this year in toronto , to accommodate the disparate interests of the 24 , 000 participants , the sessions will cover a wide range of topics . over six days , the presenters are to deliver 4 , 500 reports and hundreds more in satellite meetings before and after the main event . as in previous years , noisy protests are likely to punctuate the conference , adding to a circuslike atmosphere and making it seem more like a convention and social gathering than a scientific meeting . the aids conferences are not intended to set agendas or to pass resolutions like conferences on the environment , for example or even to reach a consensus on how to fight the disease . a few major advances have been announced at the international meetings over the years , but most gains have been incremental , as is true for meetings in other fields . for these and other reasons , a number of leading scientists have stopped attending , choosing to present their findings elsewhere . the united_states is paying for about 175 people government employees and representatives of nongovernmental agencies to attend . some scientists continue to go wherever the conferences are held to attend refresher courses , learn of new findings and listen to reports from disciplines to which they are rarely exposed . these scientists say they believe the activism and diversity of the participants are critical to keeping aids in the news . still , some supporters complain that the quality of the scientific presentations has declined at recent conferences . recognizing that criticism , dr . gayle , the president of the international society , said that the organizers had focused on strengthening the meeting 's scientific component . for journalists and participants , the conferences are challenging . a participant can listen only to a small fraction of the presentations , and at best has time to digest the material . all too often , presentations that a participant wants to hear are scheduled a few minutes apart in different areas of vast convention halls . also , the race between meeting rooms is often interrupted by chance encounters with other participants who want to stop and talk . the conferences have come to attract a wide array of institutional sponsors and commercial exhibitors , who together are paying about half the 20 million cost of the toronto conference , about the amount for similar meetings . the other half of the cost comes from registration fees that range from 150 to 995 , depending on the participant 's country . ( those from poor countries pay the least , and some receive scholarships . ) scientists have come far in the 25 year history of aids . some infected patients now need to take only one pill a day . only a few years ago , many regimens involved a dozen or so pills , taken several times a day . but scientists and political leaders still have much further to go . in the decade since the drug cocktails were introduced , 20 million people have become infected , underscoring that the need to build a system to deliver effective health_care is as urgent and essential a need as lowering the cost of antiretroviral_drugs . that is why ''time to deliver'' is the theme for the toronto conference . so many lives and so much money is now at stake , organizers say , that everyone involved in fighting the aids pandemic must be held accountable . medicine then and now columns in this series look back at important developments in medicine . the first article looked at legionnaires' disease other topics will include the nobel_prizes , medical rounds and changes in care . the columns are online nytimes . com health the doctor's world correction august 9 , 2006 , wednesday a picture in science times yesterday with the doctor 's world column , about the history of the international aids conference , was published in error . the 1994 international aids conference was in yokohama , japan . the picture was of demonstrators at another aids conference , held in paris the same year .",has a topic of health
"it was only after the fighting stopped that pvt . christopher l . labier began to feel the symptoms , though of what he did not know at the time . he became withdrawn . he lost his energy and his appetite . worst of all were the images that flashed through his mind . they were not nightmares , since to have nightmares you have to go to sleep . and he could not . ''i 'd be lying there for hours every night , '' he said . ''i would see scenes . i would hear voices . i kept hearing one of the squad leaders tell my team leader to help him id the bodies of his guys . '' their bodies had been torn apart by a bomb packed inside a taxi . the explosion killed four soldiers from the first brigade of the army 's third infantry division at a checkpoint north of najaf on march 29 . had private labier 's platoon not been relieved a few minutes before , it might have been his body out there , rent beyond recognition . for anyone involved in it , war is an indelible experience . for private labier , it became a debilitating one . the psychological strain he continues to endure has had many names over the years . in world_war i , it was shell shock . in world_war_ii , it was combat fatigue , or , officially , psychoneurosis . but soldiers being soldiers , it was truncated to ''psycho . '' today , it is called combat stress reaction , and in iraq hundreds of soldiers like private labier have suffered at least some of its symptoms , medical officials here said . they have also undergone treatment in what may be the american military 's most aggressive effort ever to recognize and address combat stress while its soldiers are still in the field , before its effects deepen , especially when the war 's veterans begin to return home . each of the major combat units in iraq included a team of mental_health workers . in private labier 's case , the first brigade has a soft_spoken social worker , capt . ronald j . whalen , who met with him and referred him to the 113th medical company , an army_reserve unit from california now working out of a baghdad hospital that had once been the private clinic of saddam_hussein 's most senior aides . how many soldiers here will ultimately suffer from protracted psychological problems , including , in the worst cases , symptoms of post_traumatic_stress_disorder , remains to be seen . the prospect certainly worries private labier , 24 , a gunner with the first brigade 's second battalion , seventh armored_regiment . for now , though , he has returned to duty with his unit , which remains in baghdad as a reserve force . he credited the treatment he received for helping him cope , but he acknowledged the difficulties and the fears that he still faced , even as the mission has evolved from waging war to keeping peace . ''i 'm not going to lie to you , '' he said . ''every time you go out the gate , you get nervous , especially when people have been shooting at you for two months . '' col . robert s . knapp , a psychiatrist with the 113th medical company , said it was not unexpected that soldiers would begin to experience combat stress now , after the worst fighting ended . the searing reactions to combat , the fear , exhaustion , grief and guilt , are often suppressed in the heat of battle , he said , surfacing only when the pace of operations slows . ''they 're told to suck it up and drive on , '' he said . ''sooner or later , they have to work it out . '' colonel knapp 's reserve company arrived in baghdad in april . in the last six weeks , it has treated more than 100 soldiers , sometimes only 1 or 2 a day , once as many as 18 . even though heavy combat has ended , the continued attacks on american_soldiers , the difficulties of adjusting to a peacekeeping role and the heat and chaos of baghdad continue to exact a psychological toll . symptoms of combat stress or , in noncombat situations like today 's , ''operational stress , '' include anxiety and irritability , agitation and apathy and , in more severe cases , memory loss and psychotic episodes . treatment is often as simple as giving soldiers time to rest for a few hours or days , to get a shower and some sleep , to talk about the feelings they have in the presence of a counselor . only in rare cases twice , so far , in the case of 113th medical company are soldiers evacuated to undergo more serious psychological treatment . colonel knapp said he was reluctant to prescribe familiar stress and anxiety reducing medicines like prozac or zoloft unless soldiers were taking them before they arrived . ''you ca n't make an accurate diagnosis of stress in a high stress environment , '' he said . most often , treatment occurs within units , since the most effective treatment is to get soldiers back to duty as quickly as possible . captain whalen , the social worker with the first brigade , said he did not even consider it treatment at that level . much of his job , he explained , was to anticipate the potential for stress before its symptoms became acute enough to require more serious counseling . many soldiers have anxieties about patrols now . one gunner on an m2 bradley fighting vehcile was so troubled by what he saw through his gun sight that he became afraid to look through it . captain whalen sets up meetings with soldiers who have endured some sort of crisis . the sessions , which are called ''critical event debriefings , '' are like those given in the civilian world to police officers or firefighters after a shooting or death . on saturday , he met with nine soldiers from the third battalion , 124th_infantry regiment , a national_guard unit from florida . the session itself was confidential , but three of the soldiers agreed to talk about it afterward . on june 5 , their squad was sent to meet with the owner of the al baraka bank in eastern baghdad . two soldiers specialist willie t . harris and specialist mark ballou remained outside , sitting on the bank 's stoop . a man walked up , drew a handgun from a black plastic bag and shot them both . the bullet that hit specialist ballou , the squad 's medic , left him gravely wounded . another bullet hit specialist harris in his protective vest . the vest stopped the bullet , but the force of the impact still gouged a hole in his flesh just below his clavicle . he carries the slug in his wallet now . specialist harris righted himself , dropped to one knee , raised his rifle and shot the man four times as he tried to run away . the man collapsed on the median of a bustling street , fatally wounded . it troubles him . ''i 'll probably never be able to get rid of that image , '' specialist harris , 30 , a corrections officer in florida when he is not on active_duty . ''everything stopped . me , ballou and that guy were the only ones there . it was like slow_motion . '' captain whalen said it was a common response to a traumatic event the images recurring over and over . specialist robert a . pybus , who treated specialist ballou 's wound on the scene , said it was ''like a newsclip on cnn . '' ''it just plays back in your head , uncontrollably , especially when you have down time , '' he said . their squad has resumed patrols , though they said they did so apprehensively . gunmen have shot at them three more times since then , though no one has been hurt in those instances . none of them have so far displayed explicit symptoms of combat stress , but they welcomed the chance to discuss it with captain whalen , who guided them through a factual recounting of what happened , which often helps create a foundation for coping with the stress . ''we had n't sat down as a squad and just talked about it , '' said the squad leader , sgt . donald k . tibbets . private labier did not talk much about his feelings either , suffering instead from what he described as a private torment . his battalion was involved in some of the fiercest fighting of the war , as the third infantry division swept through southern iraq and captured the airport and the center of the city in early april . the most vivid images he recalls include the rocket_propelled_grenade that landed but did not explode near his company in a village on the road into baghdad 's airport the pinging of bullets hitting his bradley , a sound he likened to that of a ball peen hammer striking metal the three iraqis he knows he killed on the road west of the airport the carnage of the taxi bombing . talking on the eighth floor balcony of iraq 's interior_ministry , where his battalion now lives , private labier said he was having difficulty making the transition from war to peace , from fighting to patrolling baghdad 's streets . he is bitter that much of the third infantry division has been ordered to stay on during the hot summer months , after having already fought for so long . he distrusts iraqis . he fears the ever present orange and white taxis , since it was a similar one that exploded at the checkpoint north of najaf . he said he felt guilt and a simmering rage when he realizes how close he came to being killed . ''it could have been you , '' he said . ''it could have been my kids at home without a dad . '' he began snapping at several of his fellow soldiers . ''it got to the point i stayed by myself , '' he said . ''it got to the point i did n't do anything . you might say i was depressed . '' he is a religious man , raised as a roman_catholic and now a pentecostal . his battalion 's chaplain recommended that he meet captain whalen , and he ended up at the 113th medical company . he was given sleeping_pills , but quit taking them ''because i do n't want to run from it . '' ''they were my friends , '' he said of the four soldiers killed in the taxi bombing . ''that 's not what they 'd want me to do . '' he sat through six counseling sessions , learning ways to manage what he felt . at the hospital , he washed his clothes and took a shower . small things , he said , provided comfort . ''you know , just putting clean clothes on my clean body , '' he said . there are things he never appreciated enough , things that no one who has not been in war can appreciate enough a glass of water with ice , air_conditioning , clean clothes . he had his last appointment on friday . he learned that what he was feeling was what experts like captain whalen call a normal response to an abnormal condition . ''it helped knowing i was n't the only one feeling that way , '' private labier said . ''it helped to know there was a place to go . '' he grew up in montgomery , ala . he is married , with two sons , kyle , 7 , and kaleb , 3 . he relishes the prospect of seeing his wife , danya , again . ''having your family there , being able to hold your wife , crying if you 've got to cry , that 'll help out , '' he said . he has few illusions , though , about what lies ahead ''it 's just going to take time . '' after the war combat stress",has a topic of health
"lead a british investment group that holds a 9.6 percent stake in somerset bankshares inc . said it planned a proxy_fight for control of the savings bank_holding_company , based in somerville , mass . in a securities_and_exchange_commission filing , the british group said it would nominate a slate of five candidates for election to the company 's seven member board . a british investment group that holds a 9.6 percent stake in somerset bankshares inc . said it planned a proxy_fight for control of the savings bank_holding_company , based in somerville , mass . in a securities_and_exchange_commission filing , the british group said it would nominate a slate of five candidates for election to the company 's seven member board . somerset is the parent of somerset savings , a savings bank with 620 million in assets and four branches . john p . driscoll , a lawyer for somerset , said the company had not seen the filing and would have no immediate comment . the british group is led by britannia arrow holdings p.l.c. , a publicly traded london based holding_company . it bought the stake for an average price of 10 . 90 a share . the stock closed today at 13 . 25 , up 62 . 5 cents , in over the counter trading . company news",has a topic of business
"in a twist befitting a mystery novel , documents that prosecutors said showed bank of america had advance knowledge of the impending collapse of parmalat disappeared on thursday , only to reappear just as mysteriously on friday . the documents , which included testimony from a bank of america employee and internal e mail messages sent by other bank employees , had been misplaced , according to the italian news_agency ansa . the documents were part of the numerous boxes of evidence that milan prosecutors sent to a judge to request indictments of 29 people and 3 institutions , including bank of america , accused of a role in the fall of parmalat . the lawyers for the parmalat defendants can consult the files that were presented to the judge . the milan courthouse may now get a guard for the room where the documents are kept , according to ansa . last week , the judge denied the request for a fast track trial , which skips the lengthy preliminary phase , and two days later the prosecutors refiled their request for indictments under the normal procedure . the judge has yet to set a date for the preliminary hearings . nobody has yet been formally charged with a crime in the parmalat case .",has a topic of business
"lead unemployment in britain fell to a seasonally_adjusted 7 percent of the work force in january from 7.2 percent in december , bringing the number of jobless to its lowest level in eight years , the government said today . unemployment in britain fell to a seasonally_adjusted 7 percent of the work force in january from 7.2 percent in december , bringing the number of jobless to its lowest level in eight years , the government said today .",has a topic of business
"two high ranking fiat_s.p.a . executives were arrested today in a growing year old scandal involving hundreds of italian politicians and officeholders accused of trading public works contracts for bribes used to finance their political_parties . the arrests of the two on suspicion of corruption as officers of a fiat construction subsidiary brought the scandal closer to the auto giant that symbolizes italy 's business sector . news of the arrests buffeted fiat shares and rippled through the milan stock_exchange , where companies owned by the agnelli family , which controls fiat , account for 12 percent of the market 's capitalization . stock 's rise halted since feb . 11 , fiat common shares had surged 19 percent , from 4 , 520 lire to 5 , 385 lire , apparently on rumors that a french or japanese auto_maker or a german bank was about to buy a stake . the arrests brought the surge to a halt , and fiat shares fell five tenths of 1 percent , to 5 , 350 lire , or about 3 . 41 a share , after a day of seesawing on the market . the turbulence also presented new headaches for the beleaguered administration of prime_minister giuliano_amato , who is desperately seeking to restore confidence in the market after a cabinet reshuffle over the weekend caused by the resignation of three ministers in connection with the corruption scandal . the arrest in turin of fiat 's finance director , francesco paolo mattioli , and the head of the group 's insurance arm , antonio mosconi , shocked many financial analysts . mr . mattioli is considered the third most powerful figure in the conglomerate 's hierarchy and is close to cesare romiti , the chief executive and trusted aide of fiat 's president , gianni_agnelli . in a statement from fiat 's turin headquarters shortly after the arrests , the company registered "" deep astonishment "" at the arrests and expressed "" complete solidarity and the absolute conviction that the two managers , who have always carried out their duties with the utmost uprightness and diligence , will readily demonstrate their noninvolvement in any circumstances attributed to them . "" both men were arrested in connection with suspected wrongdoing in cogefar impresit , a fiat construction subsidiary headed by mr . mattioli , who also holds other positions in fiat 's sprawling domain . mr . mosconi is a former vice chairman of the company . accusations arose last year accusations of fiat 's involvement in the scandal first appeared last year , when magistrates arrested enzo papi , a director of cogefar impresit , in connection with bribes reportedly paid to the dominant christian democrat party in return for a contract for a milan subway . the contract was also said to have provided for other fiat subsidiaries to act as suppliers of commercial vehicles , rail tracks and subway cars . mr . papi had been implicated by maurizio prada , a former christian democrat party boss in milan , who told magistrates earlier this month that bribes worth more than 1 million were paid to his party during negotiations on the contract . moreover , according to italian news reports , mr . prada also implicated mr . mattioli and mr . mosconi , who were taken to milan today and interrogated by the milan magistrates , whose investigation is centered on charges of illegal financing of political_parties and complicity in corruption . even though fiat 's dealings first came under investigation last year , the company had successfully implied that its top managers had no direct knowledge of corrupt practices , suggesting that any wrongdoing had taken place before the merger . arrest strikes fiat 's core the arrest of mr . mattioli , however , has struck at the very heart of fiat 's corporate structure . the 52 year old lawyer , the scion of a prominent italian banking family , had worked for fiat since 1975 . when the company 's management was reorganized last year , he took the title of chief_financial_officer , responsible for coordinating the activities of divisions like publishing , retailing , international operations , insurance and civil_engineering . today 's arrest brought to five the number of fiat executives questioned about the milan subway contract since the investigation began last year , along with mr . papi , giancarlo cozza , chief of fiat 's railway subsidiary , and luigi caprotti , who heads the commercial vehicles division . an auto industry analyst , dagmar bottenbruch , at credit_suisse_first_boston in milan , said , "" the question on everyone 's mind is , who 's next ? """,has a topic of business
"lead the inhabitants of this little town at the foot of the alps started making guns some 500 years ago . it was a natural thing to do the steep valley walls were loaded with iron_ore , and the old venetian republic often went to war . the inhabitants of this little town at the foot of the alps started making guns some 500 years ago . it was a natural thing to do the steep valley walls were loaded with iron_ore , and the old venetian republic often went to war . weapons are still the major product here , because traditions die_hard in families like the berettas . having almost certainly armed the venetian sailors that defeated the turkish fleet at lepanto in 1571 , the berettas are now supplying the pentagon with handguns to replace the legendary colt . 45 . the berettas claim to be the world 's oldest industrial dynasty . indeed , a document in the venetian state archives shows that on october 3 , 1521 , the republic 's arsenal paid master bartolomeo beretta 296 ducats for 185 harquebus barrels ( a harquebus was an early version of a portable gun ) . the company 's senior management can be traced in a continuous line through 13 generations back to master bartolomeo . like some other family businesses in italy , beretta has mixed conservative business practices with innovation in design and manufacturing techniques . as a result , the company is neither very big nor immensely profitable . but it survives and occasionally prospers by concentrating on one kind of product and insuring that at least a few of its guns are the best that money can buy . ''certain lessons have been handed down over all these years , '' said ugo gussalli beretta , the clan 's current leader . ''we have developed an understanding of quality , and we have learned how to make progress sweetly , always on a steady course , not with big , quick steps . '' this kind of strategy can have its drawbacks . last year , beretta 's italian operations scored a net_profit of about 1 million , down about 20 percent from 1985 and less than 1 percent of total sales . mr . beretta ascribes the poor performance to several factors . the dollar 's drop has made the company 's best quality guns extremely expensive in america . the global market in hunting guns has been flooded by cheaper , less deluxe models . the italian market has dropped by 30 percent over the past few years as the government places increasingly severe restrictions on hunting in the face of depleted game . ''the bourse might be a bit impatient with us , '' mr . beretta said , ''but when shareholders are primarily relatives you have a certain stability because they are ready to make sacrifices . '' relatives own 64 percent of beretta 's stock the rest was sold 15 years ago to the fabrique nacional de liege , a belgian arms company , to raise capital and protect against takeover attempts . the company remains committed to making high quality rifles and shotguns for hunting . ''we will continue doing what we do best , '' said mr . beretta , ''and the market factors will turn themselves around they always have . '' the market for hunting guns had just about disappeared in america about 15 years ago , he points out , but game management policies as well as social and political changes reversed that trend . certain family traditions help the berettas avoid some of the pitfalls of family run operations . the business is not run democratically . ''there has always been a 'capo' whose word was final , '' mr . beretta said . and the rule of primogeniture has never been applied first born sons have been passed over several times in favor of more qualified younger siblings . ugo beretta 's 80 year old uncle , giuseppe , is president of the company , though he is virtually in retirement , and about 20 family members hold jobs at beretta . but family tradition has not prevented innovation at the factory that produces 250 , 000 guns a year from a sprawl of buildings on either side of a rocky stream here . beretta leads the industry in experimenting with the uses of aluminium alloys in gun parts , for example . the modern methods , though , are balanced by a long term view . ''signor ugo , '' as mr . beretta is known , never ignores the lessons of history . ''weapons companies have always been prime candidates for nationalization , '' he said . ''right now the government favors the private_sector , but who knows about 10 or 50 or 100 years from now ? '' he is cautious about military sales generally . the pentagon 's 1984 decision to buy 320 , 000 beretta 92sb f 9 millimeter pistols for use as a standard sidearm produced a pile of exceptional publicity for beretta ( which also supplies the texas_rangers . ) but over all , beretta is keeping the military side of the business to 20 to 30 percent of sales , as it has been for several years . mr . beretta , a dapper but strongly built man , says that is because the arms market is unpredictable . indeed , congress decided in 1986 that when the contract is completed in three years , the pentagon will have to test a range of sidearms as it did in 1984 before continuing to buy the beretta . beretta 's careful approach extends to its american operation , beretta u.s.a . to satisfy congressional rules that a certain percentage of goods covered by a pentagon contract must be made in america , beretta makes 9 millimeter pistols at a factory in accokeek , md . it is a relatively small scale operation . ''we had the choice of raising more capital to set up a bigger operation , but we decided to do only as much as we knew we could do well , '' said mr . beretta . that is an attitude the modern world , with its push for growth every quarter , has not always favored . but the berettas have the luxury of looking back , a long way back , and of knowing it is not explosive growth , but quiet staying power , that pays off . italy host for the economic summit a land of family businesses",has a topic of business
"the milan stock_exchange today suspended trading in the shares of corporations controlled by one of the world 's wealthiest men , the aga_khan , after creditor banks moved to seize the companies' assets . the suspension of trading in the fimpar holding_company and the ciga luxury hotel_chain came after more than a year of mounting financial difficulties for the aga_khan , whose farflung investments in italian tourism have suffered heavily from the recession . for the aga_khan , who is the leader of the shia imam ismaili muslims and has his headquarters at aiglemont near paris , the suspension of his companies' shares underscores a drastic reversal in his fortunes . a milan stockbroker , isidoro albertini , said the situation at fimpar , the aga_khan 's main holding_company in italy , reached a crucial stage after the company was unable to make payments on a 100 million loan from a group of banks led by imi bank a.g . of germany . the bank today formally requested the seizure of fimpar 's assets , which include a majority stake in ciga , market officials said . claudio miorelli , a spokesman for fimpar , described the action as a legal maneuver aimed at securing the bank pool 's interests and said negotiations would continue on seeking a debt settlement . ciga , whose flagship hotels include the grand in rome , has piled up debts of about 680 million as the number of business executives and tourists prepared to pay at least 300 a night for a room has plunged . ciga has been in negotiations with a private group called situr for a sale of part of its holdings . but the talks fell through earlier this year after situr said that it had found irregularities in ciga 's accounts ciga said its accounts were in order . in the meantime , an ambitious plan to develop a large tract of land in sardinia had to be suspended after permission was not granted , and the lira value of ciga 's foreign currency borrowing increased steeply after the devaluation of the lira in september .",has a topic of business
"lead with one collective eye fixed resolutely west and the other glancing hopefully toward the east , italian business and government leaders are working hard these days to keep their focus . if they can , they are convinced they will prosper . with one collective eye fixed resolutely west and the other glancing hopefully toward the east , italian business and government leaders are working hard these days to keep their focus . if they can , they are convinced they will prosper . the westward look is toward the european_community , whose six month rotating_presidency italy took over last week . now , the italians say , they have a chance to exercise genuine influence on important events scheduled over the next half year , including two conferences in december that will be held in rome to nudge europe further toward political , economic_and_monetary_union . italian officials have long expressed irritation that despite the impressive economic_growth of their country over the last decade and its continued vibrancy , they are still widely viewed abroad as diplomatic lightweights . the european_community presidency is seen here as a mantle of respect , and italy 's leaders left this weekend for the houston summit conference of industrialized_countries with a renewed sense of self_esteem . in fact , the community presidency is so highly_regarded in rome that some political commentators say it may extend the life of the government , led by prime_minister giulio_andreotti . italian governments have crumbled on an average of every 10 months or so in the postwar era . two weeks short of his first anniversary in office , mr . andreotti is , statistically at least , living on borrowed time . like most of its predecessors , his five party coalition has been racked by endless quarrels and threats , to the point that he grumbled last month that he would have already quit had it not been for the approaching community presidency . a government crisis now would be seen as a blow to italian credibility by fellow europeans . politicians , therefore , have been asked by president francesco cossiga to keep matters tidy at least until the end of the year . strong business support last week , in listing italy 's priorities for the next six months , mr . andreotti prominently mentioned strengthening political and economic ties with eastern_europe . on that score , he has strong support among italian business executives . of course , other western_european countries are doing exactly the same , but italians hope that their presence in eastern_europe , in some cases going back decades , will give them a competitive_advantage . ''italy is the only e.c . country other than west_germany that has a border on the east , '' foreign_minister gianni de michelis said in a recent interview . for now , some officials add , italy may even have an edge over west_germany , even if it may not last long . ''italians have an opportunity to move in while the germans are concerned with taking care of their own house , '' said stefano micossi , head of research for confindustria , the country 's leading business group . 'pentagonal' association mr . de michelis has pressed hard for italy to look eastward , putting considerable energy into a so called ''pentagonal'' association of italy , hungary , austria , yugoslavia and czechoslovakia all lands that once belonged , at least in part , to the old austro hungarian empire . his idea , the foreign_minister says , is to improve communications and transportation links in the region . but he also regards the grouping as a counter balance to german dominance in northeastern europe . while italian executives express skepticism about the immediate commercial benefits of the de michelis initiative , they are also pleased to have this political encouragement as they turn eastward . they have responded with a flurry of new contracts and joint_venture agreements , from textile plants in czechoslovkia to auto_parts supplies in east_germany and tanning machinery in romania . business with the soviet_union , which accounts for about 60 percent of italian trade with the warsaw_pact countries , has been especially brisk , and it was given an extra boost after president mikhail s . gorbachev visited rome and milan . fiat_s.p.a. , which has been doing business in the east for decades , signed a joint_venture agreement , valued at 1 . 5 billion , to build 300 , 000 cars a year in yelabuga , southeast of moscow . and olivetti s.p.a. , the office machinery giant , recently announced plans to produce computer software in hungary and to market computer products in yugoslavia . state owned company 's moves another longtime presence in the east is italy 's enormous state owned holding_company , istituto per la ricostruzione industriale , which has its hands in everything from telecommunications systems in albania to air_traffic_control systems in bulgaria . according to statistics compiled by the national institute for foreign trade , italy 's overall trade with the warsaw_pact countries and neighboring yugoslavia grew in 1989 by 23 percent from the previous year , for a total value of just over 17 billion . in the first three months of 1990 , it grew by another 9 percent compared with the same period last year . although some agreements involve titans like fiat , italian business and government leaders are convinced that its strongest competitors in the new markets of eastern_europe will be what they are at home small and medium_sized companies that form the backbone of this country 's economy . the argument goes that these enterprises would be good matches for similar concerns in the east , especially in areas of italian strength like processed foods and fashion . ''we have always surprised ourselves , '' a senior government official said . ''this country has proved very adaptable and capable of reconstructing itself very quickly . it will not be completely painless , but the end result will be good . we will do well in the competition . '' money for investments to help promote joint_ventures in eastern_europe , mr . andreotti 's cabinet has approved draft legislation to create a financing compay , called simest . operating like a merchant_bank , with an initial capital of 80 million , simest would provide services to small and medium_sized companies that are planning to invest in the east but lack fiat 's or olivetti 's wherewithal . for government planners , one goal is to reduce the persistent trade deficits that italy runs with eastern_european countries , particularly suppliers of oil , gas and other natural_resources like the soviet_union , romania and hungary . it will not be an easy task , they say . most of those countries are seriously in debt and some , including the soviet_union , have grown slower in paying their italian partners . basic inefficiencies , unfamiliarity with western business methods and weak legal systems are other problems , as are italy 's difficulties in providing certain important services because of a creaking banking system and a rail and air network that lags well behind west_germany and france . unavoidable challenge ''it is not a gold_rush , '' italy 's trade minister , renato ruggiero , said as he urged caution in dealing with an eastern_europe market that remains studded with large question marks . giovanni_agnelli , president of fiat , apparently agrees but says the challenge is unavoidable . ''one needs to be aware one needs to be prudent one needs to remember that there is a risk whose dimensions we still do not know , '' he said in a recent interview with the italian business daily , il sole 24 ore . ''but i believe that we will know them soon . '' international report",has a topic of business
"lead the car maker fiat_s.p.a . and another italian concern are close to forming a joint_venture that could make italy a competitive international force in telecommunications . the venture would be between telettra , a subsidiary of fiat , and the state owned telecommunications group italtel . to be called telit s.p.a. , it would quickly seek an alliance with larger companies , milan analysts said . the car maker fiat_s.p.a . and another italian concern are close to forming a joint_venture that could make italy a competitive international force in telecommunications . the venture would be between telettra , a subsidiary of fiat , and the state owned telecommunications group italtel . to be called telit s.p.a. , it would quickly seek an alliance with larger companies , milan analysts said . they said potential allies include britain 's plessey company ltd . and the general_electric_company p.l.c. , sweden 's l . m . ericsson and west_germany 's siemens a.g . the state holding_company that controls italtel approved the telit project last week , and it now needs only formal approval from the holding_company 's parent and the government . company news",has a topic of business
"the canadian property company brascan raised its bid for the canary_wharf office development in london to 1 . 6 billion ( 3 . 03 billion ) , matching an earlier offer made by a consortium led by morgan_stanley . the two have been battling for eight months for control of the company . brascan has the backing of the company 's founder and a major shareholder , paul_reichmann . heather_timmons ( nyt )",has a topic of business
"the story was as irresistible as catnip to the sensation greedy british news_media . a pair of foster parents , devastated when they were told they would not be allowed to adopt the two little girls they thought of as their own , vanished from sight , taking the children with them . after living in secret for four months in a remote corner of ireland , they wrote a letter to several tabloid newspapers , pleading to be allowed to keep the children . ''will someone help us to be legally their mummy and daddy forever , making the hopes and dreams of these two wonderful daughters come true ? '' said the couple , jeff and jennifer bramley , in a handwritten_note that was widely reprinted earlier this month . the bramleys finally emerged from hiding last week with the two girls , 5 year old jade and 5 year old hannah , after a carefully negotiated deal with the authorities that included the assurance that their adoption application would be formally considered in court . but what happened to them along the way illustrates the often sinister role the hugely popular tabloid press can play in britain . often seen as saviors , protectors , and tickets to fame and fortune by members of the public , the tabloids can viciously turn against the subjects of sensational stories . ''it 's cutthroat journalism , '' said sue quinn , who has been covering the story for the guardian newspaper , describing the ''posses'' of tabloid reporters , from papers like the express , the sun and daily_mail , that converged on the trailer in ireland where the bramleys had spent part of their time in hiding . ''the newspapers reach a phenomenal number of people , and it 's a pretty good forum to try to win public sympathy . but it 's tough to get it right . '' when they fled from their house in ramsey , england , in september , taking 8 , 000 in savings but leaving their car , the bramleys got plenty of media coverage . as time passed and the pressure for them to return built up , the couple was running out of money and growing desperate . it was then that max clifford , britain 's highest profile public_relations executive and a man who has often been associated with stories that skirt the line of sleazy exploitation , got into the picture . mr . clifford was contacted , as he often is , by someone calling himself ''a close friend'' in this case , of the bramleys who asked him what the couple should do . ''i said that the obvious thing is to get the public to be sympathetic , to get the media supporting you , '' he recalled . he also offered what turned out to be a crucial bit of advice . ''i said , 'you must n't sell your story yet , because you 'll alienate people , ' '' mr . clifford said . ''talk to the media , yes , but when you 're ready and in your own time . '' meanwhile , the newspapers , checkbooks in hand , were desperate to secure exclusive access to the bramleys , a deal that mr . clifford estimates would have earned the couple about 160 , 000 . several tabloids used their news pages to plead directly with the bramleys . such a deal can sound very tempting . but it can be a devil 's bargain . once they become the exclusive property of one tabloid , people in the news often find that the other tabloids turn against them , printing negative ' 'spoilers'' that are designed to blur the impact of their rival 's scoop . that is what happened in the case of louise woodward , the british au pair convicted last year of shaking a boston baby to death . her parents' financial deal with the daily_mail so enraged the mail 's rivals that they set out , successfully , to turn the tide of public opinion against her . and that is what happened to deborah parry and lucille mclauchlan , two british nurses convicted of murdering a colleague in saudi_arabia , who were later sent home . each did a deal with a tabloid , leaving themselves open to the criticism that they were exploiting a tragedy for profit . ''obviously , it 's total hypocrisy when this happens , '' mr . clifford said , ''because i have the letters in front of me from all the editors begging me for the story . '' the bramleys were lucky their heart rending story , the public 's natural suspicion of the adoption authorities , and their decision not to single out any paper for special access meant that they were treated with a fair amount of respect , at least initially . there were signs of a small wave gathering against them , however , with reports circulating in the papers about the authorities' criticism of their parenting skills , including the charge that they urged the girls to call them ' 'mummy'' and ' 'daddy'' too early in the foster parent relationship . but before the backlash got too strong , the judge in the adoption case slapped an injunction on the media , barring them from reporting on the girls' or the parents' background . for now , then , the bramleys are safe from the fickle whims of the news_media . ''the most productive thing for them to do would be to wait until they 've got custody of the kids , '' mr . clifford said . ''then they can do the book and tell the whole story of being on the run , and make a fortune . they can sell the serialization and make another fortune . and everybody 's happy . '' media",has a topic of business
"lead merrill_lynch europe ltd . confirmed speculation today that it had stopped market making in british_government bonds , which are known as gilts . but the company said that it would continue to serve customers on an agency basis and that efforts were being made to redeploy staff in the gilts division to other areas . merrill_lynch europe ltd . confirmed speculation today that it had stopped market making in british_government bonds , which are known as gilts . but the company said that it would continue to serve customers on an agency basis and that efforts were being made to redeploy staff in the gilts division to other areas . merrill_lynch said its decision followed a fall in profits and the contraction of the gilt market since the government started repurchasing gilts as part of its financing policy .",has a topic of business
"two british construction companies amec and alfred mcalpine and kvaerner a.s. , a big norwegian shipbuilder , drew up battle lines yesterday as a three way takeover fight loomed . amec steeled itself to fight off a possible bid by kvaerner while moving swiftly to lure its smaller rival , mcalpine , with a takeover offer that would give mcalpine shareholders two amec shares for each mcalpine share . kvaerner , which raised its stake in amec to 12 percent on thursday , said it was pondering its next move but would not make a bid at more than 100 pence ( 1 . 56 ) an amec share . amec 's shares closed yesterday at 95 pence , down 4 pence , on the london_stock_exchange . reuters international briefs",has a topic of business
"alitalia took a step tuesday toward resolving the labor disputes that have threatened to push it into bankruptcy , agreeing to new contracts with its 2 , 300 pilots . the pilots accepted a pay cut , 289 layoffs and 100 early retirements . alitalia 's management had been seeking to lay off 450 pilots . the airline , which is 62 percent owned by the italian government , has been close to bankruptcy for much of the year as it struggles to cut costs and compete with low_cost_airlines like ryanair and easyjet . last week , alitalia presented the unions with a plan that called for 5 , 000 job cuts in the next two years and the splitting of the airline 's flight and ground operations into two companies . the pilots represent only about a tenth of alitalia 's 21 , 000 employee work force , but the agreement is seen by both employees and the company as a crucial step toward avoiding bankruptcy and an eventual liquidation . on other occasions when alitalia has faced labor unrest , agreements with the pilots' union led to accords with flight_attendants , maintenance workers and check in counter clerks . in other recent negotiations between workers and airlines in financial distress , the pilots have set the tone for the other employees . the us airways bankruptcy filing this week came after its pilots' union refused to vote on the company 's proposal for wage and benefit cuts . delta_air_lines is threatening to seek bankruptcy_protection by the end of the month if pilots do not agree to 1 billion in wage and benefit cuts . alitalia 's stock surged 15 percent on tuesday based on optimism that the carrier and the pilots would reach an accord . the airline continued negotiating with flight_attendants and other workers in an attempt to reach a final settlement by wednesday . the pilots agreed to fly more often with shorter layovers . combined with the layoffs , that change will save alitalia 52 million_euros ( 63 . 7 million ) a year . a spokesman for the national association of commercial airline pilots , which represents 1 , 000 alitalia pilots , said the unions would hold talks with the government in the coming days in an attempt to receive some financial support from the state for those pilots who will lose their jobs . the government has said it will release a state guaranteed bank loan of 400 million_euros that gives alitalia the cash it needs to get through its financial_crisis , but only if the carrier and all of its unions reach an agreement by wednesday . while a spokesman for alitalia said that the company still planned to conclude negotiations by then , his counterpart at the national association of commercial pilots said the deadline could be pushed back a few days . giancarlo cimoli , alitalia 's chief executive , has said the company has enough money to pay salaries and meet other costs only through the end of this month .",has a topic of business
"frustrated by the steep decline in your portfolio ? if only you had bought a violin instead of stocks and bonds . but not just any violin . fine violins made in cremona , italy , during the so called golden age of violin making in the 17th and 18th_centuries , have turned out to be among the best investments of the last 30 years . some are now fetching millions of dollars . ''the old ones represent a tried and true value , '' said david bonsey , director for fine musical instruments at skinner inc . , an auctioneer based in boston . ''if you have an instrument by a known maker , it 's documented that it 's in a certain condition , it will be worth so much . it 's a safe investment , '' mr . bonsey said in an interview with reuters last week . mr . bonsey said that the same might not always hold true for newer instruments . ''you 'll certainly get your money 's worth if it 's a maker with a good reputation , '' he said , ''but it 's anybody 's guess whether they 'll become more valuable or not . '' italian violins have appreciated , on average , 10 percent to 12 percent a year over the last four decades , experts say . one of the highest prices paid at auction was in 1998 , when a violin by antonio stradivari sold for 1 . 58 million in britain . private sale prices , though , can be much higher . a handful of institutions and individuals have paid up to 6 million for a top stradivari that was worth a mere 60 , 000 30 years ago . personal business diary",has a topic of business
"italian prosecutors are widening their investigation of parmalat to include italian and foreign banks , which they suspect helped parmalat 's senior executives spread false information about the company to sell its bonds and lift its shares . on wednesday , authorities here and in parma , where the food and dairy company is based , met for the first time with foreign banks , questioning four executives from deutsche_bank and meeting with a lawyer for citigroup . a prosecutor in milan , eugenio fusco , said that the investigation had spread beyond the actions of parmalat 's executives to a web of outside bankers and advisers , who he said may have helped the company paint a misleading picture of itself to italian and foreign investors . mr . fusco did not name the banks or describe the kind of information that was disseminated . it is not clear whether any bank knew the full extent of parmalat 's actions , which became apparent last month after a statement that purported to show a_4 . 1 billion account at bank of america was found to be a fake . mr . fusco described what prosecutors believed was a pattern of false statements made by parmalat over several years , which were picked up and amplified by banks as they marketed its shares and bonds . ''a banker knows that parmalat says something which is false , and the banker helps parmalat with operations or transactions , so that the financial community believes parmalat is a good company , '' mr . fusco said . ''instead , parmalat is not a good company . '' the scrutiny of parmalat 's foreign banks propels the investigation to a new level , legal experts said , because it has so far centered on the roles of the company 's founder , calisto_tanzi , and a handful of other senior executives , including a former chief_financial_officer , fausto tonna . ''there have been many trials that have involved many different banks , but they were all italian banks , '' said alberto alessandri , a professor of business and criminal_law at bocconi_university in milan . ''this is the first time that international banks and consultants have been involved in an italian criminal investigation . '' under italian law , outside advisers who knowingly allow a company to spread false information in the market can face criminal_charges and a five year prison sentence , professor alessandri said . if outsiders are found to have acquiesced to other types of fraud , a court here can judge them as harshly as officers of the company itself . proving such complicity is difficult , however , he said . in the united_states , banks and wall_street firms were harshly_criticized for their role in advising scandal_ridden companies like enron and worldcom , but they have largely eluded criminal_prosecution . so far , italian prosecutors have arrested eight people , including mr . tanzi and mr . tonna , in connection with the parmalat affair . a ninth person , giovanni bonici , the former head of parmalat 's venezuelan operations , also faces an arrest_warrant and is negotiating his return to italy . parmalat and its auditors are the focus of several lawsuits in the united_states on behalf of shareholders and bondholders . the securities_and_exchange_commission has also sued the company , contending that parmalat induced investors in the united_states to buy more than 1 . 5 billion in bonds and other securities while engaging in ''one of the largest and most brazen corporate financial frauds in history . '' investors bitterly criticized the underwriters of parmalat 's bonds for relying on audited financial reports , which overlooked the fact that the company 's executives had siphoned off more than 10 billion . ''i expect a lot more than that , '' said gary e . wendlandt , the chairman and chief executive of new york life investment_management , which has more than 175 billion in assets under management , including parmalat bonds . ''we 've done issues ourselves , '' mr . wendlandt said . ''the bankers come in and go through chapter and verse , every line item . they do n't rely on an auditor 's opinion . '' executives from deutsche_bank 's offices in milan and london met with prosecutors in parma to discuss a 350 million euro ( 390 million ) bond issue that the bank placed for parmalat in late september . deutsche_bank has also come under scrutiny after it reduced its 5.1 percent stake in parmalat to 1 . 57 percent on the day last month that the company 's bank of america account was found to be a fake . the bank said in a statement that its stake was not strategic , and included some stock that it borrowed to support client transactions . the german financial regulator , bafin , has requested information from deutsche_bank on who purchased the parmalat bonds . a spokeswoman for the bank declined to discuss the bond offering or the timing of the stock sale . she said deutsche_bank was cooperating with the authorities . in milan , a lawyer for citigroup , nerio dioda , met with the lead prosecutor , francesco greco . neither discussed the conversation afterward . a spokeswoman for citigroup in new york declined to comment , saying only that ''citigroup remains committed to assisting the authorities with any inquiries they may have regarding parmalat . '' citigroup helped parmalat set up an offshore investment vehicle to shift loans between units of the company . it carried the name buconero , or black_hole , which has become something of a mordant joke . in the company 's hometown , the board of parma a.c. , the soccer team owned by parmalat , held a marathon meeting on wednesday to consider its future . stefano tanzi , the son of calisto_tanzi and the club 's president , was resisting pressure to step down , according to an official close to parmalat . the mayor of parma , elvio ubaldi , said , however , that the board of the parma team would resign this week and that a new administration would be named . ''the club faces a real risk of closing unless we find someone else to support the club , '' mr . ubaldi said . parma , which for most of its history played in italy 's lower divisions , has been a leading team in the top league , serie a , since parmalat took control in 1990 . it is currently in sixth place . on the day of the board 's meeting , investigators in parma were also stepping up their part of the investigations . mr . tonna , the company 's former chief_financial_officer , left the parma courthouse in a police van on wednesday without comment after investigators completed another day of interrogating him . while the task of unraveling parmalat 's finances is vast , prosecutors appear to be making progress . mr . greco confirmed that in addition to mr . tonna , the investigators are being helped by another person with knowledge of parmalat 's accounts . mr . greco said prosecutors were also studying documents from parmalat 's auditors , deloitte_touche and grant_thornton . as expected , parmalat 's bankruptcy administrator , enrico_bondi , dismissed grant_thornton as the auditor of its main operating unit . mr . bondi is staying in touch with the inquiry through his lawyer , marco de luca , who lined up in a hallway at milan 's palace of justice for his appointment with prosecutors . ''it 's sad for the country , but also for everyone , '' mr . de luca said . ''this affects not just italy , but the entire world . ''",has a topic of business
"the bank of england surprised investors on thursday and raised interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point , to 5 . 25 percent , to head off rising inflation amid a boom in the housing market and strong economic_growth . meanwhile , the european_central_bank , meeting in frankfurt , left borrowing costs at a five year high of 3.5 percent . but the bank hinted it could increase rates as early as march to guard against rising prices if europe 's economy continued to expand . after a two year slump , growth has been picking up steadily across much of the continent , led by a recovery in germany , the euro_zone 's largest economy . the british economy has moved ahead even more rapidly , fueled by a housing market that helped the economy expand 2.7 percent in the third quarter , compared with the period a year earlier . home prices in britain have surged 15 percent over the last two years , according to the halifax house price index . still , the decision by the bank of england to raise rates bringing them to the same level as in the united_states surprised investors who had said they believed the bank 's most recent increase , which was in november , would be its last for a while . the bank of england has raised interest rates three times since august . one reason for such a view is that oil prices have eased in the last six months . lower oil prices generally temper inflation by helping to trim prices on a range of consumer purchases , from gasoline to airplane seats . british_airways , for instance , said it was lowering some fuel surcharges as crude_oil prices slid . meanwhile , the british_pound has also been enjoying a run up against the dollar , the euro and other major currencies . in new york trading , the pound was fetching 1 . 9447 thursday in early december , it hit 1 . 98 . traders expect the pound to cross 2 by the end of the quarter , a mark not seen since 1992 . ''it is likely that inflation will rise further above the target in the near term , '' the bank of england 's monetary_policy_committee said . the bank 's move alarmed businesses and some economists in britain , who said it could harm the economy and curb spending . many british consumers have taken on substantial amounts of debt , including home mortgages and credit_card borrowings . ''this is an unnecessary blow , '' said the director general of the british retail consortium , kevin hawkins . the bank of england has ''overreacted by stepping up the pace , '' said holger_schmieding , an economist with bank of america in london . the worst case scenario , he added , would be for the bank of england to raise rates another quarter of a point in a few months , and ' 'realize too late they are overdoing it . '' the european_central_bank has steadily been lifting rates , and it forecast thursday that the european economy would expand at a reasonable pace in 2007 , led by germany , which grew in 2006 by 2.5 percent , more than double the rate in 2005 . for 2007 , the economies of the 13 nations that share the euro are expected to expand at an average rate of about 2.6 percent . although euro_zone inflation has fallen below the bank 's goal of less than 2 percent for four consecutive months , the president of the european_central_bank , jean_claude_trichet , warned the bank would lift rates again in march if companies pass on previous increases in energy prices to their customers , or if the price of oil , which has retreated recently , spikes again . ''i would say nothing here that would change expectations by the market that we could do something at the end of the first quarter , '' mr . trichet added . ''i would not contradict that . '' the european_central_bank is responsible for setting euro interest rates and has ordered increases over the last year that some politicians have complained could put europe 's economic_growth at risk .",has a topic of business
"lead charles_schwab company disclosed that it had postponed the opening of a new branch office in london because of a sharp decline in the discount brokerage 's trading_volume since the market collapse in october . in a securities_and_exchange_commission filing , schwab said its trading_volume for the last two weeks of november was ' 'significantly below the average for the first six months of 1987 . charles_schwab company disclosed that it had postponed the opening of a new branch office in london because of a sharp decline in the discount brokerage 's trading_volume since the market collapse in october . in a securities_and_exchange_commission filing , schwab said its trading_volume for the last two weeks of november was ' 'significantly below the average for the first six months of 1987 . '' schwab said that its projections showed that trading_volume and the average commission per trade for the first six months of next year would probably fall below the levels of the first six months of 1987 . as a result , schwab said it was ' 're evaluating product expansion plans and limiting hiring new employees . '' company news",has a topic of business
"after nearly 13 months of back and forth bidding and negotiations , a morgan_stanley led investment group may have won the battle for canary_wharf , london 's new financial district . late yesterday afternoon , the group , which also includes the glick and tisch families of new york , bid 295 pence a share for the 14 million square_foot property in an offer that analysts said was more attractive than an offer of 275 pence plus stock from canary_wharf 's founder , paul_reichmann . mr . reichmann teamed up with brascan , a toronto property group . under rules set by the takeover panel , the government_agency that controls mergers , no additional bids for the property are allowed . both offers will now be open to a vote from shareholders . heather_timmons ( nyt )",has a topic of business
"the battle for telecom_italia has ended with the victory of an american style leveraged_buyout over a more genteel international merger of two former state monopolies . but it is far from clear that olivetti , the victor , can successfully operate the italian phone company . olivetti prevailed despite opposition from the management of telecom_italia , which wanted to merge instead with deutsche_telekom , the former telephone monopoly in germany that is still mostly owned by the german_government . there were good reasons for rejecting that deal , most notably that the managements seemed to have no coherent strategy for operating the merged company , but there were also elements of economic nationalism as italians rejected a german merger . it is possible that in the end this whole battle , and what comes after it , will whet european appetites for capitalism american style , in which shareholder interests are dominant and convoluted financial arrangements are used to take control of companies . but it is also possible that it will end up with most affected italians whether customers , employees or shareholders in telecom_italia feeling abused and angry , thereby creating a backlash . the big losers so far have been italian investors , most of them individuals , who own a class of telecom_italia 's shares known as ' 'savings shares . '' those shares are entitled to higher dividends than normal shares . but the savings shares do n't vote , and have been virtually ignored in this battle . their price has fallen amid fears that olivetti will end up slashing the dividend . meanwhile , normal shares of telecom_italia rose during the battle , but fell back yesterday , and for good reason . the most likely thing that will happen now is that those shareholders will be forced to trade their shares for shares in tecnost , the olivetti subsidiary that now controls telecom_italia . olivetti needs to do that to give it access to telecom_italia 's cash_flow , which it will use to pay interest on the billions of dollars it has borrowed to swing the deal . once that happens , those shareholders may see their dividends cut . the telecom_italia shareholders in that position are largely individuals who bought the company as a safe investment . many of them sat on the sidelines while institutions , which understood what was going on , sold their shares to olivetti in its tender_offer and thus got out while the getting was good . share ownership for individuals is not well ingrained in europe . if this does not work out for the shareholders , it could have repercussions in popular attitudes . if olivetti can simply keep telecom_italia 's profits from continuing to fall , things will be fine . the debt is not overwhelming relative to the company 's historical profits . but those profits have dropped as competitors picked off customers . to stop such thefts , telecom_italia will need to make large investments in its operations while changing the attitudes of a work force that is used to having a monopoly and that , under a succession of chief executives since it was privatized , does not appear to have adapted very well . the size of that work force was already slated to decline , and now will fall much more rapidly . if the government resists layoffs , that would hurt olivetti . roberto colaninno , olivetti 's chief executive , may go down in european history as the man who used american style takeover tactics to gain control of a company that he then improved to everyone 's benefit . but if things do not work out , there is likely to be a backlash against the aggressive tactics of such takeovers .",has a topic of business
"the italian government yesterday set the first part of its initial_public_offering of the energy company ente_nazionale_idrocarburi s.p.a . at about 6 billion , making it the largest global offering of the year . the government said it would sell about 20 percent of its stake to investors worldwide on nov . 21 at a price ranging from 5 , 250 to 6 , 000 lire ( 3 . 30 to 3 . 76 ) a share . that values the world 's eighth largest oil and gas company at as much as 30 billion . once the company , known as eni , is fully sold in the next few years , the company will represent more than 17 percent of the milan stock_exchange 's market_capitalization , making it the biggest company in italy . eni , with more than 30 billion in sales , is italy 's second largest in terms of revenue behind fiat_s.p.a . ( bloomberg business news ) international briefs",has a topic of business
"lead italy 's inflation_rate this year is 5.1 percent , down a percentage point from 1986 , the government reported today . italy 's inflation_rate this year is 5.1 percent , down a percentage point from 1986 , the government reported today .",has a topic of business
"pat_robertson , the religious broadcaster who built a fortune from businesses affiliated with his ministry and ran for president in 1988 , now wants to go into the banking business . mr . robertson and the bank of scotland applied yesterday for a charter to operate a new national bank that will have no branches , but will instead deal with customers by telephone and mail , as the bank of scotland already does in britain . the same model is used for dealing with donors to mr . robertson 's christian broadcasting network and his political arm , the christian_coalition . the bank hopes to begin accepting deposits in three or four months and to issue credit_cards and mortgages later , said tom smellie , a spokesman for the bank of scotland . the new bank has not been named , mr . smellie said , but it will not include either scotland or mr . robertson 's name in the title . mr . robertson , the founder and chairman of the christian_coalition , will be ''a very significant minority shareholder'' in the bank and will be chairman of its american holding_company , said c . a . volder 3d , a spokesman for robertson financial_services , the unit that is investing in the new bank . several banking experts said the arrangement could be highly successful if it tapped even a small part of the vast audience that regularly tunes into mr . robertson 's daily religious and news broadcast program , ''the 700 club . '' mr . volder said that the bank would not advertise on ''the 700 club'' and that neither the program 's mailing list nor the christian_coalition 's would be used to solicit bank business . ''of course the fact that he is endorsing the product is important , '' mr . volder said , ''and his co host may say , 'dr . robertson , i hear you are going into the banking business , ' and ask him about it . '' in some ways , the bank , which is not expected to face major obstacles to regulatory approval , would be a natural extension of mr . robertson 's existing operations , analysts said . ''essentially , he is a bank on the deposit side already , '' said seamus mcmahon of first manhattan consulting group , which advises financial_institutions on marketing . ''he is one of the biggest fund_raisers in the u.s . between his religious , political and charitable interests . although he will be going after the same people , he is trying to get a bigger share of their wallets . so today he may get 50 or 150 as a gift , but he is looking to get 2 , 000 and 3 , 000 and 4 , 000 in deposits . '' eric w . hartz , chief_operating_officer of security first network bank , which operates over the internet and has one office , in atlanta , said that ''not having brick and mortar is a great advantage . '' a big expense in operating a bank , he added , is simply getting the word out . ''if you are citibank with its phenomenal branch network , you just drop brochures in all the branches to tell people how to reach you , '' mr . hartz said . ''bank of scotland can accomplish this by teaming with robertson , who has a pretty strong followership . '' the idea for the deal grew out of a business loan that mr . robertson sought last june from the bank of scotland , which has 4 billion of commercial loans in the united_states . he learned that the bank had attracted about 800 , 000 customers to its telephone business , which it started in 1997 in partnership with j . sainsbury , the big british grocery_store chain . mr . mcmahon and others said that mr . robertson 's high public profile and polarizing reputation could be a liability for domestic banks with established names , but not for a foreign bank seeking to enter the united_states market . over the years , mr . robertson has made remarks that have drawn complaints from gay activists and members of other minority groups . last year , for example , mr . robertson took note of banners welcoming gay people to theme_parks in orlando , fla . , and said , ''i would warn orlando that you 're right in the way of some serious hurricanes , and i do n't think i 'd be waving those flags in god 's face if i were you . '' mr . robertson 's fortune rests on his creation of the family channel , which was spun out of the christian broadcasting network and sold in 1997 to fox television for 1 . 9 billion .",has a topic of business
"lead britain today announced the first fall in inflation in 19 months , suggesting that the rise in the cost of living had peaked and would soon slow down . britain today announced the first fall in inflation in 19 months , suggesting that the rise in the cost of living had peaked and would soon slow down . the retail price index showed an 8.2 percent annual increase in july against 8.3 percent in june , official figures showed . financial analysts had expected the july figure to be unchanged at 8.3 percent . ''this is consistent with the chancellor 's statement that inflation may have peaked and will soon fall , '' said a spokesman for the chancellor of the exchequer , nigel_lawson , who has made the fight against inflation his main priority . mr . lawson has raised interest rates steadily since june of last year in an attempt to bring britain 's inflation_rate , one of the highest in the industrialized world , under control . but the treasury spokesman indicated that there was no early prospect of a fall in interest rates . ''monetary_policy will continue to be as tight as necessary to insure that this fall in inflation continues , '' he said . figures released monday showed that retail sales fell again in july , suggesting that high interest rates were halting an inflationary boom in consumer_spending .",has a topic of business
"in a surprise move , britain called yesterday for an antitrust review of two proposed acquisitions by power generation companies for regional electric companies . ian lang , secretary of state for trade and industry , said he referred national_power p.l.c . 's l2 . 8 billion ( 4 . 4 billion ) proposed acquisition of southern electric to the monopolies and mergers commission . powergen p.l.c . 's l1 . 95 billion bid for midlands_electricity was also referred , he said . the announcement shocked analysts , who had expected the government to approve the mergers . the bids were the first proposed takeovers of power generators by regional electric companies in britain 's turbulent utility sector . "" this just raises all sorts of questions and makes no sense whatsoever , "" said james hutton mills , an analyst with sgst securities ltd . "" there is just no logic to be found . "" mr . lang said the referral did not mean the mergers would not proceed . he said , however , that such "" vertical "" mergers may thwart competition in the industry . electricity shares dove on the announcement . the ft se index of leading electricity shares fell 91 . 3 points to 2 , 764 before recovering slightly to 2 , 784 . ( bloomberg business news ) international briefs",has a topic of business
"as the italian government wrestles with the crisis at parmalat , the dairy and food giant , the european_commission warned monday that any plans to bail out the company would have to respect european law on government aid . the italian cabinet is meeting on tuesday about parmalat , which is expected to declare insolvency this week after disclosing on friday that a bank of america account that supposedly held nearly 5 billion did not exist . prime_minister silvio_berlusconi said on saturday that the government would seek to ensure that parmalat 's operations could continue unimpeded while efforts were made to sort out its financial difficulties , although he did not say what form the help might take . a spokesman for the european_commission , tilman l der , said that ''if a government wants to intervene using state resources it needs to do this in close cooperation with the european_commission , whatever measure the government envisages taking . '' the question of government aid may be complicated by the criminal investigation into parmalat 's collapse . news_agencies reported on monday that parmalat 's former chairman , calisto_tanzi , and as many as 20 executives were under investigation by prosecutors in milan . if the government does intervene , it may propose a short term loan to keep parmalat solvent , or it could give the company a grant to finance a restructuring . either step would require approval by european antitrust regulators . but a person close to the regulators said he did not expect italy would bail out parmalat , noting that italy unlike france , which has clashed recently with european regulators in brussels over aid to troubled companies has bankruptcy_protection rules similar to chapter 11 bankruptcy in the united_states . ''these would give parmalat the protection it needs from creditors to allow it to sort itself out , '' the person said . as in recent government aid cases in france involving the engineering group alstom and france t l com , parmalat 's main businesses are functioning the problem is financing irregularities that are threatening to bring down the company . ''the french_state intervened to help out alstom and france t l com because france does n't allow for bankruptcy_protection , '' the person said . ''the companies would have been picked apart by creditors and stakeholders . ''",has a topic of business
"the british_government appointed rachel lomax , a top civil_servant , economist and former world_bank official , to succeed mervyn a . king as deputy governor of the bank of england when mr . king takes over from sir edward george as governor later this year . ms . lomax is the most senior official at the transportation department . her appointment will make her the highest ranking woman in the bank 's history , a spokesman for the bank of england said . the government also announced that richard lambert , former editor of the financial_times , would join the monetary_policy_committee , which sets interest rates , in june . alan_cowell ( nyt )",has a topic of business
"abbey national p.l.c. , a british financial_services conglomerate , has approached bank of scotland about a possible merger , the companies said . bank of scotland said the approach was unlikely to lead to a satisfactory transaction for its shareholders . the two banks had discussed a possible combination in july and august , but bank of scotland said those talks were ended . bank of scotland has been looking for a partner since it lost out to its rival , the royal_bank_of_scotland , in a takeover fight for national_westminster_bank . suzanne_kapner ( nyt ) company news",has a topic of business
"for those keeping score in the duel between the one time friends and now competing media barons rupert_murdoch and silvio_berlusconi mr . murdoch is slightly ahead on points , but mr . berlusconi might still pack a punch . for years , the two have been locked in a turf battle over the italian media_market . mr . berlusconi , through his company fininvest , remains italy 's unrivalled media boss with holdings that include the three largest private television stations , newspapers , a publishing house and a film production_company . but a proposed new media law here could weaken his long held lock on italian television , and in the process help mr . murdoch , the chairman and chief executive of the news_corporation , which owns sky_italia , italy 's sole satellite provider . mr . berlusconi , 70 , was being tested for a heart problem in a hospital intensive_care_unit on sunday after collapsing while delivering a speech in montecatini in tuscany . ''there is no emergency , no alarm , '' a spokesman , paolo bonaiuti , told reuters , adding that mr . berlusconi was in intensive care at milan 's san raffaele hospital because his cardiologist heads the unit . mr . berlusconi has long held the upper hand due in large part to the fact that he served as italy 's prime_minister . but six months ago , he was defeated by romano_prodi who has vowed to end mr . berlusconi 's hegemony over the media . mr . murdoch has been publicly courting mr . prodi ever since . last month , the government floated a new conflict of interest law ( explicitly targeting mr . berlusconi ) and the new media law , which would put a 45 percent ceiling on advertising for any one broadcaster . the media law would also force the state run broadcaster , rai , and mediaset , the media division of fininvest , to transfer one of their analog channels to digital within fifteen months , freeing up two channels for new investors . a recent analysis by it media predicted that sky_italia was positioned to benefit most by the new law . the report said sky could earn an additional 28 million_euros ( 37 million ) a year from its implementation . mediaset , meanwhile , could lose up to 103 million_euros ( 135 million ) a year in earnings , the report said . ''more than it being an intervention in favor of murdoch and news corp . , what is happening is a freeing up of the berlusconi monopoly , '' said francesco siliato , a media analyst who is a member of a commission consulting with italy 's minister of communications , paolo gentiloni . ''it is an attempt by this government , with what little they can do with the margins they have in parliament , to seriously open up the television marketplace . '' in the past , mr . berlusconi and mr . murdoch dined together and would collaborate on blockbuster deals . now they take jabs at each other through the press . ''so what comes next a new alliance between murdoch and prodi ? '' mr . berlusconi was quoted as saying in the italian newspaper la_stampa . ''and to think that murdoch was once a conservative . '' in last spring 's elections , sky_italia played a subtle yet effective role by offering itself as a third party news alternative to italy 's traditional stations , which are notoriously beholden to italy 's various political forces . and mr . prodi recently gave sky an exclusive half hour interview , later explaining that sky was the only outlet that would give him the time and balance he needed . sky_italia declined to comment , but in a statement said it supported the new media law and any initiative that opened up the television marketplace . and in recent earning reports , mr . murdoch has singled out sky_italia for special praise , noting that it has emerged as one of the news_corporation 's most profitable divisions . in its most recent quarterly earnings report , the company said that its global satellite tv revenues rose to 622 million from 498 million . in italy , it had added 434 , 000 net subscribers to end the quarter with 3 . 83 million . with sky_italia closing in on 4 million subscribers , there is speculation among analysts that a public_offering is in the works , perhaps as early as next year . under the berlusconi administration , italy posed a unique challenge to mr . murdoch . it took over a year of protests by sky_italia before the italian government headed by mr . berlusconi finally ended its subsidies of the decoders needed to access the digital terrestrial channels , an emerging competitive platform to satellite ( mediaset has by far the most digital offerings and thus benefits most from decoder sales ) . mediaset was also able to end sky_italia 's exclusive broadcast rights to italian series a soccer matches . mediaset acquired the digital terrestrial rights for a number of top teams ( including mr . berlusconi 's team , ac_milan ) at what seemed like a suspiciously discounted_rate . but with mr . prodi in office , the situation has changed . in july , the government announced a new plan for the selling of soccer television rights which is less favorable to mediaset . in addition to dealing with the new laws , mr . berlusconi himself is entering the second week of a trial in which he and david mills , an english lawyer and the estranged husband of britain 's culture minister , are facing charges of false_accounting , embezzlement and tax_fraud in the purchase of television rights for american movies by mediaset . both men have denied any wrongdoing . maurizio gasparri , minister of communications under the berlusconi administration , was the architect of previous legislation that was criticized as overly friendly to mr . berlusconi and mediaset . in an interview , mr . gasparri called the recent moves by mr . prodi 's government ''excessive'' and ''vindictive . '' ''we need to open the markets , but we should n't have to expropriate those who are already there , '' mr . gasparri said . there are concerns that mr . prodi may lack the mandate and will to impose any reforms because he holds such a slim majority in parliament and faces conflicting interests within his coalition . so far , attempts by mr . prodi 's administration to liberalize other markets like taxis , pharmacies and banking have met stiff_resistance and a series of crippling strikes . mr . murdoch 's lot may have improved under the new government , but the untangling of italy 's media marketplace is anything but settled .",has a topic of business
"raul_gardini , one of italy 's industrial titans , unexpectedly resigned today as chairman of ferruzzi finanziaria s.p.a. , the country 's second largest private company . mr . gardini said he would leave the business world for "" ideological reasons . "" the resignation by mr . gardini is likely to send strong ripples across italy , both for its impact on the enormous industrial conglomerate and for the message he clearly wanted to send that he believes it is almost impossible to conduct business in italy without excessive government and political interference . his action came as one of his most important holdings , montedison s.p.a. , sold its 40 percent stake in enimont s.p.a. , a financially struggling joint_venture in chemical production . montedison had formed enimont early last year with the state controlled energy company , ente_nazionale_idrocarburi , or e.n.i . e.n.i . paid 2 . 5 billion for montedison 's stake , ending a nearly yearlong fight for control of a venture that was supposed to be a model of cooperation between private and public companies . it instead turned into a battleground over strategy and management direction . a ferruzzi statement said mr . gardini had told other board members that "" the ferruzzi montedison group was practically forced to sell "" its enimont shares to its government partner . "" the road we were obliged to travel toward the final decision was like an entrepreneurial calvary , "" he was quoted as saying . the ferruzzi group , the largest italian company after fiat_s.p.a. , reported revenues last year of nearly 15 billion . it has activities in nearly 100 countries and holdings in chemicals , agricultural industry , energy , pharmaceuticals , finance , construction and newspapers . moreover , mr . gardini , 57 years old , is a man of undeniable power and elegance in short , a person that italians listen to . and he turned his back not only on ferruzzi but on italian industry itself by resigning from confindustria , the nation 's main business group . sergio pininfarina , the president of confindustria , said he had spoken with mr . gardini and concluded that the "" ideological reasons "" mentioned in the official announcement "" can mean that , according to gardini , things are done in this country that are incompatible with his free_market ideology . "" others familiar with mr . gardini 's thinking said he had grown weary of the fact that virtually nothing of public importance in italy is arranged without careful attention to politics . uncertain future it is not clear what mr . gardini intends to do now , but it seems improbable that someone with his energy and headline grabbing ability will long remain on the sidelines . what brought mr . gardini to this pass was the fighting over enimont , which upon its creation in 1989 became the world 's eighth largest chemical company , with 13 . 8 billion in sales last year . the idea behind enimont was to reduce italy 's dependence on chemical imports by setting up an entity large enough to stand up to worldwide competition . montedison and e.n.i . each had a 40 percent stake in enimont , and the other 20 percent was offered to the public on the milan stock_exchange . but instead of becoming an enduring marriage of convenience , the public private partnership dissolved into a protracted , complicated battle over business philosophies . montedison was eager to cut costs by selling unprofitable plants and trimming jobs , while e.n.i. , as a state enterprise that must respond to political demands , was more interested in avoiding layoffs among its 50 , 000 employees . slumping sales and profits in the struggle , montedison seemed to have the edge . it had made clear that it wanted to buy out e.n.i . rather than be bought out itself . earlier this year , montedison 's allies bought more than half of the shares held by the public , but that did not end a deadlock over board room supremacy . as the two partners wrangled , enimont 's sales and profits slumped . in september , the two parties agreed that one would have to buy out the other , and decided that montedison would be given the option to buy e.n.i . 's stake at a price that e.n.i . would fix . if montedison balked , then e.n.i . would have to buy montedison 's share at the same price . but montedison complained that the state had imposed too many unfavorable conditions . the ferruzzi announcement today said that those conditions would have placed "" strong limitations on free enterprise . "" essentially , montedison argued that government influence would have continued even if enimont was turned over to private hands . the issue is forced franco piga , the government minister responsible for state holdings , finally forced the issue this week by saying he would take the matter to court if montedison did not either buy the e.n.i . stake or sell its own . today , in effect , mr . gardini decided to take the money and run . the e.n.i . offer of 2 . 5 billion pays about 25 percent more for each enimont share than the quoted price last week on the milan stock_market , which reopened today after being closed since friday because of a strike by floor traders . trading in montedison and other ferruzzi companies was suspended today because of expectations that a critical decision was at hand . among other things , the developments today leave montedison with much more cash to look for new partners in the chemical business , if it so chooses . they also satisfied union leaders who were worried about job losses . but italy 's chemical_industry is now solidly in state hands at a time when italian businesses and political leaders agree that the government must reduce its role in industry for the sake of efficiency .",has a topic of business
"the european_commission officially recommended today that 11 countries , including italy , be allowed to join europe 's new single_currency plan next year . but the european monetary institute , the precursor of a new , single european_central_bank , emphasized that several countries would still face arduous cost cutting in the years ahead . it also warned that double_digit unemployment in many european_countries could create a long term strain on the new currency unless countries changed their labor policies . the long awaited reports , issued separately in brussels and frankfurt , confirmed what most experts have been predicting for months . still , they represented crucial stamps of approval on each country 's attempts to get its fiscal house in order , and will be the basis for a final agreement on membership when european heads of government meet in brussels on may 2 . the recommendations marked a special victory for prime_minister romano_prodi of italy , who has staked his career on getting italy into the european club . as recently as two years ago , most leaders assumed that italy 's budget_deficit and inflation would be far too high to meet the requirements for taking part in the single_currency arrangement . today , italy 's deficit is less than germany 's , and its inflation is 1.9 percent . ''two years ago , we were still far outside the parameters , '' deputy prime_minister walter veltroni said in rome . ''today , we made it . '' the 10 other countries recommended for the euro were germany , france , belgium , the netherlands , luxembourg , austria , finland , ireland , spain and portugal . britain , denmark and sweden have decided not to join in the monetary_union in its initial stage , although they meet the fiscal requirements . greece did not qualify it hopes to join the monetary_union after the others . in france , the governing socialists of prime_minister lionel_jospin won their electoral victory last year after campaigning to put jobs and social programs ahead of the euro . nevertheless , french leaders were quick to trumpet their success in meeting the plan 's fiscal criteria . ''i believe france has fulfilled its part of the bargain , '' finance minister dominique_strauss_kahn said . but the european monetary institute 's report provides a sobering assessment of the challenges that lie beyond the official starting date on jan . 1 . it said that italy and belgium would have to run budget surpluses for the foreseeable future to reduce their mountain of accumulated debt . and the institute 's warning on unemployment affects most countries in the european_union . wim_duisenberg , president of the institute , said that structural barriers like rigid work rules and high taxes accounted for 80 percent of unemployment . without changes , he said , it would be much harder for countries to keep their budget_deficits at acceptable levels . ''the danger is that governments would try to solve unemployment with the old fashioned measures , which would not be helpful , '' mr . duisenberg said . ''if that were to happen , it would place a great strain on monetary_policy to achieve its goal , which is price stability . '' european national leaders are to meet in brussels to sign the final agreements and to resolve the one issue that remains bitterly disputed who will head the new central_bank , which will make european monetary_policy ? germany and most other countries want mr . duisenberg , formerly head of the dutch central_bank . but france has demanded that the job go to one of its own jean_claude_trichet , governor of the french central_bank . attempts at compromise have thus far failed . mr . duisenberg said the dispute was regrettable . ''the argument that has been raging is not helpful for the credibility of the future european_central_bank , '' he said at a news conference here . ''but we ca n't do much about it . '' international business",has a topic of business
"the government today pronounced a_10 . 1 billion privatization of britain 's electricity industry a huge success , with britons seeking more than 10 times the number of shares being offered . demand from the public was so strong , in fact , that it triggered a "" clawback "" mechanism that scaled back the amount of shares reserved for both foreign investors and domestic institutional_investors , said kleinwort_benson ltd . , the government 's financial_adviser . under the offering , the government sold a total 2 . 16 billion shares in the 12 electricity distributing companies of england and wales . the shares sold for 240 pence , or 4 . 68 each , for a total 5 . 18 billion , or 10 . 1 billion . the government plans to sell its two electricity generating companies and the scottish electricity industry next year . the selloff is britain 's biggest and most complex privatization yet . the conservative government has sold 64 billion worth of state owned companies in the past decade to promote capitalism and encourage wider ownership of the companies .",has a topic of business
"after a weekend of high financial drama that culminated in a_7 percent devaluation of the lira , prime_minister giuliano_amato of italy gained no relief today from a chorus of demands that he do what none of his predecessors has done stop the nation from living beyond its means . mr . amato , less than three months in office , sought to depict the drop in the lira 's worth as anything but a devaluation , saying "" this is not a lira devaluation . this is a revaluation of the mark and an agreement by germany to cut its interest rates . "" still , he came under attack today from bankers , political opponents , industrialists and others either for not acting sooner or for shying from hard measures to reduce the country 's crippling budget_deficit . devaluation , said luigi abete , head of italy 's industrialists' organization , is "" a drug "" and "" now concrete provisions are needed on pensions , health , local finances and privatization . "" more worrisome , some labor leaders suggested they no longer felt bound by a june agreement to stop indexing wage_increases to inflation . italy 's financial_crisis has long been brewing because of its domestic finances . "" what is needed now is that the negotiation between government , labor and industry on the cost of labor goes the way it should and that the necessary measures are taken on pensions and health , "" gianni_agnelli , head of fiat , italy 's biggest private conglomerate , complained in an interview published in his newspaper , la_stampa . as the lira collapsed last week , authorities spent more than 3 . 4 billion in a vain attempt to support it a step that drew further criticism today . the intervention , said giorgio la malfa , head of the small but influential republican_party , "" drew the country 's blood . "" and mario_monti , a leading economic commentator , said , "" what has fallen is not a tile or a chimney but the central pillar of italian economic policy a stable exchange_rate . "" the german rate cut",has a topic of business
"the british_government said today that it had agreed to sell the three leasing companies that own the government railway 's 11 , 000 passenger cars for nearly l1 . 8 billion , or 2 . 8 billion . "" this is britain 's largest ever privatization by direct sale , "" the transport minister , sir george young , said . the three companies angel train contracts , eversholt leasing and peterbrook leasing were sold to several investment companies from britain , japan and the united_states . angel train was sold for l672 . 5 million to a group that includes nomura international , a subsidiary of the nomura_securities company , japan 's largest securities house , and babcock brown , an american financing company that is affiliated with nomura . eversholt was bought for l580 million by a management_buyout group led by candover partners ltd . , and porterbrook was bought for l527 million by funds managed by charthouse development capital and porterbrook 's management . sir george said the sale would be worth more than l2 . 5 billion because the leasing companies would also give back to the government about l800 million in cash they had accumulated . the sale is important to prime_minister john_major , who wants to sell the bulk of british_rail before the next general_election , which is due by may 1997 .",has a topic of business
"executives of american_airlines yesterday denounced a plan by the investor kirk_kerkorian to buy t.w.a . as a delay tactic and a "" half baked , ill conceived , poorly fleshed out excuse for a business_plan . "" on friday , the tracinda corporation , an investment group headed by mr . kerkorian , filed details of its plan to buy and operate trans_world_airlines inc . the filing was requested by the transportation department . the plan called for turning around t.w.a . 's operations by replacing its aging fleet , attracting new management and revamping its routes . the government is expected to decide this week whether to approve t.w.a . 's agreement to sell its london routes to american_airlines . swift decision urged carl c . icahn , t.w.a . 's chairman , said yesterday that the airline would seek bankruptcy_protection if a decision was not made very shortly on the sale of its london routes to american_airlines . "" we feel if they extend this at all , we will probably file for bankruptcy , "" mr . icahn told the reuters news_agency . "" if we do n't get a decision very shortly , we 're going to have to file . "" mr . kerkorian 's offer to buy t.w.a . would require that it retain the routes . 'fundamentally foolish' in an interview yesterday , michael j . durham , the chief_financial_officer of american_airlines , derided mr . kerkorian 's plan as "" fundamentally foolish "" and "" demonstrating a fundamental lack of understanding "" about airline operations . there was no answer yesterday at tracinda 's offices in beverly_hills , calif . mr . kerkorian , a los_angeles financier , also owns the mgm grand luxury airline . american , based in dallas , announced its plans to acquire t.w.a . 's london routes in december , and on march 14 , the transportation department gave the airline tentative approval to buy three routes to heathrow_airport in london . the sale would provide cash for t.w.a . the airline defaulted on debt payments in february . offer made last month in late march , mr . kerkorian made a highly conditional offer to buy t.w.a . some analysts are skeptical about mr . kerkorian 's motives , but the airline 's unions and public officials in missouri have generally supported the plan . t.w.a . 's main hub is in st . louis . mr . icahn has called mr . kerkorian 's offer an attempt to force t.w.a . into a position where he could buy it for nothing . american plans to formally respond to mr . kerkorian 's plan in a filing with the transportation department tomorrow .",has a topic of business
"the amerada_hess corporation , known for its green hess trucks and gas stations , agreed today to buy lasmo p.l.c. , a british oil exploration and production_company , for 3 . 5 billion in cash and stock in a move that shifts the balance of its business outside the united_states and away from its roots as a refiner and marketer . amid continued consolidation , like the 36 billion marriage of chevron and texaco , smaller , independent oil and gas companies are scrambling to get bigger . ''scale is increasingly essential to the best projects and access to capital , '' the lasmo chairman , antony hichens , said . ''hess and lasmo complement each other . the combination will be stronger than each separately . '' john hess , chairman and chief executive of amerada_hess , put it slightly differently by saying ''we are now a bigger fish in a smaller pond , '' explaining that the combined company will have assets in just a handful of countries , among them the united_states , britain and venezuela . in buying lasmo , amerada will gain access to crucial foreign oil_reserves considered more valuable than domestic reserves , because of lower costs and longer life . the percent of oil_reserves outside the united_states for the combined company , to be called amerada_hess , will jump to 41 percent from 13 percent . moreover , lasmo furthers amerada 's ambitions to increase its exploration and production operations , and reduce its refining and marketing activities . ''exploration and production is the primary engine of income growth , '' mr . hess said . combined , the company will use 76 percent of its capital for exploration and production , up from 59 percent . only 24 percent of capital will be spent on other activities , such as running the 1 , 100 gas stations on the east_coast of the united_states . ''this deal accomplishes in one fell swoop many of amerada 's objectives , '' said eugene nowak , head of north_american research at abn_amro , who is recommending the stock . mr . nowak said amerada was not overpaying for lasmo , even though the purchase comes at what analysts would call the top of the cycle . although many oil stocks have benefited from rising prices , shares of lasmo , which is perceived as too small to remain competitive , have lagged those of competitors one reason that mr . hichens began exploring strategic options when he became chairman in may . the price of 180 pence per share , consisting of 69 percent cash and the remainder in stock , is 28 percent higher than lasmo 's closing price on friday , the last day of trading before the deal was made public . amerada will also assume 1 . 6 billion of lasmo 's debt . the companies said about 150 jobs would be eliminated . shares of lasmo rose 34 pence , to 175 pence , in london , while shares of amerada were down 3 . 19 , to 59 . 63 , in late trading in new york . valued another way , amerada is paying 5 . 49 a barrel for lasmo , or slightly below the industry average of 6 . 91 a barrel .",has a topic of business
"the finance minister , having submitted a budget that reduced deficit_spending substantially , was not amused when the critics spoke up . economists said the budget relied too much on tax increases and not enough on spending cuts , and said hard decisions had been postponed . ''very often , when economists comment , they assume politics away , '' he said in an interview in new york this month . he recalled a joke an economist stranded on a desert island is asked if he has any suggestions for getting into a case of canned food that has washed ashore . ''assume a can opener , '' the economist begins . the finance minister knew the joke because it was his eminence as an economist that made him attractive as a nonpolitical finance minister for italy , whose government has a slender majority that some thought would not last long enough to pass a budget anyway . the minister , tommaso padoa schioppa , is a former central banker who thought he had retired before being offered the job by prime_minister romano_prodi . mr . padoa schioppa is an unusual finance minister . perhaps it helps that he has never run for office and is unlikely ever to do so . it is hard to imagine another minister delivering a lecture like the one he gave a few weeks ago at the bundesbank , the german central_bank , in which he recalled the legend of faust , who sold his soul to the devil . ''for faust , the lure of mephistopheles 's services is greatly enhanced by the fact that the price , albeit a terrible one , is to be paid later , '' he said . ''for politicians , the lure of the support obtained through public expenditures is similarly enhanced by the fact that public debt will be paid or reneged by next generations , often well after the end of one 's political career . '' finance ministers simply do not mention , even in passing , that governments can renege on debt . nor do they , as he did , submit a budget that the government contends will reduce growth in gross_domestic_product in his case , to 1.3 percent next year from the 1.6 percent otherwise expected . he insists the country will benefit later , and even argues that there will be a political benefit ''people in italy know an adjustment is needed . they may have more respect for a government that tries . '' and , he argues , they understand that ''the economic balance was dedicated for too long to the stimulus of demand'' rather than to promoting long term growth . mr . padoa schioppa seems to be taking on this job with a combination of zeal and academic detachment that shows in his discussion of the differences between ''the tidy , clear cut , well disciplined world of monetary control'' and the ' 'much more complex , often confused , uncertain , even treacherous one of public expenditure control . '' he thinks monetary_policy is easier , in large part because it is impersonal the central_bank deals with the market , not with anyone who is directly hurt by a decision . but a finance minister is telling an interest group or other ministers that they cannot have the money they want . ''these days , i tend to recall and repeat all too often that saying 'no' to someone means to say 'yes' to someone else , '' he said in his lecture at the german central_bank . ''in our aging europe , saying a marginal 'no' to pension beneficiaries today means saying 'yes' to their grandchildren . '' of course , the grandchildren do not vote , at least not now . italy faces huge problems . it is a country with low growth , high government_debt , a rapidly aging population and a coalition_government united less by any vision or policy than by opposition to the previous government , which was led by silvio_berlusconi . it needs to become more competitive against other european_countries , but with the euro in place it can no longer devalue its currency as it used to do when crises arrived . mr . padoa schioppa tries to make all that sound like a virtue . the narrow governing margin , he said , helped make the cabinet take tough choices , since all knew that any defections would be likely to cause the government to fall . ''what made it easy , '' he said about getting cabinet approval for the budget , ''was that it was impossible . '' many a finance minister has come to office vowing reform , and ended up doing what was necessary to get by , which is one reason that few finance ministers manage to do what robert e . rubin , the former united_states treasury_secretary , did enter office with an excellent reputation and leave with a better one . mr . padoa schioppa may not pull that off , but if he fails , it is unlikely to be for the normal reason of excessive deficit_spending . as he told the bundesbank audience , ''having inherited a public debt larger than g.d.p. , and having committed myself and my government to comply with sound fiscal principles , i scarcely can afford even to contemplate the possibility of accepting mephistopheles 's services . '' high low finance",has a topic of business
"british_airways said it would add a surcharge of 5 ( 8 . 89 ) to every round trip fare on its british flights as a result of the rising price of oil . outside britain , fares will increase by 4 per flight sector . airlines in the united_states have tried to add fuel surcharges several times this year , but dropped them when their competitors did not match the fees . british_airways said it would review the charge on ''a regular basis with a view to adjusting it when appropriate . '' heather_timmons ( nyt )",has a topic of business
"lead in the agency world there are the conglomerates , as typified by saatchi_saatchi and the interpublic group of companies , and the colonial ( or branch ) networks , like those run by j . walter_thompson , young_rubicam and foote , cone_belding . a more recent phenomenon is what peter scott , chief executive of britain 's wcrs in the agency world there are the conglomerates , as typified by saatchi_saatchi and the interpublic group of companies , and the colonial ( or branch ) networks , like those run by j . walter_thompson , young_rubicam and foote , cone_belding . a more recent phenomenon is what peter scott , chief executive of britain 's wcrs group , describes as a creative federation . his own publicly held company , which has acquired america 's della_femina , travisano_partners and hbm creamer , is just such an organization . so are two other british agencies boase massimi , which bought new york 's ammirati_puris , and lowe_howard_spink_bell , which now owns laurence charles , free lawson . they are medium_sized creative agencies all , he told american agency executives at a meeting of the western region of the american association of advertising agencies in laguna niguel , calif . he did n't have to tell his audience that the conglomerates are giants composed of differently named chains or that the networks are single agencies with many far flung offices . this they already knew . he described conglomerates and colonial networks as ''yesterday 's solutions , '' and said his shop and its peer agencies are geared to the concept that ''business but not advertising or creative solutions is becoming global . '' all the talk about global ad campaigns may be fine for coca_cola , he said , but there are darn few others that would benefit . his point was that the advertising of most global products requires local solutions . mr . scott got to that point in his speech after a first_rate job of explaining the progress of the british agency from a fiefdom subservient to american interests to a booming business that has shaken off its shackles and is buying united_states companies left and right . as the american colonists rebelled against the absentee management of the british crown , so the british agency business has rebelled against the absentee management of american international agencies , mr . scott said . and with the help of a far healthier economy brought about by prime_minister margaret_thatcher , the british advertising community has almost flipped the percentage of billings at the top 20 agencies in britain from 70 percent in the hands of american agencies to only 40 percent . at the same time , mr . scott maintained , there has been a return of creative advertising in the british tradition that was all but stamped out by the introduction of on site american managers and their promulgation of research dominated creativity . came the revolution , and ''the british advertising industry once again came to believe that advertising could be effective without being insipid , '' he said , adding , ''it remembered that advertising could entice , charm , amuse and flatter the consumer and still be effective . '' the management of mr . scott 's agency , begun in 1979 as wight collins rutherford scott , realized a few years later that because of british tax laws it had the choice of selling out and giving up ''the identity , independence and entrepreneurial drive that had been snuffed out like a flame in so many good and occasionally great british agencies , or fighting to retain the values and culture that had made the business a success , '' mr . scott said . to fight meant to go public . so his agency copied the saatchis and offered shares to the public . once public , the management realized that ''no agency no matter how good , how energetic , how creative can expect to survive , thrive and prosper as a single profit center business in the long term . '' that led to diversification , to other areas of marketing service in order to escape the threat of client conflict , and ultimately to buying united_states agencies and becoming a colonial power . british imperialism once again .",has a topic of business
"lead shandwick_p.l.c. , the british company that has turned itself into the world 's largest independent public_relations agency through its aggressive acquisition strategy , yesterday announced that it had purchased mona , meyer mcgrath , the largest public_relations firm in minnesota . shandwick paid 4 . 8 million for the agency , said charles jones , president of shandwick north shandwick_p.l.c. , the british company that has turned itself into the world 's largest independent public_relations agency through its aggressive acquisition strategy , yesterday announced that it had purchased mona , meyer mcgrath , the largest public_relations firm in minnesota . shandwick paid 4 . 8 million for the agency , said charles jones , president of shandwick north_america . mr . jones said the acquisition of the six year old agency , which had 6 million in billings last year , was made to shore up shandwick in the midwest , where it is weak . like shandwick 's other acquisitions , mona , meyer mcgrath will retain its name and its independent status .",has a topic of business
"prince walid bin talal , the saudi billionaire , is leading a consortium seeking to buy a large share in the television empire of the former italian prime_minister , silvio_berlusconi , saudi arabian financial sources said yesterday . the sources were confirming a report in the roman newspaper la_repubblica that the prince had met mr . berlusconi on sunday to discuss the possible deal but added that any agreement would not be concluded before italy 's general elections , expected in october . la_repubblica said the consortium led by the prince was seeking a 35 percent stake in mr . berlusconi 's three national television stations . the consortium also consists of time warner inc . and the german media executive leo_kirch . ( reuters )",has a topic of business
"minutes from the bank of england 's meeting on sept . 8 that raised interest rates after a string of cuts disclosed that the panel voted 7 to 2 for the raise . two committee members , sushil wadhwani and deanne julius , dissented , arguing that an increase might slow growth . the increased division reflected in the minutes led some economists and analysts to speculate that another rate increase might come soon . andrew_ross_sorkin world business briefing europe",has a topic of business
"lead undertaking by far the largest corporate takeover bid in european history , an investor group led by sir_james_goldsmith , the british french financier , made a 21 billion offer today for b.a.t . industries . b.a.t. , a london based conglomerate with extensive operations in the united_states , owns saks fifth avenue and the hardee 's fast_food chain and sells kool and lucky strike cigarettes . undertaking by far the largest corporate takeover bid in european history , an investor group led by sir_james_goldsmith , the british french financier , made a 21 billion offer today for b.a.t . industries . b.a.t. , a london based conglomerate with extensive operations in the united_states , owns saks fifth avenue and the hardee 's fast_food chain and sells kool and lucky strike cigarettes . it is britain 's third largest company behind british_petroleum and shell . rejecting the bid , patrick sheehy , b.a.t . 's chairman , called it ''unsolicited and unwelcome . '' in a statement , he said the bid ''is no more than an illconceived attempt at destructive financial engineering . '' some analysts said sir james 's group might yet be forced to increase its bie , so that the total value of the deal would eventually exceed the 25 billion takeover of rjr_nabisco by kohlberg , kravis , roberts , until now the world 's largest corporate takeover . an aggressive trio the takeover battle in britain pits an aggressive trio of investors led by sir james , the tall , flamboyant billionaire who admits a fondness for gambling , against mr sheehy , the tough , straitlaced b.a.t . chairman , who has spent the last eight years shaping his company into a diversified conglomerate . ( page_d1 . ) as his partners , sir james has jacob rothschild , a careful , private man who , as part of the famous dynasty , is a financier in britain , and kerry f.b . packer , and informal australian media baron who loves cricket and junk food . ( page d6 . ) rather than pay for the shares with cash , the investor group proposes to issue bonds to shareholders , changing their status from owners to creditors . financial analysts said it would be by far the largest leveraged_buyout ever attempted in europe . what is happening here , some analysts say , is that sir james is introducing into europe the aggressive american practice of buying and breaking up companies whose parts are more valuable than the whole . they added that if the bidders conquer a target as large as b.a.t. , a whole new set of giant companies in britain , and in europe , would be vulnerable to takeover . ''if this succeeds , it opens a whole new world , '' said nigel utley , and analyst with laing cruickshank in london . the investor group criticized b.a.t . 's broad stategy of becoming a diversified conglomerate and said a statement that it would sell many of b.a.t . 's assets . the group , calling itself hoylake investments , offered 850 pence , or 13 . 82 , in securities for each b.a.t . share . that is 22 percent above b.a.t . 's closing price of 694 pence , or 11 . 31 , on the london_stock_exchange monday . indicating a widespread belief that the bid will go higher than the hoylake offer , b.a.t . stock closed today at 895 pence , or about 14 . 55 . in traking on the american stock exchange , american_depository_receipts for b.a.t . shares rose 2 . 94 , to 14 . 375 . an opening shot ''it would n't surprise me if we saw higher bids or higher numbers , '' said kevin phillips , and analyst with kleinwort_benson in london . ''this is the opening shot in what should be a protracted battle . goldsmith is obviously serious . '' in most leveraged_buyouts , the bidders borrow from banks or investors to finance their pruchase of the shares . but in this case , the investors propose to issue the bonds directly to shareholders , leaving the company deeply in debt without ever receiving any cash . shareholders would have to determine what they believed the bonds were worth . several analysts estimated that b.a.t . 's breakup value was somewhere between 11 and 12 a share . at a share price 11 , the company 's valuation would be 16 . 8 billion , or 27 . 3 billion . b.a.t . 's worldwide businesses include brown williamson tobacco , the hardee' 's hammburger chain , the farmers group , a california sinsurance company , along with several other pulp , paper , insurance and retailing companies , in the united_states and europe . ''there is no logic in retaining these businesses under the same group ownership , '' the hoylake group said . ''the financial consequences of this strategic error , pedestrian earnings growth and a traditionally low tobacco multiple , are such that a restructuring is now the only logical course . '' in addition to kool and lucky strikes , b.a.t. , originally called british_american_tobacco is known for its benson hedges brank . in the last five years , b.a.t . management has used the steady cash_flow from its tobacco businesses to move into higher growth sectors . management buyouts the goldsmith group said it might involve existing b.a.t . managements in any breakup , and analysts said the group might push for management buyouts of some b.a.t . units . the bidding group said it would sell off as soon as possible the farmers group , which b.a.t . bought last year for 5 . 2 billion . analysts said it appeared that the goldsmith group might keep the tobacco core . several analysts said the goldsmith group would not have undertaken the bid unless it was confident it could sell of b.a.t . 's parts at a hefty premium to its offering price . the 56 year old sir james has a reputation as an aggressive investor and has never been accepted by the british business establishment . analysts said b.a.t . 's management would have to convince shareholders that it would offer them more long term value than the high risk bonds the goldsmith group would be paying them with . one adviser to management said it might seek to resist the hostile bid by trying to arrange a management_buyout , finding a white knight or selling some assets . will give reasons b.a.t . urged its shareholders to take no action and said it would detail its reasons for the rejection once hoylake published a formal offer , expected in the next few days . mr . sheehy , b.a.t . 's 58 year old chairman , said the goldsmith offer ''is designed to remove value from b.a.t . 's own shareholders directly to the benefit of an ad_hoc troupe of financiers . '' analysts said the hoylake offer could face several regulatory obstacles . since b.a.t . owns farmers group , a change of ownership is expected to require the clearance of california authorities . in addition , some analysts speculated that the british_government might block a takeover on the ground that the company would be too highly_leveraged . the investment group 's representatives refused today to give copies of their statement on the bid to american reporters . they said such a move might make it appear that they were making an offer to american investors and they feared this would mean they world have to comply with s.e.c . regulations . b.a.t . whose american arm , batus , accounted for 30 percent of the parent 's sales alone last year had net incom of 1 . 7 billion on revenue of 31 billion last year . hoylake , a subsidiary of the anglo group p.l.c. , has three investors general oriental investments , which in headed by sir james j . rothschild holdings , a banking company controlled by mr . rothschild , and consolidate press holdings , an australian media company owned by mr . packer . among the companies helping hoylake arrange financing are hambros bank , bankers_trust and drexel_burnham_lambert . ''i would n't think this is the finale , '' said mr . utley , the analyst . ''i think fund managers wo n't accept this . '' so far , the largest takeove agreement in british history was hanson_p.l.c . 's recent 5 . 5 billion deal with consolidated_gold_fields p.l.c . many analysts have said b.a.t . was vastly undervalued . the argued that many investors had not recognized how fast b.a.t . had moved away from low growth tobacco for the first time last year less than half of its profits came from tobacco . they said the stock was also depressed by fears about tobacco litigation in the united_states , but many analysts said the stock price had not yet reflected the industry 's victory in many of the lawsuits . some analysts speculated ther might have been leaks about the b.a.t . bid . on monday the company 's stock jumped 19 pence , to 694 pence . the three men leading the takeover bid represent a daunting froup . sir james built his fortune in britain in the 1970 's , and spent much of this decade acting as a corporate_raider pouncing on undervalued companies in the united_states . he bought the crown zellerbach corporation in 1985 , disposing of most of its assets soon after , and he also bought large stakes in goodyear and grand union . sir james also sold off most of his holdings in the summer of 1987 , so he escaped more or less unscathed from the marked crash . in march , he announced that he was looking for investments , saying he would use the anglo leasing group , headed by mr . rothschild , as a vehicle . in may , mr . goldsmith , said to be worth at least 2 billion , flexed his muscles after a long layoff , and his group paid 650 million for a stake in ranks hovis mcdougall , a leading british food company .",has a topic of business
the italian airline alitalia posted a first quarter loss and said it needed a loan from the government to survive . it also said it would develop a revamping plan in the next three to four months that would include spinning off the company 's ground operations . eric_sylvers ( nyt ),has a topic of business
"never heard of terna ? neither had most italians until a month ago , yet next week the company is holding the country 's largest initial_public_offering since 2001 and one of europe 's biggest stock offerings this year . terna , which owns 94 percent of italy 's power grid and has more than 24 , 000 miles of transmission_lines , has lived in the shadow of its controlling_shareholder , enel , and was virtually unknown until an advertising campaign began in may . enel , italy 's dominant electricity producer , is selling as much as half of terna in an initial_public_offering that could be valued as high as 1 . 85 billion_euros , or 2 . 25 billion . the terna offering has been overshadowed by the planned public_offering of postbank of germany , also next week its parent , deutsche_post , hopes to raise more than 6 billion . the offering , however , has been hampered by the disclosure of internal memos , political intrigue and reported squabbles between deutsche_post and its investment_bank , deutsche_bank . while lacking in such theatrics , the terna offering will have implications for the italian stock_market for the rest of the year . if terna 's debut on the milan exchange , scheduled for wednesday , is successful , it could open the gates for other initial offerings . but a bad showing could cause companies to shelve plans to tap the equity market . ''if the shares perform well after the i.p.o. , that will definitely encourage other companies to move forward with their i.p.o . 's , '' said massimiliano romano , who advises clients for opus consulting in milan . at least three companies have said they plan to sell shares to the public before august , and five others have said they aim to have stock offerings in the second half of the year . terna earned 173 million_euros ( 210 million ) last year on sales of 919 million_euros ( 1 . 12 billion ) . future results are expected to be fairly predictable , because 90 percent of the company 's sales come from regulated activities . terna 's rates are set every four years and are based on the costs of running the power grid . the current prices are set through 2007 . ''terna is a stable boat on a quiet sea , '' fulvio conti , the company 's chairman and the chief_financial_officer of enel , said in a presentation to journalists in milan this month . terna will use the proceeds of the initial_public_offering to pay a special dividend . enel will then use its portion of the proceeds to pay its own special dividend by the end of the year . that means most of the money from the stock sale will end up in the coffers of the government , which owns almost two thirds of enel . italian laws deregulating the electricity_market require enel to reduce its stake in terna to less than 20 percent by 2007 . enel 's voting rights in terna will be limited to 5 percent after the initial share sale . mr . conti said that though all proceeds from the public_offering will go to pay a special dividend , terna will still have the money to meet its goal of investing almost a billion_euros in its network and other infrastructure over the next four years . expanding and updating the power grid is necessary to avoid the blackouts that have occasionally affected italy in recent summers . investments are also important for future earnings because terna is allowed to earn more on new investments .",has a topic of business
"the british_government has commissioned the royal society and the royal academy of engineering to study the fast growing field of nanotechnology and make recommendations on how it should be regulated , the two groups said wednesday . nanotechnology deals with materials whose size is measured in billionths of a meter , which is roughly the size of molecules . the study will look at the state of current research and where the field is likely to be in 10 years and beyond , said professor ann dowling , an engineering expert from cambridge_university , who will lead the study . it will also consider environmental and social implications . the report is expected to be completed by april . barnaby j . feder ( nyt )",has a topic of business
"italy disclosed a plan today to merge some of its biggest banks to enable them to compete in the post 1992 single european market . if the plan goes ahead , it will represent the most revolutionary change in the italian banking system since benito mussolini 's bank reforms of 1936 . the italian state industry holding_company iri announced that it had approved plans to merge its banco_di roma subsidiary and the publicly owned cassa di risparmio di_roma , the country 's second largest savings bank . iri also said it was considering pooling the resources of two other banks it controls to create a new group . under that plan , the much larger credito_italiano and banca_commerciale_italiana would be merged to create italy 's biggest bank and the 20th biggest in europe with combined customer deposits of 55 trillion_lire ( about 48 billion ) and more than 800 branches . the move , which will take at least a year to put into place , is one of the first fruits of a new law this year to encourage mergers among italy 's 1 , 200 banking institutions before europe forms a single_market .",has a topic of business
"a leading shareholder of mediobanca , italy 's largest investment_bank , has nominated a former italian treasury official to succeed the current chairman , reflecting shareholder ire with recent management decisions . unicredito , the third largest bank in italy and one of mediobanca 's major shareholders , proposed a former treasury under secretary , piero giarda , for the top spot . jason horowitz ( nyt )",has a topic of business
"a real_estate group led by lehman_brothers plans to buy 73 hotels in britain from the intercontinental hotels group for 1 billion ( 1 . 9 billion ) , the hotel company said . lehman and the realstar group of toronto are buying the hotels , which are mainly holiday inns , but the majority will continue to be managed by intercontinental . heather_timmons ( nyt )",has a topic of business
"giovanni franco masello sheds no tears over the imminent demise of the italian_lira . pietro montagna sometimes wishes the funeral could be delayed a bit . both are italian businessmen , and both want the euro , europe 's nascent single_currency , and the benefits it will ultimately bring for their companies . yet they are preparing for it in very different ways . mr . masello 's pottery company , which is not far from this northern italian city , some 40 miles west of venice , will post prices for its products in both lire and euros when it issues new price lists later this year . but the supermarket_chain based in milan where mr . montagna works is asking the government in rome to slow things down . instead of issuing customer receipts in both lire and euros in the transition phase to the new currency that begins next jan . 1 , as the government has asked , the chain wants the receipts to be only in lire until the euro is fully introduced in 2002 . deroma s.p.a. , the pottery maker where mr . masello is chief executive , is embracing the euro because it is one of thousands of thriving small and medium size companies in italy that have already become regional and international players , a status and a strategy that the euro is intended to enhance . with the euro , the burden of converting the lira to a dozen different currencies will disappear , and as the single_currency pushes europe to become even more integrated economically , deroma is poised to grab a bigger chunk of the market than it has now . ''our idea , '' mr . masello said , ''is for a production site in every country in which we sell . '' but standa s.p.a. , the big supermarket_chain where mr . montagna is head of computer services , is in a sector under siege . long shielded from real competition by the kind of protectionist policies that the euro is intended to bring down , the italian retail trade , along with banking and other sectors , expects mainly pain , at least in the near term . converting cash_registers and consumer behavior to the new money will be costly . what is more , the expense is coming at a time when italian retailers are already under assault from big competitors elsewhere in europe that are expanding here . similar contrasts in expectations are being felt throughout europe as companies and industries prepare , from different starting points , for the euro , which will replace the currencies of 11 countries in the european_union . but in few countries are the differences as stark , or the potential gains and wrenching costs as substantial , as they are in italy . indeed , looming over both ends of the economy here , the strong and the weak , are the special uncertainties of italy s.p.a . to qualify for admission to the european monetary club , and thus become eligible to use the euro , italy had to cut its budget_deficit sharply . that meant raising income taxes on corporations that had already been paying the highest rates in europe . it also meant paring investments in transportation and communications , even though those still fall well below the northern european standard . then there is italy 's depressed south , with its high unemployment rate , which is a millstone around the neck of the economy as a whole . germany has its depressed east , and spain its pockets of backwardness . but interest charges on italy 's bloated national debt , which is double the target set for countries adopting the euro , pre_empt the kinds of spending programs germany began in the east after the fall of the berlin_wall . what all this means , of course , is that if the current downward trend in interest rates reverses and the cost of money begins to rise again , italy will have to tighten its belt further , even at the risk of provoking an economic slowdown , higher unemployment and social_unrest . resistance from labor_unions , and from leftist parties within the government itself , would be intense . little wonder then that antonio_fazio , president of the italian central_bank , warns that the next few years will be ''purgatory'' for italians as the economy adjusts to european demands and is forced to adapt . what is encouraging to the experts are the number of businesses , like deroma , that seem as well positioned as any in europe to meet the challenges the euro will pose . deroma , the world 's largest pottery maker , expects revenue of 91 million this year , a fivefold increase from a decade ago . founded in the 1950 's by local potters , deroma single handedly industrialized pottery production in the 1970 's and then reinvented itself as a mini multinational . in the early 90 's , deroma pushed aggressively beyond italy 's borders , grabbing back the marketing of its products in europe and the united_states from local distributors and then building or acquiring factories in denmark , china and , most recently , the united_states . now , virtually all the terra_cotta pottery found at big american retailers like home_depot and wal_mart originates in deroma kilns . companies like deroma are the very backbone of the italian economy , said franco bruni , an economist at bocconi_university , the business school in milan . ''these concentrations of small and medium size companies with flexible structures are among the best'' on the continent , he said , and the euro will be a boon for them . for many , he said , it will afford ''emancipation from the costs of small italian banks'' while fostering cross_country networking , particularly in areas like those around vicenza that are close to powerful economic regions farther_north . by removing obstacles to companies' expansion , such as the cost of protecting themselves from changes in exchange_rates , the euro will promote expansion across borders into neighboring countries . but the chronicle of deroma 's growth also illustrates many of italy 's deficiencies . wages in italy are so high that mr . masello , deroma 's chief executive , had no inhibitions about moving production abroad , concentrating the manufacture of labor intensive painted pottery in china , for example , and acquiring a pottery maker in marshall , tex . , last year . italian banking is so costly and provincial that to finance deroma 's growth , mr . masello took the very un italian step of selling shares on the milan stock_exchange , thus avoiding the debt that makes italian companies , as he puts it , ''the salvation of the banking system . '' ( deroma is one of only two of the 2 , 200 industrial companies in the vicenza area listed on the milan bourse . ) even then , to manage the stock sale , he chose deutsche_morgan_grenfell , the investment_banking arm of germany 's deutsche_bank , though he also brought into the syndicate credito_italiano , one of the best run italian banks , ''to include a national bank . '' and so rigid is the italian labor market , and so immobile have italians become thanks to generous welfare and unemployment payments , that despite unemployment of more than 20 percent in the south of italy , deroma employs 40 to 50 non europeans , mainly from india and africa , among its roughly 1 , 500 workers . still , not all of italian business shares deroma 's dynamism , and what troubles some experts is the relative weakness of key sectors of the economy , like banking . to cushion that industry , italy long maintained high barriers to foreign entry . now the euro is expected to open the floodgates to foreign capital . luigi spaventa , a former finance minister who is chairman of a regional tuscan bank , monte dei paschi di siena , said italian banks were so burdened by italian bureaucracy that it could take up to 10 years to recover a loan gone bad . that will prove costly when the euro arrives , he said . while the local banks may hold on to less profitable businesses , like retail_banking , they could well lose more lucrative activities like wholesale banking , investment_banking and financial products to powerful foreign competitors . ''there will ultimately be casualties , '' mr . spaventa said . the retail trade is equally fragile . long protected by a government that favored small family owned distribution , thousands of mom and pop stores now face a shakeout . though the stores may be part of the charm of italian cities , their inefficiency and high prices fuel inflation and dampen consumption . already , foreign supermarket chains like auchan s.a . of france have begun invading northern_italy . to defend their turf , italian chains are banding together . standa , which is controlled by the holding_company fininvest s.p.a. , recently joined a purchasing alliance with two other supermarket groups . even thus united , they are dwarfed by european rivals . while tengelmann warenhandels of germany , best known in the united_states for its a. p . supermarkets , has 40 billion in annual sales , standa and its partners together account for only 8 . 5 billion . ''in italy , the first five supermarket groups together do less business than tengelmann , '' standa 's mr . montagna said . moreover , the debilitating north south divide remains . while carlo_azeglio_ciampi , the current finance minister , says that reviving the south is his highest priority after the euro , executives like mr . masello are skeptical . asked whether deroma would invest in southern_italy , mr . masello complained of excessive production in the country , where 70 percent of deroma 's pottery originates . wages in the south roughly equal those in the north , he noted , despite lower productivity , making operations there prohibitively_expensive . add to that the region 's poor railroads and highways , and the reason for his refusal is clear . he envisions instead a europe wide investment program for depressed regions . the struggles of the italian south , some experts warn , will also keep the pressure on politicians to relax the government 's austerity program . in naples , the capital of the campania region , where the 26 percent joblessness rate is more than double the national average , tens of thousands of people marched in the streets in march to demand jobs . the immediate social cost to italy of the euro will be high , said sergio de nardis , an economist at confindustria , an industrialists association . ''the benefits will come only in the medium to long term , '' he added . the simple truth , he said , is that old habits of protecting and cosseting industries die_hard . sometimes , even issues of prestige get in the way . that happened recently when the struggling national_airline , alitalia , said that it would shift about 10 percent of the flights that now depart from rome to a new airport being built near milan . the change was intended to lure back italian business travelers in the north who now find it easier to go to frankfurt or zurich , and fly with lufthansa or swissair , than to trek south to rome . the foreign ministry begged the government to intervene and reverse the decision . lamberto_dini , the foreign_minister , complained that the shift in flights , besides taking business from rome , would ''provoke not a little embarrassment for the image of italy . '' only after it became clear that reversing the decision would jeopardize a crucial alliance between alitalia and the dutch carrier klm did the government silence mr . dini and give profitability priority over image . though such persistent political intrusions are disheartening , mr . de nardis said , the prompt government refusal was also reassuring , illustrating a growing gap in italy ''between rhetoric and reality . ''",has a topic of business
"lead the italian cabinet approved a plan today to establish a financing company to promote joint_ventures in eastern_europe . the company , simest s.p.a. , will operate like a merchant_bank . it will take minority stakes in joint_ventures and participate in other industrial and commercial collaborations , mainly with small and medium_sized companies . the italian cabinet approved a plan today to establish a financing company to promote joint_ventures in eastern_europe . the company , simest s.p.a. , will operate like a merchant_bank . it will take minority stakes in joint_ventures and participate in other industrial and commercial collaborations , mainly with small and medium_sized companies . simest , which will initially focus on poland and hungary , will have starting capital of 98 billion lire , or 78 million , rising to 500 billion lire , or 400 million , within three years .",has a topic of business
"american_airlines said last night that it had reached an agreement to buy three trans_world_airlines routes to london for 445 million , a move that would complete a changing of the guard in trans_atlantic aviation . american ended up paying carl c . icahn , t.w.a . 's chairman , the entire price it had originally agreed to pay for all six of t.w.a . 's routes into heathrow_airport in london , considered the dominant gateway to europe . mr . icahn was able to hold out for the full amount after the transportation department ruled last week that american , the largest carrier in the united_states , could have only three of the routes , those from new york , los_angeles and boston . analysts said american was under pressure from a need to keep up with united_airlines , the nation 's second largest carrier , which began flying into heathrow last month on routes it purchased from pan_american_world_airways , another cash_starved weakling in the struggling air travel industry . "" it is extremely important to american to operate these three key routes plus chicago heathrow and miami heathrow during the peak summer 1991 season , "" american 's chairman , robert l . crandall , said in a statement . american said it hoped to begin flying the routes on july 1 . the deal still faces a legal challenge from the city of st . louis , where t.w.a . has its major domestic hub , and from t.w.a . unions in st . louis . the city filed suit in federal district court to oppose the sale of any of the london routes , saying the sale would weaken the airline and jeopardize the 15 , 000 jobs the carrier provides in missouri , which is about half the airline 's total employment . the city called the transportation department 's approval of the sale "" capricious . "" the unions contend that the route sales will effectively kill t.w.a . but mr . crandall said the legal challenge was "" without merit . "" american had initially agreed to pay 445 million for six t.w.a . routes into heathrow , with the other three originating in philadelphia , baltimore and st . louis . the transportation department 's decision letting american have only half of the routes set the stage for the negotiations between the two airlines . t.w.a . immediately said it wanted the full price . the three routes that american was allowed to buy carried more than 80 percent of the traffic . pressure to reach deal quickly both carriers were under pressure to reach a deal quickly , however . t.w.a . is in desperate need of cash . american said it needed to act fast , saying that if it did not reach an agreement on the routes by may 15 it would not be able to start serving heathrow by its target of july 1 . american had abandoned its earlier target of initiating the service on june 1 when the california investor kirk_kerkorian was able to delay the transportation department proceeding by saying he wanted to preserve t.w.a . by purchasing the whole airline , but only if the london routes were retained . american currently operates nonstop service between dallas fort_worth and gatwick_airport in london , and between miami and gatwick on june 1 it will begin service between chicago and gatwick . on july 1 , the airline plans to move the chicago and miami services to heathrow and begin the newly acquired heathrow routes to and from boston and new york . the los_angeles route will begin july 20 . company news",has a topic of business
"the news_corporation has given new concessions to the european_commission in a bid for regulatory approval for its planned acquisition of the italian pay_tv channel telepi , a spokeswoman for the company said . the european_competition regulator will make a preliminary decision in the coming weeks on whether the concessions are enough to allay its concerns about the deal . paul_meller ( nyt )",has a topic of business
"abn_amro won an important ruling wednesday in its battle to buy banca antonveneta , as italy 's market regulator said that a competing bidder , banca_popolare di lodi , had colluded with other investors seeking to buy the bank . the ruling will effectively force the financially strained popolare di lodi to offer cash only for antonveneta , instead of the stock and bond offer it has made . the regulator , consob , said in a statement wednesday that lodi and other italian investors had made an undisclosed pact to buy antonveneta shares in concert , and then vote together at the bank 's april 30 shareholders' meeting . while forming such a pact is legal , when the combined stake held by those investors exceeds 30 percent , italian law requires a bidder to offer cash only for all remaining outstanding shares . lodi owns 29 . 5 percent of antonveneta the other investors , which include several italian financiers , own 11 percent . with lodi already stretched to put together a stock and bond bid , consob 's ruling could be a knockout blow . in addition , antonveneta 's market value is triple that of lodi . an appeal by lodi could lead to a protracted legal battle . abn has already turned to the courts , suing to overturn lodi 's takeover of antonveneta 's board at a shareholders' meeting at the end of april . ''consob really should have gotten involved earlier , but better late than never , '' said gianluca ferrari , a fund manager with banca valsabbina in brescia . ''the last act has not been played , though , so it 's too early to count either side out . '' consob 's reputation has been tattered in recent years , most notably by its failure to help prevent or uncover the extensive fraud at the dairy company parmalat in 2003 . the regulator also drew criticism for its failure to examine more closely a 2003 bond issue by cirio , a canned foods company , which defaulted on the bonds six months later and eventually declared bankruptcy . but wednesday 's decision , which came after a late night meeting between consob 's chairman , lamberto cardia , and the four other commissioners , may represent a shift toward a more active approach . abn , a dutch bank , started the bidding for antonveneta with an all cash offer of 6.3 billion_euros ( then worth 8 . 1 billion ) on march 30 . at the time , abn owned 13 percent of antonveneta and was the bank 's largest shareholder . that stake has since grown to 20 . 7 percent , but is now the second biggest holding after lodi 's 29 . 5 percent . abn is offering 25 euros ( 32 . 19 at the current rate ) a share in cash for antonveneta , while lodi has offered stock and bonds with a market value of about 23 euros ( 29 . 60 ) a share . lodi has said that if the market value of its offer is less than 26 euros ( 33 . 47 ) a share when the bidding concludes , it will raise the amount of stocks and bonds offered to reach that level . antonveneta shares closed 0.4 percent higher wednesday , at 25 . 85 euros ( 33 . 28 ) . lodi would have to bid about 24 euros ( 30 . 90 ) in cash for each antonveneta share , according to the formula outlined in italian securities law . international business",has a topic of business
"lead the lockheed corporation , in the early stages of competing for a 2 billion air_force training jet program , said it would use an italian jet design if it won the contract . lockheed said it had an agreement with aermacchi s.p.a . of varese , italy , to use the mb 339 jet tandem trainer for the united_states_air_force 's primary aircraft training system program . the lockheed corporation , in the early stages of competing for a 2 billion air_force training jet program , said it would use an italian jet design if it won the contract . lockheed said it had an agreement with aermacchi s.p.a . of varese , italy , to use the mb 339 jet tandem trainer for the united_states_air_force 's primary aircraft training system program . aermacchi would license lockheed to build the jet and supply some parts . the air_force plans to buy 540 trainer aircraft between 1994 and 2004 to replace its t 37 . the navy may also purchase 340 trainers . nich durutta , a lockheed spokesman , said the italian jet was a good choice because it was cost effective . company news",has a topic of business
"the british economy grew slower than originally reported in the second quarter , the national statistics office said . gross_domestic_product rose 0.6 percent in the quarter and 1.2 percent for the year , less than the 0.9 percent quarterly growth and 1.5 percent annual growth originally reported . the widely expected downward_revision was mainly a result of an ''unprecedented'' decline in manufacturing output , the government said . manufacturing output fell 5.3 percent from may to june , and registered its sixth consecutive quarterly decline . suzanne_kapner ( nyt )",has a topic of business
"italy 's largest insurance_company , assicurazioni generali , said it planned to cut 2 , 800 jobs , about 5 percent of its work force , after suffering undisclosed losses last year . the company , which is based in trieste and is europe 's fourth largest insurer , said that 1 , 250 of the cuts would take place in germany , followed by 600 in italy and 500 in austria . the company said the layoffs were part of an attempt to whittle away 617 million_euros ( 662 million ) in costs by the end of 2005 . the company plans to disclose its 2001 results in march . jason horowitz ( nyt )",has a topic of business
"punch taverns , britain 's second largest pub chain , said it would buy the pubmaster group for 168 million ( 280 million ) . as part of the deal , which nearly doubles the number of punch 's pubs to 7 , 400 , the company will take on 1 . 03 billion of debt . pubmaster became a takeover_target when it lost a bidding war for scottish and newcastle 's pub business earlier this year . heather_timmons ( nyt )",has a topic of business
"smith new court p.l.c . said yesterday that it was holding talks with a "" small number of parties "" that could result in a takeover of one of the brokerage_firm , one of britain 's largest remaining independent stockbrokers . and this morning , the financial_times reported that merrill_lynch company was in takeover negotiations with smith new court . the paper said merrill_lynch was aiming to conclude a deal within days . officials of merrill_lynch could not be reached for comment last night . both the financial_times and the independent of london reported in today 's issue that commerzbank of germany had held preliminary talks with the british firm . smith new court said yesterday that it expected that any offer made would be at a "" small premium "" to its share price , which was at an all time high of 534 pence when the announcement was made . the shares fell back and closed at 511 , up 20 pence . the firm 's current market value is about 550 million . other suitors being mentioned included the american companies j . p . morgan , bear_stearns , morgan_stanley and smith_barney , a unit of travelers inc . smith new court 's roots go back to 1925 . it was primarily known as a specialist in south african gold stocks until 1986 , when it expanded into a full service market_maker . the company has a reputation for stock brokerage and international equities expertise . ( bloomberg business news )",has a topic of business
"an italian court today convicted one of italy 's most powerful businessmen , carlo de benedetti , and 32 co defendants on charges of fraud stemming from the sensational 1982 collapse of banco_ambrosiano , once italy 's largest private_bank . in a decision that stunned italy , the court in milan sentenced mr . de benedetti , chairman of olivetti , the turin based computer giant , to six years and four months in jail . lawyers said he would go to prison only if both an appeals court and the supreme_court confirmed the verdict . the appeals process could last several years . the verdicts and particularly mr . de benedetti 's conviction surprised many italians , not only because no italian court has ever ruled against so influential a group of business figures , but also because investigation of the murky ambrosiano scandal was already in its 10th year . although it was mr . de benedetti 's conviction that grabbed the headlines today , the entire banco_ambrosiano case has long fascinated italians because the bank 's collapse exposed an extraordinary underworld of shady deals involving powerful political figures , mafia bosses and even the vatican . announcing plans to appeal today 's ruling , mr . de benedetti 's lawyers said , "" this sentence is as unexpected as it is disconcerting for anyone who knows the facts and still believes in justice . "" they said "" not a single piece of evidence "" had been presented suggesting mr . de benedetti 's co responsibility for banco_ambrosiano 's collapse . mr . de benedetti himself made no statement today , but in the past he has insisted that his role at the bank was both innocent and peripheral . he became its deputy chairman in november 1981 and resigned , selling his 2 percent stake , in january 1982 , seven months before the bank went bankrupt , leaving debts of more than 1 billion . when the first indictments in the case were made in april 1989 , the turin born businessman was cleared by magistrates of any wrongdoing , but the state prosecutor appealed this decision . in march 1991 , an appeals court rejected the prosecution 's charge that mr . de benedetti had profited illicitly from the sale of his shares , but it unexpectedly added his name to those indicted on fraud charges related to the banco_ambrosiano 's bankruptcy . the current charges never attributed a specific role to him in the bank 's collapse . if mr . de benedetti 's conviction is upheld , it will inevitably result in a big shake up at ing . c . olivetti company s.p.a. , which he has served as chief executive since 1978 and as chairman since 1983 . the 57 year old executive is also active in other industrial , financial and publishing operations in italy and abroad . mr . de benedetti controls his empire through his family 's 42 . 5 percent stake in compagnia finanziaria de benedetti , or cofide . cofide , in turn , owns 43 . 3 percent of compagnia industriali ruinite , or cir , itself the holding_company for olivetti and numerous other companies . cir owns 44 . 3 percent of olivetti . in the wake of the verdict , olivetti shares on the milan bourse fell sharply and then recovered slightly , closing 2.8 percent down at 2 , 605 lire . shares in mr . de benedetti 's holding_company , compagnia industriali riunite , closed 4.4 percent lower at 1 , 465 lire . cofide 's shares fell by 1.5 percent to 2 , 010 lire . last year , the olivetti group , which has 47 , 000 employees , recorded losses of around 242 million on consolidated revenues of 7 . 2 billion . like other leading computer companies , including i.b.m. , olivetti has suffered from the world economic slowdown . in february , mr . de benedetti said he hoped the company would break even this year . in a statement issued in march 1991 , mr . de benedetti said he had been forced off the bank 's board because he was alone in "" openly and strongly "" contesting the management methods of its then chairman , roberto calvi . mr . calvi 's body was found hanging under blackfriars bridge in london on june 18 , 1982 , officially a suicide , although the belief that he was murdered is still widely held in italy . other famous names convicted today as accessories to fraudulent bankruptcy included licio gelli , a leader of the outlawed masonic lodge known as p 2 , who was sentenced to 18 1 2 years in prison and giuseppe ciarrapico , a rome financier and close friend of prime_minister giulio_andreotti , who was sentenced to 6 years and 4 months . the unraveling of the bank began in 1981 when the discovery of the p 2 masonic lodge , with many prominent names among its nearly 1 , 000 members , brought down the italian government . not only was p 2 , for propaganda due , suspected of responsibility for some rightist bomb attacks , but mr . gelli was later found to have used banco_ambrosiano for money_laundering . under mr . calvi , who took over the bank 's presidency in 1975 and was also a member of p 2 , the bank expanded rapidly abroad , notably in south_america and in offshore financial centers . evidence that it laundered some mafia money and provided credit for some mafia operations later formed part of the prosecution 's case . the roman_catholic_church 's embarrassing involvement came through the friendship between mr . calvi and an american prelate , archbishop paul c . marcinkus of cicero , ill . , who was head of the institute for religious works at the vatican . 'god 's banker' known as the vatican bank , the institute owned 1.5 percent of the banco_ambrosiano as well as 10 shell companies in panama and luxembourg to which the bank lent 1 . 3 billion . mr . calvi 's well known ties to the vatican earned him the nickname of "" god 's banker , "" but it was when the vatican 's shell companies could not repay their loans that the bank finally went under . after the banco_ambrosiano 's collapse in august 1982 , the vatican contended that it played no role in the bank 's management . in 1984 , insisting that it was a gesture of good will rather than an admission of guilt , the vatican nonetheless paid 250 million to the bank 's creditors . in 1988 , arguing that it was a sovereign_state , it also persuaded the italian supreme_court that archbishop marcinkus was protected from prosecution by diplomatic_immunity . the archbishop stepped down as head of the vatican bank in 1989 and retired the following year . none of the convicted will be jailed until the appeals process is completed .",has a topic of business
"lead britain recorded a deficit in its so called invisible trade in the last three months of 1989 , the government said today . it was the first quarterly deficit since such data were first collected in 1955 . figures from the central statistical office showed a gap of 713 million ( 1 . 14 billion ) in the last quarter of 1989 for the category , which includes banking , insurance , shipping and tourism . britain recorded a deficit in its so called invisible trade in the last three months of 1989 , the government said today . it was the first quarterly deficit since such data were first collected in 1955 . figures from the central statistical office showed a gap of 713 million ( 1 . 14 billion ) in the last quarter of 1989 for the category , which includes banking , insurance , shipping and tourism .",has a topic of business
"friedrich schwarze pauses to reflect when asked how many generations ago one of his ancestors founded fried . schwarze , makers of fine schnapps in oelde , not far from the rhine river in western germany . "" eleven , i think , "" he says hesitatingly , "" or maybe 12 . "" that is because the company he owns and runs , employing 220 people with about 100 million of business a year , was started in 1664 , just about the time the dutch were surrendering what is now new york city to the english . for olindo pelino , the president and owner of confetti mario pelino , the answer comes more easily . "" bernardino , pamfilo , francesco paolo , alfonso , maria , olindo "" mr . pelino says , rattling off the names of five forebears . it was bernardino pelino who founded the candy making company in sulmona , italy , in 1783 . olindo pelino , a tall , swarthy man of 69 years , is a relative youngster in what is arguably the world 's most exclusive business club . its 22 members , who met for their annual reunion in rome earlier this month , have fulfilled three conditions of membership the companies they own have done business for at least 200 years , they are direct descendants of the founders , and the companies enjoy , as mr . pelino put it , "" sound financial health . "" these are businessmen who take the long view no fortune_500 flashes , no takeover and acquisition artists or asset strippers . mr . pelino talks easily about how the sugar coated nuts that are a company specialty go back to the 1400 's and how the discovery of america at the end of that century threw sugar markets into turmoil , opening fresh sources of cane sugar in places like cuba and santo domingo . the club bears the french name of les henokiens , roughly "" the enochites , "" for enoch , the old testament patriarch who lived 365 years . eight of the club 's present members are in france , eight in italy , three in germany , two in japan and one in spain . the club has no american members , possibly because successful businesses in the united_states rarely remain in family hands for more than a few generations . the membership list includes no laptop makers or software houses , which is not to say that these companies are not technology driven . ugo gussali beretta of the renowned beretta corporation , the italian firearms company , tells how an ancestor , bartolomeo beretta , spurred by gunpowder 's arrival , took local iron_ore and cheap water power to create in 1526 a forge for making gun barrels , thus laying the foundations of the company whose products would later include the model wielded by the fictional superspy james_bond . the club was the brainchild of a french businessman , gerard glotin , whose ancestor , jean_baptiste roger , joined an aunt , marie brizard , in 1755 to distill and sell anisette . mademoiselle brizard claimed to have learned the recipe from a sailor in a dream . by 1761 , the family was exporting the liqueur as far as the west indies , and today marie brizard et roger international has 700 employees and annual sales of 345 million . claude lifar , brizard 's general_manager , who represented mr . glotin at this year 's reunion , said mr . glotin came up with the idea for the club in 1981 and scoured the industrial world for potential members , contacting chambers of commerce , business organizations and government agencies in many countries . the quest continues . "" we are sure there are more out there , "" mr . lifar said , "" and it 's our policy to investigate other countries to find them . "" prospective new members include one of japan 's best known makers of kimonos and a renowned pastry maker with a shop in paris . and mr . lifar said he expected new members to emerge elsewhere , in switzerland , austria and britain . three members besides brizard are distilleries . there are also three wine companies and three textile makers . the largest group , however , is in metalworking , including daciano colbachini figli , which has been making bells near padua , italy , since 1745 , and silca , another italian company that has made keys and locks since 1770 . the patriarch enoch 's long life pales by comparison to that of the hoshi family business , hotel hoshi . zengoro hoshi , a compact , bespectacled man of 56 , traces his hotel back 46 generations to garyo hoshi , who in the year 718 established a ryokan , or traditional japanese inn , near mount hakusan in northern japan . today the 100 room inn employs 220 people . several members had to drop out when outsiders took over their companies . antinori , a maker of chianti wines in tuscany , was forced to quit in 1988 after the family sold a controlling share to whitbread p.l.c. , the british food company . the annual reunions , which move from country to country , are largely social affairs . "" the purpose is to meet , to enlarge the success of the companies by pooling the experience of the families , "" said mr . beretta , 57 , a stocky man who represents the 13th generation since beretta 's founding . the club collects no membership dues but sometimes seeks contributions for prizes , awarded mainly to young entrepreneurs . most recently , it gave 50 , 000 to a young german businessman who recovered a family founded distillery that had been nationalized when eastern_germany came under communist rule after world_war_ii . despite their longevity , the member companies are not museum pieces . angelo barovier 's company , barovier toso , glass blowers at murano in the venetian lagoon since 1460 , is a leader in technology for making and coloring glass products . and fratelli piacenza , a company run by guido piacenza 's family , which began producing wool in italy 's piedmont region in 1733 , is a leading maker of cashmere . mr . schwarze 's company not only makes liquors , but also has had a coca_cola bottling and distribution business since 1951 . so far there have been no business alliances among the owners , whose products and experiences vary_widely . companies like mr . pelino 's candy dynasty have grown virtually uninterrupted , but keiichi okura , whose family founded japan 's largest sake distillery in 1637 , recalled several crises that shook his business , the gekkeikan sake company , over the centuries . the first that came to mind was the meiji uprising of 1868 , when the power of japan 's feudal shoguns was cracked , and fighting raged in kyoto , gekkeikan 's home . then , almost as an afterthought , mr . okura recalled world_war_ii . crucial to survival , most members agreed , is the ability to enlist the next generation , but willingly , in the family enterprise . mr . piacenza recalled how he studied languages in switzerland before developing an interest in the family wool making business . asked whether he wanted his 3 year old son , felice , to succeed him one day , he shrugged . "" i do n't really care , "" he replied . "" if he wants to play the violin , i would be glad . "" but the search for the secret of continuity , a constant topic of conversation among club members , led to no single conclusion . "" after all , this is really a selection , "" said mr . schwarze , a lean , blond man of 42 . "" it 's not as though we all got together 200 years ago and decided we would last this long . "" mr . okura , the sake maker , talked about sound management , technical innovation , quality and strong marketing . mr . piacenza said the cheap lira was spurring his company 's exports to germany and japan , and he had introduced a new line of cashmere knitwear . "" i ask myself often what 's the secret , and in my personal opinion , it 's a matter of luck , "" he said . "" many things may happen along the way you can start with a bad business you can have accidents . "" he reflected a moment , then added , "" you might marry the wrong person . "" the henokien 22 718 hoshi , japan , hotels 1460 barovier toso , italy , glass products 1526 fabbrica d'armi pietro beretta , italy , firearms 1551 codorniu , spain , sparkling wines 1568 poschinger glashutte , germany , glass products 1613 mellerio dits meller , france , jewelry 1637 gekkeikan sake company ltd . , japan , liquors 1639 hugel fils , france , vineyards 1664 friedr . schwarze , germany , liquors 1679 viellard migeon cie . , france , metal products 1680 tissages denantes , france , textiles 1685 maison gradis , france , wines 1690 delamare sovra , france , wood products 1733 fratelli piacenza , italy , textiles 1745 daciano colbachini figli , italy , bells 1755 marie brizard roger international , france , liquors 1757 lanificio g . b . conte , italy , textiles 1760 griset , france , metal products 1762 f . v . moller , germany , metal products 1770 silca , italy , keys and key making equipment 1779 ditta bortolo nardini , italy , distilleries 1783 confetti mario pelino , italy , candies",has a topic of business
"when people talk about a peace_dividend in northern_ireland , roger johnston is part of the new world they have in mind . remote from the familiar images of hooded gunmen , defiant marchers and the bloody debris of bombings , mr . johnston , 36 , a father of two , commutes between his 5 , 000 square_foot home in a late model silver bmw ( with baby seat in the back ) . he works in a new business_park on the city 's raw outskirts as european representative of avalanche technology a software start up based in denver that became the latest high technology company to open an operation here . it was drawn , in part , by british_government grants intended to switch the economy from old to new . to complete the picture , mr . johnston is one of the province 's prodigals the migrant sons and daughters who , unlike those in the irish_republic , still outnumber the stay at homes . he left northern_ireland in 1984 to work in london and chicago after earning a degree in business_administration at queen 's university here . now , he has been drawn back by what he calls quality of life considerations and a sense that economic renewal is now possible for the first time in decades . ''we are n't really confident yet , '' mr . johnston said . ''but we are a lot more confident than we were 10 years ago . we are prepared to say that we can compete on a global basis . '' of course , the politics has had a bumpy ride since the so called good friday peace agreement was signed under american tutelage in 1998 . but when president_clinton comes here for a swansong visit intended to re energize the faltering accord , belfast start_ups like avalanche will be one of the proofs offered by local worthies that this torn and still bloody province is on the cusp of a resurgence comparable to that of the irish_republic , the so called celtic tiger economy , just to the south . ''we are in the endgame of whether we are going to pull this off or not , '' said sir reg empey , the minister of enterprise , trade and investment . ''but we do n't believe the problems are insoluble . what i can say is that if you look back at the position 10 years ago , it 's totally transformed . '' there are other changes , too . when mr . clinton paid his first visit as president in late 1995 one year after a ceasefire , he used the backdrop of mcerleans bakery on the staunchly roman_catholic falls road for a groundbreaking public encounter with gerry_adams , head of sinn_fein , the political arm of the irish_republican_army . even the bakery has changed in a way that gladdens those seeking to coax entrepreneurship from a region still dependent on handouts from london . in the president 's honor , the bakery 's new owner , kerry o'connor , has renamed her establishment clinton 's hot food sandwich bar and bistro , serving quarter pounders , fries and scones . ''in the past people did n't start up because they were afraid they could n't make money , '' said ms . o'connor , 31 , a former waitress who took a_20 , 000 bank loan to take over the establishment five months ago and spruce up its interior with bright mauve and yellow decor , bedecked with irish and american flags . ''there are better opportunities now , '' she said . ''more people have got jobs . they spend more . and i think everybody has put the troubles behind them . '' in a telling counterpoint , on the troubled mainly protestant shankill road where rival paramilitary groups run fiefs that compete for the spoils of conflict , another woman running a small business lowered her voice to a nervous whisper and declined to be identified by name when asked to talk about how business was going . ''there 's no peace_dividend here , '' she said . indeed , said sir george quigley , the chairman of ulster bank , the province 's second largest , until the peace has proved its durability , ''you are going to get some potential investors who say that until it 's all hammered down , we are not going to take a decision'' on risking money here . much of what northern_ireland puts on display is eerily reminiscent of the successes of the irish_republic low wages , a high proportion of young , skilled people and corporate incentives . unemployment now is at a low of 6.1 percent compared with its peak of 16 . 8 percent in 1986 . that is higher than in the rest of britain or in ireland , but lower than european averages and no longer makes the region the sickly laggard among britain 's most depressed areas . the province 's growth , indeed , local dignitaries say , is the fastest within britain , while foreign investment has boomed to record highs , 80 percent of it in high technology industries . in the 1990 's , the provincial economy created 90 , 000 new jobs . and since a ceasefire in 1994 , foreign investment has totaled 3 . 2 billion , rising and falling in step with the fortunes of peace efforts . along the belfast waterfront , glittery new prestige buildings a theater and a leisure center , hotels and offices reflect a surge in property development . house prices in belfast were up 25 percent in 1999 , the authorities said . but , of course , that is not the whole story . economic_growth has been handicapped by almost three decades of conflict that have cost more than 3 , 000 lives . with one time mainstays like shipbuilding , textiles and farming in decline , the province is heavily dependent on handouts from london . more than one third of the available jobs are in the government bureaucracy . a staggering 55 percent to 60 percent of the provincial economy is derived from taxpayers' money and northern_ireland remains poor in comparison with scotland or wales , with less than 80 percent of britain 's average per capita wealth . and , while the figure is half what it once was , it still costs the public purse about 13 , 500 to create one new job . ''you would expect to see a lot of money sloshing around , creating fairly buoyant consumer demand , '' said prof . john bradley , an economist with the independent economic and social research institute in dublin . ''but as an outsider i would n't mistake that for anything but funding from outside . '' outsiders , too , tend to be more skeptical than insiders about the whole idea of a peace_dividend . ''the notion is getting a bit thin , '' professor bradley said . ''the first thing you have to adjust for in northern_ireland is that this is a psychologically battered region , and they definitely want to be pointing at something that 's going well . '' while northern_ireland seeks to emulate the boom in the irish_republic , it finds itself disadvantaged by one element in its neighbor 's success europe 's single_currency . ireland is a member of the euro_zone while northern_ireland , as part of britain , is a holdout . yet , the two places share a porous frontier that enables northerners armed with strong british pounds to head south to hunt for bargains . and exports from northern_ireland to the rest of europe bear the burden of the strong british_pound . the difference in the gasoline price alone makes a huge impact , sir reg , the enterprise minister , said . by driving 40 miles , motorists can buy gas at the equivalent of 2 . 64 a united_states gallon , compared with 4 . 23 in northern_ireland , where british gasoline taxes are among europe 's highest . gasoline smuggling costs the province 140 million to 280 million , he said . ''the euro is devastating a whole range of northern_ireland industry , '' professor bradley said . ''they have a huge exposure to the southern market , but they ca n't compete'' against an exchange_rate that makes the british_pound so expensive compared with the irish punt . so why invest here when , just down the road , a cheap currency , long term corporate_tax breaks and membership in the euro_zone might seem to offer a better launching_pad for continental_europe ? part of the answer lies in ireland 's own success . so popular has dublin become for foreign investors that prices are rising and trained people are in shorter supply than in the north . the most compelling reason to focus on northern_ireland is the ready availability of skilled people , said alan gillespie , a former investment banker with goldman , sachs who heads the northern industrial development board , a government_agency that promotes investment . ''the republic of ireland is experiencing considerable congestion and high labor costs , '' he said . ''northern_ireland has a cost structure that 's quite attractive . '' not to mention free money . when avalanche technology , for instance , began its northern_ireland operation as the first link in a global chain of software outsourcing businesses , three quarters of its modest start up capital of roughly 5 . 6 million came from a british venture_capital_firm , 3i , and the rest from government funds . subject to the company 's success in profitability and job_creation , the total is set to increase to 32 million , roughly 5 million of it from the authorities . on average , the industrial development board said , its contribution to new investments is 20 percent . avalanche said it would create 480 jobs by 2005 . some two and a half years after the province 's politicians signed a historic peace accord , mr . johnston says he has just hired his first 50 software engineers , both protestants and catholics , and found no difficulty at all in dipping into a pool of trained talent . both donor and recipient prefer to minimize the role played by grants . ''i would play down the financial incentives , '' said fred crowe , the chief executive of avalanche , in a telephone interview from denver . ''it was n't the ultimate decision maker'' in his choice to put the new company 's first european operation in northern_ireland . ultimately , mr . crowe said , it was due more to other factors like the availability of people , broadband telecommunications links , finding a gateway to europe and anticipating being able to attract many people back to ireland . and it did not hurt that mr . crowe is himself a native of northern_ireland . salaries , too , make a big difference . according to mr . johnston , software engineers in northern_ireland may be hired for the equivalent of about 25 , 000 a year , compared with starting levels of 35 , 000 in britain . and , while northern_ireland , like the irish_republic , once suffered from its isolation , the advent of a wired , global economy has reduced its sense of remoteness . ''northern_ireland is not just coming out of a political and civil shadow , '' dr . gillespie said , ''but the emergence of a globalized economy means that geography is no longer a disadvantage . '' and others are crossing their fingers that the economic advances will prevent the political process from sliding back into conflict . ''there 's a buzz about the whole situation , '' said sir george of ulster bank . ''people are saying 'why do we want to lose all that ? ' it would be absolutely crazy . ''",has a topic of business
"lead britain 's wpp group announced yesterday that it had completed the acquisition of the jwt group , parent of the j . walter_thompson agency , having completed its tender_offer and receiving 97 percent of the shares_outstanding for 55 . 50 a share . britain 's wpp group announced yesterday that it had completed the acquisition of the jwt group , parent of the j . walter_thompson agency , having completed its tender_offer and receiving 97 percent of the shares_outstanding for 55 . 50 a share . advertising",has a topic of business
"lead italy 's public finances , always messy and at times almost unfathomable , have fallen into fresh disarray , threatening the country 's political stability and sending shivers through the financial markets in milan . italy 's public finances , always messy and at times almost unfathomable , have fallen into fresh disarray , threatening the country 's political stability and sending shivers through the financial markets in milan . the central issue is a familiar one the depth of the government 's commitment to rein in spending , raise taxes and otherwise take control of a budget_deficit expected to reach 85 billion this year , or 10 percent of the gross_national_product more than triple the relative size of the deficit in the united_states . italians are well aware that the debt must be reduced , or at least a healthy start must be made , if they hope to compete in the unified european market that is to begin at the end of 1992 . some encouragement many financial analysts and government officials were encouraged in the waning days of 1988 . they sensed important steps in the right direction when the cabinet approved a budget outline for this year that would raise sales_taxes , cut income taxes , take the first tentative steps toward controlling rampant tax_evasion and look for spending cuts in bloated areas like pensions and health and welfare benefits . but in the opening weeks of 1989 , key elements of the proposal have come unglued . italy 's prime_minister of the last 10 months , ciriaco de mita , is finding himself under attack by business groups , news commentators and even members of his five party ruling coalition who question his political resolve to turn back special interest pressures and stick to his promises of austerity . the unhappiness has been reflected in the milan stock_market , where share prices have steadily slipped of late . the main indicator , the milan bourse index , closed 4 percent lower on friday than it did the week before , when the latest round of doubts about the government set in . to some degree , the skittishness stems from uncertainty about a new capital_gains_tax that the government is studying but whose details are not known . economists and bankers say , however , that investor confidence has been rattled by recent government moves of a broader nature . 'out of control' ''the message that was given is that we are not prepared to fight inflation and the deficit , '' a government economic adviser said . ''the public deficit remains out of control . '' gloom deepened after the international_monetary_fund warned recently that 1989 borrowing requirements could wind up 5 billion higher than expected and criticized the government for not adhering firmly to its austerity policies . an i.m.f . report in late january called those policies ''a necessary condition for the success of italy in the single european market . '' of immediate concern for many italians was an agreement reached 10 days ago between mr . de mita , who is a christian democrat , and the country 's three big labor federations . they had threatened a four hour general_strike for jan . 31 unless the government restored a form of tax indexing that had been dropped from its 1989 financial plan . without indexing , wage_increases would be automatically offset by higher taxes . this , the unions argued , would disproportionately hurt factory and office workers , who have little opportunity to dodge the tax collector with the abandon enjoyed by self employed professionals , shop owners and farmers . squeezing the lemon in this regard , there was a widespread feeling that the federations had justice on their side . even the architect of the government program , treasury minister giuliano_amato , acknowledged the large burden on working men and women . ''public spending in italy ended up relying ever more on that huge lemon squeezer called the personal income_tax , '' he said last month . ''and the lemon , squeezed too hard , is the salaried worker . '' to avert a strike and the political damage it might have caused , mr . de mita finally yielded . he agreed , starting in 1990 , to adjust tax rates in line with inflation if consumer prices rise more than 2 percent . with inflation running now at nearly 6 percent , the treasury is almost certain to wind up with less revenue than originally projected roughly 2 billion in the first year and 7 . 5 billion by 1992 , mr . amato estimated . part of this loss would be offset by the suggested levy on capital gains , which are now effectively tax exempt for individual investors . the government was able to claim small triumphs of its own . reluctantly , the labor groups accepted a proposal to grant an amnesty to past tax evaders , the idea being that the government would forgive their debts in return for a modest one shot payment and a promise to pay tax bills in the future . to the unions , this amounted to rewarding scofflaws , but they went along . they also agreed to a new value_added_tax of 4 percent on books , newspapers and magazines and the doubling of a 2 percent tax on household items like bread and milk . closer look accountants who took a closer look at the agreement last week concluded that the unions did themselves little good when they gave away a fair amount in tax deductible spending that would be allowed for middle_income workers . nevertheless , it was the indexing issue that drew the most attention , and the prevailing view was that mr . de mita had demonstrated his unwillingness , or inability , to hold the line in the battle against the deficit . mr . amato distanced himself from the agreement . displeasure was also expressed by the finance minister , emilio colombo , and the minister for institutional reform , antonio maccanico . harsh criticism came from two junior partners in the ruling coalition , the republican and liberal parties . ''there is mistaken economic politics , '' renato altissimo , the liberal leader , said in an interview with an italian weekly . ''they are using band aids instead of scalpels , as is required . and this happens because public spending is the instrument used to buy consensus among various social classes . '' both the liberals and republicans , however , stopped short of threatening to withdraw from the coalition , which is dominated by the christian democrats . were they to do that , mr . de mita 's government would probably be short lived . international report",has a topic of business
"blue circle industries p.l.c. , a british building materials and heating supplies company , said yesterday that it would cut up to 500 more jobs this year as part of its plans to reorganize its heating business in britain and continental_europe . the staff reductions come in addition to december 's announcement of more than 600 job cuts in britain , france and germany , bringing the total to around 1 , 150 . ( bloomberg business news ) international briefs",has a topic of business
"the proposed sale of british_airways p.l.c . 's engine overhaul business to the general_electric_company of the united_states will not be referred to the monopolies and mergers commission , the department of trade and industry said in a statement , reducing the likelihood that completion of the deal will be delayed . british_airways agreed to sell the business , which performs repair and overhauls services for civil jet_engines , to g.e . for about 272 million , or 480 million , in august . company news",has a topic of business
"embroiled in the country 's vast corruption scandal , fiat_s.p.a. , italy 's largest private company , posted sharply lower 1992 profits last week , slashed its dividend for the second year running and announced a huge increase in its debt . while the results pushed down share prices , the principal medium term preoccupation among investors was whether the turin auto giant , gambling that the introduction of new model lines in the mid 1990 's will reverse its fortunes , would reap a substantial payoff in productivity and sales from the massive , 27 billion investment program it has underway . fiat 's fortunes particularly those of the core auto subsidiary that produces almost half its 40 billion revenue have tumbled with europe 's worst auto slump in decades . additionally , the company has been caught off balance with an aging range of models that have fared poorly against european competitors like volkswagen and ford . moreover , its 12 percent share in europe largely reflects its dominance in italy and even here , its share has fallen from over half to some 43 percent this year . furthermore , in april , total new car sales in the country slumped by an alarming 28 . 4 percent . those factors were reflected in the results announced last week , showing 1992 profits down to about 370 million from about 750 million in 1991 , when profits were buoyed by a windfall from the sale of fiat 's telecommunications subsidiary , telettra s.p.a. , to alcatel s.a . of france . most remarkably , profits from the auto subsidiary , fiat auto s.p.a. , were down to just over 10 million , compared with some 270 million the year before , based on current exchange_rates . at the same time , corporate debt mushroomed more than 10 fold to around 2 . 6 billion an increase blamed on the company 's multiyear investment program , last year 's devaluation of the italian_lira and other factors . the dividend was cut from 270 lira to 100 . on the milan stock_exchange , fiat ordinary shares ended the week at 5 , 590 lira up 37 percent on the year 's low of 4 , 060 in january , but nonetheless down sharply from more than 6 , 300 lira the previous week . "" it looks as if the bubble has burst , "" said a london analyst who spoke on the condition of anonymity . for much of this year , fiat share prices have risen on rumors of an impending deal with renault of france rumors that have yet to be confirmed in any way . right now , said paul dionne , an analyst with pasfin securities in milan , the share price is reflecting not so much rumor as a readiness among traders "" to give the company the benefit of the doubt , "" and to anticipate "" an improvement in trading conditions and the prospect of new models . "" since 1992 , fiat 's huge investment program has focused on building a new automated plant in southern_italy to introduce a new range of models to replace its aging uno and tipo cars , and upgrade the entire range of its alfa romeo , lancia , autobianchi and ferrari lines . adrian waters , an analyst with euromotor in london , said the immediate prospect seemed to be for further sell offs of non core businesses possibly in insurance and retailing as fiat concentrates on trying to revitalize its auto business . "" fiat needs to do this or it 's going to be left out , "" he said . "" it is developing a sense of urgency to produce products that are successful , and improve marketing and distribution . at the same time , it will have to divest non core interests and reallocate its resources in its core business . we could see an improvement by 1996 when a lot of new models will be on stream . "" other analysts , however , forecast a somewhat earlier improvement . up to now , said mr . dionne in milan , "" we have n't seen the kind of trading improvement "" that some had predicted but "" there is nothing to suggest that the company is in dire_straits . in 1994 , we 'll see the group in a strong , profitable market . "" a great imponderable hanging over the company is its involvement in the national bribery scandal that has netted some 2 , 500 politicians and businessmen in post_war europe 's biggest criminal investigation . fiat 's managing director , cesare romiti , the no . 2 man after chairman gianni_agnelli , is under investigation , as are other top managers . "" the marketplace has n't taken this into account , but in financial and business circles they are monitoring this very closely , "" said mr . waters in london . "" there 's been a loss of credibility and prestige . "" additionally , the very fact that much of the group 's top management is fighting a battle to avoid prosecution leaves little time or energy to negotiate what many analysts expect will be some form of partnership with another european auto_maker . adding to the uncertainty is the widespread anticipation that mr . agnelli and mr . romiti will hand over the company to a new generation of managers next year . the bribery scandal has raised the wider question of investor confidence in italy , which has seesawed throughout the country 's economic and political crises . last week , mr . agnelli said 1993 would prove to be "" another very critical year , even if in europe one can see the first signs of a slowdown in tight monetary_policy with a consequent reduction in interest rates . "" improvement in the economic outlook will , he said , be "" very gradual . """,has a topic of business
"lead italy 's economic expansion , driven by booming consumer demand and strong industrial investment , is continuing to gather pace , according to official data issued today . the national_statistics_institute said italy 's gross_domestic_product , the measure of economic performance excluding foreign trade , grew 3.9 percent year to year in the third quarter of 1988 , up from 3.3 percent growth in the second quarter . italy 's economic expansion , driven by booming consumer demand and strong industrial investment , is continuing to gather pace , according to official data issued today . the national_statistics_institute said italy 's gross_domestic_product , the measure of economic performance excluding foreign trade , grew 3.9 percent year to year in the third quarter of 1988 , up from 3.3 percent growth in the second quarter . growth in the third quarter alone was a strong 1.5 percent , well above the second quarter 's eight tenths of 1 percent growth level .",has a topic of business
"the italian government has proposed that companies pay a salary increase of 200 , 000 lire ( 120 ) a month for the country 's 1.5 million metal workers , prime_minister romano_prodi said in an interview on state television . the government 's weekend intervention was an attempt to settle a wage dispute that has lasted seven months . industry negotiators , who have offered 139 , 000 lire , said that was too high , while the proposal was welcomed by union leaders , who have been demanding rises above 215 , 000 lire . ( bloomberg business news ) international briefs",has a topic of business
"lead ''the idea , '' said angelo jacorossi , the head of fintermica , italy 's fastest growing and biggest energy conglomerate , ''was never to get too enamored of our products . '' ''the idea , '' said angelo jacorossi , the head of fintermica , italy 's fastest growing and biggest energy conglomerate , ''was never to get too enamored of our products . '' the three jacorossi brothers inherited their father 's charcoal business in 1952 and turned it into a billion dollar energy holding_company . they have prospered in the wildly cyclical energy business by being flexible when cheap fuel_oil abounded , they made millions selling oil burners . when the price of oil rose , they marketed the equipment needed to use less of it . ''they 're aggressive and clever , '' said guido roberto vitale , managing director of euromobiliare , the milan brokerage that the family will use to take 25 percent of fintermica public this fall . ''they 've built a strong company on a very volatile market . '' now the family faces the challenge of sustaining the company 's growth as flagging world trade causes italy 's export oriented economy to slow . so far , the jacorossis have proved themselves adept at responding to changing economic conditions . during the 1950 's , as cheap oil became widely available , they shifted emphasis from coal to oil . when methane deposits were discovered in the adriatic sea , they quickly moved to claim a piece of that business . the brothers also went into services developing turnkey heating and cooling systems for homes , offices and factories . and they snapped up small electronic companies to offer the sophisticated process controls that became the heart of energy systems . to finance the company 's growth , the jacorossis devised an intricate net of cooperative agreements . in 1970 , for instance , they linked up with agip , the government owned fuel company , in a deal that provided them with access to agip money , and agip with access to their distribution network . the jacorossis' energy empire grew through outright acquisitions , too . last year , when texaco decided to leave italy , the family bought its italian subsidiary , along with 850 service stations . to diversify , the brothers purchased a stake in a group that cleans industrial wastes and forged a link with united_technologies' otis unit to make and sell elevators in italy . the jacorossis created fintermica in 1974 , to coordinate the companies . today 38 companies fall under fintermica 's umbrella . no other energy company in italy competes with fintermica on a national scale . the company had total sales equivalent to more than 3 . 1 billion last year . ( but its pretax income amounted to 10 . 9 million almost a third less than the year before , because of falling oil prices . ) though widely different in temperament , the three brothers cooperate closely . angelo , 54 , president of fintermica , is bubbling and dynamic , despite some rough personal experiences in 1979 , he was kidnapped by terrorists and held for three months in a tiny underground cubicle until the family paid a 620 , 000 ransom . ovidio , 52 , a quiet , thoughtful planner , heads jacorossi s.p.a . giancarlo , 40 , has been integrating texaco 's holdings after the takeover . the three have emerged , in this nation infused with art and architecture , as important sponsors of contemporary_art . they also donated a museum surveillance system based on a computerized climate control unit they developed to the peggy guggenheim collection in venice . despite the success of their family style management , the jacorossis say they must bring in more outsiders to the top ranks of the business if fintermica is to continue its expansion . ''as family control becomes the great limit to the system , we 're gradually professionalizing , '' said angelo , using his preferred word for describing the introduction of non family executives . ''you know , '' he said , ' 'my brother i get from the eternal father my partner i choose . '' in addition to bringing in more professionals , the brothers want to strengthen the role of fintermica , the holding_company , in the day to day management of its many components . will such centralized management mean the end of the nimble adaptability the jacorossis are known for ? ''i do n't think so , '' said angelo jacorossi . indeed , in giving up the notion of complete family control , the jacorossis are showing that they are adapting as nimbly as ever . italy host for the economic summit a land of family businesses",has a topic of business
"the foundation controlling instituto bancario san_paolo di torino s.p.a. , italy 's largest bank , said yesterday that it planned to sell 20 percent of the company to the public to take advantage of tax breaks . at current market prices , 20 percent of san_paolo is worth about 1.6 trillion_lire ( 1 billion ) . the san_paolo foundation plans to reduce its stake in the bank to 45 percent from 65 percent by the end of this year . the move comes in response to a 1994 law that encourages greater public ownership of banks through cuts in capital gains taxes . ( bloomberg business news ) international briefs",has a topic of business
"for franco bernabe , who spent much of the last two years cleansing ente_nazionale_idrocarburi s.p.a. , the big italian oil and petrochemicals group , of an aura of political_corruption , the biggest challenge now is to sell off the state owned company to the public without more political interference . the outcome is crucial for eni , the world 's fifth largest oil company by sales , as the international chemical_industry awakes from recession and major oil companies stake out claims in the former soviet_union and china . the proposed privatization of eni is just part of italy 's campaign to sell state owned industries to private shareholders . two previous governments made a good start , thanks to the independence of the industries from political_parties , which were crippled after 1992 by italy 's wave of corruption scandals . previous privatizations brought to market some of the largest banks and financial service companies . but the companies now on the agenda , like the big stet telecommunications group , and the public_utility enel , in addition to eni , are pillars of the economy . eni supplies more than 50 percent of italy 's energy needs , a bigger share than any company in any other european country except spain . when mr . bernabe , an owlish 46 year old economist , took over eni in 1992 , the company was losing 515 million a year , and was shaken by disclosures of illegal payments to political_parties totaling more than 20 million in the 1980 's . the chairman , gabriele cagliari , was arrested , as were the heads of major divisions , like agip oil , the nuovo pignone turbine unit , the saipem pipeline company and the snam gas division . mr . cagliari later committed_suicide . to stanch the financial hemorrhaging , mr . bernabe made drastic cuts , shedding 65 subsidiaries and gaining powerful new partners , like union_carbide , for the ailing enichem chemicals division . yet chemicals will still produce operating losses of 600 million to 700 million this year , and only profits in oil and gas will enable eni as a whole to turn a net_profit , which mr . bernabe estimates at "" largely above 1 billion , "" on sales of 33 . 6 billion . mr . bernabe slashed thousands of jobs , bringing last year 's total payroll down to 100 , 000 . to raise cash , he sold off some family jewels like the nuovo pignone turbine unit , which an american consortium led by general_electric bought last year for 690 million . such streamlining may help little unless eni can aggressively expand its drilling and producing operations . to do so , mr . bernabe is focusing on natural_gas , an increasingly popular alternative to oil because of its abundance and cleanliness as a fuel for industry , power generation and home heating . geographically , he is shifting eni 's traditional focus from north_africa and the middle_east to eastern_europe and asia , striking gas and oil deals in russia and kazakhstan , on the caspian_sea , and in the caucasus , and in asia in the china_sea and in china 's central tarim basin . industry analysts give the company 's oil and gas business high marks . "" on the oil side , they are very organized and in good shape they bounded back well , "" said edward morse , the publisher of petroleum intelligence weekly , a leading trade publication . the company , he added , is "" positioned remarkably well to become a global gas player . "" yet streamlining may be of little long term use unless rome presses ahead with its privatization drive . "" we 're not yet at a critical stage , "" mr . bernabe said , "" but at a certain point , if the process does not move ahead , inevitably there 's going to be a lack of tension , a lack of motivation , a lack of determination . "" italy 's fractious government politics do not make things easier . calls for mr . bernabe 's resignation come occasionally from the neo_fascist national alliance , which has been keen to purge the top ranks of government run banks and industries . mr . bernabe also made enemies when he swept out eni 's old guard , dismissing top managers in 250 subsidiaries . the government faces several hurdles in preparing legislation for eni 's privatization . one is a lack of large domestic institutional_investors . pending pension system reform would permit the creation of large funds capable of stabilizing italy 's volatile investment market . another problem is the need to create a new energy authority to represent public interests in energy matters once eni is privatized . some legislators fear a foreign takeover , as occurred when britain privatized british_petroleum in the 1980 's and kuwaiti investors snapped up a large stake , prompting london to force a buyback of the kuwaiti shares . in italy , national emotions , as well as economics , are at play , thanks to the national alliance , whose heritage goes back to fascism 's traditions of national economic self reliance and government control of the economy . when eni goes to market sometime this year , mr . bernabe expects government rules requiring a majority stake to stay in italy and prohibiting majority control by individuals or investor groups . in addition , a decisive , or "" golden , "" voting share will remain in the hands of the italian treasury , which technically owns eni . doubts also persist within the government over whether to sell eni whole or to break out profitable parts like the agip oil and gas operations and sell them off piecemeal . yet the sale of eni is likely to be popular with investors . massimiliano casini , who follows italian shares at robert fleming securities in london , said investors broadening their portfolio to include italian companies and energy shares would want eni . "" there are no real gas or oil shares in italy , so you would have a novelty effect , "" he said . to succeed in the long run , analysts say eni must match the streamlining of industry leaders like exxon and british_petroleum . "" the industry is coming out of one of its worst oil recessions , "" said paul spedding , an oil analyst at kleinwort_benson in london . "" once , 18 a barrel was considered the oil price floor . now , companies want to be profitable at 14 . "" company news",has a topic of business
"italy 's gross_domestic_product contracted in the fourth_quarter from the previous quarter and yearly growth fell to 2.4 percent from 3.4 percent , the government said yesterday . analysts , who had expected a decline , said italy 's economy was not slowing as fast as suggested in this report , which they said was distorted by the different number of working days in each quarter and by shifting inventories . the report was preliminary and did not include a breakdown of demand by sectors of the economy . full numbers will be reported on april 16 . ( bloomberg business news ) international briefs",has a topic of business
"the economic system that sustained italy 's postwar development from ruin to leading industrial power has come unglued , causing a crisis of confidence that is undermining business and unmasking the real cost of the so called italian miracle . from the deeply depressed milan stock_exchange , where trading has slowed to a crawl , to the dark corridors of state owned industrial companies in rome , where politically appointed managers talk morosely of privatization , the gloom is uniform . "" we are in the midst of a very deep fog , "" said carlo scognamilio , the rector of the luiss business school in rome , "" and only radical action to change the nature of the economy will get us out . "" in the face of this impasse , a buzzword has caught on privatization . shipbuilding , steel , banking , mining , energy , aerospace , utilities and railways are among the sectors in which the state is either the sole owner or a dominant force . the trouble is , many of these enterprises are aimed more at serving political interests like preserving jobs than in making money . even so , if not exactly a panacea , a big selloff of state property is now seen by business executives , economists and some politicians as the only way to hitch italy , the world 's fifth largest economy , to the mainstream of europe and arrest what a former industry minister , renato altissimo , called "" our slide toward cairo . "" the country 's deterioration is a drastic turnabout from five years ago . then , leading companies like olivetti and fiat , spurred by a general economic upturn in europe , were raking in profits and economists were boasting that italy 's economy had overtaken britain 's in size . but in retrospect , the boom may have been a bubble that masked italy 's fundamental problems . these problems have come home to roost in twin crises afflicting the federal finances and the milan stock_exchange , italy 's principal stock_market . they are certain to pose a severe test to giuliano_amato , deputy leader of the country 's socialist_party and a former treasury minister , who was officially asked last week to try to form a new government . two figures sum up the extent of the nation 's plight . the first is a large one 1 , 469 , 831 , 000 , 000 , 000 lire , or 1 . 2 trillion . that is the size of the national debt after years of reckless government spending on every form of patronage , from jobs for teachers with no pupils to disability payments for entire villages of able bodied southerners . indeed , it has risen to 103 percent of italy 's total output of all goods and services . those include the fiat cars , olivetti computers , ferragamo shoes , parma hams and benetton clothes that forged the image of italy 's success . in 1983 , the debt equaled just 69 percent of output . by comparison the net public debt of the united_states , at a mere 37 percent of gross_national_product , is moderate . the second dismal figure for italy is the price of stock in fiat_s.p.a. , the company that symbolizes private enterprise and is a bellwether for the economy . the shares now trade for 5 , 425 lire , or about 4 . 60 less than one third the price at which the libyan leader col . muammar_el_qaddafi sold his 10 percent fiat stake in 1986 . "" qaddafi proved a fabulous financier of startling prescience , "" said isidoro albertini , a milan broker . holding on to affluence "" italy cannot go on this way , "" conceded giovanni_agnelli , the chairman of fiat . "" the state is out of money , the stock_exchange stagnant . we will have to accept sacrifices and discipline . but the problem is that italy is a country of people whose affluence is recent , and they do not want to give up anything . "" but the stock_market has already given up a lot . its index stands at a little over half the 1987 level . moreover , it has become clear that the dearth of capital on the market and the enormous government indebtedness are linked problems blocking italy 's development . because the treasury has to offer very high interest rates on its bonds to attract the billions of dollars needed to finance the deficit , private companies find themselves unable to compete effectively for savings . "" instead of creating new enterprise , our risk capital is being swallowed shoring up the state . "" said luigi cappugi , an economist . by selling chunks of state industries , the state may be able to raise as much as 50 billion over the next four years , thus making some inroad on the huge debt . this in turn should make it easier to reduce the annual budget_deficit , now running about 10 percent of gross_national_product , because the shortfall is largely caused by interest payments on the debt . then , once the government 's financing needs have been eased , more capital should eventually flow to the stock_market , helping to end the long slump in milan . obstacle to union "" there is no other course but privatization , "" argued gianni de michelis , a former minister of state industry who is now acting foreign_minister . "" without it we will never reach the targets of maastricht . "" the embattled maastricht_treaty , which calls for a single european currency by 1999 , states that only countries with budget_deficits of less than 3 percent of g.n.p . are admissible to monetary_union . it also obliges the 12 member states of the european_community to lower their national debts to under 60 percent of total output . of the major european economies , italy is by far the most distant from these goals . certainly , there is no lack of industry to privatize . money was in short supply when italy 's postwar reconstruction began , and great swaths of the economy have remained , increasingly anachronistically , in state hands . for example , more than 90 percent of the nation 's banks are state owned . even some pasta companies are state run . in all , economists reckon that close to 50 percent of the economy is government operated . among the bigger state owned groups and prime targets of the privatization plan recently approved by parliament is eni , the state owned energy company . with 1991 sales of 42 . 4 billion and net_income of 900 million , it looks attractive enough . the acting budget minister , paolo pomicino , said recently that shares would be offered in the fourth_quarter of this year . money losing units but a closer look at eni reveals the huge problems that are certain to afflict italy 's privatization drive and perhaps abort it completely . in effect , eni is a sprawling group in which a very profitable oil and gas operation masks chemical , mining , engineering and textile divisions that are losing money . eni even has a daily newspaper , il giorno , which also piles up losses . the chief justification for the unprofitable units is that they provide tens of thousands of jobs for a group that has long been well known as a fief of the socialist_party . while this may have been acceptable under the prevailing economic system that allowed parties to use state industries partly as vote gathering machines , it is difficult to see how it can be justified in the market place . for example , eni 's chemical operations lost 1 . 2 billion last year . in part , this reflected a worldwide chemical_industry slump . but there were other factors at play . "" we have enormous overcapacity in the chemical sector and we would like to close various plants , "" said gabriele cagliari , eni 's president , "" but we cannot for social reasons . "" he added that "" social is just a nicer word for political . "" other senior eni officials pointed to the group 's fertilizer plants . because the oil exporting countries that produce the methane from which the fertilizer is made also produce fertilizer at about half the italian price , the factories are not competitive . "" but there are about 10 , 000 jobs at stake in sicily , calabria and puglia , so we cannot close the fertilizer plants , "" said one official , who insisted on anonymity . mr . cagliari , a political appointee , seemed generally ambivalent about privatization . he said he would favor initially turning eni into a joint stock company and then selling small stakes in some parts of eni , like the oil unit , agip , and the gas unit , snam . "" decisions in italy are very laborious and much had to be done before any of eni could be sold , "" he said . "" but in any event i can tell you we have a kind of religion on maintaining 51 percent and the state 's share in eni would not drop below that . "" in all , at eni and at the state industrial holding_company iri a fief of the long governing christian democratic_party there are more than half a million jobs , a fabulous reserve of political capital for parties that have made patronage the basis of their strength . vehicle for graft state industry is also a vehicle for graft that can be very lucrative to politicians . for example , a 48 mile_pipeline between two eni chemical plants in northern_italy was recently found to have ballooned in cost because of kickbacks and overpayments for expropriated land . "" in effect , "" said mr . scognamilio , the rector of luiss , "" politicians are being asked to cut off their own hands . "" asked if the country 's notoriously slow moving political class could take such drastic action , mr . altissimo , the former industry minister , said , "" i do n't see how parties will agree . i never knew a turkey that asked for christmas to be brought forward . "" what is clear is that an immense , and very uncharacteristic , act of political will is needed to drag italy from its slump . with the country still searching for a government 10 weeks after an election , that looks hugely unlikely . but the alternative is grim . "" if you sell state assets you strike at the heart of the italian political system , "" contends fabrizio garimberti , an economist . "" but politicians will be dragged kicking and screaming into privatization because it is the only way to solve the crisis of our public finances . and therefore it is the only way for italy to remain in europe . """,has a topic of business
"ntl , a british cable_television provider , said it would eliminate 2 , 000 jobs , bringing the total jobs cut this year to 8 , 800 , nearly one third of its work force . the company is also freezing pay for managers to cut costs and is selling assets to reduce about 17 . 5 billion in debt . the sale of a unit that provides satellite links and broadcasts television programs has recently run into trouble . france t l com , which owns 25 percent of ntl , said last month that it would bid for the unit only as part of a consortium . analysts had expected france t l com to buy the unit on its own . suzanne_kapner ( nyt )",has a topic of business
"lead the italian cabinet has approved a proposed 1989 budget that would put the deficit at 117 . 25 trillion_lire , or 83 . 7 billion . the plan , which parliament must approve , was adopted late thursday . it includes cutbacks in some health_care and cultural programs as well as in the national railroad . the italian cabinet has approved a proposed 1989 budget that would put the deficit at 117 . 25 trillion_lire , or 83 . 7 billion . the plan , which parliament must approve , was adopted late thursday . it includes cutbacks in some health_care and cultural programs as well as in the national railroad .",has a topic of business
"lead britain 's inflation_rate , the scourge of prime_minister margaret_thatcher 's conservative government , rose sharply in march , to 8.1 percent , from 7.5 percent in the previous month , the government announced today . the annual increase in the retail price index , britain 's main measure of inflation , was the highest since last summer . britain 's inflation_rate , the scourge of prime_minister margaret_thatcher 's conservative government , rose sharply in march , to 8.1 percent , from 7.5 percent in the previous month , the government announced today . the annual increase in the retail price index , britain 's main measure of inflation , was the highest since last summer .",has a topic of business
"britain 's financial regulator said today that it would temporarily suspend some rules governing how insurance_companies invest in the stock_market , in an attempt to forestall a snowballing effect when insurers are forced to sell stocks into a falling market . the changes would replace firm rules with discretionary leeway on when to sell losing positions and how much stock to hold . rules meant to guarantee the solvency of insurance_companies require them to pull money out of the stock_market any time their reserves are insufficient to absorb a_10 percent fall in stock prices and still pay claims . when the market falls suddenly , the rules can force them to dump stocks to raise cash at a time when such sales would tend to accelerate the downward trend . the financial_services agency said that for now , insurance actuaries will be allowed ''to apply their professional judgment'' in making portfolio decisions rather than have to hew to a strict rule . ''we recognize that in current unusual market conditions , further steps are necessary to avert the need for some insurance_companies to sell equities for short term technical reasons in a way which could be damaging to the interest of their policyholders , '' the agency said in a statement . though it rose sharply on monday , the benchmark ftse 100 stock_index is off 8.3 percent since the close on sept . 10 , the last before the terrorist attacks in the united_states . many analysts have speculated that such a slide would force british insurers like prudential ( unrelated to the american insurer of that name ) and cgnu to sell large stockholdings . of course , many major insurers , like lloyd 's of london , munich re and swiss re , will find themselves forced to sell because they need cash to pay claims related to the attacks . but the agency said that as long as insurers meet other solvency requirements , it did not want to make an already wobbly stock_market weaker by obliging them to switch automatically from equities to bonds just to comply with a statistical guideline . today 's announcement was the second in two weeks of a relaxation of the agency 's rules . on the day of the attacks , the depth of decline in stock prices that insurers' reserves must be able to cover was reduced to 10 percent from 25 percent . the new rule on discretion ' 'should give investors a bit more confidence , '' said trevor may , an analyst at schroder_salomon_smith_barney . insurance_company stocks , among the hardest hit last week , regained ground today . prudential jumped nearly 12 percent in london cgnu rose 5.5 percent .",has a topic of business
"wessex water p.l.c . said yesterday that it wanted to bid for a neighboring utility , south west water p.l.c. , in what would be the largest consolidation in the british water and sewage industry since the government sold it piecemeal in 1989 . a marriage of south west with wessex would be the first among britain 's 10 major water and sewage companies . the two combined provide water to 2.6 million people and sewage services to 4 million in the southwest of england . wessex said it would offer mainly cash , at a "" commercially justifiable premium "" to south west 's closing share price on tuesday of 508 pence . south west water 's shares soared 70 pence , to 608 , after rising 30 pence on wednesday amid rumors of a bid . ( bloomberg business news ) international briefs",has a topic of business
"the european_commission today approved the takeover of the ford_motor_company 's european farm machinery subsidiary by fiat_s.p.a . after the italian company made a key concession . it approved the deal for ford new holland after fiat agreed to end its exclusive supply deals in italy , enabling competitors to enter that country . ending fiat 's dominant position in italy 's farm machine market was "" a key element in our acceptance of the deal as a whole , as a result of which conditions for competition are substantially changed , "" the community 's competition commissioner , sir_leon_brittan , said in a statement . sir leon said the merger would increase fiat 's position as a market leader in farm machinery in europe as a whole without giving the company a dominant position . under the merger , fiat will revoke its marketing arrangement in italy with 72 farmers cooperatives that acted as an exclusive distribution outlet for fiat farm equipment in italy . instead , fiat will offer each cooperative a distribution agreement that will compete with similar or better deals from fiat competitors , notably deere company . also , ford new holland dealers have 15 days to retain their current distribution agreements or sign up with fiat competitors , the commission said . by taking over ford new holland , fiat will consolidate its market position in the european farm machinery sector as a whole , particularly in the tractor and combine harvester markets .",has a topic of business
"canada 's largest copper mine has been shut down indefinitely following the unionized work force 's rejection of a cost cutting contract that management called critical to the operation 's profitability . the highland valley mine in south central british_columbia accounts for about 1.5 percent of global output of copper and is considered one of the world 's highest cost producers . it has come under intense pressure in the last year because of falling copper prices and excess supply , a reflection of weakened demand from the faltering economies in asia . negotiations on the contract were suspended for at least two weeks by a government mediator last weekend , and the consortium of companies that own the mine closed it on sunday . it is unclear when the mine will reopen . but widespread anticipation that the mine might shut down has been partly responsible for a recent rise in copper prices . copper is now trading at about 70 cents a pound , slightly more than what highland valley 's owners call the mine 's breakeven cost of 68 cents a pound . cominco ltd . of vancouver holds 50 percent of the mine complex , which is near kamloops , british_columbia . smaller stakes are held by rio algom ltd . , the tech corporation and the highmont mining company . in january , when copper traded at 65 cents a pound , the owners said they would shut it in may unless concessions were made by the mine workers , members of the united_steelworkers of america , and by the british_columbia hydro and power authority , which provides electric power to the mine . the power company agreed earlier this year to cut electricity costs when the price of copper slipped to less than 62 cents a pound . don cott , british_columbia 's assistant deputy minister of labor and a mediator in the dispute , said talks broke off sunday because a settlement seemed unlikely . the owners seek nearly 7 million in annual cost savings and have sought to cut wages because of a 32 percent drop in copper prices since 1997 . the mine , which produced 170 , 000 metric_tons of copper last year , has an estimated 10 years of reserves . the 980 miners at the mine make about 17 . 70 an hour and have been working without a contract since september .",has a topic of business
"in 1984 , as almost everyone in the world must know by now , tina brown , editor of the tatler , left london to come to new york and take over as editor_in_chief of vanity_fair . what no one knew , however , was that a british invasion of american magazines had begun . ms . brown was followed three years later by anna wintour , editor in chief of british vogue , who took over hg and soon thereafter vogue . over the next few years , british editors took over the helm at the national review , conde_nast traveler , details , the new republic , tv_guide and harper 's bazaar . ms . brown is now the editor of the new yorker . and just last week , gabe doppelt , a south_african who was trained in london by both ms . brown and ms . wintour , became editor_in_chief of mademoiselle . what is going on here ? "" it may be that the english are so well trained in language and that we are experiencing a reinvigorated appreciation of language , partly in reaction to tv omissions and partly because language counts , "" said roger rosenblatt , a contributing editor at the new republic and vanity_fair . or maybe this is just snob appeal . as mr . rosenblatt puts it , "" the economist is everybody 's favorite magazine to call their favorite magazine . "" british editors may simply carry a kind of cachet , which probably has more to do with their accents than their editing . "" i think we are talking about images , "" said edwin diamond , media critic for new york magazine . "" i think it is an emotional love affair . i do n't think there is any confirmed data that says that british women have better taste or sharper editing instincts than american women . "" nonetheless , charismatic force seems to be an increasingly requisite quality for editors of high profile magazines . when hearst wanted to shore up harper 's bazaar this year , it turned to elizabeth tilberis , a glamourous and talented editor who succeeded ms . wintour at british vogue . ms . tilberis 's first issue of harper 's bazaar was a self proclaimed testament to the new elegance in fashion and its very elegance became an unstated testament to the renewed vigor of the tired magazine . the british influence extends beyond magazines . harry evans former editor of the times of london , became founding editor of conde_nast traveler and later became president of random_house . ( mr . evans reports to alberto vitale , who was born in italy and raised in egypt and who also has under him sonny mehta , an indian who worked for many years in britain and now heads knopf . ) but british publications are known for taking not only the high road glossy , gossipy magazines with beautiful pictures of aristocrats and royalty but the low road of lurid tabloid journalism . interestingly , three american equivalents the star , the national enquirer and the globe , all supermarket tabloids are headed by british editors . in fact , some people say there is a kind of high_culture , low culture synthesis that is peculiarly british . it is the mix of soap_opera reportage and investigative journalism that anthea disney is bringing to tv_guide and the mix of celebrity and serious journalism that became the mark of vanity_fair under tina brown . graydon carter , a canadian who succeeded ms . brown at vanity_fair , said british magazines , which have smaller circulations than their american counterparts , were more conducive to experimentation . "" you can be braver and more adventurous if the mistake may be the difference of 10 , 000 copies in britain than of 300 , 000 here , "" he said . david hirshey , deputy editor of esquire , agrees . "" we are going through a particularly cautious phase in the history of magazines , "" he said . "" in come our british friends with their brash enthusiasm for the daring and the raunchy filtered through this pristine cultivated sensibility that renders them safe for american consumption . "" in what would once have been considered an outrage , ms . brown is bringing over alexander chancellor , a british writer , to edit the new yorker 's "" talk of the town , "" a quintessentially american feature . james truman , the british editor_in_chief of details , says the british sometimes have a sharper ear and a different eye for life here that americans simply take for granted . "" i think i have an overheated romanticism about american things , "" said mr . truman , who has lived in the united_states for 11 years . "" i 'll sort of get excited about something here , and americans will look at me and say , 'are you crazy ? that 's not exotic . ' "" but like andrew sullivan , british editor of the new republic , mr . truman said he had come to feel more american than british . "" i moved here when i was 22 years old and i felt like i had finally found home . "" mr . chancellor and the other british journalists ms . brown lured to the new yorker and vanity_fair are examples of what leslie hinton , president of news america publications , calls "" the snowball dynamic when you get english editors who know english editors . "" the better known editors are at the top of the mastheads , but the british influence is found throughout many magazines . "" from the pieces tina brown selected at vanity_fair , you could see clearly the british sensibility was driving the magazine , "" mr . rosenblatt said . "" the english have certain historical skills , such as the skill of argument with grace . maybe bring ing in these english editors shows that we are feeling a little more comfortable with ourselves and allowing ourselves to embrace self mockery . "" "" we lost self mockery and irony in the 60 's with political seriousness , and we have not gotten them back , "" he added . "" oddly , we have now sent abroad for them . """,has a topic of business
"citing persistent ' 'deterioration across the economy , '' the bank of england lowered its benchmark interest rate today by half a percentage point , the third cut in as many months and the second consecutive time it did so by a half point . the cut , to 6 . 25 percent , reflected anxiety over the slowing performance of the british economy and the growing threat posed to it by turmoil abroad . ''the prospects for global activity appear to have weakened , and commodity prices have fallen further'' since its last cut on nov . 5 , the central_bank said in a statement . the move came a week after 10 of the 11 nations joining a single european currency , the euro , lowered rates to 3 percent . the cut is intended to give some relief to manufacturers and exporters that have attributed a deep slump in sales to britain 's higher rates and the strong pound . it still left the securities_repurchase_rate , the minimum at which the central_bank lends to commercial_banks , more than double that in the rest of europe . financial markets had expected a rate cut , and stock and bond prices showed little change . the ftse index fell 8 . 80 points , or less than two tenths of a percent , to 5 , 660 . 30 , and the yield on government 10 year bonds held near a record low of 4 . 49 percent . the pound held at a one month low of 2 . 76 german marks . the bank 's decision brought a swift response from lenders , with the principal mortgage banks all cutting their rates by the same half point within minutes of the bank 's announcement . although the housing market has not suffered the same problems as other sectors of the nation 's sluggish economy , there has been a marked slowdown in sales over the last six months . kevin gardiner , senior economist at morgan_stanley international , said that ' 'survey data from the manufacturing and service sectors have been consistently negative since last month , '' with a growth in inventories particularly worrisome . this indication of a decline in consumer confidence was cited by business leaders and retailers worried about poor early holiday sales . ''a cut of at least half a percent was essential to boost flagging consumer demand before the christmas period and also to help encourage sterling on its downward path , '' said dr . ian peters , deputy director general of the british_chambers_of_commerce . kate barker , chief economic adviser at the confederation_of_british_industry , welcomed today 's announcement as evidence that the central_bank was alert to the dangers of deflation but warned that more cuts were needed . ''with economic weakness now spreading out well beyond manufacturing , this cut is unlikely to be the last and will not in itself ward off the impending downturn in growth , '' she said . jeremy batstone , analyst at natwest stockbrokers , said the move was praised in the city of london financial district , where most traders had expected only a quarter point drop . the bank of england was given independence last year to set interest rates free of government direction , but its nine member monetary_policy_committee is still obliged to maintain them at a_level that prevents inflation from sliding more than 1 percent above or below the current 2.5 percent target . despite government forecasts of continued growth , many economists are predicting that britain will experience a sharp slowdown or a small recession in the first half of 1999 . companies have issued profit warnings not just in britain 's depressed manufacturing industry but also in the service_sector that has been held up by the government of prime_minister tony_blair as the key to britain 's economic future . international business",has a topic of business
"at last , the 20th olympic winter_games have finally finished . rarely have so many worked so hard to produce so dull and disappointing an outcome . and rarely have the flops , flubs and foul ups been so overwhelming . but enough about the advertising . let 's talk about the american athletes . no , let 's continue on the ads . most commercials that appeared during the 17 days of coverage on the nbc universal networks wore out their welcome long before it became apparent that bode miller would go o for the olympics and before chad hedrick and shani davis began auditioning for a sequel to ''the simple life . '' some spots offered relief from the claustrophobic feeling viewers felt as a result of the mostly canned coverage , but far too many commercials were unimaginative , derivative and pedestrian . and many that were initially entertaining lost their appeal after being rerun constantly . now it is time to present , in alphabetical order , imaginary medals in a post olympics advertising review . some awful commercials are receiving the feared lead medal for a base and debased performance . some spots that fell short or rang falsely are being awarded tin medals . the few commercials actually worth watching qualified for gold medals . here are examples of how advertisers and agencies fared allstate viewers were in good hands with a daffy spot for allstate that spoofed an amateur 's attempt to skate like an olympian , which caused an accident that left his car in the same state as the united_states hockey team . gold . agency leo_burnett , part of the publicis groupe . applebee 's commercials for the restaurants operated by applebee 's international were cornier than the opening and closing ceremonies put together . if you think your teeth hurt after noshing a sugary applebee 's dessert , try watching these spots , stuffed with clich d characters like a lonely elderly woman and a rookie firefighter . lead . agency foote cone_belding , part of the interpublic group of companies . h r block the commercials for the h r block tax preparation service were fine , until word came late last week that the company had encountered problems with computing the state income taxes it should report . in other words , a company declaring itself to be ''in your corner'' painted itself into one . tin . agency campbell mithun , owned by interpublic . bud light several commercials for bud light beer , brewed by anheuser_busch , were reprised from super bowl xl , including the hilarious ''magic fridge'' spot and a slapstick salute to fibbing husbands . one newcomer that stumbled featured cedric the entertainer as a serial groom who became a quadrigamist to get free beer . gold for the reprised spots , lead for cedric . agencies super_bowl , ddb worldwide , part of the omnicom_group cedric , cannonball . budweiser select spots for budweiser select , also from anheuser_busch , offered a welcome diversion from subpar skating and skiing in the form of a grown up guessing game , encouraging viewers to find various versions of the brand 's crown logo . the music , by the chemical brothers , was among the catchiest for any commercial . gold . agency peterson milla hooks . chevrolet the chevrolet division of general_motors delighted with its commercials , but they were repeated far too frequently . the best of the batch included spots about gophers digging , figuratively and literally , a new chevy suburban a frenetic olympic visit by dudes who wrote ''u s a'' on their chests and a winter_games fanfare delivered by car and truck horns . gold . agency campbell ewald , part of interpublic . coca_cola at last , some decent commercials for the coca_cola classic brand sold by coca_cola after what seems like eons of misfires . the spots about an oddball olympic cheering squad were the most entertaining , followed by ones that ' 'revealed'' the secret formula and celebrated ice . gold . agency wieden kennedy . dhl of the zillions of spots overflowing with images of olympians and winter sports , one of the few winners came from the dhl delivery service . the commercial took a light hearted look back at the tumble down travails of the american speed_skater dan_jansen , smartly set to the ''swing time'' standard , ''pick yourself up . '' gold . agency ogilvy mather worldwide , part of the wpp group . expedia spots for the travel web_site expedia stood out amid the bombast with their whimsical humor . the most amusing was a spot about how buying tiny toiletries tells the world you are vacation bound . gold . agency deutsch , part of interpublic . lenovo spots for the thinkpad line of personal_computers sold by lenovo showed the products fragmented into a million little pieces not the best imagery for a new brand after the james frey fiasco . tin . agency ogilvy mather . mcdonald 's a series of funny spots for mcdonald 's presented fast_food fans in one sided conversations with plastic statues of ronald mcdonald . the commercials would have been even better had they not come after a recent campaign by a competitor , burger_king , centered on its mascot and his oversize plastic head . gold for content , tin for timing . agency tbwa chiat day , part of the twba division of omnicom . nbc the incessant , interminable promotions for ''conviction , '' a drama that begins friday on nbc , made the series seem as watchable as paint drying on a wall of the network 's turin bunker cum studio . most disheartening was this turgid line of dialogue ''the man who did this will be punished , to the fullest extent of the law . '' we can hope the only subject of that sentence was the perpetrator of the dreary spots . lead . agency the nbc agency , part of the nbc universal division of general_electric . nike what gibberish was bode miller babbling in the commercials for his nike sponsored web_site ( joinbode . com ) ? it was a perfect match between a crusading campaign without a cause and a rebel without a clue . when mr . miller ended his italian indignity by telling a reporter , ''and man , i rocked here , '' madison_avenue replied in unison , ''do n't rock us we 'll rock you . '' lead . agency wieden kennedy . omega commercials for omega , the official timekeeper of the winter_games , were elegant , but lost all credibility with sharp eyed fans who noticed that the long track speed_skater at the beginning of the spots was headed in the wrong direction , clockwise rather than counter clockwise . note to omega , a unit of the swatch group the right way for skaters is the wrong way for watches . tin . agency 180 . samsung a commercial for samsung electronics cellphones , featuring the opening ceremonies and alberto_tomba , a former winter olympian , was delightful the first week . but the spot would not go away , turning up even during the closing ceremonies . gold for content , tin for frequency . agency burnett . schwab animated spots for the charles_schwab brokerage_firm were welcome for their low key tone . the best featured a man , complaining about bad stocks he owned , wishing there were a ' 'dog meter'' to detect duds . such a device would also come in handy for olympic ads . gold . agency euro rscg worldwide , part of havas . visa viewers took in the same ''life takes visa'' commercials for visa credit_cards far , far too many times . one spot , saluting michelle_kwan , ran so often after she left turin that puzzled viewers could be excused for wondering if she were still practicing figure eights on some secret piazza . tin . agency tbwa chiat day . volkswagen strange spots introduced a bizarre character named fast , symbolizing the need for speed when behind the wheel of the new gti sold by volkswagen of america . the commercials were compelling but sexist only men drove the car and all the women were portrayed as annoying whiners . gold for getting noticed , lead for sensitivity . agency crispin porter bogusky , part of mdc partners . advertising",has a topic of business
"several of italy 's biggest companies have said in recent months that they are considering spinoffs or other separation of large chunks of their real_estate holdings to increase profit and returns for their investors . enel , a state owned utility , says it is studying how to spin off 3 . 6 billion in property , which is now managed by a wholly owned subsidiary . telecom_italia , the national phone carrier , has hired salomon_smith_barney to help it create one or more subsidiaries to manage 5 . 4 billion in real_estate holdings . one of italy 's largest banking groups , banca_intesa s.p.a. , a result of a merger between istituto bancario san_paolo di torino and an investment_bank , istituto mobiliare italiano , wants to separate 1 . 6 billion in real_estate holdings , either by creating a subsidiary or handing them over to a real_estate_investment_trust . the trend is even spilling over into italy 's government holdings . the defense ministry recently hired investment bankers to evaluate its real_estate the government social_security agency tendered offers for an evaluation of its assets with a view to improving returns . all are following a trend set recently by a big insurer , istituto nazionale delle assicurazioni , or i.n.a. , which spun off a stake of more than 85 percent in its property arm , unione immobiliare , or unim , in november and listed the shares on the milan exchange . unim owns and manages properties in milan and rome worth 2 . 9 billion . i.n.a . says it will divest itself of its remaining 14 . 6 percent stake in unim within 18 months . in a larger sense , the companies are following a european wide trend . until now , much of the activity centered on financial service companies like banks and insurers . since 1996 , sweden 's largest bank , se banken , spun off a company called diligentia with 2 . 2 billion in assets , while a group of finnish state owned banks and insurance_companies parked real_estate assets in a company named sfonda . the french insurers axa s.a . and assurances generales de france have sold real_estate assets to raise capital and reduce exposure to property markets . analysts and investment bankers say that following patterns in the united_states , a focus on increased profitability and return on assets is pushing companies to examine how they can get greater returns from bulging property portfolios acquired over the years . in addition , companies can use spinoffs to lift their share prices by ridding themselves of poorly_performing real_estate . ''bricks used to be the european refuge , '' said paola giannotti de ponti , head of italian investment_banking at salomon_smith_barney . ''but with markets demanding higher revenue from assets , we are seeing a focus on the capacity to generate returns . '' much of the activity here is a result of the italian government 's drive in recent years to sell state owned businesses to private shareholders . these companies , faced with the unaccustomed need to generate greater return on investment , have been hiring investment_banks to devise strategies for putting huge real_estate holdings to work . moreover , as interest rates plunged , pushed down by the need to prepare for the continent 's single_currency , the euro , italian businesses sought to squeeze more competitive yields from real_estate holdings and not let such assets languish . the potential for higher yields arose from a history of poor management . under past state ownership , valuable properties often housed government agencies at rents below market level . vacancies were widespread and , thanks to government coddling , there was little competitive drive for higher rents or fresh investment . with the exception of i.n.a. , most italian companies are still in the study stage . yet experts agree that over the next several years this could be followed by a wave of spinoffs . john carrafiell , head of real_estate in europe at morgan_stanley dean_witter , which managed the unim spinoff , said italian companies were plowing through a several stage procedure that involved identifying properties , understanding the alternatives , including property sales , spinning them off to shareholders as separate companies , or parking them in joint_ventures . mr . carrafiell said most companies ''are still in stage one or two , mainly because the information is just not there . '' american investment_banks , which pioneered real_estate investment trusts , are cashing in . in addition to managing the unim spinoff , morgan_stanley recently acquired a 155 million portfolio of nonperforming real_estate loans from istituto bancario san_paolo and is seeking profits by issuing bonds against them . i.n.a . 's reasons for leading the pack are many , experts say , and among them is that its real_estate was already held in a property_management division . but i.n.a . was prompted to take unim down the stock_market path because of its own high capitalization . with the unim spinoff , i.n.a . shed 2 . 9 billion in shareholder equity out of 7 . 5 billion at the end of 1997 . overnight , unim became the largest listed property company in italy and the fifth largest in europe , ranked by market_capitalization . i.n.a. , for its part , saw its return on equity soar to 7.9 percent from 4.6 percent , and demand for its shares surged . some analysts , though , noted a flip side a relatively low return on equity for unim , whose share price did not exactly take off after the spinoff , increasing about 6 percent through last week . still , they say , this could be attributed in part to lukewarm interest from british and american investment funds , whose reit holdings in the united_states have lagged behind the overall market . james pierce , an italy analyst with fox pitt kelton , a london investment_bank specializing in banking and insurance , said he thought that the performance of unim would improve , benefiting from its withdrawal from government influence and the recruitment of professional managers drawn by the challenge of running an independent company . moreover , analysts like mr . pierce say that italy 's property market is just now emerging from a protracted recession , with revived building activity and the first signs of rent and value increases since the 1980 's . in milan , the nation 's financial_capital , office rental rates had the first increase in 1998 in seven or eight years , though they remain 30 percent below their 1991 peak . ''if you ask whether it 's been a success , '' mr . pierce said , ''the answer is yes . '' international business correction january 1 , 1999 , friday an article in business day on tuesday about large italian companies that want to increase profits by reducing their real_estate holdings misidentified one , a large bank created in a recent merger of two banks . it is the istituto bancario san_paolo di torino . ( banca_intesa is a holding_company for two other banks . )",has a topic of business
"with its return to europe 's currency grid today after four years out in the cold , the italian_lira inched closer to the goal posts set for the first currencies eligible for european monetary_union in 1999 . but if the two day ordeal in brussels this weekend that set a value for the lira was any sign , italy still has some way to go before it convinces its european partners germany especially that rome can be a founding member of the club . ''it is certainly not a comment on italy 's qualification for monetary_union , '' said a terse hans tietmayer , president of the bundesbank , germany central_bank , after the weekend of difficult meetings by top european finance officials and central bankers . italy was forced to settle for an exchange_rate that pegged the lira at a_level that was slightly stronger than many italian business leaders had in mind , and business executives and economists said the valuation might well hamper italy 's recent boom in exports . still , the center left government headed by prime_minister romano_prodi has set currency_union as its top priority , and getting the lira back into the fold was a victory of sorts , even though the rate 990 lire to the german_mark was below the 1 , 000 level that many italian officials had insisted be a minimum . as soon as the decision was annnounced late sunday_night in brussels , mr . prodi issued a statement calling it a ''consequence of the seriousness of our economic policy and the stability we have given the country . '' but some of mr . prodi 's opponents were sniping this morning at the brussels results . ''italian industry deserved better , '' said silvio_berlusconi , a media financier and leader of the center right opposition , echoing fears that a too strong lira will blunt italy 's competitive edge . some analysts said today that the struggle over the lira was just another sign that the race toward monetary_union was getting ugly . not only italy , but spain , france and even germany itself are having trouble meeting the guidelines set down by the maastricht_treaty for a single_currency , to be known as the euro . a particular problem for the governments is the requirement that public deficits be no more than 3 percent of the gross_national_product . others concluded that the negotiations over the lira 's re entry which proved significantly more difficult than the admission not long ago of the finnish markka had to do with lingering questions as to whether italy , known for its heavy debt and fickle politics , has the will and fiscal fortitude to stay the course set down at maastricht . add to that french and german resentment over the benefits reaped by italian exporters after the lira 's devaluation in 1992 , and , from the italian point of view , there is ground for a conspiracy theory . ''there is n't anyone in the chancelleries of europe who does n't know that one of the conditions for the success of the euro is that italy remain outside , '' wrote a commentator in today 's issue of il_messaggero . ''first of all , neither the germans nor the french want us . '' two years of membership in the exchange_rate_mechanism a system that limits currency fluctuations to a range of 15 percent in either direction is among the maastricht criteria . so , the re entry of the lira , which fell out of the currency band four years ago , was crucial to italy 's acceptance into the monetary_union by the starting date of 1999 . according to the treaty , countries must show that they have met the criteria by early 1998 . international business",has a topic of business
"a fierce bidding war broke out yesterday for control of the energy group p.l.c. , a big british utility , with pacificorp raising its offer for the company beyond a new bid made earlier in the day by texas utilities . pacificorp , which is based in portland , ore . , lifted its offer by 7 percent , to 7 . 2 billion , slightly more than the 7 . 1 billion bid by texas utilities of dallas . the willingness of the american companies to fight for the energy group underlines how desirable british utilities have become as the united_states follows britain 's move toward deregulation . several analysts said the battle could intensify further , with still higher offers from both bidders . texas utilities , whose entry into the battle had been expected , said yesterday that it was considering whether to increase its offer . to bolster its position , pacificorp said that it had acquired an 8.6 percent share in the energy group , paying 8 . 20 , or 13 . 54 , a share . energy group shares closed yesterday at 8 . 06 , up 28 pence . ''pacificorp really wants this company , '' said edward tirello of bt alex . brown in new york . analysts cautioned that the price could become too steep , with mr . tirello saying that if it reached the 9 a share range , he would begin to wonder . dan scotto of bear , stearns said that if the bidding rose in increments bigger than 100 million roughly 60 million the price could quickly become too high . texas utilities had said about a month ago that it was considering a bid for the energy group , as had a unit of nomura_securities of japan , which later said the potential price for the company was too high . texas utilities started yesterday 's bidding by offering 8 . 10 a share , or 13 . 37 , which was nearly 6 percent higher than the 7 . 65 a share , or 12 . 62 , offered by pacificorp on feb . 3 a bid that had been raised from an original 6 . 90 last june . late yesterday , pacificorp came through with its 8 . 20 bid . pacificorp 's stock closed at 23 . 625 a share yesterday , down 56 . 25 cents , while texas utilities closed at 40 . 5625 , up 12 . 5 cents , in trading on the new york stock_exchange . derek bonham , chairman of the energy group , had said before the higher pacificorp bid that his company 's board would recommend that shareholders accept the texas utilities offer . energy group could not be reached for comment on the latest pacificorp bid . utility companies in the united_states have taken over 7 of the 12 highly profitable distribution companies in britain , which is moving faster than the united_states in allowing customers to bypass their local utilities and purchase electricity from other sources . in addition to helping american utilities learn how to operate in a more competitive market , most of the acquisitions have helped the parent companies' earnings . the energy group is considered one of the strongest of the distribution companies , serving three million customers in eastern england including parts of north_london . whoever wins the bidding will also assume 3 billion of energy group debt , which effectively takes the price over 10 billion . under texas utilities' offer , two energy group businesses , peabody coal and citizens power , a trading company , would be sold to lehman_brothers merchant_banking partners ii l.p. , an affiliate of lehman_brothers holdings , for 2 . 3 billion in cash and assumption of debt . the strategy of texas utilities is different from that of pacificorp , which bid for the energy group in part to gain control of peabody , the largest coal producer in the united_states . pacificorp has many low cost coal fired plants and is one of the nation 's largest wholesalers of electricity . getting control of a big coal producer would help it trade coal for power around the country , which it then could sell wholesale to various power buying pools that are being set up by states deregulating their utility markets . the strategy of texas utilities was not only to gain control of a profitable company but also to use its expertise in the marketing of electricity to strengthen its own drive in the united_states to become a major marketer of power and natural_gas . texas utilities , however , would still have to pass a number of regulatory hurdles , including reviews by british officials . pacificorp has already gotten clearance from british agencies .",has a topic of business
"the truck division of fiat_s.p.a. , iveco , announced plans to lay off nearly 3 , 000 workers for three years , while seeking ways to reduce its work force permanently . a spokesman for fiat , italy 's largest private employer , said 2 , 983 workers would receive state unemployment_benefits under the plan . union leaders said they would ask the labor minister to negotiate an accord . the spokesman , speaking on condition of anonymity , said some of the workers might eventually find jobs in other fiat companies . others would be asked to take early retirement . he said falling revenue and lower european demand for trucks were behind the need to cut the work force . company news",has a topic of business
"the bank of england left its benchmark interest rate unchanged at 6 percent for the fourth month . the decision , widely expected by analysts , followed recent reports that industrial output , pay raids and price increases for houses are all slowing , reducing the threat of inflation . the trend has weakened the pound , which has fallen 8 percent against the euro from a peak of 1 . 76 euros on may 4 . alan_cowell ( nyt ) world business briefing europe",has a topic of business
"lead the total number of unemployed in britain fell in july to its lowest level in more than four years , the department of employment said today . the government also said that average earnings rose 7 . 75 percent in the first half of 1987 . the seasonally_adjusted unemployment figure registered a larger than expected drop of 47 , 600 last month , to 2 . 87 million , or 10 . 4 percent of the work force . the total number of unemployed in britain fell in july to its lowest level in more than four years , the department of employment said today . the government also said that average earnings rose 7 . 75 percent in the first half of 1987 . the seasonally_adjusted unemployment figure registered a larger than expected drop of 47 , 600 last month , to 2 . 87 million , or 10 . 4 percent of the work force .",has a topic of business
"the italian government yesterday set the first part of its initial_public_offering of the energy company ente_nazionale_idrocarburi s.p.a . at about 6 billion , making it the largest global offering of the year . the government said it would sell about 20 percent of its stake to investors worldwide on nov . 21 at a price ranging from 5 , 250 to 6 , 000 lire ( 3 . 30 to 3 . 76 ) a share . that values the world 's eighth largest oil and gas company at as much as 30 billion . once the company , known as eni , is fully sold in the next few years , the company will represent more than 17 percent of the milan stock_exchange 's market_capitalization , making it the biggest company in italy . eni , with more than 30 billion in sales , is italy 's second largest in terms of revenue behind fiat_s.p.a . ( bloomberg business news ) international briefs",has a topic of business
"when bae systems , europe 's biggest military contractor , announced this month that it would lay off a fifth of its work force here , the job cuts looked like a familiar enough display of the ''hire 'em , fire 'em'' spirit that helps set british business apart from some of its more constrained counterparts in continental_europe . but it also showed how history , geography and a solid infusion of political maneuvering have conspired to create a jekyll and hyde economy in this country , where manufacturing has become the laggard and growth is driven by the service industry . that divide has long been a burden in towns like this northwestern outpost on the irish sea , 300 miles from london . but this time the worries coincide with signs that the british economy , vaunted as europe 's strongest , may be vulnerable . bae announced the cuts as it was negotiating to win the leading role in a_4 . 9 billion contract to build two aircraft_carriers in conjunction with the partly state owned french company thales group a deal tilted in bae 's favor by the sharp differences between france and britain over a possible war with iraq . some reports suggested that the announcement of the 700 job cuts here and 300 more at scottish yards was timed to coincide with the carrier negotiations . the aim , the reports contended , was to show how lean the company planned to be after a series of disastrous cost_overruns and delays on other big projects or to warn the government what would happen to british jobs if bae did not win the bulk of the contract . bae systems denied any link between the talks about the two 60 , 000 ton carriers and the job cuts . ''these were two separate issues , '' said mike smith , a spokesman for bae . ''there 's a shortage of work'' once the yards finish fitting out two troop landing vessels , he said , and that looming shortage caused the job cuts . but business leaders who went out of their way to lobby politicians in london on behalf of bae in the carrier negotiations said the job cuts came as a cruel and unexpected payback . not only did bae cut jobs sharply , it also shifted the construction of a navy destroyer under development here to scottish yards . that left barrow with only the troubled astute nuclear powered submarine contract , which has been dogged with long delays and big cost_overruns . ''important contracts are being taken elsewhere , and we are being left with a contract that has major difficulties , '' said harry knowles , chief executive of a business lobby group called furness enterprise . ''we felt let down . '' the carrier contracts should ultimately provide 10 , 000 british jobs , according to bae . the ships are , however , not expected to enter service until 2012 and 2015 , and that is too distant a prospect to yield much hope in a town that once drew great economic benefit from its location . from the late 1900 's on , abundant iron_ore deposits fueled steel mills that fed shipyards on a sheltered deep water channel . as long ago as 1917 , the shipyards employed 31 , 000 people around half the population at the time . after world_war_ii , the yards built navy warships like the ark royal aircraft_carrier and the cruise liner oriana . britain 's shipbuilding has been in steady decline , and the steel works here closed in 1985 . when the end of the cold_war sharply reduced military spending , cutting 10 , 000 of 14 , 000 shipyard jobs , barrow 's geographic edge turned to a burden . barrow lies at the end of a twist in the furness peninsula , some 30 miles from the nearest major highway . ''people say we live at the end of the longest cul_de_sac in britain , '' said francis burns , an 88 year old retiree who worked at the shipyards and recalls a time when most of the town depended on the shipyards , then owned by the vickers company . the job reductions are not on the same scale as in the early 1990 's . ''but they have come at a critical time when we thought we had some stability , '' said john simpson , industrial editor of the north west evening mail , a local newspaper . indeed , said steve murray , the chairman of furness enterprise , ''up until last year , everything looked rosy , so there 's a feeling of bitterness now . '' the decline of the shipyards has taken its toll in other ways . from 1991 to 2001 , according to census figures , the number of 20 to 29 year olds fell 35 percent , to 7 , 500 , and the number of babies born each year slid by a quarter , to just 780 . while london struggles with overcrowded classrooms , this town has too few young children to keep all its schools open . ''young people have been drifting away from barrow in search of employment , '' said terry waiting , the leader of the town council , in published remarks . ''some of them have gone to university and taken degrees and they do n't come back . '' that is not altogether surprising . unemployment , defined as the number of jobless people drawing government money , is 5.7 percent here , compared with 3.1 percent nationally , which is one of europe 's lowest levels . but the figure disguises ''hidden unemployment , '' with up to 15 percent of working age men claiming sickness and other benefits not registered in the statistics . barrow 's true unemployment rate could be 23 . 5 percent eight times the national average and among britain 's highest according to a study conducted by researchers from sheffield hallam university before the latest job cuts . ''what appears to have happened is that as job loss has occurred , large numbers of unemployed workers in poor health have become marginalized , '' the study said . businesses here are left mulling the message that this town 's days as a company town are over . with so many young people leaving the town , mr . waiting of the town council said , ''we have to have something to show them that the future is secure , and that means we ca n't rely on bae as the major employer . ''",has a topic of business
"the italian fashion house prada holding abruptly called off its initial_public_offering today , citing poor market conditions . it was the third time in a year that the offering has been pulled back . as late as tuesday , the company 's chief executive , patrizio bertelli , was insisting publicly that the sale would go ahead . market watchers had been eagerly anticipating the offering , which promised to be among the biggest in europe this year , valuing the company at 2 . 5 billion or more . the fact that it had been called off again suggested to some analysts that prada may have had overly high expectations for the amount of capital it could raise and the price it could command . others said it illustrated the very weak investor appetite for stocks in general . prada which besides its trademark handbags and other prada brand goods also controls miu miu , helmut lang , jil sander and other brands has pushed forward with expansion plans despite the slump in luxury_goods since sept . 11 . it has continued to open lavish stores , bringing its total to 150 boutiques in shopping meccas like manhattan , san_francisco , los_angeles , paris , tokyo and its home city , milan . but luxury_goods stocks have not fared well as consumers have cut back on travel and extravagant purchases . the largest company in the industry , lvmh mo t hennessy_louis_vuitton , has lost 20 percent of its stock_market value in the last year . its profit growth has slowed and rivals like gucci and prada have reported sharp falls in profit in the first quarter . ''the situation is so bad that going on with the initial_public_offering would have resulted in a much lower valuation of the company than forecast , '' said armando branchini , president of intercorporate , a milan fashion consulting company . the company had the backing of its underwriters in calling off the offering , he said , ''evidently all the banks believe it is good for them and not just for prada group . '' like lvmh , prada aggressively added brands to its stable in recent years , and now finds itself looking for ways to reduce the 799 million in debt it ran up in the process . last november , prada sold a 22 . 5 percent stake in fendi to lvmh for 260 million . in december , it issued 624 million in convertible bonds , underwritten by deutsche_bank , that can be turned into prada shares if the company goes public within three years . the terms of that bond issue and the company 's debt burden have led analysts to think prada will try again to go public before too long . today 's pullback ' 'does n't mean that the long term goal of coming to the market is out , '' said christian wagner , a fund manager with wagner consulting in zurich , who owns shares in herm s and bulgari . prada 's difficulties and the sour market climate have not so far stopped burberry , the british fashion retailer known for its distinctive plaid , from moving ahead with its own plans to go public . on monday , burberry said it would sell 25 percent of its shares to the public by the middle of july . both prada and burberry are currently showing their men 's collections in milan .",has a topic of business
"racal electronics p.l.c . said yesterday that it would team up with its main rival , itt industries , to bid for a delayed 2 billion ( 3 . 4 billion ) british defense ministry radio contract . racal , a british military and telecommunications company , announced a joint_venture with the united_states company , which means there is just one bidder to build the next generation bowman radio network for the british_army . earnings from racal 's radio making unit plunged to 1 . 9 million in the first half of the year , from 8 million . racal had to keep financing bowman even as the the bidding lagged 15 months behind schedule . ( bloomberg business news ) international briefs",has a topic of business
"ebenezer scrooge would not be happy this christmas . at pubs , restaurants and office parties in the city , london 's wall_street , all the talk has been on the bonuses that are being lavished on bankers and traders . london is at the center of an expansion in european deals , helped by inflows of cash from private_equity shops , the middle_east and russia , and a rush of foreign listings on the london exchange . as a result , many bankers here are hoping that this is the year when their year end bonuses , which have traditionally lagged those of their counterparts across the atlantic , rise to a comparable level . ''london and new york have been coming closer and closer together over the last few years , '' said carl sjostrom , a partner in kpmg 's executive_compensation practice . ''new york is a bigger market , but there have been some fantastically lucrative areas in europe as of late . '' at goldman_sachs , for example , fees from european mergers alone are up 102 . 4 percent from a year earlier , to 656 . 7 million , versus an 18 percent increase in merger fees in the united_states , to 994 . 6 million , according to data compiled by thomson_financial . at merrill_lynch , they are up 151 . 7 percent in europe , to 377 . 3 million , versus a 53 . 7 percent increase in the united_states , to 510 . 8 million . ( banks based in new york almost always have smaller investment_banking staffs in europe in some cases as little as half the size . ) the numbers do not take into account russian or middle_eastern deals , which are often done by london bankers , debt sales or new equity offerings on the london_stock_exchange . disparity in pay between new york banks and their foreign outposts has been a longstanding source of friction . in london , banking and trading markets were once notorious for clubby relationships and liquid lunches , but they are being transformed into springboards for growth markets like eastern_europe and the middle_east . ''i think there is still a perception that people work harder in new york , which is probably justified , but the gap is narrowing , '' said mounzer nasr , the head of european corporate investment for the private_equity_firm arcapita , and a former deal maker for bankers_trust in new york and merrill_lynch in london . ''depending on who you 're talking about , the top m. a . bankers in london work just as hard as their new york counterparts . '' investment_bank managers in london say they are often looking for skills that are generally found outside new york . in particular demand are bankers with experience in the middle_east or china . ''there is a premium for people who are bi and tricultural , '' said john j . studzinski , the chief executive of hsbc 's corporate and investment_banking division . klaus diederichs , head of european investment_banking at j . p . morgan_chase , is also looking for specialized skills . ''our bankers are flying as much to kazakhstan and istanbul as they are to frankfurt , '' he said . ''deals in countries such as south_africa and kazakhstan have grown in size considerably . '' ''the european markets now require bankers to be complete athletes , '' he said , ''as competent in mergers and acquisitions as they are in structured financing , capital raising and derivative transactions . '' in london , expectations were high this bonus season . nearly 60 percent of city employees expected their bonuses to be larger than last year , and one in five expected it to be at least twice as large , according to morgan mckinley , a financial recruiting firm . in the united_states , 44 percent of bankers expected their bonuses to be larger than last year 's , according to a similar survey by vault , an employment research firm . as in new york , estimating how many millions bankers and traders will receive holds a particular fascination . the london afternoon newspaper the evening_standard started the bonus speculation early this year , with a headline on its front page in september ''3 , 000 new city millionaires biggest bonuses for five years as good times return . '' the paper attached numbers to the names of various bankers , estimating , for example , that a head of british banking at goldman_sachs would be awarded 5 million ( about 8 . 7 million ) . while no banker or trader would comment on the record about bonuses , year end pay is all the chatter . and there are signs that bankers , traders and others in the city have been out celebrating more often this year . anthony fuller , the chairman of the pub chain fuller smith turner , last month cited a 6.6 increase in sales in the financial district for the six months ended oct . 1 . ''it was particularly pleasing to see continued buoyant trading in the city which , up to a year ago , had been suffering the effects of a sluggish economy , '' he said . sales did not necessarily increase because city pub visitors are drinking more expensive beer or wine , tony johnson , a spokesman for fuller , noted . some of the increase has come from ' 'more people coming to the pub , '' he said . ''when things are good , people are more comfortable being seen out having a good time than when they are bad . ''",has a topic of business
"it all looked so rosy just a few months ago . market strategists were almost unanimous in predicting that british stocks would continue their long climb throughout 1994 , driven by steadily improving corporate earnings , falling interest rates and a stream of investment from abroad , particularly the united_states . reality has proven considerably less pleasant . the financial_times stock_exchange index of 100 leading shares has fallen nearly 15 percent since its peak in february of 3 , 520 . 3 . the london market , europe 's largest , closed out last week at 2 , 997 . 8 . the market gained 17 points on friday and 48 . 9 points on thursday . but those performances were rare bright_spots in what has been a grim three month slide in both stock and bond prices here . and while analysts still see sound fundamentals that could help the market turn around later in the year , there is little hope for improvement in the next few months . so what went wrong ? all fingers point to the united_states . the decision by the federal_reserve in february to begin raising interest rates drastically changed investment psychology on both sides of the atlantic . signs of inflation in the united_states , analysts reasoned , inevitably meant that inflation , and rising rates , would soon begin biting in britain , where the economic cycle has lagged just a year or so behind the american cycle . "" the move in interest rates by the fed has brought forward a lot of concerns on inflation in the u.k . that otherwise would have taken 12 to 18 months to impact on the economy , "" said robert buckland , a strategist at natwest markets in london . moreover , rising rates led to a quick slowdown , and maybe even a reversal , of the flow of investment funds out of the united_states and into europe , where returns had been higher . the result was less demand for stocks , and falling prices . the fall in the london stock_market has been broadly mirrored by declines in the paris and frankfurt markets , where investors also see a two year period of falling interest rates coming to an end . "" right now we 're fairly pessimistic in the near term about the prospects in the u.k . , "" said marcus grubb , the international equity strategist at salomon_brothers in london . "" the consensus view of the first part of the year has been proved wrong . there may be some value opportunity in the u.k . late in the year , but i fear the market could go lower first . "" mr . grubb said many investors are nursing losses and do not have cash to put back into the market . he said the market is also likely to be spooked again over the summer if the federal_reserve raises rates in the united_states once more a prospect that seemed increasingly likely after friday 's report of strong job growth , a harbinger of inflationary pressures . salomon_brothers predicted in february that the london market could reach 3 , 950 by the end of the year . now , mr . grubb said , it could still reach 3 , 600 if corporate earnings show the solid growth expected of them . "" in terms of timing , it 's all going to come in the late third and fourth quarters , "" mr . grubb said , "" because you 're not going to get a handle on earnings until then and the lack of cash_flow will be a drag_on the markets throughout the summer months . "" mr . buckland said both the stock and bond markets appear to have overreacted to economic conditions . bond yields in britain are at levels that assume inflation is heading back up to around 4.5 percent from around half that now , he said . dividend yields on equities , at 4 percent , are nearing their average levels from the 1980 's , he said . the market 's expectations of surging inflation , according to mr . buckland , are not reflected in the operating experience of companies in britain . most big industrial companies are scrambling to cut costs , and consumer companies are finding it difficult to pass along prices increases because consumers simply stop buying when product prices go up . "" companies are telling me they do n't want to chase market_share , they want to protect margins by cutting costs , "" mr . buckland said . "" unless you start seeing them pushing prices up , its hard to see inflation going back to 1980 's levels . "" even without a reignition of inflation , though , analysts said it may be hard to lure buyers back into the market . one ray of hope could come from the market for government_bonds , or gilts , which are now widely viewed as undervalued . a rally in the bond_market , they said , could induce enough investor confidence to send equities up as well . "" just as the markets overshot on the upside early in the year , they could overshoot on the downside now , "" mr . buckland said . "" in the short term it 's going to be tricky . but when the markets do turn it 's going to happen quickly . "" among the hardest hit equities over the last few months have been the interest rate sensitive financial stocks , like banks . mr . grubb said there may be value in a few bank stocks , such as national_westminster_bank . but he said that given the nervous market sentiment , cyclical stocks would be a better bet . mr . grubb said salomon likes chemical companies like boc group , and capital goods and building stocks like btr , tarmac and hanson , all of which can benefit not just from britain 's slow but steady economic_growth but from continental_europe 's incipient upturn as well .",has a topic of business
"liberty mutual insurance , boston , a fire and casualty insurance_company , said it planned to open an international reinsurance unit , liberty reinsurance company , in london . spring industries , fort mill , s.c. , which makes home furnishings and specialty fabrics , said its proposed 120 million merger with dundee mills inc . , a towel maker , had been approved by dundee 's stockholders .",has a topic of business
"the bank of england came within a vote of raising interest rates this month , leading european markets to think that a rate increase is inevitable before the end of the year . the bank voted 5 to 4 to keep interest rates in britain at 48 year lows of 3.5 percent . the minority voted to increase rates by a quarter of a point . heather_timmons ( nyt )",has a topic of business
"an independent board of directors of drax , england 's largest coal plant , will decide today whether to accept a buyout offer from international power or goldman_sachs . international power , an energy company based in london , offered to buy the plant for 130 million ( 205 million ) . the offer includes paying 64 pence for each pound of its senior debt . goldman is offering one pence less on the pound for the debt . but goldman 's offer does not include a 2 . 5 million a year management fee that international power plans to charge . the former owner of drax , aes , walked away from the plant after debt holders refused to accept its restructuring plan . heather_timmons ( nyt )",has a topic of business
"first came the clothes and the label that made giorgio armani a synonym for "" bella figura , "" italy 's defining master of chic . then came the fall last saturday , mr . armani became the latest of the high ticket , high profile italian fashion designers to go before corruption magistrates in milan and , according to his lawyer , admit to paying a kickback to tax inspectors in 1990 . now it is time for the conspiracy , or at least the conspiracy_theories , that are as much a part of italy as pasta , or mr . armani 's suits , or the annual fall fashion shows about to spring onto the catwalks of milan . "" why the designers and not the pastry makers ? "" said phillipe daverio , a senior official at the milan city_council . "" why did they start the investigations now , just a few days before the international shop window opens in milan ? "" what rankles milan is that the investigations collide with the start on saturday of the ready to wear fashion shows that are central to italy 's fashion and textiles industries with a turnover last year totaling 59 billion , half of it from exports . "" the timing was just too perfect , "" said giuseppe della schiava , head of italy 's national chamber of fashion . "" i ca n't point my finger at anyone in particular , but i do believe the fact that the news broke right now is part of a propaganda campaign against italian fashion . "" but francesco saverio borrelli , chief of the investigative team in milan , denied that the fashion industry had been chosen for special treatment at a special time . "" we do n't just go and see what 's happening in the world of fashion , or the world of football , or whether barbers are giving out proper receipts , "" mr . borrelli said . "" we do n't move that way . we move because of precise information . the important thing is that we do n't set out to poke our noses into unexplored territory just to see if there are crimes or a criminal there . "" in the run up to the fall shows , scandal has cast a wide shadow across the houses of italian fashion . like mr . armani , gianfranco ferre , another top level designer , was interrogated on saturday by milan 's best known corruption investigator , antonio di pietro . other figures to have paraded before the magistrate include krizia ( whose given name is mariuccia mandelli ) , gianmaria buccellati , the jeweler and silversmith , and santo versace , the brother of the designer and entrepreneur gianni_versace . luigi monti , a founder of the basile fashion label , is in jail , facing interrogation in connection with 260 , 000 paid to tax inspectors . a few tax inspectors are in jail , too , for taking bribes . the amounts of money , in general , seem small by comparison with the million dollar transactions more frequently associated with italy 's 30 month long corruption scandal . but they have touched a nerve within an industry that liked to cast itself as aloof from such mundane matters , such skulduggery . "" this is a great injustice , "" said oliviero toscani , the photographer who takes the combative advertising photos for benetton , which so far has not been mentioned in the scandals . "" they should make sure they do n't spit into a plate that 's full of good soup , "" he remarked of the corruption investigators . "" the giorgio armanis brought good fortune to italy . "" of all of those under investigation , the name giorgio armani seems to strike the loudest chord because his clothes are so extensively sold through 2 , 000 outlets worldwide at what some people regard as affordable prices . jackets , for example , that are not made to order start at around 1 , 000 in the united_states and can range well above that . "" they call him the king , the quintessence of elegance , "" the newspaper corriere_della_sera of milan wrote . almost a third of armani 's sales are now made in the united_states and canada , with 28 percent in italy . in 1993 , the last year for which full earnings are published , the company and its subsidiaries reported a profit of about 50 million . earlier this year , however , the armani jeans wear division , armani a x exchange , showed substantial losses . mr . armani 's lawyer , oreste dominioni , said the designer "" had to give in to the demands of the tax auditors to pay a sum of money "" italian newspapers put it at about 66 , 000 . the payment was part of the latest phase of the long running corruption scandals , involving payments to government tax inspectors in return for favorable audits . the practice appears to have been widespread . the business people already caught up in the investigation include paolo berlusconi , the brother of prime_minister silvio_berlusconi . most of those implicated have said they were forced to pay the kickbacks by corrupt officials . "" italy is a nation of thieves , "" asserted mr . toscani , who is not implicated , "" and if you work you sometimes fall into their web . "" for now , the klieg light beam of the bribery investigation has turned to the fashion designers , custodians of some of italians' national pride . the inquiries , though , do not seem to have deterred italy 's high fashion divas . krizia is reportedly planning a dinner for 400 during the fall shows . giorgio armani 's guest list is said to number 600 . "" i do n't understand why i should put myself in mourning , "" krizia told the newspaper la_repubblica . "" i 've never felt better now that i 've told the truth that was weighing me down . """,has a topic of business
"lead until recently raul_gardini was viewed as the embodiment of the new italian entrepreneur glamorous , aggressive and ready to play a role in financial markets around the world . until recently raul_gardini was viewed as the embodiment of the new italian entrepreneur glamorous , aggressive and ready to play a role in financial markets around the world . but now , mr . gardini , whose ferruzzi group is italy 's second largest privately held conglomerate , after the fiat empire , stands accused of practicing italian capitalism in the old style with back room deals concocted among big players at the expense of ordinary shareholders . at the end of january , mr . gardini announced a complex plan to restructure his holdings and complete ferruzzi 's absorption of montedison s.p.a. , the chemicals giant that he took over last year . the stock_market registered its strong disapproval of the restructuring by going into a tailspin for most of last week , after a small rally friday , montedison 's shares closed 16 . 6 percent below their level when mr . gardini made his announcement , and ferruzzi agricola s.p.a. , one of the group 's principal operating companies , was showing a 13 . 6 percent loss . an index of the overall stock_market showed a drop of almost 6 percent from the previous friday 's closing . plunge under study consob , the stock_exchange 's regulatory_agency , has already begun an inquiry into the market 's drop . it is also demanding that mr . gardini move quickly toward a public listing of his closely held ferruzzi finaziaria , the group 's chief holding_company , which has been able to act with considerable secrecy . efforts in parliament to draft legislation regulating the activity of italy 's big industrial groups also received fresh support . authorities had no ready explanation for the cause of the downswing . testifying on the affair before the senate_finance_committee last thursday evening , franco piga , president of consob , said , ''we cannot exclude the possibility that abuses have been committed , that there has been excessive speculation not even that a huge uproar has been created by some who tried to organize insider_trading and were not able . '' along with many others , the committee chairman , beniamino andreatta , a powerful christian democrat , concluded that the stock_market 's image had been gravely damaged . in response to mr . piga , he said angrily and with some irony , ''this is a manipulated market which ought to be closed because it is something that resembles a house of ill repute more than a stock_market . '' the most common accusations against mr . gardini are that he announced his reorganization plans without providing investors enough information about his holdings , and that the plans brazenly benefit him at the cost of minority stockholders . but a senior executive of the ferruzzi group blamed the plunge on ' 'misunderstandings in the market , '' and he joined mr . gardini 's critics in blaming consob for not moving fast enough to halt trading in the most affected stocks . ''when it became clear that the market was not reacting well to our plans , the authorities should have stepped in quickly and asked for further information , because we responded fully when they eventually did , '' said the executive , who asked not to be identified . ambitious ferruzzi expansion a successful yacht racer and avid hunter , mr . gardini , 54 years old , gained a reputation for brilliance by transforming a small family company based in ravenna into an international conglomerate . the group 's annual sales have been estimated at around 10 billion , and in data released last week ferruzzi finanziaria claimed to be worth 1 . 77 trillion_lire , or the equivalent of 1 . 43 billion . mr . gardini 's most ambitious operation was the gradual purchase of 41 percent of montedison 's stock . an old milan based company with a base in chemicals and energy , montedison had been near bankruptcy in 1980 when mario schimberni , one of italy 's most dynamic executives , took over as chairman . a wrenching turnaround began , and by 1986 the company was again profitable . but it was still carrying a huge debt now calculated to total 7.6 trillion_lire , or about 6 . 17 billion . challenging italy to accept a form of corporate leadership more common in other lands , mr . schimberni proclaimed that he wanted to create a broad base of montedison stockholders . after decades of corporate domination by a variety of interests , he envisioned a management that could operate independently of montedison 's ownership . the gardini takeover ended this quest . mr . gardini initially proclaimed his complete faith in mr . schimberni , but last november he suddenly ousted the montedison chairman and took the helm himself . the stock_market has since been rife with rumors about mr . gardini 's intentions . ''we announced our restructuring plan a bit sooner than we expected in order to end all the speculation on the market , '' the ferruzzi executive said . 'a strategic design' the key element of the plan is to strip montedison of initiativa meta , its big , profitable financial_services subsidiary , and incorporate it within ferruzzi finaziaria . shareholders of montedison , which currently owns 61 percent of meta , would be rewarded with 15 ferruzzi shares for every four meta shares . montedison would lose other profitable holdings in retailing and services , leaving it a much smaller company concentrated in its less healthy chemical and pharmaceutical operations . the ferruzzi offering could raise about 2 trillion_lire , or about 1 . 62 billion , for mr . gardini to help pay montedison 's debts as well as to bolster his own position . at the time mr . gardini was buying into montedison , its stock was selling for roughly twice its current price . the restructuring plan was developed with the help of mediobanca , italy 's powerful state owned merchant_bank , which is in the process of going private . in the past mediobanca has frequently assisted italy 's big industrial families in maneuvers to protect family interests . the privatization plan has been promoted as an effort to make mediobanca a more democratic institution that is responsive to the small stockholders and mutual_funds that have increasingly invested in the stock_market . international report",has a topic of business
"evidence mounted today that europe is slowing down , as italy reported that its economy contracted in the second quarter from the first quarter . the figures signaled that a decline in manufacturing and farming began to infect other areas , producing the first quarter to quarter fall in output in three years . over all , gross_domestic_product in italy , the third largest economy in the euro region after germany and france , declined 0.1 percent from the first quarter , the government statistical office reported , as falling demand from the rest of europe and the united_states took its toll . year to year , output grew 2 percent . italy is struggling in particular with weakening sales to two major trade partners , germany and the united_states . the seriousness of the slowdown in germany became evident on tuesday when it reported a decline in industrial output in june . that followed a report of a fall in industrial orders , suggesting that economic activity is softening . ''the impact of the external slowdown probably became more immediate during the second quarter , '' said carmen nuzzo , an economist at salomon_smith_barney , of italy 's contraction . she said the figures were ' 'definitely not very surprising , '' given a drop in first quarter manufacturing in italy , and the fact that the second quarter had fewer calendar days , a factor not compensated for in today 's figures . the difficulties in italy and germany are increasing the pressure on the european_central_bank to cut interest rates and stoke growth . the bank has been loath to do that for fear of unleashing inflation . but in its monthly report today , the bank gave what some analysts saw as a hint that its thinking was shifting . the bank noted that ''risks relating to the outlook for growth in the second half of the year remain sizable'' and said it would ''closely monitor developments'' that might lead it to change its mind about the right level of interest rates . italian stocks fell for a second consecutive day . the benchmark mib30 index fell 1 percent , to 36 , 491 . italian companies rely heavily on exports . the last downturn in the economy came after the 1998 meltdown in emerging_markets in eastern_europe and elsewhere . fiat auto , the car division of italy 's biggest corporation , has said it will furlough roughly one third of its 50 , 000 workers in italy for a week in september because of slowing demand . pirelli , the cable and tire maker , announced an unexpected fall in profits in the second quarter and said the third quarter would be difficult as well . some economists now look to domestic consumption to buoy italy 's economy . vincenzo guzzo of morgan_stanley said ''in this kind of environment , it 's hard to think of a pickup in investment spending , '' but that spending on services seemed to be holding up . today 's gloomy figures cast doubt on a pledge of tax cuts by the fledgling government of prime_minister silvio_berlusconi , which was based on a forecast of 2.4 percent growth this year . economists now expect 2 percent at most . while small scale tax relief may be possible , mr . guzzo said , major cuts will probably have to wait until late 2002 .",has a topic of business
"television commercials have become so fashionable in britain that a new satellite network , the advert channel , has begun showing them 24 hours a day . ''people love commercials , '' said vince stanzione , managing director at the network outside of london . marketing for the advert channel takes the same stance , with slogans like , ''everything you 'd see on a normal tv channel except the programs . '' advert channel programming includes chatty hosts introducing featured spots , viewers voting on which commercials they want to see next , and shows like ''ad chat , '' ''adverts for you'' and ''advert focus'' tackling their subjects from various angles . given the success that american versions of british programs occasionally achieve , could some kind of advert channel play here ? mr . stanzione , for one , sees potential . ''i 'm surprised nobody 's done it , '' he said . but americans may not want much more marketing at all . a study conducted this spring by yankelovich partners , a marketing consulting company , found that 65 percent of consumers felt constantly bombarded by too much advertising . more ominously for the traditional commercial , 69 percent said that they were interested in products and services that would help them skip or block ads . the idea of an all commercial channel found a mixed response at commercial alert , an advocacy_group whose mission statement includes a commitment to limit the reach of commercial culture to ''its proper sphere . '' ''we hope this is the future of advertising , '' said gary ruskin , executive director at commercial alert , ''that it will be segregated to one channel and the rest can be ad free . '' failing that , mr . ruskin said the commercials as entertainment approach was just another instance of ad creep . ''there are ads in almost every nook and cranny of our culture , '' he said . ''i think more people would rather bang their heads against the wall than watch more ads . '' there is some precedent for advertising as programming in the united_states , in the form of nine years of specials on abc called ''the best commercials you 've never seen ( and some you have ) . '' these two hour specials achieved high ratings with a mix of foreign commercials , collections of spots revolving around music , ''guess the product'' segments and lots of humor throughout , said tracey baird , a producer at dakota pictures who worked on all nine shows . the first special also highlighted the 1984 commercial from apple computer that started the tradition of spectacular ''event'' commercials during the super_bowl . in the spot , someone runs into a room and smashes an image of a big brother type face with a hammer . ''it was almost a way to give commercials some sort of relevance , to show why they are important , '' ms . baird said . the impact of advertising on culture is precisely the reason to root for a 24 hour channel , said james b . twitchell , professor of english and advertising at the university of florida in gainesville . ''if it 's the water we 're in , why not study the water ? '' he said . ''it 's modern ethnography . '' mr . twitchell said he had already contacted agencies , advertiser associations and television stations to suggest a show focused on advertising . ''you 'd have some talking heads , the client , the agency , a fussbudget academic and some ralph_nader type , '' he said . ''you would take it seriously because it is the culture that we 're in . '' though mr . twitchell said he thought there would ''absolutely'' be an audience , the proposals never gained traction . one reason that britons might watch a channel that is literally full of ads is the different style of advertising across the atlantic , said catherine rasenberger , president at rasenberger media , which helps start up cable networks . ''the brits take great pride in the creativity of their commercials , and i think consumers actually enjoy commercials , '' ms . rasenberger said . ''that is not as true in the united_states . '' moreover , an audience of interested viewers would not necessarily be enough . ''it 's a very hostile environment for new networks of any type , '' ms . rasenberger said . ''maybe there 's a show , but certainly not a 24 hour network . '' not incidentally , the advert channel will sell commercial time during its regular programming . ms . baird , the producer , said , ''i 'd be curious to see who advertises on it . '' the media business advertising",has a topic of business
"as the cream of italian fashion went on trial here today , several defendants , including giorgio armani , agreed to plea_bargain settlements in their tax bribery cases . mr . armani , perhaps italy 's foremost arbiter of elegance , was fined 64 , 000 and given a nine month suspended jail sentence . in a statement released late today , mr . armani said that he had agreed to the plea_bargain even though he did not consider himself guilty . he reached the settlement , he said , "" in order to close a chapter that has upset my professional serenity . "" the roll call of star defendants included not only mr . armani but also gianfranco ferre krizia , the professional name of the designer mariuccia mandelli , and santo versace , the brother and business associate of the designer and entrepreneur gianni_versace . there were to have been 19 defendants in the trial , but the court agreed to settlements for 9 of them , including mr . armani . none of the defendants appeared in court today , and much of the proceedings involved an unsuccessful effort by defense lawyers to have television cameras banned from the courtroom to deflect negative publicity from the usually high profile and always high ticket designers . two years ago , the corruption investigations that have swept through italian politics and business turned toward the golden generation of designers that has put milan in the company of paris and new york as a world fashion capital . the 19 defendants scheduled for trial today included designers and their business associates , as well as government tax inspectors . investigators said the tax inspectors pocketed tens of thousands of dollars in bribes in exchange for providing the fashion companies with favorable audits . the settlement for mr . armani , which was negotiated by lawyers and the three judge panel that is hearing the tax_evasion case , implies an admission of guilt in exchange for the minimum statutory sentence . but lionel ceresi , mr . armani 's lawyer , insisted that mr . armani was not guilty . the settlement , mr . ceresi said , was "" not an admission , but a conclusion of the proceedings . "" mr . armani , whose fashion empire sold apparel last year with a retail value of 1 . 9 billion , was accused of paying tax inspectors bribes totaling 64 , 000 in 1990 . he and the other designers on trial have not denied making the payments but have insisted that the payments were extorted by unscrupulous government auditors . in a recent interview with the daily_telegraph of london , mr . armani compared making the payments to paying the check in a restaurant after a good meal . the defendants making settlements today included aldo pinto , the husband and business associate of ms . mandelli , and vittorio terrenghi , a business associate of mr . armani . the lawyers for the 10 remaining defendants said they would go to trial in an effort to have the names and reputations of their clients cleared . the trial was adjourned to june 18 . the remaining defendants include mr . ferre , the portly , bearded designer who runs a fashion house in milan in addition to designing for christian_dior in paris . because hundreds of witnesses have been named by both the prosecution and the defense , a verdict is not be likely to come before the fall . mr . ceresi , who was wearing a navy blue armani suit beneath his lawyer 's black cape today , said that the main factor in mr . armani 's decision to agree to a plea_bargain had been mr . armani 's loss of "" tranquillity . "" he added that since other defendants would be proceeding with a trial , the facts of the case would come out . "" with this decision , in effect , we are achieving both results tranquillity , and the establishment of the facts , "" he said . the accusations of corruption in the fashion world seemed to have aroused a sense of solidarity with the accused in a nation where the feeling for fashion is such that news reports of a prime_minister 's appearance before parliament often begin with a description of what he is wearing . when politicians or businessmen caught in the net of the corruption investigators have appeared in court recently , ordinary italians have packed the visitors' gallery and millions more have watched at home on television . but today , few spectators were in court . nicola bonuomo , the lawyer for mr . ferre , contended that television cameras should be barred because they serve "" no social interest , "" but merely slake people 's curiosity . mr . bonuomo said the fashion designers had availed themselves of the right not to appear in court because of the presence of the cameras . asked whether this was ironic in a world where fashion celebrities usually drool for television coverage , he replied , "" but not in a courtroom . "" the court ruled that one fixed television camera would be allowed , but that photographers would be barred from future sessions . the amounts of the individual bribes that were said to have been paid 64 , 000 to 300 , 000 are small compared with the million dollar transactions in the industry , and there is no evidence that the legal situation has financially harmed the italian designer clothing business . shares in simint s.p.a. , the only company in the armani empire on the stock_exchange , closed down 30 lire , or 2 cents , at 2 , 550 lire ( 1 . 63 ) today . the stock , which began the year at 1 , 800 lire , has been profiting from a recent surge of investor interest in italian fashion names like gucci and bulgari . in 1995 , italy 's apparel industry reported a 6.5 percent increase in revenues , to 52 billion . that included 27 billion worth of exports , which had risen 17 percent from 1994 . vittorio giulini , the owner of the knitwear maker liola , and president of the association of apparel manufacturers , held out hope for the fashion designers who stand accused . "" designers are very close to culture and art , "" he said . "" in history , i 've never seen an artist who was considered a bad one because of a trial . """,has a topic of business
"the european arm of the buyout firm hicks , muse , tate furst has split from its united_states counterpart and plans to change its name as it seeks to distance itself from the less successful operations across the atlantic . last week , managers in europe completed a separation begun this summer , and they have signed letters resigning from hicks , muse and its management committee , people close to the firm said thursday . john muse , a co founder of the firm who started the group 's london office , will be nonexecutive_chairman of the european company but will not be involved in its day to day operations , these people said . mr . muse , who has been working out of london for the last few years , is moving back to the united_states full time this year . partners in europe may still play some role in the american firm 's investment decisions or money raising . the separation comes after several years of mixed results in the united_states , compared with a string of smart deals for the firm 's 1 . 5 billion european dedicated fund . the fund 's european arm , run by lyndon lea , a canadian , set up a british management company last summer in anticipation of a split . the european arm has not decided on a name . the separation was accompanied by some bitterness at the fund 's london office , some people close to hicks , muse said . mr . muse and mr . lea were struggling for control of the european arm , and the atmosphere in the office was so negative that some managers did not want to come to work , these people said . a spokesman for the fund in the united_states said the split was not abrupt . a spokeswoman for hicks , muse in europe declined to comment . mr . muse and jack furst , another co founder , did not return calls to the firm 's headquarters in dallas . the other founders are thomas o . hicks , who is retiring this year , and charles tate , who retired in 2002 . hicks , muse , which was founded in 1989 and has invested more than 50 billion since then , was hit hard when the telecommunications bubble_burst in the united_states . the company lost more than 1 billion from its fourth fund , for example . it has been trying to recover from its telecommunications losses by returning to its roots , building up big businesses from several smaller purchases . in a sign of difficulty raising money in the united_states , the firm promised in november 2000 that it would make a_20 percent annual rate of return on 200 million in internet investments . the firm fell short of its goal in 2000 and has not raised money in the united_states since then . in contrast , the company 's european arm has racked up several successful deals in recent years , like taking public the yellow_pages company yell . the european fund also bought the champagne brands mumm and perrier jou t , and sold them in just two years for several times the initial investment . the european company is raising a second fund , which is expected to have less than a billion_euros . a shift in emphasis between europe and the united_states has been happening across the private_equity industry , but hicks , muse is the most extreme example , analysts said . ''a number of well known united_states buyout funds have increased their investments substantially in europe in the past few years , '' said jamille jinnah , managing director at almeida capital , based in london , a consulting and research firm for the private_equity industry . ''with the other firms , investment in europe now makes up almost 50 percent of total activity , whereas with hicks , muse , it was a lot more than that , '' mr . jinnah said . ''the balance of power has shifted in some respects between the u.s . and europe . '' international business",has a topic of business
"the prudential insurance_company of america has become the first creditor to seize a commercial building of the reichmann family 's bankrupt olympia york developments ltd . , once the world 's premier real_estate company . prudential , based in newark , has taken title to the 28 story aetna canada center , one of the four crown_jewels in olympia 's toronto portfolio . "" all we can say at this point is that we 're pleased to have it , "" said a prudential spokesman , rick matthews . "" we look forward to doing the rehabilitation of the building and leasing it up . "" the change , which took effect on thursday , came as olympia 's creditors prepare to vote next week on a new restructuring plan that is essentially a blueprint for the orderly liquidation of the company 's canadian assets . under protection from creditors olympia york owes 6 . 7 billion on its canadian office towers . in may it was granted ontario court protection from its creditors . the company 's troubles stemmed from a severe recession in commercial real_estate and a heavy drain on its resources from an ambitious and now aborted office development in the east end of london known as canary_wharf . after two earlier restructuring plans failed to meet creditor demands , the new plan , to be voted on jan . 11 15 by 34 classes of creditors , essentially gives major financial_institutions that had financed the reichmanns the option of taking over the assets that secure their loans . prudential was in a better position to seize assets than most olympia creditors . unlike many other buildings , the aetna center was financed by a single mortgage , to prudential , for an amount now equivalent to 144 million in united_states money . prudential 's toronto lawyer , leslie a . wittlin of the firm of gowling , strathy henderson , said he had negotiated a so called quit claim agreement that authorizes the prudential takeover while releasing olympia from any further liability . mr . wittlin said the court approved agreement was less expensive for olympia and for prudential than a formal foreclosure would have been . the building , at king and york streets in toronto 's financial district , was managed by olympia . but prudential has brought in a new manager , the enterprise property group of toronto . finding new tenants will be the biggest challenge . nearly half of the space is taken up by the aetna life_insurance company of canada , but aetna has given notice that it will be moving this spring a block away to the new ibm tower . many other secured creditors are expected to follow prudential 's lead in pulling their assets out of olympia york . no one expects properties that are repossessed by the financial_institutions to be sold any time soon , because of the weakness of the real_estate market .",has a topic of business
"while italy 's phone company fell prey last week to europe 's largest hostile_takeover ever , the nation 's banks are not afraid , for the moment at least , of unfriendly suitors . italian banks , like those across europe , are struggling to merge , to cut costs and create the larger capital bases they will need to finance customers on the euro market . yet recent efforts have failed . earlier this month , banca_commerciale_italiana , the no . 4 bank in italy , rejected a 14 billion takeover offer from unicredito italiano , the no . 3 , after having concluded that the nation 's central_bank would block the deal . in april , the central_bank had refused to authorize a 9 . 7 billion bid by san_paolo imi of turin , the nation 's largest , for banca_di_roma , after banca_di_roma 's board defined the bid as ''hostile and unacceptable'' and the central_bank 's president , antonio_fazio , said he would not approve hostile bids for banks . the failure of those bids , the largest in italian banking , has led to a debate about the consequences for the beleaguered industry . emanuele minotti of salomon_smith_barney defended the central_bank 's decision . ''fazio is a fair man and a gentleman , '' he said , adding that it was his duty to ''protect the savings of customers . '' unlike bids in telecommunications , he said , hostile bids in banking involved ''offering money to buy money , '' and he added , ''a bank is not a slot machine . '' giancarlo forestieri , a professor of finance at the bocconi business school in milan , agreed that the central_bank acted out of what he called a desire for stability as well as some unease over the novelty of large scale hostile bidding . ''it 's only a few years , '' he said , ''that managements are accustomed to thinking in market terms . '' but the impatience among stock traders for consolidation in italian banking is clear . shares of unicredito , for example , fell for the third consecutive day today and finished the week at 4 . 515 euros , down 6 percent for the week and down 10 percent since the bid was disclosed late in march . san_paolo imi fared similarly , closing at 12 . 931 euros , down 5 percent for the week and down about 14 percent since late march . alessandro profumo can understand investor sentiment . the chief executive of unicredito , mr . profumo , 42 , is a leading proponent of a need for consolidation in italian banking . when european banks finish consolidating within their national borders , he argues , cross_border consolidation will begin , and italy desperately needs two or three big banks to negotiate ''on an even field , not as giants with pygmies . '' not that the italian banks have been standing still . unicredito itself is the fruit of a merger last year of credito_italiano , the former state bank that was taken public in 1994 , and the unicredito savings bank . and san_paolo got bigger by acquiring the investment_bank imi . the government has reduced its stake in the banking industry to about 20 percent , from 68 percent two years ago , and banks have increased productivity , cutting employment to 318 , 000 last year , from 335 , 000 five years earlier . henry macnevin , italian banking analyst at moody 's investors service in london , said italian banks are ''headed in the right direction , '' even if ''there will be jolts along the way . '' mr . profumo is probably one of the italian bankers best prepared for the jolts . he is convinced that cross_border mergers and acquisitions in europe will begin sometime ''this year or next . '' since taking control at unicredito in 1995 , mr . profumo , a former mckinsey_company bank consultant , has lifted return on equity to 15 percent , compared with a national average below 5 percent , and is aiming for 22 percent in 2002 , provided unicredito finds an ally . in june , he hopes to conclude a deal for unicredito to acquire control of bank pekao s.a. , the no . 1 bank in poland by assets , that will give unicredito a bridgehead into promising future markets in eastern_europe . harbingers of cross_border takeovers are evident in italy , he says . in january , deutsche_bank , the german market leader , took a small stake , three quarters of 1 percent , in unicredito . earlier , deutsche_bank , commerzbank , also of germany , and paribas of france had acquired more than 4 percent each of commerciale , and abn_amro of the netherlands , an 8.8 percent stake in banca_di_roma . allianz , the german insurance partner of dresdner_bank , holds a stake in unicredito through an italian insurance affiliate , and banco bilbao vizcaya of spain has a_12 percent share of banca_nazionale di lavoro . true , this is all nibbling at the edges compared with deutsche_bank 's pending 10 . 2 billion acquisition of bankers_trust of new york , but mr . profumo says the foreign banks are , in part , simply staking future claims . ''everyone 's laying down their chips , '' he said , ''betting on what the final picture will look like . '' it also reflects a conviction that for the moment , european central_banks like italy 's will not permit significant cross_border shopping . ''the governor of any central_bank is quite scared to have the financial sector controlled by foreigners , '' mr . minotti of salomon said . but some bankers contend that mr . fazio has gone beyond his european colleagues . mr . profumo complains that unicredito 's bid for commerciale was wrongly branded hostile even though he had obtained the agreement of commerciale 's management . commerciale 's board later scuttled the idea . ''we 're convinced we acted correctly , '' he said , adding that the logic behind the alliance was to ''create a very strong national banking business . '' indeed , some argue that the central_bank 's reluctance to allow hostile bids has encouraged back room deals , not least by the italian investment_bank mediobanca , a power_broker in italian finance . as a legacy of the old world of italian finance , unicredito and commerciale , oddly , together control about 17 percent of mediobanca , yet mediobanca in large part decided the fate of the unicredito bid . in recent months , mediobanca had unsuccessfully sought to merge commerciale with banca_di_roma . when assicurazioni generali , italy 's largest insurer and a unicredito shareholder , appeared to back the unicredito bid for commerciale , mediobanca successfully sought to dethrone generali 's chairman , antoine bernheim , a lazard freres partner in paris . and though it remains unclear what goal mediobanca now pursues , it is clear that a merger of unicredito and commerciale was seen as costing mediobanca its independence . international business",has a topic of business
"italy is a land of plots and counterplots , of unsolved crimes and unresolved mysteries . but even by these standards , the case of carlo de benedetti , chairman of the computer maker ing . c . olivetti , is unusual . mr . de benedetti , who is widely viewed in the united_states as one of europe 's most perceptive businessmen , was sentenced by a milan court this spring to six years and four months in jail . but he insinuates that a political vendetta was behind the verdict and many in italy and america share that view . "" i 've always been seen as against the italian political class , as a sort of strange political animal , and i 've paid a very high price , culminating with this groundless conviction , "" mr . de benedetti said in an interview . he is free pending an appeal . the conviction stemmed from charges of fraud in the collapse of banco_ambrosiano in 1982 beneath 1 . 3 billion in bad_loans . for 65 days , between november 1981 and january 1982 , mr . de benedetti was deputy chairman of what was then italy 's largest private_bank . he left after a falling out with the chairman , roberto calvi , who was found hanged , in still murky circumstances , under blackfriars bridge in london shortly before the bank shut . deals and comeuppance ? some believe the verdict is mr . de benedetti 's comeuppance for countless deals , some of them very successful but some apparently poorly judged , that critics say displayed a combination of greed , vanity and impatience . his interests include the influential italian newspaper la_repubblica , a hotel group in spain and the big french auto component company valeo . "" he 's the most complete businessman in italy , "" said giovanni_agnelli , chairman of fiat_s.p.a . "" but you ca n't put yourself with rogues like calvi and come out looking good . "" but another view is that mr . de benedetti has paid for being a bristling outsider , a jew in an overwhelmingly roman_catholic country , who challenged the long dominant christian democratic and socialist parties and the country 's risible stock_exchange and heavy regulation of the economy , which he contends have conspired to keep most businesses small . "" there is a large element of political conspiracy in the conviction , "" said carlo scognamilio , rector of the respected luiss business school . "" mr . de benedetti has many enemies in this country because he has confronted the regime . "" and mr . de benedetti said , "" this is the land of the bonsai . if you stay small in business , nobody troubles you . but if you want to grow , they start calling you a communist and a troublemaker . "" olivetti 's chairman has already received a vote of confidence from corporate america . on june 26 , the digital_equipment_corporation agreed to invest about 365 million to acquire almost 10 percent of olivetti , which lost 383 million in 1991 as it suffered from the shakeout in the european computer industry . a spokesman for digital said , "" we did not regard the conviction as a big deal . "" still , as mr . de benedetti battles to clear his name with his court appeal , which will probably not be heard until 1994 , questions remain . is his jail sentence a frame up a squalid example of the political and moral crisis now sweeping italy as politician after politician is implicated in corruption scandals and anti mafia judges are killed by bombs ? or did the man once regarded as the golden boy of italian business really break the law ? and has the verdict compromised mr . de benedetti 's ability to lead olivetti to profitability ? he is an unusual figure in italy . while successful small and medium_sized businesses abound , the self made man who builds an industrial group and takes it public is rare . the country 's dominant christian democratic_party has long been content to portray the stock_exchange as little more than a den of speculators in order to insure that private savings go mainly to shore up the chronic indebtedness of a spendthrift state . meanwhile , establishment figures in the private_sector , like mr . agnelli , or leopoldo pirelli of the pirelli tire group , have sought stability through cross stockholdings in each other 's companies , often coordinated by the country 's leading merchant_bank , mediobanca , and its octogenarian mastermind , enrico cuccia . it is this system that mr . de benedetti says he wants to break . "" in the last 15 years , "" he said , "" i have systematically wanted to change things , to modernize , to end the ossification , to go beyond the capitalism of the family , to make this a more genuinely capitalist country . i was saying , let 's have hostile_takeovers . i was saying , let 's produce plenty of agnellis , and if possible better ones . "" newspaper criticizes leaders his newspaper , la_repubblica , has fired repeated broadsides at the governing parties , and particularly at the socialist leader , bettino_craxi , whom it regularly portrays in cartoons as a jackbooted latter day mussolini . he has criticized the business establishment , especially as symbolized by mr . agnelli , of whom he said , "" agnelli is a king , and i have rarely seen a progressive monarch . "" at the same time , for many years , mr . de benedetti was well known as the entrepreneur closest to the opposition communist_party , now named the party of social democracy . mr . de benedetti also made politicians uncomfortable simply by growing very fast . in italy , he and luciano benetton of the clothing group stand virtually alone in having developed from scratch big businesses quoted on the stock_exchange . buoyed by the 1980 's stock_market boom , mr . de benedetti 's holding_companies were vehicles for an extraordinary expansion aimed at establishing what he described as a pan_european business empire . just about anything seemed to be a target for his appetites yves_saint_laurent and the valeo auto component company in france the pearson group , owners of the financial_times , in britain hotels and real_estate in spain , and the huge belgian holding_company , societe_generale de belgique , which he claimed to have successfully raided in 1988 before being foiled by compagnie de suez of france . in italy , two of his bids , for the influential mondadori publishing group and the state owned sme food group , met virulent and ultimately successful opposition from politicians concerned at the growth of his power . "" it is a straight line from sme to the ambrosiano verdict , "" mr . de benedetti contended , without specifying how he thought the milan magistrates involved in his case were politically swayed . still , he clearly became overstretched . many of his holdings have been sold as his group retrenches . his french company , cerus , has lost more than 600 million in the last two years and has been shedding much of what it acquired in the 1980 's . "" he allowed himself to be carried away by the times in the 1980 's , and i think he knows it , "" said michel cicurel , who was brought in recently as managing director of cerus to clean up the mess . depressed stock prices like other companies in the group , cerus is now trading at a fraction of what it did a few years ago . olivetti , having traded as high as 20 , 000 lire , or 18 . 10 , a share in 1986 , now trades at 3 , 200 lire , or 2 . 90 . in 1978 , when he took over olivetti , the once illustrious typewriter manufacturer was on the brink of bankruptcy . within five years , the company was transformed into a leading european computer maker , with profits reaching 365 million by 1987 . but last year it plunged into the red . at best , mr . benedetti said , olivetti might break even this year , after shedding 16 , 000 , or 25 percent , of its workers over the last two years . its problems are essentially those of the entire european computer industry tough competition in a fragmented market and plunging prices . personal computer prices fell 40 percent last year . olivetti is banking on its integrated systems , its flexibility and the muscle and technology of its new alliance with digital to survive . from digital the company will gain access to the alpha risc , or reduced instruction set computing , technology , which has earned widespread praise . mr . de benedetti vowed to fight to the last for olivetti 's independence . "" i am sentimentally tied to this company , and it is my duty to give it all i can , "" he said . there is no question that mr . de benedetti is a fighter . born into a middle_class jewish family in turin , he fled italy at age 8 because of the fascist racial laws in force during world_war_ii . he managed to get to switzerland , although several of his cousins died in nazi death camps . the experience marked him deeply , apparently contributing to his passionate sense of mission . this determination is certain to characterize his effort to clear his name in the ambrosiano case . but he will be up against an italian justice system whose notorious lethargy and unpredictability are underlined by the fact that the full reasons for mr . de benedetti 's conviction will be disclosed only next year and by the extraordinary division between the magistrates most centrally involved in the case . interviews showed that while renato bricchetti , the magistrate who led the initial investigation , is convinced of mr . de benedetti 's innocence , the public prosecutor , piero dell'osso , defended the verdict . both denied being subjected to political pressure . banco_ambrosiano affair what they do agree on is that mr . de benedetti joined banco_ambrosiano as vice chairman in november 1981 , invited by the shadowy mr . calvi , who said he was looking to groom a successor . mr . de benedetti invested 52 billion lire , or 43 . 3 million , to become the largest single holder in a bank that was already awash in bad_loans made by mr . calvi to several latin_american shell companies owned by the institute for religious works , the vatican bank . it was a typically bold , and seemingly rash , decision by mr . de benedetti . but he soon began challenging mr . calvi at board meetings to explain what was going on in the bank 's porous overseas operations . "" the reaction from mr . calvi was extremely violent , "" mr . bricchetti said . mr . calvi began maneuvering to have mr . de benedetti removed , and the magistrates agree that nothing the olivetti chairmandid as a director of the bank was reproachable . where the two magistrates disagree is over the terms under which mr . de benedetti left the bank . at that time , he received 54 . 3 billion lire , or 45 . 2 million , which mr . de benedetti says represented his investment plus interest and costs . mr . dell'osso argued that the payment was excessive and contributed to the "" fraudulent bankruptcy "" of banco_ambrosiano . mr . bricchetti found nothing unlawful about this payment . in effect , mr . de benedetti , he argued , was being sentenced to prison for the collapse of a bank with 1 . 3 billion in bad_loans because he made a profit of 1 . 9 million on his two month investment . mr . dell'osso declined to discuss his reasoning in the case . but he said "" the only pressures on me were the technical ones from the complexity of the affair . i was able to fulfill my duty as a magistrate should , without any political pressure . "" but mr . dell'osso 's unusual persistence kept the case alive . he first argued that mr . de benedetti had been guilty of extortion , and when this case floundered in 1989 , he switched to the fraudulent bankruptcy argument . whether mr . de benedetti 's appeal is upheld or not , he seems resolute and serene . he believes italy , struck by twin economic and political crises , is at last about to change in the way he has long urged . and he appears to have realized the pitfalls of his considerable hubris . "" i am willing to concentrate on fewer subjects now , "" he said . "" ten years ago i was not . but i am 57 , and i have realized that every season of your life has its own attractions and flavor . i am a grandfather now , and that makes me totally happy . ten years ago it would have made me desperate . """,has a topic of business
"the joke used to be that if two englishmen were sent to the moon , they would promptly form a gentleman 's club . these days , two britons of either sex would probably talk smugly or wistfully about house prices . in the last 12 months , house prices , particularly in london and the southeast , have soared by almost one quarter , the fastest expansion in more than a decade and the latest unfolding of a sustained boom in which the price of some homes has doubled since the late 1990 's . even as stock markets have withered , the cost of houses and apartments has soared , fueled by the lowest interest rates and the lowest unemployment levels for almost 40 years . the boom has sent prices into what one columnist called ''cloud cuckoo land . '' just last month , new research showed that the number of homes on sale for more than 1 million roughly 1 . 5 million , and once an exotic benchmark of high value for most britons had almost doubled to 1 , 100 across england in a year , the bulk of them in the london neighborhood of st . john 's wood . in another london district , the owner of a double garage in upmarket notting_hill , the location of the movie of the same name starring julia roberts and hugh grant , has put half the garage on the market for 225 , 000 . a former public bathroom is being offered for around 200 , 000 . some economists argue that the market has created a feel good factor in a land with one of the world 's highest levels of property ownership . this means that britons keep on spending cash and plastic , and thus keep their service driven economy growing faster than its european counterparts , because they feel so rich in bricks and mortar . yet in recent weeks , doubts have begun to creep into this idyll of ever expanding wealth almost an echo of america 's faith in the seemingly unlimited riches to be plucked from the equities markets in the 1990 's because the high prices are leaving too many potential buyers behind . not too long ago , britain 's soaring house prices had been seen by economists as a source of inflationary concern , largely because of the dominance of housing investment in british calculations . but the same dominance makes the housing market a font of consumer confidence and growth . roughly 75 percent of britons own their own home , compared with around 50 percent in france and germany or 64 percent in the united_states , according to real_estate industry estimates . in continental_europe , some real_estate prices have fallen in recent years for dinner table anecdotes about soaring prices , only some united_states cities , like new york , seem to compare to london . moreover , britons tend to invest more than three times the amount in their homes that they do in the stock_market , banking estimates say , meaning that they are likely to be less exposed to stock market swings than americans . in a wildly uneven housing market in which the same 225 , 000 that buys half a garage in notting_hill can buy a three bedroom , detached home in the northern city of manchester , the national average price for a dwelling topped 100 , 000 ( 150 , 000 ) for the first time earlier this year and now stands at over 110 , 000 . now , though , there are fears of a chill , evoking memories of the late 1980 's and early 1990 's when house prices crashed , leaving some buyers with loans worth more than their properties . last month , house prices rose 0.2 percent , the slowest increase in 10 months , according to halifax , britain 's biggest mortgage lender . although other mortgage lenders have been less gloomy , the slowdown coincided with a broader slide in britain 's economy . last month , the national statistics office said annual growth slowed to 1.2 percent in the second quarter , pulled down by a huge slump in manufacturing , which fell 5.3 percent from may to june . also in august , the bank of england lowered its forecast for britain 's economic_growth this year to 2.5 percent from 3 percent . indeed , repaying the housing loan has become one of britain 's central worries . a survey in june 2002 of 2 , 000 people found that 36 percent feared that they would be unable to repay their mortgage loans within the next four months , compared with 31 percent last april . the deepest worries were among people 35 to 44 , half of whom feared they would not be able to repay their mortgages . the findings ''are the first clear indication that people are taking on more than they can afford , '' said the survey by cpp , a debit and credit_card protection company . the recent slowing in price increases comes only after the rises caused some fundamental social shifts . according to a survey of 1 , 000 britons aged 18 to 25 that was conducted for egg , an internet bank , the high price of buying a home has forced many people to delay marriage and parenthood , to live at home with their parents for longer and to cancel vacations and nights on the town to save for a deposit on a house or apartment . ''if ever there was an example of the madness of property prices , surely this is it , '' the columnist becky barrow wrote recently in the daily_telegraph . ''the inexorable rise of property prices from edinburgh to exeter has created a financial bind so powerful that it changes the way we live . '' consider , for instance , laura chapman , a 28 year old producer for a financial television_network . with a friend who inherited money , she said , she is negotiating to buy a modest , one and a half bedroom apartment near london 's financial district . the cost 460 , 000 . by her calculations , people earning less than the equivalent of 75 , 000 find it difficult to buy anywhere in central_london . even with mortgage interest rates at record low levels some lenders are offering 3 . 75 percent she said many people had trouble coming up with the initial deposit on a property , let alone repayments . ''unless you have got a lot of savings , getting an inheritance seems to be the only way you can buy , '' she said . north of london , in the suburb of edgware , james inverne , a 27 year old freelance_journalist , said he earned around 45 , 000 a year and had been renting an apartment as prices to buy properties just ran away from him . two bedroom suburban properties he looked at three years ago for the equivalent of 114 , 000 now cost around 225 , 000 . and while couples with two salaries stood a better chance as first time buyers , he said , people like him , earning well over the average london salary , 36 , 000 a year , had problems . ''i do n't know how people across the country are coping , '' he said . international business",has a topic of business
"lead time inc . has signed an agreement with arnoldo mondadori editore , the milan , italy , publishing company , to set up an italian version of fortune_magazine . time inc . has signed an agreement with arnoldo mondadori editore , the milan , italy , publishing company , to set up an italian version of fortune_magazine . the first issue of fortune italia is expected to be out by spring , and will use the same logotype and basic design as its american parent . some articles will be adapted from the united_states edition others will be produced specifically for the italian version . ad rates have not yet been set . time , which will share control of the italian edition equally with its partner , is currently negotiating to create spanish and german_language editions of the magazine . fortune started a french edition , a joint_venture with hachette filippachi , in february .",has a topic of business
"lead the honda motor company of japan will set up its european headquarters in reading in southern_england , the auto_maker said . the wholly owned honda motor europe will start operating next april . the headquarters operation will create 100 jobs , and it will control production , sales , services , marketing , distribution and management in the honda motor company of japan will set up its european headquarters in reading in southern_england , the auto_maker said . the wholly owned honda motor europe will start operating next april . the headquarters operation will create 100 jobs , and it will control production , sales , services , marketing , distribution and management in europe . honda had planned to locate its european headquarters nearer london , but the company said it had decided on reading because it is between london and swindon , where honda said earlier this year that it would build a car assembly plant . company news",has a topic of business
"lead britain 's unemployment rate fell to a seasonally_adjusted 10 . 2 percent in august , from 10 . 4 percent in july , the department of employment said today . the august figure was down from 11 . 6 percent in august 1986 . britain 's unemployment rate fell to a seasonally_adjusted 10 . 2 percent in august , from 10 . 4 percent in july , the department of employment said today . the august figure was down from 11 . 6 percent in august 1986 .",has a topic of business
"more than a decade ago , britain chose to split the work of transmitting electricity over long distances from the work of generating and selling it . generation and sales were opened to market forces , attracting many competitors and driving down prices sometimes too far , complain some companies that have lost millions and quit the market . at the same time , power transmission was left in the hands of one company , now called national_grid transco , which remained tightly_regulated . power travels over 4 , 500 miles of high tension lines and 400 miles of underground cables criss crossing england and wales . profits earned by the grid are set by the government , after consulting with national_grid about what it plans to reinvest in the system , where and how it plans to invest and how consumer costs will change . a power disruption caused by failures on this grid on aug . 28 left two fifths of london in darkness , shut down the subway system during rush_hour , and tempered thoughts that the british model would serve as a guide for the united_states to rebuild its strained transmission network . national_grid quickly tried to distance itself from the problems in the united_states . ''this is not an issue of underinvestment , '' the chief executive , roger urwin , said in a conference call the next day . the company invests about 300 million ( 474 million ) a year in the transmission network , triple the amount when the network was publicly owned , he said . the london power cut was a freak accident , mr . urwin said . it started when a transformer in kent failed , and a backup system in london collapsed seconds later , he said . full details will not be available for weeks , the company said , but a preliminary investigation is focusing on equipment that is only a year old . london 's power cut lasted 40 minutes , a fraction of the time that the power was out in most places during the united_states blackout . still , it caused chaos because london 's subway system , which is run by the city government , has a backup power generator that works only when all of the network is out . just 60 percent of the network 's power was cut , so the backup could not kick in , leaving thousands of commuters stranded underground . many subway lines were still shut for hours after the electricity was restored , as some commuters had been evacuated from the cars and were walking along the tracks . even though power was quickly restored , the failure could not have come at a worse time , analysts said , because national_grid has been seeking to work with united_states transmission networks . the company 's ' 'reputation will have taken a knock , '' citigroup said in a report . the company 's liability for the power cut is also being investigated by the gas and electricity regulator . britain 's approach to restructuring its electricity_market differs from the united_states method in several ways . in britain , the grid is the responsibility of one company , not many . regulations are made and enforced by one government_agency , not by a patchwork of state and federal officials , as in the united_states . and national_grid is encouraged to reinvest in the grid because the regulator will allow it to earn higher profits if it does . britain 's experience has been anything but smooth . competition to produce and sell energy has been so fierce that several companies have been driven into bankruptcy . they blamed market rules set by regulators . but until last week 's power failure , there were no problems with transmission . in the united_states , little attention was paid to transmission after the market was opened to competition . the focus was on creating more power , encouraging consumption and lowering prices . to a large degree , restructuring succeeded in doing that . but it also strained the grid . cheap power is not always near the customers , so it is sent to them along high tension wires , sometimes for hundreds of miles . the grid was not built for such volumes , and because many companies own parts of the grid no one company has the incentive to invest much to improve any part of it . ''in the united_states , it does n't seem that anyone that has responsibility for the reliability of the whole grid to the same extent as in the u.k . , '' said david crane , chief executive of international power , an energy company based in texas that operates in both countries . when problems occur , one company and one regulatory system can react more quickly . it took days for the american blackout to be completely fixed and weeks for its source to be pinpointed , versus minutes for national_grid to identify and repair london 's blackout . national_grid also operates in the united_states . it owns 14 , 000 miles of electricity transmission_lines in the northeast , including the niagara mohawk grid in upstate new york . but in response to the rules in each country , its investment_strategy differs significantly . in the 12 months ended march 30 , national_grid invested 364 million ( 574 million ) in its british network , and about 50 million ( under 80 million ) in its united_states network , which is more than three times larger . the company makes approximately the same rate of return in both countries , philip greene , an analyst at merrill_lynch , said . national_grid says that direct comparisons are hard to make , because england and wales are shifting from coal to gas to supply electricity , requiring some specific investments . in addition , national_grid 's transmission_lines in the united_states do not have to carry as heavy a load . ''it 's apples and oranges , '' says jeff scott , chief_operating_officer of united_states transmission . still , national_grid supports federal_energy_regulatory_commission proposals that would make the united_states system look more like that of england and wales . the plan would link the rates of return that transmitters can earn to improvements they make to the system . national_grid also controls the transmission of another valuable commodity , natural_gas , after it acquired britain 's money losing national pipeline in january 2002 . last june , the company said it made a profit of 391 million on sales of 9 . 4 billion in the fiscal year ending march 31 . that is up from a loss of 321 million in fiscal 2002 , which includes results for the gas pipeline , but down from a profit of 1 . 123 billion in 2001 . sales rose 24 percent last year , from 7 . 554 billion for the two companies in 2002 . about a fourth of national_grid 's profit came from running and managing britain 's electricity distribution system . the rest came from the gas pipeline business and from its electricity and gas operations in northern new york . even before the london blackout , shares of the company have dropped almost 15 percent since the beginning of the year , on concerns that a series of acquisitions have left the company too large to increase earnings quickly . on aug . 29 , the day after power was cut in london , the shares fell another 2 percent . still , the company is considered a success by historical measures . when the british_government in 1989 selected national_grid to own and operate the transmission system , it required the company to develop and maintain an efficient , coordinated and economical system of transmission and to encourage competition in the supply and generation of electricity . national_grid has reduced the cost of electricity transmission by 40 percent in the last eight years , mr . greene said , in part because of constant reinvestment . the office of gas and electricity markets was created to oversee the company and set the rates it can charge for owning and managing the system . it allows the company to recover its costs and earn a fixed 6 . 25 percent return on the capital it has invested by charging generators , distributors , suppliers and big industrial customers for use of the grid . that rate of return will be reevaluated in 2005 . britain 's experience with a privatized electricity_market was not without problems even before the london blackout . several international companies rushed into the country after the market was restructured , only to start losing money when regulators forbade power companies from auctioning off power to the highest bidder . ''the generators were working with a rigged market , '' richard hunt , a spokesman for the office of gas and electricity markets , said . a new system went into effect in 2001 , just as new plants were coming on line , flooding the system with power . prices have fallen more than 40 percent since then , and power companies say they are being forced out of business . british_energy , the country 's biggest nuclear generator , is awaiting a government bailout . many united_states companies that invested in britain in the last five years have exited after recording large losses . just this month , aes , a united_states power company , walked away from drax , the largest coal plant in britain , after paying 3 billion for it in 1999 . the plant is now in receivership , and international power is offering a fraction of aes 's original price . in october 2002 , txu of dallas , another power company , said that it would sell its british retail electricity business and power_plants to the german operator e . on for about 2 . 1 billion . txu started its expansion into europe with a_10 billion investment in 1998 . some say that in their quest to lower prices , the british regulator has been short sighted when it comes to power generation . in fact , regulators could be setting the foundations for a power supply crisis in britain , critics say . ''between the regulators cutting prices and the companies over building , they are all in a financial pickle , '' ian fells , a professor of energy conversion at newcastle university , said . excess_capacity has fallen to 16 percent from 28 percent below the 23 percent that he estimates is necessary in case of extreme weather conditions . august 's power failure may not be london 's last , he said . this winter , professor fells said , deregulated britain still faces a_20 percent chance of blackouts . international business",has a topic of business
"olivetti s.p.a . told its unions yesterday that it would lay off 1 , 000 workers tomorrow as part of a reorganization plan announced at a previous board meeting . the announcement comes after olivetti rejected a reorganization plan offered by three unions . the two sides , which have been in negotiations since september , must still reach an agreement on the fate of an additional 1 , 000 workers in italy . olivetti , the financially troubled computer maker , plans to reduce its work force by a total of 5 , 000 jobs , 3 , 000 of which are overseas . talks will continue about the possibility of keeping the other 1 , 000 italian workers on the job , an olivetti spokesman said . workers from the three unions have called for a strike tomorrow . bloomberg business news international briefs",has a topic of business
"lead the inflation_rate in britain rose three tenths of 1 percent in december and was up 7.7 percent for the year , the government said friday . the central statistical office attributed the december rise in the retail price index to increases in food prices and housing costs . the rate was better than the 7.8 percent rise that the financial markets had been expecting and was good news for the government , which has been fighting inflation with 15 percent interest rates . the inflation_rate in britain rose three tenths of 1 percent in december and was up 7.7 percent for the year , the government said friday . the central statistical office attributed the december rise in the retail price index to increases in food prices and housing costs . the rate was better than the 7.8 percent rise that the financial markets had been expecting and was good news for the government , which has been fighting inflation with 15 percent interest rates .",has a topic of business
"italian industrial production plunged 1.6 percent in may , its steepest monthly fall in more than four years and the newest sign that the country , europe 's fourth biggest economy , could slip into recession . the production of consumer and investment goods led the decline , followed closely by cars and small trucks . fiat , the struggling carmaker that is italy 's largest private_sector employer , is confronting its worst ever slump with a plan that calls for more than 12 , 000 layoffs and the shutting of factories in italy and abroad . ''the fall in industrial production sets off alarms on many fronts , including in the labor market , '' said tito boeri , an economics professor at bocconi_university in milan and a founder of a web_site that tracks developments in italy 's economy . the italian government has had little success in stimulating the economy , and three months ago it cut in half its estimate for growth this year , to 1.1 percent . may industrial production tumbled an adjusted 4.4 percent compared with the level a year ago . the latest numbers put to rest expectations that an 1.8 percent jump in output in april reflected new momentum in the economy . most economists now say that the government 's growth forecast for this year cannot be reached and will have to be lowered again . that outlook was based on expectations of a strong rebound in the second half of the year that now seems increasingly remote . the economy shrank 0.1 percent in the first quarter . a recession is defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth . italy , like most industrialized_economies , has been hurt by a rise in crude_oil prices the last year , and one of the few italian industries to show a rise in production in may was oil_refining , according to statistics released by the government 's statistics office , istat . the drop in industrial production is the latest in a line of problems that have confronted italy 's prime_minister , silvio_berlusconi . he touched off a diplomatic crisis this month when he compared a german member of the european_parliament to a concentration_camp guard . and last week , a tourism under secretary made remarks that portrayed german tourists as beer guzzling boors . the official later resigned . the prime_minister has also been busy patching up disagreements among his coalition partners at home . on thursday , the government will outline its forecasts on the economy through 2008 .",has a topic of business
"for a tourist , one of venice 's charms is that the only way to get around is on foot or by boat . for mayor paolo costa , one of the city 's biggest drawbacks is that the only way to get around is on foot or by boat . and that , he says , is why he has proposed building a subway , running from the mainland to the center of town the part visited by millions of tourists every year . the mayor says a subway will breathe life back into venice , which , according to the city 's statistics office , now has a population of 64 , 000 people , compared with 175 , 000 half a century ago . ''venice is losing population and jobs , and that is going to continue if we do n't improve public transportation to the mainland , '' mr . costa , a venice native , said in a recent interview . ''of course , we ca n't know exactly how things will change with this project , but it is sure to save jobs in the city and it should be an incentive for people to continue living here . it 's a step to ensuring venice does n't become a museum visited only by tourists . '' a regional environmental commission is weighing whether the subway line would damage the city or the environment , and is to decide by mid april . the plan calls for a single five mile line running entirely underground from venice 's airport , below the venetian lagoon , past the island of murano and on to the historic center , where the subway tunnel would flank the canal banks and end near the city 's old shipyards . to avoid digging under the city center , the subway 's stations would be underground but about 150 feet from the banks . riders would take elevators or escalators down to a tunnel that would lead out to the stations . the trains would run on rubber tires to reduce vibrations that could damage the city . to keep costs down and reduce the impact on the environment , the one track would be shared by trains going in opposite directions . the trains would be able to pass each other only in the stations . the subway , which supporters say could be ready by 2009 , would link up with a tram that goes to mestre , venice 's commercial heart on the mainland , and would also connect to a station , to be built in the coming years , for a high_speed_train line being constructed between turin and trieste . the subway would traverse the five miles from the airport to the old shipyards in 14 minutes , less than half the time it takes by boat , at an estimated cost of 2 euros for residents and 6 euros for nonresidents , compared with the boat 's cost of 5 euros for locals and 10 euros for visitors . it is too soon to tell if the subway will win all the necessary approvals . a previous mayor , ugo bergamo , tried in 1992 without success to get a subway built to venice . but the new project has some differences . the earlier one would have been a traditional two track subway with several lines . perhaps more important , this time the italian government has pledged to pay 56 percent of the 343 million_euros ( 448 million ) that promoters of the project say it will cost . the rest would be financed by private investors , who would have a 40 year concession to run the subway . a group of investors has said it will finance the project , but if the subway wins final approval , the city says it will hold a competition that will be open to other bidders as well . many venetians oppose construction of a subway they say that people who move to the mainland do so not because of the state of public transportation , but because of the cost of housing in the historic center . in an informal survey of 15 venetians , 12 said the city did not need a subway , a view shared by paolo cacciari , the city councilman in charge of the environment . ''to keep people living in the city center , something has to be done to keep rents down , '' mr . cacciari said . ''a subway will lead to more real_estate speculation , and that will make it even harder for people to afford living here . '' other committees must approve the plan after the environmental commission , but both sides of the debate are taking a stand now because , they say , this is when the battle will be decided . project financing , in which investors pay part of the building costs and then reap the profits of running the finished project , has been promoted by silvio_berlusconi , italy 's prime_minister , as he seeks to improve the nation 's infrastructure at a time when economic_growth is limited and the country is saddled with the biggest debt in europe . a 2001 law , approved at mr . berlusconi 's urging , made it easier for private investors to finance public projects . edoardo salzano , a retired university professor who was the venice city councilman in charge of urban_planning from 1975 to 1985 , does not favor the subway . ''cost or no cost to the city , this is a project venice does not need , '' he said . ''a subway would only increase the number of tourists . '' mr . costa and others dismiss that claim . roberto d'agostino , the city councilman in charge of urban development , said , ''somebody from tokyo or new york is not going to decide to come to venice because there is a faster way to get from the airport to the center . ''tourists are still going to want to take a boat from the airport . they are not coming to venice so they can enter a tunnel . '' international business",has a topic of business
"british regulators are continuing to investigate a 250 , 000 fee paid to a brokerage_firm , bzw , by a british regional electric company , northern_electric p.l.c. , days before an american company , calenergy , succeeded in winning a majority stake in the british company , a bzw spokesman said yesterday . the spokesman , peter bailey , said in london that the inquiry was focused on the flow of information between the broker and the regulatory panel , rather than the actual payment of the fee itself . calenergy 's hostile bid for northern was declared unconditional tuesday after the american company said tuesday it had acceptances for 50 . 3 percent of northern 's share capital . northern 's board is expected to recommend that shareholders accept the 1 . 54 billion offer . ( dow_jones ) international briefs",has a topic of business
"britvic , one of britain 's largest soft_drink manufacturers , is for sale as part of bass p.l.c . 's strategy to focus on its hotel business , executives close to britvic said today . britvic , which owns tango and other popular british soft_drinks , is 90 percent controlled by a joint_venture of bass , allied domecq and whitbread , in which bass has a 50 . 1 percent majority stake . pepsico owns the other 10 percent as part of deal that allows britvic to manufacturer and distribute pepsi in britain . schroder_salomon_smith_barney has been hired to sell britvic , which analysts say will probably raise about 350 million pounds , or 522 million , as part of bass 's strategy to sell its noncore_assets and focus on its hotel business , the executives said . bass is one of the largest hotel operators in the world , with nearly 3 , 000 hotels under the holiday_inn , inter_continental and crowne_plaza names . in june , sir ian prosser , bass 's chairman and chief executive , sold the company 's brewery operations to interbrew , a belgian company , for 2 . 3 billion , although that deal has come under scrutiny by british antitrust authorities . a bass spokesman declined to comment . possible bidders include pepsico , although the company 's strategy of spinning off bottling assets runs counter to a purchase of britvic . company executives were not immediately available for comment . britvic has attractive operating cash_flow , which surged 36 percent in 1999 , to 41 million . for the first six months of this year , the company had an operating profit of 9 million on sales of 270 million . that compares with operating profit of 8 million on sales of 254 million in the period a year earlier . the current auction would not be the first attempt at a change of ownership for britvic . last autumn , allied domecq tried to sell its britvic stake to punch taverns , which was also buying allied 's pub business . whitbread , which lost out to punch in the bidding for allied 's pubs , used its pre_emptive rights to eliminate the britvic stake from the deal .",has a topic of business
"british and united_states agencies are investigating a possible conspiracy to illegally fix the amounts of fuel surcharges imposed on passengers on long distance flights to and from britain . most major airlines flying between the united_states and heathrow , london 's main international airport , charge passengers about 35 ( 64 ) each way in fuel surcharges . the justice_department and the office of fair_trade in britain have contacted british_airways , virgin_atlantic_airways , united_airlines and american_airlines and may be talking to others in connection with the investigation . violation of price_fixing laws could carry civil and criminal_penalties . the office of fair_trade announced the investigation on thursday but said that it was ''at an early stage'' and that ''no assumption should be made that there has been an infringement of competition law . '' gina talamona , a spokeswoman for the justice_department , said , ''the antitrust_division is investigating the possibility of anticompetitive practices involving surcharges and rates for passenger fares and air cargo shipments . '' british_airways confirmed the investigation and said it was cooperating . the airline also said that its commercial director , martin george , and its head of communications , iain burns , had been given leaves of absence during the investigation but did not elaborate . american_airlines , a unit of amr , said it had received a ''federal grand_jury subpoena in connection with a government investigation into alleged price_fixing in the air passenger industry'' but said it was not the target of the inquiry . united_airlines , owned by ual , said it had received an inquiry and was cooperating with investigators but that it also was not a target . virgin_atlantic said it was ''aware of the investigation'' and was ''assisting . '' airlines , struggling to make profits because of high oil prices , have been adding fuel surcharges to passenger tickets in recent years . the price of jet_fuel has increased 21 . 3 percent over the last year , the international air transport association said on june 16 . so far in 2006 , the fuel bill for airlines is estimated to be 22 billion higher than it was last year , the association said , and double what it was in 2004 . consumer advocates say fuel surcharges can be a deceptive way for airlines to increase their fares beyond what they are paying for fuel . price_fixing occurs when companies combine or conspire to raise , lower or stabilize prices . officials would need concrete evidence that airlines discussed keeping their fuel surcharges at a similar level to prove price_fixing . fuel surcharges for some large airlines that fly between the united_states and britain are similar . in april , british_airways increased the fuel surcharge for its long haul flights to 35 , a 5 increase , for each one way ticket . virgin_atlantic 's fuel surcharge for flights in and out of britain is also 35 each way . united_airlines' fuel surcharges from britain vary from flight to flight and by day , a reservation agent said . a one way flight to kennedy international airport in new york on july 6 carries a_37 fuel surcharge , for example . american_airlines charges 37 in fuel surcharges each way between britain and the united_states . continental_airlines , which said it had not been contacted in the investigation , charges a_37 . 50 fuel surcharge for each flight in and out of britain . though the surcharges seem high to many passengers , industry groups say they are still not enough to cover the cost of fuel increases . in 2005 , ''only 50 percent of the increase in fuel charges was passed through'' into higher ticket prices , said brian pearce , chief economist for the transport association . airlines made up the difference by cutting costs , including increasing their self service check in and online ticketing facilities to trim labor costs . established carriers like british_airways and american_airlines have been losing customers on short haul flights to new , cheaper upstarts like easyjet and ryanair in europe , putting even more pressure on them to make up the difference in long distance air fares . the european_commission , which started an air cargo price_fixing investigation earlier this year with the justice_department , said it was not involved in this investigation .",has a topic of business
"the brewer wolverhampton dudley said it had rejected a 1 . 4 billion bid by the pubmaster group for its 1 , 750 pubs in britain . pubmaster , a unit of westdeutsche_landesbank girozentrale , already owns 2 , 000 british pubs . it offered 480 pence ( 6 . 83 ) a share in cash and assumed debt . wolverhampton said the price was too low . its shares closed at 472 . 5 pence ( 6 . 72 ) , unchanged . alan_cowell ( nyt )",has a topic of business
"the american electric power company is expected to announce as early as today that it plans to acquire yorkshire electricity p.l.c . of britain . american electric , which is based in columbus , ohio , has scheduled a news conference today to make ''a major announcement . '' it did not disclose the details , but people in the industry said that the company would announce that it had reached a deal with yorkshire . few details of the expected deal were available last night . in london , the financial_times reported today that american electric would bid as much as 2 . 4 billion for yorkshire the daily_telegraph reported that yorkshire had accepted a bid for that amount from american electric and another united_states power company that was not identified . yesterday , yorkshire described as speculative a report in the sunday_telegraph that a deal had been reached . american electric declined to comment . if a deal is completed , yorkshire would be the seventh british electric_utility to be taken over by an american company in recent years . yorkshire , which provides electricity in parts of northern_england , and southern electric p.l.c . are the last two independent regional electricity companies in britain , of the 12 that had been privatized by the british_government in 1995 . in december , calenergy inc . claimed victory in its 1 . 5 billion hostile_takeover bid for northern_electric p.l.c . faced with the coming deregulation of its markets in the united_states , american utilities have been acquiring british electricity companies because they are growing fast and have learned how to cope with deregulation . britain already allows many customers to choose their electric suppliers , as american customers will be able to do in the next few years in some states . american electric is one of the largest power companies in the united_states , serving nearly three million customers in ohio , indiana , michigan , virginia and kentucky .",has a topic of business
"lead italian officials said saturday that italy 's long awaited move to bring lira trading into line with other major currencies in the european monetary system represented an essential step toward a european monetary_union . italian officials said saturday that italy 's long awaited move to bring lira trading into line with other major currencies in the european monetary system represented an essential step toward a european monetary_union . the decision , announced friday night by the european_community 's executive commission in brussels , means the lira will trade within a 2 . 25 percent fluctuation band in the currency grid , instead of the wider 6 percent band that it has had since the system was founded in 1979 . the lira has been permitted a wider trading band over the past 10 years because of italy 's persistent problems with high inflation and an enormous public debt . confident central_bank but the inflation_rate , which averaged 6.6 percent in 1989 , is now below britain 's while the italian economy has enjoyed healthy growth and high investment , giving the bank of italy confidence that it can hold the lira to a narrower trading range . the move to the tighter band has been accompanied by a devaluation of the lira 's central rate against the european currency unit by slightly more than 3 percent . no official central rates against other currencies were immediately available , but a calculation of other currency 's central rates against the european currency unit indicates an effective devaluation of the lira 's central rate against the mark of nearly 4 percent , to just over 748 lire a mark , from the previous 720 . 699 . dealers said this brought the lira 's central rate against the mark , on which most attention has focused , closer to current market levels , effectively adjusting the central rate to take account of a lira fall that has already occurred in the last two months . step to monetary_union the european_community 's statement on the lira move , released in brussels , stressed it was a step toward the monetary_union . community leaders agreed at the strasbourg summit meeting last month to start an intergovernmental_conference on monetary_union at the end of this year , when italy will hold the european_community presidency . still , strong differences of opinion exist over the form that monetary_union should take and the degree to which broader economic policy needs to be coordinated . france and italy favor a strong union , and britain is opposed . west_germany , which has backed the french calls for greater union despite some reservations , is now concerned that closer political integration in western_europe should not become an obstacle to cooperation with eastern_europe . international report",has a topic of business
"in a surprise move thursday , italy 's government fired the entire board of alitalia , the nation 's flagship airline , and said that private investors would be sought to provide cash to its flagging operations . the government postponed any decisions on layoffs . the government 's moves came just two days after italy 's industry minister , antonio marzano , warned that the carrier could be headed for liquidation if unions did not endorse a plan to cut 3 , 300 jobs . the government , which owns 62 percent of alitalia , appointed giancarlo cimoli to take over as chairman and chief executive , ousting marco zanichelli , who had been chief executive less than three months , and giuseppe bonomi , who had served as chairman . mr . cimoli , 64 , comes from eight years at the helm of the national railway , which he helped return to the black after decades of losses . the decision to dissolve the nine member board follows four days of negotiations among unions , the government and alitalia 's management and signaled at least a cease fire in hostilities between the company and the unions , as well as an end to divisions within prime_minister silvio_berlusconi 's cabinet . mr . berlusconi 's deputy prime_minister and his economics minister have clashed recently over what to do with alitalia . while mr . berlusconi said less than three months ago that the government would not reduce its stake in alitalia , private investment in newly created shares in the airline would inevitably dilute the government 's stake . the unions on thursday endorsed the government 's decision to change the board and promised to suspend their sporadic strikes indefinitely . the unions held a series of wildcat actions last week that forced the airline to cancel 1 , 250 flights , and more strikes were planned for later this month to protest job cuts proposed by mr . zanichelli . mr . berlusconi has been anxious to end the labor unrest and avoid a liquidation of alitalia , a national icon and one of the country 's best known brand names , ahead of european parliamentary elections in mid june . the prime_minister 's popularity is hovering near record_lows , according to a poll published in the italian daily corriere_della_sera , and his party is in risk of an embarrassing showing at the polls . ''changing the board can be seen as an important first step because it shows a break with the past and it demonstrates that things can change , '' said manlio bonafede , a fund manager with banca leonardo . ''but what really counts are the steps that follow . '' mr . bonafede said that he expected little to change at alitalia until after the european elections . but radical cost cuts are inevitable , he said . ''there is no alternative to reducing the work force and reforming other areas where the company is spending much more than it has to be , '' he added . alitalia 's problems , besides a work force that is less productive than those of its european rivals , include a failure to update ticketing procedures to take advantage of the internet and its use of too many different types of aircraft , which increases maintenance costs . alitalia also has been criticized by analysts for its decision to have two hubs , one in rome and one in milan . two hubs cost the airline more by spreading resources more thinly and requiring more ground personnel . the national carriers in britain , france and spain have one hub each . european union law forbids the italian government , which has invested more than 2 billion_euros in alitalia since 1996 , from raising its stake in the airline . the european_union ruled that italy 's support of alitalia was illegal state aid italy challenged the ruling in the european court and won on appeal . another case is pending . one way to secure new money for alitalia without drawing sanctions from the european_union is to find private investors to buy new stock in the company . that would serve the dual_purpose of raising money for alitalia , and reducing the government 's stake . that in turn could help ease the way to an eventual merger with the newly enlarged air_france , which completed its acquisition of klm this week . alitalia and the government have said they would like to merge with air_france , but the french carrier has said that alitalia must first improve its finances and the government must reduce its ownership . alitalia 's shares and bonds were suspended from trading on wednesday and thursday . on tuesday , its stock plunged 12 . 5 percent when the government indicated that without labor concessions , it might let the airline slide into bankruptcy .",has a topic of business
"a milan appeals court today indicted carlo de benedetti , the financier and computer executive , on charges of complicity in the bankruptcy of banco_ambrosiano , italy 's largest banking scandal . no trial date was set . in april 1989 , lower court judges , after investigating the 1982 collapse of italy 's largest private_bank , indicted 35 people but cleared mr . de benedetti , who heads ing . c . olivetti company , the italian computer company , of wrongdoing . a prosecutor appealed the decision . mr . de benedetti said today that he was upset by the "" extremely unjust "" indictment , which he said had "" no legal or factual basis . "" the charges carry a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison . loans of 1 . 3 billion banco_ambrosiano , based in milan , failed when it could not collect 1 . 3 billion in loans made to 10 shell companies in panama and luxembourg that were owned directly or indirectly by the vatican bank , formally called the institute for religious works . the vatican bank had issued guarantee letters for the loans . mr . de benedetti was notified in 1987 that he was being investigated for possible extortion in connection with the sale of his 2 percent share of banco_ambrosiano shortly before its collapse . the prosecutor had contended that mr . de benedetti had received favorable financial terms for the sale after threatening to disclose how the bank was administrated . when he was cleared in 1989 , mr . de benedetti said he had "" always acted in the full respect of the law "" and carried out his duties as administrator "" with transparency . "" when he was questioned last year by the appeals court , he said he informed it of "" the total honesty of my behavior . "" the financier was named banco_ambrosiano 's vice_president in november 1981 , when he became a shareholder , but sold the shares two months later . the appeals court , in indicting mr . de benedetti today , rejected the prosecutor 's contention that extortion was involved in the sale of the shares and indicted him instead on the bankruptcy charge . mr . de benedetti resigned his position after selling his stake . he has cited disagreements with banco_ambrosiano 's chairman , roberto calvi , as the reason for his departure . mr . calvi , whose nickname was "" god 's banker "" because of his vatican connections , was found hanged under blackfriars bridge in london in june 1982 . two months later , banco_ambrosiano collapsed . the vatican bank was banco_ambrosiano 's largest shareholder . it agreed in 1984 to pay 250 million as part of banco_ambrosiano 's bankruptcy settlement but said the payment was not an admission of responsibility . italian courts ruled in 1988 that a treaty between italy and the vatican prevented the prosecution of three vatican bank officials , including united_states archbishop paul c . marcinkus , the bank 's president at the time . archbishop marcinkus , of cicero , ill . , retired from papal service last year .",has a topic of business
"enrico cuccia never gives interviews and forbids them for his subordinates . photos of the 86 year old banker are usually taken secretly as he crosses milan 's streets or enters the headquarters of mediobanca s.p.a . on cobblestoned via filodrammatici , just behind la scala . but mr . cuccia , who runs mediobanca , has a reputation for taking things in hand . and his investment_bank 's recent hijacking of two major italian banks has reminded italians just how powerful mr . cuccia and mediobanca have become . one of those , banca_commerciale_italiana , is the fifth largest bank in italy the other , credito_italiano , is the seventh largest . both owned shares in mediobanca . but mediobanca now leads a caucus of shareholders that controls the two larger banks which are popularly known as comit and credit . audacious but discreet moves the takeover last month thoroughly planned , politically bold , and above all , discreet was typical of mr . cuccia and characteristic , too , of the convoluted world of italian finance these days . mr . cuccia is raising capital for corporate subsidiaries of fininvest , the debt ridden group of italy 's prime_minister , silvio_berlusconi . two years ago , mr . cuccia was responsible for pulling the big ferruzzi industrial group under his wing after it collapsed under 20 billion of debt . in 1986 , he helped the fabulously wealthy agnelli family get rid of libya 's leader , muammar_el_qaddafi , as a shareholder in fiat by buying back shares of the automotive empire worth 3 . 1 billion . mr . cuccia made the agnellis even richer , while the complicated financial arrangement he devised cost an international group of banks 600 million in losses . yet the takeover of comit and credit has cast mediobanca , and mr . cuccia , into the eye of a political storm . resistance is growing to mediobanca 's influence . last friday , italian investigators raided the bank 's headquarters and seized dozens of documents , after members of the ferruzzi family asserted that mediobanca had been aware of the ferruzzi group 's precarious finances two years ago , but torpedoed rescue plans and schemed to bring the debt ridden group down to gain control of its assets . very deep pockets mediobanca itself is extraordinarily profitable . in 1993 , despite a 24 percent drop in earnings because of recession and falling interest rates , mediobanca declared a net_profit of 125 million , after putting away 46 million in loan reserves . but analysts say its worth is not measured by profitability alone . its portfolio holds investments in industrial companies worth 2 . 7 billion . what has put mediobanca in the headlines these days is the complex financial arrangement through which the investor club led by mr . cuccia 's bank took control of comit and credit . both banks had been controlled by a government holding_company called iri and were taken public earlier this year . comit and credit offer mediobanca vast retail networks as capillary systems for raising the capital it needs . in turn , mediobanca provides them with stocks and bonds for sale as italy 's lead manager in such placements . opponents accuse mediobanca , which has 300 or so employees , of establishing a financial constellation to stifle competition in italy 's changing business world . mediobanca has become a kind of club of major industrial families like the agnellis , the pirellis and the de benedettis , the patriarchs of olivetti . it has added to its ranks industrialists like luciano benetton and foreign investors like commerzbank of germany and the alcatel alsthom electronics and telecommunications group of france . the control of comit and credit is also troubling because the next phase of italian privatization will bring public some of italian industry 's crown_jewels , including the big state telecommunications group , stet , and the oil concern agip . investment by major stockholders like alcatel and pirelli which is both a tire maker and a large telecommunications cable manufacturer would be tantamount to turning stet over to its suppliers . carlo scognamiglio , the speaker of the italian senate and mr . berlusconi 's point man on privatization , said it would mean "" transforming a public telecommunications monopoly into a private one . "" mediobanca was created in 1946 as a postwar reconstruction bank to offer medium and long term loans to industries that other italian banks were then barred by law from providing . mr . cuccia , a dynamic young banker at the time , was put in charge . a regional modus vivendi postwar italian industry developed on a dual track . while big private companies led the north 's recovery , the state skimmed part of their profit to invest in the less developed south , spurring consumption that in turn provided markets for the north . while the government was the south 's engine of growth , mediobanca became the northern industrialists' club . "" it is an institute of high technical capacity it 's like a monastery , everything in penumbra , a technical austerity , "" said natalino irti , a former chairman of credit and now a law professor at rome university "" yet mediobanca guaranteed italy 's postwar financial and industrial structure , "" mr . irti said . mr . cuccia 's favored instrument has been the so called syndicate pact of banks and businesses . typically , a syndicate might control as little as 10 percent of the shares , assuring control under the italian system in which shareholder strength is measured not by the number of shares but by the financial weight of the participants . in cases of dispute , mediobanca appoints itself the scale . gradually , mr . cuccia honed mediobanca into an efficient tool of the northern industries . in boom years , it guided growth . in lean years , it nursed them back to health . "" it 's cuccia 's merit to have created a school , a team , an observatory of the economic situation like no other , "" said antonio maccanico , a former mediobanca president . family connections while mr . cuccia guides mediobanca , its other executives include vincenzo maranghi , 57 , the bank 's chief executive , and maurizio romiti , 45 , its chief of industrial investment . mr . romiti is the son of fiat 's chief_financial_officer , cesare romiti . even mr . cuccia 's supporters agree that mediobanca 's workings are something of an anomaly . syndicate pacts are a fuzzy area of italian corporate_law . and mediobanca was controlled for most of its history by the state banks , yet it spent most of its energy aiding extraordinarily powerful families like the agnellis . to some of his enemies , mr . cuccia has become the incarnation of evil . they like to emphasize his sicilian background and his style of secrecy . his recent moves have galvanized political resistance , partly because prime_minister berlusconi 's constituents in his parliament district include italian businessmen traditionally cool to mediobanca . the difficulty for mr . berlusconi is that pieces of his fininvest group , which labors under 2 . 3 billion of debt , are in mediobanca 's hands for an overhaul . mediobanca 's defenders argue that the real problem of italian finance is the lack of legislation governing shareholder rights , which leaves newly_privatized corporations either to flounder without direction , or to be seized by the kind of powerful private interests that mediobanca mustered .",has a topic of business
"parmalat , the italian dairy and food giant , slid to the brink of insolvency on friday after the company disclosed that a bank account that supposedly held nearly 5 billion of its money did not exist . parmalat said that bank of america had told one of its auditors , grant_thornton , on wednesday that a document showing that a parmalat finance unit in cayman_islands had an account of 3 . 95 billion_euros ( 4 . 9 billion ) was a fake . a bank of america spokeswoman in london declined to comment . the crisis at parmalat , which has been escalating in recent weeks , now dwarfs accounting problems that have roiled european companies like royal ahold of the netherlands , vivendi_universal of france and elan of ireland . such scandals have demonstrated that european accounting standards and regulation can be susceptible to enron like problems . the parmalat case , and its implication that a fraud has been committed , will be certain to provoke debate about the failure of european regulators and banks to ask questions sooner . after a board meeting late friday that was called by enrico_bondi , the new chairman , parmalat issued a short statement saying that it would provide information to judicial authorities . it did not address plans for parmalat or the prospect of bankruptcy . but for a company that narrowly avoided defaulting on 183 million in debt just days ago , the prospect of missing 4 . 9 billion more than half its revenue last year makes bankruptcy seemingly inevitable . there are a number of bankruptcy options under italian law , including liquidation . but the most likely outcome for parmalat would be a protection from creditors under the supervision of the industry ministry . this would allow the company best known for its long life milk but also the owner of archway cookies and dairies in the united_states to remain in business while its finances are untangled . it is a stunning downfall for a company that began as a family owned delicatessen and grew in recent years to become a global rival to nestl , danone and kraft , selling milk and food products in 30 countries including the united_states . that rapid expansion , however , came at a cost , and the tanzi family that controls parmalat began resorting to ever more convoluted schemes to finance growth . by last year , parmalat , based here in north central italy , stood at the center of a galaxy of 120 different companies , often with obscure purposes . the rise and fall of parmalat illustrates the archaic nature of corporate italy compared with business in other western industrial powers . italy is a land of self made entrepreneurs at family run companies . except for the state owned sector , virtually all the italian economic heroes including the fiat auto group the tire and cable company , pirelli and the benetton apparel group are family run . indeed , prime_minister silvio_berlusconi , whose government stepped earlier this week to help bail out parmalat , boasts of being more entrepreneur than politician . his media group , mediaset , is italy 's largest television company . yet the model is not without its flaws . other family run corporate icons in italy have collapsed in the wake of financial irregularities . cirio , italy 's biggest canned food producer , defaulted a year ago on more than 1 billion in bonds that had been sold six months earlier . in the case of parmalat , ''it 's in the italian cultural matrix , '' said mario deaglio , an economist at the university of turin . ''first , there was an adventuresome management , and then investors disposed to ignore reality . and that in the midst of banks that did not exercise control . '' when sept . 11 and the global economic slowdown came , mr . deaglio said , the cracks began to appear . if mr . bondi , the chairman , ultimately fails to keep parmalat together , it would be the end of a remarkable italian success story . the valley around this city sees itself as being to food what silicon_valley is to electronics a place of excellence and commercial success . thousands of small companies sprouting like fine mushrooms , most of them run more by craftsmen than industrialists , have for generations produced parma ham , parmesan cheese and all manner of pasta from agnolini to ziti . among the mushrooms stood a few oaks , like the barilla brothers , whose huge factories lie just north of the city looking more like aircraft assembly plants than pasta works . mr . tanzi was another . from the village of collecchio , just up the taro river valley from parma , calisto_tanzi , the son of a maker of hams and preserves , built his company , parmalat , whose name comes from parma and the italian word latte , for milk , into one of the world 's biggest dairy_products companies . ''the strategy was beautiful , it was a global leader in food , '' said guido corbetta , an economist at the bocconi_university business school in milan . indeed , mr . tanzi 's path differed widely from that taken by most of the entrepreneurs of parma . while most built their success on traditional local products , like cheeses and hams , mr . tanzi 's was based on modern innovation . he was also among the first in parma to recognize the importance of branded foods , even for items as everyday as milk . in 1961 , mr . tanzi , then 22 , took over his father 's business , then shifted its focus from ham to milk . the company 's business took off in the mid 1960 's , after mr . tanzi learned that a swedish packaging company , tetra pak , had developed the aseptic brick shaped cartons now familiar to most consumers for juices and other drinks . adopting a method into italy developed by tetra pak , mr . tanzi perfected a type of milk that , superheated and packaged in the special aseptic bricks , could be kept without refrigeration for at least half a year . reinvesting heavily in advertising , mr . tanzi soon had europeans drinking this long life milk without a second thought . by the mid 1990 's , the long life milk accounted for 85 percent of french milk consumption in italy , 55 percent of fresh milk was long life , and in germany , 50 percent . an avid sports fan , he recognized the value of sports for promoting parmalat 's new kind of milk , financing world_cup skiing , formula one car racing , and later , the parma 's serie a soccer team . by the late 1960 's , parmalat was branching out into other innovative products , like long life cream and milk substitutes . the drive into new products was accompanied by geographical growth , both in europe and the americas . by the mid 1990 's , parmalat had pushed into the united_states , urging skeptical americans to change age old habits of drinking only fresh cold milk . mr . tanzi spent 2 million to introduce the milk in new york by sponsoring the italian tenor luciano pavarotti in a free concert in central_park . a huge ad budget highlighted the convenience of long life milk . by last year , parmalat was generating roughly a third its global revenue of 7.6 billion_euros ( 9 . 4 billion ) in north_america , much of it thanks to the long life milk . but success began to sour in november , when parmalat reported an investment of 500 million_euros ( 619 million ) in epicurum , a hedge_fund based in cayman_islands . the company then sought to calm investors by saying it would recover the money , but has been unable to do so . the company has also disclosed that a citigroup vehicle buconero or ''black_hole'' in italian had invested in a parmalat unit , which then lent the money to other parts of the company . last week , standard_poor 's cut its credit_rating on parmalat eight notches to junk . on friday , s . p . lowered its rating to d for default its lowest rating . shares of parmalat plunged 66 percent friday , and have fallen 87 percent since the beginning of this month . the holdings of the tanzi family , which still owns 51 percent of the company , have shriveled up . until this week , calisto_tanzi and his family reigned like patriarchs in parma . his brother giovanni , his son stefano and his niece , paola visconti , were all in the top management . the old family home in collecchio was revered as the company 's cradle , and mr . tanzi was an honored figure in nearby parma , the regional center . parmalat , with 35 , 600 employees in 26 factories around the globe , gave work to more than 2 , 200 local people . this week , mr . tanzi was forced off the board , together with other family members , and mr . bondi , 69 , took over , after parmalat was unable to account for almost 5 billion in assets declared on its books . this week , the local newspapers were struggling to explain the tangle to confused readers , puzzling over the sudden collapse of what appeared to be an italian national champion , peppering their italian prose with english expressions that probably meant little to the average parma reader , like credit default swaps , self reference notes and trigger ratings . the papers gave mr . bondi , who had cleaned up failed family companies in the past , like the ferruzzi chemical empire in the 1990 's , the nickname mr . wolf , after the cleanup character played by harvey keitel in quentin tarantino 's ''pulp fiction . '' the fear was that mr . bondi would break up parmalat , then sell the assets to satisfy creditors . antonio mattioli , secretary of the local cgil labor_union who helped negotiate a recent plan to streamline parmalat , said the company 's operations generated enough profit to finance itself . ''we 're lucky the company is profitable and it 's professional , '' he said . ''that 's where we should depart from . '' then , describing mr . bondi as a ''chopper of heads , '' he added ''let 's not think about blowing up one of the last functioning pieces of the italian economy . '' international business",has a topic of business
"one of the more interesting debates within the federal_reserve has been the one between alan_greenspan , the chairman , and laurence h . meyer , a fed governor with a reputation as a doctrinaire inflation fighter . in recent speeches , on the same day but thousands of miles apart , they went at it again , in their indirect way . in doing so , they provided a glimpse into issues with which the fed is wrestling as it tries to determine what the 2001 slowdown says about forces that reshaped the economy for the better in the late 1990 's . and they illustrated that for all the deference shown to mr . greenspan on monetary_policy , his voice is not the only one at the table . mr . meyer is known for his belief in rule based forecasting that assumes predictable interplay among economic_growth , unemployment and inflation . mr . greenspan has a more pragmatic , intuitive approach . mr . meyer has been skeptical of the notion that the economy 's capacity for noninflationary growth has been permanently improved by productivity increases . mr . greenspan has been an advocate of the idea that the economy is just beginning to reap the benefits of technological_advances . mr . meyer 's belief that strong growth and unemployment in the 4 percent range would inevitably generate inflation was tested by a long period in which that combination did not put much upward pressure on prices . mr . greenspan 's optimism about technology and productivity is being tested even now , as the late 1990 's boom has given way to a slowdown . neither man seems to have changed his view substantially . in an address to a financial seminar on may 24 in scotland , mr . meyer acknowledged that productivity growth accelerated sharply starting around 1995 , from an annual rate of 1.5 percent the preceding two decades to 2.5 percent to 3 percent . at first , enhanced productivity growth stimulated demand by spurring both consumption and investment booms , mr . meyer said . technological_innovation promised high returns to businesses willing to invest in equipment . surging stock prices themselves in part a response to higher profit expectations left consumers feeling wealthier and more willing to spend . at the same time , mr . meyer said , the surge in productivity growth had a disinflationary effect . because workers did not immediately demand higher wages as their payoff for improved productivity , ''unit labor costs fell , profits rose , and then competitive pressures passed along the lower costs to lower prices , '' mr . meyer said . the effect was to reduce the level of unemployment at which strong growth would ignite inflation , he said . but the benefits were ''temporary bonuses , '' he said . ''once productivity growth stabilizes , even at a much elevated level , these forces dissipate , growth slows , and pressures on prices might intensify , '' mr . meyer said . there is reason for optimism , he said . still , he added , ' 'some will have confidence in the productivity story only when it is tested by a cyclical decline , '' suggesting that he remained unsure whether the productivity gains would fully survive a downturn . mr . greenspan , by contrast , appears confident that technology driven improvements in productivity will yield long term benefits . and while mr . meyer remains nervous about inflation , mr . greenspan made clear that it is hardly on his radar screen . there is ''ample evidence that we are experiencing only a pause in the investment in a broad set of innovations that has elevated the underlying growth rate in productivity , '' mr . greenspan said in a speech to the economic club of new york , a few hours after mr . meyer 's remarks across the atlantic . mr . greenspan emphasized that the economy faced many risks , including a drop in demand for capital equipment . but he said inflation was not one of those risks . while some inflation measures have been creeping up , the broadest ones have been relatively stable , and ''the lack of pricing power reported overwhelmingly by business people underscores an absence of inflationary zest , '' he said . for all their differences , mr . greenspan and mr . meyer often agree on monetary_policy . and both have signaled that they might support one or two more rate cuts . they agreed on one other thing the current slowdown is not the fed 's fault . the central_bank , mr . meyer said , got it just right over the last two years , until the economy was blindsided by ''a coincidence of adverse shocks , '' like rising energy prices and jittery financial markets . not raising rates in 1999 and the first half of 2000 ''would have added fuel to an economy that was already threatening to overheat , '' mr . greenspan said , and cutting rates too soon ''would have risked cutting short the adjustments needed to sustain long term economic_growth . '' economic view",has a topic of business
"lead the seven nation industrial summit conference that president_reagan will attend next month in venice is likely to prove unusually modest in its achievements despite the long agenda of issues , analysts and officials report . the seven nation industrial summit conference that president_reagan will attend next month in venice is likely to prove unusually modest in its achievements despite the long agenda of issues , analysts and officials report . agreements of consequence will be difficult , they say , because most of the chiefs of state , far more so than at any of the 12 previous economic summit conferences , are lame ducks or preoccupied with re election campaigns . they are therefore constrained in making commitments that could lose them votes or that their legislatures might reject . a prominent economist who is an adviser to the white_house said of the seven chiefs of state ''i ca n't see what they can conceiveably get done . these guys would prefer not to go through with it . '' issues for the proceedings issues that provoke little controversy , such as terrorism and combatting drug traffic , and others , such as arms control , could therefore overwhelm the proceedings . agreement to work toward a cure for aids is on the agenda , and president_reagan might appeal for european and japanese assistance in defending the persian_gulf . on economic matters , officials promise reaffirmation of earlier commitments to remove impediments to economic_growth in their taxation , regulatory and labor policies agreement to speed talks elsewhere to reduce trade_barriers , and a reaffirmation of earlier accords . and they could endorse some minor modifications in treasury_secretary james a . baker 3d 's plan to manage the loan payment problems of the major debtor countries . fresher issues include support of reductions in the budget busting subsidies to agriculture , a process that will take a couple of years at least , and of debt_relief for the poorest countries of black africa . the seven are also likely to say officially that they have settled on a system to coordinate their economic policies , but that , officials allow , would also take years to become fully effective . and on the fringes of the meeting , finance ministers of the countries the united_states , japan , west_germany , britain , france , italy and canada might strike a bargain to try to sustain the recent stability of the dollar . move on interest rates possible administration officials say they could do so by raising american interest rates , perhaps by half a percentage point , in return for agreement by japan and possibly west_germany to lower theirs further . the administration ''would like to work toward that , '' an american official said . but a japanese economic policy official said , ''it 's possible but not probable . '' against a backdrop of the weakest global economy since the industrial world 's recession in 1982 , analysts say the seven chiefs of state are unlikely to attempt to redirect the economy or adopt policies leading to the quick and lasting changes that they have produced at earlier conferences . the conference in venice , june 8 to 10 , occurs with world growth slowing for the third straight year , to a rate below 3 percent . that is too slow to protect some countries from recessions , to reduce the chronic 10 percent plus unemployment across europe or to help the debtor countries raise the money they need to keep up payments on their loans . in part because of the slow world growth , the debtors' problems are worsening , despite the efforts of the ''baker plan . '' those debts now threaten commercial_bank lenders with enormous losses such as the 2 . 5 billion that citicorp said it would take in the second quarter . this , in turn , could spell further , severe reductions in lending . uncompromising positions despite such conditions , two leaders , president_reagan and german chancellor helmut_kohl , still appear locked into uncompromising positions on growth and budget policies that preclude major changes in the performance of the world_economy . president_reagan opposes tax increases to facilitate sustained reductions in the federal budget_deficits , which japan and europe see as the cause of the world_economy 's continued frail growth and its huge imbalances in trade . germany , and to a lesser extent japan , still resist appeals to shift the orientation of their countries' now sagging growth from exports to domestic consumption , which americans see as the cause of trade problems and slow growth . however japan , although it still closes its markets to many foreign goods , has been battered more than others by the fall of the dollar , and it now appears more willing to encourage domestic economic_growth . weaker authorities on all issues , the commitment making authority of the leaders is weaker than ever . prime_minister yasuhiro_nakasone , who has suffered hard defeats recently in the japanese diet , is expected to leave office at the end of october . france 's government of ''cohabitation , '' president_francois_mitterrand , a socialist , and prime_minister jacques_chirac , a conservative , is gearing up for elections next year . italy is leaderless now , run by a caretaker_government with elections coming after the conference . and prime_minister margaret_thatcher of britain is seeking election to a third term on june 11 , one day after the conference ends , and is not expected to spend more than a day in venice . but the diminished authority of president_reagan , leader of by far the biggest economy , is the most significant . if often chided for the budget_deficits , he was celebrated at earlier conferences for policies of deregulation and tax system changes that other countries have begun to emulate . but his influence has atrophied with the election of democratic majorities in both houses of congress and the iran contra investigations .",has a topic of business
"to the editor vincent d . rougeau 's scenario for america 's self destruction is a chilling and entirely plausible one ( "" society 's ill fated trade off , "" viewpoint , sept . 3 ) . there is an all too similar scenario from ancient_rome . yes , history never exactly repeats itself , and i know that parallels do n't equal predictions . but consider , the following rome began as a small state of citizen farmers imbued with an incredible esprit and sense of mutual cooperation among its people . its relatively small economic and social gaps were bridged by a system that made every patrician family responsible for the well being of specific plebeian families . after the punic wars ( 264 b.c . 146 b.c . ) , an influx of wealth and slaves changed that society forever work was out sourced to temps slaves who did n't live very long but could be replaced easily and cheaply . mergers created giant corporations the latifundia that engulfed the family farms and filled rome with homeless , displaced families . cheap imports destroyed local business . the gap between rich and poor widened so drastically that the senate tried limiting it with sumptuary laws . a new spirit of individualism undermined the old sense of duty and responsibility . political intrigue led to the creation of power blocs that manipulated the government . ultimately , augustus gathered all the reins of power into his own hand . rome remained nominally a republic but was , in fact , an empire . i have oversimplified because so few people today study the past . but the lesson is clear what is good for the individual multinational 's bottom line is not good for the country . hallie black chicago , sept . 9 the writer teaches history and latin at the latin school of chicago , a private_school .",has a topic of business
"prudential financial , one of the biggest life insurers in the united_states , said yesterday that it was joining with a leading bank in italy , banca_popolare di bergamo credito varesino , to set up a new mutual_fund company . the company will offer pension_funds to both private and institutional_investors . the venture is part of a worldwide expansion by prudential as it prepares to go public after decades as a mutual insurer owned by its policyholders . prudential , which is based in newark , already owns an italian life_insurance company . it is investing 4 . 5 million in the new venture and will own a 5 percent stake . in the new business , prudential will supply more than a dozen mutual_funds that will be sold through banca_popolare branches . joseph b . treaster ( nyt ) company news",has a topic of business
"canada 's trade surplus widened to 5.4 billion_canadian_dollars ( 4 . 1 billion ) in december from 4.5 billion_canadian_dollars in november , statistics_canada reported . the improvement was ascribed chiefly to a 3.6 percent rise in exports , with half of that gain coming from higher shipments of motor_vehicles to the united_states . bernard_simon ( nyt )",has a topic of business
"alitalia , the troubled italian airline , has restated its first half results , almost doubling its previously reported loss , as it set aside money to lay off about 20 percent of its work force . the airline , which has skirted bankruptcy all year long , also said it was seeking 1.2 billion_euros ( 1 . 5 billion ) in new cash , half of it to come from the government , to begin a four year turnaround plan . alitalia , which is based in rome and is majority owned by the italian government , said just before midnight wednesday that it lost 620 million_euros ( 768 million ) in the first half , 290 million_euros more than it first reported in july . in the first half of 2003 , the airline lost 315 million_euros . of the added loss , 167 million_euros will cover the first part of 3 , 700 planned job cuts and the remaining 122 million_euros will be used to split the airline 's flight and ground operations into two companies . alitalia has 1.6 billion_euros in debt and has not made an operating profit since 1998 . giancarlo cimoli , the chief executive , secured approval of a 400 million euro government backed loan this month intended to provide money to run the airline until the capital increase materializes . while alitalia did not restate its operating results the money set aside for the restructuring plan accounted for the entire increase in the first half loss wednesday 's announcement underscored the struggle the airline still faces to get on financially stable ground . the company will have to set aside more money in coming quarters to complete the layoffs , and without a capital increase , there will be probably be a bankruptcy followed by liquidation . the european_union , which has said it will scrutinize the alitalia turnaround plan and can block financing that it deems illegal state aid , has yet to approve the capital increase . the italian government has already budgeted 750 million_euros to cover its portion , but the airline must also find private investors willing to match it . at the same time , the government has pledged to reduce its stake in alitalia below 50 percent as part of the recapitalization . for that to happen , the airline will need to find private investors . alitalia is in discussions with investors , and institutional_investors will be considered , mr . cimoli said this week . the airline said on thursday that it would call a shareholders' meeting by dec . 15 to vote on the proposed capital increase . third quarter results are due out nov . 11 . deloitte touche , alitalia 's auditor , has not yet approved the airline 's first half results because of concerns about the airline 's financial stability . in italy , an auditor must not only approve the veracity of the results , but must also give its opinion on a company 's chances of surviving as a going concern .",has a topic of business
"the italian government said it would guarantee a short term loan for alitalia so the country 's national_airline would have the money to pull itself through a financial_crisis that pushed the company to the brink of bankruptcy . alitalia and the government would not give further details , but according to a person close to the airline who did not want to be identified , the loan will be for about 400 million_euros ( 484 . 6 million ) . the loan will give alitalia , which lost 511 million_euros last year , the money it needs to begin a restructuring plan that management says will return the airline to profitability in two years . eric_sylvers ( nyt )",has a topic of business
the united_states has appealed a world_trade_organization ruling that it erred in imposing countervailing duties on lead and steel products from a british company that had been subsidized by the government . united_states officials argued that duties were necessary to compensate for government subsidies that skewed the competitive_advantage of british companies . elizabeth_olson world business briefing world trade,has a topic of business
"the much debated plan to build a bridge linking messina on the island of sicily with the toe of the italian boot moved a step closer to realization yesterday after the company organizing the project awarded a 3 . 88 billion euro ( 4 . 65 billion ) construction contract . impregilo , italy 's largest construction company , heads the group that won the contract for what would be the longest suspension bridge in the world at 3.7 kilometers , or 2.3 miles . the final bill is projected to be about 6 billion_euros , according to government owned stretto di messina , which is in charge of design and financing and will eventually operate and manage the bridge . eric_sylvers ( iht )",has a topic of business
"pound sputters . sterling rallied against the dollar after the bank of england surprised the market and raised an interest rate . but it finished the day lower . in new york , the pound eased to 1 . 6369 , from 1 . 6399 on wednesday .",has a topic of business
"citigroup sued italy on friday , claiming that the government appointee who runs the bankrupt parmalat would unfairly pay only 2 million_euros of citigroup 's claim of a 538 million euro debt . in legal proceedings begun friday in a rome administrative court , citigroup said that the italian government , which has approval power over parmalat 's restructuring plan , had not ensured that the debt claims of citigroup and other financial_institutions were fairly evaluated . ''the proposed rejection of our claims in the parmalat bankruptcy is unfair , entirely without basis and in our view contrary to the law , '' william mills , head of citigroup corporate and investment_banking in europe , the middle_east and africa , said in a statement . ''as parmalat 's largest creditor and a victim of this fraud , citigroup will pursue all opportunities for appropriate redress of its losses , '' mr . mills said . ''the law requires that all creditors be treated equally during bankruptcy proceedings , and instead the rights of creditors have been trampled upon repeatedly . '' enrico_bondi , parmalat 's government appointed administrator , has rejected almost all the debt claims of citigroup and of bank of america , the other united_states bank that worked for parmalat in the years up to the company 's collapse in december . mr . bondi has recommended paying only 2 million_euros ( 2 . 5 million ) of citigroup 's debt claims . a judge in parma , where parmalat is based , has until nov . 18 to rule on mr . bondi 's recommendations on the debt claims . citigroup did not specify how much of its claim it is seeking . in any case , the sum would be reduced , given that parmalat is in bankruptcy . friday 's suit comes about three months after parmalat sued citigroup to recover damages roughly estimated at 10 billion . parmalat is contending that the investment_bank knowingly helped create complex transactions that misled shareholders and cost them billions of dollars . citigroup has defended its business dealings with parmalat , and denied any wrongdoing . friday 's court proceedings capped a week rich in legal proceedings involving parmalat . on thursday , parmalat filed suit against bank of america in a united_states court , and on wednesday banca_intesa of italy agreed to pay parmalat 160 million_euros to settle their dispute out of court . parmalat has lawsuits pending against several other of its former bankers as well as two former auditors . when it sought protection from creditors in december , parmalat had 14 . 8 billion_euros in debt 9.4 billion_euros in bonds , 4.2 billion_euros owed to banks and 1.2 billion_euros in other types of debt . an independent audit later showed that parmalat 's former executives had falsified financial_statements for more than a decade . mr . bondi wants to swap almost all of parmalat 's debt for equity in a new company that he says would be listed on the milan stock_exchange early next year . with only 2 million_euros of its debt claim recognized , citigroup stands to have a small stake in the new parmalat and to play a minor role in the company 's immediate future . the industry ministry , which oversees mr . bondi 's work , could not be reached for comment . a spokesman for parmalat declined to comment . international business",has a topic of business
"the italian conglomerate fiat took another step today in its efforts to turn itself around and return to profitability when it agreed to sell its aerospace components business , fiatavio , for about 1.5 billion_euros , or 1 . 73 billion . finmeccanica , italy 's government controlled defense company , and the carlyle group , a private_equity_firm in the united_states , will make the purchase through a specially created acquisition company , avio holding . finmeccanica will own 30 percent of avio holding and carlyle will own the rest . the sale comes less than a week after fiat announced a share sale of almost 2 billion_euros and a turnaround plan for its money losing auto unit that includes cost cuts and large investments as the company tries to regain market_share . fiat is also laying off more than 12 , 000 employees , mostly outside of its carmaking business , after already having let go 8 , 100 people in the last year . the turnaround plan is dependent on money raised in various asset sales , including fiatavio and fiat 's insurance unit , toro assicurazioni , which was sold earlier this year . analysts and credit_rating_agencies have questioned fiat 's decision to sell profitable businesses , like toro and fiatavio , to invest in the car unit , which is not forecast to return to the black until 2007 . fiat forecasts that on a consolidated basis it will become profitable in 2006 . fiatavio , which builds engines for commercial and military aircraft , has 14 factories and more than 5 , 000 employees . last year , the company earned 116 million_euros on sales of 1.5 billion_euros , less than 3 percent of fiat 's total revenue . the automaking unit provides more than half of the company 's total sales . a group of banks , including banca_intesa , lehman_brothers , citigroup and goldman , sachs , will provide an unspecified amount of the financing for the acquisition . finmeccanica said that the 150 million_euros that it would contribute would come from cash on hand . with the proceeds , fiat said it would be able to slice 1.4 billion_euros , or 1 . 62 billion , off its debt . fiat 's 6.2 billion euro debt load has become a flash_point for investors since the two major credit_rating_agencies , moody 's investors service and standard_poor 's , cut the company 's standing to below investment grade . that has forced fiat to turn to the equity market rather than the bond_market . it will offer 1 . 84 billion_euros in shares next week . giuseppe morchio , who took over as chief executive in february and is the fourth person to hold the post in the past year , said last week that he thought that fiat could regain its investment grade rating by 2006 . mr . morchio has his hands full as he tries to grapple with fiat 's worst ever financial_crisis . in addition to trying to return the car unit to profitability , mr . morchio has creditors to worry about . major creditors , which include italy 's largest banks , gave fiat a 3 billion euro loan last year that is convertible into stock . if fiat cannot repay the loan and the banks convert their debt into shares , the agnelli family , which has owned fiat since its founding more than 100 years ago and still controls 30 percent of the stock , would lose its grip on the company . the sale of fiatavio still requires the approval of antitrust authorities and is expected to be concluded by the end of the year . goldman , sachs and lehman_brothers advised carlyle on the acquisition while mediobanca advised finmeccanica . fiat had been in talks to sell fiatavio since at least february .",has a topic of business
"with silvio_berlusconi set to become italy 's next prime_minister , his future seems clear . what is perhaps less clear is the future of the company he owns , fininvest s.p.a .. while mr . berlusconi struggles to assemble a cabinet , fininvest is struggling with 2 . 3 billion of debt , amassed during its heady growth years in the 1980 's . while his political aides work to reinvent italy , fininvest , whose 7 billion in sales make it italy 's second largest privately_owned company , after fiat , and europe 's second largest media group , after bertelsmann of germany , is struggling to reinvent itself as a lean , professionally managed company . it aims to seize the day as italy emerges from recession , and as fininvest 's main markets , notably television , transform themselves . this has put fininvest at the heart of a bitter debate . after all , mr . berlusconi 's critics say , is n't his becoming prime_minister a bit like ted_turner 's becoming president of the united_states , and holding onto his television stations ? the difference is that fininvest , in addition to controlling roughly half of italy 's television market , also controls the publishing houses mondadori and einaudi , 34 magazines and a handful of daily papers , financial_services companies , a department_store chain called standa with 15 , 000 employees , and champion soccer , hockey and handball teams . to get italy 's economy purring again , mr . berlusconi , who stepped down as fininvest 's chairman to enter politics , has pledged to deregulate vast areas of business from telecommunications to financial_services to retail trade . the problem is that these are all areas where his companies are strongest . the potential of these markets illustrates the possible areas for conflict of interest imbedded in the dual role of mr . berlusconi , because his government will have to fill in the legislative blanks required to regulate these new markets . "" there will always remain a shadow of suspicion on the decisions of this government , "" said antonio pilati , the director of the institute for the economics of the media in milan . suspicion might be milder were mr . berlusconi 's business empire in better shape . but the pinch of recession , plus management problems resulting from rapid growth in the fat years , have left fininvest in financial straits . the critics of mr . berlusconi are already accusing him of extending political favors in exchange for new investment from mediobanca , the italian investment_bank that holds the key to italian financial markets . on thursday , mr . berlusconi named three legal scholars to draft a law against conflicts of interest . his opponents were unimpressed , contending that this was , in effect , the wolf appointing the shepherds . paradoxically , the largest problem facing fininvest , whose shares are wholly owned by mr . berlusconi either directly or through fiduciary companies , may prove in the end to be the loss of mr . berlusconi himself . last january , when he resigned as chairman , he turned to fedele confalonieri , an old school friend , and francesco tato , a tough executive with a reputation as a turnaround artist , to clean up his company . a clash of cultures mr . confalonieri , at 56 , represents fininvest 's club of old boys who held tight to their seats while the group grew at dizzying rates . but that culture of size clashes with mr . tato 's culture . he entered fininvest from mondadori six months ago , and his specialty is trimming fat and tightening management . "" it was all easier when he was here , than now that he 's not here , "" mr . tato said of mr . berlusconi . "" it leaves us with the problem of changes that are necessary , without his charismatic imprint . "" the real doubts about fininvest arose last year , when , according to mr . tato , mr . berlusconi decided someone had to sort out his company 's jumbled holdings . "" for 12 years , we were expanding at all costs , "" mr . tato said , in an interview at fininvest 's milan headquarters . "" when you 're in the rage of development , you tend to make mistakes . when you have 20 percent growth and cash_flow , why bother ? "" even so , mr . tato added , "" the company is extremely successful . it has stamina , it has culture . "" high marks on investments indeed , analysts give mr . berlusconi high marks for his investment choices . he moved aggressively into financial_services like insurance and funds , when these markets were exploding in italy . he bought into standa and several strong advertising_agencies just as italian retailing began to transform itself away from mom and pop stores . he moved with imagination and vigor , and some would say political cunning , to develop private television , and in 1991 paid 600 million for mondadori 's publishing empire . "" at the end of the day , they 're a good group of companies at the individual level , "" said dagmar bottenbruch , a corporate_finance specialist at credit_suisse_first_boston in milan . assembled for tax purposes by the late 1980 's , however , the advertising market was saturated , and recession was crimping consumer_spending , and with it fininvest 's cash_flow . moreover , the tangled group of companies was largely assembled to dodge convoluted italian tax laws . thus , while debt was amassed at the top , taxes were paid at the operating level , meaning little cash percolated up to meet huge interest payments . by 1992 , the last year for which there are reliable figures , the problem was enormous . fininvest declared 12 million in net earnings , but mr . tato acknowledged it could do so only by claiming extraordinary asset gains that amounted that year to about 142 million . he insists all the operating companies are now profitable , and lower interest rates have reduced debt service still , the situation has not dramatically improved . indeed , six months ago few in italy were betting on mr . berlusconi . besides the debt , several company executives , including mr . berlusconi 's brother paolo , were under investigation in italy 's big payments for favors scandals . with national elections scheduled for this year , the country seemed headed toward a leftist led government , promising a shake up of private television , the linchpin of mr . berlusconi 's business . more significantly perhaps , mr . berlusconi 's debt was concentrated at major italian banks led by mediobanca and its 86 year old honorary_chairman , enrico cuccia , the quiet godfather of italian finance . the fall of ferruzzi in the 1980 's , only two italian businessmen of size , mr . berlusconi and raul_gardini , the head of the big ferruzzi industrial group , remained aloof from the circle of industrialists around mr . cuccia . when ferruzzi collapsed last year , dumping billions of dollars of debt onto the banks , and prompting mr . gardini 's suicide , many believed fininvest would be the next to go under . but last october , mr . berlusconi called in mr . tato , 61 , a veteran of the big olivetti electronics group , which has long been considered one of italy 's best management schools . a lean man with a bright smile , who negotiates as readily in english or german as his native italian , mr . tato is called "" der kaiser "" for his success in turning around germany 's sleepy kienzle computer company , after it was acquired in 1982 by the mannesmann steel group , and triumph adler , which olivetti purchased in 1986 from volkswagen . mr . tato says his task is essentially twofold first , he intends to trim fininvest to a financial holding_company by transferring operating activities like administration and data_processing , and much of the group debt , to the operating companies , and installing effective managers to create four large groups publishing , financial products , retailing and television . taking companies public once this is accomplished , he said , the idea is to take these companies public , reducing fininvest 's stake and broadening the shareholder base , while raising capital to reduce the debt . the first big step came last week , when fininvest announced it was uniting its publishing interests in the mondadori group , and floating a 53 percent stake on the stock_market , which , mr . tato said , would net fininvest between 467 million and 545 million . the lead role of mediobanca in placing the shares signaled the reconciliation of mr . berlusconi and mr . cuccia . analysts say fininvest 's overhaul assumes particular urgency because of the fast pace of change in italian telecommunications , as illustrated by the deal announced last week by bell_atlantic and another of italy 's telecommunications giants , societa telefonica per azioni , or stet , to develop interactive telecommunications systems . in italy , as in the united_states , advertisng revenues no longer suffice to finance the growth of television services , according to mr . pilati . yet , with an obsolete television broadcasting system and no cable or satellite services , italy will require a vast investment in pay_television to raise the cash needed for new video services that link cable or phone lines and computers .",has a topic of business
"with britain 's exporters growing increasingly worried about the strength of the pound , the bank of england 's monetary_policy_committee left the benchmark interest rate unchanged at 6 percent . an increase would have further strengthened the pound against key european currencies , making british exports even more expensive , analysts said . sterling has increased by 18 percent against the euro since the creation of the single european currency in january 1999 . eddie_george , the bank of england governor , said last week that the pound 's strength should be reflected in interest rate policy . alan_cowell world business briefing europe",has a topic of business
"the regulator of italy 's stock_market ruled that two companies that have taken minority stakes in a leading italian insurer , la fondiaria assicurazioni , will not have to bid for the remaining shares , setting off a 9 percent decline in fondiaria 's share price . the stock regulator said late wednesday that societ assicuratrice industriale , another italian insurer , and mediobanca , an investment_bank , would have to reduce their combined holding to less than 30 percent of fondiaria from 43 percent by feb . 18 . the ruling reversed one made in august 2001 that would have required industriale to buy the remaining shares after it took a 29 percent stake . it also upset minority_shareholders , who said they were preparing legal action .",has a topic of business
"lead by early september the arctic winter is closing in on this 32 , 000 ton exploratory oil_rig , with plunging temperatures bringing a rapid freeze up to the surrounding sea . then , as the polar region moves into the 24 hour winter night , heaves in the icepack thicken to as much as 13 feet , pressing the rig 's huge steel skirt with forces that have crushed dozens of ships . by early september the arctic winter is closing in on this 32 , 000 ton exploratory oil_rig , with plunging temperatures bringing a rapid freeze up to the surrounding sea . then , as the polar region moves into the 24 hour winter night , heaves in the icepack thicken to as much as 13 feet , pressing the rig 's huge steel skirt with forces that have crushed dozens of ships . it is a season that tests the mettle of the kulluk , an eskimo word meaning thunder . out here on the rim of the arctic ocean , 50 miles from the closest landfall , the men and women who operate the rig for beaudril , an oil drilling subsidiary of gulf canada resources ltd . , have the comfort of knowing that no other oil_rig in the world , save for a sister rig operated by gulf nearby , has been built to withstand the kind of punishment that nature can inflict in the far north . avoiding the term 'unsinkable' ''the last vessel they called unsinkable was the titanic , so we avoid the term , '' said guy howard , the engineer in charge of drilling operations on the kulluk , which has a hull built in japan based on designs developed by canadian engineers . standing on a catwalk around the drilling deck , nearly 70 feet above the rolling sea , the 42 year old new zealander added , ''but as far as modern technology can make any exploratory vessel safe in these waters , we believe that the kulluk is it . '' along with capt . klaus arciszewski , 50 , a former oil supertanker captain who is in overall command of the kulluk , mr . howard heads a rotating crew of 100 engineers , mechanics , drillers and support personnel who work on the kulluk from may to december . during other months , the ice pack is too thick for safe operations and the rig is moved to an island shelter closer to land . on shore at tuktoyaktuk , northwest_territories , the most northerly eskimo community on the canadian mainland , another 350 personnel work at the base camp for gulf canada 's arctic operations . costs of 100 million a year all told , the venture is draining close to 100 million a year from gulf canada , a calgary , alberta based company that is 69 percent owned by olympia york developments ltd . , the conglomerate that is the principal investment vehicle for paul and albert reichmann of toronto . the reichmanns are betting that the investment here will eventually secure them a rich stake in the continent 's last great oil boom , one that will tap the huge resources that many geologists believe lie trapped beneath the arctic seabed . so far , the venture remains a long shot , one that seems likely to require a rise in the price of oil to around 25 a barrel , from its current level of 15 , and a decision by gulf canada and other companies with stakes in the beaufort to put up the 5 billion that many believe will be necessary to build a pipeline and related facilities to bring the oil to market . so far , a drop in the bucket although tests suggest that the amauligak field now being delineated by gulf 's two rigs here may contain as much as 800 million_barrels of oil , worth nearly 12 billion at current prices , the only beaufort oil to reach market has been the 317 , 000 barrels that gulf moved to japan in a tanker test run two years ago . in canada , where they guard their privacy so tightly that most canadians know virtually nothing about them , the reichmanns have had an extraordinarily successful business career since arriving in the 1950 's from morocco , where they had gone to flee the holocaust . the family 's total wealth has been estimated at more than 20 billion , a large chunk of it in real_estate in new york and a dozen other american cities . prediction of profits the soundness of the beaufort venture depends almost entirely on the estimate of what will happen to oil prices in the 1990 's , when gulf canada hopes to see a mackenzie valley pipeline completed . with conventional on shore oil_reserves in canada depleting , as they are in the united_states , some experts believe that high cost frontier reserves , such as those in the beaufort_sea and off the east_coast of north_america , will come into their own before the end of the century , making vast profits for companies involved in the pioneering exploration . gulf is far from alone in thinking that the risk is worthwhile . its minority partners in the amauligak field include husky oil of calgary , owned by hong_kong billionaire li kashing . and amoco canada , the wholly owned subsidiary of the amoco corporation of chicago , which has just completed its 4 . 5 billion takeover of dome petroleum , the first company to look for oil in the beaufort in 1976 , announced last week that it would return to the beaufort in its own right next year to drill at least two wells on dome leases . some experts believe that the amount of oil to be found in the beaufort may eventually total more than 10 billion_barrels , more than all the oil that has been discovered so far in the north slope of alaska . but others think that the oil glut that is depressing prices could run for another decade or more . british visitors top officials of britain 's energy ministry , responsible for north_sea_oil development , visited here recently and left little doubt that they considered the venture to be economically dubious . captain arciszewski , gulf 's offshore installations manager , acknowledged that none of the estimated 1 billion that gulf and its partners have spent on building and operating the kulluk and its sister rig , the molikpaq , will pay off without a pipeline . but the german born captain , who has managed offshore rigs in half a dozen spots around the world , including the indian_ocean and the south china sea , said that he believed that part of the value of beaufort oil was that it was strategically secure . more immediate problems for now , the kulluk crew has more immediate problems than the future track of oil prices or stability in the gulf . completed in 1982 with what was then the last word in maritime technology , the kulluk is in effect a huge icebreaker that carries a giant oil_rig amidships . more than 260 feet in diameter at the level of the drilling platform , it has six working and living decks and rises more than 180 feet above the sea . to withstand ice pressures , the rig was built with a double steel skin , the outer one four inches thick . a further measure of safety is provided by the concave shape of the hull where it meets the sea . inside , the hull is conical shaped , and compartmentalized . a measure of the threats faced by the rig came from a huge iceberg spotted in the region last year , measuring several miles across . and early last month , the crew faced one of its greatest crises when an arctic gale blew in , with winds 75 miles an hour and waves of up to 16 feet . a 'black alert' although the stresses on most systems stayed within limits considered acceptable , one of the 12 15 ton anchor chains , each rated for 220 metric_tons of stress , had to be released , and the crew was put on a ''black alert . '' more than sinking or being crushed by the ice pack , most crew members worry about the consequences of a spill . canada has passed rigid pollution laws to protect the sensitive arctic environment , regularly policed by inspectors who fly out to the rig . ''the canadian public has shown itself to be extraordinarily sensitive about the arctic , '' captain arciszewski said . ''one spill , and they 'd close us down in a matter of hours . '' amoco moving a rig anchorage , sept . 4 ( reuters ) the amoco production_company , a unit of the amoco corporation said it was moving a floating drill rig from canada to begin drilling on its belcher prospect in the beaufort_sea . the prospect is east of camden bay near the canadian border . international report",has a topic of business
"lead britain 's annual inflation_rate remained steady at 4.4 percent in august , the government said today . the annual inflation_rate reflects the rise in the government 's retail price index , a measure of the costs of consumer goods , over the previous 12 months . britain 's annual inflation_rate remained steady at 4.4 percent in august , the government said today . the annual inflation_rate reflects the rise in the government 's retail price index , a measure of the costs of consumer goods , over the previous 12 months .",has a topic of business
"britain reported today that its trade_deficit narrowed slightly in september , but economists said a sharp fall in exports dented hopes of an export led recovery from recession . the deficit in the balance of payments , covering trade as well as international transactions in invisible goods or services , fell to 529 million , or 904 . 7 million , in september from a revised 596 million ( 1 . 02 billion ) in august . unsettling to economists , however , was the steep 4.5 percent plunge in exports . imports fell by 4.8 percent . economists said the decline showed that domestic demand remained in the doldrums . britain 's ruling conservative government has been hoping a recovery in consumer_spending will help carry the economy out of a recession . the trade figures are only one of a string of recent indications that consumer demand remains weak . government figures released on monday showed that retail sales a litmus test of consumer confidence remained flat in september .",has a topic of business
"the canadian manufacturer bombardier has won a contract to supply 48 electric locomotives to the italian railroad company trenitalia . the deal is worth 103 million_euros ( 128 million ) and follows earlier orders from trenitalia for 240 similar locomotives , bombardier said . bombadier 's chief executive , paul m . tellier , above , recently outlined plans to restructure rail car manufacturing in europe , where the company has more than 30 factories , some operating at less than half of capacity . the head of the rail car unit resigned earlier this month . bernard_simon ( nyt )",has a topic of business
"the crest electronic share settlement system began operating yesterday in britain , bringing paperless settlement of stock trades to europe 's largest equity market . the crest system , developed by the bank of england in the last three years , is owned by 69 financial_institutions . the new system will begin processing trades on aug . 19 . the system will initially shorten the time it takes to settle trades in britain to three days from five days . ( bloomberg business news ) international briefs",has a topic of business
"the securities_and_exchange_commission wants to send a message to companies , particularly foreign ones if you pay bribes , either disclose the practice or make sure that they do not distort your financial_statements . yesterday , the s.e.c . filed a civil suit against montedison , the italian chemicals and energy producer , over the company 's payment of bribes to italian officials several years ago . the facts in the montedison case are not in dispute . the company has admitted paying bribes , and concealing them in its financial_statements . in some cases , it paid bribes and described them as loans made , creating an asset on its balance_sheet . in another case , montedison overstated real_estate values to conceal other bribes . all told , the s.e.c . said , those maneuvers overstated the company 's earnings , assets and net worth by at least 400 million until it wrote off the fictitious assets in 1993 . the company 's reports had been inaccurate from 1988 through 1992 , the commission said . given that the disclosure has already been made , why file the suit ? the s.e.c . seems to be trying to send a message , particularly to foreign companies that choose to trade in the united_states . ''if they are going to sell their securities in this market , '' said paul gerlach , the s.e.c . 's associate director of enforcement , ''then they are going to be held to the same disclosure_requirements , and the same books and records obligations as other issuers . '' montedison , in a statement , emphasized that the facts in the case had been disclosed , and that it had new management . it said its only arguments with the commission were whether it was appropriate for a federal_judge to issue an injunction barring future violations of securities laws , and over how large a monetary penalty was appropriate . the s.e.c . did not disclose how large a payment it was seeking . the commission 's action does not mean that any company paying bribes now has to disclose that , or face securities law penalties in addition to whatever criminal_penalties might apply . indeed , , there are judicial decisions that point to the fifth amendment protection from self_incrimination against forcing companies to disclose criminal conduct , notwithstanding the risk that committing a crime involves a potential liability if it is detected and prosecuted . but the s.e.c . takes the position that this does not mean that inaccurate financial_statements may be filed . had the bribes that were paid been so small that they were immaterial to the company 's financial_statements , then there would presumably have been no case . but while the standard for immateriality varies with size a 1 million payment might be highly material for a small company but immaterial for a company the size of exxon or general_electric there are no companies for whom 400 million is immaterial . and had montedison hidden the bribes by classifying them as another type of expense say , as consultant 's fees or salaries then the commission would have had a more difficult time making a case . while the specifics would have been inaccurate , the overall picture painted by the financial_statements would not have been meaningfully misleading . in this case , however , montedison hid the payments not as other expenses , but as payments for assets . when an asset is bought , the books record that as substituting one asset ( cash ) for another one ( here , a loan that was owed to the company , or real_estate ) . and that has no effect on the income statement . as a result , montedison 's net worth was overstated , and so was its profit . and the company , which has suffered greatly in recent years in part because of the bribery disclosures , will suffer one more loss when the financial penalty is determined . in new york stock_exchange trading yesterday , montedison 's american_depository_receipts , which sold for 25 in 1989 while the books were being falsified , fell 25 cents , to 6 . 875 . each a.d.r . represents 10 ordinary shares . market place",has a topic of business
"the toast of italian fashion giorgio armani , gianfranco ferre , santo versace , gerolamo etro and krizia and other leading designers have been indicted for reportedly bribing tax inspectors , news_agencies in milan reported yesterday . the indictments were part of the "" clean hands "" investigation , which has uncovered systematic , nationwide kickbacks to politicians and bureaucrats from business people . judge anna conforti was reported to have set a trial date of sept . 20 , but there was no answer at her office to confirm the reports . prosecutors have accused the designers of paying hundreds of thousand of dollars in bribes to tax inspectors in return for favorable audits . defense lawyers , however , said the designers were the victims of extortion by tax inspectors . ( ap )",has a topic of business
"in granting more independence to the bank of england , the new british_government is a late entrant in a trend that has seen nations give increasing autonomy to their central_banks , distancing monetary_policy from direct political control . the practice has spread across the globe in response to demands from investors in financial markets for proof that governments will remain committed to inflation fighting . japan , whose central_bank long operated under the direct authority of the finance ministry , is enacting legislation to give its bank of japan more autonomy , though not complete independence . france has removed its central_bank from direct government control in recent years . even developing nations like chile and smaller countries like new zealand that were once plagued with inflation have set up independent central_banks as they battle to bring upward price spirals under control and stabilize their economies . ''it 's all about credibility , '' said c . fred_bergsten , the director of the institute for international_economics , a research group in washington . ''there are a lot of studies that show that independence of central_banks correlates very closely with achieving price stability . '' the bundesbank in germany is generally considered the most independent of all central_banks , and the model for nations seeking to insulate monetary_policy from politics . the federal_reserve also ranks high , although unlike the bundesbank , which by law is focused solely on price stability , the fed 's mandate extends to supporting full employment as well . new zealand has won considerable attention for setting up an independent central_bank where the governor is bound through a public contract with the government to meet specified inflation goals , an innovation that has largely succeeded . the trend toward independence is rapidly eroding the practice , common only a few years ago in nearly all nations except the united_states and germany , of regarding monetary_policy as the responsibility and right of the government of the day . and it is accelerating at a time when global investors are also insisting on fiscal_austerity , effectively stripping governments of their other traditional economic tool , using deficit_spending to stimulate expansion . the impetus for the change comes in part from a recognition that allowing politicians to set interest rates can yield bad policy , undermining efforts to keep inflation under control by avoiding the short term pain that higher interest rates can cause . it also stems from a growing consensus among experts that low inflation is a precondition to achieving low unemployment and not necessarily an obstacle to that goal . in the ''imperfect world in which most central bankers ply their trade , political systems tend to behave myopically , favoring inflationary policies with short run benefits and discounting excessively their long run costs , '' stanley_fischer , the first deputy managing director of the international_monetary_fund , wrote in an article several months ago . ''an independent central_bank , given responsibility for price stability , can overcome this inflationary bias . '' in europe , the move toward central_bank independence is being speeded by plans for monetary_union among members of the european_union . the nations that would enter a monetary_union , which encompasses a single_currency and a single monetary_policy to be set by a european_central_bank , are loosening government control of their central_banks some faster than others . france , which along with germany would be at the core of a single_currency , has severed many of the ties between the government and the bank of france , although economists said the bank had yet to develop a completely independent culture . italy has moved more slowly . the planned european_central_bank , scheduled to begin operation in 1999 , will perform its duties with no direct control from any of the member nations . while the central bankers would be appointed by political leaders , the degree of power that would be ceded to the institution is so great that there are questions about whether citizens will ultimately get cold_feet and postpone the move . as they grant more independence to their central_banks , more nations are setting explicit inflation targets , or encouraging monetary_policy makers to do so . canada , sweden and britain as well as new zealand now set annual goals and expect monetary_policy to be adjusted to keep inflation within those bounds . in britain , for example , the current goal is 2.5 percent inflation . ''the setting of explicit goals promotes accountability , making it more likely that the central_bank will come close to the target , '' mr . fischer said . ''accountability and the need to explain deviations from targets should promote transparency , allowing the public to understand the basis for monetary_policy decisions and thus to form more accurate expectations . '' britain's new tack a global trend",has a topic of business
"lead running the length of the original wing of stapleford_park , a stately home near this leiscestershire village , is an inscription that reads ''william lord sherard , baron of letrym , repayred this building , anno domini 1633 . '' running the length of the original wing of stapleford_park , a stately home near this leiscestershire village , is an inscription that reads ''william lord sherard , baron of letrym , repayred this building , anno domini 1633 . '' the current owner of stapleford_park is having a modest stone tablet cut , to be mounted on the side of the limestone edifice , when the current renovation is complete . the new inscription reads ''and bob payton did his bit , anno domini 1988 . '' it is the sort of exuberant american gesture that sometimes sets british teeth on edge . but it is typical of the rah rah approach that has made mr . payton , a native of miami who once worked on shampoo accounts for the j . walter_thompson company in chicago , one of the best known foreign entreprenuers in london . ''you 've got to do this stuff , '' said mr . payton , who likes to tweak residents of his adopted country for their lack of drive and imagination . ''this guy did this 350 years ago and got away with it , and why should n't i ? another 350 years from now , they 'll say , 'wow . ' '' mr . payton is hoping for a lot of ''wows'' when stapleford_park , about 110 miles north of london , opens as a luxury hotel on april 29 with 23 rooms and suites priced from 160 to 600 a day . starting 10 years ago when he opened a restaurant called the chicago pizza pie factory , mr . payton has made a fortune selling yank food to londoners . the restaurateur , now 43 years old , has decided to gamble a large chunk of that fortune on the proposition that he can sell english country life in a part of england that has never been a mecca for affluent international tourists . moreover , mr . payton also believes that he can blend the traditional setting of a government registered historic building with the informal style of entertaining that prevails at american resort hotels . ''it 's not going to be pretentious , '' said mr . payton , a beefy but energetic man who likes to drape his six foot , four inch frame in bold british plaids . ''my thing is going to be a big fraternity party 'come on out and hang out with us . ' '' preservationists , including some who doubt that tourists go to the english countryside for american style hospitality , are watching mr . payton 's experiment with interest . his 8 . 3 million project is part of a broader pattern of commercialization that represents britain 's best chance of preserving its dwindling heritage of stately homes . at one point in the 1960 's , according to the historical houses association , the houses were being knocked down at the rate of four a day , victims of high inheritance taxes and agricultural decline . today only about half of the 4 , 000 major houses that existed a century ago are in private hands . the national trust , britain 's main conservation agency , maintains 86 of the best country houses . but as the remaining houses become more dilapidated , chances of saving them decline . ''in my experience , most of these buildings are n't worth anything , '' said bob weighton , mr . payton 's architect and a specialist in country_house conversions for the last 15 years . ''the cost of putting it back puts it out of reach . '' for hundreds of homes , the choice has become abandonment and eventual demolition or a search for new uses . even hard core preservationists have come to regard commercialization as the better alternative . in the 70 's and early 80 's , a number of the big houses were converted to schools or prestige office centers or partitioned into upscale condominiums . but now , most preservationists favor hotel conversions . ''a hotel is quite a good use because it keeps all those wonderful entertaining rooms as open rooms , '' mr . weighton said . ''it fits the use of the house as it was originally intended . '' sarah greenwood of the historic houses association added that the last three years had brought a boom in hotel conversions , because of a growing demand among tourists for an english country experience . ''traditional owners are either bringing in hotel companies and setting up partnerships or selling out to hoteliers , '' she said . she added that preservationists are particularly pleased by the growing number of ''live in owners . '' ''that 's what bob payton is doing , '' she said . ''we 've got perhaps 25 to 50 owners doing that now . that simply did n't exist three years ago . '' although precise figures on hotel conversions are not available , mr . payton 's project is probably the most ambitious yet undertaken by a live in owner in terms of cost and size , according to preservation experts . that is partly because mr . payton has developed big appetites since resigning his job at the london office of j . walter_thompson in 1977 in favor of what was regarded as an oddball plan to bring midwestern pizza to london . last year , his chain of american style restaurants the chicago pizza pie factory , the chicago rib shack , henry j . beans , the windy city bar grill and chicago meat packers turned over 23 million and made a profit of 2 . 7 million . but the struggle to raise his 75 , 000 start up money for his first pizza shop left him with a lasting irritation for what he regards as the undue timidity of british investors . that irritation still shows when mr . payton talks about his love affair with stapleford_park and his decision to become less active in his restaurant company , my kinda town ltd . , in order to try to renovate the grand house and its 55 acre estate . he first saw the place while riding to hounds in the leiscestershire hunt country , a late blooming enthusiasm for someone who worked his way through the university_of_north_carolina in a rock and roll band . ''as i walked around the house i thought , 'it 's too easy i can see how this makes up into bedrooms with bathrooms , ' '' mr . payton recalled . it was n't as easy as it looked . an initial effort to raise 11 million under the government 's business expansion scheme , which gives tax breaks to investors , came a cropper . mr . payton , an ebullient man regarded as a colorful character by the london press , had to put up with headlines that referred to ''payton 's stately flop . '' he also had to suffer the doubts of an estimated 150 investment bankers he visited . ''the image of english financiers is , 'well , he 's in the pizza business . what does he know about country life ? he 's just trying to live out his fantasies and we 're not going to pay for that kind of thing . ' '' the property that mr . payton bought with 1 . 4 million of his own money began to look like a ''huge albatross around my neck , '' he said . giving up on the banks , mr . payton turned to venture_capitalists with a private offering of stock in his restaurant company for those who would also invest in stapleford_park . he raised about 7 million . venture_capitalists were also more receptive to mr . payton 's notion about running a country place devoted to recreations other than the afternoon nap . ''when i decided to do stapleford , i had either eaten at or stayed at 55 country_house hotels , so i pretty much know the market , '' he said . ''generally speaking , all these guys treat these places as religious shrines . what i 'm going to give people is a terrific time . '' ''i think our market is younger , the affluent young . i hate to say yuppies . but i think yuppies are a real market , '' he went on , ''and i think i will appeal to people like myself who made a success of themselves in the last 10 or 15 years and want to enjoy all the good bits in life . '' the area around stapleford_park is better known for fox hunting than tourist sites . the belvoir , quorn and cottesmore hunts are among the most famous in england , and by tradition , the prince of wales , including the present one , often visits during the season . some important buildings , notably burghley hall , a magnificant elizabethan mansion with a deer park designed by capability brown , are in the area . by car , stapleford_park is about two hours from heathrow_airport . by train , it is an hour and a half from london to the nearest station at grantham and another half hour by car to the hotel . mr . payton said his guests should expect to be met at the grantham train_station by a land rover with a beer cooler in the back rather than a rolls_royce . and there will be a basketball goal , minature golf and horseshoe pitching in addition to tennis courts , shooting and riding . to those who say he is violating the rule book on english country hotels , mr . payton responds that his vision is of a hotel as ''the ultimate party , '' in which , if the mood strikes him , he can personally carry guests' bags up the stairs while giving them a lecture on the stone mullioned windows in the hotel 's best suite . despite his aggressive devotion to american style hospitality , mr . payton is carrying out a by the book restoration required by british law , lovingly preserving the marble mantles and intricate 18th_century wood carvings that adorn the 500 year old house , which he bought in 1986 from lord gretton , heir to the bass brewing fortune . british designers also applaud his innovative approach to interior decoration . mr . payton went to 16 firms and individuals who had never done interior decoration but worked in the fields of fashion , design or merchandising . each was invited to take on a single bedroom on budgets between 9 , 000 and 16 , 500 . as a result , stapleford_park will have rooms done by wedgewood , the china firm turnbull asser , the shirtmakers liberty , the london department_store noted for fine fabrics , and by individual designers such as lindka cierach , who made the duchess of york 's wedding dress , and michael szell , holder of a royal warrant as a supplier of fabrics for the queen . much of the coordination of the design work has fallen to the former wendy becker , a chicago businesswoman who had been running the construction firm owned by her late husband , h . kirke becker . introduced several years ago by mutual friends , she and mr . payton were married on new year 's day . an energetic woman of 38 , mrs . payton arrived with a prejudice against chintz and a passionate eye for detail . ''we 're going to sleep in all the bedrooms'' before the opening , she said . ''it 's the only way to really see from a guest 's point of view what 's wrong . '' a less universally acclaimed design move was the decision to include a portrait of gunther , mrs . payton 's giant schnauzer , in the trompe_l'oeil colonnade painted on the wall of the tea room . the paytons ordered their reluctant british artist to paint in gunther in february to celebrate the huge dog 's release from the six month quarantine imposed on all pets brought into britain . ''i guess people perceive me as a bit of an eccentric , '' mr . payton said . ''that 's what makes it fun . if you looked at the rule book about how to do country_house hotels , i 'm sure it would not say , 'put a picture of your dog up there with an american bandana , ' and yet i reckon thousands of people will flock in there and it will become a very famous picture . '' in a sense , the portrait of gunther has already become a test for whether early visitors regard mr . payton 's blend of a class british setting and american rambunctiousness as successful or strained . he professes not to be sensitive about doubters . ''unless i 'm the biggest jerk in the whole world , we 're going to make it work , '' he asserted . ''i 've got some track record on hospitality . i know how to look after people . '' anyway , he added ''i 'm doing this for me , i 'm not doing it for anybody else , and nobody enjoys this more than i do . when they say , 'what are the financial projections ? ' i do n't know . i just think if it 's good enough , they 'll come and if they come i 'll find a way to make a living out of it . '' mr . payton is not quite as blind to the figures as that suggests . mr . weighton predicted country hotel conversions as large and expensive as stapleford_park would begin to attract the attention of hotel chains as buyout targets . ''i have got a piece of real_estate that you ca n't build again , that can only get more valuable , '' said mr . payton , predicting that the hotel will quadruple in value if it is a success . to the familiar observation that it has never been done before in britain , he added , ''english pizza was never done before either . i 've just done a project with a few more digits on the end . ''",has a topic of business
"sir john bond 's message to british investors today was unapologetic executives are paid more in america . get used to it . speaking at the annual shareholders' meeting of hsbc , the london based global bank where he is chairman , sir john defended the compensation package offered to william f . aldinger , who became executive director of the bank 's american operations this year . ''the heart of this issue is how and whether an international company , headquartered in london , can acquire a business in the u.s.a. , where remuneration practices and scales are different , '' sir john said . mr . aldinger joined hsbc last november when the bank bought household international , the consumer loan company based in prospect_heights , ill . , for 14 . 2 billion . as part of the deal , hsbc agreed to give mr . aldinger a new three year contract as chief executive of household and 20 . 3 million in severance for tearing up the old one . counting that payment and the roughly 36 million he is to get under the new contract , mr . aldinger will be one of the highest paid executives at any company based in britain . hsbc shareholders used the meeting today to express their displeasure with mr . aldinger 's pay , saying that ''these american style remuneration packages'' had no place in britain and that they exemplified the kind of corporate greed that had brought down enron , tyco and other companies . ''we do n't want to see that happen in britain , do we ? '' one shareholder asked . alan macdougall , managing director of pensions investment research consultants , a london based group that advises institutional shareholders , said at the meeting that if hsbc does not draw the line against such pay , other leading british companies could drift toward american size compensation . ''this is a structural debate , '' sir john responded . ''our policy is to pay the going rate , wherever we operate . '' executive pay packages at british companies have come under new scrutiny since the beginning of the year , when an amendment to the corporate_governance act gave shareholders the opportunity to vote on whether to approve them . the votes are not binding , but analysts said corporate boards would feel intense pressure to respect the results . though mr . aldinger 's contract drew the most criticism , it was not among the executive pay packages put to a vote at today 's meeting . about 22 percent of shareholders voted against approving the pay of sir keith whitson , the bank 's chief executive , and other officers . shareholders did get to vote today on mr . aldinger 's candidacy for a seat on hsbc 's board some 15 percent abstained or voted no . sir john credited mr . aldinger with helping bring household ' 'safely'' to hsbc . successful acquisitions overseas are especially important to the bank because there is probably no significant purchase it could make in britain without running into antitrust problems , he said . household will contribute 20 percent of hsbc 's net_income and make the bank one of the biggest credit_card issuers in the world , he added . in general , sir john told shareholders , the global economic picture for the year ahead is grim . ''we continue to see the world_economy characterized by weak growth , excess_capacity and subdued revenues for corporates , '' he said . sir john said he foresaw continued erosion of employment in europe and the united_states as companies seek to cut costs by moving both manufacturing and service functions to low wage countries , a trend that he said might make international friction , trade_barriers and trade disputes ''a more common part of the international scene . '' international business",has a topic of business
"reeling from an ill starred push into corporate lending that left it saddled with a big portfolio of bad_loans , abbey national , britain 's second largest mortgage bank , said today that it now expected to lose money for the full fiscal year . under its former chief executive , ian harley , abbey national expanded away from its roots as a retail bank that provided financial_services to consumers . searching for faster growth and profits , the bank began to make more and more risky loans to large corporations like enron and worldcom , in competition with giant banks like barclays and hsbc . mr . harley resigned in july . last month , abbey national named luqman arnold , a former president of ubs , the major swiss bank , to replace him . mr . luqman is currently conducting a wide_ranging review of abbey national 's businesses , and has said he plans to sell the ones that are not essential to its strategy , to eliminate jobs and to refocus abbey national 's resources and attention on consumer banking . abbey national said today that new provisions for bad_loans this year would be ' 'materially above the previous guidance . '' it also said that it expected to take a charge of 500 million ( 776 million ) related to its insurance unit , scottish mutual , which like many competitors has suffered from the weak performance of its investment portfolio this year , especially in the stock_market . the bank 's share of new mortgage lending slipped to 7 percent in the first half from 9.6 percent in 2001 , according to bloomberg_news . though abbey national 's credit_rating remains strong , it is starting to erode standard_poor 's lowered it one notch in june and said on monday that it had reduced its outlook on abbey national to negative from stable , while fitch_ratings lowered it by one notch today . british bank stocks generally have fallen in price this year , but abbey national 's shares have been among the worst , losing more than one third of their value since peaking at 11 . 32 ( 17 . 57 ) in early may . the stock closed at 6 . 675 today , a gain of 4.5 percent . the bank 's weakened position has made it an attractive takeover_target , analysts say . in october , abbey national rejected an approach from the bank of ireland . it has also spurned overtures from the national australia bank and the lloyds tsb group .",has a topic of business
"in a blow to the struggling italian government , moody 's investor service yesterday downgraded the credit_rating of the country 's foreign currency obligations to an aa3 rating from aa1 . in addition , moody 's downgraded the bonds of the state owned electric company , enel , to aa1 from aaa . the issues were expected to be downgraded , but the reduction by two notches instead of one was a surprise . moody 's said the credit_rating was reduced because only a gradual reversal in italy 's weakened finances was expected , despite the formation of a new government in late june .",has a topic of business
"as europe deregulates its energy_market , italy wants to cash in . it will put on the block part of the former national energy company , enel s.p.a. , in an offering that values the utility at as much as 55 billion . starting on oct . 25 , the government will sell 19 . 8 percent of enel 's stock , or 2.4 billion shares , at a price of 3.4 euros and 4.3 euros , or 3 . 60 and 4 . 50 . in november , enel will be listed on the milan bourse and the new york stock_exchange . john_tagliabue world business briefing europe",has a topic of business
"an australian retail and merchant_bank , the macquarie bank , which already holds stakes in british and australian airports , bought a 44 . 7 percent stake in aeroporti di_roma , which controls the fiumicino and ciampino airports in rome , for 842 million australian dollars ( 472 million ) . the australian company bought the stake from leonardo holdings s.a . the italian airports handled 26 million passengers last year . john shaw ( nyt )",has a topic of business
"a week after the italian parliament enacted a 1997 budget intended to assure italy a place in europe 's single_currency , the government took the next step today , requesting a meeting of european officials on saturday to consider the re entry of the lira into the european_exchange_rate_mechanism . word of the decision , which was announced by prime_minister romano_prodi on a visit to sicily , came as sharp debate has erupted in france over the plan for a single_currency . the fiscal_discipline required by the plan has caused european governments to enact austerity_measures , and in recent weeks , the french government has come under increasing pressure as unemployment has mounted . the italian decision sent the lira and government_bonds surging in value today . the lira rose to 996 to the mark , after trading earlier in in the day at about 1 , 000 . it later fell back to 999 to the mark . mr . prodi , who said the lira 's re entry into the exchange_rate_mechanism ''was a matter of a few hours , or a few days , '' has a lot at stake . passage of the 1997 budget , which is intended to cut 41 billion from next year 's deficit , came only after bitter debate . to achieve passage , mr . prodi was forced to impose a one time tax on middle and upper level incomes , and despite a promise to pay a tax rebate in 1999 , the added tax provoked protest demonstrations last weekend . the government has called the measure a ''eurotax , '' implying that it was the price italy had to pay to remain economically and politically part of europe . the lira was taken out of the exchange_rate_mechanism in 1992 , when the currency was sharply devalued by a wave of speculation . its re entry will be more symbolic than real , given the 15 percent bands within which currencies may fluctuate under the present mechanism . still , the political rewards for italy will be a boost to italian prestige and an assurance that the nation is on track to be included in the plan for a single_currency , which is set to begin in 1999 . countries will qualify for the plan only if their currencies have been within the exchange_rate_mechanism for at least two years . as for the economic rewards of rejoining the mechanism , they will be mixed , at best . a stronger lira would exert downward pressure on prices in italy , enabling the central_bank to reduce interest rates further and bolster the economy by easing the strain on businesses that borrow . but it would also hamper italian exports , by raising the price in foreign currencies of italian goods . such an effect could further slow an already sluggish economy , given italy 's high reliance on export sales to keep factories running , a reliance that has only been heightened by sluggish consumer demand as a result of the government 's austerity policies . earlier this month , the european_commission lowered its forecast for italian growth this year to eight tenths of 1 percent , from 1.8 percent earlier . antonio_fazio , the director of the central_bank , predicted today that consumer price inflation in italy , which is now hovering at about 2.6 percent , would average out between 2 percent and 3 percent in 1997 . crucial to italian success in the european monetary committee the group of central_bank and government economists that is to decide the lira 's fate at a meeting in brussels on saturday will be rome 's ability to reach agreement with france over the exchange_rate at which the lira should be readmitted . mr . prodi said that he had talked by telephone with alain_juppe , the prime minister of france , and that mr . juppe had agreed that paris would not seek a rate lower than 1 , 000 lire to the german_mark . dollar stages a rally by the associated press the dollar rallied yesterday , helped by remarks by a top german monetary official who said that the dollar was undervalued and that germany 's economy was unlikely to rebound sharply in 1997 . new uncertainties over europe 's plan for a single_currency in 1999 hurt the german_mark against the italian_lira , though the dollar rose against both currencies . late yesterday in new york , the dollar was trading at 111 . 46 japanese_yen , up from 111 . 29 yen thursday . the dollar was at 1 . 5065 marks , up from 1 . 4980 , and was at 1 , 496 . 00 lire , up from 1 , 493 . 50 . the british_pound cost 1 . 6798 , down from a four year high of 1 . 6873 . traders said the dollar was bolstered early in the day when klaus dieter kuhbacher , president of germany 's regional central_bank in berlin , said that given the strength of the american economy , ''the dollar really should be better . '' the dollar also benefited indirectly from news that italy wants to re enter europe 's exchange_rate system . currency markets",has a topic of business
"lead the chase_manhattan corporation and gemina s.p.a. , an italian investment company , yesterday announced an agreement to create a 50 million to 100 million fund to make equity investments in leveraged_buyouts and other opportunities in italy . the chase_manhattan corporation and gemina s.p.a. , an italian investment company , yesterday announced an agreement to create a 50 million to 100 million fund to make equity investments in leveraged_buyouts and other opportunities in italy . the fund will concentrate on privately held middle size companies and will not participate in hostile_takeovers or in public companies . pressure on those companies to merge or expand is expected to become more intense as european trade_barriers are dropped in 1992 . gemina has assets of about 900 million , with investments in a wide variety of italian financial and industrial companies .",has a topic of business
"the italian economics minister , giulio tremonti , has called for the creation of a new government_agency to protect individual investors . in testimony before parliament on the bankruptcy of the italian dairy and food conglomerate parmalat , mr . tremonti criticized the existing regulators for not preventing the parmalat crisis . he described overhaul proposals that would include the creation of a regulatory_agency and that would change the responsibilities of the existing agencies , which include consob , the market regulator , and the bank of italy , the central_bank . eric sylver ( nyt )",has a topic of business
"it has become something of a tradition in italy . you build it , illegally , anywhere from the alps to sicily , and the italian government will come with a building amnesty that legalizes your extra story , beach cottage or country villa . there was an amnesty in 1985 , under prime_minister bettino_craxi , that was promised as a one time action for people who had violated zoning laws and built without the permission of the local authorities . in 1994 , during silvio_berlusconi 's first term as prime_minister , there was another , again with promises that it would never be repeated . and now , with mr . berlusconi back at the helm , there is a third building amnesty a chance for people to declare their sins , pay a small fee and absolve their illegal construction . the current amnesty is among the budget measures totaling 24 billion_euros that were approved by mr . berlusconi 's cabinet in late july and that are intended to keep the italian deficit this year under 3 percent of gross_domestic_product , the limit set by the european_union . under the amnesty , which began in october and has been extended twice , the government is selling chunks of italy 's cities , coastline and countryside for the 3.5 billion_euros ( 4 . 2 billion ) it expects to collect . people have until dec . 10 to apply . economists have joined environmental advocates and others even , at times , members of mr . berlusconi 's own coalition in criticizing the program , the first to allow people to legalize buildings on government owned land and protected habitats for an annual concession on top of the regular amnesty fee . ''one off measures like the building amnesty have been used by the berlusconi government as a way to avoid badly needed structural_reform of the labor market and pension system , '' said fabio scacciavillani , an independent , london based economist who advises hedge_funds and financial_institutions . ''one offs work to get over a temporary situation , but berlusconi has continued to use them while betting year after year on an economic_recovery that has n't materialized . '' the amnesty may not even do much to help this year 's budget . according to the latest figures available , applications for only 300 million_euros in amnesty fees had been submitted through march . a court case that called into question the amnesty 's legality made people shy away as did the court 's ruling , which said individual regions would have until november to set some terms of the amnesty . other one time measures used by mr . berlusconi include an amnesty that allowed people to pay a fee to repatriate profits from money invested abroad on which taxes had not been paid . the amnesties have not gone unnoticed beyond the country 's borders standard_poor 's recently lowered italy 's creditworthiness , citing the government 's use of such unsustainable measures . without the one off measures , the european_commission estimates , italy 's deficit last year would have been 4.4 percent of gross_domestic_product instead of the 2.4 percent it reported . ''every government makes use of one off measures , but not all the measures have the same future costs , '' said giuseppe pisauro , an economics professor at the university of perugia . ''the problem with tax and building amnesties , from an economic point of view , is that they lead to large future costs because compliance falls as people anticipate future amnesties . amnesties are like a license to kill . technically you are offering an amnesty for past behavior , but people begin to expect other amnesties and act accordingly . '' a spokesman for the economy ministry declined to comment on the building amnesty law and said no government officials were available to comment . illegal construction in italy rose 30 percent in 2003 , the year the berlusconi government began publicly discussing the most recent building amnesty , according to a report by the environmental group legambiente and the nonprofit research organization cresme , both based in rome . the number of illegal constructions rose 40 percent in the year leading up to the 1994 amnesty and almost 80 percent before the 1985 one , the report said . in 2003 , the report said , there were 40 , 000 building abuses 29 , 000 were new constructions and 11 , 000 were illegal additions . legambiente estimates there are about 400 , 000 illegal constructions in italy . ''amnesties lead to building anarchy and have been absolutely devastating for italy , '' said vittorio sgarbi , an art historian and the author of a book that denounces some of the country 's worst architectural eyesores . ''when you begin to resort to amnesties , there are no longer clear rules , and everything gets out of control . '' there are some spectacular examples of illegal building . among them are the more than 600 illegal constructions on public land in agrigento , on the southern sicilian coast in the valley of the temples , an archaeological park with the ruins of a 2 , 500 year old greek temple , according to wwf italia . one was built in the mid 1990 's by the mayor at the time , calogero sodano , who was convicted of encouraging and allowing illegal constructions in exchange for votes and sentenced to 18 months in prison . ( mr . sodano said at the time that the whole prosecution was politically_motivated . ) mr . sodano did not have to serve any time in jail because he had no previous convictions , and in 2001 , he was elected to italy 's senate , representing agrigento . though the authorities seized his house , it is still standing . in fact , illegal buildings are rarely demolished in italy . in sicily , where legambiente estimates there were more than 5 , 000 building abuses in 2003 , just one in every 100 illegal buildings is knocked down . arrests are even rarer . even fines are rare . ''people know their house wo n't get knocked down and they know they wo n't be fined , so they do whatever they want , '' said giuseppe arnone , a lawyer with legambiente in agrigento . sicily and three other southern regions campania , puglia and calabria have the most construction abuses and together account for 55 percent of the national total last year , according to legambiente . they are also home to italy 's strongest organized_crime networks , which often control the illegal building industry , the group said . near naples , campania 's capital , people have been building illegally on the slopes of mount vesuvius for 50 years on public land that is considered unsafe because of its proximity to the volcano . vesuvius has erupted on average about once every 50 years most recently in 1944 since it buried pompei in a.d . 79 . while the economy ministry will reap the economic benefits of the amnesty , the municipal governments must cover most of the costs for things like paved roads and street lighting . in many cases , the cost of providing the services exceeds what the people pay to legalize their construction , according to the association that represents italian municipalities . though the attempt by several of italy 's 20 regions to have the constitutional court overturn the amnesty law was unsuccessful , the court 's ruling in may , gave the regions some leeway in deciding how much to charge and how much area to allow to be legalized . they can charge 60 euros to 150 euros per cubic meter , or 35 cubic_feet , of illegal construction . as much as 750 cubic_meters can be legalized on a previously existing structure and 3 , 000 cubic_meters for a new structure . how the regions structure the amnesty will affect how many people take part , how much money is raised and ultimately how well italy complies with european_union budget rules , as well as how the shape of italy 's landscape will look in years to come . the amnesty 's opponents , naturally , have been busy pressing the regions to make their amnesty laws as restrictive as possible . ''the fact that few people have taken part in the amnesty is already a success , '' said stefano lenzi , the head of parliamentary affairs for wwf italia . ''but now we have to hope the regions and the municipalities do their part . ''",has a topic of business
"the pound slumps . the british_pound fell amid expectations the bank of england may have finished driving borrowing costs higher for now . in new york , the pound settled at 1 . 5022 , down from 1 . 5115 on wednesday .",has a topic of business
"abn_amro , the largest bank in the netherlands , succeeded monday in prying open italy 's almost impervious banking market with an agreement to buy 39 percent of antonveneta , a midsize bank in northeastern italy , for 3.2 billion_euros ( 3 . 86 billion ) . the agreement came 10 days after a tentative deal was reached and nine months after abn_amro set out to acquire the italian bank , a deal that forced abn_amro to circumvent a web of defenses erected by the head of italy 's central_bank , antonio_fazio , to prevent such a takeover . abn_amro already held 30 percent of antonveneta and the acquisition gives it a 69 percent stake , a_level that will set off an obligatory public tender_offer for the remaining 31 percent . despite abn_amro 's success , industry specialists said it would probably be some time before another foreign bank bought an italian rival . obstacles for foreigners trying to take over italian financial_institutions , including shareholders' pacts and antiquated bylaws , make some banks almost impossible to acquire . ''there has very clearly been a break with the past , but i would n't be so sure that this means the market will be more open to foreign banks , '' said alberto banfi , a professor of financial markets at catholic university in milan and a board member of banca_popolare di milano . ''the most important italian banks are publicly traded companies so they could , in theory , be bought , but the truth is that there are other factors that make takeovers very difficult . '' unicredito italiano , which is about to complete the acquisition of a german bank , is now big enough that it could become a target only of the largest banks in europe . banca_intesa and san_paolo imi , the next largest of italy 's banks , are protected by shareholders' pacts that do not expire for more than 18 months . italy 's fourth largest bank , capitalia , could be the next large takeover_target because its shareholders' pact expires in a year and there is no dominant investor , according to three analysts who spoke on condition that they not be named because their banks could be involved in future deals . capitalia 's largest shareholder is abn , which owns 9 percent of the rome based bank . abn 's chairman , rijkman groenink , said in a conference call monday that there were no plans to raise that stake in the near future . many other european banks have built up their shareholdings in italy in recent years , but have found the door closed when they tried to engineer a takeover . abn 's first offer to buy antonveneta failed when popolare_italiana made a higher bid despite its rocky finances . abn later turned to the courts when it seemed mr . fazio had favored popolare_italiana , whose bid then began to fall apart because of an investigation into possible market_manipulation and illegal collusion by the bank 's former chief executive .",has a topic of business
"a year and a half after the collapse of the italian food company parmalat , a judge in milan has convicted and sentenced 11 people on charges of market_manipulation , obstructing a regulatory investigation and falsifying audits . the sentences meted out on tuesday the first in the case ranged from 10 months to two and a half years . all 11 had made plea bargains and none are likely to spend time in prison nine of the sentences were suspended . the outcome is a victory for the milan prosecutors who investigated after parmalat fell into insolvency in december 2003 under billions of dollars in hidden debt and losses . judge cesare tacconi gave the longest sentence , two years and six months , to fausto tonna , a former chief_financial_officer . gian paolo zini , a lawyer who set up some offshore companies that were used to hide billions of dollars in debt and losses , was given two years . another judge will decide how they should serve their time . legal experts said they were likely to be given community_service . also convicted were two other former chief financial officers , luciano del soldato and alberto ferraris , as well as internal auditors and former board members . two of those sentenced are related to parmalat 's founder and former chairman , calisto_tanzi stefano tanzi , his son , and giovanni tanzi , his brother , both former board members . they were both sentenced to one year and 11 months in prison . the 11 people sentenced tuesday were among 16 indicted last week by judge tacconi . one of those indicted , calisto_tanzi , will go on trial sept . 28 in milan . judge tacconi refused his request for a plea_agreement . the cases are being tried in milan because that is where italy 's stock_market is based . in parma , where parmalat is based , prosecutors are investigating more serious crimes , like fraudulent bankruptcy , which carries a term of up to 20 years . no indictments have been issued in parma . ''whether justice has been served in the parmalat case will revolve around the trial in parma , '' said luca arnaboldi , the managing partner in italy for the law_firm of mcdermott will emery . ''that is where the technical issues of the bankruptcy will be examined , discussed and debated . '' prosecutors in parma , who are trying to link the tanzi family and others directly to the financial fraud that led to parmalat 's bankruptcy , have not said when they want to begin their trial . investors also have an interest . ''for the thousands of people who lost money because of the fraud at parmalat , the question is not how many months or years somebody spends in jail , but whether they manage to get some of their money back , '' said umberto mosetti , chief executive in italy for the investor advocacy_group deminor , which is based in brussels . deminor , which is representing parmalat shareholders and bondholders , is leading a class_action_lawsuit in new york against banks that worked with parmalat . parmalat collapsed in december 2003 when it was revealed that a bank account thought to hold about 5 billion did not exist . parmalat kept its finances hidden in the years before its collapse by working with more than 130 financial_institutions . some of those institutions are under investigation in milan and parma . in the year before its bankruptcy filing , the company 's debt rose about 2 billion . a few months after the filing , an independent auditor found that parmalat had doctored its accounts for more than a decade . international business",has a topic of business
"the belfast shipyard that gave the world the brief splendor of the titanic was itself foundering today with the jobs of more than 1 , 700 workers in jeopardy after it lost to a french rival in bidding to build the queen mary 2 , billed in advance as the world 's most prestigious ocean liner . the harland_wolff shipyard , founded 139 years ago , at one time ranked among the world 's prolific shipbuilders , with its work force reaching a peak of 35 , 000 in the 1950 's . during world_war_ii , it built a ship a week 140 naval vessels and 140 merchantmen . but today , with its order books all but empty , the shipyard faced possible closing after the cunard line , owned by the carnival corporation of miami , announced that it had agreed on a 700 million contract to build the queen mary 2 with chantiers de l'atlantique , a subsidiary of the engineering conglomerate alstom s.a . of france . with its two giant yellow cranes known as samson and goliath dominating the belfast skyline as one of the city 's best known landmarks , harland_wolff had already sensed that it would lose the bid . on wednesday its chief executive , brynjulv mugaas , notified the shipyard 's 1 , 745 workers that they could be laid off in 90 days , sending a chill through the northern_ireland economy and deepening the gloom in the british administered province from the failure to date of attempts at reconciliation and self government . indeed , when the layoff warnings were issued , a local business leader , david bleakley , found evocations in the vessel that haunted the shipyard 's reputation as the world 's busiest cruise_ship builder in the early 20th_century the supposedly unsinkable titanic , which went down on its maiden voyage in 1912 . the layoff warnings , he said , were ''only the tip of what could become a very dangerous iceberg for the northern_ireland economy . '' the yard 's impact on northern irish life , though , has for decades gone beyond economics . situated in predominantly protestant east belfast , and with a strongly protestant work force , it was long regarded as an emblem of domination of the province 's public life by those supporting ties with britain and opposing the irish republican movement . in the early 70 's , a strike by its workers was seen as an important reason britain ended an experiment in self rule for the province an experiment that was not to be repeated until accords last year created the local administration suspended last month in disagreement over the maintaining of weapons by the irish_republican_army . such political problems have not helped the prospects for the shipyard , which has been in decline for two decades . it had based its hopes on securing a deal for the queen mary 2 , which cunard has said will be the biggest cruise vessel ever built at 1 , 100 feet , with 1 , 300 crew members serving 2 , 500 passengers . cunard spoke of ''a majestic trans_atlantic ship recalling the grandeur and sumptuousness of the titanic . '' the queen mary 2 would be cunard 's first new ship in 30 years , surpassing in style and size its current flagship , the queen elizabeth 2 . cunard has said that the new vessel , to be launched in 2003 , would be ' 'strikingly different from modern hotels on the water . '' the original queen mary , launched in 1934 , was retired from service in 1967 and is now a floating exhibit and hotel in the harbor at long_beach , calif . harland_wolff has not built a cruise liner since the p. o . canberra almost 40 years ago , and its defeat in this latest competition reflects the fierce struggle for business among european shipbuilders , fighting over an ever dwindling share of the market left to them by asian yards . in recent years , harland_wolff , owned by fred olsen energy of norway , had been focusing on building vessels for the offshore oil industry . the last order on its books is due for completion this summer and , while it is bidding for orders from the british defense ministry and shell oil , it has no work to offer its employees later this year . some officials in northern_ireland sought to play down the impact of the yard 's problems , arguing that , as in many other parts of the world , high technology businesses are supplanting old economy activities like shipbuilding . ''we are not exempt from that , '' a government official , anne morrow , said . thus , said a spokesman for northern_ireland 's industrial development board , the principal government_agency seeking domestic investment , while 1 , 745 jobs may be lost at the shipyard , 1 , 000 jobs have been promised this year alone by canadian and japanese companies setting up internet and telecommunications related businesses . ''it used to be the shipyard was the biggest employer , '' the spokesman said . ''now , the biggest companies are high tech . '' at the same time , the spokesman said , the loss of the jobs at the shipyard would be a ''big blow'' to a province economy that has sought to wrest itself from the doldrums as the politicians have moved toward peace . part of the revival has come from investment from outside companies including microsoft , fujitsu of japan and nortel_networks of canada . according to official figures , that has produced foreign investment totaling some 640 million since the beginning of 1998 . indeed , province officials say that northern_ireland has become the fastest growing region in britain , with unemployment sinking to 6.6 percent last month from a high of 17 . 2 percent in 1986 , slightly above britain 's national average but lower than in some of the country 's deeply depressed regions . not surprisingly , the loss of the cunard contract inspired a bitter response from harland_wolff , which said that the british_government had failed to devise an adequate financing package to satisfy cunard . mr . mugaas , the chief executive , said london did not take advantage of european_union regulations permitting loans and financial support to shipbuilders . ''the impact this has on the ability of the u.k . shipbuilding industry to compete for major projects , '' he said , ''is now clear and needs to be urgently addressed if there is to be a future for our industry in the united_kingdom . '' prime_minister tony_blair rejected the criticism , saying ''we did everything we could . we are looking at what other help and assistance we can give , but we did everything we legitimately could . '' larry pimentel , cunard 's chief executive , said in a telephone interview from miami that the winning french bidders seemed to have more up to date experience on bidding for big cruise liner contracts . but he denied that the politics of northern_ireland had been a consideration . ''it was strictly a bottom line economic decision , '' he said . nonetheless , he , too , joined the argument over the way the deal had evolved , saying it was only aggressive lobbying by john prescott , britain 's deputy prime_minister , who once worked as a cruise line steward , that had made the belfast yard a contender . rather than be bogged down in the ''awful lot of commiseration that 's going on , '' he said , harland_wolff should build on the fact that it was a finalist though it had not built a cruise_ship for some 40 years . ''i would say that this has been a learning experience , and not only for harland_wolff , '' he said . and he found a sports metaphor to make his point that one defeat need not mean the end of the line for the belfast yard . ''if you were in a football match and one team scored a goal , would you stop booting the ball about ? '' mr . pimentel said . ''i would say go for the ball . ''",has a topic of business
"italy 's banking landscape was reshuffled this week as banca_di_roma , italy 's second largest bank in terms of assets , announced that it would acquire control of banca_nazionale dell'agricoltura in a transaction valued at 625 million . the merger would create italy 's largest bank . investors reacted unenthusiastically to the announcement , which came late thursday . today , banca_di_roma shares closed at 1 , 760 lire ( 1 . 10 ) , down 57 lire , on the milan stock_exchange . the acquisition , which had been rumored for some time , is the latest move among italy 's fragmented banks to consolidate and expand as changing laws and foreign entries open the banking sector long marked by government involvement and gross inefficiency to growing competition . last november , banca_commerciale_italiana acquired control of banco_ambrosiano veneto for 1 . 13 billion . faced with continuing growth among the powerful banks of northern_italy , banca_di_roma , with its base primarily in the central portion of the country , has been looking for areas of expansion . banca_nazionale dell'agricoltura , which is based in rome , is italy 's 13th largest bank and one of the weakest . the bank has been under surveillance by the bank of italy , the central_bank , because of operating losses and a thin capital base . agricoltura reported net losses in the first half of 1994 totaling 18 . 5 million , with the amount of its nonperforming_loans rising nearly 1 percent , to 564 million . "" the central_bank was glad to see this wedding , "" said marco nascimbeni , who follows banking at carnegie international in milan . "" it was a way to get rid of problems at agricoltura . "" banca_di_roma said it would pay the equivalent of 326 million to acquire a controlling stake in bonifiche siele s.p.a. , a bank_holding_company that owns agricoltura , from count giovanni auletta armenise , the 63 year old bank president . it said it would make a public_offering for remaining shares that are spread among institutional and individual investors . banca_di_roma has 95 . 4 billion of assets and was formed in 1992 from the merger of two smaller banking companies , banco_di roma and banco_di spirito santo . the banks and their executives were long considered close to italy 's political establishment , which is linked with the old christian democratic_party and the roman_catholic_church hierarchy . giorgio coari , an analyst at the milan brokerage_firm of caboto s.i.m. , said the drop in banca_di_roma 's share price reflected agricoltura 's "" three or four hard years , "" as well as its "" inefficiency , personnel costs and low productivity . "" but mr . nascimbeni said the price that banca_di_roma paid represented a substantial discount , even with a premium . a price based on agricoltura 's market_capitalization , plus a 30 percent premium , he said , would have amounted to about 1 . 25 billion , or roughly double what banca_di_roma agreed to pay . company news",has a topic of business
"in stark confirmation that britain is in the grip of recession , government statistics showed on wednesday that the economy fell by 1.2 percent in the third quarter . it was the biggest fall since 1980 . the decline in gross_domestic_product , which measures the total value of goods and services produced in the period , compared with a rise of four tenths of a percent in the second quarter . the most widely accepted definition of recession is two consecutive quarters of economic decline . economists widely predict that the fourth_quarter will also show a contraction .",has a topic of business
"lead italy is planning to borrow 1 billion in the international bond_market , according to sources among dealers and bankers . italy is planning to borrow 1 billion in the international bond_market , according to sources among dealers and bankers . the bond issue would be among the largest ever in the 3 . 5 trillion annual market for eurobonds bonds issued outside the country in whose currency they are denominated . ''the whole market has gone wild talking about this , '' one eurobond dealer said . italian officials could not be reached for comment . dealers said that italy regularly borrowed money through the eurobond market and had a 1 billion issue outstanding . if it plans to refinance at a lower rate , the new issue could mean a cost saving rather than a rise in indebtedness . this issue could be called for early redemption next month , the dealers said , noting that current interest rates on bonds could allow italy to arrange a complex financial deal that would reduce its borrowing cost . finance new issues",has a topic of business
"moving fast to protect his company 's dominance in the lottery industry , guy b . snowden , the chairman of the gtech holdings corporation , resigned yesterday , one day after a british jury found that he had committed libel in connection with an effort to win a contract to operate britain 's national_lottery . mr . snowden 's resignation came after a libel case in london involving richard_branson , the head of virgin_group p.l.c . when mr . branson publicly accused mr . snowden of trying to bribe him into withdrawing from the competition for the lucrative contract to operate britain 's lottery , mr . snowden denied it . mr . branson then contended that mr . snowden had committed libel by calling him a liar . in addition to finding that mr . snowden had libeled mr . branson , the jury also awarded about 100 , 000 , or 164 , 700 , to mr . branson . although mr . snowden , who over two decades built gtech into the world 's largest supplier of computerized lottery products and services , was not accused of any criminal_wrongdoing , the jury 's decision in the civil trial has caused concern among the directors of some state lotteries in the united_states , who rigorously try to avoid doing business with any companies or individuals with backgrounds deemed dubious . the aftermath of the libel verdict was reflected yesterday in gtech 's shares , which fell 1 . 50 , to 27 . 50 , a 52 week low , in heavy trading . ''we 're going to examine the libel manner and examine the contracts that we have with gtech , '' said dan emmer , a spokesman for new jersey 's treasury department . new jersey , one of 29 states , including new york , where gtech supplies and operates lottery systems , has a contract with the company that expires in 2001 . in iowa , where gtech 's contract is scheduled to expire that same year , regulators said that they were somewhat relieved by mr . snowden 's resignation but that they were still seeking additional information . ''there are still some things about the case we 'd like to check to be sure the situation is in compliance with our contract , '' said joseph hrdlicka , a spokesman for the iowa lottery . iowa pays gtech 4 . 5 million a year to assist in operating its lottery , which had 173 million in sales in 1997 . lottery sales in the united_states in 1996 totaled 42 . 9 billion , according to international gaming and wagering business , a trade publication . gtech , which has about 70 percent of the worldwide lottery business and had 1997 revenue of 904 million , has been investigated in several states , but no wrongdoing has ever been found . ''with state sponsored gambling , you can never have problems in the area of ethics and integrity , '' said bruce turner , a gaming industry analyst at salomon_smith_barney . ''the bright_lights of scrutiny have been turned on . '' from gtech 's headquarters in west greenwich , r.i. , across the atlantic to london , the fallout from monday 's verdict was immense . in addition to mr . snowden 's resignation , britain 's top lottery regulator , peter davis , was also forced to step down for his role in awarding the contract to operate britain 's lottery , the world 's largest . during the three week trial , mr . davis testified that he awarded the operating license to a consortium that included gtech despite having reservations about the tactics the company had used to secure contracts in the united_states . mr . branson did move forward with his bid for the lottery contract during the 1993 competition , but it was eventually won by camelot , a consortium dominated by gtech , which holds a 22 . 5 percent stake . on monday , mr . snowden , 52 , said he would resign from camelot 's board and gtech 's british subsidiary . but by yesterday , with united_states lottery officials expressing concern , he was forced to retire from the parent company . he was replaced by william y . o'connor , who will continue as president and chief_executive_officer . ''i am confident that the company is well prepared to put this situation behind us , '' mr . o'connor said in a statement . with mr . snowden resigning , gtech is planning to stay in the camelot consortium , which accounts for one of its largest individual contracts . however , mr . branson has suggested that a new lottery regulator should consider canceling the company 's license . in the united_states , where the company is facing the potential loss of its contract in texas , industry analysts were concerned more business could be lost . ''this is a business that 's been so fraught with allegations of scandals , '' said jason ader , a gaming analyst at bear , stearns company . ''i 've always been concerned that one morning i 'd come in and read about some scandal that came to fruition and resulted in a management shake up like this . ''",has a topic of business
"a key shareholder syndicate in italy 's troubled olivetti group , led by the chairman , carlo de benedetti , broke up yesterday a significant move in a country where such pacts control many top companies . the syndicate , controlled by mr . de benedetti 's cir s.p.a . holding group , had just under 20 percent of olivetti 's stock , and its demise could weaken the chairman 's position at the company , which he has controlled for nearly two decades . a spokesman for cir said the dissolution was requested because the syndicate 's stake in olivetti had been seriously devalued by the company 's huge public stock offering last september . the group included italy 's top merchant_bank , mediobanca italy 's largest private_bank , instituto bancario san_paolo di torino , and the tire maker pirelli s.p.a . olivetti 's stock slumped for a third consecutive day yesterday , falling 1.4 percent , to 914 . 2 lire ( 57 cents ) . ( reuters ) international briefs",has a topic of business
"abitibi price inc . , the canadian newsprint producer based in toronto , said it would close about 200 , 000 metric_tons of its production capacity in 1991 , possibly taking one of its newsprint mills out of service . analysts said abitibi price had about 1.9 million_metric_tons of capacity , or 12 percent of the north_american newsprint market . a number of newsprint companies have announced temporary shutdowns to reduce inventories and strengthen prices . newsprint demand has been slack because of declines in newspaper advertising and more foreign competition . company news",has a topic of business
"american_airlines and british_airways formally announced their plans yesterday for a broad marketing alliance , setting off sharp criticism from competitors and raising questions about the likelihood of their partnership winning approval from government regulators in both countries . in addition , their announcement left unanswered the question of what would become of british_airways' current marketing link with usair , which would be eclipsed by the new alliance with american . officials of american and british_airways indicated yesterday that they planned to begin joint marketing of their flights in april 1997 , creating , they said , more choices for consumers to travel more conveniently over the route networks of two airlines . to carry out their plan which includes selling seats on each other 's flights and sharing the profit from some 3 . 5 billion in revenue from their combined service over the atlantic they would require antitrust immunity from the united states department of transportation , but not from the british , whose laws are less restrictive on antitrust issues . the airlines' plan would also require the united_states and british governments to renegotiate and loosen their long restrictive aviation agreement , replacing it with a so called open_skies accord . the united_states has struck such an agreement with 11 other european_countries , but britain has remained a holdout . executives at both airlines said yesterday they were confident that they would win the required approvals for their alliance by november . but their proposal has already generated controversy because of the combined market power of american and british_airways , two large and profitable airlines whose combined route networks , including alliances with carriers like qantas , would reach most continents . the two airlines currently provide 58 percent of the flights between the united_states and britain . by comparison , united_airlines , a unit of the ual corporation , and lufthansa already have a similar alliance that accounts for 39 percent of flights between the united_states and germany . american is also only one of two united_states carriers united is the other that is formally authorized to fly into london 's heathrow_airport , the world 's busiest international hub , under an aviation agreement signed by washington and london 50 years ago . although an open_skies agreement would allow others to fly to heathrow , using their own aircraft , the airport is at full capacity . that makes it unlikely for this deal to satisfy the concerns of all airlines and governments in each country . delta_air_lines , for example , described as "" frightening "" the market dominance of an allied american_airlines and british_airways . a company spokesman said that delta would need "" meaningful access "" to heathrow before it went along with the plan . delta and others are expected to file their concerns with the justice_department , whose ruling on the proposed alliance would carry the weight of a recommendation to the department of transportation . the transportation department . , which will rule on whether the proposal is anticompetitive , has said that it will require additional and "" commercially_viable "" access to heathrow for other united_states carriers . but robert l . crandall , chairman of the amr_corporation , american_airlines' parent company , said that any slots for takeoffs and landings would not come from american or british_airways , and that slots at heathrow would be a make or break issue for the proposed alliance . "" if we are expected to give up slots , this deal will not happen , "" he said . jon f . ash , a managing director at global aviation associates , a washington consulting_firm , said yesterday that if mr . crandall was unwavering in his stance , "" this is going to be a tough battle . "" an american british_airways partnership would be the latest major airline alliance between united_states and european companies . other deals include those between northwest and klm , united and lufthansa , and delta 's alliances with virgin_atlantic , sabena , swissair and austrian airlines . british_airways' alliance with usair has been in place for several years , with the british carrier owning 24 . 6 percent of its smaller partner . american and british_airways officials said that their plan did not affect the usair alliance , and that a new role for usair might evolve in coming months . usair said that yesterday 's proposal "" has the potential to provide usair with the ability to pursue new and positive opportunities . "" it did not elaborate , adding only that it would act in the best interests of its shareholders , employees and customers . usair executives have said that one of their strategies is to expand the airline 's international network . industry analysts predicted yesterday that usair would use the announcement as a reason to dissolve its marketing alliance with british_airways and to fly more international routes on its own . "" the british_airways american_airlines alliance probably severs the connection permanently , "" said mark ray , who manages a transportation bond portfolio for john_hancock financial_services . industry analysts have said that the relationship with usair has grown lopsided as it evolved . some analysts have suggested that british_airways has benefited more from usair 's vast domestic network than usair has gained from british_airways' international routes , generating an additional 300 million in revenue for british_airways and a fraction of that for usair .",has a topic of business
"baa , the british airport operator , faced continued criticism on tuesday for its handling of strict new security procedures , with passengers and airline executives asking why the company did not hire temporary workers to meet the heavy demand for security checks . the airlines said the baa should have had an adequate contingency_plan to deal with such emergencies . but a baa spokesman , duncan bonfield , said the logistics of such a contingency_plan made it unfeasible . to deal immediately with the demand created by the additional security measures , mr . bonfield said , baa would have to have 6 , 000 security guards standing by . that is not possible , he said , because it would be unreasonable to expect that many temporary workers to be available at a moment 's notice . ''that 's like asking the united_states_army to keep enough troops on hand for world war iii , '' he said . in addition , training new security personnel and getting them cleared by the british_government takes seven to eight weeks , he added . the new owner of baa , the spanish conglomerate grupo ferrovial , has declined to comment since the problems started . some analysts said the baa decision not to have additional security personnel was a financial , not a logistical , one . critics said that because of baa 's limited ability to pass any additional costs on to the airlines , it had no real incentive to spend money . ''there is nothing to stop baa from saying , 'we will employ 10 , 000 more security people , ' '' a spokesman for the civil_aviation authority , jonathan nicholson , said . the agency oversees the airline_industry . as the owner and manager of the largest airports in britain , baa charges airlines a per passenger fee to cover items like security and landing charges . at heathrow , for example , that charge is 6 , or about 11 . 35 , per passenger per flight . those fees are set every five years , when the civil_aviation authority consults with baa and the airlines that use its airports . the fees fluctuate according to the retail price index , but cannot be changed otherwise , meaning there is little flexibility built into baa 's budget . if the government imposes new security measures , as was the case last week , baa can recoup only some of the cost from airlines and then only if it reaches a certain cost threshold . at heathrow , for example , once baa has spent 12 million on the newly imposed security measures , it can ask the airlines to pay for 75 percent of the cost above that amount . at gatwick , the deductible is 6 million . in the meantime , airlines on tuesday threatened to try to recover some of the payments made to the airport operator , as well as additional expenses related to canceled flights . as part of its contract , if baa cannot get a certain percentage of passengers through security in a certain time regardless of extra government imposed security measures baa is required to refund part of the fee paid by airlines . in the six months from october 2005 until march of this year , baa paid back airlines more than 1 million for delays at heathrow alone . international business",has a topic of business
"lead did you know that armando testa advertising is the biggest native italian agency ? did you know that armando testa advertising is the biggest native italian agency ? more important , did you know it has had an office in new york for the last three years ? it 's an understandibly small unit , about 10 people , half of them americans . they are all tucked into a penthouse with a space_station decor 48 floors up at 10 east 40th street . it 's been sort of a creative cocoon that they have decided to break out of . up to now , under the direction of giacomo boggetto , executive vice_president and chief executive , and alberto baccari , vice_president and creative director , the new york office has been working on behalf of three clients from the home_office , and one unaffiliated italian client . now , with the aid of anna morris , a business development consultant with a lovely english accent , they are determined to extend themselves into an arena populated by american companies that make italian style or even european style products in the united_states . mr . boggetto believes that americans consume 2 . 5 billion worth of such products annually while the marketers are spending some 300 million to promote it . at the heart of their effort is a truly huge brochure , 19 1 4 inches by 27 1 2 , the cover of which features a tight shot of the smiling face of mona lisa with the tasteful headline , ''armando testa the world 's largest italian ad agency . '' inside is the story of the agency and examples of its work . it is obviously an expensive publishing undertaking and its distribution is being limited to the decision makers in only about 40 american companies . armando testa is promising companies to adhere to italian traditions while making them understandable to the american market . and mr . baccari is promising to give them ''bold communications'' in the testa tradition . frank iorio , a native new yorker , is director of client services . the expansion at the 40 year old company is the result of activity on the part of second generation management , primarily andrea gavotto , who is 37 years old and head of the international operation . he is working closely with marco testa , 36 , who is the equivalent of president . marco is the son of armando testa , 73 , the chairman , mr . gavotto is related to francesco de barberis , 74 , the vice chairman . the senior testa is a well known graphics artist , whose works were shown at the parsons school of design last june . just after world_war_ii he was running what amounted to a one man boutique that specialized in advertising posters . it was n't until more than five years later , when mr . de barberis , a marketing man , came along that a serious agency began to develop . this year it should bill about 240 million , which will make it second in size among all agencies in italy to america 's mccann_erickson , a unit of interpublic group of companies . unlike the united_states agencies congregated in milan , the testa shop began in turin , where it still has its headquarters . it did n't open an office in milan until 1983 , and that opened the gates . an office in rome followed a year ago a barcelona operation was added . after that came new york . later this month paris will see the distinctive at logotype . the media business advertising",has a topic of business
"for many companies , 2001 was a dismal year for profits , but not for innovative products . the makers of packaged goods churned out a record number of new products during the year some more useful than others . remember peanut_butter and jelly slices ? how about hot pink margarine ? marketing intelligence service in naples , n.y. , which tracks new products worldwide and lists them on its web_site , www . productscan . com , said 32 , 025 food , beverage , health , beauty , household and pet products were introduced 2 percent more than the previous record , in 2000 . the company said 7 percent of the new products last year earned its innovation rating , which means they offered ''breakthrough features or benefits'' in areas like packaging , technology and merchandising . here are a few of them campbell 's soup to sip microwaveable soup , which comes in a cup that looks like a travel mug for coffee . p . j . squares peanut_butter jelly slices , which are packaged like american cheese slices . one half of the slice is peanut_butter the other is jelly . parkay fun squeeze colored margarine , in colors of blue and pink in a squeeze container , from conagra foods . the product is among an increasing number of foods geared toward children . american woman tri color 3 in 1 nail color , a nail polish that changes colors , from american woman cosmetics . a change in the wearer 's mood supposedly changes the nail color from the original to one of two others . vivian marino business diary",has a topic of business
"in an effort to secure a fast track trial , milan prosecutors will be racing to meet a march 19 deadline with indictments against as many as 27 people connected to the implosion of parmalat . court documents obtained by the new york times show that parmalat 's top executives , some of whom are already behind bars , and many of its board members will be charged with manipulating the company 's stock price , obstructing an investigation by italy 's market regulator , and falsifying accounts at its foreign units . prosecutors did not rule out even more indictments . a trio of milan prosecutors , who have conducted hundreds of hours of interrogations over nearly three months , have until march 19 to file charges if they want to try to get an immediate trial , one that speeds the lengthy preliminary_hearing stage . but according to legal experts , even a fast track trial would probably not begin before june . the people who will be indicted include parmalat 's founder , calisto_tanzi , and three of the company 's former chief financial officers fausto tonna , luciano del soldato and alberto ferraris , a person close to the investigation said . three parmalat internal auditors , four external auditors , a company lawyer and a consultant will also be charged , the person close to the investigation said . some of those who will be accused including mr . tanzi and mr . tonna have been in prison since late december . other people not named in the documents may also be charged ahead of the march 19 deadline , the person close to the inquiry said . prosecutors in parma , where parmalat is based , are carrying out a separate investigation that is expected to lead to indictments of many of the same people . the milan investigation began on dec . 19 , the day it became known that a bank of america account that parmalat said held 3.9 billion_euros ( 4 . 8 billion ) did not exist . since then , pricewaterhousecoopers , which was hired by parmalat 's government appointed administrator , has restated the company 's results for the last two years . the auditing firm also said that parmalat owes 14 . 3 billion_euros , eight times more than was reported by the previous management , which was led by mr . tanzi and mr . tonna . to be granted a fast track trial , italian prosecutors must prove to a judge that they have collected enough evidence to warrant an immediate trial . in the court document , the prosecutors listed 142 pieces of evidence including interrogations of mr . tanzi and others , bank documents and pricewaterhousecoopers 's report on parmalat 's finances to support their request . many of the documents the prosecutors are presenting were obtained in searches conducted by italy 's financial police in the milan offices of several banks . the milan prosecutors are investigating the roles played by bank of america , citigroup , morgan_stanley , ubs , deutsche_bank , banca_popolare di lodi and nextra , the fund management arm of banca_intesa . the court document says that stefano tanzi , son of calisto_tanzi , will be among those charged , as will calisto 's brother , giovanni . gian paolo zini , a lawyer who set up some of the offshore companies that were used to hide billions of dollars in debt and losses , will be charged , as will two employees of grant_thornton 's former italian unit . grant_thornton audited parmalat in the decade up to 1999 and then continued to audit some of the company 's offshore units where most of the fraud took place . two employees from deloitte touche tohmatsu , which began auditing parmalat in 1999 , will be among those charged , the document said . the two employees , adolfo mamoli and giuseppe rovelli , declined to to be questioned this week in milan . luca sala , a former employee of bank of america who last year began working for parmalat , will be charged with manipulating parmalat 's share price . lawyers representing calisto_tanzi , stefano tanzi and mr . tonna did not return calls seeking comment on the imminent indictments . deloitte on tuesday said that mr . mamoli and mr . rovelli had not committed any crime . mr . sala , mr . del soldato and mr . zini could not be reached for comment . parmalat on thursday said that it had lined up 105 . 8 million_euros ( 129 million ) in financing . the money will help cover costs of daily operations and is being loaned by 19 italian banks , many of which are already owed money by parmalat , and by deutsche_bank .",has a topic of business
"italy 's gross_domestic_product contracted five tenths of 1 percent in the second quarter from the first and grew five tenths of a percent from a year earlier . the state statistics institute istat said italy was ''on a threshold between growth and recession . '' it said the export boom that lifted italy 's economy in the last few years might be ending . italy 's economy grew 3 percent last year , one of the fastest growth rates among major economies . for this year , most economists expect a growth rate of about 1 percent . economists said yesterday that weak numbers , while strengthening the case for lower interest rates , were unlikely to play a major factor in convincing the bank of italy to cut its discount_rate . ( bloomberg business news ) international briefs",has a topic of business
"lead dofasco inc . , which acquired a rival last year to become canada 's largest steelmaker , plans to exploit its enlarged production capacity to penetrate overseas markets . with raw product from its algoma steel corporation subsidiary , dofasco is increasing exports of hot rolled steel to take advantage of strong foreign prices , its president , paul dofasco inc . , which acquired a rival last year to become canada 's largest steelmaker , plans to exploit its enlarged production capacity to penetrate overseas markets . with raw product from its algoma steel corporation subsidiary , dofasco is increasing exports of hot rolled steel to take advantage of strong foreign prices , its president , paul phoenix , said in a interview . while shipments to the united_states , dofasco 's single largest export market , are expected to remain steady in 1989 , higher overseas sales to countries like thailand and the philippines will push export sales over last year 's 480 million , he said . company news",has a topic of business
"giancarlo parretti , a flamboyant former hollywood mogul with longstanding international arrest_warrants hanging over him for convictions on perjury and other frauds , was arrested today near orvieto , a medieval hilltop town about 70 miles north of rome . mr . parretti , 58 , an italian financier who engineered a 1 . 3 billion takeover of metro goldwyn mayer inc . in 1990 and was later accused of nearly driving it into financial ruin , was taken into custody by italian_police while at a weight_loss farm outside orvieto , his italian lawyer said . orvieto police , who arrested mr . parretti on a request for extradition from the united_states , said a court in orvieto must decide within the next 96 hours whether mr . parretti may be detained until a hearing can be held on the extradition request . manlio morcella , mr . parretti 's lawyer , said by telephone that the court could order mr . parretti held if it suspected he might flee , a suspicion he said would be ''excessive . '' the police had first rung the bell of mr . parretti 's home in orvieto , where he had been living apparently unnoticed in italy 's olive growing region , before they were alerted to his exact whereabouts . their relatively easy apprehension of the fugitive financier , mr . morcella said , made it ''absurd'' to believe he would seek flight . mr . parretti 's arrest comes about one month after german police arrested martin r . frankel , a connecticut money manager whom the american authorities have accused of embezzling money from insurance_companies . mr . frankel is in a hamburg jail awaiting possible extradition . but while mr . frankel had been the target of a four month trans_atlantic manhunt , mr . parretti had been on the run for almost three years . he fled the united_states for italy before he could be sentenced on a conviction of perjury and tampering with evidence in a delaware court . mr . parretti is also sought for extradition by the french , after a court in paris convicted him in march on corruption charges and sentenced him in absentia to four years in prison and a 165 , 000 fine . exactly how mr . parretti fled the united_states remains a mystery . it also was still unclear tonight how long italian_police had been hunting for mr . parretti or when the united_states had sought his extradition . but by skipping the country , he joined a band of rogue financiers like marc d . rich and robert vesco . and indeed , the ins and outs of mr . parretti 's legal scuffles on both sides of the atlantic could provide grist for a john grisham novel . for one thing is certain mr . parretti left behind legal battles in several countries . in november 1990 , mr . parretti had acquired mgm , with help from loans raised by the big french bank , credit_lyonnais , which was later crushed by billions of dollars of bad debt and had to be bailed out by the french government . within months of mr . parretti 's purchase of mgm , its creditors went to court complaining that they were not getting paid . several months later , credit_lyonnais removed mr . parretti from mgm 's board , accusing him of gross mismanagement , and had its action validated by a state court in delaware , where mgm is incorporated . after a litany of lawsuits and countersuits mr . parretti was convicted in 1996 in delaware of perjury and tampering with evidence in the court trial in which credit_lyonnais asserted its control of mgm . but before mr . parretti could be sentenced , he fled the united_states . earlier , in a case before a federal court in california , mr . parretti had been seeking to avoid extradition to france to face criminal_charges there that he had looted credit_lyonnais . in seeking to avoid extradition to france , mr . parretti had posted bail in california . one condition of the bail agreement was that if mr . parretti jumped bail , he could be ruled in default in yet a third lawsuit , a civil case in yet another california court . in that suit , mr . parretti and credit_lyonnais were suing each other over his dismissal from mgm 's board . in 1997 , the judge in that case ruled for credit_lyonnais , citing the bail condition and the fact that mr . parretti was a fugitive . the court ordered mr . parretti to pay credit_lyonnais damages totaling 1 . 4 billion . jay m . coggan , an attorney in beverly_hills , calif . , who represented mr . parretti in the delaware case , said the court in delaware was ''extremely interested in his return . '' mr . coggan said he received inquiries from the court about every three months regarding mr . parretti 's whereabouts . he said that , by court order , he remained mr . parretti 's attorney in delaware .",has a topic of business
"lead texas instruments said it would build a 250 million semiconductor fabrication plant in avezzano , italy , about 65 miles east of rome , to supply the european semiconductor market . the plant will begin production of integrated circuit wafers , including dynamic random access memory chips , in late 1990 . texas instruments said it would build a 250 million semiconductor fabrication plant in avezzano , italy , about 65 miles east of rome , to supply the european semiconductor market . the plant will begin production of integrated circuit wafers , including dynamic random access memory chips , in late 1990 . the new operation is expected to employ about 500 when it reaches full production in 1991 . texas instruments will use the wafers manufactured in avezzano at its assembly plant in rieti , 35 miles to the north , where it has had semiconductor operations for 20 years . in 1987 , the technology company reported sales of 967 million for its european operations , the majority of which was in semiconductors , a company spokesman said . company news",has a topic of business
"the dutch bank abn_amro bid 6.3 billion_euros ( 8 . 1 billion ) to buy banca antonveneta of italy . abn , which is based in amsterdam , bid 25 euros ( 32 . 30 ) a share for the 87 percent of antonveneta that it does not already own . antonveneta , which ranks among the 10 biggest banks in italy with 1 , 000 branches , is based in padua and has a strong foothold in the northeastern part of the country . the bid is subject to approval by antonio_fazio , left , governor of the bank of italy . mr . fazio has blocked such proposals in the past , but he has been told by the european_union to open the country to foreign investors . on tuesday , banco bilbao vizcaya argentaria of spain offered to buy banca_nazionale del lavorno , based in rome , for 8 . 5 billion in a stock deal . eric_sylvers ( nyt )",has a topic of business
"as it hovered near bankruptcy , alitalia , italy 's flagship air carrier , gave some hints on tuesday of a turnaround plan that it referred to as a ''hypothesis , '' as the government considered offering tax breaks to the entire airline_industry . after ruling out a sale of alitalia two months ago , prime_minister silvio_berlusconi is weighing a decree to offer tax breaks to all airlines operating in italy . in addition , the decree would give airlines access to a government program that lets companies lay off employees with the government picking up most of their salary for several years . though the plan does not specifically mention alitalia , the flagship would stand to benefit most as it has half the air travel market in italy . the government is hoping to give alitalia some breathing room , but it is also betting that it can get european_union approval for the plan by broadening it to include all airlines , thus avoiding accusations of illegal aid to government owned companies . alitalia is 62 percent owned by the government and has lost money in three of the last four years . the european_commission has already begun scrutinizing the italian government 's not yet official plan for the airline sector and the commission 's president , romano_prodi , himself italian , has raised doubts that it is legal . a minister from the berlusconi government attributed mr . prodi 's response to political rivalry . alitalia aspires to join the air_france klm merger , but those airlines have said that alitalia could join only if the italian government significantly reduced its stake , something mr . berlusconi has ruled out . the plan alitalia presented on tuesday was light on financial details , as it was not yet clear whether the tax decree would materialize and how negotiations with its roughly 10 unions would end , the airline said . alitalia did say that it expects its revenues to increase 30 percent by 2006 from 4.4 billion_euros ( 5 . 2 billion ) last year . the airline also planned to increase capacity by 12 percent a year through 2006 and said it would seek to deepen its commercial alliance with air_france . the government 's decision on the decree could come this week . alitalia lost 511 million_euros ( 608 million ) in 2003 , an amount that was more than a third the value of the airline 's assets . in italy , that is the cutoff point at which a company must either find fresh capital to cover its losses and debt , or file for bankruptcy . in addition , alitalia 's stock has slumped nearly 90 percent in the last five years , making it difficult to persuade anyone to buy new shares . if alitalia gets the tax breaks under consideration , it could apply the money saved to last year 's results , lower its net loss and no longer be forced to raise capital or seek bankruptcy_protection . some airlines , like british_airways , have been able to revamp by firing thousands of employees after the sept . 11 , 2001 , attacks , and others , like air_france , have been able to radically cut costs . but alitalia has not yet formulated a response to the crisis in the airline sector . in october , francesco mengozzi , then alitalia 's chief executive , proposed a revamping plan that called for 1 , 400 layoffs and the moving of 1 , 300 people from alitalia to other companies that would do outsourced work for alitalia . the airline 's unions rejected that plan and when the government 's support began to waffle , mr . mengozzi resigned in february . the new chief , marco zanichelli , has been meeting with unions over the last month and has promised to take their suggestions and the government decree into consideration in his final bailout plan for the airline , which should be presented by may 20 . the decree , which has not yet been finalized , is likely to include tax breaks on gasoline and tickets sales as well as lower landing and takeoff fees . the transportation industry would also be included in an unemployment program in which laid off employees would be paid most of their salary by the government . the workers would be rehired only if alitalia needed them . the automaker fiat used the plan to move thousands of workers off its payroll last year and then rehired some when its financial situation improved .",has a topic of business
"ferruzzi finanziaria s.p.a . and gemina s.p.a . said today that they had called off the proposed merger of their companies because of the "" difficult stock_market conditions "" in italy . ferruzzi said it would ask shareholders to buy 1 . 05 trillion_lire , or about 625 million , of new shares to provide the fresh capital that the company would have received from the merger . ferruzzi 's proposed merger with gemina and parts of fiat_s.p.a . nicknamed super gemina would have created italy 's second largest private company with 38 trillion_lire in revenue and businesses including sugar , chemicals , insurance , publishing and textiles . the merger with cash rich gemina would also have reduced ferruzzi 's debt of 2 trillion_lire . the merger ran into trouble soon after it was announced in early september , when gemina discovered extra losses at its publishing units . italian judges are investigating whether company management falsified the balance_sheets . the merger was also criticized for ignoring the rights of minority_shareholders and for increasing the power of italy 's already powerful mediobanca s.p.a . investment_bank and fiat , which would have controlled the resulting group . in a brief six line statement , gemina said that it was postponing the merger because of "" difficult market conditions . "" italy 's stock_market has fallen almost 6 percent in the last three trading days because of concern that prime_minister lamberto_dini could be voted out of office later this week by parliament . the merger had already been delayed two months because of gemina 's problems . ferruzzi said in a separate statement that it needed to ask its shareholders for fresh funds because the merger would not be taking place . it also said that a difficult real_estate market meant that its program of selling assets was behind schedule . it said it wanted to sell 1.5 trillion_lire of real_estate from 1993 to 1997 but had sold just 120 billion lire so far . ferruzzi said it would ask shareholders to buy one share at 1 , 000 lire each for every two shares already held . it will also hand out a warrant with each new share giving the right to buy one new share at 1 , 000 lire for every 10 warrants held anytime until the end of 1998 . ferruzzi is largely controlled by its creditor banks , which rescued it after it nearly went bankrupt in 1993 . international business",has a topic of business
"lead the italian senate passed a bill today that would restrict ownership of television and newspapers , and ban commercials during film , opera and theater productions on television . the measure is seen as a major threat to the television empire of the italian media holder silvio_berlusconi . the italian senate passed a bill today that would restrict ownership of television and newspapers , and ban commercials during film , opera and theater productions on television . the measure is seen as a major threat to the television empire of the italian media holder silvio_berlusconi . the law would prevent those who own more than 16 percent of italy 's total newspaper circulation from owning a television_station . those who control from 8 to 16 percent would be restricted to one station , and those who own up to 8 percent could own two stations . someone who does not own a newspaper could own up to three television stations . under the bill , mr . berlusconi could be forced to give up one of his three stations or his newspapers . the rome daily la republica , over which mr . berlusconi gained control after his acquisition of mondadori editore , estimated that he could lose up to 320 million a year in advertising if the amendment on commercials passes . gianni letta , a spokesman for mr . berlusconi 's holding_company , fininvest , said on wednesday that approval of the amendment ''would mean the end of commercial television in italy to the advantage of a monopoly by r.a.i . , '' the state run station , which carries advertising but mainly between programs . the bill , approved by a show of hands in the senate , must be considered next week by the chamber of deputies , the lower_house of parliament . the media business",has a topic of business
"it 's not news that newspapers make mistakes , garbling names , misquoting sources , reporting that a figure was 812 when it was actually , er , 812 million . but in britain , the land that introduced the notion of ''the fact too good to check , '' most newspapers are notoriously reluctant to print corrections , except when the error is particularly glaring or the threat of legal action particularly pressing . it is unclear whether the no correction policy is based on arrogance or a feeling that mistakes are yesterday 's news and thus not worth revisiting . but most reporters and editors here seem to regard confession as weakness , and to hope that nobody notices their errors . when one is caught , papers usually run a small , out of the way correction , urge the complainant to write a letter , apologize or ignore the problem as too picayune to bother with . ''corrections waste space , '' said an editor at the sunday_times of london , who spoke on the condition of anonymity . ''if you say that someone is mr . s . biggles and he 's really mr . y . biggles , it gets very boring . '' but late last fall , the guardian , the most leftish of london 's so called quality newspapers , decided to bring corrections out of the closet . it started a prominent daily column of mea culpas under the heading ''corrections and clarifications . '' among other things , the corrections have dealt with spelling ( the paper rendered sir norman_fowler as ''sir normal fowler'' ) geography ( the paper mistakenly said that germany shares a border with italy ) and fruit ( the paper called lemons alkaline , when they are actually acidic ) . several have had to do with the customs of the animal world , as when an editorial that referred sentimentally to the nesting habits of the blue titmouse or , the blue tit , as it is known here was found to have got those habits wrong . ''blue tits do not build their nests in hedges , '' the correction read . ''they prefer holes in tree trunks , amongst other locations . '' ''this is the first national newspaper in britain to do this sort of thing , and i think it 's very courageous , '' said geoffrey goodman , editor of the quarterly british journalism review . ''there has been , for a long time , a feeling that the public is very skeptical about the things they read in the newspapers . i think what the guardian is trying to do is to redress that balance , and give people the impression that newspapers do care . '' but the fact that the newspaper whose propensity for typos has earned it the nickname ''the grauniad'' in the satirical magazine private_eye is now purposely drawing attention to its own failings has left some competitors bemused . ''the motivation behind it is very good , but some days there does seem to be an awful lot of them , '' said patrick barrow , a spokesman for the sunday_telegraph and the daily_telegraph . in this candid new world , ian mayes , the new ' 'reader 's editor'' of the guardian , serves as general enforcer . mr . mayes , who presides over the corrections and writes a weekly column about the inner workings of the paper , spends much of his time ferreting out errors , responding to complaints from disgruntled readers and prodding reporters to check disputed facts . though guardian reporters tend to joke that , as one said , ''we all hiss whenever ian comes near , '' they generally seem to feel that the new policy is good , even if it is an irritating form of tough love . ''sometimes , as a journalist , it 's mortifying to see what slips through , '' said andrew culf , the paper 's night editor . ''i think most people feel that it 's a sign of a responsible newspaper that we 're willing to put our mistakes right . '' for mr . mayes , who used to be the paper 's obituary editor ( ''i 've moved from the dead to the injured , '' he said ) , the quest for accuracy is nothing less than a crusade . ''in a lot of papers , they see admitting a mistake as a sign of weakness , '' he said . ''but if you feel that you 're producing a newspaper with an intelligent readership , why not treat them as intelligent ? why not display the same degree of openness and frankness that we expect from others ? '' mr . mayes , whose name appeared as ''ian hayes'' when he wrote his first article for the guardian in 1963 ( there was no correction ) , acknowledges that the corrections column is still in its infancy , finding its style and its voice . he is certainly amassing a small army of fans who apparently read it before they read anything else . ''the grauniad 's corrections are far , far more interesting than the original articles , '' private_eye said . one reader wrote in wistfully to say that he enjoyed the guardian 's tendency toward misprints . to which mr . mayes replied , ''the time when the guardian ceases to make mistakes altogether is not , at the moment , foreseeable . ''",has a topic of business
"prime_minister silvio_berlusconi , left , said he had done everything possible to persuade the bank of italy 's governor to resign after a protracted scandal that has caused mr . berlusconi 's own cabinet to fray . speaking to parliament , mr . berlusconi said , ''the government could not intervene directly , and therefore i did the only thing i could do appeal to the governor , to his sensibility and to his conscience . '' the bank 's governor , antonio_fazio , is suspected of unfairly favoring an italian bank over foreign competitors in its takeover bid for another italian bank . many prominent italian business and political leaders have urged mr . fazio to step down , but he says he has done nothing wrong , and he has tenure for life . last week , the economy minister , domenico siniscalco , resigned , citing his frustration with the government 's ''immobility'' in handling the situation . brian wingfield ( nyt )",has a topic of business
"the cabinet of silvio_berlusconi , italy 's prime_minister , approved a bill that beginning in 2008 will raise to 40 from 35 the minimum number of years people must work if they want to collect a pension before reaching the standard retirement age of 65 for men and 60 for women . the bill still must be approved by parliament , which is expected to rubber_stamp it since mr . berlusconi has a solid majority in both houses . italy 's largest trade_unions have planned a four hour general_strike for oct . 24 to protest the changes to the pension system . eric_sylvers ( nyt )",has a topic of business
"italians showed the remarkable ability this year to reward silvio_berlusconi for his victory in last march 's national elections by scooping up shares on the milan stock_market in unheard of volumes for about one month and then , after mr . berlusconi and his political partners stumbled from one gaffe to the next , to simply walk away . that , in effect , explains the frenzied buying last spring that sent the mibtel index of shares to a high in may of about 13 , 500 , only to deflate in dribs and drabs ever since , to 11 , 004 when the market closed this week it was not all the fault of mr . berlusconi , italy 's tycoon turned prime_minister . much of the selling was prompted by the expectation that interest rates , which were cut aggressively in 1992 , would begin to rise again . the surprise discount_rate increase earlier this month by the bank of italy , the central_bank , to 7.5 percent from 7 percent , seemed to bear out those concerns . mr . berlusconi 's liability in all this has been the inability of his government to appear united on setting priorities . italy 's economy is not doing badly . a shaky dollar and a hefty german_mark have enabled italian businesses , whose biggest export market is in germany , to profit from the low cost of their products when sold for marks , while the prices paid for raw_materials and components , which are often denominated in dollars , stayed low . the result has been a rise in industrial production , with record low inflation . angelo tantazzi , director of the prometeia forecasting group in bologna , predicts that with industry awash in foreign orders , italy 's growth this year will surpass 2 percent , reaching 3 percent in 1995 . with the economy purring , the only real problem facing mr . berlusconi was italy 's 1 . 2 trillion public debt , and the government 's borrowing needs to pay the interest , which have a ratcheting upward effect on interest rates . financial analysts complain that since the march elections , mr . berlusconi has dithered away his time in rome , fiddling over highly charged political battles , instead of addressing the debt issue and defining areas where the government wants to cut spending and increase revenues . while he attacked the magistrates investigating italy 's endless corruption scandals , and generally squabbled with the parliamentary opposition and his own fractious political partners , the market smoldered . "" the market is now waiting to see whether the government can do any worse than it has until now , "" said fausto galleotti , director of research at pasfin securities in milan . for change to come , mr . berlusconi 's first task will be to manage the differences in his government between its coalition partners the separatist northern league , with a constituency in the industrialized north bent on fiscal_restraint , and the neo_fascist national alliance , whose voters in the less developed south rely on government spending . while leaders of the league like budget minister giancarlo pagliarini have been pressing for spending cuts in sensitive areas like the bloated pension system , alliance politicians have assailed the central_bank 's tight money policy and demanded an amnesty for pension fraud . so what should investors watch for over the next several weeks ? analysts say they will be looking at corporate half year profit estimates , which usually come in late september . jane alsop , the director of research in milan for the deutsche_bank group , said the companies to bear in mind would be manufacturers with heavy export volume , like the fiat auto group telecommunications companies like the recently privatized giant telecom_italia olivetti , which makes computers , and pirelli , which manufactures cables . both olivetti and pirelli are looking to expand in telecommunications . but first , and more crucial , will be any harbingers of movement within the government toward a 1995 budget bill . if the omens are favorable , and coincide with increased corporate profitability , the market could bounce back . analysts like mr . galleotti advise looking at financial service companies , including insurers like generali , sai , and fondiaria that would generally benefit from private funds created by an overhaul of the pension system , as well as at banks on good financial footing , like banca_commerciale and imi . the question of when domestic shops , retail distributors , housing and furnishings businesses will revive depends largely on how well the government can get its own act together . that is because spending for big infrastructure projects like roads , railway improvement and telecommunications , which generate jobs and improve consumer_spending , hinges on the government 's ability to set spending priorities . when that happens , ms . alsop said she would favor companies in the construction sector like italcementi . massimo gaggiotti , an analyst at intereuropa s.i.m. , a milan brokerage_firm , also recommends textile companies , like benetton . the downside of all this remains italy 's fragile political situation . what encourages analysts to believe the government might get it under control is the scare that roiled markets earlier this month , when the surprise discount_rate increase drove down italian bond and share prices and sent the lira spiraling to a record low of 1 , 030 to the mark , the bellwether european currency . shaken by the turmoil , the italian president , oscar luigi scalfaro , told the government to keep its hands off the central_bank , and to start seeking consensus on spending cuts . "" if they manage to flesh it out , "" said ms . alsop of the coming budget bill , "" you can expect to see a good autumn . """,has a topic of business
"lead britain 's fkb group , a holding_company for sales_promotion and marketing services companies , is adding two more companies to the four it acquired in the united_states in march . britain 's fkb group , a holding_company for sales_promotion and marketing services companies , is adding two more companies to the four it acquired in the united_states in march . it also has an agreement with a firm at home . the latest americans preparing for a british embrace are the american consulting corporation , founded six years ago by peter engle , a well known marketing man who built it by acquisition , and d.a.d . financial , an 11 year old nashville based company that specializes in direct_mail and direct_marketing for the financial community . the british company is burrows , bew moore in briston . earlier this year , fkb acquired focus marketing , qlm associates , the saugatuck group and the hermann group , all outside new york . according to an announcement from london , fkb will spend about 29 . 6 million in cash and notes for a down payment for the companies , with additional payouts based on performance . the total would not exceed 86 . 7 million . fkb said it intended to become ''the leading strategically oriented sales_promotion agency group in the united_states . '' it also reported that american consulting last year had pretax_profits of 3 . 3 million , on revenues of 24 million . during the same period , d.a.d . had revenues of 7 million and pretax_profits of 1 . 9 million .",has a topic of business
"lead britain 's small businesses are suffering from the sharpest decline in confidence in almost seven years , according to a big industry study released today . britain 's small businesses are suffering from the sharpest decline in confidence in almost seven years , according to a big industry study released today . the reduced confidence is partly a result of higher borrowing costs , said the report by the confederation_of_british_industry , the nation 's leading employers group . smaller companies tend to take a more cautious approach toward investment than bigger companies , the study found , adding that the drop in confidence in the last four months was the sharpest since october 1982 . a continued drop in confidence could threaten the recently high levels of investment and employment growth in smaller concerns , the survey said . small business accounts for 25 percent of britain 's manufacturing output and provides nearly 33 percent of the country 's manufacturing jobs .",has a topic of business
"it took near disaster at pirelli s.p.a. , italy 's giant rubber company , to bring marco tronchetti provera to the helm . rapid expansion in europe and the united_states in the 1980 's had spawned a mountain of debt , and by 1992 , when mr . tronchetti took over as chief executive in the midst of recession , the company 's anchor businesses of automobile tires and electrical_cables were floundering . the success of mr . tronchetti , who is 46 , in refloating pirelli made him just about the most talked about man in italian business , raised the company 's sagging share price , and last year landed him on the cover of fortune_magazine 's international edition as one of europe 's tough new generation of managers . this year , the question is whether the tall , lean and energetic mr . tronchetti is tough enough to face down what may be a stiffer challenge keeping pirelli from sinking in the new storms swirling in italian politics . the storms threaten to swamp his strategic plan for the future of the company 's electric cable division , on which many analysts think the future of the company as a whole rests . and they have come at time when drastic retrenchment and a strike at the company 's tire division in the united_states , the pirelli armstrong tire corporation , are highlighting the survival risks confronting all in the tire making industry except the giants , like the michelin tire corporation , the goodyear tire and rubber company and the bridgestone corporation . for all of this , investors remain bullish about pirelli . by the end of the second week in july , when pirelli closed at 2 , 725 lire ( 1 . 77 ) the stock had shown a 9 percent increase since the start of july . since , the stock , like all stocks traded in milan , has been buffeted by the near collapse of the government of prime_minister silvio_berlusconi . pirelli is the world 's third largest maker of optical fiber cables , and mr . tronchetti 's strategic plan is this he badly wants to acquire a sizable stake in telecom_italia , a company still on the government 's drawing board as part of its work to privatize the state controlled telecommunications industry . the acquisition , he says , would assure the nation a major telecommunications company with the scale to compete when europe 's telecommunications monopolies break up . it would also preserve a base for pirelli 's cable manufacturing . "" i think it important there be movement on both wings of the business , "" said luca comi , a share analyst at milan 's intereuropa brokerage . "" but telecom is very important , also at a psychological level . optical fibers is where the company is lagging , and it would provide pirelli with a privileged access channel . "" italian politicians take a different view . with telecom being taken public this fall , mr . tronchetti is under assault by two key groups . facing multiple roadblocks one group is the state industries' professional managers , worried about their jobs if an aggressive industrial shareholder of the likes of pirelli with clear business goals assumes a major share . the other group is made up of small businesses central to the uneasy coalition that keeps the right wing government of mr . berlusconi , himself a tycoon turned politician , in power the small businesses have long feared the weight of large industrial concerns . in rome , legislators are accusing mr . tronchetti of trying to transform what had been a public monopoly into a private one , and have vowed to block any attempt by pirelli to obtain a controlling share of telecom . mr . tronchetti rejects all such charges . "" whoever accuses us is speaking in bad_faith , "" he said , stiffening his back during an interview at pirelli 's headquarters here . "" liberalization will cause two phenomena first will be a lowering of rates , and second , a reduction of everyone 's market_share , "" he continued . "" we 've got to seize the opportunity , or italy risks becoming marginalized , forced to cede development to third parties . "" a leader who seizes the moment if history is any guide , mr . tronchetti is a master at seizing opportunity . a graduate of the management school of milan 's bocconi_university , mr . tronchetti got his start in the tronchettis' 320 million a year family business , camfin s.p.a. , , trading raw_materials and petroleum products . after a spell in london as a trainee with a marine transport company , he returned to italy to set up a shipping agency , and at age 28 married leopoldo pirelli 's daughter ( they have since separated ) . he succeeded mr . pirelli , grandson of giovanni battista pirelli , who founded the company in 1883 , as chief executive of the company at time when its shareholders were badly_shaken by debt resulting from a failed attempt to buy germany 's big continental rubber company in 1991 . his first goal was to return the company to its industrial roots . he jettisoned about 40 subsidiaries making everything from sneakers to conveyor belts . shedding the philosophy of bigness , he dismissed 170 executives , nearly one quarter of management . he dramatized his hands on approach by moving the company headquarters from fashionable piazzale cadorna in downtown milan to austere quarters on pirelli 's original factory grounds north of the city . and he has been advertising the company 's new look with a provocative campaign that recently plastered much of europe with billboards featuring the american sprinter carl_lewis bent over in a starting position , sporting bright red women 's high heels . the ad 's message promotes the sure grip of pirelli tires "" power is nothing without control . "" this year , the company expects to turn a modest profit , after losses of 27 million in 1993 , on global sales of 5 . 7 billion . ( in telecommunications , for example , pirelli is a major supplier of cables to american telephone and power companies . it also sells sophisticated components like optical amplifiers , which strengthen signals in glass fiber cables , to long distance carriers like the mci_communications corporation . ) net debt , which stood at 2 billion in 1991 , has been almost halved to 1 . 1 billion . the company is leaner than it has been in a long while , employing 43 , 000 people , 8 , 500 fewer than in 1991 . u.s . operations displeasing mr . tronchetti has not been pleased with operations in the united_states , where roughly 16 percent of pirelli 's total sales has been generated through sales of armstrong replacement tires at big retail outlets like sears , roebuck company . for the last two years , pirelli armstrong has been restructuring , to focus on car and light truck tires and on productivity gains . in the second week of july , pirelli armstrong announced the company intended to phase out health_care benefits for 3 , 000 retirees . and since , the new haven based subsidiary announced it had reached an agreement to sell its des_moines factory , which makes tires for farm vehicles , to titan wheel international inc . of quincy , ill . the des_moines factory is one of three pirelli plants the others are in nashville and in hanford , calif . struck by 1 , 700 members of the united rubber workers july 15 . the union says armstrong 's health and pension offers are unacceptable . paul calvi , chief executive of pirelli armstrong , says "" the financial viability of pirelli armstrong is being threatened by health costs . "" mr . tronchetti declined to comment . what is going on with armstrong , said giancarlo rocco di torrepadula , a pirelli spokesman , is a local problem being dealt with by local management . according to stephen reitman , an auto industry analyst at ubs philips drew in london , pirelli armstrong 's problems provide one more piece of evidence for the strains in the the world tire market , where recovery awaits a revival of europe 's sluggish automobile market . "" maybe the shakeout is just taking longer than expected , "" he says . "" maybe it 's the smaller manufacturers , the continentals , the pirellis , the dunlops , that are going to go . "" one possible key to survival such an analysis highlights the importance of pirelli 's telecommunications division and of a stake in telecom to the company 's future . to foil any single investor taking control , rome has been insisting on limiting share purchases to about 3 percent of equity . one way to skirt such restrictions is to get a group of allied companies to snap up 3 percent packages , and then act in concert as a shareholder group . in any event , mr . tronchetti is not saying what strategy pirelli will use until he sees which way the present government plans to go . in the meantime , he takes every opportunity to hammer away at what he sees as italy 's need to shed a mentality based on government ownership . "" our problem remains learning to understand the state as a regulator , not as owner and operator , "" he said . mr . tronchetti is a passionate yachtsman and owns a finnish built boat named kauris , finnish for capricorn , his zodiac sign . his abiding interest in the sea is reflected in the antique maps of italy and its surrounding waters that adorn his office walls . and does he see a connection between boating and business ? "" i enjoy being at the helm , "" he replied .",has a topic of business
"two flights take off from toronto less than 10 minutes apart on a tuesday morning , both bound for montreal . the first aircraft , an airbus a321 , is two thirds empty the boeing 737 following close behind is nearly filled with passengers . by outward appearances , these are competing flights the lightly loaded airbus bears a pine green tail and red maple leaf insignia , while the crowded 737 's tail is purple and its fuselage says ''tango'' in bold letters . but both planes belong to air_canada , both are flown by air_canada pilots and served by air_canada flight_attendants , and both flights' ticket revenue went to air_canada . tango is air_canada 's attempt to prove that a big , old fashioned full service airline , burdened by billions of dollars of debt and the high costs of a union work force , can nonetheless compete successfully with the proliferating herd of low cost , no frills carriers . ''we 're trying to transform a portion of a traditional airline into a consumer friendly , profitable business , '' said ben smith , tango 's managing director . the tango airline within an airline experiment is attracting attention from carriers around the world . earlier this fall , john salvaggio , president of the planned similar venture by delta_air_lines , which has not yet been named , flew to air_canada 's headquarters in montreal to learn more about tango . executives from air new zealand , british_midland and sas have also been scouting tango recently . kristi tucker , a delta spokeswoman , declined to confirm that her company was interested in tango as a model , except to say , ''any good business is going to do research in launching a product . '' tango was set up in october 2001 , after robert a . milton , air_canada 's president , concluded that the falloff in north_american air travel could not be attributed simply to the weak economy or to the terror attacks . a growing number of passengers including , to the airline 's dismay , many of those who had been accustomed to the perks of business_class or had been willing to pay full coach fares were flying less than before , or were deserting air_canada for low fare rivals , especially westjet , a fast growing carrier based in calgary that models itself on southwest_airlines . ''air_canada did n't have much choice , '' said douglas reid , a professor of business strategy at the queen 's university business school in kingston , ontario . ''it 's not just that people are buying less , it 's that they 're not buying what they used to buy . nobody was prepared to pay a gilt edged fare for trips that did n't involve a saturday night stayover . '' on its own full service flights , air_canada 's round trip fare between toronto and montreal can be as much as 1 , 066 canadian dollars ( 686 ) for business_class . making the same journey on tango this week cost 378 canadian dollars ( 243 ) at peak times , or just 198 canadian dollars ( 128 ) in the middle of the day . buying the tickets online would save another 5 canadian dollars ( 3 . 22 ) each . tango is not so much a separate airline as a separate brand . the division has only 10 employees of its own they handle scheduling and marketing . the parent airline does the rest as a sort of subcontractor to tango . the relationship , according to mr . smith , amounts to tango saying to air_canada , ''this is what we require you deliver . '' some industry experts say that the big traditional airlines can never be as light on their feet as the southwests and westjets that they can never be as flexible or generate as much excitement in the marketplace , that they can never match the upstarts' low costs however hard they strive to improve efficiency . mr . smith , rejects that view . ''tango is a very new approach , '' he said . estimating that his unit 's costs are on average about 25 percent less than the parent airline 's , mr . smith said , ''the no . 1 push is simplicity . '' for example , tango eliminates business_class and the onboard closet that goes with it on the aircraft it uses , making room for 15 to 20 percent more seats . but the planes can readily be switched from air_canada 's seating configuration to tango 's or vice_versa overnight if necessary . some aircraft are repainted several times a year as they are swapped between air_canada and tango depending on demand . tango schedules flights earlier in the day than air_canada , with its first departures at 6 a.m . and ''any opportunity we have to fly a red eye , we fly a red eye , '' mr . smith said . tango issues no paper tickets and , according to mr . smith , takes 85 percent of its bookings over the internet . it concentrates on point to point travel and does not offer connections , saving money on baggage handling . on board the plane , mr . smith said , ''everything is for sale , nothing is for free . '' customers pay extra for refreshments , for audio headsets , and even for selecting a seat in advance 10 canadian dollars ( 6 . 44 ) for each flight leg . ''we have n't had any resistance to that , '' mr . smith said . ''only the people who truly value it pay for it . '' glenn d . engel , an analyst with goldman , sachs in new york , said that setting up tango involved smaller sacrifices for air_canada than an american carrier would face . for instance , only about a third of air_canada 's passengers connect from one flight to another in the united_states the figure is 60 percent . tango , which now flies between 15 canadian cities plus las_vegas , orlando and fort_lauderdale , filled 81 . 4 percent of its seats in the third quarter , a very healthy figure for the industry . mr . reid said that air_canada does not break out enough detailed data in its reports to judge tango 's financial success . still , tango 's profitability would undoubtedly improve if it could find a way to lower its labor costs . ''every dollar that air_canada manages to earn by being smart , the unions will go after , '' mr . reid said . mr . smith said that that issue was not on the table at tango . ''we do n't attack labor , '' he said . ''there are lots of other ways that we can be more efficient . '' but it is clearly on the parent airline 's mind . three months ago , air_canada formed a separate subsidiary , zip , and negotiated separate labor agreements for it , featuring lower wage rates than either the main airline or tango . for now , zip 's operations are confined mainly to short hop routes in western_canada . short routes tend to be well suited to cost cutting because most of an airline 's potential savings come from activities on the ground like baggage handling , reservations , and aircraft turnaround , and those are proportionally a bigger part of the total cost of short flights than of long ones . ''once you 're in the air , '' mr . engel of goldman , sachs said , ''it 's hard to be cheaper . '' he would not be surprised , he said , to see air_canada start replacing tango with zip on more short routes , including the busy one between toronto and montreal . john reber , an air_canada spokesman said that under its contract with the pilots' union , zip can operate no more than 20 aircraft . still , zip announced its first foray into eastern_canada earlier this month , adding flights from winnipeg to ottawa and montreal and expanding its fleet from 7 planes to 10 .",has a topic of business
"the italian government today renewed its decree for a capital_gains_tax , an issue that helped to provoke a stock traders' strike earlier this week , but it postponed putting the tax into effect for two months . the cabinet 's action put off the tax until feb . 15 . it had to renew the decree because without action , the decree would have expired after parliament 's failure to approve it within a two month period . the capital_gains_tax applies to small investors . companies and institutional_investors already have to include capital gains on stock trading in their corporate earnings . but individual investors are not required to include capital gains on their income_tax filings .",has a topic of business
"alitalia , the italian flagship carrier that has been on the edge of bankruptcy since the start of the year , said that its cash had dwindled to 150 million_euros and that it needed a government guaranteed loan by the end of september to continue operating . the airline burned through 100 million_euros ( 121 million ) in the last three months , a clip of about 1.1 million a day . the airline is waiting for the european_union to rule on whether the italian government , which owns 62 percent of alitalia , can provide a loan_guarantee . eric_sylvers ( nyt )",has a topic of business
"lead britain 's unemployment total last month fell below the 3 million barrier for the first time in four years , the department of employment announced today . the total out of work fell from 3 . 10 million in april to 2 . 98 million in may , the biggest single monthly fall on record . britain 's unemployment total last month fell below the 3 million barrier for the first time in four years , the department of employment announced today . the total out of work fell from 3 . 10 million in april to 2 . 98 million in may , the biggest single monthly fall on record .",has a topic of business
"italy 's stock_market , popular in the first half of 1990 , has fallen sharply as the year winds down . and the outlook for 1991 is no rosier . the hoped for drop in interest rates and resulting market rally , which led many analysts to bet on italy , did not materialize because of the iraqi_invasion_of_kuwait and concerns about a weakening lira . many analysts expect italy , with 1991 growth expected to be around 1.5 percent after adjustment for inflation , to be one of the slowest growing of the continental economies . but there is little that italian leaders can do about this because the european monetary system limits their freedom to lower interest rates . italy is in the same bind as britain , the newest member of the system , which links the currencies of 10 countries in trading ranges and requires member governments to defend these levels . at the end of last year , italy moved the lira from the wider 12 percent trading range , which britain is in , to the narrower 4.5 percent band . this at least added credibility to the country 's commitment to follow the anti inflation leadership of the german bundesbank , whose mark is the key currency in the european system . the pound , which rallied after britain joined the monetary system in october , is now the weakest of the 10 currencies . and the lira , which was one of the two strongest currencies earlier this year , is now moving toward the bottom of the heap . if britain or italy dropped interest rates the logical move to help a slowing or falling economy they would weaken their currencies , threatening to push them to the bottom of their trading band in the system , which is also known as the european rate mechanism , or e.r.m . when that happens , a government must defend its currency with central_bank intervention or by raising interest rates or devalue the currency . none of the options are palatable . in a signal of the acceptance of the e.r.m . discipline , britain 's new chancellor of the exchequer , norman lamont , last week told parliament , "" there is no question of a reduction in interest rates , which is not fully justified by our position in the e.r.m. "" this commitment comes even as economic indicators show the british economy falling faster than expected . the number of unemployed jumped 57 , 600 in november bringing the country 's adjusted unemployment rate to 6.2 percent . italian officials also began to worry as the lira fell this fall in response , the central_bank pushed short term interest rates higher again . from just below 13 percent in the first quarter , three month rates had fallen to 10 . 25 percent in the third quarter . now , they 're back up , to around 12 . 5 percent . "" this is the rule of the e.r.m . , "" said richard_reid , chief european economist for ubs phillips drew in london . italy 's problems are complicated by a budget_deficit problem that rivals washington 's . ubs economists expect the deficit to be much higher than the 132 trillion lira ( 119 billion ) projected , partially because the government is optimistically projecting 2.7 percent economic_growth and counting on many american like budget cuts tougher tax collectors and sales of government properties which usually bring in far less than hoped . "" i do n't think this 1991 will be a great year for the italian stock_market , "" said erich stock , investment manager for shearson global asset_management in london , which runs the italy fund . he thinks it is far too early to consider getting back into the italian market . "" i would n't leap into the italian market , "" added guy rigdon , director of strategy at ubs phillips drew . "" all the big stocks fiat , olivetti , assicurazioni generali are unattractive . "" francesco ricciulli , the analyst for italy at salomon_brothers in london , agrees that the market looks unappetizing right now . "" the market suffers from a lack of choice , "" he said . autos and chemicals face declining earnings because of the economic slowdown the insurance sector is unhealthy , and telecommunications companies , with their debt , are not as appealing as they appear . but mr . ricciulli thinks there are important noneconomic developments on the horizon that will make the market more attractive . these are the laws that would limit practices that favor insiders in italy and hurt unwary investors , especially foreigners . most important among these are bills for restructuring the stock_market , redesigning the broker business , limiting off market trades , banning insider_trading , improving shareholders' rights and regulating takeovers . "" the strong arguments for the future are these exogenous factors , "" said mr . ricciulli . the changes have been years in coming prompting a brokers' strike in november that shut down the milan bourse and will take several years to put in place . but another strike , which was scheduled for last thursday , was suspended after the brokers met with the prime_minister and after the lower_house of parliament approved the broker legislation . final approval is expected soon .",has a topic of business
"continental_airlines and alitalia airlines said yesterday that they would start offering joint flights in july between rome and newark , adding to the growing list of carriers that have linked forces to extend their networks of routes . this popular industry tactic is known as "" code_sharing , "" because the same flight is listed with each partner 's two letter code in computer reservation systems . but it has been called deceptive by some industry executives and politicians , including senator wendell h . ford , democrat of kentucky , who has called code_sharing "" inherently dishonest . "" still , continental and alitalia may have found a way to blunt some of the criticism that they are hiding something the left side of the continental dc 10 that will make daily nonstop flights between rome and newark will retain its continental logo , while the right side will be repainted with alitalia 's colors and logo . "" a truly unique visual statement , "" robert r . ferguson , continental 's chief executive , said in a news conference yesterday . few corporate_identity experts disagreed with mr . ferguson 's assessment yesterday , and most applauded the move as a bold sign to consumers that the two partners were committed to their new relationship . but they had some doubts . "" i do think that from a consumer 's standpoint , it is going to be very confusing , "" said clay timon , chairman of landor associates . the practice is not unprecedented . in 1977 , british_airways and singapore_airlines took sides on a concorde that flew between london and singapore , although british_airways later dropped the route . in what was perhaps a tacit_acknowledgment that alitalia and continental executives were not totally sold on the idea , the carriers said yesterday that they were working on a joint design that would better incorporate each logo and lend a less bifurcated appearance to the single aircraft that will receive this special treatment . but then again , many travelers may not have the opportunity to appreciate the customized paint job . because most airports use covered walkways to guide passengers from the airport gate to the plane , few of them will see anything but the continental logo as they enter the left side of the plane . company news",has a topic of business
"lead the italian_lira was devalued by 3 percent against other major european currencies late today , while its trading band within the european monetary system was narrowed . the italian_lira was devalued by 3 percent against other major european currencies late today , while its trading band within the european monetary system was narrowed . a spokesman for the european_commission said the changes had been agreed by the community 's finance ministers and central_bank chiefs at night . speculation of a lira devaluation had swirled through the currency markets all day , but the announcement did not take place until a few minutes before midnight . in new york trading before the announcement was made the lira was quoted at 754 . 60 to the west_german mark , compared with 751 . 00 thursday . since early december the mark has appreciated by about 2 percent against the lira . the lira 's move to a narrower trading band of 2 . 25 percent from 6 percent previously is an essential step toward the wider objective of european monetary_union . italy has taken great strides in tackling inflation and achieving sustained economic_growth in recent years , and the bank of italy is now confident of its ability to hold the lira within a narrower band . the sweeping changes taking place in eastern_europe have pushed the mark sharply higher against other currencies . pressure has been building in the markets for an upward adjustment of the mark , but this has been strongly resisted by france 's finance minister pierre_beregovoy .",has a topic of business
"hoping to bolster its bid for national_westminster_bank , the bank of scotland said today that it would sweeten its 24 . 8 billion offer for natwest , britain 's third largest bank . the scottish bank , which is competing with its edinburgh rival , the royal_bank_of_scotland , for control of natwest , said it would improve its hostile bid by replacing a special dividend with a guaranteed special stock unit , effectively raising the bid 's value to 29 . 2 billion , or 47 . 87 billion . natwest , which wants to remain independent , rejected bank of scotland 's latest offer . the royal_bank_of_scotland 's bid is 26 . 5 billion . the deadline to increase bids expires on monday . bank of scotland replaced a 120 pence special dividend once it sold several natwest assets with a stock unit worth a guaranteed 126 pence . because bank of scotland 's original special dividend was contingent on the sale of several natwest assets , many shareholders and investors did not include the dividend in the offer price .",has a topic of business
"lead bayer usa inc . said its parent company had signed a contract to buy the citric acid business and assets of a plant in britain for about 100 million . bayer usa inc . said its parent company had signed a contract to buy the citric acid business and assets of a plant in britain for about 100 million . the agreement would give bayer a.g . of west_germany the ability to make 23 , 000 tons of citric acid in europe , increasing the company 's worldwide capacity to 150 , 000 tons of the chemical a year , the company said . bayer , a diversified company that makes health_care , organic and industrial products , said rhone poulenc 's sturge plant in shelby , yorkshire , could be expanded to produce 36 , 000 tons of citric acid with ' 'relatively minor investment . '' citric acid is used in the food , beverage , pharmaceutical and detergent industries . company news",has a topic of business
"the british_pound fell against the dollar and the mark yesterday after the bank of england suprised currency traders by cutting interest rates . the central_bank lowered bank lending rates by a quarter percentage point to 5 . 75 percent , the fourth reduction since december , citing moderate economic_growth and slowing inflation . the british rate cut has knocked a little bit of the wind out of sterling 's sails , "" said john mccarthy , manager of foreign exchange at ing capital markets . the pound fell as low as 1 . 5390 against the dollar before recovering in new york to 1 . 5425 , down from 1 . 5475 on wednesday . the pound fell as low as 2 . 3525 marks before recovering to 2 . 3604 marks , down from 2 . 3711 marks on wednesday . the dollar held steady against the yen and mark , as traders awaited important economic reports from the united_states and japan today . the dollar traded at 109 . 21 yen , compared with 109 . 02 yen on wednesday . during the day , the dollar climbed as high as 109 . 52 yen , the highest level since feb . 4 , 1994 , when it was quoted at 109 . 60 yen . the dollar fell to 1 . 5296 marks from 1 . 5308 . britain was not alone in cutting rates . france and denmark also surprised investors by reducing interest rates . but trading was thin in europe yesterday , with markets closed in germany , austria and portugal . the key event for the yen , traders said , will be today 's release of japan 's quarterly survey of business sentiment , known as the tankan . economists , on average , forecast that the outlook for major manufacturers would rise to minus 6 for the second quarter from minus 12 in the first quarter . that would suggest that while the economy is improving , it is probably still too weak to prompt the bank of japan to raise interest rates , and could benefit the dollar , traders said . "" japanese officials would play down that kind of increase , "" said david tankin , international bond portfolio_manager at the saudi british bank in riyadh , saudi_arabia . "" they would n't want to raise rates because the economy is still kind of weak . "" signs of the direction of the united_states economy and of interest rates will come today , when the labor department reports on may employment . economists predicted that the economy added 153 , 000 nonfarm jobs in may , after a rise of 2 , 000 in april . currency markets",has a topic of business
"lead britain 's bank lending and money_supply slowed last month , indicating that a british consumer_spending boom may be starting to cool off , economists said today . lending by banks and building societies the british equivalent of savings and loan associations rose by 5 . 6 billion ( 10 . 1 billion ) last month , down from october 's rise of 6 . 1 billion ( 11 billion ) . britain 's bank lending and money_supply slowed last month , indicating that a british consumer_spending boom may be starting to cool off , economists said today . lending by banks and building societies the british equivalent of savings and loan associations rose by 5 . 6 billion ( 10 . 1 billion ) last month , down from october 's rise of 6 . 1 billion ( 11 billion ) . in addition , britain 's main money_supply measure rose by two tenths of a percent in november , compared with an expected rise of four tenths of a percent .",has a topic of business
"lead saatchi_saatchi has struck again in the research field . the successfully acquired company is the national research group of los_angeles , which specializes in movie marketing research . saatchi_saatchi has struck again in the research field . the successfully acquired company is the national research group of los_angeles , which specializes in movie marketing research . the initial payment was 2 . 3 million , with a possible total payment of 10 . 3 million by 1990 depending on profits . national research , which saatchi considers an entree into show business , does preproduction studies of consumer attitudes and focus_group interviews during production to discover the ending that would attract the most moviegoers . it also produces a survey of consumer attitudes toward motion pictures . the company had estimated adjusted pretax_profits of 800 , 000 on revenue of about 11 . 5 million . saatchi_saatchi , a publicly held company based in britain , owns ad agencies , including two worldwide networks research firms and consulting companies .",has a topic of business
"the british homebuilder persimmon raised its offer for beazer group to 538 million ( 791 million ) to try to bring to a close weeks of takeover skirmishes between four of the industry 's leading players . under the terms of the new offer , each beazer share would be exchanged for 109 pence in cash and 0 . 3086 new persimmon share . persimmon said its bid was 47 million higher than its previous bid and represented a premium of 43 percent to the closing price of beazer shares on dec . 13 , the day before beazer announced a merger of equals with the bryant group . that deal collapsed when taylor woodrow agreed to buy bryant on monday for 535 million . suzanne_kapner ( nyt ) world business briefing europe",has a topic of business
"for the last 5 of his 13 years as head of ferrari , luca cordero di montezemolo has savored the heady success of seeing his cars and drivers take trophies on the formula one circuit . now , though , he faces different and some would say much more perilous contests altogether , taking on two jobs that make him yet more prominent in italian life than running ferrari , a company that combines the status of a national icon with a rare story of business success . as the newly chosen head of confindustria , italy 's manufacturers' association , his mission is to get italian business onto the start grid of global competitiveness , let alone within sight of the checkered flag . and his effort comes at a time when the country 's economy is stagnant , industrial productivity is low and business confidence is still shaken by the collapse of the parmalat food empire and the near bankruptcy of the alitalia airline . but that is not the only challenge . mr . di montezemolo , 56 , has also been appointed chairman of the giant debt burdened fiat , italy 's biggest private_sector employer , at a time when european rivals have elbowed the turin based automaker out of its traditional small car markets and as it faces critical decisions about its future . on the surface , the two jobs along with the continued chairmanship of ferrari , a fiat subsidiary might seem an uneasy fit at best and , at worst , a combination of responsibilities that offers too little time to address its components . but , in a peculiarly italian way , mr . montezemolo 's position reflects his unusual status as a member of the gilded elite , the product of credentials honed for more than 30 years as the viceroy of the agnelli family , italy 's premier industrial dynasty and the leading investors in fiat . suave and debonair , mr . montezemolo has been linked to the family that molded his fortunes since his teens . as a young man he raced rally cars with cristiano rattazzi , son of susanna agnelli , the sister of giovanni_agnelli . mr . agnelli , the one time fiat patriarch who died in 2003 , first appointed mr . montezemolo sporting director of ferrari at age 26 . he went on to run other fiat owned interests , while preparing italy to be host of the 1990 soccer world_cup . with his flowing hair , double_breasted suits and button down shirts worn unbuttoned , he seems cast in the same stylish mold as giovanni_agnelli . like his mentor , he has combined business ascendancy with the reputation in his youth as something of a playboy . his marriage to ludovica andreoni is his third . and like all serious italian tycoons , he has a close interest in a soccer club he is vice chairman of the club in bologna , his hometown in addition to the fiat owned juventus team . when he was appointed chairman of fiat in late may , it seemed to some that his ascendancy was a story long foretold , at least among the agnellis . ''the family is all behind him , '' said susanna agnelli , a powerful force within the family that still holds 30 percent of fiat through a cascade of holding_companies . ''i consider luca as if he were my son , '' she said in a telephone conversation . it was the strength of those ties that catapulted mr . montezemolo into the chairman 's seat at fiat after a series of events confronted the agnelli family with an agonizing decision after the death of the fiat chairman , umberto agnelli , the brother of giovanni_agnelli . mr . montezemolo had just been formally anointed head of confindustria , a body that represents some 113 , 000 industrialists , 90 percent of them from small , largely family run companies that have traditionally been the backbone of italian industrial output alongside giants like fiat and pirelli . mr . agnelli 's death presented the family with a quandary , as fiat 's hard_nosed chief executive , giuseppe morchio , was widely reported to be coveting a joint role as chief and chairman . in a rapid fire succession of events , the family insisted that mr . montezemolo become chairman . mr . morchio , who had been chief executive for only 15 months , quit and the family looked to another of its managers , sergio marchionne , to take over . in a sit down interview his first with a non italian newspaper since taking both jobs mr . montezemolo made no attempt to cloak his role at fiat not so much as a hands on manager like mr . marchionne but , in part , as a mentor and protector of the agnelli family 's newest generation whose members have yet to gain the experience for the prominence that is their likely legacy . in particular , john elkann , 28 , giovanni_agnelli 's grandson and now vice chairman of fiat , is seen as the ultimate heir to the fiat empire provided the family can maintain its grip on the company in the face of fiat 's debts and other uncertainties . ''what i try to do , is try to let john between me and sergio marchionne grow up , '' he said . indeed , he said , appointing managers purely for their family_ties could well be a mistake . he commonly advises entrepreneurs in italy to develop good managers over managers from the family tree who may not have the makings of a leader . ''because if not , family becomes a limit to the development of the company , '' mr . montezemolo said . ''in fiat , it 's the same . it 's not the feudal approach . '' mr . montezemolo spoke in a salon bedecked with oil paintings at the confindustria representative office on the chic via veneto in rome , offering his remarks in english learned in part during his years as a student at columbia_university in new york , studying international commercial law in the early 1970 's after graduating in law from the university of rome . before the interview , he said he would not answer detailed questions about fiat until he had ''immersed'' himself in its problems , which , according to analysts , include poor sales of one recent model , the stilo , a creaky distribution network , and , most significantly , a seeming inability to build the kind of small cars that once made it no . 2 after volkswagen in europe and the undisputed leader in italy . additionally , the company faces two major decisions in 2005 one relating to a four year old deal with general_motors that could technically oblige the american company to buy up the remaining 90 percent of the stock it does not hold in fiat 's auto division , and the other concerning a 3 billion euro debt to italian banks that , if converted to fiat shares , would dilute the agnelli family 's stake to a little over 20 percent . ''maybe the family could sustain a situation with 22 percent of a healthy fiat instead of 30 percent of a group which is ailing , '' said gabriele gambarova , an auto industry analyst in milan , reflecting remarks by one agnelli family advisor who said recently that a lowered stake would ''not be the end of the world . '' in the interview , mr . montezemolo restricted himself to general remarks , hinting in particular that one fiat brand , alfa romeo , had ''important potential'' in the high ticket market for executive class cars currently dominated by german cars like audi and bmw . as a member of italy 's business elite , his image has been enhanced not only by his stewardship at ferrari , taking sales to more than 1 . 4 billion a year , but also by his directorships in luxury_goods companies in italy and france . his critics have argued , however , that as an entrepreneur he has never had direct experience in risking his own capital in his business ventures , unlike the agnelli family . and , some argue , he owes much to an undoubted ability to nurture close ties with his sponsors . indeed , one italian business magazine , prima comunicazione , recently said that he had ''built a myth of himself , choosing the right people to cultivate at the right time , '' including ''one after another of the sisters and the widows and all the children of the house of agnelli . '' mr . montezemolo rejects the inference that he had been maneuvering in the wings , arguing that , had umberto agnelli lived longer , his presence in the chairmanship of fiat would not have been required . but when pressed , mr . montezemolo said , ''it was impossible for me to say no to a family with which i have been in touch since i was 18 years old . '' before fiat 's crisis in late may , mr . montezemolo , as head of confindustria , had already signaled his ambition to initiate what he has called a ''cycle of hope'' in an economy growing at a lowly 0.3 percent , even less than the euro_zone 's meager average of 0.4 percent . italy , of course , is an exception in other ways . its creditworthiness was just downgraded by the standard_poor 's rating agency . its debt is among the most onerous in europe . its prime_minister , silvio_berlusconi , is also its richest man , controlling a 14 billion media empire that includes three of the seven television stations , along with publishing and advertising businesses . not only that , the prime_minister is seeking to honor election pledges of tax cuts and to cut spending . that puts the government on a potential collision course with business . ''we do n't want to reduce taxes if this means cutting investment in the future , '' mr . montezemolo said . ''if they want to cut inefficient costs , i say yes , yes , yes . '' but , he said , ''i 'm not in favor of less development , less taxes , period . '' indeed , on another front , as chairman of the italian association of newspaper publishers from 2001 to 2004 , he fought changes in a law that were designed to shield mr . berlusconi from conflict of interest charges . ''i made a big war , '' he said . mr . montezemolo also seems to be seeking something of a modernizing revolution among italian businesses , creating more medium size and large companies and weaning small businesses away from family roots . ''i 'm looking for a country much more concentrated on the future than on the past , '' he said . ''we say 'o . k. , give us the possibility to make investments in infrastructure , not only roads and bridges , but also intellectual infrastructure . all infrastructure . improve the bureaucracy . have less taxes for development investments . and we will do our job . ''' ''we are coming from many years in which in italy everyone said small is beautiful . hmmm , '' he said . ''well , maybe small is beautiful , but small is not enough anymore . ''",has a topic of business
"the holding_company that controls the big italian manufacturer of tires and telecommunication cables , pirelli compagnie , began a 2 . 4 billion bid for unione immobiliare s.p.a . in a move that would create one of italy 's largest real_estate companies . italian real_estate is emerging from a slump that lasted through much of the 1990 's , and pirelli has sought to cash in by expanding its real_estate division , milano centrale , which is the vehicle for the bid . john_tagliabue ( nyt ) world business briefing europe",has a topic of business
"in the latest blow to the world 's best known brand , italian regulators fined the bottler for the coca cola company in italy more than 16 million yesterday after finding that the bottler had engaged in unfair practices . the fine amounts to about 3 percent of sales in italy this year but is less than half the maximum penalty . it will be paid by coca_cola , which owns 51 percent of the bottler , coca_cola beverages . the bottler was also ordered to end some discounts in its exclusive contracts with supermarkets , a move that could curb its business . more troublesome , the penalty hints of obstacles to a planned merger by the bottler . the ruling , released yesterday in 200 pages by the italian antitrust authority , suggests that ''european regulators will probably take a hard line with coke and ccb , '' adam spielman , a beverage stocks analyst with salomon_smith_barney , said in a note to investors . coca_cola beverages , which was spun off from coca cola amatil in february 1998 , has announced plans to merge with the far more profitable hellenic bottling of athens . if the european_union blocked the merger , mr . spielman wrote , it would be ''extremely negative for ccb shares . '' coca_cola said it would appeal the ruling . enrico nardulli , the chairman of coca_cola beverages in italy , said the bottler respected the decision but called it ''inconsistent with italian and european_competition laws and with commercial practices widely accepted in italy as well as in other parts of europe and around the world . '' the fine was the second biggest ever from the italian antitrust authority , which in october fined italy 's two largest wireless telephone companies five times the amount to be paid by coke after declaring them guilty of collusion . that decision is being appealed . another investigation into coke 's practices is continuing after july raids by european regulators on coke offices in austria , denmark and germany , as well as on coca_cola beverages' office in london . under european union law , a company that has a dominant position in a business cannot offer certain discounts to retailers and wholesalers for exclusive contracts because they may inhibit small players unfairly . coke maintains that it is not dominant in italy when all nonalcoholic beverages are counted . the italian government counters that coke has 80 percent of the cola market , making it far and away the largest player . according to beverage digest , an industry publication , coca_cola has 45 . 8 percent of the italian soft_drink market , compared with 5.9 percent for pepsi_cola . even in its own annual report , coca_cola estimates its italian market_share at nearly four times that of its nearest competitor . the italian investigation began last year , after complaints from coca_cola 's chief rival , pepsico , and an italian supermarket_chain , esselunga s.p.a . in august , the italian authorities released a report describing some business practices at coca_cola that they found objectionable . these included offering discounts to retailers that agreed to carry only coca_cola products , more discounts for retailers that expanded coke displays and year end bonuses to wholesalers that carried only coca_cola . in addition , the report said coca_cola had a plan ''to expel pepsi'' from the marketplace by encouraging wholesalers to handle only coke products in fountain accounts . esselunga said coke representatives had told it to invest heavily in display cases and refrigerator equipment if it wanted to sell coke . that investment , esselunga said , would prevent it from making a profit . the fine announced yesterday amounted to 3 percent of coca_cola beverages' sales during the 14 months of the investigation . some analysts had speculated that coke and its bottler could be subject to a fine as high as 10 percent . though the fine is relatively small for the giant company , it is another setback in a difficult year for coca_cola , which has been dealing with the global economic slowdown , a european recall , and some racial issues at its atlanta headquarters , capped by a discrimination lawsuit and the resignation of its highest ranking black executive . on dec . 6 , coca_cola 's chairman and chief executive , m . douglas ivester , said he would step down next year . coke 's board said he would be replaced by douglas n . daft , who recently said that smoothing european relations was a priority . ''they need this like a hole in the head , '' said emanuel goldman , who tracks global consumer products companies for merrill_lynch . ''here and there , the image of the company has been under attack . the image of the company is crucial going forward . ''",has a topic of business
"alitalia needs a bailout this spring or risks not being able to pay salaries , according to domenico cempella , the executive appointed last month to save italy 's ailing national carrier . in discussions with other members of the airline 's management , the gist of which has been published here , mr . cempella said alitalia 's debt now totals the equivalent of 2 . 2 billion , double the amount one year ago and almost one third of it in costly short term obligations . alitalia lost 175 million in the latest quarter , more than in all of 1995 . an infusion of 260 million from the sale by alitalia last year of its share in the company that runs rome 's municipal airports is used up , he said . mr . cempella did not say when the istituto per la ricostruzione industriale , or i.r.i. , the state holding_company that controls alitalia , would seek permission from the european_union to provide fresh capital . such a move would make alitalia the latest state run european airline to get help . in recent years , air_france , air portugal , iberia of spain and olympic airways of greece have obtained a total of 7 . 4 billion in subsidies with grudging approval from the european_union , which wants such aid to be halted by 1997 , when full deregulation of the continent 's airlines begins . time is not on alitalia 's side . i.r.i. , which owns 90 percent of alitalia , evidently fears that after deregulation opens europe to competition , alitalia will be battered by more efficient european carriers like lufthansa and british_airways . moreover , in the partial liberalization that has already begun , new low fare airlines are elbowing into alitalia 's lucrative domestic routes . in recent months , former charter airlines like air one , noman and meridiana have begun scheduled flights on the heavily trafficked milan rome route at fares 30 percent below alitalia 's . though 10 percent of alitalia 's shares trade on the milan stock_exchange , the idea of raising fresh capital there appears unfeasible . "" with debt at six times equity , it 's too high a risk , "" said luca comi , who follows alitalia at the milan brokerage_firm intereuropa . few doubt that given the precedent elsewhere , alitalia will get what it needs . yet its case is complicated . for one thing , resistance to government handouts is mounting among europe 's healthier airlines , which are riding a revival of air travel to strong profits . scandinavia 's air carrier , s.a.s. , recently protested that air_france was using at least part of the 3 . 7 billion subsidy it won last year to finance aggressive low fares . british air , which was sold to private investors in 1987 and has since been thriving , has gone to the european_court_of_justice to challenge the aid given to air_france . "" obviously subsidies skew their positions , "" said hedda harris , a british air spokeswoman in london . moreover , italians go to the polls in april to elect a new parliament whose principal task will be to bring the relentless growth of government spending under control and accelerate the selloff of state owned assets like alitalia . in 1994 , i.r.i . appointed two tough executives from private industry , renato riverso , the former chairman of ibm europe , and roberto schisano , a former manager at texas instruments , to straighten out alitalia , which last turned a profit in 1987 . alitalia had followed the growth of other international airlines in the 1980 's by overextending its fleet and travel routes without attending to costs . service and punctuality were bad and productivity notoriously low . last year , while pilots at british_airways logged 18 million passenger miles , alitalia 's pilots flew half that amount . on intercontinental routes , alitalia racked up losses with big and costly to run boeing 747 's when competitors were flying more efficient jetliners like boeing 's 767 or new 777 . when mr . riverso sought to change that by leasing 767 's from other carriers , alitalia 's pilots struck . last year , alitalia faced 184 hours of strikes . to offset losses on intercontinental routes , alitalia traditionally milked cash cows like the milan rome run . but the arrival of the new low fare airlines ended that . paolo rubino , air one 's commercial director , said air one expects to win a 30 percent share of the milan rome traffic this year . though only flying since november with five boeing 737 's , air one expects pretax_profits in 1996 of 2 . 5 million to 3 million . the remedy prescribed by mr . riverso and mr . schisano resembled that applied elsewhere in the industry improve productivity by cutting jobs and scaling back routes , then expand the airline 's profitable activities and commence a new phase of growth . last november , however , after a controversy over concessions that were reputedly secretly made to pilots , mr . schisano was dismissed , and in march , mr . riverso quit amid bitter recriminations over i.r.i . 's corporate_governance . but mostly , i.r.i . 's withdrawal of support was because of jobs and politics . "" there are 18 , 000 people at alitalia , and elections are soon , "" said giulio la starza , who started noman as a regional charter carrier in the 1980 's and is now its general_manager . mr . cempella , 59 , a former alitalia executive who left the airline temporarily to run the rome airport company , has not said how he will resolve alitalia 's problems and has asked for two months of labor peace to work out a plan . but as a condition for fresh capital , the european_union will almost certainly mandate measures like job cuts and reductions in the number of alitalia 's aircraft and routes . some industry executives believe mr . cempella , who seems to understand the carrier 's culture and unions and who successfully oversaw the recent expansion of rome 's airports , might succeed where outsiders have failed . "" it 's a strong recovery of competence and of leadership , "" said mr . rubino of air one . international business",has a topic of business
"amid the political upheaval in italy , the government is trying to sell some huge , state owned companies including an ice_cream maker and the producer of the best selling olive_oil exported to the united_states . the aims of the intended sales are to unravel decades of state involvement in the economy , reduce a 100 billion budget_deficit and also take aim at the 1 . 2 trillion national debt . timed from 1992 to 1995 , the sales of government stakes in banks , food_processing companies , engineering firms , and energy and insurance enterprises were supposed to raise more than 25 billion , making the project the largest divestiture of state assets in continental_europe . thus far , though , nothing has been sold , and critics are suggesting that the plan was overly ambitious . the only transactions in a relatively advanced stage involve two food retailing divisions owned by societa meridionale finanziaria s.p.a. , known as sme . that , in turn , is 62 percent owned by a giant state holding_company , istituto per la ricostruzione industriale , or iri . the two divisions are italgel and cirio bertolli derica . what makes them attractive to potential buyers is both their profitability and their market position . italgel is no . 2 in the italian ice_cream market with a 30 percent share , and no . 2 among all frozen foods with 18 percent . a big name in tomatoes in addition , cirio bertolli derica leads the processed tomato products market with a 27 percent share and is italy 's top canned food producer with 22 percent . their brand names , including cirio canned foods and bertolli olive_oil also a market leader are household words in italy . and bertolli is the leading imported olive_oil in the united_states , with 24 percent of the market , a company spokesman said . "" the interest in buying into these companies is basically twofold , "" a food industry analyst who spoke in return for anonymity said . for italian companies , it offers a way of expanding their share of the market . for outsiders , it offers a point of entry into a very big market . italian news reports last week said 12 corporations , nine of them italian , had survived a selection process to enter bids . five bid for italgel and the others for cirio bertolli derica . they included some of the country 's food giants , including ferruzzi , barilla and parmalat . the foreign bidders were said to include nestle , unilever , grand_metropolitan p.l.c . of britain and the bsn group of france . the names of the bidders , however , have not been formally announced by the american merchant banker wasserstein , perella company , which is handling the deal . details of the bids were not immediately known . the auction has had its uneven stretches . workers at sme headquarters in naples occupied the premises for nearly three months this year until managers agreed that whatever happened to the company its headquarters would remain in naples . touched by scandal nor has sme escaped the vast national bribery scandal . its managing director , mario artali , was jailed for a time , and then freed this month to face questioning about the illicit financing of political_parties that forms a main strand of the scandal . beyond this pending sale , the privatization program has mostly generated debate . conservative opponents of the process forced the suspension of a decree that would have created a separate privatization ministry . and opposition is mounting to the next , far more controversial sale of a 67 percent stake in credito_italiano , the country 's sixth largest bank . "" possibly , it was done in too much of a hurry , "" said enzo berlanda , the head of italy 's stockbrokers' confederation , "" because when we talk about a bank , we are talking about money , assets and the danger of foreigners taking over . "" treasury minister piero barucci said recently that the government planned to shed its majority stake in energy companies , acknowledging that details needed to be worked out . in the meantime , italy is facing the prospect of a new government and a protracted political crisis over electoral reform . the privatization program was not squarely in the public eye this past week because of a national referendum on the reforms , in which italians voted_overwhelmingly to scrap much of the system that has prevailed since world_war_ii . if changes on that scale come to pass in the electoral system , and thus in the way the country is run , privatization will assume even greater importance as the economic underpinning of what some hope will be a political revolution . there are further pressures on italy to privatize . european_community rules on competition make it impossible for the state to continue financing money losing industrial albatrosses . the giants of state ownership , iri and the energy conglomerate eni , need to revitalize subsidiaries and pay off debts . and italy is committed to reducing its deficit to meet european_community standards . rome 's ability to continue drawing on a_10 billion community loan , granted in part to offset the costs of trying to defend the lira during the currency_crisis last september , depends on meeting tighter fiscal management targets . company news",has a topic of business
"lead british_airways said today that it would pursue its planned merger with british_caledonian airways , although the deal will be delayed by the government 's decision to refer the agreement to the monopolies and mergers commission . british_airways said today that it would pursue its planned merger with british_caledonian airways , although the deal will be delayed by the government 's decision to refer the agreement to the monopolies and mergers commission . the trade and industry secretary , lord young , sent the deal to the monopolies commission for a determination of whether the merger was in the public interest and what effect it would have on competition . the move , however , will force a lapse of british_airways' bid , which totals 237 million , or 374 million . in announcing the deal on july 16 , the two airlines said a condition of their agreement was that it would not be referred to the commission . the british_caledonian chairman , sir adam thomson , has said his money losing airline , the second largest british carrier , would not survive a referral , which takes at least three months . he said he would be forced to resume talks with foreign airlines about an alternative merger . in referring the deal to the monopolies commission , lord young said the proposal ''raised issues of competition in markets for both domestic and international airline services which deserved to be investigated , '' the government said in a statement . the two airlines had argued that they wanted to combine to create a ' 'mega carrier'' to compete more effectively with other giant airlines , particularly from the united_states . both british_airways , the nation 's largest airline , and british_caledonian had lobbied against a referral . british_airways said it intended to press its case and participate fully in the investigation . its chairman , lord king , said he had ''no doubt'' that the commission would conclude that the merger was in the public interest . if the commission 's report favors the merger , british_airways said it would make an offer for all of british_caledonian 's shares as soon as possible . lord king had previously said he would reduce his offer for british_caledonian if the deal were referred . british_caledonian said that public debate over the merger ''has exposed a great deal of misunderstandings of the evolving international business , and we can only believe this has had some effect on the m.m.c . referral . '' british_airways profits the deal , when it was announced , caused an immediate controversy and was strongly opposed by some politicians and britain 's small , independent airlines . on wednesday , british_airways reported that its fiscal first quarter profit almost doubled to 58 million , or 92 million , from a year earlier when the chernobyl nuclear accident and the united_states bombing of libya discouraged many american travelers from coming to europe . british_caledonian had a pretax loss of 25 . 5 million , or roughly 40 million , in 1986 . shares of british_airways , which went private earlier this year , rose 3 pence , to 143 pence , or about 2 . 26 , after the announcement .",has a topic of business
"italy 's richest family owned business empires acknowledged deepening troubles today with their separate companies . fiat , the giant auto and industrial company controlled by the agnellis , forecast a near tripling of debt to some 7 billion by the end of the year , and the reigning heirs of the ferruzzi family resigned from their debt laden holding_company . the woes affecting the two dynasties came as a further illustration of italy 's problems in pulling out of a recession that has been worsened by europe 's slowdown . in the case of fiat , today 's pronouncements about its debt showed how much the company was gambling on improvement in the european auto markets by mid 1994 . the hope is that fiat 's investments will pay off in a recovery , fiat 's chairman , giovanni_agnelli , said at a news conference after his company 's annual meeting in turin that debt running at some 2 . 5 billion at the end of last year had risen to more than 4 billion by this month . shedding some assets moreoever , he said , it could reach around 7 billion this year its highest in a decade unless the auto giant shed nonauto assets worth 1 . 4 billion to 2 billion . mr . agnelli ascribed the increase in debt from only some 250 million a year ago to the company 's ambitious investment program at a time when fiat 's share of the dwindling european markets is falling . in ravenna , meanwhile , the collapsing ferruzzi empire italy 's second biggest private company after fiat crumbled further when arturo ferruzzi , the only son of the founder , serafino ferruzzi , resigned as chairman of the family holding_company , ferruzzi finanziaria , and his brother in law , carlo sama , quit as its chief executive . laboring under some 20 billion of debt it has said it cannot repay , the sprawling conglomerate with holdings from food to chemicals and energy has already placed its management in the hands of banks . payments are cited the latest resignations , however , came after disclosures this week of further undeclared debts totaling some 213 million , which italian news reports said reflected payments of illicit funds to politicians in the country 's huge bribery scandal . ferruzzi and its main operating company , montedison , ran up the huge debts during a buying_spree that lasted from the 1980 's until last year and transformed the company from a family grains business to an international conglomerate . such are the company 's tangled finances that milan magistrates investigating italy 's tangentopoli bribe city affair have appointed an investigator to monitor the company 's crisis for links with the scandal . the magistrates are already seeking montedison 's fugitive ex chairman , giuseppe garofano , to question him about a 166 , 000 contribution he has acknowledged making to the once dominant christian democrats . fiat pressed for details the scandal 's long tentacles also reached into the fiat annual meeting here today with shareholders pressing mr . agnelli and fiat 's chief executive , cesare romiti , for details about the bribes senior fiat managers have acknowledged paying to politicians to obtain contracts . more than 10 top executives , including the finance director , paolo mattioli , and the chief_operating_officer , giorgio garruzzo , are under investigation and mr . romiti has been told that he is under scrutiny . mr . agnelli insisted today that kickbacks by the company over the last 10 years and totaling an amount he said was 35 million had not damaged profitability . asked how it was possible that some of his most senior executives could have been embroiled in the scandal without his knowledge or consent , he said the amounts involved were so small that "" the chief_executive_officer and the chairman of the board is not involved in this kind of thing . """,has a topic of business
"for now , few americans have heard of enel , though millions have seen its handiwork . the company , italy 's former electricity monopoly , supplied the power that lighted the giant crystal apple that descended in times_square to greet the new year . but enel has ideas about introducing itself to america in a much bigger way , by concentrating on one of its strengths renewable_energy . enel , the largest electric_utility by market value in the world , is also among the world 's leading producers of power from renewable resources , and it is confident that it can do so profitably where others have struggled . ''there are some very good opportunities in the u.s. , and if the conditions are right we will consider acquisitions , '' said marco arcelli , who will become chief executive of enel 's american operations next week , a month before his 32nd birthday . ''some american utilities are busy selling assets and cleaning up their balance_sheet , '' mr . arcelli said in an interview . ''this is a situation we can take advantage of . '' when the company was deregulated and taken public in 1999 ( the italian state still holds two thirds of the stock ) , enel was ordered to sell some assets in italy to provide openings for competitors . over the last three years , it has parted with 15 , 000 megawatts of generation capacity in italy , enough to supply 20 million families . in the process , it has built up a huge store of cash . and its operations keep adding to the pile . enel said last month that it expected to generate a total of 14 billion_euros ( 15 . 6 billion ) in free cash_flow , after interest and taxes have been paid . planned sales of real_estate assets this summer will probably yield another 3 billion_euros , analysts said the bidding process on the assets is already under way . and enel has said that its telecommunications unit , wind no . 2 in italian fixed line phone service after telecom_italia and a major mobile phone operator is no longer one of its core businesses and may be sold . what to do with all that cash ? buy outside italy . mr . arcelli said the most likely places for acquisitions were in the western and northeastern united states , markets where enel already has a presence through chi energy , which it acquired in late 2000 for 312 million . while other american markets , especially florida , appeal to enel , mr . arcelli said , its first preference is to expand where it already knows the laws and regulators . chi energy , which is based in stamford , conn . , produces electricity in 16 states , including new york , california , washington and vermont , using renewable resources like wind , water or methane from landfills . enel has also bought or built power_plants elsewhere since deregulation , notably in bulgaria and spain , and diversified into telecommunications and natural_gas distribution . it is the fifth largest commercial power producer in the world . but though it has slimmed down to controlling just half the italian power market , the company remains fundamentally an italian business , deriving about 70 percent of its revenue from selling wattage to italians . but where many other publicly traded utilities have dabbled in renewable_energy , enel has embraced it , generating 2 , 000 megawatts of ''green power'' in italy and another 700 megawatts elsewhere , mainly from hydropower and geothermal plants . chi 's operations in the united_states account for 400 megawatts of the total . one challenge for mr . arcelli , who worked at general_electric for five years and is fluent in english , is to bring chi energy into closer harness with enel , which has so far done little to integrate its american unit with the parent company . ''part of my move to the u.s . is to push the integration with enel , '' mr . arcelli said . ''we recognize that there are differences , but we want people over there to think enel day and night . '' still , even an aggressive buying_spree in the united_states will not shift enel 's center of gravity across the atlantic , mr . arcelli said . ''how big we get in the u.s . will depend on the opportunities we find , but we will remain a european company and our core will always be in italy . '' the company has lost considerable favor with italian investors since its initial_public_offering in november 1999 . many first time investors were encouraged by the company , the government and italy 's banks to buy shares in the 18 billion euro offering , only to have them sink in value by nearly one quarter since then . the offering also included american_depository_receipts , which represent five ordinary shares and trade on the new york stock_exchange they rose slightly today , to close at 29 . 84 . about 3 percent of enel 's total equity is held by american mutual_funds . to raise its profile in the united_states , enel is considering rechristening chi energy with a name like enel inc . or enel north_america , mr . arcelli said . ''a friend of mine in the u.s . last week said to me that enel is the biggest company nobody 's ever heard of , '' he said . ''that is something we would like to change . ''",has a topic of business
"parmalat filed for protection from creditors under a new italian government decree that allows it to reorganize . but despite italy 's move , europe 's patchwork of laws may make corporate housecleaning difficult , no matter how much countries want to clamp down as the united_states did after the collapse of enron . business day , page c1 .",has a topic of business
"even as its share price continued a disastrous downward_spiral , vivendi_universal , the troubled french conglomerate , said today that its water subsidiary would spend about 600 million to acquire another utility in southern_england . the move expands vivendi 's presence in a business where the chief executive , jean_marie_messier , once promised it would reduce its exposure . the deal calls for vivendi environnement , the world 's biggest water company , to acquire southern_water from first aqua holdings , an investment group that includes the royal_bank_of_scotland . the sale has been in the works since march , when first aqua bought southern_water from the electric_utility company scottish_power with the intention of reselling it quickly . at that time , mr . messier criticized by some investors for failing to explain his vision for the conglomerate stood formally pledged to reduce vivendi_universal 's stake in vivendi environnement from 63 percent to 50 percent or less as he sought to cut vivendi_universal 's crippling debt of 12 . 75 billion . mr . messier has ambitions to propel vivendi_universal past aol time warner as the world 's biggest media company . but mr . messier came under pressure last month from two sides from french authorities who want the country 's utilities to remain in french hands and from investors who want vivendi to hold on to the strong cash_flow from utilities . so he backed away from his earlier pledge to sell some of vivendi 's stake in vivendi environnement . vivendi 's fortunes have taken repeated blows lately , most recently yesterday , when the standard_poor 's debt rating agency cut the company 's credit_rating . that action followed a similar move last friday by moody 's investors service . the debt rating agencies are concerned about vivendi 's ability to reduce debt and about off_balance_sheet obligations that are structured to rise as vivendi 's share price falls . investors sold vivendi shares heavily today , pushing them below 29 euros ( 26 . 54 ) , to lows not seen since 1997 . vivendi 's stock price has now fallen for 11 days running , shrinking its market value by 11 . 6 billion , or more than 25 percent , from its level on april 19 . analysts said investors had lost confidence in both the company and mr . messier 's stewardship . mr . messier faced a rowdy shareholders' meeting in paris last month and suffered several defeats on shareholder votes . the company said later that computer hackers might have tampered with the voting . the meeting will be reconvened on june 3 to reconsider a stock option plan for managers and other proposals , defeated at the first meeting , to sell new shares . mark harrington , an analyst at j . p . morgan , said the vivendi board and major investors would probably give mr . messier until the end of the year to turn the company around . a breakup of the company now seems unlikely . ''assets will probably retain more value under the vivendi umbrella than outside it , '' mr . harrington said . the latest deal , which values southern_water at about 2 . 05 billion ( 3 . 01 billion ) , was depicted by vivendi as a ' 'major step in putting in place an integrated water management business'' in britain . vivendi water , a vivendi environnement division , already owns three british water companies , but none offer sewage_treatment services . southern_water , which has about two million customers in southeastern england , does offer them . the acquisition , which would give vivendi about 10 percent of the water business in england and wales , which runs about 9 billion a year . it will require british and european regulatory approval . vivendi water gets most of its 12 . 5 billion in annual sales from its french unit , g n rale des_eaux , and from the united_states , where it controls united_states filter . its british businesses contributed only 270 million in revenue in 2000 . vivendi environnement 's shares trade independently of the parent company the unit 's american_depository_receipts fell slightly to 33 . 24 today .",has a topic of business
"lead the italian government gave permission for e.n.i. , the state run energy group , to pull out of the troubled chemical venture enimont s.p.a . ente_nazionale_idrocarburi , and its private_sector partner , montedison s.p.a. , have fought for control of enimont since it was formed last year . each has a 40 percent interest in the venture . company news",has a topic of business
"lead young_rubicam , which is the agency for army recruiting in the united_states , has been named by the central office of information in london to do the advertising for britain 's volunteer reserve forces . young_rubicam , which is the agency for army recruiting in the united_states , has been named by the central office of information in london to do the advertising for britain 's volunteer reserve forces . the ministry of defense will run the advertising for the national employers liaison committee . its purpose will be to inform employers about the the volunteer reserves . the campaign is scheduled to begin in august and will run for five years . n.w . ayer , a former army recruit ing agency and ddb needham were the other american agency finalists for the business .",has a topic of business
"britain announced far reaching plans to overhaul its cumbersome state_pension system on thursday , matching a trend in other advanced economies toward later retirement as people live longer and fewer young people enter the work force . the proposals , part of a broader european response to a pension time bomb , were the most ambitious in 60 years . the plans , announced by the secretary for work and pensions , john hutton , would re establish a link between pensions and earnings scrapped by prime_minister margaret_thatcher 26 years ago and introduce a national pension savings program that would automatically enroll workers . a crucial caveat was that the cost of indexing pensions to wage_increases some time from 2012 forward should be ''affordable , '' an apparent concession to initial objections from the chancellor of the exchequer , gordon_brown , that the proposals were too expensive . basically , the plan foresees more substantial pensions in return for later retirement ages . the proposals , put forth in a white_paper forming a basis for new laws , assumes that the pension age will rise to 66 starting in 2024 and to 68 in 2044 . the retirement age is now 65 for men and 60 for women . hailing a ''landmark day , '' prime_minister tony_blair said , ''the idea is to make this something that lasts not just for this generation but for generations to come , and gives us a chance of having a strong , sustainable , workable , affordable way of people saving for their retirement . '' the opposition conservatives did not immediately raise major objections . the basic british state_pension of 84 ( 157 ) a week is among the lowest in europe as a share of average earnings . beyond that , pensioners may qualify for means tested additional amounts . over all , the value of the state_pension has fallen drastically behind earnings since mrs . thatcher linked pension increases to consumer price increases . the system is based on a pay as you go arrangement introduced by the labor_government of prime_minister clement attlee in 1946 . under the new proposals , the value of the basic pension is expected to double by 2050 . pension overhaul assumed added urgency when stock prices fell , some big companies closed their private pension plans to new workers and an aging population confronted britain with the threat of a 100 billion gap between tax revenue available for pensions and the demand for pensions among older people living longer . by 2051 , according to the office for national statistics , workers will outnumber retirees 2.3 to 1 , compared with 3.3 to 1 in 2003 . that means there will be ever fewer taxpayers financing the pay as you go pension program and ever more pensioners dependent on it . in addition , the government estimates that seven million britons do not save adequately for retirement . more than three years ago , the government commissioned a report by lord turner , a merrill_lynch investment banker , which was published late last year . unlike lord turner 's proposals , the government 's plan forecasts earlier and more substantial increases in the age to qualify for a pension , coupled with a delay in again linking pensions and wages . the government proposals said wages and pensions should be indexed some time from 2012 forward , not 2010 , as lord turner proposed , provided that the plan was affordable . lord turner told the bbc that a two year delay was a reasonable compromise , but that a delay to 2015 would undermine the package . also in 2012 , the government would introduce a national pensions saving scheme . employees earning up to about 60 , 000 a year would contribute 4 percent of their wages to the program their employers would put in 3 percent and the government would add 1 percent in tax relief . workers would be automatically enrolled in the program unless they chose to opt out . the management of these new savings would be entrusted to the national_insurance agency . the government said it hoped that the savings plan would mean improved pensions for some 10 million people , although it was likely to cost small businesses in particular billions of pounds in contributions . officials said the new measures would reduce means testing and help people caring for children or the disabled to accrue pension rights , increasing the number of women qualifying for a full pension to 70 percent over the next four years , from 30 percent now . in recent years , european_countries including austria , belgium , france and germany have formulated proposals to extend the retirement age to offset demographic challenges . for instance , with its birthrate slowing , germany plans to increase the age to 67 by 2029 . as elsewhere , the pension problems have provoked sharp political differences in britain , notably between mr . blair and mr . brown , who is widely regarded as his successor . but this month , the two men let it be known that they had struck a deal to re establish the index of pension increases to wage_increases . by postponing the date to 2012 , the agreement also put off the question of tax increases until after the next election , to be held by 2010 at the latest . mr . blair has said that he will not seek another term .",has a topic of business
"in the latest step in the widening investigation into an accounting scandal at the italian dairy giant parmalat , the police on wednesday arrested the wife of the former chief_financial_officer , fausto tonna , for suspected money_laundering , according to a court official at the parma courthouse . mr . tonna 's wife , donatella alinovi , is suspected of withdrawing about 1 million_euros last week from an account linked to a parmalat unit , according to the official , who is close to the investigation . ms . alinovi is suspected of withdrawing the money some time after her husband was arrested on new year 's eve and putting it in two safe deposit boxes at a bank in parma , the person said . the police seized the safe deposit boxes . ms . alinovi was placed under house_arrest on wednesday and is the 10th person to be detained in the investigation , which began last month and may involve as much as 10 billion_euros in false_accounting . prosecutors continued their interrogation of mr . tonna , questioning him for 14 hours on tuesday , and continuing on wednesday . mr . tonna was a close adviser of calisto_tanzi , parmalat 's jailed founder and its chairman and chief executive until a month ago . in the last week , the investigation into the scandal at parmalat , italy 's eighth largest company , has expanded beyond the company 's management and is likely to grow even further . prosecutors have met with executives at deutsche_bank and a lawyer for citigroup . citigroup helped parmalat set up an offshore investment vehicle now suspected of being one way that the company hid losses and siphoned off money . italian newspapers have reported in recent days that the investigation may soon look at local politicians . mr . tanzi 's sway over parma was such that it would be difficult , if not impossible , for an important politician not to be linked in some way to parmalat , said a professor at parma 's university who has close ties to a local judge , and asked not to be identified . while mr . tanzi managed to escape unscathed from the ''clean hands'' investigation of the mid 1990 's that implicated hundreds of businessmen and politicians in italy , the collapse of his company may lead to its own political upheaval . while italy waits to see which , if any , politicians may be implicated in parmalat , attention remains on mr . tonna 's secret testimony and mr . tanzi 's health . officials decided on tuesday that despite mr . tanzi 's weak heart , he would remain in milan 's san vittore prison where he has been held since dec . 27 . as a precaution , he was moved to the prison 's medical ward . mr . tanzi 's lawyer on tuesday denied that his client had attempted to commit_suicide , according to the italian financial daily il sole 24 ore .",has a topic of business
"asea brown_boveri said yesterday that it had received an order worth 470 million to build a 260 megawatt power plant in italy . the plant will be at an oil_refinery in falconara that is owned by anonima petroli italiana . the order was placed by api energia , a 50 50 joint_venture between abb . and petroli italiana . the plant will produce electrical power from oil_refinery residues . ( associated press ) international briefs",has a topic of business
"the whirlpool corporation announced today that it would dismiss 4 , 700 employees just more than 10 percent of its work force and take a 350 million charge against earnings as part of a plan to improve profits . the reorganization plan will affect mainly its european operations , where whirlpool has run into strong local competition , made marketing missteps and , more recently , faced adverse exchange_rates in italy , its european manufacturing hub . the company said it also planned to seek strategic alliances or other alternatives that will get it out of money losing joint_ventures that make refrigerators and air_conditioners in china . ''we 're addressing the realities of the marketplaces in which we operate , '' said david r . whitwam , chairman and chief executive of the appliance giant , which is based in benton harbor , mich . mr . whitwam stressed that the revamping did not represent a retreat from the company 's global expansion , which began in 1989 . indeed , in addition to the retrenching , whirlpool also said that it would assume control of brasmotor s.a. , the profitable brazilian appliance company that has been its longtime partner in south_america , by paying 217 million to increase its stake to 66 percent from 33 percent . to cover the cost of that investment and reduce its financial risks , whirlpool will sell 1 . 6 billion in receivables and other assets and operations of the whirlpool financial corporation , its finance subsidiary , mostly to the transamerica corporation . whirlpool projects that the deal will bring in 300 million after it pays off associated debts . whirlpool had announced in july that it was considering its options for its finance arm . the moves to cut losses in china and europe were long overdue from wall_street 's perspective . investors sent whirlpool 's shares soaring 14 . 2 percent , up 8 . 0625 , to a 52 week high of 64 . 875 on the new york stock_exchange . ''they really cracked the whip , '' said nicholas heymann , a consumer products analyst at prudential_securities , which raised its recommendation on the stock to a buy . whirlpool 's moves came just months after electrolux , its largest european rival , announced a reorganization that will cut up to 12 , 000 jobs and close 25 plants . whirlpool 's write off will come to 3 . 38 a share and will be taken in the current quarter . the sale of whirlpool 's finance operations , expected in the fourth_quarter , should add 53 cents a share to earnings . the result would be a slim net_profit for the year . without such special charges , analysts expected earnings for the year to be 3 . 18 , according to zacks investment research . whirlpool earned 111 million , or 1 . 48 a share , on sales of 4 . 2 billion in the first half of the year . whirlpool said that the job cuts would take place over three years and that the annual savings from the reorganization would reach 180 million in 2000 . roughly half of the job reductions are expected to be in europe . as many as 800 jobs could be eliminated in the united_states , not counting employees of whirlpool finance . ''it 's our goal to grow our commercial finance business , and this is a big expansion for us , especially of our base in europe , '' said william mcclave , a spokesman for transamerica , which is based in san_francisco . the deal with whirlpool calls for transamerica to continue providing a range of financial_services over 10 years . whirlpool 's global drive had once been viewed as a well executed plan to expand out of its market leading but stagnant north_american appliance base . an interview with mr . whitwam published in the harvard business review in 1994 was titled ''the right way to go global , '' and the company 's stock rose to 74 early that year . mr . whitwam said that whirlpool was prospering because it was not just operating overseas but making sure that new technology , manufacturing skills and other assets were shared among countries . but problems were already growing , both at home , where second ranked general_electric was stepping up its efforts , and in europe , where whirlpool had been slow to consolidate manufacturing plants it had acquired and where demand was too sluggish to raise prices . meanwhile , whirlpool 's rapid buildup in asia was draining cash . whirlpool 's stock tumbled below 50 in 1994 and hovered at that level for three years as setbacks undermined each hint of recovery . the company took a 240 million write off at the end of 1994 in a reorganization aimed at eliminating 3 , 200 jobs , including 1 , 200 in north_america . whirlpool was not the only appliance_maker struggling with attempts to extend its geographical reach . maytag , which invested heavily in europe , finally gave up in 1995 , swallowing a 135 million loss on the sale of its operations there . mr . whitwam said that the restructuring announced today reflected whirlpool 's conclusion that high unemployment rates and low levels of consumer confidence pointed to poor market conditions in europe for a long time to come . in china , mr . whitwam said , whirlpool decided to stop making refrigerators and air_conditioners because there was severe overcapacity and other manufacturers planned even more production . ''there wo n't be equilibrium for years , '' mr . whitwam said , but whirlpool intends to continue making washing_machines , where it has the leading market_share , and microwave ovens , where it has the third most popular brand . ''we 'll sell 2.2 million appliances in asia this year , up from 40 , 000 four years ago , '' mr . whitwam said . ''we 'll sell more next year and will be doing it profitably . ''",has a topic of business
"further cuts in british interest rates , now at a 22 year low , seem unlikely after the release of the minutes of a bank of england policy making committee meeting on july 8 showed the panel voted without dissent to keep the benchmark rate unchanged at 5 percent . it was the first time in a year that none of the committee 's members had called for a rate reduction . the policy_makers have reduced rates seven times in the last 10 months . alan_cowell world business briefing europe",has a topic of business
"italy plans to set aside 6 billion in credit to hep the troubled soviet economy . senior officials said last week that italy would guarantee export credits of five trillion_lire ( about 4 . 3 billion ) through 1994 . the government has also sent an emergency bill to parliament that would provide moscow with a credit line of 2.2 trillion_lire ( 1 . 9 billion ) , the largest in italian history . the foreign trade minister , renato ruggiero , said moscow would be allowed to use part of the credit line to repay outstanding debts to italian companies . soviet enterprises are estimated to have fallen behind on about one trillion_lire worth of short term debt to italian exporters .",has a topic of business
"canadian_dollar rebounds . the central_bank of canada raised its target for short term interest rates half a percentage point and followed with intervention to support the canadian_dollar . after a string of record_lows , the currency finally responded , rising to 68 . 97 united_states cents from 68 . 67 .",has a topic of business
"italy 's state controlled defense company , finmeccanica , said it might team with the carlyle group of the united_states in a joint bid to buy fiat 's aeronautics unit fiatavio . analysts have said fiatavio could sell for as much as 2 billion_euros . fiat , which agreed a week ago to sell its insurance unit , is raising funds that will be invested in the company 's money losing car business . finmeccanica 's chairman , pier francesco guarguaglini , said the italian company could finance its portion of the acquisition without having to sell its most valuable asset , an 18 percent stake in the semiconductor maker stmicroelectronics . eric_sylvers ( nyt )",has a topic of business
"italy will probably cut its growth forecast for this year by close to half and its deficit will most likely rise above the limit set by the european_union , the country 's economy minister , domenico siniscalco , left , said yesterday . while he did not indicate exactly how much the growth estimate would be cut or what the deficit would be , he did say a drop in growth of six tenths of a percentage point would lead to a deficit of 3 . 75 percent of gross_domestic_product . european_union laws put the deficit limit at 3 percent . his comments come just a week after the announcement that italy officially entered a recession for the second time in two years . eric_sylvers ( iht )",has a topic of business
"lead the inexorable rise of silvio_berlusconi , who has become the most powerful figure in the italian media , has been abruptly halted by a series of legal and political blows that threaten his private television empire and his hold over italy 's largest publishing group . the inexorable rise of silvio_berlusconi , who has become the most powerful figure in the italian media , has been abruptly halted by a series of legal and political blows that threaten his private television empire and his hold over italy 's largest publishing group . widely viewed as a reaction to mr . berlusconi 's overwhelming power in italian television , newspapers and magazines , the recent setbacks for the milan businessman appear to represent the first concerted response to the concentration of the italian media in the hands of a small group of industrialists , analysts said . for more than a year , mr . berlusconi has been enmeshed in a bitter struggle with carlo de benedetti , the industrialist who took the italian company olivetti from typewriters to computers , for control of arnoldo mondadori editore s.p.a. , the milan based publisher . position undermined mondadori owns the leading rome newspaper la_repubblica , as well as a number of other publications . just four months ago , mr . berlusconi appeared to have the upper hand as he assumed the chairmanship of mondadori . but recent court rulings on key blocks of shares have now undermined his position . at the same time , legislation has been passed in the italian senate , or upper_house , that would strike at the heart of his media empire . the proposed measure , which could be still modified in the lower_house , would forbid advertising during television movies a crucial source of revenue for mr . berlusconi 's three private television channels . it would also place strict limits on holdings of television channels and newspapers . such a move would apparently make mr . berlusconi 's current holdings illegal . the setbacks amount to the most serious threats to mr . berlusconi 's power since he embarked on a rapid diversification from the construction business to media a decade ago , analysts said . during this time , he took control of italy 's three leading private television channels , as well as the milan daily il giornale and , most recently , mondadori . ''mr . berlusconi seemed invincible on every front , from soccer to mondadori to tv , '' claudio gatti , the new york correspondent of europeo , a news weekly , said in an interview . ''now the situation is abruptly reversed . perhaps , even for italy , his power became too great . '' ( mr . berlusconi 's soccer club , ac_milan , which had been a favorite to win the championship , ended the season poorly , and the title went to naples . ) situation called 'delicate' a spokeswoman for mondadori declined to comment yesterday on the situation , saying it was ''too delicate . '' officials at fininvest , mr . berlusconi 's financial holding_company in milan , also declined to comment . mr . berlusconi 's problems mounted significantly last friday when he effectively lost control of the board of ame finanziaria s.p.a. , a financial holding_company that controls 50 . 3 percent of mondadori 's voting stock . one of mr . berlusconi 's top aides , fedele confalonieri , lost the presidency of ame finanziaria in a board vote . he was replaced by giacinto spizzico , one of three officials appointed to the ame finanziaria board to represent shares now under court sequestration . it was his earlier control of ame finanziaria that enabled mr . berlusconi to gain the chairmanship of mondadori last january . the decisions at amef stemmed from a series of suits filed in milan courts by mr . de benedetti 's holding_company , compagnie industriali riunite s.p.a. , or cir , which is based in milan . through these lawsuits , mr . de benedetti has been able to freeze a crucial 25 . 7 percent stake in ame finanziaria , initially pledged to him by a member of the mondadori family but later offered to mr . berlusconi . he has also secured a court decision releasing cir from a shareholders' pact that prevented mr . de benedetti from using his own 27 percent stake in ame finanziaria to vote against mr . berlusconi . as a result , with the court sequestered 25 . 7 percent and his own 27 percent share in ame finanziaria , mr . de benedetti has been able , at least for now , to set up a challenge to mr . berlusconi 's control . corrado passera , the director general of cir , said cir hoped to use its current advantage at a june 26 shareholders' meeting to oust mr . berlusconi from the presidency . mondadori 's attraction to the two entrepreneurs lies in its control of repubblica , as well as three leading weekly magazines l'espresso , panorama and epoca and several regional newspapers . it also has extensive book publishing activities . and sales last year were 1 . 9 billion . under one compromise proposal being widely discussed , mr . de benedetti would take repubblica , l'espresso and the regional papers , leaving mr . berlusconi panorama and mondadori 's book publishing activities . but cir executives said major differences were still blocking an accord . they declined to elaborate . there 's still a dispute meanwhile , the fate of the decisive court sequestered shares is still under dispute . as he battles for mondadori , mr . berlusconi is also under fire from politicians who believe his concentration of power in the communications industry has become unacceptable . with mondadori and his three television stations , mr . berlusconi controls more than 40 percent of italy 's advertising market and about 16 percent of daily newspaper circulation . proposed legislation , known as the ''mammi law'' after its author , senator oscar mammi , passed in the senate six weeks ago and states that anyone with 16 percent of italy 's daily newspaper circulation cannot own any television networks . anyone with 8 percent of newspaper circulation is permitted one network , and nobody can own more than two networks . the media business",has a topic of business
"british inflation surged in january to its highest level in five months , exceeding economists' expectations and raising speculation that the bank of england might raise interest rates from their current 36 year lows later in the year . the office of national statistics said inflation rose by an annualized 0.7 percent , to 2.6 percent , from december to january , above the bank 's target of 2.5 percent . higher oil prices and a consumer boom that enabled stores to reduce seasonal discounts were blamed for the increase . the news strengthened the pound against the dollar while bonds fell in anticipation of higher interest rates . alan_cowell ( nyt )",has a topic of business
"an italian judge today ordered the head of the philip_morris companies' european operations and 10 officials of an italian company that philip_morris does business with to stand trial on charges that they illegally evaded corporate taxes . the judge said that walter thoma , the president of philip_morris 's european unit , based in switzerland , and 10 executives and board members of intertaba s.p.a. , a cigarette company based in the northern italian city of bologna , are accused of illegally avoiding paying taxes totaling the equivalent of 5 . 8 million on revenue of 5 . 5 billion pocketed for cigarettes sold in italy between 1987 and 1996 . philip_morris denies any wrongdoing . raffaele marino , the judge in the southern port city of naples , said more serious charges of criminal association that prosecutors had sought against the officials had been dropped for lack of evidence . the trial is expected to begin in naples in january . it is unclear what penalties the officials face if convicted . the charges arise from investigations in recent months into whether philip_morris failed to pay taxes on royalties it received for cigarettes that were produced for sale in italy . in a statement , judge marino said the court would seek to determine whether philip_morris illegally claimed tax exemptions meant for foreign companies operating in italy through italian subsidiaries . at the heart of the issue is whether intertaba , which makes and distributes cigarettes and cigarette filters for philip_morris , is an independent company or is , in effect , a subsidiary of philip_morris . under italian law , sale of tobacco_products is subject to a government monopoly controlled by the finance ministry , which also collects taxes . among the intertaba officers ordered to stand trial are the company 's president , paolo ferrari , two other company officers and seven of its board members . in january , philip_morris submitted a written statement to the italian parliament 's finance committee stating that charges that employees of philip_morris or its affiliate companies were involved in tax_evasion were groundless . david davies , the chief counsel for philip_morris 's european operations in lausanne , switzerland , noted that a civil court in milan had dismissed in july a case against the company involving charges of nonpayment of value added taxes . he said philip_morris was ''obviously , very pleased'' that the naples court had decided to drop the charge of criminal association , and that it would ''vigorously contest'' the remaining criminal_charges in naples . the parliamentary finance committee has been holding hearings on the functioning of the state tobacco monopoly after complaints about philip_morris 's share of the italian market the complaints came from the european_commission and the r . j . reynolds_tobacco company unit of rjr_nabisco inc . philip_morris , the world 's largest tobacco company , distributes marlboro , merit and other brands in italy , and controls roughly half of the italian market . international business",has a topic of business
"corus , the struggling british dutch steel maker , said it would cut 1 , 150 jobs in its continuing battle to stem losses at its british units . the company said it was also considering 2 , 200 more job cuts in the next two years . since being formed by the merger of british_steel with hoogovens in 1999 , corus has lost 2 billion ( 3 . 18 billion ) and its work force will have shrunk from 35 , 000 to 21 , 500 if all the planned job losses are completed . corus has been badly hit by the worldwide slump in demand for steel as well as cheap imports from latin_america and the far east . christine whitehouse ( nyt )",has a topic of business
"the european_commission ordered an official inquiry yesterday into italy 's plans to inject 1.5 trillion_lire , or 1 billion , into its ailing national_airline , alitalia . the european_union 's antitrust agency is worried that the bailout , to be paid by the state owned holding_company that controls alitalia , contains state aid that the commission must approve . the commission has vowed to end the common european practice of pumping government money into state owned airlines . the payment is part of a 3 trillion_lire bailout plan for the airline . ( ap ) international briefs",has a topic of business
"lead in a classic british television commercial of the 1980 's , two characters in a cinematic melodrama anguish over their relationship in words that are curiously out of synchronization with their lip movements . but when they each quaff a beer , their voices and lips miraculously harmonize . in a classic british television commercial of the 1980 's , two characters in a cinematic melodrama anguish over their relationship in words that are curiously out of synchronization with their lip movements . but when they each quaff a beer , their voices and lips miraculously harmonize . ''heineken , '' the announcer says , ' 'reaches the parts other beers cannot . '' always wry , often puckish and occasionally absurd , british humor overwhelmed american advertising during the last decade . it now appears poised to assault domestic direct_marketing as well , if that industry 's top awards are any indication . fifteen of the 129 finalists , and nine of the winners , in the direct_marketing creative guild 's annual john caples awards were british direct_marketing agencies . the number of british finalists , and the 235 foreign entries , were records in the 12 year history of the awards , said organizers of the ceremony , which was held at the waldorf astoria hotel in manhattan on friday . ''again and again , it popped into my mind that maybe our direct response colleagues here are being given a run for their money , the same way we in the general agencies were in the 1980 's by the folks from london , '' said jay schulberg , the executive creative director of bozell , new york , and the only judge in this year 's capels awards to come from outside the direct_marketing field . direct_marketing tries to induce consumers to purchase , by mail or telephone , products or services directly from manufacturers or providers rather than in stores . the caples awards are named for john r . caples , a bbdo copywriter who in 1925 wrote one of this field 's legendary ads , for a mail_order course in music instruction , with the headline ''they all laughed when i sat down at the piano . . . '' the discipline grew more sophisticated in the ensuing decades . among the british winners was a campaign by grey direct in london for royal life , promoting the company 's second mortgage products . included in ads inserted in the sunday_times of london were pairs of rose colored glasses that , when worn by readers , enabled them to see money otherwise hidden in pictures of a home . another british firm , limbo ltd . , won first prize in the consumer print category with its work for volkswagen audi tax free sales , a marketing arm of west_germany 's volkswagenwerk a.g . ads were aimed at foreign service officers , who were sent copies of a magazine called diplomat wrapped in red_tape that opened the publication directly to an ad for the automobile maker 's service . an insert affirmed ''when you deal direct with volkswagen audi , this is what you cut through . '' mr . schulberg said these and the other british finalists were ' 'smarter , fresher , more single minded'' than many of the american ads he had seen . but john reese , the creative director of mccaffrey mccall direct in new york and another caples judge , dissented somewhat from the prevailing anglophilia . ( his agency is in the process of buying itself back from saatchi_saatchi , the british conglomerate . ) ''in the recent direct_marketing trade press , there 's been a lot of talk about how wonderful the british entries were , '' he said . ''they were beautiful , well done . a lot of money was spent on them . production was extravagant photography was gorgeous . but the basic strategy behind their stuff was not , in many cases , breakthrough . '' perhaps out of modesty , glenn a . greenhill , the executive creative director of grey direct in london , a unit of grey_advertising , disputed the notion that britain is overtaking the united_states in direct_marketing . ''americans have done a lot of pioneer work in direct_marketing psychology , and they are brilliant practitioners , '' he said . ''but there are differences . i do n't want to say the american work is n't subtle , but in response to english peoples' natural restraint , there is a different kind of voice and ingenuity one needs to bring to bear . '' american direct marketers still dominated the caples awards , with 775 of the 1 , 006 ads and campaigns submitted . and they displayed a talent for arresting copy . the lindsay stone agency in madison , wis . , for example , won first prize in the business_to_business print category for an ad with a tiny hole in the middle of the page . ''norlight will bet you lunch , that we can shove your c.e.o . through this hole , '' the ad read . the client , norlight , makes fiber_optic video teleconferencing systems . the media business advertising",has a topic of business
"prosecutors in naples say they are investigating the philip_morris companies for possible evasion of taxes on the earnings from 6 . 4 billion in revenue over the last decade . as part of their inquiry , they said , they have frozen 35 million in royalty payments to the american tobacco company and ordered the confiscation of the passports of a senior philip_morris executive and four officials of an italian company that philip_morris does business with . philip_morris denied any wrongdoing . raffaele marino , chief prosecutor in the southern italian city , said the investigation was focusing on whether philip_morris had failed to pay taxes on royalties it received for cigarettes that were produced for sale in italy between 1987 and 1996 . prosecutors said the revenues totaled 10 trillion_lire , or about 6 . 4 billion . there was no indication of how much italian authorities believe they are owed in unpaid taxes . under arrangements with tobacco manufacturers , a government monopoly pays royalties for cigarettes and other tobacco_products it purchases for distribution in italy . the italian news_agency ansa said that the prosecutors were seeking to learn whether philip_morris illegally claimed tax exemptions meant for foreign companies operating in italy without an italian subsidiary . at the heart of the inquiry is whether intertaba , a company based in the northern city of bologna , which makes cigarette filters and distributes tobacco for the american concern , is an independent company or a de facto subsidiary of philip_morris . the prosecutors said they had ordered the seizure of the passports of the president of philip_morris 's swiss based european unit , walter thoma , and four intertaba officials . david davies , the chief counsel for philip_morris 's european operations in lausanne , switzerland , said the company was not yet familiar with the details of the naples accusations . but he said that the company had regularly paid a withholding_tax in italy on the royalties it received , while paying taxes on its italian earnings to the united_states_government . "" we are confident that in the 30 years we have done business in italy , we have been in full compliance with italian fiscal law , "" mr . davies said . the italian finance ministry said in a statement that on thursday the finance minister , vincenzo visco , had met the prosecutors to determine whether government officials were guilty of wrongdoing . under italian law , the sale of tobacco_products is subject to a government monopoly controlled by the finance ministry , which also collects taxes . some government officials have suggested that given that arrangement , it would have been impossible for the ministry not to have been aware of philip_morris 's tax dealings . whatever the outcome of the investigation , its disclosure is particularly uncomfortable for philip_morris since it is the second time recently that the giant tobacco company has been the object of negative publicity in europe . last month , an aggressive ad campaign by the company in european newspapers , which contended that secondhand tobacco smoke posed no significant risk to nonsmokers , touched off a wave of public protests , government criticism and lawsuits . philip_morris , the world 's biggest cigarette maker , distributes marlboro , merit and other brands in italy and controls 46 percent of the italian market . international business",has a topic of business
"a milan appeals court sentenced the italian financier carlo de benedetti today to four and a half years in prison for his part in italy 's most spectacular postwar bank failure . mr . de benedetti , who was not in court , was sentenced with 15 others for his involvement in the collapse of banco_ambrosiano , italy 's largest private_bank at the time . mr . de benedetti , chairman of olivetti s.p.a. , said in a statement that he would appeal the sentence , which he called "" unjust and unjustified . "" the case will now go to italy 's highest court for a final hearing , a process that could take several years . mr . de benedetti is unlikely to have to serve any part of the sentence while an appeal is pending . banco_ambrosiano collapsed with around 1 billion of debts in 1982 . under an agreement with ambrosiano 's then chairman , roberto calvi , mr . de benedetti agreed to step down from the bank 's board while mr . calvi bought back his stake . mr . calvi was found hanged under london 's blackfriars bridge in june 1982 . prosecutors have said the terms of the deal damaged the bank and contributed to its collapse .",has a topic of business
"when rupert_murdoch moves , the british newspaper industry shakes , a lesson that was pounded home here again last week . news international , the british subsidiary of mr . murdoch 's australia based company the news_corporation , said on thursday that it had decided to cease publication of today , a_10 year old tabloid that had rung up losses throughout its existence . today , with a daily circulation of 573 , 000 , was the least prominent of mr . murdoch 's papers here he also owns the times of london , the sunday_times , the sun and the weekly news of the world but its death was still significant . in a nation where newspapers are closely identified with political_parties , today was the only one of mr . murdoch 's papers to support the opposition labor_party , which holds a big lead in the polls over the governing conservatives . with the poll ratings making it likely that labor will win the next general_election , which must be held within 18 months , mr . murdoch has forged closer ties in the last year with the new labor leader , tony_blair , and has suggested that his continued support for the conservatives is not a given . mr . murdoch has been feuding with the conservatives over their proposals to limit media ownership in a way that would restrict his ability to increase his television holdings unless he scaled back his newspaper holdings . he said earlier this year that the proposals , still making their way through parliament , might lead him to close money losing papers . a spokeswoman for news international said the media ownership proposals had no effect on the decision to close today , and that the company had invested millions of dollars in the paper just this summer . in a statement on thursday , les hinton , chairman of news international , said , "" we deeply regret the decision to cease publication , but with a modest circulation , insufficient growth and rapidly rising costs we have no alternative . "" the closing put today 's readers up for grabs , with the main combatants being the sun , which has historically been anti labor , and the daily_mirror , which is owned by mirror_group p.l.c . and is strongly pro labor . having shaken up the tabloid market , mr . murdoch , whose papers control more than a third of britain 's newspaper circulation , did the same to the broadsheet newspaper business . he also said on thursday that he was raising the price of the times , his flagship paper here , from 25 pence , or 39 cents , to 30 pence , or 47 cents . mr . murdoch set off a price_war two years ago by sharply cutting the price of the times , first from 45 pence to 30 pence , and then to 20 pence , moves that helped increase the paper 's circulation by 90 percent , to 675 , 000 . the times , which does not release details of its financial performance , bumped its price back up to 25 pence earlier this year , largely to offset the rising cost of newsprint , the same reason given for the current price increase . the latest increase allowed the daily_telegraph , which with a circulation of one million is the nation 's biggest selling broadsheet , to say on friday that it would raise its price to 40 pence from 35 pence . the previous day , the telegraph said that its pretax_profits for the nine months that ended sept . 30 fell 24 percent , to l25 . 6 million , or 40 million , from the corresponding period last year . the paper , a unit of telegraph p.l.c. , said rising newsprint costs were the main reason for the decline . "" in these circumstances , it is desirable to follow news international 's lead , "" the telegraph said in a statement on friday . mr . murdoch 's moves came at a time when another big player in the tabloid end of the business , express newspapers , the owner of the daily express , the sunday express and the daily_star , may come up for sale . the talk of the london media scene for the last several weeks has been the public acknowledgment by sir andrew_lloyd_webber , the theatrical composer and producer , that he is interested in forming a group to make a bid for express , which is owned by united newspapers ltd . mr . lloyd webber has made it clear that he would want partners with newspaper experience if he pursued a bid for express , which is not formally for sale . lord stevens , the company 's chairman , said he had not received any offers , and said he would sell only if he got an offer so high that it would be impossible to resist . mr . lloyd webber has not disclosed why he is interested in the newspaper business , and it is unclear how serious he is about a bid .",has a topic of business
"seeking to extricate itself from italy 's huge year old corruption scandal , fiat_s.p.a. , italy 's biggest private company , today became the first corporation in the country to issue a code of ethical conduct for its employees . the code , said by fiat executives to be modeled on those used by leading american corporations , forbids any of fiat 's 300 , 000 employees to offer bribes of any kind including sponsorships or consultancies to public officials or politicians to promote corporate interests "" even if under illicit pressures . "" the statement said managers who violated the code would face disciplinary_action "" within the existing rules . "" a fiat spokesman said that meant they "" will be dismissed from their jobs . "" the document , said to have been personally ordered by the company 's chairman , giovanni_agnelli , is part of an unfolding strategy by the turin auto giant to distance itself from the scandal , first by acknowledging its part in it , as it did last month , and then by casting itself as a moral beacon for having done so . since february 1992 , more than 1 , 500 people have been arrested or interrogated in connection with the so called mani pulite clean hands investigation into the systematic payment of bribes by business to politicians and their parties in return for government contracts . initially , fiat hotly denied involvement and seemed inclined to lambaste judicial investigators for their impertinence in questioning its corporate probity . but a series of arrest_warrants issued earlier this year against senior executives persuaded the company to think otherwise . the chief_financial_officer , francesco paolo mattioli , spent 38 days in jail and the chief_operating_officer , giorgio garuzzo , is currently under house_arrest . an internal fiat investigation confirmed that managers of companies under fiat 's control were involved in the scandal . a total of 12 senior fiat executives have been investigated . at a board meeting on april 13 , mr . agnelli reportedly declared , "" we should work to get out of this situation as soon as possible and give fiat 's contribution to the moral and economic_reconstruction of the country . "" the code will take effect as soon as it is approved by the group 's divisions and subsidiaries , a company statement said . company news",has a topic of business
"lead the financier carlo de benedetti was questioned on tuesday for six hours by a judge about his 65 days as a vice_president of banco_ambrosiano , the bank whose failure in 1982 was at the center of an italian scandal . at the end of the questioning , mr . de benedetti told reporters he was ' 'serene and satisfied'' because he was able to tell the magistrate ''the total honesty of my behavior . the financier carlo de benedetti was questioned on tuesday for six hours by a judge about his 65 days as a vice_president of banco_ambrosiano , the bank whose failure in 1982 was at the center of an italian scandal . at the end of the questioning , mr . de benedetti told reporters he was ' 'serene and satisfied'' because he was able to tell the magistrate ''the total honesty of my behavior . '' mr . de benedetti , the head of a financial empire that includes the olivetti computer group , was questioned by raffaele invrea , chief judge of the milan court of appeals , after being notified that he was suspected of possible involvement in fraudulent bankruptcy . a lower court took no action last year after investigating whether mr . de benedetti had made an illegal profit from his investment of about 52 billion lire ( 40 million ) in the bank . mr . de benedetti has repeatedly denied that he profited from his investment .",has a topic of business
"the european_competition commissioner , mario_monti , said after an initial examination , that italy 's proposed new insolvency law for large companies facing bankruptcy , like the dairy group parmalat , did not pose any problems under unionwide government aid laws . the new law , known as the marzano decree , allows for quicker procedures for adopting a restructuring plan of any italian company with more than 1 , 000 employees and debt of more than 1 billion_euros . he said he would re examine the law once it had been passed by the italian parliament . paul_meller ( nyt )",has a topic of business
"the dollar tumbled to an 11 week low against the german_mark yesterday as a political crisis in italy sent traders fleeing to the german currency . in addition to the italian_lira , the british_pound also lost ground to the mark . the german currency has also been climbing against the french_franc because of political uncertainty in france . the speculation is building up again in europe against both the lira and the franc , and that 's driving everyone into marks , "" said karl halligan , vice_president of strategic trading at cic bank in new york . "" the dollar is a casualty of that . "" the mark 's surge prompted some investors to sell dollars for marks , as they sought any opportunity to buy the german currency . a portion of trade among european currencies is done through the dollar for example , traders sometimes sell lire for dollars , then sell those dollars for marks . the dollar fell as low as 1 . 3955 marks , its lowest since aug . 4 , when it touched 1 . 3895 marks . in new york , the dollar settled at 1 . 3977 marks , down from 1 . 4078 marks on thursday . the dollar also slipped to 100 . 35 japanese_yen from 100 . 43 yen and to 1 . 1409 swiss_francs from 1 . 1485 swiss_francs . the british_pound fell to 1 . 5729 from 1 . 5756 . "" we 've had buying of marks across the board , and it 's tripped into dollars , "" said paul farrell , manager of strategic currency trading at chase_manhattan bank . with yesterday 's decline , the dollar broke out of its four week trading range of 1 . 4045 to 1 . 4440 marks . investors sold lire and italian securities after former prime_minister silvio_berlusconi and his allies called for a no confidence vote against the government of prime_minister lamberto_dini by monday . mr . berlusconi also vowed not to support mr . dini 's 1996 budget . also weighing on the dollar were remarks on thursday from the president of the bundesbank , hans_tietmeyer , who raised doubts about whether the bundesbank would help other central_banks bolster the dollar . in other trading , the canadian_dollar fell sharply after a poll by the angus reid group of toronto found that 45 . 3 percent of voters in quebec favored breaking away from canada , while 43 . 7 percent wanted to stay . a referendum on secession is scheduled for oct . 30 . the canadian currency "" is taking it on the chin , "" said jim phoenix , vice_president at canadian_imperial_bank_of_commerce in new york . "" the uncertainty is causing people to sell canadian dollars . "" the canadian_dollar was last quoted at 73 . 90 united_states cents , down from 74 . 52 cents on thursday . currency markets",has a topic of business
"a few years ago alitalia , the italian airline , was a joke among travelers . executives tell about missing connecting flights in rome and having to spend the night at a hotel . frequent strikes scrambled schedules and left travelers stranded at distant airports . the airline 's employees were often indifferent , and the on time performance was a disaster . lufthansa , the german airline , was building loyalty among italian business travelers . but alitalia 's competitors are not laughing anymore . in the last three years , under a new management and unfamiliar prodding from its holding_company , alitalia is remaking itself into a formidable competitor . its on time performance has sharply improved , and its employees really seem to be trying to win the loyalty of customers . and alitalia has undertaken ambitious expansions of both its fleet and its routes . the changes are coming none too soon . the end of 1992 is supposed to bring a whole new way of life for businesses in europe . the national regulations and tax policies that favor home based companies and workers are scheduled to fall away . few industries are likely to face a more chilling introduction to competition than the airlines . while carriers in the united_states were fighting to the death in the 1980 's , their european counterparts were postponing the day of reckoning . now it appears there are too many airlines with too many employees . the conventional_wisdom is that alitalia , the national_airline , is particularly vulnerable . "" they were going to be slaughtered like lambs if they did n't get their act together , "" said daniel m . kasper , an analyst for harbridge house , a consulting_firm in boston . in addition to its former unsavory reputation , alitalia has a problem with size . it is far smaller than lufthansa and british_airways the strongest european airlines . in addition , the american giants united , american and delta have increased service to europe . but alitalia may be too big to carve out a niche as a low cost carrier . nevertheless , alitalia insists that its situation is already much better than many people realize . the carrier has slashed layers of management and has energized its work force , vastly improved its service and started to move toward profitability . in addition , it believes it will be both agile and aggressive enough to make winning moves when the barriers to competition come down . under giovanni bisignani , its 46 year old managing director and chief executive , the carrier is simultaneously growing and shrinking . in his three years at the head of alitalia , mr . bisignani has slashed operating costs and has cut back from 2 , 000 management positions to 300 . many of the executives who were cut , he said , were more expert in dealing with government bureaucrats than in operating in a competitive market . suddenly , there is a greater awareness among the carrier 's 28 , 900 workers that their jobs are no longer guaranteed for life . and alitalia 's service is no longer disrupted by strikes . its three main unions all have three year contracts . even more surprising , the carrier had the best on time record of all major carriers in europe in 1990 . last year its on time performance 80 percent stayed near the top of the rankings . but at the same time he is taking a hard line on costs and productivity , mr . bisignani plans to spend 3 . 6 billion through 1995 to buy new airplanes and expand its routes . this year the carrier will open seven new gateways in asia , south_america , the caribbean and europe , and it is adding 20 new planes . this expansion means 1992 will be one of the strongest years for growth since the airline was founded as aerolinee italieane internationali in 1947 . the growth mainly effects overseas markets . in latin_america its flights will increase by 59 percent in north_america , by 37 percent , and in the pacific , by 33 percent . in europe where it already has 1 , 656 flights a week , its growth will be a more modest 7.5 percent . so far mr . bisignani has had the backing of franco nobili , the president of the istituto per la ricostruzione industriale , the huge italian state holding_company , which owns 86 . 4 percent of alitalia and reviews all important strategic moves . the carrier has not received any subsidies from the state since the mid 80 's and must make it on its own resources . alitalia , which was last profitable in 1988 , has taken steps to cut its losses . it ended with a loss of 28 million in 1991 , a year that was one of the worst ever for the industry as a whole , compared with a loss of 82 million in 1990 . mr . bisignani believes that if alitalia is to survive it must win over the business traveler coming to italy . but he is wary of seeking alliances with other carriers . some observers think , however , that medium_sized european carriers like alitalia and their smaller rivals will have to find merger partners or grow quickly to have a strong presence beyond their own boundaries . up to this point mr . bisignani , who moved to the united_states in his early 20 's as a student at the harvard_business_school , maintains that his willingness to take risks and his determination to build an organization that can quickly capitalize on opportunity stems from his american training . an example of the bold management style that mr . bisignani is trying to instill was alitalia'a response to the virtual disappearance of international traffic during the gulf_war last year . like other carriers , alitalia suspended flights to the middle_east and cut back capacity in other markets , resulting in savings of about 150 million . but he did not lay off workers or mothball planes as other carriers did . rather , he had his staff draw up detailed plans for restarting service quickly once the war ended . but on feb . 27 , the day allied forces suspended military operations against iraq , alitalia decided to put all its suspended flights back in operation within days , while many rivals phased in service gradually . it was a risky move , as it was uncertain whether traffic would rebound . within 10 days , however , traffic surged . the gamble to resume flights quickly paid off . alitalia 's traffic has grown steadily , and in the fourth_quarter , for instance , its traffic was up 10 . 6 percent from a year earlier , compared with a 5.2 percent rise for the rest of the european carriers . it has also increased its market_share of international traffic at its key hubs in rome and milan to 48 percent from 45 . in terms of flights between the united_states and italy , its market_share rose to 51 percent . as the head of alitalia , mr . bisignani has made moves that are not unlike the recent transformations occurring at many united_states companies . he has drastically trimmed the top layer of management and has pushed the responsibility for making decisions down to lower levels . thus , airport managers are now expected to decide about flight schedules and staffing without checking in frequently with central management . the airline has also recruited from other carriers to strengthen its marketing staff . some analysts believe that mr . bisignani has awakened a sleeping giant . "" alitalia has long been regarded as one of the weaker carriers among the european giants , "" said julius maldutis , an airline analyst for salomon_brothers . "" given the actions that bisignani and management have taken , alitalia could very well prove to be a much stronger competitor . "" he added that alitalia was well positioned geographically to build international service , with rome becoming the gateway to north_africa and the middle_east . but in this territory it will face tough competitors in lufthansa and air_france . mr . kasper of harbridge house believes alitalia is in a position similar to the one faced by midsized american carriers like western and republic after deregulation in 1979 . larger carriers had more frequent and convenient flights smaller carriers had lower labor costs . eventually , western and republic were absorbed by larger carriers . the same fate may befall alitalia , he said , although the carrier may have more of a grace_period because there are still questions about how fast the european_community will move toward one air regulatory system . mr . bisignani does not expect europe to endure the kind of cutthroat competition that broke out in the united_states . and he wants to avoid such turmoil . but mr . bisignani may ultimately have no choice but to find a bigger partner . toon h . woltman , vice_president and general_manager in the united_states for klm_royal_dutch_airlines , said "" if you really want to play a role in the next 10 years , you have to be a european carrier . you cannot stay an italian carrier , a french carrier or a german carrier . "" the man with the wade into the fray style giovanni bisignani is short and energetic , and he walks with a determined pace . he speaks quickly and gets to the point . at 46 , he is one of the youngest chief executives of a leading company in europe . he looks even younger . his active style is evident in his personal life as well . mr . bisignani lives in rome with his wife , helena , and his 14 year old daughter . but on weekends the family generally goes to a house near the seashore in tuscany . in winter mr . bisignani likes to ride his bicycle , and in summer he takes his boat out on the mediterranean , where he likes to snorkel . certainly he is the opposite of umberto nordio , who ran alitalia for years until he was removed in 1989 for allowing the carrier to slip as the european market grew more competitive . mr . nordio was an aloof executive who dressed stylishly and represented the airline well at formal meetings . mr . bisignani , on the other hand , enjoys slapping backs , shaking hands and having lunch with employees in the cafeteria in the sleek new headquarters building in rome . he has sought to convince workers that the fate of the airline depends on them as well as on his making the right decisions . he had little airline experience before joining alitalia . after getting his law degree from rome university and teaching public_law , he spent three years in the united_states , where he attended harvard_business_school and ran a five person currency trading operation for citibank in 1970 . he recalled with fondness his days in new york , where he lived in a midtown hotel . "" it was a wonderful time , "" he said . after he returned to rome , mr . bisignani joined the instituto per la ricostruzione industriale , the huge state holding_company , which holds 86 . 4 percent of alitalia 's shares . he started in 1979 as an assistant to the president and rose to corporate senior vice_president , head of foreign_affairs in 1983 . throughout his career , he said , his experience working in the united_states , where the government as a matter of policy does not routinely bail out companies that suffer losses , remained a strong influence . when he joined alitalia in 1989 as managing director and chief executive , he was in tune with carlo verri , alitalia 's president . mr . verri began renewing the fleet and revamping the management ranks . but mr . verri was killed in an automobile accident in november 1989 , and mr . bisignani , who was 42 years old , took over . this spring he was appointed by i.r.i . to run the airline for another three years .",has a topic of business
"as if olympia york 's financial problems were not already making enough waves in london , the developer 's canary_wharf tower is disturbing television viewers specifically 100 , 000 residents in northern london . and nothing , it seems , can be done to fix the faulty tower . the difficulty with britain 's tallest building is that it is also one of the land 's shiniest . for some londoners , the 812 foot tower blocks television reception altogether . traditional buildings of brick and concrete reflect less than 5 percent of a television signal 's energy . but the steel cladding and metal skinned glass that give canary wharf its signature mirrored surface reflects 80 percent . since the 50 story building was completed in 1990 , london residents east of canary_wharf have lived in the shadow . at first , the tower blocked transmissions from the british_broadcasting_corporation 's main television transmitter in london , known as crystal_palace . bbc engineers devised a solution erecting a small transmission tower on a building near canary_wharf and supplying special antennas to residents . but the 100 , 000 viewers several miles to the north , in walthamstow , proved a stickier problem . crystal_palace broadcasts signals in concentric circles , some of which reach walthamstow directly . but some signals reflected from canary_wharf arrive a fraction of a second later , conjuring up television "" ghosts . "" bbc engineers have been stumped for months about what to do . putting a tower on canary_wharf to override the reflected signal will not work because its frequencies would jam those of crystal_palace . dulling the surface of canary_wharf , which already has financial problems , would probably be too costly . removing or covering the metallic surface could harm the building . "" i assure you that we have not given up , "" said michael m . gleave , head of the engineering team assigned to fix the problem . business technology",has a topic of business
"air_france klm , europe 's biggest airline , said thursday that it had begun talks that could eventually lead to the takeover of alitalia , the italian carrier . alitalia , which is half owned by the italian government , is actively looking for a partner . but analysts see any deal as uncertain as long as the company continues to lose money . the stock of both companies fell in europe . alitalia has not made an operating profit since 1998 . before exploratory talks can move forward , the airline must become financially stable , said jean cyril spinetta , chief executive of air_france klm . alitalia had a pretax loss of 275 million_euros ( 354 million ) in the first nine months of the year , but the company has forecast that it will be profitable in the fourth_quarter . in recent years , alitalia has continued to be affected by labor unrest and an inability to meet the challenge of rising fuel prices and competition from low_cost_airlines like easyjet and ryanair . ''alitalia is besieged by inertia , labor strikes and increased competition from new entrants and low_cost_airlines , '' two citigroup analysts wrote in a recent report . meanwhile , air_france has managed to reach accords with unions , allowing the company to grow and successfully integrate klm . ''while the rest of the sector recovers , alitalia 's losses are increasing , the report said . ''we do not believe that this situation will reverse in the short term or that alitalia will be acquired by air_france . '' analysts have criticized alitalia for opting to keep hubs in both milan and rome , and it has lost ground on intercontinental flights to companies with bigger european hubs . a deal between air_france and alitalia would have to receive the approval of alitalia 's unions . ''we have nothing against a deal with air_france , but alitalia is in a difficult financial position right now and to go into an alliance in this condition would mean accepting tough conditions from the french , '' said antonio amoroso , the coordinator of confederazione unitaria di base , a union that represents about 700 alitalia workers . ''we do n't want a situation where the italian government bends to every french demand . '' in previous discussions between the two airlines , mr . amoroso said , air_france had asked as part of an eventual deal that alitalia stop some flights and that some intercontinental flights be shifted to paris and amsterdam . the two companies already have a commercial accord through the sky team alliance , which also includes delta_air_lines and northwest_airlines . the french president jacques_chirac and the italian prime_minister romano_prodi were scheduled to meet in italy on friday and there were indications that they would discuss the two national carriers . mr . prodi has already indicated that he has reservations about a deal . ''i have always supported contacts between the two groups , '' he said in an interview thursday in le_figaro , the french daily . ''now , i have a lot of doubts . i would like to know air_france 's real intentions . does it want to create a big european transport group in which italy would also have a place , or simply grab the italian air transport market , which is large and very lucrative ? '' alitalia has teetered near bankruptcy several times in the last few years . the government has come to the rescue each time , but that might not always be the case . mr . prodi in october said that alitalia was ''out of control , '' a comment that some industry observers read as an indication that the government might be willing to let the company go bankrupt . the government has said that it will make a decision on the airline 's future by the end of january .",has a topic of business